CHAPTER

I The Baineses

II John and Lucy

III Sibyl at Silchester

IV Lucy Hesitates

V Roger's Dismissal

VI The Voyage Out

VII Unguja--and Up-country

VIII Letters To and Fro

IX Mission Life

X Roger Arrives

XI The Happy Valley

XII The Attack on the Station

XIII The Return to Unguja

XIV Lucy's Second Marriage

XV In England

XVI Sibyl as Siren

XVII Back to the Happy Valley

XVIII Five Years Later

XIX Trouble with Stolzenberg

XX The Boer War

XXI The Morals of the Happy Valley

XXII Eight Years Have Passed By

XXIII The End of Sibyl

XXIV All Ends in the Happy Valley

*THE MAN WHO DID

THE RIGHT THING*

*CHAPTER I*

*THE BAINESES*

It was in the last week of June, 1886, and there really were warm and

early summers in the nineteenth century.

The little chapel had been so close and hot during the morning service

that in spite of the interest Lucy Josling felt in the occasion--it was

the first appearance of her betrothed, John Baines, as a preacher in his

native place, and the delivery of his farewell sermon before starting

for Africa--she could not repress a sigh of relief as she detached

herself from the perspiring throng of worshippers and stood for a few

moments in the bright sunlight, inhaling the perfume of distant

hayfields.

"You look a trifle pale, Lucy," said Mr. Baines, senior, a stumpy

red-faced man with light sandy hair and a long upper lip. "It's

precious warm. I s'pose you'n John'll want to walk back together?

Well, don't keep dinner waiting, 'cos that always puts me out. Now

then, Sarah, come along: it's too hot to stand gossiping about. Let's

get home as quick as we can."

Mrs. Baines, a gaunt, thin woman with a long parchment-coloured face and

cold grey eyes, looked indignantly at her husband when he talked of

gossiping, but said nothing, took his arm and walked away.

Lucy put up her parasol and leant against the ugly iron railings which

interposed between the dusty chapel windows and the pavement. The

congregation had not all dispersed. Two or three awkward-looking young

men were standing in a group in the roadway, and, while pretending to

carry on a jesting conversation amongst themselves, were casting

sheepish looks at Lucy, who was deemed a beauty for ten miles round.

They evidently alluded to her in the witticisms they exchanged, so that

she had to restrict her angle of vision in case her eyes met theirs when

she wished to ignore their offensive existence. Mrs. Garrett, the

grocer's wife, who had been inquiring from Miss Simons, the little lame

dressmaker--why were village dressmakers of that period, in life and in

fiction, nearly always lame?--how her married sister progressed after a

confinement, walked up to Lucy and said:

"Well, Miss Josling, and how d'you like the idea of parting with your

young man? Ain't cher afraid of his goin' off so far, and all among

savages and wild beasts too, same as 'e was tellin' on? It's all right

and proper as how he should carry the news of the Gospel to them pore

naked blacks, but as I says to Garrett, I says, ''E don't ought to go

and engage 'isself before'and to a girl as 'e mayn't never come back to

marry, and as 'll spend the best years of 'er life a-waitin' an'

a-waitin' and cryin' 'er eyes put to no use.' However, 't ain't any

business of mine, an' I s'pose you've set your heart upon 'im now, and

won't thank me for bein' so outspoken....?

"I'm sure 'e's come back from London _quite_ the gentleman; and lor'!

'Ow proud 'is mother _did_ look while 'e was a-preachin'. An' 'e _can_

preach, too! 'Alf the words 'e used was Greek to me.... S'pose they

_was_ Greek, if it comes to that"--she laughed fatly--"Though why th'

Almighty should like Greek and Latin better'n plain English, or even

'Ebrew, is what I never could understand....

"And to think as I remember 'im, as it on'y seems the other day, comin'

in on the sly to buy a 'aporth of sugar-candy at our shop. 'Is mother

never liked 'is eatin' between meals an' 'e always 'ad to keep 'is bit

o' candy 'idden away in 'is pocket till 'e was out of 'er sight.... I'm

sure for my part I wonder _'ow_ she can bring 'erself to part with 'im,

'e bein' 'er on'y son, and she so fond of 'im too. But then she always

set 'er 'eart on 'is bein' a gentleman, and give 'im a good

eddication.... 'Ow's father and mother?..."

"Oh quite well, thank you," replied Lucy, wondering why John was

stopping so long and exposing her to this tiresome garrulity and the

hatefulness of having her private affairs discussed in a loud tone for

the benefit of the Sunday strollers of Tilehurst. "They would have come

over from Aldermaston to hear John preach, but father cannot bear to

take his eyes off the hay till it's all carried, and mother's alone now

because my sisters are away.... I just came by myself to the Baineses'

for the day....

"And, Mrs. Garrett," continued Lucy, a slight flush rising to her cheek,

"I don't think you quite understand about my engagement to John Baines.

I--I--am not at all to be pitied. You rather ought to congratulate me.

First, because I am very--er--fond of him and proud of his dedicating

his life to such a work, and, secondly, because there is no question of

my waiting years and years before I get married. John goes out this

month and I shall follow six or seven months afterwards--just to give

him time to get our home ready. We shall be married out there, at a

place called Unguja, where there is a Consulate...."

Lucy stopped short. She was going on to give other good reasons for her

engagement when a slight feeling of pride forbade her further to excuse

herself to Mrs. Garrett--a grocer's wife! And she herself a National

school-teacher! There could be no community between them. She

therefore fell silent and gazed away from Mrs. Garrett's red face and

blue bonnet across the white sandy road blazing with midday sunshine to

the house fronts of the opposite side, with their small shops closed,

the blinds drawn down and everything denoting the respectable

lifelessness of the Sabbath.... At this awkward pause John Baines

issued from the vestry door of the chapel, Mrs. Garrett nodded

good-naturedly, and went her way.

John was about four-and-twenty--Lucy's age. He was a little over the

average height but ungainly, with rather sloping shoulders, long arms,

large hands and feet; a face with not well-formed features; nose coarse,

fleshy, blunt-tipped; mouth wide, with his father's long upper lip, on

which were the beginnings of a flaxen moustache, with tame ends curling

down to meet the upward growth of the young beard. He had an under lip

that was merely a band of pink skin round the mouth, without an inward

curve to break its union with the broad chin. His teeth were strong and

white but irregular in setting, the canines being thrust out of

position. His eyes were blue-grey, and not without a pleasant twinkle.

The hair was too long for tidiness, not long enough for eccentric

saintliness. It was a yellow brown and was continued down the cheeks in

a silken beard from ear to ear, the tangled, unclipped, uncared-for

beard of a young man who has never shaved. His fresh pink-and-white

complexion was marred here and there with the pimples and blotches of

adolescence. Lucy, however, thought him good to look at; he only wanted

a little smartening up, which she promised herself to impart to him when

they were married. He looked what he was: a good-hearted,

simple-minded, unintellectual Englishman, an Anglo-Saxon, with a hearty

appetite for plain food, a love of cricket, who would with little

difficulty remain in all things chaste and sober; slow to wrath, but, if

really pushed against the wall, able to show berserker rage.

Having taken up a religious career he had acquired a certain pomposity

of manner which sat ill on his boyishness; he had to remember in

intervals of games or country dances or flirtations that he had been set

apart for the Lord's work. But he would make an excellent husband. His

class has furnished quite the best type of colonist abroad.

John gave his arm silently to Lucy, who took it with a gesture of

affection, and patted it once or twice with her kid-gloved hand, which

lover-like demonstrations John accepted rather solemnly. As they walked

up the sunny main street there was little conversation between them, but

when they turned down an old shady road running between red brick walls

overgrown with ivy and Oxford weed, behind which rose the spire of St.

Michael's and the tall trees of its churchyard, their good behaviour

relaxed and John looking down, and seeing Lucy's fresh, pretty face

looking up, and observing in a hasty glance around that nobody was in

sight, bent down and kissed her: after which he looked rather silly and

hurried on with great strides.

"Don't walk so fast, John dear; you quite drag me along. We need not be

in such a hurry. Tell me, how did you spend your last days in London?"

"Why, Wednesday I went to the outfitters to superintend the packing of

my boxes; Thursday I bid good-bye to all my friends at the Bayswater

College. In the evening there was a valedictory service at the Edgware

Road Chapel, when Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and I were designated for the

East African Mission. The next day, Friday, I went in the morning to see

my boxes put safely on board the _Godavery_ lying in the Albert Docks;

and I also chose my berth--I share a cabin with Anderson. Then in the

afternoon there was a big public meeting at Plymouth Hall. Sir Powell

Buckley was chairman, and Brentham, the African explorer, spoke, as well

as a lot of others, and it ended with prayers and hymns. The Reverend

Paul Barker, a very old African missionary, who was the first to enter

Abeokuta, delivered the Blessing. Every one shook hands with us and

bade us Godspeed.

"After this the three brethren designated for the Mission, and myself,

of course, together with Brentham the explorer, Mr. Barker and a few

others from the platform, adjourned to Sir Powell Buckley's, where we

had tea. Here we four new missionaries were introduced to old Mrs.

Doland, that lady who, under God, has so liberally contributed to the

support of the East African Mission.... And also to Captain Brentham,

who has just returned from the East coast....

"I confess I didn't like _him_ ... altogether.... In fact, I can't

_quite_ make out why he came and spoke at the meeting, for I could see

at once by the way he stared about him during the hymns he was not one

of us ... in heart. In his speech at Plymouth Hall he chiefly laid

stress on the advantages gained by civilization when a country was

opened up by missionaries, how we taught the people trades, and so on.

There was no allusion to the inestimable boon to the natives in making

known the Blessed Gospel and the promises in the Old Testament....

"In fact--am I walking too fast? But father will be angry if we are

late for dinner--in fact, I thought Brentham inclined to sneer at us.

They say he wants a Government appointment and is making up to Sir

Powell Buckley----

"Then Saturday--yesterday--I came down here and--er--well! here we are!

Are you listening?"

Lucy gave John's arm an affectionate squeeze by way of assurance, but on

this rare June day there was something in the still, hot air, thick with

hay-scent, which lulled her sensibilities and caused her to forget to be

concerned at her betrothed's departure. She had temporarily forgotten

many little things stored up to be said to him, and was vexed at her own

taciturnity. However, their walk had come to an end, and they stood in

front of John's home.

