"And I hope," continued Nicholas, "that if he does get in, he'll be

suffered to make a speech, and his words will fall stone dead on the

ears of the members, and his schemes will fail. Then he'll know what it

is to be flouted and to see his best feats win not a friendly sign."

"Electors are a lot too easy going in my opinion," said Nelly. "I'm old

enough to have seen their foolish ways in my time, and find, over and

over again, that they are mostly gulls to be took with words. They never

ask what a man's record is and turn over the pages of his past. They

never trouble about what he's done, or how he's made his money, or where

he stands in public report. It isn't what he has done, but what he's

going to do. Yet you can better judge of a man from his past than his

promises, and measure, in the light of his record, whether he's going to

the House of Commons for patriotic, decent reasons, or for mean ones.

And never you vote for a lawyer, Nicholas Roberts. 'Tis a golden rule

with Job that never, under any manner of circumstances, will he help to

get a lawyer into Parliament. They stand in the way of all progress but

their own; they suck our blood in every affair of life; they baffle all

honest thinking with their cunning, and look at right and wrong only

from the point of expediency. Job says there ought to be a law against

lawyers going in at all. But catch them making it! In fact, we're in

their clutches more than the fly in the web, because they make the laws;

and they'll never make any laws to limit their own powers over us,

though always quick enough to increase them. Job says that the only

bright side to a revolution would be that the law and the lawyers would

be swept into the street orderly bin together. Then we'd start clean and

free, and try to keep clean and free."

Upon this subject Mrs. Legg always found plenty to say. Indeed she

continued to open her mind till they grew weary.

"We must be moving if we're going to church," said Sarah. "I think we'd

better go and pick up a bit of charity to our neighbour--Sunday and

all."

CHAPTER XVI

THE OFFER OF MARRIAGE

Raymond met Estelle on his way from the works and together they walked

home. Here and there in the cottage doorways sat women braiding. Among

them was Sally Groves--now grown too old and slow to tend the

'Card'--and accident willed that she should make an opening for thoughts

that now filled Ironsyde's mind. They stopped, for Sally was an old

acquaintance of both, and Estelle valued the big woman for her resolute

character and shrewd sense. Now Sally, on strength of long-standing

friendship, grew personal. It was an ancient joke to chaff Miss Groves

about marriage, but to-day, when Raymond asked if the net she made was

to catch a husband, Sally retorted with spirit.

"All very fine for you two to be poking fun at me," she said. "But what

about you? It's time you made up your minds I'm sure, for everybody

knows you're in love with each other--though you don't yourselves

seemingly."

"Give us a lead, Sally," suggested Raymond; but she shook her head.

"You're old enough to know your own business," she answered; "but don't

you go lecturing other people about matrimony while you're a bachelor

yourself--else you'll get the worst of it--as you have now."

They left her and laughed together.

"Yet I've heard you say she was the most sensible woman that ever worked

in the mills," argued Raymond.

Estelle made no direct reply, but spoke of Sally in the past at one of

her parties, when the staff took holiday and spent a day at Weymouth.

Their conversation faded before they reached North Hill House, and then,

as they entered the drive, Raymond reminded Estelle of a time long

vanished and an expedition taken when she was a child.

"Talking of good things, d'you remember our walk to Chilcombe in the

year one? Or, to be more exact, when you were in short frocks."

"I remember well enough. How my chatter must have bored you."

"You never bored me in your life, Chicky. In fact, you always seem to

have been a part of my life since I began to live. That event happened

soon after our walk, if I remember rightly. You really seem as much a

part of my life as my right hand, Estelle."

"Well, your right hand can't bore you, certainly."

"Some of the things that it has done have bored me. But let's go to

Chilcombe again--not in the car--but just tramp it as we did before. How

often have you been there since we went?"

She considered.

"Twice, I think. My friends there left ten years ago and my girl friend

died. I haven't been there since I grew up."

"Well, come this afternoon."

"It's going to rain, Ray."

"Since when did rain frighten you?"

"I'd love to come."

"A walk will do me good," he said. "I'm getting jolly lazy."

"So father thinks. He hates motors--says they are going to make the next

generation flabby and good-for-nothing."

They started presently under low grey clouds, but the sky was not grey

for them and the weather of their minds made them forget the poor light

and sad south-west wind laden with rain. It held off until they had

reached Chilcombe chapel, entered the little place of prayer and stood

together before the ancient reredos. The golden-brown wood made a patch

of brightness in the little building. They were looking at it and

recalling Estelle's description of it in the past, when the storm broke

and the rain beat on the white glass in the windows above them.

"How tiny it's all grown," said Estelle. "Surely everything has shrunk?"

They had the chapel to themselves and, sitting beside her in a pew,

Raymond asked her to marry him. Thunder had wakened in the sky, and the

glare of lightning touched their faces now and then. But they only

remembered that afterwards.

"Sally Groves was no more than half right," he said, "so her fame for

wisdom is shaken. She told us we didn't know we loved one another,

Estelle. But I know I love you well enough, and I've been shaking in my

shoes to tell you so for months and months. I knew I was getting too old

every minute and yet couldn't say the word. But I must say it now at any

cost. Chicky, I love you--dearly, dearly I love you--because I'm calm

and steady, that doesn't mean I'm not in a blaze inside. I never thought

of it even while you were growing up. But a time came when I did begin

to think of it like the deuce; and when once I did, the thought towered

up like the effreet let out of the bottle--that story you loved when you

were small. But my only fear and dread is that you've always been

accustomed to think of me as so much older than you are. If you once get

an idea into your head about a person's age, you can't get it out again.

At least, I can't; so I'm afraid you'll regard me as quite out of the

question for a husband. If that's so, I'll begin over again."

Her eyes were round and her mouth a little open. She did not blink when

the lightning flashed.

"But--but--" she said.

"If I'm not too old, there are no 'buts' left," he declared firmly. "Ten

years is no great matter after all, and from the point of view of

brains, I'm an infant beside you. Then say 'yes,' my darling--say 'yes'

to me."

"I wonder--I wonder, Ray?"

"Haven't you ever guessed what I felt?"

"Yes, in a vague way. At least I knew there was something growing up

between us."

"It was love, my beautiful dear."

She smiled at him doubtfully. The colour had come back to her face, but

she did not respond when he lifted his arms to her.

"Are you sure--can you be sure, Ray? It's so different,--so shattering.

It seems to smash up all the past into little bits and begin the world

all over again--for you and me. It's such a near thing. I've seen the

married people and wondered about it. You might get so weary of always

having me so close."

"I want you close--closer and closer. I want you as the best part of

myself--to make me happier first and, because happier, more useful in

the world. I want you at the helm of my life--to steer me, Chicky. What

couldn't we do together! It's selfish--? it's one-sided, I know that. I

get everything--you only get me. But I'll try and rise to the occasion.

I worship you, and no woman ever had a more devout worshipper. I feel

that your father wouldn't be very mad with me. But it's for you to

decide, nothing else matters either way."

"I love to think you care for me so much," she said. "And I care for

you, Ray, and have cared for you--more than either of us know. Yes, I

have. Sally Groves knew somehow. I should like to say 'yes' this moment;

but I can't. I know I shall say it presently; but I'm not going to say

it till I've thought a great many thoughts and looked into the future

and considered all this means--for you as well as for me. It's life or

death really, for both of us, and the more certain sure we are before,

the happier we should be afterwards, I expect."

"I'm sure enough, Estelle. I've been sure enough for many a long day. I

know the very hour I began to be sure."

"I think I am too; but I can't say 'yes' and mean 'yes' for the present.

I've got to thresh out a lot of things. I dare say they'd be absurd to

you; but they're not to me."

"Can I help you?"

"I don't know. You can, I expect. I shall come to you again to throw

light on the difficult points."

"How long are you going to take?"

"How can I tell? But I _can_ all the same, I'm not going to take long."

"Say you love me--do say that."

"I should have told you if I didn't."

"That's all right, but not so blessed as hearing you say with your own

lips you do. Say it--say it, Chicky. I won't take advantage of it. I

only want to hear it. Then I'll leave you in peace to think your

thoughts."

"I do love you," she said gently and steadily. "It can be nothing

smaller than that. You are a very great part of my life--the greatest. I

know that, because when you go away life is at evening, and when you

come back again life is at morning. Let me have a little time, Ray--only

a very little. Then I'll decide."

"I hope your wisdom will let you follow your will, then, and not forbid

the banns."

"You mustn't think it cold and horrid of me."

"You couldn't be cold and horrid, my sweet Estelle. We're neither of us

capable of being cold, or horrid. We are not babies. I don't blame you a

bit for wanting to think about it. I only blame myself. If I was all I

might have been, you wouldn't want to think about it."

This challenge shook her, but did not change her.

"Nobody's all they might be, Ray; but many people are a great deal more

than they might be. That's what makes you love people best, I think--to

see how brave and patient and splendid men and women can be. Life's so

difficult even for the luckiest of us; but it isn't the luckiest who are

the pluckiest generally--is it? I've had such a lot more than my share

of luck already. So have you--at least people think so. But nobody knows

one's luck really except oneself."

"It's the things that are going to happen will make our good luck," he

said. "You'll find men are seldom satisfied with the past, whatever

women may be. God knows I'm not."

"You were always one of my two heroes when I was a child; and father was

the other. He is still my hero--and so are you, Ray."

"A pretty poor hero. I wouldn't pretend that to my dog. I only claim to

have something worth while in me that you might bring out--raw material

for you to turn into the finished article."

She laughed to hear this.

"Come--come--you're not as modest as all that. You're much too clever

even to pretend any such thing. Women don't turn strong men into

finished articles. At best, perhaps, they can only decorate a little of

the outside."

"You laugh," he answered, "but you know better. If you love me, be

ambitious for me. That's the most helpful love a woman can give a

man--to see his capabilities better than he can, and fire him on the

best and biggest he can do, and help him to grasp his opportunities."

"So it is."

"You've got to decide whether it's worth while marrying me, Chicky. You

do love me, as I love you--because you can't help it. But you can help

marrying me. You've got to think of your own show as well as mine. I

quite understand that. You must be yourself and make your own mark, and

take advantage of all the big new chances offered to the rising

generation of women. I love you a great deal too much to want to lessen

you, or drift you into a back-water. It's just a question whether my

work, and the Mill, and so on, give you the chance you want--if, working

together, we can each help on the other. You could certainly help me

hugely and you know it; but whether I could help you--that's what you've

got to think about I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose it is, Ray."

"Your eyes say 'yes' already, and they're terrible true eyes."

But she only lowered them and neither spoke any more for a little while.

The worst of the storm had passed, and its riot and splash gave place to

a fine drizzle as the night began to close in.

They started for home and, both content to think their own thoughts,

trudged side by side. For Raymond's part, he knew the woman too well to

suffer any doubt of the issue and he was happy. For he felt that she was

quietly happy too, and if instincts had brought grave doubts, or

prompted her to deny him, she would not have been happy.

Estelle did not miss the romance from his offer of marriage. She had

dreamed of man's love in her poetry-reading days, but under the new

phase and the practical bent, developed by a general enthusiasm for her

kind, personal emotions were not paramount. There could be but little

sex in her affection for Raymond: she had lived too near him for that.

Indeed, she had grown up beside him, and the days before he came to

dwell at North Hill seemed vague and misty. Thus his challenge came as

an experience both less and greater than love. It was less, in that no

such challenge can be so urgent and so mighty as the call of hungry

hearts to each other; it was greater, because the interests involved

were built on abiding principles. They arrested her intellectual

ambitions and pointed to a sphere of usefulness beyond her unaided

power. What must have made his prosaic offer flat in the ear of an

amorous woman, edged it for her. He had dwelt on the aspect of their

union that was likely most to attract her.

