"You've shook 'ands with Mr. Caspar five times since I've been here,"

he remarked tartly. "Can't you give somebody else a turn now?"

Just then, mercifully, Mr. Trupp rolled up, coughing.

Summer or winter made no difference to the great man's cold, which was

always with him, and lovingly cherished; but he liked to mark the

change between the two seasons by exchanging the long woollen muffler

of winter for a silken wrapper in which he swaddled his neck in the

summer months.

"Good luck, Ernie," he said in his brief way, his eyes shrewd and sweet

behind his pince-nez.

"Keep an eye to Ruth, won't you, sir?" said Ernie in his most

confidential manner.

"We'll do our best," replied the other hoarsely. "Here's Mr. Pigott.

Quite a jingo these days."

"Who isn't?" the old school-master answered with an attempt at the

familiar truculence. "Well, you look like it, Ern." He added almost

with admiration. "Quite a changed man."

Then the Colonel joined the little group.

"Coming along sir?" asked Ernie keenly.

"No luck," replied the other gloomily. "Too old at sixty... What

about that brother of yours?"

Ern's face darkened.

"Ah, I ain't seen him," he said.

"There he is by the bookstall," muttered Mr. Pigott. "Envying the men

who are going to fight his battles! I know him."

Alf, indeed, who had clearly recovered from the first shock of war, was

very much to the fore, modest, fervent, the unassuming patriot. Now he

approached his brother with a mixture of wariness and manly frankness.

"Will you shake 'ands, Ernest?" he asked.

"I will _not_," said Ern. "It was you who done the dirty on our Lal."

"Never!" cried Alf and came a step closer. "I'll tell you who it

were." He nodded stealthily in the direction of Joe. "That's the chap

that's out to spoil your home. Wrecker I call him. I tell you what,

Ern," he whispered. "I'll watch out against him for you while you are

away so you don't suffer."

"I thank you," said Ern, unmoved.

Just then Joe came up, took him by the arm, and bustled him off to the

departure platform.

"You'll be late else, ma lad," said the engineer.

CHAPTER XXXV

IN THE EVENING

The Archdeacon and his sidesman walked back to Old Town from the

station together.

Mr. Trupp and Mr. Pigott followed behind.

"The Archdeacon lags a bit," said the former.

"Yes," answered the other. "And I don't wonder. This war'll be the

end of him yet. You heard about last night?"

The veteran had sallied out at midnight with an electric torch and the

Reverend Spink to deal with spies who had been signalling from the top

of the Downs.

Unhappily the stalker had himself been stalked by another patriot bent

on the same errand. The two old gentlemen had arrested each other by

the dew-pond on Warren Hill; and report had it that words and worse had

passed between the two. In the small hours of the morning Anne Caspar,

hearing voices, had risen and seen from her window the Archdeacon

stalking down the road, dusty, draggled, his curate trotting with

sullen barks at the heels of his chief. The Archdeacon had no

prisoner, but he had lumbago, a scratch or two, and an indignant sense

that his curate had proved both disloyal and inefficient. The two had

parted at the Rectory gate wrathfully, the Reverend Spink offering his

resignation.

Opposite his garage in the Golfs, Alf now said goodbye to his Rector,

and crossed the road with an almost aggressively sprightly air. Mr.

Trupp noticed it.

"What about him and his Touring Syndicate?" he asked.

"He's all right," answered Mr. Pigott. "Trust him for that. Artful

isn't in it with Alf. Called his drivers together on the declaration

of war, and made em a speech. Said he knew where they wanted to

be--where he wanted to be himself: in the fighting line. He'd be the

last to stand between them and their duty. He wouldn't keep them to

their contract. The Motor Transport was crying for them--five bob a

day and glory galore. All he could do was to say God bless you and

wish he could go himself--only his responsibilities...."

Mr. Trupp grinned.

"Did they swallow it down?" he asked.

"Like best butter," said Mr. Pigott. "He's got the tongue. He twisted

em. Parliament's the place for Alf."

"Ah!" committed the other. "We're only beginning. This war'll find us

all out too before we're through." ...

Alf turned into his yard.

A little group of broken down old men were waiting him there.

"Who are you?" he asked fiercely. "What you want?"

"We've come on behalf of the cleaners, sir," said the spokesman, in the

uncertain voice of the half-starved. "What about us?--The Army don't

want us."

The group tittered a feeble deprecatory titter.

"H'every man for himself in these days!" cried Alf, brief and brisk.

"I'm not the Charity Organisation Society."

The old man, a-quaver in voice and body, doddered forward, touching his

hat. Undersized and shrunken through starvation during infancy, and

brutal usage throughout his growing years, he was an example of the

great principle we Christians have enforced and maintained throughout

the centuries: that the world's hardest work should be done by the

weakest. Tip, as he was called, had been a coal-porter till at

fifty-five he dislocated his shoulder shifting loads too heavy for him.

Thereafter he was partially disabled, a casualty of the Industrial War,

and to be treated as such.

"Would you give us a week's money or notice, sir?" he said now in his

shaking voice.

"Did I take you on by the week?" asked Alf ferociously.

"No, sir; by the day."

"Then what ye talking about?--Ain't I paid you up?"

"You paid us up, sir. Only we got to live."

"Very well then. There's the House at the top of the hill for such as

you. Ain't that good enough? This is a Christian country, this is."

Alf was half-way up the steps to his office, and he pointed in the

direction of the Work-house.

A curious tawny glow lit the old man's eyes. His lips closed over his

gums.

"Bloody Bastille," he muttered.

Alf heard him and ran down the steps. He was still with the stillness

of the born bully.

"None of that now," he said quietly. "No filthy language in my yard!

And no loiterin eether!--Off you go or I send for the police. The

country's got something better to think of than you and your likes, I

reckon, just now."

He stood in the gate of the yard with the cold domineering air of the

warder in charge of convicts.

The cleaners shambled away like a herd of mangy donkeys past work and

turned out on waste land to die at their leisure.

They were broken men all, old and infirm, drawn from the dregs of that

Reserve of Labour on which the capitalist system has been built. They

belonged to no Union; they were incapable of organisation and therefore

of defence against the predatory class ...

"We got no bloody country, men like us ain't."

"Nor no bloody Christ."

"The rich got Him too."

"Same as they got everythink else" ...

The last of them gone, Alf skipped up the steps into his office. He

was not afraid of them, was not even depressed by their uncalled-for

consideration of themselves.

Indeed he was extraordinarily uplifted.

His great scheme had, it is true, been brought low--through no omission

on his part; but he had got out with a squeeze after a dreadful period

of panic fury, and now experienced the lyrical exhilaration of the man

who has escaped by his own exertions from sudden unexpected death.

He had unloaded his drivers on the Army; and sold his buses to the

Government. The only big creditor was Captain Royal, and Alf could

afford to laugh at him. Besides Captain Royal would be off to the

war--and might not come back. Moreover, unless he was much mistaken,

the war meant all manner of chances of which the man with his eyes open

would take full advantage: world convulsions always did.

Meanwhile he had the garages on which he could rebuild his original

edifice at any moment, add to it, alter it as opportunity offered. The

war would not last for ever; but it would un-make businesses and devour

men--some of them his rivals. While they were away at the Front he

would be quietly, ceaselessly strengthening his position at home. And

when peace came, as it must some day, he would be ready to reap where

he had sown in enterprise and industry.

On his way up to Old Town that evening he met the Reverend Spink and

asked him how long the Franco-Prussian war had lasted.

The curate still had the ruffled and resentful air of a fighting

cockerel who has a grievance against the referee. Lady Augusta,

indeed, had passed a busy morning smoothing his plumage and inducing

him to withdraw his resignation. His meeting with Alf served as

further balm to his wounded spirit; for above all else the Reverend

Spink loved to be appealed to as a scholar.

Now he answered Alf with a learned frown,

"Six months. It began at the same date as this. They were in Paris by

January."

"As long as that!" said Alf surprised. "Looks as if they'd be quicker

this time!"

A thought struck him. He turned down Borough Lane, and went to call on

Ruth.

She was at home, alone in the kitchen, her babes in bed. He did not

enter, but stood in the door awhile before she was aware of him,

watching her with sugary and secretive smile.

Then he chirped.

She looked up, saw him; and the light faded out of her face.

"So Ern's gone to the wars," he said. "You'll be a bit lonely like o

nights, the evenings drawing in and all. Say, I might drop in on you

when I got the time. I'm not so busy, as I was. Likely I'll be goin

back to drive for Mr. Trupp now."

She rose, formidable as a lioness at bay in the mouth of her cave.

"Out of it!" she ordered, and flung an imperious hand towards the door.

Alf fled incontinently.

A navvy, who had been watching him from a door opposite, shouldered

heavily across the street to meet him. He was a very big man with a

very small head, dressed in corduroys; of the type you still meet in

the pages of Punch but seldom in real life. His hands were deep in his

pockets, and he said quietly without so much as removing his pipe.

"Stow the bloody truck then!"

Alf paused, astonished. Then he thought the other must have mistaken

his man in the dusk.

"Here! d'you know who you're talkin to?" he asked.

The navvy showed himself quite undisturbed.