Mr. John Parker Baines, the father of the missionary-designate, was a

manufacturer of aerated drinks and cider, whose premises lay on the

western side of Tilehurst and marred the beauty of the countryside and

the straggling village with a patch of uncompromising vulgarity and

garishness. The manufactory itself was in a simple style of

architecture: a rectangular building of red brick, with two tall

smoke-blackened chimneys and a number of smaller ones. "John Baines and

Co., Manufacturers of Aerated Drinks," was painted in large letters

across the brick front.

A Sabbath stillness prevailed, intensified by the smokeless chimneys and

the closed door. Only a cur lay in the sun, and some dirty ducks

squittered the water in a dirty ditch which carried off the drainage of

the factory to a neighbouring brook.

A short distance apart from the main building stood the dwelling of the

proprietor, Mr. Baines, who had inherited the business from his wife's

father and transferred it to his own name. This home of the Baines

family, though designed by the same architect, had its aboriginal

ugliness modified by numerous superficial improvements. A rich mantle

of ivy overgrew a portion of its red brick walls and wreathed its ugly

stucco portico. The window-panes were brightly polished and gave a

vivacity to the house by their gleaming reflections of light and shade.

You could see through them the green Venetian blinds of the

sitting-rooms and the unpolished backs of looking-glasses and clean

white muslin curtains of the bedrooms. In the short strip of front

garden there were beds of scarlet geraniums which added a pleasant note

of bright colour.

At the grained front door a cat was waiting to be let in with an air

about her as if she too had returned a little late from church or

chapel. A strong, rich odour of roast beef filled the air and drowned

the scent of hayfields. This intensified the feeling of vulgar comfort

which permeated the house when the door was opened by Mr. Baines,

senior, and increased the pious satisfaction of the cat, who arched her

black body and rubbed herself coyly against her master's Sunday

trousers.

"Of course, you're late," snapped Mr. Baines. "I knew you would be.

Here's mother, as cross as two sticks."

Mrs. Baines, who had stalked into the narrow hall from the dining-room,

gave them no greeting, but merely called to Eliza to serve the dinner,

as Mr. John and Miss Josling had arrived.

For Lucy this was not a pleasant meal. Mrs. Baines was one of those

unsympathetic persons that took away her appetite. She was a thoroughly

good woman in the estimation of her neighbours, austerely devout,

rigidly honest, an able housewife and a strict mother. But her future

daughter-in-law had long since classed her as thoroughly unlovable. The

one tender feeling she evinced was her passionate though undemonstrative

devotion to her only son. Even this, though it might beautify her dull

being in the eyes of an unconcerned observer, did not always announce

itself pleasantly to her home circle. To John it had often been the

reason for a cruel smacking when a child and guilty of some small

childish sin; to her husband it was the excuse for vexatious economies,

which while they did not materially increase the funds devoted to his

son's education, had frequently interfered with his personal comfort.

Mrs. Baines's love of John was further manifested to Lucy by a jealous

criticism of her speech and actions; for, like most mothers of an only

son, she was bound to resent the bestowal of his affections on a

sweetheart, and determined to be dissatisfied with whomever he might

select for that honourable position.

So, although Lucy was pretty, relatively well-educated, earning her

living already as a National school-mistress, the daughter of a

much-respected farmer, and known by the Baines family almost since she

was a baby, Mrs. Baines found fault with her just because she had found

favour with John. Lucy was "Church" and they were "Chapel." She was

vain and worldly and quite unsuited to be the wife of a missionary. The

fascination of worldliness was not denied. The Devil knew how to bait

his traps. Through worldly influence one was led to read novels on the

Sabbath, to dispute the Biblical account of the Creation.

Lucy, it is true, had neither scoffed at Genesis, nor spoken flippantly

of Noah's Ark, nor been seen reading fiction on a Sunday; but that

didn't matter. With her pretensions to an interest in botany, her talk

about astronomy and the distances of the fixed stars and such like

rubbish, she was quite capable of sliding into infidelity. And as to

her observance of the Sabbath, it was simply disgraceful. Of course,

her father was to blame in setting her a bad example and her mother,

too, poor soul, was much too easy-going with her daughters. But then,

when you came to consider that Lucy had been so much with John, to say

nothing of the example set by John's parents, you would have thought she

might have learnt by this time how the Lord's Day should be passed.

It was this last point which strained the relations between Mrs. Baines

and Lucy on this particular Sunday. Lucy had asked John to take her for

a walk in the afternoon. It would be their last opportunity for a quiet

talk all to themselves before his departure. Although John Baines had

inherited his mother's Sabbatarian scruples he consented to Lucy's

proposal, partly because he was in love with her, partly because his

residence in London had insensibly broadened his views. For once his

mother's influence was powerless to alter his decision, and so she had

refrained from further argument. But this first check to her domination

over her son had considerably soured her feelings.

Moreover, Mrs. Baines honestly believed, according to her lights--for

like all the millions of her class and period she knew absolutely

nothing about astronomy, geology, ethnology and history--that the

Creator of the Universe preferred you should spend the Sunday afternoon

in a small, stuffy back parlour with the blinds half down, reading the

Bible or Baxter's sermons (or, if the spiritual appetite were very weak,

an illustrated edition of _Pilgrim's Progress_) and continue this

mortification of flesh and spirit until tea time (unless you taught in

the Sunday-school). You should then wind up the Day of Rest with

evening chapel, supper, more sermon-reading, and bed.

The only person disposed to be talkative during the meal was John Baines

the younger. His mother, at all times glum, was more than ever inclined

to silence. Lucy was oppressed by her frigid demeanour and vouchsafed

very few remarks, other than those called for by politeness. As to

Baines, senior, he was one of those short-necked, fleshy men who are

born guzzlers, and his attention was too much concentrated on his food

to permit of his joining in conversation during his Sunday dinner. As a

set-off against abstention from alcohol he was inordinately greedy, and

his large appetite was a constant source of suffering to him, for his

wife took a grim delight in mortifying it. Only on Sundays was he

allowed to eat his fill without her interference. Mrs. Baines always

did the carving and helped everything, even the vegetables, which were

placed in front of her, flanking the joint. The maid-of-all-work,

Eliza, waited at table and was evidently the slave of her mistress's

eye. The family dinner on Sundays was almost invariable in its main

features, as far as circumstances permitted. A well-roasted round of

beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, was succeeded by an

apple or a treacle pudding, and a dessert of some fruit or nuts in

season. Of one thing there was no lack and abundant

variety--effervescing, non-alcoholic drinks: Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale,

Gingerade; Lemonade, Citronade, Orangeade; Phosphozone, Hedozone,

Pyrodone, Sparkling Cider and Perry Champagne: all the beverages

compounded of carbonic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid, sugar, water,

apple and pear juice, and flavouring essences.

The Apple champagne that John gallantly poured into Lucy's glass did not

lighten her spirits or loosen her tongue. What could she find to say to

that guzzling father whose face and hands were always close to his

plate, except during the brief intervals between the courses when he

threw himself back in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his greasy lips,

and passed his fat forefinger round the corners of his gums to remove

the wedges of food which had escaped deglutition? Or to the gloomy

mother who ate her victuals with a sullen champing, and, beyond a few

directions to the submissive servant, made no attempts to sustain

conversation, only according to the garrulous descriptions of her son an

occasional snappish "Oh! indeed----," "Pretty doings, I can see----,"

"Little good can come of _that_----," and so on? At length, when John's

experiences in London had come to an end and the two dishes of cherries

had replaced the treacle pudding, whilst the servant handed round in

tumblers our own superlative Sparkling Cider, Lucy cleared her throat

and said, "I suppose John will be leaving you very early to-morrow

morning?"

"Eh?" returned Mrs. Baines, fixing her cold grey eyes on Lucy. She had

heard perfectly well, but she thought it more consistent with dignity

not to lend too ready an ear to the girl's remarks. Lucy repeated more

distinctly her question.

"You had better ask _him_ all about it," replied John's mother. "I have

other things to think about on the Lord's Day besides railway

time-tables."

"Why? Are you coming to see me off, Lucy?" asked John.

"Well, yes; that is, if Mrs. Baines doesn't mind."

"_I_ mind?" exclaimed the angry woman in a strident voice. "What have

_I_ got to do with it; I suppose railway stations are free to every

one?"

"Yes," said Lucy, with an ache at the back of her throat and almost

inclined then and there to break off her engagement. "But I thought you

might like to have John all to yourself at the last. However, if you

have no objection, I should much like to see him off, poor old

fellow"--and Lucy gave his big-knuckled hand an affectionate pat--"I

think I can manage it. Father has to come into Theale. He will drop me

at the station and pick me up again, and school doesn't begin till nine.

What time does your train go, John?"

"Twenty-five past seven. I shall get to London soon after nine. After

going to the head-quarters of the Mission and getting my final

instructions I shall drive straight down to the docks and go on board

the _Godavery_.... The first place we stop at is Algiers, then Malta,

then the Suez Canal and Aden. I expect this is just what _you'll_ have

to do, Lucy, when you come out next spring."

Lucy smiled brightly. She had gradually grown into her engagement as

she grew from girlhood to womanhood, constrained by John's bland

assumption that the damsel he selected was bound to be his wife. But

perhaps her main inducement was his fixed determination to become a

missionary and her intense longing to see "foreign parts," the wonderful

and the interesting world. She was just rallying her spirits to make

some animated reply about Algiers when Mrs. Baines intervened and said

there were limits to all things, and if they didn't wish to pass the

whole of the Lord's Day eating, drinking, and talking they had better

rise and let Eliza clear away. On hearing these words, Mr. Baines

turned the last cherries into his plate and hastily biting them off and

ejecting the stones, pushed his chair back with a sigh. Then, rising

heavily, he stumbled into the armchair near the fireplace and composed

himself for a nap. The maid began to clear away, longing to get back to

her Sunday dinner and concealed novelette. Lucy went to put on her hat;

John yawned and drummed his fingers on the window-pane; and Mrs. Baines

seated herself stiffly in the armchair opposite her satiated husband,

with a large brown Bible on her lap and two or three leaflets covered

with small-print references to Scripture.

When John heard Lucy tripping downstairs he went to meet her, feeling

instinctively that her re-appearance in the dining-room would draw some

bitter comment from his mother. He put on his felt wide-awake, took a

stout stick, and soon banged the front door on his sweetheart and

himself in a way which sent a shiver through the frame of Mrs. Baines,

who with an impatient sigh of disgust applied herself to a gloomy

portion of the Old Testament.

