PART II

ELIZA

I

It was two o'clock and after before the old folks left Witham. Simon

had gone to his dinner on quitting the agent, and at his favourite

eating-house he encountered others who wanted the hearse-story at first

hand. He was not at all averse to talking about it by now, and after a

good dinner it improved with the telling every time. Once more he

forgot the interview of the morning as well as the coming one in the

afternoon, and stayed smoking and talking and sunning himself in the

fine atmosphere of success.

Sarah, however, had neither pipe nor admiring circle to soothe or

enliven the heavy, dragging hours. She went into the inn after the

'Ship' dog-cart had rattled off, and tried to gather a little comfort

from the parlour fire; but the glamour of the morning had departed with

May, and now that she was alone she felt depressed and tired. The

doctor's verdict, which had passed her by at the time, rushed back upon

her, shaking her nerves and chilling her heart. She began to wonder

what it would be like to be really blind, and in a sudden panic she made

a strained attempt to discern the pictures and almanacks in the room,

tracing the patterns of the antimacassars with a shaking finger, and the

shapes of the chair-backs and table-legs. When she was really blind,

Simon would have to do for her instead of her doing for him, but he

would only make a poorish job of it, she felt sure. There would still

be plenty for both of them to do, in spite of the fact that 'things had

come to an end.' There were the long winter months to be got through

before they left, as well as the work and worry of changing house. May

would help her, no doubt; she could always count on May; but she knew

that she did not want to owe her more than she could help. It was

partly a new uprising of dead jealousy, of course, as well as pride

refusing dependence upon one who did not belong. But at the back of all

there was a more just and generous motive than either of these,--the

consciousness that May had given too much already, and should not be

called upon for more. Months ahead though it lay, she began presently to

think a woman's thoughts about the breaking-up of the home. Little as

they possessed of any value in itself, there would be many things, she

knew, that they would want to keep. There were certain things,

expensive to renew, which still had a flicker of useful life, and

others, useless to others as well as themselves, which were yet bone of

their bone and flesh of their ancient flesh. She began to make a list

in her head, and to value the furniture as well as she knew how. She

had been to many a sale in her time, and had a sufficiently good memory

of what the things had fetched, as well as of whose house had eventually

raked them in. She saw Sandholes full of peering and poking folk, a

chattering crowd stretching into the garden and yard, and forming a

black procession along the roads of the marsh. She saw traps and heavy

carts and laden human beings slowly departing with the stuff of her

human life, while the shreds that were left to her, piled and roped on a

waiting lorry, looked poorer than ever in the light of day. She saw the

garden gravel printed by many boots, and the yard trenched and crossed

by wheels. She saw the windows open in a house from which nobody

looked, and scrubbed, bare floors which seemed to have forsworn the

touch of feet. She saw the lorry pass reluctantly away into the great,

homeless place that was the world. And last of all she saw herself and

Simon shutting the door that finally shut them out. There was all the

difference in ten thousand worlds between the sound of a door that was

shutting you in and the sound of the same door shutting you out....

She had always been a still woman, when she had had time to be still,

but she found it impossible to be still to-day. She began to walk up

and down, listening for Simon's voice, and in the strange room she hurt

herself against the furniture, and received little shocks from the cold

surface of strange objects and the violent closing-up of the walls. She

gave it up after a while, forcing herself to a stand, and it was so that

Simon found her when he opened the door at last.

She had a further wait, however, when he found that the trap had managed

to oust the car from the coveted place. At first he was rather afraid

that the hearse-story had earned him too many drinks, but even to

marketing eyes the fact was plain. He chuckled as he walked from one to

the other, saying "Gox!" and "Did ye ever now?" and "Losh save us!" and

"Wha'd ha' thowt it!" The driver was not to be seen, or the wait might

have been longer still, but as it was they were mounted presently on the

emaciated seats, and Simon jerked up the horse in a last spasm of

victorious glee.

For some miles he talked of nothing but the sensation that he had caused

in Witham, and how he had found the hearse-story everywhere in the town.

"I'd nobbut to turn a corner," he announced proudly, though pretending

disgust, "but sure an' certain there'd be somebody waiting to tax me on

t'far side! There was Burton, and Wilson, and Danny Allen and a deal

more, all on 'em ready wi'--'Well, Simon, and what about yon hearse?' I

could see 'em oppenin' their mouths half a street off!" he chuckled

loudly. "Folk clipped me by t'arm and begged me tell 'em how it was,

and t'others rushed out o' shops and fair fell on me as I ganged by!"

"They mun ha' been terble hard set for summat to do," Sarah answered

unkindly. "What did you make out wi' Mr. Dent?"

At once the shadow fell again on the fine sun of Simon's success.

"Nay, you may well ax," he growled, "but I'm danged if I rightly know!

He was that queer there was no doing owt wi' him at all. Seemed to be

thinking o' summat else most o' the time,--gaping out at winder and

smiling at nowt. He was a deal queerer nor me, hearse or no hearse, and

so I tell ye!"

"But you give notice in, didn't you? You likely got that fixed?"

"Well, I did and I didn't, after a manner o' speaking. I kept handing

it in like, and he kept handing it back. He said we'd best take a bit

more time to think."

"We've had time and plenty, I'm sure!" Sarah sighed,--"ay, that we have!

... I reckon you tellt him about my eyes?"

Simon stirred uneasily when she mentioned her eyes, remembering how they

had played in and out of his mind, but never once managed to come to the

front.

"Nay, then, I didn't, if you want to know, because I never gitten

chanst. I didn't rightly know what to say, neither, come to that. You

catched doctor right enough, I suppose?"

"Ay, we hadn't to wait or owt. And he was right kind, he was that!"

"Happen he hadn't a deal to say, after all?" Simon enquired hopefully,

and she gave a faint laugh.

"Nobbut that if I didn't have an operation right off, I'd be as blind as

a barn-door owl by next year!"

Simon said "Gox!" and jerked the horse so violently that it nearly went

through the hedge. "Losh, missis, that's bad!" he went on dismally, when

he had straightened out. "It's worse than I looked for, by a deal.

I've always been terble feared of operations and such-like. What's to be

done about it, d'ye think?"

"Nowt."

"Nay, but dang it!" he cried sharply,--"we can't leave it like yon! If

there's owt they can do for you, we mun let them try. They say some folk

come out right enough, wi' a bit o' luck."

"Luck isn't much in our way, I doubt," she said, with a sigh, "and it'd

mean begging o' somebody, I reckon, and I've had enough o' that. May

says there's free spots for such as us, but there's not that much free

in this world as I've ever seen. I doubt it'd mean somebody's brass or

other going to pay for it in the end."

"I could ax Will----" Simon began hurriedly, without pausing to think,

but she stopped him before the well-known formula was out.

"Nay, then, master, you'll do nowt o' the sort, so that's all there is

about it! You're his brother, and you've a right to do as you choose,

but I'll never take a penny piece from him if it's nobbut for myself."

"He'd have his hand in his pocket for you right off. He's never been

close about brass and suchlike, hasn't Will."

"Ay, but it's Eliza's brass as well, you'll think on, and she's close,

right enough! She'd see me blind and on t'streets afore she'd lift a

hand, and if happen she did lift it, I'd strike it down! Nay, master,

you can ax what you like for yourself, but you'll ax nowt for me. As

for the farm and Mr. Dent, we're bound to get shot of it now, whatever

happens. The sooner things is fixed the better I'll be suited, so I'll

thank you to get 'em seen to as soon as you can."

"'Tisn't my fault they're not fixed this very minute!" Simon grumbled,

feeling hardly used.... "Did you happen across Eliza in Witham?" he

asked her suddenly, after a while.

Sarah laughed faintly again, though this time it was an echo of triumph.

"We'd a few words together in t'caif," she answered tranquilly, "and wi'

a few folks looking on an' all. She was setting it round we were broke,

and had gitten the sack, and a deal more; but I reckon I give her summat

to bite on afore I was through.... Seems as if you an' me had been

having a sort o' side-show," she finished, with a grim smile. "Ay,

well, we've given Witham summat to crack about, if we've never done nowt

else...."

Their minds had been full of Eliza as they drove to market, and now they

were busy turning her over in their minds again. Sarah's account of her

splendid effort cheered and uplifted them for a while, but they knew

only too well that their sense of superiority would not last. Even

their victories, ever so dearly bought, turned to Eliza's advantage in

the end. Life was on the side of Eliza, for whom all things were certain

to work out well. Heaven was on the side of Eliza, whose face had never

registered a single memory of pain. The Simon Thornthwaites never got

over the feeling that somehow she had played them false, had wheedled by

undue influence the balance of justice off the straight. Alone, they

were able to see some dignity in their tragic lives, but once with Eliza

they were suddenly cheap,--mere poor relations fawning at her skirts.

They saw themselves framed as such in her mocking eyes, and felt for the

moment the shameful thing they seemed.

She mocked them,--that was the evil thing she did; that petty, insidious

crime which human nature finds so difficult to forgive. Mockery by

comparison was her method, and one which was almost impossible to fight.

In all that Eliza said and did, by her attitude and her dress, she

invited the world to mark the incredible gulf that yawned between the

Simon Thornthwaites and the Wills. She had made her opening point on

the double wedding-day, though the actual cause of the enmity lay

further back than that. Eliza, indeed, had intended to marry Simon and

not Will,--Simon, the elder, the better-looking, and even the smarter in

those far-off days. But in this, at least, Sarah had won the fall, and

Eliza had never recovered from her surprise. From that moment the

spoilt beauty had seen in the other's plain person an opponent worthy of

her steel, an antagonist whom it would take her all her life to down.

