CHAPTER I

Jimmy Quixote

A NOVEL

By TOM GALLON

Author of "Tatterley," "The Golden Thread," "Meg the Lady," etc.

London:

Hurst and Blackett, Limited,

Paternoster House, E.C.

Dedication.

MY DEAR MALCOLM WATSON,

In the early days of a friendship that has happily lasted for some

years, you were witness of, and kindly helper in, some of those

struggles which must always be the lot of the young beginner in

literature. They were good days, and I look back at them with more

of laughter than of tears. And because you will recognise in these

pages certain autobiographical notes of that time, and may care to

smile with me at them, I feel that this book most properly belongs

to you.

Your friend always,

TOM GALLON.

_London, 1906._

JIMMY QUIXOTE

_BOOK I_

CHAPTER I

OLD PAUL'S BABIES

"Old Paul" struggled back out of the big, roaring, bustling world one

day in late July, and was rather glad to leave it behind him. Old Paul

had been jostled and hurried and flurried and stared at in London; had

drifted aimlessly into the wrong departments in shops, and had nearly

bought the wrong things, and had more than once lost his way. For,

indeed, it was a far cry to the days when Old Paul had known London

well, and it had known him. And when it is remembered that he was clad

in somewhat shabby country clothing, and that he went into the biggest

shops, and with a total disregard for money bought the most

extraordinary things, and insisted on carrying the greater number away

with him, there is small wonder that he was stared at. Now, at the end

of a hot and bustling day, he got out at the little local station at

Daisley Cross, drew a deep breath of fresher, purer air, and smiled to

think that he was near home.

A sympathetic porter, who had known him for some years, helped him to

adjust the little cascade of parcels that tumbled out with Old Paul on

to the platform; remarked that he was "main glad" to see Old Paul

again--quite as though that gentleman had been absent for a few years,

instead of merely for the length of a summer day. In the simplest

fashion Old Paul borrowed some string from the porter, and contrived an

ingenious arrangement of slings about his broad shoulders wherewith to

support certain refractory parcels; and, finally, something after the

manner of a very hot and perspiring summer Father Christmas, started off

for home.

The summer twilight was all about him as he breasted the hill at the end

of the village, and came out on to the long sweep of road that led down

into the valley; and so faced a prospect that had been homely and

familiar to him for some years--and faced it with simple gratitude. On

such a day as this, Old Paul always went back to that London he had

known so many years before with misgivings, and always returned from it

with an uplifting of his heart; and yet Old Paul turned to-night a face

towards the twilight that was young and unlined. True, it may have been

lined with unaccustomed wrinkles of perplexity in London that day; but

all those lines were smoothed away now as he went on through the

gathering dusk, tramping steadily, with the step of a man used to

country roads and broad uplands. As he walked he pushed back the soft

hat he wore, displaying a rather high forehead, and light brown hair

growing a little thin; and he smiled to himself as at some problem that

was exercising his mind--yet not exercising it in any troublesome way.

"I hope there's nothing I've forgotten," he muttered, glancing about him

at the parcels which formed a sort of bulwark round his tall figure. "If

I hadn't lost the paper when that very agreeable young woman was

advising me about the length of Moira's frock, I should feel more

certain in my own mind. I tried hard to remember most things--and I

don't want another journey. The curtains for the study are hardly dark

enough; but then the man said they were a pleasing pattern. And, after

all, I was most careful to tell him what they were wanted for. Well, we

must hope for the best."

Twenty yards further on he stopped, and took off his hat, and dashed it

quite unexpectedly and yet with no real violence to the ground. "Jimmy's

boots!" he cried, and had turned and made off towards the station again

before he realised that there was no possibility of getting to London

again that night. Then, as he turned in the road and dusted his hat, a

pleased smile gradually stole over his face; he tapped one of the

parcels that hung from his arm.

"Of course--how very foolish of me!" he whispered. "But I'll own it gave

me a turn for the moment; I could scarcely have faced Jimmy without his

boots. How perfectly absurd! I stopped the cab and went back at the very

last moment. Heigho! what a day it's been!"

So much of a day had it been out of the ordinary course of a quiet life,

that Old Paul surreptitiously touched certain of the parcels as he

strode along, and evidently mentally counted them more than once; shook

his head doubtfully at the recollection of the lost list. Nevertheless,

by the time he came to a low gate in an old wall the last doubt seemed

to have cleared from his mind, and he went in with a smile on his face.

Dark though it was by this time, he took his way unerringly by a path

through what appeared to be a rambling old garden, and came to a

rambling old house; lifted the simple latch of a door, and went into a

little square hall; and was at home.

The scraping of a chair was heard instantly near at hand, and another

door opened, and an old woman appeared, looking out at him. He nodded

and smiled at her cordially, yet with something of the abashed demeanour

of a schoolboy who has returned home later than he should have done;

there was an apologetic air about him as he slid the strings from his

shoulders, and lowered the many parcels to the floor.

"I'm a little late, Patience," he said; "but that was the fault of the

train. I don't think you'll find, Patience, that anything has been

forgotten," he went on, evidently still mentally calculating the

parcels. "I've been most careful. And the babies?"

"All of them up, if you please, and not so much as a show of bed about

'em," exclaimed the old woman, with a little resentful toss of her head.

"I don't know what the world's comin' to," she went on, while she

stooped over the parcels, and prodded one or two of them with a sharp

forefinger. "Wasn't allowed in my young days--nor yours either, Master

Paul."

"Ah--I'm glad they're up," said Old Paul, with a smile. "I've been

looking forward to seeing them all the way home--counting the miles, as

you might say. I can talk to them while I have my supper. I'm hungry,

Patience--with a great and mighty hunger."

"Supper's nearly spoilt," she snapped. "I'm not sure that you deserve

that I should have gone out of my way to make anything special--and then

see it spoiling itself on my very hands. And why you're standin' about

there, when by this time you might have been half through it, beats me,"

she added.

"I'll come at once, Patience--if you'll tell the babies," he said. "We

can count the parcels afterwards."

He was moving across to a further door, when it was opened, and a man

advanced towards him. A man much older than himself, clad in rusty

black, and with a curious peevish, forlorn cast of countenance. A man

with nervous trembling hands that fluttered over each other and about

his lips, and even over his straggling hair. A man who came forward

expectantly, with eyes only for the many parcels.

"My tobacco, Paul--you haven't forgotten my tobacco?" he asked, in a

strange subdued voice.

"No; that was one of the things I made sure of first of all," replied

Old Paul, in his cordial voice. "I'm sorry to be late, Anthony," he

added apologetically, as he dropped on one knee and began searching

among the parcels. "Now, did I make them put it up with the

stockings--or did I----"

But Patience had a word to say. She stooped suddenly, and swept the

parcels out of his hands; pointed with peremptory finger to the further

door. "Tobacco can wait--though he _has_ been growling about it all

day--supper can't," she exclaimed. "And as to the selfishness of some

folk--the least said about it the better."

Old Paul was moving towards the door of the dining-room; he stopped to

look back, and to shake a protesting head at the woman. "Not

selfishness, Patience," he said. "I wouldn't call it selfishness

exactly. A woman doesn't always understand what tobacco means to a man.

I think you'll find it with the stockings, Anthony," he added.

He passed into the room from which the other man had come, and saw set

out there his supper. The old woman was hard upon his heels; she

fluttered about him nervously and anxiously, even while she still

scolded at the thought of the spoilt meal. She thrust his chair forward,

and watched him while he sat down leisurely and removed the cover from

the dish; heaved a little quick sigh of satisfaction in response to his

boyish sniff of delight. Indeed, as she stood near, after seeing that he

had all he wanted, she made a little quick movement of the hands--almost

a movement of motherly benediction--behind him. Then, as she was

turning away, he laid down his knife and fork, and looked at her

accusingly.

"The babies, Patience," he said. "We've forgotten the babies!"

"They'll need no telling," said the old woman; and, indeed, at that

moment they swarmed into the room.

Perhaps in the manner of their coming, and in the style of their

reception, might best be shown the dispositions of the three children

who came to greet Old Paul. The first was a thin dark-eyed girl of some

eight or nine years of age, and with hair that was almost black; she

came in with a rush and with hair flying, eager to be first to greet the

man; and so was caught in a moment in the embrace of his arm, with her

cheek close against his, in silent contentment.

The second was a handsome boy of twelve or thirteen; he came more

slowly, but none the less with a smile of greeting for the man, and with

a hand outstretched to grasp Old Paul's disengaged hand; he leant shyly

against the table, and swung the big hand backwards and forwards in his

own while he looked at the man.

"It's been a beastly long day without you, Old Paul," was his greeting.

The third child came in sedately enough. She was very fair and somewhat

fragile-looking, with wide open blue eyes and a very perfect child-like

mouth. There was a daintiness about her that seemed to be in the very

air through which she moved. She came to the other side of the table,

and looked across at the man, and smiled.

"Old Paul's brought simply heaps of parcels," she said.

Old Paul laughed as he looked round at them. "Simply heaps and heaps of

parcels," he said, giving the girl beside him a sudden squeeze. "I think

you'll like your frock, Moira; two inches longer this time, my dear,

according to measurements. It was such fun," he went on gleefully,

glancing at the door, and lowering his voice. "I lost the list! I don't

think I've forgotten anything, but if I have we shall hear of it--shan't

we?"

He was like a big over-grown boy when he looked round upon them with

that mischievous smile; they seemed thoroughly to understand the danger

which threatened him, and to be ready enough to share it. He lowered his

voice still more as he went on speaking, heedless of the supper that was

cooling before him.

"But, dears, I had the greatest idea!" he whispered. "I found a shop

where they sold shawls--the sort of shawls that Patience loves; they're

difficult to get nowadays. And I bought one--of the most beautiful

colours ever you saw. Someone'll be making love to Patience when they

see her in it; it's a dream of a shawl. So that, you see, if I've

forgotten anything, I've only got to give her that, and----"

The door opened quickly, and the autocrat of the household came in, in

the shape of Patience. Immediately Old Paul began to eat at a great

rate, behaving quite badly, so far as table manners were concerned, in

his anxiety to show that he was demolishing the supper; but he spared

time between bites for a wink at the boy and at the dark-haired girl

beside him. Of the younger, fairer child he seemed a little afraid, as

though not quite understanding her. Patience, with a grunt, turned and

left the room, colliding as she did so with the old man, who was coming

in at the moment. He came in holding out a packet, and his face was a

face of grief.

"You've got the medium, Paul--and I always smoke the full-flavoured," he

whimpered. "And I've broken it now, so that they won't take it back. You

might have remembered, Paul; it's little enough I ask of you, in all

conscience."

"Tobacco's tobacco--and one sort's as good as another," flashed out the

boy; but Old Paul laid a hand on his arm, and shook his head at him.

"You knew I'd run short, Paul," went on the complaining voice, "and I

was so looking forward to it. All day long I've sucked an empty pipe and

watched the clock; I couldn't work as usual, on account of missing it."

He picked at the tobacco in the broken package, and shook his head

despondingly.

"I'm sorry, Anthony--more sorry than I can say," said Old Paul humbly.

"Now, if a pipe of mine would soothe you--or do you any good----"

"Much too strong for me," complained the old man. "I suppose I shall

have to put up with this for a bit; but it's hard--it's very hard." He

grumbled his way out of the room, still looking disdainfully at the big

packet of tobacco he held.

Old Paul looked round at the children. "It was the list, dears," he said

penitently. "I remember now he did say the full-flavoured, and I put it

down; it only shows how careful anybody ought to be--doesn't it?"

He was almost dejected as he went on with his supper, while the children

watched him; presently he found voice to ask a question. "What have you

been doing all day?"

"Moira and I have been in the woods; we took sandwiches, and tried to

think that you'd be coming any minute," said the boy.

"Yes--and Jimmy made me afraid, because he said anything might happen to

you in London--and that you might never come back," said the girl of the

dark eyes, watching the man wistfully.

"That was only in fun," retorted the boy.

"Never frighten people only in fun," said Old Paul gravely, as he put

out a hand to the child as though to comfort her. "And Alice"--he

looked across at the child on the other side of the table--"what has

Alice been doing?"

There was a curious, subtle difference in his fashion of addressing the

younger girl; it was not a want of cordiality, but rather as though he

feared to offend her--desired, indeed, to win her good graces. She

answered him demurely; her smile was as sweet and as gentle as her

voice; but the words were not child-like at all.

"I thought it would be best for me to call and see the Baffalls," she

replied.

Old Paul nodded, with a covert glance at the faces of the boy and girl

on either side of him. "The little lady!" he murmured in admiration.

"They were very glad to see me, Old Paul," went on the child, "and Mr.

Baffall saw me home afterwards." And be it noted that she spoke with no

sense of priggishness or superiority, but rather with the air of one to

whom the more formal events of life inevitably appealed.

Old Paul rose to his feet; he kept an arm about the slim body of the

dark-eyed girl Moira. "Let's see the parcels," he said, with a gay

laugh. "Oh--the shops I went into--and the stairs I climbed--and the

lifts that rattled me up and down--and the people who wouldn't

understand what I wanted!"

He swept them all out into the hall, there to find themselves confronted

not only with the parcels, but with Patience, with a stern eye upon the

clock.

"Time for bed!" she exclaimed, and the man stopped guiltily, with the

children holding to him. In a hesitating nervous fashion, still with

that guilty schoolboy aspect, he pleaded for them.

"Special occasion, Patience, you know--and though I wouldn't for the

world gainsay anything you cared to suggest--still, if you didn't

mind----"

"Ten minutes," said Patience quickly, and disappeared into her own

quarters. Thereafter the thing resolved itself into a mere riot of Old

Paul and the children and brown paper and string; and new wonders

displayed every moment.

For Old Paul had brought home a medley. This had been one of his few

excursions to London, carefully prepared for, and long looked forward

to; a day on which he procured things for his household that should last

for months to come. So much a business did Old Paul make of it, that

here was everything that had been suggested alike to Patience and to his

own thoughtful eye for the needs of his people. Boots and stockings,

according to sizes; linens and woollens, presently to be prepared by

Patience; stout country suits for the boy and frocks for the girls. Even

caps and hats had not been forgotten, while, in addition, even curtains

and household necessaries had been brought.

There was, too, a softer side to the purchases of the day. There was a

cricket bat and a new fishing rod for Jimmy; books and toys and dolls

for the girls. And, lastly, that shawl of many colours for Patience. He

spread it out, with anxious glances at them in hope of their admiration.

"If you'd given her that," said Jimmy, with conviction, "she'd have made

it twenty minutes at least!"

"I'm glad you like it," said Old Paul, with a sigh of relief. "There's a

great deal of it for the money, and it is certainly bright; more than

that, it smooths things with Patience. Not that I would have you think,"

he went on hurriedly, "that I have anything to say against Patience; but

we have to be careful not to hurt her feelings."

At that very moment the woman marched in; she simply stood still in the

hall, and looked at the clock. Old Paul stood up, with the shawl held

behind him and trailing on the ground, and approached her meekly.

"Oh, Patience, it occurred to me to-day that there might be

something----"

"Time's up!" snapped Patience, taking no notice of him.

"Something you would like from--from London. So I took the liberty of

bringing you----" He held out the thing sheepishly, without daring to

look at her.

She took it, and looked it over with the keen eye of one who knew the

value of every thread in it; opened her hard mouth as though to make

some caustic remark; and then broke down. Old Paul seemed to understand,

and under the pretence of adjusting it about her shoulders, contrived to

touch her cheek softly with one hand, and to whisper something in her

ear. She forgot about the children and the clock, and hurried away,

pulling the shawl about her as she went, as though the gaudy thing might

embrace her with a touch of love.

She remembered her duties strongly enough presently, and came back with

added bitterness to make up for that temporary weakness, and swept the

children off to bed. Old Paul stood at the foot of the stairs, and

called out messages to them as they went; then turned with a smile and a

sigh into his own room, and started to light a pipe. He stretched his

long figure in a chair, and sighed, and leaned back, and seemed to be

dreaming about the day.

And then, after a little time, sat up in the attitude of one listening.

He laid down the pipe, and kept his eyes fixed upon the door of the

room; noted with a little exultant nod that the door was softly opening,

and that someone was coming in. It was the dark-eyed girl Moira.

She had thrown a little dressing-gown over her nightdress; the little

white, slim feet were bare. Once having peeped into the room, and seen

that Old Paul was alone, she crept forward swiftly, and was in his arms

in a moment. For this was their sacred hour; this the time when she

innocently cheated old Patience, and crept from her bed to come to the

man who was all her world. And they were quite silent over it for a

minute or two; sufficient for them that the quiet world held only

themselves--this child and the man who loved her.

"My little maid!" he whispered at last. "So you've been in the woods all

day--with Jimmy?"

She stirred in his arms, and seemed to nod her head. "But this is better

than all the woods," she whispered. "This is the time you belong to

me--and only to me."

"Hungry, jealous little maid!" he whispered again. "I'm afraid that big

heart of yours aches sometimes for no cause. What will love do to you in

the big world, Moira?"

"I don't understand," she whispered, looking at him in perplexity.

"Well that you shouldn't, little maid," was his reply; and he kissed her

quickly as he spoke.

He watched her presently as she glided--a white shadow among grey

ones--upstairs to her room, and came back to his chair and his pipe with

a thoughtful frown upon his face. And in the smoke from his pipe seemed

to trace out, in a shadowy fashion, something of who he was, and what he

was, and how he came to be Old Paul of that big house at Daisley Cross.

Some years before Old Paul came to be known to the inhabitants of

Daisley Cross, a certain Mr. Paul Nannock had been known fairly well in

London. He was a tall, shy young man, with a painful habit of blushing,

and an utter disbelief in himself and his own powers. Finding that the

possession of considerable property smoothed the road of life for him,

and rendered it unnecessary that he should put forth those powers, Mr.

Paul Nannock drifted easily, and had rather a good time in a mild way.

People spoke of him with a shrug and a laugh; perhaps the chief thing

said about him was that very negative one--that there was no harm in

him. Perhaps it might have been better expressed by saying that Paul

Nannock had never grown up; that he looked out at the world with the

wide trusting eyes of a child, fully expecting to warm his hands at the

comfortable fire of life, without any fear of getting burnt in the

process.

Then, in an unlucky day, Paul discovered that he had a heart; found it

beating uncomfortably, and causing him considerable trouble. The dark

eyes of a woman had looked into the innocent blue eyes of Paul Nannock;

and from that time, as you will not need to be told, the world was a

different place--never to be the happy-go-lucky place it had been

before. Paul Nannock was in love.

To do the man justice, he had never for a moment believed that there was

any hope for him; that this beautiful and gracious girl could stoop from

her height to touch him had appeared altogether out of the question.

There was only in Paul's mind a deep feeling of gratitude to the kindly

fate that had brought her into his life, and had taught him this

wondrous lesson of love; he was never to forget that, and it was at all

times to be a blessed memory to him. Henceforth all women were to be

hallowed in his sight because of her; the world to be a finer place even

than he had conceived it.

And then, in a curious way--a blundering, haphazard way that belonged to

the man--he had blurted out the truth to her; and had walked that night

straight into heaven! For--wonder of wonders never to be accounted

for--she had told him that she loved him; and let it be said here that

at that time she did love him, and that there was never any thought in

her mind of his money or his position or anything else. He was different

from other men; the very earnestness and simplicity of him won her. For

three marvellous months he walked with the gods in high places, and

entered fully into the highest inheritance possible to man.

And then came the end of it. Paul had proved to be unexciting, in the

sense that he was so easily found out; all his virtues were to be seen

and known and loved at a glance; and there was no more of him to

explore. As the heart of a woman craves for mystery, so here was no

mystery to be unfolded; and she grew tired. Another man of richer

promise in that respect came suddenly into her life and swept her away;

and Paul Nannock walked the grey world alone.

So great and single-hearted had been his love and his purpose, that for

the time the thing wrecked him; he wanted to be quit of London--that

great place which reminded him always of her--and to get away somewhere

to find peace. That brought him to Daisley Cross; and there he took an

old rambling house known as Daisley Place; and for years lived there as

a hermit. The people of the village grew to be familiar with the sight

of the tall, gaunt man, striding silently through the woods and fields,

and living all alone, save for that one old servant in the old house.

Then one day Daisley Cross woke, and rubbed its eyes, and asked what had

happened. For Paul Nannock had been seen walking through the woods with

a child--an elfin-like black-eyed thing, the people said--perched high

upon his shoulder.

It was her child. The man of possibilities had married her and deserted

her; and at the time of her death, when she looked with clearer eyes

back on the world she was leaving, she thought of her child, and she

thought of the man she had loved and trusted. She sent for him; and,

there being but one thing for Paul to do in such a case, he went to her

straight; and he came away, when he had closed her eyes for the last

time, bringing with him that small, frail replica of herself, to be his

for ever after, and to be cherished for her sake. And that was the child

Moira.

So far as the other "babies" were concerned, they may be said to have

been supplementary, and quite accidental. Whether it came about that the

big heart of Old Paul warmed with the advent of the child, or whether,

as a laughing neighbour once expressed it, "baby collecting became a

hobby with him," it is impossible to say; but certainly the other

children dropped into Daisley Place as it were in the most casual

fashion, and remained there. Jimmy had been discovered by the merest

accident; had been brought to the very door, as it seemed, solely that

Paul might befriend him.

