IN the matter of general culture and attainments, we youngsters stood on pretty level ground. True, it was always
happening that one of us would be singled out at any moment, freakishly, and without regard to his own preferences, to
wrestle with the inflections of some idiotic language long rightly dead; while another, from some fancied artistic
tendency which always failed to justify itself, might be told off without warning to hammer out scales and exercises,
and to bedew the senseless keys with tears of weariness or of revolt. But in subjects common to either sex, and held to
be
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necessary even for him whose ambition soared no higher than to crack a whip in a circus-ring -- in geography, for
instance, arithmetic, or the weary doings of kings and queens -- each would have scorned to excel. And, indeed,
whatever our individual gifts, a general dogged determination to shirk and to evade kept us all at much the same dead
level, -- a level of ignorance tempered by insubordination.
Fortunately there existed a wide range of subjects, of healthier tone than those already enumerated, in which we
were free to choose for ourselves, and which we would have scorned to consider education; and in these we freely
followed each his own particular line, often attaining an amount of special knowledge which struck our ignorant elders
as simply uncanny.
For Edward, the uniforms, accoutrements, colours, and mottoes of the regiments composing the British Army
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had a special glamour. In the matter of facings he was simply faultless; among chevrons, badges, medals, and stars, he
moved familiarly; he even knew the names of most of the colonels in command; and he would squander sunny hours prone on
the lawn, heedless of challenge from bird or beast, poring over a tattered Army List. My own accomplishment was of
another character -- took, as it seemed to me, a wider and a more untrammelled range. Dragoons might have swaggered in
Lincoln green, riflemen might have donned sporrans over tartan trews, without exciting notice or comment from me. But
did you seek precise information as to the fauna of the American continent, then you had come to the right shop. Where
and why the bison "wallowed"; how beaver were to be trapped and wild turkeys stalked; the grizzly and how to handle
him, and the
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pretty pressing ways of the constrictor, -- in fine, the haunts and the habits of all that burrowed, strutted, roared,
or wriggled between the Atlantic and the Pacific, -- all this knowledge I took for my province. By the others my
equipment was fully recognized. Supposing a book with a bear-hunt in it made its way into the house, and the atmosphere
was electric with excitement; still, it was necessary that I should first decide whether the slot had been properly
described and properly followed up, ere the work could be stamped with full approval. A writer might have won fame
throughout the civilized globe for his trappers and his realistic backwoods, and all went for nothing. If his pemmican
were not properly compounded I damned his achievement, and it was heard no more of.
Harold was hardly old enough to possess a special subject of his own. He had
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his instincts, indeed, and at bird's-nesting they almost amounted to prophecy. Where we others only suspected eggs,
surmised possible eggs, hinted doubtfully at eggs in the neighbourhood, Harold went straight for the right bush, bough,
or hole as if he carried a divining-rod. But this faculty belonged to the class of mere gifts, and was not to be ranked
with Edward's lore regarding facings, and mine as to the habits of prairie-dogs, both gained by painful study and
extensive travel in those "realms of gold," the Army List and Ballantyne.
Selina's subject, quite unaccountably, happened to be naval history. There is no laying down rules as to subjects;
you just possess them -- or rather, they possess you -- and their genesis or protoplasm is rarely to be tracked down.
Selina had never so much as seen the sea; but for that matter neither had I
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ever set foot on the American continent, the by-ways of which I knew so intimately. And just as I, if set down without
warning in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, would have been perfectly at home, so Selina, if a genie had dropped her
suddenly on Portsmouth Hard, could have given points to most of its frequenters. From the days of Blake down to the
death of Nelson (she never condescended further) Selina had taken spiritual part in every notable engagement of the
British Navy; and even in the dark days when she had to pick up skirts and flee, chased by an ungallant De Ruyter or
Van Tromp, she was yet cheerful in the consciousness that ere long she would be gleefully hammering the fleets of the
world, in the glorious times to follow. When that golden period arrived, Selina was busy indeed; and, while loving best
to stand where the splinters were flying the thickest.
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she was also a careful and critical student of seamanship and of manoeuvre. She knew the order in which the great
line-of-battle ships moved into action, the vessels they respectively engaged, the moment when each let go its anchor,
and which of them had a spring on its cable (while not understanding the phrase, she carefully noted the fact); and she
habitually went into an engagement on the quarter-deck of the gallant ship that reserved its fire the longest.