Sneer and strike as she might, she could never be quite sure that she

had finally got home, and in mingled inquisitiveness and wrath she

sneered and struck again. There must be an end sometime to this spirit

that would not break, but even after forty years there was little sign.

Something deathless in Sarah rose up again after every stroke, and was

always left standing erect when her world was in the dust.

Sarah thought of her wedding-day as they drove through the torpid

afternoon, and under the low sky that was shut over the earth like a

parsimonious hand. The wedding-day had been soft and sunny and sweet,

with a high blue sky that looked empty from zone to zone, until, looking

up until you were almost blind, you saw that you stared through layer

upon layer of tender-coloured air. The mountains had been like that,

too, clear yet vapour-veiled, and even the blue of the sea had been just

breathed upon as well. It was a real bridal day, with its hint of

beauty only just withheld, its lovely actual presences that still

dropped curtains between. The earth-veils had had nothing in common with

Eliza's flaunting mockery of a veil, nor was there anything in common

between the mysteries behind. The strong mountain was more subtle and

shy than Eliza, the terrible sea more tender, the great sky with its

hidden storms more delicate and remote. Eliza's bold and confident

beauty had clashed with them as a brass band clashes with a stretching,

moonlit shore. It was for Sarah in her stiff straw bonnet and brown

gown that the bridal veils of the world had been sweetly worn.

She had thought herself neat and suitable when she looked in the glass,

and had found it enough, because all her instincts were neat and plain.

It was a cruel irony of fate that had forced her into a morbid,

passionate groove. In those days she had never as much as heard of

obsessions of the mind, and would not have believed they could touch

her, if she had. She had asked nothing of life but that it should be

clean and straight, and still found it hard to believe in the shadowed,

twisted thing which it had proved.

Her parents had died before Simon had made her a home, so she had gone

out to service and had been married from her 'place.' She found him

waiting when she went downstairs, in clothes as neat and suitable as her

own, and he had given her a bunch of lilies of the valley, and a little

Prayer Book with a brown back. They had always been matter-of-fact as

lovers, and they were very matter-of-fact now, but Sarah, from this

far-off distance, knew that, after all, they had not missed the thrill.

Even in the small-windowed, silent house that had a maiden lady for

tenant there was a touch of the exquisite thing,--the same delicate

rapture that was spreading its diaphanous wings over the coloured sea

and land....

They walked to church by the path across the fields, and the cattle

raised their heads to look at Simon's suitable clothes, and the inch of

escaped ribbon frisking on Sarah's suitable bonnet. They went

arm-in-arm through the still churchyard, where their forefathers, lying

together, saw nothing strange in this new conjunction of old names; and

arm-in-arm up the empty aisle towards the cave of the chancel that had

the flower of its rose window set in it like a jewelled eye. Their

boots sounded terribly loud on the uncarpeted tiles, and they trod on

tiptoe when they crossed the stones of the vaults, because the names

looking up seemed somehow to turn into the uplifted faces of the

prostrate dead. And presently the stone of the chancel-steps had stopped

them as with a bar, bidding them think, in that last moment, whether the

feet of their purpose had been rightly set.

They felt very small as they waited among the climbing pillars and under

the spring of the groined roof, smaller and smaller as the unmarked

minutes passed and nobody came. A shaft of light from the clerestory

touched them like the point of a sacrificial knife, showing their faces

humble and patient and a little too anxious to be glad. A bird flashed

in through the open chancel-door, sat for a moment on the altar-rail and

sang, and then caught sight of the sunlit country and flashed out again.

It had not even seen the waiting couple who were so very quiet and so

terribly small. And then, just as they were at their smallest, the

Pageant of Eliza had swept in.

There were many to tell them afterwards of the sensation in the village

when Eliza in gorgeous apparel had come driving with trampling horses to

the old lych-gate. At the sound of the horses' hoofs and the first

flash of the veil the houses had emptied themselves as a teapot empties

itself when you tilt the spout. Veils were the prerogative of the

'quality' in those days, and that in itself was sufficient to make a

stir. In a moment there were groups on the green, children running up

the street and folk pressing into the churchyard, and in a moment more

the veiled yet flaunting figure had passed into the church, an

over-rigged ship up the straight estuary of the aisle.

Behind Simon and Sarah the place was suddenly full of noise, whispering

and shuffling and treading of heavy feet, and the ringing of nailed

boots on the smooth tiles. Presently all that had been inside the

church had gone out as if swept by a broom, and all that had been

outside had come in with a blatant rush, filling it with curious faces

and crowded bodies and suppressed laughter and muttered speech. Into

the quiet hour that had been meant for Simon and Sarah alone, Eliza came

full tilt with a tumult of sight-seers in her train. Not for her was

the peace between the springing pillars which rent before her like a

curtain rent by hands. She trod with bold, self-satisfied strides over

the dead faces which to her were only names. She created a vulgar

raree-show out of the simple blessing of a tranquil God.

Only outside the sea and the mountains kept their mystery till the knot

was tied. The sacred hour of Simon and Sarah was withdrawn silently

into higher courts.

All that was human in Sarah, however, remained at the mercy of the

broken hour below. Now and then she caught a glimpse of Eliza's face

through the veil, or a gleam of her shining gown as she twisted and

turned. She thought to herself savagely that Eliza looked a fool, but

that did not prevent her from feeling, by contrast, a fool, too. Even

Will, shy and ashamed, but tricked out in unaccustomed gauds, helped to

point the comparison between the pairs. She remembered how her cheeks

had burned and her heart battered and her knees shook, while she

strained her ears for the least sign of mirth from the crowded pews

behind. The whole parody of her precious hour was bitter beyond words,

but it was the mocking distinction in clothes that went furthest home.

For the rest of her life Sarah was sharply conscious of all that Eliza

wore, and hated it right to the sheep that had carried the wool on its

innocent back, and the harmless cotton-plant that had grown for her

unaware.

Eliza sailed down the aisle again amid giggles and loud asides, but

Simon and Sarah crept quietly out of the church by the door through

which the singing-bird had flown. They stood in the grass among the

rose-bushes on the graves, and watched Eliza drive triumphantly away.

The parson followed them out to make a kindly speech, which they were

far too angry and humiliated to hear. He wanted to tell them that God

had certainly liked them best, but he knew they would not believe him if

he did. They were so certain that it was Eliza who had had the beautiful

hour. They were too simple to know that it was only they who had any of

the beauty to carry home....

II

All their lives Simon and Sarah had been the victims of Eliza's Method.

Nothing they had, horse, cow or cart, but was sooner or later measured

by Blindbeck standards and condemned. Their furniture figured in

Eliza's talk as often as her own,--their humble horsehair abased by her

proud plush, her stout mahogany lording it over their painted deal. They

had scarcely a cup or plate, hay-crop, dog or friend, but it was flung

in the scale and instantly kicked the beam. People grew tired of

Eliza's Method after a while, but long before they had ceased to enjoy

it its work was done. By that time they knew to the last inch exactly

how the Simon Thornthwaites had fallen behind the Wills. The Simons

were stamped in their eyes as poor relations to the end of time, and

they treated them differently, spoke to them casually, and as often as

not forgot that they were there. But Simon and Sarah did not forget, or

cease to notice, or cease to be hurt. Always they felt pilloried by

Eliza's blatant cry,--"Look here, upon this picture, and on this!"

Only in one respect had Sandholes and the Simons ever managed to hold

their own. Simon's son had been every whit as fine as Will's, for all

the wooden spoon that was hanging over his cradle. It was true that

more and more children came to Blindbeck, passing Sandholes by, but that

was nothing to Sarah as long as Geordie was at hand. Geordie alone

seemed more than sufficient to right them in the eyes of an

Eliza-magicked world. He was a rattlehorn and a limb, but he had stuff

in him, all the same, and sooner or later he would prove that stuff to

the world and the lordly Wills. All the working and scraping of those

years went to the one passionate purpose of doing Eliza down. Those

were the happiest years of Sarah's life, because for the time being she

had a weapon against her foe.

Yet even here she found herself mocked by the amazing likeness between

the brothers' sons. It had an uncanny effect upon her, as of something

not quite human, even, indeed, as if there were something evil at its

back. She had an uneasy feeling that, in some mysterious way, this was

still another expression of Eliza's malice. The pride of stock in Simon

and Will was stirred by this double evidence of breed, but Sarah, when

people mistook the lads, was fretted to fierce tears. There were times

when she even hated the smile on Geordie's lips, because of its exact

similitude on Jim's. Most of all she hated herself when the wrong lad

called and she answered before she knew, or waved to a figure over the

sands, and it came laughing and was not her son....

She had much the same sense of something not quite canny about Jim's

extraordinary passion for Sandholes and herself. It was almost, indeed,

as if she feared it, as if she knew that in the future it might do her

harm. Even she was not always proof against his laughing, kindly ways,

and nothing but some such fear of a clutching love could have made her

steel her heart. Through all her absorption in her splendid Geordie she

could not help guessing at the greater depths in Jim. Geordie had yet

to learn in exile what Jim had learned on the very threshold of his

home. She remembered nursing him through an illness much against her

will, and even now she could not shed that clinging memory and its

appeal....