Probably had John remained to keep her company she would have made no

attempt to entertain him; but she would have applied herself with real

interest to Scriptural exegesis. Of her class and of her time what

little romance and intellectuality she had was put into Bible study.

She believed the British--degenerate though they might appear as to

Sabbath observance--were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, who had

been led by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland in an unnecessary spurt of

energy and had then returned in coracles to the more favoured Britain,

Jeremiah--age being of no moment where the Divine purpose was

concerned--having taken in marriage a daughter of the Irish king----

But ... the ingratitude of her only son, who could not give up to his

mother's society his last Sunday afternoon in England! She choked with

unshed tears and read verse after verse of the early part of Jeremiah

without understanding one word, although she was told in her leaflets

that the diatribes bore special reference to England in the latter part

of the nineteenth century.... No, the thought of John wandering about

the hayfields with Lucy--for, of course, that girl would lead him into

the hayfields, perhaps throw hay at him--constantly rose before her, and

once or twice a few hot tears dimmed her sight.... "The Lord said also

unto me in the days of Josiah the King: Hast thou seen that which

backsliding Israel hath done?..."

She had devoted all the money she could save, all the time she could

spare to the bringing-up of this boy. She had sent him to college and

made him a gentleman. She had done her duty by him as a mother, and this

was the return he made. He preferred to spend his last Sunday afternoon

frolicking about the country with a feather-headed girl to passing it

quietly by his mother's side, as he formerly used to do.... They might

even have had a word of prayer together. Mrs. Baines was not usually a

woman who encouraged outbursts of vocal piety outside the chapel, but on

such an occasion as this.... She might not see him for another five

years..

"And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me.

But she returned not."--Now was it becoming for a grown man, a

missionary who had occupied the pulpit at Salem Chapel in the morning,

to go gallivanting about the meadows with a young woman in the

afternoon? What would any of the congregation say who saw him? A nice

spectacle, to be sure!-- "And the Lord said unto me, The back-sliding

Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah..." "Let me

see," reflected Mrs. Baines, trying to give her attention to her

reading, "Judah represents the Church of England, and Israel is ...

Israel is ... Baines! For goodness _sake_ don't snore like that. You

ought to be ashamed of yourself! _How_ you can reconcile it with your

conscience to guzzle like a pig every Sunday at dinner and then pass the

rest of the afternoon snoring and snoozing instead of reading your

Bible, _I_ don't know."

Mr. Baines's bloodshot, greenish eyes regarded his wife with dazed

wonderment for a few seconds. Then their red lids dropped and a gentle

breathing announced the resumption of his slumbers. For a few moments

Mrs. Baines really devoted her attention to the third chapter of

Jeremiah; but when once more the respirations of her spouse degenerated

into raucous snores, she lost all patience with him, and put away her

Bible and pamphlets. She could not stop in the house any longer. It

was allowable to visit the sick on the Sabbath day. She would go and

see old Mrs. Gannell in Stebling's Cottages and read some tracts to her.

So she shook off imaginary crumbs from her skirts, went upstairs to put

on her Sunday bonnet, and left her husband--though he was unconscious of

the privilege--to snore and chuckle and drivel and snore unrebuked for a

couple of hours.

*CHAPTER II*

*JOHN AND LUCY*

John and Lucy strode rapidly through the outskirts of the village, past

the inspection of curious eyes from over the rim of window blinds, into

the quiet country, which lay sleeping in veiled sunshine; for the warmth

of the June sun had created a slight haze in the river valley and men

and beasts seemed drowsy with the concentrated, undispersed odour of the

newly-cut hay. They crossed a little stream by a wooden bridge, climbed

two stiles--Lucy gaily, John bashfully, as if fearing that his new-born

dignity of preacher might suffer thereby--walked about a quarter of a

mile down a densely shaded lane where the high hedgerows were flecked

with pale pink, yellow-stamened dogroses, and where the honeysuckle

trailed its simple light green foliage and hung out its lank fists of

yellow fingers: and then arrived at an open space and a broad high road.

This they followed until they came to a white gate, marked in black

letters "To Englefield. Private." Without hesitation, from

long-established custom, they raised the latch and entered the dense

shade of a well-timbered wood with a glimpse here and there, through the

tree trunks, of open water.

Lucy sighed with relief and pleasure when the white gate swung to behind

her and she was walking on a turf-covered track under the shade of great

beech trees. Though the scene was familiar to her she exclaimed at its

beauty. John mopped his face industriously, flapped away the flies,

blew his nose, and wiped the brim of his hat. "Yes, yes," he would

reply, looking to see if his boots were very dusty or whether there were

any grass seeds sticking to the skirts of his frock-coat. "Canterbury

bells, is that what you call them? Yes, there seem to be lots this year.

Here's a nice, clean trunk of a tree. Let's sit down and have our

talk...."

"Oh, not here, John. It's too midgy. We will go farther on to The

View: there's a seat there."

So they followed the broad, turfy track which commenced to ascend the

flank of a down. On the right hand the great trees rose higher and

higher into the sky; on the left the ground sloped away to the level of

the little lake with its swans and water-lilies; and the turf near at

hand was dark blue and purple-green with the bugle in flower. In the

ascending woodland there were tall ranks of red-mauve foxgloves. Here

the owner of the park had placed an ample wooden seat for the

delectation of all who loved landscape beauty.

John threw himself down with heavy abandonment on the grey planks. Had

he been alone he would certainly have taken off his boots to ease his

hot and compressed feet, but some instinct told him his betrothed might

not think the action seemly. Lucy stood for a few moments gazing at the

view over the Kennet valley and then sat down beside him.

"How dreadfully you perspire, my poor John," she said, looking at the

wet red hand which clasped the rail of the seat.

"Yes. The least amount of walking makes me hot."

"Well, but how will you be able to stand Africa?"

"Oh, it's a different kind of heat there, I believe. Besides, you don't

have to go about in a black coat, a waistcoat and a starched shirt;

except perhaps at service time on Sundays."

"What a pity black clothes seem to be necessary to holiness!"--(then

seeing a frown settling on his face) "I wonder whether we shall see

anything so beautiful as _this_ out there?"

"As beautiful as what? Oh! The view. Well, I s'pose so. I believe

there are some high mountains and plenty of forest near the place where

I am to live."

"What is its name?"

"Hangodi, I think--something like that. Bayley says it means 'the Place

of Firewood.'"

"Oh, _that_ doesn't sound pretty at all; just as if there were nothing

but dead sticks lying about. I hoped there would be plenty of palms and

those things you see in the pictures of African travel books--with great

broad leaves--plantains? Is it a village?"

"Hangodi? I believe so. I think the chief reason it has been chosen is

its standing high up on a mountain and being near water."

"Oh, John," said Lucy after a minute's silence, "I _do_ look forward to

joining you in Africa. I've always wanted to travel, ever since I won a

geography prize at school. Just think what wonderful things we shall

see. Elephants and lions and tigers. Will there be tigers? Of

_course_ not. I ought to have remembered they're only found in India.

But at any rate there will be beautifully spotted leopards, and lions

roaring at night, and hippopotamuses in the rivers and antelopes on the

plains. And ostriches? Do you think there will be any ostriches,

John?"

"My dear, how do _I_ know? Besides, we are not going out to Africa to

look for ostriches and lions, Lucy," said John, rather solemnly. "We

have a great work before us, a _great_ work. There is a mighty harvest

to be gathered for the Lord."

"Of course, John, of course," Lucy hastened to reply, "I know what is

the real object of your mission, and I mean to help you all I can, don't

I?" (pushing back a wisp of his lank brown hair that fell over his

brow--for he had taken off the hot wide-awake). "But that won't prevent

me from liking to see wild beasts and other queer African things; and I

don't see the harm in it, either...."

"N--no, of course it isn't _wrong_. These things are among the

wonderful works of the Almighty, and it is right that we should admire

them in their proper place. At the same time they are apt to become a

snare in leading us from the contemplation of holy things into vain

disputes about science. I know more about these spiritual dangers than

you do, Lucy," continued John, from the superior standing of his three

years' education in London, "and I warn you against the idolatry of

intellect" (squeezing her little kid-gloved hand to temper his solemnity

with a lover's gesture). "I knew a very nice fellow in London once. He

had studied medicine at the hospitals and he came to Bayswater College

to qualify for the East African Mission; for he intended going out as a

medical missionary. He was the son of a minister, too, and his father

was much respected. But he was always spending his spare time at this

new Natural History Museum, and he used to read Darwin and other infidel

writers. Well, the result was that he took to questioning the accuracy

of Genesis, and _of course_ he had to give up all idea of joining the

Mission. I don't know what became of him, but I expect he afterwards

went to the bad. For my part, I am thankful to say I never was troubled

with doubts. The Bible account of Creation is good enough for me, and

so it ought to be for everybody else."

"John! _John_!" exclaimed Lucy, shaking his arm, "you are just as bad

as your mother, who accuses me of disbelieving the Bible because I like

to take a walk on a fine Sunday afternoon. How you _do_ run on! I only

said I wanted to see elephants and lions in Africa and you accuse me

straight out of 'worshipping my intellect' or some such rubbish. Don't

you know the chief reason I promised to marry you was because I thought

it was so noble of you to go to Africa to teach the poor natives? Very

well, if you think African wild beasts will be a snare for my soul I

won't run the temptation, and you shall marry some black woman whose

ears will come down to her shoulders, and a ring through her nose as

well, and no doubts at all about anything."

"Lucy! I think you're very flippant."

"John! I think you're much too sanctimonious! You're a great deal too

good for me, and you'd better find a more serious person than I am--Miss

Jamblin, for instance."

"Ann Jamblin? And a very nice girl too. Oh! you may sneer at her.

She's not pretty, I daresay, but she comes to all the prayer meetings,

so mother says; and she's got a nice gift for sacred poetry."

