All this clearly indicated that Gundred’s interference was urgently
needed in the cause of holiness. Day by day she watched the situation,
feeling more and more certain that her mission was the rescue of
her husband. He, meanwhile, bore hourly, with increasing pain, the
tantalizing torments of his paradoxical proximity to the thing he had
so long looked for and now had found in vain. Ivor Restormel wondered
at his good fortune, and only occasionally noticed the crochets of
Kingston and Gundred. Of the two, Gundred had by far the more tactful
temperament. Her dislike, now fast verging towards religious horror,
was not to be discerned except by an eye far more keen than Ivor
Restormel’s. A serene gravity, a cool calm were so much the dominant
characteristics of her nature that the exaggeration of her gravity,
the additional chill in her calm passed unnoticed by one so little
practised in observation. The restless eagerness of Kingston was more
plain and more distressing. Ivor Restormel sometimes wondered what
it was that he did or failed to do that so roused disappointment and
annoyance in this friend who never really seemed a friend, and yet had
gratuitously done so much for him. However, he was not of a temper to
let such matters oppress him. He put them behind him, and disregarded
any tension that he might ever be inclined to discern in his relations
with his employer or his employer’s wife.
So the days passed unsatisfactorily by, until the time came for the
family’s removal to Ivescar. Deep in his heart Kingston had a dim hope
that the sight of Ivescar might once more rekindle a flash of memory
in the boy. It was with trembling anxiety that he watched the first
impressions that Ivor received from his first sight of the Yorkshire
moors. Would the veil lift again, for even the briefest glance from the
soul that dwelt behind? Brakelond had roused the sleeping personality
in the boy; surely it was only to be expected that Ivescar, where so
much had happened, could do no less? And Ivor gratified Kingston’s
hope up to a certain point--only, as before, in doing so to rouse a
keener desire. For from the first sight he instinctively loved the
mountain-country, entered into its charm, appreciated the solemn
majesty of it. He felt, he said, as if he had known it all his life,
as if he and the hills were friends of long standing. And Kingston,
hearing this, listened with quiet face but with a heart agonized in
suspense. The door seemed to be drawing ajar for a greater revelation.
The very next moment might bring some recognition. Kingston would not
admit to himself the hopelessness of his hope. Eagerly he waited for
what the boy might say next. And the door opened no further, but closed
again as fast as ever. Never again could that hidden consciousness
of Ivor’s wake to know itself. The expectation that it ever would
was groundless, tormenting, delusive as all the pleasures held out
by false desire. Kingston suffered more than ever, as each fresh
disappointment grew more painful than the last, though more and more
surely anticipated. The boy knew nothing; no veil could be lifted from
his eyes; he enjoyed his surroundings simply, boyishly, without any
sense of deep memories out of which they were built.
And then, into the midst of these unhappy combinations was precipitated
the new element of Jim Darnley’s presence. Jim Darnley at fifteen was
unfeignedly glad to find a companion not so very much ahead of him in
years. Ivor Restormel was young for his age; Jim Darnley, as an only
son, was inclined to be older than his; and the instant fellowship
that was established between the two set the last seal on Gundred’s
righteous indignation. Kingston did not care whom or what the earthly
Ivor Restormel might care for, so long as his company might still hold
out hopes of glimpses from the past. Moreover, he was glad that Jim
should have a companion, and should, by taking so comfortable a fancy
to him, justify his father in the choice of a secretary. As a man,
and as a man already preoccupied with other matters, he had no sort
of inclination to be jealous of his son’s friendships. With Gundred,
however, the case was altogether different. She loved her only child
with the fierce and almost savage affection often felt by a woman who
cannot understand the object of that affection. Naturally the fact
was the last thing that she would allow her soul to face, but in the
jealousy with which she regarded all new factors in his life might be
read her unacknowledged fear that her intimacy with him might not be as
strong as she made a point of believing it to be. She was one of those
women who are by nature more mother than wife, and in the fullness of
uneventful years had insensibly come to transfer a good deal of her old
urgent passion for Kingston to the child that she had borne him. In
connection with Gundred, mild and cool, ferocity and passion are words
that sound oddly, and yet, under the suave mildness, the dispassionate
decorum of her manner, her feelings for her son had a certain definite
passion, and even ferocity. That the boy never knew it was the
misfortune of his mother’s training; she would not betray the fact of
her love, and had no thought that by so betraying it she might be able
to supplement, in his eyes, the deficiencies of her understanding.
For Gundred was incapable of any true companionship with her son. He
admired her, he loved her distantly and diffidently, but he shrank
from her, and had nothing intimate or warm to say. That she was not
conscious of this flaw in their relation may be called the compensating
mercy of that weakness in herself which had developed that flaw.
She was by now almost entirely devoid of intuitive intelligence.
Or, rather, perhaps, she had so diligently trained herself that, in
the long course of time, she had drilled her mind out of any faint
tendency to perceive and analyze that it may ever have possessed.
Her sense of decency commanded her to live entirely on the surface of
things; prying into secret motives and feelings she considered vulgar
and indecent. Accordingly, if lip-kisses were properly exchanged, and
superficial affection reigned, she made a point of considering that
the soul-relations thus symbolized must be eminently satisfactory.
She looked no further than the symbol, and disliked the idea that
kisses and terms of endearment may, after all, not stand for the love
whose emblems they are--may even, at a pinch, be used to disguise the
lack of that love. And yet her hidden, shamefaced jealousy may be
taken to have been the last flickering phantom of the natural woman’s
insight into domestic relations. All his life she had grudged her son
his friendships, gently nipped them with the frost of her criticism,
sedulously taught him to find fault and be captious.
The education had borne no fruit in Jim, except a bitter one for
Gundred. His nature was too warm and sunny to have any real communion
with his mother’s frosts, and as soon as he found that she always
had something coldly unpleasant to say of everyone he liked, he had
responded, not by discarding his friends, but by drawing farther and
farther away from his mother. With the merciless clear-sightedness of
the young, so vivid, if so limited, he had judged his mother by her own
precepts long since, and found her wanting. She endlessly preached the
loveliest morality, the tenderest forbearance towards all the world,
the most sedulous avoidance of harsh or censorious comment. And yet
she was always sure to pick some fatal flaw in all his friends, to
discover and expose some blemish, to insist on some fault or weakness.
And the very fact that her criticisms were always more or less just
militated, in the end, against her influence. For Jim found that he
liked his friends more than he disliked their failings, and, taking
their side accordingly, he gradually came to look upon his mother’s
unerring eye for other people’s shortcomings as the worst enemy of his
own happiness. Thus pitiably, by the exaggeration of her own virtues,
through the keenness of her own maternal love, Gundred laid up for
herself inevitable disappointment in regard to the one thing that her
heart desired, and innocently prepared for herself a dark version
of the mother’s tragedy. By now Jim had his friends and his life to
himself; outside that precinct, walled and guarded, stood his mother,
alone, too proud to admit that she stood outside, too wilfully blind to
see the unbroken wall that fronted her, and, in any case, too proud to
clamour for admittance.
But the friendship that immediately arose between Jim and Ivor
Restormel was to Gundred as a sudden light of revelation, laying bare
the fact of her exclusion from her son’s life. Characteristically, even
to herself, she would not admit what she saw, but attributed the novel
pain to her anxiety for Jim’s welfare. That Jim should have friends of
his own age had been grudgingly conceded as an odious necessity, to be
cavilled at and snubbed, but impossible to deny. Now, however, that
the pernicious influence that had so mysteriously gripped her husband
threatened to enthral her son as well, Gundred told herself that all
her maternal duties, no less than her conjugal, commanded her to take
the field against the powers of darkness. Her jealousy masqueraded
as pure motherly zeal, and its very bitterness was masked from her
own sight by the disguise of duty. Her feeling, too, was intensified
by the failure of all her usual weapons to discredit Ivor Restormel
in the eyes of his new friend. Jim generally sat and answered her in
submissive affirmatives, while she gently dissected his friends and
pointed out how entirely unworthy they all were of approval, though
not, of course, of pity; now, however, he could not even give her
criticism the courtesy of apparent acquiescence.