It was perhaps because of this hidden terror that she never used his

affection for her against his mother. She was often tempted to do so,

for Eliza was sore in spite of her loud denials, and when the Method was

hard at work on the furniture or the crops it would have been pleasant

to give her news--and generally none too pleasing news--of Jim. Often

enough the words were on her tongue, but she never spoke them. Always

something held her back from taking this easy means to strike.

Her ironic reward, however, was such as might well have made her think

herself bewitched, for even out of her self-denial it was Eliza who

gathered triumph. As time went on, and more and more lads appeared at

Blindbeck, she deftly changed her tactics by a single twist of the

wheel. She handed over to Sandholes, as it were, the one member of the

Blindbeck family that did not come up to Blindbeck standards. Not that

she ever said as much in words, or relinquished any claim that was

likely to be of use. She merely contrived to convey the impression that

he belonged by nature more to the Have-Nots than the Haves, to the

penniless Simons rather than the wealthy Wills. The impression

hardened, however, after the lads had run away, and Jim had finally

nailed his sympathies to the mast. His father, indeed, did not give him

up without a struggle, but Eliza became ever more detached from the

wastrel who was her son. Smilingly, so to speak, she dropped her thumbs

and let him go. It was not long before strangers were thinking him

Simon's son instead of Will's, and presently even Sarah awoke to the

fact that she was saddled with the Blindbeck failure as well as her own.

It was a smug young cousin of Eliza's who finally opened her eyes, at

one of those family feasts which Simon and Sarah were always expected to

attend. Eliza was never at her brightest and best without them, as she

very rightly said,--the organ-grinder without his necessary monkey, the

circus-master without his jumping clown. As usual, the Simon

Thornthwaites heard their belongings catalogued and found utterly

wanting, and, as usual, for the time being, shared the general sentiment

that they were beneath scorn. The comparisons, passing in and out of

shippon and parlour, leaping from feather-bed to sofa, and over

root-crops and stacks of hay, arrived finally at the missing sons.

"Our Harry's for learning the violin," Eliza informed the tea-party,

swelling with conscious pride. "Master wouldn't hear tell o' such a

thing at first, but me and the girls talked him round between us. I

reckon he'll be suited all right, though, when he hears our Harry play.

Ah, now, Sarah, but wouldn't that ha' been just the thing for

Geordie-an'-Jim? They were that fond o' music, the poor lads, though

they'd no more tune to the pair on 'em than a steam-whistle. Eh, well,

poor things, fiddle-playing and suchlike wouldn't ha' been no use to 'em

where they're at. Brass wasted, that's what it would ha' been, so it's

just as well...."

Harry, also swelling with pride, looked for some sign of admiration from

his aunt, but did not get it. Eliza soothed him with a meaning glance.

"The trouble is you've got to keep your hands terble nice for the

violin. Our Harry's terble set on keeping his hands nice....

Geordie-an'-Jim would never ha' come to such-like quality ways, would

they, Sarah? I never see such hands as the two on 'em used to show at

meals! I mind you said they got sent home that often from school, at

last the folks took to washing 'em on the spot! I used to be right

sorry for you, Sarah, I was that, wi' their gert finger-marks all over

the walls and the chair-backs. It's queer how different folk shape, I'm

sure, even when they're as you might say near-bred. Our Harry frames

rarely at folding tablecloths and the like, and no more dirt to 'em when

he's finished than if he was a lass!"

The town-bred cousin gazed complacently at his hands, and observed that,

if Geordie-an'-Jim were in Canada, as he understood, from all accounts

it was much the best place for them. Eliza nodded lugubriously, the tail

of her eye on Sarah's unstirred face.

"Ay, they're in Canada right enough, and like to be,--aren't they,

Sarah?--for a goodish while yet. They wrote home as they'd sworn to

make their fortunes afore they crossed the pond again, but fortunes

isn't as easy come by as some folk seem to think. Me and Will likely

know as much about it as most, having managed middlin' well, but even

for the best o' folk it isn't as simple as it sounds. There's always

somebody at you one way or another, wanting to share what you've earned

wi' your own hands. You've just got to keep lifting your feet right high

off the ground, or you'll have folk hanging on to your shoe-wangs all

the time. Ay, Geordie-an'-Jim'll find as fortunes don't come that slape

off the reel! 'Tisn't as if it was our Harry and Tom here, ay, and Bill

and Fred an' all, as'll find everything ready for 'em when they want to

start on their own. They'll step into good farms as if it was stepping

out o' bed, and they'll have Blindbeck behind them and its brass as

well. They'll have a bit o' their own, come to that; I started 'em

saving-books myself. Eh, yes, they'll do right well, but I doubt

there's never farm nor Post Office book as'll come to Geordie-an'-Jim!"

Later in the day, the smug cousin, trying to be kind, had enquired of

Sarah whether Geordie-an'-Jim were twins. She was too angry at first to

answer him at all, and by the time she managed to get her breath her

mood had changed. They were alone at the time, and even Sarah could

sometimes laugh at herself when Eliza was out of sight. The touch of

humour freed her heart for an instant, and at once it rose up and stood

by the lad whose mother had cast him off. Jim was suddenly before her,

with his tricks of affection and his borrowed face, his constant cry

that he had only been born at Blindbeck by mistake. "I'm your lad,

really, Aunt Sarah," she heard him saying, as of old. "I'm your lad

really, same as Geordie is!" Jim was forty by now, but it was a child's

voice that she heard speaking and couldn't deny. The cousin repeated

his question, and she smiled grimly.

"Twins? Ay ... and as like as a couple o' peas. As like as a couple o'

gulls on the edge o' the tide...."

It was the only time in her life that she ever stood openly by Eliza's

hated son. But perhaps even that one occasion may count in the final

sum of things....

III

Now they had left the high-road and were making south-east through the

winding lanes. Their shoulders were turned to the sea, though in that

lost world of the mist only the native could tell where the bay was

supposed to lie. It was one of the dead hours, too, when even the salt

goes out of the marsh-air, and no pulse in it warns you subconsciously

of the miracle coming. Between the high-mounted hedges it was still and

close, and beyond them the land rose until its dank green surface stood

soft against the sky. All the way Simon looked at the land with a

critical eye, the eye of the lover which loves and asks at the same

time. He looked at the ploughland and knew the rotation through which it

had run and would have to run again; at rich grass-land which seemed

never to have known the steel, and fields which, at rest for a hundred

years, still spoke to some long-rusted share. He loved it, but he

thought of it first and foremost as good material for the good workman

engaged on the only job in the world. It was always the land that he

coveted when he came to Blindbeck, never the house. Eliza had made of

the house a temple to the god of Blessed Self-Satisfaction, but even

Eliza could not spoil the honest, workable land.

The farm kept showing itself to them as they drove, a quadrangle of

long, well-kept buildings backed by trees. When the sun shone, the

white faces of house and shippon looked silver through the peeping-holes

of the hedge, but to-day they were wan and ghostly in the deadening

mist. The turned beeches and chestnuts were merely rusty, instead of

glowing, and seemed to droop as if with the weight of moisture on their

boughs. The Scotch firs on a mound alone, stark, straight, aloof, had

more than ever that air of wild freedom which they carry into the tamest

country; and the pearly shadow misting their green alike in wet weather

or in dry, was to-day the real mist, of which always they wear the other

in remembrance.

The farm had its back well into the grassy hill, and the blind river

which gave it its name wound its way down to it in a hidden channel and

went away from it in a hidden dip in a field below. There was water

laid on at Blindbeck, as Sarah knew, with a copper cylinder in a special

linen-room, and a hot towel-rail and a porcelain bath. Simon's

particular envy was the electric light, that marvel of marvels on a

northern farm. He never got over the wonder of putting his hand to the

switch, and seeing the light flash out on the second to his call. Once

he had sneaked out of the house on a winter's night, and in the great

shippon had turned the lights on full. Eliza, of course, had been nasty

about it when she heard, but Will had understood him and had only

laughed. Later, swinging a lantern in his own dark shippon, Simon had

thought of those switches with envious longing. He did not know that

they had taken the warm glamour out of the place, and slain in a blow

the long tradition of its beauty. The lantern went with him like a

descended star as he moved about, and out of the cattle's breath wove

for itself gold-dusted halos. There had been something precious about

it all before, some sense of mystery and long-garnered peace, but

to-night he could only remember Blindbeck and its modern toy. For the

time being he ceased to feel the pull of the sweetest chain in the

world, which runs straight back through all the ages to the Child in the

Bethlehem Stall.... There was a billiard-table at Blindbeck, too, with

more switches to tempt Simon, and a well-laid tennis-lawn in the neat

garden by the stream. On the far side of the farm was a great highway

running north and south, as well as a main-line station over the drop of

the hill. It seemed as if everything was made easy for those who lived

at Blindbeck, from the washing of pots and the moving of stock to the

amusement and education of the bairns.

Folk who came to Blindbeck for the first time believed that at last they

had found the farm of all their dreams. They called it an Earthly

Paradise, a model miniature village, a moral object-lesson, a True Home.

