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-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-
-
-THE READERS' LIBRARY
-
-Uniform with this Volume
-
-
-BELLOC, H.
-
-  AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
-
-
-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE
-
-  ORBITER DICTA
-
-
-BOURNE, GEORGE
-
-  MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
-
-
-BROOKS, STOPFORD A.
-
-  STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.
-
-
-EVERETT, W.
-
-  ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE
-
-
-GALSWORTHY, JOHN
-
-  A COMMENTARY
-
-
-HUDSON, W. H.
-
-  GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest
-
-  THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance
-
-
-JEFFERIES, RICHARD
-
-  AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-  BEVIS. The Story of a Boy
-
-  AFTER LONDON
-
-
-MCCABE, JOSEPH
-
-  ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE
-
-
-NEVINSON, H. W.
-
-  ESSAYS IN FREEDOM
-
-
-STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE
-
-  ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
-
-  IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes
-
-
-WITTE, DR. CARL
-
-  ESSAYS ON DANTE
-
-
-ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
-
-  THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses
-
-
-ECKENSTEIN, LINA
-
-  COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays in a Branch of Folklore
-
-
-CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, R. B.
-
-  PROGRESS, and other Sketches
-
-
-Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time
-
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-BY
-
-RICHARD JEFFERIES
-
-AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON," "WOOD MAGIC; A
-FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.
-
-          "Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."
-                                                  ALCÆUS.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-          LONDON
-          DUCKWORTH AND CO.
-          3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
-
-
-          Reissued 1904
-          Reprinted in Readers Library 1911
-          _All rights reserved_
-
-
-                 =Dedicated=
-
-                     TO
-
-          CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.[1]
-
-
-"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
-on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
-conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
-sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
-acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
-have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
-write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"
-
-What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
-"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
-that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
-of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
-echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
-says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclopædia." "Has anyone ever been able to
-write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
-asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
-brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
-Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
-dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
-descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
-particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
-and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
-he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
-which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
-Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
-as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
-is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
-touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
-to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
-few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
-one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
-highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
-which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
-voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reader may ask. A
-novel, says the learned Charles Annandale, is "a fictitious prose
-narrative, involving some plot of greater or less intricacy, and
-professing to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting the
-passions and sentiments, in a state of great activity, and especially
-the passion of love." Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious
-prose narrative professing to give a picture of real life, and involving
-a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it exhibits the passions and
-sentiments in a state of great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose
-little book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further remarks:
-"Jefferies was quite unable to give any vivid dramatic life to his
-stories . . . his instinct was that of the naturalist who observes and
-moralizes rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
-interprets; and consequently his rustic characters, though strongly and
-clearly drawn, do not live, as, for example, those of Thomas Hardy
-live. . . . Men and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to be "no ordinary
-novelist," it is inferred by most that something is wrong with
-"Amaryllis the Fair," and the book has been passed over in silence. But
-we do not judge every novel by the same test. We do not judge "Tristram
-Shandy," for example, by its intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we
-judge it simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by its
-humorous insight into human character. And judged by the same simple
-test "Amaryllis at the Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
-creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden, the unsuccessful
-farmer who "built for all time, and not for the circumstances of the
-hour," is a masterly piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal
-portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about Uncle Toby? From what
-void did he spring? Iden, to our mind, is almost as masterly a
-conception, as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And Mrs. Iden,
-where will you find this type of nervous, irritable wife, full of
-spiteful disillusioned love for her dilatory husband better painted than
-by Jefferies? But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the reader may
-say. Excellent reader! and what about the Widow Wadman? She is no less
-and no more of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great feat of
-Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere of the Shandy household,
-but Jefferies has accomplished an artistic feat also in drawing the
-relations of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How true, how
-unerringly true to human nature is this picture of the Iden household;
-how delicately felt and rendered to a hair is his picture of the
-father's sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the waspish
-tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we not only have the family's
-idiosyncrasies, their habits, mental atmosphere, and domestic story
-brought before us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively by the
-hand of the artist, but we have the whole book steeped in the breath of
-English spring, the restless ache of spring that thrills through the
-nerves, and stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring feeling
-breaking from the March heavens and the March earth in copse, meadow,
-and ploughland, as it has scarcely been rendered before by English
-novelist. The description of Amaryllis running out into the March wind
-to call her father from his potato planting to see the daffodil; the
-picture of Iden pretending to sleep in his chair that he may watch the
-mice; the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the crowd of plain,
-ugly men of the countryside flocking along the road to the fair; the
-description of Amadis the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the
-stalwart country folk--all these pictures and a dozen others in the book
-are painted with a masterly hand. Pictures! the critical reader may
-complain. Yes, pictures of living men and women. What does it matter
-whether a revelation of human life is conveyed to us by pictures or by
-action so long as it is conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
-Gray, presumably because both writers have written of the English
-landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in his work as a naturalist and observer
-of wild life may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert White.
-But this classification only applies to one half of Jefferies' books. By
-his "Wild Life in a Southern County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by
-his "Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little apart from the
-poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair" he stands among the half-dozen
-country writers of the century whose work is racy of the English soil
-and of rural English human nature. We will name three of these writers,
-Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and our attentive readers can name the other
-three.
-
-To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is it so masterly, or,
-further, wherein is it so masterly, the curious reader may inquire? "Is
-it not full of digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
-is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly break his method,
-introduce his own personality, intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food,
-illness, and Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's dinner a
-little--well, a little unusual? In short, is not the book a disquisition
-on life from the standpoint of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if
-this is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?" Oh, candid
-reader, with the voice of authority sounding in your ears (and have we
-not Mr. Henley and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against us), a
-book may break the formal rules, and yet it may yield to us just that
-salt of life which we may seek for vainly in the works of more faultless
-writers. The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its beauty
-springs naturally from the prosaic earthly facts of life it narrates,
-and that, in the natural atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose
-and the poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the artistic
-naturalness of its homely picture, the book is very superior to, say
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge," where we are conscious that the author has
-been at work arranging and rearranging his charming studies and
-impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge into the pattern of
-an exciting plot. Now it is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge"--and we cite this novel as characteristic,
-both in its strength and weakness, of its distinguished author,--that we
-are brought to feel that we have not been shown the characters of
-Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but that they have been
-moved about, kaleidoscopically, to suit the exigencies of the plot, and
-that the more this is so the less significance for us have their
-thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling changes of Farfrae and
-Lucetta, Henchard and Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
-listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we perceive indeed
-whence comes that atmosphere of stage crisis and stage effect which
-suddenly introduces a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars the
-artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful in other respects
-to English rural life. Plot is Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed
-and convincing would have been his pictures, if he could have thrown his
-plots and his rustic choruses to the four winds. May we not be thankful,
-therefore, that Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that in
-"Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions, the conversations
-are spontaneous as life, and that Jefferies' commentary on them is like
-Fielding's commentary, a medium by which he lives with his characters.
-The author's imagination, memory, and instinctive perception are,
-indeed, all working together; and so his picture of human life in
-"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as fresh a breath of life
-as we find in Cobbett's, Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
-writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere, his style
-and his subject seem to become one. He moves easily and surely. Out of
-the splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the sensations, the
-observations and revelations of his youth, and the atmosphere familiar
-to him through long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning picture
-for us, a complete illusion of life more true than the reality. For what
-prosaic people call the reality is merely the co-ordination in their own
-minds of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life around them;
-and only this thousandth part they have noticed. But the creative mind
-builds up a living picture out of the thousands of aspects most of us
-are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies has done in "Amaryllis
-at the Fair." The book is rich in the contradictory forces of life, in
-its quick twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working alike
-in the leaves of grass outside the Idens' house, in the blustering winds
-round the walls, and in the minds of the characters indoors; and the
-style has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is growing,
-changing, breathing in the book. But the accomplished critics do not
-notice these trivial strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
-not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently thinks that Jefferies
-made a mistake in drawing his philosophy from an open-air study of
-nature, for he writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
-background was not like Wordsworth's clear and cheerful, but wholly
-vague and partly gloomy." It was neither vague nor gloomy, we may
-remark, parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw too deeply
-into nature's workings, and had too sensuous a joy in life to interpret
-all Nature's doings, à la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously moral
-significance.
-
-The one charge that may with truth be brought against "Amaryllis at the
-Fair" is that its digressions damage the artistic illusion of the whole.
-The book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness of a sketch, a
-sketch, moreover, which Jefferies was not destined to carry to the end
-he had planned, but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
-weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature, rather than those
-of an ambitious studio picture. And these digressions are an integral
-part of the book's character, just as the face of a man has its own
-blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the whole, and so, if they
-break somewhat the illusion of the scenes, they do not damage its
-spiritual unity. It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
-because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and complete testament on
-human life. He wrote it, or rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in
-pain, slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of a dying man.
-How real, how solid, how deliciously sweet seemed those simple earthly
-joys, those human appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
-is his passion and spiritual hunger for the beauty of earth! Like a
-flame shooting up from the log it is consuming, so this passion for the
-green earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine, consumes the
-wasted, consumptive body of the dying man. The reality, the solidity of
-the homely farmhouse life he describes spring from the intensity with
-which he clings to all he loves, the cold March wind buffeting the face,
-the mating cries of the birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so
-terribly strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
-hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving, bitter the
-knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring and vivifying the whole, in
-every line of "Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
-"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished critics. Did he
-not? "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the truest criticisms of human
-life, oh reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness of things,
-the old, old human muddle, the meanness and stupidity and
-shortsightedness of humanity, the good salty taste of life in the
-healthy mouth, the spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
-appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry, and the sharp
-wind blowing alike on the just and the unjust--all is there on the
-printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
-roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
-exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.
-
-                                                    EDWARD GARNETT.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
-immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.
-
-There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
-Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
-bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
-gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
-the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
-The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
-be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
-innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
-growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
-which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
-pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
-morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
-ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."
-
-I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
-patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
-farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
-for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
-But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
-is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
-is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
-because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
-plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
-the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
-nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.
-
-Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
-now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
-a town can never be "home."
-
-Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or
-perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had
-damask roses, bees, and birds about them.
-
-There had been daffodils in that spot at least a century, opening every
-March to the dry winds that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
-and carry them out from the bushes under the trees, sending them across
-the meadow--fleeing like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
-Every spring for a century at least the daffodils had bloomed there.
-
-Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century, but ran round the corner
-of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her
-with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were
-blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of
-her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red
-brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a
-hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under
-her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed as if it would
-scoop them out; her eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips dried
-up and parched in a moment. The wind went through her thick stockings as
-if the wool was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her eyes, and the
-skin of her arm became "goosey" directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it
-would have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step by step, and
-gradually reached the shelter of the high garden wall; there she could
-stand upright, and breathe again.
-
-Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen blast, as if a storm of
-ice particles had been driven against them, now resumed their scarlet,
-but her ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly dark hair was
-dry and rough and without gloss. Each separate hair separated itself
-from the next, and would not lie smooth--the natural unctuous essence
-which usually caused them to adhere was dried up.
-
-The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and
-in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child,
-full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.
-Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.
-
-The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe
-looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow
-with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his
-nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and
-carried him past.
-
-Under the wall was a large patch recently dug, beside the patch a grass
-path, and on the path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in potatoes;
-he wore the raggedest coat ever seen on a respectable back. As the wind
-lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and only hung
-by threads, the cuffs were worn through, there was a hole beneath each
-arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
-which had once been grey, was now a mixture of several soils and
-numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had on was no better; it might have
-been made of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every now and then
-the wind brought a few handfuls of dust over the wall from the road, and
-dropped it on his stooping back.
-
-The way in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato
-was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it
-in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned
-over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and
-when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
-keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried
-the potatoes in his coat pocket--those, that is, for the row--and took
-them out one by one; had he been planting his own children he could not
-have been more careful. The science, the skill, and the experience
-brought to this potato-planting you would hardly credit; for all this
-care was founded upon observation, and arose from very large abilities
-on the part of the planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
-that moment.
-
-So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she ran down the grass path
-and stood by the wheelbarrow, but although her shadow fell across the
-potato row, he would not see her.
-
-"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing bolder. "Do come--there's a
-daffodil out, the very, very first."
-
-"Oh," a sound like a growl--"oh," from the depth of a vast chest
-heaving out a doubtful note.
-
-"It is such a beautiful colour!"
-
-"Where is your mother?" looking at her askance and still stooping.
-
-"Indoors--at least--I think--no----"
-
-"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help her? What good be you on?"
-
-"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very first--now do come!"
-
-"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as that; what do'ee want
-a-messing about arter thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't never
-got a apron on."
-
-"But--just a minute now."
-
-"Go on in, and be some use on."
-
-Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path,
-her head drooping forward.
-
-Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?
-
-She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began
-to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
-foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did
-not see or hear him till he overtook her.
-
-"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.
-
-"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.
-
-"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and brightening up immediately.
-"Only think, to open in all this wind, and so cold--isn't it beautiful?
-It's much more beautiful than the flowers that come in the summer."
-
-"Trumpery rubbish--mean to dig 'em all up--would if I had time,"
-muttered the father. "Have 'em carted out and drowed away--do for ashes
-to drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody, thaay thengs. You
-can't eat 'em, can you, like you can potatoes?"
-
-"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis stepped on the patch
-tenderly, and lifted up the drooping face of the flower.
-
-"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to his chin, a habit of his
-when thinking, and suddenly quite altering his pronunciation from that
-of the country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt to the correct
-accent of education. "Ah, yes; the daffodil was your great-uncle's
-favourite flower."
-
-"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.
-
-"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, noting how handsome her
-father's intellectual face looked, wandered in her mind from the flower
-as he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough sometimes, and why
-he talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged coat--he who was so full
-of wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought, and indeed acted
-as a perfect gentleman.
-
-"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He brought the daffodils down
-from Luckett's; every one in the garden came from there. He was always
-reading poetry, and writing, and sketching, and yet he was such a
-capital man of business; no one could understand that. He built the
-mill, and saved heaps of money; he bought back the old place at
-Luckett's, which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed,
-he very nearly made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got
-rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is all going again--faster
-than he made it. He used to take you on his knee and say you would walk
-well, because you had a good ankle."
-
-Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with her hands, as if that
-would lengthen the skirt and hide the ankles which Richard, the
-great-uncle, had admired when she was a child, being a man, but which
-her feminine acquaintances told her were heavy.
-
-"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish of you to go out in this
-wind without them!" said Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
-Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors again immediately.
-
-"He was the only one of all the family," continued her father, "who
-could make money; all the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
-generations he was the only money-maker and saver, and yet he was as
-free and liberal as possible. Very curious, wasn't it?--only one in ten
-generations--difficult to understand why none of the others--why----" He
-paused, thinking.
-
-Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking--thinking how easily her papa could
-make money, great heaps of money. She was sure he could if he tried,
-instead of planting potatoes.
-
-"If only another Richard would rise up like him!" said Iden.
-
-This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having had one genius in the
-family, and that, too, in the memory of man, they could not expect
-another. Even vast empires rarely produce more than one great man in all
-the course of their history. There was but one Cæsar in the thousand
-years of Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless we except
-Themistocles, or unless we accept Alexander, who was a Macedonian;
-Persia had a Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few people know
-anything of the empire he overshadows with his name; France has had two
-mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon--unfortunate France! As for
-ourselves, fortunate islanders! we have never had a great man so
-immensely great as to overtop the whole, like Charlemagne in his day.
-Fortunate for us, indeed, that it has been so. But the best example to
-the point is the case of the immense empire of Russia, which has had one
-Peter the Great, and one only. Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the
-Great of his family, whose work had been slowly undone by his
-successors.
-
-"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out like Richard," continued
-Iden. "No one could deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
-convincing people, and always got his own will in the end. Wonderful
-man!" he pondered, returning towards his work.
-
-Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden just peered out, and cried,
-"Put your hat and scarf on directly."
-
-Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf very loosely about her
-neck. She accompanied her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
-would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She
-watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped
-so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime
-of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed
-at the shoulders. He worked so hard--ever since she could remember she
-had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was
-yet dark tending the cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
-wind or weather made no difference. Other people stopped indoors if it
-rained much, but it made no difference to her father, nor did the deep
-snow or the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly,
-too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could
-this be?
-
-What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show
-you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as
-ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as
-when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence
-is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-
-PRESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors, and was met in the hall by her
-mother.
-
-"What has he been talking to you about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
-listen to him. He will never do any good. Just look at his coat; it's a
-disgrace, a positive disgrace. Telling you about the old people? What's
-the use of talking of people who have been dead all this time? Why
-doesn't he do something himself? Don't listen to his rubbish--wasting
-his time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one wild! Why doesn't
-he go in to market and buy and sell cattle, and turn over money in that
-way? Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry potatoes, as if it
-mattered an atom how they were stuck in the ground."
-
-Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis went upstairs, and when
-she was alone lifted her skirt and looked at the ankles which
-great-uncle Richard had admired. Other girls had told her they were
-thick, and she was ashamed of them.
-
-Instead of the slender things which seem as if a sudden strain would
-snap them, and are nothing but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
-ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be a fine form; strong,
-but neither thick, nor coarse, nor heavy, ankles that would carry her
-many a mile without weariness, that ended good legs with plenty of flesh
-on them. The stupidity of calling such coarse or heavy! They were really
-ideal ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these ill-instructed
-girls called them coarse! It was not their fault, it was the lack of
-instruction; as they did not know what was physically perfect, of course
-they could not recognize it.
-
-Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of them, for they will prove
-a blessing to her for the whole of her life.
-
-Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though she brushed it for some
-time; it would not lie close, so much had the east wind dried it. She
-opened a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar, and held it
-in her hand, balancing probabilities. Would her father see it if she
-used it, or might he, perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
-bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced to pass through the
-room he would certainly have thrown it out of window, so bitter was his
-antagonism to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and other
-resources of the hairdresser, which he held defiled the hair and ruined
-it, to the deception of woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
-scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief, not one drop
-of oil did she dare put on her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously,
-and then she could not go near him, for he was certain to detect it and
-scorch her with withering satire.
-
-Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes and oils and so forth
-is like a perennial spring, and never fails.
-
-Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed no dressing--nothing
-could possibly improve it, and the chances therefore were that whatever
-she used would injure--yet in her heart she yearned to rub it with oil.
-
-But the more she considered the more probable it seemed that her father
-would detect her; she had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
-somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden was one of those who
-preferred working at home to rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too
-attached to his home work. So she returned the bottle to the drawer, and
-hid it under some stockings.
-
-Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At all meals the rule was
-that there must be no talking, but at dinner the law was so strict that
-even to ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so much as
-"Give me the salt, please," was a deadly sin. There must be absolute
-silence while the master ate. The least infringement was visited with a
-severe glance from his keen and brilliant blue eyes--there are no eyes
-so stern as blue eyes when angry--or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
-grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For he usually stooped,
-and to sit upright showed annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
-were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that house.
-
-Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the dinner hour was worse
-than sacrilege; anything that threatened to disturb it was watched
-intently by that repressive eye. No one must come in or go out of the
-room; if anyone knocked at the door (there are no bells in old country
-houses) there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone answering
-it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis had to leave the table, to go out
-and open and shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again as they
-returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at the door, it was so awful to have
-to stir once they had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
-not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it happened--and this was very
-terrible--that the master himself had to go, some one wanted him about
-some hay or a horse and cart, and no one could tell what to do but the
-master. A dinner broken up in this way was a very serious matter indeed.
-
-That day they had a leg of mutton--a special occasion--a joint to be
-looked on reverently. Mr. Iden had walked into the town to choose it
-himself some days previously, and brought it home on foot in a flag
-basket. The butcher would have sent it, and if not, there were men on
-the farm who could have fetched it, but it was much too important to be
-left to a second person. No one could do it right but Mr. Iden himself.
-There was a good deal of reason in this personal care of the meat, for
-it is a certain fact that unless you do look after such things yourself,
-and that persistently, too, you never get it first-rate. For this cause
-people in grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth eating on their
-tables. Their household expenses reach thousands yearly, and yet they
-rarely have anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never show
-meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's. The meat was dark brown,
-as mutton should be, for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be
-poor; the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter, firm, and yet
-almost crumbling to the touch; it was full of juicy red gravy, and cut
-pleasantly, the knife went through it nicely; you can tell good meat
-directly you touch it with the knife. It was cooked to a turn, and had
-been done at a wood fire on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal
-gas or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it. Such emanations as
-there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the
-sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it
-burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its leaves from the
-atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers. Essences of this order,
-if they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its flavour a
-delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked at a wood fire, for me.
-
-Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure to have their meat
-cooked over coal or in a shut-up iron box, where it kills itself with
-its own steam, which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa people do
-do odd things. _Les Misérables_ who have to write like myself must put
-up with anything and be thankful for permission to exist; but people
-with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware, or mud, or bricks and
-mortar--why on earth these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
-the gods passes understanding.
-
-Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris will convert some of you who
-will not listen to a farmer.
-
-Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that were placed before him.
-They were white, floury, without a drop of water in the whole dish of
-them. They were equal to the finest bread--far, far superior to the
-bread with which the immense city of London permits itself to be
-poisoned. (It is not much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
-too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a price which is in
-itself one of the most wonderful things of the age. The finest bread
-ought to be cheap.
-
-"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping himself to half a dozen.
-"Look at the gravy go up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."
-
-The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury particles of the potatoes
-as if they had formed capillary tubes.
-
-"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty to one. It be an amazing
-theng how thengs do that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
-potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds. Mine comes
-true, 'cause I saves um every year a' purpose. Better take more than
-that (to Amaryllis)--you haven't got but two" (to Mrs. Iden).
-
-What he ate other people at his table must eat, and the largest quantity
-possible. No one else must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but the
-master could talk, talk, talk without end. The only talking that might
-be done by others was in praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so
-carefully provided. You might admire the potatoes or the mutton, but you
-must not talk on any other subject. Nor was it safe even to do that,
-because if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were immediately
-helped to another plateful, and had to finish them, want them or not. If
-you praised the mutton several thick slices were placed on your plate,
-and woe to you if you left a particle. It was no use to try and cover
-over what you could not manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be
-seen. "What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there juicy bit, you?"
-
-Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous experience, discreetly
-refrained from admiring either mutton or potatoes.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-
-"FORTY-FOLDS," went on the master, "be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
-be so many new sorts now, but they bean't no good; they be very good for
-gentlefolk as doan't know no better, and poor folk as can't help
-theirselves. They won't grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
-patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's that's big middle patch.
-Summat different in the soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be
-learned before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such a simple
-thing. Farty-folds----"
-
-"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his provincial pronunciation
-with extreme disgust in her tone.
-
-"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be ould potatoes, and thur
-bean't none as can beat um."
-
-The more she showed her irritation at his speech or ways, the more he
-accentuated both language and manner.
-
-"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden. It was true, Iden did
-talk with his mouth full, very full indeed, for he fed heartily. The
-remark annoyed him; he grunted and spluttered and choked a
-little--floury things are choky. He got it down by taking a long draught
-at his quart of strong ale. Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to
-induce you to make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk again.
-
-"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede greens; I axed un three days
-ago; I know'd we was going to have this yer mutton. You got to settle
-these yer things aforehand."
-
-"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing fond of um, so be the
-larks. These be the best as thur was. They be the best things in the
-world for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all physic. If you can
-get fresh swede tops you don't want a doctor within twenty miles.
-Their's nothing in all the chemists' shops in England equal to swede
-greens"--helping himself to a large quantity of salt.
-
-"What a lot of salt you _do_ eat!" muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Onely you must have the real swedes--not thuck stuff they sells in
-towns; greens they was once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
-haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely to be got about March."
-
-"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in London," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They bean't no good; you might as
-well eat dried leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green shoots
-of spring"--suddenly changing his pronunciation as he became interested
-in his subject and forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
-wife. "They are full of sap--fresh sap--the juice which the plant
-extracts from the earth as the active power of the sun's rays increases.
-It is this sap which is so good for the blood. Without it the vegetable
-is no more than a woody fibre. Why the sap should be so powerful I
-cannot tell you; no one knows, any more than they know _how_ the plant
-prepares it. This is one of those things which defy analysis--the
-laboratory is at fault, and can do nothing with it." ("More salt!"
-muttered Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of salt?") "There
-is something beyond what the laboratory can lay hands on; something that
-cannot be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by quantity, quality,
-or by any means. They analyse champagne, for instance; they find so many
-parts water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much that; but out of
-the hundred parts there remain ten--I think it is ten--at all events so
-many parts still to be accounted for. They escape, they are set down as
-volatile--the laboratory has not even a distinct name for this
-component; the laboratory knows nothing at all about it, cannot even
-name it. But this unknown constituent is the real champagne. So it is
-with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other
-times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."
-
-"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden, defiantly, stretching out
-her hand to the cruet.
-
-Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention of vinegar had set his
-teeth on edge. He looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
-close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede
-greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar
-was utterly antagonistic--destructive of the sap-principle, altogether
-wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying good and precious food.
-
-Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken the vinegar herself, but as
-her mother passed the cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed
-vinegar with the green vegetables. All women like vinegar.
-
-When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand Mr. Iden deigned to look
-round again at the table.
-
-"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to Amaryllis, who was cutting a
-piece of bread. She put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
-"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty times? Cutting towards your
-thumb like that! Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
-slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it to me."
-
-He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the slice across the table
-so accurately that it fell exactly into its proper place by her plate.
-He had a habit of tossing things in that way.
-
-"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?" said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging
-in that manner! I hate to see it."
-
-Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took the lesson in
-bread-cutting to heart, as she had done twenty times before. But she
-knew she should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style when out of
-his sight. She could not do it in the safe way--it was so much easier in
-the other; and if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.
-
-"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the master, getting up with his
-plate in his hand.
-
-"Whatever _are_ you going to do now?" asked Mrs. Iden, who knew
-perfectly well.
-
-"Going to warm the plate." He went out into the kitchen, sat down by the
-fire, and carefully warmed his plate for a second helping.
-
-"I should think you couldn't want any more," said Mrs. Iden when he came
-back. "You had enough the first time for three."
-
-But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and had never ruined his
-digestion with vinegar or sauces, piled another series of thick slices
-on his plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to the meat a just
-proportion of vegetables. In proportion and a just mixture the secret of
-eating successfully consisted, according to him.
-
-First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton, this was immediately
-followed by a portion of floury potato, next by a portion of swede
-tops, and then, lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth, he
-took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten and cleanse his teeth.
-Finally came a draught of strong ale, and after a brief moment the same
-ingredients were mixed in the same order as before. His dinner was thus
-eaten in a certain order, and with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each
-particular flavour like a rhyme in its proper position, and duly putting
-it out with its correct successor. Always the savour of meat and gravy
-and vegetables had to be toned down by the ultimate bread, a vast piece
-of which he kept beside him. He was a great bread eater--it was always
-bread after everything, and if there were two courses then bread between
-to prepare the palate, and to prevent the sweets from quarrelling with
-the acids. Organization was the chief characteristic of his mind--his
-very dinner was organized and well planned, and any break or disturbance
-was not so much an annoyance in itself as destructive of a clever
-design, like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical spider.
-
-This order of mouthfuls had been explained over and over again to the
-family, and if they felt that he was in a more than usually terrible
-mood, and if they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some extent
-submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis, however, could ever educate
-their palates into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden was not
-in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they wandered about irregularly in
-their eating. When the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
-they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking" little fragments of
-pies, or cold fowl, even a cold potato, the smallest mug--a quarter of a
-pint of the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be had, a sip of
-port wine. These women were very irrational in their feeding; they
-actually put vinegar on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
-pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning. They had a herring
-sometimes for tea--the smell of it cooking sent the master into fits of
-indignation, he abominated it so, but they were so hardened and lost to
-righteousness they always repeated the offence next time the itinerant
-fish-dealer called. You could not drum them into good solid,
-straightforward eating.
-
-They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to eat in the kitchen after
-dinner, for Mr. Iden considered that no one could need a second course
-after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel of cheese if you
-liked--nothing more. In summer the great garden abounded with fruit; he
-would have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day after day, or else
-black-currant pudding. He held that black currants were the most
-wholesome fruit that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite clean
-he would rub them with black-currant leaves to give them a pleasant
-aromatic odour (as ladies use scented soap). He rubbed them with
-walnut-leaves for the same purpose.
-
-Of salad in its season he was a great eater, cucumber especially, and
-lettuce and celery; but a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of
-Worcester sauce) was a horror to him. A principle ran through all his
-eating--an idea, a plan and design.
-
-I assure you it is a very important matter this eating, a man's fortune
-depends on his dinner. I should have been as rich as Croesus if I
-could only have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I should, now
-I come to look back.
-
-The soundest and most wholesome food in the world was set on Mr. Iden's
-table; you may differ from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
-dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh vegetables and fruit
-and salad, and the Goliath ale.
-
-When he had at last finished his meal he took his knife and carefully
-scraped his crumbs together, drawing the edge along the cloth, first one
-way and then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating so much
-bread, he made many crumbs. Having got them together, he proceeded to
-shovel them into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that not one
-was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a little moist sugar over them with
-his finger and thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and cheese,
-and sat down with it in his arm-chair by the fire, spreading his large
-red-and-yellow silk handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
-lieu of a plate.
-
-"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table, like other people?" said
-Mrs. Iden, shuffling her feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
-in the throat was the answer she received; at the same time he turned
-his arm-chair more towards the fire, as much as to say, "Other people
-are nothing to me."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-THIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make, had lost an arm--the screw
-remained sticking up, but the woodwork on that side was gone. It had
-been accidentally broken some ten years since; yet, although he used the
-chair every day, the arm had never been mended. Awkward as it was, he
-let it alone.
-
-"Hum! where's _The Standard_, then?" he said presently, as he nibbled
-his cheese and sipped the ale which he had placed on the hob.
-
-"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with the paper.
-
-"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs. Iden. "Thought there was
-nothing but lies and rubbish in them, according to you?"
-
-"No more thur bean't."
-
-"You always take good care to read them, though."
-
-"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another slight turn of the chair. He
-could not answer this charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that
-he affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it with avidity, and
-would almost as soon have missed his ale as his news.
-
-However, to settle with his conscience, he had a manner of holding the
-paper half aslant a good way from him, and every now and then as he read
-uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.
-
-The master's taking up his paper was a signal for all other persons to
-leave the room, and not to return till he had finished his news and his
-nap.
-
-Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each took as many of the
-dishes as they could carry, for it was uncertain when they could come in
-again to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved, the door opened,
-or the slightest sound heard till the siesta was over.
-
-"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock," said Mrs. Iden as she
-went, "and then you want your tea--senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
-and the master was left to himself.
-
-By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped his newspaper, and
-arranged himself for slumber. His left elbow he carefully fitted to the
-remnant of the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief, red
-and yellow, he gathered into a loose pad in his left hand for his cheek
-and temple to rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand and arm,
-while the side of his head touched and rested against the wainscot of
-the wall.
-
-Just where his head touched it the wainscot had been worn away by the
-daily pressure, leaving a round spot. The wood was there exposed--a
-round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being completely bare of
-varnish. So many nods--the attrition of thirty years and more of
-nodding--had gradually ground away the coat with which the painter had
-originally covered the wood. It even looked a little hollow--a little
-depressed--as if his head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
-probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the difference in colour
-between the wood and the varnish around it.
-
-This human mark reminded one of the grooves worn by the knees of
-generations of worshippers in the sacred steps of the temple which they
-ascended on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion, as Mrs. Iden
-and others, not very keen observers, would have said, to the god of
-Sleep; in truth, it was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
-throne of the god of Thought.
-
-It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement assumed this posture
-of slumber, and commanded silence. But thought which has been cultivated
-for a third of a century is apt to tone down to something very near
-somnolence.
-
-That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy of preservation as those
-on which the early artists delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for
-which high prices are now paid. It was intensely--superlatively--human.
-Worn in slow time by a human head within which a great mind was working
-under the most unhappy conditions, it had the deep value attaching to
-inanimate things which have witnessed intolerable suffering.
-
-I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured
-any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
-should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which
-Koh-i-noors would be mud.
-
-I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.
-
-That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for
-the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a
-generation.
-
-That mark upon the panel had still a further meaning, it represented the
-unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
-family of Idens had endured already two hundred years of unhappiness and
-discordance for no original fault of theirs, simply because they had
-once been fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to work out that
-hour of sunshine to the utmost depths of shadow.
-
-The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark had been worn was in
-effect a cross upon which a human heart had been tortured--and thought
-can, indeed, torture--for a third of a century. For Iden had learned to
-know himself, and despaired.
-
-Not long after he had settled himself and closed his eyes the handle of
-the door was very softly turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book,
-which she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on tiptoe without a
-sound, but in shutting the door the lock clicked, and she heard him
-kick the fender angrily with his iron-shod heel.
-
-After that there was utter silence, except the ticking of the American
-clock--a loud and distinct tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
-room.
-
-Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the window, a noiseless shadow;
-Mrs. Iden had come quietly round the house, and stood in the March wind,
-watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl about her shoulders--she put
-out her clenched hand from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
-muttering to herself, "Never _do_ anything; nothing but sleep, sleep,
-sleep: talk, talk, talk; never _do_ anything. That's what I hate."
-
-The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common American clock continued
-its loud tick, tick.
-
-Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be audible among the cinders in
-the fender. The dry cinders were pushed about by something passing
-between them. After a while a brown mouse peered out at the end of the
-fender under Iden's chair, looked round a moment, and went back to the
-grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured somewhat farther across
-the width of the white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
-advance was made step by step, but on reaching the carpet the mouse
-rushed home to cover in one run--like children at "touch wood," going
-out from a place of safety very cautiously, returning swiftly. The next
-time another mouse followed, and a third appeared at the other end of
-the fender. By degrees they got under the table, and helped themselves
-to the crumbs; one mounted a chair and reached the cloth, but soon
-descended, afraid to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at their
-dinner.
-
-The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if carved.
-
-A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued iron-shod boot--the
-foot that rested on the fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
-and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained by labour, was
-drawn up somewhat higher than the boot. It took the mouse several trials
-to reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously mounted to
-Iden's knee. Another quickly followed, and there the pair of them
-feasted on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of his
-trousers.
-
-One great brown hand was in his pocket, close to them--a mighty hand,
-beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What
-would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that
-could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut?
-
-The size--the mass--the weight of his hand alone was as a hill
-overshadowing them; his broad frame like the Alps; his head high above
-as a vast rock that overhung the valley.
-
-His thumb-nail--widened by labour with spade and axe--his thumb-nail
-would have covered either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
-Ajax.
-
-Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still, so
-_very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did the wall;
-they could not hear his breathing.
-
-Had they been gifted with human intelligence that very fact would have
-excited their suspicions. Why so very, _very_ still? Strong men, wearied
-by work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep
-we move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or
-stretches itself.
-
-But Iden was so still it was evident he was really wide awake and
-restraining his breath, and exercising conscious command over his
-muscles, that this scene might proceed undisturbed.
-
-Now the strangeness of the thing was in this way: Iden set traps for
-mice in the cellar and the larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
-picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the door at the same
-instant, and the wretched captive was dashed to death upon the stone
-flags of the floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in one place,
-and fed them in another.
-
-A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent
-inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go
-on recording facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing is
-consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no
-association with a living person.
-
-From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched
-the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb,
-they descended his leg to the floor.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened
-that slumber was induced by the position in which he placed himself;
-slumber, however, was not his intent. He liked to rest after his midday
-meal and think. There was no real loss of time in it--he had been at
-work since half-past five.
-
-His especial and striking characteristic was a very large, high, and
-noble forehead--the forehead attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his
-busts. Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he was not
-altogether a man of action. He was, indeed, an actor upon the stage;
-once he stole the red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
-not sail to the then new discovered lands of America, nor did he fight
-the Spaniards. So much intellect is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or
-rather it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs to the
-position of commander. If Shakespeare by the chance of birth, or other
-accident, had had the order of England's forces, we should have seen
-generalship such as the world had not known since Cæsar.
-
-His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till opportunity came. We
-have great thoughts instead of battles.
-
-Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for Shakespeare's. There was
-too much thought in it for the circumstances of his life. It is possible
-to think till you cannot act.
-
-After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a few minutes. When he awoke
-he looked at the clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven of the
-grate, took out a baked apple. He had one there ready for him almost
-always--always, that is, when they were not ripe on the trees.
-
-A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome thing in the world; it
-corrected the stomach, prevented acidity, improved digestion, and gave
-tone to all the food that had been eaten previously. If people would
-only eat baked apples they would not need to be for ever going to the
-chemists' shops for drugs and salines to put them right. The women were
-always at the chemists' shops--you could never pass the chemists' shops
-in the town without seeing two or three women buying something.
-
-The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural medicine of man--and the
-best flavoured. It was compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
-of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind and shower in such a
-way that no laboratory could imitate: and so on in a strain and with a
-simplicity of language that reminded you of Bacon and his philosophy of
-the Elizabethan age.
-
-Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian culture, naturally,
-and not from any study of that author, whose books he had never seen.
-The great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and garden, and gathered
-his ideas from the fields.
-
-Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden. Look at a Blenheim orange,
-the inimitable mixture of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
-not bright colours--undertones of bright colours--smoothed together and
-polished, and made the more delightful by occasional roughness in the
-rind. Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was getting older he
-found, however, that the finest of them all was the russet. For eating,
-at its proper season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply the
-Imperial Cæsar and Sultan of apples; whether for baking, or pies, or
-sauce, there was none to equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true
-russet was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary that it should
-be the real russet. Indeed in apple trees you had to be as careful of
-breeding and pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about their
-horses.
-
-Ripe apples could not be got all the year round in any variety; besides
-which, in winter and cold weather the crudity of the stomach needed to
-be assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake them.
-
-People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days; they had too much
-butcher's meat, and not enough fruit--that is, home-grown fruit,
-straight from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold in the
-shops, picked before it was ready.
-
-The Americans were much wiser (he knew a good deal about America--he had
-been there in his early days, before thought superseded action)--the
-Americans had kept up many of the fine old English customs of two or
-three hundred years since, and among these was the eating of fruit. They
-were accused of being so modern, so very, very modern, but, in fact, the
-country Americans, with whom he had lived (and who had taught him how to
-chop) maintained much of the genuine antique life of old England.
-
-They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that the same trees
-produced an apple having a slightly different flavour to what it had in
-this country. You could always distinguish an American apple by its
-peculiar piquancy--a sub-acid piquancy, a wild strawberry piquancy, a
-sort of woodland, forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so on, and
-so on--"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden said.
-
-After his baked apple he took another guilty look at the clock, it was
-close on four, and went into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
-these places are called passages; in the smallest of villas, wretched
-little villas not fit to be called houses, they are always "halls."
-
-In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him, and began to thump his
-broad though bowed back with all her might.
-
-"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a thump at each word.
-"You've slept two hours. (Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
-(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the use of digging? (Thump.)
-Why don't you make some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.) I hate
-it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off the wainscot with your sleep,
-sleep, sleep (thump)--there's one of your hairs sticking to the paint
-where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything more hateful--sleep (thump),
-talk (thump), sleep (thump). Go on!"
-
-She had thumped him down the passage, and across the covered-in court to
-the door opening on the garden. There he paused to put on his hat--an
-aged, battered hat--some sort of nondescript bowler, broken, grey,
-weather-stained, very battered and very aged--a pitiful hat to put above
-that broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted it on he was thumped
-severely: when he opened the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up
-at the sky to see about the weather--a habit all country people
-have--and so got more thumping, ending as he started out with a
-tremendous push. He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the push
-accelerate his pace; he took it very much as he took the March wind.
-
-Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to clear the dinner things, and
-make ready for tea. Amaryllis helped her.
-
-"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs. Iden. "What's the use of
-his going out to work for half an hour?"
-
-Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her father; he never did
-anything wrong in her eyes, and she could have pointed out that when he
-sat down to dinner at one he had already worked as many hours as Mrs.
-Iden's model City gentleman in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in
-effect, equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over which they
-frequently lingered an hour or two. He would still go on labouring,
-almost another half day. But she held her peace, for, on the other hand,
-she could not contradict and argue with her mother, whom she knew had
-had a wearisome life and perpetual disappointments.
-
-Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself into a more fiery
-passion, till at last she put down the tea-pot, and rushed into the
-garden. There as she came round the first thing she saw was the
-daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had discovered. Beside
-herself with indignation--what was the use of flowers or potatoes?--Mrs.
-Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower under foot till it
-was shapeless. After this she rushed indoors again and upstairs to her
-bedroom, where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in the old black
-oak chest of drawers till she found a faded lavender glove.
-
-That glove had been worn at the old "Ship" at Brighton years and years
-ago in the honeymoon trip: in those days bridal parties went down by
-coach. Faded with years, it had also faded from the tears that had
-fallen upon it. She turned it over in her hands, and her tears spotted
-it once more.
-
-Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her mother to rush away in
-that manner was nothing new. She toasted her father a piece of toast--he
-affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it was there, and
-looked about for it if it was not, though he never said anything. The
-clock struck five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready. Coming
-round the house she found her daffodil crushed to pieces.
-
-"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead; then her beautiful lips pouted
-and quivered; tears filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
-immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom to cry and to hide
-her grief and indignation.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-LADY-DAY Fair came round by and by, and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock
-in the morning, went down the garden to the end of the orchard, where
-she could overlook the highway without being seen, and watch the folk go
-past. Just there the road began to descend into a hollow, while the
-garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning her arm on the top of
-the wall, was much higher up than those who went along. The wall dropped
-quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red brick wall--thick and
-closely-built, the bricks close together with thin seams of mortar, so
-that the fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed and bound
-firm, like the fibres of a piece of iron. The deep red bricks had a
-colour--a certain richness of stability--and at the top this good piece
-of workmanship was protected from the weather by a kind of cap, and
-ornamented with a projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
-stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it. Without there was a
-sheer red precipice of fourteen feet down to the dusty sward and
-nettles beside the road.
-
-Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against the wall rose thin and
-tapering above it in a bunch, a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to
-have been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance of neglect.
-One heavy bough had broken away from the nails and list, and drooped to
-the ground, and the shoots of last year, not having been trimmed, thrust
-themselves forward presumptuously.
-
-Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches rising above the wall
-Amaryllis was partly hidden, but she relied a great deal more for
-concealment upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very seldom
-look up; and consequently if you are only a little higher they will not
-see you. This she proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
-glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his eye fixed on his sheep,
-and the drover on his bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
-fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had on a bit of blue ribbon or
-a new bonnet, and were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
-them to see if the men admired their finery. No one looked up from the
-road they were pursuing.
-
-The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by a sort of stand at the
-back, which holds it steady in one position while the camera takes the
-picture. In life most people have their heads fixed in the claws of
-some miserable pettiness, which interests them so greatly that they
-tramp on steadily forward, staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
-fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they are travelling.
-
-Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair or the people either,
-knowing very well what sort they would be; but I suspect, if it had been
-possible to have got at the cause which brought her there, it would have
-been traced to the unconscious influence of sex, a perfectly innocent
-prompting, quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and who would
-indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject, but which leads girls of
-her age to seize opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
-uninteresting order. Still they are men, those curious beings, that
-unknown race, and little bits of knowledge about them may, perhaps, be
-picked up by a diligent observer.
-
-The men who drifted along the road towards the Fair were no "mashers, by
-Jove!" Some of them, though young, were clad antiquely enough in
-breeches and gaiters--not sportsmen's breeches and gaiters, but
-old-fashioned "granfer" things; the most of them were stout and sturdy,
-in drab and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds of them on
-foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on horseback, went under
-Amaryllis: but, though they were all Christians, there was not one
-"worth a Jewess' eye."
-
-She scorned them all.
-
-This member of the unknown race was too thickly made, short set, and
-squat; this one too fair--quite white and moist-sugar looking; this one
-had a straight leg.
-
-Another went by with a great thick and long black beard--what a horrid
-thing, now, when kissing!--and as he walked he wiped it with his sleeve,
-for he had just washed down the dust with a glass of ale. His neck, too,
-was red and thick; hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man all
-over, as far as body makes a man.
-
-But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges. "Care I for the thews
-and sinews of a man?" They look for something more than bulk.
-
-A good many of these fellows were more or less lame, for it is
-astonishing if you watch people go by and keep account of them what a
-number have game legs, both young and old.
-
-A young buck on a capital horse was at the first glance more
-interesting--paler, rakish, a cigar in his mouth, an air of viciousness
-and dash combined, fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in
-short, he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of sheep and
-corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked him more than all the rest put
-together; she shrank back a little from the wall lest he should chance
-to look up; she would have feared to have been alone with such a
-character, and yet she could not have said why. She would not have
-feared to walk side by side with the great black beard--hideous as he
-was--nor with any of the rest, not even with the roughest of the
-labourers who tramped along. This gentleman alone alarmed her.
-
-There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day holiday, coming by at the
-same time; they had on their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
-nice. They turned round to watch him coming, and half waited for him;
-when he came up he checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them. Nothing
-loth, the village girls "cheeked" him, and so they passed on.
-
-One or two very long men appeared, unusually clumsy, even in walking
-they did not know exactly what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
-objection to their being tall--indeed, to be tall is often a passport to
-a "Jewess' eye"--but they were so clumsy.
-
-Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles she could not see much
-but their clothes and their faces, and both the clothes and the faces
-were very much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the shoulders were
-too broad for the tailor, who wanted to force Bond Street measurements
-on the British farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
-hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and that was all. Scores of men,
-precisely similar, were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
-hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not have peeled rods to
-make them bring forth speckled lambs.
-
-Against the stile a long way up the road there was a group of five or
-six men, who were there when she first peered over the wall, and made
-no further progress to the Fair. They were waiting till some
-acquaintance came by and offered a lift; lazy dogs, they could not walk.
-They had already been there long enough to have walked to the Fair and
-back, still they preferred to fold their hands and cross their legs, and
-stay on. So many people being anxious to get to the town, most of those
-who drove had picked up friends long before they got here.
-
-The worst walker of all was a constable, whose huge boots seemed to take
-possession of the width of the road, for he turned them out at right
-angles, working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary exhibition
-of stupidity and ugliness, for which the authorities who drilled him in
-that way were responsible, and not the poor fellow.
-
-Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep there drifted by a variety
-of human animals, tramps and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as
-the wool and beef.
-
-It is curious that these "characters"--as they are so kindly
-called--have a way of associating themselves with things that promise
-vast enjoyment to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless wretches who
-thread their path in and out the coaches at the Derby is wonderful.
-While the champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman between
-the shafts sits on an upturned hamper and helps himself out of another
-to pie with truffles, the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round
-about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve after the fall at the
-edge of Paradise.
-
-There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at the Derby that you might
-think the race was got up entirely for their sakes. There would be
-thousands at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a half-crown bolt, and
-they cannot get a stare at the fashionables on the lawn. For all that,
-the true tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant at races
-and all kinds of accessible entertainments and public events that the
-features of the fashionable are better known to him than to hundreds of
-well-to-do people unable to enter society.
-
-So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in the dust, among the
-cattle and sheep, hands in pockets, head hanging down, most of them
-followed at a short distance by a Thing.
-
-This Thing is upright, and therefore, according to the old definition,
-ought to come within the genus Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling
-those of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a woman once;
-perhaps it never was, for many of them have never had a chance to enter
-the ranks of their own sex.
-
-Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence, too full of her own
-strength and youth and joy in life to think for long or seriously about
-these curious Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her brow
-contracted, and she drew herself together as they passed--a sort of
-shiver, to think that there should be such degradation in the world.
-Twice when they came along her side of the road she dropped pennies in
-front of them, which they picked up in a listless way, just glancing
-over the ear in the direction the money fell, and went on without so
-much as recognizing where it came from.
-
-If sheep were treated as unfortunate human beings are, they would take a
-bitter revenge; though they are the mildest of creatures, they would
-soon turn round in a venomous manner. If they did not receive sufficient
-to eat and drink, and were not well sheltered, they would take a bitter
-revenge: _they would die_. Loss of £ s. d.!
-
-But human beings have not even got the courage or energy to do that;
-they put up with anything, and drag on--miserables that they are.
-
-I said they were not equal in value to the sheep--why, they're not worth
-anything when they're dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
-Things!
-
-Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the fair, where there will be
-an immense amount of eating and a far larger amount of drinking all
-round them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight. They will see
-valuable animals, and men with well-lined pockets. What on earth can a
-tramp find to please him among all this? It is not for him; yet he goes
-to see it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-
-THE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
-the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was
-moving. They were going to the fair; he had his back to it, and a party
-in a trap rallied him smartly for his folly.
-
-"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why, Measter Duck, what's up? Looking
-for a thunderstorm?"--which young ducks are supposed to enjoy. "Ha! ha!
-ha!"
-
-Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face, nevertheless plodded up the
-hill, and passed beneath Amaryllis.
-
-She knew him very well, for he lived in the hamlet, but she would not
-have taken any notice of him had he not been so elaborately dressed. His
-high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth coat was new and
-carefully brushed; he was in black all over, in contrast with the mass
-of people who had gone by that morning. A blue necktie, bright and
-clean, spotless linen, gloves rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers
-brushed, boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the fair!
-
-The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact, no chance to do
-otherwise, for his great back and shoulders stretched it tight, and
-would have done so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big men who
-had gone by that day Jack Duck was the biggest; his back was immense,
-and straight, too, for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his bulk
-altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened with abdomen, so
-that it showed to the best advantage. He was a little over the average
-height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.
-
-He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground. You just try to lift
-_one_.
-
-His sleeves were too long, so that only the great knuckles of his
-speckled hands were visible. Red whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled
-face, straight lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher, and
-of much the same coarse red hue, always a ready grin, a round, hard
-head, which you might have hit safely with a mallet; and there is the
-picture.
-
-For some reason, very big men do not look well in glossy black coats and
-silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
-than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour,
-suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. They do not belong to
-the town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for hills and fields.
-
-Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen are big, and
-therefore, as their "best" suits do not fit in with their character as
-written in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us clumsy. The
-truth is, it is the Continent that is little.
-
-"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking down on poor John Duck.
-"Isn't he ugly?" Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss, which
-has a way of growing into bricks and mortar, and attaching particles of
-brick to its roots. As she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
-with a little piece of moss--her hand happened at the moment to project
-over the wall, and as John Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
-straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of brick adhering to the
-moss struck the hollow hat smartly like a drum.
-
-She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing, and angry with herself all
-at the same time, for she had done it without a thought.
-
-Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it on again, suspecting
-that some one in a passing gig had "chucked" something at him.
-
-In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall, and, seeing his broad back a
-long way up the road, resumed her stand.
-
-"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?" she thought. "But isn't he
-ugly? Aren't they _all_ ugly? All of them--horridly ugly."
-
-The entire unknown race of Man was hideous. So coarse in feature--their
-noses were thick, half an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
-the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a reaping-hook, or slewed
-to one side, or flat as if they had been smashed, or short and stumpy
-and incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned up in the
-vulgarest manner--nobody had a good nose.
-
-Their eyes were goggles, round and staring--like liquid marbles--they
-had no eyelashes, and their eyebrows were either white and invisible, or
-shaggy, as if thistles grew along their foreheads.
-
-Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red and brick-dust and
-leather-coloured, and enclosed with scrubby whiskers, like a garden
-hedge.
-
-Upon the whole, those who shaved and were smooth looked worse than those
-who did not, for they thus exposed the angularities of their chins and
-jaws.
-
-They wore such horrid hats on the top of these roughly-sketched
-faces--sketched, as it were, with a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had
-their hats on the backs of their heads, and some wore them aslant, and
-some jammed over their brows.
-
-They went along smoking and puffing, and talking and guffawing in the
-vulgarest way, _en route_ to swill and smoke and puff and guffaw
-somewhere else.
-
-Whoever could tell what they were talking about? these creatures.
-
-They had no form or grace like a woman--no lovely sloped shoulders, no
-beautiful bosom, no sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No softness
-of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or taper fingers, or arched
-eyebrows; no sort of style whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
-in short, sublimely ugly.
-
-There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis' reflections; it was a pity
-a woman was not taken into confidence when the men were made.
-
-Suppose the women were like the men, and we had to make love to such a
-set of bristly, grisly wretches!--pah! shouldn't we think them ugly! The
-patience of the women, putting up with us so long!
-
-As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves so much, in a woman's
-eyes (though she prefers a strong man) they simply increase our
-extraordinary ugliness.
-
-But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then they despise us, and
-there is no doubt that altogether the men were made wrong.
-
-"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot," thought Amaryllis. "He just
-_is_ ugly."
-
-Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and
-entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr.
-Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had seated himself on a
-stool.
-
-He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid, rough as a chunk of wood,
-but dressed in his best brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
-vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances to Mr. Iden:--
-
-"Now, just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman," he
-concluded as Duck arrived. Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity
-to escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he had patiently
-listened, took Jack by the arm, and led him indoors. As they went the
-man on the stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:--"Just you
-see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman!"
-
-A good many have been "helped up" with a woman before now.
-
-Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile--she always did--yet there
-could not have been imagined a man less likely to have pleased her.
-
-A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or
-foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome
-John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous
-mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always
-complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
-to her own disposition that charmed her.
-
-John Duck was Another Man--not Mr. Iden.
-
-The best of matrons like to see Another Man enter their houses; there's
-no viciousness in it, it is simply nature, which requires variety. The
-best of husbands likes to have another woman--or two, or three--on a
-visit; there's nothing wrong, it is innocent enough, and but gives a
-spice to the monotony of existence.
-
-Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness and stolidity, was not
-perhaps a fool, notwithstanding his outward clumsiness. A little
-attention is appreciated even by a matron of middle age.
-
-"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and Mrs. Iden brought a full jug
-with her own hands--a rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
-Iden enjoyed it.
-
-"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"
-
-"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and gruff, about as a horse
-might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just
-come up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"
-
-John had a first-rate turn-out.
-
-Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she was not going to the
-fair.
-
-"Should be glad to take you, you know," said John, dipping into the ale.
-"Shall you be going presently?"--to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have a
-seat?"
-
-"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a trick he had when undecided.
-"I don't zactly know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge grubbed;
-want to fill up the gaps; want to go over to the wood meads; thought
-about----"
-
-"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit there thinking--take and go."
-
-"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have anything to go vor."
-
-"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden, contemptuously. "Why
-can't you do like other people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
-can wait--he can talk to Amaryllis while you dress."
-
-"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested John, very quietly, and as if
-it was no consequence to him; the very thing he had called for, to see
-if he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He knew that Mrs. Iden
-never went anywhere, and that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
-minute--he would require three or four days at least--so that it was
-quite safe to ask them first.
-
-"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She is going--to dine with her
-grandfather; it will save her a long walk. You had better go and ask
-her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the people."
-
-"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great bow window at the
-mention of Plum Corner--he could just see the flutter of Amaryllis'
-dress in the distance between the trees. That part of the garden was
-called Plum Corner because of a famous plum tree--the one that had not
-been pruned and was sprawling about the wall.
-
-Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for Mrs. Iden, because she
-was so fond of a ripe luscious plum. But of late years he had not pruned
-it.
-
-"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug. "Extra vine ale!"
-
-"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.
-
-It really was humming stuff, but John well knew how proud Iden was of
-it, and how much he liked to hear it praised.
-
-The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly imagine that no one
-can be sharp-witted outside the sound of Bow Bells--country people are
-stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck, who took about half an hour
-to write his name, was equal to most of them.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-THE ale being ended, Iden walked with him through the orchard.
-
-"Famous wall that," said John, presently, nodding towards the great red
-brick wall which adorned that side of the place. "Knowed how to build
-walls in those days."
-
-"No such wall as that anywhere about here," said Iden, as proud of his
-wall as his ale. "No such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to put
-up a wall now--you read in the papers how the houses valls down in
-Lunnon."
-
-"Sort of cracks and comes in like--jest squashes up," said John.
-
-"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden. "That'll last--ah,
-last----"
-
-"No end to it," said John, who had admired the wall forty times before,
-thinking to himself as he saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner,
-"Blessed if I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my hat."
-This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably clear idea that Mr. and
-Mrs. Iden were not averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
-Amaryllis herself.
-
-Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had so much as looked at
-her--he called often, but seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy
-her scorn if she had guessed!
-
-John Duck was considered one of the most eligible young men thereabouts,
-for though by no means born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
-was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his father died. Old Duck, the
-son of a common labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms in
-the neighbourhood. He made his money in a waggon--a curious place, you
-will say; why so? Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets they
-call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended the dirty, unscrubbed,
-disgraceful staircase that leads to a famous barrister's "chambers"?
-These are far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon in a
-beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck, being too ponderous to walk,
-was driven about in a waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
-legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted in a commanding
-position, he overlooked his men at work.
-
-One day he was put in a cart instead, and the carter walking home beside
-the horse, and noting what a pull it was for him up the hills, and
-drawling along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and dreamed he had
-a load of stones. By-and-by, he pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck
-out. "A shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a been a load of
-flints."
-
-Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow had amassed
-considerable wealth--his reputation for money was very great indeed--and
-his son John would, of course, come in for it.
-
-John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about Amaryllis he did not
-know. The idea that she had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
-spirits immensely.
-
-Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful--she was too young; I do not think
-any girl is really beautiful so young--she was highly individualized,
-and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face and figure. You
-saw at a glance that there was something about her very different from
-other girls, something very marked, but it was not beauty yet.
-
-Whether John thought her handsome, or saw that she would be, or what, I
-do not know; or whether he looked "forrard," as he would have said.
-
-          "Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"
-
-John had never read Burns, and would not have known that tocher meant
-dowry; nor had he seen the advice of Tennyson--
-
-          "Doesn't thee marry for money,
-           But go where money lies."
-
-but his native intelligence needed no assistance from the poets,
-coronetted or otherwise.
-
-It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden, was as poor as the
-raggedest coat in Christendom could make him; but it was equally well
-known and a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the great
-miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the boys called him derisively,
-had literally bushels upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
-for ancient usages, and it was understood that there were twenty
-thousand spade guineas in an iron box under his bed. Any cottager in the
-whole country side could have told you so, and would have smiled at your
-ignorance; the thing was as well known as that St. Paul's is in the
-City.
-
-Besides which there was another consideration, old Granfer Iden was a
-great favourite at Court--Court meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
-Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the county. Granfer Iden
-entered the Deer Park (which was private) with a special key whenever he
-pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked in at the conservatory,
-chatted familiarly with the royal family of Pamment when they were at
-home, and when they were away took any friend he chose through the
-galleries and saloons.
-
-"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said John Duck to himself many a
-time and oft. "They stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
-wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite at Court could dispense,
-no doubt, many valuable privileges.
-
-Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer, and turned round and
-faced them. She wore a black dress, but no hat; instead she had
-carelessly thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla fashion, and
-held it with one hand. Her dark ringlets fringed her forehead, blown
-free and wild; the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
-cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose figure is just beginning
-to show itself, her dress seemed somewhat shortened in front--lifted up
-from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she
-seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in
-her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our
-grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance,
-wilfulness, rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood on the
-bank, a little higher than they were, and able to look over their heads.
-
-"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one side as a salute.
-
-"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his broad pronunciation.
-
-As John could not get any further Iden helped him.
-
-"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and thought you would like to ride
-with him. Run in and dress."
-
-"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."
-
-"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."
-
-"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.
-
-"Lot of cattle about," said John.
-
-"Better ride," said Iden.
-
-"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on them to look over the wall
-again.
-
-She was a despot already. There was nothing left for them but to walk
-away.
-
-"However," said Iden, always trying to round things off and make square
-edges smooth, "very likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."
-
-"Her wull go across the fields," said John. "Shan't see her."
-
-As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap he looked up at the
-corner of the wall, but she was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had
-fetched her in, as it was time to dress.
-
-"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate fairs--they are so silly."
-
-"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your grandfather sent a message last
-night; you know it's his dinner-day."
-
-"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis, "I can't bear him."
-
-"How dare you speak of your grandfather like that? you are getting very
-rude and disrespectful."
-
-There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one time she would go on and
-abuse Granfer Iden for an hour at a time, calling him every name she
-could think of, and accusing him of every folly under the sun. At
-another time she would solemnly inform Amaryllis that they had not a
-farthing of money, and how necessary it was that they should be
-attentive and civil to him.
-
-Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the first jacket to hand.
-
-"What! aren't you going to change your dress?"
-
-"No, that I'm not."
-
-"Change it directly."
-
-"What, to go in and see that musty old----"
-
-"Change it directly; I _will_ be obeyed."
-
-Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.
-
-One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim and let her do just as she
-pleased; the next she insisted on minute obedience.
-
-"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your things on--come."
-
-So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled out of the house and
-started off. As John had foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow
-the path across the fields, which was shorter.
-
-An hour or so later Iden came in from work as usual, a few minutes
-before dinner, and having drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in
-the bow window till the dishes were brought.
-
-"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.
-
-"Gone--wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for him.
-
-"To fair, of course--like other people."
-
-"Hum," growled Iden.
-
-"You know your father expects all the family to come in to dinner on
-fair day; I can't think how you can neglect him, when you know we
-haven't got a shilling--why don't you go in and speak to him?"
-
-"You can go if you like."
-
-"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill accents of contempt. "I don't
-care a button for all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money. I'm as
-good as he is any day. My family go about, and do some business----"
-
-"_Your_ family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"
-
-"Yes, _my_ family--as good as yours, I should think! What's your family
-then, that you should be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"
-
-"You be descended from a quart pot," said Iden.
-
-This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather, who had kept a small
-wayside public. There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
-respectable man, and laid the foundation of his family's fortune, but it
-drove Mrs. Iden into frenzy.
-
-"You talk about a quart pot--_you_," she shrieked. "Why, your family
-have drunk up thousands of pounds--you know they have. Where's the
-Manor? they swilled it away. Where's Upper Court? they got it down their
-throats. They built a house to drink in and nothing else. You know they
-did. You told me yourself. The most disgraceful set of drunkards that
-ever lived!"
-
-"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?" said Iden.
-
-"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years--why, you're always talking
-about it."
-
-"Your family be as nervous as cats--see their hands shake in the
-morning."
-
-"They go to business in the City and do something; they don't mess about
-planting rubbishing potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.
-
-"A pretty mess they've made of their business, as shaky as their hands.
-Fidgetty, miserable, nervous set they be."
-
-"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow, as stolid, and slow,
-and stupid; why, you do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk,
-talk. You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the stile, and
-you've been talking with that old fool at the back door, and talking
-with Jack Duck--and that's your second mug! You're descended from a
-nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"
-
-Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and thrust it in one
-pocket, flung open the oven-door, and put a baked apple in the other
-pocket, and so marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a tree in
-the fields.
-
-In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so successful as raking up
-the weaknesses of the opponent's family, especially when the parties are
-married, for having gossiped with each other for so long in the most
-confidential manner, they know every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom
-bet, and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about, and Joseph did as
-Potiphar's spouse asked him, and why your uncle had to take refuge in
-Spain; and so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication table.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-
-THIS discordance between her father and mother hurt Amaryllis'
-affectionate heart exceedingly. It seemed to be always breaking out all
-the year round.
-
-Of a summer's eve, when the day's work among the hot hay was done, Iden
-would often go out and sit under the russet apple till the dew had
-filled the grass like a green sea. When the tide of the dew had risen he
-would take off his heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in the
-cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass. He liked the refreshing
-coolness and the touch of the sward. It was not for washing, because he
-was scrupulously clean under the ragged old coat; it was because he
-liked the grass. There was nothing very terrible in it; men, and women,
-too, take off their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the sands at
-the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything but natural, reasonable,
-and pleasant. But, then, you see, _everybody_ does it at the seaside,
-and Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his crime--that he alone
-did it.
-
-The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she knew he was paddling in the
-grass was awful. She would come shuffling out--she had a way of rubbing
-her shoes along the ground when irritated with her hands under her
-apron, which she twisted about--and pelt him with scorn.
-
-"There, put your boots on--do, and hide your nasty feet!" (Iden had a
-particularly white skin, and feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting!
-Nobody ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
-Anything more disgusting I never heard of. Nobody else but you would
-ever think of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."
-
-Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody else"--that was the
-sin and guilt of it--by-and-by Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
-had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them, would fling them in the
-ditch.
-
-And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation, if she had not
-been afraid to touch firearms, she would have brought out the gun, and
-had a shot at him.
-
-After a time Iden left his old post at the russet apple, and went up the
-meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and
-there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the
-dew, without any one to grumble at him.
-
-How crookedly things are managed in this world!
-
-It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and
-all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
-high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable--all so
-incongruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go
-on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and
-straight people in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been
-dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
-to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our abilities and natures.
-Such an utter jumble!
-
-Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful power of observation,
-who ought to have been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
-Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or, with his singular
-capacity for construction, a leading engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels
-and making Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect, forming a new
-school of philosophy--here was Iden, tending cows, and sitting, as the
-old story goes, undecidedly on a stile--sitting astride--eternally
-sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off on one side or the
-other.
-
-Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful shape and expressive eyes,
-full in her youth of life and fire, who ought to have led the gayest
-life in London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage, and flinging
-money about in the most extravagant, joyous, and good-natured
-manner--here was Mrs. Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and
-wearing shoes out at the toes.
-
-So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's cart over ruts and
-stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward
-like a cricket-ball.
-
-It all happens in the Turkish manner.
-
-Another time there would come a letter from one of the Flammas in
-London. Could they spare a little bag of lavender?--they grew such
-lovely sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might see Mr. and Mrs.
-Iden cooing and billing, soft as turtle-doves, and fraternising in the
-garden over the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you see, to the
-story.
-
-Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent, and the plant in every
-form. She kept little bags of it in all her drawers, and everything at
-Coombe Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious lavender
-perfume. There is nothing else that smells so sweet and clean and dry.
-You cannot imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.
-
-Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it between his finger and
-thumb in the garden, as he did, too, with the black-currant leaves and
-walnut-leaves, if he fancied anything he had touched might have left an
-unpleasant odour adhering to his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as
-much as washing them.
-
-Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because his mother had been so
-fond of it, and all the sixteen carved oak-presses which had been so
-familiar to him in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
-plant.
-
-Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet remained in the wine of
-life, Iden had set a hedge of lavender to please his wife. It was so
-carefully chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the finest
-lavender in all the country. People used to come for it from round
-about, quite certain of a favourable reception, for there was nothing so
-sure to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of lavender.
-
-But the letter from the Flammas was the great event--from London, all
-that way, asking for some Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
-and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the garden over the hedge
-of lavender. If only it could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow older
-there seems so much grating of the wheels.
-
-In time, long time, people's original feelings get strangely confused
-and overlaid. The churchwardens of the eighteenth century plastered the
-fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches--covered them over
-with yellowish mortar. The mould grows up, and hides the capital of the
-fallen column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak,
-where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and
-without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching
-the sap. A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over
-original feelings.
-
-There was no one in the world so affectionate and loving as Mrs.
-Iden--no one who loved a father so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved _her_
-father.
-
-But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty years or so, and the
-thick dull bark had grown, after the scales or caking had come upon the
-heart, after the capital of the column had fallen, after the painting
-had been blurred, it came about that old Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father,
-died in London.
-
-After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe Oaks, husband and wife
-went up to London to the funeral, which took place at one of those
-fearful London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very soul. Of all
-the horrible things in the world there is nothing so calmly ghastly as a
-London cemetery.
-
-In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Iden went to the
-theatre.
-
-"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing of the sort; how truly sad
-and human, for to be human is to be sad. That men and women should be so
-warped and twisted by the pressure of the years out of semblance to
-themselves; that circumstances should so wall in their lives with
-insurmountable cliffs of granite facts, compelling them to tread the
-sunless gorge; that the coldness of death alone could open the door to
-pleasure.
-
-They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With the music and the song,
-the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in
-the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone
-had been dead _there_; they were dead here. Dead in life--at the
-theatre.
-
-They had used to go joyously to the theatre thirty years before, when
-Iden came courting to town; from the edge of the grave they came back
-to look on their own buried lives.
-
-If you will only _think_, you will see it was a most dreadful and
-miserable incident, that visit to the theatre after the funeral.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-
-WHEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake descent in Iden's face she alluded
-to Grandfather Iden's being a baker and miller, and noted for the
-manufacture of these articles. A lardy, or larded, cake is a thing, I
-suppose, unknown to most of this generation; they were the principal
-confectionery familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was at the
-top of his business activity, seventy years since, in the Waterloo era.
-
-A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at
-the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked
-something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry;
-they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their
-ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
-trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, and the
-rest depended on the strength of the digestion. But if a ploughboy could
-get a new, warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought himself
-blessed.
-
-Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any serious business, but he
-still made a few of these renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a
-good few at times to the carters' lads who came in to market.
-
-Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she had not, the tom-tomming
-of drums and blowing of brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
-her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious as she
-approached--the ceaseless tomtom, the beating of drums and gongs outside
-the show vans, the shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great crowd,
-the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep, the neighing of
-horses--altogether the "rucket" was tremendous.
-
-She looked back from the hill close to the town and saw the people
-hurrying in from every quarter--there was a string of them following the
-path she had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A shower had
-fallen in the night, but the ceaseless wheels had ground up the dust
-again, and the lines of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
-clouds hanging above them. For one on business, fifty hastened on to
-join the uproar.
-
-Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched from Florence and had been
-set up in the town of Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the Milo
-from Paris, do you think all these people would have scurried in such
-haste to admire these beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you want
-a crowd you must make a row. It is really wonderful how people do
-thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
-could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be
-half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if
-you describe a mediæval scramble you must put in plenty of splintering
-lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so render it lively.
-
-"This is the patent age of new inventions," and some one might make a
-profit by starting a fête announcing that a drum or a gong would be
-provided for every individual, to be beaten in a grand universal chorus.
-
-Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting through the crowd till she
-found her way behind the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
-between them and the houses. There was an arched entrance,
-archæologically interesting, by which she paused a moment, half inclined
-to go up and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who lived there had
-had them since Christmas, and all that wanted doing was a patch on one
-toe; they were always just going to be done, but never finished. She
-read the inscription over his door, "Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established
-1697." A different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton awls; a
-man who has been in business two hundred years cannot be hurried. She
-sighed, and passed on.
-
-The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted of one wide stone of
-semi-circular shape, in which the feet of three generations of
-customers had worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman, for he was
-over ninety, was leaning on the hatch (or lower half of the door), in
-the act of handing some of his cakes to two village girls who had called
-for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed to be so rurally
-simple, had just been telling him how they never forgot his nice cakes,
-but always came every fair day to buy some. For this they got sixpence
-each, it being well known that the old gentleman was so delighted with
-anybody who bought his cakes he generally gave them back their money,
-and a few coppers besides.
-
-He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on the step and pulled her
-into the shop, asked her if her father were coming, then walked her down
-by the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted peel, to see
-how tall she was. The peel is the long wooden rod, broad at one end,
-with which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father Iden being
-proud of his trade, in his old age had his favourite peel ornamented
-with silver.
-
-"Too fast--too fast," he said, shaking his head, and coughing; "you grow
-too fast; there's the notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
-taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her where his thumb was--quite
-two inches higher than the last year's mark.
-
-"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.
-
-"I daresay--I daresay," said the old man, in the hasty manner of feeble
-age, as he cut another notch to record her height. The handle of the
-peel was notched all round, where he had measured his grandchildren;
-there were so many marks it was not easy to see how he distinguished
-them.
-
-"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he had finished with the knife.
-
-"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true--she did not _know_--she
-could not be certain; but in her heart she was sure he would not come.
-But she did not want to hear any hard words said about him.
-
-"Has he sent anything? Have you brought anything for me? No. No.
-Hum!--ha!"--fit of coughing--"Well, well--come in; dinner's late,
-there's time to hear you read--you're fond of books, you read a great
-deal at home,"--and so talking, half to himself and half to her, he led
-the way into the parlour by the shop.
-
-Bowed by more than ninety years, his back curved over forwards, and his
-limbs curved in the opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
-resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung over his chest, and
-his knees never straightened themselves, but were always more or less
-bent as he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of a strong man
-heavily laden and unable to stand upright--such an attitude as big Jack
-Duck in his great strength might take when carrying two sacks of wheat
-at once. There was as heavy a load on Grandfather Iden's back, but Time
-is invisible.
-
-He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker should, and had worn the
-same cut and colour for years and years. In the shop, too, he always
-had a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white, but it got to
-appear grey upon him; a large grey chimney-pot, many sizes too big for
-his head apparently, for it looked as if for ever about to descend and
-put out his face like an extinguisher. Though his boots were so
-carefully polished, they quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as
-he pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends of his trousers, too
-long for his antique shanks, folded and creased over his boots, and
-almost hid his grey cloth under-gaiters.
-
-A great knobbed old nose--but stay, I will not go further, it is not
-right to paint too faithfully the features of the very aged, which are
-repellent in spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their faces,
-their sentiments and actions are another matter; therefore I will leave
-Father Iden's face as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
-reflects everywhere, except one spot.
-
-Amaryllis followed him jauntily,--little did she care, reckless girl,
-for the twenty thousand guineas in the iron box under his bed.
-
-The cottage folk, who always know so much, had endless tales of Iden's
-wealth; how years ago bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in
-five-shilling packets, had been literally carted like potatoes away from
-the bakehouse to go to London; how ponies were laden with sacks of
-silver groats, all paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
-dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.
-
-Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the spade guineas in the iron
-box.
-
-The old man sat down by the fire without removing his hat, motioning to
-her to shut the door, which she was loth to do, for the little room was
-smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma, he coughed incessantly, and
-mopped his mouth with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
-craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to the grate, and piled up
-the coal till it smoked and smoked, and filled the close apartment with
-a suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into Father Iden's sanctuary
-was an honour, but, like other honours, it had to be paid for.
-
-Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to breathe as short as
-possible, to avoid inhaling more than she could bear.
-
-"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the bookcases, which occupied
-three sides of the room. "Books--you like books; look at them--go and
-see."
-
-To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the
-shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very
-good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere
-throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the
-county, old and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
-Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as Bernard Quaritch, that giant
-of the modern auction room, would have written magnificent cheques for.
-
-Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the auction-room bidding for
-books? It is one of the sights of London, let me tell you, to any one
-who thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights are reputations
-merely--the pale reflection of things that were real once. This sight is
-something of the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
-_Athenæum_ in the season, examine the advertisements of book auctions,
-and attend the next great sale of some famous library.
-
-You have a recollection of the giant who sat by the highway and devoured
-the pilgrims who passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring and
-devours the books set loose upon their travels after the repose of
-centuries.
-
-What prices to give! No one can withstand him. From Paris they send
-agents with a million francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
-the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles, but in vain. They only
-get what the Giant chooses to leave them.
-
-Books that nobody ever heard of fetch £50, £60, £100, £200; wretched
-little books never opened since they were printed; dull duodecimos on
-the course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable twaddling local
-books in Italian, Spanish, queer French, written and printed in some
-unknown foreign village; read them--you might as well try to amuse
-yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What earthly value they are of cannot
-be discovered. They were composed by authors whose names are gone like
-the sand washed by the Nile into the sea before Herodotus. They contain
-no beautiful poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery; they
-are simply so much paper, printing, and binding, so many years old, and
-it is for that age, printing, and binding that the money is paid.
-
-I have read a good many books in my time--I would not give sixpence for
-the whole lot.
-
-They are not like a block-book--first efforts at printing; nor like the
-first editions of great authors; there is not the slightest intrinsic
-value in them whatever.
-
-Yet some of them fetch prices which not long ago were thought tremendous
-even for the Shakespeare folio.
-
-Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for them. Living and writing
-authors of the present day are paid in old songs by comparison.
-
-Still, this enormous value set on old books is one of the remarkable
-signs of the day. If any one wishes to know what To-Day is, these
-book-auctions are of the things he should go to see.
-
-Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's shelves; among them there
-were a few that I call _real_ old books, an early translation or two, an
-early Shakespeare, and once there had been a very valuable Boccaccio,
-but this had gone into Lord Pamment's library, "Presented by James
-Bartholomew Iden, Esq."
-
-The old man often went to look at and admire his Boccaccio in my Lord's
-library.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-
-THERE was one peculiarity in all the books on Grandfather Iden's
-shelves, they were all very finely bound in the best style of hand-art,
-and they all bore somewhere or other a little design of an ancient Roman
-lamp.
-
-Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship of good taste--it
-is not the sculptor's art, nor the painter's--not the art of the mind,
-but the art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work, for instance,
-some pottery, book-binding like this, are the products of hand-art.
-
-"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man, when Amaryllis had stared
-sufficiently at the backs of the books.
-
-"Yes, I can see the Lamp."
-
-"House of Flamma," said old Iden.
-
-"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily, eager to show that she
-understood all about it. She feared lest he should enter into the
-history of the House of Flamma and of his connection with it; she had
-heard it all over and over again; her mother was a Flamma; she had
-herself some of the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything annoyed
-her or made her indignant her foot used to tap the floor, and her neck
-flush rosy, and her face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
-control herself, she would say to herself, "I _will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis detested and despised
-the whole tribe of the Flammas, the nervous, excitable, passionate,
-fidgetty, tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them all, the
-very name and mention of them; she sided with her father as an Iden
-against her mother's family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
-flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse, a spot or two of
-genius, and the rest black guilt or folly. She hated them; she would not
-be a Flamma.
-
-How should she at sixteen understand the wear and tear of life, the
-pressure of circumstances, the heavy weight of difficulties--there was
-something to be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas, but
-naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut up in narrow grooves and
-working day after day, year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
-their constitutional nervousness became the chief characteristic of
-their existence. It was Intellect overcome--over-burdened--with two
-generations of petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went to the
-quart pot.
-
-Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis detested the very
-name; she would not be a Flamma.
-
-But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in fire of spirit, in
-strength of indignation, in natural capacity; she drew, for instance,
-with the greatest ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
-could write a letter in sketches.
-
-Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness of certain things seemed
-to fill her with a consuming fire. Her partizanship for her father made
-her sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she might utterly
-erase the opposer. Her contempt of sycophancy, and bold independence led
-her constantly into trouble.
-
-Flamma means a flame.
-
-Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the bookshelves patiently
-endeavouring to please the tiresome old man.
-
-"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.
-
-Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and medals in it were very
-interesting, as they really were. The smoke caught her in the throat,
-and seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching her chest. So
-much accustomed to the open air, she felt stifled.
-
-Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he might hear how she
-enunciated her words. The book he gave her was an early copy of Addison,
-the page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges rough, but where
-in a trim modern volume will you find language like his and ideas set
-forth with such transparent lucidity? How easy to write like that!--so
-simple, merely a letter to an intimate friend; but try!
-
-Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read, especially those that come
-to us from New York, thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
-the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You cannot read them; you
-_work_ through them.
-
-The French have retained a little of the old style of book in their
-paper bound franc novels, the rough paper, thick black type, rough edges
-are pleasant to touch and look at--they feel as if they were done by
-hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim by machinery.
-
-Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis tried her utmost to read
-well, and she succeeded, so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
-grunting between his continuous fits of coughing the old man signified
-his approval.
-
-Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of the aged, but she had a
-motive here; she wanted to please him for her father's sake. For many
-years there had been an increasing estrangement between the younger and
-the elder Iden; an estrangement which no one could have explained, for
-it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather Iden was really
-so rich. The son was his father's tenant--the farm belonged to
-Grandfather Iden--and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly. Still
-that could not have much mattered--a mere trifle to a man of old Iden's
-wealth. There was something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
-scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people frequently fall
-into a quarrel without remembering the beginning.
-
-Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old man for her father's sake;
-her dear father, whom she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
-worrying him for petty sums of money; it made her furious with
-indignation to see and hear it.
-
-So she read her very best, and swallowed the choking smoke patiently.
-
-Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still as fresh as if gathered
-yesterday, Amaryllis found bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For
-it was one of the old man's ways to carry home such of these that
-pleased him and to place them in his books. This he had done for half a
-century, and many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey old works
-of bygone authors had been there a generation. It is wonderful how long
-they will endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way; the paper
-they used in old books seems to have been softer, without the hard
-surface of our present paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps
-them better. Before the repulsion between father and son became so
-marked, Amaryllis had often been with her grandfather in the garden and
-round the meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather the yellow tulips,
-the broad-petalled roses, and in autumn the bright scarlet bramble
-leaves. The brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased him;
-anything with richness of colour. The old and grey, and withered man
-gathered the brightest of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten
-books.
-
-Now the sight of these leaves and petals between the yellow pages
-softened her heart towards him; he was a tyrant, but he was very, very
-old, they were like flowers on a living tomb.
-
-In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and going to a drawer in one
-of the bookcases, took from it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these
-between her face and the book, and told her to read them instead.
-
-"These are your writing."
-
-"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting, and coughing, all at once.
-
-"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only two houses in Black Jack
-Street." "Only _two_ houses!" she interposed, artfully.
-
-"Two," said the grandfather.
-
-"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in 1775 the site was covered
-with furze." "How it has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed, and
-smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head and seemed about to
-extinguish him.
-
-"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa. It says, 'A hundred
-voters in this street, 1884.'"
-
-"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched his very heart up in
-coughing. When he finished, Amaryllis read on--
-
-"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."
-
-"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent coughing Amaryllis became
-alarmed, but it did him no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
-livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused him like a
-trumpet--it went straight to his ancient heart.
-
-"Read that again," he said. "How many voters now?"
-
-"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."
-
-"We've got them all"--coughing--"all in my lord's houses, everyone; vote
-Conservative, one and all. What is it?" as some one knocked. Dinner was
-ready, to Amaryllis's relief.
-
-"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?" asked the grandfather,
-shuffling up his papers. "There--there," as she hesitated, "you would
-like to dine with young people, of course--of course."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-
-OLD Grandfather Iden always dined alone in the parlour, with his
-housekeeper to wait on him; they were just bringing in his food. The
-family and visitors had their meals in a separate and much more
-comfortable apartment in another part of the house, which was large.
-Sometimes, as a great favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
-would invite you to eat with him.
-
-Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated, not only because of
-the smoke, but because she knew he always had pork for dinner.
-
-The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry and withered frame--it
-was a sort of Burgundy of flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy
-fills the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so the rich juice of
-the pork seemed to supply the oil necessary to keep the sinews supple
-and to prevent the cartilages from stiffening.
-
-The scientific people say that it is the ossification of the
-cartilages--the stiffening of the firmer tissues--that in time
-interferes with the processes of life. The hinges rust, as if your
-tricycle had been left out in the rain for a week--and the delicate
-watchwork of the human frame will not run.
-
-If suppleness could only be maintained there is no reason why it should
-not continue to work for a much longer period, for a hundred and fifty,
-two hundred years--as long as you fancy. But nothing has yet been
-devised to keep up the suppleness.
-
-Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast pork. The jokers of
-Woolhorton--there are always jokers, very clever they think
-themselves--considered the reason it suited him so well was because of
-the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.
-
-Anything more contrary to common sense than for an old man of ninety to
-feed on pork it would be hard to discover--so his friends said.
-
-"Pork," said the physician, had down from London to see him on one
-occasion, "pork is the first on the list of indigestible articles of
-food. It takes from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
-reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded--acidity is the
-result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable ills are the consequence. The
-very worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."
-
-"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of Woolhorton, when he heard
-of this. "Hum!" low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
-least excited, like most other country folk, he used the provincial
-pronunciation. "Hum! A' have lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"
-
-Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did eat it six days out of
-seven, not, of course, roast pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork;
-sometimes he baked it himself in the great oven. Now and then he varied
-it with pig-meat--good old country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat--such
-as spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious morsel, the
-"mouse." The chine he always sent over for Iden junior, who was a chine
-eater--a true Homeric diner--and to make it even, Iden junior sent in
-the best apples for sauce from his favourite russet trees. It was about
-the only amenity that survived between father and son.
-
-The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old house at home, before we
-all went astray along the different paths of life; fresh from the pigs
-fed and killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the palate. Much of
-it is best done on a gridiron--here's heresy! A gridiron is flat
-blasphemy to the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
-fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your lips watering.
-
-But the "mouse,"--what was the "mouse?" The London butchers can't tell
-me. It was a titbit. I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London folk
-are so ignorant.
-
-Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and form, that is, he mumbled
-the juice out of it, and never complained of indigestion.
-
-He was up at five o'clock every morning of his life, pottering about the
-great oven with his baker's man. In summer if it was fine he went out at
-six for a walk in the Pines--the promenade of Woolhorton.
-
-"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used to say, "you go for a
-walk in the marning afore the aair have been braathed auver."
-
-Before the air has been breathed over--inspired and re-inspired by human
-crowds, while it retains the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
-from the spring; that was when it possessed its value, according to
-bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old Butler. Depend upon it, there is
-something in his dictum, too.
-
-Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork, for he often had it
-underdone, so the old gentleman dismissed her in his most gracious
-manner to dine with the rest.
-
-She went down the corridor and took the seat placed for her. There was a
-posy of primroses beside her napkin--posies of primroses all round the
-table.
-
-This raging old Tory of ninety years would give a shilling for the
-earliest primrose the boys could find for him in the woods. Some one got
-him a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
-favourites--a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather--which he had set in the
-centre of a splendid screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
-The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room near a bow window
-which overlooked the fair.
-
-People, you see, took pains to get him feathers and anything he fancied,
-on account of the twenty thousand spade guineas in the iron box under
-the bed.
-
-His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married folk, begged him not to
-keep a peacock's feather in the house--it would certainly bring
-misfortune. The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds that
-they actually argued with him--_argued_ with Grandfather Iden!--pointing
-out to him the fearful risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
-grew red in the face--the great grey hat shook and tottered with anger;
-not for all the Powers of Darkness would he have given up that feather.
-
-The chairs round the large table were arranged in accordance with the
-age of the occupants. There were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number
-of aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does not concern us. The
-eldest sat at the head of the table, the next in age followed, and so
-all round the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis rather low
-down--a long way from the top and fountain of honour--and highly
-displeased her. She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd of her
-relations, yet being there, she felt that she ought to have had a
-position above them all. Her father--Iden, junior--was old Iden's only
-son and natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to have been at
-the top of the table, and hers ought to have been next to his.
-
-Instead of which, as her father was not the eldest, his seat was some
-distance from the top, and hers again, was a long way from his.
-
-All the other chairs were full, but her father's chair was empty.
-
-The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to
-the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young,
-the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather
-Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.
-How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty
-chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the
-Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
-hearts of the enemies around her.
-
-For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a
-visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she
-knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set
-fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider
-the enormous profit to the rest of them!
-
-Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a
-will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out
-for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he
-had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his
-will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all
-in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do,
-and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost
-all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!
-
-Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and
-over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were
-so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it
-was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked
-very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable
-dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just
-sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It
-is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.
-
-Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might
-to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only
-daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of
-Grandfather Iden.
-
-The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was
-born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell
-out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the
-direct line of Iden when the first child was a daughter there were none
-to follow. And further, that there never was but one Miss Iden at a
-time.
-
-If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they never had any more
-children; consequently that daughter was the only Miss Iden.
-
-If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a second son, though they
-might have daughters; but then, in order that there should still be
-only one Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died, or was
-married early, before the second came into existence.
-
-Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they had a long pedigree, the
-Idens, reaching farther back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
-had been observed that this was the rule of their descent.
-
-Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress, through her father,
-of the Spade-Guinea Man. She tried to make them feel that she knew it
-and felt it; that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud face--it was
-a very proud face naturally--darkened a little, and grew still more
-disdainful in its utter scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of
-enemies.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-
-TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her
-sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation;
-her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment
-she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute
-determination to fight for her dear father and mother.
-
-But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her
-boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under
-the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many,
-many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the
-stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her
-others.
-
-She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed
-better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar,
-too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had
-sound boots on their feet.
-
-The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had;
-nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the
-character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far,
-though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a
-whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.
-
-If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder
-than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put
-down by circumstances, she was above external things.
-
-But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely
-eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's
-empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection
-would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the
-Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with
-the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a
-precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
-either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.
-
-          Spain's an island near
-          Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and
-dying on their seats.
-
-The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of
-them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in
-Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty
-chair.
-
-And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I
-_will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that
-everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his
-descendants.
-
-There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew
-his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn,
-and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two
-sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always
-a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best
-pleased him during the year.
-
-A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the
-heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually
-considered himself the nearest to the Will.
-
-Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to
-take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that
-moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her
-dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her
-dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this
-pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!
-
-Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames:
-Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
-Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his
-caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility,
-Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.
-
-By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery
-hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder,
-saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in
-their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went
-round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.
-
-Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was
-about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people
-suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to
-their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.
-
-Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw
-under the table.
-
-Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the
-back of his son's empty chair.
-
-He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren
-ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.
-
-Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son
-come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.
-
-A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of
-his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble
-on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three
-times.
-
-We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was
-a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his
-son's strong arm to lean on.
-
-The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice,
-whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
-be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of
-reconciliation.
-
-The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for
-him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the
-more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could
-hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her
-father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her
-mother without a decent pair of boots.
-
-In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the
-distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She
-did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two
-coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for
-her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered
-something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from
-throwing the money on the floor.
-
-It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the
-horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
-Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!
-
-Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into
-the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently
-admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the
-bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her
-hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.
-
-There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever
-been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.
-
-Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be
-singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the
-spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be
-honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted
-she would have been at the thought of the triumph!
-
-But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a
-triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt
-lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured
-by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his
-approval--she hated him.
-
-The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up
-a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of
-music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the
-thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place--till she went out to the
-gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding
-was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very
-morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism
-shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her
-mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!
-
-The Flamma blood was up in her veins--what did she care for guineas!
-
-As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked
-round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
-spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
-would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
-because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
-it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.
-
-So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
-till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
-the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.
-
-Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
-travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
-took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
-bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
-how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
-in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
-that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
-had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
-labours.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS did not look back as she walked beside her grandfather slowly
-up the street, or she would have seen the company of relations watching
-them from the bow-window.
-
-Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account
-of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the
-clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him.
-But he had a knack of keeping on his feet--the sort of knack you learn
-by skating--and did not totter much more than usual, despite the press.
-
-The world gets on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or
-three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
-their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers'
-fathers had set before them.
-
-Rows of booths for the display of "fairings," gingerbread, nuts, cakes,
-brandy-balls, and sugar-plums stood in the gutter each side.
-
-The "fairings" were sweet biscuits--they have been made every fair this
-hundred years.
-
-The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The
-gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined
-with gilt.
-
-There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring
-of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
-by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan
-was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
-smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that
-mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for
-nuts--behold these are they our fathers have seen.
-
-There is nothing new under the sun--not even at Epsom. The first time I
-saw the wonderful crowd of the Derby Day--perhaps the largest crowd in
-the world--I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I found on passing
-through it that the hundreds of thousands of people there had nothing
-more to amuse them than they would have found at an ordinary country
-fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies at cocoa-nuts, rootletum,
-tootletum, and beer. That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a very
-humdrum sort of world, my masters!
-
-The next finest crowd is the crowd on August bank-holiday all along the
-Brighton beach, and there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk but
-Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters--dull old stories in my
-grandmother's time.
-
-Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could invent him a fresh
-pleasure--the multitude of the Derby Day and Brighton beach should do
-the same. But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would certainly be
-the reward of such a discoverer. One gets tired of pitching sticks at
-cocoa-nuts all one's time.
-
-However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very rawest and crudest folk cared
-for the shows, all they did care was to alternately stand stock still
-and then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion" and had some
-beer, then they shoved back to the "Lamb" and had some beer, then they
-stood stock still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
-Several thousand people were thus happily occupied, and the Lion and the
-Lamb laid down together peacefully that day.
-
-Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to shove, for there was no
-other way to get through, no one thought of moving, or giving any
-passage, if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them aside. As
-Grandfather Iden could not shove very hard they were frequently
-compelled to wait till the groups opened, and thus it happened that
-Amaryllis found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.
-
-He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at Amaryllis, and touched his hat
-to Iden. "You ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he said.
-
-"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.
-
-Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant to Amaryllis. The
-father had not been to visit his son for more than a year--she did not
-want unpleasant memories stirred up.
-
-Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched his hat and asked her
-if her father was at fair, as he was looking out for a job. Old Iden
-started and grunted like a snorting horse.
-
-Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly to him, for she knew
-he was always in difficulties. Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong
-man without work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill Nye was a mower
-at Coombe, and his father, Bill Nye, before him, many a long year before
-he was discovered in California.
-
-When she overtook Iden he was struggling to pass the stream of the
-Orinoco, which set strongly at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
-"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb" archway like a river into
-the sea, thrusting their way into the general crowd, and this mighty
-current cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the swollen
-Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels that tried to breast it.
-
-It was as much as Amaryllis and he together could do to hold their
-ground at the edge of the current. While they were thus battling she
-chanced to look up.
-
-A large window was open over the archway, and at this window a fellow
-was staring down at her. He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a
-billiard-cue in his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the same young
-fellow, gentleman if you like, whose pale face had so displeased her
-that morning as he rode under when she watched the folk go by to fair.
-He was certainly the most advanced in civilization of all who had passed
-Plum Corner, and yet there was something in that pale and rather
-delicate face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the "varmers"
-and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers" who had gone by under the wall.
-Something that insulted her.
-
-The face at the window was appraising her.
-
-It was reckoning her up--so much for eyes, so much for hair, so much for
-figure, and as this went on the fingers were filling a pipe from an
-elastic tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry in that
-calculation--no rapture or pure admiration of beauty; there was a
-billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch, and a glass of spirits and water, and
-an atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory balls at the back
-of the thought. His thumb was white where he had chalked it to make a
-better bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had chalked it
-with dissipation. His physical body was whitened--chalked--a whited
-sepulchre; his moral nature likewise chalked.
-
-At the back of his thought lay not the high esteem of the poet-thinker
-for beauty, but the cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.
-
-The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things a Shakespeare would
-admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
-corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as
-to say, "You may depend upon me--I've been behind the scenes. All this
-is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at the rear;
-nothing in it."
-
-In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found some trace of a
-higher nature; "What an artist the world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.
-
-The empress Theodora craved for the applause of the theatre to which she
-exposed her beauty.
-
-This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism thinks of nothing but
-lowness, and has no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks to
-colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it is an ideal. There
-was no ideal in Ned Marks.
-
-They called him from within to take his turn with the cue; he did not
-answer, he was so absorbed in his calculations. He was clever--in a way;
-he had quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no common girl.
-She was not beautiful--yet, she was not even pretty, and so plainly
-dressed; still there was something marked in her features. And she was
-with old Iden.
-
-Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his glance, but she felt
-that it was an insult. She looked down quickly, seized her grandfather's
-arm, and drew him out from the pavement into the street, yielding a
-little to the current and so hoping to presently pass it.
-
-By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his companions had come to
-the window to discover what he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed.
-"It's Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron box!"
-
-Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to sit loosely on his head,
-was knocked aside by the elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the
-throng; Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this way, and
-pushing him that, got at last to the opposite pavement, and so behind
-the row of booths, between them and the houses where there was less
-crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to her feet and stepped in
-the gutter where there was a puddle. The cold water came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-While these incidents were still further irritating her, the old Pacha
-kept mumbling and muttering to himself, nodding his head and smiling at
-each fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent and
-fearless still he appreciated the trouble she took. The mumbling in his
-mouth was a sort of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up to a
-pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a hound in a leash, ready
-to burst the bond that held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in
-arm, neither of them understood the other; ninety and sixteen, a strange
-couple in the jostling fair.
-
-Iden turned down a passage near the end of the street, and in an instant
-the roar of the crowd which had boomed all round them was shut off by
-high walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads in the air. They
-walked on broad stone flags notched here and there at the edges, for the
-rest worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a trade) like
-Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones, and the walled passage
-brought them to the porch of the Abbey church.
-
-There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and wiped his forehead with
-his vast silk handkerchief. They were no longer incommoded by a crowd,
-but now and then folk came by hastening to the fair; lads with favours
-in their coats, and blue ribbons in their hats, girls in bright dresses,
-chiefly crude colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy weight as
-it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous walls, the quiet gloom of the
-narrow space, and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.
-
-The aged man muttered and mumbled about the porch and took Amaryllis
-under it, making her look up at the groining, and note the spring of the
-arch, which formed a sort of carved crown over them. It was a fine old
-porch, deep and high, in some things reminding you of the porches that
-are to be seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade like trees,
-so cut and worked as to be soft to the eye.
-
-He pointed out to her the touches that rendered it so dear to those who
-value art in stone. He knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
-and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were broad folios in the
-smoky room at home, filled with every detail, Iden himself had
-subscribed forty pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them. Every
-scholar who visited the Abbey church, called and begged to see the
-baker's old books.
-
-Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and went outside and hoisted
-himself, as it were, up from his crooked S position to look at the three
-stags' heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads that to you, or
-at least to me, might have been fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or
-anything.
-
-Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in the porch, the deep shadow
-within behind her, the curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a
-portrait. She stood the more upright because of the fire and temper
-suppressed in her.
-
-Just outside the human letter S--crooked S--clad in sad white-grey
-miller's garments, its old hat almost falling backwards off its old grey
-head, gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the coat of arms.
-Seven hundred years--the weight of seven hundred years--hung over them
-both in that old Abbey.
-
-Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she came out to the Future.
-
-Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded, in the passage wall,
-and giving her the key, told her to open it, and stood watching her in
-triumph, as if it had been the door to some immense treasury. She turned
-the lock, and he pushed her before him hastily, as if they must snatch
-so grand an opportunity.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-
-WITHIN there was a gravel path, and glimpses between trees of wide
-pleasure-grounds. Amaryllis hesitated, and looked back; Iden drew her
-forward, not noticing her evident disinclination to proceed. If he had,
-he would have put it down to awe, instead of which it was dislike.
-
-For she guessed they were entering the lawns in front of the Hon.
-Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He was the largest owner of town and country;
-the streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which the fair was
-being held, belonged to him; so did most of the farms and hamlets out of
-which the people had come. The Pamments were Tories; very important
-Tories indeed.
-
-The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too, right to the centre of
-the cerebellum; the Flammas were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
-girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a wilful and
-rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who would not be a Flamma, had
-imbibed all the Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.
-
-To her the Pamments were the incarnation of everything detestable, of
-oppression, obstruction, and mediæval darkness. She knew nothing of
-politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to feel vehemently, you
-feel vehemently without knowing. Still, she had heard a good deal about
-the Pamments.
-
-She resented being brought there to admire the pleasure grounds and
-mansion, and to kow-tow to the grandeur of these mediæval tyrants.
-
-Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth lawn before the front
-windows; three centuries of mowing had made it as smooth as the top of
-his own head, where the years had mown away merrily.
-
-There was not so much as a shrub--not a daisy--between them and the
-great windows of the house. They stood in full view.
-
-Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen was her vexation; her
-cheeks reddened. She was obliged to face the house, but her glance was
-downwards; she would not look at it.
-
-Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory. In all Woolhorton town
-there was not another man who could do as he was doing at that moment.
-
-The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally exclusive even
-for high class Tories. Their gardens, and lawns, and grounds were
-jealously surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned houses of
-the street beneath them. No one dared to so much as peer through a
-crevice of the mighty gates. Their persons were encircled with the
-"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed proprietor. No one dared
-speak to a Pamment. They acknowledged no one in the town, not even the
-solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey church; that was on
-account of ritual differences.
-
-It was, indeed, whispered--high treason must always be whispered--that
-young Pamment, the son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and had
-been known to be effusive towards ladies of low birth--and manners.
-
-The great leaders of Greece--Alcibiades, Aristides, and so on--threw
-open their orchards to the people. Everyone walked in and did as he
-chose. These great leaders of England--the Pamments--shut up their lawns
-and pleasure-grounds, sealed them hermetically, you could hardly throw a
-stone over the walls if you tried.
-
-But Grandfather Iden walked through those walls as if there were none;
-he alone of all Woolhorton town and country.
-
-In that gossipy little town, of course, there were endless surmises as
-to the why and wherefore of that private key. Shrewd people said--"Ah!
-you may depend they be getting summat out of him. Lent 'em some of his
-guineas, a' reckon. They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
-they gentlefolks."
-
-Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed: he wandered about the
-lawns, he looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if
-it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors
-occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about
-the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in
-the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as
-if it had been the key of Paradise.
-
-When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the
-proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's
-creation."
-
-He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his
-hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in
-the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step
-on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.
-
-In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were
-at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths,
-the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it
-were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
-that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come
-in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.
-
-In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.
-
-Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common
-intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in
-this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship.
-Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.
-
-Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when
-we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.
-
-With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments
-trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
-home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety
-years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his
-venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
-faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.
-
-He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks
-in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
-sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence
-was diffused around.
-
-Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped
-the sacred sward.
-
-Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief,
-began to point with his cudgel--a big hockey stick--at the various parts
-of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that
-went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more
-ancient still, out of sight.
-
-Really, it was a very interesting place archæologically, if only you
-could have got rid of the Pamments.
-
-Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she
-was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her--for
-she was passive now, like a piece of furniture--when he spied some one
-at a window.
-
-Off came the great white hat, and down it swept till the top brushed the
-grass in the depth of his homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
-a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the gentleman, so
-thoroughly courtier-like, and yet honest. There was nothing to smile at
-in that bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia who could bow
-in that way, for, in truth, we have forgotten how to bow in this
-generation.
-
-A writing and talking is always going on about the high place woman
-occupies in modern society, but the fact is, we have lost our reverence
-for woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing more, mere sham.
-We don't venerate woman, and therefore we don't bow.
-
-Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any woman's heart had it been
-addressed to her, for there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
-desire to please in it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-
-THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
-heir.
-
-He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a
-memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams,
-letters, and newspapers.
-
-Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for
-post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of
-Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile,
-Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.
-
-Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the
-letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to
-the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to
-answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it
-himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced
-the--the residue.
-
-Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him--nothing in the least
-like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every
-morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.
-
-A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him,
-a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle,
-lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
-writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of
-the latter half of the nineteenth century.
-
-Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of
-his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at
-all--rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop
-he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that
-drives about in a cart for orders.
-
-Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face
-was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of
-indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick,
-his figure stout, his hands big--a jovial, good-tempered looking man.
-
-His neck was _very_ thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or
-special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and
-sleep--belly energy.
-
-But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten
-thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their
-proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred
-"blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of
-thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you
-may count exactly the same number interspersed.
-
-The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with
-broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to
-Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.
-
-Unless you are given to æsthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I
-think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
-you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his
-credit--humph!--at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
-whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.
-
-He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing
-to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
-London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies.
-It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the
-pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign
-will leap forth in town.
-
-Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he
-frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. _I_ can't blame him; I should
-be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down
-Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a
-widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,
-all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all
-the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
-have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old
-oak furniture; I'll go to Paris--" but Paris is not a patch on London.
-To take a lady--_the_ lady--to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the
-silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her
-eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a
-diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years
-since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the
-price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a
-sip of Moet--but only one sip, for your liver's sake--just to brighten
-up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit
-fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could Cæsar with all his
-legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such
-pleasure as this--just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in
-the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to _that_?
-
-The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no
-counting--anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream,
-what is the use of living?
-
-Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in
-a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
-not, in an age that preaches thrift and--twaddle? No joy like waste in
-London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
-butterfly!
-
-Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of
-London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the
-people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of
-folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the
-dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the
-fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the
-world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, séances, Albert
-Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
-weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and
-gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?
-
-It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes
-at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
-this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me,
-the streets.
-
-So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and
-could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
-like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle,
-good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams,
-letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister--at
-betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
-memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept
-flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.
-
-While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain
-of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the
-fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed
-with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
-on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet.
-With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back,
-and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.
-
-Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed
-away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down
-here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar,
-Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
-in the general melée Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the
-crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position,
-and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.
-
-Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was
-"up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
-cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime;
-Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
-a trifle to it.
-
-There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do
-not figure in the papers.
-
-Raleigh became at once an anaxandron--a King of Men. The history of his
-feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other:
-from the policeman in Waterloo Place to--everywhere. Never was such a
-stir; the fall of Sebastopol--dear me! I can remember it, look at the
-flight of time--was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, _fêted_
-him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with
-laurel. Ave, Cæsar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.
-
-Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well
-"blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
-through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had
-vanished.
-
-Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the
-glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he
-slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement
-of the campaign had subsided.
-
-In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as
-well label the account at once: "This is a goak."
-
-I do _not_ approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task
-to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can
-assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a
-very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they
-really are, are not all Greek scholars.
-
-As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he
-smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his
-money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I
-may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his
-valet.
-
-"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon,
-Disraeli, or Solomon.
-
-But Raleigh _was_ a hero to his valet.
-
-He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated
-him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself.
-He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed
-himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so
-was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so
-were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket,
-because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a
-cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies--just like Raleigh, "the very
-ticket"--he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
-"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine
-women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him;
-Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting
-up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very
-same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
-same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why,
-Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch--careless Raleigh; accordingly,
-Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a
-great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and
-smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was _he_, and
-had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as
-filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't _I_ cut a swell! I'd do it, _I_
-would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I
-would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate?
-Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen;
-some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre
-with--respectable gals, I mean--crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was
-to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment
-mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to
-fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like _he_ did! Oh,
-my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
-"he."
-
-Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not
-only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
-servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him
-as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at
-the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew
-anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."
-
-The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to
-suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing
-of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and
-blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.
-
-If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have
-"done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that
-part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty,
-and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs
-didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-
-GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on
-the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.
-
-It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought
-it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of
-his.
-
-"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's
-the Behemoth."
-
-"The Behemoth--the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.
-
-"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day.
-That's the Behemoth."
-
-Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange
-creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular
-preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden--antediluvian Iden--in
-short, the Behemoth.
-
-It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.
-
-"There's a girl with him," said Fred.
-
-"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he
-ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.
-
-How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like
-Grandfather Iden--aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
-books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!
-
-          "Wherefore come ye not to court?
-          Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.
-          Chattering fools and wise men listening."
-
-Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed--his head was as bare as
-Mont Blanc--and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's
-wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth
-in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and
-proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.
-
-"But, grandpa--grandpa--really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me
-go. No--no--I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
-willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of
-gold, as the old song says unctuously.
-
-"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"--mistaking her
-hesitation for awe.
-
-"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't
-want to go."
-
-"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his
-most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see
-you."
-
-"Come--come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back.
-"It's a splendid place inside--there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and
-so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very
-gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they
-moved Amaryllis onward.
-
-She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break
-loose--easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies--but--how soon "but"
-comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father.
-She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
-further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good
-humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
-
-So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething
-like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of
-the ancient and mediæval Pamments.
-
-But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that
-he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you
-are likely to _make_ a woman do anything?
-
-Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she
-would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble,
-the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp.
-Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly
-on the ground.
-
-Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
-
-Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the
-whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the
-old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears
-came into his eyes.
-
-Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
-
-"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder.
-"Very raw piece."
-
-To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."
-
-"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.
-
-"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries--fond of pictures----"
-
-Amaryllis was silent.
-
-"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you
-may."
-
-"No," said Amaryllis.
-
-"Hum--let's see--books--library--carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the
-place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar--I've
-forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"
-
-"She _is_ fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should
-be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of
-pictures; she's shy."
-
-Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle
-her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her
-utterance.
-
-Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down
-the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
-took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
-
-Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at
-arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the
-beauties of the picture.
-
-"A grand thing--look," said he.
-
-"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
-
-"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
-
-"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."
-
-She did not move.
-
-"Go that side," said Iden.
-
-No movement.
-
-"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.
-
-At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
-
-"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily--above the canvas, and then
-again at the floor.
-
-Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together;
-Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a
-possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider,
-intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable
-things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection
-would be an immense honour.
-
-Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have
-sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and
-intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
-
-If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the
-mistress.
-
-There is no one so cruel--so utterly inhuman--as an old man, to whom
-feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
-
-"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"
-
-"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last
-and looking her grandfather in the face.
-
-"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks
-flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
-rebellion.
-
-"Smoky," he repeated.
-
-"Smoky and--dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing
-that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
-had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
-
-Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence--on the
-contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant--but she
-remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and
-it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures,
-and his place altogether with marked contempt.
-
-"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you
-please," and she moved towards the door.
-
-"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her.
-"Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"
-
-He could not catch her, she had left the gallery--he slipped in his
-haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
-fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
-
-"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled,
-and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he
-would have spat upon the floor.
-
-Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
-
-"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I
-should have liked you to have seen the house--will you sit down a
-moment? Forgive me if I said or did----. No, do stay--please--"
-as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry--really
-sorry--unintentional"--in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was
-penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she
-began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to
-pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through
-the fair--rough people. Let me open the door----"
-
-The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a
-moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand,
-the blood started.
-
-"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it
-up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for
-money"--short for any amount of money. "Let me----"
-
-"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which
-was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open
-the lock.
-
-Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open--he could easily have
-detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray--Miss Iden." She
-was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he
-followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-
-WHEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond measure, vexation biting deep
-lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured face.
-
-"That I should have been such a fool--an infernal blockheaded
-fool--" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a
-clang--"muddle-headed fool--I'll never touch a drop of whiskey
-again--and that jackass, Fred--why, she's--" a lady, he would have said,
-but did not dare admit to himself now that he had thought to ask her in
-to "wake us up." "But what did I do? Can't think what annoyed her. Must
-have been something between her and that tedious old Iden. Quite sure I
-didn't do or say----" but still he could not quiet his conscience, for
-if he had not by deed or word, he knew he had in thought.
-
-He had sent for her as he might have done for any of the vulgar wenches
-in the fair to amuse an idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.
-
-In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like Amaryllis Iden. Her
-features were not beautiful, as general ideas go, nor had her form the
-grace of full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by a
-master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression her nature had
-made upon him.
-
-It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and
-gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character--the
-mind.
-
-A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a
-woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
-asserts itself in subtle ways.
-
-I don't say for certain that it was her character that impressed
-Raleigh--it might have been nothing of the sort, it might have been
-_because it was so_, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate. These
-things do not happen by "why and because."
-
-Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose a whiskey-sipping,
-cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing, bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh
-could by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But whiskey,
-cutty, horse, and bar were not the real man, any more than your hat is
-your head, they were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all the
-same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely more generous than
-some very respectable folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and
-grind down their clerks and dependents to the edge of starvation.
-
-Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such as the pew-haunting
-Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps he was not in love: at all events he was
-highly excited.
-
-Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following Amaryllis by
-representing that Raleigh would be sure to bring her back. The butler,
-who was very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped out a bottle
-of champagne and handed him a brimming glass. The old gentleman, still
-mouthing and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank, and
-spluttered again, and refusing a second, would go, and so met Raleigh in
-the hall.
-
-Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man, and on his part the old
-man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
-and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard
-or understood the other.
-
-But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering the rough crowd in
-the fair, despatched the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
-now growing dusky as the evening came on.
-
-Without more ado, this young gentleman then set to and swore at Fred for
-half an hour straight ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
-what on earth had turned his brain; next, being equally hot-tempered, he
-swore in reply; then there followed some sharp recriminations (for each
-knew too much of the other's goings on not to have plenty of material),
-and finally they sparred. Two or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having
-nothing to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried himself in the
-papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked out into the fair. Thus there was
-tribulation in the great house of the Pamments.
-
-Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer him through the crowd
-quietly enough, because it flattered him to be thus taken care of before
-the world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted at the doorstep he
-slipped half-a-sovereign in the butler's hand--he could not offer less
-than gold to a Pamments' man--but once inside, his demeanour changed. He
-pushed away his housekeeper, went into his especial sitting-room, bolted
-the door, spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked the coals,
-grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke and smuts filled the stuffy
-little place.
-
-By-and-by there was a banging of drawers--the drawers in the bureau and
-the bookcases were opened and shut sharply--writing-paper was flung on
-the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen.
-The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and
-stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the
-house of the head of the Idens.
-
-Amaryllis meantime had got through the town by keeping between the
-booths and the houses. Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode
-up--he had been on the watch, thinking to talk with her as she walked
-home, but just as he drew rein to go slow and so speak, a heathen pig
-from the market rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the game by
-throwing him headlong.
-
-She did not see, or at least did not notice, but hastening on, entered
-the fields. In coming to town that morning she had seen everything; now,
-returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no heed of anything; she
-was so absorbed that when a man--one of those she met going to the fair
-for the evening--turned back and followed her some way, she did not
-observe him. Finding that she walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased
-to pursue.
-
-The gloom had settled when she reached home, and the candles were lit.
-She gave her father the sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
-escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had the prize-guinea.
-
-"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.
-
-"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me see," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"I--I--I lost it," said Amaryllis.
-
-"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"
-
-"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones. "Show it immediately."
-
-"I can't; I lost it."
-
-"Lost it!"
-
-And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful
-hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could
-throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she
-suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a
-bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity
-she ate, and never could touch any fat--dear me, so fine--bacon was not
-good enough for her--she could throw away spade-guineas.
-
-Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her
-bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but
-sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and
-sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done
-others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that
-day till too sorely tried.
-
-The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then
-she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and
-sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn
-out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
-tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away
-was audible.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-
-So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely
-dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy
-looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking
-her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he
-could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her
-plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was
-fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.
-
-"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice,
-lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb
-under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He
-always sipped his tea in this way.
-
-"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.
-
-"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a
-loss to understand the change of manner.
-
-Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from
-the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:
-
-"Read."
-
-Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden
-for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
-manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in
-his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her
-conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how
-to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.
-
-She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not
-look up, her face was scarlet.
-
-Iden laughed.
-
-"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you
-vexed him, dear!"
-
-Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The
-grandfather's letter had done this.
-
-Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his
-heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
-and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved;
-he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old
-woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept
-his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was
-over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected
-the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly
-aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.
-
-All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden
-treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and
-fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving
-his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.
-
-Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty
-creditors fretted him.
-
-He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's
-favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so
-much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.
-
-Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her
-veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old
-Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated
-him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediæval Pamments.
-
-She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating
-her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting
-herself in the most natural manner.
-
-This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply
-Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
-hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose
-they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was
-something.
-
-They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to
-tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
-Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both
-father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her
-story.
-
-Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments
-enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather
-paid them such court.
-
-Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the
-Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for
-disliking them personally.
-
-Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's
-pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if
-that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse
-her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as
-stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private
-key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
-
-However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'
-disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
-
-So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in
-the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy
-her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
-
-Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that
-she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.
-She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the
-children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the
-archæologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras
-Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
-
-Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the
-centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the
-possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his
-perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended
-yet.
-
-Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the
-other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
-much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not
-work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
-in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks
-these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was
-the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was
-most trying--it really was.
-
-"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at
-the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"
-
-"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her
-son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and
-really--"
-
-"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"
-said the customer, smiling.
-
-"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a
-deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to,
-they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and
-they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the
-fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."
-
-At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have
-been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make
-a boot!
-
-Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their
-first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer
-people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot
-do it at all.
-
-She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for
-her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount
-for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the
-parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate
-instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
-happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or
-three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought
-half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
-fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The
-bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper,
-soon imparted their odour to her hand.
-
-A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope
-you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
-Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the
-boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the
-bloaters--one to kiss fervently.
-
-They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while
-they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little
-pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with
-gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That
-she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition;
-there was no one like Amaryllis.
-
-"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding
-his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for
-the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.
-
-They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-
-RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which
-Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her
-thinking-room, her private chapel and praying-room, her one place of
-solitude, silence, and retirement.
-
-The days had gone on, and it was near the end of April. Coming up the
-dark stairs one morning, she found them still darker, because she had
-just left the sunshine. They were built very narrow, as usual in old
-country-houses, and the landing shut off with a door, so that when you
-were in them you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet--bare
-boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet their stairs; no handrail; the
-edges of the steps worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
-under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as if it had been
-nibbled by mice.
-
-Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis was in perfect darkness,
-but her feet knew the well-remembered way, and she came quickly to the
-top.
-
-There were two great rooms running the whole length of the house: the
-first was a lumber-room, the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it
-was, in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was vague with bareness:
-a huge, square room, gaunt as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed,
-the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table
-and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway--a
-journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post
-bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking
-hung down in a loop, torn and decayed--a bedstead on which no one had
-slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient
-carved linen-press of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.
-
-These bits of rude furniture were lost in the vastness of space, as much
-as if you had thrown your hat into the sky.
-
-Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt down. She brought a
-handful of violets, fresh-gathered, to place in the glass which she kept
-there for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick wall, and formed
-a niche, where she always had a tumbler ready--a common glass tumbler,
-she could not afford a vase.
-
-They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of all, gathered while
-the nightingale was singing his morning song in the April sunshine--a
-song the world never listens to, more delicious than his evening notes,
-for the sunlight helps him, and the blue of the heavens, the green
-leaf, and the soft wind--all the soul of spring.
-
-White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of flower, tender and delicate,
-growing under the great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among the dry,
-brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked unless you know exactly
-where to go for them. She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
-for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen into the glass, but she
-hung them by their chins over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks
-in the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at the table, and
-rested her head on her hand.
-
-Except where she did this every day, and so brushed it, a thin layer of
-dust had covered the surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
-her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on the indiarubber, dust
-on the cake of Indian ink, dust invisible on the smooth surface of the
-pencils, dust in the little box of vine charcoal.
-
-The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the
-pencil from her fingers--Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid
-deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and
-ferocity, ready to tear the very door down. There are no wolves like
-those debt sends against a house.
-
-Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every
-letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.
-
-Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, and put the
-letters unopened on the mantelshelf--a pile of bills over his head where
-he slept calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses
-of hay, and go through _his_ work to appearance unmoved.
-
-Amaryllis could not draw--she could not do it; her imagination refused
-to see the idea; the more she concentrated her mind, the louder she
-heard the ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.
-
-Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, bill-hooks can be
-wielded and faggots chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
-ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow
-the plough, and finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his
-labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid imagination--a
-delicately-balanced organization, that almost lives on its ideas as
-veritable food--cannot do like this. The poet, the artist, the author,
-the thinker, cannot follow their plough; their work depends on a serene
-mind.
-
-But experience proves that they _do_ do their work under such
-circumstances. They do; how greatly then they must be tortured, or for
-what a length of time they must have suffered to become benumbed.
-
-Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked of Time. She could
-not sketch--that was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
-wanted was money. She could not read, that was not real; what was wanted
-was solid coin.
-
-So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered with dust, but
-she came every day to her flowers in the window-niche.
-
-She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of February and March, without
-a fire, disdainful of ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her warm
-young blood cared nothing for the cold, if only by enduring it she could
-assist those whom she loved.
-
-There were artists in the Flamma family in London who made what seemed
-to her large incomes, yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
-criticism, and who had never even sent a work to the Academy--never even
-tried to enter. Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it was
-well paid.
-
-Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success as an artist, nor
-think to take the world by storm with her talent. Her one only hope was
-to get a few pounds now and then--she would have sold twenty sketches
-for ten shillings--to save her father from insult, and to give her
-mother the mere necessities of dress she needed.
-
-No thought of possible triumph, nor was she sustained by an
-overmastering love of art; she was inspired by her heart, not her
-genius.
-
-Had circumstances been different she would not have earnestly practised
-drawing; naturally she was a passive rather than an active artist.
-
-She loved beauty for its own sake--she loved the sunlight, the grass and
-trees, the gleaming water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
-listen to the running water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in
-the high firs, or caught in the wide-stretching arms of the oak; she
-rested among these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the body.
-The few good pictures she had seen pleased her, but did not rouse the
-emotion the sunlight caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not
-like the running stream. It said nothing--the stream was full of
-thought.
-
-No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by
-pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by
-nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a
-thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to
-write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things,
-and not writing.
-
-Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the
-sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
-talent--she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so
-much to her as it is to me to write a letter.
-
-The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the
-preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery
-at Coombe Oaks--a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry
-Christmas"--holly berries, mistletoe--and behind these--debt. Behind the
-glowing fire, written in the flames--debt; in the sound of the distant
-chimes--debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash
-their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.
-
-Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon
-Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel
-thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This
-is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-
-SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house,
-and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if
-there had been they could not have allowed her coals; coals were dear.
-It was quite an event when the horse and cart went to the wharf for
-coal. There was plenty of wood for the hearth--wood grew on the
-farm--but coal was money.
-
-The March winds howled round the corner of the old thatched house, and
-now and again tremendous rains blew up against the little western window
-near which she had placed her table. Through the silent cold of January,
-the moist cold of February, the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
-Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of nipped fingers and
-chilled feet.
-
-Sometimes she looked out of the window and watched Iden digging in the
-garden underneath, planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
-or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing out the furrows that
-the water might flow better--"trenching," as he called it.
-
-The harder it rained the harder he worked at this in the open, with a
-sack about his shoulders like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter,
-the master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the water to the grass
-to get a larger crop of hay in June.
-
-Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure
-as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
-father.
-
-Sometimes she went into the next room--the lumber-room--only lighted by
-a window on a level with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
-only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there, she could see him at
-the stile across the road, his hands behind his back, gossiping now with
-another farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an old woman
-carrying home a yoke of water from the brook.
-
-The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than the work in the cold rain;
-it seemed so incongruous, so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
-as she knew him.
-
-That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead, and his profile like
-Shakespeare, should stand there talk, talk, talking on the smallest
-hamlet topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded farmers,
-was to her a bewilderment and annoyance.
-
-She could not understand it, and she resented it. The real Iden she knew
-was the man of thought and old English taste, who had told her so much
-by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in features he resembled,
-and of the poets from Elizabethan days downwards. His knowledge seemed
-to be endless; there was no great author he had not read, no subject
-upon which he could not at least tell her where to obtain information.
-Yet she knew he had never had what is now called an education. How
-clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how
-wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
-that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was
-great.
-
-No other garden was planted as Iden's garden was, in the best of old
-English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In
-summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a
-painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old
-farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.
-
-Questions upon questions her opening mind had poured upon him, and to
-all he had given her an answer that was an explanation. About the earth
-and about the sea, the rivers, and living things; about the stars and
-sun, the comet, the wonders of the firmament, of geology and astronomy,
-of science; there was nothing he did not seem to know.
-
-A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that Ulysses of whom he read to
-her, and who, like that Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
-was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why did he work in the rain under
-a sack? Why did he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
-idlers?
-
-It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.
-
-I cannot explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give
-a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation--say partly
-circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell,
-partly an indecision of character--too much thought--and, after all said
-and done, Fate.
-
-Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis felt her heart drooping,
-she knew not why, and went back to her drawing unstrung.
-
-She worked very hard, and worked in vain. The sketches all came back to
-her. Some of them had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
-carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had been folded wrongly,
-almost all smelt of tobacco. Neither illustrated papers, periodicals:
-neither editors nor publishers would have anything to do with them. One
-or two took more care, and returned the drawings quite clean; one sent a
-note saying that they promised well.
-
-Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she wanted half a sovereign
-_now_. If a prophet assured a man that the picture he could not now
-dispose of would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years, what
-consolation would that be to him?
-
-They were all a total failure. So many letters could not be received in
-that dull place without others in the house seeing what was going on.
-Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the stairs--a shuffling,
-uncertain step--and her heart began to beat quicker, for she knew it was
-her mother. Somehow, although she loved her so dearly, she felt that
-there was not much sympathy between them. She did not understand her
-mother; the mother did not understand the daughter. Though she was
-working for her mother's sake, when she heard her mother's step she was
-ashamed of her work.
-
-Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the room, drawing one foot
-along the floor in an aggravating way she had, she was not lame, and
-look out of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis, and say--
-
-"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never do anything. I've seen too
-much of it. Better come down and warm yourself."
-
-Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it seemed so inconsistent.
-Mrs. Iden blew up her husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
-round and discouraged her daughter for being enterprising, and this,
-too, although she was constantly talking about the superiority of the
-art employments of the Flammas in London to the clodhopper work around
-her.
-
-Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother had gone downstairs
-again, and then the words kept repeating themselves in her ear--"Never
-do no good at that, never do no good at that."
-
-If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we should find that
-Amaryllis was working for a mother of her own imagination, and not for
-the mother of fact.
-
-Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing, feels the cold very
-much more than those who are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold
-in the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind came unchecked through
-the wire network of the window in the next room. But for that her
-generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the still colder wind of
-failure.
-
-She had no name--no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the
-finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the
-accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.
-
-Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would
-attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world
-is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools.
-Succeed by merit!
-
-Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger, or the
-tallow-chandler rely on personal merit, or purely personal ability for
-making a business? They rely on a little capital, credit, and much push.
-The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and works next as a
-subordinate, his "footing" costs hundreds of pounds, and years of hard
-labour. The doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he can, he buys
-a practice. They do not rely on merit.
-
-The three fools--the author, the artist, and the musician--put certain
-lines on a sheet of paper and expect the world to at once admire their
-clever ideas.
-
-In the end--but how far is it to the end!--it is true that genius is
-certain of recognition; the steed by then has grown used to starvation,
-waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of
-business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do
-not exactly seem to be so.
-
-Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of
-disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.
-
-I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady
-income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean
-to go into the tallow business.
-
-Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might
-work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
-watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain,
-under his sack.
-
-She had not even a diploma--a diploma, or a certificate, a South
-Kensington certificate! Fancy, without even a certificate! Misguided
-child!
-
-What a hideous collection of frumpery they have got there at the Museum,
-as many acres as Iden's farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the
-"periods." What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They have not even
-a single statue in the place. They would shrivel up in horror at a nude
-model. _They_ teach art--miserable sham, their wretched art culminates
-in a Christmas card.
-
-Amaryllis had not even been through the South Kensington "grind," and
-dared to send in original drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
-see, pure clodhopper ignorance.
-
-Failure waited on her labours; the postman brought them all back again.
-
-Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen the line which the very
-highest in the profession would probably have advised her to take. She
-drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old barn up the road, the
-hollow tree, the dry reeds, the birds, and chanticleer himself--
-
-          High was his comb, and coral red withal,
-          In dents embattled like a castle wall.
-
-Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not sketch; the fogger with
-his broad knife cutting hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the
-wheelbarrow munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a study for Teniers;
-the team coming home from plough--winter scenes, most of them, because
-it was winter time. There are those who would give fifty pounds for one
-of those studies now, crumpled, stained, and torn as they are.
-
-It was a complete failure. Once only she had a gleam of success. Iden
-picked up the sketch of the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking
-at it, put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf. Amaryllis
-felt like the young painter whose work is at last hung at the Academy.
-His opinion was everything to her. He valued her sketch.
-
-Still, that was not money. The cold wind and the chill of failure still
-entered her garret study. But it was neither of these that at length
-caused the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked on and on,
-hoping against hope, undaunted, despite physical cold and moral check.
-It was the procession of creditors.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-
-STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting
-Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to
-the door, the thump, thump with the fist (there was neither knocker nor
-bell, country fashion); more thumping, and then her mother's excuses, so
-oft repeated, so wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
-creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes," or "He's gone to Green
-Hills." "Well, when will he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to know
-when this yer little account is going to be settled." Then a long
-narration of his wrongs, threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
-grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps departing.
-
-Very rude men came down from the villages demanding payment in their
-rough way--a raw, crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had long
-since exhausted his credit in the town; neither butcher, baker, draper,
-nor anyone else would let them have a shilling's-worth until the
-shilling had been placed on the counter. He had been forced lately to
-deal with the little men of the villages--the little butcher who killed
-once a fortnight; the petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
-Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first; coarse language and
-rudeness afterwards.
-
-One day, the village baker, having got inside the door as Mrs. Iden
-incautiously opened it, stood there and argued with her, while Amaryllis
-in the garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.
-
-"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.
-
-"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it up?"
-
-"He'll send it up."
-
-"He've a' said that every time, but it beant come yet. You tell un I be
-come to vetch it."
-
-"Mr. Iden's not in."
-
-"I'll bide till he be in."
-
-"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."
-
-"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful. It's nothing but
-cheating--that's what I calls it--to have things and never pay for um.
-It's cheating."
-
-Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.
-
-"How dare you say such a thing? How dare you insult my mother? Leave the
-house this moment!"
-
-And with both hands she literally pushed the man, unwilling, but not
-absolutely resisting, outside, grumbling as he moved that he never
-insulted nobody, only asked for his money.
-
-A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of hand, calculated to
-encourage the play of imagination! She could do nothing for hours
-afterwards.
-
-Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was worse, because it lasted
-longer. First they talked by the potato-patch almost under the window;
-then they talked on the path; then they came indoors, and then there
-were words and grumbling sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
-they went out again and talked by the gate. At last the creditor
-departed, and Iden returned indoors to take a glass of ale and sit a
-moment till the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind. Mrs. Iden
-then had her turn at him: the old story--why didn't he do something?
-Amaryllis knew every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
-room.
-
-How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis could not think; how he could
-stand, and be argued with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
-the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in the road, she could
-not understand.
-
-The truth was he could not help himself; violence would have availed
-nothing. But to youth it seems as if a few blows are all that is needed
-to overcome difficulties.
-
-Waller and Co., the tailor--he was his own Co.--walked over regularly
-once a week; very civil and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
-he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for Iden's coat was a
-pattern of raggedness, his trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby
-old hat rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound account two
-years overdue.
-
-Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his trap as he went by, at
-least twice a week, to chivey Iden about his money. Though he would not
-let them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever there was five
-shillings to spare for meat it was always taken into his shop, as it was
-better to have good meat there, if you had to pay cash for meat, than
-inferior in the village. One day, Amaryllis was waiting for some steak,
-side by side with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while Cobb served a
-grand lady of the town. "Yes, m'm--oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows,
-and scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness possible. When
-the fine lady had gone, "Lar, Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how
-different you do speak to _they_ to what you do speak to _me_."
-
-"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed at having one manner
-for the poor and another for the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they
-require such a deal of _homage_."
-
-There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's, but that was not much
-pressed, only a large blue letter about once a month, as Beavan had a
-very good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs. Iden made
-excellent butter, which had a reputation, and Beavan took it all at
-about half-price. If it had been sold to anyone else he would have
-insisted on payment. So, by parting with the best butter in the county
-at half-price, they got their tea and sugar without much dunning.
-
-At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and strange in her manner, as if on
-the point of hysterics, from which Amaryllis divined something serious
-was approaching, though her mother would say nothing. So it turned
-out--a bailiff appeared, and took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was
-very civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and offered to
-help in any way he could. Iden gave him plenty of beer, for one thing.
-Amaryllis could not go into the kitchen--the dear old place seemed
-deserted while he was there.
-
-This woke up Iden for the moment. First there was a rummaging about in
-his old bureau, and a laborious writing of letters, or adding up of
-figures. Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath, clean
-linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed away these years past. In
-two hours or so Iden came down another man, astonishingly changed, quite
-a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome in Amaryllis's eyes.
-Indeed, he was really handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully
-so. If only he would always dress like that!
-
-Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations had so consumed
-the time that the bank was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and
-there was no means of raising any money that evening. The son passed the
-father's doorstep--the worn stone step, ground by the generations of
-customers--he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where
-Grandfather Iden sat--he might, had he paused and listened, have heard
-the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man--the son
-passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held a
-bailiff.
-
-A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff in the kitchen, and
-there he remained the night, and was up and had lit the fire for Luce
-the servant before she was down. The man was certainly very civil, but
-still there was the shock of it.
-
-Early in the morning Iden went into town again, saw his solicitor, and
-got a cheque--it was only five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the
-bailiff left.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-
-BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to
-feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign
-foot, the very poker had been touched by a foreign hand, the rude form
-at the side by the wall had been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
-always been so fond of the kitchen--the oldest part of the house, two
-centuries at least. The wide hearth and immense chimney, up which, when
-the fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the stars; over
-which of a windy night you could imagine the witches riding by, borne on
-the deep howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun slung to it;
-the heavy oaken table, unpolished, greyish oak; the window in the thick
-wall, set with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls from
-which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the rude old place was very dear
-to her.
-
-Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the sitting-room, drawn by
-its antique homeliness. Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great
-cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and apples, while the
-potatoes--large potatoes--Iden's selected specialities--were baking
-buried in the ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could see the
-white drift of snow against the window, which was on a level with the
-ground outside, and so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
-the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with saws, or, his fancy
-roaming on, of the broad and beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so
-admired in his youth, the river the poets will sing some day; or of his
-clinging aloft at night in the gale on the banks of Newfoundland, for he
-had done duty as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his youth, why
-did he gossip at the stile now in his full and prime of manhood?
-
-It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even then only those who have
-lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend
-the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly
-sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The
-beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and
-son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden could not forgive his son
-for making the place beautiful with trees and flowers.
-
-By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and they had supper on the old
-and clumsy table, village made and unpolished, except in so far as the
-stains of cooking operations had varnished it, the same table at which
-"Jearje," the fogger, sat every morning to eat his breakfast, and every
-evening to take his supper. What matter? George worked hard and honestly
-all day, his great arms on the table, spread abroad as he ate, did not
-injure it.
-
-Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the snow without, floury
-and smoking; dabs of Mrs. Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and
-pepper, and there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
-pleasant--just a taste.
-
-They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts, sometimes a Flamma
-from London, sometimes an Iden from over the hill, or others were there.
-Iden was very hospitable--though most of his guests (family connections)
-were idle folk, no good to themselves or anybody, still they were made
-cordially welcome. But others, very high folk, socially speaking (for
-they had good connections, too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
-grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves most thoroughly on the
-rude Homeric fare.
-
-For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an open-handed generosity,
-a sense of reality about it; something really to eat, though no
-finger-glasses; Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.
-
-Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it was the very centre of
-home. This strange man, this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her
-dearest emotions. His shadow remained on the wall though he had gone.
-
-They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it was weeks before the
-kitchen seemed to resume its former appearance. Jearje was the one who
-restored it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily at breakfast and
-at supper, it almost made them forget their troubles to see anyone so
-grateful and pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you, ma'am; dest
-about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"--locally the "d" and "j" were often
-interchangable, dest for jest, or just--"That'll be a' plenty for I,
-ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"--don't want more than I can eat,
-don't want to be greedy--"Thank you, miss; dest about some ripping good
-ale, this yer; that it be."
-
-He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the bacon, and the cheese, and
-the ale; he was like a great, big human dog; you know how we like to see
-a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his paws on our knees and
-laugh, as it were, with his eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
-women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him all the bones,
-literally and metaphorically, the actual bones of the meat, and any
-scraps there were, to take home with him (besides his regular meals),
-and now and then some trifles of clothing for his aged mother. The dog
-most thoroughly appreciated this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in
-it, grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.
-
-Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of doors, and for much the
-same reason; his cheery content and willingness, and the absence of the
-usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked willingly and
-fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed another hour, or put his
-shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
-and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways.
-Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
-and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce,
-or apples, and various other things from time to time.
-
-Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more
-like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the
-family.
-
-It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to
-watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about
-it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt
-to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.
-
-Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of
-mutton--anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus
-of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and
-cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea--the cups were
-not large enough--and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter
-what, Jearje ate steadily through it.
-
-A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want
-anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the
-long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start,
-without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing
-with his burden.
-
-There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of
-the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful
-as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time
-to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good
-master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was
-not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.
-
-Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken
-table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
-cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away
-the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be
-itself again.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-
-BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
-the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
-garret.
-
-One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
-whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
-talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
-Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
-fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust
-his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good
-lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race;
-they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury
-to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser,
-and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool
-of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
-with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this
-tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves
-"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is
-no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds'
-worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of
-straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if
-there is such a milk business in existence.
-
-This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't
-you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money
-matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the
-jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think
-you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"
-
-The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of
-the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
-contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be
-practical! The cleverest man in the world--advise him to be practical;
-as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.
-
-To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.
-
-But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since
-the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
-would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying
-fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.
-
-Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open,
-and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
-the ricks.
-
-At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see
-what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and
-gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to
-certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's
-system had been overstrained by these continual worries.
-
-Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
-strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
-her.
-
-After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
-nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
-lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.
-
-When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
-shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
-window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
-times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.
-
-On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
-Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
-exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
-that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
-returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
-tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--
-
-"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
-help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
-a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
-growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
-earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.
-
-The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
-the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
-solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
-so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
-the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
-than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
-only.
-
-That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
-home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
-material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
-only.
-
-So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
-on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
-of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
-of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
-on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
-these many, many days.
-
-The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the
-world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
-round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do
-with it--with just one of those golden disks!
-
-Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr.
-Chenery (of _The Times_), translated twenty-six of his poems from the
-Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion
-of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical
-unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is
-vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom
-is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
-the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep
-jest.
-
-Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar,
-the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the
-obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other
-causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates
-belong to it. First he chants its praises:--
-
-          How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
-          Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
-          Told abroad are its fame and repute:
-          Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
-          Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
-          Its bright look is loved by mankind,
-          As though it had been molten of their hearts.
-          By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
-          Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
-          Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
-          Charming are its sufficiency and help.
-          How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
-          How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it,
-                would be endless!
-          How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
-          How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
-          How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
-          Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has
-                softened.
-          How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
-          Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
-          Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
-          Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
-
-The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
-Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
-it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
-famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
-worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
-was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
-bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
-might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
-mighty.
-
-All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
-leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
-good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
-
-But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
-evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--
-
-          Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
-          The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
-          It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
-                looks on it,
-          The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
-          Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
-          Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
-          But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
-          Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
-          Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
-          Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
-                withholds;
-          Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
-          Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
-          Is that it helps thee not in straits,
-          Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
-          Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
-          And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
-                lover,
-          Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
-          "I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"
-
-"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
-Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
-her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
-fleeing like a runaway slave.
-
-But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
-only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all
-powerful to bless.
-
-How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and
-full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be
-taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of
-things.
-
-It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-
-THOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the
-table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often
-twice a day, to her flowers to pray.
-
-From the woods she brought the delicate primrose opening on the mossy
-bank among the grey ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of
-hawthorn coming before the swallow; the garden crocus from the grass of
-the garden; the first green spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the
-beautiful white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April morning while
-the nightingale sang.
-
-With these she came to pray each day, at the window-niche. After she had
-sat awhile at the table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt at
-the window with her face in her hands; the scent of the violets filled
-her hair.
-
-Her prayer was deeper than words and was not put in language, but came
-rushing through her heart;--"That her dear mother might not suffer any
-more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be removed from her
-mind, that peace and rest might come to her in her old age. Let her step
-become firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes shine like they
-used to, so clear and bright, and do not let the grey hairs show more
-than they do now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be happy and
-talk cheerfully, and take an interest in the house and all the order of
-household things, and also see and understand that her husband meant to
-please her, even in such a little thing as splitting up useful wood for
-the fire, that he intended to please her, and that she might not
-misunderstand him any more. He intended to be kind in many ways, but
-misfortune had blinded her, and she took things the wrong way. And give
-her more change and friends to ask her out from home on visits, so that
-she might be amused, and make them come to see her and pass the time in
-contentment. Give her also enough money to buy good clothes so as to
-look nice as she ought to do, and if possible a conveyance of some
-kind--not a grand carriage, she did not wish for that--but a conveyance
-to drive about now and then, because she was not so strong as she used
-to be, and could not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let me be
-able to give her a watch, for other people have watches, and my mother
-has not got one, and it does seem so strange it should be so after all
-the hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some nice things to
-eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot eat our plain bacon now every
-day, she has not got an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I
-should so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her food might
-do her more good. But what I really want is that she may be happy, and
-be like my mother herself really is when she is herself. Give my father
-money enough to pay his creditors, for I know that though he is so quiet
-and says nothing, these debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
-to pay them, and does not willingly keep them waiting. He is so patient,
-and so good, and bears everything, I am sure no one was ever like him,
-and it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every day from five
-o'clock in the morning, and yet to be always worried with these debts
-and people that will not let him have peace one single day. Do, please,
-let him have less work to do, it makes me miserable to see him in the
-rain, and he is not young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy things,
-great pieces of timber and large trusses of hay, and making his back
-ache digging. Surely it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
-he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can see quite so well as
-he used to, because he holds the paper so close to his eyes. Please let
-him leave off working soon now and have some rest and change, and go
-about with my mother, and when he is at home not have anything more to
-do than his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him love the
-flowers again as he used to, and plant some more, and have nothing
-harder to do than to gather the fruit from the trees he has planted. And
-let me get him some new books to read, because I know he is so fond of
-books; he has not had a new book for so long. Let him go to London and
-see people and things, and life, because I know he is full of ideas and
-thoughts though he works and digs, and that is what would do him good.
-Give him some money now at last, now he has worked all these years,
-forty years on this farm, and ever so much work before that; do give him
-some money at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and not so
-harsh for the rent, let him give the place to my father now, for it can
-be no use to him; let my father have it for his very own, and then I
-think he would be happy after all, he does so like to improve things and
-make them beautiful, and if it was his very own there is so much that he
-could do. That would be nice work and work that he would enjoy doing,
-and not just to get a few wretched shillings to pay other people. I am
-sure he would never be cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
-and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody like him, as you know,
-in this place; they are not clever like him, and good to the labouring
-men and their families like he is (and so is my mother too); they are so
-rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do not mean anything against them,
-but they are not like he is. And if you were to help him he would soon
-help the poor people and give them food and more wages; you know how
-good he is in his heart. And he would do it, not because other people
-should praise him, but because he would like to do it; if he does not
-go to church his heart is very true, and it is because he likes to be
-true and genuine, and not make any false show. Do, please, help him, and
-give him some money, and do, please, let him have this place for his
-very own, for I do so fear lest those who set my grandfather against
-him, should have a will made, so that my father should not have this
-house and land as he ought to do, as the son. He has made it so
-beautiful with trees, and brought the fresh spring water up to the
-house, and done so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it is
-home to him, and no other place could be like it. I think it would kill
-him not to have it, and for me, I should be so--I cannot tell, I should
-be so miserable if he did not, but I will not think of myself. There are
-so many things I know he wants to do if only he was not so worried with
-debts, and if he could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
-copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have trout in it, and to
-build a wall by the rick-yard. Think how my dear father has worked all
-these years, and do help him now, and give him some money, and this
-place, and please do not let him grow any more grey than his hair is
-now, and save his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
-and please make my mother happy with him."
-
-When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face was quite white, emotion had
-taken away her colour, and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a
-little while by the table to recover herself, still thinking, and
-remembered that again last night she had dreamed the same dream about
-fire in the thatch. Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
-and they ran out of doors and found the corner of the roof on fire, over
-the window with the wire network instead of glass. It ran up from the
-corner towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by the ridge. There
-was no flame, but a deep red seething heat, as if the straw burned
-inwardly, and was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed to lie in
-the furious heat, and a light to flicker up and down, as if it breathed
-fire. The thatch was very thick there, she knew, and recollected it
-quite well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two thick coats in his
-time, and it was heavy enough before then. He talked about the thatching
-of it, because it was an argument with him that straw had a great power
-of endurance, and was equal to slates for lasting. This thickness, she
-saw, was the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and why,
-fortunately, it was slow in moving up the roof. It had not yet eaten
-through, so that there was no draught--once it got through, it would
-burn fast--if only they could put it out before then all might yet be
-saved. In the midst of her anxiety Iden came with the largest ladder in
-the rickyard, and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She tried to
-follow, holding on to the rungs of the ladder with one hand, and
-dragging up a heavy bucket with the other--the strain and effort to get
-up woke her.
-
-This dream had happened to her so many times, and was so vivid and
-circumstantial--the fire seemed to glow in the thatch--that at last she
-began to dread lest it should come true. If it did not come true of the
-house itself, perhaps it would of the family, and of their affairs;
-perhaps it signified that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
-would burn them, as it were, to the ground. She tried to think whether
-in the dream they were getting the fire under before she woke, or
-whether they could not master it; it seemed dubious.
-
-She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid lest it might excite
-her again; nor could she tell Iden, who would have laughed at her.
-
-Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and dreams have ceased to come
-true, she did not like it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable
-danger was threatening round about. As she sat at the table she added to
-her prayer the supplication that the dear old house might not be burned
-down.
-
-Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on the lower flight paused, to
-listen to voices--not those of her mother and Iden--creditors,
-doubtless, come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"--the very sum
-and total of religion. Her heart beat quicker--the voices came again,
-and she thought she recognized them, and that they were not those of
-creditors. She entered the sitting-room, and found that two visitors,
-from widely separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau, the
-other with an old, many-coloured carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from
-Iden Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they were called, and
-Alere Flamma, from London; the Flammas were carpet-bag people.
-
-Her father was making them very welcome, after his wont, and they were
-talking of the house the Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot,
-expressly in order that they might drink, drink, drink undisturbed by
-their unreasonable wives.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-
-THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
-with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of
-May; till "a month passed away," and still they were talking. For there
-is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when
-you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil
-meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine,
-better than sleep, like love itself--for love is agreement of
-thought--"God listens to those who pray to him; let us eat and drink,
-and think of nothing," says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and
-drank--very moderate the drinking--and thought of nothing, and talked,
-which should be added to complete felicity. Not, of course, all of them
-always together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere, Amadis, and
-Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.
-
-The round summer-house was their Parliament House whenever the east
-winds sank and the flowers shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines
-when the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds cease the May
-flowers immediately bloom and glow.
-
-It was a large round house, properly builded of brick, as a summer-house
-should be--put not thy faith in lath work--and therefore dry and warm;
-to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and comfortable, with a
-sea of meadow-grass, smooth and coloured, stretching in front, islanded
-about with oak, and elm, and ash.
-
-The finches came to the boughs that hung over the ivy-grown thatch, and
-sang in the sycamore opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
-bloom hung down almost to the ground.
-
-These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung sackfuls of bloom at
-his feet. They poured themselves out in abandoned, open-armed,
-spendthrift, wasteful--perfectly prodigal--quantities of rose-tinted
-petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to the brim, never
-questioning but what there will be plenty of water to follow.
-
-Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring up wherever Iden set
-down his foot: fruit and flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
-his genius to make things grow--like sunshine and shower; a sort of Pan,
-a half-god of leaves and boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature
-in human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and Beauty.
-
-One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush, Iden had set it
-there; he builded the summer-house and set the ivy; and the pippin at
-the back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch near by; the great
-sycamore alone had been there before him, but he set a seat under it,
-and got woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he planted, and if
-Amaryllis stood under it when the tree was in full leaf you could not
-see her, it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak in the corner;
-the box hedge along the ha-ha parapet; the red currants against the red
-wall; the big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the yellow honey-bush;
-all these, and this was but one square, one mosaic of the garden, half
-of it sward, too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch at one
-corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs, lavender, parsley, which has
-a very pleasant green, growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage--read
-Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage--ask Nature if you wish
-to know how many things more there were.
-
-A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing in, listening to the
-goldfinches, and watching them carry up the moss, and lichen, and
-slender fibres for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to the
-swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on the sharp, high top of the
-pear tree; to the vehement starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
-Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink, chink," thrushes,
-distant blackbirds, who like oaks; "cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake,"
-buzzing and burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then a neigh,
-to remind you that there were horses, fulness and richness of musical
-sound; a world of grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.
-
-When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers
-beneath, "a summer's day in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
-Heaven.
-
-And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped out of the pocket of
-Iden's ragged old coat.
-
-There was a magic power of healing in the influences of this place which
-Iden had created. Both Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed for
-the better.
-
-That morning when Amaryllis had found them, just arrived, the one with a
-portmanteau, and the other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to the
-last degree of paleness.
-
-Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed at Coombe Oaks before,
-when Amaryllis was thirteen and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
-great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water, walking over the
-hills, exploring the woods; Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis
-going with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats. They were of
-the same stock of Idens, yet no relations; he was of the older branch,
-Amaryllis of the younger.
-
-She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden into a man.
-
-Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him, she could scarce believe
-he was the same; so pale, so thin, so drooping, and fireless--the spark
-of life sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table that
-morning like a ghost. He was convalescent from low fever: that dread
-disease which has taken the place of ague in the country. At one time it
-was ague; in these times it is low fever.
-
-At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness in a far-off way, but had
-received no distinct particulars, for the news came in a roundabout way
-by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The distance between the two
-houses was less than ten miles, and might as well have been five hundred
-for all the communication.
-
-So that the ghastly paleness of his face came upon her as a spectre in
-daylight. You could see at a glance what was wrong--the vital energy had
-been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch broken, or bark scored,
-fades and withers from the lack of the mysterious force which brings
-forth fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body--the tree--was
-there, but the life was not in it.
-
-Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was pale from other causes,
-and it was a different kind of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis,
-but something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state. Too much Fleet
-Street, in short; too much of the Oracle--Pantagruel's Oracle of the
-Bottle.
-
-His hands shook as he held his knife and fork--oddly enough, the hands
-of great genius often do shake; now and then when he put his glass to
-his lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.
-
-It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands could hold a pencil, and
-draw delicate lines without a flaw.
-
-Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands that tremble nearly as
-much--the nervous constitution--and yet execute artists' work of rare
-excellence.
-
-Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution, naturally nervous, had
-been shaken as with dynamite by the bottle, and the glass chinked
-against his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt himself
-toppling over like a tree half sawn through, Alere packed his
-carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe Oaks. When the rats began to run up
-the wall as he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
-into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.
-
-In London he never wore a collar, only a bright red scarf round his
-neck; the company he kept would have shunned him--they would have looked
-him up and down disdainfully:--"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." They
-would have scornfully regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
-class above all others scorned by those who use tools.
-
-"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." The City clerk, playing the Masher
-on thirty shillings a week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.
-
-Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used hammer, and file, or set
-up type--a godless set, ye gods, how godless, these setters up of type
-at four o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.; special
-taverns they must have open for them--open before Aurora gleams in the
-east--Oh! Fleet Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!
-
-By no possible means could Alere work himself into a dress-coat.
-
-Could he have followed the celebrated advice--"You put on a dress-coat
-and go into society"--he would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
-of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.
-
-To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed, too, of the still rarer
-talent--the taste to see what to draw--there really is no limit in our
-days; for as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour in an
-age of dinginess--why, the point, nowadays, is to avoid colour, and in a
-whole Academy you shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
-sealing-wax.
-
-"You put on a black coat and go into society"--that is the secret of
-commissions, and commissions are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way
-of advice has been sent forth as that remark. The great Tichborne said
-something about folk that had money and no brains, and folk that had
-brains but no money; and they as has no brains ought to be so managed as
-to supply money to those who had. But even the greatness of the great
-Tichborne's observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield in
-one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go into society."
-
-What are the sayings of the seven wise men of Greece compared to
-_that_?
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-
-BY no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat.
-The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners--those
-great institutions of the day--were all closed to him because of the
-Dress Coat.
-
-If he had really desired to enter, of course he would have squeezed into
-the evening monkey-skin somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to
-enter.
-
-Inside he might have finished a portrait a month at a thousand
-guineas--twelve portraits per annum equals twelve thousand guineas a
-year; you see I am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory to
-going into the tallow trade.
-
-What he actually did was to make designs for book-covers--magnificent
-book-covers that will one day fetch their weight in bank-notes--manipulating
-a good deal of it himself--"tooling"--for the libraries of noble
-connoisseurs. They were equal to anything ever done in Paris.
-
-For a week's work--say half-an-hour a day--he got perhaps about ten
-pounds. With the ten pounds he was satisfied--ten pounds represents a
-good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about as much as one man
-can manage at a bout; besides tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and
-innumerable trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good deal of
-street life.
-
-Sometimes he drew--and engraved--illustrations for books, being as
-clever with the engraver's tools as with the pencil; sometimes he cut
-out those odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials," which are
-now so commonly seen in publications, catching the classical grotesque
-of the Renaissance to perfection, and deceiving the experienced;
-sometimes he worked in the press-room in the House of Flamma, Fleet
-Street, pulling artists' proofs, or printing expensively illustrated
-volumes--numbered, and the plates destroyed--actual manual work, in his
-shirt sleeves.
-
-He could stop when he liked and take a swig of stout. That was the Alere
-style.
-
-Smoking was forbidden in the old House of Flamma because of the
-worm-eaten beams, the worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty,
-decayed bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the thin
-wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at the mere sight of a match.
-Also because of the piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
-looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were worth thousands of
-pounds; the plates and lithographic stones, artists' proofs, divers and
-sundry Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.
-
-But Alere, being a son of the house, though not in command, did not
-choose to be amenable to rules and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He
-smoked and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a certain step was
-known to be approaching the pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry
-glue set melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the flavour of
-tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is used in London in this way.
-
-If I could but write the inside history of Fleet Street, I should be
-looked upon as the most wonderful exponent of human life that had ever
-touched a pen. Balzac--whom everybody talks of and nobody has read,
-because the discrimination of Paternoster Row has refused him a
-translation till quite lately--Zola, who professes to be realistic, who
-is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings are so curiously crude
-and merely skim the surface; even the great Hugo, who produced the
-masterpiece of all fiction, _Les Misérables_; all three of them, the
-entire host of manuscript-makers, I am sure I could vanquish them all,
-if I could only write the inside life of Fleet Street.
-
-Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of diction, but just
-pencil-jotted in the roughest words to hand, just as rich and poor,
-well-dressed ladies and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
-without choice of language, but hustling the first words anyhow, as it
-were, into the first compartment. If I could only get Alere to tell me
-all he had seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the
-margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would laugh and weep. For
-such things do go on in Fleet Street as no man has written yet.
-
-If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!
-
-Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves, swigging his
-stout, smoking on the sly, working with all the genius of an inspired
-mechanic one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the next,
-spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of work, as if his very
-life depended on the smoothing of an edge of paper, putting off the next
-till the end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping, dreaming over
-old German works, and especially dreaming over Goethe, humming old
-German songs--for he had been a great traveller--sometimes scrawling a
-furious Mazzinian onslaught in a semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting
-stray engravings, wandering hither and thither.
-
-Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur, traveller,
-printer, Republican, conspirator, sot, smoker, dreamer, poet,
-kind-hearted, good-natured, prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
-carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.
-
-He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout, but nothing vulgar had
-ever been recorded against Alere Flamma. He frequented strong
-company--very strong meat--but no vile word left his lips.
-
-There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst of the coarsest
-surroundings, just as he appeared in the press-room among the printer's
-ink in the whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
-abhorred dress-coat.
-
-In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally hundreds of sketches,
-done on all sorts and sizes of paper, from the inside of an envelope
-hastily torn open to elephant. The bureau was full of them, crammed in
-anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged; nothing, of course, could be found
-if it was wanted. The drawers of the bookcase--it was his own
-furniture--were full of them; the writing-table drawer; a box in one
-corner; some were on the mantelpiece smoked and gritty; some inside his
-books, most of which were interleaved in this manner; literally hundreds
-of sketches, the subjects as numerous and varied.
-
-Views in English country lanes, views on the Danube, bands playing in
-band-loving Vienna, old Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury
-Cathedral, statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with the north wind in
-the North Sea--a savage fight between sail and gale--horses in the
-meadow, an aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners in the
-Black Forest, studies from the nude--Parisian models, Jewesses, almost
-life-size, a drayman heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
-like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs to illustrate classical
-mythology, outlines expressing the ideas of Goethe--outlines of
-Marguerite and Faust among the roses--"He loves me; he loves me not,"
-big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was
-deep in the song, roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
-their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere had a bullet through
-his hat, in Vienna, I think; no end to them.
-
-Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a month or two, and his ten
-pounds were spent, if he wanted a few guineas he would take a small
-selection of these round to the office of a certain illustrated paper;
-the Editor would choose, and hand over the money at once, well aware
-that it was ready money his friend needed. They were not exactly
-friends--there are no friends in London, only acquaintances--but a
-little chummy, because the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and
-they had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper that ever got
-sketches out of Alere.
-
-If only Alere would have gone and sketched what he was _asked_ to
-sketch! Ah! there is the difference; he could not do it, his nature
-would not let him; he could draw what he saw with his own eyes, but not
-what other people wanted him to see. A merry income he might have made
-if he would only have consented to see what other eyes--common, vulgar
-eyes--wanted to see, and which he could so easily have drawn for them.
-
-Out of these piles of varied sketches there were two kinds the Editor
-instantly snapped at: the one was wild flowers, the other little
-landscape bits.
-
-Wild flowers were his passion. They were to Flamma as Juliet to Romeo.
-Romeo's love, indeed, rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of
-flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps he might not have
-worshipped Juliet next year. Flamma had loved his wild flowers close
-upon forty years, ever since he could remember; most likely longer, for
-doubtless the dumb infant loved the daisies put in his chubby hand.
-
-His passion they were still as he drew near fifty, and saw all things
-become commonplace. That is the saddest of thoughts--as we grow older
-the romance fades, and all things become commonplace.
-
-Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow, the other half in
-wishing for yesterday.
-
-Wild flowers alone never become commonplace. The white wood-sorrel at
-the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on
-the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear
-to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it
-were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our
-emotions, our thoughts.
-
-Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room was full of wild flowers,
-drawn as he had found them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks--by the
-footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on the hills--as he had
-found them, not formed into an artificial design, not torn up by the
-roots, or cut and posed for the occasion--exactly as they were when his
-eye caught sight of them. A difficult thing to do, but Alere did it.
-
-In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated magazines usually
-make one of two mistakes; either the flower is printed without any
-surroundings or background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
-however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented with a heavy black pall
-of ink which dabs it out altogether.
-
-These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the little landscapes. From
-a stile, beside a rick, through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected
-places, Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood, groups of
-trees, old houses, and got them in his magical way on a few square
-inches of paper. They were very valuable for book illustration. They
-were absolutely true to nature and fact.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-
-PERHAPS the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his
-inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree,
-he could not make believe--could not deceive--could not masquerade in a
-dress-coat.
-
-Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue to-day is nature in a
-dress-coat.
-
-In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole Academy, or Grosvenor
-Gallery you shall hardly find three works that represent any real scene
-in the fields.
-
-I have walked about the fields a good deal in my brief, fretful hour,
-yet I have never seen anything resembling the strange apparitions that
-are hung on these walls every spring. Apparitions--optical illusions,
-lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly, ghost-light--nothing like them on
-earth I swear, and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.
-
-Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place, a brook from another, a
-house from another--_and mixed to order_, like a prescription by the
-chemist--xv. grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge. Nature
-never plants--nature is no gardener--no design, no proportion in the
-fields.
-
-Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may have noticed that the
-surface of the water in the ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum,
-a pale prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern landscape.
-
-How horrible the fields would look if they wore such hues in reality as
-are accepted on canvas at the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints
-transferred to the sward, the woods, the hills, the streams, the sky!
-_Dies iræ, dies illæ_--it would, indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day
-of Doom, and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane drawn before our
-eyes to shut it out of sight.
-
-There are some who can go near to paint dogs and horses, but a meadow of
-mowing grass, not one of them can paint that.
-
-Many can _draw_ nature--drawings are infinitely superior generally to
-the painting that follows; scarce one now paints real nature.
-
-Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the dress-coat of sham colour
-for any sacred exhibition wall whatever.
-
-One thing Alere never attempted to draw--a bird in flight. He recognized
-that it was impossible; his taste rejected every conventional attitude
-that has been used for the purpose; the descending pigeon, the Japanese
-skewered birds, the swallow skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot
-draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst
-of all.
-
-How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it.
-The swallow's wing has the motion of life--its tremble--its wonderful
-delicacy of vibration--the instant change--the slip of the air;--no man
-will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.
-
-At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis had sat much,
-from time to time, when the carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to
-his Baden-Baden--_i.e._, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom, singing finch,
-and wild-flowers.
-
-There were no "properties" in Alere's room at his lodgings; no odd bits
-collected during his wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
-realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No gauntlets or
-breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no Turkish guns or yataghans, no
-stags' horns, china, or carvings to be copied some day into an
-illustration. No "properties."
-
-No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes the key and tones the
-visitors' mind to "Art," the etchings, the wall or panel decorations,
-the sliding curtains, the easels in the corner, the great
-portfolios--the well-known "effects" were absent.
-
-A plain room, not even with a north light, plain old furniture, but not
-very old--not ostensibly ancient, somewhere about 1790 say--and this
-inherited and not purchased; Flamma cared not one atom for furniture,
-itself, old or new; dusty books everywhere, under the table, on the
-mantelpiece, beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on the
-sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the two bookcases and drawers;
-odd books most of them, Cornelius Agrippa, _Le Petit Albert_, French
-illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for Flamma was fond of his
-many-keyed flute.
-
-Great people once now and then called and asked to see Alere Flamma at
-the business place in Fleet Street; people with titles, curiously out of
-place, in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of printer's
-ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking, partitions pasted over
-with illustrations and stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
-engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking to "His
-Excellency."
-
-Flamma's opinion, information he could give, things he knew; abroad they
-thought much of him.
-
-Presents came occasionally--a boar's head from Germany; fine Havana
-cigars--Alere always had a supply of the best cigars and Turkish
-tobacco, a perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English venison;
-once a curious dagger from Italy, the strangest present good-natured
-Alere could possibly have received!
-
-Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from a noble connoisseur to
-his country seat; Flamma's views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
-the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked up in a cover all
-too poor for its value, the building of another wing, for the artist is
-the true architect, as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till the
-artist is called in we shall never again see real architecture in the
-world. Did not Benvenuto design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
-build St. Peter's at Rome?
-
-If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have it till he calls in the
-artist, the Alere Flamma, to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
-cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman, till
-he goes to Alere Flamma.
-
-Our so-called architects are mere surveyors, engineers, educated
-bricklayers, men of hard straight ruler and square, mathematically
-accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling.
-
-The princes of Italy knew better--they called in the poet and the
-painter, the dreamers to dream for them.
-
-You call in your "practical" architect, and he builds you a brick box;
-not for a hundred thousand pounds in fees could he build you a palace or
-a cathedral.
-
-The most ignorant of men are the "practical" people. It is meet and
-fitting that they should be worshipped and set on high. The calf
-worshipped of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.
-
-But Alere could not go; he would do anything he was asked in this way;
-he would take infinite pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet
-Street for any mansion.
-
-When a man once gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out.
-
-Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right thing to represent
-Alere as a great genius neglected, or as a genius destroyed by
-intemperance. The conventional type is so easy--so accepted--so popular;
-it would pay better, perhaps, to make him out a victim in some way.
-
-He was not neglected, neither was he the victim of intemperance in the
-usual sense.
-
-The way to fame and fortune had always been wide open to him; there were
-long intervals when he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
-it was not half so much to struggle against as the chest diseases from
-which professional men so often suffer; I believe if he had really tried
-or wished he could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither of these
-causes kept him from the foremost rank.
-
-There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice. So many who
-have no ideal are kept hard at work by the sheer desire of money, and
-thus spurred onward, achieve something approaching greatness. Alere did
-not care for money.
-
-He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten pounds was a large sum in the
-company he frequented; he did not want any more.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-
-SOMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its
-influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The thoughts of our time issue
-thence, like the radiating spokes of a wheel, to all places of the
-earth. There you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
-multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas come from Fleet Street.
-
-From the printing-press and the engraver's wood-block, the
-lithographic-stone, the etcher's plate, from book and magazine,
-periodical and pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.
-
-From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow outwards.
-
-It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it is sweet to be on the
-hill-top; delicious to feel the swell and the long roll of the hexameter
-of the seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit of the
-Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the African explorer at the river's
-source. But if once the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
-meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to
-Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other Mind,
-without whose sympathy even success is nothing--the Mind of the world.
-
-I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street,
-but of all that the printing-press means.
-
-Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary to him to live and
-breathe in the atmosphere of thought--to feel the throb and swell around
-him--to be near the "grey matter" of the world's brain.
-
-Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out. Flamma would not
-leave it for months of gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.
-
-The flame must be fed. His name had some connection with the design of
-the Roman lamp on the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the House
-of Flamma. _Alere Flammam_--feed the flame. The flame of the mind must
-be fed.
-
-Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street; if I could but get at
-it all to write the inside life of it, it would, indeed, be a book.
-Stone-cold poverty hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
-of money, think they know life, but they do not, for, as was said of the
-sea----
-
-          Only those who share its dangers
-             Comprehend its mystery.
-
-Only those who have shared the struggle literally for bread--for a
-real, actual loaf--understand the dread realities of man's existence.
-
-Let but a morsel of wood--a little splinter of deal, a curl of
-carpenter's shaving--lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the
-wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the
-desert to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that are paved with
-gold!
-
-It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll it in their aprons,
-clasping it tightly, lest it should somehow disappear. Prowling about
-from street to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
-these precious splinters of deal, for to those who are poor fuel is as
-life itself.
-
-Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill, especially of
-blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism), sometimes say they would rather
-go without food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.
-
-These women know where there are hoardings erected by builders, where
-shop-fronts are being rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
-alterations are proceeding; they know them as the birds know the places
-where they are likely to find food, and visit them day by day for the
-scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the pavement.
-
-Or they send their children, ragged urchins, battling for a knot of
-pine-wood.
-
-The terror of frost to these creatures is great indeed. Frost is the
-King of Terrors to them--not Death; they sleep and live with death
-constantly, the dead frequently in the room with the living, and with
-the unborn that is near birth.
-
-Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's wife knew that Flamma,
-the drinker, would certainly give her the silver in his pocket.
-
-The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood, knew that they
-could charm the pennies and the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat;
-the baked potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice on the
-street stove.
-
-Wretched girls whose power of tempting had gone, and with it their means
-of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There
-are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about
-them to attract the charity of the world.
-
-Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a licence in the street, was
-charged by the police. How this harshness to the flower-girl--the human
-representation of Flora--roused up sentiment in her behalf!
-
-But not every starving girl has the fortune to rouse up sentiment and to
-be fed. Their faces disfigured with eruptions, their thin shoulders,
-their dry, disordered hair--hair never looks nice unless soft with its
-natural oil--their dingy complexions, their threadbare shawls, tempt no
-one. They cannot please, therefore they must starve.
-
-The good turn from them with horror--Are they not sin made manifest? The
-trembling hand of Alere fed them.
-
-Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are happy? It is curious that
-people should associate noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
-the boys that are gathered into institutions and training ships, are
-expected to bawl and shout their loudest at the annual fêtes when
-visitors are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith feel assured that
-their lives are consequently joyous.
-
-Why then do they set fire to training ships? Why do they break out of
-reformatory institutions? Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet
-fatuous fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar of
-bawling.
-
-I have never walked up Fleet Street and the Strand yet without seeing a
-starving woman and child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
-unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts into the broader and more
-lively Strand--the ceaseless world pushes past--they play on the
-pavement unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their
-faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their
-hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on
-the table to see how they look.
-
-How _can_ people pass without seeing them?
-
-Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.
-
-The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want
-sits on the Seven Hills--make a cartoon of that!--the rich folk who
-receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England
-on dividend days--how easily the well-oiled doors swing open for
-them!--who dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood, at
-Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks, wherever there is
-pure air, have distinguished themselves lately in the giving of alms,
-ordained by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday, clad in silk,
-scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned pews.
-
-They have established Homes for Lost Dogs and Homes for Lost Cats,
-neither of which are such nuisances as human beings.
-
-In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus specially designed
-by one of the leading scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
-claimed in a certain time, or that have become diseased--like the human
-nuisances--are put into this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of
-chamber, to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific vapour enters
-the chamber, and breathing this, the animal falls calmly to death,
-painlessly poisoned in peace.
-
-Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed "into eternity" in
-one season. Jubilant congratulations were exchanged at the success of
-the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning, hanging, vivisection, or
-starvation!
-
-Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of humanity indeed? To sell
-all you have and give to the poor was nothing compared to this. We have
-progressed since Anno Domini I. We know better how to do it now.
-
-Alere did not seem to trouble himself much about the dogs; he saw so
-much of the human nuisances.
-
-What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus like this in the
-workhouses and in conjunction with the hospitals!
-
-Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing all the day, that one
-out of every five people who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
-hospital?
-
-Eighty-two thousand people died in London in 1882, and of these,
-fourteen thousand expired in the workhouses, and six thousand in
-hospitals!
-
-Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting up a few Apparatuses, see
-what an immense amount of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
-multitude of human nuisances would he "moved on!"
-
-The poor have a saying that none live long after they have been in a
-certain hospital. "He's been in that hospital--he won't live long." They
-carry out such wonderful operations there--human vivisections, but
-strictly painless, of course, under chloroform--true Christian
-chopping-up--still the folk do not live long when they come out.
-
-Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man must not die in peace.
-Starvation is for human nuisances.
-
-These rich folk dwelling round about the great Babylon of Misery, where
-Want sits on the Seven Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
-another invention. This is the organization of alms. Charity is so holy
-we will not leave it to chance--to the stray penny--we will organize it.
-The system is very simple: it is done by ticket. First you subscribe a
-few shillings to some organization, with its secretary, its clerks, its
-offices, board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive tickets.
-
-If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms, or a ragged boy, or a
-maimed man asks you for a "copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
-trouble and responsibility.
-
-The beggar can take the ticket to the "office" and get his case
-"investigated." After an inquiry, and an adjournment for a week; another
-inquiry, and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry, and a
-third adjournment, then, if he be of high moral character and highly
-recommended, he may get his dinner.
-
-One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means
-can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though
-he be perishing of starvation.
-
-If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give
-him a ticket.
-
-They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.
-
-This organization of charity saves such a lot of money: where people
-used to give away five pounds they now pay five shillings.
-
-Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you walk about with a clear
-conscience. No matter how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
-ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably and never think about
-them; your charity is organized.
-
-If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was
-no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false,
-and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.
-
-The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is
-spontaneousness.
-
-You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it
-charity suppression.
-
-Have you ever seen London in the early winter morning, when the frost
-lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey,
-bitter, stony London?
-
-Whatever _can_ morning seem like to the starved and chilly wretches who
-have slept on the floor, and wake up to frost in Fleet Street?
-
-The pavements are covered with expectoration, indicating the chest
-diseases and misery that thousands are enduring. But I must not write
-too plainly; it would offend.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-
-A PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace
-something--a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there;
-the crank came round and crushed him against the brickwork. The embrace
-of iron is death.
-
-Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed them when they were old
-enough.
-
-Ten pounds was enough for him--without ambition, and without
-business-avarice; ten pounds was enough for his Fleet Street life.
-
-It was not only the actual money he gave away, but the kindness of the
-man. Have you ever noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?--their
-elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and without flesh. Instead of
-the shirt-sleeve being turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
-thrust its way through.
-
-He always had something for them;--a plate of beef, soup, beer to be
-shared, apples, baked potatoes, now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars.
-Awful this, was it not? Printers' boys _will_ smoke; they had better
-have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile imitation they buy.
-
-They always had a tale for him; either their mothers, or sisters, or
-some one was in trouble; Flamma was certain to do something, however
-little might be within his power. At least he went to see.
-
-Had a man an income of a million he could not relieve the want of
-London; the wretch relieved to-day needs again to-morrow. But Alere went
-to see.
-
-Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a man without ambition, and
-without business-avarice, who went to see the unfortunate.
-
-His own palsied mother, at the verge of life, looked to Alere for all
-that the son can do for the parent. Other sons seemed more capable of
-such duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was the Man. And for
-those little luxuries and comforts that soothe the dull hours of
-trembling age she depended entirely upon him.
-
-So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied him were not all spent in
-drink.
-
-But alas! once now and then the rats began to run up the wall in broad
-daylight, and foolish Alere, wise in this one thing, immediately began
-to pack his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers, his
-sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks
-of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
-packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe
-Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
-leaves.
-
-They sat and talked in the round summer-house in Iden's garden, with the
-summer unfolding at their knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.
-
-By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of the Goliath ale, and between
-his lips there was a long churchwarden pipe.
-
-The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate
-liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than
-mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by
-man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
-
-The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to
-the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and
-stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
-
-The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial
-grown on the sunny hill-side, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured
-by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
-
-Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no
-cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
-the full manhood of strength.
-
-There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist
-analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that,
-and the residue is "volatile principle," for which all the dictionaries
-of science have no explanation.
-
-"Volatile principle"--there it is, that is the secret. That is the life
-of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile
-principle--that alchemic force--except contained in genuine old ale.
-
-Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
-
-The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
-
-By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink
-against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street
-liver in order.
-
-You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have
-"abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters,
-_i.e._, quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and
-diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and
-blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of
-your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor
-arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
-
-Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines--American and
-French patent physic is very popular now--and find the same things
-precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
-
-It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are
-intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few
-glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
-motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic
-and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the
-compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
-very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle,
-which the prescriptions have not got.
-
-Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead
-of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
-
-"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "_drenk
-un down to the therd hoop_."
-
-Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up
-the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife
-and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began
-to hum old German songs.
-
-But you may ask, how do _you_ know, you're not a doctor, you're a mere
-story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to
-know much more than a doctor.
-
-How can that be?
-
-Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than
-a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
-they will do; he imagines, but the Patient _knows_.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-
-SOME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in
-order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and
-are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
-
-I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the
-various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
-verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
-
-Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a
-Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of
-Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
-
-I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more
-good than any man living.
-
-I am still very ill.
-
-The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I
-was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
-Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock,
-and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is
-nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London
-physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I
-suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall
-gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't
-intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak
-to you--you look bad. I _hate_ to hear anybody cough." He put an
-emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal _haate_, hissing it out with
-unmeasured ferocity. "I _haate_ to hear anybody cough. Now I should like
-to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."
-
-"By all means--very interesting," I replied.
-
-"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four
-years with a cough. I couldn't do anything--couldn't help myself; four
-years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed
-eighty-seven pounds."
-
-"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and
-broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
-
-"I tried everything the doctors recommended--it was no use; they had to
-give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"
-
-"Can't think--should much like to know."
-
-"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You
-take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.
-Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?
-No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a
-ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.
-That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still,
-if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over
-Europe."
-
-I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.
-
-"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States,
-now."
-
-I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would
-cure me, it might come from anywhere.
-
-"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like,
-and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
-I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll
-have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we
-parted.
-
-He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe
-he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the
-time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American
-was right; he certainly meant well.
-
-Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts
-as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him,
-I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.
-
-Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to
-approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old
-German songs; it was the volatile principle.
-
-Songs about the Pope and the Sultan
-
-          But yet he's not a happy man,
-          He must obey the Alcoran,
-          He dares not touch one drop of wine,
-          I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.
-
-Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he
-raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a
-King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song
-that, none like it--
-
-          He saw it fall, he watched it fill,
-            And sink deep, deep into the main;
-          Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,
-            He never drank a drop again.
-
-Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in
-the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--
-
-          Horum scorum suntivorum,
-          Harum scarum divo,
-          Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,
-          Hic hoc horum genitivo--
-
-To be said in one breath.
-
-          Oh, my Ella--my blue bella,
-            A secula seculorum,
-          If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,
-            O dies Benedictorum!
-
-Or something about:
-
-          Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,
-          And She's of the feminine gender.
-
-Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin
-grammar, accidence--do _not_ pause, traveller, if you see _his_ tomb!
-
-"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street man put away his
-pipe, and took up his flute; he breathed soft and low--an excellent
-thing in a musician--delicious airs of Mozart chiefly.
-
-The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the high buttercups of the
-meadow came to the very door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
-them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in flowers, in song of
-happy birds. The soothing flute strung together the flow of their
-thoughts, they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden--almost hand
-in hand--listening to his cunning lips.
-
-He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to their own hearts.
-
-The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of
-the old house, and out again to the meadow.
-
-Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the
-starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had
-not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr--an indistinct
-flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The
-lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the
-raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh
-impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent;
-you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
-capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers
-to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both
-together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
-other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book
-opened with your thumb quickly--as they do in legerdemain--almost as you
-see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve--a sort of burr.
-
-To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
-
-The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the
-air like a meteor.
-
-Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
-
-Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's
-cheeks--absolute lack of blood--began to give way to the faintest
-colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he
-could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful
-of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most
-lively manner. Fire in it--downright fire! That is the test.
-
-Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began
-to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply
-of another cup.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-
-"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje.
-The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in
-the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the
-sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
-that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
-
-Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's
-rough hands--a sort of skin sand-paper--and with an effort made the
-heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
-
-Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court
-where the churn stood.
-
-"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
-
-Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
-
-Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
-
-"Aw!--aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting on a form by the wall
-under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing.
-"Aw!--aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
-
-Heavily the blue barrel went round--thrice, four times, five times; the
-colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the
-unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and
-sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
-
-"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not
-strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse,
-somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
-
-"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face
-lengthened--his eyes grew larger--his temples pinched; disappointment
-wrung at his heart.
-
-Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
-
-"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows
-on; you get a pint measure full of snails----"
-
-"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think
-of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver
-oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
-Amadis.
-
-A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub,
-fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this
-morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
-
-"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her
-back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a
-duster.
-
-"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing
-there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything
-behind, and you idling and talking,"--rushing out from the dairy, and
-following Luce, who retreated indoors.
-
-"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
-
-"Missis is ----" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and
-meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
-always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in
-this case, the butter.
-
-"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the
-clock, "and the beds ain't made."
-
-"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
-
-"And the fire isn't dusted up."
-
-"I've dusted up the fire."
-
-"And you're a lazy slut"--pushing Luce about the room.
-
-"I bean't a lazy slut."
-
-"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"--snatching it
-from her.
-
-"He be done."
-
-"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water
-taken up stairs."
-
-"That there be."
-
-"You know you ought to be doing something; the lazy lot of people in
-this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots
-to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be
-weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot
-ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children
-will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to
-lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging
-the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the
-kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a
-quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
-
-"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set
-to work happily.
-
-Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped,
-while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
-manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
-
-"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the
-Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
-sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was
-breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower
-limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of
-impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit
-upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
-had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and Jearje, it is
-certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
-
-Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for
-scraps.
-
-Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little
-things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of
-bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish
-of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends,
-and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
-
-Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not
-the way to feed the poor. What _could_ you be thinking of, you ignorant
-farmer's wife!
-
-You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses
-and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
-these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach
-you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
-the scientific Dr. Amoeba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers'
-ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a
-particle; with Providence and Science together they _must_ do it
-properly.
-
-The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of
-food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
-Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
-
-The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or lentil soup, or
-oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They
-can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
-
-No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef
-bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral
-ale!
-
-There, Mrs. Iden.
-
-Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle,
-Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:--
-
-"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live,
-laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water,
-and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
-
-Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
-
-Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your
-rabbit and potatoes.
-
-To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages,
-and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
-courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable
-pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a
-pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
-wholesome thing.
-
-But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not
-much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They
-would like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich
-gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They
-need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
-
-You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is--the poor never buy
-oatmeal, or lentils!"
-
-Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend,
-they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
-
-What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have
-given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little
-pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
-
-Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs.
-Iden!
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-
-"YOU must drink it all--every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as
-Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but
-half finished it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all." Amadis made an
-effort, and obeyed.
-
-But his heart was bitter as absinthe.
-
-Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were
-manly, they could eat and drink.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and
-turned the crank at the same time.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so
-happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
-his tall quart-mug.
-
-Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic
-than all the hamlet put together.
-
-Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.
-
-Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he
-could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.
-
-Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the
-heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.
-
-He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable
-to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
-farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere
-shadow, a thing of contempt.
-
-They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his
-face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to
-Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more
-than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the
-meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
-told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a
-wine-glassful of Goliath.
-
-Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot,
-and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It
-was absinthe to him.
-
-He could not stoop to turn the churn--he had to sip milk in the presence
-of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very
-servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.
-
-And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.
-
-And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas, that he could think,
-yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without
-considering first and feeling his way.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he
-led in the waggon.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of
-July.
-
-He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of
-Amaryllis--he was nothing. Less than nothing--a shadow.
-
-To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.
-
-Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker
-has been very, very ill, but is better:--
-
-          And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then
-          raised his head, and said:--
-
-  "Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away
-                thy sorrows;
-  For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and
-                is changed!
-  How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not
-                forth!
-  And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze
-                appears from it;
-  And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.
-  So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;
-  And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"
-
-
-
-How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt
-himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?
-
-"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone,
-now he had obeyed her.
-
-"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.
-
-His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis,
-absinthe because of his weakness.
-
-A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song,
-with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:--
-
-          The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?
-          And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?
-              All Insinuation Scorning;
-          I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,
-          I only Know he's a very Red Face
-              When he gets up in the Morning!
-
-"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look
-main red in the marning, surely."
-
-They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch,
-and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
-him.
-
-At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.
-
-Iden came through into the dairy.
-
-"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into
-everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the
-floor!"
-
-"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire--or
-anything?"
-
-"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood--and chop it, as well as you. Why
-can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
-hours to see you"--following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have
-you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
-butter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still,
-Mr. Duck; I don't mind _you_. What will you take?"
-
-More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window
-and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs.
-Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house--I never saw
-anything like it!"
-
-It was true.
-
-There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting
-on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje
-indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with
-the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting
-his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight
-people--and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of
-food.
-
-"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."
-
-And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble
-ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets;
-crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to those who
-pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me,
-the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
-farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!
-
-"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning
-gone and nothing done; and the butter's not come yet!"
-
-Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat
-all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good
-deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was
-done on Olympus.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS went outside the court, and waited; Amadis rose and followed
-her. "Come a little way into the Brook-Field," she said.
-
-They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path
-passed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the
-strawberry patch which Iden had planted under the parlour window; by the
-great box-hedge where a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though
-Amaryllis's dress brushed the branches; by the espalier apple, to the
-little orchard-gate.
-
-The parlour-window--there are no parlours now, except in old country
-houses; there were parlours in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern
-villas they have drawing-rooms.
-
-The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree branches, planted beneath
-with strawberry; white blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
-in the branches of the pear--that was Iden.
-
-They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed heavily against the
-tall meadow-grass growing between the bars. The path was almost
-gone--grown out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad trail
-behind them.
-
-Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have muttered to himself; they
-were trespassing on his mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
-difficult to cut.
-
-Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the thick-stemmed
-butter-cups--branched like the golden candlestick, and with flowers of
-golden flame. For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw light
-back into the air.
-
-Amadis began to drag behind--he could not walk much farther; they sat
-down together on the trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
-close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted. Even with his back
-leaning against a limb of the oak, Amadis had to partly support himself
-with his hands.
-
-What was the use of such a man?--He had nothing but his absurdly
-romantic name from Don Quixote to recommend him.
-
-That was the very thought that gnawed at poor Amadis's heart as he sat
-by her side. What use to care for him?
-
-Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was a new gate, and he
-had been fitting it before he went in to lunch. His basket was of flag
-because the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools, chisels, and
-so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have everything right. The new gate
-was of solid oak, no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
-without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the farm, and kept
-till it was thoroughly fit, genuine English oak. If you would only
-consider Iden's gate you might see there the man.
-
-This gateway was only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when
-the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
-a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate
-knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest
-possible charge.
-
-Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to make _his_ gate in the
-hamlet; he sent for one ten miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages.
-He was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his work to see that
-the least little detail was done correctly, till the fellow would have
-left the job, had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale. So he
-just stretched the job out as long as he could, and talked and talked
-with Iden, and stroked him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
-it upon me and on William, That day in a way I despise." Till what with
-the planing, and shaving, and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and
-time, it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace gates,
-not of the Iden style.
-
-Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber years before for this very
-purpose, and had watched the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
-have made good oak furniture. There was nothing special or particular
-about this gateway; he had done the same in turn for every gateway on
-the farm; it was the Iden way.
-
-A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit for a nobleman's Home
-Park. I doubt, if you would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
-made of such material on any great estate in the kingdom. For not even
-dukes can get an Iden to look after their property. An Iden is not to be
-"picked up," I can tell you.
-
-The neighbourhood round about had always sneered in the broad country
-way at Iden's gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do _he_ want wi' such
-geates? A' ain't a got no cattle to speak on; any ould rail ud do as
-good as thuck geat."
-
-The neighbourhood round about could never understand Iden, never could
-see why he had gone to such great trouble to render the homestead
-beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the orchard with pleasant
-eating apples in the place of the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
-wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"
-
-All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood to be the acts of a
-"vool."
-
-When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to have the great bushes
-that bore unusually fine May bloom saved from the billhook, that they
-might flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples--for the sake
-of the white blossom; so, too, with the hazel--for the nuts.
-
-But what caused the most "wonderment" was the planting of the
-horse-chestnuts in the corner of the meadow? Whatever did he want with
-horse-chestnuts? No other horse-chestnuts grew about there. You couldn't
-eat the horse-chestnuts when they dropped in autumn.
-
-In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the little circumstance of
-the hour. His gate was meant to last for years, rain and shine, to
-endure any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in itself.
-
-His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind--was at once his strength
-and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that
-made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now
-stands--built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of
-little things, instead of lifting his mind higher.
-
-If only he could have lived three hundred years the greater world would
-have begun to find out Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
-from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk, for Iden could talk of
-the trees and grass, and all that the Earth bears, as if one had
-conversed face to face with the great god Pan himself.
-
-But while Iden slumbered with his head against the panel--think, think,
-think--this shallow world of ours, this petty threescore years and ten,
-was slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked with bitterness at heart
-the increasing stoop of the strong back.
-
-Iden was like the great engineer who could never build a bridge, because
-he knew so well how a bridge ought to be built.
-
-"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself
-ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you.
-Why can't you go into town and see your father?--it would be a hundred
-pounds in your pocket"--as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs.
-Iden had gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps he would
-have taken her advice.
-
-Resting upon the brown timber in the grass Amaryllis and Amadis could
-just see a corner of the old house through the spars of the new gate.
-Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand; a house that had grown
-in the course of many generations, not built to set order; it had grown
-like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances, and, therefore, like
-the tree it was beautiful to look at. There were windows in deep
-notches, between gables where there was no look-out except at the pears
-on the wall, awkward windows, quite bewildering. A workman came to mend
-one one day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever seed such a
-crooked picter of a house!" said he.
-
-A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the buttercups,
-straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly
-did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a
-line of peacock blue over the gold.
-
-In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to have been sitting there
-like this, with Amadis lost in the sweet summer dream of love.
-
-She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot du Lake, a hero of the
-mighty arm, only with the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
-proper thing.
-
-But the fitness of things never comes to pass--everything happens in the
-Turkish manner.
-
-Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life, very, very young and
-inexperienced, very poor and without the least expectation whatever (for
-who could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the daughter of poor
-and embarrassed parents, whom she wished and prayed to help in their
-coming old age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling and half a
-painter at heart, full of generous sentiments--what a nature to be
-ground down in the sordidness of married poverty!
-
-Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble, and unable to earn a
-shilling, just talking of seeing the doctor again about this fearful
-debility, full too, as he thought at least, of ideas--what a being to
-think of her!
-
-Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things. If only now he could have
-regained the health and strength of six short months ago--if only that,
-but you see, he had not even that. He might get better; true--he
-_might_, I have tried 80 drugs and I am no better, I hope he will.
-
-Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic East have put things
-together for them with more utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
-Turkish manner, you see.
-
-There they sat, happier and happier, and deeper and deeper in love every
-moment, on the brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full of
-love as the meadow was of sunshine.
-
-You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in which after sunset he was
-carried over Ocean's stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
-again in the East and give us the joy of his rising. The great Golden
-Cup in which Hercules, too, was taken over; it was as if that Cup had
-been filled to the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the lips
-to drink, inexhaustible.
-
-In the play of Faust--Alere's _Faust_--Goethe has put an interlude, an
-Intermezzo; I shall leave Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in
-Heaven. Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its Dread,
-pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the wings, let Debt and Poverty
-unrobe, let Age stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as the
-Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave our lovers in the Interlude
-in Heaven.
-
-And as I must leave them (I trust but for a little while) I will leave
-them on the brown oak timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
-dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass and the wild flowers.
-
-
-
-          CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
-                             CHANCERY LANE.
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-Transcriber's Notes:
-
-Obvious transcriber's notes repaired.
-
-Page viii, "judgement" changed to "judgment" (that in his judgment)
-
-Page 103, "break" changed to "brake" (if the pneumatic brake)
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-Page 181, "acccompanied" changed to "accompanied" (who ever accompanied)
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-Page 197, "undisdisturbed" changed to "undisturbed" (drink, drink
-undisturbed)
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-Advertising pages:
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-Page 10, "Mariamne" changed to "Marianne" (Marianne. A Drama.)
-
-
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-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***
+
+AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
+
+
+
+THE READERS' LIBRARY
+
+Uniform with this Volume
+
+
+BELLOC, H.
+
+  AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
+
+
+BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE
+
+  ORBITER DICTA
+
+
+BOURNE, GEORGE
+
+  MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
+
+
+BROOKS, STOPFORD A.
+
+  STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.
+
+
+EVERETT, W.
+
+  ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE
+
+
+GALSWORTHY, JOHN
+
+  A COMMENTARY
+
+
+HUDSON, W. H.
+
+  GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest
+
+  THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance
+
+
+JEFFERIES, RICHARD
+
+  AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
+
+  BEVIS. The Story of a Boy
+
+  AFTER LONDON
+
+
+MCCABE, JOSEPH
+
+  ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE
+
+
+NEVINSON, H. W.
+
+  ESSAYS IN FREEDOM
+
+
+STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE
+
+  ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
+
+  IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+
+  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes
+
+  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes
+
+
+WITTE, DR. CARL
+
+  ESSAYS ON DANTE
+
+
+ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
+
+  THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses
+
+
+ECKENSTEIN, LINA
+
+  COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays in a Branch of Folklore
+
+
+CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, R. B.
+
+  PROGRESS, and other Sketches
+
+
+Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time
+
+
+
+
+
+AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
+
+BY
+
+RICHARD JEFFERIES
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON," "WOOD MAGIC; A
+FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.
+
+          "Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."
+                                                  ALCÆUS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+          LONDON
+          DUCKWORTH AND CO.
+          3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+
+
+          Reissued 1904
+          Reprinted in Readers Library 1911
+          _All rights reserved_
+
+
+                 =Dedicated=
+
+                     TO
+
+          CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.[1]
+
+
+"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
+on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
+conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
+sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
+acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
+have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
+write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"
+
+What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
+"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
+that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
+of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
+echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
+says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclopædia." "Has anyone ever been able to
+write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
+asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
+brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
+Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
+dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
+descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
+particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
+and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
+he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
+which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
+Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
+as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
+is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
+touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
+to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
+few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
+one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
+highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
+which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
+voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reader may ask. A
+novel, says the learned Charles Annandale, is "a fictitious prose
+narrative, involving some plot of greater or less intricacy, and
+professing to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting the
+passions and sentiments, in a state of great activity, and especially
+the passion of love." Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious
+prose narrative professing to give a picture of real life, and involving
+a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it exhibits the passions and
+sentiments in a state of great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose
+little book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further remarks:
+"Jefferies was quite unable to give any vivid dramatic life to his
+stories . . . his instinct was that of the naturalist who observes and
+moralizes rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
+interprets; and consequently his rustic characters, though strongly and
+clearly drawn, do not live, as, for example, those of Thomas Hardy
+live. . . . Men and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to be "no ordinary
+novelist," it is inferred by most that something is wrong with
+"Amaryllis the Fair," and the book has been passed over in silence. But
+we do not judge every novel by the same test. We do not judge "Tristram
+Shandy," for example, by its intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we
+judge it simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by its
+humorous insight into human character. And judged by the same simple
+test "Amaryllis at the Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
+creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden, the unsuccessful
+farmer who "built for all time, and not for the circumstances of the
+hour," is a masterly piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal
+portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about Uncle Toby? From what
+void did he spring? Iden, to our mind, is almost as masterly a
+conception, as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And Mrs. Iden,
+where will you find this type of nervous, irritable wife, full of
+spiteful disillusioned love for her dilatory husband better painted than
+by Jefferies? But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the reader may
+say. Excellent reader! and what about the Widow Wadman? She is no less
+and no more of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great feat of
+Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere of the Shandy household,
+but Jefferies has accomplished an artistic feat also in drawing the
+relations of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How true, how
+unerringly true to human nature is this picture of the Iden household;
+how delicately felt and rendered to a hair is his picture of the
+father's sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the waspish
+tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we not only have the family's
+idiosyncrasies, their habits, mental atmosphere, and domestic story
+brought before us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively by the
+hand of the artist, but we have the whole book steeped in the breath of
+English spring, the restless ache of spring that thrills through the
+nerves, and stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring feeling
+breaking from the March heavens and the March earth in copse, meadow,
+and ploughland, as it has scarcely been rendered before by English
+novelist. The description of Amaryllis running out into the March wind
+to call her father from his potato planting to see the daffodil; the
+picture of Iden pretending to sleep in his chair that he may watch the
+mice; the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the crowd of plain,
+ugly men of the countryside flocking along the road to the fair; the
+description of Amadis the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the
+stalwart country folk--all these pictures and a dozen others in the book
+are painted with a masterly hand. Pictures! the critical reader may
+complain. Yes, pictures of living men and women. What does it matter
+whether a revelation of human life is conveyed to us by pictures or by
+action so long as it is conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
+Gray, presumably because both writers have written of the English
+landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in his work as a naturalist and observer
+of wild life may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert White.
+But this classification only applies to one half of Jefferies' books. By
+his "Wild Life in a Southern County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by
+his "Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little apart from the
+poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair" he stands among the half-dozen
+country writers of the century whose work is racy of the English soil
+and of rural English human nature. We will name three of these writers,
+Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and our attentive readers can name the other
+three.
+
+To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is it so masterly, or,
+further, wherein is it so masterly, the curious reader may inquire? "Is
+it not full of digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
+is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly break his method,
+introduce his own personality, intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food,
+illness, and Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's dinner a
+little--well, a little unusual? In short, is not the book a disquisition
+on life from the standpoint of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if
+this is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?" Oh, candid
+reader, with the voice of authority sounding in your ears (and have we
+not Mr. Henley and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against us), a
+book may break the formal rules, and yet it may yield to us just that
+salt of life which we may seek for vainly in the works of more faultless
+writers. The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its beauty
+springs naturally from the prosaic earthly facts of life it narrates,
+and that, in the natural atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose
+and the poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the artistic
+naturalness of its homely picture, the book is very superior to, say
+"The Mayor of Casterbridge," where we are conscious that the author has
+been at work arranging and rearranging his charming studies and
+impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge into the pattern of
+an exciting plot. Now it is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of
+"The Mayor of Casterbridge"--and we cite this novel as characteristic,
+both in its strength and weakness, of its distinguished author,--that we
+are brought to feel that we have not been shown the characters of
+Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but that they have been
+moved about, kaleidoscopically, to suit the exigencies of the plot, and
+that the more this is so the less significance for us have their
+thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling changes of Farfrae and
+Lucetta, Henchard and Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
+listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we perceive indeed
+whence comes that atmosphere of stage crisis and stage effect which
+suddenly introduces a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars the
+artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful in other respects
+to English rural life. Plot is Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed
+and convincing would have been his pictures, if he could have thrown his
+plots and his rustic choruses to the four winds. May we not be thankful,
+therefore, that Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that in
+"Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions, the conversations
+are spontaneous as life, and that Jefferies' commentary on them is like
+Fielding's commentary, a medium by which he lives with his characters.
+The author's imagination, memory, and instinctive perception are,
+indeed, all working together; and so his picture of human life in
+"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as fresh a breath of life
+as we find in Cobbett's, Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
+writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere, his style
+and his subject seem to become one. He moves easily and surely. Out of
+the splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the sensations, the
+observations and revelations of his youth, and the atmosphere familiar
+to him through long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning picture
+for us, a complete illusion of life more true than the reality. For what
+prosaic people call the reality is merely the co-ordination in their own
+minds of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life around them;
+and only this thousandth part they have noticed. But the creative mind
+builds up a living picture out of the thousands of aspects most of us
+are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies has done in "Amaryllis
+at the Fair." The book is rich in the contradictory forces of life, in
+its quick twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working alike
+in the leaves of grass outside the Idens' house, in the blustering winds
+round the walls, and in the minds of the characters indoors; and the
+style has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is growing,
+changing, breathing in the book. But the accomplished critics do not
+notice these trivial strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
+not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently thinks that Jefferies
+made a mistake in drawing his philosophy from an open-air study of
+nature, for he writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
+background was not like Wordsworth's clear and cheerful, but wholly
+vague and partly gloomy." It was neither vague nor gloomy, we may
+remark, parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw too deeply
+into nature's workings, and had too sensuous a joy in life to interpret
+all Nature's doings, à la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously moral
+significance.
+
+The one charge that may with truth be brought against "Amaryllis at the
+Fair" is that its digressions damage the artistic illusion of the whole.
+The book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness of a sketch, a
+sketch, moreover, which Jefferies was not destined to carry to the end
+he had planned, but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
+weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature, rather than those
+of an ambitious studio picture. And these digressions are an integral
+part of the book's character, just as the face of a man has its own
+blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the whole, and so, if they
+break somewhat the illusion of the scenes, they do not damage its
+spiritual unity. It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
+because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and complete testament on
+human life. He wrote it, or rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in
+pain, slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of a dying man.
+How real, how solid, how deliciously sweet seemed those simple earthly
+joys, those human appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
+is his passion and spiritual hunger for the beauty of earth! Like a
+flame shooting up from the log it is consuming, so this passion for the
+green earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine, consumes the
+wasted, consumptive body of the dying man. The reality, the solidity of
+the homely farmhouse life he describes spring from the intensity with
+which he clings to all he loves, the cold March wind buffeting the face,
+the mating cries of the birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so
+terribly strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
+hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving, bitter the
+knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring and vivifying the whole, in
+every line of "Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
+"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished critics. Did he
+not? "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the truest criticisms of human
+life, oh reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness of things,
+the old, old human muddle, the meanness and stupidity and
+shortsightedness of humanity, the good salty taste of life in the
+healthy mouth, the spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
+appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry, and the sharp
+wind blowing alike on the just and the unjust--all is there on the
+printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
+roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
+exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.
+
+                                                    EDWARD GARNETT.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
+immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.
+
+There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
+Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
+bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
+gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
+the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
+The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
+be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
+innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
+growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
+which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
+pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
+morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
+ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."
+
+I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
+patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
+farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
+for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
+But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
+is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
+is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
+because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
+plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
+the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
+nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.
+
+Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
+now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
+a town can never be "home."
+
+Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or
+perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had
+damask roses, bees, and birds about them.
+
+There had been daffodils in that spot at least a century, opening every
+March to the dry winds that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
+and carry them out from the bushes under the trees, sending them across
+the meadow--fleeing like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
+Every spring for a century at least the daffodils had bloomed there.
+
+Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century, but ran round the corner
+of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her
+with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were
+blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of
+her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red
+brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a
+hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under
+her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed as if it would
+scoop them out; her eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips dried
+up and parched in a moment. The wind went through her thick stockings as
+if the wool was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her eyes, and the
+skin of her arm became "goosey" directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it
+would have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step by step, and
+gradually reached the shelter of the high garden wall; there she could
+stand upright, and breathe again.
+
+Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen blast, as if a storm of
+ice particles had been driven against them, now resumed their scarlet,
+but her ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly dark hair was
+dry and rough and without gloss. Each separate hair separated itself
+from the next, and would not lie smooth--the natural unctuous essence
+which usually caused them to adhere was dried up.
+
+The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and
+in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child,
+full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.
+Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.
+
+The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe
+looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow
+with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his
+nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and
+carried him past.
+
+Under the wall was a large patch recently dug, beside the patch a grass
+path, and on the path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in potatoes;
+he wore the raggedest coat ever seen on a respectable back. As the wind
+lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and only hung
+by threads, the cuffs were worn through, there was a hole beneath each
+arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
+which had once been grey, was now a mixture of several soils and
+numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had on was no better; it might have
+been made of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every now and then
+the wind brought a few handfuls of dust over the wall from the road, and
+dropped it on his stooping back.
+
+The way in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato
+was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it
+in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned
+over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and
+when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
+keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried
+the potatoes in his coat pocket--those, that is, for the row--and took
+them out one by one; had he been planting his own children he could not
+have been more careful. The science, the skill, and the experience
+brought to this potato-planting you would hardly credit; for all this
+care was founded upon observation, and arose from very large abilities
+on the part of the planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
+that moment.
+
+So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she ran down the grass path
+and stood by the wheelbarrow, but although her shadow fell across the
+potato row, he would not see her.
+
+"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing bolder. "Do come--there's a
+daffodil out, the very, very first."
+
+"Oh," a sound like a growl--"oh," from the depth of a vast chest
+heaving out a doubtful note.
+
+"It is such a beautiful colour!"
+
+"Where is your mother?" looking at her askance and still stooping.
+
+"Indoors--at least--I think--no----"
+
+"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help her? What good be you on?"
+
+"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very first--now do come!"
+
+"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as that; what do'ee want
+a-messing about arter thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't never
+got a apron on."
+
+"But--just a minute now."
+
+"Go on in, and be some use on."
+
+Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path,
+her head drooping forward.
+
+Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?
+
+She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began
+to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
+foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did
+not see or hear him till he overtook her.
+
+"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.
+
+"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.
+
+"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and brightening up immediately.
+"Only think, to open in all this wind, and so cold--isn't it beautiful?
+It's much more beautiful than the flowers that come in the summer."
+
+"Trumpery rubbish--mean to dig 'em all up--would if I had time,"
+muttered the father. "Have 'em carted out and drowed away--do for ashes
+to drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody, thaay thengs. You
+can't eat 'em, can you, like you can potatoes?"
+
+"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis stepped on the patch
+tenderly, and lifted up the drooping face of the flower.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to his chin, a habit of his
+when thinking, and suddenly quite altering his pronunciation from that
+of the country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt to the correct
+accent of education. "Ah, yes; the daffodil was your great-uncle's
+favourite flower."
+
+"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.
+
+"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, noting how handsome her
+father's intellectual face looked, wandered in her mind from the flower
+as he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough sometimes, and why
+he talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged coat--he who was so full
+of wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought, and indeed acted
+as a perfect gentleman.
+
+"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He brought the daffodils down
+from Luckett's; every one in the garden came from there. He was always
+reading poetry, and writing, and sketching, and yet he was such a
+capital man of business; no one could understand that. He built the
+mill, and saved heaps of money; he bought back the old place at
+Luckett's, which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed,
+he very nearly made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got
+rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is all going again--faster
+than he made it. He used to take you on his knee and say you would walk
+well, because you had a good ankle."
+
+Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with her hands, as if that
+would lengthen the skirt and hide the ankles which Richard, the
+great-uncle, had admired when she was a child, being a man, but which
+her feminine acquaintances told her were heavy.
+
+"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish of you to go out in this
+wind without them!" said Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
+Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors again immediately.
+
+"He was the only one of all the family," continued her father, "who
+could make money; all the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
+generations he was the only money-maker and saver, and yet he was as
+free and liberal as possible. Very curious, wasn't it?--only one in ten
+generations--difficult to understand why none of the others--why----" He
+paused, thinking.
+
+Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking--thinking how easily her papa could
+make money, great heaps of money. She was sure he could if he tried,
+instead of planting potatoes.
+
+"If only another Richard would rise up like him!" said Iden.
+
+This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having had one genius in the
+family, and that, too, in the memory of man, they could not expect
+another. Even vast empires rarely produce more than one great man in all
+the course of their history. There was but one Cæsar in the thousand
+years of Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless we except
+Themistocles, or unless we accept Alexander, who was a Macedonian;
+Persia had a Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few people know
+anything of the empire he overshadows with his name; France has had two
+mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon--unfortunate France! As for
+ourselves, fortunate islanders! we have never had a great man so
+immensely great as to overtop the whole, like Charlemagne in his day.
+Fortunate for us, indeed, that it has been so. But the best example to
+the point is the case of the immense empire of Russia, which has had one
+Peter the Great, and one only. Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the
+Great of his family, whose work had been slowly undone by his
+successors.
+
+"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out like Richard," continued
+Iden. "No one could deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
+convincing people, and always got his own will in the end. Wonderful
+man!" he pondered, returning towards his work.
+
+Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden just peered out, and cried,
+"Put your hat and scarf on directly."
+
+Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf very loosely about her
+neck. She accompanied her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
+would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She
+watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped
+so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime
+of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed
+at the shoulders. He worked so hard--ever since she could remember she
+had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was
+yet dark tending the cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
+wind or weather made no difference. Other people stopped indoors if it
+rained much, but it made no difference to her father, nor did the deep
+snow or the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly,
+too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could
+this be?
+
+What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show
+you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as
+ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as
+when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence
+is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+PRESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors, and was met in the hall by her
+mother.
+
+"What has he been talking to you about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
+listen to him. He will never do any good. Just look at his coat; it's a
+disgrace, a positive disgrace. Telling you about the old people? What's
+the use of talking of people who have been dead all this time? Why
+doesn't he do something himself? Don't listen to his rubbish--wasting
+his time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one wild! Why doesn't
+he go in to market and buy and sell cattle, and turn over money in that
+way? Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry potatoes, as if it
+mattered an atom how they were stuck in the ground."
+
+Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis went upstairs, and when
+she was alone lifted her skirt and looked at the ankles which
+great-uncle Richard had admired. Other girls had told her they were
+thick, and she was ashamed of them.
+
+Instead of the slender things which seem as if a sudden strain would
+snap them, and are nothing but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
+ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be a fine form; strong,
+but neither thick, nor coarse, nor heavy, ankles that would carry her
+many a mile without weariness, that ended good legs with plenty of flesh
+on them. The stupidity of calling such coarse or heavy! They were really
+ideal ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these ill-instructed
+girls called them coarse! It was not their fault, it was the lack of
+instruction; as they did not know what was physically perfect, of course
+they could not recognize it.
+
+Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of them, for they will prove
+a blessing to her for the whole of her life.
+
+Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though she brushed it for some
+time; it would not lie close, so much had the east wind dried it. She
+opened a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar, and held it
+in her hand, balancing probabilities. Would her father see it if she
+used it, or might he, perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
+bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced to pass through the
+room he would certainly have thrown it out of window, so bitter was his
+antagonism to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and other
+resources of the hairdresser, which he held defiled the hair and ruined
+it, to the deception of woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
+scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief, not one drop
+of oil did she dare put on her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously,
+and then she could not go near him, for he was certain to detect it and
+scorch her with withering satire.
+
+Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes and oils and so forth
+is like a perennial spring, and never fails.
+
+Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed no dressing--nothing
+could possibly improve it, and the chances therefore were that whatever
+she used would injure--yet in her heart she yearned to rub it with oil.
+
+But the more she considered the more probable it seemed that her father
+would detect her; she had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
+somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden was one of those who
+preferred working at home to rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too
+attached to his home work. So she returned the bottle to the drawer, and
+hid it under some stockings.
+
+Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At all meals the rule was
+that there must be no talking, but at dinner the law was so strict that
+even to ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so much as
+"Give me the salt, please," was a deadly sin. There must be absolute
+silence while the master ate. The least infringement was visited with a
+severe glance from his keen and brilliant blue eyes--there are no eyes
+so stern as blue eyes when angry--or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
+grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For he usually stooped,
+and to sit upright showed annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
+were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that house.
+
+Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the dinner hour was worse
+than sacrilege; anything that threatened to disturb it was watched
+intently by that repressive eye. No one must come in or go out of the
+room; if anyone knocked at the door (there are no bells in old country
+houses) there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone answering
+it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis had to leave the table, to go out
+and open and shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again as they
+returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at the door, it was so awful to have
+to stir once they had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
+not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it happened--and this was very
+terrible--that the master himself had to go, some one wanted him about
+some hay or a horse and cart, and no one could tell what to do but the
+master. A dinner broken up in this way was a very serious matter indeed.
+
+That day they had a leg of mutton--a special occasion--a joint to be
+looked on reverently. Mr. Iden had walked into the town to choose it
+himself some days previously, and brought it home on foot in a flag
+basket. The butcher would have sent it, and if not, there were men on
+the farm who could have fetched it, but it was much too important to be
+left to a second person. No one could do it right but Mr. Iden himself.
+There was a good deal of reason in this personal care of the meat, for
+it is a certain fact that unless you do look after such things yourself,
+and that persistently, too, you never get it first-rate. For this cause
+people in grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth eating on their
+tables. Their household expenses reach thousands yearly, and yet they
+rarely have anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never show
+meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's. The meat was dark brown,
+as mutton should be, for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be
+poor; the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter, firm, and yet
+almost crumbling to the touch; it was full of juicy red gravy, and cut
+pleasantly, the knife went through it nicely; you can tell good meat
+directly you touch it with the knife. It was cooked to a turn, and had
+been done at a wood fire on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal
+gas or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it. Such emanations as
+there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the
+sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it
+burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its leaves from the
+atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers. Essences of this order,
+if they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its flavour a
+delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked at a wood fire, for me.
+
+Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure to have their meat
+cooked over coal or in a shut-up iron box, where it kills itself with
+its own steam, which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa people do
+do odd things. _Les Misérables_ who have to write like myself must put
+up with anything and be thankful for permission to exist; but people
+with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware, or mud, or bricks and
+mortar--why on earth these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
+the gods passes understanding.
+
+Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris will convert some of you who
+will not listen to a farmer.
+
+Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that were placed before him.
+They were white, floury, without a drop of water in the whole dish of
+them. They were equal to the finest bread--far, far superior to the
+bread with which the immense city of London permits itself to be
+poisoned. (It is not much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
+too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a price which is in
+itself one of the most wonderful things of the age. The finest bread
+ought to be cheap.
+
+"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping himself to half a dozen.
+"Look at the gravy go up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."
+
+The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury particles of the potatoes
+as if they had formed capillary tubes.
+
+"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty to one. It be an amazing
+theng how thengs do that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
+potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds. Mine comes
+true, 'cause I saves um every year a' purpose. Better take more than
+that (to Amaryllis)--you haven't got but two" (to Mrs. Iden).
+
+What he ate other people at his table must eat, and the largest quantity
+possible. No one else must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but the
+master could talk, talk, talk without end. The only talking that might
+be done by others was in praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so
+carefully provided. You might admire the potatoes or the mutton, but you
+must not talk on any other subject. Nor was it safe even to do that,
+because if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were immediately
+helped to another plateful, and had to finish them, want them or not. If
+you praised the mutton several thick slices were placed on your plate,
+and woe to you if you left a particle. It was no use to try and cover
+over what you could not manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be
+seen. "What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there juicy bit, you?"
+
+Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous experience, discreetly
+refrained from admiring either mutton or potatoes.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+"FORTY-FOLDS," went on the master, "be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
+be so many new sorts now, but they bean't no good; they be very good for
+gentlefolk as doan't know no better, and poor folk as can't help
+theirselves. They won't grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
+patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's that's big middle patch.
+Summat different in the soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be
+learned before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such a simple
+thing. Farty-folds----"
+
+"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his provincial pronunciation
+with extreme disgust in her tone.
+
+"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be ould potatoes, and thur
+bean't none as can beat um."
+
+The more she showed her irritation at his speech or ways, the more he
+accentuated both language and manner.
+
+"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden. It was true, Iden did
+talk with his mouth full, very full indeed, for he fed heartily. The
+remark annoyed him; he grunted and spluttered and choked a
+little--floury things are choky. He got it down by taking a long draught
+at his quart of strong ale. Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to
+induce you to make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk again.
+
+"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede greens; I axed un three days
+ago; I know'd we was going to have this yer mutton. You got to settle
+these yer things aforehand."
+
+"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.
+
+"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing fond of um, so be the
+larks. These be the best as thur was. They be the best things in the
+world for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all physic. If you can
+get fresh swede tops you don't want a doctor within twenty miles.
+Their's nothing in all the chemists' shops in England equal to swede
+greens"--helping himself to a large quantity of salt.
+
+"What a lot of salt you _do_ eat!" muttered Mrs. Iden.
+
+"Onely you must have the real swedes--not thuck stuff they sells in
+towns; greens they was once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
+haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely to be got about March."
+
+"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in London," said Mrs. Iden.
+
+"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They bean't no good; you might as
+well eat dried leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green shoots
+of spring"--suddenly changing his pronunciation as he became interested
+in his subject and forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
+wife. "They are full of sap--fresh sap--the juice which the plant
+extracts from the earth as the active power of the sun's rays increases.
+It is this sap which is so good for the blood. Without it the vegetable
+is no more than a woody fibre. Why the sap should be so powerful I
+cannot tell you; no one knows, any more than they know _how_ the plant
+prepares it. This is one of those things which defy analysis--the
+laboratory is at fault, and can do nothing with it." ("More salt!"
+muttered Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of salt?") "There
+is something beyond what the laboratory can lay hands on; something that
+cannot be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by quantity, quality,
+or by any means. They analyse champagne, for instance; they find so many
+parts water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much that; but out of
+the hundred parts there remain ten--I think it is ten--at all events so
+many parts still to be accounted for. They escape, they are set down as
+volatile--the laboratory has not even a distinct name for this
+component; the laboratory knows nothing at all about it, cannot even
+name it. But this unknown constituent is the real champagne. So it is
+with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other
+times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."
+
+"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden, defiantly, stretching out
+her hand to the cruet.
+
+Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention of vinegar had set his
+teeth on edge. He looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
+close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede
+greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar
+was utterly antagonistic--destructive of the sap-principle, altogether
+wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying good and precious food.
+
+Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken the vinegar herself, but as
+her mother passed the cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed
+vinegar with the green vegetables. All women like vinegar.
+
+When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand Mr. Iden deigned to look
+round again at the table.
+
+"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to Amaryllis, who was cutting a
+piece of bread. She put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
+"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty times? Cutting towards your
+thumb like that! Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
+slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it to me."
+
+He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the slice across the table
+so accurately that it fell exactly into its proper place by her plate.
+He had a habit of tossing things in that way.
+
+"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?" said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging
+in that manner! I hate to see it."
+
+Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took the lesson in
+bread-cutting to heart, as she had done twenty times before. But she
+knew she should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style when out of
+his sight. She could not do it in the safe way--it was so much easier in
+the other; and if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.
+
+"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the master, getting up with his
+plate in his hand.
+
+"Whatever _are_ you going to do now?" asked Mrs. Iden, who knew
+perfectly well.
+
+"Going to warm the plate." He went out into the kitchen, sat down by the
+fire, and carefully warmed his plate for a second helping.
+
+"I should think you couldn't want any more," said Mrs. Iden when he came
+back. "You had enough the first time for three."
+
+But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and had never ruined his
+digestion with vinegar or sauces, piled another series of thick slices
+on his plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to the meat a just
+proportion of vegetables. In proportion and a just mixture the secret of
+eating successfully consisted, according to him.
+
+First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton, this was immediately
+followed by a portion of floury potato, next by a portion of swede
+tops, and then, lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth, he
+took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten and cleanse his teeth.
+Finally came a draught of strong ale, and after a brief moment the same
+ingredients were mixed in the same order as before. His dinner was thus
+eaten in a certain order, and with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each
+particular flavour like a rhyme in its proper position, and duly putting
+it out with its correct successor. Always the savour of meat and gravy
+and vegetables had to be toned down by the ultimate bread, a vast piece
+of which he kept beside him. He was a great bread eater--it was always
+bread after everything, and if there were two courses then bread between
+to prepare the palate, and to prevent the sweets from quarrelling with
+the acids. Organization was the chief characteristic of his mind--his
+very dinner was organized and well planned, and any break or disturbance
+was not so much an annoyance in itself as destructive of a clever
+design, like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical spider.
+
+This order of mouthfuls had been explained over and over again to the
+family, and if they felt that he was in a more than usually terrible
+mood, and if they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some extent
+submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis, however, could ever educate
+their palates into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden was not
+in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they wandered about irregularly in
+their eating. When the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
+they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking" little fragments of
+pies, or cold fowl, even a cold potato, the smallest mug--a quarter of a
+pint of the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be had, a sip of
+port wine. These women were very irrational in their feeding; they
+actually put vinegar on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
+pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning. They had a herring
+sometimes for tea--the smell of it cooking sent the master into fits of
+indignation, he abominated it so, but they were so hardened and lost to
+righteousness they always repeated the offence next time the itinerant
+fish-dealer called. You could not drum them into good solid,
+straightforward eating.