At the time of Selina's weird seizure I was unfortunately away from home, on a loathsome visit to an aunt; and my
account is therefore feebly compounded from hearsay. It was an absence I never ceased to regret -- scoring it up, with
a sense of injury, against the aunt. There was a splendid uselessness about the whole performance that specially
appealed to my artistic sense. That it should have
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been Selina, too, who should break out this way -- Selina, who had just become a regular subscriber to the "Young
Ladies' Journal," and who allowed herself to be taken out to strange teas with an air of resignation palpably assumed
-- this was a special joy, and served to remind me that much of this dreaded convention that was creeping over us might
be, after all, only veneer. Edward also was absent, getting licked into shape at school; but to him the loss was
nothing. With his stern practical bent he wouldn't have seen any sense in it -- to recall one of his favourite
expressions. To Harold, however, for whom the gods had always cherished a special tenderness, it was granted, not only
to witness, but also, priestlike, to feed the sacred fire itself. And if at the time he paid the penalty exacted by the
sordid unimaginative ones who temporarily rule the roast, he must ever after, one feels
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sure, have carried inside him some of the white gladness of the acolyte who, greatly privileged, has been permitted to
swing a censer at the sacring of the very Mass.
October was mellowing fast, and with it the year itself; full of tender hints, in woodland and hedgerow, of a course
well-nigh completed. From all sides that still afternoon you caught the quick breathing and sob of the runner nearing
the goal. Preoccupied and possessed, Selina had strayed down the garden and out into the pasture beyond, where, on a
bit of rising ground that dominated the garden on one side and the downs with the old coach-road on the other, she had
cast herself down to chew the cud of fancy. There she was presently joined by Harold, breathless and very full of his
latest grievance.
"I asked him not to," he burst out. "I said if he'd only please wait a bit and Edward would be back soon, and it
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couldn't matter to him, and the pig wouldn't mind, and Edward'd be pleased and everybody'd be happy. But he just said
he was very sorry, but bacon didn't wait for nobody. So I told him he was a regular beast, and then I came away. And --
and I b'lieve they're doing it now!"
"Yes, he's a beast," agreed Selina, absently. She had forgotten all about the pig-killing. Harold kicked away a
freshly thrown-up mole-hill, and prodded down the hole with a stick. From the direction of Farmer Larkin's demesne came
a long-drawn note of sorrow, a thin cry and appeal, telling that the stout soul of a black Berkshire pig was already
faring down the stony track to Hades.
"D'you know what day it is?" said Selina presently, in a low voice, looking far away before her.
Harold did not appear to know, nor yet
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to care. He had laid open his mole-run for a yard or so, and was still grubbing at it absorbedly.
"It's Trafalgar Day," went on Selina, trancedly; "Trafalgar Day -- and nobody cares!"
Something in her tone told Harold that he was not behaving quite becomingly. He didn't exactly know in what manner;
still, he abandoned his mole-hunt for a more courteous attitude of attention.
"Over there," resumed Selina -- she was gazing out in the direction of the old highroad -- "over there the coaches
used to go by. Uncle Thomas was telling me about it the other day. And the people used to watch for 'em coming, to tell
the time by, and p'r'aps to get their parcels. And one morning -- they wouldn't be expecting anything different -- one
morning, first there would be a cloud of dust, as usual, and then the coach would come
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racing by, and then they would know! For the coach would be dressed in laurel, all laurel from stem to stern! And the
coachman would be wearing laurel, and the guard would be wearing laurel; and then they would know, then they would
know!"
Harold listened in respectful silence. He would much rather have been hunting the mole, who must have been a mile
away by this time if he had his wits about him. But he had all the natural instincts of a gentleman; of whom it is one
of the principal marks, if not the complete definition, never to show signs of being bored.
Selina rose to her feet, and paced the turf restlessly with a short quarter-deck walk.
"Why can't we do something?" she burst out presently. "He -- he did everything -- why can't we do anything for him?"
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"Who did everything?" inquired Harold, meekly. It was useless wasting further longings on that mole. Like the dead,
he travelled fast.
"Why, Nelson, of course," said Selina, shortly, still looking restlessly around for help or suggestion.
"But he's -- he's dead, isn't he?" asked Harold, slightly puzzled.
"What's that got to do with it?" retorted his sister, resuming her caged-lion promenade.
Harold was somewhat taken aback. In the case of the pig, for instance, whose last outcry had now passed into
stillness, he had considered the chapter as finally closed. Whatever innocent mirth the holidays might hold in store
for Edward, that particular pig, at least, would not be a contributor. And now he was given to understand that the
situation had not materially changed! He would have to
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revise his ideas, it seemed. Sitting up on end, he looked towards the garden for assistance in the task. Thence, even
as he gazed, a tiny column of smoke rose straight up into the still air. The gardener had been sweeping that afternoon,
and now, an unconscious priest, was offering his sacrifice of autumn leaves to the calm-eyed goddess of changing hues
and chill forebodings who was moving slowly about the land that golden afternoon. Harold was up and off in a moment,
forgetting Nelson, forgetting the pig, the mole, the Larkin betrayal, and Selina's strange fever of conscience. Here
was fire, real fire, to play with, and that was even better than messing with water, or remodelling the plastic surface
of the earth. Of all the toys the world provides for right-minded persons, the original elements rank easily the first.