Jimmy's parents had been mere acquaintances of Paul Nannock, and they

had gone to the other side of the world on the business of life, leaving

the boy at school, and leaving funds for him in the hands of a guardian;

and it had happened that at the school they had given Paul's name as a

reference. The ship in which the young parents sailed foundered, and was

lost with all hands; and the time came when the schoolmaster wrote to

Paul, having failed to get any satisfactory statement from the guardian,

inquiring what he should do. Paul took up the matter at once, carrying

it through on behalf of the child with his usual energy, only to

discover that the guardian had used every penny that had been left in

his hands for his own purposes. Pressed hard by Paul on account of the

boy, the man disappeared, and was, discovered in a mean hovel in

Liverpool with a bullet in his brain. And the heart of Paul expanding

over the lonely child, Jimmy had come into that curious house at Daisley

Cross.

So far as Alice was concerned, her coming had about it a sense of

comedy. Whether or not some whisper of Paul's eccentricities had by that

time got abroad, it is impossible to say; certain it is that the mother

of that prim little maid--known only quite casually in London to

Paul--flung a telegram at him one day, and followed it within a few

hours, accompanied by the child; expressed the keenest delight and

admiration of the place; asserted that Alice was pining for the society

of children of something near her own age, and hinted at the possibility

of some arrangement being made--much as though Paul kept a species of

_crèche_, or boarding establishment.

Finally, on the plea that urgent business called her to Paris for a day

or two, and that she could not possibly take the child, and that there

were no friends to whom she could be consigned, the lady actually left

the girl there; she was to return in four days exactly. At the end of

four days she telegraphed that she would be there in a week; wrote on

the sixth day; and again, a week later, with profuse apologies and

thanks, and the expressed hope that Alice was being a good girl; and was

never after heard of. Certainly Paul was not rigorous in his inquiries,

and the child expressed no regret at the absence of her natural

guardian; and there the matter ended. So to-night, as Old Paul sat there

smoking his pipe, he seemed to see through the years that had grown

softly about them all the changes that had come in himself, and the

greater changes in his babies; and was well content. Something of that

old hunger in his heart had been satisfied; something of the old hopes

and dreams that once had blossomed about a woman blossomed now about

these children; and that was as it should be. But most of all, they

blossomed about Moira--for the sake, not only of the child, but of his

dead love.

CHAPTER II

AND OLD PAUL'S FRIENDS

If any man in this commonplace, humdrum world of ours elects to live on

other than humdrum and commonplace lines, the unexpected must perforce

happen to him; for the unexpected is a very will-o'-the-wisp, darting

hither and thither, and finding but few people ready to take it

seriously. Therefore it was in the very nature of things that the

unexpected, which had given to Old Paul three babies that never should

have belonged to him, should give him someone else also. And that

someone else was a certain Anthony Ditchburn.

We have already met him in a matter of tobacco; and we have seen that he

was apparently something of a fixture in that queer house. He had become

a fixture there in a curious way--in as curious a way as any of those

which had brought the other inhabitants of the house into the care of

Paul Nannock.

Vague hints had been dropped from time to time by Anthony Ditchburn as

to his antecedents; vague suggestions of a university which had not

treated him too well, and which had scoffed at certain scientific

departures of his; there was here a talk of the shaking of dust from his

feet, and a going out into the world. That he was cultured was beyond

question; that he knew books better than he knew men was also beyond

question; and that he had an absolute disregard for anything and

everything in the world save his own comfort was the most pregnant fact

of all. And he had come to Daisley Place in this wise.

There had come a night, some years before, of heavy rain--a night when,

to use a local phrase, "it wasn't fit for a dog to be out in." And on

that night, while Old Paul sat musing over his fire, there had come a

knock at the outer door--a surprising thing enough, in that

out-of-the-way place and at that hour. Old Paul, a little startled, had

gone to the door and had opened it, there to be confronted with Anthony

Ditchburn, whose name he did not know, and whom he had never seen in his

life before. The man being wet through, however, there seemed no great

harm in his coming into the place and drying himself; and, in the

process of the drying, his tongue being loosened with certain generous

liquids, he displayed something of his culture; to the delight of Old

Paul, with whom cultured people were rare in those days. They had talked

far into the night, until it became the obvious thing for Old Paul to

offer his guest a bed; and the offer had been graciously accepted. In

the morning the necessary offer of breakfast was accepted in like

fashion, and then Ditchburn stayed to lunch. To cut the mere chronicle

of beds and meals short, let it be said at once that from that time he

remained; for Old Paul had not the courage to turn him out, and felt

that a hint on such a matter would have been a thing of gross

discourtesy. Nor did he inquire anything beyond the name of his guest.

From time to time a certain great work on which Anthony Ditchburn was

supposed to be engaged was referred to; once, indeed, Paul was allowed

to enter the room that had been assigned to the elder man, and to see a

great mass of notes and memoranda; he had gazed at it with his hands on

his hips, and his head on one side, and had felt rather proud that such

a man should have condescended to come under his roof. Thereafter, when

Anthony Ditchburn deplored the fact that certain books which were

absolutely necessary to the completion of the great work could not be

obtained, for lack of the necessary money, Old Paul suggested a simple

matter of banking, with himself as the banker; and Anthony Ditchburn

condescended to accept the suggestion, and declared that the monumental

work should be dedicated to his benefactor.

Anthony Ditchburn had no money, and apparently no friends other than

Paul. Occasionally it became necessary that his wardrobe should be

replenished, and this was done at Paul's expense. Tobacco was the man's

only luxury, outside what could be procured in the house itself; and

tobacco was supplied by his host. For the rest, he was a peevish,

self-opinionated old man, and a rank impostor. But Paul believed in him,

and had a vague idea that he had caught a genius who added lustre to the

house.

Anthony Ditchburn had come in out of the storm before the advent of the

first of the babies; and the coming of Moira had upset him very

completely. The man had been so comfortable; it had been a house of

slippers and dressing-gowns--a place of pipes and easy chairs and

dreams--the latter always intangible; and the presence of a girl, to

whom this queer host of his appeared devoted, threatened disaster. It

was a memorable night when Moira had been put to bed by Patience (with

Old Paul hovering about on the landing outside the door of the room,

asking if he could do anything, or cook anything), and when, coming

down, he had encountered the resentful old man. For Paul had a feeling

that all the world rejoiced and sang with him that night, because of

the advent of this dark-eyed baby.

Paul had been in a joyous mood; had caught Anthony Ditchburn by the

shoulders, and had pushed him into the room, and laughingly suggested a

toasting of the baby. Anthony had not objected to the toasting, but he

strongly objected to the baby.

"She's mine!" Old Paul had whispered exultantly. "There isn't a soul can

claim her, Anthony; she's going to grow up with me, and by God!"--the

joyous voice was lowered to seriousness--"she shall have a better

childhood and a sweeter womanhood than her mother ever knew."

"You don't know what you're doing," Anthony had snapped. "Boys are bad

enough--but a girl! They grow up; they put on airs with their

frocks--and silly ways as their skirts grow longer. I know 'em!--and

there's trouble brewing for you if you keep the child here. Rank

sentiment and moonshine; she'll grow up to laugh at you, and to go out

into the world for the first lad that holds up a finger to her. Send her

packing in the morning; if you must look after her, find a good, hard

boarding school."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Paul had replied with

unexpected harshness. "This baby is more to me than anyone else could

be, Anthony Ditchburn; with her tiny fingers she writes for me the book

of life as I have known it; lisps out to me with her baby-lips all that

life has spelled for me; tells over again, with the sweet eyes of her, a

story I have tried to forget, and yet have been glad to remember. The

child stays."

"Then it'll be damned uncomfortable!" Ditchburn had exclaimed in a heat.

"If it rests between you and the child, Anthony Ditchburn," Old Paul

had said gravely, "there are other places where you can find opportunity

for work and for thought." Which showed Anthony Ditchburn that it would

be well to be silent.

But if these were his feelings on the arrival of Moira, what must have

been his thoughts when Jimmy came into the house--and when Alice

followed. The man for a time regarded himself as being in a state of

siege; dared not move about the house, lest he might stumble upon some

objectionable child. At meal times he grunted and ate in silence, while

the merry talk went on at the other end of the table; he smoked many

pipes, and determined that in the monumental work he would contrive to

introduce a chapter dealing with a Rational Upbringing of Children; a

chapter which should throw a new light upon a very much misunderstood

subject.

Old Paul was a lover of peace; he would have been glad to bring Anthony

Ditchburn to a better understanding of the children--to have welded

together those warring elements. Knowing Ditchburn for a man of

learning, it had occurred to him, as time went on, that the old man

might do something towards the education of Moira and the others. Not

that it occurred for a moment to the generous mind of Paul that in that

way Anthony Ditchburn might work off a great debt; he would have blushed

at the thought. But to Anthony himself the suggestion savoured of that,

and he resented it hotly.

"You are evidently unaware, my dear Nannock," he said, "of the position

I once occupied in the world, before I decided, for that world's

service, to write my present treatise. Shall I, who have touched the

highest in matters of learning, descend to teach babies the alphabet and

the rule of three? Shall I, who have been regarded with veneration by

men whose names (through their arts of self-advertisement) are known to

the world, stoop to teach boys and girls their tables?"

"It occurred to me that you might care to help me in the matter," Paul

had suggested humbly. "Of course, I can guess how great your attainments

must have been, before you consented to come down here and to bury

yourself; but the children want teaching something."

"Very well, then, I will sacrifice myself," Anthony Ditchburn had

declared. "I am aware that I am in your hands; it is not for me to be

proud in these days; I must bend the knee, I suppose, in return for the

food I eat and the bed in which I sleep. It is but another instance of

what culture and learning must pass through in this stony world. Not

another word, I beg"--this as Old Paul would indignantly have

protested--"I will see the children after my third pipe to-morrow

morning."

But the experiment was not a success. It was declared afterwards that

Anthony Ditchburn, in the intervals of falling asleep and much smoking

of pipes, quoted Horace to the silent wondering babies, and even read a

scrap or two from the monumental work; but he taught them nothing. Jimmy

drew pictures for their delight on some of the tutor's sacred margins;

and they whispered together, what time Anthony Ditchburn slumbered; but

Old Paul saw that another arrangement must be made.

The further experiment involved the rector. Old Paul only knew him

casually, chiefly because the Rev. Temple Purdue, having been much

exercised in his mind over the strange household of Daisley Place, had

called, with the view to a better understanding of all the

circumstances; and had gone away utterly bewildered, and with no

understanding at all. But he, too, was a man of learning, and in a small

way, a man of family, for he had a son. It occurred to Old Paul that it

might be possible to induce the rector to give lessons to those babies

who, from the educational standpoint, were beginning to be troublesome.

Therefore he called upon the Rev. Temple Purdue, and broached the

matter.

The rector was a small, mild, spectacled man of a frightened aspect; he

had been left a widower some two or three years before, and it was his

painful duty to pass the modest headstone erected to the memory of the

late Mrs. Temple Purdue twice on Sundays, and occasionally on other

evenings. In sleepy Daisley Cross he was certainly very much out of his

element; may be said, indeed, to have fluttered about among his sturdy,

slow flock, like a small timid hen in charge of rather large and heavy

ducks. But he was a conscientious little man, with a large leaven of

unworked geniality in him.

He had held up hands of protest at the mention of the large sum which

Old Paul was prepared to pay for the education of the children; had

compromised gratefully on something a little more than half; and had

told himself that undreamt-of luxuries, in the shape of books and other

matters, were to be his for the future. And the children--shy at

first--had gone across to the rectory each morning, and had been well

and carefully grounded.

That arrangement of necessity involved the son of the Rev. Temple

Purdue--Charlie. Up to that time, Charlie Purdue had been a lonely,

restless, mischievous boy of about the same age as Jimmy--roaming the

neighbourhood, something to its scandal, and listening impatiently to

mild and nervous lectures in the evening times from his father. Now,

suddenly, new interests came into his days; these children he had only

seen from a distance were intimately concerned with him in the first

dreary journeys into the mysterious land of Knowledge.

It came to be an ordinary thing during successive summers (and be it

noted that to a young child the world is always summer, and chill winter

but a thing of a week or two, to be happily forgotten), for Charlie

Purdue to spend a great deal of his time with Old Paul's babies; in

effect, he made a fourth, and spent many hours with them in the house,

and in rambling about the countryside. He knew more about that

countryside than they did, and was learned in the ways of birds and

beasts and fishes; he opened up new worlds to them. His was a

happy-go-lucky, mischief-loving nature; and they followed him after a

time, awe-struck and admiring.

Had Old Paul but known, heads were nodded over him across many a country

tea-table, shoulders were shrugged and eyebrows raised, and he formed

for a time the chief topic of conversation. The mere sight of him,

strolling through a country lane with his hat on the back of his head

and his short pipe in his mouth, and with the three children clinging to

him, or playing about him, was extraordinary enough; that he should keep

up that great house, solely, as it seemed, for their benefit, and should

keep himself and them apart from his neighbours, was stranger still. One

or two daring spirits took upon themselves to call upon him; but in few

instances did Old Paul suggest, by his manner of speech or his smile,

that he would be glad to see the visitors again.

In the case of the Baffalls, Paul opened his heart at once. He had heard

of them and of their coming, as, indeed, had all Daisley Cross. It had

not been easy to lose sight of the Baffalls when once they loomed upon

the place. For they came in force; huge furniture vans lumbered along

the roads, and taxed the strength of the bridges; servants in flies,

superciliously eyeing the country, arrived to put things in order; and

finally, after a delay, the Baffalls themselves. A brand-new carriage

met them at the little station, and they drove shyly through the village

to their newly-furnished house, and held each other's hands as they

went, and looked nervously about them. For they only knew London

(wherein their money had been made); and the country to which they were

retiring was new and strange and awful. Mrs. Baffall would never have

come to the country but that she had heard it was the thing to do; and

Mr. Baffall would never have come but for Mrs. Baffall.

Then, of course, they came to hear about Old Paul and the babies; and

instantly Mrs. Baffall was excited. It had been the tragedy of her life

that she had had no children; she had lain awake at nights, many and

many a time in her hard-working life, and had held a dream child to her

breast that ached for the touch of little lips. And here was a bachelor

with three of them!

She had believed that another thing to do when you retired was to call

upon people; and the first man on whom to call should be this

extraordinary creature and his babies. She did not know that she should

have waited decorously until people called upon her; she simply dressed

Baffall in his best, and put him into the large brand-new carriage, and

took him to call upon Old Paul. And Old Paul, a little amazed and

frightened, went to find them in the big sitting-room that had books and

toys and other delightful lumber scattered about it; and found Mr.

Baffall smoothing a silk hat round and round upon his knee, and Mrs.

Baffall examining a battered doll she had picked up from the sofa, and

smiling at it. They laboriously shook hands with Old Paul (Mrs. Baffall

at first nervously presented the legs of the doll to him instead of her

own fingers), and hoped he was well.

After that conversation flagged. Old Paul made a remark or two about the

weather, and inwardly wondered where Mrs. Baffall had bought her

bonnet; Mr. Baffall responded as to the weather, and looked at the

carpet. And then suddenly Mrs. Baffall broke the ice by asking in a

fluttering whisper, and with pleading eyes turned to the young man, if

she might see the children. And the hunger in those eyes was so strong

that it went straight to the heart of Paul; so that from that moment he

loved the common old woman with a mighty love.

The children were sent for; and meanwhile Paul, who had apologised for

the delay by suggesting that they would "want some finding," examined

his visitors. He saw that Mrs. Baffall had once been plump and pretty;

she was plump enough now, but only a suggestion of the prettiness

remained. It was obvious that, while she was grateful to Fortune that

had enabled her and Mr. Baffall to rest from their labours before the

greatest rest of all fell upon them, she yet did not quite know what to

do, now that the necessity for labour had gone past. She glanced about

the room furtively, as though seeking suggestions as to decorations; she

was evidently making mental notes of alterations she could effect in her

own establishment. More than that, glancing at Paul's easy tweed-clad

figure, she decided that Baffall must have that kind of dress instanter,

and must discard the black clothes and the silk hat; but she felt that

Baffall would look well in a somewhat more marked pattern. Baffall, for

his part, presented the appearance of a hard-grained, well-knit old man,

with a firm mouth unobscured by a moustache, and with a mere fringe of

grey beard on his chin; he spoke slowly and deliberately.

"You see, sir," he began, running a stunted forefinger round and round

on the top of his silk hat, and regarding the process thoughtfully,

"Mother is fair set on the babies. Turns round in the street to look at

'em; keeps pictures of 'em cut out and pasted in books. In fact,

sir"--the man raised his head, and his grey eyes twinkled for a

moment--"it's my belief that she keeps a big doll somewheres secret."

"Go along, father!" exclaimed Mrs. Baffall, blushing.

"Never mind, mother." Mr. Baffall stretched out a rough hand, and laid

it on the plump gloved hand of the woman beside him. "It's only my fun.

Though I give you warning, sir," he went on solemnly, "that you'd better

watch these babies of yours; or one of these fine days Mrs. B. will be

off with one of 'em."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of that," replied Paul, kindly. "I think I'd trust

Mrs. Baffall with any of them."

At that moment the children came into the room. Moira went straight to

Paul, and slipped her hand into his, and looked inquiringly from him to

the visitors. Jimmy, after a moment's hesitation, walked across to Mr.

Baffall, and held out his hand. Mr. Baffall rose to his feet, and bent

his body, and slowly and ceremoniously shook the hand of the boy.

"I hope you're well, sir, and that you like the country," he said,

stiffly.

The only one of the trio absolutely at home under these circumstances

was Alice--true daughter of that vivacious widow who had been, before

all things, a woman of the world. She went straight to Mrs. Baffall, and

graciously submitted to being kissed, smiled delightfully, and answered

all that was said to her perfectly. Moira alone remained close to Paul;

his arm had encircled her where he sat.

"And this," said Old Paul, "this is my little maid, Moira. Moira was the

first of the babies to find her way to me; she gave me the idea

about--about the others," he added, waving a hand vaguely towards the

two other children.

Mr. Baffall glanced at his wife. "We might have thought of taking a

little child like that," he said, in a low voice.

But Mrs. Baffall shook her head. "We couldn't have got the right

sort--not situated as we were, with the business. And I should have

wanted something I could look up to, as well as be fond of, in a way of

speaking."

The Baffalls presently took their awkward leave, after a visit which was

to be but the first of many, and drove away solemnly in the carriage. As

might have been expected, Old Paul sank into insignificance, at least,

in the mind of Mrs. Baffall, in comparison with the children; to her the

children were everything. Indeed, she hovered about the house

scandalously, coming in on all sorts of excuses at all times of the day.

More than once she was actually found waiting outside the rectory, at

the time the three of them came from their lessons; and walked home with

them humbly enough, and proud that people should look at her, holding a

hand of one of them.

She carried them off one day to her own place, and gave them tea in a

big gaudily-furnished room, where they sat stiffly on chairs and looked

at her and Mr. Baffall. Urged by Mrs. Baffall, the man cudgelled his

brains to remember a game he had once played in childhood; essayed to

introduce it for their delight. But at the very moment that he was down

on his knees in the middle of the room repeating some doggerel with his

eyes shut, the thing slipped his memory, and he knelt there, looking

foolish, with the children gravely watching him. After they had been

sent home, he sat for a long time saying the half-forgotten thing over

to himself, and Mrs. Baffall, very silent, watching him.

"It ain't no good, Daniel; they didn't understand us, and we don't

understand them," she said at last, slowly. "I never got the trick of

it, having none of my own; and it's too late to learn it now. But I

think if one of 'em ever came up to me--spontaneous--and put their arms

round my neck--well, I think I should dance, Daniel!" And the tears were

in the old woman's eyes as she spoke, although she laughed and brushed

them away.

Incidentally the Baffalls were responsible for Honora Jackman, and for

her introduction to Paul Nannock. Honora Jackman had casually, and

somewhat scornfully, made the acquaintance of the Baffalls in London;

but the Baffalls in the country, remote from trade, were people to be

cultivated. So that it came about that they received one day a gushing

telegram (with reply prepaid), demanding to know if she might come and

"rusticate." And the Baffalls had looked at each other in some dismay,

even while they had felt vaguely flattered. For Honora had been a person

of consequence in their limited circle in London.

"Mother, what's 'rusticate'?" asked Mr. Baffall, feebly.

"It's a general term," Mrs. Baffall responded; "means picking flowers,

and walking about, and--and looking at the trees and things, I believe.

It's what we're doing now, father."

"Well, it's easy enough," said Mr. Baffall. "Tell her to come down at

once, and mention the best train."

Honora Jackman descended upon the Baffalls with a series of little

shrieks of delight; which was Honora's way. She was a lady with a high,

clear voice and a high, clear colour; perfectly self-possessed; one of

those people who assure you volubly and loudly that they are having "a

fine old time." She was always busy over doing nothing; always in

splendid health; and never in any one place for more than a week or two

at a time. Possessed of very small means, Honora had seen the years

slipping away beneath her well-shod, quick feet, and the "fine old time"

had come down to be a mere matter of hunting up friends, and doing

anything that should keep her away from a small and poky set of rooms in

an obscure street in London. She had reached that stage when the hunt

for friends had developed into a somewhat stern chase.

