I shut the bedroom door and left them.

When the vicar had creaked heavily downstairs again, I went and opened

the front door for him.

"Poor soul!" he said, "poor, hungry-hearted, loving soul! Do you

remember Elia?" And more to himself than to me he murmured, "And yet

they are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. They are only what

might have been."

*VII*

*SANCTUARY*

The Reverend Grantley Molyneux hobbled down to the church for the first

time for some weeks. An attack of gout, unusually severe, had kept him

veritably "tied by the leg" during the best of the June weather. Now

that he was about again there were but gleams of watery sunshine to

tempt him out of doors. However, the sunshine if watery was warm, and

by the time the "old vicar"--for so he loved to be called--had reached

the church he was glad to enter and rest in its cool grey shadows.

From sunrise to sunset Redmarley Church stood open. There were no

week-day services--the worthy yeomen who formed the bulk of the

congregation would have looked with great suspicion on any such

innovation; but none the less would they have been indignant had the

church been shut.

For nearly forty years the present incumbent had ministered to the

people of Redmarley. He was, on the whole, decidedly popular--indeed,

rumour had it that in his slim youth he had been over-popular--with the

fair, being in the matter of susceptibility to their attractions

something of a Burns. But, unlike Burns, he attempted no explanation, no

vindication of his conduct, if such were needed, and it is surprising

how short-lived are rumours when there is no one to contradict them.

The old vicar had ruled his life according to the maxim given by an

exceedingly wise man to a young politician, "Never quarrel, never

explain, never fear." He found it to answer wonderfully well on the

whole, and for the last ten years had placidly increased in bulk,

untroubled by any enemy other than the gout.

A courteous scholarly man, of a somewhat florid old-world politeness, he

seemed strangely out of place in this remote Gloucestershire village,

but he suited the people, and the people suited him. Gallio himself was

not more careless of doctrine than is the average Cotswold peasant,

whose highest praise of "passun" lies in the phrase, "'e don't never

interfere with oi." The old vicar never interfered, not even in so far

as to appoint a curate when disabled himself by gout.

Had he worn a ruff instead of the orthodox "choker," he might have

passed for one of his own Elizabethan ancestors, as he rested in the

squire's pew, his head leaning against the high oak back.

A long face, with high narrow forehead and pointed beard, cheeks heavy

and creased, straight nose, with strongly marked sensitive nostrils.

The mouth full-lipped and shutting firmly under the grey moustache cut

straight across the upper lip. Truly a fine old face, deeply lined and

sorrowful, bearing upon it the tragic impress of great possibilities,

that had remained--possibilities.

The grey coolness of the little Norman church was restful. The vicar

sighed and closed his eyes--those full blue eyes that had once been bold

and winsome, that were still keen. The old live mostly in the past,

they are not often dull or lonely. At will they can summon a whole

pageantry of love, and friendship, and eager strife. The vicar of

Redmarley was much given to warming his hands at the fires of

recollection. His memory was excellent, and he had much to remember,

for he had lived strenuously. Age had not dimmed his faculties, his

hearing being particularly acute.

Presently his good dream was disturbed, and he began to be annoyed by a

strange little scraping noise for which he could not account.

It was almost continuous.

He leant forward and listened, frowned, then looked interested, and

finally rose from his seat.

The noise ceased.

He sat down again and waited. Sure enough the sound began, again, and

it was for all the world like the scratch of a quill pen in the hand of

a rapid writer. He decided that it came from a chapel on the right side

of the altar--the chapel in which his wife was buried. A square

sarcophagus stood in the centre, but there were no seats, as the chapel

was quite small. Hobbling up the three steps that led to it from the

body of the church, the vicar looked about him but could see nothing,

and the silence was unbroken.

Suddenly it occurred to him to look over the tomb which filled the

centre vacant space. What he discovered caused him to exclaim, more

surprisedly than piously:

"God bless my soul!"

Seated on the floor, in the narrow space which separated the side of the

tomb from the church wall, was a young man. A card blotting-book lay on

his knees, a leather ink-bottle was stuck into the tracery of the tomb,

and scattered round him were closely written sheets of manuscript. He

looked up at the vicar's exclamation, but made no attempt to rise.

"Sir! What are you doing here?"

The vicar's voice was low, but in the "Sir!" there was infinite rebuke.

The intruder lifted his gaunt face the better to observe his questioner.

Then he pointed to the scattered papers, saying:

"It is not difficult to see."

"But why do you write in my church?" persisted the vicar, peering over

the side of the tomb at this strange sacrilegious person, with a

curiosity that almost mastered his annoyance.

"Because there was nowhere else. I have done no harm to your

church--besides, how is it more your church than mine?"

"Do you think you could come and converse with me in the porch upon this

subject? I am old-fashioned, and your action strikes me as incongruous.

Moreover, it tires me to stand."

The young man scrambled to his feet. Laying his hands upon the tomb's

flat top he vaulted lightly over, and stood beside the vicar on the

wider side of the tiny chapel.

The vicar frowned, demanding:

"Would you like me to jump over your wife's grave?"

A momentary gleam of amusement lighted up the stranger's tragic black

eyes as he noted the vicar's cumbrous figure and swathed foot. Then his

expression changed, and he said gently:

"I beg your pardon."

Often in these last days he had found himself wondering with a sort of

tender curiosity about the Lady Cicely Molyneux, "aged twenty-one

years," who had lain there so long.

When they reached the porch the vicar sat down, and, pointing to a place

beside him, said:

"Sit down, and tell me what you mean when you say there is nowhere

else?"

The young man obeyed, saying wearily:

"It is the simple truth. I am lodging at Eliza Heaven's, in the

village, and you probably know that there is no living-room except the

kitchen. I share a bedroom with three of the boys, and the rain comes

down in torrents every day. I can't tramp about the country--I only get

wet through and fall ill. My holiday lasts ten days--how could I spend

it better? The church was quiet; I was under cover. No one has ever

come in before."

The vicar stared silently at this strange youth clad in threadbare

black, with flannel shirt open at his lean throat. He felt attracted to

him in spite of his square grim jaw and Nihilistic-looking crop of thick

black hair. His voice was not uncultivated and the vicar recognised,

with a little thrill of pleasure, the soft guttural "r" which proclaimed

the stranger to be Welsh. Lady Cicely was Welsh, and for her sake the

vicar loved well that courteous fiery little people.

"I am sorry you should have had such a wet holiday. In fine weather the

country round here is very beautiful, and you look as though long days

out of doors would be better for you than literary work--anywhere."

The young man looked rather surprised at the urbanity of this speech but

it is difficult for the Welsh to be other than courteous, even when they

meet with churls. It was easy, therefore, to explain the position of

affairs to this gouty but amiable old gentleman. The hunted look left

the stranger's eyes, the tense lines round his mouth relaxed as he said,

"I work at a cloth factory at Stroud. One of my mates told me his

mother would lodge me for my holiday--I could not afford to go home--so

I came here. I am a Socialist, but my father was a Wesleyan minister. I

speak at Labour meetings in Stroud--that is my next speech I was

writing--it is nearly finished."

The musical voice ceased; the vicar gave a little start; he had been

gazing out on the sunlit grass in the churchyard. Then he turned and

faced his new acquaintance: "Will you let me read your speech? It would

interest me greatly. It is long since I took any active interest in

politics. I am glad I found you instead of Daniel Long the clerk. He

would, with the best intentions in life, have been rude. I can

understand your seeking sanctuary in the church, and, as you say, She

belongs to all of us; but--perhaps it is prejudice--I had rather you

didn't write political speeches there. Will you come and write at the

vicarage instead? You shall be quite undisturbed."

The young man cleared his throat, and when he spoke his voice was rather

husky: "How do you know I should not steal your spoons?"

"My good friend," the vicar answered cheerfully, "though I know but

little of politics, I know this much, that it is nothing less than my

whole possessions you Socialists want. Spoons, indeed! that's but a

small part of it; and you don't want to steal them either, but to take

them, boldly and in the light of day, that every one may see and admire

the redistribution.--I believe that is the word--of property."

As he spoke the vicar rose, and, leaning heavily on his stick, prepared

to fare forth into the sunshine again. The little Welshman made no

answer, so the vicar turned and put his hand on his shoulder, saying

kindly: "But as you write, you probably read. I have plenty of books.

You must come and see them. Come now!"

"May I collect my papers, sir? I won't be a minute." The voice was

eager, with a deference in the tone which had been lacking at first.

The vicar smiled--that pleasant smile, which had won him so much

goodwill. "I like these Welshmen," he thought to himself, "always so

much in earnest, always responsive." Then he sighed and frowned as his

gouty foot gave a warning twinge.

He and his strange acquaintance walked through the churchyard together.

At the vicarage door the old man stopped, and, rubbing his hands

delightedly, exclaimed, "Now you are going to enjoy yourself."

"I am bewildered; Fortune is not usually kind to me," murmured the

stranger, as he followed his host into a room walled round with books.

The vicar sank wearily into an armchair, while his servant arranged his

gouty foot upon the rest. As the door closed behind the man, the little

Welshman clasped his hands, and, standing before the vicar with flushed

cheeks and shining eyes, cried breathlessly: "Do you mean that I may

take them down--handle them--read them?"

The vicar laughed. "Sesame," said he, and waved his hand towards the

largest bookcase.

What "Sesame" meant the other knew not, nor cared. It was a permission,

that was enough. He held out his work-worn hands, palms upwards, to the

vicar, saying simply: "They are clean."

The vicar leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, quoting softly,

as if to himself: "These are all at your choice; and life is short."

But the stranger did not hear him, for he found himself amidst a company

"wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen and the

mighty, of every place and time."

*VIII*

*A COTSWOLD BARMAID*

It seemed an odd name for an elderly woman, even when, as in this case,

she happened to be a barmaid: but some one with an eye for likenesses

christened her "Bobby" because of a really striking resemblance to the

statesman at that time familiarly known as "Bobby Lowe." Anyway the

name expressed her, and Bobby she remained to the end. Let it not be

imagined that disrespect was so much as suggested by the title: she was

the best respected woman in our town, and certainly one of the most

influential.

There was a college, of a sort, near the town where Bobby lived, and

generations of students and the whole hunting youth of the countryside

passed through her kind hands, and every man amongst them will

acknowledge that he was the better for having known Bobby.

It is to be supposed that at one time she was slim, instead of

round-about, that her abundant white hair was once brown or golden, that

she had a story of her own apart from the "Moonstone" and her "boys";

but we took her for granted none the less thankfully that we were apt to

forget how unique she was, till we were far from Bobby and the Moonstone

Bar.

Youthful new-comers were her especial care. She not infrequently

confiscated their money if she thought they were going to "play the

giddy," only restoring it when she considered they were capable of using

it with some discretion. And how carefully she looked after the

digestions of such as were inexperienced in the matter of drinks!

"What?" she would exclaim, "green chartreuse, sir, and you just bin

'avin' beer! You really mustn't, sir, you'd be that bad" ... and the

best of it was that nobody was ever foolish enough to resent her

interference.

"If a holdish man likes to take too much," she would say sorrowfully,

"it isn't me that can stop 'im, but with these young chaps just fresh

from school, I must do my best according to my lights."

What becomes of the young chaps fresh from school where there is no

Bobby to take care of them I wonder.