He rose up in defence of Ivor, instead of, as usual, listening
pleasantly and then going his own way undeterred--a course which long
experience had taught him was the wisest, especially as his mother
was quite unable to notice that her advice was disregarded, if only
her advice had been politely received. In vain she pointed out to him
that Ivor Restormel’s mind was cheap and crude; that his orthodoxy was
tepid, his manners unnecessarily enthusiastic, his whole deportment
lacking in finish and refinement. Jim could not listen in respectful
silence; he protested, he pleaded. He had become all of a sudden
disloyal and treacherous to his mother. Gundred regarded all opposition
from her son as unfilial, and could not conceive the possibility of his
having any right to hold an opinion at variance with hers. She claimed
to provide him with all his thoughts, henceforth and for ever, on the
ground of having in the distant past provided him with a body to hold
them. That her son was an individual she could never recognise, and on
the rare occasions of his overt revolt, felt the indignant astonishment
of Balaam when he discovered that his ass had a voice of its own.
Accordingly, if Jim now opposed her criticisms, it was only a treason
and a sin engendered in him by this evil spirit that had captured him,
and every word that he said in Ivor’s favour only served to deepen his
mother’s feeling that she was certainly called upon to rid her son and
her husband of this threatening danger that had already produced such
dire results in the disaffection of her nearest and dearest.
‘I cannot have you running about the hills all day with Mr. Restormel,
dear,’ said Gundred blandly, but with decision.
‘But why not, mother?’ protested Jim, who, in normal circumstances
would probably have said, ‘No, mother,’ and gone all the same, Gundred
never knowing.
‘Because I say not, dear,’ replied Gundred inadequately. ‘You must
let mother be the best judge of your companions, dear. Mother knows
best--yes?’
‘I say, you know, I think it is awfully hard lines. Ivor is the best
fellow going. You don’t know him, mother.’
‘Don’t call him Ivor, Jim,’ reproved Gundred. ‘It is not respectful. He
is older than you. And that is another reason why I do not like to see
you wasting your time with him. He is not good company for you.’
‘Yes; but you always say that. What is there wrong with poor old Ivor?’
Having nothing definite to allege, Gundred, of course, found it
necessary to become sibylline and pompous.
‘You must trust mother, dear,’ she answered. ‘There are many things you
are too young to know. It is enough for you to remember that mother
does not wish you to see too much of Mr. Restormel. You must avoid him
as much as possible--though, of course, without being rude and unkind.’
But Gundred’s solemn implication of mysterious knowledge had been
played off so frequently that it had long since lost its effect. Jim
knew well that it only concealed her invariable jealousy.
‘No,’ he said; ‘I am awfully fond of old Ivor. I don’t see why I should
make myself nasty to him. Father likes him no end.’
This did not serve to mollify Gundred.
‘You should always do what mother wishes, without asking questions,’
she rejoined. ‘And what father may do is no concern of yours. Your
father may be taken in like everybody else. But you ought to think it a
privilege to obey your mother. Think of what you owe her--yes?’
Like many women, Gundred believed that, having engendered a child,
entirely without regard for that problematical child’s wishes, must
necessarily give her a lifelong claim on his gratitude. Like many
women, she insisted on the debt, everywhere and always, until, by
ceaseless demands, she had come near to exhausting the supply.
Accordingly the conference continued for a while, unsatisfactorily.
Jim for once had lost his grip on that lamentable diplomacy which
an unwise mother’s exactions so early engrain into her children. He
could no longer even acquiesce. He became warm in Ivor’s defence,
and, with every word, Gundred felt more certainly that his disloyalty
was the crime of the evil force that possessed him. That force must
unquestionably be combated and dispossessed. And soon she found that
she was incapable of coping with Jim. Worse, she could not even have
recourse to the secular arm in the person of her husband, for her
husband was equally under this incalculable diabolical sway. She grew
more angry in her demands as the demands were refused. And Jim, flushed
with opposition, verged on rudeness, would not be brought to promise
the abandonment of his new friend, and treated his mother’s ultimatum
with ominous cheerfulness.
‘You would not like to have to choose between Mr. Restormel and
mother, would you--no?’ suggested Gundred with the supreme imprudence
of excitement. And this weapon, too, had lost its efficacy with too
frequent use. Jim had heard it too often now to retain any illusion as
to its dramatic value.
He was very uncomfortable, though, as he answered: ‘Oh, rot, mother;
you know that is impossible. I wish you would not say such things. You
don’t want to make me out a beast to you, do you, just because I don’t
want to be a beast to Ivor? It’s all rot finding fault with him, you
know. He is a jolly good fellow, and father would not have got him here
if he had not liked him too. So he must be all right, anyway.’
With a fatal lack of tact, Gundred went off on a side issue, and began
protesting against the unnecessary crudeness of her son’s language--a
crudeness which she made haste to attribute to Ivor’s degrading
influence.
‘Well,’ replied Jim, ‘if there is nothing else to say against poor old
Ivor than that! He isn’t the first person in the world who has said
“rot,” and I don’t imagine he will be the last.’ And on that hit he
rose and made his escape, despite his mother’s attempts to restrain him
with loving arms, and exact, by kisses, a more satisfactory termination
to the dialogue.
Gundred was left alone, feeling solitude as she had very rarely felt
it in her life before. This intruder had destroyed the harmony of her
home, had blighted her relations with her submissive subjects, had
sapped loyalty, filial piety and honour in the hearts of all who owed
her duty. This influence was altogether evil, and must be defeated
without loss of another day. It was a blessed work this that Heaven
had appointed her to do, and it must be done briskly, whole-heartedly,
without any lookings-back from the plough, or weaknesses of any kind.
Gundred began to revolve measures, and plans at last grew definite in
her mind. She faced her course of action boldly. Ivor must be got rid
of--somehow, anyhow. _Qui veut la fin, veut les moyens._
And at this point she suddenly grew frightened. This road that she was
treading, into what grim and stony places would it lead her? Gundred,
for the first time in her life, began to feel afraid of herself. The
intense fire of the righteous passion that consumed her, well, it was
alarming, although it was so righteous. So righteous? A very faint
flicker of hesitation dawned in Gundred’s mind. _Was_ this passion of
hers so righteous? It was carrying her, she felt, toward actions that
sooner or later might be dark and dreadful; all the more important,
then, to make sure beforehand that it was an inspiration of Heaven,
not, by any chance, a temptation from Hell. Hitherto Gundred had never
doubted that the Almighty had created her for a shining instance of
the soul which is temptation-proof; now, however, she began to waver
in her belief that she, alone of mortal beings, was set above the
wiles of evil. After all, she was human; it was just barely imaginable
that this uplifting ardour that she felt might proceed from the
Powers of darkness rather than from those of light. That anger and
hatred are often laudable she knew well, but this anger and hatred
of hers were so devastating, so tyrannous that she could not, in all
candour, feel herself absolutely certain of their celestial origin. She
felt, as she pondered the matter, that she was indeed showing proper
conscientiousness, an almost unworthy tenderness towards that Amalekite
of an enemy; but the question was so important, so much hung on it,
that no labour could be wasted in making sure as to the rights and
wrongs of the case.