She landed at Daisley Cross with her battered trunks, and looked about

her good-humouredly through a single eyeglass. She decided at once that

she would be bored to death; she drew a mental picture of Mr. Baffall

falling asleep after dinner, and of Mrs. Baffall knitting, or doing

embroidery, and striving vainly to find subjects for conversation. She

wondered if they kept anything she could ride. But she was all smiles

and hearty good humour when presently the old couple drove up in the

carriage to meet her; she exclaimed delightedly about the

picturesqueness of the place, and vowed they should never get rid of

her; shrieked with delight when a small urchin chased a hen across the

road, and borrowed a penny from Mr. Baffall to throw to him.

She made rather a brilliant figure after dinner that night in the

subdued light of the shaded lamps, what time she lazily smoked a

cigarette, and drew Mr. and Mrs. Baffall out concerning the neighbours.

And then, for the first time, she heard about Old Paul Nannock. She

leaned across the table, with her white elbows on it, deeply interested,

asking questions with a perplexed frown.

"A rich old bachelor--adopting babies?" she asked, in her high voice.

"Oh, dear no--not a bit old," replied Mrs. Baffall, laughing. "Quite

young, as a matter of fact--and certainly good looking. At least, I

think he's got nice eyes."

"Gracious!" Honora Jackman puffed out a cloud of smoke very suddenly,

and leaned forward again over the table. "What's the matter with the

man? Has he been crossed in love--or what is it?"

"Well, you see," said Baffall solemnly, "we haven't cared to ask him,

Miss. He's a nice fellow; and he seems fond of the children, and that's

all there is to it. I'm told he's got plenty of money."

"And certainly there isn't what you'd call any stint," corroborated Mrs.

Baffall.

"I never heard of such a thing," exclaimed Honora, appealing to the very

furniture and the pictures in her astonishment. "A rich young

man--collecting babies as though they were postage stamps--and living

all alone with 'em in the country. Do you know him well?"

"Oh, yes; the children often come here," replied Mrs. Baffall.

"And he doesn't?" said Honora, drily. Then, suddenly changing her tone,

she added beseechingly, "I say, you positively must take me to see him;

I revel in children, and I should simply love to meet a man like that.

I'm sure he's a dear."

The Baffalls looked at each other a little doubtfully; perhaps into the

mind of each came the thought that Honora Jackman might scarcely fit in

well with Old Paul or Old Paul's ways. However, something had to be

said, and Mr. Baffall was the one weakly to capitulate.

"I'm sure he'd be pleased," he said. "Mother and I'll take you

over--whenever you like."

"How perfectly heavenly of you!" exclaimed Honora. "I'm simply dying to

know him."

Honora Jackman took her loud-voiced way upstairs that night, and sat

for some time thoughtfully twisting her rings round and round on her

fingers. She had dreams--absolutely mercenary, let it be said--of a

certain tall, blue-eyed man, who had much money, and was encumbered by

children he had been foolish enough to adopt. Honora gave a short, quick

laugh when she thought of them.

"Idiot!" she exclaimed scornfully. "After all, there may be something to

be got out of this dead-and-alive hole; you never can tell. I expect

he's a bit raw; but that won't matter. And as for the children"--Honora

laughed again, as she rose and yawned and stretched her white arms above

her head--"well, we can easily dispose of that sort of nonsense."

CHAPTER III

"JIMMY QUIXOTE"

Exactly at what date Jimmy fell in love with Honora Jackman it would be

difficult to say; it was a subtle affair growing out of circumstances;

it would have been impossible even for Jimmy to have written a diary of

it. For be it known that Jimmy was some thirteen years of age, with

certain large ideas of his own regarding the world in general and ladies

in particular; and Honora had burst upon him, and had captured him in

quite an innocent and pretty fashion.

With the thought of a larger capture in her mind, Honora had wavered in

her going from the hospitable house of the Baffalls, and had ended by

not going at all. She had discovered that one of the horses fitted her

"adorably"; and she had pretty well ridden him to death after that

discovery. Then she had contrived to stir the Baffalls into giving a

dinner party, to which the Rev. Temple Purdue was invited, and came,

mildly apologetic for his very presence; and to which Old Paul, greatly

against his own wish, also came. Then for the first time Honora looked

upon him and found him exceedingly good. She had visions of years

stretching before her, during which she wound him gaily round her little

finger; and had, so far as herself was concerned, that "fine old time"

to which reference has been made.

On that occasion Honora did not smoke; more than that, she subdued that

high and somewhat grating laugh of hers. There was a new shyness upon

her, and she inquired sympathetically and kindly about the children. She

turned her rather good eyes upon Paul, and let them sparkle at him while

she asked for full particulars; nodded brightly and sympathetically over

the account of the coming of each child; threw in a word or two here and

there, which showed Paul that she understood very perfectly his own

intimate feelings concerning them; and stated that she was dying to meet

them. Only in the drawing-room afterwards, amid gusts of stifled

laughter, did she tell the perplexed Mrs. Baffall what she thought of

Paul Nannock and of the children; only then did she suggest something of

a programme that had been mapped out in her mind.

"He wants waking up--he wants stirring, and showing what the world is!"

she exclaimed. "Fancy a man with that money pottering about country

lanes with other people's children clinging to his skirts. Skirts is the

right word; the man isn't a proper man at all. He's wasted here; I

should like to do something with him."

Mrs. Baffall flutteringly thought it possible that Honora might do

something with the man not altogether to the taste of his friends, but

she said nothing. She only noted the change in Honora Jackman when the

tall young man presently came into the drawing-room--that change to

sweetness and gentleness that seemed a little foreign to the woman's

nature. When presently Paul, with a glance at the clock, stated that he

must be getting home, Honora rather lost sight of the part she was

playing, and expressed her contemptuous resentment.

"You don't mean to tell me that you've got to tuck up the babies?" she

demanded, with a little shrill laugh. "Upon my word, Mr. Nannock, you

are positively interesting; one seems to see you hovering over them with

candles, and listening to their breathing."

"I'm afraid you don't quite understand," Paul said, a little stiffly.

"Indeed, I understand perfectly," she replied, with that softened manner

and with that bright light in her eyes. "And to-morrow I'm coming round

to see them, if I may."

"I should like you to see them," said Paul; and went away with the

feeling that the woman had a heart in her, after all, and was only

flippant by accident.

She appeared at the house quite early the next morning, striding in with

that appearance of gay good-nature and boundless health that best became

her. And long before Paul had appeared to greet her, she had in some

miraculous fashion discovered the children, and had made their

acquaintance, and learnt something of their lives, and of their pet

haunts and hobbies. Jimmy had quite naturally taken the lead as guide

and deputy host, and Jimmy had therewith lost his heart.

At first the loss had not been serious; he merely sighed a little after

she had gone, and remembered with gratitude how naturally and easily she

had spoken with him, and how frankly she had laughed with him, instead

of at him. He remembered, in particular, certain adroit questions she

had asked him in regard to himself, and how, when he had admitted that

except for Old Paul he was quite alone in the world, she had made a

demure, wry grimace, and had whispered that she, too, was alone in the

world; which was distinctly a bond between them. He remembered that

after Old Paul had quite unnecessarily put in an appearance, Miss

Jackman had walked with a hand on his (Jimmy's) shoulder; and it had

been, "Jimmy says this," or, "Jimmy thinks the other," until the boy's

head had swum a little, and the light hand on his shoulder had seemed to

press it with a caress. Then, too, she had suggested, with that charming

laugh of hers, to Old Paul that she was alone in the world; had made

rather a point of it, in fact. When, after inspecting everything, and

expressing shrill delight at everyone, she was taking her leave, she had

said, with a little whimsical shrug of the shoulders, that she really

didn't know what was going to become of her unless she settled down

soon. "I suppose I'm not like other people," she said, toying with her

eyeglass, and laughing a little confusedly. "You see, Mr. Nannock, I'm a

nomad; I've simply got a stuffy place in London, and so many trunks, and

I"--she threw out one arm gracefully and laughed again--"I simply

wander. Various people are kind enough to put me up--like those dear,

sweet Baffalls, and then I go off again somewhere else. Nice in the

summer, but a bit rough for a woman in the winter."

"I'm sorry," said Paul, for no particular reason.

"Though I don't know why I should bore you about myself," she added more

brightly. "Mr. Nannock"--she held out her hand to him and laughed

frankly--"you're one of the people it is good to meet. You've refreshed

me--helped me; I shall face the world more bravely, remembering this

place--and remembering you."

"We--we shall hope to see you again," said Paul, though he did not quite

mean it at the time. "Kind of you to have called--most kind of you."

Honora Jackman knew the people with whom she had to deal, and knew

perfectly well that she could stay in the place as long as she liked. To

do her credit, she managed the thing rather well. She began by declaring

on the third or fourth day that she must trespass no longer on the

hospitality of the Baffalls; and on Mrs. Baffall murmuring that they

were only too glad to have her there, while glancing at Mr. Baffall, and

so eliciting a growling murmur from him, had impetuously rushed round

the table to kiss Mrs. Baffall, and had declared, somewhat to the

consternation of the worthy couple, that she would "make it another

week."

At the end of the week she was discovered by Mrs. Baffall, among a

confusion of trunks and clothing, diffidently attempting to begin the

task of packing; the eyes she raised to the kindly old woman were

suffused with tears. Never had she felt it so difficult to tear herself

away from any place; never had she felt before, in this strange fashion,

the loss of that mother who had died when Honora most needed her. She

made a desperate business of drying her eyes, and of going on with the

packing; she wondered, a little incoherently, what was going to become

of her. So that it ended in Mrs. Baffall, with unwonted firmness,

insisting on the trunks being put aside and on Honora Jackman, after

protests and tears and embraces, consenting to stay a little longer. She

was a beast, and it was a shame, and the Baffalls were angels--a couple

of people in a beastly hard world who had hearts in 'em, and were not

ashamed to acknowledge it. And oh--if dear mother had only lived!

Old Paul proved inaccessible more than once, and Honora, biting her lip

to save an exclamation of impatience, had to put up with the children.

It occurred to her that through the children she might best attack that

stronghold to which she desired to win; and, to the future

heart-breaking of Jimmy, she chose that susceptible boy as the first

line of defence to be demolished; though, had she but known it, she had

better have attempted to secure the allegiance of Moira. Jimmy, nothing

loth, fell an easy victim, and dimly wondered how such a glorious

creature could have stooped to him.

At first it was a mere matter of showing her the nearest way to the

village, and Jimmy strode along willingly enough and proud of his new

responsibilities. Truth to tell, it had been the design of Honora to

capture all the children, and so incidentally to reach to Paul himself;

but Moira stood in the way. When Honora Jackman had swung up to the

house with a cheery call and a light laugh, she had been met by the

dark-eyed girl; the child held out a hand calmly, and put up a cold

cheek for the proffered kiss. But she could not go out; there were

things she had to do for Old Paul.

"Why do you call him 'Old Paul'?" asked Honora.

The child looked at her in surprise. "We all call him that," she

replied. "You see, he's not an ordinary relation--not a father, nor an

uncle--nor anything of that kind; and we've got to call him something.

We talked it over a long time ago with him, and we came to the

conclusion"--Moira stepped delicately over her words at this

point--"came to the conclusion that it would not be quite respectful to

call him 'Paul' so we called him 'Old Paul'; and no one can have a word

to say against that--can they? You see," the child concluded simply,

"it's really because you don't know Old Paul that you don't

understand."

"Gracious!" Honora ejaculated under her breath; but she smiled at Moira

with apparent understanding.

Jimmy coming out at that moment flung himself joyfully into the breach,

but he had a suspicion that the child regarded him coldly as he walked

away with Miss Jackman. He must really explain to Moira afterwards that

there were things in life she could not possibly hope yet to

understand--affairs of the heart, vague but beautiful. Meanwhile, Honora

Jackman, inwardly fuming, was smiling upon him and extracting

information. Jimmy, with his cap upon the back of his head and his hands

in his pockets, supplied answers cheerfully.

So it came about that Honora learnt more than she had learnt already

from the Baffalls; understood how this large-hearted man had stood in

his loneliness, as it were, with wide-opened arms ready to welcome these

children who drifted in from the world he had gladly left behind;

understood, with no real sense of the beauty and generosity of it, how

all and sundry who came had been welcomed, for the simple and perfect

reason that they were children. That point never appealed to the woman;

she saw only a foolish man, easily imposed upon by a tale of distress.

"So that I suppose you all have different names?" she suggested. "I

mean, of course, names other than Jimmy--and Moira--and the other

child."

"My name is James Larrance," said Jimmy, "and Alice's mother (she went

away and quite forgot to come back, you know) was Mrs. Vickery. Only

Moira has got the real name," he added.

"The real name?" She turned and looked at him sharply. "What's the real

name?"

"Nannock," replied Jimmy. "That's Old Paul's name, you know; and he gave

it to Moira because I believe he couldn't bear that other one--the name

that really belonged to her. He got Moira from someone he was awfully

fond of."

Honora began to see daylight; began to sniff suspiciously at a possible

but impossible love story--an awkward jumbled thing, buried away in the

years that Old Paul was trying to forget. She became interested in spite

of herself, but she saw that she must use this boy to further her ends.

She dropped that light hand again upon his shoulder as they walked, and

spoke confidentially, playing upon his heartstrings as upon a new and

untried instrument, easily stirred.

"Jimmy, I'm quite sure that you and I are going to be great friends,"

she said. "Of course, you understand, Jimmy, that I have very few

friends--not people that I really like--people I can talk to."

Jimmy gulped, and began dimly to call to mind all the romances of which

he had heard or which he had read. Almost he wished that something

wonderful might happen--some danger that should threaten her; it seemed

then that he would have known perfectly what to do. Strong boy though he

was, he was almost on the verge of tears at his own helplessness--at the

thought that she must go away, and leave him as she had found him but a

few days since. For this was not love in the ordinary sense; this was

but that fine chivalry that lies deep in the hearts of all of us, and

can be wakened at a whisper or at the touch of a hand; only in some of

us it grows and springs to full life earlier than in others. Jimmy did

not understand what the very word woman meant; only he stretched out

warm impulsive young hands into the future, and craved to do that which

the best of men had done before him and had laid down their lives for.

The woman did not matter; the fact that she was a woman sufficed.

Even when she began to reveal a little of her purpose he did not

understand; he was glad only to help her. Still keeping that hand upon

his shoulder as they walked towards the village, she began delicately to

ask him about the lives they led--he and the others and Old Paul--and

how they spent their days. And by the guileless Jimmy was let suddenly

into the secret heart of it all.

The betrayal was disgraceful; but, then, Honora knew the ways of youth,

and she meant to gain her point. She fished delicately, with slow, easy

questions for bait, until Jimmy had led her--in words, at least--into

the very heart of that paradise which Old Paul had made for himself and

the children, in certain deep woods unexplored by others. Honora had a

vision of the man hidden away there, surrounded by the children, and

reading and talking to them on sunny afternoons. There, apparently, he

was to be taken off his guard; there discovered in his most intimate

moments, and taken unawares. Honora laid her plans, and determined

heartlessly enough to use the boy to further them. Jimmy was to meet her

on the morrow; the infatuated boy was actually to bring this loud-voiced

hearty woman into the holy of holies, and to spring her suddenly upon

his friends.

Only when Jimmy had parted from her, and was taking his way back to the

house, did he realise what he had promised, and what it involved. He

remembered how first he had been taken--walking on tip-toe and breathing

carefully--deep down into that place of trees and ferns and birds and

rustling things; remembered with what pride he had assisted to bring

Moira and Alice into it afterwards. The place had been Old Paul's

discovery; you had to plunge through masses of undergrowth and drop down

a bank to get to it, and no one in the world had ever found it before!

Alice had been properly frightened, and had torn her frock; Moira had

gone into it with her eyes wide open, and her lips parted a little in

sheer delight. And to-morrow Honora Jackman was to scramble into it, and

to take them all by surprise.

Jimmy thought deeply about the prospect. In the first place, it might be

well to break it to the others; to explain that the lady was really very

nice, and that he adored her, and to try and recollect a few of the

things she had said when speaking about their retreat. On the other hand

(a wiser and more subtle thought, this), it might be well to meet Miss

Jackman, and take her by another route to another place, and so get over

the difficulty in that way. But Jimmy had not yet learnt to be

absolutely dishonest; he faced the thought resolutely that to-morrow he

must redeem his promise, and must thrust the lady, willy-nilly, into the

paradise.

This new Judas had revealed the very time when Paul might be discovered

with his young people; Jimmy woke with the thought of that in the

morning, and carried that leaden thought all day; or, at least, until

the time when he was to meet Honora Jackman. He had made an excuse for

deserting the party; had slipped away at the last moment, and now hung

about, flushed and irresolute, but strangely happy, to wait for the lady

with the eyeglass. And presently saw her swinging along towards him, and

already noting him with a smile. Jimmy discovered, too, that another

miracle was to happen at the very moment of meeting; for she dropped an

arm about his shoulders, and stooped and brushed his lips with her own.

"You're the best friend I have in the world," she whispered, truthfully

enough.

The intoxicated Jimmy stumbled on through the wood with the woman behind

him. His lips were wet with her kiss, and had it been anyone else who

had done this thing, he would have rubbed the lips hard to get rid of

the taint of it. But now he dared not even lick them. Honora Jackman

sang softly as she walked, and Jimmy, with that wondrous being behind

spelling indefinite happiness, faced resolutely the dreadful moment when

he must meet those he had betrayed. He wished desperately that she might

have been content with any other place in the wood in which to sit and

talk with him; why she should choose this particular spot, and be so

anxious about it, had not yet dawned upon the mind of Jimmy. So, with

fear knocking at his heart, he came to the top of the bank and parted

the bushes and looked down.

"Hullo!" he called feebly.

There was a shriek of delight, changing instantly to a dead silence as

the head of Honora appeared beside his own, looking down at them. Old

Paul was upon his hands and knees working out an elaborate design with

fir cones; he looked up at the apparition and straightened himself, and

got ceremoniously to his feet, treading out the design as he moved.

Honora, nothing daunted, looked down and nodded cheerfully, and surveyed

the paradise out of her bright eyes through a brighter eyeglass.

"How perfectly heavenly!" she exclaimed. "Will you help me down?"

Now Old Paul was something of a coward; moreover, he had lived so long

that hermit life away from women that he had nothing wherewith to meet

the situation. Jimmy had jumped down, and was industriously kicking away

at the ground beneath his feet, without caring very much to look at

anyone, and Paul glanced round at the girls. Most of all he looked at

Moira, and he read the shameful answer he was to give clearly in her

eyes. After that he faced Honora Jackman with some sternness, though

with a little laughter in his eyes.

"I'm afraid you must go back," he said. "You see, this is private

property, in a manner of speaking; it's our enchanted garden--and all

that sort of thing. I'm afraid you must go back."

"I don't think I can find my way," she retorted; and then lowering her

voice, added rallying to the innocent face uplifted to her own below the

bank, "I declare you're the biggest baby of the lot!"

"Very likely; but I'd rather you went back; Jimmy will take you," he

said.

Jimmy, after a moment of amazed silence, scrambled up the bank, cast a

glance of withering scorn back at Old Paul, and then disappeared with

Honora into the wood. In less than five minutes he was back again, and

he came like a young fury, bursting through the bushes, and flinging

himself breathless before Paul, who had resumed work with the fir cones.

"You're a beast!" the boy shouted, almost crying. "She's much nicer than

you think--and she's a lady--and she was crying when I left her. You're

a brute, Old Paul!"

That statement was to an extent true, but the tears in the eyes of

Honora Jackman had been those of sheer rage and mortification. Moreover,

Jimmy's outburst may be accounted for by the fact that she had utterly

ignored him at the moment of parting, except to request him viciously to

"run away and play." For Honora was seriously annoyed.

"Oho! sits the wind in that quarter?" said Old Paul, sitting back on his

heels, and regarding the boy with a quizzical smile. "Poor old Jimmy!

I'll wager a week's pocket money with you, Jimmy, that you love her.

Come, now--out with it!"

Jimmy stammered and stuttered, and looked about at the trees. "I do--and

I don't mind who knows it," he said at last, hotly.

"Brave boy! good boy! You're growing up finely, Jimmy, and it's just

what I might have expected of you. But even in your love, Jimmy, you

mustn't betray your friends," he added gravely. "She's a nice lady,

though a trifle old for you, Jimmy; but you're growing every day. I'll

even forgive you for calling me names, though that wasn't quite fair.

Did you see her safely out of the wood, Jimmy?"

But Jimmy, with a sudden suspicious sound in his throat, had turned and

bolted up the bank. And in a moment Paul's smile faded, and he took the

bank at a leap, and went after the boy. He found him lying prone on the

ground, with his face hidden on his arms, sobbing as though his heart

would break. He flung himself in a moment beside him, and put his head

down close to Jimmy's.

