SECRET BREAD

BY

F. TENNYSON JESSE

Author Of "The Milky Way, ""Beggars On Horseback, " Etc. 

"_Bread eaten in secret_. . . "

New YorkGeorge H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1917, By George H. Doran Company

Printed In The United States Of America

TO

EUSTACE TENNYSON D'EYNCOURT JESSEMY FATHER AND FRIEND

CONTENTS

BOOK I--SOWING

Prologue

CHAPTER

 I High Adventures in a Farmyard II The Mill III The Kitchen IV Pagan Pastoral V Head of the House VI Reactions VII The Chapel VIII Seed-Time IX Fresh Pasture X Hilaria XI The Place on the Moor XII Some Ambitions and an Announcement XIII The Wrestling XIV The Wind upon the Grass-Field

BOOK II--GROWTH

CHAPTER

 I A Family Album II What Men Live By III First Furrow IV The Shadow at the Window V Lull Before Storm VI The Bush-Beating VII The Heart of the Cyclone VIII New Horizons IX Hidden Springs X Blind Steps XI Glamour XII Sheaves XIII The Stile XIV A Letter XV Blown Husks XVI The Grey World XVII The Cliff and the ValleyXVIII The Immortal Moment

BOOK III--RIPENING

CHAPTER

 I Under-Currents II The Passage III Phoebe Pays Toll IV The Discovering of Nicky V Centripetal Movement VI The Nation and Nicky VII Paradise Cottage Again VIII What Nicky Did IX Judith's White Night X Lone Trails XI Ways of Love XII Georgie

BOOK IV--THE SHADOW OF THE SCYTHE

CHAPTER

 I Questions of Vision II Autumn III Bodies of Fire IV The New Judith V The Parson's Philosophy VI "Something Must Come to All of Us. . . " VII Earth

BOOK V--HARVEST

CHAPTER

 I The Four-Acre II Archelaus, Nicky, Jim III The Letters IV Hester V Reaping VI Threshing VII Garnered Grain

Epilogue

BOOK I

SOWING

SECRET BREAD

PROLOGUE

There was silence in the room where James Ruan lay in the great bed, awaiting his marriage and his death--a silence so hushed that it was notbroken, only faintly stirred, by the knocking of a fitful wind at thecasement, and the occasional collapse of the glowing embers on thehearth. The firelight flickered over the whitewashed walls, which weredimmed to a pearly greyness by the stronger light without; the sickman's face was deep in shadow under the bed canopy, but one full-veinedhand showed dark upon the blue and white check of the counterpane. Alllife, both without and within, was dying life--waning day at thecasement, failing fire on the hearth, and in the shadowy bed a man'ssoul waiting to take wing. 

Ruan lay with closed eyes, so still he might have been unconscious, butin reality he was gathering together all of force and energy hepossessed; every sense was concentrated on the bare act of keepingalive--keenly and clearly alive--until the wished-for thing wasaccomplished. Then, the effort over, the stored-up vitality spent, hehoped to go out swiftly, no dallying on the dim borderland. As he layhis closed lids seemed like dull red films against the firelight, andacross them floated a series of memory-pictures, which he notedcuriously, even with a dry amusement. 

He saw himself, as a big-boned surly lad, new to his heritage; then as amiddle-aged man, living in a morose isolation save for Annie and thechildren. Little half-forgotten incidents drifted past him, and always, with the strange detachment of the dying, he saw himself from theoutside, as it were, even as he saw Annie and the children. Finally, histravelling mind brought him to the present still hour of dusk, so soonto deepen into night. Thinking of that which was to come, his mouthtwitched to a smile; he flattered himself he had kept his neighbourswell scandalised during his life; now, from his death-bed, he would sendwidening circles of amazement over the whole county, and set tonguesclacking and heads wagging at the last freak of that old reprobate, Ruanof Cloom. He lay there, grimly smiling, the pleasure of the successfulcreator in his mind as he thought over the last situation of his making. The smouldering patches of red on the crumbling logs shrank smaller andsmaller as the close-set little points of fire died out, and thefeathery ash-flakes fell in a soft pile on the hearthstone. 

Opening his eyes, Ruan turned his head a little on the pillow, so thathe could watch the changing square of sky. A ragged curtain of cloud, blurred and wet-looking at the edge, hung almost to the hill-top, butbetween ran a streak of molten pallor, and against it the hedge ofwilted thorns that crowned the hill stood out black and contorted. Onegreat ploughed field stretched from the garden to the hill-crest; in themiddle of its curve a tall grey granite monolith reared up, dark whereits top came against the sky, but at its base hardly distinguishablefrom the bare earth around, which was charmed by the hour to a warmpurple hue; when Ruan's eyes left the gleam in the sky they could findout the subdued green of the nearer hedge-row. For the last time, hetold himself; then, as the gleam faded from the sky and was gone, heswallowed hard upon the knowledge that never again, for him, would thedaylight live behind the clouds. He rubbed his finger up and down thesheet, that he might still feel a tangible sensation at will; then, lifting his bare forearm, he looked closely and curiously at it, notingthe way the brown hairs lay across the back, and the finer texture ofskin down the inside of elbow and wrist. He, his living self, was inthat arm--he could still make the fingers contract and straighten, couldstill pinch the flesh gently till it whitened--could still call it partof himself. He was not thirsty, but he laboriously lifted the glass ofwater at his side and drank, because the fancy took him to feel one ofthe accustomed old sensations, the commonplaces of his every-day life, now that his body would so soon be beyond his power. As the slow fingerspushed the glass on to the little table again, the click of a gatesounded sharply, followed by the noise of footsteps on a paved path. Thesmile flickered back to Ruan's lips, and he settled himself to enjoy hislast little comedy. 

Up bare stairs came the footsteps, then the room door opened with aprotest of rusty hinges, and Ruan saw the Parson standing on thethreshold. A woman's face, pale and strained, swam out of the darknessbehind, and to Ruan, materialist though he was, came the thought thatthe pale blur looked like the face of someone drowning in a black flood. He put the idea aside and nodded slightly at the woman. She gave a gaspof relief, and, pushing by the priest, walked over to the bed. 

"So you've not cheated me, James!" she said. "I made sure to find 'eedead when I brought Passon--I thought you'd ha' done it to spite me. "

"Dear woman, " answered the Squire gently, "it's for my own pleasure I'mwedding you, and not to make an honest woman of you. I've a fancy tohave the old place carried on by a child who's got a right to my name, that's all. "

"An' our first-born, Arch'laus, can go begging all's days, s'pose? An't'other lads and Vassie can go starve wi' en?"

Ruan's face changed, grew darker, and he spoke harshly. 

"They were the children of our passion--true love-children. They remindme of the days when I was a fool, and I'll leave them only my folly. Butthe child that's coming--he'll be blessed by the law and theChurch--quite a gentleman of quality, Annie; far above the likes of you. He'll live to breed hatred and malice in the pack of ye, and every handof his own flesh and blood'll be against him. . . . Parson, do your duty, and tie the holy knot--small harm in it now nothing can hold me long. "

The Parson came forward without a word. He was a clever man, whoseknowledge of souls was deep, if not wide, and he refrained from askingwhether repentance urged this tardy compliance with the law of hisreligion; such a question could only have provoked a sneer from the oldcynic in the bed. 

Annie groped along the mantelshelf until her fingers met a tallow rush, which she lit by holding it to the fire, and in the wan flare of yellowher weary figure showed that she was very near to her confinement. Sheturned to the bed and set the candle on the table, meeting the Squire'squizzical glance with eyes lit only by the tiny reflections of thecandle flame--expressionless eyes, the blue of them faded and the lifedulled. Then she went out of the room, and the stairs creaked beneathher descending feet; the clamour of her voice came to the two men aboveas she called through open doors:

"Katie! Kat-_ie!_ Passon's here, and you'm to fetch Philip and come upto wance. "

More feet sounded on the stairs, clattering hobnails among them, andAnnie returned, accompanied by Katie Cotton, the dairymaid, and hersweetheart, Philip Jacka. Philip was a lithe, restless youth, with curlyhair that caught the light and bright, glinting eyes. He was farbetter-looking than his girl, and far more at his ease; sturdy, high-bosomed Katie was guilty of an occasional sniff of femininesympathy; Philip looked on with the aloof superiority of the male. 

The service began, and Annie listened to the words she had longed tohear for twelve years past, the words that would make her mistress ofCloom Manor. Morality meant as little to her as to any of thehalf-savage folk of the remote West in the middle of the nineteenthcentury, when the post of squire's mistress was merely considered lessfortunate than that of squire's wife; but socially Annie wasgaining--for she would become an eligible widow-woman. 

With fumbling hands Ruan slipped his signet-ring on the ugly, work-wornfinger of the woman who was at last his wife. 

 * * * * *

That night Annie gave birth to the latest heir of the house of Ruan, andin the grey of the dawning, when, with the aid of parson and lawyer, theSquire had arranged all his temporal affairs in a manner to ensure asmuch ill-will as possible in the family he was leaving behind him, hewas gathered to his fathers. 

In the big kitchen, where the mice skittered nervously over the lastnight's supper-table, and the tall clock chuckled before it struck eachhour, huddled a group of frightened children. The eldest was angry aswell, for, while the younger boys and the little girl were but dimlyaware that all their world was tumbling about their ears, he, with theprecocious knowledge of the ten-year old country lad, knew more nearlyhow the crying babe was ousting him from his previous height. Resentful, sleepy, fearful, and exiled from the rooms of birth and death theycrouched together and watched the paling sky, their own quarrelsforgotten in their common discomfort; and overhead the cries of thenew-born child pierced the air of the new day. 

CHAPTER I

HIGH ADVENTURES IN A FARMYARD

A bullet-headed little boy of eight sat astride upon a farmyard gate, whistling and beating time with a hazel-switch. He had fastened his beltround the gate-post and was using it as a bridle, his bare knees grippedthe wooden bar under him, and his little brass-tipped heels flashed inthe sun like spurs. It was Saturday morning, which meant no lessons withParson Boase at the vicarage, and a fine day in late August, which meantescape from the roof of Cloom and the tongue and hand of its mistress. Ishmael Ruan, his head stuffed with the myths and histories with whichthe Parson was preparing him for St. Renny Grammar School, felt in themood for high adventures, and his surroundings were romantic enough tostir the blood. 

Cloom Manor, a deep-roofed, heavy-mullioned pile of grey granite datingfrom the Restoration, presented a long, low front to the moorland, afront beautified by a pillared porch with the Ruan arms sculptured aboveit, and at the back it was built round a square court, from which anarch, hollowed through the house itself, led into the farmyard. Thewindows were low-browed and deep-set, thickly leaded into small squares, with an occasional pane of bottle glass, which winked like an eyerounded by amaze. Within, the wide fireplaces and ceilings were enrichedby delicate mouldings, whose once clean-cut outlines were blurred to apleasing, uncertain quality by successive coats of whitewash. The roomwhere Ishmael had been born boasted a domed ceiling, and a band ofmoulding half-way up the walls culminated over the bed's head in arepresentation of the Crucifixion--the drooping Christ surrounded by amedley of soldiers and horses, curiously intent dogs and swooning women, above whose heads the fluttered angels seemed entangled in the host ofpennons flaunting round the cross. Cloom was a house of neglectedglories, of fine things fallen on base uses, like the family itself. When James Ruan came into his inheritance it was still a gentleman'sestate; when he died it was a mere farm. A distorted habit of mind andthe incredible difficulties of communication in the remote West duringthe first half of the nineteenth century had gradually caused James Ruanto sink his gentlehood in a wilful boorishness that left him a fiercepride of race and almost feudal powers, but the tastes and habits of hisown labourers. As for the life of his mind, it was concentrated entirelyon money-making; and all that he made he invested, till he became themost important landowner for miles, and in a district where no farmswere very large his manor lands and cottage property and his ninehundred pounds or so of income made him a figure not to be ignored. 

Nevertheless, for all his prosperity, he was a hard master, paying hislabourers, who were mostly married men with families, the wage of sevenshillings a week, and employing their womenfolk at hoeing or binding forsixpence a day, while for fewer pence still the little children stumbledon uncertain legs after the birds which threatened the new-tilled crops. By such means--common to all his neighbours at a time when cultivationwas slow and such luxuries as meat, white bread, bedding, and coal wereunknown to the poor, and by a shrewdness peculiar to himself--did JamesRuan manage to make his property contribute to his private income, acondition of affairs by no means inevitable in farming, although at thattime the hated Corn Law, only repealed soon after Ishmael's birth, hadfor thirty years been in force for the benefit of landowners. If theSquire had known the worth of the old family portraits hanging in whathad been the banqueting hall, where apples were now stored, he woulddoubtless have sold them, but he had cut himself off from civilisedbeings who might have praised them, and he thought the beruffed, steel-plated men and high-browed, pearl-decked ladies rather adry-looking lot, though he never suffered Annie to say a disparagingword on the subject. 

Annie deeply resented this silent superiority of the Squire's, thisshutting off from her of certain fine points in his garbled scheme ofhonour, and she chose to regard Ishmael as the embodiment of this habit. Had she been left with unrestricted powers as to estate and money shemight have classed herself with her youngest-born and grown to grudgeher other children their existence, but as things were Ishmael was asmuch in her way as he was in that of Archelaus. She realised she hadbeen tricked at the last to satisfy a whim of the Squire's--she wouldhave been far better off under the old will, which left Cloom to hereldest son after her. A dishonoured name was all she had gained by thetransaction--a hollow reward, since to her equals it made littledifference, and to her superiors none at all, and when she remembered athow much pains the special licence had been obtained from the commissaryof the Bishop of Exeter, how she had sent for the Parson the moment theSquire had finally declared his mind made up, and then for LawyerTonkin, only to be excluded from the conference that followed, Anniefelt her resentment surge up. If it had not been for the fact that theParson and Tonkin had been appointed guardians to the boy, Ishmaelwould, in all probability, never have lived beyond babyhood. A littleneglect would soon have ended the matter, and even if any local magnatehad bestirred himself to make a fuss, no Cornish jury would haveconvicted. All this Boase knew, and he managed to make Annie aware ofthe fact that he meant his ward to thrive or he would make trouble, andshe was one of those women who tremble before a spiritual pastor andmaster. Therefore she comforted herself by the reflection that at leastCloom would always be her home, and a home of which she meant to bemistress as long as possible. Under his father's will Ishmael came intothe property at eighteen, an additional grievance to Annie, but she toldherself that at least a boy of that age would not be able to turn herout--he would still be too afraid both of her and of public opinion. Thehardness and the moral elasticity that go to make up a certain phase ofthe Cornish character, made up Annie's, and grew to sway her utterly, save for gusts of ungovernable emotions and an equally ungovernabletemper. The little Ishmael learned to fear, to evade, and to lie, tillhe bade fair to become an infant Machiavelli, and at night his sins--thetremendous sins of childhood--would weigh upon him so that he broke intoa sweat of terror. 

On this August morning he had forgotten his crimes and was burning withthe high adventures of a farmyard. In the blue of the sky fat gold-whiteclouds bellied like the sails of enchanted galleons, and the windruffled the cock's bronzed feathers about his scaly legs, blew pearlypartings on the black-furred cat that sunned herself by the wall, andwhirled two gleaming straws, Orthon-wise, about the cobbles. Thetriumphant cackling of a hen proclaimed an egg to be as much a miracleas the other daily one of dawn, and the shrill-voiced crickets kept up amonotonous and hurried orchestra. A big red cow came across the fieldand stood in a line with the gate, her head, with its calm eyes andgently moving wet nostrils, turned towards Ishmael. She was against thesun, and at the edges of her the fine outer hairs, gleaming transparent, made her seem outlined in flame--she was a glorified, a transfiguredcow, a cow for the gods. In a newly-turned field beyond a man and a boywere planting young broccoli; they worked with the swiftness andsmoothness of a machine, the man making a succession of holes with hisspud as he walked along, the boy dropping in the plants on the instant. From where Ishmael sat the boy and his basket were hidden behind theman, and it looked as though wherever that shining spud touched theearth a green thing sprang up as by magic. Truly, Cloom was a farm inthe grand manner this morning, a farm fit for the slopes of Olympus. Ishmael flogged his gate and bounced up and down till the latch rattledin its socket and the wide collar of his little print shirt blew upunder his chin like two cherub wings supporting his glowing face. 

A clatter of hoofs made him look around, and a young man rode down thelane opposite and into the farmyard. He was a splendid young man, and hesat the big, bare-backed horse as though he were one with it, hispowerful thighs spreading a little as they gripped its glossy sides. Hisfair hair curled closely over his head and clung to his forehead in damprings, the sweat standing out all over his face made it shine likemetal, and the soaked shirt clung to the big muscles of his body. Hisface changed a little as he caught sight of the child on the gate--sucha faint expression, something between sulkiness and resentment, that itwas obviously the result of instinctive habit and not of any particularemotion of the moment. As he flung himself off the horse a woman emergedfrom the courtyard and called out to Ishmael. 

"Come and tak' th' arse to meadow for your brother, instead of wasten'the marnen'. Couldn' 'ee be gleanen' in th' arish? You may be gentry, but you'll go starve if you do naught but twiddle your thumbs for theday. "

"Lave en be, lave en be, mother, " said Archelaus Beggoe impatiently. "Women's clacken' never mended matters nawthen. It'll be a good day, sure 'nough, when he goes to school to St. Renny, if it gives we alittle peace about the place. Do 'ee hold tha tongue, and give I a glasso' cider, for I'm fair sweaten' leaken'. "

Mother and son passed through the archway into the courtyard, andIshmael, who had been silently buckling on his belt, took hold of therope head-stall and led the horse towards the pasture. As he went hischildish mind indulged in a sort of gambling with fate. 

"I wonder if my right foot or my left will step into the lane first. Ifit's my right I'll have it to mean that I shall be saved. . . . " Here hepaused for a moment, aghast; it was such a tremendous risk to take, sucha staking of his soul. He went forward, measuring the distance with hiseye, and trying to calculate which foot would take that fateful stepfrom the cobbles on to the lane. He was there, and for one awful momentit seemed as though it would be his left, but an extra long stride justmet the case. 

"It didn't come quite natural that way, " he thought, anxiously, "butp'raps it means I'll be saved by something I do myself. I wish I couldbe quite sure. Shall I have it that if I see a crow in the field I shallbe saved?"

The reflection that for a dozen times on entering the pasture he saw nocrow for once that he did made him change to, "Suppose I say if I don'tsee a crow I shall be saved?" But that too had its drawback, as if, after laying a wager in which the odds were so tremendously in hisfavour, he did see a crow, there would then be no smoothing away thefact, as often before, with "Perhaps that doesn't count"--it would betoo obviously a sign from Heaven. He finally changed the wager to, "If Isee birds in the field I'll see Phoebe to-day:" to such considerationsdoes a man turn after contemplation of his soul. On seeing a couple ofmagpies, the white and black of their plumage showing silver andiridescent green in the sun as they swooped over the field, he tooksteps to justify the omen by setting off across the moors in quest ofPhoebe. 

CHAPTER II

THE MILL

As Ishmael went along he picked a large bunch of the wayside flowers asan offering to Phoebe--purple knapweed and betony, the plumy dead-pinkheads of hemp-agrimony, and tufts of strong yellow fleabane, allsqueezed together in his hot little hand. The air seemed alive withbutterflies and moths, white and brown and red, and clouds of the "blueskippers" that look like periwinkles blown to life. A bee shot past himso quickly that the thrum of it sounded short as a twanged string, andthe next moment a late foxglove spire, naked save for its topmost bell, quivered beneath the onslaught of the arched brown and yellow body. Theheat haze shimmered on the distant horizon like an insect's wing, butwas tempered on the moorland height by the capricious wind, and Ishmaelkept doggedly on. 

He was a wiry little boy, thin and brown, with dark hair that grew in apoint on the nape of his neck, and hazel eyes set rather deeply understraight, sulky-looking brows. The lower part of his face was small andpointed for the breadth across forehead and cheek bones, and, with hisoutstanding ears, combined to give him something the look of a piskie'schangeling. Already the first innocence of childhood was wearing away, and the deliberate cleanliness of mind achieved, if at all, in themalleable years between fifteen and twenty was as yet far ahead. Nevertheless, Parson Boase was not wrong in scenting the idealist inIshmael, and he wondered how far the determined but excitable child, with the nervous strain of his race and all the little bluntnesses of aboy ungently reared, might prove the prey of circumstance; or whether, after all, he might not so build up resisting power as to make a fairthing of his life. A no more distant future than the next hour heldIshmael's mind at the moment, and attracted by a strong smell ofpeppermint from the marsh, the child turned that way, to add the palepurple blossoms to his fast-wilting bunch. 

A man in a black cassock, looped up for convenience in walking by ashabby cincture, was wandering among the brambles and gorse bushes, peering short-sightedly here and there, and as Ishmael appeared theman's hand closed suddenly over some object on a leaf. Ishmael hadhardly recognised the Parson before he himself was seen. 

"Come and look at what I've got here, " shouted Boase, straightening hislong back and holding his curved-out hands aloft. Ishmael ran towardshim, the tussocks, dry from long drought, swaying and sagging beneathhim. As he drew near he caught a whirring sound, so strong as to seemmetallic, and saw a big green and yellow dragon-fly fighting in theParson's hands. Boase took hold of it carefully but firmly by the wings, and the creature stared angrily at Ishmael with its huge glassy greeneyes, opening its oddly-fleshy mouth and wagging its fawn-coloured lipslike an evil infant cockatrice. 

Suddenly the Parson launched it in the air again, raising two fingers inwhimsical blessing, then he looked down at Ishmael with a queerexpression in his eyes. That was Ishmael's fate, of which he was as yetunconscious--no one looked at him absolutely naturally. His mother sawhim with aversion, Archelaus with resentment, and the younger brothersand the little sister took their cue from their elders. The neighbouringgentry treated him with an embarrassed kindness when they met him withParson Boase, and solved the problem by leaving him alone on otheroccasions; the farmers looked at him as though he embodied a huge joke, and their wives mothered him surreptitiously, giving him saffron-cake, which he loved, and quick, hard kisses, which he detested. Even Boaselooked at him not only as a child whom he loved, but as the incarnationof a hope, a theory--in short, as an Experiment. Nevertheless, it wasthe Parson to whom Ishmael came with his pleasures, and for all theintuition which told him the child went to no one in his griefs Boasehad not quite enough of the feminine in him to realise the importance ofthe omission. 

"Where are you off to, my son?" asked Boase, sticking his hand in thepocket of his shabby old cassock. He knew better than to pat a boy'shead or thump him between the shoulder-blades with the hearty mannerpeculiar to men who have forgotten their own boyhood. 

"Oh, I'm just gwain to see if the mill-wheel's workin' down along, " saidIshmael--not for worlds would he have admitted Phoebe Lenine as theobject of his visit. The Parson's eyes twinkled as they rested on thebouquet. 

"Going, not 'gwain, '" he corrected gently. 

"Going, " repeated Ishmael, with his deceptive docility in little things. 

"I'll come to the mill with you, " said the Parson briskly, and Ishmaelset off by his side without a word, but presently lagged behind a momentto drop his carefully-prepared offering between two gorse-bushes. Boasesmiled, then sighed, wondering where such an abnormal dread of ridiculeas Ishmael's would lead; it was a result of the Parson's calling that heshould feel anxiety as to the ultimate trend of things. 

The two trudged on in silence; their friendship was so tried, and theunderstanding between them so complete, that they sometimes spent anhour or more together with hardly a remark. Finally Ishmael brokesilence. 

"You coming to Cry the Neck this evening, Da Boase?" he asked. 

"I'm going to look in before supper, " replied the Parson; andunconsciously his lips took on a sterner line. He was building much onthat evening's "Crying the Neck, " which for the first time Ishmael wasto attend, and at the succeeding supper Boase meant him to take hisplace at the head of the table, as future master of Cloom. "Crying theNeck" was a moribund custom in the eighteen-fifties, and it was theParson, with an eye to its possibilities, who had encouraged what provedto be its last revival. 

"Mr. Lenine's coming, " remarked Ishmael presently. 

"Ah! Is he coming alone?" asked Boase carelessly. 

"Happen he will, or maybe they'll all come, but Mrs. Lenine always saysshe must stay in of an evening when others are trapesing, " repliedIshmael, with equal carelessness. For they were Cornishmen, these two, and the Parson would no more have asked outright "Is Phoebe coming?"than Ishmael would have given a direct answer. 

Lenine's mill, known as Vellan-Clowse, which means "The Mill by theWood, " nestled in a valley below the Cloon moor where the leet ran alongbuilt-up banks to the dam and then down a succession of wooden troughsto the crest of the wheel. Facing the mill was the great cluster of elmsthat headed the valley, and behind only a tiny little yard divided itfrom the steepness of the hillside. The trees were the biggest for milesin that wind-swept district, and the bed of the valley showed green andlush with its marshy pastures, where the ugly red and white cows weretearing at the grass. The wheel was standing dumb, as harvest was notyet garnered, and Boase and Ishmael passed the mill door and went on tothe house. There the door stood open, as did the further one at the endof the cool, straight passage that looked dark by contrast with the yardbeyond, where, under the blazing sun, a little girl was feeding somefowls. The whole scene, set in the black oblong of the doorway, wascompact of blue and flame colour--the blue of the frock and the shadowsand the pale flame of the gravel where the shadows lay and the deeperflame fowls clustered. The man and the boy looked through for a momentin silence, then Phoebe turned and saw them. 

Phoebe Lenine, being a woman of some eight years old, shook theremains of the corn off her small blue lap with no signs of haste ordiscomposure, and, turning her back, called to a hidden corner of theyard. 

"Faėther! Faėther! Passon's come to see you!"

"How d'you know I haven't called to see you, Miss Phoebe?" askedBoase, stepping into the passage. She ran and seized him by the knees, flinging back her head so that her dark curls hung away from hersoftly-rounded face. Her pouting mouth, always slightly open to show ahint of two little front teeth, laughed up at him, her dove's eyesnarrowed with her mirth. Of Ishmael she took no more notice than if hehad not been there, and he leant against the doorpost, scraping theearth with the toe of his hard little boot, his thumbs stuck in hisbelt. 

"I be gwain to help cry the Neck over to Cloom!" announced Phoebe--tothe Parson and at Ishmael--"and I be gwain to stay to th' supper, andmaybe I'll dance wi' a chap. There's Maister Jacka's John-Willy would beproud to dance wi' I!"

"So you're fond of dancing, Phoebe?" asked the Parson. 

"Sure 'nough! Dancen' and singen'--that's life, that is. Ef you can'tdance and sing I don't see no good in liven'! I don't hold wi' chaps whothink of nawthen but wanten' to be saved. Time 'nough for that whengettin' on for thirty!"

Ishmael winced at the hit, and the Parson laughed as he tied two ofPhoebe's ringlets into a bow under her chin. 

"There are ways and ways of remembering the Creator in the days of youryouth, Phoebe, " he said, "and one of them's by dancing and singing--ifit's with the right kind of chap. I don't think much of Jacka'sJohn-Willy; if you really want to be a great lady to-night you must getIshmael to dance with you. He's going to be master of the feast, andperhaps if you ask him very nicely he'll dance with you just once. "

This view of Ishmael as a person of importance was a new one toPhoebe, and she looked at him as though appraising him afresh. 

"I don't ask no chaps to dance wi' I, " she announced loftily. "Faėther'sjust comen' to see you, Da Boase. "

She wriggled her sleek little otter-like head under his arm and slippedpast him as she spoke. Then:

"Like to see the pigs?" she asked Ishmael carelessly. "Da ringed 'en themarnen'. "

"Don't mind if I do, " answered Ishmael, still scraping the gravel. 

"Naden't come ef 'ee don't want to more'n thet!" retorted Phoebe, "andI could have shown 'ee where the old pig was killed. There's been a darkplace on the stones ever since. I saw it killed, I did, Ishmael Ruan. Isaw Da stick in the knife and the blood come all out, I ded!"

"So 'a ded, my 'andsome, so 'a ded!" applauded the miller, whose bigform, powdery white, had appeared in the passage. 

The Parson felt decidedly sick. He was country-born himself, and, beingno mere dreamer of dreams, realised that it was as well that countrypeople should not flinch at the less poetic side of their lives, butthis callousness struck him as horrible in a young child like Phoebe. Yet as he saw Ishmael wince he regretted the very sensibility in theboy, the lack of which had shocked him in Phoebe. He knew Ishmael hada horror of blood and disagreeable sights, and the thought of how oftenthe boy would have to encounter them struck at his heart. 

"I won't see it, " said Ishmael, pressing himself back against the housewall; "I won't see where no pig was killed. " Then, afraid lest Phoebeshould taunt him with his fear: "But I'll come and see the pigs, thoughI don't s'pose they're as fine as ours. They were ringed yesterday was aweek, and even the piggy-widden's bigger than most pigs. "

"Ours is bigger, ours is bigger!" cried Phoebe indignantly, "and you'mnawthen but a gėat coward, Ishmael Ruan. I don't want _my_ pigs to seteyes on 'ee!"

She sauntered away across the yard, but turned her head as she reachedthe far end, and glanced back at Ishmael. He hesitated, pride fightingwith longing; then he also began to saunter--aimlessly at first; then, giving up the struggle, he frankly followed her. Lenine chuckled softly. 

"Talk o' the way o' a man wi' a maid--'tes nawthen to the way o' a maidwi' a man, is it, Passon? She'll be one for the chaps, she will!"

Boase assented, laughing, then his eyes saddened, as he watched the twolittle figures, side by side now, disappear round the corner of thepig-styes. It suddenly struck him as rather horrible that anything soinnocent as Ishmael still was should develop into a man, even a healthy, clean-living man; such a pity that the instinct that was the cause ofcharming play with Phoebe should ever become desire. It was a feelingthat a mother might have had, and Boase smiled at it even as he gave asigh to the pity of inexorable things. 

"So you're bringing Phoebe over to Cry the Neck, Sam?" he askedcasually. Sam Lenine nodded. 

"Gwain be there, Passon?"

"Maybe. Fact is, Sam, I thought it would be a good opportunity to sitthat boy at the head of the table--"

Lenine nodded again, but waited in silence. 

"You're an influential man, " continued Boase, "and the way you speak ofhim and treat things generally would rather give the lead to the peopleround here. "

For the third time the miller nodded, then started a little as he caughtsight of Ishmael and Phoebe reappearing from the pig-stye, and hiseyes lightened suddenly. He dropped his thickly-veined lids to hidethem. 

"Happen I can do a little, Passon, " he said; "I'll think on et. "

"Do, " said Boase heartily. Then he too started slightly and looked atthe miller a little suspiciously, and, though he said nothing, his facedarkened. Already the cords of intrigue were beginning to close roundIshmael Ruan, and the Parson longed to break them with one clean stroke, even while he realised the futility of the wish. He called rathersharply to the children. 

"Ishmael! You must come back with me now; there are things I want you todo at the vicarage. Come. "

Ishmael recognised the tone of authority. He was an obedient childsimply because he was so proud he would not fight a losing battle. Sooner than be conquered he obeyed as though he were doing the thingcommanded merely because he himself wished to, and for the same reasonif he could forestall a command by his own action he did. He came to theParson's side. 

"Must be going, Phoebe, " he remarked carelessly; "I've a heap ofthings to do for to-night, you see. Morning, Mr. Lenine!"

And he set off again, with his thumbs in his belt. 

CHAPTER III

THE KITCHEN

Annie Ruan and three of the children were assembled in the great kitchenpreparing for the supper party that was to be held after the Neck hadbeen cried. The world without was still steeped in the golden light offull afternoon, but the small windows only looked on to the courtyardand let little of the gleam into the low-ceiled room; dimness veiled thecorners, and through it each plate on the old dresser held a faintlyglimmering crescent of light. On a sheet of iron laid upon the openhearth the last loaves of barley-bread were baking under a crock, andVassilissa Beggoe was preserving the leaven for next week's breadmakingby the simple process of placing it in a saucer of water, where it wouldmildew in peace. 

Vassilissa was the youngest of the four Beggoes, --only three years olderthan Ishmael. She was the most like Archelaus in face, and showedpromise of a sleek, white and gold beauty to come; at present, being fartoo tall for her age, she seemed unable to manage her long legs andarms, but her movements had the graceful ungainliness of a young animal. She was muffled in a dirty print pinafore, and above its faded blue herneck looked a delicate privet-white, and would have looked whiter stillhad it been cleaner. In the dusk her little pale head, the shape of itclearly defined by the way in which she wore her hair sticking stifflyout from her nape in two tiny plaits, took on a quality suggestive of afrescoed angel--a delicately-modelled, faintly-shadowed quality that shemight miss in a stronger light. Putting the saucer of leaven on theuntidy dresser, she spoke over her shoulder to her mother. 

"I be gwain to give myself a rub over and put on my Sunday gown. I begwain now. "

Annie paused in the act of washing a plate, and let the film of dirtywater run off it into the pan again. Then she drew a deep breath, asthough the greasy-smelling steam that wavered up towards her nostrilswere the sweetest of incense. Vassilissa, who was accustomed to thissilent gathering of the forces before her mother broke into speciallyimpassioned speech, began calmly to untie her pinafore. 

"That's right!" cried Annie, with sudden vigour; "go off and makeyourself fine, and lave me to wash all the cloam that's been standen' upin grease these three days. Vanities o' the flesh are all you thinkon, 'stead of helpen' your mother as has done everything for 'ee sinceyou was naught but a young babe, and that scrawlen' come night there wasno gettin' any sleep. You might not be a maid toall for the help I getof 'ee. "

"I'll help wi' the cloam, " said a big, heavily-made boy who was seatedat one end of the table, eating a pasty. He crammed the last pale, stodgy morsel into his mouth and pushed back his chair, saying:

"I'll do the cloam for 'ee, mother. Lave the maiden be. "

John-James was a good-natured, thick-headed boy, the third in thefamily, and the one of her children who seemed to have inherited Annie'speasant blood undiluted. He supplied the restful element in a housewhere the eldest-born was hot-tempered and revengeful and the second sonmore like a girl-child for sharpness and a woman grown for scheming. Tomhad already made up his mind to be Mr. Tonkin's office boy, and fromthat he meant to become articled clerk, and from that--who could tell?Tom remained quiet on the subject of his ultimate intentions, but he wasfighting his mother's apathy and natural habit of opposition to attainthe first step in his career. Mr. Tonkin, who, as Ishmael's guardian, visited fairly frequently at the Manor, was expected to the supper thatnight, and Tom meant matters to come to a head. He had noticed what aninfluence the Methodist lawyer had over his mother and meant to use itfor his own ends. Annie had a secret fear of Tom; Archelaus she adored, and Vassilissa came only second; but John-James she held of smallaccount. She turned on him now even while she gave the dish into hishands. 

"There you go, John-James Beggoe, talken' as though I grudged my owncheild maken' herself 'ansome. Vassie, my worm, you may have that bit o'blue ribbon I bought last Corpus Fair--'tes in the chest. "

Vassie was off before her mother had time to change her mind, andJohn-James began slowly to rinse the china through the darkened water, on whose surface the grease lay in a shimmering arabesque. Annie wentround the kitchen rasping the chairs over the stone floor and makingfutile dabs at their seats with her apron. She had that curiousuncertainty of aim usually seen in dogs, who never seem to be sure oftouching the object at which they paw. 

The head and shoulders of Archelaus, furze-laden, passed the window, apparently floating through the luminous warmth of afternoon that filledthe courtyard as through the depths of the sea. The illusion wasshattered when he kicked the door open and, striding in, flung hisburden on to the dying fire. The sudden glow that leapt up revealed Tomensconced in the settle, cleaning his boots with a pat of butter stolenfrom the dairy. He continued his occupation quite unmoved by thefulminations of his mother, bending his ruddy head over the boots. Tomwas the "red-headed Dane" who crops up generation after generation insome Cornish families. 

"Hold your tongue, mother, " he said at last, holding one boot at arm'slength and cocking his head sideways the better to admire the effect ofthe buttering; "I'm going to look decent to-night if no one else is. Andso I don't mind a-tellen' 'ee--" with a sudden slip into the dialectthat he studiously trained himself to avoid. Any lapse of the kind meantthat Tom was not in a mood to be trifled with, and Annie turned suddenlyto Archelaus. 

"Where's the cheild?" she asked. 

"I set'n to gather bullock's glows for th' fire--we shall want more'nfurze for to-night, " replied Archelaus. "Give I a light to takeoverstairs; 'tes time I was cleanen' of myself. I'm gwain to run withthe Neck to-night. "

Annie went obediently to a cupboard and took out a little cup of oil inwhich a wick lay, the tongue of it drooping over the cup's rim. She litit with a twig from the fire and stood looking at Archelaus for a momentwith the cup in her hand. The footlight effect softened herprominently-boned face and struck some of the over-strong colour fromher cheeks--she showed a faint hint of the prettiness that had attractedthe old Squire. 

"An' who is it you'm thinken' will be at the door for 'ee to kiss whenyou get in wi' the Neck?" she asked grimly. 

Archelaus shuffled from one big foot to the other. 

"Jenifer Keast, maybe?" pursued his mother. 

"Happen Jenifer, happen another. A maid's a maid, " mumbled thedisconcerted Archelaus. 

Tom put his boots on the settle and stood up. 

"It makes me sick to hear you, Archelaus, " he declared slowly, but withextraordinary venom for a boy of fifteen; "Jenifer Keast! Have you nosense of who you are that you should think of Jenifer Keast?"

"She'm a fitty maid, " muttered Archelaus. 

"A fitty maid! Listen to the great bufflehead! She's fitty enough butwith nothing to her but the clothes on her back. You've no call to beleading a maid toall yet. S'pose you was ever master of Cloom, whatwould you be wanting with Jenifer Keast?"

"Master o' Cloom! That's plum foolishness. We all d'knaw I'd be mastero' Cloom if right were right, but there's the law siden' wi' the cheild;devil run off wi' en!"

"If the devil don't somebody else might, " said Tom, "and then Cloom'd bemother's and ours. Eh, I wish I was the eldest; I'm the only one with aheadpiece on me. "

"Th' cheild's healthy enough, " grumbled Archelaus. 

"My children are all healthy; I never buried but the one between Tom andJohn-James and the one as never drew breath, " interrupted Annie, "and ifthe cheild is set up by the law he's your own flesh and blood. He wouldhave been as fine a cheild as any of 'ee if he'd kept his place. "

"I'm not saying nothing against the brat, " cried Tom in exasperatedtones; "anyone'd think I wanted'n to die by the way you go on at me. Idon't--it don't matter to me, for I'm going to be a lawyer like Mr. Tonkin to Penzance, but Archelaus'll be a fool if he don't look higherthan Jenifer Keast. "

"I'm not looken' to lead no maid, " cried the badgered Archelaus, snatching the light. "Do 'ee grudge a chap a kiss or two? What's the harmin kissen'? You knew all about it when you was young, mother; you're anice one to talk to a chap, you are!"

With which unfilial gibe he disappeared. 

Annie was one of those women who like a buffet, verbal or physical, froma man, whether he be husband, brother, or son. She looked afterArchelaus with pride. 

"He be rare and like his da when he's got the uglies, " she said; "he'lllook fine at the head o' the table to-night, will Arch'laus. "

"Parson Boase'll put Ishmael at the head of the table, " announced Tomcarelessly, with a sly glance at his mother. Annie whipped round at himin blank surprise, while even John-James paused in his washing-up andstood gaping over a dish. 

"Gwain to put my own cheild auver my head and the head of my first-born, is 'ee?" cried Annie. "Eh, that passon! Sim'me he's lacken' his senses!Sim'me that when the law lets a man like that come shoven' and meddlen'in a woman's house that the law's lacken' its senses too!"

"Don't fret about the law, " advised Tom; "I've heard tell the law can beturned any way a clever chap has a mind. I'll see what I can do with itwhen I'm to Mr. Tonkin, and then perhaps we'll all snap our fingers atParson Boase. "

"Tom do talk a wunnerful passel o' nonsense, " remarked John-Jamesplacidly as his brother picked up his boots and went out. But Tom was ofthe truly great who can always contain themselves when there is nothingto be gained by an explosion, and he disappeared without answering. 

Annie and John-James proceeded to put the finishing touches to thekitchen--John-James doing all the real good that was done, and Anniesetting things backwards and forwards in her strange aimless way. Upstairs Vassie was tying her hair--brushed out now into a short, crimped fluff that made her look more like an angel than ever--with theblue ribbon; while Archelaus and Tom greased their locks with theremains of Tom's stolen butter. Soon Annie and John-James also wentupstairs to prepare themselves for the feast, and the kitchen grewslowly dark. 

Ishmael staggered across the last field with his bucket of fuel, hislean little arms aching under its weight, but his mind singing thetriumphant refrain:

"The evening's coming, and I'm going to cry the Neck! I'm going to crythe Neck!"

CHAPTER IV

PAGAN PASTORAL

The last of the corn had been reaped in Cloom fields and all was readyfor the ceremony of "Crying the Neck. " The labourers, their womenfolkand children, had gathered together, and Annie, with a select party offriends, took her place in the forefront of the crowd. A very oldlabourer who bore the splendid name of Melchisedec Baragwaneth, wentfrom sheaf to sheaf, picking out a handful of the most heavily-beardedears, which, though they are apt to grind the worst, still make thebravest show. He was stiff with his great age and the cruel rheumatismthat is the doom of the field-worker; and against the brass and leatherof his boots the stubble whispered loudly. Overhead the rooks and gullsgave short, harsh cries as they circled around hoping for stray grains;but the thousand little lives which had thriven in the corn--the fieldmice and frogs and toads--had been stilled by the sickles; some few hadescaped to the shelter of the hedges, but most were sacrifices to theharvest. 

Melchisedec Baragwaneth intertwined with his wheat ears some splendidstalks of ragwort and chamomile, like a cluster of yellow and whitestars, and twisted tendrils of bindweed, with frail, trumpet-shapedblossoms already drooping, around the completed bunch. His thick oldfingers fumbled over the niceties of the task, but he pushed the women'sofficious hands aside, and by the aid of his toothless but bone-hardgums pulled the knot to successfully, and the bunch became the "Neck. "Then he set off, followed by the rest of the folk, to the highest fieldunder grass, cresting the slope behind Cloom, the field that had beenploughed earth when the old Squire's dying eyes looked on it from hisbedroom window. 

The last of the day still held the world, and from the western rim thesunset beat up on to one vast level stretch of cloud that nearly coveredthe sky, drenching it with rose-coloured light which refracted to theearth, steeping everything in one warm glow. The stubble stood up likethin straight flames from a soil that showed wine-coloured, and thegreen of leaf and pasture was turned by the warmth of the light to thattender but brilliantly vivid emerald to which it wakes in the gleam of alantern at night. All colour was intensified, though all was suffusedwith the triumphant rose, which steeped sky and air and earth till theyseemed infused with some impalpable wine; and the procession movedthrough an atmosphere full of refractions and bright edges afloat in thetender glow. 

Melchisedec Baragwaneth took his stand in the middle of the field besidethe tall monolith, and his followers made a huge circle about him. Jacka's John-Willy staggered round with a firkin of cider, and each manset his hands about its body and took a long drink. Then MelchisedecBaragwaneth bent slowly down, holding the Neck towards the ground, andall the labourers bowed low over their billhooks. Still more slowly theold man straightened himself, raising his arms till he held the bunch ofcorn high above his head, like some sylvan priest elevating the Host. The billhooks, which a moment before had lain like shining crescents onthe grass, went flashing up into blackness against the glow of the sky, and from each man came a great shout:

_"A nack! A nack! A nack! We hav'en! We hav'en! We hav'en!"_

Three times the rite was performed, and the rose-light, that so soondies, had faded away, though no one could have told the actual moment ofits passing. A vibrant dusk, that to eyes still glamour-ridden seemedfull of millions of little, pricking points of light, permeated theworld, and in their harmonious-coloured clothes the people mingled withthe soft grey-green of the pasture, only their faces and hands gleamedout a few tones paler. 

With the fall of the billhooks fell solemnity, and men, women andchildren ran wildly hither and thither, shouting, singing, and breakingout into rough dances. 

A new and blissful excitement tingled through Ishmael. When thelabourers had shouted he had dropped Phoebe's hand and shouted withthem, flinging up his arms. The glamorous light, the sense of somethingprimitive and vital that the ceremony expressed, and the stir at thepulses caused by the sight of many people moved to do the same thing atthe same moment, went to his head. He ran about singing and leaping likethe rest, but keeping a little away from them, and quite suddenly therecame to him for the first time that consciousness of pleasure whichmarks man's enjoyment off from the animal's. Hitherto, in his moments ofhappiness, he had not paused to consider the matter, but merely beenhappy as a puppy is when it plays in the sun. Now, suddenly, he stoppedstill, and stood looking at the distant blackthorn hedge that made adark network against the last gleam in the west. 

"I am happy? I am _being happy_!" he said to himself, and he turned thisconsciousness over in his mind as he would have turned a sweet in hismouth. Ever afterwards the memory of that moment's realisation wasconnected for him with a twisted line of hedge and a background of palegreenish sky. He stared at the distorted hedgerow that stood out soclearly, and to him this moment was so vividly the present that he didnot see how it could ever leave off. . . . "This is now . . . " he thought;"how can it stop being now?" And the shouting and the still air and thedefinite look of that hedge all seemed, with himself as he was and feltat that moment, to be at the outermost edge of time, suspended there forever by that extreme vividness. . . . 

And then Phoebe ran up to him and dragged him off to where Sam Leninestood examining some of the ears he had picked on his way past thesheaves. The miller took the toll of one twelfth of the farmer's grist, so Sam studied the ears with care. Owing to the drought the corn wasvery short in the straw, but that was not Sam's part of the business, and he nodded his head approvingly over the quality of the ear. 

Suddenly Archelaus sprang forward, snatched the Neck from MelchisedecBaragwaneth, and made for the house, everyone crowding after him to seethe fun. At the front door stood the dairymaid, Jenifer Keast, holding apail of water in her strong arms, ready to souse him unless he succeededin entering by another way before she could reach him with the water, when he could claim a kiss. Archelaus made a dash for the parlourwindow, but the bucket swept round at him threateningly and he drew backa moment, as though to consider a plan of campaign. He was determined tohave his kiss, for through the soft dusk that veiled any coarseness ofskin or form, and only showed the darkness of eyes and mouth on the warmpallor of her face, she looked so eminently kissable. Before she couldguess his intention he ran round the angle of the house wall, down tothe dairy window, and, plunging through it, came up the passage at herback. Seizing her by the waist, he swung her round and took his kissfairly from her mouth, and, though she struggled so that the waterdrenched him, he felt her lips laughing as they formed a kiss. 

CHAPTER V

HEAD OF THE HOUSE

For years Ishmael was unable to remember that evening without a tinglingsense of shame. The unwonted excitement, combined with the prominencewhich the Parson successfully achieved for him, went to his head andcaused him to "show off. " The thought of how he had chattered andboasted, talking very loudly and clumping with his feet when he walked, so as to sound and feel like a grown-up man, would turn him hot foryears, when, in the watches of the night, it flashed back on him. Longafter everyone else had forgotten, even if they had ever noticed it, hislack of self-control on that evening was a memory of shame to him. Heclattered across to his place at the head of the table, and wasmortified that a couple of big old calf-bound books had to be placed onhis chair to make him sit high enough. Phoebe and the Parson were ateither side, and the foot of the table was taken by Annie, Archelaus, defiant and monosyllabic, on her left, and Lawyer Tonkin, glossy withblack broadcloth, on her right. The lawyer had a haunting air as ofcousinship to things ecclesiastical, and, indeed, he was lay-preacher ata Penzance chapel. Tom, who had taken care to set himself on his otherhand, kept a careful eye for his plate and glass, being particularlyliberal with the cider. The lawyer spoke little; when he did his voicewas rich and unctuous--the sort of voice that Ishmael always describedto himself as "porky. " He was as attentive to Mrs. Ruan's wants as Tomto his, and she, never a great talker save in her outbursts, still keptup a spasmodic flow of low-toned remarks to him, whom of all men sheheld in highest veneration. 

His spiritual powers she rated far higher than those of the Parson, whonever fulminated from the pulpit till she felt the fear of hell meltingher bones within her. This the lawyer did, and managed at the same timeto make her feel herself a good woman, one of the saved, and thepiquancy of the double sensation was the hidden drug of Annie's life. She dallied with thoughts of eternal suffering as a Flagellant withimagings of torture, and when her mind was reeling at the very edge ofthe pit she would pull herself back with a loud outcry on the Almighty, followed by a collapse as sensuous in its utter laxity. 

Annie would have been shocked if anyone had tried to force on her theidea, that, in the unacknowledged warfare which enwrapped Ishmael, Tonkin was on her side as against the child; but even she was dimlyaware that he and Boase, joint guardians as they were, stood in oppositecamps. But it was towards her, the respectable widow-woman, the owner, but for Ishmael, of the biggest estate in all Penwith, that Tonkin'scurrent of consideration flowed, whereas hers, after her religion, wasperpetually set about Archelaus. He, the beautiful young man with theround red neck and the white arms and the strong six feet of height, whom she had made and given to the world, to him she would have giventhe world and all the heavens had it been in her power. And, as thingswere, she could not even give him Cloom Manor and its fruitful acres. Ofthis impotency Archelaus was even more aware than usual as he sat besideher and glowered down the table at his little brother. 

Ishmael was still showing off, though less noisily, for he was feelingvery tired and sleepy; the unaccustomed cider and the heavy meal ofroast mutton, in a house where there was rarely any meat exceptoccasional rashers, were proving too potent for him. The room wasintensely hot, the prevailing notion of comfort being to shut everywindow at night, and a large fire, before which the side of mutton hadbeen gravely twirling for hours, was only now beginning to subside. Thecandles guttered and grew soft in the warmth, beads of moisture stoodout on the faces of the company, and the smell of incompletely-washedbodies reminded the Parson of hot afternoons with his Sunday school. 

Phoebe found Ishmael dull since his volubility had begun to deserthim, and turning a disdainful shoulder, she tried to draw Jacka'sJohn-Willy into conversation--a difficult matter, since, though he hadbeen placed there instead of in the barn for Phoebe's benefit, he feltthe watchful eye of his mother, who was waiting at table, too frequentlyupon him for his comfort. 

Katie Jacka, her colour more set than it had been when she witnessedthat marriage eight years ago, was as emotional as ever, her facilefeelings only restrained at all by her husband's rigid taciturnity, evenas her high bosom was kept up by the stiffest of "temberan busks"--apiece of wood which, like all self-respecting Cornishwomen, she worethrust inside the front of her stays. Philip Jacka, who was now headmanat the farm, presided at the labourer's supper in the big barn, whithereveryone would presently repair, including Ishmael, if he were not toosleepy. The Parson divided his attention between him and Mr. Lenine, whowas expanding to greater and greater geniality, always with thatsomething veiled behind his eyes. He encouraged Ishmael, trying to drawhim out when the Parson, seeing the child was, in nursery parlance, "abit above himself, " would have kept him quiet. 

"Well, young maister"--at the phrase in the miller's booming voice earsseemed visibly to prick down the length of the table--"well, and how do'ee like helpen' to Cry the Neck?"

"Fine, that I do, " came Ishmael's shrill tones; "an' I'm gwain to haveen cried every year, and I'll give ever so much bigger suppers, withbeef and pasties and beer as well as cider, and saffern cakes and--";here his tongue failed at the list in his excitement. 

Annie had gone a dull crimson, and she drew the whistling breath thatwith her was the precursor of storm. Help for her outraged feelings anda snub for the young master came from a quarter which surprised themboth. 

"It is not you who give the supper, Ishmael, " spoke the Parson quietly;"it is your mother. And unless you show you know how to behave she willnever let you sit up again. "

Annie expelled the breath unaccompanied by any flow of words. Archelaussniggered, and Ishmael sat in that terrible embarrassment that onlychildren know, when the whole world turns black and shame is so intensethat it seems impossible to keep on with life at all. His face was oneburning flush, his eyes stung with tears he was too proud to let fall. All his wonderful day had fallen about his ears, and it seemed to himthat such a mortification, added to his own shamed sense of havingdisappointed Da Boase, would burden him so that he could never be happyagain. And only a couple of hours earlier he had realised for the firsttime how splendid somehow life and everything in it was, himselfincluded . . . And now all was over. He sat staring at the congealedremains of a pasty on his plate. He did not see how it was possible togo on living. 

Suddenly a soft, very small hand slid into his lap under cover of thetable's corner, and Phoebe's fingers curled round his as shewhispered: "Don't 'ee mind, Ishmael. Don't cry. Tell 'ee what, I'lldance weth 'ee, so I will. "

"I'm not cryen'. " Ishmael's accent was always most marked when he wasstruggling with emotion. "I'm not cryen' toall. But I don't mind if I dodance a bit weth 'ee if you want me to. "

A grinding of chair legs over the flags proclaimed the end of the feast, and the Parson, who, rather to Ishmael's resentment, was smiling asthough nothing had been the matter, caught hold of him with one hand andof Phoebe with the other and led the way to the barn. 

Out-of-doors the air struck exquisitely cool and fresh to heated faces;the courtyard was lapped in shadow, but once through and in the farmyardthe moon was visible, still near the horizon and swimming up inflated, globulous, like a vast aureate bubble. Save for that one glow everythinglooked as chill as underseas; the whitewashed walls of the out-buildingsglimmered faintly, the heaped corn had paled to a greyish silver, theshadows were blue as quiet pools. The whole world seemed to have beenwashed clean by the moonlight. 

The sense of calm only lasted as far as the door of the barn--not as farto the ear, for the sounds of merry-making came gustily out before theopening of the door showed an oblong of glowing orange that sent a shaftinto the night, to fade into the darkness that it deepened. It was notquite as hot in the barn as it had been in the kitchen, for the buildingwas much loftier and boasted no fire. Lanterns swung from the beams, throwing upwards bars of shadow that criss-crossed with the rafters andtrembled slightly as the flames flickered, so that the whole roof seemedspun over by some gigantic spider's web, while the shadow-patternsthrown by the lanterns on to the floor below looked like great spidersdropped from the meshes. In this impalpable tangle sat the men andwomen--tenants of cottages, labourers, farm servants and their children, all who had been helping with the harvest. Jenifer Keast was there, flushed now instead of with that mysterious pallor of the dusk, and toher Archelaus made his way with a sort of bashful openness, followed byglances and sly smiles. People felt disposed to condone whatever was inthe way of nature, for the meal of hoggans--pasties with chunks of baconin them, superior to the fuggans of everyday life, which only harbouredraisins--of pilchards steeped in vinegar and spices, all washed down bystrong cider, had combined to give that feeling of physical well-beingwhich causes the soul also to relax. 

Archelaus, suddenly irked by proximity to the girl or fired by thethought of an excuse to clasp her more fully, sprang up and called forhelpers to clear the floor. The long trestle tables were pushed to oneside and everything that lay upon the dusty boards swept away, even tothe form of old Melchisedec Baragwaneth, the high-priest of an earlierhour, who was found with his head under a bench and his stiff old legssprawled helplessly. 

The Parson did not mean Ishmael to stay for more than a dance or two, ifthat, so he determined to get the thing on which he had set his minddone at once. Picking the boy up, he stood him on the table, just wherea lantern, hitched to the wall, threw its beam of light, for the Parsonwas nothing if not a stage manager by instinct. An awkward silence fellupon the assembly; men scraped their feet uneasily through its hush. 

For a moment the Parson let his eyes wander over the clustered faces, full of strong colour in the warm light, with bright, vacant looks andhalf-open mouths. He knew everyone there, had christened and marriedmany of them, he knew their individual count of kindness and coarsenessand self-seeking; knew how hard-working they were, how thriftless, howgenerous and strangely tolerant, yet how harsh at times in condemnation. It was to their charity of outlook he wished to appeal now, or ratherwished Ishmael to make an unconscious appeal. 

"There's no need for me to make any speech to you, my friends, " hebegan. "You all know me, and I know you. We've trusted each other andworked together for a good many years now, and please God we shall formany more. You are all to me as my children. But there's one amongstus--" (and here his hand on Ishmael's shoulder seemed to bring theshrinking little boy into greater prominence) "who is even more of atrust to me than any of you. He is a trust to you too--to me because Iam his guardian, pledged to see that he grows up into a man who willmake a good and just Squire to his tenants, to you because you are thosetenants. I think I can promise you that as your Squire grows up it willmean better and better times for all of you, that things won't be sohard. There was a time when the Squires of Cloom were noted for theirgenerosity and just dealing, when, so they say, every man on the estatehad his side of pork--ay, and half a sheep too--in his kitchen, and agood coat to his back the year round, and wages to put in his stocking. Those times will come again when the glories of Cloom are restored, whenit is once more a good gentleman's estate. . . . "

The Parson had spoken quietly but very deliberately. He knew how publicfeeling had sided with Annie and the dispossessed Archelaus. The peoplehad grown so used to associating on a familiar level with the powers atthe Manor that they had ceased to think of the advantages of a differentmode of intercourse. The idea that they would themselves benefit by therestoration of Cloom and its owner to the old position of gentry hadnever occurred to them. It was true that it would mean the elevation ofthis intruding child, who was merely the son of their Annie, whom theyall knew, but at the same time it meant certain obligations towardsthem. It meant more money, help in times of stress, security. That wasa thing worth considering. The old Squire had hoarded his income and lethis fortune swell; if the all-powerful Parson were going to bring thischild up in the way he suggested it meant that money would be spent, andon them. . . . 

The Parson gave his idea time enough to arrive, though not long enoughto be turned over. He pushed Ishmael gently forward again. 

"Say what I told you, " he bade him, "and no more. "

At that moment something came to Ishmael which had failed him in thatevening's ordeal--a poise, a confidence of touch which was his byinheritance, though so long unsummoned. He straightened himself andthrust his hands into the pockets of his little breeches. 

"Thank you very much for having come to-night, " he said, in a voice freefrom any twang of dialect--the voice he fell into naturally after a dayalone with the Parson: "I'm very glad you could come. I hope I'll oftensee you and that we'll all be very happy together. . . . " He paused, couldthink of nothing more to say, so retreated back in sudden shynessagainst the Parson's arm. 

There was another moment of hush. Archelaus was sitting, his face suffused, staring in front of him; a murmuring of "the pretty lil' dear" . . . Ranamongst the women. It was Lenine who brought the moment to its fit rounding. 

"Three cheers for Missus and the lil' Squire, " he called, and on thatable blend of sentiments all voices met with a roar. As the last sounddied away Phoebe could be heard clamouring:

"I can do things too; Da Boase nadn't think Ishmael can do it all. I candance and sing, I can!"

"So thee can, my worm, " boomed the miller, and, swinging her up, hestood her also on the table. "Shaw us what 'ee can do, my beauty, " heencouraged her. 

Phoebe, not at all shy, spread her crumpled skirts and did a littledance that consisted of jigging up and down in the same place, to theaccompaniment of a sing-song of one verse:

 "I likes coffee an' I likes tea, I likes th' chaps an' th' chaps likes me, So, mawther, you go an' hold your tongue-- You had a fellow when you was young!"

Thus piped Phoebe, and the audience applauded with clapping andlaughter. Her cheeks were ablaze with the excitement of success; sheseized on Ishmael for the promised dance. But the Parson bade him saygood-night and come away. He remained deaf to all appeals from Phoebefor just one dance, only one, and, making his own farewells, boreIshmael back with him to the Vicarage for the night. He was going to runno risk of an anti-climax. 

CHAPTER VI

REACTIONS

There are days in life which, to the backward look of later years standout with undying vividness, and this not necessarily because of anyimport attached to them; often, in the irrational workings of memory, very vital affairs refuse to come when bid, while quite little things oraspects of them are imprinted on the mind for ever. That ceremony of"Crying the Neck" at Cloom had, it is true, been for Ishmael Ruan anotable happening, but it was for a certain pictorial brilliance that heretained it so clearly in after years, and not for any strategicimportance, which at the time would not have impressed him. Yet, longafterwards, in the light of that memory, he saw how his life had turneda corner on that occasion, and how after it a different phase began. 

Life to him at that time was, of course, entirely centred round himself, the only organism of which he was thoroughly aware. People went to fillhis world, but only as they affected him. Archelaus was a terrific beingwhom he held in awe for his feats of strength, but about whom he wasbeginning to be conscious of a certain inferiority. Tom he dreaded forhis powers of sarcasm, and here he felt no sense of superiority as hedid over Archelaus; Tom could make him feel even smaller than the Parsoncould, and with no kindly intention behind to soften the knock. 

But if everyone else were out of temper, there was always one person hecould be sure of finding the same, and that was John-James--good, kind, reliable John-James, whom he adored. Did he want a boat made? John-Jameswould do it with those big hands which looked so clumsy and were sosure and careful. Had he broken the rope reins with which he and Jacka'sJohn-Willy played at horses? John-James would mend them. All of kindnessand consideration to be found for him in that house he extracted fromJohn-James. One thing only he could not get even from him, and that wasa return of his deep devotion. This was not because of any bitterfeeling in the elder boy's heart. Ishmael had done him no harm, and hebore him no grudge; neither, since he was not an admirer of his elderbrother Archelaus, did he take up his cause. It simply was thatJohn-James was not made for the emotions. He knew nothing about them andthey made him uncomfortable. For a long while Ishmael failed to discoverthis. He flung himself upon John-James, and felt him satisfactorilysolid and worried no more on the matter. But when, in the natural courseof development, his mind began to feel pain as well as discomfort at thechill which met him from his family, he turned to his sure support forhelp in this also, he found a blank. John-James would take him fishing, save his pastry for him, stand between him and harshness, but he wouldnot, because he could not, give him love to live on. If he had oneoutward-flowing sensation it was towards his sister Vassilissa. Ishmaelwas just the "lil' un" and a trouble because the cause of trouble, butVassie was something so infinitely quicker, cleverer, more elusive thanhimself that she stood to John-James for what of beauty was interwovenwith the very everyday stuff of his life. She, like Ishmael, was at theintensely personal period, though with her it took objective form indress and pleasures rather than in the subjective wonderings of heryoungest brother. As to John-James, he hardly entered into the fabric ofher existence. Life to her was the cat-like attempt to get as muchcomfort as possible regardless of others. The only emotion Ishmaelobtained out of Cloom came from Katie Jacka, and that was ratherunhealthy, because furtive and sentimental, and he only detested it. Asto his mother, that hectic, uneven creature, she was to him aloud-voiced person of tempers and tendernesses equally gusty, not abeing as much "I" to herself as he was to himself. It was only on theday following the supper party that he began to be affected by her as aviolent personality. 

It was a grey day, threatening with rain which might mean ruin to thecut corn waiting to be stacked in the great arishmows that always seemedto Ishmael like the tents of some magic host. All the way up from theVicarage, which lay a couple of sloping miles away, his thoughts andhopes were busy, triumphing over the greyness and the faint damping mistthat blew in from the sea like smoke. For, somehow, after last night, heexpected everything to be "different. " How, he hardly knew; but for thefirst time in his life he had been allowed to be himself--more, himselfhad been discovered to be Somebody. True, there had been thatmortification at supper which gave him what felt like an actual physicalhollow in his chest when he thought of it, but after that the Parson hadset him up and everyone had cheered him, and Archelaus had not dared doanything to spoil it. He had been called "the little master"--well, iflast night, why not to-day? Katie would probably be cleaning up when hearrived, but she would see him and call out. "Here's the little mastercome back!" . . . And his mother would ask him whether he would like apiece of cake. So he went on planning, after the dramatic manner of allimaginative children. He would be very nice to them all, but he toowould be different, now that he knew who he was. For the Parson, findinghim intensely puzzled, had partially explained to him that morning. Questions of legitimacy, and any reflection on his mother, Boase hadomitted for the time being, merely telling him that when he was grownup Cloom would be his because his father had willed it so. He tried toimpress on Ishmael that usually the eldest son inherited everything, andso it was natural that Archelaus should feel hurt about it. At firstIshmael, with the quick generosity of his age, had wanted to give Cloomup to his brother there and then, but the Parson talked gravely to him, impressing on him for the first time what was to be the keynote of histeaching, that never, never must he forget that Cloom was the greattrust of his life. What he made of Cloom was everything; he could notshift this thing God had put upon him. Thus the Parson, to whom what hewas to make of Ishmael had become the absorbing passion of his own life. 

Boase made Ishmael promise not to let anyone know he had been told aboutit; that, too, was part of the trust--that Ishmael should preparehimself in secret, by diligent study, for this thing that was to be his. The child promised, proud of the confidence, his imagination thrilled bythe romance that had come to him, and so, although he meant to be quitenice to everyone, there was a tinge of kindly pity in the manner hepictured himself displaying when he arrived home. And, overriding eventhese plans for the immediate future, was a tingling sense of glory hehad never known before, the glory of this trust that was to fill hislife. . . . 

No hailing of him as little master or as anything else took place whenhe reached home; Katie was busy at the washhouse, and he met no oneamidst all the dreary litter of last night's festivities till he came onhis mother in the back kitchen. The piled dresser showed a muddle ofunwashed dishes, and the floor was gritty with mud. Annie looked, andwas, dirty with exertion; and even the steam that wreathed upwards fromthe washbowl added a sense of uncleanness to the air. Ishmael was tooyoung to be depressed by dirt, which he rather liked, but the greynessof it all settled on him like a blight. 

He had been right about one thing--there was a distinct change inAnnie's manner. It was not, however, any difference such as he hadimagined; it went deeper than mere speech. As he entered his mother cameover to him, and, tilting up his chin, searched his eyes with hers tillhe felt uncomfortable. He jerked his head away, retreating against thedoor which had swung to behind him. 

"Eh, " said Annie, and he knew it was not to him she spoke; "it is to be. The Lard will accept him as He accepted the infant Samuel. "

Ishmael began to be afraid; his mother's eyes had the glitter in themthat usually went with one of her storming fits, but now she was quiet, though tense. "What is it, mother?" he asked nervously, staring at herin his turn. 

"You'm a brand to be plucked from the burning, " she told him, "an' bythe grace of God mine's to be the hand that'll pluck 'ee. You'll besaved along of your poor old mawther, won't 'ee, dearie?"

Then, as Ishmael showed no disposition to do anything but try and getaway, she caught up a slab of heavy-cake which lay on the dresser. "Theemustn't be afeared of thy mawther, my worm, " she murmured, her voicemore coaxing than he had ever heard it; "we're gwain before the Lardhand in hand. . . . There, take this bit o' food into the yard, but don't'ee go far. Do 'ee hear what I say, Ishmael?"

He hastened with a submissive "Yes" and then fled, cake in hand. Out inthe yard his little mind struggled in vain with the problem of thischange, for there was no added respect in his mother's treatment of him, such as his stepping openly into the position of owner of Cloom mighthave made. Neither, his child's true instinct told him, was it affectionsuddenly awakened in her. He cast about vainly for what it might mean. Presently he went into the washhouse, where Katie and another woman werebusy; they took scant notice of him, but went on discussing the factthat Archelaus had not been home to bed all night, had not long come in, and gone upstairs, where he still was, snoring for all to hear. Ishmaelwas not altogether ignorant, and allusions were bandied back and forthacross his head which he was at once too young and too old to hearunscathed. 

Left alone, Annie went upstairs, listened a moment outside the door ofher eldest-born, then went on to the tiny room over the porch that wasIshmael's. And there, on her knees by the bed, she prayed silently, hereyes rolling till a slather of white showed beneath each faded iris, herreddened fingers wringing each other so that patches of pallor sprangout on them. 

Annie was in the midst of a religious crisis that had overwhelmed herlike a typhoon. She was one of those women who must have an outlet forpassion. It had taken merely physical form with her in the days of theold Squire, but since her elevation to the position of a widow-woman shehad undergone "conversion. " What she had hitherto accepted, much as herfarm beasts accepted it--as a clamorous necessity--she now held to be athing accursed. Her position was an inconsistent one, as she was quickto uphold her ill-used righteousness with her neighbours; but that didnot worry Annie, whose mind, blurred and wavering, never faced anythingsquarely. 

Lawyer Tonkin had gazed into her eyes when he said good-night, and shehad felt his moist and pudgy hand squeeze hers; but she knew it was theeyes and hand of the widow-woman, the owner, but for Ishmael, of CloomManor, with which the lawyer had dallied. Her sense of her position wasflattered and a glimpse of a yet more consequential one flashed beforeher, but no thrill went with it. It was in the grip of what she wouldhave thought a very different emotion that she had gone up to her room. For Tonkin had told her of a noted revivalist who was coming throughWest Penwith, and already she felt the first delicious tremblings ofthat orgy of fear which should be hers. 

Hers and another's, for she was set on the redemption of her belovedfirst-born, her beautiful Archelaus. Him she would lead to the heavenlycourts and win forgiveness for the sin of his creation; he, the brandshe had lit, should by her be plucked from the burning. Crossing over toher window, she had leaned her hot brow against the pane, closing hereyes in an ecstasy of prayer. It was very dim still in the house, butwithout the first faint pallor of the dawn was growing, and against itevery solid object showed distinct and black. And, opening her eyes, Annie saw, silhouetted darkly with the precision of sculpture againstthe paling sky, the figures of Archelaus and a girl. He was half-liftingher over the stile whose stone steps crested the edge of the hill, andfor a second the two figures stayed poised on the topmost step. The girlseemed protesting, even struggling, though with slaps that were morehorseplay than earnest, and the next moment the boy's big arms hadcaught her and dragged her out of sight down on the far side of thestile. 

The whole quick vignette was over in a flash, but Annie fell back fromthe window with all the egoism in her dulled nature torn awake. A morenormal mother, of a more refined type, might have thought what she hadseen meant nothing but a rude flirtation; Annie's blood told herdifferently. If she had merely heard of the matter her lack ofvisualising power would have saved her from sensation; it was the sightof those two striving figures which had made her feel. She moaned thather baby son had grown up and away from her, and she agonised over hissoul, which she had planned to wrest for the Lord during the comingrevival--small heed would she get Archelaus to pay to his soul now thisnew thing was opening before him. Her mind was conscious of a greatemptiness where her scheme for the salvation of Archelaus had beenwaxing. 

Annie had about as much true moral sense as a cat. Her quarrel withArchelaus was not that, in a wayside copse, with some girl, Jennifer oranother, he was learning as fact what he had long known in theory; thechastity of a man, even of her beloved son, meant very little to her. Terrible things, far worse than the casual mating of a man and a maid, happen in the country, and it needed something keenly sharpened to makeAnnie's dulled sensitiveness feel a shock. She raged that her son wastaken from her, but she would have felt indignant anger if the girl haddenied her lovely boy. And behind her sense of loss in Archelaus, behindher terror that he was being led in the way of destruction, therelurked, unknown to her, another anger, an anger against life. Some lastremnant of femininity cried out because for her it was all over--gonethe shudderings and the fierce delights. . . . Suddenly she felt intenselyold, and she collapsed from her kneeling attitude on to her heels andsat there slackly. Youth is so confident that it can never grow old, andthen one day unthinking middle age awakens and finds that it has becomeso. 

Then stirred in Annie the outraged feeling of a parent, which says thatit seems somehow wrong, almost indecent, for offspring to feel passion. It had been all right for her and her generation, but incomprehensiblein her own parents, and now it was equally so when she saw it beginningto work out in her children. She supposed vaguely, confronted by thefact that the race went on multiplying, that everyone might feel likethat about other people, but differently about themselves. 

Broad daylight had seen Archelaus return, but by then Annie had falleninto a heavy sleep and did not hear his entry, though there was nothingfurtive about it; rather was it the unashamed clatter of the master. Sheawoke to deadness of all feeling except the thought of the revival thatwas to sweep like a flail over the land, and in her tired but avid mindthat winnowing began to assume the proportions of the chief thing forwhich to live. She saw herself in it, and with her, by a flash ofinspiration, not the fair eldest-born who had failed her, but theyoungest--he whom she could flaunt in the face of God and men. Somereceptacle for passion Annie had to have, and being an uneducated woman, it had to be a personal one. Archelaus had gone beyond her clutch, Tomshe knew would evade her, John-James she, like Ishmael, foundunresponsive. As for girls, she placed them below any male creature. Sheloved Vassie far more than she did Ishmael, if she could be said to lovehim at all, but nevertheless he was a son. Her punishment for sin mightbe that those other more dearly loved ones were not to be among thesaved, but this child she could shake in the face of the Almighty. . . . 

It was by this new passion that Ishmael, with his foolish little plansof a new importance, found himself caught up and held relentlessly. 

CHAPTER VII

THE CHAPEL

The revivalist preacher had come, and was indeed sweeping the land likea flail. Everyone was caught up in that threshing, and staid oldchurch-goers of years rushed into the chapels and added their groans andoutcries to the rest. Parson Boase stood aside, powerless while theexcitement lasted. Those were days when Methodism was at its most harsh;the pure, if fierce, white flame of Whitefield and Thomson and Wesleyhad become obscured by the redder glare and smoke of that place whoseexistence seemed the chief part of these latter-day Methodists' creed. Hell was the theme of sermon and hymn--a hell of concrete terrors enoughto scare children in their beds at night. Thanks to the Parson, Ishmaelhad hitherto been kept out of this maelstrom of gloomy fears, but nowthat Annie, with the vicarious piety of so many women, had set her mindon his "conversion, " he too was to run the gamut of religious emotion, in which it has been said there are contained all the others. 

Ishmael, in so far as at that age he could be said to wish to attend anyplace of prayer at all, was quite pleased to be going to chapel, partlybecause he had never been allowed to, and partly because the singing, from without, always sounded so much noisier and more frequent thanchurch music. Annie impressed on him that he was to say nothing to theParson about her intentions, and, though it made Ishmael uncomfortableand even miserable to think of deceiving his friend, he was too afraidof his mother to go against her, especially since this new sustainedviolence was upon her. 

It was a weekday evening when the preacher came to the gaunt littlechapel which affronted the skies at the highest curve of the moorlandroad. Annie had put on her Sunday clothes, though she had ripped thefeather out of her bonnet as a concession to the spirit of repentance, and she dressed Ishmael with care in the fine little nankeen suit withbraided tunic that the Parson's housekeeper had made for him. She oiledhis unruly black hair till it looked as though painted on to his bullethead, except for the obstinate forelock that would fall over his eyes;then she took him firmly by the hand and they set out together. Vassie, to whom any gathering was better than none, was already gone with a girlfriend; John-James, who was the Martha of the family, had too much toattend to at the farm; while Archelaus was frankly a scoffer, though anuneasy one. Neither was Annie anxious for the presence of her otherchildren at chapel. The belief that as a judgment on her thesedearly-loved ones were not to be among the saved had been growing; itwas to be Ishmael whom the Lord demanded of her; it was by the tail ofhis little tunic that she, clinging, should also be swept into theregion of the secure. Archelaus had failed her; that must be meant toshow that it was not the children of her heart who were chosen by theAlmighty. It was with a set mind and look that she urged Ishmael alongthe rough track that curved inland over the moor, its rain-filled rutsshining in the glamorous evening light. 

They were not the only people on that errand; the pale road wasscattered with moving specks of blackness--solitary old men and womenthat stumbled on faster than they had done for years in their anxietylest no place should be left for them; family groups already discussingall they had heard of the preacher; knots of youths, half-ribald andhalf-curious, encouraging each other as over their reluctant spiritsthere blew the first breath of that dread which was to send them, shaking, to the penitents' bench. Little children, sagging sideways fromthe hand of a grown-up relation, dragged their feet along that road, taken to the means of salvation willy-nilly. 

Ishmael's heart began to stir within him; the sight of so many peopleall intent on the same way affected him curiously with a tingling ofexcitement. But at the first glimpse of the hideous chapel--one of thosebuildings found throughout the Duchy which rebuke God for ever havingcreated beauty--seemed to Ishmael like some awful monster sucking in itsprey. The chapel had one chimney cocked like an ear, and two large frontwindows that were the surprised eyes in a face where the door made amouth, into which the black stream of people was pouring. If he had everheard of Moloch he would have been struck by the resemblance, andunfairly so, for when revivals were not in the air that ugly littlechapel was served very faithfully by a spiritually-minded minister, whohurled himself all the year round against the obduracy of the people. Ishmael had a quick movement of withdrawal as his mother led him inthrough the prosaic yellow-grained doors, but it availed him nothing. Another moment and he was being propelled into a pew. 

They were in good time, and Ishmael stared about him curiously. Theplace was very bare and ugly--the walls washed a cold pale green, thepews painted a dull chocolate that had flaked off in patches, the pulpita great threatening erection that stood up in the midst of the pews anddominated them, like a bullying master confronting a pack of littleboys. 

The chapel was lit by lamps hung in iron brackets, and, the oil usedbeing extracted from pilchards, a strong fishy odour pervaded the air. The pews soon filled to overflowing; people even sat up the steps ofthe pulpit and stood against the walls; every place was taken save inthe front pew that was being kept for penitents. Annie had told Ishmaelof its import, and he stared at it in morbid fascination. 

There was a stir and a sound throughout the chapel when the preachermade his appearance. Quite an ordinary-looking man, thought Ishmael witha sense of flatness, unable to note the height of the brow and itsnarrowness at the temples, the nervous twitching of the lids over theprotuberant eyeballs and the abrupt outward bulge of the head above thecollar at the back. Abimelech Johns was a tin-miner who had spent hisdays in profane swearing and coursing after hares with greyhounds untilthe Lord had thrown him into a trance like that which overtook Saul ofTarsus, and not unlike an epileptic fit Abimelech himself had had inchildhood. Since the trance he was a changed man; his passion for soulswas now as great as his passion for pleasure had been before, and he hada name for working himself and his congregations up to a higher pitchthan any one who had been on that circuit for years past. It was knownto be a terrible thing to see Abimelech wrestling with the Lord. 

The meeting began quietly enough with a long extemporary prayer from thepreacher that was more a confident button-holing of the Almighty, andIshmael began to feel bored and at the same time relieved. Then thefirst thrill of instinctive protest ran through him as the voices of oldand young arose in a hymn:

 "There is a dreadful hell And everlasting pains, Where sinners do with devils dwell, In darkness, fire and chains. "

Thus bellowed the strong voices of the men and the reedier tones of thewomen, while the clear little pipes of the children went upcomplacently. Ishmael was not alarmed yet, but his attention wasattracted. Then Abimelech went up into the pulpit and stood there a fewmoments with closed eyes, communing with unseen powers before enteringon the good fight. When he opened them it could be seen that in one hehad a slight cast; this was wont to grow more marked with emotion, andgave at all times the disconcerting impression that he was looking everyway at once. It seemed to Ishmael that that light glittering gaze wasfixed on him, and he was aware of acute discomfort. Annie whispered himsharply not to fidget, and the next moment the preacher gave out histext: "For many are called, but few are chosen. " With a long breath ofanticipation the congregation settled itself to listen. 

Of what was done and said that evening Ishmael fortunately only carriedaway a blurred impression, owing to the frenzy that it all threw himinto. Every text in the Old Testament and the New that bore on hell-fireand the unrelenting wrath of God the preacher poured down. He impressedon his hearers that eternity went on for ever and ever, that eachnight's sleep in this world might be the last moment of unconsciousnessthe soul would know for everlasting. He painted man as being guilty fromhis start, only to be saved by the grace of this offended tyrant Who hadmade him vile because it seemed good to Him so to do. The preachercalled on all present to flee from the wrath to come, from theinevitable condemnation hanging over them if they persisted in theirsins; he talked of lusts and dishonesties and lies and envyings, andaccused everyone of all of them. Ishmael, his heart turning cold withinhim, remembered how he had lied to the Parson about that evening'smeeting, how he lied to his mother many times a day for the sake ofease; remembered how he and Jacka's John-Willy had pored over a snailwhich they had unearthed in the act of laying her eggs. There they were, still adhering to her--a cluster of little opaque white spheres, likesoapy bubbles. He and John-Willy had used the occasion to try and add totheir store of knowledge, and the memory of that unedifying discussionmade Ishmael burn now. That time, too, when he stole his mother's Biblefrom her room that he might puzzle over portions of it which he hadbetter have left unread. True, it had been John-Willy--whose householddid not include a Bible and who could not read--who had started him onthe course and urged him on, for as boys go, especially country-bredboys, Ishmael was singularly clean of thought by nature, and also farmore ignorant than he knew, but none the less conscience accused him andhim only. He knew the sin of it, because he was aware of what the Parsonthought of such goings-on, and John-Willy had no such guide to right andwrong. All these crimes thronged on him now, and still the awful voicewent on. The chapel grew hotter and hotter, and the flames shuddered atthe wicks till to Ishmael's starting eyes the shadowy walls seemeda-quiver, and the people's faces swelled and diminished again. Thegroans that began to sound from all around him bewildered him so thatsight and hearing became one confused sense and the place seemed darkwith the groaning. Then cries began to pierce the medley of sound andvision. "Lord, save us, we perish!" shrieked a woman just behindIshmael, while Annie rocked herself back and forth, the tears streamingdown her face as she gave vent to little howls like an animal indistress. 

 * * * * *

The preacher was clutching the rim of the pulpit with both hands, hisface had turned to a curious greenish colour, his eyes were rolledupwards till only the whites could be seen: he was no longer articulate;convulsive shudders tore at him, froth dabbled his chin. Suddenly hefell down inside the pulpit and was lost to view, all except thosefearful hands, that clutched and beat at the rim. Then that too ceased, and they hung over motionless, like the hands of someone drowned. . . . 

The whole chapel was clamorous now with cries and groanings, but acomparative stillness fell as the preacher's hands gripped the edge ofthe pulpit again and he dragged himself erect. The sweat ran down hiswhite face and splashed like tears on to the Bible before him. 

"Who is going to stand forth and be saved?" he yelled: "Who amongst youis still a prisoner to Satan? Let him come forth and confess the Lard. Isee 'ee over there"--pointing a shaking forefinger--"you'm hesitating. You can't make up your mind to give up that sin you love. Give it up, orthis night thy soul shall be required of thee, and all the devils inhell shall play at ball with it in the midst of the flames. "

Several men, each convinced that finger had threatened him, rose totheir feet and struggled towards the penitents' pew, the tears streamingdown their drawn faces, their breath rasping as though they had beenrunning. A young girl sprang up and ripped the ribbon off the strawbonnet she was wearing; the sharp tearing sound added an alien note tothe babel. Then she too, trembling violently, attained the pew and fellon her knees, the despoiled bonnet askew on her bowed head. One afteranother all those not already converted made their way through theencouraging throng to the fateful pew. 

Annie shook Ishmael by the arm. 

"Get up, " she urged excitedly; "go to the pew, Ishmael. Confess theLard, de 'ee hear? You'm got to confess the Lard. "

But Ishmael, sick with fear, was crouching down, trying to shield botheyes and ears at the same time with his enfolding arms. He shrieked asAnnie touched him. 

"Go to wance, " she commanded. "You heard what the minister said? You'lldie and go to hell unless you repent. Get up and be saved . . . ;" and shedrew him to his feet, his struggles unavailing against her. 

But at sight of that sinister pew, choked with its weeping throng ofugly people, Ishmael went distraught with fear. He felt if he were putin that place of dread he would die at once. He fought Annie's grasp fora moment, screaming wildly, then collapsed in a little heap against her. 

Annie thought he was dead, and that her offering, like Cain's, hadproved unacceptable on high. She drew back in horror, her hands dabbingaimlessly from her own face to the sides of the pew. It was anotherwoman, a comfortable creature who had remained very unaffectedthroughout the service, who gathered Ishmael up and forced her way outwith him in her arms. 

As she laid him on the grass outside a burst of praise came through theopen door of the chapel; the scene of fear was over, and the penitents, confident of their salvation, were rejoicing together. All was peace andhappiness, but Ishmael lay, his head upon the steep lap of the stranger, quite unaware that the Lord was appeased at last. 

CHAPTER VIII

SEED-TIME

The Parson was a cassocked whirlwind in his wrath. He said little, notbeing a man who wasted words when a thing was done, but he acteddecisively, pinning Annie by her terror to agree to a permanentalteration in affairs. As soon as Ishmael could be moved--for the fit hehad had left him weak and nervous--the Parson took him to the Vicarage, and there for the next three or four years, till he went to St. Renny, Ishmael made his home. 

They were, he realised much later, the happiest years of his life. Looking back on them, he grudged his unconsciousness of the fact at thetime. There is nothing in the world quite like the atmosphere of anold-fashioned English parsonage--the quietness, the well-bred but simpleair of it, with a tang of scholarly mustiness, the whole of a fragrancenever entirely lost to those who have known it intimately. Something ofthe spirit of George Herbert, that homely gentleman of unassumingsaintliness, the epitome of everything that was best and mostcharacteristic in the Anglican Church, has descended on countryparsonages ever since and is only now beginning to wear thin. And it wasthe Church of Herbert, of Jeremy Taylor, of Traherne--how above all hewould have loved the works of Traherne if they had then beendiscovered!--that Boase represented. A Church domestic, so to speak, with priestly powers, but wielded as the common laws of a household. Thewidening ripples of the Oxford Movement had touched even the West withits spreading circle, but though it had his respect it left himcuriously unstirred. Its doctrines were his already, perhaps with awider interpretation here and there; and for ritual, except in so farthat he liked everything done decently, he had no feeling. His sense ofreligion was profound but simple, as simple as daily bread. He held thatit should be allowed to become part of a child as unforcedly as air orfood, and he had an especial horror of what are known as heart-to-hearttalks. Above all he abominated revivals, he knew too much of the greaterapathy that welled in their hysterical wake. Wesley, he held, had had amission, which is a very different thing. 

Therefore the Parson's first care with Ishmael was to sweep him as bareof all thought as might be. He even stopped him when the child, stillconscience-ridden, would have poured out exaggerations of misdoings, though he registered the knowledge he guessed at for future guidance. Itwas against Ishmael's nature to be expansive, and if he had been so onthat occasion he would probably never have felt so easy with the Parsonagain. As it was, he began, in his secretive way, to copy Boase at allpoints that seemed good to him, doing things of his own initiative whichhe would have rebelled from being told. When the Parson got him a ponyat fair-time, Ishmael soon gathered that a gentleman rode withoutkicking his horse in the belly or jagging at its mouth, as was thecustom in that part of the world. He learnt, too, by the simplereappearance of a tin bath, flanked by an earthen pitcher of water, inhis room morning after morning, that a gentleman washed all over everyday. At first this bored him considerably, but after one day when theParson took him down to the cove to bathe, and he had occasion to beashamed of his grubby little legs and feet beside the other's shiningwhiteness, that too altered. Yet the Parson had said nothing, hardlygiven more than a look. In the same way, when he gathered that theParson trusted him to tell the truth, and that no grievous consequencesattended it, he gradually ceased to lie, though this took time, sincelying with him, as with many children, had become an instinct. Graduallythe whole atmosphere of the Vicarage, with its shiny mahogany furniture, its faded rep curtains, its old prints and few unassuming miniatures ofthe quiet country gentlefolk who were Boase's ancestors, its queermingled smell of old books and lavender, all became part of Ishmael'sconsciousness. 

He had a great deal of freedom, once the morning's lessons were over, for the Parson was a busy man and his parish many miles wide. At firstBoase had been rather worried about these spaces in Ishmael's time, forthere were no gentlefolk's children for him to play with nearer thanseven or eight miles, and it was a necessary part of the great plan tokeep from undue familiarity with the village boys. There was alwaysPhoebe, but Ishmael was growing of an age to despise girls. Besides, nice soft little thing that Phoebe was, she talked with a dialect asthick as treacle. Eventually, however, it turned out that girls were tobe Ishmael's chief companions, and the Parson concluded it would do himno harm to be under what is commonly supposed to be a softeninginfluence before plunging into the stern masculinities of St. Renny. Itwas John-James who brought about the feminine factor in Ishmael's days, some six months after the Vicarage period had begun. 

It was early spring, the first rathe-primroses were showing theirmilk-fair faces on the cliff, and the light-green leaves were beginningto uncrumple on the wind-wilted elders, when John-James appeared on amission of his own at the Vicarage. There was a good deal of coming andgoing between the Manor and the Vicarage, for the Parson laid himselfopen to no charge of alienating affections, but this visit was quickwith a portentousness beyond the normal. To begin with, John-James askedfor Mr. Boase instead of for Ishmael, and when he was shown into thestudy he stood revolving his cap in his hands and some weighty thoughtin his brain till the Parson bade him sit down and say what it was hadbrought him. But John-James still stood and, his eyes fixed anxiously onthe Parson, at last blurted out:

"Mr. Boase, you'm tachen Ishmael things like gentry do belong to knaw, aren't 'ee?"

"Why, yes, " said Boase. 

"I want to knaw if 'ee'll tache our Vassie too. Archelaus, he'em tooold, and thinks on naught but gwain with females, and Tom's doen finewith Mr. Tonkin, and for me--I'm not that class. Farmen's my traade. Butthe maid, she'm so quick and clever, 'tes only fitty she should have herchance same as the lil'un. She's gwain to be 'ansome, white as a lilyshe is, and it'll be better for she if she do have things to think oflike the gentry. For if Ishmael's gentry, there's no rason Vassieshoulden be. They'm the same blood after all. An' it's dangerous blood, Mr. Boase. "

The Parson sat for a moment in silence while John-James shifted his feetanxiously. Mingled with the swift appreciation of the humour of himselfas tutor to the arrogant Vassie was a pang of reproachful conscience. 

"What does your mother say?" he temporised; "and Vassie?"

"Mother's willen, only she did say you was so took up with the lil'unyou wouldn't take no account of Vassie, seeing she'm only a bastard likethe rest of us. But Vassie said if you thought it was the right thing todo by her you'd do it. "

Boase had as little vanity as any man, but it was pleasurably pricked bythis. Also he still reproached himself. 

"John-James, " he began almost diffidently, "you mustn't talk like thatabout bastards--as though it made any difference to me. You know itisn't because of that I look after Ishmael and treat him differently;it's because he was left to me as a charge. I want to make a fine thingof him and for him to make a fine thing of Cloom. . . . But that includeshis overcoming this barrier between him and his family; it won't becomplete till he and Archelaus can meet in friendship as brothersshould, without a grudge or a fear. All this bad blood needs sweetening. "

"I daresay, " said John-James, "but meanwhile Ishmael'll be growen upfurther and further from his folk. "

"But you wouldn't have me not educate him, would you?" urged Boase, speaking as to a fellow-man; "you say yourself it's too late withArchelaus. It always was; he hated me from Ishmael's birth. "

"That's right enough, " agreed John-James; "it's only Vassie you canhelp. And helpen her will help your plan too, won't it? For it'll makeone of his own kind in his family. And she's gwain to be 'ansome, sheis. "

"You're quite right, John-James, and I'm obliged to you for thesuggestion. I don't think I can supply an education much good to a younglady, but we'll see what can be done. "

"Mother says, " mumbled John-James, "that happen later Vassie could go towhat they do call a boarding school to Plymouth church town, seen' asthe money won't be Ishmael's yet awhile. . . . Only she must learn tocipher and make nadlework flowers afore go, or the other maids'll mockat she. "

"I can teach the ciphering but not the needlework flowers, I fear, " saidthe Parson, laughing; "my housekeeper will have to be called in overthat. Well, you tell Vassie to be here by nine in the morning and sheshall begin her education. Whether she sticks to it is her own affair. "

"She'll stick to it, " prophesied John-James. "She'm terrible proud, isVassie. "

That was how it came about that Vassilissa Beggoe, half poutingdefiance, half eager, began to pull herself out of the slough into whichher race had slipped. There were difficulties perpetuallyarising--Ishmael had to be snubbed for sneering at her abysmalignorance; and a course more adapted to her needs and temperament thanthe classic one the Parson was unfolding before the boy had to bearrived at; and her own recurring fits of suspicion and obstinacy had tobe overcome. The intimacy between brother and sister did not deepenperceptibly, for the three years between them made too wide a gulf atthat period in life, and to counter Ishmael's scorn of her as a girl andfar more ignorant than himself, was her scorn of him as younger, lessdaring, much less swift of apprehension, though keener of application. Each began to have a certain respect for the other, nevertheless--she inhis superiority over the other boys she knew, he in her splendour thatmade the other boys' sisters seem dim. These two were laying thefoundations for possible intimacy later on, though there was too muchagainst it now. 