+
+They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to eat in the kitchen after
+dinner, for Mr. Iden considered that no one could need a second course
+after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel of cheese if you
+liked--nothing more. In summer the great garden abounded with fruit; he
+would have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day after day, or else
+black-currant pudding. He held that black currants were the most
+wholesome fruit that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite clean
+he would rub them with black-currant leaves to give them a pleasant
+aromatic odour (as ladies use scented soap). He rubbed them with
+walnut-leaves for the same purpose.
+
+Of salad in its season he was a great eater, cucumber especially, and
+lettuce and celery; but a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of
+Worcester sauce) was a horror to him. A principle ran through all his
+eating--an idea, a plan and design.
+
+I assure you it is a very important matter this eating, a man's fortune
+depends on his dinner. I should have been as rich as Croesus if I
+could only have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I should, now
+I come to look back.
+
+The soundest and most wholesome food in the world was set on Mr. Iden's
+table; you may differ from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
+dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh vegetables and fruit
+and salad, and the Goliath ale.
+
+When he had at last finished his meal he took his knife and carefully
+scraped his crumbs together, drawing the edge along the cloth, first one
+way and then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating so much
+bread, he made many crumbs. Having got them together, he proceeded to
+shovel them into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that not one
+was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a little moist sugar over them with
+his finger and thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and cheese,
+and sat down with it in his arm-chair by the fire, spreading his large
+red-and-yellow silk handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
+lieu of a plate.
+
+"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table, like other people?" said
+Mrs. Iden, shuffling her feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
+in the throat was the answer she received; at the same time he turned
+his arm-chair more towards the fire, as much as to say, "Other people
+are nothing to me."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+THIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make, had lost an arm--the screw
+remained sticking up, but the woodwork on that side was gone. It had
+been accidentally broken some ten years since; yet, although he used the
+chair every day, the arm had never been mended. Awkward as it was, he
+let it alone.
+
+"Hum! where's _The Standard_, then?" he said presently, as he nibbled
+his cheese and sipped the ale which he had placed on the hob.
+
+"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with the paper.
+
+"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs. Iden. "Thought there was
+nothing but lies and rubbish in them, according to you?"
+
+"No more thur bean't."
+
+"You always take good care to read them, though."
+
+"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another slight turn of the chair. He
+could not answer this charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that
+he affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it with avidity, and
+would almost as soon have missed his ale as his news.
+
+However, to settle with his conscience, he had a manner of holding the
+paper half aslant a good way from him, and every now and then as he read
+uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.
+
+The master's taking up his paper was a signal for all other persons to
+leave the room, and not to return till he had finished his news and his
+nap.
+
+Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each took as many of the
+dishes as they could carry, for it was uncertain when they could come in
+again to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved, the door opened,
+or the slightest sound heard till the siesta was over.
+
+"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock," said Mrs. Iden as she
+went, "and then you want your tea--senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
+and the master was left to himself.
+
+By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped his newspaper, and
+arranged himself for slumber. His left elbow he carefully fitted to the
+remnant of the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief, red
+and yellow, he gathered into a loose pad in his left hand for his cheek
+and temple to rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand and arm,
+while the side of his head touched and rested against the wainscot of
+the wall.
+
+Just where his head touched it the wainscot had been worn away by the
+daily pressure, leaving a round spot. The wood was there exposed--a
+round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being completely bare of
+varnish. So many nods--the attrition of thirty years and more of
+nodding--had gradually ground away the coat with which the painter had
+originally covered the wood. It even looked a little hollow--a little
+depressed--as if his head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
+probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the difference in colour
+between the wood and the varnish around it.
+
+This human mark reminded one of the grooves worn by the knees of
+generations of worshippers in the sacred steps of the temple which they
+ascended on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion, as Mrs. Iden
+and others, not very keen observers, would have said, to the god of
+Sleep; in truth, it was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
+throne of the god of Thought.
+
+It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement assumed this posture
+of slumber, and commanded silence. But thought which has been cultivated
+for a third of a century is apt to tone down to something very near
+somnolence.
+
+That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy of preservation as those
+on which the early artists delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for
+which high prices are now paid. It was intensely--superlatively--human.
+Worn in slow time by a human head within which a great mind was working
+under the most unhappy conditions, it had the deep value attaching to
+inanimate things which have witnessed intolerable suffering.
+
+I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured
+any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
+should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which
+Koh-i-noors would be mud.
+
+I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.
+
+That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for
+the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a
+generation.
+
+That mark upon the panel had still a further meaning, it represented the
+unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
+family of Idens had endured already two hundred years of unhappiness and
+discordance for no original fault of theirs, simply because they had
+once been fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to work out that
+hour of sunshine to the utmost depths of shadow.
+
+The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark had been worn was in
+effect a cross upon which a human heart had been tortured--and thought
+can, indeed, torture--for a third of a century. For Iden had learned to
+know himself, and despaired.
+
+Not long after he had settled himself and closed his eyes the handle of
+the door was very softly turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book,
+which she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on tiptoe without a
+sound, but in shutting the door the lock clicked, and she heard him
+kick the fender angrily with his iron-shod heel.
+
+After that there was utter silence, except the ticking of the American
+clock--a loud and distinct tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
+room.
+
+Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the window, a noiseless shadow;
+Mrs. Iden had come quietly round the house, and stood in the March wind,
+watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl about her shoulders--she put
+out her clenched hand from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
+muttering to herself, "Never _do_ anything; nothing but sleep, sleep,
+sleep: talk, talk, talk; never _do_ anything. That's what I hate."
+
+The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common American clock continued
+its loud tick, tick.
+
+Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be audible among the cinders in
+the fender. The dry cinders were pushed about by something passing
+between them. After a while a brown mouse peered out at the end of the
+fender under Iden's chair, looked round a moment, and went back to the
+grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured somewhat farther across
+the width of the white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
+advance was made step by step, but on reaching the carpet the mouse
+rushed home to cover in one run--like children at "touch wood," going
+out from a place of safety very cautiously, returning swiftly. The next
+time another mouse followed, and a third appeared at the other end of
+the fender. By degrees they got under the table, and helped themselves
+to the crumbs; one mounted a chair and reached the cloth, but soon
+descended, afraid to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at their
+dinner.
+
+The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if carved.
+
+A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued iron-shod boot--the
+foot that rested on the fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
+and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained by labour, was
+drawn up somewhat higher than the boot. It took the mouse several trials
+to reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously mounted to
+Iden's knee. Another quickly followed, and there the pair of them
+feasted on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of his
+trousers.
+
+One great brown hand was in his pocket, close to them--a mighty hand,
+beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What
+would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that
+could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut?
+
+The size--the mass--the weight of his hand alone was as a hill
+overshadowing them; his broad frame like the Alps; his head high above
+as a vast rock that overhung the valley.
+
+His thumb-nail--widened by labour with spade and axe--his thumb-nail
+would have covered either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
+Ajax.
+
+Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still, so
+_very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did the wall;
+they could not hear his breathing.
+
+Had they been gifted with human intelligence that very fact would have
+excited their suspicions. Why so very, _very_ still? Strong men, wearied
+by work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep
+we move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or
+stretches itself.
+
+But Iden was so still it was evident he was really wide awake and
+restraining his breath, and exercising conscious command over his
+muscles, that this scene might proceed undisturbed.
+
+Now the strangeness of the thing was in this way: Iden set traps for
+mice in the cellar and the larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
+picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the door at the same
+instant, and the wretched captive was dashed to death upon the stone
+flags of the floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in one place,
+and fed them in another.
+
+A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent
+inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go
+on recording facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing is
+consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no
+association with a living person.
+
+From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched
+the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb,
+they descended his leg to the floor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened
+that slumber was induced by the position in which he placed himself;
+slumber, however, was not his intent. He liked to rest after his midday
+meal and think. There was no real loss of time in it--he had been at
+work since half-past five.
+
+His especial and striking characteristic was a very large, high, and
+noble forehead--the forehead attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his
+busts. Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he was not
+altogether a man of action. He was, indeed, an actor upon the stage;
+once he stole the red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
+not sail to the then new discovered lands of America, nor did he fight
+the Spaniards. So much intellect is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or
+rather it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs to the
+position of commander. If Shakespeare by the chance of birth, or other
+accident, had had the order of England's forces, we should have seen
+generalship such as the world had not known since Cæsar.
+
+His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till opportunity came. We
+have great thoughts instead of battles.
+
+Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for Shakespeare's. There was
+too much thought in it for the circumstances of his life. It is possible
+to think till you cannot act.
+
+After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a few minutes. When he awoke
+he looked at the clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven of the
+grate, took out a baked apple. He had one there ready for him almost
+always--always, that is, when they were not ripe on the trees.
+
+A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome thing in the world; it
+corrected the stomach, prevented acidity, improved digestion, and gave
+tone to all the food that had been eaten previously. If people would
+only eat baked apples they would not need to be for ever going to the
+chemists' shops for drugs and salines to put them right. The women were
+always at the chemists' shops--you could never pass the chemists' shops
+in the town without seeing two or three women buying something.
+
+The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural medicine of man--and the
+best flavoured. It was compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
+of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind and shower in such a
+way that no laboratory could imitate: and so on in a strain and with a
+simplicity of language that reminded you of Bacon and his philosophy of
+the Elizabethan age.
+
+Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian culture, naturally,
+and not from any study of that author, whose books he had never seen.
+The great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and garden, and gathered
+his ideas from the fields.
+
+Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden. Look at a Blenheim orange,
+the inimitable mixture of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
+not bright colours--undertones of bright colours--smoothed together and
+polished, and made the more delightful by occasional roughness in the
+rind. Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was getting older he
+found, however, that the finest of them all was the russet. For eating,
+at its proper season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply the
+Imperial Cæsar and Sultan of apples; whether for baking, or pies, or
+sauce, there was none to equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true
+russet was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary that it should
+be the real russet. Indeed in apple trees you had to be as careful of
+breeding and pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about their
+horses.
+
+Ripe apples could not be got all the year round in any variety; besides
+which, in winter and cold weather the crudity of the stomach needed to
+be assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake them.
+
+People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days; they had too much
+butcher's meat, and not enough fruit--that is, home-grown fruit,
+straight from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold in the
+shops, picked before it was ready.
+
+The Americans were much wiser (he knew a good deal about America--he had
+been there in his early days, before thought superseded action)--the
+Americans had kept up many of the fine old English customs of two or
+three hundred years since, and among these was the eating of fruit. They
+were accused of being so modern, so very, very modern, but, in fact, the
+country Americans, with whom he had lived (and who had taught him how to
+chop) maintained much of the genuine antique life of old England.
+
+They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that the same trees
+produced an apple having a slightly different flavour to what it had in
+this country. You could always distinguish an American apple by its
+peculiar piquancy--a sub-acid piquancy, a wild strawberry piquancy, a
+sort of woodland, forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so on, and
+so on--"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden said.
+
+After his baked apple he took another guilty look at the clock, it was
+close on four, and went into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
+these places are called passages; in the smallest of villas, wretched
+little villas not fit to be called houses, they are always "halls."
+
+In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him, and began to thump his
+broad though bowed back with all her might.
+
+"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a thump at each word.
+"You've slept two hours. (Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
+(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the use of digging? (Thump.)
+Why don't you make some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.) I hate
+it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off the wainscot with your sleep,
+sleep, sleep (thump)--there's one of your hairs sticking to the paint
+where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything more hateful--sleep (thump),
+talk (thump), sleep (thump). Go on!"
+
+She had thumped him down the passage, and across the covered-in court to
+the door opening on the garden. There he paused to put on his hat--an
+aged, battered hat--some sort of nondescript bowler, broken, grey,
+weather-stained, very battered and very aged--a pitiful hat to put above
+that broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted it on he was thumped
+severely: when he opened the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up
+at the sky to see about the weather--a habit all country people
+have--and so got more thumping, ending as he started out with a
+tremendous push. He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the push
+accelerate his pace; he took it very much as he took the March wind.
+
+Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to clear the dinner things, and
+make ready for tea. Amaryllis helped her.
+
+"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs. Iden. "What's the use of
+his going out to work for half an hour?"
+
+Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her father; he never did
+anything wrong in her eyes, and she could have pointed out that when he
+sat down to dinner at one he had already worked as many hours as Mrs.
+Iden's model City gentleman in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in
+effect, equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over which they
+frequently lingered an hour or two. He would still go on labouring,
+almost another half day. But she held her peace, for, on the other hand,
+she could not contradict and argue with her mother, whom she knew had
+had a wearisome life and perpetual disappointments.
+
+Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself into a more fiery
+passion, till at last she put down the tea-pot, and rushed into the
+garden. There as she came round the first thing she saw was the
+daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had discovered. Beside
+herself with indignation--what was the use of flowers or potatoes?--Mrs.
+Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower under foot till it
+was shapeless. After this she rushed indoors again and upstairs to her
+bedroom, where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in the old black
+oak chest of drawers till she found a faded lavender glove.
+
+That glove had been worn at the old "Ship" at Brighton years and years
+ago in the honeymoon trip: in those days bridal parties went down by
+coach. Faded with years, it had also faded from the tears that had
+fallen upon it. She turned it over in her hands, and her tears spotted
+it once more.
+
+Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her mother to rush away in
+that manner was nothing new. She toasted her father a piece of toast--he
+affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it was there, and
+looked about for it if it was not, though he never said anything. The
+clock struck five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready. Coming
+round the house she found her daffodil crushed to pieces.
+
+"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead; then her beautiful lips pouted
+and quivered; tears filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
+immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom to cry and to hide
+her grief and indignation.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+LADY-DAY Fair came round by and by, and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock
+in the morning, went down the garden to the end of the orchard, where
+she could overlook the highway without being seen, and watch the folk go
+past. Just there the road began to descend into a hollow, while the
+garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning her arm on the top of
+the wall, was much higher up than those who went along. The wall dropped
+quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red brick wall--thick and
+closely-built, the bricks close together with thin seams of mortar, so
+that the fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed and bound
+firm, like the fibres of a piece of iron. The deep red bricks had a
+colour--a certain richness of stability--and at the top this good piece
+of workmanship was protected from the weather by a kind of cap, and
+ornamented with a projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
+stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it. Without there was a
+sheer red precipice of fourteen feet down to the dusty sward and
+nettles beside the road.
+
+Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against the wall rose thin and
+tapering above it in a bunch, a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to
+have been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance of neglect.
+One heavy bough had broken away from the nails and list, and drooped to
+the ground, and the shoots of last year, not having been trimmed, thrust
+themselves forward presumptuously.
+
+Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches rising above the wall
+Amaryllis was partly hidden, but she relied a great deal more for
+concealment upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very seldom
+look up; and consequently if you are only a little higher they will not
+see you. This she proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
+glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his eye fixed on his sheep,
+and the drover on his bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
+fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had on a bit of blue ribbon or
+a new bonnet, and were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
+them to see if the men admired their finery. No one looked up from the
+road they were pursuing.
+
+The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by a sort of stand at the
+back, which holds it steady in one position while the camera takes the
+picture. In life most people have their heads fixed in the claws of
+some miserable pettiness, which interests them so greatly that they
+tramp on steadily forward, staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
+fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they are travelling.
+
+Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair or the people either,
+knowing very well what sort they would be; but I suspect, if it had been
+possible to have got at the cause which brought her there, it would have
+been traced to the unconscious influence of sex, a perfectly innocent
+prompting, quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and who would
+indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject, but which leads girls of
+her age to seize opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
+uninteresting order. Still they are men, those curious beings, that
+unknown race, and little bits of knowledge about them may, perhaps, be
+picked up by a diligent observer.
+
+The men who drifted along the road towards the Fair were no "mashers, by
+Jove!" Some of them, though young, were clad antiquely enough in
+breeches and gaiters--not sportsmen's breeches and gaiters, but
+old-fashioned "granfer" things; the most of them were stout and sturdy,
+in drab and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds of them on
+foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on horseback, went under
+Amaryllis: but, though they were all Christians, there was not one
+"worth a Jewess' eye."
+
+She scorned them all.
+
+This member of the unknown race was too thickly made, short set, and
+squat; this one too fair--quite white and moist-sugar looking; this one
+had a straight leg.
+
+Another went by with a great thick and long black beard--what a horrid
+thing, now, when kissing!--and as he walked he wiped it with his sleeve,
+for he had just washed down the dust with a glass of ale. His neck, too,
+was red and thick; hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man all
+over, as far as body makes a man.
+
+But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges. "Care I for the thews
+and sinews of a man?" They look for something more than bulk.
+
+A good many of these fellows were more or less lame, for it is
+astonishing if you watch people go by and keep account of them what a
+number have game legs, both young and old.
+
+A young buck on a capital horse was at the first glance more
+interesting--paler, rakish, a cigar in his mouth, an air of viciousness
+and dash combined, fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in
+short, he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of sheep and
+corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked him more than all the rest put
+together; she shrank back a little from the wall lest he should chance
+to look up; she would have feared to have been alone with such a
+character, and yet she could not have said why. She would not have
+feared to walk side by side with the great black beard--hideous as he
+was--nor with any of the rest, not even with the roughest of the
+labourers who tramped along. This gentleman alone alarmed her.
+
+There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day holiday, coming by at the
+same time; they had on their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
+nice. They turned round to watch him coming, and half waited for him;
+when he came up he checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them. Nothing
+loth, the village girls "cheeked" him, and so they passed on.
+
+One or two very long men appeared, unusually clumsy, even in walking
+they did not know exactly what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
+objection to their being tall--indeed, to be tall is often a passport to
+a "Jewess' eye"--but they were so clumsy.
+
+Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles she could not see much
+but their clothes and their faces, and both the clothes and the faces
+were very much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the shoulders were
+too broad for the tailor, who wanted to force Bond Street measurements
+on the British farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
+hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and that was all. Scores of men,
+precisely similar, were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
+hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not have peeled rods to
+make them bring forth speckled lambs.
+
+Against the stile a long way up the road there was a group of five or
+six men, who were there when she first peered over the wall, and made
+no further progress to the Fair. They were waiting till some
+acquaintance came by and offered a lift; lazy dogs, they could not walk.
+They had already been there long enough to have walked to the Fair and
+back, still they preferred to fold their hands and cross their legs, and
+stay on. So many people being anxious to get to the town, most of those
+who drove had picked up friends long before they got here.
+
+The worst walker of all was a constable, whose huge boots seemed to take
+possession of the width of the road, for he turned them out at right
+angles, working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary exhibition
+of stupidity and ugliness, for which the authorities who drilled him in
+that way were responsible, and not the poor fellow.
+
+Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep there drifted by a variety
+of human animals, tramps and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as
+the wool and beef.
+
+It is curious that these "characters"--as they are so kindly
+called--have a way of associating themselves with things that promise
+vast enjoyment to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless wretches who
+thread their path in and out the coaches at the Derby is wonderful.
+While the champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman between
+the shafts sits on an upturned hamper and helps himself out of another
+to pie with truffles, the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round
+about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve after the fall at the
+edge of Paradise.
+
+There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at the Derby that you might
+think the race was got up entirely for their sakes. There would be
+thousands at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a half-crown bolt, and
+they cannot get a stare at the fashionables on the lawn. For all that,
+the true tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant at races
+and all kinds of accessible entertainments and public events that the
+features of the fashionable are better known to him than to hundreds of
+well-to-do people unable to enter society.
+
+So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in the dust, among the
+cattle and sheep, hands in pockets, head hanging down, most of them
+followed at a short distance by a Thing.
+
+This Thing is upright, and therefore, according to the old definition,
+ought to come within the genus Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling
+those of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a woman once;
+perhaps it never was, for many of them have never had a chance to enter
+the ranks of their own sex.
+
+Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence, too full of her own
+strength and youth and joy in life to think for long or seriously about
+these curious Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her brow
+contracted, and she drew herself together as they passed--a sort of
+shiver, to think that there should be such degradation in the world.
+Twice when they came along her side of the road she dropped pennies in
+front of them, which they picked up in a listless way, just glancing
+over the ear in the direction the money fell, and went on without so
+much as recognizing where it came from.
+
+If sheep were treated as unfortunate human beings are, they would take a
+bitter revenge; though they are the mildest of creatures, they would
+soon turn round in a venomous manner. If they did not receive sufficient
+to eat and drink, and were not well sheltered, they would take a bitter
+revenge: _they would die_. Loss of £ s. d.!
+
+But human beings have not even got the courage or energy to do that;
+they put up with anything, and drag on--miserables that they are.
+
+I said they were not equal in value to the sheep--why, they're not worth
+anything when they're dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
+Things!
+
+Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the fair, where there will be
+an immense amount of eating and a far larger amount of drinking all
+round them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight. They will see
+valuable animals, and men with well-lined pockets. What on earth can a
+tramp find to please him among all this? It is not for him; yet he goes
+to see it.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
+the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was
+moving. They were going to the fair; he had his back to it, and a party
+in a trap rallied him smartly for his folly.
+
+"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why, Measter Duck, what's up? Looking
+for a thunderstorm?"--which young ducks are supposed to enjoy. "Ha! ha!
+ha!"
+
+Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face, nevertheless plodded up the
+hill, and passed beneath Amaryllis.
+
+She knew him very well, for he lived in the hamlet, but she would not
+have taken any notice of him had he not been so elaborately dressed. His
+high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth coat was new and
+carefully brushed; he was in black all over, in contrast with the mass
+of people who had gone by that morning. A blue necktie, bright and
+clean, spotless linen, gloves rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers
+brushed, boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the fair!
+
+The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact, no chance to do
+otherwise, for his great back and shoulders stretched it tight, and
+would have done so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big men who
+had gone by that day Jack Duck was the biggest; his back was immense,
+and straight, too, for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his bulk
+altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened with abdomen, so
+that it showed to the best advantage. He was a little over the average
+height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.
+
+He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground. You just try to lift
+_one_.
+
+His sleeves were too long, so that only the great knuckles of his
+speckled hands were visible. Red whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled
+face, straight lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher, and
+of much the same coarse red hue, always a ready grin, a round, hard
+head, which you might have hit safely with a mallet; and there is the
+picture.
+
+For some reason, very big men do not look well in glossy black coats and
+silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
+than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour,
+suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. They do not belong to
+the town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for hills and fields.
+
+Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen are big, and
+therefore, as their "best" suits do not fit in with their character as
+written in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us clumsy. The
+truth is, it is the Continent that is little.
+
+"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking down on poor John Duck.
+"Isn't he ugly?" Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss, which
+has a way of growing into bricks and mortar, and attaching particles of
+brick to its roots. As she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
+with a little piece of moss--her hand happened at the moment to project
+over the wall, and as John Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
+straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of brick adhering to the
+moss struck the hollow hat smartly like a drum.
+
+She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing, and angry with herself all
+at the same time, for she had done it without a thought.
+
+Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it on again, suspecting
+that some one in a passing gig had "chucked" something at him.
+
+In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall, and, seeing his broad back a
+long way up the road, resumed her stand.
+
+"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?" she thought. "But isn't he
+ugly? Aren't they _all_ ugly? All of them--horridly ugly."
+
+The entire unknown race of Man was hideous. So coarse in feature--their
+noses were thick, half an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
+the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a reaping-hook, or slewed
+to one side, or flat as if they had been smashed, or short and stumpy
+and incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned up in the
+vulgarest manner--nobody had a good nose.
+
+Their eyes were goggles, round and staring--like liquid marbles--they
+had no eyelashes, and their eyebrows were either white and invisible, or
+shaggy, as if thistles grew along their foreheads.
+
+Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red and brick-dust and
+leather-coloured, and enclosed with scrubby whiskers, like a garden
+hedge.
+
+Upon the whole, those who shaved and were smooth looked worse than those
+who did not, for they thus exposed the angularities of their chins and
+jaws.
+
+They wore such horrid hats on the top of these roughly-sketched
+faces--sketched, as it were, with a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had
+their hats on the backs of their heads, and some wore them aslant, and
+some jammed over their brows.
+
+They went along smoking and puffing, and talking and guffawing in the
+vulgarest way, _en route_ to swill and smoke and puff and guffaw
+somewhere else.
+
+Whoever could tell what they were talking about? these creatures.
+
+They had no form or grace like a woman--no lovely sloped shoulders, no
+beautiful bosom, no sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No softness
+of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or taper fingers, or arched
+eyebrows; no sort of style whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
+in short, sublimely ugly.
+
+There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis' reflections; it was a pity
+a woman was not taken into confidence when the men were made.
+
+Suppose the women were like the men, and we had to make love to such a
+set of bristly, grisly wretches!--pah! shouldn't we think them ugly! The
+patience of the women, putting up with us so long!
+
+As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves so much, in a woman's
+eyes (though she prefers a strong man) they simply increase our
+extraordinary ugliness.
+
+But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then they despise us, and
+there is no doubt that altogether the men were made wrong.
+
+"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot," thought Amaryllis. "He just
+_is_ ugly."
+
+Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and
+entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr.
+Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had seated himself on a
+stool.
+
+He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid, rough as a chunk of wood,
+but dressed in his best brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
+vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances to Mr. Iden:--
+
+"Now, just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman," he
+concluded as Duck arrived. Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity
+to escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he had patiently
+listened, took Jack by the arm, and led him indoors. As they went the
+man on the stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:--"Just you
+see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman!"
+
+A good many have been "helped up" with a woman before now.
+
+Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile--she always did--yet there
+could not have been imagined a man less likely to have pleased her.
+
+A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or
+foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome
+John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous
+mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always
+complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
+to her own disposition that charmed her.
+
+John Duck was Another Man--not Mr. Iden.
+
+The best of matrons like to see Another Man enter their houses; there's
+no viciousness in it, it is simply nature, which requires variety. The
+best of husbands likes to have another woman--or two, or three--on a
+visit; there's nothing wrong, it is innocent enough, and but gives a
+spice to the monotony of existence.
+
+Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness and stolidity, was not
+perhaps a fool, notwithstanding his outward clumsiness. A little
+attention is appreciated even by a matron of middle age.
+
+"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and Mrs. Iden brought a full jug
+with her own hands--a rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
+Iden enjoyed it.
+
+"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"
+
+"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and gruff, about as a horse
+might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just
+come up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"
+
+John had a first-rate turn-out.
+
+Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she was not going to the
+fair.
+
+"Should be glad to take you, you know," said John, dipping into the ale.
+"Shall you be going presently?"--to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have a
+seat?"
+
+"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a trick he had when undecided.
+"I don't zactly know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge grubbed;
+want to fill up the gaps; want to go over to the wood meads; thought
+about----"
+
+"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit there thinking--take and go."
+
+"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have anything to go vor."
+
+"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden, contemptuously. "Why
+can't you do like other people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
+can wait--he can talk to Amaryllis while you dress."
+
+"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested John, very quietly, and as if
+it was no consequence to him; the very thing he had called for, to see
+if he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He knew that Mrs. Iden
+never went anywhere, and that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
+minute--he would require three or four days at least--so that it was
+quite safe to ask them first.
+
+"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She is going--to dine with her
+grandfather; it will save her a long walk. You had better go and ask
+her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the people."
+
+"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great bow window at the
+mention of Plum Corner--he could just see the flutter of Amaryllis'
+dress in the distance between the trees. That part of the garden was
+called Plum Corner because of a famous plum tree--the one that had not
+been pruned and was sprawling about the wall.
+
+Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for Mrs. Iden, because she
+was so fond of a ripe luscious plum. But of late years he had not pruned
+it.
+
+"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug. "Extra vine ale!"
+
+"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.
+
+It really was humming stuff, but John well knew how proud Iden was of
+it, and how much he liked to hear it praised.
+
+The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly imagine that no one
+can be sharp-witted outside the sound of Bow Bells--country people are
+stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck, who took about half an hour
+to write his name, was equal to most of them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+THE ale being ended, Iden walked with him through the orchard.
+
+"Famous wall that," said John, presently, nodding towards the great red
+brick wall which adorned that side of the place. "Knowed how to build
+walls in those days."
+
+"No such wall as that anywhere about here," said Iden, as proud of his
+wall as his ale. "No such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to put
+up a wall now--you read in the papers how the houses valls down in
+Lunnon."
+
+"Sort of cracks and comes in like--jest squashes up," said John.
+
+"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden. "That'll last--ah,
+last----"
+
+"No end to it," said John, who had admired the wall forty times before,
+thinking to himself as he saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner,
+"Blessed if I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my hat."
+This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably clear idea that Mr. and
+Mrs. Iden were not averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
+Amaryllis herself.
+
+Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had so much as looked at
+her--he called often, but seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy
+her scorn if she had guessed!
+
+John Duck was considered one of the most eligible young men thereabouts,
+for though by no means born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
+was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his father died. Old Duck, the
+son of a common labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms in
+the neighbourhood. He made his money in a waggon--a curious place, you
+will say; why so? Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets they
+call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended the dirty, unscrubbed,
+disgraceful staircase that leads to a famous barrister's "chambers"?
+These are far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon in a
+beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck, being too ponderous to walk,
+was driven about in a waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
+legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted in a commanding
+position, he overlooked his men at work.
+
+One day he was put in a cart instead, and the carter walking home beside
+the horse, and noting what a pull it was for him up the hills, and
+drawling along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and dreamed he had
+a load of stones. By-and-by, he pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck
+out. "A shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a been a load of
+flints."
+
+Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow had amassed
+considerable wealth--his reputation for money was very great indeed--and
+his son John would, of course, come in for it.
+
+John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about Amaryllis he did not
+know. The idea that she had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
+spirits immensely.
+
+Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful--she was too young; I do not think
+any girl is really beautiful so young--she was highly individualized,
+and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face and figure. You
+saw at a glance that there was something about her very different from
+other girls, something very marked, but it was not beauty yet.
+
+Whether John thought her handsome, or saw that she would be, or what, I
+do not know; or whether he looked "forrard," as he would have said.
+
+          "Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"
+
+John had never read Burns, and would not have known that tocher meant
+dowry; nor had he seen the advice of Tennyson--
+
+          "Doesn't thee marry for money,
+           But go where money lies."
+
+but his native intelligence needed no assistance from the poets,
+coronetted or otherwise.
+
+It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden, was as poor as the
+raggedest coat in Christendom could make him; but it was equally well
+known and a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the great
+miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the boys called him derisively,
+had literally bushels upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
+for ancient usages, and it was understood that there were twenty
+thousand spade guineas in an iron box under his bed. Any cottager in the
+whole country side could have told you so, and would have smiled at your
+ignorance; the thing was as well known as that St. Paul's is in the
+City.
+
+Besides which there was another consideration, old Granfer Iden was a
+great favourite at Court--Court meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
+Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the county. Granfer Iden
+entered the Deer Park (which was private) with a special key whenever he
+pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked in at the conservatory,
+chatted familiarly with the royal family of Pamment when they were at
+home, and when they were away took any friend he chose through the
+galleries and saloons.
+
+"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said John Duck to himself many a
+time and oft. "They stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
+wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite at Court could dispense,
+no doubt, many valuable privileges.
+
+Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer, and turned round and
+faced them. She wore a black dress, but no hat; instead she had
+carelessly thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla fashion, and
+held it with one hand. Her dark ringlets fringed her forehead, blown
+free and wild; the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
+cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose figure is just beginning
+to show itself, her dress seemed somewhat shortened in front--lifted up
+from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she
+seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in
+her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our
+grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance,
+wilfulness, rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood on the
+bank, a little higher than they were, and able to look over their heads.
+
+"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one side as a salute.
+
+"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his broad pronunciation.
+
+As John could not get any further Iden helped him.
+
+"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and thought you would like to ride
+with him. Run in and dress."
+
+"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."
+
+"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."
+
+"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.
+
+"Lot of cattle about," said John.
+
+"Better ride," said Iden.
+
+"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on them to look over the wall
+again.
+
+She was a despot already. There was nothing left for them but to walk
+away.
+
+"However," said Iden, always trying to round things off and make square
+edges smooth, "very likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."
+
+"Her wull go across the fields," said John. "Shan't see her."
+
+As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap he looked up at the
+corner of the wall, but she was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had
+fetched her in, as it was time to dress.
+
+"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate fairs--they are so silly."
+
+"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your grandfather sent a message last
+night; you know it's his dinner-day."
+
+"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis, "I can't bear him."
+
+"How dare you speak of your grandfather like that? you are getting very
+rude and disrespectful."
+
+There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one time she would go on and
+abuse Granfer Iden for an hour at a time, calling him every name she
+could think of, and accusing him of every folly under the sun. At
+another time she would solemnly inform Amaryllis that they had not a
+farthing of money, and how necessary it was that they should be
+attentive and civil to him.
+
+Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the first jacket to hand.
+
+"What! aren't you going to change your dress?"
+
+"No, that I'm not."
+
+"Change it directly."
+
+"What, to go in and see that musty old----"
+
+"Change it directly; I _will_ be obeyed."
+
+Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.
+
+One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim and let her do just as she
+pleased; the next she insisted on minute obedience.
+
+"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your things on--come."
+
+So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled out of the house and
+started off. As John had foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow
+the path across the fields, which was shorter.
+
+An hour or so later Iden came in from work as usual, a few minutes
+before dinner, and having drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in
+the bow window till the dishes were brought.
+
+"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.
+
+"Gone--wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for him.
+
+"To fair, of course--like other people."
+
+"Hum," growled Iden.
+
+"You know your father expects all the family to come in to dinner on
+fair day; I can't think how you can neglect him, when you know we
+haven't got a shilling--why don't you go in and speak to him?"
+
+"You can go if you like."
+
+"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill accents of contempt. "I don't
+care a button for all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money. I'm as
+good as he is any day. My family go about, and do some business----"
+
+"_Your_ family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"
+
+"Yes, _my_ family--as good as yours, I should think! What's your family
+then, that you should be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"
+
+"You be descended from a quart pot," said Iden.
+
+This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather, who had kept a small
+wayside public. There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
+respectable man, and laid the foundation of his family's fortune, but it
+drove Mrs. Iden into frenzy.
+
+"You talk about a quart pot--_you_," she shrieked. "Why, your family
+have drunk up thousands of pounds--you know they have. Where's the
+Manor? they swilled it away. Where's Upper Court? they got it down their
+throats. They built a house to drink in and nothing else. You know they
+did. You told me yourself. The most disgraceful set of drunkards that
+ever lived!"
+
+"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?" said Iden.
+
+"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years--why, you're always talking
+about it."
+
+"Your family be as nervous as cats--see their hands shake in the
+morning."
+
+"They go to business in the City and do something; they don't mess about
+planting rubbishing potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.
+
+"A pretty mess they've made of their business, as shaky as their hands.
+Fidgetty, miserable, nervous set they be."
+
+"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow, as stolid, and slow,
+and stupid; why, you do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk,
+talk. You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the stile, and
+you've been talking with that old fool at the back door, and talking
+with Jack Duck--and that's your second mug! You're descended from a
+nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"
+
+Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and thrust it in one
+pocket, flung open the oven-door, and put a baked apple in the other
+pocket, and so marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a tree in
+the fields.
+
+In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so successful as raking up
+the weaknesses of the opponent's family, especially when the parties are
+married, for having gossiped with each other for so long in the most
+confidential manner, they know every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom
+bet, and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about, and Joseph did as
+Potiphar's spouse asked him, and why your uncle had to take refuge in
+Spain; and so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication table.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+THIS discordance between her father and mother hurt Amaryllis'
+affectionate heart exceedingly. It seemed to be always breaking out all
+the year round.
+
+Of a summer's eve, when the day's work among the hot hay was done, Iden
+would often go out and sit under the russet apple till the dew had
+filled the grass like a green sea. When the tide of the dew had risen he
+would take off his heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in the
+cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass. He liked the refreshing
+coolness and the touch of the sward. It was not for washing, because he
+was scrupulously clean under the ragged old coat; it was because he
+liked the grass. There was nothing very terrible in it; men, and women,
+too, take off their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the sands at
+the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything but natural, reasonable,
+and pleasant. But, then, you see, _everybody_ does it at the seaside,
+and Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his crime--that he alone
+did it.
+
+The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she knew he was paddling in the
+grass was awful. She would come shuffling out--she had a way of rubbing
+her shoes along the ground when irritated with her hands under her
+apron, which she twisted about--and pelt him with scorn.
+
+"There, put your boots on--do, and hide your nasty feet!" (Iden had a
+particularly white skin, and feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting!
+Nobody ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
+Anything more disgusting I never heard of. Nobody else but you would
+ever think of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."
+
+Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody else"--that was the
+sin and guilt of it--by-and-by Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
+had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them, would fling them in the
+ditch.
+
+And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation, if she had not
+been afraid to touch firearms, she would have brought out the gun, and
+had a shot at him.
+
+After a time Iden left his old post at the russet apple, and went up the
+meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and
+there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the
+dew, without any one to grumble at him.
+
+How crookedly things are managed in this world!
+
+It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and
+all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
+high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable--all so
+incongruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go
+on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and
+straight people in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been
+dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
+to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our abilities and natures.
+Such an utter jumble!
+
+Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful power of observation,
+who ought to have been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
+Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or, with his singular
+capacity for construction, a leading engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels
+and making Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect, forming a new
+school of philosophy--here was Iden, tending cows, and sitting, as the
+old story goes, undecidedly on a stile--sitting astride--eternally
+sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off on one side or the
+other.
+
+Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful shape and expressive eyes,
+full in her youth of life and fire, who ought to have led the gayest
+life in London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage, and flinging
+money about in the most extravagant, joyous, and good-natured
+manner--here was Mrs. Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and
+wearing shoes out at the toes.
+
+So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's cart over ruts and
+stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward
+like a cricket-ball.
+
+It all happens in the Turkish manner.
+
+Another time there would come a letter from one of the Flammas in
+London. Could they spare a little bag of lavender?--they grew such
+lovely sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might see Mr. and Mrs.
+Iden cooing and billing, soft as turtle-doves, and fraternising in the
+garden over the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you see, to the
+story.
+
+Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent, and the plant in every
+form. She kept little bags of it in all her drawers, and everything at
+Coombe Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious lavender
+perfume. There is nothing else that smells so sweet and clean and dry.
+You cannot imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.
+
+Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it between his finger and
+thumb in the garden, as he did, too, with the black-currant leaves and
+walnut-leaves, if he fancied anything he had touched might have left an
+unpleasant odour adhering to his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as
+much as washing them.
+
+Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because his mother had been so
+fond of it, and all the sixteen carved oak-presses which had been so
+familiar to him in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
+plant.
+
+Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet remained in the wine of
+life, Iden had set a hedge of lavender to please his wife. It was so
+carefully chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the finest
+lavender in all the country. People used to come for it from round
+about, quite certain of a favourable reception, for there was nothing so
+sure to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of lavender.
+
+But the letter from the Flammas was the great event--from London, all
+that way, asking for some Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
+and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the garden over the hedge
+of lavender. If only it could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow older
+there seems so much grating of the wheels.
+
+In time, long time, people's original feelings get strangely confused
+and overlaid. The churchwardens of the eighteenth century plastered the
+fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches--covered them over
+with yellowish mortar. The mould grows up, and hides the capital of the
+fallen column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak,
+where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and
+without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching
+the sap. A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over
+original feelings.
+
+There was no one in the world so affectionate and loving as Mrs.
+Iden--no one who loved a father so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved _her_
+father.
+
+But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty years or so, and the
+thick dull bark had grown, after the scales or caking had come upon the
+heart, after the capital of the column had fallen, after the painting
+had been blurred, it came about that old Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father,
+died in London.
+
+After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe Oaks, husband and wife
+went up to London to the funeral, which took place at one of those
+fearful London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very soul. Of all
+the horrible things in the world there is nothing so calmly ghastly as a
+London cemetery.
+
+In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Iden went to the
+theatre.
+
+"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing of the sort; how truly sad
+and human, for to be human is to be sad. That men and women should be so
+warped and twisted by the pressure of the years out of semblance to
+themselves; that circumstances should so wall in their lives with
+insurmountable cliffs of granite facts, compelling them to tread the
+sunless gorge; that the coldness of death alone could open the door to
+pleasure.
+
+They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With the music and the song,
+the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in
+the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone
+had been dead _there_; they were dead here. Dead in life--at the
+theatre.
+
+They had used to go joyously to the theatre thirty years before, when
+Iden came courting to town; from the edge of the grave they came back
+to look on their own buried lives.
+
+If you will only _think_, you will see it was a most dreadful and
+miserable incident, that visit to the theatre after the funeral.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WHEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake descent in Iden's face she alluded
+to Grandfather Iden's being a baker and miller, and noted for the
+manufacture of these articles. A lardy, or larded, cake is a thing, I
+suppose, unknown to most of this generation; they were the principal
+confectionery familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was at the
+top of his business activity, seventy years since, in the Waterloo era.
+
+A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at
+the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked
+something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry;
+they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their
+ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
+trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, and the
+rest depended on the strength of the digestion. But if a ploughboy could
+get a new, warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought himself
+blessed.
+
+Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any serious business, but he
+still made a few of these renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a
+good few at times to the carters' lads who came in to market.
+
+Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she had not, the tom-tomming
+of drums and blowing of brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
+her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious as she
+approached--the ceaseless tomtom, the beating of drums and gongs outside
+the show vans, the shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great crowd,
+the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep, the neighing of
+horses--altogether the "rucket" was tremendous.
+
+She looked back from the hill close to the town and saw the people
+hurrying in from every quarter--there was a string of them following the
+path she had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A shower had
+fallen in the night, but the ceaseless wheels had ground up the dust
+again, and the lines of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
+clouds hanging above them. For one on business, fifty hastened on to
+join the uproar.
+
+Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched from Florence and had been
+set up in the town of Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the Milo
+from Paris, do you think all these people would have scurried in such
+haste to admire these beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you want
+a crowd you must make a row. It is really wonderful how people do
+thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
+could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be
+half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if
+you describe a mediæval scramble you must put in plenty of splintering
+lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so render it lively.
+
+"This is the patent age of new inventions," and some one might make a
+profit by starting a fête announcing that a drum or a gong would be
+provided for every individual, to be beaten in a grand universal chorus.
+
+Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting through the crowd till she
+found her way behind the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
+between them and the houses. There was an arched entrance,
+archæologically interesting, by which she paused a moment, half inclined
+to go up and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who lived there had
+had them since Christmas, and all that wanted doing was a patch on one
+toe; they were always just going to be done, but never finished. She
+read the inscription over his door, "Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established
+1697." A different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton awls; a
+man who has been in business two hundred years cannot be hurried. She
+sighed, and passed on.
+
+The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted of one wide stone of
+semi-circular shape, in which the feet of three generations of
+customers had worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman, for he was
+over ninety, was leaning on the hatch (or lower half of the door), in
+the act of handing some of his cakes to two village girls who had called
+for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed to be so rurally
+simple, had just been telling him how they never forgot his nice cakes,
+but always came every fair day to buy some. For this they got sixpence
+each, it being well known that the old gentleman was so delighted with
+anybody who bought his cakes he generally gave them back their money,
+and a few coppers besides.
+
+He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on the step and pulled her
+into the shop, asked her if her father were coming, then walked her down
+by the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted peel, to see
+how tall she was. The peel is the long wooden rod, broad at one end,
+with which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father Iden being
+proud of his trade, in his old age had his favourite peel ornamented
+with silver.
+
+"Too fast--too fast," he said, shaking his head, and coughing; "you grow
+too fast; there's the notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
+taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her where his thumb was--quite
+two inches higher than the last year's mark.
+
+"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.
+
+"I daresay--I daresay," said the old man, in the hasty manner of feeble
+age, as he cut another notch to record her height. The handle of the
+peel was notched all round, where he had measured his grandchildren;
+there were so many marks it was not easy to see how he distinguished
+them.
+
+"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he had finished with the knife.
+
+"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true--she did not _know_--she
+could not be certain; but in her heart she was sure he would not come.
+But she did not want to hear any hard words said about him.
+
+"Has he sent anything? Have you brought anything for me? No. No.
+Hum!--ha!"--fit of coughing--"Well, well--come in; dinner's late,
+there's time to hear you read--you're fond of books, you read a great
+deal at home,"--and so talking, half to himself and half to her, he led
+the way into the parlour by the shop.
+
+Bowed by more than ninety years, his back curved over forwards, and his
+limbs curved in the opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
+resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung over his chest, and
+his knees never straightened themselves, but were always more or less
+bent as he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of a strong man
+heavily laden and unable to stand upright--such an attitude as big Jack
+Duck in his great strength might take when carrying two sacks of wheat
+at once. There was as heavy a load on Grandfather Iden's back, but Time
+is invisible.
+
+He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker should, and had worn the
+same cut and colour for years and years. In the shop, too, he always
+had a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white, but it got to
+appear grey upon him; a large grey chimney-pot, many sizes too big for
+his head apparently, for it looked as if for ever about to descend and
+put out his face like an extinguisher. Though his boots were so
+carefully polished, they quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as
+he pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends of his trousers, too
+long for his antique shanks, folded and creased over his boots, and
+almost hid his grey cloth under-gaiters.
+
+A great knobbed old nose--but stay, I will not go further, it is not
+right to paint too faithfully the features of the very aged, which are
+repellent in spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their faces,
+their sentiments and actions are another matter; therefore I will leave
+Father Iden's face as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
+reflects everywhere, except one spot.
+
+Amaryllis followed him jauntily,--little did she care, reckless girl,
+for the twenty thousand guineas in the iron box under his bed.
+
+The cottage folk, who always know so much, had endless tales of Iden's
+wealth; how years ago bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in
+five-shilling packets, had been literally carted like potatoes away from
+the bakehouse to go to London; how ponies were laden with sacks of
+silver groats, all paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
+dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.
+
+Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the spade guineas in the iron
+box.
+
+The old man sat down by the fire without removing his hat, motioning to
+her to shut the door, which she was loth to do, for the little room was
+smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma, he coughed incessantly, and
+mopped his mouth with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
+craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to the grate, and piled up
+the coal till it smoked and smoked, and filled the close apartment with
+a suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into Father Iden's sanctuary
+was an honour, but, like other honours, it had to be paid for.
+
+Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to breathe as short as
+possible, to avoid inhaling more than she could bear.
+
+"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the bookcases, which occupied
+three sides of the room. "Books--you like books; look at them--go and
+see."
+
+To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the
+shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very
+good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere
+throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the
+county, old and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
+Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as Bernard Quaritch, that giant
+of the modern auction room, would have written magnificent cheques for.
+
+Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the auction-room bidding for
+books? It is one of the sights of London, let me tell you, to any one
+who thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights are reputations
+merely--the pale reflection of things that were real once. This sight is
+something of the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
+_Athenæum_ in the season, examine the advertisements of book auctions,
+and attend the next great sale of some famous library.
+
+You have a recollection of the giant who sat by the highway and devoured
+the pilgrims who passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring and
+devours the books set loose upon their travels after the repose of
+centuries.
+
+What prices to give! No one can withstand him. From Paris they send
+agents with a million francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
+the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles, but in vain. They only
+get what the Giant chooses to leave them.
+
+Books that nobody ever heard of fetch £50, £60, £100, £200; wretched
+little books never opened since they were printed; dull duodecimos on
+the course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable twaddling local
+books in Italian, Spanish, queer French, written and printed in some
+unknown foreign village; read them--you might as well try to amuse
+yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What earthly value they are of cannot
+be discovered. They were composed by authors whose names are gone like
+the sand washed by the Nile into the sea before Herodotus. They contain
+no beautiful poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery; they
+are simply so much paper, printing, and binding, so many years old, and
+it is for that age, printing, and binding that the money is paid.
+
+I have read a good many books in my time--I would not give sixpence for
+the whole lot.
+
+They are not like a block-book--first efforts at printing; nor like the
+first editions of great authors; there is not the slightest intrinsic
+value in them whatever.
+
+Yet some of them fetch prices which not long ago were thought tremendous
+even for the Shakespeare folio.
+
+Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for them. Living and writing
+authors of the present day are paid in old songs by comparison.
+
+Still, this enormous value set on old books is one of the remarkable
+signs of the day. If any one wishes to know what To-Day is, these
+book-auctions are of the things he should go to see.
+
+Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's shelves; among them there
+were a few that I call _real_ old books, an early translation or two, an
+early Shakespeare, and once there had been a very valuable Boccaccio,
+but this had gone into Lord Pamment's library, "Presented by James
+Bartholomew Iden, Esq."
+
+The old man often went to look at and admire his Boccaccio in my Lord's
+library.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THERE was one peculiarity in all the books on Grandfather Iden's
+shelves, they were all very finely bound in the best style of hand-art,
+and they all bore somewhere or other a little design of an ancient Roman
+lamp.
+
+Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship of good taste--it
+is not the sculptor's art, nor the painter's--not the art of the mind,
+but the art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work, for instance,
+some pottery, book-binding like this, are the products of hand-art.
+
+"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man, when Amaryllis had stared
+sufficiently at the backs of the books.
+
+"Yes, I can see the Lamp."
+
+"House of Flamma," said old Iden.
+
+"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily, eager to show that she
+understood all about it. She feared lest he should enter into the
+history of the House of Flamma and of his connection with it; she had
+heard it all over and over again; her mother was a Flamma; she had
+herself some of the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything annoyed
+her or made her indignant her foot used to tap the floor, and her neck
+flush rosy, and her face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
+control herself, she would say to herself, "I _will_ not be a Flamma."
+
+Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis detested and despised
+the whole tribe of the Flammas, the nervous, excitable, passionate,
+fidgetty, tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them all, the
+very name and mention of them; she sided with her father as an Iden
+against her mother's family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
+flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse, a spot or two of
+genius, and the rest black guilt or folly. She hated them; she would not
+be a Flamma.
+
+How should she at sixteen understand the wear and tear of life, the
+pressure of circumstances, the heavy weight of difficulties--there was
+something to be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas, but
+naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut up in narrow grooves and
+working day after day, year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
+their constitutional nervousness became the chief characteristic of
+their existence. It was Intellect overcome--over-burdened--with two
+generations of petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went to the
+quart pot.
+
+Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis detested the very
+name; she would not be a Flamma.
+
+But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in fire of spirit, in
+strength of indignation, in natural capacity; she drew, for instance,
+with the greatest ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
+could write a letter in sketches.
+
+Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness of certain things seemed
+to fill her with a consuming fire. Her partizanship for her father made
+her sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she might utterly
+erase the opposer. Her contempt of sycophancy, and bold independence led
+her constantly into trouble.
+
+Flamma means a flame.
+
+Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the bookshelves patiently
+endeavouring to please the tiresome old man.
+
+"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.
+
+Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and medals in it were very
+interesting, as they really were. The smoke caught her in the throat,
+and seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching her chest. So
+much accustomed to the open air, she felt stifled.
+
+Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he might hear how she
+enunciated her words. The book he gave her was an early copy of Addison,
+the page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges rough, but where
+in a trim modern volume will you find language like his and ideas set
+forth with such transparent lucidity? How easy to write like that!--so
+simple, merely a letter to an intimate friend; but try!
+
+Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read, especially those that come
+to us from New York, thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
+the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You cannot read them; you
+_work_ through them.
+
+The French have retained a little of the old style of book in their
+paper bound franc novels, the rough paper, thick black type, rough edges
+are pleasant to touch and look at--they feel as if they were done by
+hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim by machinery.
+
+Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis tried her utmost to read
+well, and she succeeded, so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
+grunting between his continuous fits of coughing the old man signified
+his approval.
+
+Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of the aged, but she had a
+motive here; she wanted to please him for her father's sake. For many
+years there had been an increasing estrangement between the younger and
+the elder Iden; an estrangement which no one could have explained, for
+it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather Iden was really
+so rich. The son was his father's tenant--the farm belonged to
+Grandfather Iden--and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly. Still
+that could not have much mattered--a mere trifle to a man of old Iden's
+wealth. There was something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
+scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people frequently fall
+into a quarrel without remembering the beginning.
+
+Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old man for her father's sake;
+her dear father, whom she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
+worrying him for petty sums of money; it made her furious with
+indignation to see and hear it.
+
+So she read her very best, and swallowed the choking smoke patiently.
+
+Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still as fresh as if gathered
+yesterday, Amaryllis found bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For
+it was one of the old man's ways to carry home such of these that
+pleased him and to place them in his books. This he had done for half a
+century, and many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey old works
+of bygone authors had been there a generation. It is wonderful how long
+they will endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way; the paper
+they used in old books seems to have been softer, without the hard
+surface of our present paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps
+them better. Before the repulsion between father and son became so
+marked, Amaryllis had often been with her grandfather in the garden and
+round the meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather the yellow tulips,
+the broad-petalled roses, and in autumn the bright scarlet bramble
+leaves. The brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased him;
+anything with richness of colour. The old and grey, and withered man
+gathered the brightest of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten
+books.
+
+Now the sight of these leaves and petals between the yellow pages
+softened her heart towards him; he was a tyrant, but he was very, very
+old, they were like flowers on a living tomb.
+
+In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and going to a drawer in one
+of the bookcases, took from it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these
+between her face and the book, and told her to read them instead.
+
+"These are your writing."
+
+"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting, and coughing, all at once.
+
+"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only two houses in Black Jack
+Street." "Only _two_ houses!" she interposed, artfully.
+
+"Two," said the grandfather.
+
+"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in 1775 the site was covered
+with furze." "How it has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed, and
+smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head and seemed about to
+extinguish him.
+
+"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa. It says, 'A hundred
+voters in this street, 1884.'"
+
+"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched his very heart up in
+coughing. When he finished, Amaryllis read on--
+
+"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."
+
+"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent coughing Amaryllis became
+alarmed, but it did him no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
+livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused him like a
+trumpet--it went straight to his ancient heart.
+
+"Read that again," he said. "How many voters now?"
+
+"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."
+
+"We've got them all"--coughing--"all in my lord's houses, everyone; vote
+Conservative, one and all. What is it?" as some one knocked. Dinner was
+ready, to Amaryllis's relief.
+
+"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?" asked the grandfather,
+shuffling up his papers. "There--there," as she hesitated, "you would
+like to dine with young people, of course--of course."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+OLD Grandfather Iden always dined alone in the parlour, with his
+housekeeper to wait on him; they were just bringing in his food. The
+family and visitors had their meals in a separate and much more
+comfortable apartment in another part of the house, which was large.
+Sometimes, as a great favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
+would invite you to eat with him.
+
+Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated, not only because of
+the smoke, but because she knew he always had pork for dinner.
+
+The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry and withered frame--it
+was a sort of Burgundy of flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy
+fills the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so the rich juice of
+the pork seemed to supply the oil necessary to keep the sinews supple
+and to prevent the cartilages from stiffening.
+
+The scientific people say that it is the ossification of the
+cartilages--the stiffening of the firmer tissues--that in time
+interferes with the processes of life. The hinges rust, as if your
+tricycle had been left out in the rain for a week--and the delicate
+watchwork of the human frame will not run.
+
+If suppleness could only be maintained there is no reason why it should
+not continue to work for a much longer period, for a hundred and fifty,
+two hundred years--as long as you fancy. But nothing has yet been
+devised to keep up the suppleness.
+
+Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast pork. The jokers of
+Woolhorton--there are always jokers, very clever they think
+themselves--considered the reason it suited him so well was because of
+the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.
+
+Anything more contrary to common sense than for an old man of ninety to
+feed on pork it would be hard to discover--so his friends said.
+
+"Pork," said the physician, had down from London to see him on one
+occasion, "pork is the first on the list of indigestible articles of
+food. It takes from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
+reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded--acidity is the
+result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable ills are the consequence. The
+very worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."
+
+"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of Woolhorton, when he heard
+of this. "Hum!" low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
+least excited, like most other country folk, he used the provincial
+pronunciation. "Hum! A' have lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"
+
+Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did eat it six days out of
+seven, not, of course, roast pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork;
+sometimes he baked it himself in the great oven. Now and then he varied
+it with pig-meat--good old country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat--such
+as spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious morsel, the
+"mouse." The chine he always sent over for Iden junior, who was a chine
+eater--a true Homeric diner--and to make it even, Iden junior sent in
+the best apples for sauce from his favourite russet trees. It was about
+the only amenity that survived between father and son.
+
+The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old house at home, before we
+all went astray along the different paths of life; fresh from the pigs
+fed and killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the palate. Much of
+it is best done on a gridiron--here's heresy! A gridiron is flat
+blasphemy to the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
+fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your lips watering.
+
+But the "mouse,"--what was the "mouse?" The London butchers can't tell
+me. It was a titbit. I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London folk
+are so ignorant.
+
+Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and form, that is, he mumbled
+the juice out of it, and never complained of indigestion.
+
+He was up at five o'clock every morning of his life, pottering about the
+great oven with his baker's man. In summer if it was fine he went out at
+six for a walk in the Pines--the promenade of Woolhorton.
+
+"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used to say, "you go for a
+walk in the marning afore the aair have been braathed auver."
+
+Before the air has been breathed over--inspired and re-inspired by human
+crowds, while it retains the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
+from the spring; that was when it possessed its value, according to
+bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old Butler. Depend upon it, there is
+something in his dictum, too.
+
+Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork, for he often had it
+underdone, so the old gentleman dismissed her in his most gracious
+manner to dine with the rest.
+
+She went down the corridor and took the seat placed for her. There was a
+posy of primroses beside her napkin--posies of primroses all round the
+table.
+
+This raging old Tory of ninety years would give a shilling for the
+earliest primrose the boys could find for him in the woods. Some one got
+him a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
+favourites--a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather--which he had set in the
+centre of a splendid screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
+The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room near a bow window
+which overlooked the fair.
+
+People, you see, took pains to get him feathers and anything he fancied,
+on account of the twenty thousand spade guineas in the iron box under
+the bed.
+
+His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married folk, begged him not to
+keep a peacock's feather in the house--it would certainly bring
+misfortune. The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds that
+they actually argued with him--_argued_ with Grandfather Iden!--pointing
+out to him the fearful risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
+grew red in the face--the great grey hat shook and tottered with anger;
+not for all the Powers of Darkness would he have given up that feather.
+
+The chairs round the large table were arranged in accordance with the
+age of the occupants. There were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number
+of aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does not concern us. The
+eldest sat at the head of the table, the next in age followed, and so
+all round the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis rather low
+down--a long way from the top and fountain of honour--and highly
+displeased her. She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd of her
+relations, yet being there, she felt that she ought to have had a
+position above them all. Her father--Iden, junior--was old Iden's only
+son and natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to have been at
+the top of the table, and hers ought to have been next to his.
+
+Instead of which, as her father was not the eldest, his seat was some
+distance from the top, and hers again, was a long way from his.
+
+All the other chairs were full, but her father's chair was empty.
+
+The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to
+the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young,
+the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather
+Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.
+How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty
+chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the
+Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
+hearts of the enemies around her.
+
+For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a
+visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she
+knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set
+fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider
+the enormous profit to the rest of them!
+
+Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a
+will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out
+for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he
+had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his
+will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all
+in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do,
+and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost
+all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!
+
+Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and
+over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were
+so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it
+was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked
+very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable
+dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just
+sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It
+is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.
+
+Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might
+to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only
+daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of
+Grandfather Iden.
+
+The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was
+born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell
+out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the
+direct line of Iden when the first child was a daughter there were none
+to follow. And further, that there never was but one Miss Iden at a
+time.
+
+If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they never had any more
+children; consequently that daughter was the only Miss Iden.
+
+If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a second son, though they
+might have daughters; but then, in order that there should still be
+only one Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died, or was
+married early, before the second came into existence.
+
+Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they had a long pedigree, the
+Idens, reaching farther back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
+had been observed that this was the rule of their descent.
+
+Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress, through her father,
+of the Spade-Guinea Man. She tried to make them feel that she knew it
+and felt it; that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud face--it was
+a very proud face naturally--darkened a little, and grew still more
+disdainful in its utter scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of
+enemies.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her
+sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation;
+her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment
+she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute
+determination to fight for her dear father and mother.
+
+But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her
+boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under
+the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many,
+many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the
+stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her
+others.
+
+She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed
+better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar,
+too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had
+sound boots on their feet.
+
+The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had;
+nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the
+character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far,
+though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a
+whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.
+
+If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder
+than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put
+down by circumstances, she was above external things.
+
+But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely
+eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's
+empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection
+would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the
+Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with
+the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.
+
+The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a
+precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
+either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.
+
+          Spain's an island near
+          Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.
+
+The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and
+dying on their seats.
+
+The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of
+them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in
+Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty
+chair.
+
+And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I
+_will_ not be a Flamma."
+
+Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that
+everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his
+descendants.
+
+There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew
+his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn,
+and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two
+sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always
+a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best
+pleased him during the year.
+
+A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the
+heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually
+considered himself the nearest to the Will.
+
+Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to
+take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that
+moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her
+dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her
+dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this
+pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!
+
+Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames:
+Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
+Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his
+caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility,
+Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.
+
+By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery
+hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder,
+saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in
+their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went
+round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.
+
+Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was
+about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people
+suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to
+their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.
+
+Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw
+under the table.
+
+Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the
+back of his son's empty chair.
+
+He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren
+ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.
+
+Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son
+come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.
+
+A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of
+his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble
+on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three
+times.
+
+We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was
+a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his
+son's strong arm to lean on.
+
+The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice,
+whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
+be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of
+reconciliation.
+
+The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for
+him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the
+more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could
+hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her
+father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her
+mother without a decent pair of boots.
+
+In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the
+distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She
+did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two
+coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for
+her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered
+something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from
+throwing the money on the floor.
+
+It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the
+horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
+Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!
+
+Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into
+the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently
+admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the
+bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her
+hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.
+
+There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever
+been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.
+
+Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be
+singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the
+spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be
+honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted
+she would have been at the thought of the triumph!
+
+But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a
+triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt
+lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured
+by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his
+approval--she hated him.
+
+The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up
+a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of
+music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the
+thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place--till she went out to the
+gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding
+was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very
+morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism
+shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the
+crack in her boot.
+
+This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her
+mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!
+
+The Flamma blood was up in her veins--what did she care for guineas!
+
+As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked
+round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
+spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
+would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
+because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
+it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.
+
+So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
+till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
+the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.
+
+Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
+travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
+took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
+bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
+how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
+in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
+that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
+had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
+labours.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+AMARYLLIS did not look back as she walked beside her grandfather slowly
+up the street, or she would have seen the company of relations watching
+them from the bow-window.
+
+Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account
+of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the
+clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him.
+But he had a knack of keeping on his feet--the sort of knack you learn
+by skating--and did not totter much more than usual, despite the press.
+
+The world gets on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or
+three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
+their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers'
+fathers had set before them.
+
+Rows of booths for the display of "fairings," gingerbread, nuts, cakes,
+brandy-balls, and sugar-plums stood in the gutter each side.
+
+The "fairings" were sweet biscuits--they have been made every fair this
+hundred years.
+
+The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The
+gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined
+with gilt.
+
+There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring
+of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
+by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan
+was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
+smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that
+mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for
+nuts--behold these are they our fathers have seen.
+
+There is nothing new under the sun--not even at Epsom. The first time I
+saw the wonderful crowd of the Derby Day--perhaps the largest crowd in
+the world--I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I found on passing
+through it that the hundreds of thousands of people there had nothing
+more to amuse them than they would have found at an ordinary country
+fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies at cocoa-nuts, rootletum,
+tootletum, and beer. That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a very
+humdrum sort of world, my masters!
+
+The next finest crowd is the crowd on August bank-holiday all along the
+Brighton beach, and there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk but
+Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters--dull old stories in my
+grandmother's time.
+
+Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could invent him a fresh
+pleasure--the multitude of the Derby Day and Brighton beach should do
+the same. But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would certainly be
+the reward of such a discoverer. One gets tired of pitching sticks at
+cocoa-nuts all one's time.
+
+However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very rawest and crudest folk cared
+for the shows, all they did care was to alternately stand stock still
+and then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion" and had some
+beer, then they shoved back to the "Lamb" and had some beer, then they
+stood stock still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
+Several thousand people were thus happily occupied, and the Lion and the
+Lamb laid down together peacefully that day.
+
+Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to shove, for there was no
+other way to get through, no one thought of moving, or giving any
+passage, if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them aside. As
+Grandfather Iden could not shove very hard they were frequently
+compelled to wait till the groups opened, and thus it happened that
+Amaryllis found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.
+
+He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at Amaryllis, and touched his hat
+to Iden. "You ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he said.
+
+"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.
+
+Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant to Amaryllis. The
+father had not been to visit his son for more than a year--she did not
+want unpleasant memories stirred up.
+
+Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched his hat and asked her
+if her father was at fair, as he was looking out for a job. Old Iden
+started and grunted like a snorting horse.
+
+Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly to him, for she knew
+he was always in difficulties. Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong
+man without work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill Nye was a mower
+at Coombe, and his father, Bill Nye, before him, many a long year before
+he was discovered in California.
+
+When she overtook Iden he was struggling to pass the stream of the
+Orinoco, which set strongly at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
+"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb" archway like a river into
+the sea, thrusting their way into the general crowd, and this mighty
+current cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the swollen
+Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels that tried to breast it.
+
+It was as much as Amaryllis and he together could do to hold their
+ground at the edge of the current. While they were thus battling she
+chanced to look up.
+
+A large window was open over the archway, and at this window a fellow
+was staring down at her. He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a
+billiard-cue in his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the same young
+fellow, gentleman if you like, whose pale face had so displeased her
+that morning as he rode under when she watched the folk go by to fair.
+He was certainly the most advanced in civilization of all who had passed
+Plum Corner, and yet there was something in that pale and rather
+delicate face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the "varmers"
+and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers" who had gone by under the wall.
+Something that insulted her.
+
+The face at the window was appraising her.
+
+It was reckoning her up--so much for eyes, so much for hair, so much for
+figure, and as this went on the fingers were filling a pipe from an
+elastic tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry in that
+calculation--no rapture or pure admiration of beauty; there was a
+billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch, and a glass of spirits and water, and
+an atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory balls at the back
+of the thought. His thumb was white where he had chalked it to make a
+better bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had chalked it
+with dissipation. His physical body was whitened--chalked--a whited
+sepulchre; his moral nature likewise chalked.
+
+At the back of his thought lay not the high esteem of the poet-thinker
+for beauty, but the cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.
+
+The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things a Shakespeare would
+admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
+corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as
+to say, "You may depend upon me--I've been behind the scenes. All this
+is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at the rear;
+nothing in it."
+
+In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found some trace of a
+higher nature; "What an artist the world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.
+
+The empress Theodora craved for the applause of the theatre to which she
+exposed her beauty.
+
+This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism thinks of nothing but
+lowness, and has no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks to
+colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it is an ideal. There
+was no ideal in Ned Marks.
+
+They called him from within to take his turn with the cue; he did not
+answer, he was so absorbed in his calculations. He was clever--in a way;
+he had quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no common girl.
+She was not beautiful--yet, she was not even pretty, and so plainly
+dressed; still there was something marked in her features. And she was
+with old Iden.
+
+Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his glance, but she felt
+that it was an insult. She looked down quickly, seized her grandfather's
+arm, and drew him out from the pavement into the street, yielding a
+little to the current and so hoping to presently pass it.
+
+By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his companions had come to
+the window to discover what he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed.
+"It's Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron box!"
+
+Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to sit loosely on his head,
+was knocked aside by the elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the
+throng; Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this way, and
+pushing him that, got at last to the opposite pavement, and so behind
+the row of booths, between them and the houses where there was less
+crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to her feet and stepped in
+the gutter where there was a puddle. The cold water came through the
+crack in her boot.
+
+While these incidents were still further irritating her, the old Pacha
+kept mumbling and muttering to himself, nodding his head and smiling at
+each fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent and
+fearless still he appreciated the trouble she took. The mumbling in his
+mouth was a sort of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up to a
+pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a hound in a leash, ready
+to burst the bond that held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in
+arm, neither of them understood the other; ninety and sixteen, a strange
+couple in the jostling fair.
+
+Iden turned down a passage near the end of the street, and in an instant
+the roar of the crowd which had boomed all round them was shut off by
+high walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads in the air. They
+walked on broad stone flags notched here and there at the edges, for the
+rest worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a trade) like
+Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones, and the walled passage
+brought them to the porch of the Abbey church.
+
+There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and wiped his forehead with
+his vast silk handkerchief. They were no longer incommoded by a crowd,
+but now and then folk came by hastening to the fair; lads with favours
+in their coats, and blue ribbons in their hats, girls in bright dresses,
+chiefly crude colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy weight as
+it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous walls, the quiet gloom of the
+narrow space, and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.
+
+The aged man muttered and mumbled about the porch and took Amaryllis
+under it, making her look up at the groining, and note the spring of the
+arch, which formed a sort of carved crown over them. It was a fine old
+porch, deep and high, in some things reminding you of the porches that
+are to be seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade like trees,
+so cut and worked as to be soft to the eye.
+
+He pointed out to her the touches that rendered it so dear to those who
+value art in stone. He knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
+and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were broad folios in the
+smoky room at home, filled with every detail, Iden himself had
+subscribed forty pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them. Every
+scholar who visited the Abbey church, called and begged to see the
+baker's old books.
+
+Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and went outside and hoisted
+himself, as it were, up from his crooked S position to look at the three
+stags' heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads that to you, or
+at least to me, might have been fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or
+anything.
+
+Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in the porch, the deep shadow
+within behind her, the curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a
+portrait. She stood the more upright because of the fire and temper
+suppressed in her.
+
+Just outside the human letter S--crooked S--clad in sad white-grey
+miller's garments, its old hat almost falling backwards off its old grey
+head, gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the coat of arms.
+Seven hundred years--the weight of seven hundred years--hung over them
+both in that old Abbey.
+
+Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she came out to the Future.
+
+Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded, in the passage wall,
+and giving her the key, told her to open it, and stood watching her in
+triumph, as if it had been the door to some immense treasury. She turned
+the lock, and he pushed her before him hastily, as if they must snatch
+so grand an opportunity.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+WITHIN there was a gravel path, and glimpses between trees of wide
+pleasure-grounds. Amaryllis hesitated, and looked back; Iden drew her
+forward, not noticing her evident disinclination to proceed. If he had,
+he would have put it down to awe, instead of which it was dislike.
+
+For she guessed they were entering the lawns in front of the Hon.
+Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He was the largest owner of town and country;
+the streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which the fair was
+being held, belonged to him; so did most of the farms and hamlets out of
+which the people had come. The Pamments were Tories; very important
+Tories indeed.
+
+The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too, right to the centre of
+the cerebellum; the Flammas were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
+girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a wilful and
+rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who would not be a Flamma, had
+imbibed all the Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.
+
+To her the Pamments were the incarnation of everything detestable, of
+oppression, obstruction, and mediæval darkness. She knew nothing of
+politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to feel vehemently, you
+feel vehemently without knowing. Still, she had heard a good deal about
+the Pamments.
+
+She resented being brought there to admire the pleasure grounds and
+mansion, and to kow-tow to the grandeur of these mediæval tyrants.
+
+Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth lawn before the front
+windows; three centuries of mowing had made it as smooth as the top of
+his own head, where the years had mown away merrily.
+
+There was not so much as a shrub--not a daisy--between them and the
+great windows of the house. They stood in full view.
+
+Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen was her vexation; her
+cheeks reddened. She was obliged to face the house, but her glance was
+downwards; she would not look at it.
+
+Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory. In all Woolhorton town
+there was not another man who could do as he was doing at that moment.
+
+The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally exclusive even
+for high class Tories. Their gardens, and lawns, and grounds were
+jealously surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned houses of
+the street beneath them. No one dared to so much as peer through a
+crevice of the mighty gates. Their persons were encircled with the
+"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed proprietor. No one dared
+speak to a Pamment. They acknowledged no one in the town, not even the
+solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey church; that was on
+account of ritual differences.
+
+It was, indeed, whispered--high treason must always be whispered--that
+young Pamment, the son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and had
+been known to be effusive towards ladies of low birth--and manners.
+
+The great leaders of Greece--Alcibiades, Aristides, and so on--threw
+open their orchards to the people. Everyone walked in and did as he
+chose. These great leaders of England--the Pamments--shut up their lawns
+and pleasure-grounds, sealed them hermetically, you could hardly throw a
+stone over the walls if you tried.
+
+But Grandfather Iden walked through those walls as if there were none;
+he alone of all Woolhorton town and country.
+
+In that gossipy little town, of course, there were endless surmises as
+to the why and wherefore of that private key. Shrewd people said--"Ah!
+you may depend they be getting summat out of him. Lent 'em some of his
+guineas, a' reckon. They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
+they gentlefolks."
+
+Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed: he wandered about the
+lawns, he looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if
+it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors
+occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about
+the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in
+the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as
+if it had been the key of Paradise.
+
+When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the
+proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's
+creation."
+
+He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his
+hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in
+the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step
+on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.
+
+In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to
+obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were
+at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths,
+the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it
+were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
+that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come
+in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.
+
+In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to
+obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.
+
+Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common
+intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in
+this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship.
+Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.
+
+Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when
+we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.
+
+With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments
+trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
+home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety
+years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his
+venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
+faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.
+
+He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks
+in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
+sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence
+was diffused around.
+
+Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped
+the sacred sward.
+
+Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief,
+began to point with his cudgel--a big hockey stick--at the various parts
+of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that
+went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more
+ancient still, out of sight.
+
+Really, it was a very interesting place archæologically, if only you
+could have got rid of the Pamments.
+
+Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she
+was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her--for
+she was passive now, like a piece of furniture--when he spied some one
+at a window.
+
+Off came the great white hat, and down it swept till the top brushed the
+grass in the depth of his homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
+a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the gentleman, so
+thoroughly courtier-like, and yet honest. There was nothing to smile at
+in that bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia who could bow
+in that way, for, in truth, we have forgotten how to bow in this
+generation.
+
+A writing and talking is always going on about the high place woman
+occupies in modern society, but the fact is, we have lost our reverence
+for woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing more, mere sham.
+We don't venerate woman, and therefore we don't bow.
+
+Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any woman's heart had it been
+addressed to her, for there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
+desire to please in it.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
+heir.
+
+He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a
+memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams,
+letters, and newspapers.
+
+Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for
+post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of
+Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile,
+Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.
+
+Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the
+letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to
+the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to
+answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it
+himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced
+the--the residue.
+
+Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him--nothing in the least
+like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every
+morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.
+
+A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him,
+a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle,
+lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
+writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of
+the latter half of the nineteenth century.
+
+Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of
+his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at
+all--rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop
+he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that
+drives about in a cart for orders.
+
+Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face
+was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of
+indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick,
+his figure stout, his hands big--a jovial, good-tempered looking man.
+
+His neck was _very_ thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or
+special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and
+sleep--belly energy.
+
+But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten
+thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their
+proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred
+"blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of
+thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you
+may count exactly the same number interspersed.
+
+The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with
+broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to
+Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.
+
+Unless you are given to æsthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I
+think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
+you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his
+credit--humph!--at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
+whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.
+
+He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing
+to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
+London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies.
+It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the
+pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign
+will leap forth in town.
+
+Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he
+frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. _I_ can't blame him; I should
+be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down
+Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a
+widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,
+all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all
+the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
+have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old
+oak furniture; I'll go to Paris--" but Paris is not a patch on London.
+To take a lady--_the_ lady--to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the
+silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her
+eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a
+diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years
+since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the
+price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a
+sip of Moet--but only one sip, for your liver's sake--just to brighten
+up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit
+fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could Cæsar with all his
+legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such
+pleasure as this--just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in
+the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to _that_?
+
+The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no
+counting--anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream,
+what is the use of living?
+
+Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in
+a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
+not, in an age that preaches thrift and--twaddle? No joy like waste in
+London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
+butterfly!
+
+Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of
+London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the
+people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of
+folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the
+dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the
+fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the
+world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, séances, Albert
+Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
+weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and
+gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?
+
+It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes
+at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
+this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me,
+the streets.
+
+So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and
+could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
+like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle,
+good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams,
+letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister--at
+betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
+memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept
+flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.
+
+While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain
+of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the
+fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed
+with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
+on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet.
+With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back,
+and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.
+
+Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed
+away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down
+here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar,
+Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
+in the general melée Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the
+crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position,
+and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.
+
+Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was
+"up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
+cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime;
+Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
+a trifle to it.
+
+There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do
+not figure in the papers.
+
+Raleigh became at once an anaxandron--a King of Men. The history of his
+feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other:
+from the policeman in Waterloo Place to--everywhere. Never was such a
+stir; the fall of Sebastopol--dear me! I can remember it, look at the
+flight of time--was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, _fêted_
+him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with
+laurel. Ave, Cæsar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.
+
+Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well
+"blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
+through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had
+vanished.
+
+Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the
+glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he
+slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement
+of the campaign had subsided.
+
+In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as
+well label the account at once: "This is a goak."
+
+I do _not_ approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task
+to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can
+assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a
+very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they
+really are, are not all Greek scholars.
+
+As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he
+smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his
+money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I
+may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his
+valet.
+
+"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon,
+Disraeli, or Solomon.
+
+But Raleigh _was_ a hero to his valet.
+
+He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated
+him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself.
+He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed
+himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so
+was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so
+were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket,
+because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a
+cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies--just like Raleigh, "the very
+ticket"--he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
+"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine
+women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him;
+Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting
+up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very
+same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
+same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why,
+Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch--careless Raleigh; accordingly,
+Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a
+great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and
+smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was _he_, and
+had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as
+filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't _I_ cut a swell! I'd do it, _I_
+would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I
+would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate?
+Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen;
+some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre
+with--respectable gals, I mean--crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was
+to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment
+mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to
+fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like _he_ did! Oh,
+my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
+"he."
+
+Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not
+only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
+servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him
+as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at
+the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew
+anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."
+
+The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to
+suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing
+of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and
+blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.
+
+If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have
+"done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that
+part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty,
+and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs
+didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on
+the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.
+
+It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought
+it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of
+his.
+
+"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's
+the Behemoth."
+
+"The Behemoth--the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.
+
+"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day.
+That's the Behemoth."
+
+Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange
+creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular
+preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden--antediluvian Iden--in
+short, the Behemoth.
+
+It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.
+
+"There's a girl with him," said Fred.
+
+"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he
+ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.
+
+How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like
+Grandfather Iden--aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
+books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!
+
+          "Wherefore come ye not to court?
+          Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.
+          Chattering fools and wise men listening."
+
+Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed--his head was as bare as
+Mont Blanc--and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's
+wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth
+in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and
+proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.
+
+"But, grandpa--grandpa--really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me
+go. No--no--I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
+willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of
+gold, as the old song says unctuously.
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"--mistaking her
+hesitation for awe.
+
+"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't
+want to go."
+
+"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his
+most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see
+you."
+
+"Come--come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back.
+"It's a splendid place inside--there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and
+so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very
+gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they
+moved Amaryllis onward.
+
+She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break
+loose--easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies--but--how soon "but"
+comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father.
+She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
+further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good
+humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
+
+So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething
+like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of
+the ancient and mediæval Pamments.
+
+But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that
+he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you
+are likely to _make_ a woman do anything?
+
+Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she
+would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble,
+the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp.
+Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly
+on the ground.
+
+Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
+
+Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the
+whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the
+old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears
+came into his eyes.
+
+Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
+
+"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder.
+"Very raw piece."
+
+To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."
+
+"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.
+
+"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries--fond of pictures----"
+
+Amaryllis was silent.
+
+"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you
+may."
+
+"No," said Amaryllis.
+
+"Hum--let's see--books--library--carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the
+place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar--I've
+forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"
+
+"She _is_ fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should
+be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of
+pictures; she's shy."
+
+Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle
+her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her
+utterance.
+
+Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down
+the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
+took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
+
+Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at
+arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the
+beauties of the picture.
+
+"A grand thing--look," said he.
+
+"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
+
+"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
+
+"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."
+
+She did not move.
+
+"Go that side," said Iden.
+
+No movement.
+
+"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.
+
+At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
+
+"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily--above the canvas, and then
+again at the floor.
+
+Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together;
+Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a
+possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider,
+intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable
+things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection
+would be an immense honour.
+
+Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have
+sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and
+intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
+
+If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the
+mistress.
+
+There is no one so cruel--so utterly inhuman--as an old man, to whom
+feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
+
+"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"
+
+"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last
+and looking her grandfather in the face.
+
+"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks
+flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
+rebellion.
+
+"Smoky," he repeated.
+
+"Smoky and--dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing
+that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
+had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
+
+Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence--on the
+contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant--but she
+remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and
+it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures,
+and his place altogether with marked contempt.
+
+"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you
+please," and she moved towards the door.
+
+"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her.
+"Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"
+
+He could not catch her, she had left the gallery--he slipped in his
+haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
+fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
+
+"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled,
+and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he
+would have spat upon the floor.
+
+Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
+
+"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I
+should have liked you to have seen the house--will you sit down a
+moment? Forgive me if I said or did----. No, do stay--please--"
+as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry--really
+sorry--unintentional"--in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was
+penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she
+began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to
+pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through
+the fair--rough people. Let me open the door----"
+
+The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a
+moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand,
+the blood started.
+
+"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it
+up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for
+money"--short for any amount of money. "Let me----"
+
+"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which
+was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open
+the lock.
+
+Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open--he could easily have
+detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray--Miss Iden." She
+was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he
+followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+WHEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond measure, vexation biting deep
+lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured face.
+
+"That I should have been such a fool--an infernal blockheaded
+fool--" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a
+clang--"muddle-headed fool--I'll never touch a drop of whiskey
+again--and that jackass, Fred--why, she's--" a lady, he would have said,
+but did not dare admit to himself now that he had thought to ask her in
+to "wake us up." "But what did I do? Can't think what annoyed her. Must
+have been something between her and that tedious old Iden. Quite sure I
+didn't do or say----" but still he could not quiet his conscience, for
+if he had not by deed or word, he knew he had in thought.
+
+He had sent for her as he might have done for any of the vulgar wenches
+in the fair to amuse an idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.
+
+In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like Amaryllis Iden. Her
+features were not beautiful, as general ideas go, nor had her form the
+grace of full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by a
+master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression her nature had
+made upon him.
+
+It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and
+gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character--the
+mind.
+
+A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a
+woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
+asserts itself in subtle ways.
+
+I don't say for certain that it was her character that impressed
+Raleigh--it might have been nothing of the sort, it might have been
+_because it was so_, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate. These
+things do not happen by "why and because."
+
+Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose a whiskey-sipping,
+cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing, bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh
+could by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But whiskey,
+cutty, horse, and bar were not the real man, any more than your hat is
+your head, they were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all the
+same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely more generous than
+some very respectable folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and
+grind down their clerks and dependents to the edge of starvation.
+
+Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such as the pew-haunting
+Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps he was not in love: at all events he was
+highly excited.
+
+Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following Amaryllis by
+representing that Raleigh would be sure to bring her back. The butler,
+who was very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped out a bottle
+of champagne and handed him a brimming glass. The old gentleman, still
+mouthing and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank, and
+spluttered again, and refusing a second, would go, and so met Raleigh in
+the hall.
+
+Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man, and on his part the old
+man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
+and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard
+or understood the other.
+
+But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering the rough crowd in
+the fair, despatched the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
+now growing dusky as the evening came on.
+
+Without more ado, this young gentleman then set to and swore at Fred for
+half an hour straight ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
+what on earth had turned his brain; next, being equally hot-tempered, he
+swore in reply; then there followed some sharp recriminations (for each
+knew too much of the other's goings on not to have plenty of material),
+and finally they sparred. Two or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having
+nothing to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried himself in the
+papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked out into the fair. Thus there was
+tribulation in the great house of the Pamments.
+
+Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer him through the crowd
+quietly enough, because it flattered him to be thus taken care of before
+the world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted at the doorstep he
+slipped half-a-sovereign in the butler's hand--he could not offer less
+than gold to a Pamments' man--but once inside, his demeanour changed. He
+pushed away his housekeeper, went into his especial sitting-room, bolted
+the door, spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked the coals,
+grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke and smuts filled the stuffy
+little place.
+
+By-and-by there was a banging of drawers--the drawers in the bureau and
+the bookcases were opened and shut sharply--writing-paper was flung on
+the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen.
+The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and
+stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the
+house of the head of the Idens.
+
+Amaryllis meantime had got through the town by keeping between the
+booths and the houses. Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode
+up--he had been on the watch, thinking to talk with her as she walked
+home, but just as he drew rein to go slow and so speak, a heathen pig
+from the market rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the game by
+throwing him headlong.
+
+She did not see, or at least did not notice, but hastening on, entered
+the fields. In coming to town that morning she had seen everything; now,
+returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no heed of anything; she
+was so absorbed that when a man--one of those she met going to the fair
+for the evening--turned back and followed her some way, she did not
+observe him. Finding that she walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased
+to pursue.
+
+The gloom had settled when she reached home, and the candles were lit.
+She gave her father the sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
+escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had the prize-guinea.
+
+"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.
+
+"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me see," said Mrs. Iden.
+
+"I--I--I lost it," said Amaryllis.
+
+"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"
+
+"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones. "Show it immediately."
+
+"I can't; I lost it."
+
+"Lost it!"
+
+And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful
+hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could
+throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she
+suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a
+bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity
+she ate, and never could touch any fat--dear me, so fine--bacon was not
+good enough for her--she could throw away spade-guineas.
+
+Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her
+bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but
+sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and
+sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done
+others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that
+day till too sorely tried.
+
+The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then
+she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and
+sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn
+out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
+tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away
+was audible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely
+dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy
+looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking
+her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he
+could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her
+plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was
+fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.
+
+"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice,
+lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb
+under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He
+always sipped his tea in this way.
+
+"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.
+
+"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a
+loss to understand the change of manner.
+
+Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from
+the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:
+
+"Read."
+
+Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden
+for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
+manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in
+his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her
+conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how
+to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.
+
+She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not
+look up, her face was scarlet.
+
+Iden laughed.
+
+"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you
+vexed him, dear!"
+
+Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The
+grandfather's letter had done this.
+
+Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his
+heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
+and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved;
+he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old
+woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept
+his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was
+over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected
+the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly
+aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.
+
+All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden
+treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and
+fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving
+his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.
+
+Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty
+creditors fretted him.
+
+He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's
+favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so
+much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.
+
+Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her
+veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old
+Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated
+him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediæval Pamments.
+
+She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating
+her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting
+herself in the most natural manner.
+
+This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply
+Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
+hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose
+they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was
+something.
+
+They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to
+tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
+Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both
+father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her
+story.
+
+Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments
+enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather
+paid them such court.
+
+Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the
+Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for
+disliking them personally.
+
+Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's
+pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if
+that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse
+her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as
+stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private
+key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
+
+However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'
+disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
+
+So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in
+the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy
+her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
+
+Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that
+she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.
+She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the
+children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the
+archæologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras
+Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
+
+Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the
+centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the
+possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his
+perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended
+yet.
+
+Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the
+other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
+much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not
+work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
+in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks
+these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was
+the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was
+most trying--it really was.
+
+"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at
+the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"
+
+"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her
+son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and
+really--"
+
+"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"
+said the customer, smiling.
+
+"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a
+deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to,
+they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and
+they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the
+fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."
+
+At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have
+been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make
+a boot!
+
+Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their
+first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer
+people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot
+do it at all.
+
+She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for
+her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount
+for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the
+parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate
+instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
+happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or
+three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought
+half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
+fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The
+bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper,
+soon imparted their odour to her hand.
+
+A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope
+you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
+Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the
+boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the
+bloaters--one to kiss fervently.
+
+They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while
+they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little
+pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with
+gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That
+she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition;
+there was no one like Amaryllis.
+
+"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding
+his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for
+the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.
+
+They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which
+Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her
+thinking-room, her private chapel and praying-room, her one place of
+solitude, silence, and retirement.
+
+The days had gone on, and it was near the end of April. Coming up the
+dark stairs one morning, she found them still darker, because she had
+just left the sunshine. They were built very narrow, as usual in old
+country-houses, and the landing shut off with a door, so that when you
+were in them you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet--bare
+boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet their stairs; no handrail; the
+edges of the steps worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
+under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as if it had been
+nibbled by mice.
+
+Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis was in perfect darkness,
+but her feet knew the well-remembered way, and she came quickly to the
+top.
+
+There were two great rooms running the whole length of the house: the
+first was a lumber-room, the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it
+was, in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was vague with bareness:
+a huge, square room, gaunt as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed,
+the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table
+and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway--a
+journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post
+bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking
+hung down in a loop, torn and decayed--a bedstead on which no one had
+slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient
+carved linen-press of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.
+
+These bits of rude furniture were lost in the vastness of space, as much
+as if you had thrown your hat into the sky.
+
+Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt down. She brought a
+handful of violets, fresh-gathered, to place in the glass which she kept
+there for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick wall, and formed
+a niche, where she always had a tumbler ready--a common glass tumbler,
+she could not afford a vase.
+
+They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of all, gathered while
+the nightingale was singing his morning song in the April sunshine--a
+song the world never listens to, more delicious than his evening notes,
+for the sunlight helps him, and the blue of the heavens, the green
+leaf, and the soft wind--all the soul of spring.
+
+White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of flower, tender and delicate,
+growing under the great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among the dry,
+brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked unless you know exactly
+where to go for them. She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
+for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen into the glass, but she
+hung them by their chins over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks
+in the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at the table, and
+rested her head on her hand.
+
+Except where she did this every day, and so brushed it, a thin layer of
+dust had covered the surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
+her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on the indiarubber, dust
+on the cake of Indian ink, dust invisible on the smooth surface of the
+pencils, dust in the little box of vine charcoal.
+
+The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the
+pencil from her fingers--Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid
+deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and
+ferocity, ready to tear the very door down. There are no wolves like
+those debt sends against a house.
+
+Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every
+letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.
+
+Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, and put the
+letters unopened on the mantelshelf--a pile of bills over his head where
+he slept calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses
+of hay, and go through _his_ work to appearance unmoved.
+
+Amaryllis could not draw--she could not do it; her imagination refused
+to see the idea; the more she concentrated her mind, the louder she
+heard the ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.
+
+Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, bill-hooks can be
+wielded and faggots chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
+ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow
+the plough, and finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his
+labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid imagination--a
+delicately-balanced organization, that almost lives on its ideas as
+veritable food--cannot do like this. The poet, the artist, the author,
+the thinker, cannot follow their plough; their work depends on a serene
+mind.
+
+But experience proves that they _do_ do their work under such
+circumstances. They do; how greatly then they must be tortured, or for
+what a length of time they must have suffered to become benumbed.
+
+Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked of Time. She could
+not sketch--that was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
+wanted was money. She could not read, that was not real; what was wanted
+was solid coin.
+
+So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered with dust, but
+she came every day to her flowers in the window-niche.
+
+She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of February and March, without
+a fire, disdainful of ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her warm
+young blood cared nothing for the cold, if only by enduring it she could
+assist those whom she loved.
+
+There were artists in the Flamma family in London who made what seemed
+to her large incomes, yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
+criticism, and who had never even sent a work to the Academy--never even
+tried to enter. Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it was
+well paid.
+
+Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success as an artist, nor
+think to take the world by storm with her talent. Her one only hope was
+to get a few pounds now and then--she would have sold twenty sketches
+for ten shillings--to save her father from insult, and to give her
+mother the mere necessities of dress she needed.
+
+No thought of possible triumph, nor was she sustained by an
+overmastering love of art; she was inspired by her heart, not her
+genius.
+
+Had circumstances been different she would not have earnestly practised
+drawing; naturally she was a passive rather than an active artist.
+
+She loved beauty for its own sake--she loved the sunlight, the grass and
+trees, the gleaming water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
+listen to the running water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in
+the high firs, or caught in the wide-stretching arms of the oak; she
+rested among these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the body.
+The few good pictures she had seen pleased her, but did not rouse the
+emotion the sunlight caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not
+like the running stream. It said nothing--the stream was full of
+thought.
+
+No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by
+pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by
+nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a
+thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to
+write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things,
+and not writing.
+
+Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the
+sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
+talent--she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so
+much to her as it is to me to write a letter.
+
+The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the
+preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery
+at Coombe Oaks--a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry
+Christmas"--holly berries, mistletoe--and behind these--debt. Behind the
+glowing fire, written in the flames--debt; in the sound of the distant
+chimes--debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash
+their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.
+
+Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon
+Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel
+thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This
+is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house,
+and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if
+there had been they could not have allowed her coals; coals were dear.
+It was quite an event when the horse and cart went to the wharf for
+coal. There was plenty of wood for the hearth--wood grew on the
+farm--but coal was money.
+
+The March winds howled round the corner of the old thatched house, and
+now and again tremendous rains blew up against the little western window
+near which she had placed her table. Through the silent cold of January,
+the moist cold of February, the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
+Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of nipped fingers and
+chilled feet.
+
+Sometimes she looked out of the window and watched Iden digging in the
+garden underneath, planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
+or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing out the furrows that
+the water might flow better--"trenching," as he called it.
+
+The harder it rained the harder he worked at this in the open, with a
+sack about his shoulders like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter,
+the master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the water to the grass
+to get a larger crop of hay in June.
+
+Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure
+as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
+father.
+
+Sometimes she went into the next room--the lumber-room--only lighted by
+a window on a level with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
+only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there, she could see him at
+the stile across the road, his hands behind his back, gossiping now with
+another farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an old woman
+carrying home a yoke of water from the brook.
+
+The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than the work in the cold rain;
+it seemed so incongruous, so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
+as she knew him.
+
+That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead, and his profile like
+Shakespeare, should stand there talk, talk, talking on the smallest
+hamlet topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded farmers,
+was to her a bewilderment and annoyance.
+
+She could not understand it, and she resented it. The real Iden she knew
+was the man of thought and old English taste, who had told her so much
+by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in features he resembled,
+and of the poets from Elizabethan days downwards. His knowledge seemed
+to be endless; there was no great author he had not read, no subject
+upon which he could not at least tell her where to obtain information.
+Yet she knew he had never had what is now called an education. How
+clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how
+wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
+that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was
+great.
+
+No other garden was planted as Iden's garden was, in the best of old
+English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In
+summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a
+painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old
+farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.
+
+Questions upon questions her opening mind had poured upon him, and to
+all he had given her an answer that was an explanation. About the earth
+and about the sea, the rivers, and living things; about the stars and
+sun, the comet, the wonders of the firmament, of geology and astronomy,
+of science; there was nothing he did not seem to know.
+
+A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that Ulysses of whom he read to
+her, and who, like that Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
+was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why did he work in the rain under
+a sack? Why did he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
+idlers?
+
+It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.
+
+I cannot explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give
+a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation--say partly
+circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell,
+partly an indecision of character--too much thought--and, after all said
+and done, Fate.
+
+Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis felt her heart drooping,
+she knew not why, and went back to her drawing unstrung.
+
+She worked very hard, and worked in vain. The sketches all came back to
+her. Some of them had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
+carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had been folded wrongly,
+almost all smelt of tobacco. Neither illustrated papers, periodicals:
+neither editors nor publishers would have anything to do with them. One
+or two took more care, and returned the drawings quite clean; one sent a
+note saying that they promised well.
+
+Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she wanted half a sovereign
+_now_. If a prophet assured a man that the picture he could not now
+dispose of would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years, what
+consolation would that be to him?
+
+They were all a total failure. So many letters could not be received in
+that dull place without others in the house seeing what was going on.
+Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the stairs--a shuffling,
+uncertain step--and her heart began to beat quicker, for she knew it was
+her mother. Somehow, although she loved her so dearly, she felt that
+there was not much sympathy between them. She did not understand her
+mother; the mother did not understand the daughter. Though she was
+working for her mother's sake, when she heard her mother's step she was
+ashamed of her work.
+
+Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the room, drawing one foot
+along the floor in an aggravating way she had, she was not lame, and
+look out of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis, and say--
+
+"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never do anything. I've seen too
+much of it. Better come down and warm yourself."
+
+Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it seemed so inconsistent.
+Mrs. Iden blew up her husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
+round and discouraged her daughter for being enterprising, and this,
+too, although she was constantly talking about the superiority of the
+art employments of the Flammas in London to the clodhopper work around
+her.
+
+Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother had gone downstairs
+again, and then the words kept repeating themselves in her ear--"Never
+do no good at that, never do no good at that."
+
+If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we should find that
+Amaryllis was working for a mother of her own imagination, and not for
+the mother of fact.
+
+Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing, feels the cold very
+much more than those who are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold
+in the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind came unchecked through
+the wire network of the window in the next room. But for that her
+generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the still colder wind of
+failure.
+
+She had no name--no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the
+finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the
+accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.
+
+Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would
+attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world
+is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools.
+Succeed by merit!
+
+Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger, or the
+tallow-chandler rely on personal merit, or purely personal ability for
+making a business? They rely on a little capital, credit, and much push.
+The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and works next as a
+subordinate, his "footing" costs hundreds of pounds, and years of hard
+labour. The doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he can, he buys
+a practice. They do not rely on merit.
+
+The three fools--the author, the artist, and the musician--put certain
+lines on a sheet of paper and expect the world to at once admire their
+clever ideas.
+
+In the end--but how far is it to the end!--it is true that genius is
+certain of recognition; the steed by then has grown used to starvation,
+waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of
+business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do
+not exactly seem to be so.
+
+Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of
+disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.
+
+I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady
+income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean
+to go into the tallow business.
+
+Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might
+work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
+watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain,
+under his sack.
+
+She had not even a diploma--a diploma, or a certificate, a South
+Kensington certificate! Fancy, without even a certificate! Misguided
+child!
+
+What a hideous collection of frumpery they have got there at the Museum,
+as many acres as Iden's farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the
+"periods." What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They have not even
+a single statue in the place. They would shrivel up in horror at a nude
+model. _They_ teach art--miserable sham, their wretched art culminates
+in a Christmas card.
+
+Amaryllis had not even been through the South Kensington "grind," and
+dared to send in original drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
+see, pure clodhopper ignorance.
+
+Failure waited on her labours; the postman brought them all back again.
+
+Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen the line which the very
+highest in the profession would probably have advised her to take. She
+drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old barn up the road, the
+hollow tree, the dry reeds, the birds, and chanticleer himself--
+
+          High was his comb, and coral red withal,
+          In dents embattled like a castle wall.
+
+Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not sketch; the fogger with
+his broad knife cutting hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the
+wheelbarrow munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a study for Teniers;
+the team coming home from plough--winter scenes, most of them, because
+it was winter time. There are those who would give fifty pounds for one
+of those studies now, crumpled, stained, and torn as they are.
+
+It was a complete failure. Once only she had a gleam of success. Iden
+picked up the sketch of the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking
+at it, put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf. Amaryllis
+felt like the young painter whose work is at last hung at the Academy.
+His opinion was everything to her. He valued her sketch.
+
+Still, that was not money. The cold wind and the chill of failure still
+entered her garret study. But it was neither of these that at length
+caused the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked on and on,
+hoping against hope, undaunted, despite physical cold and moral check.
+It was the procession of creditors.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting
+Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to
+the door, the thump, thump with the fist (there was neither knocker nor
+bell, country fashion); more thumping, and then her mother's excuses, so
+oft repeated, so wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
+creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes," or "He's gone to Green
+Hills." "Well, when will he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to know
+when this yer little account is going to be settled." Then a long
+narration of his wrongs, threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
+grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps departing.
+
+Very rude men came down from the villages demanding payment in their
+rough way--a raw, crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had long
+since exhausted his credit in the town; neither butcher, baker, draper,
+nor anyone else would let them have a shilling's-worth until the
+shilling had been placed on the counter. He had been forced lately to
+deal with the little men of the villages--the little butcher who killed
+once a fortnight; the petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
+Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first; coarse language and
+rudeness afterwards.
+
+One day, the village baker, having got inside the door as Mrs. Iden
+incautiously opened it, stood there and argued with her, while Amaryllis
+in the garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.
+
+"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.
+
+"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it up?"
+
+"He'll send it up."
+
+"He've a' said that every time, but it beant come yet. You tell un I be
+come to vetch it."
+
+"Mr. Iden's not in."
+
+"I'll bide till he be in."
+
+"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."
+
+"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful. It's nothing but
+cheating--that's what I calls it--to have things and never pay for um.
+It's cheating."
+
+Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.
+
+"How dare you say such a thing? How dare you insult my mother? Leave the
+house this moment!"
+
+And with both hands she literally pushed the man, unwilling, but not
+absolutely resisting, outside, grumbling as he moved that he never
+insulted nobody, only asked for his money.
+
+A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of hand, calculated to
+encourage the play of imagination! She could do nothing for hours
+afterwards.
+
+Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was worse, because it lasted
+longer. First they talked by the potato-patch almost under the window;
+then they talked on the path; then they came indoors, and then there
+were words and grumbling sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
+they went out again and talked by the gate. At last the creditor
+departed, and Iden returned indoors to take a glass of ale and sit a
+moment till the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind. Mrs. Iden
+then had her turn at him: the old story--why didn't he do something?
+Amaryllis knew every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
+room.
+
+How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis could not think; how he could
+stand, and be argued with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
+the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in the road, she could
+not understand.
+
+The truth was he could not help himself; violence would have availed
+nothing. But to youth it seems as if a few blows are all that is needed
+to overcome difficulties.
+
+Waller and Co., the tailor--he was his own Co.--walked over regularly
+once a week; very civil and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
+he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for Iden's coat was a
+pattern of raggedness, his trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby
+old hat rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound account two
+years overdue.
+
+Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his trap as he went by, at
+least twice a week, to chivey Iden about his money. Though he would not
+let them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever there was five
+shillings to spare for meat it was always taken into his shop, as it was
+better to have good meat there, if you had to pay cash for meat, than
+inferior in the village. One day, Amaryllis was waiting for some steak,
+side by side with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while Cobb served a
+grand lady of the town. "Yes, m'm--oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows,
+and scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness possible. When
+the fine lady had gone, "Lar, Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how
+different you do speak to _they_ to what you do speak to _me_."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed at having one manner
+for the poor and another for the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they
+require such a deal of _homage_."
+
+There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's, but that was not much
+pressed, only a large blue letter about once a month, as Beavan had a
+very good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs. Iden made
+excellent butter, which had a reputation, and Beavan took it all at
+about half-price. If it had been sold to anyone else he would have
+insisted on payment. So, by parting with the best butter in the county
+at half-price, they got their tea and sugar without much dunning.
+
+At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and strange in her manner, as if on
+the point of hysterics, from which Amaryllis divined something serious
+was approaching, though her mother would say nothing. So it turned
+out--a bailiff appeared, and took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was
+very civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and offered to
+help in any way he could. Iden gave him plenty of beer, for one thing.
+Amaryllis could not go into the kitchen--the dear old place seemed
+deserted while he was there.
+
+This woke up Iden for the moment. First there was a rummaging about in
+his old bureau, and a laborious writing of letters, or adding up of
+figures. Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath, clean
+linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed away these years past. In
+two hours or so Iden came down another man, astonishingly changed, quite
+a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome in Amaryllis's eyes.
+Indeed, he was really handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully
+so. If only he would always dress like that!
+
+Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations had so consumed
+the time that the bank was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and
+there was no means of raising any money that evening. The son passed the
+father's doorstep--the worn stone step, ground by the generations of
+customers--he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where
+Grandfather Iden sat--he might, had he paused and listened, have heard
+the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man--the son
+passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held a
+bailiff.
+
+A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff in the kitchen, and
+there he remained the night, and was up and had lit the fire for Luce
+the servant before she was down. The man was certainly very civil, but
+still there was the shock of it.
+
+Early in the morning Iden went into town again, saw his solicitor, and
+got a cheque--it was only five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the
+bailiff left.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to
+feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign
+foot, the very poker had been touched by a foreign hand, the rude form
+at the side by the wall had been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
+always been so fond of the kitchen--the oldest part of the house, two
+centuries at least. The wide hearth and immense chimney, up which, when
+the fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the stars; over
+which of a windy night you could imagine the witches riding by, borne on
+the deep howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun slung to it;
+the heavy oaken table, unpolished, greyish oak; the window in the thick
+wall, set with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls from
+which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the rude old place was very dear
+to her.
+
+Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the sitting-room, drawn by
+its antique homeliness. Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great
+cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and apples, while the
+potatoes--large potatoes--Iden's selected specialities--were baking
+buried in the ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could see the
+white drift of snow against the window, which was on a level with the
+ground outside, and so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
+the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with saws, or, his fancy
+roaming on, of the broad and beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so
+admired in his youth, the river the poets will sing some day; or of his
+clinging aloft at night in the gale on the banks of Newfoundland, for he
+had done duty as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his youth, why
+did he gossip at the stile now in his full and prime of manhood?
+
+It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even then only those who have
+lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend
+the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly
+sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The
+beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and
+son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden could not forgive his son
+for making the place beautiful with trees and flowers.
+
+By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and they had supper on the old
+and clumsy table, village made and unpolished, except in so far as the
+stains of cooking operations had varnished it, the same table at which
+"Jearje," the fogger, sat every morning to eat his breakfast, and every
+evening to take his supper. What matter? George worked hard and honestly
+all day, his great arms on the table, spread abroad as he ate, did not
+injure it.
+
+Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the snow without, floury
+and smoking; dabs of Mrs. Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and
+pepper, and there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
+pleasant--just a taste.
+
+They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts, sometimes a Flamma
+from London, sometimes an Iden from over the hill, or others were there.
+Iden was very hospitable--though most of his guests (family connections)
+were idle folk, no good to themselves or anybody, still they were made
+cordially welcome. But others, very high folk, socially speaking (for
+they had good connections, too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
+grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves most thoroughly on the
+rude Homeric fare.
+
+For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an open-handed generosity,
+a sense of reality about it; something really to eat, though no
+finger-glasses; Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.
+
+Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it was the very centre of
+home. This strange man, this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her
+dearest emotions. His shadow remained on the wall though he had gone.
+
+They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it was weeks before the
+kitchen seemed to resume its former appearance. Jearje was the one who
+restored it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily at breakfast and
+at supper, it almost made them forget their troubles to see anyone so
+grateful and pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you, ma'am; dest
+about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"--locally the "d" and "j" were often
+interchangable, dest for jest, or just--"That'll be a' plenty for I,
+ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"--don't want more than I can eat,
+don't want to be greedy--"Thank you, miss; dest about some ripping good
+ale, this yer; that it be."
+
+He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the bacon, and the cheese, and
+the ale; he was like a great, big human dog; you know how we like to see
+a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his paws on our knees and
+laugh, as it were, with his eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
+women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him all the bones,
+literally and metaphorically, the actual bones of the meat, and any
+scraps there were, to take home with him (besides his regular meals),
+and now and then some trifles of clothing for his aged mother. The dog
+most thoroughly appreciated this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in
+it, grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.
+
+Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of doors, and for much the
+same reason; his cheery content and willingness, and the absence of the
+usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked willingly and
+fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed another hour, or put his
+shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
+and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways.
+Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
+and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce,
+or apples, and various other things from time to time.
+
+Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more
+like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the
+family.
+
+It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to
+watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about
+it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt
+to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.
+
+Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of
+mutton--anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus
+of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and
+cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea--the cups were
+not large enough--and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter
+what, Jearje ate steadily through it.
+
+A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want
+anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the
+long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start,
+without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing
+with his burden.
+
+There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of
+the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful
+as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time
+to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good
+master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was
+not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.
+
+Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken
+table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
+cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away
+the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be
+itself again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
+the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
+garret.
+
+One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
+whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
+talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
+Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
+fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust
+his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good
+lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race;
+they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury
+to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser,
+and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool
+of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
+with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this
+tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves
+"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is
+no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds'
+worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of
+straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if
+there is such a milk business in existence.
+
+This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't
+you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money
+matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the
+jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think
+you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"
+
+The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of
+the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
+contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be
+practical! The cleverest man in the world--advise him to be practical;
+as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.
+
+To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.
+
+But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since
+the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
+would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying
+fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.
+
+Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open,
+and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
+the ricks.
+
+At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see
+what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and
+gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to
+certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's
+system had been overstrained by these continual worries.
+
+Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
+strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
+her.
+
+After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
+nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
+lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.
+
+When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
+shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
+window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
+times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.
+
+On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
+Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
+exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
+that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
+returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
+tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--
+
+"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
+help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
+a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
+growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
+earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.
+
+The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
+the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
+solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
+so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
+the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
+than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
+only.
+
+That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
+home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
+material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
+only.
+
+So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
+on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
+of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
+of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
+on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
+these many, many days.
+
+The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the
+world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
+round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do
+with it--with just one of those golden disks!
+
+Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr.
+Chenery (of _The Times_), translated twenty-six of his poems from the
+Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion
+of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical
+unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is
+vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom
+is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
+the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep
+jest.
+
+Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar,
+the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the
+obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other
+causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates
+belong to it. First he chants its praises:--
+
+          How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
+          Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
+          Told abroad are its fame and repute:
+          Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
+          Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
+          Its bright look is loved by mankind,
+          As though it had been molten of their hearts.
+          By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
+          Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
+          Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
+          Charming are its sufficiency and help.
+          How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
+          How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it,
+                would be endless!
+          How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
+          How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
+          How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
+          Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has
+                softened.
+          How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
+          Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
+          Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
+          Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
+
+The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
+Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
+it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
+famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
+worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
+was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
+bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
+might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
+mighty.
+
+All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
+leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
+good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
+
+But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
+evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--
+
+          Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
+          The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
+          It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
+                looks on it,
+          The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
+          Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
+          Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
+          But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
+          Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
+          Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
+          Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
+                withholds;
+          Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
+          Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
+          Is that it helps thee not in straits,
+          Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
+          Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
+          And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
+                lover,
+          Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
+          "I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"
+
+"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
+Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
+her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
+fleeing like a runaway slave.
+
+But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
+only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all
+powerful to bless.
+
+How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and
+full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be
+taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of
+things.
+
+It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+THOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the
+table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often
+twice a day, to her flowers to pray.
+
+From the woods she brought the delicate primrose opening on the mossy
+bank among the grey ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of
+hawthorn coming before the swallow; the garden crocus from the grass of
+the garden; the first green spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the
+beautiful white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April morning while
+the nightingale sang.
+
+With these she came to pray each day, at the window-niche. After she had
+sat awhile at the table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt at
+the window with her face in her hands; the scent of the violets filled
+her hair.
+
+Her prayer was deeper than words and was not put in language, but came
+rushing through her heart;--"That her dear mother might not suffer any
+more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be removed from her
+mind, that peace and rest might come to her in her old age. Let her step
+become firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes shine like they
+used to, so clear and bright, and do not let the grey hairs show more
+than they do now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be happy and
+talk cheerfully, and take an interest in the house and all the order of
+household things, and also see and understand that her husband meant to
+please her, even in such a little thing as splitting up useful wood for
+the fire, that he intended to please her, and that she might not
+misunderstand him any more. He intended to be kind in many ways, but
+misfortune had blinded her, and she took things the wrong way. And give
+her more change and friends to ask her out from home on visits, so that
+she might be amused, and make them come to see her and pass the time in
+contentment. Give her also enough money to buy good clothes so as to
+look nice as she ought to do, and if possible a conveyance of some
+kind--not a grand carriage, she did not wish for that--but a conveyance
+to drive about now and then, because she was not so strong as she used
+to be, and could not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let me be
+able to give her a watch, for other people have watches, and my mother
+has not got one, and it does seem so strange it should be so after all
+the hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some nice things to
+eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot eat our plain bacon now every
+day, she has not got an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I
+should so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her food might
+do her more good. But what I really want is that she may be happy, and
+be like my mother herself really is when she is herself. Give my father
+money enough to pay his creditors, for I know that though he is so quiet
+and says nothing, these debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
+to pay them, and does not willingly keep them waiting. He is so patient,
+and so good, and bears everything, I am sure no one was ever like him,
+and it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every day from five
+o'clock in the morning, and yet to be always worried with these debts
+and people that will not let him have peace one single day. Do, please,
+let him have less work to do, it makes me miserable to see him in the
+rain, and he is not young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy things,
+great pieces of timber and large trusses of hay, and making his back
+ache digging. Surely it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
+he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can see quite so well as
+he used to, because he holds the paper so close to his eyes. Please let
+him leave off working soon now and have some rest and change, and go
+about with my mother, and when he is at home not have anything more to
+do than his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him love the
+flowers again as he used to, and plant some more, and have nothing
+harder to do than to gather the fruit from the trees he has planted. And
+let me get him some new books to read, because I know he is so fond of
+books; he has not had a new book for so long. Let him go to London and
+see people and things, and life, because I know he is full of ideas and
+thoughts though he works and digs, and that is what would do him good.
+Give him some money now at last, now he has worked all these years,
+forty years on this farm, and ever so much work before that; do give him
+some money at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and not so
+harsh for the rent, let him give the place to my father now, for it can
+be no use to him; let my father have it for his very own, and then I
+think he would be happy after all, he does so like to improve things and
+make them beautiful, and if it was his very own there is so much that he
+could do. That would be nice work and work that he would enjoy doing,
+and not just to get a few wretched shillings to pay other people. I am
+sure he would never be cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
+and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody like him, as you know,
+in this place; they are not clever like him, and good to the labouring
+men and their families like he is (and so is my mother too); they are so
+rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do not mean anything against them,
+but they are not like he is. And if you were to help him he would soon
+help the poor people and give them food and more wages; you know how
+good he is in his heart. And he would do it, not because other people
+should praise him, but because he would like to do it; if he does not
+go to church his heart is very true, and it is because he likes to be
+true and genuine, and not make any false show. Do, please, help him, and
+give him some money, and do, please, let him have this place for his
+very own, for I do so fear lest those who set my grandfather against
+him, should have a will made, so that my father should not have this
+house and land as he ought to do, as the son. He has made it so
+beautiful with trees, and brought the fresh spring water up to the
+house, and done so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it is
+home to him, and no other place could be like it. I think it would kill
+him not to have it, and for me, I should be so--I cannot tell, I should
+be so miserable if he did not, but I will not think of myself. There are
+so many things I know he wants to do if only he was not so worried with
+debts, and if he could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
+copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have trout in it, and to
+build a wall by the rick-yard. Think how my dear father has worked all
+these years, and do help him now, and give him some money, and this
+place, and please do not let him grow any more grey than his hair is
+now, and save his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
+and please make my mother happy with him."
+
+When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face was quite white, emotion had
+taken away her colour, and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a
+little while by the table to recover herself, still thinking, and
+remembered that again last night she had dreamed the same dream about
+fire in the thatch. Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
+and they ran out of doors and found the corner of the roof on fire, over
+the window with the wire network instead of glass. It ran up from the
+corner towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by the ridge. There
+was no flame, but a deep red seething heat, as if the straw burned
+inwardly, and was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed to lie in
+the furious heat, and a light to flicker up and down, as if it breathed
+fire. The thatch was very thick there, she knew, and recollected it
+quite well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two thick coats in his
+time, and it was heavy enough before then. He talked about the thatching
+of it, because it was an argument with him that straw had a great power
+of endurance, and was equal to slates for lasting. This thickness, she
+saw, was the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and why,
+fortunately, it was slow in moving up the roof. It had not yet eaten
+through, so that there was no draught--once it got through, it would
+burn fast--if only they could put it out before then all might yet be
+saved. In the midst of her anxiety Iden came with the largest ladder in
+the rickyard, and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She tried to
+follow, holding on to the rungs of the ladder with one hand, and
+dragging up a heavy bucket with the other--the strain and effort to get
+up woke her.
+
+This dream had happened to her so many times, and was so vivid and
+circumstantial--the fire seemed to glow in the thatch--that at last she
+began to dread lest it should come true. If it did not come true of the
+house itself, perhaps it would of the family, and of their affairs;
+perhaps it signified that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
+would burn them, as it were, to the ground. She tried to think whether
+in the dream they were getting the fire under before she woke, or
+whether they could not master it; it seemed dubious.
+
+She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid lest it might excite
+her again; nor could she tell Iden, who would have laughed at her.
+
+Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and dreams have ceased to come
+true, she did not like it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable
+danger was threatening round about. As she sat at the table she added to
+her prayer the supplication that the dear old house might not be burned
+down.
+
+Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on the lower flight paused, to
+listen to voices--not those of her mother and Iden--creditors,
+doubtless, come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"--the very sum
+and total of religion. Her heart beat quicker--the voices came again,
+and she thought she recognized them, and that they were not those of
+creditors. She entered the sitting-room, and found that two visitors,
+from widely separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau, the
+other with an old, many-coloured carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from
+Iden Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they were called, and
+Alere Flamma, from London; the Flammas were carpet-bag people.
+
+Her father was making them very welcome, after his wont, and they were
+talking of the house the Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot,
+expressly in order that they might drink, drink, drink undisturbed by
+their unreasonable wives.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
+with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of
+May; till "a month passed away," and still they were talking. For there
+is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when
+you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil
+meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine,
+better than sleep, like love itself--for love is agreement of
+thought--"God listens to those who pray to him; let us eat and drink,
+and think of nothing," says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and
+drank--very moderate the drinking--and thought of nothing, and talked,
+which should be added to complete felicity. Not, of course, all of them
+always together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere, Amadis, and
+Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.
+
+The round summer-house was their Parliament House whenever the east
+winds sank and the flowers shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines
+when the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds cease the May
+flowers immediately bloom and glow.
+
+It was a large round house, properly builded of brick, as a summer-house
+should be--put not thy faith in lath work--and therefore dry and warm;
+to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and comfortable, with a
+sea of meadow-grass, smooth and coloured, stretching in front, islanded
+about with oak, and elm, and ash.
+
+The finches came to the boughs that hung over the ivy-grown thatch, and
+sang in the sycamore opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
+bloom hung down almost to the ground.
+
+These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung sackfuls of bloom at
+his feet. They poured themselves out in abandoned, open-armed,
+spendthrift, wasteful--perfectly prodigal--quantities of rose-tinted
+petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to the brim, never
+questioning but what there will be plenty of water to follow.
+
+Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring up wherever Iden set
+down his foot: fruit and flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
+his genius to make things grow--like sunshine and shower; a sort of Pan,
+a half-god of leaves and boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature
+in human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and Beauty.
+
+One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush, Iden had set it
+there; he builded the summer-house and set the ivy; and the pippin at
+the back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch near by; the great
+sycamore alone had been there before him, but he set a seat under it,
+and got woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he planted, and if
+Amaryllis stood under it when the tree was in full leaf you could not
+see her, it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak in the corner;
+the box hedge along the ha-ha parapet; the red currants against the red
+wall; the big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the yellow honey-bush;
+all these, and this was but one square, one mosaic of the garden, half
+of it sward, too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch at one
+corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs, lavender, parsley, which has
+a very pleasant green, growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage--read
+Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage--ask Nature if you wish
+to know how many things more there were.
+
+A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing in, listening to the
+goldfinches, and watching them carry up the moss, and lichen, and
+slender fibres for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to the
+swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on the sharp, high top of the
+pear tree; to the vehement starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
+Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink, chink," thrushes,
+distant blackbirds, who like oaks; "cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake,"
+buzzing and burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then a neigh,
+to remind you that there were horses, fulness and richness of musical
+sound; a world of grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.
+
+When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers
+beneath, "a summer's day in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
+Heaven.
+
+And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped out of the pocket of
+Iden's ragged old coat.
+
+There was a magic power of healing in the influences of this place which
+Iden had created. Both Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed for
+the better.
+
+That morning when Amaryllis had found them, just arrived, the one with a
+portmanteau, and the other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to the
+last degree of paleness.
+
+Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed at Coombe Oaks before,
+when Amaryllis was thirteen and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
+great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water, walking over the
+hills, exploring the woods; Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis
+going with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats. They were of
+the same stock of Idens, yet no relations; he was of the older branch,
+Amaryllis of the younger.
+
+She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden into a man.
+
+Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him, she could scarce believe
+he was the same; so pale, so thin, so drooping, and fireless--the spark
+of life sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table that
+morning like a ghost. He was convalescent from low fever: that dread
+disease which has taken the place of ague in the country. At one time it
+was ague; in these times it is low fever.
+
+At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness in a far-off way, but had
+received no distinct particulars, for the news came in a roundabout way
+by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The distance between the two
+houses was less than ten miles, and might as well have been five hundred
+for all the communication.
+
+So that the ghastly paleness of his face came upon her as a spectre in
+daylight. You could see at a glance what was wrong--the vital energy had
+been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch broken, or bark scored,
+fades and withers from the lack of the mysterious force which brings
+forth fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body--the tree--was
+there, but the life was not in it.
+
+Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was pale from other causes,
+and it was a different kind of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis,
+but something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state. Too much Fleet
+Street, in short; too much of the Oracle--Pantagruel's Oracle of the
+Bottle.
+
+His hands shook as he held his knife and fork--oddly enough, the hands
+of great genius often do shake; now and then when he put his glass to
+his lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.
+
+It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands could hold a pencil, and
+draw delicate lines without a flaw.
+
+Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands that tremble nearly as
+much--the nervous constitution--and yet execute artists' work of rare
+excellence.
+
+Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution, naturally nervous, had
+been shaken as with dynamite by the bottle, and the glass chinked
+against his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt himself
+toppling over like a tree half sawn through, Alere packed his
+carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe Oaks. When the rats began to run up
+the wall as he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
+into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.
+
+In London he never wore a collar, only a bright red scarf round his
+neck; the company he kept would have shunned him--they would have looked
+him up and down disdainfully:--"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." They
+would have scornfully regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
+class above all others scorned by those who use tools.
+
+"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." The City clerk, playing the Masher
+on thirty shillings a week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.
+
+Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used hammer, and file, or set
+up type--a godless set, ye gods, how godless, these setters up of type
+at four o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.; special
+taverns they must have open for them--open before Aurora gleams in the
+east--Oh! Fleet Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!
+
+By no possible means could Alere work himself into a dress-coat.
+
+Could he have followed the celebrated advice--"You put on a dress-coat
+and go into society"--he would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
+of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.
+
+To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed, too, of the still rarer
+talent--the taste to see what to draw--there really is no limit in our
+days; for as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour in an
+age of dinginess--why, the point, nowadays, is to avoid colour, and in a
+whole Academy you shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
+sealing-wax.
+
+"You put on a black coat and go into society"--that is the secret of
+commissions, and commissions are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way
+of advice has been sent forth as that remark. The great Tichborne said
+something about folk that had money and no brains, and folk that had
+brains but no money; and they as has no brains ought to be so managed as
+to supply money to those who had. But even the greatness of the great
+Tichborne's observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield in
+one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go into society."
+
+What are the sayings of the seven wise men of Greece compared to
+_that_?
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+BY no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat.
+The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners--those
+great institutions of the day--were all closed to him because of the
+Dress Coat.
+
+If he had really desired to enter, of course he would have squeezed into
+the evening monkey-skin somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to
+enter.
+
+Inside he might have finished a portrait a month at a thousand
+guineas--twelve portraits per annum equals twelve thousand guineas a
+year; you see I am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory to
+going into the tallow trade.
+
+What he actually did was to make designs for book-covers--magnificent
+book-covers that will one day fetch their weight in bank-notes--manipulating
+a good deal of it himself--"tooling"--for the libraries of noble
+connoisseurs. They were equal to anything ever done in Paris.
+
+For a week's work--say half-an-hour a day--he got perhaps about ten
+pounds. With the ten pounds he was satisfied--ten pounds represents a
+good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about as much as one man
+can manage at a bout; besides tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and
+innumerable trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good deal of
+street life.
+
+Sometimes he drew--and engraved--illustrations for books, being as
+clever with the engraver's tools as with the pencil; sometimes he cut
+out those odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials," which are
+now so commonly seen in publications, catching the classical grotesque
+of the Renaissance to perfection, and deceiving the experienced;
+sometimes he worked in the press-room in the House of Flamma, Fleet
+Street, pulling artists' proofs, or printing expensively illustrated
+volumes--numbered, and the plates destroyed--actual manual work, in his
+shirt sleeves.
+
+He could stop when he liked and take a swig of stout. That was the Alere
+style.
+
+Smoking was forbidden in the old House of Flamma because of the
+worm-eaten beams, the worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty,
+decayed bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the thin
+wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at the mere sight of a match.
+Also because of the piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
+looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were worth thousands of
+pounds; the plates and lithographic stones, artists' proofs, divers and
+sundry Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.
+
+But Alere, being a son of the house, though not in command, did not
+choose to be amenable to rules and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He
+smoked and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a certain step was
+known to be approaching the pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry
+glue set melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the flavour of
+tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is used in London in this way.
+
+If I could but write the inside history of Fleet Street, I should be
+looked upon as the most wonderful exponent of human life that had ever
+touched a pen. Balzac--whom everybody talks of and nobody has read,
+because the discrimination of Paternoster Row has refused him a
+translation till quite lately--Zola, who professes to be realistic, who
+is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings are so curiously crude
+and merely skim the surface; even the great Hugo, who produced the
+masterpiece of all fiction, _Les Misérables_; all three of them, the
+entire host of manuscript-makers, I am sure I could vanquish them all,
+if I could only write the inside life of Fleet Street.
+
+Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of diction, but just
+pencil-jotted in the roughest words to hand, just as rich and poor,
+well-dressed ladies and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
+without choice of language, but hustling the first words anyhow, as it
+were, into the first compartment. If I could only get Alere to tell me
+all he had seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the
+margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would laugh and weep. For
+such things do go on in Fleet Street as no man has written yet.
+
+If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!
+
+Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves, swigging his
+stout, smoking on the sly, working with all the genius of an inspired
+mechanic one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the next,
+spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of work, as if his very
+life depended on the smoothing of an edge of paper, putting off the next
+till the end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping, dreaming over
+old German works, and especially dreaming over Goethe, humming old
+German songs--for he had been a great traveller--sometimes scrawling a
+furious Mazzinian onslaught in a semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting
+stray engravings, wandering hither and thither.
+
+Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur, traveller,
+printer, Republican, conspirator, sot, smoker, dreamer, poet,
+kind-hearted, good-natured, prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
+carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.
+
+He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout, but nothing vulgar had
+ever been recorded against Alere Flamma. He frequented strong
+company--very strong meat--but no vile word left his lips.
+
+There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst of the coarsest
+surroundings, just as he appeared in the press-room among the printer's
+ink in the whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
+abhorred dress-coat.
+
+In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally hundreds of sketches,
+done on all sorts and sizes of paper, from the inside of an envelope
+hastily torn open to elephant. The bureau was full of them, crammed in
+anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged; nothing, of course, could be found
+if it was wanted. The drawers of the bookcase--it was his own
+furniture--were full of them; the writing-table drawer; a box in one
+corner; some were on the mantelpiece smoked and gritty; some inside his
+books, most of which were interleaved in this manner; literally hundreds
+of sketches, the subjects as numerous and varied.
+
+Views in English country lanes, views on the Danube, bands playing in
+band-loving Vienna, old Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury
+Cathedral, statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with the north wind in
+the North Sea--a savage fight between sail and gale--horses in the
+meadow, an aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners in the
+Black Forest, studies from the nude--Parisian models, Jewesses, almost
+life-size, a drayman heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
+like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs to illustrate classical
+mythology, outlines expressing the ideas of Goethe--outlines of
+Marguerite and Faust among the roses--"He loves me; he loves me not,"
+big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was
+deep in the song, roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
+their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere had a bullet through
+his hat, in Vienna, I think; no end to them.
+
+Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a month or two, and his ten
+pounds were spent, if he wanted a few guineas he would take a small
+selection of these round to the office of a certain illustrated paper;
+the Editor would choose, and hand over the money at once, well aware
+that it was ready money his friend needed. They were not exactly
+friends--there are no friends in London, only acquaintances--but a
+little chummy, because the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and
+they had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper that ever got
+sketches out of Alere.
+
+If only Alere would have gone and sketched what he was _asked_ to
+sketch! Ah! there is the difference; he could not do it, his nature
+would not let him; he could draw what he saw with his own eyes, but not
+what other people wanted him to see. A merry income he might have made
+if he would only have consented to see what other eyes--common, vulgar
+eyes--wanted to see, and which he could so easily have drawn for them.
+
+Out of these piles of varied sketches there were two kinds the Editor
+instantly snapped at: the one was wild flowers, the other little
+landscape bits.
+
+Wild flowers were his passion. They were to Flamma as Juliet to Romeo.
+Romeo's love, indeed, rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of
+flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps he might not have
+worshipped Juliet next year. Flamma had loved his wild flowers close
+upon forty years, ever since he could remember; most likely longer, for
+doubtless the dumb infant loved the daisies put in his chubby hand.
+
+His passion they were still as he drew near fifty, and saw all things
+become commonplace. That is the saddest of thoughts--as we grow older
+the romance fades, and all things become commonplace.
+
+Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow, the other half in
+wishing for yesterday.
+
+Wild flowers alone never become commonplace. The white wood-sorrel at
+the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on
+the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear
+to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it
+were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our
+emotions, our thoughts.
+
+Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room was full of wild flowers,
+drawn as he had found them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks--by the
+footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on the hills--as he had
+found them, not formed into an artificial design, not torn up by the
+roots, or cut and posed for the occasion--exactly as they were when his
+eye caught sight of them. A difficult thing to do, but Alere did it.
+
+In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated magazines usually
+make one of two mistakes; either the flower is printed without any
+surroundings or background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
+however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented with a heavy black pall
+of ink which dabs it out altogether.
+
+These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the little landscapes. From
+a stile, beside a rick, through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected
+places, Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood, groups of
+trees, old houses, and got them in his magical way on a few square
+inches of paper. They were very valuable for book illustration. They
+were absolutely true to nature and fact.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+PERHAPS the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his
+inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree,
+he could not make believe--could not deceive--could not masquerade in a
+dress-coat.
+
+Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue to-day is nature in a
+dress-coat.
+
+In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole Academy, or Grosvenor
+Gallery you shall hardly find three works that represent any real scene
+in the fields.
+
+I have walked about the fields a good deal in my brief, fretful hour,
+yet I have never seen anything resembling the strange apparitions that
+are hung on these walls every spring. Apparitions--optical illusions,
+lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly, ghost-light--nothing like them on
+earth I swear, and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.
+
+Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place, a brook from another, a
+house from another--_and mixed to order_, like a prescription by the
+chemist--xv. grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge. Nature
+never plants--nature is no gardener--no design, no proportion in the
+fields.
+
+Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may have noticed that the
+surface of the water in the ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum,
+a pale prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern landscape.
+
+How horrible the fields would look if they wore such hues in reality as
+are accepted on canvas at the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints
+transferred to the sward, the woods, the hills, the streams, the sky!
+_Dies iræ, dies illæ_--it would, indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day
+of Doom, and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane drawn before our
+eyes to shut it out of sight.
+
+There are some who can go near to paint dogs and horses, but a meadow of
+mowing grass, not one of them can paint that.
+
+Many can _draw_ nature--drawings are infinitely superior generally to
+the painting that follows; scarce one now paints real nature.
+
+Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the dress-coat of sham colour
+for any sacred exhibition wall whatever.
+
+One thing Alere never attempted to draw--a bird in flight. He recognized
+that it was impossible; his taste rejected every conventional attitude
+that has been used for the purpose; the descending pigeon, the Japanese
+skewered birds, the swallow skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot
+draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst
+of all.
+
+How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it.
+The swallow's wing has the motion of life--its tremble--its wonderful
+delicacy of vibration--the instant change--the slip of the air;--no man
+will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.
+
+At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis had sat much,
+from time to time, when the carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to
+his Baden-Baden--_i.e._, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom, singing finch,
+and wild-flowers.
+
+There were no "properties" in Alere's room at his lodgings; no odd bits
+collected during his wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
+realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No gauntlets or
+breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no Turkish guns or yataghans, no
+stags' horns, china, or carvings to be copied some day into an
+illustration. No "properties."
+
+No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes the key and tones the
+visitors' mind to "Art," the etchings, the wall or panel decorations,
+the sliding curtains, the easels in the corner, the great
+portfolios--the well-known "effects" were absent.
+
+A plain room, not even with a north light, plain old furniture, but not
+very old--not ostensibly ancient, somewhere about 1790 say--and this
+inherited and not purchased; Flamma cared not one atom for furniture,
+itself, old or new; dusty books everywhere, under the table, on the
+mantelpiece, beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on the
+sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the two bookcases and drawers;
+odd books most of them, Cornelius Agrippa, _Le Petit Albert_, French
+illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for Flamma was fond of his
+many-keyed flute.
+
+Great people once now and then called and asked to see Alere Flamma at
+the business place in Fleet Street; people with titles, curiously out of
+place, in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of printer's
+ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking, partitions pasted over
+with illustrations and stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
+engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking to "His
+Excellency."
+
+Flamma's opinion, information he could give, things he knew; abroad they
+thought much of him.
+
+Presents came occasionally--a boar's head from Germany; fine Havana
+cigars--Alere always had a supply of the best cigars and Turkish
+tobacco, a perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English venison;
+once a curious dagger from Italy, the strangest present good-natured
+Alere could possibly have received!
+
+Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from a noble connoisseur to
+his country seat; Flamma's views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
+the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked up in a cover all
+too poor for its value, the building of another wing, for the artist is
+the true architect, as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till the
+artist is called in we shall never again see real architecture in the
+world. Did not Benvenuto design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
+build St. Peter's at Rome?
+
+If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have it till he calls in the
+artist, the Alere Flamma, to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
+cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman, till
+he goes to Alere Flamma.
+
+Our so-called architects are mere surveyors, engineers, educated
+bricklayers, men of hard straight ruler and square, mathematically
+accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling.
+
+The princes of Italy knew better--they called in the poet and the
+painter, the dreamers to dream for them.
+
+You call in your "practical" architect, and he builds you a brick box;
+not for a hundred thousand pounds in fees could he build you a palace or
+a cathedral.
+
+The most ignorant of men are the "practical" people. It is meet and
+fitting that they should be worshipped and set on high. The calf
+worshipped of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.
+
+But Alere could not go; he would do anything he was asked in this way;
+he would take infinite pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet
+Street for any mansion.
+
+When a man once gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out.
+
+Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right thing to represent
+Alere as a great genius neglected, or as a genius destroyed by
+intemperance. The conventional type is so easy--so accepted--so popular;
+it would pay better, perhaps, to make him out a victim in some way.
+
+He was not neglected, neither was he the victim of intemperance in the
+usual sense.
+
+The way to fame and fortune had always been wide open to him; there were
+long intervals when he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
+it was not half so much to struggle against as the chest diseases from
+which professional men so often suffer; I believe if he had really tried
+or wished he could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither of these
+causes kept him from the foremost rank.
+
+There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice. So many who
+have no ideal are kept hard at work by the sheer desire of money, and
+thus spurred onward, achieve something approaching greatness. Alere did
+not care for money.
+
+He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten pounds was a large sum in the
+company he frequented; he did not want any more.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+SOMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its
+influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's
+brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The thoughts of our time issue
+thence, like the radiating spokes of a wheel, to all places of the
+earth. There you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
+multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas come from Fleet Street.
+
+From the printing-press and the engraver's wood-block, the
+lithographic-stone, the etcher's plate, from book and magazine,
+periodical and pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.
+
+From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow outwards.
+
+It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it is sweet to be on the
+hill-top; delicious to feel the swell and the long roll of the hexameter
+of the seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit of the
+Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the African explorer at the river's
+source. But if once the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
+meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to
+Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other Mind,
+without whose sympathy even success is nothing--the Mind of the world.
+
+I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street,
+but of all that the printing-press means.
+
+Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary to him to live and
+breathe in the atmosphere of thought--to feel the throb and swell around
+him--to be near the "grey matter" of the world's brain.
+
+Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out. Flamma would not
+leave it for months of gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.
+
+The flame must be fed. His name had some connection with the design of
+the Roman lamp on the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the House
+of Flamma. _Alere Flammam_--feed the flame. The flame of the mind must
+be fed.
+
+Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street; if I could but get at
+it all to write the inside life of it, it would, indeed, be a book.
+Stone-cold poverty hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
+of money, think they know life, but they do not, for, as was said of the
+sea----
+
+          Only those who share its dangers
+             Comprehend its mystery.
+
+Only those who have shared the struggle literally for bread--for a
+real, actual loaf--understand the dread realities of man's existence.
+
+Let but a morsel of wood--a little splinter of deal, a curl of
+carpenter's shaving--lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the
+wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the
+desert to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that are paved with
+gold!
+
+It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll it in their aprons,
+clasping it tightly, lest it should somehow disappear. Prowling about
+from street to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
+these precious splinters of deal, for to those who are poor fuel is as
+life itself.
+
+Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill, especially of
+blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism), sometimes say they would rather
+go without food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.
+
+These women know where there are hoardings erected by builders, where
+shop-fronts are being rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
+alterations are proceeding; they know them as the birds know the places
+where they are likely to find food, and visit them day by day for the
+scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the pavement.
+
+Or they send their children, ragged urchins, battling for a knot of
+pine-wood.
+
+The terror of frost to these creatures is great indeed. Frost is the
+King of Terrors to them--not Death; they sleep and live with death
+constantly, the dead frequently in the room with the living, and with
+the unborn that is near birth.
+
+Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's wife knew that Flamma,
+the drinker, would certainly give her the silver in his pocket.
+
+The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood, knew that they
+could charm the pennies and the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat;
+the baked potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice on the
+street stove.
+
+Wretched girls whose power of tempting had gone, and with it their means
+of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There
+are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about
+them to attract the charity of the world.
+
+Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a licence in the street, was
+charged by the police. How this harshness to the flower-girl--the human
+representation of Flora--roused up sentiment in her behalf!
+
+But not every starving girl has the fortune to rouse up sentiment and to
+be fed. Their faces disfigured with eruptions, their thin shoulders,
+their dry, disordered hair--hair never looks nice unless soft with its
+natural oil--their dingy complexions, their threadbare shawls, tempt no
+one. They cannot please, therefore they must starve.
+
+The good turn from them with horror--Are they not sin made manifest? The
+trembling hand of Alere fed them.
+
+Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are happy? It is curious that
+people should associate noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
+the boys that are gathered into institutions and training ships, are
+expected to bawl and shout their loudest at the annual fêtes when
+visitors are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith feel assured that
+their lives are consequently joyous.
+
+Why then do they set fire to training ships? Why do they break out of
+reformatory institutions? Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet
+fatuous fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar of
+bawling.
+
+I have never walked up Fleet Street and the Strand yet without seeing a
+starving woman and child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
+unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts into the broader and more
+lively Strand--the ceaseless world pushes past--they play on the
+pavement unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their
+faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their
+hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on
+the table to see how they look.
+
+How _can_ people pass without seeing them?
+
+Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.
+
+The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want
+sits on the Seven Hills--make a cartoon of that!--the rich folk who
+receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England
+on dividend days--how easily the well-oiled doors swing open for
+them!--who dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood, at
+Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks, wherever there is
+pure air, have distinguished themselves lately in the giving of alms,
+ordained by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday, clad in silk,
+scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned pews.
+
+They have established Homes for Lost Dogs and Homes for Lost Cats,
+neither of which are such nuisances as human beings.
+
+In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus specially designed
+by one of the leading scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
+claimed in a certain time, or that have become diseased--like the human
+nuisances--are put into this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of
+chamber, to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific vapour enters
+the chamber, and breathing this, the animal falls calmly to death,
+painlessly poisoned in peace.
+
+Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed "into eternity" in
+one season. Jubilant congratulations were exchanged at the success of
+the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning, hanging, vivisection, or
+starvation!
+
+Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of humanity indeed? To sell
+all you have and give to the poor was nothing compared to this. We have
+progressed since Anno Domini I. We know better how to do it now.
+
+Alere did not seem to trouble himself much about the dogs; he saw so
+much of the human nuisances.
+
+What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus like this in the
+workhouses and in conjunction with the hospitals!
+
+Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing all the day, that one
+out of every five people who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
+hospital?
+
+Eighty-two thousand people died in London in 1882, and of these,
+fourteen thousand expired in the workhouses, and six thousand in
+hospitals!
+
+Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting up a few Apparatuses, see
+what an immense amount of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
+multitude of human nuisances would he "moved on!"
+
+The poor have a saying that none live long after they have been in a
+certain hospital. "He's been in that hospital--he won't live long." They
+carry out such wonderful operations there--human vivisections, but
+strictly painless, of course, under chloroform--true Christian
+chopping-up--still the folk do not live long when they come out.
+
+Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man must not die in peace.
+Starvation is for human nuisances.
+
+These rich folk dwelling round about the great Babylon of Misery, where
+Want sits on the Seven Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
+another invention. This is the organization of alms. Charity is so holy
+we will not leave it to chance--to the stray penny--we will organize it.
+The system is very simple: it is done by ticket. First you subscribe a
+few shillings to some organization, with its secretary, its clerks, its
+offices, board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive tickets.
+
+If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms, or a ragged boy, or a
+maimed man asks you for a "copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
+trouble and responsibility.
+
+The beggar can take the ticket to the "office" and get his case
+"investigated." After an inquiry, and an adjournment for a week; another
+inquiry, and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry, and a
+third adjournment, then, if he be of high moral character and highly
+recommended, he may get his dinner.
+
+One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means
+can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though
+he be perishing of starvation.
+
+If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give
+him a ticket.
+
+They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.
+
+This organization of charity saves such a lot of money: where people
+used to give away five pounds they now pay five shillings.
+
+Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you walk about with a clear
+conscience. No matter how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
+ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably and never think about
+them; your charity is organized.
+
+If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was
+no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false,
+and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.
+
+The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is
+spontaneousness.
+
+You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it
+charity suppression.
+
+Have you ever seen London in the early winter morning, when the frost
+lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey,
+bitter, stony London?
+
+Whatever _can_ morning seem like to the starved and chilly wretches who
+have slept on the floor, and wake up to frost in Fleet Street?
+
+The pavements are covered with expectoration, indicating the chest
+diseases and misery that thousands are enduring. But I must not write
+too plainly; it would offend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+A PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace
+something--a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there;
+the crank came round and crushed him against the brickwork. The embrace
+of iron is death.
+
+Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed them when they were old
+enough.
+
+Ten pounds was enough for him--without ambition, and without
+business-avarice; ten pounds was enough for his Fleet Street life.
+
+It was not only the actual money he gave away, but the kindness of the
+man. Have you ever noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?--their
+elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and without flesh. Instead of
+the shirt-sleeve being turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
+thrust its way through.
+
+He always had something for them;--a plate of beef, soup, beer to be
+shared, apples, baked potatoes, now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars.
+Awful this, was it not? Printers' boys _will_ smoke; they had better
+have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile imitation they buy.
+
+They always had a tale for him; either their mothers, or sisters, or
+some one was in trouble; Flamma was certain to do something, however
+little might be within his power. At least he went to see.
+
+Had a man an income of a million he could not relieve the want of
+London; the wretch relieved to-day needs again to-morrow. But Alere went
+to see.
+
+Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a man without ambition, and
+without business-avarice, who went to see the unfortunate.
+
+His own palsied mother, at the verge of life, looked to Alere for all
+that the son can do for the parent. Other sons seemed more capable of
+such duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was the Man. And for
+those little luxuries and comforts that soothe the dull hours of
+trembling age she depended entirely upon him.
+
+So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied him were not all spent in
+drink.
+
+But alas! once now and then the rats began to run up the wall in broad
+daylight, and foolish Alere, wise in this one thing, immediately began
+to pack his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers, his
+sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks
+of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
+packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe
+Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
+leaves.
+
+They sat and talked in the round summer-house in Iden's garden, with the
+summer unfolding at their knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.
+
+By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of the Goliath ale, and between
+his lips there was a long churchwarden pipe.
+
+The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate
+liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than
+mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by
+man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
+
+The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to
+the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and
+stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
+
+The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial
+grown on the sunny hill-side, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured
+by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
+
+Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no
+cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
+the full manhood of strength.
+
+There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist
+analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that,
+and the residue is "volatile principle," for which all the dictionaries
+of science have no explanation.
+
+"Volatile principle"--there it is, that is the secret. That is the life
+of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile
+principle--that alchemic force--except contained in genuine old ale.
+
+Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
+
+The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
+
+By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink
+against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street
+liver in order.
+
+You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have
+"abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters,
+_i.e._, quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and
+diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and
+blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of
+your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor
+arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
+
+Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines--American and
+French patent physic is very popular now--and find the same things
+precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
+
+It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are
+intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few
+glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
+motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic
+and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the
+compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
+very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle,
+which the prescriptions have not got.
+
+Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead
+of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
+
+"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "_drenk
+un down to the therd hoop_."
+
+Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up
+the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife
+and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began
+to hum old German songs.
+
+But you may ask, how do _you_ know, you're not a doctor, you're a mere
+story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to
+know much more than a doctor.
+
+How can that be?
+
+Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than
+a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
+they will do; he imagines, but the Patient _knows_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+SOME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in
+order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and
+are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
+
+I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the
+various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
+verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
+
+Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a
+Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of
+Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
+
+I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more
+good than any man living.
+
+I am still very ill.
+
+The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I
+was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
+Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock,
+and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is
+nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London
+physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I
+suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall
+gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't
+intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak
+to you--you look bad. I _hate_ to hear anybody cough." He put an
+emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal _haate_, hissing it out with
+unmeasured ferocity. "I _haate_ to hear anybody cough. Now I should like
+to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."
+
+"By all means--very interesting," I replied.
+
+"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four
+years with a cough. I couldn't do anything--couldn't help myself; four
+years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed
+eighty-seven pounds."
+
+"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and
+broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
+
+"I tried everything the doctors recommended--it was no use; they had to
+give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"
+
+"Can't think--should much like to know."
+
+"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You
+take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.
+Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?
+No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a
+ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.
+That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still,
+if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over
+Europe."
+
+I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.
+
+"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States,
+now."
+
+I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would
+cure me, it might come from anywhere.
+
+"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like,
+and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
+I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll
+have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we
+parted.
+
+He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe
+he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the
+time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American
+was right; he certainly meant well.
+
+Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts
+as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him,
+I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.
+
+Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to
+approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old
+German songs; it was the volatile principle.
+
+Songs about the Pope and the Sultan
+
+          But yet he's not a happy man,
+          He must obey the Alcoran,
+          He dares not touch one drop of wine,
+          I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.
+
+Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he
+raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a
+King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song
+that, none like it--
+
+          He saw it fall, he watched it fill,
+            And sink deep, deep into the main;
+          Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,
+            He never drank a drop again.
+
+Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in
+the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--
+
+          Horum scorum suntivorum,
+          Harum scarum divo,
+          Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,
+          Hic hoc horum genitivo--
+
+To be said in one breath.
+
+          Oh, my Ella--my blue bella,
+            A secula seculorum,
+          If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,
+            O dies Benedictorum!
+
+Or something about:
+
+          Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,
+          And She's of the feminine gender.
+
+Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin
+grammar, accidence--do _not_ pause, traveller, if you see _his_ tomb!
+
+"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street man put away his
+pipe, and took up his flute; he breathed soft and low--an excellent
+thing in a musician--delicious airs of Mozart chiefly.
+
+The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the high buttercups of the
+meadow came to the very door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
+them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in flowers, in song of
+happy birds. The soothing flute strung together the flow of their
+thoughts, they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden--almost hand
+in hand--listening to his cunning lips.
+
+He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to their own hearts.
+
+The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of
+the old house, and out again to the meadow.
+
+Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the
+starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had
+not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr--an indistinct
+flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The
+lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the
+raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh
+impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent;
+you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
+capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers
+to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both
+together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
+other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book
+opened with your thumb quickly--as they do in legerdemain--almost as you
+see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve--a sort of burr.
+
+To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
+
+The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the
+air like a meteor.
+
+Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
+
+Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's
+cheeks--absolute lack of blood--began to give way to the faintest
+colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he
+could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful
+of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most
+lively manner. Fire in it--downright fire! That is the test.
+
+Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began
+to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply
+of another cup.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje.
+The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in
+the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the
+sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
+that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
+
+Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's
+rough hands--a sort of skin sand-paper--and with an effort made the
+heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
+
+Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court
+where the churn stood.
+
+"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
+
+Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
+
+Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
+
+"Aw!--aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting on a form by the wall
+under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing.
+"Aw!--aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
+
+Heavily the blue barrel went round--thrice, four times, five times; the
+colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the
+unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and
+sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
+
+"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not
+strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse,
+somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face
+lengthened--his eyes grew larger--his temples pinched; disappointment
+wrung at his heart.
+
+Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
+
+"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows
+on; you get a pint measure full of snails----"
+
+"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think
+of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver
+oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
+Amadis.
+
+A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub,
+fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this
+morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
+
+"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her
+back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a
+duster.
+
+"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing
+there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything
+behind, and you idling and talking,"--rushing out from the dairy, and
+following Luce, who retreated indoors.
+
+"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
+
+"Missis is ----" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and
+meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
+always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in
+this case, the butter.
+
+"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the
+clock, "and the beds ain't made."
+
+"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
+
+"And the fire isn't dusted up."
+
+"I've dusted up the fire."
+
+"And you're a lazy slut"--pushing Luce about the room.
+
+"I bean't a lazy slut."
+
+"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"--snatching it
+from her.
+
+"He be done."
+
+"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water
+taken up stairs."
+
+"That there be."
+
+"You know you ought to be doing something; the lazy lot of people in
+this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots
+to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be
+weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot
+ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children
+will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to
+lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging
+the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the
+kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a
+quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
+
+"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set
+to work happily.
+
+Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped,
+while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
+manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
+
+"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the
+Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
+sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was
+breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower
+limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of
+impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit
+upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
+had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and Jearje, it is
+certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
+
+Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for
+scraps.
+
+Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little
+things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of
+bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish
+of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends,
+and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
+
+Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not
+the way to feed the poor. What _could_ you be thinking of, you ignorant
+farmer's wife!
+
+You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses
+and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
+these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach
+you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
+the scientific Dr. Amoeba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers'
+ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a
+particle; with Providence and Science together they _must_ do it
+properly.
+
+The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of
+food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
+Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
+
+The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or lentil soup, or
+oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They
+can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
+
+No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef
+bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral
+ale!
+
+There, Mrs. Iden.
+
+Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle,
+Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:--
+
+"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live,
+laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water,
+and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
+
+Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
+
+Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your
+rabbit and potatoes.
+
+To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages,
+and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
+courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable
+pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a
+pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
+wholesome thing.
+
+But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not
+much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They
+would like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich
+gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They
+need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
+
+You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is--the poor never buy
+oatmeal, or lentils!"
+
+Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend,
+they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
+
+What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have
+given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little
+pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
+
+Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs.
+Iden!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+"YOU must drink it all--every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as
+Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but
+half finished it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all." Amadis made an
+effort, and obeyed.
+
+But his heart was bitter as absinthe.
+
+Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were
+manly, they could eat and drink.
+
+Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and
+turned the crank at the same time.
+
+Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so
+happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
+his tall quart-mug.
+
+Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic
+than all the hamlet put together.
+
+Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.
+
+Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he
+could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.
+
+Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the
+heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.
+
+He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable
+to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
+farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere
+shadow, a thing of contempt.
+
+They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his
+face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to
+Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more
+than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the
+meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
+told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a
+wine-glassful of Goliath.
+
+Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot,
+and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It
+was absinthe to him.
+
+He could not stoop to turn the churn--he had to sip milk in the presence
+of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very
+servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.
+
+And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.
+
+And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas, that he could think,
+yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without
+considering first and feeling his way.
+
+Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he
+led in the waggon.
+
+Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of
+July.
+
+He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of
+Amaryllis--he was nothing. Less than nothing--a shadow.
+
+To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.
+
+Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker
+has been very, very ill, but is better:--
+
+          And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then
+          raised his head, and said:--
+
+  "Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away
+                thy sorrows;
+  For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and
+                is changed!
+  How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not
+                forth!
+  And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze
+                appears from it;
+  And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.
+  So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;
+  And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"
+
+
+
+How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt
+himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?
+
+"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone,
+now he had obeyed her.
+
+"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.
+
+His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis,
+absinthe because of his weakness.
+
+A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song,
+with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:--
+
+          The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?
+          And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?
+              All Insinuation Scorning;
+          I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,
+          I only Know he's a very Red Face
+              When he gets up in the Morning!
+
+"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look
+main red in the marning, surely."
+
+They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch,
+and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
+him.
+
+At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.
+
+Iden came through into the dairy.
+
+"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into
+everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the
+floor!"
+
+"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire--or
+anything?"
+
+"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood--and chop it, as well as you. Why
+can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
+hours to see you"--following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have
+you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
+butter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still,
+Mr. Duck; I don't mind _you_. What will you take?"
+
+More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window
+and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs.
+Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house--I never saw
+anything like it!"
+
+It was true.
+
+There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting
+on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje
+indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with
+the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting
+his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight
+people--and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of
+food.
+
+"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."
+
+And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble
+ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets;
+crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to those who
+pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me,
+the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
+farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!
+
+"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning
+gone and nothing done; and the butter's not come yet!"
+
+Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat
+all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good
+deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was
+done on Olympus.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+AMARYLLIS went outside the court, and waited; Amadis rose and followed
+her. "Come a little way into the Brook-Field," she said.
+
+They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path
+passed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the
+strawberry patch which Iden had planted under the parlour window; by the
+great box-hedge where a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though
+Amaryllis's dress brushed the branches; by the espalier apple, to the
+little orchard-gate.
+
+The parlour-window--there are no parlours now, except in old country
+houses; there were parlours in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern
+villas they have drawing-rooms.
+
+The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree branches, planted beneath
+with strawberry; white blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
+in the branches of the pear--that was Iden.
+
+They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed heavily against the
+tall meadow-grass growing between the bars. The path was almost
+gone--grown out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad trail
+behind them.
+
+Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have muttered to himself; they
+were trespassing on his mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
+difficult to cut.
+
+Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the thick-stemmed
+butter-cups--branched like the golden candlestick, and with flowers of
+golden flame. For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw light
+back into the air.
+
+Amadis began to drag behind--he could not walk much farther; they sat
+down together on the trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
+close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted. Even with his back
+leaning against a limb of the oak, Amadis had to partly support himself
+with his hands.
+
+What was the use of such a man?--He had nothing but his absurdly
+romantic name from Don Quixote to recommend him.
+
+That was the very thought that gnawed at poor Amadis's heart as he sat
+by her side. What use to care for him?
+
+Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was a new gate, and he
+had been fitting it before he went in to lunch. His basket was of flag
+because the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools, chisels, and
+so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have everything right. The new gate
+was of solid oak, no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
+without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the farm, and kept
+till it was thoroughly fit, genuine English oak. If you would only
+consider Iden's gate you might see there the man.
+
+This gateway was only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when
+the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
+a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate
+knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest
+possible charge.
+
+Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to make _his_ gate in the
+hamlet; he sent for one ten miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages.
+He was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his work to see that
+the least little detail was done correctly, till the fellow would have
+left the job, had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale. So he
+just stretched the job out as long as he could, and talked and talked
+with Iden, and stroked him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
+it upon me and on William, That day in a way I despise." Till what with
+the planing, and shaving, and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and
+time, it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace gates,
+not of the Iden style.
+
+Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber years before for this very
+purpose, and had watched the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
+have made good oak furniture. There was nothing special or particular
+about this gateway; he had done the same in turn for every gateway on
+the farm; it was the Iden way.
+
+A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit for a nobleman's Home
+Park. I doubt, if you would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
+made of such material on any great estate in the kingdom. For not even
+dukes can get an Iden to look after their property. An Iden is not to be
+"picked up," I can tell you.
+
+The neighbourhood round about had always sneered in the broad country
+way at Iden's gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do _he_ want wi' such
+geates? A' ain't a got no cattle to speak on; any ould rail ud do as
+good as thuck geat."
+
+The neighbourhood round about could never understand Iden, never could
+see why he had gone to such great trouble to render the homestead
+beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the orchard with pleasant
+eating apples in the place of the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
+wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"
+
+All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood to be the acts of a
+"vool."
+
+When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to have the great bushes
+that bore unusually fine May bloom saved from the billhook, that they
+might flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples--for the sake
+of the white blossom; so, too, with the hazel--for the nuts.
+
+But what caused the most "wonderment" was the planting of the
+horse-chestnuts in the corner of the meadow? Whatever did he want with
+horse-chestnuts? No other horse-chestnuts grew about there. You couldn't
+eat the horse-chestnuts when they dropped in autumn.
+
+In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the little circumstance of
+the hour. His gate was meant to last for years, rain and shine, to
+endure any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in itself.
+
+His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind--was at once his strength
+and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that
+made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now
+stands--built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of
+little things, instead of lifting his mind higher.
+
+If only he could have lived three hundred years the greater world would
+have begun to find out Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
+from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk, for Iden could talk of
+the trees and grass, and all that the Earth bears, as if one had
+conversed face to face with the great god Pan himself.
+
+But while Iden slumbered with his head against the panel--think, think,
+think--this shallow world of ours, this petty threescore years and ten,
+was slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked with bitterness at heart
+the increasing stoop of the strong back.
+
+Iden was like the great engineer who could never build a bridge, because
+he knew so well how a bridge ought to be built.
+
+"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself
+ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you.
+Why can't you go into town and see your father?--it would be a hundred
+pounds in your pocket"--as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs.
+Iden had gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps he would
+have taken her advice.
+
+Resting upon the brown timber in the grass Amaryllis and Amadis could
+just see a corner of the old house through the spars of the new gate.
+Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand; a house that had grown
+in the course of many generations, not built to set order; it had grown
+like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances, and, therefore, like
+the tree it was beautiful to look at. There were windows in deep
+notches, between gables where there was no look-out except at the pears
+on the wall, awkward windows, quite bewildering. A workman came to mend
+one one day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever seed such a
+crooked picter of a house!" said he.
+
+A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the buttercups,
+straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly
+did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a
+line of peacock blue over the gold.
+
+In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to have been sitting there
+like this, with Amadis lost in the sweet summer dream of love.
+
+She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot du Lake, a hero of the
+mighty arm, only with the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
+proper thing.
+
+But the fitness of things never comes to pass--everything happens in the
+Turkish manner.
+
+Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life, very, very young and
+inexperienced, very poor and without the least expectation whatever (for
+who could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the daughter of poor
+and embarrassed parents, whom she wished and prayed to help in their
+coming old age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling and half a
+painter at heart, full of generous sentiments--what a nature to be
+ground down in the sordidness of married poverty!
+
+Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble, and unable to earn a
+shilling, just talking of seeing the doctor again about this fearful
+debility, full too, as he thought at least, of ideas--what a being to
+think of her!
+
+Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things. If only now he could have
+regained the health and strength of six short months ago--if only that,
+but you see, he had not even that. He might get better; true--he
+_might_, I have tried 80 drugs and I am no better, I hope he will.
+
+Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic East have put things
+together for them with more utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
+Turkish manner, you see.
+
+There they sat, happier and happier, and deeper and deeper in love every
+moment, on the brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full of
+love as the meadow was of sunshine.
+
+You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in which after sunset he was
+carried over Ocean's stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
+again in the East and give us the joy of his rising. The great Golden
+Cup in which Hercules, too, was taken over; it was as if that Cup had
+been filled to the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the lips
+to drink, inexhaustible.
+
+In the play of Faust--Alere's _Faust_--Goethe has put an interlude, an
+Intermezzo; I shall leave Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in
+Heaven. Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its Dread,
+pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the wings, let Debt and Poverty
+unrobe, let Age stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as the
+Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave our lovers in the Interlude
+in Heaven.
+
+And as I must leave them (I trust but for a little while) I will leave
+them on the brown oak timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
+dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass and the wild flowers.
+
+
+
+          CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
+                             CHANCERY LANE.
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+
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+
+        =A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT.= By
+          Arthur Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of Biblical
+          Exegesis and Dean of the Faculty of Theology,
+          Victoria University, Manchester. Sometime Fellow
+          of Merton College, Oxford.
+
+        =FAITH AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY.= By the Rev. William R.
+          Inge, D.D. Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity,
+          Cambridge, and Bampton Lecturer, Oxford, 1899.
+
+        =PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.= By the Rev. Hastings
+          Rashdall, D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A.
+          Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford.
+
+        =REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.= By the Rev. James Orr,
+          D.D., Professor of Apologetics in the Theological
+          College of the United Free Church, Glasgow.
+
+        =CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS.= By the Rev.
+          William Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Fellow of
+          Trinity College, Cambridge. Hon. Fellow of
+          Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Archdeacon
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+          Harvard University.
+
+        =PROTESTANT THOUGHT BEFORE KANT.= By A. C.
+          McGiffert, Ph.D., D.D.
+
+        =HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT SINCE KANT.= By the
+          Rev. Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman
+          Professor of Theology in the University of
+          Harvard, U.S.A.
+
+        =AN ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF THEOLOGY.= By the Rev. A. M.
+          Fairbairn, D.D., D.Litt., LL.D. Late Principal of
+          Mansfield College, Oxford.
+
+        =HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FROM THE APOSTOLIC
+          AGE TO THE REFORMATION.= By Herbert B. Workman,
+          D.Litt.
+
+        =A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT.= By
+          the Rev. George Buchanan Gray, D.D., D.Litt.,
+          Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis,
+          Mansfield College, Oxford.
+
+        =THE CHRISTIAN HOPE:= A Study in the Doctrine of the
+          Last Things. By W. Adams Brown, Ph.D., D.D.
+
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+
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+
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+        THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS. A Book of Animal Life.
+          By Charles G. D. Roberts. With 48 illustrations by
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+          DONATELLO. By Lord Balcarres, M.P. With 58 plates.
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+          GREAT MASTERS OF DUTCH AND FLEMISH PAINTING. By Dr
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+
+          REMBRANDT. By G. Baldwin Brown, of the University
+            of Edinburgh. With 45 plates.
+
+          ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO. By Maud Cruttwell. With 50
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+          VERROCCHIO. By Maud Cruttwell. With 48 plates.
+
+          THE LIVES OF THE BRITISH ARCHITECTS. By E.
+            Beresford Chancellor. With 45 plates.
+
+          THE SCHOOL OF MADRID. By A. de Beruete y Moret.
+            With 48 plates.
+
+          WILLIAM BLAKE. By Basil de Selincourt. With 40
+            plates.
+
+          GIOTTO. By Basil de Selincourt. With 44 plates.
+
+          FRENCH PAINTING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. By L.
+            Dimier. With 50 plates.
+
+          THE SCHOOL OF FERRARA. By Edmund G. Gardner. With
+            50 plates.
+
+          SIX GREEK SCULPTORS. (Myron, Pheidias,
+            Polykleitos, Skopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippos.) By
+            Ernest Gardner. With 81 plates.
+
+          TITIAN. By Dr Georg Gronau. With 54 plates.
+
+          CONSTABLE. By M. Sturge Henderson. With 48 plates.
+
+          PISANELLO. By G. F. Hill. With 50 plates.
+
+          MICHAEL ANGELO. By Sir Charles Holroyd. With 52
+            plates.
+
+          MEDIÆVAL ART. By W. R. Lethaby. With 66 plates and
+            120 drawings in the text.
+
+          THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF PAINTING. By William D.
+            McKay, R.S.A. With 46 plates.
+
+          CHRISTOPHER WREN. By Lena Milman. With upwards of
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+
+
+LIST OF VOLUMES.
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+          BOTTICELLI. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in
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+
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+
+          FREDERICK WALKER. By Clementina Black.
+
+          REMBRANDT. By Auguste Bréal.
+
+          VELAZQUEZ. By Auguste Bréal.
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+          GAINSBOROUGH. By Arthur B. Chamberlain.
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+          CRUIKSHANK. By W. H. Chesson.
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+          BLAKE. By G. K. Chesterton.
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+          ALBRECHT DÜRER. By Lina Eckenstein.
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+          THE ENGLISH WATER-COLOUR PAINTERS. By A. J.
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+          HOGARTH. By Edward Garnett.
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+          LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Dr Georg Gronau.
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+          HOLBEIN. By Ford Madox Hueffer.
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+          ROSSETTI. By Ford Madox Hueffer. Also in Persian
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+
+          THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD. By Ford Madox
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+          PERUGINO. By Edward Hutton.
+
+          MILLET. By Romain Rolland.
+
+          WATTEAU. By Camille Mauclair.
+
+          THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS. By Camille Mauclair.
+
+          WHISTLER. By Bernhard Sickert. Also in Persian
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+
+
+        AMELUNG, WALTHER, AND HOLTZINGER, HEINRICH. The
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+          Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. With 264 illustrations
+          and map and plans. 2 vols. New and cheaper
+          re-issue. _Fcap 8vo. 5s. net._
+
+        BURNS, REV. J. Sermons in Art by the Great
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+          and many illustrations. _Cr. 8vo. 6s._ Or bound in
+          parchment, _5s. net_.
+
+        ---- The Christ Face in Art. With 60 illustrations
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+        BUSSY, DOROTHY. Eugène Delacroix. A Critical
+          Appreciation. With 26 illustrations. New and
+          cheaper re-issue. _Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net._
+
+        CAROTTI, GIULIO. A History of Art. English
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+          four volumes, with very numerous illustrations in
+          each volume. _Small cr. 8vo. 5s. net each volume._
+
+          Vol. I.--ANCIENT ART. 500 illustrations.
+          Vol. II.--MIDDLE AGES DOWN TO THE GOLDEN AGE.
+          Vol. III.--THE GOLDEN AGE.      [_In preparation._
+          Vol. IV.--MODERN TIMES.         [  "      "
+
+
+        LÖWY, EMANUEL. The Rendering of Nature in Early
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+
+
+        MAUCLAIR, CAMILLE. Auguste Rodin. With very many
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+          _Small 4to._ New and cheaper re-issue. _7s. 6d.
+          net._
+
+          _See also Popular Library of Art for other books by
+                      Camille Mauclair._
+
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+                    THE CENTAUR'S BOOTY.
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+              THE SILVER BOX. By John Galsworthy.
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+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious transcriber's notes repaired.
+
+Page viii, "judgement" changed to "judgment" (that in his judgment)
+
+Page 103, "break" changed to "brake" (if the pneumatic brake)
+
+Page 181, "acccompanied" changed to "accompanied" (who ever accompanied)
+
+Page 197, "undisdisturbed" changed to "undisturbed" (drink, drink
+undisturbed)
+
+Advertising pages:
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+Page 10, "Mariamne" changed to "Marianne" (Marianne. A Drama.)
+
+
+
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+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***
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-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="Cover" title="" />
-</div><hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
-
-
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-<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/title-b.png" width="100" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<h2>THE READERS' LIBRARY</h2>
-
-
-<div class='center'><i>Uniform with this Volume</i><br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Reader's Library">
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-<tr><td align='left'>AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Birrell, Augustine</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ORBITER DICTA</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Bourne, George</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Brooks, Stopford A.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Everett, W.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Galsworthy, John</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>A COMMENTARY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>BEVIS. The Story of a Boy</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>AFTER LONDON</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">McCabe, Joseph</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Nevinson, H. W.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS IN FREEDOM</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Stephen, Sir Leslie</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Witte, Dr. Carl</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS ON DANTE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Roosevelt, Theodore</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Eckenstein, Lina</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><div class='hang1'>COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays<br />in a Branch of Folklore</div></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Cunninghame Graham, R. B.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>PROGRESS, and other Sketches</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-<div class='center'><br /><i>Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time</i></div>
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
-
-<h3>BY</h3>
-
-<h2>RICHARD JEFFERIES</h2>
-
-<div class='center'><small>AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON,"
-"WOOD MAGIC; A FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.</small></div>
-
-<div class='poem'><br /><br /><br />
-"Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."<br />
-
-
-<div class='sig'>
-<span class="smcap">Alc&aelig;us</span>.<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
-<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
-</div>
-
-<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
-LONDON<br />
-DUCKWORTH AND CO.<br />
-<span class="smcap">3, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.</span><br />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='unindent'>
-<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reissued 1904</span><br />
-<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reprinted in Readers Library 1911</span><br />
-<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div class='copyright'>
-<i>All rights reserved</i><br /></div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<b>Dedicated</b><br />
-<br />
-TO<br />
-<br />
-CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.<br /></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-029.png" width="500" height="88" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>INTRODUCTION.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 146px;">
-<img src="images/t-quote.png" width="146" height="120" alt="&quot;T" title="&quot;T" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE book is not a novel" is a phrase
-often in the mouth of critics, who on
-second thoughts might, perhaps, add
-with less emphasis, "It does not conform
-to the common type of novel." Fortified, however,
-with that sense of rectitude that dictates conformity
-to our neighbours and a safe acquiescence
-in the mysterious movements of public taste, the
-critics have exclaimed with touching unanimity&mdash;"What
-a pity Jefferies tried to write novels! Why
-didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"</div>
-
-<p>What a pity Jefferies should have given us
-"Amaryllis at the Fair," and "After London"!&mdash;this
-opinion has been propagated with such fervency
-that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring
-into the nature of these his achievements. Certainly
-the critics, and their critical echoes, are united. "He
-wrote some later novels of indifferent merit," says
-a critic in "Chambers' Encyclop&aelig;dia." "Has anyone
-ever been able to write with free and genuine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
-appreciation of even the later novels?" asks or
-echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies.
-"In brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at
-all," says Mr. Henry Salt. "It is therefore certain
-that his importance for posterity will dwindle, if it
-has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle
-of descriptive selections. But these will occupy a
-foremost place on their particular shelf, the shelf at
-the head of which stands Gilbert White and Gray,"
-says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter
-of genius, and he never got beyond reporting. Mr.
-Besant has the vitalising imagination which Jefferies
-lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
-Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again,
-"They are not novels as he (Walter Besant) admits,
-they are a series of pictures.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. That is the way
-he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
-touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure
-for this critic to say that in his <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'judgement'">judgment</ins> "Amaryllis
-at the Fair" is one of the very few later-day novels
-of English country life that are worth putting on
-one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would
-turn out certain highly-praised novels by Hardy
-which do not ring quite true, novels which the critics
-and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
-voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the
-reader may ask. A novel, says the learned Charles
-Annandale, is "a fictitious prose narrative, involving
-some plot of greater or less intricacy, and professing
-to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting
-the passions and sentiments, in a state of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
-great activity, and especially the passion of love."
-Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious prose
-narrative professing to give a picture of real life,
-and involving a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it
-exhibits the passions and sentiments in a state of
-great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose little
-book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further
-remarks: "Jefferies was quite unable to give any
-vivid dramatic life to his stories .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. his instinct
-was that of the naturalist who observes and moralizes
-rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
-interprets; and consequently his rustic characters,
-though strongly and clearly drawn, do not live, as,
-for example, those of Thomas Hardy live.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Men
-and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."</p>
-
-<hr style="width: 45%;" />
-
-<p>So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to
-be "no ordinary novelist," it is inferred by most
-that something is wrong with "Amaryllis the Fair,"
-and the book has been passed over in silence. But we
-do not judge every novel by the same test. We do
-not judge "Tristram Shandy," for example, by its
-intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we judge it
-simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by
-its humorous insight into human character. And
-judged by the same simple test "Amaryllis at the
-Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
-creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden,
-the unsuccessful farmer who "built for all time, and
-not for the circumstances of the hour," is a masterly
-piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
-portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about
-Uncle Toby? From what void did he spring? Iden,
-to our mind, is almost as masterly a conception,
-as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And
-Mrs. Iden, where will you find this type of nervous,
-irritable wife, full of spiteful disillusioned love for
-her dilatory husband better painted than by Jefferies?
-But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the
-reader may say. Excellent reader! and what about
-the Widow Wadman? She is no less and no more
-of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great
-feat of Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere
-of the Shandy household, but Jefferies has accomplished
-an artistic feat also in drawing the relations
-of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How
-true, how unerringly true to human nature is this
-picture of the Iden household; how delicately felt
-and rendered to a hair is his picture of the father's
-sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the
-waspish tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we
-not only have the family's idiosyncrasies, their habits,
-mental atmosphere, and domestic story brought before
-us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively
-by the hand of the artist, but we have the whole book
-steeped in the breath of English spring, the restless
-ache of spring that thrills through the nerves, and
-stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring
-feeling breaking from the March heavens and the
-March earth in copse, meadow, and ploughland, as it
-has scarcely been rendered before by English novelist.
-The description of Amaryllis running out into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
-March wind to call her father from his potato planting
-to see the daffodil; the picture of Iden pretending
-to sleep in his chair that he may watch the mice;
-the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the
-crowd of plain, ugly men of the countryside flocking
-along the road to the fair; the description of Amadis
-the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the stalwart
-country folk&mdash;all these pictures and a dozen
-others in the book are painted with a masterly hand.
-Pictures! the critical reader may complain. Yes,
-pictures of living men and women. What does it
-matter whether a revelation of human life is conveyed
-to us by pictures or by action so long as it is
-conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
-Gray, presumably because both writers have written
-of the English landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in
-his work as a naturalist and observer of wild life
-may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert
-White. But this classification only applies to one half
-of Jefferies' books. By his "Wild Life in a Southern
-County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by his
-"Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little
-apart from the poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair"
-he stands among the half-dozen country writers of
-the century whose work is racy of the English soil
-and of rural English human nature. We will name
-three of these writers, Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and
-our attentive readers can name the other three.</p>
-
-<p>To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is
-it so masterly, or, further, wherein is it so masterly,
-the curious reader may inquire? "Is it not full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
-digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
-is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly
-break his method, introduce his own personality,
-intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food, illness, and
-Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's
-dinner a little&mdash;well, a little unusual? In short, is
-not the book a disquisition on life from the standpoint
-of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if this
-is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?"
-Oh, candid reader, with the voice of authority
-sounding in your ears (and have we not Mr. Henley
-and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against
-us), a book may break the formal rules, and yet it
-may yield to us just that salt of life which we may
-seek for vainly in the works of more faultless writers.
-The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its
-beauty springs naturally from the prosaic earthly
-facts of life it narrates, and that, in the natural
-atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose and the
-poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the
-artistic naturalness of its homely picture, the book
-is very superior to, say "The Mayor of Casterbridge,"
-where we are conscious that the author has been at
-work arranging and rearranging his charming studies
-and impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge
-into the pattern of an exciting plot. Now it
-is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of "The
-Mayor of Casterbridge"&mdash;and we cite this novel as
-characteristic, both in its strength and weakness, of
-its distinguished author,&mdash;that we are brought to
-feel that we have not been shown the characters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>
-Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but
-that they have been moved about, kaleidoscopically,
-to suit the exigencies of the plot, and that the more
-this is so the less significance for us have their
-thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling
-changes of Farfrae and Lucetta, Henchard and
-Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
-listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we
-perceive indeed whence comes that atmosphere of
-stage crisis and stage effect which suddenly introduces
-a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars
-the artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful
-in other respects to English rural life. Plot is
-Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed and convincing
-would have been his pictures, if he could
-have thrown his plots and his rustic choruses to the
-four winds. May we not be thankful, therefore, that
-Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that
-in "Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions,
-the conversations are spontaneous as life, and
-that Jefferies' commentary on them is like Fielding's
-commentary, a medium by which he lives with his
-characters. The author's imagination, memory, and
-instinctive perception are, indeed, all working together;
-and so his picture of human life in
-"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as
-fresh a breath of life as we find in Cobbett's,
-Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
-writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere,
-his style and his subject seem to become
-one. He moves easily and surely. Out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
-splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the
-sensations, the observations and revelations of his
-youth, and the atmosphere familiar to him through
-long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning
-picture for us, a complete illusion of life more true
-than the reality. For what prosaic people call the
-reality is merely the co-ordination in their own minds
-of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life
-around them; and only this thousandth part they
-have noticed. But the creative mind builds up a
-living picture out of the thousands of aspects most
-of us are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies
-has done in "Amaryllis at the Fair." The book is
-rich in the contradictory forces of life, in its quick
-twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working
-alike in the leaves of grass outside the Idens'
-house, in the blustering winds round the walls, and
-in the minds of the characters indoors; and the style
-has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is
-growing, changing, breathing in the book. But the
-accomplished critics do not notice these trivial
-strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
-not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently
-thinks that Jefferies made a mistake in drawing his
-philosophy from an open-air study of nature, for he
-writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
-background was not like Wordsworth's clear and
-cheerful, but wholly vague and partly gloomy." It
-was neither vague nor gloomy, we may remark,
-parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw
-too deeply into nature's workings, and had too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
-sensuous a joy in life to interpret all Nature's doings,
-&agrave; la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously
-moral significance.</p>
-
-<p>The one charge that may with truth be brought
-against "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its digressions
-damage the artistic illusion of the whole. The
-book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness
-of a sketch, a sketch, moreover, which Jefferies
-was not destined to carry to the end he had planned,
-but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
-weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature,
-rather than those of an ambitious studio picture.
-And these digressions are an integral part of the
-book's character, just as the face of a man has its
-own blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the
-whole, and so, if they break somewhat the illusion
-of the scenes, they do not damage its spiritual unity.
-It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
-because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and
-complete testament on human life. He wrote it, or
-rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in pain,
-slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of
-a dying man. How real, how solid, how deliciously
-sweet seemed those simple earthly joys, those human
-appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
-is his passion and spiritual hunger for the
-beauty of earth! Like a flame shooting up from the
-log it is consuming, so this passion for the green
-earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine,
-consumes the wasted, consumptive body of the dying
-man. The reality, the solidity of the homely farmhouse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
-life he describes spring from the intensity
-with which he clings to all he loves, the cold March
-wind buffeting the face, the mating cries of the
-birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so terribly
-strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
-hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving,
-bitter the knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring
-and vivifying the whole, in every line of
-"Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
-"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished
-critics. Did he not? "Amaryllis at the Fair"
-is one of the truest criticisms of human life, oh
-reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness
-of things, the old, old human muddle, the meanness
-and stupidity and shortsightedness of humanity, the
-good salty taste of life in the healthy mouth, the
-spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
-appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry,
-and the sharp wind blowing alike on the just and
-the unjust&mdash;all is there on the printed page of
-"Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and
-the roar of London unite and mingle therein for
-those who do not bring the exacting eye of superiority
-to this most human book.</p>
-
-<div class='sig'>
-<span class="smcap">Edward Garnett</span>.<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 130px;">
-<img src="images/i-031.png" width="130" height="76" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-<br /><br /></div>
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th,
-1903.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
-<img src="images/title2-a.png" width="300" height="42" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h2>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 90px;">
-<img src="images/title2-b.png" width="90" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-033.png" width="500" height="174" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.</h2>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS found the first daffodil
-flowering by the damask rose, and
-immediately ran to call her father to
-come and see it.</div>
-
-<p>There are no damask roses now, like
-there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks. I
-have never seen one since I last gathered one from
-that very bush. There are many grand roses, but
-no fragrance&mdash;the fragrance is gone out of life.
-Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look
-under the shade of the trees for the old roses, but
-they are not to be found. The dreary nurseries of
-evergreens and laurels&mdash;cemeteries they should be
-called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of
-taste&mdash;are innocent of such roses. They show
-you an acre of what they call roses growing out of
-dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
-which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call
-for damask roses&mdash;wouldn't pay to grow they.
-Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be
-cut every morning and fetched by the flower-girls
-for gents' button-holes and ladies' jackets. You
-won't get no damask roses; they be died out."</p>
-
-<p>I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper,
-that with patience I could get a
-damask rose even now by inquiring about from
-farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer,
-with a good old taste for old roses and pinks,
-would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
-But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it;
-I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern
-style, though small, of course, and there is a
-"garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose.
-No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot
-plant except round "home." The plot or "patch"
-the landlord calls "the garden"&mdash;it is about as
-wide as the border round a patch, old style&mdash;is
-quite vacant, bare, and contains nothing but mould.
-It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.</p>
-
-<p>Not only are there no damask roses, but there
-is no place for them now-a-days, no "home," only
-villas and rented houses. Anything rented in a
-town can never be "home."</p>
-
-<p>Farms that were practically taken on a hundred
-and twenty, or fifty, or perhaps two hundred years'
-leases were "homes." Consequently they had
-damask roses, bees, and birds about them.</p>
-
-<p>There had been daffodils in that spot at least a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
-century, opening every March to the dry winds
-that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
-and carry them out from the bushes under the
-trees, sending them across the meadow&mdash;fleeing
-like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
-Every spring for a century at least the daffodils
-had bloomed there.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century,
-but ran round the corner of the house, and came
-face to face with the east wind, which took her
-with such force as to momentarily stay her progress.
-Her skirts were blown out horizontally,
-her ankles were exposed, and the front line of her
-shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched
-against the red brick wall. She laughed, but the
-strong gale filled her throat as if a hand had been
-thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife
-under her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs,
-and seemed as if it would scoop them out; her
-eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips
-dried up and parched in a moment. The wind
-went through her thick stockings as if the wool
-was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her
-eyes, and the skin of her arm became "goosey"
-directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it would
-have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step
-by step, and gradually reached the shelter of the
-high garden wall; there she could stand upright,
-and breathe again.</p>
-
-<p>Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen
-blast, as if a storm of ice particles had been driven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
-against them, now resumed their scarlet, but her
-ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly
-dark hair was dry and rough and without gloss.
-Each separate hair separated itself from the next,
-and would not lie smooth&mdash;the natural unctuous
-essence which usually caused them to adhere was
-dried up.</p>
-
-<p>The wind had blown thus round that corner
-every March for a century, and in no degree
-abated its bitter force because a beautiful human
-child, full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly
-into its power. Nothing ever shows the
-least consideration for human creatures.</p>
-
-<p>The moss on the ridge of the wall under which
-she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin,
-the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow with a
-straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to
-put it in his nest, but the depending straw was
-caught by the breeze as a sail, and carried him
-past.</p>
-
-<p>Under the wall was a large patch recently dug,
-beside the patch a grass path, and on the path a
-wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in
-potatoes; he wore the raggedest coat ever seen
-on a respectable back. As the wind lifted the
-tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and
-only hung by threads, the cuffs were worn through,
-there was a hole beneath each arm, and on each
-shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
-which had once been grey, was now a mixture of
-several soils and numerous kinds of grit. The hat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
-he had on was no better; it might have been made
-of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every
-now and then the wind brought a few handfuls of
-dust over the wall from the road, and dropped it
-on his stooping back.</p>
-
-<p>The way in which he was planting potatoes was
-wonderful, every potato was placed at exactly the
-right distance apart, and a hole made for it in the
-general trench; before it was set it was looked at
-and turned over, and the thumb rubbed against it
-to be sure that it was sound, and when finally put
-in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
-keep it in its right position till the whole row was
-buried. He carried the potatoes in his coat
-pocket&mdash;those, that is, for the row&mdash;and took them
-out one by one; had he been planting his own
-children he could not have been more careful.
-The science, the skill, and the experience brought
-to this potato-planting you would hardly credit;
-for all this care was founded upon observation, and
-arose from very large abilities on the part of the
-planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
-that moment.</p>
-
-<p>So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she
-ran down the grass path and stood by the wheelbarrow,
-but although her shadow fell across the
-potato row, he would not see her.</p>
-
-<p>"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing
-bolder. "Do come&mdash;there's a daffodil out, the very,
-very first."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," a sound like a growl&mdash;"oh," from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
-depth of a vast chest heaving out a doubtful
-note.</p>
-
-<p>"It is such a beautiful colour!"</p>
-
-<p>"Where is your mother?" looking at her
-askance and still stooping.</p>
-
-<p>"Indoors&mdash;at least&mdash;I think&mdash;no&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help
-her? What good be you on?"</p>
-
-<p>"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very
-first&mdash;now do come!"</p>
-
-<p>"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as
-that; what do'ee want a-messing about arter
-thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't
-never got a apron on."</p>
-
-<p>"But&mdash;just a minute now."</p>
-
-<p>"Go on in, and be some use on."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly
-away along the path, her head drooping forward.</p>
-
-<p>Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling
-without being repulsed?</p>
-
-<p>She had not reached the end of the path, however,
-when the father began to change his attitude;
-he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
-foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went
-after her. She did not see or hear him till he
-overtook her.</p>
-
-<p>"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.</p>
-
-<p>"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and
-brightening up immediately. "Only think, to
-open in all this wind, and so cold&mdash;isn't it beautiful?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
-It's much more beautiful than the flowers
-that come in the summer."</p>
-
-<p>"Trumpery rubbish&mdash;mean to dig 'em all up&mdash;would
-if I had time," muttered the father. "Have
-'em carted out and drowed away&mdash;do for ashes to
-drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody,
-thaay thengs. You can't eat 'em, can you, like
-you can potatoes?"</p>
-
-<p>"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis
-stepped on the patch tenderly, and lifted up the
-drooping face of the flower.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to
-his chin, a habit of his when thinking, and suddenly
-quite altering his pronunciation from that of the
-country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt
-to the correct accent of education. "Ah, yes;
-the daffodil was your great-uncle's favourite
-flower."</p>
-
-<p>"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis,
-noting how handsome her father's intellectual face
-looked, wandered in her mind from the flower as
-he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough
-sometimes, and why he talked like the labourers,
-and wore a ragged coat&mdash;he who was so full of
-wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought,
-and indeed acted as a perfect gentleman.</p>
-
-<p>"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He
-brought the daffodils down from Luckett's; every
-one in the garden came from there. He was
-always reading poetry, and writing, and sketching,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
-and yet he was such a capital man of business; no
-one could understand that. He built the mill, and
-saved heaps of money; he bought back the old
-place at Luckett's, which belonged to us before
-Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed, he very nearly
-made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of
-them got rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And
-now it is all going again&mdash;faster than he made it.
-He used to take you on his knee and say you would
-walk well, because you had a good ankle."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with
-her hands, as if that would lengthen the skirt and
-hide the ankles which Richard, the great-uncle,
-had admired when she was a child, being a man,
-but which her feminine acquaintances told her
-were heavy.</p>
-
-<p>"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish
-of you to go out in this wind without them!" said
-Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
-Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors
-again immediately.</p>
-
-<p>"He was the only one of all the family," continued
-her father, "who could make money; all
-the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
-generations he was the only money-maker and
-saver, and yet he was as free and liberal as possible.
-Very curious, wasn't it?&mdash;only one in ten generations&mdash;difficult
-to understand why none of the
-others&mdash;why&mdash;&mdash;" He paused, thinking.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking&mdash;thinking
-how easily her papa could make money, great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
-heaps of money. She was sure he could if he
-tried, instead of planting potatoes.</p>
-
-<p>"If only another Richard would rise up like
-him!" said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having
-had one genius in the family, and that, too, in the
-memory of man, they could not expect another.
-Even vast empires rarely produce more than one
-great man in all the course of their history. There
-was but one C&aelig;sar in the thousand years of
-Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless
-we except Themistocles, or unless we accept
-Alexander, who was a Macedonian; Persia had a
-Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few
-people know anything of the empire he overshadows
-with his name; France has had two
-mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon&mdash;unfortunate
-France! As for ourselves, fortunate
-islanders! we have never had a great man so
-immensely great as to overtop the whole, like
-Charlemagne in his day. Fortunate for us, indeed,
-that it has been so. But the best example to the
-point is the case of the immense empire of Russia,
-which has had one Peter the Great, and one only.
-Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the Great of
-his family, whose work had been slowly undone by
-his successors.</p>
-
-<p>"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out
-like Richard," continued Iden. "No one could
-deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
-convincing people, and always got his own will in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
-the end. Wonderful man!" he pondered, returning
-towards his work.</p>
-
-<p>Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden
-just peered out, and cried, "Put your hat and scarf
-on directly."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf
-very loosely about her neck. She accompanied
-her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
-would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed
-in the potatoes. She watched him stooping till his
-back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped so much
-that now he could not stand upright, though still
-in the prime of life; if he stood up and stretched
-himself, still his back was bowed at the shoulders.
-He worked so hard&mdash;ever since she could remember
-she had seen him working like this; he was up in
-the morning while it was yet dark tending the
-cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
-wind or weather made no difference. Other people
-stopped indoors if it rained much, but it made no
-difference to her father, nor did the deep snow or
-the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could
-talk so cleverly, too, and knew everything, and yet
-they were so short of money. How could this be?</p>
-
-<p>What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making
-of money; I could show you plenty of men who
-have worked the whole of their lives as hard as ever
-could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence
-as when they began. In fact, that is the
-rule; the winning of independence is rarely the result
-of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
-<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>RESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors,
-and was met in the hall by her
-mother.</div>
-
-<p>"What has he been talking to you
-about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
-listen to him. He will never do any good. Just
-look at his coat; it's a disgrace, a positive disgrace.
-Telling you about the old people? What's
-the use of talking of people who have been dead
-all this time? Why doesn't he do something himself?
-Don't listen to his rubbish&mdash;wasting his
-time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one
-wild! Why doesn't he go in to market and buy
-and sell cattle, and turn over money in that way?
-Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry
-potatoes, as if it mattered an atom how they were
-stuck in the ground."</p>
-
-<p>Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis
-went upstairs, and when she was alone lifted her
-skirt and looked at the ankles which great-uncle
-Richard had admired. Other girls had told her
-they were thick, and she was ashamed of them.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of the slender things which seem as if a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
-sudden strain would snap them, and are nothing
-but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
-ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be
-a fine form; strong, but neither thick, nor coarse,
-nor heavy, ankles that would carry her many a
-mile without weariness, that ended good legs with
-plenty of flesh on them. The stupidity of calling
-such coarse or heavy! They were really ideal
-ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these
-ill-instructed girls called them coarse! It was not
-their fault, it was the lack of instruction; as they
-did not know what was physically perfect, of course
-they could not recognize it.</p>
-
-<p>Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of
-them, for they will prove a blessing to her for the
-whole of her life.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though
-she brushed it for some time; it would not lie close,
-so much had the east wind dried it. She opened
-a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar,
-and held it in her hand, balancing probabilities.
-Would her father see it if she used it, or might he,
-perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
-bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced
-to pass through the room he would certainly have
-thrown it out of window, so bitter was his antagonism
-to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and
-other resources of the hairdresser, which he held
-defiled the hair and ruined it, to the deception of
-woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
-scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
-not one drop of oil did she dare put on
-her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously, and then
-she could not go near him, for he was certain to
-detect it and scorch her with withering satire.</p>
-
-<p>Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes
-and oils and so forth is like a perennial
-spring, and never fails.</p>
-
-<p>Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed
-no dressing&mdash;nothing could possibly improve it,
-and the chances therefore were that whatever she
-used would injure&mdash;yet in her heart she yearned to
-rub it with oil.</p>
-
-<p>But the more she considered the more probable
-it seemed that her father would detect her; she
-had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
-somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden
-was one of those who preferred working at home to
-rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too attached to
-his home work. So she returned the bottle to the
-drawer, and hid it under some stockings.</p>
-
-<p>Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At
-all meals the rule was that there must be no talking,
-but at dinner the law was so strict that even to
-ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so
-much as "Give me the salt, please," was a deadly
-sin. There must be absolute silence while the
-master ate. The least infringement was visited
-with a severe glance from his keen and brilliant
-blue eyes&mdash;there are no eyes so stern as blue eyes
-when angry&mdash;or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
-grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
-he usually stooped, and to sit upright showed
-annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
-were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that
-house.</p>
-
-<p>Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the
-dinner hour was worse than sacrilege; anything
-that threatened to disturb it was watched intently
-by that repressive eye. No one must come in or
-go out of the room; if anyone knocked at the
-door (there are no bells in old country houses)
-there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone
-answering it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis
-had to leave the table, to go out and open and
-shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again
-as they returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at
-the door, it was so awful to have to stir once they
-had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
-not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it
-happened&mdash;and this was very terrible&mdash;that the
-master himself had to go, some one wanted him
-about some hay or a horse and cart, and no one
-could tell what to do but the master. A dinner
-broken up in this way was a very serious matter
-indeed.</p>
-
-<p>That day they had a leg of mutton&mdash;a special
-occasion&mdash;a joint to be looked on reverently. Mr.
-Iden had walked into the town to choose it himself
-some days previously, and brought it home on foot
-in a flag basket. The butcher would have sent it,
-and if not, there were men on the farm who could
-have fetched it, but it was much too important to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
-left to a second person. No one could do it right
-but Mr. Iden himself. There was a good deal of
-reason in this personal care of the meat, for it is a
-certain fact that unless you do look after such
-things yourself, and that persistently, too, you
-never get it first-rate. For this cause people in
-grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth
-eating on their tables. Their household expenses
-reach thousands yearly, and yet they rarely have
-anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never
-show meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's.
-The meat was dark brown, as mutton should be,
-for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be poor;
-the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter,
-firm, and yet almost crumbling to the touch; it was
-full of juicy red gravy, and cut pleasantly, the
-knife went through it nicely; you can tell good
-meat directly you touch it with the knife. It was
-cooked to a turn, and had been done at a wood fire
-on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal gas
-or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it.
-Such emanations as there may be from burning
-logs are odorous of the woodland, of the sunshine,
-of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives
-out as it burns the sweetness it has imbibed through
-its leaves from the atmosphere which floats above
-grass and flowers. Essences of this order, if they
-do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its
-flavour a delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked
-at a wood fire, for me.</p>
-
-<p>Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
-to have their meat cooked over coal or in a shut-up
-iron box, where it kills itself with its own steam,
-which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa
-people do do odd things. <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i> who
-have to write like myself must put up with anything
-and be thankful for permission to exist; but
-people with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware,
-or mud, or bricks and mortar&mdash;why on earth
-these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
-the gods passes understanding.</p>
-
-<p>Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris
-will convert some of you who will not listen to a
-farmer.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that
-were placed before him. They were white, floury,
-without a drop of water in the whole dish of them.
-They were equal to the finest bread&mdash;far, far superior
-to the bread with which the immense city of
-London permits itself to be poisoned. (It is not
-much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
-too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a
-price which is in itself one of the most wonderful
-things of the age. The finest bread ought to be
-cheap.</p>
-
-<p>"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping
-himself to half a dozen. "Look at the gravy go
-up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."</p>
-
-<p>The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury
-particles of the potatoes as if they had formed
-capillary tubes.</p>
-
-<p>"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
-to one. It be an amazing theng how thengs do
-that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
-potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds.
-Mine comes true, 'cause I saves um every
-year a' purpose. Better take more than that (to
-Amaryllis)&mdash;you haven't got but two" (to Mrs.
-Iden).</p>
-
-<p>What he ate other people at his table must eat,
-and the largest quantity possible. No one else
-must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but
-the master could talk, talk, talk without end. The
-only talking that might be done by others was in
-praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so carefully
-provided. You might admire the potatoes or
-the mutton, but you must not talk on any other
-subject. Nor was it safe even to do that, because
-if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were
-immediately helped to another plateful, and had to
-finish them, want them or not. If you praised the
-mutton several thick slices were placed on your
-plate, and woe to you if you left a particle. It was
-no use to try and cover over what you could not
-manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be seen.
-"What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there
-juicy bit, you?"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous
-experience, discreetly refrained from admiring either
-mutton or potatoes.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/f.png" width="120" height="121" alt="F" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ORTY-FOLDS," went on the master,
-"be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
-be so many new sorts now, but they
-bean't no good; they be very good for
-gentlefolk as doan't know no better,
-and poor folk as can't help theirselves. They won't
-grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
-patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's
-that's big middle patch. Summat different in the
-soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be learned
-before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such
-a simple thing. Farty-folds&mdash;&mdash;"</div>
-
-<p>"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his
-provincial pronunciation with extreme disgust in
-her tone.</p>
-
-<p>"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be
-ould potatoes, and thur bean't none as can beat
-um."</p>
-
-<p>The more she showed her irritation at his speech
-or ways, the more he accentuated both language and
-manner.</p>
-
-<p>"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
-It was true, Iden did talk with his mouth full, very
-full indeed, for he fed heartily. The remark annoyed
-him; he grunted and spluttered and choked
-a little&mdash;floury things are choky. He got it down
-by taking a long draught at his quart of strong ale.
-Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to induce you to
-make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk
-again.</p>
-
-<p>"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede
-greens; I axed un three days ago; I know'd we
-was going to have this yer mutton. You got to
-settle these yer things aforehand."</p>
-
-<p>"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing
-fond of um, so be the larks. These be the best
-as thur was. They be the best things in the world
-for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all
-physic. If you can get fresh swede tops you don't
-want a doctor within twenty miles. Their's
-nothing in all the chemists' shops in England
-equal to swede greens"&mdash;helping himself to a
-large quantity of salt.</p>
-
-<p>"What a lot of salt you <i>do</i> eat!" muttered Mrs.
-Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Onely you must have the real swedes&mdash;not
-thuck stuff they sells in towns; greens they was
-once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
-haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely
-to be got about March."</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in
-London," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They
-bean't no good; you might as well eat dried
-leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green
-shoots of spring"&mdash;suddenly changing his pronunciation
-as he became interested in his subject and
-forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
-wife. "They are full of sap&mdash;fresh sap&mdash;the juice
-which the plant extracts from the earth as the
-active power of the sun's rays increases. It is this
-sap which is so good for the blood. Without it
-the vegetable is no more than a woody fibre. Why
-the sap should be so powerful I cannot tell you;
-no one knows, any more than they know <i>how</i> the
-plant prepares it. This is one of those things
-which defy analysis&mdash;the laboratory is at fault, and
-can do nothing with it." ("More salt!" muttered
-Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of
-salt?") "There is something beyond what the
-laboratory can lay hands on; something that cannot
-be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by
-quantity, quality, or by any means. They analyse
-champagne, for instance; they find so many parts
-water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much
-that; but out of the hundred parts there remain
-ten&mdash;I think it is ten&mdash;at all events so many parts
-still to be accounted for. They escape, they are
-set down as volatile&mdash;the laboratory has not even a
-distinct name for this component; the laboratory
-knows nothing at all about it, cannot even name it.
-But this unknown constituent is the real champagne.
-So it is with the sap. In spring the sap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
-possesses a certain virtue; at other times of the
-year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."</p>
-
-<p>"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden,
-defiantly, stretching out her hand to the cruet.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention
-of vinegar had set his teeth on edge. He
-looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
-close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling
-the sappy swede greens with nauseous vinegar.
-To his system of edible philosophy vinegar was
-utterly antagonistic&mdash;destructive of the sap-principle,
-altogether wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as
-destroying good and precious food.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken
-the vinegar herself, but as her mother passed the
-cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed vinegar
-with the green vegetables. All women like
-vinegar.</p>
-
-<p>When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand
-Mr. Iden deigned to look round again at the
-table.</p>
-
-<p>"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to
-Amaryllis, who was cutting a piece of bread. She
-put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
-"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty
-times? Cutting towards your thumb like that!
-Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
-slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it
-to me."</p>
-
-<p>He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the
-slice across the table so accurately that it fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
-exactly into its proper place by her plate. He
-had a habit of tossing things in that way.</p>
-
-<p>"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?"
-said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging in that manner! I
-hate to see it."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took
-the lesson in bread-cutting to heart, as she had
-done twenty times before. But she knew she
-should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style
-when out of his sight. She could not do it in the
-safe way&mdash;it was so much easier in the other; and
-if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.</p>
-
-<p>"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the
-master, getting up with his plate in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>"Whatever <i>are</i> you going to do now?" asked
-Mrs. Iden, who knew perfectly well.</p>
-
-<p>"Going to warm the plate." He went out into
-the kitchen, sat down by the fire, and carefully
-warmed his plate for a second helping.</p>
-
-<p>"I should think you couldn't want any more,"
-said Mrs. Iden when he came back. "You had
-enough the first time for three."</p>
-
-<p>But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and
-had never ruined his digestion with vinegar or
-sauces, piled another series of thick slices on his
-plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to
-the meat a just proportion of vegetables. In proportion
-and a just mixture the secret of eating
-successfully consisted, according to him.</p>
-
-<p>First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton,
-this was immediately followed by a portion of floury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
-potato, next by a portion of swede tops, and then,
-lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth,
-he took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten
-and cleanse his teeth. Finally came a draught of
-strong ale, and after a brief moment the same ingredients
-were mixed in the same order as before.
-His dinner was thus eaten in a certain order, and
-with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each particular
-flavour like a rhyme in its proper position,
-and duly putting it out with its correct successor.
-Always the savour of meat and gravy and vegetables
-had to be toned down by the ultimate bread,
-a vast piece of which he kept beside him. He
-was a great bread eater&mdash;it was always bread after
-everything, and if there were two courses then bread
-between to prepare the palate, and to prevent the
-sweets from quarrelling with the acids. Organization
-was the chief characteristic of his mind&mdash;his
-very dinner was organized and well planned, and
-any break or disturbance was not so much an annoyance
-in itself as destructive of a clever design,
-like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical
-spider.</p>
-
-<p>This order of mouthfuls had been explained over
-and over again to the family, and if they felt that
-he was in a more than usually terrible mood, and if
-they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some
-extent submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis,
-however, could ever educate their palates
-into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden
-was not in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
-wandered about irregularly in their eating. When
-the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
-they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking"
-little fragments of pies, or cold fowl, even a cold
-potato, the smallest mug&mdash;a quarter of a pint of
-the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be
-had, a sip of port wine. These women were very
-irrational in their feeding; they actually put vinegar
-on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
-pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning.
-They had a herring sometimes for tea&mdash;the smell of
-it cooking sent the master into fits of indignation,
-he abominated it so, but they were so hardened
-and lost to righteousness they always repeated the
-offence next time the itinerant fish-dealer called.
-You could not drum them into good solid, straightforward
-eating.</p>
-
-<p>They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to
-eat in the kitchen after dinner, for Mr. Iden considered
-that no one could need a second course
-after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel
-of cheese if you liked&mdash;nothing more. In summer
-the great garden abounded with fruit; he would
-have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day
-after day, or else black-currant pudding. He held
-that black currants were the most wholesome fruit
-that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite
-clean he would rub them with black-currant leaves
-to give them a pleasant aromatic odour (as ladies
-use scented soap). He rubbed them with walnut-leaves
-for the same purpose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Of salad in its season he was a great eater,
-cucumber especially, and lettuce and celery; but
-a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of Worcester
-sauce) was a horror to him. A principle
-ran through all his eating&mdash;an idea, a plan and
-design.</p>
-
-<p>I assure you it is a very important matter this
-eating, a man's fortune depends on his dinner. I
-should have been as rich as Cr&oelig;sus if I could only
-have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I
-should, now I come to look back.</p>
-
-<p>The soundest and most wholesome food in the
-world was set on Mr. Iden's table; you may differ
-from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
-dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh
-vegetables and fruit and salad, and the Goliath ale.</p>
-
-<p>When he had at last finished his meal he took
-his knife and carefully scraped his crumbs together,
-drawing the edge along the cloth, first one way and
-then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating
-so much bread, he made many crumbs. Having
-got them together, he proceeded to shovel them
-into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that
-not one was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a
-little moist sugar over them with his finger and
-thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and
-cheese, and sat down with it in his arm-chair by
-the fire, spreading his large red-and-yellow silk
-handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
-lieu of a plate.</p>
-
-<p>"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
-like other people?" said Mrs. Iden, shuffling her
-feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
-in the throat was the answer she received; at the
-same time he turned his arm-chair more towards
-the fire, as much as to say, "Other people are
-nothing to me."</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 135px;">
-<img src="images/i-038.png" width="135" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make,
-had lost an arm&mdash;the screw remained
-sticking up, but the woodwork on that
-side was gone. It had been accidentally
-broken some ten years since; yet,
-although he used the chair every day, the arm had
-never been mended. Awkward as it was, he let it
-alone.</div>
-
-<p>"Hum! where's <i>The Standard</i>, then?" he said
-presently, as he nibbled his cheese and sipped the
-ale which he had placed on the hob.</p>
-
-<p>"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with
-the paper.</p>
-
-<p>"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs.
-Iden. "Thought there was nothing but lies and
-rubbish in them, according to you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No more thur bean't."</p>
-
-<p>"You always take good care to read them,
-though."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another
-slight turn of the chair. He could not answer this
-charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
-affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it
-with avidity, and would almost as soon have missed
-his ale as his news.</p>
-
-<p>However, to settle with his conscience, he had a
-manner of holding the paper half aslant a good way
-from him, and every now and then as he read
-uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.</p>
-
-<p>The master's taking up his paper was a signal
-for all other persons to leave the room, and not to
-return till he had finished his news and his nap.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each
-took as many of the dishes as they could carry,
-for it was uncertain when they could come in again
-to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved,
-the door opened, or the slightest sound heard till
-the siesta was over.</p>
-
-<p>"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock,"
-said Mrs. Iden as she went, "and then you want
-your tea&mdash;senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
-and the master was left to himself.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped
-his newspaper, and arranged himself for slumber.
-His left elbow he carefully fitted to the remnant of
-the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief,
-red and yellow, he gathered into a loose
-pad in his left hand for his cheek and temple to
-rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand
-and arm, while the side of his head touched and
-rested against the wainscot of the wall.</p>
-
-<p>Just where his head touched it the wainscot had
-been worn away by the daily pressure, leaving a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
-round spot. The wood was there exposed&mdash;a
-round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being
-completely bare of varnish. So many nods&mdash;the
-attrition of thirty years and more of nodding&mdash;had
-gradually ground away the coat with which the
-painter had originally covered the wood. It even
-looked a little hollow&mdash;a little depressed&mdash;as if his
-head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
-probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the
-difference in colour between the wood and the varnish
-around it.</p>
-
-<p>This human mark reminded one of the grooves
-worn by the knees of generations of worshippers in
-the sacred steps of the temple which they ascended
-on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion,
-as Mrs. Iden and others, not very keen observers,
-would have said, to the god of Sleep; in truth, it
-was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
-throne of the god of Thought.</p>
-
-<p>It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement
-assumed this posture of slumber, and commanded
-silence. But thought which has been
-cultivated for a third of a century is apt to tone
-down to something very near somnolence.</p>
-
-<p>That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy
-of preservation as those on which the early artists
-delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for which
-high prices are now paid. It was intensely&mdash;superlatively&mdash;human.
-Worn in slow time by a
-human head within which a great mind was working
-under the most unhappy conditions, it had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
-deep value attaching to inanimate things which
-have witnessed intolerable suffering.</p>
-
-<p>I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess
-that if I could be assured any particular piece of
-wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
-should think it the most valuable thing in the world,
-to which Koh-i-noors would be mud.</p>
-
-<p>I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above
-crowns.</p>
-
-<p>That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart
-had been tortured for the third of a century, that
-is, for the space of time allotted to a generation.</p>
-
-<p>That mark upon the panel had still a further
-meaning, it represented the unhappiness, the misfortunes,
-the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
-family of Idens had endured already two hundred
-years of unhappiness and discordance for no original
-fault of theirs, simply because they had once been
-fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to
-work out that hour of sunshine to the utmost depths
-of shadow.</p>
-
-<p>The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark
-had been worn was in effect a cross upon which a
-human heart had been tortured&mdash;and thought can,
-indeed, torture&mdash;for a third of a century. For
-Iden had learned to know himself, and despaired.</p>
-
-<p>Not long after he had settled himself and closed
-his eyes the handle of the door was very softly
-turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book, which
-she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on
-tiptoe without a sound, but in shutting the door the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
-lock clicked, and she heard him kick the fender
-angrily with his iron-shod heel.</p>
-
-<p>After that there was utter silence, except the
-ticking of the American clock&mdash;a loud and distinct
-tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
-room.</p>
-
-<p>Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the
-window, a noiseless shadow; Mrs. Iden had come
-quietly round the house, and stood in the March
-wind, watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl
-about her shoulders&mdash;she put out her clenched hand
-from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
-muttering to herself, "Never <i>do</i> anything; nothing
-but sleep, sleep, sleep: talk, talk, talk; never <i>do</i>
-anything. That's what I hate."</p>
-
-<p>The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common
-American clock continued its loud tick, tick.</p>
-
-<p>Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be
-audible among the cinders in the fender. The dry
-cinders were pushed about by something passing
-between them. After a while a brown mouse
-peered out at the end of the fender under Iden's
-chair, looked round a moment, and went back to
-the grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured
-somewhat farther across the width of the
-white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
-advance was made step by step, but on reaching
-the carpet the mouse rushed home to cover in one
-run&mdash;like children at "touch wood," going out
-from a place of safety very cautiously, returning
-swiftly. The next time another mouse followed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
-and a third appeared at the other end of the fender.
-By degrees they got under the table, and helped
-themselves to the crumbs; one mounted a chair
-and reached the cloth, but soon descended, afraid
-to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at
-their dinner.</p>
-
-<p>The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if
-carved.</p>
-
-<p>A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued
-iron-shod boot&mdash;the foot that rested on the
-fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
-and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained
-by labour, was drawn up somewhat higher
-than the boot. It took the mouse several trials to
-reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously
-mounted to Iden's knee. Another quickly followed,
-and there the pair of them feasted on the
-crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of
-his trousers.</p>
-
-<p>One great brown hand was in his pocket, close
-to them&mdash;a mighty hand, beside which they were
-pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What would
-have been the value of their lives between a finger
-and thumb that could crack a ripe and strong-shelled
-walnut?</p>
-
-<p>The size&mdash;the mass&mdash;the weight of his hand
-alone was as a hill overshadowing them; his broad
-frame like the Alps; his head high above as a vast
-rock that overhung the valley.</p>
-
-<p>His thumb-nail&mdash;widened by labour with spade
-and axe&mdash;his thumb-nail would have covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
-either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
-Ajax.</p>
-
-<p>Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence.
-He was so still, so <i>very</i> still&mdash;quiescent&mdash;they
-feared him no more than they did the wall; they
-could not hear his breathing.</p>
-
-<p>Had they been gifted with human intelligence
-that very fact would have excited their suspicions.
-Why so very, <i>very</i> still? Strong men, wearied by
-work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily.
-Even in firm sleep we move a little now and then, a
-limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or stretches itself.</p>
-
-<p>But Iden was so still it was evident he was really
-wide awake and restraining his breath, and exercising
-conscious command over his muscles, that
-this scene might proceed undisturbed.</p>
-
-<p>Now the strangeness of the thing was in this
-way: Iden set traps for mice in the cellar and the
-larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
-picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the
-door at the same instant, and the wretched captive
-was dashed to death upon the stone flags of the
-floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in
-one place, and fed them in another.</p>
-
-<p>A long psychological discussion might be held
-on this apparent inconsistency, but I shall leave
-analysis to those who like it, and go on recording
-facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing
-is consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent
-it would have no association with a living
-person.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>From the merest thin slit, as it were, between
-his eyelids, Iden watched the mice feed and run
-about his knees till, having eaten every crumb, they
-descended his leg to the floor.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/i-040.png" width="122" height="210" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 118px;">
-<img src="images/h.png" width="118" height="120" alt="H" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>E was not asleep&mdash;he was thinking.
-Sometimes, of course, it happened that
-slumber was induced by the position
-in which he placed himself; slumber,
-however, was not his intent. He liked
-to rest after his midday meal and think. There
-was no real loss of time in it&mdash;he had been at work
-since half-past five.</div>
-
-<p>His especial and striking characteristic was a
-very large, high, and noble forehead&mdash;the forehead
-attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his busts.
-Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he
-was not altogether a man of action. He was, indeed,
-an actor upon the stage; once he stole the
-red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
-not sail to the then new discovered lands of America,
-nor did he fight the Spaniards. So much intellect
-is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or rather
-it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs
-to the position of commander. If Shakespeare by
-the chance of birth, or other accident, had had the
-order of England's forces, we should have seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
-generalship such as the world had not known since
-C&aelig;sar.</p>
-
-<p>His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till
-opportunity came. We have great thoughts instead
-of battles.</p>
-
-<p>Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for
-Shakespeare's. There was too much thought in it
-for the circumstances of his life. It is possible to
-think till you cannot act.</p>
-
-<p>After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a
-few minutes. When he awoke he looked at the
-clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven
-of the grate, took out a baked apple. He had one
-there ready for him almost always&mdash;always, that is,
-when they were not ripe on the trees.</p>
-
-<p>A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome
-thing in the world; it corrected the stomach, prevented
-acidity, improved digestion, and gave tone
-to all the food that had been eaten previously. If
-people would only eat baked apples they would not
-need to be for ever going to the chemists' shops
-for drugs and salines to put them right. The
-women were always at the chemists' shops&mdash;you
-could never pass the chemists' shops in the town
-without seeing two or three women buying something.</p>
-
-<p>The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural
-medicine of man&mdash;and the best flavoured. It was
-compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
-of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind
-and shower in such a way that no laboratory could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
-imitate: and so on in a strain and with a simplicity
-of language that reminded you of Bacon and his
-philosophy of the Elizabethan age.</p>
-
-<p>Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian
-culture, naturally, and not from any study of
-that author, whose books he had never seen. The
-great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and
-garden, and gathered his ideas from the fields.</p>
-
-<p>Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden.
-Look at a Blenheim orange, the inimitable mixture
-of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
-not bright colours&mdash;undertones of bright colours&mdash;smoothed
-together and polished, and made the
-more delightful by occasional roughness in the rind.
-Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was
-getting older he found, however, that the finest of
-them all was the russet. For eating, at its proper
-season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply
-the Imperial C&aelig;sar and Sultan of apples; whether
-for baking, or pies, or sauce, there was none to
-equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true russet
-was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary
-that it should be the real russet. Indeed in apple
-trees you had to be as careful of breeding and
-pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about
-their horses.</p>
-
-<p>Ripe apples could not be got all the year round
-in any variety; besides which, in winter and cold
-weather the crudity of the stomach needed to be
-assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake
-them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days;
-they had too much butcher's meat, and not
-enough fruit&mdash;that is, home-grown fruit, straight
-from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold
-in the shops, picked before it was ready.</p>
-
-<p>The Americans were much wiser (he knew a
-good deal about America&mdash;he had been there in
-his early days, before thought superseded action)&mdash;the
-Americans had kept up many of the fine old
-English customs of two or three hundred years
-since, and among these was the eating of fruit.
-They were accused of being so modern, so very,
-very modern, but, in fact, the country Americans,
-with whom he had lived (and who had taught him
-how to chop) maintained much of the genuine
-antique life of old England.</p>
-
-<p>They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that
-the same trees produced an apple having a slightly
-different flavour to what it had in this country.
-You could always distinguish an American apple
-by its peculiar piquancy&mdash;a sub-acid piquancy, a
-wild strawberry piquancy, a sort of woodland,
-forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so
-on, and so on&mdash;"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden
-said.</p>
-
-<p>After his baked apple he took another guilty
-look at the clock, it was close on four, and went
-into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
-these places are called passages; in the smallest of
-villas, wretched little villas not fit to be called
-houses, they are always "halls."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him,
-and began to thump his broad though bowed back
-with all her might.</p>
-
-<p>"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a
-thump at each word. "You've slept two hours.
-(Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
-(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the
-use of digging? (Thump.) Why don't you make
-some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.)
