II

He went to bed early; but he knew that he would not sleep until the

mail-cart had gone.

His wife was sleeping peacefully. He could feel the warmth of her body

close against him; her breath, drawn so lightly and regularly, just

touched his face; and he edged away cautiously, seeking space in which

to turn without disturbing her. At immeasurably long periods the

church clock chimed the quarters. That last chime must have been the

quarter after eleven.

Every now and then there came a sound that told him of the things that

were happening on the ground floor; and in the intervals of silence he

began to suffer from an oppressive sense of unreality. This disruption

of the routine of life was so strange as to seem incredible. They were

making up the two big bags for the up mail and the down mail; and he

was lying here like a state prisoner, of no account for the time

being, while below him his realm remained actively working.

As midnight approached, an increasing anxiety possessed him. The horse

and cart had been standing under the window for what appeared to be

hours, and yet they would not bring out the bags. What in the name of

reason were they waiting for now? Then at last he detected the

movement of shuffling footsteps; he heard voices--Ridgett's voice

among the others; a wheel grated against the curbstone, and the cart

rolled away. The sounds of the church clock chiming twelve mingled

with the reverberations made by the horse's hoofs as the cart passed

between the garden walls. Thank goodness, anyhow, they had got it off

to its time.

With a sigh, he turned on his back and stared at the darkness that hid

the ceiling. Ah! A profuse perspiration had broken out on his neck and

chest. To give himself more air he pulled down the too generous supply

of bed clothes, and in imagination he followed the cart.

It was progressing slowly and steadily along the five miles of road to

the railway junction. Would Perkins, the driver, break the regulations

to-night and pick up somebody for a ride with the sacred bags? Such a

gross breach of duty would render Perkins, or his employer, liable to

a heavy penalty; and again and again Dale had reminded him of the

risks attending misbehavior. But unwatched men grow bold. This would

be a night to bring temptation in the way of Perkins. Some

villager--workman, field-laborer, wood-cutter--tramping the road would

perhaps ask for a lift. "What cheer, mate! I'm for the night-mail.

Give us a lift's far as junction, and I'll stan' the price of a pint

to you."

A glance up and down the empty road--and then "Jump in. Wunnerful

weather we're having, aren't us?" So much for the wise regulation!

_Most_ wise regulation, if one understand it properly. For when once

you begin tampering with the inviolable nature of a mail-cart, where

are you to stop? Suppose your chance passenger proves to be not an

honest subject, but a malefactor--_one of a gang_. "Take that, ye

swab." A clump on the side of his head, and the driver is sent

endways from the box-seat; the cart gallops on to where the, rest of

the gang lurk waiting for it; strong arms, long legs, and the

monstrous deed is consummated. Her Majesty's bags have been stolen.

Though so dark in this bedroom, there would be light enough out there.

There was no moon; but the summer night, as he knew, would never

deepen to real obscurity. It would keep all of a piece till dawn, like

a sort of gray dusk, heavy and impenetrable beneath the trees, but

quite transparent on the heath and in the glades; and then it would

become all silvery and trembling; the wet bracken would glisten

faintly, high branches of beech trees would glow startlingly, each

needle on top of the lofty firs would change to a tiny sword of

fire--just as he had seen happen so often years ago, when as an

undisciplined lad he lay out in the woods for his pleasure.

Now! The church clock had struck one. Barring accidents, the cart was

at its goal; and in imagination he saw the junction as clearly as if

he had been standing at Perkins' elbow. There was the train for London

already arrived--steam rising in a straight jet from the engine, guard

and porter with lanterns, and a flood of orange light streaming from

the open doors of the noble Post Office coach. Perkins hands in his up

bag, receives a bag in exchange, and half his task is done. Forty

minutes to wait before he can perform the other half of it. Then,

having passed over the metals with the cart, he will attend to the

down train; hand in his other bag, receive the London bag; and, as

soon as the people in the signal-box will release the crossing-gates,

he may come home.

Dale knew now that he would not sleep until the cart returned.

When the church clock struck the half-hour after two, he lay straining

his ears to catch the sound of the horse's hoofs. Finally it came to

him, immensely remote, a rhythmic plod, plod, plod. Then in a few more

minutes the cart was at rest under his window again; they were taking

in the bags; bolts shot into their fastenings, a key turned in a lock,

and the clerk went back to bed at the top of the house. All was over

now. Nothing more would happen until the other clerk came down in a

couple of hours' time, until the bags were opened, until Ridgett came

yawning from his hired bedroom at the saddler's across the street, and

the new day's work began. And Dale would be shut out of the work--a

director who might not even assist, a master superseded, a general

under arrest in the midst of his army.

He gulped and grew hot. "By Jupiter! I'll have to tell them what I

think of them up there, and please the pigs!"