But Selina sat on where she was, her
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chin on her fists; and her fancies whirled and drifted, here and there, in curls and eddies, along with the smoke she
was watching. As the quick-footed dusk of the short October day stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of
fire might be seen to leap and vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering under armfuls of leaves, anon stoking
vigorously, was discernible only at fitful intervals. It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye of Selina was
looking upon, -- a smoke that hung in sullen banks round the masts and the hulls of the fighting ships; a smoke from
beneath which came thunder and the crash and the splinter-rip, the shout of the boarding party, the choking sob of the
gunner stretched by his gun; a smoke from out of which at last she saw, as through a riven pall, the radiant spirit of
the Victor, crowned with the coronal of a perfect
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death, leap in full assurance up into the ether that Immortals breathe. The dusk was glooming towards darkness when she
rose and moved slowly down towards the beckoning fire; something of the priestess in her stride, something of the
devotee in the set purpose of her eye.
The leaves were well alight by this time, and Harold had just added an old furze bush, which flamed and crackled
stirringly.
"Go 'n' get some more sticks," ordered Selina, "and shavings, 'n' chunks of wood, 'n' anything you can find. Look
here -- in the kitchen-garden there's a pile of old pea-sticks. Fetch as many as you can carry, and then go back and
bring some more!"
"But I say, -- " began Harold, amazedly, scarce knowing his sister, and with a vision of a frenzied gardener,
pea-stickless and threatening retribution.
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"Go and fetch 'em quick! " shouted Selina, stamping with impatience.
Harold ran off at once, true to the stern system of discipline in which he had been nurtured. But his eyes were like
round O's, and as he ran he talked fast to himself, in evident disorder of mind.
The pea-sticks made a rare blaze, and the fire, no longer smouldering sullenly, leapt up and began to assume the
appearance of a genuine bonfire. Harold, awed into silence at first, began to jump round it with shouts of triumph.
Selina looked on grimly, with knitted brow; she was not yet fully satisfied. "Can't you get any more sticks?" she said
presently. "Go and hunt about. Get some old hampers and matting and things out of the tool-house. Smash up that old
cucumber frame Edward shoved you into, the day we were playing scouts and Mohicans. Stop a
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bit! Hooray! I know. You come along with me."
Hard by there was a hot-house, Aunt Eliza's special pride and joy, and even grimly approved of by the gardener. At
one end, in an out-house adjoining, the necessary firing was stored; and to this sacred fuel, of which we were strictly
forbidden to touch a stick, Selina went straight. Harold followed obediently, prepared for any crime after that of the
pea-sticks, but pinching himself to see if he were really awake.
"You bring some coals," said Selina briefly, without any palaver or pro-and-con discussion. "Here's a basket. I'll
manage the faggots!"
In a very few minutes there was little doubt about its being a genuine bonfire and no paltry makeshift. Selina, a
Mænad now, hatless and tossing disordered locks, all the dross of the young lady purged
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out of her, stalked around the pyre of her own purloining, or prodded it with a pea-stick. And as she prodded she
murmured at intervals, "I knew there was something we could do! It isn't much -- but still it's something!"
The gardener had gone home to his tea. Aunt Eliza had driven out for hers a long way off, and was not expected back
till quite late; and this far end of the garden was not overlooked by any windows. So the Tribute blazed on merrily
unchecked. Villagers far away, catching sight of the flare, muttered something about "them young devils at their tricks
again," and trudged on beer-wards. Never a thought of what day it was, never a thought for Nelson, who preserved their
honest pint-pots, to be paid for in honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimal coinage. Nearer at hand,
frightened rabbits popped up and vanished with a flick of
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white tails; scared birds fluttered among the branches, or sped across the glade to quieter sleeping-quarters; but
never a bird nor a beast gave a thought to the hero to whom they owed it that each year their little homes of
horsehair, wool, or moss, were safe stablished 'neath the flap of the British flag; and that Game Laws, quietly
permanent, made la chasse a terror only to their betters. No one seemed to know, nor to care, nor to sympathise. In all
the ecstasy of her burnt-offering and sacrifice, Selina stood alone.