There was a pure personal side where love came in and made her heart

beat warmly enough; but, higher than that, she saw herself of living

value to Raymond and helping him just where he stood most in need of

help. She believed that they might well prove the complement of each

other in those duties, disciplines, and obligations to which life had

called them.

That night she went closely, searchingly over old ground again from the

new point of vision. What had always been interesting to her, became now

vital, since these characteristics belonged to the man who wanted to wed

her. She tried to be remorseless and cruel that she might be kind. But

the palette of thought was only set with pleasant colours. She had been

intellectually in love with him for a long time, and he had offered

problems which made her love him for the immense interest they gave her.

Now came additional stimulus in the knowledge that he loved her well

enough to share his life, his hopes, and his ambitions with her.

She believed they might be wedded in very earnest. He was masterful and

possessed self-assurance; but what man can lead and control without

these qualities? His self-assurance was less than his self-control, and

his instinct for self-assertion had nearly always been counted by a kind

heart. It seemed to her that she had never known a man who balanced

reason and feeling more judicially, or better preserved a mean between

them.

She had found that men could differentiate in a way beyond woman's power

and be unsociable if their duty demanded it. But to be unsociable is not

to be unsocial. Raymond took long views, and if his old, genial and

jolly attitude to life was a thing of the past, there had been

substituted for it a wiser understanding and saner recognition of the

useful and useless. Men did take longer views than women--so Estelle

decided: and there Raymond would help her; but the all-important matter

that night was to satisfy herself how much she could help him. In this

reverie she found such warmth and light as set her glowing before dawn,

for she built up the spiritual picture of Raymond, came very close to

its ultimate realities, quickened by the new inspiration, and found that

it should be well within her power to serve him generously. She took no

credit to herself, but recognized a happy accident of character.

There were weak spots in all masculine armour, that only a woman could

make strong, and by a good chance she felt that her particular womanhood

might serve this essential turn for Raymond's manhood. To strengthen her

own man's weak spots--surely that was the crown and completion of any

wedded life for a woman. To check, to supplement, to enrich: that he

would surely do for her; and she hoped to deal as faithfully with him.

She was not clear-sighted here, for love, if it be love at all, must

bring the rosy veil with it and dim the seeing of the brightest eyes.

While the fact that she had grown up with Raymond made her view clear

enough in some directions, in others it served, of course, to dim

judgment. She credited him with greater intellect than he possessed, and

dreamed that higher achievements were in his power than was the truth.

But there existed a mean, below her dream yet above his present

ambition, that it was certainly possible with her incentive he might

attain. She might make him more sympathetic and so more synthetic also,

and show him how his own industry embraced industrial problems at

large--how it could not be taken by itself, but must hold its place only

by favour of its progress, and command respect only as it represented

the worthiest relation between capital and labour. Thus, from the

personal interest of his work, she would lift him to measure the

world-wide needs of all workers. And then, in time to come, he would

forget the personal before the more splendid demands of the universal.

The trend of machinery was towards tyranny; he must never lose sight of

that, or let the material threaten the spiritual. Private life, as well

as public life, was open to the tyranny of the machine; and there, too,

it would be her joyful privilege to fight beside him for added beauty,

added liberty, not only in their own home, but all homes wherein they

had power to increase comfort and therefore happiness. The sensitiveness

of women should be linked to the driving force of men, as the safety

valve to the engine. Thus, in a simile surely destined to delight him,

she summed her intentions and desires.

She had often wondered what must be essential to the fullest employment

of her energies and the best and purest use of her thinking; and now she

saw that marriage answered the question--not marriage in the abstract,

but just marriage with this man. He, of all she had known, was the one

with whom she felt best endowed to mingle and merge, so that their

united forces should be poured to help the world and water with increase

the modest territory through which they must flow.

She turned to go to sleep at last, yet dearly longed to tell Raymond and

amaze her father with the great tidings.

An impulse prompted her to leave her lover not a moment more in doubt.

She rose, therefore, and descended to his room, which opened beside his

private study on the ground floor. The hour was nearly four on an autumn

morning. She listened, heard him move restlessly and knew that he did

not sleep. He struck a match and lighted a cigarette, for he often

smoked at night.

Then she knocked at the door.

"Who the devil's that?" he shouted.

"I," she said, opening the door an inch and talking softly. "Stop where

you are and stop worrying and go to sleep. I'm going to marry you, Ray,

and I'm happier than ever I was before in all my life."

Then she shut the door and fled away.

CHAPTER XVII

SABINA AND ABEL

Now was Raymond Ironsyde too busy to think any thought but one, and

though distractions crowded down on the hour, he set them aside so far

as it was possible. His betrothal very completely dominated his life and

the new relation banished the old attitude between him and Estelle. The

commonplace existence, as of sister and brother, seemed to perish

suddenly, and in its place, as a butterfly from a chrysalis, there

reigned the emotional days of prelude to marriage. The mere force of the

situation inspired them and they grew as loverly as any boy and girl. It

was no make-believe that led them to follow the immemorial way and glory

only in the companionship of each other; they felt the desire, and love

that had awakened so tardily and moved in a manner so desultory, seemed

concerned to make up for lost time.

Arthur Waldron was not so greatly astonished as they expected, and

whatever may have been his private hopes and desires for his daughter,

he never uttered them, but seeing her happiness, echoed it.

"No better thing could have happened from my point of view," he

declared, "for if she'd married anybody else in the world, I should have

been called to say 'good-bye' to her. Since she's chosen you, there's no

necessity for me to do so. I hope you're going on living at North Hill,

and I trust you're going to let me do the same. Of course, it would be

an impossible arrangement if you were dealing with anybody but me; but

since we are what we are in spirit and temper and understanding, I claim

that I may stop. The only difference I can see is this: that whereas at

present, when we dine, you sit between Estelle and me, in future I shall

sit between Estelle and you."

"Not even that," vowed the lover. "Why shouldn't I go on sitting between

you?"

"No--you'll be the head of the house in future."

"The charm of this house is that there's no head to it," said Estelle,

"and Raymond isn't going to usurp any such position just because he

means to marry me."

But distractions broke in upon their happiness. Ernest Churchouse fell

grievously ill and lacked strength to fight disease; while there came

news from Knapp that the farmer was tired of Abel and wished him away.

For their old friend none could prolong his life; in the case of the

boy, Raymond decided that Sabina had better see him and go primed with a

definite offer. Abel's father did not anticipate much more trouble in

that quarter. He guessed that the lad, now in his seventeenth year, was

sufficiently weary of the land and would be glad to take up engineering.

He felt confident that Sabina must find him changed for the better,

prepared for his career and willing to enter upon it without greater

waste of time. He invited the boy's mother to learn if he felt more

friendly to him, and hoped that Abel had now revealed a frame of mind

and a power of reasoning, that would serve to solve the problem of his

career, and finally abolish his animosity to his father.

Sabina went to see her son and heard the farmer first. He was not

unfriendly, but declared Abel a responsibility he no longer desired to

incur.

"He's just at a tricky age--and he's shifty and secret--unlike other

lads. You never know what's going on in his mind, and he never laughs,

or takes pleasure in things. He's too difficult for me, and my wife says

she's frightened of him. As to work, he does it, but you always feel

he's got no love for it. And I know he means to bolt any day. I've

marked signs; so it will be better for you people to take the first

step."

The farmer's wife spoke to similar purpose and added information that

made Sabina more than uneasy.

"It's about this friend of his, Miss Waldron, that came to see him

backalong," she explained. "He'd talk pretty free about her sometimes

and was very proud of it when he got a letter now and again. But since

she's wrote and told him she's going to be married, he's turned a

gloomier character than ever. He don't like the thought of it and it

makes him dark. 'Tis almost as if he'd been in love with the lady. You

do hear of young boys falling in love before their time like that."

Sabina was on the point of explaining, but did not do so. Her first care

was to see Abel and learn the truth of this report. Perhaps she felt not

wholly sorry that he resented this conclusion. Not a few had spoken of

Ironsyde's marriage before her: it was the gossip of Bridetown; but none

appeared to consider how it must affect her, or sympathise with her

emotions on the subject. What these emotions were, or whither they

tended, she hardly knew herself. Unowned even to her innermost heart, a

sort of dim hope had not quite died, that he might, after all, come back

to her. She blushed at the absurdity of the idea now, but it had struck

in her subconsciously and never wholly vanished. Before the engagement

was announced she had altered her attitude to Raymond and used him

civilly and shared his desire that Abel should be won over by his

father. The old hatred at receiving anything from Ironsyde's hands no

longer existed. She felt indifferent and, before her own approaching

problems, was not prepared to decline the offers of help that she knew

would quickly come when Ernest Churchouse died.

She intended to preach patience and reason in the ears of Abel, and she

hoped he would not make her task difficult; but now it was clear that

Estelle's betrothal had troubled the boy.

She saw him and they spoke together for a long time; but already his

force of character began to increase beyond his mother's. Despite her

purpose and sense of the gravity of the situation, he had more effect

upon her than she had upon him. Yet her arguments were rational and his

were not. But the old, fatal, personal element of temper crept in and,

during her speech with him, Sabina found fires that she believed long

quenched, were still smouldering in the depths of memory. The boy could

not indeed fan them to flame again; but the result of his attitude

served to weaken hers. She did not argue with conviction after finding

his temper. By some evil chance, that seemed more like art than

accident, he struck old wounds, and she was interested and agitated to

find that now he knew all there was to be known of the past and its

exact significance. The dream hidden so closely in her heart: that there

might yet be a reconciliation--the dream finally killed when she

perceived that Ironsyde had fallen in love with Estelle Waldron--was no

dream in her son's mind. What she knew was impossible, till now

represented no impossibility to him. He actually declared it as a thing

which, in his moral outlook, ought to be. Only so could the past be

retrieved, or the future made endurable. But to that matter they did not

immediately come. She dined at the farmer's table with Abel and three

men. Then he was told that he might make holiday and spend the afternoon

with his mother where he pleased. He took her therefore to the old

barrows nigh Knapp, and there on a stone they sat, watched the sun sink

over distant woodlands and talked together till the dusk was down.

"I ought never to have trusted her," he said. "But I did. And, if I'd

thought she would ever have married him, I wouldn't have trusted her. I

thought she was the right sort; but if she was, she would never have

married a man who had sworn to marry you."

"Good gracious, Abel! Whatever are you talking about?" she asked,

concerned to find the matter in his mind.

"I'm talking about things that happened," he answered. "I'm not a child

now. I'm nearly seventeen and older than that, for I overheard two of

the men say so. You needn't tell me these things; I found them out for

myself, and I hated Raymond Ironsyde from the time I could hate anybody,

because the honest feeling to hate him was in me. And nobody has the

right to marry him but you, and he's got no right to marry anybody but

you. But he doesn't know the meaning of justice, and she is not fine, or

brave, or clever, or any of the things I thought she was, because she

wants to marry him."

His mother considered this speech.

"It's no good vexing yourself about the past," she said. "You and me

have got to look to the future, Abel, and not to dwell on all that don't

make the future any easier. It's difficult enough, but, for us, the

luxury of pride and hate isn't possible. I know very well what you feel.

It all went through me like fire before you were born--and after; but

we've got to go on living, and things are going to change, and we must

cut our coats according to our cloth--you and me."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"It means we're not independent. There's not enough for your education

and my keep. So it's got to be him, or one other, and the other is an

old woman--his aunt. But it's all the same really, and he'll see that it

comes out of his pocket in the end. He's all powerful and we must do

according. Christianity's a very convenient thing for the likes of us.