-I hate it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off
-the wainscot with your sleep, sleep, sleep (thump)&mdash;there's
-one of your hairs sticking to the paint
-where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything
-more hateful&mdash;sleep (thump), talk (thump), sleep
-(thump). Go on!"</p>
-
-<p>She had thumped him down the passage, and
-across the covered-in court to the door opening on
-the garden. There he paused to put on his hat&mdash;an
-aged, battered hat&mdash;some sort of nondescript
-bowler, broken, grey, weather-stained, very battered
-and very aged&mdash;a pitiful hat to put above that
-broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted
-it on he was thumped severely: when he opened
-the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up at
-the sky to see about the weather&mdash;a habit all
-country people have&mdash;and so got more thumping,
-ending as he started out with a tremendous push.
-He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the
-push accelerate his pace; he took it very much as
-he took the March wind.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
-clear the dinner things, and make ready for tea.
-Amaryllis helped her.</p>
-
-<p>"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs.
-Iden. "What's the use of his going out to work
-for half an hour?"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her
-father; he never did anything wrong in her eyes,
-and she could have pointed out that when he sat
-down to dinner at one he had already worked as
-many hours as Mrs. Iden's model City gentleman
-in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in effect,
-equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over
-which they frequently lingered an hour or two. He
-would still go on labouring, almost another half day.
-But she held her peace, for, on the other hand, she
-could not contradict and argue with her mother,
-whom she knew had had a wearisome life and
-perpetual disappointments.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself
-into a more fiery passion, till at last she put
-down the tea-pot, and rushed into the garden.
-There as she came round the first thing she saw was
-the daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had
-discovered. Beside herself with indignation&mdash;what
-was the use of flowers or potatoes?&mdash;Mrs.
-Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower
-under foot till it was shapeless. After this she
-rushed indoors again and upstairs to her bedroom,
-where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in
-the old black oak chest of drawers till she found a
-faded lavender glove.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>That glove had been worn at the old "Ship"
-at Brighton years and years ago in the honeymoon
-trip: in those days bridal parties went down
-by coach. Faded with years, it had also faded
-from the tears that had fallen upon it. She turned
-it over in her hands, and her tears spotted it once
-more.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her
-mother to rush away in that manner was nothing
-new. She toasted her father a piece of toast&mdash;he
-affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it
-was there, and looked about for it if it was not,
-though he never said anything. The clock struck
-five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready.
-Coming round the house she found her daffodil
-crushed to pieces.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead;
-then her beautiful lips pouted and quivered; tears
-filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
-immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom
-to cry and to hide her grief and indignation.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/i-043.png" width="100" height="59" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ADY-DAY Fair came round by and by,
-and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock in
-the morning, went down the garden to
-the end of the orchard, where she could
-overlook the highway without being
-seen, and watch the folk go past. Just there the
-road began to descend into a hollow, while the
-garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning
-her arm on the top of the wall, was much higher
-up than those who went along. The wall dropped
-quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red
-brick wall&mdash;thick and closely-built, the bricks close
-together with thin seams of mortar, so that the
-fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed
-and bound firm, like the fibres of a piece of
-iron. The deep red bricks had a colour&mdash;a certain
-richness of stability&mdash;and at the top this good
-piece of workmanship was protected from the
-weather by a kind of cap, and ornamented with a
-projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
-stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it.
-Without there was a sheer red precipice of fourteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
-feet down to the dusty sward and nettles beside
-the road.</div>
-
-<p>Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against
-the wall rose thin and tapering above it in a bunch,
-a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to have
-been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance
-of neglect. One heavy bough had broken
-away from the nails and list, and drooped to the
-ground, and the shoots of last year, not having
-been trimmed, thrust themselves forward presumptuously.</p>
-
-<p>Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches
-rising above the wall Amaryllis was partly hidden,
-but she relied a great deal more for concealment
-upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very
-seldom look up; and consequently if you are only
-a little higher they will not see you. This she
-proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
-glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his
-eye fixed on his sheep, and the drover on his
-bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
-fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had
-on a bit of blue ribbon or a new bonnet, and
-were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
-them to see if the men admired their finery.
-No one looked up from the road they were pursuing.</p>
-
-<p>The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by
-a sort of stand at the back, which holds it steady
-in one position while the camera takes the picture.
-In life most people have their heads fixed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
-claws of some miserable pettiness, which interests
-them so greatly that they tramp on steadily forward,
-staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
-fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they
-are travelling.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair
-or the people either, knowing very well what sort
-they would be; but I suspect, if it had been possible
-to have got at the cause which brought her
-there, it would have been traced to the unconscious
-influence of sex, a perfectly innocent prompting,
-quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and
-who would indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject,
-but which leads girls of her age to seize
-opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
-uninteresting order. Still they are men, those
-curious beings, that unknown race, and little bits of
-knowledge about them may, perhaps, be picked up
-by a diligent observer.</p>
-
-<p>The men who drifted along the road towards the
-Fair were no "mashers, by Jove!" Some of them,
-though young, were clad antiquely enough in
-breeches and gaiters&mdash;not sportsmen's breeches
-and gaiters, but old-fashioned "granfer" things;
-the most of them were stout and sturdy, in drab
-and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds
-of them on foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on
-horseback, went under Amaryllis: but, though they
-were all Christians, there was not one "worth a
-Jewess' eye."</p>
-
-<p>She scorned them all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>This member of the unknown race was too
-thickly made, short set, and squat; this one too
-fair&mdash;quite white and moist-sugar looking; this
-one had a straight leg.</p>
-
-<p>Another went by with a great thick and long
-black beard&mdash;what a horrid thing, now, when
-kissing!&mdash;and as he walked he wiped it with his
-sleeve, for he had just washed down the dust with
-a glass of ale. His neck, too, was red and thick;
-hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man
-all over, as far as body makes a man.</p>
-
-<p>But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges.
-"Care I for the thews and sinews of a man?" They
-look for something more than bulk.</p>
-
-<p>A good many of these fellows were more or less
-lame, for it is astonishing if you watch people go by
-and keep account of them what a number have
-game legs, both young and old.</p>
-
-<p>A young buck on a capital horse was at the first
-glance more interesting&mdash;paler, rakish, a cigar in
-his mouth, an air of viciousness and dash combined,
-fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in short,
-he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of
-sheep and corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked
-him more than all the rest put together; she shrank
-back a little from the wall lest he should chance to
-look up; she would have feared to have been alone
-with such a character, and yet she could not have
-said why. She would not have feared to walk side
-by side with the great black beard&mdash;hideous as he
-was&mdash;nor with any of the rest, not even with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
-roughest of the labourers who tramped along. This
-gentleman alone alarmed her.</p>
-
-<p>There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day
-holiday, coming by at the same time; they had on
-their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
-nice. They turned round to watch him coming,
-and half waited for him; when he came up he
-checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them.
-Nothing loth, the village girls "cheeked" him,
-and so they passed on.</p>
-
-<p>One or two very long men appeared, unusually
-clumsy, even in walking they did not know exactly
-what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
-objection to their being tall&mdash;indeed, to be tall is
-often a passport to a "Jewess' eye"&mdash;but they
-were so clumsy.</p>
-
-<p>Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles
-she could not see much but their clothes and their
-faces, and both the clothes and the faces were very
-much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the
-shoulders were too broad for the tailor, who wanted
-to force Bond Street measurements on the British
-farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
-hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and
-that was all. Scores of men, precisely similar,
-were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
-hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not
-have peeled rods to make them bring forth speckled
-lambs.</p>
-
-<p>Against the stile a long way up the road there
-was a group of five or six men, who were there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
-when she first peered over the wall, and made no
-further progress to the Fair. They were waiting
-till some acquaintance came by and offered a lift;
-lazy dogs, they could not walk. They had already
-been there long enough to have walked to the Fair
-and back, still they preferred to fold their hands
-and cross their legs, and stay on. So many people
-being anxious to get to the town, most of those
-who drove had picked up friends long before they
-got here.</p>
-
-<p>The worst walker of all was a constable, whose
-huge boots seemed to take possession of the width
-of the road, for he turned them out at right angles,
-working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary
-exhibition of stupidity and ugliness, for which the
-authorities who drilled him in that way were responsible,
-and not the poor fellow.</p>
-
-<p>Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep
-there drifted by a variety of human animals, tramps
-and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as the
-wool and beef.</p>
-
-<p>It is curious that these "characters"&mdash;as they
-are so kindly called&mdash;have a way of associating
-themselves with things that promise vast enjoyment
-to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless
-wretches who thread their path in and out the
-coaches at the Derby is wonderful. While the
-champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman
-between the shafts sits on an upturned hamper
-and helps himself out of another to pie with truffles,
-the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
-about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve
-after the fall at the edge of Paradise.</p>
-
-<p>There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at
-the Derby that you might think the race was got
-up entirely for their sakes. There would be thousands
-at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a
-half-crown bolt, and they cannot get a stare at the
-fashionables on the lawn. For all that, the true
-tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant
-at races and all kinds of accessible entertainments
-and public events that the features of the fashionable
-are better known to him than to hundreds of
-well-to-do people unable to enter society.</p>
-
-<p>So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in
-the dust, among the cattle and sheep, hands in
-pockets, head hanging down, most of them followed
-at a short distance by a Thing.</p>
-
-<p>This Thing is upright, and therefore, according
-to the old definition, ought to come within the genus
-Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling those
-of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a
-woman once; perhaps it never was, for many of
-them have never had a chance to enter the ranks
-of their own sex.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence,
-too full of her own strength and youth and joy in
-life to think for long or seriously about these curious
-Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her
-brow contracted, and she drew herself together as
-they passed&mdash;a sort of shiver, to think that there
-should be such degradation in the world. Twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
-when they came along her side of the road she
-dropped pennies in front of them, which they picked
-up in a listless way, just glancing over the ear in
-the direction the money fell, and went on without
-so much as recognizing where it came from.</p>
-
-<p>If sheep were treated as unfortunate human
-beings are, they would take a bitter revenge; though
-they are the mildest of creatures, they would soon
-turn round in a venomous manner. If they did
-not receive sufficient to eat and drink, and were not
-well sheltered, they would take a bitter revenge:
-<i>they would die</i>. Loss of &pound; s. d.!</p>
-
-<p>But human beings have not even got the courage
-or energy to do that; they put up with anything,
-and drag on&mdash;miserables that they are.</p>
-
-<p>I said they were not equal in value to the sheep&mdash;why,
-they're not worth anything when they're
-dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
-Things!</p>
-
-<p>Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the
-fair, where there will be an immense amount of
-eating and a far larger amount of drinking all round
-them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight.
-They will see valuable animals, and men with well-lined
-pockets. What on earth can a tramp find to
-please him among all this? It is not for him; yet
-he goes to see it.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE crowd began to pass more thickly,
-when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
-the road in the opposite direction to
-that in which the multitude was moving.
-They were going to the fair; he had
-his back to it, and a party in a trap rallied him
-smartly for his folly.</div>
-
-<p>"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why,
-Measter Duck, what's up? Looking for a thunderstorm?"&mdash;which
-young ducks are supposed to
-enjoy. "Ha! ha! ha!"</p>
-
-<p>Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face,
-nevertheless plodded up the hill, and passed beneath
-Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>She knew him very well, for he lived in the
-hamlet, but she would not have taken any notice
-of him had he not been so elaborately dressed.
-His high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth
-coat was new and carefully brushed; he was
-in black all over, in contrast with the mass of
-people who had gone by that morning. A blue
-necktie, bright and clean, spotless linen, gloves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
-rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers brushed,
-boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the
-fair!</p>
-
-<p>The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact,
-no chance to do otherwise, for his great back and
-shoulders stretched it tight, and would have done
-so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big
-men who had gone by that day Jack Duck was the
-biggest; his back was immense, and straight, too,
-for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his
-bulk altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened
-with abdomen, so that it showed to the
-best advantage. He was a little over the average
-height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.</p>
-
-<p>He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground.
-You just try to lift <i>one</i>.</p>
-
-<p>His sleeves were too long, so that only the great
-knuckles of his speckled hands were visible. Red
-whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled face, straight
-lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher,
-and of much the same coarse red hue, always a
-ready grin, a round, hard head, which you might have
-hit safely with a mallet; and there is the picture.</p>
-
-<p>For some reason, very big men do not look well
-in glossy black coats and silk hats; they seem to
-want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
-than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a
-free-and-easy colour, suitable for the field, or
-cricket, or boating. They do not belong to the
-town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for
-hills and fields.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen
-are big, and therefore, as their "best"
-suits do not fit in with their character as written
-in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us
-clumsy. The truth is, it is the Continent that is
-little.</p>
-
-<p>"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking
-down on poor John Duck. "Isn't he ugly?"
-Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss,
-which has a way of growing into bricks and mortar,
-and attaching particles of brick to its roots. As
-she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
-with a little piece of moss&mdash;her hand happened at
-the moment to project over the wall, and as John
-Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
-straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of
-brick adhering to the moss struck the hollow hat
-smartly like a drum.</p>
-
-<p>She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing,
-and angry with herself all at the same time, for she
-had done it without a thought.</p>
-
-<p>Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it
-on again, suspecting that some one in a passing gig
-had "chucked" something at him.</p>
-
-<p>In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall,
-and, seeing his broad back a long way up the road,
-resumed her stand.</p>
-
-<p>"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?"
-she thought. "But isn't he ugly? Aren't they
-<i>all</i> ugly? All of them&mdash;horridly ugly."</p>
-
-<p>The entire unknown race of Man was hideous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
-So coarse in feature&mdash;their noses were thick, half
-an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
-the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a
-reaping-hook, or slewed to one side, or flat as if
-they had been smashed, or short and stumpy and
-incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned
-up in the vulgarest manner&mdash;nobody had a good
-nose.</p>
-
-<p>Their eyes were goggles, round and staring&mdash;like
-liquid marbles&mdash;they had no eyelashes,
-and their eyebrows were either white and invisible,
-or shaggy, as if thistles grew along their
-foreheads.</p>
-
-<p>Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red
-and brick-dust and leather-coloured, and enclosed
-with scrubby whiskers, like a garden hedge.</p>
-
-<p>Upon the whole, those who shaved and were
-smooth looked worse than those who did not, for
-they thus exposed the angularities of their chins
-and jaws.</p>
-
-<p>They wore such horrid hats on the top of these
-roughly-sketched faces&mdash;sketched, as it were, with
-a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had their hats
-on the backs of their heads, and some wore them
-aslant, and some jammed over their brows.</p>
-
-<p>They went along smoking and puffing, and talking
-and guffawing in the vulgarest way, <i>en route</i> to
-swill and smoke and puff and guffaw somewhere
-else.</p>
-
-<p>Whoever could tell what they were talking
-about? these creatures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They had no form or grace like a woman&mdash;no
-lovely sloped shoulders, no beautiful bosom, no
-sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No
-softness of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or
-taper fingers, or arched eyebrows; no sort of style
-whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
-in short, sublimely ugly.</p>
-
-<p>There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis'
-reflections; it was a pity a woman was not taken
-into confidence when the men were made.</p>
-
-<p>Suppose the women were like the men, and we
-had to make love to such a set of bristly, grisly
-wretches!&mdash;pah! shouldn't we think them ugly!
-The patience of the women, putting up with us so
-long!</p>
-
-<p>As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves
-so much, in a woman's eyes (though she prefers a
-strong man) they simply increase our extraordinary
-ugliness.</p>
-
-<p>But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then
-they despise us, and there is no doubt that altogether
-the men were made wrong.</p>
-
-<p>"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot,"
-thought Amaryllis. "He just <i>is</i> ugly."</p>
-
-<p>Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came
-by-and-by to the gateway, and entering without
-ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found
-Mr. Iden near the back door talking to a farmer
-who had seated himself on a stool.</p>
-
-<p>He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid,
-rough as a chunk of wood, but dressed in his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
-brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
-vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances
-to Mr. Iden:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Now, just you see how I be helped up with
-this here 'ooman," he concluded as Duck arrived.
-Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity to
-escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he
-had patiently listened, took Jack by the arm, and
-led him indoors. As they went the man on the
-stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:&mdash;"Just
-you see how I be helped up with this here
-'ooman!"</p>
-
-<p>A good many have been "helped up" with a
-woman before now.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile&mdash;she
-always did&mdash;yet there could not have been imagined
-a man less likely to have pleased her.</p>
-
-<p>A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to
-detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness
-and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck,
-that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that
-enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes
-meet? No, since she was always complaining of
-Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
-to her own disposition that charmed her.</p>
-
-<p>John Duck was Another Man&mdash;not Mr. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>The best of matrons like to see Another Man
-enter their houses; there's no viciousness in it, it
-is simply nature, which requires variety. The best
-of husbands likes to have another woman&mdash;or two,
-or three&mdash;on a visit; there's nothing wrong, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
-innocent enough, and but gives a spice to the
-monotony of existence.</p>
-
-<p>Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness
-and stolidity, was not perhaps a fool, notwithstanding
-his outward clumsiness. A little attention is
-appreciated even by a matron of middle age.</p>
-
-<p>"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and
-Mrs. Iden brought a full jug with her own hands&mdash;a
-rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
-Iden enjoyed it.</p>
-
-<p>"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and
-gruff, about as a horse might be expected to speak
-if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just come
-up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"</p>
-
-<p>John had a first-rate turn-out.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she
-was not going to the fair.</p>
-
-<p>"Should be glad to take you, you know," said
-John, dipping into the ale. "Shall you be going
-presently?"&mdash;to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have
-a seat?"</p>
-
-<p>"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a
-trick he had when undecided. "I don't zactly
-know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge
-grubbed; want to fill up the gaps; want to go over
-to the wood meads; thought about&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit
-there thinking&mdash;take and go."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have
-anything to go vor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden,
-contemptuously. "Why can't you do like other
-people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
-can wait&mdash;he can talk to Amaryllis while you
-dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested
-John, very quietly, and as if it was no consequence
-to him; the very thing he had called for, to see if
-he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He
-knew that Mrs. Iden never went anywhere, and
-that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
-minute&mdash;he would require three or four days at
-least&mdash;so that it was quite safe to ask them first.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She
-is going&mdash;to dine with her grandfather; it will save
-her a long walk. You had better go and ask
-her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the
-people."</p>
-
-<p>"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great
-bow window at the mention of Plum Corner&mdash;he
-could just see the flutter of Amaryllis' dress in the
-distance between the trees. That part of the
-garden was called Plum Corner because of a famous
-plum tree&mdash;the one that had not been pruned and
-was sprawling about the wall.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for
-Mrs. Iden, because she was so fond of a ripe
-luscious plum. But of late years he had not
-pruned it.</p>
-
-<p>"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug.
-"Extra vine ale!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>It really was humming stuff, but John well knew
-how proud Iden was of it, and how much he liked
-to hear it praised.</p>
-
-<p>The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly
-imagine that no one can be sharp-witted
-outside the sound of Bow Bells&mdash;country people
-are stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck,
-who took about half an hour to write his name, was
-equal to most of them.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 172px;">
-<img src="images/i-047.png" width="172" height="160" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-048.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE ale being ended, Iden walked with
-him through the orchard.</div>
-
-<p>"Famous wall that," said John, presently,
-nodding towards the great red
-brick wall which adorned that side of
-the place. "Knowed how to build walls in those
-days."</p>
-
-<p>"No such wall as that anywhere about here,"
-said Iden, as proud of his wall as his ale. "No
-such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to
-put up a wall now&mdash;you read in the papers how the
-houses valls down in Lunnon."</p>
-
-<p>"Sort of cracks and comes in like&mdash;jest squashes
-up," said John.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden.
-"That'll last&mdash;ah, last&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No end to it," said John, who had admired the
-wall forty times before, thinking to himself as he
-saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner, "Blessed if
-I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my
-hat." This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably
-clear idea that Mr. and Mrs. Iden were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
-averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
-Amaryllis herself.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had
-so much as looked at her&mdash;he called often, but
-seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy her
-scorn if she had guessed!</p>
-
-<p>John Duck was considered one of the most eligible
-young men thereabouts, for though by no means
-born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
-was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his
-father died. Old Duck, the son of a common
-labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms
-in the neighbourhood. He made his money in a
-waggon&mdash;a curious place, you will say; why so?
-Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets
-they call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended
-the dirty, unscrubbed, disgraceful staircase that leads
-to a famous barrister's "chambers"? These are
-far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon
-in a beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck,
-being too ponderous to walk, was driven about in a
-waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
-legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted
-in a commanding position, he overlooked his men
-at work.</p>
-
-<p>One day he was put in a cart instead, and the
-carter walking home beside the horse, and noting
-what a pull it was for him up the hills, and drawling
-along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and
-dreamed he had a load of stones. By-and-by, he
-pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck out. "A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
-shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a
-been a load of flints."</p>
-
-<p>Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow
-had amassed considerable wealth&mdash;his reputation
-for money was very great indeed&mdash;and his son
-John would, of course, come in for it.</p>
-
-<p>John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about
-Amaryllis he did not know. The idea that she
-had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
-spirits immensely.</p>
-
-<p>Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful&mdash;she was
-too young; I do not think any girl is really
-beautiful so young&mdash;she was highly individualized,
-and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face
-and figure. You saw at a glance that there was
-something about her very different from other girls,
-something very marked, but it was not beauty
-yet.</p>
-
-<p>Whether John thought her handsome, or saw
-that she would be, or what, I do not know; or
-whether he looked "forrard," as he would have
-said.</p>
-
-<div class='center'>
-"Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>John had never read Burns, and would not have
-known that tocher meant dowry; nor had he seen
-the advice of Tennyson&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-"Doesn't thee marry for money,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">But go where money lies."</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>but his native intelligence needed no assistance
-from the poets, coronetted or otherwise.</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden,
-was as poor as the raggedest coat in Christendom
-could make him; but it was equally well known and
-a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the
-great miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the
-boys called him derisively, had literally bushels
-upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
-for ancient usages, and it was understood that there
-were twenty thousand spade guineas in an iron
-box under his bed. Any cottager in the whole
-country side could have told you so, and would
-have smiled at your ignorance; the thing was as
-well known as that St. Paul's is in the City.</p>
-
-<p>Besides which there was another consideration,
-old Granfer Iden was a great favourite at Court&mdash;Court
-meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
-Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the
-county. Granfer Iden entered the Deer Park
-(which was private) with a special key whenever
-he pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked
-in at the conservatory, chatted familiarly with the
-royal family of Pamment when they were at home,
-and when they were away took any friend he chose
-through the galleries and saloons.</p>
-
-<p>"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said
-John Duck to himself many a time and oft. "They
-stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
-wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite
-at Court could dispense, no doubt, many valuable
-privileges.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
-and turned round and faced them. She wore a
-black dress, but no hat; instead she had carelessly
-thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla
-fashion, and held it with one hand. Her dark
-ringlets fringed her forehead, blown free and wild;
-the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
-cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose
-figure is just beginning to show itself, her dress
-seemed somewhat shortened in front&mdash;lifted up
-from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy
-to her form, she seemed about to walk though
-standing still. There was a defiant light in her
-deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition
-which our grandmothers used to say
-would take us to the gallows. Defiance, wilfulness,
-rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood
-on the bank, a little higher than they were, and
-able to look over their heads.</p>
-
-<p>"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one
-side as a salute.</p>
-
-<p>"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his
-broad pronunciation.</p>
-
-<p>As John could not get any further Iden helped
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and
-thought you would like to ride with him. Run in
-and dress."</p>
-
-<p>"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."</p>
-
-<p>"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."</p>
-
-<p>"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.</p>
-
-<p>"Lot of cattle about," said John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Better ride," said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on
-them to look over the wall again.</p>
-
-<p>She was a despot already. There was nothing
-left for them but to walk away.</p>
-
-<p>"However," said Iden, always trying to round
-things off and make square edges smooth, "very
-likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."</p>
-
-<p>"Her wull go across the fields," said John.
-"Shan't see her."</p>
-
-<p>As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap
-he looked up at the corner of the wall, but she
-was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had fetched
-her in, as it was time to dress.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate
-fairs&mdash;they are so silly."</p>
-
-<p>"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your
-grandfather sent a message last night; you know
-it's his dinner-day."</p>
-
-<p>"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis,
-"I can't bear him."</p>
-
-<p>"How dare you speak of your grandfather like
-that? you are getting very rude and disrespectful."</p>
-
-<p>There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one
-time she would go on and abuse Granfer Iden for
-an hour at a time, calling him every name she could
-think of, and accusing him of every folly under the
-sun. At another time she would solemnly inform
-Amaryllis that they had not a farthing of money,
-and how necessary it was that they should be
-attentive and civil to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the
-first jacket to hand.</p>
-
-<p>"What! aren't you going to change your
-dress?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, that I'm not."</p>
-
-<p>"Change it directly."</p>
-
-<p>"What, to go in and see that musty old&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Change it directly; I <i>will</i> be obeyed."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.</p>
-
-<p>One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim
-and let her do just as she pleased; the next she
-insisted on minute obedience.</p>
-
-<p>"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your
-things on&mdash;come."</p>
-
-<p>So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled
-out of the house and started off. As John had
-foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow the
-path across the fields, which was shorter.</p>
-
-<p>An hour or so later Iden came in from work as
-usual, a few minutes before dinner, and having
-drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in the
-bow window till the dishes were brought.</p>
-
-<p>"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Gone&mdash;wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"To fair, of course&mdash;like other people."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum," growled Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"You know your father expects all the family to
-come in to dinner on fair day; I can't think how
-you can neglect him, when you know we haven't got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
-a shilling&mdash;why don't you go in and speak to
-him?"</p>
-
-<p>"You can go if you like."</p>
-
-<p>"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill
-accents of contempt. "I don't care a button for
-all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money.
-I'm as good as he is any day. My family go about,
-and do some business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Your</i> family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, <i>my</i> family&mdash;as good as yours, I should
-think! What's your family then, that you should
-be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"</p>
-
-<p>"You be descended from a quart pot," said
-Iden.</p>
-
-<p>This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather,
-who had kept a small wayside public.
-There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
-respectable man, and laid the foundation of his
-family's fortune, but it drove Mrs. Iden into
-frenzy.</p>
-
-<p>"You talk about a quart pot&mdash;<i>you</i>," she
-shrieked. "Why, your family have drunk up thousands
-of pounds&mdash;you know they have. Where's
-the Manor? they swilled it away. Where's
-Upper Court? they got it down their throats.
-They built a house to drink in and nothing else.
-You know they did. You told me yourself.
-The most disgraceful set of drunkards that ever
-lived!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?"
-said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years&mdash;why,
-you're always talking about it."</p>
-
-<p>"Your family be as nervous as cats&mdash;see their
-hands shake in the morning."</p>
-
-<p>"They go to business in the City and do something;
-they don't mess about planting rubbishing
-potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.</p>
-
-<p>"A pretty mess they've made of their business,
-as shaky as their hands. Fidgetty, miserable,
-nervous set they be."</p>
-
-<p>"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow,
-as stolid, and slow, and stupid; why, you do
-nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk, talk.
-You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the
-stile, and you've been talking with that old fool at
-the back door, and talking with Jack Duck&mdash;and
-that's your second mug! You're descended from a
-nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"</p>
-
-<p>Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and
-thrust it in one pocket, flung open the oven-door,
-and put a baked apple in the other pocket, and so
-marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a
-tree in the fields.</p>
-
-<p>In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so
-successful as raking up the weaknesses of the opponent's
-family, especially when the parties are
-married, for having gossiped with each other for
-so long in the most confidential manner, they know
-every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom bet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
-and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about,
-and Joseph did as Potiphar's spouse asked him, and
-why your uncle had to take refuge in Spain; and
-so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication
-table.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 143px;">
-<img src="images/i-050.png" width="143" height="270" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HIS discordance between her father and
-mother hurt Amaryllis' affectionate
-heart exceedingly. It seemed to be
-always breaking out all the year round.</div>
-
-<p>Of a summer's eve, when the day's
-work among the hot hay was done, Iden would
-often go out and sit under the russet apple till the
-dew had filled the grass like a green sea. When
-the tide of the dew had risen he would take off his
-heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in
-the cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass.
-He liked the refreshing coolness and the touch of the
-sward. It was not for washing, because he was scrupulously
-clean under the ragged old coat; it was
-because he liked the grass. There was nothing
-very terrible in it; men, and women, too, take off
-their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the
-sands at the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything
-but natural, reasonable, and pleasant. But,
-then, you see, <i>everybody</i> does it at the seaside, and
-Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his
-crime&mdash;that he alone did it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she
-knew he was paddling in the grass was awful.
-She would come shuffling out&mdash;she had a way of
-rubbing her shoes along the ground when irritated
-with her hands under her apron, which she twisted
-about&mdash;and pelt him with scorn.</p>
-
-<p>"There, put your boots on&mdash;do, and hide your
-nasty feet!" (Iden had a particularly white skin, and
-feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting! Nobody
-ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed
-of yourself! Anything more disgusting I never
-heard of. Nobody else but you would ever think
-of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."</p>
-
-<p>Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody
-else"&mdash;that was the sin and guilt of it&mdash;by-and-by
-Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
-had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them,
-would fling them in the ditch.</p>
-
-<p>And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation,
-if she had not been afraid to touch firearms,
-she would have brought out the gun, and had
-a shot at him.</p>
-
-<p>After a time Iden left his old post at the russet
-apple, and went up the meadow to the horse-chestnut
-trees that he himself had planted, and there, in
-peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded
-about in the dew, without any one to grumble at him.</p>
-
-<p>How crookedly things are managed in this
-world!</p>
-
-<p>It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East,
-and despise the Turks and all their ways, making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
-Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
-high places, with the utmost contempt for anything
-reasonable&mdash;all so incongruous and chance-ruled.
-In truth, all things in our very midst go on in the
-Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight
-places, and straight people in crooked places, just
-the same as if we had all been dropped promiscuously
-out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
-to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our
-abilities and natures. Such an utter jumble!</p>
-
-<p>Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful
-power of observation, who ought to have
-been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
-Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or,
-with his singular capacity for construction, a leading
-engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels and making
-Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect,
-forming a new school of philosophy&mdash;here was Iden,
-tending cows, and sitting, as the old story goes,
-undecidedly on a stile&mdash;sitting astride&mdash;eternally
-sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off
-on one side or the other.</p>
-
-<p>Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful
-shape and expressive eyes, full in her youth of life
-and fire, who ought to have led the gayest life in
-London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage,
-and flinging money about in the most extravagant,
-joyous, and good-natured manner&mdash;here was Mrs.
-Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and wearing
-shoes out at the toes.</p>
-
-<p>So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
-cart over ruts and stones, thumping anyhow instead
-of running smoothly on new-mown sward like a
-cricket-ball.</p>
-
-<p>It all happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
-
-<p>Another time there would come a letter from one
-of the Flammas in London. Could they spare a
-little bag of lavender?&mdash;they grew such lovely
-sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might
-see Mr. and Mrs. Iden cooing and billing, soft as
-turtle-doves, and fraternising in the garden over
-the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you
-see, to the story.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent,
-and the plant in every form. She kept little bags
-of it in all her drawers, and everything at Coombe
-Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious
-lavender perfume. There is nothing else that
-smells so sweet and clean and dry. You cannot
-imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.</p>
-
-<p>Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it
-between his finger and thumb in the garden, as he
-did, too, with the black-currant leaves and walnut-leaves,
-if he fancied anything he had touched
-might have left an unpleasant odour adhering to
-his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as much as
-washing them.</p>
-
-<p>Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because
-his mother had been so fond of it, and all the sixteen
-carved oak-presses which had been so familiar to him
-in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
-plant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet
-remained in the wine of life, Iden had set a hedge
-of lavender to please his wife. It was so carefully
-chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the
-finest lavender in all the country. People used to
-come for it from round about, quite certain of a
-favourable reception, for there was nothing so sure
-to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of
-lavender.</p>
-
-<p>But the letter from the Flammas was the great
-event&mdash;from London, all that way, asking for some
-Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
-and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the
-garden over the hedge of lavender. If only it
-could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow
-older there seems so much grating of the wheels.</p>
-
-<p>In time, long time, people's original feelings get
-strangely confused and overlaid. The churchwardens
-of the eighteenth century plastered the
-fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches&mdash;covered
-them over with yellowish mortar. The
-mould grows up, and hides the capital of the fallen
-column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the
-foot of the oak, where it is oldest, the bark becomes
-dense and thick, impenetrable, and without
-sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without
-reaching the sap. A sort of scale or caking in
-long, long time grows over original feelings.</p>
-
-<p>There was no one in the world so affectionate
-and loving as Mrs. Iden&mdash;no one who loved a father
-so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved <i>her</i> father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty
-years or so, and the thick dull bark had grown,
-after the scales or caking had come upon the heart,
-after the capital of the column had fallen, after the
-painting had been blurred, it came about that old
-Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father, died in London.</p>
-
-<p>After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe
-Oaks, husband and wife went up to London to the
-funeral, which took place at one of those fearful
-London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very
-soul. Of all the horrible things in the world there
-is nothing so calmly ghastly as a London cemetery.</p>
-
-<p>In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs.
-Iden went to the theatre.</p>
-
-<p>"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing
-of the sort; how truly sad and human, for to be
-human is to be sad. That men and women should
-be so warped and twisted by the pressure of the
-years out of semblance to themselves; that circumstances
-should so wall in their lives with insurmountable
-cliffs of granite facts, compelling them
-to tread the sunless gorge; that the coldness of
-death alone could open the door to pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With
-the music and the song, the dancing, the colours
-and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in the
-silent rooms at the house where the dead had been.
-Old Flamma alone had been dead <i>there</i>; they were
-dead here. Dead in life&mdash;at the theatre.</p>
-
-<p>They had used to go joyously to the theatre
-thirty years before, when Iden came courting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
-town; from the edge of the grave they came back
-to look on their own buried lives.</p>
-
-<p>If you will only <i>think</i>, you will see it was a most
-dreadful and miserable incident, that visit to the
-theatre after the funeral.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
-<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake
-descent in Iden's face she alluded to
-Grandfather Iden's being a baker and
-miller, and noted for the manufacture
-of these articles. A lardy, or larded,
-cake is a thing, I suppose, unknown to most of this
-generation; they were the principal confectionery
-familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was
-at the top of his business activity, seventy years
-since, in the Waterloo era.</div>
-
-<p>A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with
-lines, and rounded at the corners, made of dough,
-lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked something
-to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in
-their pastry; they liked something to stick to their
-teeth, and after that to their ribs. The lardy-cake
-eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
-trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it
-were, and the rest depended on the strength of the
-digestion. But if a ploughboy could get a new,
-warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought
-himself blessed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any
-serious business, but he still made a few of these
-renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a good
-few at times to the carters' lads who came in to
-market.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she
-had not, the tom-tomming of drums and blowing of
-brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
-her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious
-as she approached&mdash;the ceaseless tomtom, the beating
-of drums and gongs outside the show vans, the
-shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great
-crowd, the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep,
-the neighing of horses&mdash;altogether the "rucket"
-was tremendous.</p>
-
-<p>She looked back from the hill close to the town
-and saw the people hurrying in from every quarter&mdash;there
-was a string of them following the path she
-had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A
-shower had fallen in the night, but the ceaseless
-wheels had ground up the dust again, and the lines
-of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
-clouds hanging above them. For one on business,
-fifty hastened on to join the uproar.</p>
-
-<p>Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched
-from Florence and had been set up in the town of
-Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the
-Milo from Paris, do you think all these people
-would have scurried in such haste to admire these
-beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you
-want a crowd you must make a row. It is really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
-wonderful how people do thoroughly and unaffectedly
-enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
-could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise,
-battles would not be half so popular to read about.
-The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if you describe
-a medi&aelig;val scramble you must put in plenty
-of splintering lances, resounding armour, shrieks
-and groans, and so render it lively.</p>
-
-<p>"This is the patent age of new inventions," and
-some one might make a profit by starting a f&ecirc;te
-announcing that a drum or a gong would be provided
-for every individual, to be beaten in a grand
-universal chorus.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting
-through the crowd till she found her way behind
-the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
-between them and the houses. There was an
-arched entrance, arch&aelig;ologically interesting, by
-which she paused a moment, half inclined to go up
-and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who
-lived there had had them since Christmas, and all
-that wanted doing was a patch on one toe; they
-were always just going to be done, but never
-finished. She read the inscription over his door,
-"Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established 1697." A
-different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton
-awls; a man who has been in business two
-hundred years cannot be hurried. She sighed, and
-passed on.</p>
-
-<p>The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted
-of one wide stone of semi-circular shape, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
-the feet of three generations of customers had
-worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman,
-for he was over ninety, was leaning on the hatch
-(or lower half of the door), in the act of handing
-some of his cakes to two village girls who had
-called for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed
-to be so rurally simple, had just been telling
-him how they never forgot his nice cakes, but always
-came every fair day to buy some. For this they
-got sixpence each, it being well known that the
-old gentleman was so delighted with anybody who
-bought his cakes he generally gave them back their
-money, and a few coppers besides.</p>
-
-<p>He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on
-the step and pulled her into the shop, asked her if
-her father were coming, then walked her down by
-the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted
-peel, to see how tall she was. The peel
-is the long wooden rod, broad at one end, with
-which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father
-Iden being proud of his trade, in his old age had
-his favourite peel ornamented with silver.</p>
-
-<p>"Too fast&mdash;too fast," he said, shaking his head,
-and coughing; "you grow too fast; there's the
-notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
-taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her
-where his thumb was&mdash;quite two inches higher than
-the last year's mark.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"I daresay&mdash;I daresay," said the old man, in the
-hasty manner of feeble age, as he cut another notch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
-to record her height. The handle of the peel was
-notched all round, where he had measured his
-grandchildren; there were so many marks it was
-not easy to see how he distinguished them.</p>
-
-<p>"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he
-had finished with the knife.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true&mdash;she
-did not <i>know</i>&mdash;she could not be certain; but in
-her heart she was sure he would not come. But she
-did not want to hear any hard words said about him.</p>
-
-<p>"Has he sent anything? Have you brought
-anything for me? No. No. Hum!&mdash;ha!"&mdash;fit
-of coughing&mdash;"Well, well&mdash;come in; dinner's late,
-there's time to hear you read&mdash;you're fond of books,
-you read a great deal at home,"&mdash;and so talking,
-half to himself and half to her, he led the way into
-the parlour by the shop.</p>
-
-<p>Bowed by more than ninety years, his back
-curved over forwards, and his limbs curved in the
-opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
-resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung
-over his chest, and his knees never straightened
-themselves, but were always more or less bent as
-he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of
-a strong man heavily laden and unable to stand
-upright&mdash;such an attitude as big Jack Duck in his
-great strength might take when carrying two sacks
-of wheat at once. There was as heavy a load on
-Grandfather Iden's back, but Time is invisible.</p>
-
-<p>He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker
-should, and had worn the same cut and colour for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
-years and years. In the shop, too, he always had
-a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white,
-but it got to appear grey upon him; a large grey
-chimney-pot, many sizes too big for his head apparently,
-for it looked as if for ever about to descend
-and put out his face like an extinguisher.
-Though his boots were so carefully polished, they
-quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as he
-pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends
-of his trousers, too long for his antique shanks,
-folded and creased over his boots, and almost hid
-his grey cloth under-gaiters.</p>
-
-<p>A great knobbed old nose&mdash;but stay, I will not
-go further, it is not right to paint too faithfully the
-features of the very aged, which are repellent in
-spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their
-faces, their sentiments and actions are another
-matter; therefore I will leave Father Iden's face
-as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
-reflects everywhere, except one spot.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis followed him jauntily,&mdash;little did she
-care, reckless girl, for the twenty thousand guineas
-in the iron box under his bed.</p>
-
-<p>The cottage folk, who always know so much, had
-endless tales of Iden's wealth; how years ago
-bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in five-shilling
-packets, had been literally carted like potatoes
-away from the bakehouse to go to London; how
-ponies were laden with sacks of silver groats, all
-paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
-dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the
-spade guineas in the iron box.</p>
-
-<p>The old man sat down by the fire without removing
-his hat, motioning to her to shut the door,
-which she was loth to do, for the little room was
-smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma,
-he coughed incessantly, and mopped his mouth
-with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
-craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to
-the grate, and piled up the coal till it smoked and
-smoked, and filled the close apartment with a
-suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into
-Father Iden's sanctuary was an honour, but, like
-other honours, it had to be paid for.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to
-breathe as short as possible, to avoid inhaling more
-than she could bear.</p>
-
-<p>"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the
-bookcases, which occupied three sides of the room.
-"Books&mdash;you like books; look at them&mdash;go and see."</p>
-
-<p>To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to
-look carefully along the shelves which she had
-scanned so many times before. They contained
-very good books indeed, such books as were not to
-be found elsewhere throughout the whole town of
-Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the county, old
-and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson,
-and Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as
-Bernard Quaritch, that giant of the modern auction
-room, would have written magnificent cheques for.</p>
-
-<p>Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
-auction-room bidding for books? It is one of the
-sights of London, let me tell you, to any one who
-thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights
-are reputations merely&mdash;the pale reflection of things
-that were real once. This sight is something of
-the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
-<i>Athen&aelig;um</i> in the season, examine the advertisements
-of book auctions, and attend the next great
-sale of some famous library.</p>
-
-<p>You have a recollection of the giant who sat by
-the highway and devoured the pilgrims who
-passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring
-and devours the books set loose upon their travels
-after the repose of centuries.</p>
-
-<p>What prices to give! No one can withstand
-him. From Paris they send agents with a million
-francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
-the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles,
-but in vain. They only get what the Giant chooses
-to leave them.</p>
-
-<p>Books that nobody ever heard of fetch &pound;50, &pound;60,
-&pound;100, &pound;200; wretched little books never opened
-since they were printed; dull duodecimos on the
-course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable
-twaddling local books in Italian, Spanish, queer
-French, written and printed in some unknown
-foreign village; read them&mdash;you might as well try
-to amuse yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What
-earthly value they are of cannot be discovered.
-They were composed by authors whose names are
-gone like the sand washed by the Nile into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
-sea before Herodotus. They contain no beautiful
-poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery;
-they are simply so much paper, printing, and binding,
-so many years old, and it is for that age,
-printing, and binding that the money is paid.</p>
-
-<p>I have read a good many books in my time&mdash;I
-would not give sixpence for the whole lot.</p>
-
-<p>They are not like a block-book&mdash;first efforts at
-printing; nor like the first editions of great authors;
-there is not the slightest intrinsic value in them
-whatever.</p>
-
-<p>Yet some of them fetch prices which not long
-ago were thought tremendous even for the Shakespeare
-folio.</p>
-
-<p>Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for
-them. Living and writing authors of the present
-day are paid in old songs by comparison.</p>
-
-<p>Still, this enormous value set on old books is one
-of the remarkable signs of the day. If any one
-wishes to know what To-Day is, these book-auctions
-are of the things he should go to see.</p>
-
-<p>Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's
-shelves; among them there were a few that I call
-<i>real</i> old books, an early translation or two, an early
-Shakespeare, and once there had been a very
-valuable Boccaccio, but this had gone into Lord
-Pamment's library, "Presented by James Bartholomew
-Iden, Esq."</p>
-
-<p>The old man often went to look at and admire
-his Boccaccio in my Lord's library.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-055.png" width="500" height="98" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HERE was one peculiarity in all the
-books on Grandfather Iden's shelves,
-they were all very finely bound in the
-best style of hand-art, and they all bore
-somewhere or other a little design of
-an ancient Roman lamp.</div>
-
-<p>Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship
-of good taste&mdash;it is not the sculptor's art,
-nor the painter's&mdash;not the art of the mind, but the
-art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work,
-for instance, some pottery, book-binding like this,
-are the products of hand-art.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man,
-when Amaryllis had stared sufficiently at the backs
-of the books.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I can see the Lamp."</p>
-
-<p>"House of Flamma," said old Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily,
-eager to show that she understood all about it. She
-feared lest he should enter into the history of the
-House of Flamma and of his connection with it;
-she had heard it all over and over again; her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
-mother was a Flamma; she had herself some of
-the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything
-annoyed her or made her indignant her foot used
-to tap the floor, and her neck flush rosy, and her
-face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
-control herself, she would say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not
-be a Flamma."</p>
-
-<p>Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis
-detested and despised the whole tribe of the Flammas,
-the nervous, excitable, passionate, fidgetty,
-tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them
-all, the very name and mention of them; she sided
-with her father as an Iden against her mother's
-family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
-flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse,
-a spot or two of genius, and the rest black guilt
-or folly. She hated them; she would not be a
-Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>How should she at sixteen understand the wear
-and tear of life, the pressure of circumstances, the
-heavy weight of difficulties&mdash;there was something to
-be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas,
-but naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut
-up in narrow grooves and working day after day,
-year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
-their constitutional nervousness became the chief
-characteristic of their existence. It was Intellect
-overcome&mdash;over-burdened&mdash;with two generations of
-petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went
-to the quart pot.</p>
-
-<p>Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
-detested the very name; she would not be a
-Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in
-fire of spirit, in strength of indignation, in natural
-capacity; she drew, for instance, with the greatest
-ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
-could write a letter in sketches.</p>
-
-<p>Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness
-of certain things seemed to fill her with a consuming
-fire. Her partizanship for her father made her
-sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she
-might utterly erase the opposer. Her contempt of
-sycophancy, and bold independence led her constantly
-into trouble.</p>
-
-<p>Flamma means a flame.</p>
-
-<p>Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the
-bookshelves patiently endeavouring to please the
-tiresome old man.</p>
-
-<p>"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and
-medals in it were very interesting, as they really
-were. The smoke caught her in the throat, and
-seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching
-her chest. So much accustomed to the open
-air, she felt stifled.</p>
-
-<p>Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he
-might hear how she enunciated her words. The
-book he gave her was an early copy of Addison, the
-page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges
-rough, but where in a trim modern volume will
-you find language like his and ideas set forth with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
-such transparent lucidity? How easy to write
-like that!&mdash;so simple, merely a letter to an intimate
-friend; but try!</p>
-
-<p>Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read,
-especially those that come to us from New York,
-thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
-the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You
-cannot read them; you <i>work</i> through them.</p>
-
-<p>The French have retained a little of the old style
-of book in their paper bound franc novels, the rough
-paper, thick black type, rough edges are pleasant
-to touch and look at&mdash;they feel as if they were done
-by hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim
-by machinery.</p>
-
-<p>Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis
-tried her utmost to read well, and she succeeded,
-so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
-grunting between his continuous fits of coughing
-the old man signified his approval.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of
-the aged, but she had a motive here; she wanted
-to please him for her father's sake. For many
-years there had been an increasing estrangement
-between the younger and the elder Iden; an estrangement
-which no one could have explained, for
-it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather
-Iden was really so rich. The son was his
-father's tenant&mdash;the farm belonged to Grandfather
-Iden&mdash;and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly.
-Still that could not have much mattered&mdash;a mere
-trifle to a man of old Iden's wealth. There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
-something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
-scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people
-frequently fall into a quarrel without remembering
-the beginning.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old
-man for her father's sake; her dear father, whom
-she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
-worrying him for petty sums of money; it made
-her furious with indignation to see and hear it.</p>
-
-<p>So she read her very best, and swallowed the
-choking smoke patiently.</p>
-
-<p>Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still
-as fresh as if gathered yesterday, Amaryllis found
-bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For it
-was one of the old man's ways to carry home such
-of these that pleased him and to place them in his
-books. This he had done for half a century, and
-many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey
-old works of bygone authors had been there a
-generation. It is wonderful how long they will
-endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way;
-the paper they used in old books seems to have
-been softer, without the hard surface of our present
-paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps them
-better. Before the repulsion between father and
-son became so marked, Amaryllis had often been
-with her grandfather in the garden and round the
-meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather
-the yellow tulips, the broad-petalled roses, and in
-autumn the bright scarlet bramble leaves. The
-brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
-him; anything with richness of colour. The old
-and grey, and withered man gathered the brightest
-of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten books.</p>
-
-<p>Now the sight of these leaves and petals between
-the yellow pages softened her heart towards him;
-he was a tyrant, but he was very, very old, they
-were like flowers on a living tomb.</p>
-
-<p>In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and
-going to a drawer in one of the bookcases, took from
-it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these between
-her face and the book, and told her to read
-them instead.</p>
-
-<p>"These are your writing."</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting,
-and coughing, all at once.</p>
-
-<p>"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only
-two houses in Black Jack Street." "Only <i>two</i>
-houses!" she interposed, artfully.</p>
-
-<p>"Two," said the grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in
-1775 the site was covered with furze." "How it
-has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed,
-and smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head
-and seemed about to extinguish him.</p>
-
-<p>"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa.
-It says, 'A hundred voters in this street,
-1884.'"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched
-his very heart up in coughing. When he finished,
-Amaryllis read on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent
-coughing Amaryllis became alarmed, but it did him
-no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
-livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused
-him like a trumpet&mdash;it went straight to his ancient
-heart.</p>
-
-<p>"Read that again," he said. "How many voters
-now?"</p>
-
-<p>"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."</p>
-
-<p>"We've got them all"&mdash;coughing&mdash;"all in my
-lord's houses, everyone; vote Conservative, one
-and all. What is it?" as some one knocked.
-Dinner was ready, to Amaryllis's relief.</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?"
-asked the grandfather, shuffling up his papers.
-"There&mdash;there," as she hesitated, "you would like
-to dine with young people, of course&mdash;of course."</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
-<img src="images/i-056.png" width="141" height="110" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/o.png" width="119" height="120" alt="O" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>LD Grandfather Iden always dined alone
-in the parlour, with his housekeeper to
-wait on him; they were just bringing
-in his food. The family and visitors
-had their meals in a separate and much
-more comfortable apartment in another part of the
-house, which was large. Sometimes, as a great
-favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
-would invite you to eat with him.</div>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated,
-not only because of the smoke, but because
-she knew he always had pork for dinner.</p>
-
-<p>The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry
-and withered frame&mdash;it was a sort of Burgundy of
-flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy fills
-the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so
-the rich juice of the pork seemed to supply the oil
-necessary to keep the sinews supple and to prevent
-the cartilages from stiffening.</p>
-
-<p>The scientific people say that it is the ossification
-of the cartilages&mdash;the stiffening of the firmer
-tissues&mdash;that in time interferes with the processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
-of life. The hinges rust, as if your tricycle had
-been left out in the rain for a week&mdash;and the delicate
-watchwork of the human frame will not run.</p>
-
-<p>If suppleness could only be maintained there is
-no reason why it should not continue to work for a
-much longer period, for a hundred and fifty, two
-hundred years&mdash;as long as you fancy. But nothing
-has yet been devised to keep up the suppleness.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast
-pork. The jokers of Woolhorton&mdash;there are always
-jokers, very clever they think themselves&mdash;considered
-the reason it suited him so well was because
-of the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.</p>
-
-<p>Anything more contrary to common sense than
-for an old man of ninety to feed on pork it would
-be hard to discover&mdash;so his friends said.</p>
-
-<p>"Pork," said the physician, had down from London
-to see him on one occasion, "pork is the first
-on the list of indigestible articles of food. It takes
-from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
-reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded&mdash;acidity
-is the result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable
-ills are the consequence. The very
-worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of
-Woolhorton, when he heard of this. "Hum!"
-low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
-least excited, like most other country folk, he used
-the provincial pronunciation. "Hum! A' have
-lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
-eat it six days out of seven, not, of course, roast
-pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork; sometimes
-he baked it himself in the great oven. Now
-and then he varied it with pig-meat&mdash;good old
-country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat&mdash;such as
-spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious
-morsel, the "mouse." The chine he always sent
-over for Iden junior, who was a chine eater&mdash;a
-true Homeric diner&mdash;and to make it even, Iden
-junior sent in the best apples for sauce from his
-favourite russet trees. It was about the only
-amenity that survived between father and son.</p>
-
-<p>The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old
-house at home, before we all went astray along the
-different paths of life; fresh from the pigs fed and
-killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the
-palate. Much of it is best done on a gridiron&mdash;here's
-heresy! A gridiron is flat blasphemy to
-the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
-fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your
-lips watering.</p>
-
-<p>But the "mouse,"&mdash;what was the "mouse?"
-The London butchers can't tell me. It was a titbit.
-I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London
-folk are so ignorant.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and
-form, that is, he mumbled the juice out of it, and
-never complained of indigestion.</p>
-
-<p>He was up at five o'clock every morning of his
-life, pottering about the great oven with his baker's
-man. In summer if it was fine he went out at six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
-for a walk in the Pines&mdash;the promenade of Woolhorton.</p>
-
-<p>"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used
-to say, "you go for a walk in the marning afore
-the aair have been braathed auver."</p>
-
-<p>Before the air has been breathed over&mdash;inspired
-and re-inspired by human crowds, while it retains
-the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
-from the spring; that was when it possessed its
-value, according to bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old
-Butler. Depend upon it, there is something in his
-dictum, too.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork,
-for he often had it underdone, so the old gentleman
-dismissed her in his most gracious manner to dine
-with the rest.</p>
-
-<p>She went down the corridor and took the seat
-placed for her. There was a posy of primroses
-beside her napkin&mdash;posies of primroses all round
-the table.</p>
-
-<p>This raging old Tory of ninety years would give
-a shilling for the earliest primrose the boys could
-find for him in the woods. Some one got him
-a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
-favourites&mdash;a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather&mdash;which
-he had set in the centre of a splendid
-screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
-The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room
-near a bow window which overlooked the fair.</p>
-
-<p>People, you see, took pains to get him feathers
-and anything he fancied, on account of the twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
-thousand spade guineas in the iron box under the
-bed.</p>
-
-<p>His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married
-folk, begged him not to keep a peacock's feather in
-the house&mdash;it would certainly bring misfortune.
-The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds
-that they actually argued with him&mdash;<i>argued</i> with
-Grandfather Iden!&mdash;pointing out to him the fearful
-risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
-grew red in the face&mdash;the great grey hat shook
-and tottered with anger; not for all the Powers of
-Darkness would he have given up that feather.</p>
-
-<p>The chairs round the large table were arranged
-in accordance with the age of the occupants. There
-were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number of
-aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does
-not concern us. The eldest sat at the head of the
-table, the next in age followed, and so all round
-the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis
-rather low down&mdash;a long way from the top and
-fountain of honour&mdash;and highly displeased her.
-She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd
-of her relations, yet being there, she felt that she
-ought to have had a position above them all. Her
-father&mdash;Iden, junior&mdash;was old Iden's only son and
-natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to
-have been at the top of the table, and hers ought to
-have been next to his.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of which, as her father was not the
-eldest, his seat was some distance from the top, and
-hers again, was a long way from his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>All the other chairs were full, but her father's
-chair was empty.</p>
-
-<p>The vague crowd were so immensely eager to
-pay their despicable court to the Spade-Guinea
-Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the
-young, the lame, the paralytic, all found means to
-creep in to Grandfather Iden's annual dinner. His
-only son and natural heir was alone absent. How
-eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time
-at that empty chair, hoping against hope that her
-dear father would come in at the Psalms, or even at
-the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
-hearts of the enemies around her.</p>
-
-<p>For well she knew how delighted they were to
-see his chair empty, as a visible sign and token of
-the gulf between father and son, and well she knew
-how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding
-and set fuel to the flame of the quarrel.
-If the son were disinherited, consider the enormous
-profit to the rest of them!</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that
-he had not signed a will. It was believed that
-several rough drafts had been sketched out for him,
-but, in his own words&mdash;and he was no teller of
-falsehoods&mdash;he had not decided on his will. If
-only they could persuade him to make his will they
-might feel safe of something; but suppose he went
-off pop, all in a moment, as these extraordinarily
-healthy old people are said to do, and the most of his
-estate in land! Consider what a contingency&mdash;almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
-all of it would go to his own son. Awful
-thing!</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her
-and quizzed her over and over; her hair, her face,
-her form, but most of all her dress. They were so
-poor at home she had not had a new dress this
-twelvemonth past; it was true her dress was decent
-and comfortable, and she really looked very nice in
-it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a
-comfortable dress, she wants something in the style
-of the day, and just sufficiently advanced to make
-the women's eyes turn green with envy. It is not
-the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned,
-trying with all her might to make them feel she was
-the Heiress, not only an only son's only daughter,
-but the only son's only offspring&mdash;doubly the
-Heiress of Grandfather Iden.</p>
-
-<p>The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied
-so soon as she was born that there
-would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so
-it fell out. For it had been noticed in the course
-of generations, that in the direct line of Iden when
-the first child was a daughter there were none to
-follow. And further, that there never was but one
-Miss Iden at a time.</p>
-
-<p>If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they
-never had any more children; consequently that
-daughter was the only Miss Iden.</p>
-
-<p>If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a
-second son, though they might have daughters;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
-but then, in order that there should still be only one
-Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died,
-or was married early, before the second came into
-existence.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they
-had a long pedigree, the Idens, reaching farther
-back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
-had been observed that this was the rule of their
-descent.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress,
-through her father, of the Spade-Guinea Man. She
-tried to make them feel that she knew it and felt it;
-that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud
-face&mdash;it was a very proud face naturally&mdash;darkened
-a little, and grew still more disdainful in its utter
-scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of enemies.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 139px;">
-<img src="images/i-059.png" width="139" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>O one, as it were, in the gallery, it was
-a delight to see her; her sweet cheeks,
-fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed
-indignation; her young brow
-bent; her eyes cast down&mdash;don't you
-think for a moment she would deign to look at them&mdash;pride
-in her heart, and resolute determination to
-fight for her dear father and mother.</div>
-
-<p>But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there
-was a crack in her boot unmended, and it seemed
-as if everyone could see it though under the solid
-table. She had not had a really sound pair of
-boots for many, many months; they could not
-afford her a new pair at home, and the stupid shoemaker,
-"Established 1697," was such a time repairing
-her others.</p>
-
-<p>She would not look at them, but she knew that
-they were all dressed better than she was; there
-were some of them very poor, and very vulgar, too,
-but they were all dressed better than her, and
-without a doubt had sound boots on their feet.</p>
-
-<p>The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
-sound boots; she never had; nor, indeed, her
-mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled
-by the character of his work in the fields to take
-care of himself so far, though he wore a ragged
-coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had
-a whole pair of boots&mdash;whole and sound as the very
-cottagers had.</p>
-
-<p>If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she
-would have been prouder than ever, and that is why
-I always loved her so; she was not to be put down
-by circumstances, she was above external things.</p>
-
-<p>But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly
-over&mdash;she had scarcely eaten anything&mdash;and as she
-glanced from time to time at her father's empty
-chair, and knew that he would not come, and that
-his defection would revive the old quarrel which
-might so easily have been mended, the Flamma
-blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter,
-and the foot with the worn boot on it began to tap
-the floor.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
-swept the whole company over a precipice into the
-Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
-either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of
-no consequence.</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Spain's an island near<br />
-Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
-seen them all poisoned and dying on their seats.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick
-a knife into each of them&mdash;only it would not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
-touched them with the longest hop-pole in Kent, so
-utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that
-empty chair.</p>
-
-<p>And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did
-not say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not be a Flamma."</p>
-
-<p>Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word
-was passed round that everyone was to sit still, as
-Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his descendants.</p>
-
-<p>There was not the least fear of any of them stirring,
-for they well knew his custom&mdash;to walk round,
-and speak a few words to everyone in turn, and to
-put a new golden sovereign into their hands.
-Thirty-two sovereigns it was in all&mdash;one for each&mdash;but
-the thirty-third was always a spade-guinea,
-which was presented to the individual who had best
-pleased him during the year.</p>
-
-<p>A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the
-emulation and the heart-burning over the spade-guinea!
-For the fortunate winner usually considered
-himself the nearest to the Will.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought
-that she should have to take his horrible money.
-A hideous old monster he was to her at that moment&mdash;not
-that he had done anything to her personally&mdash;but
-he left her dear father to be worried
-out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her dear
-mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while
-he made this pompous distribution among these
-wretches. The hideous old monster!</p>
-
-<p>Out in the town the boys behind his back gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
-him endless nicknames: Granfer Iden, Floury Iden,
-My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
-Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours,
-and patronage, his caprices and ways of going on,
-if he had but had a patent of nobility, Grandfather
-Iden would have made a wonderfully good
-duke.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing
-his great grey tottery hat, and proceeds from chair
-to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder, saying a
-gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden
-sovereigns in their eager palms. There was a loud
-hum of conversation as he went round; they all
-tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of
-course knew what he was about, when suddenly
-there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people suddenly
-stopped talking as if the pneumatic <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'break'">brake</ins>
-had been applied to their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.</p>
-
-<p>Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear
-the cat licking his paw under the table.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning
-with both hands on the back of his son's empty
-chair.</p>
-
-<p>He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar
-floating on the barren ocean of life and death into
-which his withered old body was sinking.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps he really would have clung like that to
-his son had but his son come to him, and borne a
-little, and for a little while, with his ways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>A sorrowful thing to see&mdash;the old man of ninety
-clinging to the back of his son's empty chair. His
-great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble on
-the floor&mdash;his back bowed a little more&mdash;and he
-groaned deeply, three times.</p>
-
-<p>We can see, being out of the play and spectators
-merely, that there was a human cry for help in the
-old man's groan&mdash;his heart yearned for his son's
-strong arm to lean on.</p>
-
-<p>The crowd of relations were in doubt as to
-whether they should rejoice, whether the groan was
-a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
-be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at
-the possibility of reconciliation.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis
-for her to feel pity for him as she would have
-done in any other mood; she hated him all the
-more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing
-to him, he could hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn,"
-and drive over and make friends with her father in
-half an hour. Groaning there&mdash;the hideous old
-monster! and her mother without a decent pair of
-boots.</p>
-
-<p>In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered
-himself, and continued the distribution, and by-and-by
-Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She did
-not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand,
-and placed two coins in it, saying in his most
-gracious way that the sovereign was for her father,
-and the guinea&mdash;the spade-guinea&mdash;for herself.
-She muttered something&mdash;she knew not what&mdash;she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
-could but just restrain herself from throwing the
-money on the floor.</p>
-
-<p>It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had
-the guinea. Conceive the horror, the hatred, the
-dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
-Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!</p>
-
-<p>Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they
-had all got upstairs into the great drawing-room,
-and some were officiously and reverently admiring
-the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking
-out of the bow window at the fair, there came a
-message for Amaryllis to put on her hat and go for
-a walk with her grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>There was not one among all the crowd in the
-drawing-room who had ever been invited to accompany
-Iden Pacha.</p>
-
-<p>Three days ago at home, if anyone had told
-Amaryllis that she would be singled out in this
-way, first to receive the Iden medal&mdash;the spade-guinea
-stamp of approval&mdash;and then, above all
-things, to be honoured by walking out with this
-"almighty" grandfather, how delighted she would
-have been at the thought of the triumph!</p>
-
-<p>But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over
-these people&mdash;pah! a triumph over rats and flies
-or some such creatures. She actually felt lowered
-in her own esteem by being noticed at all among
-them. Honoured by this old horror&mdash;she revolted
-at it. <i>He</i> honour her with his approval&mdash;she hated
-him.</p>
-
-<p>The other day a travelling piano was wheeled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
-through Coombe and set up a tune in that lonesome
-spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece
-of music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism
-well marked by the thump, thump, it seemed to
-cheer the place&mdash;till she went out to the gate to
-look at the Italian woman who danced about while
-the grinding was done, and saw that she had a
-sound pair of boots on. That very morning her
-mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma
-rheumatism shooting in her bones, for the dampness
-of the mud came through the crack in her boot.</p>
-
-<p>This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour
-her while he let her mother walk about with her
-stocking on the wet ground!</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood was up in her veins&mdash;what
-did she care for guineas!</p>
-
-<p>As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom
-before the glass she looked round to see that no one
-was watching, and then stooped down and put the
-spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the
-dressing-table. She would have none of his hateful
-money. The sovereign she took care of because it
-was for her father, and he might buy something
-useful with it; he wanted a few shillings badly
-enough.</p>
-
-<p>So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the
-floor for a week or two, till it pleased the housemaid
-to move the dressing-table to brush away the accumulation,
-when she found the shining one in the
-fluff.</p>
-
-<p>Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
-guinea henceforward travelled down the stream of
-Time fast enough though silently, but she took the
-first opportunity of examining the iron box under
-the Pacha's bed, thinking perhaps there might be a
-chink in it. And it was curious how for some time
-afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
-in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any
-piece of furniture that was not chivvied about under
-pretence of polishing. She actually had a day's
-holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward
-for her labours.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 163px;">
-<img src="images/i-060.png" width="163" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS did not look back as she
-walked beside her grandfather slowly
-up the street, or she would have seen
-the company of relations watching them
-from the bow-window.</div>
-
-<p>Iden went straight through the crowd without
-any hesitation on account of his age&mdash;angry as she
-was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the clumsy
-people should over-turn him, and tried her best to
-shield him. But he had a knack of keeping on his
-feet&mdash;the sort of knack you learn by skating&mdash;and did
-not totter much more than usual, despite the press.</p>
-
-<p>The world gets on with very little amusement
-somehow. Here were two or three thousand people
-packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
-their festive gathering was the same old toys their
-fathers' fathers' fathers had set before them.</p>
-
-<p>Rows of booths for the display of "fairings,"
-gingerbread, nuts, cakes, brandy-balls, and sugar-plums
-stood in the gutter each side.</p>
-
-<p>The "fairings" were sweet biscuits&mdash;they have
-been made every fair this hundred years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts
-always are. The gingerbread was moulded in the
-same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined with gilt.</p>
-
-<p>There was the same old trumpeting and tootling,
-tom-tomming, and roaring of showmen's voices. The
-same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
-by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that
-the whirligig caravan was travelling round the
-world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
-smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the
-Wilderness," that mystic and melancholy bird, the
-rifle galleries, the popping for nuts&mdash;behold these
-are they our fathers have seen.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing new under the sun&mdash;not even
-at Epsom. The first time I saw the wonderful
-crowd of the Derby Day&mdash;perhaps the largest crowd
-in the world&mdash;I could scarcely believe my eyes, for
-I found on passing through it that the hundreds of
-thousands of people there had nothing more to
-amuse them than they would have found at an
-ordinary country fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies
-at cocoa-nuts, rootletum, tootletum, and beer.
-That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a
-very humdrum sort of world, my masters!</p>
-
-<p>The next finest crowd is the crowd on August
-bank-holiday all along the Brighton beach, and
-there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk
-but Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters&mdash;dull
-old stories in my grandmother's time.</p>
-
-<p>Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could
-invent him a fresh pleasure&mdash;the multitude of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
-Derby Day and Brighton beach should do the same.
-But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would
-certainly be the reward of such a discoverer. One gets
-tired of pitching sticks at cocoa-nuts all one's time.</p>
-
-<p>However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very
-rawest and crudest folk cared for the shows, all they
-did care was to alternately stand stock still and
-then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion"
-and had some beer, then they shoved back to the
-"Lamb" and had some beer, then they stood stock
-still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
-Several thousand people were thus happily
-occupied, and the Lion and the Lamb laid down
-together peacefully that day.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to
-shove, for there was no other way to get through,
-no one thought of moving, or giving any passage,
-if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them
-aside. As Grandfather Iden could not shove very
-hard they were frequently compelled to wait till the
-groups opened, and thus it happened that Amaryllis
-found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.</p>
-
-<p>He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at
-Amaryllis, and touched his hat to Iden. "You
-ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he
-said.</p>
-
-<p>"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.</p>
-
-<p>Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant
-to Amaryllis. The father had not been to
-visit his son for more than a year&mdash;she did not
-want unpleasant memories stirred up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched
-his hat and asked her if her father was at fair, as
-he was looking out for a job. Old Iden started
-and grunted like a snorting horse.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly
-to him, for she knew he was always in difficulties.
-Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong man without
-work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill
-Nye was a mower at Coombe, and his father, Bill
-Nye, before him, many a long year before he was
-discovered in California.</p>
-
-<p>When she overtook Iden he was struggling to
-pass the stream of the Orinoco, which set strongly
-at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
-"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb"
-archway like a river into the sea, thrusting their
-way into the general crowd, and this mighty current
-cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the
-swollen Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels
-that tried to breast it.</p>
-
-<p>It was as much as Amaryllis and he together
-could do to hold their ground at the edge of the
-current. While they were thus battling she chanced
-to look up.</p>
-
-<p>A large window was open over the archway, and
-at this window a fellow was staring down at her.
-He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a billiard-cue in
-his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the
-same young fellow, gentleman if you like, whose
-pale face had so displeased her that morning as he
-rode under when she watched the folk go by to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
-fair. He was certainly the most advanced in civilization
-of all who had passed Plum Corner, and yet
-there was something in that pale and rather delicate
-face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the
-"varmers" and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers"
-who had gone by under the wall. Something that
-insulted her.</p>
-
-<p>The face at the window was appraising her.</p>
-
-<p>It was reckoning her up&mdash;so much for eyes, so
-much for hair, so much for figure, and as this went
-on the fingers were filling a pipe from an elastic
-tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry
-in that calculation&mdash;no rapture or pure admiration
-of beauty; there was a billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch,
-and a glass of spirits and water, and an
-atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory
-balls at the back of the thought. His thumb was
-white where he had chalked it to make a better
-bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had
-chalked it with dissipation. His physical body was
-whitened&mdash;chalked&mdash;a whited sepulchre; his moral
-nature likewise chalked.</p>
-
-<p>At the back of his thought lay not the high
-esteem of the poet-thinker for beauty, but the
-cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.</p>
-
-<p>The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things
-a Shakespeare would admire at their lowest possible
-sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
-corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense
-knowingness, as much as to say, "You may depend
-upon me&mdash;I've been behind the scenes. All this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
-got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard
-at the rear; nothing in it."</p>
-
-<p>In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found
-some trace of a higher nature; "What an artist the
-world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.</p>
-
-<p>The empress Theodora craved for the applause
-of the theatre to which she exposed her beauty.</p>
-
-<p>This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism
-thinks of nothing but lowness, and has
-no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks
-to colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it
-is an ideal. There was no ideal in Ned Marks.</p>
-
-<p>They called him from within to take his turn with
-the cue; he did not answer, he was so absorbed in his
-calculations. He was clever&mdash;in a way; he had
-quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no
-common girl. She was not beautiful&mdash;yet, she was
-not even pretty, and so plainly dressed; still there
-was something marked in her features. And she
-was with old Iden.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his
-glance, but she felt that it was an insult. She looked
-down quickly, seized her grandfather's arm, and
-drew him out from the pavement into the street,
-yielding a little to the current and so hoping to
-presently pass it.</p>
-
-<p>By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his
-companions had come to the window to discover what
-he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed. "It's
-Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron
-box!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to
-sit loosely on his head, was knocked aside by the
-elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the throng;
-Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this
-way, and pushing him that, got at last to the opposite
-pavement, and so behind the row of booths,
-between them and the houses where there was less
-crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to
-her feet and stepped in the gutter where there was
-a puddle. The cold water came through the crack
-in her boot.</p>
-
-<p>While these incidents were still further irritating
-her, the old Pacha kept mumbling and muttering
-to himself, nodding his head and smiling at each
-fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent
-and fearless still he appreciated the trouble
-she took. The mumbling in his mouth was a sort
-of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up
-to a pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a
-hound in a leash, ready to burst the bond that
-held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in arm,
-neither of them understood the other; ninety and
-sixteen, a strange couple in the jostling fair.</p>
-
-<p>Iden turned down a passage near the end of the
-street, and in an instant the roar of the crowd which
-had boomed all round them was shut off by high
-walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads
-in the air. They walked on broad stone flags
-notched here and there at the edges, for the rest
-worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a
-trade) like Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
-and the walled passage brought them to the
-porch of the Abbey church.</p>
-
-<p>There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and
-wiped his forehead with his vast silk handkerchief.
-They were no longer incommoded by a crowd, but
-now and then folk came by hastening to the fair;
-lads with favours in their coats, and blue ribbons in
-their hats, girls in bright dresses, chiefly crude
-colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy
-weight as it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous
-walls, the quiet gloom of the narrow space,
-and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.</p>
-
-<p>The aged man muttered and mumbled about the
-porch and took Amaryllis under it, making her look
-up at the groining, and note the spring of the arch,
-which formed a sort of carved crown over them.
-It was a fine old porch, deep and high, in some
-things reminding you of the porches that are to be
-seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade
-like trees, so cut and worked as to be soft to the
-eye.</p>
-
-<p>He pointed out to her the touches that rendered
-it so dear to those who value art in stone. He
-knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
-and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were
-broad folios in the smoky room at home, filled
-with every detail, Iden himself had subscribed forty
-pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them.
-Every scholar who visited the Abbey church, called
-and begged to see the baker's old books.</p>
-
-<p>Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
-went outside and hoisted himself, as it were, up from
-his crooked S position to look at the three stags'
-heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads
-that to you, or at least to me, might have been
-fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or anything.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in
-the porch, the deep shadow within behind her, the
-curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a portrait.
-She stood the more upright because of the fire and
-temper suppressed in her.</p>
-
-<p>Just outside the human letter S&mdash;crooked S&mdash;clad
-in sad white-grey miller's garments, its old hat
-almost falling backwards off its old grey head,
-gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the
-coat of arms. Seven hundred years&mdash;the weight
-of seven hundred years&mdash;hung over them both in
-that old Abbey.</p>
-
-<p>Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she
-came out to the Future.</p>
-
-<p>Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded,
-in the passage wall, and giving her the key, told
-her to open it, and stood watching her in triumph,
-as if it had been the door to some immense treasury.
-She turned the lock, and he pushed her before
-him hastily, as if they must snatch so grand an
-opportunity.</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ITHIN there was a gravel path, and
-glimpses between trees of wide pleasure-grounds.
-Amaryllis hesitated, and
-looked back; Iden drew her forward,
-not noticing her evident disinclination
-to proceed. If he had, he would have put it down
-to awe, instead of which it was dislike.</div>
-
-<p>For she guessed they were entering the lawns in
-front of the Hon. Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He
-was the largest owner of town and country; the
-streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which
-the fair was being held, belonged to him; so did
-most of the farms and hamlets out of which the
-people had come. The Pamments were Tories;
-very important Tories indeed.</p>
-
-<p>The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too,
-right to the centre of the cerebellum; the Flammas
-were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
-girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a
-wilful and rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who
-would not be a Flamma, had imbibed all the
-Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>To her the Pamments were the incarnation of
-everything detestable, of oppression, obstruction,
-and medi&aelig;val darkness. She knew nothing of
-politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to
-feel vehemently, you feel vehemently without knowing.
-Still, she had heard a good deal about the
-Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>She resented being brought there to admire the
-pleasure grounds and mansion, and to kow-tow to
-the grandeur of these medi&aelig;val tyrants.</p>
-
-<p>Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth
-lawn before the front windows; three centuries of
-mowing had made it as smooth as the top of his
-own head, where the years had mown away merrily.</p>
-
-<p>There was not so much as a shrub&mdash;not a daisy&mdash;between
-them and the great windows of the
-house. They stood in full view.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen
-was her vexation; her cheeks reddened. She was
-obliged to face the house, but her glance was
-downwards; she would not look at it.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory.
-In all Woolhorton town there was not another man
-who could do as he was doing at that moment.</p>
-
-<p>The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally
-exclusive even for high class Tories. Their
-gardens, and lawns, and grounds were jealously
-surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned
-houses of the street beneath them. No one dared
-to so much as peer through a crevice of the mighty
-gates. Their persons were encircled with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
-"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed
-proprietor. No one dared speak to a Pamment.
-They acknowledged no one in the town, not even
-the solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey
-church; that was on account of ritual differences.</p>
-
-<p>It was, indeed, whispered&mdash;high treason must
-always be whispered&mdash;that young Pamment, the
-son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and
-had been known to be effusive towards ladies of
-low birth&mdash;and manners.</p>
-
-<p>The great leaders of Greece&mdash;Alcibiades, Aristides,
-and so on&mdash;threw open their orchards to the
-people. Everyone walked in and did as he chose.
-These great leaders of England&mdash;the Pamments&mdash;shut
-up their lawns and pleasure-grounds, sealed
-them hermetically, you could hardly throw a stone
-over the walls if you tried.</p>
-
-<p>But Grandfather Iden walked through those
-walls as if there were none; he alone of all Woolhorton
-town and country.</p>
-
-<p>In that gossipy little town, of course, there
-were endless surmises as to the why and wherefore
-of that private key. Shrewd people said&mdash;"Ah!
-you may depend they be getting summat out of
-him. Lent 'em some of his guineas, a' reckon.
-They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
-they gentlefolks."</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed:
-he wandered about the lawns, he looked in at the
-conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if it
-pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
-stepped indoors occasionally and sat down on the
-carved old chairs, or pottered about the picture
-gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded
-door in the wall by the Abbey church, and he
-looked upon that key very much as if it had been
-the key of Paradise.</p>
-
-<p>When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at
-Pamment House he was the proudest and happiest
-man in what they sarcastically call "God's creation."</p>
-
-<p>He was a peer at such moments; a grandee&mdash;the
-grandee who can wear his hat or sit down
-(which is it? it is most important to be accurate)
-in the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign;
-he could actually step on the same sward pressed
-by the holy toes of the Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>In justice to him it must be said that he was
-most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight
-of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he
-rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented
-paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself
-under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a
-Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
-that he was literally dandled and fondled like an
-infant, begged to come in, and take wine, and so
-so, and so so.</p>
-
-<p>In justice to old Iden let it be known that he
-was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid
-himself under the fig trees.</p>
-
-<p>Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years&mdash;a
-man of no common intelligence&mdash;a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
-books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in this
-nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a
-worship. Incredible as it may seem it is certainly
-true.</p>
-
-<p>Such loyalty in others of old time, remember,
-seems very beautiful when we read of the devotion
-that was shown towards Charles Stuart.</p>
-
-<p>With all his heart and soul he worshipped the
-very ground the Pamments trod on. He loved to
-see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
-home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow,
-thunder, ninety years notwithstanding, he always
-attended that he might bow his venerable head to
-them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
-faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in
-return.</p>
-
-<p>He was quite happy in his pew if he could see
-them at their carved desks in the chancel; the
-organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
-sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity
-and heavenly presence was diffused around.</p>
-
-<p>Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated
-it. Her Flamma foot tapped the sacred sward.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with
-his silk handkerchief, began to point with his
-cudgel&mdash;a big hockey stick&mdash;at the various parts of
-the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated
-from James II., that went back to Henry VII.,
-there were walls and foundations far more ancient
-still, out of sight.</p>
-
-<p>Really, it was a very interesting place arch&aelig;ologically,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
-if only you could have got rid of the
-Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling
-history. Iden thought she was listening intently.
-At the conclusion he was just moving her&mdash;for she
-was passive now, like a piece of furniture&mdash;when
-he spied some one at a window.</p>
-
-<p>Off came the great white hat, and down it swept
-till the top brushed the grass in the depth of his
-homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
-a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the
-gentleman, so thoroughly courtier-like, and yet
-honest. There was nothing to smile at in that
-bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia
-who could bow in that way, for, in truth, we have
-forgotten how to bow in this generation.</p>
-
-<p>A writing and talking is always going on about
-the high place woman occupies in modern society,
-but the fact is, we have lost our reverence for
-woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing
-more, mere sham. We don't venerate woman,
-and therefore we don't bow.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any
-woman's heart had it been addressed to her, for
-there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
-desire to please in it.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE man he had seen at the window was
-young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
-heir.</div>
-
-<p>He had been sitting in an easy chair,
-one leg over the arm, busy with a
-memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered
-heap of telegrams, letters, and newspapers.</p>
-
-<p>Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of
-human lion's mouth for post-cards, but Raleigh
-junior had not got to manage the House of Commons,
-the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South
-Africa, the Nile, Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar,
-shipping, and Homer.</p>
-
-<p>Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside
-him, from which the letters, telegrams, newspapers,
-and scraps of paper had overflowed on to the floor.
-In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen
-clerks to answer that correspondence; this idle
-young aristocrat answered it himself, entered it in
-his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced the&mdash;the
-residue.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him&mdash;nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
-in the least like those gentlemen who consider
-that to go in to the "office" every morning
-is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike
-young fellow.</p>
-
-<p>A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on
-another chair beside him, a glass of whiskey for a
-paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle, lounging,
-"bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
-writ very large indeed on his broad face.
-In short, a young "gent" of the latter half of the
-nineteenth century.</p>
-
-<p>Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere;
-not even in the cut of his coat, no Brummel-like
-elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at all&mdash;rough,
-large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the
-door of a shop he would have done very well indeed
-for a shopkeeper, the sort that drives about in a
-cart for orders.</p>
-
-<p>Of his character nothing could be learned from
-his features. His face was broad, rather flat, with
-a short but prominent nose; in spite of indulgence,
-he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck
-was thick, his figure stout, his hands big&mdash;a jovial,
-good-tempered looking man.</p>
-
-<p>His neck was <i>very</i> thick, tree-like; a drover's
-neck, no refinement or special intelligence indicated
-there; great power to eat, drink, and sleep&mdash;belly
-energy.</p>
-
-<p>But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members
-of the upper ten thousand are any thicker in
-the neck, or more abdominal in their proclivities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
-or beneath the culture of the day. Take five
-hundred "blue bloods," and you will find among
-them a certain proportion of thick-necked people;
-take five hundred very common commoners, and
-you may count exactly the same number interspersed.</p>
-
-<p>The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable
-to be born big, with broad faces, thick necks, and
-ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to Raleigh, that
-jolly neck of his.</p>
-
-<p>Unless you are given to &aelig;sthetic crockery, or
-Francesco de Rimini, I think you would rather
-have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
-you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer,
-or his credit&mdash;humph!&mdash;at a moment's
-notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
-whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.</p>
-
-<p>He got rid of money in a most surprising way,
-and naturally had nothing to show for it. The
-wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
-London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the
-mysteries of the skies. It slips, it slides, it glides,
-it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the pocket. The
-nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a
-sovereign will leap forth in town.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented
-by soft aunts, yet he frequently walked for lack of
-a cab fare. <i>I</i> can't blame him; I should be just
-as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now
-to walk down Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up
-Bond Street, and so on, in a widening circle, with
-a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
-all your own, and no need to worry when it was
-gone. To look in at all the shops and pick up
-something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
-have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have
-a bit of real old oak furniture; I'll go to Paris&mdash;"
-but Paris is not a patch on London. To take a
-lady&mdash;<i>the</i> lady&mdash;to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread
-the silks of the earth before her feet, and see the
-awakening delight in her eyes and the glow on her
-cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a diamond
-brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended
-you years since in time of financial need;
-to get a new gun, and inquire about the price of a
-deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now
-and then with a sip of Moet&mdash;but only one sip, for
-your liver's sake&mdash;just to brighten up the imagination.
-And so onwards in a widening circle, as
-sun-lit fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey,
-could C&aelig;sar with all his legions, could Lucullus
-with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such pleasure
-as this&mdash;just to spend money freely, with a jolly
-chuckle, in the streets of London? What is
-Mahomet's Paradise to <i>that</i>?</p>
-
-<p>The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance,
-no counting&mdash;anathemas on counting and
-calculation! If life be not a dream, what is the
-use of living?</p>
-
-<p>Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle
-on in hope of living in a dream some day. This
-is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
-not, in an age that preaches thrift and&mdash;twaddle?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
-No joy like waste in London streets; happy
-waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
-butterfly!</p>
-
-<p>Besides, there's no entertainment in the world
-like the streets of London on a sunny day or a gas-lit
-night. The shops, the carriages, the people, the
-odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and
-fro of folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into
-shadowy corners, the dresses, the women; dear me,
-where shall we get to? At all events, the fact
-remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment
-in the world is a lounge in London streets.
-Theatres, concerts, s&eacute;ances, Albert Halls, museums,
-galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
-weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce
-would care to go and gaze at them again who could
-lounge in Piccadilly?</p>
-
-<p>It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in
-May; fifty pounds sometimes at 1 p.m., merely to
-look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
-this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go
-to the opera; for me, the streets.</p>
-
-<p>So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had
-a hatful of money, and could and did just what
-seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
-like water, and in order to get further supplies, the
-idle, good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime
-minister with telegrams, letters, newspapers, and
-so on, worked like a prime minister&mdash;at betting.
-Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
-memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
-the telegrams, kept flat with a glass of whiskey as
-a paper-weight.</p>
-
-<p>While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up
-his chances, a loud refrain of snoring arose from
-the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of
-the fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend
-Freddie, becoming oppressed with so much labour,
-had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
-on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it
-went on the carpet. With one long leg stretched
-out, the other knee up, lying on his back, and his
-mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very
-happy.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed
-again. Freddie boomed away on the sofa. The
-family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got
-down here in this way: it happened one night there
-was a row at a superb bar, Haymarket trail. The
-"chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
-in the general mel&eacute;e Raleigh distinguished himself.
-Rolled about by the crowd, he chanced to find himself
-for a moment in a favourable position, and
-punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty
-severely.</p>
-
-<p>Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was
-strong in the arm, he was "up," and he hit hard.
-The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
-cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur
-twice in a lifetime; Raleigh's genius seized the
-opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
-a trifle to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and
-there are mighty men who do not figure in the
-papers.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh became at once an anaxandron&mdash;a King
-of Men. The history of his feat spread in ten
-minutes from one end of midnight London to the
-other: from the policeman in Waterloo Place to&mdash;everywhere.
-Never was such a stir; the fall of
-Sebastopol&mdash;dear me! I can remember it, look at
-the flight of time&mdash;was nothing to it. They would
-have chaired him, <i>f&ecirc;ted</i> him, got a band to play him
-about the place, literally crowned him with laurel.
-Ave, C&aelig;sar! Ev&oelig;! Bacchus! But they could not
-find him.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in
-at the death, and was well "blooded." Hansom to
-Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
-through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad
-gauge, and they had vanished.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a
-moment; having got the glory, the next thing was
-to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he slipped
-out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the
-excitement of the campaign had subsided.</p>
-
-<p>In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight
-battle, I may as well label the account at
-once: "This is a goak."</p>
-
-<p>I do <i>not</i> approve of brawls at the bar, but I have
-set myself the task to describe a bit of human life
-exactly as it really is, and I can assure you as a
-honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
-a very great man indeed among people as
-they really are. People as they really are, are not
-all Greek scholars.</p>
-
-<p>As I don't wish you to look down upon poor
-Raleigh too much because he smoked a cutty,
-and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent
-his money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and
-was altogether wicked, I may as well tell you something
-in his favour: He was a hero to his valet.</p>
-
-<p>"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb,
-not even Napoleon, Disraeli, or Solomon.</p>
-
-<p>But Raleigh <i>was</i> a hero to his valet.</p>
-
-<p>He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he
-had perfectly fascinated him. The instant he was off
-duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself. He
-put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in
-fact, he dressed himself Raleigh all over. His
-private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so was his
-necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the
-same shop; so were his boots. He kept a sovereign
-loose in his waistcoat pocket, because that
-was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He
-smoked a cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies&mdash;just
-like Raleigh, "the very ticket"&mdash;he had his
-betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
-"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine
-photographs of fine women. He swore in Raleigh's
-very words, and used to spit like him; Raleigh, if
-ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of
-twisting up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs.
-In town Nobbs went to the very same bars (always,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
-of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
-same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the
-tiniest detail. Why, Raleigh very rarely wound
-up his watch&mdash;careless Raleigh; accordingly, Nobbs'
-watch was seldom going. "And you just look
-here," said Nobbs to a great and confidential friend,
-after they had done endless whiskies, and smoked
-handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I
-was <i>he</i>, and had lots of chink, and soft old parties
-to get money out of as easy as filling yer pipe, by
-Jove! wouldn't <i>I</i> cut a swell! I'd do it, <i>I</i> would.
-I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I
-rather guess I would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I
-put a thou on the Middle Park Plate? Ah!
-wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I
-have heaps of wimmen; some in the trap, and some
-indoors, and some to go to the theatre with&mdash;respectable
-gals, I mean&mdash;crowds of 'em would come
-if Raleigh was to hold up his finger. Guess I'd
-fill this old shop (the Pamment mansion) choke full
-of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like
-to fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the
-nose, like <i>he</i> did! Oh, my! Oh, Tommy!" And
-Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
-"he."</p>
-
-<p>Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a
-Demi-god to his valet! Not only Nobbs, but the
-footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
-servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of
-Raleigh looked upon him as the Ideal Man. So
-did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
-the races, and all over town and country, all of that
-sort who knew anything of Raleigh sighed to be
-like "he."</p>
-
-<p>The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to
-his valet" seemed to suppose that the world worships
-good and divine qualities only. Nothing of
-the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and
-coarse and blackguard part the mass of people
-regard with such deep admiration.</p>
-
-<p>If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt
-whatever he would have "done it" very big indeed.
-But he would have left out of his copy that part of
-Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and
-the cutty, and the rest of it, made him still a perfect
-gentleman at heart. Nobbs didn't want to be a
-perfect gentleman.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;">
-<img src="images/i-063.png" width="235" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/g.png" width="120" height="120" alt="G" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>LANCING up from his betting-book,
-Raleigh caught sight of someone on the
-lawn, and went to the window to see
-who it was.</div>
-
-<p>It was then that Grandfather Iden
-raised his great grey hat, and brought it with so
-lowly a sweep down to the very ground before
-this demi-god of his.</p>
-
-<p>"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging
-him off the sofa. "Here's the Behemoth."</p>
-
-<p>"The Behemoth&mdash;the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently,
-still half asleep.</p>
-
-<p>"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd
-show him to you some day. That's the Behemoth."</p>
-
-<p>Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or
-white wild cattle, or strange creatures of that sort,
-in their parks as curiosities. The particular preserve
-of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden&mdash;antediluvian
-Iden&mdash;in short, the Behemoth.</p>
-
-<p>It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on
-show.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"There's a girl with him," said Fred.</p>
-
-<p>"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up,"
-ringing the bell. And he ordered the butler to
-fetch old Iden in.</p>
-
-<p>How thoroughly in character with Human Life
-it was that a man like Grandfather Iden&mdash;aged,
-experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
-books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage
-to Raleigh Pamment!</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-"Wherefore come ye not to court?<br />
-Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.<br />
-Chattering fools and wise men listening."<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed&mdash;his
-head was as bare as Mont Blanc&mdash;and, with
-many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's wishes.
-The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his
-slobbery old mouth in the excess of his glorification,
-takes Amaryllis by the arm, and proceeds to
-draw her towards the mansion.</p>
-
-<p>"But, grandpa&mdash;grandpa&mdash;really I'd rather not
-go. Please, don't make me go. No&mdash;no&mdash;I can't,"
-she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
-willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold,
-no, not for a crown of gold, as the old song says
-unctuously.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be
-afraid of"&mdash;mistaking her hesitation for awe.</p>
-
-<p>"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment.
-"Afraid! I don't want to go."</p>
-
-<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
-the butler in his most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment
-so very particularly wished to see you."</p>
-
-<p>"Come&mdash;come," said old Iden, "don't be silly,"
-as she still hung back. "It's a splendid place
-inside&mdash;there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and so
-the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler
-very, very gently pressing her forward the other,
-they persuaded, or rather they moved Amaryllis
-onward.</p>
-
-<p>She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had
-half a mind to break loose&mdash;easy enough to over-turn
-the two old fogies&mdash;but&mdash;how soon "but"
-comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She
-remembered her father. She remembered her
-mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
-further she could perhaps contrive to keep her
-grandfather in good humour and open the way to a
-reconciliation.</p>
-
-<p>So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican
-blood seething like molten metal in her
-veins, stepped across the hated threshold of the
-ancient and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>But we have all heard about taking the horse to
-water and finding that he would not drink. If you
-cannot even make a horse, do you think you are
-likely to <i>make</i> a woman do anything?</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly
-enough now, but she would not see or hear; he
-pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the
-old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where
-John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII., was seized for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
-high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly on
-the ground.</p>
-
-<p>Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet
-more highly pleased.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in
-another room, not the whiskey-room; he met old
-Iden literally with open arms, taking both the old
-gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden
-tottered, and tears came into his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would
-not raise her glance.</p>
-
-<p>"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked
-over Raleigh's shoulder. "Very raw piece."</p>
-
-<p>To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."</p>
-
-<p>"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his
-voice.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries&mdash;fond of
-pictures&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was silent.</p>
-
-<p>"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as
-much as to say, "you may."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Hum&mdash;let's see&mdash;books&mdash;library&mdash;carvings.
-Come, Mr. Iden, you know the place better than I
-do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar&mdash;I've forgotten
-my Greek. What would you like to show
-her?"</p>
-
-<p>"She <i>is</i> fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly
-flattered that he should be thought to know the
-house better than the heir. "She is fond of pictures;
-she's shy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing
-blood seemed to stifle her. She could have cried
-out aloud; her pride only checked her utterance.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her
-face, led on upstairs, down the corridors, and into
-the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
-took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of
-an old Master.</p>
-
-<p>Holding his great grey hat (which he would not
-give up to the butler) at arm's-length and pointing,
-the old man began to show Amaryllis the beauties
-of the picture.</p>
-
-<p>"A grand thing&mdash;look," said he.</p>
-
-<p>"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.</p>
-
-<p>"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.</p>
-
-<p>"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh.
-"Come this side."</p>
-
-<p>She did not move.</p>
-
-<p>"Go that side," said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>No movement.</p>
-
-<p>"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.</p>
-
-<p>At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood
-there, gazing down still.</p>
-
-<p>"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily&mdash;above
-the canvas, and then again at the floor.</p>
-
-<p>Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair
-as they stood together; Amaryllis gazing downwards,
-Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a possible
-alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind;
-only consider, intermarriage between the Pamments
-and the Idens! Much more improbable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
-things have happened; even without the marriage
-license the connection would be an immense honour.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most
-certainly have sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own
-flesh and blood, joyously and intentionally to his
-worship of the aristocrat.</p>
-
-<p>If she could not have been the wife he would
-have forced her to be the mistress.</p>
-
-<p>There is no one so cruel&mdash;so utterly inhuman&mdash;as
-an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have
-long been dead words.</p>
-
-<p>"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly.
-"Is it not noble?"</p>
-
-<p>"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her
-large, dark eyes at last and looking her grandfather
-in the face.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great
-white hat, his sunken cheeks flushing. It was not
-so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
-rebellion.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky," he repeated.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky and&mdash;dingy," said Amaryllis. She
-had felt without actually seeing that Raleigh's gaze
-had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
-had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or
-so offends a woman.</p>
-
-<p>Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to
-give offence&mdash;on the contrary he had been singularly
-pleasant, respectfully pleasant&mdash;but she remembered
-the fellow staring at her from the window at the
-"Lamb" and it biased her against him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
-wished to treat him, and his pictures, and his place
-altogether with marked contempt.</p>
-
-<p>"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I
-will leave now, if you please," and she moved towards
-the door.</p>
-
-<p>"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands
-and tottering after her. "Stop! I order you to
-stop! you rude girl!"</p>
-
-<p>He could not catch her, she had left the gallery&mdash;he
-slipped in his haste on the polished floor.
-Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
-fallen, and at the same time presented him with his
-great white hat.</p>
-
-<p>"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked
-and slobbered and mumbled, and I verily believe had
-it not been for his veneration of the place he would
-have spat upon the floor.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook
-her at the staircase.</p>
-
-<p>"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily
-descended. "Really I should have liked you to
-have seen the house&mdash;will you sit down a moment?
-Forgive me if I said or did&mdash;&mdash;. No, do stay&mdash;please&mdash;"
-as she made straight for the hall. "I
-am so sorry&mdash;really sorry&mdash;unintentional"&mdash;in fact
-he had done nothing, and yet he was penitent. But
-she would not listen, she hurried on along the path,
-she began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her,
-still begging her to pause; Amaryllis ran at last
-outright. "At least let me see you through the fair&mdash;rough
-people. Let me open the door&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a
-spring lock, and for a moment she could not unfasten
-it; she tore at it and grazed her hand, the
-blood started.</p>
-
-<p>"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly
-upset. "Let me bind it up," taking out his handkerchief.
-"I would not have had this happen for
-money"&mdash;short for any amount of money. "Let
-me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting,
-not with the run, which was nothing to her, but
-pent-up indignation, and still trying to open the
-lock.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung
-open&mdash;he could easily have detained her there, but
-he did not. "One moment, pray&mdash;Miss Iden."
-She was gone down the passage between the Abbey
-church and the wall; he followed, she darted out
-into the crowd of the fair.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/i-008.png" width="100" height="67" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-064.png" width="500" height="89" alt="" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond
-measure, vexation biting deep
-lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured
-face.</div>
-
-<p>"That I should have been such a
-fool&mdash;an infernal blockheaded fool&mdash;" shutting the
-iron-studded door with a kick and a clang&mdash;"muddle-headed
-fool&mdash;I'll never touch a drop of
-whiskey again&mdash;and that jackass, Fred&mdash;why, she's&mdash;"
-a lady, he would have said, but did not dare
-admit to himself now that he had thought to ask
-her in to "wake us up." "But what did I do?
-Can't think what annoyed her. Must have been
-something between her and that tedious old Iden.
-Quite sure I didn't do or say&mdash;&mdash;" but still he
-could not quiet his conscience, for if he had not by
-deed or word, he knew he had in thought.</p>
-
-<p>He had sent for her as he might have done for
-any of the vulgar wenches in the fair to amuse an
-idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.</p>
-
-<p>In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
-Amaryllis Iden. Her features were not beautiful,
-as general ideas go, nor had her form the grace of
-full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by
-a master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression
-her nature had made upon him.</p>
-
-<p>It is not the particular cast of features that
-makes a man great, and gives him a pre-eminence
-among his fellows. It is the character&mdash;the mind.</p>
-
-<p>A great genius commands attention at once by
-his presence, and so a woman may equally impress
-by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
-asserts itself in subtle ways.</p>
-
-<p>I don't say for certain that it was her character
-that impressed Raleigh&mdash;it might have been nothing
-of the sort, it might have been <i>because it was
-so</i>, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate.
-These things do not happen by "why and because."</p>
-
-<p>Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose
-a whiskey-sipping, cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing,
-bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh could
-by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But
-whiskey, cutty, horse, and bar were not the real
-man, any more than your hat is your head, they
-were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all
-the same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely
-more generous than some very respectable
-folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and grind
-down their clerks and dependents to the edge of
-starvation.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such
-as the pew-haunting Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
-he was not in love: at all events he was highly
-excited.</p>
-
-<p>Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following
-Amaryllis by representing that Raleigh would
-be sure to bring her back. The butler, who was
-very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped
-out a bottle of champagne and handed him a
-brimming glass. The old gentleman, still mouthing
-and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank,
-and spluttered again, and refusing a second, would
-go, and so met Raleigh in the hall.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man,
-and on his part the old man tried at one and the
-same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
-and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently
-neither of them heard or understood the other.</p>
-
-<p>But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering
-the rough crowd in the fair, despatched
-the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
-now growing dusky as the evening came on.</p>
-
-<p>Without more ado, this young gentleman then
-set to and swore at Fred for half an hour straight
-ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
-what on earth had turned his brain; next, being
-equally hot-tempered, he swore in reply; then there
-followed some sharp recriminations (for each knew
-too much of the other's goings on not to have
-plenty of material), and finally they sparred. Two
-or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having nothing
-to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried
-himself in the papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
-out into the fair. Thus there was tribulation in the
-great house of the Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer
-him through the crowd quietly enough, because it
-flattered him to be thus taken care of before the
-world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted
-at the doorstep he slipped half-a-sovereign in the
-butler's hand&mdash;he could not offer less than gold to
-a Pamments' man&mdash;but once inside, his demeanour
-changed. He pushed away his housekeeper, went
-into his especial sitting-room, bolted the door,
-spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked
-the coals, grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke
-and smuts filled the stuffy little place.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by there was a banging of drawers&mdash;the
-drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened
-and shut sharply&mdash;writing-paper was flung on the
-table, and he sat down to write a letter with a
-scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered
-to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring,
-and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation
-in the house of the head of the Idens.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis meantime had got through the town
-by keeping between the booths and the houses.
-Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode up&mdash;he
-had been on the watch, thinking to talk with
-her as she walked home, but just as he drew rein to
-go slow and so speak, a heathen pig from the market
-rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the
-game by throwing him headlong.</p>
-
-<p>She did not see, or at least did not notice, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
-hastening on, entered the fields. In coming to
-town that morning she had seen everything; now,
-returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no
-heed of anything; she was so absorbed that when
-a man&mdash;one of those she met going to the fair for
-the evening&mdash;turned back and followed her some
-way, she did not observe him. Finding that she
-walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased to pursue.</p>
-
-<p>The gloom had settled when she reached home,
-and the candles were lit. She gave her father the
-sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
-escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had
-the prize-guinea.</p>
-
-<p>"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.</p>
-
-<p>"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me
-see," said Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;I lost it," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"</p>
-
-<p>"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones.
-"Show it immediately."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't; I lost it."</p>
-
-<p>"Lost it!"</p>
-
-<p>And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger:
-a careless, wasteful hussy, an idle wretch; what
-did she do for her living that she could throw away
-spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say?
-how did she suppose they were to keep her, and she
-not earn the value of a bonnet-string? time she
-was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity she
-ate, and never could touch any fat&mdash;dear me, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
-fine&mdash;bacon was not good enough for her&mdash;she could
-throw away spade-guineas.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her
-hat in her hand, her bosom heaving, her lips apart
-and pouting, not with indignation but sheer misery;
-her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness
-and sink till she stooped; she could not face
-them as she would have done others, because you
-see she loved them, and she had done her best that
-day till too sorely tried.</p>
-
-<p>The storm raged on; finally Iden growled
-"Better get out of sight." Then she went to her
-bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay
-down, and sobbed silently on the pillow, after
-which she fell asleep, quite worn out, dark circles
-under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
-tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at
-the fair two miles away was audible.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-009.png" width="150" height="107" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>o there was tribulation in three houses.
-Next morning she scarcely dared come
-in to breakfast, and opened the door
-timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to
-be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on
-taking her place, Iden carefully cut for her the
-most delicate slice of ham he could find, and removed
-the superfluous fat before putting it on her
-plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready
-for her&mdash;Amaryllis was fond of cream&mdash;and enriched
-the tea with it generously.</div>
-
-<p>"And what did you see at the fair?" asked
-Iden in his kindest voice, lifting up his saucer&mdash;from
-which he always drank&mdash;by putting his thumb
-under it instead of over, so that his thick little
-finger projected. He always sipped his tea in this
-way.</p>
-
-<p>"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said
-Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I don't know; I did not see much of the
-fair," said Amaryllis, at a loss to understand the
-change of manner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden
-picked up a letter from the tea-tray and gave it to
-her daughter:</p>
-
-<p>"Read."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis read&mdash;it was from Grandfather Iden,
-furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his
-daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
-manners&mdash;an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better
-not show her face in his house again till she had
-been taught to know her position; her conduct was
-not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest
-idea how to behave herself in the presence of persons
-of quality.</p>
-
-<p>She put it down before she had finished the
-tirade of abuse; she did not look up, her face was
-scarlet.</p>
-
-<p>Iden laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said
-Mrs. Iden. "So glad you vexed him, dear!"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning
-a heroine. The grandfather's letter had done this.</p>
-
-<p>Iden never complained&mdash;never mentioned his
-father&mdash;but of course in his heart he bitterly felt
-the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
-and their child. He was a man who said the
-less the more he was moved; he gossiped freely
-with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet
-old woman. Not a word ever dropped from him
-of his own difficulties&mdash;he kept his mind to himself.
-His wife knew nothing of his intentions&mdash;he
-was over-secretive, especially about money matters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
-in which he affected the most profound mystery,
-as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly aware
-they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.</p>
-
-<p>All the more bitterly he resented the manner
-in which Grandfather Iden treated him, giving
-away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and fourpenny
-bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities,
-leaving his own descendants to struggle
-daily with debt and insult.</p>
-
-<p>Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the
-insults of his petty creditors fretted him.</p>
-
-<p>He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become
-her grandfather's favourite; as the grandfather had
-thrown savage words at the girl, so much the more
-was added to the score against the grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop
-of Flamma blood in her veins&mdash;hated him above
-all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old Iden
-had in his youth been connected with the Flammas
-in business&mdash;hated him for his veneration of the
-aristocratic and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the
-necessity of cultivating her grandfather's goodwill,
-and always abusing him&mdash;contradicting herself in
-the most natural manner.</p>
-
-<p>This letter had given them such delight, because
-it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the
-old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
-hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his
-scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money,
-he had had <i>one</i> good upset, that was something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis
-was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her
-father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
-Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for
-various reasons both father and mother grew warmer
-in delight at every fresh incident of her story.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Flamma Iden&mdash;revolutionary Flamma&mdash;detested
-the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle
-first, and next, because the grandfather paid them
-such court.</p>
-
-<p>Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque,
-and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty
-years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking
-them personally.</p>
-
-<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of
-the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and
-in and out the conservatories, as if that was the
-highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used
-often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the
-very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she
-would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a
-private key&mdash;you're every bit as silly really, only
-you haven't got the chance."</p>
-
-<p>However, from a variety of causes they agreed in
-looking on Amaryllis' disgrace as a high triumph
-and glory.</p>
-
-<p>So she was petted all the morning by both
-parties&mdash;a rare thing&mdash;and in the afternoon Iden
-gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to
-buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as
-she chose on herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet
-not without regret that she had increased the disagreement
-between her father and grandfather.
-She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the
-site of the fair, the children running along with
-bare brown feet. She went under the arch&aelig;ologically
-interesting gateway, and knocked at the door
-of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."</p>
-
-<p>Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin
-and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and
-miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession
-of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply
-for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at
-Christmas were not mended yet.</p>
-
-<p>Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and
-his foot measure in the other, very humbly and
-deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
-much trouble with the workmen, some were so
-tipsy, and some would not work; they were always
-demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
-in hand going off and leaving it half finished&mdash;shoemaker's
-tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could
-not get a workman, and then there was the competition
-of the ready-made boot from Northampton;
-really, it was most trying&mdash;it really was.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?"
-said Amaryllis, amused at the poor fellow's distress.
-"When <i>are</i> they going to be finished?"</p>
-
-<p>"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's
-mother, coming to help her son, "the fact is, he's just
-worried out of his life with his men&mdash;and really&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"You don't seem to get on very well with your
-shoemaking, Mr. Wise," said the customer, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy
-manner, with a deep sigh, "the fact is, the
-men don't know their work as they used to, they
-spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs
-half done, and they're always drinking; the leather
-isn't so good as it used to be; the fact is," with a
-still deeper sigh, "<i>we can't make a boot</i>."</p>
-
-<p>At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think
-that people should have been in business two
-hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not
-make a boot!</p>
-
-<p>Her experience of life as yet was short, and she
-saw things in their first aspect; it is not till much
-later we observe that the longer people do one
-thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they
-cannot do it at all.</p>
-
-<p>She presently selected a pair for herself, 9<i>s.</i>,
-and another pair for her mother, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, leaving
-sixpence over; add sixpence discount for ready-money,
-and she was still rich with a shilling.
-Carrying the parcel, she went up the street and
-passed old Iden's door on elate instep, happy that
-she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
-happy to think she had the boots for her mother.
-Looking in at two or three dingy little shops, she
-fixed at last on one, and bought half-a-dozen of the
-very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
-fond. This finished the savings, and she turned
-quickly for home. The bloaters being merely bound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
-round with one thin sheet of newspaper, soon imparted
-their odour to her hand.</p>
-
-<p>A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I
-hope, too ideal; I hope you will see now that I am
-not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
-Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the
-bloaters and the boots; a very sweet, true, and
-loving hand it was, in spite of the bloaters&mdash;one to
-kiss fervently.</p>
-
-<p>They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire
-of wood-coals, and while they cooked the mother
-tried her new boots, naturally not a little pleased
-with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood
-surged with gratitude; she would have given her
-girl the world at that moment. That she should
-have remembered her mother showed such a good
-disposition; there was no one like Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!"
-with a gasp; and holding his handkerchief to his
-nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for the
-smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.</p>
-
-<p>They only laughed all the merrier over their
-supper.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-011.png" width="150" height="75" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/r.png" width="120" height="118" alt="R" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>IGHT at the top of the house there
-was a large, unfurnished room, which
-Amaryllis had taken as her own long
-since. It was her study, her thinking-room,
-her private chapel and praying-room, her one
-place of solitude, silence, and retirement.</div>
-
-<p>The days had gone on, and it was near the end
-of April. Coming up the dark stairs one morning,
-she found them still darker, because she had just
-left the sunshine. They were built very narrow,
-as usual in old country-houses, and the landing
-shut off with a door, so that when you were in them
-you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet&mdash;bare
-boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet
-their stairs; no handrail; the edges of the steps
-worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
-under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as
-if it had been nibbled by mice.</p>
-
-<p>Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis
-was in perfect darkness, but her feet knew the
-well-remembered way, and she came quickly to
-the top.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There were two great rooms running the whole
-length of the house: the first was a lumber-room,
-the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it was,
-in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was
-vague with bareness: a huge, square room, gaunt
-as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed, the
-floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small
-window, stood a table and tall-backed oaken chair,
-afar off, as it were, from the doorway&mdash;a journey to
-them across the creaking floor. On one side an
-old four-post bedstead of dark oak, much damaged,
-was placed by the wall; the sacking hung down in
-a loop, torn and decayed&mdash;a bedstead on which no
-one had slept these hundred years past. By the
-table there was, too, an ancient carved linen-press
-of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.</p>
-
-<p>These bits of rude furniture were lost in the
-vastness of space, as much as if you had thrown
-your hat into the sky.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt
-down. She brought a handful of violets, fresh-gathered,
-to place in the glass which she kept there
-for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick
-wall, and formed a niche, where she always had a
-tumbler ready&mdash;a common glass tumbler, she could
-not afford a vase.</p>
-
-<p>They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of
-all, gathered while the nightingale was singing his
-morning song in the April sunshine&mdash;a song the
-world never listens to, more delicious than his evening
-notes, for the sunlight helps him, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
-blue of the heavens, the green leaf, and the soft
-wind&mdash;all the soul of spring.</p>
-
-<p>White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of
-flower, tender and delicate, growing under the
-great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among
-the dry, brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked
-unless you know exactly where to go for them.
-She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
-for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen
-into the glass, but she hung them by their chins
-over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks in
-the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at
-the table, and rested her head on her hand.</p>
-
-<p>Except where she did this every day, and so
-brushed it, a thin layer of dust had covered the
-surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
-her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on
-the indiarubber, dust on the cake of Indian ink,
-dust invisible on the smooth surface of the pencils,
-dust in the little box of vine charcoal.</p>
-
-<p>The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around
-the house had shaken the pencil from her fingers&mdash;Siberian
-wolves they were, racing over the arid
-deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing
-in number and ferocity, ready to tear the
-very door down. There are no wolves like those
-debt sends against a house.</p>
-
-<p>Every knock at the door, every strange footstep
-up the approach, every letter that came, was like
-the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.</p>
-
-<p>Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
-stile, and put the letters unopened on the mantelshelf&mdash;a
-pile of bills over his head where he slept
-calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes,
-and cut trusses of hay, and go through <i>his</i> work
-to appearance unmoved.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could not draw&mdash;she could not do it;
-her imagination refused to see the idea; the more
-she concentrated her mind, the louder she heard the
-ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.</p>
-
-<p>Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered,
-bill-hooks can be wielded and faggots
-chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
-ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he
-can, and does, follow the plough, and finds, perhaps,
-some solace in the dull monotony of his labour.
-Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid
-imagination&mdash;a delicately-balanced organization,
-that almost lives on its ideas as veritable food&mdash;cannot
-do like this. The poet, the artist, the
-author, the thinker, cannot follow their plough;
-their work depends on a serene mind.</p>
-
-<p>But experience proves that they <i>do</i> do their
-work under such circumstances. They do; how
-greatly then they must be tortured, or for what a
-length of time they must have suffered to become
-benumbed.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked
-of Time. She could not sketch&mdash;that
-was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
-wanted was money. She could not read, that was
-not real; what was wanted was solid coin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and
-covered with dust, but she came every day to her
-flowers in the window-niche.</p>
-
-<p>She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of
-February and March, without a fire, disdainful of
-ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her
-warm young blood cared nothing for the cold, if
-only by enduring it she could assist those whom
-she loved.</p>
-
-<p>There were artists in the Flamma family in London
-who made what seemed to her large incomes,
-yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
-criticism, and who had never even sent a
-work to the Academy&mdash;never even tried to enter.
-Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it
-was well paid.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success
-as an artist, nor think to take the world by storm
-with her talent. Her one only hope was to get a
-few pounds now and then&mdash;she would have sold
-twenty sketches for ten shillings&mdash;to save her father
-from insult, and to give her mother the mere necessities
-of dress she needed.</p>
-
-<p>No thought of possible triumph, nor was she
-sustained by an overmastering love of art; she was
-inspired by her heart, not her genius.</p>
-
-<p>Had circumstances been different she would not
-have earnestly practised drawing; naturally she
-was a passive rather than an active artist.</p>
-
-<p>She loved beauty for its own sake&mdash;she loved
-the sunlight, the grass and trees, the gleaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
-water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
-listen to the running water was to her a dear delight,
-to the wind in the high firs, or caught in the
-wide-stretching arms of the oak; she rested among
-these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the
-body. The few good pictures she had seen pleased
-her, but did not rouse the emotion the sunlight
-caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not like
-the running stream. It said nothing&mdash;the stream
-was full of thought.</p>
-
-<p>No eager desire to paint like that or play like
-that was awakened by pictures or music; Amaryllis
-was a passive and not an active artist by nature.
-And I think that is the better part; at least, I
-know it is a thousand times more pleasure to me to
-see a beautiful thing than to write about it. Could
-I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things, and
-not writing.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or
-fame; to be silent in the sunshine was enough for
-her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
-talent&mdash;she drew at once without effort or consideration;
-it was not so much to her as it is to me
-to write a letter.</p>
-
-<p>The thought to make use of her power did not
-occur to her until the preceding Christmas. Roast
-beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery at
-Coombe Oaks&mdash;a sham and cold delusion, cold as
-snow. A "merry Christmas"&mdash;holly berries,
-mistletoe&mdash;and behind these&mdash;debt. Behind the
-glowing fire, written in the flames&mdash;debt; in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
-sound of the distant chimes&mdash;debt. Now be merry
-over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash their
-teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep
-out.</p>
-
-<p>Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in
-all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou
-owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly
-engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me
-that thou owest! This is the message from the
-manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
-<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-014.png" width="500" height="102" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>O Amaryllis went up into the gaunt,
-cold room at the top of the house, and
-bent herself seriously to drawing.
-There was no fireplace, and if there had
-been they could not have allowed her
-coals; coals were dear. It was quite an event
-when the horse and cart went to the wharf for coal.
-There was plenty of wood for the hearth&mdash;wood
-grew on the farm&mdash;but coal was money.</div>
-
-<p>The March winds howled round the corner of
-the old thatched house, and now and again tremendous
-rains blew up against the little western window
-near which she had placed her table. Through
-the silent cold of January, the moist cold of February,
-the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
-Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of
-nipped fingers and chilled feet.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes she looked out of the window and
-watched Iden digging in the garden underneath,
-planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
-or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
-out the furrows that the water might flow better&mdash;"trenching,"
-as he called it.</p>
-
-<p>The harder it rained the harder he worked at
-this in the open, with a sack about his shoulders
-like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter, the
-master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the
-water to the grass to get a larger crop of hay in
-June.</p>
-
-<p>Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat,
-he looked a woful figure as the heavy shower beat on
-his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
-father.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes she went into the next room&mdash;the
-lumber-room&mdash;only lighted by a window on a level
-with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
-only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there,
-she could see him at the stile across the road, his
-hands behind his back, gossiping now with another
-farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an
-old woman carrying home a yoke of water from the
-brook.</p>
-
-<p>The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than
-the work in the cold rain; it seemed so incongruous,
-so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
-as she knew him.</p>
-
-<p>That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead,
-and his profile like Shakespeare, should stand
-there talk, talk, talking on the smallest hamlet
-topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded
-farmers, was to her a bewilderment and
-annoyance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>She could not understand it, and she resented it.
-The real Iden she knew was the man of thought
-and old English taste, who had told her so much
-by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in
-features he resembled, and of the poets from Elizabethan
-days downwards. His knowledge seemed
-to be endless; there was no great author he had not
-read, no subject upon which he could not at least
-tell her where to obtain information. Yet she knew
-he had never had what is now called an education.
-How clever he must be to know all these things!
-You see she did not know how wonderful is the
-gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
-that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him;
-therefore his store was great.</p>
-
-<p>No other garden was planted as Iden's garden
-was, in the best of old English taste, with old English
-flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In summer
-time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a
-spot for a painter, loved and resorted to by every
-bird of the air. Of a bare old farmhouse he had
-made a beautiful home.</p>
-
-<p>Questions upon questions her opening mind had
-poured upon him, and to all he had given her an
-answer that was an explanation. About the earth
-and about the sea, the rivers, and living things;
-about the stars and sun, the comet, the wonders of
-the firmament, of geology and astronomy, of science;
-there was nothing he did not seem to know.</p>
-
-<p>A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that
-Ulysses of whom he read to her, and who, like that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
-Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
-was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why
-did he work in the rain under a sack? Why did
-he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
-idlers?</p>
-
-<p>It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.</p>
-
-<p>I cannot explain why it was so, any better than
-Amaryllis; I could give a hundred reasons, and
-then there would be no explanation&mdash;say partly
-circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which
-talent would tell, partly an indecision of character&mdash;too
-much thought&mdash;and, after all said and done,
-Fate.</p>
-
-<p>Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis
-felt her heart drooping, she knew not why,
-and went back to her drawing unstrung.</p>
-
-<p>She worked very hard, and worked in vain.
-The sketches all came back to her. Some of them
-had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
-carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had
-been folded wrongly, almost all smelt of tobacco.
-Neither illustrated papers, periodicals: neither
-editors nor publishers would have anything to do
-with them. One or two took more care, and returned
-the drawings quite clean; one sent a note
-saying that they promised well.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she
-wanted half a sovereign <i>now</i>. If a prophet assured
-a man that the picture he could not now dispose of
-would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years,
-what consolation would that be to him?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They were all a total failure. So many letters
-could not be received in that dull place without
-others in the house seeing what was going on.
-Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the
-stairs&mdash;a shuffling, uncertain step&mdash;and her heart
-began to beat quicker, for she knew it was her
-mother. Somehow, although she loved her so
-dearly, she felt that there was not much sympathy
-between them. She did not understand her mother;
-the mother did not understand the daughter.
-Though she was working for her mother's sake,
-when she heard her mother's step she was ashamed
-of her work.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the
-room, drawing one foot along the floor in an aggravating
-way she had, she was not lame, and look out
-of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis,
-and say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never
-do anything. I've seen too much of it. Better
-come down and warm yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it
-seemed so inconsistent. Mrs. Iden blew up her
-husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
-round and discouraged her daughter for being
-enterprising, and this, too, although she was constantly
-talking about the superiority of the art
-employments of the Flammas in London to the
-clodhopper work around her.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother
-had gone downstairs again, and then the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
-kept repeating themselves in her ear&mdash;"Never do
-no good at that, never do no good at that."</p>
-
-<p>If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we
-should find that Amaryllis was working for a mother
-of her own imagination, and not for the mother of
-fact.</p>
-
-<p>Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing,
-feels the cold very much more than those who
-are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold in
-the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind
-came unchecked through the wire network of the
-window in the next room. But for that her
-generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the
-still colder wind of failure.</p>
-
-<p>She had no name&mdash;no repute, therefore had her
-drawings been equal to the finest ever produced
-they would not have been accepted. Until the
-accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.</p>
-
-<p>Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who
-on earth would attempt to win success by merit?
-That alone proves how correct the world is in its
-estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding
-fools. Succeed by merit!</p>
-
-<p>Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger,
-or the tallow-chandler rely on personal
-merit, or purely personal ability for making a business?
-They rely on a little capital, credit, and much
-push. The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and
-works next as a subordinate, his "footing" costs
-hundreds of pounds, and years of hard labour. The
-doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
-can, he buys a practice. They do not rely on
-merit.</p>
-
-<p>The three fools&mdash;the author, the artist, and the
-musician&mdash;put certain lines on a sheet of paper and
-expect the world to at once admire their clever
-ideas.</p>
-
-<p>In the end&mdash;but how far is it to the end!&mdash;it is
-true that genius is certain of recognition; the steed
-by then has grown used to starvation, waiting for
-the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous
-men of business men of merit? are they all
-clever? are they geniuses? They do not exactly
-seem to be so.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path
-so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly
-impossible.</p>
-
-<p>I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler,
-with a good steady income and no thought, than an
-author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into
-the tallow business.</p>
-
-<p>Until the accident of reputation chanced to come
-to her, Amaryllis might work and work, and hope
-and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
-watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the
-furrows in the rain, under his sack.</p>
-
-<p>She had not even a diploma&mdash;a diploma, or a
-certificate, a South Kensington certificate! Fancy,
-without even a certificate! Misguided child!</p>
-
-<p>What a hideous collection of frumpery they have
-got there at the Museum, as many acres as Iden's
-farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the "periods."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
-What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They
-have not even a single statue in the place. They
-would shrivel up in horror at a nude model. <i>They</i>
-teach art&mdash;miserable sham, their wretched art
-culminates in a Christmas card.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had not even been through the South
-Kensington "grind," and dared to send in original
-drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
-see, pure clodhopper ignorance.</p>
-
-<p>Failure waited on her labours; the postman
-brought them all back again.</p>
-
-<p>Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen
-the line which the very highest in the profession
-would probably have advised her to take. She
-drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old
-barn up the road, the hollow tree, the dry reeds,
-the birds, and chanticleer himself&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-High was his comb, and coral red withal,<br />
-In dents embattled like a castle wall.<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not
-sketch; the fogger with his broad knife cutting
-hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the wheelbarrow
-munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a
-study for Teniers; the team coming home from
-plough&mdash;winter scenes, most of them, because it
-was winter time. There are those who would give
-fifty pounds for one of those studies now, crumpled,
-stained, and torn as they are.</div>
-
-<p>It was a complete failure. Once only she had a
-gleam of success. Iden picked up the sketch of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
-the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking at it,
-put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf.
-Amaryllis felt like the young painter whose
-work is at last hung at the Academy. His opinion
-was everything to her. He valued her sketch.</p>
-
-<p>Still, that was not money. The cold wind and
-the chill of failure still entered her garret study.
-But it was neither of these that at length caused
-the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked
-on and on, hoping against hope, undaunted, despite
-physical cold and moral check. It was the procession
-of creditors.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
-<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>TEADILY they came over from the town,
-dunning Iden and distracting Amaryllis
-in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps
-on the path to the door, the thump,
-thump with the fist (there was neither
-knocker nor bell, country fashion); more thumping,
-and then her mother's excuses, so oft repeated, so
-wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
-creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes,"
-or "He's gone to Green Hills." "Well, when will
-he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to
-know when this yer little account is going to be
-settled." Then a long narration of his wrongs,
-threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
-grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps
-departing.</div>
-
-<p>Very rude men came down from the villages
-demanding payment in their rough way&mdash;a raw,
-crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had
-long since exhausted his credit in the town; neither
-butcher, baker, draper, nor anyone else would let
-them have a shilling's-worth until the shilling had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
-been placed on the counter. He had been forced
-lately to deal with the little men of the villages&mdash;the
-little butcher who killed once a fortnight; the
-petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
-Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first;
-coarse language and rudeness afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>One day, the village baker, having got inside
-the door as Mrs. Iden incautiously opened it, stood
-there and argued with her, while Amaryllis in the
-garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it
-up?"</p>
-
-<p>"He'll send it up."</p>
-
-<p>"He've a' said that every time, but it beant
-come yet. You tell un I be come to vetch it."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Iden's not in."</p>
-
-<p>"I'll bide till he be in."</p>
-
-<p>"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."</p>
-
-<p>"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful.
-It's nothing but cheating&mdash;that's what I calls
-it&mdash;to have things and never pay for um. It's
-cheating."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.</p>
-
-<p>"How dare you say such a thing? How dare
-you insult my mother? Leave the house this
-moment!"</p>
-
-<p>And with both hands she literally pushed the
-man, unwilling, but not absolutely resisting, outside,
-grumbling as he moved that he never insulted
-nobody, only asked for his money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of
-hand, calculated to encourage the play of imagination!
-She could do nothing for hours afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was
-worse, because it lasted longer. First they talked
-by the potato-patch almost under the window;
-then they talked on the path; then they came
-indoors, and then there were words and grumbling
-sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
-they went out again and talked by the gate. At
-last the creditor departed, and Iden returned indoors
-to take a glass of ale and sit a moment till
-the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind.
-Mrs. Iden then had her turn at him: the old story&mdash;why
-didn't he do something? Amaryllis knew
-every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
-room.</p>
-
-<p>How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis
-could not think; how he could stand, and be argued
-with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
-the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in
-the road, she could not understand.</p>
-
-<p>The truth was he could not help himself; violence
-would have availed nothing. But to youth it
-seems as if a few blows are all that is needed to
-overcome difficulties.</p>
-
-<p>Waller and Co., the tailor&mdash;he was his own Co.&mdash;walked
-over regularly once a week; very civil
-and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
-he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for
-Iden's coat was a pattern of raggedness, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
-trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby old hat
-rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound
-account two years overdue.</p>
-
-<p>Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his
-trap as he went by, at least twice a week, to chivey
-Iden about his money. Though he would not let
-them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever
-there was five shillings to spare for meat it
-was always taken into his shop, as it was better to
-have good meat there, if you had to pay cash
-for meat, than inferior in the village. One day,
-Amaryllis was waiting for some steak, side by side
-with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while
-Cobb served a grand lady of the town. "Yes,
-m'm&mdash;oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows, and
-scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness
-possible. When the fine lady had gone, "Lar,
-Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how different
-you do speak to <i>they</i> to what you do speak to <i>me</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed
-at having one manner for the poor and another for
-the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they require
-such a deal of <i>homage</i>."</p>
-
-<p>There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's,
-but that was not much pressed, only a large blue
-letter about once a month, as Beavan had a very
-good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs.
-Iden made excellent butter, which had a reputation,
-and Beavan took it all at about half-price. If it had
-been sold to anyone else he would have insisted on
-payment. So, by parting with the best butter in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
-the county at half-price, they got their tea and
-sugar without much dunning.</p>
-
-<p>At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and
-strange in her manner, as if on the point of hysterics,
-from which Amaryllis divined something serious
-was approaching, though her mother would say
-nothing. So it turned out&mdash;a bailiff appeared, and
-took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was very
-civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and
-offered to help in any way he could. Iden gave
-him plenty of beer, for one thing. Amaryllis could
-not go into the kitchen&mdash;the dear old place seemed
-deserted while he was there.</p>
-
-<p>This woke up Iden for the moment. First there
-was a rummaging about in his old bureau, and a
-laborious writing of letters, or adding up of figures.
-Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath,
-clean linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed
-away these years past. In two hours or so Iden
-came down another man, astonishingly changed,
-quite a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome
-in Amaryllis's eyes. Indeed, he was really
-handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully so.
-If only he would always dress like that!</p>
-
-<p>Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations
-had so consumed the time that the bank
-was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and there
-was no means of raising any money that evening.
-The son passed the father's doorstep&mdash;the worn
-stone step, ground by the generations of customers&mdash;he
-saw the light behind the blind in the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
-room where Grandfather Iden sat&mdash;he might, had
-he paused and listened, have heard the old man
-poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man&mdash;the
-son passed on, and continued his lonely walk
-home, the home that held a bailiff.</p>
-
-<p>A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff
-in the kitchen, and there he remained the night,
-and was up and had lit the fire for Luce the servant
-before she was down. The man was certainly very
-civil, but still there was the shock of it.</p>
-
-<p>Early in the morning Iden went into town again,
-saw his solicitor, and got a cheque&mdash;it was only
-five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the bailiff
-left.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
-<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>UT his presence did not die out of the
-kitchen; they always seemed to feel as
-if he had been there. The hearth had
-been stained by a foreign foot, the very
-poker had been touched by a foreign
-hand, the rude form at the side by the wall had
-been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
-always been so fond of the kitchen&mdash;the oldest part
-of the house, two centuries at least. The wide
-hearth and immense chimney, up which, when the
-fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the
-stars; over which of a windy night you could imagine
-the witches riding by, borne on the deep
-howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun
-slung to it; the heavy oaken table, unpolished,
-greyish oak; the window in the thick wall, set
-with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls
-from which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the
-rude old place was very dear to her.</div>
-
-<p>Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the
-sitting-room, drawn by its antique homeliness.
-Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
-cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and
-apples, while the potatoes&mdash;large potatoes&mdash;Iden's
-selected specialities&mdash;were baking buried in the
-ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could
-see the white drift of snow against the window,
-which was on a level with the ground outside, and
-so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
-the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with
-saws, or, his fancy roaming on, of the broad and
-beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so admired
-in his youth, the river the poets will sing some
-day; or of his clinging aloft at night in the gale on
-the banks of Newfoundland, for he had done duty
-as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his
-youth, why did he gossip at the stile now in his full
-and prime of manhood?</p>
-
-<p>It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even
-then only those who have lived in the country and
-had practical experience could fully comprehend
-the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you
-are of a wholly sordid nature. Iden's nature was not
-sordid; the very reverse. The beginning, or one
-of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father
-and son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden
-could not forgive his son for making the place
-beautiful with trees and flowers.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and
-they had supper on the old and clumsy table, village
-made and unpolished, except in so far as the stains
-of cooking operations had varnished it, the same
-table at which "Jearje," the fogger, sat every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
-morning to eat his breakfast, and every evening to
-take his supper. What matter? George worked
-hard and honestly all day, his great arms on the
-table, spread abroad as he ate, did not injure it.</p>
-
-<p>Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the
-snow without, floury and smoking; dabs of Mrs.
-Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and pepper, and
-there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
-pleasant&mdash;just a taste.</p>
-
-<p>They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts,
-sometimes a Flamma from London, sometimes
-an Iden from over the hill, or others were
-there. Iden was very hospitable&mdash;though most of
-his guests (family connections) were idle folk, no
-good to themselves or anybody, still they were
-made cordially welcome. But others, very high
-folk, socially speaking (for they had good connections,
-too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
-grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves
-most thoroughly on the rude Homeric fare.</p>
-
-<p>For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an
-open-handed generosity, a sense of reality about it;
-something really to eat, though no finger-glasses;
-Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it
-was the very centre of home. This strange man,
-this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her dearest
-emotions. His shadow remained on the wall
-though he had gone.</p>
-
-<p>They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it
-was weeks before the kitchen seemed to resume its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
-former appearance. Jearje was the one who restored
-it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily
-at breakfast and at supper, it almost made them
-forget their troubles to see anyone so grateful and
-pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you,
-ma'am; dest about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"&mdash;locally
-the "d" and "j" were often interchangable,
-dest for jest, or just&mdash;"That'll be a' plenty
-for I, ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"&mdash;don't
-want more than I can eat, don't want to be greedy&mdash;"Thank
-you, miss; dest about some ripping
-good ale, this yer; that it be."</p>
-
-<p>He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the
-bacon, and the cheese, and the ale; he was like a
-great, big human dog; you know how we like to
-see a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his
-paws on our knees and laugh, as it were, with his
-eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
-women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him
-all the bones, literally and metaphorically, the actual
-bones of the meat, and any scraps there were, to
-take home with him (besides his regular meals),
-and now and then some trifles of clothing for his
-aged mother. The dog most thoroughly appreciated
-this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in it,
-grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.</p>
-
-<p>Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of
-doors, and for much the same reason; his cheery
-content and willingness, and the absence of the
-usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked
-willingly and fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
-another hour, or put his shoulder to the wheel of
-his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
-and not one minded to take advantage of him, was
-rewarded in many ways. Iden did not reduce his
-wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
-and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes,
-garden produce, or apples, and various other
-things from time to time.</p>
-
-<p>Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition,
-Jearje was more like a retainer than a servant,
-or labourer; a humble member of the family.</p>
-
-<p>It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and
-Mrs. Iden used often to watch him covertly, just
-for the amusement it gave them. He went about
-it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to
-plough; no attempt to caracole in the furrow, ready
-to stand still as long as you like.</p>
-
-<p>Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of
-beef; fat of mutton&mdash;anything they could not
-finish in the sitting-room; the overplus of cabbage
-or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices
-of bread and cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins
-full of tea&mdash;the cups were not large enough&mdash;and
-pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no
-matter what, Jearje ate steadily through it.</p>
-
-<p>A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden
-happened to want anything from the town ever so
-late, though George had worked hard the long day
-through from half-past five in the morning, off he
-would start, without sign of demur, five miles there
-and back, and come in singing with his burden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There are such, as George still among the labourer
-class, in despite of the change of circumstance and
-sentiment, men who would be as faithful as the
-faithfullest retainer who ever <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'acccompanied'">accompanied</ins> a
-knight of old time to the Crusade. But, observe,
-for a good man there must be a good master.
-Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot
-that his man was not a piece of mechanism, but
-flesh and blood and feelings.</p>
-
-<p>Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong
-arms abroad on the oaken table, warming his
-heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
-cheery word and smile, by his constant presence
-there slowly wore away the impression of the
-bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be itself
-again.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 107px;">
-<img src="images/i-017.png" width="107" height="135" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>UT all these shocks and worries and
-trampling upon her emotions made the
-pencil tremble in the artist's hand as
-she worked in the gaunt garret.</div>
-
-<p>One day, as she was returning from
-Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had
-borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse,
-and began to talk to her in his perky, affected,
-silly way. Of all the fools in Woolhorton town
-there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this
-namby-pamby fellow&mdash;it was wonderful how a man
-of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such
-a man, the more so as there was at least one good
-lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of
-the farming race; they will work like negroes in
-the field, and practise the utmost penury to save a
-little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest
-miser, and then go and trust their most important
-affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His
-father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
-with the firm, had a reputation about the era of
-Waterloo, and upon this tradition they carry their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
-business to a man whom they admit themselves
-"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way,
-or worse, for there is no tradition even in this case,
-they will consign a hundred pounds' worth of milk
-to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent,
-a man of straw for aught they know, and never so
-much as go up to town to see if there is such a
-milk business in existence.</p>
-
-<p>This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about
-her father. "Now, don't you think, Miss Iden,
-you could speak to your father about these money
-matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he
-really is (the jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll
-be pounded. Now, don't you think you could talk
-to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"</p>
-
-<p>The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis
-more than the rudeness of the gruff baker who
-forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
-contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her
-father to be practical! The cleverest man in the
-world&mdash;advise him to be practical; as if, indeed,
-he was not practical and hard-working to the very
-utmost.</p>
-
-<p>To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil
-trembled in her hand.</p>
-
-<p>But what shook it most of all was anxiety about
-her mother. Ever since the bailiff's intrusion Mrs.
-Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
-would come downstairs after the rest had retired,
-and sit by the dying fire for hours alone, till Iden
-chanced to wake, and go down for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Once she went out of doors very late, leaving
-the front door wide open, and Amaryllis found her
-at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
-the ricks.</p>
-
-<p>At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes,
-and did not seem to see what she gazed at. At
-others she would begin to cry without cause, and
-gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma
-family were liable to certain affections of that kind,
-and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's system had
-been overstrained by these continual worries.</p>
-
-<p>Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried
-enough to have shaken the strongest; and, having
-nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon her.</p>
-
-<p>After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish,
-and Amaryllis hoped that nothing would come of it,
-but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety lest
-some fresh trouble should happen to renew the
-strain.</p>
-
-<p>When she thought of her mother she could not
-draw&mdash;the sound of her shuffling, nervous footstep
-on the landing or the path outside under the
-window stopped her at once. These things disheartened
-her a thousand times more than the returned
-sketches the postman was always bringing.</p>
-
-<p>On butter-making mornings, once a week, there
-was always a great to-do; Mrs. Iden, like nervous
-people, was cross and peevish when she was exceptionally
-busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose.
-It chanced that Amaryllis one day was just
-opening an envelope and taking out a returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
-drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from
-Mrs. Iden's tongue, and, seeing the letter, began
-to growl:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire,
-and zee if you can't help your mother. Better do
-zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't a
-boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph!
-humph!" growl, mutter, growl. "Drow" was
-local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn"
-for earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may
-not be able to follow him.</p>
-
-<p>The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool
-stuff, contrasted with the benefit and advantage of
-earning something&mdash;something real and solid&mdash;hit
-the artist very hard. That was the thought that
-troubled her so much, and paralysed her imagination.
-They were unsaleable&mdash;she saw the worthlessness
-of them far more than Iden. They were
-less in value than the paper on which they were
-traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire only.</p>
-
-<p>That was the very thought that troubled her so,
-and Iden hit the nail home with his rude speech.
-That was the material view; unless a thing be
-material, or will fetch something material, it is good
-for the fire only.</p>
-
-<p>So it came about that the portfolio was pushed
-aside, and dust gathered on it, and on the pencils,
-and the india-rubber, and in the little box of vine
-charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets
-in the tumbler of water in the window niche, sat
-down at the table and leant her head on her hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
-and tried to think what she could do, as she had
-thought these many, many days.</p>
-
-<p>The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so
-real. Nothing in all the world at these moments
-seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
-round disk of gold which rules everything. The
-good that she could do with it&mdash;with just one of
-those golden disks!</p>
-
-<p>Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished
-scholar, the late Mr. Chenery (of <i>The Times</i>),
-translated twenty-six of his poems from the Arabic,
-and added most interesting notes. This curious
-book is a fusion of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes,
-and Rabelais. There is the magical unexpectedness
-of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities,
-all is vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of
-the French satirist. Wisdom is scattered about it;
-at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
-the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently
-laugh at a deep jest.</p>
-
-<p>Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because
-he sang of the dinar, the Arabian sovereign, the
-double-faced dinar, the reverse and the obverse,
-head and tail, one side giving everything good, and
-the other causing all evil. For the golden disk
-has two sides, and two Fates belong to it. First
-he chants its praises:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,<br />
-Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.<br />
-Told abroad are its fame and repute:<br />
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;<br />
-Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;<br />
-Its bright look is loved by mankind,<br />
-As though it had been molten of their hearts.<br />
-By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,<br />
-Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.<br />
-Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;<br />
-Charming are its sufficiency and help.<br />
-How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!<br />
-How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it, would be endless!<br />
-How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!<br />
-How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!<br />
-How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,<br />
-Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has softened.<br />
-How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,<br />
-Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.<br />
-Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,<br />
-Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer
-exactly to this poem of the Arabian written in the
-days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure, it
-travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as
-here, it is famous and has a reputation, the inscription
-on it is the mark of its worth, it is the sinew
-of war, the world loves its brightness as if it was
-coined from their hearts, those who have it in their
-purses are bold, it helps every one who has it, it
-banishes all cares, and one might say, were it not for
-fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all mighty.</p>
-
-<p>All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis
-thinking in her garret, leaning her head on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
-hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
-good&mdash;if only she could get the real solid, golden
-sovereign!</p>
-
-<p>But the golden coin has another side&mdash;the obverse&mdash;another
-Fate, for evil, clinging to it, and
-the poet, changing his tone, thunders:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,<br />
-The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!<br />
-It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it,<br />
-The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.<br />
-Affection for it, think they who judge truly,<br />
-Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.<br />
-But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;<br />
-Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;<br />
-Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;<br />
-Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that withholds;<br />
-Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.<br />
-Moreover the worst quality that it possesses<br />
-Is that it helps thee not in straits,<br />
-Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.<br />
-Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,<br />
-And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a lover,<br />
-Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,<br />
-"I have no mind for intimacy with thee,&mdash;begone!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to
-this day, and could Amaryllis have obtained the
-sovereign, still it would only have helped her by passing
-from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
-fleeing like a runaway slave.</p>
-
-<p>But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of
-her father and mother, saw only the good side of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
-the golden sovereign, only that it was all powerful
-to bless.</p>
-
-<p>How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that
-young and fresh and full of generous feelings as
-she was, her whole mind should perforce be taken
-up with the question of money; an unnatural and
-evil state of things.</p>
-
-<p>It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
-<img src="images/i-018.png" width="141" height="285" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside
-and dust had gathered on the table, except
-where her arm touched it, Amaryllis
-came daily, and often twice a day,
-to her flowers to pray.</div>
-
-<p>From the woods she brought the delicate primrose
-opening on the mossy bank among the grey
-ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of hawthorn
-coming before the swallow; the garden
-crocus from the grass of the garden; the first green
-spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the beautiful
-white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April
-morning while the nightingale sang.</p>
-
-<p>With these she came to pray each day, at the
-window-niche. After she had sat awhile at the
-table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt
-at the window with her face in her hands; the scent
-of the violets filled her hair.</p>
-
-<p>Her prayer was deeper than words and was not
-put in language, but came rushing through her
-heart;&mdash;"That her dear mother might not suffer any
-more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
-removed from her mind, that peace and rest might
-come to her in her old age. Let her step become
-firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes
-shine like they used to, so clear and bright, and do
-not let the grey hairs show more than they do
-now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be
-happy and talk cheerfully, and take an interest in
-the house and all the order of household things,
-and also see and understand that her husband
-meant to please her, even in such a little thing as
-splitting up useful wood for the fire, that he intended
-to please her, and that she might not misunderstand
-him any more. He intended to be
-kind in many ways, but misfortune had blinded her,
-and she took things the wrong way. And give
-her more change and friends to ask her out from
-home on visits, so that she might be amused, and
-make them come to see her and pass the time in
-contentment. Give her also enough money to buy
-good clothes so as to look nice as she ought to
-do, and if possible a conveyance of some kind&mdash;not
-a grand carriage, she did not wish for that&mdash;but a
-conveyance to drive about now and then, because
-she was not so strong as she used to be, and could
-not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let
-me be able to give her a watch, for other people
-have watches, and my mother has not got one, and
-it does seem so strange it should be so after all the
-hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some
-nice things to eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot
-eat our plain bacon now every day, she has not got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
-an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I should
-so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her
-food might do her more good. But what I really
-want is that she may be happy, and be like my mother
-herself really is when she is herself. Give my
-father money enough to pay his creditors, for I know
-that though he is so quiet and says nothing, these
-debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
-to pay them, and does not willingly keep them
-waiting. He is so patient, and so good, and bears
-everything, I am sure no one was ever like him, and
-it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every
-day from five o'clock in the morning, and yet to be
-always worried with these debts and people that
-will not let him have peace one single day. Do,
-please, let him have less work to do, it makes
-me miserable to see him in the rain, and he is not
-young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy
-things, great pieces of timber and large trusses of
-hay, and making his back ache digging. Surely
-it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
-he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can
-see quite so well as he used to, because he holds the
-paper so close to his eyes. Please let him leave
-off working soon now and have some rest and
-change, and go about with my mother, and when
-he is at home not have anything more to do than
-his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him
-love the flowers again as he used to, and plant some
-more, and have nothing harder to do than to gather
-the fruit from the trees he has planted. And let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
-me get him some new books to read, because I
-know he is so fond of books; he has not had a new
-book for so long. Let him go to London and see
-people and things, and life, because I know he is
-full of ideas and thoughts though he works and
-digs, and that is what would do him good. Give
-him some money now at last, now he has worked all
-these years, forty years on this farm, and ever so
-much work before that; do give him some money
-at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and
-not so harsh for the rent, let him give the place to
-my father now, for it can be no use to him; let my
-father have it for his very own, and then I think he
-would be happy after all, he does so like to improve
-things and make them beautiful, and if it was his
-very own there is so much that he could do. That
-would be nice work and work that he would enjoy
-doing, and not just to get a few wretched shillings
-to pay other people. I am sure he would never be
-cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
-and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody
-like him, as you know, in this place; they are not
-clever like him, and good to the labouring men and
-their families like he is (and so is my mother too);
-they are so rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do
-not mean anything against them, but they are not
-like he is. And if you were to help him he would
-soon help the poor people and give them food and
-more wages; you know how good he is in his heart.
-And he would do it, not because other people should
-praise him, but because he would like to do it; if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
-he does not go to church his heart is very true, and
-it is because he likes to be true and genuine, and
-not make any false show. Do, please, help him,
-and give him some money, and do, please, let him
-have this place for his very own, for I do so fear lest
-those who set my grandfather against him, should
-have a will made, so that my father should not have
-this house and land as he ought to do, as the son.
-He has made it so beautiful with trees, and brought
-the fresh spring water up to the house, and done
-so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it
-is home to him, and no other place could be like it.
-I think it would kill him not to have it, and for me,
-I should be so&mdash;I cannot tell, I should be so miserable
-if he did not, but I will not think of myself.
-There are so many things I know he wants to do if
-only he was not so worried with debts, and if he
-could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
-copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have
-trout in it, and to build a wall by the rick-yard.
-Think how my dear father has worked all these
-years, and do help him now, and give him some
-money, and this place, and please do not let him
-grow any more grey than his hair is now, and save
-his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
-and please make my mother happy with him."</p>
-
-<p>When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face
-was quite white, emotion had taken away her colour,
-and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a little
-while by the table to recover herself, still thinking,
-and remembered that again last night she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
-dreamed the same dream about fire in the thatch.
-Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
-and they ran out of doors and found the corner of
-the roof on fire, over the window with the wire network
-instead of glass. It ran up from the corner
-towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by
-the ridge. There was no flame, but a deep red
-seething heat, as if the straw burned inwardly, and
-was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed
-to lie in the furious heat, and a light to flicker up
-and down, as if it breathed fire. The thatch was
-very thick there, she knew, and recollected it quite
-well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two
-thick coats in his time, and it was heavy enough
-before then. He talked about the thatching of it,
-because it was an argument with him that straw
-had a great power of endurance, and was equal to
-slates for lasting. This thickness, she saw, was
-the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and
-why, fortunately, it was slow in moving up the
-roof. It had not yet eaten through, so that there
-was no draught&mdash;once it got through, it would burn
-fast&mdash;if only they could put it out before then all
-might yet be saved. In the midst of her anxiety
-Iden came with the largest ladder in the rickyard,
-and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She
-tried to follow, holding on to the rungs of the
-ladder with one hand, and dragging up a heavy
-bucket with the other&mdash;the strain and effort to get
-up woke her.</p>
-
-<p>This dream had happened to her so many times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
-and was so vivid and circumstantial&mdash;the fire
-seemed to glow in the thatch&mdash;that at last she
-began to dread lest it should come true. If it did
-not come true of the house itself, perhaps it would
-of the family, and of their affairs; perhaps it signified
-that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
-would burn them, as it were, to the ground.
-She tried to think whether in the dream they were
-getting the fire under before she woke, or whether
-they could not master it; it seemed dubious.</p>
-
-<p>She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid
-lest it might excite her again; nor could she tell
-Iden, who would have laughed at her.</p>
-
-<p>Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and
-dreams have ceased to come true, she did not like
-it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable danger
-was threatening round about. As she sat at the
-table she added to her prayer the supplication that
-the dear old house might not be burned down.</p>
-
-<p>Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on
-the lower flight paused, to listen to voices&mdash;not
-those of her mother and Iden&mdash;creditors, doubtless,
-come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"&mdash;the
-very sum and total of religion. Her heart
-beat quicker&mdash;the voices came again, and she
-thought she recognized them, and that they were
-not those of creditors. She entered the sitting-room,
-and found that two visitors, from widely
-separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau,
-the other with an old, many-coloured
-carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from Iden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
-Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they
-were called, and Alere Flamma, from London; the
-Flammas were carpet-bag people.</p>
-
-<p>Her father was making them very welcome, after
-his wont, and they were talking of the house the
-Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot, expressly
-in order that they might drink, drink, drink <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'undiddisturbed'">undisturbed</ins>
-by their unreasonable wives.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
-<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEY talked on and on, these three,
-Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
-with Amaryllis listening, from the end
-of April till near the end of May; till
-"a month passed away," and still they
-were talking. For there is nothing so good to the
-human heart as well agreed conversation, when you
-know that your companion will answer to your
-thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing
-sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better
-than sleep, like love itself&mdash;for love is agreement
-of thought&mdash;"God listens to those who pray to
-him; let us eat and drink, and think of nothing,"
-says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and drank&mdash;very
-moderate the drinking&mdash;and thought of
-nothing, and talked, which should be added to complete
-felicity. Not, of course, all of them always
-together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere,
-Amadis, and Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.</div>
-
-<p>The round summer-house was their Parliament
-House whenever the east winds sank and the flowers
-shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
-the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds
-cease the May flowers immediately bloom and glow.</p>
-
-<p>It was a large round house, properly builded of
-brick, as a summer-house should be&mdash;put not thy
-faith in lath work&mdash;and therefore dry and warm;
-to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and
-comfortable, with a sea of meadow-grass, smooth
-and coloured, stretching in front, islanded about
-with oak, and elm, and ash.</p>
-
-<p>The finches came to the boughs that hung over
-the ivy-grown thatch, and sang in the sycamore
-opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
-bloom hung down almost to the ground.</p>
-
-<p>These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung
-sackfuls of bloom at his feet. They poured themselves
-out in abandoned, open-armed, spendthrift,
-wasteful&mdash;perfectly prodigal&mdash;quantities of rose-tinted
-petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to
-the brim, never questioning but what there will be
-plenty of water to follow.</p>
-
-<p>Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring
-up wherever Iden set down his foot: fruit and
-flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
-his genius to make things grow&mdash;like sunshine and
-shower; a sort of Pan, a half-god of leaves and
-boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature in
-human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and
-Beauty.</p>
-
-<p>One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush,
-Iden had set it there; he builded the summer-house
-and set the ivy; and the pippin at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
-back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch
-near by; the great sycamore alone had been there
-before him, but he set a seat under it, and got
-woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he
-planted, and if Amaryllis stood under it when
-the tree was in full leaf you could not see her,
-it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak
-in the corner; the box hedge along the ha-ha
-parapet; the red currants against the red wall; the
-big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the
-yellow honey-bush; all these, and this was but one
-square, one mosaic of the garden, half of it sward,
-too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch
-at one corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs,
-lavender, parsley, which has a very pleasant green,
-growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage&mdash;read
-Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage&mdash;ask
-Nature if you wish to know how many things
-more there were.</p>
-
-<p>A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing
-in, listening to the goldfinches, and watching them
-carry up the moss, and lichen, and slender fibres
-for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to
-the swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on
-the sharp, high top of the pear tree; to the vehement
-starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
-Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink,
-chink," thrushes, distant blackbirds, who like oaks;
-"cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake," buzzing and
-burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then
-a neigh, to remind you that there were horses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
-fulness and richness of musical sound; a world of
-grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.</p>
-
-<p>When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines
-above, and the flowers beneath, "a summer's day
-in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
-Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped
-out of the pocket of Iden's ragged old coat.</p>
-
-<p>There was a magic power of healing in the influences
-of this place which Iden had created. Both
-Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed
-for the better.</p>
-
-<p>That morning when Amaryllis had found them,
-just arrived, the one with a portmanteau, and the
-other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to
-the last degree of paleness.</p>
-
-<p>Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed
-at Coombe Oaks before, when Amaryllis was thirteen
-and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
-great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water,
-walking over the hills, exploring the woods;
-Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis going
-with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats.
-They were of the same stock of Idens, yet no relations;
-he was of the older branch, Amaryllis of the
-younger.</p>
-
-<p>She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden
-into a man.</p>
-
-<p>Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him,
-she could scarce believe he was the same; so pale,
-so thin, so drooping, and fireless&mdash;the spark of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
-sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table
-that morning like a ghost. He was convalescent
-from low fever: that dread disease which has
-taken the place of ague in the country. At one
-time it was ague; in these times it is low fever.</p>
-
-<p>At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness
-in a far-off way, but had received no distinct particulars,
-for the news came in a roundabout way
-by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The
-distance between the two houses was less than ten
-miles, and might as well have been five hundred
-for all the communication.</p>
-
-<p>So that the ghastly paleness of his face came
-upon her as a spectre in daylight. You could see
-at a glance what was wrong&mdash;the vital energy had
-been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch
-broken, or bark scored, fades and withers from the
-lack of the mysterious force which brings forth
-fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body&mdash;the
-tree&mdash;was there, but the life was not in it.</p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was
-pale from other causes, and it was a different kind
-of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis, but
-something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state.
-Too much Fleet Street, in short; too much of the
-Oracle&mdash;Pantagruel's Oracle of the Bottle.</p>
-
-<p>His hands shook as he held his knife and fork&mdash;oddly
-enough, the hands of great genius often do
-shake; now and then when he put his glass to his
-lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
-could hold a pencil, and draw delicate lines without
-a flaw.</p>
-
-<p>Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands
-that tremble nearly as much&mdash;the nervous constitution&mdash;and
-yet execute artists' work of rare excellence.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution,
-naturally nervous, had been shaken as with dynamite
-by the bottle, and the glass chinked against
-his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt
-himself toppling over like a tree half sawn through,
-Alere packed his carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe
-Oaks. When the rats began to run up the wall as
-he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
-into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.</p>
-
-<p>In London he never wore a collar, only a bright
-red scarf round his neck; the company he kept
-would have shunned him&mdash;they would have looked
-him up and down disdainfully:&mdash;"Got a collar on&mdash;had
-no breakfast." They would have scornfully
-regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
-class above all others scorned by those who use
-tools.</p>
-
-<p>"Got a collar on&mdash;had no breakfast." The City
-clerk, playing the Masher on thirty shillings a
-week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.</p>
-
-<p>Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used
-hammer, and file, or set up type&mdash;a godless set, ye
-gods, how godless, these setters up of type at four
-o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.;
-special taverns they must have open for them&mdash;open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
-before Aurora gleams in the east&mdash;Oh! Fleet
-Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!</p>
-
-<p>By no possible means could Alere work himself
-into a dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>Could he have followed the celebrated advice&mdash;"You
-put on a dress-coat and go into society"&mdash;he
-would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
-of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.</p>
-
-<p>To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed,
-too, of the still rarer talent&mdash;the taste to see what
-to draw&mdash;there really is no limit in our days; for
-as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour
-in an age of dinginess&mdash;why, the point, nowadays,
-is to avoid colour, and in a whole Academy you
-shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
-sealing-wax.</p>
-
-<p>"You put on a black coat and go into society"&mdash;that
-is the secret of commissions, and commissions
-are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way of
-advice has been sent forth as that remark. The
-great Tichborne said something about folk that had
-money and no brains, and folk that had brains but
-no money; and they as has no brains ought to be
-so managed as to supply money to those who had.
-But even the greatness of the great Tichborne's
-observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield
-in one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go
-into society."</p>
-
-<p>What are the sayings of the seven wise men of
-Greece compared to <i>that</i>?</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="120" height="122" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>Y no possible means could Alere Flamma
-work himself into a dress coat.
-The clubs, the houses of the great, the
-mutual admiration dinners&mdash;those great
-institutions of the day&mdash;were all closed
-to him because of the Dress Coat.</div>
-
-<p>If he had really desired to enter, of course he
-would have squeezed into the evening monkey-skin
-somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to enter.</p>
-
-<p>Inside he might have finished a portrait a month
-at a thousand guineas&mdash;twelve portraits per annum
-equals twelve thousand guineas a year; you see I
-am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory
-to going into the tallow trade.</p>
-
-<p>What he actually did was to make designs for
-book-covers&mdash;magnificent book-covers that will one
-day fetch their weight in bank-notes&mdash;manipulating
-a good deal of it himself&mdash;"tooling"&mdash;for the
-libraries of noble connoisseurs. They were equal
-to anything ever done in Paris.</p>
-
-<p>For a week's work&mdash;say half-an-hour a day&mdash;he
-got perhaps about ten pounds. With the ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
-pounds he was satisfied&mdash;ten pounds represents a
-good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about
-as much as one man can manage at a bout; besides
-tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and innumerable
-trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good
-deal of street life.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes he drew&mdash;and engraved&mdash;illustrations
-for books, being as clever with the engraver's tools
-as with the pencil; sometimes he cut out those
-odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials,"
-which are now so commonly seen in publications,
-catching the classical grotesque of the Renaissance
-to perfection, and deceiving the experienced; sometimes
-he worked in the press-room in the House of
-Flamma, Fleet Street, pulling artists' proofs, or
-printing expensively illustrated volumes&mdash;numbered,
-and the plates destroyed&mdash;actual manual work, in
-his shirt sleeves.</p>
-
-<p>He could stop when he liked and take a swig of
-stout. That was the Alere style.</p>
-
-<p>Smoking was forbidden in the old House of
-Flamma because of the worm-eaten beams, the
-worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty, decayed
-bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the
-thin wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at
-the mere sight of a match. Also because of the
-piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
-looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were
-worth thousands of pounds; the plates and lithographic
-stones, artists' proofs, divers and sundry
-Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But Alere, being a son of the house, though not
-in command, did not choose to be amenable to rules
-and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He smoked
-and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a
-certain step was known to be approaching the
-pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry glue set
-melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the
-flavour of tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is
-used in London in this way.</p>
-
-<p>If I could but write the inside history of Fleet
-Street, I should be looked upon as the most wonderful
-exponent of human life that had ever touched
-a pen. Balzac&mdash;whom everybody talks of and
-nobody has read, because the discrimination of
-Paternoster Row has refused him a translation till
-quite lately&mdash;Zola, who professes to be realistic,
-who is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings
-are so curiously crude and merely skim the surface;
-even the great Hugo, who produced the masterpiece
-of all fiction, <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i>; all three of
-them, the entire host of manuscript-makers, I am
-sure I could vanquish them all, if I could only
-write the inside life of Fleet Street.</p>
-
-<p>Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of
-diction, but just pencil-jotted in the roughest words
-to hand, just as rich and poor, well-dressed ladies
-and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
-without choice of language, but hustling the first
-words anyhow, as it were, into the first compartment.
-If I could only get Alere to tell me all he had
-seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
-margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would
-laugh and weep. For such things do go on in Fleet
-Street as no man has written yet.</p>
-
-<p>If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!</p>
-
-<p>Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves,
-swigging his stout, smoking on the sly,
-working with all the genius of an inspired mechanic
-one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the
-next, spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of
-work, as if his very life depended on the smoothing
-of an edge of paper, putting off the next till the
-end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping,
-dreaming over old German works, and especially
-dreaming over Goethe, humming old German
-songs&mdash;for he had been a great traveller&mdash;sometimes
-scrawling a furious Mazzinian onslaught in a
-semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting stray engravings,
-wandering hither and thither.</p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur,
-traveller, printer, Republican, conspirator,
-sot, smoker, dreamer, poet, kind-hearted, good-natured,
-prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
-carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.</p>
-
-<p>He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout,
-but nothing vulgar had ever been recorded against
-Alere Flamma. He frequented strong company&mdash;very
-strong meat&mdash;but no vile word left his
-lips.</p>
-
-<p>There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst
-of the coarsest surroundings, just as he appeared in
-the press-room among the printer's ink in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
-whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
-abhorred dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally
-hundreds of sketches, done on all sorts and sizes of
-paper, from the inside of an envelope hastily torn
-open to elephant. The bureau was full of them,
-crammed in anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged;
-nothing, of course, could be found if it was wanted.
-The drawers of the bookcase&mdash;it was his own furniture&mdash;were
-full of them; the writing-table drawer;
-a box in one corner; some were on the mantelpiece
-smoked and gritty; some inside his books, most of
-which were interleaved in this manner; literally
-hundreds of sketches, the subjects as numerous and
-varied.</p>
-
-<p>Views in English country lanes, views on the
-Danube, bands playing in band-loving Vienna, old
-Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury Cathedral,
-statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with
-the north wind in the North Sea&mdash;a savage fight
-between sail and gale&mdash;horses in the meadow, an
-aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners
-in the Black Forest, studies from the nude&mdash;Parisian
-models, Jewesses, almost life-size, a drayman
-heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
-like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs
-to illustrate classical mythology, outlines expressing
-the ideas of Goethe&mdash;outlines of Marguerite and
-Faust among the roses&mdash;"He loves me; he loves
-me not," big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts
-as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was deep in the song,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
-roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
-their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere
-had a bullet through his hat, in Vienna, I think;
-no end to them.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a
-month or two, and his ten pounds were spent, if he
-wanted a few guineas he would take a small selection
-of these round to the office of a certain illustrated
-paper; the Editor would choose, and hand
-over the money at once, well aware that it was
-ready money his friend needed. They were not
-exactly friends&mdash;there are no friends in London,
-only acquaintances&mdash;but a little chummy, because
-the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and they
-had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper
-that ever got sketches out of Alere.</p>
-
-<p>If only Alere would have gone and sketched what
-he was <i>asked</i> to sketch! Ah! there is the difference;
-he could not do it, his nature would not
-let him; he could draw what he saw with his own
-eyes, but not what other people wanted him to see.
-A merry income he might have made if he would
-only have consented to see what other eyes&mdash;common,
-vulgar eyes&mdash;wanted to see, and which he
-could so easily have drawn for them.</p>
-
-<p>Out of these piles of varied sketches there were
-two kinds the Editor instantly snapped at: the one
-was wild flowers, the other little landscape bits.</p>
-
-<p>Wild flowers were his passion. They were to
-Flamma as Juliet to Romeo. Romeo's love, indeed,
-rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
-flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps
-he might not have worshipped Juliet next year.
-Flamma had loved his wild flowers close upon forty
-years, ever since he could remember; most likely
-longer, for doubtless the dumb infant loved the
-daisies put in his chubby hand.</p>
-
-<p>His passion they were still as he drew near fifty,
-and saw all things become commonplace. That is
-the saddest of thoughts&mdash;as we grow older the
-romance fades, and all things become commonplace.</p>
-
-<p>Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow,
-the other half in wishing for yesterday.</p>
-
-<p>Wild flowers alone never become commonplace.
-The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the
-violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the
-wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as
-last, as dear to-day as twenty years since, even
-dearer, for they grow now, as it were, in the earth
-we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers,
-our emotions, our thoughts.</p>
-
-<p>Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room
-was full of wild flowers, drawn as he had found
-them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks&mdash;by
-the footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on
-the hills&mdash;as he had found them, not formed into
-an artificial design, not torn up by the roots, or
-cut and posed for the occasion&mdash;exactly as they
-were when his eye caught sight of them. A difficult
-thing to do, but Alere did it.</p>
-
-<p>In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
-magazines usually make one of two mistakes; either
-the flower is printed without any surroundings or
-background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
-however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented
-with a heavy black pall of ink which dabs it out
-altogether.</p>
-
-<p>These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the
-little landscapes. From a stile, beside a rick,
-through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected places,
-Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood,
-groups of trees, old houses, and got them in his
-magical way on a few square inches of paper. They
-were very valuable for book illustration. They
-were absolutely true to nature and fact.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
-<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
-<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ERHAPS the reason Alere never took
-to colours was because of his inherent
-and unswerving truthfulness of character.
-Genuine to a degree, he could
-not make believe&mdash;could not deceive&mdash;could
-not masquerade in a dress-coat.</div>
-
-<p>Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue
-to-day is nature in a dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole
-Academy, or Grosvenor Gallery you shall hardly
-find three works that represent any real scene in
-the fields.</p>
-
-<p>I have walked about the fields a good deal in my
-brief, fretful hour, yet I have never seen anything
-resembling the strange apparitions that are hung
-on these walls every spring. Apparitions&mdash;optical
-illusions, lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly,
-ghost-light&mdash;nothing like them on earth I swear,
-and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.</p>
-
-<p>Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place,
-a brook from another, a house from another&mdash;<i>and
-mixed to order</i>, like a prescription by the chemist&mdash;xv.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
-grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge.
-Nature never plants&mdash;nature is no gardener&mdash;no
-design, no proportion in the fields.</p>
-
-<p>Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may
-have noticed that the surface of the water in the
-ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum, a pale
-prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern
-landscape.</p>
-
-<p>How horrible the fields would look if they wore
-such hues in reality as are accepted on canvas at
-the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints transferred
-to the sward, the woods, the hills, the
-streams, the sky! <i>Dies ir&aelig;, dies ill&aelig;</i>&mdash;it would,
-indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day of Doom,
-and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane
-drawn before our eyes to shut it out of sight.</p>
-
-<p>There are some who can go near to paint dogs
-and horses, but a meadow of mowing grass, not one
-of them can paint that.</p>
-
-<p>Many can <i>draw</i> nature&mdash;drawings are infinitely
-superior generally to the painting that follows;
-scarce one now paints real nature.</p>
-
-<p>Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the
-dress-coat of sham colour for any sacred exhibition
-wall whatever.</p>
-
-<p>One thing Alere never attempted to draw&mdash;a
-bird in flight. He recognized that it was impossible;
-his taste rejected every conventional attitude
-that has been used for the purpose; the descending
-pigeon, the Japanese skewered birds, the swallow
-skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
-a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest,
-and done worst of all.</p>
-
-<p>How can you draw life itself? What is life? you
-cannot even define it. The swallow's wing has the
-motion of life&mdash;its tremble&mdash;its wonderful delicacy
-of vibration&mdash;the instant change&mdash;the slip of the
-air;&mdash;no man will ever be able to draw a flying
-swallow.</p>
-
-<p>At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis
-had sat much, from time to time, when the
-carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to his
-Baden-Baden&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom,
-singing finch, and wild-flowers.</p>
-
-<p>There were no "properties" in Alere's room at
-his lodgings; no odd bits collected during his
-wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
-realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No
-gauntlets or breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no
-Turkish guns or yataghans, no stags' horns, china,
-or carvings to be copied some day into an illustration.
-No "properties."</p>
-
-<p>No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes
-the key and tones the visitors' mind to "Art," the
-etchings, the wall or panel decorations, the sliding
-curtains, the easels in the corner, the great portfolios&mdash;the
-well-known "effects" were absent.</p>
-
-<p>A plain room, not even with a north light, plain
-old furniture, but not very old&mdash;not ostensibly
-ancient, somewhere about 1790 say&mdash;and this inherited
-and not purchased; Flamma cared not one
-atom for furniture, itself, old or new; dusty books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
-everywhere, under the table, on the mantelpiece,
-beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on
-the sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the
-two bookcases and drawers; odd books most of
-them, Cornelius Agrippa, <i>Le Petit Albert</i>, French
-illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for
-Flamma was fond of his many-keyed flute.</p>
-
-<p>Great people once now and then called and asked
-to see Alere Flamma at the business place in Fleet
-Street; people with titles, curiously out of place,
-in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of
-printer's ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking,
-partitions pasted over with illustrations and
-stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
-engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking
-to "His Excellency."</p>
-
-<p>Flamma's opinion, information he could give,
-things he knew; abroad they thought much of him.</p>
-
-<p>Presents came occasionally&mdash;a boar's head from
-Germany; fine Havana cigars&mdash;Alere always had a
-supply of the best cigars and Turkish tobacco, a
-perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English
-venison; once a curious dagger from Italy, the
-strangest present good-natured Alere could possibly
-have received!</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from
-a noble connoisseur to his country seat; Flamma's
-views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
-the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked
-up in a cover all too poor for its value, the building
-of another wing, for the artist is the true architect,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
-as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till
-the artist is called in we shall never again see real
-architecture in the world. Did not Benvenuto
-design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
-build St. Peter's at Rome?</p>
-
-<p>If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have
-it till he calls in the artist, the Alere Flamma,
-to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
-cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman,
-till he goes to Alere Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>Our so-called architects are mere surveyors,
-engineers, educated bricklayers, men of hard straight
-ruler and square, mathematically accurate, and
-utterly devoid of feeling.</p>
-
-<p>The princes of Italy knew better&mdash;they called in
-the poet and the painter, the dreamers to dream for
-them.</p>
-
-<p>You call in your "practical" architect, and he
-builds you a brick box; not for a hundred thousand
-pounds in fees could he build you a palace or a
-cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>The most ignorant of men are the "practical"
-people. It is meet and fitting that they should be
-worshipped and set on high. The calf worshipped
-of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.</p>
-
-<p>But Alere could not go; he would do anything
-he was asked in this way; he would take infinite
-pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet Street
-for any mansion.</p>
-
-<p>When a man once gets into Fleet Street he
-cannot get out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right
-thing to represent Alere as a great genius neglected,
-or as a genius destroyed by intemperance. The
-conventional type is so easy&mdash;so accepted&mdash;so
-popular; it would pay better, perhaps, to make
-him out a victim in some way.</p>
-
-<p>He was not neglected, neither was he the victim
-of intemperance in the usual sense.</p>
-
-<p>The way to fame and fortune had always been
-wide open to him; there were long intervals when
-he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
-it was not half so much to struggle against as the
-chest diseases from which professional men so often
-suffer; I believe if he had really tried or wished he
-could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither
-of these causes kept him from the foremost rank.</p>
-
-<p>There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice.
-So many who have no ideal are kept hard
-at work by the sheer desire of money, and thus
-spurred onward, achieve something approaching
-greatness. Alere did not care for money.</p>
-
-<p>He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten
-pounds was a large sum in the company he frequented;
-he did not want any more.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 62px;">
-<img src="images/i-019.png" width="62" height="62" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight
-those who once come within its influence.
-The cerebellum of the world,
-the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The
-thoughts of our time issue thence, like the radiating
-spokes of a wheel, to all places of the earth. There
-you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
-multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas
-come from Fleet Street.</div>
-
-<p>From the printing-press and the engraver's
-wood-block, the lithographic-stone, the etcher's
-plate, from book and magazine, periodical and
-pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.</p>
-
-<p>From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow
-outwards.</p>
-
-<p>It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it
-is sweet to be on the hill-top; delicious to feel the
-swell and the long roll of the hexameter of the
-seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit
-of the Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the
-African explorer at the river's source. But if once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
-the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
-meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so
-exalted, still to Fleet Street the mind will return,
-because there is that other Mind, without whose
-sympathy even success is nothing&mdash;the Mind of
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare,
-Fleet Street, but of all that the printing-press
-means.</p>
-
-<p>Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary
-to him to live and breathe in the atmosphere
-of thought&mdash;to feel the throb and swell around him&mdash;to
-be near the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain.</p>
-
-<p>Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get
-out. Flamma would not leave it for months of
-gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.</p>
-
-<p>The flame must be fed. His name had some
-connection with the design of the Roman lamp on
-the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the
-House of Flamma. <i>Alere Flammam</i>&mdash;feed the flame.
-The flame of the mind must be fed.</p>
-
-<p>Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street;
-if I could but get at it all to write the inside life of
-it, it would, indeed, be a book. Stone-cold poverty
-hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
-of money, think they know life, but they do not,
-for, as was said of the sea&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Only those who share its dangers<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Comprehend its mystery.</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Only those who have shared the struggle literally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
-for bread&mdash;for a real, actual loaf&mdash;understand the
-dread realities of man's existence.</p>
-
-<p>Let but a morsel of wood&mdash;a little splinter of
-deal, a curl of carpenter's shaving&mdash;lie in Fleet
-Street, and it draws to it the wretched human beasts
-as surely as the offal draws the beast of the desert
-to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that
-are paved with gold!</p>
-
-<p>It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll
-it in their aprons, clasping it tightly, lest it should
-somehow disappear. Prowling about from street
-to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
-these precious splinters of deal, for to those who
-are poor fuel is as life itself.</p>
-
-<p>Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill,
-especially of blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism),
-sometimes say they would rather go without
-food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.</p>
-
-<p>These women know where there are hoardings
-erected by builders, where shop-fronts are being
-rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
-alterations are proceeding; they know them as
-the birds know the places where they are likely
-to find food, and visit them day by day for the
-scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the
-pavement.</p>
-
-<p>Or they send their children, ragged urchins,
-battling for a knot of pine-wood.</p>
-
-<p>The terror of frost to these creatures is great
-indeed. Frost is the King of Terrors to them&mdash;not
-Death; they sleep and live with death constantly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
-the dead frequently in the room with the living,
-and with the unborn that is near birth.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's
-wife knew that Flamma, the drinker, would certainly
-give her the silver in his pocket.</p>
-
-<p>The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood,
-knew that they could charm the pennies and
-the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat; the baked
-potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice
-on the street stove.</p>
-
-<p>Wretched girls whose power of tempting had
-gone, and with it their means of subsistence,
-begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma.
-There are many of these wretches in Fleet Street.
-There is no romance about them to attract the
-charity of the world.</p>
-
-<p>Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a
-licence in the street, was charged by the police.
-How this harshness to the flower-girl&mdash;the human
-representation of Flora&mdash;roused up sentiment in
-her behalf!</p>
-
-<p>But not every starving girl has the fortune to
-rouse up sentiment and to be fed. Their faces disfigured
-with eruptions, their thin shoulders, their
-dry, disordered hair&mdash;hair never looks nice unless
-soft with its natural oil&mdash;their dingy complexions,
-their threadbare shawls, tempt no one. They cannot
-please, therefore they must starve.</p>
-
-<p>The good turn from them with horror&mdash;Are they
-not sin made manifest? The trembling hand of
-Alere fed them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are
-happy? It is curious that people should associate
-noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
-the boys that are gathered into institutions and
-training ships, are expected to bawl and shout
-their loudest at the annual f&ecirc;tes when visitors
-are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith
-feel assured that their lives are consequently
-joyous.</p>
-
-<p>Why then do they set fire to training ships?
-Why do they break out of reformatory institutions?
-Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet fatuous
-fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar
-of bawling.</p>
-
-<p>I have never walked up Fleet Street and the
-Strand yet without seeing a starving woman and
-child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
-unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts
-into the broader and more lively Strand&mdash;the ceaseless
-world pushes past&mdash;they play on the pavement
-unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with
-rags, their faces white and scarred with nameless
-disease, their eyes bleared, their hair dirty; little
-things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set
-on the table to see how they look.</p>
-
-<p>How <i>can</i> people pass without seeing them?</p>
-
-<p>Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat
-pocket.</p>
-
-<p>The rich folk round about this great Babylon of
-Misery, where cruel Want sits on the Seven Hills&mdash;make
-a cartoon of that!&mdash;the rich folk who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
-receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to
-the Bank of England on dividend days&mdash;how easily
-the well-oiled doors swing open for them!&mdash;who
-dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood,
-at Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks,
-wherever there is pure air, have distinguished
-themselves lately in the giving of alms, ordained
-by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday,
-clad in silk, scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned
-pews.</p>
-
-<p>They have established Homes for Lost Dogs
-and Homes for Lost Cats, neither of which are such
-nuisances as human beings.</p>
-
-<p>In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus
-specially designed by one of the leading
-scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
-claimed in a certain time, or that have become
-diseased&mdash;like the human nuisances&mdash;are put into
-this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of chamber,
-to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific
-vapour enters the chamber, and breathing this, the
-animal falls calmly to death, painlessly poisoned in
-peace.</p>
-
-<p>Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed
-"into eternity" in one season. Jubilant
-congratulations were exchanged at the success of
-the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning,
-hanging, vivisection, or starvation!</p>
-
-<p>Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of
-humanity indeed? To sell all you have and give
-to the poor was nothing compared to this. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
-have progressed since Anno Domini I. We know
-better how to do it now.</p>
-
-<p>Alere did not seem to trouble himself much
-about the dogs; he saw so much of the human
-nuisances.</p>
-
-<p>What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus
-like this in the workhouses and in conjunction
-with the hospitals!</p>
-
-<p>Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing
-all the day, that one out of every five people
-who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
-hospital?</p>
-
-<p>Eighty-two thousand people died in London in
-1882, and of these, fourteen thousand expired in
-the workhouses, and six thousand in hospitals!</p>
-
-<p>Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting
-up a few Apparatuses, see what an immense amount
-of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
-multitude of human nuisances would he "moved
-on!"</p>
-
-<p>The poor have a saying that none live long after
-they have been in a certain hospital. "He's been
-in that hospital&mdash;he won't live long." They carry
-out such wonderful operations there&mdash;human vivisections,
-but strictly painless, of course, under
-chloroform&mdash;true Christian chopping-up&mdash;still the
-folk do not live long when they come out.</p>
-
-<p>Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man
-must not die in peace. Starvation is for human
-nuisances.</p>
-
-<p>These rich folk dwelling round about the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
-Babylon of Misery, where Want sits on the Seven
-Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
-another invention. This is the organization of
-alms. Charity is so holy we will not leave it to
-chance&mdash;to the stray penny&mdash;we will organize it.
-The system is very simple: it is done by ticket.
-First you subscribe a few shillings to some organization,
-with its secretary, its clerks, its offices,
-board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive
-tickets.</p>
-
-<p>If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms,
-or a ragged boy, or a maimed man asks you for a
-"copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
-trouble and responsibility.</p>
-
-<p>The beggar can take the ticket to the "office"
-and get his case "investigated." After an inquiry,
-and an adjournment for a week; another inquiry,
-and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry,
-and a third adjournment, then, if he be of
-high moral character and highly recommended, he
-may get his dinner.</p>
-
-<p>One great advantage is conspicuous in this system:
-by no possible means can you risk giving a
-penny to a man not of high moral character, though
-he be perishing of starvation.</p>
-
-<p>If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone?
-Certainly not; give him a ticket.</p>
-
-<p>They did not understand how to do things in
-Judea Anno Domini I.</p>
-
-<p>This organization of charity saves such a lot of
-money: where people used to give away five pounds
-they now pay five shillings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you
-walk about with a clear conscience. No matter
-how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
-ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably
-and never think about them; your charity is organized.</p>
-
-<p>If the German thinkers had not found out twenty
-years ago that there was no Devil, one would be
-inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false, and
-abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a
-Satan.</p>
-
-<p>The organization of charity! The very nature
-of charity is spontaneousness.</p>
-
-<p>You should have heard Alere lash out about this
-business; he called it charity suppression.</p>
-
-<p>Have you ever seen London in the early winter
-morning, when the frost lies along the kerb, just
-melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey, bitter, stony
-London?</p>
-
-<p>Whatever <i>can</i> morning seem like to the starved
-and chilly wretches who have slept on the floor, and
-wake up to frost in Fleet Street?</p>
-
-<p>The pavements are covered with expectoration,
-indicating the chest diseases and misery that thousands
-are enduring. But I must not write too
-plainly; it would offend.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-020.png" width="150" height="43" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'> PRINTER in the office crawled under
-the bed of the machine to replace something&mdash;a
-nut that had dropped; it was
-not known that he was there; the
-crank came round and crushed him
-against the brickwork. The embrace of iron is death.</div>
-
-<p>Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed
-them when they were old enough.</p>
-
-<p>Ten pounds was enough for him&mdash;without ambition,
-and without business-avarice; ten pounds
-was enough for his Fleet Street life.</p>
-
-<p>It was not only the actual money he gave away,
-but the kindness of the man. Have you ever
-noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?&mdash;their
-elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and
-without flesh. Instead of the shirt-sleeve being
-turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
-thrust its way through.</p>
-
-<p>He always had something for them;&mdash;a plate of
-beef, soup, beer to be shared, apples, baked potatoes,
-now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars. Awful
-this, was it not? Printers' boys <i>will</i> smoke; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
-had better have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile
-imitation they buy.</p>
-
-<p>They always had a tale for him; either their
-mothers, or sisters, or some one was in trouble;
-Flamma was certain to do something, however little
-might be within his power. At least he went to
-see.</p>
-
-<p>Had a man an income of a million he could not
-relieve the want of London; the wretch relieved to-day
-needs again to-morrow. But Alere went to see.</p>
-
-<p>Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a
-man without ambition, and without business-avarice,
-who went to see the unfortunate.</p>
-
-<p>His own palsied mother, at the verge of life,
-looked to Alere for all that the son can do for the
-parent. Other sons seemed more capable of such
-duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was
-the Man. And for those little luxuries and comforts
-that soothe the dull hours of trembling age she
-depended entirely upon him.</p>
-
-<p>So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied
-him were not all spent in drink.</p>
-
-<p>But alas! once now and then the rats began to
-run up the wall in broad daylight, and foolish Alere,
-wise in this one thing, immediately began to pack
-his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers,
-his sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving
-tools, and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted
-flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
-packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his
-Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
-apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
-leaves.</p>
-
-<p>They sat and talked in the round summer-house in
-Iden's garden, with the summer unfolding at their
-knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of
-the Goliath ale, and between his lips there was a
-long churchwarden pipe.</p>
-
-<p>The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his
-gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate liquor; better by far
-than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far
-than mud baths and hot springs. There is no
-medicine in nature, or made by man, like good ale.
-He who drinks ale is strong.</p>
-
-<p>The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to
-his nervous system, to the much-suffering liver, to
-the clogged and weary organs, bracing and stimulating,
-urging on, vitalizing anew.</p>
-
-<p>The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed
-his heart; a cordial grown on the sunny hill-side,
-watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured by the
-light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.</p>
-
-<p>Age mingling hops and barley in that just and
-equitable proportion, no cunning of hand, no
-science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
-the full manhood of strength.</p>
-
-<p>There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot
-define. The chemist analyzes, and he finds of
-ten parts, there are this and there are that, and the
-residue is "volatile principle," for which all the
-dictionaries of science have no explanation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Volatile principle"&mdash;there it is, that is the
-secret. That is the life of the thing; by no
-possible means can you obtain that volatile principle&mdash;that
-alchemic force&mdash;except contained in genuine
-old ale.</p>
-
-<p>Only it must be genuine, and it must be old;
-such as Iden brewed.</p>
-
-<p>The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.</p>
-
-<p>By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the
-glass ceased to chink against his teeth; the strong,
-good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.</p>
-
-<p>You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you
-have "kidneys," you have "abdominal glands," and
-the doctor tells you you must take bitters, <i>i.e.</i>,
-quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients
-and diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts;
-physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron,
-phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your
-draughts and preparations; add to it for various
-purposes, liquor arsenicalis, bromide of potassium,
-strychnia, belladonna.</p>
-
-<p>Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent
-medicines&mdash;American and French patent physic is
-very popular now&mdash;and find the same things precisely
-under taking titles, enormously advertised.</p>
-
-<p>It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines
-compounded are intended to produce exactly the
-same effects as are caused by a few glasses of good
-old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
-motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves,
-and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
-to aid the digestion of the compound. This is
-precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
-very comfortably. Above all things, it contains
-the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have
-not got.</p>
-
-<p>Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered
-with quassia instead of hops; made nauseous in
-order that you may have faith in them.</p>
-
-<p>"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the
-true Goliath, and "<i>drenk un down to the therd hoop</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the
-rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less
-shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork
-at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by
-he began to hum old German songs.</p>
-
-<p>But you may ask, how do <i>you</i> know, you're not a
-doctor, you're a mere story-spinner, you're no
-authority? I reply that I am in a position to know
-much more than a doctor.</p>
-
-<p>How can that be?</p>
-
-<p>Because I have been a Patient. It is so much
-easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor
-imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
-they will do; he imagines, but the Patient <i>knows</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-021.png" width="150" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-022.png" width="500" height="82" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OME noble physicians have tried the
-effect of drugs upon themselves in
-order to advance their art; for this
-they have received Gold Medals, and are
-alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.</div>
-
-<p>I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions
-upon My Person. With the various combinations,
-patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
-verily believe, reach eighty drugs.</p>
-
-<p>Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty
-gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied;
-the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha,
-kiss my knees, ye slaves!</p>
-
-<p>I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about
-that I have thus done more good than any man
-living.</p>
-
-<p>I am still very ill.</p>
-
-<p>The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended
-to try! One day I was sitting in that
-great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
-Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time
-to time at the clock, and reckoning how long it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
-would be before I could get home. There is nothing
-so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview
-with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled
-of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must
-have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a
-tall gentleman came across the room and sat down
-beside me. "I hope I don't intrude," said he, in
-American accents. "I was obliged to come and
-speak to you&mdash;you look bad. I <i>hate</i> to hear
-anybody cough." He put an emphasis on hate, a
-long-drawn nasal <i>haate</i>, hissing it out with unmeasured
-ferocity. "I <i>haate</i> to hear anybody
-cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure
-it, if you don't mind."</p>
-
-<p>"By all means&mdash;very interesting," I replied.</p>
-
-<p>"I was bad at home, in the States," said he.
-"I was on my back four years with a cough. I
-couldn't do anything&mdash;couldn't help myself; four
-years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds.
-That's a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds."</p>
-
-<p>"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was
-tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set
-man.</p>
-
-<p>"I tried everything the doctors recommended&mdash;it
-was no use; they had to give me up. At last a
-man cured me; and how do you think he did
-it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Can't think&mdash;should much like to know."</p>
-
-<p>"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That
-was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it
-comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
-crude. Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a
-day, before meals. Taste it? No, not to speak
-of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had
-in a ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two
-hundred and fifty pounds. That's true. I got too
-fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still, if
-I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now.
-Been all over Europe."</p>
-
-<p>I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear
-strong enough.</p>
-
-<p>"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose,
-from the States, now."</p>
-
-<p>I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of
-that sort&mdash;if it would cure me, it might come from
-anywhere.</p>
-
-<p>"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly.
-"Or three, if you like, and work up to ten. It
-soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
-I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in
-this country; you'll have to send over for it. I
-<i>haate</i> to hear anybody cough"&mdash;and so we
-parted.</p>
-
-<p>He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged
-him on, I verily believe he would have got the keg
-for me himself. It seemed laughable at the time;
-but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured
-American was right; he certainly meant
-well.</p>
-
-<p>Crude petroleum! Could anything be more
-nauseous? But probably it acts as a kind of cod-liver
-oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
-him, I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take
-a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and
-he had hardly begun to approach the first hoop,
-when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old German
-songs; it was the volatile principle.</p>
-
-<p>Songs about the Pope and the Sultan</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-But yet he's not a happy man,<br />
-He must obey the Alcoran,<br />
-He dares not touch one drop of wine,<br />
-I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and
-fed on butter till he raised a paunch that would
-have done credit to Luther; songs about a King in
-Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful
-old song that, none like it&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-He saw it fall, he watched it fill,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sink deep, deep into the main;</span><br />
-Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never drank a drop again.</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Or his thought slipped back to his school-days,
-and beating the seat in the summer-house with his
-hand for time, Alere ran on:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Horum scorum suntivorum,<br />
-Harum scarum divo,<br />
-Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,<br />
-Hic hoc horum genitivo&mdash;<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>To be said in one breath.</div>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Oh, my Ella&mdash;my blue bella,<br />
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A secula seculorum,</span><br />
-If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dies Benedictorum!</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>Or something about:</div>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,<br />
-And She's of the feminine gender.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's
-heart out, Eton Latin grammar, accidence&mdash;do
-<i>not</i> pause, traveller, if you see <i>his</i> tomb!</p>
-
-<p>"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street
-man put away his pipe, and took up his
-flute; he breathed soft and low&mdash;an excellent
-thing in a musician&mdash;delicious airs of Mozart
-chiefly.</p>
-
-<p>The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the
-high buttercups of the meadow came to the very
-door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
-them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in
-flowers, in song of happy birds. The soothing
-flute strung together the flow of their thoughts,
-they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden&mdash;almost
-hand in hand&mdash;listening to his cunning
-lips.</p>
-
-<p>He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to
-their own hearts.</p>
-
-<p>The starlings flew by every few minutes to their
-nests in the thatch of the old house, and out again
-to the meadow.</p>
-
-<p>Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a
-bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings
-beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
-time to follow them completely; they formed a burr&mdash;an
-indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see
-the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were
-depressed so quickly that the impression of them
-in the raised position had not time to fade from the
-eye before a fresh impression arrived exhibiting them
-depressed to their furthest extent; you thus saw the
-wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
-capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the
-upper part answers to the wings lifted, the lower
-part to the wings down, and you see both together.
-Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
-other positions between these two extremes;
-like the leaves of a book opened with your
-thumb quickly&mdash;as they do in legerdemain&mdash;almost
-as you see the spokes of a wheel run together as
-they revolve&mdash;a sort of burr.</p>
-
-<p>To produce an image of a starling flying, you
-must draw all this.</p>
-
-<p>The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave
-a streak behind in the air like a meteor.</p>
-
-<p>Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very
-blood in Alere's veins.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of
-Amadis Iden's cheeks&mdash;absolute lack of blood&mdash;began
-to give way to the faintest colour, little more
-than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though
-he could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If
-you threw a wine-glassful of the Goliath on the
-hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most lively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
-manner. Fire in it&mdash;downright fire! That is the
-test.</p>
-
-<p>Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful,
-yet a faint pink began to steal into his face, and
-his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply of
-another cup.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 190px;">
-<img src="images/i-023.png" width="190" height="161" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-024.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ET me try," said Amadis, taking the
-handle of the churn from Jearje. The
-butter was obstinate, and would not
-come; it was eleven o'clock in the
-morning, and still there was the rattle
-of milk in the barrel, the sound of a liquid splashing
-over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
-that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had
-been turning for hours.</div>
-
-<p>Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like
-silver by Jearje's rough hands&mdash;a sort of skin sand-paper&mdash;and
-with an effort made the heavy blue-painted barrel
-revolve on its axis.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy
-window into the court where the churn stood.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll
-only tire yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said,
-"First-rate, measter."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not,
-you'll hurt yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"Aw!&mdash;aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
-on a form by the wall under the dairy window. He
-was waiting to see Iden about the mowing. "Aw!&mdash;aw!
-Look 'ee thur, now!"</p>
-
-<p>Heavily the blue barrel went round&mdash;thrice, four
-times, five times; the colour mounted into Amadis's
-cheeks, not so much from the labour as the unwonted
-stooping; his breath came harder; he
-had to desist, and go and sit down on the form
-beside Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis.
-"You know you're not strong yet." She spoke as
-if she had been his mother or his nurse, somewhat
-masterfully and reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His
-chin fell and his face lengthened&mdash;his eyes grew
-larger&mdash;his temples pinched; disappointment wrung
-at his heart.</p>
-
-<p>Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short
-waddle and a fall.</p>
-
-<p>"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said
-Bill Nye, "as I knows on; you get a pint measure
-full of snails&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to
-make anyone ill to think of," said Amaryllis, angrily,
-and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver oil virtues of
-snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
-Amadis.</p>
-
-<p>A robin came into the court, and perching on
-the edge of a tub, fluttered his wings, cried "Check,
-check," "Anything for me this morning?" and so
-put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have
-snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the
-maid, who had been standing in the doorway with
-a duster.</p>
-
-<p>"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a
-passion. "You standing there doing nothing, and
-it's butter-making morning, and everything behind,
-and you idling and talking,"&mdash;rushing out from the
-dairy, and following Luce, who retreated indoors.</p>
-
-<p>"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"Missis is &mdash;&mdash;" said Jearje, supplying the
-blank with a wink, and meaning in a temper this
-morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
-always in a fury about nothing when her mind was
-intent on an object; in this case, the butter.</p>
-
-<p>"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room,
-pointing to the clock, "and the beds ain't
-made."</p>
-
-<p>"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.</p>
-
-<p>"And the fire isn't dusted up."</p>
-
-<p>"I've dusted up the fire."</p>
-
-<p>"And you're a lazy slut"&mdash;pushing Luce about
-the room.</p>
-
-<p>"I bean't a lazy slut."</p>
-
-<p>"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give
-me the duster!"&mdash;snatching it from her.</p>
-
-<p>"He be done."</p>
-
-<p>"All you can do is to stand and talk with the
-men. There's no water taken up stairs."</p>
-
-<p>"That there be."</p>
-
-<p>"You know you ought to be doing something;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
-the lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw
-anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots to be
-cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the
-path to be weeded, and the things to be taken over
-for washing, and the teapot ought to go in to Woolhorton,
-you know the lid's loose, and the children
-will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your
-master will be in to lunch, and there's not a soul to
-help me in the least," and so, flinging the duster at
-Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into
-the kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread
-and cheese, and drew a quart of ale, and took them
-out to Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very
-depth of his chest, and set to work happily.</p>
-
-<p>Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it
-with one hand and sipped, while he turned with
-the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
-manner, he could not wait till he had finished the
-churning.</p>
-
-<p>"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said
-the angel Gabriel in the Koran, as you no doubt
-remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
-sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the
-breath of life was breathed into him, he rose on his
-arm and began to eat before his lower limbs were
-yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made
-up of impatience." As the angel had never had a
-stomach or anything to sit upon, as the French say,
-he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
-had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
-Jearje, it is certain he would never have wanted to
-be an angel.</p>
-
-<p>Next, there were four cottage children now in
-the court, waiting for scraps.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind,
-swept the poor little things into the kitchen and
-filled two baskets for them with slices of bread and
-butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit,
-a dish of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the
-barrel, odds and ends, and so swept them off again
-in a jiffy.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed
-of yourself, that is not the way to feed the poor.
-What <i>could</i> you be thinking of, you ignorant
-farmer's wife!</p>
-
-<p>You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a
-Committee with duchesses and earlesses, and wives
-of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
-these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners.
-They will teach you how to feed the poor
-with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
-the scientific Dr. Am&oelig;ba Bacillus; Joe has Providence
-at his fingers' ends, and guides it in the
-right way; Bacillus knows everything to a particle;
-with Providence and Science together they <i>must</i>
-do it properly.</p>
-
-<p>The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed
-of the principles of food in the right proportion:
-(1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
-Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!</p>
-
-<p>The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
-lentil soup, or oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli;
-say twopence a quart. They can get all
-the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite
-foot-tons.</p>
-
-<p>No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous
-cheese, no abominable beef bone, no wretched rabbit,
-no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral ale!</p>
-
-<p>There, Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that
-shining light and apostle, Mrs. Iden, and read,
-mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to
-live. A family may live, laugh, love and be happy
-that eats bread in the morning with good water,
-and water and good bread at noon, and water and
-bread at night."</p>
-
-<p>Does that sound like an echo of the voice that
-ceased on the Cross?</p>
-
-<p>Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide
-your beef and ale, your rabbit and potatoes.</p>
-
-<p>To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City
-ladies riding in carriages, and all such who eat
-and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
-courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a
-meal of vegetable pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge,
-or lentil soup (three halfpence a pound lentils), or
-haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
-wholesome thing.</p>
-
-<p>But to those who exist all the week on hunches
-of dry bread, and not much of that, oatmeal porridge
-doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
-like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with
-plenty of rich gravy, broad slices from legs of
-mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They need something
-to put fresh blood and warmth into them.</p>
-
-<p>You sometimes hear people remark: "How
-strange it is&mdash;the poor never buy oatmeal, or
-lentils!"</p>
-
-<p>Of course they don't; if by any chance they do
-get a shilling to spend, they like a mutton chop.
-They have enough of farinaceous fare.</p>
-
-<p>What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she
-been scientific, was to have given each of these
-poor hungry children a nicely printed little pamphlet,
-teaching them how to cook.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of which, she set all their teeth going;
-infinitely wicked Mrs. Iden!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;">
-<img src="images/i-025.png" width="175" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/y.png" width="120" height="121" alt="Y" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OU must drink it all&mdash;every drop,"
-said Amaryllis, masterfully, as Amadis
-lingered over the glass of milk she had
-brought him. He had but half finished
-it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all."
-Amadis made an effort, and obeyed.</div>
-
-<p>But his heart was bitter as absinthe.</p>
-
-<p>Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly;
-even the women were manly, they could eat and
-drink.</p>
-
-<p>Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard
-cheese, and drank ale, and turned the crank at the
-same time.</p>
-
-<p>Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily
-munching cheese, oh so happily! Gabriel (of the
-Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
-his tall quart-mug.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty
-years, more energetic than all the hamlet put together.</p>
-
-<p>Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would
-go on hours longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath
-ale in the summer-house; he could eat, and drink,
-and walk about as a man should.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he
-had seen her turn the heavy cheese-tub round as if
-it were a footstool.</p>
-
-<p>He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable
-to eat strong meat; unable to drink strong drink;
-put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
-farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to
-ride even; a mere shadow, a thing of contempt.</p>
-
-<p>They told him he was better. There was just a
-trifle of pink in his face, and he could walk to Plum
-Corner in the garden without clinging to Amaryllis's
-arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance
-more than three or four times. He had even ventured
-a little way up the meadow-path, but it made
-him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
-told him he was better; he could eat a very little
-more, and sip a wine-glassful of Goliath.</p>
-
-<p>Better! What a mockery to a man who could
-once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty
-miles, and play his part in any sport you chose!
-It was absinthe to him.</p>
-
-<p>He could not stoop to turn the churn&mdash;he had
-to sip milk in the presence of strong men drinking
-strong drink; to be despised; the very servant-maid
-talking of him as in a decline.</p>
-
-<p>And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished
-to appear a man.</p>
-
-<p>And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
-that he could think, yet he could scarce set one
-foot safely before the other, not without considering
-first and feeling his way.</p>
-
-<p>Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as
-strong as the horses he led in the waggon.</p>
-
-<p>Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could
-mow all day in the heat of July.</p>
-
-<p>He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted
-hopes, his worship of Amaryllis&mdash;he was nothing.
-Less than nothing&mdash;a shadow.</p>
-
-<p>To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.</p>
-
-<p>Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what
-he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but
-is better:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then raised
-his head, and said:&mdash;</p></div>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-"Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away thy sorrows;<br />
-For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and is changed!<br />
-How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not forth!<br />
-And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze appears from it;<br />
-And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.<br />
-So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;<br />
-And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>How should such a chant as this enter a young
-man's heart who felt himself despicable in the sight
-of his mistress?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis,
-in a very gentle tone, now he had obeyed her.</p>
-
-<p>"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging
-his head.</p>
-
-<p>His days were mixed of honey and wormwood;
-sweet because of Amaryllis, absinthe because of his
-weakness.</p>
-
-<p>A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma
-was shouting an old song, with heavy emphasis
-here and there, with big capital letters:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?<br />
-And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All Insinuation Scorning;</span><br />
-I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,<br />
-I only Know he's a very Red Face<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he gets up in the Morning!</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with
-his mouth full. "Th' zun do look main red in the
-marning, surely."</p>
-
-<p>They heard the front door open and shut; Iden
-had come in for his lunch, and, by the sound of the
-footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
-him.</p>
-
-<p>At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers
-for battle.</p>
-
-<p>Iden came through into the dairy.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking
-your nose into everything. Wonder you don't
-help Luce make the beds and sweep the floor!"</p>
-
-<p>"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want
-any wood for the fire&mdash;or anything?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood&mdash;and chop
-it, as well as you. Why can't you mind your business?
-Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
-hours to see you"&mdash;following Iden towards the
-sitting-room. "Who have you brought in with
-you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
-butter-making morning, just the busiest time!
-Oh! it's you! Sit still, Mr. Duck; I don't mind
-<i>you</i>. What will you take?"</p>
-
-<p>More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack
-Duck sat in the bow-window and went at their
-lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced
-Mrs. Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people
-in this house&mdash;I never saw anything like it!"</p>
-
-<p>It was true.</p>
-
-<p>There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house;
-Amadis Iden resting on the form; Amaryllis
-standing by him; Bill Nye munching;
-Jearje indolently rotating the churn with one hand,
-and feeding himself with the other; Luce sitting
-down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting his
-mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great
-mouth full; eight people&mdash;and four little children
-trotting down the road with baskets of food.</p>
-
-<p>"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never
-saw anything like it."</p>
-
-<p>And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let
-us not trouble ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and
-Quiet" is better than set banquets; crumbs for
-everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to
-those who pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
-think of nothing;" believe me, the plain plenty,
-and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
-farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!</p>
-
-<p>"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done;
-nothing done; the morning gone and nothing done;
-and the butter's not come yet!"</p>
-
-<p>Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are
-always eating. They eat all through the Iliad, they
-eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good deal
-in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at
-Coombe-Oaks as was done on Olympus.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/i-027.png" width="120" height="180" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS went outside the court,
-and waited; Amadis rose and followed
-her. "Come a little way into the
-Brook-Field," she said.</div>
-
-<p>They left the apple-bloom behind
-them, and going down the gravel-path passed the
-plum trees&mdash;the daffodils there were over now&mdash;by
-the strawberry patch which Iden had planted under
-the parlour window; by the great box-hedge where
-a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though Amaryllis's
-dress brushed the branches; by the espalier
-apple, to the little orchard-gate.</p>
-
-<p>The parlour-window&mdash;there are no parlours now,
-except in old country houses; there were parlours
-in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern villas
-they have drawing-rooms.</p>
-
-<p>The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree
-branches, planted beneath with strawberry; white
-blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
-in the branches of the pear&mdash;that was Iden.</p>
-
-<p>They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed
-heavily against the tall meadow-grass growing between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
-the bars. The path was almost gone&mdash;grown
-out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad
-trail behind them.</p>
-
-<p>Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have
-muttered to himself; they were trespassing on his
-mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
-difficult to cut.</p>
-
-<p>Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the
-thick-stemmed butter-cups&mdash;branched like the
-golden candlestick, and with flowers of golden flame.
-For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw
-light back into the air.</p>
-
-<p>Amadis began to drag behind&mdash;he could not
-walk much farther; they sat down together on the
-trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
-close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted.
-Even with his back leaning against a limb of the
-oak, Amadis had to partly support himself with his
-hands.</p>
-
-<p>What was the use of such a man?&mdash;He had
-nothing but his absurdly romantic name from Don
-Quixote to recommend him.</p>
-
-<p>That was the very thought that gnawed at poor
-Amadis's heart as he sat by her side. What use to
-care for him?</p>
-
-<p>Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was
-a new gate, and he had been fitting it before he
-went in to lunch. His basket was of flag because
-the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools,
-chisels, and so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have
-everything right. The new gate was of solid oak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
-no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
-without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the
-farm, and kept till it was thoroughly fit, genuine
-English oak. If you would only consider Iden's
-gate you might see there the man.</p>
-
-<p>This gateway was only between two meadows,
-and the ordinary farmer, when the old gate wore
-out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
-a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and
-rough; at most a gate knocked up by the village
-carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest possible
-charge.</p>
-
-<p>Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to
-make <i>his</i> gate in the hamlet; he sent for one ten
-miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages. He
-was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his
-work to see that the least little detail was done
-correctly, till the fellow would have left the job,
-had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale.
-So he just stretched the job out as long as he
-could, and talked and talked with Iden, and stroked
-him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
-it upon me and on William, That day in a way I
-despise." Till what with the planing, and shaving,
-and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and time,
-it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace
-gates, not of the Iden style.</p>
-
-<p>Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber
-years before for this very purpose, and had watched
-the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
-have made good oak furniture. There was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
-special or particular about this gateway; he had
-done the same in turn for every gateway on the
-farm; it was the Iden way.</p>
-
-<p>A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit
-for a nobleman's Home Park. I doubt, if you
-would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
-made of such material on any great estate in the
-kingdom. For not even dukes can get an Iden to
-look after their property. An Iden is not to be
-"picked up," I can tell you.</p>
-
-<p>The neighbourhood round about had always
-sneered in the broad country way at Iden's
-gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do <i>he</i>
-want wi' such geates? A' ain't a got no cattle
-to speak on; any ould rail ud do as good as thuck
-geat."</p>
-
-<p>The neighbourhood round about could never
-understand Iden, never could see why he had gone
-to such great trouble to render the homestead
-beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the
-orchard with pleasant eating apples in the place of
-the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
-wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"</p>
-
-<p>All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood
-to be the acts of a "vool."</p>
-
-<p>When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to
-have the great bushes that bore unusually fine May
-bloom saved from the billhook, that they might
-flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples&mdash;for
-the sake of the white blossom; so, too, with
-the hazel&mdash;for the nuts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But what caused the most "wonderment" was
-the planting of the horse-chestnuts in the corner of
-the meadow? Whatever did he want with horse-chestnuts?
-No other horse-chestnuts grew about
-there. You couldn't eat the horse-chestnuts when
-they dropped in autumn.</p>
-
-<p>In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the
-little circumstance of the hour. His gate was
-meant to last for years, rain and shine, to endure
-any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in
-itself.</p>
-
-<p>His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind&mdash;was
-at once his strength and his folly. His
-strength, for it was such qualities as these that
-made Old England famous, and set her on the firm
-base whereon she now stands&mdash;built for all Time.
-His folly, because he made too much of little things,
-instead of lifting his mind higher.</p>
-
-<p>If only he could have lived three hundred years
-the greater world would have begun to find out
-Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
-from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk,
-for Iden could talk of the trees and grass, and all
-that the Earth bears, as if one had conversed face
-to face with the great god Pan himself.</p>
-
-<p>But while Iden slumbered with his head against
-the panel&mdash;think, think, think&mdash;this shallow world
-of ours, this petty threescore years and ten, was
-slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked
-with bitterness at heart the increasing stoop of the
-strong back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden was like the great engineer who could
-never build a bridge, because he knew so well how
-a bridge ought to be built.</p>
-
-<p>"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs.
-Iden, "making yourself ridiculous: I believe that
-carpenter is just taking advantage of you. Why
-can't you go into town and see your father?&mdash;it
-would be a hundred pounds in your pocket"&mdash;as it
-would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs. Iden had
-gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps
-he would have taken her advice.</p>
-
-<p>Resting upon the brown timber in the grass
-Amaryllis and Amadis could just see a corner of
-the old house through the spars of the new gate.
-Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand;
-a house that had grown in the course of
-many generations, not built to set order; it had
-grown like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances,
-and, therefore, like the tree it was beautiful
-to look at. There were windows in deep notches,
-between gables where there was no look-out except
-at the pears on the wall, awkward windows, quite
-bewildering. A workman came to mend one one
-day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever
-seed such a crooked picter of a house!" said
-he.</p>
-
-<p>A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface
-of the buttercups, straight for the brook,
-moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly did
-he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible,
-drawn like a line of peacock blue over the gold.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to
-have been sitting there like this, with Amadis lost
-in the sweet summer dream of love.</p>
-
-<p>She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot
-du Lake, a hero of the mighty arm, only with
-the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
-proper thing.</p>
-
-<p>But the fitness of things never comes to pass&mdash;everything
-happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
-
-<p>Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life,
-very, very young and inexperienced, very poor and
-without the least expectation whatever (for who
-could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the
-daughter of poor and embarrassed parents, whom
-she wished and prayed to help in their coming old
-age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling
-and half a painter at heart, full of generous sentiments&mdash;what
-a nature to be ground down in the
-sordidness of married poverty!</p>
-
-<p>Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble,
-and unable to earn a shilling, just talking of seeing
-the doctor again about this fearful debility, full too,
-as he thought at least, of ideas&mdash;what a being to
-think of her!</p>
-
-<p>Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things.
-If only now he could have regained the health and
-strength of six short months ago&mdash;if only that,
-but you see, he had not even that. He might get
-better; true&mdash;he <i>might</i>, I have tried 80 drugs and
-I am no better, I hope he will.</p>
-
-<p>Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
-East have put things together for them with more
-utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
-Turkish manner, you see.</p>
-
-<p>There they sat, happier and happier, and
-deeper and deeper in love every moment, on the
-brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full
-of love as the meadow was of sunshine.</p>
-
-<p>You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in
-which after sunset he was carried over Ocean's
-stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
-again in the East and give us the joy of his rising.
-The great Golden Cup in which Hercules, too, was
-taken over; it was as if that Cup had been filled to
-the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the
-lips to drink, inexhaustible.</p>
-
-<p>In the play of Faust&mdash;Alere's <i>Faust</i>&mdash;Goethe
-has put an interlude, an Intermezzo; I shall leave
-Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in Heaven.
-Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its
-Dread, pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the
-wings, let Debt and Poverty unrobe, let Age
-stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as
-the Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave
-our lovers in the Interlude in Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>And as I must leave them (I trust but for a
-little while) I will leave them on the brown oak
-timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
-dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass
-and the wild flowers.</p>
-
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-<div class='center'><br /><i>J. COMYNS CARR</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.</b> A Drama in Four Acts.
-By J. Comyns Carr. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Boards, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THREE PLAYS: Hamilton's Second Marriage&mdash;Thomas
-and the Princess&mdash;The Modern Way.</b> By Mrs. W. K.
-Clifford. In One Volume, cloth, crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>DE L'ISLE ADAM, VILLIERS</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE REVOLT AND THE ESCAPE.</b> By Villiers
-de L'Isle Adam. Translated by Theresa Barclay. A Re-issue. Cloth.
-Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>PLAYS: The Silver Box&mdash;Joy&mdash;Strife.</b> By John Galsworthy.
-Crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i> <i>Fourth Impression.</i> Also in Single Volumes;
-Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Paper Covers, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>JUSTICE; A TRAGEDY IN FOUR ACTS.</b> By
-John Galsworthy. <i>Third Impression.</i> Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net. Paper covers,
-1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GARNETT, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE BREAKING POINT: A CENSURED PLAY.</b>
-By Edward Garnett. Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>HAUPTMANN, GERHART</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE COMING OF PEACE (Das Friedensfest).</b> By
-Gerhart Hauptmann. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>MARTYN, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE HEATHER FIELD and MAEVE.</b> Two Plays
-by Edward Martyn, with an Introduction by George Moore. Pott 4to. 5<i>s.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>OSTROVSKY</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE STORM.</b> Translated by Constance Garnett. A Re-issue.
-Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>STRINDBERG, AUGUST</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE FATHER.</b> Translated by N. Erichsen. A Re-issue.
-Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>SUDERMANN, HERMANN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE JOY OF LIVING (Es Lebe das Leben).</b> By
-Hermann Sudermann. Crown 8vo. 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>VERHAEREN, EMILE</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE DAWN (Les Aubes).</b> Translated by Arthur
-Symons. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>WOODS, MARGARET L.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER.</b> By Margaret
-L. Woods. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1_ad" id="Page_1_ad">[1]</a></span></p>
-<h2>A SELECTION FROM<br />
-DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
-LIST OF PUBLICATIONS</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
-<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><br />
-<small>3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN</small><br />
-<small>LONDON, W.C.</small><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2_ad" id="Page_2_ad">[2]</a></span></p>
-<h2>DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
-PUBLICATIONS</h2>
-
-
-<h3>ANIMAL LIFE AND WILD NATURE<br />
-(STORIES OF).</h3>
-
-<div class='center'><i>Uniform binding, large cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Under the Roof of the Jungle.</span> A Book of Animal Life
-in the Guiana Wilds. Written and illustrated by Charles
-Livingston Bull. With 60 full-page plates drawn from
-Life by the Author.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Kindred of the Wild.</span> A Book of Animal Life. By
-Charles G. D. Roberts, Professor of Literature, Toronto
-University, late Deputy-Keeper of Woods and Forests,
-Canada. With many illustrations by Charles Livingston
-Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Watchers of the Trails.</span> A Book of Animal Life.
-By Charles G. D. Roberts. With 48 illustrations by
-Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Story of Red Fox.</span> A Biography. By Charles G. D.
-Roberts. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Haunters of the Silences.</span> A Book of Wild Nature.
-By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by Charles
-Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-
-<h3>BOOKS ON ART.</h3>
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Art&mdash;The Library of</span>, embracing Painting, Sculpture, Architecture,
-etc. Edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D.
-<i>Extra cloth</i>, with lettering and design in gold. <i>Large
-cr. 8vo</i> (7-3/4 in. &times; 5-3/4 in.), <i>gilt top, headband. 5s. net a
-volume. Inland postage, 5d.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES</small></div>
-
-<div class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Donatello.</span> By Lord Balcarres, M.P. With 58 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting.</span> By Dr
-W. Bode. With 48 plates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3_ad" id="Page_3_ad">[3]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By G. Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh.
-With 45 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Antonio Pollaiuolo.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Verrocchio.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 48 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Lives of the British Architects.</span> By E. Beresford
-Chancellor. With 45 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Madrid.</span> By A. de Beruete y Moret. With 48
-plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">William Blake.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 40 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Giotto.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 44 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">French Painting in the Sixteenth Century.</span> By L. Dimier.
-With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Ferrara.</span> By Edmund G. Gardner. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Six Greek Sculptors.</span> (Myron, Pheidias, Polykleitos, Skopas,
-Praxiteles, and Lysippos.) By Ernest Gardner. With 81 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Titian.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau. With 54 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Constable.</span> By M. Sturge Henderson. With 48 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pisanello.</span> By G. F. Hill. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Michael Angelo.</span> By Sir Charles Holroyd. With 52 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Medi&aelig;val Art.</span> By W. R. Lethaby. With 66 plates and 120
-drawings in the text.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Scottish School of Painting.</span> By William D. McKay,
-R.S.A. With 46 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christopher Wren.</span> By Lena Milman. With upwards of 60 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Correggio.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 55 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albert D&uuml;rer.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 4 copperplates and 50
-half-tone engravings.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sir William Beechey, R.A.</span> By W. Roberts. With 49 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Seville.</span> By N. Sentenach. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine.</span> By Mrs
-S. Arthur Strong, LL.D., Editor of the Series. 2 vols. With
-130 plates.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap"><a name="Art_The_Popular_Library_of" id="Art_The_Popular_Library_of"></a>Art, The Popular Library of.</span> Pocket volumes of biographical
-and critical value on the great painters, with very
-many reproductions of the artists' works. Each volume
-averages 200 pages, 16mo, with from 40 to 50 illustrations.
-To be had in different styles of binding: <i>Boards gilt, 1s.
-net; green canvas and red cloth gilt, 2s. net; limp lambskin,
-red and green, 2s. 6d. net.</i> Several titles can also
-be had in the popular Persian yapp binding, in box.
-<i>2s. 6d. net each.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES.</small></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Botticelli.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
-binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Raphael.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
-binding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4_ad" id="Page_4_ad">[4]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Frederick Walker.</span> By Clementina Black.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Velazquez.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Gainsborough.</span> By Arthur B. Chamberlain.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Cruikshank.</span> By W. H. Chesson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Blake.</span> By G. K. Chesterton.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">G. F. Watts.</span> By G. K. Chesterton. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albrecht D&uuml;rer.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Water-Colour Painters.</span> By A. J. Finberg. Also
-in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Hogarth.</span> By Edward Garnett.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Leonardo da Vinci.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Holbein.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rossetti.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Perugino.</span> By Edward Hutton.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Millet.</span> By Romain Rolland.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Watteau.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The French Impressionists.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Whistler.</span> By Bernhard Sickert. Also in Persian yapp binding.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amelung, Walther, and Holtzinger, Heinrich.</span> The
-Museums and Ruins of Rome. A Guide Book. Edited
-by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. With 264 illustrations
-and map and plans. 2 vols. New and cheaper re-issue.
-<i>Fcap 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Burns, Rev. J.</span> Sermons in Art by the Great Masters.
-<i>Cloth gilt</i>, photogravure frontispiece and many illustrations.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net</i>.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Christ Face in Art. With 60 illustrations in tint.
-<i>Cr. 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bussy, Dorothy.</span> Eug&egrave;ne Delacroix. A Critical Appreciation.
-With 26 illustrations. New and cheaper re-issue.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Carotti, Giulio.</span> A History of Art. English edition,
-edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. In four
-volumes, with very numerous illustrations in each volume.