After all, though, would the Almighty have allowed her to entertain
such passions if He had not meant her to indulge them? Yet even the
greatest saints had been tempted by the devil. Indeed, the greater the
saint the greater the temptation. The problem was nice, and required
careful weighing. In any other case she would readily have conceded
that such a passion might have been inspired without the connivance
of the Almighty; in her own she was so perfectly, though so humbly,
convinced that she lived and spoke as the mouthpiece of Heaven itself
that she could hardly conceive it possible but that any feeling she
nourished must, of necessity, be just and holy, through the very
fact that it was she, the Lady Gundred Darnley, who had engendered
and developed it. However, a pious doubt now besieged her, and she
dutifully cast about in her mind for means to solve this riddle that
her scrupulous sense of right had set before her. Until this was
decided, she felt that it would be unfair to proceed to extremities
even against Ivor Restormel. But how to decide it?
Prayer, Gundred felt, was the only obvious method. The Almighty must
be asked to declare as to the sanctity of the crusade that she was
meditating. Gundred, filled with the consciousness of holiness, would,
nevertheless, go to Heaven to have that consciousness confirmed. In all
ways she was clean and blameless, worthy of the celestial attention.
She looked doubtfully for a moment at the little fair curls that lay
on her dressing-table. But after all, they could not really be called
a fraud on the Almighty, for were they not built up out of her own
hoarded combings? And, for the rest, there was no other spot of deceit
or frailty anywhere in her. So she knelt in confidence, and prayed.
If her hatred for Ivor Restormel were wicked, would God give a sign
by causing it to die immediately? On the other hand, if it continued
to thrive in her heart, she would take its persistence as a sign that
it was very pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and might be pursued to
its ultimate extremities. She laboured the point once more, so that
Heaven could not possibly fail to grasp it. If to-morrow she still
hated Ivor Restormel, she would understand that her hatred was pious
and profitable; if she should awake feeling filled with love and pity
for him, then she must believe that her previous inspiration had been a
temptation of the Evil One. Filled with a sense of imminent revelation,
Gundred went to bed, and could hardly sleep for anxiety as to the
morrow, and the sentiments that the morrow would show forth.
It was late when she woke from tardy and troubled dreams. Over her soul
for a minute or two there brooded a heavy weight of mystery. Something
wonderful was immediately to happen. But for a moment she could not
discern what it was. Then she remembered her prayer, and fell to
scanning her morning’s feelings for its answer. The revelation was at
hand. But it would only burst upon her fully when she had come face to
face with her imagined enemy. In a ferment of anxiety she had herself
dressed, then hurried downstairs, her colour perceptibly heightened and
her demeanour almost ruffled by the tense anxiety of her expectation.
Into the morning-room she hastened, eager to find Ivor Restormel. There
he was; she paused upon the threshold watching him, and waiting for
the miraculous guidance that Heaven would certainly vouchsafe. Had her
feelings for him changed during the night? In a flash of satisfaction
the answer came, admitting no further question or cavil.
For she hated him as much as ever. Yes, certainly as much as ever--even
more, perhaps. And nothing could so clearly prove, after her prayers,
that her hatred was pleasing to the Almighty. If it had been evil,
He would, of course, have annulled it, according to request. God
evidently meant her to hate Ivor Restormel, and to doubt any more
would be nothing short of wicked infidelity. Triumphant in perfect
satisfaction, in self-complacency restored and enhanced by this
prodigious proof of God’s approval, Gundred addressed herself quietly
to everyday life once more. Strengthened in her Heaven-sent attitude of
mind, she advanced towards the breakfast-table with an added majesty of
calm, and scattered greetings with a fair assumption of benevolence.
With the answer to her prayer a sense of rest had come upon her and
made it easier for her to be kind even to Ivor Restormel. She found the
others of her party busy discussing some new and interesting point. Jim
made haste to enlighten her.
‘The Rovers are going down Long Kern this morning, mother,’ he
exclaimed. ‘And Ivor says he is going with them. I am awfully keen to
go, too. Don’t you think I might?’
Gundred instantly avenged herself for the suffering that her son’s
perverse disloyalty had been so long inflicting upon her.
‘Most certainly not,’ she replied. ‘I have a perfect horror of such
places. You would not wish him to go, Kingston--no?’
‘There can’t be any danger,’ replied Kingston; ‘they will have
efficient ropes and things. And Weston says there are the most
wonderful caves at the bottom.’
‘Are you really going, Mr. Restormel?’ asked Gundred, without paying
further heed to Jim’s protests or Jim’s disappointment. She saw in a
second how brilliantly God had answered her prayers for help. Long Kern
was a small but deadly rift in the limestone of the hill above, which
dropped three hundred feet of narrow shaft sheer down to unfathomable
caverns below. Gundred saw clearly that the whole problem of her life
was to be solved by a miracle. For Heaven may make a miracle out of any
particularly happy coincidence. And what coincidence could possibly be
more happy, more miraculous than this? For God clearly meant to destroy
Ivor Restormel underground.
Ivor, meanwhile, declared that he was eagerly looking forward to the
exploration. The Rovers, about a dozen of them, were to make the
descent at midday, and meant to stay in the caves down below until they
had unravelled, as far as possible, the labyrinth of their passages. As
for precautions and methods, they were to use rope-ladders and guiding
wires, so that no real risk of any sort could be anticipated.
Gundred listened with a wise smile. She knew better. Ivor Restormel
might take as many precautions as he pleased; nothing could avail him
against the combined weight of Gundred’s prayers and Heaven’s attention
to them. This scheme of his was quite obviously the direct inspiration
of the Powers above, working in Ivor to his destruction, as they had
worked so many years ago for the fatal hardening of Pharaoh’s heart
in Egypt. Gundred blandly acquiesced, and lent an unusually pleasant
countenance to the young man’s exposition of his plans. As he was so
evidently doomed, she might fairly relax the righteousness of her wrath
against him. Even for one merciful moment she thought of interposing,
of saving Ivor’s life by deprecating his scheme. But the moment
passed--she saw how irreverent it would be to counter Heaven’s design.
And to oppose Ivor’s plan would necessarily be to oppose Heaven’s also.
So Gundred piously resigned everything into God’s hands, and stood
aside to let matters take their course.
Jim, meanwhile, was pressing her with pleas that he also might be
allowed to join the party. His father, too, did not seem disinclined to
grant his request. Gundred returned briskly to the immediate present.
No, no; this complicating element must on no account be introduced. She
could trust Heaven to look after Ivor Restormel when once he was inside
Long Kern, but she was not at all inclined to trust It to discriminate
between the innocent and the guilty, when it came to arranging the
rock-fall or the sudden rush of water which she anticipated with a
certain holy complacency. All Ivor’s companions would almost certainly
perish with him. On no account, then, must her own precious child run
any risk of being included in the Evil One’s condemnation. She looked
at Jim, so eager, so young, so brilliant.
There was nothing in the world her hidden nature loved so hungrily.
By comparison even her great love for Kingston was very much a matter
of pride and habit. But Jim was her own, of her own body, of her own
blood, the crowning achievement of her life, the visible evidence of
Heaven’s approval. In himself he was altogether lovely and delightful.
And beyond all that again, beyond his own personal qualities, he stood
to Gundred for the other thing she most venerated and cherished in the
world--the glory of March and Brakelond. When he grew up he was to
resume his mother’s name, and unite the resplendency of the Mortimers
with the money of the Darnleys; and then, when her father died, it
was an open secret that the dignities of the House would be revived
in the person of her son. Gundred felt that through her own wifely
and motherly virtues she had been privileged to support the banner of
March and Brakelond. It was because she had always been so humble, so
devout, that such an honour had been vouchsafed her, and her son was
doubly precious in her eyes, not only in himself, but as the Duke of
her own providing, who should continue, from his high place, to set an
example of Evangelical piety to the people of England. She shuddered
at the thought of allowing her jewel to run into danger, and made haste
to make it very certain to Jim that in no circumstances would he be
allowed to share Ivor’s descent of Long Kern.