"Oughter," he said, "seein you and me was dragg'd oop same school

togedder along o Mr. Pigott back yarnderr. You're Alf Caspar, and I be

Reuben Deadman. There's an old saying these paarts you may have

heard--_When there isn't a Deadman in Lewes Gaol you may knaw the end

o't world's at hand_. I've not been in maself, not yet. When I goos

I'll goo for to swing--for you--for old times sake; let alone the dirty

dish you done Old Tip and them this arternoon."

Alf walked up the hill, breathing heavily and with mottled face.

The bubble of his exaltation had burst. He felt a curious sinking away

within him, as though he were walking on cold damp clouds which were

letting him through.

The war was changing things already, and not to his liking.

Three weeks ago who'd have talked to the Managing Director of Caspar's

Syndicate like that?

Brooding on his troubles, he ran into Joe Burt who was coming swiftly

round the corner of Borough Lane, brooding too.

Alf darted nimbly back. Joe stood with lowered head, glaring at his

enemy. Then he thought better of it and turned on his way.

Alf, standing in the middle of the road with jeering eyes, called after

him furtively.

"Want her all to yourself, don't you?"

Joe marched on unheeding to the cottage Alf had just left.

Ruth must have been awaiting him: for he entered at once without

knocking.

CHAPTER XXXVI

RUTH FACES THE STORM

That night as the Colonel sat on the loggia chewing his pipe, long

after Mrs. Lewknor had retired, he was aware of a pillar of blackness,

erect against the dull sea and star-lit sky, on the edge of the cliff,

at the very spot where he had seen it on the night of the declaration

of war.

Electric torch in hand, he stole out on the pair. Oblivious of all

things save each other, they remained locked in each other's arms. He

flashed the torch full in their faces.

"O, Joe!" came a familiar voice.

The Colonel was taken a-back.

"That you, Anne?" he muttered.

"Yes, sir," his parlour-maid answered. "Me and my Joe. He come up to

say goodbye. Joining up to-morrow, he is."

The Colonel mumbled something about spies, and apologised.

"No harm done, sir," laughed Anne, quietly. "It's nothing to some of

them. Turn their search-light full glare on you just when you don't

want, and never a by-your-leave--same as they done war-night! _If

that's war_, I says to Joe, _better ha done with it afore you begin_, I

says."

The Colonel retired indoors, doubly humiliated: he had made a fool of

himself before his own parlour-maid, and in his mind he had gravely

wronged Ruth Caspar.

Next day he started off for Old Town to find out if there was any way

by which he could make amends to his own conscience and, unknown to

her, to the woman he had maligned.

She met him with kind eyes, a little wistful.

"We're all friends now, sir," she said, as she shook hands. "Got to

be, I reckon."

If it is true, as is said to-day, that old men make wars and young men

pay for them, it is also true that the mothers, wives, sisters, and

sweethearts of the young men bear their share of the burthen.

Ruth was left with four children and a debt.

She faced the situation as hundreds of thousands of women up and down

Europe in like case were doing at that moment--quiet, courageous,

uncomplaining as an animal under the blows that Life, the inexplicable,

rained upon her. One thought constantly recurred to her. In her first

tragedy she had stood alone against the world. Now there were millions

undergoing the same experience. And she derived from that thought

comfort denied to others.

There were no complications about her economic situation.

That at least was very simple.

She owed several weeks' rent, had debts outstanding to the tune of

several shillings--mostly boots for the children; and a little cash in

coppers in hand.

Two nights after Ernie's departure, Alf came round for his back-rent.

He came stealthily, Ruth noticed; and she knew why. Public opinion in

the Moot, which might at any moment find explosive self-expression

through the fists of Reuben Deadman, was against him. It was against

all landlords. Ern moreover was still a hero in the eyes of the Moot

and would remain so for several days yet; and Ruth received the

consideration due to the wife of such.

Alf was dogged, with downcast eyes. There was no nonsense, no

persiflage about him. He went straight to the point.

"I come for my money," he said.

Ruth rallied him maliciously.

"Money!" she cried, feigning surprise. "I thart it was accommodation

you was a'ter."

"And I mean to have it," Alf continued sullenly.

"Even a landlord's got to live these times. I got to have it or you

got to go. That's straight."

Ruth had her back to the wall.

"Ah, you must have that out with the Government," she said coolly.

"It's got nothing to do with me."

"Government!" cried Alf sharply. "What's the Government got to do with

it."

"They're passin some law to protect the women and children of them

that's joined up," Ruth answered.

"Who said so?"

"The Colonel."

"Anyway it's not passed yet."

"No," retorted Ruth. "So you'd best wait till it is. Make you look a

bit funny like to turn me out, and put some one else in, and then have

to turn them out and put me back again, say in a fortnight, and all out

o your own pocket. Not to talk o the bit of feeling, and them and me

taking damages off o you as like as not, I should say."

That evening Ruth went up to see Mr. Pigott.

The Manager said he would pay her half Ern's wages while the war

lasted; and he paid her the first instalment then and there.

"Will the Government do anything for the women and children sir?" she

asked.

Mr. Pigott shook his grizzled head.

As the years went by he had an always diminishing faith in the power

and will of Governments to right wrongs.

"The old chapel's the thing," he would say.

Ruth put the same question to Mr. Trupp whom she met on her way home to

the Moot.

"They will if they're made to," the doctor answered, and as he saw the

young woman's face fall, he added more sympathetically, "They're trying

to do something locally. I don't know what'll come of it. Keep in

touch with Mrs. Trupp. She'll let you know. I believe there's to be a

meeting at the Town Hall."

He rolled on, grumbling and grousing to himself. Call ourselves a

civilised country, and leave the women and children to take their luck!

Chaos--as usual! ... Chaos backed and justified by cant! ... Would cant

organise Society? ... Would cant feed the women and children? ... Would

cant take the place of Scientific Method? ...

Ruth went home with her eleven shillings and sixpence and an aching

heart, to find that little Alice had already arranged her brood in

their bibs around the tea-table, and was only waiting for mother to

come and tilt the kettle which she might not touch.

The other fledgelings hammered noisily on the table with their spoons.

"My dears," she said, as she went round the table, kissing the rosy

faces uplifted to hers.

"What is it, Mum?" asked little Alice, who had something of her

mother's quick sympathy and power of intuition. "Is daddy shotted at

the war?"

"Not yet, my pretty," her mother answered. "It's only nothing you can

understand. Now help me get the tea."

Next day brought a lawyer's letter giving her notice to quit.

That evening Ruth took the letter up to the Manor-house.

The maid told her Mr. and Mrs. Trupp had just started off to a meeting

at the Town Hall.

"Something to do with the women and children, I believe," she added.

"Prince o Wales's Fund or something."

Ruth turned down the steps disconsolate.

Just then she saw Joe Burt getting off the motor-bus opposite the

_Star_. She had not seen him since he had come up on the evening of

Ern's departure to give her the latest news of her husband. Now he

came striding towards her, blowing into her life with the vigour of

Kingsley's wild Nor'-easter. At the moment the politician was on

top--she noted it with thankful heart.

"Coom on, ma lass!" he said. "You're the very one I'm after. We want

you. We want em all. You got to coom along o me to this meeting."

"But I aren't got my hat, Joe!" pleaded Ruth, amused yet deprecating.

The engineer would take no excuses.

"Your children are worth more'n your hat, I reck'n," he said. "Coom

on!--Coom on!--No time to be lost!"

And in a moment she was walking briskly at his side down the hill up

which he had just come.

The strength, the resolution, the certainty of her companion swept all

her clouds away and renewed her faith.

She told him of the notice she had received.

"All the better," he said. "Another trump for us to play. Don't you

worrit. The Labour Party in Parliament's disappointed all its

supporters so far, but it's going to justify itself at last. One

thing. They can't trample on us this time, the Fats canna. We're too

well organised."

They walked down the hill together.

At the stile opposite the Drill Hall where six months before she had

rescued Ernie, drenched and dripping, from the police, they turned off

into Saffrons Croft in the direction of the Town Hall.

Joe, as he trod the grass beneath his feet, became sombre, silent. The

woman sweeping along at his side, her shawl about her head, felt his

change of mood. The Other was coming to the top again--the One she

feared. She was right. The Other it was who spoke surlily and

growling, out of his deeps, like the voice of a yard-dog from his

kennel.

"Well, what's it going to be?"

Her heart galloped but she met him gaily.

"What you mean, Joe?"

"You know what I mean," bearing down on her remorselessly.

She made a half halt.

"O Joe!"

"Aye, you may O Joe me! That wunna better it."

"And after what you promised him solemn that night and all."

He answered moodily.

"He forced me to it. Took advantage. Shouldn't ha done it. Springin

it on me without a word. That's not the game."

Ruth turned on him.

"You're the one to talk, aren't you?" she said, flashing the corner of

an eye at him. "Playing the game prarper, you are?"

He barged ahead, sullen as a bull and as obstinate.

"A don't know; and A don't care. A know what A want and A know A'm

going to get it."

She met him light as a rapier thrust.

"I thart you was a man, Joe."

"Better'n a no-man anyway."

She stopped dead and faced him.

"Where's my no-man now then?" she cried. "And where are you?"

That time she had planted her dart home. He glared at her savage,

sullen, and with lowered head.

"Thou doesna say A'm a coward?"

Slowly she answered,

"I'm none so sure.--Ern's my soldier, Ern is."

He gripped her arm.

