“Would that clear you for starting?”
“With that,” said Zachary, “I can get to sea in a fortnight.”
“Good!” Dan said slowly. “Give me a written promise! To sea in fourteen
days and my fair share on the five hundred pounds—no more—no less.”
Again I thought Pearse would have jumped at this, but he leaned his chin
on his hand, and looked at Dan, and Dan looked at him. While they were
staring at each other like this, Pasiance came up with a kitten.
“See!” she said, “isn't it a darling?” The kitten crawled and clawed
its way up behind her neck. I saw both men's eyes as they looked at
Pasiance, and suddenly understood what they were at. The kitten rubbed
itself against Pasiance's cheek, overbalanced, and fell, clawing, down
her dress. She caught it up and walked away. Some one, I don't know
which of us, sighed, and Pearse cried “Done!”
The bargain had been driven.
“Good-bye, Mr. Pearse,” said Dan; “I guess that's all I'm wanted for.
I'll find my pony waiting in the village. George, you'll see Pasiance
home?”
We heard the hoofs of his pony galloping down the road; Pearse suddenly
excused himself, and disappeared.
This venture of his may sound romantic and absurd, but it's
matter-of-fact enough. He's after L. s. d.! Shades of Drake, Raleigh,
Hawkins, Oxenham! The worm of suspicion gnaws at the rose of romance.
What if those fellows, too, were only after L. s. d....?
I strolled into the pine-wood. The earth there was covered like a bee's
body with black and gold stripes; there was the blue sea below, and
white, sleepy clouds, and bumble-bees booming above the heather; it
was all softness, a summer's day in Devon. Suddenly I came on Pearse
standing at the edge of the cliff with Pasiance sitting in a little
hollow below, looking up at him. I heard him say:
“Pasiance—Pasiance!” The sound of his voice, and the sight of her soft,
wondering face made me furious. What business has she with love, at her
age? What business have they with each other?
He told me presently that she had started off for home, and drove me to
the ferry, behind an old grey pony. On the way he came back to his offer
of the other day.
“Come with me,” he said. “It doesn't do to neglect the Press; you can
see the possibilities. It's one of the few countries left. If I once
get this business started you don't know where it's going to stop. You'd
have free passage everywhere, and whatever you like in reason.”
I answered as rudely as I could—but by no means as rudely as I
wanted—that his scheme was mad. As a matter of fact, it's much too sane
for me; for, whatever the body of a scheme, its soul is the fibre of the
schemer.
“Think of it,” he urged, as if he could see into me. “You can make what
you like of it. Press paragraphs, of course. But that's mechanical; why,
even I could do it, if I had time. As for the rest, you'll be as free—as
free as a man.”
There, in five words of one syllable, is the kernel of this fellow
Pearse—“As free as a man!” No rule, no law, not even the mysterious
shackles that bind men to their own self-respects! “As free as a man!”
No ideals; no principles; no fixed star for his worship; no coil he
can't slide out of! But the fellow has the tenacity of one of the old
Devon mastiffs, too. He wouldn't take “No” for an answer.
“Think of it,” he said; “any day will do—I've got a fortnight.... Look!
there she is!” I thought that he meant Pasiance; but it was an old
steamer, sluggish and black in the blazing sun of mid-stream, with a
yellow-and-white funnel, and no sign of life on her decks.
“That's her—the Pied Witch! Do her twelve knots; you wouldn't think it!
Well! good-evening! You'd better come. A word to me at any time. I'm
going aboard now.”
As I was being ferried across I saw him lolling in the stern-sheets of a
little boat, the sun crowning his straw hat with glory.
I came on Pasiance, about a mile up the road, sitting in the hedge.
We walked on together between the banks—Devonshire banks, as high
as houses, thick with ivy and ferns, bramble and hazel boughs, and
honeysuckle.
“Do you believe in a God?” she said suddenly.
“Grandfather's God is simply awful. When I'm playing the fiddle, I can
feel God; but grandfather's is such a stuffy God—you know what I mean:
the sea, the wind, the trees, colours too—they make one feel. But I
don't believe that life was meant to 'be good' in. Isn't there anything
better than being good? When I'm 'good,' I simply feel wicked.” She
reached up, caught a flower from the hedge, and slowly tore its petals.
“What would you do,” she muttered, “if you wanted a thing, but were
afraid of it? But I suppose you're never afraid!” she added, mocking
me. I admitted that I was sometimes afraid, and often afraid of being
afraid.
“That's nice! I'm not afraid of illness, nor of grandfather, nor of his
God; but—I want to be free. If you want a thing badly, you're afraid
about it.”