"Yes, _I_ know her verses--flimsy things! Just hymns-and-water, _I_

call them. She's got a number of stock rhymes and she rings the changes

on them. Any one could do that. Besides, I've caught her lots of times

borrowing whole lines from Hymns, Ancient and Modern, which I suppose

aren't good enough for chapel people, so they must needs go and make up

hymns of their own. And as to the prayer meetings, it's just the tea

and cake that attract _her_. Bless you! I was at school with Ann

Jamblin, and I know what a pig that girl is.... But if you think she'd

suit you better as a wife, don't hesitate to change your mind. Your

mother would be _delighted_. And I've heard say that Ann's uncle, who

keeps the ham-and-beef shop in Reading, means to leave her all his

money. You won't find Ann Jamblin caring much for wild beasts, _I_ can

promise you! Why, I remember once when the school was out walking near

Reading and we met a dancing bear coming along with its keeper, she

burst out screaming and crying so loud that the youngest Miss Calthrop

had to take her _straight_ back."

"Now, _Lucy_! _Is_ it kind to quarrel with me just before I am going

away?" (Lucy's unexpected spitfire prettiness and the hint she might be

willing to break off the engagement had roused John's latent manliness

and he felt now he desired intensely to marry her.)

"My _dear_ John, I wasn't _quarrelling_, I've nothing to quarrel about.

I only suggested to you before it was too late to change your mind that

Ann Jamblin would make you a more suitable wife than I should--there,

there!" (fighting off a kiss and an attempt at a hug) "remember where we

are and that any one might see us and carry the tale to your mother. Of

course, I am partly in fun. I know it is unkind to tease you, but

somehow I _can't_ be as serious as you are.... Dear old John" (the

attempt at a hug and the look of desire in John's eyes have somehow

mollified her) "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.... Did I? ... I'm

very sorry.... Just as you're going away, too.... There, never mind....

Look bright and happy.... Now _smile_!"

John's lips parted reluctantly and showed his pale gums and projecting

eye-teeth.

"What do you think, John? ... Let's get up and walk on to the garden

gates, ... what do you think my Uncle Pardew is going to give us as a

wedding present? A harmonium! Won't that be nice? I shall take it out

with me, and then when you teach the people to sing hymns--only you

mustn't teach them Ann Jamblin's--I can play the accompaniments. And in

the evenings when you are tired I shall try to play something that will

soothe you. I have never tried the harmonium yet, but while you are

away I mean to practise. It's just like playing the piano, only you

have to keep working the pedals with your feet, like a sewing-machine.

Uncle Pardew would just as soon give us a piano, but I told him what you

said about the climate being bad for them. So he settled that a

harmonium would do better. I wonder what other wedding presents we

shall get? I can tell to a certainty what your mother will give us."

"What?"

"Why, a very large Bible, bound in shiny brown leather like those in the

waiting-rooms at railway stations, with a blue ribbon marker; and a

dozen silver spoons. Six large and six small. I know she doesn't

consider me worthy of the spoons, but she is bound by custom. When she

was married _her_ mother-in-law gave _her_ spoons.... And your father

will give us a dinner-service and a gross of Sparkling Cider..."

"I hope to goodness he doesn't. The cost of transporting it up-country

would be quite beyond my means. I shall tell him..."

"And _my_ father," continued Lucy, "is going to give me a gold watch and

chain. And mother, my own sweet little mother--what do you think she's

been working at, John?"

"Can't say, I'm sure."

"Why, _all_ the house linen.... Sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths,

napkins, and such like. She has been getting them ready ever since I

was first engaged.... John! You must be _very_ kind to me in Africa."

"_Kind_ to you? Why, of course! Do you suppose I should be anything

else?"

"You don't know _how_ I feel the idea of parting with mother. I love

her better than any one in the world, better than you, John. She never

says anything, but I know she is dreadfully unhappy at the idea of my

going away so far and for so long. But then, I tell her, we can't _all_

be old maids. Father isn't rich enough to keep us all at home, and I

don't want to go on working at a National school all my life.... Oh, by

the bye, talking of mother, I had something so pleasant to tell you.

What do you think Lord Silchester has done? You know mother was maid to

old Lady Silchester? Well, when father went the other day to see Mr.

Parkins about a gate he met his lordship walking out of the agent's

office. They got into conversation and father told him I was going out

next year to marry you in Africa. And last Wednesday mother got a

letter written by Lord Silchester himself, saying he had not forgotten

her faithful care of his mother and would she give the enclosed to her

daughter, out of which she might buy a wedding present, something to

remember Lord Silchester by when she got out to Africa. And there were

four five-pound notes in the envelope. Mother was so pleased she

positively _cried_."

"Yes. That was very kind of his lordship. I must tell my mother when I

get back to-night. It may cheer her up."

"Oh, every one has been very nice about my engagement. The Miss

Calthrops, where I was at school in Reading, told me they were working

at some aesthetic mantel-borders for our house in Africa...."

"Mantel-borders! Why, we shan't have any mantel-pieces!"

"No mantel-pieces? No fireplaces?"

"Only a fire for cooking, in the kitchen, and that will be outside."

"Oh well, then, we must put them to some other use; I couldn't wound

their feelings by saying we didn't want them."

"Lucy, you mustn't imagine you are going to live in a mansion in Africa.

Our home will be only a cottage built of bamboo and mud and tree-stems

roughly trimmed, with a thatched or a corrugated-iron roof. I don't

suppose it will contain more than four rooms--a bedroom, a bathroom, a

sitting-room, a store and an outside kitchen."

"Well, but even a log-hut might be made pretty inside, with some 'art'

draperies and cushions and a few Japanese fans. I mean to make our home

as pretty as possible. Shall we have a garden?"

"Oh, I daresay--a kitchen garden, certainly. For the Mission Committee

wants to encourage the planting of vegetables and even some degree of

farming, so that we may live as much as possible on local products. We

are taking out spades and hoes and rakes in plenty, a small plough, an

incubator, and any amount of useful seeds."

"I'm sure," said Lucy, still musing, "there ought to be lovely wild

flowers in Africa and beautiful ferns, too. I mean to have a little

wild garden of my own, and I shall press the flowers and send them to

mother in my letters."

"I daresay you will be able to do that, when you have finished your

household work and done your teaching in the school."

"Teaching in the school?"

"Why, of course you will help me in that. You'll have to take the

girls' class, whilst I take the boys'."

"Oh, shall I? That's rather horrid. I didn't think I was going out to

Africa to teach, just the same as at home. The National School children

at Aldermaston are quite tiresome enough. What will little black girls

be like, I wonder?"

"I'm told they're very quick at learning.... I am sorry," continued

John, rather portentously, "that you don't quite seem to realize the

nature of the duties you are about to undertake. I love you very

dearly, Lucy"--and a tremor in his voice showed sincerity--"but that

isn't the only reason I have asked you to come out to me in Africa and

be my wife. I want a helpmeet, not a playmate; one who will aid me in

bringing these heathen to a knowledge of God's goodness; not an idle

woman who only thinks of picking wild flowers and ornamenting her house.

Don't pout, dear. I only want to save you disappointment. You are not

coming out to a life of luxury, but one of hard work. Besides, it would

be hardly fair to the Mission if you did not take certain duties on

yourself, because when I am married they will increase my pay to two

hundred and fifty pounds a year."

"What do you get when you are single?"

"One hundred and eighty. You see a married man gets extra pay because

it is always supposed his wife will add her work to his. A married

missionary, too, has more influence with the natives."

"All the same, John, we shall sometimes make time to steal away by

ourselves and have a nice little picnic without any of those horrid

black people near us...."

"Horrid black people, Lucy, have immortal souls...."

"I daresay, but that doesn't prevent their having black bodies and

looking like monkeys. However, I daresay I shall get used to them. And

if I don't at first ... By the bye, John, I forgot to ask, but I wanted

to, so as to relieve mother's mind--are they cannibals?"

"What, the people of Hangodi? I don't know, but I scarcely think so.

And if they were, we should have all the more credit in converting

them."

"Yes; but suppose they wouldn't wait to be converted, but ate you

first?"

"The little I've read and heard shows me they would never do that.

African cannibals, it seems, are rather careful whom they eat.

Generally only their war captives or their old people. They wouldn't

eat a peaceful stranger, a white man. However, on the east side of

Africa the negroes are _not_ cannibals, any more than we are."

"Isn't it curious, John, to think what different ideas of right and

wrong prevail amongst the peoples of the world? Here, you say, there

are some tribes in Africa which eat their own relations. Well, I

daresay it is thought quite a right and proper thing to do--out

there--just as we in England think the old folk ought to be cherished

and taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible. Only fancy how

funny it would sound to us to be told that Mr. Jones showed very bad

feeling because he wouldn't join his brother and sister in eating up old

Aunt Brown! And yet I daresay that is what cannibal scandal-mongers

often say to one another. Isn't it wonderful how one lot of human

beings can think and act so differently to another lot; and yet each

party considers that nobody is right but those who believe as they do?

Supposing one day some black missionaries landed in England, dressed in

large earrings, bead necklaces, pocket handkerchiefs and nothing else,

and tried to persuade us to worship some hideous idol and leave off

wearing so many clothes. How astonished we would be ... and yet they

would think they were doing right, just as our missionaries do who go

out to teach savages the Gospel...."

"Well, I confess I don't see the resemblance. What we preach is the

Truth, the Living Truth. What _they_ believe is a lie of the Devil."

"Yes, but they don't _know_ it is. They must think it is the truth or

they wouldn't go on believing in it year after year. When I was

teaching geography the other day, I was quite _astonished_ to find in

the Manual that about _four or five hundred millions_ of people were

Buddhists. Isn't it _dreadful_ to think of their all being wrong, all

living in vain. Surely God won't punish them for it hereafter?"

"It's hard to say. If they had the means of grace offered to them and

rejected the Message I should think He would. But that is the chief

object of our Foreign Missions, to teach the heathen the true principles

of Christianity and bring the Light of the Gospel to them that sit in

darkness. When this has been done throughout the earth, no one will

then be able to say he sinned in ignorance, 'because he knew not the way

of Life.'"

"And yet, John, see here in England what different views of religion

even good people take. Father goes to Church; you go to Chapel; and

each thinks the other on the wrong road to Heaven."

"Oh no! Lucy, I wouldn't go so far as that. Of course, I believe that

our Connection has been vouchsafed a special revelation of God's Will

and Purpose among men. But all the same I feel sure that many a Church

person comes into the way of Truth though it may be after much

tribulation. Why, I wouldn't deny that even _Roman Catholics_ may be

saved, if they have led a godly life and acted up to their lights. At

the same time, those who have the Truth among them and are wilfully

blind to its teaching are incurring a heavy responsibility."