And yet -- not quite alone! For, as the fire was roaring at its best, certain stars stepped delicately forth on the
surface of the immensity above, and peered down doubtfully -- with wonder at first, then with interest, then with
recognition, with a start of glad surprise. They at least knew all about it, they understood. Among them the Name was a
daily
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familiar word; his story was a part of the music to which they swung, himself was their fellow and their mate and
comrade. So they peeped, and winked, and peeped again, and called to their laggard brothers to come quick and see.
. . . . . . .
"The best of life is but intoxication;" and Selina, who during her brief inebriation had lived in an ecstasy as
golden as our drab existence affords, had to experience the inevitable bitterness of awakening sobriety, when the dying
down of the flames into sullen embers coincided with the frenzied entrance of Aunt Eliza on the scene. It was not so
much that she was at once and forever disrated, broke, sent before the mast, and branded as one on whom no reliance
could be placed, even with Edward safe at school, and myself under the distant vigilance of an aunt; that her pocket
money was stopped
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indefinitely, and her new Church Service, the pride of her last birthday, removed from her own custody and placed under
the control of a Trust. She sorrowed rather because she had dragged poor Harold, against his better judgment, into a
most horrible scrape, and moreover because, when the reaction had fairly set in, when the exaltation had fizzled away
and the young-lady portion of her had crept timorously back to its wonted lodging, she could only see herself as a
plain fool, unjustified, undeniable, without a shadow of an excuse or explanation.
As for Harold, youth and a short memory made his case less pitiful than it seemed to his more sensitive sister.
True, he started upstairs to his lonely cot bellowing dismally, before him a dreary future of pains and penalties,
sufficient to last to the crack of doom. Outside his door, however, he tumbled over Augustus
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the cat, and made capture of him; and at once his mourning was changed into a song of triumph, as he conveyed his prize
into port. For Augustus, who detested above all things going to bed with little boys, was ever more knave than fool, and
the trapper who was wily enough to ensnare him had achieved something notable. Augustus, when he realized that his fate
was sealed, and his night's lodging settled, wisely made the best of things, and listened, with a languorous air of
complete comprehension, to the incoherent babble concerning pigs and heroes, moles and bonfires, which served Harold
for a self-sung lullaby. Yet it may be doubted whether Augustus was one of those rare fellows who thoroughly
understood.
But Selina knew no more of this source of consolation than of the sympathy with which the stars were winking above
her; and it was only after some sad interval of
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time, and on a very moist pillow, that she drifted into that quaint inconsequent country where you may meet your own
pet hero strolling down the road, and commit what hair-brained oddities you like, and everybody understands and
appreciates.
Note: Pages 27-28 are blank.
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THOSE memorable days that move in procession, their heads just out of the mist of years long dead -- the most of them
are full-eyed as the dandelion that from dawn to shade has steeped itself in sunlight. Here and there in their ranks,
however, moves a forlorn one who is blind -- blind in the sense of the dulled window-pane on which the pelting
raindrops have mingled and run down, obscuring sunshine and the circling birds, happy fields, and storied garden; blind
with the spatter of a misery uncomprehended, unanalysed, only felt as something corporeal in its buffeting effects.
Martha began it; and yet Martha was not really to blame. Indeed, that was
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half the trouble of it -- no solid person stood full in view, to be blamed and to make atonement. There was only a
wretched, impalpable condition to deal with. Breakfast was just over; the sun was summoning us, imperious as a herald
with clamour of trumpet; I ran upstairs to her with a broken bootlace in my hand, and there she was, crying in a
corner, her head in her apron. Nothing could be got from her but the same dismal succession of sobs that would not have
done, that struck and hurt like a physical beating; and meanwhile the sun was getting impatient, and I wanted my
bootlace.
Inquiry below stairs revealed the cause. Martha's brother was dead, it seemed -- her sailor brother Billy; drowned
in one of those strange far-off seas it was our dream to navigate one day. We had known Billy well, and appreciated
him. When an approaching visit of Billy to
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his sister had been announced, we had counted the days to it. When his cheery voice was at last heard in the kitchen
and we had descended with shouts, first of all he had to exhibit his tattooed arms, always a subject for fresh delight
and envy and awe; then he was called upon for tricks, jugglings, and strange, fearful gymnastics; and lastly came
yarns, and more yarns, and yarns till bedtime. There had never been any one like Billy in his own particular sphere;
and now he was drowned, they said, and Martha was miserable, and -- and I couldn't get a new bootlace. They told me
that Billy would never come back any more, and I stared out of the window at the sun which came back, right enough,
every day, and their news conveyed nothing whatever to me. Martha's sorrow hit home a little, but only because the
actual sight and sound of it gave me a dull, bad sort of pain low down
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inside -- a pain not to be actually located. Moreover, I was still wanting my bootlace.
