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diff --git a/33763.txt b/33763.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac27201 --- /dev/null +++ b/33763.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6649 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Town, by John Alexander Hammerton + +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: The Call of the Town + A Tale of Literary Life + +Author: John Alexander Hammerton + +Release Date: September 19, 2010 [EBook #33763] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Ernest Schaal, Nick Wall and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE CALL OF THE TOWN + + + + + The Call of the Town + + A Tale of Literary Life + + + By + J. A. HAMMERTON + + AUTHOR OF + "J. M. BARRIE AND HIS BOOKS," "LORD ROSEBERY," "TONY'S + HIGHLAND TOUR," Etc. + + + LONDON + R. A. EVERETT & CO. + 42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. + 1904 + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + I. "THE PROUD PARENT" 9 + II. HENRY LEAVES HOME 22 + III. THE REAL AND THE IDEAL 36 + IV. MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE 53 + V. IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES 61 + VI. WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR 70 + VII. AMONG NEW FRIENDS 80 + VIII. THE YOUNG JOURNALIST 91 + IX. WHAT THE NECKTIE TOLD 100 + X. VIOLET EYES 111 + XI. ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY 122 + XII. "A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL" 136 + XIII. THE PHILANDERERS 147 + XIV. FATE AND A FIDDLER 157 + XV. "THE MYSTERIOUS MR. P." 164 + XVI. DRIFTING 177 + XVII. THE WAY OF A WOMAN 192 + XVIII. IN LONDON TOWN 202 + XIX. THE PEN AND THE PENCIL CLUB 214 + XX. THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS 228 + XXI. "THAT BOOK" 238 + XXII. HOME AGAIN 244 + XXIII. A TRAGIC ENDING 254 + XXIV. ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER 259 + + + + + THE CALL OF THE TOWN + + + + + CHAPTER I + + "THE PROUD PARENT" + + +IF you happen to be riding a bicycle you arrive somewhat unexpectedly in +the little Ardenshire village of Hampton Bagot, and are through it in a +flash, before you quite realise its existence. But in the unlikely event +of your having business or pleasure there, you approach the place more +leisurely in the carrier's cart from the little station which absurdly +bears the name of the village, though two miles distant. + +The ancient Parish Church, with its curious old chained library and bits +of Saxon masonry, "perfectly unique," as Mr. Godfrey Needham, the vicar, +used to say, and the one wide street of quaint old houses, with their +half-timbered fronts, remain to this day much as they were, no doubt, +when good Queen Bess ruled England. But the thirsty cyclist, whose +throat may happen to be parched at this particular stage of his journey, +is a poor substitute for the old-time stage-coach which made Hampton +Bagot a place of change. Somehow, the village continues to exist, though +its few hundred people scrape their livings in ways that are not obvious +to the casual visitor. The surrounding district is richly pastoral, +plentifully sprinkled with cosy farm-houses, and here, perhaps, we have +the reason why Hampton continues under the sun. + +If you wandered along the few hundred yards of street, and noted the +various substitutes for shops, in which oranges and sweets and babies' +clothing mingle familiarly with hams and shoe-laces, you would be struck +by the more pretentious exterior of one which bears in crudely-painted +letters the legend, EDWARD JOHN CHARLES, and underneath, in smaller +characters, the words POST OFFICE. The building, a two-storied one, with +the familiar blackened timbers supporting high-pitched gables, and a +bay-window of lozenged glass, was, at the time of which I write, the +place of next importance in the village to the "Wings and Spur." Behind +this window, and by peering closely, one could see dusty packets of +writing-paper and fly-blown envelopes, a few cheap books, clay and briar +pipes, tobacco, and some withered-looking cigars. Below the window, +after diligent search, a slit for the admission of letters might be +found. + +But while the place itself would easily have been passed over, not so +the figure at the door; for there, most days of the week and most hours +of the day, stood the portly form of Edward John Charles himself. + +It was as though the legend overhead referred to the man beneath, and +the smile usually on his face spoke of contentment with himself and the +world at large. His face was ruddy and clean-shaven, as he chose to coax +his whisker underneath his chin, where it sprouted so amply that the +need to wear a collar or a tie did not exist; certainly, was not +recognised. + +Somewhat under medium height, and of more than medium girth, Edward John +Charles was by no means an unpleasant figure to the eye, and if the +commonplace caste of face and prominent ears did not suggest any marked +intellectual gifts, the net result of a casual survey was "a +good-natured sort." He had a habit of concealing his hands mysteriously +underneath his coat-tails as he stood at the door beneath the staring +sign, and his coat had absorbed something of its owner's nature, for by +the perch of the tails one could guess his mood. They were flapped +nervously when the wearer was displeased; they opened into a wide and +settled =V= inverted when he was in the full flavour of his +satisfaction; and happily that was their most common condition. Indeed, +the coat-tails of Edward John Charles were as eloquent as the stumpy +appendage of the Irish terrier usually to be seen at the door with him. + +Edward John stood in his familiar place this morning, and surveyed +placidly the one and only street of Hampton Bagot. + +The street does not belong to Hampton at all, but is only so many yards +of a great highway to London. If you asked a Hampton man where it led +to, he would say to Stratford, as that is the end of his world. That he +is spending his life on a main-travelled road that goes on and on until +it is lost in the multitudinous streets of modern Babylon has never +occurred to him. Stratford is his _ultima thule_, the objective of his +longest travels. + +But Edward John was no ordinary man, despite his common exterior, and it +was in the list of his distinctions that he had in his early manhood +spent two days in London. To him, the road on which he looked out for so +many hours each day was one of the tentacles thrown out by the mighty +City to drag the sons of Nature into its gluttonous maw. + +"It ain't got me, 'owever," he reflected, as he contentedly wagged his +tails; "but as for 'Enry, why, 'oo knows?" + +And really, what London would have done with Edward John we cannot +guess, nor have we at present any idea of what it will do with 'Enry. + +At this particular moment you would scarcely have credited the +postmaster-bookseller-tobacconist with such philosophic reflections; for +he seemed to be chiefly interested in watching with a critical eye a +dawdling creature by the name of Miffin, the inefficient tailor across +the way. + +Edward John pursed his lips and flapped his coat-tails in stern +disapproval of that sluggard's method of removing the single shutter +which covered his window as a protection from the sun's rays, rather +than a barrier to thieves, the latter being unknown in Hampton. Miffin +made the mere act of withdrawing a bolt a function of five or ten +minutes' duration, exchanging courtesies with every possible creature in +the neighbourhood, from schoolboys to cats, while engaged in the +operation. He would even call across to Edward John on the state of the +day, and secretly wonder when the postmaster ever did a stroke of work, +while in the mind of the latter certain wise maxims about ants and +sluggards from the Book of Proverbs were suggesting themselves as +peculiarly applicable to Mr. Miffin. + +Presently, as Edward John turned his glance along the village street +towards the Parish Church, which sat on a leafy knoll to the west, with +a reproving eye on all Hampton, he saw the Rev. Godfrey Needham +hastening eastward at a brisk pace. + +The sight was no unusual one. Mr. Needham never moved unless in a whirl, +the looseness of his clerical garb helping him to create quite a little +gust of energy as he hurried by with his good-hearted greetings to his +admiring parishioners. Such haste in a man of sixty was unaccountable, +especially when one was fully alive to his appearance. He looked as if +he had suddenly awakened after going to sleep a century before, and was +in a hurry to make up lost time. Thin-faced, with prominent nose, and +eyes red at the rims, blinking behind spectacles; he wore a rusty +clerical hat and clothes of ancient cut and material, his trousers +terminating a good three inches above his low shoes and disclosing +socks, formerly white. The fact that his legs remotely suggested a pair +of calipers added to the quaintness of the figure he presented while in +full stride down the village street. + +The moment Mr. Needham swung into view, the coat-tails of the postmaster +were violently agitated, and his face broadened into a smile as he +turned quickly into the doorway and called: + +"'Enry, 'ere quick. 'Ere's the passon!" + +Back in the shade and coolness of the shop the person thus addressed had +been eagerly engaged in dipping into several volumes just brought that +morning by the carrier from Birmingham, for it was Mr. Edward John +Charles's great privilege to be the medium of obtaining books for +several of the county gentry in the neighbourhood of Hampton, and these +were always feverishly fingered by his son Henry before being despatched +to their purchasers. + +This same Henry was esteemed by his fond parent a perfect marvel of +learning, and nothing delighted more the postmaster than to present him +on all available occasions for the vicar's admiration. + +In response to the summons, Henry issued into the sunlight of the open +door, and craning his neck beyond the projecting window, beheld the +advancing figure of the vicar. But the vicar, rusty and time-soiled +though he seemed, was still well-oiled mentally, and had taken in at a +glance the manoeuvres at the Post Office door. Knowing that he would +have to fight his way past, he slowed down and approached with a +pleasant "Good-morning" to Edward John and a bright smile for Henry, who +was his favourite among the lads of the village. + +"Well, Henry," he said, as if opening fire, "how do the studies +progress?" + +"'Enry," returned the postmaster, before the lad had time to answer, "is +making wonnerful progress, simply wonnerful. I reckon all the prizes at +the school this term are as good as 'is," and the coat-tails opened +into a particularly expanded =V=. "And as for Latin, vicar," he +continued, "I shouldn't be surprised if 'e was soon upsides with +yourself! 'E's at it every night. Oh, 'e do study, I can tell you." + +Mr. Needham smiled at this parental puffery, and answered somewhat +timidly: + +"Ah, my dear Mr. Charles, I am afraid I have credit for more Latin than +I possess. Nothing is so hard for a scholar as to live up to his +reputation." + +He even glanced furtively down the street, debating whether he should +clap on full sail forthwith, and resume his voyage before the +postmaster's prodigy could gratify Edward John by giving him a Latin +poser. Only for a moment did he hesitate, however, and recovering his +self-confidence, Mr. Needham continued brazenly: + +"But, after all, one does not master Latin so soon as that. Henry, I am +afraid, will still have much to learn of the classic tongue." + +"But won't you try me, sir?" blurted out the youthful subject of +discussion. "I should really like to be tested." + +"Come now, do, Mr. Needham," urged the postmaster teasingly, his face +shining with pleasure in delighted anticipation of the coming battle of +wits. "Tackle 'im on Virgil; tackle 'im on Virgil. Put 'im through 'is +paces, do, and let's see what's in the led." + +"Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Mr. Charles; but I am pressed +this morning, and must not delay further. Some other day, perhaps, I +shall see how he stands in the classics, but really I must be off. Good +morning, Mr. Charles; good morning, Henry!" + +So saying, the vicar beat a retreat, and as Edward John watched the +breeze-blown frock-coat and the twinkling calipers disappear eastward, +he cherished the suspicion that the Rev. Godfrey Needham really did not +know so much of Latin after all. Nor did the shrewd Mr. Charles arrive +at a wrong conclusion. The dear old vicar's reputation as a Latinist +rested almost entirely on the fact that it was his custom when showing a +visitor through the Parish Church of Hampton Bagot to point to several +memorials in the chancel, and after asking if the visitor knew Latin, to +glibly recite the inscriptions in that tongue, and follow this up by +condescending to give their English equivalents. It was a harmless +vanity, and was typical of many little corners in the quaint character +of this good man. + +Miffin had now accomplished the elaborate ceremony of opening his +inefficient shop, and sniffing contemptuously as he retired indoors at +the presumptuous Mr. Charles, whose encounter with the vicar he had +carefully overheard, he had the satisfaction of seeing the portly form +of Edward John disappear inside the Post Office, presumably for the +purpose of doing a little business. + +"And now, 'Enry," said the proud parent, still chuckling at the obvious +retreat of the vicar, "it is time for school, my boy. Remember, _tempus +fugits_. Yes, my word, _tempus_ do _fugit_." + +Thus admonished, the rising hope of the postmaster shouldered his +satchel and set out schoolward. + +Henry Charles was in almost every sense a direct contrast to his father. +Taller than the latter already, although not yet sixteen years of age, +he was lean and sallow of appearance, with long, narrow, ungainly +features, redeemed from plainness only by the intensity of his glowing +brown eyes. By several years the oldest lad at the church school, where +Mr. Arnold Page retailed his somewhat limited store of learning to some +forty scholars, Henry was the scandal of the village. To the good folk +of Hampton it seemed almost a temptation of Providence to keep a lad at +school after he was twelve years of age, and to them Henry was a byword +for laziness and the possibilities of a shameful end. Often would the +postmaster's cronies assure him that he could hope for no good to come +of such conduct. At the "Wings and Spur" almost any evening "that long, +lanky, lumbering lout of a good-for-nothing, 'Enry Charles," was quoted +in conversation as an example of the follies a man could commit who had +once gone so far out of his natural station as to visit London and +admire "book-larnin'." + +"It's downright sinful, I calls it, to keep a led at school arter twelve +years of age, when 'e moite be earnin' three shillin' a week a-doin' of +some honest werk." + +This was the opinion enunciated more than once by Mr. Miffin in the +taproom of the inn, and always assented to with acclamation by the +company. + +But Henry was sublimely unconscious of the interest he created, and his +father was stoutly determined in the course he would pursue. So the +youth continued to read all the books that came his way, to dream dreams +of lands that lay beyond eye-scope of Hampton Bagot. If the main road +through the village went to Stratford-on-Avon, it did not stay there for +Henry, and when it did go there it carried his thoughts to the home of +his favourite author. + +It was, perhaps, the very fact of Hampton's nearness to the shrine of +Shakespeare that set the postmaster's boy thinking of books and the +life of letters. Already he dwelt in an enchanted land whither none else +in Hampton had ever wandered, and from the printed page he had built up +for himself a city of his own--a city with the familiar name of London. +There, as his father had told him--for had not Edward John trod its +streets for two whole days?--lived the great men of letters, their busy +pens plying on countless sheets of paper, and, like the touch of magic +wands, conjuring up for their holders fame and fortune. + +Edward John Charles was truly a phenomenon--a bookseller in the tiniest +way, who had become imbued with some idea of the dignity of literature, +and esteemed its exponents in inverse ratio to his own unlettered +condition; thought of his scanty schooling being the one shadow which +ever darkened his brow. + +To this fairy London, this home of learning, this emporium of all the +graces, Henry Charles looked forward in his day-dreams, while his +neighbours lamented his father's folly in not setting him to hoe +potatoes, or at least to sell ounces of shag. + +"The led is struck on books; it's books with 'im mornin', noon, an' +night, and I ain't the man to stand in 'is way," quoth Edward John, in +expostulation with a friendly neighbour who advised him to put Henry to +work. "I don't know what 'e's going to be, or what's in 'im; but +whatever it is, the led shall 'ave his chance." + +And when Edward John Charles said a thing he meant it. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + HENRY LEAVES HOME + + +IT had been ever the habit of Edward John Charles that when he made up +his mind to do a thing, that thing was as good as done. How else would +it have been possible for a man to rise to the onerous and honoured +position of postmaster at Hampton Bagot? For some time he had been +tending to the conclusion that Henry would soon require to make a move +if he was ever to rise in the world. Not that the postmaster was +influenced by the opinions of the village gossips, brutally frank and +straightforward though these were. He prided himself on being above such +trifles, though, if the truth be told, the Post Office was the veritable +centre of the local gossip-mongering. + +But the last encounter with Mr. Needham, and Henry's shyly audacious +offer to stand an examination at the hands of the vicar, confirmed the +portly Mr. Charles in the opinion that his youthful prodigy had outgrown +all the possibilities of Hampton Bagot. Had not Mr. Page confessed there +was really nothing more he could teach the studious Henry? Did he not +admit that after a few lessons in Latin Henry shot ahead so fast he soon +outstripped the learning of his tutor? Surely, then, further delay in +starting him upon the battle of life were only wasting his sweetness on +the desert air of Hampton Bagot, as Mr. Charles, in one of his literary +moods, would say. Besides, the supposed laziness of the youth was a +growing scandal to the community; and after all, even the postmaster +could not afford altogether to ignore public opinion. + +It will have been gathered by now that although to every outward +appearance an intensely commonplace, podgy personality, Edward John +Charles possessed within his ample bosom the qualities which made him +curiously different from the ruck of village humanity. It would be a +fair assumption that in all the countless hamlets of sweet Ardenshire +there lived not another parent who could contemplate with equanimity a +bookish strain in the blood of any of his offspring. + +The literary taste has ever been discouraged in these parts of the green +Midlands, and such stray books as the postmaster sold to the village +folk were bought chiefly for the gilt on their covers, which rendered +them eyeable objects for the parlour table. He himself had not read a +dozen books in all his prosperous life, and perhaps his loud interest +in literature was nothing better than affectation, springing from the +accident of his becoming the most convenient agent for supplying the +"county people" in the neighbourhood with their literary goods. +Beginning in affectation, his pretended admiration of books and bookmen +had fostered a serious love for them in his son, and Edward John was +just the man to boldly face the consequences. + +When his mind was made up on the necessity of translating Henry to a new +field in which his dazzling qualities could radiate with ampler freedom +than in the narrow confines of Hampton Bagot, his thoughts turned to his +friend, Mr. Ephraim Griggs, who represented literature in the very +stronghold of its greatest captain, and already he saw Henry a busy +assistant in the well-known second-hand book-shop at Stratford-on-Avon. +A word from him to Mr. Griggs, and the golden gates of Bookland would +swing wide open to the glittering Henry! + +So, without a hint of his mission and its weighty issues, the carrier's +waggon creaked with the added weight of Edward John Charles a few +mornings later, on its way to Stratford. + +For all who are willing to work without monetary reward there is no lack +of opportunity, and Mr. Griggs readily consented to receive Henry into +his business as a second assistant. The die was cast, and in the evening +the postmaster returned mysteriously happy. Although an inveterate +gossip, he could be tantalisingly silent when it suited his mood, and as +he surveyed the village street from his accustomed post that evening, +there was nothing but the usual serenity of his face and the +satisfactory cock of his coat-tails to give a clue to the sweet thoughts +dancing in his brain. + +When the entire Charles family were seated at the supper-table, the +auspicious moment had arrived for Edward John to disclose his hand. +Whatever he thought fit to arrange would be good. Mrs. Charles, a thin +little person, who worshipped her ample husband from afar, and spent her +life in cleaning the five living rooms which constituted their +household, never removing the curl-papers from her hair until after tea, +was certain to applaud his every opinion, while the three girls, the +eldest of whom bore the burden of the business on her shoulders, could +be depended upon for reserve support. + +When Mr. Charles had detailed the arrangements he had made, whereby +Henry was to enter the business of Mr. Ephraim Griggs, there was +unanimous approval. + +"I've always said, 'Enry, that you'd 'ave your chance, and 'ere it is," +said Mr. Charles, brushing some crumbs of cheese from his whisker. +"There is no sayin' what this may lead to. Some of the greatest men in +the world 'ave started lower down the ladder than that." + +"Yes, dad," responded the delighted Henry. "Why, Shakespeare himself +used to hold horses for gentlemen in London." + +"Just look at that," beamed Mr. Charles on his worshipping family. +"Shakespeare uster 'old 'osses. You'll never need to do that, my boy." + +"And his father was only a woolstapler, dad!" panted the youth. + +"A common woolstapler! Think on't! And me in the book-line--in a small +way, p'raps--but in the book-line, for all that." + +And the thought that a woolstapler's son who had been fain to tend +horses for a penny, and in the end had achieved deathless fame which +brought admirers from the ends of the earth to his humble birthplace in +Stratford-on-Avon, made Edward John look around his own little house, +and wonder how many years it would be before the world was trooping to +Hampton Bagot to gaze on the early home of Henry Charles. Hampton was +only a few miles from Stratford, and Henry would never be so low as the +holding of horses. + +We can but dimly realise the joy with which Henry received the news of +the opening his father had made for him. To a lad of his temperament he +already saw himself a chartered libertine in the realms of literature, +roving from book to book on the crowded shelves of Mr. Griggs; here +following the doughty deeds of some of Sir Walter's heroes, taking a +hand, perchance, in the rescue of his heroines, and anon communing with +such glorious company as Addison and Lamb and Hazlitt. Had he not read +and re-read, and remembered every chapter of that classic work of which +his father had sold as many as seven copies in six months to the +Hamptonians--"Famous Boyhoods," by Uncle Jim? Within the gold-encrusted +covers of that enchanting book had he not learned how Charles Dickens +used to paste labels on jam-pots before he found fame and fortune in a +bottle of ink? Was not he aware that Robert Burns had been a ploughman, +and were not ploughmen in Hampton Bagot as common as hay-ricks and as +poor as mice? Had not Oliver Goldsmith been hard put to it often to find +a dinner, while Henry Charles had never lacked a meal? And had not Dr. +Johnson, who received a ludicrously large sum of money for making a +dictionary, lived in a garret? Emphatically, Henry Charles had reason to +look the future in the face clear-eyed, and to bless Uncle