"I'll go home," she said, curt as the cut of a whip.

He relaxed.

"Nay," he answered. "If we're to fight for your children yo mun help."

She threw off his arm with a gesture of easy dignity. Then they walked

on again together down Saffrons Road towards the Town Hall.

CHAPTER XXXVII

MRS. LEWKNOR

The Town Hall was crowded.

The Mayor, who was in the chair, had spoken on behalf of the Prince of

Wales's Fund and announced that subscriptions would be received by the

Town Clerk.

Thereafter an indescribable orgie of patriotism had taken place.

Red-necked men outbid fat women. The bids mounted; the bidders grew

fiercer; the cheers waxed. And all the while a little group of Trade

Unionists at the back of the hall kept up a dismal chaunt--

We don't want charity,

We won't have charity.

Then a little dapper figure in the blue of a chauffeur rose in the body

of the hall.

"I'm only a workin chauffeur," he said, wagging his big head, "but I

got a conscience, and I got a country. And I'm not ashamed of em

eether. I can't do much bein only a worker as you might say. But I

can do me bit. Put me down for fifty guineas, please, Mr. Town-clerk."

He sat down modestly amidst loud applause.

"Who's that?" whispered the Colonel on the platform.

"Trupp's chauffeur," the Archdeacon, who had a black patch over his

eye, answered with a swagger--"my sidesman, Alfred Caspar. Not so bad

for a working-man?" He cackled hilariously.

Then a voice from Lancashire, resonant and jarring, came burring across

the hall.

"Mr. Chairman, are you aware that Alfred Caspar is turning his

sister-in-law out of his house with four children."

Alf leapt to his feet.

"It's a lie!" he cried.

A big young woman sitting just in front of Joe rose on subdued wings.

She was bare-headed, be-shawled, a dark Madonna of English village-life.

"Yes, you are, Alf," she said, and sat down quietly as she had risen.

There was a dramatic silence. Then the Archdeacon started to his feet

and pointed with accusing claw like a witch-doctor smelling out a

victim.

"I know that woman!" he cawed raucously.

A lady sitting in the front row just under the platform rose.

"So do I," she said.

It was Mrs. Trupp, and her voice, still and pure, fell on the heated

air like a drop of delicious rain.

She sat down again.

The Archdeacon too had resumed his seat, very high and mighty; and

Bobby Chislehurst was whispering in his ear from behind.

The Colonel had risen now, calm and courteous as always, in the

suppressed excitement.

"Am I not right in thinking that Mrs. Caspar is the wife of an old

Hammer-man who joined up at once on the declaration of war and is at

this moment somewhere in France fighting our battles for us?"

The question was greeted with a storm of applause from the back of the

hall.

"Good old Colonel!" some one called.

"Mr. Chairman, d'you mean to accept that man's cheque?" shouted Joe.

"Yes or no?"

In the uproar that followed, Alf rose again, white and leering.

"I'd not have spoken if I'd known I was to be set upon like this afore

em all for offering a bit of help to me country. As to my character

and that, I believe I'm pretty well beknown for a patriot in

Beachbourne."

"As to patriotism, old cock," called Joe, "didn't you sack your

cleaners without notice on the declaration of war?"

"No, I didn't then!" shouted Alf with the exaggerated ferocity of the

man who knows his only chance is to pose as righteously indignant.

The retort was greeted with a howl of _Tip_! There was a movement at

the back of the hall; and suddenly an old man was lifted on the

shoulders of the Trade Unionists there. Yellow, fang-less, creased, he

looked, poised on high above the crowd against the white background of

wall, something between a mummy and a monkey. As always he wore no

tie; but he had donned a collar for the occasion, and this had sprung

open and made two dingy ass-like ears on either side of his head.

"Did he sack you, Tip?" called Joe.

"Yes, he did," came the quivering old voice. "Turned us off at a day.

Told us to go to the Bastille; and said he'd put the police on us."

The tremulous old voice made people turn their heads. They saw the

strange figure lifted above them. Some tittered. The ripple of

titters enraged the men at the back of the hall.

"See what you've made of him!" thundered Joe. "And then jeer! ...

Shame!"

"Shame!" screamed a bitter man. "Do the Fats know shame?"

"Some of em do," said a quiet voice.

It was true too. Mrs. Trupp was looking pale and miserable in the

front-row, so was the Colonel on the platform, Bobby Chislehurst and

others. The titterers, indeed, howled into silence by the storm of

indignation their action had aroused, wore themselves the accusing air

of those who hope thereby to fix the blame for their mistake on others.

In the silence a baggy old gentleman rose in the body of the hall,

slewed round with difficulty, and mooned above his spectacles at the

strange idol seated on men's shoulders behind him.

"_And He was lifted up_," he said in a musing voice more to himself

than to anybody else.

The phrase, audible to many, seemed to spread a silence about it as a

stone dropped in a calm pond creates an ever-broadening ripple.

In the silence old Tip slid gently to the ground and was lost once more

amid the crowd of those who had raised him for a brief moment into

fleeting eminence.

The meeting broke up.

Outside the hall stood Mr. Trupp's car, Alf at the wheel: for the old

surgeon's regular chauffeur had been called up.

Mrs. Trupp, coming down the steps, went up to Ruth who was standing on

the pavement.

"So glad you spoke up, Ruth," she said, and pressed her hand.

"Come on!" said Mr. Trupp. "We'll give you a lift home, Ruth."

Alf was looking green. The two women got in, and the old surgeon

followed them. He was grinning, Mrs. Trupp quietly malicious, and Ruth

amused. The people on the pavement and streaming out of the hall saw

and were caught by the humour of the situation, as their eyes and

comments showed.

Then Colonel Lewknor made his way to the car.

"Just a word, Mrs. Caspar!" he said. "Things are squaring up. Mrs.

Lewknor's taking the women and children in hand. Could you come and

see her one morning at Under-cliff?"

The hostel that Mrs. Lewknor had built upon the cliff boomed from the

start. It was full to over-flowing, winter and summer; and Eton was in

sight for Toby when war was declared.

Then things changed apace.

Beachbourne, for at least a thousand years before William the Norman

landed at Pevensey on his great adventure, had been looked on as the

likeliest spot for enemy invasion from the Continent. Frenzied parents

therefore wired for their children to be sent inland at once; others

wrote charming letters cancelling rooms taken weeks before. In ten

days the house was empty; and on the eleventh the mortgagee intimated

his intention to fore-close.

It was a staggering blow.

The Colonel, with that uncannie cat-like intuition of his she knew so

well, prowled in, looked at her with kind eyes, as she sat in her

little room the fatal letter in her hand, and went out again.

Throughout it had been her scheme, not his, her responsibility, her

success; and now it was her failure.

Then Mr. Trupp was shown in, looking most unmilitary in his uniform of

a Colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

"It's all right," he said gruffly. "I know. Morgan and Evans rang me

up and told me. Unprofessional perhaps, but these are funny times. I

let you in. You built the hostel at my request. I shall take over the

mortgage."

"I couldn't let you," answered the little lady.

"You won't be asked," replied the other. "I ought to have done it from

the start; but it wasn't very convenient then. It's all right now."

The old man didn't say that the reason it was all right was because he

was quietly convinced in his own mind that his boy Joe would need no

provision now.

Just then the Colonel entered, looking self-conscious. He seemed to

know all about it, as indeed he had every right to do, seeing that Mr.

Trupp had informed him at length on the telephone half an hour before.

"You know who the mortgagee is?" he asked.

"Who?" said both at once.

The Colonel on tiptoe led them out into the hall, and showed them

through a narrow window Alf sitting at his wheel, looking very funny.

"Our friend of the scene in the Town Hall yesterday," he whispered.

"When I went to the bank yesterday to insure the house against

bombardment, the clerk looked surprised and said--_You know it's

already insured_. I said--_Who by_? He turned up a ledger and showed

me the name."

Mr. Trupp got into his car, wrapping himself round with much

circumstance.

"To Morgan and Evans," he said to Alf.

In the solicitors' office he produced his cheque-book.

"I've been seeing Mrs. Lewknor," he said. "I'll pay off your client

now and take over the mortgage myself."

He wrote a cheque then and there, and made it out to Alfred Caspar, who

was forthwith called in.

"I'm paying you off your mortgage, Alf," he said. "Give me a receipt,

will you?"

Alf with the curious simplicity that often threw his cunning into

relief signed the receipt quite unabashed and with evident relief.

"See, I need the money, sir," he said gravely, as he wiped the pen on

his sleeve. "The Syndicate's let me in--O, you wouldn't believe! And

I got to meet me creditors somehow."

"Well, you've got the money now," answered Mr. Trupp. "But I'm afraid

you've made an enemy. And that seems to me a bit of a pity just now."

"Colonel Lewknor?" snorted Alf. "I ain't afraid o him!"

"I don't know," said Mr. Trupp. "It's the day of the soldier."

That evening, after the day's work, Alf was summoned to his employer's

study.

Mrs. Trupp was leaving it as he entered.

"I've been thinking things over, Alfred," said the old man. "There's

no particular reason why you shouldn't drive for me for the present if

you like--until you're wanted out there. But I shall want you to

destroy this."

He handed his chauffeur Ruth's notice to quit.

Alf tore the paper up without demur.