This was a poor sort of a beginning to a day that, so far as outside conditions went, had promised so well. I rigged
up a sort of jurymast of a bootlace with a bit of old string, and wandered off to look up the girls, conscious of a jar
and a discordance in the scheme of things. The moment I entered the schoolroom something in the air seemed to tell me
that here, too, matters were strained and awry. Selina was staring listlessly out of the window, one foot curled round
her leg. When I spoke to her she jerked a shoulder testily, but did not condescend to the civility of a reply.
Charlotte, absolutely unoccupied, sprawled in a chair, and there were signs of sniffles about her, even at that early
hour. It was but a trifling matter that had caused all this electricity in the atmosphere, and
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the girls' manner of taking it seemed to me most unreasonable. Within the last few days the time had come round for the
despatch of a hamper to Edward at school. Only one hamper a term was permitted him, so its preparation was a sort of
blend of revelry and religious ceremony. After the main corpus of the thing had been carefully selected and safely
bestowed -- the pots of jam, the cake, the sausages, and the apples that filled up corners so nicely -- after the last
package had been wedged in, the girls had deposited their own private and personal offerings on the top. I forget their
precise nature; anyhow, they were nothing of any particular practical use to a boy. But they had involved some
contrivance and labour, some skimping of pocket money, and much delightful cloud-building as to the effect on their
enraptured recipient. Well, yesterday
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there had come a terse acknowledgment from Edward, heartily commending the cakes and the jam, stamping the sausages
with the seal of Smith major's approval, and finally hinting that, fortified as he now was, nothing more was necessary
but a remittance of five shillings in postage stamps to enable him to face the world armed against every buffet of
fate. That was all. Never a word or a hint of the personal tributes or of his appreciation of them. To us -- to Harold
and me, that is -- the letter seemed natural and sensible enough. After all, provender was the main thing, and five
shillings stood for a complete equipment against the most unexpected turns of luck. The presents were very well in
their way -- very nice, and so on -- but life was a serious matter, and the contest called for cakes and half crowns to
carry it on, not gew-gaws and
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knitted mittens and the like. The girls, however, in their obstinate way, persisted in taking their own view of the
slight. Hence it was that I received my second rebuff of the morning.
Somewhat disheartened, I made my way downstairs and out into the sunlight, where I found Harold playing conspirators
by himself on the gravel. He had dug a small hole in the walk and had laid an imaginary train of powder thereto; and, as
he sought refuge in the laurels from the inevitable explosion, I heard him murmur: "`My God!' said the Czar, `my plans
are frustrated!'" It seemed an excellent occasion for being a black puma. Harold liked black pumas, on the whole, as
well as any animal we were familiar with. So I launched myself on him, with the appropriate howl, rolling him over on
the gravel.
Life may be said to be composed of
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things that come off and things that don't come off. This thing, unfortunately, was one of the things that didn't come
off. From beneath me I heard a shrill cry of, "Oh, it's my sore knee!" And Harold wriggled himself free from the puma's
clutches, bellowing dismally. Now, I honestly didn't know he had a sore knee, and, what's more, he knew I didn't know he
had a sore knee. According to boy ethics, therefore, his attitude was wrong, sore knee or not, and no apology was due
from me. I made half-way advances, however, suggesting we should lie in ambush by the edge of the pond and cut off the
ducks as they waddled down in simple, unsuspecting single file; then hunt them as bisons flying scattered over the vast
prairie. A fascinating pursuit this, and strictly illicit. But Harold would none of my overtures, and retreated to the
house wailing with full lungs.
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Things were getting simply infernal. I struck out blindly for the open country; and even as I made for the gate a
shrill voice from a window bade me keep off the flower-beds. When the gate had swung to behind me with a vicious click
I felt better, and after ten minutes along the road it began to grow on me that some radical change was needed, that I
was in a blind alley, and that this intolerable state of things must somehow cease. All that I could do I had already
done. As well-meaning a fellow as ever stepped was pounding along the road that day, with an exceeding sore heart; one
who only wished to live and let live, in touch with his fellows, and appreciating what joys life had to offer. What was
wanted now was a complete change of environment. Some where in the world, I felt sure, justice and sympathy still
resided. There were places called pampas, for instance, that sounded
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well. League upon league of grass, with just an occasional wild horse, and not a relation within the horizon! To a
bruised spirit this seemed a sane and a healing sort of existence. There were other pleasant corners, again, where you
dived for pearls and stabbed sharks in the stomach with your big knife. No relations would be likely to come
interfering with you when thus blissfully occupied. And yet I did not wish -- just yet -- to have done with relations
entirely. They should be made to feel their position first, to see themselves as they really were, and to wish -- when
it was too late -- that they had behaved more properly.