They came to it between well-cropped fields, marked by trim hedges and

neat stone walls, and through uniformly painted gates secure in hinge

and hasp into a tidy yard. They looked with pleasure at the shining

knocker on the green house-door and the fruit tree lustily climbing the

warm south wall. They looked with delight at the healthy, handsome

family, the well-placed buildings and the show of pedigree stock. They

looked at Will as he went shyly by, and said that his wife was

undoubtedly the better horse. They looked at Eliza and said that she

was the Housewife of Romance. When they went away they told others of

this Paradise which was Blindbeck, and the others came in their turn and

looked and said the same. But to Simon and Sarah it was plain Purgatory

and nothing else, and with each gate that they loosed they unloosed a

devil as well.

There was a party at Blindbeck this afternoon, as long custom might have

led them to expect. It was part of Eliza's Method to gather a party

together when the poor relations were due. There was always a noisy

crowd, it seemed to the Simons, when they were tired, or when they had

any particular business to transact. On the day after the lads had flown

there had been an unusually large crowd, with faces that looked like

masks to the parents' tired eyes.... Will was fond of young folk, and

made no objection to the stream of 'company' passing beneath his roof.

His shy, quiet eyes watched the young tide of life surging ahead, with

Eliza floundering like a porpoise in its midst. He was content only to

watch, but he was not stranded, like the thirsty Simons; the waves still

lapped about his feet. He could see youth and the pride of youth

without the sense of desolation which embittered his brother and took

his brother's wife by the throat. Simon was always surly when he came

to Blindbeck, while Sarah was like a bomb in the hand which any

unconscious soul might throw. Will did not know that for them every lad

that they looked at should have been Geordie, and each lass a lass of

their own with Geordie's face. He was sorry and sympathetic, but he did

not know those things. It was Eliza who knew, and used the knowledge

for her private ends. You could always be sure that Eliza knew where

your hidden things were kept.

To-day, tired as they were with the hours in town, and already reacting

from their great decision, a jovial party seemed more than they could

stand. Signs of it reached them as they came to the last gate, making

Sarah draw in her lips and Simon scowl. The sounds seemed intensified

by the stillness of the day, crossing and jarring the mood of Nature as

well as that of the approaching guests. Faces were pressed to panes as

they rattled up, but nobody came out to give Sarah a hand down, or to

offer to help Simon with the horse. They were too common a sight to

arouse any interest or even courtesy in that house.

She climbed down gropingly, and he led the horse away, leaving her

standing, waiting, in the empty yard. She stood with her back turned to

the kitchen window, conscious, though she could not see them, of the

eyes that were raking her shabby figure through the glass. The sounds

of merriment burst out afresh, and she winced a little, though she did

not move. They were laughing at her, she felt sure, but there was

nothing new to that. They often laughed, she knew, since she had ceased

to be able to stop them with a glance. She shivered, standing there,

and her bones ached with the damp, but she was in no hurry to enter the

warm, crowded room. It was better to shiver in the coldest spaces of

earth than to be shut into Heaven itself with Eliza and her tongue.

The green house-door with its brass knocker was close at her left hand,

but she did not attempt to open it and go in. That was a privilege only

accorded to the rich and proud, not to a poor relation come to beg.

Nevertheless, it was one of her hidden dreams that someday she would

enter by that grand front-door. In the Great Dream Geordie came home

with a fortune in his hands, so that all doors, even the Door of

Blindbeck, instantly stood wide. They would drive up to it in a smart

cart behind a fast young horse, with Geordie, a pattern of fashion,

holding the reins. His mother would be beside him, of course, in

crackling silk, with a velvet mantle and a bonnet of plumes and jet.

Simon, the lesser glory, would have to sit behind, but even Simon would

be a sight for Blindbeck eyes. When the Dream came true, the house

could be as full of pryers as it chose, with crushed noses and faces

green with envy set like bottle-ends in every pane. The farm-men would

come to the doors and gape, and even the dogs would stop to sniff at so

much that was new. Geordie would jump down, reins in hand, and bang the

brass knocker until it shook the house, while Sarah, secure in the

presence of her golden lad, would sit aloft and aloof like any other

silken queen. Soon they would hear Eliza's step along the sacred,

oil-clothed passage; and she, when she opened the door, would see their

glory framed beyond. Sarah would throw her a graceful word, asking leave

to step inside, and climb down with a rustle of silk on the arms of her

husband and son. She would set her feet on the snowy steps and never as

much as trouble to look for a mat. With a smile she would offer her

hostess a kindly, kid-gloved hand. In the whole armour of the

successful mother she would bear down upon her foe....

It was one of those things that seem as if they might happen so easily,

and never do,--never do. Simon returned presently, accompanied by Will,

and they entered the house as usual through the old stone porch. No dog

even looked aside at them as they crossed to the kitchen door. No

portent of coming wonder shed a sudden sunlight on the day. The old

trap was tipped on its shafts behind a sheltering wall. The old horse,

himself mere waiting food for the nearest hounds, munched his way

happily through his feed of Blindbeck corn.

Will talked shyly as he led the way, trying to brighten the melancholy

pair.

"You must have a sup o' tea before we get to business," he said to his

brother, "and Sarah can rest herself while we have our crack. We're over

soon wi' tea to-day, but I reckon you won't mind that. You'll be tired

likely, and it's none so warm. I'll be bound Simon'll have a thirst on

him anyway!" he smiled to Sarah. "He's done a deal o' tattling, Simon

has, to-day!"

He could not get any response from them, however; indeed, they scarcely

seemed to hear. The fear of Eliza was upon them, that was always so

strong until they were actually in her presence, the same fear that had

sent them scuttling like scared rabbits out of the Witham inn. Sarah was

struggling with the usual jealous ache as they entered the spacious,

cleanly place, with the kindly smell of new-baked bread filling the

whole house. She knew as well as the mistress where the kitchen things

were kept, the special glories such as the bread-maker, the

fruit-bottler, and the aluminium pans. The Blindbeck motto had always

been that nothing beats the best. Half her own tools at home were

either broken or gone, and there was only a blind woman to make shift

with the rest as well as she could. Little need, indeed, for a great

array, with the little they had to cook; and little heart in either

cooking or eating since Geordie had gone away....

Will opened the door of the main kitchen, and at once the warmth and

jollity sweeping out of it smote the shrinking visitors like an actual

blast. The party were already at table, as he had said, and met the

late-comers with a single, focussed stare. It was one of their chief

bitternesses, indeed, that they always seemed to arrive late. Eliza was

at the back of it, they felt almost sure, but they had never been able

to discover how. No matter how they hurried the old horse, asked the

hour of passers-by, or had Simon's old watch put as right as it would

allow, they never seemed to arrive at the right time. They could not be

certain, of course, that she had watched for them from upstairs, and at

the first sign of their coming had hustled the party into tea, but

somehow or other they knew it in their bones. Things happened like

that, they would have told you, when you were up against Mrs. Will;

things that never by any chance would have happened with anybody else.

The room was cloudy to Sarah as she went in, but jealousy had long ago

printed its details on her mind. She knew what the vivid wall-paper was

like, the modern furniture and the slow-combustion grate. Once it had

been a beautiful old houseplace with a great fire-spot and a crane, an

ingle-nook, a bacon-loft, and a chimney down which both sun and moon

could slant a way. Eliza, however, had soon seen to it that these

absurdities were changed, and Sarah, though she affected contempt,

approved of the changes in her heart. It was true that she always

returned to Sandholes with a great relief, but she did not know that its

bare austerity soothed her finer taste. She only knew that her mind

expanded and her nerves eased, and, though grief went with her over

every flag and board, a cool hand reached to her forehead as she went

in.

Simon included in one surly glance the faces round the loaded table, the

bright flowers, the china with the gilded rim, and the new

window-curtains which he would never even have seen in any house but

this. "Plush, by the look on 'em, and the price of a five pun note!" he

thought resentfully, as he stood waiting to be given a place, and

wondering which of the people present he disliked the most. There were

the two Swainson lasses from the nearest farm, with their young duke of

a brother, who was in a Witham bank. There was a Lancashire youth whom

Will had taken as pupil, and Stephen Addison and his missis, who were

both of them preaching-mad. He held forth at chapel and she at

Institute meetings and the like, and folk said they kept each other

awake at nights, practising which of them could do it best. There was

Sam Battersby of Kitty Fold, who never knew where his own heaf ended and

other people's began, and the familiar smug cousin, long since formally

pledged to Eliza's eldest lass. There was a grandchild or two, and of

course the Blindbeck brood, with the exception of a couple of married

daughters and the obliterated Jim.... It was small wonder, indeed,

that, after all those years, nobody missed him in that upcoming crowd.

Eliza's hearty voice, that was never hearty at core, rose like a

strong-winged, evil bird at the unwanted guests. The sight of them

seemed to surprise her so much that she dropped a gold-rimmed cup.

"Surely to goodness, Simon and Sarah, yon's never you! I'd give you up

an hour back or more, I had indeed. You've been a terble while on

t'road, surely,--a terble while after us? But there,--I always forget

how fast yon grand little mare of ours gets over t'ground! You'd need

to start sooner than most folk wi' your poor old crock."

She broke off to throw a remonstrance at Will, who was bundling two of

his daughters out of their seats to make room for their uncle and aunt.

"Nay, now, Will," she called vexedly down the table. "What d'ye think

you're at? Leave t'lasses alone, can't you? Let the poor things be!