Jim for +giving him those inspiring facts. Moreover, a famous author had said: +"In the lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail." Had not Henry +copied these lines in atrocious handwriting till they swam before his +eyes, and had not his schoolmaster assured him his penmanship was the +worst he had ever witnessed, and were not all great authors wretched +penmen? True, he still had doubts as to what "the lexicon of youth" +might be. + +Unlike his father, Henry was not a talkative person, and, indeed, it was +one of the black marks against him in popular opinion that he did not +make himself as sociable as he might have done with the lads of Hampton. +But weighted with such news, the need to noise it abroad was pressing, +and as soon as he could slip away from the supper-table he was +publishing the intelligence wherever a chance opening could be found. + +In five minutes it had the village by the ears, and the inefficient +Miffin, ironing a coat at the moment it reached him, paused in his +operation to deliver himself of a sceptical sniff and some adverse +opinions on puffed-up fools who were eternally talking of book-larnin' +and things quite above them, instead of attending to their business. + +"In moi opinion," and he stated it with engaging frankness, "Edward John +would do a sight better to let his long-legged lout stick at 'ome and +sell nibs and sealin'-wex and postage-stemps, like his fifteen-stone +father." + +But really, Miffin's opinion did not count for much, although on this +occasion it cost him dear, as he had left the heated iron lying on the +coat, to its eternal destruction. + +Elated with the prospect which the magic wand of his father had swung +open to his sight--those fields of fair renown through which he was +about to wander--Henry had soon exhausted the possibilities of the +village, and found himself tramping the field-path towards Little +Flixton, in the hope of meeting some returning villagers, to whom he +could unbosom the startling news at first hand, and have the joy of +surprising them into congratulations. + +The meadows had been lately cut, and the smell of new-mown hay hung +sensuously in the air. Never would he forget that evening in all the +years that were to be. Although the hay-fields had been to him a +commonplace of life since he could toddle, they would never smell as +they did that night, and would never be so sweet again. After all, it is +our sense of smell that treasures for us most vividly the impressions of +our life. The memory of all our great moments is aided largely by our +nostrils. + +In one of these meadows, sloping down from a wooded mound, Henry espied +a white-frocked girlish figure seated among the hay in the soft +gloaming. It was Eunice Lyndon, the grand-daughter of old Carne, the +sexton, who, as he told you himself, had held that post for +"two-an'-forty year." Eunice's mother, old Carne's only daughter, whom +many remembered as the "Rose of Hampton," had died of consumption, and +there were some who thought that the shadow of this dread complaint hung +over the girl also. + +Now, as a rule, Henry had a poor opinion of girls. They were all very +well in their way, of course, but could never hope to shine in the world +like men. This evening, however, he was so brimful of his news that he +was glad to tell it to anybody. He had even told Maggs, the blacksmith, +though the latter had been over-free with cider at the "Wings and Spur." + +Henry crossed the slope of the meadow towards Eunice, who held a long +stalk of grass in her hand, and was intent upon watching a green +caterpillar worming its way up it. + +"Oh, Henry," she cried out, a pretty blush mounting to her cheeks as he +approached, "just look at this fellow!" + +Henry glanced down disdainfully at the caterpillar. Such trifles were +altogether beneath his notice in that great hour. + +"Listen, Eunice," he began, flinging himself down beside her. "I have +news for you." + +"News!" she echoed, still intent upon the caterpillar. "Isn't it a +lovely green?" + +"I'm going away." + +She raised her head, and two violet eyes, with a puzzled expression, +were dreamily fixed upon him, half-questioning. + +"Going away! Where to?... Oh, there, I've lost it!" as the caterpillar +fell among the grass. + +"To Stratford first," Henry answered in a lordly way; +"afterwards--London, I daresay." + +Eunice was profoundly impressed. London! Wasn't that a risky +undertaking? She knew it to be a wonderful place when one got there, but +had heard it was crowded with people who did terrible things. Mr. Jukes, +the landlord of the "Wings and Spur," had been to London on some law +business not long ago, and could talk of nothing else since. Indeed, +Edward John Charles had felt Mr. Jukes's rivalry very keenly; for the +innkeeper's visit being of later date than his, the glory of it was +fresher to the Hampton mind. + +Henry, conscious that he had taken her breath away, gathered up his +knees and fell to dreaming of London. The shadows of evening crept +softly upon them as they sat there; the trees on the high ground behind +them rustled gently in the light summer breeze; and somehow, the whole +scene--the sloping meadow, the darkening hedgerows, the shadowy outline +of the country beyond--mingled strangely with his dreams of the future. +Years afterwards, when the quiet, peaceful life of Hampton was a dear +thing of the past to him, the scent of new-mown hay recreated that +evening in every detail, and he saw again the rose-flushed lass who had +sat in silent wonder by his side. + +Mr. Charles was of opinion that the sooner his son was started on his +upward course the better. Henry, therefore, was withdrawn from school, +and immediate preparations made for his departure--preparations in which +Edward John took no manual part, but which, judging by the poise of his +coat-tails, went forward to his mind. Mrs. Charles even forgot to take +the curl-papers out of her hair for two whole days before the eventful +morning. + +On the eve of the day appointed for Henry's departure Mr. Page called in +to wish him good-bye. A little later the vicar flashed for a moment into +the dingy interior of the shop and shook hands with him. + +"Remember, my dear Henry, _labor omnia vincit improbus_, as the +Latinists say," using one of his few but favourite Latin phrases, and +rolling it lovingly like a chocolate-cream 'twixt tongue and palate. +"And remember also, my dear Henry, that _les bellesactions cachees +sont les plus estimables_," pronouncing atrociously a phrase he had +picked up a few hours before, "which means, my dear young friend, that +you should do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." + +Henry blushed forthwith. + +"And let me present you with a little keepsake. It is a copy of my new +book, my poem on Queen Victoria, which the _Midland Agricultural News_ +has described in terms of praise that I hope I am too modest to quote. I +have signed it with my autograph, and I trust you will lay to heart its +lessons." + +The poem in question was a sixteen-page pamphlet in a gaudy cover. It +enjoyed a large circulation by gratuitous distribution. To the vicar's +great regret, he had found at the end of a dictionary the French phrase +about beautiful actions too late to be incorporated in his verses. + +Henry was profoundly moved, but like all great people in their great +moments, he was deplorably commonplace. + +"I thank you, sir," was all his genius prompted. He was gravelled for a +Latin snatch to cap the vicar's, and the Rev. Godfrey Needham stood +supreme. + +"Eh, but _tempus_ do _fugit_, passon," Edward John broke in at this +juncture. "It's only loike yesterday that 'Enry was a-startin' school, +and 'ere 'e's a-goin' out into the great world to carve out a name for +hisself--'oo knows 'e ain't?" + +"With youth all things are possible." returned Mr. Needham. "We shall be +proud of Henry yet. He certainly has my best wishes for his success. +_Sursum corda_, my friend, as the Latin hath it. And to you, Henry, +_Deus vobiscum_. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye, and thank you, sir," said the overwhelmed Henry. + +In a moment more the white-socked calipers had carried Mr. Needham out +of Henry's life for some years to come. + +When the great morning arrived, the whole house was turned upside down. +The village itself was agitated. Henry was quite the hero of the moment, +despite the sniffing disapproval of Miffin. But one can't destroy a coat +and retain a friendly feeling for the cause of the catastrophe. + +"Merk moi werds," he said to his apprentice, as together they watched +from behind the door the preparations across the street. "Young Che'les +will never do nowt. He'll come to a bed end, and Ed'ard John will rue +this day. Merk moi werds." And he emphasised his wisdom with a skinny +forefinger. + +Henry's mother cried over him a little, and impressed upon him that the +three pots of blackberry jam--her own making--were at the bottom of his +trunk, away from the shirts and linen, in case of accident. His sisters, +one by one, threw their arms around him, and said commonplace things to +him to hide the less common thoughts in their mind. + +At length Henry took his seat on the carrier's waggon, after receiving a +luminous impression of London--modern London, not the Edward-John +London--from Mr. Jukes of the "Wings and Spur," and drove away, turning +his face from his friends to avoid a silly inclination to cry. As the +carrier cracked his whip while his horses gathered pace down the street, +his passenger looked back to the old familiar house and signalled to the +group still standing by the door; but for all the high hopes that +beckoned him along this road that ran to London he was sorry to go. + +When they were passing the cottage of old Carne, and a sweet face lit by +two violet eyes looked out between the dimity curtains, while a girl's +hand rattled pleasantly on the window, Henry smiled and waved his arm. +But he was dimly conscious he had lost something he could not define. It +had to do with tears on a woman's wrinkled face. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE REAL AND THE IDEAL + + +IT was a perfect day in "the sweet o' the year" when the carrier's +waggon creaked along the highway to Stratford with Henry Charles perched +beside the red-faced driver. + +There is, perhaps, no county in all England so full of charm in +spring-time and the early summer as leafy Ardenshire. The road on which +the hope of Hampton travelled is typical of many in that fair +countryside. Gleaming white in the morning sunshine, it lies snug +between high banks of prodigal growth, bramble and trailing arbutus, +backed by green bushes, among which the massy white clots of +elder-blossom look like snowy souvenirs of the winter that has fled, +with here and there a strong note of colour struck by swaying foxgloves. +The lanes that steal away from the highway are often as beautiful as +those of glorious Devon, and all bear promise that if the wanderer will +but come with them he will surely find the veritable + + "Bank whereon the wild thyme blows, + Where oxlip and the nodding violet grows; + Quite over-canopy'd with luscious woodbine, + With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine." + +But it was not of the wild beauties by the way that Henry thought as +onward creaked the waggon. Nor was it for long that the picture of his +mother's face and the light of violet eyes occupied his mind. His +thoughts ran forward swifter than ever the train would go which in later +years was to bring Hampton Bagot within half-an-hour's journey of +Stratford. + +Twice before had he travelled this same way, and both times to the same +place. But now all was changed. The carrier would crack his whip on his +homeward way that evening and sing his snatches of song, but not for +Henry. + +For the first time in his life the youth would stretch himself upon an +unfamiliar bed, and hear voices that had never spoken to him before. He +would tread the streets where once the steps of the immortal bard had +been as common as his own comings and goings at the Hampton Post Office. +Till now he had dreamed what life might be in a town larger than his +native hamlet, and this night he would begin to know, to live it. + +The wayside wild flowers, so recently part and parcel of his daily life, +paled before his eyes when he thought of the temple of books toward +which his course was bent. The smell of the new bindings, and the +mouldy suggestions of old volumes, were sweeter to him for the moment +than the scented hedgerows. Already he had built up for himself the +figure of his Mr. Ephraim Griggs. + +A man of medium height, somewhat bent in the back, high forehead, +intelligent face, eyes aided with spectacles in their constant task of +examining the treasures stacked around. + +His hair? Grey--yes, of course, it must be grey; thin to baldness on the +top, but abundant at the back of the head. Clothes? Old-fashioned, no +doubt; negligent, certainly; yet not altogether slovenly. + +He saw the figure, vivid as life, moving about the shop, talking with +innocent display of erudition to some wealthy customer, or half +reluctantly selling a costly volume from his shelves. + +This dream-companion kept him company all the way, and it was only in a +listless fashion that he chatted with the carrier, to whom books were no +better than common lumber. + +Stratford was reached early in the afternoon, and as the waggon rumbled +over the Clopton Bridge, Henry thought that the scene presented here by +the soft flowing Avon, with the spire of Shakespeare's Church softly +etched on the sky, and the strange masonry of the world-famed Memorial +Theatre in the middle distance, was the fairest man could see. + +The thoughtfulness of his father had arranged for Henry a lodging near +to Rother Street, and thither the carrier undertook to drive him before +stopping at the market-hall to distribute his goods. On the way up the +broad and pleasant High Street Henry was excited, for there, to his joy, +he beheld the name of Ephraim Griggs upon a window well stocked with +books--smaller, perhaps, and dustier than he had pictured it in his own +mind. + +Mrs. Filbert, the landlady with whom Edward John had arranged for +Henry's board and lodging, was a widow of more than middle age, who had +brought up a considerable family, most of whom were now "doing for +themselves." In summertime she often let her best rooms to visitors, but +nothing rejoiced her more than the prospect of a permanent lodger. She +was fortunate already in having one who came under that description, and +whose acquaintance we may make in due time. + +Mrs. Filbert was a motherly soul, and set Henry at his ease at once when +she took him to the little bedroom he was to share with one of her sons, +a lad about his own age. Nor would she allow him to fare forth into the +town until he had disposed of some dinner she had kept for him, +suspecting that his means did not run to the luxury of a meal at one of +the country inns on the way from Hampton. + +When Henry had freed himself from the motherly attentions of Mrs. +Filbert, and again found himself in the High Street, it was late +afternoon. With a beating heart he walked direct to the shop of Mr. +Griggs, but as his engagement commenced the next morning, he did not +intend to present himself to his future employer that afternoon. + +His purpose was merely a preliminary inspection of the place, for on his +two previous visits to Stratford the establishment which had suddenly +become his centre of interest had not been noticed by him. + +The window was dustier than he had supposed from his sight of it while +passing with the carrier, and many of the books that were offered for +sale were disappointingly commonplace. As for the collection in the +window-box, labelled in crude blue letters, "All in this row 2_d._ +each," he was amazed that Mr. Griggs should exhibit them. For the most +part they were old school-books, and he remembered, with a sudden sense +of wealth unreckoned, that he had quite a number at home as good as +these. He was not aware that only a summer ago a sharp visitor had +picked up from this bundle a volume which he sold in London for L9. + +Timidly did Henry peep in at the doorway, which was narrower than he had +expected, and a trifle shabby so far as painting was concerned. + +So much as he could see of the shop inside accorded but little better +with his mental picture of the place. Books were there in abundance, +many of them presenting some degree of order, and as many more seemingly +in hopeless confusion. + +He got a glimpse of a counter, at which he supposed the business of the +place was transacted, but the inadequate back view of the figure of a +young man bending at a desk in a gloomy corner was the only thing +suggesting life. + +His first peep assuredly was not what he had looked forward to, but who +knew to what hidden chambers of interest the door at the far side of the +front shop gave access? + +Afraid to further pursue his inspection, Henry moved away somewhat +hurriedly when the young man at the desk showed signs of moving towards +the door, having probably scented a customer. + +He wandered next to Shakespeare's Church, lingering on the way at the +Memorial, then fresh from the hands of the builders, and loudly out of +harmony with everything else in Stratford. Anon he was peeping in at +the old Grammar School and the Guild Hall, and tea-time found him +loitering around the Birthplace, with half a desire to set out then and +there to Anne Hathaway's Cottage. + +The business of dealing in Shakespeare's memory had not yet developed +into Stratford's staple industry, nor had local boyhood begun to earn +precarious pennies by waylaying visitors and rehearsing to them in +parrot fashion the leading dates in the life of the poet. But the +principal show-place of the town had long been attracting pilgrims from +the ends of the earth, and for the first time in his life Henry heard +the English language produced with strong nasal accompaniment by a group +of brisk-looking young men and women issuing from the shrine in Market +Street. + +There was little sleep for him that night, nor was the unusual +circumstances of his sharing a bed with another youth the cause of it. +He wondered at his ability to peep in at Mr. Griggs's door without +entering precipitately and avowing himself the new assistant. But his +father's instructions on this point had been explicit. He had to present +himself at the proper hour of the morning; neither early nor late, but +at the hour precisely. It would have been unbusiness-like to stroll in +the previous afternoon, and if business-like habits were not acquired +now they never would be. + +But Henry had read so recently the wonderful story of "Monte Cristo," +and was so impressed by the hero's habit of keeping his appointments to +the second, that he required no advice on this point. + +"Suppose I go down in the morning and enter the shop when the +market-clock is striking the fifth note of nine. That would be a good +start to make!" + +Thus he thought, and thus he did. But alas! the new Monte Cristo found +no appreciative audience awaiting him. + +For a moment he stood at the counter in the middle of the shop, with +half a mind to run away. His entry had been unheralded, unobserved. No +one was visible. But hesitating whether to knock on the counter, as +customers at Hampton Post Office were wont to do, or take down a book +until someone appeared, he became aware of certain sounds issuing from +behind a wooden partition which enclosed a corner of the shop. + +Henry shuffled his feet noisily, and plucked up courage to rap on the +counter, for the market-clock had ceased its striking by quite a minute, +and no one had witnessed his romantic punctuality. + +In answer to the knocking there appeared from behind the partition a +youngster of some twelve years, who seemed to have been disturbed in +some pleasant but undutiful occupation. On seeing that the person at the +counter was merely a youth, just old enough to make a boy wish to be +his age, but not old enough to inspire him with respect, the youngster, +without a word of inquiry or apology, stooped down and lifted on to the +counter a little bull pup, which he stroked with all the pride of a +fancier, challenging Henry with his eyes to produce its equal. + +Loftily indifferent to the behaviour of the boy, and secretly wondering +if Monte Cristo had ever been so absurdly received on any of the +occasions when he opened a door as the clock struck the appointed hour +of meeting, Henry said, with a touch of indignation in his voice: + +"I am the new assistant, and I wish to see Mr. Griggs." + +The boy gave a whistle of surprise, and eyed Henry boldly. Hastily +stowing away the pup in some secret receptacle under the counter, he +proceeded to the side-door, taking a backward glance at the new +assistant, and disclosing under his snub nose a very wide and smiling +mouth. + +"Shop!" bawled the lad, as he opened the door. + +Without another word, and leaving the door ajar, he went and perched +himself on a stool, from which position he brazenly surveyed the new +assistant. + +Henry waited, quailing somewhat under the searching gaze of this +juvenile servitor in the temple of literature. He surveyed at leisure +the walls so thickly stacked with dusty volumes, and wondered why the +youngster was not cleaning them or arranging the bundles on the floor, +instead of sitting on the stool swaying his legs idly. + +How different it all was from what he had expected! The books were there +and in abundance, yet they were heaped about more like potatoes in a +greengrocer's than things worthy of respect. It was difficult to connect +this youthful dog-fancier with literary pursuits, and Henry could only +hope that Mr. Griggs in his person would make up for what his +establishment had lost in contrast with his ideal picture of it. + +It was some little time before the shuffle of slip-shod feet was heard +behind the back-door. The new assistant grew expectant. The shuffle +suggested the approach of the venerable book-lover himself. There was a +pause, during which Henry's heart thumped against his bosom, and then a +large and tousled head was thrust inquiringly beyond the door, in a way +that suggested a desire to conceal the absence of a collar and tie. + +The head belonged to Mr. Ephraim Griggs, dealer in second-hand books and +prints. + +"Oh, it's young Charles, is it?" said Mr. Griggs, displaying a little +more of his person, and showing that he was in the act of drying his +hands. "Just come in here, will you?" he went on, jerking his head back +towards the passage. "I want your advice." + +Wondering on what subject he might be capable of advising the veteran, +he went through to the passage, where Mr. Griggs, having finished with +the towel, offered him a cold and flabby hand. + +Henry felt tempted to laugh, and probably a little inclined to cry, when +he stood before his employer, and found that his mental portrait of the +man tallied in no particular with the person facing him. + +There was little of the book-worm about Mr. Griggs. He did not even wear +spectacles; an offence which Henry found hardest to forgive. Not so tall +as Edward John, nor yet so stout, he was a long-bearded fellow, with a +nasty habit of breathing heavily through his nose, as if that organ were +clogged with dust from his books. As he stood before Henry he was in his +shirt-sleeves, and, judging by the latter, the garment as a whole was +ready for the wash. His waistcoat was glossy with droppings of snuff; +his trousers, Henry noticed, were very baggy at the knees and appeared +to be a size too large for him; while his feet were encased in ragged +carpet slippers. + +Evidently Mr. Griggs was in some trouble, and while Henry was +speculating as to what the cause of his anxiety might be, the learned +bookseller said, somewhat anxiously, and in a thin, wheezy voice: + +"Tell me, do you know anythink about poultry?" + +"Poultry!" gasped Henry. + +"Yes," replied Mr. Griggs, with a solemnity which struck the new +assistant as absurdly pathetic. "Hens," he explained further; "my best +one is down with croup or somethink o' the kind. Your father has taken a +many prizes with his birds, and I thought you might know all about 'em. +I've never had great success with 'em myself. Come outside and tell me +what you think." + +Without waiting for a reply, the bookseller shuffled through the passage +into a back-yard, and the youth followed as one in a dream. + +The yard was almost entirely devoted to poultry, and if Mr. Griggs was +an amateur at the