Of all professions, the army seemed to lend itself the most thoroughly to the scheme. You enlisted, you followed the
drum, you marched, fought, and ported arms, under strange skies, through unrecorded years. At last, at long last, your
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opportunity would come, when the horrors of war were flickering through the quiet country-side where you were cradled
and bred, but where the memory of you had long been dim. Folk would run together, clamorous, palsied with fear; and
among the terror-stricken groups would figure certain aunts. "What hope is left us?" they would ask themselves, "save
in the clemency of the General, the mysterious, invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic tales?" And the army
would march in, and the guns would rattle and leap along the village street, and, last of all, you -- you, the General,
the fabled hero -- you would enter, on your coal-black charger, your pale set face seamed by an interesting sabre-cut.
And then -- but every boy has rehearsed this familiar piece a score of times. You are magnanimous, in fine -- that goes
without saying; you have a coal-black horse, and a sabre-cut, and
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you can afford to be very magnanimous. But all the same you give them a good talking-to.
This pleasant conceit simply ravished my soul for some twenty minutes, and then the old sense of injury began to
well up afresh, and to call for new plasters and soothing syrups. This time I took refuge in happy thoughts of the sea.
The sea was my real sphere, after all. On the sea, in especial, you could combine distinction with lawlessness, whereas
the army seemed to be always weighted by a certain plodding submission to discipline. To be sure, by all accounts, the
life was at first a rough one. But just then I wanted to suffer keenly; I wanted to be a poor devil of a cabin boy,
kicked, beaten, and sworn at -- for a time. Perhaps some hint, some inkling of my sufferings might reach their ears. In
due course the sloop or felucca would turn up -- it always did -- the
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rakish-looking craft, black of hull, low in the water, and bristling with guns; the jolly Roger flapping overhead, and
myself for sole commander. By and by, as usually happened, an East Indiaman would come sailing along full of relations
-- not a necessary relation would be missing. And the crew should walk the plank, and the captain should dance from his
own yardarm, and then I would take the passengers in hand -- that miserable group of well-known figures cowering on the
quarter-deck! -- and then -- and then the same old performance: the air thick with magnanimity. In all the repertory of
heroes, none is more truly magnanimous than your pirate chief.
When at last I brought myself back from the future to the actual present, I found that these delectable visions had
helped me over a longer stretch of road than I had imagined; and I looked
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around and took my bearings. To the right of me was a long low building of grey stone, new, and yet not smugly so; new,
and yet possessing distinction, marked with a character that did not depend on lichen or on crumbling semi-effacement of
moulding and mullion. Strangers might have been puzzled to classify it; to me, an explorer from earliest years, the
place was familiar enough. Most folk called it "The Settlement"; others, with quite sufficient conciseness for our
neighbourhood, spoke of "them there fellows up by Halliday's"; others again, with a hint of derision, named them the
"monks." This last title I supposed to be intended for satire, and knew to be fatuously wrong. I was thoroughly
acquainted with monks -- in books -- and well knew the cut of their long frocks, their shaven polls, and their
fascinating big dogs, with brandy-bottles round their
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necks, incessantly hauling happy travellers out of the snow. The only dog at the settlement was an Irish terrier, and
the good fellows who owned him, and were owned by him, in common, wore clothes of the most nondescript order, and
mostly cultivated side-whiskers. I had wandered up there one day, searching (as usual) for something I never found, and
had been taken in by them and treated as friend and comrade. They had made me free of their ideal little rooms, full of
books and pictures, and clean of the antimacassar taint; they had shown me their chapel, high, hushed; and faintly
scented, beautiful with a strange new beauty born both of what it had and what it had not -- that too familiar
dowdiness of common places of worship. They had also fed me in their dining-hall, where a long table stood on trestles
plain to view, and all the woodwork was natural, unpainted, healthily
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scrubbed, and redolent of the forest it came from. I brought away from that visit, and kept by me for many days, a
sense of cleanness, of the freshness that pricks the senses -- the freshness of cool spring water; and the large swept
spaces of the rooms, the red tiles, and the oaken settles, suggested a comfort that had no connexion with padded
upholstery.