If it's a chair you're wanting, there's one here by me as'll suit Sarah

just grand. Sarah can't abide a chair wi' a cane bottom,--says it rubs

her gown. It's right enough, too, I'm sure, wi' velvet and the

like,--(I made a bonny mess o' yon grand gown I had when Annie Belle was

wed),--but I can't see as it'll do any harm to a bit o' poorish serge.

Anyway, Sarah can have the best plush to set on, if she sets here, and,

as for Simon, you're for ever sticking him where I can't so much as see

the end of his nose! You're never thinking I'm still sweet on him,

surely," she added, laughing, "or that happen he'll be making sheep's

eyes at me, as he used to do?"

She looked at the young folk, and chuckled and winked, and they nudged

each other and laughed, too. But Sarah did not laugh as she waited

behind the chairs, or Simon, red to the ears, and recalling the

machinations of Eliza's youth. He pushed one of his nieces roughly out

of his way and took her place, while Sarah went slowly to seat herself

on the red plush chair that was warranted not to hurt her poor patched

gown.

"I hope there's summat for you, I'm sure!" Eliza went on, when the

giggling and whispering had died down, and Simon's thin cheeks had lost

their furious red. She cast an anxious glance down the well-filled

table, but her tone was complacency itself. "Folks as come late can't

expect to find everything just so.... Ay, I give you up a long while

back. Sally here'll tell you I give you up. 'Sally,' I says to her,

'likely yon old horse'll be put to it to do the extra bit, and so

they've happen thought better on't, and gone straight home. You're that

used to good horses, Sally,' I says, 'you don't rightly know how poor

folks has to shift. Not but what they'll get a deal better tea here than

they will at home, Sally,' I says, 'and though I says it as shouldn't,

that's the truth! Ay, they'll come to tea, I'll be bound, Sally,' I

says, but I changed my mind when I thought on the old horse."

Sarah said nothing in reply to this, partly because her brain was

swimming with the heat of the room, but chiefly because she never did

say anything until Eliza was well ahead in the race for speech. This

particular method helped her to reserve her strength, but at the same

time it deepened the bitterness in her heart. It would have been better

for both of them if they could have got the inevitable tussle over at

the start; exhaustion on both sides might have brought at least a

pretence at amity in its train. But it had always been Sarah's instinct

to hold herself back, and time had turned the instinct into a fixed

need. For the moment, at least, her strength was certainly to sit

still.

"I doubt there's no tea for you just this minute, Sarah," Eliza said,

affecting great concern as she lifted the tea-pot lid. "Sally, my lass,

you'd best see about mashing another pot. There'll be a deal o' folk

sending up for more in a brace o' shakes, and we can't have them saying

they're not as well-tret at Blindbeck as they're used. Not as anybody's

ever said it yet as I've heard tell, though you never know what folks'll

do for spite. Most on 'em get through their three cups afore they're

done, and me like as not just barely through my first. Eh, but I used to

be terble bothered, just at the start, keeping folks filled and their

mugs as they rightly should! You bairns wasn't up then, of course, but

we'd farm-lads in the house, and wi' a rare twist to 'em an' all! Yon's

a thing you've never been bothered with, Sarah, wi' such a small spot

and lile or nowt in the way o' work. You'd nobbut a couple o' hands at

any time, had you, and not them when you'd Geordie-an'-Jim? You've a

deal to be thankful for, I'm sure, you have that! You've always been

able to set down comfortable to your meat, instead o' fretting yourself

to skin and bone seeing as other folk had their wants."

Here Mrs. Addison offered to pass her cup, and then thought better of

it, remembering the new brew. Eliza, however, urged it forward.

Apparently she had discovered concealed virtue under the tea-pot lid.

"Nay, now, Mrs. Addison, there's a sup in the pot yet! You've no call

to look shy about it,--I wasn't talking at you! ... Pass Mrs. Addison

the cream, Mary Phyllis, and waken up and look sharp about it!

Blindbeck tea's none the worse, I reckon, for a drop o' Blindbeck

cream...." She returned the cup, smiling benignly, and then pretended

to have lost Sarah and suddenly found her again. "Losh, Mrs. Simon,

you're that whyet I'd clean forgot you were there! You'll not want to

be waiting on Sally and the fresh brew. I'll wet leaves again for you

just to be going on with!"

So Sarah got the bottom of the pot after a little more talk, a hunt for

a clean cup and an address on the value of the spoons. Half a

cup--consisting chiefly of tea-leaves--was passed to Simon, but was

intercepted on its way by Will. Simon did not notice the manoeuvre,

being busy glowering at a niece's shoulder turned sulkily on him from

the left; but Eliza saw it from her end of the table and turned an angry

red. She never forgot Simon's indifference to her as a girl, and would

have made him pay for the insult if she could. She could not always

reach him, however, because of the family tie which nothing seemed able

to break. But Sarah, at least, it was always consoling to think, could

be made to pay. There were times when all her reserve could not hide

from a gleeful Eliza that she paid....

So Simon got the new brew without even knowing that it was new, while

Sarah drank the unpleasant concoction that was weak at the top and

bitter as sea-water at the bottom. Sally came in with another great

brown pot, and sat down languidly at her aunt's side. She and the smug

cousin had been engaged for years, but there seemed little prospect of

the wedding taking place. She had been a handsome girl, and was good to

look at still, but there were handsomer Thornthwaites growing and grown

up, as apparently the cousin was quick enough to perceive. To-day he

had found a seat for himself beside Mary Phyllis, who kept glancing

across at her sister with defiant pride. Sally had a cheap town-look

nowadays, the cousin thought, not knowing that she had assumed it long

ago to please himself. Now that he was more mature, he preferred the

purer country type of Mary Phyllis, as well as the fresher atmosphere of

her youth. Sally talked to young Swainson, and pretended not to care,

but she was too unhappy to bother about her aunt. The Simon

Thornthwaites were boring at any time, like most permanently unlucky

people, and to-day she was too worried even to try to be kind. So

Sarah, after whom she was called, and who was her godmother to boot, got

very little to eat and only the dregs of things to drink; and nobody at

all rose up to deliver her from Eliza.

Mrs. Addison had opened her mouth very impressively more than once, but

it was only now that she got a chance to speak. In spite of their

boasted fluency, both she and her husband had always to yield the palm

to Mrs. Will. Mrs. Addison, however, always watched her chance, while

Stephen was simply flabby, and did not try. She and Eliza in the same

room were like firmly opposing currents, flowing strongly in the same

stream.

"Mr. Addison's to preach at this mission they're having, next week," she

announced proudly. "There's to be a Service for men only, and our

Stephen's to give 'em a talk. I won't say but what he'll do as well as

a real minister, even though I do happen to be his wife. Likely you'll

think on about it, and send some of your lads along, Mrs. Will?"

Eliza was quite unable to conceal her disgust at a distinction achieved

by somebody not her own.

"I'll do my best, I'm sure," she assented casually and without looking

at her, "though I doubt they'll want coaxing a bit wi' a broom-handle or

a clout!" She disliked being called Mrs. Will, and knew that Mrs.

Addison did it with fell intent. It was galling to be reminded that, in

spite of his success, Will had still not managed to make himself into

the elder son.... "I can't say they're that set on either church or

chapel unless it's to see a lass," she went on, busy with the cups, "and

I doubt they don't reckon much o' sermons unless they're good. They've

been better eddicated than most folk, you'll think on, so they're hard

to suit. 'Tisn't likely they could do wi' second-hand preaching from

some as happen never went to school at all."

Mr. A'ddison made a sudden attempt to speak, but choked instead, while

Eliza looked as innocent as a large-sized lamb.

"Ay, I've heard a deal o' sermons as was just waste breath," she went on

kindly, "and that's the truth. All the same, I'll likely look in at

Mission myself, one o' these days, if I can get away. I'm always glad

to set still after a hard week, and to get a look at other folks'

jackets and hats. Not that there's much to crack on at chapel, that

way.... I'm a deal fonder o' church. I was wed at St. Michael's,

you'll think on,--ay, and Sarah an' all. Eh, I could laugh even yet at

yon march we stole on her, me an' Will!"

Sally moved impatiently at her aunt's elbow, and muttered something

under her breath. She was tired of the old story, and disapproved of it

as well. Sarah had lifted her cup to her lips, but now she set it

down....

Mary Phyllis stopped giggling a moment, and leaned forward to speak.

"I was telling Cousin Elliman about it only this morning," she said

noisily, "and he says it's the funniest thing he ever heard! I thought

everybody knew about it, but he says he didn't. He said it was real

smart of you, Mother, and he wished he could have been there...."

"I'll be bound Sarah didn't think it smart!" Eliza chuckled, but without

glancing at her victim's face. She had a trick of discussing people

when they were present, as Sarah knew. She could tell by the trend of

Eliza's voice that she spoke without turning her head.

"Smart? Nay! Sarah was real wild, you take my word! I spoke to her in

t'vestry when the show was through, and she give me a look as was more

like a dog's bite. Eh, well, I reckon poor Sarah was jealous o' my

gown, seeing her own was nowt to crack on,--and nowt then! I'd always

settled to be real smart when I got wed, and my own lasses was just the

same. None o' my folk can do wi' owt as isn't first-class and happen a

bit over. Yon's the photo we had took at Annie Belle's wedding," she

added, turning to point, "and there's another of Alice Evelyn's in the

parlour."