It teaches that the meek are blessed and the weak the worthy ones. You

must look to your father if you want to succeed in the world."

"Never," he said. "He's got everything else in the world, but he shan't

have me. I don't care much about being alive at best, seeing I must be

different from other people all my life; but I'd rather die twenty

times than owe anything to him. He knew before I was born that he was

going to wreck my life, and he did it, and he wrecked yours, and his

marriage with any other woman but you is a lie and a sham, and Estelle

knows it very well. Now I hate her as much as him, and I hate those who

let her marry him, and I hate the clergyman that will do it; and if I

could ruin them by killing myself on their doorstep, I would. But he

wouldn't care for that. If I was to do that, it would just suit the

devil, because he'd know I'd gone and could never rise up against him

any more."

She made a half-hearted attempt to distract his thoughts. She began to

argue and, as usual, ended in bitterness.

"You mustn't talk nonsense, like that. He means well by you, and you

mustn't cut off your nose to spite your face. You'll find plenty of

people to take his side and you mustn't only listen to his enemies.

There's always wise people to stand up for young men and excuse them,

though not many to stand up for young women."

"Let them stand up for me and excuse me, then," he answered. "Let them

explain me and tell me why I should think different, and why I should

take his filthy money just to set his mind at rest. What has he done for

me that I should ease him and do as he pleases? Is it out of any care

for me he'd lift me up? Not likely. It's all to deceive the people and

make them say he's a good man. And until he puts you right, he's not a

good man, and soon or late I'll have it out with him. God blast me if I

don't. But I'll revenge myself clean on him. He shan't make out to the

world that he's done what a father should do for a son. He's my natural

father and no more, and he never wanted or meant to be more. And no

right will take away that wrong. And I'll treat him as other natural

creatures treat their fathers."

"You can't do that," she said. "You're a human, and you've got a

conscience and must answer to it."

"I will--some day. I know what my conscience says to me. My conscience

tells me the truth, not a lot of lies like yours tells you. I know

what's right and I know what's justice. I gave the man one chance. I

offered to go in his works--my works that ought to be some day. But that

didn't suit him. I must always knuckle under and bend to his will. But

never--never. I'd starve first, or throw myself into the sea. He don't

want me near him for people to point to, so I must be drove out of

Bridetown to the ends of the earth if he chooses. And if the damned

world was straight and honest and looked after the women and innocent

children, 'tis him, not me, would have been drove out of Bridetown."

He spoke with amazing bitterness for youth, and echoed much that he had

heard, as well as what he had thought. His mother felt some astonishment

to find how his mind had enlarged, and some fear, also, to see the

hopelessness of the position.

Already she considered in secret what craft might be necessary to bring

him to a more reasonable mind.

"You'll have to think of me as well as yourself," she said. "Life's hard

enough without you making it so much harder. Two things will happen in a

few weeks from now and nothing can stop them. First you've got to leave

here, because farmer don't want you any more, and then poor Mister

Churchouse is going to pass away. He's just fading out like a

night-light--flickering up and down and bound to be called. And the best

man and the truest friend to sorrow that ever trod the earth."

"I was going from here," he answered. "And you can look to me for making

a pound a week, and you can have it all if you'll take nothing from any

of my enemies. If you take money from my enemies, then I won't help

you."

"You're a man in your opinions seemingly, though I wish to God you

hadn't grown out of childhood so quick, if you were going to grow to

this. It'll drive you mad if you're not careful. Then where shall I be?"

"I'll drive other people mad--not you. I'll come back home, and then

I'll find work at Bridport."

"Where's home going to be--that's the question?" Sabina answered.

"There's only one choice for you--between letting him finish your

education and going out to work."

"We'll live in Bridport, then," he told her, "and I'll go into something

with machinery. I'll soon rise, and I might rise high enough to ruin him

yet, some day. And never you forget he had my offer and turned it down.

He didn't know what he was doing when he did that."

"He couldn't trust you. How was he to know you wouldn't try to burn the

works again--and succeed next time?"

Abel laughed.

"That was a fool's trick. If they'd gone, he'd only have built 'em

again, better. But there are some things he can't insure."

"I know a good few spinners at Bridport. Shall I have a look round for

you?" she asked, as they rose to return.

He considered and agreed.

"Yes, if it's only through you. I trust you not to go to him about it.

If you did and I found you had--"

"No, no. I'll not go to him."

He came and looked again at the motor car that had brought her. It

interested him as keenly as before.

"That's for him to go about the country in, because he's standing for

Parliament," explained Sabina.

But his anger was spent. He heeded her no more, and even the fact that

his father owned the car did not modify his deep interest.

He rode a mile or two with her when she started to return and remained

silent and rapt for the few minutes of the experience.

His mother tried to use the incident.

"If you was to be good and patient and let the right thing be done, I

daresay in a few years you'd rise to having a motor of your own," she

said, when they stopped and he started to trudge back.

"If ever I do, I'll get it for myself," he answered. "And when you're

old, I'll drive you about, very likely."

He left her placidly, and it was understood that in a month he would

return to her as soon as she had determined on their immediate future.

For herself she knew that it would be necessary to deceive him, yet

feared to attempt it after the recent conversation. She felt uneasily

proud of him.

CHAPTER XVIII

SWAN SONG

The doctor said Mr. Churchouse was dying because he didn't wish to go on

living, and when Estelle taxed the old man with his indifference, he

would not deny it.

"I have lived long enough," he said. "The machine is worn out. My

thinking is become a painful effort. I forget the simplest matters, and

before you are a nuisance to yourself, you may feel very certain you

have long been a nuisance to other people."

He had for some months grown physically weaker, and both Raymond and

others had noticed an inconsequence of utterance and an inability to

concentrate the mind. He liked friends to come and see him and would

listen with obvious effort to follow any argument, or grasp any fresh

item of news. But he spoke less and less. Nor could Sabina tempt him to

eat adequate food. He ignored the doctor's drugs and seemed to shrink

physically as well as mentally.

"I'm turning into my chrysalis," he said once to Estelle. "One has to go

through that phase before one can be a butterfly. Remember, my pretty

girl, you are only burying an empty chrysalis when this broken thing is

put into the ground."

"You're very unkind to talk so," she declared. "You might go on living

if you liked, and you ought to try--for the sake of those who love you."

But he shook his head.

"One doesn't control these things. You know I've always told you that

the length of the thread is no part of our business, but only the

spinning. I should have liked to see you married; yet, after all, why

not? I may be there. I shall hope to beg a holiday on that occasion and

be in church."

He always spoke thus quite seriously. Death he regarded as no

discontinuity, or destruction, of life, but merely an alteration of

environment.

At some personal cost Miss Ironsyde came to take leave of him, when it

seemed that his end was near. He kept his bed now, and by conserving his

strength gained a little activity of mind.

He was troubled for Jenny's physical sufferings; while she, for her

part, endeavoured to discuss Sabina's problems, but she could not

interest the old man in them.

"Abel is safe with his father," said Mr. Churchouse. "As for Sabina, I

have left her a competency, and so have you. One has been very heartily

sorry for her. She will have no anxiety when my will is read. I am

leaving you three books, Jenny. I will leave you more if you like. My

library as a whole is bequeathed to Estelle Waldron, since I know nobody

who values and respects books so well."

"But Abel," she said.

"I have tried to establish his character and we may find, after all, I

did more than we think. Providence is ever ready to water and tend the

good seed that we sow. But he must be made to abandon this fatal

attitude to his father. It is uncomfortable and inconvenient and helps

nobody. I shall talk to him, I hope, before I die. He is coming home in

a day or two."

But Abel delayed a week, at his master's request, that he might help

pull a field of mangels, and Mr. Churchouse never saw him again.

During his last days Estelle spent much time with him. He seldom

mentioned any other person but himself. He wandered in a disjointed

fashion over the past and mixed his recollections with his dreams. He

remembered jests and sometimes uttered them, then laughed; but often he

laughed to himself without giving any reason for his amusement.

He was thoughtful and apologetic. Indeed, when he looked up into any

face, he always said, "I mourn to give you so much trouble." Latterly he

confused his visitors, but kept Estelle and Sabina clear in his mind. He

fancied that they had quarrelled and was always seeking to reconcile

them. Every morning he appeared anxious and distressed until they stood

by him together and declared that they were the best of friends. Then he

became tranquil.

"That being so," he said, "I shall depart in peace."

Estelle relieved the professional nurse and would read, talk, or listen,

as he wished. He spoke disjointedly one day and wove reality and

imagination together.

"Much good marble is wasted on graves," he declared. "But it doesn't

bring the dead to life. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body,

Estelle? I hope you find it easy. That is one of the things I never was

honestly able to say I had grasped. Reason will fight against the nobler

tyranny of faith. The old soul in a glorified body--yet the same body,

you understand. We shan't all be in one pattern in heaven. We shall

preserve our individuality; and yet I deprecate passing eternity in this

tabernacle. Improvements may be counted upon, I think. The art of the

Divine Potter can doubtless make beautiful the humblest and the most

homely vessel."

"Nobody who loves you would have you changed," she assured him.

Then his mind wandered away and he smiled.

"I listened to a street preacher once--long, long ago when I was

young--and he said that the road to everlasting destruction was lined

with women and gin shops. Upon which a sailor-man, who listened to him,

shouted out, 'Oh death, where is thy sting?' The meeting dissolved in a

very tornado of laughter. Sailors have a great sense of humour. It can

take the place of a fire on a cold day. One touch of humour makes the

whole world kin. If you have a baby, teach it to laugh as well as to

walk. But I think your baby will do that readily enough."

On another occasion he laughed suddenly to himself and explained his

amusement to Sabina, who sat by him.

"Eunominus, the heretic, boasted that he knew the nature of God;

whereupon St. Basil instantly puzzled him with twenty-one questions

about the body of the ant!"

Estelle also tried to make Mr. Churchouse discuss Abel Dinnett. She told

him of an interesting fact.

"I have got Ray to promise a big thing," she said. "He hesitated, but he

loved me too well to deny me. Besides, feeling as I do, I couldn't take

any denial. You see Nature is so much greater than all else to me, and

contrasted with her, our little man-made laws, often so mean and hateful

in their cowardly caution and cruel injustice, look pitiful and beneath

contempt. And I don't want to come between Raymond and his eldest son. I

won't--I won't do it. Abel is his first-born, and it may be cold-blooded

of me--Ray said it was at first--but I insist on that. I've made him

see, and I've made father see. I feel so much about it, that I wouldn't

marry him if he didn't recognize Abel first and treat him as the

first-born ought to be treated."

"Abel--Abel Dinnett," said the other, who had not followed her speech.

"A good-looking boy, but lawless. He wants the world to bend to him; and

yet, if you'll believe me, there is a vein of fine sentiment in his

nature. With tears in his eyes he once told me that he had seen a fellow

pupil at school cruelly killing insects with a burning glass; and he had

beaten the cruel lad and broken his glass. That is all to the good. The

difficulty for him is that he was born out of wedlock. This great

disability could have been surmounted in America, Scotland, Ireland,

Germany, or, in fact, anywhere but in England. The law of the natural

child in this country would bring a blush to the cheek of a gorilla.

But neither Church nor State will lift a finger to right the infamy."

"We are always wanting to pluck the mote out of our neighbour's eyes,

and never see the beam in our own," she answered. "Women will alter that

some day--and the disgusting divorce laws, too. Perhaps these are the

first things they will alter, when they have the power."