"Jimmy--old Jimmy--I didn't mean----"

Jimmy raised his face cautiously, looked about him to be sure that no

eyes save those of Paul could note his swollen eyelids and his quivering

lips. "I know you didn't," he gulped. "But you don't understand me; you

don't know how wonderful she is. You haven't thought that she hasn't got

a friend in the world--'cept me; she told me that," he added proudly.

"Did she now!" Old Paul sat up and looked at the boy. "She's more

wonderful than I thought, Jimmy. And I suppose you'd do anything for

her--die for her?"

"I would!" exclaimed the boy earnestly. "If I thought she was in

trouble--or anybody was going to do anything that would hurt

her--I'd----"

"I know--I know, Jimmy," replied Paul, with a grave nod. "And it's a

brave feeling--isn't it, boy? Makes you tingle all over, especially at

the tips of the fingers. Makes you carry your head up, and draw your

breath quickly--eh?"

"Why--how do you know, Old Paul?" asked the boy, staring at him.

"Oh--just guessed it," said Paul, with a little laugh. "Come on, Jimmy

Quixote, let's join the ladies."

"What's 'Quixote'?" asked Jimmy, getting slowly to his feet.

"Oh, he was a gentleman who went out to fight for ladies--and he tilted

at windmills and things," said Paul. "But he was rather a good sort,

Jimmy; and I think I like you the better for this afternoon. You don't

mind my calling you 'Jimmy Quixote,' do you?"

"Not if he was that sort of man," replied Jimmy.

For a long time after that--long, indeed, after Honora Jackman had left

the Baffalls in peace and gone again upon her journeyings--Old Paul

would sometimes, in moments of confidence, tenderly call Jimmy by that

curious name, so that between them it rather stuck to him. It was,

moreover, a reminder of something that must not be known by others--a

sweet and beautiful confidence--the first of that kind between them.

But Honora Jackman was not of the kind to be ignored, nor did she mean

to give up the pursuit so easily. The children were a nuisance, but she

remembered that they were not always in evidence; there was a time when

the tiresome creatures were safely shut away with the Rev. Temple

Purdue, and when Old Paul had, in a manner of speaking, lost his

bodyguard. It would be hard if Honora did not contrive to get hold of

the man at that time, and her confidence in herself told her that she

could soon bring the man to her feet if once she had got him out of his

usual surroundings. He was a good creature, and he was rich, and he was

simply wasting his life. Apart from all else, too, Honora's pride was

piqued at the thought of his apparent inaccessibility; she would

challenge him, and that, too, before the children. To do her justice,

she felt that ordinary honesty demanded that she should not attack Paul

behind their backs.

The opportunity arrived easily enough. On the following morning, behold

Honora at the gate leading to the grounds, standing tall and slim and

straight as the children came out on their way to the rectory; behold

Old Paul standing sheepishly in the gateway, and giving her "Good

morning!" Jimmy flushed hotly, and gave her his hand; Alice did

likewise; Moira shyly drew back and bowed. Honora Jackman gaily nodded

to Paul, and proffered her blunt request.

"I lost my way again in the woods this morning, Mr. Nannock," she said.

"You will really have to show me the way through them--and I'll promise

not to go near your sacred haunts," she added, with a glance at Jimmy.

"I--I should be delighted," said the recreant Paul in a low voice.

"I can't manage it this morning; I've got some shopping to do in the

village for Mrs. Baffall," said Honora. "Shall we say--to-morrow?"

"To-morrow," echoed Paul, with a nod.

The three children walked in silence to the rectory; it was a dismal day

for everyone. And that night, for the second time, Old Paul sat in his

room smoking, and listening for a little light footfall on the stairs--a

footfall that never came.

CHAPTER IV

THE ELOPING PERSONS

That was a night against which a black mark had afterwards to be set in

the memory of Paul Nannock. It had seemed such a simple thing, and so

inevitable--that promise to which he had been forced, and which would

have meant, with anyone else, a mere matter of an idle stroll and a

little easy talk. But with this man the children stood first; and ever

in the front rank of them stood Moira, child of the woman he had loved.

The absurdity of regarding the little expedition with Honora Jackman

seriously occurred to him more than once, and yet he shrank from it; and

the fact that the sensitive child who was so near to his heart had

stamped it with her disapproval meant much to Paul. It was a desertion

on his part, and she had answered it by a desertion of her own. Paul sat

up later than usual, in the hope that she might after all come creeping

down to his room; but she never appeared.

He stole upstairs at last, miserably enough, and listened at the door of

her room. All was silent, and he told himself that she had forgotten,

and had fallen asleep. Had he known that she lay in her bed, wide-awake,

fighting out jealously the bitter problem in her mind, it would have

been a matter of his hurrying in in the darkness, and taking her in his

arms, and promising I know not what. But he did not know that, and he

went upstairs to his own room.

In a new bravery induced by the darkness he determined that on the

morrow he would invent an excuse, and would get out of the engagement

with Honora; in a more sober and reflective moment he knew that he would

do no such thing; the affair must be gone through with, and he must

contrive in some fashion to make his peace with Moira afterwards.

The relations between the child and the man were so curious and so

subtle, that no real explanation of anything that troubled them could

ever be made between them. Their sympathy one with the other was so

great, that it had long ago become a mutual business of give-and-take;

the sensitive little creature had come to learn long since that no words

were necessary, and that the mere taking of her into Old Paul's arms in

silence meant much, and atoned for much, and explained everything.

Gentle as she was, she resented bitterly and fiercely any interference

with the man; he was all her world, and she must stand first with him,

or her world crumbled into dust. And Paul had long ago come to

understand that, and to understand that he must be watchful. The thought

of it troubled him now; the impossibility of explaining to Moira that

this was a mere act of politeness to Honora Jackman struck him with a

sense of comical dismay.

He slept badly, and rose early; he was glad to get out into the air and

into his garden before anyone was stirring; there was every promise of a

perfect long summer day before him. Well, he would be done with Honora

Jackman in a matter of an hour or so; the rest of the day was his own.

Yet how he longed even to be rid of the responsibility of that hour or

so!

He went back into the house and into his room, and set about preparing

for himself a cup of coffee. He very often did that in the early

morning, before anyone was about. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it

was not quite six. He was bending over the little spirit stove, when he

suddenly drew himself upright and listened; for there was a sound of

little feet upon the stair.

The sound drew nearer, while he listened a little guiltily. Then the

door was pushed open, and Moira came in; and for a moment the man and

the child looked deep into each other's souls.

"Hullo, Moira!" said Paul at last. "You're up early."

She did not reply; she walked across to him, and put up her face for a

kiss. He did not dare even to whisper a question as to the previous

night; he was casting about in his mind for the best thing to say under

these tragic circumstances. The pride of the child forbade that she

should even breathe the name of her rival; so that each waited and

wondered what was best to be said. Had the simple Paul but known,

however, Moira had already made up her mind what to do with him; had

been thinking it out during the night.

Paul was sipping his coffee, and furtively glancing at the child, when

he saw that she was about to speak. She was leaning against him, and his

arm encircled her; almost he could feel her thin young body quiver with

the eagerness of the question, although she spoke quietly enough.

"Old Paul--what do you do when you love anybody?"

"Do?" Paul set down his cup, and twisted the child about, the better to

look into her eyes. "Oh, you just--just love 'em," he replied feebly.

"Oh!" The child lowered her eyes, and seemed to be pondering deeply.

Finally she spoke, tracing a vein on the back of the man's hand with one

finger as she said the words, and looking down at that finger. "Patience

says that sometimes, when you're in that state, you elope."

"Patience seems to know a lot about it," said Paul. "Look here, old

lady--what are you driving at? We're quite alone, you know--and I'll

never breathe a word about it."

"Patience says that sometimes there's somebody in the way--'somebody who

stands between,' was what she said; and in that case you steal out

quietly, and you rush away, and you never get caught. At least, that is,

in the best eloping cases," she added, thoughtfully.

"And you only do that when somebody stands between?" whispered Paul.

"Somebody, for instance, who is a little bit in the way?"

She did not look up at him; she only nodded quickly. As he looked at

her, he saw a bright drop fall on his hand, but he was too wise to say

anything; he went on in an unaltered tone:

"Someone, for instance, who would take--shall we say _me_, for

argument?--away for a time; that is, of course, if they could. But,

dear"--he drew her a little closer to him--"I don't really want to go."

"But of course there are things you must do, unless somebody else is

brave enough to help you," she whispered. "That's why it seemed to me on

such a day, that we might, if we were very quiet about it, elope!" She

raised her eyes for the first time, and the eyes were laughing. "It

isn't a serious business, Old Paul; and we could be back in time for

supper."

"It _is_ a serious business," he replied. "It's a desperate business. We

might be pursued by that--that other person."

"There's not a moment to be lost, Old Paul," she cried, slipping out of

his embrace, and dancing light-footed and light-hearted round the room.

"Come at once!"

"Eloping persons generally have a carriage, and they drive at top

speed," suggested Old Paul. "We must do the thing properly, you know."

"There is the Ancient One," replied Moira instantly.

"To be sure; I never thought of the Ancient One," he replied.

Now the Ancient One was an aged and somewhat dejected donkey, who had

been bought out of sheer charity by Old Paul under distressing

circumstances. Originally the Ancient One had been attached to a cart

owned by a gipsy; and Paul had come upon the gipsy belabouring the

animal unmercifully upon a country-road. Moira had been with him; she

remembered to this hour all that had happened on that wonderful and

exciting occasion.

Old Paul had first of all taken off his coat, and folded it neatly, and

laid it on the bank; and then a moment later he and the gipsy were "all

arms and legs," as Moira expressed it afterwards, "about the road."

It had ended in the gipsy being discovered, as they say in the plays,

seated with a swollen face on the opposite bank, and bewailing his hard

lot; while Old Paul stood over him, and asked what he wanted for the

Ancient One. (They christened him the Ancient One afterwards, because

Paul said that donkeys never died, and that this one ought to have died

years before.)

Paul had paid certain bright sovereigns for the Ancient One, and had led

him home in triumph, with Moira poised upon his back. After that an old

chaise had been discovered, hidden away in the stable of an inn; and

that had been a mere matter of seventeen shillings; and this was the

equipage in which these eloping persons were to start.

But first, of course, there were preparations. You cannot elope without

careful consideration; and it was more than possible that they might be

hungry before the day was out and they crept home to supper. Going hand

in hand and on tip-toe guiltily, they stole from the larder bread and

cheese and a bottle of milk; moreover, Paul made an uncouth sandwich or

two in a desperate hurry. When all this had been tied up in a cloth,

they went out of the house in search of the Ancient One and the chaise.

By all the rules of the great game it was necessary, as Old Paul

carefully explained in a whisper, that he should be waiting in the

carriage in a lane, until the lady could escape and join him. Therefore,

the better to keep up that fiction, Moira hid in the bushes until three

shrill whistles sounded from outside the garden; then she crept out to

meet her lover; and Old Paul (the dog must have been through this

before, to understand it so well!) received her, hat in hand--a

difficult process, because he had to hold the Ancient One with the other

hand, and the Ancient One was kicking; but Moira, radiantly happy, got

into the chaise, and sat bright-eyed and demure; then Old Paul climbed

in beside her, and after a preliminary tussle with the Ancient One,

started him on his journey.

Properly speaking, the Ancient One should have gone at top speed, with

dust flying and the chaise rocking perilously. But there was no top

speed about that animal; instead, he crawled along in a zig-zag fashion,

just as tempting grass lured him at either side of the road; while Old

Paul sat, leaning forward, with the reins hanging loose in his hands,

the while he talked to Moira. For they were going out into the big

world, these two, if only for a day; and it was a wonderful place to

each innocent pair of eyes, unexplored and beautiful. Somewhere or

other, when the Ancient One should have condescended to drag them to the

spot, they were to have breakfast, and to discuss the plans for the day.

In that, again, Old Paul showed his absolute genius; you might have

imagined that he would have stopped in some secluded spot, and have

opened that precious cloth which contained the provisions he had so

artfully prepared; but not a bit of it; he had other ideas than that for

such an occasion. Presently, if you please, the Ancient One was turned

unresisting into an old stable yard attached to an equally old inn;

there to dream in a little while of the Elysian Fields, amid a generous

bounty of hay. By that time a wondering landlady had conducted Old Paul

and the child to a room upstairs, where in the mere twinkling of an eye

a cloth was spread upon the table, and a round-faced, open-eyed young

female had bounced in and out with knives and forks and cups and plates.

For by that time the Ancient One had been examined, and the very chaise

appraised; and the story was abroad of this wonderful young man who had

come suddenly as it were into the deserted place, and had mysteriously

ordered breakfast.

The landlady herself waited upon them; hovered about them, indeed, with

hands upraised, and with stifled exclamations of wonder and delight. It

was difficult to get rid of her; she came in on the mere pretext of

picking up a crumb from the floor; there was no delicacy about her.

When, however, it had at last dawned upon her that her presence was an

outrage, the two settled down to their meal; and the dark eyes looked

into the blue ones contentedly and happily; and the blue ones smiled

back; for even Moira knew that this was the proper thing to do on an

elopement.

They grew quite confidential over that meal--more confidential, in fact,

than they had ever been. It was as though they had been lifted out of

their ordinary world, and set down in an enchanted one somewhere else;

the ordinary conditions of life had slipped past them; and could be

lightly forgotten. Old Paul told her something of the days when he had

been a boy, something of his life in a time that seemed now far off,

lying back in the shadows. And Moira learned, to her surprise, that in

that time Patience had been with him, and had even then, as it seemed to

his remembrance, been quite old.

"I was a little chap, and I remember that we were all very poor, Moira,"

he said across the table. "But always Patience was there; she looked

after my mother a lot, when my mother seemed only to be a young girl.

Then heaps and heaps of riches came to me, too late for the young girl

who was my mother, but still I had Patience with me; which accounts, you

see," he added whimsically, "for her being there now, and understanding

me so well. If sometimes you think she's hard and stern, dear, you've

only got to remember that I've given her a lot of trouble in my time,

and made her anxious about me. I've taken a deal of watching, Moira."

"You have, Old Paul," she retorted, with a remembrance of her rescue of

him that day. "You might have been quite destroyed if we hadn't looked

after you carefully," she added, with her elbows on the table and her

chin propped in her palms.

"Do you know," he said, looking across at her gratefully, "although I

wouldn't mention it to a soul, I shall never know quite how to thank you

for to-day. This elopement of ours has quite put matters straight; I

should never have thought of it myself at all."

"Patience says that it takes a woman to manage things," retorted Moira

wisely.

They found the Ancient One less inclined to move than ever after his

feasting; indeed, Moira declared that it was a little difficult to fit

him in between the shafts. But they got him started, and went away on

another unknown expedition, with the whole inn to watch them, including

the landlady and the bouncing female who had brought in the knives and

forks and plates. At the last moment the Ancient One decided that he

would return to the hay, and it became necessary for Old Paul to lead

him out into the high road, and for the landlady and the bouncing one to

push the chaise behind; while Moira, in a high state of dignity, sat in

the chaise, and strove hard not to laugh. For Old Paul saying pretty

things to the donkey while he led him was certainly funny.

Paul had been thoughtful in regard to the home-coming, and the landlady

had received secret orders, so that by the time the long bright day was

ending, and the shadows were lengthening across the roads and fields,

they came, in some unaccountable fashion, by a circuitous route back to

the inn again; there to find the landlady, apparently moved to

astonishment at their re-appearance, and yet with a sumptuous meal on

the way. Moira was handed over to the care of the motherly woman and the

bouncing maid, while Paul smoked a pipe, and lounged in a deep window

seat, and looked out over the darkening fields. And presently the child

came down, radiant and hungry, with her attendant slaves hovering about

her. The man and the child ate their meal in the dusk of the room, with

only their eyes for lights--the one for the other.

"It's been the most wonderful elopement possible," said Moira, with a

deep sigh of contentment. "I'm sure that even the Ancient One will

remember it to his dying day--that is, if he ever dies at all."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," said Paul.

A little jealous feeling crept in, even in the midst of Moira's

happiness; she stole round the table, and got an arm about his neck, and

whispered:

"Have you thought about her at all, Old Paul?"

"Once--but not seriously," he whispered. "But I don't like you to say

that, dear," he added.

"That's because you don't understand," she breathed, with her lips

against his cheek. "I should have died if I had thought of you in the

woods with her; I could not have borne it. Promise me, Old Paul--promise

me truly?"

"What, little maid?" he whispered.

"Promise me that never in all your life will you elope with anybody but

me. Let me know that no one else will be taken away by you like this.

Let this be my own--my very own elopement."

And Old Paul most solemnly promised.

They drove home under a kindly moon and stars; and by that time Moira

was nearly asleep. Jogging along through the country lanes, Old Paul as

he held the reins and kept an arm about the child, dreamed dreams.

Dreamed, perhaps, that this might have been the woman who had died; that

in such a fashion he might have travelled through an impossible world of

moonshine and of starshine with her, and been impossibly happy. Almost

he came to think that by the love of the child he had won back to the

love of the mother; that the disaster that had touched his life was a

thing to be forgotten--something long since atoned for, alike in death

and by the gift of this baby. The love his young manhood had known for

the mother seemed to be swallowed up in this purer, finer love for the

child; he came back, at the end of his perfect day, secure in that love

at least.

By the time the sleepy Ancient One stopped at the gate in the wall Moira

was awake again; she suffered herself to be lifted from the chaise, and

so to face the commonplace world again. She stood, swaying a little with

sleep, in the warm dusk; she became dimly conscious that someone was

surveying her through a bright eyeglass. That was the crowning moment of

her triumph, and she did not need to say anything in explanation.

"I was taking a stroll," sounded the high voice of Honora Jackman.

"Where have you been hiding all day, you two?"

Old Paul felt the warm fingers of the child tighten about his hand; he

knew what answer he must give. "Well, as a matter of fact," he replied

blandly, "Moira and I have been away all day--on a little excursion."

The fingers tightened still more, and he plunged desperately into the

full truth. "We--we eloped together early this morning; and it has been

a wonderful day."

That was enough; impelled by the stern hand of Moira he was swept past

Honora Jackman, and was drawn towards the house, leading the Ancient

One. It was the hour of Moira's triumph, and she would not have abated

one jot of it. The shrill little laugh the woman gave was the final

beautiful note of it.

Only Anthony Ditchburn seemed to have suffered. He came querulously to

Paul that night--looking in with a scared face, and with glances over

his shoulder, as though in fear of pursuit.

"Why did you go away, Nannock?" he demanded. "She's a horrible woman;

she came early, and said something about woods; seemed to have a sort of

suspicion that I was hiding you. Came again several times during the

day, and asked about you; was positively rude at times. And I in the

midst of an important chapter! You needn't laugh," he added piteously;

"it has quite unnerved me. She's dangerous."

But Old Paul leaned back in his chair, and laughed until he cried.

CHAPTER V

JIMMY'S AFFECTIONS

It does not need to be recorded here that after that first fierce

outburst the image of Honora Jackman faded from the mind of Jimmy, and

became but as a vague dream of the past. True, for a time he hugged to

himself the impossible thought of her; remembered with a pang the day of

her departure. For even the Baffalls were to see the last of her, and

Jimmy was to be privileged to be inconsolable for some twenty-four

hours.

She did not depart without something of a sensation. She felt she

owed it to her reputation, and to her superior knowledge of the

world, that she should let this man know that she understood his

feelings--understood, in particular, that he was afraid of her. Bitterly

though she resented the fashion in which he had set her aside, there

was consolation in the thought that he had had to set, as she believed,

the frail child between herself and him; she would remind him of that at

least before she went. Mrs. Baffall being easily managed on such a

matter, it came about that Mrs. Baffall put in an appearance at Daisley

Place, and sought an interview with Old Paul.

"She's going away," said Mrs. Baffall; it did not seem necessary to

mention any name.

"You'll miss her," replied Old Paul politely.

Mrs. Baffall glanced about her as though fearing listeners; then she

smoothed her gloved hands down over her silk dress, bending herself a

little to do so, and spoke in a confidential whisper:

"We shall--and we shan't, Mr. Nannock, in a manner of speaking," she

said. "Between you and me and what I may call the gate-post, Baffall and

me won't be sorry. She's nice, and she's got style, but it's a bit too

much of a style for us. Bare shoulders at dinner make me feel

chilly--and her voice seems to go through and through the house."

"I think I understand," said Paul, nodding. "But you want me to do

something?"

"I thought if you could stand the shoulders for one evening--you being

more used to 'em like, Mr. Nannock--it'd be a charity. She said this

morning"--Mrs. Baffall made an extraordinary grimace, as though

controlling a desire to laugh--"said this very morning that she was

dying to see you and the children together--in your own place. Seems

quite set on it."

Paul walked across to the window and looked out; turned there, and

looked at the old woman. There was an unspoken question in his eyes, and

she answered it promptly.

"Lord bless the man--she won't eat you!" she exclaimed, in a more

natural fashion than that in which she usually spoke. "And if it'll do

her any good, by all means let her. I'm sure you'll excuse me speaking

in such a fashion to you, sir; but I think she's got about a hundred and

fifty a year to live on--and not many friends, as you count friends in

this world. And she ain't a bad sort, take her all round--and she's a

woman."