"That's all right, sir," he said cheerfully. "That was a mistake. I

understood the Army Service Corps was taking over my garage; and I

should want a roof over my head to sleep under."

He went back to his car.

Another moment, and the door of the Manor-house opened. Ruth emerged

briskly and gave him a bright nod.

"Can't stop now, Alf," she said. "I'm off to see Mrs. Lewknor. See

you again later."

"That's right," Alf answered. "She's on the committee for seeing to

the married women ain't she?--them and their _lawful_ children.

Reverend Spink's on it too."

He stressed the epithet faintly.

A moment Ruth looked him austerely in the eyes. Then she turned up the

hill with a nod. She understood. There was danger a-foot again.

The matter of the hostel settled, Mrs. Lewknor, before everything an

Imperialist, and not of the too common platform kind, was free to

serve. And she had not far to look for an opening.

The Mayor summoned a meeting in his parlour to consider the situation

of the families of soldiers called to the colours.

Mrs. Lewknor was by common consent appointed honorary secretary of the

Association formed; and was given by her committee a fairly free

discretion to meet the immediate situation.

Nearly sixty, but still active as a cat, she set to work with a will.

Her sitting room at Undercliff she turned into an office. Her mornings

she gave to interviewing applicants and her afternoons to visiting.

Ruth Caspar was one of the first to apply.

The little slight Jewish lady with her immense experience of life

greeted the beautiful peasant woman who had never yet over-stepped the

boundaries of Sussex with a brilliant smile.

"There's not much I want to know about you," she said. "We belong to

the same regiment. Just one or two questions that I may fill up this

form."

How many children had Mrs. Caspar.

"Three, 'M ... and a fourth."

Mrs. Lewknor waited.

"Little Alice," continued Ruth, downcast and pale beneath her

swarthiness. "Before I were married."

Mrs. Lewknor wrote on apparently unconcerned.

She knew all about little Alice, had seen her once, and had recognised

her at a glance as Royal's child, the child for which, with her

passionate love for the regiment, she felt herself in part responsible.

On the same occasion she had seen Ruth's other babies and their

grandfather with them--that troubadour who forty years before had swept

the harp of her life to sudden and elusive music.

"I think that'll be all right now, Ruth," she said with a re-assuring

look. "I'm going to call you that now if I may. I'll come round and

let you know directly I know myself."

Ruth retired with haunted eyes. She guessed rather than knew the

forces that were gathering against her, and the strength of them.

Outside in the porch she met Lady Augusta with her mane of thick bobbed

white hair and rosy face; and on the cliff, as she walked home, other

ladies of the Committee and the Reverend Spink.

How hard they looked and how complacent! ...

Mrs. Lewknor put the case before her committee, telling them just as

much as she thought it good for them to know.

There was of course the inevitable trouble about little Alice.

"We don't even know for certain that she is the child of the man the

mother afterwards married," objected Lady Augusta Willcocks in her

worst manner. "She mayn't be a soldier's child at all."

Mrs. Lewknor turned in her lips.

"Our business surely is to support the women and children while the men

are away fighting our battles," she said.

"Need we form ourselves into a private enquiry office?" asked Mrs.

Trupp quietly.

The old lady's eyes flashed. Mrs. Trupp of course didn't care. Mrs.

Trupp never went to church. "Putting a premium on immorality!" she

cried with bitter laughter--"as usual."

"We must look a little into character surely, Mrs. Lewknor," said a

honied virgin from St. Michael's.

"I'll go bail for this woman's character," answered Mrs. Lewknor,

flashing in her turn.

"I believe she _is_ more respectable than she used to be," said a dull

spinster with a dogged eye.

"_Damn_ respectability," thought Mrs. Lewknor, but she said, "Are we to

deprive this child of bread in the name of respectability? Whatever

else she is she's a child of the Empire."

Then the Reverend Spink spoke. He and Lady Augusta Willcocks were

there to represent the point of view of the Church.

He spoke quietly, his eyes down, and lips compressed, mock-meekly aware

of the dramatic significance of his words.

"Perhaps I ought to tell the committee that the man this woman is now

living with is not her husband."

The silence that greeted this announcement was all that the reverend

gentleman could have desired. It was only broken by the loud

triumphant cry of the Lady Augusta Willcocks.

"Then all _four_ children are illegitimate!"

"Oh, that _would_ be joyful!" cried Mrs. Lewknor with a little titter.

It was the great moment of the Reverend Spink's life.

"She married some yeahs ago," he continued, so well-pleased with the

cumulative effect of the impression he was making, as even to venture

an imitation of the Archdeacon's accent. "And her husband is still

alive."

Mrs. Lewknor challenged swiftly.

"Where did she marry?" she asked, lest another question should be asked

first: for the honour of the regiment was involved.

"At the Registrar's Office, Lewes."

"When?"

"September 14th, 1906."

The man had his story pat enough to be sure.

"Who told you?" asked Mrs. Lewknor aggressively.

Mr. Spink pursed his lips.

"I have it on reliable information."

"I know your authority, I think," said Mrs. Trupp quietly.

"Did you check it?" asked Mrs. Lewknor.

"It was unnecessary," replied the curate insolently. "I can trust my

authority. But if you doubt me you can check it yourself."

"I shall of course," retorted the little lady.

Then the Chairman interposed.

"It looks like a case for the police," he said.

"Certainly," Lady Augusta rapped out.

"It's very serious," said the Chairman.

"For somebody," retorted Mrs. Lewknor.

By common consent the case was adjourned.

The Reverend Spink retired to Old Town.

The fierce hostility of Mrs. Lewknor, and the no less formidable

resistance of Mrs. Trupp, made the curate uneasy.

After dark he went round to Alf Caspar's garage.

"You're sure of your facts?" he asked.

"Dead cert," said Alf. "Drove em there meself."

"And the date?"

"Marked it down at the time, sir.... I can show it you in me ledger.

Always make a note of me engagements. You never know when it mayn't

come in handy."

He went down to his office, followed by the curate, and was proceeding

to take a bulky folio down from the shelf, when the telephone bell rang.

It was Mr. Trupp to say the car would be wanted at four to-morrow

afternoon.

"Is it a long run, sir?" asked Alf.

"No," came the answer. "Lewes--Mrs. Trupp."

Alf determined to send a man and not drive himself.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

SUSPENSE

Ruth walked home across the golf links, at her heart the agony of the

beaten vixen who, crawling across a ploughed field still far from her

earth, glances round to see a white wave of hounds breaking over the

fence at her brush.

At Billing's Corner she nearly ran into her mother-in-law.

For the first time Anne paused deliberately to address her.

"That you, Mrs. Caspar?" she said, and looked away a sour smirk on her

face. At the moment, beautiful old woman though she was, with her

porcelain complexion of a girl, her snow-white hair, and broad-splashed

dark brows, there was a suggestion of Alf about her--Ruth noticed it at

once and was afraid.

"They're puttin away all the chance children the mothers can't support

in there," the elder woman said casually, nodding at the blue roofs of

the old cavalry barracks at the back of Rectory Walk that was now the

Work-house. "To save expense, I suppose--the war or something. If you

didn't want yours to go I might take my son's children off your hands.

Then you could go out and char for her."

Ruth sickened.

"No, thank-you, Mrs. Caspar," she said.

Just then a nurse came by pushing a wicker spinal chair in which were a

host of red-cloaked babies packed tight as fledgelings in a nest.

Behind them trooped, two by two and with clattering heels, a score of

elder children from the Work-house, all in the same straw hats, the

same little capes. Ruth glanced at them as she had often done before.

Those children, she remarked with ironic bitterness, were well-soaped,

wonderfully so, well-groomed, well-fed, with short hogged hair, and

stout boots; but she noted about them all, in spite of their apparent

material prosperity, the air of spiritual discontent which is the

hallmark, all the world over, of children who know nothing of a

mother's jealous and discriminating care.

"The not-wanteds," said Anne. "They'll put yours along with them, I

suppose."

Ruth shook. Then she lifted up her eyes and saw help coming. Old Mr.

Caspar was bundling down the road towards her, crowding on all sail and

waving his umbrella as though to tell her that he had seen her mute

S.O.S.

Anne drew away.

"There's my husband," she said.

"Yes," answered Ruth, "that's dad," and walked away down Church Street,

trembling still but faintly relieved that she had planted her pin in

the heart of her enemy before disengaging.

She reached home and turned the key behind her. That vague enemy,

named _They_, who haunts each one of us through life, was hard on her

heels. She was in her earth at last; but _They_ could dig her out.

Before now she had seen them do it on Windhover, with halloos, the men

and women standing round with long-lashed cruel whips to prevent

escape. She had seen them throw the wriggling vixen to the pack ...

and the worry ... and the huntsman standing amid a foam of leaping

hounds, screaming horribly and brandishing above his head a bloody rag

that a few minutes since had been a warm and breathing creature.

Horrible--but true ... That was the world. She knew it of old; and

could almost have thanked that hard old woman with eyes the blue of

steel who had just reminded her of what _They_ and life were compact.

Then she noted there was silence in the house.

What if in her absence _They_ had kidnapped her child--little Alice,

born in agony of flesh and spirit, so different from those other

babies, the heirs of ease and security; little Alice, the child for

whom she had fought and suffered and endured alone. It was her They

were after: Ruth never doubted that. She had seen it in Lady Augusta's

eyes, as she passed her in the porch of the hostel; in the downward

glances of those other members of the committee she had met upon the

cliff; in the voice and bearing of her mother-in-law.