"Who is going into Parliament?" he asked. "Somebody told me, but I

forget. He was a friend of mine. I remember that much."

"Ray hopes to get in. I am going to help him, if I can."

"It is a great responsibility. Tell him, if he is elected, to fight for

the natural child. It would well become him to do so. Let him rise to

it. Our Saviour said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me.' The

State, on the contrary, says, 'Suffer the little children to be done to

death and put out of the way.'"

"Yes," she answered, "suffer fifty thousand little children to be lost

every year, because it is kinder to let them perish, than help them to

live under the wicked laws we have planned to govern them."

But his mind collapsed and when she strove to bring it back again, she

could not.

Two days before he died, Estelle found him in deep distress. He begged

to see her alone, and explained that he had to confess a great sin.

"I ought to tell a priest," he said, "but I dare think that you will do

as well. If you absolve me, I shall know I may hope to be forgiven. I

have lived a double life, Estelle. I have pretended what was not

true--not merely once or twice, but systematically, deliberately,

callously."

"I don't believe it, dear Mister Churchouse. You couldn't."

"I should never have believed it myself. But even the old can surprise

themselves, painfully sometimes. I have lived with this perfidy for many

years; but I can't die with it. There's always an inclination to

confess our sins to a fellow creature. To confess them to our Maker is

quite needless, because He knows them; but it's a quality of human

nature to feel better after imparting its errors to another ear."

He broke off.

"What was I saying? I forget."

"That you'd done something ever so wicked and nobody knew it."

"Yes, yes. The books--the books I used to receive from unknown admirers

by post. My child, there were no unknown admirers! Nobody ever admired

me, either secretly or openly. Why should they? I used to send the books

to myself--God forgive me."

"If I'd only known, I'd have sent you hundreds of books," she said. "I

did send you one or two."

"I know it--they are my most precious possessions. They served in some

mysterious way to soothe my bad conscience. It would be interesting to

examine and find out how they did. But my brain can't look into anything

subtle now. I knew you sent the books. My good angel has recorded my

thanks. You always increased my vitality, Estelle. You are keeping me

alive at present. You have risen in the autumn of my life as a gracious

dawn; you have been the sun of my Indian summer. You will be a good wife

to Raymond. It seems only yesterday that he was a little thing in short

frocks, and Henry so proud of him. Now Henry is dead, and Raymond

wife-old and in Parliament. A sound Liberal, like his father before

him."

"The election isn't till next year. But I hope he'll get in. They say at

Bridport he has a very good chance."

The day before he died, Mr. Churchouse seemed better and talked to

Estelle of another visit from her father.

"I always esteem his great good humour and fine British instinct to live

and let live. That is where our secret lies. We ride Empire with such a

loose rein, Estelle--the only way. You cannot dare to put a curb on

proud people. A paradox that--that those who fast bind don't fast find.

The instinct of England's greatness is in your father; he is an epitome

of our virtues. He has no imagination, however. Nor has England. If she

had, doubtless she would not do the great deeds that beggar imagination.

That reminds me. There is one little gift that you must have from my own

hand. A work of imagination--a work of art. Nobody in the world would

care about it but you. A poem, in fact. I have written one or two

others, but I tore them up. I sent them to newspapers, hoping to

astonish you with them; but when they were rejected I destroyed them.

This poem I did not send. Nobody has seen it but myself. Now I give it

to you, and I want you to read it aloud to me, that I may hear how it

sounds."

"How clever of you! There's nothing you can't do. I know I shall love

it."

He pointed to a sheaf of papers on a table.

"The top one. It is a mournful subject, yet I hope treated cheerfully. I

wrote it before death was in sight; but I feel no more alarmed or

concerned about death now than I did then. You may think it is too

simple. But simplicity, though boring to the complex mind, is really

quite worth while. The childlike spirit--there is much to be said for

it. No doubt I have missed a great deal by limiting my interests; but I

have gained too--in directness."

"There is a greatness about simplicity," she said.

"To be simple in my life and subtle in my thought was my ambition at one

time; but I never could rise to subtlety. The native bent was against

it. The poem--I do not err in calling it a poem--is called

'Afterwards'--unless you can think of a better title. If any obvious and

glaring faults strike you, tell me. No doubt there are many."

She read the two pages written in his little, careful and almost

feminine hand.

"When I am dead, the storm and stress

Of many-coloured consciousness

Like blossom petals fall away

And drops the calyx back to clay;

A man, not woman, makes the bed

When our night comes and we are dead.

"When I am dead, the ebb and flow

Of folk where I was wont to go,

Will never stay a moment's pace,

Or miss along the street my face.

Yet thoughts may wake and things be said

By one or two when I am dead.

"When I am dead, the sunset light

Will fill the gap upon the height

In summer time, but on the plain

Sink down as winter comes again

And none who sees the evening red

Will know I loved it, who am dead.

"When I am dead, upon my mound

Exotic flow'rs may first be found,

And not until they've blown away

Will other blossoms come to stay.

A daisy growing overhead

Brings gentle pleasure to the dead.

"When I am dead, I'd love to see

An amber thrush hop over me

And bend his ear, as he would know

What I am whispering down below.

May many a song-bird find his bread

Upon my grave when I am dead.

"When I am dead, and years shall pass,

The scythe will cut the darnel grass

Now and again for decency,

Where we forgotten people lie.

O'er ancient graves the living tread

With great impertinence on the dead.

"When I am dead, all I have done

Must vanish, like the evening sun.

My book about the bells may stay

Behind me for a fleeting day;

But will not very oft be read

By anybody when I'm dead."

She stopped and smiled with her eyes full of tears.

"I had meant to write another verse," he explained, "but I put it off

and it's too late now. Such as it is, it is yours. Does it seem to you

to be interesting?"

"It's very interesting indeed, and very beautiful. I shall always value

it as my greatest treasure."

"Read it to your children," he said, "and if the opportunity occurs,

take them sometimes to see my grave. The spot is long chosen. Let there

be no gardening upon it out of good heart but bad taste. I should wish

it left largely to Nature. There will be daisies for your babies to

pick. I forget the text I selected. It's in my will."

He bade her good-bye more tenderly than usual, as though he knew that he

would never see her again, and the next morning Bridetown heard that the

old man had died in his sleep. The people felt sorry, for he left no

enemies, and his many kindly thoughts and deeds were remembered for a

little while.

CHAPTER XIX

NEW WORK FOR ABEL

With a swift weaver's knot John Best mended the flying yarn. Then he

turned from a novice at the Gill Spinner and listened, not very

patiently, to one who interrupted his lesson.

"It's rather a doubtful thing that you should always be about the place

now you've left it, Levi," he said to Mr. Baggs. "It would be better

judgment and more decent on your part if you kept away."

"You may think so," answered the hackler, "but I do not. And until the

figure of my pension is settled, I shall come and go and take no

denial."

"It is settled. He don't change. He's said you shall have ten shillings

a week and no more, so that it will be."

"And what if I decline to take ten shillings a week, after fifty years

of work in his beastly Mill?"

"Then you can do the other thing and go without. You want it both ways,

you do."

"I want justice--no more. Common justice, I suppose, can be got in

Dorset as elsewhere. I ought to have had a high testimonial when I left

this blasted place--a proper presentation for all to see, and a public

feed and a purse of sovereigns at the least."

"That's what I mean when I say you can't have it both ways," answered

Mr. Best. "To be nice and pick words and consider your feelings is waste

of time, so I tell you that you can't grizzle and grumble and find fault

with everything and everybody for fifty years, and then expect people to

bow down and worship you and collect a purse of gold when you retire. If

we flew any flags about you, it would be because we'd got rid of you.

Mister Ironsyde don't like you, and why should he? You've always been up

against the employer and you've never lost a chance to poison the minds

of the employed. There's no good will in you and never was, and where

you could hang us up in the Mill and make difficulties without getting

yourself into trouble, you've always took great pleasure in so doing.

Did you ever pull with me, or anybody, if you could help it? Never. You

pulled against. You'd often have liked to treat us like the hemp and

tear us to pieces on your rougher's hackle. And how does such a man

expect anybody to care about him? There was no reason why you should

have had a pension at all, in my opinion. You've been blessed with good

health and no family, and you've never spent a shilling on another

fellow creature in your life. Therefore, it's more than justice that you

get ten shillings, and not less as you seem to think."

Mr. Baggs glowered at John during this harangue. His was the steadfast

attitude of the egoist, who sees all life in terms of his own interest

alone.

"We've got to fight for ourselves in this world since there's none other

to fight for us," he said, "and, of course, you take his side. You've

licked Ironsyde boots all your life, and nothing an Ironsyde can do is

wrong. But I might have known the man that's done the wickedness he's

done, and deserts his child and let his only son work on the land,

wouldn't meet me fair. There's no honour or honesty in the creature, but

if he thinks I'm going to take this slight without lifting my voice

against it, he's wrong. To leave the works and sneak out of 'em

unmourned and without a bit of talk and a testimonial was shameful

enough; but ten shilling a week--no! The country shall ring about that

and he'll find his credit shaken. 'Tis enough to lose him his election

to Parliament, and I hope it will do so."

Best stared.

"You're a cracked old fool, and not a spark of proper pride or

gratitude in you. Feeling like that, I wonder you dare touch his money;

but you're the sort who would take gifts with one hand and stab the

giver with the other. I hope he'll change his mind yet and give you no

pension at all."

Levi, rather impressed with this unusual display of feeling from the

foreman, growled a little longer, then went his way; while in John there

arose a determination to prevent Mr. Baggs from visiting the scene of

his old activities. At present force of habit drew the old man to spend

half his time here; and now, when Best had returned to the Gill Spinner,

Levi prowled off to his old theatre of work, entered the hackling shop

and criticised the new hackler. His successor was young and stood in awe

of him at first; but awe was not a quality the veteran inspired for

long. Already Joe Ash began to grow restive under Levi's criticisms, and

dimly to feel that the old hackler was better away. To-day Mr. Baggs

allowed the resentment awakened by Best's criticisms to take shape in

offensive comments at the expense of his young successor. He was of that

order of beings who, when kicked, rests not until he has kicked somebody

again.

But to-day the evil star of Mr. Baggs was in ascendant, and when he told

the youth that he wasted half his strength and had evidently been taught

his business by a fool, Levi was called to suffer a spirited retort. Joe

Ash came from the Midlands; his vocabulary was wider than that of Mr.

Baggs, and he soon had the old man gasping. Finally he ordered him out

of the shop, and told him that if he did not go he would be put out.

"Strength or no strength," he said, "I've got enough for you, so hop out

of this and don't come back. If you're to be free of my shop, I leave;

and that's all there is to it."

Mr. Baggs departed, having hoped that he might live to see the young man

hung with his own long line. He then pursued his way by the river,

labouring under acute emotions, and half a mile down stream met a lad

engaged in angling.

Abel Dinnett had returned home and was making holiday until his mother

should discover work for him, or he himself be able to get occupation.

For the moment Sabina found herself sufficiently busy packing up her

possessions and preparing for the forthcoming sale at 'The Magnolias.'

She was waiting to find a new home until Abel's future labour appeared;

but, in secret, Raymond Ironsyde had undertaken to obtain it, and she

knew that henceforth she would live at Bridport.

Mr. Baggs poured out his wrongs, but he did not begin immediately.

Failing adult ears, Abel's served him, and he proceeded to declare that

the new hackler was a worthless rogue, who did not know his business and

would never earn his money.

Abel, however, had reached a standard of intelligence that no longer

respected Mr. Baggs.