The cousin and Mary Phyllis left their seats to giggle together over the

stiff figures, and presently the girl turned to her sister with a

malicious taunt.

"I say, our Sally, you'd best look out when you _do_ get wed, or happen

I'll play a trick on you, same as mother did Aunt Sarah! You'll be

rarely riled if I come marching up the aisle with a fine young man,

taking all the shine out of you and Elliman!"

The cousin said something in a low tone which made her flush and laugh,

and Sally guessed at it quickly enough, though it did not reach her

ears. The tears came into her eyes, and on an impulse of fellow-feeling

she turned towards her aunt. She was asking after May Fleming when her

mother broke across her talk.

"Eh, now, Sarah, yon was never May, was it, along wi' you in Witham?

I'll be bound I'd never have known her if she hadn't been with you, but

there's not that many you're seen about with nowadays at market.

'Tisn't like me, as can't stir a step without somebody wanting a crack

or hanging on to my gown. But May's changed out of all knowledge,--I was

fair bothered to see her look so old! I'll swear our Annie Belle looks

as young again, for all she's been wed a dozen year at least. Ay, I

thought May terble old, and terble unmannerly as well. I'd be shammed

to think as any lass o' mine had suchlike ways. You weren't

over-pleasant spoken yourself, Sarah, if it comes to that. The folk in

the caif were laughing a deal after you'd gone out, and saying you must

be wrong in the garrets to act so queer."

Sarah had regained her spirit a little, in spite of her poor tea. She

straightened herself on the plush chair and answered calmly.

"They can say what suits 'em and welcome, as long as they let me be.

You know what put me about, Eliza, and nobody to thank for it but

yourself. As for folks laughing and making game o' me and suchlike, it

was you they was sniggering at plain enough when I come out."

Eliza's colour rose, but she struggled to keep her virtuous air. She

looked at Sarah with a sorrowful eye.

"I wouldn't get telling lies about it, Sarah," she observed kindly, "I

wouldn't indeed! Mrs. Addison's listening, think on, and she'll be

rarely shocked at suchlike ways. Caif-folk were shocked more than a

deal, an' me just having a friendly talk an' all!"

"It's a queer sort o' friendliness as puts folk to open shame!" Sarah's

colour was flying a flag, too. "It's nobbut a queer sort o' friend as

goes shouting your private business at the end of a bell!"

"There isn't a deal that's private, surely, about the mess o' things

you've made on the marsh?..." The fight was really begun now, and Eliza

turned in her seat, fixing her adversary with merciless eyes. Sarah

could see very little but a monstrous blur, but she felt her malignant

atmosphere in every nerve. She could hear the big, solid presence

creaking with malice as it breathed, and had an impression of strained

whalebone and stretching cloth. But it was always Eliza's most

cherished garments that she visioned when they fought,--the velvet gown

that was folded away upstairs ... gloves, furs, and a feathered hat;

furthest of all, the wedding-gown and the flaunting veil....

"Private!" Eliza repeated the sneered word as if it were something too

precious to let go. "There can't be that much private about things as

we've all on us known for years. What, folks has puzzled no end why

you've never ended in t'bankruptcy court long since! Will and me could

likely ha' tellt them about it, though, couldn't we, Sarah? Will an' me

could easy ha' tellt 'em why! Will and me could ha' tellt where brass

come from as was keeping you on t'rails----"

Will had been lending a careful ear to Simon's surly talk, but he lifted

his head at the sound of his name.

"Now, missis, just you let Mrs. Simon be!" he admonished, with a

troubled frown. "You're over fond of other folks' business by a deal."

"I'll let her be and welcome, if she'll keep a civil tongue in her

head!" Eliza cried. She went redder than ever, and slapped a tea-spoon

angrily on the cloth. "But if our brass isn't our business, I'd like to

know what is, and as for this stir about quitting Sandholes, it's

nothing fresh, I'm sure! We all on us know it's a marvel landlord

didn't get shot on 'em long ago."

The last remark galvanised Battersby into lively speech. Hitherto he

had been busily concentrated on his food, but now his mean little

features sharpened and his mean little eyes shone. He bent eagerly

forward, leaning on the cloth, knife and fork erect like stakes in a

snatched plot.

"What's yon about quitting Sandholes?" he asked, in a thin voice. "Are

you thinking o' leaving, Simon? Is it true?"

"I don't see as it's any affair o' yours if it is," Simon answered him,

with a sulky stare.

"Nay, it was nobbut a friendly question between man and man. If you're

quitting the farm it would only be neighbourly just to give me a hint.

There's a lad o' mine talking o' getting wed, and I thought as how

Sandholes'd likely be going cheap. Has anybody put in for it yet wi'

t'agent, do ye think?"

"Nay, nor like to do, yet awhile," Simon answered glumly, full of sullen

hurt. All his love for his tiresome dwelling-place rose to the surface

at this greed. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Battersby, as you ax so

kind, that I give in my notice but it wasn't took. Mr. Dent would have

it I mun think it over a bit more. Your lad'll just have to bide or look

out for somebody else's shoes."

This dreadful exhibition of meanness aggrieved Battersby almost to the

verge of tears.

"Well, now, if yon isn't dog-in-the-manger and nowt else!" he appealed

to the company at large. "What, you're late wi' your notice already,

and yet you're for sitting tight to the farm like a hen on a pot egg! I

shouldn't ha' thought it of you, Simon, I shouldn't indeed. Here's a

farmer wanting to quit and my lad wanting a farm, and yet the moment I

ax a decent question I get sneck-posset geyly sharp. You're jealous,

that's what it is, Simon; you're acting jealous-mean. You've nobbut

made a terble poor job o' things yourself, and you want to keep others

from getting on an' all!"

Simon gave vent to an ironic laugh.

"Nay, now, Sam, never fret yourself!" he jeered. "You and your lad'll

get on right enough, I'll be bound, what wi' your heaf-snatching and

your sheep-grabbing and the rest o' your bonny ways! What, man, one o'

your breed'd be fair lost on a marsh farm, wi' nowt to lay hands on

barrin' other folks' turmuts, and never a lile chance of an overlap!"

Battersby's reputation was well known, and an irrepressible laugh

greeted Simon's speech, but was instantly cut short by the terrible

spectacle of the victim's face. Only the smug cousin went on laughing,

because he was ignorant as well as smug, and did not know what a heaf

meant, let alone how it was possible to add to it by Sam's skilful if

unlawful ways. Battersby jumped to his feet and thumped the table, so

that the blue and gold china danced like dervishes from end to end.

Mrs. Addison's tea made a waterfall down her second-best bodice, and

Sarah's heart, not being prepared for the thump, leaped violently into

her mouth.

"I'll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody else's," he stormed at

Will; "nay, and I'll not take telling from yon wastrel you call brother,

neither! All on us know what a bonny mess o' things he's made at

Sandholes. All on us know it'll be right fain to see his back.... As

for you, you gomeless half-thick," he added, swinging round so suddenly

on the smug cousin that he was left gaping, "you can just shut yon

calf's head o' yours and mighty sharp or I'll shut it for you! Them as

knows nowt'd do best to say nowt, and look as lile like gawping

jackasses as Nature'll let 'em!" ... He sent a final glare round the

stifled table, and let Eliza have the sting in his tail. "I'd been

looking to be real friendly wi' Blindbeck," he finished nastily, "and my

lad an' all, but I don't know as we'll either on us be fain for it after

this. Nay, I wain't set down agen, missis, and that's flat, so you

needn't ax me! I'm off home and glad to be going, and no thanks to none

o' you for nowt!"

He glanced at his plate to make certain there was nothing left, snatched

at his cup and hastily swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair

backward so violently that it fell to the floor, he clapped his hat on

his head and marched rudely out. Eliza, catching a glance from a

tearful daughter, got to her feet, too. They swam from the room in a

torrent of loud apologies and bitter, snarled replies.

Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted expression on his gentle

face. The cousin, slowly turning from red to mottled mauve, observed to

Mary Phyllis that the old man's language was 'really remarkably like my

chief's!' Some of the younger end started to giggle afresh, but Sarah

was still trembling from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt gloomy

again after his public effort. He could see that he had upset Will, and

that was the last thing he wanted to do, to-day. Will did not like

Battersby, but he liked peace, and there were other reasons for friendly

relations at present. Will's youngest daughter had a direct interest in

Battersby's lad and his hopes of a farm, and now the father had shaken

the Blindbeck dust from his proud feet. She looked across at the cause

of the trouble with tear-filled, indignant eyes.

"Seems to me things is always wrong when you come to Blindbeck, Uncle

Simon!" she exclaimed hotly. "Nobody wants your old farm, I'm sure! I

wouldn't have it at a gift! But you might have spoken him fair about it,

all the same. I never see such folks as you and Aunt Sarah for setting

other folk by the ears!"

Will said "Whisht, lass, whisht!" in as cross a tone as he ever used to

his girls, and Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not speak. She

was a fair, pretty thing, with Geordie-an'-Jim's eyes, and he did not

wish to injure her happiness in any way. It was true enough, as she

said, that there was generally something in the shape of a row as soon

as he and Sarah set foot in the house, but he could not tell for the

life of him how it came about. It could not be altogether their fault,

he thought resentfully, yet with a sort of despair. To-day, for

instance, he had every reason for keeping the peace, and yet that fool

of a Battersby must come jumping down his throat! Nobody could be

expected to stand such manners and such nasty greed,--grabbing a man's

homestead before his notice was well in! There was nothing surprising,

of course, in the fact that the women had already come to blows. He had

expected it from the start, and, with the resignation of custom, thought

it as well over soon as late. They had had one scrap, as it was, from

what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot of passion would still be

hot enough to stir.