‘You don’t want to get wet and cold right down there in the horrid
dark--no?’ concluded Gundred ingratiatingly.
‘But it won’t be wet,’ protested the boy. ‘Father has had the stream
dammed about two hundred yards above the hole. Otherwise they would not
have been able to go down at all. They would all have been drowned. The
water is very high just now, after the rain. But, as it is, it will be
quite dry down in the caves.’
But Gundred, strong in her private foresight of Heaven’s intentions,
could not be swayed from her decision. Kingston was forced into the
contest, and found himself compelled, for the sake of peace and
dignity, to endorse his wife’s prohibition. Jim subsided at last,
flushed with resentful disappointment. Gundred, meantime, was eating
her egg dispassionately, with her usual seraphic tranquillity, while
her heart was filled with strange, conflicting feelings. She looked
across at Ivor Restormel with secret curiosity. She knew that he was
doomed, and in the last moments could not stifle a certain pity which
struck her as being faintly irreligious and painfully human. But he
was so young and so beautiful, however evil and pernicious. To die
down there in the eternal darkness, caught like a rat in a trap by the
vengeance of Heaven, that was a pitiable fate. That it would assuredly
descend Gundred could no longer entertain a doubt, and, when she
remembered that it was her own prayers that had jogged Heaven into this
intervention, she felt a dim pricking of remorse. During the few hours
that remained she would be kind to the predestined victim. Ivor was
pleasantly surprised by the suavity with which Lady Gundred offered him
a second cup of tea.
‘Do have some more,’ pleaded Gundred; ‘you will want to be properly
prepared for this wonderful expedition of yours. Shall I tell them to
make you up a little lunch?’
In her heart of hearts she knew that he would never need lunch on earth
again, and her economical temper grieved to think of the hard-boiled
eggs and the cress sandwiches that would be wasted if her offer were
accepted. But, as he could not be expected to know how profitless
Heaven intended to make any packets of lunch that she might provide,
she felt that the kindness must in common decency be offered.
Ivor, however, replied that he hoped to be back at Ivescar in plenty
of time for tea, and that he would not trouble about food till then.
Gundred smiled and sighed to think how tragically he was mistaken.
Her feelings were firm and rigid. Long thought and long anxiety had
crystallized now into a mystic ecstasy of certainty. In the previous
weeks she had known sore vacillations and distresses. But now the
friendly Powers had made everything plain once more. Until this morning
she had felt a certain weakness and need of earthly counsel; as a sound
Evangelical Protestant, she had, of course, a proper pious horror of
the priesthood and the confessional; and yet there had been times when
she would have liked to pour forth her troubles to a fellow-creature.
Had she consulted a doctor rather than a priest, he might have told
her that an _idée fixe_ is not the healthiest companion for a woman of
self-contained and secret nature, and that the previous generations of
March and Brakelond, feeble-minded or eccentric, held out a special
prospect of disaster when such an _idée fixe_ was cherished by herself.
However, by now, the time for warnings and advice was past. Gundred
was fully possessed by the mania that had arisen so naturally from
her devout habits and her weak mind, wrought on by jealousy and by a
tyrannous consciousness of being herself the chosen of Heaven. Now she
faced what she foresaw to be the punishment of her enemy, with the cold
calm of Jael. She was glad that Heaven had taken the affair so promptly
into its own hands.
Once before, her Celestial Ally, she remembered, had intervened by a
miracle to relieve her from the perilous presence of Isabel Darrell.
Now the same prodigy of favour was to be repeated in a different form,
and who was she to carp at the tender mercies of the Almighty? With
folded hands and placid heart she sat by to let matters take their
appointed way. Nothing in all the world would so utterly have horrified
her as the statement that she desired the death of Ivor Restormel. She
repeated to herself again and again that she wanted nothing of the
sort, but had perfect trust in the wisdom of the All-wise. She had no
desires of any kind; nothing but pure faith. And to wish for anyone’s
death, how very abominable and unchristian and unwomanly! Far, far from
her gentle mind was any such truculent passion; the utmost that she
would own to herself was that she would find it impossible to grieve
when Heaven had taken her enemy to its mercy. And, as for altering
the course of events, that was clearly out of the question. She could
only await what Heaven should send. She now forgot that she herself,
as it were, had given Heaven a nudge in the matter. She deliberately
disclaimed all responsibility, and plumed herself on the mildness and
resignation that her conduct showed. Stiff and calm in what by now was
nothing short of monomania, the unfortunate woman sat and smiled, as
her own damnation passed onwards to its accomplishment.
Meanwhile, however, her husband was making a suggestion. She came back
out of her dream to hear it.
‘Why shouldn’t you and I and Jim go up to Long Kern and watch them
go down?’ he said, anxious to indemnify Jim as far as possible for
the disappointment which his mother had inflicted. As soon as Gundred
understood the proposition she gasped. This seemed almost too heavy a
trial for her to bear. Then she suddenly understood that this was the
sanctifying sacrifice that Heaven demanded of her. She must stand by
and watch the fulfilment of her prayers so as to make the intervention
of Heaven complete and holy. She signified her assent.
‘But we must be back in time for lunch, dear,’ she conditioned, living
her dual life as ever, one-half of her personality dwelling perpetually
in dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, while the other soared into the high
domains of religious frenzy. Then, breakfast being over, she rose and
went her way mechanically upon her household duties, pending the awful
consummation of her destiny, at which she was so soon to assist.
At the appointed time she was ready for the start. The others were
waiting for her in the hall, and they proceeded silently up towards
the hills. Jim was too excited to talk much; a scheme that demanded
all his attention was budding in his brain; Gundred, by now, was
moving in a remote world far above earthly speech, in communion with
the invisible. Ivor himself vaguely discerned some strange exaltation
beneath the restraint of Gundred’s mood, and was reluctant to intrude
his conversation. And Kingston himself was so sick and tired of his
long struggle to achieve the impossible recognition that he had not the
heart nor the temper to say much to the perverse human individuality
that intervened so bitterly between him and the eternal memory it
contained. So they surmounted the long ridges of limestone, and came
out at last upon the stretches of moor above that undulated gently
upward towards the steep skirt of the Simonstone. The air that morning
was clean and pure, filled with a white light and a bracing virility
of tone; much rain had fallen in the last two days, and the atmosphere
was moist and brilliant in colouring; great snowy ranges of cloud
went sailing gloriously across the wet azure of Heaven, and the great
mountain above towered high overhead in soft masses of brown and
purplish green, while before them the moorland rolled away in waves
of rust-coloured velvet, to where it suddenly ceased, in a sharp line
that seemed the rim of the world, beneath which, far below, lay the
broad valley and the plain-lands. The surface of the fell had folds
and dimples and crests, but in the huge monotony of the expanse it
appeared a waved sea of colour. Down the little gullies ran here and
there a stream, riotous after the rains of over-night; here and there
in the levels lay a small peat-pool that glittered like a forgotten
silver shield among the sedges. And then they came at last to a deeper,
steeper cañon, which soon broke off in a blind hollow, ringed in by
precipitous banks of heather. And here it was that the stream which
filled the channel disappeared. Long Kern was impressive in its very
unimpressiveness. It was but a short and narrow slit between two masses
of flat white limestone, and across the orifice a fallen boulder made a
bridge. Hardly two yards intervened between the one lip and the other.
And in that space yawned a solid shaft of black night. Sheer down and
down fell the water that filled the chasm, three hundred feet and
more, to the rayless labyrinth of caverns that made the heart of the
mountain. Coming suddenly across this rift in the moorland one would
at first have thought it nothing, a drop, perhaps of a fathom or so.