"Then you think father stands less chance of being saved than you do?"

"Well ... yes ... I do; because in his Church he does not possess the

same means of grace as are given to our Connection."

"But he is so good, so kind to every one, so fair in his dealings..."

"Good works without faith are insufficient to save a man."

"Well, for my part, I can't believe that _any_ one will be lost because

he may not follow the most correct kind of religion. I can't believe

that God will punish any one who isn't very, very wicked indeed. He is

so great; we are so little.... Just think, supposing we saw an ant

doing anything wrong should we feel obliged to hurt it or burn it?

Should we not be rather amused and pitiful? And mustn't we seem the

very tiniest of ants to God?"

"Ah, Lucy! The belief in the fierce judgments of the Almighty is a

fundamental Truth of our religion, and if your faith in _that_ is

shaken, everything will begin to go.... But the subject is too solemn

to be lightly discussed, so let's talk about something else. Have you

finished my slippers?"

"Yes, and they're perfectly _lovely_. A dark blue, with J.B.

embroidered in white silk. I shall bring them with me to the station

to-morrow.... Why, here we are at the gates of the garden! _How_ we've

walked and _how_ we've talked! And look, John,"--drawing him back from

standing too near the iron gates, "there's his lordship on the terrace,

and I do believe the young lady with him is the one he's become engaged

to!"

John looked in the direction whither Lucy discreetly inclined her head,

beyond triumphs of carpet-bedding to the terrace which fronted the south

side of the great house. And there, foremost of several groups of

Sunday callers who were taking tea at small tables, they saw specially

prominent a party of three: a pretty girl rather showily dressed in the

height of 1886 fashion, an old lady, and an elderly man, tall, a little

inclined to stoop, dressed in dark, loose-fitting tweeds. He had a long

face with a massive jaw and rather a big nose. But though they were not

visible at a distance of fifty yards there were kindly wrinkles round

his dark grey eyes as he suddenly lifted them from the seated ladies and

glanced across the flower beds to see who was looking at him from the

outer world.

This was Lord Silchester; and John, not wishing to prolong his

indiscretion, raised his wide-awake and turned away with his betrothed.

He and Lucy then walked directly to Aldermaston, John leaving her at the

railway station, where he consummated his breach of the Sabbath by

taking an evening train back to Theale, and so returned to his home at

the Aerated Waters factory for the last night he was ever to pass there.

The next morning, punctually at seven o'clock, Lucy's father drew up his

gig before the booking-office of Theale station, and, getting a porter

to hold the horse, helped Lucy down and accompanied her on to the

station platform, where they found the Baines family already assembled:

Mrs. Baines gloomily seated on a bench, Mr. Baines reading the old

newspaper placards of the closed bookstall, and John busy seeing his

numerous boxes labelled.

"Hullo, Baines!--and ma'am--hope you're well ... a bit cast down, I

expect? But there, it's a fine career he's starting on.... Still, it's

always a wrench. John"--extending his hand--"I've just called in to wish

you good luck _and_ a prosperous voyage _and_ a happy return, by and

bye. Mind you make a comfortable home out there for my little girl! I

shall be feeling about as bad as you feel, ma'am" (Mrs. Baines kept a

perfectly impassive face during these attempts at sympathy and did not

even look at the speaker), "next--when is it to be? March?--when I come

to part with Lucy. But life's made up of partings and meetings, which

is why, some'ow, I don't like railway stations. Now I can't stop, and

if I could, I should only be in the way. Must be off to market. Leave

you Lucy. She'll walk back to school. Good-bye, John...."

And Farmer Josling hurried out of the station and his horse's hoofs

sounded in quick succession on the ascent to the main road. Lucy, left

behind actually found herself regretting that father had brought her in

such good time as to give her five-and-twenty minutes or more of

irresolute attendance on John. When she had presented him with the

slippers, had squeezed his hand two or three times, and adjured him to

write from the first stopping-place, besides sending a postcard from

London to say he was leaving "all right"; had made a few suggestions

about his luggage which, in spite of the urbanity of departure, were too

futile to be answered or adopted; and had insisted on pushing the band

of his blue tie under the shirt button at the back of his neck, so that

it might not rise up over the collar: there seemed to be nothing left to

say or do. The bookstall was not yet opened so there were no papers to

be bought.

She would have talked with Mrs. Baines, who had retired to the little

waiting-room and was pretending there to read a great roll of texts in

big print hung against one of the walls. But at her first remark she

noticed Mrs. Baines's eyelids were quivering and her under lip twitching

in a way to indicate that she was a prey to almost uncontrollable

emotion. Although she mechanically turned the leaves of the texts, her

eyes were not focussing them, and something seemed to be moving up and

down her lank throat which she could not finally swallow. She only

answered Lucy's remark by an inarticulate gurgle and waved her away.

There was something so pathetic in her dismal ugliness, in her awkwardly

restrained emotion, that Lucy was suddenly moved to pity as she returned

to the platform. Her embarrassment was cut short by the tumult

occasioned by the approaching train, heralded by the clanging of the

station bell. The train was full and John had hurriedly to pass all the

second class compartments in review to find a place not only for himself

but for the amorphous packages deemed too frail for the guard's van.

When at last he had squeezed himself and his parcels past the

obstructing knees of the established passengers; he had just time to

twist round, stretch out over his surly neighbours' laps, and squeeze

Lucy's timorously extended hand. Then the train gave a lurch forward

and a slide backwards which made him nearly bite his tongue off in an

attempt to say good-bye to his parents, and finally rolled slowly out of

the station, while the forms of father, mother, and sweetheart left

standing on the platform grouped themselves for one moment in an

attitude of mute farewell before the advance of the train cut them off

from his sight.

The retreating chain of carriages shut itself up like a telescope, and

the station began to resume its sleepy calm. Mrs. Baines's emotion now

could no longer be restrained from expression. She tottered towards the

waiting-room and sinking heavily on to a hard wooden seat she choked and

hiccupped and sobbed, and the tears rolled regularly, one after the

other, down her cavernous cheeks. Lucy took her trembling hands and

tried to soothe her; and then, Mrs. Baines, softened by this sympathy,

lost all that remained of her self-control and abandoned herself limply

on Lucy's shoulder.

"Oh!" she gasped, "I've parted with him in anger--he's gone! ... Perhaps

I shall never see him again.... My boy.... My only son. I never said a

kind word to him before he left. I thought there would be time.... I

thought John would come and make it up. I was cross because he went out

walking with you and came back late by train yesterday. You know I

always taught him to observe the Sabbath. But I'd forgive him

_anything_ if he'd only come back and give me _one_ kiss ... my boy...."

But John was well on his way to Reading, and the London express, and all

his mother's tardy plaints were fruitless to recall him. Moreover, he

was not perceptive. To him, his mother's demeanour had seemed much as

usual; and he was certainly not conscious that she had parted with him

in anger. He was fond of her in a way, but he had been used from

childhood to her being always in a huff about something or other.

Lucy restored her future mother-in-law to partial calmness, straightened

her bonnet, re-tied the bonnet strings, and walked a little of the way

back with her towards Tilehurst, while Mr. Baines followed submissively

behind. For the rest of that day he enjoyed unrebuked freedom to do as

he liked. He ate his fill and even smoked a pipe in the parlour. His

wife having regained her composure held aloof from him in silent, stony

grief.

Lucy fortunately encountered the innkeeper of Aldermaston driving

thither in a chaise and got a lift, nearly as far as her home, a

substantial farmstead on the Mortimer road, close to both church and

school. This enabled her to begin her duties punctually. She taught her

girls and boys from nine to twelve and two to four. She thought of John

with gentle melancholy during the day, and even shed a tear or two at

night when she concentrated her mind on the scenes of her betrothed's

departure, especially his mother's wild display of grief. But the next

morning as she walked from the farmstead to the school she actually

hummed a gay tune as she picked a spray of wild roses from the dewy

hedge and arranged them round her light straw hat. At the same time she

had a twinge of remorse at her forgetfulness--poor John was doubtless

now at sea watching England fade from the exile's view; and she forced

herself to assume before her scholars an aspect of restrained grief.

Nevertheless, as day after day of summer weather went by in her

surroundings of perfect beauty, she confessed to herself she had seldom

felt so happy, in spite of her sweetheart's absence.

*CHAPTER III*

*SIBYL AT SILCHESTER*

They had ridden over from opposite directions--he from Farleigh Wallop

on the downs south of Basingstoke, she from Aldermaston in the Kennet

Valley: to meet on the site of the Roman Calleva Atrebatum, the modern

Silchester. This was in the beginning of July, 1886. The Roman city of

early Christian Britain was then--and now--only marked by two-thirds of

an encircling wall of rough masonry, crowned with ivy and even trees.

There were grassy hummocks concealing a forum, a basilica and a few

houses. An occasional capital of a column or obvious blocks of ancient

hewn stone, scattered here and there among the herbage, made it clear,

apart from tradition, that the place of their rendezvous had a momentous

past. But its present was of purely agricultural interest--waving fields

of green wheat, sheep grazing on the enclosed mounds, an opulent

farmstead--unless you were a landscape painter of the Birket Foster

school: then you raved about the thatched cottages, the old church and

its churchyard.

On this July morning Captain Roger Brentham and Sibyl Grayburn had the

untilled portion of the site of Calleva Atrebatum quite to themselves.

This, no doubt, was the reason why they had decided to meet there for an

explanation which the man deemed to be due to him from the young woman.

He, of course, arrived first, but Sibyl was not long in making her

appearance from the direction of Silchester common. A groom who rode

behind her at the sight of Captain Brentham touched his hat and trotted

away.... Brentham tied up the two horses in the shade of the Roman wall.

Sibyl disposed herself gracefully on a mound which covered the site of a

Roman dwelling, arranged the long skirt of her riding habit so that the

riding trousers and other suggestions of her limbs might not be too

obvious to the male eye.

Roger was a captain in the Indian Army, about twenty-eight or

twenty-nine, strongly built, tanned in complexion, supple in figure,

good-looking, keen-eyed. Sibyl Grayburn was a decidedly pretty young

woman of twenty-five, the daughter of Colonel Grayburn who had recently

moved from Aldershot to Aldermaston and was trying to live the life of a

gentleman farmer on rather slender means. The Brenthams and Grayburns

of the younger generation were distant cousins.