"It's a shame, that's what it is!" the girl was saying, over and over

again. Tears dropped from the Geordie-an'-Jim eyes, and Simon felt

furious with everybody, but particularly with himself.

"You needn't bother yourself," he growled across at last, making a rough

attempt to put the trouble right. "Young Battersby's over much sense to

go taking a spot like ourn, and as for his dad, he'll be back afore you

can speak. 'Tisn't Sam Battersby, I'll be bound, if he isn't as pleased

as punch to be running in double harness wi' Blindbeck and its brass!"

"Ay, like other folk!" Eliza dropped on him from the clouds, reappearing

panting from her chase. "Like other folk a deal nearer home, Simon

Thornthet, as you don't need telling! Battersby wanted nowt wi' the

farm,--he tellt me so outside. 'Tisn't good enough for the likes of

him, nor for our Emily Marion, neither! He was that stamping mad he was

for breaking it all off, but I got him promised to look in again next

week. I'd a deal o' work wi' him, all the same," she added, flushing

angrily at her brother-in-law's ironic smile, "and no thanks to you,

neither, if I come out top, after all! Anyway, I'll thank you to speak

folk civilly at my table, if you can, whatever-like hired man's ways you

keep for your own!"

She would have hectored him longer if Will had not got to his feet and

taken himself and his brother out of the room, so instead she went back

to her seat and drank a large cup of tea in angry gulps. Between

drinks, however, she managed to say to the wife the things she had

wanted to say to the man, though Sarah was silent and paid little or no

heed. She wished she could have gone outside with the men, and helped

to decide what her future was to be. But it was not for her to advise,

who would soon be no better than a helpless log. It was her part to

wait patiently until Simon fetched her away.

But it was not easy to wait at all in that atmosphere of critical

dislike. The successive passages of arms had had their natural effect,

and the party which had been so merry at the start was now in a state of

boredom and constraint. The thoughts of most of those present were

unfriendly towards the folk of the marsh, and Sarah could feel the

thoughts winding about her in the air. Emily Marion was right, so they

were saying in their minds; trouble always followed the Thornthwaites

the moment they appeared. Storms arose out of nowhere and destroyed

some festive occasion with a rush. Even to look at them, dowdy and

disapproving, was to take the heart out of any happy day. It was

certainly hard on the poor Will Thornthwaites that the tiresome Simons

should dare to exist.

Sarah, bringing her mind back from the absent brothers with an effort,

found the Method working again at top speed. The tea had soothed

Eliza's nerves and stimulated her brain. She was now at her very best

for behaving her very worst.

"And so Mr. Addison's preaching next week, is he?" she reverted

suddenly, making even that supreme egotist blink and start. Her Voice,

furred and soft, reminded Sarah of a paw reaching out for someone to

scratch. "Eh, now, but I should be in a rare twitter if it was Will as

was setting up to preach! But there, we're none of us much of a hand at

talking at our spot, and Will's summat better to do than just wagging a

loose tongue. I'll see the lads come along, though, as it's you, Mrs.

Addison, and an old friend, unless there's summat useful they're happen

wanted for at home. Eh, Sarah, but wouldn't they talks to young men ha'

done a sight o' good to Geordie-an'-Jim? It's a sad pity you didn't

start preaching before they went, Mr. Addison,--it is that! Like

enough, if you had, they'd be at Sandholes yet."

The preacher's brow had been thunderous during the early part of this

speech, but now he looked suddenly coy. Sally, dropping her glance to

her aunt's lap, saw her fingers clench and unclench on a fold of her own

black gown.

"Any news of the prodigals?" Elliman Wilkinson suddenly enquired. He

looked at Eliza as he spoke, and smiled as at a well-known joke. "I'm

always in hopes to find one of them eating the fatted calf."

"Nay, you must ask Sarah, not me!" Eliza answered, with an affected

laugh. She despised Elliman in her heart, but she was grateful for the

cue. "Sarah knows what they're at, if there's anybody does at all.

Like enough they'll turn up one o' these days, but I don't know as we'll

run to calves. They'll be terble rough in their ways, I doubt, after

all this time. Out at elbows an' all, as like as not, and wi' happen a

toe or two keeking through their boots!"

There was a ripple of laughter at this show of wit, and then Elliman,

urged by a nudge and a whisper from Mary Phyllis, repeated the question

in the proper quarter. He raised his voice when he spoke to Sarah, as

if she were deaf as well as blind, and when she paused a moment before

replying, he apostrophised her again. The whole table had pricked its

ears and was listening by the time the answer came.

Sarah felt the giggles and the impertinent voice striking like arrows

through the misty ring in which she sat. Sharpest of all was Eliza's

laugh, introducing the question and afterwards punctuating it when it

was put. She was achingly conscious of the antipathetic audience hanging

on her lips. They were baiting her, and she knew it, and her heart

swelled with helpless rage. A passionate longing seized her to be lord

of them all for once,--just for once to fling back an answer that would

slay their smiles, put respect into their mocking voices and change

their sneers into awed surprise. If only for once the Dream and the

glory might be true,--the trap and the new clothes and Geordie and the

green front door! But nothing could be further from what they expected,

as she knew too well. They were waiting merely to hear her say what she

had often said before,--for news that there was no news or news that was

worse than none. She had faced more than one trial that day, and had

come out of them with her self-respect intact, but this unexpected

humiliation was more than she could bear. She was telling herself in

the pause that she would not answer at all, when something that she took

for the total revolt of pride spoke to the mockers through her lips.

"Ay, but there's rare good news!" she heard herself saying in a cheerful

tone, and instantly felt her courage spring up and her heart lighten as

the lie took shape. "I'd been saving it up, Eliza, for when we were by

ourselves, but there's no sense, I reckon, in not saying it straight

out. Geordie's on his way home to England at this very minute, and he

says he's a rare good lining to his jacket an' all!"

The air changed about her at once as she had always dreamed it would,

and she heard the gasp of surprise pass from one to another like a

quick-thrown ball. Eliza started so violently that she upset her cup

and let it lie. She stared malevolently at the other's face, her own

set suddenly into heavy lines.

"Nay, but that's news and no mistake!" she exclaimed, striving after her

former tone, but without success. The note in her voice was clear to

her blind hearer, sending triumphant shivers through her nerves....

"Tell us again, will you, Sarah?" she added sharply. "I doubt I heard

you wrong."

"I'll tell you and welcome till the cows come home!" Sarah said, with a

sudden sprightliness that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes. It

was almost as if another person had suddenly taken possession of Sarah's

place. There was a vitality about her that seemed to change her in

every feature, an easy dignity that transformed the shabbiest detail of

her dress. Her voice, especially, had changed,--that grudging, dully

defiant voice. This was the warm, human voice of one who rejoiced in

secret knowledge, and possessed her soul in perfect security and

content.

"He's coming, I tell you,--our Geordie's coming back!" The wonderful

words seemed to fill her with strong courage every time she spoke. "I

can't rightly tell you when it'll be, but he said we could look for him

any minute now. Likely we'll find him waiting at Sandholes when we've

gitten home. He's done well an' all, from what he says.... I'll be

bound he's a rich man. He talks o' buying Sandholes, happen,--or happen

a bigger spot. I make no doubt he's as much brass as'd buy Blindbeck

out an' out!"

She fell silent again after this comprehensive statement, merely

returning brief ayes and noes to the questions showered upon her from

every side. Her air of smiling dignity, however, remained intact, and

even her blind eyes, moving from one to another eager face, impressed

her audience with a sense of truth. And then above the excited chatter

there rose Eliza's voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly through

the jealous greed.

"Yon's all very fine and large, Sarah, but what about my Jim? Jim's

made his pile an' all, I reckon, if Geordie's struck it rich. He's as

smart as Geordie, is our Jim, any day o' the week! Hark ye, Sarah!

What about my Jim?"

Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble, exactly as if the other had

struck her a sharp blow. She shrank instantly in her chair, losing at

once her dignity and ease. The fine wine of vitality ran out of her as

out of a crushed grape, leaving only an empty skin for any malignant

foot to stamp into the earth. She tried to speak, but could find no

voice brave enough to meet the fierce rain of Eliza's words. A mist

other than that of blindness came over her eyes, and with a lost

movement she put out a groping, shaking hand. Sally, in a sudden access

of pity, gathered it in her own.

She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew her, tottering and trembling,

to her feet.

"It's overmuch for her, that's what it is," she said kindly, but taking

care to avoid her mother's angry glance. "It's knocked her over, coming

that sudden, and no wonder, either. Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit

down for a few minutes in the parlour. You'll be as right as a bobbin

after you've had a rest."

She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure supporting trembling

age, and Elliman's eyes followed her, so that for once he was heedless

of Mary Phyllis when she spoke. Most of the company, indeed, had fallen

into a waiting silence, as if they knew that the act was not yet

finished, and that the cue for the curtain still remained to be said.