It was terribly inconspicuous and prosaic. Then, stepping along the
rocky bridge that crossed it, one might be struck with a suggestion
of its possibilities, and, throwing a rock into the darkness, might
hear, after a long pause, the crashing rumble of its impact far below,
as it bounded and dashed from ledge to ledge and side to side of the
gulf, till it sent faintly up to the listener’s ear its last remote
thunderous echoes from the black lake three hundred feet below, where
the dim roar reverberated along the walls and ramifications of the
cavern.
On the brink the party paused. Ordinarily the place was lonely and
desolate, but to-day there were signs of occupation and activities.
Beams were stretched across the narrow gulf, and coils of rope were
lying ready. The Rovers were scattered about, making their preparations
for the descent. They were a club of professional men from the
neighbouring large manufacturing towns, who amused themselves by
exploring the recesses of the caves that honeycombed the Simonstone.
On many previous occasions Kingston had made their efforts easier.
And to-day, for the exploration of Long Kern, he had given them
indispensable help by having the rain-swollen stream dammed off. The
bed of the river was now nearly dry, and the water diverted into
another channel. Otherwise, as Jim had said, the descent would have
been impossible. The Rovers were very grateful, accordingly, for this
spirited collaboration, and gave the Darnleys a warm welcome. To all
four they extended an offer to make the descent, and when it appeared
that Ivor Restormel was the only one who would accept their invitation,
they showed a little disappointment. With Jim especially they pled to
accompany them, tantalizing him cruelly, and were only made to desist
at last by the unequivocal firmness of Lady Gundred’s hostility
towards the proposal. And so they set about the last preparations.
Gaily talking and laughing among themselves, they proceeded to the
fastening of ropes and the final arrangements for the descent.
Suddenly Gundred could bear the ordeal no longer. The matter-of-fact,
innocent cheerfulness of it all was too much for her, with her terrible
secret foreknowledge. She knew that Heaven had doomed every one of
those happy people, so as to make sure of Ivor Restormel. Of course,
he alone might fall, or strangle, or have a stone dropped on his head.
But, on the whole, it was far more likely, far more in accordance
with Scriptural precedent, that guilty and innocent should all perish
together. So much the worse for the innocent! Her mystic exaltation
did not go the length of protesting against their fatal plan at the
eleventh hour, but it was not quite firm and faithful enough to bear
the grim spectacle unmoved. She turned hastily and moved away up the
empty bed of the stream, leaving Jim and her husband to watch the
descent. From the bend in the river-bed she turned to take a last look
at her enemy. He was still chattering and smiling with his friends,
adapting the rope, adjusting satchels and packages. Kingston was saying
something at which they both laughed. Then Gundred, very sick and heavy
at heart, in spite of her sense of sacred ecstasy, turned the corner
and was out of sight of the pothole.
Kingston eyed the narrow gulf of darkness with unspoken dread. Now, at
the last moment, he disliked Ivor’s determination to share the descent.
He hated the idea of watching the boy disappear into that night below.
It seemed too symbolic of that eternal night into which the restored
memory must one day pass again. And yet, the granting of his own
importunate desire, what had it brought him except the bitterness of a
yet fiercer, more insatiable desire? For a while he would even be glad
to have rest from his tormenting, baffling intimacy with the secret
thing that could never hear the cry of his voice. Let the boy go down,
then, into the darkness, carrying with him that wonderful mystical
thing that he enshrined. Kingston’s fingers were raw and bleeding,
his whole soul broken and agonized with long fruitless plucking and
battering at the locked doors of that shrine. Let it go, then, for
half an hour, and leave him at peace. As it had returned to him once
before, out of the greater darkness of the grave, so, in the course of
a few moments, it would come back to light again from the darkness of
the pit, and all his torments would be renewed, growing ever keener
and fiercer towards the dim end that he dared not try to foresee. The
knowledge of doom was black and heavy upon him as he watched the boy
preparing for his disappearance, and, in the concentration of his
bitter mood, he hardly heard the voice of Jim, now once more raised in
eager pleading to be allowed the joy of the descent.
Gundred meanwhile was wandering on in a stupor, not thinking, not
daring to think. The whole of life seemed to her to be hanging in
suspense. The next half-hour was to vindicate her righteousness and
make dreadfully manifest the majesty of Heaven. Her brain oscillated
in coma, and she was no longer conscious of any pain or any feeling
at all. Everything passed from her mind except the actual physical
pleasure of the moment, the keen freshness of the air, the lovely
colours of life, the myriad little voices that haunted the world. Then
suddenly they were all merged in one vehement, rushing murmur. She
looked down. She had arrived at the dam that diverted the stream.
A bank of turf and stones had been built, and against its barrier the
brown water surged and ravened angrily, in a froth of white bubbles
and spume, eager to take its old way down into the pothole and the
caverns below. Disappointed, however, of its hope, it must needs go
foaming and scolding along an unaccustomed course, over green grasses,
drenched and streaming in its current, and down a slope of rush and
sedge. Soothed unconsciously by its hum, Gundred sat down and idly
watched the raging swirl of the water. It was well that the stream had
been thus firmly held back and diverted, for a huge mass of water it
was that made it so turbulent. After two days’ rain on the Simonstone,
all the waters of the mountain were in flood, and the Long Kern should
naturally have been filled with a roaring spate. Suddenly Gundred’s
human consciousness was vaguely aware of an alteration. Something
seemed to be shifting, the noise of the fretted torrent changing its
note. Then she saw a filament of water percolating. As she watched, it
widened. The dam was not strong enough to bear the surging wrath behind
it. The dam was breaking; Gundred awoke with a violent start. She rose
and turned impulsively towards the pothole--on the point of running, of
shrieking a warning, of doing something helpful or human. Then, in an
instant, she understood that she could do nothing--understood what it
was that Heaven had achieved for her. Her prayer had been answered. She
must give thanks, and stand aside.
Firmly, decidedly, with head carried high, and the fanatic’s mad light
in her eyes, Gundred turned away from the stream and walked swiftly
home across the moor. What came after was the work of Heaven. Heaven
must take full responsibility. Heaven had broken the dam; Heaven might
easily have ordained that the descent should not yet have commenced.
Gundred had done nothing. Heaven had done it all. She could only go
quietly home and trust in the wise mercies of Providence. In an hour or
so she would hear what had happened.
But, though she did not know it, the strain on her endurance was
fearfully heavy. She found her mind perpetually wandering back to the
Long Kern, wondering in an agony whether the explorers had already
embarked on their adventure when that roaring volume of brown water
had swept thunderously down upon them--wondering whereabouts in
that perilous chasm it had caught them, what it must feel like to
be so suddenly, so fearfully battered out of life, and swept away
into the abysses of the Underworld. Her brain was a sickening chaos.
Fire and water, fire and water; the two great moments of her life
had come to her through fire and water. Through the roaring waters
of that broken dam she vaguely remembered the roaring fires of
Brakelond. Isabel--Isabel--in a way, had given her life for Gundred;
and Gundred?--Gundred, after many years, had, in a way, stood by and
watched the taking of other lives. Dimly, instinctively, she could not
refrain from comparing the two catastrophes, from feeling a blind,
illogical sense that they stood in some mystic relation to each other.
And so, alone, she came at last to Ivescar.
Her training stood her in good stead, and enabled her to go
subconsciously through the routine duties of her day. She did not put
off lunch when her husband failed to return, but ate it in solitary
state, and heartily--recognising that it was always her duty to sustain
her body. Her soul, however, was very far away. In her inmost heart
she knew that Ivor Restormel was dead. She did not dare to face the
knowledge and understand it, but it was there, gnawing, persistent.
She steeled herself to bear the terrible news that Jim and Kingston
must soon be bringing back. And lunch must be kept hot for them. As the
hours went by and brought no certainty to end her growing suspense, the
pandemonium of clamouring voices in Gundred’s brain grew louder, more
confused, more frightening. She seemed on the very edge of something
very horrible--she, the favourite, the chosen, the glorified of Heaven.