"As you know, sir," she continued, "I don't hold with drinkin' for

drinkin's sake, but I do think that a gentleman should be able to take

his glass sociable-like, and friendly. There don't seem no good

fellowship in them there aereated waters, and I'm sure they ain't no

good to a body's inside, by theirselves."

She had a healthy crop of prejudices this Bobby of ours. Any sort of

blasphemy or loose talk she could not away with. "It's sort of natural

for a man to swear if he's a bit taken to or astonished," she would say

in lenient mood, "but when they goes breaking the third commandment like

as if it was a hold chipped plate, it gives me cold shivers down my

back--that it do."

She never expostulated, but her square, rosy face got less square and

less rosy if, in her presence, the conversation waxed too forcible and

free. At such times the offender would be warned by one of Bobby's old

friends who respected what he probably called her "fads." If the

new-comer profited by the warning all went well, but if he offended a

second time he was forcibly ejected and found himself in the dark and

draughty covered way leading to the Moonstone stables, with the

explanation, "you can pile on the adjectives here, old chap, but she

doesn't like it."

Bobby was a sincere believer in good works, and many were the "boxes"

benefited by winnings at billiards or otherwise: and every Sunday saw

her slowly taking her decorous way to church, seemly and satin-clad,

bearing the very portliest of prayer books.

For man in the abstract, she had the greatest respect, but taken

individually, she looked upon him as singularly gullible, and as

requiring much maternal supervision, both digestively and morally.

"Law! They may talk about their science and their chemistry and that,

but bless you! Just let one of them minxes come along, and they're no

better than imbeciles, that they're not."

The one human creature for whom Bobby's kind heart could find no

toleration, was a "minx." And by "minx" she meant such pretty girls of

the shop and dressmaker class, as she imagined cherished hopes of

"marrying a gentleman." The idea that one of her boys (anybody under

thirty was a "boy" to Bobby) should get entangled in the meshes of a

minx, or more dreadful still, "marry beneath him" roused Bobby as did

nothing else. How she got her information no one could ever imagine,

but she always knew when anything of the kind was afoot, and

Machiavellian were her methods of preventing such a catastrophe. More

than one "county family" has Bobby to thank that no undesirable

daughter-in-law has been added to its ranks. People under twenty she

considered her especial charge. She gave them much homely and excellent

advice, and only such drinks as she deemed suitable to their tender

years.

When one of Bobby's old favourites came back from foreign parts the very

first place he would hasten to was Bobby's bar. He would lounge in,

after the fashion of a stranger, and ask, in a feigned voice, for what

had been his favourite drink in the old days. But Bobby's ears were

very quick, one sharp glance at the stranger, a little cry of

recognition ... and over the counter he leaps and fast in his embrace is

the old barmaid's stout, comfortable, little figure, and for a minute or

two neither she nor the stranger can see each other very clearly. And

then, what a talking over of old days there would be! What asking after

old chums! At such times Bobby would even give us news of the minxes.

Poor pretty minxes, did any of you ever marry gentlemen I wonder? They

were really very nice those minxes! But we don't remember them as we

remember Bobby--Bobby of the silver hair and little dumpy figure, who by

sheer force of strong and kindly character held sway over several

generations of hot-blooded young England. She was not beautiful; she was

not, as the world accounts it, clever: but she was of the type of the

eternal mother-woman. "Bless you," she would say with her broad,

confident smile, "it's easy enough to manage 'em if only you lets 'em

think as they're managin' you."

*IX*

*FUZZY WUZZY'S WATCH*

He was Billy's little brother, and we called him "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" because

his abundant yellow hair stuck out straight and bushy all over his head.

Moreover, at tennis parties he was sometimes allowed to "squeege" the

soda water into the tall glasses held out for that purpose by thirsty

friends; and they would say "Here's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy!"

This, however, is not a story of Fuzzy Wuzzy, but of a man to whom

Fortune had not been kind, whereas Fuzzy Wuzzy was.

"He is the rowdiest chap in the college, he goes on the drunk for days

together; and yet he's a perfect gentleman, even when he's drunk."

We were all of us sitting on the lawn. Fuzzy's mother looked up as Mr.

Calcraft spoke, asking, "Who is this unhappy person?"

"Oh, the 'Bookie' you know, that chap who's got Vereker's old rooms.

Riddell is his name--the professor knows him."

Mr. Calcraft waited for the professor to give further information, but

he said nothing. Then a small voice remarked: "_I_ know Mr. Riddell.

He's got the beautifullest big dog, and he gave me a ride on its back--I

like him."

Fuzzy was sitting on my knee--after a moment's silence his mother asked,

"Do you like him, Hugh? Is it true that he is so wild?"

The professor took his pipe out of his mouth. He was not given to

discussing the students, we all knew that--but this time he said, "I

like Riddell. He's a very clever fellow, and most good-natured. I

think his little weaknesses are much exaggerated. _I_ have seen no sign

of rowdiness."

Mr. Calcraft laughed. "If you'd been at 'The Moonstone' the other

evening, sir, you would have seen more than a sign. He broke every cue

in the billiard room, and nearly threw the marker out of the window!"

"Did he frow a man out of the window?" exclaimed Fuzzy ecstatically.

"Oh, Mr. Bookie _is_ strong."

There was a horror-stricken pause. They had forgotten Fuzzy. His

mother looked reproachfully at Mr. Calcraft, and somebody murmured

something about _virginibus puerisque_.

"If only the 'Bookie' could be kept sober," Mr. Calcraft remarked

apologetically, "he would be a splendid chap. He is all right for weeks

together, and is as hard as nails; then he goes off and makes an ass of

himself down town, and it makes people cut him. He told me the other

day that he doesn't know a lady in the place."

"He is going to know one!" said Fuzzy's mother, "he's going to know

_me_. I think it is too bad. You all say he is foolish, yet not one of

you has the courage to tell him so, I think it is a shame."

"He would be an awkward chap to tackle," murmured Mr. Calcraft. "He'd

throw you out of the window as soon as look at you."

"He can't throw me out of the window," said Fuzzy's mother, "and I shall

talk to him. You must ask him to lunch, Hugh!"

Then we all went to eat gooseberries in the kitchen garden and played at

horses with Fuzzy.

The first day of the horse show Riddell was with Mrs. Ainger all the

time. As usual he was untidy. His tie was over his collar, his collar

frayed; he wore a terrible old cap, and the front of his coat was

smothered in dust from Fuzzy's boots, for that gentleman spent the

greater part of the afternoon perched on Riddell's shoulder.

"The Bookie" looked radiant, and carried off his lady to tea in the

tent; I followed, sitting with friends at the next table. They looked a

little surprised at Mrs. Ainger's cavalier, for that lady was known to

be particular as to the men she admitted to intimacy.

Afterwards I heard all about it. It seems that the professor had asked

Riddell to lunch, and that he had behaved beautifully. He was a

cultivated man, and talked well, in the softest, most musical voice in

the world. His knowledge of swear-words was the widest and most

far-reaching; when with men his conversation was so garnished with

oaths, that one had to pick one's steps, as it were, to discover what he

was talking about. But with ladies, he was the most courtly and careful

of men. At the horse show he had discovered Mrs. Ainger trying to lift

Fuzzy to see over the heads of some yokels who obstructed the view. In

a moment Riddell had relieved her of her burden, and devoted himself to

her for the rest of the day. The professor was counting marks and could

not come.

Then ensued a time of peace and quiet for the Bookie. He followed Mrs.

Ainger like a big dog, constituted himself head nurse to Fuzzy, and he

was sober, absolutely sober, for six months. When other ladies met him

constantly at the Aingers', and found him to be not only harmless but

charming, they also asked him to lunch and to dine. Thus "The Bookie"

who had plenty of money, and was of unexceptional family, became

something of a personage. He bought new clothes, and wore a clean straw

hat. His linen was no longer frayed, and he shaved twice a day.

Mrs. Ainger sang his praises wherever she went, and openly declared that

she believed all the stories of his rowdiness to be slanders; she had

not seen his bill for billiard cues from the "Moonstone."

At the end of April came the "Point to Point" steeplechase, a day fatal

to the Bookie, who was "well on" by five o'clock in the afternoon. Mrs.

Ainger was not at the races, so she was spared the spectacle of her

protege, swaying gracefully on the seat of his dogcart as he drove off

the course. He had not brought his man, and as he was, his friends

considered, quite capable of getting home in safety, they preferred not

to be seen with him. He pressed them courteously to accompany him,

offering to stand them a dinner at the "Moonstone." But they stood in

awe of Mrs. Ainger, and not considering themselves in any way called

upon to act as keeper for the Bookie, they let him alone.

Fuzzy's Nana was of a literary turn, spending a large proportion of the

salary she received for her attentions to Fuzzy on the lighter kinds of

fiction. On this particular afternoon, having wheeled him in his

go-cart some distance along the high road, "she sat her down upon a

green bank," and bidding him "Play about, there's a good boy, and pick

some pretty flowers for mama!" she was soon immersed in a periodical,

bearing a bloodcurdling device upon the cover.

Fuzzy gathered a bunch of celandines, and with them clasped tightly in

his hot, fat hand, set off at a run down the road, giggling delightedly

when he discovered that Nana neither called him nor yet started in

pursuit.

Trotting gleefully along for some little distance he turned off into an

inviting-looking lane. He kept close to the hedge for there was a sound

of galloping hoofs, and Fuzzy was an extremely sensible small boy. Then

there passed him a horse and dogcart, the horse going at a hand gallop,

the dogcart empty. This struck Fuzzy as strange, but then strange

things do happen when one sets forth to seek adventures. So he girded

up his stocking which had become uncomfortably wrinkly and trudged on.

Presently he saw a man lying by the side of the road. Now Fuzzy had a

large acquaintance among road men, and for tramps he felt a real

affection. Had they not sometimes got white rats in their pockets?

Nay, those of a superior sort even carried ferrets! He and his mother

were wont to bestow pence on tramps, and on the road men, boots and the

professor's old coats. In fact the professor was often heard to

complain that he met his favourite coat by a heap of stones every time

he went out. Fuzzy advanced fearlessly to inspect this weary man, who

was lying on his face, with one arm doubled up under him in the

strangest fashion. The man did not move as Fuzzy came up, and the

little boy went and stood by the prostrate form, saying, with a comical

imitation of his father:--"Thirsty weather, eh?" but the usual "It be

that, Master!" did not follow.

The afternoon was very still. The sound of galloping hoofs and bumping

wheels had died away in the distance. Suddenly Fuzzy gave a little

cry--"Bookie! Bookie dear! are you hurted? Why do you lie in the road?

gentlemens don't lie in the road--O Bookie! your foot is bad, it's all

bleedy and dreadful!"

The Bookie did not answer, "he kind of snored" as Fuzzy afterwards

described it. The child tried to turn him over on his back, but the

Bookie being six foot two, and proportionately broad, and Fuzzy by no

means tall for his age, this proved an impossible feat.

"I'm afraid he's hurted very bad, his face is so red and dirty," said

Fuzzy to himself. Then, with Herculean efforts, he succeeded in

inserting his own legs under the Bookie's head, so that it rested on his

clean holland smock. He stroked the tumbled hair, and laid his soft

little face upon the Bookie's hot, prickly cheek. They remained thus

for what seemed to Fuzzy an interminable time. He began to grow sleepy

himself. His head nodded, and finally he too fell over on to his back

sound asleep.