She rushed upstairs.

Alice, busiest of little mothers, had tucked the other three away in

bed a little before their time because she wanted to do it all alone

and without her mother's help. Now she was turning down her own bed.

Her aim successfully achieved she was free to bestow on her mother a

happy smile.

Ruth swept her up in her arms, and bore her away into her own room,

devouring her with passionate eyes.

"You shall sleep along o me place o daddy," she said, and kissed her

hungrily.

"What about Susie and Jenny, mum?" asked the child.

"We'll leave the door open so we can hear," answered Ruth, remarking

even then the child's thoughtfulness. "See, daddy wants you to take

care o mother."

Alice gave a quick nod of understanding.

Next morning Ruth refused to let her go to school with the others,

would not let her leave the house.

"You'll stay along with me," she said, fierce for once.

At eleven o'clock there came a knock. Ruth hustled the child out into

the backyard, shoved her into the coal-shed, turned the key on her, and

locked the backdoor. Then she went very quietly not to the front-door

but to the window, opening it a crack with the utmost stealth.

Kneeling she listened. Whoever was at the door was very quiet, not a

man. If it had been he would have spat by now, or sworn.

"Who is it? she asked.

"Mrs. Lewknor," came the reply.

Ruth opened. The little lady entered, and followed into the kitchen.

"Is it all right, 'M?" asked Ruth anxiously.

"It's going to be," replied the other, firm and confident. "You've got

your marriage-certificate if we should want it?"

Ruth sighed her relief.

"O yes, 'M. I got my lines all right. They're in the tin box under

the bed." She was running upstairs to fetch them when the other stayed

her.

"There's just one thing," said Mrs. Lewknor gravely. "It would help

Mrs. Trupp and me very much, if you could give us some sort of idea

where you were on September 14th, 1906--if you can throw your mind back

all that great way."

"I was with _him_!" Ruth answered in a flash. She was fighting for her

best-beloved: everything must be sacrificed to save her--even Royal.

"It was _the day_!" she panted. "It were the first time ever I was in

a car--that's one why I remember: Alf drove us."

"D'you happen to remember at all where you went?" tentatively.

"All wheres," Ruth answered. "Hailsham--Heathfield. I hardly rithely

knaws the names. We'd tea at Lewes--I remembers that."

Mrs. Lewknor raised her keen eyes.

"You don't remember where you had tea?"

Ruth shook her head, slowly.

"I can't justly remember where. See Lewes is such a tarrabul great

city these days--nigh as big as Beachbourne, I reck'n. It was over the

Registrar's for births and deaths and such like--I remember that along

o the plate at the door."

Mrs. Lewknor rose, her fine eyes sparkling.

"That's splendid, Ruth!" she said. "All I wanted."

All that afternoon Ruth waited behind locked doors--she did not know

what for; she only knew that _They_ were prowling about watching their

chance. She had drawn the curtains across the windows though the sun

was still high in the heaven, and sat in the darkness, longing for

Ernie as she never would have believed she could have longed for him.

Every now and then little Alice came in a tip-toe from the backyard to

visit her. The child thought her mother had one of her rare

head-aches, and was solicitous accordingly.

About three o'clock Ruth crept upstairs and peeped through her window.

It was as she had thought. Alf was there, strolling up and down the

pavement opposite, watching the house. Then he saw her, half-hidden

though she was, crossed the street briskly and knocked.

She went down at once to give him battle.

He met her with his sly smile, insolently sure of himself.

"Police come yet?" he asked.

She banged the door in his face; and the bang brought her strange

relief. With mocking knuckles he rapped on the window on to the street

as he withdrew.

After that nobody came but the children back from school. Ruth packed

them off to bed early. She wanted to be alone with little Alice.

In the kitchen she waited on in the dark.

Then she heard solid familiar feet tramping down the pavement towards

her cottage. She knew whose feet they were, and knew their errand.

The hour of decision had come. One way or the other it must be.

In the confusion and uncertainty only one thing was clear to her.

There was a way--and a price to be paid; if she took it.

Joe knocked.

Ruth slipped to her knees. She did not pray consciously. Kneeling on

the stone-slabs, her face uplifted in the darkness, her hands pale on

the Windsor chair before her, she opened wide the portals of her heart

to the voice of the Spirit, if such voice there were.

And there was. It came to her from above in the silence and the dusk.

Ruth knew it so well, that still small voice with the gurgle in it.

It was Susie laughing in her sleep.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE VALLEY OF DECISION

The answer she had sought had been given her. Comforted and

strengthened she rose, went to the door and unlocked it. Joe had

strolled a yard or two down the street. She did not call him, but

retired to await him in the kitchen, leaving the door a-jar.

In a few minutes his feet approached slowly. She heard him brush his

boots in the passage, and turn the key of the outer door behind him.

Then he entered.

An immense change had been wrought in him since last they had met. The

bull-moose of Saffrons Croft had given place to a man, humbled, solemn,

quiet, the heir of ages of self-discipline and the amassed spiritual

treasure of a world-old civilisation.

He stood afar off, with downward eyes. Then he held out both arms to

her.

"Ruth, A've come to claim thee--or say good-bye."

She gripped the mantelpiece but did not answer. Her head was down, her

eyes closed.

"Then it's goodbye, Joe," she said in a voice so small that she hardly

recognised it herself.

He dropped his hands, darkening.

"And who'll keep thee and children now Ern's gone?"

A note of harshness had crept into his voice.

She murmured something about the Government.

He laughed at her hardly.

"The Government! What's Government ever done for the workers? _They_

make wars: the workers pay for em. That law's old as the capitalist

system. What did Government do for women and children time o South

Africa?--Left em to the mercy o God and the ruling class. If your

children are to trust for bread to the Government, heaven help em!"

Ruth knew that it was true. She remembered South Africa. In those

days there had been a neighbour of theirs at Aldwoldston, the wife of a

ploughman, a woman with six children, whose husband had been called up.

Ruth had only been a girl then; but she remembered that woman, and that

woman's children, and her home, and that woman's face.

"There's the ladies," she said feebly.

Joe jeered.

"You know the ladies. So do I. Might as lief look for help to the

Church straight off."

"There's One Above."

"Aye, there's One Above. And He stays there too and don't fash Himself

over them below--not over you and me and our class any road."

His tone that had been mocking became suddenly serious.

"Nay, there's nobbut one thing now atween you and them and Work-house."

She peeped, faintly inquisitive.

"What's that?"

"The arm of a Lancasheer lad."

There came into her eyes the tenderness tinged with irony of the woman

amused at the eternal egoism of the male. He noted the change in her,

thought she had relaxed, and came in upon her, instantly, appealing

now--

"Coom and live with me, brother and sister, the lot of you ... A swear

to thee a wunna touch thee."

She laughed at him, low and tender.

"Never do, Joe--never!" shaking her head and swallowing.

"Why not then?"

"There's far over much nature in us--two valiant great chaps like you

and me be."

Then little Alice entered and went to Joe, who put a sheltering arm

about her.

"Her and me and you!" he said huskily to Ruth. "Us three against the

world! Laugh at em then!"

Ruth motioned to the child to go on up to bed. She went; and the two

striving creatures were left alone once more.

"Ern bequeathed thee to me."

"Aye, but he didn't rithely knaw you, and he didn't rithely knaw me

eether."

He caught at the straw.

"Then you do loov me?"

She shook her head, and the tears from her long lashes starred her

cheek.

"Nay, Joe: Ern's my man--always was and always will be."

He stood before her, firm on his feet, and solid as a rock, his fists

clenched, his eyes on her, brilliant, dark, and kindly. She felt the

thrill of him, his solidity, his sincerity, above all his strength, and

thrilled to him again.

"A'm the mon for thee," he said.

She did not answer. In her ears was the roar of cataracts.

"Thoo dursena say me nay."

The words came from far off, from another world. Wavering like a flame

in the wind, she heard but could make no reply.

"Thoo canna."

Then a voice spoke through her, a voice that was not hers, coming from

far away over waste seas, a voice she had never heard before and did

not recognise.

"I can--Lord Jesus helpin me."

At that the mists began to float away. She saw more clearly now. The

worst perhaps was over.

"You want a mon with a purpose in his life."

Ah, how well he knew her!

"A mon who knows what he wants to do and means to do it.--And you must

have it or dee. The bairns arena enough for a woman like you."

He was putting forth the whole of his huge strength to overwhelm her:

she was aware of it and of her own weakness.

"A've got a purpose. You can help me fulfill it--none else, only you.

Time was A thought A could go on alone. You learnt me better. A

canna. God didna make mon that way--not _this_ mon any gate. Mon

needs Woman for his work. A need you."

Quietly she was gathering her forces.

"Ern's my man, Joe," she repeated. "I need him; and none other."

Baffled for the moment, her assailant paused in his assault.

"And has Ern got a purpose in his life?"

"He has now."

"What's that then?"

"What you said at the Citadel that Sunday--the war, and what it stands

for."

"The war won't last for ever. What when that's over?"

"He'll come back a made man."

He regarded her with a kind of sardonic pity.

"He'll never coom back--never."

She lifted her eyes to his, steadfast and tender.