Something very horrible was surging into sight. In another moment she
would see it. Terror--mysterious, ghastly--seized and gripped her. Then
in the silence she heard approaching footsteps. The Horror was at hand.
Gundred rose, pale and trembling, exerting all her forces, even in this
last moment, to preserve the outward decorum of her demeanour. The door
opened, and her husband came into the room. She stared at him in dumb
dread. For a moment he could command no words. In silence his eyes met
hers. His voice was low and husky and shattered, when at last he had
gathered strength to speak.
‘Gundred,’ he whispered--‘Gundred....’
She interrupted him. Now, in the fulfilment of her destiny, a dreadful
courage flowed back to her.
‘Something terrible has happened,’ she said; ‘tell me quickly.’
He was too busy with his own grief to notice that she seemed prepared
for what she was about to hear.
‘The dam,’ he answered--‘the dam. It broke. It burst as soon as they
had gone down.’
Gundred clasped her hands tightly to prevent their trembling from being
observed. She spoke as if in a dream.
‘And Ivor,’ she asked, unconsciously using the Christian name--‘Ivor,
is he safe?’
Kingston laughed bitterly.
‘Safe?’ he cried--‘safe? Ivor is dead. They are all dead. I waited
till they had got the bodies up. The flood soon subsided, and the men
were able to get down and find the bodies. That is why I waited.’
Gundred moaned. The reality was more crushing than she had ever feared.
God had granted her desire, but in a terrific way, and its granting
brought her small joy. She almost ceased to feel holy.
‘Oh, Kingston,’ she murmured.... ‘Kingston, how awful! Too shocking to
think of--too shocking to think of.’ She shook her head, covering her
eyes as if to shut out the vision of those wretched adventurers caught
and swept away by the flood which her prayers had loosed upon them.
In that moment she felt a murderess. And the sanctity of the murder
faded from her mind. Then she turned to the one spot of comfort in the
whole disaster. What a merciful interposition of Heaven it was that had
prevented her from allowing Jim to make the descent. That preservation
in itself showed the special favour of the Almighty. He had set her son
apart from the catastrophe that He had ordained. Her voice was calmer
as she uncovered her face and spoke again.
‘And Jim?’ she asked. ‘What have you done with him? I do pray he did
not see this dreadful sight. Poor little Jim! What an awful shock it
would have been!’ Then she caught her husband’s eye, and paused in
sudden terror of what she saw there.... ‘Kingston?’ she cried. He could
give no answer. ‘Kingston?’ she repeated sharply, her voice rising to a
shrill note of anxiety. ‘Kingston, what is it?’
‘Jim went down with the others,’ said her husband in a low, colourless
tone. ‘He wanted so much to go. I said he might. Jim went down with the
others.’
Gundred gave a short cry.
‘Then how did you succeed in saving him?’ she gasped. ‘How was it he
was not drowned with the others? Kingston, how did you succeed in
saving him?’
‘I did not,’ answered Kingston very quietly. ‘Jim is drowned. They are
bringing back his body now with the others.’
‘No,’ said Gundred, in a fearful stupefaction of calm--‘no, it is
not possible. Jim is not dead. God must have saved him. It is not
possible.’ Then her quiet cracked like glass. ‘Kingston,’ she screamed,
‘say it is not possible. Jim is safe.’
The father shook his head. ‘Jim is drowned,’ he repeated. ‘Drowned with
the others.’
A deadly silence fell between them. Gundred pressed both hands to her
head. The brain inside was a fiery wheel of agony, blinding her with
the coruscations of its anguish. Then at last her hands sank to her
sides and she looked up. Her face was fixed and ghastly, her voice
unnaturally stolid as she spoke.
‘There!’ said Gundred very slowly and deliberately. ‘That is what comes
of disobeying one’s mother!’ Then she broke abruptly into peal on peal
of high laughter. Shrieking with horrible merriment, she fell back upon
the sofa, rocking to and fro in the convulsion of her madness. Kingston
dropped into a chair, and hid his head in his hands. It seemed as if
that fearful noise would never cease. And yet he could see nothing,
hear nothing. He was alone for ever in the black darkness. Everything
was gone. And still Gundred sat and laughed.
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
* * * * *
Telegrams: ‘Scholarly, London.’
41 and 43 Maddox Street, Bond Street, London, W., _January, 1907_.
Mr. Edward Arnold’s List of New Books.
MEMORIES.
By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OWEN TUDOR BURNE, G.C.I.E., K.C.S.I.
_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations._ =15s. net.=
Sir Owen Burne joined the 20th Regiment (now the Lancashire Fusiliers)
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An interesting chapter of Sir Owen’s reminiscences deals with the year
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The book is a lively record of a distinguished career, freely
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LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.
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SOME PROBLEMS OF EXISTENCE.
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Dealing with such Problems of Existence as the origin of life, spirit
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The author’s method is well calculated to appeal to the general reader,
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SIX RADICAL THINKERS.
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These brilliant essays possess an exceptional interest at the present
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A PICNIC PARTY IN WILDEST AFRICA.
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Being a Sketch of a Winter’s Trip to some of the Unknown Waters of the
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* * * * *
THE PRINCES OF ACHAIA AND THE CHRONICLES OF MOREA.
A Study of Greece in the Middle Ages.
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THUCYDIDES MYTHISTORICUS.
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GREEK LIVES FROM PLUTARCH.
Newly Translated by C. E. BYLES, B.A.,
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A HUNTING CATECHISM.
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INDIVIDUAL OWNERSHIP AND THE GROWTH OF MODERN CIVILIZATION.
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The articles which are here presented in the form of a volume were
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showing that the transformation of the communal into the particularist
family took place in Scandinavia, and was largely due to the peculiar
geographical character of the Western slope, traces the development of
modern Europe from the action of the particularist type of society upon
the fabric of Roman civilization.
* * * * *
MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS.
FOURTH SERIES.
By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., F.R.S.
_Large crown 8vo. With Photogravure Illustrations._ =7s. 6d.=
This fresh instalment of Sir Herbert Maxwell’s delightful ‘Memories of
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LETTERS OF MARY SIBYLLA HOLLAND.
Selected and Edited by her son, BERNARD HOLLAND.
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THE REMINISCENCES OF LADY DOROTHY NEVILL.
Edited by her Son, RALPH NEVILL.
_Demy 8vo. With Portrait._ =15s. net.=
SIXTH IMPRESSION.
There are very few persons living whose knowledge of English Society
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and fewer still whose recollections of a period extending from the
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Lord Ellenborough, and a dozen others--while a multitude of more
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A reproduction of a recent crayon portrait by M. Cayron is given as
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* * * * *
PERSONAL ADVENTURES AND ANECDOTES OF AN OLD OFFICER.
By Colonel JAMES P. ROBERTSON, C.B.
_Demy 8vo. With Portraits._ =12s. 6d. net.=
The phrase ‘a charmed life’ is hackneyed, but it may be used with
peculiar appropriateness to describe Colonel Robertson’s military
career. ‘The history of my nose alone,’ says the cheery old soldier
in his Preface, ‘would fill a chapter,’ and, indeed, not only his
nose, but his whole body, seem to have spent their time in, at all
events, running a risk of being seriously damaged in every possible
way. The book, in fact, is simply full of fine confused fighting and
hair-breadth escapes.
Joining the 31st Regiment in 1842, Colonel Robertson took part in
the Sutlej Campaign from Moodkee to Sobraon. He was in the Crimea,
and throughout the Mutiny he commanded a regiment of Light Cavalry,
doing repeatedly the most gallant service. The incidents of life in
Ireland and the Ionian Islands during the intervals of peace are worthy
of ‘Charles O’Malley,’ and are described with something of Lever’s
raciness of touch.