_Roger_ (seating himself on the mound not too near to Sibyl, and

scanning her attentively): "Well, you're just as pretty as you were five

years ago--a little filled out perhaps.... And _this_ is how we meet.

How _utterly_ different from what I had been looking forward to! I

remember when we said good-bye at Farleigh _how_ you cried, and how for

the first four years you scarcely missed a mail.... And you can't say

_I_ didn't write--when I got a chance.... Or that I didn't work like a

nigger to get a position to afford to marry--and _now_ I hear from Maud

you're going to marry Silchester. To tell you the truth it didn't come

as a complete shock. I saw hints of it in some beastly Society paper

that some one posted to me at Aden--I suppose it was _you_! And this is

what women call _fidelity_!"

_Sibyl_ (at first keeps her eyes on the turf, but presently looks

Brentham defiantly in the face): "If women of my own age were to discuss

my case--not mere romantic school girls--they would say I had acted with

ordinary common sense, and _very_ unselfishly. I am, as you know,

twenty-five, and I'm sure you won't have enough to marry on for several

years--I should never again get such a chance ... and I really _do_ like

Lord Silchester, you don't know _how_ kind he can be--and you can't

_really_ care so very much. You reached England a fortnight ago, and

never even _wrote_ to me...."

_Roger_: "I was too much taken aback by that paragraph in the _World_

... and Maud gave me a hint in the letter she sent to my club. Besides,

I had to stop in London to see the Foreign Office and the India Office

... and ... and to attend a missionary meeting" (Sibyl ejaculates with

scorn: "_Missionary_ meeting!") "and get some clothes.... I had nothing

fit to wear when I landed...."

_Sibyl_: "Well, I'm not blaming you. I only meant that if you were so

madly in love with me as you pretend you would have dashed down to get a

sight of me before you went hobnobbing with your missionary friends ...

or bothered about clothes. I did not want my engagement to come to you

as a shock, so I _did_ post that _World_ to you and got Gerry to address

it--and I told Maud, so that she might prepare you. But _do_ let's be

calm and sensible and not waste time in needless reproaches. I _must_

get back to lunch. We've got Aunt Christabel coming--she helped to bring

it about, you know." (Roger interpolates "_Damn_ her!") "She's got

twice mother's determination.... Dear old Roger.... I _am_ sorry ... in

a way ... but you'll find _heaps_ of girls, _much_ nicer than I am,

ready to jump at the prospect of marrying you." (Here Sibyl's eyes

glanced with a little regret at his turned-away face, with the bronzed

cheek, the firm profile and the upward twist of the dark moustache.)

"And you know our 'engagement' was only boy-and-girl fun. Besides, now

I know more about things--I was so young when you went away--I don't

approve of cousins marrying.... Isn't their--I mean aren't their ...

children deaf and dumb or congenital idiots, or something

unpleasant?..." (And here Sibyl, appropriately to the period in which

she was living, blushed a deeper rose than the ride had given her at the

audacity in alluding to children as the result of marriage.)

_Roger_: "Nonsense. Heaps of cousins marry and everything turns out all

right if they come of healthy stock as we do. Besides, we're only

second cousins. But of course this is nothing but an evasion. You

thought you could do better for yourself by marrying an elderly peer,

and so you threw me over...."

_Sibyl_: "Well! I _did_ think I might, and _not_ selfishly. There's

papa--more or less in a financial tangle over his farm.... There's

mother, wearing herself ill, trying to make both ends meet ... and Clara

and Juliet to be brought out, and the boys to be educated and got into

professions..." (crying a little or pretending to do so out of

self-pity) "...I know I'm sacrificing myself for my family, but what

would you have me do? I shall soon become an old maid, and you won't be

able to marry for _ever_ so long...."

(Roger mutters: "I've five hundred a year and...")

_Sibyl_: "Yes, but what could we do on that? Poor papa could afford to

give me nothing more than my trousseau.... Even on seven hundred a

year, _if_ you get a Consulate, we couldn't manage two households, and

I'm perfectly certain I couldn't stand the African climate long, and I

should have to come home. I _don't_ like roughing it, I should

_dislike_ hot countries; and I _hate_ black people.... No, Roger ...

dear ... be sensible... If you want to carve out a great career in

Africa or India you don't want to be hampered with a wife for several

years to come; and then ... I'll--I'll find some really _nice_ girl to

marry you, somebody with a little money. And Silchester might help you

enormously. They'll probably take him into the new Government--aren't

you glad that _horrid_ old Gladstone's _gone_?--He'll be at the Colonial

Office or somewhere like that and I know he'd do anything I asked him,

once we were married. If you still want to go back to Africa he shall

get you made a Consul or a Governor or whatever it is you want...." But

Roger was not going to listen to anything so cold-blooded, even though

all the time an undercurrent of thought was glancing at the advantages

that might accrue from Sibyl's _mariage de convenance_. He'd be

_hanged_ if he'd take anything from Lord Silchester.... He was entitled

to some such appointment, anyway, after all he had done. But there, he

had lost all interest in life and if he went to the bad, Sibyl would be

to blame. All his interest in an African career had been bound up with

Sibyl's sharing it. With her at his side he felt equal to anything. He

would conquer all Equatorial Africa, strike at the Mahdi from the south,

find Emin Pasha, lay all Equatoria at the feet of Queen Victoria, and in

no time Sibyl would be Lady Brentham----

"Yes," interjected Sibyl, "and lose my complexion and be old before my

time, riding after you through the jungle, or living stupidly like a

grass widow at home...."

Yet as he jerked out his tirade rather theatrically she noted him with

an approving eye. His anger and extravagance brought out a certain

boyishness and, made him, with the freedom of the jungle about him,

still additionally attractive physically.... He certainly was

good-looking and in the prime of manhood ... she sighed ... the

remembrance of Lord Silchester's pale, somewhat flabby face, his

slightly pedantic manner, his carefulness about his health.... He

rode--yes--they had already had decorous rides together, but she

imagined before the ride his cob had had some of the freshness taken out

of him by the groom....

Sibyl tried by broken phrases, and half-uttered hints, to convey the

idea that Lord Silchester being nearly sixty--at any rate close on

fifty-six--and not of robust health, might not live for ever; though

really she wouldn't mind if _she_ died first, men were so perfectly

hateful, and so was your family--if you were a woman. You were expected

to do all you could for your family, and abused into the bargain by

others who held you bound by foolish promises made when you were a mere

girl without any knowledge of the world. Still, there was a

possibility--just a possibility--for weren't we all mortal?--that she

might find herself a widow, a lonely widow some day. Roger by then

would have made a great career, become a sort of Sir Samuel Baker; he'd

have discovered and named lakes after royalty; then they might meet

again; and who could say? Certainly, if it came to _love_, she wouldn't

deny she had never felt _quite_ the same towards any one as she had

towards Roger....

But Roger checked such philosophizings rudely, saying they were

positively indecent: at which she expressed herself as very angry. Then

leading out the horses in eye-flashing silence, Roger helped her to

mount and swung himself into the saddle. He escorted her silently to

Aldermaston main street, raised his hat, and rode off up the Mortimer

road with a set face and angry eyes on the way back to Basingstoke.

He paused however at Tadley to give his father's cob--borrowed for the

day--a feed and a rest. His ride lay through one of the loveliest parts

of England in those days, before "Dora" had commandeered timber from the

woods--to find afterwards she did not want it--before farmers had

changed tiles or thatch on barns to corrugated iron, and chars-a-bancs,

motor cycles and side-cars with golden-haired flappers, school treats

and bean feasts had made the country-side noisy, dangerous and

paper-strewn.

Insensibly his mood softened as he rode. It was more than four years

since he had been home. Though he had spent all of his youth in this

country, save for school and military college, his eyes seemed never

before to have taken in the charm of English landscapes. Here was

England at its best in the early part of July: poppies blazing in the

green corn and whitish green oats, hay still lingering--grey on

green--in the fields, ox-eyed daisies fully out, wild roses still in

bloom in the hedge-rows, blue crane's bill, blue vetch, and purple-blue

campanulas in the copse borders. The plump and placid cows, with

swinging udders, so different from the gaunt African cattle with a

scarcely visible milk-supply, the splendid cart-horses, the sheep--neat

and tidy after shearing--the cock pheasants running across the

sun-and-shadow-flecked roads, the cawing rooks, and the cooing

woodpigeons, the geese and donkeys on the commons. Here and there, off

the main road, park gates of finely wrought iron with a trim

geranium-decked lodge and a vista of some charming avenue towards an

invisible great house; side turnings, half-overgrown with turf, leading

to villages quaintly entitled. Some of the details his eye and ear and

nose took in--such as the braying of barrel organs on the fringe of an

unseen fair, on a rather burnt and blackened gipsy-befouled common; or

the smell of pig-sties in a hamlet, or placards in big print pasted

round an ancient stump or on an old oak paling--it was irrational to

call beautiful. But together they made up England at its best, with old

churches packed with the history of England, the little towns so

prosperous, the straggling villages, beautiful if insanitary, the

signposts with their agreeable Anglo-Saxon and Norman names, so pleasing

to the eye after years of untracked wilderness; the postman trudging his

round in red-and-black, the gamekeeper in velveteen, the hearty

labourers in corduroy, blue-shirted, bare-armed and hairy chested. All

this was England. "Was there a jollier country in the world?" (There

was not, in 1886.)

And as to Sibyl.... How differently he saw her now, after four years!

As pretty as paint, though rather overheated after a short ride; but

_how_ artificial! What a delusion to suppose such a woman would have

cared for a rough life in Africa. Why she even spoke slightingly of

India, a country of romance far exceeding Africa. Indeed, he had only

turned to Africa and African problems because all the great careers to

be made in India were seemingly over.... There was nothing to be done

in India without powerful backing....

Backing? It was perhaps silly to have flouted the suggestion of Lord

Silchester's influence.... It was difficult unless you were related to

permanent officials or members of Parliament to get a Consular

commission in East Africa. Why not gradually--gradually of course--it

wouldn't do to forgive her too quickly--become reconciled to Sibyl's

marriage and pursue instead his second desire, a great African

career?...

So it was a comparatively happy Roger Brentham who cantered up the road

to the vicarage at Farleigh Wallop in the late afternoon of that day and

sat with his sister Maud in the arbour enjoying a sound English tea.