When the Bookie came to himself he lay still for a few minutes

collecting his thoughts. He discovered that his arm was certainly

broken, that a wheel had gone over his ankle, that his face was resting

on something soft, and that not ten inches from his face was a pair of

small, dusty strap-shoes.

This last discovery completely sobered him. He raised himself on his

good arm and looked down at the something which had been supporting him.

A golden head, resting on two plump arms crossed behind it; sturdy legs,

crushed by his weight, which now drew themselves up stretching out again

as if relieved ... and then the Bookie realised that Fuzzy had found

him, and had stayed to keep guard.

"God help me for a drunken beast! and I can't carry him for my arm's

broken," he ejaculated. He got up on to his knees feeling very giddy.

The movement woke Fuzzy. He too was puzzled for a moment as to where he

could be, then, he saw the Bookie, and, his brains not being muddled by

various "drinks" and a heavy fall, he sat up, saying in his tender

little voice: "Are you hurted much, my poor dear? I stayed with you

till you woked up."

The Bookie looked at Fuzzy and tried to speak, but somehow he couldn't.

Fuzzy was on his feet in a moment and held out his grubby hands: "Shall

I pull you up? I can pull dad up."

The Bookie took one of the little hands and carried it to his lips,

saying brokenly, "Why do you love me, Fuzzy? I'm not worth it."

Fuzzy took no notice of this remark, it was just one of those foolish

and irrelevant things that grown-up people have a habit of saying, so he

said, "Aren't you tired of sitting in the road? Hadn't we better go

home? I'm very hungry."

The Bookie tried again to get up on to his feet, but something had gone

wrong with his leg, as well as his arm, and after a few excruciating

efforts he gave it up.

"I'm afraid it's no go, Fuzzy, I can't walk; you see I was pitched out

of the dog-cart, and I'm all smashed up--whatever is to be done?"

"Shall you be very lonely if I go home and tell them?" asked Fuzzy with

his arms round the Bookie's neck, "and then they could bring a carriage

for you; you're too big to go in my mail cart, or I'd lend it to you.

It's in a field wiv Nana."

"How on earth I got into this lane I can't think, it's right off the

high road. O Fuzzy Wuzzy, what an ass I've been!" The Bookie groaned,

and Fuzzy clasped his arms tighter round his neck. Then he wiped his

friend's dirty face with the crumpled smock, remarking: "Your poor face

is so grubby, and you've lost your hat!"

"Where's yours?" asked the Bookie.

"I think it felled into the ditch!" Fuzzy answered composedly, "but

there's no sun to sun-stroke us."

"You must be got home, old chap; it's getting ever so late and they will

be anxious; do you think you could go by yourself, and tell them where

you left me?"--"a pretty tale, truly," thought the Bookie to himself.

Fuzzy was torn by conflicting desires. He hated to leave his wounded

friend, and he wanted his mother. Finally, having embraced the Bookie

several times, he trotted off down the lane and into the high road once

more. When he got home it was nearly eight o'clock. His father and

mother, white-faced and anxious, were standing at the drive gate,

straining their eyes in the twilight. Nana, having searched vainly

herself, had only just come back to confess that Fuzzy was lost. He

hardly waited to receive his mother's caresses, but seizing her by the

hand, dragged her down the road, crying excitedly: "Come quick! the

Bookie's hurted and he's all alone."

By dint of much questioning, the Bookie's whereabouts and the extent of

his misfortunes were arrived at. The dogcart and horse were captured in

an adjacent village, and the Bookie spent a month indoors. Fuzzy went to

see him every day, so did they all, but they never spoke of the

accident. They played Poker and Nap round his sick-bed, and the beggar

constantly won.

The night before he went down he told them about Fuzzy. He forgot to

swear at all during the narrative, but at the end he said: "And I'm

damned if those dusty strap-shoes wouldn't get between me and too much

of the best champagne ever bottled!"

*X*

*THE DARK LADY*

Nobody knew her--that is to say, none of the other ladies knew her. She

was staying at the "Moonstone" for the hunting, accompanied by a maid, a

couple of grooms, and six horses. The hotel people called her "the

Baroness." Billy always spoke of her as "that pretty lady"; but then it

is possible that admiration for her daring horsemanship coloured Billy's

views.

On this particular afternoon Billy and the unknown lady found themselves

at the same gate, in the gathering gloom of a November afternoon, six

good miles from home. She was trying to lift a refractory latch with

her hunting-crop when Billy rode up on his shaggy sheltie, dismounted

cap in hand, and opened the gate for her.

"We seem to have lost the others, you and I. Shall we jog home

together?" she asked, as Billy, having carefully fastened the gate,

followed her down the rutty lane. "I'm not very sure where we are; but I

suppose this lane leads somewhere," she continued.

"I know the way," answered the little boy cheerfully. "I shall be very

glad of your company. Jackson--that's our man--lamed the cob early in

the day and had to go home, and it's lonely riding by one's self."

"I am often lonely," said the lady, more to herself than to Billy.

"Are you? So am I. I'm the only one who hunts, you see; but I'm going

to school at Easter, then I shan't be lonely any more."

"Are you glad to be going to school?"

"Oh, yes! I shall like being with the other chaps awfully; but, of

course, I shall miss my people ... and the dogs, and the pony."

"Your people don't hunt, do they?"

"No; we've only the cob and my pony. Mother doesn't hunt, she's too

nervous; and father doesn't care for it. Mother drives to the near

meets sometimes, but when it is a long way she likes Jackson to come

with me for the day. Not that he's any mortal use," added Billy with a

gleeful chuckle. "He's a potterer, and my brother is too little."

"I wonder," the lady began, then stopped suddenly. Billy turned his

rosy face towards her, but she did not speak. The child, because he

knew one woman so well, divined that this woman was tired and sad. So

he, too, was silent. The horses' hoofs went thud, swish, thud, swish,

through the foot-deep decaying beech leaves. A delicate silver mist

gathered round the roots of the great trees; like the bridal veil of a

rosy girl, it spread itself over the stretches of ruddy space. They had

turned into the grass-carpeted main avenue of the Earl's famous park,

and Billy sniffed delightedly at what he called "the good smell of

Christmas." Happy Billy! to whom the death of summer brought no sad

thoughts.

"I'm afraid you are very tired!" he said suddenly, in his kind boyish

voice. "Would you like to stop a bit?"

The lady started. Not, indeed, that she had forgotten Billy; she was in

a subconscious way basking in the warmth that radiates from all simple

and kindly people. Her rebellious mood of the last weeks had passed.

That mood in which she loved to assert her fascination for men; mentally

snapping her fingers in the faces of her sister women so ready to think

evil of her. Certain kinds of men come to heel easily and she felt her

triumph to be but a poor one. This half-hour's companionship of a

friendly little boy had altered everything; at the moment she no longer

felt herself to be the sport of circumstance; but her heart ached and

her voice was weariful as she said:--"No, we won't stop. I am tired,

but we are only about three miles from home. You live just outside the

town, don't you?"

"Yes! at that tall grey gabled house where the cross roads meet!"

"I have seen you go into the drive. Do you do lessons--who teaches

you?"

"Partly Mother, partly Dad. I am not clever at lessons." Billy flushed

as he spoke; he was fully aware that his small love for books was

something of a reproach. People expect so much from the child of clever

parents. He did not know that his strongly developed sporting instincts

were the pride of his bookish father's heart; nor how cheerfully that

father had forgone many a rare edition, that Billy might ride to hounds.

"A modest lad, a good lad; let him play about in the sunshine--the rest

will come." So Billy's father, who would relate with glee how

successfully Billy had vetoed one topic of conversation. On an evening,

not so very long ago, Billy had put his head round the drawing-room

door, demanding, "Is Dad going to talk about 'The Dark Lady of the

Sonnets?' 'cause, if he is, I'm not coming in. I've had enough of

hearing about her."

So Dad vowed he would talk of her no more, and discussed the habits of

"Pug" with a learning that astonished and charmed Billy beyond telling.

The much-vexed question of Mary Fitton's identity with the "Dark Lady of

the Sonnets" had raged with violence in Billy's house. His father had

written many articles upon the subject--articles appearing in those fat,

uninteresting magazines which littered drawing-room and study; in whose

closely printed pages Billy sought in vain for "pictures and

conversations." He did wish that Dad wrote for the _Strand_.

Curiously enough, as they rode home in the gathering eventide, the

thought jumped into Billy's head that the dark lady of the sonnets must

have been exactly like the Baroness. With the inconsequent aptness of

childhood he proceeded to quote aloud lines learned to please his

father:

"For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

The lady pulled up short and, turning in her saddle, asked with a catch

in her voice, "Why do you say that? What is it? Where is it from?"

"Oh, it's those sonnets, you know--I've learnt lots of 'em to please my

dad."

"But what made you quote that just then?" persisted the Baroness, her

eyes dark and tragic with some nameless fear: "What made you quote it

then? Were you thinking of me?"

Billy blushed and took off his cap that he might rumple his hair, a

thing he always did when perplexed.

"I _was_ thinking of you," he said at last, "yet that has nothing to do

with you. This has though"--and, blushing more than ever, Billy

repeated:

"Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain;

Have put on black, and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain:

And truly not the morning sun of heaven

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

Than those two mourning eyes become thy face.

Billy stopped breathless, but confident that he had said the right thing

this time.

"It is very pretty!" said the lady with a sigh--"but the other is true.

What a queer little boy you are to repeat poetry like that! How old are

you?"

"I shall be nine at Easter. Then I go to school. Where are you going

when the hunting is over? It ends early here; we never kill a May

fox--the crops, you know."

"I don't know where I shall go, probably to London, or to Paris, or----"

here she murmured something in a language Billy did not understand,

then, turning to him, said dreamily:

"'That is my home of love: if I have ranged,

Like him that travels, I return again.'

You see I know something of your poetry too! But, wherever I go, I

shall be lonely--lonely and sad."

There was a sound of tears in her voice. Billy, infinitely distressed,

felt that this melancholy lady must be cheered and encouraged, so he

said stoutly:

"I've never seen you alone before. You've generally got Mr. Rigby

Folaire, or Captain Garth, or Lord Edward, or all of them."

"That's just it," said the Baroness, and Billy was more puzzled than

ever. Feeling that he must get on to more comprehensible ground, he

asked,

"How did you lose the others?"

"Probably very much as you did. Anyhow, here we are together, and I am

very glad. I have enjoyed your society extremely. I shall remember our

afternoon."

The Baroness was destined to remember, for at that moment Billy's pony

put his foot in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing the child with

some violence against the trunk of a tree. They were riding at the edge

of the wood.

The pony scrambled up and galloped off; but Billy lay quite still in a

pathetic heap. The Baroness had pulled up her tall horse almost on to

his haunches, for Billy had been thrown right in front of her. Now,

with the reins over her arm, she was stooping over the prostrate Billy,

while the nervous thoroughbred trembled and curvetted beside her.

The Baroness was noted for the speed and grace with which she could

mount or dismount.