Paul came away from the window and stood close to the old woman, who had

risen to meet him; in that moment they clasped hands and looked into

each other's eyes. "Come, all of you--and you shall fix the date," said

Paul.

She withdrew her hand and laughed a little confusedly; settled the

strings of her bonnet with some faint touch of coquetry. "Make it

to-morrow, Mr. Nannock," she said.

In order not to reveal the innocent plot Paul sent a formal invitation

that day by the hand of Jimmy. Jimmy had a wild hope that he might see

his divinity, for, of course, at that time her image had not faded by

any means--that was only to come later. But the lady did not put in an

appearance; instead, Mrs. Baffall entertained him in the showy

drawing-room, inquiring politely as to the health of everybody, and

giving him minute particulars concerning various uninteresting matters

with which he could not possibly be concerned. But Jimmy learnt, to his

fluttering delight, that _she_ was coming to dinner on the morrow; it

might be that he would get a glimpse of her.

He was to get more than a glimpse. Old Paul gravely informed him, on his

return to the house, that he was to dine with the company on the morrow;

and Jimmy, blushing furiously, blurted out his thanks and fled from the

room. For reasons of state Paul decided that the girls had better not

appear; perhaps he feared Moira a little. In his own mind he set this

experienced woman of the world against the child, and carefully made

allowances for feelings with which another would not have credited her.

In fact, all things considered, Paul felt he would be glad when the

dinner party should be over, and Honora Jackman well away upon her

travels again.

Honora came softly, and with something of timidity. To judge from her

manner, and from the fashion in which her hand lingered in his for a

moment at her coming, this might have been really an affair of hearts

between them; some impossible romance, in which self-sacrifice had been

demanded and sadly given. Mrs. Baffall quite felt that the unfortunate

woman was departing into a grey world, charged with sad and secret

memories. So well, indeed, did Honora carry out that part of the

business that Paul himself had an uncomfortable feeling that he had

treated her rather badly, and that she was behaving with a generosity

that called for the highest commendation. In manner he was quite

apologetic.

She had evidently determined that she would stamp this night into the

memory of Paul Nannock; would go away, in fact, leaving the sweetest

savour behind her. The boisterousness was gone; there was almost a new

timidity about her. When she came into that sitting-room that was

littered with books and toys, and came up frankly to him with a hand

outstretched, she was careful to keep her disengaged white arm round the

neck of the radiant Jimmy; insisted afterwards on having Jimmy beside

her at table. And there talked in a quiet voice, and with a little low

ripple of laughter, about what she was to do and what prosaic things

were to happen to her.

"It's just been simply lovely down here with you all," she said. "I'll

own I came to scoff; I've remained to do the other thing. If you knew

anything about me, you dear simple folk, you'd know that for a time I've

lost sight and touch of the hard world in which I live. Funny--isn't it?

Yet it's true; even Jimmy here has taught me a lot. I shall remember

your woods and your fields, and I shall think of you often and often.

Gracious!--I'm growing sentimental."

She was to be a revelation to them that night. Presently she sat down at

the piano in the dusk of the room (Paul remembered it afterwards, and

could smell again, when he remembered, the soft warm summer night

outside the open windows) and sang to them. She began with a haunting

Irish song--an old thing, with a hint of mournfulness and longing and

fatality in it--passed rapidly into a happy-go-lucky burlesque affair

that set them chuckling, and caused Mrs. Baffall to roll about in her

chair and to cram her handkerchief into her mouth. The voice was not

particularly good, but it had a pleasant quality of sincerity and

naturalness, and she made the most of it. And then suddenly she came out

with the complete object of her visit revealed.

"Mr. Nannock," she said, with a faint flush mounting in her cheek, "you

won't let me go away without seeing the--the children?"

"I'll be--delighted," he said, looking at her helplessly, and inwardly

praying with extreme fervour that Moira might be asleep. "Perhaps, Mrs.

Baffall----"

But Mrs. Baffall shook her head. "I'm very comfortable, thank you," she

replied, "and I can see the children any time. Miss Jackman won't get

another chance."

So Paul, feeling somewhat ridiculous, went out of the room, and lighted

a candle in the hall, and prepared to set out on his expedition. Honora

Jackman, evidently amused, stood with her skirts gathered in one hand

ready to mount the stairs, watching him; noted with a secret delight the

perplexed frown on the face bending above the candle. He came at last to

the foot of the stairs, and smiled at her over the candle, and indicated

the way.

"Is it very far up?" she asked.

"Only the first floor," he replied, and she tripped on in front of him,

while he followed demurely with the candle.

The girls had two tiny beds in a big wilderness of a room--a room that

had been specially fitted, under Paul's direction, for their comfort.

There was a huge cupboard that held toys and dolls; there were deep

chairs and couches; there was a big fireplace, covered still with a high

curved fire-guard--reminiscent of the days when they had been very young

indeed. Old Paul, holding the candle, opened the door, and motioned to

Honora Jackman to go in. Honora stepped in delicately, and Paul followed

with the light.

The first bed held Alice. She lay there with her fair curls fallen about

her face, and with a smile upon the half-parted lips. Honora smiled as

she bent over her. "She looks like a small angel," she whispered.

In the next bed, as they tip-toed over to it, was Moira; and Moira, be

it noted, was not asleep. She had lain fretting and fuming at the

thought of the woman downstairs; she had heard the footsteps on the

stairs, and had known, indignantly enough, that the woman was coming up.

Instantly she had closed her eyes and feigned sleep. It was, of course,

a very wrong thing to do, and there is no possible excuse that can be

urged; but the child felt that here, at this moment, she was to see even

deeper into the heart of Old Paul, and to understand what that real

intimate heart meant for her.

Old Paul bent over her, and softly put back a long strand of dark hair

from her face. Honora Jackman had taken the candle, and was shading the

light carefully, so that it happened that Moira's flush of sudden

pleasure at his touch was unseen. Honora was looking not at the child,

but at him, and her eyes were laughing.

"Why are you so afraid of me, Mr. Nannock?" she whispered, squeezing the

warm top of the candle between a finger and thumb, and looking

thoughtfully at the light.

"I--I don't think I am," he breathed in reply.

"Oh, yes, you are," she retorted. "So much afraid of me that you had

once to set this baby between me and--shall we say--possible danger?"

She gave a little quick laugh in her throat, and flashed a glance at

him.

"Oh--that was a whim--of hers and mine," he said steadily, still keeping

his voice to the lowest. "Besides, if you come to that, I think she

stands first--in all things."

"Oh, I quite know that," she whispered. "But I wonder sometimes, as

every woman wonders where a man who interests her is concerned--I wonder

what you think of me."

"Nothing but the best, I assure you."

"That counts for nothing--and means nothing," she whispered sharply.

"Lord, what fools we women are," she went on, in quite another tone. "I

wonder what you'd think of me if I told you what was in my mind?"

"Is it necessary?" he whispered gravely.

"I think so," she said. "I came down here and heard about you, and set

you down for a fool--a gaby. I thought all this business of the children

was a pose--something to make you talked about; I know now that it

isn't. And I like you for it--love you a little for it."

"Shall we go downstairs?" he asked.

"Not yet; there's something else to be said--and I may as well say it

beside this child, who holds your heart in those slim fingers of hers,

as anywhere else--better perhaps. I don't suppose you'll see me

again--at any time; why should you?" She laughed that queer little

laugh in her throat, and kept her bright eyes on the light of the

candle. "So I'll say now that I would have sold my immortal soul

to-night to have had you stand beside me as you've stood beside this

baby--and touched my hair once like that--and looked at me with that

softened look in your eyes. That's all. Now we can go down."

They moved towards the door; there he stopped and turned towards her. "I

think you might kiss the child," he said, with a nod back towards the

bed. "I should like to remember that you did that."

"Thank you," she whispered, and stole back to the bed.

Moira had heard, and in some dim fashion had partly understood--was

perhaps a little ashamed of her own triumph; therefore, it happened that

when Honora Jackman bent over her, she reached up an arm in apparent

half slumber and encircled Honora's neck. When the woman had settled the

bed-clothes about the child she turned away quickly, and came back to

where Paul stood, and handed him the candle. And she was smiling quite

gaily.

Outside the room they met Mrs. Baffall; the good woman had felt that

after all she might as well come up and look after her guest. "So you've

seen them?" she whispered. "Aren't they sweet?"

"Oh--they're all right--for children," replied Honora, with a laugh.

"And they always look better asleep, you know."

She ran downstairs, leaving the others to follow at their leisure. Mrs.

Baffall turned an anxious face to Paul, and spoke excusingly of her.

"You mustn't think she's hard," she said. "I'm afraid it's her life--the

people she's met, you know. There's some tenderness in her."

"I believe there is," replied Paul.

Honora Jackman was to leave the place the next day, so that this was a

species of farewell. Paul presently insisted that a glass of wine should

be drunk in her honour before they parted; and even Jimmy--blinking hard

to keep his eyes open--was allowed a minute fraction of a glass

wherewith to honour the toast. And by that time Honora Jackman, with

nothing of that past tenderness and humility upon her, insisted upon

clinking glasses with the boy, and drank to him specially, so that he

blushed to the very ears.

"Jimmy--I drink to you," she said, and her eyes were very soft. "I

shan't forget you, Jimmy--and I'm going to ask Mr. Nannock to let you

come to the station to see me off in the morning--and only you."

The boy looked anxiously at Paul, and Paul nodded with a smile. Very

soon after that they heard her voice calling back to them as they stood

at the gate, and as she walked away with the Baffalls. The voice was

high and strident and loud as ever.

"She's a good woman, Jimmy," said Paul, as he closed and locked the

gate.

"She's wonderful!" said the boy, with a little catch in his voice.

He was down at the station hours before the train could possibly start;

he watched the clock anxiously; wished, as time went on, that she also

might on this last occasion have found it in her heart to come early,

and to talk to him before she went. He felt he could have braved the

grins of the one porter and the station-master in that event.

He had exhausted every nook and corner of the station, and had even

wandered disconsolately outside in the road to watch for the coming

carriage; but five minutes before the coming of the train there was

still no sign of her. Then, when his heart was beginning to beat with

the hope that after all she had decided not to go, the carriage came in

sight, with the coachman flogging his horses. There was a minute and a

half before the train was to come, but Honora Jackman got out of the

carriage as serenely as ever, and began to give directions about her

luggage. Jimmy, getting near to her, ventured to touch her hand; she

looked round at him and said, quite in a tone of surprise: "Hullo,

Jimmy! where did you come from?" just as though she had not expected

him, or had not remembered that he was to meet her. Jimmy's one chance

of a tender moment with her came when the anxious station-master, after

fuming and fretting and grinding his teeth, had seen her into the train;

and the one porter, red in the face from unaccustomed exertion, had got

her luggage by superhuman efforts into the van. Then she dropped coppers

to the porter, and held out a hand to Jimmy as the whistle sounded.

"I got up late, Jimmy; I didn't think I'd start at all, as a matter of

fact. Good-bye; there hasn't been time for a word--has there?"

She might have leaned out of the window at the last; the boy waited

until the very tail end of the train was disappearing under the bridge

and round the curve. But by that time Honora Jackman was deep in a

paper, and had forgotten his very existence.

Jimmy trudged home, kicking up more dust than was really necessary on

the road, and having his cap drawn down over his eyes. Subsequently he

confessed to Old Paul that girls were beasts, and that for his part he

had quite made up his mind never to marry. There were lots of things a

fellow could do in the world; Jimmy seemed to suggest a sort of sardonic

attitude, in which he stood with folded arms and a cynical expression,

looking on at people making fools of themselves over women, and secretly

pitying them. The change came at the end of a week, what time a letter

arrived for "Master James Larrance"; the writing was big and sprawling,

and quite a lot of Jimmy's unaccustomed name had been lost under the

stamp and postmark.

But it was from her; there was the signature at the end--"Honora

Jackman"--with the "man" cramped up in a corner--pushed out of the way,

as it were, by the first syllable. And above that wondrous name the

words, "yours ever lovingly."

Jimmy passed the thing off casually enough--quite as though he were in

the habit of receiving letters from ladies signed in that fashion every

day of the week, and was a little bored by them. Moira wanted to know

why he didn't read it, for, of course, the inconsiderate postman had

delivered the tender missive to the very breakfast table, and Jimmy had

opened it in sheer wonder before he knew who the writer was.

Old Paul might have been expected to have a better grasp of the

situation; but Old Paul chuckled, and advised Jimmy not to answer it;

you couldn't be too careful in this world. And Jimmy burnt his mouth

with his tea, and wondered why they must all find it necessary to look

at him, and why the very envelope seemed to spread itself half over the

table, and to be the biggest thing there. He had to wait until the meal

was ended, and they had taken their time about going, before he dared

pick up the sacred thing and read it.

She was well; there was comfort in that. If anything, she was a little

too happy for one writing as far away as Yorkshire; but no other man was

mentioned, and she had been thinking a lot about Jimmy. It appeared

that Jimmy had been "beautifully kind" to her. Jimmy blushed, and

glanced at the door, and read that phrase again--and yet again.

She seemed anxious to know about Old Paul; referred to him in the letter

under that title, but told Jimmy he was not to mention it. She thought

how nice it must be for them all to live with Old Paul, and didn't they

absolutely adore him? Quite an unnecessary part of the letter was taken

up with references to Old Paul; Jimmy decided it would be wiser not to

tell the man about it. For the rest, she was having "a ripping time,"

and the people were delightful; they were described enthusiastically as

"dears." Jimmy would have been better satisfied if he had known whether

the "dears" were male or female.

That letter--the only one he ever received from her--was a thing of

wonder for a day or two; and then somehow, after many readings, the

wonder vanished. Sentences that had seemed almost inspired at a first or

even a second reading touched the commonplace when submitted to a

twentieth; at the last perusal--in a matter of a week--they appeared

almost silly. There came a degraded morning when Jimmy actually burnt

the letter, and went out into the world again to find new interests.

Which was, of course, as it should be.

In the time that lay before him Jimmy's affections were at the most

brushed lightly from time to time; they were never violently stirred.

The affair of Honora Jackman had done that much for him at least, that

it had brought him out into sane and ordinary life again, and had not

harmed him. In whatever direction his heart might turn in his boyhood,

he would not even have that experience behind him; because he had in a

very short space of time absolutely forgotten all about it, and had

relegated Honora Jackman to the back of his mind, so that he remembered

her only as a tall young woman with an eyeglass, who was perhaps almost

too elderly to be absolutely interesting.

It is the way of man (and, incidentally, perhaps, of boy) to desire that

which another desires first; things are seldom valuable until another

has pointed out that value to us, by coveting whatever the special

object may be. And so it came about that when Jimmy once again touched

emotional matters, it was owing to a question of rivalry and of

jealousy. It happened in this wise.

A year or two had gone on in a dull, pleasant, easy fashion, with

nothing changed or changing, as it seemed, in the quiet world of Daisley

Cross. Old Paul did not look a day older, and time was only to be

counted by a mere matter of actual figures, which did not concern the

children, and by the fact that they had progressed considerably in their

work under the guidance of the Rev. Temple Purdue. Old Paul could have

told a tale of lengthening frocks for the girls, and of increased

expenditure concerning Jimmy's clothes also; but he only smiled, and

shook his head, and said nothing. If the truth be told, he was a little

worried at the thought that the "babies" should be so obviously growing

up.

Charlie Purdue had in a sense grown up with them--grown up, in fact, a

little more than they had. He was tall and fair; the recklessness of his

manner had increased with his years, and gave him an appearance of being

older than he was. That, too, had passed unnoticed, save perhaps by the

Rev. Temple Purdue, who had been compelled to strengthen his lectures a

little to the boy, and who had worried a little more about the future.

For the rest, Charlie had studied with them, and roamed the country with

them, and had been almost as free of Old Paul's house as those who

rightly belonged to it. And then one day had come the revelation to

Jimmy that seemed to make him understand, in one swift moment, how much

he had grown up, and how much things had changed for them all.

It happened in a mere matter of a frolic. They had come out of the

rectory one summer morning (for all their recollections seemed connected

with summer at that time), and it had been a merry rush for the gate at

the end of the garden. Jimmy, dreaming of something else, had not heard

the invitation; the rush had developed into a keen race between Charlie

and Moira. Alice laughingly gave up half way, and turned back to Jimmy.

Jimmy, looking at the pair, saw exactly what occurred.

Moira had no chance against Charlie at the end; he rapidly overtook her.

Racing along by her side for a moment, he deftly caught her round the

waist, and bent his face towards hers laughingly. She struggled,

laughing in her turn, but he kissed her, and they finished the race side

by side, and so drew up, blushing and laughing confusedly at the gate.

Charlie left them there, and the three walked on towards home. More than

once Moira glanced at Jimmy timidly; once she tried to laugh, but gave

it up. Jimmy's brow was storm-clouded; he walked on with his hands in

his pockets, staring straight before him. When for a moment he glanced

at Moira, as she tripped on ahead with the younger girl, the thought

came to him of how greatly she had changed. She was tall and straight

and slim; she carried her head high, and her dark hair fell about her

shoulders in profusion. And then he remembered that Charlie Purdue had

seized her roughly, and had kissed her. She had not seemed to struggle

as much as she should have done.

As they turned in at the gate of Old Paul's house, Moira lingered for a

moment and slipped a hand into his. He did not respond; he did not even

look at her.

"You're out of friends with me," she whispered. There was no reply. "It

wasn't my fault; I didn't like him to."

"He kissed you," whispered Jimmy, with suppressed wrath. "You could have

got away if you'd liked."

"He was too quick," she pleaded, with a burning face. "Indeed, Jimmy

dear, I didn't want him to."

"That's all right," said Jimmy magnanimously.

But he thought about it for a long time, and the more he thought about

it the more his heart ached, and the more he hated Charlie Purdue. He

re-enacted the little scene over again--brooded over it, and had his

jealousy stirred every time he happened upon Moira. And at last went out

into the woods, to fight this new battle with himself, and to get the

thing out of his mind.

Poor Moira, fully recognising the heinousness of her offence by this

time, followed him, in the hope to make peace; but he did not see her.

He went on and on, until he came to a quiet spot in the wood, and there

he flung himself down, and snatched up handfuls of grass, and tossed

them about savagely, and moped. She was on the very point of creeping up

to him and flinging herself down beside him, and making friends with him

in the old fashion, when she heard a cheery whistle near at hand, and

saw that Jimmy was lying propped on his elbows watching. She drew back

among the trees--afraid, and yet fascinated. For this was the eternal

problem of which as yet she knew nothing, but which was to have its

beginnings there at that very moment.

Charlie Purdue came on, all unsuspecting, gave a whoop of delight when

he saw Jimmy; stopped dead when Jimmy did not respond nor even raise his

eyes to him. Charlie sank down on his knees within a yard of the other

boy, and leaned forward, and gazed at Jimmy quizzically.

"Hullo!" he said. "What's gone wrong?"

Jimmy got up leisurely; to an onlooker it might have seemed almost that

he stretched and showed his muscles, much as a young animal might have

done on the eve of an encounter. Charlie rose at the same time, and so

they stood together--unobserved, as they thought, in the heart of the

wood, looking into each other's eyes.

"You've got to fight me," said Jimmy. "I suppose you know what that

means?"

"Oh, yes, I know," replied Charlie, with a faint laugh. "But what for?"

Jimmy suddenly determined to do the thing in the grand manner; this

should be no mere squabble over the favours of a girl. He remembered

suddenly and unexpectedly that former great passion of his for Honora

Jackman; it inspired him now. "You've got to fight me," he said,

"because you've insulted a lady. I saw you insult her."

"Rot!" exclaimed the more prosaic Charlie. "She didn't mind; she was

laughing."

"She did mind; she didn't like it at all," exclaimed Jimmy fiercely;

more fiercely, because he wanted to believe that himself. "Come on!"

He began to strip off his coat; Charlie, following his example more

slowly, added a galling statement which served only to rouse the other

boy to a frenzy.

"You'd better be careful, you know; I'm a lot bigger than you are. And I

didn't start this."

Jimmy started it then and there; he set his teeth and made a blind rush

for his adversary, hitting where he could. Moira, hidden by the trees,

watched eagerly, and caught her breath in a sort of sob as Jimmy,

rebounding from the other, went flat upon his back. But the next moment

he was up, and was dancing about the bigger boy like a small madman.

The feeling that he was in a sense an avenger--alike for the girl and

for his own outraged feelings--gave Jimmy a strength he would not

otherwise have had in colder blood. It came to Charlie's turn to go

down, and then to sit up, with a mild sort of amazement on his

good-humoured face, the while he rubbed the back of his head. Then,

taking things more seriously, he got to his feet, and set to work in

earnest, only to find himself beaten by the nimbler Jimmy. And it

finished with the pair of them rolling over and over, grappling

fiercely, while Jimmy pummelled the other boy wherever he could get in a

blow.

"Say--say you're sorry!" he gasped, still hitting away with might and

main. "Say--say you're a beast!"

"I'm not," jerked out the other, "and I'm--not sorry. Let go my hair!"

"Say--say you're sorry--or I'll kill you!" panted Jimmy, still hitting

wildly.