* * * * *
THE AFTERMATH OF WAR.
An Account of the Repatriation of Boers and Natives in the Orange River
Colony.
By G. B. BEAK.
_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Map._ =12s. 6d. net.=
The author, after serving nearly two and a half years in the South
African War, was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Orange River
Colony Repatriation Department, and subsequently Assistant Director
of Relief under the Government. His information is thus not only
first-hand but unique. The book is illustrated with some extremely
interesting photographs.
‘The book is sure to become a standard work, for it throws a flood
of light upon and solves many of the knotty questions of that
period which have agitated men’s minds at home and abroad.’--_Daily
Telegraph._
* * * * *
PATROLLERS OF PALESTINE.
By the REV. HASKETT SMITH, M.A., F.R.G.S.
EDITOR OF ‘MURRAY’S HANDBOOK TO SYRIA AND PALESTINE,’ 1902;
_Large crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =10s. 6d.=
The late Mr. Haskett Smith was a well-known authority on the Holy Land,
and in this book he personally conducts a typical party of English
tourists to some of the more important sites hallowed by tradition.
‘The reader is not only charmed by the pleasant experiences and the
interesting discussions of the pilgrims, but at the same time he
acquires a great deal of information which would otherwise have to be
sought in a combination of cyclopædia, “Speaker’s Commentary,” and
guide-book.’--_Tribune._
* * * * *
POLITICAL CARICATURES, 1906.
By Sir F. CARRUTHERS GOULD.
_Super royal 4to._ =6s. net.=
The change of Government, with the consequent variety of political
topics, very greatly enhances the attraction of this new volume of
cartoons by ‘Sir F. C. G.’ If the increased acerbity of political
relations is found to be slightly reflected in these later cartoons,
the many fresh and interesting studies are no less happily handled than
those produced under the Conservative régime.
* * * * *
NEW FICTION.
_Crown 8vo._ =6s.= _each._
THE SUNDERED STREAMS.
By REGINALD FARRER,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE GARDEN OF ASIA’ AND ‘THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS.’
BENEDICT KAVANAGH.
By GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE SEETHING POT’ AND ‘HYACINTH.’
THE GOLDEN HAWK.
By EDITH RICKERT,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE REAPER’ AND ‘FOLLY.’
FOURTH IMPRESSION.
THE LADY ON
THE DRAWINGROOM FLOOR.
By M. E. COLERIDGE.
SECOND IMPRESSION.
THE MILLMASTER.
By C. HOLMES CAUTLEY.
SECOND IMPRESSION.
QUICKSILVER AND FLAME.
By ST. JOHN LUCAS.
SECOND IMPRESSION.
THE BASKET OF FATE.
By SIDNEY PICKERING.
OCCASION’S FORELOCK.
By VIOLET A. SIMPSON.
* * * * *
ABYSSINIA OF TO-DAY.
An Account of the First Mission sent by the American Government to the
King of Kings.
By ROBERT P. SKINNER,
COMMISSIONER TO ABYSSINIA, 1903-1904; AMERICAN CONSUL-GENERAL; FELLOW
OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY; SOCI DOU FELIBRIGE.
_Demy 8vo. With numerous Illustrations and Map._ =12s. 6d. net.=
The object of this American Mission to the Emperor Menelik was to
negotiate a commercial treaty. The Mission was extremely well received,
and the expedition appears to have been a complete success. The
picture drawn by Mr. Skinner of the Abyssinians and their ruler is an
exceedingly agreeable one; and his notes on this land of grave faces,
elaborate courtesy, classic tone, and Biblical civilization, its
history, politics, language, literature, religion, and trade, are full
of interest; there are also some valuable hints on the organization and
equipment of a caravan.
* * * * *
WESTERN TIBET AND THE BRITISH BORDERLAND.
By CHARLES A. SHERRING, M.A., F.R.G.S.,
INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE; DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF ALMORA.
_Royal 8vo. With Illustrations, Maps and Sketches._ =21s. net.=
During the last few years Tibet, wrapped through the centuries in
mystery, has been effectively ‘opened up’ to the gaze of the Western
world, and already the reader has at his disposal an enormous mass of
information on the country and its inhabitants. But there is in Western
Tibet a region which is still comparatively little known, which is
especially sacred to the Hindu and Buddhist, and in which curious myths
and still more curious manners abound; and it is of this portion of the
British Borderland, its government, and the religion and customs of its
peoples, that Mr. Sherring writes.
The book contains a thrilling account by Dr. T. G. Longstaff, M.B.,
F.R.G.S., of an attempt to climb Gurla Mandhata, the highest mountain
in Western Tibet, with two Swiss guides.
* * * * *
LETTERS OF GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L., LL.D., Hon. Fellow of Pembroke
College, Oxford.
Arranged by his Daughter, LUCY CRUMP.
_Demy 8vo. With Portraits._ =12s. 6d. net.=
Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s ‘Letters’ form, with a few connecting links written
by his daughter, an autobiography whose charm lies in its intimate
portrayal of a character which was, in its curious intensity, at
once learned, tender, and humorous. He wrote as he talked, and his
talk was famous for its fund of anecdote, of humour, of deep poetic
feeling, of vigorous literary criticism, and no less vigorous political
sentiment. As an Oxford undergraduate, he was one of the founders,
together with Mr. Swinburne, Prof. A. V. Dicey, and Mr. James Bryce,
of the Old Mortality Club. He was intimately connected also with the
Pre-Raphaelites. At college, at home, on the Continent, or in America,
everywhere he writes with the pen of one who observes everything, and
who could fit all he saw that was new into his vast knowledge of the
past. His editions of ‘Boswell’s Johnson,’ of ‘Johnson’s Letters,’ and
‘The Lives of the Poets’ have passed into classical works. But that
his writings were not exclusively Johnsonian is abundantly shown by
such books as the Letters of Hume, Swift, General Gordon, and Rossetti,
as well as by his ‘Life of Sir Rowland Hill,’ his ‘History of Harvard
University,’ and various collections of essays.
* * * * *
LETTERS TO A GODCHILD ON THE CATECHISM AND CONFIRMATION.
By ALICE GARDNER,
ASSOCIATE AND LECTURER OF NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AUTHOR OF
‘FRIENDS OF THE OLDEN TIME,’ ‘THEODORE OF STUDIUM,’ ETC.
_Foolscap 8vo._ =2s. 6d. net.=
This series of actual Letters written to an actual Godchild on the
subject of Confirmation is intended for parents and teachers who either
feel that some of the instruction to be derived from the Catechism is
obscured by archaism of style and thought, or who desire something in
the way of a supplement to the Catechism. It is not intended to take
the place of works of formal religious instruction.
* * * * *
TRANSLATIONS INTO LATIN AND GREEK VERSE.
By H. A. J. MUNRO,
SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
With a Prefatory Note by J. D. DUFF,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
_Medium 8vo. With a Portrait._ =6s. net.=
These translations were originally printed for private circulation
in the autumn of 1884, a few months before the author’s death. They
were never published, and for years past the price asked for the book
second-hand has been high. It has therefore been decided, with the
consent of Munro’s representatives, to reprint the work, so that those
who are interested in Latin Verse and in Munro may acquire a copy at a
reasonable price.
* * * * *
NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION.
THE QUEEN’S POOR.
Life as they find it in Town and Country.
By M. LOANE.
_Crown 8vo._ =3s. 6d.=
Sir Arthur Clay, Bart., says of this book: ‘I have had a good deal of
experience of “relief” work, and I have never yet come across a book
upon the subject of the “poor” which shows such true insight and such
a grasp of reality in describing the life, habits, and mental attitude
of our poorer fellow-citizens.... The whole book is not only admirable
from a common-sense point of view, but it is extremely pleasant and
interesting to read, and has the great charm of humour.’