The Parson felt it as a matter for self-reproach that he never becamereally fond of Vassie; her hardness, and a certain set determinationabout her that was rather fine as well, blinded him to her good points. She was certainly unlovable at that period, but she and the Parson hadnatures which would mutually fail to respond at the best of times. Beingwhat he was, this made him all the more careful to do all he could forher, but he never rejoiced in her really quick intellect as he did inthe slow sensitive one of Ishmael, or even in the kittenishsuperficiality of Phoebe's. 

For the miller had no rest when he heard what was going on at theVicarage of a morning until his Phoebe was reaping equal benefits, orbenefits that would have been equal had Phoebe the temperament toavail herself of them. If the Parson had not possessed a natural geniusfor teaching, even his patience would never have survived thoseschoolroom struggles with three children of differing ages andcapacities. But he was interested in Vassie's determination to improveherself, and of little Phoebe he was fond in the way one cannot helpbeing fond of some soft confiding little animal that rubs up againstone. 

The miller built much on those few years of childish friendship duringwhich he told himself his Phoebe too was learning to be as good asanyone else, but the Parson had no fears on that score. Ishmael wasgoing, as he saw things, to be a man of wider ideas than ever littlefacile Phoebe, with her superficial quickness in acquiring anything"lady-like, " would be able to fill. 

Meanwhile, the Parson told Ishmael, in language that made everythingseem clean and wonderful, as much as he thought wise of the mysterieswhich had perplexed him and Jacka's John-Willy over the snail. Theideals Ishmael gradually absorbed during these years made the thought ofthe furtive conversations with John-Willy seem hateful, and with theirswift acquisitiveness of values both little girls appreciated that hewould be superior to them if they indulged in any of the vulgaritiesmost children are apt to fall into at one period, harmless enough infact, but not cleansing to the mind. Therefore each of the threeaffected the other two in some way, and the pattern of Ishmael's life, though so essentially isolated as everyone's must be in greater or lessmeasure, was intermingled at many of its edges with those of the twogirls'. But always it was the Parson who held his heart as far as anyhuman entity could be said to do so. For it was still the world ofthings and ideas which filled the round of his horizon most for Ishmael, and in that world the thought of his great trust held ever-strengtheningplace. 

One great cause for relief he had, which came upon him soon after thesettlement of the scholastic arrangement at the Vicarage, and that wasthe departure of Archelaus, who enlisted and went to the Crimea. Laterhe was wounded and discharged, but even then he did not come home, butwent to the goldfields of New South Wales. The great fever of that rushwas on, and, any form of mining being in a Cornishman's blood, therewere many that went from West Penwith alone. The malignant presence ofArchelaus withdrawn, though he did not understand the malignancy, Ishmael felt lighter, freer. Tom he hardly ever saw, and the girls wereunder dire penalties from the Parson never to hint to Ishmael the truereason of the domestic complications of Cloom. That Boase reserved forhimself, as a difficult telling, which Ishmael might take hardly, andfor which he was to be well fortified in the years of childhood. 

Long after, on looking back, Ishmael saw better the whole atmosphere ofthose years from eight to twelve than he did when in the midst of them. Golden summers, when he spent whole days out on the cliff or moor withthe Parson, their specimen cases at their backs; ruddy autumns when thepeewits cried in the dappled sky and the blackberries were thick on themarsh; grey winters when the rain and mist blotted the world out, and heand the Parson sat by a glowing fire of wreckage, the Parson readingaloud from Jorrocks or Pickwick, or the entrancing tales of CaptainMarryat, and later, for more solid matter, Grote's "History of Greece, "its democratic inferences counterbalanced by "Sartor Resartus, " whosethunderous sentences enthralled Ishmael, if their purport was yet beyondhim; wonderful pale springs when the sunshine and the blood in his veinswere both like golden wine. So the time went, and it mostly belonged tohimself and his dreams, with even the Parson more unconsciously feltthan actively realised, and with the two girls still more upon thefringe, though it was true there were splendid games, such as Cavaliersand Roundheads, which could not be played by himself. For this andkindred affairs Vassie and Phoebe were of great use, though Phoebecried if she had to be a Roundhead too often out of her turn. Still, shewas a good little thing, but when the fateful date arrived which was tosee the journey to St. Renny, Ishmael had no pang at leaving her oranyone else. He was not a shy boy, and felt only intense interest at thethought of what lay before him. For the journey in a railway train wasalone enough to set the blood thrilling--it was a thing that no one whomIshmael knew, excepting Parson Boase, had ever undertaken. It was only amatter of five years since the West Cornwall Railway from Truro Road toPenzance had been opened. The same year the great Duke had died, but theopening of the railway, with the mayor and all the magistrates and thevolunteer band in attendance, had made far the greater stir in WestPenwith. Iron Dukes were intangible creatures compared with ironengines, although the Parson had preached about the former and seemed tothink, as some parishioners said, that it might have been the AlmightyHimself who had passed away. Wellington had gone, but the railway hadcome--therein lay the difference; and Ishmael swelled with pride as hetalked casually to Phoebe of the experience before him. 

The miller lent his trap for the drive into Penzance, for, incredible asit may seem, there was still hardly a cart in the countryside, all thecarrying of turf, furze, and produce being done on donkeys' back, andthus it came about that Phoebe came too to see him off. She held herround softly-tinted face, with the mouse-coloured ringlets falling awayfrom it, up to his in the railway station as he prepared to climb to hisplace in the pumpkin-shaped compartment. He ensured a tear-wet pillowfor her that night by merely shaking her hand at the full length of arigid arm. 

CHAPTER IX

FRESH PASTURE

For most children the first day at school is a memorable landmark; forIshmael it was the more so because all his life hitherto he had lived inone atmosphere, without the little voyagings and visitings in which morehappily-placed children are able to indulge. The change to St. Renny, although in the same county, was a great one, for whereas Cloom lay onthe wind-swept promontory where only occasional folds in the land couldgive some hint of what gentler-nurtured pastures might be like, thewhole little grey town of St. Renny seemed embowered in foliage that didnot indeed encroach upon its actual ways, but that gave the rollingslopes of its guarding hills a richness of dark green that Ishmael hadnever imagined trees could hold. The life itself bore a very similaranalogy to that he had led hitherto, not because the school was at allluxurious or riotous, but because his life, even at the Vicarage, hadbeen of an unusual austerity. This new world held at once greaterrestrictions and more liberty of spirit, for at school every boy worksout his own salvation or the reverse. Not being shy, Ishmael had noinner terrors to overcome--only a feeling for self-defence which was theoutcome of his anomalous position. The Parson hoped and thought therewould be no disagreeables about that at St. Renny; the headmaster, ofcourse, knew of it, but of the boys, those adepts at torture, nonehappened to be from the furthest West. For St. Renny still bore thereputation it had attained under a famous headmaster, when the bestknown of West Country novelists had been a scholar there, and parentsfrom right up the country, even from London itself, if they had theblood of Devon or Cornwall in their veins, sent their sons to grey St. Renny. It was with a London boy, son of a one-time Plymouth merchant whohad become an alderman and a shining light of Bloomsbury, that Ishmael'sfortunes were to be most closely linked. 

In spite of his pose of self-sufficiency--so ingrained as to deceivehimself--Ishmael's heart beat fast as he followed the Parson through thearched doorway of grey granite that was to open so often for him in theyears to follow. He was filled with an inarticulate wonder at theknowledge that it was to be so, and it occurred to him for the firsttime--for children, like animals, accept what comes to them verynaturally--that it was odd one could be so completely disposed of bygrown-up people, even for one's undoubted good. . . . 

Of the interview with the headmaster, so square of jowl and brow and yetso kindly, Ishmael remembered little in after years; for it becameblurred by all he grew to know of "Old Tring" during the long thoughintermittent association of school. Old Tring rang a bell, after a gruffsentence of welcome, and, apparently as glad as Ishmael for an excuse topart, told him he should be shown round by one Killigrew. Old Tringadded that he, Ishmael Ruan, would be sure to like Killigrew. Ishmaeldoubted this; somehow, waiting there in that still room, whosetranquillity seemed so much of its essence as to be more than a mereabsence of noise, waiting and gazing at the strip of sunlit High Streetthat seemed lambent by contrast with the dimness within, Ishmaelconceived a dislike to Killigrew. The name sounded brisk, brutal even;Ishmael was unaware that it was the fact that he had been told he wouldlike Killigrew which awaked his antagonism. Unconsciously he resentedthat this old man should take advantage of knowing more of books tothink that therefore he knew what he, Ishmael, would and would not like. 

They all three waited; the Parson ran a finger along the lines ofcalf-bound books, then paused, Old Tring at his elbow. Ishmael wasforgotten, isolated in himself, and, without warning, in the irrationalway of such phases, he was overwhelmed by one of those strange periodsin which, though actually but a second or so, time seems to hold itsbreath and the consciousness, muffled by some overwhelming dimness, isarrested and stands alone, on a pin-point of eternity, without past orfuture. It seemed to him that nothing would ever move again in the dimroom, where for this fraction of a second everything was motionlessexcept the dust motes that danced in the beam slanting through the lowwindow, wreathing this way and that like steam within the strip ofbrightness, but ceasing to be visible at the edge as sharply as thoughthey ceased to exist--as though an impalpable line ruled in the airwould not allow the twisting coils to pass beyond, even when the patterndemanded it. Ishmael stared at this aerial path of living light, hismind hypnotised by it, and the remainder of the room by its contrastingdensity seemed to fall away from him; out of a great distance came theParson's voice saying, "So you've got a first edition of theAntiquities. . . . " Followed the soft rubbing sound of one smooth bookbeing drawn out from between its companions, then the crisper noise oflarge pages being turned. 

The moment, which had seemed so intensely the present to Ishmael thatduring it he had thought it could never cease to be, reeled and sankinto the past, leaving him with the feeling that time was once more inmotion, like a vast clock whose pendulum has stopped for one beat, onlyto resume its swing again. At once it became possible that everythingshould go on, the idea of the incursion of the boy Killigrew ceased tobe wildly chimerical, and with this acceptance of it Killigrew himselfwas in the room. 

The vibrant path was no longer bright to the shutting-off of all else, material and mental; the Parson looked up from his first edition; OldTring's hand, advancing, came into the strip of light, and seemed tospring to life, swelled to huge dimensions, became of a glowingwhiteness. Killigrew, red-headed, freckled, standing with an air ofsurly self-protection, suddenly raised his light lashes to give thesweetest smile Ishmael had ever seen. Always, even in moments ofirritation, it was to remain with him as illuminative of Killigrew--thatpeculiar radiant smile which carried him so softly, if not triumphantly, through life. It would have been a disgusting smile if it had beencalculated, even self-conscious; as it was, it made of Killigrew acreature subtly apart, though for no deeper reason. 

Old Tring said: "Killigrew, this is Ruan, who has come from Bolerium, or, as you would vulgarly term it, Land's End. Take him and show him theschool, but bring him back to have tea with his guardian. " The two boyswent out and as he was shutting the door Ishmael, who had the woodlandhearing of a little animal, caught some low-toned words of the Parson's:". . . Makings of a fine spirit. I assure you, Tring . . . " That washimself, Ishmael Ruan, whom they were speaking of. "A fine spirit . . . ";the phrase pricked his imagination--he swelled to it. He glanced atKilligrew, who was whistling in rosy unconsciousness of proximity to anyspirit at all, and suddenly felt enormously relieved that the other boyhad not heard, aware, by the new angle to which he was alreadyresponding, that Killigrew would have been disgusted rather thanimpressed. Once in the courtyard, the freemasonry of young thingsreleased from the pressure of grown-ups drew their eyes together. Unconsciously Ishmael thrust his hands into the trouser pockets of hisnew serge suit, in imitation of Killigrew, whose swagger was really athing inimitable. Something stirred in Ishmael which had hitherto beenunknown to him; it was not love, which in greater or lesser degree healready knew--for he was an affectionate boy in his inarticulate way--itwas not merely an impulse for friendship; that would have been no alienthing. It was the beginning of that relationship which only masculinecreatures ever really know, a relationship which is intimate withoutever making inroads on privacy; full of pleasure in companionshipwithout any feeling of a blank when apart; where love cannot be said toexist, and yet of which, if the irrevocableness of death remove one ofthe two, there remains to the other a void that is felt recurrently forthe rest of his life whenever anything arises which that other personalone could have felt and appreciated in quite the same way. It was noDavid and Jonathan friendship which grew between Ishmael and Killigrewsuch as may sometimes be found among boys, but it was an intimacy that, in its aloof way, was to add something to the pattern of their livesthat neither would have found without it. 

In after years, if Ishmael had examined into the thing, which he neverdid, he would have seen that it was because, widely different as theirtwo natures were, each had a side that corresponded. For everyone has apart of him, nearly always the larger, which is in relation with thegeneral run of the world, and also a part which is out of key with it. Neither is more real than the other, though one is always bigger andmore insistent than the other, and in the relative proportions liesevery possibility. It was those parts of them which were out of key withthe ordinary acceptances that were attuned in Ishmael and Killigrew, though neither was as yet aware they had such aspects, far less in whatmeasure. On that first afternoon and for several days afterwards theywere merely unthinkingly aware of a blind tolerance for each other thatrose more nearly to a warm respect over the matter of Killigrew'sbadger. 

This attractive though violent animal lurked in a hutch artfullyconcealed between the roof and the rafters at the far end of thedormitory where Killigrew slept. A trap door gave admission to the dimthree-cornered place where heads had to be bowed for fear of the beamsand voices and footsteps tuned down as low as possible lest someone inauthority should overhear. For the badger was contraband, or so itsowner, for greater glory, chose to assume, though as a matter of fact itwas more than likely had permission been asked to keep the beast itwould have been accorded, for St. Renny had its reputation as the greatnaturalists' school to keep up. Half the glamour surrounding the savagepet would have vanished, however, and the secret was jealously guarded, the badger himself, by his unconquerable stench, being the only personlikely to give it away. Luckily the hutch was not directly over thedormitory, but right at the angle of the roof, where a low window, keptalways open by Killigrew, allowed the worst of the smell to be waftedaway. The increasing size of the badger and its consequent fiercenesswere likely to make its ultimate retention impossible; even now, a mereball of striped fluff, it bit savagely whenever it was handled. 

Badgers, which are often erroneously supposed to be nearly extinct inEngland, swarm over Cornwall, so that Killigrew's specimen did not enjoyany special distinction as a rarity, save in its capacity as a "pet. "They are, however, very difficult to catch, being strong and cunning andarmed with terrific teeth and claws, and Killigrew was passionatelyattached to his unyielding prisoner, not so much for its own sake as forwhat it represented for him--outlawry, romance, the touch of the wildwhich glorified life. Not on the first day was Ishmael accountedworthy, or even safe, as a repository for this secret, but whenKilligrew did show it him, Ishmael rose in importance through hisintimate knowledge of badgers and their ways. 

"Wouldn't _He_ let you keep it if _He_ knew?" asked Ishmael, when, finger and thumb round its neck and another finger firmly gripping undera forepaw, he had held and admired the spitting animal. 

"Rather not. We're not allowed to _keep_ anything, though they make ussweat across the moor what they call 'observing the animal creation inits own haunts. ' They like one to grind over beastesses and butterfliesand suchlike. "

"I know a lot about them, " boasted Ishmael. 

"Then you'd better keep your mouth shut about it, that's all I can say, or the fellows will think you're a prig. It was all right when it wasstarted because the fellows were keen on it themselves, but then themasters took it up, and of course we had to drop it. We're off bugs inthis shop. "

Ishmael digested in silence the profundity of the point of view thuspresented to him, and, according to his habit, quickly made it part ofhis practice. For his first weeks at school he kept very silent, absorbing its traditions and the unwritten laws made by the boysthemselves, on the nice observance of which hung respect and popularity. 

The Grammar School of St. Renny was an old-fashioned affair even forthose days, but it had a certain name in a quiet way. It was run onclassical lines, Greek and Latin being considered the only two subjectsworth a gentleman's attention. Botany and entomology were the unofficialsubjects that had won the school its name, but Ishmael soon found thatto show any keenness for these two pursuits was to class yourself aprig. The robuster natures preferred rod and line, or line only, in thewaters of Bolowen Pool to any dalliance with stink-pots and specimencases. Like far greater schools, it was really run by the traditionsevolved by the boys. There were certain things that were the thing andcertain other things that were not the thing, and these variedoccasionally. One term you simply had to wear a dark blue-and-white tiefor going into the town and bear's grease your hair; another term acertain slovenliness in dress was the thing. You dismissed all womenkindas trivial and useless, but you were in love with the doctor's daughter, a stately, full-blown damsel who floated, so to speak, up the churchupon the swaying bubble of her crinoline every Sunday morning, and sat, sunk to the waist in the swelling waves of silk, worshipped by a row ofeyes from the school pew. 

During the Sunday promenade around the churchyard--an unchangingritual--you manoeuvred to be the one of the couple passing her as shecame up the short path that bisected the circular one where you weremarching. The two boys who were leading had the advantage of being ableto set the pace more or less, but often they miscalculated the time ofher appearance, and then some other couple, by a judicious lagging for amoment or a sudden quickening, achieved the meeting that after all wasno more than a furtive interchange of glances, supercilious oralmost-smiling on her part, according to her mood and the boy thatencountered it. None of the boys ever met the damsel in any other way, except sometimes at a select party; but this adoration was a cult, though a purely academic one, so to speak. The true goddess of theschool was far otherwise, as Ishmael was to find. 

Another feature of life at St. Renny was the weekly market-day. It wasforbidden to go into the town, it being placed out of bounds for theoccasion, and therefore to slip out and drink cider at the corner shopand come back with your pockets stuffed with buns and solid countrysweets of gaudy hues was a deed that placed you high in the respect ofyour fellows. Ishmael achieved this once as a matter of form, and then, having no real interest in it, turned his attention to other matters. Onordinary days the boys had a very real freedom, only limited by the hourat which they must return, and Ishmael and Killigrew nearly always tooktheir rods and spent the half-holidays at Bolowen Pool, rarely catchinganything, for the trout were abnormally shy; but Ishmael at least hadthe true fisherman's temperament, and was content to sit all day at oneend of a rod and line even without a fish at the other. As forKilligrew, he was soon following where Ishmael led, and would have gonebug-hunting with him had he so decreed, though he felt relieved thatIshmael had cast such things aside. 

Ishmael was casting aside much these days. He was at that expanding agewhich accepts what it is taught as good, but thinks it fine to throw itover. Later comes the age of thinking for oneself and concluding thatwhatever one has been taught is bad. Curiously enough the outward resultof the two states is the same. Only later comes the period of judicioussifting, and by then characteristics, tastes, habits, have unwittinglyformed such bias that true poise is almost unattainable. Ishmael'sroot-ideas were unchanged, but he conformed to all the fads of theschool, even, as he became more of a personage, adding to them, for hisinborn dread of ridicule prevented him from being an iconoclast and hisbent for dominance made some action, one way or the other, necessary. The Parson sank more and more into the background, but there came overthe rim of his world a new figure that, oddly enough, filled much thesame place. 

On that first night at school, when the Parson had gone back home andIshmael lay in a narrow little bed, one of ten such, in the darkeneddormitory, he shed no tears for the Parson, or for his old companions, nor yet for the strangeness of the new world where he might, in thereaction from the first excitement, have been feeling lonely. He was toosolidly set on getting all that was possible out of his fresh life. Butin his most curious searchings into the likely future as he lay thatnight for an hour or so upon a wakeful pillow, he did not pictureanything as delightful as, in after years, he was to realise HilariaEliot had been for those boys who at the time so casually andunthinkingly enjoyed her wayward companionship. 

CHAPTER X

HILARIA

"Point the toe, if you please young gentlemen; slide well forward andbow to your partner from the waist. . . . Ruan, you have the air of a pokertrying to be graceful. Watch Killigrew and do as he does. Now, alltogether please . . . "; and the row of self-conscious boys bowed, glovedhands upon severely jacketed chests, while as many little girls, awareof doing the thing correctly and of not looking fools in the doing ofit, spread white tarletan skirts in starchy semi-circles by way ofreply. 

It was the weekly dancing class, when Mr. Pierre Sebastian Eliot, who onother days taught French at the Grammar School, undertook to instructthe boys in what he referred to as "the divine art of Terpsichore, " ahabit which had earned for himself the simple nickname of "Terps. " Theclass was held in a spacious room used for balls, both subscription andprivate, at the "George" Inn, and to it came not only those GrammarSchool boys whose parents paid for this polite "extra, " but also themaidens from the gentle families of St. Renny and the neighbourhood. 

Ishmael was dancing opposite Hilaria Eliot, and his enjoyment of it layin knowing that Killigrew, who had basely tried to trip him up shortlybefore, was suffering pangs of envy. After some four years of knowingher, Killigrew was suddenly in love with Miss Eliot and didn't mind whoknew it. In fact, to be accurate, Killigrew's emotion was chiefly basedon a desire to be different from the rest of his world, and what wasthe good of being different unless people knew it?

Thus Killigrew--to Ishmael, who was growing vaguely aware of adifference from his fellows that he could not remedy, the argument wouldhave had no force. Killigrew was neither of those St. Rennyites whodespised girls, nor of those who held the cult of the doctor's daughter, that dizzy exemplar of fashion, nor of those others--a small band theselatter, made up of the best boys in the school, little and big--whoadmired and liked Hilaria as a "good sort. " Killigrew was determined tobe different, and so, like Burns, "battered" himself into love. IfIshmael had been disposed to feel a tender sentiment for her himself, hecould not have cherished it with any comfort, being already cast byKilligrew for the confidant of passion. Thus it came about that, thoughin after years those stolen meetings between Hilaria and a ring of boyswould flash into his memory as being romance in essence, at the timethey held no more thrill for him than might be imparted by some newnovel--contraband in the perpetual war against grown-ups--that she wouldbring to read aloud to them in some hollow of the moor. Always it wasfrom the angle of the third person--that most comfortable ofview-points--that he saw her. Only later by the light that lingeredround her ways did he know how she had stood for beauty. 

Now, as he watched her sway and dip before him, it only struck him thatshe differed from the little misses on her either hand, but quite how, except that he would have said she was jollier, more like a boy, hecouldn't have told. That indeed, translated from boy-like intounmaidenly, was the town's chief complaint against her, or primarilyagainst her father. Mr. Eliot's position was not an easy one, and he didnothing to make it easier. For he was half French, his mother havingbeen brought over as a little girl at the time of the Terror. Therewere people still alive in the 'fifties and 'sixties who remembered theNapoleonic wars and the shadow cast by that giant figure upon the world;indeed, so slowly did thought move down in the far West that it mightalmost have been said that St. Renny was just beginning to realise thewars, and rather resented the fact that English and French had sincefought side by side in the Crimea. Also the vagaries of Napoleon III. Kept England in a perpetual state of distrust, in spite of thechampionship of Lord Palmerston, then in his second Ministry. Mothersstill frighted their babes with the name of Boney, and the French werestill the hereditary enemies of all good Cornishmen, so many of whom hadgone to man the fleet that won at Trafalgar. The obscure feeling ofdistrust that always stirs in the lower classes of remote districts atanything alien did not, of course, extend to the educated people, butMr. Eliot, being poor and very eccentric, refused such championship fromhis equals as might have been his. 

He lived with his daughter and an old housekeeper in a little cottage onthe outskirts of the town, and earned his living by teaching at theGrammar School and giving private lessons in French, dancing, fencing, and physical culture generally. It was this latter that caused him to belooked on with so much suspicion as an eccentric. He actually made hisdaughter, attired in a skirt that only reached to her knees, performinelegant feats on parallel bars and ladders, while he was wont to boastthat she could out-fence any boy at the school. She was an expertswimmer too, and there were rumours, that at summer bathing excursionsshe wore a somewhat similar garment to that of the gymnasium, instead ofone of those long serge gowns reaching to the ankles that ladies werewont to disport themselves in amidst the surf--gowns in which it wasimpossible to do anything but bob up and down at the end of a rope. 

It was curious that a man who was half a Frenchman should have been theone to have such advanced ideas on female education, but then Mr. Eliotwas the son of a refugee, which says much. For those French aristocrats, who never turned hand to a task in their lives till the Revolution, lived to learn very differently after their flight. The farm and theshop taught what the court had failed to impart, and the blood thatdespite folly directs so truly in moments of extremity did not failthem. The children who, had the course of events never been ruffled, would have grown up in a vicious and futile court, were forced topractise economies and learn at first hand the dignity of labour. Withthose families who returned to the increasing viciousness whichculminated under Napoleon III. The lesson may not always have beenlasting, but for those who, like the forbears of Mr. Eliot, alliedthemselves with their English hosts, and remained where they were, thehard life of struggle, if the alliance had not been rich, continued thenew philosophy. Added to all this normal cause, Hilaria's father wascertainly an original, or rather one of those people considered sobecause they are ahead of their time and condemned to misunderstandingin consequence. 

None of it mattered to Mr. Eliot, who drifted about the world in a dazethat, had it been a happy one, would have made him an enviable man. Asit was, his invincible habit of over-sensitive gloom robbed him of thedetachment which is the most truly enviable of all the gifts of thegods. He was a little man, beautifully made, with the high nose, thetossed-back hair, the piercing look of the man at once prejudiced andnervous. He lived wrapt in himself, and saw in his daughter more his ownhope in old age than a creature wonderful in her youth and vitality forher own ends. When the crude heartlessness of the boys racked him orthe well-meaning advances of the gentry offended his alert vanity, itwas to Hilaria that he would turn in thoughts and words to attain thatmeasure of approbation without which his own self-love would havelanguished of inanition. It was Hilaria who healed his hurts, thoughwith increasing difficulty. For there is little gulf, and that easilybridged, between the very young child and the old man, but between theadolescent and the old it is wide and deep. And she was eager where hewas retiring, confident where he was suspicious. With what of pity, lovely but half-patronising too, did she solace him!. . . Between them laythe gulf not only of a generation but of a different habit of thought, of alien tastes, which not all his passionate clutching or her impatienttenderness could bridge for more than a few moments of clinging togetheragainst the world. None of this did he realise, neither did Hilaria, sothey were spared much unhappiness, merely fretting blindly withoutknowing why. 

Hilaria was not a beauty, though she would be considered more nearly sonow than then, when a high forehead and well-sleeked hair were almostnecessities of life. Her low brow--truly Greek in its straightness andthe crisp ripple of her hair around it--was not in favour at that time. The hair, which was of a dull ashen brown, was strained back tightly andconfined by a round comb. Her eyebrows, too straight for the period andtoo thick, nearly met above the short, tip-tilted nose, freckled as aplover's egg, and that at a time when no well brought-up damsel venturedforth in the sun's rays without veil or parasol. Her face was deficientin modelling, being one of those subtly concave faces not without afascination of their own, with an egg-like curve of prominentdelicately-square chin. Her mouth, too large, opened very beautifullywhen she laughed over square thickly-white teeth. Her eyes were smalland of no particular colour, though bright with a birdlike shiningbetween the thick short lashes of a neutral brown. She had a somethingboyish in poise and action that really made her charm, but that also sether hopelessly out of her time. It was impossible to imagine Hilariahappy in a crinoline, and she fought them fiercely, yet crinolines werein full flower, and the one disported by the doctor's daughter of aSunday was the admiration and envy of the feminine members of the town. "I should feel I was in a cage, " quoth Hilaria at the suggestion thatshe should trammel her long legs in such a contraption--unconsciouslyhitting on the essential reason for the allure of crinolines. She had towear one now for dancing-class, as it made movement and spacing sodifferent; but other times she went her wilful way, short nose in air, encouraged by the complacence of her father, who had no more knowledgeof what the country people called her "goings-on" than if he had livedin an alien clime. 

Hilaria was a hoyden. She despised crinolines, girls, Macassar oil, sewing, and deportment. She adored walking, fishing, boys, and climbingtrees. She did outrageous things with a genuine innocence that made themost sensual of the boys careful not to take advantage of her in any badway. That she climbed out of her bedroom window at night to go and meetsome three of the boys from the Grammar School and with them test thewishing pool on the moor on Midsummer Eve was proof of all these things, and yet what a scandal it made in St. Renny when the fact leaked out!. . . 

Hilaria was at present going through a phase of "trying to be good, " asthe bishop was coming to hold a confirmation, and only those accountedworthy were to be confirmed. Her goodness was of that healthy elastickind natural to children, which never prevents them doing what theywish, because they instinctively keep it in a compartment to itself. There was no small curiosity about the mysterious rite amongst the boyswho were her especial friends, and it had become rather a point ofhonour to be "done" together. Consequently Hilaria looked very demure asshe went through her steps with the mechanical ease of long practice andthe supple grace that was her own and yet had the adorable awkwardnessof her age in it. She was nearly sixteen, several months younger thanIshmael, who was now just over that age, and who, owing to thereputation for seriousness his secretiveness had earned for him, was oneof the candidates undergoing preparation with Old Tring. He hadapparently outgrown his fits of unbalanced talkativeness, and hadbecome, with the difficult years, one of those boys who speak withalmost comical rarity, and then with unemotional gruffness. This powerof reticence never fails to win respect, if of a half-irritated, half-resentful order, and Ishmael held a certain position in the school. Also as the ward of a parson he was supposed to "be good" and know aboutsuch things as confirmations. As a matter of fact, he considered his ownTractarian principles, rigidly inculcated by Boase, as superior to themild evangelical platitudes of Old Tring, and plumed himselfaccordingly. He was just at that dangerous age, reached somewhat laterin the healthy normalities of school than it would have been had hestayed eating his own thoughts at Cloom, when religion either falls awayentirely from a boy or flares up into a sudden vitality. Ishmael's bloodran with too much of inherited aptitude for prayer for the formerpitfall to ensnare him, but the latter yawned beside him now and hethrilled to its attractions. Sliding his stout, shiny shoe back andforth with the stiff attempt at elegance so deprecated by Mr. Eliot, heasked himself whether the Lord could really countenance such frivolity. It was difficult to think of the things of the soul while so employed, while on the moor, or by Bolowen Pool the thoughts came as naturally asbirds. Spring was in his blood and he called it faith, as later he wouldcall it love. 

Spring was in the low-browed room at the "George, " pouring in at thelong windows and spilling in pools of hazy yellow upon the polishedboards. Spring was in the old garden outside, touching the warm tangleof gillyflowers to fire, transmuting the pallor of the narcissus tolight itself, making the very shadows more luminous than a winter'sshining. The freakish sun, lit this and left that, after its habit, fornowhere is more mysterious alchemy than the mixing of sun and shadow inthe spaces of the air. Ishmael's keen eyes could see how a spider'sthread, woven from one tall plant to another, and wavering ever sodelicately in the faint breeze, was one moment lit here and there to aline of pure light that merged into nothingness and gleamed out again, while a moment later it might have vanished entirely or else shine itslength. The midges, dancing in mid-air, were living sun-motes for oneflash, then were swallowed up as suddenly as though they had slippedthrough into the fourth dimension. A pair of white butterflies, pearly-grey or golden as they fluttered in and out of those invisiblechambers of the air that held sun or shade, chased each other in futilecircles; the flower-heads nodded in and out of the brightness; and inthe room the white girls dipped into the Danaėan showers and backthrough the dimness, coloured like the butterflies by the swifttransitions, swaying like the blossoms. If not only the spacing of thelight but also the waves of movements could have flashed out visiblylike the spider's threads the garden and the room would have shown fullof the lovely curves. 

And Ishmael felt the warm dazzle of the light and thought of the moorand how in another half-hour or so the shadows would be long beside thepool and the trout beginning to rise at their supper, and of how hewould like to be a holy hermit and live alone there with a dog and a gunand a rod and God; while Killigrew was divided between trying to signala question to Hilaria and wishing he could paint the dim room with itssplashes of sun and wondering what colours he could get that would bepure enough; and Hilaria was wishing Ishmael would give her a chance towhisper to him the news she was burning to impart and not merely stareat her and everything else with that blank gaze that always seemed to gothrough her to the wall beyond. And most of the boys itched to get outfor an hour or so before supper, while the little girls thoroughlyenjoyed themselves and Mr. Eliot wished the whole lot of them, orhimself, elsewhere. At last the wheezy piano sounded its last note, thefaded lady who once a week thumped it for an hour and the sum oftwo-and-sixpence gathered her shawl about her and tied the ribbons ofher bonnet beneath her pointed chin: the little girls were alsoenshawled by prim figures who now materialised from the shadowy seatswhere they had waited for this moment; and the boys, with a hurriedtouching of caps to Mr. Eliot, went clattering out through the flaggedand panelled passage into the High Street. Hilaria, by the door, caughtIshmael's sleeve as he rose from changing his shoes--he was always thelast when a fussy quickness was in question--and, ignoring the hoveringKilligrew, said in her low husky voice:

"Tell them I can be on the moor in half an hour, will you? I must go andtake off this beastly thing first . . . " She kicked a protesting legagainst the framework of her crinoline, that shot out in front of heralarmingly. 

"Tell who?" asked Ishmael, densely. 

"All of them, of course. Killigrew and Moss minor and the Polkinghornesand Carminow--not Doughty; I didn't like him last time--I don't knowwhy . . . " She broke off and bent forward, her tones took on a thrill;"I've got it, " she announced. 

"The new number of 'The Woman in White'? Oh, Hilaria!. . . "

"It wasn't easy, I can tell you, and we shall have to hurry with it, butit's in my shoe-bag now. "

"Must you go home and change? It'll give us so little time. It's dark ateight, and we have to be in to supper then, anyway. "

Hilaria hesitated, still slightly leaning forward like a greatfull-petalled blossom heavy with approaching night. 

"I suppose I could manage. . . . Papa goes on to give a French lessonbefore he comes home. . . . It would be awful if it tore though. . . . Allright, I'll risk it, but you'll all have to simply lug me over thestiles. Fancy if I stuck in one all night!" Her laugh, husky as hervoice, gurgled out, and Mr. Eliot looked up from the packet of books hewas sorting at the end of the room. 

"Hilaria!" he said, half sharply, half plaintively. She swung round athim with that beautiful sway only a crinoline can give, checking themovement abruptly so that the full sphere of muslin went surging backfor another half-turn while her body stayed rigid. 

"Yes, Papa, I am ready. Can't you find all your right books?" And withthis adroit carrying of the war into enemy's country she deflected Mr. Eliot's interest back upon himself, at no time a difficult task. 

A few minutes later, having stopped to spend her week'spocket-money--only threepence--on a paper twist full of jumbles, shemight have been seen going in the direction of home, walking, for her, sedately, and looking very lady-like with the important bulk of thecrinoline swelling out the mantle that made all women, from behind, seemat least fifty. A few people who saw her said to themselves thatEliot's maid seemed to be growing up at last, but they did not see herwhen, arrived at the stile she would have passed severely by had shebeen going home, she flung her shoebag over it and, boldly tilting upthe cumbrous hoops, scrambled over it herself, with a flashing displayof frilled cambric trousers and white legs terminating in kid boots. 

CHAPTER XI

THE PLACE ON THE MOOR

The nearest way to the hollow on the moor that Hilaria had made her ownwas a tiny track so overgrown with brambles and gorse as hardly to beworthy the name, and on this particular evening, out of care for herstrange garb, she took a path which curved with some semblance ofsmoothness in a wider arc. Thus Ishmael and Killigrew, who had got awayin advance of the others of the "Ring, " came to the hollow before herand, climbing up behind it, flung themselves on a boulder where theycould watch all approaches. It was a wonderful place, that whichHilaria's feminine instinct for the right atmosphere had led her tochoose. The moor sloped slightly for a mile or so below it, and it wasnot so much a genuine hollow as made to seem like one by the semi-circleof huge boulders that backed it. Set below and almost within them, thecurving ground showed a more vivid green than the rest of the moor, asof some elfin lawn held in an ancient enchantment by the hoar rocks. They towered above, piled on and against each other as though flung byfreakish gods; from the fissures sprang wind-wilted thorns, now in youngleaf of a pure rich green, with thickly-clustered buds just breakinginto a dense snow of blossom. Periwinkles trailed down upon the turf, and the closely set stonecrop made a reddish bloom on the lowerboulders, amidst bronze-hued moss, pale fragile scales of lichen, andglossy leaved fibrous-rooted ivy, that all went to pattern their sullengrey with delicate arabesques. The strongest note of colour was in thewild hyacinths, that, where the earth had been disturbed at some timeand so given them a chance, made drifts of a deep blue that seemedalmost purple where they came against the paler azure of the sky. 

The boys climbed to the flat top of the highest boulder, where thegorse-bushes, some still darkly green, some breaking into yellow flame, thrust their strong clumps from the rocky soil to stretch in a levelsea, inset with tracts of heath and bracken, for miles around. The wholearc of the sky, the whole circle of the world's rim, lay bare to theeye, infinitely varied by clouds and cloud-shadows, by pasture andarable, dark patches of woods and pallor of pools, by the lambentburnish of the west and the soft purpling of the east, even by differingweathers--here great shafts of sunlight, there the blurred column of adistant shower, or the faint smear, like a bruise upon the horizon, of alow-hanging mist. 

Killigrew lay on his stomach and gazed his fill, his thin nostrilsdilating rather like a rabbit's, as they always did if he were moved byanything--a trick which, with his light eyelashes, had won for him thename of "Bunny. " Ishmael threw himself on his back and lay staring up atthe sky as it was slowly drawn past overhead, till with hard gazing thewhole world seemed spinning round him and the plummet of his sight wasdrowned in the shifting heights that seemed to his reeling sensesbottomless depths. When Killigrew spoke he plucked his eyes from theirfixed stare with what was a physical effort and turned them giddily onto the other boy's usually pale face, now copper-pink in the warm light. 

"Why d'you suppose she don't like Doughty?" asked Killigrew. 

"I dunno . . . ; he is rather a swine, anyway. "

"Yes, but how does she know that?"

This was a poser, and Ishmael failed at an answer beyond a feeble "Oh, well, because he is. "

"If he's been a cad to her--" muttered Killigrew, vengefully. 

"I don't know how he can have been; she's only seen him with us. But Idon't know what you'd do about it if he had; you can't lick him; he'stwice your size and weight. "

"Would you never fight unless you were sure of winning?" demandedKilligrew scornfully. Ishmael thought a minute. 

"I think it is that I never fight until I'm sure of winning, " he said atlast; "if I found I wasn't strong enough I wouldn't go in and be beaten;I'd train hard till I was and then fight. "

"But that might take ages and you'd forget what you wanted to fight thechap about. "

"I don't think I'd forget, if I'd wanted to fight him. I might, though, I suppose. . . . "

"You're all wrong, you know, " opined Killigrew; "'tisn't the winningthat really matters . . . Sounds silly, but I don't know how to explainit. "

"Sounds like something the Parson would say--my Parson, " said Ishmael onone of his flashes of intuition; and then they both laughed, forKilligrew was one of those rare creatures, a born pagan--or ratherheathen, which is not quite the same thing. The pagan has beliefs of hisown; the true heathen denies the need for any, through sheer lack ofinterest. 

"D'you think girls are so very different from us . . . ?" went on Killigrewafter a moment's silence. "The sort of things they really want to do andthink about?"

"Girls are quite different, " said Ishmael firmly; "they talk awful rot;I've heard my sister and Phoebe--that's a girl at home. "

"Yes, so does my sister--at least, she talks sort of clever stuffthat's as bad. But how about Hilaria?" asked her admirer. 

"Well, she's more sensible than most, because she wants to do things asthough she weren't a girl, but I don't see how she's going to keep itup. She'll fall in love and then it'll all be over. "

"You don't think much of girls, do you?"

"Oh, well . . . They're all right, I suppose. I want to do things, andgirls want to feel things. Oh, yes, Bunny, they're awfully different. "

"From you, perhaps . . . I dunno . . . I say, d'you really want the oldbishop to lay his paws on your head?"

"Yes, " replied Ishmael, briefly. 

"Well, so does Hilaria. She read me some stuff out of a book--rippingfine stuff it was--by a chap called Mallory. All about knights that weresearching for a cup they thought had the blood of God in it or somethingof the sort. But she seemed to believe it. "

"I believe it, too. Not that they lived like that book, but that thereis the Blood . . . Oh, what's the good of trying to explain to you? It'slike you when you're painting and you try and make me see a lot ofcolours I can't. "

"Hullo . . . There she comes, " cried Killigrew, with a sudden quickeningof voice and aspect; "I say, it must be ghastly trying to walk in one ofthose things. Girls must be different or they wouldn't put up with them. I'll go and help her. Come on, we'll have to sit down below now. "

The two boys scrambled down the boulders and assisted Hilaria--the hemof whose white tarlatan skirts showed already the worse for herwalk--over the hummocky patch of rocks and gorse that fringed thehollow. Laughing rather ruefully, she flung herself down, scattering herbonnet, shawl, and bag over the turf in the impetuous movement. Thelowest rim of the crinoline promptly stood straight up from the groundlike a hoop, displaying her long legs and the multitudinous petticoatslying limply upon them, and she was forced to adopt a change ofposition. Finally she settled herself with her feet tucked in under herand the obnoxious garment swelling out all round, as though she had justflopped down and made what the children call a "cheese. "

"I say, where's the magazine?" asked Ishmael. 

"In my bag; but you're not to 'look on. ' Here are some jumbles, but wemust keep the others' share for them. Did you get them all, Ishmael?"For some reason best known to herself, she called him by his Christianname and Killigrew by his nickname of "Bunny, " though she addressed theother boys in mannish fashion of surnames only. 

"I told Polkinghorne minor and told him to let the others know. "

"Did you remember to tell him we didn't want Doughty?"

"I think so . . . At least I didn't say to ask him to come, " confessedIshmael, who had the worst head in the world for a message. 

"Here they are, " announced Killigrew; "I think there're only four ofthem . . . " He screwed up his eyes to gaze, for he was short-sighted. Ishmael gave a glance. 

"There's five . . . " he said apologetically; "I'm afraid he's there. I cansee Polkinghorne and Carminow and Polkinghorne minor and Moss minorand--yes, it's Doughty. I hope you don't mind fearfully, Hilaria?"

She threw a queer little look at him. "It's not for me, " she saidslowly; "it's only that I don't think he likes you, Ishmael. He tried totell me something funny about you the other day. He comes to papa forextra coaching in French, you know, and I had to give him tea. . . . "

"About me--?" Ishmael stared blankly, then, more from some premonitionthan anything else, grew slowly and burningly red. The colour ebbedaway, leaving him pale. "What was it?" he asked. 

"Nothing. At least, I honestly don't know what. Papa shut him up. Hesaid to him he was no gentleman to say such things before a _jeunefille_--" She broke off, feeling she had hardly improved matters. Adeadly suspicion that had once before knocked on Ishmael's heart andbeen refused more than a second's glance for sheer incredibility poundedat him again, making the blood sing in his ears. Nothing heard at schoolor from the Parson--who had long perturbed himself as to the rightmoment for explanations--had started those first warning notes, butwords freely bandied across his head at home as a little boy, and thenmeaningless to him--words that had since echoed back on to fullerknowledge ominously. If it had not been that Archelaus, the free-speakerand the vindictive One of the family, was still in Australia, and thatIshmael spent a large part of his holidays with friends of the Parson'sin Devon and Somerset, the conspiracy of secrecy, wise or unwise, couldnot have lasted so long. He stared at Hilaria and his fingers dug intothe turf at either side of him. 

At that moment Killigrew relieved the tension by jumping up and callinga wild, long-drawn "Hullo-o" to the approaching boys. They came runningup the slope and flung themselves down in a circle, while Polkinghornemajor, a big, jolly, simple-minded boy, one of the best liked in theschool, laid audacious hands on the bag, which Hilaria snatched from himwith a shriek. 

Doughty had ensconced himself by her, crowding between her and Ishmaelto do so, a manoeuvre which the latter, rather to Doughty's surprise, did not seem to resent. This was the more odd as the boys had severaltimes already, both in school and out of it, come into conflict overtrifling matters, not so much from any desire to quarrel as becausethey were by nature extremely antipathetic. Ishmael disliked Doughty andtook little trouble to hide the fact. He hated his pasty sleekness, which made him think of a fat pale grub, and he hated the way the elderboy hung round Killigrew; not from jealousy--Ishmael still cherishedaloofness too dearly for that--but from some instinct which told himDoughty was evil. Killigrew lay opposite Doughty now, looking oddlygirlish with his slim form and colourless face, that would have beeninsipid but for his too red mouth. There was a white incisiveness aboutKilligrew, however, a flame-like quality quaintly expressed in his hair, that promised the possibility of many things, and showed up sharply incomparison with the gross but hard bulk of Doughty. There had been noreal reason till this evening, when Hilaria had told of hisevil-speaking, for Ishmael to dislike Doughty, but now he knew that hehad done so all along. 

Doughty hated Ishmael because he did not understand him, and he was ofthe breed which hates the incomprehensible. Though he had only joinedthe preceding term, Doughty was nearly seventeen, and owing to a spinalweakness of his youth he had till now been educated at home. He camefrom Devonshire, which would not have mattered had he been popular, butwhich, as he was not, was frequently thrown at him as a disadvantage. Now, as he lay beside Ishmael, he stared at him with a something slylyexultant in his look, but the younger boy failed to meet his eyes andmerely gazed serenely into vacancy. Hilaria settled herself, opened thebag, and disentangled from the ribbons of her dancing shoes the preciousnumber of _All the Year Round_ that contained the instalment of "TheWoman in White" they had all been so eagerly awaiting. 

The boys left off fidgeting and became mouse-still, while only the lowvoice of the girl reading of the helpless lovers, of the terriblesmiling Count Fosco and his grim wife, broke the silence. The boys lay, thrilled by the splendid melodrama, their little differences forgottenwith the rest of their personal affairs, and so they all stayed, Hilariaas enthralled as they, while unperceived the light began to fade andevening to creep over the moor. 

CHAPTER XII

SOME AMBITIONS AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT

Hilaria read on till, though she held the page close to her eyes, sheseemed to fumble over the words. She was by then at the end of theinstalment, and when she put the magazine down she pressed her fingersto her lids and complained that her eyes hurt her. "They often do, " shesaid; "it's a good thing I'm not going to be an artist like Bunny or thehero of this story, isn't it?" She dropped her chin into her cuppedpalms and sat staring ahead, her eyes shining for all their smartinglids. "Isn't it, funny, " she went on, "that we're all going to besomething, some kind of a person, and don't really know a bit what kind?Yet I feel very much me already. . . . "

"I'm going to be a soldier, " said Polkinghorne, serenely missing anymetaphysical proposition. He looked forward, on the strength of aScottish mother, to joining a Highland regiment, and was known to shavehis knees twice a week to make them of a manly hairiness against thedonning of a kilt. 

"I shall have to go into the City like my guv'nor, I suppose, " admittedlittle Moss, "but I don't see why one shouldn't be the kind of chap onewants all the same. Your father's in the city, too, isn't he, Killigrew?"

"Yes, but that's no reason why I should be, and I'm jolly well not goingto. I'm going to be an artist like Turner. . . . " And Killigrew's voiceunconsciously took on a singing inflection of rapture. 

"There's no doubt about old Carminow, anyway, " observed Polkinghorne, tobe greeted with laughter. For Carminow, though the gentlest ofcreatures, took an extraordinary delight in all the agonies of humannature. Mine accidents had hardly occurred before Carminow, by somesubtle agency, seemed aware of them, and had rushed to the scene, out ofbounds or not. It was with genuine simplicity that he once bewailed thefact that it had been "an awfully dull half--no one had been killed formiles around. " It was he, too, on the occasion of a terrible tragedy inthe High Street, when Teague the baker had been killed by the lashinghoofs of his new horse, who had rushed out to superintend the removal ofthe body. The widow, clamorous with her sudden grief, had seized hisarm, exclaiming "Oh, Master Carminow, whatever shall I do; whatevershall I do?" and, in all good faith he, his soul still unsatisfied bythe view of the corpse, had replied kindly: "Do? Why, Mrs. Teague, if Iwere you I should have him opened. . . . "

The story had lived against Carminow, and when in doubt about any courseof action he was always advised to "have it opened. " He did not join nowin the laugh, but said seriously, failing, as always, to pronounce theletter "r":

"Of course I shall be a doctor. Last holidays I went a lot to Guy'swhere I have a chum, and I saw a lot of dissecting. Do you know thatwhen they dissect 'em they stick a sort of squirt in their chests anddwaw off all the blood? I've got a theowy that I mean to put intopwactice some day. It seemed to me such a shame that all that good bloodshould go to waste like that, and it occurred to me what a splendidthing it would be if, instead of doing nothing with murdewers but kill'em, they dwew off their blood while it was still warm and pumped itinto famous men, gweat generals and people like that, who were gettingold and feeble. Most murdewers are thundewing stout fellows, you know. "

"How horrid you are, Carminow!" cried Hilaria. "I shouldn't think agreat man would at all like having a murderer's blood in his veins. I'msure my darling Lord Palmerston wouldn't. "

"Oh, I don't say it's possible at pwesent, " replied Carminow placidly, "but when surgeons know their business it will be. One must look atthese things from a purely utilitawian standpoint. "

Ishmael said nothing. He was lying on his back again, folded armsbeneath his head, staring at the glory of the west that had passed fromliquid fire to the feather-softness of the sun's aftermath. The presenceof the others hardly impinged on his consciousness; vaguely he heardtheir voices coming from a long way off. One of his moods of exaltation, that only the very young know, was upon him--a state which amounts tointoxication and to recapture any glow of which older people have to beartificially stimulated. That is really the great dividing-line--whenthe sparkle, the lightness, the sharpened sense which stimulates brainand tongue and feeling, ceases to respond without a flick of help fromthe right touch of alcohol. That intoxication of sheer living was uponIshmael now, as it had been on that long-ago evening when the Neck hadbeen cried, as it had a few times since, with music, or a windy sun, ora bathe in rough sea, or some sudden phrase in a book. A somethingglamorous in the light, the low accents of Hilaria's voice and thestirring quality of what she read, the reaction, had he but known it, from the shock of suspicion occasioned by what she had told him, thecumulative effect of the exalted thoughts of the past weeks, all thesethings, added to his own rising powers and urgent youth, welled withinhim and mounted to his brain. He felt tingling with power as he laythere, apparently lax; it seemed to him he could hear the blood leapingin his veins and the beating of his pulses all over his body, couldhear the faintest sound of calling lamb or far-off owl, could catch, with ears refined to a demigod's, the ineffably quiet rubbing of themillions of grass-blades, as though he could almost hear the eveningfalling. . . . From afar came the babble of the others as to what theymight think they were going to be; for himself he could be anything, scale any heights, beat triumphantly through all things. He felt theswelling earth bearing him up, as though he were one with its strengthand fertility, one with its irresistible march. He felt the sword-chillbreath of the spring wind on his brow; he saw the first faint prickingof the earliest stars, and the rolling up of the sky as the great cumulimassed overhead; and he felt as though he too could sweep into them andbe of them. Life was before him for him to do what he liked with. Helaughed aloud and rolled over a little, flinging his arms wide. Astinging blow came on his cheek, and he heard Doughty's angry voicecrying, "Take that!" and a sharp sound from Hilaria. 

"Well, what's he want to laugh at me for? I'll teach him--" cameDoughty's voice again. Ishmael had scrambled up; his blood was stillsinging in his veins; he felt no dismay at the sight of the loomingDoughty. 

"Don't be an ass, Doughty, " said Polkinghorne sharply; "and if you can'thelp being a cad, wait till Miss Eliot isn't present. "

"Oh, never mind about me; I want to see you _kill_ him, Ishmael!" criedHilaria viciously. 

"Well, why did you want to laugh when Doughty said that?" askedPolkinghorne judicially. 

"Said what?" asked Ishmael. 

"Why, that he was just going to be a gentleman. "

"Did he say that? I didn't hear him. But I should have laughed if I had. . . . "

Killigrew stared at his friend in amazement. Was this the Ishmael who ahalf-hour or so ago had put forward the theory that one should neverfight till one was sure of winning? He did not know that the wine inIshmael's brain at that minute was the headiest in the world, the mostsure in imparting sense of power--the sudden up-welling of the joy oflife. It was Doughty's turn to laugh now; he seemed suddenly to haverecovered poise. 

"I forgot--you'd be such a good judge of a gentleman--with your familyhistory, " he said. 

The singing went from Ishmael's being, but something hot came up throughhim like a tide. "What d'you mean by that?" he asked, and still in hispassionate dislike of the other did not see what was opening at hisfeet. 

"Only that a fellow with a pack of bastard brothers must have had justthe father and mother to teach him. . . . "

There was a moment's silence; the boys all felt intensely uncomfortable, not so much even at Hilaria's presence as at this sudden nakedness ofthought and emotion. Doughty, set on justifying himself at least as faras accuracy went, held on. "I heard it at once when I went to my uncle'sat Penzance last holidays. Everyone knows it down there. Of course Ruanknew it all along; he's been kidding all you fellows. He's no right in aschool for gentlemen at all. His father married his mother when he wasdying and all the brats but him were already born. That's why Ruan'sbeing brought up a gentleman--because he's the only one who's not abastard. "

"Shut your foul mouth, " ordered Polkinghorne angrily. "Hilaria, letme--"

"It's not true, " cried Hilaria. "Tell them it's not true, Ishmael. "

Killigrew had the quicker instinct. "What does it matter if it's true ornot?" he asked. "We all know Ruan, and we think he's an awfully nicechap, and nothing else is any affair of ours. We don't care whatDoughty's father and mother are, because we don't like him; we don'tcare what Ruan's are because we do like him. Personally, I don't see whyRuan should mind either. The thing doesn't alter him at all. "

But that was exactly what Ishmael felt it did, though how he could notyet have told. Although he never doubted what he heard, it seemed to himlike a dream that he had dreamt long ago and forgotten. It was a curioussense of unreality that impressed him most, that feeling of "This cannotreally have happened to me . . . " that everyone knows in the first momentof disaster. It was this sensation, not any temporising or actualdisbelief, that kept him still motionless, staring. Polkinghorne beganto feel the proprieties outraged by this immobility. 

"I say, " he began, "you can't take no notice . . . ; he's said things aboutyour people, you know--about your mother . . . "

For in common with many male creatures, men and boys, Polkinghorne, though not feeling more than others any particular sentiment beyondaffection for his mother, yet held the point of honour, perhaps datingfrom ancient days of matriarchy, that an insult to one's mother was thedeepest to oneself. Ishmael, too honest to be influenced by thisconsideration, yet felt constrained by the weight of public opinion. Also he was still upon the uplift of his mood; his blood tingled themore for the mental shock that had numbed his reasoning faculties. As inhis turn he hit Doughty's cheek he felt a little glow at his owncarelessness of consequences. Polkinghorne was beginning to feelworried, because seen together it was plain that the big Doughtyovertopped Ishmael by nearly a head. Suddenly he had an inspiration andthrew himself between them as Doughty swung out at the younger boy, thereby incidentally getting the blow himself. 

"I'll lick you for that later, Doughty, " he ejaculated. "Meanwhile, kindly shut up while I say something. Ruan can't fight you--"

"Can't he? Then what did he hit me for?"

"I can fight him all right, thanks, " said Ishmael. 

"But he can wrestle you, " went on Polkinghorne imperturbably, "becausehe's a clever wrestler and he'll stand a fair chance. You can take it orleave it, but if you leave it I'll give you a thrashing for the honourof the school. "

A murmur of assent came from the others, who saw an impossibly difficultsituation thus in a way to be solved as far as the two principals in thequarrel were concerned, while to themselves it gave time to adjust theirattitude, which they did not all take as simply as had Killigrew. In afight Doughty's superior size would have given him all the advantage; inthe West Country method of wrestling this would not necessarily holdtrue. And Ishmael was in far better condition. 

Polkinghorne turned to Hilaria. 

"Someone will see you home, of course, " he said politely. "I shall haveto stay as stickler, and Carminow as well, but I'll send Moss and theyoung 'un with you. And mind you keep your jaws shut about it when youget back to the school, you two. "

Polkinghorne minor and Moss both looked considerably taken aback, butnot more so than Hilaria. "Oh, I must stay, Polkinghorne, " she pleaded, feeling for the first time a terrible sensation of not being wanted, ofan unimportance essential to her sex and beyond her power to alterwhatever her tastes or her justifiable reliance on her own nerves. ButPolkinghorne, backed by Killigrew and Ishmael himself, was adamant, though Carminow saw no reason why she should not stay if it interestedher. They stood waiting till her crinoline, like a huge piece of blownthistledown, had swayed around a curve of the path which hid it and thetwo little boys from sight, and then they prepared for business. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE WRESTLING

It was growing swiftly dusk, though the amphitheatre of turf where theboys stood, cupped the last of the light from the west, backed as it wasby the semi-circle of tall rocks. 

Polkinghorne made a quick survey of the place, then placed his men sothat the light fell sideways, not directly upon either face. 

"Shoes off, Doughty!" he ordered. "None of your nasty Devonshire wayshere!" For the Devon rules admit kicking, and that with shoes, whileCornish, though allowing leg-play, insist it should be in stocking-feet, and consist of tripping and locking only. The whole West Country styleof wrestling differs enormously from the North Country, in which Ishmaelwould have stood a poor chance against an opponent so much his superiorin size. In the West they play for a hitch, instead of trying for a fallby sheer strength and weight, and if the smaller wrestler has a stock ofgood holds, and can only get under his opponent quickly enough, he maybring off the "flying mare, " the great throw clear over the shoulder. Leg-play is the great feature, even in Cornwall, where prominence isgiven to the hug, and Ishmael had very strong legs, though his shoulderswere not so heavy as Doughty's. 

He took his stand opposite Doughty. He had never wrestled with himbefore, but he had had much practice with boys of all builds. He eyedhim closely and knew his best chance lay in trying to rush him so as toget under him and with a good inside lock of the leg trip him up. Inshoulder play he would otherwise stand small chance with one so muchtaller. Doughty's best plan would be to stand off him, a thing notpossible in North Country wrestling. In the West a special jacket ofstrong linen is worn for the taking of hitches, and Polkinghorne madethe two boys pull out their shirts as the nearest approach to it. Allwas arranged to the satisfaction of the three who were acting as"sticklers, " and in what seemed to Ishmael the flashing of a moment heand Doughty were crouching, cat-like, opposite each other, legs bent, arms out, hands tense. They stood so for what seemed minutes, though itwas only a fraction of the time that had gone in the preparations. Ishmael felt no fear of Doughty; exhilaration was still strong enoughwithin him to eliminate that dread, though the fear of losing thatalways pricks at the fighter was not quite deadened. He circled, stillin that cat-like attitude, Doughty circling also, both waiting tospring. Ishmael was intensely aware of superficial physicalsensations--the tense feeling in his skin, and under the soles of hisfeet the hardness of the ground. He spread his feet a little and movedhis toes against the grass. All his muscles were on the alert, andsuddenly, from acute consciousness of every fibre of his body, he passedto a splendid lightness, a complete ignoring of anything but poise andspring. In that moment, so swiftly on the edge of the first circlingmovement that Doughty, the slower of communication from brain to limbs, thought it the same, he had rushed for his hitch. 

He got him by the sleeve, and Doughty, surprised at the quick hold, shyed away, but could not twist out of it. He grappled Ishmael moreclosely to try and get full shoulder-play, but the only result was thateach obtained a hitch on the arm and breast of the other's shirt. The"flying mare" was now out of the question for Ishmael this round, butwith a dexterous twist of his leg he got an inside lock on hisopponent's, and the next moment Doughty was sprawling. He was up thesecond after, and, since his shoulders had not touched the ground, thefall counted for nothing, and this time he rushed in at Ishmael. He wasvery angry. 

He stooped more, so as to keep his legs out of Ishmael's reach, and thetwo strained to try and over-balance each other's body, using theordinary arm and breast hold. Ishmael, after a few moments of thisimmobile straining, let go Doughty's arm to seize him by the back of thecollar, and Doughty, profiting in a flash by the steeper angle ofinclination, caught him square under the arms and raised him bodily inthe air. 

Ishmael hung on grimly, making no effort to disengage himself, whichwould only have given Doughty the further purchase needed to throw him. Instead he began to work round in the other's arms. As soon as he hadsufficient twist on his hips he entwined his feet round Doughty's knees, and with an effort that caused the blood to suffuse his face andneck--for Doughty was fighting the movement with relentless pressure--hegot himself, by the hold his legs gave him, round so that his shouldersinstead of his chest were against the chest of his upholder. He flunghis arms backwards round Doughty's fore-arms, thus keeping himselfpressed upon the other, his stomach arched outwards, his legs curledback each side round the other's knees, his arms, also backwards, pressing the other's torso in a curve that followed and supported hisown with the disadvantage of having his full weight upon it. 

They stayed apparently motionless, breathing heavily, save for thatlaboured sound seeming like wrestlers of bronze. Slowly Doughty began tofeel his balance slipping from him under the full weight of Ishmael uponhis chest and stomach; his spine felt as though if it curved a fractionmore it would crack. He could not move his feet for the strong coil ofIshmael's legs around his, and he knew that in a moment more he mustfall backwards with the weight still upon him. The only joints in whichhe still had play were his ankles; stiffening them he began to inclineforwards. Slowly the interlocked bodies, like a swaying tower, came upand up, till the watchers caught their breath wondering what wouldhappen to the one who was undermost in the fall if both stayed sounyielding. 

But Ishmael, whose brain was working with that clarity only attainedwhen it is responding to trained instinct, almost mechanically relaxedhis grip on the other's spine when he felt the angle coming forward, then, using all his nerve, he waited--waited till the forward angle, inwhich he was the underneath, had become acute, till the momentum of thefall had begun. Then he relaxed his grip on one of Doughty's legs, atthe same time forcing the other outwards with all the strength of hisfoot and leg. Doughty had to unstiffen a knee to prevent himself comingtaut and prone on the ground, and a hard shove with Ishmael's elbow, thrown backwards against his shoulder, combined with the leg-play tosend him spinning sideways. The momentum was too great for him toregulate the fall, and he came fairly on both shoulders, while Ishmael, who had been thrown forwards on one knee, picked himself up and stoodreeling slightly but unhurt. 

The sticklers ran forward to help Doughty to his feet, but he laymotionless, eyes closed. In his mind, as he lay there, worked thethought that he did not wish either to go on with the fight or to letIshmael triumph as at an easy victory. He would frighten him, frightenthem all, by making out he was very badly hurt. His spine, that woulddo. . . . Opening his eyes he murmured, "My back . . . My back . . . " and madeas though trying to move. A terrible pang shot through his spine as hedid so. His next cry was a scream of real pain and fear. The tearsgathered in his eyes with his rage and terror. He cried, "You've donefor me; you've broken my back! Oh, my back; curse you, my back!. . . "

The others were terrified. For the second time that evening Ishmael wasseized by the awful feeling of irrevocableness, of an impossible thinghaving happened and of it being still more impossible to undo it. 

It had become dark with an effect of suddenness to those who had beenintent on other things than the progress of the night; and it seemed toIshmael that the whole world was narrowed to a circle of dim moor, in themidst of it that white thing crying about its back--always its back. . . . 

Carminow, the least perturbed, insisted on raising the sufferer to hisfeet, and it was found, after much protest on his part, that he couldwalk slowly with support on either side. It only remained to get himback to the school somehow and in at the side door to his bed and theministrations of the matron if not the doctor. 

The little procession began to move off, Polkinghorne and Carminow, thetwo biggest, carrying Doughty on their crossed hands, and progressingwith a slow sideways motion, trying not to stumble over the unevenground. Killigrew ran on ahead to warn the matron and urge her tosilence, in case the injury might turn out to be but slight after all. 

A miserable loneliness fell upon Ishmael. He had won, and none of thesweets of victory were his. He lagged behind. There was a rustle at hisside, and Hilaria's hands were round his arm. 

"What on earth--" he began--angry, confused, aware that tears wereburning in his eyes. 

"Don't be cross. . . . I had to stay. I was up on the boulders. Oh, Ishmael, have you killed him?"

The question jangled his frightened nerves, and he answered sharply, telling her he neither knew nor cared, even while he was shaking withthe fear lest what she suggested might be true. "I'll say something tothose youngsters for having let you stay, " he added, catching sight ofPolkinghorne minor and Moss, where they hesitated in the shadows. 

"As though they could have prevented me!" she said, with swift scorn. Helooked at her more closely, struck by a something strange about her, andsaw that her skirts no longer swelled triumphantly on either side, butfell limply, and so long that she had to hold them up when she took astep forward by his side. 

"I couldn't climb on the boulders in it, " she said, answering his look. "I made the boys turn their backs and I took it off. "

"Well, I imagine you can't go home without it, " said Ishmael wearily. Hesupposed he would have to see her home, for it was already past the timefor the younger boys to be in. He felt he hated girls and the botherthat they were. 

"Cut off in, you two, " he ordered; "and mind, if you blab about Hilariahaving been here I'll baste you. "

They promised eagerly, and Hilaria thanked him in a subdued voice. Shewent through the darkness to where she had left her crinoline. Theyfound it lying, wet with dew, a prostrate system of ugly rings, heldtogether by webbing. It looked incredibly naked, a hollow mockery of theportentous dome it had stood for in the eyes of the world. 

He slung it over one shoulder without a word, inwardly resentingbitterly the touch of the ludicrous it gave to the evening's happenings, and almost silently he went with the stumbling girl towards the town, only leaving her at the corner of her lane. She thanked him with a newshyness, and taking the cumbrous emblem of her inferiority over her leftarm, held out her strong hard little right hand to him. 

"Don't think it horrid of me to have stayed, " she pleaded. "It was thatI so wanted you to win . . . I was afraid . . . "

"It was very--very unladylike, " began Ishmael, then paused. Till thatmoment he and she had equally despised anything ladylike. . . . Now he hadbecome a man, with a man's dislike of anything conspicuous in hiswomenkind. Something of the woman came to Hilaria, but whereas with himadolescence had meant the awakening of the merely male, with her itbrought a first touch of the mother. She urged her own cause no more. 

"Don't worry, Ishmael, " she said. "Father has often told me of peoplehurting their backs wrestling and doing things like that, and he saysit's very seldom anything. If it is they can't walk at all, and hewalked quite well. Besides, I know he's pretending it's worse than it isto upset you; he's that sort. . . . "

Ishmael felt a little pang of gratitude, he gripped her hand, muttered a"good-night, " and was off through the darkness. But he did not go backto the school for an hour yet. He was in for such trouble an hour moreor less after time made no difference, and he was past thinking in termsof the clock. He had grown up violently and painfully in a short space, and ordinary methods of measuring time mean very little to one who hascrowded years of growth into one evening. He walked about the moor tillphysical exhaustion drove him in, where Old Tring, with a glance at him, gave him hot brandy and water and sent him to bed with hardly a word. Not till next day did Ishmael notice he was lame in one knee. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE WIND UPON THE GRASS-FIELD

A week after the fight Ishmael went over the moor to the sea. Everythingwas very still, even his footsteps were soundless on the thick turf. Itwas one of those days filled with a warm mist, so fine it cannot beobserved near at hand, but always seeming to encircle the walker, asthough he carried some charm to make a hollow space around him where thebreath of the mist may not live. Yet, out in it for long, the clothesbecome sodden, while every grass-blade and leaf can be seen to hold itsburden of a glittering drop, though the earth itself remains dry andpowdery and on the hard, pale roads the dust lies all day, as though theactual soil were not of the texture to respond to a mist so fine. 

Not a breath blew the vaporous clouds in the wreaths that usually changeshapes while one watches, and the long drifts in the valley at Ishmael'sfeet hung motionless in the air, the dark side of the opposite slopeshowed here and there, crossed by the pale zig-zag of the path. He wenton to the cliff's edge; far below at its foot the sea, lost further out, was visible, motionless and soundless, save for the faint rustle whereit impinged upon the cliff in a narrow line of white. No outward pull orinward swell of the sea's breast was visible; it was as though that fineedge of murmurous whiteness were always made of the same particles ofwater, hissing perpetually along the cliff's foot. 

Ishmael lay down on the damp young bracken and listened to the stillnessthat was only pierced by the rare wail of a syren far out to sea andthe steady moan of the horn from the lighthouse. He felt as dead as theworld seemed, as grey, as lost to all rousing; and, ignorant ofreactions, wondered why, and whether henceforth he would always be likethat. 

He was suffering from too much fuss. In the days which had elapsed sincethe wrestling bout on the moor Doughty's injury had seemed likely toprove a bad sprain, but there had been a terrible twenty-four hours whenthe doctor, a portentous person with more pessimism than knowledge, hadwagged his head forebodingly over the moaning patient. Doughty had feltit was not in nature for anyone to be severe on a boy with an injuredback, and so he babbled freely, under cover of a pretended delirium, feeling it was better to let his version get first to Old Tring. For heguessed how that personage, always one to examine the springs of actionbefore judgment, would look at his share in the matter. Dr. Harvey hadasked for a famous Plymouth surgeon to be sent for, and this afternoonhe had arrived. On his verdict as to Doughty's condition dependedIshmael's own fate, and he knew it. For, whatever the provocation, thefact remained that Ishmael had injured a schoolfellow in a wrestlingmatch admittedly serious in its intent, and the discipline of the schoolhad to be considered, all the more rigidly that many rumours, mostlyuntrue, had circulated in the school. Old Tring had suspended judgment, merely sending for Boase, who had arrived one evening at St. Rennycovered with smuts and giving freely his opinions about the railway, onwhich, for motives of Christian poverty, he had been rash enough totravel in one of the unroofed third class compartments. 

And, for the first time in his knowledge, Ishmael was aware that theParson had not quite understood. It was not that he did not understandwhat Ishmael felt as much as that he expected him to feel so much morethan he did. Ishmael loathed a fuss. Yet the Parson had been a rock ofsupport; Old Tring had been generosity itself; Polkinghorne andCarminow, even the little boys, had held their tongues and let him seethat for their part they intended to think no more of what Doughty hadsaid. Killigrew had treated the whole affair as something between a jokeand a matter so unimportant it made really no difference to anyone. Andof all the attitudes it was Killigrew's, in the revulsion from fuss, that Ishmael was beginning to adopt as his own. The only burning thinghe felt about his position was anger--an anger against his father in thefirst place and against Archelaus, oddly enough, in the second. He knewthat his eldest brother would do all in his power to make life asdifficult as possible when he went back to take up the reins at Cloom. With that burning grudge went another sensation--the realisation that ifall things had been otherwise, been normal, Cloom would, after all, never have been his, and he was struck by a certain unfairness that itshould be his now. 

But of any shame at his position he felt none, and it was this thatapparently he was expected to feel by all save Killigrew. They were allso eager to make him understand that there was nothing for him to feelashamed about, that no one thought any the less of him or wanted him tothink any less of himself. Ishmael began to discover what he never, being very un-self-analytical, fully realised, that he was one of thoseelect souls born without that gift of the Evil One--shame. Some attainthat freedom by hard striving, but some are born free, and of them wasIshmael. 

Now, as he lay upon the cliff, all the embarrassment he felt was at thisset of emotions that was expected to rack him and did not. He was notyet old enough to have the courage of his lack of convictions, and hefeared he had failed in something a finer creature would have respondedto. He rolled over on to his elbows and stared at the pale faces of aclump of wet primroses that stared back at him with an equal innocenceof emotion. Beyond them the wild violets gleamed like faint blue flames, and the tightly-curled fronds of young bracken showed silvery greyamongst the litter of last year's stalks that lay in patches of a deadburnt-orange upon the grey-green turf. Ishmael spread his fingers wideand plunged them in the primroses, in the grass, in the loose soil, forthe pleasure of their soft, clean textures. He rubbed his face in themlike a young animal, and drew in deep breaths of the best smell in theworld--the smell of damp, green growing things. He turned on to his backagain. The mist had begun to waver, a breath was stirring fitfully butfinely. It came cool upon him, and as it blew the world seemed verygently to come to life again. He could see what he had come to look atand overshot in the mist--the little harbour of Povah lying to his left. He rolled over and stared curiously at its stone jetties and clusteredshipping. There were a couple of schooners used in the china-clay tradelying at the quayside; at anchor was a barquentine, a big bluff-belliedtramp of a creature, black with coaldust, and beyond her again what wasstill a rare sight in those parts--a steamer. She was a side-wheeler, with a thin raking funnel, and was square-rigged on her fore-mast, fore-and-aft on her mizzen. A little crowd stood on the end of the quayto stare at her, and it was on her that Ishmael too fixed his eyes; thenhe scrambled up and made his way diagonally down the cliff to theharbour. 

It had occurred to him to run away to sea. He was of the land and knewnothing about ships, but he had often read of boys who ran away tosea--they shipped as cabin-boys and often were killed by the rough lifeor never heard of again. A sick wave of self-pity flooded Ishmael as hethought of it. He whose salvation was that he so seldom saw himself fromthe outside--unlike Killigrew, the feeder on emotion, now was aware ofthe poetic fitness of the story--the proud boy who sooner than live withdishonour had left home and friends to face the wide world and roam, averitable Ishmael. Adventure began to call to him; the salt on his lipsas he licked them seemed its very tang. He was big and strong, and hadno fear of hard living; neither was he fearful physically. On one thinghe was determined--not to stay to be expelled and then be takenignominiously back to Cloom and the jeers of his family. 

But deep down in him his ineradicable honesty kept nagging at him, telling that this new sea-lure was all make-believe, that not that wayfor him did happiness lie. Yet he kept on, always with a tingle ofexcitement mingling with an undercurrent of disbelief in the reality ofit all, and made his way to the quayside determined to talk to thesailors and introduce the subject of a new hand. . . . Half an hour laterhe came away, after a desultory though interesting enough conversationin which his project had never got past his tongue. Through no cowardiceor dread, he had simply not been able to broach it. He stared back atthe ship when he paused on the crest of the hill, trying to puzzle outwhat was struggling for recognition in him. Dimly it began to dawn onhim that there are only two ways for a man to live fully. The first isby being rooted to a spot that is everything to him, by which he makeshis bread, by which and on which he lives, so that its well-being is asthat of himself; and the second is by calling no place home, wanderingthe world over and remaining always free. The way which lies betwixtthese two--that of hiring this house or that, putting belongings aboutit and being attached to it by purely artificial ties of expediency andrent, a house that was born of the thought of some unknown, the fabricof whose ground is nothing to him who hires it--this way, which is theway of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, is false andunsatisfying. It would be splendid to have two lives and give one toeach of the primary ways, to live once by the soil and once by the sea;but that is a thing that can happen to no man. He may wander till he isageing and then "settle down, " but that is a different affair. Ishmaelwas born of the soil; Cloom, not only by inheritance, but by hispeculiar training, meant his life. With a sensation of somethingclogging, but infinitely satisfying too, he admitted it. Cloom had beentoo strong for him. 

It was the only time another path ever even suggested itself to him, andthen the suggestion had not been sincere, merely the promptings of thatliterary sense which is in all imaginative youth. It prompted, too, notso worthily, in an aspect of his new knowledge that did not escapehim--a certain romance about it, a feeling that it made him ratherinteresting, something of a figure. . . . He would not have been human hadhe quite escaped that at his age. And yet it was that feeling no one butKilligrew, who frankly mooted it, had a suspicion of as possible, soIshmael realised with shame. Also his commonsense told him that thesordid and quite unromantic incidents were likely to pile up morethickly than any of charm or pleasure. His was an admirable position forany one who loved self-pity; he would be able to see himself as aromantic centre, to feed on misunderstanding and enjoy a self-consciousisolation. 

That was the real danger, one that the Parson, who was in some mattersof a beautiful simplicity, had never realised. He had only foreseen thestraightforward shames and difficulties, and by these Ishmael was at anage to be untouched, while he was just ripe for the former snare. 

He walked over the moor and rejoined the St. Renny track with the senseof relief that we all get when one of two ways has been definitelydiscarded. He had even ceased to worry over what decision Old Tring hadcome to, though when he made out the Parson's figure coming towards himhis heart gave a leap and then beat more quickly than its wont. Hehastened his steps to meet him. 

Boase waved his hat in a gesture of triumph, as though to signal thatall was well, and his first shouted words told Ishmael that this was notto be the end of his career at St. Renny. With the knowledge went aqueer little pang of disappointment; he had so been accustoming his mindto the glamour of expulsion in circumstances such as his. The Parson, inwhose philosophy it would have held nothing but disaster, was beamingwith joy. He sat down on a stretch of turf and Ishmael lay beside him, waiting. 

"In the first place, the injury isn't serious. Carron, the surgeon fromPlymouth, says it's nothing in the world but a muscle torn away, that ispainful but not dangerous. He says he does not know why the boy madesuch a fuss; he can see nothing to account for delirium. I could havegiven a guess, but refrained. . . . Anyway, I've been having a talk withDr. Tring--"

Ishmael kept an ungrateful silence; it seemed to him that week had beenall talks. 

The Parson waited a second and then, with a tiny pang of disappointment, went on:

"It is to be all right; everything is to be as it was before. I know youfeel that is impossible, but it will hurt less and less with time, believe me. Character is what counts in the long run, Ishmael. And Ihave seen--I can't tell you how proudly--that you have character, thatit has made its mark here. That shows in the way this affair has beentaken. So pull yourself together; tell yourself how little it all reallymatters, and you'll find it is so. "

A wave of affection for his friend went over Ishmael as he listened tothe words that really fitted his case so little and were so kindlyspoken. He felt in a flat muddle, unaware whether he wished he did feelall he was expected to or glad he did not; but one good thing theParson's words accomplished. They purged him of the artificialstandpoint of the afternoon. It was impossible for one as naturallydirect as Ishmael to be in contact with so much of singleness of purposeas the Parson's and not be ashamed of his own impulses towardstheatrical vision. He turned his head away to hide his emotion, whichthe Parson took to spring from the news he had imparted and welcomedwith relief. He took the boy's hand and pressed it, a thing rare forhim, who was so sensitive of others' wishes he generally left physicalexpression to them in the first place. 

"Shall we be getting back?" he said, after a moment. 

As they were walking over the moor a gleam of sun shone out, wavered, then strengthened, and before a soft breeze the mist began to vanish, only clinging here and there in the pockets of the moor like fine whitewool rubbed off the backs of phantom sheep. For a while they strode insilence; then the Parson said:

"By the way, you know old Mr. Eliot's daughter, don't you? Tring told meshe went to the dancing classes. "

"Yes. . . . Why?" Ishmael asked in sudden alarm. 

If it had all come out--to have a girl mixed up in this story ofhis--the ignominy of it! The next moment with his relief mingled acontrition for his selfish impulse when Boase replied: "She's not well, apparently. Her father made Carron have a look at her; he's no faith inHarvey. Seems she's been doing too much for her strength--walking toofar. She appears to think nothing of ten to fifteen miles. "

"There's nothing wrong, really wrong, is there?"

"Oh, no, only they think change of air will be good for her and morerest. She's to go on a long visit to some relations in France. I don'tknow what she'll think of the change, a girl like that. She's a splendidcreature. "

"Have you met her?" asked Ishmael in surprise. 

"Why, yes. Her father seemed to think she was a little hysterical andasked me to see if she would talk to me. . . . "

"More talking . . . " thought Ishmael. 

"I don't think her at all hysterical. It seemed to me more physical. Infact, I suggested Mr. Carron. But I think there's nothing like athorough change. Her father'll miss her, I fear, though. "

Ishmael had a sly chuckle as he thought of others who would do likewise, and, catching a twinkle in the Parson's eye, it occurred to him for thefirst time that day that perhaps all the subtlety of the race was notconfined to those of the age of himself and Killigrew. He grew a littlehot; then the Parson began to speak on another theme, and he thought nomore of Hilaria. He was to think of her less and less as the monthsduring which she never came back to St. Renny went by, and he did notguess how he was to hear of her again. 

"About your confirmation, " the Parson was saying. "This affair will makeno difference. There is no real reason why it should be put off. Dr. Tring quite agrees with me. You are in the same mind about it, eh?"

Ishmael, who was feeling more and more as though the past week had beena grisly burden that was slipping off him like a bad dream, acquiescedin a rush of eager thankfulness. The complications of life werebeginning to unfold in front of him, and both by training and heredityhe turned to the things that bore relation elsewhere but in this lifefor a solution. 

"I want to be decent . . . " was all he said gruffly, but with a somethingso youthful in manner and sentiment that Boase had a yearning over himas in the days when he had been a little boy. 

"Let me say one thing to you, Ishmael. I have said it before, but whenyou were less able to understand. You will meet people--men--who willtell you no man can keep altogether a rigid straightness in mattersthat, as you know, I hold important. You will meet women who willcondone this view and tell you that they do not expect it, that men are'different, ' and that they would not even have it otherwise. Do notbelieve them. It may be true of some men, though, if they were broughtup with other ideals, it would not be true of nearly as many as it isnow. But it will not, I think, be true of you, which is all you areconcerned with. Your very position should make you more scrupulous thanmost men. You have had a shock, I know, but has it yet occurred to youto think over the effect your father's conduct has had on those otherlives--your brothers' and your sister's?"

"No, " confessed Ishmael. 

"Try. You are not fond of Archelaus, I know, and there is no reason whyyou should be. But try and see his point of view. He has the attachmentto Cloom that you have--not the same kind; he would never have felt it atrust or something to be made better for its own sake, but he does feelhe has a right to it, and that is a hard thing to bear. Ishmael, allthis misery, the reason why your brothers have not been brought up asyou have, with the same advantages, which now they can never gain alltheir lives long, the reason why Vassie, who is clever and pretty, willhave a difficulty in getting a husband worthy of her, is because yourfather lived according to the law of the flesh instead of the spirit. Never place any child of yours in that position. "

"I never will, I promise. But, I say, you know, Da Boase"--the childhoodname slipped out unawares--"I don't think I care about that sort ofthing--girls and all that. Not like Killigrew. "

The Parson hid a smile. "You will not ripen as early as Killigrew, inall probability, " he said, "but one does not have a temper such asyours without other passions. There is another thing. Men of theworld--Killigrew, when he is a little older--will tell you that it ispossible and right to gratify those passions at less cost than theembroilment your father made about him. Casual intercourse where no suchquestion arises. . . . Do not listen to that either. If it is possible foryou to be one of those who carry an undimmed banner, do. People oftentalk as though purity were negative, whereas it is very actual. Keep itas a beautiful thing that once lost is gone for ever at whatever gain ofexperience or even understanding. "

"I really don't want that sort of thing, " persisted Ishmael a littleoutraged he should not be thought to know best. 

"However that may be, " said the Parson, rather sharply, "different bynature or grace, you should never let your difference make you feelsuperior. A person who despises or fails to sympathise with all thesorrow and the sin in the lives of others is the worst of sinners. Thereare even times when chastity can be very chill and bare, though purityis always lovely. "

"But you were saying----" began Ishmael, then stopped. "I think I doknow what you mean, " he said more humbly. The Parson made no reply, but, stopping in his walk, looked over a low wall of loose granite and laidhis arms along it. "Come and look here a minute, " he said. 

The sun had died away, but the mist had not returned, and a stillgreyness held the world in the low-lying part of the moor which they hadreached. 

Fields lay on one side and stretched in a parti-coloured patterning overthe slope before them as they leant upon the wall. The breeze, too, seemed not to stir there, as though the pearly greyness that seemed totinge the very air were a blight that lay on sound and motion as well assight. No breath stirred strong enough to lift the petals of thegorse-blossoms by the wall, or rustle the wayside plants. The onlymovement came from a field of long grass on the slope--one of thepattern of fields, newly-ploughed, short-turfed, or misted with greenfrom the three-weeks-old corn springing a few inches high, a patternthat lay like a coverlet drawn over the rounded flank of the hill. Andover that one field movement was busy--the rank grass was exactly thelength, density, texture, to respond to what imperceptible breath therewas, and that grass only. Over and over it passed the silvery waves madeby the bending of the blades, over and over, always rippling up theslope till it looked as though a film of smoke were perpetually beingblown from below to vanish over the crest. Ripple after ripple, rippleafter ripple, shivered up the slope and was gone--the field shudderedand breathed with it; there was something uncanny about this silentunceasing movement in the dead landscape--this visible effect of aninvisible thing. 

"We're most of us too full of effort, " said the Parson abruptly; "wethink too much of trying to be good, of whether what we are going to dois right or wrong. Whereas if we only got our minds into the rightattitude the rest would follow naturally and be worth all the striving. If we could only be more flower-like--let ourselves grow and blossom. Look at that field, the only thing moving; d'you see it? Well, it'srippling like that all by itself because it's the only thing able toanswer to the little breath that's abroad. If you get yourself sound andright and don't worry about yourself, then you respond to the breath ofthe Spirit, like that grass. For the wind bloweth where it listeth. . . . "

He fell into a silence, and Ishmael, stirred out of the crust ofdepression which had held him so many days, felt all his heart and highhopes, his eagerness for life and its possibilities, stirring within himagain. He drew a deep breath and stretched widely, sloughing off mentalsloth in the physical act as young things can. He felt more alivebecause more conscious of himself and his surroundings than ever before, eager and ready to take up the remainder of his time at St. Renny. Hestirred a little by the Parson's side. 

Boase brought his thought to an ending with the rest of the quotation:"So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. . . . "

BOOK II

GROWTH

CHAPTER I

A FAMILY ALBUM

Vassilissa Beggoe stooped to take a final look at herself in the smallmirror, for she was so tall that, in her flowery bonnet that swoopedupwards from her piled chignon, she nearly touched the sloping roof ofher bedroom. She stooped and gave a glow--half smile, half a quickeningof light, over her whole face--at what she saw in the cloudy glass, which could not materially dim her white and gold splendour. A slightthickness of modelling here and there, notably in the short nose andtoo-rounded chin, blurred the fineness of her beauty and might make forhardness later on, but now, at twenty-one, Vassie's wonderful skin andher splendid assurance were too dazzling for criticism to look at herand live. She gave a pat, more approbation than correction, to a rose onthe bonnet, smoothed the lapels of her Alexandra jacket--so-called afterthe newly-made Princess of Wales--and pulled up her gloves under itspegtop sleeves. Then she turned with a swoop and a swish of her wideblue taffeta skirts. 

"There!" she exclaimed in the studiously clear notes she had not beenable to free from a slight metallic quality; "that's not so bad a sightto go and meet a little brother, I believe?"

The younger, softer, slighter bit of femininity on the bed gave a gentlelittle sound that meant admiration, and clasped a pair of dimpled, notvery clean, little hands together. 

"You're beautiful, Vassie, just beautiful. And just like a lady. . . . "

"I am a lady, " said Vassie sharply. "How am I not a lady, I should liketo know? Haven't I been four years in a boarding-school, and don't I goand stay with a clergyman's family in Plymouth? A lady. . . . When I was atPlymouth last month for the Prince's wedding celebrations one of theofficers of a battleship asked who I was!"

"I know, you've told me. Vassie--"

"Well?"

"Nothing. Only I sometimes wonder why you've never got wed up there toPlymouth. One of those officers, or perhaps a clergyman. . . ?"

Vassie rather wondered herself, but all she said was: "I'm not going togive up my freedom for the first man who lifts his little finger, I cantell you. I haven't such a great opinion of the menfolk. Conceitedcreatures, the most of them. I mean to pick and choose. And I meanIshmael to help me. "

"Oh, Vassie, how?" came from the wide-eyed listener on the bed. 

"Why, I shall make him bring his school friends down, of course. They'reall gentlemen. And then I shall make them fall in love with me. "

"But won't they be a lot younger than you, Vassie? You're three yearsolder'n Ishmael. "

"Some of 'em may be older than him, mayn't they? And one thing leads toanother. We might both get asked to stay with their folks. Besides--Idon't know that I should mind a man younger than me. I'd know more whatto do with him. I've always found boys easier. Men are so funny--as ifthey were always keeping something to themselves. I don't like that. "

She looked indeed as though she might demand and take all she couldget--a girl greedy of life and the good things in it, or the things thatto her seemed good. She swooped down beside the little creature on thebed and flung an arm round her. The younger girl's personality seemedto be drowned in the bright effulgence of the elder as her slight formin the swelling folds of blue taffeta skirt that overflowed her. 

"What about Mr. Tonkin?" ventured Phoebe; "he'd have you fast enough. And he's almost as good as a clergyman, though of course not as good asan officer. . . . "

"Old Tonkin, indeed!" cried Vassie indignantly. "I wouldn't touch him ifhe was the only man alive. Why, mother's actually jealous of the way hetries to come patting and pawing me. . . . She can have him--if she can gethim. Horrid, pale, fat old man!" She shook the thought of him from offher, and ran on: "And when I'm a la--I mean when I'm married, I'll seewhat I can do for you, Phoebe. You're too soft ever to do any good foryourself. As like as not you'd take any clumsy lout that offered, simplybecause you wouldn't know how to say 'No. '"

Phoebe said nothing, but a bright colour ran up over her pale skin andher soft mouth set in a little obstinate line. The whole expression ofher face altered when she set her lips so that they covered the twofront teeth that at once made her face irregular and gave itindividuality. She lost her exquisite softness and became a littlestupid, for it made the lower part of her face too brief--what Vassiecalled "buttoned up. " Phoebe was not actually pretty, but she was veryalluring to men, or would be, simply because everything about her wasfeminine--not womanly, but feminine. Her mouse-brown hair, straight andsoft and fine, refused to fall into the heavy polished curtains thatwere the mode, and which made of Vassie's two waves of rich brass, bright and hard-edged as metal. Phoebe's eyes were brown, not of theopaque variety, but with the actually velvet look of a bee's body. Thegirls at school had told her her eyes looked good to stroke. Her nosewas an indeterminate snub, her chin delightfully round but retreating, falling away from a mouth like a baby's--so fine in texture, so petalsoft, so utterly helpless-looking, with its glint of two small squareteeth. Only when she looked obstinate and closed her mouth the charmwent out of her face as though wiped off like a tangible thing. Shelooked almost sullen now, but Vassie, heedless of her, jumped up and, pirouetting round to show herself off once more and to give herself thatfeeling of mental poise for which physical well-being is needful, madefor the door. A swish, a flutter, a bang, and she was gone. 