-<i>Small cr. 8vo. 5s. net each volume.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. &nbsp;&nbsp;I.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ancient Art.</span> 500 illustrations.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left' colspan='4'>Vol. &nbsp;II.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Middle Ages down to the Golden Age.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. III.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Golden Age.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='left'><i>In</i></td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<i>preparation.</i></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. IV.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Modern Times.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">L&ouml;wy, Emanuel.</span> The Rendering of Nature in Early Greek
-Art. With 30 illustrations. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5_ad" id="Page_5_ad">[5]</a></span></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mauclair, Camille.</span> Auguste Rodin. With very many
-illustrations and photogravure frontispiece. <i>Small 4to.</i>
-New and cheaper re-issue. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Camille Mauclair.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h3>GENERAL LITERATURE.</h3>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Archer, William</span>, and <span class="smcap">Barker, H. Granville.</span> A
-National Theatre. Schemes and Estimates. By William
-Archer and H. Granville Barker. <i>Cr. 4to. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Aspinall, Algernon E.</span> The Pocket Guide to the West
-Indies. A New and Revised Edition, with maps, very
-fully illustrated. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; West Indian Tales of Old. Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Austin, Sarah.</span> The Story without an End. From the
-German of Carov&eacute;. Retold by Sarah Austin. Illustrated
-by Frank C. Pap&eacute;. 8 Illustrations in Colour,
-mounted with frames and plate marks. <i>Large cr. 8vo.
-Designed end papers. Designed cloth covers, fully gilt, gilt
-top, headband. In box. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; With illustrations by Paul Henry. <i>Sq. 8vo.
-1s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Belloc, Hilaire.</span> Verses. <i>Large cr. 8vo.</i> 2nd edition.
-<i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; and B. T. B. The Bad Child's Book of Beasts. New
-edition. 25th thousand. <i>Sq. 4to. 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; and B. T. B. More Beasts for Worse Children. New
-edition. <i>Sq. 4to. 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by H. Belloc.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Biron, H. C.</span> "Sir," Said Dr Johnson. Selections from
-Boswell's "Life of Johnson," arranged under comprehensive
-headings. <i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bourne, George.</span> Change in the Village: A study of the
-village of to-day. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> for other books by George Bourne.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Boutroux, Emile.</span> The Beyond that is Within, and other
-Lectures. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another book by Professor Boutroux.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6_ad" id="Page_6_ad">[6]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brooke, Stopford A.</span> The Onward Cry: Essays and
-Sermons. New and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See also the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a> for other
-books by Stopford Brooke.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Chapman, Hugh B.</span>, Chaplain of the Savoy. At the Back
-of Things: Essays and Addresses. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Collier, Price.</span> England and the English, from an American
-point of view. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Also a
-popular edition, with Foreword by Lord Rosebery.
-<i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The West in the East: A study of British Rule in India.
-<i>Demy. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Coulton, G. G.</span> From St Francis to Dante. A Historical
-Sketch. Second edition. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap"><a name="Crown_Library" id="Crown_Library"></a>Crown Library, The.</span> <i>Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top. 5s.
-net a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Rub&aacute;'iy&aacute;t of 'Umar Khayy&aacute;m</span> (Fitzgerald's 2nd Edition).
-Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Edward Heron Allen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy.</span> By
-Emile Boutroux.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Wanderings in Arabia.</span> By Charles M. Doughty. An abridged
-edition of "Travels in Arabia Deserta." With portrait and
-map. In 2 vols.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Folk-Lore of the Holy Land</span>: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish.
-By J. E. Hanauer. Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Life and Evolution.</span> By F. W. Headley, F.Z.S. With upwards
-of 100 illustrations. New and revised edition (1913).</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Note-Books of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Edited by Edward
-McCurdy. With 14 illustrations.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen.</span> By F. W. Maitland.
-With a photogravure portrait.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Country Month by Month.</span> By J. A. Owen and G. S.
-Boulger. With 20 illustrations.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Spinoza</span>: His Life and Philosophy. By Sir Frederick Pollock.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Utilitarians.</span> By Sir Leslie Stephen. 3 vols.</div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">James Mill.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Jeremy Bentham.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">John Stuart Mill.</span></td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Critical Studies.</span> By S. Arthur Strong. With Memoir by Lord
-Balcarres, M.P. Illustrated.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cutting Ceres.</span> The Praying Girl. Thoughtful Religious
-Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7_ad" id="Page_7_ad">[7]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Darwin, Bernard, and Rountree, Harry.</span> The Golf
-Courses of the British Isles. 48 illustrations in colour
-and 16 in sepia. <i>Sq. royal 8vo. 21s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">De la Mare, Walter.</span> The Three Mulla Mulgars. A
-Romance of the Great Forests. With illustrations in
-colour. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Doughty, Chas. M.</span> Adam Cast Forth. A Poem founded
-on a Jud&aelig;o-Arabian Legend of Adam and Eve. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-4s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Cliffs. A Poetic Drama of the Invasion of Britain
-in 19&mdash;. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Clouds: a Poem. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Dawn in Britain. An Epic Poem of the Beginnings
-of Britain. In six vols. Vols. 1 and 2, <i>9s. net</i>; Vols. 3
-and 4, <i>9s. net</i>; Vols. 5 and 6, <i>9s. net.</i> The Set, <i>27s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another work by C. M. Doughty.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fairless, Michael.</span> Complete Works. 3 vols. In slip
-case. <i>Buckram gilt. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also the <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Roadmender. Illustrated in Colour by E. W. Waite.
-<i>Cloth gilt, gilt top. 7s. 6d. net. In a Box.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; Illustrated in photogravure from drawings by
-W. G. Mein. In slip case. <i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falconer, Rev. Hugh.</span> The Unfinished Symphony. New
-and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Flaubert, Gustave.</span> The First Temptation of St Anthony.
-A new translation by R. Francis. A fine edition on
-imit. hd.-made paper. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Graham, R. B. Cunninghame.</span> Charity. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Faith. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Hope. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His People. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by Cunninghame Graham.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Haselfoot, F. K. H.</span> The Divina Commedia of Dante
-Alighieri. Translated line for line in the <i>terza rima</i> of
-the original, with Introduction and Notes. Second
-edition, revised, corrected, and further annotated. <i>Demy
-8vo. 12s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8_ad" id="Page_8_ad">[8]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Headlam, Cecil.</span> Walter Headlam: Letters and Poems.
-With Memoir by Cecil Headlam. With photogravure
-portrait. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Henderson, Archibald.</span> Mark Twain. A Biography.
-With 8 photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn. <i>Large
-cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit: Critical
-Essays. With a photogravure portrait of Meredith. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hill, M. D., and Webb, Wilfred Mark.</span> Eton Nature-Study
-and Observational Lessons. With numerous
-illustrations. In two parts. <i>3s. 6d. net each.</i> Also the
-two parts in one volume, <i>6s. net</i>.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hammond, Rev. Joseph.</span> Six Necessary Things for Christians
-to Know. A Theology for the Plain Man. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span> A Little Boy Lost. With 30 illustrations
-by A. D. McCormick. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by W. H. Hudson.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hueffer, Ford Madox.</span> The Critical Attitude. Literary
-Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. Buckram. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Ford Madox Hueffer.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <span class="smcap">High Germany: Verses.</span> <i>Sq. cr. 8vo, paper covers.
-1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hughes, Rev. G.</span> Conscience and Criticism. With Foreword
-by the Bishop of Winchester. New and Cheaper
-Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hutchinson, T.</span> Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth
-and S. T. Coleridge, 1798. With certain poems of 1798,
-Introduction and Notes. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> New and Revised
-Edition. With 2 photogravures. <i>3. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard.</span> The Story of My Heart. By Richard
-Jefferies. A New Edition Reset. With 8 illustrations
-from oil paintings by Edward W. Waite. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
-The pictures mounted with frames and plate marks.
-Designed Cover. <i>Cloth gilt, gilt top, headband. In Box.
-7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>Also a Large Paper Edition limited to 150 numbered copies, printed on
-Imit. Hand-made Paper, illustrations mounted on vellum with decorative
-borders in gold. Bound in buckram, in slip case. <i>21s. net.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9_ad" id="Page_9_ad">[9]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Joubert, Joseph.</span> Joubert: A Selection from His Thoughts.
-Translated by Katharine Lyttleton, with a Preface by
-Mrs Humphry Ward. New Edition. In a slip case.
-<i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Kropotkin, Prince.</span> Ideals and Realities in Russian
-Literature. Critical Essays. By Prince Kropotkin.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Langlois, Ch. V., and Seignobos, Ch.</span> An Introduction to
-the Study of History. New Edition. <i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lawrence, D. H.</span> Love Poems and others. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Gallienne, Richard.</span> Odes from the Divan of Hafiz.
-Freely rendered from Literal Translations. <i>Large sq. 8vo.</i>
-In slip case. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lethaby, W. R.</span> Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen.
-With 125 illustrations, photogravure frontispiece,
-and many drawings and diagrams. <i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Westminster Abbey as a Coronation Church. Illustrated.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Library of Art</a> for "Medi&aelig;val Art" by W. R. Lethaby.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Loveland, J. D. E.</span> The Romance of Nice. A Descriptive
-Account of Nice and its History. With illustrations.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lytton, the Hon. Mrs Neville.</span> Toy Dogs and their
-Ancestors. With 300 illustrations in colour collotype,
-photogravure, and half-tone. <i>4to. 30s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahaffy, R. P.</span> Francis Joseph the First: His Life and
-Times. By R. P. Mahaffy. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahommed, Mirza, and Rice, C. Spring.</span> Valeh and
-Hadijeh. <i>Large sq. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mantzius, Karl.</span> A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient
-and Modern Times. With Introduction by William
-Archer. In six volumes. With illustrations from photographs.
-<i>Royal 8vo. 10s. net each vol.</i></div>
-
-<div class="hang2">Vol. I.&mdash;The Earliest Times. Vol. II.&mdash;Middle Ages and Renaissance.
-Vol. III.&mdash;Shakespeare and the English Drama of his
-Time. Vol. IV.&mdash;Moli&egrave;re and his Time. Vol. V.&mdash;Great
-Actors of the 18th Century. Vol. VI.&mdash;<i>In preparation.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marczali, Henry.</span> The Letters and Journal, 1848-49, of Count
-Charles Leiningen-Westerburg. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10_ad" id="Page_10_ad">[10]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marjoram, John.</span> New Poems. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Moore, T. Sturge.</span> Poems. <i>Square 8vo. Sewed, 1s. net
-a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Moore's Poems">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Centaur's Booty.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Rout of the Amazons.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Gazelles, and Other Poems.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pan's Prophecy.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">To Leda, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Theseus, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-Or, in one volume, <i>bound in art linen. 6s. net.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Sicilian Idyll, and Judith. <i>Cloth. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Mariamne'">Marianne</ins>. A Drama. <i>Qr. bound. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nassau, R. H.</span> Fetichism in West Africa: Forty Years'
-Observations of Native Customs and Superstitions. 12
-illustrations. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph, and Jerningham, C. E.</span> Piccadilly to
-Pall Mall. Manners, Morals, and Man. With 2 photogravures.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph.</span> Sporting Days and Sporting Ways. With
-coloured frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Merry Past. Reminiscences and Anecdotes.
-With frontispiece in colour collotype. <i>Demy 8vo.
-12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Pawlowska, Yo&iuml;</span> (Mrs Buckley). A Year of Strangers.
-Sketches of People and Things in Italy and in the Far
-East. With copper-plate frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Peake, Prof. A. S.</span> Christianity, its Nature and its Truth.
-<i>25th Thousand. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Phillipps, L. March.</span> The Works of Man. Studies of
-race characteristics as revealed in the creative art of the
-world. <i>Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays, Modern.</span> <i>Cloth. 2s. net a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Plays">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Revolt and the Escape.</span> By Villiers de L'Isle Adam.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hernani.</span> A Tragedy. By Frederick Brock.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> A Drama. By J. Comyns Carr.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11_ad" id="Page_11_ad">[11]</a></span><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. 6d. net.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Breaking Point</span>: a Censured Play. By Edward Garnett.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Coming of Peace.</span> By Gerhart Hauptmann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> A Play. By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Storm.</span> By Ostrovsky. Translated by Constance Garnett.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Drama. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> One Act Plays. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Father.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">There Are Crimes and Crimes.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Miss Julia. The Stronger.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Creditors. Pariah.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Roses.</span> Four One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Morituri.</span> Three One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dawn</span> (Les Aubes). By Emile Verhaeren. Translated by Arthur Symons.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Princess of Hanover.</span> By Margaret L. Woods.</td></tr>
-</table><br /></div>
-
-<div class="hang1">The following may also be had in paper covers. Price
-<i>1s. 6d. net a volume</i>.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="More plays">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> By J. Comyns Carr. (<i>Paper boards.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. net.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Censored Drama. By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Three Plays.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford. (Hamilton's Second
-Marriage, Thomas and the Princess, The Modern Way.)
-In one vol. <i>Sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (First Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
-(Joy, Strife, The Silver Box) in one vol. <i>Small sq. post
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (Second Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
-(Justice, The Little Dream, The Eldest Son) in one
-vol. <i>Small sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12_ad" id="Page_12_ad">[12]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By August Strindberg. (The Dream Play, The Link,
-The Dance of Death, Part I.; The Dance of Death,
-Part II.) Translated with an Introduction and Bibliography
-by Edwin Bj&ouml;rkman. With frontispiece portrait
-of Strindberg. In one volume. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By Anton Tchekoff. (Uncle Vanya, Ivanoff, The
-Seagull, The Swan Song.) With an Introduction.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Reid, Stuart J.</span> Sir Richard Tangye. A Life. With a
-portrait. New and Cheaper re-issue. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Roadmender Series, The.</span> The volumes in the series are
-works with the same tendency as Michael Fairless's
-remarkable book, from which the series gets its name:
-books which express a deep feeling for Nature, and a
-mystical interpretation of life. <i>Fcap. 8vo, with designed
-end papers. 2s. 6d. net.</i><br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Sea Charm of Venice.</span> By Stopford A. Brooke.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Magic Casements.</span> By Arthur S. Cripps.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Roadmender.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
-3s. 6d. Velvet calf yapp, 5s. net.</i> Illustrated Black and White
-Edition, <i>cr. 8vo, 5s. net.</i> Also Special Illustrated edition in
-colour from oil paintings by E. W. Waite, <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> Edition de
-Luxe, <i>15s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Grey Brethren.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
-3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Gathering of Brother Hilarius.</span> By Michael Fairless.
-<i>Limp lambskin, 3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian,
-5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Modern Mystic's Way.</span> (Dedicated to Michael Fairless.)<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Thoughts of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Selected by Edward McCurdy.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Longings.</span> By W. D. McKay.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">From the Forest.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pilgrim Man.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Winter and Spring.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Vagrom Men.</span> By A. T. Story.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Light and Twilight.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rest and Unrest.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rose Acre Papers</span>: including Hor&aelig; Solitari&aelig;. By Edward Thomas.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Rosen, Erwin.</span> In the Foreign Legion. A record of actual
-experiences in the French Foreign Legion. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
-New and Cheaper Edition. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13_ad" id="Page_13_ad">[13]</a></span></p>
-<h2><a name="READERS_LIBRARY" id="READERS_LIBRARY">READERS' LIBRARY, THE.</a></h2>
-
-
-<div class='center'><i>Copyright Works of Individual Merit and Permanent Value
-<br />by Authors of Repute.</i><br />
-
-Library style. <i>Cr. 8vo. Blue cloth gilt, round backs.<br />
-2s. 6d. net a volume.</i><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Avril.</span> By Hilaire Belloc. Essays
-on the Poetry of the French
-Renaissance.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Esto Perpetua.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.
-Algerian Studies and Impressions.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Men, Women, and Books: Res
-Judicat&aelig;.</span> By Augustine Birrell.
-Complete in one vol.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Obiter Dicta.</span> By Augustine
-Birrell. First and Second Series
-in one volume.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Memoirs of a Surrey
-Labourer.</span> By George Bourne.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Bettesworth Book.</span> By
-George Bourne.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Poetry.</span> By Stopford
-A. Brooke, LL.D. Essays on
-Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Comparative Studies in Nursery
-Rhymes.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.
-Essays in a branch of
-Folk-lore.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Italian Poets since Dante.</span>
-Critical Essays. By W. Everett.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Villa Rubein, and Other
-Stories.</span> By John Galsworthy.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Progress, and Other Sketches.</span>
-By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Success: and Other Sketches.</span>
-By R. B. Cunninghame Grahame.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Green Mansions.</span> A Romance
-of the Tropical Forest. By W. H.
-Hudson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Purple Land.</span> By W. H.
-Hudson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Heart of the Country.</span>
-By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Soul of London.</span> By Ford
-Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the People.</span> By
-Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">After London&mdash;Wild England.</span>
-By Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amaryllis at the Fair.</span> By
-Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bevis.</span> The Story of a Boy. By
-Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Hills and the Vale.</span>
-Nature Essays. By Richard
-Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Greatest Life.</span> An inquiry
-into the foundations of character.
-By Gerald Leighton, M.D.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">St Augustine and his Age.</span>
-An Interpretation. By Joseph
-McCabe.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Between the Acts.</span> By H. W.
-Nevinson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays in Freedom.</span> By H. W.
-Nevinson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Parallel Paths.</span> A Study in
-Biology, Ethics, and Art. By
-T. W. Rolleston.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Strenuous Life, and Other
-Essays.</span> By Theodore Roosevelt.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">English Literature and
-Society in the Eighteenth
-Century.</span> By Sir Leslie
-Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span> First
-Series. Two Volumes. By Sir
-Leslie Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span>
-Second Series. Two Volumes.
-By Sir Leslie Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Interludes.</span> By Sir Geo. Trevelyan.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays on Dante.</span> By Dr Carl
-Witte.</div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>"Messrs Duckworth's admirable Readers' Library."&mdash;<i>Bookman.</i></p>
-
-<p>"A series which is well worth following. Excellent reading."&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
-
-<p>"That excellent series. The work of some of our most distinguished contemporaries."&mdash;<i>Daily
-News.</i></p>
-
-<p>"In a class apart from cheap reprints .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. as enjoyable to the most fastidious as first
-editions."&mdash;<i>The Manchester Guardian.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14_ad" id="Page_14_ad">[14]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Social Questions Series.</span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Makers of Our Clothes.</span> A Case for Trade Boards. By Miss
-Clementina Black and Lady Carl Meyer. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sweated Industry and the Minimum Wage.</span> By Clementina
-<span class="smcap">Black</span>. With Preface by A. G. Gardiner. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo.
-2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Women in Industry: From Seven Points of View.</span> With
-Introduction by D. J. Shackleton. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Worker's Handbook.</span> By Gertrude M. Tuckwell. A handbook
-of legal and general information for the Clergy, for District
-Visitors, and all Social Workers. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Saints, The.</span> An entirely New Series of Lives of the Saints,
-in separate volumes. <i>Cr. 8vo, scarlet art vellum, gilt
-lettered, gilt top. 2s. 6d. net each volume.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Saints">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ambrose.</span> By the Duc de Broglie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Antony of Padua.</span> By the Abb&eacute; Albert Lepitre.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Augustine.</span> By Prof. Ad. Hatzfeld.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Cajetan.</span> By R. de Maulde la Clavi&egrave;re.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Chrysostom.</span> By Aim&eacute; Puech.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Clotilda.</span> By Prof. G. Kurth.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Dominic.</span> By Jean Guiraud.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Francis of Sales.</span> By A. D. Margerie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ignatius of Loyola.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Jerome.</span> By the Rev. Father Largent.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Joan of Arc.</span> By L. Petit de Julleville.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. John Vianney: Cur&eacute; d'Ars.</span> By Joseph Vianney.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Louis.</span> By Marius Sepet.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Mary the Virgin.</span> By Ren&eacute; Marie de la Broise.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Nicholas I.</span> By Jules Roy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Patrick.</span> By l'Abb&eacute; Riguet.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Peter Fourier.</span> By L. Pingaud.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Teresa.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas &agrave; Becket.</span> By Mgr. Demimuid.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas More.</span> By Henri Bremond.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Vincent de Paul.</span> By Prince Emmanuel de Broglie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Psychology of the Saints.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Duckworth's <a name="Shilling_Net_Series" id="Shilling_Net_Series"></a>Shilling Net Series.</span> <i>Cloth, cr. 8vo.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Duckworth's Shilling Net Series">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Caliban's Guide to Letters.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">South American Sketches.</span> By W. H. Hudson.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Stories from De Maupassant.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Success.</span> By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Smalley, George W.</span> Anglo-American Memories. First
-Series (American). With a photogravure frontispiece.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Second Series (English). <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Spielmann</span>, Mrs M. H., and <span class="smcap">Wilhelm, C.</span> The Child of
-the Air. A Romantic Fantasy. Illustrated in colour
-and in line. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15_ad" id="Page_15_ad">[15]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stephen, H. L.</span> State Trials: Political and Social First
-Series. Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With
-two photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. Art vellum,
-gilt top. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;Sir Walter Raleigh&mdash;Charles I.&mdash;The Regicides&mdash;Colonel
-Turner and Others&mdash;The Suffolk Witches&mdash;Alice Lisle. Vol. II.&mdash;Lord
-Russell&mdash;The Earl of Warwick&mdash;Spencer Cowper and
-Others&mdash;Samuel Goodere and Others.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; State Trials: Political and Social. Second Series.
-Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With two
-photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;The Earl of Essex&mdash;Captain Lee&mdash;John Perry&mdash;Green and
-Others&mdash;Count Coningsmark&mdash;Beau Fielding. Vol. II.&mdash;Annesley&mdash;Carter&mdash;Macdaniell&mdash;Bernard&mdash;Byron.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stopford, Francis.</span> Life's Great Adventure. Essays. By
-Francis Stopford, author of "The Toil of Life." <i>Cr.
-8vo. Cloth. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Theology.</span> A New Series of Handbooks, being
-aids to interpretation in Biblical Criticism for the use of
-the Clergy, Divinity Students, and Laymen. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-2s. 6d. net a volume.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Christian Hope.</span> A Study in the Doctrine of the Last Things.
-By W. Adams Brown, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union
-College, New York.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christianity and Social Questions.</span> By the Rev. William
-Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Archdeacon of Ely. Formerly
-Lecturer on Economic History to Harvard University.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Faith and its Psychology.</span> By the Rev. William R. Inge, D.D.,
-Dean of St Paul's.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Protestant Thought before Kant.</span> By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D.,
-D.D., of the Union Theological Seminary, New York.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Theology of the Gospels.</span> By the Rev. James Moffat, B.D.,
-D.D., of the U.F. Church of Scotland, sometime Jowett Lecturer
-in London, author of "The Historical New Testament,"
-"Literary Illustrations of the Bible," etc.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A History of Christian Thought since Kant.</span> By the Rev.
-Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman Professor of Theology
-in the University of Harvard, U.S.A.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Revelation and Inspiration.</span> By the Rev. James Orr, D.D.,
-Professor of Apologetics in the Theological College of the United
-Free Church, Glasgow.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Critical Introduction to the New Testament.</span> By Arthur
-Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Dean of
-the Faculty of Theology, Victoria University, Manchester.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Philosophy and Religion.</span> By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall,
-D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A., Fellow and Tutor
-of New College, Oxford.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16_ad" id="Page_16_ad">[16]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Text and Canon of the New Testament.</span> By Prof. Alexander
-Souter, M.A., D.Litt., Professor of Humanity, Aberdeen
-University.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christian Thought to the Reformation.</span> By Herbert B. Workman,
-D.Litt., Principal of the Westminster Training College.</div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tomlinson, H. M.</span> The Sea and the Jungle. Personal experiences
-in a voyage to South America and through the
-Amazon forests. By H. M. Tomlinson. <i>Demy 8vo.
-7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Vaughan, Herbert M.</span> The Last Stuart Queen: Louise
-Countess of Albany. A Life. With illustrations and
-portraits. <i>Demy 8vo. 16s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Waern, Cecilia.</span> Medi&aelig;val Sicily. Aspects of Life and
-Art in the Middle Ages. With very many illustrations.
-<i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Williams, Alfred.</span> A Wiltshire Village. A Study of
-English Rural Village Life. By Alfred Williams. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2><a name="NOVELS_AND_STORIES" id="NOVELS_AND_STORIES"></a>NOVELS AND STORIES</h2>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Anonymous.</span> The Diary of an English Girl. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, David W.</span> The Brassbounder. A tale of seamen's
-life in a sailing ship. With illustrations by the Author.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Gertrude.</span> Provincial Tales. With frontispiece by
-Muirhead Bone. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Muirhead and Gertrude.</span> Children's Children. A
-Tale. With 60 drawings by Muirhead Bone. <i>Large
-Cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i> [Vellum Edition, limited to 250
-copies, signed and numbered. <i>25s. net.</i>]</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brookfield, Chas. H.</span> Jack Goldie: the Boy who knew
-best. Illustrated by A. E. Jackson. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brown, Vincent.</span> A Magdalen's Husband. A Novel.
-Fourth Impression. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Dark Ship. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Disciple's Wife. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Sacred Cup. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Calthrop, Dion Clayton.</span> King Peter. A Novel. With a
-Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Dion Clayton Calthrop.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17_ad" id="Page_17_ad">[17]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cawtley, C. Holmes.</span> The Weaving of the Shuttle. A
-Yorkshire Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Clifford</span>, Mrs W. K. Woodside Farm. A Novel. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Connolly, J. B.</span> Wide Courses: Tales of the Sea. Illustrated.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davies, W. H.</span> Beggars. Personal Experiences of Tramp
-Life. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Weak Woman. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The True Traveller. A Tramp's Experiences. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davis, Richard Harding.</span> Once upon a Time. Stories.
-Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Man who could not Lose. Stories. Illustrated.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Red Cross Girl. Stories. Illustrated. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Dodge, Janet.</span> Tony Unregenerate. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Drake, Maurice.</span> Wrack. A Tale of the Sea. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">East, H. Clayton.</span> The Breath of the Desert. A Novel of
-Egypt. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Filippi, Rosina.</span> Bernardine. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fogazzaro, Antonio.</span> The Poet's Mystery. A Novel. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Forbes, Lady Helen.</span> It's a Way they have in the Army.
-A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Bounty of the Gods. A Novel.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Polar Star. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garnett</span>, Mrs R. S. Amor Vincit. A Romance of the
-Staffordshire Moorlands. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another Novel by Mrs Garnett.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garshin, W.</span> The Signal, and other Stories. Translated
-from the Russian.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Glyn, Elinor.</span> Beyond the Rocks. A Love Story. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i> Also an edition in <i>paper covers. 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Halcyone. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His Hour. A Novel. With a photogravure frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18_ad" id="Page_18_ad">[18]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Vicissitudes of Evangeline. With
-Coloured Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo, 6s.</i> Also an edition in
-<i>paper covers, 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Reflections of Ambrosine. With Coloured Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Three Weeks. A Romance. With Coloured Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Visits of Elizabeth. With Photogravure Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Elizabeth Visits America. With a Photogravure
-Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Damsel and the Sage: A Woman's Whimsies.
-With a Photogravure Portrait. <i>Cr. 8vo.</i> In slip case.
-<i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Sayings of Grandmamma. From the Writings of
-Elinor Glyn. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> With Photogravure Portrait.
-<i>Persian yapp. 2s. 6d. net. Also in parchment, 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Reason Why. With Frontispiece in Colour.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Gorky, Maxim.</span> The Spy. A Tale. By Maxim Gorky.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Twenty-six Men and a Girl. Stories. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-Cloth, 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hayter, Adrian.</span> The Profitable Imbroglio. A Tale of
-Mystery. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Holmes, Arthur H.</span> Twinkle. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Horlick, Jittie.</span> A String of Beads. A Tale. Illustrated
-in Colour. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Johnson, Cecil Ross.</span> The Trader: A Venture in New
-Guinea. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Sage, A. B.</span> In the West Wind. A Cornish Novel.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lipsett, E. R.</span> Didy: The Story of an Irish Girl.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maclagan, Bridget.</span> The Mistress of Kingdoms. A Novel.
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-
-<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
-<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
-
-<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
-
-<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***</div>
-</body>
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies.
+    </title>
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+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="Cover" title="" />
+</div><hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/title-a.png" width="300" height="47" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/title-b.png" width="100" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2>THE READERS' LIBRARY</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'><i>Uniform with this Volume</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Reader's Library">
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Belloc, H.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Birrell, Augustine</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ORBITER DICTA</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Bourne, George</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Brooks, Stopford A.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Everett, W.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Galsworthy, John</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A COMMENTARY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>BEVIS. The Story of a Boy</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>AFTER LONDON</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">McCabe, Joseph</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Nevinson, H. W.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS IN FREEDOM</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Stephen, Sir Leslie</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Witte, Dr. Carl</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS ON DANTE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Roosevelt, Theodore</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Eckenstein, Lina</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><div class='hang1'>COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays<br />in a Branch of Folklore</div></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Cunninghame Graham, R. B.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PROGRESS, and other Sketches</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<div class='center'><br /><i>Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time</i></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>RICHARD JEFFERIES</h2>
+
+<div class='center'><small>AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON,"
+"WOOD MAGIC; A FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.</small></div>
+
+<div class='poem'><br /><br /><br />
+"Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."<br />
+
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Alc&aelig;us</span>.<br /><br /><br /><br />
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
+<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
+LONDON<br />
+DUCKWORTH AND CO.<br />
+<span class="smcap">3, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.</span><br />
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reissued 1904</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reprinted in Readers Library 1911</span><br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div class='copyright'>
+<i>All rights reserved</i><br /></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<b>Dedicated</b><br />
+<br />
+TO<br />
+<br />
+CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-029.png" width="500" height="88" alt="Decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 146px;">
+<img src="images/t-quote.png" width="146" height="120" alt="&quot;T" title="&quot;T" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HE book is not a novel" is a phrase
+often in the mouth of critics, who on
+second thoughts might, perhaps, add
+with less emphasis, "It does not conform
+to the common type of novel." Fortified, however,
+with that sense of rectitude that dictates conformity
+to our neighbours and a safe acquiescence
+in the mysterious movements of public taste, the
+critics have exclaimed with touching unanimity&mdash;"What
+a pity Jefferies tried to write novels! Why
+didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"</div>
+
+<p>What a pity Jefferies should have given us
+"Amaryllis at the Fair," and "After London"!&mdash;this
+opinion has been propagated with such fervency
+that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring
+into the nature of these his achievements. Certainly
+the critics, and their critical echoes, are united. "He
+wrote some later novels of indifferent merit," says
+a critic in "Chambers' Encyclop&aelig;dia." "Has anyone
+ever been able to write with free and genuine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
+appreciation of even the later novels?" asks or
+echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies.
+"In brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at
+all," says Mr. Henry Salt. "It is therefore certain
+that his importance for posterity will dwindle, if it
+has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle
+of descriptive selections. But these will occupy a
+foremost place on their particular shelf, the shelf at
+the head of which stands Gilbert White and Gray,"
+says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter
+of genius, and he never got beyond reporting. Mr.
+Besant has the vitalising imagination which Jefferies
+lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
+Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again,
+"They are not novels as he (Walter Besant) admits,
+they are a series of pictures.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. That is the way
+he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
+touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure
+for this critic to say that in his <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'judgement'">judgment</ins> "Amaryllis
+at the Fair" is one of the very few later-day novels
+of English country life that are worth putting on
+one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would
+turn out certain highly-praised novels by Hardy
+which do not ring quite true, novels which the critics
+and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
+voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the
+reader may ask. A novel, says the learned Charles
+Annandale, is "a fictitious prose narrative, involving
+some plot of greater or less intricacy, and professing
+to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting
+the passions and sentiments, in a state of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
+great activity, and especially the passion of love."
+Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious prose
+narrative professing to give a picture of real life,
+and involving a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it
+exhibits the passions and sentiments in a state of
+great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose little
+book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further
+remarks: "Jefferies was quite unable to give any
+vivid dramatic life to his stories .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. his instinct
+was that of the naturalist who observes and moralizes
+rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
+interprets; and consequently his rustic characters,
+though strongly and clearly drawn, do not live, as,
+for example, those of Thomas Hardy live.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Men
+and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to
+be "no ordinary novelist," it is inferred by most
+that something is wrong with "Amaryllis the Fair,"
+and the book has been passed over in silence. But we
+do not judge every novel by the same test. We do
+not judge "Tristram Shandy," for example, by its
+intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we judge it
+simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by
+its humorous insight into human character. And
+judged by the same simple test "Amaryllis at the
+Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
+creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden,
+the unsuccessful farmer who "built for all time, and
+not for the circumstances of the hour," is a masterly
+piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
+portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about
+Uncle Toby? From what void did he spring? Iden,
+to our mind, is almost as masterly a conception,
+as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And
+Mrs. Iden, where will you find this type of nervous,
+irritable wife, full of spiteful disillusioned love for
+her dilatory husband better painted than by Jefferies?
+But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the
+reader may say. Excellent reader! and what about
+the Widow Wadman? She is no less and no more
+of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great
+feat of Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere
+of the Shandy household, but Jefferies has accomplished
+an artistic feat also in drawing the relations
+of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How
+true, how unerringly true to human nature is this
+picture of the Iden household; how delicately felt
+and rendered to a hair is his picture of the father's
+sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the
+waspish tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we
+not only have the family's idiosyncrasies, their habits,
+mental atmosphere, and domestic story brought before
+us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively
+by the hand of the artist, but we have the whole book
+steeped in the breath of English spring, the restless
+ache of spring that thrills through the nerves, and
+stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring
+feeling breaking from the March heavens and the
+March earth in copse, meadow, and ploughland, as it
+has scarcely been rendered before by English novelist.
+The description of Amaryllis running out into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
+March wind to call her father from his potato planting
+to see the daffodil; the picture of Iden pretending
+to sleep in his chair that he may watch the mice;
+the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the
+crowd of plain, ugly men of the countryside flocking
+along the road to the fair; the description of Amadis
+the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the stalwart
+country folk&mdash;all these pictures and a dozen
+others in the book are painted with a masterly hand.
+Pictures! the critical reader may complain. Yes,
+pictures of living men and women. What does it
+matter whether a revelation of human life is conveyed
+to us by pictures or by action so long as it is
+conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
+Gray, presumably because both writers have written
+of the English landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in
+his work as a naturalist and observer of wild life
+may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert
+White. But this classification only applies to one half
+of Jefferies' books. By his "Wild Life in a Southern
+County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by his
+"Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little
+apart from the poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair"
+he stands among the half-dozen country writers of
+the century whose work is racy of the English soil
+and of rural English human nature. We will name
+three of these writers, Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and
+our attentive readers can name the other three.</p>
+
+<p>To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is
+it so masterly, or, further, wherein is it so masterly,
+the curious reader may inquire? "Is it not full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
+digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
+is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly
+break his method, introduce his own personality,
+intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food, illness, and
+Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's
+dinner a little&mdash;well, a little unusual? In short, is
+not the book a disquisition on life from the standpoint
+of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if this
+is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?"
+Oh, candid reader, with the voice of authority
+sounding in your ears (and have we not Mr. Henley
+and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against
+us), a book may break the formal rules, and yet it
+may yield to us just that salt of life which we may
+seek for vainly in the works of more faultless writers.
+The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its
+beauty springs naturally from the prosaic earthly
+facts of life it narrates, and that, in the natural
+atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose and the
+poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the
+artistic naturalness of its homely picture, the book
+is very superior to, say "The Mayor of Casterbridge,"
+where we are conscious that the author has been at
+work arranging and rearranging his charming studies
+and impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge
+into the pattern of an exciting plot. Now it
+is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of "The
+Mayor of Casterbridge"&mdash;and we cite this novel as
+characteristic, both in its strength and weakness, of
+its distinguished author,&mdash;that we are brought to
+feel that we have not been shown the characters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>
+Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but
+that they have been moved about, kaleidoscopically,
+to suit the exigencies of the plot, and that the more
+this is so the less significance for us have their
+thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling
+changes of Farfrae and Lucetta, Henchard and
+Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
+listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we
+perceive indeed whence comes that atmosphere of
+stage crisis and stage effect which suddenly introduces
+a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars
+the artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful
+in other respects to English rural life. Plot is
+Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed and convincing
+would have been his pictures, if he could
+have thrown his plots and his rustic choruses to the
+four winds. May we not be thankful, therefore, that
+Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that
+in "Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions,
+the conversations are spontaneous as life, and
+that Jefferies' commentary on them is like Fielding's
+commentary, a medium by which he lives with his
+characters. The author's imagination, memory, and
+instinctive perception are, indeed, all working together;
+and so his picture of human life in
+"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as
+fresh a breath of life as we find in Cobbett's,
+Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
+writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere,
+his style and his subject seem to become
+one. He moves easily and surely. Out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
+splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the
+sensations, the observations and revelations of his
+youth, and the atmosphere familiar to him through
+long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning
+picture for us, a complete illusion of life more true
+than the reality. For what prosaic people call the
+reality is merely the co-ordination in their own minds
+of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life
+around them; and only this thousandth part they
+have noticed. But the creative mind builds up a
+living picture out of the thousands of aspects most
+of us are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies
+has done in "Amaryllis at the Fair." The book is
+rich in the contradictory forces of life, in its quick
+twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working
+alike in the leaves of grass outside the Idens'
+house, in the blustering winds round the walls, and
+in the minds of the characters indoors; and the style
+has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is
+growing, changing, breathing in the book. But the
+accomplished critics do not notice these trivial
+strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
+not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently
+thinks that Jefferies made a mistake in drawing his
+philosophy from an open-air study of nature, for he
+writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
+background was not like Wordsworth's clear and
+cheerful, but wholly vague and partly gloomy." It
+was neither vague nor gloomy, we may remark,
+parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw
+too deeply into nature's workings, and had too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
+sensuous a joy in life to interpret all Nature's doings,
+&agrave; la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously
+moral significance.</p>
+
+<p>The one charge that may with truth be brought
+against "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its digressions
+damage the artistic illusion of the whole. The
+book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness
+of a sketch, a sketch, moreover, which Jefferies
+was not destined to carry to the end he had planned,
+but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
+weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature,
+rather than those of an ambitious studio picture.
+And these digressions are an integral part of the
+book's character, just as the face of a man has its
+own blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the
+whole, and so, if they break somewhat the illusion
+of the scenes, they do not damage its spiritual unity.
+It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
+because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and
+complete testament on human life. He wrote it, or
+rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in pain,
+slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of
+a dying man. How real, how solid, how deliciously
+sweet seemed those simple earthly joys, those human
+appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
+is his passion and spiritual hunger for the
+beauty of earth! Like a flame shooting up from the
+log it is consuming, so this passion for the green
+earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine,
+consumes the wasted, consumptive body of the dying
+man. The reality, the solidity of the homely farmhouse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
+life he describes spring from the intensity
+with which he clings to all he loves, the cold March
+wind buffeting the face, the mating cries of the
+birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so terribly
+strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
+hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving,
+bitter the knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring
+and vivifying the whole, in every line of
+"Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
+"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished
+critics. Did he not? "Amaryllis at the Fair"
+is one of the truest criticisms of human life, oh
+reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness
+of things, the old, old human muddle, the meanness
+and stupidity and shortsightedness of humanity, the
+good salty taste of life in the healthy mouth, the
+spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
+appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry,
+and the sharp wind blowing alike on the just and
+the unjust&mdash;all is there on the printed page of
+"Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and
+the roar of London unite and mingle therein for
+those who do not bring the exacting eye of superiority
+to this most human book.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Edward Garnett</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 130px;">
+<img src="images/i-031.png" width="130" height="76" alt="Decoration" title="" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th,
+1903.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/title2-a.png" width="300" height="42" alt="Decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h2>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 90px;">
+<img src="images/title2-b.png" width="90" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-033.png" width="500" height="174" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS found the first daffodil
+flowering by the damask rose, and
+immediately ran to call her father to
+come and see it.</div>
+
+<p>There are no damask roses now, like
+there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks. I
+have never seen one since I last gathered one from
+that very bush. There are many grand roses, but
+no fragrance&mdash;the fragrance is gone out of life.
+Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look
+under the shade of the trees for the old roses, but
+they are not to be found. The dreary nurseries of
+evergreens and laurels&mdash;cemeteries they should be
+called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of
+taste&mdash;are innocent of such roses. They show
+you an acre of what they call roses growing out of
+dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call
+for damask roses&mdash;wouldn't pay to grow they.
+Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be
+cut every morning and fetched by the flower-girls
+for gents' button-holes and ladies' jackets. You
+won't get no damask roses; they be died out."</p>
+
+<p>I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper,
+that with patience I could get a
+damask rose even now by inquiring about from
+farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer,
+with a good old taste for old roses and pinks,
+would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
+But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it;
+I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern
+style, though small, of course, and there is a
+"garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose.
+No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot
+plant except round "home." The plot or "patch"
+the landlord calls "the garden"&mdash;it is about as
+wide as the border round a patch, old style&mdash;is
+quite vacant, bare, and contains nothing but mould.
+It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.</p>
+
+<p>Not only are there no damask roses, but there
+is no place for them now-a-days, no "home," only
+villas and rented houses. Anything rented in a
+town can never be "home."</p>
+
+<p>Farms that were practically taken on a hundred
+and twenty, or fifty, or perhaps two hundred years'
+leases were "homes." Consequently they had
+damask roses, bees, and birds about them.</p>
+
+<p>There had been daffodils in that spot at least a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+century, opening every March to the dry winds
+that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
+and carry them out from the bushes under the
+trees, sending them across the meadow&mdash;fleeing
+like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
+Every spring for a century at least the daffodils
+had bloomed there.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century,
+but ran round the corner of the house, and came
+face to face with the east wind, which took her
+with such force as to momentarily stay her progress.
+Her skirts were blown out horizontally,
+her ankles were exposed, and the front line of her
+shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched
+against the red brick wall. She laughed, but the
+strong gale filled her throat as if a hand had been
+thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife
+under her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs,
+and seemed as if it would scoop them out; her
+eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips
+dried up and parched in a moment. The wind
+went through her thick stockings as if the wool
+was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her
+eyes, and the skin of her arm became "goosey"
+directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it would
+have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step
+by step, and gradually reached the shelter of the
+high garden wall; there she could stand upright,
+and breathe again.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen
+blast, as if a storm of ice particles had been driven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+against them, now resumed their scarlet, but her
+ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly
+dark hair was dry and rough and without gloss.
+Each separate hair separated itself from the next,
+and would not lie smooth&mdash;the natural unctuous
+essence which usually caused them to adhere was
+dried up.</p>
+
+<p>The wind had blown thus round that corner
+every March for a century, and in no degree
+abated its bitter force because a beautiful human
+child, full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly
+into its power. Nothing ever shows the
+least consideration for human creatures.</p>
+
+<p>The moss on the ridge of the wall under which
+she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin,
+the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow with a
+straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to
+put it in his nest, but the depending straw was
+caught by the breeze as a sail, and carried him
+past.</p>
+
+<p>Under the wall was a large patch recently dug,
+beside the patch a grass path, and on the path a
+wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in
+potatoes; he wore the raggedest coat ever seen
+on a respectable back. As the wind lifted the
+tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and
+only hung by threads, the cuffs were worn through,
+there was a hole beneath each arm, and on each
+shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
+which had once been grey, was now a mixture of
+several soils and numerous kinds of grit. The hat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+he had on was no better; it might have been made
+of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every
+now and then the wind brought a few handfuls of
+dust over the wall from the road, and dropped it
+on his stooping back.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which he was planting potatoes was
+wonderful, every potato was placed at exactly the
+right distance apart, and a hole made for it in the
+general trench; before it was set it was looked at
+and turned over, and the thumb rubbed against it
+to be sure that it was sound, and when finally put
+in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
+keep it in its right position till the whole row was
+buried. He carried the potatoes in his coat
+pocket&mdash;those, that is, for the row&mdash;and took them
+out one by one; had he been planting his own
+children he could not have been more careful.
+The science, the skill, and the experience brought
+to this potato-planting you would hardly credit;
+for all this care was founded upon observation, and
+arose from very large abilities on the part of the
+planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
+that moment.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she
+ran down the grass path and stood by the wheelbarrow,
+but although her shadow fell across the
+potato row, he would not see her.</p>
+
+<p>"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing
+bolder. "Do come&mdash;there's a daffodil out, the very,
+very first."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," a sound like a growl&mdash;"oh," from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+depth of a vast chest heaving out a doubtful
+note.</p>
+
+<p>"It is such a beautiful colour!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your mother?" looking at her
+askance and still stooping.</p>
+
+<p>"Indoors&mdash;at least&mdash;I think&mdash;no&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help
+her? What good be you on?"</p>
+
+<p>"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very
+first&mdash;now do come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as
+that; what do'ee want a-messing about arter
+thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't
+never got a apron on."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;just a minute now."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on in, and be some use on."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly
+away along the path, her head drooping forward.</p>
+
+<p>Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling
+without being repulsed?</p>
+
+<p>She had not reached the end of the path, however,
+when the father began to change his attitude;
+he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
+foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went
+after her. She did not see or hear him till he
+overtook her.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and
+brightening up immediately. "Only think, to
+open in all this wind, and so cold&mdash;isn't it beautiful?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+It's much more beautiful than the flowers
+that come in the summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Trumpery rubbish&mdash;mean to dig 'em all up&mdash;would
+if I had time," muttered the father. "Have
+'em carted out and drowed away&mdash;do for ashes to
+drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody,
+thaay thengs. You can't eat 'em, can you, like
+you can potatoes?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis
+stepped on the patch tenderly, and lifted up the
+drooping face of the flower.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to
+his chin, a habit of his when thinking, and suddenly
+quite altering his pronunciation from that of the
+country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt
+to the correct accent of education. "Ah, yes;
+the daffodil was your great-uncle's favourite
+flower."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis,
+noting how handsome her father's intellectual face
+looked, wandered in her mind from the flower as
+he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough
+sometimes, and why he talked like the labourers,
+and wore a ragged coat&mdash;he who was so full of
+wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought,
+and indeed acted as a perfect gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He
+brought the daffodils down from Luckett's; every
+one in the garden came from there. He was
+always reading poetry, and writing, and sketching,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+and yet he was such a capital man of business; no
+one could understand that. He built the mill, and
+saved heaps of money; he bought back the old
+place at Luckett's, which belonged to us before
+Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed, he very nearly
+made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of
+them got rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And
+now it is all going again&mdash;faster than he made it.
+He used to take you on his knee and say you would
+walk well, because you had a good ankle."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with
+her hands, as if that would lengthen the skirt and
+hide the ankles which Richard, the great-uncle,
+had admired when she was a child, being a man,
+but which her feminine acquaintances told her
+were heavy.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish
+of you to go out in this wind without them!" said
+Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
+Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors
+again immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"He was the only one of all the family," continued
+her father, "who could make money; all
+the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
+generations he was the only money-maker and
+saver, and yet he was as free and liberal as possible.
+Very curious, wasn't it?&mdash;only one in ten generations&mdash;difficult
+to understand why none of the
+others&mdash;why&mdash;&mdash;" He paused, thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking&mdash;thinking
+how easily her papa could make money, great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+heaps of money. She was sure he could if he
+tried, instead of planting potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>"If only another Richard would rise up like
+him!" said Iden.</p>
+
+<p>This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having
+had one genius in the family, and that, too, in the
+memory of man, they could not expect another.
+Even vast empires rarely produce more than one
+great man in all the course of their history. There
+was but one C&aelig;sar in the thousand years of
+Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless
+we except Themistocles, or unless we accept
+Alexander, who was a Macedonian; Persia had a
+Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few
+people know anything of the empire he overshadows
+with his name; France has had two
+mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon&mdash;unfortunate
+France! As for ourselves, fortunate
+islanders! we have never had a great man so
+immensely great as to overtop the whole, like
+Charlemagne in his day. Fortunate for us, indeed,
+that it has been so. But the best example to the
+point is the case of the immense empire of Russia,
+which has had one Peter the Great, and one only.
+Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the Great of
+his family, whose work had been slowly undone by
+his successors.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out
+like Richard," continued Iden. "No one could
+deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
+convincing people, and always got his own will in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+the end. Wonderful man!" he pondered, returning
+towards his work.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden
+just peered out, and cried, "Put your hat and scarf
+on directly."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf
+very loosely about her neck. She accompanied
+her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
+would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed
+in the potatoes. She watched him stooping till his
+back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped so much
+that now he could not stand upright, though still
+in the prime of life; if he stood up and stretched
+himself, still his back was bowed at the shoulders.
+He worked so hard&mdash;ever since she could remember
+she had seen him working like this; he was up in
+the morning while it was yet dark tending the
+cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
+wind or weather made no difference. Other people
+stopped indoors if it rained much, but it made no
+difference to her father, nor did the deep snow or
+the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could
+talk so cleverly, too, and knew everything, and yet
+they were so short of money. How could this be?</p>
+
+<p>What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making
+of money; I could show you plenty of men who
+have worked the whole of their lives as hard as ever
+could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence
+as when they began. In fact, that is the
+rule; the winning of independence is rarely the result
+of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="Decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
+<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>RESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors,
+and was met in the hall by her
+mother.</div>
+
+<p>"What has he been talking to you
+about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
+listen to him. He will never do any good. Just
+look at his coat; it's a disgrace, a positive disgrace.
+Telling you about the old people? What's
+the use of talking of people who have been dead
+all this time? Why doesn't he do something himself?
+Don't listen to his rubbish&mdash;wasting his
+time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one
+wild! Why doesn't he go in to market and buy
+and sell cattle, and turn over money in that way?
+Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry
+potatoes, as if it mattered an atom how they were
+stuck in the ground."</p>
+
+<p>Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis
+went upstairs, and when she was alone lifted her
+skirt and looked at the ankles which great-uncle
+Richard had admired. Other girls had told her
+they were thick, and she was ashamed of them.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of the slender things which seem as if a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+sudden strain would snap them, and are nothing
+but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
+ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be
+a fine form; strong, but neither thick, nor coarse,
+nor heavy, ankles that would carry her many a
+mile without weariness, that ended good legs with
+plenty of flesh on them. The stupidity of calling
+such coarse or heavy! They were really ideal
+ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these
+ill-instructed girls called them coarse! It was not
+their fault, it was the lack of instruction; as they
+did not know what was physically perfect, of course
+they could not recognize it.</p>
+
+<p>Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of
+them, for they will prove a blessing to her for the
+whole of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though
+she brushed it for some time; it would not lie close,
+so much had the east wind dried it. She opened
+a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar,
+and held it in her hand, balancing probabilities.
+Would her father see it if she used it, or might he,
+perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
+bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced
+to pass through the room he would certainly have
+thrown it out of window, so bitter was his antagonism
+to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and
+other resources of the hairdresser, which he held
+defiled the hair and ruined it, to the deception of
+woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
+scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+not one drop of oil did she dare put on
+her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously, and then
+she could not go near him, for he was certain to
+detect it and scorch her with withering satire.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes
+and oils and so forth is like a perennial
+spring, and never fails.</p>
+
+<p>Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed
+no dressing&mdash;nothing could possibly improve it,
+and the chances therefore were that whatever she
+used would injure&mdash;yet in her heart she yearned to
+rub it with oil.</p>
+
+<p>But the more she considered the more probable
+it seemed that her father would detect her; she
+had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
+somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden
+was one of those who preferred working at home to
+rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too attached to
+his home work. So she returned the bottle to the
+drawer, and hid it under some stockings.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At
+all meals the rule was that there must be no talking,
+but at dinner the law was so strict that even to
+ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so
+much as "Give me the salt, please," was a deadly
+sin. There must be absolute silence while the
+master ate. The least infringement was visited
+with a severe glance from his keen and brilliant
+blue eyes&mdash;there are no eyes so stern as blue eyes
+when angry&mdash;or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
+grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+he usually stooped, and to sit upright showed
+annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
+were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the
+dinner hour was worse than sacrilege; anything
+that threatened to disturb it was watched intently
+by that repressive eye. No one must come in or
+go out of the room; if anyone knocked at the
+door (there are no bells in old country houses)
+there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone
+answering it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis
+had to leave the table, to go out and open and
+shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again
+as they returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at
+the door, it was so awful to have to stir once they
+had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
+not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it
+happened&mdash;and this was very terrible&mdash;that the
+master himself had to go, some one wanted him
+about some hay or a horse and cart, and no one
+could tell what to do but the master. A dinner
+broken up in this way was a very serious matter
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>That day they had a leg of mutton&mdash;a special
+occasion&mdash;a joint to be looked on reverently. Mr.
+Iden had walked into the town to choose it himself
+some days previously, and brought it home on foot
+in a flag basket. The butcher would have sent it,
+and if not, there were men on the farm who could
+have fetched it, but it was much too important to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+left to a second person. No one could do it right
+but Mr. Iden himself. There was a good deal of
+reason in this personal care of the meat, for it is a
+certain fact that unless you do look after such
+things yourself, and that persistently, too, you
+never get it first-rate. For this cause people in
+grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth
+eating on their tables. Their household expenses
+reach thousands yearly, and yet they rarely have
+anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never
+show meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's.
+The meat was dark brown, as mutton should be,
+for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be poor;
+the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter,
+firm, and yet almost crumbling to the touch; it was
+full of juicy red gravy, and cut pleasantly, the
+knife went through it nicely; you can tell good
+meat directly you touch it with the knife. It was
+cooked to a turn, and had been done at a wood fire
+on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal gas
+or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it.
+Such emanations as there may be from burning
+logs are odorous of the woodland, of the sunshine,
+of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives
+out as it burns the sweetness it has imbibed through
+its leaves from the atmosphere which floats above
+grass and flowers. Essences of this order, if they
+do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its
+flavour a delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked
+at a wood fire, for me.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+to have their meat cooked over coal or in a shut-up
+iron box, where it kills itself with its own steam,
+which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa
+people do do odd things. <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i> who
+have to write like myself must put up with anything
+and be thankful for permission to exist; but
+people with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware,
+or mud, or bricks and mortar&mdash;why on earth
+these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
+the gods passes understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris
+will convert some of you who will not listen to a
+farmer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that
+were placed before him. They were white, floury,
+without a drop of water in the whole dish of them.
+They were equal to the finest bread&mdash;far, far superior
+to the bread with which the immense city of
+London permits itself to be poisoned. (It is not
+much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
+too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a
+price which is in itself one of the most wonderful
+things of the age. The finest bread ought to be
+cheap.</p>
+
+<p>"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping
+himself to half a dozen. "Look at the gravy go
+up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."</p>
+
+<p>The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury
+particles of the potatoes as if they had formed
+capillary tubes.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+to one. It be an amazing theng how thengs do
+that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
+potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds.
+Mine comes true, 'cause I saves um every
+year a' purpose. Better take more than that (to
+Amaryllis)&mdash;you haven't got but two" (to Mrs.
+Iden).</p>
+
+<p>What he ate other people at his table must eat,
+and the largest quantity possible. No one else
+must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but
+the master could talk, talk, talk without end. The
+only talking that might be done by others was in
+praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so carefully
+provided. You might admire the potatoes or
+the mutton, but you must not talk on any other
+subject. Nor was it safe even to do that, because
+if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were
+immediately helped to another plateful, and had to
+finish them, want them or not. If you praised the
+mutton several thick slices were placed on your
+plate, and woe to you if you left a particle. It was
+no use to try and cover over what you could not
+manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be seen.
+"What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there
+juicy bit, you?"</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous
+experience, discreetly refrained from admiring either
+mutton or potatoes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="Decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/f.png" width="120" height="121" alt="F" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>ORTY-FOLDS," went on the master,
+"be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
+be so many new sorts now, but they
+bean't no good; they be very good for
+gentlefolk as doan't know no better,
+and poor folk as can't help theirselves. They won't
+grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
+patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's
+that's big middle patch. Summat different in the
+soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be learned
+before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such
+a simple thing. Farty-folds&mdash;&mdash;"</div>
+
+<p>"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his
+provincial pronunciation with extreme disgust in
+her tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be
+ould potatoes, and thur bean't none as can beat
+um."</p>
+
+<p>The more she showed her irritation at his speech
+or ways, the more he accentuated both language and
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+It was true, Iden did talk with his mouth full, very
+full indeed, for he fed heartily. The remark annoyed
+him; he grunted and spluttered and choked
+a little&mdash;floury things are choky. He got it down
+by taking a long draught at his quart of strong ale.
+Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to induce you to
+make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede
+greens; I axed un three days ago; I know'd we
+was going to have this yer mutton. You got to
+settle these yer things aforehand."</p>
+
+<p>"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing
+fond of um, so be the larks. These be the best
+as thur was. They be the best things in the world
+for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all
+physic. If you can get fresh swede tops you don't
+want a doctor within twenty miles. Their's
+nothing in all the chemists' shops in England
+equal to swede greens"&mdash;helping himself to a
+large quantity of salt.</p>
+
+<p>"What a lot of salt you <i>do</i> eat!" muttered Mrs.
+Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"Onely you must have the real swedes&mdash;not
+thuck stuff they sells in towns; greens they was
+once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
+haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely
+to be got about March."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in
+London," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They
+bean't no good; you might as well eat dried
+leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green
+shoots of spring"&mdash;suddenly changing his pronunciation
+as he became interested in his subject and
+forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
+wife. "They are full of sap&mdash;fresh sap&mdash;the juice
+which the plant extracts from the earth as the
+active power of the sun's rays increases. It is this
+sap which is so good for the blood. Without it
+the vegetable is no more than a woody fibre. Why
+the sap should be so powerful I cannot tell you;
+no one knows, any more than they know <i>how</i> the
+plant prepares it. This is one of those things
+which defy analysis&mdash;the laboratory is at fault, and
+can do nothing with it." ("More salt!" muttered
+Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of
+salt?") "There is something beyond what the
+laboratory can lay hands on; something that cannot
+be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by
+quantity, quality, or by any means. They analyse
+champagne, for instance; they find so many parts
+water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much
+that; but out of the hundred parts there remain
+ten&mdash;I think it is ten&mdash;at all events so many parts
+still to be accounted for. They escape, they are
+set down as volatile&mdash;the laboratory has not even a
+distinct name for this component; the laboratory
+knows nothing at all about it, cannot even name it.
+But this unknown constituent is the real champagne.
+So it is with the sap. In spring the sap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+possesses a certain virtue; at other times of the
+year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden,
+defiantly, stretching out her hand to the cruet.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention
+of vinegar had set his teeth on edge. He
+looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
+close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling
+the sappy swede greens with nauseous vinegar.
+To his system of edible philosophy vinegar was
+utterly antagonistic&mdash;destructive of the sap-principle,
+altogether wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as
+destroying good and precious food.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken
+the vinegar herself, but as her mother passed the
+cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed vinegar
+with the green vegetables. All women like
+vinegar.</p>
+
+<p>When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand
+Mr. Iden deigned to look round again at the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to
+Amaryllis, who was cutting a piece of bread. She
+put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
+"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty
+times? Cutting towards your thumb like that!
+Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
+slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the
+slice across the table so accurately that it fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+exactly into its proper place by her plate. He
+had a habit of tossing things in that way.</p>
+
+<p>"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?"
+said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging in that manner! I
+hate to see it."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took
+the lesson in bread-cutting to heart, as she had
+done twenty times before. But she knew she
+should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style
+when out of his sight. She could not do it in the
+safe way&mdash;it was so much easier in the other; and
+if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.</p>
+
+<p>"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the
+master, getting up with his plate in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever <i>are</i> you going to do now?" asked
+Mrs. Iden, who knew perfectly well.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to warm the plate." He went out into
+the kitchen, sat down by the fire, and carefully
+warmed his plate for a second helping.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you couldn't want any more,"
+said Mrs. Iden when he came back. "You had
+enough the first time for three."</p>
+
+<p>But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and
+had never ruined his digestion with vinegar or
+sauces, piled another series of thick slices on his
+plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to
+the meat a just proportion of vegetables. In proportion
+and a just mixture the secret of eating
+successfully consisted, according to him.</p>
+
+<p>First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton,
+this was immediately followed by a portion of floury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+potato, next by a portion of swede tops, and then,
+lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth,
+he took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten
+and cleanse his teeth. Finally came a draught of
+strong ale, and after a brief moment the same ingredients
+were mixed in the same order as before.
+His dinner was thus eaten in a certain order, and
+with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each particular
+flavour like a rhyme in its proper position,
+and duly putting it out with its correct successor.
+Always the savour of meat and gravy and vegetables
+had to be toned down by the ultimate bread,
+a vast piece of which he kept beside him. He
+was a great bread eater&mdash;it was always bread after
+everything, and if there were two courses then bread
+between to prepare the palate, and to prevent the
+sweets from quarrelling with the acids. Organization
+was the chief characteristic of his mind&mdash;his
+very dinner was organized and well planned, and
+any break or disturbance was not so much an annoyance
+in itself as destructive of a clever design,
+like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical
+spider.</p>
+
+<p>This order of mouthfuls had been explained over
+and over again to the family, and if they felt that
+he was in a more than usually terrible mood, and if
+they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some
+extent submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis,
+however, could ever educate their palates
+into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden
+was not in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+wandered about irregularly in their eating. When
+the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
+they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking"
+little fragments of pies, or cold fowl, even a cold
+potato, the smallest mug&mdash;a quarter of a pint of
+the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be
+had, a sip of port wine. These women were very
+irrational in their feeding; they actually put vinegar
+on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
+pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning.
+They had a herring sometimes for tea&mdash;the smell of
+it cooking sent the master into fits of indignation,
+he abominated it so, but they were so hardened
+and lost to righteousness they always repeated the
+offence next time the itinerant fish-dealer called.
+You could not drum them into good solid, straightforward
+eating.</p>
+
+<p>They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to
+eat in the kitchen after dinner, for Mr. Iden considered
+that no one could need a second course
+after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel
+of cheese if you liked&mdash;nothing more. In summer
+the great garden abounded with fruit; he would
+have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day
+after day, or else black-currant pudding. He held
+that black currants were the most wholesome fruit
+that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite
+clean he would rub them with black-currant leaves
+to give them a pleasant aromatic odour (as ladies
+use scented soap). He rubbed them with walnut-leaves
+for the same purpose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of salad in its season he was a great eater,
+cucumber especially, and lettuce and celery; but
+a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of Worcester
+sauce) was a horror to him. A principle
+ran through all his eating&mdash;an idea, a plan and
+design.</p>
+
+<p>I assure you it is a very important matter this
+eating, a man's fortune depends on his dinner. I
+should have been as rich as Cr&oelig;sus if I could only
+have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I
+should, now I come to look back.</p>
+
+<p>The soundest and most wholesome food in the
+world was set on Mr. Iden's table; you may differ
+from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
+dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh
+vegetables and fruit and salad, and the Goliath ale.</p>
+
+<p>When he had at last finished his meal he took
+his knife and carefully scraped his crumbs together,
+drawing the edge along the cloth, first one way and
+then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating
+so much bread, he made many crumbs. Having
+got them together, he proceeded to shovel them
+into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that
+not one was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a
+little moist sugar over them with his finger and
+thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and
+cheese, and sat down with it in his arm-chair by
+the fire, spreading his large red-and-yellow silk
+handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
+lieu of a plate.</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+like other people?" said Mrs. Iden, shuffling her
+feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
+in the throat was the answer she received; at the
+same time he turned his arm-chair more towards
+the fire, as much as to say, "Other people are
+nothing to me."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 135px;">
+<img src="images/i-038.png" width="135" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make,
+had lost an arm&mdash;the screw remained
+sticking up, but the woodwork on that
+side was gone. It had been accidentally
+broken some ten years since; yet,
+although he used the chair every day, the arm had
+never been mended. Awkward as it was, he let it
+alone.</div>
+
+<p>"Hum! where's <i>The Standard</i>, then?" he said
+presently, as he nibbled his cheese and sipped the
+ale which he had placed on the hob.</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with
+the paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs.
+Iden. "Thought there was nothing but lies and
+rubbish in them, according to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more thur bean't."</p>
+
+<p>"You always take good care to read them,
+though."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another
+slight turn of the chair. He could not answer this
+charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it
+with avidity, and would almost as soon have missed
+his ale as his news.</p>
+
+<p>However, to settle with his conscience, he had a
+manner of holding the paper half aslant a good way
+from him, and every now and then as he read
+uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.</p>
+
+<p>The master's taking up his paper was a signal
+for all other persons to leave the room, and not to
+return till he had finished his news and his nap.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each
+took as many of the dishes as they could carry,
+for it was uncertain when they could come in again
+to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved,
+the door opened, or the slightest sound heard till
+the siesta was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock,"
+said Mrs. Iden as she went, "and then you want
+your tea&mdash;senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
+and the master was left to himself.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped
+his newspaper, and arranged himself for slumber.
+His left elbow he carefully fitted to the remnant of
+the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief,
+red and yellow, he gathered into a loose
+pad in his left hand for his cheek and temple to
+rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand
+and arm, while the side of his head touched and
+rested against the wainscot of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Just where his head touched it the wainscot had
+been worn away by the daily pressure, leaving a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+round spot. The wood was there exposed&mdash;a
+round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being
+completely bare of varnish. So many nods&mdash;the
+attrition of thirty years and more of nodding&mdash;had
+gradually ground away the coat with which the
+painter had originally covered the wood. It even
+looked a little hollow&mdash;a little depressed&mdash;as if his
+head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
+probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the
+difference in colour between the wood and the varnish
+around it.</p>
+
+<p>This human mark reminded one of the grooves
+worn by the knees of generations of worshippers in
+the sacred steps of the temple which they ascended
+on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion,
+as Mrs. Iden and others, not very keen observers,
+would have said, to the god of Sleep; in truth, it
+was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
+throne of the god of Thought.</p>
+
+<p>It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement
+assumed this posture of slumber, and commanded
+silence. But thought which has been
+cultivated for a third of a century is apt to tone
+down to something very near somnolence.</p>
+
+<p>That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy
+of preservation as those on which the early artists
+delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for which
+high prices are now paid. It was intensely&mdash;superlatively&mdash;human.
+Worn in slow time by a
+human head within which a great mind was working
+under the most unhappy conditions, it had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+deep value attaching to inanimate things which
+have witnessed intolerable suffering.</p>
+
+<p>I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess
+that if I could be assured any particular piece of
+wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
+should think it the most valuable thing in the world,
+to which Koh-i-noors would be mud.</p>
+
+<p>I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above
+crowns.</p>
+
+<p>That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart
+had been tortured for the third of a century, that
+is, for the space of time allotted to a generation.</p>
+
+<p>That mark upon the panel had still a further
+meaning, it represented the unhappiness, the misfortunes,
+the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
+family of Idens had endured already two hundred
+years of unhappiness and discordance for no original
+fault of theirs, simply because they had once been
+fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to
+work out that hour of sunshine to the utmost depths
+of shadow.</p>
+
+<p>The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark
+had been worn was in effect a cross upon which a
+human heart had been tortured&mdash;and thought can,
+indeed, torture&mdash;for a third of a century. For
+Iden had learned to know himself, and despaired.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after he had settled himself and closed
+his eyes the handle of the door was very softly
+turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book, which
+she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on
+tiptoe without a sound, but in shutting the door the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+lock clicked, and she heard him kick the fender
+angrily with his iron-shod heel.</p>
+
+<p>After that there was utter silence, except the
+ticking of the American clock&mdash;a loud and distinct
+tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the
+window, a noiseless shadow; Mrs. Iden had come
+quietly round the house, and stood in the March
+wind, watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl
+about her shoulders&mdash;she put out her clenched hand
+from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
+muttering to herself, "Never <i>do</i> anything; nothing
+but sleep, sleep, sleep: talk, talk, talk; never <i>do</i>
+anything. That's what I hate."</p>
+
+<p>The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common
+American clock continued its loud tick, tick.</p>
+
+<p>Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be
+audible among the cinders in the fender. The dry
+cinders were pushed about by something passing
+between them. After a while a brown mouse
+peered out at the end of the fender under Iden's
+chair, looked round a moment, and went back to
+the grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured
+somewhat farther across the width of the
+white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
+advance was made step by step, but on reaching
+the carpet the mouse rushed home to cover in one
+run&mdash;like children at "touch wood," going out
+from a place of safety very cautiously, returning
+swiftly. The next time another mouse followed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+and a third appeared at the other end of the fender.
+By degrees they got under the table, and helped
+themselves to the crumbs; one mounted a chair
+and reached the cloth, but soon descended, afraid
+to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at
+their dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if
+carved.</p>
+
+<p>A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued
+iron-shod boot&mdash;the foot that rested on the
+fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
+and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained
+by labour, was drawn up somewhat higher
+than the boot. It took the mouse several trials to
+reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously
+mounted to Iden's knee. Another quickly followed,
+and there the pair of them feasted on the
+crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of
+his trousers.</p>
+
+<p>One great brown hand was in his pocket, close
+to them&mdash;a mighty hand, beside which they were
+pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What would
+have been the value of their lives between a finger
+and thumb that could crack a ripe and strong-shelled
+walnut?</p>
+
+<p>The size&mdash;the mass&mdash;the weight of his hand
+alone was as a hill overshadowing them; his broad
+frame like the Alps; his head high above as a vast
+rock that overhung the valley.</p>
+
+<p>His thumb-nail&mdash;widened by labour with spade
+and axe&mdash;his thumb-nail would have covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
+Ajax.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence.
+He was so still, so <i>very</i> still&mdash;quiescent&mdash;they
+feared him no more than they did the wall; they
+could not hear his breathing.</p>
+
+<p>Had they been gifted with human intelligence
+that very fact would have excited their suspicions.
+Why so very, <i>very</i> still? Strong men, wearied by
+work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily.
+Even in firm sleep we move a little now and then, a
+limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or stretches itself.</p>
+
+<p>But Iden was so still it was evident he was really
+wide awake and restraining his breath, and exercising
+conscious command over his muscles, that
+this scene might proceed undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>Now the strangeness of the thing was in this
+way: Iden set traps for mice in the cellar and the
+larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
+picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the
+door at the same instant, and the wretched captive
+was dashed to death upon the stone flags of the
+floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in
+one place, and fed them in another.</p>
+
+<p>A long psychological discussion might be held
+on this apparent inconsistency, but I shall leave
+analysis to those who like it, and go on recording
+facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing
+is consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent
+it would have no association with a living
+person.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From the merest thin slit, as it were, between
+his eyelids, Iden watched the mice feed and run
+about his knees till, having eaten every crumb, they
+descended his leg to the floor.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 122px;">
+<img src="images/i-040.png" width="122" height="210" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 118px;">
+<img src="images/h.png" width="118" height="120" alt="H" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>E was not asleep&mdash;he was thinking.
+Sometimes, of course, it happened that
+slumber was induced by the position
+in which he placed himself; slumber,
+however, was not his intent. He liked
+to rest after his midday meal and think. There
+was no real loss of time in it&mdash;he had been at work
+since half-past five.</div>
+
+<p>His especial and striking characteristic was a
+very large, high, and noble forehead&mdash;the forehead
+attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his busts.
+Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he
+was not altogether a man of action. He was, indeed,
+an actor upon the stage; once he stole the
+red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
+not sail to the then new discovered lands of America,
+nor did he fight the Spaniards. So much intellect
+is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or rather
+it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs
+to the position of commander. If Shakespeare by
+the chance of birth, or other accident, had had the
+order of England's forces, we should have seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+generalship such as the world had not known since
+C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till
+opportunity came. We have great thoughts instead
+of battles.</p>
+
+<p>Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for
+Shakespeare's. There was too much thought in it
+for the circumstances of his life. It is possible to
+think till you cannot act.</p>
+
+<p>After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a
+few minutes. When he awoke he looked at the
+clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven
+of the grate, took out a baked apple. He had one
+there ready for him almost always&mdash;always, that is,
+when they were not ripe on the trees.</p>
+
+<p>A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome
+thing in the world; it corrected the stomach, prevented
+acidity, improved digestion, and gave tone
+to all the food that had been eaten previously. If
+people would only eat baked apples they would not
+need to be for ever going to the chemists' shops
+for drugs and salines to put them right. The
+women were always at the chemists' shops&mdash;you
+could never pass the chemists' shops in the town
+without seeing two or three women buying something.</p>
+
+<p>The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural
+medicine of man&mdash;and the best flavoured. It was
+compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
+of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind
+and shower in such a way that no laboratory could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+imitate: and so on in a strain and with a simplicity
+of language that reminded you of Bacon and his
+philosophy of the Elizabethan age.</p>
+
+<p>Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian
+culture, naturally, and not from any study of
+that author, whose books he had never seen. The
+great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and
+garden, and gathered his ideas from the fields.</p>
+
+<p>Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden.
+Look at a Blenheim orange, the inimitable mixture
+of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
+not bright colours&mdash;undertones of bright colours&mdash;smoothed
+together and polished, and made the
+more delightful by occasional roughness in the rind.
+Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was
+getting older he found, however, that the finest of
+them all was the russet. For eating, at its proper
+season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply
+the Imperial C&aelig;sar and Sultan of apples; whether
+for baking, or pies, or sauce, there was none to
+equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true russet
+was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary
+that it should be the real russet. Indeed in apple
+trees you had to be as careful of breeding and
+pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about
+their horses.</p>
+
+<p>Ripe apples could not be got all the year round
+in any variety; besides which, in winter and cold
+weather the crudity of the stomach needed to be
+assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake
+them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days;
+they had too much butcher's meat, and not
+enough fruit&mdash;that is, home-grown fruit, straight
+from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold
+in the shops, picked before it was ready.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans were much wiser (he knew a
+good deal about America&mdash;he had been there in
+his early days, before thought superseded action)&mdash;the
+Americans had kept up many of the fine old
+English customs of two or three hundred years
+since, and among these was the eating of fruit.
+They were accused of being so modern, so very,
+very modern, but, in fact, the country Americans,
+with whom he had lived (and who had taught him
+how to chop) maintained much of the genuine
+antique life of old England.</p>
+
+<p>They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that
+the same trees produced an apple having a slightly
+different flavour to what it had in this country.
+You could always distinguish an American apple
+by its peculiar piquancy&mdash;a sub-acid piquancy, a
+wild strawberry piquancy, a sort of woodland,
+forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so
+on, and so on&mdash;"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden
+said.</p>
+
+<p>After his baked apple he took another guilty
+look at the clock, it was close on four, and went
+into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
+these places are called passages; in the smallest of
+villas, wretched little villas not fit to be called
+houses, they are always "halls."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him,
+and began to thump his broad though bowed back
+with all her might.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a
+thump at each word. "You've slept two hours.
+(Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
+(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the
+use of digging? (Thump.) Why don't you make
+some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.)
+I hate it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off
+the wainscot with your sleep, sleep, sleep (thump)&mdash;there's
+one of your hairs sticking to the paint
+where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything
+more hateful&mdash;sleep (thump), talk (thump), sleep
+(thump). Go on!"</p>
+
+<p>She had thumped him down the passage, and
+across the covered-in court to the door opening on
+the garden. There he paused to put on his hat&mdash;an
+aged, battered hat&mdash;some sort of nondescript
+bowler, broken, grey, weather-stained, very battered
+and very aged&mdash;a pitiful hat to put above that
+broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted
+it on he was thumped severely: when he opened
+the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up at
+the sky to see about the weather&mdash;a habit all
+country people have&mdash;and so got more thumping,
+ending as he started out with a tremendous push.
+He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the
+push accelerate his pace; he took it very much as
+he took the March wind.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+clear the dinner things, and make ready for tea.
+Amaryllis helped her.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs.
+Iden. "What's the use of his going out to work
+for half an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her
+father; he never did anything wrong in her eyes,
+and she could have pointed out that when he sat
+down to dinner at one he had already worked as
+many hours as Mrs. Iden's model City gentleman
+in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in effect,
+equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over
+which they frequently lingered an hour or two. He
+would still go on labouring, almost another half day.
+But she held her peace, for, on the other hand, she
+could not contradict and argue with her mother,
+whom she knew had had a wearisome life and
+perpetual disappointments.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself
+into a more fiery passion, till at last she put
+down the tea-pot, and rushed into the garden.
+There as she came round the first thing she saw was
+the daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had
+discovered. Beside herself with indignation&mdash;what
+was the use of flowers or potatoes?&mdash;Mrs.
+Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower
+under foot till it was shapeless. After this she
+rushed indoors again and upstairs to her bedroom,
+where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in
+the old black oak chest of drawers till she found a
+faded lavender glove.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That glove had been worn at the old "Ship"
+at Brighton years and years ago in the honeymoon
+trip: in those days bridal parties went down
+by coach. Faded with years, it had also faded
+from the tears that had fallen upon it. She turned
+it over in her hands, and her tears spotted it once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her
+mother to rush away in that manner was nothing
+new. She toasted her father a piece of toast&mdash;he
+affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it
+was there, and looked about for it if it was not,
+though he never said anything. The clock struck
+five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready.
+Coming round the house she found her daffodil
+crushed to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead;
+then her beautiful lips pouted and quivered; tears
+filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
+immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom
+to cry and to hide her grief and indignation.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/i-043.png" width="100" height="59" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
+<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>ADY-DAY Fair came round by and by,
+and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock in
+the morning, went down the garden to
+the end of the orchard, where she could
+overlook the highway without being
+seen, and watch the folk go past. Just there the
+road began to descend into a hollow, while the
+garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning
+her arm on the top of the wall, was much higher
+up than those who went along. The wall dropped
+quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red
+brick wall&mdash;thick and closely-built, the bricks close
+together with thin seams of mortar, so that the
+fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed
+and bound firm, like the fibres of a piece of
+iron. The deep red bricks had a colour&mdash;a certain
+richness of stability&mdash;and at the top this good
+piece of workmanship was protected from the
+weather by a kind of cap, and ornamented with a
+projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
+stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it.
+Without there was a sheer red precipice of fourteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+feet down to the dusty sward and nettles beside
+the road.</div>
+
+<p>Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against
+the wall rose thin and tapering above it in a bunch,
+a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to have
+been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance
+of neglect. One heavy bough had broken
+away from the nails and list, and drooped to the
+ground, and the shoots of last year, not having
+been trimmed, thrust themselves forward presumptuously.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches
+rising above the wall Amaryllis was partly hidden,
+but she relied a great deal more for concealment
+upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very
+seldom look up; and consequently if you are only
+a little higher they will not see you. This she
+proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
+glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his
+eye fixed on his sheep, and the drover on his
+bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
+fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had
+on a bit of blue ribbon or a new bonnet, and
+were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
+them to see if the men admired their finery.
+No one looked up from the road they were pursuing.</p>
+
+<p>The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by
+a sort of stand at the back, which holds it steady
+in one position while the camera takes the picture.
+In life most people have their heads fixed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+claws of some miserable pettiness, which interests
+them so greatly that they tramp on steadily forward,
+staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
+fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they
+are travelling.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair
+or the people either, knowing very well what sort
+they would be; but I suspect, if it had been possible
+to have got at the cause which brought her
+there, it would have been traced to the unconscious
+influence of sex, a perfectly innocent prompting,
+quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and
+who would indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject,
+but which leads girls of her age to seize
+opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
+uninteresting order. Still they are men, those
+curious beings, that unknown race, and little bits of
+knowledge about them may, perhaps, be picked up
+by a diligent observer.</p>
+
+<p>The men who drifted along the road towards the
+Fair were no "mashers, by Jove!" Some of them,
+though young, were clad antiquely enough in
+breeches and gaiters&mdash;not sportsmen's breeches
+and gaiters, but old-fashioned "granfer" things;
+the most of them were stout and sturdy, in drab
+and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds
+of them on foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on
+horseback, went under Amaryllis: but, though they
+were all Christians, there was not one "worth a
+Jewess' eye."</p>
+
+<p>She scorned them all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This member of the unknown race was too
+thickly made, short set, and squat; this one too
+fair&mdash;quite white and moist-sugar looking; this
+one had a straight leg.</p>
+
+<p>Another went by with a great thick and long
+black beard&mdash;what a horrid thing, now, when
+kissing!&mdash;and as he walked he wiped it with his
+sleeve, for he had just washed down the dust with
+a glass of ale. His neck, too, was red and thick;
+hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man
+all over, as far as body makes a man.</p>
+
+<p>But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges.
+"Care I for the thews and sinews of a man?" They
+look for something more than bulk.</p>
+
+<p>A good many of these fellows were more or less
+lame, for it is astonishing if you watch people go by
+and keep account of them what a number have
+game legs, both young and old.</p>
+
+<p>A young buck on a capital horse was at the first
+glance more interesting&mdash;paler, rakish, a cigar in
+his mouth, an air of viciousness and dash combined,
+fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in short,
+he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of
+sheep and corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked
+him more than all the rest put together; she shrank
+back a little from the wall lest he should chance to
+look up; she would have feared to have been alone
+with such a character, and yet she could not have
+said why. She would not have feared to walk side
+by side with the great black beard&mdash;hideous as he
+was&mdash;nor with any of the rest, not even with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+roughest of the labourers who tramped along. This
+gentleman alone alarmed her.</p>
+
+<p>There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day
+holiday, coming by at the same time; they had on
+their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
+nice. They turned round to watch him coming,
+and half waited for him; when he came up he
+checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them.
+Nothing loth, the village girls "cheeked" him,
+and so they passed on.</p>
+
+<p>One or two very long men appeared, unusually
+clumsy, even in walking they did not know exactly
+what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
+objection to their being tall&mdash;indeed, to be tall is
+often a passport to a "Jewess' eye"&mdash;but they
+were so clumsy.</p>
+
+<p>Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles
+she could not see much but their clothes and their
+faces, and both the clothes and the faces were very
+much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the
+shoulders were too broad for the tailor, who wanted
+to force Bond Street measurements on the British
+farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
+hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and
+that was all. Scores of men, precisely similar,
+were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
+hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not
+have peeled rods to make them bring forth speckled
+lambs.</p>
+
+<p>Against the stile a long way up the road there
+was a group of five or six men, who were there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+when she first peered over the wall, and made no
+further progress to the Fair. They were waiting
+till some acquaintance came by and offered a lift;
+lazy dogs, they could not walk. They had already
+been there long enough to have walked to the Fair
+and back, still they preferred to fold their hands
+and cross their legs, and stay on. So many people
+being anxious to get to the town, most of those
+who drove had picked up friends long before they
+got here.</p>
+
+<p>The worst walker of all was a constable, whose
+huge boots seemed to take possession of the width
+of the road, for he turned them out at right angles,
+working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary
+exhibition of stupidity and ugliness, for which the
+authorities who drilled him in that way were responsible,
+and not the poor fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep
+there drifted by a variety of human animals, tramps
+and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as the
+wool and beef.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that these "characters"&mdash;as they
+are so kindly called&mdash;have a way of associating
+themselves with things that promise vast enjoyment
+to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless
+wretches who thread their path in and out the
+coaches at the Derby is wonderful. While the
+champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman
+between the shafts sits on an upturned hamper
+and helps himself out of another to pie with truffles,
+the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve
+after the fall at the edge of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at
+the Derby that you might think the race was got
+up entirely for their sakes. There would be thousands
+at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a
+half-crown bolt, and they cannot get a stare at the
+fashionables on the lawn. For all that, the true
+tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant
+at races and all kinds of accessible entertainments
+and public events that the features of the fashionable
+are better known to him than to hundreds of
+well-to-do people unable to enter society.</p>
+
+<p>So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in
+the dust, among the cattle and sheep, hands in
+pockets, head hanging down, most of them followed
+at a short distance by a Thing.</p>
+
+<p>This Thing is upright, and therefore, according
+to the old definition, ought to come within the genus
+Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling those
+of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a
+woman once; perhaps it never was, for many of
+them have never had a chance to enter the ranks
+of their own sex.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence,
+too full of her own strength and youth and joy in
+life to think for long or seriously about these curious
+Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her
+brow contracted, and she drew herself together as
+they passed&mdash;a sort of shiver, to think that there
+should be such degradation in the world. Twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+when they came along her side of the road she
+dropped pennies in front of them, which they picked
+up in a listless way, just glancing over the ear in
+the direction the money fell, and went on without
+so much as recognizing where it came from.</p>
+
+<p>If sheep were treated as unfortunate human
+beings are, they would take a bitter revenge; though
+they are the mildest of creatures, they would soon
+turn round in a venomous manner. If they did
+not receive sufficient to eat and drink, and were not
+well sheltered, they would take a bitter revenge:
+<i>they would die</i>. Loss of &pound; s. d.!</p>
+
+<p>But human beings have not even got the courage
+or energy to do that; they put up with anything,
+and drag on&mdash;miserables that they are.</p>
+
+<p>I said they were not equal in value to the sheep&mdash;why,
+they're not worth anything when they're
+dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
+Things!</p>
+
+<p>Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the
+fair, where there will be an immense amount of
+eating and a far larger amount of drinking all round
+them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight.
+They will see valuable animals, and men with well-lined
+pockets. What on earth can a tramp find to
+please him among all this? It is not for him; yet
+he goes to see it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HE crowd began to pass more thickly,
+when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
+the road in the opposite direction to
+that in which the multitude was moving.
+They were going to the fair; he had
+his back to it, and a party in a trap rallied him
+smartly for his folly.</div>
+
+<p>"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why,
+Measter Duck, what's up? Looking for a thunderstorm?"&mdash;which
+young ducks are supposed to
+enjoy. "Ha! ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face,
+nevertheless plodded up the hill, and passed beneath
+Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>She knew him very well, for he lived in the
+hamlet, but she would not have taken any notice
+of him had he not been so elaborately dressed.
+His high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth
+coat was new and carefully brushed; he was
+in black all over, in contrast with the mass of
+people who had gone by that morning. A blue
+necktie, bright and clean, spotless linen, gloves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers brushed,
+boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the
+fair!</p>
+
+<p>The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact,
+no chance to do otherwise, for his great back and
+shoulders stretched it tight, and would have done
+so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big
+men who had gone by that day Jack Duck was the
+biggest; his back was immense, and straight, too,
+for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his
+bulk altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened
+with abdomen, so that it showed to the
+best advantage. He was a little over the average
+height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.</p>
+
+<p>He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground.
+You just try to lift <i>one</i>.</p>
+
+<p>His sleeves were too long, so that only the great
+knuckles of his speckled hands were visible. Red
+whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled face, straight
+lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher,
+and of much the same coarse red hue, always a
+ready grin, a round, hard head, which you might have
+hit safely with a mallet; and there is the picture.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason, very big men do not look well
+in glossy black coats and silk hats; they seem to
+want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
+than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a
+free-and-easy colour, suitable for the field, or
+cricket, or boating. They do not belong to the
+town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for
+hills and fields.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen
+are big, and therefore, as their "best"
+suits do not fit in with their character as written
+in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us
+clumsy. The truth is, it is the Continent that is
+little.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking
+down on poor John Duck. "Isn't he ugly?"
+Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss,
+which has a way of growing into bricks and mortar,
+and attaching particles of brick to its roots. As
+she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
+with a little piece of moss&mdash;her hand happened at
+the moment to project over the wall, and as John
+Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
+straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of
+brick adhering to the moss struck the hollow hat
+smartly like a drum.</p>
+
+<p>She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing,
+and angry with herself all at the same time, for she
+had done it without a thought.</p>
+
+<p>Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it
+on again, suspecting that some one in a passing gig
+had "chucked" something at him.</p>
+
+<p>In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall,
+and, seeing his broad back a long way up the road,
+resumed her stand.</p>
+
+<p>"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?"
+she thought. "But isn't he ugly? Aren't they
+<i>all</i> ugly? All of them&mdash;horridly ugly."</p>
+
+<p>The entire unknown race of Man was hideous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+So coarse in feature&mdash;their noses were thick, half
+an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
+the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a
+reaping-hook, or slewed to one side, or flat as if
+they had been smashed, or short and stumpy and
+incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned
+up in the vulgarest manner&mdash;nobody had a good
+nose.</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes were goggles, round and staring&mdash;like
+liquid marbles&mdash;they had no eyelashes,
+and their eyebrows were either white and invisible,
+or shaggy, as if thistles grew along their
+foreheads.</p>
+
+<p>Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red
+and brick-dust and leather-coloured, and enclosed
+with scrubby whiskers, like a garden hedge.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, those who shaved and were
+smooth looked worse than those who did not, for
+they thus exposed the angularities of their chins
+and jaws.</p>
+
+<p>They wore such horrid hats on the top of these
+roughly-sketched faces&mdash;sketched, as it were, with
+a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had their hats
+on the backs of their heads, and some wore them
+aslant, and some jammed over their brows.</p>
+
+<p>They went along smoking and puffing, and talking
+and guffawing in the vulgarest way, <i>en route</i> to
+swill and smoke and puff and guffaw somewhere
+else.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever could tell what they were talking
+about? these creatures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They had no form or grace like a woman&mdash;no
+lovely sloped shoulders, no beautiful bosom, no
+sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No
+softness of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or
+taper fingers, or arched eyebrows; no sort of style
+whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
+in short, sublimely ugly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis'
+reflections; it was a pity a woman was not taken
+into confidence when the men were made.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the women were like the men, and we
+had to make love to such a set of bristly, grisly
+wretches!&mdash;pah! shouldn't we think them ugly!
+The patience of the women, putting up with us so
+long!</p>
+
+<p>As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves
+so much, in a woman's eyes (though she prefers a
+strong man) they simply increase our extraordinary
+ugliness.</p>
+
+<p>But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then
+they despise us, and there is no doubt that altogether
+the men were made wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot,"
+thought Amaryllis. "He just <i>is</i> ugly."</p>
+
+<p>Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came
+by-and-by to the gateway, and entering without
+ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found
+Mr. Iden near the back door talking to a farmer
+who had seated himself on a stool.</p>
+
+<p>He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid,
+rough as a chunk of wood, but dressed in his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
+vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances
+to Mr. Iden:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, just you see how I be helped up with
+this here 'ooman," he concluded as Duck arrived.
+Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity to
+escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he
+had patiently listened, took Jack by the arm, and
+led him indoors. As they went the man on the
+stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:&mdash;"Just
+you see how I be helped up with this here
+'ooman!"</p>
+
+<p>A good many have been "helped up" with a
+woman before now.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile&mdash;she
+always did&mdash;yet there could not have been imagined
+a man less likely to have pleased her.</p>
+
+<p>A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to
+detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness
+and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck,
+that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that
+enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes
+meet? No, since she was always complaining of
+Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
+to her own disposition that charmed her.</p>
+
+<p>John Duck was Another Man&mdash;not Mr. Iden.</p>
+
+<p>The best of matrons like to see Another Man
+enter their houses; there's no viciousness in it, it
+is simply nature, which requires variety. The best
+of husbands likes to have another woman&mdash;or two,
+or three&mdash;on a visit; there's nothing wrong, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+innocent enough, and but gives a spice to the
+monotony of existence.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness
+and stolidity, was not perhaps a fool, notwithstanding
+his outward clumsiness. A little attention is
+appreciated even by a matron of middle age.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and
+Mrs. Iden brought a full jug with her own hands&mdash;a
+rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
+Iden enjoyed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and
+gruff, about as a horse might be expected to speak
+if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just come
+up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"</p>
+
+<p>John had a first-rate turn-out.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she
+was not going to the fair.</p>
+
+<p>"Should be glad to take you, you know," said
+John, dipping into the ale. "Shall you be going
+presently?"&mdash;to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have
+a seat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a
+trick he had when undecided. "I don't zactly
+know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge
+grubbed; want to fill up the gaps; want to go over
+to the wood meads; thought about&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit
+there thinking&mdash;take and go."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have
+anything to go vor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden,
+contemptuously. "Why can't you do like other
+people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
+can wait&mdash;he can talk to Amaryllis while you
+dress."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested
+John, very quietly, and as if it was no consequence
+to him; the very thing he had called for, to see if
+he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He
+knew that Mrs. Iden never went anywhere, and
+that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
+minute&mdash;he would require three or four days at
+least&mdash;so that it was quite safe to ask them first.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She
+is going&mdash;to dine with her grandfather; it will save
+her a long walk. You had better go and ask
+her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great
+bow window at the mention of Plum Corner&mdash;he
+could just see the flutter of Amaryllis' dress in the
+distance between the trees. That part of the
+garden was called Plum Corner because of a famous
+plum tree&mdash;the one that had not been pruned and
+was sprawling about the wall.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for
+Mrs. Iden, because she was so fond of a ripe
+luscious plum. But of late years he had not
+pruned it.</p>
+
+<p>"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug.
+"Extra vine ale!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.</p>
+
+<p>It really was humming stuff, but John well knew
+how proud Iden was of it, and how much he liked
+to hear it praised.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly
+imagine that no one can be sharp-witted
+outside the sound of Bow Bells&mdash;country people
+are stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck,
+who took about half an hour to write his name, was
+equal to most of them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 172px;">
+<img src="images/i-047.png" width="172" height="160" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-048.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HE ale being ended, Iden walked with
+him through the orchard.</div>
+
+<p>"Famous wall that," said John, presently,
+nodding towards the great red
+brick wall which adorned that side of
+the place. "Knowed how to build walls in those
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"No such wall as that anywhere about here,"
+said Iden, as proud of his wall as his ale. "No
+such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to
+put up a wall now&mdash;you read in the papers how the
+houses valls down in Lunnon."</p>
+
+<p>"Sort of cracks and comes in like&mdash;jest squashes
+up," said John.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden.
+"That'll last&mdash;ah, last&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No end to it," said John, who had admired the
+wall forty times before, thinking to himself as he
+saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner, "Blessed if
+I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my
+hat." This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably
+clear idea that Mr. and Mrs. Iden were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
+Amaryllis herself.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had
+so much as looked at her&mdash;he called often, but
+seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy her
+scorn if she had guessed!</p>
+
+<p>John Duck was considered one of the most eligible
+young men thereabouts, for though by no means
+born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
+was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his
+father died. Old Duck, the son of a common
+labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms
+in the neighbourhood. He made his money in a
+waggon&mdash;a curious place, you will say; why so?
+Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets
+they call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended
+the dirty, unscrubbed, disgraceful staircase that leads
+to a famous barrister's "chambers"? These are
+far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon
+in a beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck,
+being too ponderous to walk, was driven about in a
+waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
+legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted
+in a commanding position, he overlooked his men
+at work.</p>
+
+<p>One day he was put in a cart instead, and the
+carter walking home beside the horse, and noting
+what a pull it was for him up the hills, and drawling
+along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and
+dreamed he had a load of stones. By-and-by, he
+pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck out. "A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a
+been a load of flints."</p>
+
+<p>Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow
+had amassed considerable wealth&mdash;his reputation
+for money was very great indeed&mdash;and his son
+John would, of course, come in for it.</p>
+
+<p>John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about
+Amaryllis he did not know. The idea that she
+had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
+spirits immensely.</p>
+
+<p>Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful&mdash;she was
+too young; I do not think any girl is really
+beautiful so young&mdash;she was highly individualized,
+and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face
+and figure. You saw at a glance that there was
+something about her very different from other girls,
+something very marked, but it was not beauty
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>Whether John thought her handsome, or saw
+that she would be, or what, I do not know; or
+whether he looked "forrard," as he would have
+said.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>John had never read Burns, and would not have
+known that tocher meant dowry; nor had he seen
+the advice of Tennyson&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Doesn't thee marry for money,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">But go where money lies."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>but his native intelligence needed no assistance
+from the poets, coronetted or otherwise.</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden,
+was as poor as the raggedest coat in Christendom
+could make him; but it was equally well known and
+a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the
+great miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the
+boys called him derisively, had literally bushels
+upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
+for ancient usages, and it was understood that there
+were twenty thousand spade guineas in an iron
+box under his bed. Any cottager in the whole
+country side could have told you so, and would
+have smiled at your ignorance; the thing was as
+well known as that St. Paul's is in the City.</p>
+
+<p>Besides which there was another consideration,
+old Granfer Iden was a great favourite at Court&mdash;Court
+meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
+Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the
+county. Granfer Iden entered the Deer Park
+(which was private) with a special key whenever
+he pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked
+in at the conservatory, chatted familiarly with the
+royal family of Pamment when they were at home,
+and when they were away took any friend he chose
+through the galleries and saloons.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said
+John Duck to himself many a time and oft. "They
+stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
+wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite
+at Court could dispense, no doubt, many valuable
+privileges.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+and turned round and faced them. She wore a
+black dress, but no hat; instead she had carelessly
+thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla
+fashion, and held it with one hand. Her dark
+ringlets fringed her forehead, blown free and wild;
+the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
+cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose
+figure is just beginning to show itself, her dress
+seemed somewhat shortened in front&mdash;lifted up
+from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy
+to her form, she seemed about to walk though
+standing still. There was a defiant light in her
+deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition
+which our grandmothers used to say
+would take us to the gallows. Defiance, wilfulness,
+rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood
+on the bank, a little higher than they were, and
+able to look over their heads.</p>
+
+<p>"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one
+side as a salute.</p>
+
+<p>"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his
+broad pronunciation.</p>
+
+<p>As John could not get any further Iden helped
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and
+thought you would like to ride with him. Run in
+and dress."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."</p>
+
+<p>"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lot of cattle about," said John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Better ride," said Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on
+them to look over the wall again.</p>
+
+<p>She was a despot already. There was nothing
+left for them but to walk away.</p>
+
+<p>"However," said Iden, always trying to round
+things off and make square edges smooth, "very
+likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."</p>
+
+<p>"Her wull go across the fields," said John.
+"Shan't see her."</p>
+
+<p>As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap
+he looked up at the corner of the wall, but she
+was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had fetched
+her in, as it was time to dress.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate
+fairs&mdash;they are so silly."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your
+grandfather sent a message last night; you know
+it's his dinner-day."</p>
+
+<p>"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis,
+"I can't bear him."</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you speak of your grandfather like
+that? you are getting very rude and disrespectful."</p>
+
+<p>There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one
+time she would go on and abuse Granfer Iden for
+an hour at a time, calling him every name she could
+think of, and accusing him of every folly under the
+sun. At another time she would solemnly inform
+Amaryllis that they had not a farthing of money,
+and how necessary it was that they should be
+attentive and civil to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the
+first jacket to hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What! aren't you going to change your
+dress?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, that I'm not."</p>
+
+<p>"Change it directly."</p>
+
+<p>"What, to go in and see that musty old&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Change it directly; I <i>will</i> be obeyed."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.</p>
+
+<p>One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim
+and let her do just as she pleased; the next she
+insisted on minute obedience.</p>
+
+<p>"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your
+things on&mdash;come."</p>
+
+<p>So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled
+out of the house and started off. As John had
+foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow the
+path across the fields, which was shorter.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or so later Iden came in from work as
+usual, a few minutes before dinner, and having
+drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in the
+bow window till the dishes were brought.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone&mdash;wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"To fair, of course&mdash;like other people."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum," growled Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"You know your father expects all the family to
+come in to dinner on fair day; I can't think how
+you can neglect him, when you know we haven't got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+a shilling&mdash;why don't you go in and speak to
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can go if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill
+accents of contempt. "I don't care a button for
+all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money.
+I'm as good as he is any day. My family go about,
+and do some business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Your</i> family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>my</i> family&mdash;as good as yours, I should
+think! What's your family then, that you should
+be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"</p>
+
+<p>"You be descended from a quart pot," said
+Iden.</p>
+
+<p>This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather,
+who had kept a small wayside public.
+There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
+respectable man, and laid the foundation of his
+family's fortune, but it drove Mrs. Iden into
+frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk about a quart pot&mdash;<i>you</i>," she
+shrieked. "Why, your family have drunk up thousands
+of pounds&mdash;you know they have. Where's
+the Manor? they swilled it away. Where's
+Upper Court? they got it down their throats.
+They built a house to drink in and nothing else.
+You know they did. You told me yourself.
+The most disgraceful set of drunkards that ever
+lived!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?"
+said Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years&mdash;why,
+you're always talking about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Your family be as nervous as cats&mdash;see their
+hands shake in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"They go to business in the City and do something;
+they don't mess about planting rubbishing
+potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty mess they've made of their business,
+as shaky as their hands. Fidgetty, miserable,
+nervous set they be."</p>
+
+<p>"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow,
+as stolid, and slow, and stupid; why, you do
+nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk, talk.
+You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the
+stile, and you've been talking with that old fool at
+the back door, and talking with Jack Duck&mdash;and
+that's your second mug! You're descended from a
+nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"</p>
+
+<p>Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and
+thrust it in one pocket, flung open the oven-door,
+and put a baked apple in the other pocket, and so
+marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a
+tree in the fields.</p>
+
+<p>In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so
+successful as raking up the weaknesses of the opponent's
+family, especially when the parties are
+married, for having gossiped with each other for
+so long in the most confidential manner, they know
+every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom bet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about,
+and Joseph did as Potiphar's spouse asked him, and
+why your uncle had to take refuge in Spain; and
+so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication
+table.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 143px;">
+<img src="images/i-050.png" width="143" height="270" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HIS discordance between her father and
+mother hurt Amaryllis' affectionate
+heart exceedingly. It seemed to be
+always breaking out all the year round.</div>
+
+<p>Of a summer's eve, when the day's
+work among the hot hay was done, Iden would
+often go out and sit under the russet apple till the
+dew had filled the grass like a green sea. When
+the tide of the dew had risen he would take off his
+heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in
+the cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass.
+He liked the refreshing coolness and the touch of the
+sward. It was not for washing, because he was scrupulously
+clean under the ragged old coat; it was
+because he liked the grass. There was nothing
+very terrible in it; men, and women, too, take off
+their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the
+sands at the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything
+but natural, reasonable, and pleasant. But,
+then, you see, <i>everybody</i> does it at the seaside, and
+Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his
+crime&mdash;that he alone did it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she
+knew he was paddling in the grass was awful.
+She would come shuffling out&mdash;she had a way of
+rubbing her shoes along the ground when irritated
+with her hands under her apron, which she twisted
+about&mdash;and pelt him with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"There, put your boots on&mdash;do, and hide your
+nasty feet!" (Iden had a particularly white skin, and
+feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting! Nobody
+ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed
+of yourself! Anything more disgusting I never
+heard of. Nobody else but you would ever think
+of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody
+else"&mdash;that was the sin and guilt of it&mdash;by-and-by
+Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
+had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them,
+would fling them in the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation,
+if she had not been afraid to touch firearms,
+she would have brought out the gun, and had
+a shot at him.</p>
+
+<p>After a time Iden left his old post at the russet
+apple, and went up the meadow to the horse-chestnut
+trees that he himself had planted, and there, in
+peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded
+about in the dew, without any one to grumble at him.</p>
+
+<p>How crookedly things are managed in this
+world!</p>
+
+<p>It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East,
+and despise the Turks and all their ways, making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
+high places, with the utmost contempt for anything
+reasonable&mdash;all so incongruous and chance-ruled.
+In truth, all things in our very midst go on in the
+Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight
+places, and straight people in crooked places, just
+the same as if we had all been dropped promiscuously
+out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
+to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our
+abilities and natures. Such an utter jumble!</p>
+
+<p>Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful
+power of observation, who ought to have
+been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
+Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or,
+with his singular capacity for construction, a leading
+engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels and making
+Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect,
+forming a new school of philosophy&mdash;here was Iden,
+tending cows, and sitting, as the old story goes,
+undecidedly on a stile&mdash;sitting astride&mdash;eternally
+sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off
+on one side or the other.</p>
+
+<p>Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful
+shape and expressive eyes, full in her youth of life
+and fire, who ought to have led the gayest life in
+London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage,
+and flinging money about in the most extravagant,
+joyous, and good-natured manner&mdash;here was Mrs.
+Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and wearing
+shoes out at the toes.</p>
+
+<p>So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+cart over ruts and stones, thumping anyhow instead
+of running smoothly on new-mown sward like a
+cricket-ball.</p>
+
+<p>It all happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
+
+<p>Another time there would come a letter from one
+of the Flammas in London. Could they spare a
+little bag of lavender?&mdash;they grew such lovely
+sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might
+see Mr. and Mrs. Iden cooing and billing, soft as
+turtle-doves, and fraternising in the garden over
+the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you
+see, to the story.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent,
+and the plant in every form. She kept little bags
+of it in all her drawers, and everything at Coombe
+Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious
+lavender perfume. There is nothing else that
+smells so sweet and clean and dry. You cannot
+imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.</p>
+
+<p>Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it
+between his finger and thumb in the garden, as he
+did, too, with the black-currant leaves and walnut-leaves,
+if he fancied anything he had touched
+might have left an unpleasant odour adhering to
+his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as much as
+washing them.</p>
+
+<p>Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because
+his mother had been so fond of it, and all the sixteen
+carved oak-presses which had been so familiar to him
+in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
+plant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet
+remained in the wine of life, Iden had set a hedge
+of lavender to please his wife. It was so carefully
+chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the
+finest lavender in all the country. People used to
+come for it from round about, quite certain of a
+favourable reception, for there was nothing so sure
+to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of
+lavender.</p>
+
+<p>But the letter from the Flammas was the great
+event&mdash;from London, all that way, asking for some
+Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
+and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the
+garden over the hedge of lavender. If only it
+could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow
+older there seems so much grating of the wheels.</p>
+
+<p>In time, long time, people's original feelings get
+strangely confused and overlaid. The churchwardens
+of the eighteenth century plastered the
+fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches&mdash;covered
+them over with yellowish mortar. The
+mould grows up, and hides the capital of the fallen
+column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the
+foot of the oak, where it is oldest, the bark becomes
+dense and thick, impenetrable, and without
+sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without
+reaching the sap. A sort of scale or caking in
+long, long time grows over original feelings.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one in the world so affectionate
+and loving as Mrs. Iden&mdash;no one who loved a father
+so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved <i>her</i> father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty
+years or so, and the thick dull bark had grown,
+after the scales or caking had come upon the heart,
+after the capital of the column had fallen, after the
+painting had been blurred, it came about that old
+Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father, died in London.</p>
+
+<p>After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe
+Oaks, husband and wife went up to London to the
+funeral, which took place at one of those fearful
+London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very
+soul. Of all the horrible things in the world there
+is nothing so calmly ghastly as a London cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs.
+Iden went to the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing
+of the sort; how truly sad and human, for to be
+human is to be sad. That men and women should
+be so warped and twisted by the pressure of the
+years out of semblance to themselves; that circumstances
+should so wall in their lives with insurmountable
+cliffs of granite facts, compelling them
+to tread the sunless gorge; that the coldness of
+death alone could open the door to pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With
+the music and the song, the dancing, the colours
+and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in the
+silent rooms at the house where the dead had been.
+Old Flamma alone had been dead <i>there</i>; they were
+dead here. Dead in life&mdash;at the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>They had used to go joyously to the theatre
+thirty years before, when Iden came courting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+town; from the edge of the grave they came back
+to look on their own buried lives.</p>
+
+<p>If you will only <i>think</i>, you will see it was a most
+dreadful and miserable incident, that visit to the
+theatre after the funeral.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
+<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake
+descent in Iden's face she alluded to
+Grandfather Iden's being a baker and
+miller, and noted for the manufacture
+of these articles. A lardy, or larded,
+cake is a thing, I suppose, unknown to most of this
+generation; they were the principal confectionery
+familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was
+at the top of his business activity, seventy years
+since, in the Waterloo era.</div>
+
+<p>A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with
+lines, and rounded at the corners, made of dough,
+lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked something
+to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in
+their pastry; they liked something to stick to their
+teeth, and after that to their ribs. The lardy-cake
+eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
+trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it
+were, and the rest depended on the strength of the
+digestion. But if a ploughboy could get a new,
+warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought
+himself blessed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any
+serious business, but he still made a few of these
+renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a good
+few at times to the carters' lads who came in to
+market.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she
+had not, the tom-tomming of drums and blowing of
+brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
+her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious
+as she approached&mdash;the ceaseless tomtom, the beating
+of drums and gongs outside the show vans, the
+shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great
+crowd, the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep,
+the neighing of horses&mdash;altogether the "rucket"
+was tremendous.</p>
+
+<p>She looked back from the hill close to the town
+and saw the people hurrying in from every quarter&mdash;there
+was a string of them following the path she
+had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A
+shower had fallen in the night, but the ceaseless
+wheels had ground up the dust again, and the lines
+of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
+clouds hanging above them. For one on business,
+fifty hastened on to join the uproar.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched
+from Florence and had been set up in the town of
+Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the
+Milo from Paris, do you think all these people
+would have scurried in such haste to admire these
+beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you
+want a crowd you must make a row. It is really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+wonderful how people do thoroughly and unaffectedly
+enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
+could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise,
+battles would not be half so popular to read about.
+The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if you describe
+a medi&aelig;val scramble you must put in plenty
+of splintering lances, resounding armour, shrieks
+and groans, and so render it lively.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the patent age of new inventions," and
+some one might make a profit by starting a f&ecirc;te
+announcing that a drum or a gong would be provided
+for every individual, to be beaten in a grand
+universal chorus.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting
+through the crowd till she found her way behind
+the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
+between them and the houses. There was an
+arched entrance, arch&aelig;ologically interesting, by
+which she paused a moment, half inclined to go up
+and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who
+lived there had had them since Christmas, and all
+that wanted doing was a patch on one toe; they
+were always just going to be done, but never
+finished. She read the inscription over his door,
+"Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established 1697." A
+different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton
+awls; a man who has been in business two
+hundred years cannot be hurried. She sighed, and
+passed on.</p>
+
+<p>The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted
+of one wide stone of semi-circular shape, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+the feet of three generations of customers had
+worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman,
+for he was over ninety, was leaning on the hatch
+(or lower half of the door), in the act of handing
+some of his cakes to two village girls who had
+called for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed
+to be so rurally simple, had just been telling
+him how they never forgot his nice cakes, but always
+came every fair day to buy some. For this they
+got sixpence each, it being well known that the
+old gentleman was so delighted with anybody who
+bought his cakes he generally gave them back their
+money, and a few coppers besides.</p>
+
+<p>He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on
+the step and pulled her into the shop, asked her if
+her father were coming, then walked her down by
+the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted
+peel, to see how tall she was. The peel
+is the long wooden rod, broad at one end, with
+which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father
+Iden being proud of his trade, in his old age had
+his favourite peel ornamented with silver.</p>
+
+<p>"Too fast&mdash;too fast," he said, shaking his head,
+and coughing; "you grow too fast; there's the
+notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
+taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her
+where his thumb was&mdash;quite two inches higher than
+the last year's mark.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay&mdash;I daresay," said the old man, in the
+hasty manner of feeble age, as he cut another notch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+to record her height. The handle of the peel was
+notched all round, where he had measured his
+grandchildren; there were so many marks it was
+not easy to see how he distinguished them.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he
+had finished with the knife.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true&mdash;she
+did not <i>know</i>&mdash;she could not be certain; but in
+her heart she was sure he would not come. But she
+did not want to hear any hard words said about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he sent anything? Have you brought
+anything for me? No. No. Hum!&mdash;ha!"&mdash;fit
+of coughing&mdash;"Well, well&mdash;come in; dinner's late,
+there's time to hear you read&mdash;you're fond of books,
+you read a great deal at home,"&mdash;and so talking,
+half to himself and half to her, he led the way into
+the parlour by the shop.</p>
+
+<p>Bowed by more than ninety years, his back
+curved over forwards, and his limbs curved in the
+opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
+resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung
+over his chest, and his knees never straightened
+themselves, but were always more or less bent as
+he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of
+a strong man heavily laden and unable to stand
+upright&mdash;such an attitude as big Jack Duck in his
+great strength might take when carrying two sacks
+of wheat at once. There was as heavy a load on
+Grandfather Iden's back, but Time is invisible.</p>
+
+<p>He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker
+should, and had worn the same cut and colour for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+years and years. In the shop, too, he always had
+a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white,
+but it got to appear grey upon him; a large grey
+chimney-pot, many sizes too big for his head apparently,
+for it looked as if for ever about to descend
+and put out his face like an extinguisher.
+Though his boots were so carefully polished, they
+quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as he
+pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends
+of his trousers, too long for his antique shanks,
+folded and creased over his boots, and almost hid
+his grey cloth under-gaiters.</p>
+
+<p>A great knobbed old nose&mdash;but stay, I will not
+go further, it is not right to paint too faithfully the
+features of the very aged, which are repellent in
+spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their
+faces, their sentiments and actions are another
+matter; therefore I will leave Father Iden's face
+as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
+reflects everywhere, except one spot.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis followed him jauntily,&mdash;little did she
+care, reckless girl, for the twenty thousand guineas
+in the iron box under his bed.</p>
+
+<p>The cottage folk, who always know so much, had
+endless tales of Iden's wealth; how years ago
+bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in five-shilling
+packets, had been literally carted like potatoes
+away from the bakehouse to go to London; how
+ponies were laden with sacks of silver groats, all
+paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
+dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the
+spade guineas in the iron box.</p>
+
+<p>The old man sat down by the fire without removing
+his hat, motioning to her to shut the door,
+which she was loth to do, for the little room was
+smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma,
+he coughed incessantly, and mopped his mouth
+with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
+craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to
+the grate, and piled up the coal till it smoked and
+smoked, and filled the close apartment with a
+suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into
+Father Iden's sanctuary was an honour, but, like
+other honours, it had to be paid for.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to
+breathe as short as possible, to avoid inhaling more
+than she could bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the
+bookcases, which occupied three sides of the room.
+"Books&mdash;you like books; look at them&mdash;go and see."</p>
+
+<p>To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to
+look carefully along the shelves which she had
+scanned so many times before. They contained
+very good books indeed, such books as were not to
+be found elsewhere throughout the whole town of
+Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the county, old
+and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson,
+and Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as
+Bernard Quaritch, that giant of the modern auction
+room, would have written magnificent cheques for.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+auction-room bidding for books? It is one of the
+sights of London, let me tell you, to any one who
+thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights
+are reputations merely&mdash;the pale reflection of things
+that were real once. This sight is something of
+the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
+<i>Athen&aelig;um</i> in the season, examine the advertisements
+of book auctions, and attend the next great
+sale of some famous library.</p>
+
+<p>You have a recollection of the giant who sat by
+the highway and devoured the pilgrims who
+passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring
+and devours the books set loose upon their travels
+after the repose of centuries.</p>
+
+<p>What prices to give! No one can withstand
+him. From Paris they send agents with a million
+francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
+the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles,
+but in vain. They only get what the Giant chooses
+to leave them.</p>
+
+<p>Books that nobody ever heard of fetch &pound;50, &pound;60,
+&pound;100, &pound;200; wretched little books never opened
+since they were printed; dull duodecimos on the
+course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable
+twaddling local books in Italian, Spanish, queer
+French, written and printed in some unknown
+foreign village; read them&mdash;you might as well try
+to amuse yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What
+earthly value they are of cannot be discovered.
+They were composed by authors whose names are
+gone like the sand washed by the Nile into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+sea before Herodotus. They contain no beautiful
+poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery;
+they are simply so much paper, printing, and binding,
+so many years old, and it is for that age,
+printing, and binding that the money is paid.</p>
+
+<p>I have read a good many books in my time&mdash;I
+would not give sixpence for the whole lot.</p>
+
+<p>They are not like a block-book&mdash;first efforts at
+printing; nor like the first editions of great authors;
+there is not the slightest intrinsic value in them
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Yet some of them fetch prices which not long
+ago were thought tremendous even for the Shakespeare
+folio.</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for
+them. Living and writing authors of the present
+day are paid in old songs by comparison.</p>
+
+<p>Still, this enormous value set on old books is one
+of the remarkable signs of the day. If any one
+wishes to know what To-Day is, these book-auctions
+are of the things he should go to see.</p>
+
+<p>Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's
+shelves; among them there were a few that I call
+<i>real</i> old books, an early translation or two, an early
+Shakespeare, and once there had been a very
+valuable Boccaccio, but this had gone into Lord
+Pamment's library, "Presented by James Bartholomew
+Iden, Esq."</p>
+
+<p>The old man often went to look at and admire
+his Boccaccio in my Lord's library.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-055.png" width="500" height="98" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HERE was one peculiarity in all the
+books on Grandfather Iden's shelves,
+they were all very finely bound in the
+best style of hand-art, and they all bore
+somewhere or other a little design of
+an ancient Roman lamp.</div>
+
+<p>Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship
+of good taste&mdash;it is not the sculptor's art,
+nor the painter's&mdash;not the art of the mind, but the
+art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work,
+for instance, some pottery, book-binding like this,
+are the products of hand-art.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man,
+when Amaryllis had stared sufficiently at the backs
+of the books.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can see the Lamp."</p>
+
+<p>"House of Flamma," said old Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily,
+eager to show that she understood all about it. She
+feared lest he should enter into the history of the
+House of Flamma and of his connection with it;
+she had heard it all over and over again; her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+mother was a Flamma; she had herself some of
+the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything
+annoyed her or made her indignant her foot used
+to tap the floor, and her neck flush rosy, and her
+face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
+control herself, she would say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not
+be a Flamma."</p>
+
+<p>Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis
+detested and despised the whole tribe of the Flammas,
+the nervous, excitable, passionate, fidgetty,
+tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them
+all, the very name and mention of them; she sided
+with her father as an Iden against her mother's
+family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
+flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse,
+a spot or two of genius, and the rest black guilt
+or folly. She hated them; she would not be a
+Flamma.</p>
+
+<p>How should she at sixteen understand the wear
+and tear of life, the pressure of circumstances, the
+heavy weight of difficulties&mdash;there was something to
+be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas,
+but naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut
+up in narrow grooves and working day after day,
+year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
+their constitutional nervousness became the chief
+characteristic of their existence. It was Intellect
+overcome&mdash;over-burdened&mdash;with two generations of
+petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went
+to the quart pot.</p>
+
+<p>Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+detested the very name; she would not be a
+Flamma.</p>
+
+<p>But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in
+fire of spirit, in strength of indignation, in natural
+capacity; she drew, for instance, with the greatest
+ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
+could write a letter in sketches.</p>
+
+<p>Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness
+of certain things seemed to fill her with a consuming
+fire. Her partizanship for her father made her
+sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she
+might utterly erase the opposer. Her contempt of
+sycophancy, and bold independence led her constantly
+into trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Flamma means a flame.</p>
+
+<p>Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the
+bookshelves patiently endeavouring to please the
+tiresome old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and
+medals in it were very interesting, as they really
+were. The smoke caught her in the throat, and
+seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching
+her chest. So much accustomed to the open
+air, she felt stifled.</p>
+
+<p>Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he
+might hear how she enunciated her words. The
+book he gave her was an early copy of Addison, the
+page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges
+rough, but where in a trim modern volume will
+you find language like his and ideas set forth with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+such transparent lucidity? How easy to write
+like that!&mdash;so simple, merely a letter to an intimate
+friend; but try!</p>
+
+<p>Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read,
+especially those that come to us from New York,
+thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
+the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You
+cannot read them; you <i>work</i> through them.</p>
+
+<p>The French have retained a little of the old style
+of book in their paper bound franc novels, the rough
+paper, thick black type, rough edges are pleasant
+to touch and look at&mdash;they feel as if they were done
+by hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim
+by machinery.</p>
+
+<p>Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis
+tried her utmost to read well, and she succeeded,
+so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
+grunting between his continuous fits of coughing
+the old man signified his approval.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of
+the aged, but she had a motive here; she wanted
+to please him for her father's sake. For many
+years there had been an increasing estrangement
+between the younger and the elder Iden; an estrangement
+which no one could have explained, for
+it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather
+Iden was really so rich. The son was his
+father's tenant&mdash;the farm belonged to Grandfather
+Iden&mdash;and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly.
+Still that could not have much mattered&mdash;a mere
+trifle to a man of old Iden's wealth. There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
+scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people
+frequently fall into a quarrel without remembering
+the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old
+man for her father's sake; her dear father, whom
+she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
+worrying him for petty sums of money; it made
+her furious with indignation to see and hear it.</p>
+
+<p>So she read her very best, and swallowed the
+choking smoke patiently.</p>
+
+<p>Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still
+as fresh as if gathered yesterday, Amaryllis found
+bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For it
+was one of the old man's ways to carry home such
+of these that pleased him and to place them in his
+books. This he had done for half a century, and
+many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey
+old works of bygone authors had been there a
+generation. It is wonderful how long they will
+endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way;
+the paper they used in old books seems to have
+been softer, without the hard surface of our present
+paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps them
+better. Before the repulsion between father and
+son became so marked, Amaryllis had often been
+with her grandfather in the garden and round the
+meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather
+the yellow tulips, the broad-petalled roses, and in
+autumn the bright scarlet bramble leaves. The
+brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+him; anything with richness of colour. The old
+and grey, and withered man gathered the brightest
+of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten books.</p>
+
+<p>Now the sight of these leaves and petals between
+the yellow pages softened her heart towards him;
+he was a tyrant, but he was very, very old, they
+were like flowers on a living tomb.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and
+going to a drawer in one of the bookcases, took from
+it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these between
+her face and the book, and told her to read
+them instead.</p>
+
+<p>"These are your writing."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting,
+and coughing, all at once.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only
+two houses in Black Jack Street." "Only <i>two</i>
+houses!" she interposed, artfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Two," said the grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in
+1775 the site was covered with furze." "How it
+has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed,
+and smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head
+and seemed about to extinguish him.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa.
+It says, 'A hundred voters in this street,
+1884.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched
+his very heart up in coughing. When he finished,
+Amaryllis read on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent
+coughing Amaryllis became alarmed, but it did him
+no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
+livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused
+him like a trumpet&mdash;it went straight to his ancient
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Read that again," he said. "How many voters
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."</p>
+
+<p>"We've got them all"&mdash;coughing&mdash;"all in my
+lord's houses, everyone; vote Conservative, one
+and all. What is it?" as some one knocked.
+Dinner was ready, to Amaryllis's relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?"
+asked the grandfather, shuffling up his papers.
+"There&mdash;there," as she hesitated, "you would like
+to dine with young people, of course&mdash;of course."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
+<img src="images/i-056.png" width="141" height="110" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
+<img src="images/o.png" width="119" height="120" alt="O" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>LD Grandfather Iden always dined alone
+in the parlour, with his housekeeper to
+wait on him; they were just bringing
+in his food. The family and visitors
+had their meals in a separate and much
+more comfortable apartment in another part of the
+house, which was large. Sometimes, as a great
+favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
+would invite you to eat with him.</div>
+
+<p>Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated,
+not only because of the smoke, but because
+she knew he always had pork for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry
+and withered frame&mdash;it was a sort of Burgundy of
+flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy fills
+the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so
+the rich juice of the pork seemed to supply the oil
+necessary to keep the sinews supple and to prevent
+the cartilages from stiffening.</p>
+
+<p>The scientific people say that it is the ossification
+of the cartilages&mdash;the stiffening of the firmer
+tissues&mdash;that in time interferes with the processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+of life. The hinges rust, as if your tricycle had
+been left out in the rain for a week&mdash;and the delicate
+watchwork of the human frame will not run.</p>
+
+<p>If suppleness could only be maintained there is
+no reason why it should not continue to work for a
+much longer period, for a hundred and fifty, two
+hundred years&mdash;as long as you fancy. But nothing
+has yet been devised to keep up the suppleness.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast
+pork. The jokers of Woolhorton&mdash;there are always
+jokers, very clever they think themselves&mdash;considered
+the reason it suited him so well was because
+of the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Anything more contrary to common sense than
+for an old man of ninety to feed on pork it would
+be hard to discover&mdash;so his friends said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pork," said the physician, had down from London
+to see him on one occasion, "pork is the first
+on the list of indigestible articles of food. It takes
+from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
+reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded&mdash;acidity
+is the result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable
+ills are the consequence. The very
+worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of
+Woolhorton, when he heard of this. "Hum!"
+low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
+least excited, like most other country folk, he used
+the provincial pronunciation. "Hum! A' have
+lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+eat it six days out of seven, not, of course, roast
+pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork; sometimes
+he baked it himself in the great oven. Now
+and then he varied it with pig-meat&mdash;good old
+country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat&mdash;such as
+spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious
+morsel, the "mouse." The chine he always sent
+over for Iden junior, who was a chine eater&mdash;a
+true Homeric diner&mdash;and to make it even, Iden
+junior sent in the best apples for sauce from his
+favourite russet trees. It was about the only
+amenity that survived between father and son.</p>
+
+<p>The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old
+house at home, before we all went astray along the
+different paths of life; fresh from the pigs fed and
+killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the
+palate. Much of it is best done on a gridiron&mdash;here's
+heresy! A gridiron is flat blasphemy to
+the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
+fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your
+lips watering.</p>
+
+<p>But the "mouse,"&mdash;what was the "mouse?"
+The London butchers can't tell me. It was a titbit.
+I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London
+folk are so ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and
+form, that is, he mumbled the juice out of it, and
+never complained of indigestion.</p>
+
+<p>He was up at five o'clock every morning of his
+life, pottering about the great oven with his baker's
+man. In summer if it was fine he went out at six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+for a walk in the Pines&mdash;the promenade of Woolhorton.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used
+to say, "you go for a walk in the marning afore
+the aair have been braathed auver."</p>
+
+<p>Before the air has been breathed over&mdash;inspired
+and re-inspired by human crowds, while it retains
+the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
+from the spring; that was when it possessed its
+value, according to bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old
+Butler. Depend upon it, there is something in his
+dictum, too.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork,
+for he often had it underdone, so the old gentleman
+dismissed her in his most gracious manner to dine
+with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>She went down the corridor and took the seat
+placed for her. There was a posy of primroses
+beside her napkin&mdash;posies of primroses all round
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>This raging old Tory of ninety years would give
+a shilling for the earliest primrose the boys could
+find for him in the woods. Some one got him
+a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
+favourites&mdash;a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather&mdash;which
+he had set in the centre of a splendid
+screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
+The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room
+near a bow window which overlooked the fair.</p>
+
+<p>People, you see, took pains to get him feathers
+and anything he fancied, on account of the twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+thousand spade guineas in the iron box under the
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married
+folk, begged him not to keep a peacock's feather in
+the house&mdash;it would certainly bring misfortune.
+The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds
+that they actually argued with him&mdash;<i>argued</i> with
+Grandfather Iden!&mdash;pointing out to him the fearful
+risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
+grew red in the face&mdash;the great grey hat shook
+and tottered with anger; not for all the Powers of
+Darkness would he have given up that feather.</p>
+
+<p>The chairs round the large table were arranged
+in accordance with the age of the occupants. There
+were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number of
+aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does
+not concern us. The eldest sat at the head of the
+table, the next in age followed, and so all round
+the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis
+rather low down&mdash;a long way from the top and
+fountain of honour&mdash;and highly displeased her.
+She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd
+of her relations, yet being there, she felt that she
+ought to have had a position above them all. Her
+father&mdash;Iden, junior&mdash;was old Iden's only son and
+natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to
+have been at the top of the table, and hers ought to
+have been next to his.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of which, as her father was not the
+eldest, his seat was some distance from the top, and
+hers again, was a long way from his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All the other chairs were full, but her father's
+chair was empty.</p>
+
+<p>The vague crowd were so immensely eager to
+pay their despicable court to the Spade-Guinea
+Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the
+young, the lame, the paralytic, all found means to
+creep in to Grandfather Iden's annual dinner. His
+only son and natural heir was alone absent. How
+eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time
+at that empty chair, hoping against hope that her
+dear father would come in at the Psalms, or even at
+the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
+hearts of the enemies around her.</p>
+
+<p>For well she knew how delighted they were to
+see his chair empty, as a visible sign and token of
+the gulf between father and son, and well she knew
+how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding
+and set fuel to the flame of the quarrel.
+If the son were disinherited, consider the enormous
+profit to the rest of them!</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that
+he had not signed a will. It was believed that
+several rough drafts had been sketched out for him,
+but, in his own words&mdash;and he was no teller of
+falsehoods&mdash;he had not decided on his will. If
+only they could persuade him to make his will they
+might feel safe of something; but suppose he went
+off pop, all in a moment, as these extraordinarily
+healthy old people are said to do, and the most of his
+estate in land! Consider what a contingency&mdash;almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+all of it would go to his own son. Awful
+thing!</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her
+and quizzed her over and over; her hair, her face,
+her form, but most of all her dress. They were so
+poor at home she had not had a new dress this
+twelvemonth past; it was true her dress was decent
+and comfortable, and she really looked very nice in
+it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a
+comfortable dress, she wants something in the style
+of the day, and just sufficiently advanced to make
+the women's eyes turn green with envy. It is not
+the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned,
+trying with all her might to make them feel she was
+the Heiress, not only an only son's only daughter,
+but the only son's only offspring&mdash;doubly the
+Heiress of Grandfather Iden.</p>
+
+<p>The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied
+so soon as she was born that there
+would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so
+it fell out. For it had been noticed in the course
+of generations, that in the direct line of Iden when
+the first child was a daughter there were none to
+follow. And further, that there never was but one
+Miss Iden at a time.</p>
+
+<p>If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they
+never had any more children; consequently that
+daughter was the only Miss Iden.</p>
+
+<p>If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a
+second son, though they might have daughters;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+but then, in order that there should still be only one
+Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died,
+or was married early, before the second came into
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they
+had a long pedigree, the Idens, reaching farther
+back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
+had been observed that this was the rule of their
+descent.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress,
+through her father, of the Spade-Guinea Man. She
+tried to make them feel that she knew it and felt it;
+that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud
+face&mdash;it was a very proud face naturally&mdash;darkened
+a little, and grew still more disdainful in its utter
+scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of enemies.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 139px;">
+<img src="images/i-059.png" width="139" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>O one, as it were, in the gallery, it was
+a delight to see her; her sweet cheeks,
+fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed
+indignation; her young brow
+bent; her eyes cast down&mdash;don't you
+think for a moment she would deign to look at them&mdash;pride
+in her heart, and resolute determination to
+fight for her dear father and mother.</div>
+
+<p>But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there
+was a crack in her boot unmended, and it seemed
+as if everyone could see it though under the solid
+table. She had not had a really sound pair of
+boots for many, many months; they could not
+afford her a new pair at home, and the stupid shoemaker,
+"Established 1697," was such a time repairing
+her others.</p>
+
+<p>She would not look at them, but she knew that
+they were all dressed better than she was; there
+were some of them very poor, and very vulgar, too,
+but they were all dressed better than her, and
+without a doubt had sound boots on their feet.</p>
+
+<p>The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+sound boots; she never had; nor, indeed, her
+mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled
+by the character of his work in the fields to take
+care of himself so far, though he wore a ragged
+coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had
+a whole pair of boots&mdash;whole and sound as the very
+cottagers had.</p>
+
+<p>If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she
+would have been prouder than ever, and that is why
+I always loved her so; she was not to be put down
+by circumstances, she was above external things.</p>
+
+<p>But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly
+over&mdash;she had scarcely eaten anything&mdash;and as she
+glanced from time to time at her father's empty
+chair, and knew that he would not come, and that
+his defection would revive the old quarrel which
+might so easily have been mended, the Flamma
+blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter,
+and the foot with the worn boot on it began to tap
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
+swept the whole company over a precipice into the
+Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
+either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of
+no consequence.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Spain's an island near<br />
+Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
+seen them all poisoned and dying on their seats.</p>
+
+<p>The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick
+a knife into each of them&mdash;only it would not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+touched them with the longest hop-pole in Kent, so
+utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that
+empty chair.</p>
+
+<p>And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did
+not say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not be a Flamma."</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word
+was passed round that everyone was to sit still, as
+Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his descendants.</p>
+
+<p>There was not the least fear of any of them stirring,
+for they well knew his custom&mdash;to walk round,
+and speak a few words to everyone in turn, and to
+put a new golden sovereign into their hands.
+Thirty-two sovereigns it was in all&mdash;one for each&mdash;but
+the thirty-third was always a spade-guinea,
+which was presented to the individual who had best
+pleased him during the year.</p>
+
+<p>A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the
+emulation and the heart-burning over the spade-guinea!
+For the fortunate winner usually considered
+himself the nearest to the Will.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought
+that she should have to take his horrible money.
+A hideous old monster he was to her at that moment&mdash;not
+that he had done anything to her personally&mdash;but
+he left her dear father to be worried
+out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her dear
+mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while
+he made this pompous distribution among these
+wretches. The hideous old monster!</p>
+
+<p>Out in the town the boys behind his back gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+him endless nicknames: Granfer Iden, Floury Iden,
+My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
+Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours,
+and patronage, his caprices and ways of going on,
+if he had but had a patent of nobility, Grandfather
+Iden would have made a wonderfully good
+duke.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing
+his great grey tottery hat, and proceeds from chair
+to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder, saying a
+gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden
+sovereigns in their eager palms. There was a loud
+hum of conversation as he went round; they all
+tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of
+course knew what he was about, when suddenly
+there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people suddenly
+stopped talking as if the pneumatic <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'break'">brake</ins>
+had been applied to their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.</p>
+
+<p>Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear
+the cat licking his paw under the table.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning
+with both hands on the back of his son's empty
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar
+floating on the barren ocean of life and death into
+which his withered old body was sinking.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he really would have clung like that to
+his son had but his son come to him, and borne a
+little, and for a little while, with his ways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A sorrowful thing to see&mdash;the old man of ninety
+clinging to the back of his son's empty chair. His
+great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble on
+the floor&mdash;his back bowed a little more&mdash;and he
+groaned deeply, three times.</p>
+
+<p>We can see, being out of the play and spectators
+merely, that there was a human cry for help in the
+old man's groan&mdash;his heart yearned for his son's
+strong arm to lean on.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd of relations were in doubt as to
+whether they should rejoice, whether the groan was
+a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
+be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at
+the possibility of reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p>The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis
+for her to feel pity for him as she would have
+done in any other mood; she hated him all the
+more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing
+to him, he could hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn,"
+and drive over and make friends with her father in
+half an hour. Groaning there&mdash;the hideous old
+monster! and her mother without a decent pair of
+boots.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered
+himself, and continued the distribution, and by-and-by
+Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She did
+not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand,
+and placed two coins in it, saying in his most
+gracious way that the sovereign was for her father,
+and the guinea&mdash;the spade-guinea&mdash;for herself.
+She muttered something&mdash;she knew not what&mdash;she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+could but just restrain herself from throwing the
+money on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had
+the guinea. Conceive the horror, the hatred, the
+dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
+Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!</p>
+
+<p>Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they
+had all got upstairs into the great drawing-room,
+and some were officiously and reverently admiring
+the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking
+out of the bow window at the fair, there came a
+message for Amaryllis to put on her hat and go for
+a walk with her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>There was not one among all the crowd in the
+drawing-room who had ever been invited to accompany
+Iden Pacha.</p>
+
+<p>Three days ago at home, if anyone had told
+Amaryllis that she would be singled out in this
+way, first to receive the Iden medal&mdash;the spade-guinea
+stamp of approval&mdash;and then, above all
+things, to be honoured by walking out with this
+"almighty" grandfather, how delighted she would
+have been at the thought of the triumph!</p>
+
+<p>But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over
+these people&mdash;pah! a triumph over rats and flies
+or some such creatures. She actually felt lowered
+in her own esteem by being noticed at all among
+them. Honoured by this old horror&mdash;she revolted
+at it. <i>He</i> honour her with his approval&mdash;she hated
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The other day a travelling piano was wheeled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+through Coombe and set up a tune in that lonesome
+spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece
+of music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism
+well marked by the thump, thump, it seemed to
+cheer the place&mdash;till she went out to the gate to
+look at the Italian woman who danced about while
+the grinding was done, and saw that she had a
+sound pair of boots on. That very morning her
+mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma
+rheumatism shooting in her bones, for the dampness
+of the mud came through the crack in her boot.</p>
+
+<p>This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour
+her while he let her mother walk about with her
+stocking on the wet ground!</p>
+
+<p>The Flamma blood was up in her veins&mdash;what
+did she care for guineas!</p>
+
+<p>As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom
+before the glass she looked round to see that no one
+was watching, and then stooped down and put the
+spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the
+dressing-table. She would have none of his hateful
+money. The sovereign she took care of because it
+was for her father, and he might buy something
+useful with it; he wanted a few shillings badly
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the
+floor for a week or two, till it pleased the housemaid
+to move the dressing-table to brush away the accumulation,
+when she found the shining one in the
+fluff.</p>
+
+<p>Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+guinea henceforward travelled down the stream of
+Time fast enough though silently, but she took the
+first opportunity of examining the iron box under
+the Pacha's bed, thinking perhaps there might be a
+chink in it. And it was curious how for some time
+afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
+in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any
+piece of furniture that was not chivvied about under
+pretence of polishing. She actually had a day's
+holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward
+for her labours.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 163px;">
+<img src="images/i-060.png" width="163" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS did not look back as she
+walked beside her grandfather slowly
+up the street, or she would have seen
+the company of relations watching them
+from the bow-window.</div>
+
+<p>Iden went straight through the crowd without
+any hesitation on account of his age&mdash;angry as she
+was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the clumsy
+people should over-turn him, and tried her best to
+shield him. But he had a knack of keeping on his
+feet&mdash;the sort of knack you learn by skating&mdash;and did
+not totter much more than usual, despite the press.</p>
+
+<p>The world gets on with very little amusement
+somehow. Here were two or three thousand people
+packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
+their festive gathering was the same old toys their
+fathers' fathers' fathers had set before them.</p>
+
+<p>Rows of booths for the display of "fairings,"
+gingerbread, nuts, cakes, brandy-balls, and sugar-plums
+stood in the gutter each side.</p>
+
+<p>The "fairings" were sweet biscuits&mdash;they have
+been made every fair this hundred years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts
+always are. The gingerbread was moulded in the
+same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined with gilt.</p>
+
+<p>There was the same old trumpeting and tootling,
+tom-tomming, and roaring of showmen's voices. The
+same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
+by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that
+the whirligig caravan was travelling round the
+world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
+smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the
+Wilderness," that mystic and melancholy bird, the
+rifle galleries, the popping for nuts&mdash;behold these
+are they our fathers have seen.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing new under the sun&mdash;not even
+at Epsom. The first time I saw the wonderful
+crowd of the Derby Day&mdash;perhaps the largest crowd
+in the world&mdash;I could scarcely believe my eyes, for
+I found on passing through it that the hundreds of
+thousands of people there had nothing more to
+amuse them than they would have found at an
+ordinary country fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies
+at cocoa-nuts, rootletum, tootletum, and beer.
+That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a
+very humdrum sort of world, my masters!</p>
+
+<p>The next finest crowd is the crowd on August
+bank-holiday all along the Brighton beach, and
+there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk
+but Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters&mdash;dull
+old stories in my grandmother's time.</p>
+
+<p>Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could
+invent him a fresh pleasure&mdash;the multitude of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+Derby Day and Brighton beach should do the same.
+But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would
+certainly be the reward of such a discoverer. One gets
+tired of pitching sticks at cocoa-nuts all one's time.</p>
+
+<p>However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very
+rawest and crudest folk cared for the shows, all they
+did care was to alternately stand stock still and
+then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion"
+and had some beer, then they shoved back to the
+"Lamb" and had some beer, then they stood stock
+still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
+Several thousand people were thus happily
+occupied, and the Lion and the Lamb laid down
+together peacefully that day.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to
+shove, for there was no other way to get through,
+no one thought of moving, or giving any passage,
+if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them
+aside. As Grandfather Iden could not shove very
+hard they were frequently compelled to wait till the
+groups opened, and thus it happened that Amaryllis
+found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.</p>
+
+<p>He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at
+Amaryllis, and touched his hat to Iden. "You
+ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.</p>
+
+<p>Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant
+to Amaryllis. The father had not been to
+visit his son for more than a year&mdash;she did not
+want unpleasant memories stirred up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched
+his hat and asked her if her father was at fair, as
+he was looking out for a job. Old Iden started
+and grunted like a snorting horse.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly
+to him, for she knew he was always in difficulties.
+Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong man without
+work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill
+Nye was a mower at Coombe, and his father, Bill
+Nye, before him, many a long year before he was
+discovered in California.</p>
+
+<p>When she overtook Iden he was struggling to
+pass the stream of the Orinoco, which set strongly
+at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
+"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb"
+archway like a river into the sea, thrusting their
+way into the general crowd, and this mighty current
+cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the
+swollen Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels
+that tried to breast it.</p>
+
+<p>It was as much as Amaryllis and he together
+could do to hold their ground at the edge of the
+current. While they were thus battling she chanced
+to look up.</p>
+
+<p>A large window was open over the archway, and
+at this window a fellow was staring down at her.
+He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a billiard-cue in
+his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the
+same young fellow, gentleman if you like, whose
+pale face had so displeased her that morning as he
+rode under when she watched the folk go by to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+fair. He was certainly the most advanced in civilization
+of all who had passed Plum Corner, and yet
+there was something in that pale and rather delicate
+face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the
+"varmers" and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers"
+who had gone by under the wall. Something that
+insulted her.</p>
+
+<p>The face at the window was appraising her.</p>
+
+<p>It was reckoning her up&mdash;so much for eyes, so
+much for hair, so much for figure, and as this went
+on the fingers were filling a pipe from an elastic
+tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry
+in that calculation&mdash;no rapture or pure admiration
+of beauty; there was a billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch,
+and a glass of spirits and water, and an
+atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory
+balls at the back of the thought. His thumb was
+white where he had chalked it to make a better
+bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had
+chalked it with dissipation. His physical body was
+whitened&mdash;chalked&mdash;a whited sepulchre; his moral
+nature likewise chalked.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of his thought lay not the high
+esteem of the poet-thinker for beauty, but the
+cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.</p>
+
+<p>The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things
+a Shakespeare would admire at their lowest possible
+sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
+corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense
+knowingness, as much as to say, "You may depend
+upon me&mdash;I've been behind the scenes. All this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard
+at the rear; nothing in it."</p>
+
+<p>In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found
+some trace of a higher nature; "What an artist the
+world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.</p>
+
+<p>The empress Theodora craved for the applause
+of the theatre to which she exposed her beauty.</p>
+
+<p>This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism
+thinks of nothing but lowness, and has
+no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks
+to colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it
+is an ideal. There was no ideal in Ned Marks.</p>
+
+<p>They called him from within to take his turn with
+the cue; he did not answer, he was so absorbed in his
+calculations. He was clever&mdash;in a way; he had
+quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no
+common girl. She was not beautiful&mdash;yet, she was
+not even pretty, and so plainly dressed; still there
+was something marked in her features. And she
+was with old Iden.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his
+glance, but she felt that it was an insult. She looked
+down quickly, seized her grandfather's arm, and
+drew him out from the pavement into the street,
+yielding a little to the current and so hoping to
+presently pass it.</p>
+
+<p>By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his
+companions had come to the window to discover what
+he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed. "It's
+Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron
+box!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to
+sit loosely on his head, was knocked aside by the
+elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the throng;
+Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this
+way, and pushing him that, got at last to the opposite
+pavement, and so behind the row of booths,
+between them and the houses where there was less
+crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to
+her feet and stepped in the gutter where there was
+a puddle. The cold water came through the crack
+in her boot.</p>
+
+<p>While these incidents were still further irritating
+her, the old Pacha kept mumbling and muttering
+to himself, nodding his head and smiling at each
+fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent
+and fearless still he appreciated the trouble
+she took. The mumbling in his mouth was a sort
+of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up
+to a pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a
+hound in a leash, ready to burst the bond that
+held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in arm,
+neither of them understood the other; ninety and
+sixteen, a strange couple in the jostling fair.</p>
+
+<p>Iden turned down a passage near the end of the
+street, and in an instant the roar of the crowd which
+had boomed all round them was shut off by high
+walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads
+in the air. They walked on broad stone flags
+notched here and there at the edges, for the rest
+worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a
+trade) like Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+and the walled passage brought them to the
+porch of the Abbey church.</p>
+
+<p>There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and
+wiped his forehead with his vast silk handkerchief.
+They were no longer incommoded by a crowd, but
+now and then folk came by hastening to the fair;
+lads with favours in their coats, and blue ribbons in
+their hats, girls in bright dresses, chiefly crude
+colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy
+weight as it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous
+walls, the quiet gloom of the narrow space,
+and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.</p>
+
+<p>The aged man muttered and mumbled about the
+porch and took Amaryllis under it, making her look
+up at the groining, and note the spring of the arch,
+which formed a sort of carved crown over them.
+It was a fine old porch, deep and high, in some
+things reminding you of the porches that are to be
+seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade
+like trees, so cut and worked as to be soft to the
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>He pointed out to her the touches that rendered
+it so dear to those who value art in stone. He
+knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
+and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were
+broad folios in the smoky room at home, filled
+with every detail, Iden himself had subscribed forty
+pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them.
+Every scholar who visited the Abbey church, called
+and begged to see the baker's old books.</p>
+
+<p>Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+went outside and hoisted himself, as it were, up from
+his crooked S position to look at the three stags'
+heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads
+that to you, or at least to me, might have been
+fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or anything.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in
+the porch, the deep shadow within behind her, the
+curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a portrait.
+She stood the more upright because of the fire and
+temper suppressed in her.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the human letter S&mdash;crooked S&mdash;clad
+in sad white-grey miller's garments, its old hat
+almost falling backwards off its old grey head,
+gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the
+coat of arms. Seven hundred years&mdash;the weight
+of seven hundred years&mdash;hung over them both in
+that old Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she
+came out to the Future.</p>
+
+<p>Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded,
+in the passage wall, and giving her the key, told
+her to open it, and stood watching her in triumph,
+as if it had been the door to some immense treasury.
+She turned the lock, and he pushed her before
+him hastily, as if they must snatch so grand an
+opportunity.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>ITHIN there was a gravel path, and
+glimpses between trees of wide pleasure-grounds.
+Amaryllis hesitated, and
+looked back; Iden drew her forward,
+not noticing her evident disinclination
+to proceed. If he had, he would have put it down
+to awe, instead of which it was dislike.</div>
+
+<p>For she guessed they were entering the lawns in
+front of the Hon. Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He
+was the largest owner of town and country; the
+streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which
+the fair was being held, belonged to him; so did
+most of the farms and hamlets out of which the
+people had come. The Pamments were Tories;
+very important Tories indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too,
+right to the centre of the cerebellum; the Flammas
+were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
+girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a
+wilful and rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who
+would not be a Flamma, had imbibed all the
+Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To her the Pamments were the incarnation of
+everything detestable, of oppression, obstruction,
+and medi&aelig;val darkness. She knew nothing of
+politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to
+feel vehemently, you feel vehemently without knowing.
+Still, she had heard a good deal about the
+Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>She resented being brought there to admire the
+pleasure grounds and mansion, and to kow-tow to
+the grandeur of these medi&aelig;val tyrants.</p>
+
+<p>Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth
+lawn before the front windows; three centuries of
+mowing had made it as smooth as the top of his
+own head, where the years had mown away merrily.</p>
+
+<p>There was not so much as a shrub&mdash;not a daisy&mdash;between
+them and the great windows of the
+house. They stood in full view.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen
+was her vexation; her cheeks reddened. She was
+obliged to face the house, but her glance was
+downwards; she would not look at it.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory.
+In all Woolhorton town there was not another man
+who could do as he was doing at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally
+exclusive even for high class Tories. Their
+gardens, and lawns, and grounds were jealously
+surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned
+houses of the street beneath them. No one dared
+to so much as peer through a crevice of the mighty
+gates. Their persons were encircled with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed
+proprietor. No one dared speak to a Pamment.
+They acknowledged no one in the town, not even
+the solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey
+church; that was on account of ritual differences.</p>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, whispered&mdash;high treason must
+always be whispered&mdash;that young Pamment, the
+son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and
+had been known to be effusive towards ladies of
+low birth&mdash;and manners.</p>
+
+<p>The great leaders of Greece&mdash;Alcibiades, Aristides,
+and so on&mdash;threw open their orchards to the
+people. Everyone walked in and did as he chose.
+These great leaders of England&mdash;the Pamments&mdash;shut
+up their lawns and pleasure-grounds, sealed
+them hermetically, you could hardly throw a stone
+over the walls if you tried.</p>
+
+<p>But Grandfather Iden walked through those
+walls as if there were none; he alone of all Woolhorton
+town and country.</p>
+
+<p>In that gossipy little town, of course, there
+were endless surmises as to the why and wherefore
+of that private key. Shrewd people said&mdash;"Ah!
+you may depend they be getting summat out of
+him. Lent 'em some of his guineas, a' reckon.
+They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
+they gentlefolks."</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed:
+he wandered about the lawns, he looked in at the
+conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if it
+pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+stepped indoors occasionally and sat down on the
+carved old chairs, or pottered about the picture
+gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded
+door in the wall by the Abbey church, and he
+looked upon that key very much as if it had been
+the key of Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at
+Pamment House he was the proudest and happiest
+man in what they sarcastically call "God's creation."</p>
+
+<p>He was a peer at such moments; a grandee&mdash;the
+grandee who can wear his hat or sit down
+(which is it? it is most important to be accurate)
+in the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign;
+he could actually step on the same sward pressed
+by the holy toes of the Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>In justice to him it must be said that he was
+most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight
+of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he
+rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented
+paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself
+under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a
+Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
+that he was literally dandled and fondled like an
+infant, begged to come in, and take wine, and so
+so, and so so.</p>
+
+<p>In justice to old Iden let it be known that he
+was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid
+himself under the fig trees.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years&mdash;a
+man of no common intelligence&mdash;a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in this
+nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a
+worship. Incredible as it may seem it is certainly
+true.</p>
+
+<p>Such loyalty in others of old time, remember,
+seems very beautiful when we read of the devotion
+that was shown towards Charles Stuart.</p>
+
+<p>With all his heart and soul he worshipped the
+very ground the Pamments trod on. He loved to
+see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
+home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow,
+thunder, ninety years notwithstanding, he always
+attended that he might bow his venerable head to
+them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
+faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in
+return.</p>
+
+<p>He was quite happy in his pew if he could see
+them at their carved desks in the chancel; the
+organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
+sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity
+and heavenly presence was diffused around.</p>
+
+<p>Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated
+it. Her Flamma foot tapped the sacred sward.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with
+his silk handkerchief, began to point with his
+cudgel&mdash;a big hockey stick&mdash;at the various parts of
+the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated
+from James II., that went back to Henry VII.,
+there were walls and foundations far more ancient
+still, out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Really, it was a very interesting place arch&aelig;ologically,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+if only you could have got rid of the
+Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling
+history. Iden thought she was listening intently.
+At the conclusion he was just moving her&mdash;for she
+was passive now, like a piece of furniture&mdash;when
+he spied some one at a window.</p>
+
+<p>Off came the great white hat, and down it swept
+till the top brushed the grass in the depth of his
+homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
+a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the
+gentleman, so thoroughly courtier-like, and yet
+honest. There was nothing to smile at in that
+bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia
+who could bow in that way, for, in truth, we have
+forgotten how to bow in this generation.</p>
+
+<p>A writing and talking is always going on about
+the high place woman occupies in modern society,
+but the fact is, we have lost our reverence for
+woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing
+more, mere sham. We don't venerate woman,
+and therefore we don't bow.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any
+woman's heart had it been addressed to her, for
+there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
+desire to please in it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HE man he had seen at the window was
+young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
+heir.</div>
+
+<p>He had been sitting in an easy chair,
+one leg over the arm, busy with a
+memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered
+heap of telegrams, letters, and newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of
+human lion's mouth for post-cards, but Raleigh
+junior had not got to manage the House of Commons,
+the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South
+Africa, the Nile, Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar,
+shipping, and Homer.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside
+him, from which the letters, telegrams, newspapers,
+and scraps of paper had overflowed on to the floor.
+In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen
+clerks to answer that correspondence; this idle
+young aristocrat answered it himself, entered it in
+his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced the&mdash;the
+residue.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him&mdash;nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+in the least like those gentlemen who consider
+that to go in to the "office" every morning
+is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike
+young fellow.</p>
+
+<p>A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on
+another chair beside him, a glass of whiskey for a
+paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle, lounging,
+"bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
+writ very large indeed on his broad face.
+In short, a young "gent" of the latter half of the
+nineteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere;
+not even in the cut of his coat, no Brummel-like
+elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at all&mdash;rough,
+large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the
+door of a shop he would have done very well indeed
+for a shopkeeper, the sort that drives about in a
+cart for orders.</p>
+
+<p>Of his character nothing could be learned from
+his features. His face was broad, rather flat, with
+a short but prominent nose; in spite of indulgence,
+he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck
+was thick, his figure stout, his hands big&mdash;a jovial,
+good-tempered looking man.</p>
+
+<p>His neck was <i>very</i> thick, tree-like; a drover's
+neck, no refinement or special intelligence indicated
+there; great power to eat, drink, and sleep&mdash;belly
+energy.</p>
+
+<p>But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members
+of the upper ten thousand are any thicker in
+the neck, or more abdominal in their proclivities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+or beneath the culture of the day. Take five
+hundred "blue bloods," and you will find among
+them a certain proportion of thick-necked people;
+take five hundred very common commoners, and
+you may count exactly the same number interspersed.</p>
+
+<p>The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable
+to be born big, with broad faces, thick necks, and
+ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to Raleigh, that
+jolly neck of his.</p>
+
+<p>Unless you are given to &aelig;sthetic crockery, or
+Francesco de Rimini, I think you would rather
+have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
+you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer,
+or his credit&mdash;humph!&mdash;at a moment's
+notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
+whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.</p>
+
+<p>He got rid of money in a most surprising way,
+and naturally had nothing to show for it. The
+wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
+London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the
+mysteries of the skies. It slips, it slides, it glides,
+it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the pocket. The
+nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a
+sovereign will leap forth in town.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented
+by soft aunts, yet he frequently walked for lack of
+a cab fare. <i>I</i> can't blame him; I should be just
+as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now
+to walk down Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up
+Bond Street, and so on, in a widening circle, with
+a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+all your own, and no need to worry when it was
+gone. To look in at all the shops and pick up
+something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
+have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have
+a bit of real old oak furniture; I'll go to Paris&mdash;"
+but Paris is not a patch on London. To take a
+lady&mdash;<i>the</i> lady&mdash;to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread
+the silks of the earth before her feet, and see the
+awakening delight in her eyes and the glow on her
+cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a diamond
+brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended
+you years since in time of financial need;
+to get a new gun, and inquire about the price of a
+deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now
+and then with a sip of Moet&mdash;but only one sip, for
+your liver's sake&mdash;just to brighten up the imagination.
+And so onwards in a widening circle, as
+sun-lit fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey,
+could C&aelig;sar with all his legions, could Lucullus
+with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such pleasure
+as this&mdash;just to spend money freely, with a jolly
+chuckle, in the streets of London? What is
+Mahomet's Paradise to <i>that</i>?</p>
+
+<p>The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance,
+no counting&mdash;anathemas on counting and
+calculation! If life be not a dream, what is the
+use of living?</p>
+
+<p>Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle
+on in hope of living in a dream some day. This
+is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
+not, in an age that preaches thrift and&mdash;twaddle?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+No joy like waste in London streets; happy
+waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
+butterfly!</p>
+
+<p>Besides, there's no entertainment in the world
+like the streets of London on a sunny day or a gas-lit
+night. The shops, the carriages, the people, the
+odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and
+fro of folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into
+shadowy corners, the dresses, the women; dear me,
+where shall we get to? At all events, the fact
+remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment
+in the world is a lounge in London streets.
+Theatres, concerts, s&eacute;ances, Albert Halls, museums,
+galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
+weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce
+would care to go and gaze at them again who could
+lounge in Piccadilly?</p>
+
+<p>It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in
+May; fifty pounds sometimes at 1 p.m., merely to
+look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
+this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go
+to the opera; for me, the streets.</p>
+
+<p>So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had
+a hatful of money, and could and did just what
+seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
+like water, and in order to get further supplies, the
+idle, good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime
+minister with telegrams, letters, newspapers, and
+so on, worked like a prime minister&mdash;at betting.
+Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
+memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+the telegrams, kept flat with a glass of whiskey as
+a paper-weight.</p>
+
+<p>While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up
+his chances, a loud refrain of snoring arose from
+the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of
+the fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend
+Freddie, becoming oppressed with so much labour,
+had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
+on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it
+went on the carpet. With one long leg stretched
+out, the other knee up, lying on his back, and his
+mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed
+again. Freddie boomed away on the sofa. The
+family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got
+down here in this way: it happened one night there
+was a row at a superb bar, Haymarket trail. The
+"chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
+in the general mel&eacute;e Raleigh distinguished himself.
+Rolled about by the crowd, he chanced to find himself
+for a moment in a favourable position, and
+punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty
+severely.</p>
+
+<p>Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was
+strong in the arm, he was "up," and he hit hard.
+The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
+cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur
+twice in a lifetime; Raleigh's genius seized the
+opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
+a trifle to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and
+there are mighty men who do not figure in the
+papers.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh became at once an anaxandron&mdash;a King
+of Men. The history of his feat spread in ten
+minutes from one end of midnight London to the
+other: from the policeman in Waterloo Place to&mdash;everywhere.
+Never was such a stir; the fall of
+Sebastopol&mdash;dear me! I can remember it, look at
+the flight of time&mdash;was nothing to it. They would
+have chaired him, <i>f&ecirc;ted</i> him, got a band to play him
+about the place, literally crowned him with laurel.
+Ave, C&aelig;sar! Ev&oelig;! Bacchus! But they could not
+find him.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in
+at the death, and was well "blooded." Hansom to
+Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
+through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad
+gauge, and they had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a
+moment; having got the glory, the next thing was
+to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he slipped
+out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the
+excitement of the campaign had subsided.</p>
+
+<p>In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight
+battle, I may as well label the account at
+once: "This is a goak."</p>
+
+<p>I do <i>not</i> approve of brawls at the bar, but I have
+set myself the task to describe a bit of human life
+exactly as it really is, and I can assure you as a
+honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+a very great man indeed among people as
+they really are. People as they really are, are not
+all Greek scholars.</p>
+
+<p>As I don't wish you to look down upon poor
+Raleigh too much because he smoked a cutty,
+and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent
+his money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and
+was altogether wicked, I may as well tell you something
+in his favour: He was a hero to his valet.</p>
+
+<p>"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb,
+not even Napoleon, Disraeli, or Solomon.</p>
+
+<p>But Raleigh <i>was</i> a hero to his valet.</p>
+
+<p>He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he
+had perfectly fascinated him. The instant he was off
+duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself. He
+put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in
+fact, he dressed himself Raleigh all over. His
+private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so was his
+necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the
+same shop; so were his boots. He kept a sovereign
+loose in his waistcoat pocket, because that
+was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He
+smoked a cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies&mdash;just
+like Raleigh, "the very ticket"&mdash;he had his
+betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
+"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine
+photographs of fine women. He swore in Raleigh's
+very words, and used to spit like him; Raleigh, if
+ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of
+twisting up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs.
+In town Nobbs went to the very same bars (always,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
+same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the
+tiniest detail. Why, Raleigh very rarely wound
+up his watch&mdash;careless Raleigh; accordingly, Nobbs'
+watch was seldom going. "And you just look
+here," said Nobbs to a great and confidential friend,
+after they had done endless whiskies, and smoked
+handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I
+was <i>he</i>, and had lots of chink, and soft old parties
+to get money out of as easy as filling yer pipe, by
+Jove! wouldn't <i>I</i> cut a swell! I'd do it, <i>I</i> would.
+I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I
+rather guess I would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I
+put a thou on the Middle Park Plate? Ah!
+wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I
+have heaps of wimmen; some in the trap, and some
+indoors, and some to go to the theatre with&mdash;respectable
+gals, I mean&mdash;crowds of 'em would come
+if Raleigh was to hold up his finger. Guess I'd
+fill this old shop (the Pamment mansion) choke full
+of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like
+to fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the
+nose, like <i>he</i> did! Oh, my! Oh, Tommy!" And
+Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
+"he."</p>
+
+<p>Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a
+Demi-god to his valet! Not only Nobbs, but the
+footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
+servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of
+Raleigh looked upon him as the Ideal Man. So
+did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+the races, and all over town and country, all of that
+sort who knew anything of Raleigh sighed to be
+like "he."</p>
+
+<p>The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to
+his valet" seemed to suppose that the world worships
+good and divine qualities only. Nothing of
+the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and
+coarse and blackguard part the mass of people
+regard with such deep admiration.</p>
+
+<p>If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt
+whatever he would have "done it" very big indeed.
+But he would have left out of his copy that part of
+Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and
+the cutty, and the rest of it, made him still a perfect
+gentleman at heart. Nobbs didn't want to be a
+perfect gentleman.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;">
+<img src="images/i-063.png" width="235" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/g.png" width="120" height="120" alt="G" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>LANCING up from his betting-book,
+Raleigh caught sight of someone on the
+lawn, and went to the window to see
+who it was.</div>
+
+<p>It was then that Grandfather Iden
+raised his great grey hat, and brought it with so
+lowly a sweep down to the very ground before
+this demi-god of his.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging
+him off the sofa. "Here's the Behemoth."</p>
+
+<p>"The Behemoth&mdash;the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently,
+still half asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd
+show him to you some day. That's the Behemoth."</p>
+
+<p>Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or
+white wild cattle, or strange creatures of that sort,
+in their parks as curiosities. The particular preserve
+of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden&mdash;antediluvian
+Iden&mdash;in short, the Behemoth.</p>
+
+<p>It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on
+show.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's a girl with him," said Fred.</p>
+
+<p>"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up,"
+ringing the bell. And he ordered the butler to
+fetch old Iden in.</p>
+
+<p>How thoroughly in character with Human Life
+it was that a man like Grandfather Iden&mdash;aged,
+experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
+books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage
+to Raleigh Pamment!</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Wherefore come ye not to court?<br />
+Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.<br />
+Chattering fools and wise men listening."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed&mdash;his
+head was as bare as Mont Blanc&mdash;and, with
+many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's wishes.
+The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his
+slobbery old mouth in the excess of his glorification,
+takes Amaryllis by the arm, and proceeds to
+draw her towards the mansion.</p>
+
+<p>"But, grandpa&mdash;grandpa&mdash;really I'd rather not
+go. Please, don't make me go. No&mdash;no&mdash;I can't,"
+she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
+willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold,
+no, not for a crown of gold, as the old song says
+unctuously.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be
+afraid of"&mdash;mistaking her hesitation for awe.</p>
+
+<p>"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment.
+"Afraid! I don't want to go."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+the butler in his most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment
+so very particularly wished to see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Come&mdash;come," said old Iden, "don't be silly,"
+as she still hung back. "It's a splendid place
+inside&mdash;there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and so
+the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler
+very, very gently pressing her forward the other,
+they persuaded, or rather they moved Amaryllis
+onward.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had
+half a mind to break loose&mdash;easy enough to over-turn
+the two old fogies&mdash;but&mdash;how soon "but"
+comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She
+remembered her father. She remembered her
+mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
+further she could perhaps contrive to keep her
+grandfather in good humour and open the way to a
+reconciliation.</p>
+
+<p>So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican
+blood seething like molten metal in her
+veins, stepped across the hated threshold of the
+ancient and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>But we have all heard about taking the horse to
+water and finding that he would not drink. If you
+cannot even make a horse, do you think you are
+likely to <i>make</i> a woman do anything?</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly
+enough now, but she would not see or hear; he
+pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the
+old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where
+John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII., was seized for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly on
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet
+more highly pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in
+another room, not the whiskey-room; he met old
+Iden literally with open arms, taking both the old
+gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden
+tottered, and tears came into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would
+not raise her glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked
+over Raleigh's shoulder. "Very raw piece."</p>
+
+<p>To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."</p>
+
+<p>"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries&mdash;fond of
+pictures&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as
+much as to say, "you may."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>"Hum&mdash;let's see&mdash;books&mdash;library&mdash;carvings.
+Come, Mr. Iden, you know the place better than I
+do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar&mdash;I've forgotten
+my Greek. What would you like to show
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>is</i> fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly
+flattered that he should be thought to know the
+house better than the heir. "She is fond of pictures;
+she's shy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing
+blood seemed to stifle her. She could have cried
+out aloud; her pride only checked her utterance.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her
+face, led on upstairs, down the corridors, and into
+the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
+took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of
+an old Master.</p>
+
+<p>Holding his great grey hat (which he would not
+give up to the butler) at arm's-length and pointing,
+the old man began to show Amaryllis the beauties
+of the picture.</p>
+
+<p>"A grand thing&mdash;look," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh.
+"Come this side."</p>
+
+<p>She did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Go that side," said Iden.</p>
+
+<p>No movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood
+there, gazing down still.</p>
+
+<p>"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily&mdash;above
+the canvas, and then again at the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair
+as they stood together; Amaryllis gazing downwards,
+Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a possible
+alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind;
+only consider, intermarriage between the Pamments
+and the Idens! Much more improbable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+things have happened; even without the marriage
+license the connection would be an immense honour.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most
+certainly have sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own
+flesh and blood, joyously and intentionally to his
+worship of the aristocrat.</p>
+
+<p>If she could not have been the wife he would
+have forced her to be the mistress.</p>
+
+<p>There is no one so cruel&mdash;so utterly inhuman&mdash;as
+an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have
+long been dead words.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly.
+"Is it not noble?"</p>
+
+<p>"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her
+large, dark eyes at last and looking her grandfather
+in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great
+white hat, his sunken cheeks flushing. It was not
+so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
+rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>"Smoky," he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Smoky and&mdash;dingy," said Amaryllis. She
+had felt without actually seeing that Raleigh's gaze
+had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
+had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or
+so offends a woman.</p>
+
+<p>Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to
+give offence&mdash;on the contrary he had been singularly
+pleasant, respectfully pleasant&mdash;but she remembered
+the fellow staring at her from the window at the
+"Lamb" and it biased her against him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+wished to treat him, and his pictures, and his place
+altogether with marked contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I
+will leave now, if you please," and she moved towards
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands
+and tottering after her. "Stop! I order you to
+stop! you rude girl!"</p>
+
+<p>He could not catch her, she had left the gallery&mdash;he
+slipped in his haste on the polished floor.
+Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
+fallen, and at the same time presented him with his
+great white hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked
+and slobbered and mumbled, and I verily believe had
+it not been for his veneration of the place he would
+have spat upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook
+her at the staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily
+descended. "Really I should have liked you to
+have seen the house&mdash;will you sit down a moment?
+Forgive me if I said or did&mdash;&mdash;. No, do stay&mdash;please&mdash;"
+as she made straight for the hall. "I
+am so sorry&mdash;really sorry&mdash;unintentional"&mdash;in fact
+he had done nothing, and yet he was penitent. But
+she would not listen, she hurried on along the path,
+she began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her,
+still begging her to pause; Amaryllis ran at last
+outright. "At least let me see you through the fair&mdash;rough
+people. Let me open the door&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a
+spring lock, and for a moment she could not unfasten
+it; she tore at it and grazed her hand, the
+blood started.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly
+upset. "Let me bind it up," taking out his handkerchief.
+"I would not have had this happen for
+money"&mdash;short for any amount of money. "Let
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting,
+not with the run, which was nothing to her, but
+pent-up indignation, and still trying to open the
+lock.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung
+open&mdash;he could easily have detained her there, but
+he did not. "One moment, pray&mdash;Miss Iden."
+She was gone down the passage between the Abbey
+church and the wall; he followed, she darted out
+into the crowd of the fair.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/i-008.png" width="100" height="67" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-064.png" width="500" height="89" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond
+measure, vexation biting deep
+lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured
+face.</div>
+
+<p>"That I should have been such a
+fool&mdash;an infernal blockheaded fool&mdash;" shutting the
+iron-studded door with a kick and a clang&mdash;"muddle-headed
+fool&mdash;I'll never touch a drop of
+whiskey again&mdash;and that jackass, Fred&mdash;why, she's&mdash;"
+a lady, he would have said, but did not dare
+admit to himself now that he had thought to ask
+her in to "wake us up." "But what did I do?
+Can't think what annoyed her. Must have been
+something between her and that tedious old Iden.
+Quite sure I didn't do or say&mdash;&mdash;" but still he
+could not quiet his conscience, for if he had not by
+deed or word, he knew he had in thought.</p>
+
+<p>He had sent for her as he might have done for
+any of the vulgar wenches in the fair to amuse an
+idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+Amaryllis Iden. Her features were not beautiful,
+as general ideas go, nor had her form the grace of
+full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by
+a master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression
+her nature had made upon him.</p>
+
+<p>It is not the particular cast of features that
+makes a man great, and gives him a pre-eminence
+among his fellows. It is the character&mdash;the mind.</p>
+
+<p>A great genius commands attention at once by
+his presence, and so a woman may equally impress
+by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
+asserts itself in subtle ways.</p>
+
+<p>I don't say for certain that it was her character
+that impressed Raleigh&mdash;it might have been nothing
+of the sort, it might have been <i>because it was
+so</i>, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate.
+These things do not happen by "why and because."</p>
+
+<p>Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose
+a whiskey-sipping, cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing,
+bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh could
+by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But
+whiskey, cutty, horse, and bar were not the real
+man, any more than your hat is your head, they
+were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all
+the same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely
+more generous than some very respectable
+folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and grind
+down their clerks and dependents to the edge of
+starvation.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such
+as the pew-haunting Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+he was not in love: at all events he was highly
+excited.</p>
+
+<p>Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following
+Amaryllis by representing that Raleigh would
+be sure to bring her back. The butler, who was
+very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped
+out a bottle of champagne and handed him a
+brimming glass. The old gentleman, still mouthing
+and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank,
+and spluttered again, and refusing a second, would
+go, and so met Raleigh in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man,
+and on his part the old man tried at one and the
+same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
+and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently
+neither of them heard or understood the other.</p>
+
+<p>But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering
+the rough crowd in the fair, despatched
+the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
+now growing dusky as the evening came on.</p>
+
+<p>Without more ado, this young gentleman then
+set to and swore at Fred for half an hour straight
+ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
+what on earth had turned his brain; next, being
+equally hot-tempered, he swore in reply; then there
+followed some sharp recriminations (for each knew
+too much of the other's goings on not to have
+plenty of material), and finally they sparred. Two
+or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having nothing
+to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried
+himself in the papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+out into the fair. Thus there was tribulation in the
+great house of the Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer
+him through the crowd quietly enough, because it
+flattered him to be thus taken care of before the
+world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted
+at the doorstep he slipped half-a-sovereign in the
+butler's hand&mdash;he could not offer less than gold to
+a Pamments' man&mdash;but once inside, his demeanour
+changed. He pushed away his housekeeper, went
+into his especial sitting-room, bolted the door,
+spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked
+the coals, grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke
+and smuts filled the stuffy little place.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by there was a banging of drawers&mdash;the
+drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened
+and shut sharply&mdash;writing-paper was flung on the
+table, and he sat down to write a letter with a
+scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered
+to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring,
+and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation
+in the house of the head of the Idens.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis meantime had got through the town
+by keeping between the booths and the houses.
+Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode up&mdash;he
+had been on the watch, thinking to talk with
+her as she walked home, but just as he drew rein to
+go slow and so speak, a heathen pig from the market
+rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the
+game by throwing him headlong.</p>
+
+<p>She did not see, or at least did not notice, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+hastening on, entered the fields. In coming to
+town that morning she had seen everything; now,
+returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no
+heed of anything; she was so absorbed that when
+a man&mdash;one of those she met going to the fair for
+the evening&mdash;turned back and followed her some
+way, she did not observe him. Finding that she
+walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased to pursue.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom had settled when she reached home,
+and the candles were lit. She gave her father the
+sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
+escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had
+the prize-guinea.</p>
+
+<p>"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me
+see," said Mrs. Iden.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;I lost it," said Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones.
+"Show it immediately."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't; I lost it."</p>
+
+<p>"Lost it!"</p>
+
+<p>And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger:
+a careless, wasteful hussy, an idle wretch; what
+did she do for her living that she could throw away
+spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say?
+how did she suppose they were to keep her, and she
+not earn the value of a bonnet-string? time she
+was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity she
+ate, and never could touch any fat&mdash;dear me, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+fine&mdash;bacon was not good enough for her&mdash;she could
+throw away spade-guineas.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her
+hat in her hand, her bosom heaving, her lips apart
+and pouting, not with indignation but sheer misery;
+her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness
+and sink till she stooped; she could not face
+them as she would have done others, because you
+see she loved them, and she had done her best that
+day till too sorely tried.</p>
+
+<p>The storm raged on; finally Iden growled
+"Better get out of sight." Then she went to her
+bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay
+down, and sobbed silently on the pillow, after
+which she fell asleep, quite worn out, dark circles
+under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
+tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at
+the fair two miles away was audible.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/i-009.png" width="150" height="107" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>o there was tribulation in three houses.
+Next morning she scarcely dared come
+in to breakfast, and opened the door
+timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to
+be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on
+taking her place, Iden carefully cut for her the
+most delicate slice of ham he could find, and removed
+the superfluous fat before putting it on her
+plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready
+for her&mdash;Amaryllis was fond of cream&mdash;and enriched
+the tea with it generously.</div>
+
+<p>"And what did you see at the fair?" asked
+Iden in his kindest voice, lifting up his saucer&mdash;from
+which he always drank&mdash;by putting his thumb
+under it instead of over, so that his thick little
+finger projected. He always sipped his tea in this
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said
+Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know; I did not see much of the
+fair," said Amaryllis, at a loss to understand the
+change of manner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden
+picked up a letter from the tea-tray and gave it to
+her daughter:</p>
+
+<p>"Read."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis read&mdash;it was from Grandfather Iden,
+furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his
+daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
+manners&mdash;an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better
+not show her face in his house again till she had
+been taught to know her position; her conduct was
+not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest
+idea how to behave herself in the presence of persons
+of quality.</p>
+
+<p>She put it down before she had finished the
+tirade of abuse; she did not look up, her face was
+scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>Iden laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said
+Mrs. Iden. "So glad you vexed him, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning
+a heroine. The grandfather's letter had done this.</p>
+
+<p>Iden never complained&mdash;never mentioned his
+father&mdash;but of course in his heart he bitterly felt
+the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
+and their child. He was a man who said the
+less the more he was moved; he gossiped freely
+with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet
+old woman. Not a word ever dropped from him
+of his own difficulties&mdash;he kept his mind to himself.
+His wife knew nothing of his intentions&mdash;he
+was over-secretive, especially about money matters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+in which he affected the most profound mystery,
+as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly aware
+they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.</p>
+
+<p>All the more bitterly he resented the manner
+in which Grandfather Iden treated him, giving
+away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and fourpenny
+bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities,
+leaving his own descendants to struggle
+daily with debt and insult.</p>
+
+<p>Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the
+insults of his petty creditors fretted him.</p>
+
+<p>He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become
+her grandfather's favourite; as the grandfather had
+thrown savage words at the girl, so much the more
+was added to the score against the grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop
+of Flamma blood in her veins&mdash;hated him above
+all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old Iden
+had in his youth been connected with the Flammas
+in business&mdash;hated him for his veneration of the
+aristocratic and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
+
+<p>She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the
+necessity of cultivating her grandfather's goodwill,
+and always abusing him&mdash;contradicting herself in
+the most natural manner.</p>
+
+<p>This letter had given them such delight, because
+it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the
+old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
+hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his
+scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money,
+he had had <i>one</i> good upset, that was something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis
+was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her
+father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
+Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for
+various reasons both father and mother grew warmer
+in delight at every fresh incident of her story.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Flamma Iden&mdash;revolutionary Flamma&mdash;detested
+the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle
+first, and next, because the grandfather paid them
+such court.</p>
+
+<p>Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque,
+and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty
+years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking
+them personally.</p>
+
+<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of
+the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and
+in and out the conservatories, as if that was the
+highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used
+often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the
+very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she
+would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a
+private key&mdash;you're every bit as silly really, only
+you haven't got the chance."</p>
+
+<p>However, from a variety of causes they agreed in
+looking on Amaryllis' disgrace as a high triumph
+and glory.</p>
+
+<p>So she was petted all the morning by both
+parties&mdash;a rare thing&mdash;and in the afternoon Iden
+gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to
+buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as
+she chose on herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet
+not without regret that she had increased the disagreement
+between her father and grandfather.
+She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the
+site of the fair, the children running along with
+bare brown feet. She went under the arch&aelig;ologically
+interesting gateway, and knocked at the door
+of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."</p>
+
+<p>Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin
+and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and
+miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession
+of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply
+for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at
+Christmas were not mended yet.</p>
+
+<p>Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and
+his foot measure in the other, very humbly and
+deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
+much trouble with the workmen, some were so
+tipsy, and some would not work; they were always
+demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
+in hand going off and leaving it half finished&mdash;shoemaker's
+tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could
+not get a workman, and then there was the competition
+of the ready-made boot from Northampton;
+really, it was most trying&mdash;it really was.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?"
+said Amaryllis, amused at the poor fellow's distress.
+"When <i>are</i> they going to be finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's
+mother, coming to help her son, "the fact is, he's just
+worried out of his life with his men&mdash;and really&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem to get on very well with your
+shoemaking, Mr. Wise," said the customer, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy
+manner, with a deep sigh, "the fact is, the
+men don't know their work as they used to, they
+spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs
+half done, and they're always drinking; the leather
+isn't so good as it used to be; the fact is," with a
+still deeper sigh, "<i>we can't make a boot</i>."</p>
+
+<p>At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think
+that people should have been in business two
+hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not
+make a boot!</p>
+
+<p>Her experience of life as yet was short, and she
+saw things in their first aspect; it is not till much
+later we observe that the longer people do one
+thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they
+cannot do it at all.</p>
+
+<p>She presently selected a pair for herself, 9<i>s.</i>,
+and another pair for her mother, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, leaving
+sixpence over; add sixpence discount for ready-money,
+and she was still rich with a shilling.
+Carrying the parcel, she went up the street and
+passed old Iden's door on elate instep, happy that
+she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
+happy to think she had the boots for her mother.
+Looking in at two or three dingy little shops, she
+fixed at last on one, and bought half-a-dozen of the
+very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
+fond. This finished the savings, and she turned
+quickly for home. The bloaters being merely bound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+round with one thin sheet of newspaper, soon imparted
+their odour to her hand.</p>
+
+<p>A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I
+hope, too ideal; I hope you will see now that I am
+not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
+Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the
+bloaters and the boots; a very sweet, true, and
+loving hand it was, in spite of the bloaters&mdash;one to
+kiss fervently.</p>
+
+<p>They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire
+of wood-coals, and while they cooked the mother
+tried her new boots, naturally not a little pleased
+with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood
+surged with gratitude; she would have given her
+girl the world at that moment. That she should
+have remembered her mother showed such a good
+disposition; there was no one like Amaryllis.</p>
+
+<p>"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!"
+with a gasp; and holding his handkerchief to his
+nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for the
+smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.</p>
+
+<p>They only laughed all the merrier over their
+supper.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/i-011.png" width="150" height="75" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/r.png" width="120" height="118" alt="R" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>IGHT at the top of the house there
+was a large, unfurnished room, which
+Amaryllis had taken as her own long
+since. It was her study, her thinking-room,
+her private chapel and praying-room, her one
+place of solitude, silence, and retirement.</div>
+
+<p>The days had gone on, and it was near the end
+of April. Coming up the dark stairs one morning,
+she found them still darker, because she had just
+left the sunshine. They were built very narrow,
+as usual in old country-houses, and the landing
+shut off with a door, so that when you were in them
+you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet&mdash;bare
+boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet
+their stairs; no handrail; the edges of the steps
+worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
+under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as
+if it had been nibbled by mice.</p>
+
+<p>Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis
+was in perfect darkness, but her feet knew the
+well-remembered way, and she came quickly to
+the top.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There were two great rooms running the whole
+length of the house: the first was a lumber-room,
+the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it was,
+in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was
+vague with bareness: a huge, square room, gaunt
+as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed, the
+floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small
+window, stood a table and tall-backed oaken chair,
+afar off, as it were, from the doorway&mdash;a journey to
+them across the creaking floor. On one side an
+old four-post bedstead of dark oak, much damaged,
+was placed by the wall; the sacking hung down in
+a loop, torn and decayed&mdash;a bedstead on which no
+one had slept these hundred years past. By the
+table there was, too, an ancient carved linen-press
+of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.</p>
+
+<p>These bits of rude furniture were lost in the
+vastness of space, as much as if you had thrown
+your hat into the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt
+down. She brought a handful of violets, fresh-gathered,
+to place in the glass which she kept there
+for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick
+wall, and formed a niche, where she always had a
+tumbler ready&mdash;a common glass tumbler, she could
+not afford a vase.</p>
+
+<p>They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of
+all, gathered while the nightingale was singing his
+morning song in the April sunshine&mdash;a song the
+world never listens to, more delicious than his evening
+notes, for the sunlight helps him, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+blue of the heavens, the green leaf, and the soft
+wind&mdash;all the soul of spring.</p>
+
+<p>White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of
+flower, tender and delicate, growing under the
+great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among
+the dry, brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked
+unless you know exactly where to go for them.
+She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
+for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen
+into the glass, but she hung them by their chins
+over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks in
+the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at
+the table, and rested her head on her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Except where she did this every day, and so
+brushed it, a thin layer of dust had covered the
+surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
+her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on
+the indiarubber, dust on the cake of Indian ink,
+dust invisible on the smooth surface of the pencils,
+dust in the little box of vine charcoal.</p>
+
+<p>The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around
+the house had shaken the pencil from her fingers&mdash;Siberian
+wolves they were, racing over the arid
+deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing
+in number and ferocity, ready to tear the
+very door down. There are no wolves like those
+debt sends against a house.</p>
+
+<p>Every knock at the door, every strange footstep
+up the approach, every letter that came, was like
+the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+stile, and put the letters unopened on the mantelshelf&mdash;a
+pile of bills over his head where he slept
+calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes,
+and cut trusses of hay, and go through <i>his</i> work
+to appearance unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis could not draw&mdash;she could not do it;
+her imagination refused to see the idea; the more
+she concentrated her mind, the louder she heard the
+ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered,
+bill-hooks can be wielded and faggots
+chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
+ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he
+can, and does, follow the plough, and finds, perhaps,
+some solace in the dull monotony of his labour.
+Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid
+imagination&mdash;a delicately-balanced organization,
+that almost lives on its ideas as veritable food&mdash;cannot
+do like this. The poet, the artist, the
+author, the thinker, cannot follow their plough;
+their work depends on a serene mind.</p>
+
+<p>But experience proves that they <i>do</i> do their
+work under such circumstances. They do; how
+greatly then they must be tortured, or for what a
+length of time they must have suffered to become
+benumbed.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked
+of Time. She could not sketch&mdash;that
+was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
+wanted was money. She could not read, that was
+not real; what was wanted was solid coin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and
+covered with dust, but she came every day to her
+flowers in the window-niche.</p>
+
+<p>She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of
+February and March, without a fire, disdainful of
+ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her
+warm young blood cared nothing for the cold, if
+only by enduring it she could assist those whom
+she loved.</p>
+
+<p>There were artists in the Flamma family in London
+who made what seemed to her large incomes,
+yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
+criticism, and who had never even sent a
+work to the Academy&mdash;never even tried to enter.
+Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it
+was well paid.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success
+as an artist, nor think to take the world by storm
+with her talent. Her one only hope was to get a
+few pounds now and then&mdash;she would have sold
+twenty sketches for ten shillings&mdash;to save her father
+from insult, and to give her mother the mere necessities
+of dress she needed.</p>
+
+<p>No thought of possible triumph, nor was she
+sustained by an overmastering love of art; she was
+inspired by her heart, not her genius.</p>
+
+<p>Had circumstances been different she would not
+have earnestly practised drawing; naturally she
+was a passive rather than an active artist.</p>
+
+<p>She loved beauty for its own sake&mdash;she loved
+the sunlight, the grass and trees, the gleaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
+listen to the running water was to her a dear delight,
+to the wind in the high firs, or caught in the
+wide-stretching arms of the oak; she rested among
+these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the
+body. The few good pictures she had seen pleased
+her, but did not rouse the emotion the sunlight
+caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not like
+the running stream. It said nothing&mdash;the stream
+was full of thought.</p>
+
+<p>No eager desire to paint like that or play like
+that was awakened by pictures or music; Amaryllis
+was a passive and not an active artist by nature.
+And I think that is the better part; at least, I
+know it is a thousand times more pleasure to me to
+see a beautiful thing than to write about it. Could
+I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things, and
+not writing.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or
+fame; to be silent in the sunshine was enough for
+her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
+talent&mdash;she drew at once without effort or consideration;
+it was not so much to her as it is to me
+to write a letter.</p>
+
+<p>The thought to make use of her power did not
+occur to her until the preceding Christmas. Roast
+beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery at
+Coombe Oaks&mdash;a sham and cold delusion, cold as
+snow. A "merry Christmas"&mdash;holly berries,
+mistletoe&mdash;and behind these&mdash;debt. Behind the
+glowing fire, written in the flames&mdash;debt; in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+sound of the distant chimes&mdash;debt. Now be merry
+over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash their
+teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in
+all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou
+owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly
+engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me
+that thou owest! This is the message from the
+manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
+<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-014.png" width="500" height="102" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>O Amaryllis went up into the gaunt,
+cold room at the top of the house, and
+bent herself seriously to drawing.
+There was no fireplace, and if there had
+been they could not have allowed her
+coals; coals were dear. It was quite an event
+when the horse and cart went to the wharf for coal.
+There was plenty of wood for the hearth&mdash;wood
+grew on the farm&mdash;but coal was money.</div>
+
+<p>The March winds howled round the corner of
+the old thatched house, and now and again tremendous
+rains blew up against the little western window
+near which she had placed her table. Through
+the silent cold of January, the moist cold of February,
+the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
+Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of
+nipped fingers and chilled feet.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she looked out of the window and
+watched Iden digging in the garden underneath,
+planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
+or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+out the furrows that the water might flow better&mdash;"trenching,"
+as he called it.</p>
+
+<p>The harder it rained the harder he worked at
+this in the open, with a sack about his shoulders
+like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter, the
+master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the
+water to the grass to get a larger crop of hay in
+June.</p>
+
+<p>Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat,
+he looked a woful figure as the heavy shower beat on
+his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
+father.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she went into the next room&mdash;the
+lumber-room&mdash;only lighted by a window on a level
+with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
+only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there,
+she could see him at the stile across the road, his
+hands behind his back, gossiping now with another
+farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an
+old woman carrying home a yoke of water from the
+brook.</p>
+
+<p>The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than
+the work in the cold rain; it seemed so incongruous,
+so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
+as she knew him.</p>
+
+<p>That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead,
+and his profile like Shakespeare, should stand
+there talk, talk, talking on the smallest hamlet
+topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded
+farmers, was to her a bewilderment and
+annoyance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She could not understand it, and she resented it.
+The real Iden she knew was the man of thought
+and old English taste, who had told her so much
+by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in
+features he resembled, and of the poets from Elizabethan
+days downwards. His knowledge seemed
+to be endless; there was no great author he had not
+read, no subject upon which he could not at least
+tell her where to obtain information. Yet she knew
+he had never had what is now called an education.
+How clever he must be to know all these things!
+You see she did not know how wonderful is the
+gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
+that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him;
+therefore his store was great.</p>
+
+<p>No other garden was planted as Iden's garden
+was, in the best of old English taste, with old English
+flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In summer
+time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a
+spot for a painter, loved and resorted to by every
+bird of the air. Of a bare old farmhouse he had
+made a beautiful home.</p>
+
+<p>Questions upon questions her opening mind had
+poured upon him, and to all he had given her an
+answer that was an explanation. About the earth
+and about the sea, the rivers, and living things;
+about the stars and sun, the comet, the wonders of
+the firmament, of geology and astronomy, of science;
+there was nothing he did not seem to know.</p>
+
+<p>A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that
+Ulysses of whom he read to her, and who, like that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
+was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why
+did he work in the rain under a sack? Why did
+he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
+idlers?</p>
+
+<p>It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot explain why it was so, any better than
+Amaryllis; I could give a hundred reasons, and
+then there would be no explanation&mdash;say partly
+circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which
+talent would tell, partly an indecision of character&mdash;too
+much thought&mdash;and, after all said and done,
+Fate.</p>
+
+<p>Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis
+felt her heart drooping, she knew not why,
+and went back to her drawing unstrung.</p>
+
+<p>She worked very hard, and worked in vain.
+The sketches all came back to her. Some of them
+had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
+carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had
+been folded wrongly, almost all smelt of tobacco.
+Neither illustrated papers, periodicals: neither
+editors nor publishers would have anything to do
+with them. One or two took more care, and returned
+the drawings quite clean; one sent a note
+saying that they promised well.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she
+wanted half a sovereign <i>now</i>. If a prophet assured
+a man that the picture he could not now dispose of
+would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years,
+what consolation would that be to him?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were all a total failure. So many letters
+could not be received in that dull place without
+others in the house seeing what was going on.
+Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the
+stairs&mdash;a shuffling, uncertain step&mdash;and her heart
+began to beat quicker, for she knew it was her
+mother. Somehow, although she loved her so
+dearly, she felt that there was not much sympathy
+between them. She did not understand her mother;
+the mother did not understand the daughter.
+Though she was working for her mother's sake,
+when she heard her mother's step she was ashamed
+of her work.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the
+room, drawing one foot along the floor in an aggravating
+way she had, she was not lame, and look out
+of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis,
+and say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never
+do anything. I've seen too much of it. Better
+come down and warm yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it
+seemed so inconsistent. Mrs. Iden blew up her
+husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
+round and discouraged her daughter for being
+enterprising, and this, too, although she was constantly
+talking about the superiority of the art
+employments of the Flammas in London to the
+clodhopper work around her.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother
+had gone downstairs again, and then the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+kept repeating themselves in her ear&mdash;"Never do
+no good at that, never do no good at that."</p>
+
+<p>If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we
+should find that Amaryllis was working for a mother
+of her own imagination, and not for the mother of
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing,
+feels the cold very much more than those who
+are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold in
+the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind
+came unchecked through the wire network of the
+window in the next room. But for that her
+generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the
+still colder wind of failure.</p>
+
+<p>She had no name&mdash;no repute, therefore had her
+drawings been equal to the finest ever produced
+they would not have been accepted. Until the
+accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.</p>
+
+<p>Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who
+on earth would attempt to win success by merit?
+That alone proves how correct the world is in its
+estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding
+fools. Succeed by merit!</p>
+
+<p>Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger,
+or the tallow-chandler rely on personal
+merit, or purely personal ability for making a business?
+They rely on a little capital, credit, and much
+push. The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and
+works next as a subordinate, his "footing" costs
+hundreds of pounds, and years of hard labour. The
+doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+can, he buys a practice. They do not rely on
+merit.</p>
+
+<p>The three fools&mdash;the author, the artist, and the
+musician&mdash;put certain lines on a sheet of paper and
+expect the world to at once admire their clever
+ideas.</p>
+
+<p>In the end&mdash;but how far is it to the end!&mdash;it is
+true that genius is certain of recognition; the steed
+by then has grown used to starvation, waiting for
+the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous
+men of business men of merit? are they all
+clever? are they geniuses? They do not exactly
+seem to be so.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path
+so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p>I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler,
+with a good steady income and no thought, than an
+author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into
+the tallow business.</p>
+
+<p>Until the accident of reputation chanced to come
+to her, Amaryllis might work and work, and hope
+and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
+watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the
+furrows in the rain, under his sack.</p>
+
+<p>She had not even a diploma&mdash;a diploma, or a
+certificate, a South Kensington certificate! Fancy,
+without even a certificate! Misguided child!</p>
+
+<p>What a hideous collection of frumpery they have
+got there at the Museum, as many acres as Iden's
+farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the "periods."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They
+have not even a single statue in the place. They
+would shrivel up in horror at a nude model. <i>They</i>
+teach art&mdash;miserable sham, their wretched art
+culminates in a Christmas card.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis had not even been through the South
+Kensington "grind," and dared to send in original
+drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
+see, pure clodhopper ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>Failure waited on her labours; the postman
+brought them all back again.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen
+the line which the very highest in the profession
+would probably have advised her to take. She
+drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old
+barn up the road, the hollow tree, the dry reeds,
+the birds, and chanticleer himself&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+High was his comb, and coral red withal,<br />
+In dents embattled like a castle wall.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not
+sketch; the fogger with his broad knife cutting
+hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the wheelbarrow
+munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a
+study for Teniers; the team coming home from
+plough&mdash;winter scenes, most of them, because it
+was winter time. There are those who would give
+fifty pounds for one of those studies now, crumpled,
+stained, and torn as they are.</div>
+
+<p>It was a complete failure. Once only she had a
+gleam of success. Iden picked up the sketch of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking at it,
+put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf.
+Amaryllis felt like the young painter whose
+work is at last hung at the Academy. His opinion
+was everything to her. He valued her sketch.</p>
+
+<p>Still, that was not money. The cold wind and
+the chill of failure still entered her garret study.
+But it was neither of these that at length caused
+the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked
+on and on, hoping against hope, undaunted, despite
+physical cold and moral check. It was the procession
+of creditors.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
+<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>TEADILY they came over from the town,
+dunning Iden and distracting Amaryllis
+in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps
+on the path to the door, the thump,
+thump with the fist (there was neither
+knocker nor bell, country fashion); more thumping,
+and then her mother's excuses, so oft repeated, so
+wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
+creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes,"
+or "He's gone to Green Hills." "Well, when will
+he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to
+know when this yer little account is going to be
+settled." Then a long narration of his wrongs,
+threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
+grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps
+departing.</div>
+
+<p>Very rude men came down from the villages
+demanding payment in their rough way&mdash;a raw,
+crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had
+long since exhausted his credit in the town; neither
+butcher, baker, draper, nor anyone else would let
+them have a shilling's-worth until the shilling had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+been placed on the counter. He had been forced
+lately to deal with the little men of the villages&mdash;the
+little butcher who killed once a fortnight; the
+petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
+Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first;
+coarse language and rudeness afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>One day, the village baker, having got inside
+the door as Mrs. Iden incautiously opened it, stood
+there and argued with her, while Amaryllis in the
+garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it
+up?"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll send it up."</p>
+
+<p>"He've a' said that every time, but it beant
+come yet. You tell un I be come to vetch it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Iden's not in."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bide till he be in."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful.
+It's nothing but cheating&mdash;that's what I calls
+it&mdash;to have things and never pay for um. It's
+cheating."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you say such a thing? How dare
+you insult my mother? Leave the house this
+moment!"</p>
+
+<p>And with both hands she literally pushed the
+man, unwilling, but not absolutely resisting, outside,
+grumbling as he moved that he never insulted
+nobody, only asked for his money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of
+hand, calculated to encourage the play of imagination!
+She could do nothing for hours afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was
+worse, because it lasted longer. First they talked
+by the potato-patch almost under the window;
+then they talked on the path; then they came
+indoors, and then there were words and grumbling
+sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
+they went out again and talked by the gate. At
+last the creditor departed, and Iden returned indoors
+to take a glass of ale and sit a moment till
+the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind.
+Mrs. Iden then had her turn at him: the old story&mdash;why
+didn't he do something? Amaryllis knew
+every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis
+could not think; how he could stand, and be argued
+with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
+the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in
+the road, she could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>The truth was he could not help himself; violence
+would have availed nothing. But to youth it
+seems as if a few blows are all that is needed to
+overcome difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Waller and Co., the tailor&mdash;he was his own Co.&mdash;walked
+over regularly once a week; very civil
+and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
+he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for
+Iden's coat was a pattern of raggedness, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby old hat
+rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound
+account two years overdue.</p>
+
+<p>Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his
+trap as he went by, at least twice a week, to chivey
+Iden about his money. Though he would not let
+them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever
+there was five shillings to spare for meat it
+was always taken into his shop, as it was better to
+have good meat there, if you had to pay cash
+for meat, than inferior in the village. One day,
+Amaryllis was waiting for some steak, side by side
+with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while
+Cobb served a grand lady of the town. "Yes,
+m'm&mdash;oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows, and
+scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness
+possible. When the fine lady had gone, "Lar,
+Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how different
+you do speak to <i>they</i> to what you do speak to <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed
+at having one manner for the poor and another for
+the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they require
+such a deal of <i>homage</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's,
+but that was not much pressed, only a large blue
+letter about once a month, as Beavan had a very
+good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs.
+Iden made excellent butter, which had a reputation,
+and Beavan took it all at about half-price. If it had
+been sold to anyone else he would have insisted on
+payment. So, by parting with the best butter in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+the county at half-price, they got their tea and
+sugar without much dunning.</p>
+
+<p>At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and
+strange in her manner, as if on the point of hysterics,
+from which Amaryllis divined something serious
+was approaching, though her mother would say
+nothing. So it turned out&mdash;a bailiff appeared, and
+took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was very
+civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and
+offered to help in any way he could. Iden gave
+him plenty of beer, for one thing. Amaryllis could
+not go into the kitchen&mdash;the dear old place seemed
+deserted while he was there.</p>
+
+<p>This woke up Iden for the moment. First there
+was a rummaging about in his old bureau, and a
+laborious writing of letters, or adding up of figures.
+Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath,
+clean linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed
+away these years past. In two hours or so Iden
+came down another man, astonishingly changed,
+quite a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome
+in Amaryllis's eyes. Indeed, he was really
+handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully so.
+If only he would always dress like that!</p>
+
+<p>Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations
+had so consumed the time that the bank
+was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and there
+was no means of raising any money that evening.
+The son passed the father's doorstep&mdash;the worn
+stone step, ground by the generations of customers&mdash;he
+saw the light behind the blind in the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+room where Grandfather Iden sat&mdash;he might, had
+he paused and listened, have heard the old man
+poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man&mdash;the
+son passed on, and continued his lonely walk
+home, the home that held a bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff
+in the kitchen, and there he remained the night,
+and was up and had lit the fire for Luce the servant
+before she was down. The man was certainly very
+civil, but still there was the shock of it.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning Iden went into town again,
+saw his solicitor, and got a cheque&mdash;it was only
+five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the bailiff
+left.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
+<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
+<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>UT his presence did not die out of the
+kitchen; they always seemed to feel as
+if he had been there. The hearth had
+been stained by a foreign foot, the very
+poker had been touched by a foreign
+hand, the rude form at the side by the wall had
+been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
+always been so fond of the kitchen&mdash;the oldest part
+of the house, two centuries at least. The wide
+hearth and immense chimney, up which, when the
+fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the
+stars; over which of a windy night you could imagine
+the witches riding by, borne on the deep
+howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun
+slung to it; the heavy oaken table, unpolished,
+greyish oak; the window in the thick wall, set
+with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls
+from which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the
+rude old place was very dear to her.</div>
+
+<p>Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the
+sitting-room, drawn by its antique homeliness.
+Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and
+apples, while the potatoes&mdash;large potatoes&mdash;Iden's
+selected specialities&mdash;were baking buried in the
+ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could
+see the white drift of snow against the window,
+which was on a level with the ground outside, and
+so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
+the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with
+saws, or, his fancy roaming on, of the broad and
+beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so admired
+in his youth, the river the poets will sing some
+day; or of his clinging aloft at night in the gale on
+the banks of Newfoundland, for he had done duty
+as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his
+youth, why did he gossip at the stile now in his full
+and prime of manhood?</p>
+
+<p>It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even
+then only those who have lived in the country and
+had practical experience could fully comprehend
+the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you
+are of a wholly sordid nature. Iden's nature was not
+sordid; the very reverse. The beginning, or one
+of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father
+and son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden
+could not forgive his son for making the place
+beautiful with trees and flowers.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and
+they had supper on the old and clumsy table, village
+made and unpolished, except in so far as the stains
+of cooking operations had varnished it, the same
+table at which "Jearje," the fogger, sat every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+morning to eat his breakfast, and every evening to
+take his supper. What matter? George worked
+hard and honestly all day, his great arms on the
+table, spread abroad as he ate, did not injure it.</p>
+
+<p>Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the
+snow without, floury and smoking; dabs of Mrs.
+Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and pepper, and
+there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
+pleasant&mdash;just a taste.</p>
+
+<p>They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts,
+sometimes a Flamma from London, sometimes
+an Iden from over the hill, or others were
+there. Iden was very hospitable&mdash;though most of
+his guests (family connections) were idle folk, no
+good to themselves or anybody, still they were
+made cordially welcome. But others, very high
+folk, socially speaking (for they had good connections,
+too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
+grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves
+most thoroughly on the rude Homeric fare.</p>
+
+<p>For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an
+open-handed generosity, a sense of reality about it;
+something really to eat, though no finger-glasses;
+Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it
+was the very centre of home. This strange man,
+this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her dearest
+emotions. His shadow remained on the wall
+though he had gone.</p>
+
+<p>They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it
+was weeks before the kitchen seemed to resume its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+former appearance. Jearje was the one who restored
+it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily
+at breakfast and at supper, it almost made them
+forget their troubles to see anyone so grateful and
+pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you,
+ma'am; dest about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"&mdash;locally
+the "d" and "j" were often interchangable,
+dest for jest, or just&mdash;"That'll be a' plenty
+for I, ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"&mdash;don't
+want more than I can eat, don't want to be greedy&mdash;"Thank
+you, miss; dest about some ripping
+good ale, this yer; that it be."</p>
+
+<p>He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the
+bacon, and the cheese, and the ale; he was like a
+great, big human dog; you know how we like to
+see a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his
+paws on our knees and laugh, as it were, with his
+eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
+women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him
+all the bones, literally and metaphorically, the actual
+bones of the meat, and any scraps there were, to
+take home with him (besides his regular meals),
+and now and then some trifles of clothing for his
+aged mother. The dog most thoroughly appreciated
+this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in it,
+grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of
+doors, and for much the same reason; his cheery
+content and willingness, and the absence of the
+usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked
+willingly and fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+another hour, or put his shoulder to the wheel of
+his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
+and not one minded to take advantage of him, was
+rewarded in many ways. Iden did not reduce his
+wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
+and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes,
+garden produce, or apples, and various other
+things from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition,
+Jearje was more like a retainer than a servant,
+or labourer; a humble member of the family.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and
+Mrs. Iden used often to watch him covertly, just
+for the amusement it gave them. He went about
+it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to
+plough; no attempt to caracole in the furrow, ready
+to stand still as long as you like.</p>
+
+<p>Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of
+beef; fat of mutton&mdash;anything they could not
+finish in the sitting-room; the overplus of cabbage
+or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices
+of bread and cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins
+full of tea&mdash;the cups were not large enough&mdash;and
+pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no
+matter what, Jearje ate steadily through it.</p>
+
+<p>A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden
+happened to want anything from the town ever so
+late, though George had worked hard the long day
+through from half-past five in the morning, off he
+would start, without sign of demur, five miles there
+and back, and come in singing with his burden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There are such, as George still among the labourer
+class, in despite of the change of circumstance and
+sentiment, men who would be as faithful as the
+faithfullest retainer who ever <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'acccompanied'">accompanied</ins> a
+knight of old time to the Crusade. But, observe,
+for a good man there must be a good master.
+Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot
+that his man was not a piece of mechanism, but
+flesh and blood and feelings.</p>
+
+<p>Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong
+arms abroad on the oaken table, warming his
+heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
+cheery word and smile, by his constant presence
+there slowly wore away the impression of the
+bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be itself
+again.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 107px;">
+<img src="images/i-017.png" width="107" height="135" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
+<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>UT all these shocks and worries and
+trampling upon her emotions made the
+pencil tremble in the artist's hand as
+she worked in the gaunt garret.</div>
+
+<p>One day, as she was returning from
+Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had
+borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse,
+and began to talk to her in his perky, affected,
+silly way. Of all the fools in Woolhorton town
+there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this
+namby-pamby fellow&mdash;it was wonderful how a man
+of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such
+a man, the more so as there was at least one good
+lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of
+the farming race; they will work like negroes in
+the field, and practise the utmost penury to save a
+little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest
+miser, and then go and trust their most important
+affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His
+father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
+with the firm, had a reputation about the era of
+Waterloo, and upon this tradition they carry their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+business to a man whom they admit themselves
+"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way,
+or worse, for there is no tradition even in this case,
+they will consign a hundred pounds' worth of milk
+to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent,
+a man of straw for aught they know, and never so
+much as go up to town to see if there is such a
+milk business in existence.</p>
+
+<p>This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about
+her father. "Now, don't you think, Miss Iden,
+you could speak to your father about these money
+matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he
+really is (the jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll
+be pounded. Now, don't you think you could talk
+to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"</p>
+
+<p>The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis
+more than the rudeness of the gruff baker who
+forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
+contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her
+father to be practical! The cleverest man in the
+world&mdash;advise him to be practical; as if, indeed,
+he was not practical and hard-working to the very
+utmost.</p>
+
+<p>To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil
+trembled in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>But what shook it most of all was anxiety about
+her mother. Ever since the bailiff's intrusion Mrs.
+Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
+would come downstairs after the rest had retired,
+and sit by the dying fire for hours alone, till Iden
+chanced to wake, and go down for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Once she went out of doors very late, leaving
+the front door wide open, and Amaryllis found her
+at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
+the ricks.</p>
+
+<p>At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes,
+and did not seem to see what she gazed at. At
+others she would begin to cry without cause, and
+gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma
+family were liable to certain affections of that kind,
+and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's system had
+been overstrained by these continual worries.</p>
+
+<p>Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried
+enough to have shaken the strongest; and, having
+nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish,
+and Amaryllis hoped that nothing would come of it,
+but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety lest
+some fresh trouble should happen to renew the
+strain.</p>
+
+<p>When she thought of her mother she could not
+draw&mdash;the sound of her shuffling, nervous footstep
+on the landing or the path outside under the
+window stopped her at once. These things disheartened
+her a thousand times more than the returned
+sketches the postman was always bringing.</p>
+
+<p>On butter-making mornings, once a week, there
+was always a great to-do; Mrs. Iden, like nervous
+people, was cross and peevish when she was exceptionally
+busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose.
+It chanced that Amaryllis one day was just
+opening an envelope and taking out a returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from
+Mrs. Iden's tongue, and, seeing the letter, began
+to growl:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire,
+and zee if you can't help your mother. Better do
+zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't a
+boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph!
+humph!" growl, mutter, growl. "Drow" was
+local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn"
+for earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may
+not be able to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool
+stuff, contrasted with the benefit and advantage of
+earning something&mdash;something real and solid&mdash;hit
+the artist very hard. That was the thought that
+troubled her so much, and paralysed her imagination.
+They were unsaleable&mdash;she saw the worthlessness
+of them far more than Iden. They were
+less in value than the paper on which they were
+traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire only.</p>
+
+<p>That was the very thought that troubled her so,
+and Iden hit the nail home with his rude speech.
+That was the material view; unless a thing be
+material, or will fetch something material, it is good
+for the fire only.</p>
+
+<p>So it came about that the portfolio was pushed
+aside, and dust gathered on it, and on the pencils,
+and the india-rubber, and in the little box of vine
+charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets
+in the tumbler of water in the window niche, sat
+down at the table and leant her head on her hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+and tried to think what she could do, as she had
+thought these many, many days.</p>
+
+<p>The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so
+real. Nothing in all the world at these moments
+seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
+round disk of gold which rules everything. The
+good that she could do with it&mdash;with just one of
+those golden disks!</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished
+scholar, the late Mr. Chenery (of <i>The Times</i>),
+translated twenty-six of his poems from the Arabic,
+and added most interesting notes. This curious
+book is a fusion of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes,
+and Rabelais. There is the magical unexpectedness
+of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities,
+all is vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of
+the French satirist. Wisdom is scattered about it;
+at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
+the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently
+laugh at a deep jest.</p>
+
+<p>Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because
+he sang of the dinar, the Arabian sovereign, the
+double-faced dinar, the reverse and the obverse,
+head and tail, one side giving everything good, and
+the other causing all evil. For the golden disk
+has two sides, and two Fates belong to it. First
+he chants its praises:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem2'>
+How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,<br />
+Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.<br />
+Told abroad are its fame and repute:<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;<br />
+Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;<br />
+Its bright look is loved by mankind,<br />
+As though it had been molten of their hearts.<br />
+By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,<br />
+Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.<br />
+Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;<br />
+Charming are its sufficiency and help.<br />
+How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!<br />
+How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it, would be endless!<br />
+How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!<br />
+How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!<br />
+How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,<br />
+Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has softened.<br />
+How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,<br />
+Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.<br />
+Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,<br />
+Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer
+exactly to this poem of the Arabian written in the
+days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure, it
+travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as
+here, it is famous and has a reputation, the inscription
+on it is the mark of its worth, it is the sinew
+of war, the world loves its brightness as if it was
+coined from their hearts, those who have it in their
+purses are bold, it helps every one who has it, it
+banishes all cares, and one might say, were it not for
+fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all mighty.</p>
+
+<p>All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis
+thinking in her garret, leaning her head on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
+good&mdash;if only she could get the real solid, golden
+sovereign!</p>
+
+<p>But the golden coin has another side&mdash;the obverse&mdash;another
+Fate, for evil, clinging to it, and
+the poet, changing his tone, thunders:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem2'>
+Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,<br />
+The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!<br />
+It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it,<br />
+The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.<br />
+Affection for it, think they who judge truly,<br />
+Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.<br />
+But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;<br />
+Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;<br />
+Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;<br />
+Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that withholds;<br />
+Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.<br />
+Moreover the worst quality that it possesses<br />
+Is that it helps thee not in straits,<br />
+Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.<br />
+Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,<br />
+And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a lover,<br />
+Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,<br />
+"I have no mind for intimacy with thee,&mdash;begone!"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to
+this day, and could Amaryllis have obtained the
+sovereign, still it would only have helped her by passing
+from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
+fleeing like a runaway slave.</p>
+
+<p>But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of
+her father and mother, saw only the good side of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+the golden sovereign, only that it was all powerful
+to bless.</p>
+
+<p>How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that
+young and fresh and full of generous feelings as
+she was, her whole mind should perforce be taken
+up with the question of money; an unnatural and
+evil state of things.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
+<img src="images/i-018.png" width="141" height="285" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside
+and dust had gathered on the table, except
+where her arm touched it, Amaryllis
+came daily, and often twice a day,
+to her flowers to pray.</div>
+
+<p>From the woods she brought the delicate primrose
+opening on the mossy bank among the grey
+ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of hawthorn
+coming before the swallow; the garden
+crocus from the grass of the garden; the first green
+spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the beautiful
+white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April
+morning while the nightingale sang.</p>
+
+<p>With these she came to pray each day, at the
+window-niche. After she had sat awhile at the
+table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt
+at the window with her face in her hands; the scent
+of the violets filled her hair.</p>
+
+<p>Her prayer was deeper than words and was not
+put in language, but came rushing through her
+heart;&mdash;"That her dear mother might not suffer any
+more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+removed from her mind, that peace and rest might
+come to her in her old age. Let her step become
+firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes
+shine like they used to, so clear and bright, and do
+not let the grey hairs show more than they do
+now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be
+happy and talk cheerfully, and take an interest in
+the house and all the order of household things,
+and also see and understand that her husband
+meant to please her, even in such a little thing as
+splitting up useful wood for the fire, that he intended
+to please her, and that she might not misunderstand
+him any more. He intended to be
+kind in many ways, but misfortune had blinded her,
+and she took things the wrong way. And give
+her more change and friends to ask her out from
+home on visits, so that she might be amused, and
+make them come to see her and pass the time in
+contentment. Give her also enough money to buy
+good clothes so as to look nice as she ought to
+do, and if possible a conveyance of some kind&mdash;not
+a grand carriage, she did not wish for that&mdash;but a
+conveyance to drive about now and then, because
+she was not so strong as she used to be, and could
+not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let
+me be able to give her a watch, for other people
+have watches, and my mother has not got one, and
+it does seem so strange it should be so after all the
+hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some
+nice things to eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot
+eat our plain bacon now every day, she has not got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I should
+so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her
+food might do her more good. But what I really
+want is that she may be happy, and be like my mother
+herself really is when she is herself. Give my
+father money enough to pay his creditors, for I know
+that though he is so quiet and says nothing, these
+debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
+to pay them, and does not willingly keep them
+waiting. He is so patient, and so good, and bears
+everything, I am sure no one was ever like him, and
+it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every
+day from five o'clock in the morning, and yet to be
+always worried with these debts and people that
+will not let him have peace one single day. Do,
+please, let him have less work to do, it makes
+me miserable to see him in the rain, and he is not
+young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy
+things, great pieces of timber and large trusses of
+hay, and making his back ache digging. Surely
+it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
+he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can
+see quite so well as he used to, because he holds the
+paper so close to his eyes. Please let him leave
+off working soon now and have some rest and
+change, and go about with my mother, and when
+he is at home not have anything more to do than
+his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him
+love the flowers again as he used to, and plant some
+more, and have nothing harder to do than to gather
+the fruit from the trees he has planted. And let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+me get him some new books to read, because I
+know he is so fond of books; he has not had a new
+book for so long. Let him go to London and see
+people and things, and life, because I know he is
+full of ideas and thoughts though he works and
+digs, and that is what would do him good. Give
+him some money now at last, now he has worked all
+these years, forty years on this farm, and ever so
+much work before that; do give him some money
+at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and
+not so harsh for the rent, let him give the place to
+my father now, for it can be no use to him; let my
+father have it for his very own, and then I think he
+would be happy after all, he does so like to improve
+things and make them beautiful, and if it was his
+very own there is so much that he could do. That
+would be nice work and work that he would enjoy
+doing, and not just to get a few wretched shillings
+to pay other people. I am sure he would never be
+cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
+and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody
+like him, as you know, in this place; they are not
+clever like him, and good to the labouring men and
+their families like he is (and so is my mother too);
+they are so rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do
+not mean anything against them, but they are not
+like he is. And if you were to help him he would
+soon help the poor people and give them food and
+more wages; you know how good he is in his heart.
+And he would do it, not because other people should
+praise him, but because he would like to do it; if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+he does not go to church his heart is very true, and
+it is because he likes to be true and genuine, and
+not make any false show. Do, please, help him,
+and give him some money, and do, please, let him
+have this place for his very own, for I do so fear lest
+those who set my grandfather against him, should
+have a will made, so that my father should not have
+this house and land as he ought to do, as the son.
+He has made it so beautiful with trees, and brought
+the fresh spring water up to the house, and done
+so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it
+is home to him, and no other place could be like it.
+I think it would kill him not to have it, and for me,
+I should be so&mdash;I cannot tell, I should be so miserable
+if he did not, but I will not think of myself.
+There are so many things I know he wants to do if
+only he was not so worried with debts, and if he
+could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
+copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have
+trout in it, and to build a wall by the rick-yard.
+Think how my dear father has worked all these
+years, and do help him now, and give him some
+money, and this place, and please do not let him
+grow any more grey than his hair is now, and save
+his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
+and please make my mother happy with him."</p>
+
+<p>When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face
+was quite white, emotion had taken away her colour,
+and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a little
+while by the table to recover herself, still thinking,
+and remembered that again last night she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+dreamed the same dream about fire in the thatch.
+Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
+and they ran out of doors and found the corner of
+the roof on fire, over the window with the wire network
+instead of glass. It ran up from the corner
+towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by
+the ridge. There was no flame, but a deep red
+seething heat, as if the straw burned inwardly, and
+was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed
+to lie in the furious heat, and a light to flicker up
+and down, as if it breathed fire. The thatch was
+very thick there, she knew, and recollected it quite
+well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two
+thick coats in his time, and it was heavy enough
+before then. He talked about the thatching of it,
+because it was an argument with him that straw
+had a great power of endurance, and was equal to
+slates for lasting. This thickness, she saw, was
+the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and
+why, fortunately, it was slow in moving up the
+roof. It had not yet eaten through, so that there
+was no draught&mdash;once it got through, it would burn
+fast&mdash;if only they could put it out before then all
+might yet be saved. In the midst of her anxiety
+Iden came with the largest ladder in the rickyard,
+and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She
+tried to follow, holding on to the rungs of the
+ladder with one hand, and dragging up a heavy
+bucket with the other&mdash;the strain and effort to get
+up woke her.</p>
+
+<p>This dream had happened to her so many times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+and was so vivid and circumstantial&mdash;the fire
+seemed to glow in the thatch&mdash;that at last she
+began to dread lest it should come true. If it did
+not come true of the house itself, perhaps it would
+of the family, and of their affairs; perhaps it signified
+that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
+would burn them, as it were, to the ground.
