REPRISALS FROM BELOW
It was approaching the moment consecrated to the close of the day’s
labour in the stone-works by Nevilton railway-station. The sky was
cloudless; the air windless. It was one of those magical arrests of the
gliding feet of time, which afternoons in June sometimes bring with
them, holding back, as it were, all living processes of life, in sweet
and lingering suspense. The steel tracks of the railway-line glittered
in the sun. In the fields, that sloped away beyond them, the browsing
cattle wore that unruffled air of abysmal indifference, which seems to
make one day in their sight to be as a thousand years. To these placid
earth-children, drawing the centuries together in solemn continuity,
the tribes of men and their turbulent drama were but as vapours that
came and went. The high elms in the hedges had already assumed that
dark monotonous foliage which gives to their patient stillness on such
a day an atmosphere of monumental expectancy. A flock of newly-sheared
sheep, clean and shining in the hot sun, drifted in crowded procession
down the narrow road, leaving a cloud of white dust behind them that
remained stationary in the air long after they had passed. In the
open stone-yard close to the road the brothers Andersen were working
together, chipping and hammering with bare arms at an enormous Leonian
slab, carving its edges into delicate mouldings. The younger of the two
wore no hat, and his closely clipped fair curls and loose shirt open at
the throat, lent him, as he moved about his work with easy gestures, a
grace and charm well adapted to that auspicious hour.
A more sombre form by his brother’s side, his broad brimmed hat low
down over his forehead, the elder Andersen went on with his carving, in
imperturbable morose absorption.
Watching them with languid interest, their arms linked together, stood
the figures of two girls. The yellow dust from the sandstone rose
intermittently into the air, mingling with the white dust from the road
and settling, as it sank earthward, upon the leaves of the yet unbudded
knapweed and scabious which grew in the thin dusty grass.
Between Gladys and her cousin--for the girls had wandered as far as
this in search of distraction after their lazy tea on the great lawn--a
curious contrast was now displayed.
Gladys, with slow provocative interest, was intent on every movement of
Luke’s graceful figure. Lacrima’s attention wandered wistfully away,
to the cattle and the orchards, and then to the sheep, which now were
being penned in a low line of spacious railway trucks.
Luke himself was by no means unaware of the condescending interest of
his master’s daughter. He paused in his work once or twice. He turned
up his shirt-sleeves still higher. He bent down, to blow away the dust
from the moulding he had made. Something very like a flash of amorous
admiration passed across his blue eyes as he permitted them slyly to
wander from Gladys’ head to her waist, and from her waist to her shoes.
She certainly was an alluring figure as she stood there in her thin
white dress. The hand which pulled her skirt away from the dust showed
as soft and warm as if it were pleading for a caress, and the rounded
contours of her bosom looked as if they had ripened with the early
peaches, under the walls of her stately garden. She presently unlinked
her arm from her companion’s, and sliding it softly round Lacrima’s
side drew the girl close against her. As she did this she permitted a
slow amorous glance of deliberate tantalization to play upon the young
carver. How well Luke Andersen knew that especial device of maidens
when they are together--that way they have of making their playful,
innocent caresses such a teasing incentive! And Luke knew well how to
answer all this. Nothing could have surpassed in subtle diplomacy the
manner in which he responded, without responding, to the amorous girl’s
overtures. He let her realize that he himself understood precisely the
limits of the situation; that she was perfectly at liberty to enter a
mock-flirtation with him, without the remotest risk of any “faux pas”
on his part spoiling the delicacy of their relations.
What was indeed obvious to her, without the necessity of any such
unspoken protestation, was the fact that he found her eminently
desirable. Nor did her pride as “the girl up at the house” quarrel
with her vanity as the simple object of Luke’s admiration. She wanted
him to desire her as a girl;--to desire her to madness. And then she
wanted to flout him, with her pretensions as a lady. This particular
occasion was by no means the first time she had drifted casually down
the vicarage hill and lingered beside the stone-cutters. It was,
however, an epoch in their curious relations. For the first time since
she had been attracted to him, she deliberately moved close up to the
stone he worked at, and entered into conversation. While this occurred,
Lacrima, released from her rôle as the accomplice of amorous teasing,
wandered away, picking listlessly the first red poppies of the year,
which though less flaunting in their bold splendour than those of her
childhood’s memories, were at least the same immortal classical flowers.