Left alone, Phoebe sat a moment longer, then rolled over on the bedwith a kitten-like motion and, stretching her arms above her head, laytaut for a second, then relaxed suddenly. Head tucked in the pillow, sheapparently was lost in thought, for her brown eyes, slightly narrowed, stared vacantly at the frilling of the pillow-slip. Then she gave a softlittle sound that had it not been so pretty would have been a giggle, wriggled round, and slipped off the bed. She ran to the mirror and beganto take down her tumbled hair. As she raised her arms her round breastswelled like a bird's when it lifts its head; her bright eyes and pursedmouth, full of hairpins, were bird-like too. She was perpetually, to theseeing eye, suggesting comparison with the animal creation; she wasbird-like, mouse-like, kitten-like, anything and everything that wassoft and small and obviously easy to hurt and crush physically. That washer allure, her most noticeable quality--that she presentedunconsciously, but unmistakably, the suggestion that it would be easy tohurt her, easy and sweet. 

She made trial of her hair in the fashion the new Princess hadstarted--drawn back _ą la chinoise_, with a long rolled curl, known forsome reason as a "_repentir_, " brought forward to lie over one shoulder. Then she went to the washstand and took more care than usual over thecleansing of her hands. That done, she deliberated whether or not toput on her grey chip hat with the pink plume that on her arrival she hadflung on the bed, where it still lay. She tried herself with it andwithout, then debated as to whether it looked better to give theimpression of being one of the family by appearing bonnetless, orwhether, on the other hand, it would not be more interesting to Ishmaelif he got the impression of a visitor . . . Of someone who was not alwaysabout the house, who was to be seen outside. She finally decided on thelatter. Then she sat down to wait, though the time was bound to be morethan an hour, since Vassie and John-James had only now started in toPenzance in the smart new market-cart to meet the eagerly awaitedarrival, Ishmael Ruan. 

Downstairs Annie too had her deliberations, her changes of mind, hersudden impulses of affection and of resentment, as her ill-regulatedbrain had always had them. She had not changed much in the years thathad brought them past Ishmael's eighteenth birthday. All of worn tissuesand faded tints had been hers long before, and except for an increasedjerkiness she seemed the same. In attire she had altered, and her blacksilk dress, with its scallops and trembling fringes, suited ill enoughwith her badly-arranged hair and work-worn hands. 

She sat in the little parlour, which she had been made to take into useby Vassie, who had successfully made it hideous with antimacassars andvases of artificial flowers. As Annie sat rigidly upright upon aslippery horsehair-covered chair, her eyes wandered vaguely here andthere and fell on the album in which Vassie had collected all thephotographs taken of the family from time to time. Photographs printedon paper were only just beginning to supersede the older daguerreotypes, and a gleam of interest came into Annie's pale blue eyes, for the albumwas still a new toy to her. She remembered that Vassie had only latelyfinished sticking in the last photographs, and, picking it up, she beganturning the pages. 

There was Archelaus . . . She caught her breath. Her lovely Archelaus ashe had appeared before going off to that terrible Crimea, which Anniealways thought was so called because it was such a wicked place. Theprint was not very clear, as it was only a copy made from the originaldaguerreotype, but what it lacked in definition Annie's memory couldsupply. Archelaus was standing with one elbow leaning upon a rusticpillar; he wore his uniform and looked like a king. He had splendidside-whiskers, though their yellow hue did not show in the photograph. Her beautiful Archelaus . . . Now toiling and moiling in those terribledeserts, those sandy places, of Australia, which was the underside ofthe world, where black heathen went about mother-naked. By now he haddoubtless dug much gold--many, many sovereigns of it--out of the sand, and perhaps some day very soon he would walk in with his pockets full ofit; and then who would cut a dash in the country-side, from Land's Endup to Truro and beyond it? Her Archelaus. Even in her dreams Annie didnot picture Archelaus pouring out his gold upon her or as being anythingbut of a splendid masculine surliness. 

She turned a page and came on John-James--reluctant, bashful, gloweringat the camera . . . He was the most dutiful of her children, and shepassed on carelessly and came to Tom. Sleek and shiny in blackbroadcloth, with the foxy sharpness of his features somehow suggestingthe red of his colouring even in the photograph. . . . He was sitting in alow plush chair with Vassie standing, after the ungallant fashion of thepictures of the period, behind him, one hand on his shoulder. She lookeda swelling twenty, though she had only been seventeen when it was taken. Another turn of the page and Annie saw herself--an unkind vision, at hermost set, hard of hair and jaw, with deep eye-sockets. She admired itfor the black gown and the lace handkerchief she was holding; but shewas interested in it, too, as the true egoist always is inself-portraiture, however unflattering. 

She stared at it longer than at any of the others, then, at last turningthe page, came on a photograph of Ishmael, sent by him from St. Renny atthe Parson's instigation. She stared at the mouth that, with its moregenerous curves, was yet so like her own, at the square brow that nevercame from her side of the family, at the narrow chin that in itsdelicacy seemed to her girlish. As she looked a sudden tremor ran overher. She realised she had been gazing at it as at the picture of astranger, so altered did he look from when she had last seen him, overtwo years ago. . . . For some reason that stuck-up Parson had made everyexcuse for the boy to spend his holidays elsewhere for over two years. She had not seen him since before his confirmation, which she looked onvaguely as some sort of civil ceremony like a superior kind of gettingapprenticed . . . Perhaps as being definitely apprenticed to gentility. She had had Vassie "done" at Plymouth for that reason. This strange boy, this young man, was coming to-day to her house, which was his house . . . Coming to upset everything. She stared again, trying to trace thefeatures she remembered after a fashion, but which love had neverimprinted on her memory with the only indelible draughtsmanship. Sheturned backwards swiftly till she came to the beginning of the book, where was another photograph taken from an old daguerreotype. It showedIshmael as a baby . . . His mouth rather wet-looking, helplessly open, notunlike Phoebe's now . . . He seemed somehow a pathetic baby. Even Anniewas struck by it. 

She laid the book on her slippery lap, whence it fell unheeded to thefloor, and stared in front of her. . . . Out of the dim past, almost asdim to her as to an animal, came a memory, the memory of a touch. Thetouch of a baby's hands feeling about her breast. . . . Not of Ishmael's inparticular--how should she, whose motherhood had been so forced, soblurred a thing, keep one memory of it from another, or any that was notpurely animal . . . ? But it was his picture she had been looking at whichhad brought the idea of babyhood back to her, and it was with himpersonally that her mind connected the swift memory that was more arenascence of an actual sensation. She closed her eyes and clutched atthe breast that had fallen on flatness. Her children would all go fromher except this one who was coming back. . . . A warmth that washalf-animal, and nearly another half-sentimental, rose in her heart, butat least for the moment it was genuine. There was even some vaguefeeling that she would protect him if the others made it hard forhim. . . . 

Wheels sounded on the cobbles of the courtyard, and the clatter ofhoofs; it meant that John-James and Vassie were back, bringing her son. She got to her feet and went through the house to the yard door, alreadyrecovering a little of poise, which meant artificiality, but still withsomething of that real glow about her. She knew a moment of dread lestIshmael should rebuff it. She held out her arms with an uncontrolledgesture, and heard her own voice call his name on an ugly piping noteshe could not have told was hers. 

CHAPTER II

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

Ishmael Ruan, like the rest of his world that day, had been planningahead in his mind. His first conceptions were blown away from him withhis breath at sight of Vassie glowing on the dingy railway platform; shewas far the more self-possessed of the two, which was mortifying to ayoung man who, all the way down in the train, had been telling himselfwith what tact and kindliness he was going to behave. John-James hadseemed so unaltered that his grip of the hand, as casual as thoughIshmael were any acquaintance just back from a day's excursion, had beena relief. Remained his mother, for Tom, contrary to what John-James andVassie had expected, did not look in at Penzance Station to greetIshmael on his transit, and as to the Parson, he was letting Ishmaelalone to find his feet with his family, holding himself as a person tobe come to if occasion or affection prompted it later. 

The drive was a silent one, as even Vassie felt shy, though she hid itunder an affectation of calmness. Ishmael had plenty of time to readjusthimself and think of his mother, the determining factor, now Archelauswas away, in his happiness--or so he thought, ignorant in hismasculinity of the force and will sheathed in Vassie's velvet sleekness. His mother . . . He had no sentiment at the name; but then neither wouldhe have had if the relation between them had been a happy one. He wouldthen have felt love, but he would always have been of too deadly aclarity for sentiment. He was sorry for his mother with a degree ofsympathy rare in one so young, for he had as little of the hardness ofyouth as might be, and what he had was not of judgment, but feeling. Hewas at the moment nothing but sorry for his mother, but though that pitywould not change to condemnation it might turn to dislike. He too, asAnnie was doing in the parlour as she awaited the sound of the wheelsthat were bearing him nearer her, tried to clutch at memories. He couldfind a few of fierce kindnesses, but not one of an embrace unqualifiedby some queer feeling other than simple love, which he had always feltin her. She did not, of course, care twopence for him, he decided. Well, he would not be a hypocrite--he would not bother or embarrass her withthe expression of a tenderness neither of them felt; he would be gentle, he would kiss her if she seemed to expect it, but he would talk brightlyand naturally of trivial things, he would make the occasion seem aslittle weighted with portent as possible. There should be nothing of thereturn of the master, nothing of the odious briskness of the new broomabout him at his entry. Time enough after to talk over things. . . . Hecould spend the next day with John-James on the farm discussingimprovements, alterations. They were very behind the times down here; hehad seen farming in Somerset and Devon in his holidays that would makethem open their eyes down here. That would all break it to his mothergently. She was getting old too--she must be quite fifty--and old peopledid not like to have reforms thrust upon them. No, there should benothing eager, aggressive about him. He remembered stormy, excitablescenes of his childhood and resolved they should see what theself-control of a gentleman was like. Thus Ishmael, with intentions notby any means, not even most largely, selfish. Yet, of all moods, theworst to meet his mother's. 

The growing interest of the drive as they neared the north-west and thefamiliar landmarks of his childhood came into sight, flooded with theJune sunshine--the ruined mine-shafts staring up so starkly, the gloryof white cattle in the golden light, the first glimpse of the pale roofsof Cloom itself, prismatic as a wood-pigeon's plumage, all these thingsstruck at his heart with a keener shock than did anything personal, andmade thought of his mother sink away from him. Behind the cluster ofgrey buildings he saw the parti-coloured fields stretching away--greenpasture, brown arable, pale emerald of the young corn--all his. He sawin folds of the land little copses of ash whose trunks showed pale asghost-trees; he saw, gleaming here and there through the gorse-bushes, the stream that ran along the bottom of the slope below the cart-trackthat led to Cloom. He saw the bleak, grey homesteads, cottages and smallfarms, set here and there, as he turned in his seat to look around him. And his heart leapt to the knowledge that all these things were his. . . . 

Annie's croaking cry, her thin arms, her quick straining of him, he allunprepared even for the mere physical yielding that alone saves such anembrace from awkwardness, found him lost. Annie felt it and stiffened, and the moment had gone never to come back. In after years, when Anniehad magnified it to herself and him, accusing him of throwing her loveback in her face when she had offered it, he was wont to reproachhimself bitterly. But Annie was so volatile in emotion, except whereArchelaus was concerned, that her new flow would, in all likelihood, nothave held its course for more than a few weeks at the best. Ishmael knewthis, but Annie, by dint of telling herself the contrary, never did. Theawkwardness of the actual moment was saved by Phoebe, who had hung inthe background waiting for what she thought might be the most tellingmoment to glide forward, but who, her natural pleasure at sight of herold playmate suddenly overbearing more studied considerations, couldcontain herself in silence and the shadows no longer. 

"Ishmael!" she cried, running forward. "Ishmael!"

She held out her two hands and Vassie thought swiftly: "It's no good, mydear; he's for your betters--he and I . . . " and with a worldliness thatwent far towards bearing out her claims to ladyhood she broke in with:

"You remember little Phoebe, Ishmael--from the mill. . . . "

"Why, of course. You haven't grown much, though you've got your hairdone up, " said Ishmael, thankful for any diversion from Annie'sreproachful arms, which had slid from his neck to hang by her side. 

"I'm quite grown-up, though, " said Phoebe, dimpling. 

"She mean's she's too old for you to kiss, lad, " said simple John-Jameswith directness, grinning as he took the mare's bridle to lead her tothe stable. Ishmael had not yet the social cleverness to kiss Phoebeat once and without embarrassment or to laugh the suggestion away, butshe, who had no social sense at all and never attained any, met themoment perfectly, with a little curtsey and a sidelong look ofmerriment. "Ah, I remember when Ishmael refused to kiss me, and I criedmyself to sleep over it, " she said; "'tisn't likely I'm going to let himkiss me now. "

"No--did I . . . ?" asked he; and Vassie gave a shrill laugh. 

"To be sure he did and would again, " she declared; "he's not thinking ofsuch things. Mamma, is tea ready in the parlour?"

"I fear I forgot about it, Vassie, my dear, but Katie shall get it towance. Come in here, Ishmael. We do sit here now; simminly we'requality, according to she. "

Ishmael followed his mother into the ugly room, which offended his eyes, used as they were to the Parson's taste. An album lay on the floor, andhe stooped to pick it up, but his mother, quick for all her years andrheumatism, was before him and had thrust it out of his reach. 

Tea was a stiff meal; everyone was on company manners. John-James, infrom stabling the mare, sat at the edge of a chair; Vassie was toogenteel, Phoebe too arch, Annie grim. Ishmael's heart sank with aterrible weight upon it as he thought that these were the people withwhom his lot was cast--that he must see them, talk to them, day in, dayout, all the round of the seasons. . . . Vassie's beauty seemed dimmed tohim; Phoebe became an annoyance like a musical-box that will not leaveoff tinkling out the same tune. He bent his head lower as he sat, aware, with a misery of shame, that tears were burning perilously near hiseye-lids. Life was sordid, and his position, over which he had not beenguiltless of sometimes dreaming as romantic, held nothing butmortification and hatefulness. 

The meal dragged on; the daylight without grew glamorous. Conversationflickered and died, and at last Ishmael, pushing his chair back with anoise that sounded horrible to himself, announced his intention of goingto the Vicarage. Annie muttered something about people who could not becontent to stay at home even on their first evening. . . . 

But he was not allowed to escape alone; Phoebe discovered that it wastime she was going back to the mill, and there was no evading an offerto accompany her. 

Somehow, away from the others, and out in the open, Phoebe seemed toshed the commonness that had blighted her at that dreadful tea. Shestill coquetted, but it was with a fresh and dewy coquetry as of someinnocent woodland creature that displays its charms as naturally as itbreathes. Ishmael found himself pleased instead of irritated when hereceived her weight as he helped her over the stone steps at eachstile--for the only girl he had seen much of in late years had beenwont to stretch out a strong hand to guide him. 

As they went over the marsh where they had so often played as childrenthey vied with each other in pointing out memorable spots, and thegaiety of the old days mingled with the beauty of the present evening tobrighten his spirits. The marsh was all pied with white--pearly white ofblowing cotton-grass; thick, deader white of water-cress in full flower;faint blurred white of thousands of the heath-bedstraw's tiny blossoms. Phoebe in her white gown sprang onto swaying tussocks and pickedplumes of cotton-grass to trim herself a garden hat, and Ishmaelsteadied her passage. 

"Oh, Ishmael, I'm so glad you've come back!" she told him, lifting aglowing face, haloed by the rose-lined hat that had slipped to hershoulders and was only held in place by a pink velvet ribbon which wasnot softer than the throat it barred. 

"It's often dull here, " she ran on. "There's not many people I careabout going with since I came back from boarding school, and even forthose I do go with Vassie spoils it by saying I'm demeaning myself. She's such a fine lady. "

"And aren't you?" asked Ishmael, laughing; "that was my first thoughtwhen I saw you, anyway. "

"Was it?" She dimpled with pleasure, but added shrewdly: "I'm not one, though. I like getting away from it all and working in the dairy andlooking after the tiny calves. I like that best of all, that and my babychickens. But Vassie's only happy when she's dressed up and payingvisits. "

"I like your way best, " he assured her, thinking what a jolly littlething she was after all. But Phoebe's mind could not keep itsattention on any one theme for more than a minute, and her eyes andthoughts were wandering. Suddenly she gave a little cry. 

"Oh, look at those beauties! I must have them!" And she pointed towhere, on a vividly green patch of marsh, a whole grove of cotton-grassstood up in the glow of the setting sun. The golden light poured throughthe silky tufts, making of each a flake of fire, all raining at the sameslight slope from hair-fine stems. Against the turf they looked for allthe world like Chinese lanterns swung for some miniature revel of thefairies--they seemed literally to diffuse light upon the air. Ishmaelstood staring, stung to excitement by that suddenly-glimpsed beauty; butPhoebe darted forward, and the next moment had withdrawn a foot whosestout country shoe and white stocking were dripping greenly. 

"Here, let me!" cried Ishmael; but she waved him back. 

"No, you're too heavy; you'd go through at once. Hold my hand while Ilean over;" and she swung outwards from his grasp, her other handstretching vainly. 

"Best leave that lot, " advised Ishmael; "there's some much easier to getat just along there. "

She turned her head, body still swung forward, and followed the line ofhis pointing finger to where a cluster of grass as fine, butuntransmuted, stood in shadow. 

"Oh, but that hasn't the sun on it!" she exclaimed naļvely. The nextmoment she had seen the absurdity of her own speech, and, pivoting tothe path beside him, joined in his laughter. 

"Well, it seemed sense to me when I said it, " she protested. 

"So it would have been if you could have picked the sun too. "

"But I suppose it was only the sun that made me want them at all. Aren't I a goose? Vassie would say I shall never get sense. "

"I like that sort of nonsense; it's rather jolly, somehow. I say, Phoebe, I shall think of you as the girl who wanted to pick the sun. Doesn't it sound ripping?"

"Oh, my feet are so wet!" cried Phoebe. "I must hurry home. Motherwill fuss so over me, you can't think. "

"Shall I just get you that sunny grass before we go?"

Phoebe hesitated, and then some instinct, finer than her comprehensionof it, prompted her to a refusal, and the cotton-grass was left to swingits gossamer globes of light till the sun should have dipped below therim of the moor. 

When Ishmael had delivered Phoebe up to the tender agitations of thefussy, weakly mother, and himself got away from the too-enthusiasticwelcome of the father, he struck towards the cliffs and the Vicaragewith a younger heart than had been his all the evening. Quite naturallylife had slipped through from a film of darkness on to a brighter plane, and he greeted Boase with none of the gruffness that would have weighedon him earlier. This also had the result of breaking the reticence whichwould otherwise have kept him from telling anything of his realfeelings. Now that his family and the life before him no longer seemedrayless, he could speak of the blight that had, for him, settled evenover the future as he sat in that fearsome parlour. 

Boase listened, glad that the boy seemed to be growing more articulate;it would make his help, when it was needed, easier to give. He keptIshmael for supper, feeling that consideration for Annie was not themost important thing just then, and after it he walked with the boy asfar as the stile that gave on to the cliff path. Ishmael was far fromhaving given way to one of his old unbalanced fits of chattering, but ithad been a pleasure to him to talk freely to the person with whom he wasmost intimate. It was long--unnaturally long for expansive youth--sincehe had talked so freely, for Killigrew had left St. Renny a year beforehim to study painting in Paris. It was the time when the great Barbizonschool was in its prime, when Diaz and Rousseau and Harpignies and therest of that goodly company were heading the return to Nature which theepoch needed, just as later it was to need, with equal sincerity, areturn to the primitive in art. Killigrew was absorbed by the fervour ofhis new creed and wrote but rarely, and his letters were all butincomprehensible to Ishmael. Not in his moments of freest intercoursewith Phoebe that evening had it been possible to exchange anythingbeyond the chatter and playfulness of children, but there was that inIshmael to-night which, he being young, had to find outlet. For youth isthe period of giving, as gathering age is of withholding. 

Coming home after so long, coming home, moreover, with a meaningportentous beyond the ordinary attached to the act, had excited Ishmaelunknown to himself. Physically he felt very tired, which he told himselfwas absurd, but mentally he was of a joyous alertness. Leaning upon thestile, he drew a deep breath of the salt air and raised his eyes to thenight sky curving, so high was he placed, for an immense arc about histiny form. To the north the Plough trailed its length, but south, highover the dark blot which to the keen sight of love meant Cloom, Spica, brilliant crown of Virgo, pulsed whitely, while the glitteringsisterhood of Aquila and Lyra, Corona and Libra swept towards the east, ushering up the sky the slim young moon, as bright as they but moreserene, like a young mother amidst a flock of heedless girls. How oftenhad Ishmael counted these same clear callous eyes from sleeping St. Renny, but never with the answering gleam in his breast that he felt nowhe saw them over his own land. 

"So life is going to be good, after all, " remarked the Parson abruptly. 

"Rather. It seems jolly good to-night, anyway. All my life I've beenlooking forward to this, just this, coming back here and makingsomething of it all . . . And the funny thing is now it's come I'm notdisappointed. "

"Why should you be?"

"I dunno. Only one expects to be when one's been expecting to be happy. That sounds Irish, but you know what I mean. "

"Yes, I know, but then I'm older than you. Why should you have foundthat out?"

"Some things--things like that--one doesn't find out by what happens. One sort of knows them to start with. It's funny too, because what I'mso cock-a-hoop about to-night is that life's so full of things justahead, things that are going to happen. I say, look at that moon; I sortof feel as though I could jump over her if only I tried hard enough!"

"That's what youth lives on, " said Boase--"not on what happens, but onwhat may happen. Every morning when you wake don't you feel--'To-day_It_ may happen, ' though you haven't the vaguest idea what It may be?"

"Why, yes, I think that's true, " said Ishmael slowly. 

"Yes, it's true. It's what youth and hope and courage lives by. "

"And old people--what do they live by?"

"Ah, that everyone has to find out for himself. It depends largely onwhat his middle-age has drawn on, and that's nearly always somethingmore material than what fed his youth. There's only one thingcertain--that we all have something, some secret bread of our own soul, by which we live, that nourishes and sustains us. It may be a differentthing for each man alive. "

"We must each work out our own damnation, " said Ishmael, and then couldhave kicked himself for his own smartness that he heard go jarringthrough the night. He waited in a blush of panic for some reproof, suchas "That was hardly worthy, was it?" But the Parson, ever nothing if notunexpected, did not administer it, though Ishmael could have sworn hefelt his smile through the darkness. 

"Damnation, salvation, it's much the same thing, " said Boase, cheerfully, "though naturally youth likes to use the former word. Butthe great thing is never to despise the means by which another manattains it. Patience, tolerance, tolerance, patience. . . . "

"Oh, I don't know, " protested Ishmael. "I don't think much would getdone in the world at that rate, would it?"

"Perhaps not. And you have so much to do in it. . . . When d'you start?"

"To-morrow morning with dawn, so I must be getting off. If you're awakeround about then, Da Boase, think of me beginning to remake the worldover at Cloom. "

And Ishmael set off through the night, his feet lagging with a blissfulfatigue and his mind falling on an equally blissful numbness. As he wentthe Parson's phrase went with him, stirring his imagination, and when heclimbed into the big bed beneath the drooping Christ it worked morearticulately within him. "Secret bread . . . " he thought; "that's what hecalled it. . . . I wonder if Phoebe's is sun--she wanted to pick the sun. And his is religion, of course, and mine--I know what mine is. It'llalways be the same. I shan't change even if I grow old. "

He began to feel very drowsy and drifted into a vague wonder at thethought of growing old. "I wonder what it feels like. I suppose onetakes no more interest in anything; it can't matter what one's secretbread is. But mine, of course, mine is Cloom. . . . " And on that he fellasleep. 

CHAPTER III

FIRST FURROW

Youth is susceptible to that which it awakes, and Ishmael sallied outearly next morning in a mood to match the month as it then shone togreet him. The sun had not long cleared the east, and the globes of dewglimmered on leaf and twig and darkened his boots as he crossed theill-kept lawn in front of the house. He promised himself it should berolled and mown and have flower-beds around it, and that a wind-break offirs should be planted along the low granite wall which was all thatdivided it from the bare moor. He went to the little gate and, leaninghis back against it, looked long at the house as though for the firsttime. He noted the solid simple lines of its long front and the beautyof its heavy mullions and the stone corbels beneath the roof. Theportico over the door had pillars of square rough-hewn granite, a wholeroom was built out over it, with a wide-silled window, beneath which theRuan arms were carved on a granite shield. That door should have a driveleading up and widening before it; at present what cart-track there waswent meekly along the side of the low wall into the farmyard. Those twobig velvet-dark yews that stood sentinel either side of the porch wouldlook splendid when clipped taut and square. So he planned, and then, hearing the voice of John-James calling to the cows, he remembered thatthe utilitarian side of the place must come first; and he went up thepath, through the panelled corridor that led through the house, into thecourt, passed under the arch at the opposite side, and so into thefarmyard. There the cows were gathering for the milking, swingingslowly into the yard while John-James held open the gate from the field. They were good cows, but Ishmael glanced at them critically. Cows wereto be his chief concern, for the home farm was not large enough to yieldmuch in the way of crops for sale--nearly all would be needed for thewinter consumption of his own beasts. Most of the corn sown was thedredge-corn, a mingling of barley and oats sown together and groundtogether, which was used for cattle, and the roots and hay were allneeded also. Even then there would have to be special foods bought, Ishmael decided, for he believed in farmyard manure, and to obtain thatat its best the cattle had to be well and carefully fed. These cows henow saw were good enough of their kind, but he wished to start Guernseysor Jerseys, or more probably a cross-breed of the two, as being fitterfor the bare country than pure-bred animals. 

John-James tramped in behind the last cow and closed the gate. He hadmade no remark at sight of Ishmael, and all he now said was:

"Them are good cows. Good as any you'll get up-country I reckon. "

"They look all right for their kind, " admitted Ishmael. 

"Finest in the place. Not like Johnny Angwin's beasts--high in the boneand low in the flesh. He'm a soft kind o' chap, sure 'nough, and sick tohis heart at having to take to farming toall. He was in a book-shop toTruro, but had to come home when his brother died. T'other day he cometo I and he says, 'Oh, John-James Beggoe, my dear, what shall I do? Iforgot I did ought to arrange my cows all in steps, so to speak, so thatthey shouldn't all calve to wance, and now they'll all be a doen of itand us won't get no milk. . . . '" John-James broke off with a chuckle, thenresumed with: "Seen the calves yet?"

"No. I suppose they've been turned out?"

"Not yet. I'll wait till the middle of the month before turnen out. Eight heifers and three bulls there be. "

"Well, I'll see what they look like. Morning, Katie!"

Katie Jacka, who had come out to the milking, responded eagerly to thenew master and planked down stool and pails. Ishmael and John-Jamesstood watching for a few minutes. 

"That there cow is drawin' to calf, and I'm jealous of her, " announcedJohn-James lugubriously; "she'm too fat, and I fear she'll get bruised, but though I turned her into the poorest field in the place she won't gono thinner. She'm never gone dry, and they belongs to be one month dry. "

"I want to start Jerseys, " said Ishmael boldly; "I'm sure the betterquality of the milk will more than make up for the greater cost of thestock. "

"Jerseys! . . . Well, " said John-James, startled, "that's a new idea, surely. I don't knaw where 'ee'd get a bull to serve en. Hav'ee thoughton that?"

"I don't see why I shouldn't have a bull myself. I could advertise itfor service all round the country, if it comes to that. "

John-James muttered something to the effect that he'd enough to do as itwas, but Katie, one ear pressed against a cow, one pricked for theconversation, chimed in. 

"There's a Jersey bull to the geart farm to Grey Caunce, maister, " shetold Ishmael, "and I've heard tell there's nothen but Jerseys there, andthe butter's the best in the country and fetches most to market. Many'sthe time I've said I could make as good if I'd only got cream hangin' inriches like them has got. "

"You must come up the Fair with me next time, John-James, " suggestedIshmael, "and then we'll see. Come and show me the calves now. . . . "

The two went off to the cowsheds and for the next hour were examininglivestock, from the calves down to the bees--rather a rarity in thoseparts and the joy of John-James, who had the bee-gift, and was neverstung, being able to move a swarm in his bare hands unscathed. Afterwards they walked over part of the farmlands, and Ishmael's heartbegan to beat high with pride and joy. There is nothing more romanticthan land--its wilfulness, its possibilities, its endless intimacies. Ishmael's land was to prove an exacting mistress, unlike the rich, sleekhome counties, which only have to be stroked to smile and yield. Onthese granite heights the soil needed breaking every three years; if afield did very well it might be left four, but never longer. The deepploughing of the midlands was impossible--the hard subsoil lay too closeto the surface, and little wheat was sown as the shallow soil would notbear it, and what was sown never grew to be like the heavy eight-sidedcorn of softer counties. Yet Ishmael loved his land already and was tolove it more and more, its very hardness and fighting of him helping tomake its charm. 

Neither his early experiences of farm life nor his opportunities of morescientific study had been wasted on Ishmael, and he looked over pastureand arable now with an eye knowing enough, if not quite as much so as hetried to make it appear to John-James. He found the land in goodcondition, the early-sown grain showing clear green blades and the grassrich enough, while even in the more neglected pastures towards the seawhere the thistles had not been refused a foothold they had been keptcut down to prevent seeding. John-James was conscientious, thoughhandicapped by a rigid conservatism and lack of proper help. For theemigration had been very heavy of late years from that part of theworld, to the goldfields both of Australia and California. Times werebad, though not as bad as in the North, where thousands of cottonoperatives were literally starving owing to the stoppage of the cottonsupplies through the American Civil War. The papers were full formonths, amid the greater excitement of Princess Alexandra's wedding, ofparagraphs headed "The Distress in the North, " that had become as much aregular feature as the weather reports or the society gossip. Theconsequent uneasiness made itself felt even in Cornwall, and perhaps theAnti-Slavery meetings held in Penzance were not entirely disinterested. Also Botallack mine was then in full work and swallowing young men, though for poor enough wage. One way and another, managing the farm wasnone too easy, and so John-James had found. He looked with as muchinterest as his stolid mind could compass to the return of Ishmael, withthe power of the purse-strings and the expenses of his own education atan end, to work something of a miracle at Cloom. But he had not imaginedthe miracle to take the form of Jersey cows, and he began to wonderdolefully what newfangled notions about machinery and manure might notalso be hatching in the young owner's brain. They mounted in silence thesteepest slope of the rolling land and came to a stone hedge on whichJohn-James leant, Ishmael beside him. 

They stood in silence, John-James because he hardly ever spoke unlessspoken to, and Ishmael because over his spirit rushed a flood of memorythat for an aching moment overwhelmed him. This was the field where theNeck had been cried, when, as a little boy, he had first caught at theflying skirts of happiness, first realised the sharpness of the actualinstant--and thought it surely could never, so vivid and insistent wasit, cease to be. . . . Now, as then, his eyes sought the line of twistedhedge, and he saw it, looking so much the same, yet set with leaf andblossom so many seasons away from that August evening, even as he washimself from the child who had thought to arrest Time. Yet, realisingthat, he again tried to snatch at the present, though with thedifference that now he told himself that anyway there was such a long, long time before him to be young in that it wouldn't ever pass. . . . 

"That's for ploughing now, " announced John-James suddenly. "For themang'ls. 'Tes as good land as any in the place, and a waste to hav'engrass, so it is. Maybe you'd like to come and have a try at it, if you'mnot gwain to be above turnen your own hand to work?"

Ishmael had a moment's qualm. What ploughing he had done had been butslight, and he was not free from an uneasy impression that John-Jameswas laying a trap for him into which he would not be sorry to see himfall. It would be no better to put it off, for he could imagine thecomments that would fly, so he nodded his head. 

"We'll set to work this morning on it, " he agreed lightly; "I supposeyou're still using wooden ploughs down here?"

"Wooden ploughs . . . ? And what'd 'ee have ploughs made of, I should liketo knaw? Gold, like what Arch'laus has in Australy?"

"Iron. All modern ploughs are made of iron, and so are rollers. "

"Iron . . . Iron rollers. What's wrong weth a geart granite roller, lad?"

"Well, it's very cumbersome, isn't it? It's three men's work to cart itfrom one place to another, for one thing. Anyway, I've brought down aniron plough and a chain-harrow. . . . "

Over John-James's face came a gleam of interest. "A chain-harrow?" herepeated; "I've long wanted one o' they. Us allus has to take theyard-gate off its hinges and weave furze in and out of it and drag thatover the ground. "

"Well, now you've got a real chain-harrow and won't have to do that anymore. I tell you what it is, John-James, I want you and me between us tomake this the finest farm in the country; I don't want Archelaus tosneer at us when he comes home and say how much better he could have runit. Of course, I can't do it without you; but if you'll only help. . . . "

John-James held silence for a space. Then he said:

"I've allus said as how us wanted carts, 'stead of carr'n all our furzeand the butter and everything as goes in or out upon they harses andlil' dunkies. And gates . . . If us could have a few more gates to theplace 'stead of thrawing the hedges up and down all our days. . . . It'llcost money, but what you do put into the land you get out of the land. Same as weth cows. "

It was a long speech for John-James, and he paused with his countenancesuffused a deep purplish hue. Ishmael seized his hand and wrung it witha sudden young gust of enthusiasm that he could not control. 

"You'll help. I know you will. Oh, we'll pull the old place up yet. We'll make such a thing of it. . . . "

But John-James had withdrawn his hand limply. "Go maken it so fine it'llbe a pretty place for gentry, s'pose, " he said; "be shamed to see Iabout the place then, I reckon. "

Ishmael laughed joyously at him. "Don't be an ass, John-James, " he said;and it was the first time he had been able to meet any little speech ofthe kind without strain. John-James stood at ease, and slowly some fainttrace of a change of expression appeared on his immobile features. 

"I reckon thee'll do, lad, " was all he said; but Ishmael felt his heartgive an upleap of triumph; he knew he had made his first conquest. As heand John-James went into breakfast side by side he felt quite equal tomeeting Annie unperturbed. But he was not to be called on to make trialof his stoicism, as Annie hardly spoke to him; but with a thrill ofemancipation he realised that his mother's tongue no longer held terrorfor him--merely the annoyance of a persistent fly. 

As long as he lived Ishmael never forgot the exquisite moment when hebroke his first furrow on his own land. Harvest gathered is a wonder anda release from strain; sowing and tending of seed and young crops issweet, but ploughing holds more of romance than all the rest. It is thebeginning, the fresh essay with soil that has become once more savage;it is the earliest essential of man's conquest of Nature; his taming ofher from a wild mistress to a fruitful wife. 

The day shone with the clear pearliness of early June: high in air thebig cumulus clouds rode golden-white, trailing their shadows over thedappled land beneath; the branches of hawthorn gleamed silvery amidstthe pearly blossom; a wine-pale sunlight washed with iridescence sky andearth. In the great sloping field, which held six days' hard ploughingbetween its stone ramparts, the granite monolith stood four-square toall the winds that blew, defying ploughs and weathers. The two brownhorses waited by the highest hedge, the plough, that always looks sotoy-like and is so stubborn, quiescent behind them, a boy ready at theirheads, switch in hand. With a freshness of emotion never quite to berecaptured, Ishmael gathered up the rope reins and took the handles ofthe plough in his grip. The impact of the blade against the soil whenthe straining horses had given the first jerk up the slope was as somekeen exquisite mating of his innermost being with the substance of theearth . . . A joy almost sensual, so strong was the pleasure of the actualphysical contact as yielding soil and fine hard edge met--his handssensitively aware of the texture of that meeting through the iron frameof the plough. Up and down the field, over its humped back, widening thestrip of brown between him and the hedge, always with pleasure at sightof that long rich fold of earth turning over perpetually under thesideways impact of the blade, turning over till the green turf washidden by the brown of the under soil. . . . 

The field was not an easy one for the horses by reason of its curve; theoff horse, on the vore, as the part already ploughed is called, dug hisgreat hoofs firmly in the stiff soil, but the near horse slippedperpetually on the short turf. Every now and then the plough had to bestopped while great hunks of granite were hacked out of the earth; then, with loud cries of encouragement and a cut of the whip, the horses wereurged on again, the flash of their shoes gleaming rhythmically up anddown, up and down, as Ishmael guided the plough behind them. His handsgripped the handles, the plough clanked, the horses struggled, and thesound of their hoofs made a dull thud-thud upon the earth; the wind blewgratefully on his moist brow and on the flanks of the animals; at everyturn the shouts of his voice as he stopped the horses and reversed theclanking plough went up through the quiet world. 

The gulls sat, dazzlingly white, motionless as little headstones, alongthe rim where green land met brown vore, then rose and shrieked andswooped as the clatter began again, dipping in the wake of the newfurrow. And the sun went overhead, making sweating steeds and sweatingman and bright wheels and brighter blade of the plough glisten likesculptured bronze, while all the time the green was being more and moreswamped, furrow after furrow, by the encroaching brown. 

That night Ishmael was sore and stiff, but happy, with a deep physicalcontent. The next day and the next and on till the last furrow layturned along the lower hedge he kept himself at it doggedly, in spite ofaching muscles, driven by a vague feeling that this was his initiation, his test of knighthood, and that to fail at it, to leave it to otherhands, would augur ill. When, on the sixth night, he washed the sweatand earth from off his healthily tired body he felt life could holdnothing sweeter than what it had yielded him in these six days. He hadtaken seizen of his land. 

CHAPTER IV

THE SHADOW AT THE WINDOW

For nearly three years that content of Ishmael's held--held till theParson, who had worked for it, grew ill-pleased. It seemed unnaturalthat so young a man should never want to roam further afield than theannual cattle fair; should be sufficiently stayed with that perpetualstruggle against weald and weather. It was just that tussle which, bykeeping the body hard and the mind stimulated, made the contentpossible. Ishmael had up till now asked for nothing better, and so far, so good. But, as the Parson told himself, the time would come when hewould demand more, and then, for lack of knowing other possibilities, hemight slake himself with whatever was near at hand and slowly sink intothe things of the soil till he was smothered with their reek. Up tillnow he had spiritualised the land by his wrestling with it, but now thatsome measure of success, enough to make the struggle less a thing thatmust not be relaxed for a day, had come, now was the time when thereverse process might begin unseen. 

Cloom had undergone a wonderful regeneration, though at present it wentonly skin-deep, and if left to herself she would soon relapse intosavagery. Ground that had been furze-ridden within the memory of man nowyielded roots and grain, though not yet richly; the stubborn furze hadbeen burnt and hacked and torn up, the thorns and thistles, the docksand sorrel, had been patiently attacked until they too yielded, the fineclinging roots of the innocent-looking pink-faced centaury and the moreblatant charlock had been eliminated from the tenacious soil; while thepale golden cows of alien breed waxed fat and gave rich milk only a fewtones paler than their own smooth flanks. 

All this was in the main Ishmael's work; and his blunders had beenfew--he had a genius for the land. It had been hard work though it meantjoy, and left not much time or ease of limb for recreation. It had beenin that respect the Parson met difficulties. There was hunting inseason, and Ishmael was a keen rider to hounds, in spite of his aversionto slaughter of any kind, which upon the farm was the source of notunkindly mirth amongst the men. They could not yield of their fullestrespect and nothing of comprehension to a master who was never presentwhen his own pigs were killed, beyond one occasion when he attended toassure himself that all was done in the most merciful way and had endedby being violently sick into the bowl of pig's blood. In hunting Ishmaelfound, like many another, that his own excitement helped him to bearwith the thought of the fox's pain, though he was always glad, in guiltysecret, when there was no kill. It was not this idiosyncrasy thattroubled Boase; it was the social questions that hunting evoked. Boase, who also followed to hounds, felt his heart glow to see how well the boywas received; for Ishmael's surly shyness had passed into a new phase, expressed by a rather charming deference mingled with independence whichappealed to the brusque, goodhearted members of the "county, " who wentto make up the very mixed hunt in that sparsely-peopled district. 

Still, all was not well. Vassie had grown in discontent, Annie inmelancholy. The girl herself might--probably would, with her beauty andadaptability--have won a place with Ishmael had it not been for themother. Annie's touchy pride, mingled with what Vassie frankly calledher "impossibleness, " made the situation hopeless, for the formerquality would not let her efface herself, and the latter prevented herdaughter being called upon. Therefore, although Ishmael went out nowand again and had struck up a fairly intimate acquaintance with one ortwo nice families within a radius of ten miles, yet he had no sort ofhome life which could satisfy him for long. 

The only thing Boase saw to be thankful for was that Ishmael's thoughtshad not been driven on to Phoebe, and that was probably only becauseit had never occurred to Ishmael as a possible contingency. He had beenso healthily occupied and was so used to Phoebe. Also, Vassie, in herdiscontent, spent the time visiting her rather second-class friends inPlymouth as much as possible, and, even when she did not insist onsweeping Phoebe with her, intercourse with the mill stopped almostentirely. Annie never pretended to any liking for the helpless Phoebe, who could not even answer her back when she insulted her, as shefrequently did all timid people. Never since that accidental touch ofquaintness on the first evening had Ishmael discovered any kindred habitof mind in Phoebe, and she, in her sweetly-obtuse way, sometimeswondered that Ishmael did not want to be more with her. 

It was not a common failing with the chaps around that district. Phoebe's peculiar allure of utter softness was not one that couldremain unfelt even among the slow and primitive young men she met day byday, or who gazed at her dewy mouth and eyes in the church which, forthe sake of the vision, they attended instead of chapel. Vassie, who wasreally a beauty, they only feared. At any moment, if he were not drawnoutside himself and the affairs of Cloom, that sudden curious twist ofvision which means glamour might occur for Ishmael as he looked atPhoebe. If there were no rich enough materials at hand to make afuller life for the boy, then, thought the Parson, with logic, it mustbe brought to him. The difficulty was Ishmael himself. 

He had a curious quality derived of some inherited instinct of fear--aquality that made him distrust change. It had been that which had heldhim back on the day at St. Renny when he had dallied with the notion ofrunning away to sea; it had been that which had made him loth to leaveschool at the end in spite of his excitement over returning to a Cloomlegally his; and it was that now which enabled him to be hypnotised byhis own furrows drawing out in front of him. He clung to what happinesshe knew in a way rare in one so young, and he was quite aware how muchof it he found even in uncongenial company. What might lie beyond it hedistrusted. 

Not for nothing had Annie lived through the stress she had before hisbirth, and from her circumstances, though not her nature, he drew thatqueer mingling of content and dread. But from the old Squire, little ashe resembled him in all else, came that impersonality in what areusually personal relationships, against which even the Parson beat invain. Through all his passionate sinning James Ruan had held himselfaloof from the sharer in his sins. What for him had been the thing bywhich he lived no one ever knew; his sardonic laughter barred allingress to his mind. 

With Ishmael, as the Parson was beginning to see, places had so farstood for more than people. St. Renny, the manner and atmosphere of it, had meant more than Killigrew, the Vicarage than the Parson, Cloom thanhis brothers and sister and the friends he made there. It was towardsthis very detachment that the Parson's upbringing of Ishmael had tended, and yet he now felt the need of more. For some appetite for more lifewas bound to stir and break into being one day, and Boase waspassionately desirous that it should make for happiness and good. ThusBoase thought of it all, but, after the fashion of the race of whichIshmael also was one, he showed no sign of his meditations. 

With the approach of the boy's twenty-first birthday the Parson sawlight. Though Ishmael had come of age, as far as the property went, three years earlier, still the occasion was not without import, andcould fittingly mark some change. A word to Annie produced no result, ahint to Vassie and the thing was in full swing. Ishmael always thoughtit was his own idea that Killigrew, back in London from his Parisstudies, should be asked down to Cloom. It was not everyone that couldhave been called in to help at celebrating a twenty-first birthday undersuch circumstances as Ishmael's; it could hardly be made an occasion forfeasting tenantry and neighbouring gentry, but it might be used for whatBoase, through Killigrew, hoped--the disruption of an atmosphere. Thatdone, a new one could be created. 

Killigrew arrived. He startled the natives considerably by his loosejacket and flowing tie, but his red hair was cut fairly short, thoughhis chin was decked by a soft young pointed beard that gave him aMephistophelian aspect ludicrously set at naught by his white eyelashes, which, round his more short-sighted eye, were set off by a single glass. 

As Ishmael drove him from Penzance through the warm, clear May afternoonKilligrew waxed enthusiastic with appreciation of what he saw. 

"Anyone living here should be perfectly happy, " he declared. "I don'twonder you've never wanted to leave. It has more to it, so to speak, than our old country round St. Renny. "

For a moment Ishmael made no reply; it was the first time it hadoccurred to him it would be possible to leave Cloom, and though he knewthat up to now he had not wanted to, yet he was not quite pleased thatKilligrew should take it so for granted. He sent his mind back over theyears since he had seen his friend, comparing what had happened tohimself with all that happened to Killigrew as far as he could imagineit--which was not very far. Killigrew was the more changed; his beardand the lines of humour--and other things--round his eyes, made him seemolder than his twenty-two years, but it was more the growth in himmentally that had been so marked as to suggest that he had changed. Thiswas not so, as the alterations had all marched in inevitabledirections--it could not have been otherwise in one who lived so by hisinstincts as Killigrew, and held them so sacred. He had not changed, buthe had developed so far that to Ishmael he seemed disconcertinglyaltered. 

"It's all right for me, " said Ishmael at last, "but I expect you'll findit dull after Paris. It must all be so different over there. "

"Oh, Paris is Paris, of course, and unlike anything else on earth. It isnot a place as much as a state, which is one of its resemblances toheaven. You see I haven't forgotten all my theology. "

"I sometimes think, " announced Ishmael, firmly believing what he wassaying, "that it's time I went about a bit. To London and Paris . . . Theplace can get on quite well without me for a bit. "

"My son, be advised by me, " said Killigrew gaily; "for good little boyslike you this is a better place than gay, wicked cities. Of course, I'mnot good--or bad either; it's a distinction that doesn't mean anythingto me--but I have to be in Paris for my painting. Can you imagine it, I've been with Diaz and Rousseau? And there's a young fellow who'scoming on now that I've seen a lot of called Lepage--Bastien Lepage, who's going to be a wonder. I can tell you, sometimes when I think ofthe dear old Guv'nor's business, and how he had set his heart on mygoing into it, I can hardly believe it's true that I've been there, freeto do my own work, with those men. . . . "

Killigrew's voice sounded younger in its enthusiasm, more as it had inthe old days when he used to speak of Turner. 

"I'll bet you're going to be as great as any, " cried Ishmael, the oldsense of potencies that Killigrew's bounding vitality had always stirredin him awaking again. "How we all used to talk at St. Renny about whatwe'd do . . . D'you remember?"

"Rather. And it's most of it coming true. I was to be a painter and oldCarminow a surgeon. I've just heard he's at the Charing Cross hospital. "

"And Polkinghorne major? D'you know anything about him? Did he get intohis Highland regiment?"

"I heard about him at St. Renny from the old bird. I stopped there lastnight, you know, to break this devil of a journey. I tell you, Ishmael, it's less of a business getting over to Paris than down here. "

"What did Old Tring say about everyone? How was he?"

"Just the same, only thinner on top and fatter below. He told me aboutPolkinghorne. He went to Italy the year you left, you know. Well, OldTring told me while he was still there the war broke out, and heenlisted under Garibaldi and was killed in a skirmish just when peacewas settled. "

There was a second of silence--not because Ishmael had any feeling forPolkinghorne beyond a pleasant liking, but because it was the first timethe thought of death as an actuality instead of a dreamlike hypothesishad ever struck home to him. Then he said: "Poor old Polkinghorne . . . Buthe was hardly older than us. It doesn't seem possible anyone like uscan be dead. . . . "

He pushed the thought away from him and soon was listening toKilligrew's tales of Paris, some of which were so obviously meant tostartle him that he kept to himself the fact that they succeeded. Awkwardness died between them, and when he turned in up the newdrive--still only half-made, but the whole scheme of it clear--Ishmaelcould glow at the other's admiration of his home. 

If he could show off Cloom without a qualm, however, it was not the samewhen it came to displaying his family, and never had he been so thankfulfor Vassie's beauty as when he saw Killigrew's notice of it. And howthat beauty glowed for Killigrew! Even a brother's eyes could not butadmire. Phoebe sat unnoticed, her charm swamped in that effulgence. Annie's querulous remarks faded through sheer pride into silence. TheParson, a welcome addition, arrived for supper; greasy Tonkin, inevitable though not so greatly a source of pleasure, drove over fromPenzance and sat absorbing Vassie, so to speak, at every pore. 

Supper was going off well, thought Ishmael, as he watched Killigrew eatand laugh, and listened to his talk that could not have been moreanimated--so reflected Ishmael in his relief--if Vassie had been aduchess. Under the brightness the tension, so common to that room thatit had become part of it, evaporated, and yet what, after all, was itthat achieved this miracle? Nothing in the world but ordinary socialintercourse between young and gay people who met as equals, intercoursesuch as poor Ishmael had never known under his own roof before. . . . Andthey all made a fuss of him: John-James actually said somethingapproving, if difficult to follow, about his farming; Vassie beamed onhim not only for his friend's sake; the Parson drew him out--he felthimself a host, and responded to the sensation. 

Killigrew was just drawing upon the tablecloth, unreproved of Annie, asketch of a fashionable Parisian lady for Vassie's instruction when thedoor opened to admit of Tom, a very rare visitor at Cloom nowadays. Hewas in sleek black broadcloth and looked almost as ecclesiastical asTonkin, and much more so than Boase. Tom wore a handsome white cravatbeneath his narrow, clean-shaved chin, which was decorated on eitherside with whiskers whose fiery hue made Killigrew's seem but tawny. Tomwore also a curious smile on his thin lips, but Ishmael was forced toadmit, as he watched him shake hands quietly with Killigrew, that thisdreaded and disliked brother had given the most unexceptional greetingof any of his family. 

Tom sat down, but refused food. He had only come out to see his mother, and because it was Ishmael's birthday, or so he said. 

"Is anything the matter, Tom?" asked Annie artlessly. 

"No, what should there be?" demanded Tom in a slightly contemptuousfashion. "Can't I want to see you without that? Don't give me awaybefore the visitor, especially as Ishmael's such an attentive son. "

Annie began to sniff, and Vassie bade him, in an angry undertone, bequiet. Tom obeyed, but it was an odd quietness as of something waitingits time. Conversation drooped as though a blight had fallen upon it, and once or twice Tom might have been observed to glance towards thewindow. 

"I'll have a drink if I won't eat, " he declared at last. "I must drinkthe young un's health on an occasion like this, after all. Here, mother, fill up. "

Killigrew leapt to intercept Annie and fetch her the big cider jug fromthe dinner-waggon, and giggling like a girl she took it from him andfilled the glasses. Some faint return of gaiety, the sense of it beingIshmael's evening, returned, and he sat as they raised glasses to him, in a sudden brightening. As she was tilting hers to her lips, Annie gavea sudden cry, so sharp everyone stopped, glass in hand. A shadow hadfallen across the window, barring the flow of the westering light, andtowards it Annie was staring. The others followed her gaze. 

Bearded, brown, roughly clad in a big coat hunched about his ears, Archelaus stood looking in. He continued to stand, motionless, after hehad been seen. Annie cried out again and, almost dropping her tumbler onto the table, rushed from the room, knocking against the door-frame inher blundering way as she went. The others stood bewildered a moment, not taking it in, not recognising the bearded figure that stayedmotionless, itself giving no sign of recognition. It was Ishmael, whohad not seen his brother since he himself was very little, who yet knewhim the first, warned by some instinct. He got up and went out, followedby the others, who all talked at once though he stayed silent. 

In the yard Annie was clinging around Archelaus, and the big mansuffered it with a better grace than in the old days, though with acareless good-nature. Tom, smiling, stood a little behind the two ofthem. Not to Archelaus's primitive if cunning mind belonged that schemefor returning the evening of Ishmael's party; it was Tom who for twodays had held him in reluctant seclusion at Penzance so as to spring thesurprise at the least convenient moment. It was characteristic of Tom toscheme, even when there was nothing to gain by it but a little maliciousgratification, as in this case. 

Not for nothing, however, had Ishmael been trained as he had, and hisvoice, so unmistakably that of a gentleman as to strike them with asense of something alien, came quietly if a little tremulously for thefirst few words. 

"Hullo, Archelaus!" he said, shaking hands before the other's slowerwits had decided whether to proffer the salute or no. "Come along in!You're just in time for my supper-party. . . . " No speech could have robbedthe conspirators of their little triumph more completely--it offered awelcome as from one who had the best of rights to invite a guest in, andat the same time accepted the place as the home of both. Archelaus stoodglowering, thought of nothing to say in reply, and found himselffollowing his young brother into the house. 

After that the evening ceased to be Ishmael's and became a backgroundfor Archelaus. He had dug for gold in Australia, and if he had not hadthe luck of many others who had struck richer claims, he yet broughthome money to fling round upon his fancies. For years he had wanderedover the far places of the earth, so that his skin was tanned darkerthan his bleached hair, and his limited vocabulary had enriched itselfwith strange and coloured words. He was indeed a man. Even Ishmael feltthat, as he sat in the dim kitchen where they had all gone to seeArchelaus eat a vast meal and listen to his talk. Annie was entranced;the rare colour burnt on her cheekbones, her fingers rolled and unrolledher apron ceaselessly; she had relapsed into kitchen ways in a flashand, swathed in sacking, waited on her big son herself. Vassie tilted asuperior nose and in the intervals tried to impress Archelaus by theremarkable progress of his family during his absence; but Phoebe, whohad planned for Ishmael, fluttered all spontaneously for Archelaus. Itseemed to her that he was like a demi-god as he sat there, thrusting thefood into his mouth, golden beard dripping with golden cider, carelesslimbs outflung. Vassie only saw the inelegance, for he was her brother, but to Phoebe his very scorn of dainty ways made him more god-likebecause more man-like. 

When darkness crept over the kitchen so that the hero could no longer beseen properly, Annie went into the parlour and returned carrying theelegant lamp, with its globe of frosted glass, that Vassie, when it waslit, proceeded to cover with a sort of little cape of quilled pink paperedged with flowers made of the same material. The room being thus toodimmed for Annie's fancy, she tilted the shade to one side so that awhite fan of light threw itself upon Archelaus, making his tangledbeard and crisp hair gleam and showing the warm colour brimming in hisface up to the line of white across his untanned brow. So Ishmael sawhim as he rose and went out to cool his own heated cheeks upon thecliff, and so he saw him as he lay in bed that night, flaring out in aswimming round of light against the darkness. 

CHAPTER V

LULL BEFORE STORM

There was a place upon the cliff which Ishmael had made peculiarly his, where he went whenever he wished to be alone, which was not seldom. Noother place since that hollow where the favoured boys had been wont tomeet Hilaria had meant so much to him, and this one had the supremeadvantage that it belonged to him only. The rest of his family did notindulge in cliff-climbing. Generally he was accompanied there by Wanda, his big farm-dog, a jolly, rollicking, idiotically adoring creature whospent her days wriggling and curvetting at his feet, her silly pinktongue dabbing at him, her moist eyes beaming through her tangledfringe. She was not very clever, being one of those amiable fool dogswhose quality of heart is their chief recommendation, but she had acertain wisdom of her own nevertheless. 

Nowhere on all the coast was it possible to see a wider stretch of skythan from this plateau half-way down the sloping turf-clad cliff. Oneither side was ranked headland after headland, growing dimmer with thesoft bruised hue of distance, while the plateau itself was set in aninward-curving stretch of cliff from which the whole line of the horizonmade a vast convexity. Sometimes Ishmael would lie upon his back and, blotting the green protruding edge of the plateau from his mind, watchonly the sky and sea, where, such was their expanse, it was oftenpossible to glimpse three different weathers in one sweeping glance. Away to the left, where, far out to sea, the Longships stuck a whitefinger out of the foam, a sudden squall might come up, obliteratinglighthouse, headlands, all the sea to the cliff's foot, with its purplesmother. Directly in front of him, below a piled mass of cumuli thathung darkly from zenith to horizon, a line of livid whiteness would showthe sea's rim, while nearer him, half-way across the watery floor, greatshafts of light, flanked by others of varying brightness, poured downfrom a gap in the cloud-roof and split themselves in patches of moltensilver upon the leaden greyness. And at his furthest right a sky of purepale blue might arch to where layers of filmy cirrus were blurred by afaint burnished hue that was neither brown nor rose but a mingling ofthe delicate exhaust of both. 

Killigrew was not long in discovering this place, which he declaredpresented an unrivalled stage for the setting of vast dream-dramas hewatched trailing their cloudy way across it, and Ishmael was not loth toshare his plateau with him. The incursion of Vassie was another matter, but by this time--nearly a month after that momentous birthday--Ishmaelfelt helplessly drifting. He was enjoying himself, while Killigrewshowed no signs of wishing to return to Paris and Vassie was blooming asnever before. She sat to him for sketches that never were finished, andthat to her eyes, though she did not say so, looked just the same evenwhen Killigrew declared a stroke more would wreck their perfection. Ishmael was neglecting his personal supervision of the farm thesedays--he had developed a new theory that it was time he tested how farthings could go well without him. He had heard a hint or two dropped tothe effect that the friend from foreign parts was only amusing himselfwith proud Vassie, but he paid no heed. What could be more absurd, hereflected, than the idea that she could want a boy a couple of years herjunior and a mere student to fall in love with her? Thus Ishmael, whileKilligrew laughed at him and with Vassie all day long, and she glowedand answered him and seemed as light-hearted, as either of them. 

On a sunlit day, one of those March days which, in Cornwall, can hold asudden warmth borrowed from the months to come, they all three sat uponthe grass of the plateau, accompanied by Boase, who had taken them on anexpedition to an ancient British village, where, with many littlescreams, Vassie's wide skirts had had to be squeezed and pulled throughthe dark underground "rooms" of a dead people. Now, as the day drew to aburnished close, they all sat upon the soft turf, and Killigrew andIshmael watched with half-closed eyes the play of the sea-birds belowthem. The wheatears flirted their black and white persons over therocks, the gulls dipped and wheeled, planed past them on level wings, uttering their harsh cries, or for a flashing moment rested so closethat the blot of blood-red above their curved yellow beaks showedvividly; out to sea a gannet hung a sheer two hundred feet in air, thendropped, beak downwards. . . . He hit the sea like a stone with hisplumage-padded breast, a column of water shot up from his meteoric fall, and he reappeared almost before it subsided with his prey already downhis shaken throat. Killigrew clapped his hands in approbation and Vassiefeigned interest. 

"What a life!" exclaimed Killigrew; "if we do have to live again in theform of animals, I hope I shall be a bird, a sea-bird for choice. Justimagine being a gull or a gannet. . . . I wish one could paint the patternthey make in the air as they fly--a vast invisible web of curves, all ofthem pure beauty. "

"Don't wish to be a bird in this part of the world, then, " advised theParson drily. 

"Why not? Don't they have a good time?"

"If you had watched as long as I have . . . Seen all the mutilated birdswith trailing legs and broken wings that pick up a miserable living aslong as the warm weather lasts. . . . There's not a boy in the countryside, save a few in whom I've managed to instil the fear of the Lord, thatdoesn't think he's a perfect right to throw stones at them, and, worse, to catch them on devilish little hooks and as likely as not throw themaside to die when caught. Grown men do it--it's quite a trade. I knowone who, if he catches on his hooks a bird he does not want, wrenchesits beak open and, tearing the hook out, flings the bird away to die. This just mutilates the bird sufficiently to prevent it getting caughtand giving him all the trouble over again. And the Almighty does notstrike this man with his lightning from heaven. . . . I sometimes marvel atthe patience of God, and in my short-sighted ignorance even deploreit. . . . "

"Don't tell me, " said Killigrew swiftly. "I don't want to know. I'drather think they were all safe and happy. It isn't as though one coulddo anything. "

"One can do very little. Lack of imagination, which is doubtless the sinagainst the Holy Ghost, is at the root of it, and to that the tongues ofmen and of angels plead in vain. But something can be done with thechildren, if one gets them young enough, or so one hopes. Sometimes Ireproach myself because when one of the people who practise theseabominations is in pain and grief, I look on and feel very little pitywhen I remember all. 'It is not here the pain of the world is swelled, 'I say to myself; 'it is out on the rocks, in the fields, where thelittle maimed things are creeping and wondering why, and the rabbits arecrying all night in the traps. . . . ' It could all be so easily avoided;that's what makes it worse. Deliberately to augment the sum of sufferingin the world, where there must be so much--it's inconceivable. "

"Like adding to the sum of ugliness. These people do that too, " saidKilligrew, thinking of the hideous houses and chapels run up day byday; "and it's all so beautiful and looks so happy if one only lets italone. . . . "

"There's a queer vein of cruelty in the Celt--at least in the CornishCelt--that is worse than the Latin, " went on Boase. "When they areangered they wreak vengeance on anything. And sometimes when there are alot of them together under circumstances which you would think wouldhave roused their pity, the devil of wanton cruelty enters into them. Ishall never forget when a school of whales came ashore in the Bay . . . They lay there stranded, poor creatures! And from the oldest man to thelittle boys out of school a blood-lust came on everyone. They tore andhacked at the poor creatures with penknives and any weapon they couldget, they carved their names on them and stopped up their blow-holeswith stones, till the place was a perfect shambles and the blood soakedinto the sand as into an arena in ancient Rome. . . . Nobody could stopthem. It was a sight to make one weep for shame that one was a man. "

Ishmael lay in silence. He knew--no one with eyes to see could livethere and not know--but, like Killigrew, he had always tried not tothink too much about it. He was so unable to take things superficiallythat he feared thought, and hence often did less than men who did notcare as much. He gave a slight movement now that was not so muchimpatience as a thrusting away of a thing that sickened him and which hefelt he could not stem. It seemed to him that the glory of the day haddeparted. He, too, remembered that shambles of which the Parson spoke;it had been the first time the pain in the world he so loved had comehome to him. He remembered now how, as he and the Parson had come back, in melancholy silence, from that scene of blood, his own declarationsabout its being such a good world, made to the Parson on his first nighthome and repeated so often since to his own high-beating heart, hadmocked at him. What did it avail being happy when there was such pain inthe world? Himself or another, or, worse still, these innocents thatcould not philosophise about it--that any should suffer made allhappiness futile. The same deadly consciousness came upon him now on thesunny cliff, and he resented that the topic should have been started, himself keeping a sullen silence. But the Parson turned and spokedirectly to him. 

"By the way, " he said, "I hate to have to tell you, but I hear, and I'mafraid it's true, that Archelaus is starting bush-beating on the estateagain. I met John-Willy Jacka coming back from the direction of the woodlate one night with a suspicious-looking sack and a bludgeon, and nextday I asked John-James if he knew anything. He didn't give anyone away, but I gathered--"

"If it's true--" Ishmael paused for sheer rage, then went on: "I'lltackle John-Willy, and if it's true he can go. But of course it'sArchelaus really, just because he knows how I feel about it. It isn'teven as though it were the season for it, if you can talk of a seasonfor such a thing, but no one can be very hard up for food as late asthis. Oh, if I can't be free of him even now he's working atBotallack--"

"I had such a quarrel with Mamma about that this morning, " struck inVassie, who disliked the conversation and thought she had been out of itlong enough. "She was boasting at breakfast--after you'd gone out, Ishmael--that Archelaus was a captain now, and I laughed, and said itwas more than he'd ever been in the army, but that of course a minecaptain wasn't a real one . . . And she was furious. She said it was quitereal enough for her and Archelaus anyway, though perhaps not for thelikes of me. I met Archelaus at the mill the other day when I was overseeing Phoebe, and he certainly did seem smart, ever so differentfrom when he came back. You wouldn't have known him. "

She ended on her high laugh and rolled over a little woolly puppy thatlay in her lap, burying her long fingers in its coat. She was perchedupon a grassy slope like some vast moth that had alighted there, herpale skirts spread, a white cashmere shawl swathed about her shoulders, her golden head tipped back on her full throat. Over her, like a swayingflower, a tiny parasol reared on a long tasselled stalk, held inKilligrew's hand as he lounged beside her. He let his eyes run over hernow, tipping the parasol to one side so that at his pleasure the latesunlight should touch her hair and her still flawless skin. She knew shecould stand the test, and stayed a moment before motioning him to tipthe parasol back again. 

"It seems to me Archelaus is going a lot to the mill, " observedKilligrew idly, and more for the purpose of saying something thanbecause he really thought so. "I ran into him there the other day when Iwas doing my sketch of it. "

A short hush, pregnant with thought, followed on his words. To Boase andVassie--those two so different beings--came the swift reflection "Thatwould not be at all a bad thing. It would remove a danger. "

Killigrew was interested, as an onlooker, in the idea of the alliancehis own words had suggested. Ishmael felt an irrational little pang. Phoebe's smiles, her little friendliness, had always belonged tohim--Archelaus would crush them as big fingers rub the powder off abutterfly's wings. . . . If he and Archelaus had been more truly brothersit would have been a very nice arrangement . . . Little Phoebe wouldmake a sweeter sister in some ways than the imperious Vassie. . . . 

"This puppy is for Phoebe, " cried Vassie, breaking into a hurriedspeech; "it's been promised her a long time. She's so fond of pets. "

This was true. Phoebe's maternal instincts made her love to have asoft, helpless little lamb or calf dependent on her; but it seemed herinstinct was oddly animal in quality, for when the creature on which shehad lavished so much care grew to sturdiness she saw it go to thebutcher's knife with unimpaired cheerfulness and turned her attentionsto the next weakling. It was a standing joke against Phoebe that shecalled all her hens by name and nursed them from the egg up, only toinform you brightly at some meal that it was Henrietta, or Garibaldi, orwhatever luckless bird it might be, that you were devouring. 

"If you like I'll take that puppy over to the mill now, if you'll seeWanda doesn't follow to bring it back, " observed Ishmael, getting to hisfeet, "and then perhaps I can find out something about this bush-beatingscare. If Archelaus is there--"

"Be careful, Ishmael, " said the Parson quietly. 

"Oh, I'll keep my temper, or try to. Coming with me, Joe?"

Vassie sat nonchalantly picking blades of grass. She would sooner neverhave seen Killigrew again than have asked him to stay with her, eventhan have suggested, with apparent carelessness, some plan that shouldkeep him. But she waited with throbbing heart for his answer. 

"I'd like to, " said Killigrew briskly; "I've been abominably lazy tillto-day, and that means I shall get fat. And when a person with lighteyelashes and sandy whiskers gets fat all is over. I should have to gointo my Guv'nor's business and become an alderman. "

He reared his singularly graceful self up from the grass as he spoke andhelped Vassie to her feet. 

"Good-bye, both of you, then, " said Vassie, withdrawing her hand whenshe was on her feet. "If you're going to the mill, I'll expect you whenI see you. "

This would have been arch had Vassie been a little less clever; as itwas it sounded so natural that even that man-of-the-world, Killigrew, was taken in. As he set off with Ishmael he felt a moment's regret thathe had not stayed with Vassie--a moment inspired by her lack of pique athis not having stayed. 

The sun that had gilded Vassie's head had sunk swiftly by the time theyreached the mill; and when the miller opened to their knock a flood oflamplight came out to mingle with the soft dusk. Phoebe's mother haddied some two or three years earlier, and since then the miller hadlived with only an old aunt of his own to help him look after hisdaughter. He peered out at them almost anxiously, Ishmael thought, andseemed rather upset at sight of him. 

"Who's that there?" he asked sharply; then, as Killigrew stepped forwardround the porch: "I thought maybe Phoebe was weth 'ee. "

"Phoebe? Oh, no!" said Ishmael; "why, is she out?"

"'Tes of no account, " replied the miller. "I reckon she'm just gonedown-along to see to the fowls or semthen. Will 'ee come in, you and yourLunnon friend?"

Ishmael hesitated, then, remembering on what errand he had come, hestepped in, and, despite Killigrew's obvious unwillingness, they foundthemselves pledged to stay to supper. 

"We really only just came to bring Phoebe this puppy my sisterpromised her, " Ishmael explained. "It's the pick of our Wanda's litterand Phoebe had set her heart on it. " Ishmael held up the squirminglittle thing as he spoke, and it licked its black nose nervously with apink tongue that came out curled up like a leaf. 

"Ah! she'm rare and fond o' dumb animals, is our Phoebe, " said themiller, who seemed gratified at this mark of attention. "So long as shecan have some lil' weak thing to make a fool on she'm happy, I b'lieve. 'Tes a woman's way. "

"It's a very nice way for us poor devils of men, " said Killigrew, laughing. 

Supper was a short and oddly nervous meal, and still Phoebe did notcome in. Ishmael at last felt there was no use staying longer and rose. 

"Good-night to you, Mr. Lenine, " he said. "I expect I'll find Phoebeover at Cloom. If I do, I'll see her home. "

"Good-night to you both, " said the miller cordially enough; but whenthey turned the corner by the wheel he was still peering after them asthough beset by some uneasiness. 

"Rum old bird, " opined Killigrew, as they swung along in the darkness. As they reached the cliff again something brushed through the bushesaway to their right, but as they called and no one answered theyconcluded it was a fox or some other wanderer of the night and went on. Further along still they came on a man leaning against a stone step thatcrested a wall they had to pass. 

He did not move at their approach, and Ishmael touched him on thesleeve. 

"Here, we want to pass, please, " he said. 

"So you want to pass, do you?" said the man, with a slow laugh. "Youwant to pass . . . ? Well, pass. . . . I'll not hinder 'ee passing here noryet to a place that's a sight further on. . . . "

"Archelaus!" exclaimed Ishmael, peering into the darkness. But the manhad already moved off and was lumbering down the field, and the sound ofhis quiet mirth was all that came back to them. 

"I really think sometimes that Archelaus must have had a touch of thesun out in Australia, " declared Ishmael as they mounted the stile aftera brief awkward silence. 

"If it's only that . . . " was all that Killigrew would vouchsafe. 

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Only you're sure he wouldn't do anything to hurt you . . . ? Hedoesn't seem to love you by all I've heard and seen since I've beenhere. "

"Of course not. What an idea! He does hate me pretty badly, I'm afraid, but I'm out of his reach. Archelaus knows what side his bread isbuttered; he has a well-paid job and wouldn't do anything to upset it. "

"There doesn't seem much love lost between you. "

"There isn't. I'm incapable of being fair to Archelaus, as he to me, thedifference being that I admit it and he doesn't. "

"I wonder what he's up to now, " exclaimed Killigrew, looking back fromthe height of the stile; "there's a light gleaming out. Looks as thoughhe were lighting a lantern or signalling with it--"

"A lantern. . . . " Ishmael scrambled up beside the other and his voice wasalert. "Then perhaps there is something in this idea of the Parson's. Isay, let's follow him. If he goes towards the wood it's fairly certainhe's up to something, if it's only wiring rabbits. "

"Isn't it rather looking for trouble, old chap?" demurred Killigrew, whodid not know the name of fear for himself but was conscious of someundefined dread that had stirred in him at the greeting of Archelaus. 

"Better go back, perhaps, " he added; "they'll be expecting us. Whatd'you say?"

"That I'm going to follow Archelaus. . . . I'm about sick of him and hisunderhand ways. You don't know how he's made me suffer in all sorts oflittle things this past month. Talking to my own men at the inn and thefarms, laughing at me. Even John-Willy Jacka goes after him now, thatused to be a youngster with me. . . . You can go home if you like. "

"Don't be a greater ass than you can help, " advised Killigrew genially, and the two set off together for the point where the light had justflickered and gone out, as though the slide had been drawn over thelantern, if lantern it were. On a dim stretch of road they made out aform that bulked like that of Archelaus; it was joined by another andthen by two more, and all four set off towards the wood, Killigrew andIshmael behind them. 

CHAPTER VI

THE BUSH-BEATING

In all the bleak country "the wood" represented mystery, glamour. Itmade a dark wedge between two folds of moorland, its tree-tops levelwith the piled boulders on the northern side, like a deeply green tarnlapping the edge of some rocky shore. Oak, beech and ash, hawthorn, sycamore and elder, went to make the solid bosses of verdure that filledthe valley, while at one end a grove of furs stood up blackly, winterand summer. Giant laurels, twisted and writhing creations of anightmare, spread their snake-like branches beneath the rocky wall atone side of the wood, and in spring they shook their pale, sicklytassels in a gloom that was as green, as freckled with shallows oflight, as underseas. A stream gurgled through its depths, increasing theillusion of a watery element. All over the sloping floor of the wood, where the red leaves drifted high in due season, huge boulders werepiled, moss-grown, lividly decked with orange fungi, and surrounded by athick undergrowth of holly and elder bushes. This place had no namebeyond "the wood"--enough distinction in that county where a copse ofash or fir was all that scarred moor and pasture with shadow. It wasjust within Ishmael's property, marking his most inland boundary, and hecherished it as something dearer than all his money-yielding acres. Ithad been his ambition to make it the home of every bird that built itsnest there, of every badger or rabbit or toad or slow-worm thatsheltered in its fastnesses. No life should cry there for the teeth ofthe trap, no feathers scatter for the brutal violating of thesheltering bushes. Thus Ishmael, but otherwise Archelaus. . . . There waslittle doubt what he and his fellows had come for: there were ahalf-dozen of them when all were met, and all carried cudgels or flailsmade of knotted cloth, and walked cautiously, whispering to each otherlest the birds should take premature flight. Ishmael and Killigrewlagged behind them, waiting for certainty before discovering themselves. 

It was deadlily dark in the wood, with a darkness more unbroken than thestillness which yet seemed part of it. A thousand little scraping noisesbroke the quiet air, chill and dank. Leaves pattered against each other, twigs rubbed faintly, brittle things broke under the lightest foot. Still hardly a wing unfolded ever so little, not a distressful chirpheralded the slaughter that threatened. Gradually, to eyes growing usedto the gloom, differing shades of darkness became apparent; it wasfaintly marked by them as the silence by the sounds. . . . 

Still the feathers were unstirred on the breasts where tiny beaks werethrust in sleep; round, bright eyes were filmed by the delicate lids;the bushes held undisturbed the little lives confided to them. 

Suddenly a funnel of light flared into the darkness, intensifying it, waking into vivid green a full-foliaged holly; a rain of blows echoedback and forth through the night, a whirr of bewildered wings mingledwith it, a frantic piping that was drowned in the clamour even as itburst forth. High overhead the startled wood-pigeons flew out into thefree air above the tree-tops, their clamour filling the whole place withthe beating of wings that in the dark seemed mighty as the wings ofavenging angels, but availed their tiny brethren nothing. In that oneminute there fell, beaten into the undergrowth to die miserably orflailed into the greedy hands and caps of the murderers, some half ahundred innocent and lovely lives, all of them torn out in an agony offear without knowing why. Ishmael ran forward, not even hearing his ownvoice as it shouted oaths he never knew he had used. 

The men stopped at their work, caps and sticks in hand, staringstupidly; only Archelaus, after a first moment's pause, showed noastonishment. It was not till long afterwards that it occurred toIshmael to wonder whether his brother had all along known he followed, and it was a question that was to remain for ever unanswered. Archelauslifted his lantern, which first gleamed on the red surprise ofJohn-Willy Jacka's face, then on the foolish mask of Silly Peter, thelocal idiot, who stood slackly agape between a couple of miners. ThenArchelaus brought the light round, to fall on Ishmael's pale face ereswinging it on to Killigrew. 

"Lads, here's the young gentlemen from the Manor!" he cried--"come tosee a bit o' bush-beaten; let's show 'en, shall us?" And, still holdinghis lantern so that its light fell on them, he deliberately let drivewith his great stick at a branch where a wounded bird was crushed upon asharp twig. 

Ishmael sprang forward and laid hands on the stick, twisting at it withall his strength. Archelaus gave for a flash under the sudden onslaught, but, recovering himself at once, held the stick steady with one handagainst all the twisting of Ishmael's two. He laughed a little as he didso. Silly Peter, under the impression that it was all part of the fun, laughed too. 

"You beast!. . . You beast!. . . " Ishmael was saying as he tussled. Killigrew caught at his arm. 

"Say something to them, Ishmael; say something to them. Don't go on likethat . . . " he muttered urgently. 

Ishmael turned on him a face distorted with passion. "Saysomething--what is there to say to brutes like that? Ah!. . . "

Archelaus had thrown the lantern underfoot and trampled it out; adarkness impenetrable to dazzled eyes enwrapped them. Killigrew, keepinghis head amidst the scuffing he heard, dived for where he had seen youngJacka standing in guilty stillness, his dark lantern dangling from hishand. Almost at once Killigrew felt his own fingers meet its smooth, slightly hot surface; he wrenched it away and fumbled desperately at theslide. A beam, pale but wavering, shot out into the darkness as hesucceeded in his effort, and by its light, as men in moments of emotionmay see some one thing or action painted on their retina by a lightningflash, he saw Archelaus bringing his stick, muffled in a coat, down onIshmael's head. The next second the blow fell--there had not been timefor Archelaus to check the impetus of the blow when the discoveringlight flared onto him. There came the heavy sound of a body falling onthe thick-piled leaves. Archelaus stumbled up against Killigrew, knocking the lantern from his hand; it hit against a boulder and wentout. 

It was the voice of Archelaus that broke the stricken stillness. 

"Don't 'ee move, you chaps . . . " it said, in tones that made a ghastlyessay at confidence and trembled despite his efforts. "I fear SillyPeter's done someone a hurt. . . . I saw en striking out. . . . Why ded'n 'eeall keep still same as I ded . . . Someone light a lantern. . . . " Followed asound of fumbling, and then a light wavered in Killigrew's fingers; hepicked up and lit a lantern. By its light could be seen Archelausholding a bewildered Silly Peter, whose mouth and eyes hung open withfear, while from his hand depended a stick wrapped in a coat. Even inthat dim light wet marks could be seen on it. The brain of Archelaus, perhaps stirred to activity by his first inspiration of attack as muchas by the hatred that had suddenly welled up uncontrollably, had foronce worked with a desperate quickness. Everyone stared at one anotherover the body of Ishmael that lay huddled on its face in the leaves. 

"Help me pick him up, you two, " ordered Killigrew to Jacka; "and youthere, go ahead with the light. Who is the fastest runner?"

"I'll go for doctor, " said Archelaus. "'Tes my right. He'n my brother. "He boggled a little at the word. 

"You!" began Killigrew, then stopped. His quick intuition had told himhow important it was to Archelaus also to be the first to get thedoctor. Killigrew was not a cynic, even at that age; he was merelysupremely utilitarian. 

"Off you go, " he said, "and remember I shall be timing you. The doctormust be at Cloom as soon as we are. "

"He shall be, " declared Archelaus, and meant it. He kept his word. Bythe time that Ishmael had been laid beneath the drooping Christ who hadseen so much of passion and misery, of birth and death, in that same bedspread before Him, the doctor was there too. And round the bed clusteredas many distraught women, and men hovering at their skirts, as gatheredat the foot of the plaster Calvary above. Even the intent dog was notwanting, as poor Wanda, conscious of disaster to the being sheworshipped, whimpered and shivered, her back curved in an arch ofdistress, by the head of the bed. 

CHAPTER VII

THE HEART OF THE CYCLONE

There are times in life when our affairs are at some high crest, whenall emotion and the processes of thought become intensified andcrystallised: the slightest incident makes a deep-bitten impression; themost momentary effect of colour or lighting, or the tones of a voice, remain in the memory indissolubly connected with the phase the mind ispassing through. Every sense is hung upon a hair-trigger, and evenirrelevant things touch more sharply than usual, in the same way that amagnifying glass reveals the minutest pores and hairs on the handholding whatever the primary object to be looked at may be. They aremercifully few, those periods of intense clarity, for they leave a mindand heart deadened and surfeited, that slowly awake to the dullconsciousness of pain, even as the body, numbed by a severe accident, only after a while awakes to sentient aching. Ishmael passed into thisphase in the first days after the scene in the wood, before physicallyhe was conscious of much beyond a dull throbbing in his head. 

He lay and stared from out his bandages, feigning more stupor than hefelt in his passionate craving to keep off all discussion and inquiry. He lay and watched the spring sunlight creep over the whitewashed wallopposite, and every slow black fly that crawled across the patch ofwarmth might have been crawling over his raw nerves. He almost expectedthe surface of the wall to contract like a skin and twitch them off, ashe felt his own skin doing out of sympathy. 

In the night, when the wall was filmed with shadow save for the faintflickering of a rushlight that made great rounds of light upon thedimness, then he saw all his life at Cloom passing in a shadow showacross the wall, crawling like the flies. . . . He was never delirious;physically his fine and sane constitution was recovering well from anasty blow--it was merely as though all his mind had been set a littlefaster, like a newly-regulated clock, a clock set to work backwards; andhe could hear its ticking through all the sounds of everyday life that, hushed as much as might be, came into his room. 

He felt sick of it all, sick of the striving at Cloom, of the quarrelswith Archelaus, of Tom's cat-like attacks, of his mother's plaints, ofthe cruelties he felt spoiling the whole countryside like a leprosy. Hecared for no one near him except Killigrew, because he alone stood forthe things of an alien world. He hated the sound of John-James' bootsthat never failed to go a tip-toe over the cobbles below his window. Hewanted nothing, not even to get away from it all. He was too absorbedwatching it upon the wall, hearing his own mind ticking out its commentslike that horrible instrument Vassie had upon the piano to time herexercises. 

It was the first time since the fit in his childhood, which he did notremember, that he had ever lain helpless or suffered in his body, and hewas aware of humiliation. All he could remember of the scene in the woodshowed him his own futility. Everything was wasted--nothing he had donewas any good nor the doing of it, then or ever again, at all worthwhile. Nothing seemed to matter. 

So passed the first two days of his consciousness, and the speed atwhich the clock of his mind was regulated made the world's time seeminterminable. When the two days had gone they seemed to him to belengthy, not as two weeks or years or anything in a known measure ofcounting, but as some period of time spaced quite differently. This isthe time that only sick people know, that fills their eyes withknowledge not understood of the healthy sympathisers beside their beds, who, though they may have sat the nights and days out with them, yethave not the same measure to count the passing of their hours. 

With the third day came pain, bodily pain, and that saved Ishmael. Itseemed to him then that physical hurts were so far worse than mentalthat his dread depression vanished before it. He would have welcomedthat back to save his body a pang; it seemed to him his head must burstwith the pain raging in it, and he cared about nothing else in theworld. When that too passed he was as one who has floated out of stormyseas into smooth waters--too weak to navigate them, but blissfully awarethat it does not matter, they are safe and he can drift with thecurrent. It was only then he began to talk, and he never once referredto what had happened. He asked where Archelaus was, and when he heard hehad gone back to his work in the mine that day he said no more. And itwas characteristic of Ishmael that no one ever knew whether he wereaware of that impulse of his brother's, and what it had nearly led to, or not. With cessation of physical pain and the exhaustion of thehigh-keyed string of his mind, came blessed reaction. Even the fact thatnothing mattered ceased to matter. The suggestion, emanatingsimultaneously from the Parson and Killigrew that he should accompanythe latter back to London stirred him to only a faint thrill--indeed, acertain disinclination to accept the offer was almost as strong as theurgings of the common sense which told him that soon he would be won topleasure and interest, once the initial effort was over. Still, as thedays slipped past, he found himself looking forward more and morekeenly. 

On the afternoon before he was to go to town he was resting on a couchin his room when the sounds of Vassie's arrogant but not unpleasingvoice came floating up to him from the parlour as she sang her latestsong, the fashionable "Maiden's Prayer. " He smiled a little to himself;he could picture Killigrew, leaning attentive, turning the pages, smiling between narrowed lids at the lovely thing she looked--chinraised and full throat vibrant--yet giving so little away beyond hisadmiration. The song faded, silence fell, then a door opened and closed. Vassie's voice was raised, this time in welcome. He guessed the visitorto be Phoebe from the fluttered feminine quality of the soundsbelow--staccato sentences whose words he could not catch, but whose veryrhythm, broken and eager, betrayed them. A moment later, and a knockcame at his door. 

It was Vassie who entered, somewhat sulkily, her beauty clouded by ashade of reluctance--Phoebe, shrinking, palpitant, staying in theshadowy passage. 

"Phoebe has come to know if she may say good-bye to you, Ishmael?"said Vassie. "She's heard you're going to London, and can't believeyou'll ever come back safely. . . . "

"Why, Phoebe, that's kind of you, " he called; "but won't you come infor a moment?" He was pleased after a mild fashion to see her--she atleast stood for something not too intimately connected with his ownhousehold, he told himself. The next moment he remembered that there hadbeen some suggestion--what his blurred recollection of it could not tellhim--that she might be being courted by Archelaus; but the slight recoilof distaste stirred within him fell away before her frank eagerness, herkindly warmth, as she pattered into the room, her skirts swaying aroundher. She sat primly down beside the couch while Vassie stayed by itsfoot, determined not to sit down also and so give an air of settled easeto the interview. 

"I--I hope you are better, Ishmael?" faltered Phoebe. She had neverbefore been in a young man's bedroom, even bereft of its tenant, and shefelt shy and fluttered. 

"Oh, I'm all right!" answered Ishmael. "I don't think poor Silly Peterhas enough muscle to hit very hard, you know. "

A look of intense relief floated across the strained demureness ofPhoebe's countenance: raised eyelids and a heightened colour testifiedto what passed through her mind. 

"Oh, then it was Silly Peter--" she began ingenuously; then broke off. 

"Yes, didn't you know? He was dazed with the lights, and then the suddendarkness and all of us being so angry, I suppose. . . . Hullo, what'sthat?"

It was Killigrew's voice calling softly up the stairs to Vassie. Shehesitated, made a feint of going to the door only to hear what hewanted, and then went rustling down to him. Phoebe snuggled a littlemore comfortably on her chair with an unconscious movement of pleasure. 

"He said downstairs he wanted to finish taking her picture to-day whilethe light lasted, " she said; then ran on: "Ishmael, I've been sounhappy. . . . "

"Have you, Phoebe? Why, what about?" Then, as he saw her flush andbite her pouting lower lip, he added: "Not because of me? I say, howjolly of you! But there wasn't any necessity--"

"How silly you are! As if one did things--worried and that sort ofthing--because it was necessary! It's because one can't help it. "

"Then it was all the nicer of you. But I meant that really it wasn'tanything to worry about. I'm as right as rain, and it's given me a jollygood excuse to go up to London and see the world. "

Panic peeped in Phoebe's brown eyes, giving her a flashing look ofsomething woodland, despite her would-be smart attire. She dropped herlids to hide it. 

"London. . . . " she murmured. Then, sitting upright, and staring at hertwisting fingers:

"Ishmael!. . . "

A pause which Ishmael broke by asking, "Well?"

"Nothing. Only--I was wondering. Whether you . . . How you'd like London, and whether you wouldn't find down here, and all of us, very dull whenyou come back?"

"What rot! Of course not! Why should I?" asked Ishmael, already so inLondon in anticipation that he could not even take an interest in hisreturn to this older world. 

"Oh, I don't know. I only wondered. You never wonder about things, doyou, Ishmael?"

"I don't think I ever do anything else. "

"Not in the way I mean. You wonder about life and all sorts of thingslike that that I don't bother about, but not about people, about whatyou feel for them. That's what I mean by wondering. "

"Oh, feeling!. . . " said Ishmael in a gruff embarrassment; "I dunno. Yes Ido, though. I don't think what one feels is so very important--not thepersonal part of it, anyway. There's such a lot of things in the world, and somehow it seems waste of energy to be always tearing oneself totatters over one's personal relationship towards any one other person. "

Phoebe tried to snatch at the words that blew past over her head asfar as her comprehension of them was concerned. 

"But how can you say it's not important?" she exclaimed reproachfully. "Even being married wouldn't seem important if you looked at it thatway. "

"Even being married. . . . " repeated Ishmael. Inwardly came the swiftthought: "Well, why is there all this fuss about it, anyway?" All hesaid was:

"Why, have you been thinking of getting married, Phoebe?"

"A lady can't be the first to think of it. . . . " said Phoebe. 

"I suppose not, " he agreed, true to his own age and that in which helived. Conversation lay quiescent between them; he was aware of asensation of weariness and wished she would go, pretty as she lookedsitting there in her circle of swelling skirt and trim little jacketthat fitted over her round breast and left bare her soft throat. 

"Have you ever . . . ?" asked Phoebe suddenly. 

"Have I ever what?"

"Thought of it . . . Of getting married?"

"Good Lord! not yet. There's been such a lot of other things. . . . "

"Well, when you do I'll hope you'll be very happy, " said Phoebe. 

"Thanks! I hope so too. "

"I don't suppose you'll know me then. "

"Why ever not?"

"Oh, well, of course you'll marry a real lady, and she wouldn't want toknow me. She'd think me common. "

"What utter nonsense, Phoebe! Do all girls talk such silly nonsense?Why, of course I'll always be far too fond of you to lose sight of you, and I expect you and my wife--how idiotic that sounds--will be no end offriends. " He did not think so; but there struck him that there wassomething rather plaintive and wistful about Phoebe that afternoon. Suddenly she rose and settled the basque of her jacket with quick, nervous fingers. 

"I must go, " she said hurriedly. "I don't know what Vassie'll say at mestaying up here like this. "

"It was awfully nice of you to come, " said Ishmael, taking the littlehand that lay idle against a flounce. She made no motion to withdraw itor to move away, and glancing up at her he saw there were tears in hereyes. As he looked they slipped over her lashes and rolled down hercheeks. She made no effort to stay them, nor did she sob--she cried withthe effortless sorrow of a tired child. 

"Phoebe! why, what's the matter? Are you unhappy about anything?Phoebe, do tell me what it is?"

She shook her head but stammered out:

"It's nothing, but I'm sort of frightened. . . . I can't tell you aboutwhat. And I thought you might be able to help me and put it all right, but you can't. "

"How do you know I can't? You haven't tried me. "

"Yes, I have, " she said, half-laughing now through her tears that werealready dry upon her cheeks. Whatever thought, whatever fear, whateverglimpsing of dread possibilities in herself or in some other person hadbrought her to his side that afternoon was already weighing lessunbearably upon her, though she had failed in her attempt to find aneasing. Her mind simply could not sustain for long one idea, and in thepassing moment she was always able to find distraction. She found it nowin Vassie, who came sweeping in, slightly flushed and with a lightermanner than that with which she had ushered in Phoebe. She bore heroff with promise of tea and a look at new gowns with none the lessdetermination, but the sight of tearstains on Phoebe's cheek at oncesoftened and relieved her. 

Ishmael was left with a vague feeling that he had failed Phoebe insomething she had expected of him. Yet for himself he was cheered by hervisit, for it had served to bring him out of that dead, still peacewhere he had been for so many days, that had not lightened even withreturning strength, but that had been swept away by the breath of thecommonplace Phoebe brought with her. 

As to Vassie, she was occupied with wondering whether the passionate yetcareless caresses that Killigrew had lavished on her that afternoon"meant anything" or not. He had told her that in France they alwayssaid that "love was an affair of the skin. . . . " And she knew she had aperfect skin. Killigrew had told her it was perfect to stroke as well asgaze upon; none of her English swains had ever told her that. She alwayslooked on Killigrew as a foreigner because he was so alien to herself. 