"I don't go to the works now," he said, "and never shall again. I don't

care nothing about them. My mother and me are going to leave Bridetown

when I get a job."

"No doubt--no doubt. Though I dare say your talk is sour grapes--seeing

as you'll never come by your rights."

Abel lifted his eyes to the iron-roofed buildings up the valley.

"Oh yes, I could," he said. "That man wants to win me now. He's going to

be married, and she--her he's going to marry--told my mother that he's

wishful for me to be his proper son and be treated according. But I

won't have his damned friendship now. It's too late now. You can't drive

hate out of a man with gifts."

"They ain't gifts--they're your right and due. 'Tis done to save his

face before the people, so they'll forgive his past and help send him

into Parliament. Look at me--fifty years of service and ten shillings a

week pension! It shall be known and 'twill lose him countless votes,

please God. A dog like that in Parliament! 'Twould be a disgrace to the

nation. And you go on hating him if you're a brave boy. Every honest man

hates him, same as I do. Twenty shillings I ought to have had, if a

penny."

"Fling his money back in his face," said Abel. "Nobody did ought to

touch his money, or work for it. And if every man and woman refused to

go in his works, then he'd be ruined."

"The wicked flourish like the green bay tree in this country, because

there's such a cruel lot of 'em, and they back each other up against the

righteous," declared Levi. "But a time's coming, and you'll live to see

it, when the world will rise against their iniquity."

"Don't take his money, then."

"It ain't his money. It's my money. He's keeping back my money. When

that John Best drops out, as he ought to do, for he's long past his

work, will he get ten shillings a week? Two pound, more like; and all

because he cringes and lies and lets the powers of darkness trample on

him! And may the money turn to poison in his mouth when he does get it."

"Everything about Ironsyde is poison," added Abel. "And that girl that

was a friend to me--he's poisoned her now, and I won't know her no more.

I won't neighbour with anybody that has a good word for him, and I won't

breathe the same air with him much longer; and I told my mother if she

took a penny from him, I'd throw her over, too."

"Quite right. I wish you was strong enough to punish him; but if you

was, he'd come whining to you and pray you not to. Men like him only

make war on women and the weak."

Abel listened.

"I'll punish him if he lives long enough," he said. "That's what I'm

after. I'll bide my time."

"And for him to dare to get up and ask the people to send him to

Parliament. But they won't. He's too well known in these parts for that.

Who's he that he should be lifted up to represent honest, God-fearing

men?"

"If there was anything to stop him getting in, I'd do it," declared

Abel.

"'Tis for us, with weight of years and experience, to keep him out. All

sensible people will vote against him, and the more that know the truth

of him the fewer will support him. And Republican though I am, I'd

rather vote for the Tory than him. And as for you, if you stood up at

his meetings when the time comes, while they were all cheering the

wretch, and cried out that you was his son--that would be sure to lose

him a good few God-fearing votes. You think of it; you might hinder him

and even work him a mint of harm that way."

The old man left Abel to consider his advice and the angler sat watching

his float for another hour. But his thoughts were on what he had heard;

and he felt no more interest in his sport.

Presently he wound up his line and went home. He was attracted by Levi's

suggestion and guessed that he might create great feeling against his

father in that way. Himself, he did not shrink from the ordeal in

imagination; indeed his inherent vanity rather courted it. But when he

told his mother what he might do, she urged him to attempt no such

thing. Indeed she criticised him sharply for such a foolish thought.

"You'll lose all sympathy from the people," she said, "and be flung out;

and none will care twopence for you. When you tried to burn the place

down and he forgave you, that made a feeling for him, and since then

'tis well known by those that matter, that he's done all he could for

you under the circumstances."

"That's what he hasn't."

"That's what he would if you'd let him. So it's silly to think you've

got any more grievances, and if you get up and make a row at one of his

meetings, you'll only be chucked into the street. You're nobody now,

through your own fault, and you've made people sorry for your father

instead of sorry for you, because you're such a pig-headed fool about

him and won't see sense."

The boy flushed and glared at his mother, who seldom spoke in this vein.

"If you wasn't my mother, I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching

his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who

are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him,

there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me,

because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too

late to fight for you; but it's never too late to hate a wicked beast,

and if I can help to keep him from getting what he wants I will, and I

don't care how I do it, either."

She looked at him with little love in her eyes.

"You're only being a scourge to me--not to him," she answered. "You

can't hurt him, however much you want to, and you can't hurt his name or

reputation, because time heals all and he's done much to others that

will make them forget what he did to me. I forget myself sometimes, so

'tis certain enough the people do. And if I can, surely to God you can,

if only for my sake. You're punishing me for being your mother, not him

for being your father--just contrary to what you want."

"That's all I get, then, for standing up for you against him, and

keeping it before him and the people what he's done against you. Didn't

you tell me years and years ago I'd fight your battles some day? And

now, when I'm got clever enough to set about it, you curse me."

"I don't curse you, Abel. But time is past for fighting battles. There's

nothing to fight about now."

"We're punishing him cruel by not taking his money; but there's more to

do yet," he said. "And I'll do it if I can. And you mind that I'm

fighting against him for your sake, and if you're grown too old and too

tired to hate the man any more, I haven't. I can hate him for you as

well as myself."

"And the hate comes back on you," she said. "It's long past the time for

all that. You've got plenty of brains and you know that this passion

against him is only harming yourself. For God's sake drop it. You say

you're a man now. Then be a man and take man's views and look on ahead

and think of your future life. Far from helping me, you're only

hindering me. We've come to a time when life's altered and the old life

here is done. We're going to begin life together--you and me--and you're

going to make our fortunes; but it's a mad lookout if you mean to put

all your strength into hating them that have no hate for you. It will

make you bitter and useless, and you'll grow up a sour, friendless

creature, like Levi Baggs. What's he got out of all his hate and

unkindness to the world?"

Abel considered.

"He hates everybody," he said. "It's no use to hate everybody, because

then everybody will hate you. I don't hate everybody. I only hate him."

She argued, but knew that she had not changed her son. And then, when he

was gone again, fearing that he might do what he threatened, she went to

see Estelle Waldron.

They met on the way to see each other, for Estelle had heard from

Raymond that work was found for Abel and, as next step in the plot, it

was necessary for Sabina to go to a small spinning mill in Bridport

herself. Ironsyde's name was not to transpire.

Gladly enough the mother undertook her task.

"He's out of hand," she said, "and away from home half his time. He

roams about and listens to bad counsellors. He's worse than ever since

he's idle. He's got another evil thought now, for his thoughts foul his

reason, as well I know thoughts can."

She told Estelle what Abel had declared he would do.

"You'd best let Mister Ironsyde know," she said, "and he'll take steps

according. If the boy can be kept out from any meeting it would be

wisest. But I'm powerless. I've wearied my tongue begging and blaming

and praying to him to use his sense; but it's beyond my power to make

him understand. There's a devil in him and nobody can cast it out."

"He won't speak to me now. Poor Abel--yes, it's something like a

devil. I'll tell his father. We were very hopeful about the future

until--But if he gets to work, it may sweeten him. He'll have good

wages and meet nice people."

"I wish it had been farther off."

"So did I," answered Estelle; "but his father wants him under his own

eye and will put him into something better the moment he can. You won't

mention this to Abel, and he won't hear it there, because the workers

don't know it; but Raymond has a large interest in the Mill really."

"I'll not mention it. I'll go to-morrow, and the boy will know nothing

save that I've got him a good job."

"He can begin next month; and that will help him every way, I hope."

So things fell out, and within a month Abel was at work. He believed his

mother solely responsible for this occupation. She had yet to find a

home at Bridport, so he came and went from Bridetown.

He was soon deeply interested and only talked about his labours with a

steam engine. Of his troubles he ceased to speak, and for many days

never mentioned his father's name.

CHAPTER XX

IDEALS

An event which seemed more or less remote, came suddenly to the

forefront of Raymond Ironsyde's life, for ill-health hastened the

retirement of the sitting member and a parliamentary bye-election was

called for.

Having undertaken the constituency he could not turn back, though the

sudden demand had not been expected. But he found plenty of enthusiastic

helpers and his own personality had made him many friends.

It was indeed upon the significance of personality that much turned, and

incidentally the experiences into which he now entered served to show

him all that personality may mean. Estelle rejoiced that he should now

so swiftly learn what had so long been apparent to her. She always

declared an enthusiasm for personality; to her it seemed the force

behind everything and the mainspring of all movement. Lack of

personality meant stagnation; but granted personality, then advance was

possible--almost inevitable.

He caught her meaning and appreciated what followed from it. But he saw

that personality demands freedom before its fullest expression and

highest altitude are attainable. That altitude had never been reached as

yet even by the most liberty-loving people.

"There's no record in all the world of what man might do under

conditions of real liberty," said Estelle. "It has never been possible

so far; but I do believe history shows that the nearer we approach to

it, the more beautiful life becomes for everybody."

Raymond admitted so much and agreed that the world had yet to learn what

it might achieve under a nobler dispensation of freedom.

"Think of the art, the thought, the leisure for good things, if the

ceaseless fight against bad things were only ended; think of the

inspirations that personality will be free to express some day," she

said.

But he shattered her dreams sometimes. She would never suffer him to

declare any advance impossible; yet she had to listen, when he explained

that countless things she cried for were impracticable under existing

circumstances.

"You want to get to the goal without running the race, sweetheart," he

told her once. "Before this and this can possibly happen, that and that

must happen. House-building begins at the cellars, not the roof."

She wrestled with political economy and its bearings on all that was

meant by democracy. She was patient and strove to master detail and keep

within the domain of reality. But, after all, she taught him more than

he could teach her; because her thoughts sprung from an imagination

touched with genius, while he was contented to take things as he found

them and distrust emotion and intuition.

She exploded ideas in the ordered chambers of his mind. The proposition

that labour was not a commodity quite took him off his balance. Yet he

proved too logical to deny it when Estelle convinced his reason.

"That fact belongs to the root of all the future, I believe," she said.

"From it all the flowers and seed we hope for ought to come, and the

interpretation of everything vital. Labour and the labourer aren't two

different things; they're one and the same thing. His labour is part of

every man, and it can no more be measured and calculated away from him

than his body and soul can. But it is the body and soul that must

regulate labour, not labour the body and soul. So you've got to regard

labour and the rights of labour as part of the rights of man, and not a

thing to be bought and sold like a pound of tea. You see that? Labour,

in fact, is as sacred as humanity and its rights are sacred too."

"So are the rights of property," he answered, but doubtfully, for he

knew at heart that the one proposition did not by any means embrace the

other. Indeed Estelle contradicted him very forcibly.

"Not the least bit in the world," she declared. "They are as far apart

as the poles. There's nothing the least sacred about property. The

rights of property are casual. They generally depend on all sorts of

things that don't matter. They happen through the changes and chances of

life, and human whims and fads and the pure accident of heredity and

descent. They are all on a lower level; they are all suspect, whereas

the rights of labour are a part of humanity."

But he followed her parry with a sharp _riposte_.

"Remember what happened when somebody promised to marry me," he said.

"Remember that, as a principle of rectitude, I have recognised my son

and accepted your very 'accident of descent' as chief reason for

according him all a first-born's rights. That was your instinct towards

right--his rights of property."

"It was righteousness, not rights of property that made you decide," she

assured him. "Abel has no rights of property. The law ignores his rights

to be alive at all, I believe. The law calls him 'the son of none,' and

if you have no parents, you can't really exist. But the rights of labour

are above human law and founded in humanity. They are Abel's, yours,

everybody's. The man who works, by that fact commands the rights of

labour. Besides, circumstances alter cases."