She lifted Billy in her arms. There was a big bruise on his temple, and

he seemed stunned by the fall. His head rolled on to her shoulder,

lying there heavily. Reaching for her flask from the pocket of her

saddle, and with the reins still round her wrist, she sat down on the

ground with Billy in her arms. She soaked her handkerchief in brandy,

and dabbed his forehead, and, as if to aid her, there pattered down upon

his upturned face the first drops of a cold November shower.

The Baroness had faced many dangers in her time. To "scenes" of various

kinds she was quite inured; but she trembled as Billy's face touched her

neck, and there was a look in her eyes that neither Mr. Rigby Folaire

nor Lord Edward had ever seen there. Presently Billy stirred and opened

his eyes, saying eagerly, "I'm all right, mother! It wasn't Dalgo's

fault I fell off. It's all right."

Sitting up suddenly, he saw the Baroness, and knew where he was. But he

had clung to her--she always remembered that.

He scrambled to his feet, exclaiming, "I beg your pardon. Did I

frighten you? I am so sorry"; then, turning very giddy, sat down again

amongst the wet leaves.

"I wonder if I ought to give him brandy," murmured the Baroness. She

put her free arm round him, while the tall horse sniffed inquiringly at

them both.

The white mist crept higher among the trees and the rain grew heavier.

Billy shivered.

"We can't sit here," said the Baroness decidedly. "You'll have to ride

Frivolity in front of me. I don't know where your pony is, and if he

has galloped home they will be in a dreadful state. So we must hurry.

"How strong you are!" said Billy, admiringly, as she swung him up to the

saddle in front of her--"and how kind!" He put his hand on hers that

held the reins, her other arm was round him. Thus they rode home in the

cold gloom of that November afternoon.

* * * * *

"Billy's late!" said his mother nervously as she poked the study fire.

"I am always worried when he is out without Jackson; he is so reckless,

and Jackson came home just before lunch, you know." Billy's father

pushed his papers away from him, and came and stood beside her at the

fire.

"There he is!" he said, "there's the drive gate."

"That's a horse; besides, Billy always goes straight to the yard--Oh,

can he be hurt? and some one has come to tell us. Go down quick and

see."

On no occasion did Billy ever go hunting but his mother pictured every

possible mishap. Had the child ever realised her agony of apprehension

he would never have gone; but she loved him too well to interfere with

his pleasures. "He's such a manly little fellow," she would say when he

came safely back, forgetting her dread in her pride of him--until next

hunting day.

She followed her husband into the fire-lit hall. The door stood open.

The well-loved little figure was silhouetted against the gloom, and the

kind young voice was persuading some one to come in. "Do come and have

some tea," she heard him say; then, as he saw his mother: "It's the dark

lady, dear; she has been so kind to me. Has Dalgo come home?"

The mother went out on to the steps beside her husband. The unknown

lady had already turned her horse preparatory to departure, but waited

just to say in short, jerky sentences:

"Your little boy was thrown, and the pony ran away. I thought it best

to bring him home without looking for the pony. He fell with some force

against a tree, but I don't think----!"

"Won't you come in?" asked Billy's mother, going down into the rain

beside her guest. A great many considerations flashed into her mind,

but--"and let me thank you."

The soft voice was so like Billy's. For a moment the Baroness wavered.

She looked somewhat wistfully into the hall where the ruddy firelight

danced on the old oak furniture, but she gave a little wriggle on her

saddle and said lightly and in the voice that jarred, "Thanks! but I'm

far too wet. I must go home and change. The boy is wet. I hope the

pony will turn up all right," and with that she rode out of the drive.

Billy spent some days in bed with concussion of the brain. He talked

constantly of his "dark lady" to the bewilderment of his mother, who had

no idea how firmly he was imbued with the notion that _his_ dark lady

was _the_ dark lady--"of the sonnets," as he always piously concluded.

As for the lady--when Billy's father went down to the "Moonstone" that

very evening in the pouring rain, to thank her for her kindness to his

little son, she was declared to be engaged and would see no one.

When Billy's mother went next morning she was told that the Baroness had

gone to town the night before. Her servants and her horses followed

her, and the hunt knew her no more. She left no address. Mr. Rigby

Folaire and Lord Edward inquired her whereabouts in vain. But Billy

knew she had "gone back into the sonnets"; for had she not said, as they

rode home in the rain that afternoon,

"That is my home of love: if I have ranged

Like him that travels, I return again"?

Billy was sure; and even Billy's father has given up talking about Mary

Fitton.

*XI*

*HER FIRST APPEARANCE*

Somehow or other it got noised abroad in the town that Lady Valeria was

coming to church the very next Sunday.

The town was much interested. There are people who speak of our town as

a "village." Such people are lacking in all sense of proportion. We

pity them, and try to ignore the insult.

But to return to Lady Valeria. For nearly four years we have had her in

our midst. At first she was known as "the Earl's baby"; but her

appearance and character were such that she speedily achieved a distinct

entity, and now her doings are chronicled with extreme minuteness.

"Mammy dear! Mammy dear!" said Lady Valeria, "what does God do in

church?"

Her mother looked puzzled for a moment, then she said, "He listens to

our prayers, and to the psalms and hymns we sing."

"Will He speak to me, mammy dear? Will He want to kiss me?"

Most people wanted to kiss Lady Valeria; she was quite used to it.

"We cannot see God," answered the Countess gravely.

"Why, mammy dear?" asked the persistent treble voice, "what does He hide

for?"

The Countess looked beseechingly at her husband, but he would not come

to her assistance; he went and looked out of the window, and his

shoulders shook. He gave her no help in these matters--no help at

all--and, really, there never was a more inquiring child than Lady

Valeria.

"I'd like to see God, mammy dear! why can't I?"

"We can none of us see God--yet," said her mother, gently; "we shall see

Him some day if we are good. Now listen, sweetheart, you must be

perfectly quiet in church, and not talk at all; you must do whatever I

do. Remember, it is God's House, and we go there to thank Him for all

He gives us, and to pray to Him for help to do right."

Lady Valeria's face was very solemn, and she held it up to be kissed,

and she made many protestations with regard to the extreme decorum of

her conduct when Sunday should come. Then the head nurse appeared and

carried her off to nursery tea.

Her parents had misgivings as to the sobriety of her behaviour in

church. The Countess felt nervous and said so; as for the Earl, he

laughed and loved her, but he said that nothing would induce him to

accompany his daughter to church next Sunday afternoon. Hers was a

character of much originality. She acted with decision, and always

unexpectedly; and the little Countess, who was only nineteen years older

than her daughter, often felt that the baby girl was the stronger of the

two.

There was a pleasant flutter of expectation among the Sunday-school

children, and, indeed, among the congregation generally, at the

children's service on that memorable Sunday when Lady Valeria first came

to church. Since her own christening, and that of her small brother,

nothing so exciting had occurred. The Earl's seat was high up in the

centre aisle, in full view of the congregation. As the young Countess

walked in, leading her little daughter by the hand, she had to run the

gauntlet of the kindly inquisitive eyes of the entire congregation, an

unusually large one. She blushed very much, for she was a shy little

lady, who loved to go her gracious way quietly and unobserved. Not so

Lady Valeria--from her earliest infancy she had been taught to give

pleasure by her pretty smiles, and that to "notice people" was one of

the most binding of her obligations. Though certainly no Pharisee, she

dearly loved "greetings in the market-place," and as she trotted up the

aisle she nodded gaily to her acquaintances, who were there in large

numbers. She waved her fat hand to the curate as he took his seat in

the choir, much to his confusion.

In the choir were two of the lodge-keeper's sons. Their white garments

had for the nonce concealed their identity; but presently Lady Valeria

recognised them, and, mounting a high hassock, she nodded and waved

ecstatically--she felt so sure they would be delighted to see her in

church. She wondered why they looked so red, and why they did not pull

their front locks and grin, as they were wont to do when she passed them

in the pony carriage. She felt chilled and disappointed at this lack of

responsiveness on the part of so many of her friends.

The service began. Lady Valeria carefully copied her mother and made no

sound. That lady, who had not noticed "the nods, and becks, and wreathed

smiles" which marked her daughter's entrance, felt her cheeks begin to

cool and was conscious of a hope upspringing that her temerity in

bringing Lady Valeria to church was to be triumphantly vindicated.

Suddenly, however, in the middle of the psalms, which were read in

alternate verses by vicar and congregation, she noticed that, in the

congregation's verse, somebody was saying in a triumphant sing-song:

"There was a lady loved a swine.

'Honey!' said she,

'Pighog, wilt thou be mine?'

'Hunc!' said he."

The final "hunc" was a life-like imitation of one of the Earl's prize

pigs. The verse in question happened to be shorter than Lady Valeria's,

and she finished after the congregation.

The curate turned purple, and the vicar's voice trembled. The Countess

blushed redder than before, and, stooping down, whispered, "You mustn't

say _anything_, darling!"

Lady Valeria looked up in pained surprise.

"Every one else is talking, mammy dear. I'm sure God wouldn't mind."

Her mother shook her head again, and Lady Valeria relapsed into a

wondering and somewhat injured silence. Why should those Sunday-school

children be allowed to bawl out all sorts of seemingly irrelevant

remarks, while she was checked for one little tiny rhyme? Truly, church

was a puzzling place. She sighed, and pulled off her gloves, then she

rolled them into a neat ball and played catch with them. But she was no

hand at catch, and the gloves fell with a soft "plop" into the aisle.

Her mother looked up at the little sound and again shook her head. Lady

Valeria yawned.

Then something happened. There was a scuffling at the back, and the

vicar's wife, who is a strict disciplinarian, marched up the aisle

propelling a small boy in front of her--the very small boy who was the

cause of the disturbance. Lady Valeria nearly fell off her stool in her

excitement. The procession of two, the pusher and the pushed, passed

the Earl's pew, and reached the big brass bird, whose classification had

been puzzling Lady Valeria for the last ten minutes. The vicar's wife

left the small boy just beside the big bird, and marched down the aisle

again. The hymn finished, the vicar went into the pulpit and gave out

the text. Thomas Beames, the culprit, stuffed his fists into his eyes,

and wept copiously, but silently. There he would have to stand,

publicly disgraced, with his back in full view of the congregation for

the rest of the service.

"I'll turn dissenter, I will!" vowed Thomas, in his miserable soul.

"I'll vote yallow when I be growed a man. I won't cap she, when I do

meet her in the street."

The vicar's voice exhorting the children to industry, sobriety, and

universal charity fell on deaf ears as far as Thomas was concerned. But

what he did hear was the soft patter of little feet behind him, then

came a pull at his arm by two small impatient hands. He took his fists

out of his eyes, and looked down to see Lady Valeria standing beside

him. Her blue eyes were full of pity, and she said very softly and

distinctly, "Don't ky, little boy! there's plenty of room in our seat!"

and before the astonished Thomas could demur, one of the imperative

little hands had seized his, and pulled him into the Earl's pew, where

he sat crimson and desperately uncomfortable for the rest of the

service; but he was not quite so sure that he would vote "yallow when he

were growed a man." The sermon was long. The vicar felt this flying in

the face of law and order must be lived or preached down.

Lady Valeria yawned again. Heedless of the precepts of St. Paul, she

removed her hat. Then she leaned her head against her mother's shoulder

and slept.

She slept all through the sermon; even the singing of the closing hymn

did not awake her.