"Hap he'll not, Joe. If so be he doosn't, I shan't grudge him. A

soldier in a soldier's grave. Liefer that than he should linger here

now. He's such a battler, Ern is. That's why I love him."

He took the blows she dealt him, unflinching.

"You don't loov, Ern."

"I'm learning to."

His lips curled in scorn.

"You don't know what loov is. See here!--This is loov." He tapped his

outspread palm, as often when lecturing.

"Ern's ma familiar friend--has been for years. He trusts me--look at

what he did that last night. And sitha! A'm a mon men do trust.

That's ma reputation--earned too. A never sold a pal yet, big or

little. And now--A'll betray ma own mate behind his back; ma mate

that's gone fightin ma battles in the cause for which A've lived twenty

years; ma mate that trusts me--and all for the sake of loov." The

great fellow was trembling himself now. "Am A a rotter?--You know A'm

none. Am A a mon? You know A am. The measure o ma sin is the measure

o ma loov. Judge for yourself."

He was battening down the furnace behind steel-doors; but she could

hear the roar of the flames.

"That's loov. A'll lose all to win all; and A've more than most to

lose. A'll lose ma life to save ma soul--and that's you. Are you for

it?--Was a time A thought nowt o women: now A think o nought but the

One Woman.... Now then!--Take it or leave it!--Choose your path!--Will

you throw a loov like that away--the loov of a mon--for what?--A chap

you don't trust, a chap you can't respect, a chap who's let you and the

children down and will again, a chap you're never like to see again--a

feeble feckless sot, and son of a sot--"

She put both hands to her ears. He wrenched them fiercely aside and

held them. She stood before him, her hands imprisoned in his, her eyes

shut, on her face the look of one awaiting the blows about to rain down

in her defencelessness.

"I may ha doubted him once, Joe. But I knaw him better now. May he

forgive me--and you too; all the wrong I done you both. I knaw him,

and myself, better than I did a while back. And now he's won me, I'll

never loose him, _never_."

She spoke with a passion which convinced even that stubborn lover.

He drew back, and she knew from the sound of his breathing that she had

beaten him.

"Then you was playin wi me?"

He brooded over her, sullen and smouldering.

She put out her hands to him with something of the appeal of a child.

"Hap a while back when you called me so strong I _did_ answer

you--more'n I should--not knawin you cared so much, Joe. And may be I

thart if Ernie saw there was anudder man around hap it'd ginger him

jealous and help us along. I was fighting for my home ... and my

children ... and for him, Joe.... And when a woman's fighting..."

She broke off and gasped.

He met her remorselessly.

"Then yo've chosen ... It's goodbye."

She laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"But not like that.--Kiss me, Joe."

She lifted her face.

Slowly he dropped his hands upon her arms.

And as they stood thus, entwined, the window opened quickly from

outside, the curtains parted, and a voice low at first and rising to a

horrible scream shrilled,

"Caught em at it!--_Mr. Spink_.--Come and see for yourself then! _Mr.

Spink_."

CHAPTER XL

VICTORY AND REVENGE

In the fury of his excitement Alf thrust his head and shoulders far

into the room.

"Got you this time!" he screamed to Joe, his face distorted with hate.

"_Mr. Spink!_" he cried to somebody who must have been near by.

The engineer made a grab at him and seized him by the head.

"Got _you_, ye mean!" he bellowed and jerked the other bodily into the

room. "Ah, ye dirty spyin tyke!--I'll learn you!"

He heaved his enemy from his knees to his feet and closed with him.

The struggle was that of a parrot in the clutch of a tiger.

Joe carried his enemy to the door and slung him out head first. Alf

brought up with a bang against a big car which had just drawn up

outside.

A little lady sat in it.

"Will you get out of my way, please?" she said coldly to the man

sprawling on his hands and knees in the dust at her feet, as she

proceeded to descend.

The prostrate man raised his eyes and blinked. The lady passed him by

as she might have passed a dead puppy lying in the road.

Joe crossed the path and examined with a certain detached interest, the

door of the car against which Alf's head had crashed.

"Why, yo've made quite a dent in your nice car," he said. "Pity." And

he walked away down the street after Mr. Spink who was retiring

discreetly round the corner.

Mrs. Lewknor entered the cottage.

Ruth was sitting in the kitchen, her hands in her lap, dazed.

The lady went over to her.

"It's all right, Ruth," she said gently in the other's ear.

Slowly Ruth recovered and poured the tale of the last twenty-four hours

into the ear of her friend. It was the cruelty of her mother-in-law

more than anything else that troubled her: for it was to her

significant of the attitude of the world.

"That's her!" she said. "And that's them!--and that's how it is!"

Mrs. Lewknor comforted her; but Ruth refused to be comforted.

"Ah, you don't know em," she said. "But I been through it, me and

little Alice. See I'm alone again now Ernie's gone. And so they got

me. And they know it and take advantage--and Mrs. Caspar, that sly and

cruel, she leads em on."

"I think perhaps she's not as bad as she likes to make herself out,"

Mrs. Lewknor answered.

She opened her bag, took out a letter, and put it in Ruth's hand. It

was from Anne Caspar, angular as the writer in phrase alike and

penmanship, and in the pseudo-business vein of the daughter of the

Ealing tobacconist.

_Dear Madam,--If your Committee can help Mrs. Caspar in the Moot, board

for herself and four children, I will pay rent of same._

_Yours faithfully,

Anne Caspar._

Later just as twilight began to fall Ruth went up to Rectory Walk.

Anne was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the little house

amid her tobacco plants, sweet-scented in the dusk, a shawl drawn tight

about her gaunt shoulders.

Ruth halted on the path outside.

"I do thank you, Mrs. Caspar," she said, deep and quivering.

The elder woman did not look at her, did not invite her in. She tugged

at the ends of her shawl and sniffed the evening with her peculiar

smirk.

"Must have a roof over them, I suppose," she said. "Even in war-time."

The visit of Mrs. Trupp and Mrs. Lewknor to the Registrar at Lewes had

proved entirely satisfactory. No marriage had taken place on the day

in question, so examination disclosed. Mrs. Lewknor reported as much

to her husband on her return home that evening.

The Colonel grinned the grin of an ogre about to take his evening meal

of well-cooked children.

"We must twist Master Alf's tail," he said; "and not forget we owe him

one ourselves."

At the next Committee meeting, which the Colonel attended, there was

heavy fighting between the Army and the Church; and after it even

graver trouble between Alf and the Reverend Spink.

"It's not only my reputation," cried the indignant curate. "It's the

credit of the Church you've shaken."

"I know nothing only the facts," retorted Alf doggedly--"if they're any

good to you. I drove them there meself--14th September, 1906, four

o'clock of a Saturday afternoon and a bit foggy like. You can see it

in the entry-book for yourself. They went into the Registrar's office

single, and they walked out double, half-an-hour later. I see em

myself, and you can't get away from the facts of your eyes, not even a

clergyman can't."

Alf was additionally embittered because he felt that the curate had

left him disgracefully in the lurch in the incident of the Moot. The

Reverend Spink on his side--somewhat dubious in his heart of the part

he had played on the fringe of that affair--felt that by taking the

strong and righteous line now he was vindicating himself in his own

eyes at least for any short-comings then.

"I shall report the whole thing to the Archdeacon," he said. "It's a

scandal. He'll deal with you."

"Report it then!" snapped Alf. "If the Church don't want me, neether

don't I want the Church."

The war was killing the Archdeacon, as Mr. Trupp had said it must.

The flames of his indomitable energy were devouring the old gentleman

for all the world to see. He was going down to his grave, as he would

have wished, to the roll of drums and roar of artillery.

Thus when the Reverend Spink went up to the Rectory to report on the

delinquencies of the sidesman, he found his chief in bed and obviously

spent.

The old gentleman made a pathetic figure attempting to maintain his

dignity in a night-gown obviously too small for him, which served to

emphasize his failing mortality.

His face was ghastly save for a faint dis-colouration about one eye;

but he was playing his part royally still. His bitterest enemy must

have admired his courage; his severest critic might have wept, so

pitiful was the old man's make-believe.

On a table at his side were all the pathetic little properties that

made the man. There was his snuff-box; there the filigree chain; a

scent-bottle; a rosary; a missal. On his bed was the silver-mounted

ebony cane; and beneath his pillow, artfully concealed to show, the

butt-end of his pistol.

Over his head was the photograph of a man whom the curate recognised

instantly as Sir Edward Carson; and beneath the photograph was an

illuminated text which on closer scrutiny turned out to be the Solemn

League and Covenant.

Facing the great Unionist Leader on the opposite wall was the Emperor

of the French. The likeness between the two famous Imperialists was

curiously marked; and they seemed aware of it, staring across the room

at each other over the body of their prostrate admirer with intimacy,

understanding, mutual admiration. Almost you expected them to wink at

each other--a knowing wink.

Mr. Spink now told his chief the whole story as it affected Alf. Much

of it the Archdeacon had already heard from his wife.

"I'd better see him," he now said grimly.

And the Archdeacon was not the only one who wanted to see Alf just

then. That afternoon, just as he was starting out with the car, he was

called up on the telephone.

The Director of Recruiting wished to see him at the Town

Hall--to-morrow--11 a.m., sharp. The voice was peremptory and somehow

familiar. Alf was perturbed. What was up now?