"Yes, and may again," he replied. "We can't deny the difficulties in

this personal experience of mine. But I'm beginning to think the boy's

not normal. I very much fear there's a screw loose."

"Don't think that. He's a very clever boy."

"And yet Sabina tells me frankly that his bitterness against me keeps

pace with his growing intelligence. Instead of his wits defeating his

bad temper, as they do sooner or later with most sane people, the older

he gets, the more his dislike increases and the less trouble he takes

to control it."

"If that were so, of course circumstances might alter the case again,"

she admitted. "But I don't believe there's a weak spot like that.

There's something retarded--some confusion of thought, some kind of knot

in his mind that isn't smoothed out yet. You've been infinitely patient

and we'll go on being infinitely patient--together."

This difficult matter she dropped for the present; but finding him some

days later in a recipient mood, followed up her cherished argument, that

labour must be counted a commodity no more.

"Listen to me, Ray," she said. "Very soon you'll be too busy to listen

to me at all--these are the last chances for me before your meetings

begin. But really what I'm saying will be splendidly useful in

speeches."

"All very well if getting in was all that mattered," he told her. "I

can't echo all your ideas, Chicky, and speeches have a way of rising up

against one at awkward moments afterwards."

"At any rate, you grant the main point," she said, "and so you must

grant what follows from it; and if you grant that, and put it in your

manifesto, you'll lose a few votes, but you'll gain hundreds. If

labour's not a commodity, but to be regulated by body and soul, then

wages must be regulated by body and soul too. Or, if you want to put it

in a way for a crowd to understand, you can say that we give even a

steam-engine the oil it must have before it begins to work, so how can

we deny a man the oil he wants before he begins to work?"

"That means a minimum of wages."

"Yes, a minimum consistent with human needs, below which wages cannot

and must not fail. That minimum should be just as much taken for granted

as the air a man breathes, or the water he drinks, or the free education

he gets as a boy. It isn't wages really; it's recognition of a man's

right to live and share the privileges of life, and be self-respecting,

just because he is a man. Everybody who is born, Ray, ought to have the

unquestioned right to live, and the amplest opportunity to become a good

and useful citizen. After that is granted, then wages should begin, and

each man, or woman, should have full freedom and opportunity to earn

what he, or she, was worth. That does away with the absurd idea of

equality, which can only be created artificially and would breed

disaster if we did create it."

"There's no such thing as equality in human nature, any more than in any

other nature, Estelle. Seeds from the same pod are different--some weak,

some strong. But I grant the main petition. The idea's first rate--a

firm basis of right to reasonable life, and security for every human

being as our low-water mark; while, on that foundation, each may lift an

edifice according to their power. So that none who has the power to rise

above the minimum would be prevented from doing so, and no Trades Union

tyranny should interfere to prevent the strong man working eight hours a

day if he desires to do so, because the weaker one can only work seven."

"I think the Trades Unions only want to prevent men being handicapped

out of the race at the start," she answered. "They know as well as we

do, that men are not born equal in mind or body; but rightly and

reasonably, they want them all to start equal as far as conditions go.

The race is to the strong and the prize is to the strong; but all, at

least, should have power to train for the race and start with equal

opportunities to win. There's such a lot to be done."

"There is," he admitted. "The handicap you talk of is created for

thousands and thousands before they are born at all."

"Think of being handicapped out of the race before you are born!" she

cried. "What could be more unjust and cruel and wicked than that?"

"Very few will put the unborn before the living, or think of a

potential child rather than the desires of the parents--selfish though

they may be. It's a free country, and we don't know enough to start

stopping people from having a hand in the next generation if they decide

to do so."

But her enthusiasm was not quenched by difficulties.

"We want science and politics and good will to work together," she said.

He returned to the smaller argument.

"It's a far cry to what you want, yet I for one don't shrink from it.

The better a man is, the larger share he should have of the profits of

any enterprise he helps to advance. Then wages would take the shape of

his share in the profits, and you might easily find a head workman of

genius drawing more out of a business than--say, a junior partner, who

is a fool and not nearly so vital to the enterprise as he. But, you see,

if we say that, we argue in a circle, for the junior partner, ass though

he is, represents oil and fuel, which are just as important as the

clever workman's brains--in fact, his brains can't work without them.

Capital and labour are two halves of a whole and depend upon each other,

as much as men depend on women and women on men. Capital does a great

deal more than pay labour wages, remember. It educates his children,

builds his houses and doctors his ailments. Soon--so they tell

me--capital will be appropriated to look after labour's old age also,

and cheer his manhood with the knowledge that his age is safe."

"You don't grudge any of these things, Ray?"

"Not one. Every man should have security. But, after all, capital cannot

be denied its rights. It has got rights of some sort, surely? Socialists

would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; but though they lack

power yet to kill the goose, they possess plenty of power to frighten it

away to foreign shores, where it can build its nest a bit more

hopefully than here. Many, who scent repudiation and appropriation, are

flying already. Capital is diminishing, and there seems a fair chance of

labour being over-coddled, at the expense of capital, when the Liberals

come in again. If that happens, labour is weakened as well as capital.

But both are essential to the power and well-being of the State. If we

ever had another war, which God forbid, labour and capital would have to

sink all differences and go to battle together unless we meant to be

defeated. Both are vital to our salvation."

"Then give labour an interest in the blessing of capital," she said.

"Open labour's eyes to the vital values of capital--its strength as well

as weakness. Let the units of labour share the interests of their

employers and each become a capitalist in their own right. What does it

matter where the capital is as long as the nation has got it safe? You

might make England a thousand times richer if all those in the country,

who want to save money, had the power to save."

"How can we? There's not enough to go round," he told her. But she

declared that no argument.

"Then create conditions under which there might be much more. Let the

workers be owners, too. If the owners only took their ownership in a

different spirit and felt no man is more than a trustee for all--if they

were like you, Ray, who are a worker and an owner both, what great

things might happen! Make all industry co-operation, in reality as well

as theory, and a real democracy must come out of it. It's bound to

come."

"Well, I suppose nothing can help it coming. We are great on free

institutions in this country and they get freer every year."

So they argued, much at one in heart, and an impartial listener had felt

that it was within the power of the woman's intelligence and the man's

energy and common sense, to help the world as far as individuals can,

did chance and the outcome of their union afford them opportunity.

But Estelle knew that good ideas were of little value in themselves.

Seed is of no account if the earth on which it falls be poisoned, and a

good idea above all, needs good will to welcome it. Good will to the

inspirations of man is as sunshine, rain, sweet soil to the seed;

without good will all thinking must perish, or at best lie dormant. She

wondered how much of good seed had perished under the bad weather of

human weakness, prejudice and jealousy. But she was young, and hope her

rightful heritage. The blessed word 'reconstruction' seemed to her as

musical as a ring of bells.

"There are some things you never will be able to express in political

terms, and life is one of them," Ernest Churchouse had assured her; but

she was not convinced of it. She still reverenced politics and looked to

it to play husbandman, triumph over party and presently shine out, like

a universal sun, whose sole warmth was good will to man.

And as she felt personally to Raymond's work, so did she want the world

of women to feel to all men's work. She would not have them claim their

rights in the argument of parity of intellect, for that she felt to be

vain. It was by the virtue of disparity that their equality should

appear. Their virtue and essential aid depended on the difference. The

world wanted women, not to do what men had done, but to bring to the

task the special qualities and distinctive genius of womanhood to

complement and crown the labour of manhood. The mighty structure was

growing; but it would never be finished without the saving grace of

woman's thought and the touch of woman's hand. The world's work needed

them--not for the qualities they shared with men, but for the qualities

men lacked and they possessed. If Raymond represented the masculine

worker, she hoped that she might presently stand in the ranks of the

women, and doubted not that great women would arise to lead her.

She remembered that the Roman element of humanity was described as

representing the male spirit, while the Greek stood for the female; and

she could easily dream a blend of the two destined to produce a spirit

greater than either. Love quickened her visions and added the glow of

life to her hopes.

So together she and her future husband prepared for their wedded days,

and if ever a man and woman faced the future with steadfast

determination to do justly and serve their kind with the best of their

united powers, this man and woman did.

They were to be married after the election, and that would take place

early in the coming year.

CHAPTER XXI

ATROPOS

Ironsyde for once found himself part of a machine, and by no means the

most important part. He fought the election resolutely and spared no

energy. The attraction of the contest grew upon him, and since he

contended against a personal acquaintance, one who rated sportsmanship

as highly as Arthur Waldron himself, the encounter proceeded on rational

lines. It became exceedingly strenuous in the later stages and Raymond's

agent, from an attitude of certainty, grew more doubtful. But the

personal factor told for the Liberal. He was popular in the constituency

and Waldron, himself a strong Conservative, whose vote must necessarily

be cast against his future son-in-law, preached the moral.

"If you beat us, Ray, it will be entirely owing to the fact that you

played cricket and football in the public eye for twenty years," he

asserted and believed.

The Liberal Committee room was at 'The Seven Stars,' for Mr. Legg

supported the cause of democracy and pinned his highest hopes thereto.

He worked hard for Ironsyde and, on the sole occasion when painful

incidents threatened to spoil a public meeting, Job exercised tact and

saved the situation.

At one of the last of his gatherings, in the great, new public room of

'The Seven Stars,' Ironsyde had been suddenly confronted with his son.

Abel attended this meeting of his father's supporters and attempted to

interrupt it. He had arrived primed with words and meant to declare

himself before the people; but when the time came, he was nervous and

lost his head. Sitting and listening grew to an agony. He could not wait

till question time and felt a force within him crying to him, to get

upon his feet and finish the thing he had planned to do. But Job, who

was among the stewards, kept watchful eyes upon the benches, and Abel

had hardly stood up, when he recognised him. Before the boy had shouted

half a dozen incoherent words, Mr. Legg and a policeman were at his

side.

He sat far down the hall and the little disturbance he had been able to

create was hardly appreciated. For Raymond now neared the end of his

speech and it had contained matter which aroused attention from all who

listened to it, awakened disquiet in some, but enthusiasm among the

greater number. He was telling of such hopes and desires as he and

Estelle shared, and though an indifferent speaker, the purity of his

ambitions and their far-reaching significance challenged intelligent

listeners.

In less than half a minute Abel was removed. He did not struggle, but

his first instinct was great relief to be outside. Not until later did

his reverse breed wrath. His father had not seen him and when Ironsyde

inquired afterwards, what the trouble was, Mr. Legg evaded the facts.

But he looked to it that Abel should be powerless to renew disturbances.

He warned those who controlled the remaining meetings not to admit him,

and henceforth kept at the doors a man who knew Abel. Mr. Legg also saw

Sabina, who was now much in Bridport concerned with a little house that

she had taken, and the boy's mother implored him to do no more evil. To

her surprise he admitted that he had been wrong. But he was dark and

stormy. She saw but little of him and did not know how he occupied his

leisure, or spent his wages.

There is no doubt that, at this time, Abel sank out of mind with those

most interested in him. Estelle was entirely preoccupied with the

election, and when once the lad's new work had been determined and he

went to do it, Raymond dismissed him for the present from his thoughts.

He felt grateful to Sabina for falling in with his wishes and hoped

that, since she was now definitely on his side, a time might soon come

when she would be able to influence her son. Indeed Sabina herself was

more hopeful, and when Estelle came to see her in Bridport, declared

that Abel kept regular hours and appeared to be interested in his work.

Neither she nor anybody belonging to him heard of the boy's escapade at

the meeting, for upon that subject Job Legg felt it wisest to be silent.