The school children, including the now repentant Thomas Beames, had

clattered out, and still the Lady Valeria slept.

Her mother kissed and woke her, and as they walked across the sunny

market-place, Lady Valeria remarked cheerfully, "Mammy dear, mammy dear!

I like church, you feels so nice and fresh when you comes out!"

*XII*

*"OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US"*

Ridgeway came in with the morning paper while Johnny was still at

breakfast. Johnny was late, but at the beginning of the holidays he

generally was late unless it happened to be a hunting morning.

Something had evidently stirred Ridgeway out of his usual stately calm,

for instead of bringing in the paper neatly folded upon a salver, he

held it open in his hand, and his hands were shaking.

"It's all here, Master Johnny!" he cried. "Bobs 'e spoke and Lord Curzon

'e spoke, and the King and the Viceroy sent messages and no end of nobs

besides: and to think of it! the General was there to 'ear it all. An'

that gentleman wot writes the books you're so fond of, _he_ was there

an' 'e wrote a hymn 'specially for the occasion."

Johnny snatched the paper and Ridgeway retired to the sideboard, where

he stood with his back to Johnny, blowing his nose and clearing his

throat in a highly unprofessional fashion.

"I'm glad grandfather was there," Johnny said presently. "Don't you

wish you'd been there, Ridgeway? But I suppose you were born a bit too

late ... you were born after the Mutiny, weren't you?"

"Bless you, yes, Master Johnny. Why, 'owever old do you think I am?"

"Everybody seems rather old in this house after school, you know,"

Johnny explained apologetically. "At school there's fifty chaps, and

Hatton Major's the eldest and he's just fourteen and seven months. He's

leaving this term. I shall be leaving at midsummer, you know, for then

I shall be fourteen. When'll grandfather be back, Ridgeway?"

"The General said 'e'd telegraph this morning. I expect 'e's a bit

tired after that dinner. My word! it must have been a fine sight--all

those old chaps, and the officers, all with their medals and their

orders on. Somethin' like a _Tamash_ that was. They've seen a deal,

they 'ave."

Johnny rose from table with the paper still in his hand. "I think," he

said, "that grandfather would wish all the servants to hear what's in

this paper, and I'd like to read it to them. Please tell them to come

here at once, Ridgeway."

The long line of servants filed into the room just as they did when the

General was at home to read prayers. And Johnny, fair-haired,

round-faced, and ever so serious, stood up before them all to read aloud

about the dinner that the proprietors of a great newspaper had given to

the survivors of the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Everybody was impressed; and the cook, who was fat and full of

sensibility, wept audibly.

Johnny's voice did not falter except when he stumbled over one or two of

the long words in some of the speeches, till he came to what Ridgeway

called "the hymn" written by Mr. Rudyard Kipling.

"One service more we dare to ask:

Pray for us, heroes, pray,

That when Fate lays on us our task,

We do not shame the day."

As he reached this last verse his voice broke.

"That's all," he said hastily, "and thank you very much for listening."

Then he fled to the stables, bearing the precious newspaper with him

that he might read it all over again to the General's groom and the

stable boys.

Johnny was the youngest of a long line of soldiers and civilians who had

served our Indian Empire. Father and mother were still in India, though

they were coming home before the hot weather and mother would probably

not go out again. Johnny, himself, always talked of "going back" when

he should be through Sandhurst; although he had left India for good at

four years old. Yet he heard "the East a-calling" with the same loud

imperative call that all his race had so ungrudgingly obeyed.

Johnny adored the works of Mr. Rudyard Kipling. His nursery days had

been enriched and enchanted by the _Jungle Books_ and _Just So Stories_;

and as he grew older he chose out for enthusiastic admiration certain

heroes from among the short stories, heroes who were to him a

never-failing inspiration and example. He was sure, of course, that Mr.

Kipling was "a real person," but he was infinitely more confident that

Bobby Wicks and John Chinn and Georgie Cottar had actually existed,

_did_ actually exist, except poor Bobby Wicks who died of cholera. They

were, in fact, far more manifest to the mind of Johnny than the man

privileged to chronicle their doings. It was beastly bad luck that Bobby

Wicks had died: it always made him want to kick his best friend for at

least an hour afterwards when he read that story. All the same, Bobby

had not died in vain, for his cheery, unconscious heroism had kindled in

the breast of at least one small boy a steady flame of patriotism and

the passionate hope that when his time should come he, too, might serve

and suffer with the men he hoped one day to lead.

That mild December morning, as he rode alone along the muddy lanes,

Johnny's mind was full of the Mutiny, and his heart grew big within him

as he thought of the men whose dangers his grandfather had been

privileged to share.

When he got back to lunch he found a long telegram from the General

saying that certain old friends who had come up for the Mutiny dinner

had persuaded him to stay one more night in town, but that he would

motor back very early on Christmas morning in plenty of time for church.

Johnny felt a bit disappointed, but he went to tea with some cheery

neighbours where there was assembled a large and youthful party, and he

dined in solemn state with Ridgeway in attendance. After dinner he

arranged his gifts for grandfather and the servants and was quite ready

for bed when bed-time came. He said his prayers with his usual

precipitation: but when he had finally besought blessings upon "father

and mother and grandfather and all my kind friends" he found himself

still upon his knees repeating:

"One service more we dare to ask:

Pray for us, heroes, pray,

That when Pate lays on us our task,

We do not shame the day."

"How rummy of me!" quoth Johnny to himself as he snuggled down in bed.

"I've got that Mutiny dinner on the brain." And then he fell asleep.

Later on he began to dream. He dreamt that he was in the sick-room at

school and that he had a very bad cough--a tickling, tiresome, choking

cough. He implored the matron to give him some water, but she only

laughed at him and hurried out of the room. And the cough grew worse

and worse till he thought he should choke. It was so unlike matron,

too, to be hard-hearted and unsympathetic, that Johnny grew very angry,

and he tried to shout at her but the cough wouldn't let him. Still, he

must have managed to make a considerable noise, for the sound of his own

voice woke him up, and as he opened his eyes they began to smart

violently. He sat up in bed still coughing and choking, and it was

gradually revealed to him that the room was full of smoke.

Now Johnny had no fire in his bedroom, for the whole house was heated by

hot pipes. Not long ago, too, grandfather had put in the electric light.

Johnny turned on the switch at the head of his bed, but no light came.

He sat perfectly still for a few seconds realising the while that the

house must assuredly be on fire somewhere. Then he leapt out of bed and

flung his window wide open. He hung out of the window and filled his

lungs with the good fresh air.

He was wideawake now and quite able to understand that there was danger.

His first impulse was to get out of the window and scramble down into

safety by the ivy on the wall. His room was on the first floor, the

rooms were low and old-fashioned, and he had done it before. Just as he

was preparing to scramble out he remembered the servants. The women all

slept at the end of a long passage (which went the whole length of the

house) through a swing door. Johnny's end was quite unoccupied, as

grandfather had taken his own man with him; the lady who did the

housekeeping had gone back to her own home for Christmas, and there were

no visitors just then. Ridgeway slept in a wing room built over the

pantry close to the back staircase. Half-way down the passage was the

turret staircase, and in the turret hung the great bell to be rung to

rouse the servants in case of fire or sudden illness.

Johnny drew in his head and turned back into his room. The smoke was

not quite so bad now, but it was very dark; He opened the door, and as

he did so there flowed in great waves and gusts of smoke that drove him

back into the room again.

It would be much easier to get out of the window and go round to ring

the front-door bell, or throw stones at the servants' windows, or do

anything rather than face that stinging, stifling darkness which was not

black but grey.

It drove him back to the window again, the window with its easy drop out

into the sate, kind night of stars and watery moon and cold wet air.

But the servants! How was he to warn the servants?

And the fire might be spreading. He felt his way to the washstand and

dipped one of the towels in water. He wrapped it round his neck like a

muffler, covering mouth and nose, and then he opened his door again, ran

down the smoke-packed passage as fast as he could; and up the little

staircase to the belfry, where he fell gasping, for the acrid smoke was

terrible.

Here it was better, for the belfry tower was open to the night. Johnny

seized the rope and pulled for dear life. How long must he ring before

they would all be roused?

It was a big, loud bell: he heard it clanging overhead, and insensibly

it seemed to swing to the rhythm of these words:

"Pray for us, heroes, pray,

That when Fate lays on us our task,

We do not shame the day."

Johnny's arms were tired and his bare feet were cold. Would they hear?

Had he rung long enough? Might he go back to his room now and get out

of the window?

The smoke was creeping up into the belfry. It was the smoke, of course,

that made the tears come into his eyes.

Clang, clang, clang, clang--clang, clang!

Johnny loosed the rope for a minute and listened.

Yes; he heard shouts.

They were roused, then: just a few more pulls and he might go.

The terrified maidservants came huddling down the back staircase and out

at the back door. Men came from the stables, and the lodge, and the

gardeners' cottages, and Ridgeway dropped from his window, for he could

not face the smoke in the passage.

The fire was in the front of the house in the main wing; the dining room

was undoubtedly in flames, and the men went round to the front with the

hose while one of the grooms galloped off to the nearest town for the

fire engine.

Ridgeway was the last to join the frightened group outside the back

door, and his first question was, "Where's Master Johnny?"

It took several minutes of most violent language before he discovered

that no one had seen Master Johnny, but his window was open, and he must

have got out that way: "he was active as a cat."

But Johnny was not with the men.

"Who rang the alarm bell?" Ridgeway shouted.

Apparently no one had rung the alarm bell.

A ladder was set against Johnny's window, and Ridgeway went up and into

Johnny's room.

Twice the volumes of smoke drove him back from the door, for Ridgeway

had never done fire-drill at school, and knew nothing of the advantages

of a wet towel; but the third time he made a dash down the passage and

reached the belfry stairs. At the foot of the steps he trod upon

something soft and, stooping, picked up Johnny in his arms and staggered

back again.

When he appeared at the window with his burden the men sent up a cheer,

but Ridgeway gave a hard, dry sob and muttered, "If 'e's dead I'm goin'

back into the 'ouse; I'll never face the General."

All the same Ridgeway was the first to face the General when that aged

warrior arrived at his drive gate early on Christmas morning. He faced

the General with the intelligence that he would find his dining-room,

his hall, and a great part of his staircase a mass of charred ruins by

reason of the fusing of the wires of the recently installed electric

light. And Ridgeway further related that to the General which almost

consoled him for the state of chaos in which he found his household.

The General's own man had got out when Ridgeway stopped the motor at the

drive gate. He and Ridgeway stood side by side at the door of the

brougham while Ridgeway spoke.

"You've made it pretty clear that the boy saved the lot of you," said

the General. "But who the dickens fetched the boy out of all that

smother? Tell me that, now!"

Ridgeway passed his hand over his very rough chin and looked foolish,

saying never a word.

"Get in, man!" said the General, "get in. Do you think we can loaf

about here all day--get in!" and the General dragged Ridgeway into the

motor with both hands.

As the motor rounded the last corner of the drive, the General beheld,

as through a mist, a little figure in an Eton jacket standing outside

the bulged and blackened front door.

The figure waved cheerfully and ran to assist the General to alight.

