CHAPTER I

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece]

THE HAPPY WARRIOR

BY

A. S. M. HUTCHINSON

AUTHOR OF "ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER----"

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

PAUL JULIEN MEYLAN

TORONTO

MCCLELLAND & GOODCHILD LIMITED

_Copyright, 1912,_

BY A. S. M. HUTCHINSON.

_All rights reserved._

First Edition Printed, December, 1912

Reprinted, January, 1913 (three times)

February, 1913 (three times)

Reprinted, March, 1913

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?

--It is the generous spirit, who,...

Come when it will, is equal to the need...

Who, with a toward or untoward lot,

Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not--

Plays, in the many games of life, that one

Where what he most doth value must be won:

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,

Nor thought of tender happiness betray.

--WORDSWORTH.

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

_A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE_

CHAPTER

I. A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE

II. A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE

III. INTO THE PEERAGE

IV. A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE

V. MISREADING A PEERESS

VI. MISCALCULATING A PEER

BOOK TWO

_A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY_

I. LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS

II. LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN

III. A LOVERS' LITANY

IV. WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS

V. WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON

VI. ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

VII. ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

BOOK THREE

_BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH_

I. PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS

II. FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE

III. LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC"

IV. LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS

V. THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN

VI. JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED

VII. BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED

BOOK FOUR

_BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE_

I. PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES

II. FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES

III. A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN

IV. IMA'S LESSONS

V. JAPHRA'S LESSONS

VI. WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE

VII. ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE

VIII. WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE

IX. WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL

X. WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM

XI. WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD

XII. LETTERS OF RECALL

XIII. MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE

XIV. DORA REMEMBERS

BOOK FIVE

_BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE_

I. BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND

II. IMA SHOWS HER HEART

III. PERCIVAL SHOWS HIS FISTS

IV. FOXY PINSENT _v._ JAPHRA'S GENTLEMAN

V. A FIGHT THAT IS TOLD

VI. THE STICKS COME OUT--AND A KNIFE

VII. JAPHRA AND IMA. JAPHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE

VIII. A COLD 'UN FOR EGBERT HUNT. ROUGH 'UNS FOR PERCIVAL

IX. ONE COMES OVER THE RIDGE

X. TWO RIDE TOGETHER

XI. NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA

XII. PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT

XIII. THE BIG FIGHT OPENS

XIV. ALWAYS VICTORY

THE HAPPY WARRIOR

BOOK ONE

A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE

CHAPTER I

A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE

I

This life we stumble through, or strut through, or through which we

creep and whine, or through which we dance and whistle, is built upon

hazard--and that is why it is such a very wobbling affair, made up of

tricks and chances; hence its miseries, but hence also its spice; hence

its tragedies, and hence also its romance. A dog I know--illustrating

the point--passed from its gate into the village street one morning,

and merely to ease the itch of a momentary fit of temper, or merely to

indulge a prankish whim, put a firm bite into a plump leg. Mark, now,

the hazard foundation of this chancey life. A dozen commonplace legs

were offered the dog; it might have tasted the lot and procured no more

pother than the passing of a few shillings, the solatium of a pair of

trousers or so. One leg was as good as another to the dog; yet it

chanced upon the vicar's (whose back was turned), enjoyed its bite,

jerked from the devout but startled man an amazingly coarse expression,

and hence arose alarums and excursions, a village set by the ears,

family feuds, a budding betrothal crushed by parental strife (one party

owning the dog and the other calling the vicar Father) and the genesis

of a dead set against the vicar's curate (who hit at the dog and struck

the priest) that ended in the unfortunate young man having to leave the

village.

But all that is by the way, and is only offered to your notice because

commonplace examples are usually the most striking illustrations. It

is introduced to excuse the starting of this story with its least and

worst character. He figures but occasionally on these pages; yet by

this chance and by that he comes to play a vital part as the story

draws to an end; he comes, in fact, to close it: and therefore, out of

his place, he shall be the first to occupy your attention.

Egbert Hunt his name.

II

Miller's Field, Hertfordshire, an outer suburb of London and within the

cockney twang, was put into a proper commotion by the news that had

brought a title into its midst--had left a peerage as casually as the

morning milk at its desirable residence "Hillside," where Mr. and Mrs.

Letham (Lord and Lady Burdon as suddenly and completely as Monday

becomes Tuesday) made their home. The commotion chattered and clacked

in every household and in every chance meeting in the streets; but it

swirled most violently about Hillside and in Hillside, and its

brunt--if his own statement may be accepted--pressed most heavily upon

Egbert Hunt.

Egbert, morose, a pallid and stoutish boy of fourteen years,

constituted the male staff at Hillside. This boy toiled sullenly at a

diversity of tasks, knives, boots, coals, windows: any soul-corroding

duties of such character, throughout the earlier hours of the day. In

the afternoon he fitted himself into a tight page-boy's suit that had

been procured through the advertisement columns of the "Lady," and

that, on the very day of its arrival, had been shorn of much of the

glory it first possessed in Egbert's eyes.

Sunning himself proudly down the village street, the lad had been

greeted with a howl of "Marbles!" by the ribald companions he thought

to impress.

"Marbles! They're buttons, yer silly toads!" the indignant Egbert had

cried.

"Wot O! Marbles!" they jeered, and two of the round silver buttons

were wrenched off in the distressing affair that followed.

Egbert carried them home in his pocket. The incident augmented the

hostile and suspicious air with which, from his childhood upwards, he

regarded the world. For this attitude the accident attending his birth

was primarily responsible. When he presented this morose disposition

to his mother's friends, Mrs. Hunt, in her softer moods, would instruct

them that his sourness--as she termed it--was due to the sudden and

unexpected discharge of a cannon during her visit to a circus, when

Egbert was but eight months on the road to this vale of tears. The

cannon had hastened his arrival (she never knew, so she said, how she

managed to get home) and the abruptness, she was convinced, was

responsible for his glum demeanor. By a dark process of reasoning,

wherein were combined retribution to the clown who had fired the cannon

and recompense to the child it had unduly impelled into the world, she

had named the boy Egbert, this being the title by which the clown was

announced on the circus programme.

The story became a popular joke against the lad; to shout "Bang!" at

Egbert from behind concealment became a favourite sport of his grosser

companions. It rankled him sorely. For one so young he was

unnaturally embittered; his digestion, moreover, was defective.

III

Upon the evening of the day on which his employers, Mr. and Mrs.

Letham, had been miraculously elevated to the style and title of Lord

and Lady Burdon, Egbert's hostility towards the world was at its

height. From half-past three onwards, callers followed one another, or

passed one another, over the Hillside threshold. Egbert was

bone-tired. It was close upon seven when kindly Mrs. Archer, the

doctor's wife, addressing him as he showed her out, inquired in her

gentle way after his mother and passed down the path with a "Well, good

night, Egbert!"

"Good night, mum," Egbert muttered. He added in a lower but more

devout key, "An' I yope ter Gawd yer the last of um."

The cool air invited him to the gate and he leaned wearily over it, his

bitterness of spirit increased by a boy who, spying him, cried, "Bang!"

as he passed, "Bang!" in retort to Egbert's tongue thrust out in hatred

and contempt across the gate, and "Bang! bang!" again, as the gathering

evening took him in her trailing cloak.

Egbert drew in his tongue with a groan of misery and hate, of

indigestion and of weariness. An approaching footstep along the road

caused him to thrust it out again and to keep it extended, armed lest

the newcomer should be one of the bangers who irked his young life.

It chanced to be his father, returning from work in the fields. Mr.

Hunt paused opposite his son and gazed for a few moments at the

outstretched tongue. At some pain to himself Egbert pressed it to

further extension: the boy was a little short-sighted and in the gloom

did not recognise his parent.

"Tongue sore?" Mr. Hunt inquired, after a space.

Recognising the voice, Egbert restored the member to his mouth.

"Comes of tellin' a lie, so I've 'eard," said Mr. Hunt.

Considerable sympathy was in his tone; but Egbert gave no more

attention to this view of retributive justice than he had vouchsafed to

the question preceding it.

Father and son--neither greatly given to words when together--continued

to regard each other solemnly across the gate. Presently Egbert jerked

his head back at the house. "Heard about it?" he inquired.

The news had long since permeated the village. Mr. Hunt said, "Ah!"

and taking a step forward, gazed earnestly at the house, first on one

side of Egbert's head and then on the other. His air was that of a man

who, the inmates suddenly having reached the peerage, rather expected

to see a coronet suspended from the roof or a scarlet robe fluttering

from a window; and as he stepped back he said, "Ah!" again, in a tone

that committed him, as a result of his observations, neither to

complete surprise nor complete satisfaction.

"Ah!" said Mr. Hunt, and shifted the spade he carried from his left

hand to his right and waited.

"Goin' to take me with 'em when they move to the 'Ouse o' Lords,"

Egbert announced. "Told me so, dinner time."

Mr. Hunt put the spade before him, and leaning on it gazed profoundly

at his son. "Ah! You'll wear one of them wing things side of yer 'at,

that's what you'll wear," he informed him. "Tall 'at."

"Cockatoos they call um, don't they?" Egbert inquired.

"That's right. Side of yer 'at," his father replied. "Tall 'at."

Egbert appeared to ponder gloomily on the prospect. It was the habit

of this boy's sombre mind to suspect a hidden indignity in each change

thrust into his life. Seeking it in the cockatoos, he presently found

it.

"Make me a Guy-forx again, I suppose," he said. "Same as these 'ere

buttons."

Mr. Hunt took a step forward, and peering over the gate gazed down at

his son's buttons with considerable concern.

The inspection finished, "Different in the 'Ouse o' Lords," he

consoled. "Expec' they'll all wear them wing things side of their 'ats

there. Call 'em same as they call you, that's what you can do. Tall

'ats."

But this boy's pessimism was incurable. "I'll have the biggest, you'll

find," Egbert responded. "Else they'll give me two an' make a Guy-forx

of me that way."

Mr. Hunt mentally visualised cockades the size of albatross wings on

each side of his son's hat. The picture made him unable to deny the

slightly outre effect that would be produced, and he began to move away.

"Comin' in to see your mother to-night, I suppose?" he asked.

Egbert grunted.

"Tongue still sore?"

"Boilin'," said Egbert, and turning from the gate moved moodily towards

the house.

At nine o'clock, following his usual Tuesday night privilege, he betook

himself down the village street to his parents' cottage. A further

word or two dropped by his mistress joined with kitchen gossip during

supper to enable him to supply something of the information for which

he found his mother impatiently waiting.

"So you're goin' with 'em, I hear?" she greeted him.

Egbert nodded.

"Think you was goin' to prising, 'stead of to a lord's castle, one

would, judgin' by your face," Mrs. Hunt exclaimed.

"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of his 'at, that's what

he's goin' to wear," announced her husband. "Tall 'at."

"An' oughter be proud," cried Mrs. Hunt. "Hold yer yed up, Sulky, do!"

Sulky gave a stiff jerk to his bullet head. "Not goin' to the 'Ouse o'

Lords, after all," he answered his father.

"'Ouse o' Lords! 'Ouse o' nonsense!" Mrs. Hunt exclaimed. "Goin' to

live in a castle, that's where you're goin' to live, young man. Down

in Wiltsheer; the cook told me all about it when I popped round this

afternoon."

"Goin' to wear one o' them wing things side of 'is 'at, that's what

he's goin' to wear," pronounced Mr. Hunt doggedly. "Tall 'at. Tall

'at," he reaffirmed; but "In a castle!" Mrs. Hunt continued, heedless

of the interruption. "Burdon Old Manor, they call it, at a place

called Little Letham, which Letham is the family name of the family,

they giving their name to it as is very often the case, and a proper

castle it is, too, though called a Manor."

Mrs. Hunt foamed out this information with a heat that increased as she

perceived the morose indifference with which Egbert accepted it.

Throwing herself into the third person, "Don't you 'ear what your

mother is a telling of you, Sulk?" she demanded. Her eye caught on the

wall behind Sulk's head a coloured presentation calendar depicting

Lambert Simnel at scullion's work in an enormous kitchen, and she took

inspiration. "A proper castle, your mother's telling you, where you'll

have scullings in the kitchen; that's what you'll 'ave, you nasty sulk,

you! Can't you say something?"

"I'll sculling 'em!" breathed Egbert, yielding to her request. He

scented in this new form of acquaintance some fresh trial and

indignity. "I'll sculling 'em!" he repeated.

His fierce intention earned him at once, and earned him full, the thump

upon his head that his mother's excitement and his own gloom had been

conspiring to inflict ever since he entered the cottage; and he trudged

his way back to Hillside viciously embittered against every point of an

aching day: his mistress, her visitors, the approaching change in his

life, his mother, the "scullings." "Tyrangs!" said Egbert. He

stumbled over a stone as he pronounced the savage word and bit his

tongue most painfully. "Boil yer," said Egbert to the stone; and,

including the stone with the "tyrangs," as wearily he got him to bed,

"Boil um!" he said. "Tyrangs! Toads!"

CHAPTER II

A CHANGE IN THE PEERAGE

This hazard foundation of life! As a stone tossed down a hillside

dislodges others and sets them rolling, themselves dislodging more till

the first light pitch will gather to a rumble where was peace, the

first stone cause to jump and shout many score that might have held

their place long after the thrower's idle hand was equal dust with the

dust of their descent--so it is with the lightest action that the least

of us may idly toss upon our small affairs. We cannot move alone.

Life has us in a web, within whose meshes none may stir a hand but he

pulls here, loosens there, and sets a wave of movement through a

hundred tangles of the coil.

This hazard foundation of life! Egbert Hunt was made to lean wearily

over the gate that evening and the toads and "tyrangs" whose oppression

had cost him a bitter day were set in his path by a movement in the

web, leagues upon leagues of land and sea from Miller's Field. Life

has us in a web. In one remote corner an Afridi tribesman shot a

British officer: that was his movement in the meshes, and swift, swift,

the chain of tugs set up thereby acted upon a morose page-boy in

another remote corner, rendering him bone-tired through ushering the

visitors come to congratulate those who had stepped into the dead man's

shoes.

This hazard touch even in the billet that the Afridi tribesman selected

for his bullet! In sheeting rain, behind a rock above a pass on the

northwestern frontier of India, Multan Khan--Afridi, one-time sepoy,

deserter from his regiment, scoundrel, first-class shot--snuggled his

cheek against his stolen rifle, hesitated for a moment between the

heads of three British officers, drew a line on one, pressed the

trigger; and, while he chuckled over his success, himself pitched dead

with a bullet through the incautious skull he had craned over the rock

the better to enjoy the fruits of his skill.

Brief his pleasure but lusty the tug he had given the web. The news of

it reached London just in time to catch the final edition of the

evening papers as they went to press, just in time to supply a good

contents-bill for an uncommonly dull night.

PEER

KILLED IN

FRONTIER

FIGHTING

went flaming down the streets, substantiated in the news columns by a

brief message announcing Lord Burdon's name among the casualties of a

brisk little engagement in the Frontier Campaign.

The morning papers did better with it, particularly that which Egbert

Hunt took in from the doorstep of Hillside. This paper's "Own

Correspondent" with the British force, eluding vigilance, had enjoyed

the fortune of getting among the party detailed for clearing the rocks

whence Multan Khan and his friends had made themselves surprisingly

unpleasant; and his long despatch, well handled in Fleet Street,

bravely headlined above:

Gallant Young Peer

Lord Burdon Killed in Sharp Frontier Engagement

Leads Dashing Charge

and nicely rounded off below with a paragraph written up from "cuttings

about Lord Burdon" in the newspaper's library, was distributed far and

wide on the morrow. The journalists dished it up, the presses hammered

it out, the carts, the trains, and the boys galloped it broadcast over

the country. To some it fetched tragedy (as we shall see); to others

idle interest; to Egbert Hunt a bone-aching day and cruel indignities

(as have been shown); to Mrs. Letham bewildering excitement.

CHAPTER III

INTO THE PEERAGE

I

It made Mrs. Letham very excited. Mrs. Letham, coming upon it as she

idly turned over the newspaper at her breakfast, took a bang at the

heart that for the moment made the print difficult to read.

Recovering, she read it through, her pulses drumming, her breath

catching, her hands shaking so that the paper rustled a little between

them. She half rose from her seat, then read again. She read a third

time and now pursued the lines to that subjoined paragraph written up

from the "cuttings about Lord Burdon."

"Lord Burdon, the twelfth Baron, was attached to the staff of General

Sir Wryford Sheringham, commanding the expeditionary force. He was a

lieutenant in the 30th Hussars and left England in October last with

General Sheringham when the latter went out to take command. Lord

Burdon, who only attained his majority in April last, was unmarried.

This is the first time since the creation of the Barony in 1660 that

the title has not passed directly from holder to eldest son; and about

Little Letham, Wilts, where is Burdon Old Manor, the family seat, the

expressions "Safe as a Burdon till he's got his heir," and "Safe as a

Burdon heir" have passed into the common parlance of the countryside.

The successor is of a very remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham,

whose paternal great-grandfather was the eighth baron. It will be

noticed as a most singular event that the first break in a direct

succession extending over two hundred years should cause the new heir

to be found in the line of no fewer than four generations ago of his

house."

When Mrs. Letham presently arose, she arose suddenly as if she forced

herself to move against spells that numbed her movements. She arose,

the paper clutched between her hands, and for a space she stood with a

dizzy air, as if her thoughts reeled in a giddy maze and perplexed her

actions. A jostle of visions--half caught, bewildering glimpses of

what this thing meant to her--spun through her brain, the mind shaping

them quicker than the mental eye could distinguish them, as one

half-stunned by a blow, dizzy between its violence and the onward

pressure of events. She put a hand for support upon the table before

her and felt, but did not think to end, the unpleasant shrinking of her

flesh communicated by her fingers scraping the wood where they bunched

the cloth beneath them.

She was Lady Burdon...!

II

With that amazement singing in her ears, and recovered from the first

effects of her bewilderment, she went quickly to the door and excitedly

up the stairs. She was thirty-five; they called her pretty; and

certainly she made an attractive presence as she came to the threshold

of the room where she sought her husband. Her entry was abrupt: a

quick jerk on the door handle, the door wide open and she with a sudden

movement standing there, tense, animated, a flush on her cheeks,

sparkle in her eyes, and a high, glad, strange note in the "Maurice!"

that she cried. "Maurice!"

"Con-found!" came the answer. "Conster-_nation_!" and illustrating the

reason of the words, a fleck of blood came through the snowy lather on

a chin in process of being shaved.

Mr. Letham--portly; forty; pleasant of countenance in a loose-lipped,

good-natured fashion; in a shirt and trousers before the looking-glass;

pain on face; finger firmly on the blood stain; razor in the other

hand--Mr. Letham peered short-sightedly into the mirror, made a very

squeamish stroke with the razor in the vicinity of the wound, and,

quickly over his concern, pleasantly addressed his wife.

"'Morning, old girl. I say, you made me jump. Am I so fearfully late?

What's for breakfast?"

He did not turn to face her. Viewed from behind, half-hitched trousers

and bulging shirt, he had a lumpish appearance, and it was the more

inelegant for the contortions of his arms and shoulders, characteristic

of a clumsy shaver.

The spectacle caused Mrs. Letham a pucker of the brows that marred her

rosy animation. She said, "Maurice! Do turn round! I've something to

tell you."

"M-m-m," murmured Mr. Letham, at very ticklish work with the razor.

"Maurice!"

"M-m-m--M-m-m. Beastly rude, I know. Half-a-second, old girl. This

is a most infernal job--"

She interrupted him, "Oh, listen! Listen! In this paper here--" Her

voice caught. "In this paper--you are Lord Burdon!"

Mr. Letham, signalling amusement as best he was able, gave a kind of

wriggle of his back, held his breath while he made another stroke with

the razor, and expired the breath with: "Well, I'll buy a new razor

then, hanged if I won't. This infernal thing--" and he bent towards

the glass, peering at the reflection of the skin he had cleared.

The door behind him slammed violently, and then for the first time he

turned. He had thought her gone--angry, as she was often angry, at his

mild joking. Instead he saw her standing there, one hand behind her in

the action with which she had swung-to the door, the other clutching

the newspaper all rumpled up against her bosom; and there was that in

her face, in her eyes, and in the tremble of her parted lips that made

him change the easy, tolerant smile and the light banter with which he

turned to her. "Only my silly fun, Nelly," he began. "What is it?

Some howler in the newspaper? Let's have a--" Then appreciated the

pose, the eyes, the parted lips; and changed nervously to: "Eh? Eh?

What is it? What's up?"

She broke out: "Your fun! Will you only listen! It's true--true what

I tell you! You are Lord Burdon." Angry and incoherent she became,

for her husband blinked at her, and looked untidy and looked doltish.

"He's unmarried. I was trying only the other day to interest you in

what that meant. When his uncle died last August I spoke to you about

it--"

Mr. Letham, blinking, more untidy, more doltish: "Who's unmarried?"

And she cried at him: "Young Lord Burdon! Young Lord Burdon is dead!

He's been killed in the fighting in India--"

She stopped. She had moved him at last.

III

Mr. Letham laid down his razor--slowly, letting the handle slip

noiselessly from his fingers to the dressing-table. Slowly also he

lifted his face towards his wife, and she saw his mild forehead all

puckered, his eyes dimmed with a bemused air, his loose mouth parted:

she particularly saw the comical aspect given to his perturbation by

its setting of little patches of soap with the little trickle of red at

the chin.

He put out a hand for the paper and made a slow step towards her.

"Eh?" he said--a kind of bleat, it sounded to her.

"No! Listen!" she told him. "Listen to this at the end of the

account," and she spread the sheet in her hands. A little difficult to

find the place ... a little difficult to control her voice....

"Listen!" and she found and read aloud, in jerky sentences, the

paragraph that had been made out of "cuttings about Lord Burdon."

Almost in a whisper the vital clause "_...the successor is of a very

remote branch--Mr. Maurice Redpath Letham, whose paternal

great-grandfather was the eighth baron...._"

And in a whisper, dizzy again with the amazement of it: "Maurice! Do

you realise?"

His turn for bewilderment. He ignored her appeal. He did not heed her

agitation. He took the paper from her and she read that in his

eyes--preoccupation with some idea outside her range--that caused her

own to harden. She crossed and stood against the bed rail, and she

eyed him with narrowing gaze as he read Our Own Correspondent's

despatch.

"Poor young beggar!" he murmured, following the story. "Poor, plucky

young beggar!"

She just watched his face, comical with its dabs of drying soap,

reddening a little, eyelids blinking. She watched him reach the fold

of the paper, ignore the paragraph relating to himself, and turn again

to Our Own Correspondent's account. "Poor--poor, plucky young beggar!"

he repeated.

She gave a little catch at her breath. He exasperated

her--exasperated! Here was the most amazing fortune suddenly theirs,

and he was blind to it! Often Mrs. Letham flamed against her husband

those outbursts of almost ungovernable exasperation that a dull

intelligence, fumbling with an idea, arouses in the quick-witted. They

are the more violent, these outbursts, if the stupid fumbling, fumbling

with some moral issue, conveys a reproach to the quicker wit. She was

made to feel such a reproach by that reiterated "Poor young beggar!

Poor, plucky young beggar!" It intensified the outbreak of

exasperation that threatened her; and she told herself the reproach was

unmerited, and that intensified her anger more. It was nothing to her

and less than nothing, this boy's death; but she had rushed up to her

husband the better to enjoy her natural joy by sharing it with him, and

ready, if he had met her excitement, to compassionate the fate of young

Lord Burdon. He greeted her, instead, only with "Poor young beggar!

Poor, plucky young beggar!" She caught her breath. Exasperation

surged like a live thing within her. If he said it again! If he said

it again, she would break out! She could not bear it! She would dash

the paper from his hands. She would cry in his startled face--his

doltish face: "What! What! What! What! Don't you see? Don't you

understand? Lord Burdon! Lady Burdon! Are you a fool? Are you an

utter, utter fool?"

IV

He opened his lips and she trembled. It is natural to judge her

harshly, natural to misjudge her, to consider her incredibly snobbish,

cruel, common. She was none of these. Given time, given warning, she

would have received her great news, received her husband's reception of

it, gently and kindly. But life pays us no consideration of that kind.

Events come upon us not as the night merges from the day, but as

highway robbers clutch at and grapple with us before we can free our

weapons.

Happily, for the first time since he had taken the paper, Mr. Letham

seemed to remember her. He glanced up, flushed, damp in the eyes,

stupidly droll with the dabs of drying soap: "I say, Nellie, did you

read this:

"_The boy--he was absolutely no more than a boy--poked this way and

that on the little ridge we had gained, trying, whimpering just like a

keen terrier at a thick hedge, to find a way up through the rocks and

thorns above us. We were a dozen yards behind him, blowing and

cursing. 'Damn it! we've taken a bad miss in balk on this line!' he

cried, turning round at us, laughing. Next moment he had struck an

opening and was scrambling, on hands and knees. 'This way,

Sergeant-major!' he shouted...._"

Portly Mr. Letham, carried away by the grip of the thing, drew himself

up and squared his shoulders. He repeated "'This way,

Sergeant-major!'" and stuck, and stopped, and swallowed, and turned

shining eyes on his wife (she stood there brooding at him) and

exclaimed: "Can't you imagine it, Nellie? Listen: '_This way,

Sergeant-major!' he shouted, jumped on his feet, gave a hand to his

sergeant; cried 'Come on! Come on! Whoop! Forward! Forward!' and

then staggered, twisted a bit on his toes, dropped. I saw another

officer-boy jump up to him with 'Burdon! Burdon, old buck, have you

got it?'..._"

Portly Mr. Letham's voice cracked off into a high squeak, and he

lowered the paper and said huskily: "I say, Nellie, eh? I say, Nellie,

though? That's the stuff, eh? Poor boy! Brave boy!"

With unseeing eyes he blinked a moment at his wife's face. Brooding,

she watched him. Then he turned to the washstand and began to remove

the signs of shaving from his cheeks, holding the sponge scarcely above

the water as he squeezed it out, as though a noise were unseemly in the

presence of the scene his thoughts pictured.

And she just stood there, that brooding look upon her face. Ah! again!

He was off again!

"And his grandmother," Mr. Letham said, wiping his face in a towel,

sniffing a little, paying particular attention to the drying of his

eyes. "I say, Nellie, his poor grandmother, eh? How she will be

suffering! Think of her picking up her paper and reading that! ...

Only saw him once," he mumbled on, brushing his thin hair. "Took him

across town when he was going home for his first holidays from Eton.

Remember it like yesterday. I remember--"

It was the end of her endurance; she could stand no more of it. "Oh,

Maurice!" she broke out; "oh, Maurice, for goodness' sake!"

Mr. Letham turned to her in a puzzled way. He held a hair brush in

either hand at the level of his ears and stared at her from between

them: "Why, Nellie--" he began; "what--what's up, old girl?"

She struck her hands sharply together. "Oh, you go on, you go on, you

go on!" she cried. "You make me--don't you understand? Can't you

understand? I thought that when I brought you this news you'd be as

excited as I was. Instead--instead--" She broke off and changed her

tone. "Oh, do go on brushing your hair. For goodness' sake don't

stand staring at me like that!"

He obeyed in his slowish way. "Well, upon my soul, I don't quite

understand, old girl," he said perplexedly.

"That's what I'm telling you," she cried sharply and suddenly. "You

don't. You go on, you go on!"

He seemed to be puzzling over that. His silence made her break out

with the hard words of her meaning. "Do you really not understand?"

she broke out. "Do you go on like that just to irritate me? I believe

you do." She gave her vexed laugh again. "I don't know what to

believe. It's ridiculous--ridiculous you should be so different from

everybody else. It means to me, this news, just this: that it makes

you Lord Burdon. Can't you realise? Can't you share my feelings?"

"Oh!" he said, as if at last he understood, and said no more.

"How can I work up sympathy for people I have never seen?" she asked.

He did not answer her--brushed his hair very slowly.

"Nobody can say I should. Anybody in my place would feel as I feel."

Still no reply, and that annoyed her beyond measure, forced her to say

more than she meant.

"What are they to me, these Burdons?"

"They're my family, old girl," Mr. Letham ventured.

She did not wish to say it but she said it; he goaded her. "You've

never troubled to make them mine," she cried.

Mr. Letham had done with his hair. He struggled a collar around his

stout neck, examined what injury his finger nails had suffered in the

process, and set to work on his tie.

V

For a few minutes Mrs. Letham frowned at the solid, untidy back turned

towards her--the lumped shoulders, the heavy neck, the bulges of shirt

sticking out between the braces. She gave a little laugh then--useless

to be vexed. "You've never quarrelled with any one in your life, have

you, Maurice?" she said; and with a touch in which kindliness struggled

with impatience, she jerked down the bulging shirt, straightened a

twisted brace, said, "Let me!" and by a deft twist or two gave Mr.

Letham a neater tie than ever he had made himself. "There! That's

better! Have you?" she asked.

He told her smiling: "Not with you, anyway, Nellie." Little attentions

like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way

he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he

explained. "You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I

realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at

once. I'm sorry--sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making

them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really

mean that--don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know--I've often

told you--we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that,

don't you, old girl? A different branch--another crowd altogether. I

don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the

same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been

married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with

'em." He smiled affectionately at her. "That's all right, isn't it?"

She was getting impatient that he ran on so. "Of course, of course,"

she said indifferently. "I never meant to say that." And then: "Oh,

Maurice, but do--do--do think what I'm feeling." She entwined her

fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. "Have you

thought what it means to us, Maurice?"

He liked that. He liked the "us" from her lips. His normal

disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. "'Pon my

soul, I haven't," he said; and added, smiling more, "it's a big order.

By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie."

She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her

eyes sparkling. "Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!"

"It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder," he grimaced.

She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's just like you to think that! A

nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon--me! It's a dream,

isn't it?"

"It's a bit of a startler," he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her

excitement.

She laughed aloud. "But fancy you a lord!" and she looked at him,

holding him by both his arms and laughed again. "A startler! A

nuisance! What a--what a _person_ you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord!

You'll have to--you'll have to _buck up_, Maurice!"

He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer.

When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that

she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of

any change in his life. "Well, there's one thing," he said. "It won't

be for long;" and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned.

She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker

of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often

been a spoil-sport cry of "Wolf! Wolf!"

"Oh, that's absurd!" she cried. "That's nonsense; you know it is.

Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make

haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me--heaps of

things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste.

I'll run down now and see to Baby." She had danced away towards the

door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. "Baby! What is he now,

Maurice?"

"Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour

dressing."

For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her

world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. "His title,

I mean. An honourable, isn't it--the son of a peer? The Honourable

Rollo Letham! I must tell him!" She laughed again, moved lightly to

the door and went humming down the stairs.

Mr. Letham waited till the sound had passed. When the slam of a

distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped

rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had

playfully tapped. "Confound!" said Mr. Letham, breathing hard.

"Conster-_nation_ and damn the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a

twisting sword!"

For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the

grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she

told him he must _buck up_.

CHAPTER IV

A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE

I

A worrying morning foreshadowed--or might have foreshadowed--to Egbert

Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we

have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the

three young men who read with him for University examinations; his

mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary

run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the

cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle

subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to

evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning

the household, as he expressed it, was "all of a boilin' jump," whereby

he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men

thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual

labours with Mr. Letham. "Lucky dawgs," said Egbert bitterly, hiding

in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road,

confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress--writing

letters, talking excitedly with her husband--did everything except

settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert

ceaselessly upon "the 'op," and he resented it utterly.

II

With the afternoon the visitors; the satisfying at last of the

excitement that had thrilled Miller's Field to the marrow since the

newspapers were opened.

A little difficult, the good ladies thought it, to know exactly what to

say.

Some, on greeting Mrs. Letham, boldly plumped: "My dear, I _do_

congratulate you!" At the other extreme of tact in grasping a novel

situation, those who cleverly began, "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning

Post'!" a wary opening that enabled one to model sentiments on the lead

given in reply.

"My dear, I _do_ congratulate you!" "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning

Post'!" and "Ho, _do_ yer, thenk yer!" from bone-tired Egbert,

mimicking as he closed the door behind the one; and "Ho, _did_ yer,

boil yer!" closing it behind the other.

Between these forms, then, or with slight variations upon them, fell

all the salutations but that of Mrs. Savile-Phillips who, arriving

late, treading on Egbert's foot in her impressive halt on the

threshold, called in her dashing way across the crowded drawing-room,

"And where is Lady Burdon?"

She was at her tea table, closely surrounded, prettily coloured by

excitement, animated, at her best, tastefully gowned in a becoming

dove-grey that fortuitously had arrived from the dressmaker that

morning and mingled (she felt) a tribute to her new dignity with a

touch of half-mourning for the boy her relationship to whom death with

a hot finger had touched to life. Thus Mrs. Letham--new Lady

Burdon--took the eye and took it well. This was the moment of her

triumph; and that is a moment that is fairy wand to knock asunder the

shackles of the heavier years, restoring youth; to warm and make

generous the heart; to light the eye and lift the spirit. Hers, hers

that moment! She the commanding and captivating figure in that

assembly!

Her spirit was equal with her presence. Physically queening it among

her friends, psychically she was aloft and afloat in the exaltation

that her bearing advertised. Each new congratulation as it came was a

vassal hand put out to touch the sceptre she chose to extend. The

prattle of voices was a delectable hymn raised to her praise in her new

dignity. She was mentally enthroned, queen of a kingdom all her own;

and as she visualised its fair places she had a sense of herself,

Cinderella-like, shedding drab garments from her shoulders, appearing

most wonderfully arrayed; shaking from her skirts the dull past, with

eager hands greeting a future splendidly coloured, singing to her with

siren note, created for her foot and her pleasure.

Consider her state. The better to consider it, consider that something

of these sensations is the lot of every woman when, on her marriage

eve, a girl, sleepless she lies through that night, imaging the

womanhood that waits her beyond the darkness. It is the threshold of

life for woman, this night before the vow, and has no counterpart in

all a man's days from boyhood to grave. How should it? The sexes are

as widely sundered in habit, thought, custom, as two separate and most

alien races. Love has conducted every plighted woman to this threshold

and has so delectably engaged her attention on the road that she has

reckoned little of the new world towards which she is speeding. Now,

on her marriage eve, she is at night and alone: her eager feet upon the

immediate moment beyond whose passage lies the unexplored. Love for

this space takes rest. To-morrow he will lead her blindfolded into the

new country; to-night, poised upon the crest to which blindfolded he

has led her, she stands and looks across the prospect, shading her

eyes, atremble with ecstasy at the huge adventure. Mighty courage she

has--a frail figure, barriers closing up behind her to shut forever the

easy paths of maidenhood; hill and valley stretching limitless before,

where lie lurking heaven knows what ravening monsters. But she is the

born explorer, predestined for this frightful plunge into the unknown,

heedless of its dangers, intoxicated by its spaciousness, amazingly

confident in Love's power and devotion to keep her in the pleasant

places. And Love--he the reckless treaty-monger between the alien

races--is prone, unhappily, to lead her a dozen entangling steps down

the crest, and there to leave her in the smiling hills suddenly become

wilderness, in the little valleys suddenly become abyss.

Mrs. Letham had enjoyed that intoxicating moment upon the crest.

Something of its sensations were hers again now; but she found their

thrill a far more delectable affair. Again she was upon the crest

whence an alluring prospect stretched; but now she looked with eyes not

filmed by ignorance; now could have seen desert places, pitfalls, if

such had been, but saw that there were none. Or so she thought.

Already, in the congratulations she was receiving, she was tasting the

first sweets, plucking the first fruits with which she saw the groves

behung. For the first time she found herself and her fortunes the

centre of a crowded drawing-room's conversation. For the first time

she enjoyed the thrill of eager attention at her command when she chose

to raise her voice. It was good, good. It was sufficient to her for

the moment. But her exalted mind ran calculating ahead of it, even

while she rejoiced in it. She had her little Rollo brought in to her,

and kept him on her knee, and stroked his hair; and once and twice and

many times went into dreams of all that now awaited him; and with an

effort had to recall herself to the attentions of her guests.

As evening stole out from the trees, in shadows across the lawn and in

dusk against the windows, like some stealthy stranger peering in, her

party began to separate. A few closer friends clustered about her, and

the conversation became more particular. Yes, it would mean leaving

Miller's Field--_dear_ Miller's Field; and leaving them, but never,

never forgetting them. Elated, triumphant, and therefore generous,

emotional, she almost believed that indeed she would be sorry to lose

these friends.

As one warmed with wine has a largeness of spirit that swamps his

proper self in its generous delusions, so she, warmed with triumph, was

genuine enough in all her protestations. With real affection she

handed over kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, who stayed last, to

the good offices of Egbert Hunt, and in a happy, happy glow of elation

returned to her drawing-room. This was the beginning of it!

This the beginning of it! She drew a long breath, smiling to herself,

her hands pressed together; through the glass doors giving on to the

lawn she espied her husband, and smiling she went quickly across and

opened them.

III

Mr. Letham was coming in from work in the garden. He had a

watering-can in one hand, with the other he trailed a rake. He was in

his shirt-sleeves, and his face was damp with his exertions around the

flower-beds. "Hullo! All gone?" he asked.

The warmth of her spirit caused her to extend her hands to him with a

sudden, affectionate gesture:

"All, yes. Maurice, you were an old wretch! You might have come in."

"Simply couldn't, old girl. I had a squint through the window, and

fled and hid behind a bush. Thousands of you; it looked awful!"

She laughed: "Miserable coward! I was hoping you would."

"Were you, though?" he said eagerly. "I'd have come like a shot if I'd

known."

That made her laugh again: he was always the lover. "Well, come and

have a talk now to make up," she told him. "Out here in the garden.

It's frightfully hot in this room."

His face beamed. He put down the implements he was carrying, wiped a

hand on his waistcoat and slipped his fingers beneath her arm. "That's

a stunning dress," he said.

She gathered up the trailing skirt and glanced down at it, well

pleased. "It is rather nice, isn't it?"

"Fine! You look as pretty as a picture this evening, Nellie. I tell

you, I thought so, when I squinted in through the window."

"That's because I'm so happy."

"So am I." He pressed her arm to show why, and "Maurice! you are a

goose," was her gay comment; but for once his foolish loverlikeness

pleased her; her mood was widely charitable.

They paced the little lawn in silence. She suddenly asked, "You don't

mind my being happy, do you?"

"Mind! Good Lord!" and he pressed her arm again.

"Being excited about--about it, I mean. It's natural, Maurice?"

"Of course it is. Of course it is, old girl."

"But you're not--it doesn't excite you?"

Mr. Letham was too honest, even at risk of disturbing this happy

passage, to pretend the untrue. "Well, that's nothing," he said.

"That's nothing. I'm so beastly slow. An earthquake wouldn't excite

me."

"I don't believe it would," she laughed, then was serious. "But I'm

excited," she said abruptly. "Oh, I am!" She put up her face towards

the veiling sky--a dim star here and a dim star there and a faint

breeze rising--and she drew a deep breath just as she had breathed

deeply in the drawing-room a few moments earlier. "Oh, I am!" she

repeated. "Maurice! I want to talk about it."

He was not at all conscious of the full intensity of her feelings; but

for such of it as he perceived he smiled at her in his tolerant way.

"Well, you say," he told her. "You do the talking."

She was silent for a considerable space; her mind run far ahead and

occupied among thoughts to which she could not introduce him, for he

had no place in them. That he shivered slightly recalled his presence

to her. That his presence had been deliberately shut from among the

castles she had been building caused her one of those qualms which (if

we are kind) often sting us back from our worser self to our better

nature. And she was kind, alternating ceaselessly between the many

womanly parts she had and those other parts we all possess; only to be

pitied if the events now quickly shaping for her tempted her too much,

led her too far from the point whence kindness is recoverable.

Recalled to him and to her womanliness, "Oh, your coat!" she exclaimed.

"You've been getting hot and you'll catch your death of chill. You're

dreadfully careless. Where is it?"

"In the summer-house. But what rot!"

"I'll get it." She slipped her arm from his hand and ran away across

the lawn. "There!" she said, returning. "Now button it up. Ah!

You're all thumbs!"

She fastened it for him and turned up the collar. The action brought

her face close to his. "You're jolly good to me, Nellie," he said, and

his lips brushed her forehead. A kiss it had been, but she drew back a

step. "Not going to have you ill on my hands," she told him brightly.

Then she slipped a hand into his arm and resumed, "What are we going to

do--first? I want to talk about that."

She had talked to him of it all the morning; but as if it were

undiscussed--anything to preserve these happy moments--"Yes, go on," he

said.

She responded eagerly. "Well, we must write to Lady Burdon, of

course--Jane Lady Burdon, now, you said, didn't you? Not to-day.

Better wait a day--to-morrow."

"That is what I thought."

"Yes--yes--and then you will have to go to see her. By yourself. I

won't come at first." She gave a little sound of laughter. "I don't

think I shall much like Jane Lady Burdon, from what you told me this

morning."

He asked her: "Good lord, why, Nellie? Why, what did I tell you? I've

only seen her once, years and years ago."

"You made her out proud; you said she would feel this terribly."

"That poor boy's death? Of course she would. She was devoted to him.

Look, he was no more than Rollo's age when his father died. She

brought him up. Been mother and father to him all his life. Imagine

how she'd feel it."

"Oh, I don't mean that; feel us coming in, I mean. Proud in that way."

It was an idea that another man, though he knew it true, would have

laughed aside. Mr. Letham's hopeless simplicity put him to a stumbling

explanation. "Ah, but proud's not the word--not fair," he said. "She

has pride; you understand the difference, don't you, old girl? A

tremendous family pride. She'll feel this break in the direct

descent--father to son, as it said in the newspaper, ever since there

was a Burdon. It is one of their traditions, at the bottom of half

their traditions, and they're simply wrapped up in that kind of thing.

I should think there never was a family with so many observances--laws

of its own."

"Tell me," she said: and while they paced, he spoke of this family

whose style and dignity they were to take; and while he spoke,

sometimes she pressed together her lips and contracted her brows as

though hostile towards the pictures he made her see, sometimes breathed

quickly and took a light in her eyes as though she foretasted delights

that he presented. She had no romantic sense in her nature, else had

been moved by such traditions of the House of Burdon as, he said, he

could remember. That white roses were never permitted in the grounds

of Burdon Old Manor, that no male but the head of the family might put

on his hat within the threshold, that the coming of age of sons was

celebrated at twenty-four, not twenty-one,--she scarcely heeded the

legends attaching to these observances. "Rather silly," she named

them, and did not condescend a reply to her husband's weak defence,

"Well, they rather get you, you know, don't you think?"

He spoke of the Burdon motto, the arrogant, "I hold!" that was of the

bone of Burdon character, so he said. "I remember my old grandfather

telling me lots about that," he told her. "It sums them up. That's

the kind they've always been: headstrong and absolutely fearless, like

that poor boy, and stubborn--stubborn as mules where their rights, or

their will, or their pride is concerned. Stubborn in having their own

way, and stubborn in doing or not doing simply because the thing's done

or not done in the traditions they're bred up in."

He stopped and bent to her with "Yes, what did you say?" but only

caught her repeating to herself intensely and beneath her breath, "I

hold!"

"Yes, it's rather fine, isn't it?" he said; and he went on: "Well,

that's just what I mean about old Lady Burdon. She'll have felt that

she was holding for her grandson, had held all these years, and now was

the one, the only one, to see the tradition break, the direct

succession pass. That's what I mean by saying she has pride and will

feel it. That time I saw her, as I was telling you this morning, when

that poor boy was about Rollo's age and I was doing a walking tour down

in Wiltshire and managed to get up courage to go to Burdon Old Manor

and introduce myself, I noticed it then. She was dividing all her time

between the boy and a quaint kind of 'Lives of the Barons Burdon' as

she called it, a manuscript life of each holder of the title, hunting

up all the old records and traditions and things with the librarian; he

was as keen on it as she. He..."

"Where will she be now, do you think?" Mrs. Letham interrupted. "In

town?"

"In town for certain. She'd be sure to be where she could always get

earliest news of the boy."

"In the town house? Burdon House in Mount Street, you said, didn't

you? Have you ever been there? What's it like?"

"No, never been in. A whacking great place, from the outside. That's

where she'll be all right, unless they've sold it."

Mrs. Letham gave him a sudden full attention. "Sold it? Why should

they have sold it?"

"The ancient reason--want of money," he replied lightly.

She made no response nor responsive movement; yet some emotion that she

had seemed to communicate itself to him, for looking down at her,

half-whimsically, half-gravely, "I say, you don't think we've come into

untold wealth, do you, Nellie?" he said.

She took her hand sharply from his arm. Much that he had said, though

she could not have analysed why, had caused her kinder self to ebb.

Now it left her. She answered him by asking him: "What of all those

names you told me? Tell me them again."

"The property? The Burdon Old Manor property? Little Letham, and

Shepwell, and Burdon, and Abbess Roding, and Nunford, and Market

Roding: those, do you mean?"

"Yes, I mean those. How do you mean 'the ancient reason, want of

money'?"

"Well, that's all there is, though. The money is all out of the

estate. Nothing more."

She said impatiently: "Well? All those villages?"

"All those duties." he corrected her. "That's the Burdon way of

looking at it. What they make on Abbess Roding they lose on Market

Roding, so to speak. It's that 'I hold!' business again. They won't

sell; they won't raise rents when leases fall in; they never refuse

improvements that can possibly be afforded. The tenantry have been

there for generations. No Burdon would ever think of turning them off

or of refusing them anything; it wouldn't enter his head. That's why I

said Burdon House in Mount Street might be sold. It's unlikely, but I

remember there was talk of it in my grandfather's time. It belongs to

an older day, when they were wealthier. They'd sacrifice that, if need

be, though it would be like a death in the family; but anything rather

than the bare idea of interfering with the people they regard as a

trust."

He spoke quite easily, never realising the intensity of her feelings.

"Oh, it's no untold wealth," he laughed. "You mustn't think that."

She said after a little space, "Richer than we are, though?" and added,

comforting herself with an old truism, "What's poverty to one is wealth

to another."