Yet that evening he spent with Ishmael and the Parson, and the next daya grey uncertain morning of blown clouds found Ishmael and Killigrewboth seated in the train while she waved her handkerchief at them from areceding platform. And if that handkerchief were to be wet with tearsthat were not for her brother nor yet for Killigrew except in so far ashe had, with his gay tongue and sudden secret kisses, awakened hopes inher that she was beginning to see, by his very nature, could have nofoundation, at least she let no one even guess at it. They were tears ofrage, almost as much with herself as him, and if Killigrew were never tohave had more upon his conscience than a light flirtation with thisambitious and far from ignorant girl, there would have been little todisturb his healthy slumbers. Vassie was not one to waste time over theregrets that eat at the heart, and, though she could not altogetherstifle pain at the outset, her strong-set will made the inevitableperiod of recurrent pangs shorter for her than for most. Killigrew hadplayed the game quite fairly according to his code; it was Vassie'signorance of any form of philandering beyond the crude interchange ofrepartee and kisses of the young clerks she had hitherto met that hadmade the playing of it unequal. She and Phoebe were both enacting theoldest woman's part in the world--that of being left behind to wait; andit was two very unwitting youths who left them. As the train gatheredspeed on its long journey both Ishmael and Killigrew had their minds onwhat lay before them, not on anything left behind. 

CHAPTER VIII

NEW HORIZONS

When Ishmael laid his aching head upon the pillow one night a week laterin the Tavistock Square house of Mr. Alderman Killigrew it carriedwithin a whirl of impressions so confused that days would have beenneeded in which to sort them out. London--the London of the'sixties--noisy with hoofs and iron-bound wheels upon its cobbles andmacadam, dark with slums that encroached upon its gayest ways, glittering with night-houses and pleasure gardens that focussed lighttill dawn, brightened as with clustered bubbles by the swelling skirtsof ladies of the whole world and the half, was, though smaller, ignorantof electric light, and without half the broad spaces and great buildingsof the London of to-day, still more sparkling and gayer in its effectbecause life was less hidden. The 'sixties were not squeamish, thoughthey were prudish; a man's own womenfolk were less noticeable thanto-day, not only in such minor detail as the exclusion of them from thetops of omnibuses; but they, after all, were but a fraction of what wentto make up spectacular life. Those were the days of bloods--when anofficer and a gentleman went as a matter of course to all the cockpitsand gaming houses, the night clubs and rings sacred to the "fancy"; whenit was still the thing for a gentleman to spend his nights in drinkingchampagne and playing practical jokes that were forgiven him as ahigh-spirited young man who must sow his wild oats and garnish each wordof conversation with an oath. From the comparative respectability ofCremorne and Motts, and the frankly shady precincts of the "Pie" andthe "Blue Posts" down to places considerably worse, London was anenormous gamut of opportunities for "seeing life. "

Killigrew, as a merchant's son, however well off, could not penetrate tothe most sacred precincts--Motts was more or less barred to him; but onthe other hand he was in the midst of what was always called the"Bohemian" set--in which were many artists, both the big and the littlefry. One could "see life" there too, though, as usual, most of theartists were very respectable people. It was a respectable art then invogue in England. Frith was the giant of the day, and from the waxfigures at Madame Tussaud's to pictures such as the "Rake's Progress"the plastic arts had a moral tendency. Even the animals of Sir EdwinLandseer were the most decorous of all four-footed creatures; Killigrewblasphemed by calling the admired paintings still-life studies ofanimals. But then Killigrew was from Paris and chanted the newer creed;he was always comparing London unfavourably with Paris even when he wasshowing it off most. 

The house in Tavistock Square was grand beyond anything Ishmael had everimagined, if a little dismal too. It was furnished with a plethora ofred plush, polished mahogany, and alabaster vases; while terrible thoughgenuine curios from Mr. Killigrew's foreign agents decorated the leastlikely places. You were quite likely to be greeted, on opening yourwardrobe, by a bland ostrich egg, which Mrs. Killigrew, the vaguest ofdear women, would have thrust there and forgotten. She had adeeply-rooted conviction that there was something indecent about anostrich egg--probably its size, emphasising that nakedness which nothingexhibits so triumphantly as an egg, had something to do with it. 

Mrs. Killigrew was nothing if not "nice, " but she was something muchbetter than that too. Ishmael, though he could no more help laughing ather than could anyone else, soon felt a genuine affection for her thathe never lost. She was a little wide-eyed, wistful-looking woman, reallysupremely contented with life, and, though kindness itself, quiteincapable of realising that anyone could ever really be unhappy orwicked. "I'm sure the dear Lord knows what's best for us all, " was hercomfortable creed, that in one less sweet-natured would have made forselfishness. 

"I'm sure that'll be very nice, my dears, " was her invariable comment onany programme suggested by the young men; and there was a legend in thefamily that Killigrew--or Joseph, as his mother always called him infull--had once said to her: "How would it be, mother, if I were tomurder the Guv'nor and then take you round the world with me on themoney? We could settle in the South Sea Islands, and I'd marry a darkyand you could look after the picaninny grandchildren?" To which Mrs. Killigrew had responded: "Yes, dear, that will be very nice; and on yourway, if you're passing the fishmongers', will you tell him to alter thesalmon for this evening to cod, as your father won't be in to dinner?"

Mr. Killigrew was a thin, pale man, not at all the typical prosperousmerchant, with a skin like the shiny outside of a cold suet pudding, ahigh wall of forehead, and the thin-lipped mouth of a lawyer. Perhaps itwas because of that mouth he was such a successful trader, while thebrow provided him with enough philosophy to bear gladly with a child sodifferent from himself--always a hard blow to egoism. 

Mr. Killigrew approved of Ishmael; he liked his keenness on whateverappertained to his trade as an agriculturist, and he himself beingconcerned in the import of several tropical fruits and products, wentwith the young man to the great Horticultural Show at South Kensington, while the scornful Joe betook himself to the races; and Mrs. Killigrew, though she declined both outings, was sure that they would be very nice. 

They were--though Killigrew lost so much money that he was afraid tocome home and spent the night imbibing champagne and repentance at theHummums, and Ishmael bought Indian corn and a kind of yam which hethought could be induced to flourish in West Penwith, which incidentallyit did so far as foliage went, though it always obstinately refused tobear fruit. The following mid-day Joe sent for Ishmael to the Hummums, and from that comfortable if somewhat dingy hostelry set out, in thegayest spirits, to track down a money-lender who would oblige on nobetter security than his assurance that the Guv'nor would pay up when hehad got over the shock. 

Success in this put Killigrew into the wildest spirits, and he forthwithtook unto himself a young man whom he ran into as he and Ishmael weregoing into the Blue Posts for a before-dinner drink. The young man wasnone other than Carminow, grown very tall and melancholy-looking, withan extravagantly high collar, much swathed with a voluminous black silkcravat and a fancy waistcoat. Carminow, who under a manner of deepestgloom concealed a nature as kind and as disconcertingly morbid as ofyore, was unaffectedly charmed to see his old schoolfellows, and saidso. He had better control over the letter "r" than in his boyhood, buthis employment of it was still uncertain and quite irrational. He linkedan arm in each and said gravely: "Will you come with me to see theexecution at Newgate to-mowwow morning? They are twying new experimentswith the dwop, and it should be intewesting. "

"No--are you serious?" demanded Killigrew. "I say, I've half a mindto. . . . It might make a jolly fine sketch, mightn't it? Kept quite roughand suggestive, you know. "

"It'd be suggestive all right, " remarked Ishmael. Within him a wish toaccept warred with horror, besides which he could not quite make up hismind whether Carminow were joking or no. 

"Splendid, " said Carminow; "there's just one moment, when the hangmanpulls on the legs, to make sure, you understand--and the face swellstill it looks as though it would burst the white cap pulled over it, forall the world like a boiling pudding. . . . And you see the cawotid artewybecome suffused with a blue bwuise--"

"Cobalt and a touch of _garance_, " threw in Killigrew. 

"Shut up, Carminow, " said Ishmael; "we've not had our drinks yet if youhave. " He was rather proud of this, which sounded to him to have quite aman-about-town twang, and he knew it must have been successful when hesaw his companions pass it without ribald comment. 

"Let's all have dinner, " said Killigrew exuberantly, "and then go on tosee the new ballet. What d'you say, Carminow?"

Carminow was quite willing, his appointment not being till early nextmorning, and the three went off to the "Cheshire Cheese, " whereKilligrew drew portraits of Dr. Johnson on the tablecloth and placatedthe head-waiter by telling him how famous he, Killigrew, was going to beand how valuable the tablecloth would consequently be in fifty years'time. Ishmael enjoyed that dinner. He was unused to stimulants, buthaving a naturally good head was delightfully sharpened in sense andappreciation by them, while his stronger stomach did not pay him backnext day as Killigrew's invariably did. Carminow was full of stories, all, needless to say, of a sanguinary nature; Killigrew capped them, ortried to, by would-be immoral tales of Paris; and Ishmael said verylittle, but, with his deadly clarity of vision for once workingbeneficently, sat there aware how young and somehow rather lovable theywere through it all, while he himself, whom they were obviouslytreating as so so much younger in the ways of the world, felt oldcompared with them. The only thing he did not fully realise was just howyoung that feeling itself was. 

After dinner they went, as Killigrew had suggested, to the theatre--ashabby little place to look at, though the resort of all the bloods, whocrowded stalls and stage door. Killigrew laughingly informed Carminowthat Ishmael had never met an actress in his life, and in reply toCarminow's half-mocking commiseration, Ishmael answered gaily that hehad never even been to the theatre, except to a penny gaff that oncevisited Penzance. It was indeed with a secret tingling that he now foundhimself seated in a box. He brought to the theatre the freshness of thechild who goes to his first pantomime, and was unashamedly aware of thefact. The smell of the place, the heat--for the gas made the airvibrant--the very tawdriness of the hangings and gilding, all thrilledhim, because they were, as Killigrew would have said, so "in thepicture. " When the curtain went up he settled himself to enjoyment. 

Killigrew, more interested by the performers than what they represented, leant back in the box and kept up a running commentary in a low voice. "There never was a more Oriental thing invented than the crinoline, " heobserved, nodding towards a group of dancers blowing as lightly as ballsof thistledown over the stage, slim ankles twinkling below theirinflated skirts of misty whiteness; "I'm not trying to be epigrammatic, I mean it. Watch those girls there . . . Did you ever see such sway, suchslope--I can't find the exact word for it? Each little movement--araised eyebrow seems almost enough--and the crinoline sways this way andthat, divinely true at the waist alone. . . . But it's not just theirgrace; it's what they suggest. That feeling of a cage, of somethingprotective, which is what I mean by Oriental. So defined down to thewaist, and then this thing that makes a parade of not followingnature. . . . D'you know, I never watch a pretty woman in a crinoline butthe thought doesn't strike me?"

"It's the sort of thought that would, my son, " opined Carminow. 

"But you can't deny I'm right. No clinging drapery has ever been sosuggestive, so much the refinement of sensuality, as the crinoline. "

Ishmael said nothing; but inwardly he too felt what Killigrew meant, which he would not have done a week earlier. As he sat there, warm andpleasantly stung by the wine he had drunk, the brightness of the sceneand the colour of the music and the thoughts they conjured up, as wellas the gowns and head-dresses of the pretty women, all awaked in him theglow a child feels at its first pantomime. The dancers were to him notflesh-and-blood women, but magical creatures, and yet he was stirred toa new excitement too. As he sat there all the sense of poise with whichhe usually so confidently faced the affairs of life, and which, far fromfailing him, generally served him only too well, began to sway and growmany-coloured. 

When they went out into the street again he agreed with Carminow thatthe night was yet too young to abandon it in mid-air. He did not, however, feel like more drinks; the exhilaration of the play, of his ownyouth, now for the first time tingling unrestrainedly in his veins, theglamour of the gaily-lit night--they had wandered as far as theHaymarket, which was ablaze till dawn--were all enough for him, and hefelt that anything more would have blurred their keenness. SuddenlyCarminow had an inspiration. 

"Come back with me, you two, " he suggested. "I've got quite decent digsin Cecil Stweet, off the Stwand. And I've a little collection thatmight intewest you. . . . "

"I know, monstrosities in bottles and side elevations of prematurebabies, " surmised Killigrew; "you're a foul old thing! But we'll comeand have a yarn over 'em anyway. I'm not in a hurry to face my reveredparents and I daren't take this good little boy to some places you and Iknow of. I'm responsible for him. "

Carminow turned a pessimistic eye on Ishmael. "Are you still pure?" heshot at him in his deepest bass. "I see you are; your look answers foryou. " And he strode on again. He turned to add over his shoulder: "Icannot in the intewests of my pwofession emulate you; it is incumbent onme to know first hand all that is possible, but I consider it anexcellent thing for the layman. Keep it up. Don't let Killigrew, who isa commonplace sinner, laugh you out of it. "

Ishmael forced himself to reply that he did not intend to forego his ownideas on the subject for Killigrew or anyone else; and, indeed, he wasnot so outraged by anything Carminow had said as by Killigrew'swhispered communication that for his part he believed Carminow wasboasting. . . . "Don't believe he knows the way, " added Killigrew, "or onlytheoretically. He's like a lot of doctors--all theories and nopractice. " He was so pleased with this joke he had to repeat it aloud toCarminow, who bore it quite unruffled. 

They had now reached the house, one of the many little lodging-housesthat stood where the Hotel Cecil is to-day, and Carminow let himself inwith a large key and, turning up the gas, revealed the usuallodging-house hall that is and was and always shall be eternally thesame as long as lodgings and landladies exist. It had a yellowish paperblotted with large blurred flowers of a reddish hue, a steel engravingof the "Derby Day" hung by the hat-stand, and the woodwork was of brightyellow graining. 

Carminow's rooms were on the second floor; after the first landing hadbeen passed the stairs suddenly altered in character, and from beingcarpeted and fairly wide took onto themselves linoleum and a steepstraightness that said plainly: "Up to here two guineas a week; abovehere only thirty shillings, with half-a-crown for extras. " Higher stillbare boards advertised the fact that only "bed-sitters" or even plainbedrooms were to be found. 

Carminow's rooms ran the depth of the house, the front one, hissitting-room, being separated from the bedroom by folding doors of thesame bright yellow as the doors in the hall. Into the sitting-room heushered his guests, and they knocked helplessly up against sharp angleswhile Carminow pawed and patted round the room for matches, obstinatelyrefusing the offers of their boxes because he said he was trying totrain his landlady to keep his in the same place. Killigrew, uninterested in the education of landladies, finally insisted onstriking one of his own, and uttered a shriek of joy when the faintgleam revealed a glass jar in which a greenish-white fragment of a bodyfloated forlornly. Finally the gas was lit, the table cleared of papersand books, and bottles of beer placed upon it instead. They had justsettled down to villainously strong cigars and the beer when a soundvery unexpected to two of them floated out upon the air--the sound of agirl singing. The voice was a rather deep mezzo; it was singing verysoftly an old ballad, to the accompaniment of a few notes very gentlystruck now and again on a piano. 

Carminow said nothing, but lay back in his chair and puffed out cloudsof smoke over his face. Killigrew looked at him and whistled. 

"I say . . . " he said. . . . "Own up, Carminow! Who is it?"

"If you mean who is the lady singing, " said Carminow with suddenstiffness, "she is Miss Grey, who has the room above this. She is ayoung lady about whom I think even you would not make your obscene jokesif you knew her. "

"Sits the wind in that quarter?. . . " thought Killigrew, highly amused. "I'll roast him. . . . " Aloud he said: "And may I not know her, then, Carminow? If Miss Grey is a friend of yours, perhaps--"

"I am vewy particular about whom I intwoduce to Miss Grey, " saidCarminow unflatteringly; "that is to say, I should first have to findout whether she wished it. She is quite alone, poor girl. "

"Dear me! How is that? Is she some romantic governess out of a place ora lady who through no fault of her own has come down in the world?"

"Miss Grey is on the stage. "

Killigrew roared with laughter. "You hear, Ishmael; here's your chance. You were saying you didn't know any actresses, and now here's Carminowwith one up his sleeve all ready for you. Tell us all about it, oldchap!"

"I will, if only to stop your stupid little mind from wunning along itsaccustomed dirty gwoove, " answered Carminow sententiously. "Miss Grey isthe daughter of a clergyman--"

"They all are. "

"She is an orphan, that is to say, as good as one, for her mother isdead and her father too poor to support her. She works very hard whenshe can get any work, which I am sowwy to say is not often, and she isas good as she is clever. I should be vewy glad if I could put her inthe way of more work when the play she is in is taken off, and I thoughtyou, Killigrew, who know so many people--"

"Artful old bird! So that's what you'd got in your mind, is it? Well Ican't do anything till I've seen the lady, can I? Even an angel in apoke--"

The singing had ceased, and in the little silence there came a knock atthe sitting-room door. Carminow had called out "Come in" automaticallybefore a sudden idea sent him to his feet. He was too late; the door hadopened and a young lady in grey stood hesitating on the threshold. 

CHAPTER IX

HIDDEN SPRINGS

She stood still, dismayed, her hand still on the doorknob, obviouslydistressed at the unexpected company in which she found herself. 

"Miss Grey . . . Do please come in . . . Is there anything I can do . . . ?"mumbled Carminow in great agitation, pushing a chair forward and thenpulling it back again indeterminedly. 

"I'm so sorry--" began the low full voice, richer in speech than insong. "I'd no idea--I only wondered whether you could--but it'snothing. "

"Anything, " Carminow assured her distractedly; "but please permit me tointroduce my friends . . . Mr. Killigrew, Mr. Ruan--Miss Grey. "

Everyone bowed, and then Miss Grey said simply: "It was only that mylamp has gone out; you know there isn't any gas on my floor, and Iremembered you had paraffin for your reading lamp. . . . I'm so afraid ofthe dark. I know it's very silly. . . . "

"Not at all, very natural, I'm sure. You can have the whole lamp, MissGrey, but you must let me clean it. It might smell. Yes, please, Iinsist. You must sit down here in the light while I do it. I'm afraidit's dweadfully smoky. Killigrew, do open the window--"

So he fussed, while Miss Grey, with a murmured thanks, sank into thechair Ishmael shyly offered her and waited very simply, her hands foldedon her lap. There was a simplicity, a lack of any self-consciousness, inher whole manner, so Ishmael, used to Phoebe and Vassie--neither ofwhom was the same in men's company that she was out of it--toldhimself. This girl seemed divinely unaware even of any strangeness inthe position in which she now found herself--the unawareness of anangel. . . . When Killigrew talked to her she answered frankly and freely, almost with the confidence of a child. She could not be more thantwenty, Ishmael decided, and with all her maturity of build had achildish air. The fashions of the day were not conducive to youthfulnessof appearance; but not even the long full skirts trimmed with bands ofblack velvet or the close-fitting bodice could make her seem other thana schoolgirl, while the hair worn brushed loosely back from the foreheadinstead of brought down in sleek waves gave her a look that reminded himof someone, though he could not remember whom. Then with a sudden flashhe remembered it was Hilaria, little Hilaria Eliot--she too had thatlook which, being in the middle of the period himself, he did notrecognise as alien to its stamp, but which was so conspicuously so thatwomen might have called it dowdy and men individual. But this girl wasfeminine, that was obvious in the timid shyness even of her trustingattitude. 

Oddly enough--or oddly as if seemed to Ishmael, who was wont to be inthe background when out with Killigrew--it was to him that she chieflyaddressed herself. Killigrew sat watching as from general remarks ofgreat propriety about the weather and Ishmael's opinions of London as aplace to visit they passed to her views on it as a place in which tolive. These were, apparently, not over favourable. 

"One always feels a stranger, in a way, if one was born and brought upin the country, doesn't one? I feel that every day. I've never got overexpecting to see the big elm outside my window when I wake, and insteadI see the chimney-pots. And then I may just be getting used to it whenthere arrives a letter from Papa telling me how it all looks athome--all the silly little things about the flowers and the chickens andthe old people in the parish, and then I have to start all over again. "

There was a strain of wistfulness in her full voice, but her eyes werelimpidly unconscious of it, with their candid glance that suggestedcourage and even a certain gaiety. If it had not been for that look inher eyes she would have seemed doll-like; even as it was in the purelyphysical aspect of her there was a waxen dollishness which was at oncedisconcerting and attractive. It was obvious that Carminow, whopresumably knew her, was passionately convinced that she was what hewould have called "all right"; that he was considerably more fond of herthan he would have admitted was equally obvious. To him that odddollishness of aspect was just the sweet pink and white of a naļve younggirl, but to Killigrew it gave, by its very completeness, a hint as ofsomething oddly inhuman, or at least unawakened, as though she had beena puppet, a pretty puppet that walked and spoke and said the rightthings. It was not so much any lack of intelligence in what she said asin her slow speech and her whole look. Her skin was so white--andKilligrew thought he knew if Ishmael did not how that whiteness wasattained--except for a slight pink flush below extravagantly calm eyesof a clear pale grey; the modelling of the face was wide across brow andcheekbones and across the jaw on the level of the too-small mouth; thencame a dimpled chin, short and childish, as was the tip-tilted nose. Itwas the type of face which, in its broad modelling of planes andpetal-fineness of edges, suggests a pansy. The blondness ofher--ashen-dead fairness of hair and pale skin with those pellucid eyesbeneath dust-brown brows--all united in an effort of innocence thatsurpassed itself and became the blandness of a doll. She was curiouslyimmobile, sat very quietly, and moved slowly, graceful in the way thata heavily-built puma is graceful, because of the thoroughly soundconstruction of her bones and muscles. Killigrew, as he watched her, wasvastly intrigued by what he phrased to himself as the "innocent sweetcorruption of her look. " For with all that dollish look, perhaps becauseof it, it was possible, so Killigrew thought, to imagine her being verybad with the help of that protective mask. It was also compatible withan Undine-like soullessness, a cold clearness of outlook, or a slightlyheavy if sweet stupidity. He thought it quite likely she might have allthe virtues except a naturally good complexion, but he wondered abouther, seeing her charm without feeling it. 

The lamp was ready all too soon, and the lucky Carminow had the bestright to carry it upstairs for her. She shook hands with both hisfriends as she said good-night, and Ishmael noticed how straightly shelooked from her equal height into his eyes as her hand lay in his. Thenthe door swung to, but without closing, and in a moment there came thelow sound of her voice from the landing above. 

"Mr. Carminow. . . . " she was saying--and the words, excepting just now andagain, were audible to the two in the sitting-room--"I hope--I don'tknow what your friends must think. Do tell them, will you, that I'm notin the habit of running down to your room like that? Mr. Ruan looks sogood. I wouldn't like him to think--"

"No one thinks anything like that; they couldn't, I assure you. Dobelieve me, Miss Grey. You won't sleep if you worry, you know. Promiseme to believe me. I'll say something to them if it'll make you anyhappier. "

"Will you? Then I'll promise too. I can take the lamp now. And--thankyou, Mr. Carminow. "

Down in the sitting-room when Carminow entered it again there was amoment or two of silence. 

"Look here, you two fellows!" said Carminow; then, "You see foryourselves that Miss Grey is a perfect lady. . . . "

"Exactly how I should have described her, " interjected Killigrew. 

"What I mean to say is that of course Miss Grey would not have dweamt ofcoming down if she had known you two were here. . . . "

"Should have thought we made enough noise coming in. But I suppose whatyou're driving at is that she only comes when you're alone; is that it?"asked Killigrew wickedly. 

"Damn it all! you know it's not what I mean at all, only you twisteverything a fellow says so. Anyway, I'd hate anyone to go and make amistake about her. "

"I won't, " said Killigrew. 

"It wouldn't be possible, I think, " said Ishmael; "she's got that sortof clear look, you couldn't. "

"Yes, that's just it, " agreed Carminow gratefully. "Sometimes she evendoes things that might seem a little odd or rash, and it's all becauseshe is such a child of nature she doesn't understand. A sort ofMiwanda. "

"What is her name, by the way?" asked Killigrew idly. 

"Blanche, I believe. "

"Blanche Grey . . . A rather humorous combination. Well, we must go or weshall be keeping you from your beastly legalised murder at eight. Comeon, Ishmael!"

"I'll come up to the Strand with you, " said Carminow. "I have to beearly at the prison, or one doesn't get through the crowd, not with asingle valuable left on you anyway, and lucky to keep your shirt andtrousers. You're sure you won't come? I could manage something for you. "

Neither felt disposed--Ishmael not only because he knew it would makehim deadly sick, but because the mere though of it had somehow becomehorrible, and Killigrew because he was rather glad to make Ishmael anexcuse for not going himself. They all strode along the dim, quietstreet, empty except for a dweller of the night who slunk into deepershadows on seeing that there were three of them. 

"She's an interesting-looking girl, that Miss Grey, " observed Killigrew, more to try and draw Carminow than because he was really interested inthe subject himself. 

"She reminded me of someone, and at first I couldn't think who, " saidIshmael, feeling a queer little pleasure at talking of her thuscasually; "and then I remembered Hilaria--you remember little HilariaEliot, who used to be so jolly to us all at St. Renny?"

"She is the last person I should have compared with Miss Grey, " saidKilligrew decidedly. "I should say they were as different as it ispossible for two persons of the same sex to be. Hilaria was like a boy;Miss Grey is most feminine. "

"Yes, she is, " said Ishmael eagerly; "but there's the same frankness, that way of meeting you that other girls don't have. "

"I know what you mean, " agreed Carminow, "though I don't think onenotices it when one sees more of Miss Grey. As Killigrew says, she is soessentially feminine--she is always gwateful for support in a way thatis really very sad in one who has to battle with the world. It is a hardlife for a refined gentlewoman, I fear. "

"Dear old chap, with his 'battling with the world' and all the rest ofhis really highly moral conventional views!" exclaimed Killigrew. "He'sa fraud, isn't he, Ishmael, who pretends to love to wallow in blug justto hide his lamblike disposition. "

"You always did talk wot, " remarked Carminow placidly. "You're weallynot a bit changed, Killigrew, in spite of Paris. By the way, I supposeyou heard about Polkinghorne?"

"Yes, from Old Tring. I went to St. Renny a little while ago. "

"Ah! then you heard about Hilaria? I thought from Ruan's mention of heryou had neither of you heard. "

"Heard what?"

"Why, " said Carminow in rather a shocked voice, "about her illness. "

"No!. . . " exclaimed Ishmael and Killigrew in a breath; and Killigrew wenton: "What illness? I can't imagine the Hilaria we used to know ill. "

"She's not the Hilaria we used to know, I'm afraid. You would hardlyrecognize her. She's got a disease--you wouldn't know it if I were totell you its name--that is one of the most obscure known to science, ifyou can call a thing known when no cure can be discovered to it. Yes, she's hopelessly paralysed, is poor Hilaria. " A certain impersonal noteas he spoke of the illness had crept through all the genuine feeling inCarminow's voice. 

"But it's impossible!" cried Ishmael, profoundly shocked, not so much atany personal feeling for Hilaria, as an instinctive protest that suchthings could be. "Hilaria--why she was never still, and the things shedid--why, you remember her walks and her fencing and everything--"

"Old Dr. Harvey at St. Renny puts it down very largely to thoseexcessive walks she used to take, " said Carminow. 

Ishmael said nothing; he was struck by a greater horror that it shouldhave been those walks, which had so seemed to set Hilaria apart from hersex, on which he had so often accompanied her, of which even now hecould recall the delight though he had not thought of them since. . . . Carminow went on:

"But of course I don't agree with him; he only says that because healways disapproved of the way poor old Eliot brought her up. PersonallyI think it was a very healthy way, and I believe it will be for the goodof the race when women are made to exercise more. But Hilaria had theseeds of this sclerosis in her then, and nothing can stop it;over-exertion may have made it worse, as it does any illness, but itcouldn't have caused it. It's being mercifully rapid, that's onecomfort. "

"It's ghastly, " said Killigrew in a low voice. "Where is she, Carminow?Have you seen her?"

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I go when I can. I think it gives herpleasure to see anyone from the old days. She's in a home for suchthings in London. Her father lodges round the corner to be near her. It's awful to see him. You know how he was about her. . . . She would bebrought back from France when they found out how bad it was. D'youremember how her eyes used to give out sometimes when she was reading tous? That was all part of the same thing, always in her, beginning tocome out. "

A little silence. Both Ishmael and Killigrew were wondering if theyought to go and see her or not, both fighting a repulsion of whichKilligrew's was more purely ęsthetic and Ishmael's rather a passionatewish to keep thought of such a thing away from life. . . . 

They had come to the parting of their way from Carminow's, and all threewere standing at the street corner under a flickering gas lamp. 

"Well, " said Carminow a little awkwardly, "I suppose now we've met Ishall be seeing you fellows again? I'm genewally in in the evenings whenI don't have to be on duty at the hospital. "

It was Ishmael who replied:

"I shall probably be round some time soon, " he said. "I shall want tohear how the new drop worked, you know. By the way, what theatre isMiss Grey appearing at? It might be interesting to go and see theperformance, mightn't it, Joe?"

"Oh, damn it all! I can only think for the moment of poor littleHilaria, " exclaimed Killigrew. "I used to be very fond of her. . . . Iwonder--"

"I'll find out if she'd like to see you and Ruan when next I go if youlike, but it's painful, because she can only get her words out injerks, " said Carminow. "It's the Strand that Miss Grey's appearing at. Quite a small part; but at least it's a lady-like one, and her stagename is Miss Blanche Nevill. Good-night, you fellows!"

They echoed his farewell, and then, finding no belated growler, set outto walk all the way back to Tavistock Square. They mentioned neitherHilaria nor Blanche Grey again that night, but as Ishmael lay for a longtime awake staring into the darkness he could not keep his mind fromreverting with a sense of deep fear to what he had heard about Hilaria. That such things could lie in wait in life, around the path of peopleone knew--people like oneself. . . . To others these exotic misfortunes, not to oneself or those near one. He had the sensation of incredulitywith which one hears of some intimate friend involved in a trainaccident or attacked by some freakish fate such as may be read of in thenewspapers daily but is never realised as being an actual and possiblehappening. Polkinghorne's death had made him believe there was such athing as death, but it was so remote. This was different. If thesethings could come into life, ordinary every-day life. . . . 

He sorrowed not only for Hilaria, but for life. The news had given himhis first pang of dread about it; his trust in it was never to be quitethe same again. That was all, for him, that Hilaria had existed for, simply to teach him so much of knowledge. It seemed odd, even to theegoism of his youth, that she should have had so great a share in thepattern of his life at one time only to go out of it so inevitably. Hewas not to realise for many years how important the lesson was of whichshe, by the mere news of her state, had taught him the beginnings. Ifher contact with him formerly had been less, so would the shock of thenews have been. People have impinged more deeply upon others' lives andboth by their entry and their leaving of them stood for less. 

CHAPTER X

BLIND STEPS

From that evening Ishmael entered upon a new phase of his London visit. He told himself, when seriously considering the situation now and then, that he was certainly not in love. He was deeply interested in BlancheGrey, but if this were being in love, then was that emotion verydifferent from anything the books always led one to expect. Forinstance, had the question been posed him by some wizard potent toarrange the lives of humans, whether he would sooner let Cloom or MissGrey slip away from him, he would not have hesitated. His values werenot in the least upset. He felt certain things in spite of them, thatwas all. There was an uncomfortable emptiness about a day on which hedid not see her, and when at night he waited for her outside the shabbystage door of the Strand Theatre his heart would go thump-thump in amanner over which he had no control, but which seemed so very remotelyconnected with himself as he understood the term that he made no accountof it. Killigrew said very little to him on the subject once he hadfound that he really did not like being chaffed about the fair Blanche, but it at once lowered Killigrew in Ishmael's estimation, and yet madehim less certain about his own feelings, that he knew Killigrew did notshare his enthusiasm. 

Blanche had one of those definite personalities there is no overlooking, that people, especially men, either adore or actively dislike. Killigrewhad never said he did not like her, but Ishmael felt the fact none theless certainly. And, as a matter of fact, Killigrew himself was puzzledby Miss Grey. He was certain enough that she was technically"good"--what Carminow called "all right"--and he admitted her charm, butto him the over-emphasis she laid on everything, as on that action ofhers in coming down for the lamp, made the charm of no avail. He went tothe house in Cecil Street a few times with Ishmael and then washed hishands of the affair. 

When Ishmael was not allowed in the presence, then Killigrew still tookhim round the town and was not unamused to notice that his tastes hadbegun to alter. He was more interested in the personal note, less inthings. Horticultural shows no longer lured him, polytechnics flauntedin vain. 

He went once to the House of Commons and heard a debate on Russell'sabortive Reform Bill, which was to sound the knell of that Minister'scareer. Ishmael heard Gladstone in the Bill's defence defying an attackby Lowe, whilst Mr. Disraeli leant back with a slight smile on his face, which was a blot of pallor beneath his dark, oiled ringlets. Ishmael wasstirred, yet in him something felt amazement and disappointment. Thesewere only men after all, not demigods, and some of them were peevish, some rude, some bored and inattentive. The whole thing seemed somehowchildish; it was difficult to believe, except later when Bright's goldentongue was speaking, that in this place the nation was governed. . . . Afterwards he was with the crowd, borne helplessly along, that wreckedthe Hyde Park railings in their anger that the hastily constructedMinistry of Derby should still let Reform hang in air. Yet all theseaffairs of the nation only affected Ishmael from the outside, for he wasbeginning to be at his most personal. 

Turns of singing and dancing interested him less than plays where therewas a definite and necessarily keenly personal story. The characterswere all occupied with their feelings for each other, never withtheories or conditions. There was one exception to this rule, thoughIshmael kept that to himself--he went often to see a little dancer whoseturn only lasted ten minutes, while the particular moment of it forwhich he went was over in a flash, the moment when, whirling round andround very quickly, her short filmy skirts stood out and were nothingbut a misty circlet about her, so that she gave the illusion of havingnothing to break the slim straight lines of her. She seemed nude with anelfin nudity that charmed him while it did not inflame, or if it did, only with the subtle inflammation of the mind, which can withstand suchonslaughts for many years before a sudden reaction of the body shows theconnection between the two. Ishmael, who took no interest in damsels intights or in the exuberant proportions of the "frail" ladies that amusedKilligrew, found himself waiting for that moment every evening, and hissatisfaction when he caught it was rather that of a person who ispleased at verifying something he has had the acumen to discover thanany more poignant emotion. He went far oftener to see this than he didto watch Blanche in her small part as one of the innocuous and well-bredcompany performing at the little old Strand Theatre, which was thenstill a phalanx of the respectable Swanborough family. 

Blanche kept her work as a thing apart from her life--that is to say, she did not join the rest of the company at supper at the pothouseopposite, nor acknowledge the attentions of the mashers from the frontrow who waited at the shabby little stage door of a night. She was verycharming to the other members of the company, especially the women, andthe fact that she had enemies there was easily explained on the groundof her aloofness. She told Ishmael very little with all her frankness ofaddress, but one night as he was seeing her home she asked him to comeand have tea with her next day, which happened to be a Sunday, andIshmael accepted eagerly; it was the first time she had actually askedhim to the house. 

When he arrived, clasping a bouquet he had bought overnight and nursedin his bedroom water-jug, he found that she had begged the loan of theground-floor sitting-room, which was unlet, from her landlady, and wasawaiting him there, wearing her grey dress and a rose pinned by thelittle white muslin collar that spanned the base of her throat. She wasnot looking her best, but somehow that made her all the more appealingto Ishmael; the sudden heat had made dark shadows under her eyes, andher movements were more languid even than usual. 

It was an ugly room, like all its kind; but Blanche had the triumphantquality of rising superior to her background, which is one of the mostvaluable a woman can possess. Against the hot, hideous red of thewall-paper and the mass of tawdry ornaments she seemed to gain insimplicity, and that peculiar clearness of hers was intensified. She wasgrave, and only gave Ishmael the ghost of a little wan smile on hisentry over his tendered bouquet. She dispensed tea with her firm, rathersquare hands, hands with short, blunt-tipped fingers that yet were notwithout the beauty of fitting in with her puma-like solidity of frame;while the way in which she used them was grace itself. They were thetypical hands of a courtesan, but neither she nor Ishmael knew that, though Carminow had marvelled to himself at the fact. 

Ishmael was silent, falling in with her mood, and suddenly she fixed herlimpid eyes upon him and asked with disconcerting directness:

"What are you thinking of!"

"I was thinking about you, " he was startled into saying; "I waswondering if it's true you're insincere. . . . "

"Who says so . . . ? Mr. Killigrew? He doesn't like me; I knew it from thefirst. I'm sorry; I think he's rather fine, though I'm not sure I thinkhe's good for you. He guesses that, and that's why he doesn't like me. "

"Oh, I'm sure he couldn't be such an ass as to think that, " protestedIshmael. "Besides, surely I am capable of looking after myself!"

"You're capable of a good deal, I believe. You could look after yourselfand other people too. You're strong, you know. I suppose you don't know, or you wouldn't be you. But I'm sorry you think like that about me. "

"I don't. I mean--I do sometimes wonder. You're so charming to everyoneand--"

"But I'm not insincere because of that, am I? I wish you hadn't thoughtthat. Of course, one meets people, at the theatre and so on, and onedoesn't really know them and can't get at them, and so one just tries tobe very nice to them, but I don't call that insincere. . . . "

"No. I didn't mean to people like that. But to your friends--to oldCarminow, for instance, and myself. . . . I sometimes wonder. And toyourself--"

"Ah! I'm not insincere to myself. "

"I sometimes wonder if you know what your real self is. "

"Don't I? I do. Why do you say that, Mr. Ruan?"

"Because you asked me, and because I can't help saying what I think whenI'm asked like that and I think the person's worth it. "

Blanche had pushed away her cup, and now she folded her arms on thetable and bent to him over them. Her face was very earnest. 

"I do know what you mean, " she admitted; "I think I know it better thanyou do. And I suppose it's partly because I've no mother and I've had toprotect myself. A woman is very like some kinds of animals I've heardof--she has to assume protective colouring. If I seem to like peoplethat have nothing in common with me it's because I find it's thesimplest way. You are different; I don't have to pretend anything withyou. I think if my real self were beginning to be overlaid you couldhelp me revive her. "

"Your real self . . . Haven't I seen that?"

"I thought so till you said what you did, " she answered in a low voice, looking away from him; then she went on hurriedly: "You know, when Mammadied I was only thirteen, and though I loved my father very dearly it'snever quite the same, is it? It was dreadful leaving Papa, but I had toearn money somehow; you see, he wants all sorts of little things, extradelicacies he can't get on his small means, and I do manage most timesto send him them. He didn't like my choosing the stage; but I'm notreally well enough educated for a governess--besides, I did try thatonce. . . . "

"What happened?" asked Ishmael as she paused. 

"She--the lady--had a grown-up son as well as the children, and he fellin love with me. I couldn't help that, but she was very angry. And I wasso unhappy I couldn't bear to go anywhere else. I wanted a new life. Yousee--I cared rather. "

"But if you both cared--"

"I wouldn't let him defy his mother. It would have made it all dreadful, somehow. And he wasn't a strong character, not like you. You wouldn'tmind who was against you if you were in love. "

Ishmael did not reply and she went on:

"I've been trying to make a fine thing out of acting now for threeyears, ever since I was little more than a child--a real child in thelittle I knew. And if I had not minded certain things of course by now Icould have been a leading lady and driven in my brougham, or left thestage for good--or for bad. But one cannot alter the way one is made, ordrop the ideas one was brought up to have . . . At least I can't; and soI'm still in the attic in Cecil Street, with a small part and noprospects. And how I hate it all sometimes; you can't imagine how I hateit! London is like an awful monster that draws one in inch by inch--amonster that breathes soot instead of fire. "

Ishmael had been turning over a wonderful plan in his mind while she wasspeaking, an idea that had flashed on him before, but that had seemedtoo splendid to be possible of realization. Now, emboldened by herwords, he ventured on the great question. 

"I say, " he began, "why not, when you want a holiday, when this pieceyou're playing in is over, come and stay at Cloom? I don't know whetheryou've heard--whether Carminow has told you about me--I hope he has; Idropped him a hint, because I hate to think I'm sailing under falsecolours with you--" He paused, his courageous words dying in hotembarrassment. Blanche met him perfectly. 

"I know all about it. Mr. Carminow told me. What difference does itmake, except to make your friends care all the more for you?"

"Then you would come? My sister Vassie--you'd like her. And I think evenmy mother would love you. It would be so good for you after all this. "

She did not reply at once and Ishmael's heart sank. 

"Your father. . . . " he murmured; "I suppose you feel--"

She interrupted with a sudden radiance: "Oh, no, it's not that. Myfather is married again, you know. . . . I don't often talk of it; it was agrief to me. We were so everything to each other. But I don't go homevery often, because of that. I would love to come, Mr. Ruan. I wonder ifI can; I wonder. . . . "

"But why should you wonder?" he urged more boldly; "one advantage ofyour lonely situation is that you are free to decide for yourself. Dopromise me!"

She turned her head away as though to hide eyes suddenly dewy, then methis look with her wonted level candour. 

"I'll come, " she said; "I'll come. Oh, it will he heavenly!. . . You don'tknow what the mere thought of it means. . . . To get away, even for alittle while, from all this. . . . " She swept her hands expressively aroundon the lodging-house surroundings. 

"It must be rotten, " said Ishmael in heartfelt accents. "I know how Ifelt in the parlour at home after my sister Vassie had done it up for myreturn. I felt as though the woolly mats were choking me. And I couldn'tsay anything for fear of hurting her feelings. "

"And have you got used to it? That's what I'm always so afraidof--getting used to ugliness. "

"Vassie has altered. She is the cleverest girl at picking up ideas I'veever known, and somehow when Killigrew was down with us she soon foundout, though I don't think he actually said anything. And we havebeautiful old furniture hidden away in the attics, so we simply pulledit all out, and Vassie and Phoebe are making new needlework seats forthe chairs. "

"Is Phoebe another sister?"

"Oh, no; she's the daughter of Mr. Lenine, the miller. She was atboarding-school in Plymouth with Vassie, and they're just like sisters, "said Ishmael in the simplicity of his heart. 

"How nice!" said Blanche Grey. 

So it was settled between them that Blanche should renew heracquaintance with the country that summer at Cloom, and when Ishmaelleft he walked on air. It was not that he was excited so much as that adeep content filled him; life seemed full of promise and even moreworth living than he had thought it. The distrust which that news ofCarminow's had engendered drifted to the back of his brain; he wanderedthrough the streets, picturing the days to come at Cloom. He came to apause at last, aware that he had missed the way to the hotel where hewas to sup with Carminow and Killigrew. He looked at the name of thestreet he was in, and saw that it was the name Carminow had mentioned asbeing that of the street where Hilaria was lodged. 

He stood between the rows of houses and tried to realise that one ofthem sheltered Hilaria. He stood quite still, beset by the same thoughtsas on the first evening he had been told of her. He looked up at thehouses and wondered which it was; it seemed odd that the bricks andstone which hid so much of sadness should not declare it in some wayunmistakable to him. Odd that he could no more tell at what elevation, whether just above him or nearer the roof, she lay, as odd that, wherever it might be, she was equally unknowing that someone wasthinking of her with such intensity so near. He walked along, lookingfor the number Carminow had mentioned, found he had passed it, andturned back to see it was the house one door further down than that atwhich he had first stopped. He looked at the door as though it could flyopen and bid him enter; he pictured with a vividness he could notsuppress her entrance there, carried, her head lolling on her breast. Several times he walked up and down, wondering if she would care to seehim, trying to remember if she had ever shown any predilection for himwhich could make him think she would. Then he turned away and went on, the thought of her and the pity of her going with him. He was notsurprised when at supper Carminow began to speak of her; it seemed asthough it would not be possible to sit so near to himself and not feelthe trend of his thoughts. 

"I saw Hilaria yesterday, " said Carminow, "and I asked her if shewanted to see you two. I thought she might, but she waited a minute andthen let me know most unmistakably that she would rather not. She canonly speak very queerly now--most painful business--and make a fewgestures, but there was no mistaking her. I expect it would have beentoo much for her anyway. "

Both his listeners felt a half-guilty relief, and that night when alonein his room Ishmael, aided by that glimpse of the exterior of hersurroundings and by Carminow's words, was assailed again by the thoughtof her, but not as keenly as before. Shocked senses had been responsiblefor that first keenness, and imagination, however aided, could not stingto the same depth. He thought as he fell asleep of Blanche and Cloom. Life had ugly, unthought-of things in it, but, thinking of her steadyradiance, he could not believe that any fate would dare to dim itslustre. 

Blanche sat long at the window of her bedroom that evening, her ashenfair hair about her shoulders and her brush idle in her hand. As it wasSunday and she had no engagement, she was going to bed early, so earlythat it was still sunset-light. 

She stood at the open window of the bedroom, staring with unseeing eyes;her thoughts were revolving round her own problems, but gradually thesights and sounds without won her to notice of them. The back windows ofthe house looked on to other house-backs that formed a square well, wherein smaller, much lower roofs and flat expanses of ribbed leads andstable yards all huddled together in soft blue shadow. Only anoccasional chimney-pot, higher than its fellows, made a note of glowingorange where it pierced the slant of the evening sun: To Blanche's leftthere showed a pale gleam from the Thames between the house-backs ofbrownish-grey brick; to her right roof-tops and fantastic cowls werepatterned in a flat purple tone against the luminous sky. In the eavesthe sparrows were chirping shrilly; one flew downwards so swiftlybetween Blanche's eyes and the sky that his little body seemed nothingbut a dark blot with a flickering upon either side of it. The sightcaught at her memory, and she had a quick vision of a day when she hadlain upon a sloping cliff and watched the gulls wheel far above her, thelight of the setting sun making their breasts and the underneath oftheir wings flash like silver. A smaller bird had darted past, and then, as now, she had noted the curious effect of the solid little bodyflanked by that flickering which meant wings invisible through their ownspeed. The surface of her mind was quick to respond to suggestion, andthe thought of the country struck her as being an answer to the unspokenquestionings that were pricking at her. The West--the land of readysleep and sweet dreams. So Ishmael had told her, and the way lay open ifshe chose to take it, a way that would not necessarily commit her toanything. When she saw Ishmael in his own environment, then she wouldknow whether it were worth it or not. . . . 

To blot herself out of existence for a few weeks, that was what itamounted to; there should be no such person as the town-ridden BlancheNevill on the face of the earth. She felt a delightful stirring ofanticipation, and nothing had had power to awaken that emotion in herfor several years. Her own surroundings once shed, she would, she felt, meet a new world with all the hopes and dreams that had once been hers. She was twenty-six years of age, though with her bland face she lookedmuch younger; and the truth was she had no love for any work in itself, but only for the praise it brought her--a temperament which can nevermake the artist, but results in the brilliant amateur. 

She was sick of the stage, for no worthy captive of her bow and spearhad presented himself, and she detected the dawning of criticism in thefriends that had been so warm when she first met them in town. Blanchewas always posing, and people had found it out. As a child she hadplayed the misunderstood genius or shy mother's darling as occasiondemanded; she had posed with others till she was unable to do anythingbut pose with herself. A few years, a very few years, ago, and even herown sex had had to admit her charm; now she was beginning to be playedout, and she knew it. Her triumphant personality always attractedattention, even when prettier and cleverer women were present, but itwas a very critical attention she attracted now. 

When the light faded she moved to the bed and began to brush out herhair. The sun had set, and she had drawn the dark, narrow blinds; downtheir edges showed the gleam of the outside world steeped in a coldblue-green light like the depths of the sea, and the faded curtainswavered slowly in the breeze like long swaying strips of seaweed. Blanche, swathed in a pale wrapper and sitting on the bed whosewhiteness was dimmed by the greenish dusk, was suggestive of a stagemermaid combing her locks upon a property sandbank. 

She lit her lamp, and at once the gleam without turned a deep, softblue. She knotted her pale hair on the nape of her neck, and, chin up, hands on hips, stared critically at herself in the glass, and, as shelooked her lips parted a little in pleasure. Snatching up thehand-glass, she poised from one foot to the other, craning her neck tosee herself from every possible point of view. 

"Yes, " she decided, "I'll go. And then--a new life. Miss Blanche Nevillwill vanish into thin air, and hurrah! for Blanche Grey, who willbe--herself. "

She slept, thinking of Ishmael and herself, as he of her, while in a dimroom, lying perforce motionless in her hot bed, a girl thought, with thebrain left clear amidst all her failing senses, of two boys who stoodas symbols of a happy time when life was unclouded by even the leastconscious hints of the creeping Thing. She felt, in her thick confusionof tongue and ear and eye, more uncouth than she was, and not for anygood life could still hold for her would she have had either seeher--Killigrew because he had been fond of her, Ishmael because she hadbeen fond of him. 

A week later Ishmael arrived back at Cloom. As he walked along on thefirst evening after his return the feel of the country smote him asnever before. Ecstasy welled in him, clear and living; the strong, pureair made him want to shout with joy. And more than the sight of theswelling land, more than the feel of the springy turf beneath his feet, or the wind on his eyelids, it was the smell of the country that woke inhim this ecstasy. Sweet as the breath of cows came its mingled fragranceof grass and earth and of the fine dust on the roadway, of thebitter-sweet tang of the bracken and faint aftermath of hay; the breathat his nostrils was drunken with sweet odour. He had come back to faceArchelaus, it was true, but he came back a man. 

It was a good world, and he would make his corner of it still better. . . . How splendid it was to be alive and tingling with the knowledge thateverything lay before one! Pain and sorrow were only words that fellaway into nothingness before the joy of merely living. . . . 

So he felt as, late that night, he leant upon his window sill and staredout at the darkness that was the background for his imagings of what wasto come. Upon his thoughts there broke the chattering scream of a rabbitcaught by a stoat, tearing the velvet tissues of the night's silence. Onand on it kept, always on one high note, with a horrible persistence. Ishmael listened, sorry that even a rabbit should suffer on this nightof nights, and was glad when the screaming wavered and died into amerciful stillness. As he dropped asleep the sardonic laughing bark of afull-fed fox came echoing from the earn. 

CHAPTER XI

GLAMOUR

Full summer had come, and with it Miss Grey. She was not staying at theManor, as Annie had taken a violent dislike to the idea of visitors, andIshmael dreaded possible unpleasantness, so that he had been thankfulwhen Blanche of her own accord suggested going into lodgings. She wantedto bring a friend with her, she said, a girl who was peaky after toolong nursing of a sick mother in London. Therefore Vassie interviewedMrs. Penticost, a cheery soul who rejoiced in a little old Queen Annehouse called "Paradise, " a mile along the cliff-path, where it gave onthe outskirts of the village. Blanche was in raptures over the namesPenticost and Paradise, and would have been in raptures over herlandlady too if that worthy woman had not chosen to be ratherunresponsive towards her, though frankly adoring the little friendJudith Parminter. 

Judy was only nineteen, a slim, awkward girl with high cheekbones anddeep-sunk hazel eyes that gave her a look not unlike that of a beautifulmonkey--so Killigrew, when he came down to take up his quarters at theinn, for a summer's painting, declared. He swore that Judy would be agreat beauty, but that she would always be like a monkey with thosedeep, sad eyes and the bistre stains below them that were the only tingeof colour upon her dark skin. She was a shy, wild creature, given tosolitary roaming and much scribbling of astonishingly good poems in alittle note-book. Blanche said she had genius, and, though Blanche wouldhave said it just then if it had been true or not, there was somethingnot without a touch of genius animating the rough, vivid verses of themonkey-girl. Blanche was "very fond of the little thing, " but did notsee much of her. Ishmael not unnaturally absorbed the forefront of herattention. 

One day, when Blanche had been two weeks at Paradise, a morning moregolden, of a stiller warmth than any yet, dawned, and she knew it wouldbring Ishmael over early with some plan for a picnic. The little gardenlay steeped in sunshine that turned the stonecrop on the roof to fireand made the slates iridescent as a pigeon's breast. The rambler thathalf-hid the whitewashed lintel threw over it a delicate tracery ofshadow which quivered slightly as though it breathed in a charmed sleep. Fuchsias drooped their purple and scarlet heads, dahlias, with agrape-like bloom on their velvety petals, stood stiffly staring, andagainst the granite wall giant sunflowers hung their heavy heads on acurve of sticky green stem. In the sloping fields beyond the lane thestubble stood glittering and the great golden arishmows cast over itblue pools of shade. Beyond the fields could be seen the sparkling blueof the lazily-heaving Atlantic, merging into a heat-haze which glistenedwith a jewel-like quality at the world's rim. 

Blanche opened the door of the cottage and stood upon the threshold, swinging her hat in her hand. A white butterfly fluttered down aimlesslyas a scrap of torn paper, and a bee hung buzzing on a sustained note ofcontent, drowned for a moment as it swung with arched body in the cup ofa flower, then booming forth as it shot out and poised on wings thatseemed nothing but a glistening blur. Blanche stood with eyes half shutand sniffing nostrils, and as she felt the warm caress of the sun, sopositive as to seem almost tangible, on her bare head, she stretchedherself, cat-like, with a deep sigh of content. 

Life was good here, away from the old faces and the old pursuits. Shehad been at Paradise only two weeks, but they had been weeks of sun andsoft winds and sweet smells, and the impressionable surface of her mind, that beneath was so shallow and so unmalleable, was gradually respondingto the influences around her. 

Almost imperceptibly to herself her point of view had been changing; agroup of white foxgloves, like ghost-flames, that she had seen in acoppice, the creeping of a bright eyed shrew mouse through last year'sleaves at her feet, the hundreds of little rabbits with curved-in backsthat ran with their curious rocking action over the dewy fields atevening--all these things gave her a shock of pleasure so keen itsurprised her. Till now she had not admitted her own artificiality evento herself; now that she was regaining directness she told herself shecould afford to be more candid. 

Nearly every day she and Ishmael, with Vassie and sometimes Killigrew orJudy, or even the Parson, would go on long expeditions to the cromlechsand carns of the country around; but sometimes she and Ishmael wouldslip away together, defying convention, sometimes on foot, sometimes ina light market-gig--casual wanderings with no fixed goal, andinexpressibly delightful to both. On sunny days they put up the pony atsome farm, and lay upon the short, warm grass of a cliff-face watchingthe foam patterns form and dissolve again beneath a diamond scatter ofspray. When the sea-mist rolled up steadily over Cloom like blown smoke, here opaque, there gossamer-thin, they would sally forth and tramp thespongy moors, the ground sobbing beneath their feet and the mournfulcalling of the gulls sounding in their heedless ears. And all the whileher turns of head and throat, the inflections of her low, rich voice, were being registered on a mind free till now of all such impressionsand tenacious as a child's. Small wonder that as the days drifted pastIshmael felt that he, too, was drifting on a tide of golden waters tosome shore of promise in a golden dawn. 

Blanche, too, was slipping into something like love these days; thebeauty of their surroundings and something simple and primitive in theboy himself both made the same appeal to her. Was it possible that afterall her flirtations, all her insincerities, she should capture thebirthright of the single-hearted? It seemed so, for Blanche had thismuch of grace left--she was responsive to simplicity. There wassomething more than the instinct of the coquette in the fullness withwhich she gave him all he asked, step by step; she had thrown awaycalculation and was letting herself be guided by her own instinct andthe finer instinct she felt to be in him. Each demand his moods made onher she met, each thing his reverent hand unconsciously asked of hers ashe helped her over the rough places, each expression his eyes looked forin hers--she gave them all. For here was that rarest of rare things, aman to whom all could be given without his prizing less highly gift orgiver. 

Long after she had gone to bed he would walk the fields and make sweetpicture-plans, all centred tenderly round her. He would stand and lookup at her window when the light in it was out, picturing the room, thefreshness, the delightful girlishness of it, and at this intimacy ofthought he would redden in the dark. His sense of humour was inabeyance, and the reality, could he have seen it, would have been ashock to him--the dressing-table a litter of cosmetics and pin-curls;and on the pillow the face of Blanche surrounded by wavers and shinywith cold-cream. 

On this golden morning Ishmael found Blanche, as she had meant him to, in the garden at Paradise, the sun turning her ashen hair to fire. 

"Don't let's waste a minute of to-day, " he said. "We'll have the cartout and not come back till the evening--that is, if you care about it?"

"Of course I care about it, " she told him, and ran upstairs to pin on ashady hat and powder her face. 

"Shall I speak now? Shall I speak now?" thought Ishmael as he drove downthe lane; but with a thrill of anticipation came "No--my hands aren'tfree. " For Mrs. Penticost's cob, a nervous, spirited creature, newlybroken in, was between the shafts. 

"Will he speak yet?" thought Blanche; "and if he does, what shall Isay?" She glanced up at the set, earnest face, and, sensitive to herlook, his eyes met hers. He averted his gaze quickly, but his heartsang, "She cares! she cares!" And quite suddenly he felt he wished topostpone speaking as long as possible, that the savour of this suspendedbliss was too sweet to lose. A tremor ran through Blanche as their eyesmet. She recognised that in him was an austerity against which even shecould beat in vain. 

It was evening by the time they drove back, and the shadows lay cool andlong across the roads. Urged on by visions of his snug stall, the ponywent like the wind; neither of the two in the cart spoke much: once hebent down to tuck the rugs more closely round her and his hand, touchinghers, lingered a moment. When they drove into the little yard, Lylie, the dairymaid, was mixing barley-meal and scald-milk for the pigs andcarrying on bucolic flirtation with Billy Penticost. With thesheepishness of his sex, that youth made a great business of setting offto the well, his pails slung outwards on a hoop. The rustic comedytouched a long-atrophied fibre in Blanche. On an impulse of simplicity, she told herself, "Yes, this is the best thing. I won't go back to town;I'll live down here, close to the things that matter, and we'll just behappy. " In the rush of warm feeling she turned her eyes on Ishmael, herlove for him expanding because of the love she felt for the unsentientthings about her. His heart leapt to the look. 

"Will you come out into the big field after everyone has gone to bed?"he asked her, busy unfastening a trace; and as she bent over a buckle onher side of the pony she whispered, "Yes. "

She ate her supper in a state almost too placidly joyous for excitement, and afterwards went up to her room and sat with her elbows on thewindow-sill and her chin on her hands, looking out. The corn had beencut and stacked in great Cornish arishmows, and Blanche, watching theorange moon swim up, told herself, "When that shadow has reached thenearest stook I will go. " The shadow lay, finger-like, touching thestook, but still she sat on, reluctant to go out and make sure of herhappiness. The moon, paling to pearl as it rose, shone clearly into theroom, making sharp shadows under the bed-curtains and lying slantwise onthe white counterpane; Blanche rose and slipped off her frock; she movedas in a dream--her affectations of thought fell away, leaving herinstinctive. She felt as though this lover were her first, and, withoutreasoning about it, knew she must be fitly dressed to meet him. Shebathed her face and hands in cold water, then put on a fresh muslingown, moving to and fro in full view of anyone who might be in thesloping field outside. She half hoped, quite innocently, that Ishmaelwas there watching; it seemed to her nothing unclean could live in thewhite light that permeated the very air of the room. Overcome for amoment by the strength of her own emotions, she sat on the bed andburied her face in her hands. As she looked at herself in the glassbefore leaving the room she smiled for pleasure that she was unpowderedand unrouged, not pausing, in her exalted mood, to wonder whether shewould have faced the daylight so. It was a better, an honester, Blanche, transmuted by happiness, that crept down the stairs, throughthe small garden and across the road into the field. He was awaiting herby the hedge. 

"How late you are!" he said, not reproachfully, but in relief that sheshould have come at all. "I thought you must have changed your mind. Doyou know it is past eleven?"

"Have I been as long as that?" Blanche hugged herself to think that shehad been so genuinely wrapped in dreams as to let so much time slip byunheeded. Together they went down the moonlit field, where the arishmowsseemed like the pavilions of a long-dead Arthurian host conjured up bysome magician's spells. In the last field before the moor Ishmael pulledthe corn out lavishly as a throne for her and installed her on it. 

"You look like the spirit of harvest sitting there on your goldenthrone, " he told her, and, leaning back against the rustling stook, shesmiled mysteriously at him, all the glamour of the moonlight and her ownwomanhood in her half-shut eyes. 

"Blanche . . . !"

He was kneeling beside her, his hands on her shoulders. Her eyelidsdropped before his gaze and she shook slightly. 

"You are the most beautiful thing on earth! I love you with all my heartand soul, with every bit of me. Say you can care--Blanche, say you can. . . !"

She raised her eyes: the sphinx-like look of her level brows and calmmouth held for an instant, then her face quivered, grew tremulous andtender. Her hands made a blind, passionate movement, and as he caughther to him he heard her sobbing that she loved him. 

He held her close, covering her face with clumsy eager kisses, the firsthe had ever given a woman, and he gave himself up to worshipping her asshe sat on the throne he had made for her. 

"Let us go to the boulders above the wood, " whispered Blanche, who evenin the grip of one of the deepest feelings of her life kept herunfailing flair for the right background; "we can see the sun risethere, over the trees. . . . "

He helped her to her feet and they walked together, hand in hand, likechildren. The keen personal emotion had passed, leaving them almosttimid; now certainty had settled on them passionate inquiry gave placeto peace. So they went, and he felt as though he walked in Eden, withthe one mate in all the world. Across the moors they went; then--forthey were going inland--they came to fields again, and the path ranthrough acres of cabbages. The curves of the grey-green leaves held thelight in wide shimmers of silver, the dew vibrating with diamondcolours; edging their two shadows the refraction of the beams brought ahalo of brightest white. Another stretch of furze brought them to theboulders above the wood on a level with the massed tree-tops. Ishmaelmade Blanche put on his coat; then he sat beside her, his hand holdingthe coat together under her chin. 

Nestling her head against him, she closed her eyes, and with soft, regular breathings feigned a sleep that presently became reality. Through the starlit hour between moon-setting and sun-rising Ishmaelheld her; every now and then she stirred, half woke, and, moving alittle to ease his arm, lifted the pallor of her face to his. Before thedawn she awoke completely and began to reproach herself and him. 

The time of un-self-consciousness was already over for her, and she wasonce more the woman who knew how to make men love. 

"Oh, how could you let me waste time sleeping? I've not been reallyasleep--only drowsing. I knew I was sitting beside you all the while. "

"Then it wasn't waste for you either. " His lips trembled a little, andhe said nothing about his own emotions; it had been so unutterably sweetto him to hold her, trusting, quiescent, in his arms and feel thenight-wind ruffling her hair against his cheek. 

It was still dusk, though the misty blue-grey of the tree-tops wasimperceptibly changing to a more living hue, and the sky, stained a deeprust colour, showed a molten whiteness where it touched the world's rim. He unknowingly gripped Blanche's hand till she nearly cried out; exceptas something that made beauty more beautiful he hardly knew she wasthere. Slowly the miracle of dawn unfolded; down in the woods birdslifted glad heads, the lids were raised from round, bright eyes, andthere came up to the watchers on the rocks the first faint notes thatpierced the air of the new day. 

Nothing was very wide-awake as yet; all life stirred as though beneath afilm; a dim blue coverlet still lay lightly over the wood; the earthheld her breath for the moment of birth. What a waiting, what a wideclear sense of certain expectation! The sky, naked of clouds, had becomea brightening sphere of pearliness; a deep rose gathered over the hillsand spread fanlike, licking up the ashen pallor with stabs of flame. Alivid red-gold rim sprang into being behind the hill crests, and slowlyand in state the sun swam up the molten sky. He turned to Blanche withthe tears in his eyes. 

"Dearest, the sun has risen!" He drew her face to his and kissed her, not as before, but with the sense of consummating a sacrament. She roseto her feet a little unsteadily, and they set their faces towardsParadise cottage. 

"You must get some rest, " he said; "it's only half-past four now. "

The exaltation of the dawn had left her, and she quickened her steps, wondering uneasily what her skin looked like unaided in this dazzlinglight. She slipped noiselessly into the house by the front door, whichshe barred behind her; the clatter of hobnails from the little yard toldthat Billy was already about his business, but behind Mrs. Penticost'sdoor all was quiet. With her finger to her lips Blanche leaned from herwindow and breathed "Good-night" and disappeared into the shadows. 

CHAPTER XII

SHEAVES

The following day dawned still and hot as ever, but overcast with a greyfilm, though the pale sky held a glaring quality that reflected on tothe eyeballs. Down in the lowest meadow the oats had not yet beengathered into sheaves, and John-James, gazing at the sky, was of opinionthat the sooner it was done the better. Ishmael agreed withoutenthusiasm, till it occurred to him that Blanche, who was so charmedwith a farmer's life, would probably enjoy helping. It might be madeinto a sort of picnic, a _fźte champźtre_; the beautiful monkey couldhelp, and he could send a boy over to the mill to fetch Phoebe. Theywould make a day of it--the kind of pastoral occasion which cannotexactly be called artificial and yet which does not in the leastrepresent the actual life of those who live by land. 

Vassie was enthusiastic about the idea, and soon the house was in aferment with preparations; bottles of cider were brought out, a stonepuncheon of beer produced for the men, cakes and pasties began to formbeneath Vassie's willing hands. Ishmael felt a pang as he watched her. How could it affect her but adversely, this change he was to make? Hefelt that Blanche would not want any of his family, even Vassie, livingin the house with them, and it was her right to order such a matter asshe would. To settle anywhere with her mother was impossible for theproud fastidious Vassie, and, though he could allow her enough money tomake her independent, she could hardly, in the ideas of those days, goalone into the world upon it. 

There would be terrible scenes with his mother, he realised, before shewould consent to go, but he shook the thought of it all off him on thisthe first morning of his plighted faith with Blanche. It would beunpleasant, but imperative, and how well worth it!. . . Meanwhile, therewas love to be enjoyed, every moment of it--love that was still to himsuch a shy and delicate thing that he hardly dared to breathe upon itfor fear of ruffling in some clumsy way Blanche's fine susceptibilities. She must have had so much to suffer from undue approaches in her battlewith the world; not from him should such tarnishing come. 

He sent a note down to her at Mrs. Penticost's to tell her again, in hismorning greeting, of his love and to advise her of the mock-business ofthe day. Blanche was still in bed when it arrived, and Judith, lookingmore like a handsome monkey than ever in a faded red Garibaldi, took itin to her. 

Judith still admired Blanche above all women, although she saw her asnow with a creamed face and hair that resembled a row of little slugsdisposed about her brow. Blanche rose above all this as she managed torise above an inauspicious background, and the lazy stretch she gavebeneath the sheet that was all that covered her, bringing out two whitearms above her head so that the muscles swelled under the tight skin, was so lovely in its feline grace as to triumph over anything else. 

"Here's a note for you; I think it's from Mr. Ruan, " said Judith. "Mrs. Penticost said she thought it was. " Judy did not add that Mrs. Penticost's precise method of giving the information had been to snortout: "T'young maister can't live through the night wethout writing toshe, simminly. . . . Poor sawl!"

Blanche read the little note through twice, a smile on her face, thenpulled Judith down to her and kissed her. 

"Blanche, are you . . . ?" asked Judy breathlessly. 

Blanche nodded. 

"Oh, Blanche, what is it like? Is it as wonderful as books say? Do youfeel thrills?"

"What sort of thrills?"

"Oh, up and down your spine, I suppose! Like I feel when I hear music. "

"Yes, it's just like music. It somehow sets the whole of life to music, "answered Blanche solemnly. 

"How wonderful!. . . Blanche--has he kissed you?"

"Yes, last night. Judy, a woman doesn't know what life means till theman she loves kisses her. "

Judy sat rapt, saying nothing. Her deep-set hazel eyes took on a look asof one who sees visions, impersonal but entrancing. Blanche rolledherself out of bed and, going over to the glass, began to examine herskin in the white light shed from the sky in at the window. 

"Bother!" she murmured; "I'm getting a spot! Oh, Judy, isn't that toobad just when I want to look nice?. . . Of course, he's the kind to loveme just as much with a spot, but I feel I can't love myself so much. . . . "

"I'll lend you some of my lotion, " said Judy, jumping up; "you can coverit over, if you try, with that and powder. It doesn't look anythingreally. I always think one sees one's own spots long before anyone elsecan, anyway. "

"Yes, that's true; it will be all right if I can prevent it gettingany worse. You never have any spots, you lucky baby. Just hand me thelotion . . . And my dressing-gown . . . Thanks ever so. " Blanche slipped onthe wrapper, and going to the top of the little flight of stairs calleddown them: "Mrs. Penticost . . . My bath-water, please!"

No answer. 

"Mrs. Pe-e-e-ntico-s-st, " called Blanche, "I must have my bath-water! Ishall die, dear Mrs. Penticost, if I can't have my bath-water this verymoment!"

From subterranean distance came a muffled voice which neverthelessenunciated distinctly: "Die, then, damon, die. . . . "

"Oh, Mrs. Penticost, how unkind you are!" cried Blanche, laughing. "Idon't a bit want to die to-day. I want to live and be happy and foreveryone in the world to be happy too. "

These last remarks were addressed to the form of Mrs. Penticost toilingupstairs with the can of water. The good lady clanked the can down andpulled out the flat tin bath from under the bed before replying, whichshe did over her shoulder as she was leaving the room. 

"Aw!" she observed, "I'd be careful if I was you. Be cryen beforenight!"

"Cheery old thing!" grimaced Blanche. "Do go and see she gets breakfastready quickly, Judy. She'll do anything for you. "

Judy flung herself downstairs and upon the neck of Mrs. Penticost, whocalled her a lamb, bade her get out of the way and sit down while shegot her a cup of tea and some bread and butter to keep her going tillthat lazy faggot overstairs should have put enough mucks on her face tobe able to breakfast. 

The day brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was moreglare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or ascool as the long full skirts would allow of their being. Vassie was inblue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white evento her shady hat. Girls never look as well as when there are several ofthem together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd. What bringsout all the ungainliness of men's attire emphasises the butterfly natureof girls--their look, their voices, the little graces theyhalf-consciously and half-unknowingly display with each other, showeach off to better advantage than at any other time. Vassie, Phoebe, Judith, and Blanche made the rough field a flower-garden that day to eyeand ear, almost to nostril, for their presence was so quickening thatthe sweet smell of the oats and the green things cut with it seemed toemanate from the girls and be part of their presence. Laughter and theswish of skirts mingled with the rustle of stalk and grain, the sway andthe dip of skirts mingled with the bending of the sheaves. To Ishmaelhis lover seemed the sweeter thus absorbed as one of others than evenalone. All that month he had been seeing her only, to such an extentthat her relationship with the rest of the world down at Cloom had notheld his attention. Now he realised how vital the state of thoserelationships was, and seeing her one of a beautiful scheme that seemedinevitable and lasting as a Greek frieze, he took that purely physicalcircumstance to mean mental harmony as well. 

It was hard work, though sweet, among the oats, and the physicalexertion satisfied everyone, so that no fringe was left beyond it forthought. When they first entered the field the crop lay in broad tawnybands across the greener stubble, just as it had fallen from thescythes. The amateur harvesters had to gather the oats into greatbundles and, binding them, stack the sheaves thus made together, againstthe day, close at hand now, when they would be carried to the threshing. 

Bent-backed, the girls went along the rows, pushing the oats as theywent into bundles bigger than themselves, trying to keep the featheryheads as much as possible at one end. Round each bundle Ishmael pulled aroughly-twisted rope of the oats, tugging it fast; and when it wasBlanche's bundle be spanned, then his hands would touch hers through theglossy straws. Every now and again, for change of labour, the girlswould stagger under a heavy sheaf to where one or two others lay readyand prop them up against each other, with a careful eye to the wind, lest, if the sheaves were not built solidly enough or fairly balanced, they might be found spilt along the ground in the morning. And allthrough the work, the sweeping up of the bundles, the twisting of theropes, the carrying and the stacking, the rustling noise filled the air, while the faint but pervading smell, that subtle, inexpressiblywholesome smell of ripe grain, made it sweet. 

"I love you!" said Ishmael over the dancing oats as Blanche's eyes methis. 

"And I you!. . . " she replied, slipping her fingers through the yieldingstraws for his to find and press, while he drew her as near him as shecould come for the sheaf between. 

She had, indeed, never been so sure she loved him, not even the nightbefore when passion had called to her. He looked so splendid with hisbrown throat laid bare by his open shirt; his dark hair, wet with sweat, pushed off his brow; his dark eyes at once younger and more the eyes ofa man than they had ever showed. Blanche felt an odd and deliciousthrill as she met his dominant glance; she exulted in the swing of hislithe body, in the ease with which he tossed the heavy sheaves, even inthe sweat that stood out over his face and chest, and which made him themore male, the more primitive. She herself had never seemed sofascinating and so sure; Vassie was swept away by her for the firsttime; Phoebe lost a certain sense of grudge in awed admiration; Judy, in speech and action, contrived to lead up to her friend, whole-heartedly exploiting the wonder of her. John-James and Killigrewwere probably the only two there who did not acknowledge the sway. 

Killigrew declined to labour with the rest; he set up his easel and didseveral little sketches, nearly all of Judy, whose dark head showedagainst the grey-gold background of the field with a greaterdistinction than the pale chignons of Blanche and Vassie or theindeterminate locks of Phoebe. 

"You don't repent?" asked Ishmael, sure of his answer, as he and Blancheeach poised a sheaf against the other's. 

"No, no, and no, " she told him, bending round the stack to see his face, her hands still holding it at either side as children stand and dodgewhen they are playing hide-and-seek. He shot out a hand to her, but sheevaded it and was off to where more bundles lay upon the stubble, andnot for some time did he get another chance to speak to her. Without aword said they tacitly agreed to play this game of only meeting, handsand eyes, now and again as though by chance, she sheltering behind theoats, feeling his passion of worship, even so, as much as she could faceunder watching eyes. Like children they played at this game which hadgrown up without a word, both recognising it, and both the happier forthe frail barriers and the secret exchanged by stealth before theothers. At lunch, eaten on the grassy slope of the next field, he didnot even sit next her, but both had to watch over themselves that theydid not yield too often to the temptation of a glance that would havetold as much to an onlooker as to each other. 

The afternoon somehow lacked the first ecstasy of the morning, thelabour suddenly became harder to unaccustomed muscles, and the girls layin the shadows of the stooks and idled. They had time to talk amongthemselves while Ishmael and John-James worked on at the far end of thefield. Blanche thought it rather silly and tiresome of Ishmael to keepon at it; surely he could leave that clumsy brother of his--for thefirst time the realisation that John-James actually was whole brother toIshmael flashed into her mind--and wander away somewhere with her! Whatwas the good of being the owner and master if he could not get some oneelse to do the work when it became a bore? So Blanche inwardly; andIshmael, to whom it would never have occurred to begin work on a fieldand leave it half-done, went on steadily--stooping, gathering, binding;she could see the perpetual crouch of his figure, hardly everstraightening itself, down there against a background of green hedge andsullen grey sea. 

Blanche leant up alongside her stook and Vassie sat watching her, whileJudy, who had seen a wistful look on Phoebe's baby face, drew her intosuch superficial personal talk as she could best compass. 

"When do you go back to London?" was Vassie's abrupt and not very happyopening. 

"Why, I don't know . . . It all depends, " answered Blanche, her beautifullow voice sounding very rich after Vassie's hard tones. "You've neverbeen to London, have you, Vassie? I may call you Vassie, mayn't I?"

"I've never been further than Plymouth. "

"You must come to London some day with me, " said Blanche. She had nointention of spending all her days at Cloom, and she wished to win overthis sulky beauty to her side. Vassie looked doubtfully at her, butbegan to thaw. London . . . It meant all of hope and the future to Vassie. 

"I would dearly love to, " she said. "I suppose you know it very well, like I know Penzance. I don't go even to Plymouth very often, and ofcourse it's not London. The people are rather common. I daresay there'sall sorts in London, but I suppose you know a lot of families up there?"

"A good many, " said Blanche casually. She was pleased at the signs of athaw; she was one of those women who are as eager to stand well withtheir own sex as with men and take as much care to ensure it. 

"You would do well in London, Vassie, " she went on, fixing her eyes onthe girl after a habit she had, and which always gave the impressionthat she was talking to the only person on earth who really interestedher; "you are very beautiful, you know. "

Vassie flushed with pleasure and did not trouble to deny the obvioustruth of the statement. She knew she was the only girl there withundoubted beauty; what she did not know was that she was also the onlyone who would never be very attractive to men. She looked at Phoebe'sretreating chin, at Judith's prominent cheek-bones and deep-set, melancholy eyes with the bistre stains below them, at Blanche'ssubtly-broad face with its too-small lips, and unconsciously she put upher hand to feel her own lovely contours and smooth skin. 

Blanche slipped a firm, cool hand into hers. "Don't worry, Vassie, " shesaid in a low voice; "I foresee great things for you. You're a wonderfulgirl, my dear. Now, I suppose we ought to be helping those two poor, dear men again. " She rose to her feet with one of the lithe movementsthat always seemed rather surprising in a girl of her firmly-knit build, which would have been heavy had it not been for its grace. Vassie, witha fulness that was so much more supple to a casual glance, yet followedher less beautifully. 

"Still, a lot can be done with her, " thought Blanche, watching. Shemotioned to her to come and help her with a row that had not yet beengathered into a bundle, and Vassie stooped over it with her. 

"Why, what's that?" exclaimed Blanche, catching sight of something greythat went rustling swiftly downwards between the straws. She thrust herhand down, thinking it was a field-mouse, and caught the thing. Aspeckled toad wriggled in her fingers, lustily enough, but it was a toadthat had seen tragedy. The keen edge of a scythe must have caught it, for one side of its head was shorn away; the eye had just been missed, but the inside of the poor little animal's mouth and throat lay exposed, pulsating and brilliantly red--a purer hue of blood was never seen thanin that grey creature. 

Blanche cried out in pity, while Vassie calmly advised death, secondedby Phoebe, and Judith looked away, sorry and sick, Blanche called toIshmael, using his Christian name for the first time publicly, and awareof it herself and of its effect on Vassie through all her real pity. Ishmael came running, and, taking the little beast tenderly, offered toknock it on the head with a stone before it knew what was happening; butBlanche forbade him. She took it back, her fingers slipping in betweenit and his palm, and stood bending over it. 

"Poor little thing!" she said; "at least it's not bleeding now, and Ibelieve it may live. It doesn't seem to be suffering, so let's give itits chance. Put it over the wall onto the grass, Ishmael. "

He vaulted over and, taking the toad from her, laid it down on the dewygrass. It sat trembling for a few moments, and then began to hop awayand was lost in the tall blades that met above its mutilated head--oneof the many tragedies of harvest. 

Dusk had fallen while the toad's fate hung in the balance; a pastel duskthat, even as the girls still stood watching, was made tremulous by thefirst faint breath of the moon. From the sea came the red glare of theWolf and the cold pure beam of the Bishop; in the north Charles' Waingave the first twinkle of its lights; while from the roads came thecreak of the terrestrial waggons beginning to lumber slowly home. It wastime for supper, for lamps, for that meeting within walls which enforcesa sudden intimacy after a day spent in the open, for beginning reallife, as it would have to be lived, once more. The three men stayedbehind to gather the remnants of the picnic, but the girls lifted theirpale skirts about them and were gone over the high stone stile likemoths. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE STILE

That evening as supper was being eaten in the new dining-room atCloom--a merry supper enough, for all Annie's skeleton presence at oneend of the table--Archelaus walked in. It was the first time he had beenover to Cloom since the night of the bush-beating, and it was the firsttime Ishmael had seen him since that glimpse in the light of a lanternin the wood. 

Ishmael looked at his brother, and all that affair seemed very long ago, in a life when he had not been to London, mixed with men, or metBlanche. He held out a hand to Archelaus, who for a stupid moment stoodstaring at it; then he saw the stranger girl from London, Ishmael'sgirl, of whom he had heard, watching him. Beyond her sat Phoebe. Sometrain of thought was lit in Archelaus's mind, and burned there; thesecond of hesitation during which his survey and the thought took placewithin his mind was imperceptible as he awkwardly struck his big fistinto Ishmael's palm. Everyone present was aware, in greater or lessdegree, according to the amount of his knowledge, of relief. 

Archelaus drew out a chair and partook of supper, talking little; butthat little was good, racy, at times too much so, full of shrewdobservations and little flashing gleams of knowledge of men and things. Ishmael was not abashed and silenced by it as he had been on the nightof his birthday; he too, as he sat there with his "girl" and his widerexperiences, felt that the ground over which Archelaus roamed was notaltogether untrodden by himself. Annie, by the incursion of her eldestborn, was changed, as always, from an acrid acquiescence to definiteenmity towards Ishmael and his concerns. She became so rude to Blanchethat it seemed the temper of a veritable angel still to be able to smileand answer with politeness. For her sake Ishmael also kept his temper, though inwardly he was ragingly angry--not so much with Annie for beingrude as with Archelaus for behaving so unwontedly well through itall--hushing his mother up instead of encouraging her, and speakingrespectfully to Blanche himself. 

After supper the young people drifted out of doors, and before thegirls, wrapping themselves against the dew, joined them, Archelausdrifted in his cat-like way--odd for so big a man--to Ishmael's side. 

"Will I wish 'ee joy, Ishmael?" he asked. "'Tes easy to see where yourheart be set. Does the maid feel she can love 'ee and Cloom Manor?"

The last words and some indefinable quality in the tone jarred onIshmael, disturbing the satisfaction he had felt glowing over him at thesupper-table. 

"If you mean have I proposed to Miss Grey?" he said a little pompouslyas youth will speak, "I have. "

"And will she have 'ee, or has she given 'ee a clout in th' ear?"

Ishmael hated having to tell this barbarian anything about his lovelyBlanche; he turned sick when he thought that this would be Blanche'sbrother . . . Free to call her by her name, to take her hand. . . . All hecould bring himself to say was that he believed Miss Grey was going tobecome his wife, but that he would thank Archelaus not to go talkingabout it, as nothing was to be made public as yet. 

"There are other people to consider, " he said: "her relations whom Ishall have to see, and a lot of things like that. It is not likemarrying a girl from the nearest village, " he added tactlessly, butwithout, in his self-absorption, meaning to wound. 

Archelaus drew away through the night. He laughed a little. 

"Not as if you was wedding Phoebe, who's only a miller's girl?" heasked. Ishmael laughed too, though a little doubtfully, not sure of thecordiality of Archelaus's chuckle. 

"Of course it's not like. Phoebe's a dear little thing, but Miss Greyis different, naturally. "

In the passage Archelaus ran into Phoebe, emerging with the othergirls, and took from her with an air of gallantry the wrap she had uponher arm. 

"I'll put 'ee home, " he told her: "best have this on; 'tes a bit cool oncliff. "

"Oh, but--" began Phoebe. She had no hopes, such as she had cherished, against all reason, upon getting Ishmael's note that morning, of amoonlit walk home with him, but something in her shrank from the walkundertaken with Archelaus. He wrapped the shawl about her as she spoke. Phoebe could no more have resisted a man who had his mind made up thana frog can get away from a viper which has once sighted it, and she letherself be swathed without further protest. Good-byes were said, withcareless affection on the part of Vassie, and kindliness from Judith anda pressure of the hand and a deep look from Blanche. 

"Good-night, little girl! You're going to be very happy, too, you know, "said Blanche, who knew nothing about it, but felt it was a good thing tosay. Phoebe and Archelaus, both tongue-tied now they were alone, setoff through the moonlight and the soft air to the cliff path. 

It was a long time now since she had met Archelaus out of doors, as hehad several times half-coaxed, half-bullied her into doing. Now she felta constraint with him she had not previously, as though there were someportent in the simple act of seeing her home there had never beenbefore. She had, of course, flirted with him in a very innocent way, ifher methods had been a little cruder than Blanche's would have under thesame circumstances. The repartee had been simple and the caressesnothing more than a slight touch on waist or arm, repulsed by her withmore alarm than prudery. Phoebe was fonder far of Ishmael than ofArchelaus; she told herself that she admired Ishmael more--he was somuch the gentleman. . . . What she did not know was that a rebel thing inher, the thing for which poor facile, soft little Phoebe had been asmuch created as though she had been a field-mouse, responded toArchelaus because it felt he was so much the male. Phoebe had beensafeguarded all her short life by her notions of gentility and by herfear, the fear, not of consequences, but, less base than that, the fearof actual passion, which is often implanted in very passionate girls asthough to guard them till the time comes. 

When they reached the first stile Phoebe lifted her skirts andpattered up to it, stood poised upon its crest, and then, with a littlegasp, yielded to Archelaus's strong arms as he seized her and swung herdown bodily. 

"Such a lil' bit of a thing as you be, " said Archelaus; "like a lil' catin my arms, so soft and all. "

They went on, he leading and brushing away the tendrils of bramble andthe tougher branches of furze across the narrow cliff-path. At eachstile he lifted her, only now he picked her up as they approached andcarried her right over them. At the last stile he held her instead ofputting her down when they reached the further side. 

"Put me down, Archelaus, " she whispered. He still held her, his handsbeneath her armpits, so that they cupped the curve of her breast, herface just beneath his, her feet dangling. 

"I'll have a kiss afore putten 'ee down, then. I've never kissed 'eesince you was a lil' maid to school. "

"No!" said Phoebe; "no!" She did not know why she protested; she hadbeen kissed with the awkward shy kisses of youth often enough for heryears, but she turned her mouth this way and that to escape his. He wenton holding her in air, though his arms were beginning to tremble alittle with the strain, and simply followed her mouth with his, brushingit lightly. Suddenly she felt she could bear no longer that easymastery, those following lips that passed and repassed over hers andcould so easily have settled if they chose. Why didn't they? She turnedlike a little animal, and instead of evading any longer, sank her lipsinto his. 

She hung there then, helpless indeed; for his mouth, no longer making aplay of hers, held it, bore it down. When he released her he dropped heron to her feet at the same time. Phoebe turned from him and rantowards the mill. He followed leisurely, sure of her next action as onlyhis experience of women could have made him sure, and found her, for allher flight, waiting for him in the shadow of the door. 

"You shouldn't, " she murmured. "I had to wait and tell you youshouldn't. 'Tesn't right or fitty to kiss that way. It frightens me, Archelaus. "

"Why edn' it right?"

"Because--because we aren't wed, " faltered Phoebe. 

"Wed!. . . " In his voice was light laughter and a kindly scorn. "What'swed but a word? We're men and women on this earth; that's all thatmatters to my way of thinken!"

Phoebe was vaguely hurt and insulted, which did duty for being shockedvery well. She opened the door and passed into the passage. 

"I'd best be going, " she said, still half-wishful to linger--anxiousnot to make herself cheap, yet wishing he would start some conversationwhich would make it possible to stay without seeming to want to overmuch. 

"When'll you be out again?" asked Archelaus, his foot in the door. 

"I don't know. "

"I do. Good-night, lil' thing!" And he withdrew the foot and was offthrough the darkness under the elms. Phoebe was left with her awakenedheart-beats. 

CHAPTER XIV

A LETTER

Harvest had all been gathered in at Cloom, the threshing was over, thegrain lay in heaps, grey-green and golden, in the barn, or had been soldand taken away, and the first tang of early autumn was in the air. Thepeewits had come down and were mewing in the dappled skies, and on thetelegraph wires the high-shouldered swallows sat in rows preparing forflight; in the hedgerows the dead hemlocks, brittle as fine shells, wereready to scatter their pale seeds at a touch, and the blackberries, onwhich as the West Country saying has it, the devil had already laid hisfinger, were filmed with mildew. It was autumn, but rich, warm autumn, dropping her leaf and seed into the teeming earth, whose grain wasgarnered, but whose womb was already fertile with the future. 

Blanche was still at Mrs. Penticost's, and the engagement, though it hadnot actually been announced, had leaked out, and Blanche was not at allsatisfied with the results that had followed upon that dissemination ofknowledge. Annie's hostility she could bear, for she knew that, oncemarried to Ishmael, his mother would be placed somewhere too far removedfor the nuisance of her to be more than occasional; it was not thatwhich was blowing with so chill a breath over her spirit. It was, as shephrased it to herself, the whole thing. . . . 

Ever since that night upon the boulders above the wood her sureness, both of the depth of her own feeling for Ishmael and for the countrymethod of life that went with him, had been declining, as from somecrest set in too rarefied an air for her to breathe with comfort. Poisehad been slipping from her, and she was genuinely distressed. In thefirst stage of her declension she was chiefly occupied with a franticsnatching at her passion--a sustained effort to pull it back and keep itwith her; in the second she was occupied in wondering how best to getgracefully out of the entanglement, which was how she grew to envisageit. At first this seemed to be hardly possible; she saw patheticpictures of herself going on with it and sacrificing herself, unawarehow the pleasure of the moment was leading her on, how charming shefound Ishmael's considerate and tender love-making that came to herjaded nerves with the refreshing quality of a draught of pure water to aman who has lived too long on champagne. The actual present continued tobe pleasurable long after she had determined that it could nevercrystallise into anything more definite, and so she went on from day today, enjoying herself, yet vaguely hoping something would happen whichwould enable her to retire from the engagement without loss ofself-respect or that of Ishmael. 

For gradually she became quite sure that she could not go through withit, that she must get right away. The people she wanted to know had notcalled on her--the Parson, on whose help she had relied, held out noassistance; Annie was stubborn and would obviously, wherever she was, doher best to make of herself a barrier against the world, the world thatBlanche must know if life were to be tolerable here. The climax, toBlanche's mind, had been a ball just given by a local magnate and hiswife who lived on the outskirts of Penzance. Ishmael had been invitedand she with him, under the chaperonage of an elderly cousin of theParson's who was staying at the Vicarage. And the ball, from Blanche'spoint of view, had been a failure. She had been received politely, butwithout enthusiasm; and she had overheard some of the other guestssaying that they supposed young Ruan had had to be invited, but that itwas really dashed awkward!. . . And she was beginning to realise thatIshmael, when he had paid his mother a little income, paid Vassie enoughto live on, paid John-James bigger wages to allow of his livingelsewhere, would not be nearly as well off as she had thought . . . Avisit to London once a year would be the utmost to be hoped for. And forthe rest--year in, year out, at Cloom, watching the waxing and waning ofthe seasons, bearing children, the children Ishmael looked for toinherit the horrid place after him. . . . Blanche, fond as she still was ofhim, literally shuddered as she saw where glamour, in company withboredom and desperation, had been about to lead her. After all, she neednot despair: there were other men in the world, and she had been sillyto expect to meet anyone she could marry at the theatre; it was no signof waning charm that she had failed there. If only she could think of agood excuse, she would go home and write to Ishmael from there. . . . Yetthat gave her no scope, allowed no scene such as her soul loved as longas she could shine creditably. . . . 

She could not quite decide how to stage-manage her exit; but, whethershe went or not, Judy had to go back to her people--Judy who would bearwith her the slim little sheaf of poems she had written during her stay, Judy sun-browned, almost more of the elf than the monkey. Killigrew hadsettled to go the same day to accompany her on the tiresome journey, andthen he was for Paris again, his beloved Paris; he vowed that he shouldburst if he stayed in England any longer. On the morning of the daybefore Judy's departure Blanche, who, half-packed, was still trying tomake up her mind, received a letter that, with no sense of impiousness, she considered providential. 

Mrs. Penticost brought it in to her, between a red finger and thumb, rather steamy from washing-up, and busied herself about the room whileher lodger read the closely-written pages. Mrs. Penticost was franklycurious, and if Blanche did not tell her what was in that letter shemeant to find out by questioning her. 

Blanche hardly noticed her presence; she was too rapt in theprovidential happenings described to her by the garrulous pen of herstepmother. The very crackle of the paper between her fingers gave herfresh courage as she read. And yet it was a very simple letter, comingas it did from the simple woman who she so often said had nothing incommon with herself. 