As she bent down in this assuaging pastime, letting her thoughts wander
so far from Nevilton and its tyrants, Lacrima became suddenly conscious
that James Andersen had laid down his tools, resumed his coat, and was
standing by her side.
“A beautiful evening, Miss”; he said respectfully, holding his hat in
his hand and regarding her with grave gentleness.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she answered at once; and then was silent; while a
sigh she could not suppress rose from the depths of her heart. For her
thoughts reverted to another fair evening, in the days when England was
no more than a name; and a sudden overpowering longing for kind voices,
and the shadows of olives on warm hill-sides, rushed, like a wave, over
her.
“This must be near the Angelus-hour,” she thought; and somehow the dark
grave eyes of the man beside her and his swarthy complexion made her
think of those familiar forms that used to pass driving their goats
before them up the rocky paths of the Apennine range.
“You are unhappy, Miss,” said James in a low voice; and these words,
the only ones of genuine personal tenderness, except for poor
Maurice’s, that had struck her sense for the last twelve months,
brought tears to her eyes. Vennie Seldom had spoken kindly to her;
but--God knows--there is a difference between the kindness even of the
gentlest saint and this direct spontaneous outflow of one heart to
another. She smiled; a little mournful smile.
“Yes; I was thinking of my own country,” she murmured.
“You are an Italian, Miss; I know it”; continued Andersen,
instinctively leading her further away from the two golden heads that
now were bending so close together over the Leonian stone.
“I often think of Italy,” he went on; “I think I should be at home in
Italy. I love everything I hear of it, everything I read of it. It
comes from my mother, this feeling. She was a lady, you know Miss, as
well born as any and with a passionate love of books. She used to read
Dante in that little ‘Temple’ Series, which perhaps you have seen, with
the Italian on one side and the English on the other. I never look at
that book without thinking of her.”
“You have many books yourself, I expect,--Mr.--Andersen. You see I know
your name.” And Lacrima smiled, the first perfectly happy smile she had
been betrayed into for many months.
“It is not a very nice name,” said James, a little plaintively. “I
wish I had a name like yours Miss--Traffio.”
“Why, I think yours is quite as nice,” she answered gravely. “It makes
me think of the man who wrote the fairy stories.”
James Andersen frowned, “I don’t like fairy stories,” he said almost
gruffly. “They tease and fret me. I like Thomas Hardy’s books. Do
you know Thomas Hardy?” Lacrima made a little involuntary gesture of
depreciation. As a matter of fact her reading, until very lately, had
been as conventual as that of a young nun. Vennie Seldom or the demure
Reynolds girl could not have been more innocent of the darker side of
literature. Hardy’s books she had seen in the hands of Gladys, and
the association repelled her. Pathetically anxious to brush away this
little cloud, she began hurriedly talking to her new friend of Italy;
of its cities, its sea-coasts, its monasteries, its churches. James
Andersen listened with reverential attention, every now and then asking
a question which showed how deeply his mother’s love of the classical
country had sunk into his nature.
By this time they had wandered along the road as far as a little stone
bridge with low parapets which crosses there a muddy Somersetshire
stream. From this point the road rises quite steeply to the beginning
of the vicarage garden. Leaning against the parapet of the little
bridge, and looking back, they saw to their surprise that Gladys and
Luke had not only not followed them but had completely disappeared.
The last of the unskilled workmen from the sheds, trailing up the
road together laughing and chatting, turned when they passed, and
gazed back, as our two companions were doing, at the work-shops they
had left, acknowledging Lacrima’s gentle “good-night” with a rather
shifty salutation.--This girl was after all only a dependent like
themselves.--They had hardly gone many steps before they burst into a
loud rough guffaw of rustic impertinence.
Lacrima struck the ground nervously with her parasol. “What has
happened?” she asked; “where has Gladys gone?”
James Andersen shrugged his shoulders, “I expect they have wandered
into the shed,” he rejoined, “to look at my brother’s work there.”
She glanced nervously up and down the road; gave a quaint little sigh
and made an expressive gesture with her hands as if disclaiming all
responsibility for her cousin’s doings. Then, quite suddenly, she
smiled at Andersen with a delicious childish smile that transfigured
her face.
“Well, I am glad I am not left alone at any rate,” she said.
“I have a presentiment,” the stone-cutter answered, “that this is not
the last time you will be thrown upon my poor company.”