+She tried to think whether in the dream they were
+getting the fire under before she woke, or whether
+they could not master it; it seemed dubious.</p>
+
+<p>She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid
+lest it might excite her again; nor could she tell
+Iden, who would have laughed at her.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and
+dreams have ceased to come true, she did not like
+it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable danger
+was threatening round about. As she sat at the
+table she added to her prayer the supplication that
+the dear old house might not be burned down.</p>
+
+<p>Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on
+the lower flight paused, to listen to voices&mdash;not
+those of her mother and Iden&mdash;creditors, doubtless,
+come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"&mdash;the
+very sum and total of religion. Her heart
+beat quicker&mdash;the voices came again, and she
+thought she recognized them, and that they were
+not those of creditors. She entered the sitting-room,
+and found that two visitors, from widely
+separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau,
+the other with an old, many-coloured
+carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from Iden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they
+were called, and Alere Flamma, from London; the
+Flammas were carpet-bag people.</p>
+
+<p>Her father was making them very welcome, after
+his wont, and they were talking of the house the
+Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot, expressly
+in order that they might drink, drink, drink <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'undiddisturbed'">undisturbed</ins>
+by their unreasonable wives.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
+<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
+<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>HEY talked on and on, these three,
+Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
+with Amaryllis listening, from the end
+of April till near the end of May; till
+"a month passed away," and still they
+were talking. For there is nothing so good to the
+human heart as well agreed conversation, when you
+know that your companion will answer to your
+thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing
+sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better
+than sleep, like love itself&mdash;for love is agreement
+of thought&mdash;"God listens to those who pray to
+him; let us eat and drink, and think of nothing,"
+says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and drank&mdash;very
+moderate the drinking&mdash;and thought of
+nothing, and talked, which should be added to complete
+felicity. Not, of course, all of them always
+together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere,
+Amadis, and Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.</div>
+
+<p>The round summer-house was their Parliament
+House whenever the east winds sank and the flowers
+shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds
+cease the May flowers immediately bloom and glow.</p>
+
+<p>It was a large round house, properly builded of
+brick, as a summer-house should be&mdash;put not thy
+faith in lath work&mdash;and therefore dry and warm;
+to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and
+comfortable, with a sea of meadow-grass, smooth
+and coloured, stretching in front, islanded about
+with oak, and elm, and ash.</p>
+
+<p>The finches came to the boughs that hung over
+the ivy-grown thatch, and sang in the sycamore
+opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
+bloom hung down almost to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung
+sackfuls of bloom at his feet. They poured themselves
+out in abandoned, open-armed, spendthrift,
+wasteful&mdash;perfectly prodigal&mdash;quantities of rose-tinted
+petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to
+the brim, never questioning but what there will be
+plenty of water to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring
+up wherever Iden set down his foot: fruit and
+flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
+his genius to make things grow&mdash;like sunshine and
+shower; a sort of Pan, a half-god of leaves and
+boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature in
+human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and
+Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush,
+Iden had set it there; he builded the summer-house
+and set the ivy; and the pippin at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch
+near by; the great sycamore alone had been there
+before him, but he set a seat under it, and got
+woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he
+planted, and if Amaryllis stood under it when
+the tree was in full leaf you could not see her,
+it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak
+in the corner; the box hedge along the ha-ha
+parapet; the red currants against the red wall; the
+big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the
+yellow honey-bush; all these, and this was but one
+square, one mosaic of the garden, half of it sward,
+too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch
+at one corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs,
+lavender, parsley, which has a very pleasant green,
+growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage&mdash;read
+Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage&mdash;ask
+Nature if you wish to know how many things
+more there were.</p>
+
+<p>A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing
+in, listening to the goldfinches, and watching them
+carry up the moss, and lichen, and slender fibres
+for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to
+the swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on
+the sharp, high top of the pear tree; to the vehement
+starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
+Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink,
+chink," thrushes, distant blackbirds, who like oaks;
+"cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake," buzzing and
+burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then
+a neigh, to remind you that there were horses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+fulness and richness of musical sound; a world of
+grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.</p>
+
+<p>When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines
+above, and the flowers beneath, "a summer's day
+in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
+Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped
+out of the pocket of Iden's ragged old coat.</p>
+
+<p>There was a magic power of healing in the influences
+of this place which Iden had created. Both
+Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed
+for the better.</p>
+
+<p>That morning when Amaryllis had found them,
+just arrived, the one with a portmanteau, and the
+other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to
+the last degree of paleness.</p>
+
+<p>Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed
+at Coombe Oaks before, when Amaryllis was thirteen
+and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
+great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water,
+walking over the hills, exploring the woods;
+Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis going
+with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats.
+They were of the same stock of Idens, yet no relations;
+he was of the older branch, Amaryllis of the
+younger.</p>
+
+<p>She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden
+into a man.</p>
+
+<p>Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him,
+she could scarce believe he was the same; so pale,
+so thin, so drooping, and fireless&mdash;the spark of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table
+that morning like a ghost. He was convalescent
+from low fever: that dread disease which has
+taken the place of ague in the country. At one
+time it was ague; in these times it is low fever.</p>
+
+<p>At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness
+in a far-off way, but had received no distinct particulars,
+for the news came in a roundabout way
+by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The
+distance between the two houses was less than ten
+miles, and might as well have been five hundred
+for all the communication.</p>
+
+<p>So that the ghastly paleness of his face came
+upon her as a spectre in daylight. You could see
+at a glance what was wrong&mdash;the vital energy had
+been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch
+broken, or bark scored, fades and withers from the
+lack of the mysterious force which brings forth
+fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body&mdash;the
+tree&mdash;was there, but the life was not in it.</p>
+
+<p>Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was
+pale from other causes, and it was a different kind
+of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis, but
+something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state.
+Too much Fleet Street, in short; too much of the
+Oracle&mdash;Pantagruel's Oracle of the Bottle.</p>
+
+<p>His hands shook as he held his knife and fork&mdash;oddly
+enough, the hands of great genius often do
+shake; now and then when he put his glass to his
+lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+could hold a pencil, and draw delicate lines without
+a flaw.</p>
+
+<p>Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands
+that tremble nearly as much&mdash;the nervous constitution&mdash;and
+yet execute artists' work of rare excellence.</p>
+
+<p>Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution,
+naturally nervous, had been shaken as with dynamite
+by the bottle, and the glass chinked against
+his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt
+himself toppling over like a tree half sawn through,
+Alere packed his carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe
+Oaks. When the rats began to run up the wall as
+he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
+into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.</p>
+
+<p>In London he never wore a collar, only a bright
+red scarf round his neck; the company he kept
+would have shunned him&mdash;they would have looked
+him up and down disdainfully:&mdash;"Got a collar on&mdash;had
+no breakfast." They would have scornfully
+regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
+class above all others scorned by those who use
+tools.</p>
+
+<p>"Got a collar on&mdash;had no breakfast." The City
+clerk, playing the Masher on thirty shillings a
+week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used
+hammer, and file, or set up type&mdash;a godless set, ye
+gods, how godless, these setters up of type at four
+o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.;
+special taverns they must have open for them&mdash;open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+before Aurora gleams in the east&mdash;Oh! Fleet
+Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!</p>
+
+<p>By no possible means could Alere work himself
+into a dress-coat.</p>
+
+<p>Could he have followed the celebrated advice&mdash;"You
+put on a dress-coat and go into society"&mdash;he
+would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
+of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.</p>
+
+<p>To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed,
+too, of the still rarer talent&mdash;the taste to see what
+to draw&mdash;there really is no limit in our days; for
+as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour
+in an age of dinginess&mdash;why, the point, nowadays,
+is to avoid colour, and in a whole Academy you
+shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
+sealing-wax.</p>
+
+<p>"You put on a black coat and go into society"&mdash;that
+is the secret of commissions, and commissions
+are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way of
+advice has been sent forth as that remark. The
+great Tichborne said something about folk that had
+money and no brains, and folk that had brains but
+no money; and they as has no brains ought to be
+so managed as to supply money to those who had.
+But even the greatness of the great Tichborne's
+observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield
+in one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go
+into society."</p>
+
+<p>What are the sayings of the seven wise men of
+Greece compared to <i>that</i>?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/b.png" width="120" height="122" alt="B" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>Y no possible means could Alere Flamma
+work himself into a dress coat.
+The clubs, the houses of the great, the
+mutual admiration dinners&mdash;those great
+institutions of the day&mdash;were all closed
+to him because of the Dress Coat.</div>
+
+<p>If he had really desired to enter, of course he
+would have squeezed into the evening monkey-skin
+somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to enter.</p>
+
+<p>Inside he might have finished a portrait a month
+at a thousand guineas&mdash;twelve portraits per annum
+equals twelve thousand guineas a year; you see I
+am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory
+to going into the tallow trade.</p>
+
+<p>What he actually did was to make designs for
+book-covers&mdash;magnificent book-covers that will one
+day fetch their weight in bank-notes&mdash;manipulating
+a good deal of it himself&mdash;"tooling"&mdash;for the
+libraries of noble connoisseurs. They were equal
+to anything ever done in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>For a week's work&mdash;say half-an-hour a day&mdash;he
+got perhaps about ten pounds. With the ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+pounds he was satisfied&mdash;ten pounds represents a
+good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about
+as much as one man can manage at a bout; besides
+tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and innumerable
+trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good
+deal of street life.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he drew&mdash;and engraved&mdash;illustrations
+for books, being as clever with the engraver's tools
+as with the pencil; sometimes he cut out those
+odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials,"
+which are now so commonly seen in publications,
+catching the classical grotesque of the Renaissance
+to perfection, and deceiving the experienced; sometimes
+he worked in the press-room in the House of
+Flamma, Fleet Street, pulling artists' proofs, or
+printing expensively illustrated volumes&mdash;numbered,
+and the plates destroyed&mdash;actual manual work, in
+his shirt sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>He could stop when he liked and take a swig of
+stout. That was the Alere style.</p>
+
+<p>Smoking was forbidden in the old House of
+Flamma because of the worm-eaten beams, the
+worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty, decayed
+bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the
+thin wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at
+the mere sight of a match. Also because of the
+piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
+looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were
+worth thousands of pounds; the plates and lithographic
+stones, artists' proofs, divers and sundry
+Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Alere, being a son of the house, though not
+in command, did not choose to be amenable to rules
+and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He smoked
+and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a
+certain step was known to be approaching the
+pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry glue set
+melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the
+flavour of tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is
+used in London in this way.</p>
+
+<p>If I could but write the inside history of Fleet
+Street, I should be looked upon as the most wonderful
+exponent of human life that had ever touched
+a pen. Balzac&mdash;whom everybody talks of and
+nobody has read, because the discrimination of
+Paternoster Row has refused him a translation till
+quite lately&mdash;Zola, who professes to be realistic,
+who is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings
+are so curiously crude and merely skim the surface;
+even the great Hugo, who produced the masterpiece
+of all fiction, <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i>; all three of
+them, the entire host of manuscript-makers, I am
+sure I could vanquish them all, if I could only
+write the inside life of Fleet Street.</p>
+
+<p>Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of
+diction, but just pencil-jotted in the roughest words
+to hand, just as rich and poor, well-dressed ladies
+and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
+without choice of language, but hustling the first
+words anyhow, as it were, into the first compartment.
+If I could only get Alere to tell me all he had
+seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would
+laugh and weep. For such things do go on in Fleet
+Street as no man has written yet.</p>
+
+<p>If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!</p>
+
+<p>Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves,
+swigging his stout, smoking on the sly,
+working with all the genius of an inspired mechanic
+one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the
+next, spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of
+work, as if his very life depended on the smoothing
+of an edge of paper, putting off the next till the
+end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping,
+dreaming over old German works, and especially
+dreaming over Goethe, humming old German
+songs&mdash;for he had been a great traveller&mdash;sometimes
+scrawling a furious Mazzinian onslaught in a
+semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting stray engravings,
+wandering hither and thither.</p>
+
+<p>Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur,
+traveller, printer, Republican, conspirator,
+sot, smoker, dreamer, poet, kind-hearted, good-natured,
+prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
+carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout,
+but nothing vulgar had ever been recorded against
+Alere Flamma. He frequented strong company&mdash;very
+strong meat&mdash;but no vile word left his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst
+of the coarsest surroundings, just as he appeared in
+the press-room among the printer's ink in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
+abhorred dress-coat.</p>
+
+<p>In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally
+hundreds of sketches, done on all sorts and sizes of
+paper, from the inside of an envelope hastily torn
+open to elephant. The bureau was full of them,
+crammed in anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged;
+nothing, of course, could be found if it was wanted.
+The drawers of the bookcase&mdash;it was his own furniture&mdash;were
+full of them; the writing-table drawer;
+a box in one corner; some were on the mantelpiece
+smoked and gritty; some inside his books, most of
+which were interleaved in this manner; literally
+hundreds of sketches, the subjects as numerous and
+varied.</p>
+
+<p>Views in English country lanes, views on the
+Danube, bands playing in band-loving Vienna, old
+Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury Cathedral,
+statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with
+the north wind in the North Sea&mdash;a savage fight
+between sail and gale&mdash;horses in the meadow, an
+aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners
+in the Black Forest, studies from the nude&mdash;Parisian
+models, Jewesses, almost life-size, a drayman
+heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
+like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs
+to illustrate classical mythology, outlines expressing
+the ideas of Goethe&mdash;outlines of Marguerite and
+Faust among the roses&mdash;"He loves me; he loves
+me not," big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts
+as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was deep in the song,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
+their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere
+had a bullet through his hat, in Vienna, I think;
+no end to them.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a
+month or two, and his ten pounds were spent, if he
+wanted a few guineas he would take a small selection
+of these round to the office of a certain illustrated
+paper; the Editor would choose, and hand
+over the money at once, well aware that it was
+ready money his friend needed. They were not
+exactly friends&mdash;there are no friends in London,
+only acquaintances&mdash;but a little chummy, because
+the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and they
+had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper
+that ever got sketches out of Alere.</p>
+
+<p>If only Alere would have gone and sketched what
+he was <i>asked</i> to sketch! Ah! there is the difference;
+he could not do it, his nature would not
+let him; he could draw what he saw with his own
+eyes, but not what other people wanted him to see.
+A merry income he might have made if he would
+only have consented to see what other eyes&mdash;common,
+vulgar eyes&mdash;wanted to see, and which he
+could so easily have drawn for them.</p>
+
+<p>Out of these piles of varied sketches there were
+two kinds the Editor instantly snapped at: the one
+was wild flowers, the other little landscape bits.</p>
+
+<p>Wild flowers were his passion. They were to
+Flamma as Juliet to Romeo. Romeo's love, indeed,
+rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps
+he might not have worshipped Juliet next year.
+Flamma had loved his wild flowers close upon forty
+years, ever since he could remember; most likely
+longer, for doubtless the dumb infant loved the
+daisies put in his chubby hand.</p>
+
+<p>His passion they were still as he drew near fifty,
+and saw all things become commonplace. That is
+the saddest of thoughts&mdash;as we grow older the
+romance fades, and all things become commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow,
+the other half in wishing for yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Wild flowers alone never become commonplace.
+The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the
+violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the
+wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as
+last, as dear to-day as twenty years since, even
+dearer, for they grow now, as it were, in the earth
+we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers,
+our emotions, our thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room
+was full of wild flowers, drawn as he had found
+them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks&mdash;by
+the footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on
+the hills&mdash;as he had found them, not formed into
+an artificial design, not torn up by the roots, or
+cut and posed for the occasion&mdash;exactly as they
+were when his eye caught sight of them. A difficult
+thing to do, but Alere did it.</p>
+
+<p>In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+magazines usually make one of two mistakes; either
+the flower is printed without any surroundings or
+background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
+however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented
+with a heavy black pall of ink which dabs it out
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the
+little landscapes. From a stile, beside a rick,
+through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected places,
+Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood,
+groups of trees, old houses, and got them in his
+magical way on a few square inches of paper. They
+were very valuable for book illustration. They
+were absolutely true to nature and fact.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
+<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
+<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>ERHAPS the reason Alere never took
+to colours was because of his inherent
+and unswerving truthfulness of character.
+Genuine to a degree, he could
+not make believe&mdash;could not deceive&mdash;could
+not masquerade in a dress-coat.</div>
+
+<p>Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue
+to-day is nature in a dress-coat.</p>
+
+<p>In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole
+Academy, or Grosvenor Gallery you shall hardly
+find three works that represent any real scene in
+the fields.</p>
+
+<p>I have walked about the fields a good deal in my
+brief, fretful hour, yet I have never seen anything
+resembling the strange apparitions that are hung
+on these walls every spring. Apparitions&mdash;optical
+illusions, lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly,
+ghost-light&mdash;nothing like them on earth I swear,
+and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.</p>
+
+<p>Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place,
+a brook from another, a house from another&mdash;<i>and
+mixed to order</i>, like a prescription by the chemist&mdash;xv.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge.
+Nature never plants&mdash;nature is no gardener&mdash;no
+design, no proportion in the fields.</p>
+
+<p>Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may
+have noticed that the surface of the water in the
+ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum, a pale
+prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern
+landscape.</p>
+
+<p>How horrible the fields would look if they wore
+such hues in reality as are accepted on canvas at
+the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints transferred
+to the sward, the woods, the hills, the
+streams, the sky! <i>Dies ir&aelig;, dies ill&aelig;</i>&mdash;it would,
+indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day of Doom,
+and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane
+drawn before our eyes to shut it out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>There are some who can go near to paint dogs
+and horses, but a meadow of mowing grass, not one
+of them can paint that.</p>
+
+<p>Many can <i>draw</i> nature&mdash;drawings are infinitely
+superior generally to the painting that follows;
+scarce one now paints real nature.</p>
+
+<p>Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the
+dress-coat of sham colour for any sacred exhibition
+wall whatever.</p>
+
+<p>One thing Alere never attempted to draw&mdash;a
+bird in flight. He recognized that it was impossible;
+his taste rejected every conventional attitude
+that has been used for the purpose; the descending
+pigeon, the Japanese skewered birds, the swallow
+skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest,
+and done worst of all.</p>
+
+<p>How can you draw life itself? What is life? you
+cannot even define it. The swallow's wing has the
+motion of life&mdash;its tremble&mdash;its wonderful delicacy
+of vibration&mdash;the instant change&mdash;the slip of the
+air;&mdash;no man will ever be able to draw a flying
+swallow.</p>
+
+<p>At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis
+had sat much, from time to time, when the
+carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to his
+Baden-Baden&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom,
+singing finch, and wild-flowers.</p>
+
+<p>There were no "properties" in Alere's room at
+his lodgings; no odd bits collected during his
+wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
+realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No
+gauntlets or breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no
+Turkish guns or yataghans, no stags' horns, china,
+or carvings to be copied some day into an illustration.
+No "properties."</p>
+
+<p>No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes
+the key and tones the visitors' mind to "Art," the
+etchings, the wall or panel decorations, the sliding
+curtains, the easels in the corner, the great portfolios&mdash;the
+well-known "effects" were absent.</p>
+
+<p>A plain room, not even with a north light, plain
+old furniture, but not very old&mdash;not ostensibly
+ancient, somewhere about 1790 say&mdash;and this inherited
+and not purchased; Flamma cared not one
+atom for furniture, itself, old or new; dusty books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+everywhere, under the table, on the mantelpiece,
+beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on
+the sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the
+two bookcases and drawers; odd books most of
+them, Cornelius Agrippa, <i>Le Petit Albert</i>, French
+illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for
+Flamma was fond of his many-keyed flute.</p>
+
+<p>Great people once now and then called and asked
+to see Alere Flamma at the business place in Fleet
+Street; people with titles, curiously out of place,
+in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of
+printer's ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking,
+partitions pasted over with illustrations and
+stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
+engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking
+to "His Excellency."</p>
+
+<p>Flamma's opinion, information he could give,
+things he knew; abroad they thought much of him.</p>
+
+<p>Presents came occasionally&mdash;a boar's head from
+Germany; fine Havana cigars&mdash;Alere always had a
+supply of the best cigars and Turkish tobacco, a
+perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English
+venison; once a curious dagger from Italy, the
+strangest present good-natured Alere could possibly
+have received!</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from
+a noble connoisseur to his country seat; Flamma's
+views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
+the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked
+up in a cover all too poor for its value, the building
+of another wing, for the artist is the true architect,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till
+the artist is called in we shall never again see real
+architecture in the world. Did not Benvenuto
+design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
+build St. Peter's at Rome?</p>
+
+<p>If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have
+it till he calls in the artist, the Alere Flamma,
+to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
+cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman,
+till he goes to Alere Flamma.</p>
+
+<p>Our so-called architects are mere surveyors,
+engineers, educated bricklayers, men of hard straight
+ruler and square, mathematically accurate, and
+utterly devoid of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>The princes of Italy knew better&mdash;they called in
+the poet and the painter, the dreamers to dream for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>You call in your "practical" architect, and he
+builds you a brick box; not for a hundred thousand
+pounds in fees could he build you a palace or a
+cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>The most ignorant of men are the "practical"
+people. It is meet and fitting that they should be
+worshipped and set on high. The calf worshipped
+of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.</p>
+
+<p>But Alere could not go; he would do anything
+he was asked in this way; he would take infinite
+pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet Street
+for any mansion.</p>
+
+<p>When a man once gets into Fleet Street he
+cannot get out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right
+thing to represent Alere as a great genius neglected,
+or as a genius destroyed by intemperance. The
+conventional type is so easy&mdash;so accepted&mdash;so
+popular; it would pay better, perhaps, to make
+him out a victim in some way.</p>
+
+<p>He was not neglected, neither was he the victim
+of intemperance in the usual sense.</p>
+
+<p>The way to fame and fortune had always been
+wide open to him; there were long intervals when
+he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
+it was not half so much to struggle against as the
+chest diseases from which professional men so often
+suffer; I believe if he had really tried or wished he
+could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither
+of these causes kept him from the foremost rank.</p>
+
+<p>There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice.
+So many who have no ideal are kept hard
+at work by the sheer desire of money, and thus
+spurred onward, achieve something approaching
+greatness. Alere did not care for money.</p>
+
+<p>He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten
+pounds was a large sum in the company he frequented;
+he did not want any more.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 62px;">
+<img src="images/i-019.png" width="62" height="62" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>OMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight
+those who once come within its influence.
+The cerebellum of the world,
+the "grey matter" of the world's
+brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The
+thoughts of our time issue thence, like the radiating
+spokes of a wheel, to all places of the earth. There
+you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
+multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas
+come from Fleet Street.</div>
+
+<p>From the printing-press and the engraver's
+wood-block, the lithographic-stone, the etcher's
+plate, from book and magazine, periodical and
+pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow
+outwards.</p>
+
+<p>It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it
+is sweet to be on the hill-top; delicious to feel the
+swell and the long roll of the hexameter of the
+seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit
+of the Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the
+African explorer at the river's source. But if once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
+meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so
+exalted, still to Fleet Street the mind will return,
+because there is that other Mind, without whose
+sympathy even success is nothing&mdash;the Mind of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare,
+Fleet Street, but of all that the printing-press
+means.</p>
+
+<p>Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary
+to him to live and breathe in the atmosphere
+of thought&mdash;to feel the throb and swell around him&mdash;to
+be near the "grey matter" of the world's
+brain.</p>
+
+<p>Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get
+out. Flamma would not leave it for months of
+gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.</p>
+
+<p>The flame must be fed. His name had some
+connection with the design of the Roman lamp on
+the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the
+House of Flamma. <i>Alere Flammam</i>&mdash;feed the flame.
+The flame of the mind must be fed.</p>
+
+<p>Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street;
+if I could but get at it all to write the inside life of
+it, it would, indeed, be a book. Stone-cold poverty
+hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
+of money, think they know life, but they do not,
+for, as was said of the sea&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Only those who share its dangers<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Comprehend its mystery.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Only those who have shared the struggle literally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+for bread&mdash;for a real, actual loaf&mdash;understand the
+dread realities of man's existence.</p>
+
+<p>Let but a morsel of wood&mdash;a little splinter of
+deal, a curl of carpenter's shaving&mdash;lie in Fleet
+Street, and it draws to it the wretched human beasts
+as surely as the offal draws the beast of the desert
+to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that
+are paved with gold!</p>
+
+<p>It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll
+it in their aprons, clasping it tightly, lest it should
+somehow disappear. Prowling about from street
+to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
+these precious splinters of deal, for to those who
+are poor fuel is as life itself.</p>
+
+<p>Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill,
+especially of blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism),
+sometimes say they would rather go without
+food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.</p>
+
+<p>These women know where there are hoardings
+erected by builders, where shop-fronts are being
+rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
+alterations are proceeding; they know them as
+the birds know the places where they are likely
+to find food, and visit them day by day for the
+scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the
+pavement.</p>
+
+<p>Or they send their children, ragged urchins,
+battling for a knot of pine-wood.</p>
+
+<p>The terror of frost to these creatures is great
+indeed. Frost is the King of Terrors to them&mdash;not
+Death; they sleep and live with death constantly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+the dead frequently in the room with the living,
+and with the unborn that is near birth.</p>
+
+<p>Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's
+wife knew that Flamma, the drinker, would certainly
+give her the silver in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood,
+knew that they could charm the pennies and
+the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat; the baked
+potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice
+on the street stove.</p>
+
+<p>Wretched girls whose power of tempting had
+gone, and with it their means of subsistence,
+begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma.
+There are many of these wretches in Fleet Street.
+There is no romance about them to attract the
+charity of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a
+licence in the street, was charged by the police.
+How this harshness to the flower-girl&mdash;the human
+representation of Flora&mdash;roused up sentiment in
+her behalf!</p>
+
+<p>But not every starving girl has the fortune to
+rouse up sentiment and to be fed. Their faces disfigured
+with eruptions, their thin shoulders, their
+dry, disordered hair&mdash;hair never looks nice unless
+soft with its natural oil&mdash;their dingy complexions,
+their threadbare shawls, tempt no one. They cannot
+please, therefore they must starve.</p>
+
+<p>The good turn from them with horror&mdash;Are they
+not sin made manifest? The trembling hand of
+Alere fed them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are
+happy? It is curious that people should associate
+noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
+the boys that are gathered into institutions and
+training ships, are expected to bawl and shout
+their loudest at the annual f&ecirc;tes when visitors
+are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith
+feel assured that their lives are consequently
+joyous.</p>
+
+<p>Why then do they set fire to training ships?
+Why do they break out of reformatory institutions?
+Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet fatuous
+fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar
+of bawling.</p>
+
+<p>I have never walked up Fleet Street and the
+Strand yet without seeing a starving woman and
+child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
+unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts
+into the broader and more lively Strand&mdash;the ceaseless
+world pushes past&mdash;they play on the pavement
+unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with
+rags, their faces white and scarred with nameless
+disease, their eyes bleared, their hair dirty; little
+things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set
+on the table to see how they look.</p>
+
+<p>How <i>can</i> people pass without seeing them?</p>
+
+<p>Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The rich folk round about this great Babylon of
+Misery, where cruel Want sits on the Seven Hills&mdash;make
+a cartoon of that!&mdash;the rich folk who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to
+the Bank of England on dividend days&mdash;how easily
+the well-oiled doors swing open for them!&mdash;who
+dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood,
+at Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks,
+wherever there is pure air, have distinguished
+themselves lately in the giving of alms, ordained
+by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday,
+clad in silk, scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned
+pews.</p>
+
+<p>They have established Homes for Lost Dogs
+and Homes for Lost Cats, neither of which are such
+nuisances as human beings.</p>
+
+<p>In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus
+specially designed by one of the leading
+scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
+claimed in a certain time, or that have become
+diseased&mdash;like the human nuisances&mdash;are put into
+this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of chamber,
+to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific
+vapour enters the chamber, and breathing this, the
+animal falls calmly to death, painlessly poisoned in
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed
+"into eternity" in one season. Jubilant
+congratulations were exchanged at the success of
+the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning,
+hanging, vivisection, or starvation!</p>
+
+<p>Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of
+humanity indeed? To sell all you have and give
+to the poor was nothing compared to this. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+have progressed since Anno Domini I. We know
+better how to do it now.</p>
+
+<p>Alere did not seem to trouble himself much
+about the dogs; he saw so much of the human
+nuisances.</p>
+
+<p>What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus
+like this in the workhouses and in conjunction
+with the hospitals!</p>
+
+<p>Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing
+all the day, that one out of every five people
+who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
+hospital?</p>
+
+<p>Eighty-two thousand people died in London in
+1882, and of these, fourteen thousand expired in
+the workhouses, and six thousand in hospitals!</p>
+
+<p>Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting
+up a few Apparatuses, see what an immense amount
+of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
+multitude of human nuisances would he "moved
+on!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor have a saying that none live long after
+they have been in a certain hospital. "He's been
+in that hospital&mdash;he won't live long." They carry
+out such wonderful operations there&mdash;human vivisections,
+but strictly painless, of course, under
+chloroform&mdash;true Christian chopping-up&mdash;still the
+folk do not live long when they come out.</p>
+
+<p>Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man
+must not die in peace. Starvation is for human
+nuisances.</p>
+
+<p>These rich folk dwelling round about the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+Babylon of Misery, where Want sits on the Seven
+Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
+another invention. This is the organization of
+alms. Charity is so holy we will not leave it to
+chance&mdash;to the stray penny&mdash;we will organize it.
+The system is very simple: it is done by ticket.
+First you subscribe a few shillings to some organization,
+with its secretary, its clerks, its offices,
+board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive
+tickets.</p>
+
+<p>If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms,
+or a ragged boy, or a maimed man asks you for a
+"copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
+trouble and responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>The beggar can take the ticket to the "office"
+and get his case "investigated." After an inquiry,
+and an adjournment for a week; another inquiry,
+and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry,
+and a third adjournment, then, if he be of
+high moral character and highly recommended, he
+may get his dinner.</p>
+
+<p>One great advantage is conspicuous in this system:
+by no possible means can you risk giving a
+penny to a man not of high moral character, though
+he be perishing of starvation.</p>
+
+<p>If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone?
+Certainly not; give him a ticket.</p>
+
+<p>They did not understand how to do things in
+Judea Anno Domini I.</p>
+
+<p>This organization of charity saves such a lot of
+money: where people used to give away five pounds
+they now pay five shillings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you
+walk about with a clear conscience. No matter
+how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
+ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably
+and never think about them; your charity is organized.</p>
+
+<p>If the German thinkers had not found out twenty
+years ago that there was no Devil, one would be
+inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false, and
+abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a
+Satan.</p>
+
+<p>The organization of charity! The very nature
+of charity is spontaneousness.</p>
+
+<p>You should have heard Alere lash out about this
+business; he called it charity suppression.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever seen London in the early winter
+morning, when the frost lies along the kerb, just
+melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey, bitter, stony
+London?</p>
+
+<p>Whatever <i>can</i> morning seem like to the starved
+and chilly wretches who have slept on the floor, and
+wake up to frost in Fleet Street?</p>
+
+<p>The pavements are covered with expectoration,
+indicating the chest diseases and misery that thousands
+are enduring. But I must not write too
+plainly; it would offend.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/i-020.png" width="150" height="43" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'> PRINTER in the office crawled under
+the bed of the machine to replace something&mdash;a
+nut that had dropped; it was
+not known that he was there; the
+crank came round and crushed him
+against the brickwork. The embrace of iron is death.</div>
+
+<p>Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed
+them when they were old enough.</p>
+
+<p>Ten pounds was enough for him&mdash;without ambition,
+and without business-avarice; ten pounds
+was enough for his Fleet Street life.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the actual money he gave away,
+but the kindness of the man. Have you ever
+noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?&mdash;their
+elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and
+without flesh. Instead of the shirt-sleeve being
+turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
+thrust its way through.</p>
+
+<p>He always had something for them;&mdash;a plate of
+beef, soup, beer to be shared, apples, baked potatoes,
+now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars. Awful
+this, was it not? Printers' boys <i>will</i> smoke; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+had better have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile
+imitation they buy.</p>
+
+<p>They always had a tale for him; either their
+mothers, or sisters, or some one was in trouble;
+Flamma was certain to do something, however little
+might be within his power. At least he went to
+see.</p>
+
+<p>Had a man an income of a million he could not
+relieve the want of London; the wretch relieved to-day
+needs again to-morrow. But Alere went to see.</p>
+
+<p>Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a
+man without ambition, and without business-avarice,
+who went to see the unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>His own palsied mother, at the verge of life,
+looked to Alere for all that the son can do for the
+parent. Other sons seemed more capable of such
+duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was
+the Man. And for those little luxuries and comforts
+that soothe the dull hours of trembling age she
+depended entirely upon him.</p>
+
+<p>So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied
+him were not all spent in drink.</p>
+
+<p>But alas! once now and then the rats began to
+run up the wall in broad daylight, and foolish Alere,
+wise in this one thing, immediately began to pack
+his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers,
+his sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving
+tools, and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted
+flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
+packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his
+Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>They sat and talked in the round summer-house in
+Iden's garden, with the summer unfolding at their
+knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.</p>
+
+<p>By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of
+the Goliath ale, and between his lips there was a
+long churchwarden pipe.</p>
+
+<p>The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his
+gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate liquor; better by far
+than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far
+than mud baths and hot springs. There is no
+medicine in nature, or made by man, like good ale.
+He who drinks ale is strong.</p>
+
+<p>The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to
+his nervous system, to the much-suffering liver, to
+the clogged and weary organs, bracing and stimulating,
+urging on, vitalizing anew.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed
+his heart; a cordial grown on the sunny hill-side,
+watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured by the
+light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.</p>
+
+<p>Age mingling hops and barley in that just and
+equitable proportion, no cunning of hand, no
+science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
+the full manhood of strength.</p>
+
+<p>There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot
+define. The chemist analyzes, and he finds of
+ten parts, there are this and there are that, and the
+residue is "volatile principle," for which all the
+dictionaries of science have no explanation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Volatile principle"&mdash;there it is, that is the
+secret. That is the life of the thing; by no
+possible means can you obtain that volatile principle&mdash;that
+alchemic force&mdash;except contained in genuine
+old ale.</p>
+
+<p>Only it must be genuine, and it must be old;
+such as Iden brewed.</p>
+
+<p>The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the
+glass ceased to chink against his teeth; the strong,
+good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.</p>
+
+<p>You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you
+have "kidneys," you have "abdominal glands," and
+the doctor tells you you must take bitters, <i>i.e.</i>,
+quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients
+and diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts;
+physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron,
+phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your
+draughts and preparations; add to it for various
+purposes, liquor arsenicalis, bromide of potassium,
+strychnia, belladonna.</p>
+
+<p>Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent
+medicines&mdash;American and French patent physic is
+very popular now&mdash;and find the same things precisely
+under taking titles, enormously advertised.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines
+compounded are intended to produce exactly the
+same effects as are caused by a few glasses of good
+old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
+motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves,
+and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+to aid the digestion of the compound. This is
+precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
+very comfortably. Above all things, it contains
+the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have
+not got.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered
+with quassia instead of hops; made nauseous in
+order that you may have faith in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the
+true Goliath, and "<i>drenk un down to the therd hoop</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the
+rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less
+shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork
+at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by
+he began to hum old German songs.</p>
+
+<p>But you may ask, how do <i>you</i> know, you're not a
+doctor, you're a mere story-spinner, you're no
+authority? I reply that I am in a position to know
+much more than a doctor.</p>
+
+<p>How can that be?</p>
+
+<p>Because I have been a Patient. It is so much
+easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor
+imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
+they will do; he imagines, but the Patient <i>knows</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/i-021.png" width="150" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-022.png" width="500" height="82" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>OME noble physicians have tried the
+effect of drugs upon themselves in
+order to advance their art; for this
+they have received Gold Medals, and are
+alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.</div>
+
+<p>I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions
+upon My Person. With the various combinations,
+patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
+verily believe, reach eighty drugs.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty
+gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied;
+the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha,
+kiss my knees, ye slaves!</p>
+
+<p>I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about
+that I have thus done more good than any man
+living.</p>
+
+<p>I am still very ill.</p>
+
+<p>The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended
+to try! One day I was sitting in that
+great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
+Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time
+to time at the clock, and reckoning how long it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+would be before I could get home. There is nothing
+so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview
+with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled
+of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must
+have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a
+tall gentleman came across the room and sat down
+beside me. "I hope I don't intrude," said he, in
+American accents. "I was obliged to come and
+speak to you&mdash;you look bad. I <i>hate</i> to hear
+anybody cough." He put an emphasis on hate, a
+long-drawn nasal <i>haate</i>, hissing it out with unmeasured
+ferocity. "I <i>haate</i> to hear anybody
+cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure
+it, if you don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means&mdash;very interesting," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"I was bad at home, in the States," said he.
+"I was on my back four years with a cough. I
+couldn't do anything&mdash;couldn't help myself; four
+years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds.
+That's a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was
+tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"I tried everything the doctors recommended&mdash;it
+was no use; they had to give me up. At last a
+man cured me; and how do you think he did
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't think&mdash;should much like to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That
+was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it
+comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+crude. Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a
+day, before meals. Taste it? No, not to speak
+of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had
+in a ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two
+hundred and fifty pounds. That's true. I got too
+fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still, if
+I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now.
+Been all over Europe."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear
+strong enough.</p>
+
+<p>"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose,
+from the States, now."</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of
+that sort&mdash;if it would cure me, it might come from
+anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly.
+"Or three, if you like, and work up to ten. It
+soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
+I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in
+this country; you'll have to send over for it. I
+<i>haate</i> to hear anybody cough"&mdash;and so we
+parted.</p>
+
+<p>He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged
+him on, I verily believe he would have got the keg
+for me himself. It seemed laughable at the time;
+but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured
+American was right; he certainly meant
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Crude petroleum! Could anything be more
+nauseous? But probably it acts as a kind of cod-liver
+oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+him, I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take
+a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.</p>
+
+<p>Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and
+he had hardly begun to approach the first hoop,
+when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old German
+songs; it was the volatile principle.</p>
+
+<p>Songs about the Pope and the Sultan</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+But yet he's not a happy man,<br />
+He must obey the Alcoran,<br />
+He dares not touch one drop of wine,<br />
+I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and
+fed on butter till he raised a paunch that would
+have done credit to Luther; songs about a King in
+Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful
+old song that, none like it&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+He saw it fall, he watched it fill,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sink deep, deep into the main;</span><br />
+Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never drank a drop again.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Or his thought slipped back to his school-days,
+and beating the seat in the summer-house with his
+hand for time, Alere ran on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Horum scorum suntivorum,<br />
+Harum scarum divo,<br />
+Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,<br />
+Hic hoc horum genitivo&mdash;<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>To be said in one breath.</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Oh, my Ella&mdash;my blue bella,<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A secula seculorum,</span><br />
+If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dies Benedictorum!</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Or something about:</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,<br />
+And She's of the feminine gender.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's
+heart out, Eton Latin grammar, accidence&mdash;do
+<i>not</i> pause, traveller, if you see <i>his</i> tomb!</p>
+
+<p>"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street
+man put away his pipe, and took up his
+flute; he breathed soft and low&mdash;an excellent
+thing in a musician&mdash;delicious airs of Mozart
+chiefly.</p>
+
+<p>The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the
+high buttercups of the meadow came to the very
+door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
+them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in
+flowers, in song of happy birds. The soothing
+flute strung together the flow of their thoughts,
+they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden&mdash;almost
+hand in hand&mdash;listening to his cunning
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to
+their own hearts.</p>
+
+<p>The starlings flew by every few minutes to their
+nests in the thatch of the old house, and out again
+to the meadow.</p>
+
+<p>Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a
+bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings
+beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+time to follow them completely; they formed a burr&mdash;an
+indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see
+the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were
+depressed so quickly that the impression of them
+in the raised position had not time to fade from the
+eye before a fresh impression arrived exhibiting them
+depressed to their furthest extent; you thus saw the
+wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
+capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the
+upper part answers to the wings lifted, the lower
+part to the wings down, and you see both together.
+Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
+other positions between these two extremes;
+like the leaves of a book opened with your
+thumb quickly&mdash;as they do in legerdemain&mdash;almost
+as you see the spokes of a wheel run together as
+they revolve&mdash;a sort of burr.</p>
+
+<p>To produce an image of a starling flying, you
+must draw all this.</p>
+
+<p>The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave
+a streak behind in the air like a meteor.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very
+blood in Alere's veins.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of
+Amadis Iden's cheeks&mdash;absolute lack of blood&mdash;began
+to give way to the faintest colour, little more
+than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though
+he could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If
+you threw a wine-glassful of the Goliath on the
+hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most lively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+manner. Fire in it&mdash;downright fire! That is the
+test.</p>
+
+<p>Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful,
+yet a faint pink began to steal into his face, and
+his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply of
+another cup.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 190px;">
+<img src="images/i-023.png" width="190" height="161" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-024.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
+<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>ET me try," said Amadis, taking the
+handle of the churn from Jearje. The
+butter was obstinate, and would not
+come; it was eleven o'clock in the
+morning, and still there was the rattle
+of milk in the barrel, the sound of a liquid splashing
+over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
+that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had
+been turning for hours.</div>
+
+<p>Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like
+silver by Jearje's rough hands&mdash;a sort of skin sand-paper&mdash;and
+with an effort made the heavy blue-painted barrel
+revolve on its axis.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy
+window into the court where the churn stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll
+only tire yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said,
+"First-rate, measter."</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not,
+you'll hurt yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw!&mdash;aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+on a form by the wall under the dairy window. He
+was waiting to see Iden about the mowing. "Aw!&mdash;aw!
+Look 'ee thur, now!"</p>
+
+<p>Heavily the blue barrel went round&mdash;thrice, four
+times, five times; the colour mounted into Amadis's
+cheeks, not so much from the labour as the unwonted
+stooping; his breath came harder; he
+had to desist, and go and sit down on the form
+beside Bill Nye.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis.
+"You know you're not strong yet." She spoke as
+if she had been his mother or his nurse, somewhat
+masterfully and reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His
+chin fell and his face lengthened&mdash;his eyes grew
+larger&mdash;his temples pinched; disappointment wrung
+at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short
+waddle and a fall.</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said
+Bill Nye, "as I knows on; you get a pint measure
+full of snails&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to
+make anyone ill to think of," said Amaryllis, angrily,
+and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver oil virtues of
+snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
+Amadis.</p>
+
+<p>A robin came into the court, and perching on
+the edge of a tub, fluttered his wings, cried "Check,
+check," "Anything for me this morning?" and so
+put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have
+snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the
+maid, who had been standing in the doorway with
+a duster.</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a
+passion. "You standing there doing nothing, and
+it's butter-making morning, and everything behind,
+and you idling and talking,"&mdash;rushing out from the
+dairy, and following Luce, who retreated indoors.</p>
+
+<p>"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.</p>
+
+<p>"Missis is &mdash;&mdash;" said Jearje, supplying the
+blank with a wink, and meaning in a temper this
+morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
+always in a fury about nothing when her mind was
+intent on an object; in this case, the butter.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room,
+pointing to the clock, "and the beds ain't
+made."</p>
+
+<p>"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.</p>
+
+<p>"And the fire isn't dusted up."</p>
+
+<p>"I've dusted up the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're a lazy slut"&mdash;pushing Luce about
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I bean't a lazy slut."</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give
+me the duster!"&mdash;snatching it from her.</p>
+
+<p>"He be done."</p>
+
+<p>"All you can do is to stand and talk with the
+men. There's no water taken up stairs."</p>
+
+<p>"That there be."</p>
+
+<p>"You know you ought to be doing something;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+the lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw
+anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots to be
+cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the
+path to be weeded, and the things to be taken over
+for washing, and the teapot ought to go in to Woolhorton,
+you know the lid's loose, and the children
+will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your
+master will be in to lunch, and there's not a soul to
+help me in the least," and so, flinging the duster at
+Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into
+the kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread
+and cheese, and drew a quart of ale, and took them
+out to Bill Nye.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very
+depth of his chest, and set to work happily.</p>
+
+<p>Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it
+with one hand and sipped, while he turned with
+the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
+manner, he could not wait till he had finished the
+churning.</p>
+
+<p>"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said
+the angel Gabriel in the Koran, as you no doubt
+remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
+sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the
+breath of life was breathed into him, he rose on his
+arm and began to eat before his lower limbs were
+yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made
+up of impatience." As the angel had never had a
+stomach or anything to sit upon, as the French say,
+he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
+had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+Jearje, it is certain he would never have wanted to
+be an angel.</p>
+
+<p>Next, there were four cottage children now in
+the court, waiting for scraps.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind,
+swept the poor little things into the kitchen and
+filled two baskets for them with slices of bread and
+butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit,
+a dish of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the
+barrel, odds and ends, and so swept them off again
+in a jiffy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed
+of yourself, that is not the way to feed the poor.
+What <i>could</i> you be thinking of, you ignorant
+farmer's wife!</p>
+
+<p>You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a
+Committee with duchesses and earlesses, and wives
+of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
+these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners.
+They will teach you how to feed the poor
+with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
+the scientific Dr. Am&oelig;ba Bacillus; Joe has Providence
+at his fingers' ends, and guides it in the
+right way; Bacillus knows everything to a particle;
+with Providence and Science together they <i>must</i>
+do it properly.</p>
+
+<p>The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed
+of the principles of food in the right proportion:
+(1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
+Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!</p>
+
+<p>The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+lentil soup, or oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli;
+say twopence a quart. They can get all
+the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite
+foot-tons.</p>
+
+<p>No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous
+cheese, no abominable beef bone, no wretched rabbit,
+no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral ale!</p>
+
+<p>There, Mrs. Iden.</p>
+
+<p>Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that
+shining light and apostle, Mrs. Iden, and read,
+mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to
+live. A family may live, laugh, love and be happy
+that eats bread in the morning with good water,
+and water and good bread at noon, and water and
+bread at night."</p>
+
+<p>Does that sound like an echo of the voice that
+ceased on the Cross?</p>
+
+<p>Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide
+your beef and ale, your rabbit and potatoes.</p>
+
+<p>To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City
+ladies riding in carriages, and all such who eat
+and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
+courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a
+meal of vegetable pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge,
+or lentil soup (three halfpence a pound lentils), or
+haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
+wholesome thing.</p>
+
+<p>But to those who exist all the week on hunches
+of dry bread, and not much of that, oatmeal porridge
+doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with
+plenty of rich gravy, broad slices from legs of
+mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They need something
+to put fresh blood and warmth into them.</p>
+
+<p>You sometimes hear people remark: "How
+strange it is&mdash;the poor never buy oatmeal, or
+lentils!"</p>
+
+<p>Of course they don't; if by any chance they do
+get a shilling to spend, they like a mutton chop.
+They have enough of farinaceous fare.</p>
+
+<p>What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she
+been scientific, was to have given each of these
+poor hungry children a nicely printed little pamphlet,
+teaching them how to cook.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of which, she set all their teeth going;
+infinitely wicked Mrs. Iden!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;">
+<img src="images/i-025.png" width="175" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/y.png" width="120" height="121" alt="Y" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>OU must drink it all&mdash;every drop,"
+said Amaryllis, masterfully, as Amadis
+lingered over the glass of milk she had
+brought him. He had but half finished
+it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all."
+Amadis made an effort, and obeyed.</div>
+
+<p>But his heart was bitter as absinthe.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly;
+even the women were manly, they could eat and
+drink.</p>
+
+<p>Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard
+cheese, and drank ale, and turned the crank at the
+same time.</p>
+
+<p>Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily
+munching cheese, oh so happily! Gabriel (of the
+Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
+his tall quart-mug.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty
+years, more energetic than all the hamlet put together.</p>
+
+<p>Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would
+go on hours longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath
+ale in the summer-house; he could eat, and drink,
+and walk about as a man should.</p>
+
+<p>Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he
+had seen her turn the heavy cheese-tub round as if
+it were a footstool.</p>
+
+<p>He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable
+to eat strong meat; unable to drink strong drink;
+put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
+farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to
+ride even; a mere shadow, a thing of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>They told him he was better. There was just a
+trifle of pink in his face, and he could walk to Plum
+Corner in the garden without clinging to Amaryllis's
+arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance
+more than three or four times. He had even ventured
+a little way up the meadow-path, but it made
+him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
+told him he was better; he could eat a very little
+more, and sip a wine-glassful of Goliath.</p>
+
+<p>Better! What a mockery to a man who could
+once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty
+miles, and play his part in any sport you chose!
+It was absinthe to him.</p>
+
+<p>He could not stoop to turn the churn&mdash;he had
+to sip milk in the presence of strong men drinking
+strong drink; to be despised; the very servant-maid
+talking of him as in a decline.</p>
+
+<p>And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished
+to appear a man.</p>
+
+<p>And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+that he could think, yet he could scarce set one
+foot safely before the other, not without considering
+first and feeling his way.</p>
+
+<p>Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as
+strong as the horses he led in the waggon.</p>
+
+<p>Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could
+mow all day in the heat of July.</p>
+
+<p>He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted
+hopes, his worship of Amaryllis&mdash;he was nothing.
+Less than nothing&mdash;a shadow.</p>
+
+<p>To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.</p>
+
+<p>Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what
+he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but
+is better:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then raised
+his head, and said:&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<div class='poem2'>
+"Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away thy sorrows;<br />
+For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and is changed!<br />
+How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not forth!<br />
+And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze appears from it;<br />
+And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.<br />
+So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;<br />
+And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>How should such a chant as this enter a young
+man's heart who felt himself despicable in the sight
+of his mistress?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis,
+in a very gentle tone, now he had obeyed her.</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>His days were mixed of honey and wormwood;
+sweet because of Amaryllis, absinthe because of his
+weakness.</p>
+
+<p>A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma
+was shouting an old song, with heavy emphasis
+here and there, with big capital letters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?<br />
+And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All Insinuation Scorning;</span><br />
+I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,<br />
+I only Know he's a very Red Face<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he gets up in the Morning!</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with
+his mouth full. "Th' zun do look main red in the
+marning, surely."</p>
+
+<p>They heard the front door open and shut; Iden
+had come in for his lunch, and, by the sound of the
+footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers
+for battle.</p>
+
+<p>Iden came through into the dairy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking
+your nose into everything. Wonder you don't
+help Luce make the beds and sweep the floor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want
+any wood for the fire&mdash;or anything?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood&mdash;and chop
+it, as well as you. Why can't you mind your business?
+Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
+hours to see you"&mdash;following Iden towards the
+sitting-room. "Who have you brought in with
+you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
+butter-making morning, just the busiest time!
+Oh! it's you! Sit still, Mr. Duck; I don't mind
+<i>you</i>. What will you take?"</p>
+
+<p>More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack
+Duck sat in the bow-window and went at their
+lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced
+Mrs. Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people
+in this house&mdash;I never saw anything like it!"</p>
+
+<p>It was true.</p>
+
+<p>There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house;
+Amadis Iden resting on the form; Amaryllis
+standing by him; Bill Nye munching;
+Jearje indolently rotating the churn with one hand,
+and feeding himself with the other; Luce sitting
+down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting his
+mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great
+mouth full; eight people&mdash;and four little children
+trotting down the road with baskets of food.</p>
+
+<p>"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never
+saw anything like it."</p>
+
+<p>And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let
+us not trouble ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and
+Quiet" is better than set banquets; crumbs for
+everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to
+those who pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+think of nothing;" believe me, the plain plenty,
+and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
+farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done;
+nothing done; the morning gone and nothing done;
+and the butter's not come yet!"</p>
+
+<p>Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are
+always eating. They eat all through the Iliad, they
+eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good deal
+in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at
+Coombe-Oaks as was done on Olympus.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/i-027.png" width="120" height="180" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
+</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS went outside the court,
+and waited; Amadis rose and followed
+her. "Come a little way into the
+Brook-Field," she said.</div>
+
+<p>They left the apple-bloom behind
+them, and going down the gravel-path passed the
+plum trees&mdash;the daffodils there were over now&mdash;by
+the strawberry patch which Iden had planted under
+the parlour window; by the great box-hedge where
+a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though Amaryllis's
+dress brushed the branches; by the espalier
+apple, to the little orchard-gate.</p>
+
+<p>The parlour-window&mdash;there are no parlours now,
+except in old country houses; there were parlours
+in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern villas
+they have drawing-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree
+branches, planted beneath with strawberry; white
+blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
+in the branches of the pear&mdash;that was Iden.</p>
+
+<p>They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed
+heavily against the tall meadow-grass growing between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+the bars. The path was almost gone&mdash;grown
+out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad
+trail behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have
+muttered to himself; they were trespassing on his
+mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
+difficult to cut.</p>
+
+<p>Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the
+thick-stemmed butter-cups&mdash;branched like the
+golden candlestick, and with flowers of golden flame.
+For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw
+light back into the air.</p>
+
+<p>Amadis began to drag behind&mdash;he could not
+walk much farther; they sat down together on the
+trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
+close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted.
+Even with his back leaning against a limb of the
+oak, Amadis had to partly support himself with his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>What was the use of such a man?&mdash;He had
+nothing but his absurdly romantic name from Don
+Quixote to recommend him.</p>
+
+<p>That was the very thought that gnawed at poor
+Amadis's heart as he sat by her side. What use to
+care for him?</p>
+
+<p>Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was
+a new gate, and he had been fitting it before he
+went in to lunch. His basket was of flag because
+the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools,
+chisels, and so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have
+everything right. The new gate was of solid oak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
+without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the
+farm, and kept till it was thoroughly fit, genuine
+English oak. If you would only consider Iden's
+gate you might see there the man.</p>
+
+<p>This gateway was only between two meadows,
+and the ordinary farmer, when the old gate wore
+out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
+a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and
+rough; at most a gate knocked up by the village
+carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest possible
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to
+make <i>his</i> gate in the hamlet; he sent for one ten
+miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages. He
+was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his
+work to see that the least little detail was done
+correctly, till the fellow would have left the job,
+had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale.
+So he just stretched the job out as long as he
+could, and talked and talked with Iden, and stroked
+him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
+it upon me and on William, That day in a way I
+despise." Till what with the planing, and shaving,
+and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and time,
+it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace
+gates, not of the Iden style.</p>
+
+<p>Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber
+years before for this very purpose, and had watched
+the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
+have made good oak furniture. There was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+special or particular about this gateway; he had
+done the same in turn for every gateway on the
+farm; it was the Iden way.</p>
+
+<p>A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit
+for a nobleman's Home Park. I doubt, if you
+would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
+made of such material on any great estate in the
+kingdom. For not even dukes can get an Iden to
+look after their property. An Iden is not to be
+"picked up," I can tell you.</p>
+
+<p>The neighbourhood round about had always
+sneered in the broad country way at Iden's
+gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do <i>he</i>
+want wi' such geates? A' ain't a got no cattle
+to speak on; any ould rail ud do as good as thuck
+geat."</p>
+
+<p>The neighbourhood round about could never
+understand Iden, never could see why he had gone
+to such great trouble to render the homestead
+beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the
+orchard with pleasant eating apples in the place of
+the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
+wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"</p>
+
+<p>All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood
+to be the acts of a "vool."</p>
+
+<p>When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to
+have the great bushes that bore unusually fine May
+bloom saved from the billhook, that they might
+flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples&mdash;for
+the sake of the white blossom; so, too, with
+the hazel&mdash;for the nuts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But what caused the most "wonderment" was
+the planting of the horse-chestnuts in the corner of
+the meadow? Whatever did he want with horse-chestnuts?
+No other horse-chestnuts grew about
+there. You couldn't eat the horse-chestnuts when
+they dropped in autumn.</p>
+
+<p>In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the
+little circumstance of the hour. His gate was
+meant to last for years, rain and shine, to endure
+any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind&mdash;was
+at once his strength and his folly. His
+strength, for it was such qualities as these that
+made Old England famous, and set her on the firm
+base whereon she now stands&mdash;built for all Time.
+His folly, because he made too much of little things,
+instead of lifting his mind higher.</p>
+
+<p>If only he could have lived three hundred years
+the greater world would have begun to find out
+Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
+from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk,
+for Iden could talk of the trees and grass, and all
+that the Earth bears, as if one had conversed face
+to face with the great god Pan himself.</p>
+
+<p>But while Iden slumbered with his head against
+the panel&mdash;think, think, think&mdash;this shallow world
+of ours, this petty threescore years and ten, was
+slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked
+with bitterness at heart the increasing stoop of the
+strong back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Iden was like the great engineer who could
+never build a bridge, because he knew so well how
+a bridge ought to be built.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs.
+Iden, "making yourself ridiculous: I believe that
+carpenter is just taking advantage of you. Why
+can't you go into town and see your father?&mdash;it
+would be a hundred pounds in your pocket"&mdash;as it
+would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs. Iden had
+gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps
+he would have taken her advice.</p>
+
+<p>Resting upon the brown timber in the grass
+Amaryllis and Amadis could just see a corner of
+the old house through the spars of the new gate.
+Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand;
+a house that had grown in the course of
+many generations, not built to set order; it had
+grown like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances,
+and, therefore, like the tree it was beautiful
+to look at. There were windows in deep notches,
+between gables where there was no look-out except
+at the pears on the wall, awkward windows, quite
+bewildering. A workman came to mend one one
+day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever
+seed such a crooked picter of a house!" said
+he.</p>
+
+<p>A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface
+of the buttercups, straight for the brook,
+moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly did
+he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible,
+drawn like a line of peacock blue over the gold.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to
+have been sitting there like this, with Amadis lost
+in the sweet summer dream of love.</p>
+
+<p>She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot
+du Lake, a hero of the mighty arm, only with
+the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
+proper thing.</p>
+
+<p>But the fitness of things never comes to pass&mdash;everything
+happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
+
+<p>Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life,
+very, very young and inexperienced, very poor and
+without the least expectation whatever (for who
+could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the
+daughter of poor and embarrassed parents, whom
+she wished and prayed to help in their coming old
+age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling
+and half a painter at heart, full of generous sentiments&mdash;what
+a nature to be ground down in the
+sordidness of married poverty!</p>
+
+<p>Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble,
+and unable to earn a shilling, just talking of seeing
+the doctor again about this fearful debility, full too,
+as he thought at least, of ideas&mdash;what a being to
+think of her!</p>
+
+<p>Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things.
+If only now he could have regained the health and
+strength of six short months ago&mdash;if only that,
+but you see, he had not even that. He might get
+better; true&mdash;he <i>might</i>, I have tried 80 drugs and
+I am no better, I hope he will.</p>
+
+<p>Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+East have put things together for them with more
+utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
+Turkish manner, you see.</p>
+
+<p>There they sat, happier and happier, and
+deeper and deeper in love every moment, on the
+brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full
+of love as the meadow was of sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in
+which after sunset he was carried over Ocean's
+stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
+again in the East and give us the joy of his rising.
+The great Golden Cup in which Hercules, too, was
+taken over; it was as if that Cup had been filled to
+the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the
+lips to drink, inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>In the play of Faust&mdash;Alere's <i>Faust</i>&mdash;Goethe
+has put an interlude, an Intermezzo; I shall leave
+Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in Heaven.
+Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its
+Dread, pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the
+wings, let Debt and Poverty unrobe, let Age
+stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as
+the Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave
+our lovers in the Interlude in Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>And as I must leave them (I trust but for a
+little while) I will leave them on the brown oak
+timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
+dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass
+and the wild flowers.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='copyright'><br /><br /><br />
+CHISWICK PRESS:&mdash;C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,<br />
+CHANCERY LANE.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Duckworth &amp; Co.'s "Crown"<br />
+Library</h2>
+
+<p>The books included in this series are standard copyright works, issued in
+similar style at a uniform price, and are eminently suitable for the library
+and as prize volumes for advanced students.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>Size, Demy 8vo. Cloth gilt, gilt top, 5<i>s.</i> net a volume.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>HANAUER, J. E.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND: Moslem,
+Christian, and Jewish.</b> Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>HEADLEY, F. W.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>LIFE AND EVOLUTION.</b> By F. W. Headley. With
+over 100 Illustrations.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>OWEN, J. A., and BOULGER, G. S.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE COUNTRY MONTH BY MONTH.</b> By J. A.
+Owen and G. S. Boulger. With 20 Illustrations.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>McCURDY, EDWARD</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE NOTE-BOOKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.</b>
+Edited by Edward McCurdy. With 14 Illustrations.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>MAITLAND, F. W.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LESLIE STEPHEN.</b>
+A new and cheaper edition. With a photogravure portrait.
+Demy 8vo. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>Other volumes will be announced in due course.</i></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>Books by Chas. G. D. Roberts</h2>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE KINDRED OF THE WILD:</b> a Book of Animal
+Life. By Charles G. D. Roberts. With many Illustrations by Charles
+Livingston Bull. Large crown, 8vo. <i>Fifth Impression.</i> 6<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAILS.</b> By Charles
+G. D. Roberts. With 48 Illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull.
+Large crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i> net. Uniform with the above. <i>Fourth Impression.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE STORY OF RED FOX.</b> By Charles G. D. Roberts.
+Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. Uniform with the above.
+Large crown 8vo. <i>Third Impression.</i> 6<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE HAUNTERS OF THE SILENCES.</b> By
+Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.
+Uniform with the above. Large crown 8vo. <i>Third Impression.</i> 6<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>EARTH'S ENIGMAS.</b> By Charles G. D. Roberts.
+Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. Crown 8vo. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Studies in Theology</h2>
+
+<p>A New Series of Handbooks, being aids to interpretation in Biblical
+Criticism for the use of the Clergy, Divinity Students and thoughtful
+Laymen.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Crown 8vo, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net a volume.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW
+TESTAMENT</b>. By Arthur Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of
+Biblical Exegesis and Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Victoria
+University, Manchester. Sometime Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>FAITH AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY.</b> By the Rev.
+William R. Inge, D.D. Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Cambridge,
+and Bampton Lecturer, Oxford, 1899.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.</b> By the Rev.
+Hastings Rashdall, D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A. Fellow
+and Tutor of New College, Oxford.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.</b> By the Rev.
+James Orr, D.D., Professor of Apologetics in the Theological College
+of the United Free Church, Glasgow.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS.</b>
+By the Rev. William Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Fellow of Trinity
+College, Cambridge. Hon. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
+Cambridge. Archdeacon of Ely. Formerly Lecturer on Economic
+History to Harvard University.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>PROTESTANT THOUGHT BEFORE KANT.</b>
+By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D., D.D.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT SINCE
+KANT.</b> By the Rev. Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman
+Professor of Theology in the University of Harvard, U.S.A.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>AN ENCYCLOP&AElig;DIA OF THEOLOGY.</b> By the
+Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., D.Litt., LL.D. Late Principal of Mansfield
+College, Oxford.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FROM
+THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION.</b> By
+Herbert B. Workman, D.Litt.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD
+TESTAMENT.</b> By the Rev. George Buchanan Gray, D.D., D.Litt.,
+Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis, Mansfield College,
+Oxford.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE CHRISTIAN HOPE: A Study in the Doctrine
+of the Last Things.</b> By W. Adams Brown, Ph.D., D.D.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>REDEMPTION AND ATONEMENT.</b> By the Rt.
+Rev. Bishop of Gloucester.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The <a name="Roadmender_Series" id="Roadmender_Series"></a>Roadmender Series</h2>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>BROOKE, STOPFORD A.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE SEA CHARM OF VENICE.</b> By the Rev.
+Stopford A. Brooke. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>CRIPPS, ARTHUR</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>MAGIC CASEMENTS.</b> By Arthur Cripps. Uniform
+with the above. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>DE KAY, JOHN W.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>LONGINGS: Being Leaves out of the Book of Life
+intended for those who Understand.</b> By John W. De Kay. Uniform
+with "The Roadmender," 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Also a large paper edition
+bound in leather, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>FAIRLESS, MICHAEL</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> By Michael Fairless. <i>A new
+and Illustrated Edition.</i> With Six Full-Page Drawings and Cover-design
+by Will G. Mein. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> By Michael Fairless. <i>A Special
+Presentation Edition</i>, bound in extra velvet calf, yapp, with picture
+end papers. Fcap. 8vo. Gilt edges. Boxed. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> Fcap. 8vo. Bound in limp lamb
+skin, designed cover, fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> Twenty-fifth impression. Fcap.
+8vo. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>By the Same Author</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE GREY BRETHREN: and other Fragments in
+Prose and Verse.</b> By Michael Fairless. Uniform with "The Roadmender."
+<i>Second Impression.</i> Fcap. 8vo. Bound in limp leather,
+fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>A MODERN MYSTIC'S WAY.</b> (Dedicated to Michael
+Fairless). Uniform with the above. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>McCURDY, EDWARD</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THOUGHTS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI AS
+RECORDED IN HIS NOTE-BOOKS.</b> Edited by Edward
+McCurdy. With a frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo. Uniform with "The
+Roadmender." Bound in limp leather, fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Cloth,
+2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>THOMAS, EDWARD</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>REST AND UNREST.</b> By Edward Thomas. Fcap.
+8vo. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>By the Same Author</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>ROSE ACRE PAPERS.</b> Fcap. 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>LIGHT AND TWILIGHT.</b> Essays. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><div class='hang1'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></div>
+<h2>Modern Plays</h2>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>J. COMYNS CARR</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.</b> A Drama in Four Acts.
+By J. Comyns Carr. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Boards, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THREE PLAYS: Hamilton's Second Marriage&mdash;Thomas
+and the Princess&mdash;The Modern Way.</b> By Mrs. W. K.
+Clifford. In One Volume, cloth, crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>DE L'ISLE ADAM, VILLIERS</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE REVOLT AND THE ESCAPE.</b> By Villiers
+de L'Isle Adam. Translated by Theresa Barclay. A Re-issue. Cloth.
+Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>PLAYS: The Silver Box&mdash;Joy&mdash;Strife.</b> By John Galsworthy.
+Crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i> <i>Fourth Impression.</i> Also in Single Volumes;
+Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Paper Covers, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>JUSTICE; A TRAGEDY IN FOUR ACTS.</b> By
+John Galsworthy. <i>Third Impression.</i> Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net. Paper covers,
+1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>GARNETT, EDWARD</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE BREAKING POINT: A CENSURED PLAY.</b>
+By Edward Garnett. Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>HAUPTMANN, GERHART</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE COMING OF PEACE (Das Friedensfest).</b> By
+Gerhart Hauptmann. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>MARTYN, EDWARD</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE HEATHER FIELD and MAEVE.</b> Two Plays
+by Edward Martyn, with an Introduction by George Moore. Pott 4to. 5<i>s.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>OSTROVSKY</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE STORM.</b> Translated by Constance Garnett. A Re-issue.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>STRINDBERG, AUGUST</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE FATHER.</b> Translated by N. Erichsen. A Re-issue.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>SUDERMANN, HERMANN</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE JOY OF LIVING (Es Lebe das Leben).</b> By
+Hermann Sudermann. Crown 8vo. 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>VERHAEREN, EMILE</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE DAWN (Les Aubes).</b> Translated by Arthur
+Symons. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><i>WOODS, MARGARET L.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><b>THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER.</b> By Margaret
+L. Woods. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1_ad" id="Page_1_ad">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>A SELECTION FROM<br />
+DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
+LIST OF PUBLICATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
+<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+<small>3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN</small><br />
+<small>LONDON, W.C.</small><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2_ad" id="Page_2_ad">[2]</a></span></p>
+<h2>DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
+PUBLICATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<h3>ANIMAL LIFE AND WILD NATURE<br />
+(STORIES OF).</h3>
+
+<div class='center'><i>Uniform binding, large cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Under the Roof of the Jungle.</span> A Book of Animal Life
+in the Guiana Wilds. Written and illustrated by Charles
+Livingston Bull. With 60 full-page plates drawn from
+Life by the Author.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Kindred of the Wild.</span> A Book of Animal Life. By
+Charles G. D. Roberts, Professor of Literature, Toronto
+University, late Deputy-Keeper of Woods and Forests,
+Canada. With many illustrations by Charles Livingston
+Bull.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Watchers of the Trails.</span> A Book of Animal Life.
+By Charles G. D. Roberts. With 48 illustrations by
+Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Story of Red Fox.</span> A Biography. By Charles G. D.
+Roberts. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Haunters of the Silences.</span> A Book of Wild Nature.
+By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by Charles
+Livingston Bull.</div>
+
+
+<h3>BOOKS ON ART.</h3>
+
+<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Art&mdash;The Library of</span>, embracing Painting, Sculpture, Architecture,
+etc. Edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D.
+<i>Extra cloth</i>, with lettering and design in gold. <i>Large
+cr. 8vo</i> (7-3/4 in. &times; 5-3/4 in.), <i>gilt top, headband. 5s. net a
+volume. Inland postage, 5d.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES</small></div>
+
+<div class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Donatello.</span> By Lord Balcarres, M.P. With 58 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting.</span> By Dr
+W. Bode. With 48 plates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3_ad" id="Page_3_ad">[3]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By G. Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh.
+With 45 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Antonio Pollaiuolo.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 50 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Verrocchio.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 48 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Lives of the British Architects.</span> By E. Beresford
+Chancellor. With 45 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Madrid.</span> By A. de Beruete y Moret. With 48
+plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">William Blake.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 40 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Giotto.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 44 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">French Painting in the Sixteenth Century.</span> By L. Dimier.
+With 50 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Ferrara.</span> By Edmund G. Gardner. With 50 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Six Greek Sculptors.</span> (Myron, Pheidias, Polykleitos, Skopas,
+Praxiteles, and Lysippos.) By Ernest Gardner. With 81 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Titian.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau. With 54 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Constable.</span> By M. Sturge Henderson. With 48 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pisanello.</span> By G. F. Hill. With 50 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Michael Angelo.</span> By Sir Charles Holroyd. With 52 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Medi&aelig;val Art.</span> By W. R. Lethaby. With 66 plates and 120
+drawings in the text.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Scottish School of Painting.</span> By William D. McKay,
+R.S.A. With 46 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christopher Wren.</span> By Lena Milman. With upwards of 60 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Correggio.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 55 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albert D&uuml;rer.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 4 copperplates and 50
+half-tone engravings.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sir William Beechey, R.A.</span> By W. Roberts. With 49 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Seville.</span> By N. Sentenach. With 50 plates.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine.</span> By Mrs
+S. Arthur Strong, LL.D., Editor of the Series. 2 vols. With
+130 plates.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap"><a name="Art_The_Popular_Library_of" id="Art_The_Popular_Library_of"></a>Art, The Popular Library of.</span> Pocket volumes of biographical
+and critical value on the great painters, with very
+many reproductions of the artists' works. Each volume
+averages 200 pages, 16mo, with from 40 to 50 illustrations.
+To be had in different styles of binding: <i>Boards gilt, 1s.
+net; green canvas and red cloth gilt, 2s. net; limp lambskin,
+red and green, 2s. 6d. net.</i> Several titles can also
+be had in the popular Persian yapp binding, in box.
+<i>2s. 6d. net each.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES.</small></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Botticelli.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
+binding.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Raphael.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
+binding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4_ad" id="Page_4_ad">[4]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Frederick Walker.</span> By Clementina Black.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Velazquez.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Gainsborough.</span> By Arthur B. Chamberlain.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Cruikshank.</span> By W. H. Chesson.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Blake.</span> By G. K. Chesterton.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">G. F. Watts.</span> By G. K. Chesterton. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albrecht D&uuml;rer.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Water-Colour Painters.</span> By A. J. Finberg. Also
+in Persian yapp binding.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Hogarth.</span> By Edward Garnett.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Leonardo da Vinci.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Holbein.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rossetti.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Perugino.</span> By Edward Hutton.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Millet.</span> By Romain Rolland.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Watteau.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The French Impressionists.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Whistler.</span> By Bernhard Sickert. Also in Persian yapp binding.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amelung, Walther, and Holtzinger, Heinrich.</span> The
+Museums and Ruins of Rome. A Guide Book. Edited
+by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. With 264 illustrations
+and map and plans. 2 vols. New and cheaper re-issue.
+<i>Fcap 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Burns, Rev. J.</span> Sermons in Art by the Great Masters.
+<i>Cloth gilt</i>, photogravure frontispiece and many illustrations.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net</i>.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Christ Face in Art. With 60 illustrations in tint.
+<i>Cr. 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bussy, Dorothy.</span> Eug&egrave;ne Delacroix. A Critical Appreciation.
+With 26 illustrations. New and cheaper re-issue.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Carotti, Giulio.</span> A History of Art. English edition,
+edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. In four
+volumes, with very numerous illustrations in each volume.
+<i>Small cr. 8vo. 5s. net each volume.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol. &nbsp;&nbsp;I.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ancient Art.</span> 500 illustrations.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='4'>Vol. &nbsp;II.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Middle Ages down to the Golden Age.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol. III.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Golden Age.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='left'><i>In</i></td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<i>preparation.</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol. IV.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Modern Times.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">L&ouml;wy, Emanuel.</span> The Rendering of Nature in Early Greek
+Art. With 30 illustrations. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5_ad" id="Page_5_ad">[5]</a></span></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mauclair, Camille.</span> Auguste Rodin. With very many
+illustrations and photogravure frontispiece. <i>Small 4to.</i>
+New and cheaper re-issue. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Camille Mauclair.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h3>GENERAL LITERATURE.</h3>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Archer, William</span>, and <span class="smcap">Barker, H. Granville.</span> A
+National Theatre. Schemes and Estimates. By William
+Archer and H. Granville Barker. <i>Cr. 4to. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Aspinall, Algernon E.</span> The Pocket Guide to the West
+Indies. A New and Revised Edition, with maps, very
+fully illustrated. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; West Indian Tales of Old. Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Austin, Sarah.</span> The Story without an End. From the
+German of Carov&eacute;. Retold by Sarah Austin. Illustrated
+by Frank C. Pap&eacute;. 8 Illustrations in Colour,
+mounted with frames and plate marks. <i>Large cr. 8vo.
+Designed end papers. Designed cloth covers, fully gilt, gilt
+top, headband. In box. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; With illustrations by Paul Henry. <i>Sq. 8vo.
+1s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Belloc, Hilaire.</span> Verses. <i>Large cr. 8vo.</i> 2nd edition.
+<i>5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; and B. T. B. The Bad Child's Book of Beasts. New
+edition. 25th thousand. <i>Sq. 4to. 1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; and B. T. B. More Beasts for Worse Children. New
+edition. <i>Sq. 4to. 1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by H. Belloc.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Biron, H. C.</span> "Sir," Said Dr Johnson. Selections from
+Boswell's "Life of Johnson," arranged under comprehensive
+headings. <i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bourne, George.</span> Change in the Village: A study of the
+village of to-day. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> for other books by George Bourne.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Boutroux, Emile.</span> The Beyond that is Within, and other
+Lectures. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another book by Professor Boutroux.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6_ad" id="Page_6_ad">[6]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brooke, Stopford A.</span> The Onward Cry: Essays and
+Sermons. New and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'><i>See also the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a> for other
+books by Stopford Brooke.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Chapman, Hugh B.</span>, Chaplain of the Savoy. At the Back
+of Things: Essays and Addresses. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Collier, Price.</span> England and the English, from an American
+point of view. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Also a
+popular edition, with Foreword by Lord Rosebery.
+<i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The West in the East: A study of British Rule in India.
+<i>Demy. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Coulton, G. G.</span> From St Francis to Dante. A Historical
+Sketch. Second edition. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap"><a name="Crown_Library" id="Crown_Library"></a>Crown Library, The.</span> <i>Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top. 5s.
+net a volume.</i></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Rub&aacute;'iy&aacute;t of 'Umar Khayy&aacute;m</span> (Fitzgerald's 2nd Edition).
+Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Edward Heron Allen.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy.</span> By
+Emile Boutroux.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Wanderings in Arabia.</span> By Charles M. Doughty. An abridged
+edition of "Travels in Arabia Deserta." With portrait and
+map. In 2 vols.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Folk-Lore of the Holy Land</span>: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish.
+By J. E. Hanauer. Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Life and Evolution.</span> By F. W. Headley, F.Z.S. With upwards
+of 100 illustrations. New and revised edition (1913).</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Note-Books of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Edited by Edward
+McCurdy. With 14 illustrations.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen.</span> By F. W. Maitland.
+With a photogravure portrait.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Country Month by Month.</span> By J. A. Owen and G. S.
+Boulger. With 20 illustrations.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Spinoza</span>: His Life and Philosophy. By Sir Frederick Pollock.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Utilitarians.</span> By Sir Leslie Stephen. 3 vols.</div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">James Mill.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Jeremy Bentham.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">John Stuart Mill.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Critical Studies.</span> By S. Arthur Strong. With Memoir by Lord
+Balcarres, M.P. Illustrated.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cutting Ceres.</span> The Praying Girl. Thoughtful Religious
+Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7_ad" id="Page_7_ad">[7]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Darwin, Bernard, and Rountree, Harry.</span> The Golf
+Courses of the British Isles. 48 illustrations in colour
+and 16 in sepia. <i>Sq. royal 8vo. 21s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">De la Mare, Walter.</span> The Three Mulla Mulgars. A
+Romance of the Great Forests. With illustrations in
+colour. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Doughty, Chas. M.</span> Adam Cast Forth. A Poem founded
+on a Jud&aelig;o-Arabian Legend of Adam and Eve. <i>Cr. 8vo.
+4s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Cliffs. A Poetic Drama of the Invasion of Britain
+in 19&mdash;. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Clouds: a Poem. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Dawn in Britain. An Epic Poem of the Beginnings
+of Britain. In six vols. Vols. 1 and 2, <i>9s. net</i>; Vols. 3
+and 4, <i>9s. net</i>; Vols. 5 and 6, <i>9s. net.</i> The Set, <i>27s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another work by C. M. Doughty.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fairless, Michael.</span> Complete Works. 3 vols. In slip
+case. <i>Buckram gilt. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also the <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a>.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Roadmender. Illustrated in Colour by E. W. Waite.
+<i>Cloth gilt, gilt top. 7s. 6d. net. In a Box.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; Illustrated in photogravure from drawings by
+W. G. Mein. In slip case. <i>5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falconer, Rev. Hugh.</span> The Unfinished Symphony. New
+and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Flaubert, Gustave.</span> The First Temptation of St Anthony.
+A new translation by R. Francis. A fine edition on
+imit. hd.-made paper. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Graham, R. B. Cunninghame.</span> Charity. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Faith. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Hope. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His People. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by Cunninghame Graham.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Haselfoot, F. K. H.</span> The Divina Commedia of Dante
+Alighieri. Translated line for line in the <i>terza rima</i> of
+the original, with Introduction and Notes. Second
+edition, revised, corrected, and further annotated. <i>Demy
+8vo. 12s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8_ad" id="Page_8_ad">[8]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Headlam, Cecil.</span> Walter Headlam: Letters and Poems.
+With Memoir by Cecil Headlam. With photogravure
+portrait. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Henderson, Archibald.</span> Mark Twain. A Biography.
+With 8 photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn. <i>Large
+cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit: Critical
+Essays. With a photogravure portrait of Meredith. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hill, M. D., and Webb, Wilfred Mark.</span> Eton Nature-Study
+and Observational Lessons. With numerous
+illustrations. In two parts. <i>3s. 6d. net each.</i> Also the
+two parts in one volume, <i>6s. net</i>.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hammond, Rev. Joseph.</span> Six Necessary Things for Christians
+to Know. A Theology for the Plain Man. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span> A Little Boy Lost. With 30 illustrations
+by A. D. McCormick. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by W. H. Hudson.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hueffer, Ford Madox.</span> The Critical Attitude. Literary
+Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. Buckram. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Ford Madox Hueffer.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <span class="smcap">High Germany: Verses.</span> <i>Sq. cr. 8vo, paper covers.
+1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hughes, Rev. G.</span> Conscience and Criticism. With Foreword
+by the Bishop of Winchester. New and Cheaper
+Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hutchinson, T.</span> Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth
+and S. T. Coleridge, 1798. With certain poems of 1798,
+Introduction and Notes. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> New and Revised
+Edition. With 2 photogravures. <i>3. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard.</span> The Story of My Heart. By Richard
+Jefferies. A New Edition Reset. With 8 illustrations
+from oil paintings by Edward W. Waite. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
+The pictures mounted with frames and plate marks.
+Designed Cover. <i>Cloth gilt, gilt top, headband. In Box.
+7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Also a Large Paper Edition limited to 150 numbered copies, printed on
+Imit. Hand-made Paper, illustrations mounted on vellum with decorative
+borders in gold. Bound in buckram, in slip case. <i>21s. net.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9_ad" id="Page_9_ad">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Joubert, Joseph.</span> Joubert: A Selection from His Thoughts.
+Translated by Katharine Lyttleton, with a Preface by
+Mrs Humphry Ward. New Edition. In a slip case.
+<i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Kropotkin, Prince.</span> Ideals and Realities in Russian
+Literature. Critical Essays. By Prince Kropotkin.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Langlois, Ch. V., and Seignobos, Ch.</span> An Introduction to
+the Study of History. New Edition. <i>5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lawrence, D. H.</span> Love Poems and others. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Gallienne, Richard.</span> Odes from the Divan of Hafiz.
+Freely rendered from Literal Translations. <i>Large sq. 8vo.</i>
+In slip case. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lethaby, W. R.</span> Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen.
+With 125 illustrations, photogravure frontispiece,
+and many drawings and diagrams. <i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d.
+net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Westminster Abbey as a Coronation Church. Illustrated.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Library of Art</a> for "Medi&aelig;val Art" by W. R. Lethaby.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Loveland, J. D. E.</span> The Romance of Nice. A Descriptive
+Account of Nice and its History. With illustrations.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lytton, the Hon. Mrs Neville.</span> Toy Dogs and their
+Ancestors. With 300 illustrations in colour collotype,
+photogravure, and half-tone. <i>4to. 30s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahaffy, R. P.</span> Francis Joseph the First: His Life and
+Times. By R. P. Mahaffy. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahommed, Mirza, and Rice, C. Spring.</span> Valeh and
+Hadijeh. <i>Large sq. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mantzius, Karl.</span> A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient
+and Modern Times. With Introduction by William
+Archer. In six volumes. With illustrations from photographs.
+<i>Royal 8vo. 10s. net each vol.</i></div>
+
+<div class="hang2">Vol. I.&mdash;The Earliest Times. Vol. II.&mdash;Middle Ages and Renaissance.
+Vol. III.&mdash;Shakespeare and the English Drama of his
+Time. Vol. IV.&mdash;Moli&egrave;re and his Time. Vol. V.&mdash;Great
+Actors of the 18th Century. Vol. VI.&mdash;<i>In preparation.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marczali, Henry.</span> The Letters and Journal, 1848-49, of Count
+Charles Leiningen-Westerburg. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10_ad" id="Page_10_ad">[10]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marjoram, John.</span> New Poems. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Moore, T. Sturge.</span> Poems. <i>Square 8vo. Sewed, 1s. net
+a volume.</i></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Moore's Poems">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Centaur's Booty.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Rout of the Amazons.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Gazelles, and Other Poems.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pan's Prophecy.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">To Leda, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Theseus, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+Or, in one volume, <i>bound in art linen. 6s. net.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Sicilian Idyll, and Judith. <i>Cloth. 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Mariamne'">Marianne</ins>. A Drama. <i>Qr. bound. 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nassau, R. H.</span> Fetichism in West Africa: Forty Years'
+Observations of Native Customs and Superstitions. 12
+illustrations. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph, and Jerningham, C. E.</span> Piccadilly to
+Pall Mall. Manners, Morals, and Man. With 2 photogravures.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph.</span> Sporting Days and Sporting Ways. With
+coloured frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Merry Past. Reminiscences and Anecdotes.
+With frontispiece in colour collotype. <i>Demy 8vo.
+12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Pawlowska, Yo&iuml;</span> (Mrs Buckley). A Year of Strangers.
+Sketches of People and Things in Italy and in the Far
+East. With copper-plate frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s.
+net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Peake, Prof. A. S.</span> Christianity, its Nature and its Truth.
+<i>25th Thousand. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Phillipps, L. March.</span> The Works of Man. Studies of
+race characteristics as revealed in the creative art of the
+world. <i>Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays, Modern.</span> <i>Cloth. 2s. net a volume.</i></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Plays">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Revolt and the Escape.</span> By Villiers de L'Isle Adam.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hernani.</span> A Tragedy. By Frederick Brock.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> A Drama. By J. Comyns Carr.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11_ad" id="Page_11_ad">[11]</a></span><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. 6d. net.</i>)</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Breaking Point</span>: a Censured Play. By Edward Garnett.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Coming of Peace.</span> By Gerhart Hauptmann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> A Play. By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Storm.</span> By Ostrovsky. Translated by Constance Garnett.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Drama. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> One Act Plays. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Father.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">There Are Crimes and Crimes.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Miss Julia. The Stronger.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Creditors. Pariah.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Roses.</span> Four One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Morituri.</span> Three One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dawn</span> (Les Aubes). By Emile Verhaeren. Translated by Arthur Symons.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Princess of Hanover.</span> By Margaret L. Woods.</td></tr>
+</table><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">The following may also be had in paper covers. Price
+<i>1s. 6d. net a volume</i>.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="More plays">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> By J. Comyns Carr. (<i>Paper boards.</i>)</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. net.</i>)</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Censored Drama. By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Three Plays.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford. (Hamilton's Second
+Marriage, Thomas and the Princess, The Modern Way.)
+In one vol. <i>Sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (First Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
+(Joy, Strife, The Silver Box) in one vol. <i>Small sq. post
+8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (Second Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
+(Justice, The Little Dream, The Eldest Son) in one
+vol. <i>Small sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12_ad" id="Page_12_ad">[12]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By August Strindberg. (The Dream Play, The Link,
+The Dance of Death, Part I.; The Dance of Death,
+Part II.) Translated with an Introduction and Bibliography
+by Edwin Bj&ouml;rkman. With frontispiece portrait
+of Strindberg. In one volume. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By Anton Tchekoff. (Uncle Vanya, Ivanoff, The
+Seagull, The Swan Song.) With an Introduction.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Reid, Stuart J.</span> Sir Richard Tangye. A Life. With a
+portrait. New and Cheaper re-issue. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
+net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Roadmender Series, The.</span> The volumes in the series are
+works with the same tendency as Michael Fairless's
+remarkable book, from which the series gets its name:
+books which express a deep feeling for Nature, and a
+mystical interpretation of life. <i>Fcap. 8vo, with designed
+end papers. 2s. 6d. net.</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Sea Charm of Venice.</span> By Stopford A. Brooke.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Magic Casements.</span> By Arthur S. Cripps.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Roadmender.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
+3s. 6d. Velvet calf yapp, 5s. net.</i> Illustrated Black and White
+Edition, <i>cr. 8vo, 5s. net.</i> Also Special Illustrated edition in
+colour from oil paintings by E. W. Waite, <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> Edition de
+Luxe, <i>15s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Grey Brethren.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
+3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Gathering of Brother Hilarius.</span> By Michael Fairless.
+<i>Limp lambskin, 3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian,
+5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Modern Mystic's Way.</span> (Dedicated to Michael Fairless.)<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Thoughts of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Selected by Edward McCurdy.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Longings.</span> By W. D. McKay.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">From the Forest.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pilgrim Man.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Winter and Spring.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Vagrom Men.</span> By A. T. Story.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Light and Twilight.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rest and Unrest.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rose Acre Papers</span>: including Hor&aelig; Solitari&aelig;. By Edward Thomas.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Rosen, Erwin.</span> In the Foreign Legion. A record of actual
+experiences in the French Foreign Legion. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
+New and Cheaper Edition. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13_ad" id="Page_13_ad">[13]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="READERS_LIBRARY" id="READERS_LIBRARY">READERS' LIBRARY, THE.</a></h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'><i>Copyright Works of Individual Merit and Permanent Value
+<br />by Authors of Repute.</i><br />
+
+Library style. <i>Cr. 8vo. Blue cloth gilt, round backs.<br />
+2s. 6d. net a volume.</i><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Avril.</span> By Hilaire Belloc. Essays
+on the Poetry of the French
+Renaissance.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Esto Perpetua.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.
+Algerian Studies and Impressions.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Men, Women, and Books: Res
+Judicat&aelig;.</span> By Augustine Birrell.
+Complete in one vol.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Obiter Dicta.</span> By Augustine
+Birrell. First and Second Series
+in one volume.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Memoirs of a Surrey
+Labourer.</span> By George Bourne.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Bettesworth Book.</span> By
+George Bourne.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Poetry.</span> By Stopford
+A. Brooke, LL.D. Essays on
+Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Comparative Studies in Nursery
+Rhymes.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.
+Essays in a branch of
+Folk-lore.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Italian Poets since Dante.</span>
+Critical Essays. By W. Everett.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Villa Rubein, and Other
+Stories.</span> By John Galsworthy.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Progress, and Other Sketches.</span>
+By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Success: and Other Sketches.</span>
+By R. B. Cunninghame Grahame.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Green Mansions.</span> A Romance
+of the Tropical Forest. By W. H.
+Hudson.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Purple Land.</span> By W. H.
+Hudson.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Heart of the Country.</span>
+By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Soul of London.</span> By Ford
+Madox Hueffer.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the People.</span> By
+Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">After London&mdash;Wild England.</span>
+By Richard Jefferies.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amaryllis at the Fair.</span> By
+Richard Jefferies.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bevis.</span> The Story of a Boy. By
+Richard Jefferies.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Hills and the Vale.</span>
+Nature Essays. By Richard
+Jefferies.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Greatest Life.</span> An inquiry
+into the foundations of character.
+By Gerald Leighton, M.D.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">St Augustine and his Age.</span>
+An Interpretation. By Joseph
+McCabe.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Between the Acts.</span> By H. W.
+Nevinson.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays in Freedom.</span> By H. W.
+Nevinson.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Parallel Paths.</span> A Study in
+Biology, Ethics, and Art. By
+T. W. Rolleston.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Strenuous Life, and Other
+Essays.</span> By Theodore Roosevelt.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">English Literature and
+Society in the Eighteenth
+Century.</span> By Sir Leslie
+Stephen.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span> First
+Series. Two Volumes. By Sir
+Leslie Stephen.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span>
+Second Series. Two Volumes.
+By Sir Leslie Stephen.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Interludes.</span> By Sir Geo. Trevelyan.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays on Dante.</span> By Dr Carl
+Witte.</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Messrs Duckworth's admirable Readers' Library."&mdash;<i>Bookman.</i></p>
+
+<p>"A series which is well worth following. Excellent reading."&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
+
+<p>"That excellent series. The work of some of our most distinguished contemporaries."&mdash;<i>Daily
+News.</i></p>
+
+<p>"In a class apart from cheap reprints .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. as enjoyable to the most fastidious as first
+editions."&mdash;<i>The Manchester Guardian.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14_ad" id="Page_14_ad">[14]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Social Questions Series.</span></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Makers of Our Clothes.</span> A Case for Trade Boards. By Miss
+Clementina Black and Lady Carl Meyer. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sweated Industry and the Minimum Wage.</span> By Clementina
+<span class="smcap">Black</span>. With Preface by A. G. Gardiner. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo.
+2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Women in Industry: From Seven Points of View.</span> With
+Introduction by D. J. Shackleton. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Worker's Handbook.</span> By Gertrude M. Tuckwell. A handbook
+of legal and general information for the Clergy, for District
+Visitors, and all Social Workers. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Saints, The.</span> An entirely New Series of Lives of the Saints,
+in separate volumes. <i>Cr. 8vo, scarlet art vellum, gilt
+lettered, gilt top. 2s. 6d. net each volume.</i></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Saints">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ambrose.</span> By the Duc de Broglie.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Antony of Padua.</span> By the Abb&eacute; Albert Lepitre.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Augustine.</span> By Prof. Ad. Hatzfeld.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Cajetan.</span> By R. de Maulde la Clavi&egrave;re.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Chrysostom.</span> By Aim&eacute; Puech.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Clotilda.</span> By Prof. G. Kurth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Dominic.</span> By Jean Guiraud.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Francis of Sales.</span> By A. D. Margerie.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ignatius of Loyola.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Jerome.</span> By the Rev. Father Largent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Joan of Arc.</span> By L. Petit de Julleville.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. John Vianney: Cur&eacute; d'Ars.</span> By Joseph Vianney.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Louis.</span> By Marius Sepet.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Mary the Virgin.</span> By Ren&eacute; Marie de la Broise.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Nicholas I.</span> By Jules Roy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Patrick.</span> By l'Abb&eacute; Riguet.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Peter Fourier.</span> By L. Pingaud.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Teresa.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas &agrave; Becket.</span> By Mgr. Demimuid.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas More.</span> By Henri Bremond.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Vincent de Paul.</span> By Prince Emmanuel de Broglie.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Psychology of the Saints.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Duckworth's <a name="Shilling_Net_Series" id="Shilling_Net_Series"></a>Shilling Net Series.</span> <i>Cloth, cr. 8vo.</i></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Duckworth's Shilling Net Series">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Caliban's Guide to Letters.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">South American Sketches.</span> By W. H. Hudson.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Stories from De Maupassant.</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Success.</span> By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Smalley, George W.</span> Anglo-American Memories. First
+Series (American). With a photogravure frontispiece.
+<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Second Series (English). <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Spielmann</span>, Mrs M. H., and <span class="smcap">Wilhelm, C.</span> The Child of
+the Air. A Romantic Fantasy. Illustrated in colour
+and in line. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15_ad" id="Page_15_ad">[15]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stephen, H. L.</span> State Trials: Political and Social First
+Series. Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With
+two photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. Art vellum,
+gilt top. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;Sir Walter Raleigh&mdash;Charles I.&mdash;The Regicides&mdash;Colonel
+Turner and Others&mdash;The Suffolk Witches&mdash;Alice Lisle. Vol. II.&mdash;Lord
+Russell&mdash;The Earl of Warwick&mdash;Spencer Cowper and
+Others&mdash;Samuel Goodere and Others.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; State Trials: Political and Social. Second Series.
+Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With two
+photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;The Earl of Essex&mdash;Captain Lee&mdash;John Perry&mdash;Green and
+Others&mdash;Count Coningsmark&mdash;Beau Fielding. Vol. II.&mdash;Annesley&mdash;Carter&mdash;Macdaniell&mdash;Bernard&mdash;Byron.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stopford, Francis.</span> Life's Great Adventure. Essays. By
+Francis Stopford, author of "The Toil of Life." <i>Cr.
+8vo. Cloth. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Theology.</span> A New Series of Handbooks, being
+aids to interpretation in Biblical Criticism for the use of
+the Clergy, Divinity Students, and Laymen. <i>Cr. 8vo.
+2s. 6d. net a volume.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Christian Hope.</span> A Study in the Doctrine of the Last Things.
+By W. Adams Brown, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union
+College, New York.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christianity and Social Questions.</span> By the Rev. William
+Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Archdeacon of Ely. Formerly
+Lecturer on Economic History to Harvard University.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Faith and its Psychology.</span> By the Rev. William R. Inge, D.D.,
+Dean of St Paul's.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Protestant Thought before Kant.</span> By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D.,
+D.D., of the Union Theological Seminary, New York.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Theology of the Gospels.</span> By the Rev. James Moffat, B.D.,
+D.D., of the U.F. Church of Scotland, sometime Jowett Lecturer
+in London, author of "The Historical New Testament,"
+"Literary Illustrations of the Bible," etc.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A History of Christian Thought since Kant.</span> By the Rev.
+Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman Professor of Theology
+in the University of Harvard, U.S.A.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Revelation and Inspiration.</span> By the Rev. James Orr, D.D.,
+Professor of Apologetics in the Theological College of the United
+Free Church, Glasgow.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Critical Introduction to the New Testament.</span> By Arthur
+Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Dean of
+the Faculty of Theology, Victoria University, Manchester.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Philosophy and Religion.</span> By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall,
+D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A., Fellow and Tutor
+of New College, Oxford.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16_ad" id="Page_16_ad">[16]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Text and Canon of the New Testament.</span> By Prof. Alexander
+Souter, M.A., D.Litt., Professor of Humanity, Aberdeen
+University.</div>
+
+<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christian Thought to the Reformation.</span> By Herbert B. Workman,
+D.Litt., Principal of the Westminster Training College.</div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tomlinson, H. M.</span> The Sea and the Jungle. Personal experiences
+in a voyage to South America and through the
+Amazon forests. By H. M. Tomlinson. <i>Demy 8vo.
+7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Vaughan, Herbert M.</span> The Last Stuart Queen: Louise
+Countess of Albany. A Life. With illustrations and
+portraits. <i>Demy 8vo. 16s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Waern, Cecilia.</span> Medi&aelig;val Sicily. Aspects of Life and
+Art in the Middle Ages. With very many illustrations.
+<i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Williams, Alfred.</span> A Wiltshire Village. A Study of
+English Rural Village Life. By Alfred Williams. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="NOVELS_AND_STORIES" id="NOVELS_AND_STORIES"></a>NOVELS AND STORIES</h2>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Anonymous.</span> The Diary of an English Girl. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, David W.</span> The Brassbounder. A tale of seamen's
+life in a sailing ship. With illustrations by the Author.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Gertrude.</span> Provincial Tales. With frontispiece by
+Muirhead Bone. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Muirhead and Gertrude.</span> Children's Children. A
+Tale. With 60 drawings by Muirhead Bone. <i>Large
+Cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i> [Vellum Edition, limited to 250
+copies, signed and numbered. <i>25s. net.</i>]</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brookfield, Chas. H.</span> Jack Goldie: the Boy who knew
+best. Illustrated by A. E. Jackson. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brown, Vincent.</span> A Magdalen's Husband. A Novel.
+Fourth Impression. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Dark Ship. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Disciple's Wife. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Sacred Cup. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Calthrop, Dion Clayton.</span> King Peter. A Novel. With a
+Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Dion Clayton Calthrop.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17_ad" id="Page_17_ad">[17]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cawtley, C. Holmes.</span> The Weaving of the Shuttle. A
+Yorkshire Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Clifford</span>, Mrs W. K. Woodside Farm. A Novel. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Connolly, J. B.</span> Wide Courses: Tales of the Sea. Illustrated.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davies, W. H.</span> Beggars. Personal Experiences of Tramp
+Life. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Weak Woman. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The True Traveller. A Tramp's Experiences. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davis, Richard Harding.</span> Once upon a Time. Stories.
+Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Man who could not Lose. Stories. Illustrated.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Red Cross Girl. Stories. Illustrated. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Dodge, Janet.</span> Tony Unregenerate. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Drake, Maurice.</span> Wrack. A Tale of the Sea. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">East, H. Clayton.</span> The Breath of the Desert. A Novel of
+Egypt. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Filippi, Rosina.</span> Bernardine. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fogazzaro, Antonio.</span> The Poet's Mystery. A Novel. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Forbes, Lady Helen.</span> It's a Way they have in the Army.
+A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Bounty of the Gods. A Novel.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Polar Star. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garnett</span>, Mrs R. S. Amor Vincit. A Romance of the
+Staffordshire Moorlands. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another Novel by Mrs Garnett.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garshin, W.</span> The Signal, and other Stories. Translated
+from the Russian.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Glyn, Elinor.</span> Beyond the Rocks. A Love Story. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i> Also an edition in <i>paper covers. 1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Halcyone. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His Hour. A Novel. With a photogravure frontispiece.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18_ad" id="Page_18_ad">[18]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Vicissitudes of Evangeline. With
+Coloured Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo, 6s.</i> Also an edition in
+<i>paper covers, 1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Reflections of Ambrosine. With Coloured Frontispiece.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Three Weeks. A Romance. With Coloured Frontispiece.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Visits of Elizabeth. With Photogravure Frontispiece.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Elizabeth Visits America. With a Photogravure
+Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Damsel and the Sage: A Woman's Whimsies.
+With a Photogravure Portrait. <i>Cr. 8vo.</i> In slip case.
+<i>5s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Sayings of Grandmamma. From the Writings of
+Elinor Glyn. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> With Photogravure Portrait.
+<i>Persian yapp. 2s. 6d. net. Also in parchment, 1s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Reason Why. With Frontispiece in Colour.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Gorky, Maxim.</span> The Spy. A Tale. By Maxim Gorky.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Twenty-six Men and a Girl. Stories. <i>Cr. 8vo.
+Cloth, 2s. net.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hayter, Adrian.</span> The Profitable Imbroglio. A Tale of
+Mystery. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Holmes, Arthur H.</span> Twinkle. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Horlick, Jittie.</span> A String of Beads. A Tale. Illustrated
+in Colour. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Johnson, Cecil Ross.</span> The Trader: A Venture in New
+Guinea. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Sage, A. B.</span> In the West Wind. A Cornish Novel.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lipsett, E. R.</span> Didy: The Story of an Irish Girl.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maclagan, Bridget.</span> The Mistress of Kingdoms. A Novel.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Martindale, Elizabeth.</span> Margaret Hever. A Novel. <i>Cr.
+8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19_ad" id="Page_19_ad">[19]</a></span></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maud, Constance Elizabeth.</span> Angelique: le p'tit Chou.
+A Story. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Miss Maud.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maupassant, Guy de.</span> Yvette, and other Stories. Translated
+by A.G. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Net Library</a> for another volume of Maupassant.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Monkhouse, Allan.</span> Dying Fires. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Napier, Rosamond.</span> The Faithful Failure. A Novel of the
+Open Air. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Heart of a Gypsy. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Pawlowska, Yo&iuml;.</span> Those that Dream. A Novel of Life in
+Rome To-day. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Roberts, Helen.</span> Old Brent's Daughter. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Schofield, Lily.</span> Elizabeth, Betsy, and Bess. A Tale.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>"<span class="smcap">Shway Dinga.</span>" Wholly without Morals. A Novel of
+Indo-Burman Life. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tchekhoff, Anton.</span> The Kiss: Stories. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Travers, John.</span> Sahib Log. A Novel of Regimental Life
+in India. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; In the World of Bewilderment. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tylee, E. S.</span> The Witch Ladder. A Somerset Story.
+<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Vaughan, Owen</span> (Owen Rhoscomyl). A Scout's Story. A
+Tale of Adventure. Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Isle Raven. A Welsh Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Old Fireproof: Being the Chaplain's Story of Certain
+Events in the South African War. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Sweet Rogues. A Romance. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Owen Vaughan.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap"><a name="Duckworths_Series_of_Popular_Novels" id="Duckworths_Series_of_Popular_Novels"></a>Duckworth's Series of Popular Novels.</span> <i>2s. net.</i></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Duckworth's Series of Popular Novels">
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Prodigal Nephew.</span> By Bertram Atkey.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dance of Love.</span> By Dion Clayton Calthrop.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Woodside Farm.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Crested Seas.</span> By James B. Conolly. Illustrated.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Infamous John Friend.</span> By Mrs R.S. Garnett.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Elizabeth visits America.</span> By Elinor Glyn.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reflections of Ambrosine.</span> By Elinor Glyn.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Motor-Car Divorce.</span> By Louise Hale. Illustrated.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">No Surrender.</span> By Constance Elizabeth Maud.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Kingdom.</span> By Frank Richardson.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Vronina.</span> By Owen Vaughan. With Coloured Frontispiece.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20_ad" id="Page_20_ad">[20]</a></span></p>
+<h2>BOOKS ON APPROVAL</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Messrs</span> DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'s Publications may be obtained
+through any good bookseller. Anyone desiring to examine a
+volume should order it subject to approval. The bookseller can
+obtain it from the publishers on this condition.<br /><br />
+
+<i>The following Special Lists and Catalogues will be sent
+Post Free on request to any address:&mdash;</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang2'>A GENERAL CATALOGUE OF PUBLICATIONS<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>A COLOURED PROSPECTUS OF NEW ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN'S BOOKS<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE READERS' LIBRARY"<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE LIBRARY OF ART" AND "THE POPULAR LIBRARY OF ART"<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE SAINTS SERIES"<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class='hang2'>AND FULL PROSPECTUSES OF "THE ROADMENDER SERIES" AND "MODERN PLAYS"<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+DUCKWORTH &amp; COMPANY<br />
+3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON<br />
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;">
+<img src="images/backcover.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="Back Cover" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30087 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Amaryllis at the Fair
-
-Author: Richard Jefferies
-
-Commentator: Edward Garnett
-
-Release Date: September 25, 2009 [EBook #30087]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Emmy and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-
-
-THE READERS' LIBRARY
-
-Uniform with this Volume
-
-
-BELLOC, H.
-
-  AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
-
-
-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE
-
-  ORBITER DICTA
-
-
-BOURNE, GEORGE
-
-  MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
-
-
-BROOKS, STOPFORD A.
-
-  STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.
-
-
-EVERETT, W.
-
-  ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE
-
-
-GALSWORTHY, JOHN
-
-  A COMMENTARY
-
-
-HUDSON, W. H.
-
-  GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest
-
-  THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance
-
-
-JEFFERIES, RICHARD
-
-  AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-  BEVIS. The Story of a Boy
-
-  AFTER LONDON
-
-
-MCCABE, JOSEPH
-
-  ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE
-
-
-NEVINSON, H. W.
-
-  ESSAYS IN FREEDOM
-
-
-STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE
-
-  ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
-
-  IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes
-
-
-WITTE, DR. CARL
-
-  ESSAYS ON DANTE
-
-
-ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
-
-  THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses
-
-
-ECKENSTEIN, LINA
-
-  COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays in a Branch of Folklore
-
-
-CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, R. B.
-
-  PROGRESS, and other Sketches
-
-
-Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time
-
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-BY
-
-RICHARD JEFFERIES
-
-AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON," "WOOD MAGIC; A
-FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.
-
-          "Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."
-                                                  ALC�US.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-          LONDON
-          DUCKWORTH AND CO.
-          3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
-
-
-          Reissued 1904
-          Reprinted in Readers Library 1911
-          _All rights reserved_
-
-
-                 =Dedicated=
-
-                     TO
-
-          CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.[1]
-
-
-"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
-on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
-conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
-sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
-acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
-have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
-write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"
-
-What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
-"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
-that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
-of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
-echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
-says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclop�dia." "Has anyone ever been able to
-write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
-asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
-brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
-Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
-dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
-descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
-particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
-and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
-he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
-which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
-Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
-as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
-is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
-touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
-to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
-few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
-one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
-highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
-which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
-voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reader may ask. A
-novel, says the learned Charles Annandale, is "a fictitious prose
-narrative, involving some plot of greater or less intricacy, and
-professing to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting the
-passions and sentiments, in a state of great activity, and especially
-the passion of love." Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious
-prose narrative professing to give a picture of real life, and involving
-a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it exhibits the passions and
-sentiments in a state of great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose
-little book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further remarks:
-"Jefferies was quite unable to give any vivid dramatic life to his
-stories . . . his instinct was that of the naturalist who observes and
-moralizes rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
-interprets; and consequently his rustic characters, though strongly and
-clearly drawn, do not live, as, for example, those of Thomas Hardy
-live. . . . Men and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to be "no ordinary
-novelist," it is inferred by most that something is wrong with
-"Amaryllis the Fair," and the book has been passed over in silence. But
-we do not judge every novel by the same test. We do not judge "Tristram
-Shandy," for example, by its intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we
-judge it simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by its
-humorous insight into human character. And judged by the same simple
-test "Amaryllis at the Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
-creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden, the unsuccessful
-farmer who "built for all time, and not for the circumstances of the
-hour," is a masterly piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal
-portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about Uncle Toby? From what
-void did he spring? Iden, to our mind, is almost as masterly a
-conception, as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And Mrs. Iden,
-where will you find this type of nervous, irritable wife, full of
-spiteful disillusioned love for her dilatory husband better painted than
-by Jefferies? But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the reader may
-say. Excellent reader! and what about the Widow Wadman? She is no less
-and no more of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great feat of
-Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere of the Shandy household,
-but Jefferies has accomplished an artistic feat also in drawing the
-relations of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How true, how
-unerringly true to human nature is this picture of the Iden household;
-how delicately felt and rendered to a hair is his picture of the
-father's sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the waspish
-tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we not only have the family's
-idiosyncrasies, their habits, mental atmosphere, and domestic story
-brought before us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively by the
-hand of the artist, but we have the whole book steeped in the breath of
-English spring, the restless ache of spring that thrills through the
-nerves, and stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring feeling
-breaking from the March heavens and the March earth in copse, meadow,
-and ploughland, as it has scarcely been rendered before by English
-novelist. The description of Amaryllis running out into the March wind
-to call her father from his potato planting to see the daffodil; the
-picture of Iden pretending to sleep in his chair that he may watch the
-mice; the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the crowd of plain,
-ugly men of the countryside flocking along the road to the fair; the
-description of Amadis the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the
-stalwart country folk--all these pictures and a dozen others in the book
-are painted with a masterly hand. Pictures! the critical reader may
-complain. Yes, pictures of living men and women. What does it matter
-whether a revelation of human life is conveyed to us by pictures or by
-action so long as it is conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
-Gray, presumably because both writers have written of the English
-landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in his work as a naturalist and observer
-of wild life may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert White.
-But this classification only applies to one half of Jefferies' books. By
-his "Wild Life in a Southern County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by
-his "Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little apart from the
-poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair" he stands among the half-dozen
-country writers of the century whose work is racy of the English soil
-and of rural English human nature. We will name three of these writers,
-Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and our attentive readers can name the other
-three.
-
-To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is it so masterly, or,
-further, wherein is it so masterly, the curious reader may inquire? "Is
-it not full of digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
-is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly break his method,
-introduce his own personality, intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food,
-illness, and Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's dinner a
-little--well, a little unusual? In short, is not the book a disquisition
-on life from the standpoint of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if
-this is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?" Oh, candid
-reader, with the voice of authority sounding in your ears (and have we
-not Mr. Henley and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against us), a
-book may break the formal rules, and yet it may yield to us just that
-salt of life which we may seek for vainly in the works of more faultless
-writers. The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its beauty
-springs naturally from the prosaic earthly facts of life it narrates,
-and that, in the natural atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose
-and the poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the artistic
-naturalness of its homely picture, the book is very superior to, say
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge," where we are conscious that the author has
-been at work arranging and rearranging his charming studies and
-impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge into the pattern of
-an exciting plot. Now it is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge"--and we cite this novel as characteristic,
-both in its strength and weakness, of its distinguished author,--that we
-are brought to feel that we have not been shown the characters of
-Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but that they have been
-moved about, kaleidoscopically, to suit the exigencies of the plot, and
-that the more this is so the less significance for us have their
-thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling changes of Farfrae and
-Lucetta, Henchard and Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
-listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we perceive indeed
-whence comes that atmosphere of stage crisis and stage effect which
-suddenly introduces a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars the
-artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful in other respects
-to English rural life. Plot is Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed
-and convincing would have been his pictures, if he could have thrown his
-plots and his rustic choruses to the four winds. May we not be thankful,
-therefore, that Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that in
-"Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions, the conversations
-are spontaneous as life, and that Jefferies' commentary on them is like
-Fielding's commentary, a medium by which he lives with his characters.
-The author's imagination, memory, and instinctive perception are,
-indeed, all working together; and so his picture of human life in
-"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as fresh a breath of life
-as we find in Cobbett's, Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
-writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere, his style
-and his subject seem to become one. He moves easily and surely. Out of
-the splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the sensations, the
-observations and revelations of his youth, and the atmosphere familiar
-to him through long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning picture
-for us, a complete illusion of life more true than the reality. For what
-prosaic people call the reality is merely the co-ordination in their own
-minds of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life around them;
-and only this thousandth part they have noticed. But the creative mind
-builds up a living picture out of the thousands of aspects most of us
-are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies has done in "Amaryllis
-at the Fair." The book is rich in the contradictory forces of life, in
-its quick twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working alike
-in the leaves of grass outside the Idens' house, in the blustering winds
-round the walls, and in the minds of the characters indoors; and the
-style has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is growing,
-changing, breathing in the book. But the accomplished critics do not
-notice these trivial strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
-not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently thinks that Jefferies
-made a mistake in drawing his philosophy from an open-air study of
-nature, for he writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
-background was not like Wordsworth's clear and cheerful, but wholly
-vague and partly gloomy." It was neither vague nor gloomy, we may
-remark, parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw too deeply
-into nature's workings, and had too sensuous a joy in life to interpret
-all Nature's doings, � la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously moral
-significance.
-
-The one charge that may with truth be brought against "Amaryllis at the
-Fair" is that its digressions damage the artistic illusion of the whole.
-The book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness of a sketch, a
-sketch, moreover, which Jefferies was not destined to carry to the end
-he had planned, but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
-weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature, rather than those
-of an ambitious studio picture. And these digressions are an integral
-part of the book's character, just as the face of a man has its own
-blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the whole, and so, if they
-break somewhat the illusion of the scenes, they do not damage its
-spiritual unity. It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
-because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and complete testament on
-human life. He wrote it, or rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in
-pain, slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of a dying man.
-How real, how solid, how deliciously sweet seemed those simple earthly
-joys, those human appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
-is his passion and spiritual hunger for the beauty of earth! Like a
-flame shooting up from the log it is consuming, so this passion for the
-green earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine, consumes the
-wasted, consumptive body of the dying man. The reality, the solidity of
-the homely farmhouse life he describes spring from the intensity with
-which he clings to all he loves, the cold March wind buffeting the face,
-the mating cries of the birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so
-terribly strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
-hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving, bitter the
-knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring and vivifying the whole, in
-every line of "Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
-"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished critics. Did he
-not? "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the truest criticisms of human
-life, oh reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness of things,
-the old, old human muddle, the meanness and stupidity and
-shortsightedness of humanity, the good salty taste of life in the
-healthy mouth, the spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
-appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry, and the sharp
-wind blowing alike on the just and the unjust--all is there on the
-printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
-roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
-exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.
-
-                                                    EDWARD GARNETT.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
-immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.
-
-There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
-Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
-bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
-gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
-the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
-The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
-be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
-innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
-growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
-which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
-pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
-morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
-ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."
-
-I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
-patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
-farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
-for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
-But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
-is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
-is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
-because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
-plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
-the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
-nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.
-
-Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
-now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
-a town can never be "home."
-
-Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or
-perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had
-damask roses, bees, and birds about them.
-
-There had been daffodils in that spot at least a century, opening every
-March to the dry winds that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
-and carry them out from the bushes under the trees, sending them across
-the meadow--fleeing like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
-Every spring for a century at least the daffodils had bloomed there.
-
-Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century, but ran round the corner
-of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her
-with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were
-blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of
-her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red
-brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a
-hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under
-her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed as if it would
-scoop them out; her eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips dried
-up and parched in a moment. The wind went through her thick stockings as
-if the wool was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her eyes, and the
-skin of her arm became "goosey" directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it
-would have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step by step, and
-gradually reached the shelter of the high garden wall; there she could
-stand upright, and breathe again.
-
-Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen blast, as if a storm of
-ice particles had been driven against them, now resumed their scarlet,
-but her ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly dark hair was
-dry and rough and without gloss. Each separate hair separated itself
-from the next, and would not lie smooth--the natural unctuous essence
-which usually caused them to adhere was dried up.
-
-The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and
-in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child,
-full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.
-Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.
-
-The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe
-looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow
-with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his
-nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and
-carried him past.
-
-Under the wall was a large patch recently dug, beside the patch a grass
-path, and on the path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in potatoes;
-he wore the raggedest coat ever seen on a respectable back. As the wind
-lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and only hung
-by threads, the cuffs were worn through, there was a hole beneath each
-arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
-which had once been grey, was now a mixture of several soils and
-numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had on was no better; it might have
-been made of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every now and then
-the wind brought a few handfuls of dust over the wall from the road, and
-dropped it on his stooping back.
-
-The way in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato
-was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it
-in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned
-over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and
-when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
-keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried
-the potatoes in his coat pocket--those, that is, for the row--and took
-them out one by one; had he been planting his own children he could not
-have been more careful. The science, the skill, and the experience
-brought to this potato-planting you would hardly credit; for all this
-care was founded upon observation, and arose from very large abilities
-on the part of the planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
-that moment.
-
-So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she ran down the grass path
-and stood by the wheelbarrow, but although her shadow fell across the
-potato row, he would not see her.
-
-"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing bolder. "Do come--there's a
-daffodil out, the very, very first."
-
-"Oh," a sound like a growl--"oh," from the depth of a vast chest
-heaving out a doubtful note.
-
-"It is such a beautiful colour!"
-
-"Where is your mother?" looking at her askance and still stooping.
-
-"Indoors--at least--I think--no----"
-
-"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help her? What good be you on?"
-
-"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very first--now do come!"
-
-"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as that; what do'ee want
-a-messing about arter thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't never
-got a apron on."
-
-"But--just a minute now."
-
-"Go on in, and be some use on."
-
-Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path,
-her head drooping forward.
-
-Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?
-
-She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began
-to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
-foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did
-not see or hear him till he overtook her.
-
-"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.
-
-"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.
-
-"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and brightening up immediately.
-"Only think, to open in all this wind, and so cold--isn't it beautiful?
-It's much more beautiful than the flowers that come in the summer."
-
-"Trumpery rubbish--mean to dig 'em all up--would if I had time,"
-muttered the father. "Have 'em carted out and drowed away--do for ashes
-to drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody, thaay thengs. You
-can't eat 'em, can you, like you can potatoes?"
-
-"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis stepped on the patch
-tenderly, and lifted up the drooping face of the flower.
-
-"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to his chin, a habit of his
-when thinking, and suddenly quite altering his pronunciation from that
-of the country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt to the correct
-accent of education. "Ah, yes; the daffodil was your great-uncle's
-favourite flower."
-
-"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.
-
-"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, noting how handsome her
-father's intellectual face looked, wandered in her mind from the flower
-as he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough sometimes, and why
-he talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged coat--he who was so full
-of wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought, and indeed acted
-as a perfect gentleman.
-
-"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He brought the daffodils down
-from Luckett's; every one in the garden came from there. He was always
-reading poetry, and writing, and sketching, and yet he was such a
-capital man of business; no one could understand that. He built the
-mill, and saved heaps of money; he bought back the old place at
-Luckett's, which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed,
-he very nearly made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got
-rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is all going again--faster
-than he made it. He used to take you on his knee and say you would walk
-well, because you had a good ankle."
-
-Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with her hands, as if that
-would lengthen the skirt and hide the ankles which Richard, the
-great-uncle, had admired when she was a child, being a man, but which
-her feminine acquaintances told her were heavy.
-
-"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish of you to go out in this
-wind without them!" said Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
-Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors again immediately.
-
-"He was the only one of all the family," continued her father, "who
-could make money; all the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
-generations he was the only money-maker and saver, and yet he was as
-free and liberal as possible. Very curious, wasn't it?--only one in ten
-generations--difficult to understand why none of the others--why----" He
-paused, thinking.
-
-Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking--thinking how easily her papa could
-make money, great heaps of money. She was sure he could if he tried,
-instead of planting potatoes.
-
-"If only another Richard would rise up like him!" said Iden.
-
-This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having had one genius in the
-family, and that, too, in the memory of man, they could not expect
-another. Even vast empires rarely produce more than one great man in all
-the course of their history. There was but one C�sar in the thousand
-years of Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless we except
-Themistocles, or unless we accept Alexander, who was a Macedonian;
-Persia had a Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few people know
-anything of the empire he overshadows with his name; France has had two
-mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon--unfortunate France! As for
-ourselves, fortunate islanders! we have never had a great man so
-immensely great as to overtop the whole, like Charlemagne in his day.
-Fortunate for us, indeed, that it has been so. But the best example to
-the point is the case of the immense empire of Russia, which has had one
-Peter the Great, and one only. Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the
-Great of his family, whose work had been slowly undone by his
-successors.
-
-"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out like Richard," continued
-Iden. "No one could deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
-convincing people, and always got his own will in the end. Wonderful
-man!" he pondered, returning towards his work.
-
-Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden just peered out, and cried,
-"Put your hat and scarf on directly."
-
-Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf very loosely about her
-neck. She accompanied her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
-would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She
-watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped
-so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime
-of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed
-at the shoulders. He worked so hard--ever since she could remember she
-had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was
-yet dark tending the cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
-wind or weather made no difference. Other people stopped indoors if it
-rained much, but it made no difference to her father, nor did the deep
-snow or the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly,
-too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could
-this be?
-
-What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show
-you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as
-ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as
-when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence
-is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-
-PRESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors, and was met in the hall by her
-mother.
-
-"What has he been talking to you about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
-listen to him. He will never do any good. Just look at his coat; it's a
-disgrace, a positive disgrace. Telling you about the old people? What's
-the use of talking of people who have been dead all this time? Why
-doesn't he do something himself? Don't listen to his rubbish--wasting
-his time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one wild! Why doesn't
-he go in to market and buy and sell cattle, and turn over money in that
-way? Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry potatoes, as if it
-mattered an atom how they were stuck in the ground."
-
-Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis went upstairs, and when
-she was alone lifted her skirt and looked at the ankles which
-great-uncle Richard had admired. Other girls had told her they were
-thick, and she was ashamed of them.
-
-Instead of the slender things which seem as if a sudden strain would
-snap them, and are nothing but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
-ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be a fine form; strong,
-but neither thick, nor coarse, nor heavy, ankles that would carry her
-many a mile without weariness, that ended good legs with plenty of flesh
-on them. The stupidity of calling such coarse or heavy! They were really
-ideal ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these ill-instructed
-girls called them coarse! It was not their fault, it was the lack of
-instruction; as they did not know what was physically perfect, of course
-they could not recognize it.
-
-Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of them, for they will prove
-a blessing to her for the whole of her life.
-
-Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though she brushed it for some
-time; it would not lie close, so much had the east wind dried it. She
-opened a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar, and held it
-in her hand, balancing probabilities. Would her father see it if she
-used it, or might he, perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
-bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced to pass through the
-room he would certainly have thrown it out of window, so bitter was his
-antagonism to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and other
-resources of the hairdresser, which he held defiled the hair and ruined
-it, to the deception of woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
-scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief, not one drop
-of oil did she dare put on her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously,
-and then she could not go near him, for he was certain to detect it and
-scorch her with withering satire.
-
-Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes and oils and so forth
-is like a perennial spring, and never fails.
-
-Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed no dressing--nothing
-could possibly improve it, and the chances therefore were that whatever
-she used would injure--yet in her heart she yearned to rub it with oil.
-
-But the more she considered the more probable it seemed that her father
-would detect her; she had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
-somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden was one of those who
-preferred working at home to rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too
-attached to his home work. So she returned the bottle to the drawer, and
-hid it under some stockings.
-
-Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At all meals the rule was
-that there must be no talking, but at dinner the law was so strict that
-even to ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so much as
-"Give me the salt, please," was a deadly sin. There must be absolute
-silence while the master ate. The least infringement was visited with a
-severe glance from his keen and brilliant blue eyes--there are no eyes
-so stern as blue eyes when angry--or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
-grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For he usually stooped,
-and to sit upright showed annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
-were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that house.
-
-Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the dinner hour was worse
-than sacrilege; anything that threatened to disturb it was watched
-intently by that repressive eye. No one must come in or go out of the
-room; if anyone knocked at the door (there are no bells in old country
-houses) there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone answering
-it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis had to leave the table, to go out
-and open and shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again as they
-returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at the door, it was so awful to have
-to stir once they had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
-not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it happened--and this was very
-terrible--that the master himself had to go, some one wanted him about
-some hay or a horse and cart, and no one could tell what to do but the
-master. A dinner broken up in this way was a very serious matter indeed.
-
-That day they had a leg of mutton--a special occasion--a joint to be
-looked on reverently. Mr. Iden had walked into the town to choose it
-himself some days previously, and brought it home on foot in a flag
-basket. The butcher would have sent it, and if not, there were men on
-the farm who could have fetched it, but it was much too important to be
-left to a second person. No one could do it right but Mr. Iden himself.
-There was a good deal of reason in this personal care of the meat, for
-it is a certain fact that unless you do look after such things yourself,
-and that persistently, too, you never get it first-rate. For this cause
-people in grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth eating on their
-tables. Their household expenses reach thousands yearly, and yet they
-rarely have anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never show
-meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's. The meat was dark brown,
-as mutton should be, for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be
-poor; the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter, firm, and yet
-almost crumbling to the touch; it was full of juicy red gravy, and cut
-pleasantly, the knife went through it nicely; you can tell good meat
-directly you touch it with the knife. It was cooked to a turn, and had
-been done at a wood fire on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal
-gas or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it. Such emanations as
-there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the
-sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it
-burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its leaves from the
-atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers. Essences of this order,
-if they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its flavour a
-delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked at a wood fire, for me.
-
-Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure to have their meat
-cooked over coal or in a shut-up iron box, where it kills itself with
-its own steam, which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa people do
-do odd things. _Les Mis�rables_ who have to write like myself must put
-up with anything and be thankful for permission to exist; but people
-with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware, or mud, or bricks and
-mortar--why on earth these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
-the gods passes understanding.
-
-Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris will convert some of you who
-will not listen to a farmer.
-
-Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that were placed before him.
-They were white, floury, without a drop of water in the whole dish of
-them. They were equal to the finest bread--far, far superior to the
-bread with which the immense city of London permits itself to be
-poisoned. (It is not much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
-too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a price which is in
-itself one of the most wonderful things of the age. The finest bread
-ought to be cheap.
-
-"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping himself to half a dozen.
-"Look at the gravy go up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."
-
-The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury particles of the potatoes
-as if they had formed capillary tubes.
-
-"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty to one. It be an amazing
-theng how thengs do that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
-potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds. Mine comes
-true, 'cause I saves um every year a' purpose. Better take more than
-that (to Amaryllis)--you haven't got but two" (to Mrs. Iden).
-
-What he ate other people at his table must eat, and the largest quantity
-possible. No one else must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but the
-master could talk, talk, talk without end. The only talking that might
-be done by others was in praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so
-carefully provided. You might admire the potatoes or the mutton, but you
-must not talk on any other subject. Nor was it safe even to do that,
-because if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were immediately
-helped to another plateful, and had to finish them, want them or not. If
-you praised the mutton several thick slices were placed on your plate,
-and woe to you if you left a particle. It was no use to try and cover
-over what you could not manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be
-seen. "What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there juicy bit, you?"
-
-Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous experience, discreetly
-refrained from admiring either mutton or potatoes.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-
-"FORTY-FOLDS," went on the master, "be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
-be so many new sorts now, but they bean't no good; they be very good for
-gentlefolk as doan't know no better, and poor folk as can't help
-theirselves. They won't grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
-patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's that's big middle patch.
-Summat different in the soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be
-learned before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such a simple
-thing. Farty-folds----"
-
-"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his provincial pronunciation
-with extreme disgust in her tone.
-
-"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be ould potatoes, and thur
-bean't none as can beat um."
-
-The more she showed her irritation at his speech or ways, the more he
-accentuated both language and manner.
-
-"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden. It was true, Iden did
-talk with his mouth full, very full indeed, for he fed heartily. The
-remark annoyed him; he grunted and spluttered and choked a
-little--floury things are choky. He got it down by taking a long draught
-at his quart of strong ale. Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to
-induce you to make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk again.
-
-"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede greens; I axed un three days
-ago; I know'd we was going to have this yer mutton. You got to settle
-these yer things aforehand."
-
-"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing fond of um, so be the
-larks. These be the best as thur was. They be the best things in the
-world for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all physic. If you can
-get fresh swede tops you don't want a doctor within twenty miles.
-Their's nothing in all the chemists' shops in England equal to swede
-greens"--helping himself to a large quantity of salt.
-
-"What a lot of salt you _do_ eat!" muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Onely you must have the real swedes--not thuck stuff they sells in
-towns; greens they was once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
-haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely to be got about March."
-
-"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in London," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They bean't no good; you might as
-well eat dried leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green shoots
-of spring"--suddenly changing his pronunciation as he became interested
-in his subject and forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
-wife. "They are full of sap--fresh sap--the juice which the plant
-extracts from the earth as the active power of the sun's rays increases.
-It is this sap which is so good for the blood. Without it the vegetable
-is no more than a woody fibre. Why the sap should be so powerful I
-cannot tell you; no one knows, any more than they know _how_ the plant
-prepares it. This is one of those things which defy analysis--the
-laboratory is at fault, and can do nothing with it." ("More salt!"
-muttered Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of salt?") "There
-is something beyond what the laboratory can lay hands on; something that
-cannot be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by quantity, quality,
-or by any means. They analyse champagne, for instance; they find so many
-parts water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much that; but out of
-the hundred parts there remain ten--I think it is ten--at all events so
-many parts still to be accounted for. They escape, they are set down as
-volatile--the laboratory has not even a distinct name for this
-component; the laboratory knows nothing at all about it, cannot even
-name it. But this unknown constituent is the real champagne. So it is
-with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other
-times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."
-
-"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden, defiantly, stretching out
-her hand to the cruet.
-
-Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention of vinegar had set his
-teeth on edge. He looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
-close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede
-greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar
-was utterly antagonistic--destructive of the sap-principle, altogether
-wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying good and precious food.
-
-Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken the vinegar herself, but as
-her mother passed the cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed
-vinegar with the green vegetables. All women like vinegar.
-
-When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand Mr. Iden deigned to look
-round again at the table.
-
-"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to Amaryllis, who was cutting a
-piece of bread. She put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
-"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty times? Cutting towards your
-thumb like that! Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
-slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it to me."
-
-He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the slice across the table
-so accurately that it fell exactly into its proper place by her plate.
-He had a habit of tossing things in that way.
-
-"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?" said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging
-in that manner! I hate to see it."
-
-Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took the lesson in
-bread-cutting to heart, as she had done twenty times before. But she
-knew she should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style when out of
-his sight. She could not do it in the safe way--it was so much easier in
-the other; and if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.
-
-"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the master, getting up with his
-plate in his hand.
-
-"Whatever _are_ you going to do now?" asked Mrs. Iden, who knew
-perfectly well.
-
-"Going to warm the plate." He went out into the kitchen, sat down by the
-fire, and carefully warmed his plate for a second helping.
-
-"I should think you couldn't want any more," said Mrs. Iden when he came
-back. "You had enough the first time for three."
-
-But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and had never ruined his
-digestion with vinegar or sauces, piled another series of thick slices
-on his plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to the meat a just
-proportion of vegetables. In proportion and a just mixture the secret of
-eating successfully consisted, according to him.
-
-First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton, this was immediately
-followed by a portion of floury potato, next by a portion of swede
-tops, and then, lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth, he
-took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten and cleanse his teeth.
-Finally came a draught of strong ale, and after a brief moment the same
-ingredients were mixed in the same order as before. His dinner was thus
-eaten in a certain order, and with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each
-particular flavour like a rhyme in its proper position, and duly putting
-it out with its correct successor. Always the savour of meat and gravy
-and vegetables had to be toned down by the ultimate bread, a vast piece
-of which he kept beside him. He was a great bread eater--it was always
-bread after everything, and if there were two courses then bread between
-to prepare the palate, and to prevent the sweets from quarrelling with
-the acids. Organization was the chief characteristic of his mind--his
-very dinner was organized and well planned, and any break or disturbance
-was not so much an annoyance in itself as destructive of a clever
-design, like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical spider.
-
-This order of mouthfuls had been explained over and over again to the
-family, and if they felt that he was in a more than usually terrible
-mood, and if they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some extent
-submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis, however, could ever educate
-their palates into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden was not
-in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they wandered about irregularly in
-their eating. When the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
-they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking" little fragments of
-pies, or cold fowl, even a cold potato, the smallest mug--a quarter of a
-pint of the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be had, a sip of
-port wine. These women were very irrational in their feeding; they
-actually put vinegar on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
-pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning. They had a herring
-sometimes for tea--the smell of it cooking sent the master into fits of
-indignation, he abominated it so, but they were so hardened and lost to
-righteousness they always repeated the offence next time the itinerant
-fish-dealer called. You could not drum them into good solid,
-straightforward eating.
-
-They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to eat in the kitchen after
-dinner, for Mr. Iden considered that no one could need a second course
-after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel of cheese if you
-liked--nothing more. In summer the great garden abounded with fruit; he
-would have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day after day, or else
-black-currant pudding. He held that black currants were the most
-wholesome fruit that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite clean
-he would rub them with black-currant leaves to give them a pleasant
-aromatic odour (as ladies use scented soap). He rubbed them with
-walnut-leaves for the same purpose.
-
-Of salad in its season he was a great eater, cucumber especially, and
-lettuce and celery; but a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of
-Worcester sauce) was a horror to him. A principle ran through all his
-eating--an idea, a plan and design.
-
-I assure you it is a very important matter this eating, a man's fortune
-depends on his dinner. I should have been as rich as Croesus if I
-could only have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I should, now
-I come to look back.
-
-The soundest and most wholesome food in the world was set on Mr. Iden's
-table; you may differ from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
-dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh vegetables and fruit
-and salad, and the Goliath ale.
-
-When he had at last finished his meal he took his knife and carefully
-scraped his crumbs together, drawing the edge along the cloth, first one
-way and then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating so much
-bread, he made many crumbs. Having got them together, he proceeded to
-shovel them into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that not one
-was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a little moist sugar over them with
-his finger and thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and cheese,
-and sat down with it in his arm-chair by the fire, spreading his large
-red-and-yellow silk handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
-lieu of a plate.
-
-"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table, like other people?" said
-Mrs. Iden, shuffling her feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
-in the throat was the answer she received; at the same time he turned
-his arm-chair more towards the fire, as much as to say, "Other people
-are nothing to me."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-THIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make, had lost an arm--the screw
-remained sticking up, but the woodwork on that side was gone. It had
-been accidentally broken some ten years since; yet, although he used the
-chair every day, the arm had never been mended. Awkward as it was, he
-let it alone.
-
-"Hum! where's _The Standard_, then?" he said presently, as he nibbled
-his cheese and sipped the ale which he had placed on the hob.
-
-"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with the paper.
-
-"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs. Iden. "Thought there was
-nothing but lies and rubbish in them, according to you?"
-
-"No more thur bean't."
-
-"You always take good care to read them, though."
-
-"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another slight turn of the chair. He
-could not answer this charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that
-he affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it with avidity, and
-would almost as soon have missed his ale as his news.
-
-However, to settle with his conscience, he had a manner of holding the
-paper half aslant a good way from him, and every now and then as he read
-uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.
-
-The master's taking up his paper was a signal for all other persons to
-leave the room, and not to return till he had finished his news and his
-nap.
-
-Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each took as many of the
-dishes as they could carry, for it was uncertain when they could come in
-again to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved, the door opened,
-or the slightest sound heard till the siesta was over.
-
-"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock," said Mrs. Iden as she
-went, "and then you want your tea--senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
-and the master was left to himself.
-
-By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped his newspaper, and
-arranged himself for slumber. His left elbow he carefully fitted to the
-remnant of the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief, red
-and yellow, he gathered into a loose pad in his left hand for his cheek
-and temple to rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand and arm,
-while the side of his head touched and rested against the wainscot of
-the wall.
-
-Just where his head touched it the wainscot had been worn away by the
-daily pressure, leaving a round spot. The wood was there exposed--a
-round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being completely bare of
-varnish. So many nods--the attrition of thirty years and more of
-nodding--had gradually ground away the coat with which the painter had
-originally covered the wood. It even looked a little hollow--a little
-depressed--as if his head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
-probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the difference in colour
-between the wood and the varnish around it.
-
-This human mark reminded one of the grooves worn by the knees of
-generations of worshippers in the sacred steps of the temple which they
-ascended on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion, as Mrs. Iden
-and others, not very keen observers, would have said, to the god of
-Sleep; in truth, it was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
-throne of the god of Thought.
-
-It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement assumed this posture
-of slumber, and commanded silence. But thought which has been cultivated
-for a third of a century is apt to tone down to something very near
-somnolence.
-
-That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy of preservation as those
-on which the early artists delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for
-which high prices are now paid. It was intensely--superlatively--human.
-Worn in slow time by a human head within which a great mind was working
-under the most unhappy conditions, it had the deep value attaching to
-inanimate things which have witnessed intolerable suffering.
-
-I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured
-any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
-should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which
-Koh-i-noors would be mud.
-
-I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.
-
-That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for
-the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a
-generation.
-
-That mark upon the panel had still a further meaning, it represented the
-unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
-family of Idens had endured already two hundred years of unhappiness and
-discordance for no original fault of theirs, simply because they had
-once been fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to work out that
-hour of sunshine to the utmost depths of shadow.
-
-The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark had been worn was in
-effect a cross upon which a human heart had been tortured--and thought
-can, indeed, torture--for a third of a century. For Iden had learned to
-know himself, and despaired.
-
-Not long after he had settled himself and closed his eyes the handle of
-the door was very softly turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book,
-which she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on tiptoe without a
-sound, but in shutting the door the lock clicked, and she heard him
-kick the fender angrily with his iron-shod heel.
-
-After that there was utter silence, except the ticking of the American
-clock--a loud and distinct tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
-room.
-
-Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the window, a noiseless shadow;
-Mrs. Iden had come quietly round the house, and stood in the March wind,
-watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl about her shoulders--she put
-out her clenched hand from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
-muttering to herself, "Never _do_ anything; nothing but sleep, sleep,
-sleep: talk, talk, talk; never _do_ anything. That's what I hate."
-
-The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common American clock continued
-its loud tick, tick.
-
-Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be audible among the cinders in
-the fender. The dry cinders were pushed about by something passing
-between them. After a while a brown mouse peered out at the end of the
-fender under Iden's chair, looked round a moment, and went back to the
-grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured somewhat farther across
-the width of the white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
-advance was made step by step, but on reaching the carpet the mouse
-rushed home to cover in one run--like children at "touch wood," going
-out from a place of safety very cautiously, returning swiftly. The next
-time another mouse followed, and a third appeared at the other end of
-the fender. By degrees they got under the table, and helped themselves
-to the crumbs; one mounted a chair and reached the cloth, but soon
-descended, afraid to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at their
-dinner.
-
-The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if carved.
-
-A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued iron-shod boot--the
-foot that rested on the fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
-and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained by labour, was
-drawn up somewhat higher than the boot. It took the mouse several trials
-to reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously mounted to
-Iden's knee. Another quickly followed, and there the pair of them
-feasted on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of his
-trousers.
-
-One great brown hand was in his pocket, close to them--a mighty hand,
-beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What
-would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that
-could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut?
-
-The size--the mass--the weight of his hand alone was as a hill
-overshadowing them; his broad frame like the Alps; his head high above
-as a vast rock that overhung the valley.
-
-His thumb-nail--widened by labour with spade and axe--his thumb-nail
-would have covered either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
-Ajax.
-
-Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still, so
-_very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did the wall;
-they could not hear his breathing.
-
-Had they been gifted with human intelligence that very fact would have
-excited their suspicions. Why so very, _very_ still? Strong men, wearied
-by work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep
-we move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or
-stretches itself.
-
-But Iden was so still it was evident he was really wide awake and
-restraining his breath, and exercising conscious command over his
-muscles, that this scene might proceed undisturbed.
-
-Now the strangeness of the thing was in this way: Iden set traps for
-mice in the cellar and the larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
-picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the door at the same
-instant, and the wretched captive was dashed to death upon the stone
-flags of the floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in one place,
-and fed them in another.
-
-A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent
-inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go
-on recording facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing is
-consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no
-association with a living person.
-
-From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched
-the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb,
-they descended his leg to the floor.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened
-that slumber was induced by the position in which he placed himself;
-slumber, however, was not his intent. He liked to rest after his midday
-meal and think. There was no real loss of time in it--he had been at
-work since half-past five.
-
-His especial and striking characteristic was a very large, high, and
-noble forehead--the forehead attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his
-busts. Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he was not
-altogether a man of action. He was, indeed, an actor upon the stage;
-once he stole the red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
-not sail to the then new discovered lands of America, nor did he fight
-the Spaniards. So much intellect is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or
-rather it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs to the
-position of commander. If Shakespeare by the chance of birth, or other
-accident, had had the order of England's forces, we should have seen
-generalship such as the world had not known since C�sar.
-
-His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till opportunity came. We
-have great thoughts instead of battles.
-
-Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for Shakespeare's. There was
-too much thought in it for the circumstances of his life. It is possible
-to think till you cannot act.
-
-After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a few minutes. When he awoke
-he looked at the clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven of the
-grate, took out a baked apple. He had one there ready for him almost
-always--always, that is, when they were not ripe on the trees.
-
-A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome thing in the world; it
-corrected the stomach, prevented acidity, improved digestion, and gave
-tone to all the food that had been eaten previously. If people would
-only eat baked apples they would not need to be for ever going to the
-chemists' shops for drugs and salines to put them right. The women were
-always at the chemists' shops--you could never pass the chemists' shops
-in the town without seeing two or three women buying something.
-
-The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural medicine of man--and the
-best flavoured. It was compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
-of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind and shower in such a
-way that no laboratory could imitate: and so on in a strain and with a
-simplicity of language that reminded you of Bacon and his philosophy of
-the Elizabethan age.
-
-Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian culture, naturally,
-and not from any study of that author, whose books he had never seen.
-The great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and garden, and gathered
-his ideas from the fields.
-
-Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden. Look at a Blenheim orange,
-the inimitable mixture of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
-not bright colours--undertones of bright colours--smoothed together and
-polished, and made the more delightful by occasional roughness in the
-rind. Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was getting older he
-found, however, that the finest of them all was the russet. For eating,
-at its proper season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply the
-Imperial C�sar and Sultan of apples; whether for baking, or pies, or
-sauce, there was none to equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true
-russet was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary that it should
-be the real russet. Indeed in apple trees you had to be as careful of
-breeding and pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about their
-horses.
-
-Ripe apples could not be got all the year round in any variety; besides
-which, in winter and cold weather the crudity of the stomach needed to
-be assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake them.
-
-People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days; they had too much
-butcher's meat, and not enough fruit--that is, home-grown fruit,
-straight from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold in the
-shops, picked before it was ready.
-
-The Americans were much wiser (he knew a good deal about America--he had
-been there in his early days, before thought superseded action)--the
-Americans had kept up many of the fine old English customs of two or
-three hundred years since, and among these was the eating of fruit. They
-were accused of being so modern, so very, very modern, but, in fact, the
-country Americans, with whom he had lived (and who had taught him how to
-chop) maintained much of the genuine antique life of old England.
-
-They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that the same trees
-produced an apple having a slightly different flavour to what it had in
-this country. You could always distinguish an American apple by its
-peculiar piquancy--a sub-acid piquancy, a wild strawberry piquancy, a
-sort of woodland, forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so on, and
-so on--"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden said.
-
-After his baked apple he took another guilty look at the clock, it was
-close on four, and went into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
-these places are called passages; in the smallest of villas, wretched
-little villas not fit to be called houses, they are always "halls."
-
-In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him, and began to thump his
-broad though bowed back with all her might.
-
-"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a thump at each word.
-"You've slept two hours. (Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
-(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the use of digging? (Thump.)
-Why don't you make some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.) I hate
-it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off the wainscot with your sleep,
-sleep, sleep (thump)--there's one of your hairs sticking to the paint
-where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything more hateful--sleep (thump),
-talk (thump), sleep (thump). Go on!"
-
-She had thumped him down the passage, and across the covered-in court to
-the door opening on the garden. There he paused to put on his hat--an
-aged, battered hat--some sort of nondescript bowler, broken, grey,
-weather-stained, very battered and very aged--a pitiful hat to put above
-that broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted it on he was thumped
-severely: when he opened the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up
-at the sky to see about the weather--a habit all country people
-have--and so got more thumping, ending as he started out with a
-tremendous push. He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the push
-accelerate his pace; he took it very much as he took the March wind.
-
-Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to clear the dinner things, and
-make ready for tea. Amaryllis helped her.
-
-"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs. Iden. "What's the use of
-his going out to work for half an hour?"
-
-Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her father; he never did
-anything wrong in her eyes, and she could have pointed out that when he
-sat down to dinner at one he had already worked as many hours as Mrs.
-Iden's model City gentleman in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in
-effect, equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over which they
-frequently lingered an hour or two. He would still go on labouring,
-almost another half day. But she held her peace, for, on the other hand,
-she could not contradict and argue with her mother, whom she knew had
-had a wearisome life and perpetual disappointments.
-
-Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself into a more fiery
-passion, till at last she put down the tea-pot, and rushed into the
-garden. There as she came round the first thing she saw was the
-daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had discovered. Beside
-herself with indignation--what was the use of flowers or potatoes?--Mrs.
-Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower under foot till it
-was shapeless. After this she rushed indoors again and upstairs to her
-bedroom, where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in the old black
-oak chest of drawers till she found a faded lavender glove.
-
-That glove had been worn at the old "Ship" at Brighton years and years
-ago in the honeymoon trip: in those days bridal parties went down by
-coach. Faded with years, it had also faded from the tears that had
-fallen upon it. She turned it over in her hands, and her tears spotted
-it once more.
-
-Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her mother to rush away in
-that manner was nothing new. She toasted her father a piece of toast--he
-affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it was there, and
-looked about for it if it was not, though he never said anything. The
-clock struck five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready. Coming
-round the house she found her daffodil crushed to pieces.
-
-"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead; then her beautiful lips pouted
-and quivered; tears filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
-immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom to cry and to hide
-her grief and indignation.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-LADY-DAY Fair came round by and by, and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock
-in the morning, went down the garden to the end of the orchard, where
-she could overlook the highway without being seen, and watch the folk go
-past. Just there the road began to descend into a hollow, while the
-garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning her arm on the top of
-the wall, was much higher up than those who went along. The wall dropped
-quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red brick wall--thick and
-closely-built, the bricks close together with thin seams of mortar, so
-that the fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed and bound
-firm, like the fibres of a piece of iron. The deep red bricks had a
-colour--a certain richness of stability--and at the top this good piece
-of workmanship was protected from the weather by a kind of cap, and
-ornamented with a projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
-stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it. Without there was a
-sheer red precipice of fourteen feet down to the dusty sward and
-nettles beside the road.
-
-Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against the wall rose thin and
-tapering above it in a bunch, a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to
-have been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance of neglect.
-One heavy bough had broken away from the nails and list, and drooped to
-the ground, and the shoots of last year, not having been trimmed, thrust
-themselves forward presumptuously.
-
-Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches rising above the wall
-Amaryllis was partly hidden, but she relied a great deal more for
-concealment upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very seldom
-look up; and consequently if you are only a little higher they will not
-see you. This she proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
-glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his eye fixed on his sheep,
-and the drover on his bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
-fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had on a bit of blue ribbon or
-a new bonnet, and were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
-them to see if the men admired their finery. No one looked up from the
-road they were pursuing.
-
-The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by a sort of stand at the
-back, which holds it steady in one position while the camera takes the
-picture. In life most people have their heads fixed in the claws of
-some miserable pettiness, which interests them so greatly that they
-tramp on steadily forward, staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
-fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they are travelling.
-
-Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair or the people either,
-knowing very well what sort they would be; but I suspect, if it had been
-possible to have got at the cause which brought her there, it would have
-been traced to the unconscious influence of sex, a perfectly innocent
-prompting, quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and who would
-indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject, but which leads girls of
-her age to seize opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
-uninteresting order. Still they are men, those curious beings, that
-unknown race, and little bits of knowledge about them may, perhaps, be
-picked up by a diligent observer.
-
-The men who drifted along the road towards the Fair were no "mashers, by
-Jove!" Some of them, though young, were clad antiquely enough in
-breeches and gaiters--not sportsmen's breeches and gaiters, but
-old-fashioned "granfer" things; the most of them were stout and sturdy,
-in drab and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds of them on
-foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on horseback, went under
-Amaryllis: but, though they were all Christians, there was not one
-"worth a Jewess' eye."
-
-She scorned them all.
-
-This member of the unknown race was too thickly made, short set, and
-squat; this one too fair--quite white and moist-sugar looking; this one
-had a straight leg.
-
-Another went by with a great thick and long black beard--what a horrid
-thing, now, when kissing!--and as he walked he wiped it with his sleeve,
-for he had just washed down the dust with a glass of ale. His neck, too,
-was red and thick; hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man all
-over, as far as body makes a man.
-
-But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges. "Care I for the thews
-and sinews of a man?" They look for something more than bulk.
-
-A good many of these fellows were more or less lame, for it is
-astonishing if you watch people go by and keep account of them what a
-number have game legs, both young and old.
-
-A young buck on a capital horse was at the first glance more
-interesting--paler, rakish, a cigar in his mouth, an air of viciousness
-and dash combined, fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in
-short, he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of sheep and
-corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked him more than all the rest put
-together; she shrank back a little from the wall lest he should chance
-to look up; she would have feared to have been alone with such a
-character, and yet she could not have said why. She would not have
-feared to walk side by side with the great black beard--hideous as he
-was--nor with any of the rest, not even with the roughest of the
-labourers who tramped along. This gentleman alone alarmed her.
-
-There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day holiday, coming by at the
-same time; they had on their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
-nice. They turned round to watch him coming, and half waited for him;
-when he came up he checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them. Nothing
-loth, the village girls "cheeked" him, and so they passed on.
-
-One or two very long men appeared, unusually clumsy, even in walking
-they did not know exactly what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
-objection to their being tall--indeed, to be tall is often a passport to
-a "Jewess' eye"--but they were so clumsy.
-
-Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles she could not see much
-but their clothes and their faces, and both the clothes and the faces
-were very much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the shoulders were
-too broad for the tailor, who wanted to force Bond Street measurements
-on the British farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
-hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and that was all. Scores of men,
-precisely similar, were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
-hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not have peeled rods to
-make them bring forth speckled lambs.
-
-Against the stile a long way up the road there was a group of five or
-six men, who were there when she first peered over the wall, and made
-no further progress to the Fair. They were waiting till some
-acquaintance came by and offered a lift; lazy dogs, they could not walk.
-They had already been there long enough to have walked to the Fair and
-back, still they preferred to fold their hands and cross their legs, and
-stay on. So many people being anxious to get to the town, most of those
-who drove had picked up friends long before they got here.
-
-The worst walker of all was a constable, whose huge boots seemed to take
-possession of the width of the road, for he turned them out at right
-angles, working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary exhibition
-of stupidity and ugliness, for which the authorities who drilled him in
-that way were responsible, and not the poor fellow.
-
-Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep there drifted by a variety
-of human animals, tramps and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as
-the wool and beef.
-
-It is curious that these "characters"--as they are so kindly
-called--have a way of associating themselves with things that promise
-vast enjoyment to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless wretches who
-thread their path in and out the coaches at the Derby is wonderful.
-While the champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman between
-the shafts sits on an upturned hamper and helps himself out of another
-to pie with truffles, the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round
-about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve after the fall at the
-edge of Paradise.
-
-There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at the Derby that you might
-think the race was got up entirely for their sakes. There would be
-thousands at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a half-crown bolt, and
-they cannot get a stare at the fashionables on the lawn. For all that,
-the true tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant at races
-and all kinds of accessible entertainments and public events that the
-features of the fashionable are better known to him than to hundreds of
-well-to-do people unable to enter society.
-
-So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in the dust, among the
-cattle and sheep, hands in pockets, head hanging down, most of them
-followed at a short distance by a Thing.
-
-This Thing is upright, and therefore, according to the old definition,
-ought to come within the genus Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling
-those of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a woman once;
-perhaps it never was, for many of them have never had a chance to enter
-the ranks of their own sex.
-
-Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence, too full of her own
-strength and youth and joy in life to think for long or seriously about
-these curious Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her brow
-contracted, and she drew herself together as they passed--a sort of
-shiver, to think that there should be such degradation in the world.
-Twice when they came along her side of the road she dropped pennies in
-front of them, which they picked up in a listless way, just glancing
-over the ear in the direction the money fell, and went on without so
-much as recognizing where it came from.
-
-If sheep were treated as unfortunate human beings are, they would take a
-bitter revenge; though they are the mildest of creatures, they would
-soon turn round in a venomous manner. If they did not receive sufficient
-to eat and drink, and were not well sheltered, they would take a bitter
-revenge: _they would die_. Loss of � s. d.!
-
-But human beings have not even got the courage or energy to do that;
-they put up with anything, and drag on--miserables that they are.
-
-I said they were not equal in value to the sheep--why, they're not worth
-anything when they're dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
-Things!
-
-Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the fair, where there will be
-an immense amount of eating and a far larger amount of drinking all
-round them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight. They will see
-valuable animals, and men with well-lined pockets. What on earth can a
-tramp find to please him among all this? It is not for him; yet he goes
-to see it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-
-THE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
-the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was
-moving. They were going to the fair; he had his back to it, and a party
-in a trap rallied him smartly for his folly.
-
-"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why, Measter Duck, what's up? Looking
-for a thunderstorm?"--which young ducks are supposed to enjoy. "Ha! ha!
-ha!"
-
-Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face, nevertheless plodded up the
-hill, and passed beneath Amaryllis.
-
-She knew him very well, for he lived in the hamlet, but she would not
-have taken any notice of him had he not been so elaborately dressed. His
-high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth coat was new and
-carefully brushed; he was in black all over, in contrast with the mass
-of people who had gone by that morning. A blue necktie, bright and
-clean, spotless linen, gloves rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers
-brushed, boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the fair!
-
-The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact, no chance to do
-otherwise, for his great back and shoulders stretched it tight, and
-would have done so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big men who
-had gone by that day Jack Duck was the biggest; his back was immense,
-and straight, too, for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his bulk
-altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened with abdomen, so
-that it showed to the best advantage. He was a little over the average
-height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.
-
-He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground. You just try to lift
-_one_.
-
-His sleeves were too long, so that only the great knuckles of his
-speckled hands were visible. Red whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled
-face, straight lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher, and
-of much the same coarse red hue, always a ready grin, a round, hard
-head, which you might have hit safely with a mallet; and there is the
-picture.
-
-For some reason, very big men do not look well in glossy black coats and
-silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
-than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour,
-suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. They do not belong to
-the town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for hills and fields.
-
-Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen are big, and
-therefore, as their "best" suits do not fit in with their character as
-written in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us clumsy. The
-truth is, it is the Continent that is little.
-
-"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking down on poor John Duck.
-"Isn't he ugly?" Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss, which
-has a way of growing into bricks and mortar, and attaching particles of
-brick to its roots. As she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
-with a little piece of moss--her hand happened at the moment to project
-over the wall, and as John Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
-straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of brick adhering to the
-moss struck the hollow hat smartly like a drum.
-
-She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing, and angry with herself all
-at the same time, for she had done it without a thought.
-
-Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it on again, suspecting
-that some one in a passing gig had "chucked" something at him.
-
-In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall, and, seeing his broad back a
-long way up the road, resumed her stand.
-
-"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?" she thought. "But isn't he
-ugly? Aren't they _all_ ugly? All of them--horridly ugly."
-
-The entire unknown race of Man was hideous. So coarse in feature--their
-noses were thick, half an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
-the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a reaping-hook, or slewed
-to one side, or flat as if they had been smashed, or short and stumpy
-and incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned up in the
-vulgarest manner--nobody had a good nose.
-
-Their eyes were goggles, round and staring--like liquid marbles--they
-had no eyelashes, and their eyebrows were either white and invisible, or
-shaggy, as if thistles grew along their foreheads.
-
-Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red and brick-dust and
-leather-coloured, and enclosed with scrubby whiskers, like a garden
-hedge.
-
-Upon the whole, those who shaved and were smooth looked worse than those
-who did not, for they thus exposed the angularities of their chins and
-jaws.
-
-They wore such horrid hats on the top of these roughly-sketched
-faces--sketched, as it were, with a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had
-their hats on the backs of their heads, and some wore them aslant, and
-some jammed over their brows.
-
-They went along smoking and puffing, and talking and guffawing in the
-vulgarest way, _en route_ to swill and smoke and puff and guffaw
-somewhere else.
-
-Whoever could tell what they were talking about? these creatures.
-
-They had no form or grace like a woman--no lovely sloped shoulders, no
-beautiful bosom, no sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No softness
-of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or taper fingers, or arched
-eyebrows; no sort of style whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
-in short, sublimely ugly.
-
-There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis' reflections; it was a pity
-a woman was not taken into confidence when the men were made.
-
-Suppose the women were like the men, and we had to make love to such a
-set of bristly, grisly wretches!--pah! shouldn't we think them ugly! The
-patience of the women, putting up with us so long!
-
-As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves so much, in a woman's
-eyes (though she prefers a strong man) they simply increase our
-extraordinary ugliness.
-
-But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then they despise us, and
-there is no doubt that altogether the men were made wrong.
-
-"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot," thought Amaryllis. "He just
-_is_ ugly."
-
-Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and
-entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr.
-Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had seated himself on a
-stool.
-
-He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid, rough as a chunk of wood,
-but dressed in his best brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
-vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances to Mr. Iden:--
-
-"Now, just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman," he
-concluded as Duck arrived. Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity
-to escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he had patiently
-listened, took Jack by the arm, and led him indoors. As they went the
-man on the stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:--"Just you
-see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman!"
-
-A good many have been "helped up" with a woman before now.
-
-Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile--she always did--yet there
-could not have been imagined a man less likely to have pleased her.
-
-A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or
-foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome
-John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous
-mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always
-complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
-to her own disposition that charmed her.
-
-John Duck was Another Man--not Mr. Iden.
-
-The best of matrons like to see Another Man enter their houses; there's
-no viciousness in it, it is simply nature, which requires variety. The
-best of husbands likes to have another woman--or two, or three--on a
-visit; there's nothing wrong, it is innocent enough, and but gives a
-spice to the monotony of existence.
-
-Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness and stolidity, was not
-perhaps a fool, notwithstanding his outward clumsiness. A little
-attention is appreciated even by a matron of middle age.
-
-"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and Mrs. Iden brought a full jug
-with her own hands--a rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
-Iden enjoyed it.
-
-"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"
-
-"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and gruff, about as a horse
-might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just
-come up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"
-
-John had a first-rate turn-out.
-
-Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she was not going to the
-fair.
-
-"Should be glad to take you, you know," said John, dipping into the ale.
-"Shall you be going presently?"--to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have a
-seat?"
-
-"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a trick he had when undecided.
-"I don't zactly know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge grubbed;
-want to fill up the gaps; want to go over to the wood meads; thought
-about----"
-
-"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit there thinking--take and go."
-
-"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have anything to go vor."
-
-"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden, contemptuously. "Why
-can't you do like other people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
-can wait--he can talk to Amaryllis while you dress."
-
-"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested John, very quietly, and as if
-it was no consequence to him; the very thing he had called for, to see
-if he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He knew that Mrs. Iden
-never went anywhere, and that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
-minute--he would require three or four days at least--so that it was
-quite safe to ask them first.
-
-"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She is going--to dine with her
-grandfather; it will save her a long walk. You had better go and ask
-her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the people."
-
-"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great bow window at the
-mention of Plum Corner--he could just see the flutter of Amaryllis'
-dress in the distance between the trees. That part of the garden was
-called Plum Corner because of a famous plum tree--the one that had not
-been pruned and was sprawling about the wall.
-
-Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for Mrs. Iden, because she
-was so fond of a ripe luscious plum. But of late years he had not pruned
-it.
-
-"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug. "Extra vine ale!"
-
-"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.
-
-It really was humming stuff, but John well knew how proud Iden was of
-it, and how much he liked to hear it praised.
-
-The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly imagine that no one
-can be sharp-witted outside the sound of Bow Bells--country people are
-stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck, who took about half an hour
-to write his name, was equal to most of them.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-THE ale being ended, Iden walked with him through the orchard.
-
-"Famous wall that," said John, presently, nodding towards the great red
-brick wall which adorned that side of the place. "Knowed how to build
-walls in those days."
-
-"No such wall as that anywhere about here," said Iden, as proud of his
-wall as his ale. "No such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to put
-up a wall now--you read in the papers how the houses valls down in
-Lunnon."
-
-"Sort of cracks and comes in like--jest squashes up," said John.
-
-"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden. "That'll last--ah,
-last----"
-
-"No end to it," said John, who had admired the wall forty times before,
-thinking to himself as he saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner,
-"Blessed if I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my hat."
-This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably clear idea that Mr. and
-Mrs. Iden were not averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
-Amaryllis herself.
-
-Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had so much as looked at
-her--he called often, but seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy
-her scorn if she had guessed!
-
-John Duck was considered one of the most eligible young men thereabouts,
-for though by no means born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
-was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his father died. Old Duck, the
-son of a common labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms in
-the neighbourhood. He made his money in a waggon--a curious place, you
-will say; why so? Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets they
-call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended the dirty, unscrubbed,
-disgraceful staircase that leads to a famous barrister's "chambers"?
-These are far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon in a
-beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck, being too ponderous to walk,
-was driven about in a waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
-legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted in a commanding
-position, he overlooked his men at work.
-
-One day he was put in a cart instead, and the carter walking home beside
-the horse, and noting what a pull it was for him up the hills, and
-drawling along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and dreamed he had
-a load of stones. By-and-by, he pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck
-out. "A shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a been a load of
-flints."
-
-Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow had amassed
-considerable wealth--his reputation for money was very great indeed--and
-his son John would, of course, come in for it.
-
-John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about Amaryllis he did not
-know. The idea that she had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
-spirits immensely.
-
-Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful--she was too young; I do not think
-any girl is really beautiful so young--she was highly individualized,
-and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face and figure. You
-saw at a glance that there was something about her very different from
-other girls, something very marked, but it was not beauty yet.
-
-Whether John thought her handsome, or saw that she would be, or what, I
-do not know; or whether he looked "forrard," as he would have said.
-
-          "Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"
-
-John had never read Burns, and would not have known that tocher meant
-dowry; nor had he seen the advice of Tennyson--
-
-          "Doesn't thee marry for money,
-           But go where money lies."
-
-but his native intelligence needed no assistance from the poets,
-coronetted or otherwise.
-
-It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden, was as poor as the
-raggedest coat in Christendom could make him; but it was equally well
-known and a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the great
-miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the boys called him derisively,
-had literally bushels upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
-for ancient usages, and it was understood that there were twenty
-thousand spade guineas in an iron box under his bed. Any cottager in the
-whole country side could have told you so, and would have smiled at your
-ignorance; the thing was as well known as that St. Paul's is in the
-City.
-
-Besides which there was another consideration, old Granfer Iden was a
-great favourite at Court--Court meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
-Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the county. Granfer Iden
-entered the Deer Park (which was private) with a special key whenever he
-pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked in at the conservatory,
-chatted familiarly with the royal family of Pamment when they were at
-home, and when they were away took any friend he chose through the
-galleries and saloons.
-
-"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said John Duck to himself many a
-time and oft. "They stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
-wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite at Court could dispense,
-no doubt, many valuable privileges.
-
-Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer, and turned round and
-faced them. She wore a black dress, but no hat; instead she had
-carelessly thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla fashion, and
-held it with one hand. Her dark ringlets fringed her forehead, blown
-free and wild; the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
-cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose figure is just beginning
-to show itself, her dress seemed somewhat shortened in front--lifted up
-from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she
-seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in
-her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our
-grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance,
-wilfulness, rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood on the
-bank, a little higher than they were, and able to look over their heads.
-
-"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one side as a salute.
-
-"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his broad pronunciation.
-
-As John could not get any further Iden helped him.
-
-"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and thought you would like to ride
-with him. Run in and dress."
-
-"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."
-
-"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."
-
-"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.
-
-"Lot of cattle about," said John.
-
-"Better ride," said Iden.
-
-"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on them to look over the wall
-again.
-
-She was a despot already. There was nothing left for them but to walk
-away.
-
-"However," said Iden, always trying to round things off and make square
-edges smooth, "very likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."
-
-"Her wull go across the fields," said John. "Shan't see her."
-
-As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap he looked up at the
-corner of the wall, but she was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had
-fetched her in, as it was time to dress.
-
-"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate fairs--they are so silly."
-
-"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your grandfather sent a message last
-night; you know it's his dinner-day."
-
-"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis, "I can't bear him."
-
-"How dare you speak of your grandfather like that? you are getting very
-rude and disrespectful."
-
-There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one time she would go on and
-abuse Granfer Iden for an hour at a time, calling him every name she
-could think of, and accusing him of every folly under the sun. At
-another time she would solemnly inform Amaryllis that they had not a
-farthing of money, and how necessary it was that they should be
-attentive and civil to him.
-
-Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the first jacket to hand.
-
-"What! aren't you going to change your dress?"
-
-"No, that I'm not."
-
-"Change it directly."
-
-"What, to go in and see that musty old----"
-
-"Change it directly; I _will_ be obeyed."
-
-Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.
-
-One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim and let her do just as she
-pleased; the next she insisted on minute obedience.
-
-"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your things on--come."
-
-So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled out of the house and
-started off. As John had foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow
-the path across the fields, which was shorter.
-
-An hour or so later Iden came in from work as usual, a few minutes
-before dinner, and having drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in
-the bow window till the dishes were brought.
-
-"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.
-
-"Gone--wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for him.
-
-"To fair, of course--like other people."
-
-"Hum," growled Iden.
-
-"You know your father expects all the family to come in to dinner on
-fair day; I can't think how you can neglect him, when you know we
-haven't got a shilling--why don't you go in and speak to him?"
-
-"You can go if you like."
-
-"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill accents of contempt. "I don't
-care a button for all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money. I'm as
-good as he is any day. My family go about, and do some business----"
-
-"_Your_ family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"
-
-"Yes, _my_ family--as good as yours, I should think! What's your family
-then, that you should be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"
-
-"You be descended from a quart pot," said Iden.
-
-This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather, who had kept a small
-wayside public. There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
-respectable man, and laid the foundation of his family's fortune, but it
-drove Mrs. Iden into frenzy.
-
-"You talk about a quart pot--_you_," she shrieked. "Why, your family
-have drunk up thousands of pounds--you know they have. Where's the
-Manor? they swilled it away. Where's Upper Court? they got it down their
-throats. They built a house to drink in and nothing else. You know they
-did. You told me yourself. The most disgraceful set of drunkards that
-ever lived!"
-
-"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?" said Iden.
-
-"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years--why, you're always talking
-about it."
-
-"Your family be as nervous as cats--see their hands shake in the
-morning."
-
-"They go to business in the City and do something; they don't mess about
-planting rubbishing potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.
-
-"A pretty mess they've made of their business, as shaky as their hands.
-Fidgetty, miserable, nervous set they be."
-
-"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow, as stolid, and slow,
-and stupid; why, you do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk,
-talk. You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the stile, and
-you've been talking with that old fool at the back door, and talking
-with Jack Duck--and that's your second mug! You're descended from a
-nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"
-
-Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and thrust it in one
-pocket, flung open the oven-door, and put a baked apple in the other
-pocket, and so marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a tree in
-the fields.
-
-In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so successful as raking up
-the weaknesses of the opponent's family, especially when the parties are
-married, for having gossiped with each other for so long in the most
-confidential manner, they know every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom
-bet, and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about, and Joseph did as
-Potiphar's spouse asked him, and why your uncle had to take refuge in
-Spain; and so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication table.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-
-THIS discordance between her father and mother hurt Amaryllis'
-affectionate heart exceedingly. It seemed to be always breaking out all
-the year round.
-
-Of a summer's eve, when the day's work among the hot hay was done, Iden
-would often go out and sit under the russet apple till the dew had
-filled the grass like a green sea. When the tide of the dew had risen he
-would take off his heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in the
-cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass. He liked the refreshing
-coolness and the touch of the sward. It was not for washing, because he
-was scrupulously clean under the ragged old coat; it was because he
-liked the grass. There was nothing very terrible in it; men, and women,
-too, take off their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the sands at
-the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything but natural, reasonable,
-and pleasant. But, then, you see, _everybody_ does it at the seaside,
-and Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his crime--that he alone
-did it.
-
-The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she knew he was paddling in the
-grass was awful. She would come shuffling out--she had a way of rubbing
-her shoes along the ground when irritated with her hands under her
-apron, which she twisted about--and pelt him with scorn.
-
-"There, put your boots on--do, and hide your nasty feet!" (Iden had a
-particularly white skin, and feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting!
-Nobody ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
-Anything more disgusting I never heard of. Nobody else but you would
-ever think of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."
-
-Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody else"--that was the
-sin and guilt of it--by-and-by Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
-had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them, would fling them in the
-ditch.
-
-And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation, if she had not
-been afraid to touch firearms, she would have brought out the gun, and
-had a shot at him.
-
-After a time Iden left his old post at the russet apple, and went up the
-meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and
-there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the
-dew, without any one to grumble at him.
-
-How crookedly things are managed in this world!
-
-It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and
-all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
-high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable--all so
-incongruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go
-on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and
-straight people in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been
-dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
-to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our abilities and natures.
-Such an utter jumble!
-
-Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful power of observation,
-who ought to have been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
-Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or, with his singular
-capacity for construction, a leading engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels
-and making Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect, forming a new
-school of philosophy--here was Iden, tending cows, and sitting, as the
-old story goes, undecidedly on a stile--sitting astride--eternally
-sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off on one side or the
-other.
-
-Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful shape and expressive eyes,
-full in her youth of life and fire, who ought to have led the gayest
-life in London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage, and flinging
-money about in the most extravagant, joyous, and good-natured
-manner--here was Mrs. Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and
-wearing shoes out at the toes.
-
-So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's cart over ruts and
-stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward
-like a cricket-ball.
-
-It all happens in the Turkish manner.
-
-Another time there would come a letter from one of the Flammas in
-London. Could they spare a little bag of lavender?--they grew such
-lovely sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might see Mr. and Mrs.
-Iden cooing and billing, soft as turtle-doves, and fraternising in the
-garden over the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you see, to the
-story.
-
-Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent, and the plant in every
-form. She kept little bags of it in all her drawers, and everything at
-Coombe Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious lavender
-perfume. There is nothing else that smells so sweet and clean and dry.
-You cannot imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.
-
-Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it between his finger and
-thumb in the garden, as he did, too, with the black-currant leaves and
-walnut-leaves, if he fancied anything he had touched might have left an
-unpleasant odour adhering to his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as
-much as washing them.
-
-Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because his mother had been so
-fond of it, and all the sixteen carved oak-presses which had been so
-familiar to him in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
-plant.
-
-Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet remained in the wine of
-life, Iden had set a hedge of lavender to please his wife. It was so
-carefully chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the finest
-lavender in all the country. People used to come for it from round
-about, quite certain of a favourable reception, for there was nothing so
-sure to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of lavender.
-
-But the letter from the Flammas was the great event--from London, all
-that way, asking for some Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
-and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the garden over the hedge
-of lavender. If only it could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow older
-there seems so much grating of the wheels.
-
-In time, long time, people's original feelings get strangely confused
-and overlaid. The churchwardens of the eighteenth century plastered the
-fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches--covered them over
-with yellowish mortar. The mould grows up, and hides the capital of the
-fallen column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak,
-where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and
-without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching
-the sap. A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over
-original feelings.
-
-There was no one in the world so affectionate and loving as Mrs.
-Iden--no one who loved a father so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved _her_
-father.
-
-But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty years or so, and the
-thick dull bark had grown, after the scales or caking had come upon the
-heart, after the capital of the column had fallen, after the painting
-had been blurred, it came about that old Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father,
-died in London.
-
-After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe Oaks, husband and wife
-went up to London to the funeral, which took place at one of those
-fearful London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very soul. Of all
-the horrible things in the world there is nothing so calmly ghastly as a
-London cemetery.
-
-In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Iden went to the
-theatre.
-
-"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing of the sort; how truly sad
-and human, for to be human is to be sad. That men and women should be so
-warped and twisted by the pressure of the years out of semblance to
-themselves; that circumstances should so wall in their lives with
-insurmountable cliffs of granite facts, compelling them to tread the
-sunless gorge; that the coldness of death alone could open the door to
-pleasure.
-
-They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With the music and the song,
-the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in
-the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone
-had been dead _there_; they were dead here. Dead in life--at the
-theatre.
-
-They had used to go joyously to the theatre thirty years before, when
-Iden came courting to town; from the edge of the grave they came back
-to look on their own buried lives.
-
-If you will only _think_, you will see it was a most dreadful and
-miserable incident, that visit to the theatre after the funeral.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-
-WHEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake descent in Iden's face she alluded
-to Grandfather Iden's being a baker and miller, and noted for the
-manufacture of these articles. A lardy, or larded, cake is a thing, I
-suppose, unknown to most of this generation; they were the principal
-confectionery familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was at the
-top of his business activity, seventy years since, in the Waterloo era.
-
-A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at
-the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked
-something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry;
-they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their
-ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
-trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, and the
-rest depended on the strength of the digestion. But if a ploughboy could
-get a new, warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought himself
-blessed.
-
-Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any serious business, but he
-still made a few of these renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a
-good few at times to the carters' lads who came in to market.
-
-Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she had not, the tom-tomming
-of drums and blowing of brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
-her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious as she
-approached--the ceaseless tomtom, the beating of drums and gongs outside
-the show vans, the shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great crowd,
-the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep, the neighing of
-horses--altogether the "rucket" was tremendous.
-
-She looked back from the hill close to the town and saw the people
-hurrying in from every quarter--there was a string of them following the
-path she had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A shower had
-fallen in the night, but the ceaseless wheels had ground up the dust
-again, and the lines of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
-clouds hanging above them. For one on business, fifty hastened on to
-join the uproar.
-
-Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched from Florence and had been
-set up in the town of Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the Milo
-from Paris, do you think all these people would have scurried in such
-haste to admire these beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you want
-a crowd you must make a row. It is really wonderful how people do
-thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
-could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be
-half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if
-you describe a medi�val scramble you must put in plenty of splintering
-lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so render it lively.
-
-"This is the patent age of new inventions," and some one might make a
-profit by starting a f�te announcing that a drum or a gong would be
-provided for every individual, to be beaten in a grand universal chorus.
-
-Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting through the crowd till she
-found her way behind the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
-between them and the houses. There was an arched entrance,
-arch�ologically interesting, by which she paused a moment, half inclined
-to go up and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who lived there had
-had them since Christmas, and all that wanted doing was a patch on one
-toe; they were always just going to be done, but never finished. She
-read the inscription over his door, "Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established
-1697." A different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton awls; a
-man who has been in business two hundred years cannot be hurried. She
-sighed, and passed on.
-
-The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted of one wide stone of
-semi-circular shape, in which the feet of three generations of
-customers had worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman, for he was
-over ninety, was leaning on the hatch (or lower half of the door), in
-the act of handing some of his cakes to two village girls who had called
-for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed to be so rurally
-simple, had just been telling him how they never forgot his nice cakes,
-but always came every fair day to buy some. For this they got sixpence
-each, it being well known that the old gentleman was so delighted with
-anybody who bought his cakes he generally gave them back their money,
-and a few coppers besides.
-
-He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on the step and pulled her
-into the shop, asked her if her father were coming, then walked her down
-by the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted peel, to see
-how tall she was. The peel is the long wooden rod, broad at one end,
-with which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father Iden being
-proud of his trade, in his old age had his favourite peel ornamented
-with silver.
-
-"Too fast--too fast," he said, shaking his head, and coughing; "you grow
-too fast; there's the notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
-taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her where his thumb was--quite
-two inches higher than the last year's mark.
-
-"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.
-
-"I daresay--I daresay," said the old man, in the hasty manner of feeble
-age, as he cut another notch to record her height. The handle of the
-peel was notched all round, where he had measured his grandchildren;
-there were so many marks it was not easy to see how he distinguished
-them.
-
-"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he had finished with the knife.
-
-"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true--she did not _know_--she
-could not be certain; but in her heart she was sure he would not come.
-But she did not want to hear any hard words said about him.
-
-"Has he sent anything? Have you brought anything for me? No. No.
-Hum!--ha!"--fit of coughing--"Well, well--come in; dinner's late,
-there's time to hear you read--you're fond of books, you read a great
-deal at home,"--and so talking, half to himself and half to her, he led
-the way into the parlour by the shop.
-
-Bowed by more than ninety years, his back curved over forwards, and his
-limbs curved in the opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
-resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung over his chest, and
-his knees never straightened themselves, but were always more or less
-bent as he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of a strong man
-heavily laden and unable to stand upright--such an attitude as big Jack
-Duck in his great strength might take when carrying two sacks of wheat
-at once. There was as heavy a load on Grandfather Iden's back, but Time
-is invisible.
-
-He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker should, and had worn the
-same cut and colour for years and years. In the shop, too, he always
-had a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white, but it got to
-appear grey upon him; a large grey chimney-pot, many sizes too big for
-his head apparently, for it looked as if for ever about to descend and
-put out his face like an extinguisher. Though his boots were so
-carefully polished, they quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as
-he pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends of his trousers, too
-long for his antique shanks, folded and creased over his boots, and
-almost hid his grey cloth under-gaiters.
-
-A great knobbed old nose--but stay, I will not go further, it is not
-right to paint too faithfully the features of the very aged, which are
-repellent in spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their faces,
-their sentiments and actions are another matter; therefore I will leave
-Father Iden's face as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
-reflects everywhere, except one spot.
-
-Amaryllis followed him jauntily,--little did she care, reckless girl,
-for the twenty thousand guineas in the iron box under his bed.
-
-The cottage folk, who always know so much, had endless tales of Iden's
-wealth; how years ago bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in
-five-shilling packets, had been literally carted like potatoes away from
-the bakehouse to go to London; how ponies were laden with sacks of
-silver groats, all paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
-dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.
-
-Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the spade guineas in the iron
-box.
-
-The old man sat down by the fire without removing his hat, motioning to
-her to shut the door, which she was loth to do, for the little room was
-smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma, he coughed incessantly, and
-mopped his mouth with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
-craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to the grate, and piled up
-the coal till it smoked and smoked, and filled the close apartment with
-a suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into Father Iden's sanctuary
-was an honour, but, like other honours, it had to be paid for.
-
-Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to breathe as short as
-possible, to avoid inhaling more than she could bear.
-
-"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the bookcases, which occupied
-three sides of the room. "Books--you like books; look at them--go and
-see."
-
-To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the
-shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very
-good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere
-throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the
-county, old and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
-Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as Bernard Quaritch, that giant
-of the modern auction room, would have written magnificent cheques for.
-
-Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the auction-room bidding for
-books? It is one of the sights of London, let me tell you, to any one
-who thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights are reputations
-merely--the pale reflection of things that were real once. This sight is
-something of the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
-_Athen�um_ in the season, examine the advertisements of book auctions,
-and attend the next great sale of some famous library.
-
-You have a recollection of the giant who sat by the highway and devoured
-the pilgrims who passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring and
-devours the books set loose upon their travels after the repose of
-centuries.
-
-What prices to give! No one can withstand him. From Paris they send
-agents with a million francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
-the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles, but in vain. They only
-get what the Giant chooses to leave them.
-
-Books that nobody ever heard of fetch �50, �60, �100, �200; wretched
-little books never opened since they were printed; dull duodecimos on
-the course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable twaddling local
-books in Italian, Spanish, queer French, written and printed in some
-unknown foreign village; read them--you might as well try to amuse
-yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What earthly value they are of cannot
-be discovered. They were composed by authors whose names are gone like
-the sand washed by the Nile into the sea before Herodotus. They contain
-no beautiful poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery; they
-are simply so much paper, printing, and binding, so many years old, and
-it is for that age, printing, and binding that the money is paid.
-
-I have read a good many books in my time--I would not give sixpence for
-the whole lot.
-
-They are not like a block-book--first efforts at printing; nor like the
-first editions of great authors; there is not the slightest intrinsic
-value in them whatever.
-
-Yet some of them fetch prices which not long ago were thought tremendous
-even for the Shakespeare folio.
-
-Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for them. Living and writing
-authors of the present day are paid in old songs by comparison.
-
-Still, this enormous value set on old books is one of the remarkable
-signs of the day. If any one wishes to know what To-Day is, these
-book-auctions are of the things he should go to see.
-
-Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's shelves; among them there
-were a few that I call _real_ old books, an early translation or two, an
-early Shakespeare, and once there had been a very valuable Boccaccio,
-but this had gone into Lord Pamment's library, "Presented by James
-Bartholomew Iden, Esq."
-
-The old man often went to look at and admire his Boccaccio in my Lord's
-library.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-
-THERE was one peculiarity in all the books on Grandfather Iden's
-shelves, they were all very finely bound in the best style of hand-art,
-and they all bore somewhere or other a little design of an ancient Roman
-lamp.
-
-Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship of good taste--it
-is not the sculptor's art, nor the painter's--not the art of the mind,
-but the art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work, for instance,
-some pottery, book-binding like this, are the products of hand-art.
-
-"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man, when Amaryllis had stared
-sufficiently at the backs of the books.
-
-"Yes, I can see the Lamp."
-
-"House of Flamma," said old Iden.
-
-"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily, eager to show that she
-understood all about it. She feared lest he should enter into the
-history of the House of Flamma and of his connection with it; she had
-heard it all over and over again; her mother was a Flamma; she had
-herself some of the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything annoyed
-her or made her indignant her foot used to tap the floor, and her neck
-flush rosy, and her face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
-control herself, she would say to herself, "I _will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis detested and despised
-the whole tribe of the Flammas, the nervous, excitable, passionate,
-fidgetty, tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them all, the
-very name and mention of them; she sided with her father as an Iden
-against her mother's family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
-flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse, a spot or two of
-genius, and the rest black guilt or folly. She hated them; she would not
-be a Flamma.
-
-How should she at sixteen understand the wear and tear of life, the
-pressure of circumstances, the heavy weight of difficulties--there was
-something to be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas, but
-naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut up in narrow grooves and
-working day after day, year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
-their constitutional nervousness became the chief characteristic of
-their existence. It was Intellect overcome--over-burdened--with two
-generations of petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went to the
-quart pot.
-
-Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis detested the very
-name; she would not be a Flamma.
-
-But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in fire of spirit, in
-strength of indignation, in natural capacity; she drew, for instance,
-with the greatest ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
-could write a letter in sketches.
-
-Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness of certain things seemed
-to fill her with a consuming fire. Her partizanship for her father made
-her sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she might utterly
-erase the opposer. Her contempt of sycophancy, and bold independence led
-her constantly into trouble.
-
-Flamma means a flame.
-
-Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the bookshelves patiently
-endeavouring to please the tiresome old man.
-
-"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.
-
-Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and medals in it were very
-interesting, as they really were. The smoke caught her in the throat,
-and seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching her chest. So
-much accustomed to the open air, she felt stifled.
-
-Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he might hear how she
-enunciated her words. The book he gave her was an early copy of Addison,
-the page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges rough, but where
-in a trim modern volume will you find language like his and ideas set
-forth with such transparent lucidity? How easy to write like that!--so
-simple, merely a letter to an intimate friend; but try!
-
-Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read, especially those that come
-to us from New York, thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
-the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You cannot read them; you
-_work_ through them.
-
-The French have retained a little of the old style of book in their
-paper bound franc novels, the rough paper, thick black type, rough edges
-are pleasant to touch and look at--they feel as if they were done by
-hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim by machinery.
-
-Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis tried her utmost to read
-well, and she succeeded, so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
-grunting between his continuous fits of coughing the old man signified
-his approval.
-
-Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of the aged, but she had a
-motive here; she wanted to please him for her father's sake. For many
-years there had been an increasing estrangement between the younger and
-the elder Iden; an estrangement which no one could have explained, for
-it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather Iden was really
-so rich. The son was his father's tenant--the farm belonged to
-Grandfather Iden--and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly. Still
-that could not have much mattered--a mere trifle to a man of old Iden's
-wealth. There was something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
-scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people frequently fall
-into a quarrel without remembering the beginning.
-
-Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old man for her father's sake;
-her dear father, whom she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
-worrying him for petty sums of money; it made her furious with
-indignation to see and hear it.
-
-So she read her very best, and swallowed the choking smoke patiently.
-
-Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still as fresh as if gathered
-yesterday, Amaryllis found bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For
-it was one of the old man's ways to carry home such of these that
-pleased him and to place them in his books. This he had done for half a
-century, and many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey old works
-of bygone authors had been there a generation. It is wonderful how long
-they will endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way; the paper
-they used in old books seems to have been softer, without the hard
-surface of our present paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps
-them better. Before the repulsion between father and son became so
-marked, Amaryllis had often been with her grandfather in the garden and
-round the meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather the yellow tulips,
-the broad-petalled roses, and in autumn the bright scarlet bramble
-leaves. The brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased him;
-anything with richness of colour. The old and grey, and withered man
-gathered the brightest of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten
-books.
-
-Now the sight of these leaves and petals between the yellow pages
-softened her heart towards him; he was a tyrant, but he was very, very
-old, they were like flowers on a living tomb.
-
-In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and going to a drawer in one
-of the bookcases, took from it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these
-between her face and the book, and told her to read them instead.
-
-"These are your writing."
-
-"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting, and coughing, all at once.
-
-"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only two houses in Black Jack
-Street." "Only _two_ houses!" she interposed, artfully.
-
-"Two," said the grandfather.
-
-"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in 1775 the site was covered
-with furze." "How it has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed, and
-smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head and seemed about to
-extinguish him.
-
-"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa. It says, 'A hundred
-voters in this street, 1884.'"
-
-"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched his very heart up in
-coughing. When he finished, Amaryllis read on--
-
-"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."
-
-"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent coughing Amaryllis became
-alarmed, but it did him no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
-livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused him like a
-trumpet--it went straight to his ancient heart.
-
-"Read that again," he said. "How many voters now?"
-
-"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."
-
-"We've got them all"--coughing--"all in my lord's houses, everyone; vote
-Conservative, one and all. What is it?" as some one knocked. Dinner was
-ready, to Amaryllis's relief.
-
-"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?" asked the grandfather,
-shuffling up his papers. "There--there," as she hesitated, "you would
-like to dine with young people, of course--of course."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-
-OLD Grandfather Iden always dined alone in the parlour, with his
-housekeeper to wait on him; they were just bringing in his food. The
-family and visitors had their meals in a separate and much more
-comfortable apartment in another part of the house, which was large.
-Sometimes, as a great favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
-would invite you to eat with him.
-
-Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated, not only because of
-the smoke, but because she knew he always had pork for dinner.
-
-The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry and withered frame--it
-was a sort of Burgundy of flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy
-fills the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so the rich juice of
-the pork seemed to supply the oil necessary to keep the sinews supple
-and to prevent the cartilages from stiffening.
-
-The scientific people say that it is the ossification of the
-cartilages--the stiffening of the firmer tissues--that in time
-interferes with the processes of life. The hinges rust, as if your
-tricycle had been left out in the rain for a week--and the delicate
-watchwork of the human frame will not run.
-
-If suppleness could only be maintained there is no reason why it should
-not continue to work for a much longer period, for a hundred and fifty,
-two hundred years--as long as you fancy. But nothing has yet been
-devised to keep up the suppleness.
-
-Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast pork. The jokers of
-Woolhorton--there are always jokers, very clever they think
-themselves--considered the reason it suited him so well was because of
-the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.
-
-Anything more contrary to common sense than for an old man of ninety to
-feed on pork it would be hard to discover--so his friends said.
-
-"Pork," said the physician, had down from London to see him on one
-occasion, "pork is the first on the list of indigestible articles of
-food. It takes from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
-reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded--acidity is the
-result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable ills are the consequence. The
-very worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."
-
-"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of Woolhorton, when he heard
-of this. "Hum!" low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
-least excited, like most other country folk, he used the provincial
-pronunciation. "Hum! A' have lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"
-
-Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did eat it six days out of
-seven, not, of course, roast pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork;
-sometimes he baked it himself in the great oven. Now and then he varied
-it with pig-meat--good old country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat--such
-as spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious morsel, the
-"mouse." The chine he always sent over for Iden junior, who was a chine
-eater--a true Homeric diner--and to make it even, Iden junior sent in
-the best apples for sauce from his favourite russet trees. It was about
-the only amenity that survived between father and son.
-
-The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old house at home, before we
-all went astray along the different paths of life; fresh from the pigs
-fed and killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the palate. Much of
-it is best done on a gridiron--here's heresy! A gridiron is flat
-blasphemy to the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
-fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your lips watering.
-
-But the "mouse,"--what was the "mouse?" The London butchers can't tell
-me. It was a titbit. I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London folk
-are so ignorant.
-
-Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and form, that is, he mumbled
-the juice out of it, and never complained of indigestion.
-
-He was up at five o'clock every morning of his life, pottering about the
-great oven with his baker's man. In summer if it was fine he went out at
-six for a walk in the Pines--the promenade of Woolhorton.
-
-"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used to say, "you go for a
-walk in the marning afore the aair have been braathed auver."
-
-Before the air has been breathed over--inspired and re-inspired by human
-crowds, while it retains the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
-from the spring; that was when it possessed its value, according to
-bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old Butler. Depend upon it, there is
-something in his dictum, too.
-
-Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork, for he often had it
-underdone, so the old gentleman dismissed her in his most gracious
-manner to dine with the rest.
-
-She went down the corridor and took the seat placed for her. There was a
-posy of primroses beside her napkin--posies of primroses all round the
-table.
-
-This raging old Tory of ninety years would give a shilling for the
-earliest primrose the boys could find for him in the woods. Some one got
-him a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
-favourites--a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather--which he had set in the
-centre of a splendid screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
-The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room near a bow window
-which overlooked the fair.
-
-People, you see, took pains to get him feathers and anything he fancied,
-on account of the twenty thousand spade guineas in the iron box under
-the bed.
-
-His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married folk, begged him not to
-keep a peacock's feather in the house--it would certainly bring
-misfortune. The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds that
-they actually argued with him--_argued_ with Grandfather Iden!--pointing
-out to him the fearful risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
-grew red in the face--the great grey hat shook and tottered with anger;
-not for all the Powers of Darkness would he have given up that feather.
-
-The chairs round the large table were arranged in accordance with the
-age of the occupants. There were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number
-of aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does not concern us. The
-eldest sat at the head of the table, the next in age followed, and so
-all round the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis rather low
-down--a long way from the top and fountain of honour--and highly
-displeased her. She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd of her
-relations, yet being there, she felt that she ought to have had a
-position above them all. Her father--Iden, junior--was old Iden's only
-son and natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to have been at
-the top of the table, and hers ought to have been next to his.
-
-Instead of which, as her father was not the eldest, his seat was some
-distance from the top, and hers again, was a long way from his.
-
-All the other chairs were full, but her father's chair was empty.
-
-The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to
-the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young,
-the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather
-Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.
-How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty
-chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the
-Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
-hearts of the enemies around her.
-
-For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a
-visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she
-knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set
-fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider
-the enormous profit to the rest of them!
-
-Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a
-will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out
-for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he
-had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his
-will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all
-in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do,
-and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost
-all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!
-
-Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and
-over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were
-so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it
-was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked
-very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable
-dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just
-sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It
-is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.
-
-Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might
-to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only
-daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of
-Grandfather Iden.
-
-The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was
-born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell
-out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the
-direct line of Iden when the first child was a daughter there were none
-to follow. And further, that there never was but one Miss Iden at a
-time.
-
-If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they never had any more
-children; consequently that daughter was the only Miss Iden.
-
-If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a second son, though they
-might have daughters; but then, in order that there should still be
-only one Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died, or was
-married early, before the second came into existence.
-
-Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they had a long pedigree, the
-Idens, reaching farther back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
-had been observed that this was the rule of their descent.
-
-Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress, through her father,
-of the Spade-Guinea Man. She tried to make them feel that she knew it
-and felt it; that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud face--it was
-a very proud face naturally--darkened a little, and grew still more
-disdainful in its utter scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of
-enemies.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-
-TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her
-sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation;
-her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment
-she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute
-determination to fight for her dear father and mother.
-
-But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her
-boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under
-the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many,
-many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the
-stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her
-others.
-
-She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed
-better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar,
-too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had
-sound boots on their feet.
-
-The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had;
-nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the
-character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far,
-though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a
-whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.
-
-If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder
-than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put
-down by circumstances, she was above external things.
-
-But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely
-eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's
-empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection
-would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the
-Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with
-the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a
-precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
-either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.
-
-          Spain's an island near
-          Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and
-dying on their seats.
-
-The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of
-them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in
-Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty
-chair.
-
-And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I
-_will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that
-everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his
-descendants.
-
-There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew
-his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn,
-and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two
-sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always
-a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best
-pleased him during the year.
-
-A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the
-heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually
-considered himself the nearest to the Will.
-
-Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to
-take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that
-moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her
-dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her
-dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this
-pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!
-
-Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames:
-Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
-Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his
-caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility,
-Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.
-
-By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery
-hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder,
-saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in
-their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went
-round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.
-
-Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was
-about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people
-suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to
-their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.
-
-Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw
-under the table.
-
-Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the
-back of his son's empty chair.
-
-He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren
-ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.
-
-Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son
-come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.
-
-A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of
-his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble
-on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three
-times.
-
-We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was
-a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his
-son's strong arm to lean on.
-
-The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice,
-whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
-be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of
-reconciliation.
-
-The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for
-him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the
-more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could
-hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her
-father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her
-mother without a decent pair of boots.
-
-In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the
-distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She
-did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two
-coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for
-her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered
-something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from
-throwing the money on the floor.
-
-It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the
-horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
-Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!
-
-Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into
-the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently
-admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the
-bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her
-hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.
-
-There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever
-been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.
-
-Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be
-singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the
-spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be
-honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted
-she would have been at the thought of the triumph!
-
-But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a
-triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt
-lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured
-by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his
-approval--she hated him.
-
-The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up
-a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of
-music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the
-thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place--till she went out to the
-gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding
-was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very
-morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism
-shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her
-mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!
-
-The Flamma blood was up in her veins--what did she care for guineas!
-
-As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked
-round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
-spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
-would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
-because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
-it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.
-
-So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
-till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
-the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.
-
-Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
-travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
-took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
-bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
-how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
-in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
-that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
-had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
-labours.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS did not look back as she walked beside her grandfather slowly
-up the street, or she would have seen the company of relations watching
-them from the bow-window.
-
-Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account
-of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the
-clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him.
-But he had a knack of keeping on his feet--the sort of knack you learn
-by skating--and did not totter much more than usual, despite the press.
-
-The world gets on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or
-three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
-their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers'
-fathers had set before them.
-
-Rows of booths for the display of "fairings," gingerbread, nuts, cakes,
-brandy-balls, and sugar-plums stood in the gutter each side.
-
-The "fairings" were sweet biscuits--they have been made every fair this
-hundred years.
-
-The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The
-gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined
-with gilt.
-
-There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring
-of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
-by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan
-was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
-smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that
-mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for
-nuts--behold these are they our fathers have seen.
-
-There is nothing new under the sun--not even at Epsom. The first time I
-saw the wonderful crowd of the Derby Day--perhaps the largest crowd in
-the world--I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I found on passing
-through it that the hundreds of thousands of people there had nothing
-more to amuse them than they would have found at an ordinary country
-fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies at cocoa-nuts, rootletum,
-tootletum, and beer. That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a very
-humdrum sort of world, my masters!
-
-The next finest crowd is the crowd on August bank-holiday all along the
-Brighton beach, and there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk but
-Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters--dull old stories in my
-grandmother's time.
-
-Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could invent him a fresh
-pleasure--the multitude of the Derby Day and Brighton beach should do
-the same. But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would certainly be
-the reward of such a discoverer. One gets tired of pitching sticks at
-cocoa-nuts all one's time.
-
-However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very rawest and crudest folk cared
-for the shows, all they did care was to alternately stand stock still
-and then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion" and had some
-beer, then they shoved back to the "Lamb" and had some beer, then they
-stood stock still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
-Several thousand people were thus happily occupied, and the Lion and the
-Lamb laid down together peacefully that day.
-
-Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to shove, for there was no
-other way to get through, no one thought of moving, or giving any
-passage, if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them aside. As
-Grandfather Iden could not shove very hard they were frequently
-compelled to wait till the groups opened, and thus it happened that
-Amaryllis found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.
-
-He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at Amaryllis, and touched his hat
-to Iden. "You ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he said.
-
-"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.
-
-Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant to Amaryllis. The
-father had not been to visit his son for more than a year--she did not
-want unpleasant memories stirred up.
-
-Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched his hat and asked her
-if her father was at fair, as he was looking out for a job. Old Iden
-started and grunted like a snorting horse.
-
-Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly to him, for she knew
-he was always in difficulties. Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong
-man without work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill Nye was a mower
-at Coombe, and his father, Bill Nye, before him, many a long year before
-he was discovered in California.
-
-When she overtook Iden he was struggling to pass the stream of the
-Orinoco, which set strongly at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
-"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb" archway like a river into
-the sea, thrusting their way into the general crowd, and this mighty
-current cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the swollen
-Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels that tried to breast it.
-
-It was as much as Amaryllis and he together could do to hold their
-ground at the edge of the current. While they were thus battling she
-chanced to look up.
-
-A large window was open over the archway, and at this window a fellow
-was staring down at her. He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a
-billiard-cue in his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the same young
-fellow, gentleman if you like, whose pale face had so displeased her
-that morning as he rode under when she watched the folk go by to fair.
-He was certainly the most advanced in civilization of all who had passed
-Plum Corner, and yet there was something in that pale and rather
-delicate face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the "varmers"
-and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers" who had gone by under the wall.
-Something that insulted her.
-
-The face at the window was appraising her.
-
-It was reckoning her up--so much for eyes, so much for hair, so much for
-figure, and as this went on the fingers were filling a pipe from an
-elastic tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry in that
-calculation--no rapture or pure admiration of beauty; there was a
-billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch, and a glass of spirits and water, and
-an atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory balls at the back
-of the thought. His thumb was white where he had chalked it to make a
-better bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had chalked it
-with dissipation. His physical body was whitened--chalked--a whited
-sepulchre; his moral nature likewise chalked.
-
-At the back of his thought lay not the high esteem of the poet-thinker
-for beauty, but the cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.
-
-The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things a Shakespeare would
-admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
-corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as
-to say, "You may depend upon me--I've been behind the scenes. All this
-is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at the rear;
-nothing in it."
-
-In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found some trace of a
-higher nature; "What an artist the world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.
-
-The empress Theodora craved for the applause of the theatre to which she
-exposed her beauty.
-
-This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism thinks of nothing but
-lowness, and has no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks to
-colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it is an ideal. There
-was no ideal in Ned Marks.
-
-They called him from within to take his turn with the cue; he did not
-answer, he was so absorbed in his calculations. He was clever--in a way;
-he had quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no common girl.
-She was not beautiful--yet, she was not even pretty, and so plainly
-dressed; still there was something marked in her features. And she was
-with old Iden.
-
-Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his glance, but she felt
-that it was an insult. She looked down quickly, seized her grandfather's
-arm, and drew him out from the pavement into the street, yielding a
-little to the current and so hoping to presently pass it.
-
-By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his companions had come to
-the window to discover what he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed.
-"It's Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron box!"
-
-Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to sit loosely on his head,
-was knocked aside by the elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the
-throng; Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this way, and
-pushing him that, got at last to the opposite pavement, and so behind
-the row of booths, between them and the houses where there was less
-crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to her feet and stepped in
-the gutter where there was a puddle. The cold water came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-While these incidents were still further irritating her, the old Pacha
-kept mumbling and muttering to himself, nodding his head and smiling at
-each fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent and
-fearless still he appreciated the trouble she took. The mumbling in his
-mouth was a sort of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up to a
-pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a hound in a leash, ready
-to burst the bond that held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in
-arm, neither of them understood the other; ninety and sixteen, a strange
-couple in the jostling fair.
-
-Iden turned down a passage near the end of the street, and in an instant
-the roar of the crowd which had boomed all round them was shut off by
-high walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads in the air. They
-walked on broad stone flags notched here and there at the edges, for the
-rest worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a trade) like
-Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones, and the walled passage
-brought them to the porch of the Abbey church.
-
-There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and wiped his forehead with
-his vast silk handkerchief. They were no longer incommoded by a crowd,
-but now and then folk came by hastening to the fair; lads with favours
-in their coats, and blue ribbons in their hats, girls in bright dresses,
-chiefly crude colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy weight as
-it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous walls, the quiet gloom of the
-narrow space, and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.
-
-The aged man muttered and mumbled about the porch and took Amaryllis
-under it, making her look up at the groining, and note the spring of the
-arch, which formed a sort of carved crown over them. It was a fine old
-porch, deep and high, in some things reminding you of the porches that
-are to be seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade like trees,
-so cut and worked as to be soft to the eye.
-
-He pointed out to her the touches that rendered it so dear to those who
-value art in stone. He knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
-and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were broad folios in the
-smoky room at home, filled with every detail, Iden himself had
-subscribed forty pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them. Every
-scholar who visited the Abbey church, called and begged to see the
-baker's old books.
-
-Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and went outside and hoisted
-himself, as it were, up from his crooked S position to look at the three
-stags' heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads that to you, or
-at least to me, might have been fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or
-anything.
-
-Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in the porch, the deep shadow
-within behind her, the curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a
-portrait. She stood the more upright because of the fire and temper
-suppressed in her.
-
-Just outside the human letter S--crooked S--clad in sad white-grey
-miller's garments, its old hat almost falling backwards off its old grey
-head, gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the coat of arms.
-Seven hundred years--the weight of seven hundred years--hung over them
-both in that old Abbey.
-
-Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she came out to the Future.
-
-Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded, in the passage wall,
-and giving her the key, told her to open it, and stood watching her in
-triumph, as if it had been the door to some immense treasury. She turned
-the lock, and he pushed her before him hastily, as if they must snatch
-so grand an opportunity.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-
-WITHIN there was a gravel path, and glimpses between trees of wide
-pleasure-grounds. Amaryllis hesitated, and looked back; Iden drew her
-forward, not noticing her evident disinclination to proceed. If he had,
-he would have put it down to awe, instead of which it was dislike.
-
-For she guessed they were entering the lawns in front of the Hon.
-Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He was the largest owner of town and country;
-the streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which the fair was
-being held, belonged to him; so did most of the farms and hamlets out of
-which the people had come. The Pamments were Tories; very important
-Tories indeed.
-
-The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too, right to the centre of
-the cerebellum; the Flammas were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
-girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a wilful and
-rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who would not be a Flamma, had
-imbibed all the Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.
-
-To her the Pamments were the incarnation of everything detestable, of
-oppression, obstruction, and medi�val darkness. She knew nothing of
-politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to feel vehemently, you
-feel vehemently without knowing. Still, she had heard a good deal about
-the Pamments.
-
-She resented being brought there to admire the pleasure grounds and
-mansion, and to kow-tow to the grandeur of these medi�val tyrants.
-
-Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth lawn before the front
-windows; three centuries of mowing had made it as smooth as the top of
-his own head, where the years had mown away merrily.
-
-There was not so much as a shrub--not a daisy--between them and the
-great windows of the house. They stood in full view.
-
-Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen was her vexation; her
-cheeks reddened. She was obliged to face the house, but her glance was
-downwards; she would not look at it.
-
-Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory. In all Woolhorton town
-there was not another man who could do as he was doing at that moment.
-
-The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally exclusive even
-for high class Tories. Their gardens, and lawns, and grounds were
-jealously surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned houses of
-the street beneath them. No one dared to so much as peer through a
-crevice of the mighty gates. Their persons were encircled with the
-"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed proprietor. No one dared
-speak to a Pamment. They acknowledged no one in the town, not even the
-solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey church; that was on
-account of ritual differences.
-
-It was, indeed, whispered--high treason must always be whispered--that
-young Pamment, the son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and had
-been known to be effusive towards ladies of low birth--and manners.
-
-The great leaders of Greece--Alcibiades, Aristides, and so on--threw
-open their orchards to the people. Everyone walked in and did as he
-chose. These great leaders of England--the Pamments--shut up their lawns
-and pleasure-grounds, sealed them hermetically, you could hardly throw a
-stone over the walls if you tried.
-
-But Grandfather Iden walked through those walls as if there were none;
-he alone of all Woolhorton town and country.
-
-In that gossipy little town, of course, there were endless surmises as
-to the why and wherefore of that private key. Shrewd people said--"Ah!
-you may depend they be getting summat out of him. Lent 'em some of his
-guineas, a' reckon. They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
-they gentlefolks."
-
-Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed: he wandered about the
-lawns, he looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if
-it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors
-occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about
-the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in
-the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as
-if it had been the key of Paradise.
-
-When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the
-proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's
-creation."
-
-He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his
-hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in
-the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step
-on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.
-
-In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were
-at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths,
-the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it
-were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
-that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come
-in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.
-
-In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.
-
-Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common
-intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in
-this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship.
-Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.
-
-Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when
-we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.
-
-With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments
-trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
-home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety
-years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his
-venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
-faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.
-
-He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks
-in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
-sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence
-was diffused around.
-
-Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped
-the sacred sward.
-
-Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief,
-began to point with his cudgel--a big hockey stick--at the various parts
-of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that
-went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more
-ancient still, out of sight.
-
-Really, it was a very interesting place arch�ologically, if only you
-could have got rid of the Pamments.
-
-Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she
-was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her--for
-she was passive now, like a piece of furniture--when he spied some one
-at a window.
-
-Off came the great white hat, and down it swept till the top brushed the
-grass in the depth of his homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
-a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the gentleman, so
-thoroughly courtier-like, and yet honest. There was nothing to smile at
-in that bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia who could bow
-in that way, for, in truth, we have forgotten how to bow in this
-generation.
-
-A writing and talking is always going on about the high place woman
-occupies in modern society, but the fact is, we have lost our reverence
-for woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing more, mere sham.
-We don't venerate woman, and therefore we don't bow.
-
-Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any woman's heart had it been
-addressed to her, for there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
-desire to please in it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-
-THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
-heir.
-
-He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a
-memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams,
-letters, and newspapers.
-
-Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for
-post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of
-Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile,
-Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.
-
-Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the
-letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to
-the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to
-answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it
-himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced
-the--the residue.
-
-Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him--nothing in the least
-like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every
-morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.
-
-A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him,
-a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle,
-lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
-writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of
-the latter half of the nineteenth century.
-
-Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of
-his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at
-all--rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop
-he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that
-drives about in a cart for orders.
-
-Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face
-was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of
-indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick,
-his figure stout, his hands big--a jovial, good-tempered looking man.
-
-His neck was _very_ thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or
-special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and
-sleep--belly energy.
-
-But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten
-thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their
-proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred
-"blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of
-thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you
-may count exactly the same number interspersed.
-
-The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with
-broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to
-Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.
-
-Unless you are given to �sthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I
-think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
-you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his
-credit--humph!--at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
-whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.
-
-He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing
-to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
-London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies.
-It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the
-pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign
-will leap forth in town.
-
-Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he
-frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. _I_ can't blame him; I should
-be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down
-Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a
-widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,
-all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all
-the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
-have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old
-oak furniture; I'll go to Paris--" but Paris is not a patch on London.
-To take a lady--_the_ lady--to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the
-silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her
-eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a
-diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years
-since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the
-price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a
-sip of Moet--but only one sip, for your liver's sake--just to brighten
-up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit
-fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could C�sar with all his
-legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such
-pleasure as this--just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in
-the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to _that_?
-
-The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no
-counting--anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream,
-what is the use of living?
-
-Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in
-a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
-not, in an age that preaches thrift and--twaddle? No joy like waste in
-London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
-butterfly!
-
-Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of
-London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the
-people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of
-folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the
-dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the
-fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the
-world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, s�ances, Albert
-Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
-weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and
-gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?
-
-It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes
-at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
-this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me,
-the streets.
-
-So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and
-could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
-like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle,
-good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams,
-letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister--at
-betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
-memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept
-flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.
-
-While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain
-of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the
-fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed
-with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
-on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet.
-With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back,
-and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.
-
-Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed
-away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down
-here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar,
-Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
-in the general mel�e Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the
-crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position,
-and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.
-
-Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was
-"up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
-cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime;
-Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
-a trifle to it.
-
-There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do
-not figure in the papers.
-
-Raleigh became at once an anaxandron--a King of Men. The history of his
-feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other:
-from the policeman in Waterloo Place to--everywhere. Never was such a
-stir; the fall of Sebastopol--dear me! I can remember it, look at the
-flight of time--was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, _f�ted_
-him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with
-laurel. Ave, C�sar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.
-
-Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well
-"blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
-through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had
-vanished.
-
-Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the
-glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he
-slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement
-of the campaign had subsided.
-
-In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as
-well label the account at once: "This is a goak."
-
-I do _not_ approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task
-to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can
-assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a
-very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they
-really are, are not all Greek scholars.
-
-As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he
-smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his
-money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I
-may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his
-valet.
-
-"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon,
-Disraeli, or Solomon.
-
-But Raleigh _was_ a hero to his valet.
-
-He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated
-him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself.
-He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed
-himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so
-was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so
-were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket,
-because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a
-cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies--just like Raleigh, "the very
-ticket"--he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
-"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine
-women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him;
-Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting
-up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very
-same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
-same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why,
-Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch--careless Raleigh; accordingly,
-Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a
-great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and
-smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was _he_, and
-had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as
-filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't _I_ cut a swell! I'd do it, _I_
-would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I
-would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate?
-Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen;
-some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre
-with--respectable gals, I mean--crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was
-to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment
-mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to
-fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like _he_ did! Oh,
-my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
-"he."
-
-Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not
-only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
-servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him
-as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at
-the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew
-anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."
-
-The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to
-suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing
-of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and
-blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.
-
-If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have
-"done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that
-part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty,
-and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs
-didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-
-GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on
-the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.
-
-It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought
-it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of
-his.
-
-"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's
-the Behemoth."
-
-"The Behemoth--the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.
-
-"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day.
-That's the Behemoth."
-
-Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange
-creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular
-preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden--antediluvian Iden--in
-short, the Behemoth.
-
-It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.
-
-"There's a girl with him," said Fred.
-
-"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he
-ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.
-
-How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like
-Grandfather Iden--aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
-books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!
-
-          "Wherefore come ye not to court?
-          Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.
-          Chattering fools and wise men listening."
-
-Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed--his head was as bare as
-Mont Blanc--and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's
-wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth
-in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and
-proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.
-
-"But, grandpa--grandpa--really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me
-go. No--no--I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
-willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of
-gold, as the old song says unctuously.
-
-"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"--mistaking her
-hesitation for awe.
-
-"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't
-want to go."
-
-"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his
-most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see
-you."
-
-"Come--come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back.
-"It's a splendid place inside--there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and
-so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very
-gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they
-moved Amaryllis onward.
-
-She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break
-loose--easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies--but--how soon "but"
-comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father.
-She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
-further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good
-humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
-
-So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething
-like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of
-the ancient and medi�val Pamments.
-
-But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that
-he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you
-are likely to _make_ a woman do anything?
-
-Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she
-would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble,
-the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp.
-Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly
-on the ground.
-
-Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
-
-Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the
-whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the
-old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears
-came into his eyes.
-
-Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
-
-"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder.
-"Very raw piece."
-
-To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."
-
-"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.
-
-"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries--fond of pictures----"
-
-Amaryllis was silent.
-
-"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you
-may."
-
-"No," said Amaryllis.
-
-"Hum--let's see--books--library--carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the
-place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar--I've
-forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"
-
-"She _is_ fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should
-be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of
-pictures; she's shy."
-
-Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle
-her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her
-utterance.
-
-Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down
-the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
-took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
-
-Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at
-arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the
-beauties of the picture.
-
-"A grand thing--look," said he.
-
-"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
-
-"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
-
-"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."
-
-She did not move.
-
-"Go that side," said Iden.
-
-No movement.
-
-"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.
-
-At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
-
-"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily--above the canvas, and then
-again at the floor.
-
-Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together;
-Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a
-possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider,
-intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable
-things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection
-would be an immense honour.
-
-Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have
-sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and
-intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
-
-If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the
-mistress.
-
-There is no one so cruel--so utterly inhuman--as an old man, to whom
-feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
-
-"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"
-
-"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last
-and looking her grandfather in the face.
-
-"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks
-flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
-rebellion.
-
-"Smoky," he repeated.
-
-"Smoky and--dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing
-that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
-had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
-
-Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence--on the
-contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant--but she
-remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and
-it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures,
-and his place altogether with marked contempt.
-
-"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you
-please," and she moved towards the door.
-
-"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her.
-"Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"
-
-He could not catch her, she had left the gallery--he slipped in his
-haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
-fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
-
-"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled,
-and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he
-would have spat upon the floor.
-
-Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
-
-"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I
-should have liked you to have seen the house--will you sit down a
-moment? Forgive me if I said or did----. No, do stay--please--"
-as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry--really
-sorry--unintentional"--in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was
-penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she
-began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to
-pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through
-the fair--rough people. Let me open the door----"
-
-The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a
-moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand,
-the blood started.
-
-"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it
-up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for
-money"--short for any amount of money. "Let me----"
-
-"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which
-was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open
-the lock.
-
-Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open--he could easily have
-detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray--Miss Iden." She
-was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he
-followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-
-WHEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond measure, vexation biting deep
-lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured face.
-
-"That I should have been such a fool--an infernal blockheaded
-fool--" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a
-clang--"muddle-headed fool--I'll never touch a drop of whiskey
-again--and that jackass, Fred--why, she's--" a lady, he would have said,
-but did not dare admit to himself now that he had thought to ask her in
-to "wake us up." "But what did I do? Can't think what annoyed her. Must
-have been something between her and that tedious old Iden. Quite sure I
-didn't do or say----" but still he could not quiet his conscience, for
-if he had not by deed or word, he knew he had in thought.
-
-He had sent for her as he might have done for any of the vulgar wenches
-in the fair to amuse an idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.
-
-In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like Amaryllis Iden. Her
-features were not beautiful, as general ideas go, nor had her form the
-grace of full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by a
-master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression her nature had
-made upon him.
-
-It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and
-gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character--the
-mind.
-
-A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a
-woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
-asserts itself in subtle ways.
-
-I don't say for certain that it was her character that impressed
-Raleigh--it might have been nothing of the sort, it might have been
-_because it was so_, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate. These
-things do not happen by "why and because."
-
-Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose a whiskey-sipping,
-cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing, bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh
-could by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But whiskey,
-cutty, horse, and bar were not the real man, any more than your hat is
-your head, they were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all the
-same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely more generous than
-some very respectable folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and
-grind down their clerks and dependents to the edge of starvation.
-
-Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such as the pew-haunting
-Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps he was not in love: at all events he was
-highly excited.
-
-Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following Amaryllis by
-representing that Raleigh would be sure to bring her back. The butler,
-who was very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped out a bottle
-of champagne and handed him a brimming glass. The old gentleman, still
-mouthing and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank, and
-spluttered again, and refusing a second, would go, and so met Raleigh in
-the hall.
-
-Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man, and on his part the old
-man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
-and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard
-or understood the other.
-
-But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering the rough crowd in
-the fair, despatched the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
-now growing dusky as the evening came on.
-
-Without more ado, this young gentleman then set to and swore at Fred for
-half an hour straight ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
-what on earth had turned his brain; next, being equally hot-tempered, he
-swore in reply; then there followed some sharp recriminations (for each
-knew too much of the other's goings on not to have plenty of material),
-and finally they sparred. Two or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having
-nothing to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried himself in the
-papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked out into the fair. Thus there was
-tribulation in the great house of the Pamments.
-
-Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer him through the crowd
-quietly enough, because it flattered him to be thus taken care of before
-the world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted at the doorstep he
-slipped half-a-sovereign in the butler's hand--he could not offer less
-than gold to a Pamments' man--but once inside, his demeanour changed. He
-pushed away his housekeeper, went into his especial sitting-room, bolted
-the door, spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked the coals,
-grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke and smuts filled the stuffy
-little place.
-
-By-and-by there was a banging of drawers--the drawers in the bureau and
-the bookcases were opened and shut sharply--writing-paper was flung on
-the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen.
-The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and
-stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the
-house of the head of the Idens.
-
-Amaryllis meantime had got through the town by keeping between the
-booths and the houses. Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode
-up--he had been on the watch, thinking to talk with her as she walked
-home, but just as he drew rein to go slow and so speak, a heathen pig
-from the market rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the game by
-throwing him headlong.
-
-She did not see, or at least did not notice, but hastening on, entered
-the fields. In coming to town that morning she had seen everything; now,
-returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no heed of anything; she
-was so absorbed that when a man--one of those she met going to the fair
-for the evening--turned back and followed her some way, she did not
-observe him. Finding that she walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased
-to pursue.
-
-The gloom had settled when she reached home, and the candles were lit.
-She gave her father the sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
-escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had the prize-guinea.
-
-"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.
-
-"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me see," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"I--I--I lost it," said Amaryllis.
-
-"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"
-
-"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones. "Show it immediately."
-
-"I can't; I lost it."
-
-"Lost it!"
-
-And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful
-hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could
-throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she
-suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a
-bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity
-she ate, and never could touch any fat--dear me, so fine--bacon was not
-good enough for her--she could throw away spade-guineas.
-
-Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her
-bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but
-sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and
-sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done
-others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that
-day till too sorely tried.
-
-The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then
-she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and
-sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn
-out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
-tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away
-was audible.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-
-So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely
-dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy
-looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking
-her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he
-could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her
-plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was
-fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.
-
-"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice,
-lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb
-under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He
-always sipped his tea in this way.
-
-"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.
-
-"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a
-loss to understand the change of manner.
-
-Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from
-the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:
-
-"Read."
-
-Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden
-for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
-manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in
-his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her
-conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how
-to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.
-
-She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not
-look up, her face was scarlet.
-
-Iden laughed.
-
-"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you
-vexed him, dear!"
-
-Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The
-grandfather's letter had done this.
-
-Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his
-heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
-and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved;
-he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old
-woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept
-his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was
-over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected
-the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly
-aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.
-
-All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden
-treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and
-fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving
-his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.
-
-Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty
-creditors fretted him.
-
-He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's
-favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so
-much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.
-
-Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her
-veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old
-Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated
-him for his veneration of the aristocratic and medi�val Pamments.
-
-She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating
-her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting
-herself in the most natural manner.
-
-This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply
-Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
-hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose
-they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was
-something.
-
-They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to
-tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
-Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both
-father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her
-story.
-
-Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments
-enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather
-paid them such court.
-
-Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the
-Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for
-disliking them personally.
-
-Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's
-pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if
-that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse
-her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as
-stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private
-key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
-
-However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'
-disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
-
-So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in
-the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy
-her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
-
-Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that
-she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.
-She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the
-children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the
-arch�ologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras
-Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
-
-Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the
-centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the
-possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his
-perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended
-yet.
-
-Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the
-other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
-much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not
-work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
-in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks
-these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was
-the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was
-most trying--it really was.
-
-"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at
-the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"
-
-"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her
-son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and
-really--"
-
-"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"
-said the customer, smiling.
-
-"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a
-deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to,
-they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and
-they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the
-fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."
-
-At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have
-been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make
-a boot!
-
-Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their
-first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer
-people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot
-do it at all.
-
-She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for
-her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount
-for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the
-parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate
-instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
-happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or
-three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought
-half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
-fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The
-bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper,
-soon imparted their odour to her hand.
-
-A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope
-you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
-Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the
-boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the
-bloaters--one to kiss fervently.
-
-They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while
-they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little
-pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with
-gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That
-she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition;
-there was no one like Amaryllis.
-
-"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding
-his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for
-the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.
-
-They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-
-RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which
-Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her
-thinking-room, her private chapel and praying-room, her one place of
-solitude, silence, and retirement.
-
-The days had gone on, and it was near the end of April. Coming up the
-dark stairs one morning, she found them still darker, because she had
-just left the sunshine. They were built very narrow, as usual in old
-country-houses, and the landing shut off with a door, so that when you
-were in them you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet--bare
-boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet their stairs; no handrail; the
-edges of the steps worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
-under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as if it had been
-nibbled by mice.
-
-Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis was in perfect darkness,
-but her feet knew the well-remembered way, and she came quickly to the
-top.
-
-There were two great rooms running the whole length of the house: the
-first was a lumber-room, the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it
-was, in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was vague with bareness:
-a huge, square room, gaunt as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed,
-the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table
-and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway--a
-journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post
-bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking
-hung down in a loop, torn and decayed--a bedstead on which no one had
-slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient
-carved linen-press of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.
-
-These bits of rude furniture were lost in the vastness of space, as much
-as if you had thrown your hat into the sky.
-
-Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt down. She brought a
-handful of violets, fresh-gathered, to place in the glass which she kept
-there for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick wall, and formed
-a niche, where she always had a tumbler ready--a common glass tumbler,
-she could not afford a vase.
-
-They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of all, gathered while
-the nightingale was singing his morning song in the April sunshine--a
-song the world never listens to, more delicious than his evening notes,
-for the sunlight helps him, and the blue of the heavens, the green
-leaf, and the soft wind--all the soul of spring.
-
-White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of flower, tender and delicate,
-growing under the great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among the dry,
-brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked unless you know exactly
-where to go for them. She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
-for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen into the glass, but she
-hung them by their chins over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks
-in the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at the table, and
-rested her head on her hand.
-
-Except where she did this every day, and so brushed it, a thin layer of
-dust had covered the surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
-her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on the indiarubber, dust
-on the cake of Indian ink, dust invisible on the smooth surface of the
-pencils, dust in the little box of vine charcoal.
-
-The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the
-pencil from her fingers--Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid
-deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and
-ferocity, ready to tear the very door down. There are no wolves like
-those debt sends against a house.
-
-Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every
-letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.
-
-Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, and put the
-letters unopened on the mantelshelf--a pile of bills over his head where
-he slept calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses
-of hay, and go through _his_ work to appearance unmoved.
-
-Amaryllis could not draw--she could not do it; her imagination refused
-to see the idea; the more she concentrated her mind, the louder she
-heard the ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.
-
-Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, bill-hooks can be
-wielded and faggots chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
-ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow
-the plough, and finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his
-labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid imagination--a
-delicately-balanced organization, that almost lives on its ideas as
-veritable food--cannot do like this. The poet, the artist, the author,
-the thinker, cannot follow their plough; their work depends on a serene
-mind.
-
-But experience proves that they _do_ do their work under such
-circumstances. They do; how greatly then they must be tortured, or for
-what a length of time they must have suffered to become benumbed.
-
-Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked of Time. She could
-not sketch--that was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
-wanted was money. She could not read, that was not real; what was wanted
-was solid coin.
-
-So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered with dust, but
-she came every day to her flowers in the window-niche.
-
-She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of February and March, without
-a fire, disdainful of ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her warm
-young blood cared nothing for the cold, if only by enduring it she could
-assist those whom she loved.
-
-There were artists in the Flamma family in London who made what seemed
-to her large incomes, yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
-criticism, and who had never even sent a work to the Academy--never even
-tried to enter. Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it was
-well paid.
-
-Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success as an artist, nor
-think to take the world by storm with her talent. Her one only hope was
-to get a few pounds now and then--she would have sold twenty sketches
-for ten shillings--to save her father from insult, and to give her
-mother the mere necessities of dress she needed.
-
-No thought of possible triumph, nor was she sustained by an
-overmastering love of art; she was inspired by her heart, not her
-genius.
-
-Had circumstances been different she would not have earnestly practised
-drawing; naturally she was a passive rather than an active artist.
-
-She loved beauty for its own sake--she loved the sunlight, the grass and
-trees, the gleaming water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
-listen to the running water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in
-the high firs, or caught in the wide-stretching arms of the oak; she
-rested among these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the body.
-The few good pictures she had seen pleased her, but did not rouse the
-emotion the sunlight caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not
-like the running stream. It said nothing--the stream was full of
-thought.
-
-No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by
-pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by
-nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a
-thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to
-write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things,
-and not writing.
-
-Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the
-sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
-talent--she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so
-much to her as it is to me to write a letter.
-
-The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the
-preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery
-at Coombe Oaks--a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry
-Christmas"--holly berries, mistletoe--and behind these--debt. Behind the
-glowing fire, written in the flames--debt; in the sound of the distant
-chimes--debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash
-their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.
-
-Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon
-Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel
-thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This
-is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-
-SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house,
-and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if
-there had been they could not have allowed her coals; coals were dear.
-It was quite an event when the horse and cart went to the wharf for
-coal. There was plenty of wood for the hearth--wood grew on the
-farm--but coal was money.
-
-The March winds howled round the corner of the old thatched house, and
-now and again tremendous rains blew up against the little western window
-near which she had placed her table. Through the silent cold of January,
-the moist cold of February, the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
-Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of nipped fingers and
-chilled feet.
-
-Sometimes she looked out of the window and watched Iden digging in the
-garden underneath, planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
-or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing out the furrows that
-the water might flow better--"trenching," as he called it.
-
-The harder it rained the harder he worked at this in the open, with a
-sack about his shoulders like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter,
-the master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the water to the grass
-to get a larger crop of hay in June.
-
-Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure
-as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
-father.
-
-Sometimes she went into the next room--the lumber-room--only lighted by
-a window on a level with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
-only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there, she could see him at
-the stile across the road, his hands behind his back, gossiping now with
-another farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an old woman
-carrying home a yoke of water from the brook.
-
-The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than the work in the cold rain;
-it seemed so incongruous, so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
-as she knew him.
-
-That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead, and his profile like
-Shakespeare, should stand there talk, talk, talking on the smallest
-hamlet topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded farmers,
-was to her a bewilderment and annoyance.
-
-She could not understand it, and she resented it. The real Iden she knew
-was the man of thought and old English taste, who had told her so much
-by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in features he resembled,
-and of the poets from Elizabethan days downwards. His knowledge seemed
-to be endless; there was no great author he had not read, no subject
-upon which he could not at least tell her where to obtain information.
-Yet she knew he had never had what is now called an education. How
-clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how
-wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
-that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was
-great.
-
-No other garden was planted as Iden's garden was, in the best of old
-English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In
-summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a
-painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old
-farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.
-
-Questions upon questions her opening mind had poured upon him, and to
-all he had given her an answer that was an explanation. About the earth
-and about the sea, the rivers, and living things; about the stars and
-sun, the comet, the wonders of the firmament, of geology and astronomy,
-of science; there was nothing he did not seem to know.
-
-A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that Ulysses of whom he read to
-her, and who, like that Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
-was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why did he work in the rain under
-a sack? Why did he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
-idlers?
-
-It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.
-
-I cannot explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give
-a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation--say partly
-circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell,
-partly an indecision of character--too much thought--and, after all said
-and done, Fate.
-
-Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis felt her heart drooping,
-she knew not why, and went back to her drawing unstrung.
-
-She worked very hard, and worked in vain. The sketches all came back to
-her. Some of them had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
-carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had been folded wrongly,
-almost all smelt of tobacco. Neither illustrated papers, periodicals:
-neither editors nor publishers would have anything to do with them. One
-or two took more care, and returned the drawings quite clean; one sent a
-note saying that they promised well.
-
-Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she wanted half a sovereign
-_now_. If a prophet assured a man that the picture he could not now
-dispose of would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years, what
-consolation would that be to him?
-
-They were all a total failure. So many letters could not be received in
-that dull place without others in the house seeing what was going on.
-Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the stairs--a shuffling,
-uncertain step--and her heart began to beat quicker, for she knew it was
-her mother. Somehow, although she loved her so dearly, she felt that
-there was not much sympathy between them. She did not understand her
-mother; the mother did not understand the daughter. Though she was
-working for her mother's sake, when she heard her mother's step she was
-ashamed of her work.
-
-Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the room, drawing one foot
-along the floor in an aggravating way she had, she was not lame, and
-look out of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis, and say--
-
-"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never do anything. I've seen too
-much of it. Better come down and warm yourself."
-
-Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it seemed so inconsistent.
-Mrs. Iden blew up her husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
-round and discouraged her daughter for being enterprising, and this,
-too, although she was constantly talking about the superiority of the
-art employments of the Flammas in London to the clodhopper work around
-her.
-
-Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother had gone downstairs
-again, and then the words kept repeating themselves in her ear--"Never
-do no good at that, never do no good at that."
-
-If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we should find that
-Amaryllis was working for a mother of her own imagination, and not for
-the mother of fact.
-
-Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing, feels the cold very
-much more than those who are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold
-in the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind came unchecked through
-the wire network of the window in the next room. But for that her
-generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the still colder wind of
-failure.
-
-She had no name--no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the
-finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the
-accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.
-
-Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would
-attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world
-is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools.
-Succeed by merit!
-
-Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger, or the
-tallow-chandler rely on personal merit, or purely personal ability for
-making a business? They rely on a little capital, credit, and much push.
-The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and works next as a
-subordinate, his "footing" costs hundreds of pounds, and years of hard
-labour. The doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he can, he buys
-a practice. They do not rely on merit.
-
-The three fools--the author, the artist, and the musician--put certain
-lines on a sheet of paper and expect the world to at once admire their
-clever ideas.
-
-In the end--but how far is it to the end!--it is true that genius is
-certain of recognition; the steed by then has grown used to starvation,
-waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of
-business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do
-not exactly seem to be so.
-
-Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of
-disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.
-
-I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady
-income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean
-to go into the tallow business.
-
-Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might
-work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
-watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain,
-under his sack.
-
-She had not even a diploma--a diploma, or a certificate, a South
-Kensington certificate! Fancy, without even a certificate! Misguided
-child!
-
-What a hideous collection of frumpery they have got there at the Museum,
-as many acres as Iden's farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the
-"periods." What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They have not even
-a single statue in the place. They would shrivel up in horror at a nude
-model. _They_ teach art--miserable sham, their wretched art culminates
-in a Christmas card.
-
-Amaryllis had not even been through the South Kensington "grind," and
-dared to send in original drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
-see, pure clodhopper ignorance.
-
-Failure waited on her labours; the postman brought them all back again.
-
-Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen the line which the very
-highest in the profession would probably have advised her to take. She
-drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old barn up the road, the
-hollow tree, the dry reeds, the birds, and chanticleer himself--
-
-          High was his comb, and coral red withal,
-          In dents embattled like a castle wall.
-
-Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not sketch; the fogger with
-his broad knife cutting hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the
-wheelbarrow munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a study for Teniers;
-the team coming home from plough--winter scenes, most of them, because
-it was winter time. There are those who would give fifty pounds for one
-of those studies now, crumpled, stained, and torn as they are.
-
-It was a complete failure. Once only she had a gleam of success. Iden
-picked up the sketch of the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking
-at it, put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf. Amaryllis
-felt like the young painter whose work is at last hung at the Academy.
-His opinion was everything to her. He valued her sketch.
-
-Still, that was not money. The cold wind and the chill of failure still
-entered her garret study. But it was neither of these that at length
-caused the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked on and on,
-hoping against hope, undaunted, despite physical cold and moral check.
-It was the procession of creditors.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-
-STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting
-Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to
-the door, the thump, thump with the fist (there was neither knocker nor
-bell, country fashion); more thumping, and then her mother's excuses, so
-oft repeated, so wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
-creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes," or "He's gone to Green
-Hills." "Well, when will he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to know
-when this yer little account is going to be settled." Then a long
-narration of his wrongs, threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
-grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps departing.
-
-Very rude men came down from the villages demanding payment in their
-rough way--a raw, crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had long
-since exhausted his credit in the town; neither butcher, baker, draper,
-nor anyone else would let them have a shilling's-worth until the
-shilling had been placed on the counter. He had been forced lately to
-deal with the little men of the villages--the little butcher who killed
-once a fortnight; the petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
-Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first; coarse language and
-rudeness afterwards.
-
-One day, the village baker, having got inside the door as Mrs. Iden
-incautiously opened it, stood there and argued with her, while Amaryllis
-in the garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.
-
-"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.
-
-"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it up?"
-
-"He'll send it up."
-
-"He've a' said that every time, but it beant come yet. You tell un I be
-come to vetch it."
-
-"Mr. Iden's not in."
-
-"I'll bide till he be in."
-
-"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."
-
-"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful. It's nothing but
-cheating--that's what I calls it--to have things and never pay for um.
-It's cheating."
-
-Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.
-
-"How dare you say such a thing? How dare you insult my mother? Leave the
-house this moment!"
-
-And with both hands she literally pushed the man, unwilling, but not
-absolutely resisting, outside, grumbling as he moved that he never
-insulted nobody, only asked for his money.
-
-A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of hand, calculated to
-encourage the play of imagination! She could do nothing for hours
-afterwards.
-
-Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was worse, because it lasted
-longer. First they talked by the potato-patch almost under the window;
-then they talked on the path; then they came indoors, and then there
-were words and grumbling sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
-they went out again and talked by the gate. At last the creditor
-departed, and Iden returned indoors to take a glass of ale and sit a
-moment till the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind. Mrs. Iden
-then had her turn at him: the old story--why didn't he do something?
-Amaryllis knew every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
-room.
-
-How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis could not think; how he could
-stand, and be argued with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
-the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in the road, she could
-not understand.
-
-The truth was he could not help himself; violence would have availed
-nothing. But to youth it seems as if a few blows are all that is needed
-to overcome difficulties.
-
-Waller and Co., the tailor--he was his own Co.--walked over regularly
-once a week; very civil and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
-he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for Iden's coat was a
-pattern of raggedness, his trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby
-old hat rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound account two
-years overdue.
-
-Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his trap as he went by, at
-least twice a week, to chivey Iden about his money. Though he would not
-let them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever there was five
-shillings to spare for meat it was always taken into his shop, as it was
-better to have good meat there, if you had to pay cash for meat, than
-inferior in the village. One day, Amaryllis was waiting for some steak,
-side by side with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while Cobb served a
-grand lady of the town. "Yes, m'm--oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows,
-and scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness possible. When
-the fine lady had gone, "Lar, Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how
-different you do speak to _they_ to what you do speak to _me_."
-
-"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed at having one manner
-for the poor and another for the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they
-require such a deal of _homage_."
-
-There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's, but that was not much
-pressed, only a large blue letter about once a month, as Beavan had a
-very good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs. Iden made
-excellent butter, which had a reputation, and Beavan took it all at
-about half-price. If it had been sold to anyone else he would have
-insisted on payment. So, by parting with the best butter in the county
-at half-price, they got their tea and sugar without much dunning.
-
-At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and strange in her manner, as if on
-the point of hysterics, from which Amaryllis divined something serious
-was approaching, though her mother would say nothing. So it turned
-out--a bailiff appeared, and took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was
-very civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and offered to
-help in any way he could. Iden gave him plenty of beer, for one thing.
-Amaryllis could not go into the kitchen--the dear old place seemed
-deserted while he was there.
-
-This woke up Iden for the moment. First there was a rummaging about in
-his old bureau, and a laborious writing of letters, or adding up of
-figures. Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath, clean
-linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed away these years past. In
-two hours or so Iden came down another man, astonishingly changed, quite
-a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome in Amaryllis's eyes.
-Indeed, he was really handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully
-so. If only he would always dress like that!
-
-Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations had so consumed
-the time that the bank was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and
-there was no means of raising any money that evening. The son passed the
-father's doorstep--the worn stone step, ground by the generations of
-customers--he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where
-Grandfather Iden sat--he might, had he paused and listened, have heard
-the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man--the son
-passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held a
-bailiff.
-
-A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff in the kitchen, and
-there he remained the night, and was up and had lit the fire for Luce
-the servant before she was down. The man was certainly very civil, but
-still there was the shock of it.
-
-Early in the morning Iden went into town again, saw his solicitor, and
-got a cheque--it was only five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the
-bailiff left.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-
-BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to
-feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign
-foot, the very poker had been touched by a foreign hand, the rude form
-at the side by the wall had been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
-always been so fond of the kitchen--the oldest part of the house, two
-centuries at least. The wide hearth and immense chimney, up which, when
-the fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the stars; over
-which of a windy night you could imagine the witches riding by, borne on
-the deep howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun slung to it;
-the heavy oaken table, unpolished, greyish oak; the window in the thick
-wall, set with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls from
-which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the rude old place was very dear
-to her.
-
-Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the sitting-room, drawn by
-its antique homeliness. Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great
-cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and apples, while the
-potatoes--large potatoes--Iden's selected specialities--were baking
-buried in the ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could see the
-white drift of snow against the window, which was on a level with the
-ground outside, and so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
-the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with saws, or, his fancy
-roaming on, of the broad and beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so
-admired in his youth, the river the poets will sing some day; or of his
-clinging aloft at night in the gale on the banks of Newfoundland, for he
-had done duty as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his youth, why
-did he gossip at the stile now in his full and prime of manhood?
-
-It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even then only those who have
-lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend
-the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly
-sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The
-beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and
-son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden could not forgive his son
-for making the place beautiful with trees and flowers.
-
-By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and they had supper on the old
-and clumsy table, village made and unpolished, except in so far as the
-stains of cooking operations had varnished it, the same table at which
-"Jearje," the fogger, sat every morning to eat his breakfast, and every
-evening to take his supper. What matter? George worked hard and honestly
-all day, his great arms on the table, spread abroad as he ate, did not
-injure it.
-
-Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the snow without, floury
-and smoking; dabs of Mrs. Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and
-pepper, and there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
-pleasant--just a taste.
-
-They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts, sometimes a Flamma
-from London, sometimes an Iden from over the hill, or others were there.
-Iden was very hospitable--though most of his guests (family connections)
-were idle folk, no good to themselves or anybody, still they were made
-cordially welcome. But others, very high folk, socially speaking (for
-they had good connections, too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
-grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves most thoroughly on the
-rude Homeric fare.
-
-For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an open-handed generosity,
-a sense of reality about it; something really to eat, though no
-finger-glasses; Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.
-
-Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it was the very centre of
-home. This strange man, this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her
-dearest emotions. His shadow remained on the wall though he had gone.
-
-They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it was weeks before the
-kitchen seemed to resume its former appearance. Jearje was the one who
-restored it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily at breakfast and
-at supper, it almost made them forget their troubles to see anyone so
-grateful and pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you, ma'am; dest
-about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"--locally the "d" and "j" were often
-interchangable, dest for jest, or just--"That'll be a' plenty for I,
-ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"--don't want more than I can eat,
-don't want to be greedy--"Thank you, miss; dest about some ripping good
-ale, this yer; that it be."
-
-He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the bacon, and the cheese, and
-the ale; he was like a great, big human dog; you know how we like to see
-a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his paws on our knees and
-laugh, as it were, with his eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
-women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him all the bones,
-literally and metaphorically, the actual bones of the meat, and any
-scraps there were, to take home with him (besides his regular meals),
-and now and then some trifles of clothing for his aged mother. The dog
-most thoroughly appreciated this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in
-it, grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.
-
-Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of doors, and for much the
-same reason; his cheery content and willingness, and the absence of the
-usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked willingly and
-fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed another hour, or put his
-shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
-and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways.
-Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
-and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce,
-or apples, and various other things from time to time.
-
-Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more
-like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the
-family.
-
-It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to
-watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about
-it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt
-to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.
-
-Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of
-mutton--anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus
-of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and
-cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea--the cups were
-not large enough--and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter
-what, Jearje ate steadily through it.
-
-A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want
-anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the
-long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start,
-without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing
-with his burden.
-
-There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of
-the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful
-as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time
-to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good
-master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was
-not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.
-
-Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken
-table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
-cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away
-the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be
-itself again.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-
-BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
-the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
-garret.
-
-One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
-whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
-talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
-Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
-fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust
-his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good
-lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race;
-they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury
-to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser,
-and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool
-of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
-with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this
-tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves
-"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is
-no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds'
-worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of
-straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if
-there is such a milk business in existence.
-
-This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't
-you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money
-matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the
-jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think
-you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"
-
-The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of
-the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
-contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be
-practical! The cleverest man in the world--advise him to be practical;
-as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.
-
-To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.
-
-But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since
-the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
-would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying
-fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.
-
-Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open,
-and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
-the ricks.
-
-At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see
-what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and
-gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to
-certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's
-system had been overstrained by these continual worries.
-
-Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
-strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
-her.
-
-After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
-nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
-lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.
-
-When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
-shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
-window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
-times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.
-
-On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
-Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
-exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
-that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
-returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
-tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--
-
-"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
-help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
-a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
-growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
-earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.
-
-The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
-the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
-solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
-so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
-the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
-than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
-only.
-
-That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
-home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
-material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
-only.
-
-So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
-on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
-of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
-of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
-on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
-these many, many days.
-
-The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the
-world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
-round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do
-with it--with just one of those golden disks!
-
-Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr.
-Chenery (of _The Times_), translated twenty-six of his poems from the
-Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion
-of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical
-unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is
-vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom
-is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
-the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep
-jest.
-
-Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar,
-the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the
-obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other
-causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates
-belong to it. First he chants its praises:--
-
-          How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
-          Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
-          Told abroad are its fame and repute:
-          Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
-          Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
-          Its bright look is loved by mankind,
-          As though it had been molten of their hearts.
-          By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
-          Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
-          Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
-          Charming are its sufficiency and help.
-          How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
-          How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it,
-                would be endless!
-          How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
-          How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
-          How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
-          Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has
-                softened.
-          How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
-          Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
-          Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
-          Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
-
-The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
-Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
-it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
-famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
-worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
-was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
-bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
-might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
-mighty.
-
-All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
-leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
-good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
-
-But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
-evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--
-
-          Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
-          The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
-          It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
-                looks on it,
-          The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
-          Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
-          Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
-          But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
-          Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
-          Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
-          Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
-                withholds;
-          Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
-          Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
-          Is that it helps thee not in straits,
-          Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
-          Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
-          And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
-                lover,
-          Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
-          "I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"
-
-"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
-Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
-her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
-fleeing like a runaway slave.
-
-But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
-only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all
-powerful to bless.
-
-How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and
-full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be
-taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of
-things.
-
-It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-
-THOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the
-table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often
-twice a day, to her flowers to pray.
-
-From the woods she brought the delicate primrose opening on the mossy
-bank among the grey ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of
-hawthorn coming before the swallow; the garden crocus from the grass of
-the garden; the first green spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the
-beautiful white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April morning while
-the nightingale sang.
-
-With these she came to pray each day, at the window-niche. After she had
-sat awhile at the table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt at
-the window with her face in her hands; the scent of the violets filled
-her hair.
-
-Her prayer was deeper than words and was not put in language, but came
-rushing through her heart;--"That her dear mother might not suffer any
-more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be removed from her
-mind, that peace and rest might come to her in her old age. Let her step
-become firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes shine like they
-used to, so clear and bright, and do not let the grey hairs show more
-than they do now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be happy and
-talk cheerfully, and take an interest in the house and all the order of
-household things, and also see and understand that her husband meant to
-please her, even in such a little thing as splitting up useful wood for
-the fire, that he intended to please her, and that she might not
-misunderstand him any more. He intended to be kind in many ways, but
-misfortune had blinded her, and she took things the wrong way. And give
-her more change and friends to ask her out from home on visits, so that
-she might be amused, and make them come to see her and pass the time in
-contentment. Give her also enough money to buy good clothes so as to
-look nice as she ought to do, and if possible a conveyance of some
-kind--not a grand carriage, she did not wish for that--but a conveyance
-to drive about now and then, because she was not so strong as she used
-to be, and could not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let me be
-able to give her a watch, for other people have watches, and my mother
-has not got one, and it does seem so strange it should be so after all
-the hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some nice things to
-eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot eat our plain bacon now every
-day, she has not got an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I
-should so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her food might
-do her more good. But what I really want is that she may be happy, and
-be like my mother herself really is when she is herself. Give my father
-money enough to pay his creditors, for I know that though he is so quiet
-and says nothing, these debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
-to pay them, and does not willingly keep them waiting. He is so patient,
-and so good, and bears everything, I am sure no one was ever like him,
-and it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every day from five
-o'clock in the morning, and yet to be always worried with these debts
-and people that will not let him have peace one single day. Do, please,
-let him have less work to do, it makes me miserable to see him in the
-rain, and he is not young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy things,
-great pieces of timber and large trusses of hay, and making his back
-ache digging. Surely it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
-he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can see quite so well as
-he used to, because he holds the paper so close to his eyes. Please let
-him leave off working soon now and have some rest and change, and go
-about with my mother, and when he is at home not have anything more to
-do than his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him love the
-flowers again as he used to, and plant some more, and have nothing
-harder to do than to gather the fruit from the trees he has planted. And
-let me get him some new books to read, because I know he is so fond of
-books; he has not had a new book for so long. Let him go to London and
-see people and things, and life, because I know he is full of ideas and
-thoughts though he works and digs, and that is what would do him good.
-Give him some money now at last, now he has worked all these years,
-forty years on this farm, and ever so much work before that; do give him
-some money at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and not so
-harsh for the rent, let him give the place to my father now, for it can
-be no use to him; let my father have it for his very own, and then I
-think he would be happy after all, he does so like to improve things and
-make them beautiful, and if it was his very own there is so much that he
-could do. That would be nice work and work that he would enjoy doing,
-and not just to get a few wretched shillings to pay other people. I am
-sure he would never be cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
-and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody like him, as you know,
-in this place; they are not clever like him, and good to the labouring
-men and their families like he is (and so is my mother too); they are so
-rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do not mean anything against them,
-but they are not like he is. And if you were to help him he would soon
-help the poor people and give them food and more wages; you know how
-good he is in his heart. And he would do it, not because other people
-should praise him, but because he would like to do it; if he does not
-go to church his heart is very true, and it is because he likes to be
-true and genuine, and not make any false show. Do, please, help him, and
-give him some money, and do, please, let him have this place for his
-very own, for I do so fear lest those who set my grandfather against
-him, should have a will made, so that my father should not have this
-house and land as he ought to do, as the son. He has made it so
-beautiful with trees, and brought the fresh spring water up to the
-house, and done so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it is
-home to him, and no other place could be like it. I think it would kill
-him not to have it, and for me, I should be so--I cannot tell, I should
-be so miserable if he did not, but I will not think of myself. There are
-so many things I know he wants to do if only he was not so worried with
-debts, and if he could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
-copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have trout in it, and to
-build a wall by the rick-yard. Think how my dear father has worked all
-these years, and do help him now, and give him some money, and this
-place, and please do not let him grow any more grey than his hair is
-now, and save his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
-and please make my mother happy with him."
-
-When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face was quite white, emotion had
-taken away her colour, and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a
-little while by the table to recover herself, still thinking, and
-remembered that again last night she had dreamed the same dream about
-fire in the thatch. Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
-and they ran out of doors and found the corner of the roof on fire, over
-the window with the wire network instead of glass. It ran up from the
-corner towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by the ridge. There
-was no flame, but a deep red seething heat, as if the straw burned
-inwardly, and was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed to lie in
-the furious heat, and a light to flicker up and down, as if it breathed
-fire. The thatch was very thick there, she knew, and recollected it
-quite well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two thick coats in his
-time, and it was heavy enough before then. He talked about the thatching
-of it, because it was an argument with him that straw had a great power
-of endurance, and was equal to slates for lasting. This thickness, she
-saw, was the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and why,
-fortunately, it was slow in moving up the roof. It had not yet eaten
-through, so that there was no draught--once it got through, it would
-burn fast--if only they could put it out before then all might yet be
-saved. In the midst of her anxiety Iden came with the largest ladder in
-the rickyard, and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She tried to
-follow, holding on to the rungs of the ladder with one hand, and
-dragging up a heavy bucket with the other--the strain and effort to get
-up woke her.
-
-This dream had happened to her so many times, and was so vivid and
-circumstantial--the fire seemed to glow in the thatch--that at last she
-began to dread lest it should come true. If it did not come true of the
-house itself, perhaps it would of the family, and of their affairs;
-perhaps it signified that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
-would burn them, as it were, to the ground. She tried to think whether
-in the dream they were getting the fire under before she woke, or
-whether they could not master it; it seemed dubious.
-
-She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid lest it might excite
-her again; nor could she tell Iden, who would have laughed at her.
-
-Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and dreams have ceased to come
-true, she did not like it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable
-danger was threatening round about. As she sat at the table she added to
-her prayer the supplication that the dear old house might not be burned
-down.
-
-Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on the lower flight paused, to
-listen to voices--not those of her mother and Iden--creditors,
-doubtless, come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"--the very sum
-and total of religion. Her heart beat quicker--the voices came again,
-and she thought she recognized them, and that they were not those of
-creditors. She entered the sitting-room, and found that two visitors,
-from widely separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau, the
-other with an old, many-coloured carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from
-Iden Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they were called, and
-Alere Flamma, from London; the Flammas were carpet-bag people.
-
-Her father was making them very welcome, after his wont, and they were
-talking of the house the Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot,
-expressly in order that they might drink, drink, drink undisturbed by
-their unreasonable wives.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-
-THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
-with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of
-May; till "a month passed away," and still they were talking. For there
-is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when
-you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil
-meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine,
-better than sleep, like love itself--for love is agreement of
-thought--"God listens to those who pray to him; let us eat and drink,
-and think of nothing," says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and
-drank--very moderate the drinking--and thought of nothing, and talked,
-which should be added to complete felicity. Not, of course, all of them
-always together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere, Amadis, and
-Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.
-
-The round summer-house was their Parliament House whenever the east
-winds sank and the flowers shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines
-when the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds cease the May
-flowers immediately bloom and glow.
-
-It was a large round house, properly builded of brick, as a summer-house
-should be--put not thy faith in lath work--and therefore dry and warm;
-to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and comfortable, with a
-sea of meadow-grass, smooth and coloured, stretching in front, islanded
-about with oak, and elm, and ash.
-
-The finches came to the boughs that hung over the ivy-grown thatch, and
-sang in the sycamore opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
-bloom hung down almost to the ground.
-
-These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung sackfuls of bloom at
-his feet. They poured themselves out in abandoned, open-armed,
-spendthrift, wasteful--perfectly prodigal--quantities of rose-tinted
-petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to the brim, never
-questioning but what there will be plenty of water to follow.
-
-Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring up wherever Iden set
-down his foot: fruit and flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
-his genius to make things grow--like sunshine and shower; a sort of Pan,
-a half-god of leaves and boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature
-in human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and Beauty.
-
-One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush, Iden had set it
-there; he builded the summer-house and set the ivy; and the pippin at
-the back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch near by; the great
-sycamore alone had been there before him, but he set a seat under it,
-and got woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he planted, and if
-Amaryllis stood under it when the tree was in full leaf you could not
-see her, it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak in the corner;
-the box hedge along the ha-ha parapet; the red currants against the red
-wall; the big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the yellow honey-bush;
-all these, and this was but one square, one mosaic of the garden, half
-of it sward, too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch at one
-corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs, lavender, parsley, which has
-a very pleasant green, growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage--read
-Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage--ask Nature if you wish
-to know how many things more there were.
-
-A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing in, listening to the
-goldfinches, and watching them carry up the moss, and lichen, and
-slender fibres for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to the
-swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on the sharp, high top of the
-pear tree; to the vehement starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
-Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink, chink," thrushes,
-distant blackbirds, who like oaks; "cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake,"
-buzzing and burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then a neigh,
-to remind you that there were horses, fulness and richness of musical
-sound; a world of grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.
-
-When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers
-beneath, "a summer's day in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
-Heaven.
-
-And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped out of the pocket of
-Iden's ragged old coat.
-
-There was a magic power of healing in the influences of this place which
-Iden had created. Both Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed for
-the better.
-
-That morning when Amaryllis had found them, just arrived, the one with a
-portmanteau, and the other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to the
-last degree of paleness.
-
-Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed at Coombe Oaks before,
-when Amaryllis was thirteen and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
-great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water, walking over the
-hills, exploring the woods; Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis
-going with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats. They were of
-the same stock of Idens, yet no relations; he was of the older branch,
-Amaryllis of the younger.
-
-She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden into a man.
-
-Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him, she could scarce believe
-he was the same; so pale, so thin, so drooping, and fireless--the spark
-of life sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table that
-morning like a ghost. He was convalescent from low fever: that dread
-disease which has taken the place of ague in the country. At one time it
-was ague; in these times it is low fever.
-
-At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness in a far-off way, but had
-received no distinct particulars, for the news came in a roundabout way
-by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The distance between the two
-houses was less than ten miles, and might as well have been five hundred
-for all the communication.
-
-So that the ghastly paleness of his face came upon her as a spectre in
-daylight. You could see at a glance what was wrong--the vital energy had
-been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch broken, or bark scored,
-fades and withers from the lack of the mysterious force which brings
-forth fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body--the tree--was
-there, but the life was not in it.
-
-Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was pale from other causes,
-and it was a different kind of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis,
-but something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state. Too much Fleet
-Street, in short; too much of the Oracle--Pantagruel's Oracle of the
-Bottle.
-
-His hands shook as he held his knife and fork--oddly enough, the hands
-of great genius often do shake; now and then when he put his glass to
-his lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.
-
-It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands could hold a pencil, and
-draw delicate lines without a flaw.
-
-Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands that tremble nearly as
-much--the nervous constitution--and yet execute artists' work of rare
-excellence.
-
-Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution, naturally nervous, had
-been shaken as with dynamite by the bottle, and the glass chinked
-against his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt himself
-toppling over like a tree half sawn through, Alere packed his
-carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe Oaks. When the rats began to run up
-the wall as he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
-into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.
-
-In London he never wore a collar, only a bright red scarf round his
-neck; the company he kept would have shunned him--they would have looked
-him up and down disdainfully:--"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." They
-would have scornfully regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
-class above all others scorned by those who use tools.
-
-"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." The City clerk, playing the Masher
-on thirty shillings a week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.
-
-Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used hammer, and file, or set
-up type--a godless set, ye gods, how godless, these setters up of type
-at four o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.; special
-taverns they must have open for them--open before Aurora gleams in the
-east--Oh! Fleet Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!
-
-By no possible means could Alere work himself into a dress-coat.
-
-Could he have followed the celebrated advice--"You put on a dress-coat
-and go into society"--he would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
-of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.
-
-To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed, too, of the still rarer
-talent--the taste to see what to draw--there really is no limit in our
-days; for as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour in an
-age of dinginess--why, the point, nowadays, is to avoid colour, and in a
-whole Academy you shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
-sealing-wax.
-
-"You put on a black coat and go into society"--that is the secret of
-commissions, and commissions are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way
-of advice has been sent forth as that remark. The great Tichborne said
-something about folk that had money and no brains, and folk that had
-brains but no money; and they as has no brains ought to be so managed as
-to supply money to those who had. But even the greatness of the great
-Tichborne's observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield in
-one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go into society."
-
-What are the sayings of the seven wise men of Greece compared to
-_that_?
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-
-BY no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat.
-The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners--those
-great institutions of the day--were all closed to him because of the
-Dress Coat.
-
-If he had really desired to enter, of course he would have squeezed into
-the evening monkey-skin somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to
-enter.
-
-Inside he might have finished a portrait a month at a thousand
-guineas--twelve portraits per annum equals twelve thousand guineas a
-year; you see I am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory to
-going into the tallow trade.
-
-What he actually did was to make designs for book-covers--magnificent
-book-covers that will one day fetch their weight in bank-notes--manipulating
-a good deal of it himself--"tooling"--for the libraries of noble
-connoisseurs. They were equal to anything ever done in Paris.
-
-For a week's work--say half-an-hour a day--he got perhaps about ten
-pounds. With the ten pounds he was satisfied--ten pounds represents a
-good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about as much as one man
-can manage at a bout; besides tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and
-innumerable trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good deal of
-street life.
-
-Sometimes he drew--and engraved--illustrations for books, being as
-clever with the engraver's tools as with the pencil; sometimes he cut
-out those odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials," which are
-now so commonly seen in publications, catching the classical grotesque
-of the Renaissance to perfection, and deceiving the experienced;
-sometimes he worked in the press-room in the House of Flamma, Fleet
-Street, pulling artists' proofs, or printing expensively illustrated
-volumes--numbered, and the plates destroyed--actual manual work, in his
-shirt sleeves.
-
-He could stop when he liked and take a swig of stout. That was the Alere
-style.
-
-Smoking was forbidden in the old House of Flamma because of the
-worm-eaten beams, the worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty,
-decayed bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the thin
-wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at the mere sight of a match.
-Also because of the piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
-looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were worth thousands of
-pounds; the plates and lithographic stones, artists' proofs, divers and
-sundry Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.
-
-But Alere, being a son of the house, though not in command, did not
-choose to be amenable to rules and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He
-smoked and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a certain step was
-known to be approaching the pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry
-glue set melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the flavour of
-tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is used in London in this way.
-
-If I could but write the inside history of Fleet Street, I should be
-looked upon as the most wonderful exponent of human life that had ever
-touched a pen. Balzac--whom everybody talks of and nobody has read,
-because the discrimination of Paternoster Row has refused him a
-translation till quite lately--Zola, who professes to be realistic, who
-is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings are so curiously crude
-and merely skim the surface; even the great Hugo, who produced the
-masterpiece of all fiction, _Les Mis�rables_; all three of them, the
-entire host of manuscript-makers, I am sure I could vanquish them all,
-if I could only write the inside life of Fleet Street.
-
-Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of diction, but just
-pencil-jotted in the roughest words to hand, just as rich and poor,
-well-dressed ladies and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
-without choice of language, but hustling the first words anyhow, as it
-were, into the first compartment. If I could only get Alere to tell me
-all he had seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the
-margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would laugh and weep. For
-such things do go on in Fleet Street as no man has written yet.
-
-If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!
-
-Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves, swigging his
-stout, smoking on the sly, working with all the genius of an inspired
-mechanic one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the next,
-spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of work, as if his very
-life depended on the smoothing of an edge of paper, putting off the next
-till the end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping, dreaming over
-old German works, and especially dreaming over Goethe, humming old
-German songs--for he had been a great traveller--sometimes scrawling a
-furious Mazzinian onslaught in a semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting
-stray engravings, wandering hither and thither.
-
-Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur, traveller,
-printer, Republican, conspirator, sot, smoker, dreamer, poet,
-kind-hearted, good-natured, prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
-carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.
-
-He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout, but nothing vulgar had
-ever been recorded against Alere Flamma. He frequented strong
-company--very strong meat--but no vile word left his lips.
-
-There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst of the coarsest
-surroundings, just as he appeared in the press-room among the printer's
-ink in the whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
-abhorred dress-coat.
-
-In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally hundreds of sketches,
-done on all sorts and sizes of paper, from the inside of an envelope
-hastily torn open to elephant. The bureau was full of them, crammed in
-anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged; nothing, of course, could be found
-if it was wanted. The drawers of the bookcase--it was his own
-furniture--were full of them; the writing-table drawer; a box in one
-corner; some were on the mantelpiece smoked and gritty; some inside his
-books, most of which were interleaved in this manner; literally hundreds
-of sketches, the subjects as numerous and varied.
-
-Views in English country lanes, views on the Danube, bands playing in
-band-loving Vienna, old Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury
-Cathedral, statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with the north wind in
-the North Sea--a savage fight between sail and gale--horses in the
-meadow, an aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners in the
-Black Forest, studies from the nude--Parisian models, Jewesses, almost
-life-size, a drayman heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
-like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs to illustrate classical
-mythology, outlines expressing the ideas of Goethe--outlines of
-Marguerite and Faust among the roses--"He loves me; he loves me not,"
-big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was
-deep in the song, roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
-their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere had a bullet through
-his hat, in Vienna, I think; no end to them.
-
-Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a month or two, and his ten
-pounds were spent, if he wanted a few guineas he would take a small
-selection of these round to the office of a certain illustrated paper;
-the Editor would choose, and hand over the money at once, well aware
-that it was ready money his friend needed. They were not exactly
-friends--there are no friends in London, only acquaintances--but a
-little chummy, because the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and
-they had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper that ever got
-sketches out of Alere.
-
-If only Alere would have gone and sketched what he was _asked_ to
-sketch! Ah! there is the difference; he could not do it, his nature
-would not let him; he could draw what he saw with his own eyes, but not
-what other people wanted him to see. A merry income he might have made
-if he would only have consented to see what other eyes--common, vulgar
-eyes--wanted to see, and which he could so easily have drawn for them.
-
-Out of these piles of varied sketches there were two kinds the Editor
-instantly snapped at: the one was wild flowers, the other little
-landscape bits.
-
-Wild flowers were his passion. They were to Flamma as Juliet to Romeo.
-Romeo's love, indeed, rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of
-flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps he might not have
-worshipped Juliet next year. Flamma had loved his wild flowers close
-upon forty years, ever since he could remember; most likely longer, for
-doubtless the dumb infant loved the daisies put in his chubby hand.
-
-His passion they were still as he drew near fifty, and saw all things
-become commonplace. That is the saddest of thoughts--as we grow older
-the romance fades, and all things become commonplace.
-
-Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow, the other half in
-wishing for yesterday.
-
-Wild flowers alone never become commonplace. The white wood-sorrel at
-the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on
-the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear
-to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it
-were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our
-emotions, our thoughts.
-
-Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room was full of wild flowers,
-drawn as he had found them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks--by the
-footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on the hills--as he had
-found them, not formed into an artificial design, not torn up by the
-roots, or cut and posed for the occasion--exactly as they were when his
-eye caught sight of them. A difficult thing to do, but Alere did it.
-
-In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated magazines usually
-make one of two mistakes; either the flower is printed without any
-surroundings or background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
-however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented with a heavy black pall
-of ink which dabs it out altogether.
-
-These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the little landscapes. From
-a stile, beside a rick, through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected
-places, Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood, groups of
-trees, old houses, and got them in his magical way on a few square
-inches of paper. They were very valuable for book illustration. They
-were absolutely true to nature and fact.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-
-PERHAPS the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his
-inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree,
-he could not make believe--could not deceive--could not masquerade in a
-dress-coat.
-
-Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue to-day is nature in a
-dress-coat.
-
-In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole Academy, or Grosvenor
-Gallery you shall hardly find three works that represent any real scene
-in the fields.
-
-I have walked about the fields a good deal in my brief, fretful hour,
-yet I have never seen anything resembling the strange apparitions that
-are hung on these walls every spring. Apparitions--optical illusions,
-lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly, ghost-light--nothing like them on
-earth I swear, and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.
-
-Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place, a brook from another, a
-house from another--_and mixed to order_, like a prescription by the
-chemist--xv. grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge. Nature
-never plants--nature is no gardener--no design, no proportion in the
-fields.
-
-Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may have noticed that the
-surface of the water in the ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum,
-a pale prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern landscape.
-
-How horrible the fields would look if they wore such hues in reality as
-are accepted on canvas at the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints
-transferred to the sward, the woods, the hills, the streams, the sky!
-_Dies ir�, dies ill�_--it would, indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day
-of Doom, and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane drawn before our
-eyes to shut it out of sight.
-
-There are some who can go near to paint dogs and horses, but a meadow of
-mowing grass, not one of them can paint that.
-
-Many can _draw_ nature--drawings are infinitely superior generally to
-the painting that follows; scarce one now paints real nature.
-
-Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the dress-coat of sham colour
-for any sacred exhibition wall whatever.
-
-One thing Alere never attempted to draw--a bird in flight. He recognized
-that it was impossible; his taste rejected every conventional attitude
-that has been used for the purpose; the descending pigeon, the Japanese
-skewered birds, the swallow skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot
-draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst
-of all.
-
-How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it.
-The swallow's wing has the motion of life--its tremble--its wonderful
-delicacy of vibration--the instant change--the slip of the air;--no man
-will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.
-
-At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis had sat much,
-from time to time, when the carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to
-his Baden-Baden--_i.e._, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom, singing finch,
-and wild-flowers.
-
-There were no "properties" in Alere's room at his lodgings; no odd bits
-collected during his wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
-realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No gauntlets or
-breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no Turkish guns or yataghans, no
-stags' horns, china, or carvings to be copied some day into an
-illustration. No "properties."
-
-No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes the key and tones the
-visitors' mind to "Art," the etchings, the wall or panel decorations,
-the sliding curtains, the easels in the corner, the great
-portfolios--the well-known "effects" were absent.
-
-A plain room, not even with a north light, plain old furniture, but not
-very old--not ostensibly ancient, somewhere about 1790 say--and this
-inherited and not purchased; Flamma cared not one atom for furniture,
-itself, old or new; dusty books everywhere, under the table, on the
-mantelpiece, beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on the
-sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the two bookcases and drawers;
-odd books most of them, Cornelius Agrippa, _Le Petit Albert_, French
-illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for Flamma was fond of his
-many-keyed flute.
-
-Great people once now and then called and asked to see Alere Flamma at
-the business place in Fleet Street; people with titles, curiously out of
-place, in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of printer's
-ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking, partitions pasted over
-with illustrations and stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
-engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking to "His
-Excellency."
-
-Flamma's opinion, information he could give, things he knew; abroad they
-thought much of him.
-
-Presents came occasionally--a boar's head from Germany; fine Havana
-cigars--Alere always had a supply of the best cigars and Turkish
-tobacco, a perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English venison;
-once a curious dagger from Italy, the strangest present good-natured
-Alere could possibly have received!
-
-Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from a noble connoisseur to
-his country seat; Flamma's views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
-the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked up in a cover all
-too poor for its value, the building of another wing, for the artist is
-the true architect, as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till the
-artist is called in we shall never again see real architecture in the
-world. Did not Benvenuto design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
-build St. Peter's at Rome?
-
-If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have it till he calls in the
-artist, the Alere Flamma, to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
-cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman, till
-he goes to Alere Flamma.
-
-Our so-called architects are mere surveyors, engineers, educated
-bricklayers, men of hard straight ruler and square, mathematically
-accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling.
-
-The princes of Italy knew better--they called in the poet and the
-painter, the dreamers to dream for them.
-
-You call in your "practical" architect, and he builds you a brick box;
-not for a hundred thousand pounds in fees could he build you a palace or
-a cathedral.
-
-The most ignorant of men are the "practical" people. It is meet and
-fitting that they should be worshipped and set on high. The calf
-worshipped of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.
-
-But Alere could not go; he would do anything he was asked in this way;
-he would take infinite pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet
-Street for any mansion.
-
-When a man once gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out.
-
-Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right thing to represent
-Alere as a great genius neglected, or as a genius destroyed by
-intemperance. The conventional type is so easy--so accepted--so popular;
-it would pay better, perhaps, to make him out a victim in some way.
-
-He was not neglected, neither was he the victim of intemperance in the
-usual sense.
-
-The way to fame and fortune had always been wide open to him; there were
-long intervals when he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
-it was not half so much to struggle against as the chest diseases from
-which professional men so often suffer; I believe if he had really tried
-or wished he could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither of these
-causes kept him from the foremost rank.
-
-There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice. So many who
-have no ideal are kept hard at work by the sheer desire of money, and
-thus spurred onward, achieve something approaching greatness. Alere did
-not care for money.
-
-He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten pounds was a large sum in the
-company he frequented; he did not want any more.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-
-SOMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its
-influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The thoughts of our time issue
-thence, like the radiating spokes of a wheel, to all places of the
-earth. There you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
-multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas come from Fleet Street.
-
-From the printing-press and the engraver's wood-block, the
-lithographic-stone, the etcher's plate, from book and magazine,
-periodical and pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.
-
-From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow outwards.
-
-It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it is sweet to be on the
-hill-top; delicious to feel the swell and the long roll of the hexameter
-of the seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit of the
-Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the African explorer at the river's
-source. But if once the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
-meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to
-Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other Mind,
-without whose sympathy even success is nothing--the Mind of the world.
-
-I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street,
-but of all that the printing-press means.
-
-Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary to him to live and
-breathe in the atmosphere of thought--to feel the throb and swell around
-him--to be near the "grey matter" of the world's brain.
-
-Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out. Flamma would not
-leave it for months of gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.
-
-The flame must be fed. His name had some connection with the design of
-the Roman lamp on the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the House
-of Flamma. _Alere Flammam_--feed the flame. The flame of the mind must
-be fed.
-
-Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street; if I could but get at
-it all to write the inside life of it, it would, indeed, be a book.
-Stone-cold poverty hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
-of money, think they know life, but they do not, for, as was said of the
-sea----
-
-          Only those who share its dangers
-             Comprehend its mystery.
-
-Only those who have shared the struggle literally for bread--for a
-real, actual loaf--understand the dread realities of man's existence.
-
-Let but a morsel of wood--a little splinter of deal, a curl of
-carpenter's shaving--lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the
-wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the
-desert to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that are paved with
-gold!
-
-It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll it in their aprons,
-clasping it tightly, lest it should somehow disappear. Prowling about
-from street to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
-these precious splinters of deal, for to those who are poor fuel is as
-life itself.
-
-Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill, especially of
-blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism), sometimes say they would rather
-go without food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.
-
-These women know where there are hoardings erected by builders, where
-shop-fronts are being rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
-alterations are proceeding; they know them as the birds know the places
-where they are likely to find food, and visit them day by day for the
-scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the pavement.
-
-Or they send their children, ragged urchins, battling for a knot of
-pine-wood.
-
-The terror of frost to these creatures is great indeed. Frost is the
-King of Terrors to them--not Death; they sleep and live with death
-constantly, the dead frequently in the room with the living, and with
-the unborn that is near birth.
-
-Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's wife knew that Flamma,
-the drinker, would certainly give her the silver in his pocket.
-
-The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood, knew that they
-could charm the pennies and the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat;
-the baked potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice on the
-street stove.
-
-Wretched girls whose power of tempting had gone, and with it their means
-of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There
-are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about
-them to attract the charity of the world.
-
-Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a licence in the street, was
-charged by the police. How this harshness to the flower-girl--the human
-representation of Flora--roused up sentiment in her behalf!
-
-But not every starving girl has the fortune to rouse up sentiment and to
-be fed. Their faces disfigured with eruptions, their thin shoulders,
-their dry, disordered hair--hair never looks nice unless soft with its
-natural oil--their dingy complexions, their threadbare shawls, tempt no
-one. They cannot please, therefore they must starve.
-
-The good turn from them with horror--Are they not sin made manifest? The
-trembling hand of Alere fed them.
-
-Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are happy? It is curious that
-people should associate noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
-the boys that are gathered into institutions and training ships, are
-expected to bawl and shout their loudest at the annual f�tes when
-visitors are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith feel assured that
-their lives are consequently joyous.
-
-Why then do they set fire to training ships? Why do they break out of
-reformatory institutions? Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet
-fatuous fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar of
-bawling.
-
-I have never walked up Fleet Street and the Strand yet without seeing a
-starving woman and child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
-unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts into the broader and more
-lively Strand--the ceaseless world pushes past--they play on the
-pavement unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their
-faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their
-hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on
-the table to see how they look.
-
-How _can_ people pass without seeing them?
-
-Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.
-
-The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want
-sits on the Seven Hills--make a cartoon of that!--the rich folk who
-receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England
-on dividend days--how easily the well-oiled doors swing open for
-them!--who dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood, at
-Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks, wherever there is
-pure air, have distinguished themselves lately in the giving of alms,
-ordained by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday, clad in silk,
-scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned pews.
-
-They have established Homes for Lost Dogs and Homes for Lost Cats,
-neither of which are such nuisances as human beings.
-
-In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus specially designed
-by one of the leading scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
-claimed in a certain time, or that have become diseased--like the human
-nuisances--are put into this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of
-chamber, to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific vapour enters
-the chamber, and breathing this, the animal falls calmly to death,
-painlessly poisoned in peace.
-
-Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed "into eternity" in
-one season. Jubilant congratulations were exchanged at the success of
-the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning, hanging, vivisection, or
-starvation!
-
-Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of humanity indeed? To sell
-all you have and give to the poor was nothing compared to this. We have
-progressed since Anno Domini I. We know better how to do it now.
-
-Alere did not seem to trouble himself much about the dogs; he saw so
-much of the human nuisances.
-
-What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus like this in the
-workhouses and in conjunction with the hospitals!
-
-Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing all the day, that one
-out of every five people who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
-hospital?
-
-Eighty-two thousand people died in London in 1882, and of these,
-fourteen thousand expired in the workhouses, and six thousand in
-hospitals!
-
-Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting up a few Apparatuses, see
-what an immense amount of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
-multitude of human nuisances would he "moved on!"
-
-The poor have a saying that none live long after they have been in a
-certain hospital. "He's been in that hospital--he won't live long." They
-carry out such wonderful operations there--human vivisections, but
-strictly painless, of course, under chloroform--true Christian
-chopping-up--still the folk do not live long when they come out.
-
-Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man must not die in peace.
-Starvation is for human nuisances.
-
-These rich folk dwelling round about the great Babylon of Misery, where
-Want sits on the Seven Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
-another invention. This is the organization of alms. Charity is so holy
-we will not leave it to chance--to the stray penny--we will organize it.
-The system is very simple: it is done by ticket. First you subscribe a
-few shillings to some organization, with its secretary, its clerks, its
-offices, board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive tickets.
-
-If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms, or a ragged boy, or a
-maimed man asks you for a "copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
-trouble and responsibility.
-
-The beggar can take the ticket to the "office" and get his case
-"investigated." After an inquiry, and an adjournment for a week; another
-inquiry, and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry, and a
-third adjournment, then, if he be of high moral character and highly
-recommended, he may get his dinner.
-
-One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means
-can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though
-he be perishing of starvation.
-
-If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give
-him a ticket.
-
-They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.
-
-This organization of charity saves such a lot of money: where people
-used to give away five pounds they now pay five shillings.
-
-Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you walk about with a clear
-conscience. No matter how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
-ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably and never think about
-them; your charity is organized.
-
-If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was
-no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false,
-and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.
-
-The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is
-spontaneousness.
-
-You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it
-charity suppression.
-
-Have you ever seen London in the early winter morning, when the frost
-lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey,
-bitter, stony London?
-
-Whatever _can_ morning seem like to the starved and chilly wretches who
-have slept on the floor, and wake up to frost in Fleet Street?
-
-The pavements are covered with expectoration, indicating the chest
-diseases and misery that thousands are enduring. But I must not write
-too plainly; it would offend.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-
-A PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace
-something--a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there;
-the crank came round and crushed him against the brickwork. The embrace
-of iron is death.
-
-Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed them when they were old
-enough.
-
-Ten pounds was enough for him--without ambition, and without
-business-avarice; ten pounds was enough for his Fleet Street life.
-
-It was not only the actual money he gave away, but the kindness of the
-man. Have you ever noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?--their
-elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and without flesh. Instead of
-the shirt-sleeve being turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
-thrust its way through.
-
-He always had something for them;--a plate of beef, soup, beer to be
-shared, apples, baked potatoes, now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars.
-Awful this, was it not? Printers' boys _will_ smoke; they had better
-have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile imitation they buy.
-
-They always had a tale for him; either their mothers, or sisters, or
-some one was in trouble; Flamma was certain to do something, however
-little might be within his power. At least he went to see.
-
-Had a man an income of a million he could not relieve the want of
-London; the wretch relieved to-day needs again to-morrow. But Alere went
-to see.
-
-Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a man without ambition, and
-without business-avarice, who went to see the unfortunate.
-
-His own palsied mother, at the verge of life, looked to Alere for all
-that the son can do for the parent. Other sons seemed more capable of
-such duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was the Man. And for
-those little luxuries and comforts that soothe the dull hours of
-trembling age she depended entirely upon him.
-
-So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied him were not all spent in
-drink.
-
-But alas! once now and then the rats began to run up the wall in broad
-daylight, and foolish Alere, wise in this one thing, immediately began
-to pack his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers, his
-sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks
-of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
-packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe
-Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
-leaves.
-
-They sat and talked in the round summer-house in Iden's garden, with the
-summer unfolding at their knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.
-
-By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of the Goliath ale, and between
-his lips there was a long churchwarden pipe.
-
-The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate
-liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than
-mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by
-man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
-
-The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to
-the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and
-stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
-
-The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial
-grown on the sunny hill-side, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured
-by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
-
-Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no
-cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
-the full manhood of strength.
-
-There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist
-analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that,
-and the residue is "volatile principle," for which all the dictionaries
-of science have no explanation.
-
-"Volatile principle"--there it is, that is the secret. That is the life
-of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile
-principle--that alchemic force--except contained in genuine old ale.
-
-Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
-
-The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
-
-By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink
-against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street
-liver in order.
-
-You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have
-"abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters,
-_i.e._, quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and
-diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and
-blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of
-your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor
-arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
-
-Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines--American and
-French patent physic is very popular now--and find the same things
-precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
-
-It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are
-intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few
-glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
-motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic
-and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the
-compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
-very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle,
-which the prescriptions have not got.
-
-Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead
-of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
-
-"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "_drenk
-un down to the therd hoop_."
-
-Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up
-the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife
-and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began
-to hum old German songs.
-
-But you may ask, how do _you_ know, you're not a doctor, you're a mere
-story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to
-know much more than a doctor.
-
-How can that be?
-
-Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than
-a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
-they will do; he imagines, but the Patient _knows_.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-
-SOME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in
-order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and
-are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
-
-I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the
-various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
-verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
-
-Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a
-Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of
-Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
-
-I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more
-good than any man living.
-
-I am still very ill.
-
-The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I
-was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
-Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock,
-and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is
-nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London
-physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I
-suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall
-gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't
-intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak
-to you--you look bad. I _hate_ to hear anybody cough." He put an
-emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal _haate_, hissing it out with
-unmeasured ferocity. "I _haate_ to hear anybody cough. Now I should like
-to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."
-
-"By all means--very interesting," I replied.
-
-"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four
-years with a cough. I couldn't do anything--couldn't help myself; four
-years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed
-eighty-seven pounds."
-
-"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and
-broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
-
-"I tried everything the doctors recommended--it was no use; they had to
-give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"
-
-"Can't think--should much like to know."
-
-"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You
-take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.
-Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?
-No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a
-ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.
-That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still,
-if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over
-Europe."
-
-I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.
-
-"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States,
-now."
-
-I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would
-cure me, it might come from anywhere.
-
-"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like,
-and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
-I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll
-have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we
-parted.
-
-He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe
-he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the
-time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American
-was right; he certainly meant well.
-
-Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts
-as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him,
-I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.
-
-Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to
-approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old
-German songs; it was the volatile principle.
-
-Songs about the Pope and the Sultan
-
-          But yet he's not a happy man,
-          He must obey the Alcoran,
-          He dares not touch one drop of wine,
-          I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.
-
-Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he
-raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a
-King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song
-that, none like it--
-
-          He saw it fall, he watched it fill,
-            And sink deep, deep into the main;
-          Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,
-            He never drank a drop again.
-
-Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in
-the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--
-
-          Horum scorum suntivorum,
-          Harum scarum divo,
-          Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,
-          Hic hoc horum genitivo--
-
-To be said in one breath.
-
-          Oh, my Ella--my blue bella,
-            A secula seculorum,
-          If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,
-            O dies Benedictorum!
-
-Or something about:
-
-          Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,
-          And She's of the feminine gender.
-
-Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin
-grammar, accidence--do _not_ pause, traveller, if you see _his_ tomb!
-
-"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street man put away his
-pipe, and took up his flute; he breathed soft and low--an excellent
-thing in a musician--delicious airs of Mozart chiefly.
-
-The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the high buttercups of the
-meadow came to the very door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
-them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in flowers, in song of
-happy birds. The soothing flute strung together the flow of their
-thoughts, they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden--almost hand
-in hand--listening to his cunning lips.
-
-He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to their own hearts.
-
-The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of
-the old house, and out again to the meadow.
-
-Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the
-starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had
-not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr--an indistinct
-flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The
-lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the
-raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh
-impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent;
-you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
-capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers
-to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both
-together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
-other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book
-opened with your thumb quickly--as they do in legerdemain--almost as you
-see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve--a sort of burr.
-
-To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
-
-The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the
-air like a meteor.
-
-Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
-
-Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's
-cheeks--absolute lack of blood--began to give way to the faintest
-colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he
-could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful
-of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most
-lively manner. Fire in it--downright fire! That is the test.
-
-Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began
-to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply
-of another cup.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-
-"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje.
-The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in
-the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the
-sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
-that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
-
-Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's
-rough hands--a sort of skin sand-paper--and with an effort made the
-heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
-
-Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court
-where the churn stood.
-
-"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
-
-Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
-
-Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
-
-"Aw!--aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting on a form by the wall
-under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing.
-"Aw!--aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
-
-Heavily the blue barrel went round--thrice, four times, five times; the
-colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the
-unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and
-sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
-
-"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not
-strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse,
-somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
-
-"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face
-lengthened--his eyes grew larger--his temples pinched; disappointment
-wrung at his heart.
-
-Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
-
-"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows
-on; you get a pint measure full of snails----"
-
-"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think
-of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver
-oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
-Amadis.
-
-A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub,
-fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this
-morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
-
-"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her
-back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a
-duster.
-
-"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing
-there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything
-behind, and you idling and talking,"--rushing out from the dairy, and
-following Luce, who retreated indoors.
-
-"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
-
-"Missis is ----" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and
-meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
-always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in
-this case, the butter.
-
-"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the
-clock, "and the beds ain't made."
-
-"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
-
-"And the fire isn't dusted up."
-
-"I've dusted up the fire."
-
-"And you're a lazy slut"--pushing Luce about the room.
-
-"I bean't a lazy slut."
-
-"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"--snatching it
-from her.
-
-"He be done."
-
-"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water
-taken up stairs."
-
-"That there be."
-
-"You know you ought to be doing something; the lazy lot of people in
-this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots
-to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be
-weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot
-ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children
-will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to
-lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging
-the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the
-kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a
-quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
-
-"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set
-to work happily.
-
-Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped,
-while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
-manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
-
-"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the
-Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
-sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was
-breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower
-limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of
-impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit
-upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
-had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and Jearje, it is
-certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
-
-Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for
-scraps.
-
-Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little
-things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of
-bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish
-of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends,
-and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
-
-Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not
-the way to feed the poor. What _could_ you be thinking of, you ignorant
-farmer's wife!
-
-You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses
-and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
-these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach
-you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
-the scientific Dr. Amoeba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers'
-ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a
-particle; with Providence and Science together they _must_ do it
-properly.
-
-The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of
-food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
-Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
-
-The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or lentil soup, or
-oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They
-can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
-
-No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef
-bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral
-ale!
-
-There, Mrs. Iden.
-
-Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle,
-Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:--
-
-"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live,
-laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water,
-and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
-
-Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
-
-Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your
-rabbit and potatoes.
-
-To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages,
-and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
-courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable
-pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a
-pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
-wholesome thing.
-
-But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not
-much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They
-would like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich
-gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They
-need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
-
-You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is--the poor never buy
-oatmeal, or lentils!"
-
-Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend,
-they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
-
-What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have
-given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little
-pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
-
-Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs.
-Iden!
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-
-"YOU must drink it all--every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as
-Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but
-half finished it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all." Amadis made an
-effort, and obeyed.
-
-But his heart was bitter as absinthe.
-
-Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were
-manly, they could eat and drink.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and
-turned the crank at the same time.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so
-happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
-his tall quart-mug.
-
-Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic
-than all the hamlet put together.
-
-Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.
-
-Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he
-could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.
-
-Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the
-heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.
-
-He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable
-to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
-farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere
-shadow, a thing of contempt.
-
-They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his
-face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to
-Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more
-than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the
-meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
-told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a
-wine-glassful of Goliath.
-
-Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot,
-and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It
-was absinthe to him.
-
-He could not stoop to turn the churn--he had to sip milk in the presence
-of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very
-servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.
-
-And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.
-
-And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas, that he could think,
-yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without
-considering first and feeling his way.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he
-led in the waggon.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of
-July.
-
-He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of
-Amaryllis--he was nothing. Less than nothing--a shadow.
-
-To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.
-
-Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker
-has been very, very ill, but is better:--
-
-          And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then
-          raised his head, and said:--
-
-  "Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away
-                thy sorrows;
-  For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and
-                is changed!
-  How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not
-                forth!
-  And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze
-                appears from it;
-  And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.
-  So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;
-  And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"
-
-
-
-How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt
-himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?
-
-"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone,
-now he had obeyed her.
-
-"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.
-
-His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis,
-absinthe because of his weakness.
-
-A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song,
-with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:--
-
-          The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?
-          And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?
-              All Insinuation Scorning;
-          I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,
-          I only Know he's a very Red Face
-              When he gets up in the Morning!
-
-"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look
-main red in the marning, surely."
-
-They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch,
-and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
-him.
-
-At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.
-
-Iden came through into the dairy.
-
-"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into
-everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the
-floor!"
-
-"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire--or
-anything?"
-
-"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood--and chop it, as well as you. Why
-can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
-hours to see you"--following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have
-you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
-butter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still,
-Mr. Duck; I don't mind _you_. What will you take?"
-
-More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window
-and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs.
-Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house--I never saw
-anything like it!"
-
-It was true.
-
-There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting
-on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje
-indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with
-the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting
-his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight
-people--and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of
-food.
-
-"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."
-
-And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble
-ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets;
-crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to those who
-pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me,
-the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
-farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!
-
-"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning
-gone and nothing done; and the butter's not come yet!"
-
-Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat
-all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good
-deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was
-done on Olympus.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS went outside the court, and waited; Amadis rose and followed
-her. "Come a little way into the Brook-Field," she said.
-
-They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path
-passed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the
-strawberry patch which Iden had planted under the parlour window; by the
-great box-hedge where a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though
-Amaryllis's dress brushed the branches; by the espalier apple, to the
-little orchard-gate.
-
-The parlour-window--there are no parlours now, except in old country
-houses; there were parlours in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern
-villas they have drawing-rooms.
-
-The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree branches, planted beneath
-with strawberry; white blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
-in the branches of the pear--that was Iden.
-
-They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed heavily against the
-tall meadow-grass growing between the bars. The path was almost
-gone--grown out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad trail
-behind them.
-
-Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have muttered to himself; they
-were trespassing on his mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
-difficult to cut.
-
-Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the thick-stemmed
-butter-cups--branched like the golden candlestick, and with flowers of
-golden flame. For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw light
-back into the air.
-
-Amadis began to drag behind--he could not walk much farther; they sat
-down together on the trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
-close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted. Even with his back
-leaning against a limb of the oak, Amadis had to partly support himself
-with his hands.
-
-What was the use of such a man?--He had nothing but his absurdly
-romantic name from Don Quixote to recommend him.
-
-That was the very thought that gnawed at poor Amadis's heart as he sat
-by her side. What use to care for him?
-
-Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was a new gate, and he
-had been fitting it before he went in to lunch. His basket was of flag
-because the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools, chisels, and
-so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have everything right. The new gate
-was of solid oak, no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
-without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the farm, and kept
-till it was thoroughly fit, genuine English oak. If you would only
-consider Iden's gate you might see there the man.
-
-This gateway was only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when
-the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
-a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate
-knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest
-possible charge.
-
-Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to make _his_ gate in the
-hamlet; he sent for one ten miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages.
-He was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his work to see that
-the least little detail was done correctly, till the fellow would have
-left the job, had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale. So he
-just stretched the job out as long as he could, and talked and talked
-with Iden, and stroked him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
-it upon me and on William, That day in a way I despise." Till what with
-the planing, and shaving, and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and
-time, it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace gates,
-not of the Iden style.
-
-Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber years before for this very
-purpose, and had watched the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
-have made good oak furniture. There was nothing special or particular
-about this gateway; he had done the same in turn for every gateway on
-the farm; it was the Iden way.
-
-A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit for a nobleman's Home
-Park. I doubt, if you would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
-made of such material on any great estate in the kingdom. For not even
-dukes can get an Iden to look after their property. An Iden is not to be
-"picked up," I can tell you.
-
-The neighbourhood round about had always sneered in the broad country
-way at Iden's gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do _he_ want wi' such
-geates? A' ain't a got no cattle to speak on; any ould rail ud do as
-good as thuck geat."
-
-The neighbourhood round about could never understand Iden, never could
-see why he had gone to such great trouble to render the homestead
-beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the orchard with pleasant
-eating apples in the place of the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
-wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"
-
-All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood to be the acts of a
-"vool."
-
-When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to have the great bushes
-that bore unusually fine May bloom saved from the billhook, that they
-might flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples--for the sake
-of the white blossom; so, too, with the hazel--for the nuts.
-
-But what caused the most "wonderment" was the planting of the
-horse-chestnuts in the corner of the meadow? Whatever did he want with
-horse-chestnuts? No other horse-chestnuts grew about there. You couldn't
-eat the horse-chestnuts when they dropped in autumn.
-
-In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the little circumstance of
-the hour. His gate was meant to last for years, rain and shine, to
-endure any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in itself.
-
-His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind--was at once his strength
-and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that
-made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now
-stands--built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of
-little things, instead of lifting his mind higher.
-
-If only he could have lived three hundred years the greater world would
-have begun to find out Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
-from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk, for Iden could talk of
-the trees and grass, and all that the Earth bears, as if one had
-conversed face to face with the great god Pan himself.
-
-But while Iden slumbered with his head against the panel--think, think,
-think--this shallow world of ours, this petty threescore years and ten,
-was slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked with bitterness at heart
-the increasing stoop of the strong back.
-
-Iden was like the great engineer who could never build a bridge, because
-he knew so well how a bridge ought to be built.
-
-"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself
-ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you.
-Why can't you go into town and see your father?--it would be a hundred
-pounds in your pocket"--as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs.
-Iden had gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps he would
-have taken her advice.
-
-Resting upon the brown timber in the grass Amaryllis and Amadis could
-just see a corner of the old house through the spars of the new gate.
-Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand; a house that had grown
-in the course of many generations, not built to set order; it had grown
-like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances, and, therefore, like
-the tree it was beautiful to look at. There were windows in deep
-notches, between gables where there was no look-out except at the pears
-on the wall, awkward windows, quite bewildering. A workman came to mend
-one one day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever seed such a
-crooked picter of a house!" said he.
-
-A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the buttercups,
-straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly
-did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a
-line of peacock blue over the gold.
-
-In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to have been sitting there
-like this, with Amadis lost in the sweet summer dream of love.
-
-She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot du Lake, a hero of the
-mighty arm, only with the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
-proper thing.
-
-But the fitness of things never comes to pass--everything happens in the
-Turkish manner.
-
-Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life, very, very young and
-inexperienced, very poor and without the least expectation whatever (for
-who could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the daughter of poor
-and embarrassed parents, whom she wished and prayed to help in their
-coming old age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling and half a
-painter at heart, full of generous sentiments--what a nature to be
-ground down in the sordidness of married poverty!
-
-Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble, and unable to earn a
-shilling, just talking of seeing the doctor again about this fearful
-debility, full too, as he thought at least, of ideas--what a being to
-think of her!
-
-Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things. If only now he could have
-regained the health and strength of six short months ago--if only that,
-but you see, he had not even that. He might get better; true--he
-_might_, I have tried 80 drugs and I am no better, I hope he will.
-
-Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic East have put things
-together for them with more utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
-Turkish manner, you see.
-
-There they sat, happier and happier, and deeper and deeper in love every
-moment, on the brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full of
-love as the meadow was of sunshine.
-
-You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in which after sunset he was
-carried over Ocean's stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
-again in the East and give us the joy of his rising. The great Golden
-Cup in which Hercules, too, was taken over; it was as if that Cup had
-been filled to the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the lips
-to drink, inexhaustible.
-
-In the play of Faust--Alere's _Faust_--Goethe has put an interlude, an
-Intermezzo; I shall leave Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in
-Heaven. Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its Dread,
-pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the wings, let Debt and Poverty
-unrobe, let Age stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as the
-Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave our lovers in the Interlude
-in Heaven.
-
-And as I must leave them (I trust but for a little while) I will leave
-them on the brown oak timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
-dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass and the wild flowers.
-
-
-
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-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Amaryllis at the Fair
-
-Author: Richard Jefferies
-
-Commentator: Edward Garnett
-
-Release Date: September 25, 2009 [EBook #30087]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR ***
-
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-Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Emmy and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
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-
-</pre>
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 319px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="319" height="500" alt="Cover" title="" />
-</div><hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
-<img src="images/title-a.png" width="300" height="47" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/title-b.png" width="100" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<h2>THE READERS' LIBRARY</h2>
-
-
-<div class='center'><i>Uniform with this Volume</i><br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Reader's Library">
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Belloc, H.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Birrell, Augustine</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ORBITER DICTA</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Bourne, George</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Brooks, Stopford A.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Everett, W.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Galsworthy, John</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>A COMMENTARY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>BEVIS. The Story of a Boy</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>AFTER LONDON</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">McCabe, Joseph</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Nevinson, H. W.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS IN FREEDOM</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Stephen, Sir Leslie</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Witte, Dr. Carl</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>ESSAYS ON DANTE</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Roosevelt, Theodore</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Eckenstein, Lina</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><div class='hang1'>COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays<br />in a Branch of Folklore</div></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='center'><br /><span class="smcap">Cunninghame Graham, R. B.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>PROGRESS, and other Sketches</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-<div class='center'><br /><i>Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time</i></div>
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-
-<h1>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h1>
-
-<h3>BY</h3>
-
-<h2>RICHARD JEFFERIES</h2>
-
-<div class='center'><small>AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON,"
-"WOOD MAGIC; A FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.</small></div>
-
-<div class='poem'><br /><br /><br />
-"Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."<br />
-
-
-<div class='sig'>
-<span class="smcap">Alc&aelig;us</span>.<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div></div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
-<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
-</div>
-
-<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
-LONDON<br />
-DUCKWORTH AND CO.<br />
-<span class="smcap">3, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.</span><br />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='unindent'>
-<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reissued 1904</span><br />
-<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Reprinted in Readers Library 1911</span><br />
-<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div class='copyright'>
-<i>All rights reserved</i><br /></div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<b>Dedicated</b><br />
-<br />
-TO<br />
-<br />
-CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.<br /></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-029.png" width="500" height="88" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>INTRODUCTION.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 146px;">
-<img src="images/t-quote.png" width="146" height="120" alt="&quot;T" title="&quot;T" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE book is not a novel" is a phrase
-often in the mouth of critics, who on
-second thoughts might, perhaps, add
-with less emphasis, "It does not conform
-to the common type of novel." Fortified, however,
-with that sense of rectitude that dictates conformity
-to our neighbours and a safe acquiescence
-in the mysterious movements of public taste, the
-critics have exclaimed with touching unanimity&mdash;"What
-a pity Jefferies tried to write novels! Why
-didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"</div>
-
-<p>What a pity Jefferies should have given us
-"Amaryllis at the Fair," and "After London"!&mdash;this
-opinion has been propagated with such fervency
-that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring
-into the nature of these his achievements. Certainly
-the critics, and their critical echoes, are united. "He
-wrote some later novels of indifferent merit," says
-a critic in "Chambers' Encyclop&aelig;dia." "Has anyone
-ever been able to write with free and genuine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
-appreciation of even the later novels?" asks or
-echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies.
-"In brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at
-all," says Mr. Henry Salt. "It is therefore certain
-that his importance for posterity will dwindle, if it
-has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle
-of descriptive selections. But these will occupy a
-foremost place on their particular shelf, the shelf at
-the head of which stands Gilbert White and Gray,"
-says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter
-of genius, and he never got beyond reporting. Mr.
-Besant has the vitalising imagination which Jefferies
-lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
-Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again,
-"They are not novels as he (Walter Besant) admits,
-they are a series of pictures.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. That is the way
-he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
-touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure
-for this critic to say that in his <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'judgement'">judgment</ins> "Amaryllis
-at the Fair" is one of the very few later-day novels
-of English country life that are worth putting on
-one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would
-turn out certain highly-praised novels by Hardy
-which do not ring quite true, novels which the critics
-and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
-voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the
-reader may ask. A novel, says the learned Charles
-Annandale, is "a fictitious prose narrative, involving
-some plot of greater or less intricacy, and professing
-to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting
-the passions and sentiments, in a state of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
-great activity, and especially the passion of love."
-Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious prose
-narrative professing to give a picture of real life,
-and involving a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it
-exhibits the passions and sentiments in a state of
-great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose little
-book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further
-remarks: "Jefferies was quite unable to give any
-vivid dramatic life to his stories .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. his instinct
-was that of the naturalist who observes and moralizes
-rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
-interprets; and consequently his rustic characters,
-though strongly and clearly drawn, do not live, as,
-for example, those of Thomas Hardy live.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Men
-and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."</p>
-
-<hr style="width: 45%;" />
-
-<p>So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to
-be "no ordinary novelist," it is inferred by most
-that something is wrong with "Amaryllis the Fair,"
-and the book has been passed over in silence. But we
-do not judge every novel by the same test. We do
-not judge "Tristram Shandy," for example, by its
-intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we judge it
-simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by
-its humorous insight into human character. And
-judged by the same simple test "Amaryllis at the
-Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
-creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden,
-the unsuccessful farmer who "built for all time, and
-not for the circumstances of the hour," is a masterly
-piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
-portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about
-Uncle Toby? From what void did he spring? Iden,
-to our mind, is almost as masterly a conception,
-as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And
-Mrs. Iden, where will you find this type of nervous,
-irritable wife, full of spiteful disillusioned love for
-her dilatory husband better painted than by Jefferies?
-But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the
-reader may say. Excellent reader! and what about
-the Widow Wadman? She is no less and no more
-of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great
-feat of Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere
-of the Shandy household, but Jefferies has accomplished
-an artistic feat also in drawing the relations
-of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How
-true, how unerringly true to human nature is this
-picture of the Iden household; how delicately felt
-and rendered to a hair is his picture of the father's
-sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the
-waspish tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we
-not only have the family's idiosyncrasies, their habits,
-mental atmosphere, and domestic story brought before
-us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively
-by the hand of the artist, but we have the whole book
-steeped in the breath of English spring, the restless
-ache of spring that thrills through the nerves, and
-stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring
-feeling breaking from the March heavens and the
-March earth in copse, meadow, and ploughland, as it
-has scarcely been rendered before by English novelist.
-The description of Amaryllis running out into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
-March wind to call her father from his potato planting
-to see the daffodil; the picture of Iden pretending
-to sleep in his chair that he may watch the mice;
-the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the
-crowd of plain, ugly men of the countryside flocking
-along the road to the fair; the description of Amadis
-the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the stalwart
-country folk&mdash;all these pictures and a dozen
-others in the book are painted with a masterly hand.
-Pictures! the critical reader may complain. Yes,
-pictures of living men and women. What does it
-matter whether a revelation of human life is conveyed
-to us by pictures or by action so long as it is
-conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
-Gray, presumably because both writers have written
-of the English landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in
-his work as a naturalist and observer of wild life
-may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert
-White. But this classification only applies to one half
-of Jefferies' books. By his "Wild Life in a Southern
-County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by his
-"Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little
-apart from the poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair"
-he stands among the half-dozen country writers of
-the century whose work is racy of the English soil
-and of rural English human nature. We will name
-three of these writers, Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and
-our attentive readers can name the other three.</p>
-
-<p>To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is
-it so masterly, or, further, wherein is it so masterly,
-the curious reader may inquire? "Is it not full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>
-digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
-is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly
-break his method, introduce his own personality,
-intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food, illness, and
-Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's
-dinner a little&mdash;well, a little unusual? In short, is
-not the book a disquisition on life from the standpoint
-of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if this
-is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?"
-Oh, candid reader, with the voice of authority
-sounding in your ears (and have we not Mr. Henley
-and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against
-us), a book may break the formal rules, and yet it
-may yield to us just that salt of life which we may
-seek for vainly in the works of more faultless writers.
-The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its
-beauty springs naturally from the prosaic earthly
-facts of life it narrates, and that, in the natural
-atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose and the
-poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the
-artistic naturalness of its homely picture, the book
-is very superior to, say "The Mayor of Casterbridge,"
-where we are conscious that the author has been at
-work arranging and rearranging his charming studies
-and impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge
-into the pattern of an exciting plot. Now it
-is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of "The
-Mayor of Casterbridge"&mdash;and we cite this novel as
-characteristic, both in its strength and weakness, of
-its distinguished author,&mdash;that we are brought to
-feel that we have not been shown the characters of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>
-Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but
-that they have been moved about, kaleidoscopically,
-to suit the exigencies of the plot, and that the more
-this is so the less significance for us have their
-thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling
-changes of Farfrae and Lucetta, Henchard and
-Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
-listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we
-perceive indeed whence comes that atmosphere of
-stage crisis and stage effect which suddenly introduces
-a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars
-the artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful
-in other respects to English rural life. Plot is
-Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed and convincing
-would have been his pictures, if he could
-have thrown his plots and his rustic choruses to the
-four winds. May we not be thankful, therefore, that
-Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that
-in "Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions,
-the conversations are spontaneous as life, and
-that Jefferies' commentary on them is like Fielding's
-commentary, a medium by which he lives with his
-characters. The author's imagination, memory, and
-instinctive perception are, indeed, all working together;
-and so his picture of human life in
-"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as
-fresh a breath of life as we find in Cobbett's,
-Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
-writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere,
-his style and his subject seem to become
-one. He moves easily and surely. Out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
-splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the
-sensations, the observations and revelations of his
-youth, and the atmosphere familiar to him through
-long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning
-picture for us, a complete illusion of life more true
-than the reality. For what prosaic people call the
-reality is merely the co-ordination in their own minds
-of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life
-around them; and only this thousandth part they
-have noticed. But the creative mind builds up a
-living picture out of the thousands of aspects most
-of us are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies
-has done in "Amaryllis at the Fair." The book is
-rich in the contradictory forces of life, in its quick
-twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working
-alike in the leaves of grass outside the Idens'
-house, in the blustering winds round the walls, and
-in the minds of the characters indoors; and the style
-has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is
-growing, changing, breathing in the book. But the
-accomplished critics do not notice these trivial
-strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
-not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently
-thinks that Jefferies made a mistake in drawing his
-philosophy from an open-air study of nature, for he
-writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
-background was not like Wordsworth's clear and
-cheerful, but wholly vague and partly gloomy." It
-was neither vague nor gloomy, we may remark,
-parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw
-too deeply into nature's workings, and had too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span>
-sensuous a joy in life to interpret all Nature's doings,
-&agrave; la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously
-moral significance.</p>
-
-<p>The one charge that may with truth be brought
-against "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its digressions
-damage the artistic illusion of the whole. The
-book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness
-of a sketch, a sketch, moreover, which Jefferies
-was not destined to carry to the end he had planned,
-but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
-weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature,
-rather than those of an ambitious studio picture.
-And these digressions are an integral part of the
-book's character, just as the face of a man has its
-own blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the
-whole, and so, if they break somewhat the illusion
-of the scenes, they do not damage its spiritual unity.
-It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
-because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and
-complete testament on human life. He wrote it, or
-rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in pain,
-slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of
-a dying man. How real, how solid, how deliciously
-sweet seemed those simple earthly joys, those human
-appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
-is his passion and spiritual hunger for the
-beauty of earth! Like a flame shooting up from the
-log it is consuming, so this passion for the green
-earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine,
-consumes the wasted, consumptive body of the dying
-man. The reality, the solidity of the homely farmhouse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>
-life he describes spring from the intensity
-with which he clings to all he loves, the cold March
-wind buffeting the face, the mating cries of the
-birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so terribly
-strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
-hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving,
-bitter the knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring
-and vivifying the whole, in every line of
-"Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
-"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished
-critics. Did he not? "Amaryllis at the Fair"
-is one of the truest criticisms of human life, oh
-reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness
-of things, the old, old human muddle, the meanness
-and stupidity and shortsightedness of humanity, the
-good salty taste of life in the healthy mouth, the
-spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
-appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry,
-and the sharp wind blowing alike on the just and
-the unjust&mdash;all is there on the printed page of
-"Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and
-the roar of London unite and mingle therein for
-those who do not bring the exacting eye of superiority
-to this most human book.</p>
-
-<div class='sig'>
-<span class="smcap">Edward Garnett</span>.<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 130px;">
-<img src="images/i-031.png" width="130" height="76" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-<br /><br /></div>
-<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th,
-1903.</p></div>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
-<img src="images/title2-a.png" width="300" height="42" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR</h2>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 90px;">
-<img src="images/title2-b.png" width="90" height="31" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-033.png" width="500" height="174" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.</h2>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS found the first daffodil
-flowering by the damask rose, and
-immediately ran to call her father to
-come and see it.</div>
-
-<p>There are no damask roses now, like
-there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks. I
-have never seen one since I last gathered one from
-that very bush. There are many grand roses, but
-no fragrance&mdash;the fragrance is gone out of life.
-Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look
-under the shade of the trees for the old roses, but
-they are not to be found. The dreary nurseries of
-evergreens and laurels&mdash;cemeteries they should be
-called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of
-taste&mdash;are innocent of such roses. They show
-you an acre of what they call roses growing out of
-dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
-which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call
-for damask roses&mdash;wouldn't pay to grow they.
-Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be
-cut every morning and fetched by the flower-girls
-for gents' button-holes and ladies' jackets. You
-won't get no damask roses; they be died out."</p>
-
-<p>I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper,
-that with patience I could get a
-damask rose even now by inquiring about from
-farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer,
-with a good old taste for old roses and pinks,
-would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
-But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it;
-I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern
-style, though small, of course, and there is a
-"garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose.
-No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot
-plant except round "home." The plot or "patch"
-the landlord calls "the garden"&mdash;it is about as
-wide as the border round a patch, old style&mdash;is
-quite vacant, bare, and contains nothing but mould.
-It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.</p>
-
-<p>Not only are there no damask roses, but there
-is no place for them now-a-days, no "home," only
-villas and rented houses. Anything rented in a
-town can never be "home."</p>
-
-<p>Farms that were practically taken on a hundred
-and twenty, or fifty, or perhaps two hundred years'
-leases were "homes." Consequently they had
-damask roses, bees, and birds about them.</p>
-
-<p>There had been daffodils in that spot at least a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
-century, opening every March to the dry winds
-that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
-and carry them out from the bushes under the
-trees, sending them across the meadow&mdash;fleeing
-like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
-Every spring for a century at least the daffodils
-had bloomed there.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century,
-but ran round the corner of the house, and came
-face to face with the east wind, which took her
-with such force as to momentarily stay her progress.
-Her skirts were blown out horizontally,
-her ankles were exposed, and the front line of her
-shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched
-against the red brick wall. She laughed, but the
-strong gale filled her throat as if a hand had been
-thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife
-under her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs,
-and seemed as if it would scoop them out; her
-eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips
-dried up and parched in a moment. The wind
-went through her thick stockings as if the wool
-was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her
-eyes, and the skin of her arm became "goosey"
-directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it would
-have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step
-by step, and gradually reached the shelter of the
-high garden wall; there she could stand upright,
-and breathe again.</p>
-
-<p>Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen
-blast, as if a storm of ice particles had been driven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
-against them, now resumed their scarlet, but her
-ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly
-dark hair was dry and rough and without gloss.
-Each separate hair separated itself from the next,
-and would not lie smooth&mdash;the natural unctuous
-essence which usually caused them to adhere was
-dried up.</p>
-
-<p>The wind had blown thus round that corner
-every March for a century, and in no degree
-abated its bitter force because a beautiful human
-child, full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly
-into its power. Nothing ever shows the
-least consideration for human creatures.</p>
-
-<p>The moss on the ridge of the wall under which
-she stood to breathe looked shrivelled and thin,
-the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow with a
-straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to
-put it in his nest, but the depending straw was
-caught by the breeze as a sail, and carried him
-past.</p>
-
-<p>Under the wall was a large patch recently dug,
-beside the patch a grass path, and on the path a
-wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in
-potatoes; he wore the raggedest coat ever seen
-on a respectable back. As the wind lifted the
-tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and
-only hung by threads, the cuffs were worn through,
-there was a hole beneath each arm, and on each
-shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
-which had once been grey, was now a mixture of
-several soils and numerous kinds of grit. The hat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
-he had on was no better; it might have been made
-of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every
-now and then the wind brought a few handfuls of
-dust over the wall from the road, and dropped it
-on his stooping back.</p>
-
-<p>The way in which he was planting potatoes was
-wonderful, every potato was placed at exactly the
-right distance apart, and a hole made for it in the
-general trench; before it was set it was looked at
-and turned over, and the thumb rubbed against it
-to be sure that it was sound, and when finally put
-in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
-keep it in its right position till the whole row was
-buried. He carried the potatoes in his coat
-pocket&mdash;those, that is, for the row&mdash;and took them
-out one by one; had he been planting his own
-children he could not have been more careful.
-The science, the skill, and the experience brought
-to this potato-planting you would hardly credit;
-for all this care was founded upon observation, and
-arose from very large abilities on the part of the
-planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
-that moment.</p>
-
-<p>So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she
-ran down the grass path and stood by the wheelbarrow,
-but although her shadow fell across the
-potato row, he would not see her.</p>
-
-<p>"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing
-bolder. "Do come&mdash;there's a daffodil out, the very,
-very first."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," a sound like a growl&mdash;"oh," from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
-depth of a vast chest heaving out a doubtful
-note.</p>
-
-<p>"It is such a beautiful colour!"</p>
-
-<p>"Where is your mother?" looking at her
-askance and still stooping.</p>
-
-<p>"Indoors&mdash;at least&mdash;I think&mdash;no&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help
-her? What good be you on?"</p>
-
-<p>"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very
-first&mdash;now do come!"</p>
-
-<p>"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as
-that; what do'ee want a-messing about arter
-thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't
-never got a apron on."</p>
-
-<p>"But&mdash;just a minute now."</p>
-
-<p>"Go on in, and be some use on."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly
-away along the path, her head drooping forward.</p>
-
-<p>Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling
-without being repulsed?</p>
-
-<p>She had not reached the end of the path, however,
-when the father began to change his attitude;
-he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
-foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went
-after her. She did not see or hear him till he
-overtook her.</p>
-
-<p>"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.</p>
-
-<p>"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and
-brightening up immediately. "Only think, to
-open in all this wind, and so cold&mdash;isn't it beautiful?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
-It's much more beautiful than the flowers
-that come in the summer."</p>
-
-<p>"Trumpery rubbish&mdash;mean to dig 'em all up&mdash;would
-if I had time," muttered the father. "Have
-'em carted out and drowed away&mdash;do for ashes to
-drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody,
-thaay thengs. You can't eat 'em, can you, like
-you can potatoes?"</p>
-
-<p>"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis
-stepped on the patch tenderly, and lifted up the
-drooping face of the flower.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to
-his chin, a habit of his when thinking, and suddenly
-quite altering his pronunciation from that of the
-country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt
-to the correct accent of education. "Ah, yes;
-the daffodil was your great-uncle's favourite
-flower."</p>
-
-<p>"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis,
-noting how handsome her father's intellectual face
-looked, wandered in her mind from the flower as
-he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough
-sometimes, and why he talked like the labourers,
-and wore a ragged coat&mdash;he who was so full of
-wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought,
-and indeed acted as a perfect gentleman.</p>
-
-<p>"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He
-brought the daffodils down from Luckett's; every
-one in the garden came from there. He was
-always reading poetry, and writing, and sketching,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
-and yet he was such a capital man of business; no
-one could understand that. He built the mill, and
-saved heaps of money; he bought back the old
-place at Luckett's, which belonged to us before
-Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed, he very nearly
-made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of
-them got rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And
-now it is all going again&mdash;faster than he made it.
-He used to take you on his knee and say you would
-walk well, because you had a good ankle."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with
-her hands, as if that would lengthen the skirt and
-hide the ankles which Richard, the great-uncle,
-had admired when she was a child, being a man,
-but which her feminine acquaintances told her
-were heavy.</p>
-
-<p>"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish
-of you to go out in this wind without them!" said
-Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
-Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors
-again immediately.</p>
-
-<p>"He was the only one of all the family," continued
-her father, "who could make money; all
-the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
-generations he was the only money-maker and
-saver, and yet he was as free and liberal as possible.
-Very curious, wasn't it?&mdash;only one in ten generations&mdash;difficult
-to understand why none of the
-others&mdash;why&mdash;&mdash;" He paused, thinking.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking&mdash;thinking
-how easily her papa could make money, great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
-heaps of money. She was sure he could if he
-tried, instead of planting potatoes.</p>
-
-<p>"If only another Richard would rise up like
-him!" said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having
-had one genius in the family, and that, too, in the
-memory of man, they could not expect another.
-Even vast empires rarely produce more than one
-great man in all the course of their history. There
-was but one C&aelig;sar in the thousand years of
-Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless
-we except Themistocles, or unless we accept
-Alexander, who was a Macedonian; Persia had a
-Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few
-people know anything of the empire he overshadows
-with his name; France has had two
-mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon&mdash;unfortunate
-France! As for ourselves, fortunate
-islanders! we have never had a great man so
-immensely great as to overtop the whole, like
-Charlemagne in his day. Fortunate for us, indeed,
-that it has been so. But the best example to the
-point is the case of the immense empire of Russia,
-which has had one Peter the Great, and one only.
-Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the Great of
-his family, whose work had been slowly undone by
-his successors.</p>
-
-<p>"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out
-like Richard," continued Iden. "No one could
-deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
-convincing people, and always got his own will in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
-the end. Wonderful man!" he pondered, returning
-towards his work.</p>
-
-<p>Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden
-just peered out, and cried, "Put your hat and scarf
-on directly."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf
-very loosely about her neck. She accompanied
-her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
-would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed
-in the potatoes. She watched him stooping till his
-back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped so much
-that now he could not stand upright, though still
-in the prime of life; if he stood up and stretched
-himself, still his back was bowed at the shoulders.
-He worked so hard&mdash;ever since she could remember
-she had seen him working like this; he was up in
-the morning while it was yet dark tending the
-cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
-wind or weather made no difference. Other people
-stopped indoors if it rained much, but it made no
-difference to her father, nor did the deep snow or
-the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could
-talk so cleverly, too, and knew everything, and yet
-they were so short of money. How could this be?</p>
-
-<p>What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making
-of money; I could show you plenty of men who
-have worked the whole of their lives as hard as ever
-could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence
-as when they began. In fact, that is the
-rule; the winning of independence is rarely the result
-of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
-<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>RESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors,
-and was met in the hall by her
-mother.</div>
-
-<p>"What has he been talking to you
-about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
-listen to him. He will never do any good. Just
-look at his coat; it's a disgrace, a positive disgrace.
-Telling you about the old people? What's
-the use of talking of people who have been dead
-all this time? Why doesn't he do something himself?
-Don't listen to his rubbish&mdash;wasting his
-time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one
-wild! Why doesn't he go in to market and buy
-and sell cattle, and turn over money in that way?
-Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry
-potatoes, as if it mattered an atom how they were
-stuck in the ground."</p>
-
-<p>Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis
-went upstairs, and when she was alone lifted her
-skirt and looked at the ankles which great-uncle
-Richard had admired. Other girls had told her
-they were thick, and she was ashamed of them.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of the slender things which seem as if a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
-sudden strain would snap them, and are nothing
-but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
-ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be
-a fine form; strong, but neither thick, nor coarse,
-nor heavy, ankles that would carry her many a
-mile without weariness, that ended good legs with
-plenty of flesh on them. The stupidity of calling
-such coarse or heavy! They were really ideal
-ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these
-ill-instructed girls called them coarse! It was not
-their fault, it was the lack of instruction; as they
-did not know what was physically perfect, of course
-they could not recognize it.</p>
-
-<p>Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of
-them, for they will prove a blessing to her for the
-whole of her life.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though
-she brushed it for some time; it would not lie close,
-so much had the east wind dried it. She opened
-a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar,
-and held it in her hand, balancing probabilities.
-Would her father see it if she used it, or might he,
-perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
-bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced
-to pass through the room he would certainly have
-thrown it out of window, so bitter was his antagonism
-to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and
-other resources of the hairdresser, which he held
-defiled the hair and ruined it, to the deception of
-woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
-scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
-not one drop of oil did she dare put on
-her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously, and then
-she could not go near him, for he was certain to
-detect it and scorch her with withering satire.</p>
-
-<p>Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes
-and oils and so forth is like a perennial
-spring, and never fails.</p>
-
-<p>Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed
-no dressing&mdash;nothing could possibly improve it,
-and the chances therefore were that whatever she
-used would injure&mdash;yet in her heart she yearned to
-rub it with oil.</p>
-
-<p>But the more she considered the more probable
-it seemed that her father would detect her; she
-had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
-somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden
-was one of those who preferred working at home to
-rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too attached to
-his home work. So she returned the bottle to the
-drawer, and hid it under some stockings.</p>
-
-<p>Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At
-all meals the rule was that there must be no talking,
-but at dinner the law was so strict that even to
-ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so
-much as "Give me the salt, please," was a deadly
-sin. There must be absolute silence while the
-master ate. The least infringement was visited
-with a severe glance from his keen and brilliant
-blue eyes&mdash;there are no eyes so stern as blue eyes
-when angry&mdash;or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
-grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
-he usually stooped, and to sit upright showed
-annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
-were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that
-house.</p>
-
-<p>Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the
-dinner hour was worse than sacrilege; anything
-that threatened to disturb it was watched intently
-by that repressive eye. No one must come in or
-go out of the room; if anyone knocked at the
-door (there are no bells in old country houses)
-there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone
-answering it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis
-had to leave the table, to go out and open and
-shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again
-as they returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at
-the door, it was so awful to have to stir once they
-had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
-not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it
-happened&mdash;and this was very terrible&mdash;that the
-master himself had to go, some one wanted him
-about some hay or a horse and cart, and no one
-could tell what to do but the master. A dinner
-broken up in this way was a very serious matter
-indeed.</p>
-
-<p>That day they had a leg of mutton&mdash;a special
-occasion&mdash;a joint to be looked on reverently. Mr.
-Iden had walked into the town to choose it himself
-some days previously, and brought it home on foot
-in a flag basket. The butcher would have sent it,
-and if not, there were men on the farm who could
-have fetched it, but it was much too important to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
-left to a second person. No one could do it right
-but Mr. Iden himself. There was a good deal of
-reason in this personal care of the meat, for it is a
-certain fact that unless you do look after such
-things yourself, and that persistently, too, you
-never get it first-rate. For this cause people in
-grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth
-eating on their tables. Their household expenses
-reach thousands yearly, and yet they rarely have
-anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never
-show meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's.
-The meat was dark brown, as mutton should be,
-for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be poor;
-the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter,
-firm, and yet almost crumbling to the touch; it was
-full of juicy red gravy, and cut pleasantly, the
-knife went through it nicely; you can tell good
-meat directly you touch it with the knife. It was
-cooked to a turn, and had been done at a wood fire
-on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal gas
-or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it.
-Such emanations as there may be from burning
-logs are odorous of the woodland, of the sunshine,
-of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives
-out as it burns the sweetness it has imbibed through
-its leaves from the atmosphere which floats above
-grass and flowers. Essences of this order, if they
-do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its
-flavour a delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked
-at a wood fire, for me.</p>
-
-<p>Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
-to have their meat cooked over coal or in a shut-up
-iron box, where it kills itself with its own steam,
-which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa
-people do do odd things. <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i> who
-have to write like myself must put up with anything
-and be thankful for permission to exist; but
-people with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware,
-or mud, or bricks and mortar&mdash;why on earth
-these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
-the gods passes understanding.</p>
-
-<p>Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris
-will convert some of you who will not listen to a
-farmer.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that
-were placed before him. They were white, floury,
-without a drop of water in the whole dish of them.
-They were equal to the finest bread&mdash;far, far superior
-to the bread with which the immense city of
-London permits itself to be poisoned. (It is not
-much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
-too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a
-price which is in itself one of the most wonderful
-things of the age. The finest bread ought to be
-cheap.</p>
-
-<p>"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping
-himself to half a dozen. "Look at the gravy go
-up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."</p>
-
-<p>The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury
-particles of the potatoes as if they had formed
-capillary tubes.</p>
-
-<p>"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
-to one. It be an amazing theng how thengs do
-that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
-potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds.
-Mine comes true, 'cause I saves um every
-year a' purpose. Better take more than that (to
-Amaryllis)&mdash;you haven't got but two" (to Mrs.
-Iden).</p>
-
-<p>What he ate other people at his table must eat,
-and the largest quantity possible. No one else
-must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but
-the master could talk, talk, talk without end. The
-only talking that might be done by others was in
-praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so carefully
-provided. You might admire the potatoes or
-the mutton, but you must not talk on any other
-subject. Nor was it safe even to do that, because
-if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were
-immediately helped to another plateful, and had to
-finish them, want them or not. If you praised the
-mutton several thick slices were placed on your
-plate, and woe to you if you left a particle. It was
-no use to try and cover over what you could not
-manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be seen.
-"What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there
-juicy bit, you?"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous
-experience, discreetly refrained from admiring either
-mutton or potatoes.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="Decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/f.png" width="120" height="121" alt="F" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ORTY-FOLDS," went on the master,
-"be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
-be so many new sorts now, but they
-bean't no good; they be very good for
-gentlefolk as doan't know no better,
-and poor folk as can't help theirselves. They won't
-grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
-patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's
-that's big middle patch. Summat different in the
-soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be learned
-before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such
-a simple thing. Farty-folds&mdash;&mdash;"</div>
-
-<p>"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his
-provincial pronunciation with extreme disgust in
-her tone.</p>
-
-<p>"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be
-ould potatoes, and thur bean't none as can beat
-um."</p>
-
-<p>The more she showed her irritation at his speech
-or ways, the more he accentuated both language and
-manner.</p>
-
-<p>"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
-It was true, Iden did talk with his mouth full, very
-full indeed, for he fed heartily. The remark annoyed
-him; he grunted and spluttered and choked
-a little&mdash;floury things are choky. He got it down
-by taking a long draught at his quart of strong ale.
-Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to induce you to
-make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk
-again.</p>
-
-<p>"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede
-greens; I axed un three days ago; I know'd we
-was going to have this yer mutton. You got to
-settle these yer things aforehand."</p>
-
-<p>"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing
-fond of um, so be the larks. These be the best
-as thur was. They be the best things in the world
-for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all
-physic. If you can get fresh swede tops you don't
-want a doctor within twenty miles. Their's
-nothing in all the chemists' shops in England
-equal to swede greens"&mdash;helping himself to a
-large quantity of salt.</p>
-
-<p>"What a lot of salt you <i>do</i> eat!" muttered Mrs.
-Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Onely you must have the real swedes&mdash;not
-thuck stuff they sells in towns; greens they was
-once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
-haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely
-to be got about March."</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in
-London," said Mrs. Iden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They
-bean't no good; you might as well eat dried
-leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green
-shoots of spring"&mdash;suddenly changing his pronunciation
-as he became interested in his subject and
-forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
-wife. "They are full of sap&mdash;fresh sap&mdash;the juice
-which the plant extracts from the earth as the
-active power of the sun's rays increases. It is this
-sap which is so good for the blood. Without it
-the vegetable is no more than a woody fibre. Why
-the sap should be so powerful I cannot tell you;
-no one knows, any more than they know <i>how</i> the
-plant prepares it. This is one of those things
-which defy analysis&mdash;the laboratory is at fault, and
-can do nothing with it." ("More salt!" muttered
-Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of
-salt?") "There is something beyond what the
-laboratory can lay hands on; something that cannot
-be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by
-quantity, quality, or by any means. They analyse
-champagne, for instance; they find so many parts
-water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much
-that; but out of the hundred parts there remain
-ten&mdash;I think it is ten&mdash;at all events so many parts
-still to be accounted for. They escape, they are
-set down as volatile&mdash;the laboratory has not even a
-distinct name for this component; the laboratory
-knows nothing at all about it, cannot even name it.
-But this unknown constituent is the real champagne.
-So it is with the sap. In spring the sap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
-possesses a certain virtue; at other times of the
-year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."</p>
-
-<p>"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden,
-defiantly, stretching out her hand to the cruet.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention
-of vinegar had set his teeth on edge. He
-looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
-close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling
-the sappy swede greens with nauseous vinegar.
-To his system of edible philosophy vinegar was
-utterly antagonistic&mdash;destructive of the sap-principle,
-altogether wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as
-destroying good and precious food.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken
-the vinegar herself, but as her mother passed the
-cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed vinegar
-with the green vegetables. All women like
-vinegar.</p>
-
-<p>When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand
-Mr. Iden deigned to look round again at the
-table.</p>
-
-<p>"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to
-Amaryllis, who was cutting a piece of bread. She
-put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
-"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty
-times? Cutting towards your thumb like that!
-Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
-slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it
-to me."</p>
-
-<p>He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the
-slice across the table so accurately that it fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
-exactly into its proper place by her plate. He
-had a habit of tossing things in that way.</p>
-
-<p>"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?"
-said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging in that manner! I
-hate to see it."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took
-the lesson in bread-cutting to heart, as she had
-done twenty times before. But she knew she
-should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style
-when out of his sight. She could not do it in the
-safe way&mdash;it was so much easier in the other; and
-if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.</p>
-
-<p>"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the
-master, getting up with his plate in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>"Whatever <i>are</i> you going to do now?" asked
-Mrs. Iden, who knew perfectly well.</p>
-
-<p>"Going to warm the plate." He went out into
-the kitchen, sat down by the fire, and carefully
-warmed his plate for a second helping.</p>
-
-<p>"I should think you couldn't want any more,"
-said Mrs. Iden when he came back. "You had
-enough the first time for three."</p>
-
-<p>But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and
-had never ruined his digestion with vinegar or
-sauces, piled another series of thick slices on his
-plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to
-the meat a just proportion of vegetables. In proportion
-and a just mixture the secret of eating
-successfully consisted, according to him.</p>
-
-<p>First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton,
-this was immediately followed by a portion of floury<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
-potato, next by a portion of swede tops, and then,
-lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth,
-he took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten
-and cleanse his teeth. Finally came a draught of
-strong ale, and after a brief moment the same ingredients
-were mixed in the same order as before.
-His dinner was thus eaten in a certain order, and
-with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each particular
-flavour like a rhyme in its proper position,
-and duly putting it out with its correct successor.
-Always the savour of meat and gravy and vegetables
-had to be toned down by the ultimate bread,
-a vast piece of which he kept beside him. He
-was a great bread eater&mdash;it was always bread after
-everything, and if there were two courses then bread
-between to prepare the palate, and to prevent the
-sweets from quarrelling with the acids. Organization
-was the chief characteristic of his mind&mdash;his
-very dinner was organized and well planned, and
-any break or disturbance was not so much an annoyance
-in itself as destructive of a clever design,
-like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical
-spider.</p>
-
-<p>This order of mouthfuls had been explained over
-and over again to the family, and if they felt that
-he was in a more than usually terrible mood, and if
-they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some
-extent submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis,
-however, could ever educate their palates
-into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden
-was not in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
-wandered about irregularly in their eating. When
-the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
-they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking"
-little fragments of pies, or cold fowl, even a cold
-potato, the smallest mug&mdash;a quarter of a pint of
-the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be
-had, a sip of port wine. These women were very
-irrational in their feeding; they actually put vinegar
-on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
-pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning.
-They had a herring sometimes for tea&mdash;the smell of
-it cooking sent the master into fits of indignation,
-he abominated it so, but they were so hardened
-and lost to righteousness they always repeated the
-offence next time the itinerant fish-dealer called.
-You could not drum them into good solid, straightforward
-eating.</p>
-
-<p>They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to
-eat in the kitchen after dinner, for Mr. Iden considered
-that no one could need a second course
-after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel
-of cheese if you liked&mdash;nothing more. In summer
-the great garden abounded with fruit; he would
-have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day
-after day, or else black-currant pudding. He held
-that black currants were the most wholesome fruit
-that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite
-clean he would rub them with black-currant leaves
-to give them a pleasant aromatic odour (as ladies
-use scented soap). He rubbed them with walnut-leaves
-for the same purpose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Of salad in its season he was a great eater,
-cucumber especially, and lettuce and celery; but
-a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of Worcester
-sauce) was a horror to him. A principle
-ran through all his eating&mdash;an idea, a plan and
-design.</p>
-
-<p>I assure you it is a very important matter this
-eating, a man's fortune depends on his dinner. I
-should have been as rich as Cr&oelig;sus if I could only
-have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I
-should, now I come to look back.</p>
-
-<p>The soundest and most wholesome food in the
-world was set on Mr. Iden's table; you may differ
-from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
-dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh
-vegetables and fruit and salad, and the Goliath ale.</p>
-
-<p>When he had at last finished his meal he took
-his knife and carefully scraped his crumbs together,
-drawing the edge along the cloth, first one way and
-then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating
-so much bread, he made many crumbs. Having
-got them together, he proceeded to shovel them
-into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that
-not one was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a
-little moist sugar over them with his finger and
-thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and
-cheese, and sat down with it in his arm-chair by
-the fire, spreading his large red-and-yellow silk
-handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
-lieu of a plate.</p>
-
-<p>"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
-like other people?" said Mrs. Iden, shuffling her
-feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
-in the throat was the answer she received; at the
-same time he turned his arm-chair more towards
-the fire, as much as to say, "Other people are
-nothing to me."</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 135px;">
-<img src="images/i-038.png" width="135" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make,
-had lost an arm&mdash;the screw remained
-sticking up, but the woodwork on that
-side was gone. It had been accidentally
-broken some ten years since; yet,
-although he used the chair every day, the arm had
-never been mended. Awkward as it was, he let it
-alone.</div>
-
-<p>"Hum! where's <i>The Standard</i>, then?" he said
-presently, as he nibbled his cheese and sipped the
-ale which he had placed on the hob.</p>
-
-<p>"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with
-the paper.</p>
-
-<p>"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs.
-Iden. "Thought there was nothing but lies and
-rubbish in them, according to you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No more thur bean't."</p>
-
-<p>"You always take good care to read them,
-though."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another
-slight turn of the chair. He could not answer this
-charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
-affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it
-with avidity, and would almost as soon have missed
-his ale as his news.</p>
-
-<p>However, to settle with his conscience, he had a
-manner of holding the paper half aslant a good way
-from him, and every now and then as he read
-uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.</p>
-
-<p>The master's taking up his paper was a signal
-for all other persons to leave the room, and not to
-return till he had finished his news and his nap.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each
-took as many of the dishes as they could carry,
-for it was uncertain when they could come in again
-to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved,
-the door opened, or the slightest sound heard till
-the siesta was over.</p>
-
-<p>"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock,"
-said Mrs. Iden as she went, "and then you want
-your tea&mdash;senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
-and the master was left to himself.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped
-his newspaper, and arranged himself for slumber.
-His left elbow he carefully fitted to the remnant of
-the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief,
-red and yellow, he gathered into a loose
-pad in his left hand for his cheek and temple to
-rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand
-and arm, while the side of his head touched and
-rested against the wainscot of the wall.</p>
-
-<p>Just where his head touched it the wainscot had
-been worn away by the daily pressure, leaving a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
-round spot. The wood was there exposed&mdash;a
-round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being
-completely bare of varnish. So many nods&mdash;the
-attrition of thirty years and more of nodding&mdash;had
-gradually ground away the coat with which the
-painter had originally covered the wood. It even
-looked a little hollow&mdash;a little depressed&mdash;as if his
-head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
-probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the
-difference in colour between the wood and the varnish
-around it.</p>
-
-<p>This human mark reminded one of the grooves
-worn by the knees of generations of worshippers in
-the sacred steps of the temple which they ascended
-on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion,
-as Mrs. Iden and others, not very keen observers,
-would have said, to the god of Sleep; in truth, it
-was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
-throne of the god of Thought.</p>
-
-<p>It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement
-assumed this posture of slumber, and commanded
-silence. But thought which has been
-cultivated for a third of a century is apt to tone
-down to something very near somnolence.</p>
-
-<p>That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy
-of preservation as those on which the early artists
-delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for which
-high prices are now paid. It was intensely&mdash;superlatively&mdash;human.
-Worn in slow time by a
-human head within which a great mind was working
-under the most unhappy conditions, it had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
-deep value attaching to inanimate things which
-have witnessed intolerable suffering.</p>
-
-<p>I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess
-that if I could be assured any particular piece of
-wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
-should think it the most valuable thing in the world,
-to which Koh-i-noors would be mud.</p>
-
-<p>I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above
-crowns.</p>
-
-<p>That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart
-had been tortured for the third of a century, that
-is, for the space of time allotted to a generation.</p>
-
-<p>That mark upon the panel had still a further
-meaning, it represented the unhappiness, the misfortunes,
-the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
-family of Idens had endured already two hundred
-years of unhappiness and discordance for no original
-fault of theirs, simply because they had once been
-fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to
-work out that hour of sunshine to the utmost depths
-of shadow.</p>
-
-<p>The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark
-had been worn was in effect a cross upon which a
-human heart had been tortured&mdash;and thought can,
-indeed, torture&mdash;for a third of a century. For
-Iden had learned to know himself, and despaired.</p>
-
-<p>Not long after he had settled himself and closed
-his eyes the handle of the door was very softly
-turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book, which
-she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on
-tiptoe without a sound, but in shutting the door the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
-lock clicked, and she heard him kick the fender
-angrily with his iron-shod heel.</p>
-
-<p>After that there was utter silence, except the
-ticking of the American clock&mdash;a loud and distinct
-tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
-room.</p>
-
-<p>Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the
-window, a noiseless shadow; Mrs. Iden had come
-quietly round the house, and stood in the March
-wind, watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl
-about her shoulders&mdash;she put out her clenched hand
-from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
-muttering to herself, "Never <i>do</i> anything; nothing
-but sleep, sleep, sleep: talk, talk, talk; never <i>do</i>
-anything. That's what I hate."</p>
-
-<p>The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common
-American clock continued its loud tick, tick.</p>
-
-<p>Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be
-audible among the cinders in the fender. The dry
-cinders were pushed about by something passing
-between them. After a while a brown mouse
-peered out at the end of the fender under Iden's
-chair, looked round a moment, and went back to
-the grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured
-somewhat farther across the width of the
-white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
-advance was made step by step, but on reaching
-the carpet the mouse rushed home to cover in one
-run&mdash;like children at "touch wood," going out
-from a place of safety very cautiously, returning
-swiftly. The next time another mouse followed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
-and a third appeared at the other end of the fender.
-By degrees they got under the table, and helped
-themselves to the crumbs; one mounted a chair
-and reached the cloth, but soon descended, afraid
-to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at
-their dinner.</p>
-
-<p>The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if
-carved.</p>
-
-<p>A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued
-iron-shod boot&mdash;the foot that rested on the
-fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
-and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained
-by labour, was drawn up somewhat higher
-than the boot. It took the mouse several trials to
-reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously
-mounted to Iden's knee. Another quickly followed,
-and there the pair of them feasted on the
-crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of
-his trousers.</p>
-
-<p>One great brown hand was in his pocket, close
-to them&mdash;a mighty hand, beside which they were
-pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What would
-have been the value of their lives between a finger
-and thumb that could crack a ripe and strong-shelled
-walnut?</p>
-
-<p>The size&mdash;the mass&mdash;the weight of his hand
-alone was as a hill overshadowing them; his broad
-frame like the Alps; his head high above as a vast
-rock that overhung the valley.</p>
-
-<p>His thumb-nail&mdash;widened by labour with spade
-and axe&mdash;his thumb-nail would have covered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
-either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
-Ajax.</p>
-
-<p>Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence.
-He was so still, so <i>very</i> still&mdash;quiescent&mdash;they
-feared him no more than they did the wall; they
-could not hear his breathing.</p>
-
-<p>Had they been gifted with human intelligence
-that very fact would have excited their suspicions.
-Why so very, <i>very</i> still? Strong men, wearied by
-work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily.
-Even in firm sleep we move a little now and then, a
-limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or stretches itself.</p>
-
-<p>But Iden was so still it was evident he was really
-wide awake and restraining his breath, and exercising
-conscious command over his muscles, that
-this scene might proceed undisturbed.</p>
-
-<p>Now the strangeness of the thing was in this
-way: Iden set traps for mice in the cellar and the
-larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
-picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the
-door at the same instant, and the wretched captive
-was dashed to death upon the stone flags of the
-floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in
-one place, and fed them in another.</p>
-
-<p>A long psychological discussion might be held
-on this apparent inconsistency, but I shall leave
-analysis to those who like it, and go on recording
-facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing
-is consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent
-it would have no association with a living
-person.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>From the merest thin slit, as it were, between
-his eyelids, Iden watched the mice feed and run
-about his knees till, having eaten every crumb, they
-descended his leg to the floor.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/i-040.png" width="122" height="210" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 118px;">
-<img src="images/h.png" width="118" height="120" alt="H" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>E was not asleep&mdash;he was thinking.
-Sometimes, of course, it happened that
-slumber was induced by the position
-in which he placed himself; slumber,
-however, was not his intent. He liked
-to rest after his midday meal and think. There
-was no real loss of time in it&mdash;he had been at work
-since half-past five.</div>
-
-<p>His especial and striking characteristic was a
-very large, high, and noble forehead&mdash;the forehead
-attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his busts.
-Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he
-was not altogether a man of action. He was, indeed,
-an actor upon the stage; once he stole the
-red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
-not sail to the then new discovered lands of America,
-nor did he fight the Spaniards. So much intellect
-is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or rather
-it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs
-to the position of commander. If Shakespeare by
-the chance of birth, or other accident, had had the
-order of England's forces, we should have seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
-generalship such as the world had not known since
-C&aelig;sar.</p>
-
-<p>His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till
-opportunity came. We have great thoughts instead
-of battles.</p>
-
-<p>Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for
-Shakespeare's. There was too much thought in it
-for the circumstances of his life. It is possible to
-think till you cannot act.</p>
-
-<p>After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a
-few minutes. When he awoke he looked at the
-clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven
-of the grate, took out a baked apple. He had one
-there ready for him almost always&mdash;always, that is,
-when they were not ripe on the trees.</p>
-
-<p>A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome
-thing in the world; it corrected the stomach, prevented
-acidity, improved digestion, and gave tone
-to all the food that had been eaten previously. If
-people would only eat baked apples they would not
-need to be for ever going to the chemists' shops
-for drugs and salines to put them right. The
-women were always at the chemists' shops&mdash;you
-could never pass the chemists' shops in the town
-without seeing two or three women buying something.</p>
-
-<p>The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural
-medicine of man&mdash;and the best flavoured. It was
-compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
-of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind
-and shower in such a way that no laboratory could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
-imitate: and so on in a strain and with a simplicity
-of language that reminded you of Bacon and his
-philosophy of the Elizabethan age.</p>
-
-<p>Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian
-culture, naturally, and not from any study of
-that author, whose books he had never seen. The
-great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and
-garden, and gathered his ideas from the fields.</p>
-
-<p>Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden.
-Look at a Blenheim orange, the inimitable mixture
-of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
-not bright colours&mdash;undertones of bright colours&mdash;smoothed
-together and polished, and made the
-more delightful by occasional roughness in the rind.
-Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was
-getting older he found, however, that the finest of
-them all was the russet. For eating, at its proper
-season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply
-the Imperial C&aelig;sar and Sultan of apples; whether
-for baking, or pies, or sauce, there was none to
-equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true russet
-was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary
-that it should be the real russet. Indeed in apple
-trees you had to be as careful of breeding and
-pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about
-their horses.</p>
-
-<p>Ripe apples could not be got all the year round
-in any variety; besides which, in winter and cold
-weather the crudity of the stomach needed to be
-assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake
-them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days;
-they had too much butcher's meat, and not
-enough fruit&mdash;that is, home-grown fruit, straight
-from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold
-in the shops, picked before it was ready.</p>
-
-<p>The Americans were much wiser (he knew a
-good deal about America&mdash;he had been there in
-his early days, before thought superseded action)&mdash;the
-Americans had kept up many of the fine old
-English customs of two or three hundred years
-since, and among these was the eating of fruit.
-They were accused of being so modern, so very,
-very modern, but, in fact, the country Americans,
-with whom he had lived (and who had taught him
-how to chop) maintained much of the genuine
-antique life of old England.</p>
-
-<p>They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that
-the same trees produced an apple having a slightly
-different flavour to what it had in this country.
-You could always distinguish an American apple
-by its peculiar piquancy&mdash;a sub-acid piquancy, a
-wild strawberry piquancy, a sort of woodland,
-forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so
-on, and so on&mdash;"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden
-said.</p>
-
-<p>After his baked apple he took another guilty
-look at the clock, it was close on four, and went
-into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
-these places are called passages; in the smallest of
-villas, wretched little villas not fit to be called
-houses, they are always "halls."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him,
-and began to thump his broad though bowed back
-with all her might.</p>
-
-<p>"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a
-thump at each word. "You've slept two hours.
-(Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
-(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the
-use of digging? (Thump.) Why don't you make
-some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.)
-I hate it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off
-the wainscot with your sleep, sleep, sleep (thump)&mdash;there's
-one of your hairs sticking to the paint
-where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything
-more hateful&mdash;sleep (thump), talk (thump), sleep
-(thump). Go on!"</p>
-
-<p>She had thumped him down the passage, and
-across the covered-in court to the door opening on
-the garden. There he paused to put on his hat&mdash;an
-aged, battered hat&mdash;some sort of nondescript
-bowler, broken, grey, weather-stained, very battered
-and very aged&mdash;a pitiful hat to put above that
-broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted
-it on he was thumped severely: when he opened
-the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up at
-the sky to see about the weather&mdash;a habit all
-country people have&mdash;and so got more thumping,
-ending as he started out with a tremendous push.
-He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the
-push accelerate his pace; he took it very much as
-he took the March wind.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
-clear the dinner things, and make ready for tea.
-Amaryllis helped her.</p>
-
-<p>"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs.
-Iden. "What's the use of his going out to work
-for half an hour?"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her
-father; he never did anything wrong in her eyes,
-and she could have pointed out that when he sat
-down to dinner at one he had already worked as
-many hours as Mrs. Iden's model City gentleman
-in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in effect,
-equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over
-which they frequently lingered an hour or two. He
-would still go on labouring, almost another half day.
-But she held her peace, for, on the other hand, she
-could not contradict and argue with her mother,
-whom she knew had had a wearisome life and
-perpetual disappointments.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself
-into a more fiery passion, till at last she put
-down the tea-pot, and rushed into the garden.
-There as she came round the first thing she saw was
-the daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had
-discovered. Beside herself with indignation&mdash;what
-was the use of flowers or potatoes?&mdash;Mrs.
-Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower
-under foot till it was shapeless. After this she
-rushed indoors again and upstairs to her bedroom,
-where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in
-the old black oak chest of drawers till she found a
-faded lavender glove.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>That glove had been worn at the old "Ship"
-at Brighton years and years ago in the honeymoon
-trip: in those days bridal parties went down
-by coach. Faded with years, it had also faded
-from the tears that had fallen upon it. She turned
-it over in her hands, and her tears spotted it once
-more.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her
-mother to rush away in that manner was nothing
-new. She toasted her father a piece of toast&mdash;he
-affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it
-was there, and looked about for it if it was not,
-though he never said anything. The clock struck
-five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready.
-Coming round the house she found her daffodil
-crushed to pieces.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead;
-then her beautiful lips pouted and quivered; tears
-filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
-immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom
-to cry and to hide her grief and indignation.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/i-043.png" width="100" height="59" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ADY-DAY Fair came round by and by,
-and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock in
-the morning, went down the garden to
-the end of the orchard, where she could
-overlook the highway without being
-seen, and watch the folk go past. Just there the
-road began to descend into a hollow, while the
-garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning
-her arm on the top of the wall, was much higher
-up than those who went along. The wall dropped
-quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red
-brick wall&mdash;thick and closely-built, the bricks close
-together with thin seams of mortar, so that the
-fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed
-and bound firm, like the fibres of a piece of
-iron. The deep red bricks had a colour&mdash;a certain
-richness of stability&mdash;and at the top this good
-piece of workmanship was protected from the
-weather by a kind of cap, and ornamented with a
-projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
-stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it.
-Without there was a sheer red precipice of fourteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
-feet down to the dusty sward and nettles beside
-the road.</div>
-
-<p>Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against
-the wall rose thin and tapering above it in a bunch,
-a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to have
-been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance
-of neglect. One heavy bough had broken
-away from the nails and list, and drooped to the
-ground, and the shoots of last year, not having
-been trimmed, thrust themselves forward presumptuously.</p>
-
-<p>Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches
-rising above the wall Amaryllis was partly hidden,
-but she relied a great deal more for concealment
-upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very
-seldom look up; and consequently if you are only
-a little higher they will not see you. This she
-proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
-glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his
-eye fixed on his sheep, and the drover on his
-bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
-fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had
-on a bit of blue ribbon or a new bonnet, and
-were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
-them to see if the men admired their finery.
-No one looked up from the road they were pursuing.</p>
-
-<p>The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by
-a sort of stand at the back, which holds it steady
-in one position while the camera takes the picture.
-In life most people have their heads fixed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
-claws of some miserable pettiness, which interests
-them so greatly that they tramp on steadily forward,
-staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
-fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they
-are travelling.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair
-or the people either, knowing very well what sort
-they would be; but I suspect, if it had been possible
-to have got at the cause which brought her
-there, it would have been traced to the unconscious
-influence of sex, a perfectly innocent prompting,
-quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and
-who would indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject,
-but which leads girls of her age to seize
-opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
-uninteresting order. Still they are men, those
-curious beings, that unknown race, and little bits of
-knowledge about them may, perhaps, be picked up
-by a diligent observer.</p>
-
-<p>The men who drifted along the road towards the
-Fair were no "mashers, by Jove!" Some of them,
-though young, were clad antiquely enough in
-breeches and gaiters&mdash;not sportsmen's breeches
-and gaiters, but old-fashioned "granfer" things;
-the most of them were stout and sturdy, in drab
-and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds
-of them on foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on
-horseback, went under Amaryllis: but, though they
-were all Christians, there was not one "worth a
-Jewess' eye."</p>
-
-<p>She scorned them all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>This member of the unknown race was too
-thickly made, short set, and squat; this one too
-fair&mdash;quite white and moist-sugar looking; this
-one had a straight leg.</p>
-
-<p>Another went by with a great thick and long
-black beard&mdash;what a horrid thing, now, when
-kissing!&mdash;and as he walked he wiped it with his
-sleeve, for he had just washed down the dust with
-a glass of ale. His neck, too, was red and thick;
-hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man
-all over, as far as body makes a man.</p>
-
-<p>But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges.
-"Care I for the thews and sinews of a man?" They
-look for something more than bulk.</p>
-
-<p>A good many of these fellows were more or less
-lame, for it is astonishing if you watch people go by
-and keep account of them what a number have
-game legs, both young and old.</p>
-
-<p>A young buck on a capital horse was at the first
-glance more interesting&mdash;paler, rakish, a cigar in
-his mouth, an air of viciousness and dash combined,
-fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in short,
-he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of
-sheep and corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked
-him more than all the rest put together; she shrank
-back a little from the wall lest he should chance to
-look up; she would have feared to have been alone
-with such a character, and yet she could not have
-said why. She would not have feared to walk side
-by side with the great black beard&mdash;hideous as he
-was&mdash;nor with any of the rest, not even with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
-roughest of the labourers who tramped along. This
-gentleman alone alarmed her.</p>
-
-<p>There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day
-holiday, coming by at the same time; they had on
-their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
-nice. They turned round to watch him coming,
-and half waited for him; when he came up he
-checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them.
-Nothing loth, the village girls "cheeked" him,
-and so they passed on.</p>
-
-<p>One or two very long men appeared, unusually
-clumsy, even in walking they did not know exactly
-what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
-objection to their being tall&mdash;indeed, to be tall is
-often a passport to a "Jewess' eye"&mdash;but they
-were so clumsy.</p>
-
-<p>Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles
-she could not see much but their clothes and their
-faces, and both the clothes and the faces were very
-much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the
-shoulders were too broad for the tailor, who wanted
-to force Bond Street measurements on the British
-farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
-hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and
-that was all. Scores of men, precisely similar,
-were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
-hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not
-have peeled rods to make them bring forth speckled
-lambs.</p>
-
-<p>Against the stile a long way up the road there
-was a group of five or six men, who were there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
-when she first peered over the wall, and made no
-further progress to the Fair. They were waiting
-till some acquaintance came by and offered a lift;
-lazy dogs, they could not walk. They had already
-been there long enough to have walked to the Fair
-and back, still they preferred to fold their hands
-and cross their legs, and stay on. So many people
-being anxious to get to the town, most of those
-who drove had picked up friends long before they
-got here.</p>
-
-<p>The worst walker of all was a constable, whose
-huge boots seemed to take possession of the width
-of the road, for he turned them out at right angles,
-working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary
-exhibition of stupidity and ugliness, for which the
-authorities who drilled him in that way were responsible,
-and not the poor fellow.</p>
-
-<p>Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep
-there drifted by a variety of human animals, tramps
-and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as the
-wool and beef.</p>
-
-<p>It is curious that these "characters"&mdash;as they
-are so kindly called&mdash;have a way of associating
-themselves with things that promise vast enjoyment
-to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless
-wretches who thread their path in and out the
-coaches at the Derby is wonderful. While the
-champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman
-between the shafts sits on an upturned hamper
-and helps himself out of another to pie with truffles,
-the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
-about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve
-after the fall at the edge of Paradise.</p>
-
-<p>There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at
-the Derby that you might think the race was got
-up entirely for their sakes. There would be thousands
-at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a
-half-crown bolt, and they cannot get a stare at the
-fashionables on the lawn. For all that, the true
-tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant
-at races and all kinds of accessible entertainments
-and public events that the features of the fashionable
-are better known to him than to hundreds of
-well-to-do people unable to enter society.</p>
-
-<p>So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in
-the dust, among the cattle and sheep, hands in
-pockets, head hanging down, most of them followed
-at a short distance by a Thing.</p>
-
-<p>This Thing is upright, and therefore, according
-to the old definition, ought to come within the genus
-Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling those
-of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a
-woman once; perhaps it never was, for many of
-them have never had a chance to enter the ranks
-of their own sex.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence,
-too full of her own strength and youth and joy in
-life to think for long or seriously about these curious
-Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her
-brow contracted, and she drew herself together as
-they passed&mdash;a sort of shiver, to think that there
-should be such degradation in the world. Twice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
-when they came along her side of the road she
-dropped pennies in front of them, which they picked
-up in a listless way, just glancing over the ear in
-the direction the money fell, and went on without
-so much as recognizing where it came from.</p>
-
-<p>If sheep were treated as unfortunate human
-beings are, they would take a bitter revenge; though
-they are the mildest of creatures, they would soon
-turn round in a venomous manner. If they did
-not receive sufficient to eat and drink, and were not
-well sheltered, they would take a bitter revenge:
-<i>they would die</i>. Loss of &pound; s. d.!</p>
-
-<p>But human beings have not even got the courage
-or energy to do that; they put up with anything,
-and drag on&mdash;miserables that they are.</p>
-
-<p>I said they were not equal in value to the sheep&mdash;why,
-they're not worth anything when they're
-dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
-Things!</p>
-
-<p>Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the
-fair, where there will be an immense amount of
-eating and a far larger amount of drinking all round
-them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight.
-They will see valuable animals, and men with well-lined
-pockets. What on earth can a tramp find to
-please him among all this? It is not for him; yet
-he goes to see it.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE crowd began to pass more thickly,
-when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
-the road in the opposite direction to
-that in which the multitude was moving.
-They were going to the fair; he had
-his back to it, and a party in a trap rallied him
-smartly for his folly.</div>
-
-<p>"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why,
-Measter Duck, what's up? Looking for a thunderstorm?"&mdash;which
-young ducks are supposed to
-enjoy. "Ha! ha! ha!"</p>
-
-<p>Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face,
-nevertheless plodded up the hill, and passed beneath
-Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>She knew him very well, for he lived in the
-hamlet, but she would not have taken any notice
-of him had he not been so elaborately dressed.
-His high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth
-coat was new and carefully brushed; he was
-in black all over, in contrast with the mass of
-people who had gone by that morning. A blue
-necktie, bright and clean, spotless linen, gloves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
-rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers brushed,
-boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the
-fair!</p>
-
-<p>The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact,
-no chance to do otherwise, for his great back and
-shoulders stretched it tight, and would have done
-so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big
-men who had gone by that day Jack Duck was the
-biggest; his back was immense, and straight, too,
-for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his
-bulk altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened
-with abdomen, so that it showed to the
-best advantage. He was a little over the average
-height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.</p>
-
-<p>He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground.
-You just try to lift <i>one</i>.</p>
-
-<p>His sleeves were too long, so that only the great
-knuckles of his speckled hands were visible. Red
-whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled face, straight
-lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher,
-and of much the same coarse red hue, always a
-ready grin, a round, hard head, which you might have
-hit safely with a mallet; and there is the picture.</p>
-
-<p>For some reason, very big men do not look well
-in glossy black coats and silk hats; they seem to
-want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
-than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a
-free-and-easy colour, suitable for the field, or
-cricket, or boating. They do not belong to the
-town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for
-hills and fields.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen
-are big, and therefore, as their "best"
-suits do not fit in with their character as written
-in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us
-clumsy. The truth is, it is the Continent that is
-little.</p>
-
-<p>"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking
-down on poor John Duck. "Isn't he ugly?"
-Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss,
-which has a way of growing into bricks and mortar,
-and attaching particles of brick to its roots. As
-she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
-with a little piece of moss&mdash;her hand happened at
-the moment to project over the wall, and as John
-Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
-straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of
-brick adhering to the moss struck the hollow hat
-smartly like a drum.</p>
-
-<p>She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing,
-and angry with herself all at the same time, for she
-had done it without a thought.</p>
-
-<p>Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it
-on again, suspecting that some one in a passing gig
-had "chucked" something at him.</p>
-
-<p>In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall,
-and, seeing his broad back a long way up the road,
-resumed her stand.</p>
-
-<p>"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?"
-she thought. "But isn't he ugly? Aren't they
-<i>all</i> ugly? All of them&mdash;horridly ugly."</p>
-
-<p>The entire unknown race of Man was hideous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
-So coarse in feature&mdash;their noses were thick, half
-an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
-the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a
-reaping-hook, or slewed to one side, or flat as if
-they had been smashed, or short and stumpy and
-incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned
-up in the vulgarest manner&mdash;nobody had a good
-nose.</p>
-
-<p>Their eyes were goggles, round and staring&mdash;like
-liquid marbles&mdash;they had no eyelashes,
-and their eyebrows were either white and invisible,
-or shaggy, as if thistles grew along their
-foreheads.</p>
-
-<p>Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red
-and brick-dust and leather-coloured, and enclosed
-with scrubby whiskers, like a garden hedge.</p>
-
-<p>Upon the whole, those who shaved and were
-smooth looked worse than those who did not, for
-they thus exposed the angularities of their chins
-and jaws.</p>
-
-<p>They wore such horrid hats on the top of these
-roughly-sketched faces&mdash;sketched, as it were, with
-a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had their hats
-on the backs of their heads, and some wore them
-aslant, and some jammed over their brows.</p>
-
-<p>They went along smoking and puffing, and talking
-and guffawing in the vulgarest way, <i>en route</i> to
-swill and smoke and puff and guffaw somewhere
-else.</p>
-
-<p>Whoever could tell what they were talking
-about? these creatures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They had no form or grace like a woman&mdash;no
-lovely sloped shoulders, no beautiful bosom, no
-sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No
-softness of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or
-taper fingers, or arched eyebrows; no sort of style
-whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
-in short, sublimely ugly.</p>
-
-<p>There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis'
-reflections; it was a pity a woman was not taken
-into confidence when the men were made.</p>
-
-<p>Suppose the women were like the men, and we
-had to make love to such a set of bristly, grisly
-wretches!&mdash;pah! shouldn't we think them ugly!
-The patience of the women, putting up with us so
-long!</p>
-
-<p>As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves
-so much, in a woman's eyes (though she prefers a
-strong man) they simply increase our extraordinary
-ugliness.</p>
-
-<p>But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then
-they despise us, and there is no doubt that altogether
-the men were made wrong.</p>
-
-<p>"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot,"
-thought Amaryllis. "He just <i>is</i> ugly."</p>
-
-<p>Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came
-by-and-by to the gateway, and entering without
-ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found
-Mr. Iden near the back door talking to a farmer
-who had seated himself on a stool.</p>
-
-<p>He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid,
-rough as a chunk of wood, but dressed in his best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
-brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
-vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances
-to Mr. Iden:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Now, just you see how I be helped up with
-this here 'ooman," he concluded as Duck arrived.
-Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity to
-escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he
-had patiently listened, took Jack by the arm, and
-led him indoors. As they went the man on the
-stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:&mdash;"Just
-you see how I be helped up with this here
-'ooman!"</p>
-
-<p>A good many have been "helped up" with a
-woman before now.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile&mdash;she
-always did&mdash;yet there could not have been imagined
-a man less likely to have pleased her.</p>
-
-<p>A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to
-detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness
-and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck,
-that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that
-enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes
-meet? No, since she was always complaining of
-Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
-to her own disposition that charmed her.</p>
-
-<p>John Duck was Another Man&mdash;not Mr. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>The best of matrons like to see Another Man
-enter their houses; there's no viciousness in it, it
-is simply nature, which requires variety. The best
-of husbands likes to have another woman&mdash;or two,
-or three&mdash;on a visit; there's nothing wrong, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
-innocent enough, and but gives a spice to the
-monotony of existence.</p>
-
-<p>Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness
-and stolidity, was not perhaps a fool, notwithstanding
-his outward clumsiness. A little attention is
-appreciated even by a matron of middle age.</p>
-
-<p>"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and
-Mrs. Iden brought a full jug with her own hands&mdash;a
-rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
-Iden enjoyed it.</p>
-
-<p>"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and
-gruff, about as a horse might be expected to speak
-if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just come
-up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"</p>
-
-<p>John had a first-rate turn-out.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she
-was not going to the fair.</p>
-
-<p>"Should be glad to take you, you know," said
-John, dipping into the ale. "Shall you be going
-presently?"&mdash;to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have
-a seat?"</p>
-
-<p>"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a
-trick he had when undecided. "I don't zactly
-know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge
-grubbed; want to fill up the gaps; want to go over
-to the wood meads; thought about&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit
-there thinking&mdash;take and go."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have
-anything to go vor."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden,
-contemptuously. "Why can't you do like other
-people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
-can wait&mdash;he can talk to Amaryllis while you
-dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested
-John, very quietly, and as if it was no consequence
-to him; the very thing he had called for, to see if
-he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He
-knew that Mrs. Iden never went anywhere, and
-that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
-minute&mdash;he would require three or four days at
-least&mdash;so that it was quite safe to ask them first.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She
-is going&mdash;to dine with her grandfather; it will save
-her a long walk. You had better go and ask
-her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the
-people."</p>
-
-<p>"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great
-bow window at the mention of Plum Corner&mdash;he
-could just see the flutter of Amaryllis' dress in the
-distance between the trees. That part of the
-garden was called Plum Corner because of a famous
-plum tree&mdash;the one that had not been pruned and
-was sprawling about the wall.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for
-Mrs. Iden, because she was so fond of a ripe
-luscious plum. But of late years he had not
-pruned it.</p>
-
-<p>"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug.
-"Extra vine ale!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>It really was humming stuff, but John well knew
-how proud Iden was of it, and how much he liked
-to hear it praised.</p>
-
-<p>The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly
-imagine that no one can be sharp-witted
-outside the sound of Bow Bells&mdash;country people
-are stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck,
-who took about half an hour to write his name, was
-equal to most of them.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 172px;">
-<img src="images/i-047.png" width="172" height="160" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-048.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE ale being ended, Iden walked with
-him through the orchard.</div>
-
-<p>"Famous wall that," said John, presently,
-nodding towards the great red
-brick wall which adorned that side of
-the place. "Knowed how to build walls in those
-days."</p>
-
-<p>"No such wall as that anywhere about here,"
-said Iden, as proud of his wall as his ale. "No
-such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to
-put up a wall now&mdash;you read in the papers how the
-houses valls down in Lunnon."</p>
-
-<p>"Sort of cracks and comes in like&mdash;jest squashes
-up," said John.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden.
-"That'll last&mdash;ah, last&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No end to it," said John, who had admired the
-wall forty times before, thinking to himself as he
-saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner, "Blessed if
-I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my
-hat." This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably
-clear idea that Mr. and Mrs. Iden were not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
-averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
-Amaryllis herself.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had
-so much as looked at her&mdash;he called often, but
-seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy her
-scorn if she had guessed!</p>
-
-<p>John Duck was considered one of the most eligible
-young men thereabouts, for though by no means
-born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
-was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his
-father died. Old Duck, the son of a common
-labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms
-in the neighbourhood. He made his money in a
-waggon&mdash;a curious place, you will say; why so?
-Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets
-they call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended
-the dirty, unscrubbed, disgraceful staircase that leads
-to a famous barrister's "chambers"? These are
-far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon
-in a beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck,
-being too ponderous to walk, was driven about in a
-waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
-legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted
-in a commanding position, he overlooked his men
-at work.</p>
-
-<p>One day he was put in a cart instead, and the
-carter walking home beside the horse, and noting
-what a pull it was for him up the hills, and drawling
-along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and
-dreamed he had a load of stones. By-and-by, he
-pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck out. "A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
-shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a
-been a load of flints."</p>
-
-<p>Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow
-had amassed considerable wealth&mdash;his reputation
-for money was very great indeed&mdash;and his son
-John would, of course, come in for it.</p>
-
-<p>John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about
-Amaryllis he did not know. The idea that she
-had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
-spirits immensely.</p>
-
-<p>Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful&mdash;she was
-too young; I do not think any girl is really
-beautiful so young&mdash;she was highly individualized,
-and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face
-and figure. You saw at a glance that there was
-something about her very different from other girls,
-something very marked, but it was not beauty
-yet.</p>
-
-<p>Whether John thought her handsome, or saw
-that she would be, or what, I do not know; or
-whether he looked "forrard," as he would have
-said.</p>
-
-<div class='center'>
-"Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>John had never read Burns, and would not have
-known that tocher meant dowry; nor had he seen
-the advice of Tennyson&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-"Doesn't thee marry for money,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">But go where money lies."</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>but his native intelligence needed no assistance
-from the poets, coronetted or otherwise.</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden,
-was as poor as the raggedest coat in Christendom
-could make him; but it was equally well known and
-a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the
-great miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the
-boys called him derisively, had literally bushels
-upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
-for ancient usages, and it was understood that there
-were twenty thousand spade guineas in an iron
-box under his bed. Any cottager in the whole
-country side could have told you so, and would
-have smiled at your ignorance; the thing was as
-well known as that St. Paul's is in the City.</p>
-
-<p>Besides which there was another consideration,
-old Granfer Iden was a great favourite at Court&mdash;Court
-meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
-Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the
-county. Granfer Iden entered the Deer Park
-(which was private) with a special key whenever
-he pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked
-in at the conservatory, chatted familiarly with the
-royal family of Pamment when they were at home,
-and when they were away took any friend he chose
-through the galleries and saloons.</p>
-
-<p>"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said
-John Duck to himself many a time and oft. "They
-stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
-wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite
-at Court could dispense, no doubt, many valuable
-privileges.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
-and turned round and faced them. She wore a
-black dress, but no hat; instead she had carelessly
-thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla
-fashion, and held it with one hand. Her dark
-ringlets fringed her forehead, blown free and wild;
-the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
-cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose
-figure is just beginning to show itself, her dress
-seemed somewhat shortened in front&mdash;lifted up
-from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy
-to her form, she seemed about to walk though
-standing still. There was a defiant light in her
-deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition
-which our grandmothers used to say
-would take us to the gallows. Defiance, wilfulness,
-rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood
-on the bank, a little higher than they were, and
-able to look over their heads.</p>
-
-<p>"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one
-side as a salute.</p>
-
-<p>"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his
-broad pronunciation.</p>
-
-<p>As John could not get any further Iden helped
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and
-thought you would like to ride with him. Run in
-and dress."</p>
-
-<p>"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."</p>
-
-<p>"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."</p>
-
-<p>"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.</p>
-
-<p>"Lot of cattle about," said John.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Better ride," said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on
-them to look over the wall again.</p>
-
-<p>She was a despot already. There was nothing
-left for them but to walk away.</p>
-
-<p>"However," said Iden, always trying to round
-things off and make square edges smooth, "very
-likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."</p>
-
-<p>"Her wull go across the fields," said John.
-"Shan't see her."</p>
-
-<p>As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap
-he looked up at the corner of the wall, but she
-was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had fetched
-her in, as it was time to dress.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate
-fairs&mdash;they are so silly."</p>
-
-<p>"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your
-grandfather sent a message last night; you know
-it's his dinner-day."</p>
-
-<p>"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis,
-"I can't bear him."</p>
-
-<p>"How dare you speak of your grandfather like
-that? you are getting very rude and disrespectful."</p>
-
-<p>There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one
-time she would go on and abuse Granfer Iden for
-an hour at a time, calling him every name she could
-think of, and accusing him of every folly under the
-sun. At another time she would solemnly inform
-Amaryllis that they had not a farthing of money,
-and how necessary it was that they should be
-attentive and civil to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the
-first jacket to hand.</p>
-
-<p>"What! aren't you going to change your
-dress?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, that I'm not."</p>
-
-<p>"Change it directly."</p>
-
-<p>"What, to go in and see that musty old&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Change it directly; I <i>will</i> be obeyed."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.</p>
-
-<p>One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim
-and let her do just as she pleased; the next she
-insisted on minute obedience.</p>
-
-<p>"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your
-things on&mdash;come."</p>
-
-<p>So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled
-out of the house and started off. As John had
-foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow the
-path across the fields, which was shorter.</p>
-
-<p>An hour or so later Iden came in from work as
-usual, a few minutes before dinner, and having
-drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in the
-bow window till the dishes were brought.</p>
-
-<p>"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Gone&mdash;wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"To fair, of course&mdash;like other people."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum," growled Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"You know your father expects all the family to
-come in to dinner on fair day; I can't think how
-you can neglect him, when you know we haven't got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
-a shilling&mdash;why don't you go in and speak to
-him?"</p>
-
-<p>"You can go if you like."</p>
-
-<p>"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill
-accents of contempt. "I don't care a button for
-all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money.
-I'm as good as he is any day. My family go about,
-and do some business&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Your</i> family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, <i>my</i> family&mdash;as good as yours, I should
-think! What's your family then, that you should
-be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"</p>
-
-<p>"You be descended from a quart pot," said
-Iden.</p>
-
-<p>This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather,
-who had kept a small wayside public.
-There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
-respectable man, and laid the foundation of his
-family's fortune, but it drove Mrs. Iden into
-frenzy.</p>
-
-<p>"You talk about a quart pot&mdash;<i>you</i>," she
-shrieked. "Why, your family have drunk up thousands
-of pounds&mdash;you know they have. Where's
-the Manor? they swilled it away. Where's
-Upper Court? they got it down their throats.
-They built a house to drink in and nothing else.
-You know they did. You told me yourself.
-The most disgraceful set of drunkards that ever
-lived!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?"
-said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years&mdash;why,
-you're always talking about it."</p>
-
-<p>"Your family be as nervous as cats&mdash;see their
-hands shake in the morning."</p>
-
-<p>"They go to business in the City and do something;
-they don't mess about planting rubbishing
-potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.</p>
-
-<p>"A pretty mess they've made of their business,
-as shaky as their hands. Fidgetty, miserable,
-nervous set they be."</p>
-
-<p>"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow,
-as stolid, and slow, and stupid; why, you do
-nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk, talk.
-You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the
-stile, and you've been talking with that old fool at
-the back door, and talking with Jack Duck&mdash;and
-that's your second mug! You're descended from a
-nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"</p>
-
-<p>Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and
-thrust it in one pocket, flung open the oven-door,
-and put a baked apple in the other pocket, and so
-marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a
-tree in the fields.</p>
-
-<p>In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so
-successful as raking up the weaknesses of the opponent's
-family, especially when the parties are
-married, for having gossiped with each other for
-so long in the most confidential manner, they know
-every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom bet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
-and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about,
-and Joseph did as Potiphar's spouse asked him, and
-why your uncle had to take refuge in Spain; and
-so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication
-table.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 143px;">
-<img src="images/i-050.png" width="143" height="270" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HIS discordance between her father and
-mother hurt Amaryllis' affectionate
-heart exceedingly. It seemed to be
-always breaking out all the year round.</div>
-
-<p>Of a summer's eve, when the day's
-work among the hot hay was done, Iden would
-often go out and sit under the russet apple till the
-dew had filled the grass like a green sea. When
-the tide of the dew had risen he would take off his
-heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in
-the cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass.
-He liked the refreshing coolness and the touch of the
-sward. It was not for washing, because he was scrupulously
-clean under the ragged old coat; it was
-because he liked the grass. There was nothing
-very terrible in it; men, and women, too, take off
-their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the
-sands at the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything
-but natural, reasonable, and pleasant. But,
-then, you see, <i>everybody</i> does it at the seaside, and
-Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his
-crime&mdash;that he alone did it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she
-knew he was paddling in the grass was awful.
-She would come shuffling out&mdash;she had a way of
-rubbing her shoes along the ground when irritated
-with her hands under her apron, which she twisted
-about&mdash;and pelt him with scorn.</p>
-
-<p>"There, put your boots on&mdash;do, and hide your
-nasty feet!" (Iden had a particularly white skin, and
-feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting! Nobody
-ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed
-of yourself! Anything more disgusting I never
-heard of. Nobody else but you would ever think
-of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."</p>
-
-<p>Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody
-else"&mdash;that was the sin and guilt of it&mdash;by-and-by
-Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
-had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them,
-would fling them in the ditch.</p>
-
-<p>And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation,
-if she had not been afraid to touch firearms,
-she would have brought out the gun, and had
-a shot at him.</p>
-
-<p>After a time Iden left his old post at the russet
-apple, and went up the meadow to the horse-chestnut
-trees that he himself had planted, and there, in
-peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded
-about in the dew, without any one to grumble at him.</p>
-
-<p>How crookedly things are managed in this
-world!</p>
-
-<p>It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East,
-and despise the Turks and all their ways, making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
-Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
-high places, with the utmost contempt for anything
-reasonable&mdash;all so incongruous and chance-ruled.
-In truth, all things in our very midst go on in the
-Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight
-places, and straight people in crooked places, just
-the same as if we had all been dropped promiscuously
-out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
-to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our
-abilities and natures. Such an utter jumble!</p>
-
-<p>Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful
-power of observation, who ought to have
-been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
-Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or,
-with his singular capacity for construction, a leading
-engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels and making
-Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect,
-forming a new school of philosophy&mdash;here was Iden,
-tending cows, and sitting, as the old story goes,
-undecidedly on a stile&mdash;sitting astride&mdash;eternally
-sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off
-on one side or the other.</p>
-
-<p>Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful
-shape and expressive eyes, full in her youth of life
-and fire, who ought to have led the gayest life in
-London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage,
-and flinging money about in the most extravagant,
-joyous, and good-natured manner&mdash;here was Mrs.
-Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and wearing
-shoes out at the toes.</p>
-
-<p>So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
-cart over ruts and stones, thumping anyhow instead
-of running smoothly on new-mown sward like a
-cricket-ball.</p>
-
-<p>It all happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
-
-<p>Another time there would come a letter from one
-of the Flammas in London. Could they spare a
-little bag of lavender?&mdash;they grew such lovely
-sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might
-see Mr. and Mrs. Iden cooing and billing, soft as
-turtle-doves, and fraternising in the garden over
-the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you
-see, to the story.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent,
-and the plant in every form. She kept little bags
-of it in all her drawers, and everything at Coombe
-Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious
-lavender perfume. There is nothing else that
-smells so sweet and clean and dry. You cannot
-imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.</p>
-
-<p>Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it
-between his finger and thumb in the garden, as he
-did, too, with the black-currant leaves and walnut-leaves,
-if he fancied anything he had touched
-might have left an unpleasant odour adhering to
-his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as much as
-washing them.</p>
-
-<p>Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because
-his mother had been so fond of it, and all the sixteen
-carved oak-presses which had been so familiar to him
-in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
-plant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet
-remained in the wine of life, Iden had set a hedge
-of lavender to please his wife. It was so carefully
-chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the
-finest lavender in all the country. People used to
-come for it from round about, quite certain of a
-favourable reception, for there was nothing so sure
-to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of
-lavender.</p>
-
-<p>But the letter from the Flammas was the great
-event&mdash;from London, all that way, asking for some
-Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
-and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the
-garden over the hedge of lavender. If only it
-could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow
-older there seems so much grating of the wheels.</p>
-
-<p>In time, long time, people's original feelings get
-strangely confused and overlaid. The churchwardens
-of the eighteenth century plastered the
-fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches&mdash;covered
-them over with yellowish mortar. The
-mould grows up, and hides the capital of the fallen
-column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the
-foot of the oak, where it is oldest, the bark becomes
-dense and thick, impenetrable, and without
-sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without
-reaching the sap. A sort of scale or caking in
-long, long time grows over original feelings.</p>
-
-<p>There was no one in the world so affectionate
-and loving as Mrs. Iden&mdash;no one who loved a father
-so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved <i>her</i> father.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty
-years or so, and the thick dull bark had grown,
-after the scales or caking had come upon the heart,
-after the capital of the column had fallen, after the
-painting had been blurred, it came about that old
-Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father, died in London.</p>
-
-<p>After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe
-Oaks, husband and wife went up to London to the
-funeral, which took place at one of those fearful
-London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very
-soul. Of all the horrible things in the world there
-is nothing so calmly ghastly as a London cemetery.</p>
-
-<p>In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs.
-Iden went to the theatre.</p>
-
-<p>"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing
-of the sort; how truly sad and human, for to be
-human is to be sad. That men and women should
-be so warped and twisted by the pressure of the
-years out of semblance to themselves; that circumstances
-should so wall in their lives with insurmountable
-cliffs of granite facts, compelling them
-to tread the sunless gorge; that the coldness of
-death alone could open the door to pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With
-the music and the song, the dancing, the colours
-and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in the
-silent rooms at the house where the dead had been.
-Old Flamma alone had been dead <i>there</i>; they were
-dead here. Dead in life&mdash;at the theatre.</p>
-
-<p>They had used to go joyously to the theatre
-thirty years before, when Iden came courting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
-town; from the edge of the grave they came back
-to look on their own buried lives.</p>
-
-<p>If you will only <i>think</i>, you will see it was a most
-dreadful and miserable incident, that visit to the
-theatre after the funeral.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
-<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake
-descent in Iden's face she alluded to
-Grandfather Iden's being a baker and
-miller, and noted for the manufacture
-of these articles. A lardy, or larded,
-cake is a thing, I suppose, unknown to most of this
-generation; they were the principal confectionery
-familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was
-at the top of his business activity, seventy years
-since, in the Waterloo era.</div>
-
-<p>A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with
-lines, and rounded at the corners, made of dough,
-lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked something
-to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in
-their pastry; they liked something to stick to their
-teeth, and after that to their ribs. The lardy-cake
-eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
-trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it
-were, and the rest depended on the strength of the
-digestion. But if a ploughboy could get a new,
-warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought
-himself blessed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any
-serious business, but he still made a few of these
-renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a good
-few at times to the carters' lads who came in to
-market.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she
-had not, the tom-tomming of drums and blowing of
-brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
-her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious
-as she approached&mdash;the ceaseless tomtom, the beating
-of drums and gongs outside the show vans, the
-shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great
-crowd, the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep,
-the neighing of horses&mdash;altogether the "rucket"
-was tremendous.</p>
-
-<p>She looked back from the hill close to the town
-and saw the people hurrying in from every quarter&mdash;there
-was a string of them following the path she
-had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A
-shower had fallen in the night, but the ceaseless
-wheels had ground up the dust again, and the lines
-of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
-clouds hanging above them. For one on business,
-fifty hastened on to join the uproar.</p>
-
-<p>Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched
-from Florence and had been set up in the town of
-Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the
-Milo from Paris, do you think all these people
-would have scurried in such haste to admire these
-beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you
-want a crowd you must make a row. It is really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
-wonderful how people do thoroughly and unaffectedly
-enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
-could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise,
-battles would not be half so popular to read about.
-The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if you describe
-a medi&aelig;val scramble you must put in plenty
-of splintering lances, resounding armour, shrieks
-and groans, and so render it lively.</p>
-
-<p>"This is the patent age of new inventions," and
-some one might make a profit by starting a f&ecirc;te
-announcing that a drum or a gong would be provided
-for every individual, to be beaten in a grand
-universal chorus.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting
-through the crowd till she found her way behind
-the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
-between them and the houses. There was an
-arched entrance, arch&aelig;ologically interesting, by
-which she paused a moment, half inclined to go up
-and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who
-lived there had had them since Christmas, and all
-that wanted doing was a patch on one toe; they
-were always just going to be done, but never
-finished. She read the inscription over his door,
-"Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established 1697." A
-different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton
-awls; a man who has been in business two
-hundred years cannot be hurried. She sighed, and
-passed on.</p>
-
-<p>The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted
-of one wide stone of semi-circular shape, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
-the feet of three generations of customers had
-worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman,
-for he was over ninety, was leaning on the hatch
-(or lower half of the door), in the act of handing
-some of his cakes to two village girls who had
-called for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed
-to be so rurally simple, had just been telling
-him how they never forgot his nice cakes, but always
-came every fair day to buy some. For this they
-got sixpence each, it being well known that the
-old gentleman was so delighted with anybody who
-bought his cakes he generally gave them back their
-money, and a few coppers besides.</p>
-
-<p>He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on
-the step and pulled her into the shop, asked her if
-her father were coming, then walked her down by
-the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted
-peel, to see how tall she was. The peel
-is the long wooden rod, broad at one end, with
-which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father
-Iden being proud of his trade, in his old age had
-his favourite peel ornamented with silver.</p>
-
-<p>"Too fast&mdash;too fast," he said, shaking his head,
-and coughing; "you grow too fast; there's the
-notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
-taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her
-where his thumb was&mdash;quite two inches higher than
-the last year's mark.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"I daresay&mdash;I daresay," said the old man, in the
-hasty manner of feeble age, as he cut another notch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
-to record her height. The handle of the peel was
-notched all round, where he had measured his
-grandchildren; there were so many marks it was
-not easy to see how he distinguished them.</p>
-
-<p>"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he
-had finished with the knife.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true&mdash;she
-did not <i>know</i>&mdash;she could not be certain; but in
-her heart she was sure he would not come. But she
-did not want to hear any hard words said about him.</p>
-
-<p>"Has he sent anything? Have you brought
-anything for me? No. No. Hum!&mdash;ha!"&mdash;fit
-of coughing&mdash;"Well, well&mdash;come in; dinner's late,
-there's time to hear you read&mdash;you're fond of books,
-you read a great deal at home,"&mdash;and so talking,
-half to himself and half to her, he led the way into
-the parlour by the shop.</p>
-
-<p>Bowed by more than ninety years, his back
-curved over forwards, and his limbs curved in the
-opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
-resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung
-over his chest, and his knees never straightened
-themselves, but were always more or less bent as
-he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of
-a strong man heavily laden and unable to stand
-upright&mdash;such an attitude as big Jack Duck in his
-great strength might take when carrying two sacks
-of wheat at once. There was as heavy a load on
-Grandfather Iden's back, but Time is invisible.</p>
-
-<p>He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker
-should, and had worn the same cut and colour for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
-years and years. In the shop, too, he always had
-a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white,
-but it got to appear grey upon him; a large grey
-chimney-pot, many sizes too big for his head apparently,
-for it looked as if for ever about to descend
-and put out his face like an extinguisher.
-Though his boots were so carefully polished, they
-quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as he
-pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends
-of his trousers, too long for his antique shanks,
-folded and creased over his boots, and almost hid
-his grey cloth under-gaiters.</p>
-
-<p>A great knobbed old nose&mdash;but stay, I will not
-go further, it is not right to paint too faithfully the
-features of the very aged, which are repellent in
-spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their
-faces, their sentiments and actions are another
-matter; therefore I will leave Father Iden's face
-as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
-reflects everywhere, except one spot.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis followed him jauntily,&mdash;little did she
-care, reckless girl, for the twenty thousand guineas
-in the iron box under his bed.</p>
-
-<p>The cottage folk, who always know so much, had
-endless tales of Iden's wealth; how years ago
-bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in five-shilling
-packets, had been literally carted like potatoes
-away from the bakehouse to go to London; how
-ponies were laden with sacks of silver groats, all
-paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
-dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the
-spade guineas in the iron box.</p>
-
-<p>The old man sat down by the fire without removing
-his hat, motioning to her to shut the door,
-which she was loth to do, for the little room was
-smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma,
-he coughed incessantly, and mopped his mouth
-with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
-craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to
-the grate, and piled up the coal till it smoked and
-smoked, and filled the close apartment with a
-suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into
-Father Iden's sanctuary was an honour, but, like
-other honours, it had to be paid for.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to
-breathe as short as possible, to avoid inhaling more
-than she could bear.</p>
-
-<p>"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the
-bookcases, which occupied three sides of the room.
-"Books&mdash;you like books; look at them&mdash;go and see."</p>
-
-<p>To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to
-look carefully along the shelves which she had
-scanned so many times before. They contained
-very good books indeed, such books as were not to
-be found elsewhere throughout the whole town of
-Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the county, old
-and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson,
-and Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as
-Bernard Quaritch, that giant of the modern auction
-room, would have written magnificent cheques for.</p>
-
-<p>Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
-auction-room bidding for books? It is one of the
-sights of London, let me tell you, to any one who
-thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights
-are reputations merely&mdash;the pale reflection of things
-that were real once. This sight is something of
-the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
-<i>Athen&aelig;um</i> in the season, examine the advertisements
-of book auctions, and attend the next great
-sale of some famous library.</p>
-
-<p>You have a recollection of the giant who sat by
-the highway and devoured the pilgrims who
-passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring
-and devours the books set loose upon their travels
-after the repose of centuries.</p>
-
-<p>What prices to give! No one can withstand
-him. From Paris they send agents with a million
-francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
-the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles,
-but in vain. They only get what the Giant chooses
-to leave them.</p>
-
-<p>Books that nobody ever heard of fetch &pound;50, &pound;60,
-&pound;100, &pound;200; wretched little books never opened
-since they were printed; dull duodecimos on the
-course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable
-twaddling local books in Italian, Spanish, queer
-French, written and printed in some unknown
-foreign village; read them&mdash;you might as well try
-to amuse yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What
-earthly value they are of cannot be discovered.
-They were composed by authors whose names are
-gone like the sand washed by the Nile into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
-sea before Herodotus. They contain no beautiful
-poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery;
-they are simply so much paper, printing, and binding,
-so many years old, and it is for that age,
-printing, and binding that the money is paid.</p>
-
-<p>I have read a good many books in my time&mdash;I
-would not give sixpence for the whole lot.</p>
-
-<p>They are not like a block-book&mdash;first efforts at
-printing; nor like the first editions of great authors;
-there is not the slightest intrinsic value in them
-whatever.</p>
-
-<p>Yet some of them fetch prices which not long
-ago were thought tremendous even for the Shakespeare
-folio.</p>
-
-<p>Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for
-them. Living and writing authors of the present
-day are paid in old songs by comparison.</p>
-
-<p>Still, this enormous value set on old books is one
-of the remarkable signs of the day. If any one
-wishes to know what To-Day is, these book-auctions
-are of the things he should go to see.</p>
-
-<p>Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's
-shelves; among them there were a few that I call
-<i>real</i> old books, an early translation or two, an early
-Shakespeare, and once there had been a very
-valuable Boccaccio, but this had gone into Lord
-Pamment's library, "Presented by James Bartholomew
-Iden, Esq."</p>
-
-<p>The old man often went to look at and admire
-his Boccaccio in my Lord's library.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-055.png" width="500" height="98" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HERE was one peculiarity in all the
-books on Grandfather Iden's shelves,
-they were all very finely bound in the
-best style of hand-art, and they all bore
-somewhere or other a little design of
-an ancient Roman lamp.</div>
-
-<p>Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship
-of good taste&mdash;it is not the sculptor's art,
-nor the painter's&mdash;not the art of the mind, but the
-art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work,
-for instance, some pottery, book-binding like this,
-are the products of hand-art.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man,
-when Amaryllis had stared sufficiently at the backs
-of the books.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I can see the Lamp."</p>
-
-<p>"House of Flamma," said old Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily,
-eager to show that she understood all about it. She
-feared lest he should enter into the history of the
-House of Flamma and of his connection with it;
-she had heard it all over and over again; her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
-mother was a Flamma; she had herself some of
-the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything
-annoyed her or made her indignant her foot used
-to tap the floor, and her neck flush rosy, and her
-face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
-control herself, she would say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not
-be a Flamma."</p>
-
-<p>Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis
-detested and despised the whole tribe of the Flammas,
-the nervous, excitable, passionate, fidgetty,
-tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them
-all, the very name and mention of them; she sided
-with her father as an Iden against her mother's
-family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
-flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse,
-a spot or two of genius, and the rest black guilt
-or folly. She hated them; she would not be a
-Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>How should she at sixteen understand the wear
-and tear of life, the pressure of circumstances, the
-heavy weight of difficulties&mdash;there was something to
-be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas,
-but naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut
-up in narrow grooves and working day after day,
-year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
-their constitutional nervousness became the chief
-characteristic of their existence. It was Intellect
-overcome&mdash;over-burdened&mdash;with two generations of
-petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went
-to the quart pot.</p>
-
-<p>Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
-detested the very name; she would not be a
-Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in
-fire of spirit, in strength of indignation, in natural
-capacity; she drew, for instance, with the greatest
-ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
-could write a letter in sketches.</p>
-
-<p>Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness
-of certain things seemed to fill her with a consuming
-fire. Her partizanship for her father made her
-sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she
-might utterly erase the opposer. Her contempt of
-sycophancy, and bold independence led her constantly
-into trouble.</p>
-
-<p>Flamma means a flame.</p>
-
-<p>Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the
-bookshelves patiently endeavouring to please the
-tiresome old man.</p>
-
-<p>"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and
-medals in it were very interesting, as they really
-were. The smoke caught her in the throat, and
-seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching
-her chest. So much accustomed to the open
-air, she felt stifled.</p>
-
-<p>Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he
-might hear how she enunciated her words. The
-book he gave her was an early copy of Addison, the
-page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges
-rough, but where in a trim modern volume will
-you find language like his and ideas set forth with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
-such transparent lucidity? How easy to write
-like that!&mdash;so simple, merely a letter to an intimate
-friend; but try!</p>
-
-<p>Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read,
-especially those that come to us from New York,
-thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
-the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You
-cannot read them; you <i>work</i> through them.</p>
-
-<p>The French have retained a little of the old style
-of book in their paper bound franc novels, the rough
-paper, thick black type, rough edges are pleasant
-to touch and look at&mdash;they feel as if they were done
-by hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim
-by machinery.</p>
-
-<p>Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis
-tried her utmost to read well, and she succeeded,
-so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
-grunting between his continuous fits of coughing
-the old man signified his approval.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of
-the aged, but she had a motive here; she wanted
-to please him for her father's sake. For many
-years there had been an increasing estrangement
-between the younger and the elder Iden; an estrangement
-which no one could have explained, for
-it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather
-Iden was really so rich. The son was his
-father's tenant&mdash;the farm belonged to Grandfather
-Iden&mdash;and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly.
-Still that could not have much mattered&mdash;a mere
-trifle to a man of old Iden's wealth. There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
-something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
-scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people
-frequently fall into a quarrel without remembering
-the beginning.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old
-man for her father's sake; her dear father, whom
-she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
-worrying him for petty sums of money; it made
-her furious with indignation to see and hear it.</p>
-
-<p>So she read her very best, and swallowed the
-choking smoke patiently.</p>
-
-<p>Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still
-as fresh as if gathered yesterday, Amaryllis found
-bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For it
-was one of the old man's ways to carry home such
-of these that pleased him and to place them in his
-books. This he had done for half a century, and
-many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey
-old works of bygone authors had been there a
-generation. It is wonderful how long they will
-endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way;
-the paper they used in old books seems to have
-been softer, without the hard surface of our present
-paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps them
-better. Before the repulsion between father and
-son became so marked, Amaryllis had often been
-with her grandfather in the garden and round the
-meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather
-the yellow tulips, the broad-petalled roses, and in
-autumn the bright scarlet bramble leaves. The
-brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
-him; anything with richness of colour. The old
-and grey, and withered man gathered the brightest
-of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten books.</p>
-
-<p>Now the sight of these leaves and petals between
-the yellow pages softened her heart towards him;
-he was a tyrant, but he was very, very old, they
-were like flowers on a living tomb.</p>
-
-<p>In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and
-going to a drawer in one of the bookcases, took from
-it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these between
-her face and the book, and told her to read
-them instead.</p>
-
-<p>"These are your writing."</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting,
-and coughing, all at once.</p>
-
-<p>"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only
-two houses in Black Jack Street." "Only <i>two</i>
-houses!" she interposed, artfully.</p>
-
-<p>"Two," said the grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in
-1775 the site was covered with furze." "How it
-has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed,
-and smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head
-and seemed about to extinguish him.</p>
-
-<p>"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa.
-It says, 'A hundred voters in this street,
-1884.'"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched
-his very heart up in coughing. When he finished,
-Amaryllis read on&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent
-coughing Amaryllis became alarmed, but it did him
-no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
-livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused
-him like a trumpet&mdash;it went straight to his ancient
-heart.</p>
-
-<p>"Read that again," he said. "How many voters
-now?"</p>
-
-<p>"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."</p>
-
-<p>"We've got them all"&mdash;coughing&mdash;"all in my
-lord's houses, everyone; vote Conservative, one
-and all. What is it?" as some one knocked.
-Dinner was ready, to Amaryllis's relief.</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?"
-asked the grandfather, shuffling up his papers.
-"There&mdash;there," as she hesitated, "you would like
-to dine with young people, of course&mdash;of course."</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
-<img src="images/i-056.png" width="141" height="110" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/o.png" width="119" height="120" alt="O" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>LD Grandfather Iden always dined alone
-in the parlour, with his housekeeper to
-wait on him; they were just bringing
-in his food. The family and visitors
-had their meals in a separate and much
-more comfortable apartment in another part of the
-house, which was large. Sometimes, as a great
-favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
-would invite you to eat with him.</div>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated,
-not only because of the smoke, but because
-she knew he always had pork for dinner.</p>
-
-<p>The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry
-and withered frame&mdash;it was a sort of Burgundy of
-flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy fills
-the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so
-the rich juice of the pork seemed to supply the oil
-necessary to keep the sinews supple and to prevent
-the cartilages from stiffening.</p>
-
-<p>The scientific people say that it is the ossification
-of the cartilages&mdash;the stiffening of the firmer
-tissues&mdash;that in time interferes with the processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
-of life. The hinges rust, as if your tricycle had
-been left out in the rain for a week&mdash;and the delicate
-watchwork of the human frame will not run.</p>
-
-<p>If suppleness could only be maintained there is
-no reason why it should not continue to work for a
-much longer period, for a hundred and fifty, two
-hundred years&mdash;as long as you fancy. But nothing
-has yet been devised to keep up the suppleness.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast
-pork. The jokers of Woolhorton&mdash;there are always
-jokers, very clever they think themselves&mdash;considered
-the reason it suited him so well was because
-of the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.</p>
-
-<p>Anything more contrary to common sense than
-for an old man of ninety to feed on pork it would
-be hard to discover&mdash;so his friends said.</p>
-
-<p>"Pork," said the physician, had down from London
-to see him on one occasion, "pork is the first
-on the list of indigestible articles of food. It takes
-from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
-reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded&mdash;acidity
-is the result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable
-ills are the consequence. The very
-worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."</p>
-
-<p>"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of
-Woolhorton, when he heard of this. "Hum!"
-low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
-least excited, like most other country folk, he used
-the provincial pronunciation. "Hum! A' have
-lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
-eat it six days out of seven, not, of course, roast
-pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork; sometimes
-he baked it himself in the great oven. Now
-and then he varied it with pig-meat&mdash;good old
-country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat&mdash;such as
-spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious
-morsel, the "mouse." The chine he always sent
-over for Iden junior, who was a chine eater&mdash;a
-true Homeric diner&mdash;and to make it even, Iden
-junior sent in the best apples for sauce from his
-favourite russet trees. It was about the only
-amenity that survived between father and son.</p>
-
-<p>The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old
-house at home, before we all went astray along the
-different paths of life; fresh from the pigs fed and
-killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the
-palate. Much of it is best done on a gridiron&mdash;here's
-heresy! A gridiron is flat blasphemy to
-the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
-fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your
-lips watering.</p>
-
-<p>But the "mouse,"&mdash;what was the "mouse?"
-The London butchers can't tell me. It was a titbit.
-I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London
-folk are so ignorant.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and
-form, that is, he mumbled the juice out of it, and
-never complained of indigestion.</p>
-
-<p>He was up at five o'clock every morning of his
-life, pottering about the great oven with his baker's
-man. In summer if it was fine he went out at six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
-for a walk in the Pines&mdash;the promenade of Woolhorton.</p>
-
-<p>"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used
-to say, "you go for a walk in the marning afore
-the aair have been braathed auver."</p>
-
-<p>Before the air has been breathed over&mdash;inspired
-and re-inspired by human crowds, while it retains
-the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
-from the spring; that was when it possessed its
-value, according to bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old
-Butler. Depend upon it, there is something in his
-dictum, too.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork,
-for he often had it underdone, so the old gentleman
-dismissed her in his most gracious manner to dine
-with the rest.</p>
-
-<p>She went down the corridor and took the seat
-placed for her. There was a posy of primroses
-beside her napkin&mdash;posies of primroses all round
-the table.</p>
-
-<p>This raging old Tory of ninety years would give
-a shilling for the earliest primrose the boys could
-find for him in the woods. Some one got him
-a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
-favourites&mdash;a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather&mdash;which
-he had set in the centre of a splendid
-screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
-The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room
-near a bow window which overlooked the fair.</p>
-
-<p>People, you see, took pains to get him feathers
-and anything he fancied, on account of the twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
-thousand spade guineas in the iron box under the
-bed.</p>
-
-<p>His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married
-folk, begged him not to keep a peacock's feather in
-the house&mdash;it would certainly bring misfortune.
-The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds
-that they actually argued with him&mdash;<i>argued</i> with
-Grandfather Iden!&mdash;pointing out to him the fearful
-risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
-grew red in the face&mdash;the great grey hat shook
-and tottered with anger; not for all the Powers of
-Darkness would he have given up that feather.</p>
-
-<p>The chairs round the large table were arranged
-in accordance with the age of the occupants. There
-were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number of
-aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does
-not concern us. The eldest sat at the head of the
-table, the next in age followed, and so all round
-the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis
-rather low down&mdash;a long way from the top and
-fountain of honour&mdash;and highly displeased her.
-She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd
-of her relations, yet being there, she felt that she
-ought to have had a position above them all. Her
-father&mdash;Iden, junior&mdash;was old Iden's only son and
-natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to
-have been at the top of the table, and hers ought to
-have been next to his.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of which, as her father was not the
-eldest, his seat was some distance from the top, and
-hers again, was a long way from his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>All the other chairs were full, but her father's
-chair was empty.</p>
-
-<p>The vague crowd were so immensely eager to
-pay their despicable court to the Spade-Guinea
-Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the
-young, the lame, the paralytic, all found means to
-creep in to Grandfather Iden's annual dinner. His
-only son and natural heir was alone absent. How
-eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time
-at that empty chair, hoping against hope that her
-dear father would come in at the Psalms, or even at
-the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
-hearts of the enemies around her.</p>
-
-<p>For well she knew how delighted they were to
-see his chair empty, as a visible sign and token of
-the gulf between father and son, and well she knew
-how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding
-and set fuel to the flame of the quarrel.
-If the son were disinherited, consider the enormous
-profit to the rest of them!</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that
-he had not signed a will. It was believed that
-several rough drafts had been sketched out for him,
-but, in his own words&mdash;and he was no teller of
-falsehoods&mdash;he had not decided on his will. If
-only they could persuade him to make his will they
-might feel safe of something; but suppose he went
-off pop, all in a moment, as these extraordinarily
-healthy old people are said to do, and the most of his
-estate in land! Consider what a contingency&mdash;almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
-all of it would go to his own son. Awful
-thing!</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her
-and quizzed her over and over; her hair, her face,
-her form, but most of all her dress. They were so
-poor at home she had not had a new dress this
-twelvemonth past; it was true her dress was decent
-and comfortable, and she really looked very nice in
-it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a
-comfortable dress, she wants something in the style
-of the day, and just sufficiently advanced to make
-the women's eyes turn green with envy. It is not
-the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned,
-trying with all her might to make them feel she was
-the Heiress, not only an only son's only daughter,
-but the only son's only offspring&mdash;doubly the
-Heiress of Grandfather Iden.</p>
-
-<p>The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied
-so soon as she was born that there
-would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so
-it fell out. For it had been noticed in the course
-of generations, that in the direct line of Iden when
-the first child was a daughter there were none to
-follow. And further, that there never was but one
-Miss Iden at a time.</p>
-
-<p>If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they
-never had any more children; consequently that
-daughter was the only Miss Iden.</p>
-
-<p>If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a
-second son, though they might have daughters;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
-but then, in order that there should still be only one
-Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died,
-or was married early, before the second came into
-existence.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they
-had a long pedigree, the Idens, reaching farther
-back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
-had been observed that this was the rule of their
-descent.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress,
-through her father, of the Spade-Guinea Man. She
-tried to make them feel that she knew it and felt it;
-that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud
-face&mdash;it was a very proud face naturally&mdash;darkened
-a little, and grew still more disdainful in its utter
-scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of enemies.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 139px;">
-<img src="images/i-059.png" width="139" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>O one, as it were, in the gallery, it was
-a delight to see her; her sweet cheeks,
-fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed
-indignation; her young brow
-bent; her eyes cast down&mdash;don't you
-think for a moment she would deign to look at them&mdash;pride
-in her heart, and resolute determination to
-fight for her dear father and mother.</div>
-
-<p>But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there
-was a crack in her boot unmended, and it seemed
-as if everyone could see it though under the solid
-table. She had not had a really sound pair of
-boots for many, many months; they could not
-afford her a new pair at home, and the stupid shoemaker,
-"Established 1697," was such a time repairing
-her others.</p>
-
-<p>She would not look at them, but she knew that
-they were all dressed better than she was; there
-were some of them very poor, and very vulgar, too,
-but they were all dressed better than her, and
-without a doubt had sound boots on their feet.</p>
-
-<p>The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
-sound boots; she never had; nor, indeed, her
-mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled
-by the character of his work in the fields to take
-care of himself so far, though he wore a ragged
-coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had
-a whole pair of boots&mdash;whole and sound as the very
-cottagers had.</p>
-
-<p>If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she
-would have been prouder than ever, and that is why
-I always loved her so; she was not to be put down
-by circumstances, she was above external things.</p>
-
-<p>But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly
-over&mdash;she had scarcely eaten anything&mdash;and as she
-glanced from time to time at her father's empty
-chair, and knew that he would not come, and that
-his defection would revive the old quarrel which
-might so easily have been mended, the Flamma
-blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter,
-and the foot with the worn boot on it began to tap
-the floor.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
-swept the whole company over a precipice into the
-Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
-either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of
-no consequence.</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Spain's an island near<br />
-Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have liked to have
-seen them all poisoned and dying on their seats.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick
-a knife into each of them&mdash;only it would not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
-touched them with the longest hop-pole in Kent, so
-utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that
-empty chair.</p>
-
-<p>And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did
-not say to herself, "I <i>will</i> not be a Flamma."</p>
-
-<p>Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word
-was passed round that everyone was to sit still, as
-Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his descendants.</p>
-
-<p>There was not the least fear of any of them stirring,
-for they well knew his custom&mdash;to walk round,
-and speak a few words to everyone in turn, and to
-put a new golden sovereign into their hands.
-Thirty-two sovereigns it was in all&mdash;one for each&mdash;but
-the thirty-third was always a spade-guinea,
-which was presented to the individual who had best
-pleased him during the year.</p>
-
-<p>A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the
-emulation and the heart-burning over the spade-guinea!
-For the fortunate winner usually considered
-himself the nearest to the Will.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought
-that she should have to take his horrible money.
-A hideous old monster he was to her at that moment&mdash;not
-that he had done anything to her personally&mdash;but
-he left her dear father to be worried
-out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her dear
-mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while
-he made this pompous distribution among these
-wretches. The hideous old monster!</p>
-
-<p>Out in the town the boys behind his back gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
-him endless nicknames: Granfer Iden, Floury Iden,
-My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
-Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours,
-and patronage, his caprices and ways of going on,
-if he had but had a patent of nobility, Grandfather
-Iden would have made a wonderfully good
-duke.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing
-his great grey tottery hat, and proceeds from chair
-to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder, saying a
-gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden
-sovereigns in their eager palms. There was a loud
-hum of conversation as he went round; they all
-tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of
-course knew what he was about, when suddenly
-there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people suddenly
-stopped talking as if the pneumatic <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'break'">brake</ins>
-had been applied to their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.</p>
-
-<p>Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear
-the cat licking his paw under the table.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning
-with both hands on the back of his son's empty
-chair.</p>
-
-<p>He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar
-floating on the barren ocean of life and death into
-which his withered old body was sinking.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps he really would have clung like that to
-his son had but his son come to him, and borne a
-little, and for a little while, with his ways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>A sorrowful thing to see&mdash;the old man of ninety
-clinging to the back of his son's empty chair. His
-great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble on
-the floor&mdash;his back bowed a little more&mdash;and he
-groaned deeply, three times.</p>
-
-<p>We can see, being out of the play and spectators
-merely, that there was a human cry for help in the
-old man's groan&mdash;his heart yearned for his son's
-strong arm to lean on.</p>
-
-<p>The crowd of relations were in doubt as to
-whether they should rejoice, whether the groan was
-a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
-be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at
-the possibility of reconciliation.</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis
-for her to feel pity for him as she would have
-done in any other mood; she hated him all the
-more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing
-to him, he could hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn,"
-and drive over and make friends with her father in
-half an hour. Groaning there&mdash;the hideous old
-monster! and her mother without a decent pair of
-boots.</p>
-
-<p>In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered
-himself, and continued the distribution, and by-and-by
-Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She did
-not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand,
-and placed two coins in it, saying in his most
-gracious way that the sovereign was for her father,
-and the guinea&mdash;the spade-guinea&mdash;for herself.
-She muttered something&mdash;she knew not what&mdash;she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
-could but just restrain herself from throwing the
-money on the floor.</p>
-
-<p>It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had
-the guinea. Conceive the horror, the hatred, the
-dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
-Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!</p>
-
-<p>Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they
-had all got upstairs into the great drawing-room,
-and some were officiously and reverently admiring
-the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking
-out of the bow window at the fair, there came a
-message for Amaryllis to put on her hat and go for
-a walk with her grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>There was not one among all the crowd in the
-drawing-room who had ever been invited to accompany
-Iden Pacha.</p>
-
-<p>Three days ago at home, if anyone had told
-Amaryllis that she would be singled out in this
-way, first to receive the Iden medal&mdash;the spade-guinea
-stamp of approval&mdash;and then, above all
-things, to be honoured by walking out with this
-"almighty" grandfather, how delighted she would
-have been at the thought of the triumph!</p>
-
-<p>But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over
-these people&mdash;pah! a triumph over rats and flies
-or some such creatures. She actually felt lowered
-in her own esteem by being noticed at all among
-them. Honoured by this old horror&mdash;she revolted
-at it. <i>He</i> honour her with his approval&mdash;she hated
-him.</p>
-
-<p>The other day a travelling piano was wheeled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
-through Coombe and set up a tune in that lonesome
-spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece
-of music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism
-well marked by the thump, thump, it seemed to
-cheer the place&mdash;till she went out to the gate to
-look at the Italian woman who danced about while
-the grinding was done, and saw that she had a
-sound pair of boots on. That very morning her
-mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma
-rheumatism shooting in her bones, for the dampness
-of the mud came through the crack in her boot.</p>
-
-<p>This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour
-her while he let her mother walk about with her
-stocking on the wet ground!</p>
-
-<p>The Flamma blood was up in her veins&mdash;what
-did she care for guineas!</p>
-
-<p>As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom
-before the glass she looked round to see that no one
-was watching, and then stooped down and put the
-spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the
-dressing-table. She would have none of his hateful
-money. The sovereign she took care of because it
-was for her father, and he might buy something
-useful with it; he wanted a few shillings badly
-enough.</p>
-
-<p>So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the
-floor for a week or two, till it pleased the housemaid
-to move the dressing-table to brush away the accumulation,
-when she found the shining one in the
-fluff.</p>
-
-<p>Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
-guinea henceforward travelled down the stream of
-Time fast enough though silently, but she took the
-first opportunity of examining the iron box under
-the Pacha's bed, thinking perhaps there might be a
-chink in it. And it was curious how for some time
-afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
-in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any
-piece of furniture that was not chivvied about under
-pretence of polishing. She actually had a day's
-holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward
-for her labours.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 163px;">
-<img src="images/i-060.png" width="163" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS did not look back as she
-walked beside her grandfather slowly
-up the street, or she would have seen
-the company of relations watching them
-from the bow-window.</div>
-
-<p>Iden went straight through the crowd without
-any hesitation on account of his age&mdash;angry as she
-was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the clumsy
-people should over-turn him, and tried her best to
-shield him. But he had a knack of keeping on his
-feet&mdash;the sort of knack you learn by skating&mdash;and did
-not totter much more than usual, despite the press.</p>
-
-<p>The world gets on with very little amusement
-somehow. Here were two or three thousand people
-packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
-their festive gathering was the same old toys their
-fathers' fathers' fathers had set before them.</p>
-
-<p>Rows of booths for the display of "fairings,"
-gingerbread, nuts, cakes, brandy-balls, and sugar-plums
-stood in the gutter each side.</p>
-
-<p>The "fairings" were sweet biscuits&mdash;they have
-been made every fair this hundred years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts
-always are. The gingerbread was moulded in the
-same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined with gilt.</p>
-
-<p>There was the same old trumpeting and tootling,
-tom-tomming, and roaring of showmen's voices. The
-same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
-by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that
-the whirligig caravan was travelling round the
-world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
-smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the
-Wilderness," that mystic and melancholy bird, the
-rifle galleries, the popping for nuts&mdash;behold these
-are they our fathers have seen.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing new under the sun&mdash;not even
-at Epsom. The first time I saw the wonderful
-crowd of the Derby Day&mdash;perhaps the largest crowd
-in the world&mdash;I could scarcely believe my eyes, for
-I found on passing through it that the hundreds of
-thousands of people there had nothing more to
-amuse them than they would have found at an
-ordinary country fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies
-at cocoa-nuts, rootletum, tootletum, and beer.
-That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a
-very humdrum sort of world, my masters!</p>
-
-<p>The next finest crowd is the crowd on August
-bank-holiday all along the Brighton beach, and
-there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk
-but Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters&mdash;dull
-old stories in my grandmother's time.</p>
-
-<p>Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could
-invent him a fresh pleasure&mdash;the multitude of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
-Derby Day and Brighton beach should do the same.
-But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would
-certainly be the reward of such a discoverer. One gets
-tired of pitching sticks at cocoa-nuts all one's time.</p>
-
-<p>However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very
-rawest and crudest folk cared for the shows, all they
-did care was to alternately stand stock still and
-then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion"
-and had some beer, then they shoved back to the
-"Lamb" and had some beer, then they stood stock
-still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
-Several thousand people were thus happily
-occupied, and the Lion and the Lamb laid down
-together peacefully that day.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to
-shove, for there was no other way to get through,
-no one thought of moving, or giving any passage,
-if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them
-aside. As Grandfather Iden could not shove very
-hard they were frequently compelled to wait till the
-groups opened, and thus it happened that Amaryllis
-found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.</p>
-
-<p>He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at
-Amaryllis, and touched his hat to Iden. "You
-ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he
-said.</p>
-
-<p>"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.</p>
-
-<p>Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant
-to Amaryllis. The father had not been to
-visit his son for more than a year&mdash;she did not
-want unpleasant memories stirred up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched
-his hat and asked her if her father was at fair, as
-he was looking out for a job. Old Iden started
-and grunted like a snorting horse.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly
-to him, for she knew he was always in difficulties.
-Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong man without
-work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill
-Nye was a mower at Coombe, and his father, Bill
-Nye, before him, many a long year before he was
-discovered in California.</p>
-
-<p>When she overtook Iden he was struggling to
-pass the stream of the Orinoco, which set strongly
-at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
-"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb"
-archway like a river into the sea, thrusting their
-way into the general crowd, and this mighty current
-cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the
-swollen Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels
-that tried to breast it.</p>
-
-<p>It was as much as Amaryllis and he together
-could do to hold their ground at the edge of the
-current. While they were thus battling she chanced
-to look up.</p>
-
-<p>A large window was open over the archway, and
-at this window a fellow was staring down at her.
-He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a billiard-cue in
-his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the
-same young fellow, gentleman if you like, whose
-pale face had so displeased her that morning as he
-rode under when she watched the folk go by to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
-fair. He was certainly the most advanced in civilization
-of all who had passed Plum Corner, and yet
-there was something in that pale and rather delicate
-face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the
-"varmers" and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers"
-who had gone by under the wall. Something that
-insulted her.</p>
-
-<p>The face at the window was appraising her.</p>
-
-<p>It was reckoning her up&mdash;so much for eyes, so
-much for hair, so much for figure, and as this went
-on the fingers were filling a pipe from an elastic
-tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry
-in that calculation&mdash;no rapture or pure admiration
-of beauty; there was a billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch,
-and a glass of spirits and water, and an
-atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory
-balls at the back of the thought. His thumb was
-white where he had chalked it to make a better
-bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had
-chalked it with dissipation. His physical body was
-whitened&mdash;chalked&mdash;a whited sepulchre; his moral
-nature likewise chalked.</p>
-
-<p>At the back of his thought lay not the high
-esteem of the poet-thinker for beauty, but the
-cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.</p>
-
-<p>The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things
-a Shakespeare would admire at their lowest possible
-sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
-corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense
-knowingness, as much as to say, "You may depend
-upon me&mdash;I've been behind the scenes. All this is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
-got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard
-at the rear; nothing in it."</p>
-
-<p>In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found
-some trace of a higher nature; "What an artist the
-world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.</p>
-
-<p>The empress Theodora craved for the applause
-of the theatre to which she exposed her beauty.</p>
-
-<p>This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism
-thinks of nothing but lowness, and has
-no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks
-to colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it
-is an ideal. There was no ideal in Ned Marks.</p>
-
-<p>They called him from within to take his turn with
-the cue; he did not answer, he was so absorbed in his
-calculations. He was clever&mdash;in a way; he had
-quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no
-common girl. She was not beautiful&mdash;yet, she was
-not even pretty, and so plainly dressed; still there
-was something marked in her features. And she
-was with old Iden.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his
-glance, but she felt that it was an insult. She looked
-down quickly, seized her grandfather's arm, and
-drew him out from the pavement into the street,
-yielding a little to the current and so hoping to
-presently pass it.</p>
-
-<p>By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his
-companions had come to the window to discover what
-he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed. "It's
-Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron
-box!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to
-sit loosely on his head, was knocked aside by the
-elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the throng;
-Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this
-way, and pushing him that, got at last to the opposite
-pavement, and so behind the row of booths,
-between them and the houses where there was less
-crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to
-her feet and stepped in the gutter where there was
-a puddle. The cold water came through the crack
-in her boot.</p>
-
-<p>While these incidents were still further irritating
-her, the old Pacha kept mumbling and muttering
-to himself, nodding his head and smiling at each
-fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent
-and fearless still he appreciated the trouble
-she took. The mumbling in his mouth was a sort
-of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up
-to a pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a
-hound in a leash, ready to burst the bond that
-held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in arm,
-neither of them understood the other; ninety and
-sixteen, a strange couple in the jostling fair.</p>
-
-<p>Iden turned down a passage near the end of the
-street, and in an instant the roar of the crowd which
-had boomed all round them was shut off by high
-walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads
-in the air. They walked on broad stone flags
-notched here and there at the edges, for the rest
-worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a
-trade) like Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
-and the walled passage brought them to the
-porch of the Abbey church.</p>
-
-<p>There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and
-wiped his forehead with his vast silk handkerchief.
-They were no longer incommoded by a crowd, but
-now and then folk came by hastening to the fair;
-lads with favours in their coats, and blue ribbons in
-their hats, girls in bright dresses, chiefly crude
-colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy
-weight as it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous
-walls, the quiet gloom of the narrow space,
-and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.</p>
-
-<p>The aged man muttered and mumbled about the
-porch and took Amaryllis under it, making her look
-up at the groining, and note the spring of the arch,
-which formed a sort of carved crown over them.
-It was a fine old porch, deep and high, in some
-things reminding you of the porches that are to be
-seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade
-like trees, so cut and worked as to be soft to the
-eye.</p>
-
-<p>He pointed out to her the touches that rendered
-it so dear to those who value art in stone. He
-knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
-and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were
-broad folios in the smoky room at home, filled
-with every detail, Iden himself had subscribed forty
-pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them.
-Every scholar who visited the Abbey church, called
-and begged to see the baker's old books.</p>
-
-<p>Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
-went outside and hoisted himself, as it were, up from
-his crooked S position to look at the three stags'
-heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads
-that to you, or at least to me, might have been
-fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or anything.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in
-the porch, the deep shadow within behind her, the
-curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a portrait.
-She stood the more upright because of the fire and
-temper suppressed in her.</p>
-
-<p>Just outside the human letter S&mdash;crooked S&mdash;clad
-in sad white-grey miller's garments, its old hat
-almost falling backwards off its old grey head,
-gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the
-coat of arms. Seven hundred years&mdash;the weight
-of seven hundred years&mdash;hung over them both in
-that old Abbey.</p>
-
-<p>Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she
-came out to the Future.</p>
-
-<p>Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded,
-in the passage wall, and giving her the key, told
-her to open it, and stood watching her in triumph,
-as if it had been the door to some immense treasury.
-She turned the lock, and he pushed her before
-him hastily, as if they must snatch so grand an
-opportunity.</p>
-
-
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-041.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ITHIN there was a gravel path, and
-glimpses between trees of wide pleasure-grounds.
-Amaryllis hesitated, and
-looked back; Iden drew her forward,
-not noticing her evident disinclination
-to proceed. If he had, he would have put it down
-to awe, instead of which it was dislike.</div>
-
-<p>For she guessed they were entering the lawns in
-front of the Hon. Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He
-was the largest owner of town and country; the
-streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which
-the fair was being held, belonged to him; so did
-most of the farms and hamlets out of which the
-people had come. The Pamments were Tories;
-very important Tories indeed.</p>
-
-<p>The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too,
-right to the centre of the cerebellum; the Flammas
-were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
-girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a
-wilful and rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who
-would not be a Flamma, had imbibed all the
-Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>To her the Pamments were the incarnation of
-everything detestable, of oppression, obstruction,
-and medi&aelig;val darkness. She knew nothing of
-politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to
-feel vehemently, you feel vehemently without knowing.
-Still, she had heard a good deal about the
-Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>She resented being brought there to admire the
-pleasure grounds and mansion, and to kow-tow to
-the grandeur of these medi&aelig;val tyrants.</p>
-
-<p>Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth
-lawn before the front windows; three centuries of
-mowing had made it as smooth as the top of his
-own head, where the years had mown away merrily.</p>
-
-<p>There was not so much as a shrub&mdash;not a daisy&mdash;between
-them and the great windows of the
-house. They stood in full view.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen
-was her vexation; her cheeks reddened. She was
-obliged to face the house, but her glance was
-downwards; she would not look at it.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory.
-In all Woolhorton town there was not another man
-who could do as he was doing at that moment.</p>
-
-<p>The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally
-exclusive even for high class Tories. Their
-gardens, and lawns, and grounds were jealously
-surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned
-houses of the street beneath them. No one dared
-to so much as peer through a crevice of the mighty
-gates. Their persons were encircled with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
-"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed
-proprietor. No one dared speak to a Pamment.
-They acknowledged no one in the town, not even
-the solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey
-church; that was on account of ritual differences.</p>
-
-<p>It was, indeed, whispered&mdash;high treason must
-always be whispered&mdash;that young Pamment, the
-son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and
-had been known to be effusive towards ladies of
-low birth&mdash;and manners.</p>
-
-<p>The great leaders of Greece&mdash;Alcibiades, Aristides,
-and so on&mdash;threw open their orchards to the
-people. Everyone walked in and did as he chose.
-These great leaders of England&mdash;the Pamments&mdash;shut
-up their lawns and pleasure-grounds, sealed
-them hermetically, you could hardly throw a stone
-over the walls if you tried.</p>
-
-<p>But Grandfather Iden walked through those
-walls as if there were none; he alone of all Woolhorton
-town and country.</p>
-
-<p>In that gossipy little town, of course, there
-were endless surmises as to the why and wherefore
-of that private key. Shrewd people said&mdash;"Ah!
-you may depend they be getting summat out of
-him. Lent 'em some of his guineas, a' reckon.
-They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
-they gentlefolks."</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed:
-he wandered about the lawns, he looked in at the
-conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if it
-pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
-stepped indoors occasionally and sat down on the
-carved old chairs, or pottered about the picture
-gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded
-door in the wall by the Abbey church, and he
-looked upon that key very much as if it had been
-the key of Paradise.</p>
-
-<p>When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at
-Pamment House he was the proudest and happiest
-man in what they sarcastically call "God's creation."</p>
-
-<p>He was a peer at such moments; a grandee&mdash;the
-grandee who can wear his hat or sit down
-(which is it? it is most important to be accurate)
-in the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign;
-he could actually step on the same sward pressed
-by the holy toes of the Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>In justice to him it must be said that he was
-most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight
-of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he
-rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented
-paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself
-under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a
-Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
-that he was literally dandled and fondled like an
-infant, begged to come in, and take wine, and so
-so, and so so.</p>
-
-<p>In justice to old Iden let it be known that he
-was most careful not to obtrude himself; he hid
-himself under the fig trees.</p>
-
-<p>Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years&mdash;a
-man of no common intelligence&mdash;a man of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
-books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in this
-nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a
-worship. Incredible as it may seem it is certainly
-true.</p>
-
-<p>Such loyalty in others of old time, remember,
-seems very beautiful when we read of the devotion
-that was shown towards Charles Stuart.</p>
-
-<p>With all his heart and soul he worshipped the
-very ground the Pamments trod on. He loved to
-see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
-home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow,
-thunder, ninety years notwithstanding, he always
-attended that he might bow his venerable head to
-them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
-faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in
-return.</p>
-
-<p>He was quite happy in his pew if he could see
-them at their carved desks in the chancel; the
-organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
-sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity
-and heavenly presence was diffused around.</p>
-
-<p>Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated
-it. Her Flamma foot tapped the sacred sward.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with
-his silk handkerchief, began to point with his
-cudgel&mdash;a big hockey stick&mdash;at the various parts of
-the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated
-from James II., that went back to Henry VII.,
-there were walls and foundations far more ancient
-still, out of sight.</p>
-
-<p>Really, it was a very interesting place arch&aelig;ologically,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
-if only you could have got rid of the
-Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling
-history. Iden thought she was listening intently.
-At the conclusion he was just moving her&mdash;for she
-was passive now, like a piece of furniture&mdash;when
-he spied some one at a window.</p>
-
-<p>Off came the great white hat, and down it swept
-till the top brushed the grass in the depth of his
-homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
-a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the
-gentleman, so thoroughly courtier-like, and yet
-honest. There was nothing to smile at in that
-bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia
-who could bow in that way, for, in truth, we have
-forgotten how to bow in this generation.</p>
-
-<p>A writing and talking is always going on about
-the high place woman occupies in modern society,
-but the fact is, we have lost our reverence for
-woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing
-more, mere sham. We don't venerate woman,
-and therefore we don't bow.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any
-woman's heart had it been addressed to her, for
-there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
-desire to please in it.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HE man he had seen at the window was
-young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
-heir.</div>
-
-<p>He had been sitting in an easy chair,
-one leg over the arm, busy with a
-memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered
-heap of telegrams, letters, and newspapers.</p>
-
-<p>Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of
-human lion's mouth for post-cards, but Raleigh
-junior had not got to manage the House of Commons,
-the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South
-Africa, the Nile, Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar,
-shipping, and Homer.</p>
-
-<p>Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside
-him, from which the letters, telegrams, newspapers,
-and scraps of paper had overflowed on to the floor.
-In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen
-clerks to answer that correspondence; this idle
-young aristocrat answered it himself, entered it in
-his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced the&mdash;the
-residue.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him&mdash;nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
-in the least like those gentlemen who consider
-that to go in to the "office" every morning
-is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike
-young fellow.</p>
-
-<p>A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on
-another chair beside him, a glass of whiskey for a
-paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle, lounging,
-"bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
-writ very large indeed on his broad face.
-In short, a young "gent" of the latter half of the
-nineteenth century.</p>
-
-<p>Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere;
-not even in the cut of his coat, no Brummel-like
-elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at all&mdash;rough,
-large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the
-door of a shop he would have done very well indeed
-for a shopkeeper, the sort that drives about in a
-cart for orders.</p>
-
-<p>Of his character nothing could be learned from
-his features. His face was broad, rather flat, with
-a short but prominent nose; in spite of indulgence,
-he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck
-was thick, his figure stout, his hands big&mdash;a jovial,
-good-tempered looking man.</p>
-
-<p>His neck was <i>very</i> thick, tree-like; a drover's
-neck, no refinement or special intelligence indicated
-there; great power to eat, drink, and sleep&mdash;belly
-energy.</p>
-
-<p>But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members
-of the upper ten thousand are any thicker in
-the neck, or more abdominal in their proclivities,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
-or beneath the culture of the day. Take five
-hundred "blue bloods," and you will find among
-them a certain proportion of thick-necked people;
-take five hundred very common commoners, and
-you may count exactly the same number interspersed.</p>
-
-<p>The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable
-to be born big, with broad faces, thick necks, and
-ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to Raleigh, that
-jolly neck of his.</p>
-
-<p>Unless you are given to &aelig;sthetic crockery, or
-Francesco de Rimini, I think you would rather
-have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
-you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer,
-or his credit&mdash;humph!&mdash;at a moment's
-notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
-whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.</p>
-
-<p>He got rid of money in a most surprising way,
-and naturally had nothing to show for it. The
-wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
-London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the
-mysteries of the skies. It slips, it slides, it glides,
-it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the pocket. The
-nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a
-sovereign will leap forth in town.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented
-by soft aunts, yet he frequently walked for lack of
-a cab fare. <i>I</i> can't blame him; I should be just
-as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now
-to walk down Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up
-Bond Street, and so on, in a widening circle, with
-a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
-all your own, and no need to worry when it was
-gone. To look in at all the shops and pick up
-something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
-have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have
-a bit of real old oak furniture; I'll go to Paris&mdash;"
-but Paris is not a patch on London. To take a
-lady&mdash;<i>the</i> lady&mdash;to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread
-the silks of the earth before her feet, and see the
-awakening delight in her eyes and the glow on her
-cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a diamond
-brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended
-you years since in time of financial need;
-to get a new gun, and inquire about the price of a
-deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now
-and then with a sip of Moet&mdash;but only one sip, for
-your liver's sake&mdash;just to brighten up the imagination.
-And so onwards in a widening circle, as
-sun-lit fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey,
-could C&aelig;sar with all his legions, could Lucullus
-with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such pleasure
-as this&mdash;just to spend money freely, with a jolly
-chuckle, in the streets of London? What is
-Mahomet's Paradise to <i>that</i>?</p>
-
-<p>The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance,
-no counting&mdash;anathemas on counting and
-calculation! If life be not a dream, what is the
-use of living?</p>
-
-<p>Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle
-on in hope of living in a dream some day. This
-is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
-not, in an age that preaches thrift and&mdash;twaddle?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
-No joy like waste in London streets; happy
-waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
-butterfly!</p>
-
-<p>Besides, there's no entertainment in the world
-like the streets of London on a sunny day or a gas-lit
-night. The shops, the carriages, the people, the
-odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and
-fro of folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into
-shadowy corners, the dresses, the women; dear me,
-where shall we get to? At all events, the fact
-remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment
-in the world is a lounge in London streets.
-Theatres, concerts, s&eacute;ances, Albert Halls, museums,
-galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
-weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce
-would care to go and gaze at them again who could
-lounge in Piccadilly?</p>
-
-<p>It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in
-May; fifty pounds sometimes at 1 p.m., merely to
-look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
-this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go
-to the opera; for me, the streets.</p>
-
-<p>So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had
-a hatful of money, and could and did just what
-seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
-like water, and in order to get further supplies, the
-idle, good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime
-minister with telegrams, letters, newspapers, and
-so on, worked like a prime minister&mdash;at betting.
-Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
-memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
-the telegrams, kept flat with a glass of whiskey as
-a paper-weight.</p>
-
-<p>While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up
-his chances, a loud refrain of snoring arose from
-the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of
-the fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend
-Freddie, becoming oppressed with so much labour,
-had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
-on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it
-went on the carpet. With one long leg stretched
-out, the other knee up, lying on his back, and his
-mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very
-happy.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed
-again. Freddie boomed away on the sofa. The
-family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got
-down here in this way: it happened one night there
-was a row at a superb bar, Haymarket trail. The
-"chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
-in the general mel&eacute;e Raleigh distinguished himself.
-Rolled about by the crowd, he chanced to find himself
-for a moment in a favourable position, and
-punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty
-severely.</p>
-
-<p>Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was
-strong in the arm, he was "up," and he hit hard.
-The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
-cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur
-twice in a lifetime; Raleigh's genius seized the
-opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
-a trifle to it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and
-there are mighty men who do not figure in the
-papers.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh became at once an anaxandron&mdash;a King
-of Men. The history of his feat spread in ten
-minutes from one end of midnight London to the
-other: from the policeman in Waterloo Place to&mdash;everywhere.
-Never was such a stir; the fall of
-Sebastopol&mdash;dear me! I can remember it, look at
-the flight of time&mdash;was nothing to it. They would
-have chaired him, <i>f&ecirc;ted</i> him, got a band to play him
-about the place, literally crowned him with laurel.
-Ave, C&aelig;sar! Ev&oelig;! Bacchus! But they could not
-find him.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in
-at the death, and was well "blooded." Hansom to
-Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
-through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad
-gauge, and they had vanished.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a
-moment; having got the glory, the next thing was
-to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he slipped
-out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the
-excitement of the campaign had subsided.</p>
-
-<p>In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight
-battle, I may as well label the account at
-once: "This is a goak."</p>
-
-<p>I do <i>not</i> approve of brawls at the bar, but I have
-set myself the task to describe a bit of human life
-exactly as it really is, and I can assure you as a
-honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
-a very great man indeed among people as
-they really are. People as they really are, are not
-all Greek scholars.</p>
-
-<p>As I don't wish you to look down upon poor
-Raleigh too much because he smoked a cutty,
-and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent
-his money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and
-was altogether wicked, I may as well tell you something
-in his favour: He was a hero to his valet.</p>
-
-<p>"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb,
-not even Napoleon, Disraeli, or Solomon.</p>
-
-<p>But Raleigh <i>was</i> a hero to his valet.</p>
-
-<p>He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he
-had perfectly fascinated him. The instant he was off
-duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself. He
-put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in
-fact, he dressed himself Raleigh all over. His
-private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so was his
-necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the
-same shop; so were his boots. He kept a sovereign
-loose in his waistcoat pocket, because that
-was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He
-smoked a cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies&mdash;just
-like Raleigh, "the very ticket"&mdash;he had his
-betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
-"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine
-photographs of fine women. He swore in Raleigh's
-very words, and used to spit like him; Raleigh, if
-ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of
-twisting up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs.
-In town Nobbs went to the very same bars (always,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
-of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
-same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the
-tiniest detail. Why, Raleigh very rarely wound
-up his watch&mdash;careless Raleigh; accordingly, Nobbs'
-watch was seldom going. "And you just look
-here," said Nobbs to a great and confidential friend,
-after they had done endless whiskies, and smoked
-handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I
-was <i>he</i>, and had lots of chink, and soft old parties
-to get money out of as easy as filling yer pipe, by
-Jove! wouldn't <i>I</i> cut a swell! I'd do it, <i>I</i> would.
-I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I
-rather guess I would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I
-put a thou on the Middle Park Plate? Ah!
-wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I
-have heaps of wimmen; some in the trap, and some
-indoors, and some to go to the theatre with&mdash;respectable
-gals, I mean&mdash;crowds of 'em would come
-if Raleigh was to hold up his finger. Guess I'd
-fill this old shop (the Pamment mansion) choke full
-of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like
-to fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the
-nose, like <i>he</i> did! Oh, my! Oh, Tommy!" And
-Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
-"he."</p>
-
-<p>Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a
-Demi-god to his valet! Not only Nobbs, but the
-footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
-servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of
-Raleigh looked upon him as the Ideal Man. So
-did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
-the races, and all over town and country, all of that
-sort who knew anything of Raleigh sighed to be
-like "he."</p>
-
-<p>The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to
-his valet" seemed to suppose that the world worships
-good and divine qualities only. Nothing of
-the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and
-coarse and blackguard part the mass of people
-regard with such deep admiration.</p>
-
-<p>If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt
-whatever he would have "done it" very big indeed.
-But he would have left out of his copy that part of
-Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and
-the cutty, and the rest of it, made him still a perfect
-gentleman at heart. Nobbs didn't want to be a
-perfect gentleman.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;">
-<img src="images/i-063.png" width="235" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/g.png" width="120" height="120" alt="G" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>LANCING up from his betting-book,
-Raleigh caught sight of someone on the
-lawn, and went to the window to see
-who it was.</div>
-
-<p>It was then that Grandfather Iden
-raised his great grey hat, and brought it with so
-lowly a sweep down to the very ground before
-this demi-god of his.</p>
-
-<p>"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging
-him off the sofa. "Here's the Behemoth."</p>
-
-<p>"The Behemoth&mdash;the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently,
-still half asleep.</p>
-
-<p>"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd
-show him to you some day. That's the Behemoth."</p>
-
-<p>Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or
-white wild cattle, or strange creatures of that sort,
-in their parks as curiosities. The particular preserve
-of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden&mdash;antediluvian
-Iden&mdash;in short, the Behemoth.</p>
-
-<p>It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on
-show.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"There's a girl with him," said Fred.</p>
-
-<p>"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up,"
-ringing the bell. And he ordered the butler to
-fetch old Iden in.</p>
-
-<p>How thoroughly in character with Human Life
-it was that a man like Grandfather Iden&mdash;aged,
-experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
-books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage
-to Raleigh Pamment!</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-"Wherefore come ye not to court?<br />
-Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.<br />
-Chattering fools and wise men listening."<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed&mdash;his
-head was as bare as Mont Blanc&mdash;and, with
-many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's wishes.
-The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his
-slobbery old mouth in the excess of his glorification,
-takes Amaryllis by the arm, and proceeds to
-draw her towards the mansion.</p>
-
-<p>"But, grandpa&mdash;grandpa&mdash;really I'd rather not
-go. Please, don't make me go. No&mdash;no&mdash;I can't,"
-she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
-willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold,
-no, not for a crown of gold, as the old song says
-unctuously.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be
-afraid of"&mdash;mistaking her hesitation for awe.</p>
-
-<p>"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment.
-"Afraid! I don't want to go."</p>
-
-<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
-the butler in his most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment
-so very particularly wished to see you."</p>
-
-<p>"Come&mdash;come," said old Iden, "don't be silly,"
-as she still hung back. "It's a splendid place
-inside&mdash;there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and so
-the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler
-very, very gently pressing her forward the other,
-they persuaded, or rather they moved Amaryllis
-onward.</p>
-
-<p>She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had
-half a mind to break loose&mdash;easy enough to over-turn
-the two old fogies&mdash;but&mdash;how soon "but"
-comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She
-remembered her father. She remembered her
-mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
-further she could perhaps contrive to keep her
-grandfather in good humour and open the way to a
-reconciliation.</p>
-
-<p>So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican
-blood seething like molten metal in her
-veins, stepped across the hated threshold of the
-ancient and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>But we have all heard about taking the horse to
-water and finding that he would not drink. If you
-cannot even make a horse, do you think you are
-likely to <i>make</i> a woman do anything?</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly
-enough now, but she would not see or hear; he
-pointed out to her the old armour, the marble, the
-old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where
-John Pamment, temp. Hen. VII., was seized for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
-high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly on
-the ground.</p>
-
-<p>Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet
-more highly pleased.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in
-another room, not the whiskey-room; he met old
-Iden literally with open arms, taking both the old
-gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden
-tottered, and tears came into his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would
-not raise her glance.</p>
-
-<p>"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked
-over Raleigh's shoulder. "Very raw piece."</p>
-
-<p>To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."</p>
-
-<p>"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his
-voice.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries&mdash;fond of
-pictures&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was silent.</p>
-
-<p>"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as
-much as to say, "you may."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Hum&mdash;let's see&mdash;books&mdash;library&mdash;carvings.
-Come, Mr. Iden, you know the place better than I
-do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar&mdash;I've forgotten
-my Greek. What would you like to show
-her?"</p>
-
-<p>"She <i>is</i> fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly
-flattered that he should be thought to know the
-house better than the heir. "She is fond of pictures;
-she's shy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing
-blood seemed to stifle her. She could have cried
-out aloud; her pride only checked her utterance.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her
-face, led on upstairs, down the corridors, and into
-the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
-took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of
-an old Master.</p>
-
-<p>Holding his great grey hat (which he would not
-give up to the butler) at arm's-length and pointing,
-the old man began to show Amaryllis the beauties
-of the picture.</p>
-
-<p>"A grand thing&mdash;look," said he.</p>
-
-<p>"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.</p>
-
-<p>"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.</p>
-
-<p>"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh.
-"Come this side."</p>
-
-<p>She did not move.</p>
-
-<p>"Go that side," said Iden.</p>
-
-<p>No movement.</p>
-
-<p>"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.</p>
-
-<p>At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood
-there, gazing down still.</p>
-
-<p>"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily&mdash;above
-the canvas, and then again at the floor.</p>
-
-<p>Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair
-as they stood together; Amaryllis gazing downwards,
-Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a possible
-alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind;
-only consider, intermarriage between the Pamments
-and the Idens! Much more improbable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
-things have happened; even without the marriage
-license the connection would be an immense honour.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most
-certainly have sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own
-flesh and blood, joyously and intentionally to his
-worship of the aristocrat.</p>
-
-<p>If she could not have been the wife he would
-have forced her to be the mistress.</p>
-
-<p>There is no one so cruel&mdash;so utterly inhuman&mdash;as
-an old man, to whom feeling, heart, hope have
-long been dead words.</p>
-
-<p>"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly.
-"Is it not noble?"</p>
-
-<p>"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her
-large, dark eyes at last and looking her grandfather
-in the face.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great
-white hat, his sunken cheeks flushing. It was not
-so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
-rebellion.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky," he repeated.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoky and&mdash;dingy," said Amaryllis. She
-had felt without actually seeing that Raleigh's gaze
-had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
-had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or
-so offends a woman.</p>
-
-<p>Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to
-give offence&mdash;on the contrary he had been singularly
-pleasant, respectfully pleasant&mdash;but she remembered
-the fellow staring at her from the window at the
-"Lamb" and it biased her against him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
-wished to treat him, and his pictures, and his place
-altogether with marked contempt.</p>
-
-<p>"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I
-will leave now, if you please," and she moved towards
-the door.</p>
-
-<p>"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands
-and tottering after her. "Stop! I order you to
-stop! you rude girl!"</p>
-
-<p>He could not catch her, she had left the gallery&mdash;he
-slipped in his haste on the polished floor.
-Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
-fallen, and at the same time presented him with his
-great white hat.</p>
-
-<p>"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked
-and slobbered and mumbled, and I verily believe had
-it not been for his veneration of the place he would
-have spat upon the floor.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook
-her at the staircase.</p>
-
-<p>"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily
-descended. "Really I should have liked you to
-have seen the house&mdash;will you sit down a moment?
-Forgive me if I said or did&mdash;&mdash;. No, do stay&mdash;please&mdash;"
-as she made straight for the hall. "I
-am so sorry&mdash;really sorry&mdash;unintentional"&mdash;in fact
-he had done nothing, and yet he was penitent. But
-she would not listen, she hurried on along the path,
-she began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her,
-still begging her to pause; Amaryllis ran at last
-outright. "At least let me see you through the fair&mdash;rough
-people. Let me open the door&mdash;&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a
-spring lock, and for a moment she could not unfasten
-it; she tore at it and grazed her hand, the
-blood started.</p>
-
-<p>"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly
-upset. "Let me bind it up," taking out his handkerchief.
-"I would not have had this happen for
-money"&mdash;short for any amount of money. "Let
-me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting,
-not with the run, which was nothing to her, but
-pent-up indignation, and still trying to open the
-lock.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung
-open&mdash;he could easily have detained her there, but
-he did not. "One moment, pray&mdash;Miss Iden."
-She was gone down the passage between the Abbey
-church and the wall; he followed, she darted out
-into the crowd of the fair.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;">
-<img src="images/i-008.png" width="100" height="67" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-064.png" width="500" height="89" alt="" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/w.png" width="120" height="120" alt="W" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond
-measure, vexation biting deep
-lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured
-face.</div>
-
-<p>"That I should have been such a
-fool&mdash;an infernal blockheaded fool&mdash;" shutting the
-iron-studded door with a kick and a clang&mdash;"muddle-headed
-fool&mdash;I'll never touch a drop of
-whiskey again&mdash;and that jackass, Fred&mdash;why, she's&mdash;"
-a lady, he would have said, but did not dare
-admit to himself now that he had thought to ask
-her in to "wake us up." "But what did I do?
-Can't think what annoyed her. Must have been
-something between her and that tedious old Iden.
-Quite sure I didn't do or say&mdash;&mdash;" but still he
-could not quiet his conscience, for if he had not by
-deed or word, he knew he had in thought.</p>
-
-<p>He had sent for her as he might have done for
-any of the vulgar wenches in the fair to amuse an
-idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.</p>
-
-<p>In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
-Amaryllis Iden. Her features were not beautiful,
-as general ideas go, nor had her form the grace of
-full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by
-a master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression
-her nature had made upon him.</p>
-
-<p>It is not the particular cast of features that
-makes a man great, and gives him a pre-eminence
-among his fellows. It is the character&mdash;the mind.</p>
-
-<p>A great genius commands attention at once by
-his presence, and so a woman may equally impress
-by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
-asserts itself in subtle ways.</p>
-
-<p>I don't say for certain that it was her character
-that impressed Raleigh&mdash;it might have been nothing
-of the sort, it might have been <i>because it was
-so</i>, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate.
-These things do not happen by "why and because."</p>
-
-<p>Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose
-a whiskey-sipping, cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing,
-bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh could
-by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But
-whiskey, cutty, horse, and bar were not the real
-man, any more than your hat is your head, they
-were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all
-the same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely
-more generous than some very respectable
-folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and grind
-down their clerks and dependents to the edge of
-starvation.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such
-as the pew-haunting Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
-he was not in love: at all events he was highly
-excited.</p>
-
-<p>Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following
-Amaryllis by representing that Raleigh would
-be sure to bring her back. The butler, who was
-very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped
-out a bottle of champagne and handed him a
-brimming glass. The old gentleman, still mouthing
-and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank,
-and spluttered again, and refusing a second, would
-go, and so met Raleigh in the hall.</p>
-
-<p>Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man,
-and on his part the old man tried at one and the
-same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
-and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently
-neither of them heard or understood the other.</p>
-
-<p>But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering
-the rough crowd in the fair, despatched
-the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
-now growing dusky as the evening came on.</p>
-
-<p>Without more ado, this young gentleman then
-set to and swore at Fred for half an hour straight
-ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
-what on earth had turned his brain; next, being
-equally hot-tempered, he swore in reply; then there
-followed some sharp recriminations (for each knew
-too much of the other's goings on not to have
-plenty of material), and finally they sparred. Two
-or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having nothing
-to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried
-himself in the papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
-out into the fair. Thus there was tribulation in the
-great house of the Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer
-him through the crowd quietly enough, because it
-flattered him to be thus taken care of before the
-world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted
-at the doorstep he slipped half-a-sovereign in the
-butler's hand&mdash;he could not offer less than gold to
-a Pamments' man&mdash;but once inside, his demeanour
-changed. He pushed away his housekeeper, went
-into his especial sitting-room, bolted the door,
-spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked
-the coals, grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke
-and smuts filled the stuffy little place.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by there was a banging of drawers&mdash;the
-drawers in the bureau and the bookcases were opened
-and shut sharply&mdash;writing-paper was flung on the
-table, and he sat down to write a letter with a
-scratchy quill pen. The letter written was ordered
-to post immediately, and the poking, and stirring,
-and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation
-in the house of the head of the Idens.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis meantime had got through the town
-by keeping between the booths and the houses.
-Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode up&mdash;he
-had been on the watch, thinking to talk with
-her as she walked home, but just as he drew rein to
-go slow and so speak, a heathen pig from the market
-rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the
-game by throwing him headlong.</p>
-
-<p>She did not see, or at least did not notice, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
-hastening on, entered the fields. In coming to
-town that morning she had seen everything; now,
-returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no
-heed of anything; she was so absorbed that when
-a man&mdash;one of those she met going to the fair for
-the evening&mdash;turned back and followed her some
-way, she did not observe him. Finding that she
-walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased to pursue.</p>
-
-<p>The gloom had settled when she reached home,
-and the candles were lit. She gave her father the
-sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
-escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had
-the prize-guinea.</p>
-
-<p>"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.</p>
-
-<p>"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me
-see," said Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;I lost it," said Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"</p>
-
-<p>"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones.
-"Show it immediately."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't; I lost it."</p>
-
-<p>"Lost it!"</p>
-
-<p>And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger:
-a careless, wasteful hussy, an idle wretch; what
-did she do for her living that she could throw away
-spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say?
-how did she suppose they were to keep her, and she
-not earn the value of a bonnet-string? time she
-was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity she
-ate, and never could touch any fat&mdash;dear me, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
-fine&mdash;bacon was not good enough for her&mdash;she could
-throw away spade-guineas.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her
-hat in her hand, her bosom heaving, her lips apart
-and pouting, not with indignation but sheer misery;
-her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness
-and sink till she stooped; she could not face
-them as she would have done others, because you
-see she loved them, and she had done her best that
-day till too sorely tried.</p>
-
-<p>The storm raged on; finally Iden growled
-"Better get out of sight." Then she went to her
-bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay
-down, and sobbed silently on the pillow, after
-which she fell asleep, quite worn out, dark circles
-under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
-tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at
-the fair two miles away was audible.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-009.png" width="150" height="107" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>o there was tribulation in three houses.
-Next morning she scarcely dared come
-in to breakfast, and opened the door
-timidly, expecting heavy looks, and to
-be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on
-taking her place, Iden carefully cut for her the
-most delicate slice of ham he could find, and removed
-the superfluous fat before putting it on her
-plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready
-for her&mdash;Amaryllis was fond of cream&mdash;and enriched
-the tea with it generously.</div>
-
-<p>"And what did you see at the fair?" asked
-Iden in his kindest voice, lifting up his saucer&mdash;from
-which he always drank&mdash;by putting his thumb
-under it instead of over, so that his thick little
-finger projected. He always sipped his tea in this
-way.</p>
-
-<p>"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said
-Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I don't know; I did not see much of the
-fair," said Amaryllis, at a loss to understand the
-change of manner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden
-picked up a letter from the tea-tray and gave it to
-her daughter:</p>
-
-<p>"Read."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis read&mdash;it was from Grandfather Iden,
-furiously upbraiding Iden for neglecting his
-daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
-manners&mdash;an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better
-not show her face in his house again till she had
-been taught to know her position; her conduct was
-not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest
-idea how to behave herself in the presence of persons
-of quality.</p>
-
-<p>She put it down before she had finished the
-tirade of abuse; she did not look up, her face was
-scarlet.</p>
-
-<p>Iden laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said
-Mrs. Iden. "So glad you vexed him, dear!"</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning
-a heroine. The grandfather's letter had done this.</p>
-
-<p>Iden never complained&mdash;never mentioned his
-father&mdash;but of course in his heart he bitterly felt
-the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
-and their child. He was a man who said the
-less the more he was moved; he gossiped freely
-with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet
-old woman. Not a word ever dropped from him
-of his own difficulties&mdash;he kept his mind to himself.
-His wife knew nothing of his intentions&mdash;he
-was over-secretive, especially about money matters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
-in which he affected the most profound mystery,
-as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly aware
-they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.</p>
-
-<p>All the more bitterly he resented the manner
-in which Grandfather Iden treated him, giving
-away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and fourpenny
-bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities,
-leaving his own descendants to struggle
-daily with debt and insult.</p>
-
-<p>Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the
-insults of his petty creditors fretted him.</p>
-
-<p>He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become
-her grandfather's favourite; as the grandfather had
-thrown savage words at the girl, so much the more
-was added to the score against the grandfather.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop
-of Flamma blood in her veins&mdash;hated him above
-all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old Iden
-had in his youth been connected with the Flammas
-in business&mdash;hated him for his veneration of the
-aristocratic and medi&aelig;val Pamments.</p>
-
-<p>She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the
-necessity of cultivating her grandfather's goodwill,
-and always abusing him&mdash;contradicting herself in
-the most natural manner.</p>
-
-<p>This letter had given them such delight, because
-it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the
-old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
-hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his
-scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money,
-he had had <i>one</i> good upset, that was something.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis
-was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her
-father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
-Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for
-various reasons both father and mother grew warmer
-in delight at every fresh incident of her story.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Flamma Iden&mdash;revolutionary Flamma&mdash;detested
-the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle
-first, and next, because the grandfather paid them
-such court.</p>
-
-<p>Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque,
-and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty
-years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking
-them personally.</p>
-
-<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of
-the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and
-in and out the conservatories, as if that was the
-highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used
-often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the
-very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she
-would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a
-private key&mdash;you're every bit as silly really, only
-you haven't got the chance."</p>
-
-<p>However, from a variety of causes they agreed in
-looking on Amaryllis' disgrace as a high triumph
-and glory.</p>
-
-<p>So she was petted all the morning by both
-parties&mdash;a rare thing&mdash;and in the afternoon Iden
-gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to
-buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as
-she chose on herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet
-not without regret that she had increased the disagreement
-between her father and grandfather.
-She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the
-site of the fair, the children running along with
-bare brown feet. She went under the arch&aelig;ologically
-interesting gateway, and knocked at the door
-of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."</p>
-
-<p>Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin
-and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and
-miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession
-of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply
-for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at
-Christmas were not mended yet.</p>
-
-<p>Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and
-his foot measure in the other, very humbly and
-deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
-much trouble with the workmen, some were so
-tipsy, and some would not work; they were always
-demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
-in hand going off and leaving it half finished&mdash;shoemaker's
-tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could
-not get a workman, and then there was the competition
-of the ready-made boot from Northampton;
-really, it was most trying&mdash;it really was.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?"
-said Amaryllis, amused at the poor fellow's distress.
-"When <i>are</i> they going to be finished?"</p>
-
-<p>"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's
-mother, coming to help her son, "the fact is, he's just
-worried out of his life with his men&mdash;and really&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"You don't seem to get on very well with your
-shoemaking, Mr. Wise," said the customer, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy
-manner, with a deep sigh, "the fact is, the
-men don't know their work as they used to, they
-spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs
-half done, and they're always drinking; the leather
-isn't so good as it used to be; the fact is," with a
-still deeper sigh, "<i>we can't make a boot</i>."</p>
-
-<p>At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think
-that people should have been in business two
-hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not
-make a boot!</p>
-
-<p>Her experience of life as yet was short, and she
-saw things in their first aspect; it is not till much
-later we observe that the longer people do one
-thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they
-cannot do it at all.</p>
-
-<p>She presently selected a pair for herself, 9<i>s.</i>,
-and another pair for her mother, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, leaving
-sixpence over; add sixpence discount for ready-money,
-and she was still rich with a shilling.
-Carrying the parcel, she went up the street and
-passed old Iden's door on elate instep, happy that
-she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
-happy to think she had the boots for her mother.
-Looking in at two or three dingy little shops, she
-fixed at last on one, and bought half-a-dozen of the
-very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
-fond. This finished the savings, and she turned
-quickly for home. The bloaters being merely bound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
-round with one thin sheet of newspaper, soon imparted
-their odour to her hand.</p>
-
-<p>A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I
-hope, too ideal; I hope you will see now that I am
-not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
-Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the
-bloaters and the boots; a very sweet, true, and
-loving hand it was, in spite of the bloaters&mdash;one to
-kiss fervently.</p>
-
-<p>They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire
-of wood-coals, and while they cooked the mother
-tried her new boots, naturally not a little pleased
-with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood
-surged with gratitude; she would have given her
-girl the world at that moment. That she should
-have remembered her mother showed such a good
-disposition; there was no one like Amaryllis.</p>
-
-<p>"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!"
-with a gasp; and holding his handkerchief to his
-nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for the
-smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.</p>
-
-<p>They only laughed all the merrier over their
-supper.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-011.png" width="150" height="75" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/r.png" width="120" height="118" alt="R" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>IGHT at the top of the house there
-was a large, unfurnished room, which
-Amaryllis had taken as her own long
-since. It was her study, her thinking-room,
-her private chapel and praying-room, her one
-place of solitude, silence, and retirement.</div>
-
-<p>The days had gone on, and it was near the end
-of April. Coming up the dark stairs one morning,
-she found them still darker, because she had just
-left the sunshine. They were built very narrow,
-as usual in old country-houses, and the landing
-shut off with a door, so that when you were in them
-you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet&mdash;bare
-boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet
-their stairs; no handrail; the edges of the steps
-worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
-under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as
-if it had been nibbled by mice.</p>
-
-<p>Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis
-was in perfect darkness, but her feet knew the
-well-remembered way, and she came quickly to
-the top.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There were two great rooms running the whole
-length of the house: the first was a lumber-room,
-the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it was,
-in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was
-vague with bareness: a huge, square room, gaunt
-as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed, the
-floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small
-window, stood a table and tall-backed oaken chair,
-afar off, as it were, from the doorway&mdash;a journey to
-them across the creaking floor. On one side an
-old four-post bedstead of dark oak, much damaged,
-was placed by the wall; the sacking hung down in
-a loop, torn and decayed&mdash;a bedstead on which no
-one had slept these hundred years past. By the
-table there was, too, an ancient carved linen-press
-of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.</p>
-
-<p>These bits of rude furniture were lost in the
-vastness of space, as much as if you had thrown
-your hat into the sky.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt
-down. She brought a handful of violets, fresh-gathered,
-to place in the glass which she kept there
-for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick
-wall, and formed a niche, where she always had a
-tumbler ready&mdash;a common glass tumbler, she could
-not afford a vase.</p>
-
-<p>They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of
-all, gathered while the nightingale was singing his
-morning song in the April sunshine&mdash;a song the
-world never listens to, more delicious than his evening
-notes, for the sunlight helps him, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
-blue of the heavens, the green leaf, and the soft
-wind&mdash;all the soul of spring.</p>
-
-<p>White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of
-flower, tender and delicate, growing under the
-great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among
-the dry, brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked
-unless you know exactly where to go for them.
-She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
-for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen
-into the glass, but she hung them by their chins
-over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks in
-the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at
-the table, and rested her head on her hand.</p>
-
-<p>Except where she did this every day, and so
-brushed it, a thin layer of dust had covered the
-surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
-her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on
-the indiarubber, dust on the cake of Indian ink,
-dust invisible on the smooth surface of the pencils,
-dust in the little box of vine charcoal.</p>
-
-<p>The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around
-the house had shaken the pencil from her fingers&mdash;Siberian
-wolves they were, racing over the arid
-deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing
-in number and ferocity, ready to tear the
-very door down. There are no wolves like those
-debt sends against a house.</p>
-
-<p>Every knock at the door, every strange footstep
-up the approach, every letter that came, was like
-the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.</p>
-
-<p>Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
-stile, and put the letters unopened on the mantelshelf&mdash;a
-pile of bills over his head where he slept
-calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes,
-and cut trusses of hay, and go through <i>his</i> work
-to appearance unmoved.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could not draw&mdash;she could not do it;
-her imagination refused to see the idea; the more
-she concentrated her mind, the louder she heard the
-ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.</p>
-
-<p>Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered,
-bill-hooks can be wielded and faggots
-chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
-ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he
-can, and does, follow the plough, and finds, perhaps,
-some solace in the dull monotony of his labour.
-Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid
-imagination&mdash;a delicately-balanced organization,
-that almost lives on its ideas as veritable food&mdash;cannot
-do like this. The poet, the artist, the
-author, the thinker, cannot follow their plough;
-their work depends on a serene mind.</p>
-
-<p>But experience proves that they <i>do</i> do their
-work under such circumstances. They do; how
-greatly then they must be tortured, or for what a
-length of time they must have suffered to become
-benumbed.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked
-of Time. She could not sketch&mdash;that
-was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
-wanted was money. She could not read, that was
-not real; what was wanted was solid coin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and
-covered with dust, but she came every day to her
-flowers in the window-niche.</p>
-
-<p>She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of
-February and March, without a fire, disdainful of
-ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her
-warm young blood cared nothing for the cold, if
-only by enduring it she could assist those whom
-she loved.</p>
-
-<p>There were artists in the Flamma family in London
-who made what seemed to her large incomes,
-yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
-criticism, and who had never even sent a
-work to the Academy&mdash;never even tried to enter.
-Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it
-was well paid.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success
-as an artist, nor think to take the world by storm
-with her talent. Her one only hope was to get a
-few pounds now and then&mdash;she would have sold
-twenty sketches for ten shillings&mdash;to save her father
-from insult, and to give her mother the mere necessities
-of dress she needed.</p>
-
-<p>No thought of possible triumph, nor was she
-sustained by an overmastering love of art; she was
-inspired by her heart, not her genius.</p>
-
-<p>Had circumstances been different she would not
-have earnestly practised drawing; naturally she
-was a passive rather than an active artist.</p>
-
-<p>She loved beauty for its own sake&mdash;she loved
-the sunlight, the grass and trees, the gleaming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
-water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
-listen to the running water was to her a dear delight,
-to the wind in the high firs, or caught in the
-wide-stretching arms of the oak; she rested among
-these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the
-body. The few good pictures she had seen pleased
-her, but did not rouse the emotion the sunlight
-caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not like
-the running stream. It said nothing&mdash;the stream
-was full of thought.</p>
-
-<p>No eager desire to paint like that or play like
-that was awakened by pictures or music; Amaryllis
-was a passive and not an active artist by nature.
-And I think that is the better part; at least, I
-know it is a thousand times more pleasure to me to
-see a beautiful thing than to write about it. Could
-I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things, and
-not writing.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or
-fame; to be silent in the sunshine was enough for
-her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
-talent&mdash;she drew at once without effort or consideration;
-it was not so much to her as it is to me
-to write a letter.</p>
-
-<p>The thought to make use of her power did not
-occur to her until the preceding Christmas. Roast
-beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery at
-Coombe Oaks&mdash;a sham and cold delusion, cold as
-snow. A "merry Christmas"&mdash;holly berries,
-mistletoe&mdash;and behind these&mdash;debt. Behind the
-glowing fire, written in the flames&mdash;debt; in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
-sound of the distant chimes&mdash;debt. Now be merry
-over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash their
-teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep
-out.</p>
-
-<p>Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in
-all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou
-owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly
-engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me
-that thou owest! This is the message from the
-manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
-<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-014.png" width="500" height="102" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>O Amaryllis went up into the gaunt,
-cold room at the top of the house, and
-bent herself seriously to drawing.
-There was no fireplace, and if there had
-been they could not have allowed her
-coals; coals were dear. It was quite an event
-when the horse and cart went to the wharf for coal.
-There was plenty of wood for the hearth&mdash;wood
-grew on the farm&mdash;but coal was money.</div>
-
-<p>The March winds howled round the corner of
-the old thatched house, and now and again tremendous
-rains blew up against the little western window
-near which she had placed her table. Through
-the silent cold of January, the moist cold of February,
-the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
-Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of
-nipped fingers and chilled feet.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes she looked out of the window and
-watched Iden digging in the garden underneath,
-planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
-or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
-out the furrows that the water might flow better&mdash;"trenching,"
-as he called it.</p>
-
-<p>The harder it rained the harder he worked at
-this in the open, with a sack about his shoulders
-like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter, the
-master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the
-water to the grass to get a larger crop of hay in
-June.</p>
-
-<p>Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat,
-he looked a woful figure as the heavy shower beat on
-his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
-father.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes she went into the next room&mdash;the
-lumber-room&mdash;only lighted by a window on a level
-with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
-only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there,
-she could see him at the stile across the road, his
-hands behind his back, gossiping now with another
-farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an
-old woman carrying home a yoke of water from the
-brook.</p>
-
-<p>The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than
-the work in the cold rain; it seemed so incongruous,
-so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
-as she knew him.</p>
-
-<p>That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead,
-and his profile like Shakespeare, should stand
-there talk, talk, talking on the smallest hamlet
-topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded
-farmers, was to her a bewilderment and
-annoyance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>She could not understand it, and she resented it.
-The real Iden she knew was the man of thought
-and old English taste, who had told her so much
-by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in
-features he resembled, and of the poets from Elizabethan
-days downwards. His knowledge seemed
-to be endless; there was no great author he had not
-read, no subject upon which he could not at least
-tell her where to obtain information. Yet she knew
-he had never had what is now called an education.
-How clever he must be to know all these things!
-You see she did not know how wonderful is the
-gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
-that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him;
-therefore his store was great.</p>
-
-<p>No other garden was planted as Iden's garden
-was, in the best of old English taste, with old English
-flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In summer
-time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a
-spot for a painter, loved and resorted to by every
-bird of the air. Of a bare old farmhouse he had
-made a beautiful home.</p>
-
-<p>Questions upon questions her opening mind had
-poured upon him, and to all he had given her an
-answer that was an explanation. About the earth
-and about the sea, the rivers, and living things;
-about the stars and sun, the comet, the wonders of
-the firmament, of geology and astronomy, of science;
-there was nothing he did not seem to know.</p>
-
-<p>A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that
-Ulysses of whom he read to her, and who, like that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
-Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
-was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why
-did he work in the rain under a sack? Why did
-he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
-idlers?</p>
-
-<p>It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.</p>
-
-<p>I cannot explain why it was so, any better than
-Amaryllis; I could give a hundred reasons, and
-then there would be no explanation&mdash;say partly
-circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which
-talent would tell, partly an indecision of character&mdash;too
-much thought&mdash;and, after all said and done,
-Fate.</p>
-
-<p>Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis
-felt her heart drooping, she knew not why,
-and went back to her drawing unstrung.</p>
-
-<p>She worked very hard, and worked in vain.
-The sketches all came back to her. Some of them
-had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
-carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had
-been folded wrongly, almost all smelt of tobacco.
-Neither illustrated papers, periodicals: neither
-editors nor publishers would have anything to do
-with them. One or two took more care, and returned
-the drawings quite clean; one sent a note
-saying that they promised well.</p>
-
-<p>Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she
-wanted half a sovereign <i>now</i>. If a prophet assured
-a man that the picture he could not now dispose of
-would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years,
-what consolation would that be to him?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They were all a total failure. So many letters
-could not be received in that dull place without
-others in the house seeing what was going on.
-Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the
-stairs&mdash;a shuffling, uncertain step&mdash;and her heart
-began to beat quicker, for she knew it was her
-mother. Somehow, although she loved her so
-dearly, she felt that there was not much sympathy
-between them. She did not understand her mother;
-the mother did not understand the daughter.
-Though she was working for her mother's sake,
-when she heard her mother's step she was ashamed
-of her work.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the
-room, drawing one foot along the floor in an aggravating
-way she had, she was not lame, and look out
-of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis,
-and say&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never
-do anything. I've seen too much of it. Better
-come down and warm yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it
-seemed so inconsistent. Mrs. Iden blew up her
-husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
-round and discouraged her daughter for being
-enterprising, and this, too, although she was constantly
-talking about the superiority of the art
-employments of the Flammas in London to the
-clodhopper work around her.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother
-had gone downstairs again, and then the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
-kept repeating themselves in her ear&mdash;"Never do
-no good at that, never do no good at that."</p>
-
-<p>If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we
-should find that Amaryllis was working for a mother
-of her own imagination, and not for the mother of
-fact.</p>
-
-<p>Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing,
-feels the cold very much more than those who
-are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold in
-the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind
-came unchecked through the wire network of the
-window in the next room. But for that her
-generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the
-still colder wind of failure.</p>
-
-<p>She had no name&mdash;no repute, therefore had her
-drawings been equal to the finest ever produced
-they would not have been accepted. Until the
-accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.</p>
-
-<p>Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who
-on earth would attempt to win success by merit?
-That alone proves how correct the world is in its
-estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding
-fools. Succeed by merit!</p>
-
-<p>Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger,
-or the tallow-chandler rely on personal
-merit, or purely personal ability for making a business?
-They rely on a little capital, credit, and much
-push. The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and
-works next as a subordinate, his "footing" costs
-hundreds of pounds, and years of hard labour. The
-doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
-can, he buys a practice. They do not rely on
-merit.</p>
-
-<p>The three fools&mdash;the author, the artist, and the
-musician&mdash;put certain lines on a sheet of paper and
-expect the world to at once admire their clever
-ideas.</p>
-
-<p>In the end&mdash;but how far is it to the end!&mdash;it is
-true that genius is certain of recognition; the steed
-by then has grown used to starvation, waiting for
-the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous
-men of business men of merit? are they all
-clever? are they geniuses? They do not exactly
-seem to be so.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path
-so full of disappointments; nothing so incredibly
-impossible.</p>
-
-<p>I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler,
-with a good steady income and no thought, than an
-author; at the first opportunity I mean to go into
-the tallow business.</p>
-
-<p>Until the accident of reputation chanced to come
-to her, Amaryllis might work and work, and hope
-and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
-watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the
-furrows in the rain, under his sack.</p>
-
-<p>She had not even a diploma&mdash;a diploma, or a
-certificate, a South Kensington certificate! Fancy,
-without even a certificate! Misguided child!</p>
-
-<p>What a hideous collection of frumpery they have
-got there at the Museum, as many acres as Iden's
-farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the "periods."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
-What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They
-have not even a single statue in the place. They
-would shrivel up in horror at a nude model. <i>They</i>
-teach art&mdash;miserable sham, their wretched art
-culminates in a Christmas card.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis had not even been through the South
-Kensington "grind," and dared to send in original
-drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
-see, pure clodhopper ignorance.</p>
-
-<p>Failure waited on her labours; the postman
-brought them all back again.</p>
-
-<p>Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen
-the line which the very highest in the profession
-would probably have advised her to take. She
-drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old
-barn up the road, the hollow tree, the dry reeds,
-the birds, and chanticleer himself&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-High was his comb, and coral red withal,<br />
-In dents embattled like a castle wall.<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not
-sketch; the fogger with his broad knife cutting
-hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the wheelbarrow
-munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a
-study for Teniers; the team coming home from
-plough&mdash;winter scenes, most of them, because it
-was winter time. There are those who would give
-fifty pounds for one of those studies now, crumpled,
-stained, and torn as they are.</div>
-
-<p>It was a complete failure. Once only she had a
-gleam of success. Iden picked up the sketch of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
-the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking at it,
-put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf.
-Amaryllis felt like the young painter whose
-work is at last hung at the Academy. His opinion
-was everything to her. He valued her sketch.</p>
-
-<p>Still, that was not money. The cold wind and
-the chill of failure still entered her garret study.
-But it was neither of these that at length caused
-the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked
-on and on, hoping against hope, undaunted, despite
-physical cold and moral check. It was the procession
-of creditors.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;">
-<img src="images/i-013.png" width="125" height="164" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>TEADILY they came over from the town,
-dunning Iden and distracting Amaryllis
-in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps
-on the path to the door, the thump,
-thump with the fist (there was neither
-knocker nor bell, country fashion); more thumping,
-and then her mother's excuses, so oft repeated, so
-wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
-creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes,"
-or "He's gone to Green Hills." "Well, when will
-he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to
-know when this yer little account is going to be
-settled." Then a long narration of his wrongs,
-threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
-grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps
-departing.</div>
-
-<p>Very rude men came down from the villages
-demanding payment in their rough way&mdash;a raw,
-crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had
-long since exhausted his credit in the town; neither
-butcher, baker, draper, nor anyone else would let
-them have a shilling's-worth until the shilling had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
-been placed on the counter. He had been forced
-lately to deal with the little men of the villages&mdash;the
-little butcher who killed once a fortnight; the
-petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
-Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first;
-coarse language and rudeness afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>One day, the village baker, having got inside
-the door as Mrs. Iden incautiously opened it, stood
-there and argued with her, while Amaryllis in the
-garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it
-up?"</p>
-
-<p>"He'll send it up."</p>
-
-<p>"He've a' said that every time, but it beant
-come yet. You tell un I be come to vetch it."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Iden's not in."</p>
-
-<p>"I'll bide till he be in."</p>
-
-<p>"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."</p>
-
-<p>"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful.
-It's nothing but cheating&mdash;that's what I calls
-it&mdash;to have things and never pay for um. It's
-cheating."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.</p>
-
-<p>"How dare you say such a thing? How dare
-you insult my mother? Leave the house this
-moment!"</p>
-
-<p>And with both hands she literally pushed the
-man, unwilling, but not absolutely resisting, outside,
-grumbling as he moved that he never insulted
-nobody, only asked for his money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of
-hand, calculated to encourage the play of imagination!
-She could do nothing for hours afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was
-worse, because it lasted longer. First they talked
-by the potato-patch almost under the window;
-then they talked on the path; then they came
-indoors, and then there were words and grumbling
-sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
-they went out again and talked by the gate. At
-last the creditor departed, and Iden returned indoors
-to take a glass of ale and sit a moment till
-the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind.
-Mrs. Iden then had her turn at him: the old story&mdash;why
-didn't he do something? Amaryllis knew
-every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
-room.</p>
-
-<p>How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis
-could not think; how he could stand, and be argued
-with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
-the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in
-the road, she could not understand.</p>
-
-<p>The truth was he could not help himself; violence
-would have availed nothing. But to youth it
-seems as if a few blows are all that is needed to
-overcome difficulties.</p>
-
-<p>Waller and Co., the tailor&mdash;he was his own Co.&mdash;walked
-over regularly once a week; very civil
-and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
-he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for
-Iden's coat was a pattern of raggedness, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
-trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby old hat
-rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound
-account two years overdue.</p>
-
-<p>Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his
-trap as he went by, at least twice a week, to chivey
-Iden about his money. Though he would not let
-them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever
-there was five shillings to spare for meat it
-was always taken into his shop, as it was better to
-have good meat there, if you had to pay cash
-for meat, than inferior in the village. One day,
-Amaryllis was waiting for some steak, side by side
-with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while
-Cobb served a grand lady of the town. "Yes,
-m'm&mdash;oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows, and
-scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness
-possible. When the fine lady had gone, "Lar,
-Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how different
-you do speak to <i>they</i> to what you do speak to <i>me</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed
-at having one manner for the poor and another for
-the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they require
-such a deal of <i>homage</i>."</p>
-
-<p>There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's,
-but that was not much pressed, only a large blue
-letter about once a month, as Beavan had a very
-good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs.
-Iden made excellent butter, which had a reputation,
-and Beavan took it all at about half-price. If it had
-been sold to anyone else he would have insisted on
-payment. So, by parting with the best butter in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
-the county at half-price, they got their tea and
-sugar without much dunning.</p>
-
-<p>At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and
-strange in her manner, as if on the point of hysterics,
-from which Amaryllis divined something serious
-was approaching, though her mother would say
-nothing. So it turned out&mdash;a bailiff appeared, and
-took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was very
-civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and
-offered to help in any way he could. Iden gave
-him plenty of beer, for one thing. Amaryllis could
-not go into the kitchen&mdash;the dear old place seemed
-deserted while he was there.</p>
-
-<p>This woke up Iden for the moment. First there
-was a rummaging about in his old bureau, and a
-laborious writing of letters, or adding up of figures.
-Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath,
-clean linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed
-away these years past. In two hours or so Iden
-came down another man, astonishingly changed,
-quite a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome
-in Amaryllis's eyes. Indeed, he was really
-handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully so.
-If only he would always dress like that!</p>
-
-<p>Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations
-had so consumed the time that the bank
-was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and there
-was no means of raising any money that evening.
-The son passed the father's doorstep&mdash;the worn
-stone step, ground by the generations of customers&mdash;he
-saw the light behind the blind in the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
-room where Grandfather Iden sat&mdash;he might, had
-he paused and listened, have heard the old man
-poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man&mdash;the
-son passed on, and continued his lonely walk
-home, the home that held a bailiff.</p>
-
-<p>A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff
-in the kitchen, and there he remained the night,
-and was up and had lit the fire for Luce the servant
-before she was down. The man was certainly very
-civil, but still there was the shock of it.</p>
-
-<p>Early in the morning Iden went into town again,
-saw his solicitor, and got a cheque&mdash;it was only
-five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the bailiff
-left.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
-<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-034.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>UT his presence did not die out of the
-kitchen; they always seemed to feel as
-if he had been there. The hearth had
-been stained by a foreign foot, the very
-poker had been touched by a foreign
-hand, the rude form at the side by the wall had
-been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
-always been so fond of the kitchen&mdash;the oldest part
-of the house, two centuries at least. The wide
-hearth and immense chimney, up which, when the
-fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the
-stars; over which of a windy night you could imagine
-the witches riding by, borne on the deep
-howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun
-slung to it; the heavy oaken table, unpolished,
-greyish oak; the window in the thick wall, set
-with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls
-from which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the
-rude old place was very dear to her.</div>
-
-<p>Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the
-sitting-room, drawn by its antique homeliness.
-Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
-cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and
-apples, while the potatoes&mdash;large potatoes&mdash;Iden's
-selected specialities&mdash;were baking buried in the
-ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could
-see the white drift of snow against the window,
-which was on a level with the ground outside, and
-so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
-the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with
-saws, or, his fancy roaming on, of the broad and
-beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so admired
-in his youth, the river the poets will sing some
-day; or of his clinging aloft at night in the gale on
-the banks of Newfoundland, for he had done duty
-as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his
-youth, why did he gossip at the stile now in his full
-and prime of manhood?</p>
-
-<p>It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even
-then only those who have lived in the country and
-had practical experience could fully comprehend
-the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you
-are of a wholly sordid nature. Iden's nature was not
-sordid; the very reverse. The beginning, or one
-of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father
-and son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden
-could not forgive his son for making the place
-beautiful with trees and flowers.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and
-they had supper on the old and clumsy table, village
-made and unpolished, except in so far as the stains
-of cooking operations had varnished it, the same
-table at which "Jearje," the fogger, sat every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
-morning to eat his breakfast, and every evening to
-take his supper. What matter? George worked
-hard and honestly all day, his great arms on the
-table, spread abroad as he ate, did not injure it.</p>
-
-<p>Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the
-snow without, floury and smoking; dabs of Mrs.
-Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and pepper, and
-there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
-pleasant&mdash;just a taste.</p>
-
-<p>They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts,
-sometimes a Flamma from London, sometimes
-an Iden from over the hill, or others were
-there. Iden was very hospitable&mdash;though most of
-his guests (family connections) were idle folk, no
-good to themselves or anybody, still they were
-made cordially welcome. But others, very high
-folk, socially speaking (for they had good connections,
-too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
-grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves
-most thoroughly on the rude Homeric fare.</p>
-
-<p>For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an
-open-handed generosity, a sense of reality about it;
-something really to eat, though no finger-glasses;
-Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it
-was the very centre of home. This strange man,
-this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her dearest
-emotions. His shadow remained on the wall
-though he had gone.</p>
-
-<p>They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it
-was weeks before the kitchen seemed to resume its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
-former appearance. Jearje was the one who restored
-it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily
-at breakfast and at supper, it almost made them
-forget their troubles to see anyone so grateful and
-pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you,
-ma'am; dest about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"&mdash;locally
-the "d" and "j" were often interchangable,
-dest for jest, or just&mdash;"That'll be a' plenty
-for I, ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"&mdash;don't
-want more than I can eat, don't want to be greedy&mdash;"Thank
-you, miss; dest about some ripping
-good ale, this yer; that it be."</p>
-
-<p>He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the
-bacon, and the cheese, and the ale; he was like a
-great, big human dog; you know how we like to
-see a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his
-paws on our knees and laugh, as it were, with his
-eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
-women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him
-all the bones, literally and metaphorically, the actual
-bones of the meat, and any scraps there were, to
-take home with him (besides his regular meals),
-and now and then some trifles of clothing for his
-aged mother. The dog most thoroughly appreciated
-this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in it,
-grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.</p>
-
-<p>Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of
-doors, and for much the same reason; his cheery
-content and willingness, and the absence of the
-usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked
-willingly and fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
-another hour, or put his shoulder to the wheel of
-his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
-and not one minded to take advantage of him, was
-rewarded in many ways. Iden did not reduce his
-wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
-and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes,
-garden produce, or apples, and various other
-things from time to time.</p>
-
-<p>Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition,
-Jearje was more like a retainer than a servant,
-or labourer; a humble member of the family.</p>
-
-<p>It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and
-Mrs. Iden used often to watch him covertly, just
-for the amusement it gave them. He went about
-it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to
-plough; no attempt to caracole in the furrow, ready
-to stand still as long as you like.</p>
-
-<p>Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of
-beef; fat of mutton&mdash;anything they could not
-finish in the sitting-room; the overplus of cabbage
-or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices
-of bread and cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins
-full of tea&mdash;the cups were not large enough&mdash;and
-pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no
-matter what, Jearje ate steadily through it.</p>
-
-<p>A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden
-happened to want anything from the town ever so
-late, though George had worked hard the long day
-through from half-past five in the morning, off he
-would start, without sign of demur, five miles there
-and back, and come in singing with his burden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>There are such, as George still among the labourer
-class, in despite of the change of circumstance and
-sentiment, men who would be as faithful as the
-faithfullest retainer who ever <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'acccompanied'">accompanied</ins> a
-knight of old time to the Crusade. But, observe,
-for a good man there must be a good master.
-Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot
-that his man was not a piece of mechanism, but
-flesh and blood and feelings.</p>
-
-<p>Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong
-arms abroad on the oaken table, warming his
-heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
-cheery word and smile, by his constant presence
-there slowly wore away the impression of the
-bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be itself
-again.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 107px;">
-<img src="images/i-017.png" width="107" height="135" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-061.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 122px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="122" height="120" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>UT all these shocks and worries and
-trampling upon her emotions made the
-pencil tremble in the artist's hand as
-she worked in the gaunt garret.</div>
-
-<p>One day, as she was returning from
-Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from whom he had
-borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse,
-and began to talk to her in his perky, affected,
-silly way. Of all the fools in Woolhorton town
-there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this
-namby-pamby fellow&mdash;it was wonderful how a man
-of Iden's intelligence could trust his affairs to such
-a man, the more so as there was at least one good
-lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of
-the farming race; they will work like negroes in
-the field, and practise the utmost penury to save a
-little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest
-miser, and then go and trust their most important
-affairs to some perfect fool of a solicitor. His
-father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
-with the firm, had a reputation about the era of
-Waterloo, and upon this tradition they carry their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
-business to a man whom they admit themselves
-"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way,
-or worse, for there is no tradition even in this case,
-they will consign a hundred pounds' worth of milk
-to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent,
-a man of straw for aught they know, and never so
-much as go up to town to see if there is such a
-milk business in existence.</p>
-
-<p>This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about
-her father. "Now, don't you think, Miss Iden,
-you could speak to your father about these money
-matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he
-really is (the jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll
-be pounded. Now, don't you think you could talk
-to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"</p>
-
-<p>The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis
-more than the rudeness of the gruff baker who
-forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
-contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her
-father to be practical! The cleverest man in the
-world&mdash;advise him to be practical; as if, indeed,
-he was not practical and hard-working to the very
-utmost.</p>
-
-<p>To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil
-trembled in her hand.</p>
-
-<p>But what shook it most of all was anxiety about
-her mother. Ever since the bailiff's intrusion Mrs.
-Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
-would come downstairs after the rest had retired,
-and sit by the dying fire for hours alone, till Iden
-chanced to wake, and go down for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Once she went out of doors very late, leaving
-the front door wide open, and Amaryllis found her
-at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
-the ricks.</p>
-
-<p>At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes,
-and did not seem to see what she gazed at. At
-others she would begin to cry without cause, and
-gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma
-family were liable to certain affections of that kind,
-and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's system had
-been overstrained by these continual worries.</p>
-
-<p>Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried
-enough to have shaken the strongest; and, having
-nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon her.</p>
-
-<p>After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish,
-and Amaryllis hoped that nothing would come of it,
-but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety lest
-some fresh trouble should happen to renew the
-strain.</p>
-
-<p>When she thought of her mother she could not
-draw&mdash;the sound of her shuffling, nervous footstep
-on the landing or the path outside under the
-window stopped her at once. These things disheartened
-her a thousand times more than the returned
-sketches the postman was always bringing.</p>
-
-<p>On butter-making mornings, once a week, there
-was always a great to-do; Mrs. Iden, like nervous
-people, was cross and peevish when she was exceptionally
-busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose.
-It chanced that Amaryllis one day was just
-opening an envelope and taking out a returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
-drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from
-Mrs. Iden's tongue, and, seeing the letter, began
-to growl:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire,
-and zee if you can't help your mother. Better do
-zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't a
-boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph!
-humph!" growl, mutter, growl. "Drow" was
-local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn"
-for earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may
-not be able to follow him.</p>
-
-<p>The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool
-stuff, contrasted with the benefit and advantage of
-earning something&mdash;something real and solid&mdash;hit
-the artist very hard. That was the thought that
-troubled her so much, and paralysed her imagination.
-They were unsaleable&mdash;she saw the worthlessness
-of them far more than Iden. They were
-less in value than the paper on which they were
-traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire only.</p>
-
-<p>That was the very thought that troubled her so,
-and Iden hit the nail home with his rude speech.
-That was the material view; unless a thing be
-material, or will fetch something material, it is good
-for the fire only.</p>
-
-<p>So it came about that the portfolio was pushed
-aside, and dust gathered on it, and on the pencils,
-and the india-rubber, and in the little box of vine
-charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets
-in the tumbler of water in the window niche, sat
-down at the table and leant her head on her hand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
-and tried to think what she could do, as she had
-thought these many, many days.</p>
-
-<p>The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so
-real. Nothing in all the world at these moments
-seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
-round disk of gold which rules everything. The
-good that she could do with it&mdash;with just one of
-those golden disks!</p>
-
-<p>Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished
-scholar, the late Mr. Chenery (of <i>The Times</i>),
-translated twenty-six of his poems from the Arabic,
-and added most interesting notes. This curious
-book is a fusion of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes,
-and Rabelais. There is the magical unexpectedness
-of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities,
-all is vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of
-the French satirist. Wisdom is scattered about it;
-at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
-the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently
-laugh at a deep jest.</p>
-
-<p>Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because
-he sang of the dinar, the Arabian sovereign, the
-double-faced dinar, the reverse and the obverse,
-head and tail, one side giving everything good, and
-the other causing all evil. For the golden disk
-has two sides, and two Fates belong to it. First
-he chants its praises:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,<br />
-Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.<br />
-Told abroad are its fame and repute:<br />
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;<br />
-Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;<br />
-Its bright look is loved by mankind,<br />
-As though it had been molten of their hearts.<br />
-By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,<br />
-Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.<br />
-Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;<br />
-Charming are its sufficiency and help.<br />
-How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!<br />
-How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it, would be endless!<br />
-How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!<br />
-How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!<br />
-How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,<br />
-Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has softened.<br />
-How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,<br />
-Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.<br />
-Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,<br />
-Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer
-exactly to this poem of the Arabian written in the
-days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure, it
-travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as
-here, it is famous and has a reputation, the inscription
-on it is the mark of its worth, it is the sinew
-of war, the world loves its brightness as if it was
-coined from their hearts, those who have it in their
-purses are bold, it helps every one who has it, it
-banishes all cares, and one might say, were it not for
-fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all mighty.</p>
-
-<p>All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis
-thinking in her garret, leaning her head on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
-hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
-good&mdash;if only she could get the real solid, golden
-sovereign!</p>
-
-<p>But the golden coin has another side&mdash;the obverse&mdash;another
-Fate, for evil, clinging to it, and
-the poet, changing his tone, thunders:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,<br />
-The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!<br />
-It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it,<br />
-The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.<br />
-Affection for it, think they who judge truly,<br />
-Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.<br />
-But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;<br />
-Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;<br />
-Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;<br />
-Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that withholds;<br />
-Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.<br />
-Moreover the worst quality that it possesses<br />
-Is that it helps thee not in straits,<br />
-Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.<br />
-Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,<br />
-And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a lover,<br />
-Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,<br />
-"I have no mind for intimacy with thee,&mdash;begone!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to
-this day, and could Amaryllis have obtained the
-sovereign, still it would only have helped her by passing
-from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
-fleeing like a runaway slave.</p>
-
-<p>But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of
-her father and mother, saw only the good side of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
-the golden sovereign, only that it was all powerful
-to bless.</p>
-
-<p>How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that
-young and fresh and full of generous feelings as
-she was, her whole mind should perforce be taken
-up with the question of money; an unnatural and
-evil state of things.</p>
-
-<p>It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 141px;">
-<img src="images/i-018.png" width="141" height="285" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-044.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside
-and dust had gathered on the table, except
-where her arm touched it, Amaryllis
-came daily, and often twice a day,
-to her flowers to pray.</div>
-
-<p>From the woods she brought the delicate primrose
-opening on the mossy bank among the grey
-ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of hawthorn
-coming before the swallow; the garden
-crocus from the grass of the garden; the first green
-spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the beautiful
-white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April
-morning while the nightingale sang.</p>
-
-<p>With these she came to pray each day, at the
-window-niche. After she had sat awhile at the
-table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt
-at the window with her face in her hands; the scent
-of the violets filled her hair.</p>
-
-<p>Her prayer was deeper than words and was not
-put in language, but came rushing through her
-heart;&mdash;"That her dear mother might not suffer any
-more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
-removed from her mind, that peace and rest might
-come to her in her old age. Let her step become
-firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes
-shine like they used to, so clear and bright, and do
-not let the grey hairs show more than they do
-now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be
-happy and talk cheerfully, and take an interest in
-the house and all the order of household things,
-and also see and understand that her husband
-meant to please her, even in such a little thing as
-splitting up useful wood for the fire, that he intended
-to please her, and that she might not misunderstand
-him any more. He intended to be
-kind in many ways, but misfortune had blinded her,
-and she took things the wrong way. And give
-her more change and friends to ask her out from
-home on visits, so that she might be amused, and
-make them come to see her and pass the time in
-contentment. Give her also enough money to buy
-good clothes so as to look nice as she ought to
-do, and if possible a conveyance of some kind&mdash;not
-a grand carriage, she did not wish for that&mdash;but a
-conveyance to drive about now and then, because
-she was not so strong as she used to be, and could
-not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let
-me be able to give her a watch, for other people
-have watches, and my mother has not got one, and
-it does seem so strange it should be so after all the
-hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some
-nice things to eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot
-eat our plain bacon now every day, she has not got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
-an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I should
-so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her
-food might do her more good. But what I really
-want is that she may be happy, and be like my mother
-herself really is when she is herself. Give my
-father money enough to pay his creditors, for I know
-that though he is so quiet and says nothing, these
-debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
-to pay them, and does not willingly keep them
-waiting. He is so patient, and so good, and bears
-everything, I am sure no one was ever like him, and
-it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every
-day from five o'clock in the morning, and yet to be
-always worried with these debts and people that
-will not let him have peace one single day. Do,
-please, let him have less work to do, it makes
-me miserable to see him in the rain, and he is not
-young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy
-things, great pieces of timber and large trusses of
-hay, and making his back ache digging. Surely
-it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
-he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can
-see quite so well as he used to, because he holds the
-paper so close to his eyes. Please let him leave
-off working soon now and have some rest and
-change, and go about with my mother, and when
-he is at home not have anything more to do than
-his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him
-love the flowers again as he used to, and plant some
-more, and have nothing harder to do than to gather
-the fruit from the trees he has planted. And let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
-me get him some new books to read, because I
-know he is so fond of books; he has not had a new
-book for so long. Let him go to London and see
-people and things, and life, because I know he is
-full of ideas and thoughts though he works and
-digs, and that is what would do him good. Give
-him some money now at last, now he has worked all
-these years, forty years on this farm, and ever so
-much work before that; do give him some money
-at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and
-not so harsh for the rent, let him give the place to
-my father now, for it can be no use to him; let my
-father have it for his very own, and then I think he
-would be happy after all, he does so like to improve
-things and make them beautiful, and if it was his
-very own there is so much that he could do. That
-would be nice work and work that he would enjoy
-doing, and not just to get a few wretched shillings
-to pay other people. I am sure he would never be
-cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
-and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody
-like him, as you know, in this place; they are not
-clever like him, and good to the labouring men and
-their families like he is (and so is my mother too);
-they are so rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do
-not mean anything against them, but they are not
-like he is. And if you were to help him he would
-soon help the poor people and give them food and
-more wages; you know how good he is in his heart.
-And he would do it, not because other people should
-praise him, but because he would like to do it; if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
-he does not go to church his heart is very true, and
-it is because he likes to be true and genuine, and
-not make any false show. Do, please, help him,
-and give him some money, and do, please, let him
-have this place for his very own, for I do so fear lest
-those who set my grandfather against him, should
-have a will made, so that my father should not have
-this house and land as he ought to do, as the son.
-He has made it so beautiful with trees, and brought
-the fresh spring water up to the house, and done
-so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it
-is home to him, and no other place could be like it.
-I think it would kill him not to have it, and for me,
-I should be so&mdash;I cannot tell, I should be so miserable
-if he did not, but I will not think of myself.
-There are so many things I know he wants to do if
-only he was not so worried with debts, and if he
-could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
-copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have
-trout in it, and to build a wall by the rick-yard.
-Think how my dear father has worked all these
-years, and do help him now, and give him some
-money, and this place, and please do not let him
-grow any more grey than his hair is now, and save
-his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
-and please make my mother happy with him."</p>
-
-<p>When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face
-was quite white, emotion had taken away her colour,
-and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a little
-while by the table to recover herself, still thinking,
-and remembered that again last night she had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
-dreamed the same dream about fire in the thatch.
-Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
-and they ran out of doors and found the corner of
-the roof on fire, over the window with the wire network
-instead of glass. It ran up from the corner
-towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by
-the ridge. There was no flame, but a deep red
-seething heat, as if the straw burned inwardly, and
-was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed
-to lie in the furious heat, and a light to flicker up
-and down, as if it breathed fire. The thatch was
-very thick there, she knew, and recollected it quite
-well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two
-thick coats in his time, and it was heavy enough
-before then. He talked about the thatching of it,
-because it was an argument with him that straw
-had a great power of endurance, and was equal to
-slates for lasting. This thickness, she saw, was
-the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and
-why, fortunately, it was slow in moving up the
-roof. It had not yet eaten through, so that there
-was no draught&mdash;once it got through, it would burn
-fast&mdash;if only they could put it out before then all
-might yet be saved. In the midst of her anxiety
-Iden came with the largest ladder in the rickyard,
-and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She
-tried to follow, holding on to the rungs of the
-ladder with one hand, and dragging up a heavy
-bucket with the other&mdash;the strain and effort to get
-up woke her.</p>
-
-<p>This dream had happened to her so many times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
-and was so vivid and circumstantial&mdash;the fire
-seemed to glow in the thatch&mdash;that at last she
-began to dread lest it should come true. If it did
-not come true of the house itself, perhaps it would
-of the family, and of their affairs; perhaps it signified
-that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
-would burn them, as it were, to the ground.
-She tried to think whether in the dream they were
-getting the fire under before she woke, or whether
-they could not master it; it seemed dubious.</p>
-
-<p>She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid
-lest it might excite her again; nor could she tell
-Iden, who would have laughed at her.</p>
-
-<p>Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and
-dreams have ceased to come true, she did not like
-it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable danger
-was threatening round about. As she sat at the
-table she added to her prayer the supplication that
-the dear old house might not be burned down.</p>
-
-<p>Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on
-the lower flight paused, to listen to voices&mdash;not
-those of her mother and Iden&mdash;creditors, doubtless,
-come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"&mdash;the
-very sum and total of religion. Her heart
-beat quicker&mdash;the voices came again, and she
-thought she recognized them, and that they were
-not those of creditors. She entered the sitting-room,
-and found that two visitors, from widely
-separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau,
-the other with an old, many-coloured
-carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from Iden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
-Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they
-were called, and Alere Flamma, from London; the
-Flammas were carpet-bag people.</p>
-
-<p>Her father was making them very welcome, after
-his wont, and they were talking of the house the
-Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot, expressly
-in order that they might drink, drink, drink <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'undiddisturbed'">undisturbed</ins>
-by their unreasonable wives.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 184px;">
-<img src="images/i-015.png" width="184" height="225" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-046.png" width="500" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 121px;">
-<img src="images/t.png" width="121" height="120" alt="T" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>HEY talked on and on, these three,
-Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
-with Amaryllis listening, from the end
-of April till near the end of May; till
-"a month passed away," and still they
-were talking. For there is nothing so good to the
-human heart as well agreed conversation, when you
-know that your companion will answer to your
-thought as the anvil meets the hammer, ringing
-sound to merry stroke; better than wine, better
-than sleep, like love itself&mdash;for love is agreement
-of thought&mdash;"God listens to those who pray to
-him; let us eat and drink, and think of nothing,"
-says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and drank&mdash;very
-moderate the drinking&mdash;and thought of
-nothing, and talked, which should be added to complete
-felicity. Not, of course, all of them always
-together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere,
-Amadis, and Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.</div>
-
-<p>The round summer-house was their Parliament
-House whenever the east winds sank and the flowers
-shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
-the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds
-cease the May flowers immediately bloom and glow.</p>
-
-<p>It was a large round house, properly builded of
-brick, as a summer-house should be&mdash;put not thy
-faith in lath work&mdash;and therefore dry and warm;
-to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and
-comfortable, with a sea of meadow-grass, smooth
-and coloured, stretching in front, islanded about
-with oak, and elm, and ash.</p>
-
-<p>The finches came to the boughs that hung over
-the ivy-grown thatch, and sang in the sycamore
-opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
-bloom hung down almost to the ground.</p>
-
-<p>These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung
-sackfuls of bloom at his feet. They poured themselves
-out in abandoned, open-armed, spendthrift,
-wasteful&mdash;perfectly prodigal&mdash;quantities of rose-tinted
-petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to
-the brim, never questioning but what there will be
-plenty of water to follow.</p>
-
-<p>Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring
-up wherever Iden set down his foot: fruit and
-flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
-his genius to make things grow&mdash;like sunshine and
-shower; a sort of Pan, a half-god of leaves and
-boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature in
-human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and
-Beauty.</p>
-
-<p>One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush,
-Iden had set it there; he builded the summer-house
-and set the ivy; and the pippin at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
-back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch
-near by; the great sycamore alone had been there
-before him, but he set a seat under it, and got
-woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he
-planted, and if Amaryllis stood under it when
-the tree was in full leaf you could not see her,
-it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak
-in the corner; the box hedge along the ha-ha
-parapet; the red currants against the red wall; the
-big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the
-yellow honey-bush; all these, and this was but one
-square, one mosaic of the garden, half of it sward,
-too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch
-at one corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs,
-lavender, parsley, which has a very pleasant green,
-growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage&mdash;read
-Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage&mdash;ask
-Nature if you wish to know how many things
-more there were.</p>
-
-<p>A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing
-in, listening to the goldfinches, and watching them
-carry up the moss, and lichen, and slender fibres
-for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to
-the swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on
-the sharp, high top of the pear tree; to the vehement
-starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
-Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink,
-chink," thrushes, distant blackbirds, who like oaks;
-"cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake," buzzing and
-burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then
-a neigh, to remind you that there were horses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
-fulness and richness of musical sound; a world of
-grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.</p>
-
-<p>When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines
-above, and the flowers beneath, "a summer's day
-in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
-Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped
-out of the pocket of Iden's ragged old coat.</p>
-
-<p>There was a magic power of healing in the influences
-of this place which Iden had created. Both
-Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed
-for the better.</p>
-
-<p>That morning when Amaryllis had found them,
-just arrived, the one with a portmanteau, and the
-other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to
-the last degree of paleness.</p>
-
-<p>Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed
-at Coombe Oaks before, when Amaryllis was thirteen
-and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
-great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water,
-walking over the hills, exploring the woods;
-Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis going
-with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats.
-They were of the same stock of Idens, yet no relations;
-he was of the older branch, Amaryllis of the
-younger.</p>
-
-<p>She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden
-into a man.</p>
-
-<p>Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him,
-she could scarce believe he was the same; so pale,
-so thin, so drooping, and fireless&mdash;the spark of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
-sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table
-that morning like a ghost. He was convalescent
-from low fever: that dread disease which has
-taken the place of ague in the country. At one
-time it was ague; in these times it is low fever.</p>
-
-<p>At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness
-in a far-off way, but had received no distinct particulars,
-for the news came in a roundabout way
-by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The
-distance between the two houses was less than ten
-miles, and might as well have been five hundred
-for all the communication.</p>
-
-<p>So that the ghastly paleness of his face came
-upon her as a spectre in daylight. You could see
-at a glance what was wrong&mdash;the vital energy had
-been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch
-broken, or bark scored, fades and withers from the
-lack of the mysterious force which brings forth
-fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body&mdash;the
-tree&mdash;was there, but the life was not in it.</p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was
-pale from other causes, and it was a different kind
-of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis, but
-something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state.
-Too much Fleet Street, in short; too much of the
-Oracle&mdash;Pantagruel's Oracle of the Bottle.</p>
-
-<p>His hands shook as he held his knife and fork&mdash;oddly
-enough, the hands of great genius often do
-shake; now and then when he put his glass to his
-lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
-could hold a pencil, and draw delicate lines without
-a flaw.</p>
-
-<p>Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands
-that tremble nearly as much&mdash;the nervous constitution&mdash;and
-yet execute artists' work of rare excellence.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution,
-naturally nervous, had been shaken as with dynamite
-by the bottle, and the glass chinked against
-his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt
-himself toppling over like a tree half sawn through,
-Alere packed his carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe
-Oaks. When the rats began to run up the wall as
-he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
-into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.</p>
-
-<p>In London he never wore a collar, only a bright
-red scarf round his neck; the company he kept
-would have shunned him&mdash;they would have looked
-him up and down disdainfully:&mdash;"Got a collar on&mdash;had
-no breakfast." They would have scornfully
-regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
-class above all others scorned by those who use
-tools.</p>
-
-<p>"Got a collar on&mdash;had no breakfast." The City
-clerk, playing the Masher on thirty shillings a
-week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.</p>
-
-<p>Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used
-hammer, and file, or set up type&mdash;a godless set, ye
-gods, how godless, these setters up of type at four
-o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.;
-special taverns they must have open for them&mdash;open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
-before Aurora gleams in the east&mdash;Oh! Fleet
-Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!</p>
-
-<p>By no possible means could Alere work himself
-into a dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>Could he have followed the celebrated advice&mdash;"You
-put on a dress-coat and go into society"&mdash;he
-would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
-of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.</p>
-
-<p>To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed,
-too, of the still rarer talent&mdash;the taste to see what
-to draw&mdash;there really is no limit in our days; for
-as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour
-in an age of dinginess&mdash;why, the point, nowadays,
-is to avoid colour, and in a whole Academy you
-shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
-sealing-wax.</p>
-
-<p>"You put on a black coat and go into society"&mdash;that
-is the secret of commissions, and commissions
-are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way of
-advice has been sent forth as that remark. The
-great Tichborne said something about folk that had
-money and no brains, and folk that had brains but
-no money; and they as has no brains ought to be
-so managed as to supply money to those who had.
-But even the greatness of the great Tichborne's
-observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield
-in one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go
-into society."</p>
-
-<p>What are the sayings of the seven wise men of
-Greece compared to <i>that</i>?</p>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/b.png" width="120" height="122" alt="B" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>Y no possible means could Alere Flamma
-work himself into a dress coat.
-The clubs, the houses of the great, the
-mutual admiration dinners&mdash;those great
-institutions of the day&mdash;were all closed
-to him because of the Dress Coat.</div>
-
-<p>If he had really desired to enter, of course he
-would have squeezed into the evening monkey-skin
-somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to enter.</p>
-
-<p>Inside he might have finished a portrait a month
-at a thousand guineas&mdash;twelve portraits per annum
-equals twelve thousand guineas a year; you see I
-am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory
-to going into the tallow trade.</p>
-
-<p>What he actually did was to make designs for
-book-covers&mdash;magnificent book-covers that will one
-day fetch their weight in bank-notes&mdash;manipulating
-a good deal of it himself&mdash;"tooling"&mdash;for the
-libraries of noble connoisseurs. They were equal
-to anything ever done in Paris.</p>
-
-<p>For a week's work&mdash;say half-an-hour a day&mdash;he
-got perhaps about ten pounds. With the ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
-pounds he was satisfied&mdash;ten pounds represents a
-good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about
-as much as one man can manage at a bout; besides
-tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and innumerable
-trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good
-deal of street life.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes he drew&mdash;and engraved&mdash;illustrations
-for books, being as clever with the engraver's tools
-as with the pencil; sometimes he cut out those
-odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials,"
-which are now so commonly seen in publications,
-catching the classical grotesque of the Renaissance
-to perfection, and deceiving the experienced; sometimes
-he worked in the press-room in the House of
-Flamma, Fleet Street, pulling artists' proofs, or
-printing expensively illustrated volumes&mdash;numbered,
-and the plates destroyed&mdash;actual manual work, in
-his shirt sleeves.</p>
-
-<p>He could stop when he liked and take a swig of
-stout. That was the Alere style.</p>
-
-<p>Smoking was forbidden in the old House of
-Flamma because of the worm-eaten beams, the
-worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty, decayed
-bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the
-thin wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at
-the mere sight of a match. Also because of the
-piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
-looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were
-worth thousands of pounds; the plates and lithographic
-stones, artists' proofs, divers and sundry
-Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But Alere, being a son of the house, though not
-in command, did not choose to be amenable to rules
-and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He smoked
-and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a
-certain step was known to be approaching the
-pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry glue set
-melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the
-flavour of tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is
-used in London in this way.</p>
-
-<p>If I could but write the inside history of Fleet
-Street, I should be looked upon as the most wonderful
-exponent of human life that had ever touched
-a pen. Balzac&mdash;whom everybody talks of and
-nobody has read, because the discrimination of
-Paternoster Row has refused him a translation till
-quite lately&mdash;Zola, who professes to be realistic,
-who is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings
-are so curiously crude and merely skim the surface;
-even the great Hugo, who produced the masterpiece
-of all fiction, <i>Les Mis&eacute;rables</i>; all three of
-them, the entire host of manuscript-makers, I am
-sure I could vanquish them all, if I could only
-write the inside life of Fleet Street.</p>
-
-<p>Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of
-diction, but just pencil-jotted in the roughest words
-to hand, just as rich and poor, well-dressed ladies
-and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
-without choice of language, but hustling the first
-words anyhow, as it were, into the first compartment.
-If I could only get Alere to tell me all he had
-seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
-margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would
-laugh and weep. For such things do go on in Fleet
-Street as no man has written yet.</p>
-
-<p>If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!</p>
-
-<p>Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves,
-swigging his stout, smoking on the sly,
-working with all the genius of an inspired mechanic
-one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the
-next, spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of
-work, as if his very life depended on the smoothing
-of an edge of paper, putting off the next till the
-end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping,
-dreaming over old German works, and especially
-dreaming over Goethe, humming old German
-songs&mdash;for he had been a great traveller&mdash;sometimes
-scrawling a furious Mazzinian onslaught in a
-semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting stray engravings,
-wandering hither and thither.</p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur,
-traveller, printer, Republican, conspirator,
-sot, smoker, dreamer, poet, kind-hearted, good-natured,
-prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
-carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.</p>
-
-<p>He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout,
-but nothing vulgar had ever been recorded against
-Alere Flamma. He frequented strong company&mdash;very
-strong meat&mdash;but no vile word left his
-lips.</p>
-
-<p>There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst
-of the coarsest surroundings, just as he appeared in
-the press-room among the printer's ink in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
-whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
-abhorred dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally
-hundreds of sketches, done on all sorts and sizes of
-paper, from the inside of an envelope hastily torn
-open to elephant. The bureau was full of them,
-crammed in anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged;
-nothing, of course, could be found if it was wanted.
-The drawers of the bookcase&mdash;it was his own furniture&mdash;were
-full of them; the writing-table drawer;
-a box in one corner; some were on the mantelpiece
-smoked and gritty; some inside his books, most of
-which were interleaved in this manner; literally
-hundreds of sketches, the subjects as numerous and
-varied.</p>
-
-<p>Views in English country lanes, views on the
-Danube, bands playing in band-loving Vienna, old
-Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury Cathedral,
-statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with
-the north wind in the North Sea&mdash;a savage fight
-between sail and gale&mdash;horses in the meadow, an
-aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners
-in the Black Forest, studies from the nude&mdash;Parisian
-models, Jewesses, almost life-size, a drayman
-heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
-like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs
-to illustrate classical mythology, outlines expressing
-the ideas of Goethe&mdash;outlines of Marguerite and
-Faust among the roses&mdash;"He loves me; he loves
-me not," big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts
-as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was deep in the song,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
-roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
-their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere
-had a bullet through his hat, in Vienna, I think;
-no end to them.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a
-month or two, and his ten pounds were spent, if he
-wanted a few guineas he would take a small selection
-of these round to the office of a certain illustrated
-paper; the Editor would choose, and hand
-over the money at once, well aware that it was
-ready money his friend needed. They were not
-exactly friends&mdash;there are no friends in London,
-only acquaintances&mdash;but a little chummy, because
-the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and they
-had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper
-that ever got sketches out of Alere.</p>
-
-<p>If only Alere would have gone and sketched what
-he was <i>asked</i> to sketch! Ah! there is the difference;
-he could not do it, his nature would not
-let him; he could draw what he saw with his own
-eyes, but not what other people wanted him to see.
-A merry income he might have made if he would
-only have consented to see what other eyes&mdash;common,
-vulgar eyes&mdash;wanted to see, and which he
-could so easily have drawn for them.</p>
-
-<p>Out of these piles of varied sketches there were
-two kinds the Editor instantly snapped at: the one
-was wild flowers, the other little landscape bits.</p>
-
-<p>Wild flowers were his passion. They were to
-Flamma as Juliet to Romeo. Romeo's love, indeed,
-rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
-flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps
-he might not have worshipped Juliet next year.
-Flamma had loved his wild flowers close upon forty
-years, ever since he could remember; most likely
-longer, for doubtless the dumb infant loved the
-daisies put in his chubby hand.</p>
-
-<p>His passion they were still as he drew near fifty,
-and saw all things become commonplace. That is
-the saddest of thoughts&mdash;as we grow older the
-romance fades, and all things become commonplace.</p>
-
-<p>Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow,
-the other half in wishing for yesterday.</p>
-
-<p>Wild flowers alone never become commonplace.
-The white wood-sorrel at the foot of the oak, the
-violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on the
-wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as
-last, as dear to-day as twenty years since, even
-dearer, for they grow now, as it were, in the earth
-we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers,
-our emotions, our thoughts.</p>
-
-<p>Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room
-was full of wild flowers, drawn as he had found
-them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks&mdash;by
-the footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on
-the hills&mdash;as he had found them, not formed into
-an artificial design, not torn up by the roots, or
-cut and posed for the occasion&mdash;exactly as they
-were when his eye caught sight of them. A difficult
-thing to do, but Alere did it.</p>
-
-<p>In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
-magazines usually make one of two mistakes; either
-the flower is printed without any surroundings or
-background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
-however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented
-with a heavy black pall of ink which dabs it out
-altogether.</p>
-
-<p>These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the
-little landscapes. From a stile, beside a rick,
-through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected places,
-Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood,
-groups of trees, old houses, and got them in his
-magical way on a few square inches of paper. They
-were very valuable for book illustration. They
-were absolutely true to nature and fact.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 192px;">
-<img src="images/i-052.png" width="192" height="150" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-051.png" width="500" height="88" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 117px;">
-<img src="images/p.png" width="117" height="120" alt="P" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ERHAPS the reason Alere never took
-to colours was because of his inherent
-and unswerving truthfulness of character.
-Genuine to a degree, he could
-not make believe&mdash;could not deceive&mdash;could
-not masquerade in a dress-coat.</div>
-
-<p>Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue
-to-day is nature in a dress-coat.</p>
-
-<p>In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole
-Academy, or Grosvenor Gallery you shall hardly
-find three works that represent any real scene in
-the fields.</p>
-
-<p>I have walked about the fields a good deal in my
-brief, fretful hour, yet I have never seen anything
-resembling the strange apparitions that are hung
-on these walls every spring. Apparitions&mdash;optical
-illusions, lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly,
-ghost-light&mdash;nothing like them on earth I swear,
-and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.</p>
-
-<p>Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place,
-a brook from another, a house from another&mdash;<i>and
-mixed to order</i>, like a prescription by the chemist&mdash;xv.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
-grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge.
-Nature never plants&mdash;nature is no gardener&mdash;no
-design, no proportion in the fields.</p>
-
-<p>Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may
-have noticed that the surface of the water in the
-ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum, a pale
-prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern
-landscape.</p>
-
-<p>How horrible the fields would look if they wore
-such hues in reality as are accepted on canvas at
-the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints transferred
-to the sward, the woods, the hills, the
-streams, the sky! <i>Dies ir&aelig;, dies ill&aelig;</i>&mdash;it would,
-indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day of Doom,
-and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane
-drawn before our eyes to shut it out of sight.</p>
-
-<p>There are some who can go near to paint dogs
-and horses, but a meadow of mowing grass, not one
-of them can paint that.</p>
-
-<p>Many can <i>draw</i> nature&mdash;drawings are infinitely
-superior generally to the painting that follows;
-scarce one now paints real nature.</p>
-
-<p>Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the
-dress-coat of sham colour for any sacred exhibition
-wall whatever.</p>
-
-<p>One thing Alere never attempted to draw&mdash;a
-bird in flight. He recognized that it was impossible;
-his taste rejected every conventional attitude
-that has been used for the purpose; the descending
-pigeon, the Japanese skewered birds, the swallow
-skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
-a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest,
-and done worst of all.</p>
-
-<p>How can you draw life itself? What is life? you
-cannot even define it. The swallow's wing has the
-motion of life&mdash;its tremble&mdash;its wonderful delicacy
-of vibration&mdash;the instant change&mdash;the slip of the
-air;&mdash;no man will ever be able to draw a flying
-swallow.</p>
-
-<p>At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis
-had sat much, from time to time, when the
-carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to his
-Baden-Baden&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom,
-singing finch, and wild-flowers.</p>
-
-<p>There were no "properties" in Alere's room at
-his lodgings; no odd bits collected during his
-wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
-realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No
-gauntlets or breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no
-Turkish guns or yataghans, no stags' horns, china,
-or carvings to be copied some day into an illustration.
-No "properties."</p>
-
-<p>No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes
-the key and tones the visitors' mind to "Art," the
-etchings, the wall or panel decorations, the sliding
-curtains, the easels in the corner, the great portfolios&mdash;the
-well-known "effects" were absent.</p>
-
-<p>A plain room, not even with a north light, plain
-old furniture, but not very old&mdash;not ostensibly
-ancient, somewhere about 1790 say&mdash;and this inherited
-and not purchased; Flamma cared not one
-atom for furniture, itself, old or new; dusty books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
-everywhere, under the table, on the mantelpiece,
-beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on
-the sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the
-two bookcases and drawers; odd books most of
-them, Cornelius Agrippa, <i>Le Petit Albert</i>, French
-illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for
-Flamma was fond of his many-keyed flute.</p>
-
-<p>Great people once now and then called and asked
-to see Alere Flamma at the business place in Fleet
-Street; people with titles, curiously out of place,
-in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of
-printer's ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking,
-partitions pasted over with illustrations and
-stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
-engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking
-to "His Excellency."</p>
-
-<p>Flamma's opinion, information he could give,
-things he knew; abroad they thought much of him.</p>
-
-<p>Presents came occasionally&mdash;a boar's head from
-Germany; fine Havana cigars&mdash;Alere always had a
-supply of the best cigars and Turkish tobacco, a
-perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English
-venison; once a curious dagger from Italy, the
-strangest present good-natured Alere could possibly
-have received!</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from
-a noble connoisseur to his country seat; Flamma's
-views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
-the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked
-up in a cover all too poor for its value, the building
-of another wing, for the artist is the true architect,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
-as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till
-the artist is called in we shall never again see real
-architecture in the world. Did not Benvenuto
-design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
-build St. Peter's at Rome?</p>
-
-<p>If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have
-it till he calls in the artist, the Alere Flamma,
-to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
-cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman,
-till he goes to Alere Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>Our so-called architects are mere surveyors,
-engineers, educated bricklayers, men of hard straight
-ruler and square, mathematically accurate, and
-utterly devoid of feeling.</p>
-
-<p>The princes of Italy knew better&mdash;they called in
-the poet and the painter, the dreamers to dream for
-them.</p>
-
-<p>You call in your "practical" architect, and he
-builds you a brick box; not for a hundred thousand
-pounds in fees could he build you a palace or a
-cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>The most ignorant of men are the "practical"
-people. It is meet and fitting that they should be
-worshipped and set on high. The calf worshipped
-of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.</p>
-
-<p>But Alere could not go; he would do anything
-he was asked in this way; he would take infinite
-pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet Street
-for any mansion.</p>
-
-<p>When a man once gets into Fleet Street he
-cannot get out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right
-thing to represent Alere as a great genius neglected,
-or as a genius destroyed by intemperance. The
-conventional type is so easy&mdash;so accepted&mdash;so
-popular; it would pay better, perhaps, to make
-him out a victim in some way.</p>
-
-<p>He was not neglected, neither was he the victim
-of intemperance in the usual sense.</p>
-
-<p>The way to fame and fortune had always been
-wide open to him; there were long intervals when
-he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
-it was not half so much to struggle against as the
-chest diseases from which professional men so often
-suffer; I believe if he had really tried or wished he
-could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither
-of these causes kept him from the foremost rank.</p>
-
-<p>There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice.
-So many who have no ideal are kept hard
-at work by the sheer desire of money, and thus
-spurred onward, achieve something approaching
-greatness. Alere did not care for money.</p>
-
-<p>He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten
-pounds was a large sum in the company he frequented;
-he did not want any more.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 62px;">
-<img src="images/i-019.png" width="62" height="62" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-036.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight
-those who once come within its influence.
-The cerebellum of the world,
-the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The
-thoughts of our time issue thence, like the radiating
-spokes of a wheel, to all places of the earth. There
-you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
-multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas
-come from Fleet Street.</div>
-
-<p>From the printing-press and the engraver's
-wood-block, the lithographic-stone, the etcher's
-plate, from book and magazine, periodical and
-pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.</p>
-
-<p>From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow
-outwards.</p>
-
-<p>It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it
-is sweet to be on the hill-top; delicious to feel the
-swell and the long roll of the hexameter of the
-seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit
-of the Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the
-African explorer at the river's source. But if once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
-the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
-meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so
-exalted, still to Fleet Street the mind will return,
-because there is that other Mind, without whose
-sympathy even success is nothing&mdash;the Mind of
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare,
-Fleet Street, but of all that the printing-press
-means.</p>
-
-<p>Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary
-to him to live and breathe in the atmosphere
-of thought&mdash;to feel the throb and swell around him&mdash;to
-be near the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain.</p>
-
-<p>Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get
-out. Flamma would not leave it for months of
-gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.</p>
-
-<p>The flame must be fed. His name had some
-connection with the design of the Roman lamp on
-the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the
-House of Flamma. <i>Alere Flammam</i>&mdash;feed the flame.
-The flame of the mind must be fed.</p>
-
-<p>Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street;
-if I could but get at it all to write the inside life of
-it, it would, indeed, be a book. Stone-cold poverty
-hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
-of money, think they know life, but they do not,
-for, as was said of the sea&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Only those who share its dangers<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Comprehend its mystery.</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Only those who have shared the struggle literally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
-for bread&mdash;for a real, actual loaf&mdash;understand the
-dread realities of man's existence.</p>
-
-<p>Let but a morsel of wood&mdash;a little splinter of
-deal, a curl of carpenter's shaving&mdash;lie in Fleet
-Street, and it draws to it the wretched human beasts
-as surely as the offal draws the beast of the desert
-to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that
-are paved with gold!</p>
-
-<p>It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll
-it in their aprons, clasping it tightly, lest it should
-somehow disappear. Prowling about from street
-to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
-these precious splinters of deal, for to those who
-are poor fuel is as life itself.</p>
-
-<p>Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill,
-especially of blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism),
-sometimes say they would rather go without
-food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.</p>
-
-<p>These women know where there are hoardings
-erected by builders, where shop-fronts are being
-rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
-alterations are proceeding; they know them as
-the birds know the places where they are likely
-to find food, and visit them day by day for the
-scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the
-pavement.</p>
-
-<p>Or they send their children, ragged urchins,
-battling for a knot of pine-wood.</p>
-
-<p>The terror of frost to these creatures is great
-indeed. Frost is the King of Terrors to them&mdash;not
-Death; they sleep and live with death constantly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
-the dead frequently in the room with the living,
-and with the unborn that is near birth.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's
-wife knew that Flamma, the drinker, would certainly
-give her the silver in his pocket.</p>
-
-<p>The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood,
-knew that they could charm the pennies and
-the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat; the baked
-potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice
-on the street stove.</p>
-
-<p>Wretched girls whose power of tempting had
-gone, and with it their means of subsistence,
-begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma.
-There are many of these wretches in Fleet Street.
-There is no romance about them to attract the
-charity of the world.</p>
-
-<p>Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a
-licence in the street, was charged by the police.
-How this harshness to the flower-girl&mdash;the human
-representation of Flora&mdash;roused up sentiment in
-her behalf!</p>
-
-<p>But not every starving girl has the fortune to
-rouse up sentiment and to be fed. Their faces disfigured
-with eruptions, their thin shoulders, their
-dry, disordered hair&mdash;hair never looks nice unless
-soft with its natural oil&mdash;their dingy complexions,
-their threadbare shawls, tempt no one. They cannot
-please, therefore they must starve.</p>
-
-<p>The good turn from them with horror&mdash;Are they
-not sin made manifest? The trembling hand of
-Alere fed them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are
-happy? It is curious that people should associate
-noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
-the boys that are gathered into institutions and
-training ships, are expected to bawl and shout
-their loudest at the annual f&ecirc;tes when visitors
-are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith
-feel assured that their lives are consequently
-joyous.</p>
-
-<p>Why then do they set fire to training ships?
-Why do they break out of reformatory institutions?
-Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet fatuous
-fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar
-of bawling.</p>
-
-<p>I have never walked up Fleet Street and the
-Strand yet without seeing a starving woman and
-child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
-unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts
-into the broader and more lively Strand&mdash;the ceaseless
-world pushes past&mdash;they play on the pavement
-unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with
-rags, their faces white and scarred with nameless
-disease, their eyes bleared, their hair dirty; little
-things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set
-on the table to see how they look.</p>
-
-<p>How <i>can</i> people pass without seeing them?</p>
-
-<p>Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat
-pocket.</p>
-
-<p>The rich folk round about this great Babylon of
-Misery, where cruel Want sits on the Seven Hills&mdash;make
-a cartoon of that!&mdash;the rich folk who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
-receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to
-the Bank of England on dividend days&mdash;how easily
-the well-oiled doors swing open for them!&mdash;who
-dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood,
-at Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks,
-wherever there is pure air, have distinguished
-themselves lately in the giving of alms, ordained
-by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday,
-clad in silk, scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned
-pews.</p>
-
-<p>They have established Homes for Lost Dogs
-and Homes for Lost Cats, neither of which are such
-nuisances as human beings.</p>
-
-<p>In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus
-specially designed by one of the leading
-scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
-claimed in a certain time, or that have become
-diseased&mdash;like the human nuisances&mdash;are put into
-this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of chamber,
-to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific
-vapour enters the chamber, and breathing this, the
-animal falls calmly to death, painlessly poisoned in
-peace.</p>
-
-<p>Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed
-"into eternity" in one season. Jubilant
-congratulations were exchanged at the success of
-the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning,
-hanging, vivisection, or starvation!</p>
-
-<p>Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of
-humanity indeed? To sell all you have and give
-to the poor was nothing compared to this. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
-have progressed since Anno Domini I. We know
-better how to do it now.</p>
-
-<p>Alere did not seem to trouble himself much
-about the dogs; he saw so much of the human
-nuisances.</p>
-
-<p>What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus
-like this in the workhouses and in conjunction
-with the hospitals!</p>
-
-<p>Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing
-all the day, that one out of every five people
-who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
-hospital?</p>
-
-<p>Eighty-two thousand people died in London in
-1882, and of these, fourteen thousand expired in
-the workhouses, and six thousand in hospitals!</p>
-
-<p>Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting
-up a few Apparatuses, see what an immense amount
-of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
-multitude of human nuisances would he "moved
-on!"</p>
-
-<p>The poor have a saying that none live long after
-they have been in a certain hospital. "He's been
-in that hospital&mdash;he won't live long." They carry
-out such wonderful operations there&mdash;human vivisections,
-but strictly painless, of course, under
-chloroform&mdash;true Christian chopping-up&mdash;still the
-folk do not live long when they come out.</p>
-
-<p>Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man
-must not die in peace. Starvation is for human
-nuisances.</p>
-
-<p>These rich folk dwelling round about the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
-Babylon of Misery, where Want sits on the Seven
-Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
-another invention. This is the organization of
-alms. Charity is so holy we will not leave it to
-chance&mdash;to the stray penny&mdash;we will organize it.
-The system is very simple: it is done by ticket.
-First you subscribe a few shillings to some organization,
-with its secretary, its clerks, its offices,
-board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive
-tickets.</p>
-
-<p>If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms,
-or a ragged boy, or a maimed man asks you for a
-"copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
-trouble and responsibility.</p>
-
-<p>The beggar can take the ticket to the "office"
-and get his case "investigated." After an inquiry,
-and an adjournment for a week; another inquiry,
-and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry,
-and a third adjournment, then, if he be of
-high moral character and highly recommended, he
-may get his dinner.</p>
-
-<p>One great advantage is conspicuous in this system:
-by no possible means can you risk giving a
-penny to a man not of high moral character, though
-he be perishing of starvation.</p>
-
-<p>If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone?
-Certainly not; give him a ticket.</p>
-
-<p>They did not understand how to do things in
-Judea Anno Domini I.</p>
-
-<p>This organization of charity saves such a lot of
-money: where people used to give away five pounds
-they now pay five shillings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you
-walk about with a clear conscience. No matter
-how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
-ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably
-and never think about them; your charity is organized.</p>
-
-<p>If the German thinkers had not found out twenty
-years ago that there was no Devil, one would be
-inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false, and
-abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a
-Satan.</p>
-
-<p>The organization of charity! The very nature
-of charity is spontaneousness.</p>
-
-<p>You should have heard Alere lash out about this
-business; he called it charity suppression.</p>
-
-<p>Have you ever seen London in the early winter
-morning, when the frost lies along the kerb, just
-melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey, bitter, stony
-London?</p>
-
-<p>Whatever <i>can</i> morning seem like to the starved
-and chilly wretches who have slept on the floor, and
-wake up to frost in Fleet Street?</p>
-
-<p>The pavements are covered with expectoration,
-indicating the chest diseases and misery that thousands
-are enduring. But I must not write too
-plainly; it would offend.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-020.png" width="150" height="43" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-053.png" width="500" height="85" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'> PRINTER in the office crawled under
-the bed of the machine to replace something&mdash;a
-nut that had dropped; it was
-not known that he was there; the
-crank came round and crushed him
-against the brickwork. The embrace of iron is death.</div>
-
-<p>Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed
-them when they were old enough.</p>
-
-<p>Ten pounds was enough for him&mdash;without ambition,
-and without business-avarice; ten pounds
-was enough for his Fleet Street life.</p>
-
-<p>It was not only the actual money he gave away,
-but the kindness of the man. Have you ever
-noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?&mdash;their
-elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and
-without flesh. Instead of the shirt-sleeve being
-turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
-thrust its way through.</p>
-
-<p>He always had something for them;&mdash;a plate of
-beef, soup, beer to be shared, apples, baked potatoes,
-now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars. Awful
-this, was it not? Printers' boys <i>will</i> smoke; they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
-had better have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile
-imitation they buy.</p>
-
-<p>They always had a tale for him; either their
-mothers, or sisters, or some one was in trouble;
-Flamma was certain to do something, however little
-might be within his power. At least he went to
-see.</p>
-
-<p>Had a man an income of a million he could not
-relieve the want of London; the wretch relieved to-day
-needs again to-morrow. But Alere went to see.</p>
-
-<p>Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a
-man without ambition, and without business-avarice,
-who went to see the unfortunate.</p>
-
-<p>His own palsied mother, at the verge of life,
-looked to Alere for all that the son can do for the
-parent. Other sons seemed more capable of such
-duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was
-the Man. And for those little luxuries and comforts
-that soothe the dull hours of trembling age she
-depended entirely upon him.</p>
-
-<p>So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied
-him were not all spent in drink.</p>
-
-<p>But alas! once now and then the rats began to
-run up the wall in broad daylight, and foolish Alere,
-wise in this one thing, immediately began to pack
-his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers,
-his sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving
-tools, and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted
-flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
-packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his
-Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
-apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
-leaves.</p>
-
-<p>They sat and talked in the round summer-house in
-Iden's garden, with the summer unfolding at their
-knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.</p>
-
-<p>By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of
-the Goliath ale, and between his lips there was a
-long churchwarden pipe.</p>
-
-<p>The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his
-gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate liquor; better by far
-than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far
-than mud baths and hot springs. There is no
-medicine in nature, or made by man, like good ale.
-He who drinks ale is strong.</p>
-
-<p>The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to
-his nervous system, to the much-suffering liver, to
-the clogged and weary organs, bracing and stimulating,
-urging on, vitalizing anew.</p>
-
-<p>The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed
-his heart; a cordial grown on the sunny hill-side,
-watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured by the
-light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.</p>
-
-<p>Age mingling hops and barley in that just and
-equitable proportion, no cunning of hand, no
-science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
-the full manhood of strength.</p>
-
-<p>There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot
-define. The chemist analyzes, and he finds of
-ten parts, there are this and there are that, and the
-residue is "volatile principle," for which all the
-dictionaries of science have no explanation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Volatile principle"&mdash;there it is, that is the
-secret. That is the life of the thing; by no
-possible means can you obtain that volatile principle&mdash;that
-alchemic force&mdash;except contained in genuine
-old ale.</p>
-
-<p>Only it must be genuine, and it must be old;
-such as Iden brewed.</p>
-
-<p>The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.</p>
-
-<p>By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the
-glass ceased to chink against his teeth; the strong,
-good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.</p>
-
-<p>You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you
-have "kidneys," you have "abdominal glands," and
-the doctor tells you you must take bitters, <i>i.e.</i>,
-quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients
-and diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts;
-physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron,
-phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your
-draughts and preparations; add to it for various
-purposes, liquor arsenicalis, bromide of potassium,
-strychnia, belladonna.</p>
-
-<p>Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent
-medicines&mdash;American and French patent physic is
-very popular now&mdash;and find the same things precisely
-under taking titles, enormously advertised.</p>
-
-<p>It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines
-compounded are intended to produce exactly the
-same effects as are caused by a few glasses of good
-old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
-motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves,
-and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
-to aid the digestion of the compound. This is
-precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
-very comfortably. Above all things, it contains
-the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have
-not got.</p>
-
-<p>Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered
-with quassia instead of hops; made nauseous in
-order that you may have faith in them.</p>
-
-<p>"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the
-true Goliath, and "<i>drenk un down to the therd hoop</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the
-rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less
-shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork
-at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by
-he began to hum old German songs.</p>
-
-<p>But you may ask, how do <i>you</i> know, you're not a
-doctor, you're a mere story-spinner, you're no
-authority? I reply that I am in a position to know
-much more than a doctor.</p>
-
-<p>How can that be?</p>
-
-<p>Because I have been a Patient. It is so much
-easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor
-imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
-they will do; he imagines, but the Patient <i>knows</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
-<img src="images/i-021.png" width="150" height="83" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-022.png" width="500" height="82" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/s.png" width="120" height="120" alt="S" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OME noble physicians have tried the
-effect of drugs upon themselves in
-order to advance their art; for this
-they have received Gold Medals, and are
-alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.</div>
-
-<p>I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions
-upon My Person. With the various combinations,
-patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
-verily believe, reach eighty drugs.</p>
-
-<p>Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty
-gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied;
-the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha,
-kiss my knees, ye slaves!</p>
-
-<p>I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about
-that I have thus done more good than any man
-living.</p>
-
-<p>I am still very ill.</p>
-
-<p>The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended
-to try! One day I was sitting in that
-great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
-Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time
-to time at the clock, and reckoning how long it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
-would be before I could get home. There is nothing
-so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview
-with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled
-of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must
-have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a
-tall gentleman came across the room and sat down
-beside me. "I hope I don't intrude," said he, in
-American accents. "I was obliged to come and
-speak to you&mdash;you look bad. I <i>hate</i> to hear
-anybody cough." He put an emphasis on hate, a
-long-drawn nasal <i>haate</i>, hissing it out with unmeasured
-ferocity. "I <i>haate</i> to hear anybody
-cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure
-it, if you don't mind."</p>
-
-<p>"By all means&mdash;very interesting," I replied.</p>
-
-<p>"I was bad at home, in the States," said he.
-"I was on my back four years with a cough. I
-couldn't do anything&mdash;couldn't help myself; four
-years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds.
-That's a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds."</p>
-
-<p>"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was
-tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set
-man.</p>
-
-<p>"I tried everything the doctors recommended&mdash;it
-was no use; they had to give me up. At last a
-man cured me; and how do you think he did
-it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Can't think&mdash;should much like to know."</p>
-
-<p>"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That
-was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it
-comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
-crude. Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a
-day, before meals. Taste it? No, not to speak
-of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had
-in a ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two
-hundred and fifty pounds. That's true. I got too
-fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still, if
-I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now.
-Been all over Europe."</p>
-
-<p>I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear
-strong enough.</p>
-
-<p>"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose,
-from the States, now."</p>
-
-<p>I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of
-that sort&mdash;if it would cure me, it might come from
-anywhere.</p>
-
-<p>"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly.
-"Or three, if you like, and work up to ten. It
-soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
-I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in
-this country; you'll have to send over for it. I
-<i>haate</i> to hear anybody cough"&mdash;and so we
-parted.</p>
-
-<p>He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged
-him on, I verily believe he would have got the keg
-for me himself. It seemed laughable at the time;
-but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured
-American was right; he certainly meant
-well.</p>
-
-<p>Crude petroleum! Could anything be more
-nauseous? But probably it acts as a kind of cod-liver
-oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
-him, I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take
-a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.</p>
-
-<p>Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and
-he had hardly begun to approach the first hoop,
-when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old German
-songs; it was the volatile principle.</p>
-
-<p>Songs about the Pope and the Sultan</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-But yet he's not a happy man,<br />
-He must obey the Alcoran,<br />
-He dares not touch one drop of wine,<br />
-I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and
-fed on butter till he raised a paunch that would
-have done credit to Luther; songs about a King in
-Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful
-old song that, none like it&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-He saw it fall, he watched it fill,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sink deep, deep into the main;</span><br />
-Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He never drank a drop again.</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Or his thought slipped back to his school-days,
-and beating the seat in the summer-house with his
-hand for time, Alere ran on:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Horum scorum suntivorum,<br />
-Harum scarum divo,<br />
-Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,<br />
-Hic hoc horum genitivo&mdash;<br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>To be said in one breath.</div>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Oh, my Ella&mdash;my blue bella,<br />
-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A secula seculorum,</span><br />
-If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O dies Benedictorum!</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='unindent'>Or something about:</div>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,<br />
-And She's of the feminine gender.<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's
-heart out, Eton Latin grammar, accidence&mdash;do
-<i>not</i> pause, traveller, if you see <i>his</i> tomb!</p>
-
-<p>"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street
-man put away his pipe, and took up his
-flute; he breathed soft and low&mdash;an excellent
-thing in a musician&mdash;delicious airs of Mozart
-chiefly.</p>
-
-<p>The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the
-high buttercups of the meadow came to the very
-door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
-them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in
-flowers, in song of happy birds. The soothing
-flute strung together the flow of their thoughts,
-they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden&mdash;almost
-hand in hand&mdash;listening to his cunning
-lips.</p>
-
-<p>He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to
-their own hearts.</p>
-
-<p>The starlings flew by every few minutes to their
-nests in the thatch of the old house, and out again
-to the meadow.</p>
-
-<p>Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a
-bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings
-beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
-time to follow them completely; they formed a burr&mdash;an
-indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see
-the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were
-depressed so quickly that the impression of them
-in the raised position had not time to fade from the
-eye before a fresh impression arrived exhibiting them
-depressed to their furthest extent; you thus saw the
-wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
-capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the
-upper part answers to the wings lifted, the lower
-part to the wings down, and you see both together.
-Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
-other positions between these two extremes;
-like the leaves of a book opened with your
-thumb quickly&mdash;as they do in legerdemain&mdash;almost
-as you see the spokes of a wheel run together as
-they revolve&mdash;a sort of burr.</p>
-
-<p>To produce an image of a starling flying, you
-must draw all this.</p>
-
-<p>The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave
-a streak behind in the air like a meteor.</p>
-
-<p>Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very
-blood in Alere's veins.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of
-Amadis Iden's cheeks&mdash;absolute lack of blood&mdash;began
-to give way to the faintest colour, little more
-than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though
-he could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If
-you threw a wine-glassful of the Goliath on the
-hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most lively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
-manner. Fire in it&mdash;downright fire! That is the
-test.</p>
-
-<p>Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful,
-yet a faint pink began to steal into his face, and
-his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply of
-another cup.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 190px;">
-<img src="images/i-023.png" width="190" height="161" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-024.png" width="500" height="91" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 119px;">
-<img src="images/l.png" width="119" height="120" alt="L" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>ET me try," said Amadis, taking the
-handle of the churn from Jearje. The
-butter was obstinate, and would not
-come; it was eleven o'clock in the
-morning, and still there was the rattle
-of milk in the barrel, the sound of a liquid splashing
-over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
-that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had
-been turning for hours.</div>
-
-<p>Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like
-silver by Jearje's rough hands&mdash;a sort of skin sand-paper&mdash;and
-with an effort made the heavy blue-painted barrel
-revolve on its axis.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy
-window into the court where the churn stood.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll
-only tire yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said,
-"First-rate, measter."</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not,
-you'll hurt yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"Aw!&mdash;aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
-on a form by the wall under the dairy window. He
-was waiting to see Iden about the mowing. "Aw!&mdash;aw!
-Look 'ee thur, now!"</p>
-
-<p>Heavily the blue barrel went round&mdash;thrice, four
-times, five times; the colour mounted into Amadis's
-cheeks, not so much from the labour as the unwonted
-stooping; his breath came harder; he
-had to desist, and go and sit down on the form
-beside Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis.
-"You know you're not strong yet." She spoke as
-if she had been his mother or his nurse, somewhat
-masterfully and reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His
-chin fell and his face lengthened&mdash;his eyes grew
-larger&mdash;his temples pinched; disappointment wrung
-at his heart.</p>
-
-<p>Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short
-waddle and a fall.</p>
-
-<p>"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said
-Bill Nye, "as I knows on; you get a pint measure
-full of snails&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to
-make anyone ill to think of," said Amaryllis, angrily,
-and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver oil virtues of
-snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
-Amadis.</p>
-
-<p>A robin came into the court, and perching on
-the edge of a tub, fluttered his wings, cried "Check,
-check," "Anything for me this morning?" and so
-put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have
-snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the
-maid, who had been standing in the doorway with
-a duster.</p>
-
-<p>"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a
-passion. "You standing there doing nothing, and
-it's butter-making morning, and everything behind,
-and you idling and talking,"&mdash;rushing out from the
-dairy, and following Luce, who retreated indoors.</p>
-
-<p>"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"Missis is &mdash;&mdash;" said Jearje, supplying the
-blank with a wink, and meaning in a temper this
-morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
-always in a fury about nothing when her mind was
-intent on an object; in this case, the butter.</p>
-
-<p>"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room,
-pointing to the clock, "and the beds ain't
-made."</p>
-
-<p>"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.</p>
-
-<p>"And the fire isn't dusted up."</p>
-
-<p>"I've dusted up the fire."</p>
-
-<p>"And you're a lazy slut"&mdash;pushing Luce about
-the room.</p>
-
-<p>"I bean't a lazy slut."</p>
-
-<p>"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give
-me the duster!"&mdash;snatching it from her.</p>
-
-<p>"He be done."</p>
-
-<p>"All you can do is to stand and talk with the
-men. There's no water taken up stairs."</p>
-
-<p>"That there be."</p>
-
-<p>"You know you ought to be doing something;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
-the lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw
-anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots to be
-cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the
-path to be weeded, and the things to be taken over
-for washing, and the teapot ought to go in to Woolhorton,
-you know the lid's loose, and the children
-will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your
-master will be in to lunch, and there's not a soul to
-help me in the least," and so, flinging the duster at
-Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into
-the kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread
-and cheese, and drew a quart of ale, and took them
-out to Bill Nye.</p>
-
-<p>"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very
-depth of his chest, and set to work happily.</p>
-
-<p>Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it
-with one hand and sipped, while he turned with
-the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
-manner, he could not wait till he had finished the
-churning.</p>
-
-<p>"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said
-the angel Gabriel in the Koran, as you no doubt
-remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
-sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the
-breath of life was breathed into him, he rose on his
-arm and began to eat before his lower limbs were
-yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made
-up of impatience." As the angel had never had a
-stomach or anything to sit upon, as the French say,
-he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
-had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
-Jearje, it is certain he would never have wanted to
-be an angel.</p>
-
-<p>Next, there were four cottage children now in
-the court, waiting for scraps.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind,
-swept the poor little things into the kitchen and
-filled two baskets for them with slices of bread and
-butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit,
-a dish of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the
-barrel, odds and ends, and so swept them off again
-in a jiffy.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed
-of yourself, that is not the way to feed the poor.
-What <i>could</i> you be thinking of, you ignorant
-farmer's wife!</p>
-
-<p>You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a
-Committee with duchesses and earlesses, and wives
-of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
-these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners.
-They will teach you how to feed the poor
-with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
-the scientific Dr. Am&oelig;ba Bacillus; Joe has Providence
-at his fingers' ends, and guides it in the
-right way; Bacillus knows everything to a particle;
-with Providence and Science together they <i>must</i>
-do it properly.</p>
-
-<p>The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed
-of the principles of food in the right proportion:
-(1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
-Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!</p>
-
-<p>The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
-lentil soup, or oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli;
-say twopence a quart. They can get all
-the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite
-foot-tons.</p>
-
-<p>No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous
-cheese, no abominable beef bone, no wretched rabbit,
-no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral ale!</p>
-
-<p>There, Mrs. Iden.</p>
-
-<p>Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that
-shining light and apostle, Mrs. Iden, and read,
-mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to
-live. A family may live, laugh, love and be happy
-that eats bread in the morning with good water,
-and water and good bread at noon, and water and
-bread at night."</p>
-
-<p>Does that sound like an echo of the voice that
-ceased on the Cross?</p>
-
-<p>Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide
-your beef and ale, your rabbit and potatoes.</p>
-
-<p>To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City
-ladies riding in carriages, and all such who eat
-and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
-courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a
-meal of vegetable pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge,
-or lentil soup (three halfpence a pound lentils), or
-haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
-wholesome thing.</p>
-
-<p>But to those who exist all the week on hunches
-of dry bread, and not much of that, oatmeal porridge
-doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
-like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with
-plenty of rich gravy, broad slices from legs of
-mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They need something
-to put fresh blood and warmth into them.</p>
-
-<p>You sometimes hear people remark: "How
-strange it is&mdash;the poor never buy oatmeal, or
-lentils!"</p>
-
-<p>Of course they don't; if by any chance they do
-get a shilling to spend, they like a mutton chop.
-They have enough of farinaceous fare.</p>
-
-<p>What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she
-been scientific, was to have given each of these
-poor hungry children a nicely printed little pamphlet,
-teaching them how to cook.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of which, she set all their teeth going;
-infinitely wicked Mrs. Iden!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;">
-<img src="images/i-025.png" width="175" height="200" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-039.png" width="500" height="89" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/y.png" width="120" height="121" alt="Y" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>OU must drink it all&mdash;every drop,"
-said Amaryllis, masterfully, as Amadis
-lingered over the glass of milk she had
-brought him. He had but half finished
-it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all."
-Amadis made an effort, and obeyed.</div>
-
-<p>But his heart was bitter as absinthe.</p>
-
-<p>Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly;
-even the women were manly, they could eat and
-drink.</p>
-
-<p>Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard
-cheese, and drank ale, and turned the crank at the
-same time.</p>
-
-<p>Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily
-munching cheese, oh so happily! Gabriel (of the
-Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
-his tall quart-mug.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty
-years, more energetic than all the hamlet put together.</p>
-
-<p>Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would
-go on hours longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath
-ale in the summer-house; he could eat, and drink,
-and walk about as a man should.</p>
-
-<p>Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he
-had seen her turn the heavy cheese-tub round as if
-it were a footstool.</p>
-
-<p>He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable
-to eat strong meat; unable to drink strong drink;
-put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
-farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to
-ride even; a mere shadow, a thing of contempt.</p>
-
-<p>They told him he was better. There was just a
-trifle of pink in his face, and he could walk to Plum
-Corner in the garden without clinging to Amaryllis's
-arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance
-more than three or four times. He had even ventured
-a little way up the meadow-path, but it made
-him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
-told him he was better; he could eat a very little
-more, and sip a wine-glassful of Goliath.</p>
-
-<p>Better! What a mockery to a man who could
-once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty
-miles, and play his part in any sport you chose!
-It was absinthe to him.</p>
-
-<p>He could not stoop to turn the churn&mdash;he had
-to sip milk in the presence of strong men drinking
-strong drink; to be despised; the very servant-maid
-talking of him as in a decline.</p>
-
-<p>And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished
-to appear a man.</p>
-
-<p>And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
-that he could think, yet he could scarce set one
-foot safely before the other, not without considering
-first and feeling his way.</p>
-
-<p>Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as
-strong as the horses he led in the waggon.</p>
-
-<p>Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could
-mow all day in the heat of July.</p>
-
-<p>He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted
-hopes, his worship of Amaryllis&mdash;he was nothing.
-Less than nothing&mdash;a shadow.</p>
-
-<p>To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.</p>
-
-<p>Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what
-he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but
-is better:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then raised
-his head, and said:&mdash;</p></div>
-
-<div class='poem2'>
-"Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away thy sorrows;<br />
-For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and is changed!<br />
-How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not forth!<br />
-And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze appears from it;<br />
-And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.<br />
-So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;<br />
-And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"<br />
-</div>
-
-<p>How should such a chant as this enter a young
-man's heart who felt himself despicable in the sight
-of his mistress?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis,
-in a very gentle tone, now he had obeyed her.</p>
-
-<p>"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging
-his head.</p>
-
-<p>His days were mixed of honey and wormwood;
-sweet because of Amaryllis, absinthe because of his
-weakness.</p>
-
-<p>A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma
-was shouting an old song, with heavy emphasis
-here and there, with big capital letters:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class='poem'>
-The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?<br />
-And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All Insinuation Scorning;</span><br />
-I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,<br />
-I only Know he's a very Red Face<br />
-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he gets up in the Morning!</span><br />
-</div>
-
-<p>"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with
-his mouth full. "Th' zun do look main red in the
-marning, surely."</p>
-
-<p>They heard the front door open and shut; Iden
-had come in for his lunch, and, by the sound of the
-footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
-him.</p>
-
-<p>At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers
-for battle.</p>
-
-<p>Iden came through into the dairy.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking
-your nose into everything. Wonder you don't
-help Luce make the beds and sweep the floor!"</p>
-
-<p>"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want
-any wood for the fire&mdash;or anything?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood&mdash;and chop
-it, as well as you. Why can't you mind your business?
-Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
-hours to see you"&mdash;following Iden towards the
-sitting-room. "Who have you brought in with
-you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
-butter-making morning, just the busiest time!
-Oh! it's you! Sit still, Mr. Duck; I don't mind
-<i>you</i>. What will you take?"</p>
-
-<p>More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack
-Duck sat in the bow-window and went at their
-lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced
-Mrs. Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people
-in this house&mdash;I never saw anything like it!"</p>
-
-<p>It was true.</p>
-
-<p>There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house;
-Amadis Iden resting on the form; Amaryllis
-standing by him; Bill Nye munching;
-Jearje indolently rotating the churn with one hand,
-and feeding himself with the other; Luce sitting
-down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting his
-mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great
-mouth full; eight people&mdash;and four little children
-trotting down the road with baskets of food.</p>
-
-<p>"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never
-saw anything like it."</p>
-
-<p>And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let
-us not trouble ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and
-Quiet" is better than set banquets; crumbs for
-everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to
-those who pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
-think of nothing;" believe me, the plain plenty,
-and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
-farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!</p>
-
-<p>"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done;
-nothing done; the morning gone and nothing done;
-and the butter's not come yet!"</p>
-
-<p>Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are
-always eating. They eat all through the Iliad, they
-eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good deal
-in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at
-Coombe-Oaks as was done on Olympus.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/i-027.png" width="120" height="180" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
-<img src="images/i-057.png" width="500" height="84" alt="decoration" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
-<img src="images/a.png" width="120" height="120" alt="A" title="" />
-</div><div class='unindent'>MARYLLIS went outside the court,
-and waited; Amadis rose and followed
-her. "Come a little way into the
-Brook-Field," she said.</div>
-
-<p>They left the apple-bloom behind
-them, and going down the gravel-path passed the
-plum trees&mdash;the daffodils there were over now&mdash;by
-the strawberry patch which Iden had planted under
-the parlour window; by the great box-hedge where
-a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though Amaryllis's
-dress brushed the branches; by the espalier
-apple, to the little orchard-gate.</p>
-
-<p>The parlour-window&mdash;there are no parlours now,
-except in old country houses; there were parlours
-in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern villas
-they have drawing-rooms.</p>
-
-<p>The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree
-branches, planted beneath with strawberry; white
-blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
-in the branches of the pear&mdash;that was Iden.</p>
-
-<p>They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed
-heavily against the tall meadow-grass growing between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
-the bars. The path was almost gone&mdash;grown
-out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad
-trail behind them.</p>
-
-<p>Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have
-muttered to himself; they were trespassing on his
-mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
-difficult to cut.</p>
-
-<p>Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the
-thick-stemmed butter-cups&mdash;branched like the
-golden candlestick, and with flowers of golden flame.
-For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw
-light back into the air.</p>
-
-<p>Amadis began to drag behind&mdash;he could not
-walk much farther; they sat down together on the
-trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
-close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted.
-Even with his back leaning against a limb of the
-oak, Amadis had to partly support himself with his
-hands.</p>
-
-<p>What was the use of such a man?&mdash;He had
-nothing but his absurdly romantic name from Don
-Quixote to recommend him.</p>
-
-<p>That was the very thought that gnawed at poor
-Amadis's heart as he sat by her side. What use to
-care for him?</p>
-
-<p>Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was
-a new gate, and he had been fitting it before he
-went in to lunch. His basket was of flag because
-the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools,
-chisels, and so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have
-everything right. The new gate was of solid oak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
-no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
-without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the
-farm, and kept till it was thoroughly fit, genuine
-English oak. If you would only consider Iden's
-gate you might see there the man.</p>
-
-<p>This gateway was only between two meadows,
-and the ordinary farmer, when the old gate wore
-out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
-a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and
-rough; at most a gate knocked up by the village
-carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest possible
-charge.</p>
-
-<p>Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to
-make <i>his</i> gate in the hamlet; he sent for one ten
-miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages. He
-was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his
-work to see that the least little detail was done
-correctly, till the fellow would have left the job,
-had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale.
-So he just stretched the job out as long as he
-could, and talked and talked with Iden, and stroked
-him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
-it upon me and on William, That day in a way I
-despise." Till what with the planing, and shaving,
-and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and time,
-it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace
-gates, not of the Iden style.</p>
-
-<p>Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber
-years before for this very purpose, and had watched
-the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
-have made good oak furniture. There was nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
-special or particular about this gateway; he had
-done the same in turn for every gateway on the
-farm; it was the Iden way.</p>
-
-<p>A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit
-for a nobleman's Home Park. I doubt, if you
-would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
-made of such material on any great estate in the
-kingdom. For not even dukes can get an Iden to
-look after their property. An Iden is not to be
-"picked up," I can tell you.</p>
-
-<p>The neighbourhood round about had always
-sneered in the broad country way at Iden's
-gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do <i>he</i>
-want wi' such geates? A' ain't a got no cattle
-to speak on; any ould rail ud do as good as thuck
-geat."</p>
-
-<p>The neighbourhood round about could never
-understand Iden, never could see why he had gone
-to such great trouble to render the homestead
-beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the
-orchard with pleasant eating apples in the place of
-the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
-wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"</p>
-
-<p>All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood
-to be the acts of a "vool."</p>
-
-<p>When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to
-have the great bushes that bore unusually fine May
-bloom saved from the billhook, that they might
-flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples&mdash;for
-the sake of the white blossom; so, too, with
-the hazel&mdash;for the nuts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But what caused the most "wonderment" was
-the planting of the horse-chestnuts in the corner of
-the meadow? Whatever did he want with horse-chestnuts?
-No other horse-chestnuts grew about
-there. You couldn't eat the horse-chestnuts when
-they dropped in autumn.</p>
-
-<p>In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the
-little circumstance of the hour. His gate was
-meant to last for years, rain and shine, to endure
-any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in
-itself.</p>
-
-<p>His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind&mdash;was
-at once his strength and his folly. His
-strength, for it was such qualities as these that
-made Old England famous, and set her on the firm
-base whereon she now stands&mdash;built for all Time.
-His folly, because he made too much of little things,
-instead of lifting his mind higher.</p>
-
-<p>If only he could have lived three hundred years
-the greater world would have begun to find out
-Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
-from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk,
-for Iden could talk of the trees and grass, and all
-that the Earth bears, as if one had conversed face
-to face with the great god Pan himself.</p>
-
-<p>But while Iden slumbered with his head against
-the panel&mdash;think, think, think&mdash;this shallow world
-of ours, this petty threescore years and ten, was
-slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked
-with bitterness at heart the increasing stoop of the
-strong back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Iden was like the great engineer who could
-never build a bridge, because he knew so well how
-a bridge ought to be built.</p>
-
-<p>"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs.
-Iden, "making yourself ridiculous: I believe that
-carpenter is just taking advantage of you. Why
-can't you go into town and see your father?&mdash;it
-would be a hundred pounds in your pocket"&mdash;as it
-would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs. Iden had
-gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps
-he would have taken her advice.</p>
-
-<p>Resting upon the brown timber in the grass
-Amaryllis and Amadis could just see a corner of
-the old house through the spars of the new gate.
-Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand;
-a house that had grown in the course of
-many generations, not built to set order; it had
-grown like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances,
-and, therefore, like the tree it was beautiful
-to look at. There were windows in deep notches,
-between gables where there was no look-out except
-at the pears on the wall, awkward windows, quite
-bewildering. A workman came to mend one one
-day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever
-seed such a crooked picter of a house!" said
-he.</p>
-
-<p>A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface
-of the buttercups, straight for the brook,
-moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly did
-he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible,
-drawn like a line of peacock blue over the gold.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to
-have been sitting there like this, with Amadis lost
-in the sweet summer dream of love.</p>
-
-<p>She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot
-du Lake, a hero of the mighty arm, only with
-the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
-proper thing.</p>
-
-<p>But the fitness of things never comes to pass&mdash;everything
-happens in the Turkish manner.</p>
-
-<p>Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life,
-very, very young and inexperienced, very poor and
-without the least expectation whatever (for who
-could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the
-daughter of poor and embarrassed parents, whom
-she wished and prayed to help in their coming old
-age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling
-and half a painter at heart, full of generous sentiments&mdash;what
-a nature to be ground down in the
-sordidness of married poverty!</p>
-
-<p>Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble,
-and unable to earn a shilling, just talking of seeing
-the doctor again about this fearful debility, full too,
-as he thought at least, of ideas&mdash;what a being to
-think of her!</p>
-
-<p>Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things.
-If only now he could have regained the health and
-strength of six short months ago&mdash;if only that,
-but you see, he had not even that. He might get
-better; true&mdash;he <i>might</i>, I have tried 80 drugs and
-I am no better, I hope he will.</p>
-
-<p>Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
-East have put things together for them with more
-utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
-Turkish manner, you see.</p>
-
-<p>There they sat, happier and happier, and
-deeper and deeper in love every moment, on the
-brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full
-of love as the meadow was of sunshine.</p>
-
-<p>You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in
-which after sunset he was carried over Ocean's
-stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
-again in the East and give us the joy of his rising.
-The great Golden Cup in which Hercules, too, was
-taken over; it was as if that Cup had been filled to
-the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the
-lips to drink, inexhaustible.</p>
-
-<p>In the play of Faust&mdash;Alere's <i>Faust</i>&mdash;Goethe
-has put an interlude, an Intermezzo; I shall leave
-Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in Heaven.
-Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its
-Dread, pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the
-wings, let Debt and Poverty unrobe, let Age
-stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as
-the Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave
-our lovers in the Interlude in Heaven.</p>
-
-<p>And as I must leave them (I trust but for a
-little while) I will leave them on the brown oak
-timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
-dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass
-and the wild flowers.</p>
-
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-<div class='hang1'><b>A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW
-TESTAMENT</b>. By Arthur Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of
-Biblical Exegesis and Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Victoria
-University, Manchester. Sometime Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>FAITH AND ITS PSYCHOLOGY.</b> By the Rev.
-William R. Inge, D.D. Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Cambridge,
-and Bampton Lecturer, Oxford, 1899.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.</b> By the Rev.
-Hastings Rashdall, D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A. Fellow
-and Tutor of New College, Oxford.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.</b> By the Rev.
-James Orr, D.D., Professor of Apologetics in the Theological College
-of the United Free Church, Glasgow.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>CHRISTIANITY AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS.</b>
-By the Rev. William Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Fellow of Trinity
-College, Cambridge. Hon. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
-Cambridge. Archdeacon of Ely. Formerly Lecturer on Economic
-History to Harvard University.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>PROTESTANT THOUGHT BEFORE KANT.</b>
-By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D., D.D.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT SINCE
-KANT.</b> By the Rev. Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman
-Professor of Theology in the University of Harvard, U.S.A.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>AN ENCYCLOP&AElig;DIA OF THEOLOGY.</b> By the
-Rev. A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., D.Litt., LL.D. Late Principal of Mansfield
-College, Oxford.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT FROM
-THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION.</b> By
-Herbert B. Workman, D.Litt.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD
-TESTAMENT.</b> By the Rev. George Buchanan Gray, D.D., D.Litt.,
-Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis, Mansfield College,
-Oxford.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE CHRISTIAN HOPE: A Study in the Doctrine
-of the Last Things.</b> By W. Adams Brown, Ph.D., D.D.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>REDEMPTION AND ATONEMENT.</b> By the Rt.
-Rev. Bishop of Gloucester.</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
-<h2>The <a name="Roadmender_Series" id="Roadmender_Series"></a>Roadmender Series</h2>
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>BROOKE, STOPFORD A.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE SEA CHARM OF VENICE.</b> By the Rev.
-Stopford A. Brooke. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>CRIPPS, ARTHUR</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>MAGIC CASEMENTS.</b> By Arthur Cripps. Uniform
-with the above. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>DE KAY, JOHN W.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>LONGINGS: Being Leaves out of the Book of Life
-intended for those who Understand.</b> By John W. De Kay. Uniform
-with "The Roadmender," 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Also a large paper edition
-bound in leather, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>FAIRLESS, MICHAEL</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> By Michael Fairless. <i>A new
-and Illustrated Edition.</i> With Six Full-Page Drawings and Cover-design
-by Will G. Mein. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> By Michael Fairless. <i>A Special
-Presentation Edition</i>, bound in extra velvet calf, yapp, with picture
-end papers. Fcap. 8vo. Gilt edges. Boxed. 5<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> Fcap. 8vo. Bound in limp lamb
-skin, designed cover, fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE ROADMENDER.</b> Twenty-fifth impression. Fcap.
-8vo. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>By the Same Author</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE GREY BRETHREN: and other Fragments in
-Prose and Verse.</b> By Michael Fairless. Uniform with "The Roadmender."
-<i>Second Impression.</i> Fcap. 8vo. Bound in limp leather,
-fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>A MODERN MYSTIC'S WAY.</b> (Dedicated to Michael
-Fairless). Uniform with the above. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>McCURDY, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THOUGHTS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI AS
-RECORDED IN HIS NOTE-BOOKS.</b> Edited by Edward
-McCurdy. With a frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo. Uniform with "The
-Roadmender." Bound in limp leather, fully gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net. Cloth,
-2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>THOMAS, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>REST AND UNREST.</b> By Edward Thomas. Fcap.
-8vo. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>By the Same Author</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>ROSE ACRE PAPERS.</b> Fcap. 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>LIGHT AND TWILIGHT.</b> Essays. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><div class='hang1'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></div>
-<h2>Modern Plays</h2>
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>J. COMYNS CARR</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>TRISTRAM AND ISEULT.</b> A Drama in Four Acts.
-By J. Comyns Carr. Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Boards, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THREE PLAYS: Hamilton's Second Marriage&mdash;Thomas
-and the Princess&mdash;The Modern Way.</b> By Mrs. W. K.
-Clifford. In One Volume, cloth, crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>DE L'ISLE ADAM, VILLIERS</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE REVOLT AND THE ESCAPE.</b> By Villiers
-de L'Isle Adam. Translated by Theresa Barclay. A Re-issue. Cloth.
-Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>PLAYS: The Silver Box&mdash;Joy&mdash;Strife.</b> By John Galsworthy.
-Crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i> <i>Fourth Impression.</i> Also in Single Volumes;
-Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net; Paper Covers, 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GALSWORTHY, JOHN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>JUSTICE; A TRAGEDY IN FOUR ACTS.</b> By
-John Galsworthy. <i>Third Impression.</i> Cloth, 2<i>s.</i> net. Paper covers,
-1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>GARNETT, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE BREAKING POINT: A CENSURED PLAY.</b>
-By Edward Garnett. Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>HAUPTMANN, GERHART</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE COMING OF PEACE (Das Friedensfest).</b> By
-Gerhart Hauptmann. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>MARTYN, EDWARD</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE HEATHER FIELD and MAEVE.</b> Two Plays
-by Edward Martyn, with an Introduction by George Moore. Pott 4to. 5<i>s.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>OSTROVSKY</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE STORM.</b> Translated by Constance Garnett. A Re-issue.
-Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>STRINDBERG, AUGUST</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE FATHER.</b> Translated by N. Erichsen. A Re-issue.
-Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>SUDERMANN, HERMANN</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE JOY OF LIVING (Es Lebe das Leben).</b> By
-Hermann Sudermann. Crown 8vo. 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>VERHAEREN, EMILE</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE DAWN (Les Aubes).</b> Translated by Arthur
-Symons. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><i>WOODS, MARGARET L.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><b>THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER.</b> By Margaret
-L. Woods. A Re-issue. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 2<i>s.</i> net.</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1_ad" id="Page_1_ad">[1]</a></span></p>
-<h2>A SELECTION FROM<br />
-DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
-LIST OF PUBLICATIONS</h2>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
-<img src="images/logo.png" width="187" height="200" alt="Emblem" title="" />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><br />
-<small>3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN</small><br />
-<small>LONDON, W.C.</small><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2_ad" id="Page_2_ad">[2]</a></span></p>
-<h2>DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'S<br />
-PUBLICATIONS</h2>
-
-
-<h3>ANIMAL LIFE AND WILD NATURE<br />
-(STORIES OF).</h3>
-
-<div class='center'><i>Uniform binding, large cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Under the Roof of the Jungle.</span> A Book of Animal Life
-in the Guiana Wilds. Written and illustrated by Charles
-Livingston Bull. With 60 full-page plates drawn from
-Life by the Author.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Kindred of the Wild.</span> A Book of Animal Life. By
-Charles G. D. Roberts, Professor of Literature, Toronto
-University, late Deputy-Keeper of Woods and Forests,
-Canada. With many illustrations by Charles Livingston
-Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Watchers of the Trails.</span> A Book of Animal Life.
-By Charles G. D. Roberts. With 48 illustrations by
-Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Story of Red Fox.</span> A Biography. By Charles G. D.
-Roberts. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Haunters of the Silences.</span> A Book of Wild Nature.
-By Charles G. D. Roberts. Illustrated by Charles
-Livingston Bull.</div>
-
-
-<h3>BOOKS ON ART.</h3>
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Art&mdash;The Library of</span>, embracing Painting, Sculpture, Architecture,
-etc. Edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D.
-<i>Extra cloth</i>, with lettering and design in gold. <i>Large
-cr. 8vo</i> (7-3/4 in. &times; 5-3/4 in.), <i>gilt top, headband. 5s. net a
-volume. Inland postage, 5d.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES</small></div>
-
-<div class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Donatello.</span> By Lord Balcarres, M.P. With 58 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Great Masters of Dutch and Flemish Painting.</span> By Dr
-W. Bode. With 48 plates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3_ad" id="Page_3_ad">[3]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By G. Baldwin Brown, of the University of Edinburgh.
-With 45 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Antonio Pollaiuolo.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Verrocchio.</span> By Maud Cruttwell. With 48 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Lives of the British Architects.</span> By E. Beresford
-Chancellor. With 45 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Madrid.</span> By A. de Beruete y Moret. With 48
-plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">William Blake.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 40 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Giotto.</span> By Basil de Selincourt. With 44 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">French Painting in the Sixteenth Century.</span> By L. Dimier.
-With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Ferrara.</span> By Edmund G. Gardner. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Six Greek Sculptors.</span> (Myron, Pheidias, Polykleitos, Skopas,
-Praxiteles, and Lysippos.) By Ernest Gardner. With 81 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Titian.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau. With 54 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Constable.</span> By M. Sturge Henderson. With 48 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pisanello.</span> By G. F. Hill. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Michael Angelo.</span> By Sir Charles Holroyd. With 52 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Medi&aelig;val Art.</span> By W. R. Lethaby. With 66 plates and 120
-drawings in the text.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Scottish School of Painting.</span> By William D. McKay,
-R.S.A. With 46 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christopher Wren.</span> By Lena Milman. With upwards of 60 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Correggio.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 55 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albert D&uuml;rer.</span> By T. Sturge Moore. With 4 copperplates and 50
-half-tone engravings.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sir William Beechey, R.A.</span> By W. Roberts. With 49 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The School of Seville.</span> By N. Sentenach. With 50 plates.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Roman Sculpture from Augustus to Constantine.</span> By Mrs
-S. Arthur Strong, LL.D., Editor of the Series. 2 vols. With
-130 plates.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap"><a name="Art_The_Popular_Library_of" id="Art_The_Popular_Library_of"></a>Art, The Popular Library of.</span> Pocket volumes of biographical
-and critical value on the great painters, with very
-many reproductions of the artists' works. Each volume
-averages 200 pages, 16mo, with from 40 to 50 illustrations.
-To be had in different styles of binding: <i>Boards gilt, 1s.
-net; green canvas and red cloth gilt, 2s. net; limp lambskin,
-red and green, 2s. 6d. net.</i> Several titles can also
-be had in the popular Persian yapp binding, in box.
-<i>2s. 6d. net each.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><small>LIST OF VOLUMES.</small></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Botticelli.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
-binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Raphael.</span> By Julia Cartwright (Mrs Ady). Also in Persian yapp
-binding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4_ad" id="Page_4_ad">[4]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Frederick Walker.</span> By Clementina Black.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rembrandt.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Velazquez.</span> By Auguste Br&eacute;al.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Gainsborough.</span> By Arthur B. Chamberlain.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Cruikshank.</span> By W. H. Chesson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Blake.</span> By G. K. Chesterton.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">G. F. Watts.</span> By G. K. Chesterton. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Albrecht D&uuml;rer.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Water-Colour Painters.</span> By A. J. Finberg. Also
-in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Hogarth.</span> By Edward Garnett.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Leonardo da Vinci.</span> By Dr Georg Gronau.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Holbein.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rossetti.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer. Also in Persian yapp binding.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.</span> By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Perugino.</span> By Edward Hutton.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Millet.</span> By Romain Rolland.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Watteau.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The French Impressionists.</span> By Camille Mauclair.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Whistler.</span> By Bernhard Sickert. Also in Persian yapp binding.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amelung, Walther, and Holtzinger, Heinrich.</span> The
-Museums and Ruins of Rome. A Guide Book. Edited
-by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. With 264 illustrations
-and map and plans. 2 vols. New and cheaper re-issue.
-<i>Fcap 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Burns, Rev. J.</span> Sermons in Art by the Great Masters.
-<i>Cloth gilt</i>, photogravure frontispiece and many illustrations.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net</i>.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Christ Face in Art. With 60 illustrations in tint.
-<i>Cr. 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s.</i> Or bound in parchment, <i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bussy, Dorothy.</span> Eug&egrave;ne Delacroix. A Critical Appreciation.
-With 26 illustrations. New and cheaper re-issue.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Carotti, Giulio.</span> A History of Art. English edition,
-edited by Mrs S. Arthur Strong, LL.D. In four
-volumes, with very numerous illustrations in each volume.
-<i>Small cr. 8vo. 5s. net each volume.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. &nbsp;&nbsp;I.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ancient Art.</span> 500 illustrations.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left' colspan='4'>Vol. &nbsp;II.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Middle Ages down to the Golden Age.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. III.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Golden Age.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='left'><i>In</i></td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<i>preparation.</i></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol. IV.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Modern Times.</span></td><td align='left'>[</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">L&ouml;wy, Emanuel.</span> The Rendering of Nature in Early Greek
-Art. With 30 illustrations. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5_ad" id="Page_5_ad">[5]</a></span></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mauclair, Camille.</span> Auguste Rodin. With very many
-illustrations and photogravure frontispiece. <i>Small 4to.</i>
-New and cheaper re-issue. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Camille Mauclair.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-<h3>GENERAL LITERATURE.</h3>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Archer, William</span>, and <span class="smcap">Barker, H. Granville.</span> A
-National Theatre. Schemes and Estimates. By William
-Archer and H. Granville Barker. <i>Cr. 4to. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Aspinall, Algernon E.</span> The Pocket Guide to the West
-Indies. A New and Revised Edition, with maps, very
-fully illustrated. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; West Indian Tales of Old. Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Austin, Sarah.</span> The Story without an End. From the
-German of Carov&eacute;. Retold by Sarah Austin. Illustrated
-by Frank C. Pap&eacute;. 8 Illustrations in Colour,
-mounted with frames and plate marks. <i>Large cr. 8vo.
-Designed end papers. Designed cloth covers, fully gilt, gilt
-top, headband. In box. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; &mdash;&mdash; With illustrations by Paul Henry. <i>Sq. 8vo.
-1s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Belloc, Hilaire.</span> Verses. <i>Large cr. 8vo.</i> 2nd edition.
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-
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-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; and B. T. B. More Beasts for Worse Children. New
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-
-<div class='center'><i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by H. Belloc.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Biron, H. C.</span> "Sir," Said Dr Johnson. Selections from
-Boswell's "Life of Johnson," arranged under comprehensive
-headings. <i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bourne, George.</span> Change in the Village: A study of the
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-
-<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> for other books by George Bourne.</i></div>
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-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Boutroux, Emile.</span> The Beyond that is Within, and other
-Lectures. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See the <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another book by Professor Boutroux.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6_ad" id="Page_6_ad">[6]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brooke, Stopford A.</span> The Onward Cry: Essays and
-Sermons. New and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'><i>See also the <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a> for other
-books by Stopford Brooke.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Chapman, Hugh B.</span>, Chaplain of the Savoy. At the Back
-of Things: Essays and Addresses. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Collier, Price.</span> England and the English, from an American
-point of view. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i> Also a
-popular edition, with Foreword by Lord Rosebery.
-<i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The West in the East: A study of British Rule in India.
-<i>Demy. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Coulton, G. G.</span> From St Francis to Dante. A Historical
-Sketch. Second edition. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap"><a name="Crown_Library" id="Crown_Library"></a>Crown Library, The.</span> <i>Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top. 5s.
-net a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Rub&aacute;'iy&aacute;t of 'Umar Khayy&aacute;m</span> (Fitzgerald's 2nd Edition).
-Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Edward Heron Allen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Science and Religion in Contemporary Philosophy.</span> By
-Emile Boutroux.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Wanderings in Arabia.</span> By Charles M. Doughty. An abridged
-edition of "Travels in Arabia Deserta." With portrait and
-map. In 2 vols.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Folk-Lore of the Holy Land</span>: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish.
-By J. E. Hanauer. Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Life and Evolution.</span> By F. W. Headley, F.Z.S. With upwards
-of 100 illustrations. New and revised edition (1913).</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Note-Books of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Edited by Edward
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-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen.</span> By F. W. Maitland.
-With a photogravure portrait.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Country Month by Month.</span> By J. A. Owen and G. S.
-Boulger. With 20 illustrations.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Spinoza</span>: His Life and Philosophy. By Sir Frederick Pollock.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The English Utilitarians.</span> By Sir Leslie Stephen. 3 vols.</div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Volumes">
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">James Mill.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Jeremy Bentham.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'>Vol.&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;<span class="smcap">John Stuart Mill.</span></td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Critical Studies.</span> By S. Arthur Strong. With Memoir by Lord
-Balcarres, M.P. Illustrated.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cutting Ceres.</span> The Praying Girl. Thoughtful Religious
-Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7_ad" id="Page_7_ad">[7]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Darwin, Bernard, and Rountree, Harry.</span> The Golf
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-and 16 in sepia. <i>Sq. royal 8vo. 21s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">De la Mare, Walter.</span> The Three Mulla Mulgars. A
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-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Doughty, Chas. M.</span> Adam Cast Forth. A Poem founded
-on a Jud&aelig;o-Arabian Legend of Adam and Eve. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-4s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Cliffs. A Poetic Drama of the Invasion of Britain
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-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Clouds: a Poem. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
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-of Britain. In six vols. Vols. 1 and 2, <i>9s. net</i>; Vols. 3
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-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Crown_Library">Crown Library</a> for another work by C. M. Doughty.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fairless, Michael.</span> Complete Works. 3 vols. In slip
-case. <i>Buckram gilt. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also the <a href="#Roadmender_Series">Roadmender Series</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Roadmender. Illustrated in Colour by E. W. Waite.
-<i>Cloth gilt, gilt top. 7s. 6d. net. In a Box.</i></div>
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-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Falconer, Rev. Hugh.</span> The Unfinished Symphony. New
-and Cheaper Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Flaubert, Gustave.</span> The First Temptation of St Anthony.
-A new translation by R. Francis. A fine edition on
-imit. hd.-made paper. <i>Large cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Graham, R. B. Cunninghame.</span> Charity. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Faith. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Hope. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His People. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by Cunninghame Graham.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Haselfoot, F. K. H.</span> The Divina Commedia of Dante
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-8vo. 12s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8_ad" id="Page_8_ad">[8]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Headlam, Cecil.</span> Walter Headlam: Letters and Poems.
-With Memoir by Cecil Headlam. With photogravure
-portrait. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Henderson, Archibald.</span> Mark Twain. A Biography.
-With 8 photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn. <i>Large
-cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit: Critical
-Essays. With a photogravure portrait of Meredith. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hill, M. D., and Webb, Wilfred Mark.</span> Eton Nature-Study
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-two parts in one volume, <i>6s. net</i>.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hammond, Rev. Joseph.</span> Six Necessary Things for Christians
-to Know. A Theology for the Plain Man. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hudson, W. H.</span> A Little Boy Lost. With 30 illustrations
-by A. D. McCormick. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Series</a> for other books by W. H. Hudson.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hueffer, Ford Madox.</span> The Critical Attitude. Literary
-Essays. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. Buckram. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#READERS_LIBRARY">Readers' Library</a> and <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Popular Library of Art</a> for other books by Ford Madox Hueffer.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <span class="smcap">High Germany: Verses.</span> <i>Sq. cr. 8vo, paper covers.
-1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hughes, Rev. G.</span> Conscience and Criticism. With Foreword
-by the Bishop of Winchester. New and Cheaper
-Edition. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hutchinson, T.</span> Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth
-and S. T. Coleridge, 1798. With certain poems of 1798,
-Introduction and Notes. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> New and Revised
-Edition. With 2 photogravures. <i>3. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Jefferies, Richard.</span> The Story of My Heart. By Richard
-Jefferies. A New Edition Reset. With 8 illustrations
-from oil paintings by Edward W. Waite. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
-The pictures mounted with frames and plate marks.
-Designed Cover. <i>Cloth gilt, gilt top, headband. In Box.
-7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-
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-Imit. Hand-made Paper, illustrations mounted on vellum with decorative
-borders in gold. Bound in buckram, in slip case. <i>21s. net.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9_ad" id="Page_9_ad">[9]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Joubert, Joseph.</span> Joubert: A Selection from His Thoughts.
-Translated by Katharine Lyttleton, with a Preface by
-Mrs Humphry Ward. New Edition. In a slip case.
-<i>Large cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Kropotkin, Prince.</span> Ideals and Realities in Russian
-Literature. Critical Essays. By Prince Kropotkin.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Langlois, Ch. V., and Seignobos, Ch.</span> An Introduction to
-the Study of History. New Edition. <i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lawrence, D. H.</span> Love Poems and others. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Gallienne, Richard.</span> Odes from the Divan of Hafiz.
-Freely rendered from Literal Translations. <i>Large sq. 8vo.</i>
-In slip case. <i>7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lethaby, W. R.</span> Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen.
-With 125 illustrations, photogravure frontispiece,
-and many drawings and diagrams. <i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Westminster Abbey as a Coronation Church. Illustrated.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Art_The_Popular_Library_of">The Library of Art</a> for "Medi&aelig;val Art" by W. R. Lethaby.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Loveland, J. D. E.</span> The Romance of Nice. A Descriptive
-Account of Nice and its History. With illustrations.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 6s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lytton, the Hon. Mrs Neville.</span> Toy Dogs and their
-Ancestors. With 300 illustrations in colour collotype,
-photogravure, and half-tone. <i>4to. 30s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahaffy, R. P.</span> Francis Joseph the First: His Life and
-Times. By R. P. Mahaffy. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mahommed, Mirza, and Rice, C. Spring.</span> Valeh and
-Hadijeh. <i>Large sq. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Mantzius, Karl.</span> A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient
-and Modern Times. With Introduction by William
-Archer. In six volumes. With illustrations from photographs.
-<i>Royal 8vo. 10s. net each vol.</i></div>
-
-<div class="hang2">Vol. I.&mdash;The Earliest Times. Vol. II.&mdash;Middle Ages and Renaissance.
-Vol. III.&mdash;Shakespeare and the English Drama of his
-Time. Vol. IV.&mdash;Moli&egrave;re and his Time. Vol. V.&mdash;Great
-Actors of the 18th Century. Vol. VI.&mdash;<i>In preparation.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marczali, Henry.</span> The Letters and Journal, 1848-49, of Count
-Charles Leiningen-Westerburg. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10_ad" id="Page_10_ad">[10]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Marjoram, John.</span> New Poems. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Moore, T. Sturge.</span> Poems. <i>Square 8vo. Sewed, 1s. net
-a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Moore's Poems">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Centaur's Booty.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Rout of the Amazons.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Gazelles, and Other Poems.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Pan's Prophecy.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">To Leda, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Theseus, and Other Odes.</span></td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-Or, in one volume, <i>bound in art linen. 6s. net.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Sicilian Idyll, and Judith. <i>Cloth. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Mariamne'">Marianne</ins>. A Drama. <i>Qr. bound. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nassau, R. H.</span> Fetichism in West Africa: Forty Years'
-Observations of Native Customs and Superstitions. 12
-illustrations. <i>Demy 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph, and Jerningham, C. E.</span> Piccadilly to
-Pall Mall. Manners, Morals, and Man. With 2 photogravures.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Nevill, Ralph.</span> Sporting Days and Sporting Ways. With
-coloured frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Merry Past. Reminiscences and Anecdotes.
-With frontispiece in colour collotype. <i>Demy 8vo.
-12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Pawlowska, Yo&iuml;</span> (Mrs Buckley). A Year of Strangers.
-Sketches of People and Things in Italy and in the Far
-East. With copper-plate frontispiece. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See under <a href="#NOVELS_AND_STORIES">Novels</a> for another book by this author.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Peake, Prof. A. S.</span> Christianity, its Nature and its Truth.
-<i>25th Thousand. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Phillipps, L. March.</span> The Works of Man. Studies of
-race characteristics as revealed in the creative art of the
-world. <i>Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays, Modern.</span> <i>Cloth. 2s. net a volume.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Plays">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Revolt and the Escape.</span> By Villiers de L'Isle Adam.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Hernani.</span> A Tragedy. By Frederick Brock.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> A Drama. By J. Comyns Carr.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11_ad" id="Page_11_ad">[11]</a></span><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. 6d. net.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Breaking Point</span>: a Censured Play. By Edward Garnett.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Coming of Peace.</span> By Gerhart Hauptmann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> A Play. By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Storm.</span> By Ostrovsky. Translated by Constance Garnett.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Drama. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> One Act Plays. By Eden Phillpots.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Father.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">There Are Crimes and Crimes.</span> By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Miss Julia. The Stronger.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Creditors. Pariah.</span> Two Plays. By August Strindberg.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Roses.</span> Four One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Morituri.</span> Three One Act Plays. By Hermann Sudermann.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dawn</span> (Les Aubes). By Emile Verhaeren. Translated by Arthur Symons.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Princess of Hanover.</span> By Margaret L. Woods.</td></tr>
-</table><br /></div>
-
-<div class="hang1">The following may also be had in paper covers. Price
-<i>1s. 6d. net a volume</i>.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="More plays">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram and Iseult.</span> By J. Comyns Carr. (<i>Paper boards.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Likeness of the Night.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silver Box.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Joy.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Strife.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Justice.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Eldest Son.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Dream.</span> By John Galsworthy, (<i>1s. net.</i>)</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pigeon.</span> By John Galsworthy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Peter's Chance.</span> By Edith Lyttelton.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Curtain Raisers.</span> By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Five Little Plays.</span> By Alfred Sutro.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Woman.</span> A Censored Drama. By Eden Phillpotts.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Three Plays.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford. (Hamilton's Second
-Marriage, Thomas and the Princess, The Modern Way.)
-In one vol. <i>Sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (First Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
-(Joy, Strife, The Silver Box) in one vol. <i>Small sq. post
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays</span> (Second Series). By John Galsworthy. Three Plays
-(Justice, The Little Dream, The Eldest Son) in one
-vol. <i>Small sq. post 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12_ad" id="Page_12_ad">[12]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By August Strindberg. (The Dream Play, The Link,
-The Dance of Death, Part I.; The Dance of Death,
-Part II.) Translated with an Introduction and Bibliography
-by Edwin Bj&ouml;rkman. With frontispiece portrait
-of Strindberg. In one volume. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> By Anton Tchekoff. (Uncle Vanya, Ivanoff, The
-Seagull, The Swan Song.) With an Introduction.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Reid, Stuart J.</span> Sir Richard Tangye. A Life. With a
-portrait. New and Cheaper re-issue. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.
-net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Roadmender Series, The.</span> The volumes in the series are
-works with the same tendency as Michael Fairless's
-remarkable book, from which the series gets its name:
-books which express a deep feeling for Nature, and a
-mystical interpretation of life. <i>Fcap. 8vo, with designed
-end papers. 2s. 6d. net.</i><br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Sea Charm of Venice.</span> By Stopford A. Brooke.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Magic Casements.</span> By Arthur S. Cripps.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Roadmender.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
-3s. 6d. Velvet calf yapp, 5s. net.</i> Illustrated Black and White
-Edition, <i>cr. 8vo, 5s. net.</i> Also Special Illustrated edition in
-colour from oil paintings by E. W. Waite, <i>7s. 6d. net.</i> Edition de
-Luxe, <i>15s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Grey Brethren.</span> By Michael Fairless. Also in <i>limp lambskin,
-3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Gathering of Brother Hilarius.</span> By Michael Fairless.
-<i>Limp lambskin, 3s. 6d. net; Velvet calf, 5s. net; Ecras&eacute; persian,
-5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Modern Mystic's Way.</span> (Dedicated to Michael Fairless.)<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Thoughts of Leonardo da Vinci.</span> Selected by Edward McCurdy.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Longings.</span> By W. D. McKay.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">From the Forest.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Pilgrim Man.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Winter and Spring.</span> By Wm. Scott Palmer.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Vagrom Men.</span> By A. T. Story.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Light and Twilight.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rest and Unrest.</span> By Edward Thomas.<br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Rose Acre Papers</span>: including Hor&aelig; Solitari&aelig;. By Edward Thomas.<br /><br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Rosen, Erwin.</span> In the Foreign Legion. A record of actual
-experiences in the French Foreign Legion. <i>Demy 8vo.</i>
-New and Cheaper Edition. <i>3s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13_ad" id="Page_13_ad">[13]</a></span></p>
-<h2><a name="READERS_LIBRARY" id="READERS_LIBRARY">READERS' LIBRARY, THE.</a></h2>
-
-
-<div class='center'><i>Copyright Works of Individual Merit and Permanent Value
-<br />by Authors of Repute.</i><br />
-
-Library style. <i>Cr. 8vo. Blue cloth gilt, round backs.<br />
-2s. 6d. net a volume.</i><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Avril.</span> By Hilaire Belloc. Essays
-on the Poetry of the French
-Renaissance.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Esto Perpetua.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.
-Algerian Studies and Impressions.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Men, Women, and Books: Res
-Judicat&aelig;.</span> By Augustine Birrell.
-Complete in one vol.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Obiter Dicta.</span> By Augustine
-Birrell. First and Second Series
-in one volume.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Memoirs of a Surrey
-Labourer.</span> By George Bourne.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Bettesworth Book.</span> By
-George Bourne.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Poetry.</span> By Stopford
-A. Brooke, LL.D. Essays on
-Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Comparative Studies in Nursery
-Rhymes.</span> By Lina Eckenstein.
-Essays in a branch of
-Folk-lore.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Italian Poets since Dante.</span>
-Critical Essays. By W. Everett.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Villa Rubein, and Other
-Stories.</span> By John Galsworthy.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Progress, and Other Sketches.</span>
-By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Success: and Other Sketches.</span>
-By R. B. Cunninghame Grahame.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Green Mansions.</span> A Romance
-of the Tropical Forest. By W. H.
-Hudson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Purple Land.</span> By W. H.
-Hudson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Heart of the Country.</span>
-By Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Soul of London.</span> By Ford
-Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the People.</span> By
-Ford Madox Hueffer.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">After London&mdash;Wild England.</span>
-By Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Amaryllis at the Fair.</span> By
-Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bevis.</span> The Story of a Boy. By
-Richard Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Hills and the Vale.</span>
-Nature Essays. By Richard
-Jefferies.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Greatest Life.</span> An inquiry
-into the foundations of character.
-By Gerald Leighton, M.D.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">St Augustine and his Age.</span>
-An Interpretation. By Joseph
-McCabe.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Between the Acts.</span> By H. W.
-Nevinson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays in Freedom.</span> By H. W.
-Nevinson.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Parallel Paths.</span> A Study in
-Biology, Ethics, and Art. By
-T. W. Rolleston.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">The Strenuous Life, and Other
-Essays.</span> By Theodore Roosevelt.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">English Literature and
-Society in the Eighteenth
-Century.</span> By Sir Leslie
-Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span> First
-Series. Two Volumes. By Sir
-Leslie Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies of a Biographer.</span>
-Second Series. Two Volumes.
-By Sir Leslie Stephen.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Interludes.</span> By Sir Geo. Trevelyan.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Essays on Dante.</span> By Dr Carl
-Witte.</div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="blockquot"><p>"Messrs Duckworth's admirable Readers' Library."&mdash;<i>Bookman.</i></p>
-
-<p>"A series which is well worth following. Excellent reading."&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
-
-<p>"That excellent series. The work of some of our most distinguished contemporaries."&mdash;<i>Daily
-News.</i></p>
-
-<p>"In a class apart from cheap reprints .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. as enjoyable to the most fastidious as first
-editions."&mdash;<i>The Manchester Guardian.</i></p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14_ad" id="Page_14_ad">[14]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Social Questions Series.</span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Makers of Our Clothes.</span> A Case for Trade Boards. By Miss
-Clementina Black and Lady Carl Meyer. <i>Demy 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Sweated Industry and the Minimum Wage.</span> By Clementina
-<span class="smcap">Black</span>. With Preface by A. G. Gardiner. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo.
-2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Women in Industry: From Seven Points of View.</span> With
-Introduction by D. J. Shackleton. <i>Cloth, crown 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Worker's Handbook.</span> By Gertrude M. Tuckwell. A handbook
-of legal and general information for the Clergy, for District
-Visitors, and all Social Workers. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class="hang1"><span class="smcap">Saints, The.</span> An entirely New Series of Lives of the Saints,
-in separate volumes. <i>Cr. 8vo, scarlet art vellum, gilt
-lettered, gilt top. 2s. 6d. net each volume.</i></div>
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The Saints">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ambrose.</span> By the Duc de Broglie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Antony of Padua.</span> By the Abb&eacute; Albert Lepitre.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Augustine.</span> By Prof. Ad. Hatzfeld.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Cajetan.</span> By R. de Maulde la Clavi&egrave;re.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Chrysostom.</span> By Aim&eacute; Puech.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Clotilda.</span> By Prof. G. Kurth.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Dominic.</span> By Jean Guiraud.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Francis of Sales.</span> By A. D. Margerie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Ignatius of Loyola.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Jerome.</span> By the Rev. Father Largent.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Joan of Arc.</span> By L. Petit de Julleville.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. John Vianney: Cur&eacute; d'Ars.</span> By Joseph Vianney.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Louis.</span> By Marius Sepet.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Mary the Virgin.</span> By Ren&eacute; Marie de la Broise.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Nicholas I.</span> By Jules Roy.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Patrick.</span> By l'Abb&eacute; Riguet.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Peter Fourier.</span> By L. Pingaud.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Teresa.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas &agrave; Becket.</span> By Mgr. Demimuid.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Thomas More.</span> By Henri Bremond.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">S. Vincent de Paul.</span> By Prince Emmanuel de Broglie.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Psychology of the Saints.</span> By Henri Joly.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Duckworth's <a name="Shilling_Net_Series" id="Shilling_Net_Series"></a>Shilling Net Series.</span> <i>Cloth, cr. 8vo.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Duckworth's Shilling Net Series">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Caliban's Guide to Letters.</span> By Hilaire Belloc.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">South American Sketches.</span> By W. H. Hudson.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Stories from De Maupassant.</span></td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Success.</span> By R. B. Cunninghame Graham.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Smalley, George W.</span> Anglo-American Memories. First
-Series (American). With a photogravure frontispiece.
-<i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Second Series (English). <i>Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Spielmann</span>, Mrs M. H., and <span class="smcap">Wilhelm, C.</span> The Child of
-the Air. A Romantic Fantasy. Illustrated in colour
-and in line. <i>Sq. cr. 8vo. 5s. net.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15_ad" id="Page_15_ad">[15]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stephen, H. L.</span> State Trials: Political and Social First
-Series. Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With
-two photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. Art vellum,
-gilt top. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;Sir Walter Raleigh&mdash;Charles I.&mdash;The Regicides&mdash;Colonel
-Turner and Others&mdash;The Suffolk Witches&mdash;Alice Lisle. Vol. II.&mdash;Lord
-Russell&mdash;The Earl of Warwick&mdash;Spencer Cowper and
-Others&mdash;Samuel Goodere and Others.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; State Trials: Political and Social. Second Series.
-Selected and edited by H.L. Stephen. With two
-photogravures. Two vols. <i>Fcap. 8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>Vol. I.&mdash;The Earl of Essex&mdash;Captain Lee&mdash;John Perry&mdash;Green and
-Others&mdash;Count Coningsmark&mdash;Beau Fielding. Vol. II.&mdash;Annesley&mdash;Carter&mdash;Macdaniell&mdash;Bernard&mdash;Byron.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Stopford, Francis.</span> Life's Great Adventure. Essays. By
-Francis Stopford, author of "The Toil of Life." <i>Cr.
-8vo. Cloth. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Studies in Theology.</span> A New Series of Handbooks, being
-aids to interpretation in Biblical Criticism for the use of
-the Clergy, Divinity Students, and Laymen. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-2s. 6d. net a volume.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Christian Hope.</span> A Study in the Doctrine of the Last Things.
-By W. Adams Brown, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union
-College, New York.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christianity and Social Questions.</span> By the Rev. William
-Cunningham, D.D., F.B.A., Archdeacon of Ely. Formerly
-Lecturer on Economic History to Harvard University.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Faith and its Psychology.</span> By the Rev. William R. Inge, D.D.,
-Dean of St Paul's.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Protestant Thought before Kant.</span> By A. C. McGiffert, Ph.D.,
-D.D., of the Union Theological Seminary, New York.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">The Theology of the Gospels.</span> By the Rev. James Moffat, B.D.,
-D.D., of the U.F. Church of Scotland, sometime Jowett Lecturer
-in London, author of "The Historical New Testament,"
-"Literary Illustrations of the Bible," etc.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A History of Christian Thought since Kant.</span> By the Rev.
-Edward Caldwell Moore, D.D., Parkman Professor of Theology
-in the University of Harvard, U.S.A.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Revelation and Inspiration.</span> By the Rev. James Orr, D.D.,
-Professor of Apologetics in the Theological College of the United
-Free Church, Glasgow.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">A Critical Introduction to the New Testament.</span> By Arthur
-Samuel Peake, D.D., Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Dean of
-the Faculty of Theology, Victoria University, Manchester.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Philosophy and Religion.</span> By the Rev. Hastings Rashdall,
-D.Litt. (Oxon.), D.C.L. (Durham), F.B.A., Fellow and Tutor
-of New College, Oxford.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16_ad" id="Page_16_ad">[16]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Text and Canon of the New Testament.</span> By Prof. Alexander
-Souter, M.A., D.Litt., Professor of Humanity, Aberdeen
-University.</div>
-
-<div class='hang2'><span class="smcap">Christian Thought to the Reformation.</span> By Herbert B. Workman,
-D.Litt., Principal of the Westminster Training College.</div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tomlinson, H. M.</span> The Sea and the Jungle. Personal experiences
-in a voyage to South America and through the
-Amazon forests. By H. M. Tomlinson. <i>Demy 8vo.
-7s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Vaughan, Herbert M.</span> The Last Stuart Queen: Louise
-Countess of Albany. A Life. With illustrations and
-portraits. <i>Demy 8vo. 16s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Waern, Cecilia.</span> Medi&aelig;val Sicily. Aspects of Life and
-Art in the Middle Ages. With very many illustrations.
-<i>Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Williams, Alfred.</span> A Wiltshire Village. A Study of
-English Rural Village Life. By Alfred Williams. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 5s. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<h2><a name="NOVELS_AND_STORIES" id="NOVELS_AND_STORIES"></a>NOVELS AND STORIES</h2>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Anonymous.</span> The Diary of an English Girl. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, David W.</span> The Brassbounder. A tale of seamen's
-life in a sailing ship. With illustrations by the Author.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Gertrude.</span> Provincial Tales. With frontispiece by
-Muirhead Bone. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Bone, Muirhead and Gertrude.</span> Children's Children. A
-Tale. With 60 drawings by Muirhead Bone. <i>Large
-Cr. 8vo. 6s. net.</i> [Vellum Edition, limited to 250
-copies, signed and numbered. <i>25s. net.</i>]</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brookfield, Chas. H.</span> Jack Goldie: the Boy who knew
-best. Illustrated by A. E. Jackson. <i>Cr. 8vo. 5s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Brown, Vincent.</span> A Magdalen's Husband. A Novel.
-Fourth Impression. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Dark Ship. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Disciple's Wife. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Sacred Cup. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Calthrop, Dion Clayton.</span> King Peter. A Novel. With a
-Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Dion Clayton Calthrop.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17_ad" id="Page_17_ad">[17]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Cawtley, C. Holmes.</span> The Weaving of the Shuttle. A
-Yorkshire Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Clifford</span>, Mrs W. K. Woodside Farm. A Novel. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Connolly, J. B.</span> Wide Courses: Tales of the Sea. Illustrated.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davies, W. H.</span> Beggars. Personal Experiences of Tramp
-Life. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; A Weak Woman. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The True Traveller. A Tramp's Experiences. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Davis, Richard Harding.</span> Once upon a Time. Stories.
-Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Man who could not Lose. Stories. Illustrated.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Red Cross Girl. Stories. Illustrated. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Dodge, Janet.</span> Tony Unregenerate. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Drake, Maurice.</span> Wrack. A Tale of the Sea. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">East, H. Clayton.</span> The Breath of the Desert. A Novel of
-Egypt. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Filippi, Rosina.</span> Bernardine. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Fogazzaro, Antonio.</span> The Poet's Mystery. A Novel. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Forbes, Lady Helen.</span> It's a Way they have in the Army.
-A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Bounty of the Gods. A Novel.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Polar Star. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garnett</span>, Mrs R. S. Amor Vincit. A Romance of the
-Staffordshire Moorlands. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another Novel by Mrs Garnett.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Garshin, W.</span> The Signal, and other Stories. Translated
-from the Russian.</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Glyn, Elinor.</span> Beyond the Rocks. A Love Story. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i> Also an edition in <i>paper covers. 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Halcyone. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; His Hour. A Novel. With a photogravure frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18_ad" id="Page_18_ad">[18]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Vicissitudes of Evangeline. With
-Coloured Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo, 6s.</i> Also an edition in
-<i>paper covers, 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Reflections of Ambrosine. With Coloured Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Three Weeks. A Romance. With Coloured Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Visits of Elizabeth. With Photogravure Frontispiece.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Elizabeth Visits America. With a Photogravure
-Frontispiece. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a>.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Damsel and the Sage: A Woman's Whimsies.
-With a Photogravure Portrait. <i>Cr. 8vo.</i> In slip case.
-<i>5s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Sayings of Grandmamma. From the Writings of
-Elinor Glyn. <i>Fcap. 8vo.</i> With Photogravure Portrait.
-<i>Persian yapp. 2s. 6d. net. Also in parchment, 1s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Reason Why. With Frontispiece in Colour.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Gorky, Maxim.</span> The Spy. A Tale. By Maxim Gorky.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Twenty-six Men and a Girl. Stories. <i>Cr. 8vo.
-Cloth, 2s. net.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Hayter, Adrian.</span> The Profitable Imbroglio. A Tale of
-Mystery. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Holmes, Arthur H.</span> Twinkle. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Horlick, Jittie.</span> A String of Beads. A Tale. Illustrated
-in Colour. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Johnson, Cecil Ross.</span> The Trader: A Venture in New
-Guinea. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Le Sage, A. B.</span> In the West Wind. A Cornish Novel.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Lipsett, E. R.</span> Didy: The Story of an Irish Girl.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maclagan, Bridget.</span> The Mistress of Kingdoms. A Novel.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Martindale, Elizabeth.</span> Margaret Hever. A Novel. <i>Cr.
-8vo. 6s.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19_ad" id="Page_19_ad">[19]</a></span></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maud, Constance Elizabeth.</span> Angelique: le p'tit Chou.
-A Story. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Miss Maud.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Maupassant, Guy de.</span> Yvette, and other Stories. Translated
-by A.G. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Shilling Net Library</a> for another volume of Maupassant.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Monkhouse, Allan.</span> Dying Fires. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Napier, Rosamond.</span> The Faithful Failure. A Novel of the
-Open Air. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; The Heart of a Gypsy. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Pawlowska, Yo&iuml;.</span> Those that Dream. A Novel of Life in
-Rome To-day. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Roberts, Helen.</span> Old Brent's Daughter. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Schofield, Lily.</span> Elizabeth, Betsy, and Bess. A Tale.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>"<span class="smcap">Shway Dinga.</span>" Wholly without Morals. A Novel of
-Indo-Burman Life. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tchekhoff, Anton.</span> The Kiss: Stories. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Travers, John.</span> Sahib Log. A Novel of Regimental Life
-in India. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; In the World of Bewilderment. A Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Tylee, E. S.</span> The Witch Ladder. A Somerset Story.
-<i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap">Vaughan, Owen</span> (Owen Rhoscomyl). A Scout's Story. A
-Tale of Adventure. Illustrated. <i>Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Isle Raven. A Welsh Novel. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Old Fireproof: Being the Chaplain's Story of Certain
-Events in the South African War. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='hang1'>&mdash;&mdash; Sweet Rogues. A Romance. <i>Cr. 8vo. 6s.</i></div>
-
-<div class='center'>
-<i>See also <a href="#Shilling_Net_Series">Duckworth's Two Shilling Net Novels</a> for another book by Owen Vaughan.</i><br />
-</div>
-
-
-<div class='hang1'><span class="smcap"><a name="Duckworths_Series_of_Popular_Novels" id="Duckworths_Series_of_Popular_Novels"></a>Duckworth's Series of Popular Novels.</span> <i>2s. net.</i></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-<div class='center'>
-<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Duckworth's Series of Popular Novels">
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Prodigal Nephew.</span> By Bertram Atkey.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Dance of Love.</span> By Dion Clayton Calthrop.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Woodside Farm.</span> By Mrs W. K. Clifford.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Crested Seas.</span> By James B. Conolly. Illustrated.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Infamous John Friend.</span> By Mrs R.S. Garnett.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Elizabeth visits America.</span> By Elinor Glyn.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reflections of Ambrosine.</span> By Elinor Glyn.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Motor-Car Divorce.</span> By Louise Hale. Illustrated.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">No Surrender.</span> By Constance Elizabeth Maud.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret Kingdom.</span> By Frank Richardson.</td></tr>
-<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Vronina.</span> By Owen Vaughan. With Coloured Frontispiece.</td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20_ad" id="Page_20_ad">[20]</a></span></p>
-<h2>BOOKS ON APPROVAL</h2>
-
-
-<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Messrs</span> DUCKWORTH &amp; CO.'s Publications may be obtained
-through any good bookseller. Anyone desiring to examine a
-volume should order it subject to approval. The bookseller can
-obtain it from the publishers on this condition.<br /><br />
-
-<i>The following Special Lists and Catalogues will be sent
-Post Free on request to any address:&mdash;</i><br /><br /></div>
-
-
-<div class='hang2'>A GENERAL CATALOGUE OF PUBLICATIONS<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>A COLOURED PROSPECTUS OF NEW ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN'S BOOKS<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE READERS' LIBRARY"<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE LIBRARY OF ART" AND "THE POPULAR LIBRARY OF ART"<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF "THE SAINTS SERIES"<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>A DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF THEOLOGICAL WORKS<br /><br /></div>
-
-<div class='hang2'>AND FULL PROSPECTUSES OF "THE ROADMENDER SERIES" AND "MODERN PLAYS"<br /></div>
-
-
-
-<div class='center'><br /><br />
-DUCKWORTH &amp; COMPANY<br />
-3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON<br />
-</div>
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;">
-<img src="images/backcover.jpg" width="323" height="500" alt="Back Cover" title="" />
-</div>
-
-<hr style="width: 65%;" />
-
-<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
-<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
-
-<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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@@ -1,9238 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amaryllis at the Fair, by Richard Jefferies
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Amaryllis at the Fair
-
-Author: Richard Jefferies
-
-Commentator: Edward Garnett
-
-Release Date: September 25, 2009 [EBook #30087]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ASCII
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Emmy and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-
-
-THE READERS' LIBRARY
-
-Uniform with this Volume
-
-
-BELLOC, H.
-
-  AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
-
-
-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE
-
-  ORBITER DICTA
-
-
-BOURNE, GEORGE
-
-  MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
-
-
-BROOKS, STOPFORD A.
-
-  STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.
-
-
-EVERETT, W.
-
-  ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE
-
-
-GALSWORTHY, JOHN
-
-  A COMMENTARY
-
-
-HUDSON, W. H.
-
-  GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest
-
-  THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance
-
-
-JEFFERIES, RICHARD
-
-  AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-  BEVIS. The Story of a Boy
-
-  AFTER LONDON
-
-
-MCCABE, JOSEPH
-
-  ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE
-
-
-NEVINSON, H. W.
-
-  ESSAYS IN FREEDOM
-
-
-STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE
-
-  ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
-
-  IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes
-
-  STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes
-
-
-WITTE, DR. CARL
-
-  ESSAYS ON DANTE
-
-
-ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
-
-  THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses
-
-
-ECKENSTEIN, LINA
-
-  COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays in a Branch of Folklore
-
-
-CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, R. B.
-
-  PROGRESS, and other Sketches
-
-
-Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time
-
-
-
-
-
-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
-
-BY
-
-RICHARD JEFFERIES
-
-AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON," "WOOD MAGIC; A
-FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.
-
-          "Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."
-                                                  ALCAEUS.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-          LONDON
-          DUCKWORTH AND CO.
-          3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
-
-
-          Reissued 1904
-          Reprinted in Readers Library 1911
-          _All rights reserved_
-
-
-                 =Dedicated=
-
-                     TO
-
-          CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.[1]
-
-
-"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
-on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
-conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
-sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
-acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
-have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
-write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"
-
-What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
-"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
-that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
-of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
-echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
-says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclopaedia." "Has anyone ever been able to
-write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
-asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
-brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
-Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
-dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
-descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
-particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
-and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
-he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
-which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
-Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
-as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
-is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
-touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
-to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
-few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
-one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
-highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
-which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
-voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reader may ask. A
-novel, says the learned Charles Annandale, is "a fictitious prose
-narrative, involving some plot of greater or less intricacy, and
-professing to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting the
-passions and sentiments, in a state of great activity, and especially
-the passion of love." Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious
-prose narrative professing to give a picture of real life, and involving
-a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it exhibits the passions and
-sentiments in a state of great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose
-little book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further remarks:
-"Jefferies was quite unable to give any vivid dramatic life to his
-stories . . . his instinct was that of the naturalist who observes and
-moralizes rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
-interprets; and consequently his rustic characters, though strongly and
-clearly drawn, do not live, as, for example, those of Thomas Hardy
-live. . . . Men and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to be "no ordinary
-novelist," it is inferred by most that something is wrong with
-"Amaryllis the Fair," and the book has been passed over in silence. But
-we do not judge every novel by the same test. We do not judge "Tristram
-Shandy," for example, by its intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we
-judge it simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by its
-humorous insight into human character. And judged by the same simple
-test "Amaryllis at the Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
-creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden, the unsuccessful
-farmer who "built for all time, and not for the circumstances of the
-hour," is a masterly piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal
-portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about Uncle Toby? From what
-void did he spring? Iden, to our mind, is almost as masterly a
-conception, as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And Mrs. Iden,
-where will you find this type of nervous, irritable wife, full of
-spiteful disillusioned love for her dilatory husband better painted than
-by Jefferies? But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the reader may
-say. Excellent reader! and what about the Widow Wadman? She is no less
-and no more of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great feat of
-Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere of the Shandy household,
-but Jefferies has accomplished an artistic feat also in drawing the
-relations of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How true, how
-unerringly true to human nature is this picture of the Iden household;
-how delicately felt and rendered to a hair is his picture of the
-father's sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the waspish
-tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we not only have the family's
-idiosyncrasies, their habits, mental atmosphere, and domestic story
-brought before us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively by the
-hand of the artist, but we have the whole book steeped in the breath of
-English spring, the restless ache of spring that thrills through the
-nerves, and stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring feeling
-breaking from the March heavens and the March earth in copse, meadow,
-and ploughland, as it has scarcely been rendered before by English
-novelist. The description of Amaryllis running out into the March wind
-to call her father from his potato planting to see the daffodil; the
-picture of Iden pretending to sleep in his chair that he may watch the
-mice; the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the crowd of plain,
-ugly men of the countryside flocking along the road to the fair; the
-description of Amadis the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the
-stalwart country folk--all these pictures and a dozen others in the book
-are painted with a masterly hand. Pictures! the critical reader may
-complain. Yes, pictures of living men and women. What does it matter
-whether a revelation of human life is conveyed to us by pictures or by
-action so long as it is conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
-Gray, presumably because both writers have written of the English
-landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in his work as a naturalist and observer
-of wild life may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert White.
-But this classification only applies to one half of Jefferies' books. By
-his "Wild Life in a Southern County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by
-his "Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little apart from the
-poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair" he stands among the half-dozen
-country writers of the century whose work is racy of the English soil
-and of rural English human nature. We will name three of these writers,
-Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and our attentive readers can name the other
-three.
-
-To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is it so masterly, or,
-further, wherein is it so masterly, the curious reader may inquire? "Is
-it not full of digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
-is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly break his method,
-introduce his own personality, intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food,
-illness, and Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's dinner a
-little--well, a little unusual? In short, is not the book a disquisition
-on life from the standpoint of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if
-this is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?" Oh, candid
-reader, with the voice of authority sounding in your ears (and have we
-not Mr. Henley and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against us), a
-book may break the formal rules, and yet it may yield to us just that
-salt of life which we may seek for vainly in the works of more faultless
-writers. The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its beauty
-springs naturally from the prosaic earthly facts of life it narrates,
-and that, in the natural atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose
-and the poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the artistic
-naturalness of its homely picture, the book is very superior to, say
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge," where we are conscious that the author has
-been at work arranging and rearranging his charming studies and
-impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge into the pattern of
-an exciting plot. Now it is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of
-"The Mayor of Casterbridge"--and we cite this novel as characteristic,
-both in its strength and weakness, of its distinguished author,--that we
-are brought to feel that we have not been shown the characters of
-Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but that they have been
-moved about, kaleidoscopically, to suit the exigencies of the plot, and
-that the more this is so the less significance for us have their
-thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling changes of Farfrae and
-Lucetta, Henchard and Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
-listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we perceive indeed
-whence comes that atmosphere of stage crisis and stage effect which
-suddenly introduces a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars the
-artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful in other respects
-to English rural life. Plot is Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed
-and convincing would have been his pictures, if he could have thrown his
-plots and his rustic choruses to the four winds. May we not be thankful,
-therefore, that Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that in
-"Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions, the conversations
-are spontaneous as life, and that Jefferies' commentary on them is like
-Fielding's commentary, a medium by which he lives with his characters.
-The author's imagination, memory, and instinctive perception are,
-indeed, all working together; and so his picture of human life in
-"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as fresh a breath of life
-as we find in Cobbett's, Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
-writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere, his style
-and his subject seem to become one. He moves easily and surely. Out of
-the splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the sensations, the
-observations and revelations of his youth, and the atmosphere familiar
-to him through long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning picture
-for us, a complete illusion of life more true than the reality. For what
-prosaic people call the reality is merely the co-ordination in their own
-minds of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life around them;
-and only this thousandth part they have noticed. But the creative mind
-builds up a living picture out of the thousands of aspects most of us
-are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies has done in "Amaryllis
-at the Fair." The book is rich in the contradictory forces of life, in
-its quick twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working alike
-in the leaves of grass outside the Idens' house, in the blustering winds
-round the walls, and in the minds of the characters indoors; and the
-style has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is growing,
-changing, breathing in the book. But the accomplished critics do not
-notice these trivial strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
-not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently thinks that Jefferies
-made a mistake in drawing his philosophy from an open-air study of
-nature, for he writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
-background was not like Wordsworth's clear and cheerful, but wholly
-vague and partly gloomy." It was neither vague nor gloomy, we may
-remark, parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw too deeply
-into nature's workings, and had too sensuous a joy in life to interpret
-all Nature's doings, a la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously moral
-significance.
-
-The one charge that may with truth be brought against "Amaryllis at the
-Fair" is that its digressions damage the artistic illusion of the whole.
-The book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness of a sketch, a
-sketch, moreover, which Jefferies was not destined to carry to the end
-he had planned, but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
-weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature, rather than those
-of an ambitious studio picture. And these digressions are an integral
-part of the book's character, just as the face of a man has its own
-blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the whole, and so, if they
-break somewhat the illusion of the scenes, they do not damage its
-spiritual unity. It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
-because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and complete testament on
-human life. He wrote it, or rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in
-pain, slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of a dying man.
-How real, how solid, how deliciously sweet seemed those simple earthly
-joys, those human appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
-is his passion and spiritual hunger for the beauty of earth! Like a
-flame shooting up from the log it is consuming, so this passion for the
-green earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine, consumes the
-wasted, consumptive body of the dying man. The reality, the solidity of
-the homely farmhouse life he describes spring from the intensity with
-which he clings to all he loves, the cold March wind buffeting the face,
-the mating cries of the birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so
-terribly strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
-hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving, bitter the
-knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring and vivifying the whole, in
-every line of "Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
-"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished critics. Did he
-not? "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the truest criticisms of human
-life, oh reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness of things,
-the old, old human muddle, the meanness and stupidity and
-shortsightedness of humanity, the good salty taste of life in the
-healthy mouth, the spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
-appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry, and the sharp
-wind blowing alike on the just and the unjust--all is there on the
-printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
-roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
-exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.
-
-                                                    EDWARD GARNETT.
-
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-
-FOOTNOTE:
-
-[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.
-
-
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-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
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-AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
-immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.
-
-There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
-Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
-bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
-gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
-the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
-The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
-be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
-innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
-growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
-which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
-pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
-morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
-ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."
-
-I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
-patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
-farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
-for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
-But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
-is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
-is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
-because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
-plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
-the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
-nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.
-
-Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
-now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
-a town can never be "home."
-
-Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or
-perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had
-damask roses, bees, and birds about them.
-
-There had been daffodils in that spot at least a century, opening every
-March to the dry winds that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
-and carry them out from the bushes under the trees, sending them across
-the meadow--fleeing like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
-Every spring for a century at least the daffodils had bloomed there.
-
-Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century, but ran round the corner
-of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her
-with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were
-blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of
-her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red
-brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a
-hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under
-her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed as if it would
-scoop them out; her eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips dried
-up and parched in a moment. The wind went through her thick stockings as
-if the wool was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her eyes, and the
-skin of her arm became "goosey" directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it
-would have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step by step, and
-gradually reached the shelter of the high garden wall; there she could
-stand upright, and breathe again.
-
-Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen blast, as if a storm of
-ice particles had been driven against them, now resumed their scarlet,
-but her ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly dark hair was
-dry and rough and without gloss. Each separate hair separated itself
-from the next, and would not lie smooth--the natural unctuous essence
-which usually caused them to adhere was dried up.
-
-The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and
-in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child,
-full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.
-Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.
-
-The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe
-looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow
-with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his
-nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and
-carried him past.
-
-Under the wall was a large patch recently dug, beside the patch a grass
-path, and on the path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in potatoes;
-he wore the raggedest coat ever seen on a respectable back. As the wind
-lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and only hung
-by threads, the cuffs were worn through, there was a hole beneath each
-arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
-which had once been grey, was now a mixture of several soils and
-numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had on was no better; it might have
-been made of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every now and then
-the wind brought a few handfuls of dust over the wall from the road, and
-dropped it on his stooping back.
-
-The way in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato
-was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it
-in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned
-over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and
-when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
-keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried
-the potatoes in his coat pocket--those, that is, for the row--and took
-them out one by one; had he been planting his own children he could not
-have been more careful. The science, the skill, and the experience
-brought to this potato-planting you would hardly credit; for all this
-care was founded upon observation, and arose from very large abilities
-on the part of the planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
-that moment.
-
-So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she ran down the grass path
-and stood by the wheelbarrow, but although her shadow fell across the
-potato row, he would not see her.
-
-"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing bolder. "Do come--there's a
-daffodil out, the very, very first."
-
-"Oh," a sound like a growl--"oh," from the depth of a vast chest
-heaving out a doubtful note.
-
-"It is such a beautiful colour!"
-
-"Where is your mother?" looking at her askance and still stooping.
-
-"Indoors--at least--I think--no----"
-
-"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help her? What good be you on?"
-
-"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very first--now do come!"
-
-"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as that; what do'ee want
-a-messing about arter thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't never
-got a apron on."
-
-"But--just a minute now."
-
-"Go on in, and be some use on."
-
-Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path,
-her head drooping forward.
-
-Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?
-
-She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began
-to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
-foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did
-not see or hear him till he overtook her.
-
-"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.
-
-"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.
-
-"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and brightening up immediately.
-"Only think, to open in all this wind, and so cold--isn't it beautiful?
-It's much more beautiful than the flowers that come in the summer."
-
-"Trumpery rubbish--mean to dig 'em all up--would if I had time,"
-muttered the father. "Have 'em carted out and drowed away--do for ashes
-to drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody, thaay thengs. You
-can't eat 'em, can you, like you can potatoes?"
-
-"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis stepped on the patch
-tenderly, and lifted up the drooping face of the flower.
-
-"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to his chin, a habit of his
-when thinking, and suddenly quite altering his pronunciation from that
-of the country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt to the correct
-accent of education. "Ah, yes; the daffodil was your great-uncle's
-favourite flower."
-
-"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.
-
-"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, noting how handsome her
-father's intellectual face looked, wandered in her mind from the flower
-as he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough sometimes, and why
-he talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged coat--he who was so full
-of wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought, and indeed acted
-as a perfect gentleman.
-
-"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He brought the daffodils down
-from Luckett's; every one in the garden came from there. He was always
-reading poetry, and writing, and sketching, and yet he was such a
-capital man of business; no one could understand that. He built the
-mill, and saved heaps of money; he bought back the old place at
-Luckett's, which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed,
-he very nearly made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got
-rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is all going again--faster
-than he made it. He used to take you on his knee and say you would walk
-well, because you had a good ankle."
-
-Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with her hands, as if that
-would lengthen the skirt and hide the ankles which Richard, the
-great-uncle, had admired when she was a child, being a man, but which
-her feminine acquaintances told her were heavy.
-
-"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish of you to go out in this
-wind without them!" said Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
-Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors again immediately.
-
-"He was the only one of all the family," continued her father, "who
-could make money; all the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
-generations he was the only money-maker and saver, and yet he was as
-free and liberal as possible. Very curious, wasn't it?--only one in ten
-generations--difficult to understand why none of the others--why----" He
-paused, thinking.
-
-Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking--thinking how easily her papa could
-make money, great heaps of money. She was sure he could if he tried,
-instead of planting potatoes.
-
-"If only another Richard would rise up like him!" said Iden.
-
-This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having had one genius in the
-family, and that, too, in the memory of man, they could not expect
-another. Even vast empires rarely produce more than one great man in all
-the course of their history. There was but one Caesar in the thousand
-years of Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless we except
-Themistocles, or unless we accept Alexander, who was a Macedonian;
-Persia had a Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few people know
-anything of the empire he overshadows with his name; France has had two
-mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon--unfortunate France! As for
-ourselves, fortunate islanders! we have never had a great man so
-immensely great as to overtop the whole, like Charlemagne in his day.
-Fortunate for us, indeed, that it has been so. But the best example to
-the point is the case of the immense empire of Russia, which has had one
-Peter the Great, and one only. Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the
-Great of his family, whose work had been slowly undone by his
-successors.
-
-"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out like Richard," continued
-Iden. "No one could deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
-convincing people, and always got his own will in the end. Wonderful
-man!" he pondered, returning towards his work.
-
-Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden just peered out, and cried,
-"Put your hat and scarf on directly."
-
-Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf very loosely about her
-neck. She accompanied her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
-would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She
-watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped
-so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime
-of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed
-at the shoulders. He worked so hard--ever since she could remember she
-had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was
-yet dark tending the cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
-wind or weather made no difference. Other people stopped indoors if it
-rained much, but it made no difference to her father, nor did the deep
-snow or the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly,
-too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could
-this be?
-
-What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show
-you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as
-ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as
-when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence
-is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-
-PRESENTLY Amaryllis wandered indoors, and was met in the hall by her
-mother.
-
-"What has he been talking to you about?" she said, angrily. "Don't
-listen to him. He will never do any good. Just look at his coat; it's a
-disgrace, a positive disgrace. Telling you about the old people? What's
-the use of talking of people who have been dead all this time? Why
-doesn't he do something himself? Don't listen to his rubbish--wasting
-his time there with potatoes, it is enough to make one wild! Why doesn't
-he go in to market and buy and sell cattle, and turn over money in that
-way? Not he! he'd rather muddle with a few paltry potatoes, as if it
-mattered an atom how they were stuck in the ground."
-
-Not liking to hear her father abused, Amaryllis went upstairs, and when
-she was alone lifted her skirt and looked at the ankles which
-great-uncle Richard had admired. Other girls had told her they were
-thick, and she was ashamed of them.
-
-Instead of the slender things which seem as if a sudden strain would
-snap them, and are nothing but mere bone, she had a pair of well-shaped
-ankles, justly proportioned to what would soon be a fine form; strong,
-but neither thick, nor coarse, nor heavy, ankles that would carry her
-many a mile without weariness, that ended good legs with plenty of flesh
-on them. The stupidity of calling such coarse or heavy! They were really
-ideal ankles, such as a sculptor would carve. Yet these ill-instructed
-girls called them coarse! It was not their fault, it was the lack of
-instruction; as they did not know what was physically perfect, of course
-they could not recognize it.
-
-Let every girl who has such ankles be proud of them, for they will prove
-a blessing to her for the whole of her life.
-
-Amaryllis could not get her hair smooth, though she brushed it for some
-time; it would not lie close, so much had the east wind dried it. She
-opened a drawer, and took out a little bottle of macassar, and held it
-in her hand, balancing probabilities. Would her father see it if she
-used it, or might he, perhaps, fail to notice? She dared not leave the
-bottle on the dressing-table, for if he had chanced to pass through the
-room he would certainly have thrown it out of window, so bitter was his
-antagonism to all oils and perfumes, scents, pomades, and other
-resources of the hairdresser, which he held defiled the hair and ruined
-it, to the deception of woman and the disgust of man. Not one drop of
-scent did Amaryllis dare to sprinkle on her handkerchief, not one drop
-of oil did she dare put on her beautiful hair unless surreptitiously,
-and then she could not go near him, for he was certain to detect it and
-scorch her with withering satire.
-
-Yet, however satirized, feminine faith in perfumes and oils and so forth
-is like a perennial spring, and never fails.
-
-Such splendid hair as Amaryllis possessed needed no dressing--nothing
-could possibly improve it, and the chances therefore were that whatever
-she used would injure--yet in her heart she yearned to rub it with oil.
-
-But the more she considered the more probable it seemed that her father
-would detect her; she had better wait till he went out for the afternoon
-somewhere, an event that seldom occurred, for Iden was one of those who
-preferred working at home to rambling abroad. He was, indeed, too
-attached to his home work. So she returned the bottle to the drawer, and
-hid it under some stockings.
-
-Immediately afterwards it was dinner-time. At all meals the rule was
-that there must be no talking, but at dinner the law was so strict that
-even to ask for anything, as a piece of bread, or to say so much as
-"Give me the salt, please," was a deadly sin. There must be absolute
-silence while the master ate. The least infringement was visited with a
-severe glance from his keen and brilliant blue eyes--there are no eyes
-so stern as blue eyes when angry--or else he uttered a deep sigh like a
-grunt, and sat rigidly upright for a moment. For he usually stooped,
-and to sit upright showed annoyance. No laws of the Medes and Persians
-were ever obeyed as was this law of silence in that house.
-
-Anything that disturbed the absolute calm of the dinner hour was worse
-than sacrilege; anything that threatened to disturb it was watched
-intently by that repressive eye. No one must come in or go out of the
-room; if anyone knocked at the door (there are no bells in old country
-houses) there was a frown immediately, it necessitated someone answering
-it, and then Mrs. Iden or Amaryllis had to leave the table, to go out
-and open and shut the sitting-room door as they went, and again as they
-returned. Amaryllis dreaded a knock at the door, it was so awful to have
-to stir once they had sat down to dinner, and the servant was certain
-not to know what reply to give. Sometimes it happened--and this was very
-terrible--that the master himself had to go, some one wanted him about
-some hay or a horse and cart, and no one could tell what to do but the
-master. A dinner broken up in this way was a very serious matter indeed.
-
-That day they had a leg of mutton--a special occasion--a joint to be
-looked on reverently. Mr. Iden had walked into the town to choose it
-himself some days previously, and brought it home on foot in a flag
-basket. The butcher would have sent it, and if not, there were men on
-the farm who could have fetched it, but it was much too important to be
-left to a second person. No one could do it right but Mr. Iden himself.
-There was a good deal of reason in this personal care of the meat, for
-it is a certain fact that unless you do look after such things yourself,
-and that persistently, too, you never get it first-rate. For this cause
-people in grand villas scarcely ever have anything worth eating on their
-tables. Their household expenses reach thousands yearly, and yet they
-rarely have anything eatable, and their dinner-tables can never show
-meat, vegetables, or fruit equal to Mr. Iden's. The meat was dark brown,
-as mutton should be, for if it is the least bit white it is sure to be
-poor; the grain was short, and ate like bread and butter, firm, and yet
-almost crumbling to the touch; it was full of juicy red gravy, and cut
-pleasantly, the knife went through it nicely; you can tell good meat
-directly you touch it with the knife. It was cooked to a turn, and had
-been done at a wood fire on a hearth; no oven taste, no taint of coal
-gas or carbon; the pure flame of wood had browned it. Such emanations as
-there may be from burning logs are odorous of the woodland, of the
-sunshine, of the fields and fresh air; the wood simply gives out as it
-burns the sweetness it has imbibed through its leaves from the
-atmosphere which floats above grass and flowers. Essences of this order,
-if they do penetrate the fibres of the meat, add to its flavour a
-delicate aroma. Grass-fed meat, cooked at a wood fire, for me.
-
-Wonderful it is that wealthy people can endure to have their meat
-cooked over coal or in a shut-up iron box, where it kills itself with
-its own steam, which ought to escape. But then wealthy villa people do
-do odd things. _Les Miserables_ who have to write like myself must put
-up with anything and be thankful for permission to exist; but people
-with mighty incomes from tea, or crockery-ware, or mud, or bricks and
-mortar--why on earth these happy and favoured mortals do not live like
-the gods passes understanding.
-
-Parisian people use charcoal: perhaps Paris will convert some of you who
-will not listen to a farmer.
-
-Mr. Iden had himself grown the potatoes that were placed before him.
-They were white, floury, without a drop of water in the whole dish of
-them. They were equal to the finest bread--far, far superior to the
-bread with which the immense city of London permits itself to be
-poisoned. (It is not much better, for it destroys the digestion.) This,
-too, with wheat at thirty shillings the quarter, a price which is in
-itself one of the most wonderful things of the age. The finest bread
-ought to be cheap.
-
-"They be forty-folds," said Mr. Iden, helping himself to half a dozen.
-"Look at the gravy go up into um like tea up a knob of sugar."
-
-The gravy was drawn up among the dry, floury particles of the potatoes
-as if they had formed capillary tubes.
-
-"Forty-folds," he repeated; "they comes forty to one. It be an amazing
-theng how thengs do that; forty grows for one. Thaay be an old-fashioned
-potato; you won't find many of thaay, not true forty-folds. Mine comes
-true, 'cause I saves um every year a' purpose. Better take more than
-that (to Amaryllis)--you haven't got but two" (to Mrs. Iden).
-
-What he ate other people at his table must eat, and the largest quantity
-possible. No one else must speak, hardly to say "Yes" or "No," but the
-master could talk, talk, talk without end. The only talking that might
-be done by others was in praise of the edibles on the table by Iden so
-carefully provided. You might admire the potatoes or the mutton, but you
-must not talk on any other subject. Nor was it safe even to do that,
-because if you said, "What capital potatoes!" you were immediately
-helped to another plateful, and had to finish them, want them or not. If
-you praised the mutton several thick slices were placed on your plate,
-and woe to you if you left a particle. It was no use to try and cover
-over what you could not manage with knife and fork; it was sure to be
-seen. "What bean't you going to yet (eat) up that there juicy bit, you?"
-
-Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden, warned by previous experience, discreetly
-refrained from admiring either mutton or potatoes.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-
-"FORTY-FOLDS," went on the master, "be the best keeping potatoes. Thur
-be so many new sorts now, but they bean't no good; they be very good for
-gentlefolk as doan't know no better, and poor folk as can't help
-theirselves. They won't grow everywhere neither; there bean't but one
-patch in our garden as ull grow 'um well. It's that's big middle patch.
-Summat different in the soil thur. There's a lot, bless you! to be
-learned before you can grow a potato, for all it looks such a simple
-thing. Farty-folds----"
-
-"Farty-folds!" said Mrs. Iden, imitating his provincial pronunciation
-with extreme disgust in her tone.
-
-"Aw, yes, too," said Iden. "Varty-volds be ould potatoes, and thur
-bean't none as can beat um."
-
-The more she showed her irritation at his speech or ways, the more he
-accentuated both language and manner.
-
-"Talking with your mouth full," said Mrs. Iden. It was true, Iden did
-talk with his mouth full, very full indeed, for he fed heartily. The
-remark annoyed him; he grunted and spluttered and choked a
-little--floury things are choky. He got it down by taking a long draught
-at his quart of strong ale. Splendid ale it was, too, the stuff to
-induce you to make faces at Goliath. He soon began to talk again.
-
-"Th' ould shepherd fetched me these swede greens; I axed un three days
-ago; I know'd we was going to have this yer mutton. You got to settle
-these yer things aforehand."
-
-"Axed," muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Th' pigeons have been at um, they be 'mazing fond of um, so be the
-larks. These be the best as thur was. They be the best things in the
-world for the blood. Swede greens be the top of all physic. If you can
-get fresh swede tops you don't want a doctor within twenty miles.
-Their's nothing in all the chemists' shops in England equal to swede
-greens"--helping himself to a large quantity of salt.
-
-"What a lot of salt you _do_ eat!" muttered Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Onely you must have the real swedes--not thuck stuff they sells in
-towns; greens they was once p'rhaps, but they be tough as leather, and
-haven't got a drop of sap in um. Swedes is onely to be got about March."
-
-"Pooh! you can get them at Christmas in London," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"Aw, can 'ee? Call they swede tops? They bean't no good; you might as
-well eat dried leaves. I tell you these are the young fresh green shoots
-of spring"--suddenly changing his pronunciation as he became interested
-in his subject and forgot the shafts of irritation shot at him by his
-wife. "They are full of sap--fresh sap--the juice which the plant
-extracts from the earth as the active power of the sun's rays increases.
-It is this sap which is so good for the blood. Without it the vegetable
-is no more than a woody fibre. Why the sap should be so powerful I
-cannot tell you; no one knows, any more than they know _how_ the plant
-prepares it. This is one of those things which defy analysis--the
-laboratory is at fault, and can do nothing with it." ("More salt!"
-muttered Mrs. Iden. "How can you eat such a quantity of salt?") "There
-is something beyond what the laboratory can lay hands on; something that
-cannot be weighed, or seen, or estimated, neither by quantity, quality,
-or by any means. They analyse champagne, for instance; they find so many
-parts water, so much sugar, so much this, and so much that; but out of
-the hundred parts there remain ten--I think it is ten--at all events so
-many parts still to be accounted for. They escape, they are set down as
-volatile--the laboratory has not even a distinct name for this
-component; the laboratory knows nothing at all about it, cannot even
-name it. But this unknown constituent is the real champagne. So it is
-with the sap. In spring the sap possesses a certain virtue; at other
-times of the year the leaf is still green, but useless to us."
-
-"I shall have some vinegar," said Mrs. Iden, defiantly, stretching out
-her hand to the cruet.
-
-Mr. Iden made a wry face, as if the mere mention of vinegar had set his
-teeth on edge. He looked the other way and ate as fast as he could, to
-close his eyes to the spectacle of any one spoiling the sappy swede
-greens with nauseous vinegar. To his system of edible philosophy vinegar
-was utterly antagonistic--destructive of the sap-principle, altogether
-wrong, and, in fact, wicked, as destroying good and precious food.
-
-Amaryllis would not have dared to have taken the vinegar herself, but as
-her mother passed the cruet to her, she, too, fell away, and mixed
-vinegar with the green vegetables. All women like vinegar.
-
-When the bottle was restored to the cruet-stand Mr. Iden deigned to look
-round again at the table.
-
-"Ha! you'll cut your thumb!" he shouted to Amaryllis, who was cutting a
-piece of bread. She put the loaf down with a consciousness of guilt.
-"Haven't I told you how to cut bread twenty times? Cutting towards your
-thumb like that! Hold your left hand lower down, so that if the knife
-slips it will go over. Here, like this. Give it to me."
-
-He cut a slice to show her, and then tossed the slice across the table
-so accurately that it fell exactly into its proper place by her plate.
-He had a habit of tossing things in that way.
-
-"Why ever couldn't you pass it on the tray?" said Mrs. Iden. "Flinging
-in that manner! I hate to see it."
-
-Amaryllis, as in duty bound, in appearance took the lesson in
-bread-cutting to heart, as she had done twenty times before. But she
-knew she should still cut a loaf in the same dangerous style when out of
-his sight. She could not do it in the safe way--it was so much easier in
-the other; and if she did cut her hand she did not greatly care.
-
-"Now perhaps you'll remember," said the master, getting up with his
-plate in his hand.
-
-"Whatever _are_ you going to do now?" asked Mrs. Iden, who knew
-perfectly well.
-
-"Going to warm the plate." He went out into the kitchen, sat down by the
-fire, and carefully warmed his plate for a second helping.
-
-"I should think you couldn't want any more," said Mrs. Iden when he came
-back. "You had enough the first time for three."
-
-But Iden, who had the appetite of a giant, and had never ruined his
-digestion with vinegar or sauces, piled another series of thick slices
-on his plate, now hot to liquefy the gravy, and added to the meat a just
-proportion of vegetables. In proportion and a just mixture the secret of
-eating successfully consisted, according to him.
-
-First he ate a piece of the dark brown mutton, this was immediately
-followed by a portion of floury potato, next by a portion of swede
-tops, and then, lest a too savoury taste should remain in the mouth, he
-took a fragment of bread, as it were to sweeten and cleanse his teeth.
-Finally came a draught of strong ale, and after a brief moment the same
-ingredients were mixed in the same order as before. His dinner was thus
-eaten in a certain order, and with a kind of rhythm, duly exciting each
-particular flavour like a rhyme in its proper position, and duly putting
-it out with its correct successor. Always the savour of meat and gravy
-and vegetables had to be toned down by the ultimate bread, a vast piece
-of which he kept beside him. He was a great bread eater--it was always
-bread after everything, and if there were two courses then bread between
-to prepare the palate, and to prevent the sweets from quarrelling with
-the acids. Organization was the chief characteristic of his mind--his
-very dinner was organized and well planned, and any break or disturbance
-was not so much an annoyance in itself as destructive of a clever
-design, like a stick thrust through the web of a geometrical spider.
-
-This order of mouthfuls had been explained over and over again to the
-family, and if they felt that he was in a more than usually terrible
-mood, and if they felt his gaze upon them, the family to some extent
-submitted. Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis, however, could ever educate
-their palates into this fixed sequence of feeding; and, if Iden was not
-in a very awful and Jovelike mood, they wandered about irregularly in
-their eating. When the dinner was over (and, indeed, before it began)
-they had a way of visiting the larder, and "picking" little fragments of
-pies, or cold fowl, even a cold potato, the smallest mug--a quarter of a
-pint of the Goliath ale between them, or, if it was to be had, a sip of
-port wine. These women were very irrational in their feeding; they
-actually put vinegar on cold cabbage; they gloated over a fragment of
-pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning. They had a herring
-sometimes for tea--the smell of it cooking sent the master into fits of
-indignation, he abominated it so, but they were so hardened and lost to
-righteousness they always repeated the offence next time the itinerant
-fish-dealer called. You could not drum them into good solid,
-straightforward eating.
-
-They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to eat in the kitchen after
-dinner, for Mr. Iden considered that no one could need a second course
-after first-rate mutton and forty-folds. A morsel of cheese if you
-liked--nothing more. In summer the great garden abounded with fruit; he
-would have nothing but rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, day after day, or else
-black-currant pudding. He held that black currants were the most
-wholesome fruit that grew; if he fancied his hands were not quite clean
-he would rub them with black-currant leaves to give them a pleasant
-aromatic odour (as ladies use scented soap). He rubbed them with
-walnut-leaves for the same purpose.
-
-Of salad in its season he was a great eater, cucumber especially, and
-lettuce and celery; but a mixed salad (oil and a flash, as it were, of
-Worcester sauce) was a horror to him. A principle ran through all his
-eating--an idea, a plan and design.
-
-I assure you it is a very important matter this eating, a man's fortune
-depends on his dinner. I should have been as rich as Croesus if I
-could only have eaten what I liked all my time; I am sure I should, now
-I come to look back.
-
-The soundest and most wholesome food in the world was set on Mr. Iden's
-table; you may differ from his system, but you would have enjoyed the
-dark brown mutton, the floury potatoes, the fresh vegetables and fruit
-and salad, and the Goliath ale.
-
-When he had at last finished his meal he took his knife and carefully
-scraped his crumbs together, drawing the edge along the cloth, first one
-way and then the other, till he had a little heap; for, eating so much
-bread, he made many crumbs. Having got them together, he proceeded to
-shovel them into his mouth with the end of his knife, so that not one
-was wasted. Sometimes he sprinkled a little moist sugar over them with
-his finger and thumb. He then cut himself a slice of bread and cheese,
-and sat down with it in his arm-chair by the fire, spreading his large
-red-and-yellow silk handkerchief on his knee to catch the fragments in
-lieu of a plate.
-
-"Why can't you eat your cheese at the table, like other people?" said
-Mrs. Iden, shuffling her feet with contemptuous annoyance. A deep grunt
-in the throat was the answer she received; at the same time he turned
-his arm-chair more towards the fire, as much as to say, "Other people
-are nothing to me."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-THIS arm-chair, of old-fashioned make, had lost an arm--the screw
-remained sticking up, but the woodwork on that side was gone. It had
-been accidentally broken some ten years since; yet, although he used the
-chair every day, the arm had never been mended. Awkward as it was, he
-let it alone.
-
-"Hum! where's _The Standard_, then?" he said presently, as he nibbled
-his cheese and sipped the ale which he had placed on the hob.
-
-"Here it is, Pa," said Amaryllis, hastening with the paper.
-
-"Thought you despised the papers?" said Mrs. Iden. "Thought there was
-nothing but lies and rubbish in them, according to you?"
-
-"No more thur bean't."
-
-"You always take good care to read them, though."
-
-"Hum!" Another deep grunt, and another slight turn of the chair. He
-could not answer this charge of inconsistency, for it was a fact that
-he affected to despise the newspaper and yet read it with avidity, and
-would almost as soon have missed his ale as his news.
-
-However, to settle with his conscience, he had a manner of holding the
-paper half aslant a good way from him, and every now and then as he read
-uttered a dissentient or disgusted grunt.
-
-The master's taking up his paper was a signal for all other persons to
-leave the room, and not to return till he had finished his news and his
-nap.
-
-Mrs. Iden and Amaryllis, as they went out, each took as many of the
-dishes as they could carry, for it was uncertain when they could come in
-again to clear the table. The cloth must not be moved, the door opened,
-or the slightest sound heard till the siesta was over.
-
-"Can't clear the dinner things till four o'clock," said Mrs. Iden as she
-went, "and then you want your tea--senseless!" Amaryllis shut the door,
-and the master was left to himself.
-
-By-and-by, his cheese being finished, he dropped his newspaper, and
-arranged himself for slumber. His left elbow he carefully fitted to the
-remnant of the broken woodwork of the chair. The silk handkerchief, red
-and yellow, he gathered into a loose pad in his left hand for his cheek
-and temple to rest on. His face was thus supported by his hand and arm,
-while the side of his head touched and rested against the wainscot of
-the wall.
-
-Just where his head touched it the wainscot had been worn away by the
-daily pressure, leaving a round spot. The wood was there exposed--a
-round spot, an inch or two in diameter, being completely bare of
-varnish. So many nods--the attrition of thirty years and more of
-nodding--had gradually ground away the coat with which the painter had
-originally covered the wood. It even looked a little hollow--a little
-depressed--as if his head had scooped out a shallow crater; but this was
-probably an illusion, the eye being deceived by the difference in colour
-between the wood and the varnish around it.
-
-This human mark reminded one of the grooves worn by the knees of
-generations of worshippers in the sacred steps of the temple which they
-ascended on all-fours. It was, indeed, a mark of devotion, as Mrs. Iden
-and others, not very keen observers, would have said, to the god of
-Sleep; in truth, it was a singular instance of continued devotion at the
-throne of the god of Thought.
-
-It was to think that Mr. Iden in the commencement assumed this posture
-of slumber, and commanded silence. But thought which has been cultivated
-for a third of a century is apt to tone down to something very near
-somnolence.
-
-That panel of wainscot was, in fact, as worthy of preservation as those
-on which the early artists delineated the Madonna and Infant, and for
-which high prices are now paid. It was intensely--superlatively--human.
-Worn in slow time by a human head within which a great mind was working
-under the most unhappy conditions, it had the deep value attaching to
-inanimate things which have witnessed intolerable suffering.
-
-I am not a Roman Catholic, but I must confess that if I could be assured
-any particular piece of wood had really formed a part of the Cross I
-should think it the most valuable thing in the world, to which
-Koh-i-noors would be mud.
-
-I am a pagan, and think the heart and soul above crowns.
-
-That panel was in effect a cross on which a heart had been tortured for
-the third of a century, that is, for the space of time allotted to a
-generation.
-
-That mark upon the panel had still a further meaning, it represented the
-unhappiness, the misfortunes, the Nemesis of two hundred years. This
-family of Idens had endured already two hundred years of unhappiness and
-discordance for no original fault of theirs, simply because they had
-once been fortunate of old time, and therefore they had to work out that
-hour of sunshine to the utmost depths of shadow.
-
-The panel of the wainscot upon which that mark had been worn was in
-effect a cross upon which a human heart had been tortured--and thought
-can, indeed, torture--for a third of a century. For Iden had learned to
-know himself, and despaired.
-
-Not long after he had settled himself and closed his eyes the handle of
-the door was very softly turned, and Amaryllis stole in for her book,
-which she had forgotten. She succeeded in getting it on tiptoe without a
-sound, but in shutting the door the lock clicked, and she heard him
-kick the fender angrily with his iron-shod heel.
-
-After that there was utter silence, except the ticking of the American
-clock--a loud and distinct tick in the still (and in that sense vacant)
-room.
-
-Presently a shadow somewhat darkened the window, a noiseless shadow;
-Mrs. Iden had come quietly round the house, and stood in the March wind,
-watching the sleeping man. She had a shawl about her shoulders--she put
-out her clenched hand from under its folds, and shook her fist at him,
-muttering to herself, "Never _do_ anything; nothing but sleep, sleep,
-sleep: talk, talk, talk; never _do_ anything. That's what I hate."
-
-The noiseless shadow disappeared; the common American clock continued
-its loud tick, tick.
-
-Slight sounds, faint rustlings, began to be audible among the cinders in
-the fender. The dry cinders were pushed about by something passing
-between them. After a while a brown mouse peered out at the end of the
-fender under Iden's chair, looked round a moment, and went back to the
-grate. In a minute he came again, and ventured somewhat farther across
-the width of the white hearthstone to the verge of the carpet. This
-advance was made step by step, but on reaching the carpet the mouse
-rushed home to cover in one run--like children at "touch wood," going
-out from a place of safety very cautiously, returning swiftly. The next
-time another mouse followed, and a third appeared at the other end of
-the fender. By degrees they got under the table, and helped themselves
-to the crumbs; one mounted a chair and reached the cloth, but soon
-descended, afraid to stay there. Five or six mice were now busy at their
-dinner.
-
-The sleeping man was as still and quiet as if carved.
-
-A mouse came to the foot, clad in a great rusty-hued iron-shod boot--the
-foot that rested on the fender, for he had crossed his knees. His ragged
-and dingy trouser, full of March dust, and earth-stained by labour, was
-drawn up somewhat higher than the boot. It took the mouse several trials
-to reach the trouser, but he succeeded, and audaciously mounted to
-Iden's knee. Another quickly followed, and there the pair of them
-feasted on the crumbs of bread and cheese caught in the folds of his
-trousers.
-
-One great brown hand was in his pocket, close to them--a mighty hand,
-beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What
-would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that
-could crack a ripe and strong-shelled walnut?
-
-The size--the mass--the weight of his hand alone was as a hill
-overshadowing them; his broad frame like the Alps; his head high above
-as a vast rock that overhung the valley.
-
-His thumb-nail--widened by labour with spade and axe--his thumb-nail
-would have covered either of the tiny creatures as his shield covered
-Ajax.
-
-Yet the little things fed in perfect confidence. He was so still, so
-_very_ still--quiescent--they feared him no more than they did the wall;
-they could not hear his breathing.
-
-Had they been gifted with human intelligence that very fact would have
-excited their suspicions. Why so very, _very_ still? Strong men, wearied
-by work, do not sleep quietly; they breathe heavily. Even in firm sleep
-we move a little now and then, a limb trembles, a muscle quivers, or
-stretches itself.
-
-But Iden was so still it was evident he was really wide awake and
-restraining his breath, and exercising conscious command over his
-muscles, that this scene might proceed undisturbed.
-
-Now the strangeness of the thing was in this way: Iden set traps for
-mice in the cellar and the larder, and slew them there without mercy. He
-picked up the trap, swung it round, opening the door at the same
-instant, and the wretched captive was dashed to death upon the stone
-flags of the floor. So he hated them and persecuted them in one place,
-and fed them in another.
-
-A long psychological discussion might be held on this apparent
-inconsistency, but I shall leave analysis to those who like it, and go
-on recording facts. I will only make one remark. That nothing is
-consistent that is human. If it was not inconsistent it would have no
-association with a living person.
-
-From the merest thin slit, as it were, between his eyelids, Iden watched
-the mice feed and run about his knees till, having eaten every crumb,
-they descended his leg to the floor.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-HE was not asleep--he was thinking. Sometimes, of course, it happened
-that slumber was induced by the position in which he placed himself;
-slumber, however, was not his intent. He liked to rest after his midday
-meal and think. There was no real loss of time in it--he had been at
-work since half-past five.
-
-His especial and striking characteristic was a very large, high, and
-noble forehead--the forehead attributed to Shakespeare and seen in his
-busts. Shakespeare's intellect is beyond inquiry, yet he was not
-altogether a man of action. He was, indeed, an actor upon the stage;
-once he stole the red deer (delightful to think of that!), but he did
-not sail to the then new discovered lands of America, nor did he fight
-the Spaniards. So much intellect is, perhaps, antagonistic to action, or
-rather it is averse to those arts by which a soldier climbs to the
-position of commander. If Shakespeare by the chance of birth, or other
-accident, had had the order of England's forces, we should have seen
-generalship such as the world had not known since Caesar.
-
-His intellect was too big to climb backstairs till opportunity came. We
-have great thoughts instead of battles.
-
-Iden's forehead might have been sculptured for Shakespeare's. There was
-too much thought in it for the circumstances of his life. It is possible
-to think till you cannot act.
-
-After the mice descended Iden did sleep for a few minutes. When he awoke
-he looked at the clock in a guilty way, and then opening the oven of the
-grate, took out a baked apple. He had one there ready for him almost
-always--always, that is, when they were not ripe on the trees.
-
-A baked apple, he said, was the most wholesome thing in the world; it
-corrected the stomach, prevented acidity, improved digestion, and gave
-tone to all the food that had been eaten previously. If people would
-only eat baked apples they would not need to be for ever going to the
-chemists' shops for drugs and salines to put them right. The women were
-always at the chemists' shops--you could never pass the chemists' shops
-in the town without seeing two or three women buying something.
-
-The apple was the apple of fruit, the natural medicine of man--and the
-best flavoured. It was compounded of the sweetest extracts and essences
-of air and light, put together of sunshine and wind and shower in such a
-way that no laboratory could imitate: and so on in a strain and with a
-simplicity of language that reminded you of Bacon and his philosophy of
-the Elizabethan age.
-
-Iden in a way certainly had a tinge of the Baconian culture, naturally,
-and not from any study of that author, whose books he had never seen.
-The great Bacon was, in fact, a man of orchard and garden, and gathered
-his ideas from the fields.
-
-Just look at an apple on the tree, said Iden. Look at a Blenheim orange,
-the inimitable mixture of colour, the gold and bronze, and ruddy tints,
-not bright colours--undertones of bright colours--smoothed together and
-polished, and made the more delightful by occasional roughness in the
-rind. Or look at the brilliant King Pippin. Now he was getting older he
-found, however, that the finest of them all was the russet. For eating,
-at its proper season, it was good, but for cooking it was simply the
-Imperial Caesar and Sultan of apples; whether for baking, or pies, or
-sauce, there was none to equal it. Apple-sauce made of the real true
-russet was a sauce for Jove's own table. It was necessary that it should
-be the real russet. Indeed in apple trees you had to be as careful of
-breeding and pedigree as the owners of racing stables were about their
-horses.
-
-Ripe apples could not be got all the year round in any variety; besides
-which, in winter and cold weather the crudity of the stomach needed to
-be assisted with a little warmth; therefore bake them.
-
-People did not eat nearly enough fruit now-a-days; they had too much
-butcher's meat, and not enough fruit--that is, home-grown fruit,
-straight from orchard or garden, not the half-sour stuff sold in the
-shops, picked before it was ready.
-
-The Americans were much wiser (he knew a good deal about America--he had
-been there in his early days, before thought superseded action)--the
-Americans had kept up many of the fine old English customs of two or
-three hundred years since, and among these was the eating of fruit. They
-were accused of being so modern, so very, very modern, but, in fact, the
-country Americans, with whom he had lived (and who had taught him how to
-chop) maintained much of the genuine antique life of old England.
-
-They had first-rate apples, yet it was curious that the same trees
-produced an apple having a slightly different flavour to what it had in
-this country. You could always distinguish an American apple by its
-peculiar piquancy--a sub-acid piquancy, a wild strawberry piquancy, a
-sort of woodland, forest, backwoods delicacy of its own. And so on, and
-so on--"talk, talk, talk," as Mrs. Iden said.
-
-After his baked apple he took another guilty look at the clock, it was
-close on four, and went into the passage to get his hat. In farmhouses
-these places are called passages; in the smallest of villas, wretched
-little villas not fit to be called houses, they are always "halls."
-
-In the passage Mrs. Iden was waiting for him, and began to thump his
-broad though bowed back with all her might.
-
-"Sleep, sleep, sleep!" she cried, giving him a thump at each word.
-"You've slept two hours. (Thump.) You sleep till you stupefy yourself
-(thump), and then you go and dig. What's the use of digging? (Thump.)
-Why don't you make some money? (Thump.) Talk and sleep! (Thump.) I hate
-it. (Thump.) You've rubbed the paint off the wainscot with your sleep,
-sleep, sleep (thump)--there's one of your hairs sticking to the paint
-where your head goes. (Thump.) Anything more hateful--sleep (thump),
-talk (thump), sleep (thump). Go on!"
-
-She had thumped him down the passage, and across the covered-in court to
-the door opening on the garden. There he paused to put on his hat--an
-aged, battered hat--some sort of nondescript bowler, broken, grey,
-weather-stained, very battered and very aged--a pitiful hat to put above
-that broad, Shakespearian forehead. While he fitted it on he was thumped
-severely: when he opened the door he paused, and involuntarily looked up
-at the sky to see about the weather--a habit all country people
-have--and so got more thumping, ending as he started out with a
-tremendous push. He did not seem to resent the knocks, nor did the push
-accelerate his pace; he took it very much as he took the March wind.
-
-Mrs. Iden slammed the door, and went in to clear the dinner things, and
-make ready for tea. Amaryllis helped her.
-
-"He'll want his tea in half an hour," said Mrs. Iden. "What's the use of
-his going out to work for half an hour?"
-
-Amaryllis was silent. She was very fond of her father; he never did
-anything wrong in her eyes, and she could have pointed out that when he
-sat down to dinner at one he had already worked as many hours as Mrs.
-Iden's model City gentleman in a whole day. His dinner at one was, in
-effect, equivalent to their dinner at seven or eight, over which they
-frequently lingered an hour or two. He would still go on labouring,
-almost another half day. But she held her peace, for, on the other hand,
-she could not contradict and argue with her mother, whom she knew had
-had a wearisome life and perpetual disappointments.
-
-Mrs. Iden grumbled on to herself, working herself into a more fiery
-passion, till at last she put down the tea-pot, and rushed into the
-garden. There as she came round the first thing she saw was the
-daffodil, the beautiful daffodil Amaryllis had discovered. Beside
-herself with indignation--what was the use of flowers or potatoes?--Mrs.
-Iden stepped on the border and trampled the flower under foot till it
-was shapeless. After this she rushed indoors again and upstairs to her
-bedroom, where she locked herself in, and fumbled about in the old black
-oak chest of drawers till she found a faded lavender glove.
-
-That glove had been worn at the old "Ship" at Brighton years and years
-ago in the honeymoon trip: in those days bridal parties went down by
-coach. Faded with years, it had also faded from the tears that had
-fallen upon it. She turned it over in her hands, and her tears spotted
-it once more.
-
-Amaryllis went on with the tea-making; for her mother to rush away in
-that manner was nothing new. She toasted her father a piece of toast--he
-affected to despise toast, but he always ate it if it was there, and
-looked about for it if it was not, though he never said anything. The
-clock struck five, and out she went to tell him tea was ready. Coming
-round the house she found her daffodil crushed to pieces.
-
-"Oh!" The blood rushed to her forehead; then her beautiful lips pouted
-and quivered; tears filled her eyes, and her breast panted. She knew
-immediately who had done it; she ran to her bedroom to cry and to hide
-her grief and indignation.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-LADY-DAY Fair came round by and by, and Amaryllis, about eleven o'clock
-in the morning, went down the garden to the end of the orchard, where
-she could overlook the highway without being seen, and watch the folk go
-past. Just there the road began to descend into a hollow, while the
-garden continued level, so that Amaryllis, leaning her arm on the top of
-the wall, was much higher up than those who went along. The wall dropped
-quite fourteen feet down to the road, a rare red brick wall--thick and
-closely-built, the bricks close together with thin seams of mortar, so
-that the fibres of the whole mass were worked and compressed and bound
-firm, like the fibres of a piece of iron. The deep red bricks had a
-colour--a certain richness of stability--and at the top this good piece
-of workmanship was protected from the weather by a kind of cap, and
-ornamented with a projecting ridge. Within the wall Amaryllis could
-stand on a slight bank, and easily look over it. Without there was a
-sheer red precipice of fourteen feet down to the dusty sward and
-nettles beside the road.
-
-Some bare branches of a plum tree trained against the wall rose thin and
-tapering above it in a bunch, a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to
-have been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance of neglect.
-One heavy bough had broken away from the nails and list, and drooped to
-the ground, and the shoots of last year, not having been trimmed, thrust
-themselves forward presumptuously.
-
-Behind the bunch of thin and tapering branches rising above the wall
-Amaryllis was partly hidden, but she relied a great deal more for
-concealment upon a fact Iden had taught her, that people very seldom
-look up; and consequently if you are only a little higher they will not
-see you. This she proved that morning, for not one of all who passed
-glanced up from the road. The shepherd kept his eye fixed on his sheep,
-and the drover on his bullocks; the boys were in a hurry to get to the
-fair and spend their pennies; the wenches had on a bit of blue ribbon or
-a new bonnet, and were perpetually looking at the traps that overtook
-them to see if the men admired their finery. No one looked up from the
-road they were pursuing.
-
-The photographer fixes the head of the sitter by a sort of stand at the
-back, which holds it steady in one position while the camera takes the
-picture. In life most people have their heads fixed in the claws of
-some miserable pettiness, which interests them so greatly that they
-tramp on steadily forward, staring ahead, and there's not the slightest
-fear of their seeing anything outside the rut they are travelling.
-
-Amaryllis did not care anything about the fair or the people either,
-knowing very well what sort they would be; but I suspect, if it had been
-possible to have got at the cause which brought her there, it would have
-been traced to the unconscious influence of sex, a perfectly innocent
-prompting, quite unrecognised by the person who feels it, and who would
-indignantly deny it if rallied on the subject, but which leads girls of
-her age to seize opportunities of observing the men, even if of an
-uninteresting order. Still they are men, those curious beings, that
-unknown race, and little bits of knowledge about them may, perhaps, be
-picked up by a diligent observer.
-
-The men who drifted along the road towards the Fair were no "mashers, by
-Jove!" Some of them, though young, were clad antiquely enough in
-breeches and gaiters--not sportsmen's breeches and gaiters, but
-old-fashioned "granfer" things; the most of them were stout and sturdy,
-in drab and brown suits of good cloth, cut awry. Hundreds of them on
-foot, in traps, gigs, fourwheels, and on horseback, went under
-Amaryllis: but, though they were all Christians, there was not one
-"worth a Jewess' eye."
-
-She scorned them all.
-
-This member of the unknown race was too thickly made, short set, and
-squat; this one too fair--quite white and moist-sugar looking; this one
-had a straight leg.
-
-Another went by with a great thick and long black beard--what a horrid
-thing, now, when kissing!--and as he walked he wiped it with his sleeve,
-for he had just washed down the dust with a glass of ale. His neck, too,
-was red and thick; hideous, yet he was a "stout knave," and a man all
-over, as far as body makes a man.
-
-But women are, like Shakespeare, better judges. "Care I for the thews
-and sinews of a man?" They look for something more than bulk.
-
-A good many of these fellows were more or less lame, for it is
-astonishing if you watch people go by and keep account of them what a
-number have game legs, both young and old.
-
-A young buck on a capital horse was at the first glance more
-interesting--paler, rakish, a cigar in his mouth, an air of viciousness
-and dash combined, fairly well dressed, pale whiskers and beard; in
-short, he knew as much of the billiard-table as he did of sheep and
-corn. When nearer Amaryllis disliked him more than all the rest put
-together; she shrank back a little from the wall lest he should chance
-to look up; she would have feared to have been alone with such a
-character, and yet she could not have said why. She would not have
-feared to walk side by side with the great black beard--hideous as he
-was--nor with any of the rest, not even with the roughest of the
-labourers who tramped along. This gentleman alone alarmed her.
-
-There were two wenches, out for their Fair Day holiday, coming by at the
-same time; they had on their best dresses and hats, and looked fresh and
-nice. They turned round to watch him coming, and half waited for him;
-when he came up he checked his horse, and began to "cheek" them. Nothing
-loth, the village girls "cheeked" him, and so they passed on.
-
-One or two very long men appeared, unusually clumsy, even in walking
-they did not know exactly what to do with their legs. Amaryllis had no
-objection to their being tall--indeed, to be tall is often a passport to
-a "Jewess' eye"--but they were so clumsy.
-
-Of the scores who went by in traps and vehicles she could not see much
-but their clothes and their faces, and both the clothes and the faces
-were very much alike. Rough, good cloth, ill-fitting (the shoulders were
-too broad for the tailor, who wanted to force Bond Street measurements
-on the British farmer's back); reddish, speckled faces, and yellowish
-hair and whiskers; big speckled hands, and that was all. Scores of men,
-precisely similar, were driven down the road. If those broad speckled
-hands had been shown to Jacob's ewes he need not have peeled rods to
-make them bring forth speckled lambs.
-
-Against the stile a long way up the road there was a group of five or
-six men, who were there when she first peered over the wall, and made
-no further progress to the Fair. They were waiting till some
-acquaintance came by and offered a lift; lazy dogs, they could not walk.
-They had already been there long enough to have walked to the Fair and
-back, still they preferred to fold their hands and cross their legs, and
-stay on. So many people being anxious to get to the town, most of those
-who drove had picked up friends long before they got here.
-
-The worst walker of all was a constable, whose huge boots seemed to take
-possession of the width of the road, for he turned them out at right
-angles, working his legs sideways to do it, an extraordinary exhibition
-of stupidity and ugliness, for which the authorities who drilled him in
-that way were responsible, and not the poor fellow.
-
-Among the lowing cattle and the baaing sheep there drifted by a variety
-of human animals, tramps and vagrants, not nearly of so much value as
-the wool and beef.
-
-It is curious that these "characters"--as they are so kindly
-called--have a way of associating themselves with things that promise
-vast enjoyment to others. The number of unhappy, shirtless wretches who
-thread their path in and out the coaches at the Derby is wonderful.
-While the champagne fizzes above on the roof, and the footman between
-the shafts sits on an upturned hamper and helps himself out of another
-to pie with truffles, the hungry, lean kine of human life wander round
-about sniffing and smelling, like Adam and Eve after the fall at the
-edge of Paradise.
-
-There are such incredible swarms of vagrants at the Derby that you might
-think the race was got up entirely for their sakes. There would be
-thousands at Sandown, but the gate is locked with a half-crown bolt, and
-they cannot get a stare at the fashionables on the lawn. For all that,
-the true tramp, male or female, is so inveterate an attendant at races
-and all kinds of accessible entertainments and public events that the
-features of the fashionable are better known to him than to hundreds of
-well-to-do people unable to enter society.
-
-So they paddled along to the fair, slip-slop, in the dust, among the
-cattle and sheep, hands in pockets, head hanging down, most of them
-followed at a short distance by a Thing.
-
-This Thing is upright, and therefore, according to the old definition,
-ought to come within the genus Homo. It wears garments rudely resembling
-those of a woman, and there it ends. Perhaps it was a woman once;
-perhaps it never was, for many of them have never had a chance to enter
-the ranks of their own sex.
-
-Amaryllis was too young, and, as a consequence, too full of her own
-strength and youth and joy in life to think for long or seriously about
-these curious Things drifting by like cattle and sheep. Yet her brow
-contracted, and she drew herself together as they passed--a sort of
-shiver, to think that there should be such degradation in the world.
-Twice when they came along her side of the road she dropped pennies in
-front of them, which they picked up in a listless way, just glancing
-over the ear in the direction the money fell, and went on without so
-much as recognizing where it came from.
-
-If sheep were treated as unfortunate human beings are, they would take a
-bitter revenge; though they are the mildest of creatures, they would
-soon turn round in a venomous manner. If they did not receive sufficient
-to eat and drink, and were not well sheltered, they would take a bitter
-revenge: _they would die_. Loss of L s. d.!
-
-But human beings have not even got the courage or energy to do that;
-they put up with anything, and drag on--miserables that they are.
-
-I said they were not equal in value to the sheep--why, they're not worth
-anything when they're dead. You cannot even sell the skins of the
-Things!
-
-Slip-slop in the dust they drive along to the fair, where there will be
-an immense amount of eating and a far larger amount of drinking all
-round them, in every house they pass, and up to midnight. They will see
-valuable animals, and men with well-lined pockets. What on earth can a
-tramp find to please him among all this? It is not for him; yet he goes
-to see it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-
-THE crowd began to pass more thickly, when Amaryllis saw a man coming up
-the road in the opposite direction to that in which the multitude was
-moving. They were going to the fair; he had his back to it, and a party
-in a trap rallied him smartly for his folly.
-
-"What! bean't you a-going to fair? Why, Measter Duck, what's up? Looking
-for a thunderstorm?"--which young ducks are supposed to enjoy. "Ha! ha!
-ha!"
-
-Measter Duck, with a broad grin on his face, nevertheless plodded up the
-hill, and passed beneath Amaryllis.
-
-She knew him very well, for he lived in the hamlet, but she would not
-have taken any notice of him had he not been so elaborately dressed. His
-high silk hat shone glossy; his black broadcloth coat was new and
-carefully brushed; he was in black all over, in contrast with the mass
-of people who had gone by that morning. A blue necktie, bright and
-clean, spotless linen, gloves rolled up in a ball in one hand, whiskers
-brushed, boots shining, teeth clean, Johnny was off to the fair!
-
-The coat fitted him to a nicety; it had, in fact, no chance to do
-otherwise, for his great back and shoulders stretched it tight, and
-would have done so had it been made like a sack. Of all the big men who
-had gone by that day Jack Duck was the biggest; his back was immense,
-and straight, too, for he walked upright for a farmer, nor was his bulk
-altogether without effect, for he was not over-burdened with abdomen, so
-that it showed to the best advantage. He was a little over the average
-height, but not tall; he had grown laterally.
-
-He could lift two sacks of wheat from the ground. You just try to lift
-_one_.
-
-His sleeves were too long, so that only the great knuckles of his
-speckled hands were visible. Red whiskers, red hair, blue eyes, speckled
-face, straight lips, thick, like the edge of an earthenware pitcher, and
-of much the same coarse red hue, always a ready grin, a round, hard
-head, which you might have hit safely with a mallet; and there is the
-picture.
-
-For some reason, very big men do not look well in glossy black coats and
-silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather
-than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour,
-suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. They do not belong to
-the town and narrow doorways; Nature grew them for hills and fields.
-
-Compared with the Continental folk, most Englishmen are big, and
-therefore, as their "best" suits do not fit in with their character as
-written in limbs and shoulders, the Continent thinks us clumsy. The
-truth is, it is the Continent that is little.
-
-"Isn't he ugly?" thought Amaryllis, looking down on poor John Duck.
-"Isn't he ugly?" Now the top of the wall was crusted with moss, which
-has a way of growing into bricks and mortar, and attaching particles of
-brick to its roots. As she watched the people she unconsciously trifled
-with a little piece of moss--her hand happened at the moment to project
-over the wall, and as John Duck went under she dropped the bit of moss
-straight on his glossy hat. Tap! the fragment of brick adhering to the
-moss struck the hollow hat smartly like a drum.
-
-She drew back quickly, laughing and blushing, and angry with herself all
-at the same time, for she had done it without a thought.
-
-Jack pulled off his hat, saw nothing, and put it on again, suspecting
-that some one in a passing gig had "chucked" something at him.
-
-In a minute Amaryllis peeped over the wall, and, seeing his broad back a
-long way up the road, resumed her stand.
-
-"How ever could I do such a stupid thing?" she thought. "But isn't he
-ugly? Aren't they _all_ ugly? All of them--horridly ugly."
-
-The entire unknown race of Man was hideous. So coarse in feature--their
-noses were thick, half an inch thick, or enormously long and knobbed at
-the end like a walking-stick, or curved like a reaping-hook, or slewed
-to one side, or flat as if they had been smashed, or short and stumpy
-and incomplete, or spotted with red blotches, or turned up in the
-vulgarest manner--nobody had a good nose.
-
-Their eyes were goggles, round and staring--like liquid marbles--they
-had no eyelashes, and their eyebrows were either white and invisible, or
-shaggy, as if thistles grew along their foreheads.
-
-Their cheeks were speckled and freckled and red and brick-dust and
-leather-coloured, and enclosed with scrubby whiskers, like a garden
-hedge.
-
-Upon the whole, those who shaved and were smooth looked worse than those
-who did not, for they thus exposed the angularities of their chins and
-jaws.
-
-They wore such horrid hats on the top of these roughly-sketched
-faces--sketched, as it were, with a bit of burnt stick. Some of them had
-their hats on the backs of their heads, and some wore them aslant, and
-some jammed over their brows.
-
-They went along smoking and puffing, and talking and guffawing in the
-vulgarest way, _en route_ to swill and smoke and puff and guffaw
-somewhere else.
-
-Whoever could tell what they were talking about? these creatures.
-
-They had no form or grace like a woman--no lovely sloped shoulders, no
-beautiful bosom, no sweeping curve of robe down to the feet. No softness
-of cheek, or silky hair, or complexion, or taper fingers, or arched
-eyebrows; no sort of style whatever. They were mere wooden figures; and,
-in short, sublimely ugly.
-
-There was a good deal of truth in Amaryllis' reflections; it was a pity
-a woman was not taken into confidence when the men were made.
-
-Suppose the women were like the men, and we had to make love to such a
-set of bristly, grisly wretches!--pah! shouldn't we think them ugly! The
-patience of the women, putting up with us so long!
-
-As for the muscles on which we pride ourselves so much, in a woman's
-eyes (though she prefers a strong man) they simply increase our
-extraordinary ugliness.
-
-But if we look pale, and slim, and so forth, then they despise us, and
-there is no doubt that altogether the men were made wrong.
-
-"And Jack's the very ugliest of the lot," thought Amaryllis. "He just
-_is_ ugly."
-
-Pounding up the slope, big John Duck came by-and-by to the gateway, and
-entering without ceremony, as is the custom in the country, found Mr.
-Iden near the back door talking to a farmer who had seated himself on a
-stool.
-
-He was a middle-aged man, stout and florid, rough as a chunk of wood,
-but dressed in his best brown for the fair. Tears were rolling down his
-vast round cheeks as he expatiated on his grievances to Mr. Iden:--
-
-"Now, just you see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman," he
-concluded as Duck arrived. Mr. Iden, not a little glad of an opportunity
-to escape a repetition of the narrative, to which he had patiently
-listened, took Jack by the arm, and led him indoors. As they went the
-man on the stool extended his arm towards them hopelessly:--"Just you
-see how I be helped up with this here 'ooman!"
-
-A good many have been "helped up" with a woman before now.
-
-Mrs. Iden met Jack with a gracious smile--she always did--yet there
-could not have been imagined a man less likely to have pleased her.
-
-A quick, nervous temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or
-foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome
-John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous
-mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always
-complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast
-to her own disposition that charmed her.
-
-John Duck was Another Man--not Mr. Iden.
-
-The best of matrons like to see Another Man enter their houses; there's
-no viciousness in it, it is simply nature, which requires variety. The
-best of husbands likes to have another woman--or two, or three--on a
-visit; there's nothing wrong, it is innocent enough, and but gives a
-spice to the monotony of existence.
-
-Besides, John Duck, that mountain of slowness and stolidity, was not
-perhaps a fool, notwithstanding his outward clumsiness. A little
-attention is appreciated even by a matron of middle age.
-
-"Will you get us some ale?" said Iden; and Mrs. Iden brought a full jug
-with her own hands--a rare thing, for she hated the Goliath barrel as
-Iden enjoyed it.
-
-"Going to the fair, Mr. Duck?"
-
-"Yes, m'm," said John, deep in his chest and gruff, about as a horse
-might be expected to speak if he had a voice. "You going, m'm? I just
-come up to ask if you'd ride in my dog-trap?"
-
-John had a first-rate turn-out.
-
-Mrs. Iden, beaming with smiles, replied that she was not going to the
-fair.
-
-"Should be glad to take you, you know," said John, dipping into the ale.
-"Shall you be going presently?"--to Mr. Iden. "Perhaps you'd have a
-seat?"
-
-"Hum!" said Iden, fiddling with his chin, a trick he had when undecided.
-"I don't zactly know; fine day, you see; want to see that hedge grubbed;
-want to fill up the gaps; want to go over to the wood meads; thought
-about----"
-
-"There, take and go!" said Mrs. Iden. "Sit there thinking--take and go."
-
-"I can't say zactly, John; don't seem to have anything to go vor."
-
-"What do other people go for?" said Mrs. Iden, contemptuously. "Why
-can't you do like other people? Get on your clean shirt, and go. Jack
-can wait--he can talk to Amaryllis while you dress."
-
-"Perhaps Miss would like to go," suggested John, very quietly, and as if
-it was no consequence to him; the very thing he had called for, to see
-if he could get Amaryllis to drive in with him. He knew that Mrs. Iden
-never went anywhere, and that Mr. Iden could not make up his mind in a
-minute--he would require three or four days at least--so that it was
-quite safe to ask them first.
-
-"Of course she would," said Mrs. Iden. "She is going--to dine with her
-grandfather; it will save her a long walk. You had better go and ask
-her; she's down at Plum Corner, watching the people."
-
-"So I wull," said Jack, looking out of the great bow window at the
-mention of Plum Corner--he could just see the flutter of Amaryllis'
-dress in the distance between the trees. That part of the garden was
-called Plum Corner because of a famous plum tree--the one that had not
-been pruned and was sprawling about the wall.
-
-Mr. Iden had planted that plum tree specially for Mrs. Iden, because she
-was so fond of a ripe luscious plum. But of late years he had not pruned
-it.
-
-"Vine ale!" said John, finishing his mug. "Extra vine ale!"
-
-"It be, bean't it?" said Mr. Iden.
-
-It really was humming stuff, but John well knew how proud Iden was of
-it, and how much he liked to hear it praised.
-
-The inhabitants of the City of London conceitedly imagine that no one
-can be sharp-witted outside the sound of Bow Bells--country people are
-stupid. My opinion is that clumsy Jack Duck, who took about half an hour
-to write his name, was equal to most of them.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-THE ale being ended, Iden walked with him through the orchard.
-
-"Famous wall that," said John, presently, nodding towards the great red
-brick wall which adorned that side of the place. "Knowed how to build
-walls in those days."
-
-"No such wall as that anywhere about here," said Iden, as proud of his
-wall as his ale. "No such bricks to be got. Folk don't know how to put
-up a wall now--you read in the papers how the houses valls down in
-Lunnon."
-
-"Sort of cracks and comes in like--jest squashes up," said John.
-
-"Now, that's a real bit of brickwork," said Iden. "That'll last--ah,
-last----"
-
-"No end to it," said John, who had admired the wall forty times before,
-thinking to himself as he saw Amaryllis leaning over the corner,
-"Blessed if I don't think as 'twas she as dropped summat on my hat."
-This strengthened his hopes; he had a tolerably clear idea that Mr. and
-Mrs. Iden were not averse to his suit; but he was doubtful about
-Amaryllis herself.
-
-Amaryllis had not the slightest idea Duck had so much as looked at
-her--he called often, but seemed absorbed in the ale and gossip. Fancy
-her scorn if she had guessed!
-
-John Duck was considered one of the most eligible young men thereabouts,
-for though by no means born in the purple of farming, it was believed he
-was certain to be very "warm" indeed when his father died. Old Duck, the
-son of a common labourer, occupied two or three of the finest farms in
-the neighbourhood. He made his money in a waggon--a curious place, you
-will say; why so? Have you ever seen the dingy, dark china-closets they
-call offices in the City? Have you ever ascended the dirty, unscrubbed,
-disgraceful staircase that leads to a famous barrister's "chambers"?
-These are far less desirable, surely, than a seat in a waggon in a
-beautiful meadow or cornfield. Old Duck, being too ponderous to walk,
-was driven about in a waggon, sitting at the rear with his huge, short
-legs dangling down; and, the waggon being halted in a commanding
-position, he overlooked his men at work.
-
-One day he was put in a cart instead, and the carter walking home beside
-the horse, and noting what a pull it was for him up the hills, and
-drawling along half asleep, quite forgot his master, and dreamed he had
-a load of stones. By-and-by, he pulled out the bar, and shot Old Duck
-out. "A shot me out," grumbled the old man, "as if I'd a been a load of
-flints."
-
-Riding about in this rude chariot the old fellow had amassed
-considerable wealth--his reputation for money was very great indeed--and
-his son John would, of course, come in for it.
-
-John felt sure of Mr. and Mrs. Iden, but about Amaryllis he did not
-know. The idea that she had dropped "summat" on his hat raised his
-spirits immensely.
-
-Now Amaryllis was not yet beautiful--she was too young; I do not think
-any girl is really beautiful so young--she was highly individualized,
-and had a distinct character, as it were, in her face and figure. You
-saw at a glance that there was something about her very different from
-other girls, something very marked, but it was not beauty yet.
-
-Whether John thought her handsome, or saw that she would be, or what, I
-do not know; or whether he looked "forrard," as he would have said.
-
-          "Heigh for a lass with a tocher!"
-
-John had never read Burns, and would not have known that tocher meant
-dowry; nor had he seen the advice of Tennyson--
-
-          "Doesn't thee marry for money,
-           But go where money lies."
-
-but his native intelligence needed no assistance from the poets,
-coronetted or otherwise.
-
-It was patent to everyone that her father, Iden, was as poor as the
-raggedest coat in Christendom could make him; but it was equally well
-known and a matter of public faith, that her grandfather, the great
-miller and baker, Lord Lardy-Cake, as the boys called him derisively,
-had literally bushels upon bushels of money. He was a famous stickler
-for ancient usages, and it was understood that there were twenty
-thousand spade guineas in an iron box under his bed. Any cottager in the
-whole country side could have told you so, and would have smiled at your
-ignorance; the thing was as well known as that St. Paul's is in the
-City.
-
-Besides which there was another consideration, old Granfer Iden was a
-great favourite at Court--Court meaning the mansion of the Hon. Raleigh
-Pamment, the largest landowner that side of the county. Granfer Iden
-entered the Deer Park (which was private) with a special key whenever he
-pleased, he strolled about the gardens, looked in at the conservatory,
-chatted familiarly with the royal family of Pamment when they were at
-home, and when they were away took any friend he chose through the
-galleries and saloons.
-
-"Must be summat at the bottom on't," said John Duck to himself many a
-time and oft. "They stuck-up proud folk wouldn't have he there if there
-wasn't summat at the bottom on't." A favourite at Court could dispense,
-no doubt, many valuable privileges.
-
-Amaryllis heard their talk as they came nearer, and turned round and
-faced them. She wore a black dress, but no hat; instead she had
-carelessly thrown a scarlet shawl over her head, mantilla fashion, and
-held it with one hand. Her dark ringlets fringed her forehead, blown
-free and wild; the fresh air had brought a bright colour into her
-cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose figure is just beginning
-to show itself, her dress seemed somewhat shortened in front--lifted up
-from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she
-seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in
-her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our
-grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance,
-wilfulness, rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood on the
-bank, a little higher than they were, and able to look over their heads.
-
-"Marning," said John, rocking his head to one side as a salute.
-
-"Marning," repeated Amaryllis, mocking his broad pronunciation.
-
-As John could not get any further Iden helped him.
-
-"Jack's going to the fair," he said, "and thought you would like to ride
-with him. Run in and dress."
-
-"I shan't ride," said Amaryllis, "I shall walk."
-
-"Longish way," said John. "Mor'n two mile."
-
-"I shall walk," said Amaryllis, decidedly.
-
-"Lot of cattle about," said John.
-
-"Better ride," said Iden.
-
-"No," said Amaryllis, and turned her back on them to look over the wall
-again.
-
-She was a despot already. There was nothing left for them but to walk
-away.
-
-"However," said Iden, always trying to round things off and make square
-edges smooth, "very likely you'll overtake her and pick her up."
-
-"Her wull go across the fields," said John. "Shan't see her."
-
-As he walked down the road home for his dog-trap he looked up at the
-corner of the wall, but she was not looking over then. Mrs. Iden had
-fetched her in, as it was time to dress.
-
-"I don't want to go," said Amaryllis, "I hate fairs--they are so silly."
-
-"But you must go," said Mrs. Iden. "Your grandfather sent a message last
-night; you know it's his dinner-day."
-
-"He's such a horrid old fellow," said Amaryllis, "I can't bear him."
-
-"How dare you speak of your grandfather like that? you are getting very
-rude and disrespectful."
-
-There was no depending on Mrs. Iden. At one time she would go on and
-abuse Granfer Iden for an hour at a time, calling him every name she
-could think of, and accusing him of every folly under the sun. At
-another time she would solemnly inform Amaryllis that they had not a
-farthing of money, and how necessary it was that they should be
-attentive and civil to him.
-
-Amaryllis very slowly put her hat on and the first jacket to hand.
-
-"What! aren't you going to change your dress?"
-
-"No, that I'm not."
-
-"Change it directly."
-
-"What, to go in and see that musty old----"
-
-"Change it directly; I _will_ be obeyed."
-
-Amaryllis composedly did as she was bid.
-
-One day Mrs. Iden humoured her every whim and let her do just as she
-pleased; the next she insisted on minute obedience.
-
-"Make haste, you'll be late; now, then, put your things on--come."
-
-So Amaryllis, much against her will, was bustled out of the house and
-started off. As John had foreseen, she soon quitted the road to follow
-the path across the fields, which was shorter.
-
-An hour or so later Iden came in from work as usual, a few minutes
-before dinner, and having drawn his quart of ale, sat down to sip it in
-the bow window till the dishes were brought.
-
-"You're not gone, then?" said Mrs. Iden, irritatingly.
-
-"Gone--wur?" said Iden, rather gruffly for him.
-
-"To fair, of course--like other people."
-
-"Hum," growled Iden.
-
-"You know your father expects all the family to come in to dinner on
-fair day; I can't think how you can neglect him, when you know we
-haven't got a shilling--why don't you go in and speak to him?"
-
-"You can go if you like."
-
-"I go!" cried Mrs. Iden. "I go!" in shrill accents of contempt. "I don't
-care a button for all the lardy-cake lot! Let him keep his money. I'm as
-good as he is any day. My family go about, and do some business----"
-
-"_Your_ family," muttered Iden. "The Flammas!"
-
-"Yes, _my_ family--as good as yours, I should think! What's your family
-then, that you should be so grand? You're descended from a lardy-cake!"
-
-"You be descended from a quart pot," said Iden.
-
-This was an allusion to Mrs. Iden's grandfather, who had kept a small
-wayside public. There was no disgrace in it, for he was a very
-respectable man, and laid the foundation of his family's fortune, but it
-drove Mrs. Iden into frenzy.
-
-"You talk about a quart pot--_you_," she shrieked. "Why, your family
-have drunk up thousands of pounds--you know they have. Where's the
-Manor? they swilled it away. Where's Upper Court? they got it down their
-throats. They built a house to drink in and nothing else. You know they
-did. You told me yourself. The most disgraceful set of drunkards that
-ever lived!"
-
-"Your family don't drink, then, I suppose?" said Iden.
-
-"Your lot's been drinking two hundred years--why, you're always talking
-about it."
-
-"Your family be as nervous as cats--see their hands shake in the
-morning."
-
-"They go to business in the City and do something; they don't mess about
-planting rubbishing potatoes." Mrs. Iden was London born.
-
-"A pretty mess they've made of their business, as shaky as their hands.
-Fidgetty, miserable, nervous set they be."
-
-"They're not stocks and stones like yours, anyhow, as stolid, and slow,
-and stupid; why, you do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep, and talk, talk,
-talk. You've been talking with the lazy lot over at the stile, and
-you've been talking with that old fool at the back door, and talking
-with Jack Duck--and that's your second mug! You're descended from a
-nasty, greasy lardy-cake! There!"
-
-Iden snatched a piece of bread from the table and thrust it in one
-pocket, flung open the oven-door, and put a baked apple in the other
-pocket, and so marched out to eat what he could in quiet under a tree in
-the fields.
-
-In the oratory of abuse there is no resource so successful as raking up
-the weaknesses of the opponent's family, especially when the parties are
-married, for having gossiped with each other for so long in the most
-confidential manner, they know every foible. How Robert drank, and Tom
-bet, and Sam swore, and Bill knocked his wife about, and Joseph did as
-Potiphar's spouse asked him, and why your uncle had to take refuge in
-Spain; and so on to an indefinite extent, like the multiplication table.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-
-THIS discordance between her father and mother hurt Amaryllis'
-affectionate heart exceedingly. It seemed to be always breaking out all
-the year round.
-
-Of a summer's eve, when the day's work among the hot hay was done, Iden
-would often go out and sit under the russet apple till the dew had
-filled the grass like a green sea. When the tide of the dew had risen he
-would take off his heavy boots and stockings, and so walk about in the
-cool shadows of eve, paddling in the wet grass. He liked the refreshing
-coolness and the touch of the sward. It was not for washing, because he
-was scrupulously clean under the ragged old coat; it was because he
-liked the grass. There was nothing very terrible in it; men, and women,
-too, take off their shoes and stockings, and wade about on the sands at
-the sea, and no one thinks that it is anything but natural, reasonable,
-and pleasant. But, then, you see, _everybody_ does it at the seaside,
-and Iden alone waded in the dew, and that was his crime--that he alone
-did it.
-
-The storm and rage of Mrs. Iden whenever she knew he was paddling in the
-grass was awful. She would come shuffling out--she had a way of rubbing
-her shoes along the ground when irritated with her hands under her
-apron, which she twisted about--and pelt him with scorn.
-
-"There, put your boots on--do, and hide your nasty feet!" (Iden had a
-particularly white skin, and feet as white as a lady's.) "Disgusting!
-Nobody ever does it but you, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
-Anything more disgusting I never heard of. Nobody else but you would
-ever think of such a thing; makes me feel queer to see you."
-
-Shuffling about, and muttering to herself, "Nobody else"--that was the
-sin and guilt of it--by-and-by Mrs. Iden would circle round to where he
-had left his boots, and, suddenly seizing them, would fling them in the
-ditch.
-
-And I verily believe, in the depth of her indignation, if she had not
-been afraid to touch firearms, she would have brought out the gun, and
-had a shot at him.
-
-After a time Iden left his old post at the russet apple, and went up the
-meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and
-there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the
-dew, without any one to grumble at him.
-
-How crookedly things are managed in this world!
-
-It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and
-all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
-high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable--all so
-incongruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go
-on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and
-straight people in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been
-dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
-to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our abilities and natures.
-Such an utter jumble!
-
-Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful power of observation,
-who ought to have been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
-Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or, with his singular
-capacity for construction, a leading engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels
-and making Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect, forming a new
-school of philosophy--here was Iden, tending cows, and sitting, as the
-old story goes, undecidedly on a stile--sitting astride--eternally
-sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off on one side or the
-other.
-
-Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful shape and expressive eyes,
-full in her youth of life and fire, who ought to have led the gayest
-life in London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage, and flinging
-money about in the most extravagant, joyous, and good-natured
-manner--here was Mrs. Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and
-wearing shoes out at the toes.
-
-So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's cart over ruts and
-stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward
-like a cricket-ball.
-
-It all happens in the Turkish manner.
-
-Another time there would come a letter from one of the Flammas in
-London. Could they spare a little bag of lavender?--they grew such
-lovely sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might see Mr. and Mrs.
-Iden cooing and billing, soft as turtle-doves, and fraternising in the
-garden over the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you see, to the
-story.
-
-Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent, and the plant in every
-form. She kept little bags of it in all her drawers, and everything at
-Coombe Oaks upstairs in the bedrooms had a faint, delicious lavender
-perfume. There is nothing else that smells so sweet and clean and dry.
-You cannot imagine a damp sheet smelling of lavender.
-
-Iden himself liked lavender, and used to rub it between his finger and
-thumb in the garden, as he did, too, with the black-currant leaves and
-walnut-leaves, if he fancied anything he had touched might have left an
-unpleasant odour adhering to his skin. He said it cleaned his hands as
-much as washing them.
-
-Iden liked Mrs. Iden to like lavender because his mother had been so
-fond of it, and all the sixteen carved oak-presses which had been so
-familiar to him in boyhood were full of a thick atmosphere of the
-plant.
-
-Long since, while yet the honeymoon bouquet remained in the wine of
-life, Iden had set a hedge of lavender to please his wife. It was so
-carefully chosen, and set, and watched, that it grew to be the finest
-lavender in all the country. People used to come for it from round
-about, quite certain of a favourable reception, for there was nothing so
-sure to bring peace at Coombe Oaks as a mention of lavender.
-
-But the letter from the Flammas was the great event--from London, all
-that way, asking for some Coombe Oaks lavender! Then there was billing
-and cooing, and fraternising, and sunshine in the garden over the hedge
-of lavender. If only it could have lasted! Somehow, as people grow older
-there seems so much grating of the wheels.
-
-In time, long time, people's original feelings get strangely confused
-and overlaid. The churchwardens of the eighteenth century plastered the
-fresco paintings of the fourteenth in their churches--covered them over
-with yellowish mortar. The mould grows up, and hides the capital of the
-fallen column; the acanthus is hidden in earth. At the foot of the oak,
-where it is oldest, the bark becomes dense and thick, impenetrable, and
-without sensitiveness; you may cut off an inch thick without reaching
-the sap. A sort of scale or caking in long, long time grows over
-original feelings.
-
-There was no one in the world so affectionate and loving as Mrs.
-Iden--no one who loved a father so dearly; just as Amaryllis loved _her_
-father.
-
-But after they had lived at Coombe Oaks thirty years or so, and the
-thick dull bark had grown, after the scales or caking had come upon the
-heart, after the capital of the column had fallen, after the painting
-had been blurred, it came about that old Flamma, Mrs. Iden's father,
-died in London.
-
-After thirty years of absolute quiet at Coombe Oaks, husband and wife
-went up to London to the funeral, which took place at one of those
-fearful London cemeteries that strike a chill at one's very soul. Of all
-the horrible things in the world there is nothing so calmly ghastly as a
-London cemetery.
-
-In the evening, after the funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Iden went to the
-theatre.
-
-"How frivolous! How unfeeling!" No, nothing of the sort; how truly sad
-and human, for to be human is to be sad. That men and women should be so
-warped and twisted by the pressure of the years out of semblance to
-themselves; that circumstances should so wall in their lives with
-insurmountable cliffs of granite facts, compelling them to tread the
-sunless gorge; that the coldness of death alone could open the door to
-pleasure.
-
-They sat at the theatre with grey hearts. With the music and the song,
-the dancing, the colours and gay dresses, it was sadder there than in
-the silent rooms at the house where the dead had been. Old Flamma alone
-had been dead _there_; they were dead here. Dead in life--at the
-theatre.
-
-They had used to go joyously to the theatre thirty years before, when
-Iden came courting to town; from the edge of the grave they came back
-to look on their own buried lives.
-
-If you will only _think_, you will see it was a most dreadful and
-miserable incident, that visit to the theatre after the funeral.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-
-WHEN Mrs. Iden threw his lardy-cake descent in Iden's face she alluded
-to Grandfather Iden's being a baker and miller, and noted for the
-manufacture of these articles. A lardy, or larded, cake is a thing, I
-suppose, unknown to most of this generation; they were the principal
-confectionery familiar to country folk when Grandfather Iden was at the
-top of his business activity, seventy years since, in the Waterloo era.
-
-A lardy-cake is an oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at
-the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked
-something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry;
-they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their
-ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a
-trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, and the
-rest depended on the strength of the digestion. But if a ploughboy could
-get a new, warm lardy-cake, fresh from the oven, he thought himself
-blessed.
-
-Grandfather Iden had long since ceased any serious business, but he
-still made a few of these renowned cakes for his amusement, and sold a
-good few at times to the carters' lads who came in to market.
-
-Amaryllis knew the path perfectly, but if she had not, the tom-tomming
-of drums and blowing of brass, audible two miles away, would have guided
-her safely to the fair. The noise became prodigious as she
-approached--the ceaseless tomtom, the beating of drums and gongs outside
-the show vans, the shouting of the showmen, the roar of a great crowd,
-the booing of cattle, the baaing of sheep, the neighing of
-horses--altogether the "rucket" was tremendous.
-
-She looked back from the hill close to the town and saw the people
-hurrying in from every quarter--there was a string of them following the
-path she had come, and others getting over distant stiles. A shower had
-fallen in the night, but the ceaseless wheels had ground up the dust
-again, and the lines of the various roads were distinctly marked by the
-clouds hanging above them. For one on business, fifty hastened on to
-join the uproar.
-
-Suppose the Venus de Medici had been fetched from Florence and had been
-set up in the town of Woolhorton, or the Laocoon from Rome, or the Milo
-from Paris, do you think all these people would have scurried in such
-haste to admire these beautiful works? Nothing of the sort; if you want
-a crowd you must make a row. It is really wonderful how people do
-thoroughly and unaffectedly enjoy a fearful disturbance; if the cannon
-could be shot off quietly, and guns made no noise, battles would not be
-half so popular to read about. The silent arrow is uninteresting, and if
-you describe a mediaeval scramble you must put in plenty of splintering
-lances, resounding armour, shrieks and groans, and so render it lively.
-
-"This is the patent age of new inventions," and some one might make a
-profit by starting a fete announcing that a drum or a gong would be
-provided for every individual, to be beaten in a grand universal chorus.
-
-Amaryllis had no little difficulty in getting through the crowd till she
-found her way behind the booths and slipped along the narrow passage
-between them and the houses. There was an arched entrance,
-archaeologically interesting, by which she paused a moment, half inclined
-to go up and inquire for her boots. The shoemaker who lived there had
-had them since Christmas, and all that wanted doing was a patch on one
-toe; they were always just going to be done, but never finished. She
-read the inscription over his door, "Tiras Wise, Shoemaker; Established
-1697." A different sort of shoemaker to your lively Northampton awls; a
-man who has been in business two hundred years cannot be hurried. She
-sighed, and passed on.
-
-The step to Grandfather Iden's door consisted of one wide stone of
-semi-circular shape, in which the feet of three generations of
-customers had worn a deep grove. The venerable old gentleman, for he was
-over ninety, was leaning on the hatch (or lower half of the door), in
-the act of handing some of his cakes to two village girls who had called
-for them. These innocent, hamlet girls, supposed to be so rurally
-simple, had just been telling him how they never forgot his nice cakes,
-but always came every fair day to buy some. For this they got sixpence
-each, it being well known that the old gentleman was so delighted with
-anybody who bought his cakes he generally gave them back their money,
-and a few coppers besides.
-
-He took Amaryllis by the arm as she stood on the step and pulled her
-into the shop, asked her if her father were coming, then walked her down
-by the oven-door, and made her stand up by a silver-mounted peel, to see
-how tall she was. The peel is the long wooden rod, broad at one end,
-with which loaves are placed in the baker's oven. Father Iden being
-proud of his trade, in his old age had his favourite peel ornamented
-with silver.
-
-"Too fast--too fast," he said, shaking his head, and coughing; "you grow
-too fast; there's the notch I cut last year, and now you're two inches
-taller." He lowered the peel, and showed her where his thumb was--quite
-two inches higher than the last year's mark.
-
-"I want to be tall," said Amaryllis.
-
-"I daresay--I daresay," said the old man, in the hasty manner of feeble
-age, as he cut another notch to record her height. The handle of the
-peel was notched all round, where he had measured his grandchildren;
-there were so many marks it was not easy to see how he distinguished
-them.
-
-"Is your father coming?" he asked, when he had finished with the knife.
-
-"I don't know." This was Jesuitically true--she did not _know_--she
-could not be certain; but in her heart she was sure he would not come.
-But she did not want to hear any hard words said about him.
-
-"Has he sent anything? Have you brought anything for me? No. No.
-Hum!--ha!"--fit of coughing--"Well, well--come in; dinner's late,
-there's time to hear you read--you're fond of books, you read a great
-deal at home,"--and so talking, half to himself and half to her, he led
-the way into the parlour by the shop.
-
-Bowed by more than ninety years, his back curved over forwards, and his
-limbs curved in the opposite direction, so that the outline of his form
-resembled a flattened capital S. For his chin hung over his chest, and
-his knees never straightened themselves, but were always more or less
-bent as he stood or walked. It was much the attitude of a strong man
-heavily laden and unable to stand upright--such an attitude as big Jack
-Duck in his great strength might take when carrying two sacks of wheat
-at once. There was as heavy a load on Grandfather Iden's back, but Time
-is invisible.
-
-He wore a grey suit, as a true miller and baker should, and had worn the
-same cut and colour for years and years. In the shop, too, he always
-had a grey hat on, perhaps its original hue was white, but it got to
-appear grey upon him; a large grey chimney-pot, many sizes too big for
-his head apparently, for it looked as if for ever about to descend and
-put out his face like an extinguisher. Though his boots were so
-carefully polished, they quickly took a grey tint from the flour dust as
-he pottered about the bins in the morning. The ends of his trousers, too
-long for his antique shanks, folded and creased over his boots, and
-almost hid his grey cloth under-gaiters.
-
-A great knobbed old nose--but stay, I will not go further, it is not
-right to paint too faithfully the features of the very aged, which are
-repellent in spite of themselves; I mean, they cannot help their faces,
-their sentiments and actions are another matter; therefore I will leave
-Father Iden's face as a dim blot on the mirror; you look in it and it
-reflects everywhere, except one spot.
-
-Amaryllis followed him jauntily,--little did she care, reckless girl,
-for the twenty thousand guineas in the iron box under his bed.
-
-The cottage folk, who always know so much, had endless tales of Iden's
-wealth; how years ago bushels upon bushels of pennies, done up in
-five-shilling packets, had been literally carted like potatoes away from
-the bakehouse to go to London; how ponies were laden with sacks of
-silver groats, all paid over that furrowed counter for the golden flour,
-dust more golden than the sands of ancient Pactolus.
-
-Reckless Amaryllis cared not a pin for all the spade guineas in the iron
-box.
-
-The old man sat down by the fire without removing his hat, motioning to
-her to shut the door, which she was loth to do, for the little room was
-smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma, he coughed incessantly, and
-mopped his mouth with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
-craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to the grate, and piled up
-the coal till it smoked and smoked, and filled the close apartment with
-a suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into Father Iden's sanctuary
-was an honour, but, like other honours, it had to be paid for.
-
-Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to breathe as short as
-possible, to avoid inhaling more than she could bear.
-
-"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the bookcases, which occupied
-three sides of the room. "Books--you like books; look at them--go and
-see."
-
-To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the
-shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very
-good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere
-throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the
-county, old and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
-Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as Bernard Quaritch, that giant
-of the modern auction room, would have written magnificent cheques for.
-
-Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the auction-room bidding for
-books? It is one of the sights of London, let me tell you, to any one
-who thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights are reputations
-merely--the pale reflection of things that were real once. This sight is
-something of the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
-_Athenaeum_ in the season, examine the advertisements of book auctions,
-and attend the next great sale of some famous library.
-
-You have a recollection of the giant who sat by the highway and devoured
-the pilgrims who passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring and
-devours the books set loose upon their travels after the repose of
-centuries.
-
-What prices to give! No one can withstand him. From Paris they send
-agents with a million francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
-the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles, but in vain. They only
-get what the Giant chooses to leave them.
-
-Books that nobody ever heard of fetch L50, L60, L100, L200; wretched
-little books never opened since they were printed; dull duodecimos on
-the course of the river Wein; nondescript indescribable twaddling local
-books in Italian, Spanish, queer French, written and printed in some
-unknown foreign village; read them--you might as well try to amuse
-yourself with a Chinese pamphlet! What earthly value they are of cannot
-be discovered. They were composed by authors whose names are gone like
-the sand washed by the Nile into the sea before Herodotus. They contain
-no beautiful poetry, no elevated thought, no scientific discovery; they
-are simply so much paper, printing, and binding, so many years old, and
-it is for that age, printing, and binding that the money is paid.
-
-I have read a good many books in my time--I would not give sixpence for
-the whole lot.
-
-They are not like a block-book--first efforts at printing; nor like the
-first editions of great authors; there is not the slightest intrinsic
-value in them whatever.
-
-Yet some of them fetch prices which not long ago were thought tremendous
-even for the Shakespeare folio.
-
-Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are paid for them. Living and writing
-authors of the present day are paid in old songs by comparison.
-
-Still, this enormous value set on old books is one of the remarkable
-signs of the day. If any one wishes to know what To-Day is, these
-book-auctions are of the things he should go to see.
-
-Such books as these lined Grandfather Iden's shelves; among them there
-were a few that I call _real_ old books, an early translation or two, an
-early Shakespeare, and once there had been a very valuable Boccaccio,
-but this had gone into Lord Pamment's library, "Presented by James
-Bartholomew Iden, Esq."
-
-The old man often went to look at and admire his Boccaccio in my Lord's
-library.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-
-THERE was one peculiarity in all the books on Grandfather Iden's
-shelves, they were all very finely bound in the best style of hand-art,
-and they all bore somewhere or other a little design of an ancient Roman
-lamp.
-
-Hand-art is a term I have invented for the workmanship of good taste--it
-is not the sculptor's art, nor the painter's--not the art of the mind,
-but the art of the hand. Some furniture and cabinet work, for instance,
-some pottery, book-binding like this, are the products of hand-art.
-
-"Do you see the Lamp?" asked the old man, when Amaryllis had stared
-sufficiently at the backs of the books.
-
-"Yes, I can see the Lamp."
-
-"House of Flamma," said old Iden.
-
-"House of Flamma," repeated Amaryllis, hastily, eager to show that she
-understood all about it. She feared lest he should enter into the
-history of the House of Flamma and of his connection with it; she had
-heard it all over and over again; her mother was a Flamma; she had
-herself some of the restless Flamma blood in her. When anything annoyed
-her or made her indignant her foot used to tap the floor, and her neck
-flush rosy, and her face grow dusky like the night. Then, striving to
-control herself, she would say to herself, "I _will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Except her dear mother and one other, Amaryllis detested and despised
-the whole tribe of the Flammas, the nervous, excitable, passionate,
-fidgetty, tipsy, idle, good-for-nothing lot; she hated them all, the
-very name and mention of them; she sided with her father as an Iden
-against her mother's family, the Flammas. True they were almost all
-flecked with talent like white foam on a black horse, a spot or two of
-genius, and the rest black guilt or folly. She hated them; she would not
-be a Flamma.
-
-How should she at sixteen understand the wear and tear of life, the
-pressure of circumstances, the heavy weight of difficulties--there was
-something to be said even for the miserable fidgetty Flammas, but
-naturally sixteen judged by appearances. Shut up in narrow grooves and
-working day after day, year after year, in a contracted way, by degrees
-their constitutional nervousness became the chief characteristic of
-their existence. It was Intellect overcome--over-burdened--with two
-generations of petty cares; Genius dulled and damped till it went to the
-quart pot.
-
-Sixteen could scarcely understand this. Amaryllis detested the very
-name; she would not be a Flamma.
-
-But she was a Flamma for all that; a Flamma in fire of spirit, in
-strength of indignation, in natural capacity; she drew, for instance,
-with the greatest ease in pencil or pen-and-ink, drew to the life; she
-could write a letter in sketches.
-
-Her indignation sometimes at the wrongfulness of certain things seemed
-to fill her with a consuming fire. Her partizanship for her father made
-her sometimes inwardly rage for the lightning, that she might utterly
-erase the opposer. Her contempt of sycophancy, and bold independence led
-her constantly into trouble.
-
-Flamma means a flame.
-
-Yet she was gentleness itself too; see her at the bookshelves patiently
-endeavouring to please the tiresome old man.
-
-"Open that drawer," said he, as she came to it.
-
-Amaryllis did so, and said that the coins and medals in it were very
-interesting, as they really were. The smoke caught her in the throat,
-and seemed to stop the air as she breathed from reaching her chest. So
-much accustomed to the open air, she felt stifled.
-
-Then he asked her to read to him aloud, that he might hear how she
-enunciated her words. The book he gave her was an early copy of Addison,
-the page a pale yellow, the type old-fount, the edges rough, but where
-in a trim modern volume will you find language like his and ideas set
-forth with such transparent lucidity? How easy to write like that!--so
-simple, merely a letter to an intimate friend; but try!
-
-Trim modern volumes are so very hard to read, especially those that come
-to us from New York, thick volumes of several hundred pages, printed on
-the thinnest paper in hard, unpleasant type. You cannot read them; you
-_work_ through them.
-
-The French have retained a little of the old style of book in their
-paper bound franc novels, the rough paper, thick black type, rough edges
-are pleasant to touch and look at--they feel as if they were done by
-hand, not turned out hurriedly smooth and trim by machinery.
-
-Docile to the last degree with him, Amaryllis tried her utmost to read
-well, and she succeeded, so far as the choking smoke would let her. By
-grunting between his continuous fits of coughing the old man signified
-his approval.
-
-Amaryllis would have been respectful to any of the aged, but she had a
-motive here; she wanted to please him for her father's sake. For many
-years there had been an increasing estrangement between the younger and
-the elder Iden; an estrangement which no one could have explained, for
-it could hardly be due to money matters if Grandfather Iden was really
-so rich. The son was his father's tenant--the farm belonged to
-Grandfather Iden--and perhaps the rent was not paid regularly. Still
-that could not have much mattered--a mere trifle to a man of old Iden's
-wealth. There was something behind, no one knew what; possibly they
-scarcely knew themselves, for it is a fact that people frequently fall
-into a quarrel without remembering the beginning.
-
-Amaryllis was very anxious to please the old man for her father's sake;
-her dear father, whom she loved so much. Tradesmen were for ever
-worrying him for petty sums of money; it made her furious with
-indignation to see and hear it.
-
-So she read her very best, and swallowed the choking smoke patiently.
-
-Among the yellow pages, pressed flat, and still as fresh as if gathered
-yesterday, Amaryllis found bright petals and coloured autumn leaves. For
-it was one of the old man's ways to carry home such of these that
-pleased him and to place them in his books. This he had done for half a
-century, and many of the flower petals and leaves in the grey old works
-of bygone authors had been there a generation. It is wonderful how long
-they will endure left undisturbed and pressed in this way; the paper
-they used in old books seems to have been softer, without the hard
-surface of our present paper, more like blotting paper, and so keeps
-them better. Before the repulsion between father and son became so
-marked, Amaryllis had often been with her grandfather in the garden and
-round the meadows at Coombe Oaks, and seen him gather the yellow tulips,
-the broad-petalled roses, and in autumn the bright scarlet bramble
-leaves. The brown leaves of the Spanish chestnut, too, pleased him;
-anything with richness of colour. The old and grey, and withered man
-gathered the brightest of petals for his old and grey, and forgotten
-books.
-
-Now the sight of these leaves and petals between the yellow pages
-softened her heart towards him; he was a tyrant, but he was very, very
-old, they were like flowers on a living tomb.
-
-In a little while Grandfather Iden got up, and going to a drawer in one
-of the bookcases, took from it some scraps of memoranda; he thrust these
-between her face and the book, and told her to read them instead.
-
-"These are your writing."
-
-"Go on," said the old man, smiling, grunting, and coughing, all at once.
-
-"In 1840," read Amaryllis, "there were only two houses in Black Jack
-Street." "Only _two_ houses!" she interposed, artfully.
-
-"Two," said the grandfather.
-
-"One in 1802," went on Amaryllis, "while in 1775 the site was covered
-with furze." "How it has changed!" she said. He nodded, and coughed, and
-smiled; his great grey hat rocked on his head and seemed about to
-extinguish him.
-
-"There's a note at the bottom in pencil, grandpa. It says, 'A hundred
-voters in this street, 1884.'"
-
-"Ah!" said the old man, an ah! so deep it fetched his very heart up in
-coughing. When he finished, Amaryllis read on--
-
-"In 1802 there were only ten voters in the town."
-
-"Ah!" His excitement caused such violent coughing Amaryllis became
-alarmed, but it did him no harm. The more he coughed and choked the
-livelier he seemed. The thought of politics roused him like a
-trumpet--it went straight to his ancient heart.
-
-"Read that again," he said. "How many voters now?"
-
-"A hundred voters in this street, 1884."
-
-"We've got them all"--coughing--"all in my lord's houses, everyone; vote
-Conservative, one and all. What is it?" as some one knocked. Dinner was
-ready, to Amaryllis's relief.
-
-"Perhaps you would like to dine with me?" asked the grandfather,
-shuffling up his papers. "There--there," as she hesitated, "you would
-like to dine with young people, of course--of course."
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-
-OLD Grandfather Iden always dined alone in the parlour, with his
-housekeeper to wait on him; they were just bringing in his food. The
-family and visitors had their meals in a separate and much more
-comfortable apartment in another part of the house, which was large.
-Sometimes, as a great favour and special mark of approval, the old Pacha
-would invite you to eat with him.
-
-Amaryllis, though anxious to please him, hesitated, not only because of
-the smoke, but because she knew he always had pork for dinner.
-
-The rich juices of roast pork sustained his dry and withered frame--it
-was a sort of Burgundy of flesh to him. As the good wine of Burgundy
-fills the blood with iron and strengthens the body, so the rich juice of
-the pork seemed to supply the oil necessary to keep the sinews supple
-and to prevent the cartilages from stiffening.
-
-The scientific people say that it is the ossification of the
-cartilages--the stiffening of the firmer tissues--that in time
-interferes with the processes of life. The hinges rust, as if your
-tricycle had been left out in the rain for a week--and the delicate
-watchwork of the human frame will not run.
-
-If suppleness could only be maintained there is no reason why it should
-not continue to work for a much longer period, for a hundred and fifty,
-two hundred years--as long as you fancy. But nothing has yet been
-devised to keep up the suppleness.
-
-Grandfather Iden found the elixir of life in roast pork. The jokers of
-Woolhorton--there are always jokers, very clever they think
-themselves--considered the reason it suited him so well was because of
-the pig-like obstinacy of his disposition.
-
-Anything more contrary to common sense than for an old man of ninety to
-feed on pork it would be hard to discover--so his friends said.
-
-"Pork," said the physician, had down from London to see him on one
-occasion, "pork is the first on the list of indigestible articles of
-food. It takes from six to eight hours for the gastric apparatus to
-reduce its fibres. The stomach becomes overloaded--acidity is the
-result; nightmares, pains, and innumerable ills are the consequence. The
-very worst thing Mr. Iden could eat."
-
-"Hum," growled the family doctor, a native of Woolhorton, when he heard
-of this. "Hum!" low in his throat, like an irate bulldog. If in the
-least excited, like most other country folk, he used the provincial
-pronunciation. "Hum! A' have lived twenty years on pork. Let'n yet it!"
-
-Grandfather Iden intended to eat it, and did eat it six days out of
-seven, not, of course, roast pork every dinner; sometimes boiled pork;
-sometimes he baked it himself in the great oven. Now and then he varied
-it with pig-meat--good old country meat, let me tell you, pig-meat--such
-as spare-rib, griskin, blade-bone, and that mysterious morsel, the
-"mouse." The chine he always sent over for Iden junior, who was a chine
-eater--a true Homeric diner--and to make it even, Iden junior sent in
-the best apples for sauce from his favourite russet trees. It was about
-the only amenity that survived between father and son.
-
-The pig-meat used to be delicious in the old house at home, before we
-all went astray along the different paths of life; fresh from the pigs
-fed and killed on the premises, nutty, and juicy to the palate. Much of
-it is best done on a gridiron--here's heresy! A gridiron is flat
-blasphemy to the modern school of scientific cookery. Scientific
-fiddlestick! Nothing like a gridiron to set your lips watering.
-
-But the "mouse,"--what was the "mouse?" The London butchers can't tell
-me. It was a titbit. I suppose it still exists in pigs; but London folk
-are so ignorant.
-
-Grandfather Iden ate pig in every shape and form, that is, he mumbled
-the juice out of it, and never complained of indigestion.
-
-He was up at five o'clock every morning of his life, pottering about the
-great oven with his baker's man. In summer if it was fine he went out at
-six for a walk in the Pines--the promenade of Woolhorton.
-
-"If you wants to get well," old Dr. Butler used to say, "you go for a
-walk in the marning afore the aair have been braathed auver."
-
-Before the air has been breathed over--inspired and re-inspired by human
-crowds, while it retains the sweetness of the morning, like water fresh
-from the spring; that was when it possessed its value, according to
-bluff, gruff, rule-of-thumb old Butler. Depend upon it, there is
-something in his dictum, too.
-
-Amaryllis hesitated at the thought of the pork, for he often had it
-underdone, so the old gentleman dismissed her in his most gracious
-manner to dine with the rest.
-
-She went down the corridor and took the seat placed for her. There was a
-posy of primroses beside her napkin--posies of primroses all round the
-table.
-
-This raging old Tory of ninety years would give a shilling for the
-earliest primrose the boys could find for him in the woods. Some one got
-him a peacock's feather which had fallen from Beaconsfield's
-favourites--a real Beaconsfield peacock-feather--which he had set in the
-centre of a splendid screen of feathers that cost him twenty guineas.
-The screen was upstairs in the great drawing-room near a bow window
-which overlooked the fair.
-
-People, you see, took pains to get him feathers and anything he fancied,
-on account of the twenty thousand spade guineas in the iron box under
-the bed.
-
-His daughters, elderly, uninteresting married folk, begged him not to
-keep a peacock's feather in the house--it would certainly bring
-misfortune. The superstition was so firmly rooted in their minds that
-they actually argued with him--_argued_ with Grandfather Iden!--pointing
-out to him the fearful risk he was running. He puffed and coughed, and
-grew red in the face--the great grey hat shook and tottered with anger;
-not for all the Powers of Darkness would he have given up that feather.
-
-The chairs round the large table were arranged in accordance with the
-age of the occupants. There were twenty-one grandchildren, and a number
-of aunts, uncles, and so on; a vague crowd that does not concern us. The
-eldest sat at the head of the table, the next in age followed, and so
-all round the dishes. This arrangement placed Amaryllis rather low
-down--a long way from the top and fountain of honour--and highly
-displeased her. She despised and disliked the whole vague crowd of her
-relations, yet being there, she felt that she ought to have had a
-position above them all. Her father--Iden, junior--was old Iden's only
-son and natural heir; therefore her father's chair ought to have been at
-the top of the table, and hers ought to have been next to his.
-
-Instead of which, as her father was not the eldest, his seat was some
-distance from the top, and hers again, was a long way from his.
-
-All the other chairs were full, but her father's chair was empty.
-
-The vague crowd were so immensely eager to pay their despicable court to
-the Spade-Guinea Man, not one of them stopped away; the old, the young,
-the lame, the paralytic, all found means to creep in to Grandfather
-Iden's annual dinner. His only son and natural heir was alone absent.
-How eagerly poor Amaryllis glanced from time to time at that empty
-chair, hoping against hope that her dear father would come in at the
-Psalms, or even at the sermon, and disappoint the venomous, avaricious
-hearts of the enemies around her.
-
-For well she knew how delighted they were to see his chair empty, as a
-visible sign and token of the gulf between father and son, and well she
-knew how diligently each laboured to deepen the misunderstanding and set
-fuel to the flame of the quarrel. If the son were disinherited, consider
-the enormous profit to the rest of them!
-
-Grandfather Iden made no secret of the fact that he had not signed a
-will. It was believed that several rough drafts had been sketched out
-for him, but, in his own words--and he was no teller of falsehoods--he
-had not decided on his will. If only they could persuade him to make his
-will they might feel safe of something; but suppose he went off pop, all
-in a moment, as these extraordinarily healthy old people are said to do,
-and the most of his estate in land! Consider what a contingency--almost
-all of it would go to his own son. Awful thing!
-
-Amaryllis was aware how they all stared at her and quizzed her over and
-over; her hair, her face, her form, but most of all her dress. They were
-so poor at home she had not had a new dress this twelvemonth past; it
-was true her dress was decent and comfortable, and she really looked
-very nice in it to any man's eye; but a girl does not want a comfortable
-dress, she wants something in the style of the day, and just
-sufficiently advanced to make the women's eyes turn green with envy. It
-is not the men's eyes; it is the women's eyes.
-
-Amaryllis sat up very quiet and unconcerned, trying with all her might
-to make them feel she was the Heiress, not only an only son's only
-daughter, but the only son's only offspring--doubly the Heiress of
-Grandfather Iden.
-
-The old folk, curious in such matters, had prophesied so soon as she was
-born that there would be no more children at Coombe Oaks, and so it fell
-out. For it had been noticed in the course of generations, that in the
-direct line of Iden when the first child was a daughter there were none
-to follow. And further, that there never was but one Miss Iden at a
-time.
-
-If the Direct Line had a daughter first, they never had any more
-children; consequently that daughter was the only Miss Iden.
-
-If the Direct Line had a son, they never had a second son, though they
-might have daughters; but then, in order that there should still be
-only one Miss Iden, it always happened that the first died, or was
-married early, before the second came into existence.
-
-Such was the tradition of the Iden family; they had a long pedigree, the
-Idens, reaching farther back than the genealogies of many a peer, and it
-had been observed that this was the rule of their descent.
-
-Amaryllis was the only Miss Iden, and the heiress, through her father,
-of the Spade-Guinea Man. She tried to make them feel that she knew it
-and felt it; that she was the Iden of the Idens. Her proud face--it was
-a very proud face naturally--darkened a little, and grew still more
-disdainful in its utter scorn and loathing of the vague crowd of
-enemies.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-
-TO one, as it were, in the gallery, it was a delight to see her; her
-sweet cheeks, fresh as the dawn, reddening with suppressed indignation;
-her young brow bent; her eyes cast down--don't you think for a moment
-she would deign to look at them--pride in her heart, and resolute
-determination to fight for her dear father and mother.
-
-But she felt as she sat so unconcerned that there was a crack in her
-boot unmended, and it seemed as if everyone could see it though under
-the solid table. She had not had a really sound pair of boots for many,
-many months; they could not afford her a new pair at home, and the
-stupid shoemaker, "Established 1697," was such a time repairing her
-others.
-
-She would not look at them, but she knew that they were all dressed
-better than she was; there were some of them very poor, and very vulgar,
-too, but they were all dressed better than her, and without a doubt had
-sound boots on their feet.
-
-The cottagers in Coombe hamlet always had sound boots; she never had;
-nor, indeed, her mother. Her father had a pair, being compelled by the
-character of his work in the fields to take care of himself so far,
-though he wore a ragged coat. But neither mother nor daughter ever had a
-whole pair of boots--whole and sound as the very cottagers had.
-
-If Amaryllis had sat there with naked feet she would have been prouder
-than ever, and that is why I always loved her so; she was not to be put
-down by circumstances, she was above external things.
-
-But as time went on, and the dinner was nearly over--she had scarcely
-eaten anything--and as she glanced from time to time at her father's
-empty chair, and knew that he would not come, and that his defection
-would revive the old quarrel which might so easily have been mended, the
-Flamma blood began to rise and grow hotter and hotter, and the foot with
-the worn boot on it began to tap the floor.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have swept the whole company over a
-precipice into the Red Sea as the herd of swine in old time. It was
-either the Red Sea or somewhere; geography is of no consequence.
-
-          Spain's an island near
-          Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.
-
-The Flamma blood would have liked to have seen them all poisoned and
-dying on their seats.
-
-The Flamma blood would have been glad to stick a knife into each of
-them--only it would not have touched them with the longest hop-pole in
-Kent, so utter was its loathing of the crew gloating over that empty
-chair.
-
-And for once Amaryllis did not check it, and did not say to herself, "I
-_will_ not be a Flamma."
-
-Towards the end of the tedious banquet the word was passed round that
-everyone was to sit still, as Grandfather Iden was coming to look at his
-descendants.
-
-There was not the least fear of any of them stirring, for they well knew
-his custom--to walk round, and speak a few words to everyone in turn,
-and to put a new golden sovereign into their hands. Thirty-two
-sovereigns it was in all--one for each--but the thirty-third was always
-a spade-guinea, which was presented to the individual who had best
-pleased him during the year.
-
-A genial sort of custom, no doubt, but fancy the emulation and the
-heart-burning over the spade-guinea! For the fortunate winner usually
-considered himself the nearest to the Will.
-
-Amaryllis' cheeks began to burn at the thought that she should have to
-take his horrible money. A hideous old monster he was to her at that
-moment--not that he had done anything to her personally--but he left her
-dear father to be worried out of his life by petty tradesmen, and her
-dear mother to go without a pair of decent boots, while he made this
-pompous distribution among these wretches. The hideous old monster!
-
-Out in the town the boys behind his back gave him endless nicknames:
-Granfer Iden, Floury Iden, My Lord Lardy-Cake, Marquis Iden, His Greasy
-Grace; and, indeed, with his whims and humours, and patronage, his
-caprices and ways of going on, if he had but had a patent of nobility,
-Grandfather Iden would have made a wonderfully good duke.
-
-By-and-by in comes the old Pacha, still wearing his great grey tottery
-hat, and proceeds from chair to chair, tapping folk on the shoulder,
-saying a gracious word or two, and dropping his new golden sovereigns in
-their eager palms. There was a loud hum of conversation as he went
-round; they all tried to appear so immensely happy to see him.
-
-Amaryllis did not exactly watch him, but of course knew what he was
-about, when suddenly there was a dead silence. Thirty-two people
-suddenly stopped talking as if the pneumatic brake had been applied to
-their lips by a sixty-ton locomotive.
-
-Dead, ominous silence. You could almost hear the cat licking his paw
-under the table.
-
-Amaryllis looked, and saw the old man leaning with both hands on the
-back of his son's empty chair.
-
-He seemed to cling to it as if it was a spar floating on the barren
-ocean of life and death into which his withered old body was sinking.
-
-Perhaps he really would have clung like that to his son had but his son
-come to him, and borne a little, and for a little while, with his ways.
-
-A sorrowful thing to see--the old man of ninety clinging to the back of
-his son's empty chair. His great grey tottery hat seemed about to tumble
-on the floor--his back bowed a little more--and he groaned deeply, three
-times.
-
-We can see, being out of the play and spectators merely, that there was
-a human cry for help in the old man's groan--his heart yearned for his
-son's strong arm to lean on.
-
-The crowd of relations were in doubt as to whether they should rejoice,
-whether the groan was a sign of indignation, of anger too deep ever to
-be forgotten, or whether they should be alarmed at the possibility of
-reconciliation.
-
-The Flamma blood was up too much in Amaryllis for her to feel pity for
-him as she would have done in any other mood; she hated him all the
-more; he was rich, the five-shilling fare was nothing to him, he could
-hire a fly from the "Lamb Inn," and drive over and make friends with her
-father in half an hour. Groaning there--the hideous old monster! and her
-mother without a decent pair of boots.
-
-In a moment or two Grandfather Iden recovered himself, and continued the
-distribution, and by-and-by Amaryllis felt him approach her chair. She
-did not even turn to look at him, so he took her hand, and placed two
-coins in it, saying in his most gracious way that the sovereign was for
-her father, and the guinea--the spade-guinea--for herself. She muttered
-something--she knew not what--she could but just restrain herself from
-throwing the money on the floor.
-
-It was known in a moment that Amaryllis had the guinea. Conceive the
-horror, the hatred, the dread of the crowd of sycophants! That the
-Heiress Apparent should be the favourite!
-
-Yet more. Half-an-hour later, just after they had all got upstairs into
-the great drawing-room, and some were officiously and reverently
-admiring the peacock-feather in the screen, and some looking out of the
-bow window at the fair, there came a message for Amaryllis to put on her
-hat and go for a walk with her grandfather.
-
-There was not one among all the crowd in the drawing-room who had ever
-been invited to accompany Iden Pacha.
-
-Three days ago at home, if anyone had told Amaryllis that she would be
-singled out in this way, first to receive the Iden medal--the
-spade-guinea stamp of approval--and then, above all things, to be
-honoured by walking out with this "almighty" grandfather, how delighted
-she would have been at the thought of the triumph!
-
-But now it was just the reverse. Triumph over these people--pah! a
-triumph over rats and flies or some such creatures. She actually felt
-lowered in her own esteem by being noticed at all among them. Honoured
-by this old horror--she revolted at it. _He_ honour her with his
-approval--she hated him.
-
-The other day a travelling piano was wheeled through Coombe and set up
-a tune in that lonesome spot. Though it was but a mechanical piece of
-music, with the cogs as it were of the mechanism well marked by the
-thump, thump, it seemed to cheer the place--till she went out to the
-gate to look at the Italian woman who danced about while the grinding
-was done, and saw that she had a sound pair of boots on. That very
-morning her mother in crossing the road had set the Flamma rheumatism
-shooting in her bones, for the dampness of the mud came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-This miserable old Iden Pacha thought to honour her while he let her
-mother walk about with her stocking on the wet ground!
-
-The Flamma blood was up in her veins--what did she care for guineas!
-
-As she was putting her hat on in the bedroom before the glass she looked
-round to see that no one was watching, and then stooped down and put the
-spade-guinea in the dust of the floor under the dressing-table. She
-would have none of his hateful money. The sovereign she took care of
-because it was for her father, and he might buy something useful with
-it; he wanted a few shillings badly enough.
-
-So the spade-guinea remained in the dust of the floor for a week or two,
-till it pleased the housemaid to move the dressing-table to brush away
-the accumulation, when she found the shining one in the fluff.
-
-Being over thirty, she held her tongue, the guinea henceforward
-travelled down the stream of Time fast enough though silently, but she
-took the first opportunity of examining the iron box under the Pacha's
-bed, thinking perhaps there might be a chink in it. And it was curious
-how for some time afterwards a fit of extraordinary industry prevailed
-in the house; there was not a table, a chair, or any piece of furniture
-that was not chivvied about under pretence of polishing. She actually
-had a day's holiday and a cast-off gown given to her as a reward for her
-labours.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS did not look back as she walked beside her grandfather slowly
-up the street, or she would have seen the company of relations watching
-them from the bow-window.
-
-Iden went straight through the crowd without any hesitation on account
-of his age--angry as she was, Amaryllis feared several times lest the
-clumsy people should over-turn him, and tried her best to shield him.
-But he had a knack of keeping on his feet--the sort of knack you learn
-by skating--and did not totter much more than usual, despite the press.
-
-The world gets on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or
-three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven
-their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers'
-fathers had set before them.
-
-Rows of booths for the display of "fairings," gingerbread, nuts, cakes,
-brandy-balls, and sugar-plums stood in the gutter each side.
-
-The "fairings" were sweet biscuits--they have been made every fair this
-hundred years.
-
-The nuts were dry and hard, just as Spanish nuts always are. The
-gingerbread was moulded in the same old shapes of clumsy horses outlined
-with gilt.
-
-There was the same old trumpeting and tootling, tom-tomming, and roaring
-of showmen's voices. The same old roundabouts, only now they were driven
-by steam, and short, quick whistles announced that the whirligig caravan
-was travelling round the world. The fat woman, the strong man, the
-smashers tapping the "claret," the "Pelican of the Wilderness," that
-mystic and melancholy bird, the rifle galleries, the popping for
-nuts--behold these are they our fathers have seen.
-
-There is nothing new under the sun--not even at Epsom. The first time I
-saw the wonderful crowd of the Derby Day--perhaps the largest crowd in
-the world--I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I found on passing
-through it that the hundreds of thousands of people there had nothing
-more to amuse them than they would have found at an ordinary country
-fair. Swings, roundabouts, cockshies at cocoa-nuts, rootletum,
-tootletum, and beer. That was all. No new amusement whatsoever: a very
-humdrum sort of world, my masters!
-
-The next finest crowd is the crowd on August bank-holiday all along the
-Brighton beach, and there it is just the same. Nothing for the folk but
-Punch, brass bands, and somersaulters--dull old stories in my
-grandmother's time.
-
-Xerxes offered a reward to anyone who could invent him a fresh
-pleasure--the multitude of the Derby Day and Brighton beach should do
-the same. But indeed they do, for an immense fortune would certainly be
-the reward of such a discoverer. One gets tired of pitching sticks at
-cocoa-nuts all one's time.
-
-However, at Woolhorton nobody but the very rawest and crudest folk cared
-for the shows, all they did care was to alternately stand stock still
-and then shove. First they shoved as far as the "Lion" and had some
-beer, then they shoved back to the "Lamb" and had some beer, then they
-stood stock still in the street and blocked those who were shoving.
-Several thousand people were thus happily occupied, and the Lion and the
-Lamb laid down together peacefully that day.
-
-Amaryllis and old Iden had in like manner to shove, for there was no
-other way to get through, no one thought of moving, or giving any
-passage, if you wanted to progress you must shoulder them aside. As
-Grandfather Iden could not shove very hard they were frequently
-compelled to wait till the groups opened, and thus it happened that
-Amaryllis found herself once face to face with Jack Duck.
-
-He kind of sniggered in a foolish way at Amaryllis, and touched his hat
-to Iden. "You ain't a been over to Coombe lately, Mr. Iden," he said.
-
-"No," replied the old man sharply, and went on.
-
-Jack could hardly have struck a note more discordant to Amaryllis. The
-father had not been to visit his son for more than a year--she did not
-want unpleasant memories stirred up.
-
-Again in another group a sturdy labourer touched his hat and asked her
-if her father was at fair, as he was looking out for a job. Old Iden
-started and grunted like a snorting horse.
-
-Amaryllis, though put out, stayed to speak kindly to him, for she knew
-he was always in difficulties. Bill Nye was that contradiction a strong
-man without work. He wanted to engage for mowing. Bill Nye was a mower
-at Coombe, and his father, Bill Nye, before him, many a long year before
-he was discovered in California.
-
-When she overtook Iden he was struggling to pass the stream of the
-Orinoco, which set strongly at that moment out of the "Lamb" towards the
-"Lion." Strong men pushed out from the "Lamb" archway like a river into
-the sea, thrusting their way into the general crowd, and this mighty
-current cast back the tottering figure of old Iden as the swollen
-Orinoco swung the crank old Spanish caravels that tried to breast it.
-
-It was as much as Amaryllis and he together could do to hold their
-ground at the edge of the current. While they were thus battling she
-chanced to look up.
-
-A large window was open over the archway, and at this window a fellow
-was staring down at her. He stood in his shirt-sleeves with a
-billiard-cue in his hand waiting his turn to play. It was the same young
-fellow, gentleman if you like, whose pale face had so displeased her
-that morning as he rode under when she watched the folk go by to fair.
-He was certainly the most advanced in civilization of all who had passed
-Plum Corner, and yet there was something in that pale and rather
-delicate face which was not in the coarse lineaments of the "varmers"
-and "drauvers" and "pig-dealers" who had gone by under the wall.
-Something that insulted her.
-
-The face at the window was appraising her.
-
-It was reckoning her up--so much for eyes, so much for hair, so much for
-figure, and as this went on the fingers were filling a pipe from an
-elastic tobacco-pouch. There was no romance, no poetry in that
-calculation--no rapture or pure admiration of beauty; there was a
-billiard-cue and a tobacco-pouch, and a glass of spirits and water, and
-an atmosphere of smoke, and a sound of clicking ivory balls at the back
-of the thought. His thumb was white where he had chalked it to make a
-better bridge for the cue. His face was white; for he had chalked it
-with dissipation. His physical body was whitened--chalked--a whited
-sepulchre; his moral nature likewise chalked.
-
-At the back of his thought lay not the high esteem of the poet-thinker
-for beauty, but the cynical blackguardism of the XIXth century.
-
-The cynicism that deliberately reckons up things a Shakespeare would
-admire at their lowest possible sale value. A slow whiff of smoke from a
-corner of the sneering mouth, an air of intense knowingness, as much as
-to say, "You may depend upon me--I've been behind the scenes. All this
-is got up, you know; stage effect in front, pasteboard at the rear;
-nothing in it."
-
-In the sensuality of Nero there may still be found some trace of a
-higher nature; "What an artist the world has lost!" he exclaimed, dying.
-
-The empress Theodora craved for the applause of the theatre to which she
-exposed her beauty.
-
-This low, cynical nineteenth century blackguardism thinks of nothing but
-lowness, and has no ideal. The milliner even has an ideal, she looks to
-colour, shape, effect; though but in dress, yet it is an ideal. There
-was no ideal in Ned Marks.
-
-They called him from within to take his turn with the cue; he did not
-answer, he was so absorbed in his calculations. He was clever--in a way;
-he had quite sufficient penetration to see that this was no common girl.
-She was not beautiful--yet, she was not even pretty, and so plainly
-dressed; still there was something marked in her features. And she was
-with old Iden.
-
-Amaryllis did not understand the meaning of his glance, but she felt
-that it was an insult. She looked down quickly, seized her grandfather's
-arm, and drew him out from the pavement into the street, yielding a
-little to the current and so hoping to presently pass it.
-
-By this time, as Ned Marks did not answer, his companions had come to
-the window to discover what he was staring at. "Oho!" they laughed.
-"It's Miss Iden. Twenty thousand guineas in the iron box!"
-
-Iden's great white hat, which always seemed to sit loosely on his head,
-was knocked aside by the elbow of a burly butcher struggling in the
-throng; Amaryllis replaced it upright, and leading him this way, and
-pushing him that, got at last to the opposite pavement, and so behind
-the row of booths, between them and the houses where there was less
-crush. Taking care of him, she forgot to look to her feet and stepped in
-the gutter where there was a puddle. The cold water came through the
-crack in her boot.
-
-While these incidents were still further irritating her, the old Pacha
-kept mumbling and muttering to himself, nodding his head and smiling at
-each fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent and
-fearless still he appreciated the trouble she took. The mumbling in his
-mouth was a sort of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up to a
-pleasant state of electric glow; she felt like a hound in a leash, ready
-to burst the bond that held her to his hand. Side by side, and arm in
-arm, neither of them understood the other; ninety and sixteen, a strange
-couple in the jostling fair.
-
-Iden turned down a passage near the end of the street, and in an instant
-the roar of the crowd which had boomed all round them was shut off by
-high walls up which it rose and hummed over their heads in the air. They
-walked on broad stone flags notched here and there at the edges, for the
-rest worn smooth by footsteps (the grave drives such a trade) like
-Iden's doorstep, they were in fact tombstones, and the walled passage
-brought them to the porch of the Abbey church.
-
-There he stopped, muttering and mumbling, and wiped his forehead with
-his vast silk handkerchief. They were no longer incommoded by a crowd,
-but now and then folk came by hastening to the fair; lads with favours
-in their coats, and blue ribbons in their hats, girls in bright dresses,
-chiefly crude colours, who seemed out of accord with the heavy weight as
-it were of the great Abbey, the ponderous walls, the quiet gloom of the
-narrow space, and the shadows that lurked behind the buttresses.
-
-The aged man muttered and mumbled about the porch and took Amaryllis
-under it, making her look up at the groining, and note the spring of the
-arch, which formed a sort of carved crown over them. It was a fine old
-porch, deep and high, in some things reminding you of the porches that
-are to be seen in Spain; stone made to give a pleasant shade like trees,
-so cut and worked as to be soft to the eye.
-
-He pointed out to her the touches that rendered it so dear to those who
-value art in stone. He knew them, every one, the history and the dates,
-and the three stags' heads on a shield; there were broad folios in the
-smoky room at home, filled with every detail, Iden himself had
-subscribed forty pounds to the cost of illustrating one of them. Every
-scholar who visited the Abbey church, called and begged to see the
-baker's old books.
-
-Iden rubbed his old thumb in the grooves and went outside and hoisted
-himself, as it were, up from his crooked S position to look at the three
-stags' heads on the shield on the wall; dim stags' heads that to you, or
-at least to me, might have been fishes, or Jove's thunderbolts, or
-anything.
-
-Amaryllis was left standing alone a moment in the porch, the deep shadow
-within behind her, the curve of the arch over, a fine setting for a
-portrait. She stood the more upright because of the fire and temper
-suppressed in her.
-
-Just outside the human letter S--crooked S--clad in sad white-grey
-miller's garments, its old hat almost falling backwards off its old grey
-head, gazed up and pointed with its oaken cudgel at the coat of arms.
-Seven hundred years--the weight of seven hundred years--hung over them
-both in that old Abbey.
-
-Into that Past he was soon to disappear: she came out to the Future.
-
-Thence he took her to an arched door, nail-studded, in the passage wall,
-and giving her the key, told her to open it, and stood watching her in
-triumph, as if it had been the door to some immense treasury. She turned
-the lock, and he pushed her before him hastily, as if they must snatch
-so grand an opportunity.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-
-WITHIN there was a gravel path, and glimpses between trees of wide
-pleasure-grounds. Amaryllis hesitated, and looked back; Iden drew her
-forward, not noticing her evident disinclination to proceed. If he had,
-he would have put it down to awe, instead of which it was dislike.
-
-For she guessed they were entering the lawns in front of the Hon.
-Raleigh Pamment's mansion. He was the largest owner of town and country;
-the streets, the market-place, the open spaces, in which the fair was
-being held, belonged to him; so did most of the farms and hamlets out of
-which the people had come. The Pamments were Tories; very important
-Tories indeed.
-
-The Idens, in their little way, were Tories, too, right to the centre of
-the cerebellum; the Flammas were hot Republicans. Now Amaryllis, being a
-girl, naturally loved her father most, yet she was a wilful and
-rebellious revolutionist. Amaryllis, who would not be a Flamma, had
-imbibed all the Flamma hatred of authority from her mother.
-
-To her the Pamments were the incarnation of everything detestable, of
-oppression, obstruction, and mediaeval darkness. She knew nothing of
-politics; at sixteen you do not need to know to feel vehemently, you
-feel vehemently without knowing. Still, she had heard a good deal about
-the Pamments.
-
-She resented being brought there to admire the pleasure grounds and
-mansion, and to kow-tow to the grandeur of these mediaeval tyrants.
-
-Old Iden led her on till they came to the smooth lawn before the front
-windows; three centuries of mowing had made it as smooth as the top of
-his own head, where the years had mown away merrily.
-
-There was not so much as a shrub--not a daisy--between them and the
-great windows of the house. They stood in full view.
-
-Amaryllis could scarcely endure herself, so keen was her vexation; her
-cheeks reddened. She was obliged to face the house, but her glance was
-downwards; she would not look at it.
-
-Grandfather Iden was in the height of his glory. In all Woolhorton town
-there was not another man who could do as he was doing at that moment.
-
-The Pamments were very exclusive people, exceptionally exclusive even
-for high class Tories. Their gardens, and lawns, and grounds were
-jealously surrounded with walls higher than the old-fashioned houses of
-the street beneath them. No one dared to so much as peer through a
-crevice of the mighty gates. Their persons were encircled with the
-"divinity" that hedges the omnipotent landed proprietor. No one dared
-speak to a Pamment. They acknowledged no one in the town, not even the
-solicitors, not even the clergyman of the Abbey church; that was on
-account of ritual differences.
-
-It was, indeed, whispered--high treason must always be whispered--that
-young Pamment, the son and heir, was by no means so exclusive, and had
-been known to be effusive towards ladies of low birth--and manners.
-
-The great leaders of Greece--Alcibiades, Aristides, and so on--threw
-open their orchards to the people. Everyone walked in and did as he
-chose. These great leaders of England--the Pamments--shut up their lawns
-and pleasure-grounds, sealed them hermetically, you could hardly throw a
-stone over the walls if you tried.
-
-But Grandfather Iden walked through those walls as if there were none;
-he alone of all Woolhorton town and country.
-
-In that gossipy little town, of course, there were endless surmises as
-to the why and wherefore of that private key. Shrewd people said--"Ah!
-you may depend they be getting summat out of him. Lent 'em some of his
-guineas, a' reckon. They be getting summat out of him. Hoss-leeches,
-they gentlefolks."
-
-Grandfather Iden alone entered when he listed: he wandered about the
-lawns, he looked in at the conservatories, he took a bunch of grapes if
-it pleased him, or a bouquet of flowers; he actually stepped indoors
-occasionally and sat down on the carved old chairs, or pottered about
-the picture gallery. He had a private key to the nail-studded door in
-the wall by the Abbey church, and he looked upon that key very much as
-if it had been the key of Paradise.
-
-When Grandfather Iden stood on the lawn at Pamment House he was the
-proudest and happiest man in what they sarcastically call "God's
-creation."
-
-He was a peer at such moments; a grandee--the grandee who can wear his
-hat or sit down (which is it? it is most important to be accurate) in
-the presence of his deity, I mean his sovereign; he could actually step
-on the same sward pressed by the holy toes of the Pamments.
-
-In justice to him it must be said that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were
-at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths,
-the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it
-were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon him, it was noteworthy
-that he was literally dandled and fondled like an infant, begged to come
-in, and take wine, and so so, and so so.
-
-In justice to old Iden let it be known that he was most careful not to
-obtrude himself; he hid himself under the fig trees.
-
-Hardly credible is it? that a man of ninety years--a man of no common
-intelligence--a man of books, and coins, and antiquities, should, in
-this nineteenth century, bend his aged knees in such a worship.
-Incredible as it may seem it is certainly true.
-
-Such loyalty in others of old time, remember, seems very beautiful when
-we read of the devotion that was shown towards Charles Stuart.
-
-With all his heart and soul he worshipped the very ground the Pamments
-trod on. He loved to see them in the Abbey church; when they were at
-home he never failed to attend service, rain, snow, thunder, ninety
-years notwithstanding, he always attended that he might bow his
-venerable head to them as they swept up the aisle, receiving the
-faintest, yet most gracious, smile of recognition in return.
-
-He was quite happy in his pew if he could see them at their carved desks
-in the chancel; the organ sounded very beautiful then; the light came
-sweetly through the painted windows; a sanctity and heavenly presence
-was diffused around.
-
-Rebellious Amaryllis knew all this, and hated it. Her Flamma foot tapped
-the sacred sward.
-
-Grandfather Iden, after mopping his mouth with his silk handkerchief,
-began to point with his cudgel--a big hockey stick--at the various parts
-of the building. This was Elizabethan, that dated from James II., that
-went back to Henry VII., there were walls and foundations far more
-ancient still, out of sight.
-
-Really, it was a very interesting place archaeologically, if only you
-could have got rid of the Pamments.
-
-Amaryllis made no remark during this mumbling history. Iden thought she
-was listening intently. At the conclusion he was just moving her--for
-she was passive now, like a piece of furniture--when he spied some one
-at a window.
-
-Off came the great white hat, and down it swept till the top brushed the
-grass in the depth of his homage. It was a bow that would have delighted
-a lady, so evidently real in its intent, so full of the gentleman, so
-thoroughly courtier-like, and yet honest. There was nothing to smile at
-in that bow; there was not a young gentleman in Belgravia who could bow
-in that way, for, in truth, we have forgotten how to bow in this
-generation.
-
-A writing and talking is always going on about the high place woman
-occupies in modern society, but the fact is, we have lost our reverence
-for woman as woman; it is after-dinner speech, nothing more, mere sham.
-We don't venerate woman, and therefore we don't bow.
-
-Grandfather Iden's bow would have won any woman's heart had it been
-addressed to her, for there was veneration and courtesy, breeding, and
-desire to please in it.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-
-THE man he had seen at the window was young Raleigh Pamment, the son and
-heir.
-
-He had been sitting in an easy chair, one leg over the arm, busy with a
-memorandum book, a stump of pencil, and a disordered heap of telegrams,
-letters, and newspapers.
-
-Everybody writes to Mr. Gladstone, a sort of human lion's mouth for
-post-cards, but Raleigh junior had not got to manage the House of
-Commons, the revenue, the nation, the Turks, South Africa, the Nile,
-Ganges, Indus, Afghanistan, sugar, shipping, and Homer.
-
-Yet Raleigh junior had an occasional table beside him, from which the
-letters, telegrams, newspapers, and scraps of paper had overflowed on to
-the floor. In a company's offices it would have taken sixteen clerks to
-answer that correspondence; this idle young aristocrat answered it
-himself, entered it in his day book, "totted" it up, and balanced
-the--the residue.
-
-Nothing at all businesslike, either, about him--nothing in the least
-like those gentlemen who consider that to go in to the "office" every
-morning is the sum total of life. A most unbusinesslike young fellow.
-
-A clay pipe in his mouth, a jar of tobacco on another chair beside him,
-a glass of whiskey for a paper-weight on his telegrams. An idle,
-lounging, "bad lot;" late hours, tobacco, whiskey, and ballet-dancers
-writ very large indeed on his broad face. In short, a young "gent" of
-the latter half of the nineteenth century.
-
-Not the slightest sign of "blue blood" anywhere; not even in the cut of
-his coat, no Brummel-like elegance; hardly a Bond Street coat at
-all--rough, large, coarse cloth. If he had stood at the door of a shop
-he would have done very well indeed for a shopkeeper, the sort that
-drives about in a cart for orders.
-
-Of his character nothing could be learned from his features. His face
-was broad, rather flat, with a short but prominent nose; in spite of
-indulgence, he kept a good, healthy, country colour. His neck was thick,
-his figure stout, his hands big--a jovial, good-tempered looking man.
-
-His neck was _very_ thick, tree-like; a drover's neck, no refinement or
-special intelligence indicated there; great power to eat, drink, and
-sleep--belly energy.
-
-But let no one, therefore, suppose that the members of the upper ten
-thousand are any thicker in the neck, or more abdominal in their
-proclivities, or beneath the culture of the day. Take five hundred
-"blue bloods," and you will find among them a certain proportion of
-thick-necked people; take five hundred very common commoners, and you
-may count exactly the same number interspersed.
-
-The Pamments were simply Englishmen, and liable to be born big, with
-broad faces, thick necks, and ultimate livers. It was no disgrace to
-Raleigh, that jolly neck of his.
-
-Unless you are given to aesthetic crockery, or Francesco de Rimini, I
-think you would rather have liked him; a sort of fellow who would lend
-you his dogs, or his gun, or his horse, or his ballet-dancer, or his
-credit--humph!--at a moment's notice. But he was a very "bad lot;" they
-whispered it even in dutiful Woolhorton.
-
-He got rid of money in a most surprising way, and naturally had nothing
-to show for it. The wonderful manner in which coin will disappear in
-London, like water into deep sand, surpasses the mysteries of the skies.
-It slips, it slides, it glides, it sinks, it flies, it runs out of the
-pocket. The nimble squirrel is nothing to the way in which a sovereign
-will leap forth in town.
-
-Raleigh had a good allowance, often supplemented by soft aunts, yet he
-frequently walked for lack of a cab fare. _I_ can't blame him; I should
-be just as bad, if fortune favoured me. How delicious now to walk down
-Regent Street, along Piccadilly, up Bond Street, and so on, in a
-widening circle, with a thousand pounds in one's pocket, just to spend,
-all your own, and no need to worry when it was gone. To look in at all
-the shops and pick up something here and something yonder, to say, "I'll
-have that picture I admired ten years ago; I'll have a bit of real old
-oak furniture; I'll go to Paris--" but Paris is not a patch on London.
-To take a lady--_the_ lady--to St. Peter Robinson's, and spread the
-silks of the earth before her feet, and see the awakening delight in her
-eyes and the glow on her cheek; to buy a pony for the "kids" and a
-diamond brooch for the kind, middle-aged matron who befriended you years
-since in time of financial need; to get a new gun, and inquire about the
-price of a deer-stalk in Scotland; whetting the road now and then with a
-sip of Moet--but only one sip, for your liver's sake--just to brighten
-up the imagination. And so onwards in a widening circle, as sun-lit
-fancy led: could Xerxes, could great Pompey, could Caesar with all his
-legions, could Lucullus with all his oysters, ever have enjoyed such
-pleasure as this--just to spend money freely, with a jolly chuckle, in
-the streets of London? What is Mahomet's Paradise to _that_?
-
-The exquisite delight of utterly abandoned extravagance, no
-counting--anathemas on counting and calculation! If life be not a dream,
-what is the use of living?
-
-Say what you will, the truth is, we all struggle on in hope of living in
-a dream some day. This is my dream. Dreadfully, horribly wicked, is it
-not, in an age that preaches thrift and--twaddle? No joy like waste in
-London streets; happy waste, imaginative extravagance; to and fro like a
-butterfly!
-
-Besides, there's no entertainment in the world like the streets of
-London on a sunny day or a gas-lit night. The shops, the carriages, the
-people, the odds and ends of life one sees, the drifting to and fro of
-folk, the "bits" of existence, glimpses into shadowy corners, the
-dresses, the women; dear me, where shall we get to? At all events, the
-fact remains that to anyone with an eye the best entertainment in the
-world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, seances, Albert
-Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great
-weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and
-gaze at them again who could lounge in Piccadilly?
-
-It is well worth a ten-pound note any day in May; fifty pounds sometimes
-at 1 p.m., merely to look on, I mean, it is worth it; but you can see
-this living show for nothing. Let the grandees go to the opera; for me,
-the streets.
-
-So I can't throw dirt at Raleigh, who often had a hatful of money, and
-could and did just what seemed pleasant in his sight. But the money went
-like water, and in order to get further supplies, the idle,
-good-for-nothing, lazy dog worked like a prime minister with telegrams,
-letters, newspapers, and so on, worked like a prime minister--at
-betting. Horse-racing, in short, was the explanation of the
-memorandum-book, the load of correspondence, and the telegrams, kept
-flat with a glass of whiskey as a paper-weight.
-
-While he wrote, and thought, and reckoned up his chances, a loud refrain
-of snoring arose from the sofa. It was almost as loud as the boom of the
-fair, but Raleigh had no nerves. His friend Freddie, becoming oppressed
-with so much labour, had dropped asleep, leaving his whiskey beside him
-on the sofa, so that the first time he moved over it went on the carpet.
-With one long leg stretched out, the other knee up, lying on his back,
-and his mouth wide open to the ceiling, Freddie was very happy.
-
-Raleigh puffed his clay pipe, sipped, and puffed again. Freddie boomed
-away on the sofa. The family was in London; Raleigh and Freddie got down
-here in this way: it happened one night there was a row at a superb bar,
-Haymarket trail. The "chuckers-out" began their coarse horse-play, and
-in the general melee Raleigh distinguished himself. Rolled about by the
-crowd, he chanced to find himself for a moment in a favourable position,
-and punished one of these gigantic brutes pretty severely.
-
-Though stout and short of breath, Raleigh was strong in the arm, he was
-"up," and he hit hard. The fellow's face was a "picture," coloured in
-cardinal. Such an opportunity does not occur twice in a lifetime;
-Raleigh's genius seized the opportunity, and he became great. Actium was
-a trifle to it.
-
-There were mighty men before Agamemnon, and there are mighty men who do
-not figure in the papers.
-
-Raleigh became at once an anaxandron--a King of Men. The history of his
-feat spread in ten minutes from one end of midnight London to the other:
-from the policeman in Waterloo Place to--everywhere. Never was such a
-stir; the fall of Sebastopol--dear me! I can remember it, look at the
-flight of time--was nothing to it. They would have chaired him, _feted_
-him, got a band to play him about the place, literally crowned him with
-laurel. Ave, Caesar! Evoe! Bacchus! But they could not find him.
-
-Raleigh was off with Freddie, who had been in at the death, and was well
-"blooded." Hansom to Paddington in the small hours; creep, creep, creep,
-through the raw morning mist, puff, whistle, broad gauge, and they had
-vanished.
-
-Raleigh was a man of his age; he lost not a moment; having got the
-glory, the next thing was to elude the responsibility; and, in short, he
-slipped out of sight till the hue-and-cry was over, and the excitement
-of the campaign had subsided.
-
-In case anyone should suppose I approve of midnight battle, I may as
-well label the account at once: "This is a goak."
-
-I do _not_ approve of brawls at the bar, but I have set myself the task
-to describe a bit of human life exactly as it really is, and I can
-assure you as a honest fact that Raleigh by that lucky knock became a
-very great man indeed among people as they really are. People as they
-really are, are not all Greek scholars.
-
-As I don't wish you to look down upon poor Raleigh too much because he
-smoked a cutty, and hit a fellow twice as big as himself, and lent his
-money, and made bets, and drank whiskey, and was altogether wicked, I
-may as well tell you something in his favour: He was a hero to his
-valet.
-
-"No man is a hero to his valet," says the proverb, not even Napoleon,
-Disraeli, or Solomon.
-
-But Raleigh _was_ a hero to his valet.
-
-He was not only a hero to Nobbs the valet; he had perfectly fascinated
-him. The instant he was off duty Nobbs began to be a Raleigh to himself.
-He put on a coat cut in the Raleigh careless style; in fact, he dressed
-himself Raleigh all over. His private hat was exactly like Raleigh's; so
-was his necktie, the same colour, shape, and bought at the same shop; so
-were his boots. He kept a sovereign loose in his waistcoat pocket,
-because that was where Raleigh carried his handy gold. He smoked a
-cutty-pipe, and drank endless whiskies--just like Raleigh, "the very
-ticket"--he had his betting-book, and his telegrams, and his money on
-"hosses," and his sporting paper, and his fine photographs of fine
-women. He swore in Raleigh's very words, and used to spit like him;
-Raleigh, if ever he chanced to expectorate, had an odd way of twisting
-up the corner of his mouth, so did Nobbs. In town Nobbs went to the very
-same bars (always, of course, discreetly and out of sight), the very
-same theatres; a most perfect Raleigh to the tiniest detail. Why,
-Raleigh very rarely wound up his watch--careless Raleigh; accordingly,
-Nobbs' watch was seldom going. "And you just look here," said Nobbs to a
-great and confidential friend, after they had done endless whiskies, and
-smoked handfuls of Raleigh's tobacco, "you look here, if I was _he_, and
-had lots of chink, and soft old parties to get money out of as easy as
-filling yer pipe, by Jove! wouldn't _I_ cut a swell! I'd do it, _I_
-would. I'd make that Whitechapel of his spin along, I rather guess I
-would. I'd liquor up. Wouldn't I put a thou on the Middle Park Plate?
-Ah! wouldn't I, Tommy, my boy! Just wouldn't I have heaps of wimmen;
-some in the trap, and some indoors, and some to go to the theatre
-with--respectable gals, I mean--crowds of 'em would come if Raleigh was
-to hold up his finger. Guess I'd fill this old shop (the Pamment
-mansion) choke full of wimmen! If I was only he! Shouldn't I like to
-fetch one of them waiter chaps a swop on the nose, like _he_ did! Oh,
-my! Oh, Tommy!" And Nobbs very nearly wept at the happy vision of being
-"he."
-
-Why, Raleigh was not only a Hero, he was a Demi-god to his valet! Not
-only Nobbs, but the footmen, and the grooms, and the whole race of
-servants everywhere who had caught a glimpse of Raleigh looked upon him
-as the Ideal Man. So did the whole race of "cads" in the bars and at
-the races, and all over town and country, all of that sort who knew
-anything of Raleigh sighed to be like "he."
-
-The fellow who said that "No man is a hero to his valet" seemed to
-suppose that the world worships good and divine qualities only. Nothing
-of the sort; it is not the heroic, it is the low and coarse and
-blackguard part the mass of people regard with such deep admiration.
-
-If only Nobbs could have been "he," no doubt whatever he would have
-"done it" very big indeed. But he would have left out of his copy that
-part of Raleigh's nature which, in spite of the whiskey and the cutty,
-and the rest of it, made him still a perfect gentleman at heart. Nobbs
-didn't want to be a perfect gentleman.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-
-GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on
-the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.
-
-It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought
-it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of
-his.
-
-"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's
-the Behemoth."
-
-"The Behemoth--the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.
-
-"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day.
-That's the Behemoth."
-
-Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange
-creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular
-preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden--antediluvian Iden--in
-short, the Behemoth.
-
-It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.
-
-"There's a girl with him," said Fred.
-
-"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he
-ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.
-
-How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like
-Grandfather Iden--aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
-books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!
-
-          "Wherefore come ye not to court?
-          Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.
-          Chattering fools and wise men listening."
-
-Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed--his head was as bare as
-Mont Blanc--and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's
-wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth
-in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and
-proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.
-
-"But, grandpa--grandpa--really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me
-go. No--no--I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
-willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of
-gold, as the old song says unctuously.
-
-"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"--mistaking her
-hesitation for awe.
-
-"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't
-want to go."
-
-"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his
-most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see
-you."
-
-"Come--come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back.
-"It's a splendid place inside--there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and
-so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very
-gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they
-moved Amaryllis onward.
-
-She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break
-loose--easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies--but--how soon "but"
-comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father.
-She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
-further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good
-humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
-
-So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething
-like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of
-the ancient and mediaeval Pamments.
-
-But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that
-he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you
-are likely to _make_ a woman do anything?
-
-Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she
-would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble,
-the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp.
-Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly
-on the ground.
-
-Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
-
-Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the
-whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the
-old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears
-came into his eyes.
-
-Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
-
-"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder.
-"Very raw piece."
-
-To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."
-
-"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.
-
-"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries--fond of pictures----"
-
-Amaryllis was silent.
-
-"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you
-may."
-
-"No," said Amaryllis.
-
-"Hum--let's see--books--library--carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the
-place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar--I've
-forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"
-
-"She _is_ fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should
-be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of
-pictures; she's shy."
-
-Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle
-her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her
-utterance.
-
-Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down
-the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
-took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
-
-Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at
-arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the
-beauties of the picture.
-
-"A grand thing--look," said he.
-
-"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
-
-"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
-
-"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."
-
-She did not move.
-
-"Go that side," said Iden.
-
-No movement.
-
-"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.
-
-At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
-
-"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily--above the canvas, and then
-again at the floor.
-
-Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together;
-Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a
-possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider,
-intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable
-things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection
-would be an immense honour.
-
-Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have
-sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and
-intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
-
-If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the
-mistress.
-
-There is no one so cruel--so utterly inhuman--as an old man, to whom
-feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
-
-"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"
-
-"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last
-and looking her grandfather in the face.
-
-"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks
-flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
-rebellion.
-
-"Smoky," he repeated.
-
-"Smoky and--dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing
-that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
-had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
-
-Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence--on the
-contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant--but she
-remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and
-it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures,
-and his place altogether with marked contempt.
-
-"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you
-please," and she moved towards the door.
-
-"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her.
-"Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"
-
-He could not catch her, she had left the gallery--he slipped in his
-haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
-fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
-
-"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled,
-and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he
-would have spat upon the floor.
-
-Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
-
-"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I
-should have liked you to have seen the house--will you sit down a
-moment? Forgive me if I said or did----. No, do stay--please--"
-as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry--really
-sorry--unintentional"--in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was
-penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she
-began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to
-pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through
-the fair--rough people. Let me open the door----"
-
-The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a
-moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand,
-the blood started.
-
-"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it
-up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for
-money"--short for any amount of money. "Let me----"
-
-"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which
-was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open
-the lock.
-
-Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open--he could easily have
-detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray--Miss Iden." She
-was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he
-followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-
-WHEN he stopped and turned, angry beyond measure, vexation biting deep
-lines like aquafortis on his broad, good-natured face.
-
-"That I should have been such a fool--an infernal blockheaded
-fool--" shutting the iron-studded door with a kick and a
-clang--"muddle-headed fool--I'll never touch a drop of whiskey
-again--and that jackass, Fred--why, she's--" a lady, he would have said,
-but did not dare admit to himself now that he had thought to ask her in
-to "wake us up." "But what did I do? Can't think what annoyed her. Must
-have been something between her and that tedious old Iden. Quite sure I
-didn't do or say----" but still he could not quiet his conscience, for
-if he had not by deed or word, he knew he had in thought.
-
-He had sent for her as he might have done for any of the vulgar wenches
-in the fair to amuse an idle hour, and he was ashamed of himself.
-
-In truth, Raleigh had never seen a woman like Amaryllis Iden. Her
-features were not beautiful, as general ideas go, nor had her form the
-grace of full increase; indeed words, and even a portrait by a
-master-hand, would have failed to carry the impression her nature had
-made upon him.
-
-It is not the particular cast of features that makes a man great, and
-gives him a pre-eminence among his fellows. It is the character--the
-mind.
-
-A great genius commands attention at once by his presence, and so a
-woman may equally impress by the power of her nature. Her moral strength
-asserts itself in subtle ways.
-
-I don't say for certain that it was her character that impressed
-Raleigh--it might have been nothing of the sort, it might have been
-_because it was so_, a woman's reason, and therefore appropriate. These
-things do not happen by "why and because."
-
-Some may say it is quite out of place to suppose a whiskey-sipping,
-cutty-pipe smoking, horse-racing, bar-frequenting fellow like Raleigh
-could by any possible means fall in love at first sight. But whiskey,
-cutty, horse, and bar were not the real man, any more than your hat is
-your head, they were mere outside chaff, he had a sound heart all the
-same, a great deal sounder and better, and infinitely more generous than
-some very respectable folk who are regularly seen in their pews, and
-grind down their clerks and dependents to the edge of starvation.
-
-Raleigh was capable of a good deal of heart, such as the pew-haunting
-Pharisee knows not of. Perhaps he was not in love: at all events he was
-highly excited.
-
-Fred had contrived to keep old Iden from following Amaryllis by
-representing that Raleigh would be sure to bring her back. The butler,
-who was very well acquainted with old Iden, hastily whipped out a bottle
-of champagne and handed him a brimming glass. The old gentleman, still
-mouthing and bubbling over with rage, spluttered and drank, and
-spluttered again, and refusing a second, would go, and so met Raleigh in
-the hall.
-
-Raleigh tried on his part to soothe the old man, and on his part the old
-man tried at one and the same moment to apologize for his granddaughter
-and to abuse her for her misconduct. Consequently neither of them heard
-or understood the other.
-
-But no sooner was Iden gone than Raleigh, remembering the rough crowd in
-the fair, despatched the butler after him to see him safe home. It was
-now growing dusky as the evening came on.
-
-Without more ado, this young gentleman then set to and swore at Fred for
-half an hour straight ahead. Fred at first simply stared and wondered
-what on earth had turned his brain; next, being equally hot-tempered, he
-swore in reply; then there followed some sharp recriminations (for each
-knew too much of the other's goings on not to have plenty of material),
-and finally they sparred. Two or three cuffs cooled their ardour, having
-nothing to quarrel about; sulks ensued; Raleigh buried himself in the
-papers; Fred lit a cigar and walked out into the fair. Thus there was
-tribulation in the great house of the Pamments.
-
-Grandfather Iden permitted the butler to steer him through the crowd
-quietly enough, because it flattered him to be thus taken care of before
-the world by a Pamment servitor. When they parted at the doorstep he
-slipped half-a-sovereign in the butler's hand--he could not offer less
-than gold to a Pamments' man--but once inside, his demeanour changed. He
-pushed away his housekeeper, went into his especial sitting-room, bolted
-the door, spread his hands and knees over the fire, and poked the coals,
-grunted, poked, and stirred till smoke and smuts filled the stuffy
-little place.
-
-By-and-by there was a banging of drawers--the drawers in the bureau and
-the bookcases were opened and shut sharply--writing-paper was flung on
-the table, and he sat down to write a letter with a scratchy quill pen.
-The letter written was ordered to post immediately, and the poking, and
-stirring, and grunting recommenced. Thus there was tribulation in the
-house of the head of the Idens.
-
-Amaryllis meantime had got through the town by keeping between the
-booths and the houses. Just as she left the last street Ned Marks rode
-up--he had been on the watch, thinking to talk with her as she walked
-home, but just as he drew rein to go slow and so speak, a heathen pig
-from the market rushed between his horse's legs and spoiled the game by
-throwing him headlong.
-
-She did not see, or at least did not notice, but hastening on, entered
-the fields. In coming to town that morning she had seen everything; now,
-returning in her anger and annoyance, she took no heed of anything; she
-was so absorbed that when a man--one of those she met going to the fair
-for the evening--turned back and followed her some way, she did not
-observe him. Finding that she walked steadily on, the fellow soon ceased
-to pursue.
-
-The gloom had settled when she reached home, and the candles were lit.
-She gave her father the sovereign, and was leaving the room, hoping to
-escape questioning, when Mrs. Iden asked who had the prize-guinea.
-
-"I did," said Amaryllis, very quietly and reluctantly.
-
-"Where is it? Why didn't you say so? Let me see," said Mrs. Iden.
-
-"I--I--I lost it," said Amaryllis.
-
-"You lost it! Lost a guinea! A spade-guinea!"
-
-"What!" said Iden in his sternest tones. "Show it immediately."
-
-"I can't; I lost it."
-
-"Lost it!"
-
-And they poured upon her a cross-fire of anger: a careless, wasteful
-hussy, an idle wretch; what did she do for her living that she could
-throw away spade-guineas? what would her grandfather say? how did she
-suppose they were to keep her, and she not earn the value of a
-bonnet-string? time she was apprenticed to a dressmaker; the quantity
-she ate, and never could touch any fat--dear me, so fine--bacon was not
-good enough for her--she could throw away spade-guineas.
-
-Poor Amaryllis stood by the half-open door, her hat in her hand, her
-bosom heaving, her lips apart and pouting, not with indignation but
-sheer misery; her head drooped, her form seemed to lose its firmness and
-sink till she stooped; she could not face them as she would have done
-others, because you see she loved them, and she had done her best that
-day till too sorely tried.
-
-The storm raged on; finally Iden growled "Better get out of sight." Then
-she went to her bedroom, and sat on the bed; presently she lay down, and
-sobbed silently on the pillow, after which she fell asleep, quite worn
-out, dark circles under her eyes. In the silence of the house, the
-tom-tom and blare of brazen instruments blown at the fair two miles away
-was audible.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-
-So there was tribulation in three houses. Next morning she scarcely
-dared come in to breakfast, and opened the door timidly, expecting heavy
-looks, and to be snapped up if she spoke. Instead of which, on taking
-her place, Iden carefully cut for her the most delicate slice of ham he
-could find, and removed the superfluous fat before putting it on her
-plate. Mrs. Iden had a special jug of cream ready for her--Amaryllis was
-fond of cream--and enriched the tea with it generously.
-
-"And what did you see at the fair?" asked Iden in his kindest voice,
-lifting up his saucer--from which he always drank--by putting his thumb
-under it instead of over, so that his thick little finger projected. He
-always sipped his tea in this way.
-
-"You had plenty of fun, didn't you?" said Mrs. Iden, still more kindly.
-
-"I--I don't know; I did not see much of the fair," said Amaryllis, at a
-loss to understand the change of manner.
-
-Iden smiled at his wife and nodded; Mrs. Iden picked up a letter from
-the tea-tray and gave it to her daughter:
-
-"Read."
-
-Amaryllis read--it was from Grandfather Iden, furiously upbraiding Iden
-for neglecting his daughter's education; she had no reverence, no
-manners--an undutiful, vulgar girl; she had better not show her face in
-his house again till she had been taught to know her position; her
-conduct was not fit for the kitchen; she had not the slightest idea how
-to behave herself in the presence of persons of quality.
-
-She put it down before she had finished the tirade of abuse; she did not
-look up, her face was scarlet.
-
-Iden laughed.
-
-"Horrid old wretch! Served him right!" said Mrs. Iden. "So glad you
-vexed him, dear!"
-
-Amaryllis last night a wretch was this morning a heroine. The
-grandfather's letter had done this.
-
-Iden never complained--never mentioned his father--but of course in his
-heart he bitterly felt the harsh neglect shown towards him and his wife
-and their child. He was a man who said the less the more he was moved;
-he gossiped freely with the men at the stile, or even with a hamlet old
-woman. Not a word ever dropped from him of his own difficulties--he kept
-his mind to himself. His wife knew nothing of his intentions--he was
-over-secretive, especially about money matters, in which he affected
-the most profound mystery, as if everyone in Coombe was not perfectly
-aware they could hardly get a pound of sugar on credit.
-
-All the more bitterly he resented the manner in which Grandfather Iden
-treated him, giving away half-crowns, crown-pieces, shillings, and
-fourpenny bits to anyone who would flatter his peculiarities, leaving
-his own descendants to struggle daily with debt and insult.
-
-Iden was in reality a very proud man, and the insults of his petty
-creditors fretted him.
-
-He would have been glad if Amaryllis had become her grandfather's
-favourite; as the grandfather had thrown savage words at the girl, so
-much the more was added to the score against the grandfather.
-
-Mrs. Iden hated the grandfather with every drop of Flamma blood in her
-veins--hated him above all for his pseudo-Flamma relationship, for old
-Iden had in his youth been connected with the Flammas in business--hated
-him for his veneration of the aristocratic and mediaeval Pamments.
-
-She was always impressing upon Amaryllis the necessity of cultivating
-her grandfather's goodwill, and always abusing him--contradicting
-herself in the most natural manner.
-
-This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply
-Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could
-hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose
-they did lose his money, he had had _one_ good upset, that was
-something.
-
-They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to
-tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the
-Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both
-father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her
-story.
-
-Mrs. Flamma Iden--revolutionary Flamma--detested the Pamments
-enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather
-paid them such court.
-
-Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the
-Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for
-disliking them personally.
-
-Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's
-pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if
-that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse
-her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as
-stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private
-key--you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
-
-However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis'
-disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
-
-So she was petted all the morning by both parties--a rare thing--and in
-the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy
-her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
-
-Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that
-she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather.
-She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the
-children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the
-archaeologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras
-Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
-
-Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the
-centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the
-possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his
-perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended
-yet.
-
-Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the
-other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so
-much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not
-work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job
-in hand going off and leaving it half finished--shoemaker's tricks
-these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was
-the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was
-most trying--it really was.
-
-"Well, and when am I going to have the boots?" said Amaryllis, amused at
-the poor fellow's distress. "When _are_ they going to be finished?"
-
-"You see, Miss Iden," said the shoemaker's mother, coming to help her
-son, "the fact is, he's just worried out of his life with his men--and
-really--"
-
-"You don't seem to get on very well with your shoemaking, Mr. Wise,"
-said the customer, smiling.
-
-"The fact is," said poor Wise, in his most melancholy manner, with a
-deep sigh, "the fact is, the men don't know their work as they used to,
-they spoil the leather and cut it wrong, and leave jobs half done, and
-they're always drinking; the leather isn't so good as it used to be; the
-fact is," with a still deeper sigh, "_we can't make a boot_."
-
-At which Amaryllis laughed outright, to think that people should have
-been in business two hundred years as shoemakers, and yet could not make
-a boot!
-
-Her experience of life as yet was short, and she saw things in their
-first aspect; it is not till much later we observe that the longer
-people do one thing, the worse they do it, till in the end they cannot
-do it at all.
-
-She presently selected a pair for herself, 9_s._, and another pair for
-her mother, 10_s._ 6_d._, leaving sixpence over; add sixpence discount
-for ready-money, and she was still rich with a shilling. Carrying the
-parcel, she went up the street and passed old Iden's door on elate
-instep, happy that she had not got to cross his threshold that day,
-happy to think she had the boots for her mother. Looking in at two or
-three dingy little shops, she fixed at last on one, and bought
-half-a-dozen of the very finest mild bloaters, of which Mrs. Iden was so
-fond. This finished the savings, and she turned quickly for home. The
-bloaters being merely bound round with one thin sheet of newspaper,
-soon imparted their odour to her hand.
-
-A lady whose hand smells of bloaters is not, I hope, too ideal; I hope
-you will see now that I am not imaginative, or given to the heroinesque.
-Amaryllis, I can tell you, was quite absorbed in the bloaters and the
-boots; a very sweet, true, and loving hand it was, in spite of the
-bloaters--one to kiss fervently.
-
-They soon had the bloaters on over a clear fire of wood-coals, and while
-they cooked the mother tried her new boots, naturally not a little
-pleased with the thoughtful present. The Flamma blood surged with
-gratitude; she would have given her girl the world at that moment. That
-she should have remembered her mother showed such a good disposition;
-there was no one like Amaryllis.
-
-"Pah!" said Iden, just then entering, "pah!" with a gasp; and holding
-his handkerchief to his nose, he rushed out faster than he came in, for
-the smell of bloaters was the pestilence to him.
-
-They only laughed all the merrier over their supper.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-
-RIGHT at the top of the house there was a large, unfurnished room, which
-Amaryllis had taken as her own long since. It was her study, her
-thinking-room, her private chapel and praying-room, her one place of
-solitude, silence, and retirement.
-
-The days had gone on, and it was near the end of April. Coming up the
-dark stairs one morning, she found them still darker, because she had
-just left the sunshine. They were built very narrow, as usual in old
-country-houses, and the landing shut off with a door, so that when you
-were in them you seemed to be in a box. There was no carpet--bare
-boards; old-fashioned folk did not carpet their stairs; no handrail; the
-edges of the steps worm-eaten and ragged, little bits apt to break off
-under sudden pressure, so that the board looked as if it had been
-nibbled by mice.
-
-Shutting the landing door behind her, Amaryllis was in perfect darkness,
-but her feet knew the well-remembered way, and she came quickly to the
-top.
-
-There were two great rooms running the whole length of the house: the
-first was a lumber-room, the second her own especial cell. Cell-like it
-was, in its monastic or conventual bareness. It was vague with bareness:
-a huge, square room, gaunt as a barn, the walls and ceiling whitewashed,
-the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table
-and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway--a
-journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post
-bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking
-hung down in a loop, torn and decayed--a bedstead on which no one had
-slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient
-carved linen-press of black oak, Amaryllis' bookcase.
-
-These bits of rude furniture were lost in the vastness of space, as much
-as if you had thrown your hat into the sky.
-
-Amaryllis went straight to the window and knelt down. She brought a
-handful of violets, fresh-gathered, to place in the glass which she kept
-there for her flowers. The window was cut in the thick wall, and formed
-a niche, where she always had a tumbler ready--a common glass tumbler,
-she could not afford a vase.
-
-They were the white wild violets, the sweetest of all, gathered while
-the nightingale was singing his morning song in the April sunshine--a
-song the world never listens to, more delicious than his evening notes,
-for the sunlight helps him, and the blue of the heavens, the green
-leaf, and the soft wind--all the soul of spring.
-
-White wild violets, a dewdrop as it were of flower, tender and delicate,
-growing under the great hawthorn hedge, by the mosses and among the dry,
-brown leaves of last year, easily overlooked unless you know exactly
-where to go for them. She had a bunch for her neck, and a large bunch
-for her niche. They would have sunk and fallen into the glass, but she
-hung them by their chins over the edge of the tumbler, with their stalks
-in the water. Then she sat down in the old chair at the table, and
-rested her head on her hand.
-
-Except where she did this every day, and so brushed it, a thin layer of
-dust had covered the surface (there was no cloth) and had collected on
-her portfolio, thrust aside and neglected. Dust on the indiarubber, dust
-on the cake of Indian ink, dust invisible on the smooth surface of the
-pencils, dust in the little box of vine charcoal.
-
-The hoarse baying of the hungry wolves around the house had shaken the
-pencil from her fingers--Siberian wolves they were, racing over the arid
-deserts of debt, large and sharp-toothed, ever increasing in number and
-ferocity, ready to tear the very door down. There are no wolves like
-those debt sends against a house.
-
-Every knock at the door, every strange footstep up the approach, every
-letter that came, was like the gnawing and gnashing of savage teeth.
-
-Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, and put the
-letters unopened on the mantelshelf--a pile of bills over his head where
-he slept calmly after dinner. Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses
-of hay, and go through _his_ work to appearance unmoved.
-
-Amaryllis could not draw--she could not do it; her imagination refused
-to see the idea; the more she concentrated her mind, the louder she
-heard the ceaseless grinding and gnashing of teeth.
-
-Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, bill-hooks can be
-wielded and faggots chopped, no matter what the inward care. The
-ploughman is deeply in debt, poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow
-the plough, and finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his
-labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid imagination--a
-delicately-balanced organization, that almost lives on its ideas as
-veritable food--cannot do like this. The poet, the artist, the author,
-the thinker, cannot follow their plough; their work depends on a serene
-mind.
-
-But experience proves that they _do_ do their work under such
-circumstances. They do; how greatly then they must be tortured, or for
-what a length of time they must have suffered to become benumbed.
-
-Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked of Time. She could
-not sketch--that was a thing of useless paper and pencil; what was
-wanted was money. She could not read, that was not real; what was wanted
-was solid coin.
-
-So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered with dust, but
-she came every day to her flowers in the window-niche.
-
-She had drawn up there in the bitter cold of February and March, without
-a fire, disdainful of ease in the fulness of her generous hope. Her warm
-young blood cared nothing for the cold, if only by enduring it she could
-assist those whom she loved.
-
-There were artists in the Flamma family in London who made what seemed
-to her large incomes, yet whose names had never been seen in a newspaper
-criticism, and who had never even sent a work to the Academy--never even
-tried to enter. Their work was not of an ambitious order, but it was
-well paid.
-
-Amaryllis did not for a moment anticipate success as an artist, nor
-think to take the world by storm with her talent. Her one only hope was
-to get a few pounds now and then--she would have sold twenty sketches
-for ten shillings--to save her father from insult, and to give her
-mother the mere necessities of dress she needed.
-
-No thought of possible triumph, nor was she sustained by an
-overmastering love of art; she was inspired by her heart, not her
-genius.
-
-Had circumstances been different she would not have earnestly practised
-drawing; naturally she was a passive rather than an active artist.
-
-She loved beauty for its own sake--she loved the sunlight, the grass and
-trees, the gleaming water, the colours of the fields and of the sky. To
-listen to the running water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in
-the high firs, or caught in the wide-stretching arms of the oak; she
-rested among these things, they were to her mind as sleep to the body.
-The few good pictures she had seen pleased her, but did not rouse the
-emotion the sunlight caused; artificial music was enjoyable, but not
-like the running stream. It said nothing--the stream was full of
-thought.
-
-No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by
-pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by
-nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a
-thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to
-write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things,
-and not writing.
-
-Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the
-sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma
-talent--she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so
-much to her as it is to me to write a letter.
-
-The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the
-preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery
-at Coombe Oaks--a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry
-Christmas"--holly berries, mistletoe--and behind these--debt. Behind the
-glowing fire, written in the flames--debt; in the sound of the distant
-chimes--debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash
-their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.
-
-Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon
-Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel
-thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This
-is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-
-SO Amaryllis went up into the gaunt, cold room at the top of the house,
-and bent herself seriously to drawing. There was no fireplace, and if
-there had been they could not have allowed her coals; coals were dear.
-It was quite an event when the horse and cart went to the wharf for
-coal. There was plenty of wood for the hearth--wood grew on the
-farm--but coal was money.
-
-The March winds howled round the corner of the old thatched house, and
-now and again tremendous rains blew up against the little western window
-near which she had placed her table. Through the silent cold of January,
-the moist cold of February, the east winds and hurricane rains of March,
-Amaryllis worked on in her garret, heedless of nipped fingers and
-chilled feet.
-
-Sometimes she looked out of the window and watched Iden digging in the
-garden underneath, planting his potatoes, pruning his trees and shrubs,
-or farther away, yonder in the meadow, clearing out the furrows that
-the water might flow better--"trenching," as he called it.
-
-The harder it rained the harder he worked at this in the open, with a
-sack about his shoulders like a cloak; the labourers were under shelter,
-the master was out in the wet, hoping by guiding the water to the grass
-to get a larger crop of hay in June.
-
-Bowed under his sack, with his rotten old hat, he looked a woful figure
-as the heavy shower beat on his back. But to Amaryllis he was always her
-father.
-
-Sometimes she went into the next room--the lumber-room--only lighted by
-a window on a level with the floor, a window which had no glass, but
-only a wire network. Sitting on the floor there, she could see him at
-the stile across the road, his hands behind his back, gossiping now with
-another farmer or two, now with a labourer, now with an old woman
-carrying home a yoke of water from the brook.
-
-The gossiping hurt Amaryllis even more than the work in the cold rain;
-it seemed so incongruous, so out of character, so unlike the real Iden
-as she knew him.
-
-That he, with his great, broad and noble forehead, and his profile like
-Shakespeare, should stand there talk, talk, talking on the smallest
-hamlet topics with old women, and labourers, and thickheaded farmers,
-was to her a bewilderment and annoyance.
-
-She could not understand it, and she resented it. The real Iden she knew
-was the man of thought and old English taste, who had told her so much
-by the fireside of that very Shakespeare whom in features he resembled,
-and of the poets from Elizabethan days downwards. His knowledge seemed
-to be endless; there was no great author he had not read, no subject
-upon which he could not at least tell her where to obtain information.
-Yet she knew he had never had what is now called an education. How
-clever he must be to know all these things! You see she did not know how
-wonderful is the gift of observation, which Iden possessed to a degree
-that was itself genius. Nothing escaped him; therefore his store was
-great.
-
-No other garden was planted as Iden's garden was, in the best of old
-English taste, with old English flowers and plants, herbs and trees. In
-summer time it was a glory to see: a place for a poet, a spot for a
-painter, loved and resorted to by every bird of the air. Of a bare old
-farmhouse he had made a beautiful home.
-
-Questions upon questions her opening mind had poured upon him, and to
-all he had given her an answer that was an explanation. About the earth
-and about the sea, the rivers, and living things; about the stars and
-sun, the comet, the wonders of the firmament, of geology and astronomy,
-of science; there was nothing he did not seem to know.
-
-A man who had crossed the wide ocean as that Ulysses of whom he read to
-her, and who, like that Ulysses, enjoyed immense physical strength, why
-was he like this? Why was he so poor? Why did he work in the rain under
-a sack? Why did he gossip at the stile with the small-brained hamlet
-idlers?
-
-It puzzled her and hurt her at the same time.
-
-I cannot explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give
-a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation--say partly
-circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell,
-partly an indecision of character--too much thought--and, after all said
-and done, Fate.
-
-Watching him from the network window, Amaryllis felt her heart drooping,
-she knew not why, and went back to her drawing unstrung.
-
-She worked very hard, and worked in vain. The sketches all came back to
-her. Some of them had a torn hole at the corner where they had been
-carelessly filed, others a thumb-mark, others had been folded wrongly,
-almost all smelt of tobacco. Neither illustrated papers, periodicals:
-neither editors nor publishers would have anything to do with them. One
-or two took more care, and returned the drawings quite clean; one sent a
-note saying that they promised well.
-
-Poor Amaryllis! They promised well, and she wanted half a sovereign
-_now_. If a prophet assured a man that the picture he could not now
-dispose of would be worth a thousand pounds in fifty years, what
-consolation would that be to him?
-
-They were all a total failure. So many letters could not be received in
-that dull place without others in the house seeing what was going on.
-Once now and then Amaryllis heard a step on the stairs--a shuffling,
-uncertain step--and her heart began to beat quicker, for she knew it was
-her mother. Somehow, although she loved her so dearly, she felt that
-there was not much sympathy between them. She did not understand her
-mother; the mother did not understand the daughter. Though she was
-working for her mother's sake, when she heard her mother's step she was
-ashamed of her work.
-
-Mrs. Iden would come in and shuffle round the room, drawing one foot
-along the floor in an aggravating way she had, she was not lame, and
-look out of window, and presently stand behind Amaryllis, and say--
-
-"Ah! you'll never do anything at that. Never do anything. I've seen too
-much of it. Better come down and warm yourself."
-
-Now this annoyed Amaryllis so much because it seemed so inconsistent.
-Mrs. Iden blew up her husband for having no enterprise, and then turned
-round and discouraged her daughter for being enterprising, and this,
-too, although she was constantly talking about the superiority of the
-art employments of the Flammas in London to the clodhopper work around
-her.
-
-Amaryllis could never draw a line till her mother had gone downstairs
-again, and then the words kept repeating themselves in her ear--"Never
-do no good at that, never do no good at that."
-
-If we were to stay to analyse deeply, perhaps we should find that
-Amaryllis was working for a mother of her own imagination, and not for
-the mother of fact.
-
-Anyone who sits still, writing, drawing, or sewing, feels the cold very
-much more than those who are moving indoors or out. It was bitterly cold
-in the gaunt garret, the more so because the wind came unchecked through
-the wire network of the window in the next room. But for that her
-generous young heart cared nothing, nor for the still colder wind of
-failure.
-
-She had no name--no repute, therefore had her drawings been equal to the
-finest ever produced they would not have been accepted. Until the
-accident of reputation arises genius is of no avail.
-
-Except an author, or an artist, or a musician, who on earth would
-attempt to win success by merit? That alone proves how correct the world
-is in its estimation of them; they must indeed be poor confiding fools.
-Succeed by merit!
-
-Does the butcher, or the baker, or the ironmonger, or the
-tallow-chandler rely on personal merit, or purely personal ability for
-making a business? They rely on a little capital, credit, and much push.
-The solicitor is first an articled clerk, and works next as a
-subordinate, his "footing" costs hundreds of pounds, and years of hard
-labour. The doctor has to "walk the hospitals," and, if he can, he buys
-a practice. They do not rely on merit.
-
-The three fools--the author, the artist, and the musician--put certain
-lines on a sheet of paper and expect the world to at once admire their
-clever ideas.
-
-In the end--but how far is it to the end!--it is true that genius is
-certain of recognition; the steed by then has grown used to starvation,
-waiting for the grass to grow. Look about you: Are the prosperous men of
-business men of merit? are they all clever? are they geniuses? They do
-not exactly seem to be so.
-
-Nothing so hard as to succeed by merit; no path so full of
-disappointments; nothing so incredibly impossible.
-
-I would infinitely rather be a tallow-chandler, with a good steady
-income and no thought, than an author; at the first opportunity I mean
-to go into the tallow business.
-
-Until the accident of reputation chanced to come to her, Amaryllis might
-work and work, and hope and sigh, and sit benumbed in her garret, and
-watch her father, Shakespeare Iden, clearing the furrows in the rain,
-under his sack.
-
-She had not even a diploma--a diploma, or a certificate, a South
-Kensington certificate! Fancy, without even a certificate! Misguided
-child!
-
-What a hideous collection of frumpery they have got there at the Museum,
-as many acres as Iden's farm, shot over with all the rubbish of the
-"periods." What a mockery of true art feeling it is! They have not even
-a single statue in the place. They would shrivel up in horror at a nude
-model. _They_ teach art--miserable sham, their wretched art culminates
-in a Christmas card.
-
-Amaryllis had not even been through the South Kensington "grind," and
-dared to send in original drawings without a certificate. Ignorance, you
-see, pure clodhopper ignorance.
-
-Failure waited on her labours; the postman brought them all back again.
-
-Yet in her untaught simplicity she had chosen the line which the very
-highest in the profession would probably have advised her to take. She
-drew what she knew. The great cart-horse, the old barn up the road, the
-hollow tree, the dry reeds, the birds, and chanticleer himself--
-
-          High was his comb, and coral red withal,
-          In dents embattled like a castle wall.
-
-Hardly a circumstance of farm life she did not sketch; the fogger with
-his broad knife cutting hay; the ancient labourer sitting in the
-wheelbarrow munching his bread-and-cheese, his face a study for Teniers;
-the team coming home from plough--winter scenes, most of them, because
-it was winter time. There are those who would give fifty pounds for one
-of those studies now, crumpled, stained, and torn as they are.
-
-It was a complete failure. Once only she had a gleam of success. Iden
-picked up the sketch of the dry reeds in the brook, and after looking
-at it, put it in his "Farmer's Calendar," on the mantelshelf. Amaryllis
-felt like the young painter whose work is at last hung at the Academy.
-His opinion was everything to her. He valued her sketch.
-
-Still, that was not money. The cold wind and the chill of failure still
-entered her garret study. But it was neither of these that at length
-caused the portfolio to be neglected, she would have worked on and on,
-hoping against hope, undaunted, despite physical cold and moral check.
-It was the procession of creditors.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-
-STEADILY they came over from the town, dunning Iden and distracting
-Amaryllis in her garret. She heard the heavy footsteps on the path to
-the door, the thump, thump with the fist (there was neither knocker nor
-bell, country fashion); more thumping, and then her mother's excuses, so
-oft repeated, so wearisome, so profitless. "But where is he?" the
-creditor would persist. "He's up at the Hayes," or "He's gone to Green
-Hills." "Well, when will he be in?" "Don't know." "But I wants to know
-when this yer little account is going to be settled." Then a long
-narration of his wrongs, threats of "doing summat," i.e., summoning,
-grumble, grumble, and so slow, unwilling steps departing.
-
-Very rude men came down from the villages demanding payment in their
-rough way--a raw, crude way, brutally insulting to a lady. Iden had long
-since exhausted his credit in the town; neither butcher, baker, draper,
-nor anyone else would let them have a shilling's-worth until the
-shilling had been placed on the counter. He had been forced lately to
-deal with the little men of the villages--the little butcher who killed
-once a fortnight; the petty cottagers' baker, and people of that kind.
-Inferior meat and inferior bread on credit first; coarse language and
-rudeness afterwards.
-
-One day, the village baker, having got inside the door as Mrs. Iden
-incautiously opened it, stood there and argued with her, while Amaryllis
-in the garret put down her trembling pencil to listen.
-
-"Mr. Iden will send it up," said her mother.
-
-"Oh, he'll send it up. When will he send it up?"
-
-"He'll send it up."
-
-"He've a' said that every time, but it beant come yet. You tell un I be
-come to vetch it."
-
-"Mr. Iden's not in."
-
-"I'll bide till he be in."
-
-"He'll only tell you he'll send it up."
-
-"I'll bide and see un. You've served I shameful. It's nothing but
-cheating--that's what I calls it--to have things and never pay for um.
-It's cheating."
-
-Amaryllis tore downstairs, flushed with passion.
-
-"How dare you say such a thing? How dare you insult my mother? Leave the
-house this moment!"
-
-And with both hands she literally pushed the man, unwilling, but not
-absolutely resisting, outside, grumbling as he moved that he never
-insulted nobody, only asked for his money.
-
-A pleasing preparation this for steadiness of hand, calculated to
-encourage the play of imagination! She could do nothing for hours
-afterwards.
-
-Just as often Iden was at home, and then it was worse, because it lasted
-longer. First they talked by the potato-patch almost under the window;
-then they talked on the path; then they came indoors, and then there
-were words and grumbling sounds that rose up the staircase. By-and-by
-they went out again and talked by the gate. At last the creditor
-departed, and Iden returned indoors to take a glass of ale and sit a
-moment till the freshness of the annoyance had left his mind. Mrs. Iden
-then had her turn at him: the old story--why didn't he do something?
-Amaryllis knew every word as well as if she had been sitting in the
-room.
-
-How Iden had patience with them Amaryllis could not think; how he could
-stand, and be argued with, and abused, and threatened, and yet not take
-the persecutor by the collar and quietly put him in the road, she could
-not understand.
-
-The truth was he could not help himself; violence would have availed
-nothing. But to youth it seems as if a few blows are all that is needed
-to overcome difficulties.
-
-Waller and Co., the tailor--he was his own Co.--walked over regularly
-once a week; very civil and very persistent, and persistent in vain. How
-he came to be a creditor was not easy to see, for Iden's coat was a
-pattern of raggedness, his trousers bare at the knee, and his shabby
-old hat rotten. But somehow or other there was a five-pound account two
-years overdue.
-
-Cobb, the butcher at Woolhorton, got off his trap as he went by, at
-least twice a week, to chivey Iden about his money. Though he would not
-let them have a mutton chop without payment, whenever there was five
-shillings to spare for meat it was always taken into his shop, as it was
-better to have good meat there, if you had to pay cash for meat, than
-inferior in the village. One day, Amaryllis was waiting for some steak,
-side by side with a poor woman, waiting for scraps, while Cobb served a
-grand lady of the town. "Yes, m'm--oh, yes, m'm, certainly, m'm," bows,
-and scrapes, and washing of hands, all the obsequiousness possible. When
-the fine lady had gone, "Lar, Mr. Cobb," says the poor woman, "how
-different you do speak to _they_ to what you do speak to _me_."
-
-"Oh, yes," replied Cobb, not in the least abashed at having one manner
-for the poor and another for the rich. "Yes, you see, these ladies they
-require such a deal of _homage_."
-
-There was a long bill at Beavan's the grocer's, but that was not much
-pressed, only a large blue letter about once a month, as Beavan had a
-very good profit out of them through the butter. Mrs. Iden made
-excellent butter, which had a reputation, and Beavan took it all at
-about half-price. If it had been sold to anyone else he would have
-insisted on payment. So, by parting with the best butter in the county
-at half-price, they got their tea and sugar without much dunning.
-
-At one time Mrs. Iden became excited and strange in her manner, as if on
-the point of hysterics, from which Amaryllis divined something serious
-was approaching, though her mother would say nothing. So it turned
-out--a bailiff appeared, and took up his quarters in the kitchen. He was
-very civil and quiet; he sat by the great fire of logs, and offered to
-help in any way he could. Iden gave him plenty of beer, for one thing.
-Amaryllis could not go into the kitchen--the dear old place seemed
-deserted while he was there.
-
-This woke up Iden for the moment. First there was a rummaging about in
-his old bureau, and a laborious writing of letters, or adding up of
-figures. Next there was a great personal getting up, a bath, clean
-linen, shaving, and donning of clothes packed away these years past. In
-two hours or so Iden came down another man, astonishingly changed, quite
-a gentleman in every respect, and so handsome in Amaryllis's eyes.
-Indeed, he was really handsome still, and to her, of course, wonderfully
-so. If only he would always dress like that!
-
-Iden walked into Woolhorton, but all these preparations had so consumed
-the time that the bank was shut, the solicitor's offices closed, and
-there was no means of raising any money that evening. The son passed the
-father's doorstep--the worn stone step, ground by the generations of
-customers--he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where
-Grandfather Iden sat--he might, had he paused and listened, have heard
-the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man--the son
-passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that held a
-bailiff.
-
-A makeshift bed had to be made up for the bailiff in the kitchen, and
-there he remained the night, and was up and had lit the fire for Luce
-the servant before she was down. The man was certainly very civil, but
-still there was the shock of it.
-
-Early in the morning Iden went into town again, saw his solicitor, and
-got a cheque--it was only five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and the
-bailiff left.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-
-BUT his presence did not die out of the kitchen; they always seemed to
-feel as if he had been there. The hearth had been stained by a foreign
-foot, the very poker had been touched by a foreign hand, the rude form
-at the side by the wall had been occupied by an intruder. Amaryllis had
-always been so fond of the kitchen--the oldest part of the house, two
-centuries at least. The wide hearth and immense chimney, up which, when
-the fire was out, of a winter's night you could see the stars; over
-which of a windy night you could imagine the witches riding by, borne on
-the deep howling of the blast; the great beam and the gun slung to it;
-the heavy oaken table, unpolished, greyish oak; the window in the thick
-wall, set with yellowish glass; the stone floor, and the walls from
-which the whitewash peeled in flakes; the rude old place was very dear
-to her.
-
-Ofttimes they sat there in winter instead of the sitting-room, drawn by
-its antique homeliness. Mrs. Iden warmed elder wine, and Iden his great
-cup of Goliath ale, and they roasted chestnuts and apples, while the
-potatoes--large potatoes--Iden's selected specialities--were baking
-buried in the ashes. Looking over her shoulder Amaryllis could see the
-white drift of snow against the window, which was on a level with the
-ground outside, and so got Iden to tell her stories of the deep snow in
-the United States, and the thick ice, sawn with saws, or, his fancy
-roaming on, of the broad and beautiful Hudson River, the river he had so
-admired in his youth, the river the poets will sing some day; or of his
-clinging aloft at night in the gale on the banks of Newfoundland, for he
-had done duty as a sailor. A bold and adventurous man in his youth, why
-did he gossip at the stile now in his full and prime of manhood?
-
-It would be a long, long tale to tell, and even then only those who have
-lived in the country and had practical experience could fully comprehend
-the hopelessness of working a small farm, unless you are of a wholly
-sordid nature. Iden's nature was not sordid; the very reverse. The
-beginning, or one of the beginnings, of the quarrel between father and
-son arose because of this; Grandfather Iden could not forgive his son
-for making the place beautiful with trees and flowers.
-
-By-and-by the baked potatoes were done, and they had supper on the old
-and clumsy table, village made and unpolished, except in so far as the
-stains of cooking operations had varnished it, the same table at which
-"Jearje," the fogger, sat every morning to eat his breakfast, and every
-evening to take his supper. What matter? George worked hard and honestly
-all day, his great arms on the table, spread abroad as he ate, did not
-injure it.
-
-Great mealy potatoes, cracked open, white as the snow without, floury
-and smoking; dabs of Mrs. Iden's delicious butter, a little salt and
-pepper, and there was a dish for a king. The very skins were
-pleasant--just a taste.
-
-They were not always alone at these kitchen-feasts, sometimes a Flamma
-from London, sometimes an Iden from over the hill, or others were there.
-Iden was very hospitable--though most of his guests (family connections)
-were idle folk, no good to themselves or anybody, still they were made
-cordially welcome. But others, very high folk, socially speaking (for
-they had good connections, too, these poor Idens), who had dined at
-grand London tables, seemed to enjoy themselves most thoroughly on the
-rude Homeric fare.
-
-For it was genuine, and there was a breadth, an open-handed generosity,
-a sense of reality about it; something really to eat, though no
-finger-glasses; Homeric straightforwardness of purpose.
-
-Amaryllis was very fond of the old kitchen; it was the very centre of
-home. This strange man, this intruding bailiff, trod heavily on her
-dearest emotions. His shadow remained on the wall though he had gone.
-
-They all felt it, but Amaryllis most of all, and it was weeks before the
-kitchen seemed to resume its former appearance. Jearje was the one who
-restored it. He ate so heartily, and spoke so cheerily at breakfast and
-at supper, it almost made them forget their troubles to see anyone so
-grateful and pleased with all they did for him. "Thank you, ma'am; dest
-about a good bit a' bacon, this yer"--locally the "d" and "j" were often
-interchangable, dest for jest, or just--"That'll be a' plenty for I,
-ma'am, doan't want more'n I can yet"--don't want more than I can eat,
-don't want to be greedy--"Thank you, miss; dest about some ripping good
-ale, this yer; that it be."
-
-He so thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the bacon, and the cheese, and
-the ale; he was like a great, big human dog; you know how we like to see
-a big dog wag his tail at his food, or put his paws on our knees and
-laugh, as it were, with his eyes in our face. They petted him, these two
-women, exactly as if he had been a dog, giving him all the bones,
-literally and metaphorically, the actual bones of the meat, and any
-scraps there were, to take home with him (besides his regular meals),
-and now and then some trifles of clothing for his aged mother. The dog
-most thoroughly appreciated this treatment; he rolled in it, revelled in
-it, grew shiny and fat, and glistened with happiness.
-
-Iden petted him, too, to some degree, out of doors, and for much the
-same reason; his cheery content and willingness, and the absence of the
-usual selfish niggardliness of effort. George worked willingly and
-fairly, and, if occasion needed, stayed another hour, or put his
-shoulder to the wheel of his own accord, and so, having a good employer,
-and not one minded to take advantage of him, was rewarded in many ways.
-Iden did not reduce his wages by a shilling or eighteenpence in winter,
-and gave him wood for firing, half a sack of potatoes, garden produce,
-or apples, and various other things from time to time.
-
-Living partly indoors, and being of this disposition, Jearje was more
-like a retainer than a servant, or labourer; a humble member of the
-family.
-
-It was a sight to see him eat. Amaryllis and Mrs. Iden used often to
-watch him covertly, just for the amusement it gave them. He went about
-it as steadily and deliberately as the horses go to plough; no attempt
-to caracole in the furrow, ready to stand still as long as you like.
-
-Bacon three inches thick with fat: the fat of beef; fat of
-mutton--anything they could not finish in the sitting-room; the overplus
-of cabbage or potatoes, savoury or unsavoury; vast slices of bread and
-cheese; ale, and any number of slop-basins full of tea--the cups were
-not large enough--and pudding, cold dumpling, hard as wood, no matter
-what, Jearje ate steadily through it.
-
-A more willing fellow never lived; if Mrs. Iden happened to want
-anything from the town ever so late, though George had worked hard the
-long day through from half-past five in the morning, off he would start,
-without sign of demur, five miles there and back, and come in singing
-with his burden.
-
-There are such, as George still among the labourer class, in despite of
-the change of circumstance and sentiment, men who would be as faithful
-as the faithfullest retainer who ever accompanied a knight of old time
-to the Crusade. But, observe, for a good man there must be a good
-master. Proud Iden was a good master, who never forgot that his man was
-not a piece of mechanism, but flesh and blood and feelings.
-
-Now this great human dog, sprawling his strong arms abroad on the oaken
-table, warming his heavily-booted feet at the hearth, always with a
-cheery word and smile, by his constant presence there slowly wore away
-the impression of the bailiff, and the dear old kitchen came to be
-itself again.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-
-BUT all these shocks and worries and trampling upon her emotions made
-the pencil tremble in the artist's hand as she worked in the gaunt
-garret.
-
-One day, as she was returning from Woolhorton, Iden's solicitor, from
-whom he had borrowed money, overtook her, walked his horse, and began to
-talk to her in his perky, affected, silly way. Of all the fools in
-Woolhorton town there was none equal in pure idiotcy to this namby-pamby
-fellow--it was wonderful how a man of Iden's intelligence could trust
-his affairs to such a man, the more so as there was at least one good
-lawyer in the place. This is very characteristic of the farming race;
-they will work like negroes in the field, and practise the utmost penury
-to save a little, and be as cautious over a groat as the keenest miser,
-and then go and trust their most important affairs to some perfect fool
-of a solicitor. His father, perhaps, or his uncle, or somebody connected
-with the firm, had a reputation about the era of Waterloo, and upon this
-tradition they carry their business to a man whom they admit themselves
-"doan't seem up to much, yon." In the same way, or worse, for there is
-no tradition even in this case, they will consign a hundred pounds'
-worth of milk to London on the mere word of a milkman's agent, a man of
-straw for aught they know, and never so much as go up to town to see if
-there is such a milk business in existence.
-
-This jackanapes began to talk to Amaryllis about her father. "Now, don't
-you think, Miss Iden, you could speak to your father about these money
-matters; you know he's getting into a pound, he really is (the
-jackanapes pretended to hunt); he'll be pounded. Now, don't you think
-you could talk to him, and persuade him to be more practical?"
-
-The chattering of this tom-tit upset Amaryllis more than the rudeness of
-the gruff baker who forced his way in, and would not go. That such a
-contemptible nincompoop should dare to advise her father to be
-practical! The cleverest man in the world--advise him to be practical;
-as if, indeed, he was not practical and hard-working to the very utmost.
-
-To her it was a bitter insult. The pencil trembled in her hand.
-
-But what shook it most of all was anxiety about her mother. Ever since
-the bailiff's intrusion Mrs. Iden had seemed so unsettled. Sometimes she
-would come downstairs after the rest had retired, and sit by the dying
-fire for hours alone, till Iden chanced to wake, and go down for her.
-
-Once she went out of doors very late, leaving the front door wide open,
-and Amaryllis found her at midnight wandering in an aimless way among
-the ricks.
-
-At such times she had a glazed look in her eyes, and did not seem to see
-what she gazed at. At others she would begin to cry without cause, and
-gave indications of hysteria. The nervous Flamma family were liable to
-certain affections of that kind, and Amaryllis feared lest her mother's
-system had been overstrained by these continual worries.
-
-Poor woman! she had, indeed, been worried enough to have shaken the
-strongest; and, having nothing stolid in her nature, it pressed upon
-her.
-
-After awhile these attacks seemed to diminish, and Amaryllis hoped that
-nothing would come of it, but it left her in a state of extreme anxiety
-lest some fresh trouble should happen to renew the strain.
-
-When she thought of her mother she could not draw--the sound of her
-shuffling, nervous footstep on the landing or the path outside under the
-window stopped her at once. These things disheartened her a thousand
-times more than the returned sketches the postman was always bringing.
-
-On butter-making mornings, once a week, there was always a great to-do;
-Mrs. Iden, like nervous people, was cross and peevish when she was
-exceptionally busy, and clapper-clawed Iden to some purpose. It chanced
-that Amaryllis one day was just opening an envelope and taking out a
-returned drawing, when Iden entered, angry and fresh from Mrs. Iden's
-tongue, and, seeing the letter, began to growl:--
-
-"Better drow that there fool stuff in the vire, and zee if you can't
-help your mother. Better do zummat to be some use on. Pity as you wasn't
-a boy chap to go out and yarn summat. Humph! humph!" growl, mutter,
-growl. "Drow" was local for throw, "summat" for something, "yarn" for
-earn. Unless I give you a vocabulary you may not be able to follow him.
-
-The contemptuous allusion to her sketches as fool stuff, contrasted with
-the benefit and advantage of earning something--something real and
-solid--hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her
-so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable--she saw
-the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value
-than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the fire
-only.
-
-That was the very thought that troubled her so, and Iden hit the nail
-home with his rude speech. That was the material view; unless a thing be
-material, or will fetch something material, it is good for the fire
-only.
-
-So it came about that the portfolio was pushed aside, and dust gathered
-on it, and on the pencils, and the india-rubber, and in the little box
-of vine charcoal. Amaryllis having arranged her violets in the tumbler
-of water in the window niche, sat down at the table and leant her head
-on her hand, and tried to think what she could do, as she had thought
-these many, many days.
-
-The drawings were so unreal, and a sovereign so real. Nothing in all the
-world at these moments seemed to her to be so good and precious as the
-round disk of gold which rules everything. The good that she could do
-with it--with just one of those golden disks!
-
-Did you ever read Al Hariri? That accomplished scholar, the late Mr.
-Chenery (of _The Times_), translated twenty-six of his poems from the
-Arabic, and added most interesting notes. This curious book is a fusion
-of the Arabian Nights, Ecclesiastes, and Rabelais. There is the magical
-unexpectedness of the Arabian Nights, the vanity of vanities, all is
-vanity, of the Preacher, and the humour of the French satirist. Wisdom
-is scattered about it; at one moment you acknowledge a great thought,
-the next you are reproached for a folly, and presently laugh at a deep
-jest.
-
-Al Hariri has a bearing upon Amaryllis, because he sang of the dinar,
-the Arabian sovereign, the double-faced dinar, the reverse and the
-obverse, head and tail, one side giving everything good, and the other
-causing all evil. For the golden disk has two sides, and two Fates
-belong to it. First he chants its praises:--
-
-          How noble is that yellow one, whose yellowness is pure,
-          Which traverses the regions, and whose journeying is afar.
-          Told abroad are its fame and repute:
-          Its lines are set as the secret sign of wealth;
-          Its march is coupled with the success of endeavours;
-          Its bright look is loved by mankind,
-          As though it had been molten of their hearts.
-          By its aid whoever has got it in his purse assails boldly,
-          Though kindred be perished or tardy to help.
-          Oh! charming are its purity and brightness;
-          Charming are its sufficiency and help.
-          How many a ruler is there whose rule has been perfected by it!
-          How many a sumptuous one is there whose grief, but for it,
-                would be endless!
-          How many a host of cares has one charge of it put to flight!
-          How many a full moon has a sum of it brought down!
-          How many a one, burning with rage, whose coal is flaming,
-          Has it been secretly whispered to and then his anger has
-                softened.
-          How many a prisoner, whom his kin had yielded,
-          Has it delivered, so that his gladness has been unmingled.
-          Now by the Truth of the Lord whose creation brought it forth,
-          Were it not for His fear, I should say its power is supreme.
-
-The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
-Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
-it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
-famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
-worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
-was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
-bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
-might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
-mighty.
-
-All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
-leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
-good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!
-
-But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
-evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--
-
-          Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
-          The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
-          It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
-                looks on it,
-          The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
-          Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
-          Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
-          But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
-          Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
-          Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
-          Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
-                withholds;
-          Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
-          Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
-          Is that it helps thee not in straits,
-          Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
-          Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
-          And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
-                lover,
-          Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
-          "I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"
-
-"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
-Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
-her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
-fleeing like a runaway slave.
-
-But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
-only the good side of the golden sovereign, only that it was all
-powerful to bless.
-
-How unnatural it seems that a girl like this, that young and fresh and
-full of generous feelings as she was, her whole mind should perforce be
-taken up with the question of money; an unnatural and evil state of
-things.
-
-It seems to me very wicked that it should be so.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-
-THOUGH the portfolio was pushed aside and dust had gathered on the
-table, except where her arm touched it, Amaryllis came daily, and often
-twice a day, to her flowers to pray.
-
-From the woods she brought the delicate primrose opening on the mossy
-bank among the grey ash-stoles; the first tender green leaflet of
-hawthorn coming before the swallow; the garden crocus from the grass of
-the garden; the first green spikelet from the sward of the meadow; the
-beautiful white wild violets gathered in the sunlit April morning while
-the nightingale sang.
-
-With these she came to pray each day, at the window-niche. After she had
-sat awhile at the table that morning, thinking, she went and knelt at
-the window with her face in her hands; the scent of the violets filled
-her hair.
-
-Her prayer was deeper than words and was not put in language, but came
-rushing through her heart;--"That her dear mother might not suffer any
-more, that the strain of ceaseless trouble might be removed from her
-mind, that peace and rest might come to her in her old age. Let her step
-become firm, and the nervousness depart, and her eyes shine like they
-used to, so clear and bright, and do not let the grey hairs show more
-than they do now, or increase in number. Let her smile and be happy and
-talk cheerfully, and take an interest in the house and all the order of
-household things, and also see and understand that her husband meant to
-please her, even in such a little thing as splitting up useful wood for
-the fire, that he intended to please her, and that she might not
-misunderstand him any more. He intended to be kind in many ways, but
-misfortune had blinded her, and she took things the wrong way. And give
-her more change and friends to ask her out from home on visits, so that
-she might be amused, and make them come to see her and pass the time in
-contentment. Give her also enough money to buy good clothes so as to
-look nice as she ought to do, and if possible a conveyance of some
-kind--not a grand carriage, she did not wish for that--but a conveyance
-to drive about now and then, because she was not so strong as she used
-to be, and could not walk far. And let me, thought Amaryllis, let me be
-able to give her a watch, for other people have watches, and my mother
-has not got one, and it does seem so strange it should be so after all
-the hard work she has done. Let me, too, get her some nice things to
-eat, some fish and wine, for she cannot eat our plain bacon now every
-day, she has not got an appetite, and her teeth too are bad, and I
-should so like to give her a set of artificial teeth that her food might
-do her more good. But what I really want is that she may be happy, and
-be like my mother herself really is when she is herself. Give my father
-money enough to pay his creditors, for I know that though he is so quiet
-and says nothing, these debts are wearing him out, and I know he wishes
-to pay them, and does not willingly keep them waiting. He is so patient,
-and so good, and bears everything, I am sure no one was ever like him,
-and it is so dreadful to see him work, work, work, every day from five
-o'clock in the morning, and yet to be always worried with these debts
-and people that will not let him have peace one single day. Do, please,
-let him have less work to do, it makes me miserable to see him in the
-rain, and he is not young now, and sometimes carrying such heavy things,
-great pieces of timber and large trusses of hay, and making his back
-ache digging. Surely it must soon be time for him to leave off working,
-he has done such a lot, and I do not think he can see quite so well as
-he used to, because he holds the paper so close to his eyes. Please let
-him leave off working soon now and have some rest and change, and go
-about with my mother, and when he is at home not have anything more to
-do than his garden, because he is so fond of that; let him love the
-flowers again as he used to, and plant some more, and have nothing
-harder to do than to gather the fruit from the trees he has planted. And
-let me get him some new books to read, because I know he is so fond of
-books; he has not had a new book for so long. Let him go to London and
-see people and things, and life, because I know he is full of ideas and
-thoughts though he works and digs, and that is what would do him good.
-Give him some money now at last, now he has worked all these years,
-forty years on this farm, and ever so much work before that; do give him
-some money at last. Do make my grandfather kinder to him and not so
-harsh for the rent, let him give the place to my father now, for it can
-be no use to him; let my father have it for his very own, and then I
-think he would be happy after all, he does so like to improve things and
-make them beautiful, and if it was his very own there is so much that he
-could do. That would be nice work and work that he would enjoy doing,
-and not just to get a few wretched shillings to pay other people. I am
-sure he would never be cross then, and he would be so kind to my mother,
-and kind and good to everybody. There is nobody like him, as you know,
-in this place; they are not clever like him, and good to the labouring
-men and their families like he is (and so is my mother too); they are so
-rough, and so unkind and stupid; I do not mean anything against them,
-but they are not like he is. And if you were to help him he would soon
-help the poor people and give them food and more wages; you know how
-good he is in his heart. And he would do it, not because other people
-should praise him, but because he would like to do it; if he does not
-go to church his heart is very true, and it is because he likes to be
-true and genuine, and not make any false show. Do, please, help him, and
-give him some money, and do, please, let him have this place for his
-very own, for I do so fear lest those who set my grandfather against
-him, should have a will made, so that my father should not have this
-house and land as he ought to do, as the son. He has made it so
-beautiful with trees, and brought the fresh spring water up to the
-house, and done so many clever things, and his heart is here, and it is
-home to him, and no other place could be like it. I think it would kill
-him not to have it, and for me, I should be so--I cannot tell, I should
-be so miserable if he did not, but I will not think of myself. There are
-so many things I know he wants to do if only he was not so worried with
-debts, and if he could feel it was his own land; he wants to plant a
-copse, and to make a pond by the brook, and have trout in it, and to
-build a wall by the rick-yard. Think how my dear father has worked all
-these years, and do help him now, and give him some money, and this
-place, and please do not let him grow any more grey than his hair is
-now, and save his eyes, for he is so fond of things that are beautiful,
-and please make my mother happy with him."
-
-When Amaryllis rose from her knees her face was quite white, emotion had
-taken away her colour, and tears were thick on her cheek. She sat a
-little while by the table to recover herself, still thinking, and
-remembered that again last night she had dreamed the same dream about
-fire in the thatch. Somehow there seemed to be an alarm in the night,
-and they ran out of doors and found the corner of the roof on fire, over
-the window with the wire network instead of glass. It ran up from the
-corner towards the chimney, where the roof was mossy by the ridge. There
-was no flame, but a deep red seething heat, as if the straw burned
-inwardly, and was glowing like molten metal. Each straw seemed to lie in
-the furious heat, and a light to flicker up and down, as if it breathed
-fire. The thatch was very thick there, she knew, and recollected it
-quite well in her dream; Iden himself had laid on two thick coats in his
-time, and it was heavy enough before then. He talked about the thatching
-of it, because it was an argument with him that straw had a great power
-of endurance, and was equal to slates for lasting. This thickness, she
-saw, was the reason the fire did not blaze up quickly, and why,
-fortunately, it was slow in moving up the roof. It had not yet eaten
-through, so that there was no draught--once it got through, it would
-burn fast--if only they could put it out before then all might yet be
-saved. In the midst of her anxiety Iden came with the largest ladder in
-the rickyard, and mounted up, carrying a bucket of water. She tried to
-follow, holding on to the rungs of the ladder with one hand, and
-dragging up a heavy bucket with the other--the strain and effort to get
-up woke her.
-
-This dream had happened to her so many times, and was so vivid and
-circumstantial--the fire seemed to glow in the thatch--that at last she
-began to dread lest it should come true. If it did not come true of the
-house itself, perhaps it would of the family, and of their affairs;
-perhaps it signified that the fire of debt, and poverty, and misfortune
-would burn them, as it were, to the ground. She tried to think whether
-in the dream they were getting the fire under before she woke, or
-whether they could not master it; it seemed dubious.
-
-She did not tell her mother of the dream, afraid lest it might excite
-her again; nor could she tell Iden, who would have laughed at her.
-
-Yet, though she knew it was but a dream, and dreams have ceased to come
-true, she did not like it; she felt uncertain, as if some indefinable
-danger was threatening round about. As she sat at the table she added to
-her prayer the supplication that the dear old house might not be burned
-down.
-
-Soon afterwards she went down stairs, and on the lower flight paused, to
-listen to voices--not those of her mother and Iden--creditors,
-doubtless, come to cry aloud, "Pay me that thou owest!"--the very sum
-and total of religion. Her heart beat quicker--the voices came again,
-and she thought she recognized them, and that they were not those of
-creditors. She entered the sitting-room, and found that two visitors,
-from widely separated places, had arrived; one with a portmanteau, the
-other with an old, many-coloured carpet-bag. They were Amadis Iden, from
-Iden Court, over the Downs, the Court Idens, as they were called, and
-Alere Flamma, from London; the Flammas were carpet-bag people.
-
-Her father was making them very welcome, after his wont, and they were
-talking of the house the Idens of yore had built in a lonely spot,
-expressly in order that they might drink, drink, drink undisturbed by
-their unreasonable wives.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-
-THEY talked on and on, these three, Iden, Amadis Iden, and Alere Flamma,
-with Amaryllis listening, from the end of April till near the end of
-May; till "a month passed away," and still they were talking. For there
-is nothing so good to the human heart as well agreed conversation, when
-you know that your companion will answer to your thought as the anvil
-meets the hammer, ringing sound to merry stroke; better than wine,
-better than sleep, like love itself--for love is agreement of
-thought--"God listens to those who pray to him; let us eat and drink,
-and think of nothing," says the Arabian proverb. So they ate and
-drank--very moderate the drinking--and thought of nothing, and talked,
-which should be added to complete felicity. Not, of course, all of them
-always together, sometimes all four, sometimes Alere, Amadis, and
-Amaryllis, sometimes only the last two.
-
-The round summer-house was their Parliament House whenever the east
-winds sank and the flowers shone forth like sunshine; as the sun shines
-when the clouds withdraw, so when the harsh east winds cease the May
-flowers immediately bloom and glow.
-
-It was a large round house, properly builded of brick, as a summer-house
-should be--put not thy faith in lath work--and therefore dry and warm;
-to sit in it was like sitting in a shell, warm and comfortable, with a
-sea of meadow-grass, smooth and coloured, stretching in front, islanded
-about with oak, and elm, and ash.
-
-The finches came to the boughs that hung over the ivy-grown thatch, and
-sang in the sycamore opposite the door, and in the apple-trees, whose
-bloom hung down almost to the ground.
-
-These apple-trees, which Iden had planted, flung sackfuls of bloom at
-his feet. They poured themselves out in abandoned, open-armed,
-spendthrift, wasteful--perfectly prodigal--quantities of rose-tinted
-petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to the brim, never
-questioning but what there will be plenty of water to follow.
-
-Flowers, and trees, and grass, seemed to spring up wherever Iden set
-down his foot: fruit and flowers fell from the air down upon him. It was
-his genius to make things grow--like sunshine and shower; a sort of Pan,
-a half-god of leaves and boughs, and reeds and streams, a sort of Nature
-in human shape, moving about and sowing Plenty and Beauty.
-
-One side of the summer-house was a thick holly-bush, Iden had set it
-there; he builded the summer-house and set the ivy; and the pippin at
-the back, whose bloom was white; the copper-birch near by; the great
-sycamore alone had been there before him, but he set a seat under it,
-and got woodbine to flower there; the drooping-ash he planted, and if
-Amaryllis stood under it when the tree was in full leaf you could not
-see her, it made so complete an arbour; the Spanish oak in the corner;
-the box hedge along the ha-ha parapet; the red currants against the red
-wall; the big peony yonder; the damsons and pear; the yellow honey-bush;
-all these, and this was but one square, one mosaic of the garden, half
-of it sward, too, and besides these there was the rhubarb-patch at one
-corner; fruit, flowers, plants, and herbs, lavender, parsley, which has
-a very pleasant green, growing in a thick bunch, roses, pale sage--read
-Boccaccio and the sad story of the leaf of sage--ask Nature if you wish
-to know how many things more there were.
-
-A place to eat and drink, and think of nothing in, listening to the
-goldfinches, and watching them carry up the moss, and lichen, and
-slender fibres for their nest in the fork of the apple; listening to the
-swallows as they twittered past, or stayed on the sharp, high top of the
-pear tree; to the vehement starlings, whistling and screeching like Mrs.
-Iden herself, on the chimneys; chaffinches "chink, chink," thrushes,
-distant blackbirds, who like oaks; "cuckoo, cuckoo," "crake, crake,"
-buzzing and burring of bees, coo of turtle-doves, now and then a neigh,
-to remind you that there were horses, fulness and richness of musical
-sound; a world of grass and leaf, humming like a hive with voices.
-
-When the east wind ceases, and the sun shines above, and the flowers
-beneath, "a summer's day in lusty May," then is the time an Interlude in
-Heaven.
-
-And all this, summer-house and all, had dropped out of the pocket of
-Iden's ragged old coat.
-
-There was a magic power of healing in the influences of this place which
-Iden had created. Both Amadis and Alere Flamma had already changed for
-the better.
-
-That morning when Amaryllis had found them, just arrived, the one with a
-portmanteau, and the other with a carpet-bag, they were both pale to the
-last degree of paleness.
-
-Three years had gone by since Amadis had stayed at Coombe Oaks before,
-when Amaryllis was thirteen and he eighteen; fine romps they had then, a
-great girl, and a great boy, rowing on the water, walking over the
-hills, exploring the woods; Amadis shooting and fishing, and Amaryllis
-going with him, a kind of gamekeeper page in petticoats. They were of
-the same stock of Idens, yet no relations; he was of the older branch,
-Amaryllis of the younger.
-
-She had grown into a woman; Amadis Iden into a man.
-
-Sadly, indeed, he had altered. Looking at him, she could scarce believe
-he was the same; so pale, so thin, so drooping, and fireless--the spark
-of life sunk into the very ashes. He sat at the dinner-table that
-morning like a ghost. He was convalescent from low fever: that dread
-disease which has taken the place of ague in the country. At one time it
-was ague; in these times it is low fever.
-
-At Coombe Oaks they had heard of his illness in a far-off way, but had
-received no distinct particulars, for the news came in a roundabout way
-by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The distance between the two
-houses was less than ten miles, and might as well have been five hundred
-for all the communication.
-
-So that the ghastly paleness of his face came upon her as a spectre in
-daylight. You could see at a glance what was wrong--the vital energy had
-been sapped; as a tree fades without a branch broken, or bark scored,
-fades and withers from the lack of the mysterious force which brings
-forth fresh leaves, so he drooped in his chair. The body--the tree--was
-there, but the life was not in it.
-
-Alere Flamma, aged forty-nine, or nearly, was pale from other causes,
-and it was a different kind of paleness; not bloodlessness, like Amadis,
-but something lacking in the blood, a vitiated state. Too much Fleet
-Street, in short; too much of the Oracle--Pantagruel's Oracle of the
-Bottle.
-
-His hands shook as he held his knife and fork--oddly enough, the hands
-of great genius often do shake; now and then when he put his glass to
-his lips, his teeth snapped on it, and chinked.
-
-It seemed curious that such puffy, shaky hands could hold a pencil, and
-draw delicate lines without a flaw.
-
-Many who never resort to the Oracle have hands that tremble nearly as
-much--the nervous constitution--and yet execute artists' work of rare
-excellence.
-
-Alere's constitution, the Flamma constitution, naturally nervous, had
-been shaken as with dynamite by the bottle, and the glass chinked
-against his teeth. Every two or three years, when he felt himself
-toppling over like a tree half sawn through, Alere packed his
-carpet-bag, and ran down to Coombe Oaks. When the rats began to run up
-the wall as he sat at work in broad daylight, Alere put his slippers
-into his carpet-bag and looked out some collars.
-
-In London he never wore a collar, only a bright red scarf round his
-neck; the company he kept would have shunned him--they would have looked
-him up and down disdainfully:--"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." They
-would have scornfully regarded him as no better than a City clerk, the
-class above all others scorned by those who use tools.
-
-"Got a collar on--had no breakfast." The City clerk, playing the Masher
-on thirty shillings a week, goes without food to appear the gentleman.
-
-Alere, the artist, drank with the men who used hammer, and file, or set
-up type--a godless set, ye gods, how godless, these setters up of type
-at four o'clock in the morning; oysters and stout at 4 a.m.; special
-taverns they must have open for them--open before Aurora gleams in the
-east--Oh! Fleet Street, Fleet Street, what a place it is!
-
-By no possible means could Alere work himself into a dress-coat.
-
-Could he have followed the celebrated advice--"You put on a dress-coat
-and go into society"--he would soon have become a name, a fame, a taker
-of big fees, a maker of ten thousand yearly.
-
-To a man who could draw like Alere, possessed, too, of the still rarer
-talent--the taste to see what to draw--there really is no limit in our
-days; for as for colour, you do not require a genius for colour in an
-age of dinginess--why, the point, nowadays, is to avoid colour, and in a
-whole Academy you shall scarcely find as much as would tint a stick of
-sealing-wax.
-
-"You put on a black coat and go into society"--that is the secret of
-commissions, and commissions are fortune. Nothing so clever in the way
-of advice has been sent forth as that remark. The great Tichborne said
-something about folk that had money and no brains, and folk that had
-brains but no money; and they as has no brains ought to be so managed as
-to supply money to those who had. But even the greatness of the great
-Tichborne's observation falls into insignificance before Chesterfield in
-one sentence: "Put on a black coat and go into society."
-
-What are the sayings of the seven wise men of Greece compared to
-_that_?
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-
-BY no possible means could Alere Flamma work himself into a dress coat.
-The clubs, the houses of the great, the mutual admiration dinners--those
-great institutions of the day--were all closed to him because of the
-Dress Coat.
-
-If he had really desired to enter, of course he would have squeezed into
-the evening monkey-skin somehow; but, in truth, Alere did not want to
-enter.
-
-Inside he might have finished a portrait a month at a thousand
-guineas--twelve portraits per annum equals twelve thousand guineas a
-year; you see I am looking up the multiplication table, preparatory to
-going into the tallow trade.
-
-What he actually did was to make designs for book-covers--magnificent
-book-covers that will one day fetch their weight in bank-notes--manipulating
-a good deal of it himself--"tooling"--for the libraries of noble
-connoisseurs. They were equal to anything ever done in Paris.
-
-For a week's work--say half-an-hour a day--he got perhaps about ten
-pounds. With the ten pounds he was satisfied--ten pounds represents a
-good deal of brandy, or stout, or even wine, about as much as one man
-can manage at a bout; besides tobacco, the gallery at the theatre, and
-innumerable trifles of that kind. Ten pounds represents a good deal of
-street life.
-
-Sometimes he drew--and engraved--illustrations for books, being as
-clever with the engraver's tools as with the pencil; sometimes he cut
-out those odd, fantastic "initials," "ornaments," "finials," which are
-now so commonly seen in publications, catching the classical grotesque
-of the Renaissance to perfection, and deceiving the experienced;
-sometimes he worked in the press-room in the House of Flamma, Fleet
-Street, pulling artists' proofs, or printing expensively illustrated
-volumes--numbered, and the plates destroyed--actual manual work, in his
-shirt sleeves.
-
-He could stop when he liked and take a swig of stout. That was the Alere
-style.
-
-Smoking was forbidden in the old House of Flamma because of the
-worm-eaten beams, the worm-eaten rafters and staircase, the dusty,
-decayed bookshelves, the dry, rotten planks of the floor, the thin
-wooden partitions, all ready to catch fire at the mere sight of a match.
-Also because of the piles of mouldy books which choked the place, and
-looked fit for nothing but a bonfire, but which were worth thousands of
-pounds; the plates and lithographic stones, artists' proofs, divers and
-sundry Old Masters in a room upstairs, all easily destructible.
-
-But Alere, being a son of the house, though not in command, did not
-choose to be amenable to rules and orders in fact, in fiction he was. He
-smoked and kept the glue-pot ready on the stove; if a certain step was
-known to be approaching the pipe was thrust out of sight, and some dry
-glue set melting, the powerful incense quite hiding the flavour of
-tobacco. A good deal of dry glue is used in London in this way.
-
-If I could but write the inside history of Fleet Street, I should be
-looked upon as the most wonderful exponent of human life that had ever
-touched a pen. Balzac--whom everybody talks of and nobody has read,
-because the discrimination of Paternoster Row has refused him a
-translation till quite lately--Zola, who professes to be realistic, who
-is nothing if not realistic, but whose writings are so curiously crude
-and merely skim the surface; even the great Hugo, who produced the
-masterpiece of all fiction, _Les Miserables_; all three of them, the
-entire host of manuscript-makers, I am sure I could vanquish them all,
-if I could only write the inside life of Fleet Street.
-
-Not in any grace of style or sweeping march of diction, but just
-pencil-jotted in the roughest words to hand, just as rich and poor,
-well-dressed ladies and next-door beggars are bundled into a train, so,
-without choice of language, but hustling the first words anyhow, as it
-were, into the first compartment. If I could only get Alere to tell me
-all he had seen in Fleet Street, and could just jot it down on the
-margin of a stained newspaper, all the world would laugh and weep. For
-such things do go on in Fleet Street as no man has written yet.
-
-If only Victor Hugo were alive and young again!
-
-Alere liked pulling off the proofs in his shirt-sleeves, swigging his
-stout, smoking on the sly, working with all the genius of an inspired
-mechanic one moment and dropping into absolute idleness the next,
-spending infinite pains in finishing one bit of work, as if his very
-life depended on the smoothing of an edge of paper, putting off the next
-till the end of the month, pottering, sleeping, gossiping, dreaming over
-old German works, and especially dreaming over Goethe, humming old
-German songs--for he had been a great traveller--sometimes scrawling a
-furious Mazzinian onslaught in a semi-Nihilist foreign print, collecting
-stray engravings, wandering hither and thither.
-
-Alere Flamma, artist, engraver, bookbinder, connoisseur, traveller,
-printer, Republican, conspirator, sot, smoker, dreamer, poet,
-kind-hearted, good-natured, prodigal, shiftless, man of Fleet Street,
-carpet-bag man, gentleman shaken to pieces.
-
-He worked in his shirt-sleeves and drank stout, but nothing vulgar had
-ever been recorded against Alere Flamma. He frequented strong
-company--very strong meat--but no vile word left his lips.
-
-There was a delicacy in all his ways in the midst of the coarsest
-surroundings, just as he appeared in the press-room among the printer's
-ink in the whitest of clean shirt-sleeves, fit to wear with the
-abhorred dress-coat.
-
-In his rooms at his lodgings there were literally hundreds of sketches,
-done on all sorts and sizes of paper, from the inside of an envelope
-hastily torn open to elephant. The bureau was full of them, crammed in
-anyhow, neither sorted nor arranged; nothing, of course, could be found
-if it was wanted. The drawers of the bookcase--it was his own
-furniture--were full of them; the writing-table drawer; a box in one
-corner; some were on the mantelpiece smoked and gritty; some inside his
-books, most of which were interleaved in this manner; literally hundreds
-of sketches, the subjects as numerous and varied.
-
-Views in English country lanes, views on the Danube, bands playing in
-band-loving Vienna, old Highgate Archway, studies from Canterbury
-Cathedral, statuary in the Louvre, ships battling with the north wind in
-the North Sea--a savage fight between sail and gale--horses in the
-meadow, an aged butler, a boy whipping a top, charcoal-burners in the
-Black Forest, studies from the nude--Parisian models, Jewesses, almost
-life-size, a drayman heaving up a huge tankard, overshadowing his face
-like Mount Atlas turned over his thumb, designs to illustrate classical
-mythology, outlines expressing the ideas of Goethe--outlines of
-Marguerite and Faust among the roses--"He loves me; he loves me not,"
-big-armed Flemish beauties with breasts as broad as the Zuyder-Zee was
-deep in the song, roofs of Nuremberg, revolutionary heroes charging
-their muskets in the famous year '48, when Alere had a bullet through
-his hat, in Vienna, I think; no end to them.
-
-Sometimes when Alere had done no work for a month or two, and his ten
-pounds were spent, if he wanted a few guineas he would take a small
-selection of these round to the office of a certain illustrated paper;
-the Editor would choose, and hand over the money at once, well aware
-that it was ready money his friend needed. They were not exactly
-friends--there are no friends in London, only acquaintances--but a
-little chummy, because the Editor himself had had a fiery youth, and
-they had met in sunny Wien. That was the only paper that ever got
-sketches out of Alere.
-
-If only Alere would have gone and sketched what he was _asked_ to
-sketch! Ah! there is the difference; he could not do it, his nature
-would not let him; he could draw what he saw with his own eyes, but not
-what other people wanted him to see. A merry income he might have made
-if he would only have consented to see what other eyes--common, vulgar
-eyes--wanted to see, and which he could so easily have drawn for them.
-
-Out of these piles of varied sketches there were two kinds the Editor
-instantly snapped at: the one was wild flowers, the other little
-landscape bits.
-
-Wild flowers were his passion. They were to Flamma as Juliet to Romeo.
-Romeo's love, indeed, rushed up like straw on fire, a great blaze of
-flame; he perished in it as the straw; perhaps he might not have
-worshipped Juliet next year. Flamma had loved his wild flowers close
-upon forty years, ever since he could remember; most likely longer, for
-doubtless the dumb infant loved the daisies put in his chubby hand.
-
-His passion they were still as he drew near fifty, and saw all things
-become commonplace. That is the saddest of thoughts--as we grow older
-the romance fades, and all things become commonplace.
-
-Half our lives are spent in wishing for to-morrow, the other half in
-wishing for yesterday.
-
-Wild flowers alone never become commonplace. The white wood-sorrel at
-the foot of the oak, the violet in the hedge of the vale, the thyme on
-the wind-swept downs, they were as fresh this year as last, as dear
-to-day as twenty years since, even dearer, for they grow now, as it
-were, in the earth we have made for them of our hopes, our prayers, our
-emotions, our thoughts.
-
-Sketch-book upon sketch-book in Alere's room was full of wild flowers,
-drawn as he had found them in the lanes and woods at Coombe Oaks--by the
-footpaths, by the lake and the lesser ponds, on the hills--as he had
-found them, not formed into an artificial design, not torn up by the
-roots, or cut and posed for the occasion--exactly as they were when his
-eye caught sight of them. A difficult thing to do, but Alere did it.
-
-In printing engravings of flowers the illustrated magazines usually
-make one of two mistakes; either the flower is printed without any
-surroundings or background, and looks thin, quite without interest,
-however cleverly drawn, or else it is presented with a heavy black pall
-of ink which dabs it out altogether.
-
-These flowers the Editor bought eagerly, and the little landscapes. From
-a stile, beside a rick, through a gap in a hedge, odd, unexpected
-places, Alere caught views of the lake, the vale, the wood, groups of
-trees, old houses, and got them in his magical way on a few square
-inches of paper. They were very valuable for book illustration. They
-were absolutely true to nature and fact.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-
-PERHAPS the reason Alere never took to colours was because of his
-inherent and unswerving truthfulness of character. Genuine to a degree,
-he could not make believe--could not deceive--could not masquerade in a
-dress-coat.
-
-Now, most of the landscape-painting in vogue to-day is nature in a
-dress-coat.
-
-In a whole saloon of water colours, in a whole Academy, or Grosvenor
-Gallery you shall hardly find three works that represent any real scene
-in the fields.
-
-I have walked about the fields a good deal in my brief, fretful hour,
-yet I have never seen anything resembling the strange apparitions that
-are hung on these walls every spring. Apparitions--optical illusions,
-lit up with watery, greenish, ghastly, ghost-light--nothing like them on
-earth I swear, and I suspect not in Heaven or Hades.
-
-Touched-up designs: a tree taken from one place, a brook from another, a
-house from another--_and mixed to order_, like a prescription by the
-chemist--xv. grs. grass, 3 dr. stile, iiij. grs. rustic bridge. Nature
-never plants--nature is no gardener--no design, no proportion in the
-fields.
-
-Colours! Passing a gasworks perhaps you may have noticed that the
-surface of the water in the ditch by the roadside bears a greenish scum,
-a pale prismatic scum; this is the colour-box of modern landscape.
-
-How horrible the fields would look if they wore such hues in reality as
-are accepted on canvas at the galleries! Imagine these canvas tints
-transferred to the sward, the woods, the hills, the streams, the sky!
-_Dies irae, dies illae_--it would, indeed, be an awful day, the Last Day
-of Doom, and we should need the curtain at Drury Lane drawn before our
-eyes to shut it out of sight.
-
-There are some who can go near to paint dogs and horses, but a meadow of
-mowing grass, not one of them can paint that.
-
-Many can _draw_ nature--drawings are infinitely superior generally to
-the painting that follows; scarce one now paints real nature.
-
-Alere could not squeeze his sketches into the dress-coat of sham colour
-for any sacred exhibition wall whatever.
-
-One thing Alere never attempted to draw--a bird in flight. He recognized
-that it was impossible; his taste rejected every conventional attitude
-that has been used for the purpose; the descending pigeon, the Japanese
-skewered birds, the swallow skimming as heavily as a pillow. You cannot
-draw a bird in flight. Swallows are attempted oftenest, and done worst
-of all.
-
-How can you draw life itself? What is life? you cannot even define it.
-The swallow's wing has the motion of life--its tremble--its wonderful
-delicacy of vibration--the instant change--the slip of the air;--no man
-will ever be able to draw a flying swallow.
-
-At the feet of this Gamaliel of Fleet Street, Amaryllis had sat much,
-from time to time, when the carpet-bag was packed and Alere withdrew to
-his Baden-Baden--_i.e._, to Coombe Oaks and apple-bloom, singing finch,
-and wild-flowers.
-
-There were no "properties" in Alere's room at his lodgings; no odd bits
-collected during his wanderings to come in useful some day as make-up,
-realistic rock work, as it were, in the picture. No gauntlets or
-breast-plates, scraps of old iron; no Turkish guns or yataghans, no
-stags' horns, china, or carvings to be copied some day into an
-illustration. No "properties."
-
-No studio effects. The plaster bust that strikes the key and tones the
-visitors' mind to "Art," the etchings, the wall or panel decorations,
-the sliding curtains, the easels in the corner, the great
-portfolios--the well-known "effects" were absent.
-
-A plain room, not even with a north light, plain old furniture, but not
-very old--not ostensibly ancient, somewhere about 1790 say--and this
-inherited and not purchased; Flamma cared not one atom for furniture,
-itself, old or new; dusty books everywhere, under the table, on the
-mantelpiece, beside the coal scuttle; heaps on chairs, quartos on the
-sofa, crowds more in his bedroom, besides the two bookcases and drawers;
-odd books most of them, Cornelius Agrippa, _Le Petit Albert_, French
-illustrated works, editions of Faust, music, for Flamma was fond of his
-many-keyed flute.
-
-Great people once now and then called and asked to see Alere Flamma at
-the business place in Fleet Street; people with titles, curiously out of
-place, in the press-room, gold leaf on the floor, odour of printer's
-ink, dull blows of machinery, rotten planking, partitions pasted over
-with illustrations and stained with beer, the old place trembling as the
-engine worked; Flamma, in his shirt-sleeves, talking to "His
-Excellency."
-
-Flamma's opinion, information he could give, things he knew; abroad they
-thought much of him.
-
-Presents came occasionally--a boar's head from Germany; fine Havana
-cigars--Alere always had a supply of the best cigars and Turkish
-tobacco, a perennial stream of tobacco ran for him; English venison;
-once a curious dagger from Italy, the strangest present good-natured
-Alere could possibly have received!
-
-Sometimes there came a pressing invitation from a noble connoisseur to
-his country seat; Flamma's views were wanted about the re-arrangement of
-the library, the re-binding of some treasure picked up in a cover all
-too poor for its value, the building of another wing, for the artist is
-the true architect, as the princes of Italy knew of old time. Till the
-artist is called in we shall never again see real architecture in the
-world. Did not Benvenuto design fortifications? Did not Michael Angelo
-build St. Peter's at Rome?
-
-If my lord duke wants a palace he cannot have it till he calls in the
-artist, the Alere Flamma, to draw it for him; if my lord bishop needs a
-cathedral he cannot have it till he calls in the poet-draughtsman, till
-he goes to Alere Flamma.
-
-Our so-called architects are mere surveyors, engineers, educated
-bricklayers, men of hard straight ruler and square, mathematically
-accurate, and utterly devoid of feeling.
-
-The princes of Italy knew better--they called in the poet and the
-painter, the dreamers to dream for them.
-
-You call in your "practical" architect, and he builds you a brick box;
-not for a hundred thousand pounds in fees could he build you a palace or
-a cathedral.
-
-The most ignorant of men are the "practical" people. It is meet and
-fitting that they should be worshipped and set on high. The calf
-worshipped of old was at least golden, and these are of lead.
-
-But Alere could not go; he would do anything he was asked in this way;
-he would take infinite pains to please, but he could not leave Fleet
-Street for any mansion.
-
-When a man once gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out.
-
-Conventionally, I suppose, it would be the right thing to represent
-Alere as a great genius neglected, or as a genius destroyed by
-intemperance. The conventional type is so easy--so accepted--so popular;
-it would pay better, perhaps, to make him out a victim in some way.
-
-He was not neglected, neither was he the victim of intemperance in the
-usual sense.
-
-The way to fame and fortune had always been wide open to him; there were
-long intervals when he did not drink, nor did drink enfeeble his touch;
-it was not half so much to struggle against as the chest diseases from
-which professional men so often suffer; I believe if he had really tried
-or wished he could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither of these
-causes kept him from the foremost rank.
-
-There was no ambition, and there was no business-avarice. So many who
-have no ideal are kept hard at work by the sheer desire of money, and
-thus spurred onward, achieve something approaching greatness. Alere did
-not care for money.
-
-He could not get out of Fleet Street. Ten pounds was a large sum in the
-company he frequented; he did not want any more.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-
-SOMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its
-influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's
-brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The thoughts of our time issue
-thence, like the radiating spokes of a wheel, to all places of the
-earth. There you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast
-multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas come from Fleet Street.
-
-From the printing-press and the engraver's wood-block, the
-lithographic-stone, the etcher's plate, from book and magazine,
-periodical and pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.
-
-From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow outwards.
-
-It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it is sweet to be on the
-hill-top; delicious to feel the swell and the long roll of the hexameter
-of the seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit of the
-Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the African explorer at the river's
-source. But if once the mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the
-meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to
-Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other Mind,
-without whose sympathy even success is nothing--the Mind of the world.
-
-I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street,
-but of all that the printing-press means.
-
-Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary to him to live and
-breathe in the atmosphere of thought--to feel the throb and swell around
-him--to be near the "grey matter" of the world's brain.
-
-Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out. Flamma would not
-leave it for months of gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.
-
-The flame must be fed. His name had some connection with the design of
-the Roman lamp on the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the House
-of Flamma. _Alere Flammam_--feed the flame. The flame of the mind must
-be fed.
-
-Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street; if I could but get at
-it all to write the inside life of it, it would, indeed, be a book.
-Stone-cold poverty hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise
-of money, think they know life, but they do not, for, as was said of the
-sea----
-
-          Only those who share its dangers
-             Comprehend its mystery.
-
-Only those who have shared the struggle literally for bread--for a
-real, actual loaf--understand the dread realities of man's existence.
-
-Let but a morsel of wood--a little splinter of deal, a curl of
-carpenter's shaving--lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the
-wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the
-desert to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that are paved with
-gold!
-
-It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll it in their aprons,
-clasping it tightly, lest it should somehow disappear. Prowling about
-from street to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with
-these precious splinters of deal, for to those who are poor fuel is as
-life itself.
-
-Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill, especially of
-blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism), sometimes say they would rather
-go without food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.
-
-These women know where there are hoardings erected by builders, where
-shop-fronts are being rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where
-alterations are proceeding; they know them as the birds know the places
-where they are likely to find food, and visit them day by day for the
-scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the pavement.
-
-Or they send their children, ragged urchins, battling for a knot of
-pine-wood.
-
-The terror of frost to these creatures is great indeed. Frost is the
-King of Terrors to them--not Death; they sleep and live with death
-constantly, the dead frequently in the room with the living, and with
-the unborn that is near birth.
-
-Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's wife knew that Flamma,
-the drinker, would certainly give her the silver in his pocket.
-
-The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood, knew that they
-could charm the pennies and the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat;
-the baked potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice on the
-street stove.
-
-Wretched girls whose power of tempting had gone, and with it their means
-of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There
-are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about
-them to attract the charity of the world.
-
-Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a licence in the street, was
-charged by the police. How this harshness to the flower-girl--the human
-representation of Flora--roused up sentiment in her behalf!
-
-But not every starving girl has the fortune to rouse up sentiment and to
-be fed. Their faces disfigured with eruptions, their thin shoulders,
-their dry, disordered hair--hair never looks nice unless soft with its
-natural oil--their dingy complexions, their threadbare shawls, tempt no
-one. They cannot please, therefore they must starve.
-
-The good turn from them with horror--Are they not sin made manifest? The
-trembling hand of Alere fed them.
-
-Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are happy? It is curious that
-people should associate noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys,
-the boys that are gathered into institutions and training ships, are
-expected to bawl and shout their loudest at the annual fetes when
-visitors are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith feel assured that
-their lives are consequently joyous.
-
-Why then do they set fire to training ships? Why do they break out of
-reformatory institutions? Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet
-fatuous fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar of
-bawling.
-
-I have never walked up Fleet Street and the Strand yet without seeing a
-starving woman and child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run
-unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts into the broader and more
-lively Strand--the ceaseless world pushes past--they play on the
-pavement unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their
-faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their
-hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on
-the table to see how they look.
-
-How _can_ people pass without seeing them?
-
-Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.
-
-The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want
-sits on the Seven Hills--make a cartoon of that!--the rich folk who
-receive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England
-on dividend days--how easily the well-oiled doors swing open for
-them!--who dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood, at
-Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks, wherever there is
-pure air, have distinguished themselves lately in the giving of alms,
-ordained by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday, clad in silk,
-scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned pews.
-
-They have established Homes for Lost Dogs and Homes for Lost Cats,
-neither of which are such nuisances as human beings.
-
-In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus specially designed
-by one of the leading scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not
-claimed in a certain time, or that have become diseased--like the human
-nuisances--are put into this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of
-chamber, to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific vapour enters
-the chamber, and breathing this, the animal falls calmly to death,
-painlessly poisoned in peace.
-
-Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed "into eternity" in
-one season. Jubilant congratulations were exchanged at the success of
-the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning, hanging, vivisection, or
-starvation!
-
-Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of humanity indeed? To sell
-all you have and give to the poor was nothing compared to this. We have
-progressed since Anno Domini I. We know better how to do it now.
-
-Alere did not seem to trouble himself much about the dogs; he saw so
-much of the human nuisances.
-
-What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus like this in the
-workhouses and in conjunction with the hospitals!
-
-Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing all the day, that one
-out of every five people who die in London, die in the workhouse or the
-hospital?
-
-Eighty-two thousand people died in London in 1882, and of these,
-fourteen thousand expired in the workhouses, and six thousand in
-hospitals!
-
-Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting up a few Apparatuses, see
-what an immense amount of suffering would be saved, and consider what a
-multitude of human nuisances would he "moved on!"
-
-The poor have a saying that none live long after they have been in a
-certain hospital. "He's been in that hospital--he won't live long." They
-carry out such wonderful operations there--human vivisections, but
-strictly painless, of course, under chloroform--true Christian
-chopping-up--still the folk do not live long when they come out.
-
-Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man must not die in peace.
-Starvation is for human nuisances.
-
-These rich folk dwelling round about the great Babylon of Misery, where
-Want sits on the Seven Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet
-another invention. This is the organization of alms. Charity is so holy
-we will not leave it to chance--to the stray penny--we will organize it.
-The system is very simple: it is done by ticket. First you subscribe a
-few shillings to some organization, with its secretary, its clerks, its
-offices, board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive tickets.
-
-If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms, or a ragged boy, or a
-maimed man asks you for a "copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves
-trouble and responsibility.
-
-The beggar can take the ticket to the "office" and get his case
-"investigated." After an inquiry, and an adjournment for a week; another
-inquiry, and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry, and a
-third adjournment, then, if he be of high moral character and highly
-recommended, he may get his dinner.
-
-One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means
-can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though
-he be perishing of starvation.
-
-If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give
-him a ticket.
-
-They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.
-
-This organization of charity saves such a lot of money: where people
-used to give away five pounds they now pay five shillings.
-
-Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you walk about with a clear
-conscience. No matter how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or
-ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably and never think about
-them; your charity is organized.
-
-If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was
-no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false,
-and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.
-
-The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is
-spontaneousness.
-
-You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it
-charity suppression.
-
-Have you ever seen London in the early winter morning, when the frost
-lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey,
-bitter, stony London?
-
-Whatever _can_ morning seem like to the starved and chilly wretches who
-have slept on the floor, and wake up to frost in Fleet Street?
-
-The pavements are covered with expectoration, indicating the chest
-diseases and misery that thousands are enduring. But I must not write
-too plainly; it would offend.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-
-A PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace
-something--a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there;
-the crank came round and crushed him against the brickwork. The embrace
-of iron is death.
-
-Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed them when they were old
-enough.
-
-Ten pounds was enough for him--without ambition, and without
-business-avarice; ten pounds was enough for his Fleet Street life.
-
-It was not only the actual money he gave away, but the kindness of the
-man. Have you ever noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?--their
-elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and without flesh. Instead of
-the shirt-sleeve being turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had
-thrust its way through.
-
-He always had something for them;--a plate of beef, soup, beer to be
-shared, apples, baked potatoes, now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars.
-Awful this, was it not? Printers' boys _will_ smoke; they had better
-have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile imitation they buy.
-
-They always had a tale for him; either their mothers, or sisters, or
-some one was in trouble; Flamma was certain to do something, however
-little might be within his power. At least he went to see.
-
-Had a man an income of a million he could not relieve the want of
-London; the wretch relieved to-day needs again to-morrow. But Alere went
-to see.
-
-Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a man without ambition, and
-without business-avarice, who went to see the unfortunate.
-
-His own palsied mother, at the verge of life, looked to Alere for all
-that the son can do for the parent. Other sons seemed more capable of
-such duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was the Man. And for
-those little luxuries and comforts that soothe the dull hours of
-trembling age she depended entirely upon him.
-
-So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied him were not all spent in
-drink.
-
-But alas! once now and then the rats began to run up the wall in broad
-daylight, and foolish Alere, wise in this one thing, immediately began
-to pack his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers, his
-sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks
-of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He
-packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe
-Oaks, his spa among the apple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of
-leaves.
-
-They sat and talked in the round summer-house in Iden's garden, with the
-summer unfolding at their knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.
-
-By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of the Goliath ale, and between
-his lips there was a long churchwarden pipe.
-
-The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate
-liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than
-mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by
-man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
-
-The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to
-the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and
-stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
-
-The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial
-grown on the sunny hill-side, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured
-by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
-
-Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no
-cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years,
-the full manhood of strength.
-
-There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist
-analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that,
-and the residue is "volatile principle," for which all the dictionaries
-of science have no explanation.
-
-"Volatile principle"--there it is, that is the secret. That is the life
-of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile
-principle--that alchemic force--except contained in genuine old ale.
-
-Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
-
-The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
-
-By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink
-against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street
-liver in order.
-
-You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have
-"abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters,
-_i.e._, quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and
-diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and
-blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of
-your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor
-arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
-
-Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines--American and
-French patent physic is very popular now--and find the same things
-precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
-
-It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are
-intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few
-glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in
-motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic
-and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the
-compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself
-very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle,
-which the prescriptions have not got.
-
-Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead
-of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
-
-"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "_drenk
-un down to the therd hoop_."
-
-Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up
-the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife
-and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began
-to hum old German songs.
-
-But you may ask, how do _you_ know, you're not a doctor, you're a mere
-story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to
-know much more than a doctor.
-
-How can that be?
-
-Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than
-a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what
-they will do; he imagines, but the Patient _knows_.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-
-SOME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in
-order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and
-are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
-
-I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the
-various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I
-verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
-
-Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a
-Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of
-Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
-
-I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more
-good than any man living.
-
-I am still very ill.
-
-The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I
-was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at
-Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock,
-and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is
-nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London
-physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I
-suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall
-gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't
-intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak
-to you--you look bad. I _hate_ to hear anybody cough." He put an
-emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal _haate_, hissing it out with
-unmeasured ferocity. "I _haate_ to hear anybody cough. Now I should like
-to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."
-
-"By all means--very interesting," I replied.
-
-"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four
-years with a cough. I couldn't do anything--couldn't help myself; four
-years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed
-eighty-seven pounds."
-
-"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and
-broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
-
-"I tried everything the doctors recommended--it was no use; they had to
-give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"
-
-"Can't think--should much like to know."
-
-"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You
-take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.
-Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?
-No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a
-ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.
-That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still,
-if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over
-Europe."
-
-I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.
-
-"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States,
-now."
-
-I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would
-cure me, it might come from anywhere.
-
-"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like,
-and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
-I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll
-have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we
-parted.
-
-He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe
-he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the
-time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American
-was right; he certainly meant well.
-
-Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts
-as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him,
-I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.
-
-Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to
-approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old
-German songs; it was the volatile principle.
-
-Songs about the Pope and the Sultan
-
-          But yet he's not a happy man,
-          He must obey the Alcoran,
-          He dares not touch one drop of wine,
-          I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.
-
-Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he
-raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a
-King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song
-that, none like it--
-
-          He saw it fall, he watched it fill,
-            And sink deep, deep into the main;
-          Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,
-            He never drank a drop again.
-
-Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in
-the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--
-
-          Horum scorum suntivorum,
-          Harum scarum divo,
-          Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,
-          Hic hoc horum genitivo--
-
-To be said in one breath.
-
-          Oh, my Ella--my blue bella,
-            A secula seculorum,
-          If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,
-            O dies Benedictorum!
-
-Or something about:
-
-          Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,
-          And She's of the feminine gender.
-
-Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin
-grammar, accidence--do _not_ pause, traveller, if you see _his_ tomb!
-
-"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street man put away his
-pipe, and took up his flute; he breathed soft and low--an excellent
-thing in a musician--delicious airs of Mozart chiefly.
-
-The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the high buttercups of the
-meadow came to the very door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before
-them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in flowers, in song of
-happy birds. The soothing flute strung together the flow of their
-thoughts, they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden--almost hand
-in hand--listening to his cunning lips.
-
-He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to their own hearts.
-
-The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of
-the old house, and out again to the meadow.
-
-Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the
-starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had
-not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr--an indistinct
-flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The
-lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the
-raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh
-impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent;
-you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A
-capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers
-to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both
-together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable
-other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book
-opened with your thumb quickly--as they do in legerdemain--almost as you
-see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve--a sort of burr.
-
-To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
-
-The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the
-air like a meteor.
-
-Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
-
-Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's
-cheeks--absolute lack of blood--began to give way to the faintest
-colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he
-could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful
-of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most
-lively manner. Fire in it--downright fire! That is the test.
-
-Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began
-to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply
-of another cup.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-
-"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje.
-The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in
-the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the
-sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
-that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
-
-Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's
-rough hands--a sort of skin sand-paper--and with an effort made the
-heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
-
-Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court
-where the churn stood.
-
-"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
-
-Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
-
-Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
-
-"Aw!--aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting on a form by the wall
-under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing.
-"Aw!--aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
-
-Heavily the blue barrel went round--thrice, four times, five times; the
-colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the
-unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and
-sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
-
-"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not
-strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse,
-somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
-
-"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face
-lengthened--his eyes grew larger--his temples pinched; disappointment
-wrung at his heart.
-
-Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
-
-"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows
-on; you get a pint measure full of snails----"
-
-"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think
-of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver
-oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
-Amadis.
-
-A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub,
-fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this
-morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
-
-"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her
-back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a
-duster.
-
-"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing
-there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything
-behind, and you idling and talking,"--rushing out from the dairy, and
-following Luce, who retreated indoors.
-
-"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
-
-"Missis is ----" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and
-meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
-always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in
-this case, the butter.
-
-"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the
-clock, "and the beds ain't made."
-
-"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
-
-"And the fire isn't dusted up."
-
-"I've dusted up the fire."
-
-"And you're a lazy slut"--pushing Luce about the room.
-
-"I bean't a lazy slut."
-
-"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"--snatching it
-from her.
-
-"He be done."
-
-"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water
-taken up stairs."
-
-"That there be."
-
-"You know you ought to be doing something; the lazy lot of people in
-this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots
-to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be
-weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot
-ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children
-will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to
-lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging
-the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the
-kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a
-quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
-
-"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set
-to work happily.
-
-Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped,
-while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
-manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
-
-"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the
-Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
-sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was
-breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower
-limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of
-impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit
-upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
-had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and Jearje, it is
-certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
-
-Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for
-scraps.
-
-Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little
-things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of
-bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish
-of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends,
-and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
-
-Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not
-the way to feed the poor. What _could_ you be thinking of, you ignorant
-farmer's wife!
-
-You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses
-and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
-these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach
-you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
-the scientific Dr. Amoeba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers'
-ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a
-particle; with Providence and Science together they _must_ do it
-properly.
-
-The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of
-food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
-Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
-
-The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or lentil soup, or
-oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They
-can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
-
-No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef
-bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral
-ale!
-
-There, Mrs. Iden.
-
-Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle,
-Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:--
-
-"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live,
-laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water,
-and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
-
-Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
-
-Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your
-rabbit and potatoes.
-
-To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages,
-and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
-courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable
-pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a
-pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
-wholesome thing.
-
-But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not
-much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They
-would like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich
-gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They
-need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
-
-You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is--the poor never buy
-oatmeal, or lentils!"
-
-Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend,
-they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
-
-What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have
-given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little
-pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
-
-Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs.
-Iden!
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-
-"YOU must drink it all--every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as
-Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but
-half finished it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all." Amadis made an
-effort, and obeyed.
-
-But his heart was bitter as absinthe.
-
-Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were
-manly, they could eat and drink.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and
-turned the crank at the same time.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so
-happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping
-his tall quart-mug.
-
-Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic
-than all the hamlet put together.
-
-Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.
-
-Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he
-could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.
-
-Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the
-heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.
-
-He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable
-to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk
-farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere
-shadow, a thing of contempt.
-
-They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his
-face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to
-Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more
-than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the
-meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They
-told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a
-wine-glassful of Goliath.
-
-Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot,
-and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It
-was absinthe to him.
-
-He could not stoop to turn the churn--he had to sip milk in the presence
-of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very
-servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.
-
-And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.
-
-And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas, that he could think,
-yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without
-considering first and feeling his way.
-
-Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he
-led in the waggon.
-
-Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of
-July.
-
-He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of
-Amaryllis--he was nothing. Less than nothing--a shadow.
-
-To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.
-
-Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker
-has been very, very ill, but is better:--
-
-          And he prostrated himself long in prayer: then
-          raised his head, and said:--
-
-  "Despair not in calamities of a gladdening that shall wipe away
-                thy sorrows;
-  For how many a simoom blows, then turns to a gentle breeze, and
-                is changed!
-  How many a hateful cloud arises, then passes away, and pours not
-                forth!
-  And the smoke of the wood, fear is conceived of it, yet no blaze
-                appears from it;
-  And oft sorrow rises, and straightway sets again.
-  So be patient when fear assails, for Time is the Father of Wonders;
-  And hope from the peace of God blessings not to be reckoned!"
-
-
-
-How should such a chant as this enter a young man's heart who felt
-himself despicable in the sight of his mistress?
-
-"Should you like a little more?" asked Amaryllis, in a very gentle tone,
-now he had obeyed her.
-
-"I would rather not," said Amadis, still hanging his head.
-
-His days were mixed of honey and wormwood; sweet because of Amaryllis,
-absinthe because of his weakness.
-
-A voice came from the summer-house; Flamma was shouting an old song,
-with heavy emphasis here and there, with big capital letters:--
-
-          The jolly old Sun, where goes he at night?
-          And what does he Do, when he's out of Sight?
-              All Insinuation Scorning;
-          I don't mean to Say that he Tipples apace,
-          I only Know he's a very Red Face
-              When he gets up in the Morning!
-
-"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed Bill Nye, with his mouth full. "Th' zun do look
-main red in the marning, surely."
-
-They heard the front door open and shut; Iden had come in for his lunch,
-and, by the sound of the footsteps, had brought one of his gossips with
-him.
-
-At this Mrs. Iden began to ruffle up her feathers for battle.
-
-Iden came through into the dairy.
-
-"Now, you ain't wanted here," she said. "Poking your nose into
-everything. Wonder you don't help Luce make the beds and sweep the
-floor!"
-
-"Can I help'ee?" said Iden, soothingly. "Want any wood for the fire--or
-anything?"
-
-"As if Luce couldn't fetch the wood--and chop it, as well as you. Why
-can't you mind your business? Here's Bill Nye been waiting these two
-hours to see you"--following Iden towards the sitting-room. "Who have
-you brought in with you now? Of course, everybody comes in of a
-butter-making morning, just the busiest time! Oh! it's you! Sit still,
-Mr. Duck; I don't mind _you_. What will you take?"
-
-More ale and cheese here, too; Iden and Jack Duck sat in the bow-window
-and went at their lunch. So soon as they were settled, out flounced Mrs.
-Iden into the dairy: "The lazy lot of people in this house--I never saw
-anything like it!"
-
-It was true.
-
-There was Alere Flamma singing in the summer-house; Amadis Iden resting
-on the form; Amaryllis standing by him; Bill Nye munching; Jearje
-indolently rotating the churn with one hand, and feeding himself with
-the other; Luce sitting down to her lunch in the kitchen; Iden lifting
-his mug in the bow-window; Jack Duck with his great mouth full; eight
-people--and four little children trotting down the road with baskets of
-food.
-
-"The lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it."
-
-And that was the beauty of the place, the "Let us not trouble
-ourselves;" "a handful in Peace and Quiet" is better than set banquets;
-crumbs for everybody, and for the robin too; "God listens to those who
-pray to him. Let us eat, and drink, and think of nothing;" believe me,
-the plain plenty, and the rest, and peace, and sunshine of an old
-farmhouse, there is nothing like it in this world!
-
-"I never saw anything like it. Nothing done; nothing done; the morning
-gone and nothing done; and the butter's not come yet!"
-
-Homer is thought much of; now, his heroes are always eating. They eat
-all through the Iliad, they eat at Patroclus' tomb; Ulysses eats a good
-deal in the Odyssey: Jupiter eats. They only did at Coombe-Oaks as was
-done on Olympus.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-
-AMARYLLIS went outside the court, and waited; Amadis rose and followed
-her. "Come a little way into the Brook-Field," she said.
-
-They left the apple-bloom behind them, and going down the gravel-path
-passed the plum trees--the daffodils there were over now--by the
-strawberry patch which Iden had planted under the parlour window; by the
-great box-hedge where a thrush sat on her nest undisturbed, though
-Amaryllis's dress brushed the branches; by the espalier apple, to the
-little orchard-gate.
-
-The parlour-window--there are no parlours now, except in old country
-houses; there were parlours in the days of Queen Anne; in the modern
-villas they have drawing-rooms.
-
-The parlour-window hung over with pear-tree branches, planted beneath
-with strawberry; white blossom above, white flower beneath; birds' nests
-in the branches of the pear--that was Iden.
-
-They opened the little orchard-gate which pushed heavily against the
-tall meadow-grass growing between the bars. The path was almost
-gone--grown out with grass, and as they moved they left a broad trail
-behind them.
-
-Bill Nye the mower, had he seen, would have muttered to himself; they
-were trespassing on his mowing-grass, trampling it, and making it more
-difficult to cut.
-
-Her dress swept over the bennets and shook the thick-stemmed
-butter-cups--branched like the golden candlestick, and with flowers of
-golden flame. For the burnished petals reflect the sun, and throw light
-back into the air.
-
-Amadis began to drag behind--he could not walk much farther; they sat
-down together on the trunk of an oak that had been felled by a gateway
-close to the horse-chestnut trees Iden had planted. Even with his back
-leaning against a limb of the oak, Amadis had to partly support himself
-with his hands.
-
-What was the use of such a man?--He had nothing but his absurdly
-romantic name from Don Quixote to recommend him.
-
-That was the very thought that gnawed at poor Amadis's heart as he sat
-by her side. What use to care for him?
-
-Iden's flag-basket of tools lay by the gate, it was a new gate, and he
-had been fitting it before he went in to lunch. His basket was of flag
-because the substance of the flag is soft, and the tools, chisels, and
-so on, laid pleasant in it; he must have everything right. The new gate
-was of solid oak, no "sappy" stuff, real heart of oak, well-seasoned,
-without a split, fine, close-grained timber, cut on the farm, and kept
-till it was thoroughly fit, genuine English oak. If you would only
-consider Iden's gate you might see there the man.
-
-This gateway was only between two meadows, and the ordinary farmer, when
-the old gate wore out, would have stopped it with a couple of rails, or
-a hurdle or two, something very, very cheap and rough; at most a gate
-knocked up by the village carpenter of ash and willow, at the lowest
-possible charge.
-
-Iden could not find a carpenter good enough to make _his_ gate in the
-hamlet; he sent for one ten miles, and paid him full carpenter's wages.
-He was not satisfied then, he watched the man at his work to see that
-the least little detail was done correctly, till the fellow would have
-left the job, had he not been made pliable by the Goliath ale. So he
-just stretched the job out as long as he could, and talked and talked
-with Iden, and stroked him the right way, and drank the ale, and "played
-it upon me and on William, That day in a way I despise." Till what with
-the planing, and shaving, and smoothing, and morticing, and ale, and
-time, it footed up a pretty bill, enough for three commonplace gates,
-not of the Iden style.
-
-Why, Iden had put away those pieces of timber years before for this very
-purpose, and had watched the sawyers saw them out at the pit. They would
-have made good oak furniture. There was nothing special or particular
-about this gateway; he had done the same in turn for every gateway on
-the farm; it was the Iden way.
-
-A splendid gate it was, when it was finished, fit for a nobleman's Home
-Park. I doubt, if you would find such a gate, so well proportioned, and
-made of such material on any great estate in the kingdom. For not even
-dukes can get an Iden to look after their property. An Iden is not to be
-"picked up," I can tell you.
-
-The neighbourhood round about had always sneered in the broad country
-way at Iden's gates. "Vit for m' Lard's park. What do _he_ want wi' such
-geates? A' ain't a got no cattle to speak on; any ould rail ud do as
-good as thuck geat."
-
-The neighbourhood round about could never understand Iden, never could
-see why he had gone to such great trouble to render the homestead
-beautiful with trees, why he had re-planted the orchard with pleasant
-eating apples in the place of the old cider apples, hard and sour. "Why
-wouldn't thaay a' done for he as well as for we?"
-
-All the acts of Iden seemed to the neighbourhood to be the acts of a
-"vool."
-
-When he cut a hedge, for instance, Iden used to have the great bushes
-that bore unusually fine May bloom saved from the billhook, that they
-might flower in the spring. So, too, with the crab-apples--for the sake
-of the white blossom; so, too, with the hazel--for the nuts.
-
-But what caused the most "wonderment" was the planting of the
-horse-chestnuts in the corner of the meadow? Whatever did he want with
-horse-chestnuts? No other horse-chestnuts grew about there. You couldn't
-eat the horse-chestnuts when they dropped in autumn.
-
-In truth Iden built for all time, and not for the little circumstance of
-the hour. His gate was meant to last for years, rain and shine, to
-endure any amount of usage, to be a work of Art in itself.
-
-His gate as the tangible symbol of his mind--was at once his strength
-and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that
-made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now
-stands--built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of
-little things, instead of lifting his mind higher.
-
-If only he could have lived three hundred years the greater world would
-have begun to find out Iden and to idolize him, and make pilgrimages
-from over sea to Coombe Oaks, to hear him talk, for Iden could talk of
-the trees and grass, and all that the Earth bears, as if one had
-conversed face to face with the great god Pan himself.
-
-But while Iden slumbered with his head against the panel--think, think,
-think--this shallow world of ours, this petty threescore years and ten,
-was slipping away. Already Amaryllis had marked with bitterness at heart
-the increasing stoop of the strong back.
-
-Iden was like the great engineer who could never build a bridge, because
-he knew so well how a bridge ought to be built.
-
-"Such a fuss over a mess of a gate," said Mrs. Iden, "making yourself
-ridiculous: I believe that carpenter is just taking advantage of you.
-Why can't you go into town and see your father?--it would be a hundred
-pounds in your pocket"--as it would have been, no doubt. If only Mrs.
-Iden had gone about her lecture in a pleasanter manner perhaps he would
-have taken her advice.
-
-Resting upon the brown timber in the grass Amaryllis and Amadis could
-just see a corner of the old house through the spars of the new gate.
-Coombe Oaks was a grown house, if you understand; a house that had grown
-in the course of many generations, not built to set order; it had grown
-like a tree that adapts itself to circumstances, and, therefore, like
-the tree it was beautiful to look at. There were windows in deep
-notches, between gables where there was no look-out except at the pears
-on the wall, awkward windows, quite bewildering. A workman came to mend
-one one day, and could not get at it. "Darned if I ever seed such a
-crooked picter of a house!" said he.
-
-A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the buttercups,
-straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly
-did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a
-line of peacock blue over the gold.
-
-In the fitness of things Amaryllis ought not to have been sitting there
-like this, with Amadis lost in the sweet summer dream of love.
-
-She ought to have loved and married a Launcelot du Lake, a hero of the
-mighty arm, only with the income of Sir Gorgius Midas: that is the
-proper thing.
-
-But the fitness of things never comes to pass--everything happens in the
-Turkish manner.
-
-Here was Amaryllis, very strong and full of life, very, very young and
-inexperienced, very poor and without the least expectation whatever (for
-who could reconcile the old and the older Iden?), the daughter of poor
-and embarrassed parents, whom she wished and prayed to help in their
-coming old age. Here was Amaryllis, full of poetic feeling and half a
-painter at heart, full of generous sentiments--what a nature to be
-ground down in the sordidness of married poverty!
-
-Here was Amadis, extremely poor, quite feeble, and unable to earn a
-shilling, just talking of seeing the doctor again about this fearful
-debility, full too, as he thought at least, of ideas--what a being to
-think of her!
-
-Nothing ever happens in the fitness of things. If only now he could have
-regained the health and strength of six short months ago--if only that,
-but you see, he had not even that. He might get better; true--he
-_might_, I have tried 80 drugs and I am no better, I hope he will.
-
-Could any blundering Sultan in the fatalistic East have put things
-together for them with more utter contempt of fitness? It is all in the
-Turkish manner, you see.
-
-There they sat, happier and happier, and deeper and deeper in love every
-moment, on the brown timber in the long grass, their hearts as full of
-love as the meadow was of sunshine.
-
-You have heard of the Sun's Golden Cup, in which after sunset he was
-carried over Ocean's stream, while we slumber in the night, to land
-again in the East and give us the joy of his rising. The great Golden
-Cup in which Hercules, too, was taken over; it was as if that Cup had
-been filled to the brim with the nectar of love and placed at the lips
-to drink, inexhaustible.
-
-In the play of Faust--Alere's _Faust_--Goethe has put an interlude, an
-Intermezzo; I shall leave Amaryllis and Amadis in their Interlude in
-Heaven. Let the Play of Human Life, with its sorrows and its Dread,
-pause awhile; let Care go aside behind the wings, let Debt and Poverty
-unrobe, let Age stand upright, let Time stop still (oh, Miracle! as the
-Sun did in the Vale of Ajalon). Let us leave our lovers in the Interlude
-in Heaven.
-
-And as I must leave them (I trust but for a little while) I will leave
-them on the brown oak timber, sap-stain brown, in the sunshine and
-dancing shadow of summer, among the long grass and the wild flowers.
-
-
-
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