pursuit, he had at least prepared for it in no mean +way, three sides of the place being taken up with wired hen-runs and a +wooden house for his stock. In a compartment by itself, gasping and +choking, lay the object of the old man's solicitude. + +"The finest layer I ever had," he declared despondingly. "An egg a day +as reg'lar as clockwork. I'd rather lose two of the others." + +His sorrow deepened when Henry said that he had never seen a hen in +that state before, and did not know what was wrong with it. + +"Then I'll be forced to ask old John Shakespeare, the grocer, what to +do; although I 'ate the man, and don't want to be beholden to him for +anythink. But he's our champion breeder, and what must be, must be." + +Shakespeare, grocer, hens! Henry doubted seriously if his ears were +doing their duty, but there was no mistaking the anxiety of Mr. Ephraim +Griggs. He could not have been more perturbed if his wife had been +dangerously ill. His wife? That reminded Henry that he had heard his +father say Mrs. Griggs had been dead these many years. Perhaps that was +why the bookseller was so untidy. + +"You had better go back to the shop, my lad," said he, in a voice which +meant he was now resigned to the worst, "and take a look round. I'll be +in there directly." + +When Henry returned to the shop he found that Mr. Pemble, the senior +assistant, had arrived; but for the moment that young gentleman was so +engrossed with the study of his features in a broken looking-glass that +he did not notice Henry's entrance. Mr. Pemble's anxiety seemed to be +centred around the tardy growth of an incipient moustache, which, when +an illuminating ray of sunshine fell upon his upper lip, was readily +visible to the naked eye. + +A somewhat prim and characterless person, with more teeth than his mouth +seemed able to accommodate, Mr. Pemble was the _bete noir_ of Jenks, the +dog-loving shop-boy, who, with a sly wink to Henry and an expressive +grimace, indicated unmistakably his opinion of the senior assistant. + +This was a sign to the new-comer that if he cared to make common cause +against Mr. Pemble, Jenks was with him to the death; but Henry, either +in his rustic simplicity or his lofty indifference to the youngster, did +not respond, and waited for Mr. Pemble to languidly acknowledge his +presence. + +"Ah, you're the new assistant Mr. Griggs was speaking of," he said at +length. + +"Yes, sir," replied Henry, and at the delicious sound of the flattering +"sir" Mr. Pemble endeavoured to tug his laggard moustache. "Mr. Griggs +says I'm to have a look round until he is ready," Henry went on, casting +a dubious glance at the walls and the thickly-strewn floor. + +"Oh, that's all right," drawled Mr. Pemble, who now turned his attention +to some small parcels that had arrived by the morning's post. + +In a little while Mr. Griggs appeared, fully clothed, by the addition +of a faded black morning coat and a creased white collar. He beckoned +Henry into the back-parlour, which served as a sort of office and a +general lumber-room. + +"Sit you down, my lad, and let's see what we have here," he said, +pointing to a crazy arm-chair beside an old Pembroke table, on which a +broken ink-bottle and some rusty pens lay, together with a muddle of +notepaper. + +The bookseller then turned to a large case of old volumes recently +acquired at the sale of a country house, and picking up several of these +he flapped the dust from them, puffing and blowing like a walrus. +Glancing briefly at the title-pages of the first two, he threw them in a +corner with a brief but emphatic "Rubbish!" The next fished forth +satisfied him better, and taking up one of his latest catalogues, he +showed Henry how to write down the title and description of the book. + +So he proceeded for a time, initiating the youth in the art of +cataloguing, which with Mr. Griggs did not take a particularly exalted +form. He eschewed such aids to ready references as alphabetical entry, +and was content so long as the principal items of his stock appeared on +his printed list, quite irrespective of order or value. These lists, +villainously printed, were a source of unfailing amusement to the +educated book-buyers into whose hands they fell, for every page +contained the most hilarious blunders, whereby the best-known classics +assumed new and surprising disguises. + +Henry took to the simple work eagerly, and displayed far greater +interest than his employer did in the books that came to light as the +case was gradually emptying. Now and again during the forenoon Mr. +Griggs would suddenly disappear from the parlour, as his thoughts +reverted to his suffering Dorking, only to return from his visit to the +poultry with a gloomy shake of the head. + +When dinner-time arrived, Henry and Jenks were left in charge of the +shop while Mr. Pemble went home to dine, and the old bookseller shambled +upstairs to some of the unknown domestic rooms. Jenks, unabashed by +Henry's obvious determination not to familiarise with him, boldly asked +if he knew how to play that great and universal game of boyhood called +"knifey." When Henry said that he didn't, and hadn't time to think of +it, Jenks was filled with disgust, for he found it a delightful pastime +when the hours hung heavy on his hands, and he had been at the trouble +to import a specially soft piece of wood for the purpose of playing +"knifey" whenever an opportunity occurred. Failing Henry's assistance, +he brazenly proceeded to engage in the pastime by himself. + +The task of cataloguing occupied but little of the afternoon, and for +the remainder of the day there was nothing to do but idling. Indeed, +Henry found himself wondering by what means Mr. Griggs contrived to +exist, as nothing seemed to matter beyond his devotion to the poultry +and Mr. Pemble's frequent inspections of his upper lip. + +On the whole, the impression left by his first day at business was by no +means bright, as he could not suppose there would be books to catalogue +every day, and he had not seen more than half-a-dozen customers in the +shop. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + MR. TREVOR SMITH, IF YOU PLEASE + + +TEN days had passed, and the new assistant was more than ever at a loss +to understand how a business so laxly conducted and apparently so +unremunerative could provide a living for Mr. Griggs, Pemble, and Jenks. +Henry knew that he, at least, was no burden on his employer's finances; +but he was not yet aware that Mr. Pemble was there on a similar footing, +while Jenks's labours were rewarded weekly with half-a-crown. + +But this morning a bright and new star swung into his ambit, when a +young man of about twenty years of age sauntered jauntily into the shop, +his hat stuck on one side of his head and a cigarette drooping from his +lips, where grew a moustache which must have struck envy into the soul +of Mr. Pemble. The new-comer winked cheerily to Jenks, nodded a "How +d'you do?" to the senior assistant, and then, to Henry's surprise, he +said: + +"I suppose you're the chap that Mrs. Filbert's been telling me about. +We're both in the same digs." + +"I beg your pardon!" Henry stammered. + +"Same digs. Fellow-lodgers, don't you know." + +"Oh! then you're Mr. Smith that Mrs. Filbert always talks about," +answered Henry, brightening. + +"That's me, my boy; but, if you please, Trevor Smith--with the accent on +the Trev. There's such a beastly lot of Smiths nowadays that a fellow's +got to stick up for his other name if he doesn't want to be buried in +the crowd." + +"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Trevor Smith," replied Henry, who, it +will be seen, was beginning to know something of the social graces. + +"Right you are, young 'un," said the breezy one. "I'm just back from my +fortnight's holidays. Been to London, don't you know. Jolly time. +Thought I'd give you a shout on my way to the office. See you later, and +tell you all about it. Ta-ta! I'm off. Big case on at the police court +this morning." + +Mr. Smith--Mr. Trevor Smith, if you please--was indeed a person who had +assumed considerable importance in Henry's mind before he met him face +to face. He was the permanent lodger by whom good Mrs. Filbert set much +store. + +"'E's that smart," she told Henry the first night he had stayed beneath +her roof "there's no sayin' what he don't know. He writes a many fine +things in the _Guardian_, specially 'is story of the Mop, which my Tommy +read out quite easy-like last October." + +"He'll be a journalist, then," Henry suggested. + +"Somethink o' the sort, I reckon. Leastways, e's a heditor or a reporter +or somethink. The _Guardian_ pays 'im to stay for it 'ere. So 'e must be +clever. Oh, you'll like 'im, 'Enry. Everybody likes Mr. Trevor." + +It seemed to Henry a real stroke of fortune that had brought him to the +very house where one engaged in literary pursuits resided, and although +keenly disappointed at the melancholy falling off in his actual +experience of life under the aegis of Mr. Griggs, compared with his +vision of what that was to be, he now looked forward to meeting Mr. +Trevor Smith with the hope that he might point the way to better things. + +The exact position of that local representative of the Fourth Estate is +best defined as district reporter. The paper which employed him was +published in the busy industrial centre of Wheelton, some twenty-five +miles distant, where it maintained a struggling existence as the +_Wheelton Guardian_. + +It was the duty of Mr. Smith to write a column of notes on men and +affairs in the Stratford district every week, to supply reports of the +local police court proceedings, municipal meetings, and so forth, and +also to canvass for advertisements, the few hundred copies of the paper +sold in Stratford every week, thanks to these attractions, being +mendaciously headed _Stratford Guardian_. + +What the district reporter--who occasionally hinted that he was really +the editor when he saw a chance to impress a stranger thereby--called +"the office," was a desk in the back premises of the news-agent and +fancy-goods-shop whence the _Guardian_ was distributed weekly. + +Everybody did like Mr. Smith. It was part of his business to be well +liked, and if there was a good deal of humbug about him, he was still +excellent value to the _Guardian_ for the twenty-one shillings which the +proprietors of that journal paid him each week. One does not expect +genius for a guinea a week; not even the ability to write English. But +it is a mistake to suppose the latter is ever required of a district +reporter. The essential qualifications are a working knowledge of +shorthand and a good conceit of oneself. Mr. Trevor Smith was deficient +in neither; certainly not in the latter quality. He was generously +impressed with the magnitude of his importance, and had chosen the +Miltonic motto for his "Stratford Notes and Comments": + + "GIVE ME THE LIBERTY TO KNOW, TO THINK, AND TO UTTER FREELY ABOVE + ALL OTHER LIBERTIES." + +He took this liberty whenever he knew that the weight of local opinion +tended in a certain direction. At other times he was lavish in his use +of complimentary adjectives concerning every one he wrote about, from +the Mayor to the town crier. No wonder he was popular. + +The notes which appeared in the _Guardian_ during its reporter's holiday +were from another hand, but Henry looked forward with pleasure to +reading Trevor's contributions when his mighty pen was at work again. It +is one of the strangest experiences that comes to the writing man--this +interest of the layman in anyone who writes words that are printed. We +seldom feel interested in the personality of the man who made our watch, +but the fellow who wrote the report of the tea-meeting we attended last +week--ah, there's something to stir the blood! + +Now that they had met, these two, Henry was throbbing with excitement to +hear what his new friend had to tell him of life and its wonders. Nor +was Trevor loth to unclench his soul to the youth. + +"By Jove, London's the place," he observed to Henry as he dug his teeth +into a juicy tart--one of many received that day in Henry's weekly +hamper from home. "London's the place! Just fancy, I saw the huge +building of the _Morning Sunburst_, Johnnies at the door in livery, +hundreds of people running out and in; and the chap that edits that +paper used to be a fifteen-bob-a-week reporter on that rag the +_Stratford Times_, which isn't a patch on the _Guardian_." + +"He must be very clever." + +"Clever! Bless you, they reckoned him mighty small beer in Stratford," +pursued the lively Trevor, helping himself to a third tart from Henry's +store. "Then there's Wilkins of the _Pictorial Globe_, a glorious +crib--fifteen hundred a year, I'll bet. He used to run that rocky little +rag-bag the _Arden Advertiser_. You should see his office in the Strand. +By gum--a palace, my boy, a palace!" + +"But perhaps he knows all about pictures." + +"Pictures! He doesn't know a wall-poster from a Joshua Reynolds!" + +"Then how do they get these grand situations?" + +"How do they get 'em! Luck, my boy. But, I say, your mater knows how to +make ripping good fruit-cakes." + +"I'm glad you like them," said Henry, but his thoughts were far away, +where Luck the Goddess reigned. "And do you intend to go to London some +day--to stay, I mean?" + +"As likely as not. My time will come, ha, ha! as the heavy villain hath +it. Everybody gets his chance, don't you know. For all that, there's +many a jolly good journalist never gets a show in Fleet Street. But +what's the row?" he exclaimed abruptly, as the noise of hurrying feet +and the sound of a policeman's whistle rang out in the evening quiet. + +Stepping to the window, he saw the hand-pump and hose being wheeled +along the street from the police station across the way, and a crowd of +youngsters running after it. + +"A fire!" he exclaimed. "I must look slippy, by Jingo! Come along with +me. There's ten bob of lineage in this if I'm first on the spot, and +it's a decent blaze. Worth while living near the station." + +He had his hat on his head in a jiffy, and Henry hurried with him, +intent on seeing the journalist at work. The fire proved to be at a +brewery, and did considerable damage before it was got under. In the +excitement of the scene Henry lost his friend, who flitted from point to +point gleaning information, and looking quite the most important figure +present. He had got ahead of Griffin, the _Times_ reporter; his ten +shillings for duplicating reports to the daily papers seemed likely +enough. They were as good as spent already--a new hat for one thing, and +some new neckties for another. + +The effect of the episode on Henry was fateful. He had been present +throughout the scene, he had seen the frightened horses being rescued +from the flaming stable, and had read about it all to the extent of +twenty lines in next morning's _Birmingham Gazette_--twenty glowing +lines from the pencil of Mr. Trevor Smith--twenty lines in which the +"conflagration" burned again. + +He had tasted blood. This was better fun than idling the hours away with +Mr. Ephraim Griggs. The Temple of Literature had been a disappointment. + +Here was Life. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + IN WHICH HENRY DECIDES + + +UP to the night of the fire, Henry had only been dreaming of what he +wished to do in the world of work. Unless one of his age has had his +fate sharply settled for him by being placed at some trade or +profession--for which he is usually unsuited--by the masterful action of +his parents, he has, at best, a nebulous vision of the path he will +pursue. + +With natural instinct, and aided by the accident of Edward John's +business relations in Stratford, Henry had looked to literature through +the gateway of the book-shop--of all, the most unlikely. But he had been +shorn speedily of his illusions in that quarter. + +A month in the establishment of Mr. Ephraim Griggs had left him +wondering if he were a footstep nearer his goal than he had been before +he bade farewell to Hampton. If the Temple of Literature which he had +builded in his brain had not exactly crumbled into nothingness, it was +no longer possible to rub shoulders with the slatternly Griggs and the +insipid Pemble, and still to dream dreams such as had held his mind when +he determined to fare forth an adventurer into the unknown realms of +Bookland. + +The weeks dragged on wearily. So rude had been Henry's experience of the +second-hand book-shop, in disgust he had almost concluded that after all +there was as much glory in his father's business as in that of Mr. +Griggs. Trevor Smith, however, had appeared on the scene at an opportune +moment, and sent his thoughts off at a tangent. + +Clearly, journalism was the high road to literature. It enabled one to +get into print, and that, at least, was a great matter. + +Already the agreeable Trevor could pose as Henry's literary godfather. +He had allowed him to write one or two simple notes about the visit of a +circus to the town and the annual flower-show, and these had actually +appeared in type in the _Guardian_. + +The fact that Trevor had twice borrowed half-a-crown from his +fellow-lodger, and had twenty times forgotten to repay, while he had +also assimilated innumerable examples of Mrs. Charles's baking, had +probably something to do with his readiness in opening his columns to +the youth. But that did not in the least detract from the bursting joy +with which Henry read his own little paragraphs a score of times; nor +did Edward John suspect that the first appearance of his young hopeful +in the splendour of print was due to such adventitious aid. + +Henry's masterpiece was a letter to the editor of the _Guardian_ +protesting against the charge of sixpence exacted for admission to view +the grave of Shakespeare. This was signed "Thespian," at the suggestion +of Trevor, who never by any chance wrote of actors or of the theatre, +but always of "sons of Thespis," or of "the temple of Thespis." Quite a +lively correspondence ensued in the columns of the paper, and it was a +great delight to Henry that he and Trevor Smith alone knew who the +correspondents were. Between them they did it all. Oh, Henry was +learning what journalism meant! + +"Take my word for it, Henry, journalism's your game," his merry mentor +assured him. "That last par of yours about the Christ Church +muffin-struggle is nearly as good as I could have done myself. You're +cut out for a journalist as sure as eggs is eggs. All that you want is +an opportunity to show what's in you." + +Yes, only the opportunity was awanting. And how to get it? + +"Look at me," Mr. Trevor Smith continued, "I was only a common clerk in +the _Guardian_ office--a common clerk, mind you--but I had the sense to +learn shorthand, and got the first opening as a reporter--and here I +am!" + +He helped himself to a luscious pear from the stock which Henry had just +received from home that day. + +Indeed, these little bursts of confidence usually took place on the +evening Henry's weekly hamper arrived, but he had never noticed the +coincidence. A year or two later, perhaps, he might suspect there had +been some connection between the events; meanwhile, his bump of +observation had not been abnormally developed. + +To-night the reporter appeared especially concerned for the welfare of +his young friend, and it occurred to him to ask if Henry had been trying +his hand at something more ambitious than mere paragraphs. He blushingly +admitted that he had. + +"Then trot it out, my boy, and I'll tell you what it's worth in a couple +of ticks," said Trevor, quite unconcerned as to the length or character +of Henry's "something." + +It is Nature's way that the rawest youths and maidens who desire to +follow a literary career invariably commence by writing essays on +aspects of life which world-worn men of fifty find impossible to discuss +with any approach to ripened knowledge. Henry's unpublished manuscript +now brought forth of his trunk proved to be a very long and absurdly +grandiloquent essay on "Liberty." + +Neither the subject nor the wordiness of the manuscript dismayed the +hopeful Trevor, who took it in his hand and ran his eyes with lightning +rapidity over page after page. + +"Ripping, my boy, ripping! That's the sort of stuff to make the critics +sit up." + +Henry thrilled and reddened, but winced a little when he heard his +handiwork described as "stuff." + +"Really? Do you think anybody would care to publish it?" he asked. + +"Just the sort o' thing for the _Nineteenth Century_ or the +_Quarterly_," Trevor assured him gaily, although the rascal had never +set eyes on either of these reviews. "But I should hold it back a bit +until you have made your name, for the editors of these things never +give an unknown man a chance." + +"Still, you think I ought to persevere?" + +"Don't I just! I couldn't have written stuff like that at your age for a +mint of money. Take my tip, young 'un, you've got it in you to make a +name; and when you're riding down Fleet Street in your carriage and +pair, don't forget your humble servant who gave you the first leg-up. +That phrase of yours on the last page about liberty being born among the +stars and flying earthward to brighten all mankind is worthy of Carlyle +at his best." + +"I always liked Carlyle; but I'll try very hard to do something even +better--I mean better than what I've written." + +"And, by-the-by, my dear Henry, do you think you could stretch me +another half-crown? I'm rather rocky just now, but am expecting a tidy +sum for lineage next week," said Trevor, in an off-hand way, and +ignoring his friend's confusion, as he lifted his hat and prepared to go +out. + +Henry stretched the half-crown--with difficulty, for it meant a week's +pocket-money--and when his companion had left he executed a wild dance +round the table. Ambition had been fired within him again. He determined +that not even the Slough of Despond, to which he likened the shop of Mr. +Griggs, would discourage him for a day in his onward march to that City +Beautiful where one's life was spent in writing fine thoughts for +mankind to read and remember. + +The difficulty remained: how to get the opportunity? All the copy-book +maxims of his boyhood availed him nothing; all the stories of brave men +who seized opportunity instead of waiting for it to turn up, inspired, +encouraged, whispered of hope, but did not bring the situation to a +simpler issue. + +Soon after this evening he determined to induce Trevor to come down from +his gorgeous generalisings to plain facts. + +"It is all very well to say my essay is so good, but do you honestly +think I should go on writing things like that if I wish to become a +journalist?" + +It took something out of Henry to put it so bluntly. Despite the +familiar manner in which Trevor addressed him, the youth, who was +naturally reticent, always spoke of him with deference due to one of +older years, and especially to one who was a real live journalist. +Henry, however, was gradually losing his country shyness, and the fact +that Mr. Trevor Smith continued in his debt to the extent of +seven-and-sixpence encouraged him to greater boldness in his dealings +with that slippery gentleman. + +"I confess that I have had enough of old Griggs. There is nothing to +learn from him, and I do think I should like to get work on a newspaper. +Is there any chance of an opening on the _Guardian_ at Wheelton? I have +been pegging in at my shorthand for the last three weeks, you know." + +"Well, since you put it that way, and since you seem to be dead set on +giving old Griggs the slip, there is one thing you could do," Trevor +admitted, now that he had been asked to come down to hard facts. + +"What is that?" asked Henry eagerly. + +"Get your gov'nor to shell out to old Spring, and he'll take you on like +a shot." + +"Shell out?" said Henry, evidently not alive to Trevor's slang. "What do +you mean?" + +"Why," returned his professional adviser, with a smile at the rustic +ignorance, "haven't you seen advertisements in the daily papers +something like this: 'The editor of a well-known provincial weekly has +an opening for journalistic pupil. Moderate premium. Small salary after +first six months'? There's your opportunity." + +"Ah, I see the idea," said Henry, upon whom a light had dawned. + +"What do you say to that?" Trevor pursued. + +"Yes, that might do, and no doubt dad would 'shell out,' as you call it. +But is there any such vacancy at present?" + +"If there isn't, the Balmy One--that's another of our pet names for Old +Springthorpe, the editor--will jolly soon make one, provided your pater +is ready with the dibs. Write your gov'nor about it, and if he's open to +spring twenty-five golden quid, leave the rest to me." + +To Henry the suggestion seemed a good one, and he wondered that he had +waited so long before getting Trevor to bring the situation to so +practical an issue. The fact was, Mr. Smith rather liked the fun of +patronising the youth, to say nothing of his share in the weekly hamper, +and Henry's willingness to render slight but useful assistance by +attending an occasional meeting on his behalf. Accordingly, he had not +been anxious to lose his company too soon. + +To Edward John Charles his son's letter, with its bold proposal, came +with somewhat of surprise. It had never occurred to him to couple the +Press with "Literatoor," but he said at once that if Henry felt +journalism was good enough for him, why, he would help him to become an +editor with as much pleasure as he would have set him up in the +egg-and-butter trade, had he been so minded. + +Within a week the postmaster took another journey to Stratford, and +thence by train to Wheelton, together with Henry, to interview Mr. +Martin Springthorpe, editor of the _Wheelton Guardian_, to whom Mr. +Charles carried a letter of introduction from Trevor Smith, wherein that +gentleman averred he had taken great personal interest in the literary +work of Henry Charles, and had even been able to make use of sundry +items from his pen. He commended him to Mr. Springthorpe's best +consideration. + +Trevor had also taken the trouble to write privily to his chief, saying +that he thought Mr. Charles would come down to the tune of +five-and-twenty pounds, and not to frighten him off by asking more. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + WHICH INTRODUCES AN EDITOR + + +WHEELTON, an industrial town of some importance, lies less than an +hour's journey by rail from Stratford. It is not exactly a home of +learning, nor has it given any distinguished men to literature or +science, but it boasts four weekly newspapers and a small daily sheet, +which would appear to be more than the inhabitants require in the shape +of local reading matter, for, with one exception, the newspapers of the +town have a hard struggle for existence. + +At the time when Henry Charles and his father made their first journey +thither the journalistic conditions were not quite so straitened, as the +evening paper and one of the weeklies had not come to increase +competition; but even then the _Guardian_ was the least successful of +the three. + +The office of Mr. Springthorpe's journal was situated up a flight of +narrow stairs, the shop on the street front having been let to a +pork-butcher for the sake of the rent. On the first floor were the +editor's room, the reporters' room, and another small apartment that +served as the general office, and contained a staff of one weedy young +man with downy side-whiskers, and a perky little office boy. + +Up a further crazy stair the composing-room was reached, and here five +men and several boys put into type what was sent from the rooms below. +The printing was done in premises on the ground floor behind the +pork-butcher's, extended by the addition of a rather rickety wooden +outbuilding. By no means an establishment to impress a visitor with the +importance of the journal here produced, or to give a beginner any +exaggerated idea of the dignity of journalism. Still, the massive gilt +letters proclaiming THE GUARDIAN above the pork-butcher's had the power +to make Henry's blood tingle when first he saw them. + +Up the stair he followed his father, with much fluttering of the heart, +but reassured by the confident and cheerful look on the face of Edward +John, who went about the business as outwardly calm as if he were buying +a fresh stock of stationery. + +The office-boy showed the visitors into a room to the left of the +counter, on the door of which the pregnant word EDITOR, printed in bold +letters on a slip of paper, had been pasted but recently, judging by its +cleanness, as contrasted with the soiled appearance of everything else. + +The editor's room was plainly furnished, not to say shabbily, despite +the fact that it figured frequently in the _Guardian_ gossip columns +under the attractive title of "The Sanctum." In the middle of the floor +stood a large writing-table, from which the leather covering had peeled +off, exposing the wood beneath like a plane tree with its bark +half-shed. On the table lay, in picturesque confusion, bundles of +galley-slips, clippings from newspapers, sheets of "copy" paper, all +partially secured in their positions by small slabs of lead as +paper-weights. + +The waste-paper basket to the left of the table had overflowed, and the +floor around was strewn with cut newspapers and crumpled sheets of +manuscript. On the walls hung two large maps, one showing the railways +of England and the other the Midland counties. Above the fireplace a +printer's calendar was nailed. Three soiled and battered haircloth +chairs completed the furniture of the room when we have added a damaged +arm-chair, cushioned with a pile of old papers. This was the editor's +chair. Its intrinsic value was probably half-a-crown, but to the regular +readers of the _Guardian_ it must have seemed as priceless as the gold +stool of Ashanti, for they were accustomed to read two columns every +week headed "From the Editor's Chair." + +The short, thick-set person, with the slightly bald head and distinctly +red nose above a heavy black moustache, which trailed its way down each +side of a clean-shaven chin and drooped over into space, was the editor +himself. With a briar pipe, burnt at one side, stuck in his mouth, and +puffing vigorously, he sat there in his shirt sleeves, and his pen flew +swiftly over the sheets of paper that lay before him. + +When Mr. Charles and his son entered, the editor laid down his pipe and +pen, and rising from his chair, said in the most affable way: + +"Ah, I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Charles; and this is your son Henry, +of whose ability I have already heard." + +Shaking hands with each, he pointed them to seats and resumed his own. + +"So Henry is ambitious of embarking on a journalistic career," he +remarked, as he lifted his pipe again; adding, "I hope you don't mind my +smoking. I find a weed a great incentive to thought." + +Mr. Springthorpe always spoke like a leading article, and it was noticed +by those who knew him best that on the occasions when his nose was +particularly ruddy and his utterance somewhat thick, his flow of +language and the stateliness of his words were even more marked than +when one could not detect the odour of the tap-room in his vicinity. + +"Yes, 'Enry is anxious to get on a noospaper," Mr. Charles replied. "And +Mr. Trevor Smith has written this letter about him for you to read." + +The editor reached out and took the letter with a great show of +interest, reading it carefully, as though it were a document of much +importance, while Henry sat fumbling with his hat, conscious that he had +again arrived at a critical moment in his career. + +"This is very nattering indeed, Mr. Charles," said the editor at length, +"and I attach great weight to the opinion of Mr. Trevor Smith, who is an +able and promising member of my staff." + +"Then you think that 'Enry might suit you?" + +"I have little doubt that he would prove a worthy addition to the ranks +of journalism, and if I had any urgent need of a new member on my +reportorial staff, I should willingly offer him an engagement. But, as I +think I explained to you in my letter, I have not at present any +pressing need for literary assistance." + +Henry's face clouded as he listened, but brightened the next instant, +when Mr. Springthorpe continued: + +"It would, however, be a pity not to hold out the hand of encouragement +to so bright a young man as your son, and I should be delighted to have +the privilege of initiating him into the mysteries of newspaper work if +you are prepared to pay a premium, and to let him serve the first six +months without salary." + +"There need be no difficulty about that," said Mr. Charles, "and I am +prepared to pay you now a reasonable sum for any trouble you will take +with him. How much would you expect?" + +"Well, it all depends. I have had pupils who have paid as much as a +hundred pounds." Edward John sighed, and Henry felt a tightening at the +throat. "Fifty is what I usually expect." The visitors breathed more +freely. "But I feel that in Henry we have a young man of peculiar +aptitude, who would soon make himself a useful colleague of my other +assistants; and that being so, I should be content with half the +amount." + +"That's a bargain, then," said Mr. Charles, entirely relieved, as he +took out his cheque-book and filled up a cheque in favour of Mr. Martin +Springthorpe for twenty-five pounds. "Of course, I s'pose you give 'im a +salary after the first six months," he added, when he handed the cheque +to the editor. + +"I shall be only too happy to adequately remunerate his services when +the period of probation is terminated," Mr. Springthorpe assured him, +placing the precious paper carefully in his pocket-book. + +"And when would you like me to begin, sir?" asked Henry, who had +scarcely opened his mouth since entering the room, the editor's shrewd +eye for character, together with Mr. Trevor Smith's valuable +testimonial, being all that Mr. Springthorpe had whereby to arrive at +his flattering estimate of the young man's brightness and peculiar +aptitude for journalism. + +"Let me see, now--this is the 18th of July. Suppose we say that you +commence your duties here on Monday, the 25th. How would that suit you?" + +"That would fit in nicely, 'Enry, my lad, wouldn't it?" said Mr. +Charles. + +"Yes, sir," said the new reporter to the chief, who had been bought with +a price. "I could start on that day, as there is nothing to keep me at +Stratford." + +"Do you know anything of shorthand?" the editor asked, as an +afterthought. + +"A little, sir; and I am studying it every night just now." + +"That's right, my boy, wire in at your shorthand; a reporter is of +little use without that accomplishment. To one of your ability it will +be easy to acquire. I picked it up myself in a fortnight, and even now, +although I seldom use it, I could still take my turn at a verbatim with +the best of them." + +The great business completed, Mr. Charles and his son set out to look +for lodgings for Henry, being recommended to the mother of one of the +other reporters, who let apartments. + +On the way back to Stratford, after having settled this little matter, +Edward John waxed as enthusiastic as his son in picturing the +possibilities which he had thus opened up for Henry. "Tis money makes +the mare to go, my lad," he said. "Five-and-twenty pounds is a goodish +bit out o' my savings, but I've always said you'd 'ave your chance, no +matter what it cost me." + +"I hope that I'll be able to prove the money hasn't been wasted, dad." + +"I'm sure o' that, 'Enry--if you only wire in at your work and show the +editor the stuff that's in you. Just fancy what old Miffin and the +others will say when they 'ear that 'Enry Chawles is a reporter on the +_Guardian_!" + +"I mean to study very hard, get up my shorthand, and to write as much as +ever I can when I join the staff. But of course I shan't stay in +Wheelton all my life. There's better papers than the _Guardian_, you +know." + +"That's the true spirit, lad; always look ahead. If I hadn't been +looking ahead all these years, where would the twenty-five pounds ha' +come from, and the money that's to keep you for the next six months?" + +"I'm sure I don't know what could have been done without it. I don't +think opportunities are as plentiful as we are told." + +Henry had learned a little since that day he rode to Stratford with the +carrier. + +"Didn't think much of the office, though. Did you, 'Enry?" + +"No," he admitted somewhat unwillingly, "it wasn't so fine as I had +expected; but perhaps it is as good as they need." + +"And nobody needs anythink better than that," which summed up in a +sentence Edward John's philosophy of life and the secret of his +financial soundness. + +The few days remaining to Henry in Stratford went past all too slowly, +despite the jubilation of Mr. Trevor Smith at the success of his +promising _protege_, and Henry's application to the study of shorthand, +with which most of his time at the book-shop had been occupied of late. +Mr. Griggs and Pemble he left without a pang, the former still concerned +about his poultry, and the latter still cultivating his moustache; but +he was sorry to say good-bye to Mrs. Filbert and the irrepressible +Trevor, who would have made the success of his proposal an excuse to +borrow a fourth half-crown, were it not that the memory of the unpaid +three had better not be reawakened when Henry was going away. + +His journey to Wheelton found him with hopes scarcely so high as those +he had cherished on his way to Stratford some three months before, but +he was at least fortified with some measure of that common sense which +only rises in the mind as the illusions of youth begin to sink. + +It was not thought necessary for him to revisit Hampton Bagot before +removing to Wheelton--his face was still turned away from home. Thus far +he had been marking time merely; but now he was on the march in +earnest. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + AMONG NEW FRIENDS + + +SATURDAY, the 23rd of July, will always remain a red-letter day in the +history of Henry Charles. Even at this distance of time he could +doubtless recall every feature of the day as the train that carried him +steamed into the station. The languorous atmosphere of a hot summer +afternoon, the steady drizzle of warm rain, the flood of water around a +gutter-grating in Main Street, caused by a collection of straw and +rotten leaves--even that will always appear when a vision of the day +arises before his memory. The station platform had been freshly strewn +with sawdust on account of the weather, and the pungent smell of that is +not forgotten. Thus it is that the commonest features of our +surroundings, noted under exceptional circumstances, are automatically +registered for ever by our senses. + +Edgar Winton, the reporter at whose home Henry was to lodge, had +undertaken to meet his new colleague at the station, and pilot him to +the house. But by some mischance he was not there, and the young +adventurer stood for a moment lonely and disappointed, while the train +in which he had travelled continued on its journey. + +His belongings, however, were not embarrassing, and for all his fragile +looks Henry was still robust as any country lad. Nor did his sense of +dignity come between him and the shouldering of his load up the steep +and shabby main street of the town, and along sundry shabbier by-streets +to the semi-genteel district of Woodland Road, where at No. 29 was the +home of the Wintons. + +Mrs. Winton seemed to be as amiable a landlady as good Mrs. Filbert, and +more refined. Henry felt at once that so far as home-life was concerned +his lines had fallen again in pleasant places. He had now risen to the +dignity of a separate room, small indeed, and almost crowded with the +single iron bedstead, the tiny dressing-table and chair, which, together +with a few faded chromographs on the walls, made up its entire +furnishing. It was on the second storey of the house, which had only two +flats, and looked across a kitchen-garden to the back of a row of still +smaller houses. By way of wardrobe accommodation, the back of the door +was generously studded with hooks for hanging clothes. For the privilege +of sleeping here Edward John had agreed to pay on behalf of his son the +weekly sum of four shillings, and Mrs. Winton was to cook such food as +Henry required, charging only the market prices. + +As it was late afternoon when Henry had reached his lodging, and Edgar +was expected home for tea at five o'clock, Mrs. Winton's new guest, +after a somewhat perfunctory toilet, descended to the parlour to await +the coming of his fellow-worker. A copy of the _Guardian_ for that week +lay on the easy chair in which the landlady asked Henry to rest himself, +and he was presently reading with close attention the weighty +observations of his future chief, who spoke "From the Editor's Chair" +like any pope _ex cathedra_. + +Mrs. Winton having removed the vase of dusty "everlasting flowers," +which stood _solus_ in the middle of the faded green serge cloth that +covered the oval table, and spread on the latter a cloth of snowy linen, +busied herself in arranging the tea things. + +Henry noted that cups and saucers were set for five, and as he only knew +of four in the household, including Edgar's father and himself, he fell +to wondering who the fifth might be. Undoubtedly his powers of +observation had been sharpened from contact with the Stratford +representative of the _Guardian_. + +The preparations for the evening meal had just been completed when the +outer door was opened, and Edgar, a fresh-complexioned young fellow of +nineteen, arrived, full of apologies for having been unable to meet his +guest, as he had been unexpectedly called upon to attend an inquest at +the "Crown" Inn. + +"And an interesting case it is, by Jove!" he exclaimed brightly. "A man +has shuffled off this mortal coil by--what d'you think?" + +"Poison or a razor," suggested Henry, out of the fulness of his +knowledge of poor humanity. + +"Nothing so common for Johnnie Briggs the bookie. Everybody knows +Johnnie, and he meant to make a noise when he snuffed out. Up to the +eyes in debt, I fancy. He has choked himself with a leather boot-lace, +and Wiggins in the High Street is as proud as Punch because it was one +of his laces. Isn't it funny?" + +"It's very horrible," said Henry, who could not help showing in his +looks the feeling of disgust aroused within him by Edgar's levity in +speaking of so bad an occurrence. + +"Horrible! Why, I think it's stunning, and old Spring will be as mad as +a march hare because Johnnie didn't perform his dramatic exit in time +for this week's edition of the _Guardian_. The _Advertiser_ will be out +next Wednesday with full details, and we don't appear till Friday. It's +always the way; that Wednesday rag gets all the spicy bits. But there, +don't let us start talking shop all at once. I'm famished. How are you?" + +But before Henry could describe his condition, a bright young woman of +some eighteen years had entered the parlour, to be introduced +unceremoniously as "My sister Flo--Mr. Henry Charles." + +Here, then, was number five, and a very acceptable tea-table companion, +thought Henry, though the blushing and mumbling with which he said how +pleased he was to meet her showed him to be as awkward in the presence +of the fair sex as he was new to the jargon of journalism. He dared +hardly lift his eyes to look the new-comer in the face, but on her part +there was no evidence of shyness. + +Over the tea-cups--for Mr. and Mrs. Winton had now come in, and all were +seated at the table--Henry began to feel more at home among the family, +and Mr. Winton proved to be a quiet, homely person, though Henry noticed +that Edgar lost to some extent his high spirits when his father came on +the scene. Evidently the Wintons were people "in reduced circumstances," +for both the father and mother showed signs of superior breeding. + +"I hope you will get on all right at the _Guardian_," Mr. Winton +remarked. "You won't be short of work, if Edgar is a sample. He's always +slogging away at something. If it's not the police courts, it's a +political meeting, or a--" + +"Tea-fight, dad." + +"Slang again, Eddie," put in Flo. + +"Yes. Edgar delights in these flippancies; his trade seems to induce +that," said Mrs. Winton. "Will you pass your cup, Mr. Charles?" + +As Henry handed his cup to Flo, almost dropping it in the excitement of +being dubbed "Mister," Edgar took up his mother's words, and exclaimed, +with simulated indignation: + +"Trade! Who calls it a trade? Remember, mater, that journalism is a +profession--the Fourth Estate!" + +"There's not much profession about attending inquests on suicides, and +writing about the drunks and disorderlies," Flo remarked, fearless of +her brother's displeasure. + +"Come, come now," interposed Mr. Winton, who had not spoken since Edgar +broke in upon his remarks. "You mustn't give our young friend too low an +opinion of his new business," and turning to Henry, he remarked: "It is +your first appointment, is it not?" + +"Yes, I have only done some odds and ends for the _Guardian_ when at +Stratford. Of course, I'm hoping to do some good work here, but we must +do the small things before we are able to do the great ones, I think." + +A long speech for Henry to make before company, and not performed +without an effort. + +"True, indeed, for only those who can do the little things well can do +the great things well," was Mr. Winton's comment. + +"And I was only joking," added Flo, looking archly at Henry, whose eyes +immediately contemplated the lessening liquid in his cup. "Journalism is +all very well, I'm sure, but newspaper fellows are so conceited that I +think we need to take some of the side off them." + +"Who's talking slang now?" from Edgar. + +"Well, it may be slangy, but it's true; and I hope Mr. Charles won't +fall into the habit of talking as if, because a man writes paragraphs in +a printed paper, he knows more than Solomon." + +"I'm afraid I know very little, Miss Winton. I'm here to learn." Oh, +Henry was becoming quite a tea-table success. + +"And I'm sure we hope you will find your new work up to your +expectations. I have never met Mr. Springthorpe myself," said Mr. +Winton, as he rose and retired to the living-room, which was +half-kitchen, to smoke his evening pipe, while Flo helped her mother to +clear away the tea-things and restore the dusty immortelles to their +place of honour. + +"The dad says he has never met Mr. Springthorpe, and a good thing for +his idea of journalism. Not that old Spring doesn't strike you well +enough at first meeting; but you'll soon find him out," Edgar said to +Henry when they were alone in the parlour. + +"He seemed very considerate, I thought, when my father and I called on +him. A little pompous, perhaps." + +"Oh, you've noticed that! You'll see more of it by-and-by. But he can be +wonderfully considerate when there is a nice little premium attached to +a new pupil. Your pater must have come down handsome on the spot, for +the Balmy One has been swaggering around in a new frock-suit and shiny +topper since you were engaged. Let me be frank with you, and tell you at +once that you needn't expect anything of value out of our gorgeous +chief. What you learn you'll have to pick up from Bertram and myself, +and from Yardley the sub." + +"I understood that I was really Mr. Springthorpe's pupil." + +"You're not the first that understood that; but really it doesn't +matter, for you'll get there all the same, as they say in the song. +You'll have lots to do and you'll soon learn, but don't fancy old Spring +is going to sit down and teach you. His duty ends when he converts your +premium into clothing for the outer, and refreshment for the inner man. +A good sort, but fond o' the bottle, like so many clever journalists." + +"And were you a pupil also before you became a full reporter?" + +"Not on the _Guardian_. I served six months as a junior on the +_Advertiser_, and received the order of the sack at the end of that +time, as they had no further use for services which had begun to require +a weekly fifteen bob. Luckily, the _Guardian_ was in a hole at the time, +both the chief reporter and his assistant having given notice, and the +pupil then flourishing was a hopeless youngster, who has since returned +to the business of his father, who is in the aerated water trade. So I +was engaged at once, and on the noble salary of fifteen bob a week I +remain to this day, although I was promised an increase at the end of +twelve months, and I have been on the staff for sixteen. I occasionally +pick up a bit of lineage, and that helps to pan out, you know; but I'm +only hanging on until something better turns up elsewhere, and then +good-bye to the _Guardian_. My ambition is Birmingham." + +"Birmingham! Wouldn't you rather like to get to London?" + +"Who wouldn't? But I have the sense to know I'm not cut out for Fleet +Street. In any case, no London editor would look at a man from +Wheelton. You must have experience on a good provincial daily before +thinking of London Town." + +"I'm surprised, for Mr. Trevor Smith told me of many London editors who +used to be on local papers like--our own." + +"Trevor Smith is an ass. He knows as much about journalism as a monkey +knows of algebra. He can't write for nuts. Most of his copy has to be +rewritten by Yardley before it's fit to print." + +Henry heard this unflattering description of his friend with some +dismay, but remembered that Trevor had given him a very similar account +of Edgar. He was beginning to know something of that brotherly feeling +which always exists between fellow-craftsmen. + +Winton showed himself very companionable, and in the evening took Henry +for a walk round the town, in the course of which they visited the +police station, where he was introduced as "the new _Guardian_ man." +This connection between the Press and the Police was one to which Henry +would yet learn to attach much importance. + +On the Sunday he attended church with Mr. Winton and Edgar in the +morning, and would have gone again in the evening if Edgar and his +father had been so disposed, but it seemed to be the rule of the house +for the female side to attend the evening service, as in the morning +they were engaged in household duties. Edgar confessed to Henry that he +didn't reckon much of church-going, and only went to please the dad. He +further avowed that he thought religion a lot of rot, and that most +journalists were atheists. He had heard that George Augustus Sala +believed in eternal punishment, but that was about all the religion he +knew of among knights of the pen. + +Henry, who had been reared in the quiet atmosphere of a church-loving +home, and had never listened to doubts about religion, heard Edgar's +opinions with some dismay, but did not venture to dispute them. He had +an uneasy feeling that the more he saw of men the less they justified +his ideals, and he began to wonder whether, if he had to let slip his +illusions of daily life, he would not also have to modify his religious +convictions. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + THE YOUNG JOURNALIST + + +WITH the morning, however, Henry was fresh for the fray again. The +prospects of his first day in active journalism swept away all doubts +and misgivings. + +Edgar having to attend the Monday police court, which was always fat +with drunks and wife-beaters, Henry was left to make his way to the +_Guardian_ office himself. + +On his arrival there he found the office-boy descending the stairs by +using the railing as a slide, at the end of which he fell somewhat +heavily on the door-mat, but picked himself up and smiled at Henry in +proof that no bones were broken. Upstairs, the weedy young man with +downy whiskers, who bore on his narrow shoulders the full weight of the +_Guardian's_ commercial affairs, was at work on the morning's letters. +He looked up as Henry entered, and inquired his business. + +"Is Mr. Springthorpe in?" the new reporter asked. + +The clerk was surprised for a moment to hear the editor's name +mentioned thus early in the day. Then he answered: + +"No, he is rather irregular in his hours. He may not arrive till eleven +or twelve to-day!" + +"It's only ten o'clock now," said Henry, as though he were thinking +aloud. He would never try to play Monte Cristo again, and Winton had +told him that Mr. Springthorpe was never assiduous in his office +attendance. + +"But I expect Mr. Yardley soon," the clerk continued. "Are you Mr. +Charles?" + +"Yes. Shall I go to the reporters' room?" + +The clerk opened the door for him, and he entered on the scene of his +future labours. A long table of plain wood, cut and hacked by knives on +the edges, stood in the centre of the floor, and around it were four +cane-chairs, all of different shapes. The floor was covered by worn-out +oilcloth, the walls were dingy, the ceilings blistered like a +water-biscuit. A single gasalier, carrying two burners, hung from the +roof and served to light the table, on which lay a few bundles of +copy-paper, two ink-pots, and some pens. The only other furniture in the +room was a small bookcase half-filled with volumes, most of which were +tattered, and some without binding, having reached that condition, not +so much from frequent reference as from occasional use in a game wherein +the reportorial staff tried to keep two books flying round the room +from hand to hand without falling--a game that was never successful. A +bundle of unopened newspapers, in postal wrappers, lay at the window-end +of the table, and also a few letters. + +Presently the door was opened and Mr. Wilfrid Yardley, sub-editor, +stepped in. He was a man of sallow complexion, with very black hair and +dark, restless eyes that suggested worry. He wore a light yellowish +summer suit and a straw hat. For a moment he paused on seeing Henry, +who, as he entered, was examining the literary treasures in the +bookcase. + +"Good morning!" he said. "You are Mr. Charles, I suppose?" and he held +out his hand to Henry. "You are early. The reporters have no hours. I'm +the only one on the literary staff who is chained to the desk." + +He took off his hat and jacket, exchanging the latter for a ragged thing +that hung on one of the pegs along the wall. Then he seated himself at +the end of the table, and commenced opening the newspapers that lay +there. All the while his eyes flitted about in his head as if he feared +that someone would pounce on him unawares. Evidently a quiet fellow and +a conscientious worker, but a trifle too nervous to have much character. + +"Mr. Springthorpe has not fixed any work for you?" he said to Henry, +with questioning eyebrows, while slitting an envelope. + +"No, nothing has been arranged. I suppose I'm to do anything that turns +up." + +"Bertram--that is our chief reporter--will want you to help him, I +suppose. But I'm sure I could do with assistance. You can't learn too +much, however, so just try your hand here," and he marked several items +in a daily paper referring to happenings in the Midland counties. "Try +to rewrite those pars, keeping in all the facts, but only using about +one-third of the space in each case. Sit down in that chair there, and +perhaps you'll find a pen that suits you among those, though I never +can." + +Henry acquitted himself very well according to Mr. Yardley, and found +the latter so considerate in his advice that he immediately conceived a +liking for him. + +After all, Trevor Smith and Edgar Winton were raw youths, but here was a +man of thirty-five at least, and there was no "side" about him. He +seemed capable and intelligent. Why, then, did he stick in Wheelton? +Would Henry only reach a similar post when he was his age? These +thoughts came to him as he watched the earnest face of Yardley poring +over reporters' copy, "licking it into shape," sucking the while at his +briar pipe. Such thoughts are not pleasant, but they must come to every +youth who aspires to make a success of life, and they will for a moment +damp his enthusiasm, unless he has the perception which tells him that +no two men's careers are alike, and that every man carries within +himself the qualities that make for success or failure. But Yardley may +not have thought himself a failure, and there's the rub. + +When the editor arrived he showed no overweening interest in Henry, but +warmly commended him for the work he had done under the subeditor's eye, +and urged him to make the most of his opportunities, without telling him +how. Undoubtedly Winton had described the situation accurately to +Henry--Mr. Springthorpe's interest ended when he pocketed the premium. + +Bertram, the chief reporter, proved to be a person with distinct family +resemblance to Trevor Smith, and was probably about twenty-eight years +of age. He shared the editor's weakness for looking upon the wine when +it is red, but always managed to get through the work required of him. +Without possessing qualities of the slightest distinction, he had +achieved a reputation in various newspaper offices as "a clever fellow +if he'd only keep straight." + +This is, perhaps, not peculiar to journalism, and if we inquire into +the characters of many who are reputed to be exceptionally endowed, but +imperil their success by unsteady habits, we shall find that in most +cases their abilities are below the average of the steady plodder, who +is seldom described as clever, simply because the shadow of unsteadiness +never falls on his life as a background for the better display of such +qualities as he possesses. The fact is, that your "clever fellow if he'd +only keep sober" is a very ordinary fellow, whose ever-changing +employers are apt to over-estimate his abilities during a decent spell +of sobriety. + + * * * * * + +It is doubtful if it would be to the advantage of our story to dwell at +any length on the next few months of Henry's life. The newspaper office +in which he found himself was typical of hundreds in the English +provinces, no better nor worse. The existence of the _Guardian_ was one +constant struggle to increase a small circulation and add to the +advertising revenue of the paper. To the latter end the services of the +reporters were frequently required, and puffs of tradesmen had to be +written whenever there was a chance of securing thereby a new +advertisement. All the petty details of local life had to be reported at +great length, even to the wedding presents received by the daughter of +an undertaker in a small way of business. These were actually displayed +with the names of their donors in separate lines, following the report +of the marriage ceremony, which included a full description of the +bride's dress, with the name of the local dressmaker who had made it. + +The pettiness of it all was rudely borne in upon the young reporter when +it came to his knowledge that the item--"Purse from Servant of Bride's +Mother"--represented an expenditure of eleven-pence three-farthings on +the part of a faithful domestic thirteen years of age. + +As an off-set against these experiences, Henry had made one great upward +move. In a moment of audacity, which he must recall with wonder, he +ventured to write a leading article and to swagger the editorial "we." +It so happened that when he presented this to the editor, that worthy, +having had a bibulous week and being short of copy, pronounced it good, +and printed it with a few alterations. As it was Mr. Springthorpe's aim +to do a minimum of work each week, he generously encouraged the youth to +further editorial effort, with the result that Henry "we'd" pretty +frequently in the leading columns of the _Guardian_. He was the first +"pupil" who had ever shown any marked ability, and Springthorpe was +secretly proud of him. + +As the six months wore away, Henry began to hope that he might be added +to the permanent staff, but neither Bertram nor Edgar showed signs of +departing, and the prospects of his receiving a salaried position +remained low. To the surprise of his colleagues, however, and against +all precedent, he was not ejected at the end of his six months, but +actually received a salary of half-a-guinea a week, accompanied, +however, by the information that he would do well to look elsewhere for +a situation at his leisure. + +Now commenced a strenuous time of replying to advertisements in the +_Daily News_. For a while never a sign came back from those doves of his +which went forth trembling, but in the spring of the year after his +going to Wheelton, there came a reply from the manager of one of the two +daily papers at the large and important Midland town of Laysford, asking +Henry to come and see him with reference to his application for the post +of editorial assistant. + +The plan of submitting specimens of his work, backed by an eloquent +testimonial from Mr. Springthorpe, had at length succeeded, and to the +amazement of the staff, Henry returned from the interview entitled to +regard himself as assistant editor of the _Laysford Leader_. To this day +the event is talked of at the office of the _Guardian_, but it is never +recorded that important factors in bringing it about were the pressing +need of the _Leader_ to have a new assistant at a week's notice, and +the growing desire of Mr. Springthorpe to save half-a-guinea on the +weekly expenses of the _Guardian_. Moreover, Henry had named a salary +five shillings less than the only other likely candidate. + +From such sordid circumstances do events of life-importance spring. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + WHAT THE NECKTIE TOLD + + +THE grey-blue reek of Hampton Bagot is curling up into the azure sky. +From the hill on which the church stands the little village lies snug +like a bead on a chain--the London Road--in a jewel-case of billowy +satin: green Ardenshire. A haunt of ancient peace this August day. The +only noises are the pleasant rattle of a reaping-machine and the musical +tinkle of an anvil, while now and again the petulant ring of a cyclist's +bell reaches the ear of the lounger on the hill, and thrills some honest +cottager with the hope that the ringer may rest at her house for tea. + +The faint sound of a far whistle reminds us that time has passed since +we last stood in Hampton's one street: a mile and a half away, the +station, which is to advertise the name of the village to travelling +humanity for ever, has been finished, and several times each day trains +to and from Birmingham condescend to pause in their puffing progress at +the tiny platform. But most of them go squealing through, indignant at +finding such a contemptible little station on _their_ line. The +stationmaster-porter-ticket-collector and his junior are not +overworked--or else they could not play so long with the latter's +terrier, who is the liveliest member of the staff. But there are a few +tickets to be taken every day, a few carriage-doors to be shut, a few +whistles to blow, a few throbs of importance for the young official. + +We know of one passenger who is to arrive this Saturday afternoon; at +least, they are expecting him at Hampton Bagot. + +The station has made no difference to the village. Certainly none to the +figure at the Post Office door. The smile might have been registered, +the tilt of the coat-tails patented. Edward John Charles has not altered +a hair, although it is almost six years since we last saw him wagging +his tails here. + +"You're expectin' 'im 'ome to-day, Ed'ard John, I 'ear," the inefficient +Miffin observes as he crosses to the Charles establishment for an ounce +of shag. + +"Yes, and about time, I think. Why, he ain't been through this door for +two year, and last time 'e could on'y stay four days." + +"In moi opinion, them youths what goes to the cities learns to despise +their 'umble 'omes," Miffin commented, with a sad fall of the eyes. +"Now, if I 'ad a son 'e'd 'ave to stay at 'ome, and take up 'is fether's +trade." + +"But you ain't got a son, Miffin, and that's all the difference. If +there was a young Miffin, why, you're just the man to ha' been proud o' +'im makin' 'is way in the world. Mind you, Hampton ain't the on'y place +under the sun." + +"It'll be strange for 'Enry to come to the station," said Miffin, +adroitly diverting the drift of the talk; for he was touchy on the +subject of children, being as discontented because he had none as most +of the village folk were because they had so many. + +"He says it's going to bring 'im often back to us, and I believe he +means it." + +"Well, it's to be 'oped 'e'll never regret leavin' 'ome," was the last +croak of the gloomy tailor, as he rammed home a charge of shag into his +burnt cherry-wood pipe with his claw-like forefinger, and stepped back +to his flat irons. + +Edward John chuckled contentedly. Miffin was a constant entertainment to +him. He had a suspicion that the tailor had been appointed by Providence +to prevent his becoming unduly puffed up about his talented son. + +Just in time for tea, the subject of their conversation jumped down from +the butcher's gig in which he had travelled from the station. His father +welcomed him with a sedate shake of the hand; his sisters three ran to +him and were shyly kissed. How our sisters shoot straight into +womanhood with the gathering up of their back hair and the lengthening +of their frocks! A brotherly kiss after two years to a sister who may +have another young man to kiss her, produces shyness in the least +self-conscious of young men. + +In the parlour Henry found his mother, still the timid, withered little +woman he had always known her, busy setting the tea, her curl-papers +still eloquent of her household toils. He was conscious of the +curl-papers for the first time as he kissed her dry lips. The near view +of the papers offended some new feeling within him. He was strangely +tempted to pluck them out. + +There was a great change to be noted in the appearance of the only +Henry. It was four years since he had left Wheelton, almost six since he +went away to Stratford, and Laysford especially stamps its character on +its residents. + +"Bless me, 'Enry, but you're growing all to legs, like a young colt," +his father remarked, as he seated himself and took a smiling survey of +his son, who was given the honour of the arm-chair; a fact that marked +another stage in his upward career. "All to legs, my boy!" + +"But there's lots of time to fill out yet, dad. I weigh ten stone +eleven." + +"Mostly bones, eh?" + +"But I feel all right." + +"You look it, my lad; and between you an' I, I'd rather have your bones +than my beef!" + +"I hope you have always remembered to wear flannel next your skin, +Henry?" his mother ventured to ask, in the hilarious moment which her +husband was enjoying as the meed of his merry thought. + +"Oh, I'm all right, mother! Don't worry about me. Wear flannel next the +skin, drink cod-liver oil like water, and am never without a +chest-protector on the hottest day." + +His sisters laughed, but doubted their ears. Henry had never been +jocular. Evidently the neat cut of his summer suit, the elegant tie, +were not the only things Laysford had endowed him with. + +"Your mother always was coddling you up as a boy. She forgets that +you're a man now. Why, your moustache is big enough for a Frenchie. +Don't it get into the tea? I never could abide a moustache. It's one of +they furrin ideas." + +"My moustache is rather admired, dad," said Henry brightly, glancing +slily at his sisters. + +"Hark at the lad.... By whom?" + +"Ladies ... perhaps!" + +Oh, Henry, you might have broken it more gently! Edward John smiled and +called him "a young dog"; his mother's face clouded for a moment, and +brightened; the girls understood--at least Dora, who was nineteen, and +Kit, who was two years younger, understood--and laughed. Milly was only +a maiden of bashful fifteen. + +"It's simply wonnerful, 'Enry, how you've smartened up since you were +'ome two years ago. Your second two years have done more for you than +the first," said Edward John, buttering his bread at the tea-table. + +"Glad you think so, dad. But I say, mother, it's funny to be buttering +my own bread again; I haven't buttered any since I was at home last." + +"When I was in London I never buttered a bit. All done for you. +Wonnerful how they encourage laziness in the city." Edward John had need +to remind them that he had been to London; for Henry had actually spent +two summer holidays there instead of coming to Hampton, and the glory of +his father's visit was in danger of being tarnished. + +"Still thinking o' going to London some day for good, I suppose?" he +went on. + +"Oh, of course; but the fact is that the more I learn of journalism the +more difficult London seems. It is all plain sailing at eighteen; but at +twenty-two ... well, I'm just beginning to think I'm not a heaven-born +genius, dad." + +"But it ain't what you think about yourself that matters." + +"That's just what does matter--in journalism. I've learned one great +thing since leaving home. The world takes a man pretty much at his own +valuation. A fool who takes himself seriously is like to be taken +seriously by other fools, and you know how many fools there are in +England according to Carlyle." + +"Well, then, if you are a fool, try it," retorted the postmaster +merrily. + +"But a wise man, who thinks himself a fool, is likely to be thought a +fool by--" + +"Wise men?" + +"Perhaps by them also; but certainly by the fools, who are in the +majority." + +"Nonsense, my lad! Was it for this I paid that Springthorpe fellow +five-and-twenty pounds?" + +"Henry's only joking, dad," Dora suggested. Her sense of humour was not +magnetic. + +"A jest in earnest, Dora; for the more one learns the less one knows." + +An amazing fellow: a veritable changeling this Henry! His mother watched +him almost like a stranger. + +"Rank heresy, now, you're talking. I wunner what old Mr. Needham would +say to that?" exclaimed his father, who had a fear that his son had +grown a trifle conceited. + +"That I had learned a lot since you wanted him to tackle me on Virgil. +But I like my work for all that; in fact, because of it. It is about the +only kind of work in which one is learning every day; and I'm beginning +to think that the real fun of life is not the knowledge of things so +much as the getting to know them." + +"Well, look 'ere, 'Enry. You're dragging your poor old father out into +deep waters, an' you know he can't swim. You're talking like one of your +articles. For I read 'em all that you mark with blue pencil, and your +mother keeps 'em, even when she's hard up for paper to light the fire." + +Henry wondered in his heart if, at a pinch, she would have used one for +her curl-papers. He noticed just then, for the first time in his life, +that the parlour of his old home was very small; the ceiling was so low +that he found himself almost choking for breath when he looked up. + +Dora and her mother were clearing away the tea-dishes, and Henry went +upstairs to the bedroom where he would sleep with his father. The old +nest had altered in a hundred ways, although none but Henry knew that. +He had once been a bird of the brood here, but he had taken wings away, +and to return for a fortnight once in two years was only to realise how +far his wings had carried him. Henry had been born here, the people +that he loved the best of all were still living here in the old +home--his old home. Yet it could never be anything but his _old_ home +now. We talk about returning home; but really we never do so. Once we +leave the home of our boyhood and youth, we never return again. It is +seldom we wish to go back to the old life; and when the wish is there, +Fate is usually against its fulfilment. + +Henry Charles had certainly altered in a bewildering variety of ways +since we first made his acquaintance. Then a tall, sallow youth of +sixteen, ungainly in limb and not well-featured, his nose unshapely, his +mouth too large, but a pair of dark eyes gleaming with spirit to light +up the homeliness of the face. Now, a man--oh, the few short years, the +tiny bridge across the chasm, the bridge we never pass again!--a man: +tall as a dragoon, leggy, it is true, as the shrewd eye of his father +had judged; but no longer thin to veritable lantern jaws, rather a +promise of ample fleshing, and a nose that had sharpened itself into an +organ not uncomely of outline. This changing of the nose is one of the +most curious of our few tadpole resemblances. His mouth might still be +large, but a glossy moustache hides many an anti-Cupid pair of lips, +which a few passes of the razor would unmask to set the dear boy flying. +Henry's hair was raven black and ample--perilously near to disaster for +a hero. But we must have the truth in this narrative, cost what it may. + +As he stood in the bedroom, brushing his hair and bending carefully to +avoid knocking his head against the ceiling, which sloped steeply to the +dormer window, where stood the looking-glass on its old mahogany table +with the white linen cover, Henry presented the picture of a wholesome +young Englishman, proud of brain rather than muscle, and differing +therein from the ruck of his fellows, but joining hands with them again +in the careful touch to his hair, the neat collar, the pretty necktie. + +Now, the moment a young man begins to look to his neckties, unless he is +a mere dude, there is a reason for it. Henry Charles was impossible +miles from dudeism; _ergo_, there was a reason for his lingering at the +looking-glass. + +He had been slower than the average young man to awaken to the fact that +for most male beings still unmated, there is some young lady deeply +interested in his neckties and the cut of his coat. But he had awakened, +and now the difficulty was to know which young lady: there seemed to be +so many in Laysford who took an interest in the clever young assistant +editor of the _Leader_. To be on the safe side, it was well to be +observant of the sartorial conventions, even while in the inner recesses +of the literary mind disdaining them. + +That is Henry's state of mind when we see him after tea at the mirror in +the camceiled bedroom. If it surprises you, remember that it is four +years since you met him last, and many things can happen in that time. +How do we know what has happened to him? His necktie tells us something, +doesn't it? + + + + + CHAPTER X + + VIOLET EYES + + +WHEN Henry was seated alongside the carrier that fateful morning long +ago--Henry, you must be more than twenty-two!