"Who is the Director of Recruiting here?" he asked Mr. Trupp a few

minutes later.

"Colonel Lewknor," the old surgeon answered. "Just appointed. All you

young men of military age come under him now."

Alf winced.

The Colonel's office was in the Town Hall, and one of the first men to

come and sign on there was Joe Burt.

The Colonel, as he took in the engineer, saw at once that the hurricane

which was devastating the world had wrought its will upon this man too.

The Joe Burt he had originally known four years ago stood before him

once again, surly, shy, and twinkling.

"Good luck to you," said the Colonel as they shook hands. "And try to

be an honest man. You were meant to be, you know."

"A'm as honest as soom and honester than most, A reckon," the engineer

answered dogged as a badgered schoolboy.

The Colonel essayed to look austere.

"You'd better go before you get into worse trouble," he said.

Joe went out, grinning.

"Ah, A'm not the only one," he mumbled.

Outside in the passage he met Alf, and paused amazed.

"You goin to enlist!" he roared. "Never!" and marched on, his laughter

rollicking down the corridor like a huge wind.

Alf entered the Colonel's office delicately: he had reasons of his own

to fear everything that wore khaki.

The Colonel sat at his desk like a death's head, a trail of faded

medal-ribands running across his khaki chest.

He was thin, spectral, almost cadaverous. But his voice was gentle, as

always; his manner as always, most courteous. Nothing could be more

remote from the truculence of the Army manner of tradition.

He was the spider talking to the fly.

"I'm afraid this is a very serious matter, Mr. Caspar," he began; and

it was a favourite opening of his. "It seems you've been taking away

the character of the wife of a member of His Majesty's forces now in

France..."

The interview lasted some time, and it was the Colonel who did the

talking.

"And now I won't detain you further, Mr. Caspar," he said at the end.

"My clerk in the next room will take all your particulars for our index

card register, so that we needn't bother you again when conscription

comes."

"Conscription!" cried Alf, changing colour.

"Yes," replied the Colonel. "There's been no public announcement yet.

But there's no reason you shouldn't know it's coming. It's got to."

Alf went out as a man goes to execution. He returned to his now almost

deserted garage to find there a note from the Archdeacon asking him to

be good enough to call at the Rectory that afternoon.

Alf stood at the window and looked out with dull eyes. Now that the

earth which three weeks since had felt so solid beneath his feet was

crumbling away beneath him, he needed the backing of the Church more

than ever; and for all his brave words to Mr. Spink, he was determined

not to relinquish his position in it without a fight.

That afternoon he walked slowly up the hill to the Rectory.

Outside the white gate he stood in the road under the sycamore trees,

gathering courage to make the plunge.

If was five o'clock.

A man got off the bus at Billing's Corner and came down the road

towards him. Alf was aware of him, but did not at first see who he was.

"Not gone yet then?" said the man.

"No," Alf answered. "Got about as far as you--and that ain't very far."

"I'm on the way," answered Joe. "Going up to the camp in Summerdown

now; and join up this evening."

"Ah," said Alf. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Swag on back, Joe tramped sturdily on towards the Downs.

Alf watched him. Then a gate clicked; and Edward Caspar came

blundering down the road. Alf in his loneliness was drawn towards him.

"Good evening, father," he said.

The old gentleman blinked vaguely through his spectacles, and answered

most courteously,

"Good evening, Mr. Er-um-ah!" and rolled on down the road.

So his own father didn't know him!

Overhead an aeroplane buzzed by. From the coombe came the eternal

noise of the hammers as the great camp there took shape. Along

Summerdown Road at the end of Rectory Walk a long convoy of Army

Service Corps wagons with mule-teams trailed by. A big motor passed

him. In it was Stanley Bessemere and three staff-officers with red

bands round their caps. They were very pleased with themselves and

their cigars. The member for Beachbourne West did not see his

supporter. Then there sounded the tramp of martial feet. It was

Saturday afternoon. The Old Town Company of Volunteers, middle-aged

men for the most part, known to Alf from childhood, was marching by on

the way to drill on the Downs. A fierce short man was in charge.

Three rough chevrons had been sewn on to his sleeve to mark his rank as

sergeant; and he wore a belt tightly buckled about his ample waist.

All carried dummy rifles.

"Left-right, left-right," called the sergeant in the voice of a

drill-instructor of the Guards. "Mark time in front! Forward!

Dressing by your left!"

It was Mr. Pigott.

Alf's eyes followed the little party up the road. Then they fell on

his home covered with ampelopsis just beginning to turn. His mother

was at the window, looking at him. Whether it was that the glass

distorted her face, or that his own vision was clouded, it seemed to

Alf that she was mocking him. Then she drew down the blind as though

to shut him out--his own mother.

Alf shivered.

A young woman coming from Billing's Corner crossed the road to him.

"Well, Alf," she said gaily, "you're getting em all against you!"

Alf raised his eyes to hers, and they were the eyes of the rabbit in

the burrow with the stoat hard upon its heels.

"Yes," he said more to himself than her. "Reckon I'm done."

* * * * *

THE COMFORTER

Ruth passed down the lane towards the golf links, the laughter

sparkling in her brown eyes.

She was merry, malicious, mischievously prim. Then suddenly, as at the

shutting of a door, her mood changed. Something warm and large and

tremulous surged up unbidden out of the ocean-deeps of her.

To her own amazement she found herself sorry for the forlorn little

figure with the eyes haunting and haunted, she had left standing in the

road outside the Rectory gate.

A sense of the dramatic vicissitudes of life caught her by the throat.

Three weeks ago that little man had been conquering the world with a

swagger, the master of circumstance, over-riding destiny, sweeping

obstacles aside, a domineer, with all the attributes of his

kind--brutal, blatant, sure of himself, indifferent to others, scornful

of the humble. Now he stood there at the cross-roads like some old

tramp of the world, uncertain which way to turn--a mouse tossed

overboard in mid-Atlantic by the cook's boy, the sport of tides and

breakers, swimming round and round with ghastly eyes in ever-shortening

circle.

The tempest which had all the world in grip, which had snatched Ernie

from her arms, and hurled him across the seas, which had set millions

of men to killing and being killed, had caught this insignificant gnat

too, flying with such a fuss and buzz of wings under ominous skies, and

then swaggered on its great way indifferent to the tiny creature it had

crushed.

Ruth crossed the links, almost deserted now, and walked along over the

crisp smooth turf, her eyes on the township of yellow huts rising out

of the green in the great coombe across Summerdown Road.

Then she was aware of Mr. Chislehurst coming swiftly towards her beside

the ha-ha of the Duke's Lodge. He looked, Ruth noticed at once, less

harassed than he had done since the outbreak of war.

"I am glad I've met you, Mrs. Caspar," he began with the old boyish

enthusiasm. "I'm off to-morrow and wasn't sure I should have time to

come round and say goodbye to you and the babes."

Ruth stared.

"_You're_ never going out there, sir!"

"Only as military chaplain."

Ruth refused to believe.

"But I thart you was against war and all that."

"So I am," Bobby answered gravely. He looked away towards Paradise.

"But I feel Our Lord is there, or nowhere--just now."

Ruth felt profoundly moved. The young man's words, his action, brought

home to her with a sudden pang, as not even the departure of Ernie had

done, the change that had rushed upon the world.

Ruth looked at the smooth young face before her, brown and goodly, with

all the hope and promise of the future radiant in it.

A passionate desire to take the boy in her arms, to shield him, to

cry--You _shan't!_ came over her. Then she gulped and said,

"Goodbye, sir," and moved on rapidly.

Passing through Meads, she turned the shoulder of the hill, and walked

along the cliff, till she came to the long low house in the coombe.

It had a strangely deserted air, no spinal chairs and perambulators on

the terrace, no nurses on the lawns, no beds on the balconies. All

that busyness of quiet recreation which had been going on here for some

years past had been brought to a sudden halt. Mrs. Lewknor came out to

her and the two women sat a while on the terrace, talking. They had

drawn very close in these few days, the regiment an ever-present bond

between them. The husband of one was "out there" with the 1st

battalion; the son of the other was racing home with the 2nd battalion

in the Indian Contingent. Mrs. Lewknor felt a comfortable sense that

once the two battalions were aligned on the West Front all would be

well.

"Then let em all come!" the little lady said in her heart with almost

vindictive glee.

As Ruth left she saw the Colonel in khaki, returning from his office.

He came stalking along the cliff, his head on his left shoulder,

looking seawards. There was about the gaunt old man that air of

austere exaltation which had marked him from the moment of the outbreak

of war. In his ears, indeed, ever since that hour, there had sounded a

steady note, deep and pulsing like the throb of an engine--the heart of

England beating on, beating eternally, tireless, true, from generation

to generation.

And for one brief moment he had doubted her--might God forgive him!

Ruth asked him how recruiting was going.

"Well," replied the Colonel. "They're flocking in--men of all ages,

classes, and creeds. I shipped off Burt this morning; and he's forty.

Wanted to join the Hammer-men or Manchesters with his friend Tawney;

but I said _No: every man his own job_, and sent him off to the flying

folk as air-mechanic. He's joining up at Newhaven to-night, and in a

week he'll be out there."

Ruth asked if there was any news of the Expeditionary Force.