"Oh--oh--all right--I'm sorry. She isn't worth this," gasped the other.

"Get off!"

"She _is_ worth it--and you know it," cried Jimmy, setting to work again

harder than ever. "Say it!"

And Charlie finally said it, as an easy way to end the business. Then

they drew off from each other, the better to ascertain the damage.

Charlie had a beautiful colour beginning to rise on one side of his

forehead, and he mopped at his nose doubtfully, and seemed a little

astonished at the state of his handkerchief. Jimmy had a fast darkening

eye and a suspicious puffiness about the mouth.

"What are you going to say about it?" asked Jimmy. "I mean--you won't

speak about her?"

"I suppose not," replied Charlie. "It doesn't matter much what we say; we

had a row, and had it out."

"Very well," replied the other stiffly.

Moira flew home by another route--got to Old Paul before Jimmy could

possibly arrive at the house. Breathlessly she blurted out something of

the story, and it would appear from her narrative that Jimmy had been in

the right, but that it must not be talked about. "Old Paul," she

whispered, shaking him to a better understanding, "you know what I

mean?"

"Oh, yes, I understand," he said, with comically raised eyebrows. He

went away to find the others, muttering as he went something which

sounded to Moira's ears like "Oh, wise little woman!".

So that it happened that when Jimmy, with some bravado and some

hesitation, met them all at the table, and braced himself to meet their

outcries and their exclamations, he found that he had nothing to meet.

True, they looked at him covertly, and Alice seemed to be a little

frightened, but that was all. Yet when Moira found a chance to slip her

hand into his under the table, he hurriedly disengaged his fingers, and

did not look at her. For so much at least his new conquering manhood

demanded.

CHAPTER VI

MRS. BAFFALL'S DREAM

Old Paul had done an unprecedented thing. Utterly regardless of the fact

that his usual journey to London was but just completed and the

multitudinous stores laid in, he had gone to London again; and that not

because he had forgotten anything.

He had apparently made up his mind with much suddenness about it; had

gone off early in the morning, before anyone was stirring. Patience had

been told late the previous night that he was going, and that he should

return on the same day; but all her questioning only elicited from him

the vague suggestion that it was a matter of business. And as London

and Old Paul had been sharply divided, so far as business and all other

matters were concerned, for several years past, Patience felt vaguely

disquieted.

Paul came back by the last train, and he walked queerly out of the

station and through the village--walked in a purposeless fashion, as

though not quite knowing which way to turn. Even when he came out on to

the road that led over the hill towards his house he walked with lagging

feet, as though he would delay his home-coming for as long a time as

possible. And frightened Patience almost out of her wits by going in at

the back of the house, and coming upon her in her own little sanctum

adjoining the kitchen.

"Lord save us--what's come to the man?" exclaimed Patience, starting up

from her chair, and looking at him across the light of the lamp. "I

didn't hear you come in."

"Hush!" he said, in a strange voice. "I'm tired--and I didn't want to

see anyone to-night, Patience--not even the children. Send them to bed;

I'll see them in the morning."

The woman gave him a swift look over the lamp; then turned quickly, and

went from the room, closing the door behind her. Paul tossed his hat

into a corner, and sat down, and idly turned the wick of the lamp up and

down once or twice; once he laughed softly, as at some grim jest that

had just occurred to him. But by the time Patience had come anxiously

into the room, and was staring into his face, with her hands clasped at

her lean breast, the man was himself again, and could afford to smile at

her.

"Why--how frightened you look!" he said gently. "What's the matter?"

"Master Paul--Master Paul--something has gone wrong. You've bad news?"

"No--not bad news," he replied, without looking at her. "Nothing to

worry about at any rate--especially to-night. Get me some supper,

Patience--and something to drink."

She hurried away, and rapidly got a meal for him. When she came back

with the tray he was seated near the table, engaged on that old

occupation of turning the wick of the lamp up and down. He looked round

at her, in the attitude of one listening.

"What was that on the stairs?" he whispered. "I thought I heard someone

moving. Have they all gone to bed?"

"Yes, Master Paul--all gone to bed."

"Thank you, Patience; I could not have seen them to-night. And Mr.

Ditchburn?"

"Oh I sent him packing the first of all," replied the woman, with a

sharp laugh. She began to adjust the tray, and to set out the things as

temptingly as possible; eager as she was to know what had happened, her

woman's tact taught her that it was something about which he would not

speak then. There was a strange awkward tenderness about her voice and

her movements as she waited upon him; the faded old eyes had a light in

them that had never shone for anyone but him. "Eat it, dearie; it'll do

you good," she whispered.

Nor would she leave him until a little later, utterly worn out, he

toiled upstairs to his room. And even then, in the security of her own

room, she listened for a long time, with her ear against the door, while

the man paced up and down--up and down--in his own room near at hand.

But at last even that sound ceased, and Old Paul was apparently at rest.

The night must have soothed him in some fashion; he woke calm and

refreshed. True, some of his gaiety was gone; he had a way of suddenly

relapsing into silence for no given reason, and then waking himself from

those silences with a start and a forced laugh. And a week after that

visit to London he suddenly went again; and this time was absent for the

whole of that day and the night, and the whole of the next day.

As he alighted at the little station of Daisley Cross, and took his way

down towards the house, with the darkening fields and woods on either

side of him, he moved like a man who has come into a strange world; for

now he viewed this world with other eyes than those with which he had

looked upon it before. As he walked, he strove to remember what he had

to face, and what had been said to him that day. It was difficult to

remember, because it was jumbled in his mind with something that had to

be done, and done quickly. For there was so little time--dear

God!--there was such a little time left!

That was the burden of the merciless song that had been ringing in his

ears all day--a song the faint coming sound of which had been suggested

to him a week before. He had only heard the thing faintly then--a mere

whisper of it; now it was ringing in his ears, and beating on his very

brain. As he walked, tears, not wholly of self-pity, flooded into his

eyes; he had not deserved this--had not expected it. It wasn't fair nor

just; other men who had lived wilder lives than himself would go on

living wilder lives yet, until they grew to be old, with a long life to

look back upon; and his was to close in so short a time; he was still

young--and yet young enough to die. It wasn't fair--there must be some

way----

He grew calmer presently; some of the old sober strength of the man,

that had been shattered for the time, returned to him. The peace of the

night stole into his veins; he looked about him at the darkening world,

and up at the stars, and thought how small and poor a thing he was,

compared with all the worlds that took their calm and solemn ways about

him. He was but a unit in a great scheme of things; and on this very

earth he trod to-night other men in bygone years had trod their ways, of

joy or pain, weariness or hope; and so had gone down into the dust, as

he must go. It did not seem so bad, out here under the stars; it almost

seemed as though the man walked alone with his God, and understood.

But now, perhaps more than ever before in his life, he needed a woman.

It was a vague indefinite longing--some faint touch of the helplessness

of the man, alike in his birth and in his death. No mere child could be

of use to him in this hour; he wanted to touch the hand of a woman;

wanted to be sure of her, and to know, whoever she was, that she

understood. And there was no one to whom he could turn--no one strong

enough.

He avoided the house, save that he stood for a time at the gate, and

looked at the windows, and counted the lights; he knew what each light

meant, and knew who slept within. And only then for a moment did he turn

aside, and see that all the landscape danced and was misty before him.

He went on, with that indefinite feeling of what he wanted and could not

find.

He went on down into the succeeding valley beyond his own house; found

himself presently wandering disconsolately outside the house of the

Baffalls. And, the house of the Baffalls being a new one, was set close

to the road, with only a mere strip of ground between it and a new and

gaily painted railing. Half mechanically he glanced at the windows, and

saw a light, and was comforted; because here were friends.

On the other side of the lighted window a woman lay wakeful. That was

strange, because ordinarily speaking, as Mrs. Baffall herself expressed

it, she no sooner touched the pillow than she was off! But on this night

she lay thinking and listening; even the comfortable well-known presence

of Baffall by her side did not reassure her. In some way or other the

night held a mystery; someone seemed to be calling to her from out the

dark depths of it.

She had been thinking a great deal about Old Paul--for the motherly

heart of her, that never had been wakened to real motherhood, embraced

even him. She had been a little sorry for him--as for one who had not

quite made the best of things, or who had missed something to which he

should have attained. She had thought once--blushing prettily at the

thought--that she might have had such a son, of such an age, for

herself; for she and Baffall had married early, and that had been many

years ago. And to-night, for some hidden reason, she lay awake and

thought about him.

She got out of bed softly at last, petulantly displeased with herself

for this sudden change in her habits, and went to the window and looked

out. It was a clear night, with stars showing, and a mere ghost of a

wind rustling the trees; Mrs. Baffall shivered a little, and made a

movement to go back to bed. But as she turned, she glanced again through

the window, and stopped. For the tall figure of a man was pacing up and

down in the road outside, not a dozen yards from where she stood. And

the man had on his head a flapping soft hat, such as was worn by Paul

Nannock.

To tell the sober truth, Mrs. Baffall was a little frightened. Perhaps

because the half-waking dream of him had brought him so strongly into

her memory--perhaps because it seemed so strange that he should be

pacing up and down like this, when she had thought of him secure in his

own house. She stood for a moment, with nervous fingers at her lips,

looking at her sleeping husband, and wondering what she should do. Still

watching Baffall, she went at last to a corner of the room, and got a

heavy dressing-gown and put it on; slipped her bare feet into soft

slippers, and made for the door. Mr. Baffall still slumbered heavily as

she opened the door and went out on to the staircase.

Even then she had no very distinct idea of what she was to do. The fear

had gone; she seemed to see only out in the darkness this lonely man who

was fighting out some problem; seemed to feel, in the very heart of her,

that he wanted her, and that she could help him. She felt her way down

the stairs, and found a candle and lighted it; softly undid the bolts

and locks of the door; and appeared there in the doorway, with her

candle held above her head. That was the appearance she made to Paul

Nannock, as he paused outside the railings and looked towards her.

Unconsciously this was what he had prayed and hoped for; for here was a

woman who might--indeed, who must--understand. He thrust open the gate,

and went in slowly, with his eyes fixed upon her; and so for a moment

they looked at each other. And as they looked, all the surprise of the

meeting was gone; it was only a man and a woman smiling upon each other

in a very perfection of kindly friendship.

"I saw you--a long time ago," she whispered. "Funny--I seemed to think

it was you. Come in--come in and talk to me."

He went in and she closed the door; with a little cheery whisper to him

that the fire was not quite out, and that it was a chilly night, and

that Baffall was asleep, and that Old Paul mustn't mind her "get-up,"

Mrs. Baffall took him into a room, and set down the candle. And there

stood, with her grey hair disordered and falling about her shoulders,

looking at him, and mutely asking what he had to say. And because what

he had to say was so momentous, he made no apology for his coming--he

spoke direct from his heart.

"It's a little--a little trouble," he said--"and I wanted--wanted

someone to speak to."

"Yes, my dear?" The words came out quite simply and naturally, as she

seated herself and drew her dressing-gown about her. But never did she

take her eyes from his face.

"I've known it a long time," went on Paul, swallowing something in his

throat, and drawing himself up--"longer than I cared to confess to

myself. I tried not to believe it--just as we all do; but it wasn't any

good in the end. There was a ray of hope last week--something that might

be done, they thought; but the ray of hope went to-day."

She drew a long breath, and then set her lips tightly, and nodded. He

smiled at her; almost it seemed as though he tried to laugh. Seeing

that, she turned her head away swiftly, and doubled one hand, and beat

it softly on her knee as she looked at the remains of the fire. He went

on speaking; and it was curious that he seemed to speak of someone else.

Never of himself.

"They don't give you much time in anything like this," he said in a

whisper. "I've got the truth out of 'em--and God knows it wanted some

pulling out; these people have wrong-headed ideas of mercy. It's death,

Mrs. Baffall."

He spoke as though the very presence of it were in the room with them

then; she glanced at him, but did not speak.

"When I heard it first I--I was afraid. Life seemed so big and strong;

it was all about me--throbbing and pulsing and striving--as I came out

from where they'd examined me. Men were laughing and striding along,

and speaking to each other--men with years of life before them; I stood

in a great city, with death hard at my elbow. In quite a little time I

was to leave everything behind--I was to go out into the shadows.

Oh--I can tell you I was afraid!" He laughed now at that odd

recollection--laughed shamefacedly.

"But not now?" It was the first time she had spoken since he began; she

spoke in a whisper.

He shook his head. "Not for myself; the fear has gone," he said. "It

will only be a sort of falling asleep. If ever I grow afraid again, it

will be when I think about it in the sunlight. For I love the sunlight.

It isn't for myself--but oh, my God--what of the babies?"

He beat one fist softly into the palm of the other hand, and bit his

lips, and looked at her wide-eyed. She felt that she had got to the very

heart of the matter now; she was on surer ground. Already she looked

upon the man as someone gone beyond her--someone to be spoken of with

bated breath; but the children appealed to her practical mind; she

probed deep down to the very source of the trouble that oppressed him.

Death was a thing to be met full front; but young lives were wrapped up

with the failing life of Old Paul, and he did not know what was to

happen to them.

"There'll be those who'll give a care to them," she suggested, with her

own mind already making up to speak to Baffall about it on the morrow.

"You see, I gathered them about me so light-heartedly," said the man,

"there was no thought about the future. I think I'd got an idea that we

were going to live in this place for ever--without changing--almost

without growing up. Silly--wasn't it?" He laughed feebly, and shook his

head at that folly that was done with. "And yet I meant it for the

best. Jimmy, now, could look after himself; boys are different. But it's

the--the girls."

"Oh--I know, my dear--I know!" whispered the old woman, thrusting back a

lock of grey hair from her forehead, and looking perplexedly at the

fire. "But you can appoint guardians--people to look after them--and to

look after the money?"

"Oh, yes, I shall do all that," he said. "That's the first thing I shall

set about doing; I'll leave everything square and straight; trust me for

that. It seems strange I should be arranging things like this--doesn't

it? I think yesterday--or even this morning, for the matter of that--I

wanted to live quite a long time. Now it doesn't seem to matter so

much--except--except for the children." He waved his hand indefinitely,

and smiled upon her with a wan smile.

"It would have been worse for you, dear--the going would have been

worse, I mean--except for the babies," she reminded him gently. "That

seems to me the best of it; several of 'em to be sorry--more sorry than

most. Now, when it comes to my time----"

He moved towards the door of the room, and came back again; he fingered

the brim of his hat, and looked at it as he spoke. "Of course they may

have made a mistake--but I don't think so. It seems--seems rather a

pity--doesn't it?" And again he spoke as of someone else.

She did not reply; together they went to the outer door, and stood there

for a moment looking at the stars. He seemed to indicate the stars as he

leaned towards the old woman for a moment, and nodded his head towards

the sky.

"It all seems very peaceful," he said whimsically. "I mean--nothing

seems to be threatened; no vengeance or punishment for blunders--nothing

of that at all. Even God sleeps, perhaps, on such a night as this--and

mercifully forgets. Good-night!"

There was that between them that the old hand lay for a moment in the

firmer grasp of the younger one before he shook it and let it go. As he

reached the gate, he looked back and nodded; and she called to him,

holding her candle above her head:

"Good-bye!" Then, as he disappeared, she called out feebly, in a mere

whisper--"No--no--I didn't mean 'good-bye'; I meant--'good-night.' Not

'good-bye'!"

But Paul was gone, and a puff of wind from the garden blew out her

candle.

CHAPTER VII

"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY"

Old Paul went home comforted and uplifted, and filled with the thought

that the first thing he must do before he slept must be to make

provision for the future for his young people. Before he slept! There

was that in the thought that gave solemn pause to everything, and

gripped his heart for a moment--but only for a moment. The night was

coming, in a special sense, to him; but it was to be only a falling

asleep.

He let himself into the old house, and went quietly to his room; lit his

lamp, and sat down to smoke and to think. Then he got out pens and

papers, and set to his task. For the time might be short in which this

was to be done.

But the pen dropped from his fingers, and he lay back in his chair, with

a smile upon his face, dreaming. Not to-night should this be done; it

would seem as though he feared that to-night was the last opportunity.

He would wait; some other night, when he was calmer, he might take up

the pen, and set out what his wishes were. This was not a night for

business; if the Shadows were to claim him so soon, he would have at

least this night to himself. It occurred to him, too, that he would not

sleep; that was a giving of so much time to an eternity that should

claim soon all the time that was his. He would sit up, and dream.

His thoughts, from touching gently on the peaceful life he had led

there, and on the children who had been about him in those quiet years,

went back further and touched his earlier life; touched gently the woman

who had been in her grave so long, and whose child was near Paul's heart

that night. Almost it seemed as though he was a mere boy again, flushed

and primed with the knowledge that she loved him; with the world

stretching fair before him, and the woman beckoning. Mercifully enough,

all that had happened since was swept away and forgotten; he loved her,

and out of the past she came to him on this night, and stood before him.

He rose in the quiet room, and stretched out his arms, and called her

name; and it was the glad, joyous call of the youth in love.

"Moira!--my Moira!"

The child in the room above heard dimly in her sleep, and turned, and

smiled; she had heard the cry from his lips over and over again in

infinite tenderness. And this, was but a beautiful dream, from which she

did not desire to wake. She turned and snuggled comfortably into her

pillow, and slept with that smile on her lips.

The lonely man stood there with a face transfigured; his youth was

coming back to him. The warm kisses of the woman were on his lips; her

soft, rounded body was pressed close in his arms; he heard the whisper

that he had heard once in reality--"I love you, Paul--I love you!"

Then the dream changed; his arms fell to his sides, and he stared out

into the room, seeming to shrink a little into himself. He was striving

to remember now what had been said to him that day; striving almost to

believe that it was not true. Above all, he was alone; and even now

there might be a Presence in the house. He was not afraid; but if he

might only know when It was coming. Not yet--oh, God!--not yet!

And then the prayer--the only cowardly cry that had come from

him--"Lord, let it be sudden; kill me in my sleep!"--and then a seizing

of the paper, and a wild beginning to write.

"To Moira, beloved of my heart now and always, I give----"

* * * * *

At the last, with some growing faintness upon him, and with the pen

trailing off illegibly, he must have tried to get to the children. For

they found him at the foot of the stairs, lying there with his hands

stretched up towards the room, and with a smile upon his face, as though

at the last he had striven to call to them. Patience found him like

that, early in the morning, before anyone was stirring; and the old

woman sat for a long time on the stairs, holding him in her arms, as she

had done many and many a time when he had been a child, and whispering

to him, and striving to wake him. But he was quite dead.

There is a courage born of love and devotion greater than ever sprang

from passion or from hate; and such a courage was given to the woman

then. When she knew that her dead was past recall, she determined that

no other hand should touch him--no other eyes look upon him, until

presently he should lie calm and peaceful as she would have him lie.

With a love-given strength that seemed impossible for her withered

limbs, she got her arms about him, and got him toilsomely up the stairs;

being so gentle with him, and whispering so tenderly, that he might have

been a thing alive, and only sick and faint. And so got him to his room,

and laid him on his bed; and only then, for the first time, gave way.

For when that was done, and the door closed upon her and her dead, she

wept her withered heart out; with only his cold hand against her cheek

and her tears upon it.

Afterwards, while she gathered her wits, she kept up the amazing

pretence that he had not yet come home. Everyone had gone to bed on the

previous night before Old Paul had let himself into the house; and the

woman told herself that she must seek some advice, before the children

or Anthony Ditchburn knew what had happened. She did not quite know to

whom to go; for the present she turned the key in the lock, and left him

there, and set about her ordinary duties. For those must be done always,

she thought, whether men lived or died.

Jimmy and the two girls spoke wonderingly about Old Paul at the

breakfast table; Patience silenced them querulously, as she had done any

time these ten years over awkward questions. And all the time she

wondered what she should do, or to whom she should go; Anthony Ditchburn

was impossible, and there seemed no one else. Yet someone must be told,

and that soon.

The difficulty grew with Anthony Ditchburn. The going of Paul to London

had always spelt for Ditchburn tobacco; and in this case it happened

that, seeing fresh tobacco near at hand, the man had smoked more than

usual, and his supply was exhausted. He came piteously to Patience,

after she had dismissed the children to the rectory, and held out a

ragged, empty pouch.

"He should have been back before this, Patience," he whimpered. "Even

if he couldn't get back, he might have sent it. My work at a

standstill--and my nerves shattered; it isn't fair. It's so little I

ask----"

She turned a stony face to him. "There's no tobacco for you--and I know

nothing about it," she said. "Did he ever forget any one of you?"

"He was never as careful as he might have been," retorted Anthony; and

was staggered when she turned upon him fiercely, and drove him from the

room.

She went up more than once during the day to that room; she was a little

proud of the fact that she alone knew what had happened, and that she

had him there to herself. Coming down on the last occasion, she heard

someone moving about quietly in the room Old Paul had used as his study;

with a raging heart against Anthony Ditchburn, she went straight in,

with set teeth, to face him. And faced instead, the girl Moira--looking

at her with eyes before the light of which her own fell.

The girl held a paper in her hand; she held it out towards the woman.

"He's been here--last night," she said, in a whisper.