And when the penultimate meeting passed, the spirit of it was such that

those best able to judge again felt very sanguine for Ironsyde. He had

created a good impression and won a wide measure of support. He had

worked hard, traversed all the ground and left the people under no

shadow of doubt as to his opinions. Bridetown was for him; West Haven

and Bridport were said to be largely in his favour, but the outlying

agricultural district inclined towards his rival. Raymond had, however,

been at great pains to win the suffrage of the farmers, and his last

meeting was on their account.

Before him now lay the promise of two days' rest, and he accepted them

very thankfully, for he began to grow weary in mind and body. He had

poured his vitality into the struggle which, started more or less as a

sporting event, gradually waxed into a serious and all-important matter.

And as his knowledge increased and his physical energy waned, a cloud

dulled his enthusiasm at times and more than once he asked himself if it

was all worth while--if this infinite trouble and high tension were

expended to the wisest purpose on these ambitions. He had heard things

from politicians, who came to speak for him, that discouraged him. He

had found that single-mindedness was not the dominant quality of those

who followed politics as a profession. The loaves and fishes bulked

largely in their calculations, and he heard a distinguished man say

things at one of his meetings which Raymond knew that it was impossible

he could believe. For example, it was clearly a popular catchword that

party politics had become archaic, and that a time was near when party

would be forgotten in a larger and nobler spirit. Speakers openly

declared that great changes were in sight, and the constitution must be

modified; but, privately, they professed no such opinions. All looked to

their party and their party alone for personal advance. It seemed to

Ironsyde that their spirits were mean spirits; that they concealed

behind their profession a practice of shrewd calculation and a policy of

cynical self-advance. The talk behind the scenes was not of national

welfare, but individual success, or failure. The men who talked the

loudest on the platform of altruism and the greatest good to the

greatest number, were most alive in private conversation to the

wire-pulling and intrigue which proceeded unseen; and it was in the

machinery they found their prime interest and excitement, rather than in

the great operations the machine was ostensibly created to achieve. The

whole business on their lips in private appeared to have no more real

significance than a county cricket match, or any other game.

Thanks largely to the woman he was to wed, Ironsyde took now a

statesman-like rather than a political view as far as his inexperience

could do so. He had no axe to grind, and from the standpoint of his

ignorance, progress looked easy and demanded no more than that good will

of which Estelle so often spoke. But in practice he began to perceive

the gulf between ideal legislation and practical politics and, in

moments of physical depression, as the election approached, his heart

failed him. He grew despondent at night. Then, after refreshing sleep,

the spirit of hope reawakened. He felt very certain now that he was

going to get in; and still with morning light he hailed the victory;

while, after a heavy day, he doubted of its fruits and mistrusted

himself. His powers seemed puny contrasted with the gigantic

difficulties that the machine set up between a private member and any

effective or independent activity in the House.

He was cast down as he rode home after his last meeting but one, and

his reflections were again most deeply tinged with doubt as to the value

of these heroic exertions. Looked at here, in winter moonlight under a

sky of stars, this fevered strife seemed vain, and the particular

ambition to which he had devoted such tremendous application appeared

thin and doubtful--almost unworthy. He traversed the enterprise, dwelt

on outstanding features of it and comforted himself, as often he had

done of late, by reflecting that Estelle would be at his right hand. If,

after practical experience and fair trial, he found himself powerless to

serve their common interests, or advance their ideals, then he could

leave the field of Parliament and seek elsewhere for a hearing. His

ingenuous hope was to interest his leaders; for he believed that many

who possessed power, thought and felt as he did.

He had grown placid by the time he left South Street and turned into the

road for home. The night was keen and frosty. It braced him and he began

to feel cheerful and hungry for the supper that waited him at North

Hill.

Then, where the road forked from Bridetown and an arm left it for West

Haven, at a point two hundred yards from outlying farm-houses, a young,

slight figure leapt from the hedge, stood firmly in the road and stopped

Raymond's horse. The moonlight was clear and showed Ironsyde his son.

Abel leapt at the bridle rein, and when the rider bade him loose it, he

lifted a revolver and fired twice pointblank.

Ten minutes later, on their way back from the meeting and full of

politics, there drove that way John Best, Nicholas Roberts and a

Bridetown farmer. They found a man on his back in the middle of the road

and a horse standing quietly beside him. None doubted but that Raymond

Ironsyde was dead, yet it was not possible for them to be sure. They

lifted him into the farmer's cart therefore, and while Best and Roberts

returned with him to Bridport Hospital, the farmer mounted Ironsyde's

horse and galloped to North Hill with his news. Arthur Waldron was from

home, but Estelle left the house as quickly as a motor car could be made

ready, and in a quarter of an hour stood at Raymond's side.

He was dead and had, indeed, died instantly when fired upon. He had been

shot through the lung and heart, and must have perished before he fell

from his horse to the ground.

They knew Estelle at the hospital and left her with Raymond for a little

while. He looked ten years younger than when she had seen him last. All

care was gone and an expression of content rested upon his beautiful

face.

The doctor feared to leave her, judging of the shock; but when he

returned she was calm and controlled. She sat by the dead man and held

his hand.

"A little longer," she said, and he went out again.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HIDING-PLACE

No doubt existed as to the murderer of Raymond Ironsyde, for on the

night of his death, Abel Dinnett did not return home. He had left work

at the usual time, but had not taken his bicycle; and from that day he

was seen no more.

It appeared impossible that he could evade the hue and cry, but

twenty-four hours passed and there came no report of his capture. Little

mystery marked the matter, save that of Abel's disappearance. His

animosity towards his father was known and it had culminated thus. None

imagined that capture would be long delayed; but forty-eight hours

passed and still there came no news of him.

Estelle Waldron fled from all thought of him at first; then she

reflected upon him--driven to do so by a conviction concerning him that

commanded action from her.

On the day after the coroner's inquest, for the first time she sought

Sabina. The meeting was of an affecting character, for each very fully

realised the situation from the standpoint of the other. Sabina was the

more distressed, yet she entertained definite convictions and declared

herself positive concerning certain facts. Estelle questioned her

conclusions and, indeed, refused to believe them.

"I hope you'll understand my coming, Sabina," she said.

She was clad, as usual, in a grey Harris tweed, and the elder wondered

why she did not wear black. Estelle's face was haggard and worn, with

much suffering. But it seemed that the last dregs of her own cup were

not yet drunk, for an excruciating problem faced her. There was none to

help her solve it, yet she took it to Sabina.

"I thought you'd come, sooner or later. This is a thing beyond any human

power to make better. God knows I mourn for you far more than I mourn

for myself. I don't mourn for myself. Long ago I saw that the living

can't be happy, though the dead may be. The dead may be--we'll hope it

for them."

"It's death to me as well as to him," said Estelle simply. "As far as

I'm concerned, I feel that I'm dead from now and shall live on as

somebody different--somebody I don't know yet. All that we were and had

and hoped--everything is gone with him. The future was to be spent in

trying to do good things. We shared the same ideas about it. But that's

all over. I'm left--single-handed, Sabina."

"Yes, I know how you feel."

"I can't bear to think of it yet. I didn't come to talk about him, or

myself. I came to talk about Abel."

"I can't tell you anything about him."

"I know you know nothing. I think I know more than you do."

"Know more of him than I do?" asked the mother. There was almost a flash

of jealousy in her voice. But it faded and she sighed.

"No, no. You needn't fret for him. They may find him, or they may not;

but they'll not find him alive."

Estelle started. She believed most steadfastly that Abel was alive, and

felt very certain that she knew his hiding-place.

"Why do you think that?" she asked. "You might hope it; but why do you

think it? Have you any good reason for thinking it?"

"There are some things you know," answered the mother. "You know them

without being told and without any reason. You neither hope nor

fear--you know. I might ask you how you know where he is. But I don't

want to ask you. I've taken my good-bye of him, poor, wasted life. How

had God got the heart to let him live for this? People will say it was

fitting, and happened by the plan of his Maker. No man's child--not even

God's. It's all hidden, all dark to me. It's worked itself out to the

bitter end. Men would have been too kind to work it out like this. Only

God could. I can't say much to you. I'm very sorry for you. You were

caught up into the thing and didn't know, or guess, what you were

thrusting yourself into. But now it's your turn, and you'll have to wait

long years, as I did, before you can look at life again without passion

or sorrow."

"It doesn't matter about me. But, if you feel Abel is dead, I feel just

as strongly that he is alive, and that this isn't the end of him."

Sabina considered.

"I know him better than you, and I know Providence better than you do,"

she answered. "It's like the wonder you are--to think on him without

hate. But you're wasting your time and showing pity for nothing. He's

beyond pity. Why, I don't pity him--his mother."

"I'm only doing what Raymond tried to do so often and failed--what he

would have me do now if he'd lived. And if I know something that nobody

else does, I must use that knowledge. I'm sorry I do know, Sabina, but I

do."

"You waste your time, I expect. If the hunt that's going on doesn't find

him, how shall you do it? He's at the bottom of the sea, I hope."

They parted and the same night Estelle set out to satisfy her will. She

told nobody of her purpose, for she knew that her father would not have

allowed her to pursue it. Waldron was utterly crushed by the death of

his friend and could not as yet realise the loss.

Nor did Estelle realise it, save in fitful and fleeting agonies. As yet

the full significance of the event was by no means weighed by her. It

meant far more than she could measure and receive and accept in so

brief a space of time. Seen from the standpoint of this death, every

plan of her life, every undertaking for the future, was dislocated. She

left that complete ruin for the present. There was no hurry to restore,

or set about rebuilding the fabric of her future. She would have all her

life to do it in.

The thought of Abel came as a demand to her justice. Her knowledge,

amounting to a conviction, required action. The nature of the action she

did not know, but something urged her to reach him if she could. For she

believed him mad. Great torture of spirit had overtaken her under her

loss; but upon this extreme grief, ugly and incessant, obtruded the

thought of Abel, the secret of his present refuge and the impulse to

approach him. Her personal suffering established rather than shook her

own high standards. She had promised the boy never to tell anybody of

the haunt he had shown her under the roof in the old store at West

Haven; and if most women might now have forgotten such a promise,

Estelle did not. But she very strenuously argued against the spiritual

impulse to seek him, for every physical instinct rose against doing so.

To do this was surely not required of her, for whereunto would it lead?

What must be the result of any such meeting? It might be dreadful; it

could not fail to be futile. Yet all mental effort to escape the task

proved vain. Her very grief edged her old, austere, chivalrous

acceptance of duty. She felt that justice called her to this ordeal, and

she went--with no fixed purpose save to see him and urge him to

surrender himself for his own peace if he could understand. No personal

fear touched her reflections. She might have welcomed fear in these

unspeakable moments of her life, for she was little enamoured of living

after Raymond Ironsyde died. The thought of death for herself had not

been distasteful at that time.

She went fearlessly, when all slept and her going and coming would not

be observed. She left her home at a moonless midnight, took candle and

matches, dressed in her stoutest clothes and walked over North Hill

towards Bridport. But at the eastern shoulder of the downs she descended

through a field and struck the road again just at the fork where Raymond

had perished.

Then she struck into the West Haven way and soon slipped under the black

mass of the old store. The night was cloudy and still. No wind blew and

the sigh of the sea beneath the shelving beaches close at hand, had sunk

to a murmur. West Haven lay lost in darkness. The old store had been

searched, as many other empty buildings, for the fugitive; but he was

not specially associated with this place, save in the mind of Estelle.