Then he remembered the pleadings of his wife. She had implored him to

keep a tight hold of himself; and in fairness to her he must exercise

discretion. She and he were one. With extraordinary tenderness he

mentally framed the words that by custom he employed when speaking of

her. "She is the wife of my boosum."

For a little while he calmed himself by thinking only of her. Then,

tossing and turning and perspiring again, he began to think of his

whole life, seeing it as a pageant full of wonder and pathos. Holy

Jupiter! how hard it had been at its opening! Everything against

him--just a lout among the woodside louts, an orphan baited and

lathered by a boozy stepfather, a tortured animal that ran into the

thickets for safety, a thing with scarce a value or promise inside it

except the little flame of courage that blows could not extinguish!

And yet out of this raw material he had built up the potent, complex,

highly-dowered organism known to the world as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch.

There was the pride and glory--from such a start to have reached so

magnificent a position. But he could not have done it--not all of

it--without Mavis.

It would be unkind to wake this dear bedfellow merely because he

himself could not sleep. He clasped his hands behind his head, and by

a prolonged effort of will remained motionless. But insomnia was

exciting every nerve in his body; each memory seemed to light up the

entire labyrinth of his brain; each sense-message came inward like a

bomb-shell, reaching with its explosion the highest as well as the

deepest centers, discharging circuits of swift fire through every area

of associated ideas, and so completely shattering the normal congruity

between impressions and recognitions that the slight drag of the sheet

across his raised toes was sufficient to make him feel again the

pressure of thick boots that he had worn years ago when he tramped as

new postman on the Manninglea Road.

And each thing that he thought of he saw--hawthorn blossom like snow

on the hedgerows, red rhododendrons as vivid as Chinese lanterns in

the gloom of the dark copse, the green moss of the rides, the white

paint of the gates. The farthest point of his round was Mr.

Barradine's mansion, and he used to arrive there just before eight

o'clock. With the thought came the luminous pictures, and he saw

again, as clearly as fifteen years ago, the splendor of the Abbey

House--that is, all one can see of it as one approaches its vast

servants' offices. Here, solidly real, were the archway, the first and

the second courtyard, grouped gables and irregular roof ridges, the

belfry tower and its gilded vane; men washing a carriage, a horse

drinking at the fountain trough, a dog lying on a sunlit patch of

cobble-stones and lazily snapping at flies; a glimpse, through iron

scroll work, of terrace balustrades, yellow gravel, and lemon-trees in

tubs; the oak doors of laundries, drying-rooms, and so forth.

It was here, outside the laundry, that he saw Mavis for the first

time; and although the sleeves of her print dress were rolled up and

she was carrying a metal skimming dish, something ineffably refined

and superior in her deportment led him to believe that she was some

lesser member of the august Barradine family, and not one of its hired

dependents. He touched his peaked cap, and did not even venture to say

"Good morning, miss."

Then he found out about her. She was not quite so grand as all that.

You might say she was a young lady right enough, if you merely counted

manners and education; but she had been born far below the level of

gentility. She belonged to the Petherick lot; and, living with her

aunt at North Ride Cottage, she came every day to the Abbey to do some

light and delicate work in Mr. Barradine's model dairy. The fact that

she had lost both her parents interested and pleased Dale: orphanhood

seemed to contain the embryonic germs of a mutual sympathy.

He used to speak to her now whenever he saw her. One day they stood

talking in the copse, and he showed her their distorted reflections on

the curves of her shining cream-dish. She laughed; and that day he was

late on his round.

Then somehow he got to a heavy sort of chaff about the letters. She

said she liked receiving letters, and she never received enough of

them. He used to say, "Good morning, miss. My mate started off with a

tremendous heavy bag to-day. I expect the most of it was for you.

You'll find 'em when you get home this evening--shoals of 'em."

Walking fast on his round he rehearsed such little speeches, and if

she made an unanticipated answer he was baffled and confused. He

suffered from an extreme shyness when face to face with her.

Then all at once his overwhelming admiration gave him a hot flow of

language. Beginning the old cumbrous facetiousness about her

correspondence, he blurted out the true thoughts that he had begun to

entertain.

"You didn't ought to want for letters, miss, and you wouldn't--not if

I was your letter-writer. I'd send you a valentine every day of the

year."

As he spoke, he looked at her with burning eyes. He was astonished,

almost terrified by his hardiness; and what he detected of its effect

on her threw him into an indescribable state of emotion.