 * * * * *

"Dear Blanche, " ran the letter, "I wonder how much longer you are goingto stay in Cornwall? Your father feels it hard that you should not spendany of your holiday with him, and I don't think will go on much longerwith your allowance if you are neither working nor staying at home. Youknow he was determined you should have your chance to become a greatactress, as you were so set on it and discontented at home, and indeed Ido not blame you, for I know how dull it is here. However, just atpresent the neighbourhood is very lively, as we have a new lord of themanor--only imagine it! You know old Mr. Crossthwaite died in the springand the place has been sold this summer to a very rich youngman--_trade_, I think, but _quite_ a gentleman; you would never know thedifference, and has been educated at Cambridge, I am told. He seems aquite nice young man, and all the neighbours are making him give partiesand giving them themselves, I believe to try and marry him to one oftheir daughters, but as you know there is nobody much here now. Thereare Dr. Smythe's daughters, but they are so very plain, poor dears! andthe only others are Lady Geraldine and Lady Sybil, and I don't supposethey would look at him, being so much older and occupied in theircharities, even if he were inclined, so I'm sure we can't blame theyoung man if he refuses to fall in love at all down here. If you werehere I expect it would be a very different story; he's just your type, if you know what I mean, very like your Mr. Bellew, poor young man. Iwonder what has happened to him. I did hear he married a barmaid, andI'm sure it was a judgment on his mother for saying he was too young tomarry you. Well, there is no more news, except that that silly littlehousemaid I got a good place for at the Hall is in trouble--thegamekeeper, I believe; but she is very obstinate and won't say. Thesegirls are enough to make one give up trying to help them. Also thecarpet in the drawing-room is right _through_ at last, so I am in hopesof persuading your father we really must have a new one. I don't thinkit looks at all well for the rector of the parish to have a carpet thatcallers have to be warned not to catch their feet in. The rug cannot bemade to cover it as it's right in the middle. I do my best with anoccasional table, but then that gets in the way. With love, my dearBlanche, from myself and your father, believe me, "Yours affectionately, "MARY LETITIA GREY. "

 * * * * *

This was the letter that had flashed like a ray of sun into the schemeof things for Blanche, and whose salient portions--by which she meantthose directly affecting herself--she repeated over and over. "A veryrich young man . . . Educated at Cambridge, I am told . . . Cannot blame thepoor young man if he does not fall in love down here . . . It would bedifferent if you were home. He is just your style. " That meant the styleof man who fell in love with her, now always younger than herself. 

"Got bad news, have 'ee, or is it good?" asked Mrs. Penticost, who couldcontain herself in silence no longer. She gave up the pretence ofdusting and stood frankly looking at her lodger. 

"I--I don't quite know how to take it, Mrs. Penticost, " temporisedBlanche. 

"Whisht kind of news that must be, " remarked Mrs. Penticost, who had notwatched Miss Grey these past weeks without getting a shrewd idea of thetendency of her thoughts and affections. "I was wondering whether youweren't feeling glad that time's come to go--if 'ee are going along ofMiss Judy?"

There was no answer to this, and Mrs. Penticost, her rosy face set inlines of determination, began again. 

"Must be rare and dull for 'ee down here after London, though there wasthat ball in to Penzance t'other night. Dance weth Maister Ruan, ded'ee, my dear? They do say he handles his feet some pretty. I rememberwhen I was a maid I was all for a man who could do that. I got as far aswalking arm-a-crook weth a chap wance, and, thought I, 'I won't go forto ask he to step in till I do know if he can dance wi' I. ' Some troubleI ded have keepen' he quiet till there was a gala and us could dance. Primitive Wesleyan, the gala was. He was all for me maken' up my mindlong before, and I wouldn' have un till I knew, nor yet I wouldn' let ungo. 'Must keep cousins weth he or he'll go off, ' I thought; and so Ided, my dear, just managed it nicely. I gave the go-bye to a fine-lookenchap from St. Just to dance wi' my man, and then I found that he neverdanced toall, and hadn't dared tell me. Mad as fire I was, and abusedhim worse than dung. But you couldn' ever go for to lay that complaintagainst Maister Ruan, nor yet any other, I should say. "

"Mr. Ruan is all that is good and splendid, of course, Mrs. Penticost, "said Blanche, folding up her letter. 

"He is that, sure 'nough, and it'll be a bad day for the woman that everdoes him a hurt, him that has had enough already to turn his very heartgrey in his breast. I wouldn' like to see no woman do that. "

"Mightn't it be better than making him unhappier in the long run by notdoing him a hurt now, as you call it?" asked Blanche. 

"If he but knew what was best for him, 'tes a sharp hurt and soonauver, " said Mrs. Penticost frankly; "but he'm like all men, naught buta cheild that cries for the moon, and a woman as has a heart wouldsooner see a man getten' what he wants, even when 'tes bad for 'en, thansee him eaten' his soul away with longing. There's a deal ofsatisfaction in maken' our own unhappiness, and a man has that toconsole him. "

"You are a Job's comforter, " cried Blanche, rustling out of the room. She had heard the well-known click of the little gate, and she fledupstairs to be alone with her thoughts and her letter for a few momentsbefore meeting Ishmael. She no longer doubted she was going to break offher engagement and leave for home the next day, but she still had todecide on the type of Blanche who should appear to him and what hermanner and aspect should be. A tender grieving, shown in a pale face andquiet eyes, would probably be best . . . And she could always introduce amaternal note in the very accent of her "dear boy. . . . "

CHAPTER XV

BLOWN HUSKS

Not for nothing had Ishmael given way to the incursion of the personal, always before so jealously kept out of his life. His desire forimpersonality now only kept by him in a fierce wish to blot out his ownas much as possible, to sink it in that of the beloved, to drown inhers. He was obsessed by Blanche, she filled the world for him from rimto rim; and though with his mind he still admitted the absurdity of it, could even look at his own state dispassionately, he yet had to admitthe fact. It was some time since he had been near Boase, because, although the Parson never so much as hinted it, Ishmael knew he was notin sympathy with him over this. Annie he felt he could hate for herantagonism, which, as long as it had been against himself alone, he hadnot minded; even Vassie would not yield altogether and come in on hisside. Blanche had to fight the lot of them, he told himself--resentful, fearful lest they should frighten her away. But at the bottom of it allwas the fear, the distrust of her which he refused to recognise. 

On this morning as he went down over the fields to Mrs. Penticost's hewas more uneasy than ever before--he knew it was not his imaginationthat she had been different these last few days; he began to be beset byvague fears to which he had not dared give form even in his own mind, much less in any speech with her. Yet since the dance he had faced theconclusion that they could not go on as they were, that Blanche musteither agree to a wedding or a final parting. . . . 

He reached the cottage and had to wait awhile till Blanche, pale andgrave, came to him in the little parlour. 

"Come out, " he said to her. "There's a lot of things I want to say, andI can't here. The room's too small. "

Blanche hesitated, seemed to be weighing something in her mind, and thenagreed docilely; she put on a hat, and then went beside him towards thecliff. As they went Ishmael tried to take her hand, trying to capturewith it some of the spirit of joy which had fled, but she was carrying alittle bag, which she snatched away; there came from it a crackle as ofa letter. . . . They went down on to the cliff together and stood awhile ina speechless constraint among the withered bracken. 

It was a day of sunlight so faint it seemed dead, like some gleamrefracted onto the pale bright sky, and so to earth, rather than anydirect outflow; the quiet air was only stirred by the swish of scythesfrom the sloping cliff where two men cut the crisp bracken down forlitter for cattle. The time of year had fallen upon rust--brown-rustwere the bells of the dried heath, the spires of wall-pennywort thatlurked in the crannies of the boulders; blood-rust were the wisps ofdead sorrel that stood up into the sunlight; fawn-rust were the hemlockswith their spidery umbels, and a deader fawn were the masses of seededhemp-agrimony, whose once plumy heads were now become mere frothy tuftsof down, that blew against Blanche's dress as she passed, and clungthere. 

Swish-swish . . . Came the even sweep of the scythes, a whispering soundthat irritated Blanche and somehow disarranged her carefully-preparedsentences before ever they had a chance to reach her tongue. She feltthat here, on the rust-red cliff, with that deadly scything sounding intheir ears, Ishmael would get the better of her, and she turned throughthe bracken to where an overgrown track led to what had once been aseries of tiny gardens set on the cliff and walled in with thick elder. There at least they could be hidden from the eyes of any straylabourers, and with less space about her she felt she would find hertask easier. Ishmael followed her with a heart that warned him of dreadto come. Always afterwards he avoided those dead gardens on the cliffthat he had been wont to like to wander in. 

They stretched, some dozen or so of them, down the slope, divided upthus for better protection against the wind. The close-set hedges ofelder were bare as skeletons, but so thickly entwined as, even so, toform dense screens, only broken at the corners to allow of passing fromone little garden to the next and the next, both below and to one side. In his childhood they had belonged to an old man who cultivated themassiduously and sent in the produce to the weekly market at Penzance, and then, in their patchwork brightness as narcissi and wall flowers, violets, or beans and young potatoes, flourished there, they haddeserved their name of jewel-gardens, and to himself he had alwayscalled them "the hanging gardens of Babylon"--a phrase that had filledhim with a sense of joy. Now they had been long neglected, and the bareearth crumbled underfoot; even grass or weeds seemed afraid to growthere. Dead, quiet, and still, they were become sinister little squaresof earth, shrouded by those contorted elders, dry and brown as they. 

Blanche paused by a tall hedge and stood with her back against it, herarms outflung on either side and her head up bravely. Ishmael had amoment of looking round blindly as though he were in some trap fromwhich he could not escape, as though the walls of dead elder had growntogether and were penning him in. Then he faced her and spoke. 

"Blanche!" he said; "won't you tell me what is the matter?"

Blanche said nothing; tears of pity suddenly choked her, and theknowledge of the blow she was about to deal. Ishmael at last broughthimself to voice his dread. 

"You aren't disappointed in it all--or in me?" he asked in a low voice. "You're not getting--bored, are you, Blanche? After all, the actresssees the seamiest side of town; you won't mind leaving it? I know I'moffering you a very different life from what you're used to, but"--witha shade of the decisiveness that had always attracted her to him--"itwill be much better for you. No late hours, no more of thesandwiches-at-odd-times game. We shall be very happy, just us two, evenif we don't know people. People!" he cried scornfully, a wave of passionbreaking over him as he caught her to him. "What do we want with otherpeople?"

Pressing her almost roughly against him, he bent her head back into thecurve of his arm and kissed her fiercely. She lay passive, deliberatelytaking all he gave and thrilling to it. Self-pity surged over her; shehad been so happy--not only happy, but so much better! It was very hard, she felt, as she trembled with pleasure under his kisses. She shrankfrom giving pain, but she shrank still more from lowering herself in hiseyes, and the situation needed all her skill. Disengaging herself fromhis arms, she faced him with what she felt to be a brave little smile. 

"Ishmael! My poor boy; Ishmael!" she said. 

He was suddenly very grave, but waited silently. 

Still, he said nothing, and she took his hand in hers and spoke verygently. 

"Ishmael, dear one! listen to me. You must see that it's impossible, that it would never do. "

He did see it, her very certainty showed him plainly enough; but stillhe fought against it, bringing forward every plea, and ending with whatwas to him the great argument: "But if we love each other?"

"Of course love is very important, Ishmael, " said Blanche, choosing herwords carefully; "but don't you see how important other things are too?It's the externals that matter most in this life, Ishmael; see how theymatter to you, who have worked so hard to alter them. "

"You can be clever about it, " said Ishmael, a new look that was almostsuspicion glinting in his eyes; "I can't talk round a thing, but I knowthings. I know I love you and would spend my life trying to make youhappy. You say you aren't happy in your own life. "

"But how could I be happy without my friends and my own kind of people, Ishmael?" asked Blanche reproachfully. She did not add that, beingincapable of loyalty, she had no real friends, but suddenly she saw itas true, and staggered under the flood of self-pity that followed. Losing Ishmael, she was indeed bereft, not only of him, but of her newself, and with the worst of all pangs--loneliness--striking through her, she laid her arms against the hedge and, hiding her face, burst into astorm of tears. Ishmael stood by her silently; like most men, he wasinarticulate at the great moments, and Blanche sobbed on. She who for somany years had made herself believe what she wished, had gagged andblindfolded her own soul till truth showed its face to her in vain, wasnow stripped of all bandages and having facts passed relentlessly beforeher. She had made Ishmael love her, as she had so many men, by seemingsomething she was not; she had fallen in love with Ishmael herself, andmust keep up the pretence of being the woman he thought her, for for herreal self such a man as Ishmael could have no comprehension. She toldherself that if they could only have married she would in time havegrown to be the woman he thought her, and she railed bitterly at Fate. For her there only remained the old path, and the knowledge filled herwith a leaden weariness. But for Ishmael--what remained for him? Neveragain would he be able to delight in the world of hopes he had set upwith such care. What could she give him to help him face reality? Theplighted word, steadfastness, friendship, none of these gifts wereBlanche's to bestow, but she could at least send him away his own managain--at the sacrifice of her vanity. A struggle shook her mind, allthe well-trained sophistries warring against a new clarity of vision. There were two courses open to her--she might hoodwink Ishmael, bewilderhim with words, show herself as grieving, exquisite, far above him, yetin spirit unchangeably his; or she might show him the truth, let him seeher as the world-ridden, egotistical creature of flimsy emotions andtangible ambitions that she was. If she chose the first way, Ishmaelwould have an unshattered ideal to take away and set up in his lonelyheart; but it placed forgetfulness out of the question for a man of histemperament. If she decided on the second course, he would have a timeof bitter disillusionment, but could some day love again, perhaps allthe sooner for the shock; Blanche knew that nothing sends a man sosurely into a woman's arms as a rebuff from another woman. In her heartshe saw the finer course, yet the little voices clamoured, told her shewould be destroying the ideality of a delicate nature, spoilingsomething that could never be the same again: on the one side whateverthere was of self-abnegation in her love, on the other the habit of alifetime. 

She raised her head, and her glance was arrested idly by a desertedspider's web woven from branch to branch of the elder hedge and waveringgently in the breeze. Some seed husks had been blown into the meshes andclung there lightly, cream-hued against the pearly threads. Blanchefound herself picturing the disgust of the departed spider over thisinnovation on flies. "It is like my life, " she thought, "blown husks forbread, " and the tears welling in her eyes made the seeds seem to swelland the web run together in a silvery blur. The moment of idle thoughthad taken the keen edge from her ideas, and, like many another, shetried to compromise. 

"I'm afraid you must reconstruct your ideas of me, Ishmael, " she said, with an air of candour that struck him as worthy of her even through hispain. "You think of me as something ethereal and angelic, and I'm not. I'm only a woman, Ishmael, and the little things of life--friendship, beauty, one's own kin--mean so much to me. "

He had a confused idea she must mean the big things, but he waitedsilently. 

"Ishmael!" she said desperately; "it's no good, I'm not the sort ofwoman who can throw up the whole of life for one thing. You will thinkme mercenary, worldly, but I'm not; the old ties are too strong for me, and I can't break them. It's my heart that breaks. . . . Oh, Ishmael, Ishmael, I loved you so!"

Through all the inconsistencies of her words two salient facts stood outto Ishmael--she was unhappy, and through him. His own pain lay numb, athing to be realised when he roamed the fields alone, and still moreintimately known when he had it for bed-and-hearth fellow in his drearyhouse. Nature has provided that a great blow shall always stun for atime; sensation stays quiescent as long as there still remains somethingto be done; it is in the lonely hours after all action is over that painmakes itself felt. Ishmael, if asked then, would have said his heart wasbroken, but long afterwards he would see that no such merciful thing hadhappened, and marvel how the cord of suffering can be strained tobreaking-point and kept taut, yet never snap. He was yet to learn thatno pain is unbearable, for the simple reason that it has to be borne. 

"There's nothing to blame yourself about, " he said. "You've given me themost beautiful things to remember, and it's not your fault you can'tgive more. When I think of what you are and what I have to offer I feelI couldn't let you give more even if you would. . . . " Always unfluent ofspeech, he stopped abruptly, while a wheel of thought whirred round soswiftly in his brain that he only caught a blurred impression. Ishmaelhad had, perforce, to live as far as his mental life went in a world ofbooks, and with a vague resentment he felt that books had not played himfair. Surely he had read, many times, of women who had thought the worldwell lost for love--the hackneyed expression came so readily to him. "She cares for me, " he thought, with an odd mingling of triumph andpain, "only she doesn't care enough. It's a half-shade, and the booksdon't prepare one for the half-shades. Nobody can love without aflaw--we all fail each other somewhere; it's like no one being quitegood or quite bad: nothing is black or white, but just varying tones ofgrey. They make life damned difficult, the half-shades!"

Giving his shoulders a little shake, he turned to Blanche. "I must go, "he said gently. "Good-bye, Blanche!"

She held out both her hands, and he took them in his, repeating, "Good-bye, Blanche!"

Then she made her only mistake; she swayed towards him, her face held upto his in a last invitation. Roughly he put her hands away. 

"Not that, Blanche . . . Not that!" said a voice he hardly recognised ashis own, and, wheeling, he went heavily through the little dead gardens. Blanche, sick with disappointment, noted dully that he never turned hishead as he passed out of the last. A sob rose to her throat, and as sheheard the choking sound she made, the swift thought came: "That soundedreal! I must be broken-hearted to sob like that. . . . "; and she sobbedagain. Then a flash of self-revelation ran over her, and she stoodaghast. 

"Nothing is real about me, nothing!" she cried despairingly, "not evenmy sorrow at being so unreal. " Drying her eyes, she stared out at thepale gleam of the Atlantic glinting through the elders and began tothink. She saw love, such love as she was capable of, had been ruled outof life for her; it became all the more necessary that she shouldcapture other things that made life pleasant. If she let this new phaseof sincerity become a habit, she was lost indeed; better to slip intothe old self-deceiving Blanche once again. Deliberately she shut offthoughts of Ishmael, and barred them out until such time as she couldthink of him, without effort, from a point of view that in no waylowered her self-esteem. She had been artificial in her strivings aftersincerity; now, for the last time, she was real in her acceptance ofunreality. Lightly dabbing her eyelids with a pocket powder-puff, shewent back to the cottage. 

There she read through the letter again, then consulted a time-table;she could change at Exeter and catch a train that would enable her toreach home that evening. She could make up a story to her stepmother toaccount for her sudden appearance. Blanche began composing in her mindwhat she would say to her. She would pretend not to have had the letter;even her gentle, garrulous little stepmother's good opinion was dear toher. She would seal it up again and forward it on herself; it wouldreach her at home a day after her own arrival. Yes, thought Blanche, everything would dovetail excellently. She went into the kitchen whereMrs. Penticost was ironing and the pleasant smell of warm linen hungupon the air. 

"I've decided I must go home, Mrs. Penticost, " she said. "That letterwas to say my father is very ill, and I was only waiting till I'd seenMr. Ruan. . . . I've told him I must go to-morrow. I'm so sorry, but--"

"Ah!" interrupted Mrs. Penticost; "'tes as well--'twould be dull for 'eealone wi'out Mr. Ruan able to come so much about the place, and Iwouldn' have had en here with Miss Judy gone and you alone. You wasrare taken up wi' he!"

Blanche's vanity was too insatiable to spare Ishmael; she sighedpathetically. 

"Oh, Mrs. Penticost! you make me feel horribly guilty, for I'm afraidit's all over, " she said with simple earnestness, "but I couldn'tprevent it; and poor Mr. Ruan--"

"Don't 'ee go for to tell I about it!" broke in Mrs. Penticost; "'tesdownright ondecent in 'ee!"

Blanche flushed. "Horrid, insufferable woman!" she thought angrily asshe went upstairs. "How thankful I shall be to see the last of her!"

Opening her box, she began to throw her belongings in viciously. Fromwithout came the crunch of Billy Penticost's boots as he crossed thelittle yard and the clink of a pail set down; then the rhythmic sound ofpumping, so like the stertorous breathing of some vast creature, rose onthe morning air. A sudden loathing of country sights and sounds grippedBlanche, and, tearing off her faded frock, she began to dress herself inthe one smart travelling gown she had brought with her. 

"I don't care what Mrs. Penticost thinks!" she told her reflection inthe blurred looking-glass as she pulled a gold-coloured ribbon round herwaist; "I don't care what any of them think--they're just countrybumpkins, with no ideas in their heads beyond crops and cows!"

Without warning, a throb of memory assailed her: was it only a month agoshe had stood in this room in the moonlight, waiting to go and meetIshmael in the field? Her fingers shook a little as she took a fewblossoms of creamy-yellow toadflax he had picked for her out of theirvase and laid them tentatively against her gown. They harmonised toperfection, but Blanche, after a moment's hesitation, flung them down. 

"I'll buy some roses in Exeter, " she thought; "they'll look moresuitable than hedge-flowers. " It was her definite rejection of thecountry and all it stood for; but on a gust of sentiment she picked upthe toadflax blossoms and stuck them in water again--her last tribute tothe memory of Ishmael. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE GREY WORLD

During the next few months pain became a habit of mind withIshmael, a habit which was to grow into a blessing for him, preventinghim ever again feeling with such acuteness. From time to time he fellinto deadness of all sensation, when he hoped that the worst of hissuffering was over; but always it struggled up out of the numbnessagain, as insistent as before. He fought his lassitude of spirit asstubbornly as the periods of active pain, but both with the same result, the opposition probably only making both last the longer. He woulddoubtless have pulled through more quickly if he had gone away, joinedKilligrew in Paris, or gone on some tour with Boase. But partly from astubborn sense of not deserting his post, partly because things were notdoing well in the farming world just then, and partly because of thetrue instinct of the lover which bids him stay where the feet of hismistress have passed, though the suffering thereby be doubled, he stayedon at Cloom. At Cloom--where there was no evading the thought of heramid the memories, where every stile and field held some fragrance fromwhat he had thought her, where the very air that blew across his browseemed as though it blew from her. If he had left he would have had totake with him the image of her as he now knew her; by staying he keptthe ghost of the Blanche he had imagined her to be when she was stillthere. 

There was a long time when it suddenly seemed to him as though she mustrepent, as though he could not be suffering so and she not share it, asthough any post might bring a letter and any moment show her figurepausing at the gate. He learnt during that phase what poignancy is heldby the cry of the wisest of men--that "hope deferred maketh the heartsick. " During the weeks that he was thus obsessed there was not a clickof the latch but sent his heart racing, while at the same time he didnot dare look up because in his heart he knew it would not be she hesaw. He slept little during this period, and looked a good six or sevenyears older than his real age. This was succeeded by one of the phasesof numbness when partly reaction, because the mind cannot keep stretchedtoo tautly, and partly sheer physical fatigue from the hard work hedrove himself to every day, made for a merciful slough of the spirit inwhich it all the time deceitfully gathered itself together for the nextonslaught. 

That his instinct had always been to fight the intrusion of thepersonal, that still it was so to the extent of a deadly clearness ofvision which prevented him thinking the affair of greater importancethan it was, did not prevent one shade of his pain; rather it was themore acute for raging in spite of himself. He was powerless to doanything but set his teeth and assure himself that it would eventuallypass. He looked at his suffering as a man may look at a broken leg: hesees it stretched helpless before him; the pain from it ravages hiswhole sense, but it is local, so that he can lay his hand upon it andlook from it to uninjured portions of his being which are yetunconscious of immunity, so much is his whole sense occupied with theone suffering portion. 

Meanwhile Ishmael set himself to believe, or rather to realise--for henever lost his feeling for values sufficiently ever to believeotherwise--that all this would one day fall from off him; he eventhought that then he would be as he had been before, not yet knowingthat pain never leaves a man as it found him--that freshness of emotionlost in any direction, it can never be recaptured. Meanwhile, now andagain, for all his philosophy, he was occasionally guilty of adding tothe sum of his own pain by deliberately indulging in it. There wereevenings when he fell on weakness and allowed himself to go over thefields at dark to Paradise, where he would stand at the point in thehedge whence he had been wont to watch her light. One evening there wasa light in her window, and his heart had thudded in his chest so that hecould have heard it had he been occupied in anything but clutching thehedge with both hands and staring, half-expecting a miracle to happenand her form to be shadowed on the blind at any moment. Sometimes, too, as he lay in his bed after a hard day's work and sleep would have cometo him had he let it, he would start imagining, as he had been wont todo when a little boy. Only now it was not mere cloudy, impossible dreamsof renown, of rescuing the whole family from a burning house, thatfilled his mind, but reconstructions of the time with Blanche. . . . If hehad said this or that, something different from what he had said; ifonly, if only. . . . And if she were to come back, how he would forget allhe had said about it being impossible to go on as they were inuncertainty--how willingly would he catch at any excuse for trying itall over again. He would plan that too, till sometimes his vividimaginings would for a few moments almost deceive himself, and he wouldrealise, with a pang whose sharpness turned him sick and banished sleep, that it was all only the pretence of a child. 

Nevertheless, he did not succumb to the temptation to write to her, probably because in his inmost heart he knew too well that if she wantedhim she would write--on some other excuse. He had been in a curious wayclear-sighted about her from the first; he had always acknowledged thatstrain of insincerity, but he had fallen into the error of believingthat underneath all those shifting sands there was at last bedrock andthat it was his hand which was to discover it. He now knew that it wasnothing but sands, and a quicksand at that, yet the knowledge made thedeath of his love no easier. Love cannot be killed--it always dies anatural death; and natural deaths are slow processes. Of all the thingsBlanche had said to him one at least was very true, and that was on aday when he had been telling her the many reasons why he loved her. Hermouth, her eyes, her soul, her voice, it had been the usual lover'smedley. She had listened, and then perhaps, with the knowledge in herheart that disillusionment was bound to be his, said:

"There's only one safe reason for loving anyone, Ishmael, and thatis--'because I am I and you are you!'. . . Love a person for beauty orbrains or virtues, and they may all fail--there's only the one reasonthat may be trusted not to change. " And that was, of course, preciselywhy he had loved her, and why the love died harder than the reasonedloves of older years which respond to reasoning. 

Affairs at home were not likely to provide a pleasurable change forIshmael's thoughts. Vassie, it was true, meant more to him, as he toher, than ever before. The pain that Vassie had suffered when Killigrewhad left after his first visit, though not comparable to Ishmael's, being disappointment and hurt vanity, yet had dowered her with a degreeof comprehension she might otherwise have missed. She felt she lovedthis young brother more dearly than she had ever thought to; somethingof the maternal awoke in her; she helped him in many little ways he didnot notice, getting between him and their mother's tongue, exertingherself to make the affairs within the house run more smoothly. She wasproud of her youngest brother, of his unlikeness to the rest, even ofthe aloofness and fits of dreaming which she no more than the othersunderstood, but which she was sufficiently in advance of them to revereinstead of scorning. She was more like him than she knew, though in herambition had taken harder and more personal form. 

With the spring Annie became unbearable. Archelaus had suddenly gone offagain, after his fashion, this time to the goldfields of California, andAnnie, who felt his departure bitterly, chose to blame Ishmael for it. Christmas had been for her the occasion to revive all her religiousfrenzies, and the house rang with her cracked-voiced hymns till Ishmaelfelt he could have smothered her with her own feather-bed. Her lust forreligion, however, was taking a new direction--it was towards the Parsonand his church instead of the conventicle of Mr. Tonkin. Quite what hadbrought about this change was hard to say--probably chiefly theinfatuation of Tonkin for Vassie, a circumstance Annie took as an insultto herself. 

"A man on in years like him, oldern' I be myself, and a minister beforethe Lard, ought to have other things to think on than wantoning with histhoughts after a maid young enough to be his daughter! Where's hisreligion, I should like to knaw?" This was Annie's own explanation, andeven she realised that against Boase no charge of thinking about womencould be brought--that quality of priesthood even her ignoranceunconsciously admitted. She approached Boase on the subject of his creedand met with scant encouragement, which made her the more earnest. Ifthe Parson had been anxious to receive her into the path he trod, shewould have lagged; as it was, his brusqueness awaked a sensation ofpleasure in her--there was no male to snub and bully her now thatArchelaus had gone away. She set up to herself the image of Boase thatsome more educated women make of their doctor--a bully who had to beplacated, who would scold her if she transgressed his ideas. She took togoing to church every Sunday evening and sat in the Manor pew, everyjet bead trembling on her bonnet as she kept her mind strained toattention--always a difficult task with her for any length of time. 

One wet afternoon Vassie found she was not in the house, though when shehad slipped out no one could say. Ishmael, alarmed--for nothing couldhave been more unlike Annie's habits--was about to set out in search ofher, when the kitchen door was thrust open and slammed again and Anniestood before them, soaking with wet, her arms clasping a bundle oflittle books and a light of sly triumph in her eyes. Boase, shutting adripping umbrella, was behind her. She had been across to the Vicaragein all the wet and cold to make the Parson talk to her about her soul, and to get rid of her he had finally given her a host of little cheapdevotional books that had from time to time been sent to him from thepublishers, and which he himself, disliking most modern books ofdevotion, had not troubled to read. He knew they were suited to thementality of the average child of ten, and that therefore Annie with aneffort might understand them and would certainly think them full of theSpirit. 

He stood behind Annie, grave and quiet, signalling to Ishmael and Vassiewith his eyes. Vassie sprang forward. 

"Why, Mamma, you're soaked!" she cried. "Come! it's up to the bed youmust go at once, and I'll bring you a hot drink when you're undressed. You can look at your books better in bed, you know. "

"That's a true word, " said Annie; "so I can. I can have 'en all aroundme on the bed, can't I, Vassie? I'll take en up, though; don't you touchen, I fear you'm nought but an unconverted vessel, and I won't have 'eetouchen my books. "

Assuring her she should have it all her own way, Vassie got her out ofthe room and upstairs, while Katie heated water for a stone bottle tobe put at her feet. Ishmael and Boase went into the parlour and sat downwith grave faces. 

"I don't understand it at all, Padre, " said Ishmael. "This isn't a bitlike her. Of course, she's always been funny, but she's never done athing like this. "

"It may be nothing but her annual attack of salvation, " said the Parsondrily. "I shouldn't worry about it if I were you; only keep an eye onher. She's not as young as she was, and it won't do her any good to berunning about getting wet through. "

"She'll never listen to anything I say. "

"Well, Vassie seems able to manage her all right. She's a most capablegirl, that!"

"She is indeed, " said Ishmael, pleased at praise of his sister, whom heknew Boase as a rule was apt to criticise silently rather than admire. "I don't think my life here would be possible without Vassie. There aretimes when I feel I want to take mother's head and knock it against thewall. It sounds awful, but it's true. I want to knock it and hear thecrunch it would make. There! But you can't think what it's likesometimes. One's soul is thrown at one, so to speak, morning, noon, andnight. I don't believe it's a good thing, anyway, to be always takingone's soul out to feel its pulse. Except that mother's uneducated andignorant about it, she reminds me very much of a woman at that vicaragein Somerset I used to go to sometimes in the holidays. She was the auntof the family and was what she called a deaconess. It's a sort of halfand half thing, not like a Sister of Mercy exactly. . . . "

"A Cousin of Mercy, shall we say?" suggested the Parson. "I think I oncemet the lady and I know what you mean. She had rows of little books, hadn't she?"

"Yes, and thought it was the sin against the Holy Ghost if she missedsaying what she called her Hours. I'm sorry to be profane, but she didannoy me so though I was only a youngster. And now mother seems to begetting very like it. I wouldn't mind a bit if it made her happy, but itdoesn't, not a bit of it. "

"Nothing would make your mother happy--she wouldn't think it right; butshe's only like a lot of women in that. The evils of Puritanism seem tohave taken a deeper root in women than in men, and in some it has kepton cropping up generation after generation. Your mother is a bornPuritan, which is why I wish her to stay a Wesleyan. There is no morearduous combination than the Puritan by instinct labouring underacquired Catholicism. I am a bad missionary, I suppose, but I have seentoo much of these women. "

"Women make such a fuss about nothing!" complained Ishmael. 

"What has always seemed to me the mistake about the religious life as itis lived to-day, " said Boase, "is the overweening importance given totrifles. The distortion of the sweeping-a-room-to-the-glory-of-Godtheory. If the mind is properly attuned to the spiritual sphere temporalthings should lose significance, not gain them. I don't mean that wemust leave off seeing to them--that would result in our all lying down, shutting our eyes, and starving ourselves gently into futurity. I meanthat we should do the things, and do them well; because they are of suchan insignificance they may just as well be done right as not. Getyourself into the habit of washing dishes so well that instinctively youare thorough over the job, and you won't have to think about it whileyou do it. But the self-consciousness put into mundane affairs by theaverage religious beats the worldly person hollow. "

"They dissipate their secret bread into crumbs, in fact, " said Ishmaelwith a laugh. 

The Parson nodded. "Exactly--and stale crumbs at that. I wonder--it'seasy to judge after all, and, as I once tried to tell you, it meanssomething different to every man. Tolerance--the deeper tolerance whichis charity . . . If life doesn't teach one that, it's all been so muchwaste. Who am I and who is anyone to despise the means by which anotherman lives? Some of us find our relief in action, in the actual sweat ofour bodies; some find it in set hours and rows of little devotionalbooks--the technique of the thing, so to speak. And some of us find itout of doors and some within narrow walls--some find it in goodness andsome only by sin and shame. . . . One shouldn't let other people'ssalvation rub one up the wrong way. "

"It all goes to make the pattern, as Killigrew would say, " suggestedIshmael thoughtfully. 

"When I was very young, " went on Ishmael after a pause, "I think I livedby the Spirit--much more so than I can now, Da Boase. I seem to havegone dead, somehow, " Boase nodded, but said nothing. "And then it wasCloom that meant life to me when I came back here and started in on it. Then it was love!"

He spoke the word baldly, looking away from the Parson. "Then it waslove!" he repeated; "and now it's just emptiness, a sort of going onblindly from day to day. It's as though one were pressing through darkwater instead of air, and one could only struggle on and let it go overone's head and hope that some time one will come out the other side. "

"Don't forget, " said Boase gently, "that no one can see a pattern whenhe is in the middle of it. It all seems confused and without schemewhile we are living in the midst of it; it's only on looking back thatwe see it fall into shape. "

"And does it, always?"

"I firmly believe so. It rests with us to make it as beautiful a patternas possible, but a pattern it is bound to make. And a terriblyinevitable one, each curve leading to the next, as though we werespiders, spinning our web out of ourselves as we go. . . . "

"I suppose so, " said Ishmael listlessly. Boase looked at him keenly. Hecould hardly believe that Cloom meant nothing to Ishmael; he was certainthat there balm must eventually be found. He glanced out of the window, and saw that the rain had left off and a still pallor held the air. 

"Come out for a turn with me, " he suggested. "I haven't seen you gobeyond the fields for ages. Your mother'll be all right now. "

Ishmael hesitated, then picked up a stick, and went out with the Parson. Boase had wondered much how deeply Ishmael had been hurt by thedefection of Blanche, and it had been difficult for him to ascertain, asthe young man's reserve was not of the quality which all the timetacitly asks for questioning. On the surface he had shown no trace, except by a sudden ageing that was probably temporary; there had been, as far as Boase knew, no outbreaks of rage or pain. Now he began tosuspect that it was taking a worse way--an utter benumbing of thefaculty of enjoyment. Never since Ishmael's earliest boyhood had beautyfailed to rouse him to emotion, and the Parson wondered whether it couldfail now. At least it was worth trying, and it was not without guilethat he had proposed this walk; he knew of something he meant to springupon Ishmael as a test. He led, as though casually, to a wild gorge thatlay on the way to the Vicarage, but nearer the sea than thecommonly-used path, which here looped inland to avoid it. A stream, half-hidden by heavy growths of bracken and hemlock and furze, raceddown this gorge to the pebbly beach, where it divided up into a dozentiny streams that bubbled and trickled to the sea's edge. All down thegorge great hummocks of earth had been thrown up at some giant upheavalof the land's making, and over their turfy, furze-ridden slopes graniteboulders were tumbled one against the other. In the treacherous fissuresbetween brambles and bracken had grown thickly; over everything elseexcept the bare rocks the furze had spread in a dense sea that followedthe curves of the slopes and stretched on up over each side of thegorge. Everything was grey--pearly grey of the sky, grey-green of theturf, brown-grey of last year's undergrowth, cold grey of theboulders--everything except the gorse; and it was this that had causedthe Parson to catch his breath and stand amazed when first he came uponit as at too much of beauty for eyes to believe--that caught at himagain now though he was expecting it. He and Ishmael rounded the end ofthe valley, mounted a slope, and stood with all the length and sweep ofthe gorge rolling around them. 

By some freak of soil or aspect every tuft of the low-lying cushiongorse that covered the slopes and hummocks as far as the eye could seewas in full bloom, not a dry bush to be seen--bloom so thickly set thathardly a green prickle was visible; bloom of one pure vivid yellow, undimmed in the distance, unmarked to closest view, a yellow that waspure essence of that colour untinged by any breath of aught else. Theair reeked with the rich scent; the greyness of sky and land became oneneutral tone for the onslaught of those pools of flaring molten goldthat burnt to heaven with their undestructive flame. And every ardentsheet of it had a grape-like bloom, made by the velvety quality of thethousands of close-set petals; they gave the sensation of exquisitetouch merely by looking at them, while their passionate colour and scentmade the senses drunken on pure loveliness. 

That was how it had taken Boase--how in normal days it would have takenIshmael, even more keenly. Now he stood staring at it, hardly seeing, untouched to anything but a bleak knowledge that it was beautiful. Nota breath of ecstasy went through him; for him it was nothing, and henever even noticed that Boase was watching him. He moved forward asthough to continue the walk, and the Parson fell into stride beside him. Something in Ishmael was dead, and in dying it had for the time beingstunned what Boase could only hope was a more vital and permanent part. 

Ishmael said good-bye at the Vicarage and went home again, his mindfloating through greyness even as his body was passing through the greyof the weather and surroundings. At home he found John-James waiting toconsult him about the breaking up of a grass-field, and harnessing thehorse to the iron-toothed tormentor, he took it out himself and spentthe rest of the day driving it over the tumbling clods. 

CHAPTER XVII

THE CLIFF AND THE VALLEY

A month later Annie's religiosity, which had been increasing inviolence, unmistakably took the form of mania. She became very violent, and for her own sake as much as for her family's she was removed to adoctor's establishment for such cases in Devonshire. The whole affairleft the three at home very untouched--John-James because he was of astolid habit, Vassie because she was never in sympathy with her motherand had borne much from her of late, and Ishmael because it seemed tohim to have really no more to do with him intimately than if she hadbeen a stranger woman living in his house. Both he and Vassie feltguiltily on the subject, not realising that reaction from strain was atthe bottom of their seeming impassivity. To be able to take definiteaction instead of having merely to put up with the thing day by day was, when it came, a blessing to both of them, although it took what mightconventionally have been assumed to be such a terrible shape. They wereboth very honest people, their strongest quality in common, and kept upno pretence even in outward appearance, unlike most people who keep itup even to themselves. They hardly spoke of the matter beyond making thenecessary arrangements, and when Vassie had a fit of weeping in her roomit was for the mother she remembered from her childhood, the mother ofstormy tendernesses that nevertheless were sweet to her at the time, andwhom she thought of now instead of letting her mind dwell on the womanwho had been growing more and more distorted these last few years. 

Nevertheless the fabric of their daily lives was torn up, and Ishmaelbegan to see that things could not go on as they were. Vassie badlyneeded not only a rest, but a complete change and new interests; she hadbeen living a life of strain lately, and her vigorous personality, unaccustomed to being swamped in that of others and only forced to it byher strong will, began to assert its needs. For the first time her bloomshowed as impaired--something of her radiance had fled. Ishmael saw it, and knew that her affection for him would prevent her telling him aslong as flesh could bear it. A Vassie grown fretful was the last thinghe wanted, and her marred bloom hurt him; he always, in some odd way, looked on Vassie as a superior being even when he saw her little faultsin style--so much more devastating than faults of character--mostclearly. It somehow got itself settled that Vassie was to take acharming though impoverished maiden lady, whom the Parson had known foryears in Penzance, as chaperon, and was to go and spend the summer atsome big seaside place such as she delighted in. Vassie seemed to glowafresh at the mere notion, at the feel of the crisp bank notes whichIshmael gave her, and which represented all the old ambitions thatswelled before her once more like bubbles blown by some magic pipe. Shedeparted in a whirl of new frocks and sweeping mantles and featheryhats, and a quietness it had never known settled upon Cloom. 

For the first few days, even a week or so, Ishmael enjoyed it. Thescenes with Annie had been violent enough to fray the nerves more thanhe knew, but they had done him the service of putting other thoughts outof his head for the time being. Now these thoughts came back, but, asthe days wore on, with a difference. 

In his relations with Blanche the physical side had been hardly countedby him; he had felt passion for the first time, but so refined by hisboy's devotion that he had not given it place. He had been so aware ofwhat she must have had to confront from other men, and had besidesthought her so much younger than she was, that the idea of desire inconnection with her, though in the nature of things not entirelyeliminated, had yet been kept by him in the background even to himself. He had loved Blanche as unselfishly as only a woman or a boy can love, and now he began to suffer from it in a manner he had not at the time. 

In London he had never felt any temptation to go with Killigrew whenthat young man frankly announced his intention of making a night of itwith some girl he had picked up at the Café Riche or Cremorne; distastehad been his dominant instinct, yet many of the suggestive things he hadapparently passed through unscathed came crowding back on him now. Whenhe was not actually driving himself to physical labour his mind wouldfill with pictures that he was able to conjure up without knowing how;sometimes Blanche would partner him in those imaginings, sometimes somestranger woman of his invention. He felt ashamed of these ideas, butthat did not prevent them coming, and sometimes he would deliberatelygive way and allow himself hours to elaborate them, from which he wouldrouse himself worn out and fevered. From these mental orgies he wouldfeel so intense a reaction of disgust that he knew how keenly he wouldfeel the same if he gave way actually, in some hidden house by Penzanceharbour, where men that he knew sometimes went. Physical satisfactionand the fact that Nature had been allowed her way would not have savedhim from the aftermath, and he did not delude himself that it would. Helooked sometimes at John-James, sitting so placidly opposite him atmeals, and wondered about him, whether his physical nature did notperhaps follow his mental and remain untroubled. Yet this thing seemedin every man. . . . He wondered, but never asked, and, by dint of hardwork and a resolute cleansing of his mind, kept the thing at bay. 

The summer was a singularly perfect one, and the contrast between itsemptiness and that time only a year ago when he came down from Londonand was expecting Blanche to follow, pricked him at every turn. He feltconvinced he no longer cared for Blanche; he was regaining interest inthe world without, but she had left this legacy of reaction behind her. He told himself that this too must be borne with, but all the time hisyouth and natural disposition to get all that was possible out of lifewere preparing him for fresh enterprise. He could no longer be happyover nothing but the sheer joy of life, yet simple pleasures began toappeal to him once more, as Boase noted thankfully. The dailyexpectation, that absurd delicious hope, that "something" would happen, had not yet deserted him, and once again he began to live on it. 

One day there arrived a letter from Vassie--a letter written insuperlatives, a letter that made Ishmael and John-James both feel reliefin their different ways and that made the Parson very glad. Vassie hadachieved her end, the great end of mid-Victorian womanhood, and morevital to her even than most--she was engaged to be married, and to a manwhose social position seemed, as far as her judgment could be trusted, satisfactory. Mr. Daniel O'Connell Flynn was, according to Vassie, morethan she could have dared hope for, and if she said little as to anypersonal feelings for him, Ishmael knew how unimportant that would be toher compared with the satisfaction of her ambitions. For, as his namedenoted, he was engaged in politics--an Irish-Canadian, a Free Trader, aHome Ruler, perhaps even a Chartist, for all Vassie said to thecontrary. The third Derby Ministry was in power, and Mr. Flynn was forthe time agitating in the Opposition; but at least he was a member ofParliament, and what glory that was to Vassie. 

Poor Vassie! What, after all, was her ambition but to attain what shouldhave come to her by right as daughter of the Squire of Cloom? She hadhad to make it the end of her desires, for it she had had to appear whatshe was not--what she ought to have been without any striving. If Mr. Flynn were a man to whom Vassie's beauty outweighed her defects, and ifit were nothing but that with him, then was the outlook for her ultimatehappiness poor; but she was her own mistress and had to be judge ofthat. At least she had not deceived him, for there came a postscript tothe rather worldly raptures. "P. S. --He knows about it all, and says itdoes not matter; what he wants is me. "

After Ishmael, the person most affected by the news, both in herself andher prospects, would be Phoebe. Ishmael put the letter in his pocket, though he guessed she too would have had one, and went over toVellan-Clowse, Wanda at his heels. 

As he went the realisation of how this would affect him grew upon him;losing Vassie, his life at Cloom would not only be lonely, but, withouther resolute insistence on the niceties, might all too easily slip intosome such slough of boorishness as had overtaken it in his father's day. If Blanche had only been different, if she had been the Blanche he oncethought her, how sweetly would the whole problem--of loneliness and astandard of decency and of this tormenting thing that pricked athim--have been solved. Even the removal of his mother, though a relief, added to the sense of total disruption which weighed on him. Cloom, theold Cloom that had been so jolly in spite of everything, the Cloom ofthe first three contested, arduous years, then the delightful Cloomglorified by that summer of Blanche and Killigrew and Vassie and littleJudith, was dead, and everyone else had flown to other fields while healone was left among the ruins. Of all the old atmosphere Phoebe wasthe only one remaining--little, soft, admiring Phoebe, whom he hadhardly noticed all this past winter. 

Ishmael was one of those to whom the ending even of a not altogethercongenial atmosphere was fraught with sadness; had he been left tohimself he would probably never have moved far out of an accustomedcircle, thus much of the peasant was potent in his blood. Now he felt, with the finality of youth, that everything had been stripped fromaround him, and that no new scheme of life formed itself before hiseyes. 

When he came to the top of the cliff above his plateau he turned offdown the narrow goat-track that led to it, and when there flung himselfon his face upon the turf, chin on hands, and brooded. His thoughts tookno definite shape; rather were they the vague unsettled desires for heknew not what. Just that "something, " anything, would happen. 

He lay staring at the grass, covered with tiny blossoms of self-heal andrest-harrow: behind and a hundred feet below him the sea swirled, itsdeep peacock hue patterned with milky wreaths of foam; half around himreared a semi-circle of pale cliff. He stared at the miniature forest ofblade and leaf beneath his eyes, and could hear faint rustlings as tinyinsects thrust their way through it or climbed aimlessly up stalks thatonly led them into air. On the fragile curve of a feathery bent a pairof Spotted Burnet moths were at their mating--lovely creatures of theiridescent green of lapis-lazuli, their folded wings of greyer greendecorated with splashes of purest crimson, their long glossy antennęshining in the sunlight. Immobile they clung together for what must havebeen, in their measuring of time, hours of love. Beyond them, on othergrass-stems, orange-hued flies took their pleasure, and the whole airwas quick with the wings of butterflies and moths. The quiet littlecircle of turf was athrill with life; the air, the warm soil, the clumpsof bracken whence the hidden crickets shrilled, the pinkish grasseswhich bore the tiny interlocked bodies of the mating flies--everythingtold of life, life, life. This place seemed an amphitheatre for thedisplay of the secret of Nature--life, and yet more life, in splendidprodigality. Ishmael watched and wondered. Was this, then, the blind endof creation--to create again? If life were only valuable for theproduction of more, then what it created was not valuable either, andthe whole thing became an illogical absurdity. There must be somedefinite value in each life apart from its reproductive powers, or thereproductions were better left in the void. Blind pleasure, like blindworking, was not a possible solution to one of his blood and habit ofmind. 

Yet he knew as he lay there that not for ever would he be able to go onas so far he had. He told himself that if it were possible to stamp ondesire now it would continue to be possible; that if one were not putinto the world to get what one wanted at least it should be possible togrit the teeth on the fact. It was childish enough to cry for themoon--it was pitiable to hanker after its reflection in a cesspool. Chastity to Ishmael, by the nature of his training and hiscircumstances, was a vital thing; the ever-present miseries of homeresulting from his father's offence, the determination to keep cleanhimself and bring clean children to the inheritance, had grown with him. If he lost it he lost far more than most men, because to him it had beenmore. 

Not for the first time some words of the Parson's came back to him:"Casual encounters where no such question arises . . . " That seemed to himmore horrible, more unsound, now, as he lay looking at the inevitablematings of the winged creatures, than ever before; something ages oldin him revolted at the fruitless squandering. 

The fact remained that there was no one he wanted to marry, that he nolonger wanted to marry at all; his wish to marry Blanche had been anexigency of the situation; in himself his instinct against inroads onprivacy would never have inclined him towards it. Also there was no onegirl he wanted, and he told himself there never would be again; allpersonal emotion was drained away from him. The only girl he even knewat all was Phoebe, and at the idea of her in connection with himselfhe smiled. That would indeed be giving the lie to all he had struggledafter--to the vision of the Cloom to be that he had built up with muchwork and many dreams. 

Suddenly as he lay on the grass he felt tired, so tired that it seemedto him he did not so very much want anything after all, and that aleaden weariness was the worst thing he would have to fight against. Helaid his face in the warm fragrant grass and let his hands lie out oneither side of him, then stretched to the extent of his limbs, androlled on his back. Wanda, eager to be bounding on once more, licked hischeek with her warm, quick-moving tongue, and he rubbed her head againsthim and told her she was becoming a fussy old lady. Still, it was timehe went on to Vellan-Clowse; the sun was near the rim of the burningsea, and far below the foam was tinged with fire. He scrambled to hisfeet and went on. 

At the mill he found he had been wrong in his conjecture and Phoebehad not yet heard from Vassie. She was looking pale and thin; there wereshadows under her soft eyes, and her mouth drooped at the corners. Ishmael's news stung her to interest and to enthusiasm for Vassie, butseemed, when she had cooled down, only to make her melancholy deeper. Atsupper--to which Ishmael needed little pressing to stay, for in talk andcompanionship he forgot his vacant house--she was obviously trying tomake herself pleasant and bright; she would not have been Phoebe ifshe had allowed her own comfort to come before that of others. 

Phoebe was changed in this past year; she was no longer so sprightlyin her little flirtations, her tongue had lost its rustic readiness, hereyes held a furtive something, as though she were always watching somememory. Her prettiness had gained in quality however, and her charm, though more conscious, was more certain. Curiously enough, the charmstruck Ishmael for the first time now that he saw her subdued, nottroubling to exert it save mechanically. He was sorry for that lassitudeof hers, and after supper, walking under the elms down the lush valley, he tried to fathom it. 

"It's nothing, " said Phoebe. "I'm lonely, I suppose. You know, there'sno one I'm really friends with, only Vassie and you, and I shan't seeher any more now. And you never come near me. . . . "

Ishmael felt a guilty pang as he realised this was true; he cast aboutto lead the talk elsewhere. 

"You were great friends with Archelaus while he was at Botallack lastautumn, I've heard, " he said teasingly. "Indeed, I did think that evenwhen I lost Vassie I might have another sister. . . . "

"Him . . . !" cried Phoebe; "never, never! You're being cruel to me, Ishmael, so you are! If you've only come to tease me you can go home toyour old manor-house again!"

"Why--Phoebe! What's the matter; what have I said to hurt you?" askedIshmael. "Why, I wouldn't do that for the world! Phoebe, dear, tell mewhat it is that's the matter. Surely you can trust me! Is it becauseArchelaus has gone?"

Phoebe burst into tears. Ishmael was alarmed, embarrassed, evenirritated, yet somehow she was nestling against him and his arms wereholding her while he consoled her. She sobbed on, her warm little bodypressed convulsively against him; his words "surely you can trust me . . . "had caught at her heart. After months of furtive meetings withArchelaus, after being drawn into a whirlpool of passion which she couldnot resist and yet always resented, hating something in Archelaus evenwhen his ardour pursued her most, hating the thought of him at everymoment before and after, when his lips were not actually uponhers--after all this she felt she wanted nothing but to fling herself onthis quieter, kinder, younger man, on whom she still felt the freshnessshe had lost. It was only fair, she told herself; if Ishmael had caredfor her a year ago she would have been armed against Archelaus and herown nature. Slowly her sobs grew less frequent--they became the faintsniffs of a tired child; but she still lay in his arms, snugglingcloser, one hand, very small and smooth, creeping up to lie against hisneck. Ishmael looked down, and through the dusk he could see how wetwere the lashes on her pale cheek; the curve of her throat and bosom wasstill troubled by sobbing breaths. He drew her closer; then his clasp ofher began to change, grow fiercer; she felt it and thrilled to it, lifted her mouth that looked so childish, and which he told himselfthrough the clamour of his pulses there would be no harm in kissing, asthough she were the child she looked. But it was not a child's kiss hegave her; nor, as he could but feel, was it a child's return shetendered. 

"Phoebe . . . !" he began; "Phoebe . . . !" He never knew himself what hewas trying to say, whether it were protest or excuse or a mere stammerof passion. She interrupted him with a low cry. 

"Oh, Ishmael! it was always you--really, always you . . . I didn't know. It'll be always you. . . !"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE IMMORTAL MOMENT

That which Lenine had hoped for some twelve years, which the Parson andVassie had first feared and then laughed at, which Ishmael himself hadhardly thought of, and then merely to dismiss with a smile, had come topass--so simply, with such a logical though quiet following of effect onvarious causes, that it was no wonder Ishmael felt enmeshed in the webof something it was not worth fighting to cut away. At first, on theheels of the miller's rejoicing and Phoebe's clinging content, he hadbeen overwhelmed by a dense cloud of depression--a sense as of beingcaught in something soft and too sweet that would not let him go andinto which he sunk the more deeply for his instinctive protest. Also thesheer impossibility of the thing affected him with a dream-like beliefthat it could not really have happened, or that at least something mustoccur to dissolve it. Yet nothing did, not even the Parson'sfrankly-expressed dismay. 

Ishmael was very young, and in no sense a man of the world, and when hethought of what lay behind that kiss he had given Phoebe he felt herinnocence had a right to demand of him that at least he should notretract what she had built upon it. Also, Penwith being a very narrowand intimate track of land, the scandal for her if he had withdrawn andlet the miller blaze his version abroad would have never been liveddown. A country which is a blind-alley has the advantage of immunityfrom tramps, but it has the disadvantages also of a place which cannotbe a highway to other places. Talk, interest, all the thoughts andemotions of life, of necessity beat back on themselves instead ofpassing on and dying, or being swamped in the affairs of the greatworld. Phoebe, as the miller knew, was already the subject of censureamong the stiffer matrons, whose sons were wont to hang round the milllike bees, and in his expressions of approval to Ishmael was mingled asubtle strain of warning, almost of menace. And to himself as the dayswent by and Phoebe was always there for him to see and caress when hefelt inclined, her yielding sweetness ever ready for him to draw on, hergentle stupidity hidden under her adoration, he admitted that he did notaltogether want to withdraw. After all, what did it matter? Phoebe hadmany refinements of heart and temper which surely could be held tooutweigh her little ignorances, and now that, with the removal ofBlanche, the outer world was, he told himself, cut off from him, herefused to see that to ally himself with the Lenines of the millmattered as much as the Parson, in his old-fashioned Toryism, seemed tothink. A woman takes her husband's position; and as to that, what, heasked bitterly, was his position that any woman should want to share it?Phoebe did want to; she had shown all her heart so plainly in thatcry--genuine in that she believed it herself; and Phoebe was kind andperilously sweet. . . . The days went on, and Vassie's letter of argumentand protest was less determined than it would have been if she herselfhad not been engrossed in her own affairs. And stronger even that thedread of hurting Phoebe, of the terrible scenes that would ofnecessity occur, than his own loneliness, was the enemy within himselfthat every time he caressed Phoebe mounted to his brain and told himit was, after all, well worth while. 

It fell to the Parson's bitter lot to marry them in the early autumn ofthat year. Archelaus had now been away a year, and he had neither comeback nor written, and not till several months later did he suddenlyreappear, after the habit of the born rover. 

They were months of mingled wonder and dismay for Ishmael. He hadmarried a girl who had only one talent, but that was the oldest in theworld--she was a born lover. She, who in many ways was so startlinglylacking in refinement, had a genius for the little lures, the ways withhand and eye, of voice and gesture, that make of love an art. In theordinary intimacies of marriage, the blunting intimacies of daily life, she had no discrimination; Ishmael, had he been inclined to idealiseher, would not have been spared the realisation that even as the grossermale she looked unbeautiful at times, needed to send clothes to thewash, and was warned every few weeks, by an unbecoming limpness in herhair, that it was time for soap and water to combat natural greasiness. She made no attempt to keep up the illusion which, even while it isadmitted to be such, yet achieves its object. She would have thought itsilly. But when it came to the rites of love she was inspired and couldnot make a false move. A thousand little ways of her own, cat-like rubsof her sleek head, turns of her limbs, inspirations of withheld kissesand in the same breath approaches that held an eternally child-likequality in their submission--there was no faint tone of the age-oldgamut to which she did not give its keenest value. 

The month spent at the genteel resort of Torquay was to Ishmael afevered medley. His days were full of distaste--at her predilections forthe young clerks who eyed her on the sea-front, for cheap jewellery andcasual friends picked up at the hotel, at the bland superficiality ofher mind; and now and again this distaste was shot through with momentsof acute fears when he realised, startled to it by some blunt display ofthe ugly things of life, that to this he must accustom himself for therest of his days; and that he would grow only too deadly accustomed, tothe stifling of other ideals, he foresaw. These were his days, yet hefelt remorseful at his own spirit of criticism, because she thought himso god-like, and in many little womanly ways showed an unselfishconsideration that humbled him in his own eyes and exalted her. Of thenights, even when there was no passion between them, she made such adelight with her childish clinging, her soft nestling against him, thathe would hold his breath to listen to her quiet breathing and move alittle away as though in sleep, so as to feel her kitten-like, half-unconscious wriggle into the curve of his arm again. It was sweetat such times to feel such utter dependence upon him as the protectivemale, and the best in him was stirred to response. The next morning shemight jar again from the hour of getting up in their ugly hotel room, through the expedition with which they would try and beguile the day, tothe dinner, at which her conversation was always most noticeablytrifling; but he always, to her surprise, let her go to bed alone, andcame up much later to find the old magic upon her once more like dew. 

It was late autumn when they went back to Cloom, and under John-James'watchful care the harvest was all in; he awaited them at the station inthe smart new trap that had been a present from the miller, and KatieJacka, with a tight-lipped smile upon her face and a heart full ofcontempt for a mistress whom privately she considered no better thanherself, was hovering between kitchen and passage when they drove up, with a large bouquet of bought flowers swaddled in a stiff paper frillready as an offering. Boase came over after supper, and when Phoebe, piqued by a conversation which she could not share and--what sheresented still more--by the efforts of the two men to include her in it, had gone upstairs, then Ishmael and the Parson sat and smoked andchatted, and for the first time all the past month lifted itsdeadweight and life seemed more as it had been in the old days. 

It was in the winter that Archelaus reappeared, and the first that Cloomheard of it was a casual word dropped by Katie as she waited at table. "So Cap'n Arch'las is back among us, " she remarked cheerfully, after themanner of Cornish servants, who see no harm in imparting items of gossipas they hand a dish; "they do say he'm rare and changed, though 'zacklyhow I don't knaw. Simme 'tes enough to make a man come home a nigger, going so much to the lands where the folk are all black. "

Ishmael was startled by the news, but, to hide the fact, began to jokeKatie on her ideas of the population of the American continent, when alittle sound from Phoebe caught his attention. She had gone verywhite, and she tried to push her chair away from the table, making agesture as though she wanted to be free of its confining edge; but herhands seemed too weak to accomplish the act, and she let them fall intoher lap. Ishmael sprang up and went round to her, sharply bidding thestaring Katie to bring cold water; in a moment or two Phoebe hadconquered her faintness and was smiling timidly at him. When he wasalone and out of doors he thought over the incident, but withoutexaggerating it to himself. He had always guessed that Archelaus had atone time been attracted by Phoebe; he supposed that her refusal of himwas at the back of the former's departure. Now that Archelaus hadreturned it was not unnatural, considering her marriage and the bad bloodbetween himself and his brother, that she should feel nervous. He wassorry for her, and wondered, not for the first time, whether it would notbe possible, now he himself was less green and prickly, and had settledinto a scheme of life that need not, ill-feeling apart, excludeArchelaus, to become better friends or at least more tolerant of eachother. He suggested his idea to Phoebe, though characteristically he didnot refer to her attack of faintness. She looked at him in a scared wayand then murmured something about thinking it was best to wait tillArchelaus made the first advance, and to this Ishmael rather reluctantlyagreed. 

They had not long to wait; the next evening saw Archelaus at Cloom. Anoddly-altered Archelaus, so much was soon plain. Even in appearance heseemed changed; something of his golden beauty had tarnished at last, and a faint grizzle showed here and there in his curly hair, while theruddy face had become weather-beaten. He talked a good deal--about hisadventures in California, his bad luck with the gold, and the beauty ofthe Californian women, especially those with a Spanish strain. Of theselast he spoke so freely, notably of some camp-followers, that Ishmaelreminded him sharply of Phoebe's presence. Archelaus glanced from oneto the other, from Ishmael's irritated eyes to Phoebe's averted cheek, with a slight smile, before answering. 

"Ah! I forgot that Phoebe's not like that kind o' women a man getsused to out there, " he said slowly. "Besides, of course, she'm a ladynow. . . . "

The apology was worse than the offence; but Ishmael swallowed his angerfor Phoebe's sake, though he was vexed with her too for staying thereto hang upon Archelaus's doubtful talk. Soon after, when Phoebe hadbrewed hot milk-punch and it had been drunk by the two men, Archelausrose to go. He went out to see if his trap were ready, and Ishmael wentalso. The boy had gone home for the night, and Ishmael lit a lantern andwent into the stable to fetch the horse. He supposed Archelaus was withhim, but found he had not followed so far; neither was he by the cart. Ishmael put the horse in and brought it through into the courtyard, andthe same moment saw Archelaus appearing from the kitchen door. 

"Just haven a bit of chat wi' Katie, " said Archelaus. "She'm a rare onefor gossip, she is. " Then, as he pretended to busy himself withsomething at the horse's head, he spoke again. 

"Ishmael, " he began, "I knaw how it is wi' you. You think on when myfancy was took by your lil' missus, and you don't knaw how I'm thinkenabout things. Well, I'm a rough chap, but I'm honest, b'lieve, and I cantell 'ee there's no wound in my heart, and the soreness there wasagainst 'ee has gone in the sun out in those lands. . . . Will 'ee shakehands and let I be a friend to you and your missus as a brother should?"He held out his hand as he spoke, and Ishmael found himself staring atit in the uncertain light of the lamps. The next moment a flood ofself-reproach at his own hesitation swept over him; he put out his handand took his brother's. Archelaus gave such a vigorous wringing thatIshmael could not keep back a little exclamation, and his fingers werenumb when they were released. 

"Bit too strong, am I?" asked Archelaus with a friendly laugh. "Mymuscles have got so tough I don't rightly knaw how hard I grip. " Heswung himself up into the cart, and from that elevation looked down atIshmael with a nod of farewell. 

Ishmael went into the house, where he found Phoebe still sitting inthe parlour, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Shegave a start when he spoke to her, and when he told her of his pact withArchelaus chilled him by her scant enthusiasm. They went to bed, and asthey lay side by side in the darkness there was a constraint betweenthem there had not been even when they had quarrelled or his occasionalfits of irritation had made her rail at him. 

As the weeks wore on they both seemed to become used to the occasionalbut unwonted presence of Archelaus about the place, though Phoebealways resented it oddly. Yet it was a friendly presence; he was readyto help on the farm with advice and even with his strong muscles if needbe, and the world at large was much edified by the reconciliation. 

"A gentle little wife like that is such a softening influence" was thegeneral verdict . . . And Ishmael, irked by the strain between them to asudden passion of distaste for what he felt had been his weakness, hadinstituted what was for those days a startling innovation--that of aseparate bedroom for himself. He guessed that Phoebe almost hated himfor it, yet he had come suddenly to that point when he sickened atover-intimacy, when he realised that the passion in him had betrayedhim, so that he felt the only salvation for his mind lay in crushing it. He had sold himself, but at least he could refrain from taking hisprice. So he told himself and so he meant, yet when, as on a night whenPhoebe, shedding resentment for a wistful tenderness, had won him to atriumph of passion once again, there was mingled with his sense ofhaving failed himself a certain relief in the acknowledgment that thisthing still held sweets for him. . . . 

With the spring the affairs on the farm took up Ishmael's interest moreand more, and he was able to find solace for the deadening knowledge ofhis mistaken marriage in the things that lay so near his heart. He toldhimself that it was here, in the soil, and the warm, gentle cattle andthe growing things, that his keenest as well as his truest joys were tobe found, not knowing that even while he thought it Phoebe held thatwhich was to thrill him as never yet anything in life had had power todo. 

She told him of it one night when he went up to bed late, thinking andhoping she would be asleep. But she called out to him as he passed herdoor. He went in and found her sitting up, looking like a child amongthe big white pillows, her brown hair about her wide eyes. He wasstruck by it and spoke to her gently, telling her to lie down and go tosleep. Instead of obeying she held out her hands and drew him downtowards her. 

"I want to whisper, Ishmael, " she said, as she had been wont to say whena little girl and she had had something of tremendous interest toimpart. He humoured her, and, putting his arm round her, gathered heragainst him and said that he was listening. She kept a shy silence for asecond after that and then whispered. Ishmael caught the few words, andat first they seemed to him to convey something incredible, though hehad often thought about this very thing, wondered if and when he shouldhear of it. He was very gentle with her, but said little, only he stayedby her till she had fallen asleep, and then he disengaged himself and, going quietly out of the room, opened the front door and went out intothe garden. 

It was the darkest hour of the night, only the stars shone brightly, andnot till he was upon the pale clouds of the drifted narcissi could hetell they were there, not till their scent came up at him. The night wasvery still as well as dark, but Ishmael noted neither circumstance. Hisown soul held all of sound and colour and light for him, and he reckedof nothing external. This news, the simplest, oldest thing in the way ofnews that there is, seemed to him never to have been told to anyonebefore--never, at least, to have been so wonderful. All the beauties ofCloom, of life, all the trouble his own short span had felt, all thefuture held, seemed to fall into place and be made worth while. This waswhat he had lived for without knowing it--not to make Cloom finer forhimself, not to save his own soul or carve out a life for himself, butthis--to make of himself this mysterious immortality. Always he hadwaited for "something" to happen, always at moments of keenest pleasurehe had been conscious there was more he did not feel: depths unplumbed, heights unscaled, some master-rapture that would explain all the othersand that he never came upon. Even beauty had had this sting for him; hehad always felt that, however lovely a thing were, there was somethingmore beautiful just round the corner, for ever slipping ahead, like astar reflected in a rain-filled rut. Now for the first time he was awareof a dizzying sensation as though for one moment the gleam had stayedstill, as if Beauty for a flash were not withdrawing herself, as thoughtime for one moment stood, and that moment was self-sufficient, free ofthe perpetual something that was always just ahead--more, actuallycapturing that something. The moment had the quality of immortality, although it reeled and was caught up again in the inexorable march, but, drunken with it, he stayed tingling in the cold dawn. 

And if, mixed with that draught, there were this much of venom--that herejoiced at having at last so ousted Archelaus, in the fact that indeedflesh of his flesh should inherit after him and Archelaus be outcast forever, at least in that first rapture he was unaware of it. 

BOOK III

RIPENING

CHAPTER I

UNDER-CURRENTS

Spring waxed full, buds burst into flower, then petals dropped and thehard green fruit began to swell, and the blades of the corn showedperceptibly higher every week. Summer, warm and lazy, big with all herripening store, brooded upon the land, and Phoebe Ruan, guarding thegrowing life she held, seemed, with all the care taken of her, to losevigour and gaiety. She seemed to wish to withdraw from everyone, fromIshmael most of all, as though she only wished to sit and commune withthe secret soul of the child beneath her heart. She was almost beautifulthese days, touched by a gravity new to her, and with an added poise. For the first time it was as though she found sufficient support in herown company and did not need to be for ever following and leaning uponother people. To look at, sitting so withdrawn, her eyes watchingsomething unseen of human gaze, she was perfect; even in intercourse shewould have been more nearly so than ever before had it not been for thefits of irritability gave unwonted bitterness to her tongue. There weredays when nothing would please her, when she showed all her commonstrain in the taunts she found to fling at Ishmael and the rest of herlittle world. Only Archelaus was immune, and in his presence shemaintained a sullen silence, so marked that a third person with themcould, if he were sensitive, feel her ever-deepening resentmentemanating from her. 

Archelaus himself was as though unaware of it, for he came to the housewith increasing frequency. About this time he began to walk out with aBotallack girl, the daughter of a mine captain, and indeed askedIshmael's congratulations on the match. But, in his brotherly fashion, he was always eager to do anything to help Phoebe, whether it were toride into Penzance and buy her anything she wished for, or to wait onher at home, adjusting a hammock at exactly the right height andcarrying out cushions. Only Phoebe knew the taunt that underlay everyword, the subtle scheme for making her uncomfortable that he carried onunder cover of his solicitude. And she was not clever enough to combatit; when he told her she had ruined his life by marrying Ishmael, shewas not brave enough to retort that he had had opportunity enough tomarry her and never breathed the wish; when she hinted as much, heretorted that he had only been waiting to make more money so that shecould have a position worthy of her. He declared that all she hadmarried Ishmael for was to get the position that should by rights havebelonged to him, Archelaus. That there had been a month of terror whenshe would, if he had not already left, have begged him to marry her shenever told him. That fear had been groundless and had passed, but shenever forgave it him. 

Since his return she could not have told what swelled her resentment themore--that he should dare to come back at all, or that his fascinationfor her, the plainer to her since intimacy with another man had provedso much less wonderful, should prick at her perpetually in spite of herdislike of him. Ishmael she still regarded as a superior being whom sheadmired, but the touch of Archelaus's casual hand had power over herthat was more intensified than stilled both by her resentment and herdistrust. 

So the months went by, and the time drew nearer, and all seemed morepeaceful at Cloom than it had ever been. One day Phoebe happened to bealone; Ishmael and John-James were in the fields, and Phoebe lay on aplush sofa in the parlour. Ishmael had bought that sofa for her inPenzance when she admired its glossy crimson curves. She had not been atall grateful; she had merely told him that he bought it, as he dideverything else for which she expressed a wish, because he wanted to doeverything possible to ensure a healthy and happy child, and there wasenough of truth in her accusation to justify it. Now she lay upon thesofa, staring at the mahogany arm that ran along one side of it andwishing that she were dead or that Archelaus would go away and nottorment her with his taunts and his kisses--his whole presence that madeher feel so helpless. While she lay there thus thinking he came in, walking straight into the hall as of right, whistling carelessly; andshe heard his stick, flung against the wall, go sliding and clatteringdown upon the stone flags. 

The next moment he was in the room and standing looking down at her witha smile. She did not move, but lay looking back at him like a small birdstricken motionless and staring beneath a hawk. Wanda, who was curled upby her feet, growled softly. What strange twist it was in Archelaus, what sardonic cruelty, inherited perhaps from the old Squire, that madehim take pleasure in tormenting the helpless Phoebe it would have beenhard to say. Though always latent in him, it may have been waked toactivity by the wound on his head which had left the scar. Some nicebalance may have been overset in his brain, though there was bitternessenough in his sense of grudge to stimulate him to a perpetual nagging atthis vulnerable part of Ishmael. He had lately discovered a new way tofrighten her; in addition to his passionate urgings of what he calledhis love, he vowed that he would not be able to bear his life muchlonger, that in losing Cloom he had been sent out to wander the earth adisappointed man, but in losing her he had lost all that had made hislife worth living. He threatened to kill himself, with so manypicturesque details and so much grim emphasis, that there were momentswhen he could almost have deceived himself, let alone poor simplePhoebe. His feeling for her had been of the most animal even at itsstrongest, but he had to the full the primitive instinct for possession;he had made her his woman, and, though he might have felt a mere blindjealousy if she had married any other man, to find her taken by Ishmael, the younger brother who had dispossessed him of all, awoke in him asurge of anger stronger than any emotion he had ever known. 

He stooped down and deliberately took a long kiss from her mouth, hitting the back of his hand against Wanda's sensitive nose to stop hergrowling. She whimpered and slunk off the sofa, and Archelaus helped herdeparture with his boot. Phoebe was too taken up with his cruelty toherself to reproach him on behalf of the dog. 

"You ought to be ashamed, Archelaus!" she complained. "Oh, sometimes Ithink you're the wickedest man in the world, that I do. . . !"

"Who's made me so, then? Who went and wed another man as soon as I'dgone off to make a fortune for her, eh? Tell me that!"

"I don't believe it; if it had been that you'd have told me. "

"How could I tell 'ee? Wouldn't you, wouldn't any woman, have bidden mehold my tongue till I'd shown what I could do? Would your Da have lookedat I for a son?"

"Well, you can't be heart-broken, anyway, or you wouldn't be going tomarry Senath Pollard. . . . "

He came and bent over her again, bringing his face very close to hersand trying to hold her eyes with his look, as only a liar does. 

"You knaw why I be walking out with Senath . . . So as to be able to comehere and have no one thinkin' anything. You knaw that as well as mytongue and heart can tell 'ee. Look at me . . . Don't 'ee knaw it, Phoebe? Don't 'ee?"

She turned her head this way and that to avoid his insistence, but atlast she yielded as on that night long ago beside the stile and met lookand lips. "I don't believe it, " she murmured in a choked whisper, hermouth against his; "but I'm a sinful woman, and there's something in mewishes I could. . . . "

She had come thus far, she whose total lack of moral sense had notsuggested to her any reason why, having been the lover of one brother, she should not be the wife of the other; but her stereotyped views, missing the essentials, did revolt, though vainly, against his kisseswhen she was a wife, even while she burned beneath them. She really wasvery miserable. Suddenly he released her and leant back with a dark lookon his face, a look she knew and dreaded. She resorted to her littlewiles to make him shake it off. 

"Archelaus!. . . " she breathed, sliding her hand across his eyes; "don'tlook like that. . . . To please me!" She pulled his head towards her anddropped light kisses on his lids to charm the expression out of hiseyes, but he remained impassive. She was in a condition when wiles leavea certain kind of man very untouched, and hate for Ishmael, not anycharm left for him in her, urged his cunning love-making. 

"I can't go on weth it, " he declared; "it's no good, Phoebe. What doeslife hold for I now? Last week I was down in the mine when there was afall of rock, and for a bit we thought we'd never get out, and I said tomyself what did it matter?. . . It'll only save I the trouble of doen itfor myself. "

"Archelaus!. . . "

"I put the barrel of my gun against my head t'other day and pulled thetrigger, but it missed fire. And then I dedn't try again, because Ithought all of a sudden that I must see you once more, Phoebe, andtell 'ee plain all about it--what you and that husband of yours havedriven a man to. "

"Don't talk to me about Ishmael! At least he's a good man, so he is, andwe're neither of us fit to live along of him!"

"Good, is he? Yes; but is he the man for 'ee? Do 'ee ever feel your lil'heart beating the quicker against his? If he'm a man, why don't 'ee tellhim everything and let him kick me out, eh?"

"You know I can't tell him--that I couldn't ever. "

"He'll knaw when I'm dead, because I'll lave word to show all men howone brother took everything in life from another. . . . He'll knaw then. "

"I don't believe you; I don't believe anyone would be so wicked, evenyou. "

"Ah! there's things in life even you don't knaw anything about, thoughyou'm so wicked yourself, " said Archelaus grimly; "but you too 'll knawa bit more by-and-bye. I won't be able to keep off it for long, Phoebe. Maybe it'll take me suddenly when I'm here one day. You'llhear my life-blood running away, lil' 'un, and think for a minute it'swater drippen' somewhere. Or perhaps I'll just take a rope and hangmyself, and you'll hear I choken'. I saw a man hung in Australy once forstealen' another man's gold, and he took an awful time to die, he did. You could hear the choken' of him loud as bellows. . . . " Phoebe hadturned sickly pale, she screamed out, and thrust him away from her. "Katie!" she called. Archelaus went to the door and shouted into thekitchen. "Your missus is feelen' faint, " he informed the maids. "I justlooked into the parlour and saw her lyen' all wisht like. " Katiebustled past with an odd look at him, and Phoebe was taken up to bed. She was better again next day, but she feared after that to leave herroom, and in spite of Ishmael's protests stayed in bed, pleading thatshe felt giddy whenever she stood up. Twice Archelaus came to the houseand had to be content with calling to her through the door, and eachtime she replied she was not well enough to see him. 

He began to fume that his hidden delight of torment, which in hisdistorted mind was part of his scheme for revenge against Ishmael, wasbeing thwarted; and day by day as he brooded to himself, his thoughtsever on the same theme, the end of all his anger and her fear began toloom, as he had planned. It was chance that eventually played into hishands, but the will and the cunning that made him ripe to catch at itwere his already. 

CHAPTER II

THE PASSAGE

Phoebe lay in her big bed, her arms straight out upon the coverlet, listless palms upwards, her eyes closed, and her dim thoughts--theunformed blind thoughts of a resentful child--her only company. A weekearlier Ishmael had been called up to Devon to see his mother, who hadtaken a turn for the worse: she had died a few hours after his arrival;he had had to stay and see to the funeral, and was not due back tillthat evening. John-James was in the fields and the maids were all in thedairy, working hard to finish the butter for market. Phoebe did notmind--for the first time in her life she preferred to be alone; shefound it more and more difficult to control herself in the presence ofothers, to hide or account for the terror that possessed her. Only whenshe thought of the little life that in another month she would havebrought into the world, that would be nestling against her, did she feela glow of comfort. Nothing disturbed her joy in that, which she hadperforce to pretend was the cause of her depression. As she lay now, with the wrongs done to her and by her stirring in her slow bewilderedbrain, she banished them by thoughts of that which was to be hers--thatsolace so far sweeter than the little animals with which she hadhitherto filled her days. Poor Wanda, who from much petting had grown tofawn on her almost as much as upon Ishmael, was neglected now, and didnot even stretch her woolly length beside the bed, but roamed, alone andmelancholy, in the passage, waiting for the well-known loved footstep ofher master. 

Phoebe curved over in bed, and began to pretend to herself, as when asmall child she had been wont to do for the first hour in bed everyevening--planning small pleasures, triumphs over the other children sheknew--and as when a girl she had been used to lie and imagine thrillingepisodes with some dream lover. Now she pretended her baby had alreadycome and was lying beside her; she bunched a fold of bedclothes to makeher pretence the more real, and lay cuddling it, her eyes closed so thatthe sense of sight should not dissipate her dreams. No man had any partin her vision of the future with her baby; it was to be hers alone, andshe pictured a blissful period when she played with it, dressed andundressed it, lived for it. Somehow she imagined that all herdifficulties would cease with its birth, and both the torment ofArchelaus and the presence of Ishmael, which now left her so unstirredit wearied her, faded away. Although she told herself she hated men andthe harm they did, she hoped her child would be a boy, because she wasof the type of woman, even as Annie had been, that always wants a boy. 

She kept her eyes shut and caressed the bundle she had made beside her, and tried to forget her physical condition and her mental worry in thejoy she was forecasting. 

"Phoebe . . . Lil' 'un . . . I'm come, " said a voice from the other sideof her bedroom door. Her lids flew up; a great spasm of terror shotthrough her, making her sick and setting her heart pounding. She saw thelast warm glow of the evening in the square of sky, its light tingeingthe white bedroom with fire; she saw the bundle in the curve of her armwas only a roll of sheet and blanket whose striped edge of pink and bluesomehow for an irrational moment engaged her attention, so vivid had herdreaming been, so incongruous was this sudden recall. Then she turnedover in bed towards the door, panic in her breast, and her whole bodyswept by the hot waves of fear. She had locked the door, as she alwaysdid now, but the tones, soft as they were, had power to frighten hereven through the stout wood. 

She lay silent, hoping he would think she was asleep, not making asound. 

"I do want to see 'ee that bad, " came the voice. She paid no heed, butclenched her hands under the bedclothes; her heart had settled into aneven thunderous beating that to her ears almost deafened the voice thatprovoked its action. 

"I've come to say good-bye, " went on the voice. "Won't 'ee just saygood-bye to I? I'm going to another world this time, not to Australy orCaliforny. I can't stand life any longer, Phoebe; you'll just wish I agood journey for the last? 'Tes a hard voyage, I fear. "

Her self-control broke; she could no longer hold her tongue, a sickbelief in his words struggling with the conviction, born of her wish, that he would never carry out his threat. 

"Go away, Archelaus! I wish you'd go away and leave me in peace. I don'tbelieve you'll do no such wickedness; you're only trying to frighten me, and it's wicked, with me so near my time and no one with me. Go away, Archelaus!"

"You don't believe me . . . ? Just lie there in your soft bed and listen, then, " said Archelaus through the door. "You'll soon knaw whether I'm aman to be believed or not. Good-bye, lil' Phoebe!"

She heard him go downstairs, caught the well-known creak of two ofthem--one at the top, the other near the bottom, which always creaked;she could gauge his descent by them. Then came the harder ring of hisboots upon the nags of the passage. Then for a while all was quiet, while she lay with straining ears trying to ignore the sound of her ownheart that she might better hear any sounds below. 

Upon her incredulous senses came a faint scrabbling noise, a scufflingsound, clearly audible through the old worn boarding of the floor; itwas followed by the sharp clatter of an overturned chair. Then came toher a noise so often described by him that for one moment it seemed shehad heard it before, as sometimes in a day after a vivid dream theevents dreamed of seem for an irrational recurring moment actually tohave happened. A noise of choking. . . . 

It went on and on, a sound no acting could have counterfeited--a wildchoking, a frenzy of protest made by compressed lungs and windpipe. Thechoking went on and then grew fainter; at last it died away. Phoebelay soaked in sweat, her hands clutching the side of the bed, her risingbeats of pulses and heart confusing the sense of sound so much that shehardly knew when the suggestive noise from below had really ceased. 

It might have only been a few minutes she stayed there, it might havebeen an hour or more, for all she could have told; but at last, drivenby her fear, she half-fell from the bed and found the door. She drew thebolt with fingers that did not feel it, opened the door, and crept tothe head of the stairs. Not a sound came up to her. She put one barefoot forward, drew it back, then impelled by something stronger than herown will, she began the descent, holding on by the wall. She went downthe first flight, turned the corner--without looking up, for she feltvery giddy--and then went on down the stairs, still groping. At theirfoot she took a step or two along the passage and suddenly felt theshock of something solid and hairy against her face. She screamed outand looked up and saw what it was that had made those ominous sounds, that had choked out life swinging from a beam of the hall. Poor Wandahung dead, her head limply to one side, her tongue out, her furry paws, that had pattered with so much energy and glee in her master's service, dangling helplessly. 

CHAPTER III

PHOEBE PAYS TOLL

When Ishmael returned a few hours later no one had thought to cut downthe body of Wanda. Everyone was too occupied with Phoebe, and thosepeople who had come in by the hall had merely thrust the danglingobstruction aside and hurried on, with only a thought to it as the causeof the trouble upstairs. Ishmael, finding his beloved dog hanging thus, coming on it without a word of warning, felt a shock, a sense ofunbelievable outrage that made him for a moment or two think he must bedreaming or out of his mind. He put out a hand and touched the pitifulthing before conviction came upon him, and with a shout of rage and painhe gathered Wanda in his arms, calling her name, hoping for a twitch oflife. Then he whipped out his knife and sawed through the cord andlowered the body upon the floor, felt for the heart, turned up thedropped eyelids, even shook the inanimate stiffening form of his pet. Heknew it was in vain--that never again would she jump trustingly uponhim, never again would she appear absurdly with one of his slippers inher wide mouth that always seemed to smile at the joke, coming down thedrive to greet him; that never again would he have her for his untiringcompanion on his walks or upon the plateau where he was wont to lie andlook into her wise eyes and talk to her without fear of contradiction, receiving that full measure of admiration and belief that only a doggives. So much was his grief, but overpowering that simpler emotion wasa sick rage. The knowledge that rough, brutal hands must have carriedout this outrage, that in an agony of fear and astonishment she musthave yielded up her breath, struck at his heart. He got to his feet, andcarrying the body into the parlour, laid it down, then went through tothe kitchen. The dairymaid was standing over a kettle of water that washeating on the fire; the other maid stood near her. They had evidentlybeen talking together earnestly when he burst in upon them; they had noteven heard his approach. Both girls seemed excited, charged with portentbeyond the ordinary. They stood staring at Ishmael, mouths open. 

"What is the meaning of it?" he shouted at them. "How is it you are bothin here like this, and with--that left in the passage? Has everyone gonemad? What has happened?"

"Oh, maister!" ejaculated one of them, "havn't 'ee heard?"

"Heard what? I come in and find my poor dog--" He broke off; he couldnot bring himself to utter the words that would tell what he had comeupon. 

"Missus got out of the bed and found someone had hung the dog, and herwas took all of a sudden, and the doctor is overstairs weth her now, "the girl informed him; and through all her commiseration the ghoulishdelight of her kind in misfortune showed. "She'm mortal bad, they dosay, " she added. 

Ishmael stood still where he was. His mind had been subjected to tooviolent an onslaught for this fresh news to break upon it with muchadded weight. Dimly aware that the standard of these other people wouldexpect him hardly to notice the death of his dog when his wife was indanger, he did not speak again of Wanda, but all his loyalty ofaffection went out to the furry body lying helplessly in the desertedparlour, as all his sense of horror had been absorbed by the finding ofit. After that everything seemed to him more or less dreamlike; animpersonal pity and anxiety he felt and deeply, but it was as though hestood and looked on at Phoebe from outside of himself as much as fromoutside of her. 

He was first stirred to active realisation by the expression of herphysical pain; when he heard her cries, rising and falling, piercing thecalm autumn night, he went into the garden and tried to stop his ears, but the thin poignancy of those cries still rang in them. He went backto the parlour, and picking up the body of poor Wanda, carried it out toa spot of the garden where the sun fell the longest, and there, beneatha rambler rose bush, began to dig her grave furiously. Suddenly itstruck him as rather awful that it should be a grave he was busy over atsuch a moment, and he stopped. Then his deadly sense of proportion thatnever would leave him alone for long told him how little it reallymattered, and he went on with his work. Wanda was covered by a smoothedpatch of earth--he wanted no mound to bring the memory of the pity ofher before him--by the time the flame in his lantern had flickered anddied, and the late moon was riding high in the sky. He put on his coatand went again to the house. 

Phoebe's ordeal was not over till broad day had appeared and the usualsounds of farm-life had perforce begun again. With them there mingled afresh note--the cry of the new-born child, insistent, wailing, plaintive; but the cries of its mother had ceased. She lay silent in herexhaustion, amid the dim looming of the horror that had encompassed her, and she showed no interest even in the desired babe that had been laidin the curve of her arm as she had pictured him not twelve hours before. 

The ordeal had been too much for Phoebe in her weak condition; she wasnever to recover from the terror of that minute or hour when she hadlain and listened, as she thought, and as he had meant her to think, toArchelaus hanging himself in the passage below. The child, though bornprematurely and for the first few weeks a sickly little creature enough, gradually strengthened, but Phoebe's life flickered lower each hour. She did not seem frightened at the approach of death, if she realisedit, which was doubtful. It was as though she had used up all of emotionbefore and had no strength left to indulge in any now. That was howIshmael too had felt all those first hours after his homecoming; butwith a short spell of heavy, irresistible sleep the power to feelreturned to him, and he was even surprised at the depth to which he felta pang. He had not "loved" Phoebe in the sense in which thatmuch-abused word is generally used; he had felt for her a passion whichwas in itself a reaction and an affection which had diminished and notaugmented in their life together. But intimacy and custom go far towardsproducing that sense of knowledge of another human being which makes theimagination translate what the other is suffering into terms of self, and that is after all the method by which the most vivid human sympathyis evoked. He felt he knew her so well--her aims and ideas, her likesand little gusty hates, her sweetnesses and her pettiness--that hesuffered with her now more acutely than she for herself. 

Also, as her life drew out, and that feeling of something focussing, ofmany tangled threads all being drawn together, which the approach ofdeath gives, took hold of the watchers, all the external things which goto make life fell away from him and the stark roots of it stood out. This had been his mate, this fragile little thing lying there, herlistless eyes not meeting his, her limp fingers not responding to anytouch. She had been nearer to him physically than any other human being, and that she had been further mentally was swamped in that thought inthe hour when she was dying of the nearness. . . . For he had the guiltyfeeling of the man whose wife dies in childbirth, and though he toldhimself that whatever passing brute had wantonly hung the harmless doghad brought about this tragedy, that could not altogether absolve him. His poor little Phoebe--he had always known her soft heart foranimals, but even he had not guessed that the tragedy of Wanda wouldaffect her so--she who had seen so many animals killed with much lesssickening than he himself. 

As he sat by the bed there flashed on him an irrational memory of thatday in the field when the girls had found a wounded toad amidst theoat-sheaves, and how he had come up to them as they clustered round itin their pale gowns. It had been Blanche who had been most articulate inher pity, and yet Blanche had not scrupled to hurt him when it suitedher. Phoebe, till these months of irritation and the dislike which hadseemed to spring in her, had never wilfully hurt anyone. He felt he knewall of Phoebe there had been to know, and his heart softened over heras she slipped away from any power of his to tell her so. 

That flattened little form under the crumpled coverlet was Phoebe's, was the same body with which she had given him so much delight. This wasthe Phoebe who had hung about his neck in the valley and smothered hiswords upon his lips with kisses--she who had taught him her ownknowledge of love, that instinctive knowledge of Aspasia and hersisters; it was through her he had become a man. So he felt now lookingat her. 

With dawn, the day after the child's birth, it became plain that shecould hold the frail thread of her life no longer. The nurse sat on oneside of the bed; the doctor had not yet come back after leaving toattend another case. The child lay beside her, because the only time shespoke or showed any interest that night she had asked for it. Now shelay either asleep or already unconscious, her hair all pushed away fromher face, which had fallen into hollows. She looked far older than heryears--older than it would have been possible to imagine she ever couldlook. 

Ishmael sat very still, his mind as quiescent as his body; it was asthough it had been hypnotised by its steady concentration on herapproaching death as by the steady keeping of the eyes fixed on some oneglittering object. All around that one point thought had ceased;impalpable walls shut off from consciousness everything else in thescheme of things. The focussing in the quiet room sharpened, grew moreintense; the liquid light of dawn began to flood the air, and a brightshaft shot across the hill as the sun swam up over the rim of the moor. It fell across the bed, and Phoebe stirred and opened her eyes. Theirgaze rested blankly on Ishmael, wandered round the room, then fell tothe round head against her shoulder. 

The shaft of sun lay upon the baby's reddish fair fluff of hair, and thebrightness of it seemed to arrest Phoebe's look, as it might have theunreasoning gaze of a child. She put out one wavering hand and tried totouch it; her direction was uncertain, and the hand fell again withoutreaching more than the outskirts of the beam. Thinking she wished totouch the child, the nurse guided her hand, and as Phoebe felt herfingers fall about the curve of its head a faint look of content passedacross her face. Then she tried to make as though to lift her hand, butit fell sideways. The nurse moved the baby nearer her, but it was notthat that Phoebe wanted; she kept trying to touch the gleam of sunupon the white quilt. Ishmael felt a pang go through him as heremembered the girl who had once before tried to pick the sun. . . . 