And the instinct that held them breathless was perfectly sound, for in

the square of the door Sarah halted herself and turned. Her worn hands

gripped her gown on either side, and if May had been there to see her,

she would again have had her impression of shrouded flame. She paused

for a moment just to be sure of her breath, and then her voice went

straight with her blind glance to the point where Eliza sat.

"Jim's dead, I reckon!" she said, clearly and cruelly... "ay, I doubt

he's dead. Geordie'd never be coming without him if he was over sod.

You'd best make up your mind, Eliza, as he's dead and gone!"

It was the voice of an oracle marking an open grave, of Cassandra,

crying her knowledge in Troy streets. It held them all spellbound until

she had gone out. Even Eliza was silent for once on her red plush

chair....

IV

Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew a breath of relief as soon as he

got outside. They were at ease together at once as soon as they were

alone. The contrast in their positions, so obvious to the world, made

little or no difference to the men themselves. It would have made less

still but for the ever-recurring problem of the women-folk, and even

that they did their best to put away from them as soon as they were out

of sight. Each could only plead what he could for the side he was bound

to support, and pass on hurriedly to a less delicate theme. Alone they

fell back easily into the relation which had been between them as lads,

and forgot that the younger was now a man of substance and weight, while

the elder had made an inordinate muddle of things. Will had always

looked up to Simon and taken his word in much, and he still continued to

take it when Eliza was not present to point to the fact that Simon's

wonderful knowledge had not worked out in practice. To-day, as they

wandered round the shippons, he listened respectfully while his brother

criticised the herd, quarrelled with the quality of the food-stuffs, and

snorted contempt at the new American method of tying cattle in the

stall. Experience had taught him that Simon was not the first who had

made a mess of his own affairs while remaining perfectly competent to

hand out good advice to others. The well-arranged water-supply was

Simon's idea, as well as the porcelain troughs which were so easy to

keep clean, and the milking-machine which saved so much in labour. There

were other innovations,--some, Eliza's pride,--which were due to Simon,

if she had only known it. He was a good judge of a beast as well, and

had a special faculty for doctoring stock, a gift which had certainly

not been allowed to run to waste during those bewitched and

disease-ridden years at Sandholes. Will was indebted to him for many

valuable lives, and often said that Simon had saved him considerably

more than he had ever lent him. It remained a perpetual mystery why so

useful a man should have achieved so much for others and so little for

himself. The answer could only lie in the curse that was glooming over

Sandholes,--if there was a curse. Nature certainly plays strange tricks

on those who do not exactly suit her book, but in any case the hate at

the heart of things was enough to poison luck at the very source.

While Sarah sat through her long torment in the kitchen, rising up at

last for that great blow which at all events felled her adversary for

the time being, Simon was enjoying himself airing his knowledge in the

buildings, contradicting his brother on every possible occasion, and

ending by feeling as if he actually owned the place. However, the

reason of his visit came up at length, as it was bound to do, and his

air of expert authority vanished as the position changed. One by one,

as he had already done to Mr. Dent, he laid before his brother his

difficulties and disappointments, much as a housewife lays out the

chickens that some weasel has slain in the night. He wore the same air

of disgust at such absurd accumulation of disaster, of incredulity at

this overdone effort on the part of an inartistic fate. The story was

not new to Will, any more than to the agent, but he listened to it

patiently, nevertheless. He knew from experience that, unless you allow

a man to recapitulate his woes, you cannot get him to the point from

which a new effort may be made. He may seem to be following you along

the fresh path which you are marking out, but in reality he will be

looking back at the missed milestones of the past. And there were so

many milestones in Simon's case,--so many behind him, and so few to

come. After all, it could only be a short road and a bare into which

even the kindest brotherly love had power to set his feet.

So for the second time that day Simon lived his long chapter of

accidents over again, his voice, by turns emphatic and indignant or

monotonous and resigned, falling like slanting rain over the unheeding

audience of the cattle. Will, listening and nodding and revolving the

question of ways and means, had yet always a slice of attention for his

immediate belongings. His eye, casual yet never careless, wandered over

the warm roan and brown and creamy backs between the clean stone slabs

which Simon had advocated in place of the ancient wooden stalls. The

herd was indoors for the winter, but had not yet lost its summer

freshness, and he had sufficient cause for pride in the straight-backed,

clean-horned stuff, with its obvious gentle breeding and beautiful

feminine lines. That part of his mind not given to his brother was

running over a string of names, seeing in every animal a host of others

whose characteristics had gone to its creation, and building upon them

the stuff of the generations still to come,--turning over, in fact, that

store of knowledge of past history and patient prophecy for the future

which gives the study of breeding at once its dignity and its

fascination. At the far end of the shippon, where the calf-pens were, he

could see the soft bundles of calves, with soft eyes and twitching ears,

in which always the last word in the faith of the stock-breeder was

being either proved or forsworn. The daylight still dropping through

skylights and windows seemed to enter through frosted glass, dimmed as

it was by the warm cloud of breathing as well as the mist that lined the

sky beyond. A bird flew in at intervals through the flung-back swinging

panes, and perched for a bar of song on the big cross-beams supporting

the pointed roof. A robin walked pertly but daintily down the central

aisle, a brave little spot of colour on the concrete grey, pecking as it

went at the scattered corn under the monster-noses thrust between the

rails. Simon leaned against a somnolent white cow, with an arm flung

lengthways down her back, his other hand fretting the ground with the

worn remnant of a crooked stick. Will's dog, a bushy, silvered thing,

whose every strong grey hair seemed separately alive, curled itself,

with an eye on the robin, at its master's feet.

He roused himself to greater attention when Simon reached the account of

his interview with Mr. Dent. Accustomed as he was to more or less

traditional behaviour under the traditional circumstances which govern

such lives as his, he fastened at once on the puzzling attitude of the

agent.

"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think he was at," he observed

thoughtfully. "Once you'd settled to quit there was no sense in keeping

you hanging on. Best make a job and ha' done wi' it, seems to me.

'Tisn't like Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion. I wonder

what made him act so strange?"

Simon wore his original air of injured dignity as he leaned against the

cow.

"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was terble queer! You might ha'

thought he was badly or summat, but he seemed all right. Come to that,

he looked as fit as a fiddle and as pleased as a punch! You might ha'

thought he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"

"Happen it was some private business," Will said, "and nowt to do wi'

you at all.... What did you think o' doing when you've quit the farm?"

Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and from injured dignity sank to

sulks. The sudden pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow to a

sharp kick. When he spoke it was in a surly tone, and with his eyes

turned away from Will's.

"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon, to keep us going. I'm

over old for most folk, but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching

milk and siding up, and a bit o' gardening and suchlike. The trouble is

the missis won't be able to do for herself before so long. The doctor

tellt her to-day she was going blind."

His brother's face filled at once with sympathy and dismay. In that

forbidden compartment of his mind where he sometimes ventured to

criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she would take the news. This

latest trouble of Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's triumph.

Poverty Sarah had withstood; blindness she might have mastered, given

time; but poverty and blindness combined would deliver her finally into

the enemy's hand.

"I never thought it would be as bad as that," he murmured pityingly.

"It's a bad business, is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was anything

could be done?"

"There was summat about an operation, but it'll get no forrarder," Simon

said. "They fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."

"If it's brass that's wanted, you needn't fash over that...." He added

more urgently as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I grudged you

brass for a thing like yon!"

"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully, "but it isn't no use. She's

that proud, is Sarah, she'll never agree. I doubt she just means to let

things slide."

"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with me!" Will's voice was almost

hot. "I've always been ready any time to stand her friend. Anyway,

there's the offer, and she can take it or leave it as best suits her.

If she changes her mind after a while, she won't find as I've altered

mine.... But there's no sense in your taking a job and leaving a blind

woman to fend for herself. There's nowt for it but Sarah'll have to

come to us."

Simon laughed when he said that, a grim, mirthless laugh which made the

dog open his sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.

"Nay, nay, Will, my lad! It's right good of you, but it wouldn't do. A

bonny time you'd have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house! And

anyway your missis'd never hear tell o' such a thing, so that fixes it

right off."

"It's my own spot, I reckon!" Will spoke with unusual force. "I can do

as suits me, I suppose. T'lasses hasn't that much to do they can't see

to a blind body, and as for room and suchlike, there'll be plenty soon.

Young Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more than time yon

Elliman Wilkinson was thinking o' getting wed. He's been going with our

Sally a terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis seem mighty throng

just now. Anyway, there'll be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and

for you an' all."

But Simon shook his head again, and stood up straight and took his arm

off the back of the cow.

"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite simply, and this time he did

not laugh. "There's bad blood between they two women as nobbut death'll

cure. Nay, I thank ye right enough, Will, but yon horse won't pull....

"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on quickly, before Will could

speak again, "and some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look to the

missis while I'm off. I'll see t'agent agen and try to ram into him as

I mean to gang, and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll likely let

me know?"

Will nodded but did not answer because of approaching steps, and they

stood silently waiting until the cowman showed at the door. At once the

deep symphony of the hungry broke from the cattle at sight of their

servant with his swill. The quiet picture, almost as still as if

painted on the wall, upheaved suddenly into a chaos of rocking,

bellowing beasts. The great heads tugged at their yokes, the great eyes

pleaded and rolled. The big organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded

and jarred, dropping into satisfied silence as the man passed from stall

to stall. Will jerked his head after him as he went out at the far

door, and said that he would be leaving before so long.