"Why, dearie, whatever are you talking about?" asked Patience,

fearfully. "And what brings you back now?"

"I couldn't stay; I knew that he had come back," whispered Moira,

watching the woman. "I knew it this morning; in a dream I had he called

to me last night. And look at this; see what he's written!"

Patience went tremblingly towards the child; but in an instant Moira had

snatched back the paper, and was rapidly folding it. "No--not for you to

see--not for anyone to see," she said. "It was written for me--meant

only for me. Where is he?"

Patience broke down at once; spread out tremulous hands towards the

child, to soothe and silence her. "Now, my dear, there's nothing for you

to ask about--nothing for you to know. And even if he did come back last

night----"

The girl had raced out of the room, and was half-way up the stairs

before the old woman had reached the door. Patience stood there,

trembling and cowering against the wall; she heard the rattling of the

handle of the door above. And that roused her as nothing else could have

done; she stumbled up the stairs, whispering entreaties as she went.

"For the love of God, child, don't make a noise there!" she breathed.

"He lies so quiet; tread soft, my dear--tread very soft!"

So they faced each other outside the door of the locked room--the

white-faced child and the woman who wept and wrung her hands. And for a

long moment, nothing was said.

"He's in there; I know it," whispered Moira. "You needn't think I'm

afraid; and I shan't cry out. Let me go in!"

"No--no--dearie----"

"I will! I'll beat down the door if you don't let me in!" came the tense

whisper.

She had not looked on death before; and this was not what she had

expected. For this was the Old Paul that she had loved, lying asleep,

with a smile on his lips, and that smile for her. He was gone; but

sorrow was too mean a thing, in the ordinary sense, for him now. Child

though she was, she knew that at the last he had written of her; that

one little phrase, "beloved of my heart--now and always," lay warm

against her heart even now, and comforted her. He had gone to that last

sleep thinking of her; and nothing in that sleep was terrible. It had

been his creed always to teach her to be brave; he had not taught that

in vain. The old woman, standing fearfully within the door watching her,

understood for the first time what this child was; seemed to look for

the first time upon a new being that surprised and held her silent and

dried her tears. She saw the slim figure of the girl, with hands clasped

at her breast, bend forward; wonderingly heard her speak.

"Old Paul--it was kind of you," whispered the child. "I knew it

always--that I was beloved of your heart; but it was sweet of you to

remember to tell me."

She came out quite firmly, and locked the door, and took the key; the

amazed woman followed her downstairs; ventured at the foot of them to

touch her on the arm. "You--you weren't afraid?" she breathed.

Moira looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Afraid?--of Old Paul?" She

turned away and went into his room.

Nor did she break down when presently Mrs. Baffall came in, with raised

hands and streaming eyes, to comfort her. This was no question of

callousness. Old Paul had been everything to her in life, and he must,

therefore, be everything to her in death, and always. Nor was it

affectation; it was only what Old Paul would have wished--part of that

fine, strong, smiling philosophy that had been the very fibre of the man

himself. Truth to tell, the child was a little impatient of what she

regarded as a mere parading of grief. Old Paul would never speak to her

again, and in that only did her grief lay; but he had spoken to her at

the last--to her specially; and in that was her exquisite comfort.

Others had, of course, to be told, and they took the news in varying

fashion. Alice became wide-eyed and tearful; she was a very appeal in

herself. For the blue eyes, half obscured in a mist of tears, and the

beautiful drooping mouth, quivering and pitiful, demanded sympathy and

secured it. Jimmy wore a frightened aspect; for this was something he

did not understand, and something that touched him unexpectedly.

Curiously enough, only Mrs. Baffall seemed to know what was in the mind

of Moira.

"It's quite uncanny," she said to Baffall, with a shake of the head. "It

isn't as though the man had died at all; he lives in that very house

with her and for her; he's always lived like that for her. She doesn't

seem to know what death means--at least, not in his case. You see,

Daniel, it makes me feel younger than she is--and ignorant, in a way.

When I spoke to her this morning--and I was crying at the time--she

didn't seem to understand that there was anything to cry for. 'You don't

know Old Paul,' she keeps on saying; and she smiles at me in that queer

way I want to hug her--and yet I dare not."

Mrs. Baffall, feeling it incumbent upon her to tell her friends what had

happened, searched her mind for the names of friends; and discovered

that not many were left outside that business that had been left behind

in London. And, therefore, it happened that she thought, with the pens

and paper actually before her, of Honora Jackman, with something of

gratitude for the inspiration; and wrote to her, to that obscure address

in London. And so evoked a black whirlwind.

For Honora came down as the whirlwind, preceded by a tempestuous

telegram. Arriving in the evening, she was welcomed sombrely by Mrs.

Baffall; and thereafter sat in a dejected attitude, sipping tea and

saying little. She heard in whispers from Mrs. Baffall, and in low

growls from Baffall, all that had taken place; she learned that the

funeral was to be on the morrow. She nodded gloomily once or twice;

strove to fix her eyeglass, and failed; and listened to a whispered

account of the bravery of Old Paul, and of how the end had come. Then

she sat up and spoke her mind, and Mrs. Baffall, though amazed, had a

sneaking feeling that Honora had got to the truth of things.

"Oh, it's a damned rough world!" said Honora, viciously. "Here was a man

that ought, in the proper course of things, to have been in armour, with

a face turned towards the sun--going out to do noble things, and to

fight for women--and all that sort of thing. You knew him--and you'd

seen him. Instead of that, he comes down here among the woods and the

flowers; and he walks steadfastly--before his God, I verily believe--and

any feeble little child that raises a cry out of a hideous world is

snatched up by him and glorified. And then they cut him off--all in a

minute--and leave all sorts of other whelps to live, and do harm, and

prosper."

"It's hard on the children," said Mrs. Baffall, after a pause in which

she had striven to digest Honora's vehement statement.

Miss Jackman sat up, and smote her hands together. "The children! I'd

forgotten the children," she said, breathlessly. "What's going to become

of them?"

Mr. Baffall coughed, and stroked the grey beard on his chin; Mrs.

Baffall smiled at him, and drew herself up a little proudly.

"We're taking Alice," she said softly. "I think we took her because

there's something lady-like about her, and we seem to have understood

her best," she added apologetically. "Then Baffall's got the idea that

something might be done for the boy in London--in a matter of business;

but we haven't quite had time to think about it yet."

"I remember the boy--Jimmy, didn't they call him?" said

Honora thoughtfully. "A nice boy. And wasn't there another

girl--dark-haired--bit of a spitfire?"

"Moira," said Mrs. Baffall. "We don't quite know what is going to be

done with Moira; no one seems to know how to begin about her. We shall

know better after to-morrow."

"After to-morrow?" Honora Jackman nodded and pursed up her lips. "What

are the children going to do to-morrow?" she demanded suddenly.

"Well, my dear," began Mrs. Baffall, "in a little place like this, where

everybody knows everybody--I suppose they'll go to the funeral; it's

what might be expected----"

Honora suddenly brought down a fist smartly on the table beside her.

"No--and no again--a thousand times over!" she exclaimed, with what

seemed quite unnecessary violence. "You're wrong. The man is done

with--so far as the mere flesh of him is concerned; what have children

to do with that? Don't I know myself what I've suffered as a child;

don't I know and remember how I've been dragged into dark rooms by the

hand, and shown people in coffins; can I ever forget it? It isn't

fair--it isn't right. Death comes soon enough to us all; never should a

child see it or brood about it. _I'll_ see to the children to-morrow,"

she added, with sudden alacrity. "I'll take them away, and let them know

about it only afterwards. It's a hard world, but we might let the

children sometimes see the best side of it; the worst comes soon

enough."

"'Ear! 'ear!" exclaimed Mr. Baffall, in a hoarse whisper.

Honora Jackman kept her word in that matter valiantly. Whether as a

tribute to the man who had stirred her careless time-beaten heart as few

others had done, or whether simply on an impulse of generosity, it is

impossible to say; but she determined to take charge of the young

people for that day. She put in an appearance at the house quite early

in the morning; was greeted by Jimmy somewhat shyly, and with but small

recollection of past days. Alice, for her part, lifted a face which

seemed all brimming eyes and quivering mouth, as she had done to

everyone about her for days past; Moira was not to be discovered.

Patience, appealed to, had not seen the girl that day; she had

apparently slipped out of the house before anyone was stirring.

Honora Jackman drew Patience aside; spoke to her in her usual energetic

and impetuous way.

"I'm going to take them away--just for the day--I'm going to get them

out of it. He'd have wished that," she added, lowering her voice, "and I

feel I ought to do something--for his sake--to-day. They don't know that

it's to be to-day--do they?"

"I don't think so, Miss," replied the old woman. "There's been so much

to see to, one way and another, that I don't know that it's been

actually spoken of. But perhaps they guess, Miss."

"And perhaps they don't," exclaimed Honora sharply. "I'll bring 'em back

when it's all over. Can you manage some sandwiches?--we'll picnic

somewhere."

Thus it happened that, after a fruitless search for Moira, Honora

Jackman started off with Jimmy and the younger girl into the woods; and

Jimmy carried a parcel. They were rather an incongruous trio in their

black garments (for Honora had "dodged up" something, as she expressed

it to Mrs. Baffall), but no one thought of that. Jimmy, still stunned a

little by the blow that had fallen, was glad to escape from the house;

Alice was always willing to do anything she was told. The woods

swallowed them up, and Honora Jackman had a warm feeling about her

heart that perhaps at this late hour she might be doing something that

would have pleased Old Paul after all.

It is not necessary to touch in detail the events of a saddened day; the

only point that needs to be dwelt upon is the coming of the man in

black, and what his coming meant to everyone concerned.

The man in black appeared first in the garden of the house, what time

Mr. Baffall was pulling on stiff black gloves, and looking appropriately

solemn and melancholy. The man in black had opened the gate, and had

stepped quietly in; he looked all about him, almost as though he were

making a valuation of the property generally. He was not a nice-looking

man; he had a long thin cadaverous face, and his eyes were too near

together, and his step was not a firm nor manly one. Indeed, he walked

with something of a mincing gait, as though he apologised to the very

ground for treading upon it.

Mr. Baffall stopped in the act of pulling on a glove, and stared out of

the window at the stranger. He called in a whisper to Patience, and

nodded towards the man, and looked inquiringly at the old woman. She

shook her head.

"Don't know, I'm sure," she whispered. Then, in lingering tones of half

remembrance, she added slowly: "And yet I seem to know the face--seem to

remember----"

The man in black made no attempt to come into the house; he waited until

the melancholy little procession was formed, and then fell in behind Mr.

Baffall. Mrs. Baffall had gone to the churchyard, and Patience went by

the way across the fields, and met her there. So that it came about that

Mr. Baffall and the man in black were the only people who followed.

Someone had knocked softly at the door of Anthony Ditchburn's room; but

he had cried out in a frightened, whimpering voice that he was not well,

and that they were to go away. Mr. Baffall did not care to say

anything, or to question the man in black; he had known so little of

Paul himself that he thought it possible this might be an old friend or

acquaintance.

The Rev. Temple Purdue must have been thinking of something else at one

part of the service, for he began a line from quite another place.

"Forasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these----"

Then he checked himself hurriedly, and went on with the proper words;

but Baffall glanced at Mrs. Baffall, and thought perhaps the little slip

not so wrong after all.

As Mr. Baffall, at the end of everything, was replacing his hat and

turning towards his home, the man in black touched him on the elbow, and

tendered a card. Baffall, in some surprise, mechanically took it, but

did not look at it; instead, he looked at the man in black, and decided

that he did not like him. Then his eyes travelled to the card, and he

read the name upon it--"Mr. Matthew Shandler."

Baffall looked up at the man, and back again at the card. The man

cleared his throat, and sighed, and ventured an explanation.

"A--a second cousin--on his father's side," he murmured. "So far as I am

aware, his sole living relative; and I have made every inquiry. But

perhaps he left a will."

Mr. Baffall felt his heart sink; as he expressed it afterwards to Mrs.

Baffall, he "knew directly it was all up with the children." Being a man

of business, however, he invited Mr. Matthew Shandler to come home with

him and discuss the situation.

The shadows lengthened into evening in the little churchyard, and over

the woods and fields. Honora Jackman and the two children came

presently tailing homewards to that changed house; afterwards Honora

took her own way back to the house of the Baffalls. In the churchyard a

slim white-faced girl stole out from among the shadows of the trees,

looking about her carefully in all directions, and went to the grave;

and there for the first time broke down and wept as she had never wept

before. For this was the parting, and only her memories were to be left

to her for the future. It was, perhaps, characteristic of her that she

should have watched and waited until the darkness had fallen before she

went to him; characteristic of her, too, that she felt she was never

again to visit the grave. This was to be final--and this was between the

dead man and herself only.

"Good-bye, Old Paul--for ever and ever," she whispered, kneeling there,

and touching the earth softly with her palms, as in benediction. "Sleep

very quietly--rest lightly--my dear--my dear! I shall never forget; I

shall think of you, dear, sleeping here, with the trees whispering above

you, and the birds--and all about you that you loved. Old Paul!--oh--my

Old Paul!"

By the time she got back to the house she was calm and self-contained;

she offered no explanation of her absence to anyone. When, in the big

room upstairs, Alice begged that she might be allowed to drag her bed

across, so that she could be near Moira in the night, Moira scornfully

regarded her for a moment, and then dragged the bed across herself.

"What are you afraid of?" she demanded.

"I feel as if I should die," whimpered the other girl. "It's so awful.

He's dead--and I feel that perhaps in the dark he might come in--as he

used to do----"

"I wish he would," broke in Moira quickly. "Go to sleep; you can hold my

hand, if you feel frightened."

The younger girl presently fell asleep, with the undried tears still

upon her pink cheeks; a smile grew about her mouth as she lay there. The

smile was answered by one in the face of Moira, but it was a scornful

one. For her part she lay wakeful, with the tears gathering in her eyes

quietly now and then, as old memories came back to her.

Meanwhile, Mr. Baffall was stubbornly fighting a battle. As he went on

fighting it, he discovered that he hated the man in black more and more

every moment, with a growing hatred; for Matthew Shandler was not to be

moved in any way. They had been together to the house, but no will had

been found; they had the testimony of Mrs. Baffall that Old Paul had

declared his intention of doing it that very night of his death; which

looked hopeless enough, on the face of it.

Mrs. Baffall had been early turned out of the room by the shoulders,

gently enough, by her husband; because she persisted in bursting into

tears, and in imploring Matthew Shandler to remember the children.

Which, as Baffall put it afterwards, wasn't business.

Shandler, for his part, spoke with perfect justice, as the world knows

it. The children were nothing to him, and were not related in any way to

the late Paul Nannock. Right was right; and although Mr. Shandler was an

exceedingly well-to-do man, as he admitted with some pride, the property

belonging to Old Paul was most certainly his, unless someone with a

better right put in a claim to it. And he referred Mr. Baffall, with a

smile, to his solicitors.

Mr. Baffall waited until such time as he discovered that the battle was

a hopeless one; then he closed the door, lest Mrs. Baffall be shocked;

and he remembered, with sudden vehemence, certain language long since

left behind with the sordid business that had made him rich. He gave

vent to some home-truths and expressions of opinion that hurt no one;

for the man in black was made of stronger stuff than Baffall supposed,

and merely smiled in reply. When, finally, he left, with the knowledge

that he had come conveniently enough into a very snug property, he

wished Mr. Baffall "Good-night!" gently, and desired that that gentleman

would make Matthew Shandler's farewells to his good wife.

There was a deadly quality about Matthew Shandler that could not in any

sense be opposed. He did that which he had determined upon with quiet

precision, and with absolutely no display of emotion; indeed, more than

once, when bitter opposition was raised against him, he smiled and

shrugged his shoulders and turned away. But he went on with the work

nevertheless.

Alice had her home assured; though at the last Mrs. Baffall wondered, in

a timorous whisper to her husband, whether it wouldn't have been better

to have taken Moira. But she had never understood Moira; and, indeed, it

is doubtful if the girl would have listened to any such proposition.

Alice was satisfactory, in the sense that there was nothing unexpected

about her; you always knew where to find her, and you were always sure

that she would never be unladylike, or in any mood difficult of

analysis. As a matter of fact, Moira had been approached, dubiously

enough, on the subject, and had declared that she was going to stay with

Patience. Which meant, in other words, that she would stay at the old

house as long as anyone would permit her to do so.

Jimmy was to go out into the world. Mr. Baffall had tugged at his beard

a great deal over Jimmy, and had at last decided that the boy should go

to London, and should be given a post in a business there, the strings

of which were still in Mr. Baffall's hands.

Mr. Matthew Shandler had sold everything in the house, and the house

itself was to let. There had been no mercy about the man, nor any

suggestion of mercy; these people were nothing to him, and they must be

got rid of. So that there came a day when the few possessions of

Patience were packed ready to be taken away, and when an old battered

tin trunk--such a small pitiful little tin trunk!--that had come with

Moira years before, when Old Paul had first brought her to the house,

was fished out of a garret and stuffed with what clothes the girl

possessed; some parcels held the rest. Patience--brave, strong old

woman--was going out into the world to-morrow, and Moira was going with

her. Mr. Baffall had done pulling his beard over them; he realised that

the woman and the child must be left alone. Anthony Ditchburn had sent

off a box of books to some unknown destination, and then had followed

too--going away as mysteriously as, years before, he had come.

On the morrow Jimmy was to start; he was going quite early in the

morning, consigned to a lodging and to his new business by the Baffalls.

They had been very good to the boy, and he was starting fairly well;

more than that, he was filled with awe and wonder and delight at the

prospect of entering that wonderful place--that London to which Old Paul

had gone now and again to fetch treasure. He had said "good-bye" easily

enough to Alice; Alice who, in the future, was to live comfortably, and

who had not paid her calls upon the Baffalls for nothing. And now it had

come to the point when he must say "good-bye" to Moira.

His small luggage had been sent on to the station, and he was to walk.

He came with Moira out of the dismantled house, and through the old

garden; she would walk to the top of the hill with him, she said, and

see him on his way. She choked down the heart that was rising in her as

she went with him; she touched his hand casually as they walked side by

side; and he let it linger there, so that they went hand in hand. It was

a miserable morning--fitted appropriately enough to the occasion--and a

drizzle of rain was all about them as they went, and made a mist over

the familiar road and the fields.

They got to the top of the hill, and Jimmy turned his bright eyes upon

her. "I shall see you again--soon and often," he said. "Who knows?--you

may be coming to London, too. That'll be splendid--won't it?"

"Yes," she responded soberly. "We're bound to meet again, Jimmy--because

London isn't so far off, after all, and we ought to be able to find each

other easily. They say it's a big place; but we can easily meet. When I

come to London I'll look for you."

"Good-bye!" he said, a little huskily. "You're not crying?"

"Only a little," she whispered; and with a boyish gesture he put his arm

about her neck, and kissed her.

"I'm going to do big things in London," he said. "And then I'll do big

things for you. Good-bye!"

So he went over the hill, and down the long road that had always led

away into the world mysteriously when they had been younger. The road

that was leading him away mysteriously into the world now. So she saw

him trudging on through the rain; so she remembered afterwards that she

had seen him, through the rain of Heaven and the rain of her tears.

END OF BOOK I

_BOOK II_

CHAPTER I

THE CALL OF THE WORLD

The capacity of the average human being to drift apart from his fellows,

whether by accident or design; to take up new interests to the neglect

of old ones; to regard as mere pleasant memories vital matters which but

yesterday stirred the very soul of him; all these have done much to

people the great world and to spread men over its surface--but have

sometimes been disastrous for the individual. Men and women have told

themselves, times without number, that in this way will they live

without separation; in that fashion will they order their lives; and lo!

in a moment grim Fate steps in; and they are flung apart almost before

there is time for remonstrance.

In such cases, happily, the new interests assert themselves, and the man

or the woman--easily adaptable--begins instantly to form new ties, and

to think less and less regretfully of the old ones. It is a kindly law

of Nature--a merciful law.

This is true, of course, in the vast majority of cases--but not in all.

It was not true in the case of the girl Moira, for instance; because she

rebelled fiercely against the sudden snatching of herself away from the

old life--the rude dispersal of everything and everyone that had made up

that life. Hers was not a nature formed for forgetfulness; more than

that, the new life (or may we not rather call it existence?) into which

she had gone proved so bare as to force her back, against her will

almost, to those old and pleasant recollections for almost her only

mental food.

Patience, in the course of careful years, had amassed savings. She had

been in the family of Paul Nannock for so long a time, and her reward as

a trusted servant had been so generous, and the necessity for spending

anything so meagre, that she had a considerable sum, carefully

invested--considerable, that is, for a woman in her position. The

interest upon those savings had gone on accumulating, until at Old

Paul's death she was in a position to fold her hands, and to slumber, if

she liked, during the remainder of the time left to her. She chose to do

that; her real interests in life had closed with the death of the last

of the family she had served; quite simply and rather beautifully, there

was nothing left for her to do. Nothing, that is, save as regarded the

girl Moira; for Moira had elected to stay with her.