* * * * *
NEW EDITION, ENTIRELY REWRITTEN.
PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS.
By C. LLOYD MORGAN, LL.D., F.R.S.,
PRINCIPAL OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL; AUTHOR OF ‘THE SPRINGS OF
CONDUCT,’ ‘HABIT AND INSTINCT,’ ETC.
_Crown 8vo._ =4s. 6d.=
For this edition, Professor Lloyd Morgan has entirely rewritten, and
very considerably enlarged, his well-known work on this important
subject. He has, in fact, practically made a new book of it.
* * * * *
MISREPRESENTATIVE WOMEN, AND OTHER VERSES.
By HARRY GRAHAM,
AUTHOR OF ‘RUTHLESS RHYMES FOR HEARTLESS HOMES,’ ‘BALLADS OF THE BOER
WAR,’ ‘MISREPRESENTATIVE MEN,’ ‘FISCAL BALLADS,’ ‘VERSE AND WORSE,’ ETC.
_Foolscap 4to. With Illustrations by_ DAN SAYRE GROESBECK. =5s.=
Admirers of Captain Graham’s ingenious and sarcastic verse will welcome
this fresh instalment, which contains, among the ‘other verses,’ a
number of ‘Poetic Paraphrases’ and ‘Open Letters’ to popular authors.
* * * * *
THE LAND OF PLAY.
By MRS. GRAHAM WALLAS.
_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations by Gilbert James._ =3s. 6d.=
The four stories which make up this delightful children’s book are
entitled ‘Luck-Child,’ ‘The Princess and the Ordinary Little Girl,’
‘Professor Green,’ and ‘A Position of Trust.’
* * * * *
A SONG-GARDEN FOR CHILDREN.
A Collection of Children’s Songs
Adapted from the French and German by
HARRY GRAHAM AND ROSA NEWMARCH.
The Music Edited and Arranged by NORMAN O’NEILL.
_Imperial 8vo. Paper._ =2s. 6d. net.=
_Cloth, gilt top._ =4s. 6d. net.=
This is a charming collection of forty-three French and German songs
for children translated and adapted by Capt. Graham and Mrs. Newmarch.
It includes nine songs arranged by J. Brahms for the children of Robert
and Clara Schumann.
* * * * *
A HANDBOOK OF SKIN DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT.
By ARTHUR WHITFIELD, M.D. (LOND.), F.R.C.P.,
PROFESSOR OF DERMATOLOGY AT KING’S COLLEGE; PHYSICIAN TO THE SKIN
DEPARTMENTS, KING’S COLLEGE AND THE GREAT NORTHERN CENTRAL HOSPITALS.
_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =8s. 6d. net.=
This book is designed especially to meet the needs of those who have
to treat the commoner skin diseases. While giving short descriptions
of the rarer forms, the chief attention is bestowed on those
more frequently met with. The diagnostic features of the various
eruptions are dealt with in detail, in order that they may give
help in determining the lines of treatment. The more recent work in
clinical pathology, both microscopical and chemical, is for the first
time brought into use in an English text-book. The book is freely
illustrated with original photographs.
* * * * *
THE CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION OF GASTRIC AND INTESTINAL DISEASES BY THE
AID OF TEST MEALS.
By VAUGHAN HARLEY, M.D. EDIN., M.R.C.P., F.C.S.,
PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON;
And FRANCIS GOODBODY, M.D. DUB., M.R.C.P.,
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,
LONDON.
_Demy 8vo._ =8s. 6d. net.=
This book opens with a description of the method of obtaining gastric
contents, and the estimation of the capacity of the stomach. The
various Test Meals employed in diagnosis are next described. The
macroscopical examination of the gastric contents and conclusions to
be drawn on inspection are discussed, and a short description of the
microscopical appearances follows. The chemical analysis of the gastric
contents is then given. The Organic Diseases of the Stomach are all
separately described, with specimen cases of analysis to illustrate
them. The Functional Diseases of the Stomach, which are more frequently
met with in ordinary practice than the Organic Diseases, are also very
fully given. The chemical methods employed in the investigation of
Intestinal Diseases are then described with great fulness, four types
of Test Meals being given.
* * * * *
A GUIDE TO DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND THROAT AND THEIR TREATMENT.
By CHARLES ARTHUR PARKER, F.R.C.S. EDIN.
_Demy 8vo. With 254 Illustrations._ =18s. net.=
EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE.
‘To acquire the necessary dexterity to examine a patient systematically
so as to overlook nothing, to recognise and put in its proper place the
particular pathological condition found, and finally, but chiefly, to
treat both the patient and the local abnormality successfully, seem to
me the three most important objects of a course of study at a special
hospital. This book, which is founded on lectures given at the Throat
Hospital with these objects in view, is now published in the hope of
helping those who are either attending or have attended a short course
of study at special departments or special Hospitals for Diseases of
the Throat and Nose....’
* * * * *
THE DIAGNOSIS OF NERVOUS DISEASES.
By PURVES STEWART, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P.,
PHYSICIAN TO OUT-PATIENTS AT THE WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL, AND JOINT
LECTURER ON MEDICINE IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOL; PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL
NATIONAL ORTHOPÆDIC HOSPITAL; ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN TO THE ITALIAN
HOSPITAL.
_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Coloured Plates._ =15s. net.=
This book, which is intended for the use of senior students and
practitioners, to supplement the ordinary text-books, discusses the
most modern methods of diagnosis of Diseases of the Nervous System.
The substance of the work, which is illustrated by original diagrams
and clinical photographs, nearly 200 in number, was originally
delivered in lecture form to students at the Westminster Hospital
and to certain post-graduate audiences in London and elsewhere. The
subject of Nervous Diseases is approached from the point of view of the
practical physician, and the diagnostic facts are illustrated, as far
as possible, by clinical cases.
* * * * *
MIDWIFERY FOR NURSES.
By HENRY RUSSELL ANDREWS, M.D., B.SC. LOND., M.R.C.P. LOND.,
ASSISTANT OBSTETRIC PHYSICIAN AND LECTURER TO PUPIL MIDWIVES AT THE
LONDON HOSPITAL; EXAMINER TO THE CENTRAL MIDWIVES BOARD.
_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =4s. 6d. net.=
This book is intended to supply the pupil midwife with all that is
necessary to meet the requirements of the Central Midwives Board, and
to be a practical handbook for the certificated midwife.
* * * * *
ALTERNATING CURRENTS.
A Text-book for Students of Engineering.
By C. G. LAMB, M.A., B.SC.,
CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS; ASSOCIATE
OF THE CITY AND GUILDS OF LONDON INSTITUTE.
_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations._ =10s. 6d. net.=
The scope of this book is intended to be such as to cover approximately
the range of reading in alternating current machinery and apparatus
considered by the author as desirable for a student of general
engineering in his last year--as, for example, a candidate for the
Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Cambridge.
* * * * *
A MANUAL OF HYDRAULICS.
By R. BUSQUET,
PROFESSOR À L’ÉCOLE INDUSTRIELLE DE LYON.
Translated by A. H. PEAKE, M.A.,
DEMONSTRATOR IN MECHANISM AND APPLIED MECHANICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
CAMBRIDGE.
_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =7s. 6d. net.=
This work is a practical text-book of Applied Hydraulics, in which
complete technical theories and all useful calculations for the
erection of hydraulic plant are presented. It is not a purely
descriptive work designed merely for popular use, nor is it an abstruse
treatise suitable only for engineers versed in higher mathematics. The
book is well illustrated, and is full of Arithmetical Examples fully
worked out. In these examples, no knowledge is assumed beyond that of
simple arithmetic and the elements of geometry.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Punctuation has been made consistent.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
been corrected.