--he had to pass the +cottage of old Carne the sexton, and a sweet face, jewelled with a pair +of violet eyes, looked out between the curtains, a girl's hand rattled +on the window-pane. The owner of these eyes had been playing with a +caterpillar when Henry went round the village telling everybody he met +that he was going away to Stratford--her among the rest. But surely that +was ages ago! "I could never have been such a young ass," Henry would +say to a certainty if you were to ask him at the mirror. + +Well, here is Eunice Lyndon in proof of the fact that it was almost six +years since. At all events, she says she is just nineteen, and she was +thirteen then. She doesn't play with caterpillars now; but her eyes are +certainly violet, though Henry probably thought they were blue, if he +thought of them at all. + +The six years have wrought wonders in the girl who rattled on the +window when Henry went forth to the fray. + +For one thing, Eunice, who was the chum of Dora, and thus a frequent +visitor in the Charles household, had discredited the croakers by +continuing to live and even to strengthen, despite the fact of her +mother's consumptive end. Poor Mrs. Charles, who had seldom a chance of +opening her mouth on any topic, never avoided stating, as an article of +her faith, that all children of consumptive parents were doomed as +clearly as though their sentence had been passed by a hanging judge. It +was positively an insult to her and to many another anxious mother for +the progeny of consumptive parents to go on living. For such to wax +strong was against Nature, and in the teeth of medical experience. + +Eunice had offended Nature, diddled the doctors, and looked all the +better for the offence. The pasty whiteness of her girlhood had given +place to a creamy freshness, which blended perfectly with her high +colour--so you see her red cheeks were not the flame of consumption, but +the bloom of health. Her colour was of that intensity which seems to +come from the atmosphere around the face, and to shine upon the skin as +a shaft of ruby light, carried by the sunbeams through a cathedral +window, glows on a marble statue. + +Her features were pretty, but with no mere prettiness. They were marked +by character. The nose would have been a despised model for a Grecian; +the mouth not dollishly small, yet small, firm-set, the firmness being +saved from shrewish suggestion by an upward ending of the lips. Eunice +had a chin; a most essential quality in man and woman, sometimes +unhappily omitted. A chin that said: "Yes, I mean what I say; and I mean +to say what I mean." Eyes that--well, they were violet eyes, and what +more can one say? A forehead not high, but wide, to carry a wealth of +lustrous dark hair. + +Eunice was no Diana in stature, for she had scarcely grown an inch in +all those years since we saw her with the caterpillar. She had sprung up +suddenly as a girl, and remained at the same height for womanhood to +clothe her. Perhaps five feet four. But do not let us condescend upon +such details. She was small, she was dainty; enough is said. Violet +eyes--more than enough! + +It is not to be supposed that Eunice and Henry had ever been +sweethearts. That is altogether too rude a suggestion. What does a girl +of thirteen think of sweethearts? A lad of sixteen? They pick up the +conventional phrase, with its suggestion of friendship more intimate +than everyday acquaintance, from their elders; that is all. There may +possibly be a liking for each other, a liking more than for any other +playmates. That is rare. The most that could be guessed about Eunice and +Henry before his leaving home was that he had been more inclined to talk +with her than with any other girls who came to the house, and as he, in +his cubhood, had a sniff of contempt for most girls, that counted for +very little. Perhaps, on second thoughts, it might be held to count for +a good deal. + +When Henry had been home two summers ago, Eunice was away on one of her +rare visits to an aunt in Tewksbury--in a sense, at the world's end. So +Henry had rarely seen her since that peep she took at him long ago in +Memoryland. He had heard of her frequently, we will suppose, in the +letters from his sister Dora, and she of him from her chum. + +Meanwhile, an important event had happened in her life. Old Edgar Carne, +Eunice's grandfather, had died a year ago, and left his orphan +grand-daughter at eighteen with the tiniest little fortune, equal to +probably twenty pounds a year. For a time it seemed likely that she +would leave the village and go to reside with her aunt at Tewksbury, as +she had now no blood relations in Hampton Bagot, though many +warm-hearted friends. Simple in her tastes, educated only to the extent +of a village curriculum, which did not breed ambition, fond of domestic +duties and the light work of a garden, Eunice had no clear-cut path +ahead, and would have preferred to stay on among the people who had been +planted around her by the hand of friendship. + +It so fell out that Fate pinned her to Hampton yet awhile. The +housekeeper of the Rev. Godfrey Needham had left, and it was suggested +to him by Mr. Charles that Eunice and a young serving-maid would do +wonders in brightening up the vicarage, where an elderly housekeeper had +only fostered frowsiness. Besides, the vicar had recently to the +amazement of his parishioners, taken a little lass of nine to live with +him, the orphan child of a relation of his long-dead wife. Eunice could +thus be of double service to him in mothering the little one, and her +sympathy could be relied upon, since she herself had been robbed of a +mother's love so early. It was even whispered that the coming of little +Marjorie had something to do with the old housekeeper giving notice to +leave; she was "no hand wi' childer," as she herself confessed. + +Mr. Needham fell in with Edward John's proposal; Eunice was delighted; +and a year had testified to its wisdom. The vicarage had never been so +bright in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the vicar himself had +come under the transforming hand of Eunice, and now, within hail of +seventy, he was a sprucer figure than he had been since the days of his +brief married happiness--forty years before. His collars were always +spotless, his white ties--white. His trousers reached to his shoes at +last. Perhaps his step had lost its springiness, his coat its breezy +freedom; but he had gained in dignity what was lost in quaintness. + +As for Eunice herself, this one short year had carried her well into +womanhood, and though only nineteen she was the counsellor of many who +were older. There is a wonderful reserve of domestic gold in every young +woman whose bank is run upon. At an age when a young man is watching his +moustache's progress, many a young woman is grappling heroically, +obscurely, with the essential things of life. Yet Eunice was doing no +more than thousands of womenkind had done. + +But her position as housekeeper at the vicarage, as teacher in the +Sunday School, conferred certain advantages, and brought her more +prominently into the life of the little village. From being "Old Carne's +little girl," she had been translated into "Miss Lyndon at the +vicarage." Her daily pursuits, the refining influence of her duties, +quickly developed and ripened her own excellent qualities of heart and +mind, and in twelve fleeting months she stood forth a woman; discreet +of tongue, yet bright with happiness, resourceful, heart-free. + +Henry noted, with a thrilling interest he could scarce account for, +these changes in his little friend of long ago, when she came under his +eyes again at church on the Sunday following his arrival. + +"How do you do, Miss Lyndon?" and "How are you, Mr. Charles? It seems a +lifetime since you went away," did not suggest the sputtering fires of +kindling passion. + +"Yes, it takes an effort of mind sometimes to recall my Hampton days." +One was almost suspicious of affectation. + +"Really! That's scarcely kind to Hampton and--us." + +"Ah, I am not likely to forget old friends; but I mean that the years of +almost changeless life here are only the impression of a morning sky, +compared with the crowded day that has followed." + +Was the suspicion well founded? + +"Then you've been bitten by the dog Town, and go hunting for a hair of +him!" + +Eunice smiled at her conceit, and Henry laughed with rising eyebrows, +that said: "This young lady has improved wonderfully." + +"Good, Eunice; very good! You have a turn for metaphor, I see." The +"Eunice" slipped out, and immediately brought a deeper tinge of colour +to the girl's cheek. The man was sallow, but his eyes looked away from +her after it was out. "Do you read much, or are your duties at the +vicarage engrossing?" was said with an air of friendly interest only. + +"Engrossing, yes. You see, I've to play little mother. One of my charges +is ten and the other nearly seventy. So I feel a centenarian. But I +don't get much time for reading, what with visiting in the parish and +keeping the vicarage in order. No; I'm not a bit clever, and I have only +a dark idea of what a metaphor is." + +"Ah, you should tell that to the marines," was all that Henry could say +by way of comment. + +He had made obvious conversational progress in the outer world, but +there was an artificial touch about his talk--a literary touch--that was +not quite equal to his swimming dolphin-like, in a sea of talk, around +this child of Nature. + +"You are liking Laysford, I hear," the little mother said, after some +paces in silence. + +"Immensely! The place teems with life. You've just to stir it and behold +a boiling pot of human interest." + +"And how is the stirring done?" + +"Ah, there you have me! That's the worst of metaphors. I must rid myself +of the habit; it comes, I fancy, of too much Meredith on an empty +head." + +"Dear me! And what is Meredith?" + +"It is a man that writes things." + +"Like you?" + +"Not like me, I hope. He writes for all time; I for an hour--literally. +But don't let's talk of writing. There are greater things to do in this +world. Unless one were a Meredith." + +"You didn't always think so." + +"No; but I've learned young, and that's a good thing. When I read +Meredith I hide my face at the thought of writing anything. But you've +done very well, so far, without books, if I'm to believe your own +story." + +"I suppose folk lived before printing was invented?" + +"I used to wonder how they did; but now I am willing to believe it +possible." + +"You will come and see Mr. Needham at the vicarage, while you are here, +I hope? He often talks about you." + +"I shall be delighted.... And you? You will give us a peep at the old +house?" + +"Oh, yes! Dora and I are bosom friends." + +"Early next week you can look for me to have a chat with ... Mr. +Needham." + +"I'll be in soon ... to see Dora." + +They shook hands at the field path to the vicarage, and Eunice went up +the hill hand-in-hand with Marjorie, whom Henry had never deigned to +notice. She looked back when a few hundred yards had been covered, but +the young man was stepping briskly after his father and his two younger +sisters, who had gone ahead. + +"How Eunice Lyndon has improved," said Henry to Dora when they sat at +dinner. + +"Isn't she bright? I think she is the sweetest girl I know." + +"But you don't know many, Dora." + +"She's made a wonnerful change on the passon. An' it was all my own +idea," Edward John declared with satisfaction, as he scooped up a +mouthful of green peas with his knife. + +"Her mother--poor thing--died o' consumption," Mrs. Charles remarked, +and sighed as though she were placing a wreath on Eunice's coffin. + +"But she's the very picture of health, mother," Henry protested. + +"Still, there's consumption in the family," she murmured. + +"Nothing to do with her case. Doctors are now giving up the idea that +the disease is hereditary," Henry said, with unnecessary emphasis, as it +seemed to Edward John. + +"But doctors don't know everythink, 'Enry, my boy," his father remarked. + +"And neither do mothers." + +Whereat one of them sighed again. + +The meal went on in silence for a while, and the pudding was at +vanishing point when Henry broke into talk again. + +"By the way, Dora, did I ever tell you that the Wintons have come to +Laysford? You remember them? My old friends at Wheelton." + +"You never mentioned it." + +"Funny that I had forgotten. Edgar joined the _Leader_ nearly six months +ago as second reporter, and the whole family have removed to Laysford, +when Mr. Winton got a post as cashier in a large hosiery factory." + +"There was a sister, I think?" + +"Yes; Flo--a jolly, dashing sort of girl." + +"Pretty?" + +"Extremely! One of your blonde beauties. Almost as tall as I am, and +nearly my age." + +"Indeed!" + +"A fine puddin', mother, but just a trifle too many o' them sultanas," +said Edward John. + +Mrs. Charles sighed once more. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + ONE'S FOLLY, ANOTHER'S OPPORTUNITY + + +WHEN Henry's holiday had ended and he stepped once again into the outer +darkness that lay beyond Hampton Bagot, the words of his which kept +ringing like alarm-bells in the ears of his mother and Dora were: +"Flo--a jolly, dashing sort of girl." They had been spoken once only; +but that was enough. The essential woman in his mother and sister +pounced on them like a cat on a mouse peeping from its hole. They turned +the phrase over in their mind, put it away, took it down, pecked at it; +tossed it afar, and ran after it forthwith, wishful to forget it, but +unable to let it go. + +It might mean much, it might mean nothing. With some young men it would +not have been an excuse for a second thought, but Henry was not like +other young men. He was their Henry--or rather, he had been; for Mrs. +Charles now watched him with something of that chagrin which must arise +in the maternal bosom of the hen that has mothered a brood of ducklings +when she sees them going where she cannot follow. As for Dora, she +doubted if she had ever known this new Henry who spoke easily of "Flo--a +jolly, dashing sort of girl." + +The phrase, careless and colloquial though it was, had all the potency +of the biograph to project before the mind's eye of Mrs. Charles and of +Dora pictures of a young woman who stepped out, smirked, disappeared, +and came again in a new dress to do many things they disliked. + +But it was not the same young woman that both of them saw, and neither +of them mentioned her thoughts to the other. The figure which flashed +frequently on to the screen of his mother's thoughts was that of a bold, +designing creature--dangerously attractive--whose purpose was to entrap +her Henry. Dora recognised her dressed for another part, in which she +displayed a tendency to giggle and cast flattering eyes on a gullible +young man. + +Edward John saw nothing of this figure in the fairy drama of his mind, +where Henry always moved close to the footlights and left the other +characters in the unillumined region of the stage. + +Henry had renewed his acquaintance with the Rev. Godfrey Needham, whom +he found still swimming, though with weakening stroke, in his sea of +scrappy scholarship, rising manfully some times on a fine billow of +Latin, but spluttering a moment later when he breasted a frothy wave of +French. + +"Ah, my dear Henry, toil on, plod on, and remember always that _Hoffnung +ist der Wanderstab von der Wiege bis zum grabe_, which, as you have no +German, means that hope is the pilgrim's staff from the cradle to the +grave. We are all pilgrims--always pilgrims--you in the sunshine, I in +the frost of life." + +This was his benediction; and somehow the innocent vanity of the vicar's +borrowed philosophy no longer amused, but fingered tender cords in the +soul of the young man. + +Eunice, although she had met him several times after that walk from the +church, had never said so much to him again; but "Shall we not see you +again for two years?" was spoken with a touch of sadness which thrilled +him into--"I shall hope to see you often in the future." + +Miffin was alone among the village folk in his opinion of the new Henry. +The young man's neat-fitting summer suit, his elegant necktie, even his +well-made boots annoyed that worthy by their quiet advertisement of +prosperity. He was one of those who resented success in others, mainly +because he knew himself for a failure. Moreover, no man is pleased to +see his prophecies given the lie. The tailor still blandly assured his +cronies when they enlarged on the worldly progress of the postmaster's +son, that the rising tide of Henry's affairs would yet turn. "Merk moi +werds," said he, "them young men what goes into City life seldom do any +good. They dress well, p'raps, but there's a soight o' tailors in the +big towns as fail 'cause the loikes of 'Enry forgets to pay 'em." + +As for Henry himself, his brief reversion to the home of his boyhood had +struck a new note in his life: a note that had only sounded falteringly +before, but now rang out clear, sharp, alarming. The simple contentment +which seemed to breathe in this little village soothed and comforted +him, straight from the jangle of the great City, and he felt for the +first day or two as if he could submit to have his wings clipped, and +flutter away no more. + +But soon the dulness of Hampton was the impression which refused to +leave the surface of his thoughts, and he understood that, having +answered with a light heart to the bugle of the town, he must continue +in its fighting line though the heart was heavier. Perhaps he knew in +his secret soul that this heaviness of heart followed its opening to the +imperious knock of Doubt. But still he held fast to his cherished +ambitions, and was as eager again for the fray as the morphomaniac for +a new dose of his drug, though it was with a gnawing sense of regret +that he journeyed back to Laysford. + +On his arrival there, Edgar Winton met him at the station, evidently +weighted with news. The contrast between the two young men was more real +than apparent. When they first met at Wheelton, Henry had presented the +exterior of a raw country lad, with an eye that had only peeped at a +tiny corner of life, and a knowledge of journalism that was laughably +little. Edgar, on the other hand, had all the pert confidence of the +City youth and the quickly-gathered cynicism of the young journalist. +But there he had remained, as so many do remain from twenty-one to their +last day, while the strain of seriousness in the nature of Henry, and +the richness of the virgin soil in him for the City to plough, had +produced a growth of character which in the intervening years had shot +him far ahead of Edgar in every respect. + +Whether Edgar's friendship for Henry sprang from the true root of +affection, or was merely the outcome of a desire to stand well in the +favour of one whose friendship would be well worth having from a +business point of view, cannot be stated with confidence, but there is a +fair supposition that it was of the latter quality, since natures like +Edgar's are seldom capable of true friendship, though they boil and +bubble with good fellowship for all who are brought into relation with +them. Perhaps Edgar had learned at an early age the knack of spotting +"useful men to know," which accounts for much in the success of those +whose endowments are meagre. + +In any case, the broad result was the same. Henry and Edgar were +friends, and if Henry had long since concluded that Edgar was of the +empty-headed, rattling order of mankind, still he tolerated him, if +merely because he had been one of the first designed by Fate to intimate +association with him when the life-battle began. He could even have +tolerated the suggestion of friendship between Trevor Smith and himself +for the same reason, while knowing now in his heart that Trevor was a +humbug. + +The meeting between the two at the station was very cordial, and Edgar +let his imp of news leap free to Henry, to work its wild way in his +mind. + +"You are just in the nick of time, and no mistake. If I hadn't known you +would be back to-day, I should have wired you this morning--that is, of +course, if a telegram could get to that benighted village of yours." + +"The nick of time? Wire? What has happened?" + +"A very great deal. Oh, we've had a nice old kick-up at the _Leader_!" + +"Kick-up! Have Macgregor and Jones been squabbling again?" + +"The fact is, Mac has had to resign; it only took place last night, and +we all suppose that you will get the crib." + +"But surely Macgregor has not let one of these wretched bickerings lead +to his resignation?" + +"Oh dear, no! He has done a giddier thing than that, and will clear out +of Laysford like a dog with its tail down. The fact is, he has been +caught cheating at cards at the Liberal Club, and the _Leader_ cannot +afford to be edited by a cheat, don't y' know." + +"What a fool the man has been; and yet something of the kind was bound +to happen. Many a time his fondness for the card-playing gang at the +Club has meant double work for me." + +"That has been the joke since you went away, as old Mac has come rushing +into the office about midnight, and vamped up a couple of leaders with +the aid of his scissors and the London dailies. We heard Jones and he +rowing about the character of his stuff a week ago. It seems that Sir +Henry had complained." + +"Well, I am heartily sorry for his wife and family. I hope the affair +may be patched up." + +"No fear of that. He has got to go with a rush; and why should you be +sorry if his shoes are waiting for you?" + +"Still, I am sorry. As for the shoes, I hope they won't lead my feet the +same road." + +Just a touch of priggishness here; but remember, Henry was young. + +Truly, this was startling news. Mr. Duncan Macgregor, the editor of the +_Leader_, was a journalist of excellent parts; one who had held +important positions in London and the provinces, but whose fondness for +the whisky of his native land had made his life a changeful one. For +nearly five years he had been jogging along pretty comfortably in +Laysford, to the great joy of his much-tried wife; but his position as +editor of the _Leader_, which represented the dominant party in local +politics, made him much sought after by scheming public men, and in the +end brought his old weakness for what is ironically called "social life" +to the top. + +Duncan Macgregor, indeed, for nearly two years had been scamping his +duties, on the pretence that by constant fraternising with the sportive +element of the Liberal Club he was representing his paper in the quarter +where its influence was of most importance. He had even developed a new +enthusiasm for public life, and was scheming to become a Justice of the +Peace and to enter Laysford Town Council. He had not been careful to +note that Mr. Wilfred Jones, the general manager of the _Leader_ +Company, and a more important person than the editor in the eyes of the +shareholders, considered that he was the natural figurehead of the +concern. Mr. Jones had been elected to the magistrates' bench, and was a +candidate for the next municipal election, dreaming even of venturing to +contest one of the Parliamentary divisions. + +As it was due to the acute management of Mr. Jones that the _Leader_ had +been lifted from a languishing condition to a state of financial +prosperity, and Sir Henry Field, the chairman of directors, and the +other shareholders, were now enjoying an annual return for their money, +it was only natural that the general manager was a more important person +than the editor in their estimation. He was certainly so in his own +opinion, and although a man of no intellectual attainments, he did not +hesitate on various occasions to dispute with the editor about the +quality of his leaders. One of Duncan Macgregor's favourite stories of +these disputes related to his humorous use of the phrase, "A nice +derangement of epitaphs," which