Maud, a pleasant-faced young woman of thirty, the only sister of three

stalwart brothers, one a soldier, another a sailor and the third

intending to be a barrister; housekeeper to her father, an absent-minded

archaeologist; could not be called pretty, because she was too much like

a young man of twenty-five with almost a young man's flat figure, but

she was in every way satisfactory as a sister. Her father was out on

some archaeological ramble and she was glad of it because she thought

Roger might have come to her with a heart to mend. No doubt he felt

heart-broken over Sibyl's defection. She looked at him inquiringly

while she poured out tea, but would not of course broach the subject.

"You've been out a long time with the cob. I hope you haven't

over-ridden him? Where did you go?"

"To Silchester and back; but I baited him at Tadley and gave him an

hour's rest in Basingstoke; and another hour at Silchester. I've jogged

along very quietly, looking up old haunts--and--and I've seen Sibyl

Grayburn. She told me all about her engagement."

"Sibyl? Then--you don't mind so much? I hardly knew how to break it to

you...."

"_Mind_? Oh, well, there _was_ a boy-and-girl engagement, a flirtation

between us before I went away, as you knew. But Africa drove all that

out of my mind. Besides, how can I marry on five hundred a year? I dare

say Sibyl has done well for herself, and she's getting on. Girls can't

afford to wait and look about them like a man can. By the bye, old

girl, why doesn't some one come along and marry _you_? I don't know a

better sort of wife than _you'd_ make...."

_Maud_: "Thank you, Roger, I'm sure you mean it. But I don't suppose I

shall ever marry. My line is to look after father for the rest of his

life, and then become everybody's aunt. I'm really his curate, you

know. And his clerk and his congregation, very often. Oh, I'm quite

happy; don't pity me; I couldn't have nicer brothers ... or perhaps a

nicer life. I love Farleigh----"

_Roger_ (not noticing, man-like, the tiny, tiny sigh that accompanied

this renunciation of marriage): "Jove! How jolly all this is: you're

right. If I wasn't a man I should think like you. What could one have

better than this?" And he looked away from the arbour and the prettily

furnished tea-table to the well-kept lawn with long shadows from the

herbaceous border. Beyond that the wooded slopes of Farleigh Down and

the distant meadows of the lowland, and then the sun-gilt roofs of

Basingstoke's northern suburb, and the distant trains, three, four, five

miles away with their trails of cotton-wool smoke indicating a busy

world beyond the quietude of the vicarage garden. He could see the

slight trace of a straight Roman road athwart the northern landscape,

Winchester to Silchester; the downs of Hannington and Sydmonton and the

far-off woods of Sherborne. When he was queer with sun-fever in

Somaliland he would sometimes be tantalized by this view, like a mirage,

instead of the brown-grey sun-scorched plains ringed by low ridges of

table-topped mountains and dotted with scrubby acacias, whitened by the

drought ... and would pull himself together, sit upright in the saddle

and wonder if he would ever see home again. And here he was.... Hang

Sibyl!...

So when Sibyl Grayburn married Lord Silchester at the end of that

July--because he was fifty-six and impatient to have some summer for his

honeymoon before returning to take up the burden--a well-padded one--of

office in the Conservative Government--Captain Roger Brentham was among

the guests, the relations of the bride. And his best leopard skin,

suitably mounted, was in Sibyl's boudoir at Englefield awaiting Lady

Silchester's return from the Tyrol.

* * * * *

And in the winter of 1886, Captain Brentham received from Lord Wiltshire

the offer of a Consulate on the Last Coast of Africa and accepted it.

It was provisionally styled the Consulate for the Mainland of Zangia

where the Germans were already beginning to take up the administration,

but Brentham was instructed to reside at first at Unguja, the island

immediately opposite the temporary German capital. The British

Consul-General for the whole of Zangia had been recalled because of

heated relations with Germany. Pending his return Captain Brentham was

to act as Consul-General without, however, taking too much on himself,

as Mr. Bennet Molyneux of the African Department rather acidly told him.

Molyneux, at the Foreign Office, was not at all pleased at Brentham's

appointment: one of those things that Lord Wiltshire was wont to do

without consulting the permanent officials. Molyneux had not long been

in the new African Department (hitherto disparagingly connected with the

Slave Trade section); and as Africa had barely entered world-politics,

British Ministers of State showed themselves usually indifferent as to

how the necessary appointments were filled up, adopting generally names

suggested by Molyneux, so that he was accustomed to nominating his poor

relations--he had a reserve of wastrel nephews and cousins--or the

friends of his friends--such as Spencer Bazzard (q.v., as they say in

Encyclopaedias). If they were "rotters," the climate generally killed

them off in a few months; if they made good, they established in time a

claim on the Foreign Office regard and got transferred to Consular posts

in South America, the Mediterranean, and Western Europe.

But Lord Wiltshire was not always asleep or uninformed, as he sometimes

appeared to be. So his Private Secretary countered Bennet Molyneux's

querulous Memo on Captain Brentham's lack of qualification for such a

responsible East African post by reminding him that the gentleman in

question was well versed in Arabic through having accompanied a

Political Mission to the Persian Gulf, that he had served in Aden and

Somaliland and had conducted an expedition to the Snow Mountains of East

Africa for the Intelligence Division, had contributed papers to the

Royal Geographical Society, was a silver medallist of the Zoological

Society, and was personally vouched for by a colleague of Lord

Wiltshire's: all of which information for the African Department was

summed up by the Private Secretary to Molyneux in a few words: "See

here, Molly; take this and look pleasant. You can't have all the

African appointments in your gift. You must leave a few to the Old Man.

He generally knows what he's about." So Molyneux asked Brentham to dine

with him and apparently made the best of a bad job ... as he said with a

grin to his colleague, Sir Mulberry Hawk.

*CHAPTER IV*

*LUCY HESITATES*

When the school holidays supervened, Lucy spent her vacation quietly at

Aldermaston working at her African outfit--material and mental--in a

desultory way. She supposed she would have to leave in the following

April to join her betrothed. April seemed a long while ahead. She had

not even given notice to the school managers yet of her intention to

give up teaching. It would not be necessary to do so or to brace her

mind for the agony of separation from her home until John had announced

that all was in readiness and she had received the formal intimation of

his Missionary Society that they approved of her going out to join him

and would make the necessary arrangements for a steamer passage.

Meantime she gave herself up to the delight of reading such books about

African exploration or mission life in Africa as she could obtain from

the Reading libraries. They served to strengthen her determination to

keep faith with John; while other ties and loves were pulling the other

way. She had in her veins that imaginational longing to see strange

lands and travel which is such an English trait; yet this longing

alternated with fits of absolute horror at her foolishness in having

consented to such an engagement. Why could she not have recognized when

she was well off? Could any one in her station of life have a more

delightful home?

The farmstead stood on a slope about a hundred feet above the Kennet

Valley. The river was a mile away, though little subsidiary brooks and

channels permeated the meadows in between, and in spring, summer and

autumn produced miracles of loveliness in flower shows: purple

loosestrife, magenta-coloured willow herb, mauve-tinted valerian,

cream-coloured meadow-sweet, yellow flags, golden king-cups, yellow and

white water-lilies, water-crowsfoot and flowering rush. Lucy was an

unexpressed, undeveloped artist, with an exceptional appreciation (for a

country girl) of the beauty in colour and form of flowers and herbage of

the velvety, blue-green, black-green cedars which rose above the wall of

the Park and overshadowed the churchyard, of the superb elms, oaks,

horse-chestnuts, ashes and hawthorns studding the grassy slopes between

the house and the water meadows. She loved the rich crimson colour of

the high old brick walls of the Park and the same tint in the farm

buildings, varied with scarlet and orange and the lemon and grey of

lichen and weather-stain. The old farm-house in which she had been born

and had passed all her twenty-four years of placid life, save when she

was at boarding-school, seemed to her just perfect in its picturesque

ancientry and its stored smells of preserved good things to eat and

drink. Their garden was carelessly ordered, but from March to October

had a wealth of flowers, the spicy odours of box borders, the pungent

scent of briar and honeysuckle.

She did take much interest in the details of farming--a trifle of

self-conceit made her think herself superior in her bookishness and

feeble water-colour painting to her younger sisters, who were already

experts in poultry-tending, butter-making, and bread-baking. But she

accepted as a matter of course the delicious results (as we should think

them now) of living at a well-furnished, well-managed farm: the milk and

cream, the fresh butter and new-laid eggs, the home-cured bacon, the

occasional roast duck and chicken; the smell of the new-mown hay, the

sight of ripe wheat or wheat neatly grouped in its golden sheaves in

chessboard pattern; the September charms of the glinting stubble with

its whirring coveys of partridges, its revived flower shows--scarlet and

blue, bright yellow, dead white, lavender, russet, and mauve; the

walnuts in the autumn from their own trees; the Spanish chestnuts from

the Park; impromptu Christmas dances in the big barn; an occasional

visit to a theatre or a magic-lantern-illustrated lecture in Reading.

On one such occasion she saw for the first time Captain Roger Brentham,

the explorer, who whilst staying with Lord and Lady Silchester gave a

lecture on his recent travels and some wonderful snow mountain he had

visited in East Africa.... Why should she seek to leave such

surroundings? She could read and hear about all that was most

interesting in the world without leaving her parents and her home. Yet,

to disappoint poor John, who counted on her coming out to share his

work--and if she threw him over she might never get another offer of

marriage and grow stout and florid like Bessie Rayner, ten years older

than she was, up at the Grange farm....

But _was_ marriage after all, with its children and illnesses and house

drudgery, so _very_ attractive to a dreamer? Might she not be happier

if she passed all the rest of her life at Aldermaston, saving up her

salary as a school-mistress against old age and a possible leaving of

the farm if--ever so far ahead--dear father died? She had often

thought, with a little encouragement she might _write_ ... write

stories! ... and she thrilled at the idea. But then, what experience

had she of the world--the great world beyond southern Berkshire--which

she could set down on paper?

So far, no one had proposed to her--even John had hardly asked her

definitely to marry him. He had always taken it for granted, since he

was eighteen, that she would, and from that age herself she had tacitly

accepted the position of his fiancee. Why had she acquiesced? There

was a weakness of fibre about her and John's stronger will had impressed

itself on her smiling compliance. Her mother had rather pursed her lips

at the alliance, having her doubts as to John being good enough, and

John's mother being even bearable as a mother-in-law. This faint

opposition had made Lucy determined to persevere with the engagement.