The old soldier grasped Johnny by the shoulder and shook him gently:

"You're a nice person to leave in charge!" he roared. "What have you

got to say for yourself, hey?"

Johnny grinned. "You're very well up to time, sir," he said cheerily.

"We'll have to have breakfast in the housekeeper's room, for you never

saw such a beastly mess in all your life!"

*XIII*

*A GIOTTO OF THE COTSWOLDS*

When Mary Cardross first saw Jethro he was six years old, and still wore

petticoats. He was not particularly small for his age, and his

appearance was, to say the least of it, peculiar. A cotton frock, made

with skirt and body like a housemaid's morning dress, reached to his

ankles; and he seemed to have very little underneath, for this outer

garment hung limp and straight from waist to heel, except on Sundays,

when, fresh from the hands of his aunt, it stuck out all round like a

lamp-shade. His hair, cropped very short round the edges, was several

inches long on the crown. Mrs. Gegg, by courtesy his "aunt," did not

even put a basin on his head by way of guide in the shearing, but,

brushing all the hair forward from the centre of the crown, laid the

scissors against his forehead, and cut the hair close to the skin all

round. It grew again quickly, and stuck out above his temples like a

new straw thatch.

"Isn't he rather a big boy for petticoats?" Mary asked, as her landlady

removed the supper, pausing at intervals to explain Jethro's presence

under her roof.

"Yes, 'e be a biggish boy, but I hain't a-goin' to be at no expense for

'im as I can 'elp. 'E can wait cum Christmas for 'is trowsies. 'E

ought to be thankful as 'e weren't tuk to the workus, an' me only 'is

mother's cousin, though 'e _do_ call me haunt. 'E be a great expense,

and I've 'ad 'im this two year. The most onandiest, nothingly child you

ever see,--always a-scribblin' and a-messin' and moonin'. I don't set

no store by Jethro, I can tell you, Miss! 'E's got to be brought up

'ard to hearn 'is own livin'"--and Mrs. Gegg paused breathless. Mary

said nothing, but she felt rather sorry for Jethro.

Had Mrs. Gegg lived anywhere but in the lovely, lonely Cotswold village

perched like a smiling fastness in the midst of beech-clad hills,

reached only by the loosest and worst of roads, she would hardly have

dared to dress a six-year boy in such extraordinary fashion. Public

opinion would have been too strong for her. But Nookham, with its dozen

cottages, lived and let live in easy apathy, and Jethro in bitterness of

spirit wore his cotton frock. Two years ago Mary had discovered

Nookham. Friends had driven her over to have tea in the woods, and to

gather the wild strawberries found there in such abundance. She fell in

love with the place, and came again upon a private exploring expedition,

when she discovered that lodgings were to be had at the post-office, in

the house of one Mrs. Gegg. There she spent a most delightful

fortnight, sketching. Never was more attentive and honest landlady,

never cleaner, more orderly house! It is true that Mary's painting

tackle greatly distressed her hostess, partaking as it did of the nature

of things "messy and slummicky," which her soul abhorred. Otherwise, she

liked Mary, as did most people; and she had in her way great toleration

for the "curus ways" of the "gentry" generally, expecting less of them

in the matter of common sense than she exacted from people of her own

class. And now, after two years in Italy, Mary found herself once more

in the dear Cotswold country, in the very middle of a perfect June.

Nookham generally was unfeignedly pleased to see her again. Few

strangers came to stay there, and the roads were too bad and too hilly

for even the ubiquitous cyclist. The squire's house was three miles

from the village, the vicarage two, and the tall lady with the abundant

wavy grey hair and strong, kind face had made a very distinct and

pleasant impression.

Mary did not catch a glimpse of Jethro during her first day until,

happening at post-time to want a letter she had left in her bedroom, she

ran upstairs to fetch it.

The room, with door flung wide, faced the narrow staircase. In the very

middle of the floor stood Jethro, in rapt contemplation of a large

photograph of Giovanni Bellini's Madonna,--the one in the sacristy of

the Frari at Venice--which Mary had placed on the little mantelpiece.

The day was well on in the week, the cotton frock hung in limp and

draggled folds about the childish limbs, and the queer little creature's

attitude was almost pathetically boyish as he stood, legs far apart, his

hands grasping the lilac cotton where pockets ought to have been.

For a full minute Mary stood watching him. He made no attempt to touch

the picture; in fact--and afterwards the circumstance seemed

significant--he stood at some distance from it, that he might see it

whole.

Mary must have moved, for the stairs creaked. Jethro jumped, did not

even turn his head to see who was coming, but darted under the bed with

the instant speed of a startled squirrel. She came into the room, shut

the door, and sat down on her trunk, remarking, "If you come out I'll

show you some more pictures!" Dead silence for five minutes, while Mary

sat patiently waiting. She was determined that she would in no way

frighten or constrain the timid child, for it seemed to her that the

little Cotswold peasant who stood gazing with absorbed interest at her

favourite Madonna must be worth knowing.

"I can't think why you stay under there, Jethro," she said at last; "we

could have such a nice time together if you would come out, and I must

go directly to finish my letters."

But, like Brer Rabbit, Jethro "lay low and said nuffin'", so Mary was

fain to go and finish her letters, determined to play a waiting game.

From time to time she stopped writing, looking pained and puzzled. "It

is dreadful that a little child should be so afraid of one," she said to

herself; "what can they have done to him?" Presently Jethro rushed past

the open door, and later on there came from the direction of the back

kitchen a sound uncommonly like smacks.

Mrs. Gegg laid the supper as though she were dealing cards with the

angry emphasis indulged in by certain Bridge players after a series of

bad hands. Mary ventured on a timid remark to the effect that Nookham

had changed but little during her two years absence. Mrs. Gegg replied

that "Squire didn't encourage no fancy building," and that therefore it

was likely to remain the same for some time to come. Conversation

languished, and she went into the garden to "take in" certain

exquisitely white garments still spread upon the currant bushes while

Mary stood at the front door waiting for the nightingale to "touch his

lyre of gold," when another and very different sound broke into the

scented stillness--a breathless, broken sound of sobs--a child's sobs.

She listened for a moment, then turned and went back into the house to

follow the sound. From the landing window she noted with relief that

Mrs. Gegg was engaged in converse with a neighbour (Mary stood in great

awe of her landlady); she mounted a ladder leading to the attic, and

there, under the slates, lying full length on the outside of his clean

little bed, was Jethro, sobbing with an _abandon_ and intensity that

left Mary in no doubt as to what she should do this time. Bumping her

head violently, and nearly driving it through the slates in her haste,

for she could by no means stand upright, she climbed in and reached the

side of the bed.

Her entrance was so noisy that the child had plenty of time to vanish,

as he had done in the afternoon; but he was evidently so astonished by

her appearance that no thought of flight occurred to him; he even forgot

to be frightened, left off crying, and asked eagerly:

"Did you 'urt your 'ead?"

"No, not much. I heard you crying, and came to see what was the

matter."

Jethro looked queerer than ever. He wore a voluminous unbleached calico

nightgown, several sizes too big for him; the big tears on his cheeks'

shone like jewels in the soft June twilight, and the thatch of

tow-coloured hair was rumpled into a quick-set hedge above his great,

grave forehead.

"I've bin beat," he whispered.

"Why, what had you done?"

"I thrown a stwun at Earny Mustoe akez 'e did call oi 'Jemima,' and it

did break 's mother's windy."

"Is he bigger than you?"

"Yes, 'e be noine!"

"Then why didn't you go for him and hit him? You couldn't break any

windows that way, and it would teach him better manners."

Jethro stared in astonishment at this war-like lady.

"But 'e be ever so much bigger nor me," he exclaimed, "and I be allays

beat aterwards"; then, remembering his woes, "and it do 'urt so, it do,"

and Jethro began to wail again.

Mary gathered the woebegone little figure into her arms and sat down on

the floor, saying cheerfully:

"Cheer up, old chap; I'll pay for that window, and you mustn't throw any

more stones; and don't cry any more, and we'll have ever such nice times

while I'm here."

It was evident that Jethro was not used to being cuddled. He sat stiff

and solemn on her knee, staring at her with great puzzled eyes. She

talked to him as tender women talk to children, and finally put him to

bed, tucked him in, kissed and blessed him, and climbed down the ladder

again. Much to her relief she saw that Mrs. Gegg was still in the

garden.

Jethro lay awake, staring at a patch of moonlight on the whitewashed

wall. Hazily, vaguely, there arose in his mind are collection that at

one time some one always tucked him into bed--some one who looked kindly

at him. He couldn't remember the face, but the eyes were like the tall

lady's--like the lady's in the picture downstairs; and again Jethro

wanted to cry, but not because he had been "beat." However, he would

not cry; she had asked him not to, and she had such sharp ears, and she

would come to see him every night, and she had lots more pictures. Here

the tall lady and the lady in the picture became inextricably mixed up,

and Jethro slept that blessed sleep of childhood which is oblivion.

"I'd just like to show you, Miss, a present as I've 'ad from my nephew

down Cubberly way. 'E's on'y fifteen, and 'e's that clever with 'is

fingers----" Mrs. Gegg held up for Mary's admiration a frame made of

fir-cones which had been varnished and squeezed together till they

looked like a hollow square of highly polished brown sausages. "There,

Jethro, if you could make summut like that."

"I likes 'em better a-growin'," said Jethro, softly.

During the scornful scolding that followed Mary watched Jethro. His

serene grey eyes under the square, peaceful forehead looked a trifle

weary, and he sighed as his aunt harangued him, but he did not seem

greatly disturbed. After all, whether people scolded or not, gracious,

gentle things continued a-growin', and Jethro through the sweet uses of

adversity had early learnt that "Nature, the kind old nurse," never

refuses consolation to such of her children as seek it in sweet solitary

places with an understanding heart.

Mary found Jethro very difficult to get at. He followed her about, and

would sit watching her paint for hours in silent, absolute absorption,

but he very seldom spoke himself. One day, as they were walking

together down the steep stony road leading to the woods, he suddenly

clasped her round the knees, exclaiming, "You be such a dear 'ooman!"

Mary stooped hastily and kissed the little upturned face. In a life

compassed about with much affection and many friends no one had ever

spoken to her with such a rapture of appreciation, and she fell to

thinking how little she had done to deserve it. Two days after she got

a letter.

"The mater cannot write herself," it ran, "because she is busy with a

big chest in the attic upon which the dust of ages has hitherto been

allowed to rest in peace. From time to time you may hear her murmur,

'Six, and an average size. Poor little lad! What a shame!!--this will

do, I think.' So you know what is going on. Do you remember the

bundles? All neatly docketed--'To fit boy of twelve,' etc. A regular

trousseau is coming, so tell that kiddie to cheer up."

Three days later Jethro appeared at school in all the glory of jacket

and "trowsies"; and the very boy who had most grievously tormented him

about his petticoats chastised another on his behalf who made derisive

remarks about a "gal in trowsies." Thus the chief misery in Jethro's

life was removed, and he felt that he bade fair to become a social

success.

His aunt manifested no objection to the new clothes. A thrifty soul,

she believed in taking what she could get, and remarked, quite

good-naturedly, that Jethro did look a bit more like other folk now.