Rough and coarse he might be, and yet not truly disagreeable to her

fine senses; his freckled face and massive shoulders did not repel

her; no instinct of the lovely princess turned sick at these advances

of the wild man of the woods. Under his scrutiny she showed a sort of

fluttered helplessness, a mingling of beauty and weakness that sent

fiery messages thrilling through and through him, a pale tremor, a

soft glow, a troubled but not offended frown; and from beneath all

these surface manifestations the undeveloped woman in her seemed to

speak to the matured manhood in him--seemed to say without words, "Oh,

dear me, what is this? I hope you haven't taken a real fancy to my

whiteness and slenderness and tremulousness; because if you _have_,

you are so big and so strong that I know you'll get me in the end."

That was the crucial moment of his marvelous life. After that all his

dreams fused and became one. He felt as if from soft metal he had

changed into hard metal. And, moreover, the stimulus of love seemed to

induce a vast intellectual growth; things that had been difficult of

comprehension became lucidly clear; prejudices and ignorances fell

away from him of their own accord. A shut world had suddenly become an

open world.

As a grown man he returned to the benches of evening school. He

learned to write his beautiful copper-plate hand, and knocked the

bottom out of arithmetic and geography. Then came sheer erudition--the

nature of chemical elements, stars in their courses, kings of England

with their Magna Chartas and habeas corpuses. Nor content even then,

he must needs grapple with Roman emperors and Greek republics, and

master the fabled lore concerning gods and goddesses, cloven-footed

satyrs, and naked nymphs of the grove. But he understood that, in

spite of all this culture, in spite, too, of his greater care for

costume and his increased employment of soap and water, Mavis was

still enormously above him. The aunt, a smooth-tongued little woman

whom for a long time he regarded as implacably hostile to his suit,

made him measure the height of the dividing space every time that he

called at North Ride Cottage. Plainly trying to crush him with the

respectability both of herself and of her surroundings, she showed off

all the presents from the Abbey--the china and glass ornaments, the

piano; the photographs of Mr. Barradine on horseback, of the late Lady

Evelyn Barradine in her pony-carriage, of Mr. Barradine's guests with

guns waiting to shoot pheasants. And she conducted him into and out of

the two choicely upholstered rooms which on certain occasions Mr.

Barradine deigned to occupy for a night or a couple of nights--for

instance, when the Abbey House was being painted and he fled the smell

of paint, when the Abbey House was closed and he came down from London

to see his agent on business, when he wanted to make an early start at

the cub-hunting and he couldn't trust the servants of the Abbey House

to rouse him if he slept there.

"Last time of all," and Mrs. Petherick rubbed her hands together and

smiled insinuatingly, "he paid me the pretty compliment of saying that

I made him more comfortable than he ever is in his own house. I said,

'If we can't let you feel at home here, it's something new among the

Pethericks.'"

It seemed that the bond between the humble family and the great one

had existed for several generations. It was a tradition that the

Pethericks should serve the Barradines. Mavis' grandfather had been

second coachman at the Abbey; her aunt's husband had been valet to Mr.

Everard and made the grand tour of Europe with him; aunt herself was

of the Petherick blood, and had been a housemaid at the Abbey. It

also seemed to be a tradition that the acknowledgment made by the

Barradines for this fidelity of the Pethericks should be boundless in

its extent.

Aunt spoke of the Right Honorable Everard as though she held him like

a purse in her pocket, and Dale at one period had some queer thoughts

about this old widow of a dead servant for whom so much had been done

and who yet expected so much more. She said Mr. Barradine had charged

himself with the musical training of another niece, and he would

probably not hesitate to send Mavis to Vienna for the best masters,

should she presently display any natural talent. Her cousin Ruby sang

like an angel from the age of ten; but Mavis so far exhibited more

inclination for instrumental music.

"She'll belie her name, though, if she doesn't pipe up some day, won't

she?"

When Dale secured his appointment at Portsmouth, he and Mavis were not

engaged. She said, "Auntie simply won't hear of it."

"Not now," he said. "But later, when I've made my way, she'll come

round. Mav, will you wait for me?

"Oh, I don't know," said Mavis. "I can't give any promise. I must do

whatever Auntie tells me. I can't go against her wishes."

Yet somehow he felt sure that she would be his. A thousand slimy,

humbugging old aunts should not keep them apart. From Portsmouth he

wrote a letter to his sweetheart on every day of the year for three

years--except on those days of joyous leave when he could get away and

talk to her instead of writing to her. At the end of the three years

the postmastership at Rodchurch became vacant, and he boldly applied

for the place.

His life just then was almost too glorious to be true. All

difficulties and dangers seemed to melt away in a sort of warm haze of

rapture. Mrs. Petherick no longer opposed the marriage; Mr. Barradine,

at the zenith of political power, exerted his influence; the

postmastership was obtained. To top up, Dale made the not unpleasing

discovery that Mavis was an heiress as well as an orphan. She had two

hundred pounds of her very own, "which came in uncommon handy for the

furnishing."