Mr. Jones pointed out was sheer +nonsense, as there was not another word about epitaphs in the leader! +The manager had a suspicion that the editor had been looking on the +whisky when it was golden, else he could not have written such twaddle. +But when it happened, as it did during Henry's absence, that the leading +articles were largely made up of clippings from London newspapers, +linked together by a few words from the editor, Mr. Jones's criticism +was based on sounder grounds. + +Edgar accompanied Henry to his rooms, where the news was discussed in +all its aspects, and at length Edgar gave him a jerky and stumbling +invitation to spend the evening at his home, on the ground that Henry +had always been a great favourite of "the mater's," and she would like +to see him after his holiday. + +Now, the journalist who is engaged on a daily paper has to turn the day +upside down. He is generally starting to his work when ordinary folk are +enjoying their hours of ease. Like the baker, he sallies forth to his +factory when the lamps are glimmering; for the newspaper must accompany +the morning roll; but of the two, the printed sheet is the less +essential to life, and at a pinch would be the first to go. To that +extent the baker's business is the more important. This was often a +saddening thought to Henry, when his eye caught the dusty figures at +work in an underground bakery which he passed every evening on his way +to the office. The result of the daily journalist's topsy-turvy life is +practically to cut him off from social intercourse with his fellow-men +who are not engaged in the same profession, and consequently he moves in +a narrow groove. Even his Sundays are not sacred to him. There was a +time when Henry used to hurry from evening service to his desk at the +office, and set to work on a leader or some editorial notes for Monday +morning's paper. Latterly he was always at his desk, but seldom at the +service. Arriving home at two or three in the morning and sleeping until +about noon does not put a man into the mood for cultivating friendships +between two and eight p.m., supposing there were friendships to be +cultivated at such absurd hours of the day. + +Thus Henry's life had been ordered since coming to Laysford; his office +and his bed eating up the most of it; his afternoons being devoted to a +walk in the park, or research at the public library and reading in his +rooms. The only house he had ever visited was that of the Wintons, and +there he had been but once on the journalist's Sunday, _i.e._, Saturday. + +It was true, no doubt, that Mrs. Winton thought highly of him, and he +respected her as a very amiable landlady of past years. But Edgar could +have told him--and perhaps the affected suddenness of the invitation did +tell him--that it was not the matronly Mrs. Winton who had suggested his +coming. Edgar had indeed been prompted by a very broad hint from his +sister, whose interest in Henry had varied greatly from the first, but +was now rising with the prospect of his becoming a full-fledged editor. +Indeed, although there was more that one young man in Wheelton whom Flo +had boasted to her girl friends of being able to turn round her little +finger, the prospects of a "good match" in that limited sphere were not +quite equal to her desires, and she heartily seconded the proposal to +remove to Laysford. Henry had developed in interest, and there were +possibilities--who knew? + +There were many reasons why Henry would have preferred to spend the +evening in his own rooms. The fragrance of Hampton came back to him the +moment that the train shot into Laysford, with its din of busy life. The +impression of village dulness receded, and here, with the rattle of +Edgar's irresponsible tongue in his ears, and the squalid story of his +editor's downfall to occupy his mind, he was fain to hark back again to +the memory of that quiet existence which he felt doomed to renounce for +ever. His worldly wisdom told him he need not repine at Macgregor's +folly, since it brought Henry Charles his opportunity; but the +philosopher in him saw the situation whole, and the squalid side of it +could not be ignored. As Edgar seemed bent on carrying him off, and as +he was not expected at the office until the following day, he decided to +accompany young Winton to his home, hoping, perhaps, that a careless +evening would brighten his thoughts. + +The chattering streams of life flowing through the main streets of the +thronged city, the clatter of the tramcars, and the thousand noises that +smote the ear fresh from the ancient peace of a remote village, all +frightened the mind back to Hampton, the faces of his friends; and, +oddly as it seemed to Henry, the face that looked oftenest into his was +not one of his own home circle. None of his womenkind had violet eyes. + +On reaching the house, Edgar had his usual hunt for his latchkey, and +whether it was the murmur of his conversation with Henry during the +operation of finding the key and applying it, or merely chance that had +brought Flo in her daintiest dress and archest smile into the hall as +the door was opened, cannot be well determined. Certainly there was a +look of delighted surprise on her face when she exclaimed: + +"Oh, Mr. Charles, is it really you?" surrendering him her hand, and +allowing it to remain in his. "When did you get back?" + +"Only this evening," he replied, clearly conscious that this was a most +attractive young lady, and not a little flattered at the warmth of her +reception. "I arrived at six o'clock." + +"How very good of you to come and see us so soon! We ought to consider +ourselves flattered." + +"Oh, I had nothing else to do," he murmured ineptly, and was suddenly +conscious that he still held her hand. He dropped it awkwardly. + +"I am sure you must have many things to do--a busy man like you." + +"It is seldom I have a free evening, so I am glad to use this one in +seeing my old friends." He had recovered aplomb. + +"And your old friends are charmed to see you," she returned, with a look +that told she could speak for one of them at least. "You are like one of +the wonders we read about but seldom see. Edgar keeps us posted in news +of you." + +She cast down her eyes coyly, as if a sudden thought whispered that she +had said too much, and led the way to the little drawing-room, Henry +pleasantly thrilled with the charm of her voice and the freedom of her +greeting. But strangely enough, another face which lingered in his +memory glowed there again, and the thought that came to him was that its +owner had not been half so cordial in her welcome to him. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + "A JOLLY, DASHING SORT OF GIRL" + + +THE removing of the Wintons to Laysford had been a distinct change for +the better in the fortunes of the family. Mr. Winton's situation +furnished him with a comfortable income, and Edgar was now contributing +appreciably to the domestic funds, while Miss Winton's music-teaching +brought an acceptable addition beyond furnishing her with an ample +variety of dress, in which she always displayed a bold, though a +cultivated taste. + +Their house was a great improvement on the little home in which Henry +had lodged six years ago, though it was still a poor substitute for the +luxurious residence Mr. Winton had maintained before his business +failure, when Flo and Edgar were children. The old horse-hair furniture +had disappeared from the dining-room, and in its place stood an elegant +leather suite. Henry would find the former still doing duty in a room +upstairs, which Edgar called his study. The drawing-room was the most +notable indication of changed fortunes, and bore many traces of Flo's +adorning hand, Edgar proudly drawing Henry's attention to some of her +paintings, and thus affording her excellent excuse for becoming blushes. + +"Why, Henry, it is quite like old times to have you among us again," +said Mrs. Winton, when he had entered the drawing-room. + +She retained the right to his Christian name, although Flo, who had been +in the habit of addressing him familiarly at Wheelton, had surrendered +that, as Henry noticed, and was annoyed at himself for noticing. Mr. +Winton joined in the welcome, and Henry expressed his pleasure to be +among them again. + +"I need not ask whether you had a good time while you were away," Mr. +Winton continued. "You are looking extremely well; brown as a berry." + +"Quite like a gipsy," suggested Flo, and she decided at that moment that +she had always entertained a distinct preference for the Romany type of +manly beauty. + +It was not altogether to her mind that the conversation swiftly drifted +into the uninteresting channels of public life in Laysford, touching +even the state of the hosiery trade, in which Mr. Winton was engaged. At +the tea-table, however, Flo had Henry by her side, and made the talking +pace with some spirit and, it must be granted, vivacity. + +It is the most natural thing in the world for a young gentleman visitor +at a small family table like the Wintons' to be placed alongside the +daughter of the household, but there are young ladies who contrive to +make the most natural situation seem exceptional. Perhaps Miss Winton +was one of these, as Henry felt when he sat down that the arrangement +had more of artifice than nature in it. But while having the sense to +suspect this, he was rather flattered than otherwise in his suspicion, +and as with most young men of his age, a show of friendliness from a +young lady reached home to that piece of vanity which we all have +somewhere concealed, and sometimes, maybe, not even hidden. + +He noticed in a sidelong glance, and possibly for the first time, that +the profile of Miss Winton's face was distinctly good. The nose was +almost Jewish, and all the better for that; the mouth perhaps too small, +but that was not seen in the side view; the chin neat, and sweeping +gracefully into a neck of which the owner was doubtless proud, as she +had not been at pains to hide it. Nor could a fault be found with her +endowment of fair hair, displayed low-coiled, and decorated with a +glittering diamond clasp. The diamonds were paste, of course, but what +of that? They sparkled. It must be accepted as proof of Henry's opening +eyes that he noticed these things, and found himself wondering if a +certain other young lady possessed such good looks. For the life of him +he could not say; and he took that, foolishly, as evidence in favour of +the girl by his side. His thoughts were immediately turned on himself, +when Edgar exclaimed: + +"By the way, dad, I'm the first to tell Henry that he is likely to be my +new boss." + +"Edgar, you're hopeless," put in Flo. + +"If you mean your new editor," said Mr. Winton sententiously, as he +finished the carving of the cold roast, "then I'm glad to hear it, and I +hope he will boss some of his good sense into you." + +"Then it is really true that Mr. Macgregor is leaving?" said Mrs. +Winton, with a look towards Henry. + +"So Edgar tells me, but I have heard nothing official, and I have +purposely kept away from the office to-night." + +"You can take it from me that his going is a dead cert," resumed the +irrepressible young man; adding with a glance at his father, whose +philological strictness was a source of sorrow to the son, "That is, +there seems to be very little doubt about the matter. And if old Mac +goes, Henry is well in the running for the editorial chair, and a rocky +bit of furniture that is." + +"I wonder," said Flo, leaning forward with a quizzing glance to catch +Henry's eye, "if you would be a hard taskmaster, Henry?" It was +difficult for the girl to go on Mistering when the others Henried to +their heart's content. "I am sure you could put your foot down firmly if +you liked." + +Henry laughed, pleased at the interest taken in him, and conscious that +he was made much of in this house. + +"There may never be any occasion for me to try it," he replied; "even if +a vacancy does arise, my age may bar me." + +"Not at all; the great Delane was scarcely twenty-four when he got the +editorship of the _Times_," Edgar remarked, with the conviction that he +had displayed a deep knowledge of journalistic history and settled this +point. + +"Besides," added Flo, "you are one of those men whose age is not written +on their face. I'm sure no one could guess whether you were twenty or +thirty. You could pass for any age you like to name." + +"There's something in that," said Henry musingly; "but I'm afraid I must +confess that I was only twenty-two last birthday." + +"Great Scott! and you'll soon be bossing some chaps old enough to be +your pater. The snows of four-and-twenty winters have fallen on my own +cranium. It makes me sick to think of it." + +From Edgar, obviously. + +All this was very sweet to Henry. At twenty-two the average man tingles +with pleasure when it is suggested that he would pass for thirty, and at +thirty he is secretly purchasing hair-restorers for application to the +crown of his head, and plying a razor where he had been wont to +cultivate a moustache. He is charmed then beyond measure when his age is +guessed at twenty-two. + +Mr. Winton settled down in an arm-chair in the dining-room for his +after-supper snooze, and while Mrs. Winton had to turn her attention for +a little to household affairs, superintending the inefficient +maid-of-all-work--whose presence in the house was another mark of +prosperity--the others withdrew to the drawing-room. Edgar lounged about +aimlessly for a time, and then suddenly pleaded the urgency of a letter +he had to write. Henry and Flo were left alone. + +This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of young men who are +"eligible," but it is not until they have ceased to be in that blissful +condition that they suspect a woman's hand had some part in arranging +these accidental openings for confidences. Flo looked certainly as +innocent as a dove when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's eyes +had been wide open he might have noticed that Edgar's recollection of +his urgent letter was preceded by a meaning look and a contraction of +the brows from his sister. + +"Now," she said softly, turning to Henry with an air of eager interest, +"do tell me all about your visit to Hampton. The name of the place +sounds quite romantic to me. Is it on the map?" + +"I'm afraid you would search your atlas for it in vain. At best it could +only be a pin-point; like that very tiny German duchy which the American +traveller said he would drive round rather than pay toll to pass +through. It is smaller than the Laysford market-place." + +"So small as that! Then it's all the more interesting to me." + +"But there's really nothing to tell about it. One day is the same as +another there. Nothing ever happens. It is a veritable Sleepy Hollow." + +"But there were interesting folk there. You see, I know my Washington +Irving." + +Flo had the shrewdness to judge this to be an effective touch, and it +did not matter that her knowledge of the American author was limited to +the bare fact that he had written something about a place of that name. + +"I am glad to find you have read one of my favourites," Henry replied, +and the echo of an absurd "What is Meredith?" rang in his ears. It +prompted him to ask, without apparent reason: + +"By-the-by, have you read Meredith? He is one of the least known and +greatest of living writers." + +"Oh, yes, isn't he perfectly lovely?" She had a vague recollection of +hearing the name somewhere. + +"I am just in the middle of his latest novel, 'Beauchamp's Career.' It +is positively Titanic." + +"I am sure it must be interesting, and I should love to read it. But +really you must tell me about this Sleepy Hollow of yours. Who did you +see there?" + +"My own folk, of course, and a handful of old friends." + +"Anybody in par-tic-u-lar?" + +Flo smiled roguishly. She had practised the smile before, and could do +it to perfection. + +"N-o; nobody--worth mentioning." + +Henry had a suspicion that he was being teased, and he rather liked the +operation. + +"Really! I can scarcely believe you. But all the same, I have a fancy to +see this birthplace of our budding editor. I imagine it must be a sweet +little spot." + +"Perhaps it is best in imagination. You would find the actual thing +deadly dull." + +He felt himself drifting rudderless before a freshening breeze of +talkee-talkee. + +"No, no, no; I am sure I wouldn't, though you do not paint it with +purple. Do you know," she went on, resting her pretty head upon her hand +and glancing up sideways at him, "I'm beginning to think that they don't +appreciate you properly in Hampton Bagot. A prophet has no honour in his +own country, they say. But we are proud of you here." + +"Perhaps that maxim is not always true, although it is biblical. In my +own case, I fear there is at least one at Hampton who thinks too much of +my ability." + +"Ah, now you have said it. And who is that one, pray?" + +"My father." + +"Oh! No one else?" + +"My mother and sisters, perhaps." + +"I should so much like to meet your sisters. I almost feel as if I knew +them already. Who knows but some day I may have a peep at your Sleepy +Hollow, and tell your sisters all about you!" + +The prospect was an alarming one to Henry, and for the first time in his +life he felt himself ashamed of that little home behind the Post Office +door. But on the whole, the chatter of this young lady was pleasant in +his ears. By no means vain of his abilities, he was still hungry for +appreciation, and he had not yet learned the most difficult of all +lessons: to recognise sincere admiration. It seemed to him that in Flo +Winton he had found one who understood him, whose sympathetic interest +in his work and ambitions could brace and hearten him in the discharge +of the important duties to which there was every likelihood of his being +called before he was a day older. + +The return of Mrs. Winton to the drawing-room sent the talk off at an +obtuse angle, and Edgar, having finished that important letter, came in +to render the remainder of the evening hopeless to Flo; but when Henry +parted from her in the hall with another lingering hand-shake, he had +the feeling that something like an understanding had been established +between them; and it was with a springy stride and a light heart he +passed out to the nearest tramway station. + +The next afternoon he looked in at the office, and found the manager +anxious to speak with him. It was even as Edgar had prophesied. Sir +Henry Field was understood to think so highly of Henry's work that he +agreed with Mr. Jones in offering him the editorship at a commencing +salary of L250 a year. A bright young member of the reporting staff was +named as his assistant. "If Sir Henry should ask your age," Mr. Jones +advised, "you are getting on for thirty. You would pass for that, and I +have confidence in you." + +Henry found himself returning to his rooms as one who walked on eggs, +murmuring to himself, with comic iteration: "Two hundred and fifty a +year! two hundred and fifty a year!" And he saw arising in Hampton Bagot +a fine new villa, the pride of the place, to be inhabited by Edward John +Charles and his family circle. Yet he had once been so proud of that +quaint old house with the Post Office in front. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + THE PHILANDERERS + + +THE news was round the _Leader_ office like a flash of summer lightning. +The most secret transactions in the managerial room of a newspaper seem +to have this strange quality of immediately becoming the common +knowledge of the office-boy, without any one person being accusable of +blabbing. Not only so; but in a few hours there was no journalist in +Laysford, from the unattached penny-a-liner, who wrote paragraphs for +London trade papers, to the editors of the rival dailies, that did not +know who was the new editor of the _Leader_. Almost as soon as the news +had been confirmed, Edgar had penned a flowery eulogium and posted it to +that mighty organ of journalism, the _Fourth Estate_, which has +whimpered from youth to age that journalists will not buy it, although +they have never been averse from reading--or writing--its personal +puffs. Edgar showed herein either a better judgment of Henry's character +than one would have expected from him, or a little touch of innocence in +one so fain to be a man of the world. It is seldom that the subjects of +these gushing personal notices in the _Fourth Estate_ wait for others to +sing their praises; they can and do sound the loud timbrel themselves. +Shyness has no part in journalism, and even the bashful young junior, +who has been trying quack remedies for blushing, leaves his bashfulness +outside the door of the reporters' room after his first week on the +press. + +But somehow, a thick streak of rustic simplicity remained in Henry's +character despite all the eye-opening and mental widening which had +resulted from his City life. If Edgar had not sent that paragraph Henry +never would, and if we could but peer into the inmost corner of Edgar's +heart we might find that the impulse behind the writing of the absurd +little puff about "a rising young journalist" was to stand well with the +man who had come to greatness--as greatness was esteemed in the +journalistic world of Laysford. + +The news was conveyed in characteristic style to a quarter where it was +eagerly hoped for. + +"It's happened just as I expected," Edgar announced, when he returned +home that evening. "Old Mac has got the shoot direct; no humming and +hawing, but 'Out you go!'" + +"I suppose you mean he has been discharged?" said Mr. Winton quietly. + +"Yes, dad, that's the long and short of it; and Henry is to be our new +boss. You remember I told him we all expected it." + +"So far as I recollect," his father observed sententiously, "that was +how you put it." + +"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Winton. "Henry has got on," with an +emphasis on "Henry has" and a motherly look towards Edgar, who gave no +sign that the implied comparison was present in his mind. + +The one whose interest was most personal had given least sign, but Flo's +heart was fluttering in a way that was known only to herself. Following +on the heels of her first thrill of satisfaction stepped something +resembling irritation. She would have preferred that Edgar had been less +eager with the news, and had left it for Henry to convey in person. What +a splendid opportunity that would have been for unaffected +congratulation! Out of her momentary irascible mood she threw a taunt at +Edgar. + +"And you, I suppose, have been appointed Henry's assistant--that would +be the least they could do for such a brilliant young man." + +Edgar flushed and winced. This flicked him on the raw; but his +well-exercised powers of denunciation were equal to the occasion. + +"No such luck for me; that Scotch ass Tait has got Henry's crib. He is +one of those sly, slaving plodders, without a touch of ability." + +"I have noticed, Edgar," put in his father, "that it is the plodders who +steadily push ahead." + +"Oh, that's all right; but I don't like Tait." Perhaps this explained a +good deal. + +A sudden sense of the value of Edgar's services in her love affair with +Henry filled Flo with regret for having been spiteful to her dear +brother, and she at once endeavoured to save him from further +unfavourable criticism by expressing the belief that Henry would +doubtless help to advance him all he could. When the first opportunity +offered, Flo drew Edgar again to her favourite topic, and had quite +smoothed away any ruffles in her brother's temper before she reached +this diplomatic point: + +"Now that Henry has so much in his power, you must keep on the best of +terms with him. Get him to come and see us as often as you can. Why not +ask him to dine with us on Sunday next? He could stay until required at +the office." + +"Not much use of that, I fancy; Saturday is about the only day he is +likely to come." + +"Nonsense! Sunday should suit as well," with a touch of impatience. + +"But you must remember, Flo, that Henry isn't like us. Unless he has +changed more than I know, there is a big chunk of the go-to-meeting +young man left in him; you never know when you may bump up against some +of his religious principles. You remember that he used to go to church +with as much pleasure as an ordinary chap goes to a music-hall. In fact, +he did the thing as easily as take his dinner." + +"Yes, yes; but he is getting over those narrow-minded country ways." + +"Perhaps you are right. You don't find much of that antiquated religious +nonsense among us gentlemen of the Press--hem, hem!