"Of a Saturday" Mrs. Gegg "hearth-stoned" the whole of her back kitchen

till its spotlessness rivalled that of the whitewashed walls. The

placid expectancy of Saturday evening had settled on the village. Mary,

tired by her long day's painting, was resting upon the slippery

horsehair sofa, and meditating on the impossibility of reproducing on

canvas the brilliant transparency of young green larches, when her

landlady burst into the room, positively breathless with passion. "Just

you come 'ere, miss, and see what that, there mishtiful young imp o'

darkness been and done: I'll warm 'im so's 'e shan't forget it in a

'urry!" Mary hastily followed the woman into the sacred back kitchen,

and there in a corner near the pump crouched Jethro, one arm curved

above his head to protect it from a renewal of the rain of blows that

had just fallen, while the floor was decorated by a monochrome

landscape, painted by Jethro with Mrs. Gegg's blue-bag.

Mary gazed at it with astonishment. With strong certainty of touch the

child had splashed in by means of the coarse blue the stretch of hills

that met his eyes every time he went out at Mrs. Gegg's front door. The

queer impressionist sketch had atmosphere, distance, and, above all,

perspective. "Oh, Mrs. Gegg!" cried Mary, holding back the angry little

woman with her strong arms as she was advancing across the picture to

wreak fresh vengeance upon Jethro, "leave it! leave it till Monday, and

I'll give you blue and whitening to last you a twelve-month. It is a

wonderful picture! Some day you will be proud of him. He couldn't help

it. We none of us gave him anything to draw on. Why didn't you tell

me, child, that you could draw like this?"

Astonishment was cooling Mrs. Gegg's wrath. She had heard, nay, upon

one occasion seen, that a pavement artist in distant Gloucester earned

good money, though it was but a poor trade. Then there was Miss

Cardross, always messing with paints and things;--perhaps she really

knew something about it. "If you will leave the picture where it is

till Monday," continued Mary, "I will ride over to Colescombe to-morrow

and persuade an artist friend to come and look at it, and we will see

what can be done for Jethro. Please, Mrs. Gegg!" And Mary got her way.

* * * * *

"You must leave him where he is," said the great art critic to Mary when

he had inspected the frescoed floor. "He may be a genius. I think he

is. All the more reason to leave him alone just now. Give him paper

and paints--lots of them; don't lose sight of him and we'll help him

when the right time comes. It hasn't come yet."

So Mary left him in the peace of the kindly Cotswold hills. And while

Bellini's Madonna smiles down upon him from the whitewashed attic wall,

while sun and cloud make light and shadow for him on beech-clad slope

and grassy plain, and life is full "of mysteries and presences,

innumerable, of living things," we need not pity Jethro. For, even as

one who wandered long ago upon the steeps of far Fiesole found infinite

potentialities among solitary places and pleasant pastoral creatures,

even so in time to come the little Cotswold peasant may enter into his

inheritance in that kingdom where "every colour is lovely and every

space is light. The world, the universe, is divine; all sadness is a

part of harmony, and all gloom a part of peace."

*XIV*

*THE DAY AFTER*

The election was over and Patsey was sad, for her father had lost his

seat. Patsey could not altogether understand why her father should be

so anxious to sit in that particular House in London when he had so many

comfortable chairs in his own. But at eight years old a little girl

cannot expect to understand everything, and she was a very humble-minded

child. She loved her father dearly, and whatever he wanted, she wanted

too, very much indeed; so that when she went downstairs that morning to

pour out his coffee, and found him looking so pale and tired in spite of

his gay pink coat and beautiful white breeches, for he was going out

hunting, she gave him an extra big hug and laid her soft cheek against

his, saying, "Dear, dear dad," quite a number of times, and big tears

forced themselves out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks, although she

did her best to keep them back. As her father kissed her he tasted the

wet, salt little cheek, and held her away from him, exclaiming, "How

now, Pat! What's the matter? You mustn't fret. We're sportsmen, you

know, and we must take a defeat like gentlemen; no grousing. The

umpire's decision has gone against us and we must abide by it. Look at

me! If I'd been in I'd have been going off to make bad speeches in

stuffy committee-rooms; as it is, I'm off for a good day's sport in

beautiful soft weather. Which is best, do you think?"

Patsey tried to smile, but she knew very well which her father would

have liked best, and her tears came afresh.

"He's a dirty Radical," she sobbed, "a nasty, common working man. I

can't think how they could like him better than you--so clean and

handsome and good."

Her father wiped the wet little face with his big silk handkercliief,

and took her up on his knee.

"I'd rather you didn't repeat what you hear the servants say, Pat," he

said gravely. "It's largely a case of 'let the best man win,' and we'll

hope he has."

So Patsey cheered up, poured out her father's coffee, and they talked

about pleasanter things than the election till she went out on to the

steps to see him ride away.

Then everything seemed very flat, for life had been rather exciting

lately. It is true that Patsey had never been allowed to take an active

part in the election, her father expressing himself somewhat strongly in

condemnation of such candidates as "turned their little daughters into

sandwich-men and their young sons into phonographs"; but she had been

permitted to wear a blue rosette when she drove into the town with her

governess. And sometimes people who knew her cheered her as they

passed, and it was pleasant to feel so important.

It was curious, too, that although all the servants were so loud in

their abuse of the new member, they none of them seemed in the least

cast down by the result of the election; and Patsey's gentle little soul

was puzzled by a partisanship that loudly disparaged the conqueror while

yet it held no sympathy for the vanquished.

All morning it rained, but after lunch the sun came out, and Patsey's

governess, who had a cold, bade her put on her overshoes and go and play

in the garden, for half an hour by herself.

Now, Patsey's father had given her a bicycle just a week before, and

although she was not yet an expert rider, still, she could get along,

and it struck her that it would be a good opportunity to practise by

riding up and down the drive. A stray gardener helped her on, and she

found herself riding so beautifully that when she came to the lodge and

saw that the great gates were open, the spirit of adventure seized upon

her and bore her through them, out on to the high road.

Patsey had never been in the road alone in all her life before, so that

she felt most bold and daring, and the feeling was so new and delightful

that she rode on for half a mile, finally turning into a quiet lane that

led to the cemetery which lay a couple of miles outside the town. Here

it was very muddy, and Patsey had not gone very far before her bicycle

skidded violently. She tried to save herself with one foot, but it

twisted under her, and she came down with the bicycle on the top of her.

When she tried to get up again she found that one of her ankles was

horribly swollen and painful, and that she couldn't stand. It was a very

woebegone little figure that sat weeping at the side of the road. The

"fond adventure" had indeed ended disastrously, and Patsey bitterly

repented her of her enterprise, and longed for her governess or nurse.

It was such a lonely road. Except on Sundays, when people went to take

flowers to the cemetery, hardly any one went up or down, and the awful

prospect of sitting there till some one should come from home to look

for her--and why should they look for her in that particular

road?--confronted Patsey with chilly menace.

The January sunshine faded early, and she began to feel very cold.

Presently she heard quick footsteps coming from the direction of the

cemetery, and a man appeared in sight. As he reached the prostrate

bicycle and the doleful little figure seated beside it, he stopped,

exclaiming, "Hullo! What's to do here? Have you tumbled off, my dear?

I wouldn't sit there, though, it's so wet."

"I can't get up," poor Patsey faltered; "I've hurt my foot; it's all

gone fat and funny, and it does pain so. I can't stand. Oh, could you?

could you--call in at my home on your way back and tell them to send the

carriage for me? It would be so very kind of you. Do you think you

could----?"

The man stooped down and looked at the poor little foot. He touched it

gently and shook his head, saying, "It's rather a bad sprain, I fear;

just tell me where you live and I'll carry you home. Then they can get

a doctor and have it fomented and bound. I'd best tie it up now as well

as I can, so as not to shake you more than I can help."

The man took out a large handkerchief of brilliant yellow silk, and

Patsey shuddered. "Oh, please don't!" she cried. "I mustn't wear

anything yellow, not to-day of all days; it would be so disloyal to

daddie. If it must be tied up, please take mine--but I don't think it

need be."

As Patsey dragged a damp and dirty little square of once-white cambric

from her pocket the man laughed.

"That's no use," he said. "If little Tory ladies go and sprain their

ankles just like common folk, they must bear a bandage even if it's the

wrong colour."

And without more ado this masterful man bound up the little foot with

his gaudy handkerchief very deftly and kindly.

"I hope we shan't meet anybody," said Patsey, when he had lifted her

into his arms, having carried the bicycle behind the hedge for safety.

"It would be so unkind of me to wear yellow to-day."

The man turned and looked sharply at the pale little face so close to

his own, and gave a low whistle.

"Do you know who I am?" Patsey asked with dignity.

"And do you know who _I_ am?" demanded the man.

There flashed an illuminating ray of remembrance into Patsey's mind.

She had seen this man before, and he was no other than the "Labour

candidate" who had stolen her father's seat.

There was silence for a minute till Patsey said earnestly, "If you know

who I am, you need not wonder that I biject to wear anything yellow."

Then, for Patsey's father had taught her that other people have

political opinions too, "And perhaps you biject just as much to carrying

a little blue girl."

The man laughed and held her a little closer as he said, "Far from

objecting, I like carrying this little blue girl exceedingly. It's a

long time since I carried any little girl," he added sadly.

"Haven't you any little girls of your own?" she asked curiously.

"My little girl lies yonder," said the man, nodding his head in the

direction of the cemetery.

Patsey lifted her arm and put it round his neck that he might carry her

more easily, and, forgetting all about the yellow handkerchief,

exclaimed, "How sad! I _am_ so sorry. My mummy is buried there too.

Was your little girl ill a long time? My mummy was, months and months.

Was your little girl eight, too, like me?"

"She was just ten when she died," the man said quietly, "but she was

nothing like so big or so heavy as you, poor little lass! She died

because I could get neither food nor firing for her, and I've just been

to her grave...." The man paused, and in quite a different tone

continued, "And that's why I stand in your father's shoes to-day, little

lady, and perhaps I may help to make it better for other little girls by

and by."

"I wish my daddie had known," Patsey said softly. "He would have sent

you everything you wanted for her; he would indeed. He's so good to the

poor."

The man gave a hard little laugh.

"I've no doubt of it," he said, "but, you see, that's not what we want.

We're not over-fond of charity, some of us. Besides, charity's a bit

uncertain. What we want is to be able to give our little girls food and

firing our own selves. Yes, charity's a bit uncertain and children's

appetites uncommonly regular."

"Were you hungry and cold too?" asked Patsey.

Again the man laughed that queer, hard laugh. "It don't hurt a man to

be hungry and cold occasionally," he said grimly, "but too much of it

breaks a man's spirit. It's seeing them belonging to him hungry and

cold and not being able to help them that puts the devil into a man. I

beg your pardon, little lady, but there's no other word."

By this time they had turned into Patsey's own drive. The sun was

setting behind the house, gorgeous and golden, and the mellow light fell

full on the face of the "dirty Radical" who carried Patsey. She

considered him carefully. It was a sad face, strong and lined with

hardship and suffering, but there was something in the expression of his

eyes that made her forget his politics, and she patted his shoulder,

saying warmly, "I hope you will succeed, indeed I do."

Her father, still in his muddy hunting things, was standing on the steps

looking anxiously down the drive. When he saw them he ran forward,

exclaiming anxiously, "Patsey, my darling, what has happened?"