The girl blushed, and smiled confidingly. Her manner was the manner of
a child, who has at last found a safe protector. Then all of a sudden
she became very grave. “I hope,” she said, “that you are one of the
people who are kind to Mr. Quincunx. He is a _great_ friend of mine.”
Never had the melancholy intimation, that one could not hope to hold
anything but the second place in a woman’s heart, been more tenderly or
more directly conveyed!
James Andersen bowed his head.
“Mr. Quincunx has always been very kind to _me_,” he said, “and
certainly, after what you say, I shall do all in my power to help him.
But I can do very little. I believe Mrs. Seldom understands him better
than anyone else.”
He had hardly finished speaking when the figures of two men made
themselves visible opposite the back entrance of the vicarage. They
were leisurely strolling down the road, and every now and then they
would pause, as if the interest of their conversation was more than the
interest of the way.
“Why! There _is_ Mr. Quincunx,” cried the Italian; and she made an
instinctive movement as if to put a little further space between
herself and her companion. “Who is that person with him?” she added.
“It looks like George Wone,” answered the stone-cutter. “Yes, it is
George; and he is talking as usual at the top of his voice. You’d
suppose he wanted to be heard by all Nevilton.”
Lacrima hesitated and looked very embarrassed. She evidently did not
know whether to advance in the direction of the new-comers or to remain
where she was. Andersen came to her rescue.
“Perhaps,” said he, “it would be better if I went back and told Miss
Romer you are waiting for her.” Lacrima gave him a quick glance of
responsive gratitude.
“O, that would be really kind of you, Mr. Andersen,” she said.
The moment he had gone, however, she felt annoyed that she had let
him go. It looked so odd, she thought, his leaving her so suddenly,
directly Maurice came on the scene. Besides, what would Gladys say at
this interruption of her pleasure? She would suppose she had done
it out of pure spitefulness! The moments seemed very long to her as
she waited at the little bridge, tracing indecipherable hieroglyphics
in the dust with the end of her parasol. She kept her eyes steadily
fixed on the tall retreating figure of the stone-cutter as he slouched
with his long shambling stride towards the work-shop. The two men
were not, however, really long in approaching. Maurice had seen her
from the beginning, and his replies to Mr. Wone’s oratory had grown
proportionally brief.
When they reached her, the girl shook hands with Maurice and bowed
rather coldly to Mr. Wone. That gentleman was not however in the least
quelled or suppressed. It was one of his most marked characteristics
to have absolutely no consciousness of season or situation. When less
clever people would have wished the earth to swallow them up, Mr. Wone
remained imperviously self-satisfied. Having exchanged greetings,
Lacrima hastened to explain that she was waiting at this spot till Miss
Romer should rejoin her. “Luke Andersen is showing her his work,” she
said, “and James has gone to tell her I am waiting.”
Mr. Wone became voluble at this. “It is a shame to keep a young lady
like yourself waiting in the middle of the road.” He turned to Mr.
Quincunx. “We must not say all we think, must we? But begging this
young lady’s pardon, it is just like the family. No consideration! No
consideration for anyone! It is the same with his treatment of the
poor. I am talking of Mr. Romer, you know, Miss. I would say the same
thing to his face. Why is it that hard-working clever fellows, like
these Andersens for instance, should do all the labour, and he get
all the profits? It isn’t fair. It’s unjust. It’s an insult to God’s
beautiful earth, which is free to all.” He paused to take breath, and
looked to Maurice for confirmation of his words.
“You are quite right, Wone; you are quite right,” muttered the recluse
in his beard, furtively glancing at Lacrima.
Mr. Wone continued his discourse, making large and eloquent allusion
to the general relations in England between employer and employed,
and implying plainly enough his full knowledge that at least one
of his hearers belonged to the latter class. His air, as he spoke,
betrayed a certain disordered fanaticism, quite genuine and deeply
felt, but queerly mingled with an indescribable element of complacent
self-conceit. Lacrima, in spite of considerable sympathy with much
that he said, felt that there was, in the man himself, something so
slipshod, so limp, so vague, and so patently vulgar, that both her
respect for his sincerity and her interest in his opinions were reduced
to nothing. Not only was he narrow-minded and ignorant; but there was
also about him, in spite of the aggressive violence of his expressions,
an odd sort of deprecatory, apologetic air, as though he were
perpetually endeavouring to cajole his audience, by tacit references
to his deferential respect for them. There was indeed more than a
little in him of the sleek unction of the nonconformist preacher;
and one could well understand how he might combine, precisely as Mr.
Lickwit suspected, the divergent functions of the politician and the
evangelist.
“I tell you,” he was saying, “the country will not long put up with
this sort of thing. There is a movement, a tendency, a volcanic
upheaval, a stirring of waters, which these plutocrats do not realize.
There is a surging up from the depths of--of--” He paused for a word.
“Of mud,” murmured Mr. Quincunx.
“--Of righteous revolt against these atrocious inequalities! The
working people are asleep no longer. They’re roused. The movement’s
begun. The thunder’s gathering on the horizon. The armies of the
exploited are feeling the impulse of their own strength, of that
noble, that splendid anger, which, when it is conceived, will bring
forth--will bring forth--”
“Damnation,” murmured Mr. Quincunx.
The three figures as they stood, thus consorted, on the little stone
bridge, made up a dramatic group. The sinking sun threw their shadows
in long wavering lines upon the white road, distorting them to so
grotesque a length that they nearly reached the open gates of the
station.
Human shadows! What a queer half-mocking commentary they make upon the
vanity of our passionate excitements, roused by anything, quieted by
nothing, as the world moves round!
Lacrima, in her shadow, was not beautiful at all. She was an elongated
wisp of darkness. The beard of Mr. Quincunx looked as if it belonged to
a mammoth goat, and the neck of Mr. Wone seemed to support, not a human
cranium at all, but a round, wagging mushroom.
The hushed fields on each side of the way began to assume that magical
softness which renders them, at such an hour, insubstantial, unreal,
remote, transformed. One felt as though the earth might indeed be
worthy of better destinies than those that traced their fantastic
trails up and down its peaceful surface. Something deeply withheld,
seemed as though it only needed the coming of one god-like spirit to
set it free forever, and, with it, all the troubled hearts of men.
It was one of those moments which, whether the participants in them
recognize them or not, at the actual time, are bound to recur, long
afterwards, to their memory.
Lacrima, half-listening to Mr. Wone, kept her head anxiously turned in
the direction of the sheds, into one of which she had observed James
Andersen enter.
Maurice Quincunx, his mood clogged and clotted by jealousy, watched
her with great melancholy grey eyes, while with his nervous fingers he
plucked at his beard.
“The time is coming--the time is coming”; cried Mr. Wone, striking
with the back of his fist, the parapet against which he leaned, “when
this exploitation of the poor by the rich will end once for all!” The
warmth of his feeling was so great, that large drops of sweat trickled
down his sallow cheeks, and hanging for a moment at the end of his
narrow chin, fell into the dust. The man was genuinely moved; though
in his watery blue eyes no trace of any fire was visible. He looked,
in his emotion, like an hypnotized sick person, talking in the stress
of a morbid fever. It was the revolt of one who carried the obsequious
slavery of generations in his blood, and could only rebel in galvanized
moribund spasms. The fellow was unpleasing, uninspiring: not the
savage leader of a race of stern revolutionary devotees fired by the
iron logic of their cause, but the inchoate inarticulate voice of
clumsy protest, apologizing and propitiating, even while it protested.
The vulgarity and meanness of the candidate’s tone made one wonder how
such a one as he could ever have been selected by the obscure working
of the Spirit of Sacrifice, to undertake this titanic struggle against
the Spirit of Power. One turned away instinctively from his febrile
rhetoric, to cast involuntary incense at the feet of the masterful
enemy he opposed. He had no reticence in his enthusiasm, no reserve, no
decency.
“You may perhaps not know,” he blundered on; “that the General Election
is much nearer than people think. Mr. Romer will find this out; he will
find it out; he will find it out! I have good authority for what I say.
I speak of what I know, young lady.” This was said rather severely, for
Lacrima’s attention was so obviously wandering.--“Of course you will
not breathe a word of this, up there,”--he nodded in the direction of
the House. “It would not do. But the truth is, he is making a great
mistake. I am prepared for this campaign, and he is not. He is even
thinking of reducing the men’s wages still further. The fool--the
fool--the fool! For he _is_ a fool, you know, though he thinks he is so
clever.”
Even Mr. Wone would scarcely have dared to utter these bold
asseverations in the ear of Gladys Romer’s cousin, if Maurice’s innate
indiscretion had not made it the gossip of the village that the Italian
was ill-treated “among those people.” To the pathetic man’s poor vulgar
turn of mind there was something soothing in this confidential abuse
of the lord of Nevilton Manor to his own relation. It had a squalid
piquancy. It was itself a sort of revenge.
Once more he began his spasmodic enunciation of those sad economic
platitudes that are the refuge of the oppressed; but Mr. Quincunx had
crossed the road, in the pursuit of a decrepit tiger-moth, and was
listening no more. Lacrima’s attention was completely withdrawn.
“Well, dear friends,” he concluded, “I must really be getting back to
my supper. Mrs. Wone will be unbearable if I am late.” He hesitated
a moment as if wondering whether the occasion called for any further
domestic jocosity, to let these high matters lightly down to earth; but
he contented himself with shaking hands with Mr. Quincunx and removing
his hat to Lacrima.
“Good night, dear friends,” he repeated, drifting off, up the road,
humming a hymn tune.
“Poor man!” whispered the girl, “he means well.”
“He ought to be shot!” was the unexpected response of the hermit of
Dead Man’s Cottage, as he let the tiger-moth flutter down into the edge
of the field. “He is no better than the rest. He is an idiot. He ought
to learn Latin.”
They moved together towards the station.
“I don’t like the way you agree with people to their face,” said
Lacrima, “and abuse them behind their backs.”
“I don’t like the way you hang about the roads with handsome
stone-cutters,” was Mr. Quincunx’s surly retort.
Meanwhile, a quite interesting little drama had been unfolding itself
in the neighbourhood of the half-carved block of sandstone. Instructed,
by a swift flash of perception, into what the situation implied, Luke’s
quick magnetic fingers soon drew from his companion’s an electric
responsive clasp, as they leant together over the mouldings. The warmth
and pliable softness of the girl’s body seemed to challenge the man
with intimations of how quickly it would yield. He pointed to the
shed-door, wide open behind them.
“I will show you my work, in there, in a moment,” he murmured, “as soon
as they have gone.”
Her breast rose and fell under the increased excitement of her
breathing. Violent quivers ran up and down her frame and communicated
themselves to him. Their hearts beat fiercely in reciprocal agitation.
Luke’s voice, as he continued his conventional summary of the quality
and destination of the stone, shook a little, and sounded queer and
detached.
“It is for Shaftesbury church,” he said, “for the base of the column
that supports the arch. This particular moulding is one which my father
designed. You must remember that upon it will rest a great deal of the
weight of the roof.”
His fellow workmen had now collected their tools and were shuffling
nervously past them. It required all Gladys’ sang-froid to give them
the casual nod due from the daughter of the House to those who laboured
in its service. As soon as they were well upon their way, with a quick
glance at the distant figures of Lacrima and James, Gladys turned
rapidly to her companion.
“Show me,” she said.
He went before her and stood in the entrance of the work-shop. When
she had passed him into its interior, he casually closed behind them
one of the rough folding doors. The contrast from the horizontal sun
outside, turning the sandstone blocks into ruddy gold, to the shadowy
twilight within, was strangely emphatic. He began to speak; saying he
hardly knew what--some kind of stammered nonsense about the bases and
capitals and carved mouldings that lay around them. But Gladys, true to
her feminine prerogative, swept all this aside. With a bold audacity
she began at once.
“How nice to be alone and free, for a little while!”
Then, moving still further into the shadow, and standing, as if
absorbed in interest, before the rough beginnings of a fluted pillar
which reached as high as the roof--
“What kind of top are you going to put on to that thing?”
As she spoke she leant against the pillar with a soft, weary relaxation
of her whole form.
“Come near and tell me about it,” she whispered, as if her breath
caught in her throat.
Luke recognized the tone--the tone that said, so much more distinctly
than words, “I am ready. Why are you so slow?” He came behind her,
and as gently and lightly as he could, though his arms trembled, let
his fingers slide caressingly round her flexible figure. Her breath
came in quick gasps, and one hot small hand met his own and pressed
it against her side. Encouraged by this response, he boldly drew her
towards him. She struggled a little; a shy girlish struggle, more than
half conventional--and then, sliding round in his arms with a quick
feline movement, she abandoned herself to her craving, and embraced
him shamelessly and passionately. When at last in sheer weariness her
arms relaxed and she sank down, with her hands pressed to her burning
cheeks, upon an unfinished font, Luke Andersen thought that never to
his dying day would he forget the serpentine clinging of that supple
form and the pressure of those insatiable lips. He turned, a little
foolishly, towards the door and kicked with his foot a fragment
of a carved reredos. Then he went back to her and half-playfully,
half-amorously, tried to remove her hands from her face.
“Don’t touch me! I hate you!” she said.
“Please,” he whispered, “please don’t be unkind now. I shall never,
never forget how sweet you’ve been.”
“Tell me more about this work of yours,” she suddenly remarked, in a
completely changed voice, rising to her feet. “I have always understood
that you were one of our best workmen. I shall tell my father how
highly I think of what you’re doing--you and your brother. I am sure he
will be glad to know what artists he has among his men.”
She gave her head a proud little toss and raised negligent deliberate
hands to her disarranged fair hair, smoothing it down and readjusting
her wide-brimmed hat. She had become the grand lady again and Luke
had become the ordinary young stone-mason. Superficially, and with
a charming grace, he adapted himself to this change, continuing his
conventional remarks about fonts, pillars, crosses, and capitals; and
calling her “Miss” or “Miss Gladys,” with scrupulous discretion. But
in his heart, all the while, he was registering a deep and vindictive
vow--a vow that, at whatever risk and at whatever cost, he would make
this fair young despot suffer for her caprice. Gladys had indeed, quite
unwittingly, entered into a struggle with a nature as remorseless and
unscrupulous as her own. She had dreamed, in her imperial way, of using
this boy for her amusement, and then throwing him aside. She did not
for a moment intend to get entangled in any sentimental relations with
him. A passing “amour,” leading to nothing, and in no way committing
her, was what she had instinctively counted on. For the rest, in
snatching fiercely at any pleasure her fervent senses craved, she was
as conscienceless and antinomian, as a young tiger out of the jungle.
Nor had she the remotest sense of danger in this exciting sport.
Corrupt and insensitive as any amorous courtezan of a pagan age, she
trusted to her freedom from innocence to assure her of freedom from
disaster. Vaguely enough in her own mind she had assumed, as these
masterful “blond beasts” are inclined to assume, that in pouncing on
this new prey she was only dealing once more with that malleable and
timorous humanity she had found so easy to mould to her purpose in
other quarters. She reckoned, with a pathetic simplicity, that Luke
would be clay in her hands. As a matter of fact this spoiled child of
the wealth produced by the Leonian stone had audaciously flung down
her challenge to one who had as much in him as herself of that stone’s
tenacity and imperviousness. The daughter of sandstone met the carver
of sandstone; and none, who knew the two, would have dared to predict
the issue of such an encounter.
The young man was still urbanely and discreetly discoursing to his
lady-visitor upon the contents of the work-shop, when the tall figure
of James Andersen darkened the door.
“Excuse me, Miss,” he said to Gladys, “but Miss Lacrima asked me to
tell you that she was waiting for you on the bridge.”
“Thank you, James,” answered the girl simply, “I will come. I am afraid
my interest in all the things your brother has been so kindly showing
me has made you both late. I am sorry.” Here she actually went so far
as to fumble in her skirt for her purse. After an awkward pause, during
which the two men waited at either side of the door, she found what she
sought, and tripping lightly by, turned as she passed Luke and placed
in his hand, the hand that so recently had been clasped about her
person, the insolent recompense of a piece of silver. Bidding them both
good-night, she hurried away to rejoin Lacrima, who, having by this
time got rid of Mr. Quincunx, moved down the road to meet her.
Luke closed and locked the door of the shed without a word. Then to
the astonishment of James Andersen he proceeded to dance a kind of
grotesque war-dance, ending it with a suppressed half-mocking howl, as
he leant exhausted against the wall of the building.
“I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I’ve got her!” he repeated. “James, my
darling Daddy James, I’ve got this girl in the palm of my hand!” He
humorously proceeded to toss the coin she had given him high in the
air. “Heads or tails?” he cried, as the thing fell among the weeds.
“Heads! It’s heads, my boy! That means that Miss Gladys Romer will be
sorry she ever stepped inside this work-shop of ours. Come, let’s wash
and eat, my brother; for the gods have been good to us today.”