"They're landed all right," the Colonel replied. "We should soon hear

more. Our battalion's with the Fourth Division. If you go up on the

Head you can see the transports crossing from Newhaven with the stuff."

"Think it'll be all right, sir?" asked Ruth.

"If we can stop their first rush," the Colonel answered. "Every day

tells. We can't be too thankful for Liége, though Namur's a nasty

knock."

Ruth looked across the sea.

"I wish we could do something for em," she said wistfully.

"We can," answered the Colonel sharply, almost sternly.

The old soldier took off his cap and stood there bare-headed on the

edge of the white cliff, the wisps of silver hair lifting in the

evening breeze.

"May the God of our fathers be with them in the day of battle!" he

prayed, and added with quiet assurance as he covered again--"He will

too."

Then he asked the woman at his side if she had heard from her husband.

Ruth dropped her eyes, sudden and secretive as a child.

"Ern's all right, I reckon," she said casually.

In fact a letter from him on the eve of sailing lay unopened in her

pocket. She was treasuring it jealously, as a child treasures a sweet,

to devour it with due ritual at the appointed hour in the appropriate

place.

Ten minutes later she was standing waist-deep in the gorse of the

Ambush looking about her.

Far away a silver-bellied air-ship was patrolling leisurely somewhere

over the Rother Valley; and once she heard a loud explosion seawards

and knew it for a mine.

Like a hind on the fell-side she stood up there, sniffing the wind.

Behind her on the far horizon was a forest fire. She could smell it,

see the glow of it, and the rumour of its coming was all a-round her:

overhead the whistle and pipe of birds hard-driven, while under-foot

the heather was alive with the stealthy migration of the

under-world--adder and weasel, snake and hare, flying from the torment

to come. But for her as yet the conflagration devouring the world was

but an ominous red glare across the water. She breathed freely: for

she had shaken off her immediate enemy--the Hunter.

Then she looked up and saw a man coming over the brow of Warren Hill

towards her.

She dropped as though shot.

_He_ was at her heels again. Face down, flat on the earth, she lay

panting in her form.

And as she crouched there, listening to the thumping of her own heart,

she was aware of another sound that came rollicking down to her, born

on the wind. The Hunter was laughing, that huge gusty laughter of his

she knew so well. Had he tracked her down?

She heard his feet approaching on the turf. Was the earth trembling at

the touch of them or was it the beating of her own heart that shook it?

Prone on the ground, spying through the roots of the gorse, she could

see those feet--those solid familiar boots that had dangled so often

before her fire; and the bottoms of the trousers, frayed at the edges

and rather short, betraying the absence of a woman's care.

Was it her he was after?

No: he passed, still rollicking. He was not mocking her: he was

tossing off his chest in cascades of giant laughter the seas that had

so long threatened to overwhelm him, tossing them off into the blue in

showers of spray.

_I am free once more_! that was what his laughter said.

She sat up: she knelt: warily she peeped over the green wall. His back

was moving solidly away in the evening, his back with the swag on it.

He reached the flag-staff and dropped away down into Hodcombe, that

lies between Beau-nez and the Belle-tout light-house. She watched him

till only his round dark head was visible. Then that too disappeared.

She rose and filled her chest as the breeze slowly fills the sails of a

ship that has long hovered uncertainly in stays.

He too was gone--into _IT_.

That Other was gone--like the rest--and the past with him.

How queer it all was! and how differently each man had met the huge

tidal wave that had swept the whole world off its feet!

Joe, paddling in the muddy shallows, had been caught up, and was

swimming easily now on the crest of it. Alf, snatched up unawares as

he grubbed for bait upon the flats, had been tumbled over and over like

a pebble, smashed down upon the remorseless beach, and drawn back with

a sickening scream by the undersuck into the murderous riot of it.

Last of all, Ern, asleep and snoring under the sunny sea-wall, had

risen suddenly, girded on his strength, and waded out to meet it with

rejoicing heart.

Dear Ern!

Sinking down into the harbourage of this deep and quiet covert where,

under the stars, all his children, conceived in ecstasy, had come to

her, she took out his letter, opened it, and began to read.

It was dated _In the train_, and began full of affection for her and

the children.

"Now we made it up I don't mind what comes. I feel like it was a new

beginning. There's a lot of married men joined up feel the very same.

I feel uplifted like and that whatever comes nothing can ever come

atween us no more really. Even when it was dark I felt that--that it

wasn't _really real_ between us--only a shadow like that would surely

pass away--as it has passed away--thank God for His great mercies."

There followed love and kisses to all the children and especially

little Alice, underlined, and fraternal greetings to old Joe.

"We shall push em back where they belong all right, I expect. And if

we don't I shall send for him to lend a shove. He's all right, old Joe

is. There's not many of em I'd trust, but you can trust him. I knew

that all along."

The letter finished,

"It's an end and a beginning, as old dad says. And whatever else

_that's_ finished, and I don't care."

It was true too.

She folded the letter and slipped it in her bosom.

The second volume of her life had ended, and ended well. The sudden

hand of destiny had reached forth to save her, to save the children, to

save Ernie, to save Joe.

Had she ever wavered?--Who shall say?--Perhaps she could not say

herself.

She cast her mind back over her married life. Six years in September

since she and Ern had ridden back to Old Town in Isaac Woolgar's cart.

Six years of struggle, worry, and deep joy. She was thankful for them,

thankful for the crowding babes, and most of all, she sometimes

thought, thankful for Ernie ... His unfailing love and solicitude for

little Alice! She could never be grateful enough to him for that.

Dear Ern:--so affectionate, so always loveable. She regretted nothing,

not even his weakness now. Because of his weakness strength had come

to her, growth, and the consummation of deep unconscious desire.

Had she been too hard on him?--A great voice of comfort, the voice of

Ernie, so it seemed to her, only swollen to gigantic proportions, till

the sound of it was like the sound of the Sou-West wind billowing

through the beach-tops in Paradise, surged up within her crying No.

Then she turned back to the first volume of her life, completed now so

many years ago.

For the second time she had been left thus, man-less, a new life

quickening within her. But what a difference between then and now!

Then the fierce thief of her virginity had stolen away in the night,

leaving her to meet the consequences, alone, an outcast, the hand of

all men against her; and she recalled now with a shudder the afternoon

on which she had gone forth to the Crumbles and there amid the jeers of

the remorseless sea had faced the situation. Now it was true her

accustomed mate had been snatched from her side; but the world was

behind her. She was marching with the hosts, a mighty concourse, one

of them, and uplifted on their songs.

She had nothing to fear, much to be thankful for. How calm she felt,

how strong, how confident of herself, above all of Ernie! His

punishment had made him and completed her own life. She had won her

man and in winning him had won herself. And she would never lose him

now. His pain, her pain, had been worth while. Smiles were in her

eyes as she recalled the fuss that he had made--his struggles, his

temper, his wiles of a naughty and thwarted child; and tears where she

recalled the anguish of his time of purgation. And yet because of his

suffering he had been strong when the day of battle came, and he would

be strong. She had no doubt of that. And it was all over now.

Rising she stood up and looked about her, absorbing the down-land,

familiar and beloved from childhood. The sky, grey now and mottled,

drooped about her quietly with the soft wings of a mothering bird

settling soft-breasted on her nest. The good green earth, firm beneath

her feet, lifted her up into the quiet refuge of that welcoming bosom,

lifted her to meet it like a wave gently swelling. So it had always

been: so it always would be. This earth she knew and loved so well was

not alien, it was not hostile; rather it was flesh of her flesh and

soul of her soul. It gave her strength and comfort. Her bosom rose

and fell in time, so it seemed to her, with the rise and fall of the

breast of this virgin-mother, whose goodness she assimilated through

heart and eyes and nostrils. She felt utterly at home. All sense of

separation, of dissent, had left her.

Absorbed she stood, and absorbing.

These woman-bodied hills, sparsely clad in rags of gorse that served

only to enhance their loveliness, brought her solace and content as did

nothing else. So it had always been: so it always would be. The

beauty and wonder of them rolled in upon her in waves of sound-less

music, sluicing over the sands of her life in foaming sheets of

hyacinth, drowning the resentment, filling and fulfilling her with the

grand harmony of life.

Sometimes down in the Moot, amid the worry, and the tumult, and the

exasperations, she became empty, a discord, a desert. Then she would

get away for an hour among the hills and her parched spirit found

instant refreshment. She brimmed again. The quiet, the comfort, the

deep abiding wonder of it all came back to her; even the words which

she always associated with it--_I am the Resurrection and the Life_.

Since Ernie's departure the Comforter had come thus to her with renewed

power; as if knowing her need and resolute to fortify her in the hour

of her ordeal.

Standing there upon the brow, Ernie's letter lying like his hand upon

her breast in the old dear way, she gazed across the waters, dimming in

the dusk, and sent out her heart towards him, strong and pulsing as the

sun's rays at dawn seen by some mountaineer from his native peak. She

could shield him so that no evil thing could come nigh him. She had no

fear for him and was amazed at her own triumphant faith.

Established on the rock herself, earth in earth, spirit in spirit,

invincibly secure, she had him safe in her keeping, safe, aye safe as

his child quickening in the warm and sheltered darkness of her womb.

Headley Bros., Ashford, Kent, & 18 Devonshire St., E.C.2.