On this particular morning I was in much too unsociable a mind for paying friendly calls. Still, something in the
aspect of the place harmonised with my humour, and I worked my way round to the back, where the ground, after affording
level enough for a kitchen-garden, broke steeply away. Both the word Gothic and the thing itself were still unknown to
me; yet doubtless the architecture of the place, consistent throughout, accounted for its sense of comradeship in my
hour of disheartenment. As I mused there, with
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the low, grey, purposeful-looking building before me, and thought of my pleasant friends within, and what good times
they always seemed to be having, and how they larked with the Irish terrier, whose footing was one of a perfect
equality, I thought of a certain look in their faces, as if they had a common purpose and a business, and were acting
under orders thoroughly recognised and understood. I remembered, too, something that Martha had told me, about these
same fellows doing "a power o' good," and other hints I had collected vaguely, of renouncements, rules, self-denials,
and the like. Thereupon, out of the depths of my morbid soul swam up a new and fascinating idea; and at once the career
of arms seemed over-acted and stale, and piracy, as a profession, flat and unprofitable. This, then, or something like
it, should be my vocation and my revenge. A
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severer line of business, perhaps, such as I had read of; something that included black bread and a hair-shirt. There
should be vows, too -- irrevocable, blood curdling vows; and an iron grating. This iron grating was the most necessary
feature of all, for I intended that on the other side of it my relations should range themselves -- I mentally ran over
the catalogue, and saw that the whole gang was present, all in their proper places -- a sad-eyed row, combined in
tristful appeal. "We see our error now," they would say; "we were always dull dogs, slow to catch -- especially in
those akin to us -- the finer qualities of soul! We misunderstood you, misappreciated you, and we own up to it. And now
-- " "Alas, my dear friends," I would strike in here, waving towards them an ascetic hand -- one of the emaciated sort,
that lets the light shine through at the fingertips --
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"Alas, you come too late! This conduct is fitting and meritorious on your part, and indeed I always expected it of you,
sooner or later; but the die is cast, and you may go home again and bewail at your leisure this too tardy repentance of
yours. For me, I am vowed and dedicated, and my relations henceforth are austerity and holy works. Once a month, should
you wish it, it shall be your privilege to come and gaze at me through this very solid grating; but -- " Whack!
A well-aimed clod of garden soil, whizzing just past my ear, starred on a tree-trunk behind, spattering me with
dirt. The present came back to me in a flash, and I nimbly took cover behind the trees, realising that the enemy was up
and abroad, with ambuscades, alarms, and thrilling sallies. It was the gardener's boy, I knew well enough; a red
proletariat, who hated me just because I was
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a gentleman. Hastily picking up a nice sticky clod in one hand, with the other I delicately projected my hat beyond the
shelter of the tree-trunk. I had not fought with Red-skins all these years for nothing.
As I had expected, another clod, of the first class for size and stickiness, took my poor hat full in the centre.
Then, Ajax-like, shouting terribly, I issued from shelter and discharged my ammunition. Woe then for the gardener's
boy, who, unprepared, skipping in premature triumph, took the clod full in his stomach! He, the foolish one, witless on
whose side the gods were fighting that day, discharged yet other missiles, wavering and wide of the mark; for his wind
had been taken with the first clod, and he shot wildly, as one already desperate and in flight. I got another clod in
at short range; we clinched on the brow of the hill, and rolled down to the bottom together. When he
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had shaken himself free and regained his legs, he trotted smartly off in the direction of his mother's cottage; but
over his shoulder he discharged at me both imprecation and deprecation, menace mixed up with an under-current of tears.
But as for me, I made off smartly for the road, my frame tingling, my head high, with never a backward look at the
Settlement of suggestive aspect, or at my well-planned future which lay in fragments around it. Life had its jollities,
then; life was action, contest, victory! The present was rosy once more, surprises lurked on every side, and I was
beginning to feel villainously hungry.
Just as I gained the road a cart came rattling by, and I rushed for it, caught the chain that hung below, and swung
thrillingly between the dizzy wheels, choked and blinded with delicious-smelling dust, the world slipping by me like a
streaky
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ribbon below, till the driver licked at me with his whip, and I had to descend to earth again. Abandoning the beaten
track, I then struck homewards through the fields; not that the way was very much shorter, but rather because on that
route one avoided the bridge, and had to splash through the stream and get refreshingly wet. Bridges were made for
narrow folk, for people with aims and vocations which compelled abandonment of many of life's highest pleasures. Truly
wise men called on each element alike to minister to their joy, and while the touch of sun-bathed air, the fragrance of
garden soil, the ductible qualities of mud, and the spark-whirling rapture of playing with fire, had each their special
charm, they did not overlook the bliss of getting their feet wet. As I came forth on the common Harold broke out of an
adjoining copse and ran to meet me, the morning
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rain-clouds all blown away from his face. He had made a new squirrel-stick, it seemed. Made it all himself; melted the
lead and everything! I examined the instrument critically, and pronounced it absolutely magnificent. As we passed in at
our gate the girls were distantly visible, gardening with a zeal in cheerful contrast to their heartsick lassitude of
the morning. "There's bin another letter come to-day," Harold explained, "and the hamper got joggled about on the
journey, and the presents worked down into the straw and all over the place. One of 'em turned up inside the cold duck.