"Oh, richer than we are. Good lord, yes, I hope so. I'm thinking of

years ago, anyway. Things may have changed. I'm telling you of when I

was a kid."

She gave a little sigh of relief and she made a little laugh at the

mood she had permitted to beset her--that sigh we give and that laugh

we make when we shake ourselves from vague fears, or open our eyes from

disturbing dreams. Folly to be fearful! Life is a biggish field; easy

to give those fears the slip! The day is here, night ridiculous! She

laughed and turned smiling to her husband and proposed they should go

in. "I've got an extra special little dinner for you--to celebrate,"

she told him.

He pressed her arm against his side. "And I've got an extra special

little appetite for it," he said. "Makes me feel fearfully fit to see

you so happy."

"Well, I am," she replied, and sighed her content and said again "I am!"

IV

The night ridiculous! But when night came it caught her unstrung, too

excited for immediate sleep, and visited her with vague resentments,

with vague but chilly fears. They came gradually. Long, long she lay

awake, visioning the gleaming future. Her Rollo trod it with her--its

golden paths, limitless of delights--her little son rejoicing into

manhood as he walked them. She was intensely devoted to her baby

Rollo, born two years before. Marriage had disappointed her; from its

outset, directly she began to realise Maurice, she accounted herself

robbed of all it ought to have given her. Motherhood had recompensed

her; from Rollo's birth she had begun to dream dreams for him. Now!

She got out of bed and went to his cradle and bent above him, most

happily, most adoringly, as he slept. It was there and so occupied

that the first vague, unreasonable fear came to disturb her night. It

was gone as soon as it had come, and it had neither shape nor meaning.

Yet its discomfort made her frown. She had frowned in the midst of

happiness when Maurice was telling her of Burdon traditions, and the

repetition of the action returned her mind to what had occupied it then.

At once resentments began to stir. She found herself resentful of Jane

Lady Burdon, as drawn by Maurice; of the tenantry at Burdon Old Manor,

who were regarded as a trust--a greedy, expensive trust on his showing;

nay, of the Old Manor itself, if saturated in traditions such as he

described. Why resentful? At first she could not say, and worried.

Then the reason came to her. It was the feeling that this old lady,

not proud but having pride, a ridiculous distinction, this old lady,

these tenantry, those traditions would resent her. Resent her? She

could not get away from the thought, and it irritated her and tired

her. Yes, and rob her, and that irritated and tired her the more. She

began to desire sleep and could not sleep for these resentments.

Resent her? Rob her? She grew angry that she could not sleep, and

then suddenly calmed herself by deliberately setting herself to see how

grotesque such thoughts were. After all, what could they do, even

suppose they desired her hurt? It came to her, with a grim sense of

the humour of it, that their own motto was against them. "I hold!" It

was she who held!

"I hold!" The old motto did its new mistress its first service. It

charmed her, at last, to sleep. Immediately, as it seemed to her, she

passed into dreams of her amazing happiness; and in their midst the

motto rose against her. In their midst the vague fear that had

troubled her while she bent over her Rollo--but vague no longer--became

definite and horrible. She was taunted, she was terrified by some

force that told her it was all untrue; that tortured her she was

befooled and did not hold and should never hold the amazement she

fancied hers. Terrified and struggling, "I hold!" she cried. It

became the delirium of her sleep. Again and again "I hold! I hold!"

and always from that force the answer, quiet but most terribly assured:

"No, you do not! Nay, I hold!" Horror and panic overcame her. She

was so nearly awake that she tried to awake but could not. "I hold! I

hold!" "No, you do not. Nay, I hold!" There was no escape, no

escape.... When at last her fevered brain broke out of sleep, she

awoke to hear her own voice cry it aloud in agony: "I hold!" and

shaking, unnerved, thanked God for young morning stealing about the

room, and none and nothing to rebuke or contradict that waking cry.

CHAPTER V

MISREADING A PEERESS

I

We will give them their title now.

Events fell out much as the new Lady Burdon had planned. On the day

following the news, the new Lord Burdon wrote a few sympathetic lines

to Jane Lady Burdon; two days later he received an acknowledgment from

the house in Mount Street. She would like to see him, Jane Lady

Burdon, wrote, but she would like a little time in which to accommodate

herself to her sad affliction. Perhaps he would arrange to call on

that day week; and meanwhile, if he could see Mr. Pemberton, they would

be spared much explanation relative to the sudden change.

"Rather cold," was Lady Burdon's comment; but her attention was taken

by another letter brought in with Jane Lady Burdon's by Egbert Hunt, as

they sat at early breakfast, and overlooked in the excitement. "And

Mr. Pemberton--who is Mr. Pemberton?" she asked, but had opened this

other envelope while she spoke, taken the gist of its letter at a

glance, and herself answered her question, looking up with flushed face

and sparkling eyes. "He's the solicitor," she said.

Lord Burdon nodded. "So he is. The name comes back to me."

"This is from him--to you. It's all right. He says it's all right,

Maurice. He's the lawyer. He knows. He admits it."

"Sounds as though he'd committed a crime. What does he admit?"

She was very happy, so she laughed. "Listen!" and she read him the

letter in which, in stilted, lawyer like terms, Matthew Pemberton (as

it was signed) formally advised him of the death in action on the

northwestern frontier of India, and of his succession to the barony and

entailed estates. The firm of Pemberton, it appeared, had for many

generations enjoyed the honour of acting for the house of Burdon, and,

acting on Jane Lady Burdon's instructions, Matthew Pemberton desired to

propose an interview "here or at your lordship's residence, as may be

most convenient to your lordship."

"Maurice!" Lady Burdon exclaimed, and handed him the letter; and when

he had read it, "There! There's no doubt now, is there?"

He had frowned over it as though it troubled him. At her words he

looked up and smiled at her beaming face and patted her hand. "Why,

you never had any doubt, had you?" he asked.

She gave the slightest possible shiver; but with it shook off the

recollection that had caused it. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "I

do believe I had; yes, I had. I couldn't realise it sometimes. There

was nothing--nothing to go on. Now there is, though!" And she touched

the letters that were the magic carpet arrived to wing her from the

delirium of that night toward the amazement that night had threatened.

She exclaimed again, "Now there is!" and, pushing back her chair, rose

vigorously to her feet, casting aside forever (so she told herself)

that nightmare dream and animatedly breaking into "plans." Too

animated to be still, too excited to eat, gaily, and with a commanding

banter that rendered him utterly happy, she easily influenced her

husband, against his purpose, to bid Mr. Pemberton make the proposed

interview at Miller's Field, not Bedford Row. "'At your lordship's

residence,'" she laughed. "It's his place to do the running about, not

yours. And tell him--I'll help you to write the letter--tell him to

come the day after to-morrow, not to-morrow. Don't let him think we're

bursting with eagerness."

"By gum, he'd better not see you, then," Lord Burdon said grimly.

She gave him a playful pinch. "Oh, I'll do the high and haughty stare

all right," she told him, and she laughed again and ran gaily humming

to the Hon. Rollo Letham in the garden.

II

Mr. Pemberton, on arrival, proved incapable of much of that running

about, in the literal sense of the term, that Lady Burdon had

pronounced to be his place.

"Here he is!" Lady Burdon said, watching through the drawing-room

window from where she sat, as a closed station-fly drew up before the

gate. "Here he is!" There was a longish pause before the cab door

opened, and then a walking-stick came out and tapped about in a

fumbling sort of way until it hit the step. A very thin leg came

groping down the stick, its foot poking about nervously as though to

make sure that the step was stable. "Good gracious!" Lady Burdon

exclaimed. "The poor old man!"

She forgot the high and haughty stare premeditated for the interview,

and she crossed to the window, womanly and womanishly alarmed. The

knee above the trembling leg took a jerky shot or two at stiffening,

then stiffened suddenly and took the weight of a little wisp of an old

man, who swung suddenly out upon it, whirled half around as the gusty

breeze took him and, clutching frantically against the side of the cab

with one hand, with the other made agitated prods of his stick at the

road desperately far beneath.

"Oh, goodness!" Lady Burdon cried. "He'll kill himself! And that

idiot like a frozen pig on the box! Maurice!" But she was quicker

than her husband and, the high and haughty stare completely abandoned,

was swiftly from the room, down the path, through the gate, and with

firm young hands under a shaky old arm, just as the little old man,

unable to balance longer, was dropping stick and leg towards the ground

and in danger of collapsing tremendously upon them.

She landed him safe. "The road slopes so frightfully here, doesn't

it?" she said. "I am afraid you are shaken."

The little old man, very visibly shaken by the fearful adventure,

essayed to straighten his bent old frame. He raised his silk hat and

stood bareheaded before her. "You saved me from that," he said. "It

was very, very kind of you. I am clumsy and stupid at moving about."

She was flushed by her run, the breeze was in her hair; she looked

pretty and she was quite natural. "Oh, I saw you," she smiled. "I

ought to have come before. Let me take your arm. The path is steep;

we are on the side of a hill, as you see."

She swung open the gate with one hand and put the other beneath his arm.

He seemed to hesitate, looking at her curiously. "Oh, I am all right

when I am on my legs," he said, with a little laugh. "Well, well--it

is very, very kind of you," and he accepted the aid she offered.

"It is steep, you see,"--she smiled down at him,--"and rough. It ought

to be rolled, but we have the idlest gardener boy in the world. You

are Mr. Pemberton, aren't you? I am--I am Lady Burdon."

He halted in his nice little steps and looked full up at her. "I am

very glad to know that," he said simply, and put himself again to the

task of making the house.

III

Mr. Pemberton was more than pleased; he was intensely relieved and

intensely happy. His thoughts, as he came down in the train to

Miller's Field, had caused his face to wear a nervous, a wistful,

almost an appealing, look. Bound up in inherited devotion to the noble

house whose service was handed down in his firm as the title itself was

handed down, he had feared, he had dreaded what manner of people the

tragic break in the famous direct succession might have brought to the

name he loved. Nothing could so well have reassured him as that most

womanly action of Lady Burdon when she ran to his assistance at the

gate; nothing could so well have affirmed the confidence with which he

turned to her husband, come to the door to meet them, as the simple

honesty of character imprinted on Lord Burdon's face and expressed in

his greeting. Both impressions were sharpened as they sat talking at

tea. Mr. Pemberton had come to talk business; he found himself drawn

by this sympathetic atmosphere into speaking intimately of the gay

young life whose cruel termination had caused his visit.

Clearly he had been deeply attached to that young life; he speaks of it

in the jerky, disconnected sentences of one that does not trust his

voice too long, for fear it may betray him; and when he comes to his

subject's young manhood, after eulogy of childhood and youth, clearly

Lady Burdon is interested. She draws her chair a trifle towards him,

and with her elbow on the low tea-table, cups her chin in the palm of

her hand, the fingers against her lips, watches him and attends him

closely. Her throat and face are dusky, her wrist and hand are white

against them. Her eyes have a deep and kind look. She makes a gentle

picture.

Encouraged by her sympathy, "He was a little wild," says Mr. Pemberton.

"I am afraid a little inclined to be wild.... Always so full of

spirits, you see ... eager ... careless, reckless perhaps, impetuous

... lovable--ah, me, very lovable....

"I was very fond of him, Lady Burdon," he says apologetically, "very

fond;" and he stumbles into an example of what he is pleased to call

the young man's impetuous carelessness. It is of his last months in

England, before he sailed for India, that this deals. Between June and

August, having leave from his regiment, he disappeared, it seems; was

completely lost sight of by his grandmother and his friends. Towards

the end of August he appeared again. "Not himself--not quite himself,"

says Mr. Pemberton, shaking his head as though over some recollection

that troubled him, "and no explanation of his absence, and, when the

chance came--General Sheringham was a relation, you know--wild to get

out to this frontier 'show,' as he called it.

"Typical of him," says Mr. Pemberton after a pause, and smiling sadly

at Lady Burdon. "Typical. A law to himself he would always be, and

not responsible to any one for what he chose to do. A Burdon trait

that; and he was a Burdon of Burdons."

Lady Burdon asks a question, breaking into Mr. Pemberton's history for

the first time. "But that really is extraordinary, Mr. Pemberton," she

says. "Wouldn't Lady Burdon--wouldn't his grandmother--have felt

anxious during that disappearance, and wouldn't she have questioned him

when he came back?"

"Not unless he seemed disposed to tell her. In a way--in a way, you

know, relations between them were a little difficult. Poor boy"--and

Mr. Pemberton gives a sad little laugh--"poor boy, he often came to me

in a great way, and her ladyship, too, has had occasion. He, on his

side, passionately devoted to her, hating to hurt her, but enormously

high-spirited, difficult to handle. And she, on hers, making all the

world of him and a little apt on that account to claim too much from

him, if you follow me. He sometimes chafed--chafed, you know; hating

to hurt her but restless of her control, her claim. Latterly she had

to be very tactful with him. No, she wouldn't have questioned him

unless he seemed disposed to tell her."

They are interrupted here by the entrance of baby Rollo on his way to

bed, for it is getting late. "The rummiest little beggar," says Lord

Burdon, introducing his small son. "Not much more than eighteen

months, and solemn enough for an archbishop, aren't you, Rollo?"

The solemn one, pale and noticeably quiet and far from strong looking,

justifies this character by having no smiles, though Mr. Pemberton

greets him cheerfully and says approvingly: "Rollo, eh? The Burdon

name. _His_ name," he adds, and looks at Lady Burdon, who gives him a

gentle smile of understanding.

IV

Mr. Pemberton looked after her very gratefully when she excused herself

to take the child up-stairs. The door closed, he turned to Lord

Burdon. "Nice--nice," he began in a stifled kind of voice, "to have a

little son growing up--to watch. We watched young Lord Burdon--that

poor boy--growing up--anxiously--so anxiously...."

He gave a nervous little laugh. "When I say 'we' you've no idea with

what a terrible air of proprietorship the family is regarded by those,

like myself, attached to it for generations, by those dependent on it.

We looked so eagerly, so eagerly as the time drew on, to his coming of

age. He was wanted so."

"Wanted?" Lord Burdon asked. "Wanted?" He pronounced the word

heavily, as though he had an inkling of the answer and was apprehensive.

It started Mr. Pemberton on a recital that he spoke with seeming

difficulty and yet as though he had prepared it. It occupied longer

than either knew, and Lord Burdon, before it was finished, was sitting

sunk low in his chair, as though what he heard oppressed him. The

little old lawyer spoke of difficulties in connection with the estate;

the diminished rent roll; the urgent necessity for comprehensive

improvements essential to make the land pay its way; the long-urged

necessity for the sale of Burdon House in Mount Street, heavily

mortgaged and the interest an insupportable drain on the estate. It

led him to why they had looked so anxiously for the coming of age.

Everything that was essential was impossible, he showed, in the reign

of gentle Jane Lady Burdon, who felt that she held in sacred trust for

her grandson and would suffer no risks in raising of loans, nor

depredation of her charge by sale of the town property. He had no

eloquence, this devoted little lawyer, but he had earnestness that

seemed to him who listened to fill the room, as it were, with living

shapes of duties, demands, traditions of a great heritage that

marshalled before him and looked to him to be carried forward, as

soldiers to a leader.

A change in Mr. Pemberton's tone aroused him.

"He was wanted so," Mr. Pemberton said jerkily, and stopped.

No response, and in a funny little cracked voice, "Well, he's dead,"

Mr. Pemberton said.

Lord Burdon raised his eyes, contracted with the trouble that had given

him that drooped, oppressed appearance while the other spoke, dim,

clouded as with looking at something that menaced; and their eyes

met--two very simple men.

Mr. Pemberton stretched out fumbling hands. He cried blunderingly and

appealingly, his mouth twisting: "It has affected me--this death, this

change. I am only an old man--a devoted old man. As we looked to him,

so now we look to you."

"Look to me!" Lord Burdon said slowly. "Look to me! Good God,

Pemberton, I funk it!" he cried. "I funk it and I hate it. I'm not

the sort. I wish I'd been left alone. I wish to God I had!"

There followed his words a silence of the intense nature caused by

speech that has been intense. In that silence, consciousness of some

other personality in the room caused Mr. Pemberton to turn suddenly in

his chair. He turned to see Lady Burdon standing in the doorway. She

was not in the act of entering. She was standing there; and for the

briefest space, while Mr. Pemberton looked at her and she at him, she

just stood, erect, her head a trifle unduly high, with estimating eyes

and with purposed mouth.

V

It had been an anxious Mr. Pemberton that came down to Miller's Field.

It was a reassured Mr. Pemberton that stayed there, but a gravely

disturbed Mr. Pemberton that went back to town. He knew Lady Burdon

had been listening, the look he had seen on her face informed him of

her displeasure with what she had heard, and he knew that in his first

estimate of her he had misread her.

For he read her look aright. In her husband's cry--his weak,

contemptible cry--in what she had heard of the little lawyer's

statements and proposals--his tears and prayers of duties--she knew

hostility to her plans, to her dreams, to her pleasures. Her

estimating eyes that met Mr. Pemberton's inquired the strength of that

hostility; her purposed mouth was the mirror of her determination

against it.

CHAPTER VI

MISCALCULATING A PEER

I

The little clock that is perched high over the vast fireplace in the

library at Burdon House, Mount Street, marks a shade before ten of the

evening. Its delicate ticking joins with the fluttering of the flames,

and with the steady scratch of Mr. Librarian Amber's pen, to make the

only sounds in this dignified apartment with its high-bred air, that

has known many a Burdon and that shortly is to acknowledge another

bearer of the title and serenely give farewell to the lady seated

before the fire.

A gracious lady of many sorrows, as the Vicar of Little Letham parish,

in a surprising flight, had named Jane Lady Burdon on the previous

Sunday--and rightly named her. Sorrow has companioned Jane Lady Burdon

before; now again is called whence it has lightly slumbered--walks hand

in hand with the gentle lady, is her bedfellow, crouches on the hearth

beside her as she sits, drooping slightly, in the high-backed chair,

fingers enlocked on lap, eyes dimly upon the flames.

Lord Burdon, who has stepped into the dead boy's shoes--(Ah, Sorrow,

walk here and here with me. Look, Sorrow, where he used to sport and

run!)--has paid his visit that afternoon; sympathetic little Mr.

Pemberton, with his papers and documents, has occupied a part of her

morning. It has been a trying day for her. Her only desire now is to

be left alone with her thoughts. (Come away, come away, Sorrow,

Sorrow; and hold me close, and open me his prattling lips, his strong

young lips.)

II

Mr. Librarian Amber--very conscious of Sorrow crouching there, but

busy, busy--is writing at a table behind the drooping figure in the

high-backed chair. The bald top of Mr. Amber's narrow head, nose hard

after his pen like a diligent bloodhound on a slow scent, shines

between the splendid yellow candles in their tall, silver holders that

light his work. Neat little packets of papers, neatly arranged, dot

the polished surface of the table, like islands set in a still, dark

sea about the greater island that is Mr. Amber's manuscript. On a

chair by Mr. Amber's side is a large, slim volume held by a gilt clasp

and lettered on its cover of white vellum:

Percival Rollo Redpath Letham

XIIth Baron Burdon

He is engaged, Mr. Librarian Amber, on that "Lives of the Barons

Burdon" of which Lord Burdon had spoken to his wife, walking in the

garden of Hillside.

Then that little clock perched over the mantelpiece tinkles the hour of

ten.

"How do you progress, Mr. Amber?" Jane Lady Burdon inquires gently.

Mr. Amber--constitutionally nervous--starts, drops his pen, grabs at it

as it rolls for the floor, misses it in the stress of a short-sighted

fumble, makes a distressed _Tch-tch!_ as it rattles to the boards,

clears his throat, starts on one reply and, in the manner of nervous

persons suddenly interrogated, strangles it at birth and has a shot at

fortune with another.

"I have almost got--I am just concluding the newspaper reports of the

fight, my lady. Very nearly at the end." He recollects a resolve to

be bright in order to cheer my lady, so he adds with a funny little

pop: "Almost done!" and then with a brisk little puff blows imaginary

dust from his manuscript. "Almost done! _Hoof!_"

"I will read it over to-morrow, Mr. Amber, immediately after breakfast.

To-day is Friday. By Monday you should have finished, I think, and the

book will be ready to go into its place at the Manor. You will come

with me when I go down there next week, Mr. Amber, and we will put it

in its place together. I shall be glad to see it in its place before I

leave: all the Lives finished--our little hobby, Mr. Amber;" and her

gracious ladyship of many sorrows puts into the words the smile that

faintly touches her lips.

Mr. Amber, desperately agitated and pleased by this coupling of himself

with his dear mistress, takes from the warmth of his happiness courage

sufficient to introduce to her a matter that has been troubling him.

He gets awkwardly to his feet, a spare, stooping figure, mild of face,

little over fifty but looking more, frowns horribly at his chair for

the noise it makes upon the polished floor as he pushes it back, and

comes forward, twisting the fingers of his hands about one another.

"My lady--yes, I will surely finish by Monday. Your ladyship will

forgive me--intruding myself--your ladyship speaks of leaving--I am--if

I may venture--so attached--I scarcely--"

He is quite painfully agitated. His fingers, tightly locked now by

their twistings, present a figure of his halting sentences come to a

final tangle, an ultimate and hopeless knot.

Her gracious ladyship of many sorrows smiles in her kind way. "Dear

Mr. Amber, you should know, of course. I have been thoughtless of you

in my sorrow. I am going to my sister in York, Mr. Amber--Mrs. Eresby,

you remember. Here nor the Manor is no longer my home, you understand.

Indeed, how should I stay in houses of sad memories only?"

Mr. Amber murmurs "Ah--my lady!" and she continues: "I intend a last

visit to the Manor--to take leave of our dear friends, Mr. Amber, and

to collect a few--memories. I would go now, but I have first to meet

Lady Burdon. Lord and Lady Burdon will very kindly come here for that

purpose on Monday so that we may know one another for a few days."

She pauses and smiles inquiringly as though to ask Mr. Amber if he is

now sufficiently informed. He blinks considerably, starts to work at

his hands again, and suddenly says with a mouth all twisted: "It will

be very--strange--to me to be parted from your ladyship."

She extends a gentle hand towards his that twist and twist, touching

them softly: "Dear Mr. Amber. It has been the pleasantest friendship."

He says stupidly and brokenly, "What will I do?"

"You must go on living with the books," she tells him. "Why, what

would they do without you, or you without them? I will speak to Lord

Burdon. You must live on just the same in the Manor library where we

have been together so often--all of us. I shall like to think of you

there. It is my wish, Mr. Amber."

She says gently, "There!" as he clutches her hand to his lips. "I will

go to bed now. I think I hear Colden coming for me," and as her maid

enters, she rises.

Mr. Amber tries for words. That twisting mouth forbids them, and he

turns to hold the door open.

"Thank you. Good night, Mr. Amber. Here is our kind Colden so

thoughtful for my sleep. I am ready, Colden. Yes, I will take your

arm. Good night, Mr. Amber." And as Mr. Amber stands watching, there

comes to him faintly across the great hall: "We'll rest a moment here,

Colden. A little trying, these stairs. Do you remember how he used to

take me up? He never missed a night when he was home, did he? Do you

remember how he made us laugh about this seat...?"

Then Mr. Amber returns to the library, closes the door and eases

emotion by a trumpet blast upon his nose.

III

Mr. Amber took a seat before the fire. He was unsettled, he found, for

further progress that night upon the work that had engaged him at the

table. But his mind turned to it and from it to the eleven fine

volumes into whose company it would go, completing the lives of the

Barons Burdon that were the fruits of many years of loving

labour--result of "our little hobby." In memory he trod again those

happy days--saw himself installed librarian at Burdon Old Manor, a

bookish youth, weak-backed, weak-eyed, son and despair of a tenant

farmer; rehearsed again that youth's aimless, browsing years among the

books, acquiring strange and various knowledge from the shelves,

developing affections, habits, tastes that, as with tentacles, anchored

him by heart and mind to the house of Burdon. Mr. Amber moved

restlessly in his chair and came to the beginning of the great scheme,

propounded by her gracious ladyship, that was to become "our little

hobby," as immediately it became the purpose and enthusiasm of his

life. Well, it was done--or almost done. The results of desperately

exciting scratching about the library--among distressed old books,

among family trees, among deeds, letters, parchments, rolls,

records--were in eleven fine manuscript volumes--only the twelfth to

finish.

A leisurely volume this twelfth, now lying on the table behind Mr.

Amber's chair. Written up during its subject's short life--dear and

most well-beloved to Mr. Amber every moment of it--the volume is as

naturally detailed as some of the earlier volumes are naturally

scrappy. Pettily detailed, perhaps. Mr. Amber starts with the precise

hour and moment--6:15-1/2 A.M.--of the birth of the Hon. Rollo Percival

Redpath Letham; notes his colouring--fair; his weight at successive

infantile months--lusty beyond the average, it would appear; date of

his first articulate speech; date of first stumbling run across the

nursery floor--and suchlike small beer. His father's death is

chronicled ("cf. vol. XI, pp. 196 _et seq._") and he is shown to be yet

in his third year when he becomes twelfth Baron Burdon.... Date of

measles.... Date of whooping cough.... First riding lesson....

Preparatory school.... First holidays.... First shooting lesson....

Puts a charge of shot into a keeper. It is all very closely detailed.

It is detailed so closely that a gap towards the end is made

conspicuous: and this is precisely that gap occupied by the

"disappearance" of which Mr. Pemberton had spoken in the drawing-room

at Hillside. The chronicle, that is to say, is brought very fully up

to the May in which, as it shows, my lord suddenly went down to Burdon

Old Manor from London, his grandmother being at Mount Street, and

thence for a long holiday. It jumps to October and at once begins

again to be remarkably detailed, "Our Own Correspondent's" account of

the frontier engagement waiting on the table there to conclude it. But

of this May to October period, covering the June to August of which Mr.

Pemberton had spoken, Mr. Amber, like Mr. Pemberton, for the good

reason that he knew nothing of how my lord occupied it, has nothing to

say. Let it be said. My lord was in that June secretly married in

London: a matter closely germane to this history, and now to be

examined.

BOOK TWO

A BOOK OF THE SAME SIZE, ILLUSTRATING THE ELEMENT OF FOLLY

CHAPTER I

LOVE TRIMS WRECKERS' LAMPS

I

On a May morning, then, love in his heart, purpose in his eye,

gathering in his careless hand the meshes that he is going to tug,

shaking the unconsidered lives they bind--Rollo Percival Redpath

Letham, twelfth Baron Burdon, "Roly" to his gay young comrades of the

clubs and messes, was set down at Great Letham by the express from

London.

Great Letham marks the nearest approach of the railway to the

sequestered villages that touch their hats to the Burdon Old Manor

folk. It stands at the head of a country that rolls away on either

hand in down and valley. Roughly, Great Letham centres the high lands

that bound this prospect on its nearer side, and from its outskirts

there strikes away a great shoulder of down that thrusts like a massive

viaduct straight and far to join the further hills. From a distance

this natural viaduct admits to minds however stubbornly practical the

similitude of a giant's arm. Rugged and brown and scarred it lies, not

green in greenest summer; and the humped shoulder whence it springs,

and the great mounds in which it swells along its path, present it as a

mighty limb out-thrust to hold away the hills in which its fist is

buried. Plowman's Ridge, they call it; and afoot upon it, it is kinder

of aspect. Aloof, aloft, alone, the wayfarer stands here, and breathes

or breasts the ceaseless wind that saunters or like a live thing

thunders down its track; and has on either hand a spreading valley,

whence curls the smoke of scattered hamlets, uprise the spires, come

the faint sounds of creature life and gleam the fields, as spread upon

a palette, coloured in obedience to this and that design of husbandry.

The railway skirts the eastward vale; along the tranquil westward slope

the Burdon hamlets sleep. Viewed from the Ridge, they are ridiculously

alike; ridiculously equidistant one from the next; ridiculously

tethered, as it were, along the foot of the Ridge--like boats along a

shore; ridiculously small to have separate names, but named in their

order outwards from Great Letham: Market Roding and Abbess Roding and

Nunford--linked by those names with the monastic ruins at Upabbot in

the eastward vale; Shepwell and Burdon and Little Letham. They are

tethered to the Ridge, and the Ridge is the most direct communication

between them. Visitors from village to village, or from Great Letham

to any, climb the slope and use the Ridge, rather than plod the winding

roads that, as twelfth Baron Burdon has often declared, "take you about

two miles from where you want to get before they let you loose to go

there."

He struck out along the Ridge now.

Burdon village was his destination; and as he pressed his way towards

it, putting up his face to snuff the familiar wind, speeding ahead his

thoughts to what he came to seek, twelfth Baron Burdon showed himself a

very personable young man. His tawny hair he wore closely cropped

about his strong young head; beneath a straight nose he grew a little

clump of fair moustache shaved bluntly away at the corners of a firm

mouth. At a bold right-angle his jaw came cleanly from his throat; and

his chin was thick and round, matching his open grey eyes to advertise

purpose and command. A Burdon of Burdons Mr. Pemberton had named him.

A high-spirited young man, vigorous, alert; very boyish in mind, very

dominant of character. A Burdon of Burdons. Through a long line the

bone of whose quality was their "I hold!" twelfth Baron Burdon

inherited a spirit that, when crossed, was quick to be unsheathed as

from their scabbards the eager swords of remote ancestors were

quick,--dangerous as they. "Enormously high-spirited, difficult to

handle," Mr. Pemberton had told new Lady Burdon. It was handling he

could not brook. The lightest feel of the curb threw up his head as

the fine-tempered colt's. Brow and lips would assume signs that spoke,

even to one unacquainted with him, the imperious resolve of mastery.

He was in pursuit of mastery now.

II

As he came abreast of Burdon he edged down the Ridge, making towards a

little copse that ran up from a garden behind the last cottage in the

village street, the nearest to Little Letham. In the roadway this

cottage displayed, suspended from its porch, the notice, painted in

white letters on a black board:

_POST OFFIC_

(The painter had misjudged the space at his disposal but had added the

missing E on the back of the board, "Case," as he explained, "unnybody

be that dense as to turn her round to see what her do mean.")

The cottage served in those days for the reception and distribution of

all the letters of the westward vale, a community little bothered with

correspondence; and "Post Offic" was conducted by a slight little woman

whom some called Postmum, some Miss Oxford. She was the daughter of a

former vicar of Little Letham; to twelfth Baron Burdon she was Audrey's

sister.

Deep in the trees, as he approached the copse, the sharp white of a

skirt caught his eager eye. Taking a grassy path, he went noiselessly

down and presently was separated from his Audrey by the dense thorn

that hedged the tiny glade in which he found her. A basket of young

fern roots was beside her and she was stooped, her back towards him,

exploring in the undergrowth.

He thought to steal up to her, and tried. The dense thorn locked him,

and she heard him and turned swiftly towards him.

She was flushed with her stooping. Now a deeper flush rose beneath her

colour, sinking it in a warmer glow that stained her exquisitely from

throat to brow. The dark violet's shade was in her eyes; when her

colour abated, the pale rose's delicacy might have been shamed against

the fairness of her skin. She wore no hat; her soft brown locks

unruled the ribbon at her neck, and the breeze stirred her hair in

little waves about her temples. Her arms were bare where she had

thrust her sleeves beneath her elbows. She stood poised, as one might

say, upon the feet of surprise; and her lips were slightly parted, her

gentle bosom seeming to hold her breath as though she feared the

smallest sigh would waft away the sudden gladness that had caught it.

She just whispered, "Roly!"

"I'm caught in this da--infernal bush," Roly cried, struggling.

"I wasn't to expect you for a week, you wrote."

He began to writhe and wrench. "You needn't. I shall stay here

forever, I believe."

She gave the merriest laugh: "You're simply fixed!"

"Wait till I get at you!" He tried and was more firmly held. "I say,

what the _dickens_ has happened to me?"

She put her hands together, enjoying his plight as a child that bends

forward at a play. "You'll never get through there, Roly. You'll have

to go back."

He wrenched and struggled: "Go back! There's a great spike or

something sticking into me!"

His struggles broke a network of branches at his waist. A thorny bough

sprang loose and whipped beneath his chin, forcing up his head.

"Good Lord! Look here, Audrey, I shall cut my throat and bleed to

death; or this dashed spike will come slick through my back in a minute

and impale me!"

"Roly! If you knew how funny you look!"

Her tone, the way in which (as it presented itself to him) she

"squirmed" with childlike glee, caused him to laugh the jolliest laugh.

No quality of hers attracted him as this fresh and innocent and

childlike happiness that was her first characteristic; in none he found

so great delight as in the fount of innocence through whose fresh

stream came all her thoughts and words like young things at play.

He laughed the jolliest laugh: "Well, I've not come all the way from

town just to look funny. I tell you, it's serious. I've never

imagined such a fix. I'm dashed if I can move a finger now. Audrey,

if you've got a woman's heart that feels, you'll help me out. This

infernal thing under my chin--just move that and I'll show you how we

fight in the dear old regiment--_Damn!_"

"Oh, it has cut you!" she cried, all concern as a moment before she had

been all glee.

A step brought her face within a hand of his. She found place for her

fingers between the thorns of the bramble beneath his chin. She drew

the branch downwards, and the action caused her to bend towards him

until their brows and eyes and lips were level. She looked directly

into his eyes and he directly into hers; and each read there those dear

and ardent mysteries that love far better images than ever love can

voice.

He no more than breathed, "Kiss me, Audrey."

She waited for the smallest part of a moment. Entranced, enthralled,

they only heard a lark that was a speck above them send down a tiny

melody, and far upon the down a sheep-bell's distant note. Love's

thralldom and Love's music to his thrall. The oldest play that mortals

play; and never know befooled were often meeter than enthralled, nor

better an ass to bray than some hymn seem to rise in benison. She

kissed him tenderly upon the lips; gave the smallest sigh and breathed,

"Dear Roly!"

Comic were the word for such a thing.

III

Comic, and comic that which followed when he, released, was with her in

the glade and, seated by her, took her hands and bent her to his

purpose.

"Now, listen to me, Audrey. Put both your hands in mine."

She responded as he bade her, performing surely the most beautiful

action in the world as she gave her hands to his. All human life has

no act more beautiful than the weaker hand confided to the stronger,

nor any nearer Godhood than when strong hand takes the weak.

He enclosed her hands within his own. "Listen to me, Audrey," he

repeated; and, as her hands had been her spirit, he possessed and drew

her spirit on.

Yet comic is the word: for here--he planning, she agreeing--they made

the plans they thought should make all bliss, all happiness their own;

here, in fact, trimmed wreckers' lamps to shipwreck happy lives. He

had determined upon secret marriage with her, and had determined it as

the perfect solution of difficulties whose consideration was in some

degree creditable to him. For as he told himself, and told his Audrey

now, nothing prevented him from openly declaring his intention of

contracting a marriage that would cause a breach between himself and

his grandmother; nothing but the impossibility of enduring such a

breach; that was unthinkable.

"Passionately devoted to his grandmother," Mr. Pemberton had told; "and

she, for her part, making all the world of him." It was precisely this

uncommon devotion between him and his dear "Gran" that drove him into

torment of perplexity when first his heart informed him life without

Audrey was insupportable. With utmost content he had surrendered

himself into the object of Gran's adoring pride and, as such, into her

control of her dear possession. As he grew older, that control had

sometimes come to irk a little. "He sometimes chafed--chafed, if you

follow me," Mr. Pemberton had said. But the quality of that chafing

required better understanding than even Mr. Pemberton could give it.

It was not at conflict of will between himself and Gran that Roly

chafed; he knew his own determined character well enough to know that

if he liked he could override her will as he overrode that of others

who thought to oppose him. Where he chafed was where his devotion to

her pricked him. He could not bear the thought of giving her distress;

and he would sometimes chafe when--at this, at that, at some impulse or

boyish fling of his--he thought her distress unreasonable; unreasonable

because it shackled him unfairly; because either he would submit to it,

or, taking his way, would suffer greatly, be robbed of his pleasure, at

thought of having caused it.

But always, when the thing was over, be glad he had given way to her or

most desperately grieved he had pained her. He knew that he was

everything to her; how hurt her then?

With such the measure of his love for her, such the devotion between

them, and such that devotion's price, what a situation was presented

for his perplexity when Audrey came to occupy his heart! She had been

his playmate in his childhood at Burdon Old Manor, she at the Vicarage.

When her father died, Gran had expressed her fondness for his daughters

by using her influence to procure the establishment of a post-office at

Burdon and persuading the elder sister to conduct it, thus keeping

them, as she had said, "near us." That was one thing; a head of the

house of Burdon's marriage into so humble a degree--and that her

Roly--he knew to be unthinkably another. She had great plans for great

alliance for him--at some future date. At some future date! At her

great age and at his extreme youth she could scarcely think of him as

man--always as boy. It was one of the things that sometimes chafed

him. But when, as had happened, the subject of marriage came up

between them, and he would laugh at her immense ideas of his value, she

would always end so pathetically: "But, Roly, how shall I bear any one

to come between us?"

Rehearsing it all, "How--how in God's name?" he had desperately cried

to himself, "can I tell her of Audrey?" She whom he could never bear

to distress--how give her this vital hurt? She from whom--for the

suffering it would cause her--he could never endure to be parted, how

deliberately put her away? He would tell her his intention; how endure

what she would say, or not say? He would carry out his purpose and she

would leave him and must shortly die; and how endure her death in such

circumstances? Or, haply, he would prevail on her to stay with him;

and she, supplanted, jealous of Audrey and gentle Audrey fearing her.

And how endure that?

No--to create such a breach insupportable, and insupportable life

without Audrey. What then?

It came to him as complete solution, and as complete solution he

pressed it now on Audrey, that he would marry Audrey first, then after

a little while tell. The more he examined it, the more obvious, the

less impossible of failure it seemed. "Gran, dear," he imagined

himself saying, taking his opportunity in one of those frequent moments

when, out driving with her or sitting alone with her in the evening,

she loved just to sit silent, resting her hand on his,--"Gran, dear,

I've something to tell you. I've done something and done it without

telling you, so as to have you go on living with me like we've always

lived together. Gran, I'm married--Audrey, Audrey Oxford; you

remember, dear?"

Imagining it, he could imagine her arms about him. "Gran, I'm

married"--easy and kind. "Gran, I'm going to marry, going to marry

Audrey Oxford"--cruel, impossible!

The solution removed also an obstacle to their mating on Audrey's

side--her sister. Their courtship had been carried on against her

sister's disapproval. Maggie was twenty years older than Audrey, more

mother to her than sister, and sharp-tongued in the matter of Roly's

frequent visits, the more surely to avert the disaster in which she

believed they must end.

"In time--it's only a question of time," she had once said to Audrey,

"he will forget you, turn to his own position and responsibilities in

life--leave you broken-hearted. How else can it end?"

And Audrey in tears: "What if I tell you he has asked me to marry him?"

"He has asked you that?"

"Maggie, he has."

"Has he told Lady Burdon?"

"Not yet, because--"

"Ah!"

And Audrey: "Oh, how can you say you love me?"

And Maggie: "Audrey! Audrey!"

And Audrey: "Maggie, I didn't mean that,"

And Maggie, steeling her heart: "But you think it: the first result of

him. You are girl and boy; you don't understand. Why, I, who would

die if you were to die, would rather see you dead than betrothed to

him. If it ended in marriage, it would end in misery."

And later she had said to him: "If you break Audrey's heart, I will

never forgive you. That's a poor threat. I would find a way perhaps--"

So there was Maggie stood in the way; and the solution found a way

round Maggie. And there was lastly all the clatter of his friends, all

the active disapproval of his elders; and the solution found an easy

way around that. He could not hurt Gran; he could not conciliate

Maggie; he could not face himself gossiped of, implored, advised,

reproved; and the solution offered an easy way around it all. Easily

winning Audrey to it,--her hands in his, his spirit possessing hers--he

came to details. He had examined and arranged everything. He had made

inquiries as to Registry Office marriages. They were both of age.

There was a residence formality: well, she was coming on a visit to a

girl friend in Kensington; he would take a room in a hotel in the

district. They would meet at the Registry "one fine day." Long leave

from his regiment was due. They would go on the continent--"all over

the place, the most gorgeous time"--and afterwards--easy as all the

rest was easy--Gran should be told.

He ended: "Audrey--married!"

And she: "Roly! ... Oh, Roly!"

Comic were the word for such a thing.

IV

Comic the word; but if, instead, you choose to judge them and to

consider preposterous his arguments of the case between his Gran and

his Audrey and preposterous his solution of it, beg you remember that

life is going to be an impossible affair for us, a thing to drive us

mad, if we are going to judge it by the standard of the correct and

noble characters that you and I possess. By some means or another we

must stoop down to the level of our neighbours and try to judge from

there. Dowered with all the virtues, as you and I are, it is the

easiest thing in the world to be impatient with another's folly, to

despise him for it, to indicate how little moral courage will rid him

of its effects; nay, to go further, and to declare it inconceivable

that such blunders and follies and misbehaviours, as for example those

upon which Roly and his Audrey were now embarked, can really have been

committed. But that is a stage too far. We must not run our excusable

intolerance of folly to the length of calling impossible even the most

absurd actions, even the most incredible weakness of character. The

whole history of mankind results precisely from these absurdities and

these incredibilities. On the one hand, we should still and should all

be in Eden if it were not so; on the other, there is the distinctly

moving thought that you and I, faultless, are dependent for our

entertainment on exactly these impossibilities of character in others:

but for them we should never enjoy the delicious thrill of being

shocked, never (the thing is unthinkable) be able to thank God we are

not as others are.

No, we must accept these impossible follies on the part of our

neighbours: but to understand them--nay, if we are too utterly high and

they too utterly low for that, then merely to pay the poor devils for

the entertainment they give us--let us try to see as they see, feel as

they feel, become naked as they are naked to the bitter chill of

cowardice, of temptation, of God knows what indeed that strikes them to

the bone.

Let us try, and coming to these two, let it for Audrey at least be

excused that she was the gentlest thing and all unschooled in any

heavier book of life than the airy pamphlet that begins "I love;" with

"I love" continues; with "I love" ends; and never asks, much less

supplies, what "I love" means, or what demands, or whither leads, or

how is paid.

CHAPTER II

LOVE LEADS AN EXPEDITION INTO THE UNFORESEEN

I

He married her--and wearied of her. Within two months of when he

called her wife--and pressed her to him and kissed her for the fondness

of that name, and chaffed her with "Wife" in place of Audrey at every

lightest word--within two months of that tremendous day he was

discovering himself checked and irritated by the vexations, the

hindrances, the deceptions imposed by secret marriage upon his former

free and buoyant way of life. Within three he was openly irked, not

hiding from her that his temper was crossed when, stronger and more

frequently, incidents arose to cross it. Within four months--and still

their secret undeclared--he was often neglecting her, often silent in

her presence for long periods; brooding; frowning at her where she sat

or where she walked beside him; leaving her in a storm; returning to

her in remorse; assuring himself he did not love her less, nay, rather

loved her more--_But_...! Every way he turned and everything she did

and all the things she did not do, brought him and bruised him against

the bars of which that _But_ was made.

All this most wretched and most pitiful, most excusable and most

inexcusable business may best be examined in the incidents that stood

out to mark its progress. Theirs was the oldest and most frequent of

human errors. They had jumped into the delights of the foreseen, and

behold! they found themselves in the swamp, in the jungle, in the

desert, in the whirlpool of the unforeseen.

II

Audrey wrote and told Sister Maggie--a letter pledging her to secrecy,

posted on the very moment of departure for the Continent ("at our

wedding breakfast at the Charing Cross hotel, darling; and the train

just going") and breathing ecstasy of happiness, and breathing love all

atremble in its prayer for forgiveness. It informed Maggie that they

were to be Mr. and Mrs. Redpath until everybody was told; and "O,

darling Maggie, I shall not sleep until I get your letter--_Poste

restante_, Paris, dear--telling me you forgive me and how glad you are."

Forgiveness was not to be discovered in the reply by the weeping eyes

that read it. "You have made a most terrible mistake," Maggie wrote.

"You say that you are happy, but you will find you can only be

miserable while you are living in deception."

The wounding sentences were written in a firm, clear penmanship that in

itself was cold and bitter reprimand. As they appeared, so Audrey read

them. She did not know that they were written while the hand that made

them could be steadied from its trembling desire to send a message only

of devotion, only of prayer for Audrey's happiness, only of blessing.

The letter brought to Audrey's eyes the tears that Maggie hoped to

bring but ached to bring--forcing herself to be cruel in order to be

kind; also it brought belief that Maggie was and wished to be

estranged. It was never answered. Wisely intended, unwisely executed,

misread, it added to the record of human perversity another of those

immensely pitiful blunders that solely and alone are the cause of human

unhappiness. When Heaven holds its reassembly, Heaven, as we seek out

our loved, will surely ring with broken, loving greetings of: "I did

not know! I did not understand!" No more will need be said. All

tragedy, all sorrow is in those words; all tragedy, all sorrow removed

by them.

Roly also had his letter. "If you cause her one single moment's

unhappiness--" and other wild words. He did not show it to Audrey.

Cause his darling unhappiness! He kissed away the tears her own letter

had brought and laughingly cheered her with an amusing account of an

incident in the hotel lobby. "We'll have to get out of this place,

Audrey. There's a man staying here and his wife that I know well.

Great pals of Gran's. I near as a toucher ran bang into them."

It was the first glimpse of the Unforeseen.

III

The first glimpse of the Unforeseen! At the moment neither recognised

it for such. At the moment it was merely "A dickens of a squeak. I

say, we'll have to look out for that kind of thing, old girl." Later,

and that before very long, incidents of the kind began to be realised

as the Unforeseen indeed. "That kind of thing" became, or seemed to

become, extraordinarily and exasperatingly frequent. What had promised

to be the fun of looking out for it became the strain of avoiding it.

There came a day--in Vienna, an original item of their programme but

reached much earlier than intended owing to "That kind of thing's"

persistence--there came a day when signs of the strain were suddenly

evidenced, when, like a disturbed snake, unsuspected and sharply

alarming, the Unforeseen upstarted and hissed at them. Audrey had

struck up a pleasant hotel acquaintance, the matter of an hour's chat,

but related rather enthusiastically to Roly. At dinner that night she

pointed out her friend. "Right at the far end--look! By that statue

sort of thing. In pink, with that tall man; d'you see, dear?"

He saw; and with concern she saw him set down the glass he was raising

to his lips and saw his face darken. He said: "Damnation! It's Lady

Ashington. It's maddening, this kind of thing. By God, it is. I'm

going. She'll spot me in a minute. I'm going."

His violent words hurt her and frightened her. He got to his feet and

she made to rise also. That worsened the incident. "Stop where you

are," he said angrily. "Both of us getting up--making people look! I

can slip out behind here. Damn this business!"

When she followed him to their room, she found his temper no better

that he had gone without his dinner. He had made arrangements, he told

her, for them to leave early in the morning, and he named their

destination. She tried to pretend not to notice his mood; but her

voice trembled a little as she said, "I've never heard of the place,

dear."

He grunted, a little ashamed of himself: "I don't suppose anybody has.

I hope not. We must get off the beaten track. Badgered about like

this from pillar to post. It's getting on my nerves."

She faltered, "I'm so sorry, Roly."

Her tone pricked him. But these men hate above all things to feel in

the wrong when they are in the wrong. The effect of her humility was

to make him explain: "I don't know what possessed you, Audrey, 'pon my

soul I don't, to go palling up with that woman."

Again she blundered. His reproach was so absurd that she laughed quite

naturally at it: "O Roly! how ridiculous! How was I to know you knew

her?"

He turned on her, alarming her utterly. "You ought to have known!"

Foolish, exasperating tears in her eyes: "How could I? How could I?"

"I've told you--I've warned you; that's what I mean. I've told you

that every dashed soul I ever knew seems to be all over the Continent.

I've warned you to be careful. Asked you not to get in with people.

You absolutely don't care, seems to me. Perhaps you think it funny

dodging about like this--perhaps you enjoy it. Well, I don't. That's

enough. Let's drop the subject."

IV

So and in this wise the miserable business jolted towards its climax;

deeper blunders at every step and every blunder additional to the load

that stumbled them into the next. Here was a young man that had taken

to himself pleasures, and lo! they were chains, rattling whensoever he

moved most grimly to remind him that now limits were imposed upon his

movements; that he who, by virtue of his rank, of the blood in his

veins, of his own high, careless, fearless air, that he who by virtue

of these was wont to look every man in the face more boldly than the

most of us, must now hide, dodge, shift, dissemble, or betray the

secret that, as to his torment he found, every day and every covering

deception made more impossible to discover to the world.

Of all mankind's infirmities nothing than deception so quickly, so

deeply and so surely turns the quality of his behaviour; nothing so

cruelly tears, so acidly pierces his nerves; nothing so saps his

resolution, destroys his moral fibre. Honesty is sword and armour,

bread and wine; deception a voracious canker in the vitals, a clutch

out of hell dragging through fog of fear, through slough of sin, into

mire unspeakable. He was in its torments, he was writhing from them

into deeper blunders; he began to shudder at the thought of proclaiming

his marriage--yet.

She saw his plight and, all unschooled in life, she contributed to the

disaster. Here was the gentlest creature, adoring and mated with an

impetuous mate that now was as a free beast trapped, goaded by the

sudden bars that caged him on every side, wildly seeking an outlet,

panicked at finding none. She searched her miserable pamphlet of "I

love," stained now with tears. It had nothing to give her. She read

into it that in marrying her Roly she thought to have brought him

nectar, and lo! it was a cup of poison she had given him, tormenting

him utterly. She blamed herself. Through wakeful nights she watched

him where he lay beside her--troubled often now in his sleep--and

sought and sought, fumbling her pamphlet, to know what amends she could

make him; and chid herself she was a burden to him; and would sit up in

the darkness and wring her poor young hands in her distracted grief.

He noted the results that these distresses of her mind introduced to

her appearance and her behaviour. They did not aid the difficulties

with which he found himself beset. This was the beginning of the

period of neglect of her; of silence in her presence for long periods;

of brooding; of frowning at her where she sat or when she walked beside

him; of leaving her in a storm, returning in remorse; of assuring

himself he did not love her less, nay, rather loved her more--_But!_

V

At the end of August came their return to England, and immediately his

full realisation of the ghastly delusion of the idea that it were easy

to tell Gran--easy and kind--when the thing was done. Monstrous

delusion, ghastly folly! Why, the very fates were arrayed against it.

He returned to find Gran ailing, in bed. He went to the Mount Street

house, bracing his warped resolution to the pitch of telling her, and

it was to her bedroom he must go, and found her weak and stretching out

her arms to him and overjoyed--O God! so overjoyed!--to have her Roly

back. How tell her? Agony enough that she had no reproach for his

neglect of her through the summer, nor any that he was come now with

the news that he had run his leave to the last day and must at once

rejoin the regiment at Canterbury. Agony enough that she nothing

reproached, nothing questioned; unthinkable the agony of watching her

while he said, "Gran--Gran, dear, I'm married. Audrey, Audrey Oxford,

you know," and of hearing her poor lips falter, "Married? Married,

Roly? Audrey Oxford? Married, Roly?"

Unthinkable! Impossible!

But it was another blunder committed, another step deeper into the

coils, and he knew it for that when he left her, and ranged it with the

similar torments that possessed him: the mad initial folly; the blunder

of not proclaiming the marriage immediately he was married; the blunder

of each hour delayed during the weeks on the Continent.

Now he was in the very jungle of the Unforeseen. Each step, every day,

lost him deeper in its fastnesses; and like one so lost indeed, its

dangers--encountered or suspected on every hand--preyed upon his mind,

robbed his remaining courage, lost him his moral bearings that remained

unwarped. His regimental duties kept him at Canterbury. He could not

have Audrey there. He took a tiny furnished flat in the neighbourhood

of Knightsbridge and there installed her, and there ran up to see her

as often as might be. And the inevitable began. The inevitable--the

chaff of his companions as to why he was forever "dodging up to town";

the meetings with his friends and their "Roly, where the devil do you

get to these days?" the discovery that not only his men friends but his

larger circle of acquaintances--Gran's friends--were beginning to

gossip of his mysterious habits. The former put a man's interpretation

on his conduct, baited him that they would track him down "to see what

she was like." That thrice infuriated him: on Audrey's account; on the

fear that they might do it and disclosure be forced, to relieve her

from the horrible thing; and on the fact that what was implied was

detestable to his nature. The larger circle of his friends were not

more charitable, if more discreet. Gran, who was better again and had

gone for her health to Burdon Old Manor, sent letters that failed to

hide concern telling him of this, that and the other friend who had

written saying he denied himself to everybody, was frequently in town,

but never available and never to be found. Gran "hoped nothing was

wrong, dear;" but erased her suspicion with her pen, but not so well

that he could not read the words and picture the troubled thoughts that

wrote them.

Ah! this was that grisly Unforeseen in shape new and most monstrous.

How meet it? How meet it? Just as he had shrunk from announcing his

intention of marriage because of the clatter of tongues and the

opposition that it would loose upon him, so now, but a thousand,

thousand times more, he shrank from the clatter that divulgement of his

secret would cause; from the resentment of his world at its befoolment

by him (as they would feel it); from the sneers and laughter at his

turpitude; from the apologies with which he must go round on his knees

to those he had deceived; from the interminable explanations he must

make. The Unforeseen in shape most monstrous! It rushed him as a host

of savage beasts that had snarled, that had threatened, that had come

at him singly and torn him but been whipped, but that now was on him in

the pack. How meet it? How meet it? God! What a lightsome,

harmless, innocent, mad, wanton, reckless thing he had done, and what a

turmoil he had loosed!

Bitter days, these, in the Knightsbridge flat. That pamphlet of "I

love" all connoted now, written in tears, with what "I love" demands,

where leads and must be paid.

CHAPTER III

A LOVERS' LITANY

I

Bitter days--but suddenly breaking to dawn. There came to him, on the

rack of this torment, a thought that tortured him anew, yet made for

healing. Audrey? Even if, as in his extremity he debated, he dared

all and defied all--snatched himself out of this hell by publishing his

position and crying to all concerned, "Now do and say your

worst!"--even if he so made an end of it, to what would he bring her?

How would she be received, suddenly proclaimed his wife when this ugly

crop of suspicion and gossip was at its height? He knew, or through

his distraught imagination he believed he knew; and he writhed to

picture her--his gentle, unversed Audrey--thus introduced to the

suspicious, uncharitable, malicious atmosphere that well he was aware

his world could breathe. "Comes from a post-office somewhere, or a

shop was it? Married at such and such a date--_so he says!_"

Thus the gate was slammed anew upon his resolution and locked and

double-locked: the way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, the gossip

by some means made to die, before he declared her. And with that there

was unlocked and opened wide the gate that had barred up his love.

Imagining the world's treatment of her, he realised his own.

It was in the tumult of these discoveries that he presented himself at

the Knightsbridge flat and greeted his Audrey with a fondness that made

her cry a little for happiness; she frequently cried in these days, not

often for happiness. His fondness continued at that dear level through

the evening. It emboldened her to urge again the step that she

believed the best of all the many plans she ceaselessly revolved for

curing the trouble she told herself she had brought upon him. She

urged him to tell Gran. "Do tell her, dear. It will end all your

worry. You're so worried, Roly. I see it--oh, how I see it! And I

only add to it because I'm not--because I don't--because I vex you in

so many ways. I know I do. You used to be so happy. You will be

again directly this is all over. Do tell her, Roly! Roly, _do!_"

She had been seated on the floor, her head resting against him where he

sat in a great armchair. Now, in this appeal of hers, she was turned

about and on her knees, her hands enfondling his, her face lifted

towards him.

He made a little choking sound, all his love for her surging; all his

treatment of her wounding him; the thought of what he would bring her

to if he took the course she urged filling him with remorse and with

pity for her. He said in a strangled voice: "I can't; I can't," and

stooping, he raised her to him so that they lay together in the big

chair, their faces close, his arms about her....

For a little space, except that she was crying softly, they were

silent--clasped thus, most dear to one another; and then proclaimed

that dearness in scraps of murmured sentences, the gaps filled up by

what their tones and their clasped arms instructed them....

Just murmurs, and dusky evening in the room--light, faint as their

tones were faint, and in the shadows (how else seemed the air they

breathed at every breath to thrill them?) spirits of true lovers that

were winged down as, let us believe, lovers' spirits may when mortals

love.

Just murmurs.

He said: "Audrey, Audrey, I've been so cruel--angry--thoughtless."

And she: "No ... no."

And she again: "Go to her, then, Roly. Don't tell, if you think

not.... Just be with her for a little.... You'll be happy then....

Leave me alone a little, dear.... Not even write."

And he: "Audrey! ... Audrey!"

Her voice: "I shall be happy ... if only you are happy..."

And his: "I have been mad ... mad to treat you so.... Forgive....

Forgive."

Her voice--and close, close, all those lovers' spirits to hear this

lovers' litany: "When you are happy ... I am happy."

And his--and all these murmurs chorused from lover's wraith to lover's

wraith, as watchers handing flame from hand to hand to instruct heaven

love still is here: "Audrey! ... Audrey!"

And she: "My dear ... my dear!"

II

Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for

true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or

thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were

purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in

reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a

miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit.

The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip

somehow be made to die before he could declare her.

Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way.

General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was

Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran

was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find

out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him

suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now

returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the

government of India had been saving up for a long time against three

Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could

invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break

her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had

come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up

to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back

to you his father's son again."

They walked into this last and supreme blunder as blindly as they had

gone into the first. Roly presented it as the opportunity more

wonderful than any that he could have invented to give this gossiping

the slip. When he returned ("loaded with medals, old girl," as, aflame

with excitement, he told her) it would all be forgotten; open arms for

him and open arms for her.

Audrey's contribution to the folly was as characteristic. The news

struck her like a blow; but instantly with the shock came its anodyne.

He planned for her; every word of his rushing, thoughtless words was

drafted to scale of "Because I love you so;" though they had been

actual knives she would gladly have clasped such to her heart.

Credit him that the night before the day on which he sailed he had a

sudden realisation of his madness. Credit him, at least, that now for

the first time in their misguided chapter, he saw a blunder before he

was irrevocably in it, and seeing it, tried to halt. He realised. He

told her it was impossible that he should leave her thus. He must

leave her in her right place. He must leave her with Gran. Gran was

in town to bid him good-by. He must--he would tell her that very night

of their marriage: in the morning take Audrey to her.

But at that she broke down utterly--betraying for the first time the

flood and tempest of her agony at losing him and, while he strove to

soothe her, imploring him not to put upon her this last trial of her

strength. "I couldn't bear it, Roly!" she sobbed. "Roly, I couldn't

bear it!" Overwrought by the cumulative effects of the past months,

culminating in the sleepless agony of this last week and now in the

unendurable torture of good-by, she became hysterical at his proposal;

sobbed as if her reason were gone, shaking with dreadful spasms of

emotion that terrified him lest she would be unable to retake her

breath. His arms about her, and his loving pleadings, his earnest

promises to withdraw what he had said, joined with the sheer weariness

of her convulsive distress at last to relieve her. She passed into a

still, exhausted state and thence--utterly alarming him by her deathly

pallor and by the faintness of her voice--into imploring him in

whispers into the last, worst folly of all their pitiable blunders.

She could not be left, she implored him, with Gran--left alone with

her, left in such circumstances. "No, no! Roly, no! Together, Roly;

not alone, not alone!" And then she began to assure him of her

happiness if she might just wait here. "You can always think of me and

imagine me here: just waiting for you, and thinking of you and praying

for you; and not lonely, not unhappy. I _promise_ not lonely; I

promise, _promise_ not unhappy! You can't think of me like that if you

leave me with Lady Burdon. You don't know _what_ may happen to me; how

she may feel towards me or what I might imagine she felt and what I

might not do. I _could_ not--I _could_ not!"

Try to understand him that he suffered himself to be convinced against

himself. So placed; so implored; so loved and so loving; so shackled

by the train of blunders he had committed, a hundred times more wise,

more strong a man than twelfth Baron Burdon would have given way as he

gave way. This was their farewell, and not to rob its fleeting hours

more he agreed, and turned with her to rehearse the plans for her

comfort in his absence. The flat was taken for six months ahead.

"Back in four! Now I bet you any money I'm back in four!" There was

money banked for her. Finally he wrote and gave her two letters, one

addressed to a Mr. Pemberton--"One of the best, old Pemberton"--the

other to Gran. He began to say, "If anything happens to me," but went

on: "If ever you get--you know--down on your luck--that kind of

thing--or feel you'd like to make it known about us before I come back,

just send those letters--just as they are; you needn't write or take

them yourself. They explain everything, they ... oh, don't cry....

Audrey ... Audrey!"

Within a few hours he was gone. Within four months they were building

a cairn of stones above him to keep the jackals from his body.

CHAPTER IV

WHAT THE TOOO-FIRTY WINNER BROUGHT MRS. ERPS

I

Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein

she lived from mail day to mail day--as one not strong that has a weary

mile to cover and walks from seat to seat--and come to her there.

She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches

and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air

without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the

daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of

those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She

had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday

to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe)

each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride,

whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air

was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards

the day that brought the letters, round which she lived.

On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through

Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the

Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a

group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the

overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead

support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried

her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these

rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and--employed

with one such--was wondering if her car would restart before it was

reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink

contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly

long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won.

A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and

to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to

come to rest.

PEER

KILLED IN

FRONTIER

FIGHTING

Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually

strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the

car really rocking--right up so she could not see the street, right

down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and

enormous din that threatened to split her brain?

Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If

this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did

not cease, this immense din silence....

A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it,

y'know."

She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A

figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a

tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in

her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy

circling....

It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there

was not a movement.

II

London stands stock still in the middle of a windy, crowded pavement to

open its evening paper and to peer at the stop-press space for only one

particular purpose. While she thus stood and peered (and suddenly knew

this icy silence was the gathering of an immense tide that was

coming--coming) a woman who wore an apron over a capitally developed

figure, and a rakish cloth cap over a headful of curl papers, opened

the door of the house immediately beside her (appearing with the air of

one shot at immense velocity out of a trap) and called "I! Piper!"

She then exclaimed nearly as loudly "Ennoyin'!" and then saw Audrey.

This lady's name was Mrs. Erps, and she knew perfectly well, and

rejoiced to observe an example of, the peculiarity in regard to

London's evening paper that has been noted above. Mrs. Erps rolled her

solid hands in her apron and came down ingratiatingly. A model of

correctness. "Excoose me, my dear," she began, "Excoose me, wot 'orse

won the tooo-firty? My old man--Ho, thenks, I'm sure--Ho, gryshus!"

Relating the incident later in the evening to a lady friend, and acting

it with considerable dramatic power: "'Ands me the piper she does,"

said Mrs. Erps, "as natural as I 'ands this apring to you and then

looks at me jus' as if I mightn't had been there, and then she says in

a whissiper 'Oh, dear!' she says. 'O Gawd!' and _dahn_ she goes

plump--dahn like that!" explained Mrs. Erps from the floor, very nearly

carrying her friend with her in the stress of dramatic illustration.

But Mrs. Erps was more than a great tragedy actress; she was also a

kindly soul and there is to be added to this quality the genial warmth

aroused in her by the fact that the tooo-firty winner was Lollipop,

that Lollipop had cantered home at what she called sevings, and that

her old man was seving times arf a dollar the richer for the

performance. "Carry 'er in there," said Mrs. Erps in a very loud voice

to a policeman in particular and to a considerable area of the street

in general. "Young man, that's my 'ouse, and Mrs. Elbert Erps my nime,

and dahn in front of it the pore young thing's fell jus' as she was

'anding me this very piper wot 'ad come aht to see the tooo-firty

winner. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'"

The policeman: "All right, mother. Now, then, you boys."

Mrs. Elbert Erps, going backwards up the steps, hands beneath the arms

of that poor stricken creature: "There's a cleeng, sweet bed in my

first front, well-haired and wool blenkits, that lets eight and six and

find yer own, and could ask ten, and there she'll rest, the poor pretty

thing, dropped on me very doorstep, as yer might say, and standin'

there with the piper same as you might. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er,

'excoose me--'"

Mrs. Erps shot open her front door with a backward plunge of her foot,

the policeman closed it with a backward kick of his foot; and to the

continued recital in great detail of how it all happened, their burden

was carried to the first front and laid upon the cleeng, sweet bed,

well-haired, wool blenkits, eight and six and find yer own.

They loosened her dress at her throat; beneath the constable's

direction made use of water and chafed her hands. "Marrit," said Mrs.

Erps, denoting the wedding ring. "Marrit, she is."

Presently Audrey opened her eyes.

"Why, _there_ you are!" cried Mrs. Erps in high delight. "There you

are, my pretty. Safe and sahnd as ever you was. There you are! You

recolleck me, don't you, my love? Wot you gave the piper to? 'Excoose

me,' I says to yer, 'excoose me,' I says--"

Audrey's eyes went meaninglessly from Mrs. Erps to the constable, her

eyelids fluttered above them and closed.

"_Stand_ aht of it!" said Mrs. Erps to the constable in a very sharp

whisper. "_Stand_ aht of it, frightenin' her. 'E won't 'urt you, my

pretty. 'E only carried of yer up. _Dahn_ you went, yer know, right

dahn. Where's your 'usbing, my pretty?"

Her lips just parted. She moaned "Oh, dear! O God!"

Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. _Dahn_

she went--"

The eyes opened again.

"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my

dear? Ain't you got a pa?"

She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..."

"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps.

"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she

wasn't."

"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility.

"Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me?

Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man

'll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so

don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now.

Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to

do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came.

'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me--'"

The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that."

Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling

you. Pop off!"

III

Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the

poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old

man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second

floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with

witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her

pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having

counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the

paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade

them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and

frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O God!"

that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and

utterly tired.

So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon

three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish

for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to

hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled

with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does."

A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened

her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there

with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She

questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and

why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two

requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite

alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram

for her.

She dictated the message and it was sent--to Maggie, and with Mrs.

Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead.

Audrey."

IV

Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the

devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the

longing--longing--longing of the past months for news, all the agony of

suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they

informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's

distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front

and saw that strangely white, strangely impassive face lying on the

pillow.

"My darling! Oh, my darling"--arms about the still form, tears raining

down.

No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie--dear Maggie."

"Why did you never write?"

"Dear Maggie..."

There was no more of explanation between them.

"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling.

Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?"

"Audrey! Audrey! Yes--yes. In both mine."

"I don't feel you."

She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now

with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to

breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she

were in conversation with him. No other sound.

After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a

doctor to see you."

No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left

the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor

came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very

young. How long has she been married?"

"In June--the first of June."

They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had

most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She

doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too

occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her

yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal--almost certainly fatal

if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think.

Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against

that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly

live through it in her present state. Otherwise--why, we'll soon be on

the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night."

This was in the passage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front

door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come,

doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" But what Mrs.

Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss

Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er--not

if I knows it, they don't."

Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the

doctor's words.

V

But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came.

It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had

heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering,

that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a

resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the

fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that

which lay in those words of hers.

She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever.

She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only

the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress.

The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body.

She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle

notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she

must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left

the house without being noticed--or thinking to escape or to give

notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the

street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she

directed the driver.

"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real

than any other figure about her during that numb and impassive period

when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to

go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted.

VI

Old butler Noble admitted her. Events had caused old butler Noble to

be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have

been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her

name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady

Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken

to the library.

This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the

latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old

butler Noble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field

friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to

report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is

seeing no one," Noble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field

friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it

was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger.

Noble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to

new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill

at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the

outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp

dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned

him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed.

It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey

without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the

first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the

impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the

strange appearance--white, not very steady, faltering in voice--that

she bore.

He took the news of her arrival to new Lady Burdon.

"Gave no name, do you say?"

"She said your ladyship would be glad to see her."

Lady Burdon hesitated a moment. She tingled with fresh hostility

against this man because she wondered whether he expected her to accept

that statement or to send him again for the name. She did not know and

hated him the more, and hated all the fancied resentment for which he

stood, because she did not know.

Her mind sought a way out. She said with a little laugh: "Oh, I think

I know. Very well."

She went to the library.

CHAPTER V

WHAT AUDREY BROUGHT LADY BURDON

I

It was very dim in the library. Above the centre of the room light

stood in soft points upon a high chandelier. A fire burnt low within

the shelter of the great hearth. The rest was shadow.

Lady Burdon came easily into the room, but in the doorway stopped; and

Audrey, who had made a forward movement, prepared words on her lips,

also stopped. There was something odd about this girl who stood there,

Lady Burdon thought, and her mind ran questing the cause of some

strange apprehension that somehow was communicated to it. There was

something wrong, Audrey thought; and she began to tremble. For a

briefest space, that was a world's space to Audrey's mind bewildered

and to Lady Burdon's mind suspicious, as they went hunting through it,

these two stood thus, and thus regarded one another.

It was told of this library at Burdon House--Mr. Amber's "Lives" record

it--that in the days when gentlemen wore swords against their thighs, a

duel was fought here, that the thing went in three fierce assaults,

each ended by a bloody thrust on this side or on that, and that between

the bouts the rivals panted, sick with fatigue and hurt.

Words for swords, and the first bout:--

Lady Burdon closed the door. She went a step towards Audrey and said,

"Yes?"

Audrey, with fumbling hands, swaying a little where she stood: "I

think--I came to see Lady Burdon."

Odd her look, and odd her tone, and strange the trembling that visibly

possessed her. Lady Burdon was about to explain. Her mind came back

from its questing like one that cries alarm by night through silent

streets. "Beware!" it cried to her. "Beware!" and for her explanation

she substituted:

"I am Lady Burdon."

The first thrust.

Audrey put a hand against a chair that stood beside her. The trembling

that had taken her when, expecting to see Roly's Gran, this stranger

had appeared, began to shake her terribly in all her frame. This Lady

Burdon? For the first time since her will had got her from her bed and

brought her here, she was informed how weak she was. A dreadful

physical sickness came over her and all the room became unsteady.

Respite enough, and the second bout:--

Lady Burdon demanded: "Who are you, please?"

No reply, and that augmented her suspicion, and she came on again: "Who

are you, please?"

Wave upon wave that dreadful sickness swept over Audrey and set her

brain aswim. Bewildered thoughts, like frantic arms of one that

drowns, tossed up upon the flood, and like such arms that gesticulate

and vanish, spun there a dizzy moment and spun away: This Lady Burdon?

... then this not Roly's house ... then what? ... then where? This

Lady Burdon? ... then all her life with Roly was dream ... had never

been ... none of her life had ever been ... what had been then?

A third time: "Who are you, please? Why do you not answer me?"

She made an effort. She said very pitiably: "Oh, how--oh, how can you

be Lady Burdon?"

No wound--only the merest scratch, but increasing in Lady Burdon the

dis-ease that had come to her on entering the room and had heightened

at every moment.

In her turn it was hers to give pause, but she engaged quickly for the

third bout.

"I see you do not understand," she said.

And Audrey: "Oh, please forgive me. No, I do not understand; I have

been ill. I am ill."

"But I am afraid I do not understand you. I do not understand your

manner. If you will tell me who you are--what it is you want--I can

perhaps explain."

But Audrey only looked at her. Only most pitiable inquiry was in her

eyes. Lady Burdon read their inquiry, that same "Oh, how can you be

Lady Burdon?" and the question and the silence brought vague,

unreasoning alarm in violent collision with her suspicions. Anger was

struck out of their conjunction. She said sharply:

"You must answer me, please. You must answer me. What is the matter?

I am asking you who you are."

Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that one contestant drove the

other the length of the room and had him pinned against the wall:--

Into Audrey's bewilderment, the dreadful sickness and the trembling she

could not control, these sharp demands came like numbing blows upon one

in the trough of the sea grappling for life. When Roly had come to her

as she lay stupefied and she had answered him "Yes, Roly," he had told

her clearly as if in fact he had stood beside her, what she should say

to Gran. She had come with the words prepared. They suddenly returned

to her now.

The words she had made ready: "I am Audrey--" she said.

Mr. Amber's account of the duel says that the one contestant, having

his rival pinned, was too impetuous and ran upon the other's sword:--

Lady Burdon said: "Audrey? Do you say Audrey? Are you known here?"

And ran upon the other's sword:--

"I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife."

II

As a dreadful blow sends the stricken, hands to face, staggering this

way and that on nerveless, aimless legs; or as a tipsy man, unbalanced

by fresh air, will blunder into any open door, so, at that "I am

Audrey--I am Roly's wife"--Lady Burdon's mind was sent reeling,

fumbling through a maze of spinning scenes--marriage? and what

then?--before it could fix itself to realisation.

She stood plucking with one hand at the fingers of the other; and when

the whirl subsided and she came dizzily out of it her mind was leaden

and the first words she could get from it were none she wanted.

Her voice all thick: "He was not married," she said.

The reply, very gentle: "We did not tell any one."

And to that nothing better than "Why?"

"Roly did not wish it."

Thick and heavy still: "Why do you come now?"

And Audrey in a little cry: "Because he is dead!"

Then Lady Burdon said dully: "You had better go," and at the

bewilderment that came into Audrey's eyes repeated more strongly: "You

had better go--quickly;" and then "Quickly!" with her voice run up on

the word, and her hands that had been plucking flung apart.

Her mind was over its numbness and through the whirl of nightmare

meanings in that "I am Roly's wife;" and it came out of them as one

shaken by a fall and strung up for vengeance. Marriage! Impossible!

And she a fool to be frightened by it--at worst a horrid aftermath of

disgusting conduct.

"Quickly!" she cried and then burst out with: "I see what you are--to

come at such a time--to this house of mourning--he scarcely dead--with

such a story--wicked--infamous--I know, I see now why you were

surprised to see me--an old lady you expected--grief-stricken--"

She stopped, achoke for breath, and Audrey said: "Oh, please--please."

Misgiving, that subtle, coward spy that spies the way for fear, cast

its net over Lady Burdon. The pleading, gentle air--no flush of shame,

no note of defiance hunted her mind back to its alarms. And Audrey

said: "He did not wish our marriage known;" and at "marriage" misgiving

turned and shouted fear to follow.

She said slowly: "You persist marriage? There are proofs of marriage.

Where are your proofs?"

The pleading look only deepened: "But I never thought--" Audrey said,

"--but I never thought--" She swayed, and swayed against the chair she

held. It supported her. "I never thought I would not be believed.

Lady Burdon will understand. I know she will understand. If I may see

her, please..."

"If you were married--proofs."

There was a considerable space before Audrey answered. Presently she

said very faintly:

"I am very ill ... I am very ill ... I can bring proofs.... But she

will understand.... Please let me see her.... Please, please..."

In advertisement of her state her eyelids fluttered and fell upon her

eyes while she spoke. Her voice was scarcely to be heard.

Her condition made no appeal to Lady Burdon. The simplicity of her

words, her simple acceptance of the challenge to bring proofs, returned

Lady Burdon to that dull plucking at her hands; and presently she

turned and went heavily across the room and through the door, closed it

behind her and went a few paces down the hall--to what? At that

question she stopped, and at the answer her mind gave went quickly back

to the door and stood there breathing fast. What was shut in here? A

monstrous thing come to strike her down as suddenly as miracle had come

to snatch her up? And where had she been going? To publish it? To

impel the horrible fate it might have for her? To say to old Lady

Burdon and to Maurice: "There is a woman here who says she was married

to Lord Burdon?" To say what would spring into their minds as it tore

like a wild thing at hers:--"Yes, if marriage, a child ... an heir?"

At thought of how narrowly she had escaped the results of that action,

she trembled as one trembles that in darkness has come to the edge of a

cliff and by a single further step had plunged to destruction; and at

imagination of the bitterness, the humiliation that would be hers if

the worst were realised and she returned from what she had become to

worse than she had been, she writhed in torture of spirit that was like

twisting poison in her vitals. All her plans, all her dreams, all her

sweet foretasting sprang up before her, mocking her; all the

intolerable sympathy of her friends, all the secret laughter it would

hide, came at her, twisting her.

Somewhere in the house a door opened and shut. She put a hand

violently to her throat, as though the shock of the sound were a blow

that struck her there. She found herself braced against the door,

guarding it; listening for footsteps, and strung up to keep away

whoever came. Silence! But the attitude into which she had sprung

informed her of the determination that had shaped unperceived beneath

the tumult of her thoughts. She was not going to fall beneath the blow

that threatened her! When she knew that, she was calmer, and set

herself to satisfy her fears. What was shut in here? A wanton....

Wanton? Who never flushed, never railed, defied? A betrayed, then.

Well, what was that to her, and how was she concerned? A betrayed?

Who came with no story of betrayal that might or might not be, but with

assertion of marriage that was capable of definite proof or disproof?

Marriage? Impossible! A lie! Impossible? There came to her

recollection of that strange disappearance of which Mr. Pemberton had

told; was marriage the secret of it? There swept back to her that

vivid and hideous nightmare on the very night of the news when she had

cried "I hold!" and had been answered: "No, you do not--nay, I hold."

Was that foreboding? There flamed before her again the mock of her

plans, the humiliation of her downfall. She struck her clenched hands

together; and as if the violent action caused an assembly of her

arguments, she reduced her position to this: either the thing was true,

in which case it could be proved; or it was a lie, in which case no

consideration recommended her to do other than keep it to herself and

herself stamp upon it.

That satisfied her and she reentered the room to act upon it.

Audrey was on her knees by the chair. The sight shook her

satisfaction. Wanton? Betrayed? A lie?

Audrey turned towards her: "I have been praying," she said. She got to

her feet and came forward a step: "She is coming to see me?"

Lady Burdon said: "I have told her. She will not see you."

She was committed. She stood agonisingly strung up in every fibre, as

one that waits an appalling catastrophe. She saw Audrey wring her

hands and heard her moan "Oh ... Oh!"

She heard her own voice say: "You can bring your proofs." She had, as

it were, a vision of herself opening the street door and watching

Audrey pass her and go down the steps and out of sight. She was only

actually returned to herself when she found herself, as one awaking who

has walked in sleep, striving to make her trembling hands close the

latch of the door.

CHAPTER VI

ARRIVAL OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

I

The driver of a four-wheeled cab, crawling down Mount Street, pushed

along his horse when he saw Audrey walking with very slow and uncertain

steps ahead of him. He drew into pace alongside her and began to

repeat: "Keb? Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" with a persistence and regularity

that suggested it was the normal sound of his breathing.

She stopped and stared at him in a dazed way. He pulled up and went on

quite contentedly: "Keb?--Keb, miss--keb,--keb?" His voice and his keb

came presently into her realisation. There returned to her knowledge

of what she purposed. Her thoughts seemed to her to be drifting

shapes, and this one had floated away and she had been trying to reach

it--hanging there just above her--while she stared at him. She gave

him the address of the Knightsbridge flat and presently was driving

there and presently going up the stairs, very slowly, taking her key

from her purse, and then entering.

The flat was in extraordinary confusion. She did not notice. The

woman who came daily to attend her wants had come twice to find her not

returned, and a third time with a gentleman friend (on tiptoe), taking

a stealthy and permanent departure an hour later with everything that

could be conveniently carried. The back of a drawer in a bureau had

not received this lady's attention. It contained all that Audrey had

come to seek: a box of carved wood, picked up on the Continent. Those

two letters Roly had given her for Mr. Pemberton and Gran were here.

Her mind had turned to them when she had realised the thing that had

never occurred to her: that she would not be believed. Here also was

her marriage certificate and all the letters Roly had written

her--before marriage and from India.

She took up the box and began to retrace her steps. She had scarcely

got down the stairs when dizziness seized her again. The dreadful

sickness and the trembling that the shock of her first encounter with

Lady Burdon had caused her had been stamped out by the final blow that

made her wring her hands and cry "Oh ... oh!" and had sent her numbed

from the house and carried her numbed to this point. Her physical

senses had been drugged, just as they had been hypnotised by the

instruction to which she had answered "Yes, Roly." Now they were

suddenly released from the kindness of the drug. Dizziness--and while

all things spun about her--pain. It caught her with a violence so

immense that she believed her body could not contain it and would go

asunder. It drove her, as it seemed to her, through unconsciousness

and into a state in which she met it again with a quality in its

sharpness that she knew for death, as if she recognised death. It

dropped her back from where she had seen death, through the degree of

its first immensity, and down to a gnawing that told her it was

gathering force to rush up again and this time leave her there--gone.

In that respite she got to the cab. She would die at the next

onslaught--Maggie! If Maggie could hold her when it came! She did not

know the address in the Holloway Road; but knew it was there, and a

butcher's with a strange name--Utter--had caught her attention opposite

when she left the house. She tried to tell the driver, but her

condition overcame her speech. He saw her state and jumped down to

her, and she called tremendously upon herself and effected the words.

He more lifted than helped her in, and she continued to hold herself

until he got back to his box, then collapsed groaning.

The cabman pulled up opposite the establishment of Mr. Utter and had

scarcely stopped his horse when from Mrs. Erps's house came Mrs. Erps,

plunging down the steps, and Miss Oxford, who stopped at the entrance,

not daring to come on. Mrs. Erps peered through the cab window and

then called back to Miss Oxford. "Told yer it was. Safe and sahnd!"

and began to tug at the handle and sharply addressed the cabman: "Ho,

ain't you got a nasty stiff door!" and cried through the window: "Why,

_there_ you are, my dear! Popping off like you hadn't ought to, give

us a fair ole turn!" and flung open the door and said, "Ho, dear!" and

turned a frightened face to Maggie, come beside her.

The open door revealed how Audrey was collapsed, and showed the hue of

ashes that her face had, and gave the groaning that came from her.

Miss Oxford went to her. "Audrey! ... dying! She is dying!"

By common understanding they began to try to carry her out. The cabman

leant over from his box and presently saw Mrs. Erps come backing out

with violent movements and suddenly had her fist shaken in his

surprised face. "'Old your old 'orse, carng yer!" Mrs. Erps cried

furiously. "Joltin' of us! 'Old your old catsmeat, carng yer!" She

plunged round to the further door, and through that they lifted her

whose groaning terrified them utterly, carried her up-stairs, and for

the second time she was laid on the cleeng blenkits, well haired, eight

an six and find yer own.

All Mrs. Erps's breath--no policeman to assist her--was this time

required for the exertion. But when their burden was laid she voiced

the extremity to which it was clearly come. "'Ad er shock, she 'as,"

said Mrs. Erps. "Some one's done it on 'er."

"Oh, bring the doctor," Miss Oxford cried. "Quick! Quick! Oh, my God

... my God!"

She did what she could while Mrs. Erps was gone. She was praying, when

her prayer was so far answered that Audrey recognised her. "Maggie..."

and then "I am dying--forgive," and then caught up in her pains again

while Maggie cried: "Don't! Don't! It is for you to forgive me; you

will be all right soon--very soon." The pains drew off a little.

Audrey began to speak very faintly. "I went to Lady Burdon--" Very

feebly she told what had happened and Maggie, who had begged her,

"Darling, don't talk--don't worry," listened as one that is held

aghast. When the slow words failed, she did not at once realise that

Audrey's voice had stopped. Mrs. Erps and the doctor found her

kneeling by the still form with strangely staring, unweeping eyes.

"She has had a shock," the doctor began.

"They have killed her," Miss Oxford said.

Bending over the patient he did not notice her words nor the intensity

of their tone; and there began to come very quickly a dreadful urgency

that caused agony of grief to override the agony of hate that had

possessed her.

There was a thin, new cry went up in the room: and that was life newly

come. And there was heavy breathing with dreadful pause at each

expiration's end and then the straining upward climb: and that was life

fluttering to be gone. Longer the pauses grew and harsher the upward

breath. Loud the thin cry struck in, and as though it called that

fleeting life, and as though that fleeting life, in the act of

springing away, turned its head at the sound, Audrey opened her eyes.

There seemed to be a question in them. Miss Oxford bent closely over

her: "A boy, my darling."

She seemed to smile before she died.

CHAPTER VII

ENLISTMENT OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

I

That day of Audrey's death was in two minds at two breakfasts in

different quarters of London on a morning some while later. In the

Mount Street house Jane Lady Burdon, starting in an hour to make her

home with her sister in York, was reading to Lord and Lady Burdon a

letter just received from India. It was a sympathetic note from the

officer who had been with her Roly when he fell. "'His last words,'"

she read aloud with faltering lips, "'were: _Tell Gran to love Audrey_.

It was difficult to catch them, but I think that was it.'"

Jane Lady Burdon laid down the letter and smiled feebly. "They have no

meaning for me," she said.

And Lord Burdon: "Nellie! What's up, old girl?"

Lady Burdon struggled with the dreadful agitation the words had caused

her. They had meaning for her. "_I am Audrey--I am Roly's wife._"

"So sad," she exclaimed, "so sad--excuse me--I--" She rose shakily and

went from the room. After two days of suspense she had thought that

hideous alarm defeated and disproved. What now? And what had she done?

The other breakfast was at Mrs. Erps's--also immediately before a

journey. "No one," Mrs. Erps had said, "no one hadn't oughter travel

on a nempty stomach," and had forced Miss Oxford to the table before

the start for Little Letham and "Post Offic." "I know you've had

bitter trouble as loved the pretty dear meself ever since 'Excoose me,'

I says to 'er, 'excoose me,' as I've told yer. An' Gord alone knows I

know what trouble is, as 'ad twings of me own pop off in one mumf. But

you've got the living for to think of. Same as I 'ad my ole man,

you've got this blessed ingfang what never know'd a muvver's breast and

took to the bottle like nothing I never did see."

And to the blessed "infang" reposing in her arms while she talked:

"Didn't yer, yer saucy sossidge? That's what you are, yer know--a

saucy sossidge. Ho, yes yer are. No use yer giving answer back ter

me, yer know. A saucy, saucy sossidge, wot I should cook up with

mashed if I had me way with yer, bless yer."

Maggie scarcely heard; but there was one sentence of Mrs. Erps that

joined her thoughts: "You've got the living for to think of." Yes, she

had that--and the dead to revenge. "They have killed her," she had

cried to the doctor. Through the long night, when she knelt beside the

still figure, that thought had burned within her and refused her tears.

It grew to an intolerable agony that pressed upon her brain as though a

band of steel were there. She understood what had bewildered

Audrey--who it had been that had said "I am Lady Burdon." Her

imagination pictured the woman. An orgasm of most terrible hate

possessed her, increasing that dreadful pressure on her brain, and

suddenly something seemed to her to have given way beneath the pressure.

Hate or passion of that degree never filled her again. She was

strangely quiet in manner when Mrs. Erps came to her in the morning,

strangely quiet at the funeral in Highgate Cemetery while Mrs. Erps

wept in loud emotion, and always quite quiet in mind. The child was

going to live, she was somehow fully assured of that, and she was not

going to give him up--her Audrey's child--as, if she spoke, she might

have to give him up. He was going to live with her at "Post Offic" and

take his mother's place; and one day.... They had taken Audrey from

her. One day she would return to them Audrey's son. "I am Lady

Burdon" had murdered Audrey. One day, when "I am Lady Burdon" was

secure and comfortable in her possessions, and had forgotten Audrey,

Audrey's son should avenge his mother....

Nothing could go wrong, Miss Oxford thought. She went through all the

proofs in the carved box. Nothing was wanting. One day she would hand

them to him--and then!

She wrote to her friend, Miss Purdie, at Little Letham, who had been

taking care of "Post Offic" for her and told her--for the village

information--that Audrey had lost her husband, and, on the shock, had

died, in giving birth to a son. "I have called him Percival--his

father's name--Percival Redpath."

"Look arter yerself," cried Mrs. Erps, as the train drew out of

Waterloo. "Look arter yerself. Can't not look arter him if yer

don't--and 'e 'll want lookin' arter, 'e will. 'E's going ter be a

knockaht, that's what 'e's going to be, ain't yer, yer saucy sossidge!

Sossidge! Goo'by, sossidge. Goo'by...."

BOOK THREE

BOOK OF THE HAPPY, HAPPY TIME. THE ELEMENT OF YOUTH

CHAPTER I

PERCIVAL HAS A PEEP AT THE 'NORMOUS

I

Young Percival was seven--rising eight--when he first saw Burdon Old

Manor. Miss Oxford had taken him for a walk, and they were in the

direction of the Manor grounds, a locality she commonly avoided, when

"There's a cart coming!" he warned her. He had lagged behind,

exploring in a dry ditch; and he raced up to her with the news,

catching her hand and drawing her to the hedge, for she had been

walking in the middle of the road, occupied with her thoughts.

Percival had learnt to be accustomed to long silences in his Aunt

Maggie and to rescue her from them when need arose. They were

familiar, too, to all the villagers and to the "help" who was now

required for the domestic work of "Post Offic." Not the same but a

very different Miss Oxford had returned to "Post Offic" seven years

ago, bringing the news of poor, pretty Miss Audrey's loss of husband

and death, and bringing the little mite that was born orphan, bless

him. A very different Miss Oxford, for whose characteristic alertness

there was substituted a profound quietness, a notable air of absence,

preoccupation. It was held by the villagers that she had gone a little

bit strange-like. Her sister's death, it was thought, had made her a

little touched-like. The "help," a gaunt and stern creature named

Honor, who largely devoted herself to bringing up Percival on a system

of copy-book and devotional maxims which had become considerably mixed

in her mind, called her mistress's lapses into long silence symptoms of

an "incline," and in kindly, rough fashion sought to rally her from

them. Percival, nearest the truth, called them "thinking." When Aunt

Maggie lapsed into such a mood, he would often stand by her, watching

her face doubtfully and rather wistfully, with his head a little on one

side. Presently he would give a little sigh and run off to his play.

It was as though he puzzled to know what occupied her, as though he had

some dim, unshaped idea which, while he stood watching, he tried to

formulate--and the then little sigh: he could not discover it--yet.

What was clear was that nothing ever aroused Aunt Maggie from her

strange habit of mind; and that at least is symptom of a dangerous

melancholy. What was plain was that her fits of complete, of utter

abstraction, embraced her like a sudden physical paralysis in the midst

of even an energetic task or an absorbing conversation; and that at

least is sign of a lesion somewhere in the faculty of self-control.

She divided her time between those periods of "thinking" and an intense

devotion to Percival; and the two phases acted directly one upon the

other. It was in the midst of loving occupation with the child, that,

perhaps at some look in his eyes, perhaps at some note in his voice,

abstraction would suddenly strike down upon her; it was from the very

depth of such abstraction that she would suddenly start awake and go to

find Percival or, he being near her, would take him almost violently

into her arms.

II

In characteristic keeping with this habit, her action when now he ran

to her and drew her from the roadway with his cry, "There's a cart

coming! A cart, Aunt Maggie!" Her grey, gentle face and her sad eyes

irradiated with a sudden colour and sudden light that advertised the

affection with which, standing behind him to let the cart pass, she

stooped down to him and kissed his glowing cheek--"Would I have been

run over, do you think?"

Percival was eagerly awaiting the excitement of seeing the cart come

into view around the bend whence it sounded. But he stretched up his

hands to fondle her face. "Well, I believe you would, you know," he

declared. "Of course they'd have shouted, but suppose the horse was

bobbery and wouldn't stop?"

Aunt Maggie feigned alarm at this dreadful possibility. "Oh, but

you're all right with me," Percival reassured her. He had a quaint

habit of using phrases of hers. "I keep an eye on you, you know, even

when I'm far behind."

She laughed and looked at him proudly; and she had reason for her

pride. At seven--rising eight--Percival had fairly won through the

vicissitudes of a motherless infancy. He had come through a lusty

babyhood and was sprung into an alert and beautiful childhood, dowered

of his father's strong loins, of his mother's gentle fairness, that

caused heads to turn after him as he raced about the village street.

Heads turned from the cart that now approached and passed. It proved

to be a wagonette. Two women and a man sat among the many packages

behind. On the box-seat, next the driver, was a lanky youth,

peculiarly white and unhealthy of visage. Percival stared at him. In

envy perhaps of the sturdy and glowing health of the starer, the lanky

youth scowled back, and lowering his jaw pulled a grimace with an ease

and repulsiveness that argued some practice. Turning in his seat, he

allowed Percival to appreciate the distortion to the full.

This was that same Egbert Hunt, whose power of grimace opened, as it

continues, our history.

Percival directed an interested face to Aunt Maggie. "Is that a clown

sitting up there?" he asked her. He had accompanied Aunt Maggie into

Great Letham on the previous day, and had been much engaged by the

chalked countenance of a clown, grinning from posters of a coming

circus.

Aunt Maggie answered him with her thoughts: "I think they must be going

to the Manor, dear. I expect they are Lord Burdon's servants."

"Well, I'm sure he was a clown," Percival answered. But a few paces

farther up the road, stepping into it from a footpath over the fields,

a little old gentleman was met, whom Aunt Maggie greeted as Mr. Amber,

and who verified her opinion.

"The family is coming down the day after to-morrow," Mr. Amber said,

"as I was telling you last week. Servants are to arrive to-day. I

think I saw them in the wagonette as I came down the path. And how are

you, Master Percival? I hope you are very well."

Percival put his small hand into the extended palm. "I'm very well,

Mr. Amber, thank you. One of them was a clown, you know. He made a

face at me--like this."

"God bless my soul, did he indeed?" Mr. Amber exclaimed.

"Yes, he did," said Percival. "Just make it back again to me, will you

please, so I can see if I showed you properly?"

But Mr. Amber declined the experiment. "The wind might change while I

was doing it," he said, "and then I should be like that always."

"Oh, I shouldn't mind," Percival declared.

"But I should," said Mr. Amber, and poked Percival with his stick.

They were very close friends, Percival and this bent old librarian,

permanently located at Burdon Old Manor in those days and a constant

visitor at "Post Offic" for the purpose of enjoying the affection

displayed in his silvery old face as it watched the glowing young

countenance upturned to it. "But I should," said he; "and what would

they think of me in there?"

Percival turned about. They had reached the boundary of the Manor

grounds and he pointed through the trees. "Is that where you live, Mr.

Amber?"

"Yes, I live in there. Look here, now, here's a nice thing! You're

growing up nearly as big as me and you've never been to see me. That's

not friendly, you know."

"Oh, but I've wanted to, you know," Percival cried. "We don't often

come this way, you see, do we, Aunt Maggie?"

He bounded across the road to squint through the wooden paling that

surrounds the Manor park, and Mr. Amber gave a little sigh and turned

to Aunt Maggie.

"How Percival grows, Miss Oxford! And what a picture, what a picture!

You know, he recalls to me walking these lanes twenty years ago, with

just his counterpart in looks and spirits and charm--ah, well! dear me,

dear me!" And he began to mumble to himself in the fashion of old

people whose thoughts run more easily in the past than in the present,

and to walk around poking with his stick in a fashion that was his own.

He referred to Roly, Aunt Maggie knew. "You never forget him, do you?"

she said gently. She also was devoted to a memory. "You never forget

him?"

"No--no," said Mr. Amber, poking around and not looking at her.

"Certainly not--certainly not."

Percival's voice broke in upon them, announcing his observations

through the fence. "I say, you've got a lovely garden to play in, you

know," he called.

They turned from thoughts that had a common element to the bright young

spirit in whom those thoughts found a not dissimilar relief.

"Well, it's not exactly my garden," Mr. Amber replied in his deliberate

way. "I live there just like Honor lives with you. She looks after

the cooking and I look after the books, eh? Would you like to see my

books?"

"Picture books?"

"Why, yes, some have got pictures. Yes, there are pictures in some.

And fine big rooms, Percival. You would like to see them."

Percival turned an excited face to Aunt Maggie, and Aunt Maggie smiled.

He took Mr. Amber's hand. "Thank you very much indeed," he said. "I

tell you what, then. I will see your books and then I think you will

let me play in your garden, please, if you please?"

Mr. Amber declared that this was a very fair bargain. "Come in and

have some tea, Miss Oxford. Mrs. Ferris will be glad to see you. She

finds housekeeping very dull work, I am afraid, with only me to look

after."

Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her

anxiously. He observed signs of "thinking," and thinking might be

fatal to this most engaging proposition. "If you possibly could, Aunt

Maggie!" he pleaded.

But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words

acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. "You know,

Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the

Manor," he urged. "It was the regular custom for any one who liked to

come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer?

Why, it's his right, I declare."

A little colour showed on her cheeks. "Yes, it is his right," she said.

III

Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The

decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped

ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play

with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A noble turn in the

avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very

flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders.

"I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber."

"Aha!" cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. "I knew you would like it,

Master Percival!"

"Why, I call it a _castle!_" Percival declares.

They turn the corner and Mr. Amber points with his stick. "Well,

you're not quite wrong, either. That part--the East Wing we call

that--you see how old that is? Almost a castle once, that. See those

funny little marks? Used to be holes there to fire guns through. What

do you think of that?"

Percival's face proclaims what he thinks--and his voice, deep with awe,

says, "Fire them bang?"

"Bang? I should think so, indeed!"

"Who at?"

"Aha! Strange little boys, perhaps. I'll tell you all about it, if

you'll come and see me sometimes."

Percival announces that he will come every single day, and runs eagerly

up the five broad steps that lead to the great oak door, now standing

ajar, and halts wonderingly upon the threshold to gaze around the

spacious hall and up at the gallery that encircles it.

Aunt Maggie stops so abruptly and gives so strange a catch at her

breath that Mr. Amber turns to look at her. Following her eyes, and

reading what he fancies in them, "Why, he does make a brave little

picture, standing there, doesn't he?" Mr. Amber says.

Her faint smile seems to assent. But she sees the child, framed in the

fine doorway, as his father's son surveying for the first time the

domain that is his own.

They join him on the threshold and he turns to them round-eyed. "Why,

it's simply 'normous!" he declares. "Aunt Maggie, come and look with

me. It's simply 'normous."

"Told you so!" cries Mr. Amber, vastly delighted. "Fine big rooms, I

said, didn't I, now?"

"'Normous!" Percival breathes. "Per-feck-ly 'normous to me, you know;"

and after a huge sigh of wonder, pointing to the gallery, "What's that

funny little bridge up there for?"

"Bridge!" says Mr. Amber almost indignantly. "Gallery, we call that.

Goes right around the hall, see? Except this end. Bridge! Bless my

soul, bridge!" For the moment he is really almost put out at this

slight done to a celebrated feature of the Manor, his concern betraying

the profound devotion to the house, the sense of his own incorporation

with it, that always characterises him when beneath its roof. That

devotion and that sense have deepened greatly during these years in

which the new Burdons have neglected the Manor and he, living in the

past, has grown to feel himself the custodian of the memories as he is

the author of the "Lives" of the house of Burdon. He has a trick,

indeed, as Percival comes to know, of speaking of "we" when he talks of

himself in connection with the Manor. He uses it now. "We are very

proud of that gallery, I can tell you. Do you know we've had--well,

well, never mind about that now. Come along, I'll take you all over

and up there, too. Come along, Miss Oxford. We'll find Mrs. Ferris

first."

Mr. Amber takes Percival's hand and starts up the hall; and then pulls

him up short again, but with an exaggerated concern this time. "But

here, I say, young man, what's this? Cap on! Good gracious, you can't

wear your cap here, you know!"

Percival goes almost as red as the jolly red fisher cap he wears, and

pulls it off, much abashed. He explains his breach of manners. "I

always do take it off in a house. But this doesn't feel like a house

to me, you know; it's simply 'normous!"

"Ah, but that's a strict rule of ours here. No one but a Burdon may be

capped in the hall; a tradition we call it. There was a--a wicked man

came here hundreds of years ago and kept on his hat and they didn't see

his face properly and thought he was a good man; and the Lord Burdon

that was then came to speak to him, and the wicked man took out his

dagger and killed Lord Burdon. What do you think of that?"

Percival seeks the proper touch. He asks: "With blug?"

"Blug--blood!" Mr. Amber exclaims testily, a trifle injured that his

legends adapted to the use of children should lack conviction. "Why,

bless my soul, of course there was blug--blood. Blug--dear me--blood!"

and he puts so fierce an eye round where they stand, as if expecting a

stain to ooze through the floor and corroborate him, that Percival

draws back in haste lest he should be standing in the pool.

That makes Mr. Amber laugh and he pats Percival's golden head and

concludes. "So ever since then, you see, we never let any but a Burdon

wear his hat in the hall here. It would be a sign of coming disaster

to the house, the tradition says."

He turns to Aunt Maggie. "My lady was very particular about it," he

says. "She made a great point of observing all the traditions."

Jane Lady Burdon, though she has been dead these four years, is always

"my lady" to Mr. Amber, as Roly remains to him "my lord" or "my young

lord." Aunt Maggie, standing a little aside, looking at Percival,

replies in her quiet voice: "I know--I remember. They are not so

foolish--traditions--as some people think, Mr. Amber."

He nods his head in very weighty agreement, then turns again to

Percival who, gazing round, discovers a new amazement. "But _two_

fireplaces!" Percival cries.

"Big as a small room, too, aren't they?" says Mr. Amber, important and

gratified again. "Now, look at that! There's another story for you!"

He leads Percival to one vast hearth, high over which the Burdon arms

are carved in oak. "See those letters around there? That's our motto.

That's the Burdon motto: 'I hold!' That was the message a Burdon sent

to the king's troops when Cromwell's men--another wicked man,

Cromwell--were trying to get in. 'I hold!' he told his messenger to

say--just that, 'I hold!' and afterwards, when Cromwell was dead and

another king came back, the king changed the Burdon motto to that. 'I

hold!' Fine? Eh?"

"I hold!" breathes Percival, mightily impressed.

"Why, I tell you--I tell you," cries Mr. Amber, "there's a story in

every inch of this house. Better stories than all your picture books.

I'll just tell Mrs. Ferris about tea and then we'll go round. I know

all the stories; no one knows them like I do." And he toddles off to

Mrs. Ferris, absorbed in his lore and congratulating himself upon it,

and Aunt Maggie and Percival are left alone.

It is then that Percival enjoys his second right of that day.

Aunt Maggie calls him to her. "Put on your cap again a minute,

Percival--just for a minute."

"Oh, but I mustn't, Aunt Maggie."

She takes the cap from his hand and holds it above his clustering curls.

He protests. "Mr. Amber said so, you know."

"What did he say, dear?"

"Only Burdons, Aunt Maggie."

She placed the cap on his head and took his face between her hands and

kissed him. She looked up, and all about the hall, and high to where,

around the gallery, portraits of bygone Burdons looked steadily down

upon her; and her lips moved as if she spoke some message that she

signalled with her eyes.

"Whoever are you talking to, Aunt Maggie?"

She put her hands on his shoulders as he stood sturdily there, the

jolly red fisher cap on the back of his head, a puzzled expression in

his face, and she held him a pace from her. "Say the motto, Percival,

dear--the Burdon motto. Do you remember it? Say it while you have

your cap on--out loud!"

"Is it a game, Aunt Maggie?"

"Say it quickly, dear--out loud!"

"I hold!" says Percival, clear and sharp.

In the gallery behind him there was a sound of movement. He turned

quickly and saw a man's figure step hastily away.

"Some one was watching us, Aunt Maggie."

But Aunt Maggie was gone into her "thinking."

IV

There followed for Percival the most delightful two hours. There was

first a prodigal tea in the housekeeper's room, where motherly Mrs.

Ferris set him to work on scones and cream and strawberry jam, and

where, as the meal progressed, he gladly gave himself over to Mr.

Amber's entrancing stories of Burdon lore, while Aunt Maggie and Mrs.

Ferris gossiped together.

Mrs. Ferris confirmed the arrival of servants in advance of Lord and

Lady Burdon and gave some details of the visit. Her ladyship had

written to say they expected to stay about a month. They came for the

purpose of seeing if the fine air, for a holiday of that length, would

pick up Rollo. "An ailing child," said Mrs. Ferris. "Just the

opposite of that young gentleman, from all accounts," and she nodded

towards the young gentleman, who beamed back at her as cheerfully as a

prodigiously distended mouth would permit. "A lazy-looking lot," Mrs.

Ferris thought the servants were, and ought to have come earlier, too,

for there was work to be done getting the house ready, Miss Oxford

might take her word for it--all the furniture and the pictures in

dusting sheets--made her quite creepylike to look into the rooms

sometimes. Not right, she thought it, to neglect the Manor like these

were doing. She knew her place, mind you, but she meant to have a word

with her ladyship before her ladyship went off again.

But the rooms had no creeps for Percival when at last the tea was done,

the jam wiped off, and the promised tour of inspection started. He put

a sticky hand confidingly into Mr. Amber's palm and breathed "'Normous!

Simply 'normous to me, you know," as each apartment was discovered to

him; and stood absorbed, the most gratifying of listeners, while Mr.

Amber, comfortably astride his hobby, poured forth the stories and the

legends that had gone into his cherished "Lives" and that he had by

heart and could tell with an air which called up the actors out of

their frames and out of the very walls to play their parts before the

child. Yet once or twice he stopped in the midst of a recital and

stood frowning as though something puzzled him, and once for so long

that Percival asked: "Are you thinking of something else, Mr. Amber?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Amber. "Thinking? I'm afraid I was. Let me see, where

was I?" But he turned away, leaving the story unfinished; and as they

walked from the room Percival said politely: "I don't mind if you were,

you know. I only asked. Aunt Maggie does it and I just run away and

play."

Mr. Amber pressed his old fingers closer about the young hand they

held. "Don't run away when I do it," he said. "Just wake me up. It

keeps coming over me that I've done all this before--held a little

boy's hand and told him all this just like I hold yours and tell you.

Well, that's a very funny feeling, you know."

"'Strordinary!" Percival agreed in his interested way; and Mr. Amber

was caused to laugh and to forget the stirring in his mind of

recollections buried there twenty years down. Twenty years is deep

water. It was to be more disturbed, causing much frowning, much "funny

feeling," before ever it should clear and show the old librarian,

looking into the pool of his own mind over Percival's shoulder,

Percival's reflection cast up from the depths.

The tour finished in the library. "Now this is the library!" announced

Mr. Amber at the threshold, much as St. Peter, coming with a new spirit

to the last gate, might say: "Now this is Paradise."

"Now this is the library. This is my room. Now, we'll just wipe our

feet once again--sideways, too--that's right. And I think our fingers

are still a little sticky, eh? that's better--_there_!"

"'Normous!" breathed Percival. "Simply 'normous, to me, you know."

No dust sheets here, everything mellow with the deep sheen of age

carefully attended. Tier upon tier of books, every hue of

binding--dark red to brown, brown to deep blue, deep blue to white--and

all, however worn, however aged, exquisitely responsive to Mr. Amber's

soft chamois leather.

Mr. Amber waved a proud hand at them. "I expect you'll live a long

time before you see another collection like this, Master Percival. And

I know every one of them--every single one just like you know your

toys. In the pitch dark--in the pitch dark, mind you--I could put my

hand on any one I wanted without touching another. What do you think

of that, eh?"

Percival has no better thought for it than the old one.

"'Normous!" he declares. "Simply 'normous to me, you know, Mr. Amber!"

"And the care I take of them!" Mr. Amber continues, as pleased with his

audience as if Percival were the librarians of the House of Lords, the

Bodleian and the British Museum rolled into one. "You wouldn't find

enough dust on those books, _anywhere_, to cover the head of a pin!"

He points to the highest and furthest shelves: "You'd think there might

be dust right up there, wouldn't you? Well, you just choose one of

those books--any one, anywhere you like."

"To keep for my own?"

"Keep! Bless my soul, no! Keep! Dear me! dear me! No, just point to

a book."

"That one!" says Percival, stretching an arm. "That one in the corner!"

Mr. Amber accepts the challenge with a triumphant rubbing together of

his hands. "That brown one, eh? Very well. That's a rare

volume--Black Letter--Latimer's 'Fruitfull Sermons'--London, 1584.

Now, you see." He trots excitedly to a high, wheeled ladder, runs it

beneath the "Fruitfull Sermons," climbs up shakily, fetches down the

volume and presents it for Percival's inspection: "There! Run your

finger over the top of it; that's where dust collects. Ah, not that

finger; got a cleaner one? That'll do. Now!"

It is getting dusk in the library, so Mr. Amber clutches the small

finger that has rubbed over the "Fruitfull Sermons," and they go to a

deep window where young head and old peer anxiously at the pink skin.

"Not a speck!" Mr. Amber cries triumphantly. "Not a speck of dust!

What did I tell you?"

And Percival, holding the finger carefully apart from its fellows:

"'Strordinary! Simply 'strordinary to me, you know!"

Mr. Amber climbs laboriously up the steps again, and seats himself at

the top, and starts dusting all around the "Fruitfull Sermons," and

completely forgets Percival, who wanders about for a little and then,

hearing a sound, goes to the door.

V

Here was the white-faced youth, our Egbert Hunt, who had grimaced at

him from the box of the wagonette. The white-faced youth stood on the

further side of the passage, paused beneath a window by whose light he

seemed to be examining a small phial held in his hand.

Percival ran forward: "Hallo! Are you a clown, please?"

The white-faced youth bit a pale lip and stared resentfully: "Do you

live here?"

"No, I don't," Percival told him. "I've been having tea with Mrs.

Ferris."

The white-faced youth developed the sudden heat characteristic of

Egbert Hunt in the Miller's Field days. "Well, don't you call me no

names, then," said Egbert Hunt fiercely.

"I'm not," Percival protested. "You made a face at me when you were

driving in the road, and I thought you were a clown, you see."

Egbert Hunt breathed hotly through his nose. "Saucing me, ain't you?"

he demanded.

Percival had heard the expression in the village. "Oh, no," he said in

his earnest way. "I thought you had a funny face, that was all."

His engaging tone and air mollified the sour Egbert. "I've got a sick

yedache," said Egbert. "That's what I've got--crool!"

Percival looked sorry and sought to give comfort with a phrase of Aunt

Maggie. "It will _soon_ go," he said soothingly.

"Not mine," Egbert declared. "Not my sort won't. I'm a living martyr

to 'em. Fac'." He nodded with impressive gloom and took three

tabloids from the phial he held in his hand. "Vegules," he explained;

and swallowed them with a very loud gulping sound.

"What are you, please?" Percival inquired, vastly interested.

"Slave," said Egbert briefly.

"But you're not black," argued Percival, recalling the picture of a

chained negro on a missionary almanac in Honor's kitchen.

"Thenk Gord, no!" said Egbert piously. "White slaves are worse," he

added.

"And were those slaves in the carriage with you?"

"Tyrangs," said Egbert Hunt. "Tyrangs and sickopants of tyrangs."

Percival started a question; then, as a sound came: "That's my Aunt

Maggie calling me. Good-by! I hope your poor head will soon be

better."

Egbert smiled the wan smile of one not to be deluded into hope: "You've

been kind to me," he said. "I like you. You ain't like all the rest.

What's your name?"

"Percival. I really must go now, if you please. My Aunt Maggie--"

He started to run in the direction of Aunt Maggie's voice; but Egbert

recalled him with a very mysterious and compelling "H'st!" and wag of

the head.

"Was that your Aunt Maggie in the hall with you just now?" Egbert

inquired.

A sudden recollection came to Percival. "You mean before tea? Was

that you?"

"What she make you put your cap on for, and say 'I hold'? That was a

funny bit, that was."

"Why, I don't know," said Percival. "Was that you up on the bridge?"

Egbert did not answer the question. "You ask her," he said, "an' tell

me. Odd bit, that was."

"Yes, I will," Percival agreed. "I say, I must go. What's your name,

if you please?"

"Mr. Unt. Run along; you're a nice little chap; I like you."

"I like you, too," said Percival, very interested in this strange

character. "I'm sorry I thought you were a clown. Good-by, Mr. Unt.

I say, there is my Aunt Maggie! Isn't this a 'normous house?" and he

scampered brightly to the sound of Aunt Maggie's voice.

"Abode of tyrangs," said Mr. Hunt, moving swiftly in the opposite

direction. "Boil um!"

CHAPTER II

FOLLOWS A FROG AND FINDS A TADPOLE

I

The acquaintance with slave Egbert was very shortly renewed. The

afternoon of the Friday that was to see the arrival of the Burdons at

the Old Manor brought also a threshing-engine up the village street--a

snorting and enormous thing that fetched Percival rushing to the gate

and drew him after it and kept him in charmed attendance until "Post

Offic" was half a mile behind. Here the engine stopped, and the men

who accompanied it setting themselves to a deliberate meal, Percival

turned himself into a horse that had escaped from its stable and was

recaptured and began to trot himself home.

He was in the lane that strikes out of the highroad towards Burdon Old

Manor when his quick eye caught sight of a frog in the grass-grown

hedge-side and "Whoa!" cried Percival and changed from escaped horse to

ardent frog-hunter. The sturdiest frog, it proved to be, a big, solid

fellow and wonderfully nimble at great jumps when Percival was found to

be in pursuit. He pressed it hotly; it bounded amain. He laughed and

followed--it was here--it was there--it was lost--it was found--it was

gone again. He grew stubborn and vexed in the chase. A frown stood on

his moist brow. He began to breathe hotly. The frog perceived the

change. It lost its wits. It dashed from cover, made with wild bounds

across the road, was closely followed, and lived to tell the frightful

tale by intervention of a shout before it, a stumble behind it, and the

barest pulling up of the Manor wagonette within a yard of fallen

Percival.

Lord Burdon jumped out and lifted Percival in his arms before the

frog-hunter was well aware of what had happened. "Not hurt, eh?

That's all right! You young rascal, you--you might have been killed.

Haven't you got ears? What are those great flappers for, eh?" and Lord

Burdon tweaked a flapper and laughed jovially. "What were you doing,

eh?"

"I was chasing a frog," said Percival, rubbing his ear and using his

elevation on Lord Burdon's arms to have a stare at the little boy and

the pretty lady in the wagonette.

"A frog! Why here's a frog for you. Come and look at my frog in the

cart here."

Lord Burdon carried him to the body of the wagonette. "Here's my frog!

tadpole, rather. Rollo, look here. You're only a little tadpole,

aren't you? Look what this fine air is going to do for you. Look at

this great lump of a fellow. That's what you've got to be like!"

The little tadpole smiled shyly. Tadpole was an excusable description.

Rollo Letham at nearly ten might have passed for younger than Percival

at rising eight. He was very thin, pale, fragile; his head looked too

big for his delicate frame; his eyes were big and shy, his mouth

nervous.

"A shame!" said Lady Burdon, smiling. "You're not a tadpole, are you,

Rollo? But this is a splendid young man!" And she stretched a kind

hand--nicely gloved--across the cart to Percival.

Lord Burdon raised him to meet it. Bare knees, well-streaked with mud

and blood, came into view.

"Oh, your poor little knees!" Lady Burdon cried.

Percival caught Rollo's eye fixed in some horror on the wounds. "I cut

them every day!" he said bigly, and shot a proud glance at the tadpole.

"Well, they're terrible. They must be washed. Bring him in, Maurice.

We'll wash him, as we've nearly killed him, at the house."

"Yes, do! Yes, please do!" Rollo whispered, and his mother patted his

hand, pleased at the animation of the thin little face.

Lord Burdon hesitated: "Take him to the Manor? Why, that may be miles

from his home, you know."

"I suppose we can send him back in the trap, can't we?" Lady Burdon

said, a trifle disagreeably. "You're a regular old woman, Maurice.

Lift him in next to Rollo. You can see how Rollo takes to him, I

should have thought."

"Didn't want to be had up for kidnapping, you know," Lord Burdon

responded cheerfully. "Would be a bad start in the local opinion--eh?"

And he laughed with the appeal and the apology with which he always met

his wife's waves of impatience. "Shove up, Rollo! In you get,

frog-hunter! Heavens! What a lump. All right. Drive on!"

"Gee up!" cried Percival, highly entertained, and chatted frankly with

Lady Burdon as the wagonette bowled along. To her questions he was

nearly eight, he told her; he would have another birthday in a short

time; Honor gave him a sword at his last birthday and his Aunt Maggie

gave him a trumpet. "You may blow my trumpet, if you like," turning to

Rollo. "Honor says it is poison to blow it because I've broken the

little white thing what you blow through. But I blow it all right."

Rollo flushed and smiled and put a thin little hand from beneath the

rug and took Percival's muddy fist and held it for the remainder of the

journey. Boy friends who did not laugh at him were new to him.

"Miss Oxford's little boy," Percival explained to further questions.

"I live at the post-office, and we've got a drawer _full_ of stamps

with funny little holes what you tear off."

Lady Burdon turned to her husband: "Ah, I know now. You remember? You

remember the vicar telling us about Miss Oxford when we first came down

here? Well, she's to be congratulated on her nephew. I'm glad. He'll

be the jolliest little companion for Rollo."

Lord Burdon remembered. "Yes--this will be her sister's child.

Orphan, poor little beggar."

And Lady Burdon: "We'll be able to have him up with Rollo as much as we

like, I've no doubt. Look how happy they are together," and she smiled

at them, chatting eagerly.

Percival was twisting and bending the better to see the occupants of

the box-seat. A form that seemed familiar sat beside the driver.

"Why, that's Mr. Unt!" Percival cried brightly, and as the familiar

form turned at the sound of its name, "How's your poor headache, Mr.

Unt?" he asked. "Much better now, isn't it?"

Mr. Unt's pallid face became slightly tinged with embarrassment. "The

young gentleman spoke to me at the Manor Wednesday, me lady," he

apologised. "Had come up to take tea with Mr. Hamber." He profited by

the touch of his hat with which he spoke to draw his hand across his

forehead; a sick yedache clearly was still torturing there.

"His headaches are terrible," Percival explained. "I thought he was a

clown, you know. I saw him driving in this carriage with tyrangs."

Egbert's back shivered. "Parding, me lady," said he, turning again.

Lady Burdon laughed. "Hunt," she told Percival. "Not Unt. He speaks

badly."

"You know, his headaches--" Percival began; and she added more

severely: "He is a servant."

"He's my servant," Rollo said. "Hunt looks after me when I go out. I

hate nurses, so I have him. He'll be yours too, if you'll come and

play with me. Both of ours. May he, mother?"

"You can tell Miss Oxford that some one will always be there to keep an

eye on you if she will let you come and play," Lady Burdon replied to

Percival.

"So now he is yours and mine," cried Rollo, squeezing the hand he held.

"Thank you very much," Percival said. "Of course, if his headache is

very bad we won't have him, because he will like to lie down."

He spoke clearly; and a tiny little tremble of Egbert's back seemed to

advertise again the gratitude that sympathy aroused in him.

"Oh, that's nothing," Rollo declared. "He pretends."

The poor back drooped. "Tyrangs," Egbert murmured and furtively edged

a vegule to his mouth.

II

In the dusk of that evening Percival went bounding home, immensely

pleased with his new friends and with the new delights in life they had

discovered for him. He had nice clean knees and a bandage on each--a

matter that caused him considerable pride. He had gladly promised to

come to see Rollo again on the morrow, and he would have stayed much

longer into the evening had not Lord Burdon (as Lady Burdon said)

"begun to fidget" and to persist that Miss Oxford must be getting

nervous at this long absence.

"His aunt will naturally be glad when she knows where he has been,"

Lady Burdon had exclaimed.

Lord Burdon gave the smile that she knew came before one of his

annoying rejoinders. "That won't make her wild with joy while she

doesn't know where he is, old girl."

She was irritable. The vexation of having to leave London, which she

enjoyed, for Burdon which she felt she would hate, was settling upon

her. She looked at him resentfully. "That is funny, I suppose?" she

inquired. "You are always very funny, aren't you?" and she gave orders

for Hunt to take Percival home.

Down the road Percival chattered brightly to Egbert, holding his hand.

"I jump like this," he explained, capering along, "because I pretend

I'm a horse. Then if you want me to walk quietly you only have to say

'whoa!' you see."

"Whoa!" said Egbert very promptly.

Percival's legs itched to jump out the animation that events had

bottled into him. "Did you say 'gee up'?" he presently inquired.

"No," said Egbert.

"Oh," said Percival, and with a little sigh repeated "oh!"

Egbert felt the appeal. "Fac' of it is, that jumping jerks me up."

"Got another sick headache, have you?"

"Crool," said the living martyr to 'em.

Percival took another phrase of Aunt Maggie: "You must be thor'ly out

of sorts, I think."

"Got one foot in the grave, that's what I've got," Egbert agreed.

"Fac'."

Percival peered down at Egbert's legs. "Which one, please?" he

inquired.

"Figger o' speech," Egbert told him, and explained: "Way of saying

things." He added: "Go off in the night one of these days, I shall;"

and commented with gloomy satisfaction: "Then they'll be sorry."

Percival asked: "Who will?" He visioned Egbert running by night with

one foot embedded in a tombstone, and he was considerably attracted by

the picture. "Who will?" he repeated.

"Tyrangs!" said Egbert. "Too late to be sorry then. Fac'."

"Well, I should be dreffly sorry," Percival assured him.

"Believe you," said Egbert, "and many thanks for the same. First

that's ever said a kine word to me, you are; and I'll be grateful--if

I'm spared."

He looked at his watch and then down the lane. "Think you could get

home safe from here? Fac' is I'm behind with my vegules and left them

in my other coat."

"Oh, yes," Percival agreed. "This is just by the corner, you know."

"Well, then," said Egbert, halting, "you see, if I don't take 'em fair,

can't expec' them to treat me fair, can I?"

Percival assented: "Oh, no."

"Sure you'll be all right?"

"Oh, yes. I'll be a horse, you see. Just say 'gee up!' will you?"

"Gee up!" said Egbert.

"Stead-_ey_!" cried Percival, prancing. "Stead-_ey_! Goodnight!" and

bounded off.

"Nice little f'ler," commented Egbert; and hurried back to the vegules.

Where the lane turned to the village, horse Percival was made, as he

declared, to shy dreff'ly. He galloped almost into the arms of two

figures that stepped suddenly out of the dusk. "Oh, Percival!" Aunt

Maggie cried and kissed him. "Oh, Percival, where _have_ you been?"

"Say 'whoa!" cried Percival. "Say 'whoa!' Aunt Maggie. I'm a horse--a

white one, you know."

Two heavy hands pressed the white horse's shoulders, stilling its

plunges. "You're a bad little boy, that's what you are," Honor

exclaimed, "running off and frightening your Auntie, and not caring nor

minding. Don't Care comes before a fall, as I've told you many times

and--"

"_Pride_ comes before a fall," corrected Percival. "You've got it

wrong _again_, Honor," and Honor's flow was checked with the suddenness

that had become the established termination of attempts to reprove

Percival since he had learnt the right phrasing of her store of

confused maxims.

She took his hand while she pondered doubtfully upon the correction,

and with Aunt Maggie holding the other, he skipped along, bubbling over

with his adventures. "I've got bandages on both my legs, Aunt

Maggie--oh, and Hunt has got one of his legs in the grave, just fancy

that! I've been having tea with Rollo; and Lady Burdon put on these

bandages and she wants me to go and play with Rollo every day. _Do_

let me, Aunt Maggie. I say, you are squeezing my hand most dreffly,

you know."

Aunt Maggie relaxed the sudden contraction of her fingers. "Lady

Burdon--yes?--tell from the very beginning, Percival dear."

"Well, she said 'Promise to tell your Aunt Maggie I will come and ask

her to let you be Rollo's little friend and'--Aunt _Maggie_! You're

_hurting_!"

She recollected herself again and patted the small fingers. "Tell from

the very beginning, dear. How did you meet them?"

"Well, you understand, I was catching a frog--"

"Post Offic" was reached, supper was swallowed, his merry head

beginning to droop and nod, while still he excitedly recounted all his

adventures. He was almost asleep when Aunt Maggie undressed him and

put him to bed.

She sat a long time beside him, watching him while he slept.

CHAPTER III

LADY BURDON COMES TO "POST OFFIC"

I

In the morning Lady Burdon came with Rollo to make her request that

Percival might spend much of his time at the Old Manor as Rollo's

playmate. In these seven years since the amazement at Miller's Field,

this was but her third visit to the estate, her first for the purpose

of staying any length of time, and the first that had seen Rollo with

her. Two days had been spent here when Jane Lady Burdon had been

brought to rest in Burdon churchyard; three when Mr. Maxwell, the

agent, had been troublesome and importunate in the matter of expensive

alterations on the property. Lady Burdon had come down then "to have

an understanding with him;" as she expressed it--"to see for herself."

The result had been as unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell (to whom she had

shown some temper) as it had been augmentative of the dislike she had

always felt for the property and its greedy responsibilities. The

result had been to filter over the countryside from Mr. Maxwell that

she was the controlling partner in the new representatives of the

house; that hers was the refusal to take up the urgently needed

irrigation scheme; hers the scandal (as it became) of neglect to carry

out improvements in the cottages over at Abbess Roding; hers the crime

(as it was held) of the selling-up over at Shepwall that entailed

eviction of tenants old on the land as the house of Burdon itself.

On the other hand the result had been to return Lady Burdon to the

Mount Street life with at least a temporary stop put to the Maxwell

whinings and at least a lighter drain from the Mount Street expenses.

Miss Oxford had not seen her on either of these visits. Miss Oxford

had only smiled in an odd way when she heard of the behaviour that had

set the countryside clacking. The better Lady Burdon flourished, the

more Lady Burdon exercised the prerogatives of her usurped position,

the riper she ripened for the blow, when there should be returned to

her the son whose mother she had murdered; that was the entertainment

Miss Oxford nursed through these years, living so gently and so

quietly, "thinking" so much, poor dear.

"Strange-like?" "Silly-like?" Or dreadfully sane? For Miss Oxford's

own part, she knew only one thing of her mental condition. At very

rare intervals there seized her a state that was related to and that

recalled the tremendous pressure in her brain when she had knelt,

consumed with hate and desire for vengeance, by Audrey's death-bed. It

took the form of a sudden violent fluttering in her brain, as though a

live, winged thing were beating there, beating to be free. The

pressure that came by Audrey's death-bed had ended in a snap--in

something giving that left her extraordinarily, tinglingly calm,

possessed by the plan and certainty of revenge to be taken by Audrey's

son--one day. The fluttering, the winglike beating ended of its own

volition, and outside any command she could put upon it--sweeping up

all her senses in its beating, only leaving to her the terror that it

would end--in what? Sometimes it came in just the tiniest flutter,

without cause and gone as soon as come, just arresting her and

frightening her like a swift shoot of pain in a nerve. Sometimes in

the briefest flutter but with cause; such a case had been when Percival

told her of his meeting with the Burdons and she had caused him to

exclaim by clutching his hand. Once of much longer duration and of new

effect, and with revelation to her of the end it threatened. That was

when, a few days ago, she had stood alone with Percival in the great

hall of Burdon Old Manor. It was the fluttering that had bade her make

him put on his cap and cry 'I hold!' and she had been informed that if

it did not stop--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she would

scream out her secret--run through the house and cry to all that Lady

Burdon was--

It had stopped. The beating wings ceased. She was returned to her

quiet, gentle waiting.

II

It always took the same form--the presentation of a picture.

"They're coming! They're coming!" cried Percival, bursting into the

parlour with tossing arms, aflame with excitement, hopping on lively

toes, to announce Lady Burdon and Rollo. "They're coming, Aunt

Maggie!" and he was away to greet them at the gate.

Aunt Maggie was at the table where post-office business was conducted.

The open door gave directly on to the garden path; and she heard voices

and then a step on the threshold and bent over the papers before her;

and then a pleasant tone that said "Good morning, I am Lady Burdon,"

and immediately the beating wings, wild, savage, whirling, and she

transported from where she sat to watch herself in the picture that the

fluttering always brought.

Immense beating of the wings, the sound drumming in her ears; seven

years rolled up as a stage-curtain discloses a scene, and she saw the

room in the Holloway road, herself kneeling there and Audrey's voice:

"... and then said 'I am Lady Burdon' ... O Maggie! O Maggie! ... and

I said 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' ... Maggie! Maggie!" The

beating wings drove up to a pitch they had never before reached.

Through their tumult--buffeted, as it were, by their fury--and from the

scene in which she saw herself, she looked up and saw Lady Burdon

smiling there, and heard Lady Burdon's voice: "Good morning, I am Lady

Burdon." Again, as in the great hall with Rollo, if it did not

stop!--if it did not stop!--if it did not stop! she must cry out: "You

are not! You said that to Audrey and killed her! Now--"

And again, and this time when the terrible fluttering had almost beaten

itself free and she had formed her lips to release it, it suddenly

stopped. As at the bedside, seven years before, she fell from paroxysm

of passion to unnatural calm, so now she was returned to her normal,

quiet self, content to wait, and she said quite quietly: "Percival told

me to expect you."

Lady Burdon advanced pleasantly. "Ah, and I hope he also remembered to

tell you of my apologies. I am afraid we kept him with us much too

long last night."

She looked around the room with the air of one willing to chat and to

be entertained, and Miss Oxford, murmuring there was no occasion for

apology, advanced a chair with: "Please sit down, if you will. This is

very humble, I am afraid. It is only the post-office, you know; and

only a toy post-office at that."

She was quite herself again. Through this interview, and always

thereafter when she met Lady Burdon or thought of her, she was invested

with the calmness that had come to her by the death-bed. She knew

quite certainly that she had only to wait. She was not at all anxious.

She knew she could wait. She only feared--now for the first time, and

increasingly as the attacks became more frequent--that an onset of that

dreadful fluttering might descend upon her and might not go before it

had driven her to wreck the plan for which she waited--Percival, not

she, to avenge his mother.

The fear caused in her a noticeable nervousness of manner. Lady Burdon

attributed it to natural embarrassment at this gracious visit, and that

made her more gracious yet. Miller's Field would have perceived in

Lady Burdon, as she sat talking pleasantly, a considerable change from

the Mrs. Letham it had known. She was very becomingly dressed. She

had grown a trifle rounder in the figure and fuller in the face since

Miller's Field gave her good-by, and that advantaged her. Her olive

complexion was warmer in shade, healthier in tinting than it had been.

The walk from the Manor had touched her freshly, and she had been

pleased by the respectful greetings of the villagers. Rollo,

completely in love with Percival, was brighter than she had ever known

him. She had hated the idea of burying herself down here for a month;

but she was beginning to entertain an agreeable view of taking up her

neglected position and dignity in this pleasant countryside. She was

very happy as she faced Miss Oxford: her happiness and all that

contributed to it made her very comely to the eye; and she was aware of

that.

She spoke enthusiastically of Percival. "Such a splendid young man.

Such charming manners." She spoke most graciously of knowing all about

Miss Oxford and of how plucky of her it was to take up the post-office.

She said smilingly that Miss Oxford was not to take advantage of the

post-office by keeping herself to herself as the saying was; and when

Miss Oxford replied; "You are kind; we have no society here, of course;

with the one or two families the post-office makes no difference; we

are all old friends; with you, it is different;" she said very

winningly: "Not kind, in any case--selfish. It is Percival I am after.

We have taken so much to him. He and my Rollo have struck up the

greatest friendship, and that is such a pleasure to me. Rollo as a

rule is so shy and reserved with children. He has no child friends.

It will do him a world of good if Percival may play with him. Percival

will be the making of him."

She smiled in confident and happy belief of her words, and Miss Oxford

smiled, too. It was not for Lady Burdon to know--yet--that Percival

was being brought up to be not Rollo's making but his undoing.

But Miss Oxford only said that the friendship would be capital for

Percival also, since Lady Burdon permitted it. "There are no boys here

in Little Letham that he can make close companions," she said. "We

seem short of children--except among the villagers. I think Mrs.

Espart's little girl at Upabbot over the Ridge is the nearest."

Lady Burdon nodded. "Mrs. Espart--yes, I am to go over there. She

left cards, thinking we had arrived. Abbey Royal, she lives at,

doesn't she?"

"Abbey Royal, yes. One of our show places, you know. What Percival

would call 'normous," and Miss Oxford related the "'normous; simply

'normous to me, you know," of Percival's visit to the Manor. "We came

to 'enormous' when I was reading to him shortly afterwards," she said,

"and he exclaimed: 'I know! 'Normous, like Mr. Amber's house!' Mr.

Amber showed him round."

"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading

to him--I was going to ask you about that--about lessons, I mean. Does

he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am

afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend

in them while he is here."

"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie--you would have passed her

cottage--next to the Church."

"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo."

"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance

of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over

daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy."

"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at

the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous!

Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be

jolly, darling?"

But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with:

"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London

and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?"

Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and

"suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon

at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year

and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference

between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?"

But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to

clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady

Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she

had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone

while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at

him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!"

Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to

Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at

the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival.

"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she

heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a

great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering

had left her.

"Over at Market Roding you might get a pony," she said dully. "There

is a Mr. Hannaford there. He has ponies. He supplies ponies to

circuses, I have heard."

Lady Burdon kissed Percival good-by at the gate. "Lord Burdon shall

take you over with Rollo to this Mr. Hannaford," she told him. "That

Miss Purdie's cottage? We are going to look in on our way. Run back

to your Aunt Maggie. She is tired, I think."

"Well, she's thinking, you know," said Percival.

Lady Burdon laughed. "Thinking, is she, you funny little man? Of

what?"

And Percival, in his earnest way: "Well, I don't know. It 'plexes me,

you know."

CHAPTER IV

LITTLE 'ORSES AND LITTLE STU-PIDS

I

The pony was obtained from Mr. Hannaford and lessons were arranged with

Miss Purdie.

It was the happiest party that occupied the wagonette on that drive to

and from Mr. Hannaford's farm at Market Roding. Lord Burdon, Rollo,

Percival--each declared it that evening to have been the very jolliest

time that ever was.

"Well, we have had a jolly day, haven't we, old man?" Lord Burdon said

to Rollo when he kissed him good night. Lord Burdon had worn a shabby

old suit and had told the boys stories till, as he assured them, his

tongue ached; and had walked with them about Mr. Hannaford's farm, with

Percival prancing on one side and Rollo quietly beaming on the other.

In London, in the life that Lady Burdon directed at Mount Street, such

careless, childish joys were impossible. Not since the day he had

spent with Rollo at the Zoological Gardens, when Lady Burdon was at

Ascot, had he so completely enjoyed himself--and not a doubt but that

the bursting excitement of young Percival was responsible for the far

greater joviality of this day at Mr. Hannaford's.

"Did I tell you about when they came to the ditch while we were walking

over the farm?" Lord Burdon asked Lady Burdon. "That little beggar

Percival--"

Lady Burdon looked at him over the book she was reading. "Not a sixth

time, _please_, Maurice," she said. "I'm really rather tired of

hearing it," and Lord Burdon assumed his foolishly distressed look and

for the remainder of the evening sat smiling over the jolly day in

silence.

The jolliest day for Rollo! He had been the quiet one of the party

because to be retiring was his nature, but when Percival shouted and

when Percival jumped, Rollo's heart was in the shout and Rollo's spirit

bounded with the jump. He had never believed there could be such a

friend for him or so much new fun in life. Hitherto his chief

companion had been his mother, his constant mood a dreamy and shrinking

habit of mind. Vigorous Percival introduced him to the novelty of

"games," showed him what mirth was, and what vigorous young limbs could

do. The jolliest day! He fell asleep that night thinking of Percival;

in his dreams with Percival raced and shouted; awakened in the morning

with Percival for his first thought.

And of course it was the jolliest day for Percival. "I never had such

fun, you know," Percival declared to Aunt Maggie. "I rode the pony all

alone and Mr. Hannaford said I was a Pocket Marvel; so I should like to

know what you think of that?"

Mr. Hannaford, indeed, was mightily pleased with Percival. Mr.

Hannaford was an immensely stout man with a tremendously deep voice and

with very twinkling little eyes set in a superbly red face. He wore

brown leather gaiters and very tight cord-breeches and a very loose

tail-coat of tweed, cut very square. From his habit of never removing

his bowler hat in the house even at meals, the common belief was that

he slept in it, and he punctuated his sentences when he spoke, and

marked his alternate strides when he walked, by tremendously loud

cracks of a bamboo cane against a gaitered leg. It was his frequent

habit when he desired emphasis to bless what he termed his "eighteen

stun proper," and he caused Rollo to giggle by his trick of calling a

horse "a norse."

Mr. Hannaford received his visitors by raising his hat as far from his

head as any one had ever seen it, by giving three terrific cracks of

his cane against his leg, and by extending to Rollo and Percival in

turn a hand of the size of a small shoulder of mutton.

"Well, you've come to the right place for a little 'orse, me lord,

bless my eighteen stun proper if you haven't," Mr. Hannaford declared.

"And 'll want a proper little 'orse for your lordship's son, moreover,"

continued Mr. Hannaford, after another tremendous leg-and-cane crack

and looking admiringly at Percival.

Percival was quick with the correction. "Oh, I'm not his son. I'm

only a little boy, you know. I can ride, though, because sometimes I

pretend I'm a horse all day long; so I should like to know what you

think of that?"

Mr. Hannaford was hugely delighted, and having begged his lordship's

pardon for the mistake, gave it as his deliberate opinion that a young

gentleman who could pretend he was a norse all day long was a Pocket

Marvel.

The Pocket Marvel performed a prance or two in order to show that this

estimate of him was well merited, and they proceeded to the stables,

Mr. Hannaford, as they walked, making clear, to the tune of astonishing

leg-and-cane cracks, the reasons why the right place for a little 'orse

had been selected by his lordship.

"There's money in little 'orses," said Mr. Hannaford. (Crack!) "And

I'm one of the few that know it." (Crack!) He broke off, stared towards

the house, face changing from its superb red to astonishing purple, and

to a distant figure roared "Garge!" in a voice like a clap of thunder.

"Garge! Fetch that pig out of the flower beds! You want my stick

about your back, Garge; bless my eighteen stun proper if you don't."

"Pardon, me lord," begged Mr. Hannaford, bringing his stick back to his

leg from where it had flourished at Garge, and continuing: "There's

more demand for little 'orses than anybody that hasn't given brain to

it would believe, me lord. Gentlefolks' little girls want little

'orses and gentlefolks' little boys want little 'orses; gentlefolks'

little carts want little 'orses, young gentlemen want little polo

'orses, and circuses want little trick 'orses. Where are they going to

get 'em?" inquired Mr. Hannaford, and answered his question with:

"They're coming to me." (Crack!)

"Capital!" declared Lord Burdon, who was finding Mr. Hannaford a man

nearer to his liking than any he had met within the radius of Mount

Street.

"Capital's the word," agreed Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun

proper if it isn't!" (Crack!) "It will take time, mind you, me lord.

I'm doing it in stages. Stage One: circus little 'orses. I rackon I'm

level with Stage One now. Started with circus little 'orses because I

was in the circus line once and my brother Martin--Stingo they call

him, me lord--is in it now. Proper connaction with circus little

'orses I've worked up. They come to me when they want a circus little

'orse, bless my eighteen stun proper if they don't." (Crack!) "Stage

Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses--just starting that now, me

lord. Stage Three: gentlefolks' little carts' little 'orses. Stage

Four: young gentlemen's little polo 'orses. What I want," declared Mr.

Hannaford with a culminating crack of tremendous proportions, "is to

make people when they see a little 'orse think of Hannaford.

Hannaford--little 'orse; little 'orse--Hannaford. Two words one

meaning, one meaning two words; that's my lay and I'll do it, bless my

eighteen stun proper if I won't!" (Crack!)

"'Pon my soul it's a big scheme," said Lord Burdon, highly entertained

and beginning to realise that this was no common man.

"Correct!" Mr. Hannaford assured him, and confided with a terrible

crack: "I call it a whopper. One of these days Stingo will settle down

and join me and there'll be no more holding us than you can hold a

little 'orse with your finger and thumb."

"Settle down?" Lord Burdon questioned, greatly interested. "Younger

than you, eh?"

"Three and a half minutes," returned Mr. Hannaford, and added, "Twins,"

in reply to Lord Burdon's exclamation of surprise. "Not much in point

of time, but very different in point of nature. Wants settling down;

then he'll be all right. You'll see Stingo in a minute, me lord; he's

here," and Mr. Hannaford pointed to the line of sheds they had reached.

"On a visit," he explained; and added with a heavy sigh: "Here to-day

and gone to-morrow; that's Stingo."

He unlatched a door. "This way, me lord. Only wooden stables at

present; brick, and brick floors, that's to come. This way, my young

lordship. This way, little master; don't you be a little 'orse now,

else maybe we shall make a mistake and tie you up in a stall."

The interior was dim. Restless movements announced the presence of

several little 'orses, and presently was to be seen a line of plump

little quarters, mainly piebald, one or two more sedately coloured.

"Gentleman to buy a little 'orse," announced Mr. Hannaford; and

immediately a face that was the precise replica of his own appeared

from over the side of a partition.

"Well he's come to the proper place for a little 'orse," announced the

face in a very husky whisper and disappeared again.

"Why, just my very words!" declared Mr. Hannaford with high delight.

"Just my very words, bless my eighteen stun proper if it wasn't! Step

out, Stingo. Lord Burdon, over from Burdon, with his young lordship

and a--" Mr. Hannaford stopped and stared around him. "Why,

wherever's that young Pocket Marvel got to?"

"I'm here!" Percival called excitedly. "I'm stroking this dear little

black one and he knows me; so I should like to know what you think of

that?" He came dancing out from the stall of the little black one, his

face blazing with excitement, and simultaneously the replica of Mr.

Hannaford's face appeared again and a replica of Mr. Hannaford's figure

advanced towards them.

"Proud!" declared the replica in a strained whisper, and raised his

hat. "You're doing well," he whispered to Mr. Hannaford. "You're

doing uncommon well." He extended his hand and the brothers shook

hands, very solemnly on the part of the replica, with beaming delight

on the part of Mr. Hannaford.

"Steady down, boy; steady down and join us," Mr. Hannaford earnestly

entreated, holding Stingo's hand and gazing into his face with great

fondness. But Stingo slowly shook his head, and turning to Lord Burdon

again, raised his hat and after many severe throatings managed a husky

repetition of "Proud!"

Mr. Hannaford heaved an astonishingly loud sigh, pulled himself

together with a leg-and-cane crack that caused all the little 'orses to

start, and addressed himself to business. Little master, he declared,

had a proper eye for a proper little 'orse. The little black 'orse

that little master had stroked might have been specially born for his

lordship's purpose; picked up at Bampton fair last spring, a trifle too

stout and not quite the colouring for a circus little 'orse and trained

to be the first of Stage Two: little gentlefolks' little 'orses.

Concluding this recommendation, Mr. Hannaford put his head outside the

stable and roared "Jim!" in a voice that might have been heard at

Little Letham; Stingo put his head out and throated "Jim!" in a husky

whisper that nobody heard but himself; and presently there appeared a

long, thin youth wearing a brimless straw hat that was in constant

movement owing to an alarming habit of twitching his scalp.

"Fix him up and run him out," commanded Mr. Hannaford, jerking a thumb

at the little black 'orse; "and keep your scalp steady, me lad, else

you'll do yourself a ninjury." He glared very fiercely; and Jim,

touching an eyebrow which a violent twitch had rushed up to the point

that should have been covered by the brimless straw hat, took down a

bridle and approached the little black 'orse with the air of one who

anticipates some embarrassment.

Mr. Hannaford's stables looked on to a small enclosed paddock, much cut

about with hoofs and marked in the centre by a deeply trodden ring,

around which, as he explained, the little 'orses were put through their

circus paces.

Rollo shyly held his father's hand; Stingo revolved slowly on his own

axis the better to keep a surprised eye on Percival, who pranced and

bounded with excitement; and presently the little black 'orse, with

tossing head and delighted heels, was produced before them.

"Now!" said Mr. Hannaford, patting the little black 'orse with one hand

and extending the other to Rollo. "Up you come, my little lordship.

Nothing to be afraid of. Only his fun that. Steady as a little lamb

when you're on his back--perfectly safe, me lord," he assured Lord

Burdon.

But Rollo hung back, nestling his hand deeper into his father's and

flushing with nervous appeal into Lord Burdon's face. His riding in

the Park did not accommodate the natural timidity of his nature to the

adventures of a strange mount, and less so to the doubtful prospects

that the spirit of the little black 'orse appeared to offer. Lord

Burdon understood, and patted Rollo's hand. "Not feeling quite up to

it, old man? Well, we'll ask Mr. Hannaford to send the pony over to

the Manor, and try him there, eh?"

"Blest if you ain't right, me young lordship," declared Mr. Hannaford

tactfully. "Never be hurried into trying a new little 'orse. That's

the way. Jim shall bring him round for you, me lord, first thing in

the morning. Walk him up the field, Jim, to let his lordship see how

he moves."

Jim clicked his tongue, the little black 'orse bounded amain, and

Percival, who had been watching with burning eyes, could control

himself no longer. "Oh, let me!" Percival cried. "Just one tiny

little ride! Lord Burdon, _please_ let me! I _'treat_ you to let me!"

"Why, you can't ride," Lord Burdon objected playfully.

"I could ride him _anywhere_!" Percival implored. "He knows me. Just

look how he's looking at me. Oh, please--_please_!" and he ended with

a shout of delight, for Lord Burdon nodded to Mr. Hannaford and Mr.

Hannaford swung Percival from the ground into the saddle.

"Shorten up that stirrup-iron, Jim," said Mr. Hannaford, stuffing

Percival's foot into the stirrup on his side. "Catch hold this way,

little master. Stick in with your knees. That's the way. Run him

out, Jim."

The straw-hatted youth made a clutch at the bridle, the little black

'orse jerked up its little black head, and Percival jerked up the

bridle and cried: "Let go! let go!" and kicked a stirruped foot at the

straw-hatted youth and cried: "He _knows_ me, I tell you!"

"Pocket Marvel," commented Stingo huskily, watching the struggle.

"Pocket Marvel, if ever I saw one."

"Why, that's just the very words that I called him, bless my eighteen

stun proper if it isn't!" cried Mr. Hannaford in huge delight; and

simultaneously the straw-hatted youth, with a terrible cry and a

tremendous jerk of the scalp, received a pawing hoof on his foot and

relaxed his hold on the bridle.

Away went the little black 'orse and away went the Pocket Marvel

bounding in the saddle like an india-rubber ball; shouting with

delight; losing a stirrup; clutching at the saddle; saving himself by a

miraculous twist as the little black 'orse circled at the top of the

field; bumping higher and higher as the little black 'orse came gamely

trotting back to them, and finally shooting headfirst into Mr.

Hannaford's arms, as Stingo caught the bridle and the little black

'orse came to a stop.

Mr. Hannaford placed Percival on his legs and he stood by the little

black 'orse's side, breathless, flushed, the centre of general

congratulations and laughter, from the deep "Ho! Ho!" and terrible

leg-and-cane cracks of Mr. Hannaford to the silent signals of

appreciation indicated by the rapid oscillation of the brimless straw

hat on the astonishing scalp movements of Jim.

"Well, I'm afraid I got off rather too quickly, you know," he announced.

"Not a bit of it!" Mr. Hannaford declared stoutly, rubbing that portion

of his waistcoat into which Percival's head had cannoned. "You got off

same as you stuck on; like a regular little Pocket Marvel, bless my

eighteen stun proper if you didn't."

The Pocket Marvel went crimson with new pride and excitement. He made

to turn eagerly to the little black 'orse again; and there occurred

then an incident of which he thought nothing at the time, nor for many

years, but which secreted itself in that strange storehouse of the

brain where trivialities permanently root themselves and whence they

stir, shake off the dust and emerge, when the impressions of far

greater events are obliterated. As he stretched a hand to the bridle,

he caught a glimpse of Rollo's face. Distress not far removed from

tears was there. The boy was concealing himself behind his father.

His sensitive nature caused him to feel that the laughing group, when

it turned attention to him, would to his detriment compare him with

this bold young junior; he shrank from that moment.

Percival turned away from the little black 'orse and ran to him. "Now

it's your turn, Rollo. You see, he knew me from the beginning, and

that's why he liked me to ride him. Now you try. I promise you I

shall run by his side and then, you see, he'll know you're a friend of

mine."

He took Rollo's hand and drew him forward. "Sure you'd like to, old

chap?" Lord Burdon asked, and Rollo said; "Oh, yes," and mounted by

himself, as he had been taught in London.

"There you are!" cried Percival, beaming up at him and clapping his

hands with delight. "There you are! Now, then!" And he set off

running alongside as he had undertaken, as the little black 'orse broke

into a trot. Once in the saddle, Rollo abandoned his fears and rode

easily. The little black 'orse outpaced Percival's small legs, and

Percival came running back and took Lord Burdon's hand and watched with

eager eyes and squirmed with delight.

"He doesn't bump like I did, you see," he said. "Look how he turns

him!" and he freed his hand and clapped and shouted: "Well done, Rollo!"

"'Pon my soul, Percival, you're a devilish good little beggar," said

Lord Burdon; and a similar thought was in the minds of the brothers

Hannaford when, the pony purchased, they watched the wagonette drive

from the farm. "I shall save up and come with my Aunt Maggie and buy

one too," Percival declared, giving his hand to Mr. Hannaford over the

side of the trap. "In my money-box I've got three shillings already;

so I should like to know what you think of that?"

"Pocket Marvel, that little master," commented Mr. Hannaford, as the

wagonette turned out of sight.

Stingo made three husky attempts at speech and at length whispered:

"Thought he was the young lordship when I first saw 'em."

Mr. Hannaford beamed with delight and extended his hand. "Why, that's

just what I thought!" he declared; "bless my eighteen stun proper if it

wasn't. Steady down, boy, steady down and join us."

But Stingo's handshake was limp, and he shook his head slowly.

II

Then there were the lessons with Miss Purdie. Very considerably less

satisfactory, these, than the tearing excitements that the pony

provided, yet having plenty of fun for Percival's eager young mind, and

increasing along a new path the intimacy between the two boys. Rollo

was the more advanced; but his grounding! "Your grounding," as Miss

Purdie would cry, "is shoc-_king_! Grounding is _everything_! _Look_

at this sum! _What_ is seven times twelve, sir? ... then _why_ have

you put down a six? How _dare_ you laugh, Percival? You are _worse_!

Rollo, it's _no_ good! You must begin at the _beginning_. Grounding

is _everything_!"

Terribly frightening, Miss Purdie, when swept by her little storms.

Rather like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances

from behind her spectacles. "_Don't_ put your tongue out when you

write, Percival! What would you think of me, if I moved my tongue from

corner to corner every time I write, like that? _Don't_ laugh at me,

sir!"

"Well, it comes out by itself," Percival expostulates, "and I don't

even know that it is out, you know; so I should like to know what you

think of that?"

"I don't think any thing _about_ it," says Miss Purdie, with a stamp of

her little foot. "That _stu_-pid question of yours! _How_ often have

I told you not to use it?"

Very like a little bird, Miss Purdie, with her sharp little glances,

with her nimble little hops to and fro, and with her perky little

cockings of the head on this side and the other as she encourages an

answer.

"Now the grammar lesson and I hope you've both prepared it. Gender of

nouns. Masculine, Govern-_or_. Feminine?"

"Govern-_ess_," venture the boys, a trifle apprehensively.

"Good boys! Masculine, Sorcer-er. Feminine?"

"Sorcer-_ess_," says the chorus, gathering courage.

"Masculine, Cater-_er_. Feminine?"

"Cater-_ess_," bawls the chorus, thoroughly enjoying itself.

"_Not_ so loud! Masculine, Murder-_er_. Feminine?"

"Murder-_ess_," howls the chorus, recklessly delighted.

"Good boys! Now be careful! Prosecutor? Take time over it.

Masculine, Prosecut-_or_. Feminine?"

"Prosecutr-_ess_!" thunders the chorus, plunging to destruction on the

swing of the thing; and "Oh, you _stu_-pids! you _stu_-pids!" cries

Miss Purdie. "You intol-er-able _stu_-pids!" and the unhappy chorus

hangs its head and cowers beneath the little storm it has let loose.

Delightfully appreciative, though, Miss Purdie, when the "break" of ten

minutes comes and when the boys gorge plum-cake and milk and make her

positively quiver with recitals of the terrible gallops on the pony;

and delightfully concerned, too, when, as happens once or twice, Rollo

is discovered to have a headache and is made to lie on the sofa in a

rug and with a hot-water bottle, while the lessons are continued with

Percival in fierce whispers and hissed "_stu_-pids." Delightfully

inconsequent, moreover, Miss Purdie, who at the end of an especially

exasperating morning, when Hunt is heard with the pony outside the

gate, will suddenly cry: "Well, _go_ away then, you thorough little

_stu_-pids; _go_ away!" and will drive them to the door and then at

once will go into ecstatics over the pony and hurry Percival in for

sugar, and quake with terror while the pony nibbles it from her hand,

and stand and wave at her gate while they go flying down the road, one

in the saddle, the other gasping behind.

Delightfully appreciative, Miss Purdie, and they learn to love her for

all their terrible fear of her.

Percival, Miss Purdie finds, is the more affectionate--also the more

troublesome. Rollo takes his cue from Percival and acts accordingly.

"You are the ringleader!" cries Miss Purdie, stabbing a forefinger at

Percival on the fearful morrow of the day on which truant was

played--whose morning had seen Miss Purdie running between her house

and her gate like a distressed hen abandoned by her chickens; whose

afternoon had seen the alarm communicated to Burdon Old Manor and to

"Post Offic"; and whose evening had discovered the disconsolate return

to the village of two travel-stained and weary figures. "_You_ are the

ringleader in everything, and I don't know whether you ought to be more

ashamed or _you_"--and she turns from the ringleader to stab her finger

at the ring, as represented by Rollo--"or _you_, for allowing yourself

to be led away by one so much younger."

"I've told you," protests Percival, "I've told you again and again we

got lost; so I should like to know what you think of that?"

"_Don't_ use that _abom_-inable phrase, sir! If you hadn't gone

off--tempted Rollo to go off--you wouldn't have got lost, would you?"

Percival beams at her in his disarming manner. "Well, you see, we saw

a fox and went after it and kept on seeing it and _then_ found we were

lost; so I should like--"

"_Don't_ argue. I tell you, you are the _ring_-leader!"

She pauses and glares. "I should like to tell you," says the

ringleader, still beaming, "about a very funny thing we saw. We saw--"

"_Stand_ in the corner!" cries Miss Purdie. "_Stand_ in the corner!

You are incorrigible!" and she turns to Rollo with "Geography, sir!" in

a voice that causes him to tremble.

III

Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leadership.

It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous

young person. A sturdy way of standing he has: squarely, with his

round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms

never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though

alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about

him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise

and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely

silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a

compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the

matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever

he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leadership. When he is with

Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he

immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency

is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which

vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked.

"You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries

when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch

and found I couldn't jump."

"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains.

"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across."

"Well, but I _did_ get across!"

"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy."

"But I got _across_," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her

scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined

spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by

right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon.

He had the instinct of leadership. At first, in the excursions with

Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar

with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great

jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he

expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find

him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the

difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became

natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming

a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along

or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was

reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that

implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the

further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement,

ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right."

And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became

natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that

desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of

relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on

Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his

note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons,

Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when

Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would

sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called

the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took

it.

CHAPTER V

THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN

I

The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive

of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much

more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of

regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under

the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library

the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there

were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London

season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the

London season was ended.

The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked

the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for

Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him

ardently along the hours.

The years were passing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers

told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the

little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for

days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most

radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down

the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every

mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the

summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days

to form a stately chain of sunshine through the warmer months.

Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and

Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers

said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went

scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a

second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in

their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew lustily; lissom of

limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air

and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very

big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him.

"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him,"

stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face)

to lay a passage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie.

"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!"

"I know, I know; but she tries to _rule_ me, Aunt Maggie!"

"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows.

Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!"

"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after

he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie

well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that

were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big,

Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in

too tightly."

Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie,

fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the

sum a _beastly_ sum--the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! A

_beastly_ sum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing

and winding up, "but he is such a _sweet_. So lovable! So merry!"

"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie.

"Of _course_, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's

so _manly_!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like

a _manly_ boy!"

Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to

"Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was

developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise

books. "He wants _Latin_," said Miss Purdie. "He wants _algebra_. He

wants _Euclid_!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be

handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these

correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should

take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie

repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wants _Latin_! He

wants _algebra_! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how

I shall miss them!"

She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by

repeating very fiercely: "He wants _Latin_!"

II

Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat

control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and

it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks

the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon--and

completed--all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie,

for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with

lethargic ways and pronounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr.

Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him

thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town

life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He

was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their

introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the

suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as

the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his

work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as

he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave

one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes

me. Eh, Percival?"

Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr.

Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you

bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted.

Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in

alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that

had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring

beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree

Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated

hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the

tricycle.

The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the

steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on

either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a

clock--"twiddling" Percival called it--when the machine was to be

deflected from a straight passage. Percival's legs were too short for

the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest

incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious

pushing, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until

the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the

steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat,

and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival--legs

dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat--and anguished

entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my

arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the

brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next

slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face

and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd only _work_ when we get near

the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not

have this awful _pushing_!"

"Well, kindly do not push _me_," says Mr. Purdie, very hot.

Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr.

Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat

was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill;

Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump

tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!"

It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's

eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr.

Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured

eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle.

"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!"

Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a

shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his

eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled

wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly

in my eye!"

"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously.

The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them

out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened.

"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!"

They whizzed!

Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I

like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone.

His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with

excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries

of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist

and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!"

Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of

new alarm.

"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!"

"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner

coming!"

"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!"

"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr.

Purdie, twiddle!"

Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts.

"Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding

bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted

Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of

him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge,

and poised itself above them.

Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of

laughter--then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of

chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor

of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from

Percival.

In muffled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are

not killed. Where are you, Percival?"

Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't know

_where_ I am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't

know."

"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please."

Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm

practically standing on my head, you know."

"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly

unpleasant--a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to

do something. The odour here is most noisome."

"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?"

"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot."

A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a

jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from

his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter.

In muffled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?"

"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out,

though."

Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little

boy! Pull me out!"

"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!"

"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell."

"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the

tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are

simply _tight_!"

Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then."

The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently

begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged

from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses

on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking.

"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very

sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down

with leaves."

"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please."

"Is the fly still in your eye?"

"I don't know where the fly is."

"Your trousers are awfully torn."

"Be silent, please. I am dazed."

He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked

tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them

to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge

his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's

regard.

"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see."

Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with

laughing!"

"I was only afraid for you, Percival."

"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!"

Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it.

"Were you laughing all the way down?"

"Anybody would laugh at a whizz like that."

The plump tutor has a close acquaintance with one person who would not.

The remark pricks him and he finds a comforting answer. "Only very

silly people laugh at danger."

"Well, I didn't know it was danger," said Percival; and Mr. Purdie

first looks at him thoughtfully and then gives one of his shrill,

absurd chuckles.

III

Happy, happy time! There were the visits to Mr. Hannaford, always made

on a whole holiday because an early start was necessary, where the

little 'orse farm was progressing famously and where Percival was made

quite extraordinarily welcome. Terrible leg-and-cane cracks would

announce in which quarter of the farm Mr. Hannaford was to be found,

and Percival would discover Mr. Hannaford watching a little circus

'orse at exercise, or watching the builders at work in the brick

stables that were slowly displacing the line of sheds, and watching all

the time to the accompaniment of bellowing instructions punctuated by

leg-and-cane cracks of astounding volume.

Percival would plant himself squarely by Mr. Hannaford's side in Mr.

Hannaford's position--legs apart, head thrown back--and would eagerly

follow the proceedings until Mr. Hannaford suddenly would observe him

and would cry in a voice the whole farm might hear: "Why, it's the

little Pocket Marvel! Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!

However long a you been there, little master?"

Percival, beaming all over his face and putting his small hand into the

tremendous shake of Mr. Hannaford's shoulder of mutton fist: "Only

about ten minutes, thank you, Mr. Hannaford. Don't you mind me, you

know. I like watching."

"Ah, and I've got something for you to watch," Mr. Hannaford would say.

"Now you come over here with me. Got that little lordship with you?"

"Not come back yet," Percival would reply, capering along, tremendously

happy. "How are you going along, Mr. Hannaford? Properly?"

"Properly to rights! Look at that now!" And with a terrible

leg-and-cane crack Mr. Hannaford would pause before the new stables and

call Percival's attention to some new feature that had arisen since his

last visit. "Names on the doors, d'you see? 'Crocker's' on that door,

'Maddox's' on this door. Do a deal in little 'orses with Crocker's

circus; take your gross profit; set aside share of expenses; set aside

wear and tear; set aside emergency fund; take your net profit; build

your stable; call it Crocker's. Same with Maddox: deal, gross, share,

wear, emergency, net, stable--call it Maddox! What d'you think of that

for a notion?"

"Why, I call it jolly fine, Mr. Hannaford," Percival replies. "I call

that a proper notion. Reminds you how you did it, doesn't it?"

"Why, that's just exactly what it does do!" cries Mr. Hannaford,

enormously delighted. "Just the very notion of it, bless my eighteen

stun proper if it ain't! Now you come along over here." And Mr.

Hannaford would leg-and-cane crack, and Percival would trot and

chatter, over to another marvel, where a similar performance would be

gone through, owner and spectator tremendously happy, and both

profoundly serious.

Mr. Hannaford would usually propose lunch after this. Mr. Hannaford

permitted no women in his establishment; but the long, low-roofed

dining-room in the old farmhouse was kept at a shining cleanliness, and

the meal was invitingly cooked, by a one-armed man of astoundingly

fierce appearance and astonishingly mild disposition, who answered to

the names of Ob and Diah accordingly as Mr. Hannaford preferred the

former or latter half of the Obadiah to which the one-armed man was

entitled, and who had left the greater part of his missing arm in the

lion's cage he had attended when travelling with Maddox's Monster

Menagerie and Royal Circus.

Three places were always set at the table when Percival visited. One

for Mr. Hannaford at one end, one at the other end for brother

Stingo--"in case," as Mr. Hannaford would say--and one on Mr.

Hannaford's right for Percival. There was a tremendous silver tankard

of ale for Mr. Hannaford, a similar tankard for Percival--requiring

both hands and containing milk--and always, when Mr. Hannaford raised

the dish-cover, there developed from the cloud of steam a plump chicken

which Mr. Hannaford called chick_un_ and Percival chick_ing_ and which

they both fell upon with quite remarkable appetites.

"Well, it's a most astonishing thing to me," Percival would say when

the cover went up, and the chicken settled out of the steam. "Most

amazing! You know I like chicking better than anything, and every time

I come you just happen to have chicking for dinner! Most amazing to

me, you know!"

And Mr. Hannaford would lay down the carving knife and fork and stare

at the chicken and say: "Well, it is a chickun again, so it is, bless

my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" and would give a tremendous wink

at Ob in order to enjoy with him the joke arising from the fact that

directly Percival was sighted on the farm a messenger was sent to Ob to

prepare the meal that Percival liked best.

Then they would eat away, and pull away at the colossal tankards, and

Percival would always make a point of saying: "Stingo not home?"

A long pull at the tankard and a heavy sigh from Mr. Hannaford: "Not

just yet, little master. Still restless, I'm afraid. Still restless."

And Percival, in the old phrase and with the air of a grandfather:

"Well, he'll settle down, you know. He'll settle down."

"Why, that's just what I say!" Mr. Hannaford would exclaim, immensely

comforted. "Settle down--of course he will! Just what I'm always

telling him, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!"

Always the same jolly lunch, always the same mingled seriousness and

jolly fun, always the same jokes. Percival did not know that much of

it was carefully planned by Mr. Hannaford that he might enjoy the

fullest relish of the Pocket Marvel's visit. There was the great

chicken joke, there was also the killing joke for the production of

which by Percival Mr. Hannaford would dawdle lunch to an inordinate

length.

At length it would come: "Nothing I can have a ride on, I suppose, Mr.

Hannaford?" Percival would say with careful carelessness.

"Never a norse fit for it," Mr. Hannaford would reply, equally off-hand.

A heavy sigh from Percival: "Oh, dear! Sure, I suppose?"

"Certain! Got a little brown 'orse--but there, you'd never ride him."

"I bet I would! I bet I would!"

Mr. Hannaford, looking terribly fierce and in a very violent voice:

"Bet you wouldn't!"

"Try me, then! Only try me!"

And Mr. Hannaford would bounce up and seize his cane, and they would

rush off, and the saddle would be put on the little brown 'orse, and

Percival would mount him and gallop him and cry "You see! You see!"

And Mr. Hannaford would pretend huge amazement and declare that

Percival was a proper little Pocket Marvel, bless his eighteen stun

proper if he wasn't.

Once or twice Stingo would be there, and then the jolly fun would be

jollier than ever; and in the evening Mr. Hannaford's gig with the big

black mare would come around and the brothers would labour up into the

seat and Percival would squeeze in between them and they would let him

drive and he would pop the mare along at a lashing speed and there

would be the highest good-fellowship. He would be set down at the top

of Five Furlong Hill--nothing would induce Mr. Hannaford to come into

the village where women might be met. "Well, good night, Mr.

Hannaford; good night, Mr. Stingo. Thank you most awfully for all your

kindness to me. I hope I'll come again soon."

The brothers would usually wait until he reached the turning to the

village; setting up, the one a husky shout, and the other a terrible

bellow, in reply to the faint "Good night!" that came to them through

the dusk.

"I never in all my life took to nothing, not even a little 'orse, like

I have to that little master," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Never seen

such a proper one, never."

And Stingo, with painful huskiness: "Ought to ha' been a little

lordship!"

"Why, that's just exactly what I say," Mr. Hannaford would reply,

enormously pleased. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it isn't!"

IV

Happy, happy time! There were the visits to mild old Mr. Amber in the

library at Burdon Old Manor. Strongest contrast, the delights here, to

those enjoyed among the little 'orses. Strongest contrast, mild old

Mr. Amber with his stooping shoulders and his gentle ways, to

tremendous Mr. Hannaford with his lusty back and his vigorous habits.

But the same eager welcome: "Well, well, Master Percival, this is

indeed a pleasant surprise! And we are just sitting down to our

tea--and I declare Mrs. Ferris has sent us some strawberry jam! Now if

that isn't too fortunate I don't know what is!"

"Well, it's awfully jolly," Percival agrees. "Mrs. Ferris makes very

nice strawberry jam, doesn't she?"

In the act of pouring tea, mild old Mr. Amber sets down the pot and

emphasises with his glasses. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, she makes

the very best strawberry jam! Mrs. Ferris has made that strawberry jam

for forty years--to our certain knowledge, for-ty years."

Percival's rounded eyes show his appreciation of this consistent

industry. "Must have made a lot," is his comment.

"Tons," says Mr. Amber. "My dear sir--my dear Percival, I should

say--tons." He stabs the glasses at his listener. "And every berry,

sir, every single berry, wet season or dry, from our own gardens!"

It always comes back to that with Mr. Amber. The old Manor, the House

of Burdon, is his world and his life, and he is mightily jealous you

shall know their quality.

There is generally a little interlude of this kind in the course of the

visit. Its effect stays for a few minutes, Mr. Amber slowly repeating

to himself "every berry--every single berry, sir," in the tone of one

impressively warning against any challenge of his statement; and then

he simmers down and recollects that his visitor is the Percival who

occupies a large portion of his heart. He likes to take Percival's

hand. He likes to feel that warm young grasp within his own chilly old

palm. He likes to lead the boy and feel those sturdy young fingers

twitch to the excitement of what tales he can tell or what treasures he

can show.

"Now what have we got to show you in our shelves this evening? Nothing

much, we fear. Oh, yes, we have, though! Those folios--we've

rearranged them so as to fill the ninth and tenth in this tier. That

was your suggestion, wasn't it? I agree, you know, I quite agree.

It's an improvement."

"Keeps them stiffer," says Percival, head on one side, rather proud.

"Just exactly what it does! Keeps them stiffer. Lessens the strain.

We ought to have thought of that, Percival. We reproach ourselves

there, you know."

There is a tinge of the self-reproach in his voice, and Percival

hastens with: "Of course you would have done it yourself, as you said,

but you get into your ways, don't you?"

"Well, we do," agrees Mr. Amber, very comforted. "That's just what it

is--we get into our ways."

At other times when Percival comes to the library, there is no answer

to his knock on the door. He turns the handle very gently; pokes in

his head very quietly; peers all about the apartment; cannot see Mr.

Amber; enters very cautiously; and presently espies him perched high

aloft on one of the wheeled book-ladders, sitting cross-legged,

catalogue on knee, pencil in hand, brow puckered in mental labour.

Then Percival closes the door behind him, so that there shall be

scarcely the faintest click, and gives a tiny cough and says: "Very

busy, Mr. Amber?"

"'M-'m," says Mr. Amber, wagging his head, waving the pencil and

frowning horribly. "'M-'m!"

Percival tiptoes with enormous caution to the other ladder; wheels it

to a shelf where he has found entertainment; selects his book; perches

himself; and for an hour or more the two, each on his ladder, the child

and the man, the lissom young form and the withered old figure, sit

high among the books, entranced among the worlds that books discover.

"'M-'m!" says Mr. Amber at intervals, frantically waving.

"Only coughed," explains Percival. "Only that choking, you know. It--"

"'M-'m! 'M-'m!" and they bury themselves again.

That is the usual course. Once or twice there have been conversations

across the room from the tops of the ladders. Percival has looked up

from his book to find Mr. Amber turned towards him and regarding him

with eyes that do not appear to see his smile of greeting. "Mr. Amber,

is there anything funny about me that you look at me so?"

Mr. Amber will start as though he had been dreaming. "Funny? Eh?

Why, no, Percival; nothing funny at all."

"If it is my boots, they are quite clean. I gave them twelve wipes

each, like you told me."

"It's not your boots."

Silence between them.

"Funny us two sitting up here like this, like two mountains in the sea.

Rather jolly, isn't it?"

"It recalls to me," says Mr. Amber, "another little boy who used to sit

up there just as you sit.... In this dim light ... there are ways you

have, Percival..."

Silence again. Twilight gathering in the corners of the vast room. A

moth softly thudding the window-pane. There is something in the

atmosphere that seems to hold Percival. At "Post Offic" he likes the

lamps to be lit when dusk draws down; here there is a feeling of

gentleness about him, with curious half-thoughts and with half-familiar

gropings and stretchings of the shadows. "Thinking without thinking,

as if I was in some one else who was thinking," he has described it to

Aunt Maggie.

"Your voice, too," says Mr. Amber suddenly.

Percival knows what is in Mr. Amber's mind. "Thinking of your young

lordship, aren't you, Mr. Amber?"

"He used to sit there," Mr. Amber replies. "In this dim light ...

seeing you there..."

Silence again. Twilight wreathing from the corners across the ceiling;

shadows grouping and moving in new fantasies; soft thuddings of the

moth as though a shadow beat to enter.

Percival stretches a hand, and against the window's light perceives a

shadow he has watched drift caressingly about his fingers.

Mr. Amber, little above a whisper, peering through the gloom: "Why do

you stretch your hand so, my lord?"

"I'm touching a shadow that's come right up to me;" and then Percival

realises the last words, and laughs and says: "You called me 'my

lord!'--you did really, Mr. Amber!"

"God bless me!" says Mr. Amber, shaking himself--"God bless me, we are

getting the shadows in our brains. Come down and watch me light the

lamps."

V

Happy, happy time! Best of all when the family is at the Old Manor and

when the friendship with Rollo can be taken up where it was left, to be

deepened and to be discovered more than ever fruitful of delights. The

boys are older now. Childish games are done with; very serious talks

(so they believe) take the place of the chatter and the "pretending" of

earlier days: they discuss affairs, mostly arising from adventures in

the books they read; there has been a general election, and they agree

that the Liberals are awful rotters; there has been one of the little

wars, and they kindle together to the glory of British arms and wish

they might be Young Buglers and be thanked by the general before the

whole regiment like the heroes of Mr. Henty's books.

Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the

adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just

as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on

their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the

stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a

tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of

the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout

boy's stout arms are able to inflict.

"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed

and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering

nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that

hit him. It was my shot."

Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How

could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile

long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will."

It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they

have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of

the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who

cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across

the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls

himself through the far gate.

"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has

he hurt you frightfully?"

"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got

you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings!

There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!"

It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon

starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as

they run: "We'll make it a dead heat."

"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to

spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop.

"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on,"

Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?"

It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day

when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black

'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then

Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So

now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection

more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the

other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely.

Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who

says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to

me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo

mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to

Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his

hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his

servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on

socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets

the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined

with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny

nature.

"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something

about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you."

"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires.

"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point."

He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he

fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the

lowlier"--he consults a paper--"in the lowlier strata that you find the

men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of

the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the

paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here."

"Silly rot," says Percival.

"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn

different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher

strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education,

you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like

an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another."

He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called

'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil."

"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you

don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else."

"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under

another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day

when they are swept away like chaff before the wind."

Percival is rather interested: "Well, who's going to sweep them? and

sweep whom?"

"Ah!" says Mr. Hunt darkly. "Who? Makes yer boil."

"Well, I shouldn't worry, Hunt," says Percival, in the old "Have you

got one of your poor sick yedaches?" tone. "I shouldn't, really. I

feel angry sometimes, but you've only got to have a game of something,

you know. There's Rollo! Come on down and help us to build that raft

on Fir-Tree Pool. We'll have a jolly time. Rollo! Hunt's going to

help us, so we can get that big plank down now! Come on, Hunt!"

He bounds away towards Rollo, and Mr. Hunt, watching before he starts

to follow, says: "Ah, pity there's not more like you! You ought to ha'

been one of them." He scowls horribly in the direction of Lady Burdon,

who is waving to the boys from the door. "One o' them, you ought to

ha' been. Makes yer boil!"

CHAPTER VI

JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED

I

And there were three new friends who contributed to this happy, happy

time and who came vitally to contribute to later years. There were

Japhra and Ima, who lived in a yellow caravan that was sometimes

attached to that Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus with which

Mr. Hannaford traded in little 'orses; and there was Dora, whose mother

was that Mrs. Espart of Abbey Royal at Upabbot over the Ridge who--as

Miss Oxford had told Lady Burdon--did not send her little girl to

lessons with Miss Purdie because of the post-office little boy.

Percival first met Japhra and Ima on a day not long after the end of

Rollo's first visit, when--his playmate gone--he was temporarily a

little lonely. He came upon them by Fir-Tree Pool, stepped through the

belt of trees that surround the pool and halted in much delight at the

entrancing sight his eyes gave him.

Here was a yellow caravan with little curtained windows, a thing most

pregnant of mysteries to eight-years-old. A big white horse,

unharnessed from the van, was cropping the turf. There was an iron pot

hanging above a jolly fire of sticks. On the steps of the van a girl

of about Percival's own age sat knitting. She was olive of face, with

long, black hair; her legs were bare and they looked very long,

Percival thought. By the fire, astride of a felled tree trunk, was a

little man with a very brown face that was marked like a sailor's with

many puckered little lines. He had a tight-lipped mouth with a short

pipe that seemed a natural part of it, and he wore a long jacket and

had a high hat of some rough, brown fur. He was reading a book; and as

Percival stood watching, he put a finger to mark his place and looked

up slowly as though he had known Percival was there but wished to read

to a certain point before interrupting himself.

He looked up and Percival noticed that his eyes, set in that brown,

puckered face, were uncommonly bright. "Welcome, little master," said

he. "All the luck!"

"Hullo!" said Percival. "Excuse me staring. This is funny to me, you

know."

"Quiet, though," said the little man, his eyes twinkling; "and that's

the best thing in life."

Percival came up to him, vastly attracted. "Do you live in that van?"

"That's where I live, little master--Ima and I."

Percival stared at the girl on the steps, who stared back at him and

then smiled. "Ima? That's a funny name," he said.

"Maybe she's a funny girl," said the little man, twinkling more than

ever.

Percival took it quite seriously. "Well, her legs are long," he said

appraisingly.

"They can run, though, little master," said the girl. She had a

curiously soft voice, Percival noticed. But he was rather puzzled with

it all and remained serious. "Is your name funny, too?" he asked the

little man.

The little man's tight lips were stretched in what Percival came to

know for his most advanced sign of amusement. He opened his lips very

slightly when he spoke, and the short pipe that seemed to grow there

did not appear at all to incommode his speech. "Why, try it for

thyself," said the little man,--"Japhra."

"Well, I've not heard it before, you know," said Percival politely.

"You don't mind my asking questions, do you?" he added. "This is

rather funny to me, you know."

"Why, I'm a questioner myself, little master," the little man assured

him. "I'm questioning always. I go through life seeking an answer."

"What for?" asked Percival.

"Why, that's the question, little master," said the little man. "What

for? Who knows?"

Percival regarded him with the same puzzled air that he sometimes gave

to Aunt Maggie. "Well, if you don't mind," he said, "what are you,

then?"

Far from minding, Japhra seemed to like it. Twinkling away: "Why,

that's another question I ask and cannot answer," said he. "What is

any man? One thing to one man and one thing to another--a riddle to

himself, little master. But I can unriddle thee this much: Wintertime

I am a tinker that mends folks' pots and pans; Springtimes I am

Punch-and-Judy-man that makes the children laugh; Summertimes I am a

fighter that fights in the booths. I have been prize-fighter that

fights with the knuckle; cattleman over the sea; jockey, and wrestler,

and miner, and preacher once, and questioner since I was thy size;

there's unriddling for thee."

"It's a good lot," said Percival gravely. "What are you just now,

please?"

"Or a bad lot," said Japhra. "Who knows?--and there's the question

again! No escape from it." He looked solemn for a moment and then

twinkled again. "Just now a fighter, little master. To-morrow I join

Boss Maddox's circus for the summer with my boxing booth."

"Boss Maddox!" cried Percival. "Why, Mr. Stingo goes with Maddox's

circus. Do you know Mr. Stingo?"

"None better," said Japhra. "I am of Stingo's crowd, as we say. Dost

thou?"

"I know him very well," Percival declared. "I know his brother best.

They call me a Pocket Marvel, you know; so I should like to know what

you think of that?"

"Why, I think that's what thou art," said Japhra. "A rare one. There

were fairies at thy christening, little master."

"What for?" asked Percival and asked it so seriously that Japhra

twinkled anew and replied: "Why, there's the question again. What for?

Why that sunny face they have given thee? and those fine limbs? and

that straight back? What for? There's some purpose in it, little

master."

He looked strangely at Percival as though behind his twinkling he

indeed questioned these matters and found, as he had said, a question

in all he saw. But when he saw how mystified he held Percival, he

stopped his searching look and asked: "Any more questions, little

master?"

He had kept his finger on the open page of his book all this time; and

Percival pointed and said: "Well, what are you reading, if you please?"

and was told "Robinson Crusoe."

"Why, I'm reading that!" cried Percival in much delight.

"Then thou art reading one of the only three books a man wants," said

Japhra. "There's 'Pilgrim's Progress'--"

"I've read that too! In Mr. Amber's library--"

"And there's the Bible."

"And that as well!" cried Percival.

"Why," said Japhra--not twinkling now, but grave--"why, then, thou hast

read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and

Bible--those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and

always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou

art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy

part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the

fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou."

He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume

beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny

fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are

friends--thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And

why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the

books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's

the question again!"

It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In

the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the

happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards.

Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster

Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering,

and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes

Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy,

happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly

understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange

and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who

could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And

there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil

and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game--the only proper game

for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's

Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where

Percival,--introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,--was made

enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd."

He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and

Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and

weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the

country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the

allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss,"

and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of

Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles

and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was

gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to

drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like--A Prize

fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox

crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and

all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own

age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder

Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first

saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about

heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile

Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented

the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's

mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten.

He became Percival's first enemy--and chance set aside the first enemy

for further use.

II

Ima, when the van came Lethamwards, was Percival's first girl friend,

and chance had use also in store for her. She was a strange, quiet,

very gentle thing, but one that could run, as she had told him, and

bold and active stuff for any ramble. With odd ways, though.

"Ima, you do look at me an awful lot," Percival told her in the early

days, catching her large eyes fixed upon him.

"Well, thou art not like other boys I see," she told him; and a little

while after she asked him, "Dost thou know little ladies with white

skins like thine, little master?"

"I'm brown!" said Percival indignantly.

She shook her head. "But little ladies?"

"I know one," said Percival. "White! Well, you'd stare if you saw

her, Ima. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, I call her," and in his tone was

something akin to the mingled admiration and awe with which small

schoolboys speak of their cricket captain.

She was silent for a moment; then, "Well, tell me, little master," she

said.

It was of Dora that he told her.

When Lady Burdon had returned that call paid on her by Mrs. Espart from

Abbey Royal she had been as greatly captivated by Dora as she had been

taken by Dora's mother. She found in Mrs. Espart a curiously cold and

high-bred air that appealed to her--being a quality she was at pains to

cultivate in herself--and appealed the more in that it very graciously

unbent towards her. Its unbending was explainable by the quality that,

for her own part, she presented to Mrs. Espart--that of her rank and

station.

Mrs. Espart had been married in her teens, brought from school for the

purpose, by a mother whose whole conception of duty in regard to her

daughters was wealthy marriage, and who had fastened upon it in this

case in the person of Mr. Espart--a nice little man, an indifferently

bred little man, but a most obviously well-possessed little man. The

girl was hurriedly fetched from her finishing school, whirled through a

headachy fortnight of corseting and costuming, and put in Mr. Espart's

way and then in his possession with the docility of one educated from

childhood for such a purpose. Used as a woman who never had realised

there was a life beyond the cloisters bounded by lessons in deportment,

in the nice languages and the nice arts; as a wife who never yet had

been a child but always a young lady, Mrs. Espart discovered that she

was mated with a vulgarian, Mr. Espart that he had married, as he

expressed it, "a frozen statue." She thought of him and despised him

as the one; he thought of her, feared her, and adored her as the other.

The chill she struck into his mind communicated itself in some way to

his bones, and very shortly after he had bought Abbey Royal--her

command being that he should nurse the local political interests,

enrich the Party from his coffers and so win her the social status her

sisters had--he began to shrivel and incontinently died--frozen.

Mrs. Espart proceeded to bring up the child born of this marriage

precisely as she had herself been brought up,--in narrow cloisters,

that is to say, in dutiful obedience and for the ultimate purpose of

suitable marriage. She repeated in Dora's training the training she

had received from her own mother, its object the same, with this

difference--that whereas in her case that object was a wealthy match,

in Dora's--Mr. Espart having made wealth unnecessary--it was position.

Time was absurdly young for any plans when Mrs. Espart first met Lady

Burdon, but plans had crossed her mind when she drove out to leave

cards at the Manor: she had heard of Rollo. She made Lady Burdon very

welcome when Lady Burdon came.

Dora was two years younger than Rollo, Lady Burdon found. When, on the

occasion of this visit, she was brought to the drawing-room--a

strikingly pretty child in a curiously unchildish way--she already

showed marks of the machinery that ordered her life. She was curiously

prim, that is to say, of noticeably trained deportment; curiously

self-assured and yet not childishly frank; curiously correct of speech

and with a dutiful trick of adding "Mamma" to every sentence she

addressed to her mother.

She was her mother's child; similarly trained; similarly developing.

"A very well brought-up child," as Lady Burdon afterwards commented to

her husband, and noted in her also the strong promise of the beauty

that later years were to realise. She was to be notably tall and was

already slim and shot-up for her years; she was to be notably fair of

complexion and showed already a wonderful mildness and whiteness of

skin, curiously heightened by the little flush of colour that warmed in

a sharply defined spot on either cheek. Lady Burdon rallied her once

during their conversation--the subject was French lessons, which it

appeared she found "Terribly puzzling, Lady Burdon, do I not, Mamma?"

and her face responded by a curious deepening of the red shades, her

cheeks and brow gaining a hue almost of transparency by contrast.

It was that quality and that characteristic that made Percival--meeting

her when she was brought over to tea with Rollo--call her, as he told

Ima, Snow-White-and-Rose-Red.

The name was from his fairy book, and to his mind fitted exactly this

fragile and well-behaved and reserved Miss who he thought was the most

beautiful thing he had ever seen. It fitted her more surely yet when

he came to know her when she was fourteen and just returned, Rollo also

having come to the Manor, for her first holidays from the highly

exclusive school to which she was sent.

By then the friendship between Lady Burdon and Mrs. Espart had grown to

closest intimacy. They met, and Dora and Rollo met, intimately in

London; and Abbey Royal was rarely closed when Burdon Old Manor was

opened. Mrs. Espart had suffered to lapse that attitude towards the

little post office boy which Lady Burdon had termed "ridiculous." She

never liked, and certainly never encouraged, Percival, but she accepted

him as undetachable from Rollo, whom by now she encouraged greatly in

friendship with Dora, and it was thus that Dora at rare intervals

contributed to these days of the happy, happy time.

At fourteen she was actively advanced in her first term at the

exclusive school by the machine that was shaping her. Strikingly now

she promised, as always she had hinted, what should be hers when full

maidenhood was hers. The singular fairness of her complexion was the

grace that first struck the observer; and with it was to be noticed

immediately the curious shade on either cheek that flushed to a warm

redness when she was animated, and, flushing sharply within its

limitations, sharply threw into relief the transparent fairness of her

skin. Her head, small and most shapely, was poised with the light and

perfect balance of a flower on its stem. Her features were small,

proportioned as a sculptor would chisel the classic face--having the

straight nose, the delicate nostrils, and the short upper lip of high

beauty. Her eyes were well-opened, strangely dark for her fair

colouring, well-lit, with the light and shade and softness of dew on a

dark pansy when the sun first challenges the flowers at daybreak. Her

abundant hair, soberly dressed in a soft plait that reached her waist,

was of a dull gold that in some lights went to burnished brass. She

was poised upon her feet with the flower-grace of her head upon her

throat. She was of such a quality and an air that you might believe

the very winds would divide to give her passage, afraid to touch and

haply soil so rare a thing.

Percival in these days went beyond even his first wonder at her. He

had never believed there could be such a beautiful thing, and at their

meetings he was very shy--regarding her with an admiration that was

very apparent in his manner. He, certainly, if not the winds, had in

her presence a feeling of necessity to be gentle with so rare and

strange a thing. He could class her nowhere except with

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red; and to him that was her meetest

class--belonging to a different race and to be indulged as an honoured

guest should be; permitted to have caprices; expected to be strange.

She came occasionally to tea at the Old Manor. The boys would take her

then for a walk in the grounds--sometimes further afield. Percival,

never free from the wonder she caused in him, always had much concern

for her on these occasions. He constantly inquired if they were not

going too far for her; he would always propose they should turn back if

they came to a muddy lane. It happened once that a lane desperate in

mud could not be avoided. He showed her the drier path against the

hedge, but this was so narrow as to require some balancing to keep it.

"You must hold my hand," he said.

To shake hands with her had always been a matter of some diffidence.

Now he was to support her while she picked her way. He took her little

gloved hand in his. It lay warmly within his grasp; and concerned lest

he should hurt so delicate a thing, he let it rest in his palm, passing

his fingers about her wrist where there was bone to feel.

"Tell me if I hurt you," he said. "I'm trying not to--and not to

splash"--and he trod carefully, above his boot soles in the mire.

She told him: "You're not, thank you. These lanes are wretched. I

hate them."

Much of her weight was on him. There was a perfume about her person,

and it came to him pleasantly: he had never walked so close to her

before. The soft plait of her hair was about her further shoulder,

hanging down her breast. With her free hand she held her skirt raised

and closely against her legs for fear of brambles in the hedge.

Percival looked at her daintily-shod feet, picking their way, and he

gave a funny little laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked him.

"My boots--and yours. You must have funny little feet."

She half withdrew her hand.

"I think you are the rudest boy I have ever met," she said.

"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," Percival declared.

She told him in her precise way: "You are rude, although you are nice

in some ways. I think I have never known any one stare at me so

frightfully as you stare. I have seen you often staring."

Percival gave for explanation: "If I stare, it's because I've never

seen any one like you."

She gave the slightest toss of her chin.

He went on: "Do you know what I call you? I call you

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red."

He saw the blush shades on her cheek very slightly darken. It sounded

a pleasant thing to be called. But she said: "It sounds stupid; what

is it?"

"From a fairy tale. Don't you know it?"

"I don't care about reading."

"What do you like doing best of all?"

"I think I like going for drives--and that;" she half slipped and

added, "I simply hate this."

"I've got you perfectly safe," Percival assured her.

She said nothing to that, either of doubt or thanks; and they finished

the lane in silence. But when dry ground was reached and she withdrew

her hand, she thanked him prettily. With Rollo--who had no wonder of

her and whom she saw more frequently--she was on easy terms; and now

the three walked back to the Old Manor more companionably than was

usual with them. When Dora left, she surprised Percival by thanking

him again; she surprised him more by showing him a little mark on her

hand he had held and playfully protesting his grasp had caused it.

Thereafter when they met she had a smile for him.

He liked that.

She came to be very frequently in his mind, though why he did not know.

Once he came to Aunt Maggie with a dream he had had of her. "The

rummiest dream, Aunt Maggie. I dreamt I was chasing her, and chasing

her, and calling her: 'Snow-White! Snow-White! Rose-Red! Rose-Red!'

and every time I nearly caught her Rollo came up and caught hold of me,

and away she went. And fancy! I fought Rollo! Aren't dreams absurd?"

Aunt Maggie put her hand to her forehead. "Was that the end, dear?"

"Why, the end was more absurd than ever. Although I tried, I couldn't

hit Rollo--simply couldn't. He hurt me, but I couldn't do anything,

and he threw me down and went off with Dora. Doesn't it show how

ridiculous dreams are? Fancy dear old Rollo being stronger than me!

Is your head hurting, Aunt Maggie?"

"Just a shoot of pain--it's gone now."

While he described his dream, and while she pictured it, one of those

flutterings had run up violently in her brain. It passed, but left its

influence. "Absurd!" she agreed. "If ever you did quarrel with him--"

Percival laughed. "I never could, in any case."

"Are you very fond of him, Percival?"

Rollo was returning to London that day. "I simply hate his going

away," Percival said. "I wish to goodness he lived here always. He

wishes it, too."

CHAPTER VII

BURDON HOUSE LEASED: THE OLD MANOR OCCUPIED

I

It happened that within a very short time of that wish it was granted.

Burdon House in Mount Street was let; Burdon Old Manor was permanently

occupied.

This began in a visit that Lady Burdon, very decidedly out of temper,

paid to Mr. Pemberton at the office in Bedford Row. Relations between

Lady Burdon and the little old lawyer had radically altered since that

occasion of their first meeting at Miller's Field. Mr. Pemberton, who

in these years had relinquished to his son all the business save the

cherished Burdon affairs, had long been aware that the misgivings which

had clouded his first happy impression of Lady Burdon had been the

juster estimate of her character. He had perceived the dominance she

exercised over her indulgent husband; he had accepted, after what

protest he dared, that the management of the estate was in her hands.

He had foreseen the fruits of the wilfulness of a woman thrown out of

balance by the sudden acquisition of place and possessions; it was

because these fruits were now being plucked that he preferred to keep

the Burdon affairs in his own hands. He could not bear the thought of

handing over to his son this honoured trust in shape that would cause a

lifting of the eyebrows: "Father, I've been going through the Burdon

papers. I say, they seem in a precious bad way ... I don't

understand...."

He could not endure the thought of that.

On this day when Lady Burdon came angrily--and defiantly--to Bedford

Row, the position was raised very acutely between them.

"I know--I know," Mr. Pemberton was saying. "But, Lady Burdon, you

must perceive the possibility--nay, in the circumstances, the extreme

probability--that though Lord Burdon countenances in the smallest

particular all you find it necessary to spend--and on the property not

to spend--he yet may not appreciate the state of affairs--the

imperative necessity that a halt be called. I have written to him

frequently. The replies come from you."

She parted her lips to speak, but he had already had sufficient taste

of her mood to make him hasten with: "I know. I know. Lord Burdon has

told us both that he hates business and that he likes to encourage you

in the pleasure you find in it. That is admitted, Lady Burdon. We

have no quarrel there. My point is--how far is Lord Burdon to be

suffered to indulge his dislike? how long is he to be kept in

ignorance? I think no longer. That is why I purpose making a call on

him. I purpose it, again, because I believe Lord Burdon's

influence--when he understands--may join with mine to move you, where

mine alone causes you annoyance."

He indicated the papers that littered the table. "You see the

position. I tell you again--I tell you with all the seriousness of

which I am capable--that the crash is as near to you as I am near to

you sitting here. I tell you that it is not to be averted unless for a

period--a mere few years--Burdon House is given up. It will let

immediately on a short lease. There, alone, will be more than

relief--assistance. It will save you much that you now find

necessary--there is the relief of the whole situation."

She broke out: "It would never have come to this but for the cost of

this irrigation scheme on the Burdon property. That is your

doing--yours and Mr. Maxwell's. I tell you again I was amazed--amazed

when I heard of it."

"And I have reminded you, Lady Burdon, that when I approached you in

the matter you desired not to be troubled with it. I had often and

often urged it upon you. This time you said it was to be left entirely

to our discretion--Maxwell's and mine."

"I shall repudiate the contract. The work is not begun. You can get

out of it as best you can."

He said very quietly, "That is open to you--of course." He paused and

she did not speak, and he went on. "You would have no case, I think.

The authority is too clear. But I do not mind saying I would try to

get out of the contract or--. Our firm could not be involved in a

lawsuit against the house we have served these generations." He

dropped his voice and said more to himself than to her: "No--no. Never

that!" He looked up at her and assumed a cheerful note: "You have to

think of your son, you know, Lady Burdon. What is he to come into?

This irrigation scheme will be the making of the property--the land

cries for it. If you can cut off the Burdon House establishment for a

few years, young Mr. Rollo will have reason to bless you when in

process of time he assumes the title. If you decide--"

She rose abruptly: "I must be going."

Mr. Pemberton hobbled after her down the stairs to attend her to her

carriage. A bitter wind was blowing. The coachman was walking the

horses up and down. The footman who waited in the doorway, rugs on

arm, ran into the street and beckoned to him. Lady Burdon watched the

carriage, tapping her foot on the ground and frowning impatiently. A

large piece of pink paper came blowing down the pavement, somersaulting

along in a ridiculous fashion--heels over head, heels over head,

grotesquely like a performing tumbler.

"Cold!" said Mr. Pemberton, briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Very

cold!"

She made no reply. She was much out of temper. She was considerably

beset. She was stiffening with an angry determination against

abandoning her life in town. She was freshly aroused against Mr.

Pemberton for his devoted loyalty to her husband's house--he had stung

her by the manner of his acceptance of her threat to repudiate the

contract; and by his reference to Rollo--he had hit her there.

The tumbling paper--a newspaper contents bill she could see--flung

itself flat a few yards from them, throwing out its upper corners as it

came to rest, for all the world like an exhausted tumbler throwing out

his arms. The carriage drew up.

With a foot on the step: "You need not call on Lord Burdon till I have

written to you--to arrange a date," she said.

Mr. Pemberton replied: "I certainly will not. I will await your

letter, Lady Burdon."

She settled herself in her seat, drawing her furs about her. He was

certainly a doddering old figure as he stood there--shrunken in the

face, bent in the body, his few white hairs tumbled in the wind.

"Your house is very dear to me, Lady Burdon," he went on. "You must

believe I act only in your best interests--in what I believe to be--"

She nodded to the footman, turned towards her from the box, and the

carriage began to move. The tumbler contents bill leapt up with an

absurd scurry, somersaulted down to them, and flung itself flat with a

ridiculous air of exhaustion.

"Tragedy in the House of Lords," she read idly, and drove away.

II

Lady Burdon drove straight home. She arrived to be apprised she was

concerned in the "Tragedy in the House of Lords" that the tumbler bill

had brought somersaulting down the street. As the carriage drew up, a

maid hurried down the steps and gave her the news: "His lordship"--the

girl was scared and breathless--"His lordship, my lady--taken ill in

the House of Lords--fell out of his seat in a faint--brought him home

in Lord Colwyn's carriage--carried him up-stairs, my lady--fainted

or--a doctor is with him, my lady."

Lady Burdon wrestled with the confused sentences, staring at the girl,

not moving. "Fainted or--"

She threw back the rug from about her lap and sprang from the carriage.

A newsboy rushing down the street almost ran into her, and she had to

stand aside to give him passage. Her eye caught the pink bill

fluttering against him where he held it: "Tragedy in the House of

Lords."

God! The tragedy was here. She ran swiftly up the steps and up the

stairs. At the door of Lord Burdon's room terror leapt at her like a

live thing so that she staggered back a step and could not turn the

handle. "Fainted or--?" She caught her hand to her bosom, her poor

heart beat so. She had a vision of him dead, being carried up the

steps. There flashed with it a vision that showed him tired after

lunch and her saying: "If you knew how elegant you look, lounging

there! You ought to go to the House. You never go. You can sleep

there;" and he saying, "Right-o, old girl."

Sleep there? Had she driven him to die there? Fainted or--?

She entered the room. A man wearing a frock-coat stood by the

dressing-table. She stared, and stared beyond him to the bed. She put

her hand to her throat and strangled out the word "Maurice!" The man

turned to her and began to speak. She ran past him and flung herself

beside the bed and took Lord Burdon's hand and pressed it to her face.

She burst into a terrible sobbing, raining tears upon the hand she

held. From the threshold she had seen the eyes open, the faint twist

of a smile of greeting upon the white, pained face.

Alive! That was sufficient! For the moment, in the first agony of her

distress, she required nothing more. Between the recovery from her

first shock at the news, and the terror that had held her back when she

reached his door, remorse, like bellows at the forge, quicked her every

memory of him to burning irons within her. Happen what might, she was

to be suffered to slake their torture.

She felt the hand she held move in her grasp. It was his signal of

response to her sympathy. He said very weakly, in an attempt at the

old tone: "Made an--awful ass--of--myself, old--girl." He groaned and

breathed: "O God! Pain--pain!"

She would not speak to the doctor. She desired nothing but to be left

there holding that hand, feeling it move for her and pressing it

against her face that was buried upon it when it moved. She desired to

be told nothing, to do nothing. This was between him and her--let them

be left to it while yet they could be left! A procession of pictures

was marching through her mind. In each she saw herself in a scene of

her neglect of him or her impatience with him. She had the feeling

that while she might hold that hand and feel it move, each picture

would pass--atoned for, forgiven, erased. This was between him and

her--let them be left to it while yet they could be left!

Movements, the opening and closing of the door, whispering voices, came

to her. Some one touched her. She shook herself at the touch and

crouched lower. This was between him and her!--for pity's sake!--if

you have pity, let us be left to it while yet we can be left!

The movements continued. They seemed to be closing about

her--impatiently waiting for her. They began to force themselves upon

her attention so that her mind must leave its pictures and distinguish

them. She crouched lower ... if you have pity! She heard stiff

rustlings and fancied a nurse was in the room. She heard a heavier

step and presently felt a touch that seemed to command obedience.

She raised her head--A nurse, the man she had first seen, another

man--older. He pointed at the figure on the bed and motioned with his

head towards the door. Maurice seemed to sleep. She rose with a

little shuddering gasp and looked at them, twisting her hands

together--if they had pity! ... what did they require of her?

The older man was bending over the bed, whispering with the younger.

The nurse came to her, smiling gently, and nodded towards him: "Sir

Mervyn Aston. He will speak to you outside. Will you not leave us

just a moment? Quite all right."

She remembered the name. It was the specialist Maurice had sometimes

consulted. She had not bothered much about it: but she remembered the

name. Sir Mervyn looked towards her and moved across the room. She

looked again at the bed. The nurse nodded brightly. She followed Sir

Mervyn to the door.

"Down-stairs," he said, and trod heavily down before her. He was a

great man and took the privilege of bad manners. In the library he

turned to her: "Did you send for me?" She had not expected that. She

had expected sympathy--at least information. She stared at him,

momentarily surprised out of her grief. His face was stern; she

believed his manner accused her.

"No," she said.

"You expected this?"

Expected it! Of what could he be thinking?

"I've told Lord Burdon repeatedly that this life--I've warned him again

and again to get out of it. Hasn't he told you?"

Now she knew that he was accusing her. She never had cared to listen

when Maurice told her he had been to Harley Street. She stood twisting

her hands together, nervous before this brusque man.

"Hasn't he told you?"

"No."

He looked sharply at her. He was a great man and had learned to read

between the lines that his fashionable patients presented him. "A

pity," he said briefly. "This might have been averted for many years."

"Tell me"--she said, and could say no more: "tell me--"

His tone became a little kinder. "We must hope for the best, you know.

There is always that. I will look in again at midnight. They are

making him quite comfortable up-stairs."

He said a little more that she did not catch. Presently she realised

that he had left her. "This might have been averted for many years!"

She ran to a bureau and fumbled frantically for pen and paper. She was

in a sudden panic to do one thing that she believed would soften that

dreadful sentence if the worst came. She was in a panic to get it done

before there might be a sound from above and a horrid running down the

stairs. She found her writing materials. Pen in hand she listened,

trembling violently. No sound! As quickly as she could write she

scrawled to Mr. Pemberton: "I have decided. We are going to Burdon Old

Manor at once. Make arrangements to let the house, please."

Whatever happened now, she had begun her share of the bargain she

prayed to press on death. If death would spare him, she would devote

her life to him!

As she was sealing the letter Rollo came in. He had been to a matinee

with Mrs. Espart and Dora, at home for her holidays. Lady Burdon gave

a little motherly cry at the sight of him and took him in her arms.

They went up-stairs together.

The doctor had gone. The nurse told her Lord Burdon was asleep; but

when she went to her former position on her knees beside the bed and

took his hand again, he opened his eyes and his eyes smiled at her; and

then closed; he seemed desperately weary.

She did not cry now. There was this bargain to be forced on death;

and, as with the letter, so now with her promises, she was in a panic

to get them done, believing that if death--God, as she named it--might

know all she offered to pay, he must accept the price and hold his hand.

She was not the first that has believed death--or heaven--is open to a

deal.

Through the long evening she knelt there, Rollo with her. Thus and

thus she promised--thus and thus would she do--thus and thus--thus and

thus! Mostly she bargained, frantically reiterating. At intervals she

would turn to protest--protesting that her sin was very light for so

heavy a threat. What had she done? She had done no wrong. She had no

flagrant faults--she was serenely good, as goodness is judged. She was

devout--she was charitable. Only one little failing, heaven! She had

desired to enjoy herself, and enjoying herself had neglected him. But

he did not care for the things she liked. Indeed he did not! He was

happiest when she was happy. Indeed he was! Yet she saw the error of

her way. If he might be spared, heaven--thus and thus--thus and

thus--thus and thus!

Physical weariness overcame her as she heaped her promises, leading her

mind astray and tricking it into nightmare dreams whence she would

struggle with trembling limbs. The dreams took gross or strange forms.

She would be running down the street pursued by the tumbler

contents-bill, somersaulting behind. It caught her and fell flat,

flinging out its armlike corners, and she saw it was Maurice. She

stooped to him, and it was the bill again, gone from her on the wind.

She pursued it, and saw it take semblance of Maurice, and pursued it

with stumbling feet and could not catch it.

She struggled from these horrors and found her mind again. She was

intensely cold, she found. Sir Mervyn had come and was bending over

her husband. Sir Mervyn nodded to her and sat down by the bed. She

dared ask no questions. She crouched lower where she knelt. The night

went on--Sir Mervyn still there. She prayed on--thus and thus! thus

and thus! She was tricked into the nightmare dreams. She was with

Rollo's friend, Percival, and running to Rollo, who seemed in distress.

A woman stopped them. She recognised in her the girl who had come with

that claim to be Lady Burdon years before. The girl caught Percival

and held him and Percival held her. She struggled to be free, for

Rollo was calling her wildly. His cries grew louder, louder, louder,

and burst as a real cry suddenly upon her.

"Mother! Mother!"

She started up. Rollo was on his feet, bending towards his father.

"Lift! Lift!" Lord Burdon murmured.

Sir Mervyn raised him. She clutched his hand. He rallied upon the

strength of life's last pulse and flutter, and smiled, and murmured,

"Poor old girl!"

Then she saw death come; and she turned and threw her arms about her

son.

BOOK FOUR

BOOK OF STORMS AND OF THREATENING STORM. THE ELEMENT OF LOVE

CHAPTER I

PLANS AND DREAMS AND PROMISES

I

Three women were counting the years now. The years were rolling

up--curtain by curtain, like mists from a distant hillside; and behind

them the ultimate prospects for which Lady Burdon waited, Mrs. Espart

waited, and Aunt Maggie waited began to be revealed. Mrs. Espart had

conveyed to Lady Burdon her ambition--formulated long ago--with regard

to Dora and Rollo. Lady Burdon reckoned the union as very desirable

and gave its consummation a first place among her aspirations for her

Rollo. Aunt Maggie saw the hour of her revenge approaching so that its

years might now be estimated on the fingers of one hand.

So near the desirable ends were approaching that the women began to

name dates for their arrival. Youth, with only a few years lived and

so enormous an experience gained in those years (as youth believes),

cannot endure the thought of planning ahead for a space that is a fair

proportion of its whole lifetime. Five years is a monstrous, an

insupportable period to youth that has lived but four times five or

less. Age, with fewer years to live than have been lived, and with the

knowledge of how little a decade has to show, will plan for five years

hence with nothing near so much of sighs and groanings as youth will

suffer if it must wait five months.

The women began to name dates. Those very close friends, Lady Burdon

and Mrs. Espart, spoke of dates frequently. Mrs. Espart and Dora had

already "come into the family" as Mrs. Espart smilingly expressed it,

when, at Lord Burdon's death, and on being acquainted with her dear

friend's intention to let the Mount Street house on a short lease and

retire to Burdon Old Manor, she had offered herself as lessee. The

offer had been most gratefully, most gladly accepted. The great town

house was made over to Mrs. Espart for a seven years' term and thus, in

Mrs. Espart's phrase, "remained in the family"--ready for Rollo and

Dora, as the ladies plotted.

And now they were naming dates. "When Rollo is twenty-four," Lady

Burdon said to Mrs. Espart, come over from Abbey Royal to lunch at the

Manor one day, "look, dear, he is just on twenty now. You know my

plans. Next year he is to go to Cambridge. His illness has thrown him

back. But next year will be time enough. Three years at Cambridge,

then, and that will bring him almost to twenty-three. Then I wish him

to go abroad--to travel for a year. That is so good for a young man, I

think. Then when he comes back he will be ready to settle down and he

will come back just the age for that tradition of ours--celebrating

comings-of-age at twenty-four instead of twenty-one. That would be so

splendid for the wedding, wouldn't it?"

"Splendid!" Mrs. Espart agreed. "Splendid! That old Mr. Amber of

yours was trying to tell me the other day how that twenty-four

tradition arose. But, really, he mumbles so when he gets excited--!"

"Oh, he's hopeless," Lady Burdon agreed. Her tone dismissed his name

as though she found his hopelessness a little trying, and she went back

to "Yes, splendid, won't it be? When I look back, Ella, everything has

gone wonderfully. From the very beginning, you know--the very

beginning, I planned a good marriage for Rollo. It was so essential.

To be your Dora--well, that makes it perfect; yes, perfect!"--and Lady

Burdon stretched out her hands and gave a happy little sigh as though

she put her hands into a happy future and touched her Rollo there.

"And I for Dora," Mrs. Espart said. "From the very beginning, too, I

arranged great matches for Dora in my mind. That it should be your

Rollo,"--she gave a little laugh at her adaptation of the words--"that

it should be your Rollo--why, really, perfect is the word!"

They were silent for a space, enjoying the beauty of the hillside that

the thinning years were disclosing.

"You've never said anything to Rollo?" Mrs. Espart asked.

"Oh, no--no, not directly, anyway. It will come about naturally, I

feel that. They are so much together. And in any case Dora--Dora is

so wonderfully beautiful, Ella. I couldn't conceive any man not

falling in love with her. In a year or so's time, developing as she

is--why, you'll change your mind perhaps--when they're all worshipping

her!"

She laughed, and her laugh was very reassuringly returned. "But it is

Rollo she will marry," Mrs. Espart smiled. "With her it is as you say

with him--it will come naturally. In any case--well, she is being

brought up as I was brought up. She is dutiful. You find so many

girls encouraged in independence nowadays. Nothing is so harmful for a

girl ultimately, I think."

Lady Burdon nodded her agreement. "How happy Rollo will be!" she said,

and spoke with a little sigh so caressingly maternal and with eyes so

fondly beaming that Mrs. Espart put out a hand to touch her and told

her, "I love your devotion to Rollo, Nellie."

"He is everything to me," Lady Burdon said softly. "Everything!"

"I know he is. Why, you look different again when you speak of him

even! Do you know, you were looking wretchedly ill when I came this

morning, I thought."

"I had slept badly." Lady Burdon looked hesitatingly at her friend as

though doubtful of the expediency of some further words she meditated.

Then, "I had my nightmare," she said; and at the question framed on

Mrs. Espart's lips went on impulsively: "Ella, I've never told you

about my nightmare. I think I shall. It worries me. Do you know,

just after we came into the title a girl came to see me and said she

was the former Lord Burdon's wife."

"_No_! What happened?"

"Oh, nothing, of course--nothing serious. I sent her away. She said

she would bring proofs; but I never saw her again."

"You wouldn't, of course. One of those creatures, I suppose," and Mrs.

Espart curled her lip distastefully and added: "I suppose some young

men will do those things--no doubt that's what it was; but it's rather

disgusting, isn't it? And how very horrible for you! But, Nellie,

where does the nightmare come in?"

"With the girl," Lady Burdon said and gave a little uneasy movement as

though even the recollection worried her. "With the girl. I dream of

her whenever--that's the odd thing--whenever something particular

happens. See her just as I saw her then and say 'I am Lady Burdon,'

and she says 'Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?' Then I get that

dreadful nightmare feeling--you know what it is--and say 'I hold!' and

she says 'No, you do not--Nay, I hold!' It's too silly--but you know

what nightmares are. And it only comes when something particular

happens--or rather is going to happen. The night before we heard of

old Lady Burdon's death, that was once. Then the night before we came

down here for that stay when Rollo met his friend Percival and we began

to come regularly. Then the night my husband died." She stopped,

smiled because Mrs. Espart was smiling at her indulgently, as one

smiles at another's unreasonable fears, but went on, "and now last

night!"

Mrs. Espart laughed outright: "Why, what a hollow moan, Nellie!--'and

now last night!' I'd no idea you were such a goose. You've let the

silly thing get on your silly nerves."

"Only because things have always happened with it."

Her concern, however foolish, was clearly so genuine that Mrs. Espart

changed banter for sympathetic reassurance. "Why, Nellie, really you

must be more sensible! Why, dreaming it last night proves how silly it

is. What's happened to-day? Look, I'll tell you what's happened

to-day, and it's something to settle your wretched girl and your omens

once and for all. She nightmared you last night and to-day we've

settled how happy we are all going to be with our young folk married!

There! Tell her that with my compliments if she ever comes again!"

Her air was so brisk and stimulating that Lady Burdon was made to

laugh; and her facts were so convincing that the laugh was followed by

a little sigh of happiness, and Lady Burdon said: "Why, Ella, it's

funny, isn't it, how in this life some things _do_ go just as one

wishes, for all that people say to the contrary?"

That was to be proved. Down at "Post Offic," while the ladies planned,

a date was also being named.

II

"But when? When?" Percival was saying to Aunt Maggie. "I'm

eighteen--eighteen, but you still treat me like a child. I ought to be

doing something. I'm just growing up an idler that every one will soon

be despising. But when I tell you, you ask me to wait and say I've no

need to be anxious and that I shall be glad I waited when I know what

it is you are planning for me."

"You will be, Percival," Aunt Maggie said.

But he made an impatient gesture and cried again: "But when? When?

That satisfied me when I was a boy. It doesn't now. I'm not a boy any

longer. That's what you don't seem to see."

That indeed he was boy no more was written very clearly upon him as he

stood there demanding his future--not for the first time in these days.

He was past his eighteenth birthday: his bearing and his expression

graced him with a maturer air. The mould and the poise of head and

body that as a child had caused a turning of heads after him were

displayed with a tenfold greater attraction now that they adorned the

frame of early manhood. There was about the modelling of his

countenance that air of governance that is the first mark of high

breeding. The outlines and the finish of his face were extraordinarily

firm, as though delicate tools had cut them in firm wax that set to

marble as each line was done. The chin was rounded from beneath and

thrown forward; and to that firm upward round the lower jaw ran in a

fine oval from where the small ears lay closely against the head;

deeply beneath the jaw, cut cleanly back with an uncommon sweep, was

set the powerfully modelled throat that denotes rare physical strength.

The eyes were widely opened, of a fine grey--unusually large and of a

quality of light that seemed to diffuse its rays over all the brow.

The forehead was wide, with a clear, sound look. Outdoor life had

tinted the face with the clean brown that only a fine skin will take;

the hair was of a tawny hue and pressed closely to the scalp. He was

of good height and he carried his trunk as though it were balanced on

his hips--thrown up from the waist into a deep chest beneath powerful

shoulders. He held his arms slightly away from his sides in the

fashion of sailors and boxers whose arms are quick, tough weapons.

After all this and of it all was a gay, alert air, as though he were

ever poised to spring away at the call of the first adventure that came

whistling down the road. His face was not often in repose. Ardent

life was forever footing it merrily up and down his veins, delighting

in motion and in its strength, and his face was the mirror of its

discoveries.

Just now, voiced in his "I'm growing up an idler that every one will

soon be despising," it was discovering restrictions that his brow

mirrored darkly. "It's not fair to me, Aunt Maggie," he said. "I

ought to be doing something for myself. I must be doing something for

myself. But you put me off like a child. You tell me to wait and

won't even tell me what it is. You tell me to wait--when? when?"

Aunt Maggie said pleadingly: "Soon, Percival, soon."

"No, I've heard that--I've heard that!" he cried. "I want to know

when."

She named her date. "When you are of age, dear. When you are

twenty-one."

He cried: "Three years! Go on like this for three years more!"

He swung on his heel and she watched him go tremendously down the path

and through the gate.

CHAPTER II

FEARS AND VISIONS AND DISCOVERIES

I

Percival took the highroad with the one desire to be alone--to walk far

and to walk fast. The prodding of his mind that goaded him, "I'm

growing--I'm losing time--I'm settling into a useless idler!" that

tortured him he was in apron-strings and likely to remain there,

produced a feverish desire to use all his muscles till he tired them.

His feet beat the time--"I must do something--I _must_ do something!"

and he swung them savagely and at their quickest. It was not

sufficient. He was extraordinarily fit and hard; the level road,

despite he footed it at his fiercest, could scarcely quicken his

breathing. A mile from "Post Offic" he struck off to his right and

breasted the Down, climbing its steepness with an energy that at last

began to moisten his body and to give him the desired feeling that his

strength was being exercised. "I must do something!" he spoke aloud.

"I must--I can't go on like this--I won't!" and taxed his limbs the

harder. If he must feel the chains that bound him in idleness, let him

at least make mastery of his body and rebuke it till it wearied.

At the crest of Plowman's Ridge he paused and drew breath and turned

his face to the wind that ever boomed along here and that had come to

be an old friend that greeted his ears with its jovial, gusty Ha! Ha!

Ha!

Far below him he could see "Post Offic" with its garden running to the

wood. From his distance it had the appearance of a toy house enclosed

by a toy hedge, the toy trees of the wood rigid and closely clipped

like the painted absurdities of a child's Noah's Ark. As he looked, a

tiny figure came from the house and went a pace or two up the garden

and seemed to stand and stare towards him up the Ridge. Aunt Maggie,

he was sure, and had a sudden wave of tenderness towards her, looking

so tiny and forlorn down there. He remembered with a prick at heart

that, even in the heat of his anger in the parlour half-an-hour ago, he

had noticed how small she looked as she stood pathetically before him,

gently replying to his impatience. He thought to wave to her with his

handkerchief, but knew she could not see him. He remembered--and

another prick was there--that she had said, seeking, no doubt, to win a

moment from his violence, "Do you see my eyeglasses, dear? I'm getting

so shortsighted, Percival." He flushed to recollect he had disregarded

her words and had threshed ahead with his "It's not fair to me--not

fair to me, keeping me here doing nothing!" He had been unkind--he was

unkind--and she was so small, so gentle, so loving, so tender to his

every mood.

But that very thought of her--how small she was, how gentle--that had

begun to abate his warring mood, returned him suddenly to its

conflicts. That was just it!--so small, so gentle, so different from

him in every way that she could not understand his situation and could

not be reasoned with. No one understood! No one seemed to realise how

he was growing, and how blank the future, and hence what he was

growing. They all laughed at him when he spoke of it.

They all laughed! Mr. Purdie laughed--Mr. Purdie had laughed and said,

"Oh, you're not a man yet, Percival!" and had given his absurd,

maddening chuckle.

"His silly, damned chuckle!" cried Percival to old friend wind at the

top of a wilder burst of resentment against the world in general and

for the moment against Mr. Purdie in particular.

Rollo laughed--Rollo had laughed and declared: "Oh, don't start on

that, Percival! That'll be all right when the time comes."

"When the time comes! Good lord! The time has come," Percival told

old friend wind. "It's slipping past every day. All very well for old

Rollo--all cut and dried for him. For me! I'm to be idling here when

he goes to Cambridge, am I? And idling like a great lout when he comes

back!"

Lady Burdon laughed--they all laughed, thinking him foolish, not

realising. Ah, they would laugh in another way--and rightly so--when

they did realise, when they saw him standing among them idle, useless,

helpless, dependent on Aunt Maggie. They would all laugh--they would

all despise him then. Everybody....

II

As he came to that thought--visioned some distorted picture of himself,

overgrown, hands in pockets in the village street, and all his friends

going contemptuously past him--there came a sudden change in old friend

wind that for a moment left him vacant, then somehow changed his

thoughts anew. Old friend wind, that had been buffeting him strongly

in keeping with his turbulent mood, dropped, and he was in silence;

then came with a different note and bringing a scent he had not

apprehended while it went rushing by. Nothing odd that he should be

responsive to this change. The wind on Plowman's Ridge was old friend

wind to him, and everybody who is friends with the wind knows it for

the live thing that it is--the teller of strange secrets whispered in

its breezes, the shouter of adventures thundered in its gales. Who

lies awake can hear it call "Where are you? Oh, where are you?"--who

climbs the hill to greet it, it welcomes "Welcome--ho!" Sometimes, to

those who are friends with it, it comes lustily booming along in high

excitement ("This way! This way! There's the very devil this way!");

sometimes softly and mysteriously tiptoeing along, finger on lip

("Listen! Listen! Listen! Hush--now here's a secret for you!").

In this guise it came to him now--dropped him down from the turbulence

of spirit to which it had contributed, caught him up and led him away

upon the cloudy paths of the scent it gave him. The fragrance it bore

in this its whispering mood stirred, in that quick and certain manner

that scents arouse, associations linked with such a fragrance. There

was in the scent some hint of the perfume that was always about Dora;

and immediately he was carried to thought of her....

She to see him idler! She to pass him by contemptuously! His mental

vision presented her before him as clearly as if she were here beside

him on the Ridge. He saw her perfect features, with their high, cold

expression; the transparent fairness of her skin; that warm shade of

colour on either cheek that, as though she saw him watch her, deepened

with their strange attraction even as he visioned her. He visioned her

clearly. He could have touched her had he stretched a hand. And he

was caused--he knew no reason for it--a slight trembling and a slight

quickening of his breath.

She to see him idler! ... In rebuke of such a thought he released his

mind to wild and undisciplined flights that showed himself the champion

of tremendous feats--of arms, of heroism, of physical

prowess--performing them beneath the benison of her eyes, returning

from them to receive her smiles....

For a considerable space he stood lost among these clouds. They had

drifted upon him suddenly. He found them delectable. Then he began to

find them strange and puzzling--scenes that were meaningless,

sensations that could not be determined. It is to be remembered of him

that, though he was now advanced to the period when the sap is up in

youth and quickening in his veins, he did not pursue the life nor was

he of the nature that encourages the amorous designs. A sluggish habit

of mind and body is the soil to nurture these: he was alert and braced,

eager and sound from foot to brain--a thing all fibre and fearless,

whose only quest was what should give him the challenge of movement, of

light, and ring back tough and true when he taxed it. No room was

here, then, for the disturbances that sex throws up; and yet these very

qualities that such disturbance could not undermine conspired to arouse

him very mightily when he should turn him to enquire what this

disturbance was, and discovering, should launch himself upon it.

He was near to the brink of that launching now. Dora with her rare

beauty always had exercised upon him a feeling different from any he

commonly knew; he never yet had troubled to suppose that it was caused

by any emotion outside his normal life. She had astonished him by her

grace of form and feature on that day when he had discovered her to be

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red of the fairy book. Thereafter she had remained

to him a delicately beautiful object--set apart from the ordinary

fashion of persons he knew; not to be treated quite as he treated them;

a very dainty thing, making him aware of the contrast that his own

sturdy figure, strong limbs, brown face, and hard young hands

presented. As a boy he had always been caused a manner of awe in her

presence; as he grew older the awe went back to the sheer admiration

that she had caused in him at their first meeting. Out of her company,

in the long months that frequently separated her visits, he rarely

thought of her; though sometimes--and he had no reason for it--he would

find her pretty figure in his mind or in his dreams. When he

reencountered her, the admiration sprang afresh; he liked to watch her

face, to stand unnoticed and expect, then see, her cold smile part her

lips, or those strange shades of colour deepen and glow upon her

cheeks; he liked in little unobserved ways to protect her as he had

protected her that day in the muddy lane; it caused him a strange

rapture to have her thank him for any service.

III

These were his relations to her through the years. He never had

thought to analyse them nor question why he so regarded her--never till

now. Now for the first time as he stood on Plowman's Ridge he mused

among the misty tangle of the sensations that old friend wind had

brought, lost and astray among the visions presented to his mind by

estimate of how Dora would consider his idle plight--now for the first

time he suddenly questioned himself what she was to him.

He was all unused to the sensations in which, by an effort recalling

himself from his musings, he found himself suffused. They were

all--that slight trembling and that slight quickening of his breath

that possessed him--foreign to his nature, and he made a sharp movement

as though they were tangible and visible things that he would shake

from about him. Useless!--they had him wrapped.... Quicker his

trembling, and his breath quicker. What was she to him? Up sprang the

answer, answering with a triple voice that demanded his acknowledgment.

Up sprang the answer, causing him a physical thrill as though indeed

there burst at last from within him some essence that had been too long

held and now was loosed like fire through his veins. With a triple

voice, clamouring he should recognise it! What was she to him? Her

face and figure stood in all their beauty before his mental eye--that

was one voice and he trembled anew to hear it. What was she to him?

Memory of a light speech of Rollo on the previous day came flaming to

his mind: "And mother, I believe, has a plot with Mrs. Espart that I

shall marry Dora then and settle down"--that was a second voice and

stung him so that he knit his brow. What was she to him? Of them

all--of all who would laugh and have him in scorn when he was taskless

idler--bitterest, most intolerably goading, that she should hold him

so--that was the third voice and drew from him a sharp intake of the

breath as of one that has touched hot iron.

What was she to him? In triple voice he had the answer, demanding his

acknowledgment, clamouring for his recognition. By a single word he

signed the bond. None was by to listen, and yet he flushed; there was

none to overhear, and yet he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He just

breathed her name--"Dora!"

An intense stillness came about him. He stood enraptured, all his

senses thrilled. Out of the stillness, echo of his whisper, seemed to

come her name of Dora! Dora! Dora! floating about him as petals from

the bloomy rose. He raised his face to their caress and was caught up

in sudden ecstasy--believed he was with her, touching her; and saw and

felt her stoop towards him, bringing her perfume to him as the may-tree

stoops and sheds its fragrance when first at dawn the morning breathes

in spring.

IV

So for a space he stood etherealised--awed and atremble; youth brought

suddenly through the gates and into the courts of love where the strong

air at every tremulous breath runs like wine to the brain, to the heart

like some quick essence. For a space he stood so; then was aware that

old friend wind was up again and drumming Ha! Ha! Ha! upon his ears as

one that mocks.

What was she to him? The answer, now he had it, stirred to wilder

tumult the feelings that had brought him turbulently breasting up the

Ridge. He looked again towards "Post Offic," toylike below, and had no

tender thought for it--bitter vexation instead, as of the captive who

goes to fury at the chains that bind him.

That he should submit to be thus chained, thus apron-stringed! That

Dora should laugh! That she should know him idler! Goading

thoughts--maddening thoughts, and he flung himself, bruising himself,

against them as the captive against his prison walls. That she should

laugh! It should not be! It was not to be endured! He threw up his

head in determination's action, his hands clenched, his body braced,

resolve upon his angry brow.

Ha! Ha! Ha! drummed old friend wind--Ha! Ha! Ha!

He gave a half cry and turned and strode away along the Ridge, taking

the direction that led him from home, and exerting himself under new

impulse of the desire to rebuke his body and haply ease his mind.

CHAPTER III

A FRIEND UNCHANGED--AND A FRIEND GROWN

I

An hour at that pace brought him above Great Letham, clustered below.

He paused irresolutely. From among the roofs, as it were, a crawling

train emerged. He watched it worm its way along the eastward vale,

then abruptly turned his back upon it as upon a thing more fortunate

than he--not bound down here, as he was bound. Brooding upon the

landscape, he suddenly became aware of a thin wisp of smoke that

pointed up like a grey finger from the valley beneath him. It mounted

in a steady, wand-like line from the belt of trees that marked Fir-Tree

Pool, and its site and its appearance braced him to an alert attention.

It had signalled him before. Only one person he had ever known lit a

fire down there: only one hand in his experience contrived a flame

which gave quite that steady, grey finger. He remembered Japhra

showing him how to get the heart of a fire concentrated in a compact

centre; he remembered Ima laughing at the sprawling heap, burning in

desultory patches, that had come of his first attempt at imitation.

"If only it is Japhra!" he said aloud; and he struck down the

Ridge-side for a straight line across country to where the smoke

proposed that Japhra might be.

More than a year had passed since last the van had visited the

district. Even Stingo, met sometimes over at Mr. Hannaford's, could

give him no better news of it than that Japhra had not taken the road

with Maddox's these two seasons. The disturbed state of mind that now

vexed Percival could be soothed in no other way, he suddenly felt, than

by the restful atmosphere that Japhra always communicated to him.

Japhra would not laugh at him. Japhra would understand how he felt.

Japhra would advise in that quiet way of his that made one see things

as altogether different from the appearance they seemed to present. If

only it were Japhra!

II

It was Japhra!

As Percival came quickly through the trees that enclosed the water he

caught a glimpse of the yellow van. As he emerged he heard Japhra's

voice: "Watch where he comes!" and he pulled up short and cried

delightedly: "You knew! You were expecting me!"

Clearly they had known! Not surprise, but welcome all ready for him,

was in Japhra's keen little eyes that glinted merrily, and on Ima's

face, that was flushed beneath its dusky skin, her lips parted

expectantly. Even old Pilgrim, the big white horse that drew the van,

had its head up from its cropping and looked with stretched neck and

seemed to know. Even tiny Toby, that was Dog Toby when the Punch and

Judy show was out, was hung forward on his short legs like a pointer at

mark, and now came bounding forward in a whirl of noisy joy.

Japhra was astride of a box, a piece of harness between his legs, a

cobbler's needle in his right hand, and the short pipe still the same

fixture in the corner of his mouth. Ima was on one knee, about to rise

from the fire whose smoke had signalled.

"You knew! You were expecting me!" Percival cried again, and went

eagerly to them as they rose to greet him, his hands outstretched.

"Father knew thee before I heard thy footsteps," Ima told him. "The

fire crackled at my ears or I had known."

She seemed to be excusing herself, as though not to have heard were

short of courtesy; and Japhra, who had Percival's hand, gave a twist of

his face as if to bid him see fun, and teased her with: "Thou didst

doubt, though, Ima, for look how I had to bid thee 'watch where he

comes.'"

Percival thought she would toss her head and protest indignantly as

when he used to tease her when they had trifled together. Instead, her

eyes steadily upon his face, "Nay, for I knew it was he," she replied

simply.

He no more than heard her. At a later period he found that the words

had gone to the backwaters of his mind, where trifles lie up to float

unexpectedly into the main stream. Years after he recalled distinctly

her tone, her words, and the look in her eyes when she spoke them.

Now he laughed. "You two can hear the world go round, I believe." He

turned to Japhra: "But how on earth you could tell--"

"Footsteps are voices, little master, when a man has lived in the

stillness."

Percival laughed again--laughed for pure happiness to hear himself

still given that familiar title, and for pure happiness to be again

with Japhra's engaging ideas. "You're the same as ever, Japhra--the

same ideas that other people don't have."

"Ah, but 'tis true," Japhra answered him. "Footsteps have tongues, and

cleaner tongues than ever the mouth holds. Look how a man may oil his

voice to mask his purpose--never his feet. Thine called to me, how

eagerly they brought thee."

"Eagerly!--I should think they did! You're just the one I want. I've

not seen you for a year--more. Eagerly--oh, eagerly!"

Japhra's bright eyes showed his delight. "And we were eager, too. We

have spoken often of little master, eh, Ima? Not right to call him

that now, though. Scarcely reckoned to see him so grown. Why, thou'rt

a full man, little master--there slips the name again!"

He twinkled appreciatively at Percival's protest that to no other name

would he answer, and he went on: "A full man. Ten stone in the chair,

I would wager to it. What of the boxing?"

"Pretty good, Japhra. The gloves you gave me are worn, I can tell you."

"That's well. Never lose the boxing. It is the man's game. Ay, thou

hast the boxer's build, ripe on thee now as I knew would be when I saw

it in thee as a boy. The man's game--never lose it."

"I'm keener than ever on it," Percival told him. "I'm glad you think

I've grown. I've got a punch in my left hand, I believe." His spirits

were run high from his former despondency, and he hit with his left and

sparkled to see Japhra nod approvingly and to hear him: "Ay, the look

of a punch there."

"Yes, I've grown," he said. "You've not changed, Japhra--not a scrap."

Japhra nodded his head towards the fir trees. "Nor are the old limbs

yonder. They stay so till the sap dries, then drop. Nary change.

Only the young shoots change. What of Ima?"

She had turned away while they talked. She was back at the fire, and

Percival turned towards where she stood, about to lift from its hook

the cooking pot that hung from the tripod of iron rods. As he looked,

she swung it with an easy action to the grass. The pot was heavy: she

stooped from the waist, lifted and swung it to the grass with a

graceful action that belonged to her supple form, and, as the steam

came pouring up and was taken by a puff of breeze to her face, went

back a step and looked down at her cooking from beneath her left

forearm, bare to the elbow, raised to shield her eyes.

III

That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed,

since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck;

evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her

olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of

her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her

mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown

colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners

the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as

Percival--very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded

naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore

taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was

of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed

how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and

her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the

short grass that framed them softly.

"What of Ima?"

"Ima?--Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply

sprung up!"

"Ay, grown," Japhra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her.

Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high

fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another

of her sex, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him

down here for comfort and that the first reencounter with Japhra had

caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He

remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started

and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from

Japhra.

"What ails, master?"

"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm

troubled--sick. That's what ails."

His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising

tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put

against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon

character. Down here was sympathy--and he was very young; it sapped

the stubbornness.

"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra."

Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to

him.

"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the

savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response.

"Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few

quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always."

"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he

raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?"

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the

smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing

of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her

mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to

step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars

that star the forest pool, to star her countenance.

CHAPTER IV

IMA'S LESSONS

She had odd ways, Percival found--oddly attractive; sometimes oddly

disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation

while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as

he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was

veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the

meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great

ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her

back were invisibly supported--her plate on her lap, the soles of her

bare feet together.

He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should

be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these

months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary

desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master,

whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all

the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's

border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on

us--calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road

will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its

tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move

quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd."

"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?"

"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west

these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season

begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in

the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the

sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the

road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to

this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls."

"I'd like to be with you, Japhra."

Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the

sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master.

Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me."

Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said

quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he--fights and the rough

ways."

But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to

rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said:

"There's one would like to meet thee, though--sticks or fists"; and

went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of

Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine

fighter he has grown--boxed in some class rings for good purses in the

winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs.

Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of

his own and he gets the crowds--deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has

stuck to him--and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he

owes it."

Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to

have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to

death, of course."

"There's few of his weight he could not hand the goods to," Japhra

agreed. He looked estimatingly at Percival and added: "One that could

keep the straight left in his face a dozen rounds'd serve it up to him,

though. Foxy has no bowels for punishment. I have watched him."

And again Ima broke in. "Ah, why dost talk so?" she addressed her

father. "He is nothing for such ways--fights and the fighting sort."

This time Percival would not let her opinion of him escape without

challenge. "Why, Ima!" he turned to her, "that's the second time

you've said that. Seems to me you think I ought to be wrapped in

cotton-wool."

His voice was bantering, but had a note of impatience. The events of

the day had not made him in humour to take lightly any estimate of

himself that seemed to reflect on his manliness.

She noticed it. Her voice when she answered him had a caressing sound

as though she realised she had vexed him and would beg excuse. "Nay,

only that thou art not for the rough ways--such as thou," she said;

and, mollified, he laughed and told her: "Well, you never used to think

so, anyway. You've changed, you know, Ima, changed a lot since I last

saw you."

"And should have changed," Japhra announced. "Scholar with lesson

books, she has been these winter months."

Percival thought that very quaint. "Scholar, Ima; have you?" he asked

her, and saw the blood run up beneath her dusky skin. "I can't imagine

you at lessons!"

"Nor those who taught me," she replied; and paused and added very

gravely, speaking in her gentle voice, "Yet have I learnt--and still

shall learn."

Percival asked: "Learnt what?"

Odd her ways--oddly attractive, oddly disconcerting; speaking steadily

and more as if it were to herself and not to listeners that she spoke.

"Learnt to sit on a chair," she told him, "and to sit at a table

nicely; to wear shoes on my feet, and stockings; to go to church and

sing to God in heaven; to talk properly as house folk talk; to sleep in

a bed; to wear a hat and stiff clothes; to abide within doors when the

rain falls and when the stars alight in the sky--these have I learnt."

Percival was tempted to laugh, but her gravity forbade him. "How

terrible it sounds--for you! But why, Ima, why?"

She did not answer the question. She smiled gently at him and went on

with the same air of speaking to herself: "Lessons from books, also.

Figures and the making of sums; geography--as capes and bays and what

men make and where; of a new fashion of how to hold the pen stiffly in

writing; of nice ways in speaking--chiefly that I should say 'you' when

I would say 'thou'--that is hardest to me; but I shall learn."

Something almost pleading was in her voice as she repeated, "I shall

learn;" and Percival turned for relief of his puzzlement to Japhra:

"Why, whatever's it all for, Japhra?"

Japhra gave his tight-lipped smile. "Woman's reasons--who shall

discover such?" But Ima made a motion of protest, and he went on:

"Nay, the chance fell, and truly I was glad she should have woman's

company--and gentle company. In Norfolk where we pitched the winter

gone by was a doctor I had known when we were young--he and I. He

shipped twice aboard a cattle boat with me, having the restlessness on

him in those days. Now I found him stout and proper, but not forgetful

of an indifferent matter between us. He brought his lady to the van,

and she conceived a fancy for Ima, holding her a fair, wild thing that

should be tamed. Therefore took Ima to her house and to her board, and

taught her as she hath instructed thee. Thus was the manner of it; as

to the wherefore--why, woman's reasons, as I have said," and he smiled

again.

Ima got abruptly to her feet. The meal was ended, and she began to

collect the plates. Her action plainly rebuked the further questions

with which Percival was playfully turning to her. He offered instead

to help her with her washing of the dishes, but she told him: "Nay,

maid's work this. Abide thou with father, and talk men's talk." In

the action of moving away she turned to Japhra and added her earlier

plea: "So it is not of boxing and the rough ways."

CHAPTER V

JAPHRA'S LESSONS

I

Japhra took up Ima's words when she had left them. "Nay, but the

boxing is my business," Japhra said, filling his pipe. "I'm for the

boxing again this summer. Money's short and old Pilgrim yonder has

full earned his rest and must have another take up his shafts. Another

horse is to be bought, wherefore a sparring booth again for me."

Percival asked: "When are you going?"

"To-morrow. I pick up the circus by Dorchester. My lads are waiting

me. Ginger Cronk, I have--thou mind'st Ginger?--and Snowball White, a

useful one. Stingo seeketh another for me. A good lad, I must have,

if the money's to be made, for Foxy Pinsent hath a brave show that will

draw the company--two coloured lads and four more with himself."

Percival was silent. "I wish I could go with you," he said presently:

"And you're going to-morrow, you say?--to-morrow?"

"At daybreak, master."

"Ah!" Percival gave a hard exclamation as though feelings that were

pent up in him escaped him. "Now I had found you again, I hoped I was

going to see you often for a bit. My luck's right out," and he gave a

little laugh.

Japhra lit his pipe. "So we come back to thy trouble," he said.

His voice and a motion that he made invited confidence. Percival

watched through the dusk the glow from his pipe, now lighting his face,

now leaving it in shadow. He had longed to tell Japhra; he found it

hard.

After a moment: "Hard to tell!" he jerked.

"How to bear? That is the measure of a grief."

"Impossible to bear!"

"Tell, then."

"There's little to be told. That's it! That's the sting of it--so

little, so much. A man must do something with his life, Japhra!"

"Ay, that must he, else life will use him, breaking him."

"Why, that's just it! That's what will happen to me! I'm a man--they

think I'm not; there, that's the pith of it!" He was easier now and in

the way of words that would express his feelings. He went on: "Look,

Japhra, it's like this--" and told how he was growing up idler, how

Aunt Maggie answered all his protestations for work for his hands to do

by bidding him only wait--and he ended as he had begun: "A man must do

something with his life!"

He stopped,--aware, and somehow, as he looked through the dusk at

Japhra, a little ashamed, that his feelings had run his voice to a note

of petulance. He stopped, but a space of silence came where he had

looked for answer. Evening by now was full about the camp. Night that

evening heralded pressed on her feet, and was already to be seen

against the light in the windows of the van where Ima had lit the lamp.

From the pool was the intermittent whirring of a warbler; somewhere a

distant cuckoo called its engaging note that drowsy birds should not

make bedtime yet. In the pines a song-thrush had its psalm to make; at

intervals it paused and the air took a night-jar's whirr and catch and

whirr again. Old Pilgrim cropped the grass.

II

Percival said: "What are you thinking of, Japhra?"

"Of life."

"What of life?"

"How hot it runs."

"Meaning me--I'm in a vile temper, I daresay you think."

"How hot it runs, master--how cold it comes and how little the profit

of it."

Percival said heavily: "What is the use of it, then?"

Japhra bent forward to him and Percival saw the little man's

tight-lipped, firm-lined countenance with the tranquil strength of mind

that abode in the steady aspect of the bright eyes, deep beneath their

strong brows.

"The use?" Japhra said. "Nay, that is the wrong way of estimate. For

thee in thy mood, for all men when life presses them, inquire rather

what is the hurt of it. How shall so small a thing as life, a thing so

profitless, that soon becomes so cold, returneth to earth and is

nothing remembered nor required--how shall so small a thing offend thee

and make shipwreck of thy content? Thus shouldst thou judge of it."

"Some men are not soon forgotten, Japhra."

"Ay, master, and what men? They that have seen how small a thing is

life and have recked nothing of it."

"How have they done great things, then?--fought battles, written books?"

"Why, master, how wrote Bunyan in chains or Milton in blindness?"

"They didn't mind."

"Even so. Profitless they knew life to be, and cared not how it tasked

them."

"But, Japhra, that's--that's all upside down. Are there two things in

a man, then--life and--?"

Japhra said: "So we come to it--and to thee. Truly there are two

things: life which is here in the green leaf, and gone in the dry; and

the spirit which goeth God knows where--into the sea that ever moves,

the wind that ever blows, the sap that ever rises--who shall say? But

knoweth not death and haply endureth forever if it were mighty

enough--as Milton, as Bunyan. Look at me, master, for that is the

plain fact of it and the balsam for all thy hurts."

He stopped and drew slowly at his pipe with little puffs that floated

to Percival like grey thistledown dropping through the night.

"Go on," Percival said. "Go on, Japhra."

"Why, there thou hast it," Japhra told him. "Lay hold on thy

spirit--let that be thy charge; and of what cometh against thee take no

heed save to rebuke it as a boxer rebuketh the cunning of him that is

matched against him. So was the way of Crusoe, of old Bunyan's

Pilgrim, and of the Bible men, and that is why I call them the books

for a fighting man. Here's my way of it, master--there's force in the

world that moves the tides and blows the winds and maketh the green

things grow. Out of that force I unriddle it we come, and back to it

return. In some the spirit is utterly swallowed up in life, and at

death crawleth back suffocated and befouled and only fit to come again

in some rank growth--so much a lesser thing than when it came springing

to a human breast that the force of the world whence it came is by so

much lessened and can give birth to a flower less and a toadstool more."

"And then there's the other way about," said Percival, attracted by

this argument.

"Ay, truly the other way about, master. The way of the mighty men in

whom the spirit rebuketh life and increaseth, and at death goeth

shouting back--so quickening the force of the world that, just as the

cup spilleth when much is added, so there be mighty storms when great

men die--thunders and rushing winds, great lightnings and vast seas."

Percival drew a long breath. "Why, it's a fine idea, Japhra--fine."

"Look at a case of it," Japhra said. "My Bible in the van there hath

one. I have it by heart. Look when Christ died. Never a man than He

cared less how life tasked Him; and at His death--when there went

shouting back the spirit that He had increased beyond the increase of

any man--look thou what came: 'And behold the veil of the Temple was

rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth quaked; and the

rocks rent and the graves were opened.' And again: 'And it was about

the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the

ninth hour; and the sun was darkened.'"

He stopped; and Percival breathed long and deep again: "Fine,

Japhra--fine. I never thought of it like that. Fine--I think I see."

"Surely thou dost, master; or any man that giveth thought to it. Take

it to thine own case--that is my word to thee. Reck nothing how life

assaileth--hold on only to thy spirit. Thou wouldst be doing something

and art irked by the bonds that hold thee--never fear but that in its

time the thing will come. I have seen men--I know the fashion of them.

Thou art of the mould and mind to which adventures come. See to it

thou art ready for them when they arrive--trained as the boxer is

against the big fight."

Percival said heavily: "What's the prize, Japhra?" Now that the

application of this engaging view was pressed to his own case he had a

dark vision of what it required of him. "What's the prize?"

"Why, content! Look, little master, here's happiness, here's

content--and content is all the world's gold and all its dreams.

Whatever cometh against thee, whether through the flesh or through the

mind, get thou the mastery of it. How? Every man according to his

craft. The philosophers, the reckoners--theirs to judge bad against

good and find content that way. That was old Crusoe's manner of it.

Thou art the fighting type--the Ring for thee."

Percival got abruptly to his feet. At the same moment Ima opened the

door of the van and stood above them--held, as it were, upon the light

that streamed from the interior.

"The Ring for thee," Japhra repeated, "there to meet and conquer all

thy vexations. Make a boxer of thy spirit. Step back through the

ropes then and take up the champion belt marking thee thine own man,

thine own master: a proud and jewelled thing to wear--content."

Ima's voice broke in upon them. "The champion belt?" she said. "What,

is it still boxing, thy talk?"

Japhra turned his face up to her and the lamplight showed the twinkling

with which he met the reproach in her voice. "Why, it is my trade," he

said, "and thine. In two days thou'lt be taking the money at the door

of my booth."

"Not his trade, though," she answered.

Percival said: "Japhra, would I be a likely one for your booth, do you

think?"

He was holding out his hand in the action of farewell. Japhra got up

and took it and held it. "Why, if I get as proper a build as thine for

my third lad I will put a polish to it that would vex Foxy Pinsent

himself. Keep up the boxing, master. Art thou going?"

Percival said abruptly, "Yes, I'm going." He released the hand and

went away a step. "I'm going. I've a longish way home and things to

do before bedtime. You'll be gone at daybreak?"

"At dawn, little master."

"On the Dorchester road?"

"Ay, to Dorchester."

"All the luck with you, Japhra. I'm better for seeing you." He spoke

jerkily as though his throat were full and speech difficult. He

stopped abruptly, and half turned away; then, recollecting Ima, went

back to the van and stretched up his hand to where she stood: "Good

night, Ima."

She stooped down to him. The action brought her face into the darkness

and he noticed how her wide eyes, as she stooped, seemed actually to

light it. "Farewell!" she said.

It was perhaps that he had so obviously only attended to her as an

afterthought that her throat, for all the sound her word had, might

have been as full as his. Some thought of the kind--that he had been

churlish to her--crossed him. He said more kindly: "I say, though!

your hand is cold, Ima."

She withdrew her fingers, giving him no reply. But as he turned away

and went a step, "What of thy way home?" she cried, and cried it on a

sudden note as though it went against her will.

"By the Ridge," he told her. "By Plowman's Ridge and then along."

She answered him: "Yes, I am cold. I will warm me to the Ridge with

thee--if thou wilt suffer me."

In the mood that was on him he had preferred to be alone. But under

the same apprehension of having been churlish to her, "Why, that's

jolly of you," he said.

III

She went within the van a few moments; and while he waited he had a

last exchange with Japhra: "You've helped me, Japhra. But I shall

disappoint you if I'm tried too hard. Content--I'll make a fight for

it. But I shall not endure it very well if I am still to be idler."

He gave a hard little laugh. "When it's a fight for mastery of myself

I shall disappoint you, I believe."

Japhra told him: "I have seen men, master, and know the fashion of

them. Thou wilt not disappoint me."

"You can't say that of any one--for certain."

"I say it of thee. Though thou failest a score times thine is the

mould that comes again--for that I shall look. Listen to me, little

master--that name clings: I cannot shake it from me. Listen to me.

Thy type runneth hot through life till at last it cometh to the big

fight. Send me news of that." He struck a match to relight his pipe

and cupped the flame against his face. "Send only 'The Big Fight,

Japhra,'" he said.

The flame of his match built up the dusky night in walls of immense

blackness. In their heart Percival saw the kindly face with its tight

lines and keen eyes. "I shall know the winner," Japhra said; and the

cup of light within his hands shadowed and lit again his face as he

nodded.

The Big Fight was drawing towards Percival. Aunt Maggie had the very

date of it, and the articles reckoned and ready. When it rushed

suddenly upon him and he was in its stress and agony, he remembered the

lighted face, the confident nod and the message that was to be sent.

CHAPTER VI

WITH IMA ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE

I

Ima had put on shoes and stockings when she reappeared from the van and

joined Percival to accompany him to the Ridge. The two were come

almost to the Down's skirt before they exchanged words. "I have things

to do before bedtime," Percival had told Japhra; and as he walked he

was too occupied by the thoughts of what he purposed--hunted by them as

the tumult of his concerns had hunted him earlier in the day--to give

attention to Ima who had come with him when he had preferred to be

alone. She was perhaps aware of that. She followed the half of a pace

behind the short, impatient steps that partnered--and signified--his

mood, her eyes watching what of his face she could see and ever and

again turning swiftly ahead, as though she feared he might catch her at

it and feared that might offend him; so a dog that knows itself

unwanted may be seen, wistful at its master's heels--with little wags

of a timid tail and with beseeching glances; eager to communicate some

succour to this angry mood; afraid to hazard what may further vex.

Yet he was pleasant when presently he spoke to her.

They stepped from a dense lane about whose mouth and overhead the

arching brambles trailed as though to curtain a sanctuary from trespass

by outer dust and breeze and light. Before them the Down ran smooth

and grey to where, beneath the moon, it took a silver rim along the

line of Plowman's Ridge. A harsher scent was here than briar and wild

rose breathed within the lane and jealously entwined to hold there; the

breeze came with a swifter touch to the face; the light challenged the

eyes that the gloom had rested.

Together their effects aroused Percival's senses from his thoughts to

his companion.

"Warmer now, Ima?" he asked.

"Warmer now, little master," and she smiled and added: "unseemly to

call thee that, now thou hast grown so."

He moved with her to a gate that faced the Down. "Let's rest a bit,"

he said. "Why, we've both grown, Ima, since the last time I saw you.

You've grown. You've put up your hair--properly grown up. I shall

have to treat you with terrible respect."

She did not respond to his light tone. Her eyes that looked quietly at

him had a grave air. "I am a gipsy girl to thee," she said. "I am not

for thy respect--such as me. For ladies that." And before he could

answer her she went on: "What of that little lady thou hast told me

of--Snow-White-and-Rose-Red as thou didst name her to me?"

He did not notice a changed tone--to be described as stiff--in her

voice. It did not occur to him that in the matter of his respect she

made comparison between herself and her whom she named with his fond

name for her; he was only surprised and only grateful to have that name

spoken to him.

"Why, she's grown," he said. "Fancy you remembering her, Ima!"

Eagerness was in his voice. "I am cold again," she told him, and drew

away. "Let us go up the Down."

He did not follow her movement or her words, but pursued his own

"--remembering that I called her that, anyway," he said.

If it had been her purpose to dismiss the subject, at least she earned

herself his full attention by the swiftness with which she turned upon

him and by the swiftness of her reply. "It is thee I remember," she

answered him. "Not her--or any such. Thou wast my friend when we

played boy and girl together. All thou hast done with me, all thou

hast told me, point me the way to thee as remembered marks along the

road point to a camping-place--no more, and of themselves nothing."

She had his attention; but he attributed the quickness of her speech

and her odd thought and simile only to the general oddness of her ways.

"Well, you needn't go back to those days in future," he told her.

"We're friends now just as much as then."

She shook her head and smiled. "Nay, after this day I must needs go

farther back," she said, her voice smooth again. "Thou dost not

understand--playmate days I seek. I lie in my bed on the fine nights

with the van door wide, and watch the stars and play I walk among

them--from star to star and round about among the stars, high to the

van's roof and low to where the trees and hills stretch up to them:

thou with me as when first I knew thee--in that wise I seek thee; not

thus"--she broke off and changed the note of her voice. "What talk is

this?" she smiled. "Childish fancies--they are not for thee," and she

moved away and he followed her up the Down.

"Ima, they're pretty fancies, though," he said. "And, you know, you'll

lose them all if you aren't careful--if you go making yourself stiff

and proper with those extraordinary lessons of yours. What are they

for, those lessons? They'll spoil you, Ima. They'll make you quite

different. All that kind of thing is for--for the others--for what

you'd call fine ladies."

"Even so," she said; and pronounced the words as if--though to his mind

they explained nothing--everything was explained by them; and said no

more until the crest of Plowman's Ridge was reached.

II

He was willing enough for his own part to relapse into his own

thoughts. He went so deeply into them that, coming to the Ridge and

involuntarily pausing there, he was twice told by her "Here I return,"

before he was aroused to her again. Bemused, he stared at her a moment

as one stares that is aroused from sleep, and his mind jumped back in

confusion to the last words that had passed between them. "Well, if

you were so anxious for the lessons, why did you give them up when the

winter was over?"

She answered him--sadness in her voice rather than reproach--"We have

done that talk long since. Thou dost not heed me. It is that I am

going that I am telling thee."

He knew he had been careless of her again, and sought to laugh it off.

"Well, it is why you stopped your lessons that I am asking thee," he

mimicked her. "Woman's reasons, Ima?"

She threw out her hands towards him in a gesture of appeal. "Ah, do

not toy me woman's reasons," she said. "Think me less light than

that--if thou thinkest of me. Not woman's reasons bade me back to the

van when winter broke. Not woman's reasons. I knew me there were

green buds in the ditches beneath the dead wet leaves. I had

discovered them to the sun and the breezes many years--turning back the

leaves and smelling the smell they have. How could I stay beneath a

roof when I had thoughts of such?"

She drew a deep and tremulous breath of the mild night air as though

she inhaled the scents of which she spoke, and he watched her gaze

across the eastward vale with those starry eyes that, as she went on,

never the lids unstarred, and she said: "Thoughts of such--of green

buds in the ditches beneath the moulding leaves that waited for me to

uncover them and knew me when I came; of the first cloud of dust along

the road--dust, ah! of tiny sprigs on every bough that I might run to

see; of busy birds stealing the straws and coming for the bits of cloth

and wool they know I place for them; of early light with all the trees

and fields wet and aglisten; of gentle evenings when the new stars come

dropping down the sky; of the road--the road, ah!--I sitting on the

shafts; of the cool brooks, and leading Pilgrim in and hearing him suck

the water and hearing him tear the grass; of the running stream about

my feet and the soft grass that sinks a little--these bade me back."

She turned to him and said in the low voice in which she had been

speaking: "Not women's reasons these." She changed her voice to one

that cried: "Remember me that if I am not like fine ladies I cannot

help be what I am with these things speaking to me. Now I am going,"

and she went swiftly from him and was a dozen paces gone before he

called her back.

III

"Ima!" While she spoke he had envisaged what she told, setting its

freedom and its elemental note to his own desires as one sets music

that stirs the breast. Shaking himself from the spell, "Ima!" he

called, and went to her. "Don't go like that. Say good-by properly."

She stopped short and put her hand to her side as though his call had

launched a shaft that struck her. She did not turn--as though she

dared not turn--until he was close up to her, touching her. Then she

turned, and he saw her eyes amazingly lit, and as they met his, saw the

light pass like a star extinguished. It was as if she had expected

much and had found nothing; and it was so pronounced that he said:

"Ima! Why, what did you think I was going to say?"

There was a wild rose in the bosom of her dress that she had plucked as

they came through the lane. She bent her head to it and put her hands

to it in the action of one that seeks to cover lack of words by some

occupation. She drew the flower from her breast and placed it in his

coat, pinning it there.

"That's right," he smiled. "I'll keep that to remember you by. What

did you think I was going to say? You seemed as though you expected

something--then as if you were disappointed. What was it?"

She was very careful in settling the flower. Then she dropped her

hands and looked up at him. "I asked nothing," she said. "How should

I be disappointed?"

"Asked! No! I saw it in your eyes."

She answered swiftly, almost as one speaking in menace of offending

words: "What in mine eyes?"

"Why, what I tell you. As though you expected something and were

disappointed."

"No more?" she inquired, and repeated it--"No more?"

"No more--no. But I want to know why--or what?"

She gave a gentle laugh and relaxed her attitude that had been

strained, in keeping with her voice. She seemed to have feared he had

derived some secret that she had; and she seemed glad and yet a little

sad her eyes had not betrayed her. She gave a gentle laugh and threw

her hands apart as if to show how small a thing was here.

"Why, little master, there is nothing in that," she said. "The eyes

light for that the heart runneth to peep through them as a child to the

window."

He laughed at the pleasant fancy: "Well, what did your heart run to

see?"

"Nay, I have not done," she told him. "Look also how one may see a

child run happily past the window--from the van I have seen it: so

sometimes the heart but passeth across the eyes with a glad face,

singing from one happy thought to where another waits. I think my

heart passed so and thou didst catch the gleam."

He heard her take in a quick breath as her words ended. Then, "Suffer

me to go now," she said. "Keep my pretty flowers;" and turned and went

swiftly from him down the slope; and was dim where the moonlight faded;

and was gone in the further darkness.

CHAPTER VII

ALONE ON PLOWMAN'S RIDGE

I

She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now

that he was free and alone--as he had wished to be alone--he faced

about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift

pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own

business.

He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he

found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he

was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A

conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to

bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his

future--he would have it in definite words--he would not be put off by

vague generalisations--he would accept nothing in the nature of "next

year will be time enough to decide"--nay, nor "next month," nor "next

week"--he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That

was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself

as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and

however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be,

he would follow wise Japhra's advice--would meet in the ring as if it

were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind

Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her--would meet and would

defeat it there.

He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and

his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At

this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in

his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?--and

the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some

buffeting.

He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when

Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct.

"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving

along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he

cried.

He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was

weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would

fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the

battle was already begun.

II

The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in

train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while

he walked--only could be master of himself while he stood still and

centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as

they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed

tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to

savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool

position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought

that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove

to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a

glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding--not

understanding!--unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and

strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his

trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult.

"A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply

it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair

alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are

starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater

cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man

to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small

thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that

life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an

affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A

man's part--or a coward's?"

"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to

look at it!"

And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as

Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A

man must do something with his life--he admitted that. Is it fight you

would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life.

For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a

man! You are no better than a baby here--worse than a baby; you're a

lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What

will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious

ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself--your natural desires,

your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and

then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout--then

tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really

won--tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!"

The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal

thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head--think of something

else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head

ached--ached. It would all come right--there was no cause for all this

worrying. He had often thought about it before--never till now, till

to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it?

What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain--why, why was

he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind,

could think of something else till he got home! There would be the

jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they

would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he

really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything

would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind--if he

went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go

near her--and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden,

maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live

thing within his brain? why?

III

More reasoned thoughts these--at least a consciousness of his condition

and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts--and they

brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he

sought: Dora.

He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day

the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had

her name come floating about him--Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals

fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that

spot--realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's

ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and

suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all

this new distress!--hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed!

Further than that he might not go--nor cared to seek. It was not

his--nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction--to

know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and

boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that

had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had

stored--touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the

brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved;

and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that

has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut.

Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within

him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were

this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could

not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the

world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole

desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt--even in

slight regard--was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he

was possessed to challenge mighty businesses--of arms, of strength, of

courage, of riches--that he might win her smile.

He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of

right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his

being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the

guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If

only I could see her before I go home!" he thought.

The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch

with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the

sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In

London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London

for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to

the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different--of ten

more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings

are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden--and love it."

If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch

beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be

about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen

minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!--just the chance of a

glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of

her had come to be his. He might even speak with her--hear her voice.

Hear her voice!--it was the utmost desire he had in all the world!

There was just the chance!--if it failed, still he could see the home

where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his--her home,

the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the

flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe.

There was just the chance!--along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind

the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager

to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine

that had his heart.

CHAPTER VIII

WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE

I

There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in

the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told

himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind

and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to

understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an

intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence

of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows--causing an

elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the

surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for

adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required;

a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than

ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must

be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be.

He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no

thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond--then reached

the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if

a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat.

That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face,

that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence

known--these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state.

II

The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more

trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far

to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened

above them--queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her

empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The

Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to

him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the

drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some

light scarf that Dora wore.

Mystery was here. He knew not what--only that, conditioned by some new

sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things

as yet unknown.

He watched--afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies.

While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now

hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and

raised them to her face.

She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery

was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held!

She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had

brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating

ends--gossamer and delicately painted--came softly to her sides. You

might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken

form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited

which way she should please to move.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in

him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--that

was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a

child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so

now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to

his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty

could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised

in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her

maidenhood--and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the

opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered

more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of

this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely

rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost

crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were

frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare,

most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore

herself--that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her

eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make.

He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her

shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it

was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom

was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but

maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw

this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a

shade.

She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its

threshold.

Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later,

when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again

each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech,

and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was

most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so.

As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word

that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree--frozen.

Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty

has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks

never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in

snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles

broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously

hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that

in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew;

caparisoned and trained for that.

III

She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed

them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back.

And then he spoke--stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's

doors and called her--"Dora!"

The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy

things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"--ran among

the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels,

and show your joy, she comes!"--chased from her path a daring leaf or

two--sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her--caught his low

whisper and tossed it from her ears.

Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed

her name again--"Dora!" and then she heard.

She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why--Percival?" and

then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again.

He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."

He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise

caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting

her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips--also of her

surprise--were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of

the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet

his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had

known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and

talk with her. He was in the mystery--not yet of it; but already, at

this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion

arose--softened his voice, quickened his senses.

"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come.

But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but

I happened to be thinking of you."

As icicles broken in a cold hand!

He did not cry, as love might have directed him--"Thinking of me!

You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He

only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully

glad you were."

And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not

particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little

laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was

vexed with you."

He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?"

"It is what you have not done, Percival--or did not do. I was at the

Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could

imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking

out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me,

you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you."

And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with

her--alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he

laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you."

She asked him. "But why have you come--so late?" and at that his

laughter left him.

"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused.

He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a

step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and,

while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence

to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange

element that trembled in the air--fugitive, remote, but causing its

presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She

saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace

of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks.

Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone.

Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said.

"I think that's why I came."

Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am

not going so suddenly--not till the end of the week."

"Saturday--it's the day after to-morrow."

"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here."

"Dull for you--I can imagine that. To this French school, are you

going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it."

"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful."

"Tell me what you do there."

She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up

a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise

manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and

asking such very funny things!"--then used her phrase--"it tickles me

to death."

The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for

some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet

the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest

and most secret steps.

"Tell me, though, Dora!"

"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough

things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to

say. We never speak English, though--always French; and then there are

German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much."

As icicles broken in the hand!

Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at

her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his

breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that

had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with

a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all

the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt

against him.

She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had

gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers.

Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers

about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me

those flowers, Dora."

She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange

element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a

new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told

him, her voice not very easy.

He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he

said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned.

He was clumsy, for his hand trembled--the other still had hers. He was

clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain--new to him,

fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed

within his eyes.

She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she

said.

He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the

stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then

he placed them where the rose had been--hers! hers! That she had

plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her.

She almost there.

The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from

it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had

alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "--and

late. I must be going in."

He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her

throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as

though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her,

moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and

sought them; and he could hear his heart knock.

So, without words--in silence that shouted louder than speech--they

came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he

knew his dismissal.

His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the

edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the

voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a

hundred press for speech. And strange--as between them--the words at

last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man--wouldn't you?--with

nothing--who just poked along and did nothing?"

It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he

struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and

surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said.

He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?"

IV

Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the

knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now

engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct

was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question

fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the

last, the essential strategy.

"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped--saw the door wide; and he saw

the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever

should I suppose it of you?"

He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said

thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to--if I

let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to

scorn me. Any one would--you said it."

Nervous her breathing. "But you--you never could be like that,

Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one

thinks it. I have noticed how they do."

All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him

now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He

cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go

an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always

will," she said. "I always will, Percival."

The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him.

All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed

"Dora! Will you?"

The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only

nodded--moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly

to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and

sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come--and come, not of

herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his

ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly

come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She

only nodded.

"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell--"

She said very low: "For a year."

"Dora! A year!"

"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish."

"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!"

Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted

to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That

mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from

all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first

caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him

how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards

her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach.

Their lips touched, stayed for a space--smaller, infinitely less, than

mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits

reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind

can reckon space.

And then he kissed her.

Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour--flaming and more

flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her

driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily

was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her

rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she

stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her

breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet

on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency--soft, deep, as if beneath

it some jewel gave a secret light--declared her mortal and proclaimed

she lived.

A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be.

She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if

she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said.

And he: "Oh! Dora!"

He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored

her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips.

"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!"

"Let me go in, Percival!"

He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could

not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly

knew I'd always loved you!"

She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go

in!"

"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to

me. I love you so, I love you so!"

The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him

ecstasy.

"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew--or I would not have

kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora."

She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid."

He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful--so beautiful; not meant for

me to love you."

"You are hurting my hands, Percival."

He kissed her hands again--fragile and white and cold and scented, like

crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first

I loved you--but could not know it then. From that day when I first

saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you--you'll not be

frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling

Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you

remember?"

She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some

bewildered dove--captured, past fluttering--which only quivers in the

hands that hold it.

"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and

think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that

everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not

be here when you come back."

At that he felt her fingers move within his hands.

"I cannot stay here now--now that I love you. I shall go."

He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?"

"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know

where, Dora. I only know why--because I love you so. Anywhere,

anything to get me something that will give you to me!"

She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength

for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say

and by intensity of love would draw it from her.

She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and

faltered again--again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened,

atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh,

Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is

it--this?"

"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!"

She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all

her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating

earthwards, lovewards to float to his.

"Tell me!" he breathed.

Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him.

He besought her "Tell me!"

She whispered "Always!"

In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his

condition--possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing--and of her high

estate: "Others will love you!" he cried.

As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within

his hands.

In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought

her.

Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for

it--faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft

as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall

always love you," she breathed.

Shortly he left her.

CHAPTER IX

WITH AUNT MAGGIE IN FAREWELL

I

It was past eleven when Percival got back to "Post Offic." He had been

absent seven hours. He felt himself removed by thrice as many years

from the moment when he had flung away from Aunt Maggie to work off by

active exercise the feelings aroused in him when, to his demands that

he must be doing something with his life, she had prayed him only wait.

Day then, night now, and he as changed.

The mood he brought her was unlike any he had proposed should be his

case. On Plowman's Ridge before he saw Japhra he had imagined for his

return a petulant, a trying-to-be-calm scene in which he should repeat

his purpose that an end must be made of the purposeless way of life in

which she was keeping him. By Fir-Tree Pool, with wise Japhra

propounding how a man must encourage his spirit and defeat his flesh,

he had imagined himself gentle with dear Aunt Maggie; gently showing

her what restlessness had him, persuading her to his ends, or, of his

love for her, accepting her wishes. Now he was come back and neither

case was his. Day then, night now, and he as changed. Now he had

lived that hour with Dora in the drive; now he had kissed her; now had

heard her breathe "I shall always love you." Gone every thought of

petulant distress; gone Japhra's counsels--gone boyhood, manhood come!

The change was stamped upon his face, figured in his air. Aunt Maggie

looked up eagerly as he entered. She had waited him anxiously. He

stood a moment on the threshold of the room and looked at her with

steady, reckoning eyes. She saw; and she greeted him fearfully. "Why,

Percival, dear, how very late you are," she said.

He replied: "It took me longer to get back than I expected."

His tone matched his aspect and the look in his eyes. Aunt Maggie's

voice trembled a little: "You must have been a long way, dear?"

"A good many miles," he said, and came forward and went to his place at

the table where supper was laid, and sat down.

"Are you very tired, dear?--you look tired."

"No--no, thank you, Aunt Maggie."

His voice was absent--or stern; and absently--or sternly--he looked at

her across the table.

She caught her breath and hesitated, and began pathetically to try by

brightness to rally him from his mood.

"At least you must be terribly hungry," she smiled. "Here comes Honor

with just what you like."

A tray tanged against the door, and was borne in by Honor, uncommonly

grim of the face.

"Now wasn't that clever of Honor!" Aunt Maggie went on. "Five minutes

ago--after waiting since seven--she said she knew you would be just in

time if she began to cook the trout then; and here it is ready, and

most delicious, I'm sure, just as you arrive."

Honor's actual words had been: "Time and tide wait for no dangerous

delays, Miss Oxford, and I don't neither--not a single instant longer.

I'll put these troutses on now which ought to have been on at ten

minutes to seven, and I'll cook 'em, and cook 'em and cook 'em till I

drop fainting on my own kitchen carpet and till they're nasty black

cinders that will serve him right. Lost his way! lost his nasty bold

temper! It's no good talking different to me, Miss, not if your voice

was tinkling trumpets, it isn't!" She had burst in with her tray

prepared to repeat her wrath to Percival's face, but caught the

appealing look in Aunt Maggie's eyes, perceived that something was

seriously amiss with Percival, and exchanged her heat for the affection

he had won in her from the first moment, years before, of his

arrival--the sweetest bundle of shawls--at "Post Offic."

"Cooked to a turn, Master Percival, dear," Honor said, uncovering

before him the steaming dish.

"And only just caught," Aunt Maggie smiled. "Rollo brought them in

just before supper time."

And Honor: "And want it you do, as I can see. Nasty pinched look

you've got, Master Percival."

And Aunt Maggie: "And look at that beer, dear. You'd scarcely think it

was a new cask, would you? As clear as crystal."

And Honor: "Ah, 'Pitch that cask about,' I says to the man when he

delivered it. 'Pitch that cask about, my beauty, and you can pitch it

back into your waggin', I says. 'Young master don't want to eat his

beer with a knife and fork, not if you do,' I says sharp."

And Aunt Maggie: "You see what care we take of you, Percival, although

you leave us all day long."

And Honor: "And now I'll just get your slippers down for you. Nothing

like slippers when you're tired. And then you'll be to rights."

II

So these fond women, perceiving him amiss, strove, as women will, to

heal him with their sympathy; and reckoned nothing--as is woman's

part--that he nothing responded to their gentleness nor anything abated

his set and brooding air. The world may be chased up and down to find

men conspired to soothe a woman's brow and scarcely will disclose a

single case. Men weary or wax impatient of such a task. But every

household at some time shows women gently engaged against a bearish

man. It is the woman's part--womanly as we say: using a rare word for

a beautiful virtue.

At another time--in the days before that evening's magic, in the life

that preceded his present only by that hour in the drive with

Dora--Percival had long been won from moodiness by their solicitude for

him. Not now! Those days were only a single hour gone; its events

sundered them from the present by an abyss that had a lifetime's depth,

a lifetime's breadth from marge to marge. New feelings were his and

they enveloped him against old appeals as a suit of mail against

arrows. New prospects held his eyes and they blotted out homelier

visions as the changed scene of a play is dropped across an earlier

background. He was not preoccupied and therefore unaware of the loving

sentences addressed to him. His case was this--that he was a new man,

and as a stranger, therefore, listening to affections that did not

concern him. That he found himself insensible to their appeal was not

that he loved Aunt Maggie less or had suffered abatement of the

affection he had for hot-tongued, warm-hearted Honor. None of these.

It was this only--that he loved another more; this only--that the fires

of his love had sprung out in a new place and there burned with heat

infinitely more fierce than the flame where formerly his affections had

warmed their hands.

III

Such of his meal as he required--and that was what habit, not appetite,

demanded--he ate in silence. To silence also Aunt Maggie went, shortly

after Honor had left them. She attempted once or twice to continue to

persuade him from his mood--protested that he was eating nothing;

sought to rally him with little scraps of gossip, with questions

touching his afternoon. Of no avail. Presently she clasped her hands

together on the table before him, and only watched him, and only sought

to discover from his face what thing it was his face betided, and only

felt her fears increase.

When he was done he pushed back his chair and she dropped her eyes, for

his were now upon her and had the steady, reckoning look she had

observed--and feared--when he regarded her for that moment at his

entrance. She could not endure the feeling that he watched her, and

watched her so. "You will go to bed soon, Percival," she said. "You

do look so tired."

He replied: "I am not tired. I have something to ask you first, Aunt

Maggie;" and after a pause he went on: "Aunt Maggie, I was telling you

this afternoon that I thought I ought to be doing something. Well,

more than that I thought I ought to be doing something, and more than

merely telling you--because I know I was in a great state about it and

went off in a great state."

She answered, "Yes, Percival?"

"You said there was plenty of time for that."

"Yes, Percival."

"There isn't, Aunt Maggie." And he went on quickly: "there isn't

plenty of time to think about what I am going to do. I am not a boy

any longer. Even if I started to-morrow I should be starting late.

Every one at my age is doing something."

His tone was firm and quiet but was kind. She said that which made it

take a harder note.

"Percival, you need only wait," she said, "till you are twenty-one."

She saw his face darken in a change as swift and chill as sudden shadow

along the sea. "Oh, that!" he cried. "That! I don't want to hear

that any more or ever again! Is that all you have for me?"

She clasped and unclasped her hands on the table before her. He waited

several moments for her answer. Then he said: "And what am I to do

till then?"

She told him: "Only wait with me, Percival."

He said very quietly: "No, I will not wait. I will not stay with you.

I am going away."

The stress that each suffered was broken out of them by his

announcement. The thought of losing him, the thought of how a word,

revealing her secret, would keep him, broke from her in her cry: "No,

no, Percival! Oh, Percival, no!"

Her sudden voice and its anguish smote him to his depths in his own

stress as a sudden cry in the night that shocks the heart. He uttered

in a voice she had never heard--most hoarse, most atremble: "Oh,

understand! For pity's sake try to understand. I am so that I will

never sleep again--never again till I have earned my sleep. Oh,

understand that I am a man!"

She saw his dear face, his handsome face, his face that she loved so

and was to lose unless she spoke, all twisted up as though he writhed

in pain. She cried: "Percival, don't look like that. I can keep you.

I cannot let you go."

He looked at her with eyes that told his anguish of this scene and of

his spirit. "You cannot keep me," he said. "I am going."

She breathed: "By telling you I can keep you."

He said: "Tell me, then."'

She began, her tongue heavy as a key is rusty that is to turn in a lock

closed eighteen years; "Rollo--" she began, and stopped.

He had for a moment believed that she intended to tell him this matter

affecting his future that he knew must be delusion--some wonderful

plan, as wonderful as impossible, such as a woman leading Aunt Maggie's

retired life might have--whose delusion, having it before him, he could

at last show her. But at her "Rollo," disappointed, he broke out, "Oh,

what has old Rollo to do with it?"

Her voice was making a stumbling effort to hold on at turning the key.

But his "Old Rollo" caused her to halt, afraid, as one turning a key in

very fact might halt and draw back at a footstep.

He saw her face go grey with the hue of ashes. "Aunt Maggie!" he

cried, and got up quickly and went to her. "I don't mean to be unkind.

I must go. I cannot stay. But I'm not going angry--not running away.

I love you--love you, you know how I love you. Just think of it as

going on a visit. It's no more than that. I'm going with old

Japhra--that's not like going, being with him, is it?"

She just said: "When, dear?"

"Darling, in the morning. At daybreak."

IV

She began to cry, and clung to him. But it was more than losing him

had made that ashy hue in her face that had wrung his heart. It was

realisation of a sudden thing that menaced her revenge--a thing

suddenly arisen in its long, long path whose end she now was reaching.

Thinking, when the hour came, the more dreadfully to strike Lady

Burdon, she had deliberately made possible and had encouraged the

friendship between Percival and Rollo. Had she gone too far? What

when she told Percival and he saw it was "Old Rollo" he was to

displace, "Old Rollo" upon whom he was to bring disaster--what if--?

She dared not so much as finish that question.

CHAPTER X

WITH EGBERT IN FREEDOM

I

In the morning when he came early to her room, she was easier and able

only to suffer her distress at losing him. Thoughts had come to her,

helping her; and helping her the more in that they were of a part with

the fatalism which had assured her at Audrey's death-bed that nothing

could go wrong in her scheme. His resolve to go away was surely, she

thought, fate's contribution to her success. Always she had planned

for twenty-one--when he should be of age, and qualified himself to

avenge his mother. Last night, in agony at losing him, she had nearly

robbed herself of that. Fate, in guise of her panic realisation of his

affection for Rollo, had interfered to stop her. Last night she had

thought it insupportable to be left without him. While she lay

sleepless--and heard her darling pacing his floor in the next

room--fate had again encouraged her heart by showing her that this was

well, not ill--that this was fate working for her; well that he should

now, in the last period, be separated from Rollo.

Thus supported she was saved from the uttermost extremity of the

collapse that came upon her when fondly he kissed her as she lay in

bed, left her, returned to press her to him again.--"Think of it as a

visit, Aunt Maggie, only that. Just a visit to give these idle

whacking great hands something to do"--and then was gone.

One or two--up thus early--who saw him go by and came to Aunt Maggie

when it was noised that he had gone away, told her how stern he

looked--how strange. Miss Purdie, early in her garden, had noticed it.

"Oh, Miss Oxford, if I had _known_! Oh, to _think_ he was going when I

saw him! Oh, and I _suspected_ something was wrong. There was

_something_ in his face I had _never_ seen there before. I thought to

myself 'Now _what_ is the matter with you, I wonder?' And I _stood_

and _looked_ after him, and dropped one of my garden gloves and never

_knew_ I had lost it until I was back in the house and found I had only

_one_ to take off. Oh, when I _think_ of all his sweet ways and his

handsome face...."

II

Stern he looked and strange, and stern his thoughts and difficult. His

plans ran to coming up with Japhra on the Dorchester Road and joining

him. Beyond?--he could supply nothing beyond. His urgent desire went

to being away from home, and for his own respect and for his mind's

ease working to earn his food. Beyond?--he could see nothing beyond.