"It's all right, daddie," Patsey called back. "I've had a spill off my

bicycle, and this ... gentleman found me and has carried me all the way

home."

Patsey's father smiled a whimsical smile as he held out his arms for

her, and as the muddy little figure changed hands, he said, "You are

evidently determined to benefit _all_ your constituents, sir."

The Labour member smiled too, but his face was very sad as he answered,

"You might have my place and welcome, if I could have what you hold in

your arms."

Without another word he turned and walked swiftly down the drive.

Patsey's father neither called after him, nor did he follow; but he held

his little daughter very close.

That night Patsey added an extra petition to her usual prayers. It was:

"Please, dear God, let the kind Radical man what carried me, get what he

wants for all the other little girls."

*XV*

*A COUP D'ETAT*

Roger stood at the nursery window apparently watching the driving rain,

but in reality puzzling, with knit brows, over a situation he could by

no means understand, although he was painfully conscious of its vague

discomfort. When a small boy loves both his parents dearly, and it is

gradually but most effectually brought home to him that he cannot show

affection for the one without in some subtle fashion appearing to hurt

the other, the said small boy finds himself in a _cul de sac_ none the

less final that its walls are by no means clearly defined. Older people

than Roger realise that the only way out of a _cul de sac_ is to go back

the way you came; but he, having no idea how he had got there, could not

do this; in fact, it was only that very morning that he awoke to the

fact that he _was_ there.

It was in this wise. His mother was changing the ornaments in the

drawing-room--she had changed her drawing-room about once a week lately,

lest it should get to look "set"--and she had moved the easel holding

the big portrait of her uncle, the Dean, over to the corner by the

piano. Roger assisted her, admiring her arrangement, as he admired

everything about his mother, and she said,

"I hope you will grow up like your uncle Ambrose, sonnie!"

Roger was by no means sure that he echoed her wish. He had once visited

the deanery and found the atmosphere somewhat oppressively dignified.

"Why, mother dear?" he asked.

"Because"--and a certain tone in her voice puzzled Roger--"he is a

stainless gentleman."

"I think I'd rather be like father," he said meditatively; "that would

do just as well. To be a dean you've got to be a parson first, and I'd

much rather be a soldier, like father."

His mother turned her head hastily so that the child could not see her

face.

"You can be like your uncle in character whatever your profession; it is

there I would have you resemble him."

"But," interrupted Roger, "father's a stainless gentleman too, isn't he?

And he's much more jollier than Uncle Ambrose."

His mother did not answer, and to the child such silence seemed charged

with chilly omen. He did not ask her, as he longed to do, what she

exactly meant by a stainless gentleman. He was sure that in some

incomprehensible fashion the stainlessness of great-Uncle Ambrose

reflected unfavourably upon his father and resented it accordingly. He

was also sure that this enviable quality had nothing to do with personal

cleanliness, for there was no one in the whole world so clean and smart

as father. Why, when he drove to a distant meet, he wore "two

pinafores," one in front and one behind, to keep his leathers spotlessly

white; the said pinafores, by the way, doing much towards reconciling

Roger to the wearing of his bib at meals.

The nursery window was open and the soft spring rain whispered pleasant

things to the grass; but Roger did not listen. For the first time in

his life he was weighing evidence; and the worst of it was, that, do as

he would, the bulk of the evidence all went into one scale.

"They're just as fond of _me_," he thought to himself, "but somehow

they're never with me together." There were no jolly drives into the

town now--those drives in the high dog-cart when he would sit between

them rapturously thinking that never had little boy such resplendent

parents. Now, mother always went in the "bucket" with his little

sisters, and when father took him out driving, mother did not even come

and stand on the steps to wave them a farewell. She never sat on

father's knee now, or called him a "ridiculous boy," or untied his

necktie, or rumpled his hair. She seemed always to sit as far off as

possible, and when she did look at her big, jolly husband, there was

that in her expression which Roger felt he would rather not understand.

The truth was that Roger the elder and Lettice his wife, having been at

one time rather demonstratively fond of one another, found it somewhat

difficult to keep up appearances since such time as began the state of

affairs their little son so deprecated. Lettice certainly flattered

herself upon the secrecy and dignity with which she attended to the

linen less well-bred people will sometimes insist upon hanging up to the

public gaze even before it has gone through the cleansing process, and

was quite unconscious that all the while her servants discussed the

affair exhaustively, her friends pronounced the position untenable, and

her little son grieved and wondered, casting about in his child mind for

some way of clearing an atmosphere which even he felt was so charged

with electricity as to be well-nigh intolerable.

The rain ceased whispering, but the trees took up the story and rustled

importantly, shaking their glistening leaves at the sun who winked

lazily in the west. The two little sisters called to Roger to come and

have tea with the dolls; but he shook his head impatiently, thrusting it

between the bars of the window that he might not hear them. A robin on

the hawthorn hedge below regarded him in friendly fashion and sang a

song of coming summer; but Roger saw nothing but a blurred little splash

of crimson against the green, for his eyes were full of tears.

"Father, what's a stainless gentleman?" he asked as they went together

in the evening to feed the big carp in the pond.

Roger the elder stopped in the middle of the path. He took his cigar

out of his mouth and cleared his throat.

"Well, sonnie, I suppose it's a man who runs very straight, who never

plays the fool, and does idiotic things, for the doing of which he has

to pay Jew prices--a very good man, you know. But why? What d'you want

to know for?"

"Well, mother said Uncle Ambrose is a 'stainless gentleman,' and she

hoped I'd be like him when I'm grown up."

"For the matter of that, sonnie, so do I. You couldn't have a better

model."

"I'd rather be like you, fardie, dear--much rather." And Roger took his

father's hand in both his own, and squeezed it hard.

The elder Roger said nothing for a minute, but he grew very red. How

was he to tell the faithful little soul at his side that his ideal was

by no means a high one?

"You'll grow up very much the sort of man you want to be, sonnie. So

mind and want to be the best sort going."

"Well, 't all events, I shan't be like Uncle Ambrose. He's too fond of

sitting still."

"You'll be fond of sitting still when you're his age," said his father,

with a sigh of relief.

They fed the carp, and Roger almost forgot his troubles, till, on

returning to the house, they saw his mother on the tennis court with the

little girls. She called to him to come and play cricket with his

sisters.

"Will you come too, father?" he asked, pulling at his father's hand.

The elder Roger looked somewhat wistfully at the little group inside the

netting on the tennis court. His little daughters kissed their fingers

to him, calling to him to come; but his wife had turned her back upon

him, and she had a most expressive back. He shook his head at the

children, muttering something about letters to write, and turned to walk

slowly towards the house.

"I'll bowl to you if you come, Roger; the grass is really quite dry

again!" called his mother. Roger stood still in the drive, looking from

one to the other of his parents both with their backs to him. Lettice

looked over her shoulder and saw her husband's departing figure. "Come,

my son!" she called, with a queer little catch in her sweet voice.

"I've hardly seen you all day."

Roger went round the netting till he found an opening and pushed

through. His mother came to meet him, and put her arm round his

shoulders. He pointed to his father, who was walking slowly away with

bent head.

"Don't you think fardie looks rather lonely?" he asked.

Lettice looked after her husband. "I don't think he is lonely, sonnie:

he has so many--other friends." But the boy was not convinced.

Roger's mother bowls uncommonly well, but he did not enjoy the cricket.

He kept contrasting it with that of last year. Then father always

played too, and one day mother bowled him clean, and there was great

shouting and excitement. "It was jollier cricket then!" he reflected

sadly.

The elder Roger went and sat in the gun-room. He had to relight his

cigar three times, and his reflections, although engrossing, did not

seem pleasant.

"Will she never understand," he muttered, "that a man may care and yet

play the giddy, and that he may play the giddy and not care a damn?

What an almighty fool I've been!"

When the children had gone to bed Lettice went and sat in the newly

arranged drawing-room.

"It's perfectly hideous!" she exclaimed; "I can't sit here!"

But she did sit there, staring at nothing for a good half-hour till the

dressing-bell rang. In the evening she took up that very wise book, _On

the Face of the Waters_, and read in what manner Kate Erleton had

refused "her chance."

When little Roger woke next morning he remembered that something very

pleasant was to happen that day. He was going with his father to the

riding-school in the town to see a pony, and on that pony, if it proved

suitable, he was to go hunting next winter. As the full significance of

this tremendous occurrence was brought home to him in the shape of a

pair of new and very stiff gaiters, he felt equal to negotiating the

very biggest bullfinch; which may account for what happened half an hour

later, as he stood in the hall waiting for the dog-cart.

The rain had come on again, heavy "Mayish rain," as Roger called it, but

they didn't mind about that. His father was standing in the doorway

looking very big in a wide white macintosh. His mother ran downstairs

with her own macintosh cape for the little boy. As she reached the

bottom step, the elder Roger came back into the hall. Perkins, who had

been in "father's regiment" when father first joined, stood at the door

with a rug over his arm, looking imperturbable as usual.

Lettice stooped to kiss her little son as she buttoned the cape at his

neck. He caught at her hands as they fumbled with the stiff button, and

said loudly,

"Kiss father too, mother dear, and wish us luck!"

Perkins turned his head quickly, looking back into the hall. Lettice

felt the small insistent hands upon her own, and heard her husband's

quick breathing just behind her. There flashed into her brain the

thought that here and now was her "chance." She turned quickly and

lifted up her small proud face towards her husband.

There was a flutter and flash of white macintosh in the dusky hall as

Roger the elder caught his wife up in his arms and carried her into the

dining-room. The door shut with a bang, and little Roger was left alone

with Perkins, who blew his nose and waved the rug, exclaiming, in an

excited whisper---

"Bless your 'eart, sir, you've done it!"

Roger stood on the steps and waited; the smart little groom drove the

dog-cart round and round the drive; ten minutes passed, and still father

did not come.

"I'm rather afraid we shall miss the 'ppointment," said Roger, and made

as if to go after his parents into the dining-room; but Perkins caught

him by the shoulder and pulled him out on to the steps again, exclaiming

fiercely,

"No, you don't, Master Roger--not for _your_ life!"

Another five minutes, then the dining-room door opened: with a swish and

swither of silk petticoats his mother flew upstairs two steps at a time.

"Buck up!" her husband shouted after her, and his voice sounded as

though he'd got a dreadful cold; then, to Roger, "Mother is coming too,

to see about the pony; and just look what a lovely day it's turned."

Roger thrust his hand into his father's, who held it very tight, but he

didn't say anything at all.

There are the makings of a statesman in Roger.

*XVI*

*THE STACEYS OF ELCOMBE HOUSE*

After Harry went to school Paul and I had breakfast as well as lunch

with father and mother, unless there happened to be a great many

visitors. This was interesting because the letters came at breakfast

and we heard the news.

It is curious how the most epoch-making intelligence is often given

quite quietly with no flourish of trumpets, no preparation; just as the

most momentous decisions are almost always made at once, without much

reflection.

In the middle of May--I remember it was such a beautiful morning and

tulips blazed in the herbaceous border opposite the window--mother

looked up from her letters and said: "Measles is very bad in Fiammetta's

school. Mr. Glyn has taken her away, and as soon as the quarantine is

over he wants us to have her here for the rest of the summer, as he

needs to go to America this month."