And that's why they weren't found at first. And Edward said, Thanks awfully!"
I did not see Martha again until we were all re-assembled at tea-time, when she seemed red-eyed and strangely
silent, neither scolding nor finding fault with anything. Instead, she was very kind and
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thoughtful with jams and things, feverishly pressing unwonted delicacies on us, who wanted little pressing enough. Then
suddenly, when I was busiest, she disappeared; and Charlotte whispered me presently that she had heard her go to her
room and lock herself in. This struck me as a funny sort of proceeding.
Note: Pages 53-54 are blank
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SHE stood on the other side of the garden fence, and regarded me gravely as I came down the road. Then she said,
"Hi-o!" and I responded, "Hullo!" and pulled up somewhat nervously.
To tell the truth, the encounter was not entirely unexpected on my part. The previous Sunday I had seen her in
church, and after service it had transpired who she was, this new-comer, and what aunt she was staying with. That
morning a volunteer had been called for, to take a note to the Parsonage, and rather to my own surprise I had found
myself stepping forward with alacrity, while the others had become suddenly absorbed in various
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pursuits, or had sneaked unobtrusively out of view. Certainly I had not yet formed any deliberate plan of action; yet I
suppose I recollected that the road to the Parsonage led past her aunt's garden.
She began the conversation, while I hopped backwards and forwards over the ditch, feigning a careless ease.
"Saw you in church on Sunday," she said; "only you looked different then. All dressed up, and your hair quite
smooth, and brushed up at the sides, and oh, so shiny! What do they put on it to make it shine like that? Don't you
hate having your hair brushed?" she ran on, without waiting for an answer. "How your boots squeaked when you came down
the aisle! When mine squeak, I walk in all the puddles till they stop. Think I'll get over the fence."
This she proceeded to do in a business
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like way, while, with my hands deep in my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent interest, as those of some
strange new animal.
"I've been gardening," she explained, when she had joined me, "but I didn't like it. There's so many worms about
to-day. I hate worms. Wish they'd keep out of the way when I'm digging."
"Oh, I like worms when I'm digging," I replied heartily, "seem to make things more lively, don't they?"
She reflected. "Shouldn't mind 'em so much if they were warm and dry," she said, "but -- " here she shivered, and
somehow I liked her for it, though if it had been my own flesh and blood hoots of derision would have instantly
assailed her.
From worms we passed, naturally enough, to frogs, and thence to pigs, aunts, gardeners, rocking-horses, and other
fellow -- citizens of our common kingdom. In
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five minutes we had each other's confidences, and I seemed to have known her for a lifetime. Somehow, on the subject of
one's self it was easier to be frank and communicative with her than with one's female kin. It must be, I supposed,
because she was less familiar with one's faulty, tattered past.
"I was watching you as you came along the road," she said presently, "and you had your head down and your hands in
your pockets, and you weren't throwing stones at anything, or whistling, or jumping over things; and I thought perhaps
you'd bin scolded, or got a stomach-ache."
"No," I answered shyly, "it wasn't that. Fact is, I was -- I often -- but it's a secret."
There I made an error in tactics. That enkindling word set her dancing round me, half beseeching, half imperious.
"Oh,
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do tell it me!" she cried. "You must! I'll never tell anyone else at all, I vow and declare I won't!"
Her small frame wriggled with emotion, and with imploring eyes she jigged impatiently just in front of me. Her hair
was tumbled bewitchingly on her shoulders, and even the loss of a front tooth -- a loss incidental to her age -- seemed
but to add a piquancy to her face.
"You won't care to hear about it," I said, wavering. "Besides, I can't explain exactly. I think I won't tell you."
But all the time I knew I should have to.
"But I do care," she wailed plaintively. "I didn't think you'd be so unkind!"
This would never do. That little downward tug at either corner of the mouth -- I knew the symptom only too well!
"It's like this," I began stammeringly. "This bit of road here -- up as far as that corner -- you know it's a horrid
dull bit
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of road. I'm always having to go up and down it, and I know it so well, and I'm so sick of it. So whenever I get to
that corner, I just -- well, I go right off to another place!"
"What sort of a place?" she as
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