She had a distaste for a farmer type of husband; it seemed too earthy.

And she wanted to travel. A missionary ought to make a refined spouse

and be able to show her the strange places of the earth.

There were sides of John's character she did not like. She was not

naturally pious. The easy-going Church of England and its decorous

faith were good enough for her; she loved this world--the world of the

Kennet Valley with genial, worldly Reading on one side and

not-too-disreputable, racing Newbury on the other--too well to care

overmuch for the Heavenly Home in which John was staking out claims; if

she had known the word she would have called John priggish; instead, she

said "sanctimonious." Yet withal she was conscious of a certain

manliness, a determined purpose about him....

Perhaps, however, in the summer months and the rich contentment of

September the balance of her inclination might have been tilted against

him, she might have nerved herself to writing that cruel letter which

should say she shrank from joining him in Africa; were it not that he

wrote faithfully from each stopping place, each crisis on his journey.

His letters--closely written in a facile running hand on thin foreign

paper--were stuffed with conventionally pious phrases, they contained

diatribes on his ungodly fellow-passengers who broke the Sabbath (with

an added zest from his remonstrances), played cards for money, told

shocking stories in the smoking-room, and conducted themselves on shore

in a manner which he could not describe. But then he gave very good

descriptions of Algiers, of Port Said, Suez and Aden, and made her wish

to see these places with her own eyes, smell their strange smells, and

eat their strange viands. His letter from Unguja announcing his arrival

there in August finally decided Lucy to throw in her lot with John.

There was also the further incentive that African adventure--missionary

and political--was again becoming fashionable and attracting attention.

Stanley was starting to find Emin Pasha; others had embarked or

threatened to embark on the same quest. More and more missionaries were

going out. It was rumoured that Ann Jamblin had announced her intention

to take up a missionary career. Lucy wrote a little anxiously to

inquire. Ann admitted she had toyed with the idea as she believed

herself capable of teaching and even of preaching to the savage. But if

she did go it would probably be to West Africa where the climate was

even more deadly than in the South and East, and such a sacrifice might

be more acceptable before the Heavenly Throne than the comfortable and

assured position of a missionary's wife, not expected to do more than

make a home for her husband.

John's first Unguja letter said that Thomas, Bayley, Anderson and

himself had been very kindly received there by the Commercial Agent to

the East African Mission--commercial because from the first it had been

decided that a reasonable degree of trade should go hand in hand with

fervent propaganda and Brotherhood work. The Mission must strive to

make itself self-supporting in the long run as it had no rich church

behind it. So there were to be lay agents who traded in the products of

the country and whose stores would prove an additional attraction to the

native visitor and inquirer. The Agent at their Unguja depot--Mr.

Callaway--had been a trader on the West Coast of Africa, agent there to

a great distilling firm; who had become so shocked at the effects of

cheap intoxicants on the native mind and morals that he had thrown up

his employ and enlisted under the banner of a Trading Mission, pledged

not to deal in alcohol or gunpowder. Mr. Callaway had "got religion" and

"found Christ" (in Liverpool), but in spite of that--the naive John

wrote thus unthinkingly--was a very pleasant fellow who had soon picked

up the native language and got on good terms with the Arabs of Unguja.

The latter fully approved of his teetotalism--avoidance of alcohol being

one of the few good points in their religion. John described with

unction the prayer meetings and services they held in Mr. Callaway's

sheds and go-downs on the shore of Unguja's port; though he had to admit

that his fervour had been a little modified by the rancid smell of the

copra[#] stored in these quarters and the appalling stench that arose

from the filth on the beach. But there was plenty of good Christian

fellowship at Unguja. The representatives of the great Anglican Mission

established there--with a Cathedral and a Bishop and a thoroughly popish

style of service--had shown themselves unexpectedly good fellows. One

of them, Archdeacon Gravening, had presented the four young recruits for

the East African Mission to the Arab sultan, and they had seen him

review his Baluchi and Persian troops at the head of whom was an English

ex-naval officer. Even the Fathers of the French Roman Catholic

settlement had a certain elemental Christianity he had never thought to

find in the followers of the Scarlet Woman....

[#] Dried coco-nut pulp.

The great British Balozi or Consul-General who had been the

unacknowledged ruler of Unguja had just left for home ... rumour said

because he could not get on with the aggressive Germans, who were

obtaining a hold over the country. They had paid their respects instead

to British authority in the person of a very uppish and sneering

Vice-Consul--Mr. Spencer Bazzard ... who had great doubts of the value

of Christianity so far as the negro was concerned. Mr. Bazzard, however,

was dead against the Germans and wanted as many British subjects as

possible to enter the interior behind the German coast so as to "queer

their pitch," if they attempted to put their "rotten protectorate," in

force.

Unguja, John wrote, was a wonderfully interesting island, despite its

horrible smells, its heat and mosquitoes, which never left you alone,

day or night. Such a mixture of Arabs and Persians, Indian traders,

fierce, long-haired Baluchis, plausible Goanese half-castes, Madagascar

people, Japanese and Chinese, and negroes from all parts of Africa....

He had already had a touch of fever and Bayley had broken out in boils;

Anderson had suffered from diarrhoea; but all three were overjoyed at

the prospect of leaving, soon after this letter was posted, in an Arab

"dhow" which would convey them and the porters of their expedition to

Lingani on the mainland, whence they would start on a two weeks' journey

up-country. They were taking with them Snider rifles and ammunition to

defend their caravan against wild beasts on the road and also to shoot

game for the caravan's meat supply. At Mr. Callaway's advice they had

been practising with these rifles at the shooting butts of the Sultan's

army for the past week.... Thomas had been told off for Taita....

Then ensued a long silence and Lucy, now thoroughly interested, was

getting anxious. But in January came a letter of many pages headed

"Hangodi, Ulunga, November, 1886." John wrote that he and his

companions had encountered many difficulties. On the fortnight's march

inland from Lingani their porters had several times run away in alarm,

hearing that a bloodthirsty tribe called "Wahumba" were on the march, or

that there was famine ahead. The German traders on the coast had not

been friendly, and the attitude of the Arab chiefs in the coast-belt was

surly. However, one of these Arabs, Ali bin Ferhani, was a kindlier man

than the others and had told off some of his slaves (John feared they

were, but what could you do?) to carry their loads to the Ulunga

country. They also had with them a Christian convert, a native of

Ulunga and a released slave (Josiah Briggs) who could speak English to

some extent and was very useful as an interpreter and head man....

Well, they had reached Hangodi at last and liked its surroundings. There

were mountains--quite high ones--all round. Hangodi, itself, was over

three thousand feet above sea level and quite cool at nights. Indeed

John now regretted he had spurned the idea of mantel-borders, for they

had fireplaces in the dwelling-houses, both those already built and

those they were planning. A fire at night, in fact, was often welcome

and cheerful. The Chief approved of the settlement, wanted them to teach

his people, and keep off the "Wa-dachi," as he called the Germans, whom

he did not seem to like. But the Chief's people, the Wa-lunga, were

suspicious and quarrelsome, and as he could not speak their language and

had to explain the Gospel through an interpreter, they paid him little

attention. The elders of the tribe liked to come and talk with him in

his verandah, that is to say, _they_ did the talking--punctuated by a

good deal of snuff-taking and spitting; and he gleaned what he could of

its sense from the summaries given to him by Josiah Briggs. It seemed

to consist of many questions as to how the white men became so rich and

why he could not teach this method to their young people. If he tried

to expound Sacred things to them they asked in return for a cough

medicine or to be shown how to make gunpowder and caps, and how to cure

a sick cow. Yet he felt sure their minds would be pierced ere long by a

gleam of Gospel light....

There were also some Muhammadan traders from the Coast settled for a

time with the Chief, who, he strongly suspected, was selling them

slaves, war-captives. Though the Chief seemed willing to listen to their

story of the Redeemer, he nevertheless sent out his "young men," his

warriors, on raiding expeditions against the tribes to the south, and

they sometimes returned from such forays with cattle, with men cruelly

tied with bush-rope and their necks fastened to heavy forked sticks, and

with weeping young women whom they took as wives.... The Wangwana, as

these black "Arabs" were called, were very hostile to his mission--more

so sometimes than the real Arabs. Occasionally he had met a

white-skinned Arab who reminded him most strongly of the Bible

patriarchs, and who seemed very desirous of being on friendly terms with

the white man. But these black Arabs who spoke Swahili, the language of

Unguja, though they affected outward politeness, were working hard

against the good influence of the East African Mission and trying to

persuade the Chief to reconsider his first grant of land and expel the

white people who were spies in the service of the great Balozi and the

English men-of-war, watching to intercept slave dhows....

The children of the Wa-lunga were frightened of him and his two

companions and could not be induced, even by gifts of beads, to sit on

their knees. But their mothers, on the other hand, worried the white

men incessantly for beads and calico, soap and salt, which last they ate

as though it was a sweetmeat. Yet they ran away when he sent for the

interpreter and tried to tell them about God. One woman had shouted

back at him that it was very wicked to talk about God; it would only

draw down the lightning ... much better leave God alone and then He left

you alone--this at least was how Josiah had translated her speech.

He could not see any idols about the place. He fancied the people

worshipped the spirits of the departed, which they believed to dwell in

large hollow trees. They were also terribly afraid of witch-craft....

Hangodi was, however, rather a pretty district, and Lucy would be

pleased with the site the Mission had chosen. Bayley, who had some

knowledge of surveying, made out its altitude above sea-level to be

3,500 feet, more or less. There was a clear stream of water running

through a gorge below the Mission enclosure--for they had constructed a

rough hedge. A few wild date palms might be seen in the stream valley

and there were plenty of pretty ferns and wild flowers.

As to lions; they could be heard roaring every night in the open

country, but hitherto he had not actually seen one. Then with a few

devout phrases and others expressive of his longing for her to join him

the letter came to a conclusion.

During all this time Lucy saw little of the Baines family. But a few

days after she had read this letter from Hangodi, Mr. Baines called on

Lucy at the school--it was at the beginning of February--and put into

her hands a copy of _Light to Them that Sit in Darkness_. "There's a

letter in here of John's which they've printed," said Mr. Baines with

considerable exultation, "and mother thought you might like to read it.

Mind you return the magazine to her when you've done so. Good-bye.

S'pose you are starting in a couple of months?"

Lucy found a column scored at the side with pencil, where the following

matter appeared: