.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 46548
   :PG.Title: Children of the Dear Cotswolds
   :PG.Released: 2014-07-09
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \L. Allen Harker
   :DC.Title: Children of the Dear Cotswolds
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1918
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS
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      CHILDREN OF THE
      DEAR COTSWOLDS

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      BY

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      \L. ALLEN HARKER

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      AUTHOR OF
      "MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY," ETC.

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      LONDON
      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
      1918

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      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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      *Copyright in the United States of America by L. Allen Harker.*

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   OTHER WORKS BY
   \L. ALLEN HARKER

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   JAN AND HER JOB
   THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
   A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY
   MASTER AND MAID
   MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY
   MR. WYCHERLY'S WARDS

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   JOHN MURRAY, LONDON

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   TO

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   THE COUNTESS BATHURST

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   |  Dear to you, too, the small "uplandish" town,
   |  The steep stone roofs, the graceful gabled street,
   |  The great beech woods, the rolling purple down,
   |  The golden fields that shimmer in the heat
   |  With molten glow of buttercups ablaze—
   |        Dear to you, too.

   |  Dear to you, too, the folk, slow-spoken, kind,
   |  Wise with a mother-wisdom not of books;
   |  The sturdy "Cotsal-bred" of cautious mind,
   |  That judges men by "doin's, not by looks,"
   |  With sapient nods and trenchant homely phrase—
   |        Dear to you, too.

   |  And since you love them well—people and land—
   |  I bring you stories of them—just a few
   |  Old folk and young—in hope you'll let them stand
   |  With others that I wot of dear to you.
   |  How happy should these prove in future days—
   |        Dear to you, too.

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   FOREWORD

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..

   |  "I'm homesick for my hills again—
   |        My hills again!
   |  To see above the Severn plain,
   |  Unscabbarded against the sky,
   |  The blue high blade of Cotswold lie."
   |                              F. W. HARVEY.

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I was in the train, and at Swindon a
mud-stained "Tommy," hung round with
equipment like the White Knight, and accompanied
by an old lame man and a young lad, tumbled
into my carriage just as the train was leaving
the station.  The old man and the lad had
evidently been to meet the soldier at the
junction, so as to lose no possible moment
of the precious "leaf."  They were very
cheery, and in turn refreshed themselves from
a bottle, what time the rather uncheerful
smell of the very-small-ale permitted at
present was wafted about the carriage.
Mingled with the rattle of the train came scraps
of conversation: much mutual exchange of
news in the slow, rumbling Gloucestershire
voices, a little quickened and sharpened, just
then, by excitement and the shamefaced
emotion that refused to be entirely hidden.
Every now and then one would hear such
sentences as, "Ah, so 'a be, at Armenteers
that was, poor Ernie! and us could never
find no trace on 'im."

But as we neared Kemble they fell silent
in the last cold gleam of the fading sunlight
of a February afternoon.  The soldier reached
for his equipment, slung it, let down the
window, and leaned out.  Inhaling a deep
breath of the keen Cotswold air, he looked
back into the carriage, and, with a world of
love in his voice, said slowly, "There 'a be,
dear old Kemble—'a *do* look clean."

And faster than they had tumbled in they
tumbled out, to be surrounded by a group of
welcoming friends, but not before the soldier
had hauled out my heavy suit-case for me,
as I, too, alighted there,.  I was going on to
Cirencester, but the only porter left in these
strenuous times, a very elderly porter, was
absorbed into the welcoming group, and I
wouldn't have disturbed him for the world.
I wondered rather forlornly who would carry
my suit-case up the stairs and across the
bridge for me, when out of the gathering
twilight there appeared another khaki-clad
figure, who turned out to be a soldier of my
very own, just then training a battery at
Codford, who was coming to join me for a
week-end with friends at Cirencester.

As we reached the long platform that runs
alongside the shuttle line, he too sniffed
delightedly at the good Cotswold air, and said,
"Dear old place—how clean it feels!"

This is just an epitome of what is happening
all over England every time a leave train
starts inland from the coast.  It's not only
home and family our men are so glad to
see—it's the land that bred them.

   |  "God gives all men all earth to love,
   |    But, since man's heart is small,
   |  Ordains for each one spot shall prove
   |    Belovèd over all."

And for some of us that spot happens to be
in the Cotswolds.

Nowhere has the spirit of place been more
insistent and persistent.  Surely no county
has more melodious names than Gloucestershire.
They chime in the ears of those that
love them like a peal of old mellow bells.
No ugly place could ever be called Colne
St. Aldwyns or Fretherne or Minsterworth, and
there is something in the very sound of
Bibury, Pinbury and Sapperton, Rendcombe
and Miserden, that carries with it a sense of
wide grass glades and great old trees gathered
together in sun-flecked woods that, in May,
are carpeted with bluebells and, in October,
are glorious in the vivid reds and yellows of
the turning beeches.  What pleasaunces to
dream in when you are amongst them! What
faerielands to dream of when you are far away!

Listen to the names.  Say them over
softly—Maisemore, Hartpury, Lassington:
these are in the vale.  Don't you hear how
homesick we are who whisper them lovingly
where there are none to recognise them?  And
the King of the Cotswolds is Cissister (the
railway may call it Cirencester if it likes,
but that is how the natives know it)—Cissister
of the wide market-place and narrow irregular
streets, with the wise-looking old gabled
houses that have smiled down upon so many
generations of sturdy Cotswold folk.  Grey
are the Cotswold houses, stone-roofed and
steeply gabled, welcoming, friendly,
venerable; and surely there is something very
delightful in the thought that just now young
America looks down (from a considerable
height too) on those same stone roofs and
gables.  For young America is flying (literally,
not figuratively) all over the Cotswolds.
One wonders what the Church and the Abbey
and the House think when the light-hearted
airmen almost shave their roofs.

The mention of young America brings me
to what so entirely occupies all our thoughts
just now, that there might seem something
almost impertinently irrelevant in daring to
write of anything else.  But just inasmuch,
as the old, easy-going, comfortable England
has been in the melting-pot for nearly four
years, and because the new, nobler, more
strenuous England will change most things,
it has seemed to me that it might not be amiss
to collect these little sketches of some dear
Cotswold folk, old and young, of what will
soon seem an almost forgotten time.

Much has been written, and admirably
written, of the Cotswolds themselves; but
not much to my knowledge—except in
the ever-delightful "Cotswold Village," by
Arthur Gibbs—about the people.

Most of the people in this book belong to
those old easy times of over twenty years
ago.  Only one of the stories deals with
anything approaching "present day," and it is
nearly four years old.  One story—I may as
well confess it here—has nothing to do with
the Cotswolds; but Teddy in "A Soldier's
Button" was Paul's cousin—and a dear, and
the Cotswold country is the most hospitable
country in the world, so we let him in.
Mrs. Birkin, Mrs. Cushion, Williams, and Dorcas
Heaven are of the soil, and so are the
children.

Mrs. Birkin, Mrs. Cushion, and hundreds
like them, have had their hand in the making
of our men.  They are but humble, simple
folk.  In their lives they asked but little of
fate, and what fate sent they accepted with
the patient philosophy of the poor.  They
belonged to their period, and their period has
passed.

Cotswold names are so much prettier than
any one can imagine that it has always been
a self-denying ordinance to refrain from using
them, but generally I have resisted
temptation.  Otherwise somebody might go seeking
Mrs. Birkin in Arlington Row and be angry
with me because she is no longer there.  I
live in terror of accurate people with
large-scale maps, who seek to pin me down to this
place or that.  But they may take it from
me that all the places are, as the Cotswold
folk would say, "thar or thar about."

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London, *May* 1918.

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   CONTENTS

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CHAPTER

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I.  `Mrs. Birkin's Bonnet`_
II.  `A Philosopher of the Cotswolds`_
III.  `Especially Those`_
IV.  `At Blue House Lock`_
V.  `Keturah`_
VI.  `Mrs. Cushion's Children`_
VII.  `Sanctuary`_
VIII.  `A Cotswold Barmaid`_
IX.  `Fuzzy Wuzzy's Watch`_
X.  `The Dark Lady`_
XI.  `Her First Appearance`_
XII.  `"Our Fathers Have Told Us"`_
XIII.  `A Giotto of the Cotswolds`_
XIV.  `The Day After`_
XV.  `A Coup d'État`_
XVI.  `The Staceys of Elcombe House`_
XVII.  `A Soldier's Button`_
XVIII.  `Paul and the Playwright`_
XIX.  `A Misfit`_
XX.  `The Contagion of Honour`_





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.. _`MRS. BIRKIN'S BONNET`:

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   CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS

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   \I

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   MRS. BIRKIN'S BONNET

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The very first time that the baby went out
the monthly nurse carried her to see
Mrs. Birkin; and as she marched with slow and
stately tread up the narrow garden path to
the cottage, a swarm of bees settled all over
both infant and nurse.  Fortunately the
nurse was a Cotswold woman, and knew
full well that if a swarm of bees settles upon
an infant during the first month of its
existence, and departs without stinging, it is a
very lucky omen.  And people born in other
parts of the world will agree as to the good
fortune of the latter contingency.

Mrs. Birkin in her porch, and the nurse
in her cloak of bees, stood like two statues
in the hot sunshine of that September
afternoon, the nurse hardly daring to breathe,
lest by some inadvertent movement she
should change so stupendous a piece of luck
into disaster.

Presently the brown cloud lifted itself
from the white bundle in the anxious nurse's
arms and passed with its own triumphant
music to some other place.

The baby still slept sweetly, oblivious alike
of good or evil fortune.  Mrs. Birkin, her
ruddy cheeks pale under the weather-stains
of years, came forth from her cottage as the
nurse tottered to meet her, holding out the
baby and exclaiming hysterically: 'Take
her, take her, and let me sit down somewhere,
for my legs won't bear me no longer!'

"The Lard be praised!" cried Mrs. Birkin,
seizing the baby.  "That there lamb
'll be lucky an' good-lookin', an' she'll 'ave
a good 'usban' for sure.  Bless 'er!  Them
bees knows what they be about, an' 'tis
plain they knew as you was Cotsal barn an'
bred, an' wasn't none of them faintin',
scritchin' women as don't rekkerni'ze the
Lard's voice, not when 'E 'ollers in their yer."

Then, seated on the little wooden seats on
each side of the tiny porch, the women
proceeded to sing the size and the exceeding
beauty of the new baby, who seemingly
preferred the soothing lullaby of the bees, for
she woke up and "hollered" with surprising
vigour.

A little later the baby paid her visits to
Mrs. Birkin in a fine, white perambulator,
and, as that worthy woman put it, "You
didn't know where you was" before that
remarkable infant toddled up the cobbled path
to the cottage quite unassisted.

Time slips by noiseless and fleet-footed in
a quiet Cotswold village, even as in noisier
and more strenuous places, and "Squoire's
little darter" grew into "our young lady."  To
be sure, there were other young ladies in
the neighbourhood, for the village is large
and cheery, with many nice places around;
but the other young ladies were in no way
remarkable.  No swarm of bees had settled
on any of them in infancy.  For it really
seemed as if some of the sturdy sweetness
of the bees had passed into the baby they
thus honoured.  As was said of jolly Dick
Steele, "she was liked in all company
because she liked it."

And now the village was upside down with
excitement, for our young lady was going
to be married, and Mrs. Birkin was to have
a new bonnet for the great occasion.

Mrs. Birkin felt that she had an unusually
important part to play in the festivities
attendant on this great event, for our young
lady's father, who had an excellent memory
for dates, had decreed that the wedding-day
should be on the anniversary of the day on
which, nineteen years before, the swarm of
bees had distinguished his daughter.  Such
a thing had never happened since, though
plenty of babies had come both to Mrs. Birkin's
village and the other villages round
about, and you may be sure that Mrs. Birkin
knew all about every baby that arrived
within a ten-mile radius.  She is an authority
upon babies.  She is one of those women
who is everybody's mother because she has
no living children of her own.  In the
churchyard, under the green mound that
now marks the humble resting-place of
Mr. Birkin, there were once two tiny graves,
where, side by side, lay Mrs. Birkin's twin
sons.  And for the sake of those two babies,
dead these forty years, Mrs. Birkin's heart
had kept young and kind, and full of love
for all other babies.  So that it came about
that the very crossest infant ever born into
a world it seemed to find singularly unattractive
was good with Mrs. Birkin, and in consequence
she was in great request with busy mothers.

Nor was it only the babies who loved
Mrs. Birkin.  Little girls brought their dolls for
her to dress, and little boys, even bad little
boys, whose grubby hands were against every
other man, woman, or child in the village,
refrained from pillaging Mrs. Birkin's garden,
and had been known to weed it for her, all
for love.

For months past, in fact, ever since our
young lady's engagement was announced,
Mrs. Birkin had pondered the great question
of the Bonnet.  She had not had a new
bonnet for six years.  Four years before that,
again, she had indulged in a widow's bonnet,
in which, on Sundays, she did honour to the
memory of the departed Birkin; until the
crape grew green with age, and our young
lady herself suggested that the time had
come when Mrs. Birkin's somewhat mitigated
woe might find expression in head-gear less
indicative of intense gloom.

In our village, except of "a Sunday," the
question of costume is extremely simple.
The men wear corduroy; the women, lilac
or pink print, with sunbonnet to match.
There are those who wish that the wearing
of these uniforms extended to Sundays,—the
villagers, in the week, are so much more in
harmony with the beautiful, grey, old
houses,—but those who, like "Squoire," love these
people well, would not for the world debar
them from the wearing of that finery dear
to the heart of woman in cottage and castle
alike.

Squoire drives a coach, and often on
Saturday afternoons he will pull up in the very
middle of our one street and shout, "Any
one for the town?"  And sure enough, three
or four eager damsels and matrons bustle
out of their cottages, are packed in as inside
passengers, and away goes the coach to
distant "Ziren," where country folk can see the
shops and make their purchases, Squoire
bringing them and their bundles home in
the evening again, and never a penny to
pay for carriage hire.

Three times lately had Mrs. Birkin made
this journey to "Ziren," rightly so called
from its many fascinations.  She had
flattened her nose against the plate-glass
windows of that stately shop in the market-place
where there were displayed hats of the most
bewitching beauty, and fabrics so delicate
that Mrs. Birkin fairly caught her breath
at the mere idea of any one daring to wear
them.  It was undoubtedly an entrancing
vision, that shop; but then nothing was
priced, and there were no bonnets in that
window, and for a bonnet Mrs. Birkin had
come to look.

At the corner of Black Jack Street, not
quite in the market-place, but facing it, was
another shop.  Here there were hats and
bonnets in plenty, marked in plain figures
for all to see, and there was one, manifestly
a bonnet "suitable for a elderly person,"
that positively fascinated Mrs. Birkin.  Of
white straw was it, trimmed with scarlet
geraniums and elegant excrescences of watered
ribbon of a delicate mauve shade—a truly
bridal bonnet, fitted to grace even the
marriage of our young lady herself.  But its cost
was twelve and sixpence, a truly prohibitive
price for Mrs. Birkin—"A'most a month's
keep," she sadly whispered to herself.  She
went away from that window.  She walked
right round the market-place, she looked into
every milliner's window, she gazed upon other
bonnets; but there was nothing to compare
with the creation compounded of scarlet
geraniums and mauve ribbon in the shop
in Black Jack Street.  All the same,
Mrs. Birkin went home with only three yards
of scouring flannel to show for her day's
shopping.

But she dreamed of the bonnet, and her
waking hours were haunted by its beauties.
"I can't afford no more nor ten shillin's,"
she said to a neighbour with whom she
discussed the question.  "Mebbe if I waits,
her'll get a bit faded, and they'll put un down
in proice."

Thrice more did Mrs. Birkin avail herself
of Squoire's kindness and drive in the coach
to Ziren, and on the third occasion she
screwed up her courage to enter the shop,
and in trembling tones demanded of the
young lady behind the counter whether there
was any chance of the bonnet—for it still
graced the window—"bein' a bit cheaper
for cash.  I couldn't pay for un to-day,"
she added; "but next week I be comin'
in again, an' if so be as her were two shillin'
less, I med manage un."

The young lady was good-natured and
approachable.  She even lifted the bonnet
from its stand in the window, and proposed
that Mrs. Birkin should try it on.

This Mrs. Birkin did, though her knees
knocked together during the process, and she
was fain to confess that her handsome,
sunburnt face was assuredly "uncommon set
off" when framed in the scarlet geraniums
and pale mauve ribbons.

"Of course I can't promise that it won't
be gone before next week," said the young
lady.  "It's a very attractive article; but if
it is still here, we might be able to meet you.
You wouldn't like me to put it aside for you,
to make sure?" she suggested.

But here Mrs. Birkin was firm.  "No,"
she said; "if so be as you has a chanst to
sell it, far be it from me to stand in your
way.  But if it be still yer, when I do come
back, then, if I've got the money, I'll 'ave
she.  The ribbons is gettin' a bit faded,"
she added shrewdly; and with this parting
shot Mrs. Birkin hurried from the shop to
buy yellow soap.

She was not well off, even as such a term
is modestly read in a Cotswold village
community.  For one thing, she was far too fond
of giving.  For another, although she "went
out days" when she got the chance, and was
as sturdy and healthy at sixty as many
women are at forty, yet she could no longer
work in the fields in summer, a long day's
haymaking being more than she could stand.
Squoire let her live in her cottage rent free,
for the departed Birkin had been one of his
labourers; moreover, his daughter was very
fond of Mrs. Birkin, and that went a long
way with Squoire.  He also had obtained
for her of late, from certain mysterious powers
called "Guardians," an allowance of three and
sixpence a week, so that with what she could
earn Mrs. Birkin got onfairly comfortably.
The bonnet money was money saved up for
years against illness, but "Law bless you!"
she said, "'tis only once in a way.  That
there bonnet 'll sarve me till I be put away
in churchyard along of Birkin, an' if I don't
go foine to see that there blessed lamb
married to her good gentleman, when be I
to go foine?  You just tell me that."

The day of the wedding was drawing near.
Only six days now till the great day itself.
But Mrs. Birkin was still bonnetless.  In
vain did she count her savings over and over
again; by no arithmetical process could they
be persuaded to amount to more than eleven
shillings and fivepence three farthings.
Squoire sent round word that he would drive
the coach into Ziren that afternoon and that
anybody might go that liked.  Mrs. Birkin
went, carrying with her her whole worldly
wealth.

Once in the market-place, she hurried to
the shrine of the Bonnet.  It was still there,
and on it was a card bearing the reassuring
legend, "Much reduced; only nine and
elevenpence halfpenny."

Mrs. Birkin paused outside that she might
savour the sweets of purchase by anticipation.
For fully five minutes did she stand
gloating over the bonnet—her bonnet, as she
already felt it to be, and she was on the
point of entering the shop when she caught
sight of a neighbour on the other side of the
road, one Mrs. Comley, who held by the hand
a small and exceedingly dirty boy about ten
years old.  His free hand was thrust into
one of his tearful eyes, and sobs shook his
small frame.  It was plain that Ernie Comley
was in grievous trouble.  Mrs. Comley, too,
looked flushed and miserable.  She was an
unhealthy-looking, undersized little woman
whose somewhat dreary days were passed in
futile attempts to overtake her multifarious
duties.  Mrs. Comley was no manager; and
it was not surprising, for one weakly baby
was hardly set upon its bandy legs before
another appeared to claim her whole
attention.  Comley was a farm-labourer with
twelve shillings a week, so that the charitable
made excuses for Mrs. Comley.  Besides, she
"did come from Birmiggum," and the Cotswold
folk felt that that explained any amount
of slackness and general incompetence.

It was not in the nature of Mrs. Birkin to
pass by any one in trouble.  She forgot her
bonnet for the moment, and hurried across
the road to inquire the cause of Ernie's tears.
"We come by the carrier this morning,"
Mrs. Comley explained,—it was like her to pay
for the carrier when "Squoire" would have
brought her for nothing,—"I 'ad so much to
do, an' Ernie 'e done nothing but w'ine and
cry somethin' dreadful all the time because
I told 'im plain 'e can't go to no weddin's,
nor no treats after, neither.  Do you know
what that boy've bin an' done?  'E've gone
an' tore the seat clean out of 'is Sunday
trowsies, an' there ain't a bit of the same
stuff nowhere.  We've bin an' tried all over
the place; an' go in corderoys 'e shall not,
shamin' me before all the neighbours, as is
nasty-tongued enough as it is.  'E be the
most rubsome child I ever see.  There ain't
no keepin' 'im in clothes, that there ain't."

Mrs. Comley gave the "rubsome" Ernie
a spiteful shake, which caused that unhappy
urchin to burst into renewed and louder sobs.

"There, there," said Mrs. Birkin, soothingly,
"don't 'ee take on so!  There's sure
to be summat as can be done, and I'm sartin
of this, as our young lady 'ad far sooner 'e
come in 'is corderoys than stopped away.
She said most partic'lar as she 'oped *heverbody*
'u'd come.  There, Ernie, then, don't 'ee take
on so."  And Mrs. Birkin patted the boy's
shoulder with a kind, comforting hand.

"I tell you as there ain't nothing as can
be done," Mrs. Comley retorted fretfully.
"Them cloes is tore about shockin'.  They
wasn't new when 'e got 'em, an' 'e be that
rubsome they've all fell to pieces.  'Tain't
only the trowsies.  And do you mean to tell
me that 'e could go to hany weddin' like this
'ere?"

Mrs. Birkin fell back a step that she might
the better regard the lachrymose Ernie, and
sorrowfully she came to the conclusion that
his mother was right; for, indeed, his
appearance was the reverse of festal.  Although
his corduroy trousers had so far withstood
his rubsome tendencies, his jacket had given
way at the elbows, and he looked altogether
as disreputable a small boy as could be met
in a summer's day.

"I tried to get 'im a suit at the Golden
Anchor, if they'd only 'ave let me take it on
credit; but they be that 'ard—'cash with
horder,' that's their style.  An' it's no
manner of use me a-goin' to any of the big
tailors: they wouldn't so much as look at
me.  There, Ernie, do 'old that row.  You'll
never be missed in all that crowd.  No one
'll know but what you was there."

This reflection seemed in no way to comfort
Ernie, who burst forth into a loud howl, and
was dragged down the market-place by his
weary and incensed parent.

Mrs. Birkin stood where she was, immersed
in thought.  Across the road the bonnet shop
beckoned beguilingly, and her work-worn
hand tightened upon her purse.  Slowly she
crossed the road, and once more stood staring
at the bonnet.  How beautiful it was!  How
brilliant its geraniums, how crisp and dainty
its bosses and twists of ribbon!  "It be like
the bit o' carpet beddin' under Squoire's
drawin'-room windows, that 'a be," said
Mrs. Birkin to herself.

She stared so hard at the bonnet that her
eyes grew misty, and the card with "much
reduced" danced before her; but still she
did not go into the shop.  She stood like a
statue for nearly five minutes, still staring
at the bonnet; but she no longer saw it.
What she saw was her own potato-patch last
autumn; and in it, hard at work, was Ernie
Comley, digging her potatoes for her because
her lumbago was so bad.

"What do it matter for a hold image like
me what I do wear?" she muttered.  Then
she turned from the window that held her
heart's desire, and hurried down the
market-place after Mrs. Comley and the rubsome
Ernie.

She found them staring gloomily into the
window of the ready-made clothes shop.

"You come in along o' me," she cried
excitedly.  "There's a suit in that window,
'This style eight and eleven three,' as 'll just
do for Ernie, allowin' for growth.  I'll buy
it for un, an' you can pay me back a bit at a
time, as is most convenient.  Come on in."

The suit was bought, and presently Ernie,
dirty, and as cheerful as he had been tearful
a few minutes before, emerged from the
doorway, hugging a large brown-paper parcel.

"I must do my shoppin' sharpish," Mrs. Birkin
said as she came out of the shop, "or
else Squoire 'll be back before I be ready.
Good afternoon to you.  No; don't you
never name it.  'Tis no more than you'd 'a'
done for me."

To herself she murmured as she hurried
up the market-place, "I don't suppose as
she'll ever pay I, she's but a slack piece;
but I couldn't abear as that boy shouldn't
'ave none of the fun.  We're none on us
young but once."

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Birkin's Sunday bonnet was black,
and although a black dress for best is not
only permissible, but suitable, for an elderly
cottager even at a wedding, to wear a black
bonnet upon so festive an occasion is to
commit a solecism of the most glaring kind.

Mrs. Birkin was a woman of much resource.
Once the bonnet of her dreams had become
an impossibility, owing to the expense of
Ernie Comley's wedding garment, she set
herself forthwith to manufacture another as
like the one in the shop window at Ziren as
her means would allow.

To that end she purchased a small, a very
small, pot of cream enamel; red flowers, of
a nondescript kind it is true, but still red, and
plenty of them for the money; and three
yards of pale lavender ribbon.  She then
picked all the trimming off her old bonnet,
washed it, dried it in the oven with the door
well ajar, lest the precious thing should
"scarch."  When dry, she enamelled it cream,
inside and out, and when the enamel in its
turn had dried, she trimmed the rejuvenated
bonnet with the new flowers and ribbon.
And a very imposing confection it looked,
and quite unlike anything to be seen in any
window of the Ziren shops.  Mrs. Birkin
herself felt certain misgivings about it; but she
had done her best, and by her best she must
abide.

It happened that the night before the
wedding our young lady's maid was packing
her going-away trunk, talking the while about
the villagers and their excitement over the
morrow.  This maid was "own niece" to
Mrs. Birkin, but she was not proud of the
relationship.  She was a smart young woman
who had travelled, and she looked down upon
her simple old aunt with, at the best, a
tolerant sort of amusement.

"You'll see some wonderful costumes
to-morrow, Miss," she said as she folded dainty
garments.  "The whole village has got
something new.  My old aunt now—not that
you'll have time to notice such as she—but
you never saw such a bonnet as she's gone
and trimmed for herself.  A silly old woman,
that's what I call her.  She'd saved up quite
a nice bit of money, and was going to have
a new bonnet out of a shop in the town they
sets such store by, though 'tisn't much more
than a village to them as have travelled, is
it, Miss?  Well, what does she go and do
but lend the money as she'd saved for her
bonnet to a woman in the village to buy a
suit for one of them nasty, mischievous little
boys, so that he could come to your weddin'
and the treats an' that.  'Twasn't aunt told
me, else I'd have given her a piece of my
mind.  A fool and his money's soon parted."

Our young lady turned almost fiercely upon
her maid.  "I think it was perfectly lovely
of Mrs. Birkin," she cried, with a ring in her
voice that warned that sharp girl she had
in some way offended.  "I wish there were
more people like her in the world.  It would
be a kinder, better place.  There's nothing
here one half so beautiful as that bonnet of hers."

The maid went on folding lace petticoats
in silence, for there was a sound of tears in
her young lady's voice.  She wondered at
the curious ways of the gentry; one never
knew where to have them.

.. vspace:: 2

The church was packed for the wedding.
Only the seats on one side of the central aisle
had been reserved for the guests; by special
request of the bride, the other side was kept
for the villagers, first come, first served, with
no distinctions whatsoever.  Mrs. Comley
was there, with Ernie, all new suit and
hair-oil.  Mrs. Birkin came a full hour and a half
before the service, and secured a corner seat
next the aisle from which wild horses could
not have dragged her.

The priest had said his say, the organist
was thundering the wedding-march, the
wedding was over, and the bride, her veil thrown
back from her radiant face, was coming down
the aisle on her proud young husband's arm.
Mrs. Birkin, tearful and exultant, stood in
her place devouring the pretty spectacle with
eager, kind old eyes.  As the bride reached
Mrs. Birkin's pew she stopped, slipped her
hand from the bridegroom's arm, and
turning, flung both her own, bouquet and all,
round Mrs. Birkin's neck.  She kissed the
old woman before the whole church and
whispered loudly in her ear: "Mrs. Birkin,
dear, that's the most beautiful bonnet I ever saw."

In another moment she was gone.  The
last pair of bridesmaids had passed, and after
them, visitors and villagers alike thronged
into the sunshine.  Mrs. Birkin, her bonnet
much awry, owing to the heavy bridal
bouquet, strayed out with the rest in a sort of
solemn rapture.  She had been honoured
above all other women on that great day.

"Wot did 'er say to you?" asked Mrs. Comley,
enviously, when they got outside.

Mrs. Birkin laughed.  "Bless 'er sweet
face!" she exclaimed triumphantly, "if her
didn't go and think 't was a bran' new bonnet
as I'd got on!  I must 'a' made un
over-smartish, that I must."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PHILOSOPHER OF THE COTSWOLDS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   II


.. class:: center large bold

   A PHILOSOPHER OF THE COTSWOLDS

.. vspace:: 2

It is possible that to the unobservant his
great qualities were hidden: all that they
saw in him was a tall, shabby-looking old
man, who walked with that indescribable
garden-roller sort of motion usually
associated with the gait of those who minister
to us in the coffee-rooms of hotels—an old
man, who, professedly a jobbing gardener,
looked like a broken-down something else.
Frequently they did not even take the
trouble to crystallise their doubt into a
question, a sure and certain measure towards
its solution.

But there were those who saw beneath
the surface, who were moreover privileged
to have speech of him—and he was always
very ready to converse, leaning on his spade
the while, but with the air of one who only
just tolerated such interruption.—these would
find that here was one whose ideas were the
result of reflection and observation, not mere
echoes of the local press; or, as is sometimes
the case in other and higher walks of life,
those of the reviews or quarterlies.

To tell the truth, my philosopher could
read but indifferently well, and when he
indulged in such exercises, as "of a Sunday,"
liked the print to be large and black.  As
the halfpenny papers in no way pander to
such luxurious tastes in their readers, he was
fain to take his news second-hand, by word
of mouth, thereby materially increasing its
romance and variety.

One day, *à propos* of some flowers he was
to take to the church for Easter decorations,
I asked him whether he was a churchman
himself.  "No," he said slowly, stopping
short and watching me somewhat anxiously
to seethe effect of this pronouncement, "I
goes to chapel, they 'ollers more, and 'tis
more loively loike—I bin to church, I 'ave,
don't you think as 'ow I 'aven't sampled
'em both careful—but Oi be gettin' a holdish
man, an' them curicks is that weakly an'
finnicken in their ways, it don't seem to do me
no sort o' good nohow.  Not as I've nothin'
to say agen 'em, pore young gen'lemen; they
means well, but they be that afraid of the
sound of their own voices, and they looks
that thin and mournful—I can't away with
'em."  Here he shook his head sadly, as
though overcome with melancholy at the
mere recollection.

"You are quite right to go where you
feel you will get most good," I said meekly.
"Is Mr. Blank a very powerful preacher?"

Williams (that was his name) smiled a slow,
crafty smile, shutting one eye with something
the expression of a gourmand who holds a
glass of good port between himself and the
light.  "Well, I don't know as I should go so
fur as to say as 'e's powervul, but 'e do 'oller
an' thump the cushion as do do yer 'art
good to see, an' 'e do tell us plainish where
them'll go as bain't ther to yer 'im, but I
bain't sure as 'e's powervul.  The powervullest
preacher I ever 'ear was Fairford way
at a hopen-air meetin'—an' 'e was took up
next day for stealin' bacon!"  Here he
returned to his digging with the air of one
who had said the last word and could brook
no further interruptions.

Regarding politics, Williams was even more
guarded in his statements: I could never
discover to which side he belonged, even at
a time when party feeling ran particularly
high, as our town had been in the throes of
two Parliamentary elections within the year.
He seemed to regard the whole of the proceedings
with a tolerant sort of amusement—tolerance
was ever a feature of his mental
attitude towards life generally.  But as to
stepping down, into the arena and taking
sides!—such a course was far from one of
his philosophical and analytic temperament.
He listened to both sides with a gracious
impartiality that I have no doubt sent each
canvasser away equally certain that his was
the side which would receive the listener's
"vote and interest."

"The yallers, they comes," he would say,
wagging his large head to and fro, and smiling
his slow, broad smile, "an' they says, 'If
our candidate do get in, you'll see what
us'll do for 'ee.  'E'll do sech and sech, an'
you'll 'ave this 'ere an' that.'  But the blues,
they went and sent my missus a good blanket
*on the chanst*."

"And for whom did you vote after all?"
I asked with considerable curiosity.

"Well, I bain't so to speak exactly sure,"
he said, scratching his head.  "I bain't much
of a schollard, so I ups an' puts two crasses,
one for each on 'em, an' I goes an' marches
along of two percessions that same day, so
I done my duty."

But his universal tolerance stopped short
of his legitimate profession.  In matters
horticultural he was a veritable despot,
sternly discouraging private enterprise of
any sort.  Above all did he object to what he
was pleased to call "new fanglements" in
the way of plants, and in the autumn had a
perfect passion for grubbing up one's most
cherished possessions and trundling them
off in the wheelbarrow to the rubbish heap.
One autumn a friend presented me with some
rare iris bulbs, which, knowing the philosopher's
objection to "fancy bulbs," I secreted
in a distant greenhouse which he as a rule
scornfully ignored.  On a day when some one
else was benefitting by his ministrations I
hastened to fetch them, intent on planting
them "unbeknownst," as he would have said.

Not a trace of them remained, and I had
to wait until his next visit, when I timidly
asked if he happened to have moved them.
"Lor' bless my 'eart! was them things
bulbses?  I thought as 'ow they was hold
onions and I eat 'em along of a bit of bread
for my lunch.  I remember thinkin' as they
didn't semm very tasty loike!"

On the subject of the then war there was
no uncertain sound about his views, and had
he been a younger man his waiter-like walk
would doubtless have changed to the martial
strut induced among the rural population by
perpetual practice of the goose-step.  As it
was, he thirsted for news with the utmost
eagerness, and hurried up one Sunday morning
to inform us that Lord Roberts had taken
"Blue Fountain" about two days after that
officer had arrived in South Africa.

It was rumoured that a gentleman of
pro-Boer proclivities proposed to address
like-minded citizens in the "Corn Hall."  I fear
he must have had but a small following if,
as I believe, the majority of the natives were
of like mind with my usually philosophic
gardener.  "I'd warm 'im," Williams
exclaimed, digging his spade into the ground as
though the offending propagandist were
underneath—"I'd warm 'im.  I'd knock 'is ugly
'ead off before 'e'd come 'is nasty Boerses
over me.  Let 'im go to St. 'Elena and *mind*
'em; then 'e'd know.  'Tain't no use for 'im
to come and gibber to the loikes of us 'as
'ave 'eard their goin's-on from them as 'ave
fought agen 'em, and minded 'em day by
day and hour by hour, till they was that
sick and weary! ... Boers!  I'd Boers
'im," and with grunts and snorts expressive
of intense indignation the philosopher rested
on his spade, glaring at me as though I were
a champion of the King's enemies—which
Heaven forbid.

"It's like this 'ere," he said, after a
moment's pause: "there's toimes w'en the
meek-'eartidest ain't safe if you worrits 'em, and
these 'ere be them sart of toimes."

.. vspace:: 2

When he became gardener to friends of
mine, he was old and they were young.  His
progress was slow and dignified, so were his
manners.  He could wither a budding
enthusiasm with a slow smile charged full of
scorn as effectually as a May frost withers
the peach blossom.  His own omniscience was
emphasised in such fashion as to make his
employers acutely conscious of their youth
and ignorance.  It is true that his master
was not so excessively young, but then
neither was he particularly well instructed
in matters horticultural, and Williams had
but a poor opinion of a man who, while he
could tell you the long Latin name of every
grass in the field and every weed in the
hedgerow, had but small appreciation of
carpet bedding, and had been heard to remark
that a cabbage moth was really much prettier
than a cabbage.  Moreover, the said master
extended his liking for moths and butterflies
to other "hinsekses" of various and inferior
sorts, and collected the same in small glass
tubes, of which he carried numbers in his
pockets.  When a man is addicted to such
"curus fads" as these, it is not to be
expected that an elderly and experienced
gardener should so much as consult him about
things connected with his own craft.

Towards his mistress Williams showed an
indulgent toleration; not that he ever did
what she asked him—oh dear, no!  But still
he permitted her to "come anigh him," and
shout her behests into his ear.  He was
decidedly deaf at the best of times, and
when suggestions were made of which he
disapproved his infirmity increased ten-fold.

Sometimes the "young missus"—she was
really young, being still in her teens—attempted
a little gardening on her own account,
as when she planted crocus bulbs on
a grassy bank facing the drawing-room
windows.  She had hoped that Williams would
not notice them, as that bank was never
mown till well on in the spring.  But
Williams not only noted but disapproved their
very earliest appearance.  "A grass bank
be a grass bank," he asserted, "and bulbs
a-growing be out of place," so he mowed
the grass assiduously and the crocuses came
to nought.

"He really is a most aggravating man,"
exclaimed the young missus; "he won't let
one have a thing one wants."

However, the absolute monarchy of
Williams was not destined to continue.  Even
as he had ruled his master and mistress there
arose another who ruled not only them but
Williams also.  Where the young missus had
meekly suggested that certain things might
be done in such a way as they never were
done, this personage had but to point a
diminutive forefinger in the direction of
anything he coveted when Williams would hasten
to procure it for him with the greatest
alacrity.  He was not of imposing stature,
this new autocrat.  When he first began to
tyrannise over Williams, he stood just about
as high as that worthy's knee, and his walk,
in its uncertainty, strongly resembled that
of Williams himself on the night of the last
election, when the Tory candidate was
returned by a majority of two votes.

But to return to the autocrat.  He certainly
interfered with Williams's work, causing
him to waste whole hours in hovering about
near the drive gate that he might catch a
glimpse of his equipage as he set out for an
airing in a fine white coach propelled by a
white-clad attendant.  Williams would not
have been averse from occasional parleyings
with the attendant.  She was young and
pretty; but she had other and more lively
fish to fry, and would have scorned to do
more than exchange the most formal of
passing courtesies with "that there deaf old
gardener"—who, however, was never so deaf
but that the clear little voice calling
"*Wee*-ams" attracted immediate attention.

As time went on and the autocrat's steps
grew steadier, the white coach was
abandoned, and whenever he could the late
occupant thereof escaped from the white-clad
attendant and assisted Williams in his
horticultural operations—a course which he found
infinitely preferable to going walks with his
nurse upon the high road.  He upset all
Williams's most cherished theories, and, not
infrequently, his practice.  He insisted upon
helping to wheel manure from the stable-yard
to the potato patch, and fell into the
manure-heap.  He hung on to a big water-can that
Williams was carrying with such force that
he spilled most of the contents over himself,
and he persisted in digging in such close
proximity to Williams that the senior
gardener was fain to rest upon his spade and
admire his assistant.  He possessed a garden
of his own, a chaotic piece of ground in which
might be found specimens of everything
growing in the larger garden all mixed up
anyhow.  That Williams, who but a few
short years ago had objected to innocent
crocuses upon a green bank, should, with his
own hands, have planted a beetroot cheek
by jowl with a Michaelmas daisy, and allowed
a potato to flower in close proximity to a
columbine, seems incredible.  But so it was.

"Bless 'is 'eart, 'e do like a bit of
everythink," Williams would say, wagging his head
and beaming at the autocrat, who chattered
incessantly in the high, clear little voice that
Williams found so easy to hear.  The young
missus profited by the subjugation of
Williams to do sundry bits of gardening on her
own account which he never discovered.  As
for the "professor gen'leman," as the cottage
children called him, he bowed beneath the
yoke of the autocrat with equal meekness.
It is said that a fellow-feeling makes us
wondrous kind, and it is certain that Williams
and his master understood each other
perfectly as regards this one subject.

In exchange for his instruction in gardening
the autocrat occasionally essayed to teach
Williams grammar.

"You mustn't say 'he were,' Williams;
you must say 'he was.'  It's 'he was; we
were.'  Do you understand?"

"Well, no, Mazter Billy, I can't say as I do;
but I'll say 'we was' if it do please you."

"No, no, Williams.  'We were.'"

"What do us wear, Mazter Billy?"  Williams
would interpose, resting on his spade
and smiling broadly at his own wit; while
the autocrat broke into delighted laughter,
and the grammar lesson came to an end for
that day.

When the "professor gen'leman" engaged
his gardener, that worthy explained that he
"didn't want no reg'lar 'alf-'oliday," but
that during the cricket season he would like
an occasional afternoon off, as he was an
enthusiastic admirer of the national game.
On the autocrat's fourth birthday the old
gardener presented him with a tiny cricket-bat,
and during the summer months gardening
was varied by batting practice.  Williams
was too old and too stiff to bat or run
himself; but he bowled to the little boy with a
tennis-ball, and gave him gentle catches, and
these proceedings delighted Billy as much
as they interfered with Williams's proper
business.

When the Fifth of November came, he
made what Billy called a "most 'normous
Guy Fawkes"—a real Guy Fawkes, stuffed
with straw, and clad in a cast-off coat and
trousers of Williams's own, with a mask for
a face, the whole crowned by a venerable
top-hat.  It says much for the depth and
sincerity of Williams's affection for the
autocrat that he should have thus sacrificed a hat
still bearing the smallest outward semblance
of such head-gear.  For Williams himself
never wore any other shape.  Winter or
summer, his large bald head was protected
from rain or sun by a wide-brimmed and
generally seedy tall felt hat.  On Sundays
it was a silk one, carefully brushed, but
decidedly smudgy as regarded outline.  All the
children in the adjacent cottages were bidden
to see the guy, as Williams proudly cast it
upon a large bonfire that he had been saving
for the occasion for many weeks.  The
professor gentleman let off rockets, and even
Billy himself was permitted to fire off several
squibs.  It was altogether a great occasion,
and was regarded in the autocrat's family as
a sort of apotheosis of Williams, for shortly
afterwards he fell ill, and grew worse so
rapidly that he was removed to the cottage
hospital in the town.  His cottage was very
small, and his wife very old, and the doctor
is a man who has the very greatest objection
to letting people die for lack of proper care
and attention.

His gentle old wife crept down the hill
every day to see him, but her accounts were
far from cheering.

"'E be that deaf 'e can't yer what they
do say, and 'e be that weak and low nothin'
don't seem to rouse 'im."

So Billy's father went down to the hospital
to see Williams, and found him lying, gaunt
and ashen-coloured and still, in the straight
white bed.  The ward was clean and sunny
and comfortable, but Williams did not seem
to mend.

"He seems to have lost heart," said the
cheery matron; "he's not so very old, or so
very ill, but that he might get round, but
his deafness is against him, and if he isn't
roused he'll slip away simply because he
doesn't care to stop."

Billy's father leant over the bed and laid
his hand on the gnarled work-worn hand
lying outside the white coverlet.  Williams
opened his eyes and stared languidly at his
master.  Presently there lighted in the tired
old eyes a gleam of recognition.

"It be very quiet here," he muttered,
"very lonesome and fur aff; them doctors
and nusses they mumbles so, I can't yer 'em,
and I'd like to yer summut....  I can allays
yer Mazter Billy, 'e do talk so sensible——"

"He shall come and see you," said the
visitor, loudly, right into the old man's ear;
but Williams shook his head wearily, and
closed his eyes again.

"What's the best time?" asked Billy's
father of the matron.  "I'll bring the little
lad—it might rouse him; he has always been
so fond of him."

"The morning's the best time," she answered.
"He sleeps so much.  We can but
try it, sir."

Next day the autocrat—his rosy face very
solemn, and his little soul oppressed by the
solemnity of the occasion—pattered across
the parqueted floor to the bedside of old
Williams.  The occupants of the three other
beds in the men's ward—it is quite a little
hospital—raised themselves and watched the
pretty child with interest as he put out his
little gloved hand timidly to touch this
strange new Williams, lying so white and
still in the clean, straight bed.

"Speak to him, sonnie!" said a voice at
his ear.

"Williams!" whispered the child very
low and timidly.  Then, remembering that
he never used to speak to Williams like that,
he said loudly, "Williams, dear! the celery
is very good."

Williams opened his eyes, and when he
saw Billy a smile broke over his face like
the November sunshine itself.

"Didn't I say as 'e talked sensible?" he
asked of the world in general.  Then, "So
you be come at last, Mazter Billy!"

"Tell him you want him to 'get well!"
whispered Billy's father.

"I wish you'd make haste and come home,
Williams," Billy shouted; "I've got to go
walks wiv Nanna nearly every day now, and
it's so dull."

"Do ee miss Oi, Mazter Billy?"

"'Course I do.  We all do.  Please get
well, Williams!  Aren't you tired of stopping
here?—though it's very pretty," he added
hastily, fearing lest he had said something
rude; "but Mrs. Williams is very lonely, and
so am I."

"I be main tired, Mazter Billy.  I don't
seem to 'ave no sart o' stren'th in me, I
be a hold man——"

"There's such a lot of chrysanthemums
in the drive, Williams, and in your garden
too," Billy continued, remembering his
instructions to "interest" the sick man, "and
Trimmie has scratched up such a lot of bulbs
in the bed in the middle of the front lawn,
and thrown the earth all over the place."

Trimmie was the autocrat's fox-terrier,
and his misdeeds were the only subject upon
which Williams ventured to disagree with
that gentleman—on occasion expressing a
strong desire to thrash "that there varmint
of a dog" for sundry scratchings which his
master only regarded with admiring amusement.

For the first time for a whole long week
Williams raised his head quite two inches
from the pillow, exclaiming:

"That there dog'll 'ave to be beat,
scrattin' and scramblin' and spilin' my
garden——" and Williams dropped his head
on the pillow again with an emphatic bump.

Here the nurse interfered, and the autocrat,
having succeeded in rousing the patient
rather more effectually than the authorities
either anticipated or desired, was led away.

Half an hour later the nurse approached
his bedside.

"Here's your beef-tea, Mr. Williams!"
she almost shouted; "you must try and
take it."

"Who be you a-hollerin' at?" growled
the patient.  "I'll take the messy stuff
without so much noise about it."

"I don't believe the old image is half so
deaf as he makes out," whispered the nurse
to the matron, feeling rather nettled at this
unexpected retort.

The old image kept muttering to himself
all that day, and those who listened heard
remarks to the effect that there was no rest
to be expected this side of the grave, that
he simply couldn't lie there and think of
his garden going to "wrack and rewing, all
along of a slippety varmint of a tarrier.  Just
let me catch him a-scrattin' in my borders,
and I'll give 'im what for."

The ultimate result of these mutterings
being that, in another week, Williams was
discharged as convalescent, and by Christmas
was well enough to dictate to his mistress
as to what greenery she might cut for the
decoration of the house.

"Ladies, they did cum," said he to his
wife, "and did read in that there 'orspital,
but they did spake so secret-like and quiet,
I couldn't never yer what it were all about;
and the doctor 'e cum, and passun 'e cum,
but I didn't seem to take no sort of delight
in none of 'em.  Then Mazter Billy 'e cum,
and did talk the most sensiblest of the
lot....  And, in spite of that there influinzy,
yer Oi be!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ESPECIALLY THOSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   III


.. class:: center large bold

   "ESPECIALLY THOSE"

.. vspace:: 2

They did not know that Billy had so many
friends until he lay a-dying.  Then they knew.

It takes some of us more than four years
to make one friend.  Billy had only lived
four years altogether, but every one he knew
was his friend, and he knew every one in his
little world.

"I want some ice for Master Billy's head!"
said the parlour-maid.  "He's that feverish,
doctor says it's to be kept on all the time."

Mr. Stallon, the fishmonger, looked grave.

"I haven't a bit of ice on the premises.
It's ordered, but it won't be here till
to-morrow.  Dear! dear! and to think as the
little gentleman's so bad!"

Mr. Stallon was a stout, seafaring-looking
man, with a short brown beard.  He shook
his head, and looked really sorry.

"Whatever shall we do?" cried the
parlour-maid.  "Whatever shall we do?"

"Do!" echoed Mr. Stallon.  "Do! why,
get some, to be sure.  I'll go to Farenam for
it myself.  Tell your lady she shall have it
in a' hour or so."

Mr. Stallon owned an inn as well as a
fish-shop.  He crossed the road to his inn
yard; there he harnessed his horse to his
spring cart, and he drove to Fareham for
the ice.  Billy's town is a very little one,
but Fareham, six miles off, is big, and
Mr. Stallon got the ice.  I'm afraid that he drove
furiously, and beat his horse.  But he quite
forgot to charge for the ice, and no one ever
thanked him for getting it.  He didn't mind,
he was one of Billy's friends.

The Earl was another.  The Earl is young,
fresh-coloured, and chubby, and somewhat
lacking in dignity.  He is an M.F.H. for all
that, and Billy was wont to go with him to
the kennels, and knew all the old hounds
by name.

The Earl and Billy held long conversations
on the subject of poachers.  Billy's
sympathies were apt to go with the poachers; but
that was the fault of the Radical curate.

As for the curate, he and Billy were dear
friends.  He would spend long sunny
afternoons bowling slows, and twisters, and
overhands to Billy, and he could sing such
charming songs.

One of Billy's peculiarities was that he
exacted songs from all his friends.  Then he
learnt them himself, and sang them in his
turn.  The curate's favourite song was "For
it's My Delight, On a Shiny Night."  It was
this song that caused Billy's predilection for
poachers.

The Earl could sing too.  Of his répertoire
the favourite was—

   |  *"She went and got married, that 'ard-'earted girl,*
   |  *And it was not to a Wicount, and it was not to a Hearl."*
   |

Here Billy always interrupted, exclaiming
delightedly, "That's *you*, you know!" and
demanded the verse again.

There was one friend from whom Billy
exacted no songs.  This was old Williams,
the gardener.  He was a very good gardener,
but deaf.  Billy was the only person whom
he could hear well.  He really had no notion of
singing, that gardener.  So he told Billy tales
in broad Gloucestershire instead, and Billy
trotted after him, assisting in all his
horticultural operations, and they loved each other.

But the fever had got a hold upon Billy,
it was such a hot July.

At last a Sunday came, when those who
loved him best feared that he could not last
through the day.  At morning service the
curate gave it out that "the prayers of the
congregation, are desired for William
Wargrave Ainger"; then he paused, and with
a ring of supplication in his voice, which
startled the listening people, said, "little
Billy Ainger, whom we love—who lies
grievously sick."

"William Wargrave Ainger" had fallen
on inattentive ears, but the familiar name
struck home, and the congregation prayed.

In the pause which followed the words
"especially those for whom our prayers are
desired," the deaf gardener's voice was heard
to say "Amen"; but no one smiled at him
that Sunday.

The Earl had no surplice to take off, so
he reached Billy's house first; but the curate
caught him at the drive gate, for the curate
ran.

There was no sound in the house but the
voice of Billy's mother, singing to him, over
and over again, the same old nursery rhyme.
It ran:

   |  "O do not come, but go away—
   |    Away with your eyes that peep;
   |  O do not come to Billy's house,
   |    For Billy is going to sleep."
   |

It has a quaint lilting tune, and Billy loved
it, but he could not sleep.

His father came down to the Earl and the
curate, and silently they followed him up
into the darkened nursery.  Billy smiled
when he saw them.  He could not speak, he
was so tired.

His mother knelt at the head of his bed,
singing tirelessly.  His father knelt down at
the other side, devouring the thin, flushed,
little face with loving, sorrowful eyes.  The
curate knelt down at the foot of the bed,
and the Earl, who made no attempt to wipe
the tears from off his ruddy cheeks, knelt by
a chair.  By the darkened window sat the
pretty hospital nurse, in her white cap and
apron.

"O do not come to Billy's house," the
mother's voice went on.  Then she sang more
softly, and suddenly there was silence:

Billy had gone to sleep.

The drive gate clicked, a quick step sounded
on the gravel outside.  It was the doctor.
He came hastily into the room, and, stepping
softly over to Billy's mother, lifted her up,
and set her in a chair.

He took her place, laying his hand on the
child's pulse, and on his forehead.  Then he
said in a whisper, "He'll do, he's gone to sleep."

The three men rose from their knees, as
Billy's mother fell on hers, with the first
tears she had shed, in all that weary week.

They followed the doctor out of the room,
and crept downstairs into the hall.  The
doctor pushed Billy's father into the
dining-room, saying, "You must give me some
lunch.  I want to see the little chap again,
in twenty minutes or so—what the deuce was
the matter with you all?  Did you think he
was dead?"

"*I* did," said the Earl, in an awestruck whisper.

"Go away!" said the doctor testily; "go
away, you long-faced lunatics, and leave us
in peace!"

The two young men turned and went into
the drive, where they found Williams, waiting
for news.  The Earl went up to the old man,
and put his mouth to his ear, saying loudly,
and with pauses between each word—"He—is
better—he's asleep—the doctor—says—he'll do."

Williams blew his nose noisily, in a large
red handkerchief; then said huskily, "The
Lard be praised! your lardship, the Lard *be*
praised!"

Then the Earl and Williams shook hands;
and the curate and Williams shook hands.
The two young men shut the gate softly,
and went down the road.

The curate went to lunch with the Earl.
They had champagne, and the Earl grew
frivolous, as his manner is; he has not much
dignity, and he and the curate are old friends,
for they were at Eton and "the House"
together.

"I say, old chap!" said the Earl confidentially,
"you were jolly careful that the
Almighty should make no mistake, this morning."

The curate leaned back in his chair, and
with more than a reminiscence of their
college tutor in his manner, remarked, "In
matters of importance, it is well to be strictly
accurate."





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.. _`AT BLUE HOUSE LOCK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   IV


.. class:: center large bold

   AT BLUE HOUSE LOCK

.. vspace:: 2

The life of Dorcas Heaven, who keeps the
Blue House Lock, is somewhat lonely and
monotonous.  Her post is more or less of a
sinecure, for but few barges pass along that
bit of the canal.  Indeed, the canal itself,
though winding through the prettiest bit of
country in the neighbourhood, is only
navigable during a wet season.  After a drought
it grows so shallow that cows are wont to
stand derisively in the very middle of it,
cooling their legs.

Elijah, husband of Dorcas, is a labourer
on a farm some two miles off.

As the path alongside the canal leads to
nowhere in particular, there is not much
traffic; but when a barge does come, Dorcas
"bustles her about sharpish," and there is
a great to-do.  She looks upon herself as
more or less the hostess of the occupants of
the barge.  "They change the weather and
pass the time of day," their destination and
their business are exhaustively discussed, and
when at length stillness settles down over
the Blue House, when there is no sound but
the cry of a peewit or the rustle of a
water-rat in the rushes, Dorcas fetches a chair into
the doorway and sinks upon it, exclaiming,
"'Law! what a paladum it have been, to be sure!"

On Sunday mornings Dorcas does not go
to church, for "Elijah do like a bit o' meat
of a Sunday," and Dorcas is a good wife
first and a good churchwoman second.  She
therefore defers her attendance until evening,
when Elijah accompanies her.  While the bit
o' meat is in course of preparation he strolls
round for "a bit of a talk" with one "Ethni
Harman, licensed to sell beer and tobacco,"
whose house of cheer lies on the outskirts of
the town, and where the very latest
electioneering news is to be had.  Elijah has been
heard to express an opinion to the effect that
"there ain't no 'arm in going to church twice,
for them as it suits, but once, along of my
missus, be enough for I."

Had it been in Elijah's nature to be
astonished at anything, he would have felt some
surprise at the amiability with which Dorcas
had lately speeded him on his way to "The
Cat and Compasses" on Sunday mornings.
She had at one time been rather given to
inconvenient suggestions as that "them peas
want sticking, and the salery be ready for
banking," when Elijah would fain have been
sunning himself upon the bench outside
Ethni Harman's hospitable door, a mug of
cider and like-minded friend beside him.  He
usually fell in with his wife's suggestions, for
he was a man who loved a quiet life, and
Dorcas—when annoyed on Sunday—was apt
to carry on her domestic duties with
unnecessary vigour far into the night on Monday.

The fact was that, of late, Sunday mornings
had become for Dorcas the corner-stone
of her week, and in this wise: it did not as a
rule take long to get Elijah's dinner under
way; this done, Dorcas would take her chair
into the doorway, and read her Bible.  She
generally chose the Book of Revelation,
carefully forming the words with her lips and
following each with gnarled and work-worn
forefinger.  With Dorcas, as with many
people whose lives are somewhat hard and
monotonous, the prospect of a suite of rooms
in one of the many mansions was extremely
pleasant.  Moreover, the Cotswold peasant
dearly loves any form of spectacle, and
although Dorcas could not pronounce, far
less understand, many of the words she met
with, there was a sense of pageant all around
her as she read; while her appreciation of
the city which has "no need of the sun,
neither of the moon to shine in it," was as
purely sensuous as that of any disciple of
Wagner himself.

"And now, a little wind and shy"
scattered the apple-blossoms over the path, and
the Sunday silence was broken by a clear
child-voice.  To Dorcas such sound was as
the skirl of the pipes to a Highlander in a
far country; her heart beat quick and her
cheeks grew redder, and she rushed out to
see who "was a-comin'"; for Dorcas had
"put away four" in the "cemetrary" on
the Fletborough road, and one had lived to
be four years old.  Besides, to let any one
pass the Blue House without "givin' of 'em
good-day!" was a thing she had never done—"not
once in twenty year."  So she laid
her Bible on the chair, covering it with a
clean white handkerchief, and crossed the
few feet of garden which lay between her
cottage and the towing-path.

A sturdy little boy, in reefer coat and
muffin cap, with round, fresh little face, and
cheeks pink as the petals of the apple-blossom
nearest the calyx, danced with excitement
on the bank as he watched his father
gathering some yellow "flags" which grew at the
water's edge.  The attendant father—parents
and such were always a secondary consideration
with Dorcas—was not very successful,
as the ground was soft and slippery.

"Is it wet down there, dad?  Can I come?
Oh, get that big one just over there!  Won't
muth be pleased?  What dirty boots you'll
have!  Shall I hold your stick for you to
cling on to?"

Then he noticed Dorcas.  "Good-morning!"
said he with gay courtesy.  "Isn't
it a fine May morning?"

"It be that surely, little master!" answered
Dorcas in high delight.  Then "the little
gentleman's dada"—he never achieved a
separate identity in the mind of
Dorcas—scrambled up from the swamp in which he
had been standing.  He, too, proved most
approachable, and she learned that the
youthful potentate in the reefer jacket had
never walked so far before, that the "scroped
out old quarry" just beyond the Blue House
was his destination, and that he would
probably come again next Sunday.

He came every Sunday morning all
through that summer, and always with his
dad.  Sometimes they went tapping for
fossils in the disused quarry, sometimes they
came with butterfly-nets and caught
"Tortoiseshells" and "Wall-Browns," and upon
one great occasion a "Fritillary."  But
whatever they sought or whatever they
caught, Dorcas was always, as who should
say, "in at the death," and shared the
excitement and the triumph with them.

The little gentleman was very friendly—a
child is quick to recognise an admirer as any
pretty woman—and it is possible that the
attendant father understood and indulged
the childless woman's craving for a child's
affection.  Sometimes Dorcas felt a qualm
of conscience, and wondered whether her
adored young gentleman ought not rather to
be in church these sunny Sunday mornings;
though had he been in church he certainly
could have been nowhere in the neighbourhood
of the Blue House.  But she was
comforted when she heard that he went with
his mother to a children's service in the
afternoon.  Henceforth she gave herself up
to the study of natural history and the
worship of her dear "little gentleman" with
a light heart.

Even in winter he sometimes came "of a
fine Sunday," and Dorcas would spend many
hours of the following week vainly trying to
determine whether she admired him most in
a sailor suit, or in the breeches and gaiters
of which he was so proud.  One
never-to-be-forgotten day the rain came down in
torrents just as her sultan and his grand
vizier reached the Blue House.  They took
shelter with Dorcas, and the sultan was
graciously pleased to be lifted up that he
might reach a certain mug from the top shelf
of the dresser—a mug which had belonged
to "'im as wer gone."  Dorcas made gingerbread
cats and ducks, and her artistic efforts
went so far as to attempt a king "with a
crown upon 'is 'ead."  After regaling himself
with these delicacies her sultan would hold
up a rosy face, ornamented by sundry sticky
streaks, to be kissed in farewell; and when
she had watched him round the bend of the
canal her eyes would grow dim, and she
would go back to the Book of Revelation,
murmuring another favourite quotation to herself,
"The Lard gave and the Lard 'ave took
away.  Blessed be the name of the Lard."

Of course the many charms of the "little
gentleman" were duly reported to Elijah,
and the residence of Ethni Harman took on
a reflected glory from the fact that it was
but a stone's throw from that of her sultan.

It was a wet summer, and there came four
wet Sundays one after the other.  Vainly
did Dorcas try to fix her mind on the streets
of jasper, while all the time she was straining
her ears for the sound of the little voice that
never chimed into the stillness.  She grew
to hate the patter of the rain, on the path
outside; even the fact that the canal, for
once, was full, and three barges passed in
one week, did not console her.  The
gingerbread animals grew stale and crumbly
between two plates, and the gorgeous mug,
"A Present from Fairford," was put back
on the top shelf of the dresser again.

The weather changed, and there came a
lovely Sunday.  Elijah set off to the "Cat
and Compasses" as usual; Dorcas bustled
about with a pleasant sense of expectation
and went and stood on the towing-path, her
eyes fixed on the distant bridge.  Some boys
went by to bathe beyond the second bend,
with laughter and shouting.  Then the only
sound was the hum of bees settled on the
purple scabious growing a-top the crumbling
Cotswold wall.

On Monday Dorcas could bear it no longer.
"I be that tewey and narvous, I don't know
what I be about," she remarked, as she
locked the door of the Blue House and hid
the key under the mat.  Should a barge
come—well, it must manage somehow!
Barges were never in a hurry.  She had come
to a momentous decision.  She was going
to inquire after her "little gentleman."  Whether
he was ill or gone for a holiday,
or was merely forgetful, she would find out
and end this dreadful suspense.  She was a
very simple-minded woman, but in her heart
of hearts she felt a little sore with the grand
vizier, for she had a notion that he was by
no means ignorant of what these Sunday
visits meant to her.

"I believe 'e'd 'ave come afore this if 'e'd
been let.  'A be that meek-'earted 'a
wouldn't 'urt a vloi, let alone a 'oman," she
said to herself with a half sob.  She was
convinced that her sultan could not forget
so utterly the humblest of his slaves.  So
she put on her best clothes and tight elastic-sided
boots, with lots of little white buttons
adorning the fronts.

At the Blue House, Dorcas was never either
self-conscious or shy; but when she reached
her sultan's palace, having timidly pushed
open the drive gate, she became aware that
the new boots creaked horribly, and that
perspiration was dropping from her eyebrows
into her eyes.  Having mopped her face, and
generally pulled herself together, she
managed to reach the front door, though her
knees trembled, and her heart fluttered like
a caged bird.

Never was such a noisy bell!  It clanged
and echoed in most alarming fashion; she
wished that the stone steps would open and
swallow her up.  What would they think of
her for daring to make such a clatter?
Besides—and at the dreadful thought she nearly
cried out—of course she ought to have gone
to the back door.

For full five minutes she stood on the
steps, listening for any sound inside the
house, but all was perfectly quiet.  She
turned and went into the drive, meaning to
go round to the back door, when it occurred
to her to look back at the house; she had
been far too nervous to do so as she came
in.  The lower windows were shuttered, and
all the blinds were down.

They had gone then! and it was empty.
"And they never didn't bring 'im for to say
good-bye to me."

Life's little tragedies generally happen to
the lonely.  What in a full and happy life
ranks but as an episode, becomes an epoch
in the sad-coloured days of lean monotony.
Dorcas wiped her eyes more than once, on
her way home, and went heavily for many
days.  Elijah saw that she was fretting, and
tried to distract her by news from the town,
and occasional suggestions that she should
go over "and see sister-law" in an adjacent
village; but beyond her necessary journeys
to the town to buy such stores as she could
afford, Dorcas never left home.  She scrubbed
the kitchen table till she grudged to sully its
whiteness by so much as a yellow bowl, and
she made herself a warm new winter dress,
but, for all her industry, the time hung heavy
on her hands, and she never forgot her "little
gentleman."  The wet season was followed
by an Indian summer of exceptional beauty.
"The spirit of October, mild and boon," was
in the air; the tottering Cotswold wall,
which laid its wayward length on the far
side of the footway, was covered by sprays
of crimson blackberry, mingled with the
fluffy greyness of "old man's beard."  Dorcas
no longer stared hungrily down the
towing-path on Sunday morning, but she did not
forget; and, in token of her remembrance,
the twenty-first chapter of the Book of
Revelation was marked in her Bible by a little
woollen glove with a large hole in the thumb.
Her sultan had dropped it during his last visit.

The birds sang as though it were spring,
and Dorcas began to read aloud to herself
to keep her thoughts from wandering.  "And
God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes," whispered the kind Gloucestershire
voice, when suddenly, above the triumphant
voices of the birds, above the soft wash of
the water among the yellowing reeds, rang
that clear sound for which the soul of Dorcas
had hungered so cruelly.

"I wonder if the lady at the Blue House
will know me again, Dad!"

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



It seemed as though the grand vizier had
not been so greatly to blame after all.  He
had been suddenly called away to the north
of Scotland; and although he had left
directions that before the sultan and the
household followed him that potentate was to be
taken to say good-bye "to the lady at the
Blue House," although the sultan himself
had repeatedly suggested the propriety of
such a pilgrimage, his nurse had always
considered the road too muddy.

"I thought, sir, as you was all gone fur
good and all," said Dorcas, with a catch
in her voice; "and I were that taken to I
never made no inquiries."

On his way home the grand vizier was
rather silent.  Once or twice he made a queer
little face, and seemed to swallow something
in his throat.  At last he quoted, but not to
the sultan, "By heavens, it is pitiful, the
bootless love of women for children in Vanity
Fair."  The rosy-faced child, who had been
wondering why the usual Sunday service of
gingerbread had been omitted, was rather
surprised, but nevertheless asked curiously,
"Are you thinking of the Blue House lady, Dad?"

His father stooped down hastily and kissed him.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`KETURAH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \V


.. class:: center large bold

   KETURAH

.. vspace:: 2

On Mondays the doctor stayed at the surgery
to see patients from two till seven.  He did
not live at the surgery, oh, dear no! but had
a fine house, with a carriage drive and a
conservatory, right at the other end of the
town.  The waiting-room was very full on
Mondays, people came from all parts to see
the doctor; moreover, it was market-day,
and the pursuit of health could be combined
with that of business.

It was getting late, and only two people
were left in the waiting-room—a shabby,
nervous-looking woman and a handsome lad
of sixteen, who had come to consult the
doctor about a sprained thumb.  "One of
the gentry," thought the woman to herself,
as she noted the trim riding-breeches and
the leather on his shoulders.

From time to time she looked anxiously
at the clock, clasping and unclasping her thin,
work-worn hands.

A door banged outside, the consulting-room
bell pealed, signifying that an interview
was over.  It was the lad's turn next.  He
stretched his long legs preparatory to obeying
the expected summons, when the woman rose
hastily and came and stood in front of him,
saying eagerly, "Sir, will you let me go in
out of my turn?  I won't keep the doctor
a minute; it's to ask him to come to my child
who is very ill.  I've been away far too long
as it is, but I'd no one as I could send."

"Of course, of course!" exclaimed the
lad, who had risen to his feet when she first
spoke, looking very shy and embarrassed,
"and I am awfully sorry, you know, but
the doctor will be sure to do it good.  He's
'A one,' you know——"

At this moment the door opened and a
voice cried, "Next, please!" and the little
woman, casting a grateful look behind her,
hurried into the presence of the doctor.  He
looked up surprised as she entered—poor
people generally came on Thursdays.

"Well?" he demanded.  With rich and
poor alike the doctor's manners were always
somewhat abrupt.  He was saving of speech,
though it is true that he expanded under the
smiles of youth and beauty.

"Please, sir, could you come and see my
little girl?  She's bin ill now these three
weeks; she don't get no better, and she does
nothing but cough, and seems that hot and
restless, and is that weak——"

"What have you done?" interrupted the doctor.

"I've kep' 'er in bed and giv' 'er 'Dinver's
Lung Tonic.'  My 'usband, 'e don't 'old with
doctors—'e's a Plymouth Brother, and don't
seek advice——"

The doctor growled out something about
"nonsense," prefaced by a somewhat forcible
adjective, then "All right!  I'll come.  Where
do you live?"

After giving her address, the woman held
out to him a little screw of paper.  He waved
it aside impatiently, saying, "Haven't seen
her yet," held the door open, and the woman
hurried out.

"I'll come directly," he shouted after
her.  His heart was much softer than his
manners.

"These Plimmy brothers are the biggest
lunatics going," he said to himself, "with
their faith-healing and their providence-mongering.
I'd like to dose the lot of them."

The doctor was not accurate in his diagnosis
of the sect in question, but in his
own mind lumped together every sort of
religious enthusiasm.

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.. vspace:: 1



Matthew Moulder, baker, was an upright,
God-fearing man, foreman to the baker—our
little town boasts but one.  He turned out
excellent bread; moreover, he was a good
husband, a conscientious if not affectionate
father, and a diligent worshipper in that
upper room, wherein assembled a handful of
people of similar religious views.  He
indulged himself in few pleasures, and rather
wondered at the frivolity of his neighbours,
who took life with that cheerful philosophy
still to be found in portions of England
which yet remain to justify the description
"merrie."

His wife was meek-hearted, and easily
ruled; she never questioned his authority,
but having early laid to heart the maxim
that "what a man doesn't know can't vex
him," she was careful to vex Matthew as
seldom as possible.

How, then, did these two sedate and
respectable persons come by such a child as
their daughter Keturah?

Keturah of the elf-locks and great
wine-coloured eyes.  Keturah, who danced and
sang and giggled the live-long day; who
yawned in sermons and played "handy-pandy"
with herself, while her father uplifted
his voice in prayer.  Who turned up in the
hunting-field when she ought to have been
safe in school, ever ready to open gates for
the "gentry," with dazzling smiles, showing
the whitest of white teeth, and with curtsies
that suggested drawing-rooms rather than
the village lane.

At the little school, which she attended
with a fitfulness perplexing in the extreme
to the worthy mistress, she did her lessons
far better and more quickly than anybody
else.  There was no doubt about it, Keturah
was a "character."

While there were but few people outside
the row of cottages where they lived who
even knew Matthew and his wife by sight,
everybody knew Keturah.  Always in
mischief, always *en évidence*, always doing the
unexpected, undaunted by misfortunes and
punishments which would have struck terror
into the heart of any well-regulated little
girl; she had, during her six months' residence
in our midst, attained to a notoriety which
was apparently as much a matter of indifference
to her as it was painful to her parents.
Her father looked upon her as a cross to be
borne with Christian fortitude.  He wrestled
in prayer on her behalf, and on occasion with
Keturah herself, accentuating his remarks by
means of a stick.  But, as Thomas Beames,
her slave and shadow, remarked on one
occasion, when they played truant to attend a
meet some seven miles off, "They'll beat we
when us do get 'ome; but us'll 'ave our
fun fust."

Thomas was a round-faced, in no way
extraordinarily small boy, who was dominated
by Keturah's stronger character; he loved
her, why, he himself could not have told.
Perhaps because he admired the way she
always made sure of her "fun" regardless of
consequences—a disregard the stranger in
Keturah's case, for Nemesis was by no means
leaden-footed.  As a rule, the punishment
was in very truth the other half of the
crime.

She loved her mother, and regarded her
father much in the same light that he
regarded her, with this difference that she
looked for no change in him, but with a
philosophy as pagan as the rest of her
conduct accepted his existence as a necessary
evil.  Indeed, had Matthew but known it,
she extracted considerable "fun" out of
circumventing him.

But Keturah had fallen on evil days.  A
fishing expedition, during which she tumbled
into the canal, and after which she walked
about till she was, as she put it, "moderate
dry"—"at least not to notice"—had ended
in the mysterious illness to which the doctor
had just been called.

Matthew Moulder had gone that evening
to a prayer-meeting in a neighbouring village,
where he would stay the night with a
hospitable brother; this fact, taken together
with the fact that Keturah seemed most
alarmingly ill, had given her mother the
courage to call in the doctor.

He had seen Keturah, had expressed
himself with his customary vigour as to the
imbecility of people who could treat a case
of acute pneumonia with "Dinver's Lung
Tonic" for sole remedy, and now he had
returned to the little bedroom to have a
final look at the child.

She was too weak to raise herself on her
elbow, but she turned her head on the
doctor's entrance.  "Shall I go to hell?" she
asked, devouring his face with her great
fever-bright eyes.

The doctor started.  She had not volunteered
any remark before.

"God bless my soul, no!" he exclaimed.
"You'll go to Weston-super-Mare when
you're well enough."

Keturah shook her head.  "But if I don't
get well?  Shall I go to hell?"

Theology is not one of the doctor's strong
points.  Being as a rule much concerned with
the treatment of the body, he expresses
himself with diffidence regarding the ultimate
fate of the soul.  But on this occasion he
shook his head vigorously, holding the hot
thin little hand in a firm comforting clasp.
"You must ask a parson about these things,
my dear, but I am quite sure that no little
girls go——but you are going to get
well—cheer up!  Eh?"

"Could I ast the young gentleman parson
wot plays cricket?"  Keturah's voice was
hoarse and eager.

"The very man—couldn't do better.  I'll
send him round as I go home," and the
doctor turned to go.  He hurried down the
narrow stairs, but stopped at the front door
to call back into the house, "She's to live
in poultices, mind!  *Live* in 'em."

He stopped at the curate's lodgings as he
drove home, and went right in, to find the
cleric in question resting his slippered feet
upon the chimney-piece, while he smoked
and read the evening paper.

"There's a kid down with pneumonia in
the Waterlow Cottages, and she fancies she's
going to hell.  She'd like to see you, so I
said I'd send you.  Her people are Plymouth
Rocks, or some such thing.  She's a queer
little soul—dying, I fear."

"It can't be Keturah?" exclaimed the
curate, swinging his feet off the mantelpiece
and standing up on his long legs.

"I believe that is the creature's name."

"Oh, you mustn't let Keturah die!  She's
a genius!"

"She may be a genius," said the doctor
grimly, "but her people are the balliest
lunatics in creation, and I rather fancy that
geniuses are just as likely to die of neglect
as other folk——"  But the curate had not
waited for the rest of the sentence.  He seized
his hat and ran into the street, his slippers
(down at the heel) going flip, flop, on the wet
pavement as he ran.

"He's a good chap," murmured the doctor
as he climbed into his dog-cart.  "He's a
devilish good chap."

He went to see Keturah again that night,
and found that his instructions had been
carried out to the letter.  He also found the
curate there, in his shirt-sleeves, assisting
Mrs. Moulder to make poultices.  He often
does such things.  His people look upon it
as an amiable eccentricity.  "'E's a curus
gent," they say.  "'E'll turn 'is 'and to
hany think."

He turned his hand to the nursing of
Keturah with such success that two days later
the doctor said, "She is better, but weak
as a kitten.  She must have brandy.  You
must watch for the grey look and give it
her then."

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Moulder,
who, since the invasion of the curate, could
not call her soul her own, "Oh, sir, I daren't.
My 'usband wouldn't 'ave it in the 'ouse.
'E's tee-total, 'e is——"

"Tell him it is medicine," said the doctor
shortly.  "She must have it, and here it is.
Give it her in milk like this!" and suiting
the action to the word, he measured out
something into a tea-cup.  Something that
had a most unmistakable smell.

Keturah drank it, and her ashy cheeks
grew a shade less grey.  Then she turned to
the doctor, with one of her dazzling smiles.
"I don't think much on the taste of it,
but"—with immense conviction—"it do make
you feel so cheerful-like, about the knees."

Her mother wrung her hands, but the
doctor chuckled, and, placing on the table
the innocent-looking medicine bottle he had
produced from his pocket, nodded at it,
remarking, "Every time she looks so grey, mind!"

Mrs. Moulder burnt brown paper in the
bedroom, for Matthew came home at five.
She dared not pour the accursed stuff away,
for the doctor and the curate between them
had frightened her out of her wits, by
threatening legal proceedings if Keturah were in
any way neglected.  She had been obliged to
confess to the visits of the doctor, who might
fly in at any moment when Matthew was at
home.  But she had not felt in any way
called upon to tell her husband that the
curate had sat up with Keturah the whole
night that he was away, helping her
poultice, and allaying the child's fears as to
eternal punishment so successfully that she
fell asleep.  It was therefore a shock to
Matthew, on his return to tea that afternoon,
to hear an undoubtedly clerical voice,
apparently reading to Keturah.

The house was perfectly quiet, though
there were movements in the back kitchen,
showing the whereabouts of Mrs. Moulder.
He stood at the foot of the little narrow
staircase and listened, fully prepared to find
some taint of ritualism in the curate's
ministrations.  He had come to make a convert
of Keturah, of that he was sure; was there
not an office—Matthew almost licked his lips
over the word "office"—in the Book of
Common Prayer especially adapted to the
visiting of the sick?  All the Protestant in
him rose in rebellion.  He would be calm,
but he would convict this meddling priest
out of his own mouth.  Then with the dignified
strength born of a just indignation bid
him begone!

The bedroom door stood open, and he
heard Keturah's weak little voice saying,
"Tell it again!  I like it."

Matthew braced himself to listen, and this
was what he heard:—

   |  "We built a ship upon the stairs,
   |  All made of the back bedroom chairs,
   |  And filled it full of sofa pillows,
   |  To go a-sailing on the billows.

   |  "We took a saw and several nails,
   |  And water in the nursery pails;
   |  And Tom said, 'Let us also take
   |  An apple and a slice of cake;'—
   |  Which was enough for Tom and me
   |  To go a-sailing on, till tea.

   |  "We sailed along for days and days,
   |  And had the very best of plays;
   |  But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,
   |  So there was no one left but me."
   |

"So there was no one left but me,"
repeated the weak child-voice.  Matthew rose
from the third stair from the bottom, where
he had been sitting, and stumbled somewhat
blindly into the parlour, where he sat down
on the slippery horse-hair sofa.  He cleared
his throat and blew his nose, and there was
an expression on his face which was seldom
seen there.

"And ther' was no one left but me."  The
forlorn weak voice repeating that, moved him
strangely.  Keturah was the last of the
children.  There had been six babies before
Keturah, and none had lived beyond babyhood.
At that moment he forgot how naughty
she was, how unregenerate!  He only
remembered that she used to lay her baby face
against his, and that she said "dada" the
very first word she spoke.

A hundred pretty scenes of her first years
flashed into his recollection.  His suspicions
of the curate were forgotten, and in their
place came cold-handed fear to fill his heart
with the dread that Keturah might not get well.

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After all, one honest man can recognise
another, whether he wear an M.B. waistcoat
or a baker's apron.  Anyhow, the curate so
far won upon Matthew Moulder that he
persuaded him to allow the district nurse to be
sent to sit up with Keturah till she was
"round the corner," and that the nurse might
keep a sharp look out for the recurrence of
"the grey look."

As Keturah grew better, Matthew made,
with his own hands, and at the instigation
of the curate, a whole series of fantastic little
loaves that she might the better "fancy her tea."

"My Dada don't say much, but I knows
now that 'e *do* like me," said Keturah, in a
burst of confidence to Thomas Beames, and
Thomas, with that caution for which the
Cotswold folk are justly famed, replied—

"Mebbe 'e do.  But folks when they be
growed up be oncommon akard 'times."

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"As for that there doctor," said Mrs. Moulder
to a bosom friend, "'e's the most
commandingest gent I ever see.  But 'e *do*
get 'is own way.  'E and that curie between
them come over Matthew something
wonderful; they flaunted their brandy in 'is
very face, and 'e never said nothink.  They
giv' 'er champang one night, as she was so
low, an' 'e hopened the bottle 'imself.  But
I will say this for 'em, they always says to
Keturah, when they giv' 'er them liquors,
'Now, remember, you're never to tech this
when you be got well.  You're to be a
tea-totaller like your dada.'  An' Matthew, 'e
took 'er to Weston 'is own self.  'E do seem
more set up about Keturah than 'e was.
But, mark my words, if you wants to call
your 'ouse your own, don't you let that there
doctor inside of it, that's all."

Curiously enough, it was Matthew Moulder
who was grateful to the doctor.





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.. _`MRS. CUSHION'S CHILDREN`:

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   VI


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   MRS. CUSHION'S CHILDREN

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She was rather like her name, for she seemed
specially created to make life easier for other
people.

A short, comfortably stout, elderly woman,
with a round, rosy face and kind blue eyes
beaming behind steel-rimmed spectacles.  On
Sundays the spectacles had gold rims and
were never seen on any other day.

To be taken as a lodger by Mrs. Cushion
implied introductions and references—from
the lodger—and Mrs. Cushion was by no
means too easily pleased.  If neither the
vicar, the doctor, nor the squire could
guarantee your integrity and personal
pleasantness, there was no hope of obtaining
Mrs. Cushion's rooms.  Moreover, she preferred
gentlemen.  She was frankly emphatic about that.

To be sure, in wet weather "they did
make a goodish mess," what with tackle and
muddy boots and the many garments that
got soaking wet and had to be dried.  But
then, they *did* go out for most of the day,
and that gave a body time to clear up after
them.  And when they'd had their dinners
they put their feet on the mantelpiece—"I
always clears all my own things off of it
except the clock"—and they smoked peaceably
till they went to bed.  "Now, ladies"—it
was clear that Mrs. Cushion was not partial
to ladies—"they did stay indoors if there
cum so much as a spot of rain."  And they
rang their bells at all sorts of awkward times.
"You couldn't be sure of 'em like you was
of gentlemen.  When a gentleman settles
down, he settles down, and you knows where
you are, and what's more, you knows where
*'e* is.  Now, ladies, as often as not, 'ud be
upon you in your kitching before you so
much as knew they was in the passage—an'
it were onsettlin'."

No lady was ever allowed to set foot in
Mrs. Cushion's hospitable house in May or
June or the first part of July.  Those months
were sacred to the fishers; but as a favour
to one of the references she would sometimes
consent to take a lady in August.

The vicar, my old friend, was my reference,
and he stood surety for my general
"peaceableness."  He assured Mrs. Cushion that so
long as I might sleep with my back to the
light that I would not want to alter
everything in my bedroom (one lady lodger had
done this, and Mrs. Cushion never forgot or
forgave the "'ubbub" that ensued), that I
was in search of perfect quiet in which to
finish a book, and lastly he got at
Mrs. Cushion through her kind heart—declaring
that I was a delicate, muddly, incapable sort
of person who required looking after.

So at the beginning of a singularly sunny
August I went down to Redmarley to take
possession of two rooms in "Snig's Cottage."  The
cottage stands about half a mile from
Redmarley itself, high above a bend of the
river known as "Snig's Ferry," and the
villagers always call it "Snig's."

Who Snig was no one knows, for the
cottage was built "nigh up on three 'undred
year ago."  The vicar, who is something of
an antiquarian, says even earlier.  In the
memory of man "Snig's" has never been
bought, it is always "left," and the heritor,
so far, has never been willing to sell, though,
as Mrs. Cushion remarked scornfully, "Artises
an' sich do often come after it, an' one,
an American gentleman 'e was, wanted to
buy 'un and build out at the back all over
my bit o' garden and kip the old 'ouse just
as a' be for a curiositee.  I let 'im talk,
but, bless you, my uncle left it to me in 'is
will and I shall leave it the same in mine;
and so it'll always be, so long as there's one
stone to another.  'Ouses is 'ouses in these
parts."

Solid and grey and gabled, the little
six-roomed house still stood in its trim garden,
outwardly the same as when the untraceable
Snig first named it.  Inside, its furniture was
a jumble of periods, but there were no
aspidistras, nor did any ornament cling to a
plush bracket on the walls.  Jacob and
Rachel were there, and the infant Samuel,
and on either side of the clock was a
red-and-white china spaniel and a Toby jug.
Mrs. Cushion frankly owned that she had
preferred her own "bits of things" to some
of her uncle's that were there when she came.
To make room for her mahogany sideboard
she had sold an old oak chest to the American
gentleman, who was glad to give a good price
for it.

"A hoak chest," said Mrs. Cushion, "is
an on'andy thing to keep the gentlemen's
beverages in.  One always 'as to lift
everything off the top to get inside.  Now, my
sideboard 'as doors and shelves all convenient
one side, and a reg'lar cellar for beverages
on the other.  Not but as what folks 'ud be
much better without them."

Mrs. Cushion was, herself, strong for the
temperance cause, but she was too tolerant
a woman and too excellent a landlady to do
more than hint her disapproval.  And by
calling every form of alcohol "a beverage"
I'm certain she felt that in some inexplicable
way she so rendered it more or less innocuous.
She never spoke of either wines or spirits by
their names, only collectively as "beverages."

And I speedily learned that although
indulgence in such pleasures of the table was
to be tolerated, even condoned, in men,
women were expected to be of sterner stuff;
and I believe my modest half-flagon of
Burgundy, reposing in meek solitude in all the
roomy glory of the "cellaret," grieved her
far more than when that same cellaret was
filled by the varied and much stronger
"beverages" of her male guests.  Yet she never
failed to remind me when there was only, as
she put it, "one more dose," that I might
order a fresh supply from the grocer.

Men she regarded as children.  Her mental
attitude towards them was that of "boys
will be boys," and they might be bald and
stout, Generals or Viceroys or Secretaries of
State in their public capacity—but did such
an one become Mrs. Cushion's lodger she
instantly felt called upon to stand between
him and every discomfort, to condone his
vagaries, and to give him, so far as was
humanly possible, every mortal thing he
wanted.  Small wonder that her "fishing-gentlemen"
took her rooms months before-hand
and year after year.

"I don't suppose as you've noticed, miss,
being, so to speak, unmarried yourself—but
there's something in men-folk as seems to
stop growin' when they be about ten year
old.  It crops up different in different sorts,
but it's there all the same in all of 'em.
And when it crops up—no matter if 'e be
hever so majestical an' say nothing to
nobody, the seein' eye can figure 'im out in
tore knickerbockers an' a dirty face same as
if he stood in front of you—more especially
if you've 'ad little boys of your own."

"I suppose," I said—perhaps a bit
wistfully, for Mrs. Cushion was rather fond of
referring to my spinsterhood—"it does make
a great difference....  First you know your
husband so well, and then your sons....
By the way, what was your husband, Mrs. Cushion?"

Mrs. Cushion turned very red and was
manifestly uncomfortable.  "I'd rather not
talk about 'im, miss," she said hastily.  "He
weren't an overly good 'usban' to me ... but
the children..."  Here Mrs. Cushion
beamed, and with restored tranquillity
continued, "The children 'ave made it all up to
me over and over."

Yet from an outsider's point of view,
especially from that of one who was "so to
speak unmarried," Mrs. Cushion didn't seem
to get any great benefit from her two sons.
One was in Australia and one in Canada,
and though she had been living in Redmarley
some six years, I could not discover that
either had ever been home.  They were not,
I gathered, particularly good correspondents,
nor did they seem to assist their mother in
any way financially, or send presents home.
All the same, they were a source of pride
and joy to Mrs. Cushion, and a never-failing
topic of conversation.  In fact, I think that
one of the things that caused her to tolerate
my sex and my spinsterhood was the real
interest I took in Arty and Bert, and my
readiness to talk about either or both at all
times.

They were never quite clear to me, and
this was odd, because Mrs. Cushion was
certainly graphic and vivid in her descriptions
as a rule.  She would never show me their
portraits because she said they "took badly,"
both of them.

By my third August I could have passed
a stiff examination in her "gentlemen."  I
felt that I knew *them* intimately, both as to
their appearance, manners, and taste both
in viands and beverages.

There was Mr. Lancaster, who ate meat
only once a day, drank white wine, and was
that gentle and considerate you'd never know
he was there except that he did lose his
things so, and had a habit of putting his
coffee-cup and pipes and newspapers under
the valance of the sofa.

"Faithful-'earted, I calls 'im!" said
Mrs. Cushion.  "Every Saturday reg'lar he sends
me the *Times* newspaper, and it is gratifying
to see a 'igh-class newspaper like that once
a week.  It do make me feel like a real lady
just to read the rents of them 'ouses on the
back page, and it does me no end of good
to know who's preaching at St. Paul's
Cathedral—all the churches, in fact; it's almost as
good as being there."

"Wouldn't you rather have a picture
paper?" I asked.

"Certainly not, miss," Mrs. Cushion
replied with dignified asperity.  "I much
prefer what Mr. Lancaster reads his-self, an' it's
the kind thought I values far more than the
amusingness of the paper.  It seems to keep
him an' me in mind of one another."

"Do your boys often send you papers,
Mrs. Cushion?"

"Well ... not so to speak often....
It's difficult for them, and I dare say the
papers in those parts ain't like ours.  Perhaps
they wouldn't be suitable——"

"Is Mr. Lancaster married?"

"Not to my knowledge, miss," answered
the cautious Mrs. Cushion.  "He don't
behave like a married man....  Not"—she
added hastily, eager to give no wrong
impression—"not that 'e's ever anything but
most conformable; only there's a difference
between them as is married and them as
isn't.  I'm sure you see it yourself, miss,
though, to be sure, you're nothing like so
set in your ways as some.  If I was you,
miss," said Mrs. Cushion, suddenly beaming
upon me like a rosy sun in spectacles, "I
shouldn't give up hope.  Mr. Right may come
along for you even yet.  I 'ad a friend who
married when she were fifty-nine....  To
be sure, 'er 'usban' was bedridden, but 'e's
living to this day, an' it's a good fifteen
years ago."

"I don't think I should like a bedridden
husband, Mrs. Cushion."

"You'll like whatever you gets, my dear,
never you fear."  And Mrs. Cushion bustled
out with the tray, leaving me to the rather
rueful reflection that her last speech was
more complimentary to my stoicism than to
my matrimonial prospects.

"Snig's" was an ideal place to work in:
quiet without being lonely; fresh and
bracing, yet seldom cold; beautiful with the
homely, tender grace of pastoral England.
The doctor and his wife "over to Winstone"
were hospitable and kind, the villagers were
friendly as only peasant folk in the remote
Cotswolds still are; the vicar I always look
upon as one of the most understanding and
delightful people I've ever met.  That
autumn the squire and his large lively family
were up in Scotland, but this only increased
possibilities of work, and I stayed on at
Snig's into October.

One day the vicar summoned me to
luncheon.  A friend from a distance had
motored over, bringing with him his guests,
a visiting parson and his wife, to see the
church and the village, and he implored my
presence "to keep Mrs. Robinson in countenance."

Not that anything of the kind was needed,
for Mrs. Robinson turned out to be a most
self-sufficient and didactic lady, with
"clergyman's wife" writ large all over her.  Her
husband was of the conscientious, mentally
mediocre type of parson, with much energy
and no imagination; and luncheon seemed
a very long meal.  There appeared a curious
dearth of topics of conversation, and for
lack of something better the vicar explained
my presence in Redmarley, mentioning that
I had been living for the last two months
with the excellent Mrs. Cushion—"who
comes, I believe," he added, "from your
part of the world."

"Caroline Cushion?" Mrs. Robinson
demanded, with that air of cross-questioning a
witness which made small-talk so difficult.
"If it's Caroline Cushion, she did live in our
parish, and she certainly wasn't 'Mrs.' then,
but a middle-aged single woman.  She left
soon after my husband got the living, but I
remember her quite well—she came into a
house, or something, and went away to live
in it."

"It's a curious coincidence," said the vicar
easily, "but it can't be our Mrs. Cushion, for
not only is she married, but she has grown-up
sons to whom she is absolutely devoted."

"It's unlikely," said Mrs. Robinson, "that
there could be two Caroline Cushions both
coming from the same village, and both
inheriting property at a distance.  The matter
should be looked into, for certainly with us
she passed always as a single woman, and
to the best of my belief had spent almost
her whole life in the village.  Is she a fairish
woman, stout, with red cheeks?"

"She is very pleasant and fresh-looking,"
said the vicar, looking at me for help.  "But
I am quite sure she can't be the one you mean."

"I'm not at all sure of anything of the
kind," Mrs. Robinson snapped.  "She may
have been living a double life all these years.
As I said before, the matter should be looked
into.  I'd know her again if I saw her.  I
never forget a face."

I don't know why it was, but I suddenly
felt most uncomfortable, and was surprised
at my own passionate determination that
Mrs. Robinson should *not* see Mrs. Cushion.
We had reached the walnut stage, and I
suggested to her that she and I might go
and sit in the drawing-room and leave the
gentlemen to smoke.

"My husband doesn't smoke," she said
severely as we crossed the hall; "he doesn't
think it becoming in a clergyman, and I must
say I agree with him.  But then *he* is rector
of the parish, and one of those—too few,
alas! in these lax days—who acts up to his
convictions....  Now, about this
Mrs. Cushion...."  Mrs. Robinson by this time
was seated beside me on the vicar's chesterfield.
"I feel quite anxious.  What can be
her reason for masquerading as a married
woman here?  Even if she *had* married since
she left her old home, it's most unlikely that
her name would still be Cushion, and it's
impossible that she should have grown-up
sons.  Have you seen them?"

"They are both abroad," I answered,
"and isn't Cushion quite a common name
in Gloucestershire?"

"Not at all; it's a very *un*\common name,
that's why I remember it so distinctly—and
to think she always passed for a most
respectable woman!"

"So she is," I interrupted with some heat.
"A most kind and admirable woman in
every possible way.  Every one here has the
greatest respect for her.  She's probably a
cousin of your one—who doubtless was quite
excellent also.  Would you care to go out
and look at the dahlias?  The vicar has
quite a show."

Never did I spend a more trying half-hour
than the one that followed.  Mrs. Robinson
kept returning to the subject of Mrs. Cushion
with a persistency worthy of a better cause;
and I, for no reason that I could formulate,
kept heading her off and trying to turn her
thoughts down other paths.  It was
Mrs. Cushion's sons that seemed to annoy her
most, and I had the queer, wholly illogical
feeling that Mrs. Robinson would, unless
prevented, snatch them away from Mrs. Cushion,
and that it was up to me to prevent
anything of the kind.  So nervous did I feel
that I accompanied the party to see the
church and the village, and only breathed
freely again when Mr. Vernon's car had
borne Mr. and Mrs. Robinson away in a
direction wholly opposite to Snig's.

As his guests vanished over the bridge
in the direction of Marlehouse, the vicar
sighed deeply.  "Now, why," he demanded,
"should Vernon have brought those people
to me?  I suppose he was so bored himself
he had to do something.  She's his cousin,
I believe, and what a trying lady!"

"Did you 'ave a nice party, miss?" asked
Mrs. Cushion an hour or so later, as she
brought in my tea.

"Curiously enough, there was a clergyman
and his wife from your old home, Mrs. Cushion.
I wonder if you remember them?
A Mr. and Mrs. Robinson."

"I suppose you didn't happen to name
me, miss?" Mrs. Cushion asked—I thought
a trifle nervously.

"Well, I didn't, but the vicar did."

"Yes, miss, and did Mrs. Robinson seem
to remember me?"

"She remembered some one of your name,
Mrs. Cushion, but it couldn't have been
you—perhaps you have relations in her parish?"

"May I make so bold, miss, as to ask
exactly what she did say?"

"That it was a *Miss* Cushion she knew,
who left soon after her husband got the
living."

"I dare say she did," said Mrs. Cushion
grimly; "and there was many as would
have gone, too, if they'd had the chanst.
If it's not taking a liberty, miss, was you
exactly *draw'd* to Mrs. Robinson?"

"Certainly not," I replied.  "I couldn't
get on with her at all.  Are they popular in
the parish?"

"It's not for me to say, miss.  I left two
months after they did come.  They was new
brooms, you see, and swep' away a lot of
old customs.  They wasn't like the Reverend
'ere—he's all for 'live and let live'—but
they was all for making every one live as
they thought proper.  I don't say they was
wrong, and I don't say they was right, but
whichever it was, it weren't peaceable.

"But," concluded Mrs. Cushion, "I've no
business gossiping here, and you wanting
your tea."

So she left me to my tea and the reflection
that she had neither contradicted nor
confirmed Mrs. Robinson's statement.

During the next couple of days I was
conscious of a certain constraint in our,
hitherto, completely cordial relationship.
Mrs. Cushion was just as careful as ever for
my comfort—everything was just as well
done, and meals as punctual, and rooms spick
and span as before; but I missed something.
I missed the interest she used to take in me
and the interest she allowed me to take in
her.  She was still the perfect landlady, but
I grievously missed the frank and genial
human being.

I had lunched with the vicar and his guests
on Tuesday.  On Friday afternoon Mrs. Cushion
got a lift into "Ziren" to do some
shopping, and I had to take my own letters
to the post office.  I met the vicar on his
way to call on me, and he turned back and
walked with me, and I speedily perceived
that something worried him.  The vicar is
stout and gouty, and walks but slowly.  We
only just caught the post, and then he asked
me to go with him to the vicarage to look at
a black dahlia in his garden before the first
frosts took it.

In the garden he stopped long before we
came to the dahlias and exclaimed, "I've
heard from that vexatious woman."

"Mrs. Robinson?"

"Yes; just read her letter."

.. vspace:: 2

"DEAR MR. MOLYNEUX," it ran, "I feel
it is my duty to tell you that I have been
making inquiries about Caroline Cushion,
and there is no question whatever that she
is the same person who was living here when
my husband and I first came to the parish.
It happens that Mrs. Bayley, widow of the
former incumbent, is at present staying with
Lady Moreland at the Manor, and I called
upon her the day I returned from Mr. Vernon's,
that I might make searching inquiries
as to where Caroline Cushion had lived before
she left for Redmarley, where I understand
she was left a cottage by her uncle, her
mother's brother.  Mrs. Bayley remembered
her perfectly well, and, I must say, spoke
highly of her.  But she was as astonished
as I was to hear she was posing as a married
woman with a family, for she had lived in
this parish from her youth up.  I grieve
much that I should have to bring this life
of duplicity to light; and I feel it is only
right to let you know, that you may take
steps to sift the matter and bring the woman
to a proper sense of her wrong-doing.  For
if during the years she lived here she really
possessed a husband and children, she shamefully
neglected them; and if she is unmarried
the case is infinitely worse.  Please let me
know the result of your investigations.

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   "Yours sincerely,
      "ELAINE M. ROBINSON."

.. vspace:: 2

In silence I gave back the letter to the
vicar and involuntarily I shivered, for the
wind was very cold.

"Well?" he asked impatiently, "what
do you make of it?"

"I can't make anything of it.  The whole
thing's a mystery."

Then I told him of my tea-time conversation
with Mrs. Cushion, and of the curious
constraint in her manner ever since: of how
unhappy it made me, and how cordially I
detested Mrs. Robinson and wished her far
further than the Forest of Dean—though to
the Redmarley folk the Forest of Dean is
indeed as the ends of the earth.

"If I know anything of human nature,"
said the vicar, punctuating his remarks with
vicious flicks of the finger upon Mrs. Robinson's
envelope, "Mrs. Cushion is as honest
and straightforward a woman as ever stepped,
a *good* woman, a kindly woman.  Has she
never said anything to *you* about her husband?"

"Only once.  I asked about him, and I
saw it was a painful subject, so I never
mentioned him again.  I fear he was an
unsatisfactory person."

"But what am I to say to this pestiferous
woman?  If I don't answer her, she's capable
of coming over here and setting the whole
village by the ears....  I should like,"
he added vindictively, "to throw a stone
through her window."  As he spoke I was
reminded of Mrs. Cushion's remark, "There's
something in men-folks as seems to stop
growin' when they be about ten year old":
for although the vicar is stout and bald, and
his close-cropped beard and moustache quite
white, yet there and then I seemed to see
"a little boy in tore knickerbockers and a
dirty face same as if 'e stood in front of me."

"Wait a day or two," I suggested; "she
won't expect an answer by return because
you've got to make your 'investigations,'
you know."

He groaned.  "How can I?  If there's
one thing I wholeheartedly abhor it's poking
and prying into another person's affairs—it's
so ... ungentlemanly.  I wouldn't do it to
my worst enemy, but when it's a decent,
kindly body who has been my right hand
in every good thing that's been done in this
village ever since she came....  Look here,
my dear.  Perhaps you—without hurting her
feelings—could find out something to satisfy
Mrs. Robinson.  It would come better from you."

I doubted this, but I promised the poor
worried vicar to do my best.  I walked back
to Snig's as fast as I could, for I was chilled
to the bone.  It certainly was a very cold
east wind.

Mrs. Cushion was back when I arrived.
A bright fire blazed on my hearth and hot
muffins awaited me for tea.  She looked cold
and depressed, and she had no news for me
either of the fashions in the "Ziren" shop
windows or of acquaintances she had met.
Even references to her beloved boys failed
to elicit more than monosyllables.

Next morning she began to cough.  For
a day and a half she struggled on doing her
household work as usual.  Through the night
I heard her coughing so incessantly that I
got up and went across to her room.  It had
turned very cold, and in spite of her protests,
I lit a fire and did what I could to relieve
her, in the shape of hot black-currant tea
and rubbing her with embrocation.  I also
took her temperature, which was 104°!

In the morning she was so ill that she
consented to stay in bed, and I sent a note
to the doctor by the boy that brought the milk.

When he came he declared Mrs. Cushion
to be down with influenza, and that she must
be very careful.  He would send in the
parish nurse that morning and a woman to
do for me.  If a trained nurse should be
necessary, he'd get one, but he thought if I
could stay for a day or two to superintend
things we could manage.  Warmth, rest, and
quiet in bed till her temperature went down
were all that was necessary.

Everything went smoothly.  The parish
nurse was a personal friend of Mrs. Cushion.
The woman sent in "mornings" was most
attentive and efficient, and the fact that she
was no cook did not seem to matter, for so
much more than Mrs. Cushion could eat was
sent in by sympathetic neighbours that we
lived on the fat of the land on the surplus.
If there had ever been any question as to
Mrs. Cushion's popularity in Redmarley, it
was answered now, and in the most emphatic way.

Anxious inquirers came at all hours, and
I spent most of my time watching the garden
that I might open the door, front or back,
before the visitor could rap—you rap with
your knuckles in Redmarley, whether the
door happens to be open or shut: the latter
only occurs in cold weather or on washing-days.

One thing did strike me, and that was the
number of young men and boys who came,
not only to inquire, but to bring offerings
of all sorts.  It seemed to me that every
male being under thirty that I had ever seen
in Redmarley, man or boy, or hobbledehoy,
came to get news of Mrs. Cushion—and I
was always careful to ask their names and
write them down, for I soon discovered that
their solicitude gave her pleasure.

It was the only thing that did seem to
give her pleasure just then.  When the cough
was easier and her temperature went down,
she remained heartrendingly weak, and at
the end of six days the doctor asked me if
I thought "she had anything on her mind,"
for, if so, it must be got at and lifted; for
she'd never get well at this rate.

Now that she was, of necessity, rather
dependent on me in a good many small ways,
Mrs. Cushion had become less reserved, more
like her former self, in fact—but yet, I always
felt that there was something between us.
Her blue eyes, sometimes without the
spectacles now, would follow me about with a
wistful, weighing expression that was full of
dumb pain and pathos; but naturally all
exciting topics were taboo, and I had never
again, since that first afternoon, referred to
Mrs. Robinson and her disturbing revelations.
One evening about nine o'clock, when
Mrs. Cushion had been in bed eight whole days,
when the nurse had gone for the night, and
I was left in charge, when I had made up
her fire, lit the night-light, and arranged the
hand-bell and all her possible wants on a
table by her bed—I was going back to mine,
but she stopped me as I reached the door
with a faintly whispered "Miss!"

I went back to the side of the bed and
looked down at her.  She was very pale, and
had put on the spectacles as though to see
me better in the dim light.

"Miss," she repeated, "I can't kip it to
myself no longer; that there Mrs. Robinson
was right—I wasn't never married an' I
never 'ad no children."

Mrs. Cushion's hands were picking
nervously at the sheet, though her eyes never
left my face for a single minute.  I seized
one of the weak, cold hands, and held it in
both mine—but I could not speak.

"You'd better sit down, miss, while I tell
'ee....  All my life long I've loved
children—more especially boys.  When I was a
young 'ooman, I 'ad my chanst same as most.
One was a school-teacher, most respectable
'e were—but I couldn't seem to fancy 'im:
and t'other, 'e were a hundertaker, and I
couldn't fancy 'is trade—so there it was.
An' as time went on I did get thinkin' about
the little boys as I should like to 'ave 'ad;
and they did seem to get realler and realler—Arty
and Bert did—till I sorter felt I
*couldn't* get along without 'em....  Do it
seem very queer to you, miss?"

"Not a bit, dear Mrs. Cushion."

"Now, I ast you, miss—do I look like a
hold maid, or do I look like a comfortable
married woman with a family?"

"I think you look *very* married," I
exclaimed quite truthfully—"very motherly."

"Well, so do I think—and when I came
'ere where no one knowed anything about
me excepting I was Uncle's niece, I says to
myself, says I, 'You act up to your looks,
Caroline Cushion—an' then you can talk
about your children same as the rest.'  I
didn't trouble my 'ead about a 'usban'—I
'adn't never thought about 'im.  So when
folks asked me—like you yourself, miss—I
just prims up my mouth and shakes my 'ead,
and they sees as 'e weren't up to much, and
they says no more.  Sometimes I've thought
as it were a bit onfair on 'im, pore chap, an'
'im never done me no 'arm—but—there....
I couldn't stop to think about 'im.  'Twere
the boys as I wanted—an' they *did* comfort
me so, miss, an' I don't know *'ow* as I can
ever give 'em up."

"But I see no reason why you should."

"Ah, miss, you speaks so kind because
you do think, 'She's ill, poor thing, and we
must yumour 'er,' but what'd the Reverend
say?  You may depend as that there
Mrs. Robinson 'll never let it alone.  What'll 'e
say?  An' if 'e says as I've got to tell every
one I ain't no married woman an' never 'ad
no children, I'd rather not get well.  I
couldn't face it, miss.  Because I *can't* feel
as the Lard's very angry with me—I can't."

"Mrs. Cushion, will you let me tell
Mr. Molyneux, and see what he says?"

Mrs. Cushion sighed.  "I suppose 'e'll 'ave
to be told, an' you'd tell him more
straight-forward nor I could.  It's all so mixed up
like.  You see, them boys ain't never done
no 'arm to any one—they so far off and
all—an' I will say this, miss, they've give me a
sort of 'old over young growin' chaps I
wouldn't 'ave 'ad without 'em.  Many's the
young chap as 'ave listened to a word from
me about drink and the like, because 'e's
thought, 'There, she knows as it's only
natural—she's got some of 'er own—she
won't be too 'ard on me'—and they did like
me, I knows they did—they did indeed, miss."

I thought of the hobbledehoys and the shy,
furtive presents of eggs and honey and tight
little bunches of flowers, and an occasional
rabbit—how come by it were perhaps better
not to inquire—and the inarticulate
lingering, the waiting for intelligence they were
too shy to ask for—I thought of these things,
and I knew that Mrs. Cushion spoke the truth.

"Now, you, miss," the tired, whispering
voice went on, "if I may say so, you *looks*
unmarried; and yet, I do believe as you
understands."

"I do, I do, Mrs. Cushion."

"It seemed some'ow as if it *'ad* to be,
and yet there's no one 'ates lies and
bedanglements more than me.  An' there I've been
and gone and done it myself.  But I ain't
going to own it!" Mrs. Cushion added almost
fiercely.  "Not if I 'ad to let Snig's an' leave
these parts.  I'd *far* rather die."

By this time she was as flushed as she
had been pale before, and I had to tell
her she mustn't talk any more, but leave
it all till the morning, when we'd consult
the vicar.

For about an hour I sat by her bed, till
her more regular breathing showed me she
had dropped off into the sleep of sheer
exhaustion.

In the morning I sent a note to the vicar
by one of the solicitous young men, and by
ten o'clock he was in my sitting-room, while
the parish nurse was getting Mrs. Cushion's
room ready upstairs.

I told the story very briefly, and as far
as possible in her own words; and the vicar,
who had been sitting at the table facing the
light, suddenly got up and stood by the
fireplace, his elbow on the mantel-shelf,
shading his eyes with his hand and almost
turning his back upon me.

"And if she can't keep her children, she
won't get well," I concluded.

"Of course she must keep her children,"
he muttered hoarsely.

"But what about Mrs. Robinson?"

He blew his nose, with his handkerchief
all over his face, and then turned on me
triumphantly, handing me a letter.

"I was coming to you this morning in
any case, to show you this.  I suddenly
decided what to say and thought you'd like to
see it.  I'm glad I wrote before you told me
this.  There's a decisive vagueness about it
that will, I know, command your literary
respect—if nothing else."

This is what he had written:

.. vspace:: 2

"DEAR MRS. ROBINSON,—Of course you
are right.  The Caroline Cushion you knew
never was married nor had she any children;
and she always was, as you charitably
supposed, an entirely respectable woman.  The
confusion arose with Miss Legh and me, and
I apologise for the trouble we have
inadvertently caused you.  Thanking you for
so satisfactorily clearing up the matter, I
am yours faithfully,

.. vspace:: 1

"G. W. MOLYNEUX."

.. vspace:: 2

The parish nurse knocked at the door.
"I've put her quite straight, Miss Legh, and
the doctor said yesterday she can have
anything she fancies for her dinner."

Up the steep stairs the vicar climbed,
pausing at the top to get his breath.
Mrs. Cushion was sitting up in bed, propped up
with pillows.  She had on her best cap
and the gold-rimmed spectacles sacred to
Sundays.

"Peace be to this house, and all that dwell
in it," said the vicar from the threshold.

I shut the bedroom door and left them.

When the vicar had creaked heavily downstairs
again, I went and opened the front
door for him.

"Poor soul!" he said, "poor, hungry-hearted,
loving soul!  Do you remember
Elia?"  And more to himself than to me
he murmured, "And yet they are nothing;
less than nothing, and dreams.  They are
only what might have been."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SANCTUARY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   VII


.. class:: center large bold

   SANCTUARY

.. vspace:: 2

The Reverend Grantley Molyneux hobbled
down to the church for the first time for
some weeks.  An attack of gout, unusually
severe, had kept him veritably "tied by the
leg" during the best of the June weather.
Now that he was about again there were but
gleams of watery sunshine to tempt him out
of doors.  However, the sunshine if watery
was warm, and by the time the "old vicar"—for
so he loved to be called—had reached
the church he was glad to enter and rest in
its cool grey shadows.

From sunrise to sunset Redmarley Church
stood open.  There were no week-day
services—the worthy yeomen who formed the
bulk of the congregation would have looked
with great suspicion on any such innovation;
but none the less would they have been
indignant had the church been shut.

For nearly forty years the present
incumbent had ministered to the people of
Redmarley.  He was, on the whole, decidedly
popular—indeed, rumour had it that in his
slim youth he had been over-popular—with
the fair, being in the matter of susceptibility
to their attractions something of a Burns.
But, unlike Burns, he attempted no
explanation, no vindication of his conduct, if such
were needed, and it is surprising how
short-lived are rumours when there is no one to
contradict them.

The old vicar had ruled his life according
to the maxim given by an exceedingly wise
man to a young politician, "Never quarrel,
never explain, never fear."  He found it to
answer wonderfully well on the whole, and
for the last ten years had placidly increased
in bulk, untroubled by any enemy other than
the gout.

A courteous scholarly man, of a somewhat
florid old-world politeness, he seemed
strangely out of place in this remote
Gloucestershire village, but he suited the people,
and the people suited him.  Gallio himself
was not more careless of doctrine than is the
average Cotswold peasant, whose highest
praise of "passun" lies in the phrase, "'e
don't never interfere with oi."  The old vicar
never interfered, not even in so far as to
appoint a curate when disabled himself by gout.

Had he worn a ruff instead of the orthodox
"choker," he might have passed for one of
his own Elizabethan ancestors, as he rested
in the squire's pew, his head leaning against
the high oak back.

A long face, with high narrow forehead and
pointed beard, cheeks heavy and creased,
straight nose, with strongly marked sensitive
nostrils.  The mouth full-lipped and shutting
firmly under the grey moustache cut straight
across the upper lip.  Truly a fine old face,
deeply lined and sorrowful, bearing upon it
the tragic impress of great possibilities, that
had remained—possibilities.

The grey coolness of the little Norman
church was restful.  The vicar sighed and
closed his eyes—those full blue eyes that had
once been bold and winsome, that were still
keen.  The old live mostly in the past, they
are not often dull or lonely.  At will they
can summon a whole pageantry of love, and
friendship, and eager strife.  The vicar of
Redmarley was much given to warming his
hands at the fires of recollection.  His
memory was excellent, and he had much to
remember, for he had lived strenuously.  Age
had not dimmed his faculties, his hearing
being particularly acute.

Presently his good dream was disturbed,
and he began to be annoyed by a strange
little scraping noise for which he could not
account.

It was almost continuous.

He leant forward and listened, frowned,
then looked interested, and finally rose from
his seat.

The noise ceased.

He sat down again and waited.  Sure
enough the sound began, again, and it was
for all the world like the scratch of a quill
pen in the hand of a rapid writer.  He
decided that it came from a chapel on the right
side of the altar—the chapel in which his
wife was buried.  A square sarcophagus stood
in the centre, but there were no seats, as
the chapel was quite small.  Hobbling up
the three steps that led to it from the body
of the church, the vicar looked about him
but could see nothing, and the silence was
unbroken.

Suddenly it occurred to him to look over
the tomb which filled the centre vacant space.
What he discovered caused him to exclaim,
more surprisedly than piously:

"God bless my soul!"

Seated on the floor, in the narrow space
which separated the side of the tomb from
the church wall, was a young man.  A card
blotting-book lay on his knees, a leather
ink-bottle was stuck into the tracery of the tomb,
and scattered round him were closely written
sheets of manuscript.  He looked up at the
vicar's exclamation, but made no attempt
to rise.

"Sir!  What are you doing here?"

The vicar's voice was low, but in the "Sir!"
there was infinite rebuke.

The intruder lifted his gaunt face the better
to observe his questioner.  Then he pointed
to the scattered papers, saying:

"It is not difficult to see."

"But why do you write in my church?"
persisted the vicar, peering over the side of
the tomb at this strange sacrilegious person,
with a curiosity that almost mastered his
annoyance.

"Because there was nowhere else.  I have
done no harm to your church—besides, how
is it more your church than mine?"

"Do you think you could come and converse
with me in the porch upon this subject?
I am old-fashioned, and your action strikes
me as incongruous.  Moreover, it tires me
to stand."

The young man scrambled to his feet.
Laying his hands upon the tomb's flat top
he vaulted lightly over, and stood beside
the vicar on the wider side of the tiny chapel.

The vicar frowned, demanding:

"Would you like me to jump over your
wife's grave?"

A momentary gleam of amusement lighted
up the stranger's tragic black eyes as he noted
the vicar's cumbrous figure and swathed foot.
Then his expression changed, and he said
gently:

"I beg your pardon."

Often in these last days he had found
himself wondering with a sort of tender curiosity
about the Lady Cicely Molyneux, "aged
twenty-one years," who had lain there so long.

When they reached the porch the vicar
sat down, and, pointing to a place beside
him, said:

"Sit down, and tell me what you mean
when you say there is nowhere else?"

The young man obeyed, saying wearily:

"It is the simple truth.  I am lodging at
Eliza Heaven's, in the village, and you
probably know that there is no living-room except
the kitchen.  I share a bedroom with three
of the boys, and the rain comes down in
torrents every day.  I can't tramp about the
country—I only get wet through and fall ill.
My holiday lasts ten days—how could I spend
it better?  The church was quiet; I was
under cover.  No one has ever come in before."

The vicar stared silently at this strange
youth clad in threadbare black, with flannel
shirt open at his lean throat.  He felt
attracted to him in spite of his square grim jaw
and Nihilistic-looking crop of thick black
hair.  His voice was not uncultivated and
the vicar recognised, with a little thrill of
pleasure, the soft guttural "r" which
proclaimed the stranger to be Welsh.  Lady
Cicely was Welsh, and for her sake the vicar
loved well that courteous fiery little people.

"I am sorry you should have had such a
wet holiday.  In fine weather the country
round here is very beautiful, and you look
as though long days out of doors would be
better for you than literary work—anywhere."

The young man looked rather surprised at
the urbanity of this speech but it is difficult
for the Welsh to be other than courteous,
even when they meet with churls.  It was
easy, therefore, to explain the position of
affairs to this gouty but amiable old gentleman.
The hunted look left the stranger's
eyes, the tense lines round his mouth relaxed
as he said, "I work at a cloth factory at
Stroud.  One of my mates told me his
mother would lodge me for my holiday—I
could not afford to go home—so I came here.
I am a Socialist, but my father was a
Wesleyan minister.  I speak at Labour meetings
in Stroud—that is my next speech I was
writing—it is nearly finished."

The musical voice ceased; the vicar gave
a little start; he had been gazing out on the
sunlit grass in the churchyard.  Then he
turned and faced his new acquaintance:
"Will you let me read your speech?  It
would interest me greatly.  It is long since
I took any active interest in politics.  I am
glad I found you instead of Daniel Long the
clerk.  He would, with the best intentions
in life, have been rude.  I can understand
your seeking sanctuary in the church, and,
as you say, She belongs to all of us;
but—perhaps it is prejudice—I had rather you
didn't write political speeches there.  Will
you come and write at the vicarage instead?
You shall be quite undisturbed."

The young man cleared his throat, and
when he spoke his voice was rather husky:
"How do you know I should not steal your spoons?"

"My good friend," the vicar answered
cheerfully, "though I know but little of
politics, I know this much, that it is nothing
less than my whole possessions you Socialists
want.  Spoons, indeed! that's but a small
part of it; and you don't want to steal
them either, but to take them, boldly and
in the light of day, that every one may see
and admire the redistribution.—I believe
that is the word—of property."

As he spoke the vicar rose, and, leaning
heavily on his stick, prepared to fare forth
into the sunshine again.  The little
Welshman made no answer, so the vicar turned
and put his hand on his shoulder, saying
kindly: "But as you write, you probably
read.  I have plenty of books.  You must
come and see them.  Come now!"

"May I collect my papers, sir?  I won't
be a minute."  The voice was eager, with a
deference in the tone which had been lacking
at first.  The vicar smiled—that pleasant
smile, which had won him so much goodwill.
"I like these Welshmen," he thought to
himself, "always so much in earnest, always
responsive."  Then he sighed and frowned
as his gouty foot gave a warning twinge.

He and his strange acquaintance walked
through the churchyard together.  At the
vicarage door the old man stopped, and,
rubbing his hands delightedly, exclaimed,
"Now you are going to enjoy yourself."

"I am bewildered; Fortune is not usually
kind to me," murmured the stranger, as he
followed his host into a room walled round
with books.  The vicar sank wearily into
an armchair, while his servant arranged his
gouty foot upon the rest.  As the door
closed behind the man, the little Welshman
clasped his hands, and, standing before the
vicar with flushed cheeks and shining eyes,
cried breathlessly: "Do you mean that I
may take them down—handle them—read them?"

The vicar laughed.  "Sesame," said he, and
waved his hand towards the largest bookcase.

What "Sesame" meant the other knew
not, nor cared.  It was a permission, that
was enough.  He held out his work-worn
hands, palms upwards, to the vicar, saying
simply: "They are clean."

The vicar leaned back in his chair and
closed his eyes, quoting softly, as if to
himself: "These are all at your choice; and
life is short."  But the stranger did not hear
him, for he found himself amidst a company
"wide as the world, multitudinous as its
days, the chosen and the mighty, of every
place and time."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A COTSWOLD BARMAID`:

.. class:: center large bold

   VIII


.. class:: center large bold

   A COTSWOLD BARMAID

.. vspace:: 2

It seemed an odd name for an elderly
woman, even when, as in this case, she
happened to be a barmaid: but some one
with an eye for likenesses christened her
"Bobby" because of a really striking
resemblance to the statesman at that time
familiarly known as "Bobby Lowe."  Anyway
the name expressed her, and Bobby
she remained to the end.  Let it not be
imagined that disrespect was so much as
suggested by the title: she was the best
respected woman in our town, and certainly
one of the most influential.

There was a college, of a sort, near the
town where Bobby lived, and generations
of students and the whole hunting youth of
the countryside passed through her kind
hands, and every man amongst them will
acknowledge that he was the better for
having known Bobby.

It is to be supposed that at one time she
was slim, instead of round-about, that her
abundant white hair was once brown or
golden, that she had a story of her own
apart from the "Moonstone" and her
"boys"; but we took her for granted none
the less thankfully that we were apt to
forget how unique she was, till we were far
from Bobby and the Moonstone Bar.

Youthful new-comers were her especial
care.  She not infrequently confiscated their
money if she thought they were going to
"play the giddy," only restoring it when
she considered they were capable of using it
with some discretion.  And how carefully
she looked after the digestions of such as
were inexperienced in the matter of drinks!
"What?" she would exclaim, "green chartreuse,
sir, and you just bin 'avin' beer!  You
really mustn't, sir, you'd be that bad" ... and
the best of it was that nobody was ever
foolish enough to resent her interference.

"If a holdish man likes to take too much,"
she would say sorrowfully, "it isn't me that
can stop 'im, but with these young chaps
just fresh from school, I must do my best
according to my lights."

What becomes of the young chaps fresh
from school where there is no Bobby to take
care of them I wonder.

"As you know, sir," she continued, "I
don't hold with drinkin' for drinkin's sake,
but I do think that a gentleman should be
able to take his glass sociable-like, and
friendly.  There don't seem no good
fellowship in them there aereated waters, and
I'm sure they ain't no good to a body's
inside, by theirselves."

She had a healthy crop of prejudices this
Bobby of ours.  Any sort of blasphemy or
loose talk she could not away with.  "It's
sort of natural for a man to swear if he's a
bit taken to or astonished," she would say
in lenient mood, "but when they goes
breaking the third commandment like as if
it was a hold chipped plate, it gives me cold
shivers down my back—that it do."

She never expostulated, but her square,
rosy face got less square and less rosy if, in
her presence, the conversation waxed too
forcible and free.  At such times the offender
would be warned by one of Bobby's old
friends who respected what he probably
called her "fads."  If the new-comer
profited by the warning all went well, but if he
offended a second time he was forcibly
ejected and found himself in the dark and
draughty covered way leading to the
Moonstone stables, with the explanation, "you
can pile on the adjectives here, old chap,
but she doesn't like it."

Bobby was a sincere believer in good
works, and many were the "boxes"
benefited by winnings at billiards or otherwise:
and every Sunday saw her slowly taking
her decorous way to church, seemly and
satin-clad, bearing the very portliest of
prayer books.

For man in the abstract, she had the
greatest respect, but taken individually, she
looked upon him as singularly gullible, and
as requiring much maternal supervision,
both digestively and morally.  "Law!  They
may talk about their science and their
chemistry and that, but bless you!  Just
let one of them minxes come along, and
they're no better than imbeciles, that they're not."

The one human creature for whom Bobby's
kind heart could find no toleration, was a
"minx."  And by "minx" she meant such
pretty girls of the shop and dressmaker
class, as she imagined cherished hopes of
"marrying a gentleman."  The idea that
one of her boys (anybody under thirty was
a "boy" to Bobby) should get entangled
in the meshes of a minx, or more dreadful
still, "marry beneath him" roused Bobby
as did nothing else.  How she got her
information no one could ever imagine, but
she always knew when anything of the kind
was afoot, and Machiavellian were her
methods of preventing such a catastrophe.
More than one "county family" has Bobby
to thank that no undesirable daughter-in-law
has been added to its ranks.  People
under twenty she considered her especial
charge.  She gave them much homely and
excellent advice, and only such drinks as
she deemed suitable to their tender years.

When one of Bobby's old favourites came
back from foreign parts the very first place
he would hasten to was Bobby's bar.  He
would lounge in, after the fashion of a
stranger, and ask, in a feigned voice, for
what had been his favourite drink in the
old days.  But Bobby's ears were very
quick, one sharp glance at the stranger, a
little cry of recognition ... and over the
counter he leaps and fast in his embrace is
the old barmaid's stout, comfortable, little
figure, and for a minute or two neither she
nor the stranger can see each other very
clearly.  And then, what a talking over of
old days there would be!  What asking
after old chums!  At such times Bobby
would even give us news of the minxes.
Poor pretty minxes, did any of you ever
marry gentlemen I wonder?  They were
really very nice those minxes!  But we
don't remember them as we remember
Bobby—Bobby of the silver hair and little
dumpy figure, who by sheer force of strong
and kindly character held sway over several
generations of hot-blooded young England.
She was not beautiful; she was not, as the
world accounts it, clever: but she was of
the type of the eternal mother-woman.
"Bless you," she would say with her broad,
confident smile, "it's easy enough to manage
'em if only you lets 'em think as they're
managin' you."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FUZZY WUZZY'S WATCH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   IX


.. class:: center large bold

   FUZZY WUZZY'S WATCH

.. vspace:: 2

He was Billy's little brother, and we called
him "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" because his abundant
yellow hair stuck out straight and bushy all
over his head.  Moreover, at tennis parties
he was sometimes allowed to "squeege" the
soda water into the tall glasses held out for
that purpose by thirsty friends; and they
would say "Here's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy!"

This, however, is not a story of Fuzzy
Wuzzy, but of a man to whom Fortune had
not been kind, whereas Fuzzy Wuzzy was.

"He is the rowdiest chap in the college,
he goes on the drunk for days together; and
yet he's a perfect gentleman, even when he's
drunk."

We were all of us sitting on the lawn.
Fuzzy's mother looked up as Mr. Calcraft
spoke, asking, "Who is this unhappy person?"

"Oh, the 'Bookie' you know, that chap
who's got Vereker's old rooms.  Riddell is
his name—the professor knows him."

Mr. Calcraft waited for the professor to
give further information, but he said nothing.
Then a small voice remarked: "*I* know
Mr. Riddell.  He's got the beautifullest big dog,
and he gave me a ride on its back—I like him."

Fuzzy was sitting on my knee—after a
moment's silence his mother asked, "Do
you like him, Hugh?  Is it true that he is
so wild?"

The professor took his pipe out of his
mouth.  He was not given to discussing
the students, we all knew that—but this
time he said, "I like Riddell.  He's a very
clever fellow, and most good-natured.  I
think his little weaknesses are much
exaggerated.  *I* have seen no sign of rowdiness."

Mr. Calcraft laughed.  "If you'd been at
'The Moonstone' the other evening, sir,
you would have seen more than a sign.  He
broke every cue in the billiard room, and
nearly threw the marker out of the window!"

"Did he frow a man out of the window?"
exclaimed Fuzzy ecstatically.  "Oh,
Mr. Bookie *is* strong."

There was a horror-stricken pause.  They
had forgotten Fuzzy.  His mother looked
reproachfully at Mr. Calcraft, and
somebody murmured something about *virginibus
puerisque*.

"If only the 'Bookie' could be kept
sober," Mr. Calcraft remarked apologetically,
"he would be a splendid chap.  He is all
right for weeks together, and is as hard as
nails; then he goes off and makes an ass of
himself down town, and it makes people cut
him.  He told me the other day that he
doesn't know a lady in the place."

"He is going to know one!" said Fuzzy's
mother, "he's going to know *me*.  I think
it is too bad.  You all say he is foolish, yet
not one of you has the courage to tell him
so, I think it is a shame."

"He would be an awkward chap to
tackle," murmured Mr. Calcraft.  "He'd
throw you out of the window as soon as
look at you."

"He can't throw me out of the window,"
said Fuzzy's mother, "and I shall talk to
him.  You must ask him to lunch, Hugh!"

Then we all went to eat gooseberries in the
kitchen garden and played at horses with
Fuzzy.

The first day of the horse show Riddell
was with Mrs. Ainger all the time.  As usual
he was untidy.  His tie was over his collar,
his collar frayed; he wore a terrible old cap,
and the front of his coat was smothered in
dust from Fuzzy's boots, for that gentleman
spent the greater part of the afternoon
perched on Riddell's shoulder.

"The Bookie" looked radiant, and carried
off his lady to tea in the tent; I followed,
sitting with friends at the next table.  They
looked a little surprised at Mrs. Ainger's
cavalier, for that lady was known to be
particular as to the men she admitted to
intimacy.

Afterwards I heard all about it.  It seems
that the professor had asked Riddell to
lunch, and that he had behaved beautifully.
He was a cultivated man, and talked well,
in the softest, most musical voice in the
world.  His knowledge of swear-words was
the widest and most far-reaching; when
with men his conversation was so garnished
with oaths, that one had to pick one's steps,
as it were, to discover what he was talking
about.  But with ladies, he was the most
courtly and careful of men.  At the horse
show he had discovered Mrs. Ainger trying
to lift Fuzzy to see over the heads of some
yokels who obstructed the view.  In a
moment Riddell had relieved her of her burden,
and devoted himself to her for the rest of
the day.  The professor was counting marks
and could not come.

Then ensued a time of peace and quiet
for the Bookie.  He followed Mrs. Ainger
like a big dog, constituted himself head
nurse to Fuzzy, and he was sober, absolutely
sober, for six months.  When other ladies
met him constantly at the Aingers', and
found him to be not only harmless but
charming, they also asked him to lunch and to
dine.  Thus "The Bookie" who had plenty
of money, and was of unexceptional family,
became something of a personage.  He
bought new clothes, and wore a clean straw
hat.  His linen was no longer frayed, and
he shaved twice a day.

Mrs. Ainger sang his praises wherever she
went, and openly declared that she believed
all the stories of his rowdiness to be slanders;
she had not seen his bill for billiard cues
from the "Moonstone."

At the end of April came the "Point to
Point" steeplechase, a day fatal to the
Bookie, who was "well on" by five o'clock
in the afternoon.  Mrs. Ainger was not at
the races, so she was spared the spectacle of
her protégé, swaying gracefully on the seat
of his dogcart as he drove off the course.
He had not brought his man, and as he was,
his friends considered, quite capable of
getting home in safety, they preferred not
to be seen with him.  He pressed them
courteously to accompany him, offering to
stand them a dinner at the "Moonstone."  But
they stood in awe of Mrs. Ainger, and
not considering themselves in any way called
upon to act as keeper for the Bookie, they
let him alone.

Fuzzy's Nana was of a literary turn,
spending a large proportion of the salary
she received for her attentions to Fuzzy
on the lighter kinds of fiction.  On this
particular afternoon, having wheeled him in
his go-cart some distance along the high
road, "she sat her down upon a green
bank," and bidding him "Play about, there's
a good boy, and pick some pretty flowers for
mama!" she was soon immersed in a
periodical, bearing a bloodcurdling device
upon the cover.

Fuzzy gathered a bunch of celandines, and
with them clasped tightly in his hot, fat
hand, set off at a run down the road, giggling
delightedly when he discovered that Nana
neither called him nor yet started in pursuit.

Trotting gleefully along for some little
distance he turned off into an inviting-looking
lane.  He kept close to the hedge
for there was a sound of galloping hoofs,
and Fuzzy was an extremely sensible small
boy.  Then there passed him a horse and
dogcart, the horse going at a hand gallop,
the dogcart empty.  This struck Fuzzy as
strange, but then strange things do happen
when one sets forth to seek adventures.  So
he girded up his stocking which had become
uncomfortably wrinkly and trudged on.

Presently he saw a man lying by the side
of the road.  Now Fuzzy had a large
acquaintance among road men, and for tramps
he felt a real affection.  Had they not
sometimes got white rats in their pockets?  Nay,
those of a superior sort even carried ferrets!
He and his mother were wont to bestow
pence on tramps, and on the road men,
boots and the professor's old coats.  In
fact the professor was often heard to
complain that he met his favourite coat by a
heap of stones every time he went out.
Fuzzy advanced fearlessly to inspect this
weary man, who was lying on his face, with
one arm doubled up under him in the
strangest fashion.  The man did not move
as Fuzzy came up, and the little boy went
and stood by the prostrate form, saying,
with a comical imitation of his
father:—"Thirsty weather, eh?" but the usual "It
be that, Master!" did not follow.

The afternoon was very still.  The sound
of galloping hoofs and bumping wheels had
died away in the distance.  Suddenly Fuzzy
gave a little cry—"Bookie!  Bookie dear! are
you hurted?  Why do you lie in the
road? gentlemens don't lie in the road—O
Bookie! your foot is bad, it's all bleedy
and dreadful!"

The Bookie did not answer, "he kind of
snored" as Fuzzy afterwards described it.
The child tried to turn him over on his back,
but the Bookie being six foot two, and
proportionately broad, and Fuzzy by no means
tall for his age, this proved an impossible feat.

"I'm afraid he's hurted very bad, his
face is so red and dirty," said Fuzzy to
himself.  Then, with Herculean efforts, he
succeeded in inserting his own legs under
the Bookie's head, so that it rested on his
clean holland smock.  He stroked the
tumbled hair, and laid his soft little face upon
the Bookie's hot, prickly cheek.  They
remained thus for what seemed to Fuzzy an
interminable time.  He began to grow
sleepy himself.  His head nodded, and finally
he too fell over on to his back sound asleep.

When the Bookie came to himself he lay
still for a few minutes collecting his thoughts.
He discovered that his arm was certainly
broken, that a wheel had gone over his ankle,
that his face was resting on something soft,
and that not ten inches from his face was a
pair of small, dusty strap-shoes.

This last discovery completely sobered
him.  He raised himself on his good arm
and looked down at the something which
had been supporting him.  A golden head,
resting on two plump arms crossed behind
it; sturdy legs, crushed by his weight,
which now drew themselves up stretching
out again as if relieved ... and then the
Bookie realised that Fuzzy had found him,
and had stayed to keep guard.

"God help me for a drunken beast! and
I can't carry him for my arm's broken," he
ejaculated.  He got up on to his knees
feeling very giddy.  The movement woke
Fuzzy.  He too was puzzled for a moment
as to where he could be, then, he saw the
Bookie, and, his brains not being muddled
by various "drinks" and a heavy fall, he
sat up, saying in his tender little voice:
"Are you hurted much, my poor dear?  I
stayed with you till you woked up."

The Bookie looked at Fuzzy and tried to
speak, but somehow he couldn't.  Fuzzy
was on his feet in a moment and held out
his grubby hands: "Shall I pull you up?
I can pull dad up."

The Bookie took one of the little hands
and carried it to his lips, saying brokenly,
"Why do you love me, Fuzzy?  I'm not
worth it."

Fuzzy took no notice of this remark, it
was just one of those foolish and irrelevant
things that grown-up people have a habit
of saying, so he said, "Aren't you tired of
sitting in the road?  Hadn't we better go
home?  I'm very hungry."

The Bookie tried again to get up on to his
feet, but something had gone wrong with
his leg, as well as his arm, and after a few
excruciating efforts he gave it up.

"I'm afraid it's no go, Fuzzy, I can't
walk; you see I was pitched out of the
dog-cart, and I'm all smashed up—whatever is
to be done?"

"Shall you be very lonely if I go home and
tell them?" asked Fuzzy with his arms
round the Bookie's neck, "and then they
could bring a carriage for you; you're too
big to go in my mail cart, or I'd lend it to
you.  It's in a field wiv Nana."

"How on earth I got into this lane I can't
think, it's right off the high road.  O Fuzzy
Wuzzy, what an ass I've been!"  The
Bookie groaned, and Fuzzy clasped his arms
tighter round his neck.  Then he wiped his
friend's dirty face with the crumpled smock,
remarking: "Your poor face is so grubby,
and you've lost your hat!"

"Where's yours?" asked the Bookie.

"I think it felled into the ditch!" Fuzzy
answered composedly, "but there's no sun
to sun-stroke us."

"You must be got home, old chap; it's
getting ever so late and they will be anxious;
do you think you could go by yourself, and
tell them where you left me?"—"a pretty
tale, truly," thought the Bookie to himself.

Fuzzy was torn by conflicting desires.
He hated to leave his wounded friend, and
he wanted his mother.  Finally, having
embraced the Bookie several times, he trotted
off down the lane and into the high road once
more.  When he got home it was nearly
eight o'clock.  His father and mother,
white-faced and anxious, were standing at the
drive gate, straining their eyes in the twilight.
Nana, having searched vainly herself, had
only just come back to confess that Fuzzy
was lost.  He hardly waited to receive his
mother's caresses, but seizing her by the
hand, dragged her down the road, crying
excitedly: "Come quick! the Bookie's
hurted and he's all alone."

By dint of much questioning, the Bookie's
whereabouts and the extent of his
misfortunes were arrived at.  The dogcart and
horse were captured in an adjacent village,
and the Bookie spent a month indoors.
Fuzzy went to see him every day, so did
they all, but they never spoke of the accident.
They played Poker and Nap round his
sick-bed, and the beggar constantly won.

The night before he went down he told
them about Fuzzy.  He forgot to swear at
all during the narrative, but at the end he
said: "And I'm damned if those dusty
strap-shoes wouldn't get between me and
too much of the best champagne ever
bottled!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DARK LADY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \X


.. class:: center large bold

   THE DARK LADY

.. vspace:: 2

Nobody knew her—that is to say, none of
the other ladies knew her.  She was staying
at the "Moonstone" for the hunting,
accompanied by a maid, a couple of grooms, and
six horses.  The hotel people called her
"the Baroness."  Billy always spoke of her
as "that pretty lady"; but then it is
possible that admiration for her daring
horsemanship coloured Billy's views.

On this particular afternoon Billy and
the unknown lady found themselves at the
same gate, in the gathering gloom of a
November afternoon, six good miles from
home.  She was trying to lift a refractory
latch with her hunting-crop when Billy rode
up on his shaggy sheltie, dismounted cap
in hand, and opened the gate for her.

"We seem to have lost the others, you
and I.  Shall we jog home together?" she
asked, as Billy, having carefully fastened the
gate, followed her down the rutty lane.
"I'm not very sure where we are; but I
suppose this lane leads somewhere," she
continued.

"I know the way," answered the little
boy cheerfully.  "I shall be very glad of
your company.  Jackson—that's our
man—lamed the cob early in the day and had to
go home, and it's lonely riding by one's self."

"I am often lonely," said the lady, more
to herself than to Billy.

"Are you?  So am I.  I'm the only one
who hunts, you see; but I'm going to school
at Easter, then I shan't be lonely any more."

"Are you glad to be going to school?"

"Oh, yes!  I shall like being with the other
chaps awfully; but, of course, I shall miss
my people ... and the dogs, and the pony."

"Your people don't hunt, do they?"

"No; we've only the cob and my pony.
Mother doesn't hunt, she's too nervous; and
father doesn't care for it.  Mother drives to
the near meets sometimes, but when it is a
long way she likes Jackson to come with me
for the day.  Not that he's any mortal use,"
added Billy with a gleeful chuckle.  "He's
a potterer, and my brother is too little."

"I wonder," the lady began, then stopped
suddenly.  Billy turned his rosy face
towards her, but she did not speak.  The child,
because he knew one woman so well, divined
that this woman was tired and sad.  So he,
too, was silent.  The horses' hoofs went
thud, swish, thud, swish, through the
foot-deep decaying beech leaves.  A delicate
silver mist gathered round the roots of the
great trees; like the bridal veil of a rosy
girl, it spread itself over the stretches of
ruddy space.  They had turned into the
grass-carpeted main avenue of the Earl's
famous park, and Billy sniffed delightedly
at what he called "the good smell of
Christmas."  Happy Billy! to whom the death
of summer brought no sad thoughts.

"I'm afraid you are very tired!" he said
suddenly, in his kind boyish voice.  "Would
you like to stop a bit?"

The lady started.  Not, indeed, that she
had forgotten Billy; she was in a
subconscious way basking in the warmth that
radiates from all simple and kindly people.
Her rebellious mood of the last weeks had
passed.  That mood in which she loved to
assert her fascination for men; mentally
snapping her fingers in the faces of her sister
women so ready to think evil of her.  Certain
kinds of men come to heel easily and she
felt her triumph to be but a poor one.  This
half-hour's companionship of a friendly little
boy had altered everything; at the moment
she no longer felt herself to be the sport of
circumstance; but her heart ached and her
voice was weariful as she said:—"No, we
won't stop.  I am tired, but we are only
about three miles from home.  You live just
outside the town, don't you?"

"Yes! at that tall grey gabled house
where the cross roads meet!"

"I have seen you go into the drive.  Do
you do lessons—who teaches you?"

"Partly Mother, partly Dad.  I am not
clever at lessons."  Billy flushed as he
spoke; he was fully aware that his small
love for books was something of a reproach.
People expect so much from the child of
clever parents.  He did not know that his
strongly developed sporting instincts were
the pride of his bookish father's heart; nor
how cheerfully that father had forgone
many a rare edition, that Billy might ride
to hounds.  "A modest lad, a good lad;
let him play about in the sunshine—the rest
will come."  So Billy's father, who would
relate with glee how successfully Billy had
vetoed one topic of conversation.  On an
evening, not so very long ago, Billy had put
his head round the drawing-room door,
demanding, "Is Dad going to talk about
'The Dark Lady of the Sonnets?' 'cause,
if he is, I'm not coming in.  I've had enough
of hearing about her."

So Dad vowed he would talk of her no
more, and discussed the habits of "Pug"
with a learning that astonished and charmed
Billy beyond telling.

The much-vexed question of Mary Fitton's
identity with the "Dark Lady of the
Sonnets" had raged with violence in Billy's
house.  His father had written many articles
upon the subject—articles appearing in
those fat, uninteresting magazines which
littered drawing-room and study; in whose
closely printed pages Billy sought in vain
for "pictures and conversations."  He did
wish that Dad wrote for the *Strand*.

Curiously enough, as they rode home in
the gathering eventide, the thought jumped
into Billy's head that the dark lady of the
sonnets must have been exactly like the
Baroness.  With the inconsequent aptness
of childhood he proceeded to quote aloud
lines learned to please his father:

   |  "For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
   |  Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

The lady pulled up short and, turning in her
saddle, asked with a catch in her voice,
"Why do you say that?  What is it?
Where is it from?"

"Oh, it's those sonnets, you know—I've
learnt lots of 'em to please my dad."

"But what made you quote that just
then?" persisted the Baroness, her eyes
dark and tragic with some nameless fear:
"What made you quote it then?  Were you
thinking of me?"

Billy blushed and took off his cap that he
might rumple his hair, a thing he always did
when perplexed.

"I *was* thinking of you," he said at last,
"yet that has nothing to do with you.  This
has though"—and, blushing more than ever,
Billy repeated:

   |  "Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
   |  Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain;
   |  Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
   |  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain:
   |  And truly not the morning sun of heaven
   |  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
   |  Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
   |  Than those two mourning eyes become thy face.
   |

Billy stopped breathless, but confident
that he had said the right thing this time.

"It is very pretty!" said the lady with a
sigh—"but the other is true.  What a queer
little boy you are to repeat poetry like that!
How old are you?"

"I shall be nine at Easter.  Then I go
to school.  Where are you going when the
hunting is over?  It ends early here; we
never kill a May fox—the crops, you know."

"I don't know where I shall go, probably
to London, or to Paris, or——" here she
murmured something in a language Billy
did not understand, then, turning to him,
said dreamily:

   |  "'That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
   |  Like him that travels, I return again.'

You see I know something of your poetry
too!  But, wherever I go, I shall be
lonely—lonely and sad."

There was a sound of tears in her voice.
Billy, infinitely distressed, felt that this
melancholy lady must be cheered and
encouraged, so he said stoutly:

"I've never seen you alone before.  You've
generally got Mr. Rigby Folaire, or Captain
Garth, or Lord Edward, or all of them."

"That's just it," said the Baroness, and
Billy was more puzzled than ever.  Feeling
that he must get on to more comprehensible
ground, he asked,

"How did you lose the others?"

"Probably very much as you did.  Anyhow,
here we are together, and I am very
glad.  I have enjoyed your society
extremely.  I shall remember our afternoon."

The Baroness was destined to remember,
for at that moment Billy's pony put his foot
in a rabbit hole and came down, throwing
the child with some violence against the
trunk of a tree.  They were riding at the
edge of the wood.

The pony scrambled up and galloped off;
but Billy lay quite still in a pathetic heap.
The Baroness had pulled up her tall horse
almost on to his haunches, for Billy had
been thrown right in front of her.  Now,
with the reins over her arm, she was stooping
over the prostrate Billy, while the nervous
thoroughbred trembled and curvetted beside her.

The Baroness was noted for the speed and
grace with which she could mount or dismount.

She lifted Billy in her arms.  There was
a big bruise on his temple, and he seemed
stunned by the fall.  His head rolled on to
her shoulder, lying there heavily.  Reaching
for her flask from the pocket of her saddle,
and with the reins still round her wrist,
she sat down on the ground with Billy in
her arms.  She soaked her handkerchief in
brandy, and dabbed his forehead, and, as if
to aid her, there pattered down upon his
upturned face the first drops of a cold
November shower.

The Baroness had faced many dangers in
her time.  To "scenes" of various kinds
she was quite inured; but she trembled as
Billy's face touched her neck, and there was
a look in her eyes that neither Mr. Rigby
Folaire nor Lord Edward had ever seen there.
Presently Billy stirred and opened his eyes,
saying eagerly, "I'm all right, mother!  It
wasn't Dalgo's fault I fell off.  It's all
right."

Sitting up suddenly, he saw the Baroness,
and knew where he was.  But he had clung
to her—she always remembered that.

He scrambled to his feet, exclaiming, "I
beg your pardon.  Did I frighten you?  I
am so sorry"; then, turning very giddy,
sat down again amongst the wet leaves.

"I wonder if I ought to give him brandy,"
murmured the Baroness.  She put her free
arm round him, while the tall horse sniffed
inquiringly at them both.

The white mist crept higher among the
trees and the rain grew heavier.  Billy
shivered.

"We can't sit here," said the Baroness
decidedly.  "You'll have to ride Frivolity
in front of me.  I don't know where your
pony is, and if he has galloped home they
will be in a dreadful state.  So we must
hurry.

"How strong you are!" said Billy, admiringly,
as she swung him up to the saddle
in front of her—"and how kind!"  He put
his hand on hers that held the reins, her
other arm was round him.  Thus they rode
home in the cold gloom of that November
afternoon.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



"Billy's late!" said his mother nervously
as she poked the study fire.  "I am always
worried when he is out without Jackson;
he is so reckless, and Jackson came home
just before lunch, you know."  Billy's father
pushed his papers away from him, and came
and stood beside her at the fire.

"There he is!" he said, "there's the
drive gate."

"That's a horse; besides, Billy always
goes straight to the yard—Oh, can he be
hurt? and some one has come to tell us.
Go down quick and see."

On no occasion did Billy ever go hunting
but his mother pictured every possible
mishap.  Had the child ever realised her agony
of apprehension he would never have gone;
but she loved him too well to interfere with
his pleasures.  "He's such a manly little
fellow," she would say when he came safely
back, forgetting her dread in her pride of
him—until next hunting day.

She followed her husband into the fire-lit
hall.  The door stood open.  The well-loved
little figure was silhouetted against the
gloom, and the kind young voice was
persuading some one to come in.  "Do come
and have some tea," she heard him say;
then, as he saw his mother: "It's the dark
lady, dear; she has been so kind to me.
Has Dalgo come home?"

The mother went out on to the steps
beside her husband.  The unknown lady
had already turned her horse preparatory to
departure, but waited just to say in short,
jerky sentences:

"Your little boy was thrown, and the
pony ran away.  I thought it best to bring
him home without looking for the pony.
He fell with some force against a tree, but
I don't think——!"

"Won't you come in?" asked Billy's
mother, going down into the rain beside her
guest.  A great many considerations flashed
into her mind, but—"and let me thank you."

The soft voice was so like Billy's.  For a
moment the Baroness wavered.  She looked
somewhat wistfully into the hall where the
ruddy firelight danced on the old oak
furniture, but she gave a little wriggle on her
saddle and said lightly and in the voice that
jarred, "Thanks! but I'm far too wet.  I
must go home and change.  The boy is wet.
I hope the pony will turn up all right," and
with that she rode out of the drive.

Billy spent some days in bed with
concussion of the brain.  He talked constantly
of his "dark lady" to the bewilderment of
his mother, who had no idea how firmly he
was imbued with the notion that *his* dark
lady was *the* dark lady—"of the sonnets,"
as he always piously concluded.

As for the lady—when Billy's father went
down to the "Moonstone" that very evening
in the pouring rain, to thank her for her
kindness to his little son, she was declared
to be engaged and would see no one.

When Billy's mother went next morning
she was told that the Baroness had gone to
town the night before.  Her servants and
her horses followed her, and the hunt knew
her no more.  She left no address.  Mr. Rigby
Folaire and Lord Edward inquired her
whereabouts in vain.  But Billy knew she
had "gone back into the sonnets"; for
had she not said, as they rode home in the
rain that afternoon,

   |  "That is my home of love: if I have ranged
   |  Like him that travels, I return again"?

Billy was sure; and even Billy's father has
given up talking about Mary Fitton.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HER FIRST APPEARANCE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XI


.. class:: center large bold

   HER FIRST APPEARANCE

.. vspace:: 2

Somehow or other it got noised abroad in
the town that Lady Valeria was coming to
church the very next Sunday.

The town was much interested.  There
are people who speak of our town as a
"village."  Such people are lacking in all
sense of proportion.  We pity them, and
try to ignore the insult.

But to return to Lady Valeria.  For
nearly four years we have had her in our
midst.  At first she was known as "the
Earl's baby"; but her appearance and
character were such that she speedily
achieved a distinct entity, and now her
doings are chronicled with extreme minuteness.

"Mammy dear!  Mammy dear!" said
Lady Valeria, "what does God do in
church?"

Her mother looked puzzled for a moment,
then she said, "He listens to our prayers,
and to the psalms and hymns we sing."

"Will He speak to me, mammy dear?
Will He want to kiss me?"

Most people wanted to kiss Lady Valeria;
she was quite used to it.

"We cannot see God," answered the
Countess gravely.

"Why, mammy dear?" asked the persistent
treble voice, "what does He hide for?"

The Countess looked beseechingly at her
husband, but he would not come to her
assistance; he went and looked out of the
window, and his shoulders shook.  He gave
her no help in these matters—no help at
all—and, really, there never was a more inquiring
child than Lady Valeria.

"I'd like to see God, mammy dear! why
can't I?"

"We can none of us see God—yet," said
her mother, gently; "we shall see Him
some day if we are good.  Now listen,
sweetheart, you must be perfectly quiet in church,
and not talk at all; you must do whatever
I do.  Remember, it is God's House, and
we go there to thank Him for all He gives
us, and to pray to Him for help to do right."

Lady Valeria's face was very solemn, and
she held it up to be kissed, and she made
many protestations with regard to the
extreme decorum of her conduct when Sunday
should come.  Then the head nurse
appeared and carried her off to nursery tea.

Her parents had misgivings as to the
sobriety of her behaviour in church.  The
Countess felt nervous and said so; as for the
Earl, he laughed and loved her, but he said
that nothing would induce him to accompany
his daughter to church next Sunday
afternoon.  Hers was a character of much
originality.  She acted with decision, and
always unexpectedly; and the little Countess,
who was only nineteen years older than
her daughter, often felt that the baby girl
was the stronger of the two.

There was a pleasant flutter of expectation
among the Sunday-school children, and,
indeed, among the congregation generally,
at the children's service on that memorable
Sunday when Lady Valeria first came to
church.  Since her own christening, and
that of her small brother, nothing so exciting
had occurred.  The Earl's seat was high up
in the centre aisle, in full view of the
congregation.  As the young Countess walked
in, leading her little daughter by the hand,
she had to run the gauntlet of the kindly
inquisitive eyes of the entire congregation,
an unusually large one.  She blushed very
much, for she was a shy little lady, who
loved to go her gracious way quietly and
unobserved.  Not so Lady Valeria—from
her earliest infancy she had been taught to
give pleasure by her pretty smiles, and that
to "notice people" was one of the most
binding of her obligations.  Though
certainly no Pharisee, she dearly loved
"greetings in the market-place," and as she trotted
up the aisle she nodded gaily to her
acquaintances, who were there in large
numbers.  She waved her fat hand to the curate
as he took his seat in the choir, much to his
confusion.

In the choir were two of the lodge-keeper's
sons.  Their white garments had for the
nonce concealed their identity; but
presently Lady Valeria recognised them, and,
mounting a high hassock, she nodded and
waved ecstatically—she felt so sure they
would be delighted to see her in church.
She wondered why they looked so red, and
why they did not pull their front locks and
grin, as they were wont to do when she
passed them in the pony carriage.  She felt
chilled and disappointed at this lack of
responsiveness on the part of so many of her
friends.

The service began.  Lady Valeria carefully
copied her mother and made no sound.
That lady, who had not noticed "the nods,
and becks, and wreathed smiles" which
marked her daughter's entrance, felt her
cheeks begin to cool and was conscious of a
hope upspringing that her temerity in
bringing Lady Valeria to church was to be
triumphantly vindicated.

Suddenly, however, in the middle of the
psalms, which were read in alternate verses
by vicar and congregation, she noticed that,
in the congregation's verse, somebody was
saying in a triumphant sing-song:

   |  "There was a lady loved a swine.
   |    'Honey!' said she,
   |  'Pighog, wilt thou be mine?'
   |    'Hunc!' said he."
   |

The final "hunc" was a life-like imitation
of one of the Earl's prize pigs.  The verse
in question happened to be shorter than
Lady Valeria's, and she finished after the
congregation.

The curate turned purple, and the vicar's
voice trembled.  The Countess blushed
redder than before, and, stooping down,
whispered, "You mustn't say *anything*, darling!"

Lady Valeria looked up in pained surprise.

"Every one else is talking, mammy dear.
I'm sure God wouldn't mind."

Her mother shook her head again, and
Lady Valeria relapsed into a wondering and
somewhat injured silence.  Why should
those Sunday-school children be allowed to
bawl out all sorts of seemingly irrelevant
remarks, while she was checked for one little
tiny rhyme?  Truly, church was a puzzling
place.  She sighed, and pulled off her gloves,
then she rolled them into a neat ball and
played catch with them.  But she was no
hand at catch, and the gloves fell with a
soft "plop" into the aisle.  Her mother
looked up at the little sound and again
shook her head.  Lady Valeria yawned.

Then something happened.  There was a
scuffling at the back, and the vicar's wife,
who is a strict disciplinarian, marched up
the aisle propelling a small boy in front of
her—the very small boy who was the cause
of the disturbance.  Lady Valeria nearly
fell off her stool in her excitement.  The
procession of two, the pusher and the pushed,
passed the Earl's pew, and reached the big
brass bird, whose classification had been
puzzling Lady Valeria for the last ten
minutes.  The vicar's wife left the small
boy just beside the big bird, and marched
down the aisle again.  The hymn finished,
the vicar went into the pulpit and gave out
the text.  Thomas Beames, the culprit,
stuffed his fists into his eyes, and wept
copiously, but silently.  There he would
have to stand, publicly disgraced, with his
back in full view of the congregation for the
rest of the service.

"I'll turn dissenter, I will!" vowed
Thomas, in his miserable soul.  "I'll vote
yallow when I be growed a man.  I won't
cap she, when I do meet her in the street."

The vicar's voice exhorting the children to
industry, sobriety, and universal charity fell
on deaf ears as far as Thomas was concerned.
But what he did hear was the soft patter of
little feet behind him, then came a pull at
his arm by two small impatient hands.  He
took his fists out of his eyes, and looked down
to see Lady Valeria standing beside him.
Her blue eyes were full of pity, and she said
very softly and distinctly, "Don't ky, little
boy! there's plenty of room in our seat!"
and before the astonished Thomas could
demur, one of the imperative little hands
had seized his, and pulled him into the Earl's
pew, where he sat crimson and desperately
uncomfortable for the rest of the service;
but he was not quite so sure that he would
vote "yallow when he were growed a man."  The
sermon was long.  The vicar felt this
flying in the face of law and order must be
lived or preached down.

Lady Valeria yawned again.  Heedless of
the precepts of St. Paul, she removed her
hat.  Then she leaned her head against her
mother's shoulder and slept.

She slept all through the sermon; even
the singing of the closing hymn did not
awake her.

The school children, including the now
repentant Thomas Beames, had clattered
out, and still the Lady Valeria slept.

Her mother kissed and woke her, and as
they walked across the sunny market-place,
Lady Valeria remarked cheerfully, "Mammy
dear, mammy dear!  I like church, you feels
so nice and fresh when you comes out!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XII


.. class:: center large bold

   "OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US"

.. vspace:: 2

Ridgeway came in with the morning paper
while Johnny was still at breakfast.  Johnny
was late, but at the beginning of the holidays
he generally was late unless it happened to
be a hunting morning.

Something had evidently stirred Ridgeway
out of his usual stately calm, for instead of
bringing in the paper neatly folded upon a
salver, he held it open in his hand, and his
hands were shaking.

"It's all here, Master Johnny!" he cried.
"Bobs 'e spoke and Lord Curzon 'e spoke,
and the King and the Viceroy sent messages
and no end of nobs besides: and to think
of it! the General was there to 'ear it all.
An' that gentleman wot writes the books
you're so fond of, *he* was there an' 'e wrote
a hymn 'specially for the occasion."

Johnny snatched the paper and Ridgeway
retired to the sideboard, where he stood
with his back to Johnny, blowing his nose
and clearing his throat in a highly
unprofessional fashion.

"I'm glad grandfather was there," Johnny
said presently.  "Don't you wish you'd
been there, Ridgeway?  But I suppose you
were born a bit too late ... you were
born after the Mutiny, weren't you?"

"Bless you, yes, Master Johnny.  Why,
'owever old do you think I am?"

"Everybody seems rather old in this
house after school, you know," Johnny
explained apologetically.  "At school there's
fifty chaps, and Hatton Major's the eldest
and he's just fourteen and seven months.
He's leaving this term.  I shall be leaving
at midsummer, you know, for then I shall
be fourteen.  When'll grandfather be back,
Ridgeway?"

"The General said 'e'd telegraph this
morning.  I expect 'e's a bit tired after that
dinner.  My word! it must have been a fine
sight—all those old chaps, and the officers,
all with their medals and their orders on.
Somethin' like a *Tamash* that was.  They've
seen a deal, they 'ave."

Johnny rose from table with the paper
still in his hand.  "I think," he said, "that
grandfather would wish all the servants to
hear what's in this paper, and I'd like to
read it to them.  Please tell them to come
here at once, Ridgeway."

The long line of servants filed into the
room just as they did when the General was
at home to read prayers.  And Johnny,
fair-haired, round-faced, and ever so serious,
stood up before them all to read aloud about
the dinner that the proprietors of a great
newspaper had given to the survivors of the
Indian Mutiny of 1857.

Everybody was impressed; and the cook,
who was fat and full of sensibility, wept
audibly.

Johnny's voice did not falter except when
he stumbled over one or two of the long
words in some of the speeches, till he came
to what Ridgeway called "the hymn"
written by Mr. Rudyard Kipling.

   |  "One service more we dare to ask:
   |    Pray for us, heroes, pray,
   |  That when Fate lays on us our task,
   |    We do not shame the day."
   |

As he reached this last verse his voice
broke.

"That's all," he said hastily, "and thank
you very much for listening."  Then he fled
to the stables, bearing the precious
newspaper with him that he might read it all
over again to the General's groom and the
stable boys.

Johnny was the youngest of a long line of
soldiers and civilians who had served our
Indian Empire.  Father and mother were
still in India, though they were coming home
before the hot weather and mother would
probably not go out again.  Johnny,
himself, always talked of "going back" when he
should be through Sandhurst; although he
had left India for good at four years old.
Yet he heard "the East a-calling" with the
same loud imperative call that all his race
had so ungrudgingly obeyed.

Johnny adored the works of Mr. Rudyard
Kipling.  His nursery days had been
enriched and enchanted by the *Jungle Books*
and *Just So Stories*; and as he grew older
he chose out for enthusiastic admiration
certain heroes from among the short stories,
heroes who were to him a never-failing
inspiration and example.  He was sure, of
course, that Mr. Kipling was "a real person,"
but he was infinitely more confident that
Bobby Wicks and John Chinn and Georgie
Cottar had actually existed, *did* actually
exist, except poor Bobby Wicks who died
of cholera.  They were, in fact, far more
manifest to the mind of Johnny than the
man privileged to chronicle their doings.
It was beastly bad luck that Bobby Wicks
had died: it always made him want to kick
his best friend for at least an hour
afterwards when he read that story.  All the
same, Bobby had not died in vain, for his
cheery, unconscious heroism had kindled
in the breast of at least one small boy a
steady flame of patriotism and the passionate
hope that when his time should come he,
too, might serve and suffer with the men he
hoped one day to lead.

That mild December morning, as he rode
alone along the muddy lanes, Johnny's mind
was full of the Mutiny, and his heart grew
big within him as he thought of the men
whose dangers his grandfather had been
privileged to share.

When he got back to lunch he found a
long telegram from the General saying that
certain old friends who had come up for the
Mutiny dinner had persuaded him to stay
one more night in town, but that he would
motor back very early on Christmas morning
in plenty of time for church.  Johnny felt
a bit disappointed, but he went to tea
with some cheery neighbours where there
was assembled a large and youthful party,
and he dined in solemn state with Ridgeway
in attendance.  After dinner he arranged
his gifts for grandfather and the servants
and was quite ready for bed when bed-time
came.  He said his prayers with his usual
precipitation: but when he had finally
besought blessings upon "father and mother
and grandfather and all my kind friends"
he found himself still upon his knees repeating:

   |  "One service more we dare to ask:
   |    Pray for us, heroes, pray,
   |  That when Pate lays on us our task,
   |    We do not shame the day."
   |

"How rummy of me!" quoth Johnny
to himself as he snuggled down in bed.
"I've got that Mutiny dinner on the
brain."  And then he fell asleep.

Later on he began to dream.  He dreamt
that he was in the sick-room at school and
that he had a very bad cough—a tickling,
tiresome, choking cough.  He implored the
matron to give him some water, but she
only laughed at him and hurried out of the
room.  And the cough grew worse and worse
till he thought he should choke.  It was so
unlike matron, too, to be hard-hearted and
unsympathetic, that Johnny grew very
angry, and he tried to shout at her but the
cough wouldn't let him.  Still, he must have
managed to make a considerable noise, for
the sound of his own voice woke him up,
and as he opened his eyes they began to
smart violently.  He sat up in bed still
coughing and choking, and it was gradually
revealed to him that the room was full of smoke.

Now Johnny had no fire in his bedroom,
for the whole house was heated by hot pipes.
Not long ago, too, grandfather had put in the
electric light.  Johnny turned on the switch
at the head of his bed, but no light came.

He sat perfectly still for a few seconds
realising the while that the house must
assuredly be on fire somewhere.  Then he
leapt out of bed and flung his window wide
open.  He hung out of the window and
filled his lungs with the good fresh air.

He was wideawake now and quite able
to understand that there was danger.  His
first impulse was to get out of the window
and scramble down into safety by the ivy
on the wall.  His room was on the first floor,
the rooms were low and old-fashioned, and
he had done it before.  Just as he was
preparing to scramble out he remembered the
servants.  The women all slept at the end
of a long passage (which went the whole
length of the house) through a swing door.
Johnny's end was quite unoccupied, as
grandfather had taken his own man with
him; the lady who did the housekeeping
had gone back to her own home for Christmas,
and there were no visitors just then.
Ridgeway slept in a wing room built over
the pantry close to the back staircase.
Half-way down the passage was the turret
staircase, and in the turret hung the great bell
to be rung to rouse the servants in case of
fire or sudden illness.

Johnny drew in his head and turned back
into his room.  The smoke was not quite so
bad now, but it was very dark; He opened
the door, and as he did so there flowed in
great waves and gusts of smoke that drove
him back into the room again.

It would be much easier to get out of the
window and go round to ring the front-door
bell, or throw stones at the servants'
windows, or do anything rather than face that
stinging, stifling darkness which was not
black but grey.

It drove him back to the window again,
the window with its easy drop out into the
sate, kind night of stars and watery moon
and cold wet air.

But the servants!  How was he to warn
the servants?

And the fire might be spreading.  He felt
his way to the washstand and dipped one of
the towels in water.  He wrapped it round
his neck like a muffler, covering mouth and
nose, and then he opened his door again,
ran down the smoke-packed passage as fast
as he could; and up the little staircase to
the belfry, where he fell gasping, for the
acrid smoke was terrible.

Here it was better, for the belfry tower
was open to the night.  Johnny seized the
rope and pulled for dear life.  How long
must he ring before they would all be roused?

It was a big, loud bell: he heard it
clanging overhead, and insensibly it seemed to
swing to the rhythm of these words:

   |    "Pray for us, heroes, pray,
   |  That when Fate lays on us our task,
   |    We do not shame the day."
   |

Johnny's arms were tired and his bare
feet were cold.  Would they hear?  Had
he rung long enough?  Might he go back
to his room now and get out of the window?

The smoke was creeping up into the
belfry.  It was the smoke, of course, that
made the tears come into his eyes.

Clang, clang, clang, clang—clang, clang!

Johnny loosed the rope for a minute and
listened.

Yes; he heard shouts.

They were roused, then: just a few more
pulls and he might go.

The terrified maidservants came huddling
down the back staircase and out at the back
door.  Men came from the stables, and the
lodge, and the gardeners' cottages, and
Ridgeway dropped from his window, for he
could not face the smoke in the passage.

The fire was in the front of the house in
the main wing; the dining room was
undoubtedly in flames, and the men went round
to the front with the hose while one of the
grooms galloped off to the nearest town for
the fire engine.

Ridgeway was the last to join the
frightened group outside the back door, and
his first question was, "Where's Master
Johnny?"

It took several minutes of most violent
language before he discovered that no one
had seen Master Johnny, but his window
was open, and he must have got out that
way: "he was active as a cat."

But Johnny was not with the men.

"Who rang the alarm bell?" Ridgeway shouted.

Apparently no one had rung the alarm bell.

A ladder was set against Johnny's window,
and Ridgeway went up and into Johnny's room.

Twice the volumes of smoke drove him
back from the door, for Ridgeway had never
done fire-drill at school, and knew nothing
of the advantages of a wet towel; but the
third time he made a dash down the passage
and reached the belfry stairs.  At the foot
of the steps he trod upon something soft
and, stooping, picked up Johnny in his arms
and staggered back again.

When he appeared at the window with
his burden the men sent up a cheer, but
Ridgeway gave a hard, dry sob and muttered,
"If 'e's dead I'm goin' back into the
'ouse; I'll never face the General."

All the same Ridgeway was the first to
face the General when that aged warrior
arrived at his drive gate early on Christmas
morning.  He faced the General with the
intelligence that he would find his dining-room,
his hall, and a great part of his staircase
a mass of charred ruins by reason of the
fusing of the wires of the recently installed
electric light.  And Ridgeway further
related that to the General which almost
consoled him for the state of chaos in which
he found his household.

The General's own man had got out when
Ridgeway stopped the motor at the drive
gate.  He and Ridgeway stood side by side
at the door of the brougham while Ridgeway
spoke.

"You've made it pretty clear that the
boy saved the lot of you," said the General.
"But who the dickens fetched the boy
out of all that smother?  Tell me that, now!"

Ridgeway passed his hand over his very
rough chin and looked foolish, saying never
a word.

"Get in, man!" said the General, "get
in.  Do you think we can loaf about here
all day—get in!" and the General dragged
Ridgeway into the motor with both hands.

As the motor rounded the last corner of
the drive, the General beheld, as through a
mist, a little figure in an Eton jacket
standing outside the bulged and blackened front
door.

The figure waved cheerfully and ran to
assist the General to alight.

The old soldier grasped Johnny by the
shoulder and shook him gently:

"You're a nice person to leave in charge!"
he roared.  "What have you got to say for
yourself, hey?"

Johnny grinned.  "You're very well up
to time, sir," he said cheerily.  "We'll have
to have breakfast in the housekeeper's room,
for you never saw such a beastly mess in all
your life!"





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.. _`A GIOTTO OF THE COTSWOLDS`:

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   XIII


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   A GIOTTO OF THE COTSWOLDS

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When Mary Cardross first saw Jethro he
was six years old, and still wore petticoats.
He was not particularly small for his age,
and his appearance was, to say the least of
it, peculiar.  A cotton frock, made with
skirt and body like a housemaid's morning
dress, reached to his ankles; and he seemed
to have very little underneath, for this outer
garment hung limp and straight from waist
to heel, except on Sundays, when, fresh from
the hands of his aunt, it stuck out all round
like a lamp-shade.  His hair, cropped very
short round the edges, was several inches
long on the crown.  Mrs. Gegg, by courtesy
his "aunt," did not even put a basin on his
head by way of guide in the shearing, but,
brushing all the hair forward from the centre
of the crown, laid the scissors against his
forehead, and cut the hair close to the skin
all round.  It grew again quickly, and stuck
out above his temples like a new straw thatch.

"Isn't he rather a big boy for petticoats?"
Mary asked, as her landlady removed
the supper, pausing at intervals to
explain Jethro's presence under her roof.

"Yes, 'e be a biggish boy, but I hain't
a-goin' to be at no expense for 'im as I can
'elp.  'E can wait cum Christmas for 'is
trowsies.  'E ought to be thankful as 'e
weren't tuk to the workus, an' me only 'is
mother's cousin, though 'e *do* call me haunt.
'E be a great expense, and I've 'ad 'im this
two year.  The most onandiest, nothingly
child you ever see,—always a-scribblin' and
a-messin' and moonin'.  I don't set no store
by Jethro, I can tell you, Miss!  'E's got
to be brought up 'ard to hearn 'is own
livin'"—and Mrs. Gegg paused breathless.
Mary said nothing, but she felt rather sorry
for Jethro.

Had Mrs. Gegg lived anywhere but in the
lovely, lonely Cotswold village perched like
a smiling fastness in the midst of beech-clad
hills, reached only by the loosest and worst
of roads, she would hardly have dared to
dress a six-year boy in such extraordinary
fashion.  Public opinion would have been
too strong for her.  But Nookham, with its
dozen cottages, lived and let live in easy
apathy, and Jethro in bitterness of spirit
wore his cotton frock.  Two years ago Mary
had discovered Nookham.  Friends had
driven her over to have tea in the woods, and
to gather the wild strawberries found there
in such abundance.  She fell in love with
the place, and came again upon a private
exploring expedition, when she discovered
that lodgings were to be had at the post-office,
in the house of one Mrs. Gegg.  There
she spent a most delightful fortnight,
sketching.  Never was more attentive and honest
landlady, never cleaner, more orderly house!
It is true that Mary's painting tackle greatly
distressed her hostess, partaking as it did
of the nature of things "messy and
slummicky," which her soul abhorred.
Otherwise, she liked Mary, as did most people;
and she had in her way great toleration for
the "curus ways" of the "gentry" generally,
expecting less of them in the matter of
common sense than she exacted from people
of her own class.  And now, after two years
in Italy, Mary found herself once more in
the dear Cotswold country, in the very
middle of a perfect June.  Nookham generally
was unfeignedly pleased to see her again.
Few strangers came to stay there, and the
roads were too bad and too hilly for even
the ubiquitous cyclist.  The squire's house
was three miles from the village, the vicarage
two, and the tall lady with the abundant
wavy grey hair and strong, kind face had
made a very distinct and pleasant impression.

Mary did not catch a glimpse of Jethro
during her first day until, happening at
post-time to want a letter she had left in her
bedroom, she ran upstairs to fetch it.

The room, with door flung wide, faced the
narrow staircase.  In the very middle of
the floor stood Jethro, in rapt contemplation
of a large photograph of Giovanni Bellini's
Madonna,—the one in the sacristy of the
Frari at Venice—which Mary had placed on
the little mantelpiece.

The day was well on in the week, the
cotton frock hung in limp and draggled folds
about the childish limbs, and the queer little
creature's attitude was almost pathetically
boyish as he stood, legs far apart, his hands
grasping the lilac cotton where pockets
ought to have been.

For a full minute Mary stood watching
him.  He made no attempt to touch the
picture; in fact—and afterwards the
circumstance seemed significant—he stood at
some distance from it, that he might see it
whole.

Mary must have moved, for the stairs
creaked.  Jethro jumped, did not even turn
his head to see who was coming, but darted
under the bed with the instant speed of a
startled squirrel.  She came into the room,
shut the door, and sat down on her trunk,
remarking, "If you come out I'll show you
some more pictures!"  Dead silence for
five minutes, while Mary sat patiently
waiting.  She was determined that she would
in no way frighten or constrain the timid
child, for it seemed to her that the little
Cotswold peasant who stood gazing with
absorbed interest at her favourite Madonna
must be worth knowing.

"I can't think why you stay under there,
Jethro," she said at last; "we could have
such a nice time together if you would come
out, and I must go directly to finish my
letters."

But, like Brer Rabbit, Jethro "lay low
and said nuffin'", so Mary was fain to go and
finish her letters, determined to play
a waiting game.  From time to time she stopped
writing, looking pained and puzzled.  "It
is dreadful that a little child should be so
afraid of one," she said to herself; "what
can they have done to him?"  Presently
Jethro rushed past the open door, and later
on there came from the direction of the
back kitchen a sound uncommonly like smacks.

Mrs. Gegg laid the supper as though she
were dealing cards with the angry emphasis
indulged in by certain Bridge players after
a series of bad hands.  Mary ventured on a
timid remark to the effect that Nookham
had changed but little during her two years
absence.  Mrs. Gegg replied that "Squire
didn't encourage no fancy building," and
that therefore it was likely to remain the
same for some time to come.  Conversation
languished, and she went into the garden
to "take in" certain exquisitely white
garments still spread upon the currant bushes
while Mary stood at the front door waiting
for the nightingale to "touch his lyre of
gold," when another and very different
sound broke into the scented stillness—a
breathless, broken sound of sobs—a child's
sobs.  She listened for a moment, then
turned and went back into the house to
follow the sound.  From the landing window
she noted with relief that Mrs. Gegg was
engaged in converse with a neighbour (Mary
stood in great awe of her landlady); she
mounted a ladder leading to the attic, and
there, under the slates, lying full length on
the outside of his clean little bed, was Jethro,
sobbing with an *abandon* and intensity that
left Mary in no doubt as to what she should
do this time.  Bumping her head violently,
and nearly driving it through the slates in
her haste, for she could by no means stand
upright, she climbed in and reached the side
of the bed.

Her entrance was so noisy that the child
had plenty of time to vanish, as he had done
in the afternoon; but he was evidently so
astonished by her appearance that no thought
of flight occurred to him; he even forgot to
be frightened, left off crying, and asked
eagerly:

"Did you 'urt your 'ead?"

"No, not much.  I heard you crying,
and came to see what was the matter."

Jethro looked queerer than ever.  He
wore a voluminous unbleached calico
nightgown, several sizes too big for him; the
big tears on his cheeks' shone like jewels in
the soft June twilight, and the thatch of
tow-coloured hair was rumpled into a
quick-set hedge above his great, grave forehead.

"I've bin beat," he whispered.

"Why, what had you done?"

"I thrown a stwun at Earny Mustoe akez
'e did call oi 'Jemima,' and it did break 's
mother's windy."

"Is he bigger than you?"

"Yes, 'e be noine!"

"Then why didn't you go for him and hit
him?  You couldn't break any windows
that way, and it would teach him better
manners."

Jethro stared in astonishment at this war-like lady.

"But 'e be ever so much bigger nor me,"
he exclaimed, "and I be allays beat
aterwards"; then, remembering his woes, "and
it do 'urt so, it do," and Jethro began to
wail again.

Mary gathered the woebegone little figure
into her arms and sat down on the floor,
saying cheerfully:

"Cheer up, old chap; I'll pay for that
window, and you mustn't throw any more
stones; and don't cry any more, and we'll
have ever such nice times while I'm here."

It was evident that Jethro was not used
to being cuddled.  He sat stiff and solemn
on her knee, staring at her with great puzzled
eyes.  She talked to him as tender women
talk to children, and finally put him to bed,
tucked him in, kissed and blessed him, and
climbed down the ladder again.  Much to
her relief she saw that Mrs. Gegg was still in
the garden.

Jethro lay awake, staring at a patch of
moonlight on the whitewashed wall.  Hazily,
vaguely, there arose in his mind are collection
that at one time some one always tucked him
into bed—some one who looked kindly at
him.  He couldn't remember the face, but
the eyes were like the tall lady's—like the
lady's in the picture downstairs; and again
Jethro wanted to cry, but not because he
had been "beat."  However, he would not
cry; she had asked him not to, and she had
such sharp ears, and she would come to see
him every night, and she had lots more
pictures.  Here the tall lady and the lady
in the picture became inextricably mixed
up, and Jethro slept that blessed sleep of
childhood which is oblivion.

"I'd just like to show you, Miss, a present
as I've 'ad from my nephew down Cubberly
way.  'E's on'y fifteen, and 'e's that clever
with 'is fingers——"  Mrs. Gegg held up for
Mary's admiration a frame made of fir-cones
which had been varnished and squeezed
together till they looked like a hollow square
of highly polished brown sausages.  "There,
Jethro, if you could make summut like that."

"I likes 'em better a-growin'," said
Jethro, softly.

During the scornful scolding that followed
Mary watched Jethro.  His serene grey eyes
under the square, peaceful forehead looked
a trifle weary, and he sighed as his aunt
harangued him, but he did not seem greatly
disturbed.  After all, whether people scolded
or not, gracious, gentle things continued
a-growin', and Jethro through the sweet
uses of adversity had early learnt that
"Nature, the kind old nurse," never refuses
consolation to such of her children as seek
it in sweet solitary places with an
understanding heart.

Mary found Jethro very difficult to get at.
He followed her about, and would sit
watching her paint for hours in silent, absolute
absorption, but he very seldom spoke
himself.  One day, as they were walking together
down the steep stony road leading to the
woods, he suddenly clasped her round the
knees, exclaiming, "You be such a dear 'ooman!"

Mary stooped hastily and kissed the little
upturned face.  In a life compassed about
with much affection and many friends no one
had ever spoken to her with such a rapture
of appreciation, and she fell to thinking how
little she had done to deserve it.  Two days
after she got a letter.

"The mater cannot write herself," it ran,
"because she is busy with a big chest in
the attic upon which the dust of ages has
hitherto been allowed to rest in peace.
From time to time you may hear her murmur,
'Six, and an average size.  Poor little
lad!  What a shame!!—this will do, I
think.'  So you know what is going on.  Do you
remember the bundles?  All neatly docketed—'To
fit boy of twelve,' etc.  A regular
trousseau is coming, so tell that kiddie to
cheer up."

Three days later Jethro appeared at school
in all the glory of jacket and "trowsies";
and the very boy who had most grievously
tormented him about his petticoats chastised
another on his behalf who made derisive
remarks about a "gal in trowsies."  Thus
the chief misery in Jethro's life was removed,
and he felt that he bade fair to become a
social success.

His aunt manifested no objection to the
new clothes.  A thrifty soul, she believed in
taking what she could get, and remarked,
quite good-naturedly, that Jethro did look
a bit more like other folk now.

"Of a Saturday" Mrs. Gegg "hearth-stoned"
the whole of her back kitchen till
its spotlessness rivalled that of the
whitewashed walls.  The placid expectancy of
Saturday evening had settled on the village.
Mary, tired by her long day's painting, was
resting upon the slippery horsehair sofa, and
meditating on the impossibility of
reproducing on canvas the brilliant transparency
of young green larches, when her landlady
burst into the room, positively breathless
with passion.  "Just you come 'ere, miss,
and see what that, there mishtiful young imp
o' darkness been and done: I'll warm 'im
so's 'e shan't forget it in a 'urry!"  Mary
hastily followed the woman into the sacred
back kitchen, and there in a corner near
the pump crouched Jethro, one arm curved
above his head to protect it from a renewal
of the rain of blows that had just fallen,
while the floor was decorated by a
monochrome landscape, painted by Jethro with
Mrs. Gegg's blue-bag.

Mary gazed at it with astonishment.  With
strong certainty of touch the child had
splashed in by means of the coarse blue the
stretch of hills that met his eyes every time
he went out at Mrs. Gegg's front door.  The
queer impressionist sketch had atmosphere,
distance, and, above all, perspective.  "Oh,
Mrs. Gegg!" cried Mary, holding back the
angry little woman with her strong arms as
she was advancing across the picture to
wreak fresh vengeance upon Jethro, "leave
it! leave it till Monday, and I'll give you
blue and whitening to last you a twelve-month.
It is a wonderful picture!  Some
day you will be proud of him.  He couldn't
help it.  We none of us gave him anything
to draw on.  Why didn't you tell me, child,
that you could draw like this?"

Astonishment was cooling Mrs. Gegg's
wrath.  She had heard, nay, upon one
occasion seen, that a pavement artist in distant
Gloucester earned good money, though it
was but a poor trade.  Then there was Miss
Cardross, always messing with paints and
things;—perhaps she really knew something
about it.  "If you will leave the picture
where it is till Monday," continued Mary,
"I will ride over to Colescombe to-morrow
and persuade an artist friend to come and
look at it, and we will see what can be done
for Jethro.  Please, Mrs. Gegg!"  And
Mary got her way.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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"You must leave him where he is," said
the great art critic to Mary when he had
inspected the frescoed floor.  "He may be a
genius.  I think he is.  All the more reason
to leave him alone just now.  Give him
paper and paints—lots of them; don't lose
sight of him and we'll help him when the
right time comes.  It hasn't come yet."

So Mary left him in the peace of the kindly
Cotswold hills.  And while Bellini's Madonna
smiles down upon him from the whitewashed
attic wall, while sun and cloud make
light and shadow for him on beech-clad
slope and grassy plain, and life is full "of
mysteries and presences, innumerable, of
living things," we need not pity Jethro.
For, even as one who wandered long ago
upon the steeps of far Fièsole found infinite
potentialities among solitary places and
pleasant pastoral creatures, even so in time
to come the little Cotswold peasant may
enter into his inheritance in that kingdom
where "every colour is lovely and every
space is light.  The world, the universe, is
divine; all sadness is a part of harmony,
and all gloom a part of peace."





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.. _`THE DAY AFTER`:

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   XIV


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   THE DAY AFTER

.. vspace:: 2

The election was over and Patsey was sad,
for her father had lost his seat.  Patsey
could not altogether understand why her
father should be so anxious to sit in that
particular House in London when he had so
many comfortable chairs in his own.  But
at eight years old a little girl cannot expect
to understand everything, and she was a
very humble-minded child.  She loved her
father dearly, and whatever he wanted, she
wanted too, very much indeed; so that
when she went downstairs that morning to
pour out his coffee, and found him looking
so pale and tired in spite of his gay pink
coat and beautiful white breeches, for he
was going out hunting, she gave him an
extra big hug and laid her soft cheek against
his, saying, "Dear, dear dad," quite a
number of times, and big tears forced themselves
out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks,
although she did her best to keep them back.
As her father kissed her he tasted the wet,
salt little cheek, and held her away from
him, exclaiming, "How now, Pat!  What's
the matter?  You mustn't fret.  We're
sportsmen, you know, and we must take a
defeat like gentlemen; no grousing.  The
umpire's decision has gone against us and
we must abide by it.  Look at me!  If I'd
been in I'd have been going off to make bad
speeches in stuffy committee-rooms; as it
is, I'm off for a good day's sport in beautiful
soft weather.  Which is best, do you think?"

Patsey tried to smile, but she knew very
well which her father would have liked best,
and her tears came afresh.

"He's a dirty Radical," she sobbed, "a
nasty, common working man.  I can't think
how they could like him better than you—so
clean and handsome and good."

Her father wiped the wet little face with
his big silk handkercliief, and took her up on
his knee.

"I'd rather you didn't repeat what you
hear the servants say, Pat," he said gravely.
"It's largely a case of 'let the best man
win,' and we'll hope he has."

So Patsey cheered up, poured out her
father's coffee, and they talked about
pleasanter things than the election till she
went out on to the steps to see him ride
away.

Then everything seemed very flat, for life
had been rather exciting lately.  It is true
that Patsey had never been allowed to take
an active part in the election, her father
expressing himself somewhat strongly in
condemnation of such candidates as "turned
their little daughters into sandwich-men and
their young sons into phonographs"; but
she had been permitted to wear a blue
rosette when she drove into the town with
her governess.  And sometimes people who
knew her cheered her as they passed, and it
was pleasant to feel so important.

It was curious, too, that although all the
servants were so loud in their abuse of the
new member, they none of them seemed in
the least cast down by the result of the
election; and Patsey's gentle little soul was
puzzled by a partisanship that loudly
disparaged the conqueror while yet it held no
sympathy for the vanquished.

All morning it rained, but after lunch the
sun came out, and Patsey's governess, who
had a cold, bade her put on her overshoes
and go and play in the garden, for half an
hour by herself.

Now, Patsey's father had given her a
bicycle just a week before, and although she
was not yet an expert rider, still, she could
get along, and it struck her that it would be
a good opportunity to practise by riding up
and down the drive.  A stray gardener
helped her on, and she found herself riding
so beautifully that when she came to the
lodge and saw that the great gates were
open, the spirit of adventure seized upon
her and bore her through them, out on to
the high road.

Patsey had never been in the road alone
in all her life before, so that she felt most
bold and daring, and the feeling was so new
and delightful that she rode on for half a
mile, finally turning into a quiet lane that
led to the cemetery which lay a couple of
miles outside the town.  Here it was very
muddy, and Patsey had not gone very far
before her bicycle skidded violently.  She
tried to save herself with one foot, but it
twisted under her, and she came down with
the bicycle on the top of her.

When she tried to get up again she found
that one of her ankles was horribly swollen
and painful, and that she couldn't stand.
It was a very woebegone little figure that
sat weeping at the side of the road.  The
"fond adventure" had indeed ended
disastrously, and Patsey bitterly repented
her of her enterprise, and longed for her
governess or nurse.

It was such a lonely road.  Except on
Sundays, when people went to take flowers
to the cemetery, hardly any one went up or
down, and the awful prospect of sitting there
till some one should come from home to look
for her—and why should they look for her
in that particular road?—confronted Patsey
with chilly menace.

The January sunshine faded early, and
she began to feel very cold.

Presently she heard quick footsteps coming
from the direction of the cemetery, and a
man appeared in sight.  As he reached the
prostrate bicycle and the doleful little figure
seated beside it, he stopped, exclaiming,
"Hullo!  What's to do here?  Have you
tumbled off, my dear?  I wouldn't sit there,
though, it's so wet."

"I can't get up," poor Patsey faltered;
"I've hurt my foot; it's all gone fat and
funny, and it does pain so.  I can't stand.
Oh, could you? could you—call in at my
home on your way back and tell them to send
the carriage for me?  It would be so very kind
of you.  Do you think you could——?"

The man stooped down and looked at
the poor little foot.  He touched it gently
and shook his head, saying, "It's rather a
bad sprain, I fear; just tell me where you
live and I'll carry you home.  Then they
can get a doctor and have it fomented and
bound.  I'd best tie it up now as well as I
can, so as not to shake you more than I can
help."

The man took out a large handkerchief of
brilliant yellow silk, and Patsey shuddered.
"Oh, please don't!" she cried.  "I mustn't
wear anything yellow, not to-day of all
days; it would be so disloyal to daddie.  If
it must be tied up, please take mine—but I
don't think it need be."

As Patsey dragged a damp and dirty little
square of once-white cambric from her pocket
the man laughed.

"That's no use," he said.  "If little
Tory ladies go and sprain their ankles just
like common folk, they must bear a bandage
even if it's the wrong colour."

And without more ado this masterful man
bound up the little foot with his gaudy
handkerchief very deftly and kindly.

"I hope we shan't meet anybody," said
Patsey, when he had lifted her into his arms,
having carried the bicycle behind the hedge
for safety.  "It would be so unkind of me
to wear yellow to-day."

The man turned and looked sharply at
the pale little face so close to his own, and
gave a low whistle.

"Do you know who I am?" Patsey asked
with dignity.

"And do you know who *I* am?" demanded the man.

There flashed an illuminating ray of
remembrance into Patsey's mind.  She had
seen this man before, and he was no other
than the "Labour candidate" who had
stolen her father's seat.

There was silence for a minute till Patsey
said earnestly, "If you know who I am,
you need not wonder that I biject to wear
anything yellow."  Then, for Patsey's father
had taught her that other people have
political opinions too, "And perhaps you
biject just as much to carrying a little blue
girl."

The man laughed and held her a little
closer as he said, "Far from objecting, I like
carrying this little blue girl exceedingly.
It's a long time since I carried any little
girl," he added sadly.

"Haven't you any little girls of your
own?" she asked curiously.

"My little girl lies yonder," said the man,
nodding his head in the direction of the
cemetery.

Patsey lifted her arm and put it round his
neck that he might carry her more easily,
and, forgetting all about the yellow
handkerchief, exclaimed, "How sad!  I *am* so
sorry.  My mummy is buried there too.
Was your little girl ill a long time?  My
mummy was, months and months.  Was
your little girl eight, too, like me?"

"She was just ten when she died," the
man said quietly, "but she was nothing
like so big or so heavy as you, poor little
lass!  She died because I could get neither
food nor firing for her, and I've just been to
her grave...."  The man paused, and in
quite a different tone continued, "And that's
why I stand in your father's shoes to-day,
little lady, and perhaps I may help to make
it better for other little girls by and by."

"I wish my daddie had known," Patsey
said softly.  "He would have sent you
everything you wanted for her; he would
indeed.  He's so good to the poor."

The man gave a hard little laugh.

"I've no doubt of it," he said, "but, you
see, that's not what we want.  We're not
over-fond of charity, some of us.  Besides,
charity's a bit uncertain.  What we want is
to be able to give our little girls food and
firing our own selves.  Yes, charity's a bit
uncertain and children's appetites
uncommonly regular."

"Were you hungry and cold too?" asked Patsey.

Again the man laughed that queer, hard
laugh.  "It don't hurt a man to be hungry
and cold occasionally," he said grimly, "but
too much of it breaks a man's spirit.  It's
seeing them belonging to him hungry and
cold and not being able to help them that
puts the devil into a man.  I beg your
pardon, little lady, but there's no other word."

By this time they had turned into Patsey's
own drive.  The sun was setting behind the
house, gorgeous and golden, and the mellow
light fell full on the face of the "dirty
Radical" who carried Patsey.  She
considered him carefully.  It was a sad face,
strong and lined with hardship and suffering,
but there was something in the expression
of his eyes that made her forget his politics,
and she patted his shoulder, saying warmly,
"I hope you will succeed, indeed I do."

Her father, still in his muddy hunting
things, was standing on the steps looking
anxiously down the drive.  When he saw
them he ran forward, exclaiming anxiously,
"Patsey, my darling, what has happened?"

"It's all right, daddie," Patsey called
back.  "I've had a spill off my bicycle, and
this ... gentleman found me and has carried
me all the way home."

Patsey's father smiled a whimsical smile
as he held out his arms for her, and as the
muddy little figure changed hands, he said,
"You are evidently determined to benefit
*all* your constituents, sir."

The Labour member smiled too, but his
face was very sad as he answered, "You
might have my place and welcome, if I could
have what you hold in your arms."

Without another word he turned and
walked swiftly down the drive.  Patsey's
father neither called after him, nor did he
follow; but he held his little daughter very
close.

That night Patsey added an extra petition
to her usual prayers.  It was: "Please,
dear God, let the kind Radical man what
carried me, get what he wants for all the
other little girls."





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.. _`A COUP D'ÉTAT`:

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   XV


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   A COUP D'ÉTAT

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Roger stood at the nursery window apparently
watching the driving rain, but in reality
puzzling, with knit brows, over a situation
he could by no means understand, although
he was painfully conscious of its vague
discomfort.  When a small boy loves both his
parents dearly, and it is gradually but most
effectually brought home to him that he
cannot show affection for the one without in
some subtle fashion appearing to hurt the
other, the said small boy finds himself in a
*cul de sac* none the less final that its walls are
by no means clearly defined.  Older people
than Roger realise that the only way out of
a *cul de sac* is to go back the way you came;
but he, having no idea how he had got there,
could not do this; in fact, it was only that
very morning that he awoke to the fact that
he *was* there.

It was in this wise.  His mother was
changing the ornaments in the
drawing-room—she had changed her drawing-room
about once a week lately, lest it should get
to look "set"—and she had moved the easel
holding the big portrait of her uncle, the
Dean, over to the corner by the piano.
Roger assisted her, admiring her arrangement,
as he admired everything about his
mother, and she said,

"I hope you will grow up like your uncle
Ambrose, sonnie!"

Roger was by no means sure that he
echoed her wish.  He had once visited the
deanery and found the atmosphere somewhat
oppressively dignified.

"Why, mother dear?" he asked.

"Because"—and a certain tone in her
voice puzzled Roger—"he is a stainless gentleman."

"I think I'd rather be like father," he said
meditatively; "that would do just as well.
To be a dean you've got to be a parson first,
and I'd much rather be a soldier, like father."

His mother turned her head hastily so
that the child could not see her face.

"You can be like your uncle in character
whatever your profession; it is there I
would have you resemble him."

"But," interrupted Roger, "father's a
stainless gentleman too, isn't he?  And he's
much more jollier than Uncle Ambrose."

His mother did not answer, and to the
child such silence seemed charged with
chilly omen.  He did not ask her, as he
longed to do, what she exactly meant by a
stainless gentleman.  He was sure that in
some incomprehensible fashion the stainlessness
of great-Uncle Ambrose reflected
unfavourably upon his father and resented it
accordingly.  He was also sure that this
enviable quality had nothing to do with
personal cleanliness, for there was no one in
the whole world so clean and smart as father.
Why, when he drove to a distant meet, he
wore "two pinafores," one in front and one
behind, to keep his leathers spotlessly white;
the said pinafores, by the way, doing much
towards reconciling Roger to the wearing of
his bib at meals.

The nursery window was open and the
soft spring rain whispered pleasant things
to the grass; but Roger did not listen.  For
the first time in his life he was weighing
evidence; and the worst of it was, that, do
as he would, the bulk of the evidence all
went into one scale.

"They're just as fond of *me*," he thought
to himself, "but somehow they're never
with me together."  There were no jolly
drives into the town now—those drives in
the high dog-cart when he would sit between
them rapturously thinking that never had
little boy such resplendent parents.  Now,
mother always went in the "bucket" with
his little sisters, and when father took him
out driving, mother did not even come and
stand on the steps to wave them a farewell.
She never sat on father's knee now, or called
him a "ridiculous boy," or untied his necktie,
or rumpled his hair.  She seemed always to
sit as far off as possible, and when she did
look at her big, jolly husband, there was that
in her expression which Roger felt he would
rather not understand.

The truth was that Roger the elder and
Lettice his wife, having been at one time
rather demonstratively fond of one another,
found it somewhat difficult to keep up
appearances since such time as began the
state of affairs their little son so deprecated.
Lettice certainly flattered herself upon the
secrecy and dignity with which she attended
to the linen less well-bred people will
sometimes insist upon hanging up to the public
gaze even before it has gone through the
cleansing process, and was quite unconscious
that all the while her servants discussed the
affair exhaustively, her friends pronounced
the position untenable, and her little son
grieved and wondered, casting about in his
child mind for some way of clearing an
atmosphere which even he felt was so charged
with electricity as to be well-nigh intolerable.

The rain ceased whispering, but the trees
took up the story and rustled importantly,
shaking their glistening leaves at the sun
who winked lazily in the west.  The two
little sisters called to Roger to come and
have tea with the dolls; but he shook his
head impatiently, thrusting it between the
bars of the window that he might not hear
them.  A robin on the hawthorn hedge
below regarded him in friendly fashion and
sang a song of coming summer; but Roger
saw nothing but a blurred little splash of
crimson against the green, for his eyes were
full of tears.

"Father, what's a stainless gentleman?"
he asked as they went together in the evening
to feed the big carp in the pond.

Roger the elder stopped in the middle of
the path.  He took his cigar out of his
mouth and cleared his throat.

"Well, sonnie, I suppose it's a man who
runs very straight, who never plays the fool,
and does idiotic things, for the doing of
which he has to pay Jew prices—a very
good man, you know.  But why?  What
d'you want to know for?"

"Well, mother said Uncle Ambrose is a
'stainless gentleman,' and she hoped I'd be
like him when I'm grown up."

"For the matter of that, sonnie, so do I.
You couldn't have a better model."

"I'd rather be like you, fardie, dear—much
rather."  And Roger took his father's hand
in both his own, and squeezed it hard.

The elder Roger said nothing for a minute,
but he grew very red.  How was he to tell
the faithful little soul at his side that his
ideal was by no means a high one?

"You'll grow up very much the sort of
man you want to be, sonnie.  So mind and
want to be the best sort going."

"Well, 't all events, I shan't be like
Uncle Ambrose.  He's too fond of sitting still."

"You'll be fond of sitting still when
you're his age," said his father, with a sigh
of relief.

They fed the carp, and Roger almost
forgot his troubles, till, on returning to the
house, they saw his mother on the tennis
court with the little girls.  She called to him
to come and play cricket with his sisters.

"Will you come too, father?" he asked,
pulling at his father's hand.

The elder Roger looked somewhat wistfully
at the little group inside the netting on the
tennis court.  His little daughters kissed their
fingers to him, calling to him to come; but
his wife had turned her back upon him, and
she had a most expressive back.  He shook
his head at the children, muttering something
about letters to write, and turned to walk
slowly towards the house.

"I'll bowl to you if you come, Roger;
the grass is really quite dry again!" called
his mother.  Roger stood still in the drive,
looking from one to the other of his parents
both with their backs to him.  Lettice
looked over her shoulder and saw her
husband's departing figure.  "Come, my son!"
she called, with a queer little catch in her
sweet voice.  "I've hardly seen you all day."

Roger went round the netting till he
found an opening and pushed through.
His mother came to meet him, and put her
arm round his shoulders.  He pointed to
his father, who was walking slowly away
with bent head.

"Don't you think fardie looks rather
lonely?" he asked.

Lettice looked after her husband.  "I
don't think he is lonely, sonnie: he has so
many—other friends."  But the boy was
not convinced.

Roger's mother bowls uncommonly well,
but he did not enjoy the cricket.  He kept
contrasting it with that of last year.  Then
father always played too, and one day
mother bowled him clean, and there was
great shouting and excitement.  "It was
jollier cricket then!" he reflected sadly.

The elder Roger went and sat in the
gun-room.  He had to relight his cigar three
times, and his reflections, although engrossing,
did not seem pleasant.

"Will she never understand," he muttered,
"that a man may care and yet play the
giddy, and that he may play the giddy and
not care a damn?  What an almighty fool
I've been!"

When the children had gone to bed
Lettice went and sat in the newly arranged
drawing-room.

"It's perfectly hideous!" she exclaimed;
"I can't sit here!"

But she did sit there, staring at nothing for
a good half-hour till the dressing-bell rang.
In the evening she took up that very wise
book, *On the Face of the Waters*, and read in
what manner Kate Erleton had refused
"her chance."

When little Roger woke next morning
he remembered that something very pleasant
was to happen that day.  He was going
with his father to the riding-school in the
town to see a pony, and on that pony, if it
proved suitable, he was to go hunting next
winter.  As the full significance of this
tremendous occurrence was brought home to
him in the shape of a pair of new and very
stiff gaiters, he felt equal to negotiating
the very biggest bullfinch; which may
account for what happened half an hour
later, as he stood in the hall waiting for the
dog-cart.

The rain had come on again, heavy
"Mayish rain," as Roger called it, but they
didn't mind about that.  His father was
standing in the doorway looking very big
in a wide white macintosh.  His mother
ran downstairs with her own macintosh
cape for the little boy.  As she reached the
bottom step, the elder Roger came back
into the hall.  Perkins, who had been in
"father's regiment" when father first joined,
stood at the door with a rug over his arm,
looking imperturbable as usual.

Lettice stooped to kiss her little son as
she buttoned the cape at his neck.  He
caught at her hands as they fumbled with
the stiff button, and said loudly,

"Kiss father too, mother dear, and wish
us luck!"

Perkins turned his head quickly, looking
back into the hall.  Lettice felt the small
insistent hands upon her own, and heard
her husband's quick breathing just behind
her.  There flashed into her brain the
thought that here and now was her
"chance."  She turned quickly and lifted
up her small proud face towards her husband.

There was a flutter and flash of white
macintosh in the dusky hall as Roger the
elder caught his wife up in his arms and
carried her into the dining-room.  The door
shut with a bang, and little Roger was left
alone with Perkins, who blew his nose and
waved the rug, exclaiming, in an excited
whisper—-

"Bless your 'eart, sir, you've done it!"

Roger stood on the steps and waited;
the smart little groom drove the dog-cart
round and round the drive; ten minutes
passed, and still father did not come.

"I'm rather afraid we shall miss the
'ppointment," said Roger, and made as if to
go after his parents into the dining-room;
but Perkins caught him by the shoulder
and pulled him out on to the steps again,
exclaiming fiercely,

"No, you don't, Master Roger—not for
*your* life!"

Another five minutes, then the dining-room
door opened: with a swish and
swither of silk petticoats his mother flew
upstairs two steps at a time.

"Buck up!" her husband shouted after
her, and his voice sounded as though he'd
got a dreadful cold; then, to Roger, "Mother
is coming too, to see about the pony; and
just look what a lovely day it's turned."

Roger thrust his hand into his father's,
who held it very tight, but he didn't say
anything at all.

There are the makings of a statesman in Roger.





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.. _`THE STACEYS OF ELCOMBE HOUSE`:

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   XVI


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   THE STACEYS OF ELCOMBE HOUSE

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After Harry went to school Paul and I had
breakfast as well as lunch with father and
mother, unless there happened to be a great
many visitors.  This was interesting because
the letters came at breakfast and we heard
the news.

It is curious how the most epoch-making
intelligence is often given quite quietly with
no flourish of trumpets, no preparation; just
as the most momentous decisions are almost
always made at once, without much reflection.

In the middle of May—I remember it was
such a beautiful morning and tulips blazed
in the herbaceous border opposite the
window—mother looked up from her letters and said:
"Measles is very bad in Fiammetta's school.
Mr. Glyn has taken her away, and as soon as
the quarantine is over he wants us to have
her here for the rest of the summer, as he
needs to go to America this month."

I couldn't speak.  It was so tremendous.

Fiammetta here! for the rest of the
summer! and summer had only just begun.

"Well," said father, "that seems to me a
very sound suggestion—but what'll he do
with Miss Sparling?"

She was the lady who kept house for him.

"She'll go off on a round of visits and
they'll shut the house.  We were to have
the child in any case in the holidays, so it's
only a month or two sooner.  It will be nice
for you, Janey, to have her"—and mother
smiled at me.

Nice for me!

I mumbled something suitable: but I felt
too strongly to do more than mumble.  There
was a singing in my ears and a lump in my
throat ... but father understood, for he
said: "It will be pleasant to have the little
blue maid again: eh, Janey?" and I nodded
at father and father nodded at me.  Then
he opened the newspaper and didn't look at
me any more, and I was grateful.

"I wonder," said Paul, "how many more
plays she's been to.  We shall be able to act
them all when she's told us."

A year ago she had come to us, this child,
so utterly different from any other child we
knew; come to us, and, for me, had changed
and widened and vitalised the whole essential
part of my being.

At first I wasn't even sure that I liked her.
She *was* so different: but gradually I
discovered that in this difference lay her
mysterious elusive charm.

Little blue-gowned Fiammetta, always
quaint, always picturesque, always and
entirely unexpected.  At first her somewhat
superior and grown-up attitude irritated us
extremely, but very soon we found that this
was but a thin veneer acquired by much
contact with grown-up people of a type
we seldom saw.  Beneath it was the child,
a veritable child—whimsical, imaginative
affectionate, ever-various—with a power of
suggesting and carrying through new and
fascinating forms of play that even Paul
could not equal, Paul who had imagination
enough to stock ten families.

But we regarded the vagaries of our
younger brother with suspicion and some
scorn.  He was so young.  What is eight
compared to eleven?  And Harry, now
alas! exiled at a preparatory school, was twelve.
Harry, my guide, philosopher and friend,
reft from me for long periods of the year.

We had seen her once since last summer—just
once, in the Christmas holidays, when
Harry, Paul and I, in charge of Miss
Goodlake, our governess, went for two long,
crowded, glorious days to London.  We
stayed out at Hampstead, where Mr. Glyn
had taken a house that Fiammetta might as
a day-girl go to a nice school there.

But when you are seeing things all day long
you can't seem to see people, and Fiammetta
herself was swamped in a sea of other wonders
and impressions.

Now she was really coming back and I
should get some good of her.

And the very week she came back we
had to go from Friday to Monday to stay
with Uncle Edward and Aunt Alice over at
Elcombe House.

I never wanted to go there, and desired
it less than ever just then; but Aunt Alice
is mother's sister and it had been arranged
for weeks, and when mother suggested that
I couldn't go because Fiammetta was coming,
they invited her too with the utmost
cordiality.  So there was no getting out of it.

As it happened, it proved a more amusing
visit than usual.

"What's the matter with them, Janey,
that you groan so?" Fiammetta asked that
Friday morning.  "Don't you *like* your
cousins?"

Put crudely like that, it sounded rather
bad.  I hedged.

"I *like* them well enough, but I hate going
there, to stay.  It's so stiff somehow,
everything's always arranged for one—you'll see."

"I like Teddy," Lucy announced—plump,
placid Lucy, who had come into our room
in nurse's wake while she packed our things
for Sunday.  "I *love* Teddy," Lucy
continued, "he and me's both five."

"If," nurse remarked severely, "you was
a bit more *like* your cousins, Miss Janey, it
would be better for all parties.  Very nicely
brought-up young ladies they are, and full of
accomplishments."

That was it.  They *were* so full of
accomplishments.  Hermy (her name was
Hermione), only a year my senior, was already
learning to paint in oils and studied Italian.
Viola, eighteen months younger, could play
quite difficult music and danced by herself at
tea-parties, clad in classic draperies.
Teddy—it was father who called him Teddy, and
the name stuck, though Uncle Edward
disliked it extremely—was the best of them:
moon-faced, good-natured and absolutely
simple, a well-meaning, quite ordinary little
boy with no airs or graces.  Teddy, so Harry
said, was "awfully decent."

"You haven't explained," Fiammetta
insisted.  "What's your uncle like?"

"It's no use," I exclaimed, "I can't
explain—you wait.  Perhaps," I added
hopefully, "you'll like him."

When Uncle Edward bought Elcombe
House, only eight miles off, we children
rejoiced: for now, we thought, there could
be no possible reason for the "Eeny-Peenies,"
as we called the girls, coming to stay with us.
But we had reckoned without the hospitality
of the Staceys.  We were everlastingly being
invited to stay with them, and of two evils
this was by far the greater.  They were
always—Uncle Edward, the two governesses, Hermy
and Vi—trying to improve us, especially me.

Paul didn't fit as to age, and his
temperament was, apparently, even less adaptable
than mine.  Whenever Paul went, there was
trouble.  Lucy and Teddy were the best of
friends, but nurse and the Staceys' nurse
couldn't hit it off at all.  Harry was safe at
school, therefore the lot generally fell upon
me to go ... and I hated it.

This time I felt it would not be so bad
because Fiammetta was there, and
Fiammetta was capable of holding her own with
dozens of Staceys.

In the first place, she was a well-known
poet's only child.  They would respect her
for that.  In the second place, people who
tried to patronise Fiammetta were riding for
a fall.  That I had seen proved, over and
over again.  Paul was like that too, but then
Paul was only one of us, and they looked down
on us.  Uncle Edward looked down on father.
I knew it, I felt it.  I resented it intensely.

Uncle Edward had a way of condemning
amusements that he didn't care about by
calling them "rather horrid" in a high thin
voice that was far more condemnatory than
the loudest fulminations of ordinary folk.
Both hunting and shooting fell under this
ban, and father liked both.  As for fishing,
Uncle Edward considered it the last resource
of the mentally effete.  Agricultural pursuit;
he dismissed as "rather bucolic," and father
farmed his own land and was extremely keen
about everything that concerned it.  Whist
and Bridge—Bridge had just begun to be
popular—he described as "dreadful games";
in fact, he "loathed all cards" except Patience.
He was an expert in Patience, knowing quite
forty different kinds; but he didn't care for
it unless at least three people watched him
do it—which was dull for the selected three.

He was a slim, small man, whom no mortal
ever saw without his pince-nez—I believe he
slept in them—with a pale, regularly-featured
face, clean-shaven and legal-looking.  He
was delicate, took immense care of himself,
and cultivated a large and healthy crop of
dislikes.  His sense of smell was painfully
acute, and many quite ordinary odours, that
do not offend less sensitively constituted
mortals, were, to him, quite unbearable.
Tobacco he could not endure.  When father
went to Elcombe House he had to creep
away to the furthest point of the most distant
garden to enjoy the smoke he could in no wise
forgo.  And when he returned, Uncle Edward
always sniffed delicately and looked pained.

A cut melon caused Uncle Edward to feel
unwell, and I do believe if any one had eaten
an apple in front of him he would have
fainted outright.

We arrived just before tea.  Hermy and
Vi met us in the hall and walked upstairs one
on either side of Fiammetta, leaving me to
follow by myself.  They showed us our
rooms—we had one each—and they left me
in mine while they both accompanied
Fiammetta to hers.

After tea, presided over by Mademoiselle
and Fräulein, Teddy suddenly demanded,
"What have you done with the poet?"

"What poet?" asked Fiammetta, for
Teddy's remark was evidently addressed to
her, his round eyes never left her face.

"The poet you belongs to.  Where have
you put him?"

"I don't," Fiammetta said rather huffily,
"*put* my father anywhere—do you?"

"He's not a poet," Teddy said, quite
unmoved by her disapproval.  "He's only an
or'nary father."

"*Indeed* he's not," cried Viola; "he's
very *ex*traordinary—*most* gifted," she added
complacently.

Teddy continued to stare at Fiammetta.

"You haven't *told* me," he continued.

"Told you *what*?"

"—where he is."

"He's in London, if you mean my daddie."

"*Must* he stay there?"

"Of course not, if he doesn't want to."

"Then why doesn't he come here with you?"

"Because he's in London, I tell you."

"Doesn't he *want* to come here?"

"I suppose not," said Fiammetta, whose
patience was nearly exhausted.  "Do you
always ask so many questions?"

"I always *ask*," Teddy replied candidly,
"but people never tells me all I want to know.
Sometimes they don't even answer."

"I should think not," cried Viola.  "A
little boy like you!  Run away and play with
your horse and cart.  Fiammetta has come
to see *us*, not you."

"*Have* you?" the downright Teddy
asked wistfully.

"I've come to see all of you," Fiammetta
said graciously, "though I'm really staying
with Janey, you know."

"Perhaps you'll come and stay with us
too, mother said; without Janey, for a bit,"
Hermy suggested.

Fiammetta stared.

"Without Janey?" she repeated.  "Why?"

Hermy looked rather uncomfortable.

"Well, in case Janey didn't care to come,
you know," and Hermy put her arm round
Fiammetta.

Fiammetta drew herself away: "I
shouldn't like it at all without Janey, thank
you," she said stiffly; "she's my greatest
friend."

Hermy and Viola looked at each other and
then at me, as though they were considering
me in a new light.  Teddy, who had not done
his sister's bidding and was still hanging on
the outskirts of our little group, said suddenly,
"I'll come and stay with both of you
whenever you ask me, wivout Nana," and he
thrust a sticky little hand into mine.  My
heart went out to him, and I gave the hot
small hand a squeeze.  Teddy and I were of
the inarticulate, but we understood one
another.

Viola turned ostentatiously to Fiammetta.
"Would you," she asked sweetly, "like to
see me dance?  Fräulein will play for me, and
we have half an hour before we go down to
father in the drawing-room."

"No, thank you," Fiammetta replied with
the utmost decision: "I see plenty of girls
dancing at school, and I can dance
myself—perhaps you'd like to see *me* dance?"

"I think," Viola said hastily, "that we'd
better neither of us dance just now, lest we
get too hot.  Shall we go out into the garden
till reading time?"

This we did.

On the stroke of six a bell was rung from
the front door and we all four went to the
drawing-room, where Aunt Alice and Uncle
Edward awaited us.  It was his custom to
read to his family every evening at this hour,
unless there happened to be a garden-party.
Whatever anybody was doing, they were
haled to the drawing-room to hear Uncle
Edward read aloud.

"Edward reads so beautifully," Aunt
Alice always said, and I dare say he did.  But
no one always wants to listen to the most
perfect reading, and this evening I noted
with some consternation that Fiammetta
was bored, and showed it.

She fidgeted, she yawned, she drummed
with her fingers on the edge of her chair.
Once she shuffled her feet, and Uncle Edward
actually stopped and looked severely at me.
I know he gave me the credit for all the
small disturbances that occurred that evening,
whereas I was still as a mouse, and far too
interested in Fiammetta's frank manifestations
of *ennui* to have indulged in any myself.

At that time he was going through a course
of Jane Austen, for whose works he had
an enthusiastic admiration, and I remember
thinking that he was rather like a Jane Austen
person himself, and that she would have "done
him" uncommonly well.  The book he read
was *Pride and Prejudice*, most witty and
delightful to read in later life.  But children
miss the real savour of its caustic wit, and I
know that it was as much over Fiammetta's
head as over mine, even though she was so
infinitely better versed in literature of all
kinds than I.  At seven Uncle Edward
ceased, placing a marker in the page as he
closed the book.

"Perhaps," he said, "Fiammetta already
knows this book by heart and can tell me
what comes next."

Fiammetta arose hastily from her chair
with evident relief: "Oh, no," she said
frankly, "that's not the sort of book one
knows by heart.  I don't think it's
particularly interesting—do you?"

"I think it is a masterpiece," Uncle
Edward replied, almost breathless with
astonishment.  "I hope that in a year or
two Viola and Hermione will know it, and
many others by the incomparable Jane, as
well as they know their multiplication table."

"Do they know that awfully well?" asked
Fiammetta.  "I don't; the sevens and the
nines are so muddling—my daddie quite
agrees with me.  May we go away now?"

In all my intercourse with Fiammetta, the
thing that never failed of its joy and wonder
was the way she nonplussed grown-up people.
They seemed to have no suitable snub ready
for her.  She was not in the least impertinent,
but neither was she deferential to their
superior intelligence.  In fact, she made us
question sometimes whether they were so
very intelligent.  She lived on terms of such
absolute equality with her father, such
understanding affection existed between them,
that it never occurred to Fiammetta to
conceal her opinions or to pretend she liked
things merely to please people who happened
to be several years older than herself.  She
was quite prepared to show Uncle Edward
good reasons for her lack of interest in *Pride
and Prejudice* as frankly as she afterwards
gave them to me.  But she had no
opportunity, for I remember Aunt Alice hustled
us out into the garden with almost unseemly
haste, and we were set to play golf croquet,
in which game Viola and Hermione excelled,
I was only moderately good, and Fiammetta
couldn't play at all.  Naturally she did not
enjoy herself much.

By lunch time on Saturday she was, as
she herself put it, "thoroughly issasperated"
with things in general.  Never for
one moment were we left alone.  Something
was arranged for every minute.  The Staceys
believed in organised games; "innocent
pastimes varied by intellectual pursuits"
was Uncle Edward's curriculum, and it
would have been excellent had there been
rather less of the innocent pastimes.  Until
quite recently the Staceys had lived in
towns, and they had yet to learn that in the
country children can find their own
amusements with the greatest ease: that Dame
Nature is an excellent M.C., and that the
queer plays children invent for themselves
are far more entrancing than any game that
is played by rule.

Fiammetta looked quite pale and exhausted
after a morning spent in rounders, clumps,
golf croquet (she rested and watched us
during this, as she firmly refused to play, but
Fräulein sat with her lest she should be
dull), spelling-game, Puss-in-the-corner, and
"Earth, air, fire, and water."

Observe the judicious admixture of active
exercise and mental gymnastics.

While I was washing my hands for lunch
she came into my room, shut my door—I'm
afraid she banged it—locked it, and stood
with her back against it.

"Janey, I want to go home," she announced.
"I want to go back to the Court
this afternoon.  Will you ask them to drive us?"

"I can't," I exclaimed, aghast.  "It
would never do; we've been asked till
Monday, and we must stay here till then."

"Why should I stay if I hate it?"

"Because it's all arranged; they'd never
forgive us if we went home; it would be
so rude."

She began to cry.  "I'm so tired," she
sobbed, "sick and tired of silly games that
one can make so many mistakes in, and they
keep showing you all the time.  Janey, I
can't go on with it."

I was horror-struck.  The luncheon gong
would ring in two minutes, and if Fiammetta
was tear-stained there would be inquiries.

I flew to her with the towel in my wet
hands, and put my arms round her.  "Don't
cry!" I besought her, "if you do, they'll
think I've been pinching you, or something,"
and she began to laugh.  She dried her eyes
on the towel and then said irrelevantly,
"Paul didn't come.  Why isn't he here, too,
to help bear it?"

"He wasn't asked," I said.  "He doesn't
do here at all."

"I don't do either," she protested; "it's
a shame.  When I think of Paul wandering
about in that dear garden, *doing exactly
what he likes*, I could scream."

"For mercy's sake don't," I said.  "They'd
want to know why, and *then* what could you say?"

"Janey, after we've gone to bed and
everything's quiet, may I come in and sleep
with you?  I wouldn't be so miserable then."

"It's a very little bed," I said dubiously,
"and you're an awful fidget.  I hear you
in our room at home.  You go round and
round like a dog."

"I'll bring my bedclothes and sleep on
the floor, and go back very early in the
morning, then they'll never know."

To pacify her, I consented to this, well
knowing which of us would sleep on the floor.
In the afternoon they took us out in the
motor, and this we enjoyed, for motors were
then something of a novelty, and Uncle
Edward did not come.

Tea passed off quite peacefully.  After tea
Viola again proposed to dance for us, and
again Fiammetta politely but firmly
gainsayed the suggestion unless she, too, might
perform, which was not in the least what
Viola wanted.

As the fateful hour of six approached I
trembled, especially as Fiammetta left us
without any explanation (we were gathered
on the lawn in front of the drawing-room
windows) and calmly walked into the house.
I watched the slim blue figure vanish;
presently she returned, carrying one of the
Jungle books.

"What's the use of getting that just as
we're going in to papa?" asked Hermy.

"It's because I've got to go in to Mr. Stacey
that I've fetched it.  I don't care for
that book about Mr. d'Arcy, so I'll read this."

Hermy and Viola gasped, I quaked, Aunt
Alice looked rather frightened; Fräulein
and Mademoiselle regarded Fiammetta with
silent admiration.

"I don't think papa would like you to do
that, my dear," Aunt Alice said gently.
"You see, if he is kind enough to read to us,
the least we can do is to listen carefully."

"Why, if we don't want to?" Fiammetta
persisted.  "If I mayn't read in there, may
I stay out here and read?"

"Papa likes us *all* to be present when he's
so good as to read to us," Aunt Alice said
more firmly.  "It would never do for one
of our guests to miss his reading.  Give me
that book, dear!"

Aunt Alice held out her hand for the book.
Fiammetta put it behind her back: "Mrs. Stacey,"
she said earnestly, "I don't understand.
Is it like church?  Nurse says we go
to church here because it's pleasing to the
Almighty—we never go in London, daddie
and I.  Do we have to listen to Mr. Stacey
because it's pleasing to the Almighty, or what?"

Aunt Alice lost her temper.  "You must
do as you are told," she said shortly.  "Give
me that book.  I see papa at the window;
he is ready for us."

With a sigh Fiammetta handed over the
Jungle Book and we all filed into the drawing-room.

Uncle Edward sat in his usual chair,
carefully placed so that the light fell at exactly
the right angle upon his book.  We all settled
ourselves to listen respectfully, except
Fiammetta, who, just as he was about to begin, stood
up and said, "Mr. Stacey, do *you* mind if I
go into the garden instead of listening?"

Uncle Edward gazed at Fiammetta in the
utmost astonishment: "Don't you want
to hear the reading?" he asked.

"Not a bit," Fiammetta said firmly.  "I
know you do it for kindness and all that, but
it *does* bore me so.  I asked Mrs. Stacey, but
she seemed to think you'd mind ... you
don't, *do* you?" and she smiled in friendliest
fashion at Uncle Edward.

"It is, of course," he said slowly, "a
matter of pure indifference to me whether
you are present or not."

"Thank you *so* much," Fiammetta said
sweetly.  "You don't mind now, do you,
dear Mrs. Stacey?  And may I have the
Jungle Book to take with me?"

She took the book from Aunt Alice's
unresisting hands as she passed.  She skipped
out of the window and across the lawn.  She
arranged herself in a garden chair with a
leg-rest, all in full view of the windows ... and
Uncle Edward began to read.

He read for an hour and a half.

Even Aunt Alice looked three times at the
clock during the last half-hour.

When at length he did finish, and Hermy
and Viola and I were about to flee into the
garden to hunt for Fiammetta, who had long
ago tired of the Jungle Book and wandered
away, he stayed us with a motion of his hand.

"I hope," he said gravely, "that you will
let this evening's incident be a lesson to you,
an object-lesson as to how a guest should *not*
behave."

Hermy and Viola looked duly disgusted
at Fiammetta's conduct; I, as usual when
confronted with Uncle Edward, looked
foolish.  None of the three of us made any
remark.  "Remember," he said, "that the
perfect guest invariably falls in with every
custom of his host.  He becomes a part of
the household.  You understand?"

"Yes, papa," said Hermy and Viola in
dutiful chorus; "we will always try to."

"And you, Janey, will you lay this lesson
to heart?"

"Yes, Uncle Edward," I, too, said meekly;
and then, feeling rather mean, I added, "but
father says we ought to *ask* our guests if they
like things."

"Certainly," he replied coldly, "in reason;
but you cannot disorganise the entire working
of a household to please a guest.  Especially,"
he added, with evident annoyance, "when that
guest happens to be a spoilt, conceited child."

"I don't think Fiammetta is conceited,"
I pleaded, "but she's used to saying right
out when she hates things——"

"That will do, Janey," Aunt Alice interposed
hastily.  "Run away, children, and
find Fiammetta."

As we ran, I reflected that Uncle Edward
certainly did not himself fulfil his definition
of the perfect guest.  When he stayed with
us, poor father couldn't smoke a single pipe
in the house, and all fruits that had any sort
of a smell were banished from the *menu*.

.. vspace:: 2

We found Fiammetta at last in the garage,
conversing with the chauffeur.

"He's really a much more interesting man
than Mr. Stacey," she confided to me that
night when she came to sleep in my bed the
floor *was* hard and rather cold—"he told me
about all the accidents he's ever been in."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A SOLDIER'S BUTTON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XVII


.. class:: center large bold

   A SOLDIER'S BUTTON

.. vspace:: 2

His family could not understand why Teddy
had such a passion for soldiers.  Certainly
his family neither inspired nor shared it.

Papa declared them to be "elementary
persons of a low standard of intelligence."

Mummy was mildly negative in her views.
She did not, like papa, express actual
disapproval of them as a class; they may even
have had a dimly-felt attraction for her—she
was very like Teddy in some ways—but she
was a devoted wife, and it would never have
occurred to her to champion any cause or
individual disapproved of by papa.

Teddy's sisters, both considerably older
than he—for he was only four—were facile
echoes of their parents.  And, after all, there
was no earthly reason why any of the family
should take any particular interest in soldiers.
They had seen very few.  When they did
happen to come across a body of men in
uniform marching to the strains of a military
band, they doubtless thrilled for a moment
like everybody else; then the soldiers and all
they stood for vanished from their minds as
from their sight.

But it was otherwise with Teddy.  He
thought about soldiers, dreamed of soldiers,
talked about soldiers, and asked incessant
questions about soldiers all day long and
with any one he could get to answer him.
And this was the more surprising inasmuch
as he was not naturally a talkative child,
being of a somewhat taciturn and ruminative
disposition.  It annoyed papa, for, quiet and
biddable as Teddy was in every other respect,
his enthusiasm for the soldier subject was
such that no amount of snubbing could keep
him off it.

And it started this way.  One year, on
their way to the Highlands, they stayed in
Edinburgh for the month of July.  A friend
of papa's lent them his flat.  The flat was in
Ramsay Gardens, and Teddy's nursery window
looked over the Castle Esplanade.  The
Black Watch was stationed at the Castle just
then, and from his window Teddy beheld
them drilling.  He was always seeing them
when he went out, and whensoever he did see
them, singly or in companies, he was thrilled
to the centre of his little soul.  It is believed
that his nurse shared his enthusiasm, but this
was not known till long afterwards.  But
this much is certain, that when she and
Teddy went out to take the air, whether he
trotted by her side, or was seated proudly
in his mail-cart, they seldom went in any
direction that did not either lead to, or
circulate round about, the evolutions of the Black
Watch.  Moreover, that regiment never
marched in any direction whatsoever that
Teddy and his nurse were not among the
most palpitating of interested spectators.

Teddy's nurse was distinctly pleasing to
the eye.  Plump, fresh-coloured and very
neat in her becoming uniform, she was of
that superior order of nurses who are trained
in institutions guaranteed to turn out
guardians of the young not only medically
competent to deal with every known form of
infantile disease, but so deeply versed in
psychology as to be able to draw out all that
is best, and suppress anything that is evil,
in a child's character.

Mummy had selected her with extreme
care, and Teddy was almost entirely in her
charge.  Mummy went out a good deal, for
both she and papa had many friends in
Edinburgh whom they had not seen for a
very long time.  His sisters were under the
dominion of a Fräulein, so he and his nurse
were left almost entirely to their own devices.

It was a beautiful July, and they were
hardly ever kept indoors by bad weather.
Teddy's cheeks grew round and rosy, his eyes
bright and interested, so that his parents
declared the keen bracing air was doing him
all the good in the world.  Up to that time
he had been rather a pale, phlegmatic child.

To get from Princes Street to Ramsay
Gardens one has to mount an exceedingly
steep hill, pretty stiff walking for a
pedestrian, and real hard work when you've got
to push a mail-cart with a solid small boy
in it.  Yet very often his nurse would take
Teddy to Princes Street Gardens in the
afternoon, and generally on such occasions the
band of the Black Watch discoursed sweet
music from the band-stand.

On the return journey there always
appeared some kindly kilted figure anxious to
"gie the bairn a hurl" up the steepest part
of the hill.  Nurse was always very staid
and dignified on such occasions.  She
accepted assistance, it is true, but with
reservations.  Moreover, she even tried to check
Teddy's efforts in the way of conversation
with his escort by time-worn aphorisms to
the effect that little boys should be seen and
not heard.  But here she failed signally.

"When I'm a man," said Teddy, during
one of these delicious "hurrls," "I hope I
sail be a gate big soldier like you."

"You mean, my dear, that you hope you'll
be an officer," nurse remarked loftily.

"A bave British officer," Teddy repeated
obediently.

"That's the ticket," he of the kilt agreed
cordially, quite unconscious of the implied
snub.  "I'd like fine to serve under ye
mysel'."

"I expect you'll be an officer too by then,"
Teddy suggested.

The big soldier chuckled.  "I'm no for
onnything o' that sort," he said, shaking
his head.  "I'm for the Resairve—when I
marry," he added, with a side glance at
Teddy's pretty nurse.

"That will do, Mr. Macdonald," she said,
laying a neatly-gloved hand on the handle
of the mail-cart.  "I can manage myself
now; we are past the steepest part."

The soldier obediently relinquished the
mail-cart.  He saluted Teddy, and Teddy
saluted him with great solemnity.  Then,
with quite equal solemnity he winked, and
swung away down the hill again.

Papa's friend had lent his servants as well
as his flat, and among them was a highland
housemaid, called Campbell by the authorities
but known among her fellows as Girzie.
And so Teddy knew her.  Of course, nurse
was far too grand a person to consort with
the other servants on familiar terms.  She
might, on occasion, when nobody else was
present, unbend a little towards a
sergeant-major in his splendid uniform, but she
rigorously enforced the distance her "training"
put between her and the servants, and they
not even of her employer's household.  All
the same, nurse made no objection when
Girzie offered to look after Teddy on such
occasions as she wanted an afternoon off in
the society of that same sergeant-major.
And Girzie, who adored Teddy, was most
accommodating.

Now Girzie had a brother in the Black
Watch.  It is true he was "only just a
soldier," as Teddy put it, to distinguish him
from the more highly-placed acquaintance of
nurse, but he looked upon it as a distinct
advantage, for under Girzie's guardianship
he was allowed to converse freely with the
short, thick-set man, who was so agreeably
ready to answer questions.

From him Teddy learnt the true
significance of dirks and sporrans and philabegs
and plaids and badges, and many other
things.  The letter R was still a difficulty
with Teddy, and he felt rather out of it
among people who seemed to take a positive
delight in giving that letter an almost undue
prominence.  Yet, though Girzie's brother
did exclaim rather often, "eh! what's that
you're sayin'?" they got on famously on
the whole; and though it may not be wholly
flattering to be addressed as "the wee stoot
yen," yet Teddy overlooked the familiarity
because of the affection in its tone.

He was something of an Elizabethan in his
simplicity and jovial sense of fellowship with
his kind.  And the truth is that the
atmosphere of Teddy's home was somewhat
rarefied.

Papa was a Superior Person, quite
excellent and kind in all his domestic relations,
but in many respects what more ordinary
mortals called a crank.

He had views, strong views, and he was
apt to enforce them: not only upon his
family, whom, of course, in consequence of
these very views, he felt bound to influence,
but also upon outsiders, who, if of a hasty
disposition, were apt to wish papa at Jericho,
or even in some still warmer place.  He was
also a person of many and vigorous antipathies,
which he seemed to think entitled
him to special consideration.  Therefore did
Teddy feel that the simple and jovial persons
he encountered in Edinburgh filled a hitherto
unsatisfied want in his nature, and he loved
them dearly.

And they loved him; for the "wee stoot
yen" was irresistibly frank and friendly and
few of us are impervious to the flattery of
such respectful admiration as Teddy's round
face and blue eyes plainly manifested whenever
he came across any of his friends in the
Black Watch.

One day when he was out with Girzie she
took him to the Arcade in Princes Street,
and there bought him a doll dressed as a
Highlander.  Teddy was charmed with the
present, though he could have wished that
the china face under the fierce busby had
been a thought less chubby and simpering,
and what really did worry him was a feeling
that there was something not quite right
about the uniform.  He didn't know what
it was, and he was too well-bred and grateful
to Girzie for her kind present to find any
fault; but when on the way up the hill they
met her brother, he at once pointed out
several discrepancies, which he commanded
Girzie to alter, explaining how it should be
done.  Girzie carried out his instructions
that night, and next day they christened
the doll "Colin Dougal," after the said
brother, and it became Teddy's most
precious possession.

Colin Dougal slept with him, ousting from
that proud post a fluffy bird attached to an
elastic that had hitherto possessed the
privilege.  Colin Dougal accompanied him in his
mail-cart, and sat beside him at nursery
meals; and to Colin Dougal Teddy used to
sing, over and over again, the refrain of an
old song he had learned from Girzie:—

   |  "My love, she's in Dumbarton,
   |    Whaur they weir the tartan,
   |    Whaur they weir the tartan—
   |  Faur abin the knee!"
   |

It seemed quite fitting that anybody's love
should dwell in a part of the country where
they wore that entrancing costume, and
Teddy felt certain that Dumbarton must be
a specially delightful place, and was quite
drawn to the lady.  But always after singing
it he was assailed by doubts as to whether
Colin Dougal's tartan was quite short enough.
Girzie had shortened it, but the exigencies of
his china legs precluded the strict brevity of
a kilt as worn by the Black Watch.  Still,
the tartan was the right tartan, and that
was something.

.. vspace:: 2

The pleasant July days, so long and light,
slipped speedily away, till an afternoon came
when Teddy, returning from a walk with
Girzie, found the nursery full of boxes, and
nurse, who demanded the immediate surrender
of Colin Dougal that she might pack him.

The little boy clasped his doll more firmly
in his arms, looked round the dismantled
nursery, and grim foreboding laid a chilly
hand upon his heart.

"What do you want to pack for?" he
asked breathlessly.

"Because we're going by an early train
to-morrow, and mummy says everything
must be ready to-night."

"Going!" he gasped.  "Going where?"

"We're all going to Kingussie for August."

"I'm not going, I don't want to go.  I
want to stay here, wiv all my fends....
Do you," he asked anxiously, "want to go
to Kingussie?"

Nurse looked flushed and rather cross.

"I'm not asked," she muttered, "what I
want, nor you neither, Teddy.  Give me that
doll at once, and I'll pack him with the other
toys."

Teddy stared stonily at her, nor made the
smallest effort to surrender his doll.

"I'm not going," he said firmly, "not
to-morrow.  Why, I haven't said good-bye to
none of them, have you?"


"I don't know what you're talking
about," said nurse huffily; "give me that
doll at once, you know I don't allow disobedience."

And as she spoke she made a grab at the doll.

Teddy held on with all his strength.
They were starting for Kingussie a day
earlier than had been originally intended,
and it had only been decided upon that
morning.  Mummy had taken it upon herself
to send Girzie out with Teddy, leaving nurse
free to pack.  This had upset all nurse's
plans, and left Sergeant-Major Macdonald
kicking his heels during a vain wait at the
bottom of the hill, while Girzie and Teddy
went off in quite another direction.
Therefore nurse was decidedly irritable, and rather
roughly tried to pull Colin Dougal out of
Teddy's arms.

For a full minute Teddy held on with all
his little strength, then suddenly and
despairingly let go.  And at the same instant
nurse also let go, remembering that it was
undignified to struggle with a small child
for the possession of a china doll.

Colin Dougal fell with a thump upon the
floor, one of his china legs broke right in
two, and the severed half leapt gaily under
a chair.

Teddy took a deep breath and yelled and
yelled and yelled.

Papa and mummy heard him in the drawing-room,
and rushed to the nursery to see
what had happened.

He was standing stock still just inside the
door.  Nurse had picked up Colin Dougal and
the bit of his leg, and was vainly trying to
explain to her demented charge that it could
easily be mended.

But Teddy struck at her with both his
hands, and refused to be comforted.  He also
continued to bawl with unabated vigour after
his parents had entered the room.

"What's this?  What's this?" exclaimed papa.

"Are you hurt, my precious?" mummy
inquired tenderly, as she knelt beside her
little boy.

Teddy did not repulse his mother, and
managed to ejaculate in the middle of a roar,
"I don't *want* to go to Kingussie!"

The accident to Colin Dougal seemed a
minor woe, caused by, and included in, this
devastating news of departure.

"Nonsense!" papa exclaimed, looking
pained; "not want to go to Kingussie!
Why, it's country—real, beautiful, quiet
country—far better than this place, with
those infernal bugles braying from morning
till night, and the horrid band, and air those
tramping soldiers.  You'll love Kingussie."

Teddy stopped afresh in the midst of
renewed efforts in the way of yells to hiccough
indignantly "not—'fernal bugles!"

Papa looked rather surprised, but his
pained look returned as Teddy started to
shout again at the top of his voice.

Nurse, taking advantage of the general
confusion, packed Colin Dougal, and actually
wrapped up the piece of his leg in a separate
bit of paper with cold-blooded detachment.

Mummy reasoned, papa reasoned, and
nurse, who had by this time recovered her
Institutional serenity, spoke soothingly: but
all to no avail.  Teddy continued to scream,
to lose his breath, and then roar with renewed
vigour when he had got it again.

He really made a great to-do.

Finally papa and mummy departed in
despair.  Nurse went on packing, and Girzie,
who had been listening at the end of the
passage with her hand against her heart,
came in and took the tired, miserable little
figure into her kind strong arms and sat
down on a chair.

"Eh, Master Teddy, and what'll the
soldiers be thinkin' this night, to hear such
an awfu' stramash in this respectable house
... an' both the windows open?  They'll
be fair affrontet to think the young gentleman
they thought such a heap on could cry like
a randy wife.  They puir soldiers won't know
what to make of it at all, at all."

And Girzie shook her head as though overcome with care.

Teddy sat up and stared at her, and though
his breath still came in sobs he made no noise.

"Will they mind, Girzie?" he asked
anxiously.  "Will they 'eally mind?"

"Mind!" Girzie repeated.  "Mind!
They'll just be that upset—and you almost
like one o' them."

"Colin Dougal's broken his leg."

"Well, he'll get over that.  My brother
broke his leg at the football, and look at him
now!"

"But we're going away, Girzie, ... and
I haven't said good-bye to nobody, not to
your Colin Dougal nor no one."

"Never fear but he'll see ye to say
good-bye—but not if you cry—an' you going to
be a grand officer gentleman some day.
Soldiers don't cry, laddie.  It would be the
very last thing they'd think of doing."

"Not if they're hurted in their hearts?—nor never?"

"Not that any other person could see or
hear them, you may depend on that.  And
you mustn't cry either, any way not so loud
that folk could hear ye right across the
Esplanade.  Listen, laddie, we'll no forget you.
My brother's just fair taken up wi' you, and
he's sent you this—for a bit keepsake.  It's
one o' his buttons made into a safety-pin,
and when you're a wee thing bigger you'll
wear it to hold down your tie ... if nurse'll
let you," she added hastily, with an anxious
glance at nurse, who continued to pack in
absorbed silence.

Eagerly Teddy untied the little packet,
and there was a real soldier's button mounted
as a safety-pin.

"When can I have a tie?" he asked eagerly.

Nurse came over to them and stood looking
down at the little pin.  Her face softened.
"I've got one rather like that, myself," she
said.  "You can fasten it in your blouse
whether you have a tie or not.  No one would
notice."

"Can I wear it always?" he asked.

"Yes, if you like," nurse said graciously,
"and perhaps it will help you to remember
not to cry when you fall down."

Girzie said nothing, but she fastened the
brooch so that the button shone resplendent
just above the ribbons that tied Teddy's
sailor blouse.

"I will remember," he said solemnly.

"Are you sorry you were so naughty?"
nurse asked, ever desirous to improve the
occasion.

"No," said Teddy firmly.  "I hate Kingussie."

But after all he didn't hate Kingussie.
He would have liked it immensely but that
it rained nearly all the time.  July seemed
to have used up all the nice weather, and
August was very cold and wet.  He got one
chill on the top of another, and sneezed and
snuffled, and snuffled and sneezed, and lost
all the pretty pink colour in his cheeks that
he had gained in Edinburgh.

Kingussie is a beautiful place with woods
and streams and a glorious golf links covered
with short springy turf.  Their lodgings were
right on the top of a hill, and the view from
the windows was very lovely, but even the
loveliest view palls when it can only be seen
through a veil of driving rain.

Towards the end of their stay Teddy
alarmed his family by falling really ill.  The
local doctor took a gloomy view of his case,
and talked of unripe blackberries and
appendicitis.  Papa thereupon carried the whole
family back to Edinburgh before the end of
the month.  This time they stayed at the
Caledonian Hotel, where the noise of Princes
Street and the constant trains tried papa
even more than the infernal bugles in Ramsay
Gardens.

A great doctor, who had not yet started
for his holiday, was consulted about Teddy,
and he was even graver than the doctor up
in Kingussie, and said there must be an
operation at once.

That was a puzzling day for Teddy.

He was kept in bed till evening, and nurse
and everybody were extraordinarily kind to
him.

Then mummy came and sat beside him
and held his hand, and told him that he was
to go that night to another house, and that
the next day the great doctor would do
something for him that would make him quite well.

"Why can't he do it here?" Teddy asked.

It seemed that people didn't have these
things done in hotels; that doctors were
particular men who liked to make people well
in specially chosen houses called Nursing
Homes, and that Teddy was to go to one of
those homes that very night in a taxi-cab.

"Will my nurse come?" he asked anxiously.

"I will come," said mummy, and her voice
sounded as if she, too, had got one of the
Kingussie colds.

"Not nurse," he repeated, rather puzzled.
"Who will dress me?"

"There are lots of nice nurses in the Home
who can do that, but you won't be dressed
just at first, you know.  The doctor will want
to keep you in bed a little while after the
operation."

"What's a operation?  What's it do to you?"

But this mummy did not seem able to
explain very clearly, and Teddy began to feel
rather doubtful about the whole thing.

"Will it hurt?" he asked at last.

"Not at the time, my precious," said
mummy, "but afterwards it may.  I'm
afraid it will, rather.  I'm afraid it may hurt
a good deal.  But you will try to be brave.
I know you will be brave."

"A bave—Bittish—officer——" Teddy
muttered.  Then, turning his big, bright eyes
upon his mother, he asked eagerly: "Can
I wear my button?"

Mummy did not understand, but nurse did,
and when it was all explained he was assured
that he should wear his button.

Then they dressed him, and nurse packed
a little suit-case, with Colin Dougal in it,
and all his new pyjamas and his dressing-gown,
and he and Mummy went alone together
to that strange house full of nurses.

A great many odd things happened that
night, and Teddy simply couldn't have borne
the strangeness of it all if his button had not
been fastened on the pocket of the jacket of
his pyjamas: they were real pyjamas, two
garments, not baby ones fastened together.

He didn't sleep very well that night, but
as often as he woke up he touched his button
and repeated to himself "Guadaloupe,
Martinique, Selingapatam," which are the first
three of the long list of battles fought by the
Black Watch.  Girzie's brother could say
them all, and Teddy loved to hear him roll
them out in his strong Scottish voice, and
tried to learn them himself, but they are
mostly very long names, and only the first
three remained in his mind.

Every one was most kind, but it was
depressing not to have any breakfast.
Mummy's cold seemed to get worse, and one
of the nurses suggested that it would be
better if she did not come as far as the
operating-room lest she should give it to
Teddy.

His heart was thumping in his ears.  He
kissed mummy, he kissed Colin Dougal, who
simpered sweetly as usual (his leg hardly
showed at all) and was quite unmoved; and
then, with lips that trembled, he whispered
"Bave Bittish officer" to himself over and
over again.

He put one hand into that of the kind
nurse, and held his button with the other,
and together they went down a long passage
into a room that was walled and floored with
white tiles.  It had no chairs in it, only
tables, one of them long and narrow and
high, right in the middle of the room.  Two
doctors were waiting for them, and the one
Teddy had seen at the hotel had his coat off
as if he was going to play some game.  He
looked very kindly at Teddy as they came in.
"You're a man," he said.  "I can see that."

"I sall not ky," Teddy said in rather a
shaky voice.  "I sall not ky, because I'm
going to be a soldier, and they don't, you know."

"I guessed that, the minute I saw you,"
said the doctor.  "We like soldiers here,
they get well extra quick.  Up with you,
and you mustn't mind when we put that funny
thing over your face."

Teddy lay down on the high narrow table.
He looked up anxiously at the doctor he
didn't know.  "You won't take my button
away, will you, not when you make me go
to sleep?"

"Keep a tight hold of it," said the doctor,
"and you'll find it there when you wake up.
No one would dream of touching it."

A soft rubber mask was pressed on Teddy's
face; it was not pleasant, but it did not
hurt.  Then came a roaring in his ears like
the burn at Kingussie when it had rained
more than usual.

"A—bave Bittish—Guadaloupe, Martinique——"

The burn had swept little Teddy away into
oblivion, but even there the small hand was
closed tightly over the soldier's button.

.. vspace:: 2

That night the doctor congratulated papa
both upon the entire success of the operation
and on the splendid military training he had
given his little son.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PAUL AND THE PLAYWRIGHT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XVIII


.. class:: center large bold

   PAUL AND THE PLAYWRIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

"I was eight yesterday," said Paul to Thor,
"so this week's different.  I'm different.
I'm older—five years older than you, dear,
though you are so big."

Thor wagged his tail and looked sympathetic.
A deerhound contrives to express
more by his looks than most humans, and
Paul talked so continually to Thor that the
great dog always seemed to understand.

"So," Paul continued, "I think it's time
we went about a bit and looked for an
adventure—like *him*, you know.  We've been
awfully good for ever so long.  You haven't
stole anything, nor chased the sheep, nor ate
anybody's slipper, and I haven't gone off for
the day, or smacked Lucy, or read a book
at meals.  We've been sort of saints, and
it's time we did something, or we'll be turning
into kind of angels—and they always die,
you know, and we've no time for that:
we've got ever such a deal to see to.  Come
on, my dear, nobody wants us.  Let's walk
and walk till we find somethin' instastin'."

Paul wasted no time in preparations.  He
didn't even wait to put on his boots.  He
was already equipped with his favourite
weapon, a smooth roller-like piece of wood
about a foot long, which had originally been
used as a support for photographs.  They
had been rolled round it for postal purposes.
Paul annexed it when he was about three,
christened it his "chuncheon" (in those days
"r's" were a difficulty,) and had treasured
it ever since.

Once Dorcas, the under-nurse, tidied it
away in her excess of zeal, when his grief
was so uncontrollable that the whole
household turned out to hunt for it, and it was
finally rescued from the dustbin by cook.

Before setting out he would fain have
divested himself of his smock, but a smock
is a tiresome garment securely fastened at
the back by means of treacherous little loops
and buttons, quite too complex to be successfully
tackled by the wearer.  He did his best,
however, to turn it into a doublet by tying
a piece of string as tightly as possible round
his waist, and through the string he thrust
his trusty "chuncheon."  He pulled his
dilapidated cotton hat well over his eyes, and,
lest any of the authorities should look out
of the window and inquire his intentions,
he set off down the drive very slowly, as
though bound for nowhere in particular.

Nurse saw him strolling towards the gate,
but that was nothing; he was always
strolling about the garden with Thor—the only
wonder was that some five other dogs had
not already joined them.

Mrs. Button at the lodge saw him go by
as she was hanging out sheets on the line,
and they "changed the weather and passed
the time of day," but she only thought he
was going across to the village shop for
something, so she was not curious or suspicious
either.

At the "Cat and Compasses" Paul stopped.
Mr. Mumford, the landlord, was standing in
the doorway leaning on a hoe.  They greeted
each other suitably, and Paul remarked,
"Miss Goodlake's stopped in bed.  She's got
a headache——"

"Sorry to 'ear it, I'm sure," Mr. Mumford
replied sympathetically.  "Per'aps the sun
'ave been a bit too strong for she."

"Janey and Fiammetta," Paul continued,
unconcerned as to the causes of Miss
Goodlake's headache, "are doing their lessons
alone.  They're hearing each other, and they
said I disturbed them, so Thor and I've come
off together."

He paused and looked expectantly at Mr. Mumford,
as though waiting for a suggestion
of some sort.

Mr. Mumford is shaped rather like a pair
of bellows with two substantial legs instead
of one slim one.  He completely filled his
own doorway, and perspiring and benevolent,
looked down at Paul.

"I wish as I could ast you to come in and
set a bit, Master Paul," he said apologetically,
"but my missus she be a-cleanin', and
when a woman gets a-cleanin', the 'ouse
beant no place for the likes of we.  Not a
moment's peace or quiet to be 'ad.  *You*
knows what 'a' be, doan't 'ee, Master Paul?"

Here Mr. Mumford winked at Paul, who
wagged his head sympathetically as the
summer stillness was broken by the clashing of
pails, the sound of falling brooms, and a
strident voice exclaimed "Sammle! you get
along down garden an' weed them there
parsnips.  That bed be disgrace to be'old.  You
take 'oe along; be off now, don't 'ee stand
gossipin' there, ye lazy varmint, you!"

With a groan Mr. Mumford seized the hoe,
turned back into the bar, and disappeared
from view.  Paul, congratulating Thor on
the fact that neither of them had a missus
who insisted on the weeding of parsnips on
such a hot morning, strolled through the
village.  It was not yet ten o'clock, and no
one was to be seen.  All the women were
busy indoors, the men at work.  The sky
was blue, the sun was hot, and a ribbon of
white road lay before them "beckoning and
winding."  So he and Thor set off at a good
pace, and Paul muttered as he went, "He
would have given his housekeeper and his
niece for a fair opportunity of kicking
the traitor Galabon," adding thoughtfully,
"They'd be about as bad as a missus, I
expect."

Of course the quotation came from the
Book of the Moment, which, just then,
happened to be Don Quixote.  He had found
the Mad Knight in the attic, an old translation
in four volumes, published in 1810, with
a map and many steel engravings.  He read
it right through with his usual absorbed
interest, but expressed regret that there was
such "an awful lot about lovers and that."  The
Don's passion for the peerless Dulcinea
he did not attempt to understand, and the
long love stories of other people interspersed
throughout bored him.  But the adventures
thrilled him, and Sancho Panza's was a
character that he got on terms with at once.
There was something dear and familiar about
the sturdy Sancho: something of Mr. Mumford.

For although, so far as Paul knew,
Mr. Mumford never went further afield than
Garchester, still he was confident that, did
occasion arise, Mr. Mumford would not fail
him.  Paul often pictured himself, attended
by this faithful henchman, riding forth on
two of his father's best hunters, to seek their
fortunes in an unknown world.

It is true that he had never in so many
words mooted the idea to Mr. Mumford in
any of their more intimate conversations,
but he felt assured that Mr. Mumford would
never suffer him to set out alone and unaided.

He was, perhaps, a thought disappointed
that this boon companion had not suggested
going with him that very morning, but he
acquitted him of all intentional disloyalty,
when he reflected on the compelling
qualities of the voice that haled the unwilling
Sammle to the parsnip bed.  He was sure
Mr. Mumford would have preferred to
accompany him—which is quite likely.

It was impossible to be Don Quixote
without an attendant; so, somewhat regretfully,
Paul fell back upon the beloved Boots, the
resourceful and ever-conquering third son of
his favourite Fairy Book.

Here, Thor was quite in the picture.

It is true that in *Tales from the Norse*
there isn't much about dogs.  Horses play
all the larger parts, but "lots of animals
come in," and Paul liked that.  "After all,"
he remarked complacently to Thor, "we
shan't have to keep on being in love on such
a hot morning."

Paul's view of love-making strongly
resembled that of cook, who, when she caught
Greenwood, the groom, kissing the kitchenmaid,
boxed their several ears, but related
the incident quite dispassionately to mother,
concluding her recital with the remark, "I
don't hold with it myself, but there—I
suppose it's pleasing to some."

Paul, too, was quite ready to allow that
it might be "pleasing to some"; but his
mood that morning was not attuned to the
contemplation of transcendantly beautiful
ladies.  He pined for the society of a
like-minded bachelor, a jolly bachelor of sociable
habits, who would understand and
sympathise with a desire to be free for a
while from the tyranny of the tempestuous
petticoat.

So they strolled along in the middle of the
winding road for nearly a couple of miles,
then an open gate into an unfamiliar field
invited them, and, they went in and crossed
it.  Paul climbed and Thor leapt the gate
into the next.  There were sheep in that
field, but Thor resisted temptation, and rested
quietly with his master under the shade of
an elm.  On again across more fields, meeting
with no adventures whatsoever.  All the
trolls, giants, witches, lions, pirates, knights
and princesses seemed to have remained
indoors or underground that morning.

A man shouted at them once, but he was
too far off to discover whether his words
were friendly or the reverse.  Previous
experience, however, led Paul to believe they
were in some way "be off out of that-ish!"
and he hurried away in an opposite direction.
His feet ached and the soles of his shoes
felt very thin.  He decided that the moment
they struck the road again he'd make for the
very first house in sight and ask for some
water for both of them.

At last they reached a field bordered by
a road.  They pushed through a gap in the
hedge and found themselves not far from
four cross roads and a church.  Paul made
for the church, for as a rule where churches
are, houses are not far off—and, sure enough,
right opposite the church gate was one that
led into somebody's drive with an exceedingly
trim lodge on the left-hand side.

He paused, undecided for a moment
whether to go round to the back door, which
would be certain to be open, and ask for
water from the lady of the lodge, or go right
up the drive and see what the people of the
house were like.

If he went to the back and rapped with his
knuckles a woman would come out—he was
sure of that.  She might be washing; she
might be displeased at the interruption; she
would be almost certain to disapprove of Thor.

He decided to go up to the house.

Here, as everywhere else that morning,
there was not a soul in sight and it was very
still.  The sun was high in the heavens, and
the great lawns in front of the house stretched
almost shadowless—green and shaven and
smooth.  It was a pretty house: irregular,
long and low, covered with creepers, with
sloping roofs, clustering chimneys, and
kindly-looking gables—a restful house, Paul thought
wistfully.  Would they let him go in and sit
a bit?

The open, front door was hooded by a deep
sunblind, but he peeped underneath and
beheld a cool dark hall, absolutely untenanted;
and here, too, the same soft, all-pervading
silence.  It was very hot out on the gravel
drive; there seemed no shadows anywhere.
Even a cedar-tree on the far side of a wide
lawn, though it looked dark and cool, threw
hardly any shade.

Thor's tongue was hanging out, and he
turned his beautiful grave eyes on his master
with the clear question, "How long are we
to stand here?"

Presently Paul became conscious of a faint
sound: a sharp, irregular, clipped sort of
sound, that was neither a tap nor a click,
but a cross between the two.

The country-bred child is a connoisseur in
sounds, and here was one quite new to him.
Thor, too, heard it, and looked inquiring.

They moved away in its direction and
came upon another door.  This, too, had its
sunblind.  This, too, was open, and the
curious sound was coming from the room
within that door.

Paul dived underneath the sunblind and
Thor followed him.

They found themselves in what appeared
to be a small square porch leading to the
room within.  It contained nothing but a
fixed basin with a tap and a towel-rail.  Here
at all events was water.

Paul ran some into the basin, and Thor
put his paws on the edge, reared his great
body, sloped his head, and drank greedily.
And all the time that curious noise continued,
that indescribable irregularly recurrent
sound, that was half tap, half click, with
a mysterious scrape occurring every thirty
seconds or so.  When Thor had finished his
drink, Paul formed his own hands into a cup
and drank from them; he whispered to Thor
to lie down, and stood himself in the open
doorway leading to the room whence the
sound came.

He forgot how his feet ached, he forgot
how desperately hungry he was, for he felt
that, at last, he had come up with the
adventure he had been, questing all that long
hot morning.

Never had he beheld such a delightful
room.  It was large and high, with two big
wide-open windows, which, however, were not
like ordinary windows, for they started ever
so far from the ground, like those in a studio.
The panelling, where it could be seen for
books, was white; but there was no glare,
for books were everywhere, books in
many-hued bindings, making irregular patches of
subdued colour.  Nearly all looked as though
they had sat long in their shelves, and wore
the pleasant faded tints that time brings to
things cared-for and well-loved.  There was
one line of vivid red that Paul recognised
with a little thrill (for we had it at home)
as the "Elephant" edition of "*The man
who made Mowgli.*"  But these were on a
high shelf, and the steps were too far off
for him to drag them over without making
a noise.  Besides, for once, it was not the
books that most interested Paul; it was
what he afterwards described as "a
kind-of-man-ness" about the room.

"It was all such a jolly muddle and so
comfortable."

If there were many books there were even
more papers.  He didn't mean newspapers
and magazines, though there were plenty of
them—it was the quantities of letters that
impressed him.  Never had he seen so many
letters, not even at Christmas.  They were
strewed about everywhere, and on the floor
behind the great, double, knee-hole table, an
open trunk was lying full of them—stuffed
in pell-mell, anyhow.

All the furniture was big and solid and
comfortable.  There were two pianos—"a
big one and a little one"; a huge sofa that
invited repose on the part of the slothful;
great, deep chairs; steady tables; nothing to
upset anywhere; no tiresome "frippy" things.

And seated at the knee-hole table was a
man who wore spectacles: a biggish man
going bald, with grey hair, grey moustache,
and short, closely-trimmed grey beard.  Paul
decided that he liked the look of him, and
that there was something familiar in his
appearance; that he had met this man before
somewhere in a story.  He knitted his brows
and thought deeply, never taking his eyes
off him, but he couldn't place him.
Nevertheless he was sure of him.  He was one of
the understanding.  "He didn't look a
'run-away-and-play' sort of a man," Paul said
afterwards, "nor the sort who says 'my
boy,' and he didn't ever—not once."

It was he who was making that queer
noise.  He was playing with both hands on
a kind of instrument.

Paul accepted the noise as some novel and
not very agreeable form of music.  He
guessed the man was musical from the fact
that he had two pianos.  But why, having
two real pianos, he should play on that horrid
little one, puzzled Paul extremely.  It was
not nearly so pleasing to the ear as one he
himself possessed, which you played by
thumping the keys with a hammer made of
cork.  It was possible to get some sort of
tune out of that.

Click-click—click-click-click—— the man
could play very fast.  He used both hands,
and was so absorbed in the tune he was
trying to make that he never noticed Paul.
He appeared to change his music very often,
and it seemed rather a business to get it
fixed in the stand, and one thing that
interested Paul was that when he chose a new
piece he always put in a black sheet of paper
behind it.  Just inside the door Paul stood
gazing absorbedly.  Had the man looked up
he must have seen him.

"I'll wait till he's finished practising,"
Paul resolved, "then we'll talk."

The door was at the side, not in the middle
of the end wall, and that wall was entirely
covered by a huge bookcase—by stretching
out his hand he could have taken a book
from the shelves, and he was greatly tempted.
But he thought it would hardly be polite,
as the man was there.  Had the room been
empty he would have had no such scruples.

He was tired, so he sat down on the floor
and leant against the lintel of the open door.

"I wish he'd play a tunier tune," he thought.

Thor lay full length in the little room with
the basin, his nose between his paws, his
speaking eyes fixed on his master.  There
was no sound at all except that eternal
click-click.

"I kept thinking," Paul said afterwards,
"how splendid it would have been to play
'Camptown Races' against Harry.  I'd
have had the biggest piano and drowned
him."  Harry could play "Cock o' the North"
on the black notes.  Paul could thump out
"Camptown Races" with one finger!
Occasionally, when they got the chance, they
would perform against each other, one on
the schoolroom the other on the drawing-room
piano.  Paul was envious of Harry's
achievement, but the black notes were
beyond him, and "Cock o' the North" skips
about so.

If you start "Camptown Races" on F
natural it's all plain sailing; the same note is
repeated so often that it is not difficult.

Paul stretched out his legs luxuriously
and pictured the amazing row he and Harry
could produce on those two pianos in what
he was pleased to call their "duet."

Presently the man stopped playing on his
unmelodious instrument and, looking over
his spectacles across the room towards the
door, saw Paul.  He immediately took off his
glasses, and his eyes were blue and keen and
kind.

Paul scrambled to his feet.  "How d'you
do?" he said politely.  "I just called in as
I was passing."

The man looked rather astonished.
"Where were you going?" he asked.

Paul came slowly across the room until he
stood close by the big desk.  "Nowhere in
particular.  We've just come out for the day."

"We!" the man repeated.  "Are there
any more of you?"  And he looked rather
anxious.

"Only Thor," Paul answered reassuringly.
"He's sitting in the little room with the
basin—I hope you don't mind.  We both
drank some water, but we didn't wash—not
without leave.  May Thor come in?"

"He'd better, I think," said the man.

"You may come in, my dear," Paul said,
quietly, without raising his voice, and Thor,
large, deliberate, and graceful, strolled into
the room, looked inquiringly at the man,
wagged his tail gently, and came and stood
by his master.

"This is Thor," said Paul.  "Do you
mind him?"

"Not a bit!" said the man.  "I like him."

"Sometimes," Paul remarked, "people
are afraid he'll upset things; he's so large,
you know....  But it wouldn't be easy to
upset things here.  Would you mind telling
me why you kept playing that funny tune?
Do you think it's pretty?"

"Tune?" the man repeated.  "When?"

"Just a minute ago—ever since I came in,
*and* outside.  I heard you; it's what made
me come.  I couldn't think what it was."

"Can you read?" asked the man.

"Read!" Paul exclaimed.  "I should
think so; years and years ago."

The man handed him one of the pages he
had been playing.

"That's what I was doing," he said.

"Why, it's print!" cried Paul.

"Exactly; nicer than hand-writing, isn't it?"

Paul's quick eyes devoured the page.

"Like Shakespeare," he added.

The man laughed.  "I only wish it was,"
he said.

"It's a play, anyway, isn't it?"

"It is."

"And you've been making it up as you go along?"

"Well, hardly that, but I scribble it down
first, you know."

"Does it spell for you?" Paul asked
breathlessly.

"No, it doesn't, bother it—-that's where
it's rather sniffy sometimes."

"When I'm grown up," Paul said solemnly,
"and rich—I hope I'll be rich—I'll have one
of those, but I'll get one that does the spelling
as well.  I suppose they *are* made."

"I haven't come across one yet," said
the man; "when I do I shall buy it at
once——"

"And you'll tell me, won't you?" Paul
said eagerly.

"I'll let you know very first thing!"

"Would you like me to read some more
of your interesting play?" he asked.  "I
can't quite make out what it's all about
beginning in the miggle like this."

"I don't think I'd read it just now,"
said the man.  "You see, I want to talk to
you.  I want to know all sorts of things."

"I came in on purpose to have a chat,"
Paul remarked genially.  "Do you mind if
I sit down?  My feet do ache so—Lie down,
my dear; the gentleman doesn't mind you."

The man pulled up a comfortable chair
for Paul.  Thor lay down at his feet, and
then their host, in his chair by the desk,
swung round and faced them.

"I suppose now," said Paul, "you haven't
got a missus, have you?"

"What makes you think that?" asked
the man.

"Well, you see, there's such a muddle of
papers, isn't there?  She'd never let you
keep it like that.  Mr. Mumford says his
missus is always cleanin' and sortin' and
putting things away.  Not," he added
truthfully, "that Mr. Mumford gets many
letters—I've never seen any in his house."

"It's not always like this," pleaded the
man.  "Sometimes it's awfully tidy."

"Oh, but I like it like this," Paul exclaimed
eagerly.  "Have you a housekeeper and a
niece by any chance?  Do they tidy for you?"

"Why a housekeeper *and* a niece?" asked
the man.

"He had, you know—Don Quixote.  I've
been playing at him a good deal lately."

"Do you generally play at the people you
read about?"

"Always," Paul said solemnly.  "What
would be the good of reading about them else?"

"I suppose it's a good plan," the man
said musingly; "it must lead you into many
adventures."

"It does," Paul said solemnly.  "*This* is
one of them, and you, I suppose, are a sort
of magician, since you make plays.  Do
people *really* act them?"

"Not as often as I could wish," the man
said, "... but it's great fun all the same."

"Do *you* play at being the people?"

The man shook his head.  "I'm afraid
not," he said sadly.  Then more to himself
than to Paul—"That's the hardest thing of
all to do; to look on is much easier."

"I don't care for looking on," said Paul
decidedly.  "I want to *be* it all the time."

"I suppose we all do to begin with, and
then ... we find out that lookers-on see
most of the game."

"I don't care much about seeing games.
I'd rather play them; it's much more fun
really.  Truly it is," he said earnestly.

"Doubtless you are right," the man said
courteously, "but, you see, we don't all care
for the same games."

"When I'm grown up—and rich," Paul
announced, "I shall write books——"

"You're wise to be rich first," murmured
the man.

"I shall write books," Paul continued,
"with that little piano, and when I'm not
writing I shall play at being all the people
in my books—one after the other—at least,
all the nice ones, who are successful."

"Are the nice ones always successful?"

"In the end, always.  Of course, they
have trials and things."

"What about Don Quixote?" asked the man.

Paul looked unhappy.  "It worries me,"
he said.  "It worries me dreadfully.  He
was so nice and so silly and"—the corners
of Paul's mouth went down—"and ... he
died in the end."

"I quite agree with you," said the man.
"It *is* worrying.  Don't let us talk about it."

Thor suddenly sat up on his haunches and
tried to lick Paul's face.

"You seem," said Paul, "to be very fond
of reading, you've such a splendid lot of
books.  Do you ever, by any chance, read
at meals?"

Paul held him with stern, searching eyes.

"Only when I'm alone," the man said primly.

"Never when people are there?" Paul
asked, fixing him with a gaze that seemed to
search his very soul.

"Well ... only at tea-time ... occasionally....
Why do you ask?"

"Because," Paul answered, "they're all
so down on me for doing it.  I always want
to read at tea-time, and they won't let me.
Now I shall tell them you do it; that'll
surprise 'em."

"Oh, don't!" the man urged, "don't
give me away.  They'd be so shocked."

"Of course, I shan't say anything if you'd
rather I didn't," Paul remarked magnanimously,
"but I thought if I just mentioned
a grown-up gentleman did it they couldn't
be so down on me! ... But I truly won't
if you'd rather not.  I guessed you did it
the minute I saw you."

"I'm quite certain neither of us ought to,"
said the man, "but it *is* a temptation ... when
the conversation is dull."

"It's often jolly dull," Paul groaned—and
at that moment a gong sounded.

"That's for luncheon," said the man.
"Are you hungry?"

"I'm starving, and do you think there will
be any little bits for Thor?"

"Sure of it," said the man.  "Would you
like to wash?  And do you require any
... assistance?"

The man looked down at Paul; he had to
look rather a long way, for Paul was very
small for his age.  Perhaps it was that made
him ask.  Anyway Paul was not offended.

"I can wash all right," he said, "but
nurse generally gives my hair a bit of a
do—but if you don't mind I don't."

They went up some steps and through a
glass door into another room—more like
other people's rooms this—tidy and arranged
like other drawing-rooms, then across the
hall to the dining-room, where an elderly
parlour-maid with a kind face put a fat book
on Paul's chair to make it high enough.

He was desperately hungry, and the lunch
was very good, but he couldn't have enjoyed
it as much if the kind-looking parlour-maid
had not brought a big plate of scraps for
Thor, and spread a duster under it.

Paul liked his host.  He liked the sense
of good fellowship, the absence of patronage,
the unusual reticence that abstained from
questions as to why he was there at all.

"Do you know my father?" he asked
presently.

"I'm afraid not," said the man, "but if
you tell me his name I dare say I may have
heard of him."

"He's not at all like me," Paul announced.
"He's awfully sensible, every one says that,
but he's a most good-natured man and kind
as kind.  Surely you must know Squire
Staniland?"

The man shook his head.  "I'm afraid
not, though I have heard his name."

"What county are we in?" asked Paul.

The man told him, and it was not our
county.

"Then we've walked right into another
shire," Paul exclaimed.  "*What* a way we've
come!  That's why you don't know father."

"What about your people?" asked the
man.  "Won't they wonder where you are?"

"They'll *wonder*," said Paul, "and they
won't be best pleased, but they won't send
out search-parties till evening because I've
done it before."

"Oh, you're given to wandering, are you?
Don't you think I'd better take you home
in the motor?"

"And Thor?" Paul asked anxiously.
"He mustn't run with it.  Motors go too
fast for dogs.  Father says so."

"And Thor," said the man.  "He can come
inside with us."

They had coffee, which pleased Paul
greatly, and he confided to his friend that
he had never had a cup all to himself before,
only the sugar at the bottom of other people's
cups if he could get at them before they were
cleared away.

Motors were something of a novelty then,
and Paul thought it very exciting to go in
one.  Thor was suspicious and refused to go
in before his master, but followed him
obediently when Paul got in first.

"We can't have a motor," he remarked,
as they slid down the drive, "it would
break Button's heart, father says, and we're
very fond of horses, though I like the dogs
best myself.  Did your coachman mind very
much?"

"My coachman got so frail and ill he
couldn't drive any more, and it would have
broken *his* heart to have any one else drive
his horses, so I had to get a motor, because
I'm such a long way from the station.  He
didn't mind that so much."

"It's the same reason really," said Paul.
"Did he get better?"

"He'll never be any better, but I think
he's pretty comfortable."

Paul was certain he was.

After all it wasn't such a very long way
by the road, though it was in another county.
The motor stopped at the drive gate, Paul
and Thor descended, for, despite entreaties,
this hospitable man refused to come up to
the house.

"You'll let me know when you've found
the printing thing that spells right, won't
you?" Paul called out at parting.

"I most certainly will," the man called
back, "and if you find it first I expect you
to tell me."

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



Paul's family did not share the reticence of
his late host.  He was catechised at long
length, and would assuredly have been
punished but for father's intervention.  Father,
who refused to be anxious or excited when
his younger son played the prodigal, seemed
rather to sympathise with his wandering
propensities.  "As if anything could happen
to the boy, with that great dog always at
his heels," he said scornfully, when, before
lunch, we had all suggested the manifold
disasters that might have befallen Paul.
"It's no use expecting a boy to stay in the
grounds for ever.  Let him go out and tramp
the country occasionally, and when he comes
back take no notice, and he'll soon tire of it.
Paul likes to make a sensation.  It would be
quite flat and tame if we were none of us
the least concerned as to where he has been.
You may be sure he'll fall on his feet
whatever way he goes—he's that sort."

All very well for father, who was the least
inquisitive man on earth, but Fiammetta and
I were bursting with curiosity, and I noticed
mother hovered near during Paul's recital of
his adventures.

Just at bed-time he discovered that he
had left his "chuncheon" behind.  He
remembered that it "stuck into him rather"
as he sat talking to the man who wrote plays
just before lunch, and he had slipped it out
of the string round his waist and laid it at
the back of his chair.

"You'll never see it again," said
Fiammetta.  "Somebody's sure to throw it away."

Paul looked sad.  Then his face brightened—"I
don't think so," he said.  "Nothing's
ever throwed away out of that room.

"How do you know?" asked mother.

"He hasn't got a missus," Paul said,
"anybody could see that.  He does *exactly*
what he likes.  No one tidies his things.
He hasn't got one."

"Perhaps he'll throw it away himself,"
Fiammetta persisted.

"I don't believe it," cried Paul, on the
verge of tears.  "He wouldn't do such a
thing.  He's not that kind of person."

"You'll never see that old truncheon
again," Fiammetta remarked with a superior
finality that drove Paul to make reprisals.

He stoutly maintained his belief in his
friend, but he was plainly anxious, for he
knew that he could never find his way again
to that other county.  He had wandered
there, haphazard, across fields, and never
noticed the roads on the return journey—he
was so busy talking to his friend.  He added
a petition to his prayers that the beloved
"chuncheon" might be restored to him, and
"so," as Mr. Pepys would say, "to bed."

.. vspace:: 2

Next morning his faith was justified.  It
arrived by post, in a neat parcel sealed at
each end, and inside, printed by the little
piano, "I hope you were not worried about
it.  I found the weapon when I got back."

"There," said Paul, "didn't I say so?  I
*knew* he wasn't a throwing-away sort of man."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MISFIT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   XIX


.. class:: center large bold

   A MISFIT

.. vspace:: 2

Ronnie left the beach and climbed the steep
slope till he reached the summit, where rough
grass and stones edged golden cornfields that
stretched inland as far as the eye could see.

No one noticed that he had gone.  Miss
Biddle, the holiday governess, sat reading in
the shade of the cliff, absorbed in *The Blue
Necklace*.  His cousins, Cedric and Githa,
both older than he, were building an
elaborate sand-castle, according to a diagram
spread on the sand, and held in place by
stones laid on the four corners.

When he reached the top he turned his
back upon the beach, and sat down on a big
stone, elbows on knees, and hands clasped
under the sharp little chin that rested on
them.  The yellow cornfields became blurred
and dim as he gazed, for Ronnie was lonely
and dreadfully homesick.  Everybody he
cared for seemed so far away—even Uncle
Gerald, the kind and understanding, was
shooting in Scotland, and seemed as remote
as father and mother in India.

The big tears brimmed over and fell.  Then
everything grew clear again.  It was very
pretty, the corn billowing in golden waves
under the soft wind; but its beauty did not
cheer him.  Rather did he remember dismally
that last time he sat beside it insects,
that he decided must be singularly silent and
stealthy mosquitoes, came out and bit him
so that he was all over itching lumps
afterwards.  All the same, he didn't move: he
was too miserable.  Moreover he had that
morning come to the conclusion that
something must be done.  He had no idea what.
But ideas come with reflection.  So, after a
sniff or two, he unclasped his hands, polished
his nose with his sleeve, and then sat very
still, going over in his mind all the time since
he came Home, to try to discover why there
should be what he called "a kind-of-a-ness"
over everything.

He was quite fair.  He recognised that it
was partly his own fault for getting fever in
the cold weather.  Then, too, fate had
conspired against him, for the Friths were coming
Home in the middle of May.  If they hadn't
been sailing then, there would have been
nobody to send him with.  He had been
coming for good next hot weather, when he
would be seven, with mother and baby-brother.
They were coming then for certain.
But a whole year, to a child, seems an
interminable, abysmal space, that no hopes can
bridge.

He had known all along that he was to go
to Aunt Hildegarde till mother came back—Aunt
Hildegarde, who lived in a place called
Golder's Green.  He knew that there was an
Uncle Edward and two cousins, in fact he
faintly remembered having seen them last
time he came Home; but as he was only three
then his impressions were somewhat hazy.

Perhaps if he had come straight to these
relatives he might have shaken down better,
but the Fates had settled otherwise.  Just
as the P. & O. reached Marseilles, Cedric and
Githa got measles, and Aunt Hildegarde, who
was most conscientious, decided that she
couldn't possibly allow Ronnie to run the
risk of infection.  She therefore appealed to
Uncle Gerald to take him till all danger was past.

This, had Ronnie known it, was asking a
good deal; for Uncle Gerald, who was his
father's uncle, was an elderly bachelor of fairly
fixed habits.  Nevertheless, as he was fond
of Ronnie's parents, and there really seemed
to be nobody else, he agreed to take the little
boy till such time as the nursery at Golder's
Green was ready to receive him.  He even
came up himself to Charing Cross to meet
the P. & O. express, and took over Ronnie
from kind Mrs. Frith, who, with three
children of her own to look after, had yet found
room in her heart to love Ronnie quite a lot.
As he sat there in the sunshine gazing at
the golden waves, he thought of the blue
green waves that washed around the big
home-bound steamer, and in remembering the
voyage, unconsciously compared his aunt and
Mrs. Frith, wondering why it was Aunt
Hildegarde made you "feel so different."  Mrs. Frith
was often hasty—four children and an
ayah in the Red Sea are enough to put an
edge on the smoothest temper—but she was
always fair even in her hastiness.  And she
judged the exasperating conduct of Ronnie
with precisely the same amount of irritation
as she brought to bear on that of her own
offspring.  Aunt Hildegarde kept a quite
separate compartment in her mind for the
consideration of Ronnie.  He was conscious
of this and resented it.  Then memory swung
back to Uncle Gerald—Uncle Gerald coming
down the drive in a cloud of dogs.

As he thought of the dogs the big tears
welled up again and rolled down his cheeks.
Everything about that first day in England
seemed to stand out before him in a series
of pictures like those he had once seen at a
theatre in India.  There was all the bustle
and rushing at Charing Cross.  Uncle Gerald,
tall, with closely-trimmed grey beard, and
kind keen eyes under his broad forehead—such
a lot of forehead Uncle Gerald had.
Ronnie even remembered hearing Mrs. Frith
say, "Oh, he's a dear little soul, very
talkative and officious, but quite affectionate;
cheerful too—which is a great matter with
children, don't you think?"  Then there
was a scramble for luggage.  Ronnie's little
cabin trunk was disentangled.  He was
embraced by all the Frith family and ayah, and,
hand in hand with this tall, unknown Uncle
Gerald, hurried down the big station to a
taxi-cab.  They drove across London to another
station—Paddington it was called, where they
had tea—and into the train again for another
journey.  Then, in the slowly fading spring
light, a long drive in a motor through green
country lanes till they turned into some big
gates and drove up to a house whence issued
a most tremendous barking and yapping.
The door was opened and four dogs rushed
out—long-bodied, rough-haired West Highland
terriers, their colour ranging from almost
black to lightish grey—who jumped all over
Uncle Gerald with noisy manifestations of
delight, sniffed curiously at Ronnie, and as
he was not in the least afraid of them, took
him into favour at once and jumped on
him—Collum and Puddock and Mona their
mother, and frisky, cheeky little Rannoch,
who was no relation to any of them, and took
the greatest liberties with all three.

All Uncle Gerald's servants had been with
him for untold ages, and all were elderly
excepting the housemaid, who had only been
there a short ten years, and occasionally was
still spoken of as "that new girl."  Her name
was Grace, and she came from somewhere
near Perth, and it was to her care that Ronnie
was entrusted for such matters as bathing
and dressing and hair-brushing.

Before he slept that night he knew all
about Grace, and decided that she was a
person to be cultivated.  But he felt that
about all of them.  His coming into that
silent (save for the dogs), regular house was
something of an adventure.  The household
rose to it, and the loquacious, inquisitive,
lively little boy never even knocked at their
hearts, but walked straight in and took
possession.  He decided that England was a
nice place: a bit cold, perhaps, when one got
up in the morning, but very pretty and full
of interesting things to do.  He gardened
with the three gardeners, wasting hours of
their time, and starting endless horticultural
experiments which were wholly without
result.  He cleaned the motor with Robinson
and got so wet that Grace, looking out of the
pantry window, caught him and changed all
his clothes, which he thought very
unnecessary.  It was her one fault—she was always
so suspicious of damp.

He penetrated to the kitchen, and
discussed its small resemblance to an Indian
kitchen with Mrs. Robinson, who was
Robinson's wife.  He was very fond of telling
them about India, and thoroughly enjoyed
their respectful astonishment at some of his
tallest stories, and when he wasn't telling
things himself he asked questions.  All day
long he asked questions, so that, when he
was safe in bed and asleep, Uncle Gerald
would take down large heavy tomes from
the book-cases and prime himself with useful
knowledge for the morrow.

Into every corner of that big old Cotswold
house did Ronnie poke his inquisitive curly
head, and the more he saw of it the better
he liked it.  It was such a kind, welcoming
sort of house.  Of course, sometimes he
wanted his mother pretty badly, and then
he sought Uncle Gerald, who seemed to know
exactly what was wrong, and no matter what
he was doing would find time for a homesick
little boy; and by the charm of his
conversation, and sometimes without any
conversation at all, would so steep Ronnie in an
atmosphere of warm friendship that the
curious ache would depart, leaving no
remembrance of it.

And now, as he sat looking into the forest
of corn, there came to his mind a piece of
poetry that he had learned to please Uncle
Gerald.  It was a very great adventure that
led to the learning of these verses, and Ronnie
thrilled with the remembrance.  One night
early in that June, one never-to-be-forgotten
night, Uncle Gerald came into his room and
woke him up, made Grace put on his clothes,
and then wrapped him up in a blanket and
carried him out to the back of the house
where there was a little copse.

The dogs were not allowed to come.

It was a brilliant moonlight night—almost
like a night in India, except that it was
nothing like so warm.  The copse looked
very black against the sky, but they didn't
go into it; they stayed outside just beside
the wire fence, and some way off he could see
the servants standing in a group.

"I felt I must wake you," Uncle Gerald
whispered, just as though he were at a
concert and feared to disturb the artists; "it's
the first of the nightingales—listen!"

Ronnie held his breath and listened with
all his might; but at first all he could hear
was a soft, whispering sort of note that
seemed to say Tiô, Tiô, Tiô, Tiô, Tiô, Tiô,
Tiô, Tiô, Tik!

He pressed his cheek against Uncle Gerald's
and yawned.  The soft note changed to a
full-throated song, full of trills and cascades
and roulades and occasional odd chuckles.
He supposed it was very wonderful (though
he infinitely preferred Robinson's whistling
of "The Sailor's Star"), but he was not so
much interested in the nightingales as in the
night.  It was so big and mysterious and
scented and silvery out in that moonshine,
so warm and safe in Uncle Gerald's arms.
It was such *fun* to be out so late, and to hear
nightingales like a grown-up person.

Ronnie's little soul was flooded with an
immense content.

They listened for what seemed to him
a very long time, and he was nearly
falling asleep again when Uncle Gerald said
suddenly, still in that hushed, concerty sort
of voice, "There! isn't that fine?  But I
must take you home to bed."  And as they
went back Uncle Gerald repeated some poetry
to himself.  Ronnie didn't understand it in
the least, but next day asked his uncle to
"tell again that bit about fairy lands for
lawns."

Uncle Gerald laughed and said it wasn't
quite that, but he "told it again," and then
suggested that it would be nice if Ronnie,
having heard one, learned what a poet called
Keats had said about a nightingale: and
Ronnie, who had a quick ear and retentive
memory, learned two long verses—the end
of the poem, Uncle Gerald said, and used to
repeat them to his uncle to their mutual
pride and satisfaction.

And now as he sat beside this cornfield
there sounded in his head the lines—

   |  "Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
   |  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
   |  She stood in tears among the alien corn;
   |   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*
   |  Forlorn! the very word is like a bell...."
   |

That was just what Ronnie was.  He
spared no pity for Ruth, though he knew all
about her—for Uncle Gerald had told him.
At all events *she* had not had to go and live
with an aunt at Golder's Green, and with
odious, priggish, plump cousins, who made
fun of the way he talked, and took no interest
whatever in India.

He detested Golder's Green.  The house
seemed so small and pokey, and the garden
so prim, after the great rooms in India and
Uncle Gerald's kindly, wandering old house
and big friendly garden.  The trim roads and
jumbled, pretty little houses weighed upon
him with a deadly weight of depression,
though he couldn't have told why.  There
were no dogs either, only a large aloof cat
called "Ra," that Aunt Hildegarde used to
enthrone on a cushion, placed on a kind of
pillar, while she and visiting ladies, attired
in straight, sad-coloured garments, sandals,
and digitated socks, sat round about upon
the floor and enthused upon his wondrous
beauty and wisdom.  Ronnie would have
liked Ra, if he might have stroked and
cuddled him, but the children were not allowed
to touch him, as he was supposed to be fierce
and resentful of such attentions.

Ronnie was always in trouble, always
doing or, even more often, saying what he
ought not.  Seeing ladies who wore veils on
their heads, and had bare feet and sandals,
he asked if they were ayahs; on being told
hastily "of course not," he suggested that
they were Parsi ladies, and was severely
snubbed in consequence.

He was slow and clumsy over the little
handicrafts his cousins practised with such
skill and industry, and when Cedric and Githa
irritated him beyond bearing he tried to beat
them, which caused a frightful commotion
and filled the whole household with consternation.

His aunt and uncle were not like Uncle
Gerald in the matter of answering questions.
To be sure, they told him all sorts of things
he didn't particularly want to know, or knew
already; but they refused to answer
questions.  They held his cousins up to him as
models, a fatal thing to do, and they made
no allowance for a lonely little boy suddenly
transported to an entirely new environment.
They were cold, too, sniffy and uninterested
in all he had to say about Uncle Gerald, and
this he resented extremely.  He could not
know that they were a centre of light and
leading in the most superior set in Golder's
Green, and that there existed between them
and Uncle Gerald the deep-seated,
never-expressed, hearty dislike of the *poseur* for
the simple and sincere.

Had he but known it, Uncle Gerald took
care that he never came across them more
often than the very remote connection
warranted.  But Aunt Hildegarde was mother's
only sister, and she seemed the natural
guardian for Ronnie, and Uncle Gerald never
interfered in other people's concerns.  But
he had his doubts, and his heart was sore for
the frank, talkative little boy when he left him.

Nobody was actively unkind.  He had
plenty to eat, a nice room which he shared
with Cedric, who was destined for a school
all fads and flannel-shirts, and already could
make his own bed and empty his
washing-basin—matters wherein Ronnie was
hopelessly ignorant, and showed no aptitude
when Cedric tried to teach him.  That was
the mischief: Cedric and Githa were always
teaching, and let him know it; and it roused
every evil disposition in Ronnie; so that he
was rapidly becoming a sort of Ishmael both
in feeling and in fact.

Then Miss Biddle brought them to the seaside,
while aunt and uncle went for a walking
tour in Wales.

The soft wind blew a cloud over the sun.
Ronnie shivered and arose from his stone.
Cedric and Githa were still absorbed in their
plan.  Miss Biddle was breathlessly following
the fortunes of "The Hon. Jane."  Ronnie,
wilfully disobedient, decided to go for a walk
by himself along the edge of the cornfield.
No ideas had come to him except the
omnipresent determination to go back to Uncle
Gerald till mother should come Home.

But how?

He was sensible and sophisticated enough
to know he couldn't walk there, and that he
hadn't enough money to go by train.  He
had, to be precise, exactly one penny in the
world; the weekly penny given to each of
them every Monday by Miss Biddle on behalf
of Uncle Edward.  He couldn't write, and
he knew that it would both distress and
annoy his aunt if she heard that he was
unhappy in her house.  She would never
*see* he was unhappy; he was sure of that.
She would only see that he was "unpleasant."

He stumped along, picking his way through
the stones and thistles, big with an entirely
vague purpose, when suddenly he came upon
a man sitting, as he himself had been sitting
a few minutes ago, on a big stone; only this
man had a blotting-pad upon his knees and
was writing very fast.  He wore a panama
hat tilted almost over his nose to shelter his
eyes, big round spectacles with tortoise-shell
rims, and as he finished a sheet he laid it on
a pile of others that, like Cedric's plan, were
kept from blowing away by the stones laid
upon them.  Ronnie watched him breathlessly.
How fast he wrote!  Uncle Gerald
could write like that, and daddie ... and
thinking of daddie there came into his mind
the picture of a busy Eastern street, and the
likhnè-wālā (letter-writer) sitting on the
curbstone in the sunshine ready to write letters
for those who could not write themselves ... if
they could pay him.

"Was this man a likhnè-wālā?

He looked like a sahib, but then so did
Robinson, and he was Uncle Gerald's
*gharri-wallah*.

Ronnie drew a little nearer.
If this man was a likhnè-wālā, would
he—oh, would he—write a letter for *one* anna?

Ronnie felt it was a very small sum to
offer, but the man looked kind, and he could
write so fast.  It wouldn't take him long.

Perhaps if he was approached very
politely....  Ronnie crept a bit nearer and
the man looked up and saw him.

The little boy joined his hands, and
touching his forehead bowed his body, as he had
seen men in India bow when they came
before his father to ask for something.

"Sahib," he said earnestly, "could you
write a letter for one anna?"

"Hullo, shrimp!" said the man.  "Have
you sprung right out of the Shiny into here?"

"I know it's very little monies," Ronnie
continued apologetically, "*very* little monies,
but I do want that letter wrote, so badly.
I've truly got one anna; here it is."

The man held out his hand, and Ronnie
laid the penny on his palm.

The man closed his hand upon it.

"Now," he said, "what shall I write?"

He took a fresh sheet of paper and looked
at Ronnie, and the little boy saw that the
eyes behind the round glasses were bright
and kind.

"Dear Uncle Gerald," Ronnie began.
"Please come.  I do not like it here.  I
want to come back to you.  It is forlorn here,
not fairylands——"

"Eh, what's that?" asked the man.
"You dictate very fast.  'Not fairylands'?
Yes?"

"I am mizzabel," Ronnie continued.
"Please come quickly and take me away.
Cejic and Githa do not like me.  They are so
pompshus——"

"What's that?" asked the man.

"I do not like them," Ronnie went on.
"I like the dogs much better; kiss them all
on their foreheads for me, not their noses,
they are too wet, especially Rannoch.  Please
come quick.  I am so mizzable.  Your loving
Ronnie....  That's all, thank you."

"Mizzable, eh?" the man repeated.  "Is
it indiscreet to ask why?"

"I don't know exactly myself," said
Ronnie.  "It just *is*."

"Ah," said the man.  "I know that;
that's the very worst kind.  Long since you
came Home?"

"Oh, very long," Ronnie answered sadly.
"Ages and ages."

"Hm-m-m!" said the man.  "With relations?"

"Yes, but Uncle Gerald's a relation too,
you know, only he's a nice one—oh, a
'dorable relation."

"How is it you're here and not with him
then?" asked the man.

"It was arranged," Ronnie said solemnly.
"*I* didn't do it."

"I see," said the man.  "'It was an
order.'  And what will the parents out in
the Shiny say?"

Ronnie looked grave.  "I b'lieve they'd
like it," he said, after a moment's thought.
"*They* 'dore Uncle Gerald too."

"Hm-m-m!  Seems a popular person,"
said the man.  "What's his name?"

"Same as daddie's and mine."

"Yes, and yours?"

"Ronald Forsyth Hardy."

"Then he's Gerald Hardy, I suppose?
And where is he at present?"

"Scotland," said Ronnie promptly.

"But that's a bit vague.  What part of
Scotland?"

"Oh, they're sure to know him there; he
goes every year; he told me so."

"Were you there with him?"

"No, I was in his own bungalow.  He
went to Scotland after I left."

"Can you remember the name of his bungalow?"

"Yes: Longhope."

"Any station?"

"There *is* a station, but it's very far off,
and I don't remember its name.  Won't my
letter get to him?" the little boy asked
anxiously.

The man looked through his bright
spectacles right into Ronnie's large brown eyes.
He noticed that the child was very thin, and
that he hunched his shoulders and drooped
his head.

The man laid his writing-pad upon the
ground and lifted Ronnie on to his knee.

"Old chap," he said, "you've got the blues,
and you're a bit of a misfit.  That's what's
the matter with you.  But it won't last.
Believe me, it won't last.  I'll do my best
to find this Uncle Gerald of yours.  I'm going
to town this afternoon, and I'll look him up
in Burke."

"Oh, he's not in Burke," Ronnie declared
positively.  "He's in Scotland; he's wrote
to me from there."

"All right," said the man.  "I'll try and
get the letter to him somehow.  But you
mustn't expect too much.  It may not be
over-easy for Uncle Gerald to do anything,
and it takes a deuce of a time for letters to
get to Scotland."

"Longer than to Burke?"

"Hark!" said the man.  "Isn't that
some one calling?"

"It's for me," exclaimed Ronnie, jumping
off his knee.  "I expect it's time to go to
dinner.  You won't forget?  You do
promise?  You won't tell them?"  For he saw
Miss Biddle and Cedric and Githa arrive
breathlessly at the top of the slope.

"Honest Injun," said the man.  "But it'll
take a good week.  Then you'll hear
*some*\thing, if Uncle Gerald's the man I take him
for."

They shook hands.  Miss Biddle and his
cousins were quite close, and he turned to
meet them.  Their questions and reproaches
passed over his head lightly.  He didn't care.
He had *done* something at last, and he
believed in the likhnè-wālā.

"How long is a week?" he asked, when
the enormity of his conduct had been
thoroughly threshed out.

"Seven days, of course.  You *are* an
ignorant little boy," said Githa.

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As it happened, Uncle Gerald *was* in Burke,
so the likhnè-wālā found his home address,
and Ronnie's letter reached him three days
later, when he came back from a long day
on the moors.  There was another letter also,
from the likhnè-wālā, and in it he used the
very phrase he had used to Ronnie.  "I
fear," he said, "the little chap is a misfit,
and it's a painful game to play when one is
a kiddy.  He looked peaked and thin and
timid, and he ought to be such a jolly little
chap."

He said a great many other things, did
the likhnè-wālā, and the name he signed at
the end of his letter was one well known to
Uncle Gerald as the author of certain books
he knew and cared for.

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The week dragged on.  It rained a lot and
the days were long for Ronnie in the seaside
lodgings.  He kept count of the days, though,
and at last it reached the sixth day from the
time he met the likhnè-wālā, and no answer
had come to his letter.  Yet he never doubted
him.  He was convinced that somehow or
other his letter would reach Uncle Gerald.

It was on Monday he had met the likhnè-wālā,
and on Saturday evening after tea it
cleared up and they went out to the sands.
They were to return to Golder's Green next
week, and Ronnie dreaded it unspeakably,
for he felt that if nothing happened before
he did that, then he was indeed abandoned
and forlorn.  Cedric and Githa would not let
him dig with them because his methods were
too erratic.  Miss Biddle had finished *The
Blue Necklace*, and started on *Love is a Snare*,
and found it equally enthralling.

Ronnie was digging by himself, a lonely
little figure apart from the rest, and talking
to himself as he worked.  He had built a
bungalow, and had just flattened out the
compound round about it, and was beginning
on the servants' quarters, when he looked
up to see a solitary figure coming across the
ribbed and glistening sand.  The tide was
out, and there seemed miles of beach between
him and the sea.  They had had their tea
extra early, and the beach was almost
deserted, for it was just five o'clock.  Ronnie
watched the distant figure, and his heart
seemed to jump up and turn over, for there
was something dear and familiar about it,
and yet ... he didn't dare to hope.

Then suddenly his long sight told him
there was no mistake.  It was, it *was* the
Uncle Gerald of his hopes and dreams!  He
started to run, and the figure made the glad
assurance doubly sure by taking off its hat
and waving it.  Then Ronnie saw the dear,
tall forehead, that, as he once pointed out
to his uncle, "went right over to the back";
after that there could be no mistake.

"I never thought you would come," he
said, safe in the shelter of those kind arms,
"and if you did I always thought all the
dogs would be bound to come too."

The likhnè-wālā was quite right when he
said it would not be "over-easy" for Uncle
Gerald.

It wasn't.

It required a deal of diplomacy, and only
Uncle Gerald's charm and tact carried the
matter through without a serious breach
between the Golder's Green relations and
Ronnie's parents.  It cost a small fortune
in cables, too.

But in the end it was managed, and Ronnie
went back to Longhope, where he fitted so
uncommonly well.

"I must say," said Uncle Gerald, "you've
a nice taste in amanuenses."

"What's that?" asked Ronnie.

"Well, I believe you call it a likhnè-wālā,"
said Uncle Gerald.  "Both are long, rather
clumsy names, and there's not much to
choose between them."

"He was a nice likhnè-wālā," said Ronnie;
"and very cheap."





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.. _`THE CONTAGION OF HONOUR`:

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   XX


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   THE CONTAGION OF HONOUR

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It's a far cry from cantonments in a town in
Northern India to a village in the Cotswolds,
and events had moved so fast in the last four
months that for a while Robin felt rather
breathless and bewildered.

He was not yet six years old, but he had
been through the Suez Canal six times.

The first times he couldn't remember at
all, the second two passages only faintly, but
the last two were vivid and epoch-making.

They came so close together, too.

Had any one just then asked Robin to
define war, he would have tried to explain
that it meant continual departure from where
you happened to be, separation and loss,
that through it all—like the refrain of a
marching tune—there sounded stanzas of
joyous excitement; but these passed quickly,
leaving silence and desolation for those left
behind.

Of one thing he was certain: war meant
movement.  No grown-up person could keep
in one place for any length of time when
there was war.  In April, when the hot
weather set in, he and mummy and ayah
and Jean went to the hills, as usual; but
daddy stayed in cantonments.  Long before
the hot weather was over they all went back.
There was much bustle and activity, and the
Sikhs all looked very cheerful indeed.

Then came more moves.

Daddy went first this time, and took the
regiment with him; but he wasn't going Home.

Mummy and the children went next, leaving
a weeping ayah at the new Alexandra
Dock in Bombay.

The voyage was long and wearisome in a
very crowded boat, where there were many
other children and anxious-looking mummies,
but no sahibs—no sahibs at all.

When they arrived in England, they all
came to live with grandfather and Aunt
Monica at the Vicarage, and, though this
was very different from India, and not nearly
so gay and cheerful, it was quite bearable
till mummy went too.

That was a wholly unexpected blow.
Soldiers' children, especially the children of
soldiers serving abroad, early realise that a
mysterious power called "the Service" may
at any moment snatch daddy away.  It may
be that he has to go where they cannot
follow, or that he has to stay and they have
to go.  In any case, it means separation.

But mummies are different.  They belong—most
of all when children are quite small.

Yet Robin's mother had gone.

As he pottered up and down the rather
wet path that Saturday afternoon, he was
remembering a conversation he had heard in
the verandah just before the regiment left
India.  He was building a temple on the
floor with his bricks, and mummy was very
rapidly turning the heel of a sock while Major
Booth talked to her.  Major Booth was their
doctor, and a very good doctor too.

"It's frightful waste, you know," Major
Booth said, in a grumbling voice, "for you
to go and rust in a remote village doing
nursemaid to a couple of kids."

"You see, they happen to be my kids,"
mummy answered quietly.

"That's no argument just now," he
retorted.  "They are healthy, jolly kids;
they've got a competent aunt—you told me
so yourself.  They'll be perfectly well cared
for whether you are there or not—and you're
wanted, I tell you."

Mummy gave a little gasp.  "Oh, man!"
she cried, "why do you dangle the
unattainable before my eyes?  You know I'm just
dying to go ... but I've taken on another
job ... and there are plenty without me.
I won't butt in——"

"Will you go if you're asked for?"

"If I'm asked for!" Mummy repeated
the words scornfully.  "Of course I'd go."

Robin looked up from his temple.

"Go where?" he asked.  "Can I come, too?"

"Don't you worry, sonny dear," mummy
said, and her voice sounded flat and tired.
"I don't for one moment suppose they'll
want me.  I only wish they would.  'That's
all shove be'ind me—long ago and far
away,'" she quoted, while Major Booth
shook his head in violent dissent.

They talked of other things that did not
particularly interest Robin till he went away,
but as Major Booth ran down the verandah
steps he had called out: "Mind, it's a
bandabost!  You come if you're asked for."

Robin remembered that very distinctly.

When they had been four weeks at the
Vicarage, when they were just settling down
to the quiet life there, the summons came.

It seems that Robin's mummy, before
there was any Robin or Jean or even daddy,
had been a particularly first-class surgical
nurse, and not only that, but an Army nurse.
She never talked about it, but Major Booth
had discovered it soon after she came to
India with daddy.  They were out in camp,
and there was a bad accident to one of the
soldiers, and mummy just took charge and
helped Major Booth as only a skilful nurse
can help.

After that, if sudden illness or accidents
occurred where no trained nurses were handy,
people rather got into the way of sending
for mummy to lend a hand.

And now they had sent for her to nurse
wounded soldiers at a base hospital.

She explained this to Robin the night
before she left, as he sat on her knee all ready
for bed in front of the nursery fire.  He
remembered the feel of the nursery fender, the
warm wire bars, as he pressed his feet against
them.

Mummy did not deny that she was
immensely proud and glad to go—it was such
an honour to be allowed to do anything—but
she hated leaving Robin and Jean.
Still, in war we must all give up something.
He had to give up his daddy and his
mummy—"a good deal for a little boy,"
she added.

Would he be good and try to please Aunt
Monica and the new nurse, and encourage
Jean to be good, and not fret, and try to
help all he could?

Just then Robin felt so solemn and exalted
that it seemed he could give up anything to
help the poor wounded soldiers, and so he
said.  And after his prayers, mummy tucked
him into bed and kissed him, and whispered
the things mummies do whisper at such
times.  Her eyes tasted salt when he kissed
them, dragging her head down with his two
arms that he might do it—mummy was so
tall—and the next day she went away.

She had been gone five whole weeks, and
Christmas was not far off, and that Friday
afternoon Robin wanted her most desperately,
for somehow everything had gone wrong.

It began with digging trenches.

Now to dig a trench properly, as in war,
you must lie on your tummy and throw the
earth up in front of you; if you stood up,
the enemy would pot you—that's an
understood thing.

But they didn't seem to realise this at the
Vicarage.  For when Robin essayed to do it
in his own garden—a nice large plot at the
far end of the kitchen garden that
grandfather had given him for his very own—he
naturally got what nurse called "all over
mould," and she was far from pleased, the
less so in that Jean, coming with nurse to
find him, immediately flung herself face
downwards in the adjacent carrot-bed in
imitation of her brother.

Jean was pretty, and every one fell in love
with her at first sight; but Robin was what
nurse called a "very or'nary child," and
visiting strangers showed no inclination to
make a fuss of him.

Grandfather was a very old gentleman,
and Aunt Monica was always busy with
parish work.  Robin had heard his father
say that she was "as good as three curates"
to grandfather.  Therefore did he find
himself wishing that she had been, less capable,
for, he reasoned, if Aunt Monica was equal
to three curates now, and a visiting curate
whom Robin liked exceedingly was still
necessary—had she been rather less efficient, two
visiting curates might have been required.
Or, better still, the present one might have
been permanent.  And this, from Robin's
point of view, was most desirable.

The visiting curate came every Sunday to
intone the service, read the lessons, help in
the Sunday-school, and take the children's
service in the afternoon, and he always
lunched at the Vicarage.

He was tall, with a cheerful red face and
broad shoulders, which made a most
comfortable seat for little boys.  Moreover, he
was a most accomplished person.  He could
waggle his ears without moving his head,
and move his hair up and down without
disarranging a muscle of his face.  He could
shut one eye—"shut flat," Robin called it,
"no wrinkles"—and stare at you with the
other, and he could wink each eye in
succession, in a fashion that conveyed infinite
possibilities of merriment.  And all these
things he contrived to do at the solemn
Sunday luncheon when neither grandfather
nor Aunt Monica happened to be looking.

Then there was Pollard.

Pollard was the gardener.  He was not a
gifted being like the curate.  By no stretch
of imagination could he be regarded as
entertaining.  He was a stocky, silent young
man, whose conversation consisted mainly
of "Yes, Mazter Robin"; "Noa, little
gentleman"; or, "I don't 'old with it
myself, young zur," when Robin solicited
his opinions about the war and kindred
subjects.

Yet there was something in his bearing
that subtly conveyed to the lonely little boy
the fact that in Pollard he had a friend, and
a rather admiring friend at that, and Robin
followed him about like a small dog.

Yes, Pollard was a comfort.

He spied him now wheeling a barrow
loaded with what Pollard himself called
"dong," with a spade resting on the top of
the heap.

"Wait for me, Pollard—wait for me!"
called the clear little voice.  The man
stopped, and when Robin caught him up,
they went together to the flower-garden,
where Pollard was preparing the ground for
a hedge of sweet peas next year.

Here Robin was thrilled to perceive that
Pollard started to dig a trench.  He was a
capital digger, throwing up great spadefuls
of soil, and the trench was beautifully even.

"They'd like you to help them in Belgium,"
Robin exclaimed admiringly, "you're
so strong—only you couldn't do it that way."

Pollard rested on his spade.  "Well, there
now, Mazter Robin," he exclaimed, "be you
agoin' to teach Oi to dig at this time o' day?"

"Not standing up like that," Robin
continued, as though he had not heard—"not
to begin with.  You'd get shot directly.
Can you do it as well lying down?"

"Lyin' down!" Pollard repeated.  "Lyin'
down!  'Ooever 'eard o' diggin' lyin' down?"

"Soldiers do," Robin answered.  "They
have to.  I can a little, too, only the soil
here sticks to one so."

"Do you mean as they lays flat on their
backs and scrabbles sideways with a
trowel?" asked Pollard, fairly puzzled.

"No, no," exclaimed Robin, "front ways,
of course.  I could show you in a minute if
nurse wasn't so cross.  You throw it up in
front of you so's to hide you, and when the
hill in front's high enough, and your hole is
deep enough, then you can stand up,
stooping, and dig your way.  I've got one in my
garden, not a good one, 'cos nurse stopped
me, but you should see soldiers do it!"

And just then nurse came to look for
Robin, and took him indoors because it was
getting dark.

Pollard continued to dig thoughtfully.
From time to time he paused, leant upon his
spade and scratched his head.  By the time
he had prepared the ground for the sweet
peas it was just about dark, but before he
went home he visited Robin's garden.  Here
he tried digging a trench in military fashion,
and exceedingly hard work he found it.

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From time to time precious letters came
to Robin—from daddy in the trenches (how
he longed to see *those* trenches!), and from
mother in her hospital.  Aunt Monica was
very kind about those letters; she read them
aloud over and over again, till Robin knew
them by heart and imparted their contents
to Pollard, who always appeared much
edified, though he was a man of few words.

On the end of a barn that he passed every
day between his mother's cottage and the
Vicarage, there were posters which declared
in flaming, foot-long letters that his "King
and Country" needed him, and adjuring him
to join the Army NOW for the war, and so on.

Hitherto, Pollard had regarded the war
entirely from the outside.  "Soldierin' bain't
for the likes of me," he said, and his mother
quite agreed with him.  Some was "fond of
a bit of soldiering" even in peace; and it
was quite natural and suitable that such
should join the "Tarriers."  For them, of
course, the call to arms was imperative, and
Pollard took it for granted that they should
obey and march away, and be seen no more.
He was quite content that they should do so.
But, with regard to himself, such a course
seemed neither sensible nor feasible.

"What'd I do with a gun, let alone a
bay'nit?" he would inquire facetiously.  "I
shouldn't know which end to catch 'old on
'im.  What good 'ud a' be?"

Lately, though, there had stirred in his
mind a tiny, creeping doubt as to whether it
was quite justifiable to remain in this state of
ignorance.  Much talk with Robin, or rather
much listening to the talk of Robin, had
opened new vistas of possibility to Pollard.
He realised in a dim, kindly way that the
child was homesick and lonely, and longing
for his parents; yet the little boy never
wished they had not gone.  The Major's
letters, too, repeated word for word by his
little son, so simple and plain in their
language, yet told heroic things of the doings of
his men, and these men Pollard knew were
"poor Injuns"—"blackies" he had called
them, till Robin, indignantly denied that they
were anything of the sort.

It began to dawn upon Pollard that the
heathen in his blindness, who had crossed
the seas to fight for old England, was perhaps
doing more to uphold her honour than certain
young Englishmen who *could* go, and
remained peacefully at home.  He had inquired
of Robin as to their worship of "wood and
stone," but Robin could throw no light upon
this, declaring, indeed, that his father's Sikhs
"were very religious men, very religious,
indeed."  So there was another illusion gone.

Pollard became more and more uncomfortable
and uncertain.  The red posters seemed
to reproach him, but the trench finished him
altogether.

As he walked home that night as much
"all over mould" as Robin had been earlier
in the day, the good, clean smell of the wet
earth in his nostrils seemed to go to his
head like wine, for he kept on muttering to
himself: "There be summat as I can do, any'ow."

The thought that a man who could dig
might be of use "over there" was positively
staggering in its intensity.

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Robin was allowed to sit up half an hour
later on a Saturday evening, and during that
half-hour Aunt Monica read to him or played
spillikins with him, or helped him to stick in
his little flags on the big map mummy had
given him before she left.

That evening they did the map, for there
were a lot of new flags to stick in for Russia.
When nurse came for him, as they climbed
the broad staircase together, she said in
quite an excited voice: "You have done it
this time, Master Robin; Pollard's gone for
a soldier."

"Gone!" Robin exclaimed aghast, "and
never said good-bye, nor anything!"

"Well, not exactly gone; but 'e's 'listed
in the 'Gloucesters—did it this afternoon over
to Cissister.  An' it's all you; he says so."

"Me!" cried Robin—by this time they
were in the nursery.  "I never sent him.  I
like him.  I don't want him to go."

"Well, anyway, he's been and done it this
afternoon, and his mother's in the kitchen
this minute in a fine takin'.  And it's all
along of you and your talk, she says."

Robin pondered.  "Of course, he's right
to go," he said slowly; "but, truly, I never
asked him to."

"I don't know who'll do the garden,"
nurse said, still in the same thrilled,
impressive voice, "or what Vicar'll say, or Miss
Rivers."

"Will Aunt Monica be angry?" Robin
asked, vaguely troubled.  It was bad enough
to lose Pollard, but if everybody blamed *him*
for it ... and just then who should come
into the nursery but grandfather himself.

He came very slowly, for he was an old,
old gentleman.

Robin was standing by the fire with
nothing on but his vest and his stockings.

When grandfather reached the hearthrug,
he held out his hand.  "Grandson," he said,
solemnly, "I congratulate you.  You've
managed to do what none of the rest of us
could do.  You've roused a spark of patriotism
in Pollard.  Aunt Monica and I are proud
of you."

It was very wonderful to shake hands with
grandfather like that, and to have him there
looking down at one so kindly through his
gold-rimmed glasses.  Robin was not at all
sure what it all meant, except that
grandfather and Aunt Monica were not angry,
neither with Pollard nor with him.  But he
did connect Pollard's sudden action with all
he had told him about daddy and mummy
and the Sikhs.

"I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "he
kind of caught it."

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   *Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
   London and Aylesbury, England.*

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   Telegrams:
   GUIDEBOOK, PICCY, LONDON."

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   50a ALBEMARLE STREET,
   LONDON, W.1
   April, 1915.

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   MURRAY'S
   IMPERIAL LIBRARY

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   FOR SALE IN INDIA AND THE COLONIES ONLY.

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   NEW AND REGENT ADDITIONS.

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   Fiction.

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   SOME HAPPENINGS.

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BY HORACE A. VACHELL,

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Author of "Quinneys," "The Hill," "Brothers," "Fishpingle," etc.

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"Some Happenings"—in every mood, humorous and dramatic,
serious and passionate.  The adventurous and the stay-at-home
meet in these stories which, characteristic of the qualities of their
author, are interesting, effective and attractive all the time.

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TWELVE BIRTHDAYS.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY WINIFRED F. PECK,

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Author of "The Court of a Saint."

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By the ingenious method of taking twelve of the birthdays of
Timothy, the delightful son of Hester Deyne, Mrs. Peck has discovered
the framework for a story which, through its humour and moving
sympathy, touches deep chords.  The relations of Hester with her
son and her husband comprise a tale of genial humanity, helpful to
these times.

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THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY BENNET COPPLESTONE,

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Author of "Jitny and the Boys."

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A series of exciting stories which reveal the English Secret
Service as it really is: silent, unsleeping, and supremely competent.
It shows how the Secret Service leaves nothing to chance, how it
watches and waits, how it plays enemy agents upon strings so
long as they are useful, and grabs them when they have ceased
to be useful or have become dangerous.



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MARY OF THE WINDS

.. class:: center medium bold

AND OTHER TALES.

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BY ENEDEEN.

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This is a volume of short stories by a lady of distinction, who
has lived long in the south-west of Ireland and knows the people
well.  Most of the stories embody the strange mystical traditions
of the race, and are told as nearly as possible in the language in
which they are current among the people to-day.


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MISS GASCOIGNE.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY KATHARINE TYNAN,

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Author of "The Honourable Molly," "Kit," etc.

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"Miss Gascoigne" is a love-story in the setting of England
as she was in the days of Peace and will not be again.  Miss Gascoigne
is the Lady of the Manor, a fresh and fair open-air lady.  She has,
two lovers, a fine English gentleman, and a self-made man, no less
a gentleman in essentials, who has returned from Colonial life in
South Africa.  The reader will find out for himself which she chooses.
The book is mainly romantic comedy, and it has been the writer's
endeavour not to allow a single dark shadow to fall upon it.


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SIR ISUMBRAS AT THE FORD.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY D. K. BROSTER,

.. class:: center small

Joint Author of "Chantemerle," "The Vision Splendid," etc.

.. vspace:: 1

In the year 1795, when England was equipping an expedition
of French émigrés to help (Royalist) France, a hardy Chouan
leader, unsentimental and not over-young, was unexpectedly led
to risk his life for a little Franco-Scottish boy of his acquaintance,
kidnapped by two treacherous old French ladies, and for a woman
who had come near to depriving him of it already.  Engulfed in
the tragic failure of the expedition at Quiberon, himself both lost
and saved through his past knight-errantry, he survived to be
repaid, in unforseen ways, by each of his debtors.  Over the
story—which borrows its title from Millais' well-known picture—blows
the wind of the narrow seas, whereon, indeed, some of its action
passes, and where, in a storm, it comes to an end.


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STEP-SONS OF FRANCE.

.. class:: center medium bold

By Captain P. C. WREN,

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Author of "The Wages of Virtue," etc.

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True tales of the French Foreign Legion in which appear some of
the characters depicted in "The Wages of Virtue."  Not only are the
scenes laid in Algeria, but in those other countries in which the
flag of the Legion flies and the bones of so many Legionaries lie.



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.. class:: center medium bold

THE BLACK OFFICE

.. class:: center medium bold

AND OTHER CHAPTERS OF ROMANCE.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE,

.. class:: center small

Authors of "Rose of the World," "The Pride of Jennico," etc.

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"Agnes and Egerton Castle have certainly been well advised
about their sub-title to 'The Black Office and Other Chapters of
Romance,' for that is precisely what the tales are, and excellently
romantic and thrilling chapters, too."—*Punch*.



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HAWK OF THE DESERT.

.. class:: center medium bold

By G. E. MITTON,

.. class:: center small

Author of "In the Grip of the Wild Wa," etc.

.. vspace:: 1

The scene is laid in the vast Atbai desert of the Egyptian Sudan.
The very breath of the desert is in the book; but the scenery comes
second to the story which is concerned with a knot of half-a-dozen
people, drawn together by the threads of fate, who play out their
parts in a thrilling drama.



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.. class:: center medium bold

MARTIE THE UNCONQUERED.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY KATHLEEN NORRIS,

.. class:: center small

Author of "The Story of Julia Page," "The Heart of Rachael," etc.

.. vspace:: 1

With the publication of "Martie the Unconquered," Mrs. Morris
completes her trilogy of remarkable heroines of which the
first was Julia Page and the second Rachael.  In "Martie"
Mrs. Norris takes a different sort of girl.

The story of how Martie found herself embraces problems
that confront not only one woman, but thousands, and is told
in a way to give the courage to go on as Martie did and emerge,
like her, unconquered.



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.. class:: center medium bold

LONG LIVE THE KING.

.. class:: center medium bold

By Mrs. MARY ROBERTS RINEHART,

.. class center small

Author of "K," etc.

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A romantic story of adventure, love and intrigue, centreing
around the Crown Prince in a troubled kingdom.
Not for Sale in Canada.



.. vspace:: 2

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THE WEIRD O' THE POOL.

.. class:: center medium bold

BY ALEXANDER STUART.

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"This Scottish story of rural life in the eighteen-forties is a
very highly finished piece of work.  We do not make the observation
lightly when we say that it reminds us of Sir Walter
Scott."—*The Outlook*.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

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MURRAY'S IMPERIAL LIBRARY.

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Fiction.

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In Cloth and Paper Covers.  Crown 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

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ADAMS (Samuel Hopkins)
   LITTLE MISS GROUCH

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AITKEN (Robert)
   THE LANTERN OF LUCK
   BEYOND THE SKYLINE

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ARTHUR (Frederick)
   THE GREAT ATTEMPT
   THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR DUMONT

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

ATHERTON (Gertrude)
   MRS. BALFAME
   PERCH OF THE DEVIL
   JULIA FRANCE AND HER TIMES
   TOWER OF IVORY
   ANCESTORS
   REZANOV

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BAILEY (H. G.)
   BEAUJEU
   SPRINGTIME

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

BANCROFT (Lady)
   THE SHADOW OF NEEME

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

BLACKWOOD (Algernon)
   TEN-MINUTE STORIES

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

BOTTOME (Miss Phyllis)
   RAW MATERIAL
   THE IMPERFECT GIFT

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

—— and BROCK (H. De L.)
   CROOKED ANSWERS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

BROSTER (D. K.) and TAYLOR (G. W.)
   CHANTEMERLE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

CASTLE (Agnes and Egerton)
   DIAMOND CUT PASTE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

CATHER (Willa S.)
   THE SONG OF THE LARK

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

CLIFFORD (Sir Hugh)
   MALAYAN MONOCHROMES
   THE DOWNFALL OF THE GODS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

CLOUSTON (J. Storer)
   THE PEER'S PROGRESS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

CORNISH (F. Warre)
   DR. ASHFORD AND HIS NEIGHBOURS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

DEANE (Mary)
   THE LITTLE NEIGHBOUR
   THE ROSE SPINNER
   TREASURE AND HEART

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

DELAND (Margaret)
   THE RISING TIDE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

DURAND (Ralph)
   SPACIOUS DAYS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

EDGE (K. M.) (Mrs. Caulfeild)
   THROUGH THE CLOUDY PORCH
   THE SHUTTLES OF THE LOOM

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

EGGAR (Arthur)
   THE HATANEE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

FLETCHER (J. S.)
   THE IVORY GOD, AND OTHER STORIES
   MOTHERS IN ISRAEL

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

FRANCIS (M. E.)
   THE STORY OF MARY DUNNE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

GLASGOW (Ellen)
   LIFE AND GABRIELLA
   THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH
   THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

GOLDRING (Maude)
   THE DOWNSMAN
   THE TENANTS OF PIXY FARM
   DEAN'S HALL

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

HARKER (Mrs. L. Allen)
   JAN AND HER JOB
   THE FFOLLIOTS OF REDMARLEY
   MR. WYCHERLY'S WARDS
   MASTER AND MAID
   A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY
   MISS ESPERANCE AND MR. WYCHERLY

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

HAY-NEWTON (Mrs. F.)
   SOMEWHERE IN SCOTLAND

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

IDDESLEIGH (Earl of)
   DOWLAND CASTLE
   IONE CHALONER

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

JACOB (Violet)
   FLEMINGTON
   THE FORTUNE HUNTERS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

JARVIS (W. H. P.)
   THE GREAT GOLD RUSH

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

KANE (Lieut.-Colonel F.)
   REPTON

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

LORIMER (G. H.)
   JACK SPURLOCK—PRODIGAL

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

LYNCH (Bohun)
   CAKE
   GLAMOUR

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MACAULAY (Miss R.)
   VIEWS AND VAGABONDS
   THE VALLEY CAPTIVES
   THE FURNACE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

McLAREN (Miss Amy)
   THROUGH OTHER EYES
   BAWBEE JOCK
   WITH THE MERRY AUSTRIANS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MACLAREN (Ian)
   GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MACNAUGHTAN (S.)
   THE ANDERSONS
   US FOUR
   THREE MISS GRAEMES
   A LAME DOG'S DIARY
   THE EXPENSIVE MISS DU CANE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MALET (Lucas)
   THE SCORE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MONTRESOR (F. F.)
   THROUGH THE CHRYSALIS
   THE BURNING TORCH

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MOTT (Lawrence)
   PRAIRIE, SNOW AND SEA

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MURDOCH (Gladys)
   MISTRESS CHARITY GODOLPHIN

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

NAPIER OF MAGDALA (Lady)
   HALF A LIE
   TO THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATIONS
   MUDDLING THROUGH
   CAN MAN PUT ASUNDER?
   HOW SHE PLAYED THE GAME
   A STORMY MORNING

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

NEUMAN (B. Paul)
   OPEN SESAME
   SIMON BRANDIN
   RODDLES
   THE LONE HEIGHTS
   DOMINY'S DOLLARS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

NORRIS (Kathleen)
   THE HEART OF RACHAEL
   JULIA PAGE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

ONIONS (Oliver)
   LITTLE DEVIL DOUBT
   ADMIRAL EDDY
   THE ODD-JOB MAN
   TALES FROM A FAR RIDING

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PALMER (Frederick)
   THE OLD BLOOD

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PEARN (Miss Violet A.)
   SEPARATE STARS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PERTWEE (Roland)
   TRANSACTIONS OF LORD LOUIS LEWIS

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PHILLPOTTS (Eden)
   THE JUDGE'S CHAIR
   THE OLD TIME BEFORE THEM
   WIDECOMBE FAIR
   THE FOREST ON THE HILL
   TALES OF THE TENEMENTS
   THE THIEF OF VIRTUE
   THE HAVEN

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PICKERING (A. D.)
   THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF SYLVIA

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

PICKTHALL (Marmaduke)
   POT AU FEU (Short Stories)
   THE MYOPES

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

POCOCK (Roger E.)
   THE SPLENDID BLACKGUARD
   JESSE OF CARIBOO

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

RICHMOND (Grace S.)
   UNDER THE COUNTRY SKY

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

RUSSELL (George Hansby)
   IVOR
   GRIT

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

SMITH (Dorothy V. Horace)
   FRANK BURNET

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

STACPOOLE (H. de Vere)
   THE STREET OF THE FLUTE PLAYER
   THE DRUMS OF WAR

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

STAIRS (Gordon)
   OUTLAND

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

STRATTON-PORTER (Gene)
   MICHAEL O'HALLORAN.

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

SUTCLIFFE (Halliwell)
   TOWARD THE DAWN

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

VACHELL (Horace A.)
   QUINNEYS'
   BUNCH GRASS
   JOHN VERNEY
   HER SON
   BROTHERS
   THE FACE OF CLAY
   THE HILL
   THE WATERS OF JORDAN

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

VANSITTART (Robert)
   JOHN STUART

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WAKELING (T. G.)
   THE WHITE KNIGHTS.

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WATSON (E. H. Lacon)
   THE FAMILY LIVING
   BARKER'S
   CLOUDESLEY TEMPEST

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WEBSTER (Nesta H.) (Mrs. Arthur Webster)
   THE SHEEP TRACK

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WHARTON (Edith)
   THE VALLEY OF DECISION
   CRUCIAL INSTANCES

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WIGRAM (Eirene)
   ALAN!  ALAN!

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WILLIAMS (Geoffrey)
   THE MAGICIANS OF CHARNO

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WRIGHT-HENDERSON (R. W.)
   ANNABEL AND OTHERS
   THE RECLUSE OF RILL
   JOHN GOODCHILD

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

WREN (Captain Percival Christopher)
   THE WAGES OF VIRTUE

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

YOUNG (E. H.)
   MOOR FIRES

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

ZANGWILL (Edith A.)
   THE RISE OF A STAR



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

General Literature.

.. class:: center

Bound in Cloth.

.. vspace:: 2

THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS.

.. vspace:: 1

By THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Author of "African Game Trails."
"Life Histories of African Game Animals."  With Illustrations
from Photographs by KERMIT ROOSEVELT AND OTHER MEMBERS
OF THE EXPEDITION.  Medium 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

THE BOOK OF THE LION.  By Sir ALFRED PEASE,
Bart.  With Illustrations.  Demy 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

WILD GAME IN ZAMBEZIA.  By R. C. F. MAUGHAM,
Author of "Zambezia" and "Portuguese East Africa."  With
Illustrations.  Demy 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

CECIL RHODES: The Man and his Work.  By
One of his Private and Confidential Secretaries, GORDON LE
SUEUR.  Fourth Impression.  With Illustrations.  Demy 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

THE SOUTH POLE.  A Full Account of an Expedition
to the Antarctic Regions in 1911-1912.  By Captain ROALD
AMUNDSEN.  With an Introduction by Dr. FRIDTJOF NANSEN.
Translated from the Norwegian by A. G. CHATER.  In Two Vols.
Medium 8vo.  With numerous Illustrations and Maps.

.. vspace:: 2

AFRICAN GAME TRAILS.  By THEODORE
ROOSEVELT.  An Account of the African Wanderings of an
American Hunter-Naturalist.  Illustrated from Photographs by
KERMIT ROOSEVELT AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION
and from Drawings by PHILIP R. GOODWIN.  Medium 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

SOME INDIAN FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.
By Lieut. Colonel D. D. CUNNINGHAM, C.I.E.,
F.R.S.  Large Crown 8vo.

.. vspace:: 2

THE LIFE OF ABDUR RAHMAN, Amir of
Afghanistan.  Edited by MIR MUNSHI SULTAN MOHAMMAD KHAN,
Secretary of State of Afghanistan.  Illustrations.  Demy 8vo.  2 Vols.

.. vspace:: 2

LUMSDEN OF THE GUIDES.  Being a Sketch of
the Life of Lieut-General Sir Harry Burnett Lumsden, K.C.S.I.,
C.B.  By General Sir PETER S. LUMSDEN, G.C.B., C.S.I., and
GEORGE R. ELSMIE, G.S.I.  Illustrations.  Demy 8vo.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

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Murray's 1/- net Novels, etc.

.. class:: center bold

(Temporarily 1s. 6d. net owing to War Prices.)

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

MICHAEL O'HALLORAN.  By Gene Stratton-Porter.
LADDIE.  By Gene Stratton-Porter.
FRECKLES.  By Gene Stratton-Porter.
QUINNEYS.  By Horace A. Vachell.
LOOT.  By Horace A. Vachell.
Miss ESPERANCE and Mr. WYCHERLY.  By L. Allen Harker.
Mr. WYCHERLY'S WARDS.  By L. Allen Harker.
TOWER OF IVORY.  By Gertrude Atherton.
NOTWITHSTANDING.  By Mary Cholmondeley.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.  By Henry Seton Merriman.
THE SOWERS.  By Henry Seton-Merriman.
JESS.  By H. Rider Haggard.
VICE VERSÂ.  By F. Anstey.
THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.  By A. Conan Doyle.
THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.  By A. Conan Doyle.
THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD.  By A. Conan Doyle.
THE RED HAND OF ULSTER.  By George A. Birmingham.
THE HONOURABLE MOLLY  By Katharine Tynan.
A LIFE'S MORNING.  By George Gissing.
COURT ROYAL.  By S. Baring Gould.
THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS.  By Michael Fairless.
THE LOG OF A SEA WAIF.  By Frank T. Bullen.
THE TALE OF THE GREAT MUTINY.  By Dr. W. H. Fitchett.
NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS.  By Dr. W. H. Fitchett.
WELLINGTON'S MEN.  By Dr. W. H. Fitchett.
A VISION OF INDIA.  By Sidney Low.
THE DEFENCE OF PLEVNA.  By Capt. F. W. von Herbert.
A LONDONER'S LOG.  By Rt. Hon. G. W. E. Russell.
WOODLAND, MOOR AND STREAM.  Edited by J. A. Owen.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

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Murray's Library.

.. class:: center

Crown 8vo.  Cloth, 2s. net each.

.. vspace:: 2

ROUND THE HORN BEFORE THE MAST.
An Account of a Voyage from San Francisco round Cape Horn to
Liverpool in a Fourmasted Windjammer, with experiences of the
life of an Ordinary Seaman.  By BASIL LUBBOCK.  Illustrated.

.. vspace:: 1

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.  A Practical
Explanation.  By the Rt. Rev. CHARLES GORE.

.. vspace:: 1

THE CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT.  By
FRANK T. BULLEN.

.. vspace:: 1

THE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE.  From the
13th to the 16th Centuries.  By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs. Ady).
With Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

AESOP'S FABLES.  A New Version.  By the Rev. Thomas
James.  With 100 Woodcuts by Tenniel and Wolf.

.. vspace:: 1

THE LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE.  By
WILLIAM GARDEN BLAIKIE.  With Portrait.

.. vspace:: 1

LIVINGSTONE'S FIRST EXPEDITION TO
AFRICA.  With Map and numerous Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF
NATURAL SELECTION.  By CHARLES DARWIN.

.. vspace:: 1

SIXTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS.  By
SIR HENRY LUCY.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center

*BY DR. W. H. FITCHETT.*

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE.
FIGHTS FOR THE FLAG.

.. vspace:: 2

ENGLISH BATTLES AND SIEGES OF THE
PENINSULA WAR.  Portrait.  By Sir WM. NAPIER.

.. vspace:: 1

GOLDEN STRING.  A Day Book for Busy Men and
Women.  Arranged by SUSAN, COUNTESS OF MALMESBURY and
Miss VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT.

.. vspace:: 1

THE LION-HUNTER OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Five Years' Adventures in the Far Interior of South Africa.  By
R. GORDON CUMMING.  With Woodcuts.

.. vspace:: 1

UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN.  An Account
of Travels in the Interior, including Visits to the Aborigines of
Yezo and the Shrine of Nikko.  By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA
L. BIRD).  With Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
By Mrs. BISHOP (ISABELLA BIRD).  With Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE, A Personal Narrative
of Adventures, Risks, and Escapes during the American Civil
War.  By THOMAS E. TAYLOR.  Illustrations and Map.

.. vspace:: 1

THE FRESCOES IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
IN ROME.  By EVELYN MARCH PHILLIPPS.  With Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

THE LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA,
1837-1861.  Edited by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, M.A.,
C.V.O., and VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.B., G.C.V.O.  With 16
Portraits.  3 Vols.  1s. net each Vol.

.. vspace:: 1

LAVENGRO: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest.
By GEORGE BORROW.  With 6 Pen and Ink Sketches by PERCY
WADHAM.

.. vspace:: 1

THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME.  By RICHARD JEFFERIES.

.. vspace:: 1

OUR ENGLISH BIBLE: Its Origin and its
Growth.  By H. W. HAMILTON HOARE.  With Portraits and
Specimen pages of Old Bibles.

.. vspace:: 1

THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS.
By H. W. BATES, F.R.S.  Numerous Illustrations.

.. vspace:: 1

DEEDS OF NAVAL DARING; or, Anecdotes
of the British Navy.  By EDWARD GIFFARD.

.. vspace:: 1

HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY.
By the late DEAN STANLEY.

.. vspace:: 1

SINAI AND PALESTINE in connection with
their History.  By the late DEAN STANLEY.  With Maps.

.. vspace:: 1

AN ENGLISHWOMAN'S LOVE LETTERS.

.. vspace:: 1

NOTES FROM A DIARY.  First Series.  By Sir
MOUNTSTUART E. GRANT DUFF.

.. vspace:: 1

STUDIES IN THE ART OF RATCATCHING.
By H. C. BARKLEY.

.. vspace:: 2

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*BY A. C. BENSON.*

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

THE THREAD OF GOLD.
THE HOUSE OF QUIET.  An Autobiography.
THE SCHOOLMASTER.

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.. class:: center

*BY SAMUEL SMILES.*

.. vspace:: 1

SELF-HELP.  With Illustrations of Conduct and
Perseverance.  With Portrait.

.. vspace:: 1

LIFE AND LABOUR; or Characteristics of Men
of Industry, Culture and Genius.

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CHARACTER.  A Book of Noble Characteristics.
With Frontispiece.

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JAMES NASMYTH, Engineer and Inventor of
the Steam Hammer.  An Autobiography.  Portrait and
Illustrations.

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LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

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