A few moments later the child, as though stirred by some prescience, began to whimper and make little struggling movements--Phoebe had diedas simply as she had lived, and as secretively. 

CHAPTER IV

THE DISCOVERING OF NICKY

There followed for Ishmael a time when the sordidness inseparable from adeath in a civilised country made of everything a hideousness, and hewas aware of a rising tide of irritability in himself that he found itdifficult to keep within the decorous bounds of the subdued aspectrequired from a newly-made widower. Later, after the funeral was overand life at the Manor had somewhat settled down again, with theincongruous addition of a nurse, he began to feel that unkind touch ofthe ludicrous which accompanies the position of a young man left with ababy on his hands. He was ashamed of this feeling and tried to suppressit, but it was there nevertheless. It ceased to twinge when Vassie camedown, her husband with her, to pay him a visit--partly because, heguessed, it was to see that all was being done for the baby's welfare insuch a masculine house that she had come. 

Vassie was resplendent, and if she did not love her husband ecstaticallyshe was intensely proud of him. She had become an enthusiastic Radical, and talked of the rights of the people as to the manner bred. Ishmaelsuppressed a smile, feeling himself completely the embodiment ofopposite views, and liked her husband in spite of it. He was just notquite a gentleman--a little too vivid, too clever, too emphatic; butthat he would go far even the Parson believed. Ishmael was grateful tothe pair for coming, and never asked Vassie why she, who held suchsocialistic views, had not come to stay when Phoebe was alive. 

Afterwards he realised the chief debt he owed to Vassie was that shefirst opened his eyes to the delightfulness of his child. One evening ofwinter he happened to come in earlier than usual, at the sacred hour ofthe bath, and Vassie promptly pounced on him and made him come up to theroom she had arranged according to her modern ideas--the modernity of'69--as a nursery. A fire leapt in the grate from behind a thing like awire meat-safe that Ishmael had never seen before and that had neverbeen considered necessary to keep him or his brothers from a fierydeath. Before it was spread a creamy-hued blanket, on which stood anoval bath from whose lip a cloud of steam wavered up, the incense ofthis ritual. Vassie sat beside it, a towel over her knees, and sprawlingupon it, its bent legs kicking in the air, its tiny fists clutching ateverything and nothing with the instinctive grasp of life, lay the baby. 

James Nicholas Ruan--so called after his uncle and the Parson--was alittle over three months old, just the age when a baby begins to beattractive even to a male observer. 

Ishmael watched him as Vassie skilfully dipped and dried him, turninghim about on her lap to dust the powder into the interstices of his tinyperson, and, far from resenting this as an indignity, he seemed to thinkit all a huge joke. Yet the jollity of him, his sudden smiles and hisclutchings and wavings, all seemed addressed to himself alone--part ofsome life he alone knew, some vision he alone could see. As he wassoaped and patted, and powdered and turned, there was always the airabout him of a being really supremely independent of everyone; althoughhis body seemed so helpless one got the impression that his soul wasthoroughly aloof, untouched. When he laughed at the efforts of thegrown-ups to please him it was a sublime condescension, that was all. When something failed to please him he was recalled to the things ofthis world and set up a loud wail, which filled Ishmael with anxiety, though Vassie and the nurse remained unaccountably calm. The babyevidently was of their opinion, because he left off wailing with thesuddenness with which he had begun, and finally was tucked into hiscradle and fell soundly asleep, one tiny hand flung palm upwards uponthe pillow by his head after the manner of babies from time immemorial. 

Ishmael, though he had first held aloof and then been terrified whenVassie insisted on his taking the fragile little body in his arms, hadyet felt a thrill go through him when he did so. It was not possible fora man to have the feeling for the land that he had and not both cravefor a child and feel a deep-rooted emotion at its possession. Yet it wasmore than that, he told himself, when he felt the warm little bodyutterly dependent on him. He had taken him up before often enough, butnever in the intimacy of this evening, which held the quality of ashrine. 

He showed nothing of what he felt, but that evening, after Vassie andher ever-talking husband had settled themselves in the parlour, he wentup again to the nursery and told the nurse she could go downstairs for alittle while. Then he crossed over to the cot and, drawing back thecurtain, looked down at the little morsel lying asleep in it. This washis son, this small rosy thing, his son that would one day walk his landbeside him and would eventually take it over as his own. This was fleshof his flesh as no wife could ever be, and soul of his soul as well. 

As he looked the baby began to whimper and opened its eyes, of the milkyblue of a kitten's. Ishmael went on his knees beside the cot, and eager, absurdly eager, to be able to cope with the situation successfullyhimself, spoke as soothingly as he knew how. The baby's whimper became acry. His little hand beat the air. Ishmael struck his forefinger intothe tiny palm, and the little fingers curled round it with that amazingtenacity of babies, who can clutch and suck before they can do anythingelse--getting, always getting, from life, like all young things. Thebaby hung firmly on to the finger and his cries died down; his mouthtwitched and puckered to an absurd smile. Ishmael felt an exquisite glowsuffuse his tired heart that had been so dry for months. He dared notmake a sound for fear he broke the spell of contentment that held thebaby and himself; he stayed with his finger enwrapped by those tinyclinging fingers till long after the baby had fallen asleep again. Thenhe crept from the room, and meeting the nurse his face assumed a blankand casual expression. But his heart guarded the glow that had been lit, which grew within him. 

He began to work at Cloom as never before, because this time he was notworking for himself. As the baby grew and became more and more of adelight and a companion--and a baby can be an excellent companion--hefelt within him a steady gleam that did not flicker with the mood of thehour as so many gleams will. He told himself, as he settled into amanner of life and thought of which the child was the inalienablecentre, that this was indeed the greatest thing in life. Before this, desire paled and self died down; in the white light of this love allothers faded in smoke, except the love of heaven, of which it was apart. By heaven he meant not only the future state of the soul, but theearth on which he trod, and the only thing likely to become perniciousduring the years that followed was his obsession with the one idea andhis certainty that he had found the great secret. 

Yet in spite of the passion which held him, and which he told himselfwas the master passion, there at times, and more as the years went on, would arise in him the old feeling--the feeling that something mustsurely happen, that round the corner awaited events of which the mereexpectation made each day's awakening a glowing thing. Life was youngand insistent in his veins, and with the lifting dawns, the recurrentsprings, it began to sing anew--for him as apart from his child. Not yethad he found any one thing to make the complete round, to give himenough whereby to live without further questioning. 

CHAPTER V

CENTRIPETAL MOVEMENT

While little Nicky was still too young to need troubling over in thematter of schooling, Ishmael yet found himself for the first timeconsidering the subject, not so much as it would affect his child, butas it bore upon the children of the countryside--children such as hisown brothers had been, as he might have been himself. . . . The EducationAct had not long been passed, for it was the spring of '72 when Ishmaelbegan to take an active part in its administration in the West. He wasstill a young man, but the happenings and circumstances of his life hadmade for thoughtfulness, and association with his firebrandbrother-in-law was turning that thought into more definite channels thanformerly. Ishmael was becoming less a philosophic dreamer, and he beganto feel within himself the stirring of desire to do things. Not that hehad ever been idle, but his own little corner of the world and thedefinite work he had had to do in it had hitherto filled the practicalpart of life for him. Now that Cloom was so far set upon the upward wayas to allow him more liberty, bigger though not dearer ideas began togerminate within him. 

The years his youth had seen were stirring enough; the excitements andscandals of the Crimean War, the chief topic during the time just beforehe went to St. Renny, had been followed, in his first year there, by thetragedy of the Mutiny and the wild stories that had filled the land atthe time. Then, even in Cornwall, the question of the liberation ofslaves had been a burning one, and that, combined with the sad tales ofdistress caused in the North and Midlands, had made the American war alive matter. Ever since he had heard Russell and Gladstone fighting forthe doomed Reform Bill of '66--heard, above all, Bright's magic flow ofwords--the political world had held a reality for him it never hadbefore. Ever since he too had been swept with the crowds to Hyde Park onthat memorable day when the people of England had shown their will soplainly he had felt within him a rising sense of the necessity ofreforms. Not till he met his brother-in-law, Dan, had it really becomeclear to him that there lay his own path. . . . Up till then, after thefashion of the young who have not been directly incited either byupbringing or an exceptional temperament to deeds bigger thanthemselves, he had been very engrossed with the personal life of himselfand those he knew. Whenever he had projected beyond that--as he did in adegree incomprehensible to his family--it had been into the intangibleregions of the spirit. 

Now, with the first fine rapture of youth already faded, but itsenthusiasm left burning for scope, with his emotional capacitiesexhausted for a long time to come and his mind sickened of the intimatematters of life, now he was ripening every day for the more material butimpersonal energies involved in helping other people's minds and bodies. As usual, any measure took far longer to sink in in Cornwall thanup-country, and the Education Bill might for long have remained an emptysound as far as Penwith was concerned if it had not been for Boase, Ishmael, and several others of the local gentry. The Nonconformists werestill bitter against it, and there were riots and much heartburningamong the poor. They resented having their children sent to school tolearn more than their parents instead of helping them by earning almostas soon as their little legs could stagger. Indignation meetings wereheld in the local chapels, and the Parson was once stoned from behind ahedge. He, though by nature a Conservative, was too truly a wise as wellas a compassionate man not to see the crying need for reforms, andthough of necessity he deplored the creeping in of undenominationalism, yet he knew his parish was too poor to support adequate Church schools, and he was glad enough to see children in a way to receive someeducation. He smiled at the idea of the Bible being "explained" withouta leaning to any particular creed, but he relied on his own Sundayschool to supply that want. Also perhaps even he was not averse tosupporting what had so violently the disapprobation of theNonconformists. . . . There was no particular force in the objections ofthese latter in that district, as the Church school, the only one formiles, would not be large or convenient enough to come under the Stateaid of the Bill, so almost from the first it was a matter of buildingone of the new Board schools, where the undenominational system abhorredby Boase would be all that would hold sway. 

Ishmael's first definite outward movement came about on an evening whenBoase came up to the Manor to see him and the Flynns, who were stayingwith him at the time. Nicky was then three years old, and a dailygrowing delight to Ishmael, but the Parson was not without a guilefulplot to wean him somewhat from that allegiance. He had begun toconsider--probably because Daniel Flynn, deeply as he disagreed from himin many respects, had stirred him to the wider issues--that Ishmael mustbe made to take a hand in other affairs than the ordering of his estateand the upbringing of his son. He had watched with alarm the increasinginwardness of the man he loved, to him always the boy he remembered--aninwardness not towards egoism, for that Ishmael's distrust ofindividualism, would always prevent, but towards a vague Quietism thatenwrapped him more and more. His son, deeply as he engrossed him, rather increased this trend than otherwise, and Boase, casting about forother influences, had irresistibly thought of Flynn. 

Daniel Flynn was a living mass of contradictions. An Irishman and adisciple of the O'Connell tradition, he was yet--though the word had notthen been coined--an Imperialist, for his Canadian sympathies werestrong, and he knew that not yet could the Colonies be entirely cutloose from the Mother Country. A Liberal, he had been an ardentsupporter of the Dominion scheme evolved under the Tory Government ofDerby. He revered the memory of Durham, that large-ideaed, generous-hearted, spectacular nobleman whose crime had been to hold bythe spirit rather than by the letter, and whom Dan declared to be thefather not only of Canada, but of the modern Colonial system. Though heheld the Crimean War to be an error of policy and the Chinese War of '57to be an abomination, he never joined with those of Palmerston'sdetractors who accused him of being too French in his sympathies. Heinveighed against all wars in the abstract, yet raged at the loyalty ofO'Connell, which, by stopping short at the use of rebellious force, hadalienated his adherents; and he himself had borne arms for Garibaldi. Hehad been among the most passionate critics of the manner in which thetrial of the Manchester Fenians had been conducted and at the sentencepronounced against them, but his Imperialist and O'Connellised self haddeprecated the action of the Fenians in the first place. He was aCatholic by blood and an agnostic by temperament; the former made himabhor blasphemy, and the latter definite boundaries. He was a followerof Russell, that aristocrat of reform, and yet voted against his ReformBill, as many Liberals did, because it was half-hearted. He was anIrish-Canadian and sat for a manufacturing town in the Midlands. 

Daniel Flynn was a man whose brain was too finely balanced not to seefairly, but whose sympathies were so passionately partisan they were forever swaying action to one side or other of the true point of equity. Onthis evening the Parson found him in fine fettle for a talk, and ifnecessary for a fight. He was sitting in the parlour with Vassie, buthis whole soul was with a letter he had had from Ireland telling of adisastrous case where the new Irish Land Act, of which even Dan hadhoped great things, had failed more signally than usual. 

"Listen to this, " he burst forth almost as soon as Boase was seated, "and tell me if that fool Government doesn't want hanging as high asthose poor Fenians! Here's a man in my own country, where the littlecabin is that saw me born, before ever me father took me to the newcountry; and his landlord has told him he'll not give him a penny piecefor the shed and the new wall and the garden patch he's made out of thebare earth with his own hands. And him going to America, and the moneythe scoundrel ought to pay him for them would take his family across incomfort, and his wife with child at the blessed moment!"

Boase held his head in comic bewilderment, and Dan laughed a little andcalmed down. 

"And why can't he make the landlord pay, you'd ask? Because the spalpeenhad it in writing from him when the Bill was passed that if he put on anew roof to keep the wet off a dying child he should never enforce theterms of the Act against him. . . . Didn't I vote against the Act becauseof the very clause allowing that? I knew the landlords and the devil'stricks they'd be up to. . . . Saving your presence, Ishmael, old fellow, landlords are the scum of the earth!"

"At least you can't accuse me of being an absentee landlord, " saidIshmael, smiling. 

"No, indeed, " chimed in Vassie almost indignantly. "If you knew allhe's done here, Dan, it's like a miracle. I don't believe wages or thestandard of living could be lower in Ireland than they were here whenIshmael took the place in hand. "

"I believe you, " said Flynn. "It's myself thinks Ishmael has it in himto be a grand reformer; that's why I can't bear to see him wastinghimself over morals and manure when he could be working away at thebettering of the world. "

Ishmael laughed, but the Parson took up the suggestion seriously. 

"The world's a large order, " he said, "but this particular corner of it, perhaps. . . . There's several matters down here would be the better forthe gentry taking more interest in them. These new school boards, forinstance--"

"Ah, the children. . . !" cried Flynn, the light of the enthusiastspringing into his fine eyes. "They're what matter, when all's said anddone. If we get the children we get the world. Every generation has init the millennium, the seeds of Utopia. "

"The phantom cities of Fata Morgana . . . " said the Parson with a sigh. "But we're all the better for sighting them, even so. What d'you thinkof the suggestion, Ishmael?"

"What? I didn't know there'd been one made. "

"That you should be on this new board, " said the Parson boldly. "LordLuxullyan has had to retire through illness; he himself suggested youshould take his place. "

Ishmael was stricken silent for a moment. The idea seemed to him alittle absurd, but Boase and Flynn, both of whom he respected, seemedalight with enthusiasm. He thought it over as well as he could in ashort space. Perhaps there might be something in it after all. Heremembered his own youth, how, if it had not been for the especialinterest taken in him by the Parson, he, like his brothers, might havehad to be content with the bare elements of reading and writing imbibedat the local dame school whenever Annie chose they should go. Tom hadbeen the only one to educate himself further by his own efforts; hehimself, he believed, would never have done as much as Tom. All aroundhim he saw the children of his tenants growing up in ignorance, tooill-educated even to respond to his schemes for advancing them, fortheir better health and conditions of labour. He knew there wasopposition to this new scheme, that the Parson had come in for a shareof obloquy, and that the parents themselves, in some cases were theirchildren's enemies. And lastly, in that swift flashing before him ofthese thoughts, came the image of Nicky--of Nicky whose intelligence wasdaily showing as a brighter thing, whose jolly little presence meant somuch of the future to him, on whom he was building his own life-work ashe had up till now conceived of it. How if it were his Nicky who wasdestined never to learn, never to be pulled out of the slough of deadlycontent, never to know any of the things that make life rich and thehorizon not only the material one proscribed by locality? Thecountryside was full of little Nickies--not so finely dowered by nature, doubtless thicker of skull and soul, but still little Nickies. . . . Betterco-workers with Nicky these could be made. For the first time he saw notonly Cloom and his own tenants, but the whole countryside that he knewso well, growing finer, freer. 

And it was all about a school board! An ordinary enough thing now, whencustom has staled it and the many faults in the system have becomevisible; but, printing once invented, school boards could no more beheld back than the eventual express railway engine once Hero ofAlexandria had made his little experiments with a steam kettle. Aboutthe benefit of either there may be two opinions, but none about theirinevitability. 

At the time of the Forster Act the school board was a new and thrillingthing, one more sign of the approaching day when reform should have madea perfect world. Very famous and great people did not scorn to sit uponit, and the whole movement was considered in the light of a benevolentrevolution. Ishmael, seeing with the eyes of his age and time, tingledto the thought. It was the first occasion on which the cup of ambitionhad been held before him, and to him it was momentous. He said little, but did not try and dissuade the Parson when he declared he would takethe matter to the authorities, and he listened to Flynn for the rest ofthat evening with less the sensation of the outsider, the mere onlooker, than ever before. 

Reform, reform, was Daniel's theme, especially the reform of the wholevoting system. He was a keen advocate of increased franchise and theballot, and here the Parson differed from him. The Parson, in his heartof hearts, would have taken the vote away from most of the people heknew; he would certainly not have enlarged its scope, and as to thesystem of the secret ballot-box, he was too used to knowing what all hisparishioners did with their votes and to guiding their hands. . . . Therewere steps he could not take with Flynn; but Ishmael, listening, beganto waver in his allegiance towards the Parson. His own nature would havesupported the idea of secret voting even if his progressive spirit, theeager spirit of youth that can put all right, had not urged him to be onthe side of things new. Already he had once or twice found himselffailing to support the Parson's advocacy of Derby, and in debate upheldGladstone against Disraeli. This evening it dawned upon him that Boasewas not infallible, that times had moved past him. . . . The dear oldParson, of course he would always feel just the same about him; butafter all he had stayed down here too long and was getting old . . . Hecould not be expected to know as much as younger men. 

It was only towards the end of the evening that Ishmael's complacencyreceived a slight prick that made it waver. Dan had told of an Irishmanwho, after winning a case against his landlord, had hidden behind ahedge and shot him on the way home from the court. 

"It was his heart was broken by all the trouble of it, " said Flynn, "andwhen the victory was his he didn't want it. If he'd lost his case hewouldn't have done it. But it's a difficult thing to get into the headof a jury, especially when it's a packed jury of black Protestants fromthe North. "

"We don't make nearly enough account, in our laws or our private lives, of which of the two great divisions any deed falls into, " said theParson. 

"What divisions?" asked Flynn curiously. 

"The divisions of what one may call the primary and secondary--I mean, if a deed be born of itself, a pure creation, or whether it is theresult of a reaction. I have had more girls 'go wrong' after a religiousrevival than at any other time. Pure reaction! I firmly believe reactionis at the bottom of half the marriages and all the divorces of theworld. "

"It's at the back of quite half the crime, " assented Flynn, "and murdershould certainly be classified under that distinction. "

"It's at the bottom of nearly all the decisive steps in a man's ownlife, " said Ishmael thoughtfully. He was thinking that his self-createdimpulses seemed to have ceased with the death of his love for Blanche. She and Cloom had both been passions born of their own inevitablenecessity. But his marriage came under the heading of "reaction" if everanything did. He wondered whether this new fire he felt beginning towarm him did not partake of some quality of reaction also--reaction fromthe dreams and undisciplined longings of adolescence which had servedhim so badly. At the thought the glow died down, and greyness spreadover the vague budding schemes that had begun to swell life out. 

"But one mustn't confuse the law of reactions with that of cause andeffect, " the Parson went on, "which it is easy to do if you let yourselfthink sloppily. "

Dan pounced on the point eagerly. "No, indeed, or it's all reforms wouldbe only on the secondary plane, instead of which any reform worthy thename is a pure impulse of creation. I don't believe any deed, public orprivate, of the finest calibre can come under the head of the secondarytype. "

"Perhaps not, " said Boase, "but it's all the more important adistinction. Both the foolish and the criminal deed are less blameworthyif they are the result of some violent reaction, even if the fine deedis the less unalloyed. "

Thinking it over that night with his accustomed honesty, Ishmael came tothe conclusion that it was the law of cause and effect, and not the lawof reactions, which prompted his new stirrings, and he was as nearlyright as any man may be about his own motive power. 

CHAPTER VI

THE NATION AND NICKY

The school board was only a beginning, and, though Ishmael never yieldedto Dan's persuasiveness to the extent of standing for Parliament, hetook an increasing share in local administration. Reform was in the air;it was the great time of reforms, when men burned over what would nowseem commonplaces, so used are we become to the improvements these menmade. 

When Gladstone dissolved Parliament in '74 and made his appeal to thecountry to reinstate the Liberals, Ishmael boldly made up his mind as tohis own convictions and supported the Liberal candidate. But England wassick of the Liberals, in spite of the reforms of the late Government. The dread of Home Rule, the defeat of the Ministry over the unpopularIrish Universities Bill, and the ill-feeling aroused by the payment ofthe fine to the United States for the depredations of the_Alabama_--which was to have marked the beginning of a new era when alltroubles would be settled by arbitration--these things had all, thoughnone had loomed as large in the popular imagination as the greatTichborne case, contributed to the weariness felt where Mr. Gladstonewas concerned. Ishmael, unswayed by the childish temper of the nation, based his convictions chiefly upon the condition of the lower classes, which he had too good cause to know was entirely unsatisfactory. Not allthe old English squiredom of Mr. Disraeli--surely the most incongruousfigure of a squire that ever gave prizes to a cap-touchingtenantry--could persuade Ishmael that the labourer might live and rear afamily in decency on ten shillings a week. The labourer had just sprunginto prominence in the eyes of the world, but Ishmael had known himintimately for years. The Ballot Act having been passed in '72, thiselection held a charm, a secret excitement, new in political history;but in West Penwith the people were so anxious to impress Ishmael withthe fact that they had voted the way he wished, or if it were the Parsonwhose favour they coveted, to tell that gentleman that the Conservativecandidate had had the benefit of their votes, that much of the objectiveof voting by ballot was lost. Except, as Ishmael observed, that theywere all quite likely to be lying anyway. . . . 

As all the world knows, Gladstone's party failed to get in, largelyowing to the influence of the publicans and brewers, who had beenalarmed at his attempts to regulate the liquor traffic, and Mr. Disraelicame into power; the pendulum had swung once more. Daniel Flynn had paida flying visit to the West and made a few impassioned speeches in favourof the Liberal candidate, and Ishmael had driven him about the country. If Blanche Grey could have looked ahead she might have seen fit to standby her bargain after all. That Vassie and her Irish firebrand should sitat dinner with Lord Luxullyan, that Ishmael should be called upon toreceive with the other county potentates a Royal princeling on a tour inthe West--who could have foretold these things? Certainly not Ishmaelhimself; and though the Parson had had limitless ambitions for him, hehad never thought of them in actual terms. 

Neither was Boase altogether happy about the path in life of hisspiritual son, although that path seemed to lead, in its unobtrusivemanner, upward. It was an age when materialism was to the fore, when theold faiths had not yet seen their way to harmonise with the undeniablefacts of science, when morality itself was of a rather priggish andmaterial order. And Ishmael would in not so many years now be reachingthe most material time of life--middle age. At present he was very muchunder the sway of two entirely different people--Daniel Flynn and littleNicky. 

When Nicky reached the age of eight years he was entrancing, very muchof a personage, and to Ishmael a delightful enigma. Nicky was so vivid, so full of passing enthusiasm, so confident of himself, with none of thediffidence that had burdened Ishmael's own youth. He was not a prettyboy, but a splendidly healthy-looking one, with fair hair, not curly, but rough, that defied all the blandishments of Macassar oil, and longlimbs, rather supple than sturdy, for ever growing out of his clothes. He had the pretty coaxing ways of a young animal--Phoebe's ways, witha bolder dash in them; and his brown eyes looked at one so frankly thatit was a long time before Ishmael could bring himself to understand thatthis son of his was apparently without any feeling for the truth. It wasnot so much that he lied as that he seemed incapable of discriminatingbetween the truth and a lie; whatever seemed the most pleasant thing tosay at the moment Nicky said, and hoped for the best. It was a problem, but Boase was less worried by it than the young father. 

"Children often seem to have a natural affinity for the false instead ofthe true, " he said, "and they grow out of it when they begin to see moreplainly. The great thing is not to frighten him so that he doesn't dareadmit it when he's lied. "

Ishmael accepted the Parson's advice thankfully; besides having adistaste for the idea of corporal punishment, he could hardly have borneto hurt the eager, bright creature who always hung about him soconfidingly when in the mood, but who had no compunction in not goingnear him for days, except to say good-morning and good-night, when inone of his elusive fits. 

Vassie, who had no children of her own, adored her little nephew, andwas very proud of him, so one way and another it was not remarkable thatNicky was in a fair way to be spoilt. Already he was too much aware ofhis own charm, of the fact that to these kind but rather stupid people, whom it was so easy to deceive, he was wonderful. He seemed to be aclean-natured boy, but what he did and did not know it would have beenhard to say, as, added to a certain secretiveness which in differentways both Phoebe and Ishmael possessed, there was in him a strain ofelusiveness; you could not coerce him to a definiteness he did not wishany more than you could catch a butterfly by stabbing at it in air witha needle. 

Ishmael would sometimes observe him quietly when the boy was unaware ofscrutiny, and always the mere sight of the round close-cropped head, thedelicious idle busyness of childhood, the air at once of import andcarelessness it holds, disarmed and captured him. It seemed to him to behis own younger self he was watching, and the pathos of unconsciousyouth, slipping, slipping, imperceptibly but swiftly, struck at hisheart. How little while ago it seemed since he had been like Nicky, intent on profound plans, busy in a small but vivid sphere whichfocussed in self, which swayed and expanded and grew incredibly brightor dark beyond hope at such slight happenings! Looking back on his ownchildhood, drawing on it for greater comprehension of his Nicky, henever could connect it up with his present self, it always seemed to hima different Ishmael that he saw, who had nothing to do with the one heknew nowadays. He saw his own figure, small and alive, as he might havelooked at some quite other person into whose nature he had been giftedwith the power to see clearly, not as himself younger, less developed. In the same way he regarded his early manhood, when he looked back uponthe ardent boy who had loved Blanche and staked all of intensity thatapparently he was capable of on that one personality. Phoebe too. . . . 

With memory of her he felt more alien still, unless he were looking atNicky; then he would have a queer sensation that he was seeing someembodiment of what she had stood for to the passionate Ishmael who hadmarried her. Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like if shehad not died. . . . She would have lost her charm perhaps, becomecoarser--or would that peculiar dewy softness of hers have survived theencroachments of the years? Further apart they would inevitably havegrown; less and less of sympathy between them would have beeninevitable. So much his honesty had to admit. Passion, which heflattered himself he had so mastered, almost as though it had beenshocked out of him on that terrible night of waiting for its fruit tocome and rend the mother's life away from her--would passion have lived?He knew that as anything individual between her and him it could nothave, so that he would always have been meaning to deny its claims, andwould always have been falling into what would have become a mere customof the flesh impossible to break, only yielding, after years of it, toboredom. 

From that he had been saved, and he gave thanks without pretence, forwith the freedom of his body was enwrapped the freedom of his soul. Yethe was still a young man when Nicky was nearing "double figures"--onlyin the early thirties. To him the years that had passed since Nicky'sbirth were so different in quality from all that had gone before that itwas small wonder they seemed to him another life and he himself anotherperson. Nicky had been the dominating human factor; the public life ofthe times, as it affected his own corner in particular, the chiefinterest which had kept him hard at work, too busy for the dreams of hisunsatisfied youth. He had altered, hardened, sharpened, become more of aman of the world, thought himself contented, and in action and practicalaffairs drowned mental speculation and emotion. 

This was the Ishmael of the late 'seventies, a being altered indeed, butnot more so than the England of that period was from the England of the'fifties and 'sixties. That she had grown, improved, set her house inbetter order, it would have been futile to deny--the improvements wereof the visible kind, patent to all men. That Mr. Disraeli's new policyof Imperialism was to be a great and splendid thing there were few menamong the Liberals wise enough to foresee, and Ishmael was not yetamongst them. That he himself had grown, developed, become a usefulmember of society, no one who knew him would have denied, but whetherhis growth had been altogether towards the light was another question. The old Parson was a wise and a patient man who had gone too far alonglife's road to take any stage in it as necessarily final, and he watchedand bided the time perhaps more prayerfully, certainly more silently, than of yore. Ishmael never failed in consideration, in affection, butthere had grown a barrier that was not entirely made of a difference inpolitics. He knew it even if Ishmael, the child of his heart, seemed notto care enough one way or the other to be aware of it. 

One day, a sunlit blowy day of spring, when the cloud-shadows drewswiftly over the dappled hills and the young corn was showing its firstfine flames of green, Ishmael received a letter. Long after it had comehe sat with it in his hand, reading and re-reading it. A tinge ofexcitement, a heady something he had long not felt, because it waspurely personal, went through and through him as he read. The letter wasfrom Killigrew, from whom he had heard nothing for several years, and itheld news to awake all the old memories in a flood. The letter began byasking for news of Ishmael, and went on with a brief dismissal of thewriter's own life during the past years. It had been the "usualthing"--no small measure of success, friendships, women, play and work. What mattered was that Killigrew had suddenly taken it into his head hemust come down again to Cloom. He was coming and at once. He gave a fewcharacteristic reasons. 

"I have lost something and till yesterday I couldn't for the life of metell what, " wrote Killigrew. "It's been a good time, and I've enjoyedmost of it, but suddenly it occurred to me that really I wasn't enjoyingit as much as I thought I was, as much as I used to. I lay on the lawnof this confounded suburban villa whence I'm writing to you now--I'mputting in a few days at my mother's--and I was doing nothing particularbut think over a lot of old times. And there came into my mind withoutany warning--flashed into it rather--a saying of my old master's inParis. He was a wise old bird, the wisest I ever knew--somehow remindsme of your old Padre, though you couldn't meet two men more different. And what I remembered was this. 'The test of any picture, or indeed ofany of the arts, is whether or not it evokes ecstasy. ' I don't knowwhether it's the test of the arts, but I know it's the test of life. Andthat is what I've lost. Ecstasy! One still feels it now and again, ofcourse, but how more and more rarely! Well, I lay on the lawn, with thislight flooding in on me, and suddenly I opened my eyes and what do youthink I saw? There was a flock of starlings in the sky, and I opened myeyes full on 'em, so that I got 'em against the west, which was full ofsunset. They were flying in a dense mass between me and the glow. Icould see their beating wings in serried ranks of black V-shapes. And, quite suddenly, at some bird-command communicated--heaven knows how--thewhole flock of them heeled over, presenting nothing but the narrow edgeof their wings, hair-fine, all but invisible. In that one flashingmoment the whole solid crowd of birds seemed to vanish, as thoughswallowed up by a shutter of sky. I'd never seen it before, and I mighthave gone through life without the luck to see it. I can tell you, itmade me tingle. I could have shouted aloud, but the sound of my ownvoice would have spoilt it so. I got ecstasy all right that time, and Irealised with a pang of gratefulness that it's the impersonal thingsthat produce ecstasy. In personal contact you may get delirium, butthat's not the same thing. This, says I, is the sort of thing I'm after. And so of course I thought of you and that wonderful place of yours andthat nice solid impersonality that always wrapped you round and made youso restful. So I'm coming down. I won't stay with you; find me digssomewhere--I'm better on my own. "

Ishmael read so far, where the letter ended abruptly; there was, however, a postscript:--"P. S. --Do you remember Judith Parminter? Shewants a holiday and is coming down with a friend. If Mrs. Penticost isstill in the land of the living you might fix up for them there. "

Ishmael followed out all Killigrew's instructions, but that night hetook the letter over to Boase. It was as though the atmosphere of theold days re-established by its arrival, the habit of the old days, claimed him sub-consciously. The Parson read it, but did not commentbeyond the obvious remark that it would all be very pleasant. AfterIshmael had gone he sat and thought for a long while. What struck himas noteworthy was that Killigrew should have been satiated with thepersonal, which he had cultivated so assiduously, at the moment when, orso it seemed to him, Ishmael, after a life spent for so long in theimpersonal, might be expected to react in exactly the oppositedirection. Ishmael, as he walked home, was only aware that the letterhad stirred him beyond the mere pleasurable expectation of once againseeing his friend. That one word "ecstasy" had stung him to somethingthat had long been dormant--the desire to feel life again as somethingwonderful, that did not only content but could intoxicate as well. Hewas unaware of this revulsion, and was only vaguely surprised that aqueer discontent should mingle with his pleasure. 

CHAPTER VII

PARADISE COTTAGE AGAIN

When the train came slowly into the station and clanked to rest with along, tired sigh of steam, Ishmael's first search was for Killigrew'sred beard and pale face. While his gaze roved up and down the line ofcarriages a couple of women, one of whom seemed to know him, swam intohis range of vision and distracted his attention. 

It was nearly ten years since he had seen Judith Parminter, and hestared for a moment in bewilderment. Fashion had undergone in thoseyears one of its rare basic changes. Instead of the swelling curveswhich had been wont to encompass women, so that they seemed to floatupon proud waves, skirts had become a species of swaddling clothescaught back below the knees, whence a series of frills clung tightlyabout the feet. Rows of flutings, tuckings and what-not, confoundedsimplicity of line, but all the drapery was pulled in a backwardsdirection and puffed to a sudden bulkiness behind, so that women lookedas though they were walking in the face of a perpetual wind. On theirheads they were wont to perch delicious little hats, poked forward, incontradistinction to the trend of the draperies, slanting nosewards andtilted up in the rear by plaited chignons. 

Of the two women advancing towards Ishmael, the tall dark one, by farthe elder, wore under a black silk jacket a gown of soft red, theterra-cotta then beginning to be in vogue amidst the artistic elect, butit was smartly cut, whereas the peacock blue garment of her companionshowed a depressing sloppiness, which was not helped out by thedrooping rows of many-coloured beads which were slung round her throator the peacock feathers that trailed from her shovel hat of gauged silk. This girl, Ishmael saw vaguely, had a pale chubby face like a child, butthe long, dark countenance of the other, lit by a smile of recognition, was suddenly familiar to him. Only--Judy had become a woman, a thin, rather sad-looking woman, with a melancholy that was not the old effectof tragedy for which her monkey-look and the bistre shadows beneath hereyes had been responsible without any deeper cause. The monkey-look wasthere still, but Judy was almost beautiful in spite, or perhaps moretruly because, of it. Ishmael felt her lean, strong hand, ungloved, comeinto his. 

"I knew it was you!" exclaimed Judy in the husky voice he remembered. "You've changed, but only along the lines one would have expected. Mr. Killigrew can't come--not for a day or two. He told me to tell you he'dtry to get down by the end of the week. May I introduce you to MissGeorgie Barlow?"

Another hand was thrust into his, with a sudden _gauche_ movement thatwas not without a girlish charm. Ishmael found himself looking at thepale chubby face, and the only thing he noticed in it was the mouth. Georgie Barlow stayed in his mind as "the girl with the mouth, " as shefrequently did to those who met her even once. She had a wonderfulmouth, and was wont to declare it to be her only feature. It was notvery red, but very tenderly curved, the lips short, flat in modellingand almost as wide at the ends as the centre, which just saved them frombeing a cupid's bow. The corners were deeply indented, tucked in likethose of a child. Not only the lips but the planes of the chin andcheeks immediately around them were good, very tender in colour andcurves, with the faint blur of fine golden down to soften them stillmore. 

Such was Georgie Barlow--a short, rounded little creature, with a bareneck that was not long but delicate, and surrounded by three "creases ofVenus" like that of a baby. Her rather small but frank blue eyes held aboyish look that was intensified by the fact that her hair was cut shortafter the new fashion in a certain set and brushed almost to her faireyebrows in a straight fringe in front, while on the nape of her neck itcurved in little drake's tails of soft brown. The blue beads riding upher neck ruffled the tails like tiny feathers. 

Both she in her "artistic" way and Judy in her quiet smartness were verydifferent from the women Ishmael had been seeing of late years--thedowdy county ladies or Vassie in her splendid flamboyance. He felt oddlyshy with them; the ageing of Judy, so marked and somehow sounexpected--she had seemed such a child only ten years ago--made himfeel she was as much of a stranger as her little companion, and therewas also about her some new quality he could not but feel, a somethingaloof, a little hard, for all her gentleness of manner. He had neverenvisaged her as growing into this self-possessed woman, whose mostnoticeable quality, had it not been for her aloofness, would have been acertain worldliness. He felt his dreams of the old time rudely upset. Killigrew's erratic defection, the altered feeling of Judy, which madehim uncertain even whether to call her by her Christian name as of oldor not, the presence of this oddly-attired girl with the mouth, were allso different from what he had been expecting. He told himself that whenKilligrew did arrive he also would probably be a different creature fromof old, not knowing that exactly what made Killigrew such a wearingperson to keep up with was that he never changed, only became morehimself. 

Judith was not very illuminating on the subject when he questioned her, merely answering him with an affirmative when he asked her whether shehad seen a good deal of Killigrew since the old days, and he was forcedto keep company with his curiosity till Killigrew should appear out ofthe blue a few days hence. 

Meanwhile, he drove the two ladies to Mrs. Penticost's, Judy saying thatas they had luggage she thought it would be simpler to go straight thereinstead of stopping for supper at the Manor. The next day, however, bothwere to meet Boase there for tea. 

Meanwhile Ishmael had to relinquish them to the care of Mrs. Penticostand go back to the Manor, feeling discontented and unable to settle toanything, while at the same time he was not at all sure he was glad thatKilligrew had ever taken it into his head to come down and send hisharem, as Ishmael annoyedly termed it to himself, before him. Not soMrs. Penticost. She still called Judith her lamb, and after folding herto her portly breast was not likely to feel any tremors when she heldher off to gaze at her. 

"You'm gone through somethen' since I saw 'ee, my dear, " she announcedcandidly. "There's lines under your pretty eyes that dedn' belong to bethere. I shouldn' wonder if it wasn't the men as had putt en there. Menfolk are like children--they'm a pack of worry, but the women can'tget along happy wethout en. "

"Well, at least I haven't any children, Mother Penticost, " said Judy, laughing. 

"Aren't married, are you, my dear? Mr. Ruan ded say 'Miss Parminter' toI when he came about the rooms. "

"No, I'm not married. "

"And why's that?" demanded the direct Mrs. Penticost. "Not because theyhaven't asked 'ee, I'll lay. Couldn't 'ee fancy none of en, my dearsawl?"

"Not enough for that, apparently. "

"I used to think you and that Killigrew weth his red head and his freetongue would make a match of it, but I suppose it was not to be. . . . Never mind, my dear. We never goes to church weth the first one as takesour fancy. "

"Oh, I shall never marry!" declared Judith lightly. "By the way, I hearMr. Ruan has a beautiful boy, Mrs. Penticost. "

"Aw, dear sawl, so he have. Best thing that flighty little faggot to themill ever ded was to make that babe. Children's a deal of trouble, though, so they are. Some has boys and wants maids, and some has onlymaids and provokes the Lard to send en boys, as though there weren'tenough men in the world. No pleasing some folks. "

"They're a trouble that's well worth while, anyway. Children, I mean, "said Judith. 

"Ah! so some of us says as hasn't got en. We can all stand any joys thatcome along, but we'd all like to have the choosen' of our troubles, "replied Mrs. Penticost non-committally. 

"I certainly think children must be the nicest troubles one can choose, "remarked Judith. 

"There's many a poor maid that's thought otherwise, " responded Mrs. Penticost. 

"Oh, well, I didn't mean that way . . . That's a trouble for the childrentoo when they grow up . . . Worse than for the mother. That's why it'swicked to have them like that. I meant if one were married. "

"It's not all honey then, my dear. Look at Jenny Trewen down to thechurch-town. She'm never had naught but boys, and she sticks everyvirtue on that maid she always wanted and that never came. 'Twould havebeen just the same if it had been the other way on, if you see what I domane. 'Tes the babes as never are born that lie nearest to a mother'sheart. . . . "

"What a terrible theory!" broke in Georgie, swinging her legs as shesat perched upon the corner of the table. "And according to the sametheory, are the men one never meets the nicest, and the picture onenever paints the finest, and the kiss that never comes off thesweetest?"

Mrs. Penticost turned and surveyed her with a kindly tolerance for herimpertinent youth. 

"You'm spaken' truer than you do knaw, " she told her. "And truer thanyou'll knaw for many a day to come if you'm one of the lucky ones. Now Isuppose you'll be like you always were, Miss Judy, washing the life outof 'ee weth hot water? The bath's gone up overstairs. "

Judy laughingly got to her feet and went up to her room. She was verytired; though she was tenacious of constitution, the first elasticity ofyouth was gone from her, and she was glad of the warm water, the softbed, the light meal of eggs and cocoa that Mrs. Penticost brought herwhen she was between the sheets. Ishmael was not the only one who felt adeadening of the spirit that night, and even on awakening the followingmorning. Judith had carried that about with her in her consciousness forenough years now to recognise the old weight upon her thoughts onawakening. But Georgie, triumphant, healthy, full of excitement at thenew world that lay beyond the low wall of Paradise Cottage, ran intoJudith's room, the "best" bedroom, the one Blanche Grey had had when thechildish Judy had been wont to come in as Georgie came in to the womanJudy now. The turn of the wheel struck upon Miss Parminter's mind as shelay and watched the slim, sturdy young thing perched upon the end of thebed, her boyish head bare and a ray of morning sun tingeing its softbrown to a brighter hue and showing up the clearness of her pale mattskin. 

"I don't think I much like your hero of romance, " grumbled Georgie. "Hetook precious little notice of either of us, and he looks so surly. "

"He's not my hero, " objected Judy, "he's Joe's; and I'm sure he isn'treally surly. I think he was disappointed at not seeing Joe. "

"Well, it was very ungallant of him when we turned up all right. I havea good mind to flirt outrageously with him to punish him. And when he'sdeeply in love with me I shall say 'No, thank you, sir! I've no use forsurly squires, and I've a young man of my own at home. '"

"Georgie, you're to do nothing of the sort. You know I told you allabout him to make you careful. He was abominably treated by that catBlanche, and I won't have it happen again. "

"Well, I don't suppose I shall have a chance. I don't suppose he'll lookat me. I don't think country bumpkins are educated up to my peculiarstyle of beauty. " And Georgie stroked her ridiculous little nose with anaffectation of content. 

"Thank heaven you aren't a beauty, or there'd be no holding you at all!"

"That's just where you mistake. If I were really pretty, instead ofhaving a _petit minois chiffoné_ I should be able to sit placidly andleave it all to my profile. As it is I have to exert myself to charm, and everyone knows charm is far more fatal to man than mere looks. I amrather fascinating, aren't I, in spite of my pudding face? What wasBlanche like, Judy? Didn't you see her the other day in town?"

"Yes, I met her at a Private View, " admitted Judy. "She had sort of goneto pieces, if you know what I mean. I don't suppose it was a suddenprocess really, but it came on me suddenly. "

"What did she look like?"

"As large as life and twice as unnatural. She had lost her 'eye' formaking up, as they say everyone does, and the rouge stood out on thewhite powder so that you could see it a mile off. She gushed at me, andI felt she wasn't meaning a single word she said. She had her husbandwith her and introduced him. She even patronised me for not having one. I didn't say I'd sooner not than have one like hers, because shewouldn't have believed me, and it would have been rude. But he was alittle wisp of a man--a seedy little clerk. She knew she couldn't carryoff the idea of having made a good match from a worldly point of view, so she murmured something to me about how beautiful true love was whenit was the 'real thing, ' and how she had never known what the meaning oflife was till she met 'Teddie. ' Do stop me; I'm being an awful cat! Butthat woman aroused all the cat in me; she's such an awful liar, and aliar is the worst of sinners, because he--or perhaps more generallyshe--is so absolutely disintegrating to the whole social fabric. "

"I suppose she must have been very fascinating once upon a time. "

"She was, though, oddly enough, men either hated her or were deeply inlove with her, and as time went on the sort that were in love with hergrew more and more fearful. But it was young girls she attracted most. Iused to think her the most wonderful thing in the world, and I used tobe enraged if I introduced her to anyone and they hated her at sight. Ifone's eye for making up gets out as one grows older, one's eye for lifegets a more and more deadly clearness--unless you're like Blanche, whenI suppose you grow more and more incapable of seeing the truth. "

"You think an awful lot about truth, don't you, Judy?"

"Yes, I do, though I suppose if you knew all about me you'd think itvery inconsistent. Of course I don't mean just 'telling the truth, ' aschildren say, but the actual worship of truth in our relations with eachother and ourselves. But it's not a counsel of worldly wisdom, so don'tpay any attention to me. "

"But I want to. I admire you ever so, " said Georgie girlishly. "I knowthat I'm an awful little beast in all sorts of ways, but I would love tobe like you if I could. "

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Judy. 

"Well, as much as would suit my style, " laughed Georgie. "But tell me, Judy, what sort of thing d'you call being badly untruthful--the sortthat matters? I'll tell you the sort of thing I do, and I can't helpmyself. I hate myself, but I can't stop. You know just before I gotengaged to Val?"

"Yes?"

"Well, we were at that house on the river, and Val came down for theday, and mother knew we were going to get engaged, I suppose; anyway, she didn't make the usual fuss about being alone, and we went out in thepunt and took lunch to a backwater. I didn't even really think he caredfor me that kind of way; I was only wondering. I'd been washing my hairwhen he arrived, and it wasn't quite dry. This was before I cut it off, you know. And so--I thought I'd take it down and finish drying it. . . . "

"Go on. I've done that myself, " murmured Judith dryly. 

"Well, I was sitting a little in front of him on the bank and a littlebit of my hair blew in his face. I manoeuvred so that it should. Beastthat I am! And later, when I was doing it up again, he handed me thepins and said, 'Ripping stuff it is, Georgie!' It was the first day hecalled me Georgie, and you can't think how often he did it. Why do menalways call hair 'stuff, ' I wonder? Well--oh, where was I? Oh, I know. And then he added, 'It was blowing across my face just now. ' And I said, 'Oh, was it? I hope it didn't tickle. Why on earth didn't you tell me?'And he said, 'I loved it' in a funny sort of fat voice. As though Ihadn't known, and hadn't planned for just that. . . . I think that's thesort of thing that makes me hate myself, and yet I can't help it. "

Judith lay silent. She was too used to playing every move in her powerwith full knowledge of the effect to blame this child for tampering withforces which she was blandly innocent of understanding. 

"I don't think that 'mattered, ' as you call it, " she said at length. "After all, you're honest with yourself, that's the chief thing. I admitif you go on being dishonest with others in time it has a deadlytendency to react on yourself and blur your vision, as it did withBlanche, but then she was crooked anyway. I shouldn't worry about myselfif I were you, Georgie!"

"Well, it deceived Val, I suppose, " remarked Georgie. 

"Not about anything vital. He loved you already, and you were to findyou loved him. Besides . . . With men . . . It's not quite the samething. . . . "

Georgie stared at her in round-eyed silence for a moment, struck by aweary something that was no more old than young, that was eternal, inJudith's voice. Suddenly the elder girl seemed so much woman as she laythere--the everlasting feminine, the secret store of the knowledge ofthe ages. . . . Georgie, for all she was newly engaged, felt somehow like alittle girl. Judith's long half-closed eyes met hers, but with no frankgiving in their depths at the moment. She was withdrawn and Georgie feltit. 

"Well, I must get up, " said Judith suddenly. "Clear out and see if youcan hurry Mrs. Penticost over breakfast. "

Georgie went, and Judith slipped out of bed, and going to the window, examined her face in the clear morning light, lifting her hand-glass atmany angles. 

After her bath she took up the glass again and began with infinite careto rub in first rouge and then powder. Gradually she became a lesshaggard-looking creature and the years seemed to fall away. When shehad done she examined herself anxiously. The dread that her eye wouldget "out, " as Blanche's had, was upon her. 

Relieved by the scrutiny, she stepped into a soft rose cashmere frockand buttoned up the long, close-fitting bodice, settled the littleruffle at the throat, and adjusted with deft fingers the perky folds ofthe bustle. "Making-up makes one look so much better that it makes onefeel better, " she reflected. She took a final look at herself in thedimpled glass that gave back her figure in a series of waves and angles, and suddenly she gave a little half-rueful laugh. She was comparingherself with the slangy fresh girl downstairs, that product of the newdecade, so different from the generation born only ten years before her. Judith had spoken to this wholesome, adorably _gauche_ young creature oftruth, while, to maintain the thing that stood to her for light and foodand truth itself, she had, amongst other shifts, to resort even to thisdaily paltering with the verities upon her face. 

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT NICKY DID

Killigrew arrived a couple of days later, and Ishmael drove Georgie overto meet him. Judith had refused to go and Georgie liked the idea of adrive. Ishmael was still shy in Georgie's presence, simply because hehad never met anyone in the least like her. He was only a matter of somethirteen or fourteen years her senior, but that made all the differenceat that period. Ishmael had been born in the midst of the dark, benighted 'forties; Georgie at the beginning of the 'sixties. He hadgrown up before any of the reforms which made modern England; she hadfirst become intelligently aware of the world at a time when nothingelse was in the air, when even woman was beginning to feel her wings andbe wishful to test them. She was alarmingly modern, the emancipatedyoung thing who began to blossom forth in the late 'seventies and early'eighties; she studied painting at an art school, and had announced herintention to her alarmed but admiring parents of "living her own life. "There was a horrid rumour that she had once been dared to smoke and haddone so. Her aggressively "arty" dress was only the temporary expressionof her fluid and receptive mind feeling and trying for itself. Herfrankness was disconcerting at first, yet somehow very delightfultoo. . . . It made him feel young also; it was as though she wereperpetually telling him things that took him into a conspiracy with her. 

Judy had made him feel old; all the time he was aware of things in herlife of which he was ignorant, and though he had never been intimateenough with her to mind this, yet it did not tend towards intimacy now. There was always the knowledge of Blanche and Phoebe between him andany friendliness with Judith, knowledge of so much he had resolutely putbehind him. But with this careless girl, so untouched and confident, itwas as though it were possible to be the self he felt that he now waswithout any drag from that old Ishmael. He knew vaguely that she wasengaged, and this seemed to make intercourse lighter and more jolly. Every relationship is new, because to no two people is anyone quite thesame, but there was in the first tentative approaches of hisacquaintance with Georgie Barlow a novelty that struck him pleasantly. He was shy of her only because he was still so ignorant, but he felt nobarriers, rather an overlapping of something they both had in common, which is the surest herald sometimes of friendship, sometimes of otherthings. 

Killigrew arrived with a copy of "Richard Feverel" under one arm and thefirst edition of Fitzgerald's "Omar Khayyam" under the other. He exudedlife and enjoyment, and Ishmael wondered what indigestion, mental orphysical could have had him in its grip when he felt that the power ofecstasy was slipping. Certainly he seemed to bubble with it now, thoughit remained to be seen whether what chiefly evoked it were theimpersonal things of life or not. It was impossible to feel any shynesswith him, and even Ishmael soon was talking and feeling curiouslyunscathed when Killigrew unabashedly referred to old times, painful andotherwise. "It is only Joe . . . " Ishmael reflected, which was the fatalleniency that had pursued Killigrew through life. 

Georgie left the two men to spend the evening together and went back toParadise Cottage, but before she fell asleep that night she heard a lowmurmur of voices outside. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window. It was a night of bright moonlight, and under the shadow of thetamarisk hedge she could see Killigrew's darker figure, with itsunmistakably raking poise. Another shadow had just parted from it andwas coming to the door--the figure of Judith. She had been out whenGeorgie entered--out for a walk, Mrs. Penticost had said. Georgieskipped back to bed full of excitement. She had guessed before that Judycared about Killigrew, and now, judging by that parting, they wereengaged and everything was to be all right. How thrilling!. . . She smiledand dimpled as she met Judy's eye next morning, inviting theannouncement. 

The days went on and Judy did not make it. Only as the lovely springdays, pale with windy sunlight or soft with fuming mists, slipped by, Judith blossomed as the rose. But it was a fierce blossoming, a fieryhappiness, that Georgie could not understand. It was not thus that thenice jolly Val had made her feel. She wondered and she felt a littlehurt that Judy should not confide in her, but as the days went on herown affairs began to engross her, and she shrugged her sturdyself-reliant shoulders and told herself that Judy must after all manageher own affairs. 

It was a wonderful spring, the sweetest time of the year because theperiod of promise and not of fulfilment. This spring, in its wine-paleclarity, its swift shadows, its dewy brightness of flame-green leaf, seemed to Ishmael to hold the quality of youth as none had done foryears. He and Nicky and Joe Killigrew and the two girls from ParadiseCottage spent whole days together, for Joe and Judith, though obviouslyvery intimate, never seemed to wish for solitude. Together they frontedthe winds and the quick showers and the bright rays, saw the rainbowlift over the dark sea, watched its passionate colour die and thesunbright foam fade to pearly dimness or break over water turned tovivid blue. They heard the first bird-notes begin to glorify theevenings and saw each day the hedges grow richer with pink campion, withpale drifts of primroses and the blue clusters of the dog-violets. Theblackthorn began to show a breaking of pale blossom upon its branchesand the hawthorn to vie with it. 

Once upon the cliff, Ishmael, walking with Georgie, came on a patch ofthe most exquisite of spring flowers, the vernal squill. Georgie clappedher hands for joy at sight of the delicate blue blossoms, but Ishmael, lying beside them, buried his face in their rain-washed petals and drewa deep breath of that scent which is like the memory of may-blossom. 

As he breathed in the fragrance it seemed to him for one flashing secondas though the years fell away, that he was again young in mind as hestill felt in body; and for a flash, as on that long-ago evening inCloom fields when they had cried the Neck and in the parlour that firstday at St. Renny, time stood still and everything around the one pointwhere consciousness was poised ceased to be. Youth, spring, and ecstasyitself were in that breath. Ecstasy, the unphilosophic stone which alonetransmutes to the semblance of gold . . . Which alone does not ask whatwill come next, what has led so far, or where lies actual worth; ecstasywhich is sufficient in itself. . . . Even thus had he felt when he hadknown that Nicky was to come to him, only then the flood-tide of emotionhad been set outwards, while this seemed to beat back and intensify thesense of self. 

It was Nicky who broke through this moment now, clamouring in his turnto be allowed access to the patch of blue that so excited the grown-ups, and who then proceeded to rub his brown fists in it and tear thedelicate little flowers up before anyone could stop him. Indeed, afterthe first moment Ishmael did not try. He sat watching until Nicky, withall the uncontrolled excitement of highly-strung children who so oftenlose their heads and do things for which they suffer agonies in thewatches of the night for long afterwards, was shouting and tearing atthe flowers and throwing them over Georgie and drawing attention tohimself by every extravagance his child's brain could light upon. 

"Look at me, Georgie; look at me!" he cried, pulling a bunch of theflowers through his buttonhole and jumping up on a boulder that thrustitself through the turfy cliffside; "I'm the King of the Castle, I'm theKing of the Castle!. . . " Georgie threw a few bits of grass at him andthen turned to go on with an argument she had been having with Ishmaelwhen the sight of the vernal squills had distracted them. Nicky wouldnot leave them alone; determined not to be ignored, he went on peltingher and kept up his monotonous chant: "I'm the King of the Castle, I'mthe King of the Castle. . . . "

"Don't do that, " said Ishmael sharply. "Do you hear me, Nicky? Leaveoff!" But Nicky went on, and, finding no notice was being taken of him, he flung a frond of bracken, then, losing his temper, a clod of earthand turf he dug up from the ground. It hit Georgie on the cheek andscattered against her; a tiny fragment of stone in it cut her skinslightly, so that a thin thread of blood sprang out. Nicky felt suddenlyvery frightened. He kept up his song, but his note had altered, and asIshmael got to his feet his voice died away. 

"Don't be angry with him, " said Georgie quickly. "He didn't do it onpurpose. "

She felt the embarrassment one is apt to feel at a display of authorityover some third person. She looked at Ishmael as though it were she hewas angry with, and felt a ridiculous kinship with Nicky. The little boystood away from them both, defiant, scowling from below his fair brows, his small chest heaving, his nervous eyes sidelong. He was frightened, therefore all the more likely to make matters worse by rudeness. Ishmaelwas, unreasonably, more annoyed than he had ever been with Nicky, whohad often been far more disobedient and in more of a temper. Ishmaelpicked him up and held him firmly for all his wriggling. Nicky yelledand screamed; his small face was scarlet with fear and passion; hedrummed with his heels against his father's legs and hit out with hispathetically useless fists. Ishmael swung him under his arm. 

"Please--" began Georgie. 

"I am going to take him home, " said Ishmael. "You had better not come. You'll find the others at the foot of the cliff, you know. " He went onup over the brow of the cliff, carrying the screaming, struggling Nickywith the terrible ease of a grown-up coping with a child. Georgieremained sitting where she was for a few moments till the exhaustedscreams of Nicky died in the distance. 

Ishmael's annoyance had not abated when they reached Cloom, though bynow his arm had tired somewhat, and Nicky, sobbing angrily, walkedbeside him, firmly led by the hand. Ishmael took him up to the littleroom over the porch which was Nicky's own and there administered awhipping for the first time. Nicky was too exhausted to scream by then, but his anger grew deeper. He was aware that his father had often passedover worse actions, and that it was not so much his, Nicky's, disobedience in the matter of throwing things at Georgie which was thetrouble as some mood of his father's which he had come up against. Heresented the knowledge and burned with his resentment. When Ishmael, suddenly sorry, stayed his by no means heavy hand and stood the childbetween his knees, Nicky would not face his look, but stood with tightlyshut eyes and set mouth. Ishmael thought it was shame at his punishmentwhich sealed Nicky's eyes; he knew what agonies it would have occasionedhim at that age, and he felt sorrier still. But Nicky never felt shame;he could extract a compensating excitement from every untoward event, and at the present moment he was making a luxury of his rage. 

Ishmael tried to get some expression of contrition from the child, butvainly, and at length he left him, safely shut in. He was very puzzledas he went and smoked in the garden below. He would not go out on to thecliff again lest Nicky should be up to any dangerous pranks in his roomor have another screaming fit. For the first time it was brought home tohim how terribly children differ from the children that their parentswere. . . . Nothing he remembered, be it never so vivid, about himself, helped him to follow Nicky. He would never have drawn attention tohimself as Nicky constantly did; he would not have dared--hisself-conscious diffidence would not have let him. He had had fits oflosing his head, but more quietly, often in his imagination alone. Hedid not see that the self-consciousness of childhood was at the bottomof both his youthful reserve and Nicky's ebullitions. That his own pridehad been his dominating factor, forbidding him to enter into contestswhere he was bound to be worsted, and that for Nicky pride did not existin comparison with the luxury of spreading himself and his feelings overthe widest possible area with the greatest possible noise, made thedifference between them so marked that Ishmael could see nothing else. Nicky had inherited from older sources, he reflected, a flamboyance suchas Vassie and Archelaus and, in his underhand way, even Tom possessed, but that had missed himself. 

Killigrew and the others were coming over to supper, and the Parson alsowas expected. Ishmael judged that Nicky had had enough excitement forone day, and so, though not as any further punishment, sent him to bedwith a supper-tray instead of letting him come down. He recounted theafternoon's happenings at supper and confessed himself hopelesslypuzzled. 

"I don't understand the workings of his mind, " he admitted; "when I tookhim up his supper he seemed quite different from the half-an-hourearlier when I'd been up. He'd--it's difficult to describe it--but itwas as though he'd adjusted the whole incident in his own mind to whathe wanted it to be. He greeted me with a sort of forgiving and yetchastened dignity that made me nearly howl with laughter. He sat upthere in his bed as though he were upon a throne and expecting me to begfor pardon, or, rather, as though he knew I wouldn't, but he had thehappy consciousness that I ought to. It was confoundingly annoying. Iasked him whether he wanted to see Miss Barlow to say good-night--youknow the passionate devotion he's had for her of late--and all he saidwas, 'No, thank you; he didn't think he could trust himself to speak toher just yet!' I said, 'Don't be a little idiot, ' and he only smiled ina long-suffering manner, and I came away feeling squashed by my ownsmall son. "

"He sounds as though he were going to suffer from what is called theartistic temperament, " observed the Parson. 

"Let's hope not, " chimed in Killigrew, "because the so-called artistictemperament is never found among the people who do things, but only inthe lookers-on. The actual creators don't suffer from it. "

"It depends what one means by the artistic temperament, " said Judyrather soberly. "If you mean the untidy emotional sort of people whoexcuse everything by saying they have the artistic temperament, I agreewith you. That's what the Philistine thinks it is, of course. "

"Oh, the real thing, the thing that creates, is nothing in the world buta fusion of sex, " said Killigrew swiftly. "It gives to the man intuitionand to the woman creativeness--it adds a sixth sense, feminising theman and giving the woman what is generally a masculine attribute. Butthat's not what the Padre means. He's using the word in its acceptedderogatory sense. "

"I don't think he is quite, either, " said Judy. "I think what you meanis more the deadly literary sense, isn't it, Padre?--the thing somepeople are cursed with, the voice that gets up and lies down with them, that keeps up a running commentary on whatever they do. The creativepeople can suffer from that. "

"You mean the thing I always had as a youngster, " said Killigrew. "If Iwent fishing I used to hear something like this: 'The boy slipped to thebank with the swift sureness of a young animal, and sat with long brownlegs in the water while his skilful fingers fixed the bait on thehook. '"

"That's the sort of thing, " said Judith. "It's deadly dangerous. "

"Don't you think I've grown out of it, then?" asked Killigrew quickly, but with a laugh. Judy did not reply, but turned to Ishmael. 

"Don't you know at all what I mean?" she asked. "You must have hadmoments like that--every child has. Some people let it grow into ahabit--that's what's fatal. "

Ishmael thought it over. "Yes, " he admitted. "I can remember wholetracks of thought like that in my childhood, but I think I recognisedthe danger and made myself alter. "

"I'm sure you didn't suffer from it, " declared Boase. "I knew you verythoroughly, Ishmael, and you were reserved and inarticulate; you neveracted for effect. " He felt startled, as though a sudden gap had yawnedin the dear past; it did not seem to him possible, or only as thegrotesque possibility of a nightmare, that the boy Ishmael should haveheld tendencies, trends of thought, which he had not realised. . . . 

Later came a message from Nicky that he would like Miss Parminter tocome up and say good-night to him. They all laughed at the masculinetactics adopted thus early, but Judith went upstairs. 

Later, when the others were thinking of going, Ishmael went up for her. She was kneeling by the bed, a dark figure in the dim room. Nicky wasasleep, one arm still flung round her shoulder: she held hers lightlyacross him; her head was bowed upon the sheet. Ishmael hesitated amoment, struck by something of abandon in her pose. Then he touched herlightly on the shoulder. She started and looked up. 

"Oh, it's you!" she said, peering at him through the darkness. "How youstartled me!"

"The others are going, " said Ishmael. "It's been good of you to stay uphere. How long's the little chap been asleep?"

"Oh, ages! He's so sweet, I couldn't go downstairs to the lamp and allof them somehow. So small and soft. . . . You are lucky, Ishmael. "

"Am I?" said he, rather taken aback. "I hadn't thought of myself in thatlight. But I know what you mean . . . About Nicky. "

They left the room together, but Judy cloaked herself in the passage andwould not go again into the brightly-lit room. The Parson and Killigrewsaw the two girls home, but Georgie and Boase reached the cottage first, and Georgie fell asleep while she was sitting up in bed waiting, scandalised, in spite of her modernity, for the return of Judith. 

Nicky, sleeping peacefully in his little bed, had much to answer forthat day. He had shown the startled Ishmael the gap that lies betweentwo generations, whatever the tie of blood and affection; he had shownhim too, by his anger at being torn out of it, that he could still havea mood of clamour for some thrill almost forgotten, some ecstasy he hadthought dead . . . And he had sent Judy, trembling, eager, as not for manymonths past, to the arms of the lover who could be so careless of her, but whom, when she chose, she could still stir to a degree no otherwoman had ever quite attained. 

CHAPTER IX

JUDITH'S WHITE NIGHT

When Judith came in during the young dark hours of that morning, shecould not sleep, and for a time she busied herself trying to remove thecreases and dew-stains from her gown. Then she sat long by the windowbefore she went to bed and laid the head that a few hours ago had knowna sweet-smelling bracken pillow against the linen that could not coolher burning cheek. 

She was suffering as she invariably did every time she gave the lover'sgift to Killigrew; and always she paid for the joy of yielding withhours of reaction. She was wont to live over again in the drear spacesof time the history of her life since she had known him, and it was thehistory of her love for him and of very little else. Now as she lay, spent but wakeful, sick at heart and soul, she saw again the self thathad stayed in this house when first she grew to know him. How little shehad imagined then, in her pride and poise. . . . That was what stung her onlooking back--how little she had guessed. If before her then had beenflashed the vision of herself as his secret lover, how impossible shewould have thought it. Surely, having come to it, having lived in it nowfor so long, she ought to be able to see how and exactly when the stephad been taken which had brought her to it, which had so altered herselfand her views as to make it possible? Yet, looking back, she could seeno such one point between the self to whom it would have been impossibleand the self to whom it was an acknowledged thing of long standing. Iflife consisted of sudden steps, how easily could they be avoided, shethought, as she went again through the bitter waters to which she hadnever succeeded in growing indifferent. It was these gradual slopes. . . . She could not even say, "It was that moment I first knew I loved him. "

She lay, her brow pressed against the pillow, and saw again theKilligrew and the Judy of those early days at Cloom when she had beenstaying with Blanche, taken down there almost unwillingly, certainlyagainst the wishes of her people, who had not shared her enthusiasm forMiss Grey. She had liked Killigrew at once; his odd, whimsical, slantingway of looking at life had appealed to the clever young girl whoseintellect had developed in front of her emotional capacities. It was herbrain that had charmed him, more than her uncertain beauty; in thoseearly days her personality had been so strong and her beauty still sohidden beneath its eccentricities, which later had added to it. All thetime Ishmael had been so deeply in love with Blanche she and Killigrewhad been getting more intimate, and yet there was "nothing in it" then. 

When had it begun? Surely on that long train journey up to town there hadbeen a new note, a feeling of something there had not been before . . . Partly because Blanche had left them at Exeter to make a cross-countryconnection, and she and he had had those first few hours of an enclosedintimacy they had not had before--in the train. What a queer, stuffybackground . . . Hardly unromantic, though, when you thought of all trainsstood for and had seen! She had examined rather anxiously into her ownfeelings that night at home, she remembered, because she knew Killigrew'sviews on marriage as the most unsatisfactory and immoral of states, andshe did not wish to suffer. She was not given to self-pity, and it neverstruck her that there was some pathos in that careful wish to avoidsuffering formed by one so young, who had already borne an unhappygirlhood with a mother who drugged and a stepfather who dared not showhis affection for her for fear of his wife's jealousy. The kind, weaklittle man had died and left her a few hundreds a year; she was alwaysgrateful to him for that, and forgave him for not standing between herand her mother as he might have done. Those hundreds had saved her fromany question of taking money from Killigrew. Her poems would not havekept her--that she knew. Also she had never done as well as in that firstslim book when she had known nothing of life at all. Real experience hadbitten too deep for transmission to paper. 

When he came back from Paris, a year after the time at Cloom, he hadwritten to her and she had met him. Then it had all come out--all abouther wretched home and her mother--and they had met again and again. Killigrew could not bear the thought of suffering, and he had tried tomake up to her by taking her out as much as he could--not alone, forthat was impossible in those days, but always with such others as merelyformed a pleasant negative background. Between them from the first ofthose days in London was a consciousness of being man and woman therehad not been for her at Cloom, though he now told her she had alwaysdisturbed him, that there was for him a something profoundly troublingin her slim sexless body, her burning mind, her quaint little surenessof poise which never let her lose her sense of proportion. That had soappealed to him . . . Never from her had he heard the talk of women, thatlove was the greatest thing in the world, or that any one person couldmatter more than all the many other things put together. She had thoughtwith him that life was far otherwise--made up of many things, apattern. . . . And yet it was she who, though in theory keeping all thoseideas, had lived and suffered only for the one thing, had her horizonnarrowed to his figure. All the time she told herself it was a distortedview, but that did not prevent her suffering; it only enabled her to beaware that it mattered very little whether she suffered or not. 

They had gone on meeting, and soon it was a recognised thing that heshould kiss her who had never even let herself so much as be kissed at adance. But this was different, she told herself--he kissed her sokindly. His kisses altered, but still she bore them, dimly aware ofportent in them, but trying, with a woman's guile, to laugh them off byseeming to keep a child's uncomprehension of what they meant. Then shehad had a bad time to undergo during her mother's lingering illness anddeath, before she could take her freedom. Her mother left her nothing, but she had the kind little man's small income. She had been worn out bythe time everything was over; and owing to her mother's complaint, whichhad made it impossible to have visitors at the house, and to herjealousy, which had prevented Judy making many friends for herselfoutside, she knew no one with whom she was intimate enough to ask foradvice and help. Killigrew had taken charge of her and been goodnessitself. 

He kept clear always of the actual words and forms of love-making. Hewas very fastidious and hated anything that went to vulgarise hisrelationships, and would not spoil his genuine affection and intimacyand passion for her or any other woman for whom he felt them by usingshibboleths that did not express what he really meant. 

He took her away up to a quiet mountain country in Wales, and all theweeks he looked after her there never showed any more passion than thekisses and close embraces she was now used to, and those not often. Hewas not only not ever an inconsiderate lover, but he was too much of anepicure to take too much or too often even when he could. He left heronce or twice in those weeks to go to town, and she knew be saw otherwomen there, and the knowledge meant very little to her. Already shewas loving him more deeply than she knew and understanding him moredeeply still, and she knew jealousy would be the end of everything. Ifshe had begun to be jealous, it would have been so deadly, she wouldhave had so much to be jealous of, that she never dared let herselfindulge in it. 

She had her reward when he once told her she was the only woman who hadnever once asked him where he had been or whom he had been with. She wasso happy in the pain this self-repression gave her she hardly thoughthow much happier she could have been had there been no need for it. Ifthat had been the case he would have been entirely different from whathe was, and then perhaps she would not have loved him at all. 

The time in Wales was not spoilt by anything that made her unable toface her own mind; never did his arms or lips encroach; she came backstill feeling she belonged to herself--still clinging to that physicalpossession of self because she was now aware that her peace of soul wasgone into his keeping where it would have no rest again. 

After that her true pain began. Sometimes on looking back she wonderedhow she could have lived through it so often--for of course it was notalways at the same pitch. No pain or love or appreciation ever can be. There were whole months when she managed to do very well without him, when he was abroad and she too, perhaps, went on the Continent to someother far-off place and found things in which to interest herself. Shebelonged to the semi-artistic circle in which alone it was possible inthose days to have any liberty of action, and she had the artist's keenappreciation of the externals of life; and when the personal failed herthere were always things. But when the pain was at its worst thingsfailed her. 

Bad times when a letter from him, written because he happened to be inthe mood to write and wanted an answer which, though she knew his moodwould have passed by the time he received it, yet she would not be ableto prevent herself writing. . . . Times after he had been to see her, either on a flying visit, or to be near her for several days, taking herabout and spoiling her delightfully. . . . After they were over came abitterness that would make her moan out loud to herself, "It isn't worthit . . . It isn't worth it. . . . " And she would welcome the next few dayswhen they came as thirstily as she had the last. 

Only the fact that she had a naturally strong will, made stronger byyouthful years of self-repression, and that he never wished from a womanwhat she did not want to give, kept her so long not his lover in body asshe was in heart and mind. Looking back, she marvelled at the length oftime she had withstood her own heart. Not her senses; they had notentered into the affair for her at that time. She actually loved him toowell, and was too unawakened physically, to feel the promptings of thepulses. She felt in him, for him, by him, so intensely it sometimesseemed to her she must be fused with him. She could have burned awayinto his being and ceased to have a separate existence if the passionatefusing of the mind could have accomplished it. 

For three years she loved and suffered. She saw him always several timesa year, was with him during those times, and he never lied to her aboutwhat he felt. He never told her she was the "only woman in the world forhim" and that he could not live without her. He never mentioned otherwomen to her, except such of his friends as she had met and of those shenever knew, except in so far as her own intuition told her, which wereonly friends, which mingled the give and take of passion with the coolerdraught. On the other hand, he never hid his passion when he felt it forher, and he always showed his affection and care of her when in thepleasant spaces between passion. He could not but know she was awarethat he would be glad if one day she gave him more; meanwhile he did notmake her hate herself and him with actions that would have excitedwithout satisfying. He was the perfect companion, or would have been ifshe had not loved him. 

For three years she never told him that she did; she met his kisses onlywith frank affection, and though she felt no urge of passion in herselfto teach her lips, yet she began to feel that which would have made hermore the eager one, and less the kissed, as she always sternly keptherself. For these three years she did not imagine he lived a chasteexistence; there was no reason, with his pagan and quite genuineconvictions, why he should. Fidelity in so far as it meant keeping toone person was to him foolishness. In so far as it meant loyalty ofaffection and absolute honesty he was faithful to everyone. 

At the end of the three years she had become aware that things weredifferent . . . At first she could not say how. Then she slowly saw thatunless she gave more, made herself more to him, she would become less. 

He made no demands on her; he would have resented the idea of possessinga woman as much as that of any woman possessing him--freedom to him wasthe salt of every dish. Judy told him sometimes that he made themarriage service of too great importance, just as much as did theadvocates of it, though in a different way. They thought there ought tobe no love outside it; he thought there could be none within-it. To hermind, which always went for the essentials and left the trappings alone, the actual legal compact would not have mattered either way. That waswhat her instinct, which in her was as nicely balanced as reason, toldher. But there was a side of her, as was inevitable, which was the childof her period and upbringing, and that side had never been talked overby Killigrew's philosophy, with the result that when she gave himeverything she suffered in her conscience as well as in her heart. Shehad suffered ever since. Truth was with her a passion, and yet she hadto pretend to the world. She suffered acutely when with girls of her ownage, because she felt unfit to be with them. Often, with Georgie, whohad not half her fineness, she would feel she ought not to be sittingtalking to her or letting her come and stay in the same house. Shesuffered sometimes from a morbid wish to tell the world what she reallywas. And yet, as she told herself sometimes, if suffering can purge, surely she was clean enough. . . . 

She had never breathed the word "marriage" to Killigrew, who had noreason for knowing she was not as happy as himself in what was toospontaneous and delightful even to be called an arrangement. It had beena "success"; the life they had lived since Judy had let him know hecould take her as he wished. Killigrew would as soon have married ashave installed a woman as his mistress; the freedom of a _union libre_held no illusions for him. Yet to do him justice it was even more thathe would have hated to have their relationship spoiled by anything sohard-and-fast. They met as before, went for wonderful holidays together, and if she knew he was "fitting her in, " she was too wonderfullypoignantly happy when with him, too satisfied in every fibre of hernature, to think of it; while afterwards, if she had allowed herself todwell on it--beyond the one or two days of acute suffering that wouldfollow upon every time--she would have died, in heart and mind, if notin body, of the pain. 

Sometimes, when she was either very happy with him or drowning in thebitter aftermath, she would lie pretending to herself as a child does. These imaginings always took the same form, and on this night atParadise she began the old childish-womanly game again when she sawsleep would not come. 

The pretence was that she was going to have a baby. In her heart ofhearts she knew she wanted Killigrew to marry her, or rather to want tomarry her. With all her knowledge of him she could not quite come to thebelief that she could not make him happy if he were married to her. . . . Perhaps if she were going to have a baby, he would want to. He wouldnot; but he would have done it as soon as he saw she really wanted it, though without seeing the necessity, which would not have existed in aworld constructed on his plan. Still, she knew he would do it, given theright circumstances; also she knew he had the deep love for childrenderived from a Jewish strain in his family. With that baby he would cometo a fuller love of her than ever before; its advent would surely givehim what even she admitted he lacked. 

She lay now, picturing it to herself and planning a cunningly-laiddeceit by which she should appear a lovely and noble figure in his eyes. She would have a very "bad time, " of course, or somehow the thing wouldlose significance, and she would ask, nay implore, the doctor to promiseher, if he could only save either the child or herself, to let it be thechild. And Joe would hear of it and know that it was because he wanted achild so much. . . . She might pretend to be delirious and murmur that hewanted the child so much more than he did her. . . . He would be in theroom and hear her and she would pretend not to know it. . . . 

Thus Judy, luxuriating in the darkness, knowing in her clear brain thatlooked on so unswayed by her passionate weary heart, that Killigrew, forall his instinct for children, did not want them in the concrete, thatif she bore him one he would love her just as much as he did now and nomore. That he would love her as much even while she was carrying it shebelieved, and rightly, for he was too natural a man himself ever tothink nature ugly. 

Judy lay imagining . . . Imagining . . . And she thought of Nicky's firm, soft little body, and how it had felt to her hungry hands and tried tofeel it all over again in her bed and imagine it belonged to her andJoe. And she saw the cold, pale dawn come in, and her dream shivered andfled before it, and she was left with only her bitter knowledge that itwould never happen, and if it did, not that way. And she wished with afutile frenzy of longing that she had never chosen to keep Killigrew bygiving him her whole self in fee, but by refusing herself to him hadbeen able to leave him and live down the hold he had on her soul andmind which had grown to such strength in those first three years. Herfirst fear when she gave him everything had been lest attainment shoulddull even that want he had of her, but she found he had spoken truthwhen he said that that was a quality which grew with having. For fewermen are bored with satiety than kept by a custom that becomes necessity, and his habit for her would in itself be an attraction for him. ButKilligrew, for all his cleverness, was not the man to know, if any couldhave, how passionate her withholding had been, how passionless was hersurrender. 

CHAPTER X

LONE TRAILS

So much of mental passion could be lived through upon one side of a walland on the other Georgie wake fresh and unknowing of it all, stretch amoment, wonder as to what time Judy had come in, tip-toe to her room andpeep, to see a sleeping face so pale and haggard that she withdrew, suddenly sorry, she did not quite know why. Judy could look old . . . Shereflected. Georgie herself felt a lilting sense of interest in this daywhich she had not hitherto during her stay at Paradise Cottage. Nothinghad happened, and yet somehow she felt different. It was not even thatshe had had a letter from Val, for he had written two days ago, and soshe would not hear again for several days, a ready pen not being his. And she was beginning to be guiltily conscious that she did not enjoygetting his letters; they seemed somehow to disrupt atmosphere insteadof creating it. Everything was different from that day on the river whenVal had told her he loved her and it had all seemed so simple. She hadaccepted him then because she was so fond of him, and she knew everyonewould be pleased, and also she was pleased herself. He was so young andjolly, and they had always fitted so well, though in his music--he wasby way of being a young composer--he was out of her depth. 

They fitted too well; since their engagement Georgie, feeling it lackedexcitement and being both very young and a woman, and therefore anexperimentalist, had tried to get up little scenes so as to havequarrels and reconciliations. She would do things which she had firstgot him to say he did not like; then she defied him, only to meet withan ineffectual annoyance on his part. When after each scene she gaveway, as she had meant to do all along, she knew in her heart that it wasbecause she chose to submit, not because he had the strength to compelher. He was too young and inexperienced to see that she was young enoughto be craving for a master, while at the same time he was old enough towant peace and mutual consideration. He would have been shocked at theidea of using brutality to her, and brutality was what Georgie, withoutrecognising it, wanted. 

She shook herself impatiently now as the thought of Val came to herwhen, turning over her handkerchiefs to choose a clean one, she cameupon his last letter. Dear old Val! . . . But he had no part in thisclear, pale spring day and all it was going to hold. 

She checked herself as she was bursting into song in her bath becauseshe thought of tired-looking Judy still asleep in the next room, butsomething in her went on singing to meet this new fine day. She had herbreakfast in solitary state, because Mrs. Penticost would neither lether wait nor Judy be disturbed, and then she flung a coat over her"Fishwife" dress and went out into the morning. She went over to Cloomto see whether Nicky had forgiven her and would sit for his portrait asusual. 

Thinking of Nicky made her think of Ishmael, and she went over again inher mind what he had looked like when he had been so angry yesterday. She had seen a new Ishmael then, a more interesting one; she was vaguelyaware of liking him better than before. Perhaps it might be rather funto see if she could make him angry. Probably he would only be reallyangry with anyone he cared for, and of course he didn't care for her atall. Georgie pondered that point as she went. She was honest and sweet, but she was an arrant little flirt, and Val was not the first man whohad kissed her. She never pretended anything to herself, but she couldpretend things to other people. She was too vital to be vulgar, but shewas also too vital to be quite well-bred, and often her methods werestartling, as for her age and period she cared remarkably little whatshe said. She would try and wake Ishmael up; it would do him good. Forall her plainness of actual feature, if that wonderful mouth wereexcepted, no one knew better than Georgie that she had _beauté dediable_, and the sheer impudent vitality of her swept nearly every manoff his feet if she wished it to. "Me, m'dear?" she would protest toJudy or any friend who pointed this out to her. "Most hideous female, m'dear. Face like a pudding. " Here she would puff out her cheeks andhold them distended till her soft infectious laughter made themcollapse. "Everyone's kind to me, because I'm so plain they're sorry forme. . . . "

Privately she considered she knew everything in the world there was toknow about men. In reality she knew very little, placing as much toomuch importance on sex as Judy placed too little. 

Arrived at the Manor, she found that Nicky had disappeared, after anannoying and rather alarming habit of his, and was not expected back, bythose who knew his roving ways, till the evening. Ishmael informed herof this with rather a rueful smile. 

"He's always had these wild fits ever since he's been big enough to gooff on his own, " he told her; "and he steals something out of thelarder, or if he can't do that he just trusts to his eyes and tonguewhen he meets some kind good lady, and he scours the countryside tilllate. The worst of it is I shan't be able to do anything to him when heturns up this evening, because he'll pretend he ran away because he wasso afraid of me after yesterday. "

"Are you so terrifying?" said Georgie, peeping up at him from under hershady hat. 

"Not at all. I am a very easily-led person. "

Georgie considered this, her head on one side. Then she said briskly:"Then will you please help me take my sketching things somewhere, as Ican't get on with the portrait? After all, it's a bit your fault, isn'tit? You should have brought your son up better. "

"Of course, I'll take them anywhere you like, " said Ishmael; "whereshall it be?"

Thus it came about that Killigrew and Judy, a couple of hours later, coming to the plateau, found Georgie there, busy over a sketch ofIshmael in profile, with his head telling dark against the grey sunlitcliff wall, because Georgie said it was easier to paint dark againstlight. She was really working in her vivid, effective way, and Killigrewfound little to criticise. 

Judy was no longer looking tired. Joe had met her perfectly, holding heraway and looking into her eyes in the whimsical tender way he had asthough he were saying: "It's absurd, isn't it, to make out what we didtogether is of any importance, and yet as long as we're human beings wecan't help feeling it's wonderful . . . " and he had thanked her, hardly inwords, for the hours of the night before, though there had been wordstoo, as she had buried her head against him. With that and her usualcareful aids to beauty Judy was glowing, and though there was never ashade of possessiveness in her manner towards Killigrew, yet thismorning there was so much of confidence and possession of herself thatit almost amounted to the same thing when she made her appearance by hisside. 

Georgie declared a rest when the two of them appeared, and Ishmael alsocame to look at what she had been doing. He was standing a little behindher and looking down, not so much at the painting as at the back of herbent neck, where the absurd little drake's tails curved against theskin, so white in the sunshine. One ear was rosy where the light shonethrough it, and behind it lay a soft blue crescent of shadow. 

As he looked that odd something occurred to Ishmael which suddenly putsa person in a new light--the slipping of the plane, the freakish turn ofthe kaleidoscope which makes the new light strike at a fresh anglesomething seen before and makes it different. He fell in love withGeorgie in that moment, staring at her bent neck and the curve of herear. 

All day a delightful exaltation possessed him; he was not yet at thestage when a man is plagued with doubts of success or advisability; hewas only tingling with a new delight. He helped her along any roughplace when they all walked over to the Vicarage to tea with a joy he hadnot felt the day before, and he did not even know how irrational it allwas. 

At tea the conversation turned on different types of men, and Killigrewheld forth on what he held to be the only true and vital classification. 

"The only division in mankind is the same as the only division in theanimal world, of course, " he said. 

"What is that?" asked the Parson. "Wild and tame?"

"No; it is the division between the animal who goes with the pack andhim who hunts a solitary trail. The bee is kin to the wolf because bothare subject to a community-life with strict laws. The bee is nearer ofkin to the wolf than it is to the butterfly, which lives to itselfalone. The fox, who hunts and is harried as a solitary, is furtherremoved from his brother the wolf than he is from the wild cat, who haslike habits to himself. My natural history may be wrong, but you see thetheory!"

"And you carry that into the world of man?" said Judith lightly. In herheart was a sick pain and anger, and the brightness of the day had fledfor her; with his few careless words Killigrew had re-created all theold atmosphere of depression, of--"It's no good, I know he's as he is, and that nothing I can do or that happens to me will ever make him anydifferent. . . . "

"Certainly it is the great division. Between the born adventurer and thecommunity-man there is a far greater gulf fixed than between the formerand an eagle or the latter and a cony. Lone trail or circumscribedhearth--between these lies the only incompatibility. "

"There is a good deal in your theory, " said Boase, "but it goes too muchfor externals. The home-keeping man may be the one with the free spiritand the wanderer the man who cannot get away from habits that tie him toother people wherever he goes. "

"Sounds like a perambulating bigamist, " said Killigrew, laughing. "Butyou're right as usual, Padre, and go to the heart of it while I'm beingmerely superficial. According to my division your brother Archelaus is afox and an eagle and all the other lone things right enough, isn't he, Ishmael?"

"Yes, " said Ishmael slowly, "I think he is. "

"Whereas you are the bee, the wolf, the cony, " declared Killigrew. "Isn't he, Padre?"

Boase smiled. "Shall I tell you what I think, Joe?" he answered, "It isthis. Ishmael is by circumstances and inclination a dweller in one spot, and custom and humanity incline him to tie himself always more closelyto it and the people in it. But man is not as simple as your animals, and in most of us is something alien, some strain of other instincts. The man who lives intimately on one piece of earth may have a deepinstinct in spite, perhaps because, of it, to keep himself free and toresent claims even while he acknowledges them. Just as a man who is freeto go where he likes, as you do, may carry his own chains with him. Forthe only slavery is to oneself, and it is the man who flows inwardsinstead of outwards who is not free. "

"I wonder . . . " said Killigrew. 

"The real flaw in your argument, Joe, " said Ishmael, "is that your lonehunter in the animal world always has his mate and his young, whereaswhen you make the division apply to mankind you class all that with theherd and deny it to the man who would be free. "

"Because that's how it translates into terms of humanity, " saidKilligrew swiftly. "Civilisation has made the taking of a mate a bond asfirm as pack-law, and woe to him who, having yielded to it, transgressesit. It is not I who have made that division, it is the world. "

"He might have spared me this to-night . . . " thought Judith. 

Ishmael kept silence. He was thinking of the truth of what Killigrew hadbeen saying, and weighing it against this new flame that had sprung upwithin him that day. Freedom--loneliness is the price paid for liberty, he knew that. And he had found loneliness sweet, or, when not actuallythat, at least very bearable. Yet even as he thought it he knew for himthere was, as ever, at any crisis of his life, only the one way. He hadthat directness which, though seeing all ways--for it is not the samething as simplicity--yet never doubted as to the only one possible forhimself. On that long-ago day on the cliffs near St. Renny, when he hadplayed with the notion of running away to sea, he had known all along inhis heart that that way was not for him. When, to other natures, astruggle might have arisen between staying on at Cloom, carrying out hiswork there, and taking Blanche into the life she would have shared withhim, the point had not even arisen for him. During the turmoil of mindand body that the break with her had left to him his victory overhimself had never really been in doubt. When the passion in him hadmet, as he could now see it had, the same feeling in Phoebe and he hadbeen swept into that disaster, release had not appeared to him even apossibility. The new duties that had devolved on him since he had beenfree again all seemed to come quite naturally, without being sought byhim, or even imagined until they floated into his horizon. So now thisnew thing had come upon him, and, wiser than he had been when he lovedBlanche, wiser than when he had married Phoebe, he saw itglamour-enwrapped, yet he recognised the glamour. That he would marryGeorgie if he could he was fairly certain, but that there was, as ever, the something in him which resented it, this mingling of himself withanother human being, this passionate inroad on spaces which canotherwise be kept free even of self, he knew too. Acute personalrelationships with others makes for acute accentuation of self, and thatwas what, at the root of the matter, Ishmael always resented and feared. 

CHAPTER XI

WAYS OF LOVE

A week later Boase said Evensong, as far as he was aware, to the usualemptiness, but when he went down the church afterwards to lock it up hesaw a kneeling figure crouching in a dim corner. He went closer and sawthat it was Judith--there was no mistaking that slim, graceful back andthe heavy knot of dark hair. Her shoulders were very still and she wasmaking no sound, so it was a shock to Boase when, on his touching her, she glanced round and he saw her eyelids were red and swollen in thehaggard pallor of her face. She stared at him dully for a minute. 

"What is it, my child?" asked Boase. 

"I can't tell you, " said Judith dully. "You wouldn't understand andyou'd be shocked. "

Boase smiled as he sat down in the pew just in front of her. She leantback against her seat and looked pitifully at his kind deeply-lined oldface. 

"Besides, I'm not sorry!" she went on; "at least, not the sorry thatmeans to give it up, only the sorry that wishes I had never started. . . . "

"Tell me about him, my child!" said Boase. And Judy did. It was thefirst time she had ever spoken of him--what he was to her and what herlife had been--to anyone. She made no wail beyond once saying, "I didnot know it was possible that a person could make one suffer so. . . . "

Gradually Boase drew what little story there was to tell from her, butmore than she told him he gathered for himself, from his watching ofher and his knowledge of Killigrew. He was an old man now and a wiseone. The priest in him yearned over her to wean her from her sin, butthe patient wisdom in him told him that not that way had she yet come. He talked quietly to her, soothing her by his calmness, his lack ofreproaches or adjurations, and presently she was sitting forward in thepew in the gathering dusk talking more normally. 

"There are some sheep who are not only not of this fold, " he said atlast, "but who seem as though they never could be on this side of thegrave. Joe has the odd quality of never having felt spiritual want, andprobably he never will. "

"It is that uncertainty of edge about him that has always been thedifficulty, " she said. "That--oh, it's so difficult to explain. I mean, he has never seemed to realise the limits of individuality. Woman iswoman to him--not one woman. He's often said that the affinitymade-for-each-other theory must be pure nonsense; that you meet duringyour little life hundreds of people who all have more or less of anaffinity for you--some more, some less--and that it's practically yourduty to fuse that alikeness wherever you meet it. Of course he agreesthat among the lot there's bound to be one with whom the overlap isbigger than it is with any of the others, but then he looks on that asno reason for thinking that person is the one person for you. There areprobably several more people knocking round with whom your overlap wouldbe still wider, only you never happen to meet them. And to bind yourselfirrevocably to one would be to prevent your fusing with them if you didmeet them. It works out at this--that the greatest giving and thegreatest taking is the ideal state of affairs. Give to everyone you meetand take all you can from them. But, you see, my trouble is I havenothing left to give anyone but him. I've always given himeverything--I want no one and nothing else. And he's wanted so many andso much. I see the logic and admirable sense of his attitude so clearlythat even while a primitive root jealousy is eating me up I am soinfected by his theory that I don't blame him. I feel myself nebulous asregards him, as blurred at edge as he is. "

"Oh, my dear child!" said Boase, "this--this in a way bigness of hisview just makes him more of an individualist than anyone. He limitshimself nowhere, but simply because it's all gain to his individuality. That it is gain to others too is neither here nor there. "

"It can be loss to the others; there is such a thing as all taking andno giving. "

"Ah, now you're looking on it from the point of view of payment! Takefor a moment the truer view that sorrow is as much gain as pleasure. Theonly gain on earth is experience, and both emotions go to feed that. "

"And then, " continued Judith, pursuing her own line of thought, "something in me seems to say that that wide view, that merging ofindividuality, has the right idea at the root of it. It's an old strainof Puritanism in me, I suppose, that tells me anything is good whichimplies a loosening of individualism. "

"I don't agree with you, " said Boase energetically. "The root of allthings good and great is personality. The success of any movementdepends on the individuality of the leader, just as the whole ofcreation depends, whether it knows it or not, on the personality ofChrist. 'Be individual' is a counsel of perfection--that is the onlydrawback to it. If the great mass of people were only nearer perfectionthe rein could be given to individualism; as it is it's a dangeroushorse to drive--it so often runs away with its driver. Conceive now ofthe immense advantage it would be if, instead of a criminal being triedby the clumsy machinery of the law, the judge were to investigate thecase quietly and thoroughly himself, get to know the man, his belongingsand environment, and then deal with him as he saw fit. The thing's notworkable; the judge might have an attack of indigestion that wouldjaundice his view, or be in a rosy glow of sentimentality after port. But if the judge could be depended on for sympathy and intuitiveness, half the crime in the world would be stamped out. It's the sameeverywhere. If priests could be allowed to discriminate between divorcedpersons they thought it fit and desirable to remarry and those they didnot, much sin might be avoided. But it wouldn't work, simply because theindividual can't yet be trusted, and so it is quite right that the lawshould be as it is. But that doesn't prevent rank individualism frombeing the counsel of perfection--in which, curiously enough, Joe wouldagree with me more than Ishmael, who fights against the individual inlife to an extraordinary extent. I wish something would happen to makehim succumb to it again. I don't want him to grow inhuman. . . . "

"I wish it were possible to grow inhuman, " said Judy. 

"If you knew, " said Boase slowly, "that besides doing--as I must tellyou--a right action by leaving off all connection with Joe Killigrew, you could also cease at once to feel anything for him, would you thenleave him?"

"Ah! not yet . . . " said Judith. "I must have a little longer. Wait tillI'm older--till I can't make him want me. . . . "

As she went home, comforted more than she could have thought possible bythe mere telling of what had accompanied her so long, she knew that shehad not been wholly disingenuous. That Killigrew would cease to want herfor at least a good while to come she did not believe, and it was notthat dread which had sent her shaking for the first time to the helpfrom which she had hitherto held proudly aloof. As a matter of fact shekept up the illusion of youth better with Killigrew than with the restof the world, and she knew it. For one thing, he was never away from herlong enough at a time to get a thoroughly new vision of her on hisreturn, a vision apart from that which he was expecting to see. Foranother, she took more care with him. Other people might see herunpowdered, bleak--never he. And for this, too, she had paid thepenalty. Sometimes when he held her, gazing down into the face she hadprepared with so much skill to meet that look--counting half upon thematerial aids upon her skin and half upon the state she should haveevoked in him before she courted that gaze--then she would think toherself: "And if I were not 'tidied, ' if I were 'endy, ' looking greasy, as I have all day, he would not be feeling like this. . . . " Then with thatthought would flash into her aching heart: "On so frail a thread hangslove. . . . "

But it was not anything in Killigrew which had eaten into herconsciousness this past week--it was something in herself. Somethingwhich had risen to its crest that night among the bracken had failedever since, was falling on deadness, and that something was her ownpower to feel the love which had made her life for so long. There werealways periods of deadness--she knew that--but this held a quality noneof them had had. What if even she were subject to the inevitable law, iffor her too after the apex came the downward slope? That was the fearthat gnawed at her, that was what she dreaded when the Parson had heldout exactly that as a hope. 

While she had been suffering and loving she had longed for the releaseof cessation; now she dreaded it, for it undermined to her the whole ofthe past. She was one of those women to whom faithfulness in herself wasa necessity of self-respect, and failure of love, without any deflectionof it, was to her a failure of faithfulness. She had nothing tangible togo upon; it was only that she felt this deadness now upon her was notthe mere reaction of feeling, but an actual snapping of something in thefabric of life. She told herself it was not possible, that not so couldshe give the lie to all she had suffered. 

As she went up the lane to Paradise she met Ishmael coming down it;evidently he had been taking Georgie home. She stopped to speak to him, and, feeling he was reluctant to pass on by himself yet awhile, sheleant over a gate and let him talk to her. For a minute or so he saidnothing that was not an ordinary commonplace of encounter, but after ashort silence had fallen between them he began abruptly on another note. 

"Judy, " he said, "do you believe in what is called 'falling in love'?"

"Do I believe in it?" echoed Judith. "It depends on how you mean that. If you ask do I believe that there is such a phenomenon, I do, for thesimple reason that one sees it happening all around one and people doingthe maddest things under its influence. If you mean do I think it's agood thing, or a pleasant thing, or a thing that lasts . . . ?"

"Yes, that's what I meant, I think. "

"Falling in love is giving someone the power to hurt you. . . . I supposeit depends on you, or rather on them, if it's worth it or not. But howcan one say anything of any value about a thing unless one has firstclearly defined what that thing is? And love is like religion, like thevision of truth itself--it means something different to every man. "

"I thought women were always supposed to love in much the same way, "said Ishmael vaguely--"better than we do. They always say so. "

"Oh, it depends on the individual, as always. Chiefly it depends onwhether you're the sort of person that loves 'in spite of' or 'becauseof. ' If you're the 'because of' kind, all sorts of things, externaldrawbacks and disappointments in character, put you off. If you're the'in spite of, ' they don't. I think the only difference between men andwomen is that as a rule men love because of and women in spite of. "

"I'm afraid I should be the 'because of. '"

"Yes, I think perhaps you would. If a woman loves 'in spite of, ' all thelittle external things that at the beginning might have shocked her onlymake her care more. "

"Like eating with one's knife, you mean?"

"Yes, even that. Or the person having a cold in his head or a spot onthe end of his nose! She notices whatever it happens to be and has alittle shock of surprise at finding it makes no difference. And thatmakes her feel how strong her love must be; and pouf! it gets strongerthan ever. "

"And the underneath things, like finding out little insincerities, little meannesses even?"

"The same plan works there--if you're the 'in spite of' lover. "

"Tell me, " said Ishmael suddenly, "do you--does any woman--have momentswhen the very word 'love' is an insufferable intrusion, when it allseems petty and of no account, a tiresome thing in whose presence itsuddenly doesn't seem possible to breathe?"

"When one is sick of the whole question, and the way life is supposed tobe built round it? Yes; but when a woman feels like that it generally isin reaction from too much of it. She doesn't feel it purelyacademically, so to speak, as a man can. " Judy's voice was suddenly veryweary. Her eyes met Ishmael's, and in that look a comprehension was bornbetween them that was never quite to fail, that was, in its bestmoments, to mean true intimacy. Judy blinked at him with her sadmonkey-eyes, smiled a little, and held out her hand in farewell. Hetook it--suddenly ejaculated a "Good-night" accompanied by a "Thankyou" which he felt, though he could not quite have told why. He went offdown the lane without seeing her back to the cottage, and she stayedawhile, grateful in her turn that meeting him had taken the keen edgeoff her own problems. She went in to supper and bed feeling very tired, a tiredness that was in her mind and soul, but that had the pleasantnessof a healthy physical exhaustion. Georgie showed a disposition to comeinto her room and ask her her opinion of "falling in love" over mutualhair-brushes, but Judith evaded the tentative suggestion. By then shewas feeling that the word was a meaningless string of four letters, andthe thing she supposed it stood for as fantastic and far-off as therecurring fragment of a dream, which seems so vivid in the dreaming andis a broken kaleidoscope of ill-fitting colours on awaking. She went tobed and slept soundly, better than she had done for months. 

She was to wake to the old weight, half-joy, half-pain, but more andmore she was to feel the new dread that she was growing out even ofthat, left in a dryness that belittled the past; but the periods ofnumbness once begun had to go on in spite of her, and with theirbitterness was mingled at least the negative healing of indifference. 

CHAPTER XII

GEORGIE

Georgie had been up to the village to post a very important letter--soimportant that her hand stayed hesitant over the slit in the box for amoment or two while she made up her mind all over again. Then, with agasp, she pushed the letter through and heard it fall with a faint thudto the bottom of the box. The last chance was still not gone, for thefriendly old postmaster would have given it back to her if she had askedfor it, but the mere noise it made in falling--one of the mostdistinctive and irrevocable sounding in the world--caused her to feel alightening of the heart that meant satisfaction. She turned and wentaway down the bare village street, past the last row of whitewashedslate-roofed cottages, with the dark clumps of myrtle or tamarisk bytheir doors, and then she struck off the hard, bleak road, where thewind sang mournfully in the insulators at every telegraph post, and madefor the open moor. 

It was one of those mood-ridden days of spring when the wholecountryside changes in the passing of a cloud from pearly grey to a palebrightness unmarred by any dark note. Even the cloud-shadows were nodeeper than wine-stains as they trailed over the slopes; against thecold, clear blue of the sky the branches of the thorns seemed ofpencilled silver--their leaves were a rich green amid the colder verdureof the elders and the soft hue of the breaking ash leaves. Ploughedlands were a delicate purple, and the pastures still held the pureemerald of the rainy winter, though paled by the quality of the light toa tone no deeper than that of the delicate young bracken fronds whichwere uncurling upon the moor. Everywhere was lightness--in all colour, in the wandering airs, in the texture of leaf and blade--in Georgie'ssoul as she went over the soft turf and hummed little tunes to herself. She ran up a grassy peak crested with grey boulders and flung herselfagainst them, half-leaning, half-standing, over a rough cool curve ofgrey granite, arms outstretched, eyes closed. 

She was conscious of the fabric of her body as never before. She felther heart beating as a thing heavier and more powerful than the rest ofher frame; she was aware of the breath passing through the delicate skinof her nostrils, of a faint, sweet aching in her thighs, of thetenderness of her breast crushed against the rock, of the acuteness oflife beating in her outspread finger-tips against the rough granite andin her toes pressed against the turf. She dropped to the ground and, rolling over, stretched to utmost tension, then relaxed to limpness, eyelids closed and the hair blowing upon them the only moving thingabout her. Then she scrambled to her feet again and set off towardsCloom. 

As she neared it she saw on the far slope a plough at work, looking likea tiny toy, the horses a rich bright brown in the sunlight. Her strongyoung eyes could see the darker blown mesh of their manes and the longhair about their fetlocks; she could see, too, that the man in a fadedblue shirt and earth-coloured trousers driving them was John-James, foreven at that distance his sturdy build and the copper red of his broadneck were unmistakable. She saw that the man standing talking by thegate was Ishmael, and she stayed still, wondering if he would see andrecognise her. The tiny figure turned, stood staring, and then waved itshat above its head; Georgie fluttered her handkerchief and turned offdown towards the stream at the bottom of the moor while Ishmael wasstill watching. 

It was warmer down by the stream than on the crest above, and the airwas as though filled with a bright sparkle with the refractions of thesun from ripple and eddy. The stream was a mere thread of water, butbroken by stone and drooping bough to the semblance of urgency, and withits mazy lights went a clear murmur of sound. Georgie took off herlittle cloth jacket and threw herself down on the grassy slope that, amidst a tangle of hemlock, edged the purling water. Between her and thesunlight drooped an alder; she saw against the sun the showers of yellowcatkins all gleaming transparent, like sunlit raindrops caught at themoment when they lengthen. . . . She lay under the glory of this Danaėanshower and half-closed her eyes to stare up at the wonder of it. Presently she heard the sound of twigs and leaves being crushed underadvancing feet, but she did not look up, only started to hum a littletune, though she could not hear it for the rising beat of her own heartin her ears. 

When Ishmael merely dropped down beside her and, asking if he mightsmoke, proceeded to light his pipe, she calmed a trifle--a sick dreadthat she dismissed as impossible flashed through her; she peeped at himfrom her tilted hat brim, and saw his hands were trembling slightly ashe struck the match. In a moment she had caught back her own poise; shewatched sidelong, noting with an odd precision exactly how he looked, how his brown skin glistened a little in the sun, so close to her thatshe could see the infinitesimal criss-cross of lines upon the backs ofhis hands and the stronger seams upon his reddened neck. She saw theglisten of a few grey hairs in the dark thick patch above his ear; shecould see the texture of his lip as it pouted beneath the sideways hangof his pipe. She wondered why anyone ever really loved someone else;looked at like that, and thought of clearly, reasonably, they did notlook very wonderful, but only obvious flesh and blood, enclosingsomething that, try as one might, must always remain alien, cut off. Yetshe knew that, reason as she might, this particular piece of flesh andblood, animated by this particular soul, had power over hers that herleaping pulses at the very sound of his footfalls, that her eagerplanning mind at night in her bed, would not let her deny. Suddenly shelooked away from him, and, twisting her hands in the dew-wet grass, spoke. "I've written to Val, " she said. 

Ishmael did not answer, and she went on:

"You don't seem very interested, but I'm so full of it I must tellsomeone. After all one doesn't break off an engagement every day. . . . "

He turned towards her then, dropped his pipe, and looked full at her. 

"You mean that? You have definitely done it?"

"Undone it, " she said cheerfully; "it would never have answered. I'veknown that for ages. He's so much cleverer than I am, but so much lesswise! He's just a nice boy who would be the ordinary simple kind if itweren't for his music. And even there we can't agree, you see. "

"I'm not clever--not the kind that can do clever things, " said Ishmael. 

"It's not the doing clever things that matters, I've come to theconclusion, though Val would think that was heresy. Being things mattersmore, somehow. He knows all about music, and they say he's going to bethe great English composer, and I only know that even a barrel-organ inthe street has always made me feel what I used to call when I was smallall 'live-y and love-y. '"

"There is nothing one can get drunk on like music and poetry, " saidIshmael slowly. "Pictures one needs to understand before they canintoxicate, and prose can fill and satisfy you, but it's only the othertwo one can go mad on, and this--"

He pulled her to him, a hand beneath her chin, his other arm round hersturdy, soft little body, and she met his eyes bravely for a moment. Then hers closed, but he still paused before he kissed her. 

"Georgie, are you sure?" he asked. "Have you thought over all thedrawbacks?"

"Such as--?"

"My brothers . . . Even my son, who will have to come before any we mayhave. . . . I don't want any more bad blood over this heritage, Georgie!And I--I'm a good many years older than you--"

"And terribly sot in your ways, as Mrs. Penticost says . . . " murmuredGeorgie. "Ishmael, aren't you going to . . . ?"

Then he did, and Georgie nestled close to him with a sigh ofsatisfaction. After a little while her indefatigable tongue began again. 

"Ishmael, isn't it funny to think it might never have happened? Justsuppose I had been actually married to Val instead of only sort ofengaged. . . . I might have been, you know. "

"If you didn't care about him, " began Ishmael, then stopped, feeling hewas a poor advocate of a simple and unmistakable method of loving. 

"Well, it's very difficult for a girl, " explained Georgie. "Even when Iwas getting fond of him I knew it wasn't what I'd imagined falling inlove to be like, but I thought it might be all I could manage. You see, in real life, the second-best has such a disconcerting habit of comingalong first. You know all the time that it is only the second-best, butyou think to yourself, 'Suppose the first-best never comes along for me, and I have said No to this, then there'll be nothing but a third-bestto fall back on. ' That's why so many women marry just not the rightman. "

"And I--am I the first-best . . . ?" asked Ishmael in a low voice. 

Georgie nodded. 

"Ah!" she said; "you need never be jealous of poor Val. If anyone hasanything to be jealous over, it's me--not that I'm going to be. Afterall, one can't be a man's first love and his last, and it's moreimportant to be his last! What's the matter . . . ? You look funny, somehow. . . . "

"Nothing, " said Ishmael; "I was only thinking what a dear you are. You're so sporting about everything. And I--sometimes in the middle ofbeing happy everything seems suddenly empty and stupid to me, and Idread your finding that out. Arid spaces. . . . I don't know how to explainit. They'll come even in my love for you. "

Georgie nodded again, like a wise baby mandarin, as she sat there withher feet tucked up under her. She stared ahead, and slowly a change cameover her face, a change like the suffusion of dawn. She caught his headto her and drew it to her breast. 

"I've had nothing to make me tired yet, not like you. I almost want youto feel tired and sad and lost if it'll make you come to me, likethis. . . . " She stroked his hair gently, holding his head very lightly. Hepressed it hard against her; he could feel her heart beating at his ear;he rubbed his cheek against her breast. "You make me feel like a childagain, " he said. "No one has ever done, that. . . . "

"Do you know, " said Georgie, still stroking rhythmically, "that everywoman wants her husband to be four things--her lover, her comrade, herchild, and her master? Did you know that?"

"No; I think I thought it was only the lover they cared about. I'm veryignorant, Georgie! Have I to be all that? D'you think I can?"

"Which of them do you doubt?" asked Georgie slyly. 

"Sometimes the lover, sometimes the comrade, sometimes the child, andalways the master, though I'll play at even that if you want me to. Butthe other three--I shall always be all of them underneath, even in thedry spaces. "

Georgie slowly kissed his ruffled head, and then started to try and tiethe longer hairs on the crown into tight knots. He twisted his head awayand sat up, laughing. "If that's how you're going to treat me when I'mbeing your child, " he threatened, "I'll--"

"You'll what?" asked Georgie. 

Ishmael did precisely what every other lover in the world would havedone in answer to that question at that moment. Later, when the sun hadmoved high and they scrambled up to go home, Georgie was the laughingchild again; only for a second, as they stood on the ridge above andlooked down to the silvery patch where the bright grass was flattenedwhere they had lain, she wore the look that had transfigured her before. 

In the early autumn Ishmael married, and a new phase began for him atCloom. For the first years his precision of them held very true, exceptthat, though they held more of deep and actual satisfaction than he hadimagined, the moments of rapture were less glamorous. 

Ishmael was one of those unlucky and rare people to whom everything haslost poignancy when it is occurring not for the first time. He knew howfar dearer to him was Georgie than Blanche had ever been--how far morelovable she was. But his love had not the keenness, the exquisitesharpness, of the earlier love, because that first time had taken fromhim what in spite of himself he could not give again. If Georgie hadleft him he would not have suffered the agonies he had lived down afterBlanche had gone. 

In the same way he loved Georgie incomparably more than Phoebe, andbetween them passion was a deeper though not a sweeter thing; yet neveragain was he to feel the abandon that had delighted and finally satiatedhim with Phoebe. His relation towards any other human being couldnever now stretch from rim to rim of the world for him as had so nearlybeen the case when he loved Blanche. No one thing could seem to him toovertop all others as he had tried to make it in the first months withPhoebe. 

As time went on there came about many measures of which he was as keenan advocate as he had been of school reform and the ballot, yet neverdid he recapture that first fine glow which had fired him at his entryinto the world of men who worked at these things. He believed as timewent on, more firmly, because more vitally, in God and the future of thesoul than ever he had in his fervid schooldays, yet these beliefsaroused less enthusiasm of response within him. 

He could still feel as strongly in body, soul or mind, but never did hehave those flashing periods when all three are fused together in thatone white passion of feeling which is the genius of youth. Always one ofthe three stood aloof, the jarring spectator in the trinity, andaffected the quality of what the other two might feel. Life, as he wentthrough its midway, seemed to him to disintegrate, not to moveinevitably towards any one culmination of its varied pattern. When hehad been young he lived by what might happen any golden to-morrow; nowhe lived by what did happen day by day. 

BOOK IV

THE SHADOW OF THE SCYTHE

CHAPTER I

QUESTIONS OF VISION

"I am getting on, you know, " said Nicky Ruan. "At twenty-two--nearlytwenty-three--a fellow isn't as young as he was. And I don't want tostick here till I'm too old to enjoy seeing the world. "

"What should you consider too old, Nicky?" asked Ishmael. 

Nicky hesitated; he made a rapid calculation in his head, and arrivingat the fact that his father must be quite forty-six or seven, and beingalways averse to hurting anyone's feelings unless it was very worthwhile, he temporised. 

"Oh, well! it depends on the fellow, doesn't it? I expect, for instance, you weren't nearly as old as me when you were my age, because you didn'tgo to the 'Varsity, and of course that makes a difference. . . . "

Ishmael sat smoking and looking at the boy in silence. He felt he knewwhat the old Bible phrase meant when it spoke of yearning over a child. He felt the helpless desire to protect, to stand between this golden boyand all that must come to him, and he knew that not only can no one livefor anyone else, but that youth would refuse the gift were it possibleto make it. 

Nicky, about whom he knew so little, about whom he realised he hadalways known so little. . . . What did he really know about Nicky's life, his doings up at Oxford, his thoughts? Roughly he was aware of histastes, his habits at home, his affections; but of the other Nicky, theindividual that stood towards life, not the boy who stood in hisrelation of son towards him, he knew nothing. Women, now . . . What laybehind that smooth lean young face--what of knowledge about women?Ishmael had no means of telling. Whether Nicky were still as pure as histwo little sisters, whether he had the technical purity that may forsome time go with a certain amount of curiosity and corruption of themind, whether he had already had his "adventures, " or whether he werestill too undeveloped, too immersed in sports and himself to havebothered about women, Ishmael could not really tell, any more than couldany other parent. 

The only thing in which Ishmael differed from the average parent was inacknowledging his ignorance to himself. But then Nicky had always hadthat curious intangible quality, that mental slipping-away from allgrip, which had made it especially difficult ever really to know whathis thoughts were and what he really knew. Not that there was anyreserve about Nicky--he was not at all averse to talking freely abouthimself; but it seemed as though either there were in him a hollow wheremost people keep the root of self, or else that a very deep-seatedpersonality held court there. Whichever it was, the effect was the same, the effect as of a sealed place. 

Father and son sat looking at each other, and there was somethinginimical in the eyes of both. Nicky sat thinking: "Of course father's abrick in all sorts of ways, and there isn't anybody quite like him, buthe doesn't understand. He never was young like me. . . . " Thus Nicky, andsaw no inconsistency with his statement of a minute earlier that hisfather had been so much younger than he at the same age. And Ishmaelthought: "He has the only thing that matters in the world. . . . _And I waslike that once_. . . . " And almost, for a moment, hated him that he shouldhave the youth which slipped so fast. The moment died, and with it hisbitterness, merged in the pity of youth which welled up in him as hesat fronting Nicky's superb confidence, his health, his swellingappetite for life. 

"But why Canada?" asked Ishmael at last, temporising in his turn. 

"Because I'm sure it's the country of the future; you should hear UncleDan about it!. . . And of course he knows so many people there, so Ishould have introductions and all that. You know you believe in UncleDan!"

"Yes, I believe, as you call it, in your Uncle Dan's sincerity, if onlybecause he's done so many inconsistent and apparently contradictorythings in his life. But that doesn't make me see any real reason why youshould go to Canada. "

Nicky's bright face took on a sulky expression, he swung a foot, and hisjaw stood out as it did when he was angry, thickening his whole aspect. 

"Because, if you want to know, I'm not going to be content to spend mywhole life in an obscure farm in Cornwall, as you've done!" he burstout. "There's the whole world to see and I want to see it. There's--oh, a thousand and one things to do and feel one could never get down here, things I want to do and feel. You can't understand. "

That was true, and Ishmael knew it. What human being, he reflected, marooned as each of us is on the island of individuality, can understandanother even when there is no barrier of a generation between, thatbarrier which only the element of sexual interest can overleap? Therehad been moments when he had wished that his destiny had not tied himquite so much, but on the whole he had loved that to which he was tiedtoo dearly to resent it. He could see that Nicky thought his life hadbeen very wasted; he allowed himself a little smile as he thought ofwhat Cloom would have been like as a heritage for Nicky if he had nottaken the view of his destiny that he had. What would Nicky's ownposition in life have been? Probably no better than that of hisgrandfather, old James Ruan. Ishmael laughed outright, much to Nicky'sindignation, but when he spoke again his voice was gentler. 

"I'll think it over, " he promised, "and I'll write to your uncle and askhim what he thinks. I don't want to clip your wings, Nicky, Heavenforbid! I mayn't always have enjoyed having my own flights socircumscribed, you know. "

Into Nicky's generous young heart rushed a flood of sympathy on theinstant. "It must have been rotten for you, " he said eagerly. "I knowthe old Parson's always saying how splendid you've been about this placeand all that; you mustn't think I don't realise. "

Ishmael, aware that he had not really wished his flights to be wider, that his nature had been satisfied, as far as satisfaction lay in hispower, by Cloom, by the soil which was the fabric of life to him, felthe was obtaining sympathy and approbation on false pretences--indeed, hehad deliberately angled for them. They were too sweet to refuse, howevercome by. Nicky, the young and splendid, whom he loved so dearly in spiteof--or could it be because of?--his elusiveness, did not so often warmhis heart that he could spurn this. He crossed over to where Nicky saton the edge of the table and allowed himself one of his rare caresses, slipping his arm about the boy's shoulders. "We'll see, Nicky!" he said. 

At that moment there came a crash against the door, and it burst open toadmit the two little girls, Vassilissa and Ruth. Vassilissa, alwayscalled Lissa, to avoid confusion when her aunt came to stay, was a slim, vivid-looking child, not pretty, but with a face that changed with everyemotion and a pair of lovely grey eyes. Ruth was simpler, sweeter, morestolid; a bundle of fat and a mane of brown hair chiefly represented herpersonality at present. Lissa was twelve, and looked more, but Ruthseemed younger than her eleven years by reason of her shyness in companyand her slow speech. Ishmael privately thought Lissa a very remarkablechild, but something in him, some touch of the woman, made him in hisheart of hearts love better the quiet little Ruth, who was apt to bedismissed as "stodgy. " He frowned now as they both came tumblingin--Lissa with the sure bounds with which she seemed to take the world, Ruth with her usual heaviness. This room, the little one over the porchthat had been Nicky's bedroom in his boyhood, was now supposed to beIshmael's business room, and as such inviolate. 

"Nicky! Nicky!" cried Lissa. "How late you are! And you know youpromised for twelve o'clock, and we've been waiting for ages and ages!"

"Promised what?" asked Nicky. 

"Oh, Nicky . . . !" on a wail of disgust; "you don't mean to say you'veforgotten! Why, only yesterday you promised that to-day if it was fineyou'd take us out in your tandem. You know you did!"

"Oh, Lord! Well, I can't, anyway. I've got an engagement. "

"Nicky!" Ruth joined in the wail, but it was Lissa who passed rapidly topassion, her face crimson and her eyes full of tears of rage. 

"Then you're a pig, that's what you are--a perfect pig, and I hate you!You never do what you say you will now, and I think it's very caddish ofyou. It's all that beastly Oxford; you've never been the same since youwent there. Mother says so too. She says it's made you a conceited youngpuppy; I heard her!"

"Lissa!" Ishmael's voice was very angry. "Never repeat what anyone hassaid about anyone else--never, never. Do you hear me?"

"I don't care, she did say it, so there!"

Nicky was crimson. He went to the door. "Then it's easy to see whereyou get your good manners from!" he retorted, and was gone beforeIshmael could say anything to him. Lissa was still trembling with rage, and Ruth, who was rather a cry-baby, lifted up her voice and wept, partly because of the disappointment and partly because she could notbear people not to be what she called "all comfy together. "

Georgie Ruan heard the noise and came in briskly. Ishmael made her adespairing gesture to remove the two children. 

Georgie stood taking in the scene. She had altered in fourteen yearsmore than either Ishmael, who was seldom away from her, or than sheherself, had realised; for she had never been a beauty anxiously towatch the glass, and motherhood had absorbed her to the overshadowing ofself. She had coarsened more than actually changed--her sturdy littlefigure had lost its litheness in solidity, her round face had thickenedand the skin roughened. Her movements were as vigorous and her mouth aswonderful, though it was more lost in her face, but her small blue eyeswere still bright. She still managed to keep her air of a great baby, and it went rather sweetly with her obvious matronliness. She swept likea whirlwind on the two little girls, scolding and coaxing in a breath. Lissa at once started to pour out her grievance about the faithlessNicky. 

"He said he had an engagement, " put in Ishmael, seeing Georgie's faceharden. 

"Oh, of course, " she retorted, "and we can guess what it is. . . . " Shebroke off as Ishmael made a warning sign towards the children. "Anyway, I think it's too bad of him to promise the children to take them out andthen not to do it, " she insisted. "That's the third time he's done thatlately, and I know how they were looking forward to it. They came homefrom school half an hour earlier on purpose. "

Lissa and Ruth went to a small private school, whose scholars onlyconsisted of the half-dozen children of the local gentry, and which washeld at the village. It was called "school, " and Lissa and Ruth feltvery proud of going to it, but in reality it was no more than going outto a governess one shared with other girls instead of having a governessto oneself at home. Ruth ran to her father and clung to his kneeheavily; he stroked her shock of brown hair and said: "Cheer up, littlePiggy-widden"--which was his pet name for her, partly because she wasthe youngest and smallest of the family, partly because she was so fat, and in Cornwall the "piggy-widden" is the name for the smallest of thelitter. 

Lissa still stormed, but Georgie, with one of the sudden little gusts oftemper to which she had always been liable, swept on to her and bade herbe quiet at once and have a little self-control. She seized a child ineach hand and whirled them out of the room with instructions to go toNanny and have their faces washed. Then she came back to Ishmael andperched herself on the arm of his chair. She looked very young at themoment, for her attitude was of the Georgie of old days, and her roundface was screwed up in an expression of mock-penitence as she rumpledhis hair. She would have looked younger if the fashions had been kinder, but the beginning of the 'nineties was not a gracious period for women'sdress. The sweep of the crinoline, the piquancy of the fluted draperiesand deliciously absurd bustle, had alike been lost; in their steadreigned serge and cloth gowns that buttoned rigidly and had high stifflittle collars. Braid meandered over Georgie's chest on either side ofthe buttons, and her pretty round neck was hidden and her cheeks made toseem coarse by the stiff collar, while her plump arms looked as thoughstuck on like those of a doll in their sleeves of black cloth whichcontrasted with the bodice and skirt of fawn-coloured serge. Herstraight fringe that had had the merit of suiting her face was nowfrizzed, while the rest of her hair was twisted into what was known as a"tea-pot handle" at the back of her head. 

Ishmael let her pull his head against the scratchy curves of braid, buthe was preoccupied and kept up a tattoo on the writing-table with apaper-knife. There had been so many of these scenes since Nicky had beengrowing up; Georgie had changed towards the boy ever since her ownchildren had been born. She was never unfair to him, but she seemed asthough always on the watch. He must not come near the babies with hisdirty boots on, must stay where he had been before he came near them atall, for fear he had wandered where she considered there might beinfection. His dogs had come under the same ban, and one way and anothershe had gone the right way to sicken Nicky of his little sisters if hehad not been both sweet-natured and rather impervious. Ishmael hadsometimes resented all this on Nicky's behalf, and then Georgie hadaccused him of loving his son the most. Of course, she knew the otherswere "only girls, " and therefore she supposed of no interest to afarmer. . . . Scenes such as this would end in penitence on her part and aweary forgiveness on Ishmael's. He loved Georgie and all his childrendeeply--perhaps his children meant something more to him--but he nevercould quite do away with the feeling that there was something ratherabsurd about the father of a family. . . . 

"What were you going to say about Nicky when I stopped you?" he asked. "Where is it he goes? Is it anywhere in particular?"

"I thought you knew, " said Georgie slowly, "though I might have knownyou didn't; you never see anything, which may be very beautiful, but, believe me, can be very trying to a poor female! If you really want toknow, he goes over to Penzance in his tandem every early-closing day totake out Miss Polly Behenna--from Behenna the draper's in Market JewStreet. "

"Good Lord! . . . There's nothing in it, is there?"

"I shouldn't think so; but you know how silly it is in a place likethis . . . And she's a very pretty girl, and oh, so dreadfully genteel!"

"That'll save him, then! Dairymaids are far more dangerous. But, as yousay, it doesn't do. . . . I think there's something in the Canadian plan, "he added to himself. He took up the lists of accounts he had been busyon when first interrupted by Nicky and began to examine them. He had tohold them far away from his eyes and even then to pucker up his lidsbefore he could quite make them out. Georgie watched him. 

"You know, Ishmael, you want specs, " she said suddenly. "I'm sure of it!I've been watching you for ages and you never seem able to take inanything unless it's a mile off. And all your headaches, too. . . . "

Ishmael thought angrily: "Is there anything women won't say outright?Can't she see I've been sick with terror about my eyes for months, andthat's why I haven't done anything about it?" Aloud he only saidgruffly: "I'm all right!"

"But you aren't!" persisted Georgie. "What's the good of saying you arewhen you aren't?"

"Well, if you like I'll go and see an oculist next time I go toPlymouth, " promised Ishmael. "Will that do you?"

"I like that. It's not for me. I only said, " began Georgie indignantly;but he pulled her head to him and held it there a moment before kissingher. 

"Run away, there's a dear!" he said. "Eyes or no eyes, I've got to getthis done, and you know you can't add two and two, so it's no goodsaying you'll stay and help. "

"I can make two and two make five, which is the whole art of life, "retorted Georgie, laughing. "But as there's the dinner to order, and asyou could no more do that than I could see to the accounts, I'll go. "She bent over him, and wickedly parted his hair away from a thin patchthat was coming on the crown of his head before kissing him full uponit. 

When she was gone Ishmael let the accounts lie untouched before him, and, getting up, he crossed to the window and stood looking out. Heheard the sound of wheels and hoofs coming along the lane at the side ofthe garden wall, and the next moment saw the head of Nicky's leader, apparently protesting violently, come beyond the angle of the wall. Nicky was evidently trying to turn it in the direction of the main road, but the leader had other views, and gave expression to them by sittingdown suddenly on his haunches, with his white-stockinged forelegs struckstraight out, his fiddle-head, with the white blaze between his wickedeyes, looking round over his shoulder at the invisible Nicky, whoseremarks came floating up to Ishmael on the breeze. Finally the leaderwas made to see the error of his ways, and the light dog-cart swunground the corner, and with a flourish of the whip and a clatter and aheart-catching swerve round the angle of the hedge Nicky's tandem borehim swiftly down the road towards where the telegraph wires told of theway which led to Miss Polly Behenna. 

Ishmael watched as long as the cart was in sight, taking pride andcomfort in the fact that his eyes could see the minutest detail as faras the turn on to the high-road; then he came back into the room, andwith a smile and a sigh took up the accounts. Some absurd little thingwithin him made him determine that he would not take to spectacles tillNicky had gone to Canada and could not remark on them. 

CHAPTER II

AUTUMN

A few evenings later Ishmael went out alone on to the moors, filled withvery different ideas from any that had held him of late. Not the pettyfriction of domesticity, nor the pervading thought of that queer feelingin his eyes, nor care for Nicky's future, or anything of the present, stirred within him. A letter received by Georgie that day, and thethought and realisation of which Ishmael had carried about with himthrough all his varied work, now swamped his mind in memories so vividthat the present was only in his mind as a faint bitter flavour hardlyto be noticed. 

Judy had written to Georgie, had written to say she was coming down sometime soon, but primarily the letter had been to give news of Killigrew. Ishmael and Georgie knew--exactly how they could not have told--in whatrelationship Judith and Killigrew had stood to each other; Ishmael felthe had known ever since that evening when he met Judy in Paradise Lane, and to Georgie the certainty had come with greater knowledge of life andrealisation of herself. They had hardly mentioned the affair to eachother, and then only in a round-about manner, but each guessed at theother's knowledge. Georgie was aware that for some years now Judith hadseen very little of Killigrew, but how or why the severance had comeabout neither she nor Ishmael could guess. Judith had never mentionedKilligrew to them except as a mutual friend; she always had the strengthof her own sins. Never till this letter had she spoken or writtenotherwise, but now she told that Killigrew was very ill in Paris andthat she had gone to him. Very ill was practically all she said, beyonda mere mention that the illness was typhoid; but Ishmael knew at oncewhat she meant, though she either would not or could not write it. Through all Georgie's comments and hopes that soon better news wouldcome he never doubted, though he said little, that Killigrew was dying, if not already dead, when Judith wrote. He knew her well enough, andguessed at her still more acutely, to know that she was quite capable ofso much of reticence. And why did she speak so confidently of comingdown to Cloom some time quite soon? She would not leave Paris while Joewas still unwell. . . . Ishmael knew, with the sureness he had once ortwice before known things in his life, and the knowledge affected himstrangely. He felt no violent grief, but a great blank. He had not seenKilligrew for years; but with the knowledge that he was to see him nomore went something of himself--something that had belonged to Killigrewalone and that had responded to something in him which henceforth wouldbe sealed and dead. He kept himself busy all day, but now he walked fastalong the road, only accompanied by his thoughts. 

The first hint of autumn was in the air that evening. The bracken hadbegun to turn, and its hue was intensified by the russet warmth of theevening sunlight, that touched each frond with fire, burnished thegranite boulders, and turned the purple of the heather to a warmruddiness. As Ishmael went along the hard pale road a hare, chased by agreyhound belonging to a couple of miners, came thudding down it, andthe light turned its dim fur to bronze. It flashed past over a low wall, and was happily lost in the confusion of furze and bracken over an oldmine-shaft. Ishmael felt a moment's gladness for its escape; then hewent on, and, soon leaving the road, he struck out over the moor. 

On he went till he came to a disused china-clay pit, showing paleflanks in the curve of the moor. A ruined shaft stood at the head, thelast of the sunset glowing through its empty window-sockets; an owlcalled tremulously, the sheep answered their lambs from the dim moor. Around pearl-pale moon swung in the east, level with the westering sun;as he sank she rose, till the twilight suddenly wrapped the air in asoft blue that was half a shadow, half a lighting. The last of the warmglow had gone; only the acres of feathery bents still held a pinkishwarmth in their bleached masses. 

Ishmael sat upon the dry grass, where the tiny yellow stars of thecreeping potentilla gleamed up at him through the soft dusk, and layalmost too idle for thought. 

He wondered both why he did not feel more, and why he was feeling somuch. If Killigrew had died when they were both young, Ishmael wouldhave felt a more passionate grief--an emptiness, a resentment that neveragain would he see and talk with him; but part of himself would not havedied too. As he lay, there suddenly came into his mind the first twooccasions on which he had heard of deaths that affected him at allintimately--the deaths of Polkinghorne and of Hilaria. Of both he hadheard from Killigrew, he remembered. Polkinghorne--that news could nothave been said actually to have grieved either of them, but it had beenthe first time in Ishmael's life that even the thought of death as apossible happening had occurred to him. Hilaria--a sense of outrage hadbeen added to that; it was not her death that taught him anything beyondthe mere commonplace that death can be a boon, but the news of herillness, that illness which unseen had been upon her even in the dayswhen they had tramped the moors together and she had read to anenthralled ring of boys the breathless instalments of "The Woman inWhite. " It had been the first time he had recognised that fear andhorror lie in wait along the path of life, that not naturally can weever leave it, that sooner or later illness or accident must inevitablymake an end. Even with his passionate distaste for the mere idea ofdeath, this recognition would not have hit him so hard, if it had notbeen that the fact of Hilaria's youth, of her having been, as he phrasedit, "Just like anyone else, just like I am . . . " had shown him that notonly for strangers, for people who are mere names in newspapers, do thehard things of life lie in wait. There was always this something waitingto spring--that might or might not show teeth and claws any time inlife, that did not, in the form of an out-of-the-ordinary fate such asHilaria's, often touch even on the fringe of knowledge, but thatnevertheless was shown to be possible. That was the rub, that was whathe had been aware of ever since. Life was not a simple going-forward, lit by splendid things, marked maybe by the usual happenings such as thedeath of parents, and even friends; but it could hold such grim thingsas this. . . . Once one had seen what tricks life could play there was notrusting it in quite the same way again. That such happenings should bepossible would have seemed incredible till the realisation of Hilariadrove it home. Of no use to say that these things were the exception. They could still happen. 

And now Killigrew--before his natural time, though not so violently ashad been the case with the other two old playmates. Killigrew had livedhis life very thoroughly, though he had always loved not well but toowisely. Sitting there on the lonely moor amid the ruined china-clayworks, with only the sounds of bird and beast breaking the still air, Ishmael seemed to himself as though suspended in a state that wasneither space nor time, when independent of either he could roam thepast as the present, and even the future as well. It was as though timewere cut out of one long endless piece as he had often imagined it as alittle boy, when he had been puzzled that it was not as easy to seeforwards as backwards, and been pricked by the feeling that it wasmerely a forgotten faculty which at any moment hard straining, if onlyit lit on the right way, could regain. For the first time for many yearshe had a glimpse of the pattern of life instead of only the intricacies, seemingly without form, of each phase. Killigrew and, in a much lessdegree--but, as he now saw, hardly less keenly--Hilaria, had both soaffected the web of his life, not in action, but in thought, thatwithout them he would either have learnt different lessons or the samelessons quite differently. Even Judith, Carminow, and all the rest ofthe people who had impinged in greater or less degree, went to make thepattern, though not always, as with Killigrew, Hilaria, andPolkinghorne, could he see any one definite thing that they had been themeans of making clear to his groping vision. For we cannot know peoplewith even the lightest degree of intimacy without both taking from themand giving to them. Externally it may be only two or three people inlife who have had the influencing of it, but each casual encounter hashelped to prepare us for those people. 

What Ishmael felt in regard to Killigrew at the present moment--andrightly felt, for, as he found out later, on the day the letter arrivedat Cloom Killigrew had died--left a blank in his life, but more itbrought home to him that, the meridian once passed, blanks were thingsthat would increase. Children grew up, but they grew away; grandchildrenwould be a stay, but one must be content to be a background for them. This falling away, step by step, through life was, he saw, part of itsordered procession. And he saw too, with a deadly sureness there was noevading, that this thing he knew of Killigrew stood for anotherknowledge to him as well, a knowledge he had been fighting and to whichhe still refused to accede. The knowledge that physical decay had tobe, that for him it had begun. He was still a young man as men countyouth nowadays, but he knew the difference between that and the tingleof the rising sap of real youth. It was not Killigrew's death he mournedso much as the death of that self who had been Killigrew's friend. 

Long now he had been accustomed to the greater sense of proportion inthings mental and emotional which amounts to a greyer level of feeling;he had lived on those not unsweet flats for years. But only lately hadthe physical messages been flashing along to him down his nerves andmuscles, and he resented them far more bitterly than anything mental orspiritual. His eyes--it might be they merely needed spectacles for closework; but he resented that almost as fiercely as the fear about themwhich sometimes assailed him when the pain was bad and his lids prickedand were sore--the waning capacity to stand long strain and fatigue, thewaning power of physical reaction altogether. . . . Lately his cold bathhad meant a half-hour's shivering for him instead of the instantaneousglow which showed perfect bodily response. He was a strong, healthy manwho had led a healthy life, but all the same he was not the man he hadbeen, and this night he acknowledged it. To this he had come, to thiseveryone must come; as a commonplace he supposed he had always knownthat, if he had been asked about it--even as a boy he would have agreedto that, but with the inward thought: "Not to me . . . It can't. . . . " ToNicky too it would come, though Nicky would have laughed the idea toscorn as so far off as not to be worth troubling about. Yet how quicklyit came . . . How terribly quickly! Life seemed to Ishmael to be a shiningribbon that was always being pulled through the fingers, inexorablyfast, cling as they might. 

Ishmael lifted his eyes and stared out over the darkening moor, and hisattention was caught by a flicker upon the western horizon. The lastline of light from the sun's setting still lingered there, so that atfirst it was not easy to disengage from it that flicker of brighterlight which seemed vague as a candle flame in daytime. A few minutesmade certainty, however, and Ishmael stared at the gathering flicker andwondered whether it were a serious fire or mere swaling. It gathered ina rose of flame that gradually lit the horizon and burnt so steadilythat he knew no swaling could account for it, and, standing up, he tookhis bearings and decided that it must be either Farmer Angwin'sbuildings or ricks ablaze. Angwin was a shiftless fellow, gentle andmeek, who was wont to bewail his ill-luck; here was another slice of itfor him, poor man! Ishmael was too far from home to return quickly for atrap, and it would take time to put the horse in. Suddenly he decided hewould make the run on foot across country, as he often had as a boy onseeing that ominous but thrilling glow gathering in the sky. He got tohis feet, nimbly enough if not with suppleness; as he did so he felt atwinge in his thigh such as it had been subject to ever since a badattack of rheumatism the winter before. He stood a moment watching therising glow, then stretched himself. Unconsciously he was asking oflimbs and muscles as to their fitness; as he drew in deep breaths of thesoft air and let the tautened sinews relax again there was no alien notein the symphony of his being--all felt as sound and strong as ever; nowhe was standing the twinge did not bother him--he told himself that inevery inch of him he was still the man he was. Yet he knew he no longerfelt the twang of some divine-strung cord within that had been wont tothrill and inform the whole. 

Quite suddenly, as he stood, there came to him the idea to try and seewhether by physical abandon he could recapture the old frenzy, whetherto the bidding of violent exercise and healthy exhaustion, to the joyof feeling covered with sweat and earth, a mere glowing animal who feelsand does not think, something of what he had lost would come back to himif only for an hour. 

CHAPTER III

BODIES OF FIRE

The dusk was deepening rapidly, that glow brightened every minute;Ishmael began to run. He ran on and on--it seemed to himeffortlessly--and with a tingling glow rising in him that made him feelalive as he had not for long. On and on, straight as keeping that glowahead could make his course, over the hedges, damp and clinging withdew, scattering its drops, breaking the clinging grass stems and thetangled weeds. At each wall he felt the old upleaping of power as hetook it, hurling himself over cleanly in the darkness, delightfullyregardless of what might be on the other side. Down marshy fields thatsucked at his feet, through the pools that splashed up into his heatedface, over the clumps of long grass that grew between the tiny rivuletsand swayed beneath his step and would have given way with him had he notalways leapt on in time with the sure-footedness of long custom. On uplong dry slopes, where he ran slowly but easily, conscious of his ownease, though he could hear his deep-drawn breaths. Through patches ofmoorland where the bracken clung about him or the furze pricked hislegs, as he was subconsciously aware without really noticing it. Once hecame vaulting over a granite wall, to find himself almost on top of ablood-bull, with a ring in his nose and a curly fringe on his foreheadthat showed clearly in the rising moonlight. Ishmael could see, too, hiswet glistening nose and dark eyes. The bull stayed still staring inastonishment, and Ishmael hit his flank gaily in passing and ran on, down a marshy bottom, over another wall and up the next slope. The glowwas brighter now because he was so much nearer, but in reality it hadsubsided somewhat--its first fierce spurt had burnt itself out. Ishmaelbegan to go less easily--his breath rasped a little; but his sensationswere all pleasant--the pounding blood in his whole body ran sweetly, hetingled with a glow that was enjoyable beyond anything he could haveimagined. He knew he must be in a deplorable condition; he could feelthe sweat running down his forehead into his eyes and his shirt clingingto his body under his light coat. Up to the knees he was soaking wet, and splashed with mud higher still; his clothes were torn by thebrambles, and so were his hands and face. He felt happy--happy, in spiteof the news that had come to him. At that moment his run seemed to himto hold an epic quality--the physical aspect of things; the health andstrength he felt coursing through him, the delightful exhaustion that heknew would follow so healthily and naturally, seemed the most importantthings in the world. Let all else go but this. . . . 

He slowed up to a walk as he came to Angwin's farm, passed through thedark yard, and through the gates into a field next the rickyard. It wasfull of folk crowded in from all the countryside. The engine fromPenzance had come and was puffing and panting by the pond, sucking upwater with stertorous breaths; at every gasp it rocked with its ownintensity upon its wheels as it stood, sending out a pulsing shower ofsparks over the muddy water. 

Seven ricks had blazed that night, and still smouldered sullenly. Thegreat grey hose played upon them; the water hissing upon the hot strawand hay, sending up clouds of steam, tinged to a fiery pallor againstthe moonlit night. The walls, not only of the rickyard, but of thesurrounding fields were warm to the touch, for the dry furze growingalong them had caught fire from the blowing sparks, so that at one timethe fields had been outlined with fire. Now the furze had smoulderedand died, but the smooth granite slabs were still hot to the hand, anunnatural warmth that seemed malign in those dewy fields. 

Now the ricks burnt less and less fiercely; Ishmael gave a hand with theother helpers, but there was really nothing to be done. Luckily, as itwas still warm weather, the livestock had all been out in the fields, sothere had been no panic even when one end of the cowshed caught fire. That had been put out and the walls of the barns and out-buildingsdrenched again and again, and everyone was trying to comfort JohnnyAngwin with pointing out how much worse it might have been. 

Leaning over the low warm wall between the ricks and the next field, Ishmael recognised a couple of the artists who of late years had settledin those parts, and he caught their comments along with those of theirneighbours. 

"What a glorious sight!" said one of them, with a deep-drawn breath;"I've never seen anything to touch it. . . . " A couple of farmers' wivesstanding by peered curiously at the speaker and his companion. "Simmethem folk must be lacken' their senses, " said one to the other, "carlen'a sight like this bewtiful! Lacken' their senses, sure 'nough!"

Ishmael smiled to himself, and in his mind agreed with both. "I wonderhow it happened?" piped up another artist, anxious to remove a falseimpression of callousness. Ishmael explained that spontaneous combustionwas probably the cause of the fire, and a farmer standing nearvolunteered his opinion that Angwin had packed his hay damp. Everyonestood a while longer, staring; the glow had gone from the smoulderingricks, and the excitement of the event began to die in the minds of theonlookers. The artist straightened himself and prepared to go. "They'reout now, " he said, half-regretfully, half-cheerfully. The farmer nearhim spoke again. "Them ricks won't be out for days and nights, " hesaid; "they'll go on burning in their hearts. They'm naught but a bodyo' fire, that's what they are . . . A body o' fire. . . . "

Ishmael stayed to see Angwin and do what he could to help; then he beganhis walk home. He was not running now, but aware of a physicaldiscomfort that was not mere exhaustion. He had a sharp pain in his sidesuch as children call a stitch, but no amount of stooping to tieimaginary shoelaces would drive it away. He was glad to accept the offerof a lift home when he was overtaken by a farmer's cart, and as he wasjogged along the pain grew fiercer. By the time he reached Cloom thesplendid fire that had warmed him on his run had died to nothingness, and at his ashen look Georgie cried out. He allowed her to help him tobed and give him hot drinks, to scold him in her woman's way. 

"Such a foolish thing to do at your age . . . You might have known!" shekept on repeating. He said little, but in his own mind ran the refrain:"She doesn't understand. She's still too young. . . . " He wondered whetherwomen ever really did know when talking was a mere foolishness, howeversensible the thing said. And again, over and over to himself, as anaccompaniment even to his pain, ran: "How well worth it . . . !" For he hadrecaptured for a magic couple of hours something he had thought leftbehind him, had burned with it ardently and secretly. He too had been abody of fire. 

The phrase stayed, pricking at him, through the drifting veils of sleepthat alternately deepened and thinned about him all night long. 

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW JUDITH

For a long time Ishmael paid the price of that night raid upon hisphysical resources, and when he was beginning to take up work again, asusual, Nicky was off to Canada--off with the latest thing in outfits, letters of introduction, high hopes, and such excitement at thought ofthe new world at his feet that only at the last moment did the sorrowthat because of the uncertainty of life all leave takings hold, strikehim. Then--for he was a very affectionate boy--he felt tears of which hewas deeply ashamed burning in his eyes; he ignored them, made hisfarewells briefer, and was gone. 

A few days later Judith came down to pay her promised visit. BothIshmael and Georgie drove over to meet her train, and both failed forthe first startled moment to recognise her. Ishmael had an incongruousflash, during which that occasion years earlier when he had seen her andGeorgie walking down that same platform towards him was the more vividactuality. 

Judith's epicene thinness had become gaunt, but it was not that so muchas the colouring of her face and the fact that she was wearing pince-nezthat made her an absolutely different being. This was the third time inher life that Judy was coming down to the West. Once it had been as avery young girl, full of dreams and questionings; once it had been as awoman who had already learned something of proportion; now it was asthis elderly and alien person whom her friends could not connect withthe Judith they had known. Not till they saw the beam of her eyes, asprofound but somehow less sad than the eyes of the girl had been, didthey feel it was the same Judy. The exaggerated colour on her face, thewhite powder and overdone rouge, embarrassed them both. Judy saw it andlaughed, and when they were in the waggonnette and driving along theroad she said: "You're thinking how horribly I'm made up! I can't helpit. I began it and I found I couldn't leave off, and that's the truth. And of course my eye for effect has got out. But I don't think I'mgenerally as bad as this. It comes of having done myself up in thetrain. "

"But, Judy--why?" asked Georgie. She was very shocked, for in those daysonly actresses and women no better than they should be made up theirfaces. 

"Because I began it so as to keep looking young as long as I could, andnow I no longer care about keeping young-looking I can't drop it. That'sthe worst of lots of habits which one starts for some one reason. Thereason for it dies and the habit doesn't. I know I overdo it, but it'sno good my telling myself so. And it doesn't matter much, after all. "

"No, " agreed Georgie, brightening; "after all, one loves ones friendsjust as much if they have mottled skins or a red nose in a cold wind ora shiny forehead, so why shouldn't one love them just as much when theyhave too much pink and white on? It looks much nicer than too little. "

They both laughed and felt more like the Georgie and Judy of olddays--more so than they were to again. As the days went on Georgie, whommarriage had taken completely away from the old artistic set, foundherself feeling that after all she was a married woman and Judy wasstill only Miss Parminter. . . . Judy, scenting this, told her flippantlythat a miss was as good as a mother, and Georgie laughed, but warned herto remember the children were in the room. . . . Judy was inclined to behurt by the needless reminder, and, as she considered it foolish to behurt and still more foolish to show it, she went out. 

She found Ishmael reading in the rock garden that had been made by thestream, which ran along the dip below the house where once had beenrough moorland. Now there were slopes of smooth, vividly green grass andgrey boulders, among which they ran up like green pools; great clustersof brilliant rock flowers grew in bright patches over their smoothflanks. Judy sat down beside Ishmael, who closed his book. 

"So you wear those?" she asked, pointing to his glasses, which he hadtaken off and was slipping into their case. 

"Yes, I went to the oculist at Plymouth when I went up to see Nicky off. He said I had splendid sight, but wanted them for close work. I didn'tknow you had to wear them. "

"I've known for years and years that I ought. I ought to have as a girl. I went once to an oculist, who told me if I wore them till I was forty Icould then throw them away. I thought it was so like a man. I preferredto do without till forty and wear them the rest of my life. "

"But haven't you injured your eyes?"

"Probably. "

"It isn't all as simple as oculists think, " said Ishmael, with thatintuition which is generally called feminine and which had been all hislife his only spark of genius. Judy looked and smiled her old smile, which charmed as much as ever even on her too-red lips. 

"No, " she agreed. "I remember once, after going to that oculist, I triedto wear glasses one night when I was going out with Joe. That decidedme. "

"What happened?"

"I was staying in lodgings at the time, in London. It was the first yearI knew how I felt for him. You know about that--that I did? Yes? I wassure you did. Well, he came to take me out to dinner. The lodgings wererather horrible, though even they couldn't spoil things for me. And Iwas dressing in my room when he came. The sitting-room joined on to itby folding doors. I called out to him I was still dressing, but as amatter of fact I was trying to screw myself up to put the beastly thingson. I remember when I went in to him I kept the shady brim of my hatrather down over my face. The sitting-room was in darkness except forwhat light came in from the hall gas. He said, 'Are you ready? Beenbeautifying?' I said, 'No, exactly the reverse. I've got my glasses on. You know I told you I had to wear them sometimes. '" Judy broke off, thenwent on, looking away from Ishmael. 

"He said, 'Oh, Lord, take 'em off! Here, let me have a look!' He swungme round, with his hands on my shoulders, into the light from the hallgas, and I met his look. 'They might be worse, I suppose, but forgoodness' sake take them off!' he said; 'you don't have to wear them, you know!' I said nothing, but broke away and went down the steps. Hecame after me and continued to look in the street. 'I say, you look justlike your mother in them!' he went on. That was the cruellest thing hecould have said, because he knew my mother . . . He only did it because hedid not think I really had to wear them, and he thought it would make meleave off. I told him what the oculist had said, and he said he wouldcall on me again after I was forty. I pretended to laugh, but I wasfeeling like death. Later on I slipped them off, and he had the tact notto say anything when he saw what I had done. I never wore them againwith him, and went over the world unable to see the things he was ravingabout, and having perpetually to pretend that I did and guess at theright thing to say. Now--it doesn't matter. I prefer wearing them tohaving blinding headaches. "

"It was pretty rotten of him to let it make a difference, " saidIshmael. 

"No, I understand what he felt so well. I knew it myself. There isalways something ridiculous about making love to a woman in glasses. Itdestroys atmosphere. If you're married, and either you're so one withthe man that he really does love you through everything or else is sodull that he doesn't feel their ugliness, it wouldn't make a difference. But I was not married--he had not the married temperament. And you mustadmit that it is impossible to imagine a mistress in glasses. . . . "

"Don't!" said Ishmael sharply. 

"Don't what? Did you think I was speaking bitterly? I wasn't. Thereisn't a scrap of bitterness in me, I'm thankful to say. I couldn't havelived if there had been. I saw that almost at the beginning, as I didabout jealousy. If you have much to be bitter and jealous about, youcan't be; it would kill you. It's only the people who can indulge in alittle of it who dare to. I have not been unhappy for the most part, andI wouldn't undo it, which is the great thing. You knew I had given uphaving times away with him years ago?"

"Yes, I wondered why. "

"The thing had somehow lost something . . . What is lost in marriage justthe same--rapture, glow, fragrance. . . . And in marriage, with luck, something else comes to take its place . . . Domesticity, which is verysweet to a woman. Looking after him instead of being looked after--adeep quiet something. You and Georgie are getting it. But in a relationoutside marriage you can't get that. You can in those extraordinary_ménages_ in France where the little mistress is so domesticated andlives with her lover for years, but that would have been as bad to himas marriage. So I thought it was best to let it all come to an end. Itwasn't easy, for though I had got so that it was torture to be withhim, because all the time I was feeling our dead selves between us, yetdirectly I was away I knew that, even though he was the man he was and Ithe me I had become, we were still nearer to what had been than anythingelse could be. But I did it. It was only when he was dying I went toParis to him. "

"And that. . . ?"

"Oh, it was quite a success. I don't mean to be brutal, but it was. Hewas glad to have me, and showed it. . . . A deathbed is so terriblyegoistic; it can't be helped, but he forgot himself more than everbefore. I was touched profoundly, but all the time I saw that he wasrising to the occasion without knowing it himself. Not that he wasemotional; he was never that. But he showed me something deeper than heever had before. With all his passion he was always so English, alwaysso much the critic, in spite of his powers of enjoyment. He had alwaysmade love in caresses, never in words. Till this last time, as he wasdying. "

Judy was speaking in a quiet voice that sounded as though all her tearshad been shed, yet they were pouring down her face, making havoc of thepaint and powder, of which she was quite aware and for which she carednot at all. Ishmael thought she had never shown her triumphantnaturalness, her stark candour, more finely. As on that evening when hehad met her in Paradise Lane, he was conscious that they understood eachother almost as well as anyone ever can understand any other humanbeing, because they were in some respects so alike. Something quiet andincurably reserved in him--he could never have talked as bravely as shedid--yet was the same as the quality in her that enabled her to bear hersecret relations with Killigrew, that had enabled her to break thoserelations off when she thought it best. And now she seemed to have wonthrough to some calm, he wondered what it was and how she had come toit. . . . 

"What you said about marriage, " he said at last, "struck me rather. It'strue. One loses something, but one finds something. "

"Marriage, even the most idealistic of marriages, must blunt the edgesto a certain extent, " said Judy. "You may call it growing into a saner, more wholesome, view of life, or you may call it a blunting of theedges--the fact is the same. Marriage is a terribly clumsy institution, but it's the most possible way this old world has evolved. It alwayscomes back to it after brave but fated sallies into other paths. "

"Such as yours?" asked Ishmael. It was impossible to pretend to fencewith honesty such as hers. 

"No, not such as mine, because I cannot say I did it for any exaltedreason, such as wishing to reform the world. I had no splendid ideas onmutual freedom or anything like that. I did it simply because I lovedJoe and it was the only way I could have him without making him tired ofme and unhappy. It had to be secret, not only because the sordidness ofwagging tongues would have spoilt it so, but because my life would havebeen so unbearable in the world. A woman's sin is always blamed soheavily. That's a commonplace, isn't it? Yet a woman's sin should be themore forgivable. She sins because it is _the_ man; he sins because it is_a_ woman. "

"Sin!" said Ishmael. "Don't you get to that point in life when the word'sin' becomes extraordinarily meaningless, like the word 'time' in thatchapter of Ecclesiastes where it occurs so often that when one comes tothe end of the chapter 't-i-m-e' means nothing to one. Sin seems to comeso often in life it grows meaningless too. "

"Sin, technically speaking, does, to all but the theologian; but playingthe game, doing the decent thing, not only to others, but to oneself, and keeping one's spiritual taste unspoiled, these things remain, andthey really mean the same. "

"I suppose they do. I like talking to you, Judy. It's not like talkingto a woman, although one's conscious all the time that you are very muchof a woman. But you seem to meet one on common ground. "

"There's not so much difference between men and women as people are aptto think. People are always saying 'men are more this and women are morethat' when really it's the case of the individual, irrespective of sex. A favourite cry is that men are more selfish. I really rather doubt it. Perhaps, if one must generalise, men are more selfish and women are moreegotistical, and of the two the former is the easier vice to overcome. But all this talk of men and women, women and men, seems to me likesomething I was in the middle of years ago, and that now means nothing. "

"What does mean anything to you now?"

"I'm not quite sure I can tell you yet, " said Judy slowly; "and I don'tthink it would be any good to you--there'd be too much against it. Whatdoes mean anything to you, personally?"

"I don't know. . . . I only know that for real youth again, for perfectease of body, I would give everything short of my immortal soul. "

"Ah! then you still feel the soul's the most important?"

"Part of me does--the part of me that responds to the truth, which isgoing on all the time, with us if we like, without us if not, but whichis surely there. It's because I know it's there, even though my longingsare out of key with it, that I still say that about the soul. "

They went up into the house, and that night Georgie, whether becausesome feminine jealousy that he talked so much with Judy was stinging ather, or whether because even without that spur she would have felt someold stirring of warmth, was sweeter to him than for long past. As heheld her against him he was aware that it was not so much passion hefelt as that deeper, sweeter something Judy had spoken of, and for thefirst time he felt free to savour it instead of half-resenting it as aloss of glamour. 

This was a satisfying companionship he had of Georgie, a sweet thingwithout which life would have been emptier, even if it settled noproblems and left untouched the lonely spaces which no human foot canrange in their entirety, though in youth some one step may make themtremble throughout their shining floors. . . . It was good, though it wasnot the whole of life, and as he took it he gave thanks for the variedrelationships in the world which added so to its richness, even if theycould only impinge upon its outer edges. 

CHAPTER V

THE PARSON'S PHILOSOPHY

That summer the Parson began to show signs of breaking up. Judith hadbeen struck by the change in him when she came down, a change less plainto those who were seeing him often, but startlingly distinct to her whohad not seen him for so long. She took up her friendship, that had begunon that evening when he had found her in the church, in the place whereit had left off, and this was somewhat to the credit of both, since ittranspired that during the past year Judy had been received into theRoman Catholic Church. Judith was quiet about her religion as she hadbeen about her love. She had not accepted it in any spirit of therebeing nothing else left for her now in life, as the vulgar-natured wouldhave supposed had they known her history; neither was it because, mostfrequent accusation of the ignorant, it appealed to the sensuous side ofher. For ritual she cared as little as the Parson, and by preference shealways went to low Mass instead of to a high Mass. She had foundsomething that for her had been hitherto hidden, and Boase saw it andwas glad. It was noteworthy that it was to him and not to Ishmael shespoke of it. Georgie, with all her dearness, was almost too prosperousto understand. Judy radiated an inner joy that Ishmael had not attainedand that Georgie had never felt the need of. That joy had not been wonuntil her feet had trod stranger ways than her friends at Cloom everimagined. Often she was seized by a pang of conscience that they shouldadmire her as a creature above everything honest and courageous . . . Forthere was more to know of her now than her relation with Killigrew. Sheknew how the single-heartedness of that had absolved her in their eyes;but for what it had plunged her in they would have had lesscomprehension. For it was not in a nature so essentially womanly asJudith's to be content with sex-starvation once passion had been arousedin her, and the irony of it all was that she, who had not for severalyears awoken to stirred senses with the man she loved, was unable tostifle their urgency after she had left him. 

From slight dalliance with first one man and then another, she hadprogressed to the greater intimacies, ashamed but unfighting. Till atlast the pricking thing had begun to grow fainter and her will strongerand she was able to break away. She hid the truth and kept up the oldtradition of having loved only once, partly because it was true she hadnot felt actual love again, but partly for vanity's sake. . . . 

It was not that she was vain of the romantic figure she seemed to herfriends; it was a more deadly thing than that. She was vain of thequality of her past love. Too much had been made of it, and she wouldhave been more than human had she succeeded altogether in escaping thetemptation to visualise herself as the tragic survivor of a greatpassion. And to this had she come, although her love had been soreal. . . . 

Ishmael never again during that visit felt quite the easy intimacy withJudy that he had touched that day by the stream, though as the next fewyears went on and her visits became a regular thing to look forward tothere was built up between them a fabric of friendship that grew to besomething unique to both. Those things which had happened to Judy hadtaught her every tolerance and sympathy. 

They were not on the whole bad, those years that followed. Nicky, afterwriting more or less regularly, suddenly announced his intention ofcoming home again, and Ishmael was filled with a joy that no personalthing had had power to wake in him since the boy had gone. The thoughtof Nicky had seldom been far from him; always it was with the idea ofNicky in the forefront of his mind that he worked for Cloom. When he hadfirst taken on the idea of Cloom as the central scheme of his life ithad been for Cloom itself, or rather for the building up of an idealCloom which his father's conduct had shattered. Now he realised that ifhe had had no son to inherit after him his work would not have held thesame deep significance for him, even though it was not with anyconscious idea of a son that he had started on his task. Now, sinceNicky's departure, he had begun to see how incomplete the whole schemewould have been without him, how incomplete it would still be if Nickywanted to wander all his days, or if modernity and the new country overthe sea should have come to mean more to him than the old. He knew byNicky's letter that this was not so, and his heart sang within him. Fordays after the letter came a glamour that to his eyes the world had lostilluminated it once again. 

The 'nineties, young and go-ahead as they felt to themselves, did notseem to Ishmael nearly as wonderful as the 'seventies, which had seen somuch deeper changes. This world--in which people now moved socomplacently talking of Ibsen and Wilde, of weird Yellow Books of whichhe heard from Judith, and many other things all designated as_fin-de-sičcle_--he had seen it in the making. The very children growingup in his house, the plump little Ruth and the clever, impatient Lissa, they thought they knew so much more than he did because they had beenborn so much later; and so in a way they did, in as much as the youngergeneration always sees more truly because it has not had time to collectso many prejudices, but can come straight and fresh to setting rightthe problems of the world. But what Lissa and Ruth did not yet realiseas he did was that the day would come when children born in the newcentury would look upon them with a gentle pity. 

On the day the letter came from Nicky, nearly two years after he hadgone away, Ishmael went over to see Boase and tell him the news. TheParson could not often get over to Cloom Manor now, but it was thehighest tribute to him that not only Ishmael and Judy and Georgie, whenshe could spare the time, but the children too, considered a visit tothe Parson in the light of a pleasure. Boase knew it and was glad--evenhis sturdy aloofness and self-reliance would have felt a pang at beingcalled on for decency's sake. 

Ishmael found Boase lying on the long chair in his study, that for himalways held something, some smell or atmosphere of the mind, thatcarried him back to his childhood. He felt in the midst of the old daysagain at once, when he was not looking at Boase, who was grown very old, his once rather square face and blunt features having taken on atransparency of texture that was in itself ageing, while his hair, sparse about the big brow, was a creamy white like froth. Boase calledto Ishmael, recognising his step, to take off his wet things in thehall, for it was raining hard, with that whole-hearted rain of the Westwhich when it begins seems as though it could never stop again. That wasa wet summer, when the stalks of the growing harvest were flattened tothe earth and the corn sprouted green in the ear and the hay rotted onthe ground before ever it could be carried. Ishmael had to be carefulabout getting wet since that night when he had run to the burning ofAngwin's ricks, and he did not scorn the Parson's offer of a pair ofshabby old slippers that lurked under the hall chair for just suchoccasions as this. 

It seemed to Ishmael that if he had not been feeling such a differentbeing himself he might have been a little boy again and time never havemoved on from the days when he lived here with the Parson and did hislessons in this room. Outside the shrubs bent before the rainy wind, asthey had done so many times before his childish eyes; the scrap of lawnvisible between them showed as sopping and as green; the fuchsia hadgrown bigger; but its purple and scarlet blossoms, so straightlypendant, each held a drop of clear water at the tip, as they had everdone in weather such as this. Within the room might be a little fuller, a little smaller, whether owing to the Parson's untidiness, with whichthe new housekeeper could not cope as well as had old Mrs. Tippet, longdead, or whether to the shrinking that takes place in rooms afterchildhood is passed, Ishmael could not have told. Three walls were stilllined with dusty golden-brown books that he had been wont to describe assmelling of bad milk pudding, and the shabby green tablecloth waslittered with sermon paper and more books just as it had been for hislessons. He almost expected to see Vassie's golden head, no more alienfrom him than his own boyish dark one, bending over it as he looked. 

Boase held out a thin hand to him, laying down the book he had beenreading, after slipping a marker in the place. Ishmael saw it was a newbook from the library. "Robert Elsmere" was the name upon its cover. 

"What good thing has happened?" asked Boase, watching Ishmael's face. 

"Padre, you are too clever; if you had lived a few centuries earlier youwould certainly have been burned alive! Nicky is coming home. "

"That is splendid news! He has been away quite long enough to be good. "

"For him?"

"No, for you. You are getting stodgy, Ishmael. "

Ishmael laughed, but felt rather annoyed all the same. 

"What is one to do? I am growing old. "

"Nonsense! Have the decency to remember that compared with me you are ayoung man. Wait till you are close on eighty and then see how you feelabout it. "

Ishmael had a quick feeling that after all he was young compared withthis frail, burning whiteness, yet it seemed to him that he could neverbe as old as that, that then indeed life could not be worth living. Aloud he said mechanically:

"You? You are always young. "

"Age does not matter when you are really old; it is only the getting oldthat matters, " said Boase; "it is like death. No one minds being dead;it's the dying that appals. But seriously, my dear boy, what reallymatters is to have the quality of youth. Don't lose that. "

"I'm not sure I ever had it, " said Ishmael slowly, sitting down by thelong chair. 

"Perhaps not. You were acutely young, which is not quite the same thing. Our friend Killigrew had the quality of youth. One can say of him thathe died young. I think your Nicky has that quality too. That's why he'llbe so good for you. "

"What about the girls? Aren't they enough to save my soul alive?"

"Oh, well, girls are never quite the same thing. A father loves hisdaughters if anything more than his sons, but it's as a father and notas a fellow human. You know, I've seen a good deal of Judith thissummer; she's always good at coming and talking to an old man, and whatinterests me about her is that she keeps so fluid. I mean that she neversticks where she was. I don't want you to either. You came in the daysof Ruskin and Pater and of great men politically, but I don't want youto stick there. There's no merit in being right at one time in one'slife if one sticks to that rightness after it has lost its significance. You know, a stopped clock is right twice every twenty-four hours, butit's a rightness without value. Keep fluid, Ishmael. It is the onlyyouth. "

"Is that why you're reading 'Robert Elsmere'?" asked Ishmael, with asmile. 

"Exactly. I'm not going to change what feeds my soul daily for what isoffered me between these covers, but that's not the point. One canalways discriminate, but one should always give oneself things todiscriminate between. "

There was a short silence, which the Parson broke. "I too have had aletter, " he said, and there was something in his voice which madeIshmael aware of a portent beyond the ordinary. "From Archelaus . . . "added Boase. 

"From Archelaus?" echoed Ishmael. The name came upon him like the nameof one dead, it seemed to him that when they spoke of Killigrew theytouched more upon the living than when they mentioned Archelaus. "Whydoes he write?" he added; and his voice sounded harsh and dry even tohis own ears, so that he felt a little shame at himself. 

"He has met Nicky in Canada. "

"I thought Archelaus had gone West in the States, if he were still aliveat all. I was beginning to think something must have happened to him. Noone has heard for so long. He took a funny idea into his head at onetime to write to Georgie, whom he had never seen--queer letters, tellingvery little, full of sly remarks one couldn't get the rights of. "Ishmael paused, waiting for the Parson to produce the letter and show ithim, but Boase made no move. "It's funny Nicky never mentioned it, " wenton Ishmael with an odd little note that was almost jealousy in hisvoice. . . . 

"He says he did not tell Nicky who he was, " said the Parson reluctantly. "I think there is more good in that queer, distorted creature than youthink for, Ishmael. Seeing the boy seems to have roused him to oldfeelings of home. . . . He writes oddly, but in a strain that is notwholly base. "

"I can't make out why he wants to write to you at all, Padre; he alwayshated you, blamed you so . . . For the marriage and all that. "

"There is not much accounting for the vagaries of a man like that. Yourfather thought to be ironic when he had you called Ishmael; he saw everyman's hand against you--you the youngest and the one against so many. And you have made a strong, secure life for yourself and your children, and it is Archelaus who wanders. . . . "

"Archelaus would always have wandered. He has it in his soul. Do youremember the day Killigrew was classifying men by whether they wanderedor stayed at home? He was right about Archelaus then. Da Boase--youdon't think I could have behaved any differently to him, do you? Hewouldn't be friends. That time in the wood . . . You know . . . I alwaysknew in my heart that he had hit out at me, though I was so afraid ofreally knowing it that I never spoke of it even to you. And then when hecame home after my marriage to poor little Phoebe--he made the firstadvances, it's true, but I never felt happy about them, although heseemed so altered. I've reproached myself sometimes that I was glad whenhe went away after she died. I always hoped he wouldn't come back anymore. What else could I do, Da Boase?"

"I too hope he will never come home any more, " said the Parson slowly, "and yet . . . If he does, try and remember, Ishmael . . . Not that he isyour brother--that would not make things easier--but that he is notquite an ordinary man, that in him the old brutalities dormant in mostof us have always been strong and that he has had nothing to counteractthem. He is not quite as we are. If we cannot understand we should notjudge. "

Again a little silence fell. Then Ishmael said suddenly:

"What does feed your soul, Da Boase? I shouldn't have asked you that, "he added swiftly. "Besides, I know. But though I know, and though Ibelieve in it too, yet I can't yet find all I want in it. "

Boase lay silent, looking out of the rainy window at the wash of greenand pearly grey without. His hand caressed Ishmael's as though he hadbeen a little boy again. 

"That feeds my soul from which my soul came . . . " he said slowly, "anddaily the vision draws nearer to me and its reflection here strengthenseven to my earthly eyes. This world is dear and sweet, but only becauseI know that it is not all, or even the most important part. Each day isthe sweeter to me because each day I can say 'Come quickly, O LordJesus. ' I do not need to say to you all that knowledge means. "

The rain had blown away when Ishmael went home again, yet it seemed tohim he went with a more anxious heart than that with which he had setout. Boase had seemed to him like someone who is almost gone already, whose frail envelope must soon be burned through, and it had come to himthat no one could ever take his place. Killigrew he was missing as muchnow as when he died, because though he had not seen him so very often, yet Killigrew and he had each stood for something to the other that noone else could quite supply, and so his going had left a sense of lossthat time did nothing to fill. But with Boase it was more than that. There was something in Ishmael which Boase had fathered and which knewand recognised its spiritual paternity. His mind had taken much colourfrom Killigrew, but from Boase it had taken form. He felt that thatafternoon in the stuffy study he had touched something he had almostforgotten, that had slipped rather out of his life for the past years, since Nicky had been growing up: a significance, a sense of some plan ofwhich he had caught glimpses in his youth and had since forgotten. 

As he went through the wet world it seemed to him as though he wereonce again the same Ishmael who had so often gone this way long yearsago, when the soul behind life had still intrigued him more than themanifestations of life itself. Whether it was that that afternoon in thestudy had awakened with sharper poignancy than ever before theremembrance of his youth, that some aspect of the room, with its mustybooks, its fire and the driving rain without, had awakened in him aforgotten memory of a day that had once held actual place in his lifebut had long since been lost, awakened it through the mere materialagencies of the sense of smell and sight: or whether the Parson hadtouched him in some atrophied cord that had rung more freely in daysgone by, the effect was the same. 

As he went it was as though time had ceased to exist, as though hecaught some vision of the whole pattern as one rhythmic weaving, and notisolated bits disconnected with each other. The sensation mounted to hisbrain and told him that time itself was a mere fashion of thought, thathe was walking in some period he could not place. He remembered the daywhen the Neck had been cried, and it had seemed to him that the momentwas so acute it could never leave off being the present and slip intothe past; he remembered the first day at St. Renny when he was staringat the sunbeam and feeling that that at least would go on spell-boundfor ever; he remembered that moment when, on his return to Cloom, he hadgone over the fields with John-James and, looking once more on the samefield, had recalled that first moment, and smiled to see how it hadslipped away and was gone. He had smiled without thinking that firstmoment akin to the second one in which he was, whereas now he saw howthe one had led to the other and both to this . . . And how they were allso much one that none seemed further off than another. The word"present" lost significance in such a oneness as this. It came to himthat this sense of completeness, of inevitable pattern, was what theParson felt, what enabled him to wait so tranquilly. 

Ishmael mounted the long slope and stood looking down upon Cloom, and itseemed to him the fabric of a dream. So strong upon him was the sense ofloss of the time-sense that the place-sense also reeled and slipped to adifferent angle in his mind. He saw how in a far-off field at the crestof the further slope serried rows of washing were laid out, looking sooddly like gravestones that the surface of his mind took it for acemetery until, pricked to a more normal consciousness, he realised thatthere could be no such thing there, but only a field belonging to a farmof his own. Even then it seemed to him that he was wandering in anunfamiliar country, with a something unreal about it that gave it adreamlike quality. The sky was by now a deep slate colour; below it theyellow of the road and the green of the fields showed a bleached pallor, and on the telegraph poles that rose and dipped to the crest the chinainsulators looked like motionless white birds against the darkness. Hewent on and down to his house; but all the while he knew that this wasnot his real habitation, that the house Boase was building daily, stoneby stone, was for him too the ultimate bourne, that house which, in someother dimension, only glimpsed here to the dazzling of the mind, isstraightened by neither time nor place as we understand them. He knewit, but not yet for him did the knowledge hold any peace--rather it senta chill of helplessness to his heart. He still wanted something in thisworld, and not in the next, to make the inner joy by which he lived. 

CHAPTER VI

"SOMETHING MUST COME TO ALL OF US"

With autumn Boase died. Like his life, his death seemed so natural, sowithout any sense of strain or outrage, that it was robbed, even for theman who had loved him, of all bitterness beyond that of personal loss. He had not gone uncriticised more than can anyone; there were not a fewof the country people too coarse of grain to understand a man's lifecould really be as his appeared, and a certain capriciousness in his ownlikes and dislikes, which was one of his greatest weaknesses, had madefor him intolerant critics among his own class. Yet, all in all, he wasas near perfection, not only in character, but in understanding, asanyone Ishmael had ever heard of--far more so than anyone he had evermet. And of later years the Parson had grown in tolerance, which alwaysto him had been a Christian duty--though it was far from being a weak ormaudlin tolerance; and he had also lost much of that individualism whichhad been the only thing to cloud his judgment. More than most old men hehad been free from glorification of the past, though not as free as hehimself imagined. Something of Ishmael had gone with Killigrew's going, but that something had hardly included much of his heart; now there wasburied with the Parson, or, more truly, strove to follow him whither hehad gone, a love which was as single-natured a thing as can be felt. Thereturn of Nicky was the only thing which at all filled the emptiness inIshmael's days. 

Nicky had altered, and for the better, if, thought Ishmael, it was notthe mere selfishness of the old generation which had ever made him feelNicky needed improvement. This deepening, this added manliness, wouldafter all have been superhuman in the boy who had gone away. Nicky hadlived roughly among rough men, and he had stood the test well. He stillhad the delightful affectations of youth, but wore them with a bettergrace. He came back not only the heir and future master of Cloom, but aman who could have won his way in the world without so many acres behindhim. He was full of new ideas for farming, which he had imbibed inSaskatchewan, and Ishmael, with a smile of dry amusement againsthimself, found he was as suspicious of them as ever John-James had beenof his iron ploughs and Jersey cows. Farming being "the thing" inCanada, Nicky, who had gone away rather despising it, came back eager totry his hand. 

When Ishmael had first started machinery at Cloom, beginning with abinder and going on to a steam thresher that he hired out for theharvest all around the district, the hedges had been black with folkcrowding to see the wonders, just as they had when the first tractionengine made its appearance in West Penwith. Yet Cornishmen, who areconservative creatures, still cling to their straight-handled scythes, although they are less convenient than those with curved handles in useup-country. Nicky had small use for customs such as this, and he pouredforth ideas that would have turned John-James pale, if anything couldhave affected his seamed and weather-beaten countenance. 

John-James was an old man now--he had aged quickly with his outdoorlife; but always he refused to let Ishmael pension him off, and thoughas overseer he had a wage passing any paid in the county, and though helived comfortably enough in his little cottage chosen by himself, with atidy body who came in from the village every day to attend to his wants, he still showed all the premature ageing of the countryman. He hadnever married, and with age had taken many queer ways, one of them beinga rooted dislike to having any woman except his sister Vassie in hishouse. Georgie was never allowed to cross its threshold, and he alwayscalled her "Mrs. Ruan. " The two little girls he adored, and they knew hewas their uncle, though with the unquestioning faith of childhood theyaccepted that he lived alone in a little cottage like a working manbecause he was eccentric and mustn't be worried to live as father did. Ishmael was very fond of this brother--as fond as John-James' rigidtaciturnity would let him be. John-James' chief peculiarity wasdisplayed always during the week's holiday he took every year; on eachday of this week he would make a pilgrimage to some cemetery. A newgraveyard was an unfailing magnet for him; he would spend hours thereand return next year to note what new headstones had taken root. "Why onearth do you want to go and spend all your holiday in cemeteries, John-James?" Georgie had once asked him; "you'll have to be there forever and ever some day; why do you want to go before you have to?"John-James, attired in his best broadcloth, with a bowler hat firmlyfixed above his weather-beaten face, stared at her stonily "I go to thegraveyards, " he said at length, "because them be the only places wherefolks mind their own business. . . . "

Tom had quite dropped out of the family circle made by Ishmael, Vassie, and John-James. He found the annoyance of not being received in the samecircles as Ishmael and Vassie too irksome to him--who, he not unfairlyconsidered, had done so much the best and with the greatest handicaps. The day when he came over to Cloom and found Lord Luxullyan andJohn-James having tea together was too much for his grasp of socialvalues, and he straightway bought a practice in Plymouth, where he didvery well and rose to be an alderman, though the gleaming eminence ofmayor never was to be for him. He married the daughter of a richdraper--in "the wholesale"--and as soon as he could afford it he droppedall doubtful practices and became strictly honest in his profession. 

Of all the family, Vassie, who had started out with a more definedcharacter than the others, was the least changed. She was eminentlysuccessful--had been ever since she met Flynn and determined to marryhim. She had made him a good wife, for he was one of those men who needfeminine encouragement, and with all his brilliance would never have gotso far without her to encourage him. He was not to be one of the greatmen of his day, but he had done well, having attained anUnder-Secretaryship under Gladstone's last Administration, which hecontinued under Lord Rosebery. With the advent of the Conservative partyin '95 he retired, though still only sixty, and busied himself with asmall estate he had bought in Ireland, where he intended to work out hisschemes for model Utopian tenancies. Vassie was irked by the change. Shehad carried into middle life her superabundant energy--her love of beingin the eye of the world. She had no children to occupy her--her onlyreal quarrel with life--and it did not suit her to sit in Ireland whileher once flaming Dan played with model villages and made notes for hisreminiscences. He had, as flaming dreamers often do, fallen onto thedreams without the fire, and, having attained a certain amount of hisideals, was better pleased to sit and look backwards over those whichhad not materialised than to face a losing struggle in their cause. 

Vassie tried all her wiles to induce him to come to London after thefirst year in retirement, and at last she was able to assure him thatshe was not feeling well. The symptoms were but slight to begin with--atinge of rheumatism in one leg, which annoyed without incapacitatingher. The rheumatism became so fierce that the local doctor at lastdecided it must be neuritis, and when the pain became increasinglyacute and frequent he grew alarmed and insisted on a London opinion. Vassie herself felt a pang of fear, and it was a genuine terror shecarried to the grim house in Harley Street a few days later. The nextweek she was at Cloom. 

Ishmael was shocked at the change in her. Her hair, that had still shownits old brassy hue when last he had seen her at the time of the fall ofthe Government, was now a faded grey--that harsh green-grey that fairhair nearly always turns to on its way to white. There were hollowsunder her eyes, and her full mouth looked drawn. She smiled at hisshocked exclamation that he could not suppress. 

"Don't look like that!" she told him. "The doctor says it's nothopeless, or wouldn't be if I'd let them operate. "

"It? What is it?" asked Ishmael. 

"Tuberculosis in the knee. They want me to have my leg off, and I won't. You don't want me to, do you, Ishmael? I'd rather die whole if I've gotto. "

He had felt all his blood rush to his head with the horror of it; hisheart pounded sickeningly, a darkness swirled before his eyes. Vassielinked her arm in his and walked him up and down the lawn in front ofthe house; from within they could hear the steady rumble of Dan's voiceas he talked to Georgie. Ishmael could not trust himself to speak. Vassie was very dear to him, though there had been few caresses betweenthem during their lives. She stood for something to him no one else everhad, even as she did for John-James. She had never been popular withwomen--Phoebe had feared her, Georgie called her hard and coarse; butto men, though with all her beauty she had been very unattractive tothem as far as her sex went, she meant a good deal as a friend. Judithand she were the only two of the old set who had ever been reallyintimate, and that was more a curious kinship between them, a mutualrespect born out of the strength each recognised in the other's verydifferent character, than anything warmer. But to Ishmael and John-Jamesshe still held the glow that for them had enwrapped her even in earlydays when her destiny was only clear cut in her own mind, and when herhardness, commented on by others, was to them an unknown quantity. Whenshe turned it towards them it became strength, and it did not needcaresses to tell Ishmael that what of tenderness she possessed was morefor him than for anyone else in the world. She felt more his equal thanshe did with Dan, whom she alternately despised, with the kindly despiteof a wife, and respected for qualities of brain that were beyond herpractical reach. She always had to explain to Dan, to Ishmael never. Sheslipped her arm through his now and gave it a little hug. 

"Don't worry! After all something must come to all of us, " she said. 

The phrase knocked at Ishmael's heart. "Something must come to all ofus. . . . " Everyone had to die of something, from some outrage on nature. There had to be some convulsion out of the ordinary course to bring itabout; cases where the human machine simply ran down, as with theParson, were rare. This horror was lying in wait for all--the manner oftheir leaving. It was astonishing, looked at in cold blood, that peoplelived and were gay and happy with this hanging over them from theirbirth onwards. He realised that it was this fact--that only by somedisruption of the ordinary course could death come--which had alwaysmade death seem so unnatural to him. He had for a flash the feeling thatevery woman, however maternal, has when she knows she is to have ababy--a feeling of being caught in something that will not let one go. "Something must come to all of us. . . . "

Her "something" had come to Vassie. She had to submit to the operation, but, though she rallied from it, no real good could be done, and the endbecame merely a question of time. She did not kick against the pricks, as Ishmael had done all his life; she accepted it all with a certainstoicism that was not without its grandeur, and, though she became veryirritable, she had moments of greater softening than ever before. Shewas dying when the clouds of the coming war with the South AfricanRepublics first began to lower over the country. The Flynns were inLondon, for Vassie was now too ill ever to think of crossing over toIreland again, but she suddenly took it into her head to wish to betaken down to Cloom. This was when she heard the news that Nicky, whohad been a volunteer for some time, had enlisted in the Duke ofCornwall's Light Infantry. She had always been very attached to him, spending upon him what of thwarted motherhood she alone knew, and he forhis part had responded to her rather more than he did to most people. Ishmael was wired to, and in November of '99, a month after thedeclaration of war, Dan brought her down with a couple of hospitalnurses and she was installed in the biggest and sunniest room at Cloom. 

With Nicky's absorption into the Army and Vassie's incursion hard uponthe edge of her final parting Ishmael was more strangely affected thanby anything that had happened merely to himself in his whole life. Theapproach of death for Vassie, the perpetual chance of it for Nicky, gavehim the fulness of life, in so far as life means the power to feel. Hehad thought the loss of power to feel for himself an inevitable part ofage, as it had been of the thickening and greater materialism of middlelife; but now he knew that never had he been ravaged as now, becausenever before had he encountered fear for someone he loved. 

Bitter loss, the loss of disappointment which at the time the soul tellsone is worse than loss by death, he had known over Blanche; pain, anger, hardness, with his family he could not have missed; horror andremorse had both assailed him over Phoebe; natural sorrow that held nosense of outrage he had felt for the loss of Killigrew and Boase. Butthis was something different--this aching sense of helplessness, of apassion of protectiveness that could avail neither Vassie under his roofnor Nicky on the far veldt. He had not been of those who are insensitiveto the pain of the world--rather had it held too much of his sympathies;but now, in the sublime selfishness of great personal grief, he felt hewould give everything--the war, the whole rest of the world--to haveNicky back in safety. That was only at first, or when the fear wasstrongest; at other times his sense of proportion and knowledge of howNicky himself would feel towards such a sentiment, brought him to atruer poise. 

The war dragged on. The nation began to see that it was not to be the"walk-over" so confidently expected; disasters occurred, long siegeswore the folk at home even as those in the beleaguered towns, growlsagainst the Government were raised, people talked of "muddling through, "and every barrel-organ in the land ground out "Soldiers of the Queen"and "The Absent-minded Beggar. " Then the world went mad and mafficked, felt a little ashamed of itself, and became, for the first time foryears, rather usefully introspective and self-critical. And "Nicky . . . Nicky . . . Nicky . . . " beat out every swing of the pendulum of Time atCloom. 

Between the beats of intensest feeling Ishmael would fall into the aridspaces which all deep emotion holds as a strongly-running sea holdshollows--spaces where it did not seem to matter so much after all, whenin a dry far-off way he could tell himself that nothing really made anydifference in life. From these hollows he came up again as a man comesfloating into consciousness after chloroform--recalled by a sense ofpain. He had one of these spaces just after Vassie had been buried, andall the time he was consoling Dan's frantic and noisy sorrow he wasfeeling a hypocrite, because, so he told himself, he really did notcare. He did care, and deeply, but he was making the mistake of thinkingthat any grief can go the whole way, that all else in life can possiblybe blotted out. True instinct told him it could not, that all of lifecould never fall in ashes round the head even when it was bowed inirrevocable loss; but a remnant of the conventional made him feel asthough it ought to, and this made him distrust what grief he felt. Histhought for Nicky, even when he was in his dry spaces, he always knewwas eating at him. When, with peace, came the expectation of Nicky'sreturn in safety, it seemed to Ishmael that never before had he knownall that fatherhood meant. Cloom, the future, all that he had worked forall his life, would surely come back with Nicky. 

CHAPTER VII

EARTH

"When Nicky comes home" grew to be the watchword in the household atCloom. The two girls, clever Lissa and thoughtful Ruth, were now grownup, and far from the childish griefs of postponed drives; they had builtup a very pretty legend round the figure of Nicky these three years ofthe war. Ruth had copied out his letters from South Africa and made amanuscript book of them, that Lissa, who was "going in" forcraftsmanship, bound in khaki with the badge of the D. C. L. I. On thecover, and they gave it to their father with great pomp. All of lifecentred round "when Nicky comes home. " He had done very well, havinggained a commission and won a D. S. O. , and there was talk of a publicreception in Penzance for him and the rest of the local heroes. 

One day Nicky came home, but with a wife, and the homecoming wasconsequently quite unlike everything that had been planned. The girlsdeclared loudly that he had spoilt everything and that they had wantedhim to themselves, though privately Ruth thought Marjorie veryfascinating. 

Marjorie was a Colonial by birth--a good-looking, vigorous modern youngwoman, with a rather twangy voice. She admired Cloom so much as anantique that her enthusiasm seemed somehow to belittle it. Yet there wassomething splendid about her--in her confidence and poise, her candour, her superb health, and the simplicity of her thoughts. Ishmael could notbut think her the perfect wife for Cloom and the future of Cloom. Shewould bring fresh, clear blood to the old stock, which showed signs offalling on unhealth. For the first time in his thirty-odd years Nickywas in contact with someone he admired more than himself, and the resultwas excellent. His early discontent had settled into ambition--thelimited honest ambition of the country gentleman such as Ishmael wouldmost have wished to see in him. Canada and the war between them hadcarried him far from the politics of his father--as far as Ishmael hadfound himself from Boase long ago; and when a bye-election occurred inthe division he stood for it in the Unionist interests, and won, hishonours still thick upon him, even in that Radical locality. He was nowgrowing more and more to be master of Cloom, taking an interest in iteven during his inevitable absences in town, Ishmael falling into thebackground; for his sixty years, though vigorous within him if he tookcare of himself, made him suffer for any violent exertion. 

He had slipped into the background--to all but Georgie. She kept pacewith him, although so much younger, because in him she saw her ownyouth. Her children had grown up and away from her as children must, andshe clung to her husband as she had not been wont to do when thepractical affairs of a family had absorbed more of her attention. 

Ishmael endeavoured to live up to the Parson's advice and keep fluid, and his naturally mobile nature helped him in this. Where and when hedid fall short, as the inevitable prejudices of age in favour of theways it knows arose in him, he at least could see it and smile athimself. But, following on the intense period of personal feeling he hadlived through while Nicky was at the war, had come the inevitablereaction, and from that reaction, as far as the capacity for anyoutstanding emotion went, he was too old to recover. 

He had learned the lesson of life too well, saw the whole pattern withtoo great clarity. This alone would have relegated him to thebackground, for it is the frame of mind which, when it is temperamentalfrom the outset, makes the looker-on at life; while when it is attainedit creates the person to whom other people come for sympathy and help inmatters that seem to them enormously important, even while they appealto the wider view for better proportion. 

He was in the background; but he was not yet content to be there. He wascontent to be thought a person who could have feelings that started andended in others--even as a young man he had worked for that; but he hadnot filled in his background with anything that satisfied the portion ofhimself, which, even if a man live for others ever so completely, stillclamours for satisfaction. Every part of him that was in relation toothers had adjusted, but that one spot which always answers to the selfalone was merely going on from day to day as best it could. He wascontent to have no burning emotions, no strong longings, to beconsidered less important than themselves by all the younger peopleamongst whom he lived, but within him the voice that says "I am I . . . Istill want something for myself alone, some solution of the riddle, something to make up for loss of youth and beauty and strength, " stillstirred and muttered. Not prosperity, not children, not a wife who tookstep by step with him, could give this, or even help him to find outwhat it was. Not his memory of what the Parson had lived and died bycould fill him wholly; he had not yet come to that perfect satisfaction, life was too insistent in him. Not in the next world, or in any personalcontact, however intimate, in this, could the stuff of life be found. Hehad imagined while Nicky was away that after all he too had attained thepersonal fusion that most people seemed to cling to as the chief supportin life, but now he knew that that way was not for him any more thanfor any other at the loneliest pass. 

A few days after Nicky's triumphant election, when thought was once morepossible at Cloom, Ishmael felt more depressed than he had for long; hehad been living not so much in the valleys as upon the straight plainsof late. To-day his eyes were hurting him and he could not read; therewas no work crying to be done, and the heavy warm air was misted withdamp that seemed to melt into the bones. He went out, shaking offGeorgie's protests, and struck up the valley leading from the sea. Theold mood was on him that had recurred again and again through life--themood when nothing would satisfy but to go out alone and walk and walkand breathe in peace from earth and air. He went on, not walking fast, for the depression that was on him was not like a definite grief thaturges the body to fierce exertion, and as he went it was as though hehad neglected the charm too long and it was going to fail him. A blightseemed to hang upon everything, and a dread that had no form but thatpressed on him grew as he went. 

He came at last to the marshy bottom of the valley, where the wet andtussocky grass was set in a tangle of blackberry bushes and brackenhigher than a man. A few forlorn tufts of cotton-grass still blew out inthe languid breeze and the yellow stars of the cinquefoil shone from themoss, but disfigured by the dozens of evil-looking black slugs, three orfour inches long, that lay motionless all over the marsh. A faint, subtle smell hung on the air, the fragrance of the dodder, that coveredthe gorse bushes with a fine vermilion net, studded with pale pinkflowers like fat flesh-coloured flies caught in a vast red spider's web. The whole place seemed redolent of evil--the motionless glossy slugs, the deadly parasite with its curiously obscene flowers, the litteredundergrowth rotting in the water, all these filled Ishmael with asuffocating sense of doom. He stayed at gaze, yet longing to get awayfrom this steamy place, where the gorse had gone grey beneath the falseembraces of the dodder. 

At last he turned and climbed slowly up the valley side; when he reachedthe top he had to pause and lean upon a gate to get his breath. Hisheart was pounding in his ears. He did not look up; for a few minutesthe world was dark and filled with a great roaring. Then he felt hisbreath coming more easily and the giddiness passed; he opened his eyesand straightened himself. 

He opened them on to the wide stretch of sky that arched over the sea, and there he saw, stretched from headland to headland, one gleaming footspringing from an irradiated field, the other dying into a swirl ofmisty foam, a perfect arch of rainbow. It was so triumphant, sobrilliant, so unexpected, that at first he stood staring, his mouthopen, his whistling breath coming unheeded. 

A rainbow alone in Nature always looks an alien thing--it is never partof a landscape, but the added touch which means wonder. Like snow, it isalways a phenomenon. It has never lost the quality of miracle. 

Far below the glowing span lay Cloom, wet grey roofs gleaming, and adazzle of sun upon its whitewash; around the fields lay like a jewelledcanopy, lighter than the sky, which still wore a deep purple-grey, against which the arch burned like fire. 

As Ishmael looked the tears swam in his eyes, making the whole radiantvision reel and run together in a blaze of passionate light and colour. 

As he stood there, feeling a keener joy than he could ever remember thepersonal having given him, all his philosophy, all his changing beliefsin what was most worth while, resolved themselves into the passionatecry: "Let beauty not die for me. . . . May dawn and sunset, twilight andstorm, hold their thrill to the last; may the young moon still cradlemagic and the old moon image peace; may the wind never fail to blowfreedom into my nostrils, and the sunlight strike to my heart till Idie. And if colour, light, shadow, and sound of birds' calling all fallaway from my failing senses, at least let the touch of earth be sweet tomy fingers and the air to my eyelids. "

BOOK V

HARVEST

CHAPTER I

THE FOUR-ACRE

A little boy was riding into Cloom farmyard astride a big carthorse, whistling and beating time with a toy switch upon its irresponsiveflanks. He was so small that his bare brown legs stuck straight out oneither side of him, but he sat upright and clutched the dark tangledmane firmly. The horse planted his big gleaming hoofs with care, hisbroad haunches heaved slightly as he went, and the child swayed securelyto the action. Beside the horse's arched neck walked an old man, lesssure of step than the animal; the child drummed with his sandalled feetagainst the round sides of his steed and managed to kick the old man ashe did so. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, Granpa!" he said in a clear treble, laughing a little, not because he thought it was funny to have hit his grandfather, butbecause it was such a fine day and it was so jolly on the big horse, andhe knew his grandfather would understand that he could not help laughingat everything. The old man put up his hand and laid it gently on theslim brown leg, keeping it there till the horse stopped in the middle ofthe yard, when he held up both his arms and the boy slipped down intothem. 

"Jim!" called at woman's voice from the house. "Jim! Hurry up; it's pastlesson-time. "

"Bother!" said Jim regretfully; "it's always lesson-time just as I'mreally occupied. I wish I was a grown-up and could do what I liked. "

The old man did not contradict him with a well-worn platitude, becausehe knew that in the way the child meant grown-ups did have a great dealof freedom. 

"You wouldn't like to be as old as I am, would you, Jim?" he asked. Jimregarded him thoughtfully; evidently this was the first time he had evenimagined such a thing ever being possible. He cast about in his mind tothink of some answer that would not hurt his grandfather's feelings. 

"Well, perhaps not quite as old as you, Granpa!" he said; "as old asDaddy; not with white hair like you--just a grown-up man. "

"Jim . . . !" came the voice again more insistently, and his motherappeared at the back door and stood framed in its arch of carvedgranite. Marjorie Ruan was still a fine young woman; her thirty-oddyears sat lightly upon her. Her tanned skin and the full column of herlong, bare throat gave her a look of exuberant health. She was dressedin a smart suit of white linen and her brown head was bare. 

"Have you been having a ride?" she asked. "But you mustn't stop when Icall you, you know! You shouldn't keep him when he ought to come, Granpa!" The grandfather remained unperturbed. He liked and admiredMarjorie, but there were times when he considered her manners leftsomething to be desired. Jim ran into the house, and Marjorie, shepherding him in with a sweeping motion of her strong, big arm, disappeared also, curved a little over him. Ishmael was left alone inthe yard, stroking the velvet-soft muzzle of the waiting horse. 

Ishmael made a fine figure as he stood there, a little stooped, buthandsome in his thin old way, with his strongly-modelled nose and hisdark hazel eyes deep-set beneath the shaggy white brows. He wasclean-shaven, and the fine curve of his jaw, always rather pointed thanheavy, gave a touch of the priestly which looked oddly alien with hisloose Norfolk jacket and corduroy breeches and the brown leather gaitersthat protected his thin old legs. His close-cropped grey head wasuncovered, and he still carried it well; he looked his years, but borethem bravely, nevertheless. 

"You are going to finish sowing the four-acre to-day?" he asked the manwho came out from a shed leading another horse. "I shall come alongmyself later on. Mind you regulate the feed of the drill carefully; it'snot been working quite well lately. " He stood watching a moment whilethe man harnessed the horses to the big drill, which, standing quiescentnow, was soon to rattle and clank over the ploughed and harrowed earthof the four-acre field. Then he turned, and, going through the house, went out on to the lawn, where on a long chair in the sun, carefullyswathed in shawls, an old lady was lying. 

"Have you everything you want, Judy?" he asked, sitting slowly down onthe garden-chair beside her. She looked up at him through the largeround spectacles, that gave her an air as of a fairy godmother in aplay, and nodded. "Everything, thanks! Marjorie has been very good. Myknitting--which I always take about with me, because I think it's onlydecent for an old lady to knit, not because I can do it well, for Ican't; to-day's _Western Morning News_ and yesterday's _Times_; and mywriting-pad, if I should take it into my head to write letters, which Ishan't, because, as you know, I think letters are thoroughly vicious. One of the few signs of grace about the present generation is theso-called decay of the art of letter-writing. "

"Jim would agree with you. He has just had to go in to his lessons; andhe thinks that letters are a lot of rot, anyway!"

"What are you doing to-day, Ishmael?"

"I am thinking of helping with the four-acre. Nicky will soon be downfor the Easter recess, and then I shall be so carefully looked after Ishall not get the chance to overtire myself. "

"Nicky has turned out a dear boy, and good son, " said Judy kindly. 

"Nicky always was a dear boy--even at his most elusive. Jim is morehuman than Nicky was at his age, but he hasn't Nicky's charm, thatsomething of a piskie's changeling that made Nicky so attractive. Yes, he's a 'good son, ' to use your horrible expression, Judy. And Marjorieis a very good wife for him, though I must say I enjoy it when I canhave the two boys, the big and the little one, to myself. "

"I sometimes wonder how much you ever really liked women, " said Judy. 

"I have always liked them, as you call it, very much indeed. But I don'tthink I've ever thought of them as women first and foremost, but ashuman beings more or less like unto myself. "

"That's where you've made your mistake. Not because they aren't--forthey are--but because that destroys the mystery, and no one is keener onkeeping up the idea that women are mysterious creatures, unlike men, than women themselves. "

"I daresay you're right. But to look at, merely externally, I've alwaysbeen able to get the mystery. They can look so that a man is afraid totouch such exquisite, ethereal creatures, all the time that they'rewanting to be touched most. Georgie always used to say I neverunderstood women. "

"When she meant that you showed your understanding too clearly. DearGeorgie!"

"Yes, dear Georgie! It does seem rough luck that she should have gonethe first when she was so much younger than I, doesn't it?"

"Rough luck on you, or on her, are you meaning at the moment?"

"At the moment I was meaning on her. She was so in love with life. But Isuppose really on me. I might, humanly speaking, have been fairly surethat I should have had her as a companion all the last years. "

"Do you find it very lonely since Ruth married her tame clergyman andLissa went away to become a full-blown painter?"

"Doesn't it always have to be lonely? Isn't it always really? The onlything is that when we are young we have distractions which prevent usseeing it. We can cheat ourselves with physical contact that makes usthink it possible to fuse with any one other human being. But it isn't. When we are our age--well, we know it's always isolated, but that itdoesn't matter. "

"What does matter? Those to come?"

"Yes, those to come--always them first; yet not that alone, or therewould be no more value in them than in ourselves if it were always to bea vicious circle like that. Each individual soul is equally important, the old as much as the young, in the eternal scheme. It is only in theeconomy of this world that youth is more important than age. "

"I think I can fairly lay claim to being a broadminded ''vert'" saidJudith, "but of course, you know, I can't help feeling I've gotsomething in the way of what makes things worth while that you haven't?"

"Yes, I know you do. I see you're bound to have. But of course, owing towhat the Parson inculcated into me, I think I've got it too, but I quitesee I can't expect you to think so. "

"It's seeing the light that matters most, I think, " said Judy. "Webelieve the same though I _know_ I've got it, and you only _think_ youhave! But it's the thinking that is all important. The mystery to me ishow anyone can be satisfied with the phenomena of this world alone asan answer to the riddle. "

"It's not so much of a mystery to me. The world is so very beautifulthat it can stand instead of human love, so why not, to some people, instead of Divine love also? The beauty of it is what I have chieflylived by. It could for very long thrill me to the exclusion ofeverything else. "

"And now?" asked Judith. 

"Now? Now I am old that has been young, and still I cannot answer youthat. I believe these airmen tell you of air pockets they come to, holesin the atmosphere, where their machines drop, drop. . . . I think I am inan air pocket, a hole between the guiding winds of the spirit . . . One istoo occupied in not dropping when in those holes to think of anythingelse. Action is the best thing, which is why I am now going to leave youto sow the four-acre. "

He got up, slowly and painfully, though he stood as erect as ever oncehe was upon his feet. He stood a moment looking at Judith. 

"Judy, d'you ever have those times when you feel something is going tohappen?" he asked, "when you expect something to come round the corner, so to speak, at every moment. One so often had it in one's youth--onewoke with it every morning: I don't mean that, but the expectation ofsome one thing that is in the air so near one that any moment it maybreak into actuality?"

"I never have it now, my dear, but I know what you mean. Why? Have yougot it?"

"Yes. "

"Is it about anything particular you are feeling it?"

"No, no; my uncanny vision doesn't go as far as that, I'm afraid. "

"Dare I murmur indigestion?" she asked, with a gentle chuckle, hunchingherself into her shawls. 

"You may murmur, but I scorn you as a materialist and one who isn'teven genuine. I go to my sowing, but you'll see if this old man is notjustified of his dreams. " He left her, and she watched him across thelawn with the detached affection of the old in her eyes; then she tookup, not her knitting or her writing-pad, but the little book ofdevotions that lay in a fold of her shawl, and started to read, her lipsmoving slightly but soundlessly. 

In the four-acre field there was a strong wind blowing that for days hadbeen drying the turned earth to powder. The soil, so rich of hue whenfreshly turned, now showed a pale drab, dry and crumbling beneath thefeet, while every step stirred up the fine particles and made them blowabout like smoke. 

Ishmael superintended the pouring of a sack of dredge-corn into thegaping maw of the drill, and the man took the rope reins, and, throwingover the lever, set the horses off, following as faithfully as might bethe curve of the hedge. The sun gleamed on the glossy haunches of thehorses, on the upper curve of the spidery wheels, whose faded vermilionseemed to revolve under a quivering splash of living gold that magicallystayed poised, as it were, to let the wheels slip perpetually fromunder. The wind blew the horses' forelocks away between their ears;while about their plumy fetlocks, wreathing around the wheels and thesharp nozzles of the drill and from the heavy feet of the man whofollowed, rose the blown clouds of powdery soil, as though the earthwere smoking at some vast sacrifice. 

All the way up and down the field, back and forth, with a clanking asthe lever was thrown in and out of gear for the turn at either end, thiscloud went with them, blowing fine and free, encompassing them high asthe horses' bellies. Ishmael watched, checked the man at the turn, andfinding the corn was flowing too freely, altered the indicator, and thenhimself took the reins and in his turn went up and down the lines ofsmoking earth. And gradually, as he went, his sense of sight, andthrough it his brain, became gently mesmerised as the shallow furrowsmade by the nozzles of the drill drew themselves perpetually just beforehim. He could see the bright seeds dribbling into the top of theserpentine tubes, but no eye could catch their swift transit into theearth, which closed and tossed over itself in the wake of the nozzles asfoam turns and throws itself about in the wake of a screw. Ishmael, hiseyes on that living earth that surged so rhythmically yet with suchfreedom of pattern that no clod fell like another, while the dust blewback from it like spray, was soothed in exactly the same way that a manis soothed when he watches the weaving of the foam-patterns as they slipperpetually from beneath a ship. 

Every year upon his farm there now came something of the joy of thegambler to Ishmael, who never sowed without feeling that it might be forthe last time. Curiously enough, it never occurred to him as possiblethat he could die before what he had sown was grown and reaped. Everythreshing over, he wondered if he should live to see another; everysowing he told himself it might be the last time he saw the earthclosing over the trail of the seeds, that before another spring cameround the earth might be closed over him instead, and this gave an extrakeenness of appreciation to all he did and watched. Now, as he sowed, peace seemed to come to him as well as pleasure, a feeling that thoughsowing was always for a blind future, yet that future was as securely inthe womb of the thought of God as the seeds in the womb of the earth. Hewalked on, up and down, till the last furrow had been sown and the seedslay all hidden and the ruffled earth only awaited the quieting of theroller. Then he leant upon the drill and stared out over the acres thatwere to him as the flesh of his flesh; he bent down and crumpled a clodbetween his fingers for sheer joy of the feel of it. 

When he straightened himself it was to see the figure of an old man hedid not know coming through the gate that led from the lane into thefarmyard. There was only one field intervening, and Ishmael's eyes werestill very good at a distance; he could see the old man was no one fromthose parts. There was something outlandish, too, about the soft slouchhat and the cut of the clothes, of a slaty grey that showed up clearlyamidst the earthy and green colours all around. The old man stoodfumbling with the gate in his hand, then, when it swung back, he stayedstaring round him as though he were looking for something he did notfind. He made two or three little steps forward, then paused. Ishmael, having bidden the man see to the horses, went into the next field thatgave into the yard. 

The stranger looked round, saw him, hesitated again, then went forward, more surely this time, as though he had either remembered something orsuddenly made up his mind. He passed through the archway into the court. Ishmael stood, his hand on the gate, staring after him, his heartthumping painfully, why, he could not or would not admit to himself. Then he, too, went on and into the court. He crossed it, went throughthe passage door that stood open, and on into the kitchen which lay onthe left. There was no one there. He passed into the sitting-room on theright of the passage, and there he saw the old man standing by thefireplace and looking round him with an odd, bewildered air. He lookedup as Ishmael came in, and their eyes met. Afterwards Ishmael realisedthat he had always known it was Archelaus from the moment he had seenhim stand and look round him at the gate. 

Archelaus looked a very old man. He was old even in actual years, andalmost ageless if some indefinable look on his seamed face registeredmore truly the period sustained by the ravaged spirit. He stood staringat Ishmael, then spoke in a husky, uncertain voice that went suddenlyfrom gruffness to a high querulousness. 

"Who be you?" he asked. "I be Archelaus Beggoe, and I'm come home towhere I was born and reared. . . . I'm come home, I tell 'ee. "

The two old men stood looking at each other. 

"Don't you remember me?" asked Ishmael gently. "I'm Ishmael, yourbrother; you know. . . . " He went forward and took the other's unresistinghand. "Welcome home, Archelaus!"

The elder brother said nothing, but slowly a look of comprehension beganto dawn in his bleared old eyes, a look that was inexpressibly sly andyet harmless, so infantine was his whole aspect of helplessness. Heshook Ishmael's hand very slowly, then dropped it. 

"I'm come home, " he repeated obstinately. 

CHAPTER II

ARCHELAUS, NICKY, JIM

The next day it became plain to Ishmael that Archelaus spoke the truthwhen he announced that he had come home. His legs were old and stiff, but after pottering all the morning after his brother, who suddenly feltyears younger through sheer force of contrast, he followed himobstinately out to the four-acre field, where Ishmael had hoped to getaway from him. And Ishmael watched the rolling, as he had only the daybefore watched the sowing, but with a sinking of the heart instead ofthe lightening that had been his only twenty-four hours earlier. Themere presence of Archelaus, though they were now both old men, pastrivalry, held for him an antagonism he could hide but could not keephimself from feeling. 

As the ridgy clods flattened out to a level of purplish fawn beneath theone passing of the cumbrous roller, that yet looked so small behind thehuge mare, Ishmael felt his spirits being as flattened as the four-acreitself. Yet even as yesterday the two horses had done, so to-day themare spread her powerful haunches and raised clouds of earth with eachfirm impact of her gleaming hoofs; but the joy was gone from the sight. Even Hester, the farm-dog, lineal descendant of poor Wanda, seemed tofeel the inaction in the air, and, leaving off her slavish following ofthe roller, flung herself down on a stretch of field where it hadalready passed, legs outspread, looking so flattened as she lay there, amere pattern of black and white, that the roller might have passed overher also. Archelaus stood leaning upon a favourite stick of Nicky's thathe had taken from the hall, and commented shrewdly enough upon theaffairs of the farm. He seemed suddenly to be showing a great interestin them, and during the days that followed this did not diminish. Forall his years his wits seemed bright; only whenever the suggestion arosethat he might be happier if he took up his quarters elsewhere his eyesseemed actually to film over like a bird's with the blankness thatdescended on them. Indeed, there seemed no real reason for getting ridof him. He was old and strange, but he behaved himself and played withthe children, both Ruth's couple and little Jim; he was a huge success. He ousted the grandfather--so much more vivid were his tales, so muchmore amusing the things he could do with a penknife and a bit of wood. Whistles, whips, boats, all seemed to grow under his gnarled old hands, with their discoloured and broken nails, as though without effort. Andwatching his success, knowing by some instinct he would not have toldfor fear of misconstruction to any but Judy, who always understood, thatsome malign wish to hurt lay at the springs of his brother'scomplaisance towards the children, Ishmael felt a stirring of the oldunease that he admitted to himself was not without a leaven of jealousy. 

For the Easter recess Nicky came down, and no lover ever waited for hismistress with a more high-beating heart than Ishmael did for his son. And at the back of his mind was the haunting fear of Archelaus asaffecting his relations with Nicky, a fear such as he might have had hadNicky been a woman and he and Archelaus young men. 

Nicky came, charming as ever. He was so full of life that his forty-oddyears seemed nothing to him. He had that immense vitality, sparkling butfull of reserved strength, that brings with it a sense of completenessapart from youth or age. Ishmael felt the old pang of disappointmentthat Nicky gave so little, repented of directly some little thing showedhow Nicky was thinking of and for him. Nicky drew his brows togetherwhen he heard of his uncle's advent. He was a great stickler for theconventions, and did not like this appearance in the flesh of old familyscandals that might again become a topic for busy tongues. 

Archelaus was out when Nicky arrived, but when the family party wasassembled on the lawn for tea he made his appearance. Everyone wasthere. Ruth had driven over from her Vicarage with her two little girls, with whom Jim was playing and occasionally quarrelling; Marjorie sat byNicky and waited on him with an indulgence she generally showed him onthe first day together after they had been separated for a few weeks;and even the volatile Lissa was there, in a sense, as Ruth had had along letter from her that morning which she had brought over to read toher father. Ruth's husband, a gentle, kindly, abstracted creature, wasthere too, pulling his long fingers through his beard and saying verylittle. Ishmael liked him, but preferred him to come to the Manor ratherthan himself going to the Vicarage. He had never got over the idea bredin him by association with the Parson that a priest should not bemarried. 

Archelaus wandered on to the lawn looking his most spruce; he hadevidently tried to tidy himself, having shaved and put on a clean collarof extraordinarily antiquated make. His clothes might have had "Americanready-made" written upon them. He advanced towards them slowly, leaningheavily on his stick. 

"Nicky, " said Ishmael, "this is your Uncle Archelaus. . . . This is myboy. "

Nicky got to his feet and said rather coldly that he hoped his uncle waswell, but it was the old man whose eagerness in holding out his handmade Nicky's advance seem laggard. Nicky had taken a dislike to hisuncle; he could not tell why. He flattered himself he was not a snob, but he thought this old Rip Van Winkle a terrible thing to drop intoany family out of the blue. Archelaus lowered himself into a chairbeside his nephew and began to try and make conversation. There wassomething pathetic about his evident efforts and Nicky's hidden distastethat was all there was to meet it, masked by courtesy. Ishmael suddenlyfelt his heart soften towards his brother; he told himself almost with apang that he need not have been afraid that this old prodigal would havebeguiled Nicky as he did the children; his simple wiles were not forgrown men busy with affairs. Yet he still watched anxiously, though nowthe faint feeling of anxiety had rather transferred itself from Nicky toArchelaus. 

As the days went on his heart grew no lighter, though in the society ofNicky, busy as he was with showing him all the latest improvements, hehad not much time to think of anything else. Archelaus was too old andenfeebled to go all over the estate as Ishmael was still able to do, andgloried in the doing now he saw that there were others less able to thanhe. Yet, had he had more leisure to observe, his anxiety would havegrown, not lessened, for a cloud began to gather upon Archelaus that waslike the old brooding of his youth, though less articulate, but perhapsnone the less dangerous for that. There had been a softening about himthose first days of Nicky's return, as there was still when he playedwith Jimmy; but now the look that had held a timid eagerness when it wasturned on Jimmy's father glowed with something else less good, asomething that deepened when it was turned on Ishmael. 

About this time Judith brought her visit to a close, and Ishmael waschiefly occupied with getting her off in safety and with as littlefatigue as might be. Each year now their parting held something of thequality possessed by his yearly gamble with his crops, only in theformer case the chances against them were doubled, for it might be Judywho failed to come again on the long journey from town. 

She had a companion, a devoted creature but colourless, whom she couldbe said rather to suffer gladly than enjoy, and her interests, weredivided between the little slum church she lived near in London, herfriends at Cloom, and the rare visits of Lissa, of whom she was veryfond, and who sometimes went and poured out to her enthusiasms aboutFuturist paintings, which Judy, who had remained true to the earlyImpressionist school, could only consider a perverse return to cave art. 

"Shall I give your love to Lissa?" asked Judith as Ishmael tucked herinto the cosiest seat of Nicky's car, which was to take her to Penzance. "No, I won't, " she went on. "I shall tell her she's to come and give itfor herself. She is coming, I know, now she's got her Internationalpicture off her mind. She's a very gifted woman, but I sometimes thinkit's a pity for her to fill her life with nothing but paint andcanvases. I'm old-fashioned, I suppose!"

"Lissa and I understand each other, " said Ishmael. "She is the onlyother human being beside myself I've ever met who finds the deepest joyin things and places instead of people. "

"Do you still? Not you; they've failed you for a long time now, I know, and they'll fail Lissa. I wish I hadn't given her the advice I did whenshe came to town. "

"What was that?" asked Ishmael, stepping back as Nicky climbed into thedriver's seat. 

"Never to trust a man or offend a woman. She's stuck to it too well. I've got to the age when I think it's better to have trusted too muchthan too little. Good-bye, my dear! Take care of yourself. I shan't comeagain. "

"What . . . " began Ishmael; but at a sign from Judith Nicky had put in theclutch and the car was sliding off down the drive. Ishmael turned andwent thoughtfully into the house. He wondered whether Judy too hadsuffered from that same sense of a shattered atmosphere that he hadsince the return of Archelaus. 

It seemed absurd that he should, he told himself. He was seventy, Archelaus older; it was surely time they found it possible to livetogether in harmony. . . . And yet it was not that there was any definitebad feeling between them, that he could find any holes in the scheme ofhis brother's behaviour. It was only that Archelaus, old as he was, still retained the quality of a satyr, of something oddly malevolent, that boded ill. Ishmael tried to break himself of the feeling, life-oldwith him, though for so many years forgotten, but he found that, thoughhe could force himself not to dwell on it, beyond that he was powerless. There was no actual harm Archelaus could do him, and he told himselfrepeatedly that there must be something rather hateful in himself thathe could still feel this profound troubling of aversion. 

He called for Jim to go over the farm with him; but the little boy wasnot to be found, and one of the maids told him she had seen him go offwith his new uncle. Ishmael paused to put on a big coat, for the windwas fresh although it was late in May, and then he too went out. 

In the four-acre the young corn he had sown on that day of Archelaus'sreturn showed some four or five inches of green blades. Lest it shouldgrow too fast and rank, the roller had been busy over it the day before, and, though the elastic tissue of its frail-looking growth was alreadyspringing erect again, the field still showed alternate stripes of lightand dark, marking this way and that of the roller's passing, as thoughsome giant finger had brushed the nap of this fine velvety tissue thewrong way. 

Ishmael leant upon the gate and looked at the corn, mechanically notingits good condition, but feeling no pleasure at the sight. It was for himas though a blight had come over the Cloom of his idolatry, and he toldhimself it could never again be the same for him. He felt very old andtired, though it was still early in the day. His brain was workingslowly; it took him a long time to register upon it his thoughts aboutanything at which he was looking, and the knowledge of this distressedhim. 

Judy had gone and was not coming back--she had said so. That aroused noacute sensation in him, but rather a dreary feeling of being sorry. Judywas old in spite of her vigour and her ever-quick tongue, which age hadquickened. She had always been articulate, he always the reverse, and onthis morning he felt a dumb impotency even towards himself. He staredout over the acres filmed with that thin, fine green, and past it to thewine-coloured ploughed lands and the pastures, and, turning a littleagainst the gate, he saw the house, a pale pearl-grey on this clear day. He turned to his left and saw cultivated land far as the cliffs whereonce waste had been; and here and there on the rolling slopes of themoor beyond he saw a little grey farmstead that was his too, whosetenants owed their prosperity to him. And for the first time in his lifethe sight gave him no joy. Archelaus had drawn a blight over it all. Hemight tell himself with the resentful anger of old age that the thingwas all wrong, absurd even; but that availed nothing. Years had notsoftened the fact that the presence of Archelaus had power to spoilthings for him, now as when he had been a child. Archelaus was somewherenow with little Jimmy, telling him tales of the far places of the earth, which he, Ishmael, had never seen, never would see. Jim was listeningentranced, his bright brown eyes shining as Nicky's did when he wasmoved, as Phoebe's had been wont to do. 

A bright whistling sounded from the direction of the house, and Nickycame to the gate leading from the farmyard and stood looking across it. He saw Ishmael, and, waving his hat, began to come over the fieldtowards him. And quite suddenly a certain balm slipped into Ishmael'sgrieved heart. At least he had Nicky . . . And that, after all, was whatCloom meant. Cloom might in all these years have failed him as far asshe herself was concerned, leaving him feeling bereft and lost, but itwas not in her power or in that of Archelaus to spoil whatever sinceNicky's birth had been his chief reason for loving Cloom. This was not ablind love as the mere instinct for acres had been--this was the motivepower of love itself. He waited in sudden gladness by the gate. 

The day sharpened as it went on, cold rain blew up, and the inmates ofthe Manor began to be anxious that Archelaus had not yet come in withlittle Jim. No one seemed to know where he had gone or taken the child. As the day wore on Marjorie, usually a very placid, strong-mindedmother, began to grow frantic. She declared that never since he came tothe place had she considered Archelaus quite sane or responsible, andthat Ishmael ought to have known better to keep such a queer old man onin the same house as a child. Nicky tried to comfort her before he wentout for the third time on his horse to try and find some trace of thetwo missing members of the family. Ishmael could do nothing but wanderfrom room to room, oppressed by a sense of fear such as he had notsuffered from since Nicky had gone to South Africa. Once he shook hisfist in the air as he waited by himself in the dining-room, whence hecould watch the drive, and the facile, burning tears of age ran down hisface as he spoke aloud of Archelaus in a cracked old voice he hardlyrecognised for his own. If Archelaus had let the boy come to any harm, if he had done him any hurt. . . . Back on his mind came flooding oldmemories of Archelaus--the night in the wood, for instance. . . . He haddone wrong to believe that even at eighty years old that deepmalevolence had faded. His instinct had been the thing all his life longwhich had made genius for him, and he had been wrong not to trust itnow he was old. It was probably the only thing about him which had notaged, and he should have let himself go with it. . . . 

Late that night, through wind and sharp rain-shower, Nicky came back, with Jim, sleepy but unhurt and full of his adventure, before him on thehorse. Archelaus and the child had been found wandering on the moor byBotallack mine, now long disused; Jim was crying with hunger and alarmand the old man babbling of the days when he had worked there. He wastrying to find one particular shaft to show the child, he said. As itwas ruined, with an unguarded lip and a sheer drop in the darkness ofsome five hundred feet, it was as well that the search for it hadfailed. Archelaus was following with the doctor in his trap, said Nickybriefly. He had seemed as though suddenly broken down, the doctorthought, and would probably never recover. And, indeed, when Archelauswas half-carried, half-helped, into the hall, he looked, save for thetwo spots of colour on his high cheek-bones, like some huge old corpsegalvanised into a shocking semblance of life. 

He was taken up to his room, the one with the four-poster bed in whichthe old Squire had died, with the wide view of the rolling fields. Andthere, it was soon plain, Archelaus would remain for what was left tohim of his earthly course. 

CHAPTER III

THE LETTERS

A week later there was no doubt that Archelaus was dying. He had passedthe week only half-conscious--some spring both in the machinery of hissplendid old body and his brain seemed as though they had given waytogether. He lay dying, and Ishmael, standing day by day beside the bed, looking down on the seamed, battered, gnarled thing that lay there sohelplessly, felt a stirring of something new towards Archelaus. It wasnot any touch of that irrational affection that very easily affectedpeople experience for those they have never really liked and yet towardswhom they feel a warm outflow merely because of the approach of death;neither was it any regret that he had not loved Archelaus in life. Thatwould have been absurd; there had been nothing to make him like hisbrother and everything to make him do the reverse, and he was not ofthose whose values are upset by approaching death. But his antipathy forArchelaus had all his life been so deep, if not so very violent a thing, that it had hitherto prevented him feeling towards him even as amicablyas one human being naturally feels towards another. This was the changethat took place now--he was not enabled to yearn over a brother, but hewas, for the first time, able to look with the detached impersonalsympathy and kindliness of one man towards another whom he has noparticular reason to dislike. A profound pity wrung his heart as helooked--the pity he would have felt from the beginning if Archelaus hadever let him, the pity which had prompted his forbearance at the time ofthe bush-beating in the wood. 

This broken old man had wandered all his days; he had lived all overthe earth and called no place his, even as he had possessed many womenand yet called none his own. That such had been his nature and wouldhave been even under other circumstances did not at this pass make thewanderings less pitiful. For the whole time that sense of wrong had kepttelling him that he ought to have one special place for his own, andthat one the place where he was born, which his father had held beforehim. Looking down on him, Ishmael wondered what it was that had drivenhim back to it at the latter end, whether it were blind instinct or somemore reasoned prompting. He was soon to know, for on the day a weekafter Archelaus had been brought home he seemed to become himself againin mind and demanded to see his brother alone. 

Ishmael went upstairs and into the bedroom. 

Archelaus lay in the big bed, looking smaller than seemed possible; hisface, deep in the pillows, jutted sharply between the mounds ofwhiteness with an effect as of some gaunt old bird of prey. His handsand long corded wrists looked discoloured against the sheet. Ishmaelwent across to the bed and sat down beside it. Archelaus was very still;only his eyes glittered as they stared up at Ishmael from between histhickly veined lids. 

"You wanted to see me, " said Ishmael. His voice was expressionless, butnot from any hard feeling on his part. It seemed to him as he sat therethat nothing as vigorous as animosity could be left alive betweenthem--both old, both frail, both drawing near to sleep. And yet, astheir eyes stared into each other's, some tremor of the old distastestill seemed to communicate itself. . . . 

Archelaus began to speak, very slowly, very low, so that Ishmael had tostoop forward to hear, but each word was distinct, and evidently withthat extraordinary clarity that comes sometimes to the dying, even tothose whose brains have been troubled, the old man knew what he wassaying. 

"I want to tell 'ee, " said Archelaus. Ishmael stayed bent forward, attentive. 

"What do 'ee suppose I came back for?" asked Archelaus--and this timethere was definite malice in voice and look; "because I loved 'ee so?"

"No, I never thought that. I wondered rather . . . And I thought it wasjust that--" he broke off. Archelaus finished the sentence for him. 

"That I was old and wandering in my wits, and came home as a dog does?No; it wasn't that. I came home to tell 'ee something--something I'vehid in my heart for years past, something that'll make I laugh if I findmyself in hell!"

Ishmael waited in silence. When he again began to speak it was as thoughArchelaus were wandering away from the point which he had in mind. 

"You've set a deal of store by Cloom, haven't you, Ishmael?" he asked. 

Ishmael nodded. Archelaus went on:

"Not just for Cloom, is it? To hand it on better'n you got it--to haveyour own flesh and blood to give it to? To a man as is a man it wouldn'tbe so much after all wi'out that?"

Again Ishmael assented. Again Archelaus went on without any fumblingafter words, as though all his life he had known what he was going tosay at this moment. He lifted his hand and began fumbling at the neck ofhis nightshirt. Ishmael guessed what he was wanting, for when he hadbeen undressed they had found a little flat oilskin bag slung around hisneck which they had left there. Now he bent forward, and, loosening theshirt, lifted out the bag. In obedience to a nod from Archelaus, he tookout his knife and, cutting the dark, greasy string that looked as thoughit had rested there for years, slipped the bag from off it. Then, stillin obedience to Archelaus, he slit the oil-silk and a few discolouredletters fell out. He gathered them up from off the coverlet and waited. 

"Read, " said Archelaus. Ishmael dived into a pocket for his spectacles, found them, adjusted them, and began to turn over the letters. Archelauspointed to one with his trembling old finger. "That first, " hewhispered; "take that one first. " Then, as Ishmael settled himself toread, he added with a low chuckle: "Knaw the writen', do 'ee?"

It had seemed vaguely familiar to Ishmael, but no more, and not even nowcould he say whose it was. It was very old-fashioned writing and verycharacterless, the hand which had in his youth been called "Italian, "and it seemed to him to have nothing distinctive about it. "Never mind, "said Archelaus as he shook his head; "you'll knaw fast enough. Read. "

This is what Ishmael read by the evening light that flooded the room:

"Dear Archelaus, " ran the letter, "I don't know whatever I shall do. Iwish I was dead. Why did you come back and trouble me? There were plentyof women where you came from. You have told me about them often enough. I never wanted you to make love to me. I never liked it, only I couldn'thelp it. And now there's a baby coming and he hasn't been near me forover two months. He seems as though he didn't want me any more, and Idon't know what to do, because now he'll have to know. . . . "

Ishmael read so far, and though he did not understand what he read, andit sent no rush of knowledge over his soul, yet a deadly sense of fear, of yet he knew not what, sent his heart pounding through his frame. Theletter fell to his knee and Archelaus, watching, said:

"I told her to speak 'ee soft and let her lil' body lie against 'ee. . . . "

Ishmael picked up the letter again, looked from the date--the month ofJanuary, in 1868--to the signature, "Phoebe Ruan, " before he let theletter drop again. Still he said nothing, and after a minute Archelauswent on. 

"Read the next, " he said. 

The next was but a further plaint, signed with Phoebe's name, in arather more uneven hand. Ishmael found himself remembering, as his eyemet them again, her little tricks with the pen--the wandering tails toher words, the elaborate capitals which gave a touch of individuality tothe regular slanting lines. He picked up the last letter. 

"Dear Archelaus, " it began--Phoebe would never have sufferedsufficiently from a sense of fitness to alter the conventionalbeginning, whatever the stress under which she wrote--"I have done it, and now he need never know unless you tell him, and you won't ever, willyou, dear, dear Archelaus? Please promise me. "

"Did you promise?" was all Ishmael's voice asked. 

Archelaus stirred a little in the bed. 

"I promised never to hurt her by tellen' 'ee, " he said. There was amoment of silence, and then he broke into vehement speech. Even hisvoice had gathered strength; it was as though in the full flood of whatwas sweeping out of him, after being dammed for so many years, allphysical disabilities were washed away. 

"Aw, what do 'ee think I ded it for?" he asked; "for love of Phoebe?Her!. . . I could have got as good at any brothel to Penzance. . . . Itwasn't for love I ded it; it was for hate. Hate of 'ee, Ishmael! To getmy revenge, and for you not to knaw till it was too late, much too late, to cast her off or the child. I wanted to wait till the boy should bethe warld to 'ee . . . Till he had grown as your own soul, and you saw hisson ready to come after him and thought it was your own flesh and bloodyou was leaving behind you, and you too old to leave any other. . . . Cloom's been yours all your life, but when you and I are both on usdead and rotting, it'll be I and not you who's living on at Cloom. So'tes mine, after all, not yours. . . . "

A moment later and the triumphant voice went on again. 

"There's another letter, " it said, "from your old Parson. I wrote to heafter I'd met Nicky--my son--casual-like once in Canada. That's what heanswered. "

Again Ishmael picked up the letter, almost mechanically, and read:

"I have received your letter dated July, 1891. I cannot find words towrite to you as I would wish. If what you tell me is true--and I do notthink you could have invented the letters of which you send mecopies--it would matter very little if I found the pen of men and ofangels to tell you what I thought. I can only tell you that even if thewish is wicked I hope with all my heart, and pray it too, that you maynever be allowed to come home to tell your brother what it is in yourheart to tell him. That the boy may never in his turn have a son togratify you with the sight of your grandchild at Cloom. That this weaponyou have forged against your brother may be under Providence to your ownundoing. And since the ways of God are mysterious--though I am temptedto say not as past finding out as the ways of man--even if you carry outyour threat it may be that Ishmael will be given strength to withstandthe horror of what you tell him, and that the Lord has a comfort for himin ways you could not understand, so that you will be robbed of all butan empty victory. . . . "

As Ishmael slowly and with meticulous care put the letters safely on tothe bed a step was heard coming along the passage, the step of Nicky, the only step in that house which was both that of a man and vigorous. Archelaus turned his head a little on the pillow, and Ishmael, for thefirst time showing any emotion, leant towards him. "If you say a word tohim--" he began. The steps paused at the door and then went on again. Ishmael stayed bent forward, eyes sidelong. Archelaus began to speak, asthough his mind had drifted backwards from the acuteness of the present. 

"All these years . . . " he muttered, "all these years . . . Wandering auverthe earth, I've thought on it. . . . Phoebe, she was a light woman andmany was the time I'd held her lil' body to mine, but she was soft as alil' lamb fresh from its mother, so she was. . . . The likes of you wantstoo much from a woman; I was never one of they chaps. If a woman waslil' and soft, said I--"

"Archelaus, " said Ishmael, speaking very distinctly and bending over theold man to try and attract his wandering attention, "when you came backfrom California, had you it in your mind to do this thing?"

He had to repeat the question, and at last Archelaus showed a gleam ofknowledge. "When I came back from Californy . . . " he murmured, "I cameback, so I ded. . . . No, I'd forgot all about her then, sure enough; shewas but a soft lil' thing. But he'd got her, him as had taken all ofmine, got the wench as had been mine, that I might ha' wanted again, andI was mad as fire. And then I was glad of it, for I saw my way, if so beas I could only get a cheild by her. . . . " He turned a little on hispillows towards Ishmael and became confidential. "That was my fear, " hewent on, "that I'd go wi' her again and no cheild 'ud come any more thanit had afore. But there's often a change in women after a few years, andbesides . . . I'd not wanted to get 'en afore. I knew I'd get 'en thattime, and I ded. She was some whisht, she was, weth you and your finegentleman ways of not sleeping along o' she, when she found the way shewas in. . . . " He laughed, a tiny, little old thread-like laugh, as out ofthe trough of the years there floated up to him Phoebe's predicamentand his advice as to how to meet it--a thin little thread of laughterthat spanned the years and connected that time of which he spoke withthis present moment by the bed of death. The laugh died away and fellagain into the abysses from which it had been evoked, and there onlyhung a silence in the room, but it was a silence thin, brittle as glass. 

His lids drooped. Over his fast dimming brain the films of approachingdissolution began to swirl, now thick and fast, now tenuous again, sothat he recognised Ishmael and what had happened for a fleeting momentduring which the old glee peeped out of his blurred eyes. Then hedrifted into sleep with the suddenness of an infant, a sleep quitepeaceful, as of one who has accomplished well his task and now may rest. Ishmael sat on by the bed; sometimes he looked at him, even laid hisfingers on his pulse to make sure, with as much mechanical care as ever, that he was indeed only sleeping. He sat on where he was, but with hiseyes staring out of the window, though they hardly saw the rollingfields that lay, a burnished green, beneath the evening light. Once astep came again to the door, and a voice asked if everything were allright. Ishmael answered "Yes, " bidding the questioner go away, and henever knew that it had been Nicky's voice which asked. 

CHAPTER IV

HESTER

Ishmael sat and watched his own thoughts pass before him. It is notgiven to every man to see all that he has lived by lying broken aroundhim, and this was what had happened to Ishmael. He could see, now thathe had lost him, how it was the thought of his son at Cloom, far morethan Cloom itself, which had held ever deepening place in his heart andsoul. He remembered the night when Phoebe had whispered to him thatshe was going to have a baby . . . How she had clung about his neck andhow happy she had seemed. He remembered too--the recollection swam up tohim through years of blurred forgetting--an earlier night, when Phoebehad won him back to her . . . That night of passion which must have beenon her side a calculated thing, a trap for him to fall in blindly--as hehad. Phoebe--who had seemed so transparent, and whom, as he nowrealised, no one but Archelaus had ever really known. . . . Yet none ofthat hurt or even outraged him. What Phoebe had been was of supremeunimportance. Not at this distance of years could he conjure up theemotions of an outraged husband which even at the time would have seemedto him both inadequate and ridiculous. Not the realisation that thatnight of passion had been a faked thing on her part--a set-piece on astage--touched him. He took, as he was guiltily aware, too little to ithimself, beyond animal appetite, for him to dare judge of that. 

But that other night, after she had told him he was to expect a child tobe born to him, that night when he had gone out into the scented gardenand felt drowning and yet uplifted on the tide of the deepest emotionof his life--to know that that had all been based on a delusion was whatupset the whole of life now. 

Could truth be built on untruth? If what he had felt then was all thetime based upon a lie, how could there be anything worth the living forin that which he had left? The rapture, the deep and sacred joy, whenthrough his fatherhood he had felt kin to God Himself--what of that?What of the life, the religion, the love, the hopes, that had gone onpiling up upon that one thing from that day on? Were they all asvalueless as what they had been built on? If so, then he was bereftindeed, left in an empty world, that only echoed mockery to the plaintsof men and the quiet eternal laughter of the Being who made them forends of supreme absurdity. 

It was not his relationship towards Nicky that Ishmael was weighing ashe sat in the still room; it was his whole relationship towards life. Itwas not his fatherhood that he felt reeling; it was the fatherhood ofGod. It was not love that he felt slipping from his grasp; it was truth:not Nicky that he was despairing of, but the figure of Christ Himself. 

If all that emotion, that love, that faith, that ardent passion of joyand work, were founded, caused by, built upon what had never been, couldthey really exist either?

Once he did hear his voice saying aloud "My boy . . . Mine . . . "; but eventhen, his passion for truth outweighing indulgence to self, he knew thatit was the mere mechanical speech of the situation rising to his lipsunconsciously. He said the words again to try and get at exactly whattheir import was. "Mine. . . . "

All that had struck him while Archelaus had been lying watching him readthe letters was "This couldn't happen to a woman . . . How unfairly it'sarranged . . . It's only a man this could happen to . . . "; and that hadshown him how small, after all, was the man's share, that such a thingcould be possible. Him or another, it really did not seem to matter sovery much. Both he and Archelaus had had Phoebe. That this spark oflife should have been from him or from Archelaus . . . Was that, afterall, so important? It seemed such a small share. Fatherhood, looked atdispassionately, seemed to him a thing very artificial in itsconvention. Life, that there should be life--yes, that was different, but not that it should have been from him or another on that particularoccasion. . . . When one thought that both had equally possessed the womanthey seemed to merge so in her personality as to lose individualpersonalities of their own. 

If he had not kept away from Phoebe for those two months, thus, in thelight of her letter, putting the matter beyond doubt, how would any ofthe three of them ever have known whose son Nicky was? Women always saidthey knew, even when they were going equally with two men; but did they?Was it not rather that they always decided it was the child of the manthey cared for most? And if conditions had all along been normal betweenhim and Phoebe, then how would he have felt in the light of hisbrother's avowal? It would have been impossible to say whether the childhad been his or his brother's; and yet Nicky would have been himself, even as he was now, and he, Ishmael, would have felt the same about him, and nothing would have been really different any more than if he hadnever known; or, knowing that there was doubt, still could not have toldfor certain which of the two it was who had fathered Nicky. How, then, was it different now that he did know beyond a doubt? Nicky was thesame. . . . 

Ishmael clung on to that. Nicky was the same. Then--and the light camesliding into his heart with a sensation of easing--if Nicky were thesame, then the truth might be the same too; all that he had lived by notbe the more overset than was the Nicky he had known and loved all theseyears. Though Nicky was not what was called his son, all he had builtupon Nicky might not be valueless any more than Nicky himself had becomevalueless, or one jot of his character or personality beenoverthrown. . . . Nicky stood where he had; then why not more than Nicky?These were the eternal verities, not the mere accident of fatherhood. 

Ishmael gave a long, tired sigh, and his body slipped a little down intohis chair; his eyes still stared at the light in the sky. He feltsuddenly terribly tired, so tired that his body grew very heavy and hismind of a thistledown lightness, which refused any more to concentrate. Yet he knew that there were certain things he must face for the sake ofNicky, certain things he must ensure. He made a violent effort andforced his mind and body to respond to his will. To him, on the far rimof life, it might be vouchsafed to see how little certain thingsmattered after all; but there was Nicky, still in the midst of it, witha mind that lived more in the present than Ishmael's had ever done. Itwas important for Nicky's peace of mind that he should never know he wasin fact, if not in law, what so many of his family had been, what hewould have thought of as "base-born. " And Nicky so disliked Archelausand all he stood for. . . . Nicky's happiness--that was what mattered now, what must be ensured. 

Slowly Ishmael turned in his chair and faced Archelaus once more. Hebent down and spoke into his ear, but Archelaus did not stir beyond amuttering in his sleep. As he looked at him Ishmael saw how easy itwould be to slip a pillow over his mouth and hold it there till he hadbeen put beyond the reach to hurt Nicky. Yet he felt no temptation to doit, not because of any scruple of conscience--the suggestion did not getas far as arousing that--but simply for the reason that most people donot commit crime, because it does not seem a possible thing in thescheme of life as it is normally known. Things horribly unbelievable, out of the ordinary course, did happen in life, even as this thing thathad happened to him; but the angle of life was not thereby changed, itwas still the things that were abnormal. Ishmael saw the impossiblenessof killing his brother even while he saw the possibility. 

"Archelaus!. . . " he said again, speaking clearly and insistently. "Youare not to tell anyone else. You are not to tell Nicky. Do you hear me!"

Archelaus stirred and opened his eyes; they stared at Ishmael for a longmoment without recognition. Then a flame of understanding came intotheir dimmed look. 

"I'm come home to tell my son, " he said. "He'm my flesh and blood; I'mcome home to tell en. "

"No--no!" Ishmael put out his hand to take the letters which Archelaushad gathered into his grasp again. With surprising strength Archelausrolled his body over on to them, and his voice was raised in a crybefore Ishmael could stop him. At the same moment a step sounded in thecorridor. It was Nicky, doubtless anxious, coming along for a third timeto listen if all were well. At the cry he hurried and opened the doorand came quickly in. 

Hester the dog was with him and, bounding forward in the boisterousmanner of the well-meaning foolish creatures of her type, she sprangupon the bed. Nicky ran forward as Archelaus uttered another cry, butunlike the first. This was of pure high terror. Nicky seized the dog bythe scruff of the neck, so that she hung suspended for a moment in hisgrasp above the bed, before he bore her to the door. Archelaus stared asthough he saw a ghost; his old mouth fell open, showing slack and curvedinwards like the mouth of a very young baby. His eyes glazed with histerror; his cheeks had in that one minute assumed a pale, purplish hue, on which the deep lines and darker veins stood out like a network laidover his shrunken skin. He sat up in bed--he who had not lifted his headfor a week--and stayed rigid so for a few beating moments. Then he fellback, crumpled up amid the pillows. Nicky had flung the dog outside, andcame to bend over him, casting a watchful eye towards Ishmael to see howhe was standing it. Ishmael's hand was slipped into the bed under hisbrother's body; his eyes were fixed on his face. 

"Go for the doctor, quickly, Nicky!" he said. "Go yourself. "

The dying man opened his eyes and fixed them on Ishmael. 

"No, " he said, so faintly that Nicky had to bend low to hear; "no. Youdon't need to send him away. . . . I've had a sign, Ishmael; I've had asign. . . . Oh, my soul, I've had a sign!. . . "

Ishmael bent over to him, trembling, waiting, wondering. 

"All these years I've tried to forget . . . " said Archelaus, "and the Lardhasn't forgotten. . . . _Phoebe, Phoebe, keep the dog from off me!. . . _"His voice cracked on arising scream. Then he fell into an exhaustedsilence, but his eyes still sought Ishmael's. Profoundly stirred, knowing that, at what was literally for him the last hour, Archelaus wasagreeing to forego the full cup of his revenge, wondering why and yettoo shaken to wonder intelligently, Ishmael called to him in suddenpassion:

"Archelaus . . . Brother! Try and think one thought of love, only one, don't think of your fear. There's nothing there to hurt you. There'sonly me and Nicky. . . . " But Archelaus never spoke again. He lay and gazedas though he were struggling for speech; in his eyes struggled thetortured questioning of the inarticulate. 

What it was that had struck home to his brother at the last Ishmael wasnever to know, but he recognised that in that minute's space was all ofremorse and understanding and forbearance, of a blind effort towardssomething not wholly self, that Archelaus had ever known. The dying manflung a failing hand out to Nicky, and his eyes were on him when whatlight still lingered in them faded and went out. 

Nicky wanted to take Ishmael away, but the old man insisted on beingleft alone with his dead brother for a while, and when Nicky, determinednot to go far or be more than a few minutes away, had left the room, Ishmael went to the fire and dropped the letters in it one by one. Hewatched them burn away, and then crossing over to the bed again he satdown slowly in the chair beside it. 

Nicky had to send for the doctor, give the news to Marjorie, parry Jim'squestionings; and when at last he went upstairs again it was to findIshmael, in a deep sleep, slipped forward in his chair as though he hadnever left it, his head against the edge of the bed, so that theoutflung dead hand of Archelaus almost touched his white hair. 

CHAPTER V

REAPING

August came in hot and clear, all over the countryside the crops ripenedwell, and now, in the last quarter of the moon, they were ripe to cut. Ishmael went down to the four-acre with Nicky to see the men at work, and Jim, who for days had been on the tiptoe of excitement over theadvent of "the machine, " as the binder was always called, ran in frontof them. 

The men had cleared a path some five feet wide all round the field withtheir scythes, and now the clattering thing, crimson painted, blatant, was going on with the work, and the great square of oats and barleystood up compact and close; while round and round it, diminishing itevery time, went the machine, drawn by three glossy horses harnessedunicorn fashion. 

Up the slope of the field they went, heads nodding, swelling sidesglistening in the sun, while Jimmy, proudly perched upon the leader, hislegs sticking out straight on either side, chirruped an encouragementlost in the clatter. Up they came, till the three brown heads, theforelocks blown about their rolling eyes, were clear cut against theblue of the sea; then the man perched on his high iron seat tugged atthe reins, and the three horses and the clamorous machine came swirlinground the bend of the field and past the waiting knot of people. Thehuge wheel, made of flail-like pieces set horizontally on spidery arms, went thrashing round, scooping the standing corn on to the knife, whichcut it and thrust it into the mysterious recesses of the machine in thetwinkling of the blade. The next instant the bound bundle, neatlyknotted round with string, was vomited forth on the far side. . . . 

So the machine--capable, crimson, noisy--went on its magic way with aglitter of whirling metal and a rhythmic clatter, the white blades ofthe wheel flashing up against the sky. And a quiet little old man inshirt-sleeves and trousers all of a soft faded blue bent about in thestubble at its wake, leaning the bundles up, three together, againsteach other, the delicate heads interlacing, and the fresh green of the"lug"--the clover and other green things cut with the crop that make itso rich a food for the cattle--showing through the stems here and there. 

"How d'you find it, John-Willy?" asked Ishmael of the little old man, who rolled an ear of barley in his horny fingers and answered:

"Rich, Maister Ishmael, rich!. . . "

So it had come to the time of the harvest at Cloom, and the crops weresound and sweet, and, if the weather held, the threshing would soonfollow. Life and harvest went on as they had for years, and Ishmael sawthat all things were done as they should be, and now the House hadadjourned and Nicky had come down to help him. For this, after all, waslife, Ishmael told himself--this seeing to the earth and her fulness, this dealing with men and their wages and their work. This was definite;about it there could be no illusion, no shattering of beliefs. 

Nicky, who for all his years was still occasionally swept by the impulseto play, now when he saw Jimmy riding so triumphantly upon the leaderstopped the machine as it came past, and, bidding the driver dismount, took his place upon the high iron seat and started off. Jimmy shriekedwith delight, and urged on his horse so fast that Nicky had to shout tohim to keep quiet. Jimmy kept on turning his head to see the completedbundles being emitted from the back of the binder, and at every one hegave a whoop of joy as though it were a result of his and his father'scleverness. Nicky cracked his whip neatly round the boy's head withoutever touching him, as he had learnt to do in Canada, and every time thelittle group of men and women standing beside Ishmael, his tenants, applauded, admiringly. "They make a handsome pair, so they do!" said oldJohn-Willy Jacka. "I reckon you'm rare proud of your son and grandson, Maister Ishmael!"

Ishmael nodded. His eyes were fixed on the two of them as they appearedup the slope--Jim coming in view first, so young and glowing against thesunlit blue of the sky, so small upon the big powerful horse; thenNicky, lean and handsome, his grave face lit to mirth, looking, with hisslouch felt hat and bare neck and chest exposed by the loose open shirthe wore, like some brown god of the harvest--not a young deity ofspring, but the fulfilled presentment of life at the height ofattainment, at harvest. 

Yet he had been as young as Jim, would be as old as himself--so thoughtIshmael, with that impotency the watching of the flight of time evokesin the heart. To Ishmael it seemed such a mere flash as he looked backto the evening when the Neck had been cried in that field, and he hadthought the moment so vivid it must last for ever. That moment seemedhardly further ago than when he had first broken his own earth in thisfield with his new iron plough. Neither seemed really long ago atall--time had gone too swiftly for that--yet both seemed very far away, not set there by period, but by being in another life. What seemedfurthest away of anything was the morning last spring when he had sownthese acres with the dredge-corn now being reaped, and when the figureof an old man in slaty-grey clothes had paused by the gate and staredacross the farmyard. . . . Archelaus now lay in six feet of earth, while hehimself still walked free upon these broad acres; and yet--what was itArchelaus had said? "It'll be I, and not you, who's living on at Cloom;'tes my flesh and blood'll be there, so 'tes mine, after all. . . . "

How much did that affect it? thought Ishmael now, as he watched for themto come round once more, and gave a nod and a wave of the hand as theybreasted the slope. It was not, it occurred to him, not for the firsttime, but more deeply than ever before, as though Archelaus had beensome stranger. He had built to make Cloom a good place for hisdescendants, for his flesh and blood, but the same blood ran in Nickywhether he or Archelaus had fathered him. Not one jot of it wasdifferent. And this, which to Archelaus, had he been in Ishmael'sposition, would have been the sharpest pang--which he had meant to bethe sharpest--was to Ishmael the saving element. For it prevented Cloombeing made in his eyes a thing of no account, the mere vehicle ofstrangers. Cloom was more to him than his dislike of Archelaus--that waswhat it amounted to. Nicky was more to him as himself than his idea ofhim as his son. Jim was everything to him as the future of Cloom, not ashis grandson any more than that of Archelaus. But sonship struck morenearly than any matter of a generation twice removed, and not so simplyas all that could the thing be harmonised with his groping soul. For hewas still tormented by doubts as to whether all he had lived on and bymust not be valueless since they were conceived on what did not exist, still feeling lost, without anything definite to hold to, without anysolution of the riddle. He refused to believe that the whole riddle oflife might be without an answer, that there could be no pattern, only ablind mingling of threads; that was a supposition everything in him, inborn and learned, failed to tolerate. 

This summer had been a ghastly effort for him, who, for all his reserve, had never been any use at deception; he had felt as though he took aboutwith him all day a sensation as of a hollow weight--something that borehim down and yet had no solidity, that was rather the nightmareheaviness of a dream. Also he was obsessed by the triumphant face ofArchelaus that leered at him, that stared at Nicky and Jim with a deadlypossessiveness in his eyes while they went their unconscious ways, thatsaid, as plainly as words could have, "I have won . . . I have won!. . . "

Life was not simple even at seventy, when such a mixture of motives andsensations could hold sway--the old fear of Archelaus crystallised intoa definite writhing under this triumph of his, the aching sense ofpersonal loss in his son, and, sharpest pang of any, the fear that allof life lay hollow behind and before. . . . Ever since Nicky's birth it hadseemed to him that every revelation had come to him through hisfatherhood of Nicky--ecstasies he had otherwise not touched. . . . Never, much as he loved his girls, could they have given him hours such asNicky had; neither when Georgie had told him of the advent of each, norat the time of birth, had there been for him the deep significance ofthe night when Phoebe had whispered to him. . . . There the fact that hecould only feel a thing at its height for the first time had stepped in, preventing ever again a renewal of such ecstasy. 

And what was ecstasy worth if based on a lie? Back to the old questionhe came, turning it over and over, aware of it in the back of his mindeven when he was thrusting it sternly away from the forefront of hisattention. 

He turned it over again now as the clattering binder went round andround, diminishing the square of waving gold, littering the stubble withswathes; and at every passing of it he waved to Jimmy, even when thechild had forgotten his presence and was showing off for the benefit ofsome newcomer in the little group. The machine was nearing the tallmonolith of granite that stood up amid the corn, and Nicky was drivingcarefully so as not to scrape the flails against its stone side. Highas he sat on his iron perch, it towered above him, and he turned thehorses carefully round it with a swirl that made Jimmy shriek forpleasure. Jimmy leant sideways from his steed to try and slap the greygranite in passing, but could not reach it save with the end of hislittle whip. 

The last film of standing crop fell away from before the monolith, andit reared up grim and gaunt, but sparkling with a thousand little pointsof light as the bright flecks in the stone caught the sun. Nicky, whohad grown rather tired of his freak, undertaken to please Jimmy, broughtit, to an end with the successful negotiation of the monolith, and, getting down, went to lift Jimmy also from his perch. 

"Dinner-time, " he told him, and let him sit upon his shoulder, big boyas he was, to ride to the gate. 

"Come along, father, " said Nicky, slipping one hand upon Ishmael's arm, and keeping the other folded over the slim brown ankles crossed againsthis chest; "I promised Lissa I wouldn't let you tire yourself. "

They set off towards the house, the three of them, but it was Nicky whoanswered Jim's eager talk as they went, and Ishmael who in silence triedto answer his own thoughts. To one thing only he clung just then, with ablind, almost superstitious, clinging, and that to his determination totaste every moment of this harvesting, to see that everything was donein the way he liked, to watch the rhythmic procession of it while yet hecould say that it was all his own. Physically also he had not been thesame man these months since the death of Archelaus. With his uncertaintyof mind as to the whole meaning of life went a feeling of insecurityabout everything. Often he had to keep a firm hold on himself not to cryaloud that the world was slipping, slipping. . . . 

When the corn was all built into the great arishmows that stood bowingtowards each other like the giant dancers in some stately minuet, hewas there to watch. All day he went from field to field and watched thestrong young labourers building; those on the ground tossing to those onthe stooks, while the air was full of a deep rustling. One man wouldcrawl about on the growing mow, arranging each sheaf as it was tossed upto him, so that its feathery crown lay towards the centre, away fromchance of rain. At last it was all finished--all the precious graintucked away out of possible harm in the heart of the arishmows, save forthe feathery bunch at the crest that fastened all off with a flourish. It had been a lovely task, the building of the arishmows, for, like allwork to do with the land, it was the perfection of rhythm, and this, added to the unending flow of tossing and packing, held always thatlovely rustling of stalk and ear as an accompaniment of music to theaction. 

Not many days later and the stately arishmows were destroyed and thesheaves brought in on waggons and built into great stacks in the fieldwhich lay next to the farmyard, where the threshing would take place. There was a pile of the dredge-corn, another of deeply-golden oats, athird of the greyer-tinted wheat, which was a little smaller than theother two, though that also was as high as the roof of the barn. 

In the cleared space between the stacks the great steam thresher wouldbe brought; but now the men who would help in that work were still allpart of the weaving pattern of stacking; one man tossed from thehigh-piled waggon, another, on the highest point of the growing stack, caught it with his pitchfork and threw it on, with a sideways twist, tothe man on the lower end who got further and further along as he packedthe sheaves, so that the thrower had to increase the tangent of histwist at every throw. Each of the men caught and tossed and placed, always to the moment, with the unending flow of machinery. And again--so often before, but never so keenly as now--was Ishmael struck withthe pattern of it all. . . . This could not surely be the only thing thatmoved so rhythmically towards harvest; this inevitable flow, this deeplynecessary procession of events, of sowing and ripening, of cutting andbuilding and threshing, must surely hold its counterpart in thegarnering of men's lives . . . ; or did they alone reap the whirlwind, andwhen the swirl of that was past, subside into formless dust?

CHAPTER VI

THRESHING

That day had come to which the whole of the farming year leads up--theday of the threshing, when the grain is at last released from danger andmade ready to be stored in barns, to be ground in mills. "Guldise, " asit is still called in West Cornwall, is an epic occasion, when all themonths, from the first breaking of the land to the piling of the reapedsheaves, culminate at the apex of achievement. 

In the field, between the waiting stacks, was the thresher; thetraction-engine which had dragged it there stood beyond, only harnessedto it now by the long driving-belt that would, when the time came, makeof the thresher a living creature. Presently all the men began toarrive, not only the labourers who always worked on the Manor farm, butthe men from the neighbouring farms, from those owned by Ishmael andfrom others, for every threshing is a festival with a great dinner andrefreshments in the field and good cheer, even for the crowds ofchildren and stray dogs that always turn up out of nowhere. In thekitchen the maids were busy with the preparations for the dinner, and inthe breakfast-room even Lissa, always late, was hurrying through herbreakfast so as to go out and start work on the series of quick sketchesshe meant to do of the thresher at work and the groups around it. 

Lissa was a young-looking woman for her thirty-five years, no morepretty than she had ever been, but graceful, and with a strong charm inher lazy voice and long grey eyes and in the mouth that was so likeGeorgie's, only less regular. Her chin and jaw had the clear sharpnessof Ishmael's; she was far more like him both in character and aspectthan the sweet round Ruth, and Ishmael had grown to feel more and morethat no matter how long a time elapsed between the occasions when he andLissa saw each other, yet they could always pick up where they had leftoff, that there was never need for more than half-sentences betweenthem. She, who was supposed to be the selfish one of the family becauseshe lived in London most of the year and seldom wrote--she was still theonly member of the household who had known something was wrong withIshmael. She had found him uncommunicative on the subject, but shewatched him with her clear understanding eyes that always made him thinkher so restful. 

"Come on, do Auntie Lissa!" urged Jim. "It's begun; I can hear it. "

"So can I, " said Lissa drily; for the great moaning hum of the thresherfilled the air, went on and on as it would all day except at food-times, sounding like some vast wasp held captive and booming unceasingly--somegreat dragon of a wasp, as Jimmy put it. 

They went out together, but Lissa insisted on going to find grandpafirst and helping him on with his light coat; then they all three wentout across the farmyard and through the open gate into the field. 

The thresher stood humming and palpitant, its great bulk painted a dullpinkish colour like a locust, but faded and stained with rust. Upon itstrembling roof the piles of oats, thrown by the men on the stackalongside, showed a pure golden; above the sky was dazzlingly blue, andin it the white cumuli rode brilliantly. The men working on the top ofthe thresher showed bronzed against the luminous blue, their shirts asbrightly white as the clouds, the shadows under their slouched hatslying soft and blue across their clear eyes. 

Poised on the stacks the men were busy feeding the sheaves to the menon the thresher, who in their turn tilted them into the great concavedrum in its hidden heart. From one end poured out steady streams ofgolden grain, into the hanging sacks that boys took away as they filled, bringing in their place empty sacks that hung limply for a minute andthen began to fill, swelling and puffing out to sudden solidity. Thesieves beneath the thresher shook back and forth, back and forth, tirelessly, while chaff poured away from the open jaws at the side in afine dusty column of pale gold, from which the topmost husks blew upinto the air, so that it was always filled with a whirling cloud thatdanced and gleamed in the sunlight like a swarm of golden bees. 

At the far end of the thresher, away from the traction-engine, thefumbling lips of the shakers, mouthing in and out beneath their littlepenthouse, pushed out the beaten straw into the maw of an automatictrusser, which Ishmael had only bought that year and which he waswatching eagerly. For one moment the formless tumble of straw, pushedout by those waggling wooden lips above, was lost in the trusser, thenit shot forth below in bound bundles that had been made and tied by thehidden hands of the machinery within, to the never-ceasing wonder of thegaping children, who stared at the solemnly revolving spools of stringin the little pigeon-holes on either side and from them back to wherethe string was perpetually disappearing, sucked into the interstices ofthe trusser, as though, if only they stared hard enough, they musteventually see how the miracle was accomplished. And from the ground yetmore men picked up the bundles on their pitchforks and tossed them tomen who were building the straw-ricks at the same time as thecorn-stacks were diminishing. Little boys bore away the chaff gatheredinto sacks or swept it into a golden pile, feather-soft, from whichsmoke-like whirls wreathed in the little breezes. 

In line with the thresher stood the engine, looped to it by tremblingcurves of driving-belt, that wavered like a great black ribbon from thedriving-wheel of the traction-engine to that of the thresher, and thatshowed a line of quivering light along its edge. A trail of dark smokeblew ceaselessly from the traction-engine, staining the blue of the sky, against which it faded and died away. The engine rocked a littleunceasingly upon its wheels as it stood, even as the thresher did, andits governor whirled round and round like a demented spirit, so fastthat its short arms with the blobs on their ends made a little darkcircle in the air. A pool of steamy water lying in the grass beneath thewaste-pipe gave off white wreaths that wavered upwards and fell again, while from a huge black butt upon wheels the greedy boiler sucked upmore and more through a coiling tube that glittered like a serpent. 

It was dark, ugly, smelly, the traction-engine, but it was what endowedthe murmurous thresher with life. In spite of its dirt and oil anddripping secretions, it kept going that wonderful life which was fillingthe world, the rising and falling hum, the streams of pouring grain, theswelling sacks, the great glossy bundles of straw, the blown column ofchaff, the cloud of dancing golden magic bees that made of the air anelement transmuted, glorified. 

With all the threshings he had seen, it seemed to Ishmael that he hadstill never seen any quite so wonderful, so radiant, so rich to eye andear and nostril, as this; and to little Jimmy, who had never been therefor guldise before, it was a golden miracle. He stood, silent for once, transfixed, fronting the wondrous monster who did so many differentthings at once with such perfect ease, never making a mistake or gettingout of time. . . . 

He helped, too, to carry out "crowse"--the midmorning lunch--to the men, and he wandered about with the crowds of stray children and patted theunresponsive dogs, and was admired by the women and bored by them, andhimself partook of big saffron buns, that Marjorie said would spoil hisdinner, but that didn't. Nothing, he felt, could have spoilt anythingthat day. 

With evening and the last whirring of the thresher Ishmael, watching himat play, felt, as he always had, that it is impossible to watch childrenwithout an ache for the inevitable pity of it that they should have togrow up. It was not, he felt, because they are particularly happy--fornever again can there be griefs blacker than those which darken all achild's horizon, but simply because they stand for something beautifulwhich can never come again. Now, looking at Jim and the other children, he felt the old pity, but tinged with something new. For the first timehe saw that it was only by realising that children were symbols, themere passing exponents of a lovely thing which was itself ever present, that it became possible to look at them without that aching. There wouldalways be, he supposed, some people who could look at children and feel, not so much pity that these young things must age as self-pity that theythemselves had lost childhood; but others looked as he always had, witha more impersonal pang, sorry that so beautiful a thing should fade. Andit was for the comfort of such as he to realise that it did not matterin the least, because, though children grew up and away, childhoodremained--a bright banner carried from hand to hand, always in a newgrasp before the old one could tarnish it. More, he saw that it was thisvery evanescence which had for him given childhood its sadness that alsogave it its beauty; if there were anywhere on earth a race of perpetualchildren it would not be beautiful. For he saw that it was theinevitable slipping-away of all life which gave poignancy to loveliness. 

He spoke something of his thought to Lissa, and she nodded incomprehension. 

"That's why no picture or sculpture can be as beautiful as the humanmodel, " she said, "not because of any necessary inferiority, but simplyin the terrible permanence of man's work as compared with God's. "

They stood a while longer side by side, and then Jimmy, who with thelast whirring note of the thresher suddenly felt very tired, came andleant up against his grandfather. Ishmael stooped over the boy, and witha great heave, despite Marjorie's protests--she had come out to take herson to bed--he hoisted him up to his old bowed shoulder. 

"Say good-night to the thresher, " he told him. "You are going to bed, and it is going to bed too. "

"Is it very tired?" asked Jimmy. 

"Yes, nicely tired, like you when you have been running about all day. "

"Not nasty tired like I am after lessons?"

"No, not nasty tired. "

"Are you tired, Grandad?"

"Yes, " said Ishmael. 

"Nice tired or nasty tired?"

"Nice tired, " said Ishmael; "old men and little boys both go nicetired. "

"Like the thresher?" persisted Jimmy, and, receiving an answer thatsatisfied him, allowed his grandfather to carry him in to bed, though hecould have gone in so much more quickly himself, for grandpapa could notrun with him on his shoulder as his father could. But Jimmy was in nohurry, because every minute gained was a minute out of bed and in thiswonderful world where threshers hummed and golden clouds wove themselvesceaselessly in the air. 

Ishmael too felt very tired, as he had said; but, as he had also said, it was a pleasant tiredness. His day had been too full for thought otherthan of what was happening before his eyes. An exquisite sense offitness, of something that was falling into place as everything in thehistory of the harvest had done, a sense as of gathered sheaves andstored grain, was with him, though sub-consciously. His brain feltfilled with visual impressions, his old eyes held a riot of blue andgold, and a humming was still in his ears. As he closed his lids thatnight golden motes danced within them. 

He sank off into sleep, and then drifted, half-awake again, to thatstate when the mind is not fully aware of where it is or of what hashappened. It seemed to him, for one blurred moment, that he was a littleboy again, falling to sleep on that evening when the Neck was cried . . . ;and then, out of the far past, came back to him the remembrance that itwas at the Vicarage he had slept that night. Something told him he wasnot there now. . . . Vaguely, in the darkness, he put up his hand to feelif the plaster Christ were above his head. His groping old fingers foundit, and he stayed, half-reared up against his pillows for an instant, while he touched the drooping head with its thorny crown, and on thatfamiliar touch he let his hand fall, and with it fell asleep. 

CHAPTER VII

GARNERED GRAIN

The next morning he was found lying as though worn out suddenly, neverto move or speak again. Only his brain was still alert as he lay thereand watched them all from under his heavy lids. Three days he lay, andthey could not even tell how much he understood, for he was past theeffort that communicating with them would have meant; but all the whilehe was feeling his brain was clearer than it had ever been in his life, that at last he knew many things he could have told them if he couldhave spoken, only they were things that cannot be taught by one manto another, for every man must find them for himself. 

At first it seemed to him he was floating very peacefully on a clearsea, untroubled in mind or body, though seeing he was drifting, becausehe was also aware that whither he was drifting was the inevitabledirection of a kindly current. Then after a little or long while, hecould not have told which, he seemed himself to become stationary, whilepast him flowed the pattern of his life as he remembered it--scenes greyand many-coloured, blurred at the edges, but sharp with an achingclarity at the core. They had all gone, these happenings, but it was notthat which gave the poignancy; it was that the Ishmael who had takenpart in them was gone too, and each had borne something of himself awaywith it. 

Those first childish years after he had known Cloom was to be his, thathe had to regenerate it; then those years at St. Renny . . . Killigrewfloated past him, joyous and pagan. There was Hilaria, joyous also . . . Hehad forgotten her for years now. At St. Renny life was always justahead, and he only had the sense of preparing for it, of being ready toleap into it as into some golden cool stream of running waters. . . . Inthose days it had been Cloom, the place made for him in life, that hadheld so much of glamour in its grey walls and hard acres. Yet even thenthere had been something else, some recognition of the fact that eventhis was not an end to itself alone. . . . Then youth--the first years atCloom and that wonderful incursion into the London that was as past ashe was, that London that had been half-wonder, half-nightmare, and thathad held his love for Blanche. There had been a brief spell when he hadtold himself that this was the chief thing, that in that passionatefusing of two spirits, that absorption in some one other loved being, lay the end in life, but the mirage had dissolved then even as the imageof it wavered and faded now. While he was lost and groping in the wastesit had left him in, there swam up the memory of Hilaria again, but nohorror went with it. And though this second impinging of her life on hisbore the far-off memory of fear, yet it now seemed as vital and naturalas the first. She had shown him something long ago which he was fullyunderstanding now. 

He passed on, and again there lifted its head the thing which, in hisclean, boyish horror, he had taken to hold a terror which he now saw itdid not of necessity. He had learnt to mistrust it because it had ledhim into what had at the time been such a mistaken marriage with poorlittle Phoebe; but that, too, seemed to matter very little now. He sawagain how in that one hectic year he had tried to tell himself thatphysical passion was at least the chief drug of life, that the wonderand the intoxication of it made all else pale, that it made evensordidness and strain worth while; and he saw again his revulsion fromit, his effort to break away. 

He drifted into the blackness he supposed was night, and came up out ofit at the hour of his life when for the first time he had foundsomething which, however it had modified or changed, had yet neverentirely been swamped by anything else, which in some ways hadstrengthened--the wonder of fatherhood that he had felt, the ecstasy ofcreation, which had dawned for him on that night when Phoebe hadwhispered to him. . . . What now of that hour, that hour which had seemedso utterly broken by what Archelaus had told him all these years after?He still could not see quite clearly, though now it was with no sense ofbeing hopelessly baffled that he fell back awhile from before thatcurtain. He went on passing again through his life, and he saw theharder years that came crowding along, those definite, clear-cut yearsof young manhood when he had somehow drifted a little away from Boase, when he had first begun to be a man in the country, when all his schemesand working out of them had filled the hours--still with Nicky as thechief personal interest. 

In his childhood he had lived by what would happen in a far goldenfuture, in his youth by what might happen any dawning day; but in hisyears of manhood, and from then till he began to feel the first oncomingof age, he had lived by what he did. Then he came again to Georgie, andsaw how insensibly he had been won to softer ways, though never to theglamour-ridden ways of first youth. They had been sweet, those years, and the sweeter for the outside things--the friendship with Killigrewthat had vivified his life, the pleasant intermittent times with Judith, the renascence of intimacy with Boase and the growth of his children, growing away from him every year, but none the less to be loved forthat. What had he lived by during those years? Not, consciously, byanything, except a mere going on and a determination to make the bestof things, to get the most out of everything. When the Parson died hehad a glimpse of a world he had lost sight of since his youth, but notthen could he give up this one sufficiently to do more than glimpse it. And when Nicky was in South Africa he had suffered that second violentonslaught of the personal which racked him this way and that. Vassie--the horror that her death had held now seemed to him as empty ofall save peace as Hilaria's. But all the while he had been living bywhat he found in that passionate moment when he stood, a man of sixty, at the top of the hill above the seaward valley and had seen the rainbowarching over Cloom and the distant sea. Beauty, the actual joy of theworld, that had been feeding his soul all the time, giving him thosemoments of ecstasy without which Killigrew had always said the soulcould not be saved alive. From that moment the slope of the ten yearsdown to the present seemed so swift that he found his vision of themless clear than of preceding periods. What of these last years, each ofwhich was bringing him with, it seemed, such increasing momentum, towards the end?

And in a flash he saw what he had, all unknowingly, lived by since thedecline of his powers had fallen upon swiftness, and he saw it as whatalone makes life bearable. He had lived by the knowledge of death, bythe blessed certainty that life could not go on for ever, that theremust be an end to all the wanderings and pain, to all the dulnesses andunsatisfactory driftings, to all the joys that would otherwise fall uponsluggishness or cloy themselves. This it was that gave its fine edge topleasure, its sweet sharpness to happiness, and their possible solace topain and grief. He had lived, as all men do, knowingly or not, by death. This was the secret bread that all men shared. 

Again came that period of unconsciousness which corresponded to night, and the third day dawned. Again his brain felt of a crystal clearness;he was undistressed by the fact he could not speak to those around himor even return the pressure of their hands, for he was feeling all theold intoxicating joy of discovery at breaking into new lands. He evenfelt a mischievous elation that all this secret pageant, thisretrospective wonder that was life, should be his to watch and enjoy, while all around thought him past emotion already. 

If, then, men lived by death, what was death? Not a mere cessation--thena going-on. . . . He made no definite images of it in his mind, did noteven wonder whether he should see those others he had known and lovedwho had passed into these tracts before him. That seemed to him now, asit always had when he had thought of it, rather unimportant. Whatmattered, he had always known, was the adjustment of the soul tosomething beyond it, to which it and the whole of life stood ininextricably close and vital relationship. Those other relationships, those other meetings, might be included in that as an added pleasure, but the other thing, if there at all, would necessarily be of suchsupreme importance as in its bright light to drown all minor effulgence. And that it was there, always, in this world and the next, he knew, forhe had always felt his soul breathe it as surely as his lungs hadinhaled the free airs of the earth. That the first meeting with it mightnot be all happiness, that as, in the Parson's creed, inevitable painswould have to be worked through before the soul could be sufficientlypurged to meet it clearly upon its ultimate levels, mattered verylittle. At least, the pains would be different pains, not the same oldwearying ones of earth--the disappointments and the mortifications, theburning anxieties and the bitter losses, the overwhelming physicaldisasters, that everyone had to go through sooner or later. 

It lay before him, not as a darkness, but a brightness, that he knew. Hefelt an exquisite easing, even of the very muscles of his strickenbody, as he thought of it--a brightness which every soul went to swell, which gained a glowing, luminous pulse of light from each one thatslipped into its shining spaces. . . . 

And with that came light on all that puzzled and tormented him since hehad known the facts about Nicky, and the mere physical paternity of himseemed a small thing beside such light as this. That passion of joy hehad felt when he had heard of Nicky's coming had not been wasted: it hadgone to make something in himself he would never otherwise have known;it had gone on in him as a living force, and had helped him to makeNicky what he was as much as one human being can make another. Archelaushad "won" in that Cloom would belong, though no man knew it, to his sonand his grandson after him, but it no longer seemed to Ishmael to matterwhether Archelaus "won" or not. There was at last no striving, nounacknowledged but hidden combat, no feeling of lingering unfairness. 

Ishmael knew how, with all his elusiveness, Nicky had been verymalleable, immensely open to impressions, to what was held before him, and he knew how different Nicky would have been if Archelaus had had themoulding of him. Just as even at this hour he was reverting to all hehad learnt--more from watching and imbibing it than any other way--fromBoase, so Nicky had absorbed from him what made him what he was. Andyet, so till the end did the deep inherited instinct of the man wholives by land hold him, Ishmael took pleasure in the thought that, afterall, Nicky was of Ruan blood. . . . So much of earth held by him aseverything else began to slip away. 

Then towards evening thought fell away too, leaving him only with whathe had called to Jimmy a "nice tiredness. " So do children feel after aday's play, so do old, old men feel after a life's work. . . . 

He was dimly but certainly aware that Nicky was beside his pillow, hishand upon him, that other figures were beyond, of Nicky's bent head, butin his drowsy mind it was confused with the head of the plaster Christthat had leaned forward from the wall behind and was drooping low overhim. The hair fell softly over his eyes like the falling of a shadow, and under it he could see the Divine eyes, that had beamed at him nowand again throughout his life, but never as brightly as in boyhood, smiling into his. He smiled back, and then, with a queer little apologyin his mind, he turned his eyes away to take a last look at the softdusk through the window. 

Later, when Nicky had closed the sightless eyes, the young moon swam upupon her back. She who had just gone through her full round scarredmaturity and died of old age was now virgin once again, with thatrenascent virginity some of the greatest courtesans have known, aremoteness of spirit, a chill freshness that is in itself eternal youth. 

EPILOGUE

Jimmy Ruan went through the farmyard and climbed upon the gate that ledinto the field. He saw the big straw stacks that had been built up onlyfour days ago at the time of the threshing; he saw the black and soddenpatch upon the turf where the steamy water had dripped ceaselessly, theruts where the heavy thresher and the traction engine had driven deepinto the soil. He saw, too, the last little scales of chaff, stillpalely golden, that had lain hidden till this frolicsome wind had cometo whirl them up in one last mad dance before it lost them for ever. Forit was a morning of clear and windy brightness, one of those first daysof autumn which are also a last flicker of the summer. 

The wind was everywhere--high in the flocculent clouds, low between theclosest grass-blades; scattering the seeded flowers in the hedgerows, rippling under the tarpaulin covers of the stacks so that they seemed tobe drawing deep breaths, twisting the golden straws upon the cobbledyard until they seemed to be playing together--playing mad games ofwrestling, each slim golden combatant writhing from beneath his fellowat the last moment of contact. The wind lifted also the collar of Jim'stunic, making it flap about his rosy cheeks, and it sent streaming outthe black silk tie that his mother had knotted there herself. 

Jim put up his hand to make sure the black tie was still safe. He wassorry that his grandfather was what people called dead, but with hissorrow went a tiny thrill. Nothing so important had ever happened toJimmy before. He wondered if he would be put into black altogether sothat the other children he met would know he was in mourning. 

He swayed back and forth upon the gate. First he pretended he was asoldier riding on horseback like his father had been in SouthAfrica-on-the-map. Next he was a sailor in a storm at sea, and the windwas shaking his good ship under him, and the waves were mounting, high, high, as they often had over the ship of old Uncle Archelaus, whom hehad met long ago. 

Thought of the sea and sight of the tiny ripples on the surface of thehorse-trough suggested a new game to him. He had been told to run awayout of doors and not bother, so it was very quietly that he crept intothe empty breakfast-room, which was also his playroom, and began tosearch in his toy chest for something he could pretend was a ship. Witha cry of joy he pounced upon a walnut shell that lay tucked away in acorner. He sat upon his heels, the shell in his little brown hand. Hewas remembering that it was one his grandfather had cracked for him andmade into a boat by the addition of matches for seats and mast. He lovedit until his uncle Archelaus had made him a real boat of wood, and thenhe had thrown it aside and forgotten it. In this corner it must havelain ever since while he played with and broke the other ship of wood. 

He took it out now into the sunny, windy yard and on into the lane, onthe other side of which there was a tiny thread of water that trickleddown the slope to the stream which raced along the bottom of the rockgarden. Jim was not allowed to go down to the real stream by himself, sohe stayed in the lane and carefully launched his recovered treasure uponthe tiny rivulet. He watched anxiously--yes, it floated. He bent forwardand poked with a twig to dislodge it from a tiny tangle of weed; thenhis foot slipped and he splashed his clean socks. Bother! He hadpromised not to be a nuisance. He soon was wetter still, and began tofeel happier. 

When the little boat was fairly caught in the current it went bobbingaway out of his reach, and he saw it disappear in the pipe under theroad. He pictured it emerging, being hurtled down to the real stream andthen hurried upon that right out to sea. . . . He felt no pang at losing itin his excitement at its adventurous career. Soon he was busy upon othermatters; he was by turns a pirate, an engineer who built a dam, and anairman who jumped off a boulder and had one intoxicating moment inmid-air. . . . Then for a while he played at being grandfather and lyingstill with his eyes shut. 

But that was dull, and he was glad when he heard his mother's voicecalling him in to dinner. He shook off the earth with which he had triedto besprinkle himself and scrambled up. It was dull being dead. He wouldnever be dead, but he would be anything and everything else--when he wasa man. 

THE END