And his education did not cease with wedlock. Mavis was always

improving him, especially in regard to diction. He was pleased to

think that he made very few slips nowadays--an "h" elided here and

there; the vowels still rather broad, more particularly the Hampshire

"a"; and one or two unchanged words, such as "boosum." But these

microscopic faults were of no consequence, and Mav had stopped teasing

him about them. She only warned him of what he knew was Gospel

truth--that the little failures were more frequent under hurry or

excitement, and that when deeply moved he had a tendency to lapse

badly toward the ancient peasant lingo.

Nothing to worry about, however. It merely indicated that he must

never speak on important matters without due preparation. He would be

all right up there, knowing to a syllable what he wished to say; and

he thought with swelling pride of comparatively recent public speeches

and the praise that he had received from them. After the Parish

meeting last January the _Rodhaven District Courier_ had said, "With

a few happy remarks Mr. Dale adverted again to the fallacy of plunging

the village into the expense of a costly fire-engine without first

ascertaining the reliability of the water supply." His very words,

almost _verbatim_ "Happy remarks!" A magistrate on the bench could not

have been better reported or more handsomely praised.

The reviewing of these manifold bounties of Providence had produced a

sedative effect; but now he grew restless once more. He felt that

twinge of doubt, the pin-prick of illogical fear which during the last

eighteen hours had again and again pierced his armor of

self-confidence. Suppose things went against him! No, that would be

too monstrous; that would mean no justice left in England, the whole

fabric of society gone rotten and crumbling to dust.

The spaces between the blinds and window-frames were white instead of

gray; the sun had risen; presently the whole room was visible.

Mavis' little face showed pink and warm as a baby's above the bed

clothes. And a sudden longing for caresses took possession of her

husband. To wake her, fold her in his arms, and then, pacified by the

embrace, perhaps obtain a few hours' sound sleep? For some moments his

desire was almost irresistible. But it would be selfish thus to break

her tranquil repose--poor little tired bird.

He noiselessly slipped from the bed, huddled on some clothes, washed

his face in cold water at the kitchen sink, and let himself out of the

house. The open air refreshed him almost as much as sleep could have

done. He walked nearly five miles and back on the Manninglea Road,

and would not even glance at the busy sorting-room when he came in

again.

Mavis accompanied him to Rodchurch Road Station, and saw him off by

the nine o'clock train. He looked very dignified in his newest bowler

hat and black frock-coat, with a light overcoat on one arm and his

wife's gloved hand on the other; and as he walked up and down the

platform he endeavored to ignore the fact that he was an object of

universal attention.

When buying his ticket he had let fall a guarded word or two about the

nature of his errand, and from the booking-office the news had flown

up and down both sides of the station, round the yard, and even into

the signal cabins. "See Mr. Dale?" "Mr. Dale!" "There's Mr. Dale,

going to London for an interview with the Postmaster-General."

Mr. Melling, the Baptist minister, took off his hat and bowed gravely;

Mrs. Norton, the vicar's wife, smilingly stopped Mavis and spoke as if

she had been addressing a social equal; then they received greetings

from old Mr. Bates, the corn merchant, and from young Richard Bates,

his swaggering good-for-nothing son. And then, as passengers gathered

more thickly, it became quite like a public reception. "Ma'arnin',

sir." "Good day, Mr. Dale." "I hope I see you well, sir."

Mavis got him away from all this company just before the train came

in, and made a last appeal to him. Would he recollect what the deputy

had said about eating that ugly dish which is commonly known as humble

pie?

But at the mention of Mr. Ridgett's advice Dale displayed a slight

flare of irascibility.

"Let Mr. Ridgett mind his own business," he said shortly, "and not

bother himself about mine. And look here," he added. "I am not

trusting that gentleman any further than I see him."

"I think you're wrong there, Will."

"I know human nature." His face had flushed, and he spoke

admonitorily. "I don't need to tell you to be circumspect during my

absence--but you may have a little trouble in keeping Mr. R. in his

proper place. You'll be quick to twig if he supposes the chance has

come to pester you. These London customers--whatever their age--think

when they get along with a pretty woman--"

"Oh, Will, don't be absurd;" and she looked at him wistfully, and

spoke sadly. "I'm not so attractive as you think me. I may be the same

to your eyes--but not to others. It's very doubtful if anybody would

want me now--except those who knew me when I was young."

Then after a moment's reflection she said that, if he consented, she

proposed to relieve his mind of any silly jealous fancies about Mr.

Ridgett by going over to stay with her aunt at North Ride.

"I should be anxious and miserable here, Will, while you were

away--whereas with her I could occupy my thoughts."

He immediately consented to the arrangement. An excellent idea. She

might go that very afternoon, and safely promise to stay three days.

He would write to North Ride and keep her informed as to his

movements.

"Good-by, my sweetheart. God bless you."

"Good luck, Will. Good luck, my dear one."