His thoughts and all his heart and all his being went to his Dora, to

her exquisite beauty, to the rapture of their kiss, to the divine

ecstasy of her whisper, "I shall always love you;" beyond?--black,

black beyond, most utter black, most utter hopeless; emptiness most

utter, mock most shrill, most sharp.

He laughed, poor boy; and "Fool! Fool!" cried, "abject fool!" He

groaned, poor boy, and "Dora! Dora!" cried, "oh! Dora!" He set his

teeth, poor boy, and braced his strength; threw up his chin and

clenched a fist, and "Somehow! Somehow!" cried, "Somehow!"

Most to be pitied then, poor boy, as old friend wind, in whose path now

he came, knew and mocked, or might have known and surely

mocked--buffeting him with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" tossing his "Somehow!

Somehow!" from his lips and chasing it and tearing it as old friend

wind had heard resolves and mocked and tossed and chased and torn them

from end to end along its course since mankind first resolving came.

But he was helped by that strong "Somehow!" as by resolve mankind--and

youth the most of all--is ever helped. More stern, not less, it made

him, but launched a shaft of light into the darkness of that

Beyond--showing the adventure, not the desert there; inspiring him that

somehow stuff was to be found there that somehow he would wrest to

himself, somehow shape and beat to win him fulfilment of all his hopes.

Thus he was in brighter mood when presently he brought the white riband

of the Dorchester road into view, in mood bright enough to laugh when,

striking towards the spot where he proposed to pick up the van, he saw

on a gate there a lank figure, bundle over shoulder, that suggested to

him it could be no one but Egbert Hunt. He laughed--then had a tender

look in his eyes, for his thoughts, as he made along in the direction

of gate and figure, went to Rollo.

III

On his way home, when he had left Dora on the previous night, he had

called in at Burdon Old Manor to bid Rollo good-by. Lady Burdon had

gone to bed. He found Rollo in the billiard room, Egbert Hunt marking

for him, and it was what had passed between them that had emphasised

the endearment in his tone when he had said "Old Rollo" to Aunt Maggie.

Tender his look when he recalled how "Old Rollo," hearing he was going

away, had dropped his cue and stared at him in blank dismay, then

questioned him, and then had listened with twitching mouth when he had

cried, "Oh, Rollo, things are so steep for me, old man. I can't

explain. I must get out of this, that's all!"

For the first time--and the only time--in all their friendship it had

been Rollo's to play the supporter. "Why, Percival, dear, dear old

chap," he had cried, "don't look like that. For God's sake, don't.

Whatever's wrong I can help you. We are absolute, absolute pals. No

one ever had such a pal as you've been to me--now it's my turn. Stay

here with us a bit, old man. Yes, that's what you'll do. Let's fix

that, old man. That will make everything right. Everything I've got

is yours--you know that, don't you, old man?"

And when he had shaken his head and had explained that it was

work--work for his hands he wanted, and was going to find with Japhra,

Rollo had vented his feelings on Egbert Hunt with "What the devil are

you standing there listening for, Hunt? Get out of this! Didn't I

tell you to go? Get out!" And when they were alone, and when he had

seen that Percival was not to be moved, had revealed his affection in

last words that brought a dimness to Percival's eyes as he recalled

them.

"Men don't talk about these things," Rollo had said, "so I've never

told you all you are to me--but it's a fact, Percival, that I'm never

really happy except when I'm with you. I've been like that ever since

we met, and in all the jolly days we've had together. You know the

sort of chap I am--quite different from you. I don't get on with other

people. I've always hated the idea of going to Cambridge this October

because it means mixing with men I shan't like and leaving you. You're

everything to me, old man. It's always been my hope--I don't mind

telling you now you're going--that when I settle down, after I come of

age--you know what I mean--it's always been my hope that we'll be able

to fix it up together somehow. I shall have business and things to

look after--you know what I mean--that you can manage a damn sight

better than I can. And I'll want some one to look after me--the kind

of chap I am; a shy ass, and delicate. And you're the one, the only,

only one. Just remember that, won't you, old man?..."

IV

Percival was aroused from his warm recollection of it by the figure on

the gate hailing him. Egbert Hunt it was. "Good lord!" Percival

cried. "What on earth are you doing here--this time in the morning and

with that bundle?"

"Coming with you," said Hunt.

"With me! Do you know where I'm going?"

Egbert Hunt pointed up the road where Japhra's van came plodding. "In

that. Heard you tell Lord Burdon last night. Heard you say that Mr.

Stingo's crowd was short of hands. The life for me. Fac'."

Percival stared at him--a grown man now, lanky, unhealthy, white of

face.

"Does Rollo--does Lord Burdon know? Did he say you might go?"

"Told me to go to 'ell."

Percival laughed. "You'll find it that--you frightful ass."

"I'll be free," said Egbert darkly. "No man's slave I won't be any

more. Every man's as good as the next where you're bound, I reckon.

No more tyrangs for me. You're my sort, and always have been."

The van was up to them and pulled up with Japhra's surprised hail of

greeting. Percival went to him where he sat on the forward platform.

"Japhra, here's a hand for one of your crowd--a friend of mine. Is

there work for him?"

Japhra looked at Egbert with unveiled belittlement. "There's work for

all sorts," he said drily. "For him perhaps. Get up behind," he

addressed Egbert. "I'll let old One Eye have a look at thee. He wants

a hand."

Percival swung up beside Japhra and smiled good morning at Ima, who had

come to the door. "Go on, Japhra."

"That's a poor lot, that friend of thine," said Japhra, clicking his

tongue at Pilgrim. "How far dost thou come with us, little master?"

"All the way, Japhra."

Japhra looked at him keenly. "To Dorchester?"

"Farther than that. I'm going to be third lad in your boxing booth,

Japhra. Go on; I'll explain."

CHAPTER XI

WITH JAPHRA ON THE ROAD

I

It was two years--near enough--before Percival came again to Burdon

Village. Egbert Hunt found work with old One Eye who had the Wild West

Rifle Range. Percival became "Japhra's Gentleman" (as the van folk

called him), living with Japhra and Ima in the van, and earning his way

in Japhra's booth.

A tough life, a quick life, a good life; and he "trained on," as they

said in the vans of beast or man or show that, starting fresh, slipped

into stride and did well. He trained on. Little room for trouble or

for brooding thoughts. Up while yet the day was grey; stiff work in

boots and vest and trousers in taking down the booth and loading-up,

harnessing and getting your van away before too many kept the dust

stirring ahead of you. Keen appetite for the breakfasts Ima cooked,

eaten on the forward platform with the van wheels grinding the road

beneath. The long, long trail to the next pitch,--now with Ima as she

sat, one eye on the horse, the other on her needle, sewing, darning,

making; now plodding alongside with Japhra, drinking his quaint

philosophy, hearing his strange tales of men and countries, fights and

hard trades he had seen. Now forward along the long line of waggons,

now dropping back where they trailed a mile down the road; joining this

party or that, chaffing with the brown-faced girls or walking with the

men and listening to their tales of their craft and of their lives.

Sometimes the road from pitch to pitch was short; then the midday meal

would be taken at the new site and there would be an hour's doze before

the booths were set up and business begun. Usually the journey took

the greater part of the day--frequently without a halt--and work must

begin immediately on arrival; the boxing booth built up--first the

platform on which Percival and Japhra, Ginger Cronk and Snowball White

paraded to attract the crowd--a thing of boards and trestles, the

platform, that by sheer sweating labour must be made to lie even and

stable whatever the character of the ground; three uprights at either

end that sometimes must be forced into soil iron hard and sometimes

must be coaxed to hold firm in marshy bog. The booth itself to be

rigged then--the wooden framework that must be lashed and nailed and

screwed; the wide lengths of canvas eyeletted for binding together;

stakes for the ring to be driven in; seats to be bolted together and

covered--and all at top, top speed with a mouthful of nails and screws

and "Who in hell's got that mallet?" and "A hand here! a hand sharp!

Blast her! she's slipped again!" and many a bruised finger and always a

sweating back. And then sharp, sharp into the flannels, and out with

the gloves; and parade till the booth was full; and spar exhibition

rounds alleged to be for weighty purses; and fight all the challengers

from the crowd four rounds apiece, any weight; and top-up with a stiff

six rounds announced by Snowball White: "A sporting gentleman having

put up a purse for knock-out or win on points match between Ginger

Cronk, ten stun champion of the west,--who beat Curly Hawkins in eight

rounds, knocked out Alf Jacobs after a desperate ding-dong o' fourteen

rounds, defeated Young Philipps in five rounds, and Jew Isaacs in

sixteen,--and Gentleman Percival, a lad with a future before him, whom

you'll be proud to have seen, gentlemen, discovered this summer by

Gipsy Japhra, the man who held the lightweight champion belt for four

years in America and who has trained with all the great ring heroes,

bare-knuckle men, gentlemen, of a glorious Prize Ring period of the

past. You are requested to pass no remarks during the progress of this

desperate encounter, but to signify appreciation in the usual manner.

Gentlemen, Mr. Ginger Cronk, Mr. Gentleman Percival--TIME!--" And so

on; and winding up with "a remarkable exhibition in which Gipsy Japhra,

partnered by Gentleman Percival, will show the style and methods of the

old P. R. gentlemen"--and then back to the platform again, to parade,

to fill the booth, to fight--and so till the last visitor had left the

fair to night and to its hoarse and worn-out workers.

A tough life, a quick life, a good life; ... and Percival trained on.

At first he had been considerably tasked by the rough and tumble,

ding-dong work in the boxing booth following the strenuous labour of

the day, with no time lost between pitch and pitch. Aching limbs he

had dropped on his couch when at last rest came, and tender face,

bruised from six or seven hours' punching, that even the soft pillow

seemed to hurt. But he trained on. In a few weeks it was tired to bed

but unaching, unhurt--only deliciously weary with the wearyness of

perfect muscles and nerves relaxed to delicious rest; early afoot,

keen, and sound, and vigorous; brisk, ready smiling to jump into the

ring for the last P. R. exhibition with old Japhra as for the first

spar with Ginger Cronk or Snowball White. "Thou art the fighting

type," wise Japhra had told him years before; and those exhibition

rounds with the old man were each of them lessons that brought him to

rare skill with his fists.

While they sat together before their turn Japhra would instruct what

was to be learnt this time, and while they sparred "Remember!" Japhra

would call, "Remember! Good! Good!--Weak! Weak!--Follow it! Follow

it!--Speed's thy game!--Quick as thou canst sling them!--See how that

hook leaves thee unguarded!--Again!--All open to me again!--Again!--ah,

take it, then!" and _clip!_ to the unprotected stomach, savage as he

could drive it, would come old Japhra's left; and Percival go gasping,

and Ginger Cronk to the spectators: "With that terrible punch,

gentlemen, Gipsy Japhra knocked out Boy Duggan and took the

championship belt at Los Angeles. Put your hands together, gentlemen,

and give 'em a 'earty clap." When the round was ended Japhra would go

over it point by point. When they sat or walked together, at meals or

on the road, he was forever imparting his advice, his knowledge, his

experience. He waas never tired of teaching ... and Percival trained

on.

II

There came a day when "Thou must go slow with me," Japhra said after

they had finished their round. "I have put skill to thy youth and

strength. Thou must go slow with me or the folks will see nothing of

the parts I am to show them." There came a day when he was given

demonstration--if he had cared to recognise it for such--that the van

folk knew him for a clever one with his fists. Foxy Pinsent supplied

it.

In all the crowd of tough characters that made up Maddox's Royal Circus

and Monster Menagerie with its attendant booths Foxy Pinsent alone gave

him a supercilious lip or darkling scowl where others gave him smile

and welcome. Foxy Pinsent had an old grudge against him--as Japhra had

said--and lost no opportunity to rub it. The fact that "Japhra's

Gentleman" was in the way of becoming a rival attraction to his own

fame among the crowds that flocked to the fairs sharpened his spleen.

The ever increasing bad blood between the two factions--Maddox's and

Stingo's--gave him chance to exercise it.

Percival came hot to Japhra one day: "Damn that man Pinsent, Japhra.

He's going too far with me. He's been putting it about the vans that I

am too much the gentleman to go with a Maddox man--that I said in his

hearing I refused to go with Dingo Spain to buy bread yesterday because

I would not be seen in his company by decent people."

Japhra looked up at the angry face: "Let him bide. Let him bide."

"I'm not afraid of him."

"Nor I of adders, but I do not disturb their nests--nor lie in their

ways."

On a day the reason came for Percival to cross the adder's way. Egbert

Hunt knocked over a bucket in which one of Pinsent's negro pugilists

was about to wash. The man used his fists, then his boots, on Hunt,

sending him back brutally used. Percival sought out the black,

outfought him completely, and administered a punishing that appeared to

him to meet the case. Then came Pinsent.

"You've put your hands to one of my men, I hear--to Buck Osborn?"

"An infernal bully," said Percival.

"You've put your hands to one of my men!"

"And will again if he gives me cause!"

Foxy Pinsent came nearer, thin mouth and narrow eyes contracted in his

ring expression. "Watch me, my gentleman; my lads' quarrels are mine.

Watch out how you go your ways."

Percival glanced behind to see he had room: "You can leave that to me.

I'll not have my friends knocked about."

"It's you in danger of the knocking about, my gentleman! That fine

face of yours would take a bloody mark."

Percival slipped back his right foot six inches and glanced behind him

again: "Try it, Pinsent."

Foxy Pinsent noticed the action. He moved his left fist upwards a

trifle, then dropped it to his side and turned away with a laugh: "I

don't fight boys; I thrash 'em."

"You know where to find me," Percival said.

III

So and in this wise he trained on to the tough, quick, good life; and

in spirit developed as in body. The deeper he knew Japhra, the wider

became his comprehension of life. He had failed once in the struggle

with self, and that on the very night of Japhra's instruction of how

that struggle should be fought: he was training on now not to fail

again if ever the Big Fight should come. "What, art thou vexed again?"

Japhra would say when sometimes he fell to brooding. "Get at the

littleness of it--get at the littleness of it. It will pass. Remember

what endureth. Not man nor man's work--only the green things that fade

but come again Spring by Spring; only the brown earth that to-day

humbly supports thee, to-morrow obscurely covers thee; only the hills

yonder that shoulder aside the wind; only the sea that changeth always

but changeth never; only the wind on our cheeks here, that to-day

suffers itself to go in harness to yonder mill and to-morrow will wreck

it and encourage the grass where it stood. Lay hold on that when aught

vexeth thee; all else passeth...."

He trained on. Trifle by trifle and more and more he received and

held, understood and stored for profit the little man's philosophy;

trifle by trifle, more and more, developed qualities that made for the

quality of self-restraint that ripened within him. Whatever his mood

there was always peace and balm for him in the van. Many signs

discovered to him that he was not merely an accepted part of Japhra's

life and Ima's but a very active part; the little stir of welcome told

him that--the little stir that always greeted him when he came on them

sitting together.

They called him "Percival" now, at his desire. To Japhra he was still

sometimes Little Master; to Ima never. But in Ima's ways and in her

speech he noticed altogether a change in these days. The "Thou" and

"Thee" and "Thine" of her former habit were gone: she never appeared

now with naked feet, but always neatly hosed and shod. Gentle in her

movements too, and seemly in her dress, Percival noticed, and he came

to find her strange--a thing apart--in her rough surroundings; strange

to them and remote from them when she sat plying her needle, attending

to his hungry wants and Japhra's, or mothering some baby from a

neighbour's van. He came to think her--contrasted thus with all the

sights and sounds about her--the gentlest creature that could be; her

voice wonderfully soft, her touch most kind when she dressed a bruise

or nursed him, as once when he lay two days sick. She mended his

clothes; made some shirts for him; passed all his things through her

hands before he might wear them; and never permitted him clothes

soiled, or lacking buttons, or wanting the needle.

He was leaving the van once to go into the town against which they were

pitched. She called him back. The scarf he wore was soiled, she said,

and she came to him with a clean one.

He laughed at her: "It's absolutely good enough."

"No, soiled," she said, and took it from his neck and placed the other.

He playfully prevented her fingers. "I'm like a child with a strict

nurse--the way you look after me."

She replied, smiling but serious: "It is not for you to get into rough

ways."

"They're good enough for me."

She shook her head. "You are not always for such."

CHAPTER XII

LETTERS OF RECALL

I

The first winter of this life Percival spent with Japhra in the van;

the second took him, for the first time since he had broken away, back

to "Post Offic." Ima left them, when the circus broke up in that first

October, to go to her doctor friend in Norfolk, there to continue the

education she had imposed upon herself. Egbert Hunt took her place,

and the three started to tour the country till Spring and the

reassembly of Maddox's should be round again. But winter on the road

proved inclement to Mr. Hunt's nature. A week of frost in early

December that had them three days snow-bound and on pinching short

commons decided him for less arduous ways of life. He left them for

London, his pockets well enough lined by his season's apprenticeship to

old One Eye; they had news of him once as a socialist open air speaker

in company with some organisation of malcontents of his kidney; once as

prominent in an "unemployed" disturbance and in prison for seven days

as the price of his activities.

"He will know gaol a longer term ere he has done," was Japhra's

comment. "A weak, bad streak in him."

Percival laughed. "Poor old Hunt. More bitter than ever against

'tyrangs' now, Japhra. He's been shaping that way since I first knew

him--often made me laugh with his outbursts."

"Best keep clear of that kind," Japhra said. "The stick for such."

They pushed North. Neither had a feeling for roofs or fireside that

winter. The tinkering and the Punch and Judy kept them in enough funds

scarcely to draw upon the season's profits. Japhra plied him at the

one; Percival took chief hand in the other. A tough life, a quiet

life, a good life. With only their two selves for company they talked

much and read much of the three fighting books that were Japhra's

library. Percival was almost sorry when Maddox's was picked up again

and Ima rejoined them. He welcomed the second winter when it came;

chance fell that it had him scarcely a month alone with Japhra when it

saw him leave the van, and homeward bound to Burdon.

II

Two letters gave him this sudden impulse. Both were from "Post

Offic"--one forwarded thence--and seemed to have partnered one another

on a long and devious search before finding him. One was from Aunt

Maggie. The other he opened first and opened with hands that trembled

a little. Well he knew that regular, clear writing! He had only seen

it in notes to Rollo, invitations to tea, in the days gone by, but it

was as memorized to him as in him every memory of her was

graven--Dora's!

His hands trembled that held this the first sign of her since he had

left her in the drive at Abbey Royal on that night eighteen months

before, and his breath ran quick. The first sign! He had urged her at

their parting he might write to her. She had desired he should not.

Letters at the French school might only come, it appeared, from

parents, or in handwriting authorised by parents, and only to such

quarters might be addressed. He had accepted the fate. Nay, well it

should be so, he had told her. He would not--could not, for he loved

her so!--see her again, be the time never so long, till somehow he had

won some place in the world; very well, not even write to her. Their

hearts alone should bind them: "For, Dora, you are to be mine. Somehow

I shall do it--not see you till I have. You will remember--that is

all, remember."

How had she remembered? He broke the seal and held his breath to read.

She wrote from Burdon House in Mount Street: explaining the address as

though he had not known Mrs. Espart had taken it on lease at the time

of Lord Burdon's death:--

DEAR PERCIVAL,

We returned here yesterday from the South of France, where we have been

with Rollo and Lady Burdon. Did you know that Mother has taken Rollo's

house here until he wants it and turns us out? I am writing for Rollo.

I think you will be distressed to learn that he has been very

ill--beginning with pneumonia. But we left him better, and they are

following us to London soon. He most urgently desired me to tell you

this, and that you must come and see him then. He says that he must

see you again; and, indeed, he is forever talking of you. As to that,

I must tell you that when I was with him we saw in an illustrated paper

some pictures entitled "Life among the Showmen;" and in one, on a tent

was to be seen "Gentleman Percival." From what Rollo told us, that was

your tent. He was very excited about it; and to me it was very

singular to have come upon it like that.

Well, I have written his address on the back of this, and you must

certainly write to him or he will think that I have not told you and

that I side with Lady Burdon and Mother in estimating that you are

"very wild," which I do not.

I address this to your home; but it is hard to know if it will ever

reach you.

Yours sincerely,

DORA ESPART.

How had she remembered? No trace of any memory of love was in the

lines he carried to his lips and read again and many times again. He

reckoned nothing of that. He read what he had expected to find. He

read herself, as in the months that separated that magic hour in the

drive he had come again to think of her--as one as purely, rarely,

chastely different from her sisters as driven snow upon the Downside

from snow that thaws along the road; as one that he should never have

dared terrify by his rough ardour into that swooning "Oh, Percival,

what is it, this?" Realising that moment of his passion, he sometimes

writhed in self-reproach to think how violently he must have distressed

her: sometimes hoped she had forgotten it--else surely shame of how her

delicacy had been ravished at his hands would make her shrink at

meeting him again. So this letter that had no hint of memory of love

rejoiced and moved him to his depths. Unchanged from his boyish

adoration of her, it revealed her, and unchanged he would have her be.

Its precise air, its selected words, its stilted phrases, spoke to him

as with her very voice--"It was very singular to me;" "It is hard to

know:" as icicles broken in the hand! Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and

frozen snow and frozen red!

He was ardent and atremble in the resolve that he must get to London on

Rollo's return and make old Rollo the excuse to see her again--touch

her, perhaps; speak to her, ah!--then, and not till then, bethought him

of his second letter. From Aunt Maggie; and he drew it from his pocket

with prick of shame at his neglect of it. He had from time to time

written to Aunt Maggie. Her letters were less frequent; easier to

write to "Post Offic" than for "Post Offic" to write to him, ever on

the move.

Three closely-written sheets came from the envelope. They contained

many paragraphs, each of a different date--Aunt Maggie waited, as she

explained, until she could be sure of an address to which to post her

letter. There was much gossip of a very intimately domestic nature,

each piece of news beginning with "I think this will interest you,

dear." Before he was through with the letter the recurrence of the

phrase, speaking so much devotion, caused a moisture to come to his

eyes. "I think this will interest you, dear"--and the matter was that

Honor burnt a hole in a new saucepan yesterday. "I think this will

interest you, dear"--and "fancy! fourteen letters were posted in the

box to-day." "I think this will interest you, dear"--and would he

believe it! "one of the ducks hatched out sixteen eggs yesterday."

The more trivial the fact, the more Percival found himself affected.

He was touched with the profound pathos of Aunt Maggie's revelation of

how he centered each smallest detail of her remote and lonely life; he

was rendered instantly responsive to the appeal with which at the end

of her letter she cried to him to come home to see her--if only for a

night. "This will be the second Christmas that you have been away.

The days are, oh! so very, very long for me without my darling boy."

He told Japhra that he must go--not for long, and if for longer than he

thought, at least the first of the new year would see him back. They

were in Essex. Urgent with this sudden determination that had him, he

took train for London on the next morning, and before midday was set

down at Liverpool Street Station. Holiday mood seized him now that he

had taken holiday. He counted again and again the sixty-five pounds

that, to his amazed joy,--he, who till now had never earned a

penny!--Japhra paid him for two seasons' wage and share. It seemed a

fortune--forced up the holiday spirit as bellows at a forge; and on the

way to Waterloo he ridded his burning pockets of a portion of it in

clothes and swagger kit-bag for this his holiday, and in presents that

brought parcels of many shapes and sizes into his cab--for Aunt Maggie,

for Honor, for Mr. Amber, for Mr. Hannaford, for all to whom his heart

bounded now that he was to see them again.

III

In these delights he missed his train. Two hours were on his hands

before the next, and as he contemplated them a daring thought (so he

considered it) came to him. He took a hansom cab and bade the man

drive him to Mount Street,--through Mount Street and so back again. He

would see where she lived!

"Drive slowly up here," he told the man when the cab turned into the

street for which he watched. "Do you know Burdon House?"

It was pointed out ahead of him. "Set down there many a time. Lord

Burdon's 'ouse it was. Another party's got it now."

Percival leant back, not to be seen--not daring to be seen!--and

stared, his pulses drumming, as he was slowly carried past.

Might there have troubled him some vague, secret feeling of association

between himself and that brown, massive front of Burdon House with its

broad steps leading to the heavy double doors, with its tall,

wrought-iron railings above the area, with its old torch extinguishers

on either side the entrance, with its quiet, impassive air that large

old houses have, as of guardians that know much and have seen

much--brides come and coffins go, birth and death, gay nights and sad,

glad hours and sorry--and look to know more and see more? Might he

have felt, as he told Aunt Maggie he had felt at Burdon Old Manor,

"thinking without thinking, as if some one else were thinking," as he

passed those steps where one that he might have called Father often had

gaily passed, where one he might have called Mother had gone wearily up

and come fainting, dizzily down?

He felt, nor was disturbed, by none of those. He only gazed, gazed as

he would pierce them, at all its solemn windows, riveted its every

feature on his mind; but only because it was where she must have

looked, because it sheltered her where she must be. It was a new

setting against which he might envisage her; he only thought of it as

that.

CHAPTER XIII

MR. AMBER DOES NOT RECOGNISE

I

It was in dreams that night that vague, secret influences of his sight

of Burdon House came stealing about him--if such they were; he

attributed them to the disturbance of an event that greeted him within

a few hours of his gay arrival at "Post Offic."

He had announced his coming by telegram. He took Plowman's Ridge on

leaving the train at Great Letham, old friend wind greeting him with

most boisterous Ha! Ha! Ha! and as he came down the slope two figures

broke from the little copse and came fluttering up the Downside towards

him--one slight with running tears, and outstretched, eager arms; the

other gaunt and grim, uncompromising of visage, but with eyes aglisten.

"Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie!"

"My boy! My Percival!"

Her boy's arms went about her: for a space neither moved after that

first cry. He only held her--close, close to him; she only clung to

him, her face to his, and felt his dear face stop her flowing tears.

He held her from him then at arm's length, the better to gaze at her;

and she overcame her foolish tears and told him: "How you have grown!

How handsome you have grown!"

And Honor grimly, with grimness spoilt by chokey utterance: "Ah,

handsome is as handsome don't make fine birds!"

"You've got it wrong, you frightful old goose!" cried Percival; and

there was Honor's bony cheek to be kissed, her bony hug to take.

Then the disturbing even:--

Mr. Amber, Aunt Maggie told him, was dying. He had been told Percival

was coming and had begged to see him. There had only been a brief

interval of consciousness in the last twenty-four hours; Percival had

better go at once.

II

Percival went immediately. The Old Manor had the deserted aspect he

remembered when, as a little boy, he used to seek Mr. Amber in the

library; and it was to the library he now was taken. Mr. Amber had

been carried there. He knew he was to die. He had begged to die in

the apartment he loved--among his books.

There Percival found him. He lay on a bed that had been placed in the

centre of the room. He was asleep, breathing with a harsh, unnatural

sound. A nurse sent over from Great Letham attended him, and Percival

inquired of her: "I am Percival; has he been asking for me?"

She shook her head: "Since this morning only for Lord Burdon. Before

that, frequently."

Percival went on one knee by the bedside. The mild old face that he

had always known silvery and smiling seemed white as the pillow where

it lay, pathetically lined and hollowed. On a sudden the eyes very

slowly opened and looked full into Percival's bending above him.

Percival experienced a shock of horror at what followed. Burning

intelligence flamed into the dim eyes; the blood rushed in a crimson

cloud to the white face; the thin form struggled where it lay.

"My lord! my lord!" Mr. Amber whispered; and "lift me--lying down

before my lord!"

"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember me!"

The nurse raised him, and with practised hand the pillows also, so that

he reclined against them. "It is your friend Percival. Lord Burdon

will soon come, perhaps."

He gave her no attention. He smiled at Percival in something of his

mild old way. "We are very weak, my lord," he said. "Very weak."

"Mr. Amber! I am Percival! You remember what friends we were. You

will get strong, and we will have some more reading together--you

remember?"

Mr. Amber still smiling, his eyes closed again. "On the ladders."

"Yes--yes. On the ladders. You remember now--Percival."

Mr. Amber's smile seemed to settle upon his face as though his lips

were made so. "Hold my hand, my lord."

He began to slip down in the bed. The nurse eased his position. He

seemed back to unconsciousness again, his breathing very laboured.

Night had drawn about the room and was held dusky by the candles.

There stole about Percival, as he knelt, atmosphere of the memories he

had recalled in vain attempt to arouse Mr. Amber's recognition. Again

dusk here, and he with mild, old Mr. Amber. Again shadows wreathing

about the high ceiling, stealing from the corners. Again a soft

thudding on the window-pane, as of some shadow seeking to enter--death?

Again the strange feeling of "thinking without thinking as if some one

else were thinking"--and on that, worn out perhaps with his long day,

perhaps carried by some other agency, he went into a dream-state in

which vague, secret influences of his ride through Mount Street came

upon him. He thought he was in Mount Street again and come to Burdon

House, and that the door opened as he ascended the steps. He found the

interior completely familiar to him, and for some reason was frightened

and trembled to find it so. He went from familiar room to familiar

room, afraid at their familiarity as though it was some wrong thing he

was doing, and knew himself searching--searching--searching. What he

searched he did not know. He just opened a door, and looked, and

closed it and passed on. There were persons in some rooms--once Dora,

once Rollo, once Lady Burdon. They stretched hands to him or spoke.

He shook his head and told them "I am not looking for you," and closed

the doors upon them. He climbed the completely familiar stairs and

searched each floor. The fear that attended him suddenly increased.

He had a sudden and most eerie feeling that some presence was come

about him as he searched. He heard a voice cry: "My son! My son! We

have waited for you. Oh, we have waited for you!" Fear changed to a

flood of yearning emotion. He tried to cry, "It is you--you I am

looking for!" He could not speak, and wrestled for speech; and

wrestling, came back to consciousness of his surroundings. He was

streaming with perspiration, he found. He saw next that Mr. Amber's

eyes were open and looking at him, and heard him say, "Percival!"

Had that been the voice in that frightful dream?

"Mr. Amber! I knew you would know me!"

Recognition was in the eyes, but they were filming.

"Yes, he knows you," the nurse whispered.

Quite firmly, firmer than he had yet spoken: "Hold my hand--my lord,"

Mr. Amber said, and ended the words and ended life with a little

throaty sound.

The nurse disengaged their hands. "But I am so glad he did just

recognise you," she said kindly.

III

Old friend wind was in tremendous fettle that night. Percival battled

along Plowman's Ridge on his way back and had battled twenty minutes

when he cried aloud, venting his grief, and answering the nurse's

words, "He didn't recognise me!"

And old friend wind paused to listen; came in tremendous gusts, Ha! Ha!

Ha! and hurled the words aloft and tossed and rushed them high along

the Ridge.

"Something was wrong with me in there," Percival exclaimed. "Did I

speak sense to him? What was happening to me? Was I dreaming? What

was it?--oh, damn this wind!"

Ha! Ha! Ha! thundered old friend wind, staggering him anew--Ha! Ha! Ha!

An absolutely irrepressible party, old friend wind.

CHAPTER XIV

DORA REMEMBERS

I

Percival was not the only one that in this period was disturbed by

uneasy dreams, by vague and strange half-thoughts, by "thinking without

thinking," as though some other influence were temporarily in

possession of the senses. Lady Burdon was thus disturbed; Aunt Maggie,

too. But of the three Aunt Maggie only knew the cause. If Lady

Burdon, if Percival, had brought their unrest to her for explanation

she might have explained it as she was able to explain her own--the

"fluttering" that very often came to her in these days of Percival's

visit home. She might have told them, as she told herself, that it was

occasioned for that the years were closing in now--the prepared doom

gathering about them all and they responsive to its nearness as

gathering storm gives vague unease, headaches, depression when its

emanations fall.

For her own part Aunt Maggie had herself in hand again--was again

possessed by the certitude that nothing could go amiss with her plans.

It had supported her through all these long years. It had been shaken,

but had recovered again, by fear of Percival's affection for Rollo. It

tore at her frantically, like a strong horse against the bridle, now

that only a few months remained for its release in her revenge's

execution. In little less than a year Percival would be twenty-one.

She no more minded--relative to her plans--the proof of the fondness

still between him and Rollo shown in his leaving her to stay with Rollo

in town, than she minded--relative to the same purpose--his

determination to be with Japhra again when winter ended. She suffered

distress both at the one and the other in that they robbed her of the

object of her heart's devotion; she felt no qualm that either would

hinder her revenge. "Strange-like?" "Touched-like?" The villagers,

when she passed them without seeing them in these days, were more than

ever sure of that, poor thing; but she was more than ever sure--lived

in the past and in the near, near future and had scenes to watch there.

II

Rollo's return to town was delayed longer than Dora had supposed in her

letter to Percival. It was not till February that his doctors and his

mother gave way to his protestations that he would never get fit if he

could not go and have a glimpse of old Percival while he had the

chance, and then it was only for a week--a passage through town to get

some things done and to pick up the Esparts for a spring sojourn in

Italy.

Thus Percival was several weeks with Aunt Maggie before he left her for

Rollo--and Dora. Pleasant weeks he found them, reclaiming all the old

friends (save that one whose grave only was now to be visited) and in

their company, and in the new affection that they gave him for his

strong young manhood, retasting again the happy, happy time of earlier

days. There were jolly teas with the Purdies, brother and sister;

plump Mr. Purdie never tired of saying, with quite the most absurd of

his shrill, ridiculous chuckles, "Why, you've grown into a regular man

and I expected to see a swarthy gipsy with earrings and a red

neckcloth!", birdlike little Miss Purdie, more birdlike than ever with

her little hops and nods and her "Now _fancy_ you coming to take me to

the Great Letham Church Bazaar! I was _wanting_ to go. But you're

_not_ to be extravagant, Percival. At Christmas you were _dreadful_.

You _don't_ know the value of money!" And there were almost daily

visits to Mr. Hannaford, Stingo with him now till the road was to be

taken again, who found Percival a proper full-size marvel now, and

blessed his eighteen stun proper if he didn't, whose little 'orse farm

was developing amazingly, who displayed it and who discussed it with

Percival to the tune of leg-and-cane cracks of almost incredible

volume, and who placed at Percival's entire disposal a little riding

'orse, three parts blood and one part fire, that showed him to possess

a seat and hands that any little 'orse oughter be proud to carry,

"bless my eighteen stun proper if he didn't!" (Crack!)

And there were thoughts of Dora ... who soon must be met and whom to

meet he burned (his darling!) and feared (his darling and his

goddess!--too rare, too exquisite for him, as tracery of frost upon the

window-pane that touch or breath will break or tarnish!). Thus he

thought of her; thus to help his thoughts often walked over to closed

Abbey Royal; thus never could approach the gates without the thought

that if, by some miracle, he met her there he could not dare approach

her. He would steal away at her approach, he knew. Watch her if,

unseen, he might unseen adore her--mark her perfect beauty, breathless

see her breathe; watch her poised to listen to some bird that hymned

her coming; watch her stoop to greet some flower's fragrance with her

own. Watch the happy grasses take her feet and watch those others,

benisoned and scented by the border of her gown; watch the tumbling

breezes give her path and only kiss her--see them race along the leaves

to give her minstrelsy. Speak to her?--how should he dare?

III

What his condition then when at last in London he came face to face

with her? Rollo and Lady Burdon stayed their week at a private

hotel--Baxter's in Albemarle Street. He was immediately made their

guest (against Lady Burdon's wish, who desired now in the approach of

the consummation of her own plans--and Mrs. Espart's--to detach the

friendship she had formerly encouraged; but he did not know that).

Rollo met him at Waterloo station and took him direct to the hotel.

Eager to meet old Rollo again he was touched by the pathetic devotion

of Rollo's greeting, touched also at the frail and delicate figure that

he presented. The emotions were violently usurped by others when

Baxter's was reached and he was taken to the private sitting-room Lady

Burdon had engaged.

"Here's mother!" Rollo cried, opening the door.

Here also were Mrs. Espart and Dora.

The elder ladies were seated. Percival greeted them and fancied their

manner not very warm. He had a swift recollection of the letter's

advice that they joined in estimating him "Very wild"; but while he

shook hands, while he exchanged the conventional civilities, his mind,

nothing concerned with them, was actively discussing how he should

comport himself, what he should see, when he turned to the figure that

had stood by the window, facing away from him, when he entered.

"Never in London before--no," he said. "I have passed through once,

that is all."

Then he turned.

She had come down the room and was within two paces of him. Her dress

was of some dark colour and she wore fine sables, thrown back so that

they lay upon her shoulders and came across her arms. A large black

hat faintly shadowed the upper part of her face; her left hand was in a

muff, and when he turned towards her she had the muff nestled against

her throat. She gave the appearance of having watched him while he

spoke, reckoning what he was, with her face resting meditatively upon

her muff, her tall and slim young figure upright upon her feet.

There was no perceptible pause between his turning to her and their

speaking. Yet he had time for a long, long thought of her before he

opened his lips. It took his breath. So still she stood, so serene

and contemplative her look, that he thought of her, standing there, as

some most rich and most rare picture, framed by the soft dusk that

London rooms have, and surely framed and set apart from mortal things.

She dropped her muff to her arm's length with a sudden action, just as

a portrait might stir to come to life. She raised her head so that the

shadow went from her face and revealed her eyes, as a jealous leaf's

shade might be stirred to reveal the dark and dew-crowned pansy. She

had not removed her gloves and she gave him her small hand--that last

he had held cold, trembling and uncovered--gloved in white kid. She

spoke and her voice--that last he had heard aswoon--had the high, cold

note he thrilled to hear.

"It is pleasant to see you again," she said.

He never could recall in what words he replied--nor if indeed he

effected reply.

Conventional words went between them before she and her mother took

their departure; conventional words again at a chance meeting on the

following day and again when the parties met by arrangement at a

matinee. His week drew to a close. As its end neared he began to

resist the mute and distant adoration which he had felt must be his

part when he had thought of meeting her again and which, without pang,

he at first accepted as his part now that they were come together. But

when the very hours could be counted that would see her gone from him

again he felt that attitude could no longer be endured. Insupportable

to pass into the future without a closer sign of her!--insupportable

even though the sign proved one that should reward his temerity by

sealing her forever from his lips. He nerved himself to the

daring--the very opportunity was hard to seek. Rollo, in the slightly

selfish habit that belongs to delicate persons accustomed, as he was

accustomed, to their own way, was ever desirous of having Percival to

himself alone. He saw plenty of Dora at other times, he said

(deliberately avoiding a chance of meeting her on one occasion); and

when Percival, not daring to do more, made scruples on grounds of mere

politeness, "But, bless you, she'll think nothing of it," Rollo said

carelessly: "She's made of ice--Dora. I like her all right, you know.

But she's not keen on anything. She's got no more feeling than--well,

ice," and he laughed and dismissed the subject.

Had she not? It was Percival's to challenge it.

The chance came on the eve of the morrow that was to see his friend's

departure for Italy and his own for a farewell to Aunt Maggie and so

back to Japhra again. The Esparts came over to dinner at Baxter's

hotel--came in response to Lady Burdon's private and urgent request of

Mrs. Espart. The week of Percival's visit had tried her sorely. Night

by night and every night, as she told Mrs. Espart, she had had that

dreadful nightmare of hers again--that girl to whom she cried "I am

Lady Burdon," and who answered her: "Oh, how can you be Lady Burdon?;"

to whom she cried "I hold," and, who answered her, "No, you do

not--Nay, I hold."

Aunt Maggie might have explained it. Mrs. Espart laughed outright.

"That? Good gracious, I thought you had forgotten that long ago."

"So I had--so I had. I never thought of it again from the day I told

you until last Wednesday night--the day Percival came to us. Since

then every night..."

She paused before the last words and stopped abruptly after them.

"Well, my dear! You're not putting down to poor Percival what must be

the fault of Mr. Baxter's menus, surely?"

Lady Burdon said without conviction: "No--no, I'm not. Still, it began

then--and I don't like him now--don't care for Rollo to be so attached

to him now--and had words with Rollo about it--and perhaps that was the

reason and is the reason. Anyway, do come to dinner to-night--distract

my thoughts perhaps--I can't face that nightmare again. It's on my

nerves."

Mrs. Espart permitted herself the tiniest yawn, but promised to come;

and came, bringing Dora.

IV

So Percival's chance came, or so came, rather, his last

opportunity--for he ran it to the final moment. Announcement of the

Esparts' carriage brought their evening to an end, and he went down

with Rollo to see them off. Baxter's preserved its exclusiveness by

preserving its old fashions; the staircase was narrow, so the hall.

Mrs. Espart went first, then Rollo. Percival followed Dora.

As she came to the pavement she turned to gather her skirts about her.

In the action she looked full at him.

The end?

He said: "Dora--do you ever remember?"

Her skirts seemed to have eluded her fingers and she must make another

hold at them. He saw the colour flame where her fair face showed it,

swiftly, deeply scarlet in that shade on either cheek. He saw her

young breast rise as though that red flood drew and held it--saw her

lips part for words, and held his breath to catch her voice.

"I have not forgotten," she whispered.

BOOK FIVE

BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE

CHAPTER I

BOSS MADDOX SHOWS HIS HAND

I

Ima asked: "Of what are you thinking, Percival?"

"Of when I shall leave you all--and how."

She replied: "Strange, then, how thoughts run. It was in my mind also."

Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! This trick and that--and

this was to be his last night with the van folk. That chance and

this--and within a few hours he was to be returned to Aunt Maggie, bade

good-by at the close of his visit scarcely four months since. This

trick and that, that chance and this, and he was to be put in the way

of winning Dora--a way that never had seemed so obscure, never so

impossible of attainment as when he came back to Japhra with her "I

have not forgotten," at once shouting to him that she loved him and

mocking him with the difference between her estate and his.

Already the tricks and chances were afoot. He was alone with Ima upon

a rising bluff of common land. Considerably below them, so that they

looked down as it were from a cliff to a valley, the fair was pitched

and in full swing--that it was in full swing and he idle was the first

step in the freakish hazards that were to encompass him this night.

II

A stifling evening had succeeded a burning day. Here on the bluff a

breeze moved cool and soft as it had been waftings from the dusky cloak

night dropped about them; below was heat and crowded life and clamour,

rising in the waving reek of the naphtha flares; in shouts of the

showmen; in shrill laughter from village girls at fun about the booths,

or horseplay with their swains; in ceaseless rifle-cracks from the

shooting-galleries--in drum-thumpings, in steam organs, in brazen

instruments; occasionally, high above it all, in enormous

_oo-oo-oomphs_ from the caged lions in the huge marquee that housed

Boss Maddox's Royal Circus and Monster Forest-bred Menagerie--a

tremendous sound, as Percival thought when it came booming across the

clamour, that was a brute's but that seemed, like some trump of protest

against the din, to make brutish the human cries and shouts it governed.

Two crowds, leaving and entering, jostled one another at the entrance

to the Royal Circus and Forest-bred Menagerie; stretching on either

hand from where they pressed ran the minor shows under Boss Maddox's

proprietorship, forming a noisy, flaring street that ended, facing the

circus marquee, with "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing and School of

Arms. Maddox's Royal Circus and Forest Bred Menagerie at one end,

Pinsent's fine booth at the other--between them Maddox's Living

Pictures, Maddox's Wild-West Shooting Gallery, Maddox's Steam

Switch-back and Aerial Railway, Maddox's Original Marionettes, Maddox's

Premier Boatswings, Maddox's Monster Panorama, Maddox's Royal Theatre

and Concert Divan, Maddox's Elite Refreshment Saloons, Maddox's

American Freak Museum, and all Maddox's smaller fry--coker-nut shies,

hoop-las, Living Mermaid, Hall of Strength, Cave of Mystery, Magic

Mirrors, and the rest of them; owned by Boss Maddox, financed by Boss

Maddox, or, if of independent ownership, having the Boss's favour and

acknowledging the Boss's ownership.

No booths whose proprietors called Stingo Boss were open: and that was

one step in the tricks and chances of the day.

The gaunt figure of Boss Maddox, watchful and urgent this night for the

very reason that the Stingo booths were closed, passed now along the

further side of lights towards Foxy Pinsent's pitch. Head bent towards

his left shoulder; hands clasped behind his back; uncommonly tall;

uncommonly spare--that was Boss Maddox anywhere.

A further mark, as he moved through his little kingdom, proclaimed him

who he was and what he was. Frequent nods of his head he made in

response to hat touchings or greetings in the crowd; frequent stoppings

to exchange a few words with some figure that stepped into his

path--and broke away from others or pushed others aside to step there:

the local tradesmen these, or members of the local Borough Council,

anxious to be in with Boss Maddox and so to secure the considerable

patronage in victualling and provender he was able to distribute; or

anxious to let fellow-townsmen observe on what familiar terms they were

with the Boss, and concerned to know that he found his pitch to his

liking. A mighty man, the Boss in these days, who bought up his

pitches and paid handsomely for them a year in advance, who on a famous

occasion had fallen into dispute with a Borough Council, refused their

district the honour of his shows, and thereby--by loss of entertainment

and loss of revenue--had caused the Borough Councillors to suffer

defeat at the next election. Things like that were remembered up and

down the west of England; Boss Maddox in the result was reckoned a man

to be placated, to be done homage, and to have his interests preserved.

Only the old Stingo gang resisted him, and this day he had paid them

dear for their want of allegiance.

His parade brought him at length to "Foxy" Pinsent's Academy of Boxing

and School of Arms. Foxy Pinsent had risen to be his lieutenant and

right-hand man in the management of his business, and Boss Maddox was

come to compare notes on how the Stingo crowd were taking their

set-back.

Eight pugilists in flannels--two of them negroes--displayed themselves

upon the raised platform outside the Academy of Boxing and School of

Arms. Pinsent, in a long fawn coat reaching to his shoes, paced before

them, crying to the assembled crowds their merits, their prowess, their

achievements and their challenges. He swung a great bundle of boxing

gloves in his right hand and, amid delighted shouts of the spectators,

sent a pair flying to venturesome yokels here and there who pointed to

one or other of the eight stalwarts in acceptance of combat.

As Boss Maddox pushed his way to the front the eight turned and filed

into the booth. He raised a hand. Foxy Pinsent tossed a last pair of

gloves to the crowd, came down the steps from the platform and joined

him.