The police had hunted it carefully, no more, and she guessed that his

eerie under the roof, only reached by a somewhat perilous climb through

a broken window, would not be discovered.

She remembered also that there were some students of Raymond's murder

who did not associate Abel with it. Such held that only accident and

coincidence had made him run away on the night of Ironsyde's end. They

argued that in these cases the obvious always proved erroneous, and the

theory most transparently rational seldom led the way to the truth.

But she had never doubted about that. It seemed already a commonplace of

knowledge, a lifetime old, that Abel had destroyed his father, and that

he must be insane to have ruined his own life in this manner.

She ascended cautiously through the darkness, reached a gap--once a

window--from which her ascent must be made, and listened for a few

moments to hear if anything stirred above her.

It seemed as though the old store was full of noises, for the fingers of

decay never cease from picking and, in the silence of night, one can

best hear their stealthy activities. Little falls of fragments sounded

loudly, even echoed, in this great silence. There was almost a

perpetual rustle and whisper; and once a thud and skurry, when a rat

displaced a piece of mortar which fell from the rotting plaster. Dark

though the heaven was and black the outer night, it had the quality that

air never loses and she saw the sky as possessed of illumination in

contrast with its setting of the broken window. Within all was blankly

black; from above there came no sound.

She climbed to the window ledge, felt for the nails that Abel had

hammered in to hold his feet and soon ascended through a large gap under

the eaves of the store. Some shock had thrown out a piece of brickwork

here. Seen from the ground the aperture looked trifling and had indeed

challenged no attention; but it was large enough to admit a man.

For a moment Estelle stood in this aperture before entering the den

within. She raised her voice, which fluttered after her climb, and

called to him.

"Abel! Abel! It's Estelle."

There came the thought, even as she spoke, that he might answer with a

bullet; but he answered not at all. She felt thankful for the silence

and hoped that he might have deserted his retreat. Perhaps, indeed, he

had never come to it; and yet it seemed impossible that he had for two

days escaped capture unless here concealed. It occurred to her that he

might wander out by night and return before day. He might even now be

behind her, to intercept her return. Still no shadow of fear shook her

mind or body. She felt not a tremor. All that concerned her conscience

was now completed and she hoped that it would be possible to dismiss

from her thoughts the fellow creature who had destroyed her joy of life

and worked evil so far reaching. She could leave him now to his destiny

and feel under no compulsion to relate the incidents of her nocturnal

search. Had he been there, she would have risked the meeting, urged him

to surrender and then left him if he allowed her to do so. She would

never have given him up, or broken her promise to keep his secret.

But the chamber under the roof was large and she did not leave it

without making sure that he was neither hiding nor sleeping within it.

She entered, lighted her candle and examined a triangular recess formed

by the converging beams of the roof above her and the joists under her

feet.

The boy had been busy here. There were evidences of him--evidences of a

child rather than a man. Boyish forethought stared her in the face and

staggered her by its ghastly incongruities with the things this

premeditating youth had done. Here were provisions, not such as a man

would have selected to stand a siege, but the taste of a schoolboy. She

looked at the supplies spread here--tins of preserved food, packets of

chocolate, bottles of ginger beer, bananas, biscuits. But it seemed that

the hoard had not been touched. One tin of potted salmon had been

opened, but no part of the contents was consumed. Either accident had

changed his purpose and frightened him elsewhere at the last moment, or

the energies and activities that had gone to pile this accumulation were

all spent in the process and now he did not need them.

Then she looked further, to the extremity of the den he had made, and

there, lying comfortably on a pile of shavings, Estelle found him.

She guessed that the storm and stress of his crime had exhausted him and

thrown him into heaviest possible physical slumber after great mental

tribulation. She shuddered as she looked down on him and a revulsion, a

loathing tempted her to creep away again before he awakened. She did not

think of him as a patricide, nor did her own loss entirely inspire the

emotion; she never associated him with that, but kept him outside it, as

she would have kept some insensible or inanimate object had such been

responsible for Ironsyde's end. It was the sudden thought of all

Raymond's death might mean--not to her but the world--that turned her

heart to stone for a fearful second as she looked down upon the

unconscious figure. Her own sorrow was sealed at its fountains for the

time. But her sorrow for the world could not be sealed. And then came

the thought that the insensible boy at her feet, escaping for a little

while through sleep's primeval sanctity, was part of the robbed world

also. Who had lost more than he by his unreason? If her heart did not

melt then, it grew softer.

But there was more to learn before she left him and the truth can be

recorded.

Abel had killed his father and hastened to his lair exultant. He had

provided for what should follow and vaguely hoped that presently, before

his stores were spent, the way would be clearer for escape. He assured

himself safe from discovery and guessed that when a fortnight was

passed, he might safely creep out, reach a port, find work in a ship and

turn his back upon England for ever.

That was his general plan before the deed. Afterwards all changed for

him. He then found himself a being racked and over-mastered by new

sensations. The desirable thing that he had done changed its features,

even as death changes the features of life; the ideal, so noble and

seemly before, when attained assumed such a shape as, in one of Abel's

heredity, it was bound to assume. Not at once did the change appear, but

as a cloud no bigger than a man's hand in the clear, triumphant sky of

his achievement. Even so an apple, that once he had stolen and hidden,

was bruised unknown to him and thus contained the seed of death, that

made it rot before it was ripe. The decay spread and the fruit turned to

filth before he could win any enjoyment from it.

He shook off the beginnings of doubt impatiently. He retraced his

grievances and dwelt on the glory of his revenge as he reached his

secret place after the crime. But the stain darkened in the heart of his

mind; and before dawn crept through cracks in the roof above his lair,

dissolution had begun.

Through the hours of that first day he lay there with his thoughts for

company and a process, deepening, as dusk deepened, into remorse began

to horrify him. He fought with all his might against it. He resented it

with indignation. His gorge rose against it; he would have strangled it,

had it been a ponderable thing within his power to destroy; but as time

passed he began to know it was stronger than he. It gripped his spirit

with unconquerable fingers and slowly stifled him. Time crept on

interminable. When the second night came, he was faint and turned to his

food. He struggled with himself and opened a tin of salmon. But he could

not eat. He believed that he would never eat again. He slept for an

hour, then woke from terrifying dreams. His mind wandered and he longed

to be gone and tear off his clothes and dip into the sea.

At dawn of the second day men were hunting the old stores, from its

cellars to the attics below him. He heard them speaking under his feet

and listened to two men who cursed him. They speculated whether he was

too young to hang and hoped he might not be. Yet he could take pride in

their failure to find him. There was, as he remembered, only one person

in the world who knew of his eerie; but terror did not accompany this

recollection. His exultation at the defeat of the searchers soon

vanished, and he found himself indifferent to the thought that Estelle

might remember.

He knew that his plans could not be fulfilled now: it was impossible for

him to live a fortnight here. And then he began stealthily, fearfully,

to doubt of life itself. It had changed in its aspect and invitation.

Its promises were dead. It could hold nothing for him as he had been

told by Levi Baggs. The emotions now threatening his mind were such that

he believed no length of days would ever dim them; from what he suffered

now, it seemed that time's self could promise no escape. Life would be

hell and not worth living. At this point in his struggles his mind

failed him and became disordered. It worked fitfully, and its processes

were broken with blanks and breaks. Chaos marked his mental steps from

this point; his feet were caught and he fell down and down, yet tried

hard for a while to stay his fall. His consciousness began to decide,

while his natural instincts struggled against the decision. Not one, but

rival spirits tore him. Reason formed no part in the encounter; no

arbiter arose between the conflicting forces, between a gathering will

to die and escape further torment, and the brute will to live, that must

belong to every young creature, happy or wretched.

The trial was long drawn out; but it had ended some hours before Estelle

stood beside him.

She considered whether she should waken Abel and determined that she

must do so, since to speak with him, if possible, she held her duty now.

He was safe if he wished to be, for she would never tell his secret. So

she bent down with her light--to find him dead. He had shot himself

through the right temple after sunset time of the second day.

Estelle stood and looked at him for a little while, then climbed back to

earth and went away through the darkness to tell his mother that she was

right.

THE END

The Human Boy and the War

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

In this book of stories Mr. Phillpotts uses his genial gift of

characterization to picture the effect of the European War on the

impressionable minds of boys--English school-boys far away from anything

but the mysterious echo of the strange terrors and blood-stirring

heroisms of battle, who live close only to the martial invitation of a

recruiting station. There are stories of a boy who runs away to go to

the front, teachers who go--perhaps without running; the school's

contest for a prize poem about the war, and snow battles, fiercely

belligerent, mimicking the strategies of Flanders and the Champagne.

They are deeply moving sketches revealing the heart and mind of English

youth in war-time.

"The book is extraordinary in the skill with which it gets into that

world of the boy so shut away from the adult world. It is entirely

unlike anything else by Phillpotts, equal as it is to his other volumes

in charm, character study, humor and interest. It is one of those books

that every reader will want to recommend to his friends, and which he

will only lend with the express proviso that it must be returned."--_New

York Times_.

"In this book Mr. Phillpotts pictures a boy, a real human boy. The boy's

way of thinking, his outlook upon life, his ambitions, his ideals, his

moods, his peculiarities, these are all here touched with a kindly

sympathy and humor."--_New York Sun_.

"Mr. Phillpotts writes from a real knowledge of the schoolboy's habit of

thought. He writes with much humor and the result is as delightful and

entertaining a volume as has come from his pen for some time."--_Buffalo

Evening News_.

CHRONICLES OF ST. TID

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

"The gifts of the short-story writer are wholly Mr. Phillpotts'. Here,

as elsewhere in his works, we have the place painted with the pen of an

artist, and the person depicted with the skill of the writer who is

inspired by all types of humanity."--_Boston Evening Transcript_.

"No one rivals Phillpotts in this peculiar domain of presenting an

ancient landscape, with its homes and their inmates as survivals of a

past century. There is nothing vague about his characters. They are

undeniable personalities, and are possessed of a psychology all their

own."--_The Chicago Tribune_.

THE BANKS OF COLNE

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

"Absorbing, written with sure power and a constant flow of humor.... Has

the warm human glow of sympathy and understanding, and it is written

with real mastery."--_New York Times_.

"A tale of absorbing interest from its start to the altogether unusual

and dramatic climax with which it closes."--_Philadelphia Public

Ledger_.

"Stands in the foremost rank of current fiction."--_New York Tribune_.

"His acute faculties of sympathetic observation, his felicitous skill in

characterization, and his power to present the life of a community in

all its multiple aspects are here combined in the most mature and

absorbing novel of his entire career."--_Philadelphia Press_.

THE GREEN ALLEYS

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

"As long as we have such novels as _The Green Alleys_ and such novelists

as Mr. Phillpotts, we need have no fears for the future of English

fiction. Mr. Phillpotts' latest novel is a representative example of him

at his best, of his skill as a literary creator and of his ability as an

interpreter of life."--_Boston Transcript_.

"A drama of fascinating interest, lightened by touches of delicious

comedy ... one of the best of the many remarkable books from the pen of

this clever author."--_Boston Globe_.

BRUNEL'S TOWER

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

The regeneration of a faulty character through association with

dignified honest work and simple, sincere people is the theme which Mr.

Phillpotts has chosen for this novel. The scene is largely laid in a

pottery, where a lad, having escaped from a reform school, has sought

shelter and work. Under the influence of the gentle, kindly folk of the

community he comes in a measure to realize himself.

OLD DELABOLE

BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS

"Besides being a good story, richly peopled, and brimful of human nature

in its finer aspects, the book is seasoned with quiet humor and a deal

of mellow wisdom."--_New York Times_.