In a sense--a selfish, elderly sense--Patience clung to the girl. Her

jealously watchful eyes had shown her that the child had been first in

all things with Paul; she was, in a sense, a legacy left by him, all

unconsciously, to the old woman. Perhaps, too, there was a curious

feeling that if Moira went elsewhere she might come to talk about that

precious memory of the dead man; and with Patience only must it be

shared. She stood a little in awe of the girl; was attracted to her, in

a subtle sense; and so made willingly enough an arrangement to keep her

with her.

Patience had never really liked the country, save for the sake of her

dead master; her heart always was in the turmoil of the streets where

she had been born and where she had lived so long; now, free again, she

would go back to it. And in that, of course, Moira was heartily with

her; for had not Jimmy set out to the Enchanted City, and was she not

absolutely to meet him at the very moment of her arrival? She had walked

so often through Daisley Cross, and had seen practically every living

soul that filled her world. London might be bigger, but anyone could be

met there easily enough. In her idea of the place Jimmy stood waiting,

with hands outstretched and a smile in his eyes.

The tragedy of the thing only dawned upon her later. So eager had she

been to follow where Jimmy had gloriously led, that the matter of

farewells was a small one. Mr. and Mrs. Baffall said good-bye solemnly,

and urged that she would write; Alice was tearful for five minutes, but

called that marvellous equanimity of hers to bear upon the situation,

and waved a hand smilingly at the last. And then it was hey for London,

and the old life left behind! She went willingly and even eagerly with

Patience; and so the world swallowed her, and she was lost.

Patience had, of course, no concern for anyone outside the man who was

dead and the girl who lived; no one else mattered. She had nodded

sharply with pursed lips when Mrs. Baffall pressed her to write; in her

heart she determined that not a line should be sent. She was going away

to live her own life; all this was done with. And in that spirit she

brought Moira to London--Moira, taller by an inch or two than the bent

old woman whose hand she held, and to whom she clung.

Moira was about fourteen years of age, slim, but not very well formed,

with all the awkward movements of a shy girl growing up rapidly. When it

is remembered that she had never seen any place very much larger than

Daisley Cross, save when she had taken little excursions with Old Paul

and the others to neighbouring towns, it is not to be wondered at that

that first coming to London was a shock greater than can well be

described. The coming to the fringe of it--that fringe which was not

London at all, and yet had long since left the country behind, and was a

dreary expanse of roofs and chimney-pots--cleaner roofs and newer

chimney-pots than were to be found further in. After that, the roar and

the rush beating up about the carriage of the train like a great angry

sea; men and women crowding and hurrying everywhere in the streets down

below them, and on the stations through which they flew; and then,

lastly, London itself, and the demon of Noise let loose upon them! Where

in all that turmoil through which they had almost to fight their way was

to be found Jimmy, as she had seen him last going up the quiet hill in

the rain, on a morning that seemed to be set years back in the ages?

Patience had taken some tiny furnished rooms in the top part of a house

in a small street in Chelsea; one of the narrowest streets imaginable;

and there, in a dull, ordinary, complete fashion, she settled down with

the girl; folded her hands--and was at rest.

But Moira? This child of the woods and the fields and the birds and the

flowers; this little sensitive loving soul that craved the touch of

loving hands and the whisper of loving words; what of her? On how many

hopeless nights was she to stare out, wet-eyed, over the hideous

streets, and wonder if this was the end, and if, like Patience, she was

to grow old in these top rooms, and never see the world again, and never

hear of anyone. On how many nights as she sat with her knitting or her

needlework (for Patience knew her duty, and knew that in these things

for the young lay salvation), did she glance past the lamp on the little

table, and look at the sleeping woman whose spectacles had been

carefully lifted off and laid on the table before she composed herself

in her arm-chair. Always the lamp burning there--and the woman

sleeping--and the silence of the room--and the memories that would not

die, and that the child did her best indeed to keep alive.

Now it was Old Paul, wandering with her through the woods; she had only

to move that hand from her knitting for a moment, and close her eyes

stealthily, to feel the warm touch of his fingers again. Oh, God! the

warm touch of his fingers!

Now it was Jimmy, shut up, too, in this dreadful world of London

somewhere this night, and calling to her above all the roar of the

streets, and never making her hear. She closed her eyes again, and lay

with Jimmy on the warm earth, with the sun beating down upon them, and

only a whisper now and then passing between them--the very inmost kernel

of their thoughts. Moira had that moment seen a fairy flit across where

the sunlight lay in a path from tree to tree; and she whispered it to

Jimmy, who nodded in perfect understanding. Oh, God! the fairies in the

sunlight!

Now she rode again in Paul's arms in the old donkey-chaise, with the

Ancient One crawling home through the warm scented dusk of a summer

night; and Old Paul murmured tales to her that she knew by heart, but

yet could never hear too often; and she opened her eyes and blinked away

the tears, and saw always the lamp on the little table, and the woman

asleep in her chair.

There were, of course, summer mornings even in London--mornings when the

fresh young spirit of her, not to be quenched, rose exultant to the

sunlight, and craved for air and liberty. But even then the watchful

jealousy of Patience had to be reckoned with; she must not go far; she

must not stray in this direction nor in that. More often than not

Patience insisted on going with her; so that the spectacle was presented

of the white-faced girl going through the streets, guiding the slower

steps of the old woman. That was how she saw London, and how she knew it

for almost four long years.

It seems in a sense incredible; but it is strictly true. Even the people

in the same house with her knew nothing of her, and probably cared

nothing. She grew up in that bitter narrow environment; came to full

womanhood in the heart of the greatest city in the world; and yet knew

nothing of the life of the city or of the world at all. She dwelt always

in the past, this child of the dark eyes and the unclouded and untouched

heart; anything that she saw or heard in the streets through which she

passed with the old woman for company went by her, and left no trace.

Her necessarily lengthening frocks were lengthened by herself; whatever

small vanities sprang up in her, with the growth of her womanhood, were

caught deftly enough from the people she saw in the streets, and from

shop windows, and were imitated cheaply and dexterously. But the life of

loneliness did not change.

Once she escaped--and only once. She must have been nearly seventeen

when the chance came, and then it came and was gone before almost she

had had time to recover breath. It came in the strangest fashion, and it

woke within her something that made her half afraid of herself, even

while it filled her with strange delight.

A girl, some years older than herself, climbed the stairs one day, and

asked for her--not by name, because few people knew her name at all.

Patience met the intruder, and recognised in her a girl who lived in the

rooms below--a sharp, bright, rather common girl--easy and good-natured,

and knowing London perfectly; and Patience, seeing in her a new danger,

confronted her and demanded her errand.

"Well, I thought she might like to go out with me to-night," said the

girl, a little aggressively. "I shan't do her no harm; I know my way

about. I've got two tickets----"

"No," said Patience in a low voice, as though she would keep the mere

knowledge of the thing from the girl in the room behind her. "We keep

ourselves to ourselves, thank you; there's nothing we want."

"I don't know that I was talking to you," retorted the other, rather

hotly. "It strikes me as rather hard if a girl can't say what she'd like

to do or what she wouldn't. And if the opera isn't respectable, then I'd

like to know what is?"

Patience felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning a little guiltily, saw

Moira standing beside her. She had caught that last word, and

understood, curiously enough, what it meant; for Old Paul had spoken of

it more than once. Old Paul had been lifted out of himself, it seemed,

on occasions of heavy trouble, by this same wonderful opera; had felt

his soul rising on wings of music far away from the earth and its

troubles. This was Old Paul's business clearly, and Patience must stand

aside. So much the girl demanded.

"I think I will go," said Moira, smiling out at the other girl. "It's

very kind of you."

"Not a bit of it," retorted the other, with a laugh. "I only got these

by chance; there's not many going, I can tell you. It's _Faust_, and a

bit of a big night. There's somebody else"--the girl laughed confusedly,

and turned away her head--"somebody else that generally takes me out;

but he'd only fall asleep. Can't stand opera at any price. So I

thought----"

She put on the neatest that she had, and enjoyed the new luxury of a

ride on the top of an omnibus. They came to a great building ablaze with

lights; and by that time Moira was trembling to such an extent that the

other girl, somewhat amused and amazed, put a friendly arm about the

thin form to guide it up the stairs. Moira came to herself among a great

press of people, with a great crowded building spreading far down below

her, and a blank curtain, and the faint sound of music. Then she forgot

everything, and looked and listened--and understood.

For this was very perfectly what Old Paul had told her; almost it was as

though she sat with his hand in hers, swaying that hand softly in the

darkness to the sound of the music below her; understanding, with the

sympathetic pressure of his fingers, all the wondrous story spreading

itself before her--the hope, the despair, the passion; all that love

story that has stirred and moved the world for so long. She sat there,

with her hands clasped, and her breath coming and going sharply; she saw

nothing of anyone about her--knew nothing of where she was, or what the

hour or the day; heard only the music--listened only as this thing was

unfolded for her, and poured into her ears alone. For this was Love, as

she had not known it nor understood it in her starved life; this was

Love, that she knew, with a gasp of affright at the knowledge, it would

be possible for her to feel and understand in its fullest intensity.

She sat there still after the curtain had fallen, and when the people

were going out; her companion had to shake her somewhat roughly and with

some feeling of uneasiness, before she would move at all. And then

stumbled out like one blind.

Outside in the street, while the girl who knew her London was hurrying

her along to get a 'bus, that London spread itself before Moira as a new

and wonderful place. For here were men and women walking who could love

as these dream people of the night had loved; here was a world

transformed in a moment. She walked with light feet; all the world was

alive for her to-night, and pulsing with a new feeling.

When they got out at the corner of the street that led to their own

narrow little street, she took advantage of the darkness to catch at the

hand of the other girl, and to raise it quickly to her lips. "I shall be

grateful to you all my life," she whispered.

"Good Lord!" muttered the other girl, with an uncomfortable little

laugh.

She found old Patience partially undressed, and with a shawl wrapped

about her, slumbering uneasily before the burnt-out fire. Moira woke her

rapturously; began to pour into her unsympathetic ears some halting,

stumbling account of the wonders of the night; was met by a querulous

pointing to the burnt-out fire, and to the fact that Patience had been

kept out of her bed for hours beyond her usual time by these unnatural

proceedings. The girl listened humbly, and said nothing more about what

had happened; but she did not go again. As a matter of fact she had no

further opportunity, probably because she was too surprising a companion

to be taken out, even under the most generous impulses; perhaps even

because no further tickets came to her friend. In any case it is

doubtful if she would have accepted any further offer.

But though she dropped back to that dull routine that had been hers for

so long, the memory of that night lived with her--to be stored away in

that hidden chamber of memories, and not lightly to be forgotten. That

was another matter over which she had merely to close her eyes, what

time she sat in the dead silence of the room with the old woman and the

lamp for company; and so to reconstruct the thing from beginning to end.

Often and often, when Patience was asleep, the girl sat there, with her

eyes closed, and her head raised, and her hands locked together in her

lap over her work, quivering from head to foot with the sheer ecstasy of

that music and that story that had thrilled her, and would thrill her

while ever she remembered.

That incident and its consequences gave her courage--courage to override

the tender, jealous watchfulness of Patience. Once or twice before, in

some passionate desire to get back to the life she had known and

understood in her childhood, Moira had set about the task of writing to

Alice; once, too, a polite note to Mrs. Baffall. But in each instance

the idea of Moira writing at all had been seized upon by the old woman

as something strange and out of the way; sharp questions had been

answered evasively; and finally, Patience had bitterly exclaimed against

the ingratitude of one who had received such benefits as had fallen to

the lot of Moira, and yet wanted someone else to fill her life. So the

letters had been torn up, and Moira had gratefully whispered her thanks

and her repentance to the churlish woman; and there the matter had

ended. But on this occasion she was bolder.

That breaking away from the dominion of the old woman had been a greater

departure than either of them suspected; it had roused in Moira that

indefinite longing for the things that once had been hers. She wrote to

Alice at the house of the Baffalls again; a mad, hungry letter, craving

forgiveness for a long silence, and expressing vaguely enough all the

longings of a heart that had been held in check sternly enough for a

long time. Above all, she asked where Jimmy could be found in London;

commented pitifully on the fact that she had not yet found him, although

she had been in London so long. And having sent that letter, in defiance

of frowns and shrugs and murmured complaints, sat down to await the

postman that must inevitably come to her as a messenger straight from

out of the old life.

It took more than a fortnight for that messenger to arrive; but he came

one morning, and left a letter addressed to "Miss Moira Nannock," and

bearing the London postmark. In all that starved time this had been the

only letter the girl had had; one or two had come for Patience purely on

business, and relating to small matters of dividends. Moira carried it

up to her room, and looked at the precious thing with sparkling eyes

before she opened it. Opening it, she found it to be commonplace enough,

even though it had a certain note of conventional girlish impulse about

it.

"DEAREST MOIRA,

"How perfectly sweet of you to have written to me after all this

long time! Of course I have not forgotten the old days; how could

you suppose such a thing? I have never really got over Old Paul's

death yet; it was so inexpressibly sad. For a time, at least, we

have left Daisley Cross. I was bored to death there, and dear Aunt

Baffall was only too glad to bring me to London. We are staying at

a house here for the present, and you must come and see me as soon

as you can. I must close now, having a dozen other letters to

answer before a tiresome morning drive.

"Yours with love,

"ALICE VICKERY."

There was not much in the letter; but the suggestion that Alice, too,

had come to London seemed to be a binding together anew of the original

little company. Moreover, there was at the very end of the note a little

hurried scrawl, giving the business address to which Jimmy had been

sent. Alice had "got it out of Uncle Baffall"--but did not know

anything more about Jimmy. At all events, here, with the simple coming

of the postman, Moira was in touch already with almost all the people

who had come into her life at the very beginning; and life took on a new

aspect from that time.

Patience asked about the letter; nodded grimly when she understood that

the Baffalls had come to London. "Trust her for that," said the old

woman--"she'll make them do what she likes without any trouble at all.

That's where you're different, my dear. Alice will slide through the

world with that smile of hers and that little turn at the corners of her

mouth; people will simply lie down for her to walk over 'em."

Moira, in that new eagerness to reconstruct her original world, went at

once to the address of the Baffalls, as given in the letter. She was a

little dismayed, on coming into the neighbourhood, to find what a very

grand neighbourhood it was; she walked round the square twice before

summoning courage to approach the door of the house. And when that door

was opened by a tall footman, who looked straight over the top of her

head while blandly asking her business, she nearly turned and ran away

again. But was finally ushered into a room that seemed all gold and

mirrors, and sat down there to await the appearance of this new Alice.

Mrs. Baffall came instead. Mrs. Baffall, looking a little older and a

little greyer and a little more nervous; Mrs. Baffall with an eye upon

the door, even while she tearfully hugged Moira. Yet Mrs. Baffall, very

prosperous-looking for all that, even though not quite fitting in with

the gold and the mirrors.

"Oh, my dear," murmured Mrs. Baffall, turning the pale face to the light

of the windows that she might see it better, "where have you been all

this time?--and why haven't we seen you? Often and often I've thought

about you--(oh, my dear--what a white, thin face it is!)--and wondered

what had become of you. And Old Paul (though the Lord forgive me for

speaking so disrespectful of the dead) going away like that, without

ever making the least provision! And as you know, my dear, Baffall and

me couldn't do everything--and you did make up your mind to go your own

way--and----"

"I've wanted to write to you often," said Moira, speaking a little

unsteadily--"but--but there seemed to be nothing to write about. We've

led very quiet lives. And Alice----"

"Well--and very pretty," said Mrs. Baffall hurriedly, with another

glance at the door. "Not but what, my dear, it hasn't been in my mind

many a time that it might have been better to take someone else at the

first--instead of her. For she hustles us, my dear; we don't seem to get

that peace in the house that Baffall and me looked forward to. It's

pictures here--and a crick in the neck through looking at the top

ones--and a concert there--and all sorts of things that we ain't used

to. But still--she's young--and I suppose----"

The door opened, and a vision came in. The word is advisable, seeing

that for the moment Moira did not recognise, in this radiant appearance,

the short-skirted child of the tumbled curls she had known a few years

before. For this was a being perfectly dressed, with hair perfectly

arranged, and with a wonderfully correct smile of welcome parting her

lips and brightening her blue eyes. There was no haste or impetuosity or

eagerness; only one swift critical glance at the thin, somewhat shabbily

dressed figure; then an embrace, with a little murmur in the girl's ear

that was half pitying and half patronising; a murmur that sent the hot

blood to Moira's cheeks, and chilled her at the same time.

"My sweet Moira--to meet you like this!" exclaimed the exquisite one.

"Over and over again I've urged Aunt Baffall to do something--to

advertise--or inquire of somebody--and yet nothing's been done. How have

you lived, my dear--and what are you doing with yourself? Do sit down

and tell me all about it?"

Moira sat down, with her eyes straying in the direction of the perplexed

old woman, whose motherly instincts, cheated so long, had induced her

late in life to bring this awkward swan under her very ordinary goose's

wing. When presently Mr. Baffall strayed in, he did but accentuate the

position; for he was more awkward than ever, and seemed to have a vague

and horrible feeling that Moira had come there with the object of being

adopted also. He sat there, while Mrs. Baffall furtively reached for his

hand, and regarded the two girls in silence.

"Now I want to have a long talk with Moira; so you'll please run away,"

said Alice at last, after a long and somewhat awkward pause. "You know

what time to order the carriage, dear Uncle Baffall; and I do hope that

Aunt Baffall will lie down for half an hour before we start; she _is_ so

liable to fall asleep," she added to Moira, as she took an arm of each

of the old people and hurried them out of the room.

"But I wanted to talk to her myself," protested Mrs. Baffall feebly. But

the door was closed and she was gone.

Afterwards, in recalling the conversation that had taken place, Moira

found it difficult to remember anything in particular. She had a vague

notion that Alice's time was largely taken up with the fitting on of

frocks and with conversations with young gentlemen upon nothing in

particular; but she brought away with her a distinct notion that the

blue eyes were more beautiful than ever, although somewhat colder, and

that the droop of the mouth would have made almost anyone who did not

understand, sorry for the girl in an indefinite way. Only one point did

honest Moira think of resentfully afterwards; and that was Alice's

dismissal of the Baffalls from the very scheme of things, as being

necessary only for what they gave her.

"The dear old things are so stuffy," she had said. "Positively,

sometimes, my dear, I find myself blushing for them, and going hot and

cold when I think of the mistakes they have made. But there--I think

most of my real friends understand!"

Remembering that resplendent vision that drove in a carriage through

this London in a corner of which Moira hid, she determined to go no more

in search of Alice. Instead, she turned with an eagerly-beating heart in

the direction in which Jimmy might be found--Jimmy, who had not even

been mentioned by Alice or by the Baffalls. Only now, as she went in

search of him, did she begin to think it strange that nothing had been

said concerning Mr. Baffall's other _protégé_.

The address was that of a huge general warehouse in a narrow street

turning out of Cheapside. Moira found it with some difficulty; read the

name over the big windows with a feeling of pride that Jimmy should

belong to such an establishment. After a little hesitation she went

inside, through big swing doors, into a great warehouse stacked to the

very ceiling with parcels wrapped in paper, and with cardboard boxes and

bales; and with innumerable young men and elderly men and boys at work

among the parcels and the bales, and here and there a figure perched at

a high desk, jotting down something called to him by one of the busy

figures. But no sign of Jimmy.

A young gentleman without a coat lounged forward to the counter at

which she stood; glanced at her quickly for a moment, and went on

writing in a book. Without looking up he asked what she wanted.

"Mr. James Larrance," she said, in a low voice. "I wanted to speak to

him for a moment--if he's not too busy."

The man glanced up quickly, and laughed; spread a piece of

blotting-paper on the book, and rubbed it vigorously. Then he turned in

the direction of another man, and jerked his head to beckon him. "Mr.

James Larrance, if you please," he said; and laughed again, and went on

with his work.

The other man who had been beckoned was somewhat older than the first;

moreover, he wore a coat, as showing some greater importance. He came to

the counter, and lounged with one elbow upon it, and looked at the girl.

"Don't you know he's gone?" he asked.

"No--I didn't know that," she faltered.

"Well, he has," he retorted. "The work here wasn't quite good enough for

him; he'd got notions above cloth and calico, I suppose--at any rate,

notions that wouldn't do here. So he decided to go away, and I suppose

make a fortune for himself--eh?" He glanced at the younger man and

laughed unpleasantly.

"Can't I see him doing it!" replied the other, addressing the sheet of

blotting-paper, and thumping it to give emphasis to his words.

"Could you tell me where I should find him?" asked Moira. "I'm an old

friend; I knew him years ago."

"You might find him, miss, on the Hotel Embankment--enjoying the air--or

he might have got an appointment as Inspector of Public Buildings--that

is to say--the outside of 'em," said the younger clerk, with another

laugh.

"In a word, my dear--he's gone from here--and I haven't yet heard that

he's got another billet. That's the long and the short of it. Good

morning!" Thus the elder man as he turned away.

Moira came out into the busy streets; she saw here the last chance of

touching that old life gone from her. Alice unapproachable, and Jimmy

wandering London friendless; the prospect was not a cheerful one.

She went home to Patience, and took up again the life she had striven to

change--took it up with a new humility and a new gratitude.