--Henry's is the only +case of the kind that I have seen. But there is hope for him yet," and +Edgar laughed heartily at his own wit, while Flo rewarded him with a +smile as she pushed home the one point she wished to make. + +"Then you think you may be able to induce him to spend Sunday with us?" + +"I'll do my best. Can't say more. Usual dinner hour, I suppose?" + +"Two o'clock. That gives him time for forenoon church--if he really must +go." + +Much to Edgar's surprise, and more to his satisfaction, the editor of +the _Leader_ consented with unusual readiness to honour the Wintons the +following Sunday, and when the day came Henry was not at the forenoon +service. He was not even annoyed at himself for having lain abed too +long. His mind was filled with thoughts of the importance he had +suddenly assumed in the eyes of many who had previously seemed unaware +of his existence. Even the church folk, among whom he had moved for +years almost unfriended, were now curiously interested in him, and the +vicar had done him the remarkable honour of inviting him to dinner to +meet several gentlemen prominent in the religious and social life of the +city, an invitation which it had given Henry a malicious pleasure to +refuse, as the memory of his cold entrances and exits through the door +of Holy Trinity contrasted frigidly with this unfamiliar friendliness. + +Yet the vicar was a good man, and the church folk were in the main good +people too. Henry's experience was no unusual one, nor unnatural. It was +but the outcome of that pride of youth which, while one is hungry for +friendship, restrains one from any show of a desire to make friends. He +was not the first nor the last young man who coming from a small town or +village where the church life has an intimate social side, expects +something of the same in the larger communion of the city, and is +chilled by what seems frosty indifference. The fault, however--if any +fault there be--lies nearly always with the individual, and not with his +fellow-Christians. So, or not; religion is no matter of hand-shaking +and social smirks. The truth is that Henry had at last been touched by +that dread complaint of Self-importance, from which before he had +appeared to be immune. + +A swelling head, from the contemplation of one's importance in the great +drama of life, and a heart swelling with thoughts of one young woman, +are two phenomena which make the bachelor days of all men remarkably +alike at one stage or another. + +If "the youngest editor of any daily newspaper in England" (_vide_ the +_Fourth Estate_) let the church slide that Sunday morning, he devoted as +much care to his personal appearance as the least devout of ladies to +her Easter Sunday toilet. When he arrived at the Wintons, arrayed in a +well-fitting frock-coat and glossy silk hat, there was no least +lingering trace of the outward Henry we knew of old. + +The dinner was very daintily served indeed; there was a touch of +pleasant luxury about the meal which contrasted most favourably with the +homely cuisine of Hampton Bagot, to say nothing of his lonely bachelor +dinners. He knew that the hand which had set this table and +superintended that meal was Flo's, and assured himself he was on the +right tack. What a charming hostess she would make! How well she would +entertain his friends, and do the honours of his house! It was in pure +innocence of heart, and merely with a desire to agreeably tease the +visitor, that Mr. Winton remarked during the meal: + +"Well, Henry, you are quite an important personage now; the next thing +we shall hear is that you have blossomed out with a fine villa in Park +Road, and--a wife!" + +From the mother--any mother--such an observation would, in all +likelihood, have been prompted by thoughts of a daughter; but not from +the father--not from any father. + +Flo tried not to look conscious; though under cover of her apparent +indifference she stole an anxious glance at Henry, who only laughed. The +laugh was not convincing of the indifference which his speech suggested: + +"Plenty of time for that, Mr. Winton. I have a lot to do before I turn +my thoughts to the domestic side of life. Besides, it means a year or +two of saving." + +Flo imagined that for one brief second the eye of their interesting +visitor rested upon her as he delivered himself so to her father. + +It was the first occasion since the old days at Wheelton that Henry had +engaged to spend more than an hour or two at the Wintons, and the +drawing-room conversation seeming to flag a little after dinner, Flo +suggested a walk. The weather was alluring, and Laysford on an autumn +day is one of the most lovable towns in England. Henry was nothing loth, +and for the sake of appearance, Edgar was included; but before they had +reached the green banks of the River Lays the obliging fellow had +suddenly remembered an appointment with a friend who lived in an +opposite direction, and Flo and Henry were bereft of his company for the +remainder of the walk, which now lay along the grove of elms by the +river-side. + +"It's really too bad of Edgar," said Flo, with a fine show of +indignation when he had gone. "One can't depend on him for five minutes +at a time; he's always rushing away like that." + +"Never mind," replied Mr. Henry Innocent, glancing at his companion in a +way that showed the situation was by no means disagreeable to him. "He +will very likely be home before we get back." + +"But I am afraid you will find me dull company," she said, although +shining eyes and an arch smile gave flat contradiction to the words. + +"I don't think you need be afraid of that." + +"Really! Why?" + +"Because you must know it is not the case." + +Thus and thus, as in the past, now, and always, your loving couples. The +gabble-gabble reads tame in print, and we will listen no further. Let +them have their fill of it; their giggles, their tiffs if they may; why +should the stuff be written down? But this must be said: Flo had reason +to believe that the affair of her heart was making progress. She thought +that Henry was coming out of his shell, and the process was of deep +interest to her. + +Edgar had not returned when the couple reached home, and he was absent +from the tea-table. The day had been rich indeed to Flo, and Henry was +almost in as high spirits as his companion. When the evening bells +pealed out for church he still dawdled in the undevotional atmosphere of +the Wintons' drawing-room. Yet even for him they did not ring in vain. +At their sweet sound the shutter of forgetfulness was raised from his +mind, and he saw again a tiny country church perched on a green hill; a +ragged file of homely folk trailing up the path and through the +lych-gate, familiar faces all in the long-ago; and from the vicarage, +with failing step, the grey-haired pastor of the flock, and by the old +man's side the figure of a sweet woman, on which for a moment his mental +vision lingered, to be rudely broken by--"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. +Editor," from Flo. + +The shutter came down with a rush. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + FATE AND A FIDDLER + + +IN the life of journalism--many ways the least conventional of callings, +in which there remains even in our prosaic day a savour of +Bohemianism--there is still the need to observe the conventions of a +commercial age. An editor who familiarises with his reporters imperils +his authority, for every man of his staff considers himself to be as +good a craftsman as the editor; and does not the humblest junior carry +in his wallet the potential quill of an editor-in-chief? + +A newspaper, moreover, for all the prating about the profession of +journalism, is as much a business establishment as the grocer's round +the corner. _Ergo_, if the grocer has his villa, so must the editor. If +the editor be a bachelor, then the dignity of his paper demands that he +shall take lodging in the most pretentious neighbourhood his means will +allow. + +Perhaps this had not occurred to Henry until a fairly broad hint from +the manager indicated what was expected of him. Perhaps, also, it was +the need to move into "swagger diggings" that superinduced the +aforesaid attack of "swelled head." Henry justified to himself his +removal, and the increased expense entailed thereby, on the ground that +his collection of books, mainly review copies, defaced by obnoxious +rubber stamps--"With the publisher's compliments"--was rapidly growing +beyond the accommodation of his tiny sitting-room. So to the spacious +house of a certain Mrs. Arkwright, in the aristocratic neighbourhood of +Park Road, he moved with his belongings. + +His new apartments were luxurious beyond the wildest dreams of his early +youth, and for that reason alone he stood in imminent danger of +developing expensive tastes. Ah, these furnished apartments of our +bachelor days! At an outlay comparatively small contrasted with the +immediate end attained, they lift the young man into an easeful +atmosphere he would fain continue when he sets up house of his own; only +to find that the hire of two well-appointed rooms is child's play to the +maintenance of a house on the same scale. With the more cautious the +convenience of first-class apartments makes housekeeping appear +formidable. And there you have the secret "love story" of many an easy +bachelor. + +Mrs. Arkwright's house was filled with well-paying lodgers, but as all +had their separate rooms, while the landlady's family occupied the +basement, there was not much common intercourse between the paying +guests--for it should have been noted that Henry had now passed into a +locality where the word "lodger" was taboo, and the evasive euphemism +"paying guest" took its place. + +At first Henry was too much interested in himself and his regal "we" to +concern himself greatly about the other lodgers, and in any case his +regular absence at the office every night would almost have served for a +"Box and Cox" arrangement. But sometimes, as he had been about to leave +in the evening for his editorial duties, he had heard the delicious +strains of a 'cello superbly played in the room above him, and although +no judge of music, he felt that the unseen player must be a person of +some character, for the wailing note of the music bore with it a strong +individual touch. It seemed to him that this fingering of the minor +chords bespoke a performer whose personality was as distinctly expressed +in music as an author's soul is bared in his written words. + +The unknown musician piqued his curiosity. Who was the occupant of the +room overhead, whose soul gave forth that mournful note? There was +something, too, in the music very soothing to him. One night he +lingered, listening to the player, following the plaintive cadence of +the piece till the music trailed away into silence, when he noticed with +a start that it was half an hour behind the time he was usually to be +found at his desk. He fancied after this evening that there was +something in the room overhead he would have to reckon with. + +The identity of the unknown player could easily have been settled by +consulting Mrs. Arkwright, but that lady was almost as mournful as the +music, and strangly reserved, so Henry refrained for a time from +mentioning the subject to her. Besides, there was a pleasant element of +mystery in the thing, which appealed to his imagination. But at last +curiosity came uppermost, and while she was laying his supper about +eight o'clock one evening--the last meal of the day before setting out +for his nightly task--he asked the landlady who occupied the room above. + +"Well now, Mr. Charles," she answered, almost brightly, as though struck +with some coincidence, "it is strange you should speak of him, for only +this very day he was speaking to me of you." + +"Indeed! Then it's a him?" + +"Yes, sir; a gentleman," with a pursing of the lips. + +"Young, I suppose?" + +"Not much older than you, sir. But he has seen a lot of the world." + +This was accepted as an unconscious reflection on his own experience. + +"Been here long?" + +"About two months, sir, this time. I have had him staying with me +before. He belongs to Laysford, you see. He comes and goes as the fancy +takes him. Most of his time he spends in London." + +"In London," said Henry, who still dreamed dreams, although he was an +editor so soon. "Do you happen to know his occupation?" + +"He writes, sir, I think, like you do. Leastways, he is often at it in +his room upstairs, and is very particular about any of his papers being +touched." + +"And he was speaking to you of me, you say?" + +"Yes, sir. He asked me who you were. I told him you were the editor or +something of the _Leader_. He seemed quite interested, and said he would +like to come down and meet you some evening, if you had no objection." + +"None whatever. On the contrary, I should be very pleased to make his +acquaintance; and perhaps you would be good enough to tell him so." + +"I will give him your message, sir. I am sure you would like him, for he +has a way of making himself liked by everybody." + +"You make me quite anxious to meet him, Mrs. Arkwright. By the way, I +don't think you mentioned his name." + +"It's a strange name for a gentleman, sir," replied Mrs. Arkwright, the +pale ghost of a smile chasing across her worn features--"Phineas +Puddephatt. We call him Mr. P. for short. His family used to be very +well known in Laysford. You see, he is a gentleman of some fortune." + +Henry found himself dangerously near to open laughter at mention of the +egregious name, but he succeeded in commanding his features, perhaps +from fear of shocking the prim Mrs. Arkwright, who had carried on a +longer conversation with him than he could have believed possible from +so reserved a lady. The most he could venture by way of facetiousness +was: + +"Then, until we meet I shall call him 'the mysterious Mr. P.'" + +With the flicker of another smile the landlady left her paying guest to +the enjoyment of his supper and thoughts of the comic muse who could +couple the sobbing of a 'cello with Puddephatt. + +A week or more went past with those two sleeping under the same roof, +but a series of engagements prevented Henry from hitting off just the +moment for meeting. One Saturday evening, when both were at home, the +opportunity came. Noticing Henry deep in a book after supper, Mrs. +Arkwright asked if he intended to remain indoors all the evening, and +being answered in the affirmative, suggested that she would mention the +fact to Mr. P., who was also disengaged. Henry assenting, continued with +the book, a new novel that was provoking a storm of criticism, and which +he had determined to review himself. + +Not long after Mrs. Arkwright had left him there came a knock at his +door. To the invitation of a cheery "Come in," Mr. Phineas Puddephatt +stepped across the threshold, bringing a new and powerful influence into +the life of Henry Charles. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + "THE MYSTERIOUS MR. P." + + +THE mysterious Mr. P. was revealed to the eye of his fellow-lodger as a +man of medium height, well built, almost soldierly in the carriage of +his body, with a pale, colourless face, clean shaven as an actor's, his +hair, though plentiful, fast turning grey. The velvet jacket which he +wore, together with the studied negligence of his necktie, were +distinctly marks of affectation, if Henry had an eye for such, and it is +more than possible he had. Still, the general effect of Mr. P.'s +appearance must have been generally favourable to the young man who rose +to greet him as he entered the room. It went some way to support the +romantic picture of him which Henry had sketched out in his mind, and +nothing is more flattering to our self-esteem than thus to find +ourselves anticipating Nature. 'Tis easily done, however, given the fact +that the unknown scrapes a fiddle. Yet why should musicians proclaim +their profession in their person as plainly as any stableboy his? The +amateur is even more professional in his appearance than the +professional himself. + +As Mr. P. closed the door and advanced some steps to shake hands with +the occupant of the room, his pale features were lit up by a smile that +put Henry at his ease forthwith, for there had been a momentary revolt +of shyness in the young man's mind after expressing his desire to meet +the gentleman from upstairs. It was a worn man of the world and a very +provincial young man who shook hands. + +"You will pardon this late and informal visit, Mr. Charles," said Mr. +Puddephatt, "but it has seemed so unneighbourly never to have met you +before, and you are so much engaged, that I determined to take the first +opportunity of passing an hour with you." + +"I am indeed happy to meet you." + +"The fact that you are a man of letters interests me greatly, for I too +have dabbled a little with the pen, and Laysford is a dull place for the +literary man, as everybody seems bent on money-grubbing." + +"My own occupation is, I fear, not unsuited to an industrial town. Pray +sit down and make yourself comfortable." + +"Still, journalism is at least a province of literature," said the +visitor, smiling. + +He helped himself to a cigarette, and took the easy-chair Henry had +moved forward to the fire. + +"A sphere of influence, perhaps, if not quite a province," Henry +replied, catching something of Mr. P.'s rather studied conversational +manner, as he seated himself and toyed with his cigarette. "I am +beginning to think that literature and journalism have less in common +than I once supposed. Have you ever engaged in journalism?" + +"Only slightly. I have done a little in the reviews, chiefly on musical +subjects. My efforts have been in the direction of fiction." + +Henry had almost remarked that the name of his fellow-lodger was not +familiar to him as a writer of fiction, but congratulated himself on +leaving the thought unexpressed; and since the other made no further +reference to his own work, Henry fancied he might be one of the rare +authors who did not care to discuss their books, and wisely refrained +from inquiring too closely as to the nature of these literary efforts at +which the still mysterious Mr. P. had so vaguely hinted. The latter also +tacked away from the subject, and continued after a pause: + +"I see you are well up-to-date, Mr. Charles, in the matter of books," +his sleepy eyes brightening almost into eagerness while they scanned the +heap of new novels for review lying on Henry's desk. + +"That in a sense is forced on me," replied the young editor, "although +my own personal taste is to blame for the extra work involved. Until I +suggested it the _Leader_ had paid practically no attention to books. +You see, it sells for its market reports and local news--far more +important things than literature." + +"It was always the way; the arts have hung for ages on the skirts of +trade." + +"The result is that I have to do all our reviews myself." + +"I can assure you of at least one appreciative reader who rejoiced when +the _Leader_ took on the literary touch you have given it. It is said +that people get the kind of journalism they are fitted for; but for my +part, I believe that the colourless writing of most provincial papers is +the result of lack of taste in the journalists themselves. You don't +find, for instance, that the more literary _Leader_ is less popular than +the bald and tasteless production it used to be?" + +"On the contrary, I am told it is doing better," Henry replied, with a +touch of self-satisfaction which might have been modified if he had +inquired more closely into the cause of the increased circulation. + +A series of local tragedies, and a heated controversy on the licensing +question, had probably more to do with the result than all the editor's +literary taste. + +"You have a book here, I notice," continued Mr. Puddephatt, singling out +the novel Henry had been reading, and had laid down, with the +paper-knife between its pages near to the end, "in which I am not a +little interested. The critics have been denouncing it so heartily that +the publisher has difficulty in keeping pace with the demand." + +"I'm sorry to hear it, for I mean to slate it too, and it is small +consolation if that only helps to sell the thing." + +Henry turned to the table and picked up the red cloth volume. It was +entitled "Ashes," the name of the writer being Adrian Grant. The eyes of +his guest followed his movements, and studied his face with unusual +sharpness. He made a barely concealed effort to appear only languidly +interested when the editor proceeded to denounce the work in good set +terms. + +"I certainly shall do myself the pleasure of 'letting myself go' when I +sit down to give Adrian Grant my opinion of his book." + +Henry had entered fully into that most delusive joy of journalism which +spurs the young, raw writer on when he imagines he has some unpalatable +truths to deliver. But in this case there was a worthier impulse than +the common delight of attacking an author in print. Despite the +influences that seemed to have been undermining the simple religious +faith Henry had brought away from his native village, there still +remained in him a strong abhorrence of that paganish cynicism which, +expressed in fiction, tends to drag the mind into the sunless dungeons +of thought and away from the glorious light of Christian truth. This +book, "Ashes," was precisely of that type. Under the guise of a story +pretending to reflect the manners of the time, it discussed problems +which were in no sense representative of the varied whole of life, and +the discussion of which appealed mainly to the morbid taste of readers +who cared not a jot for art. + +"I shall be most interested to read your review," said Mr. P.; "and +might I steal a march on your other readers by asking what impression +'Ashes' has made on you?" + +"I can best describe it by saying it leaves a nasty taste in the +mouth--clever, but not nice." + +"Which might suggest that the author has succeeded in his task," +rejoined the other, laughing and lighting a fresh cigarette, "since +ashes have usually that effect. You know Moore's famous lines: + + "'Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye, + But turn to ashes on the lips'?" + +"Yes, and I think that 'Dead Sea Fruits' would have been as good a title +for the book. But happily for mankind, we are not in the habit of making +excursions to the Dead Sea to taste its apples." + +"There speaks hopeful youth. That is precisely what mankind is ever +doing; that is the tragedy of life." + +"Surely there is more beauty than ugliness in the world, and even if +there were less would it not be nobler to draw man's thoughts to the +beauty rather than to the ugliness?" + +"Your view of art is somewhat Philistine, don't you think? The artist's +business is not with morals but with truth, and truth is not always +beautiful." + +"But there must be a purpose behind every work of art--a moral purpose, +I mean," the younger man persisted, although he was conscious he was no +match in argument against the defender of "Ashes." + +Henry's opinions were still in that state of flux when a young man's +thoughts take on some colouring from every influence that touches them, +and are only in a very minor degree the expression of his own mind. + +"The only purpose the artist need avow is to express the truth as he +sees it," continued Mr. Puddephatt confidently. "I shall admit that the +picture set forth in this novel is ugly, but I believe it to be true. +Remember, we have the butcher's shop as well as the pastrycook's in +Nature, and I fancy the former is the larger establishment." + +"Admitted," Henry retorted, with lessening fervour, "but are we not told +that the end of art is to please?" + +"Assuredly; to please what?--Our sense of the artistic. The Italians +have a fine way of talking about 'beautiful ugliness,' and if the +artist, working within the limits of his medium, proves to others that +the thing he has produced--picture, statue, book--is in tune with +Nature, let it be never so ugly, it must still please our artistic +sense." + +Henry found himself wandering in a _cul de sac_ of thought. This man who +opposed his mind to his could out-manoeuvre him at every move. He was +painfully conscious now that opinions he had thought to be his own were +only unwinnowed sheaves of thought gleaned in the field of his reading. +Still, he felt that with pen in hand, and no quick answer to each +phrase, he could prove his case. How often does the writing man feel +thus. + +"But there is nothing in this book, so far as I can see," urged Henry +warmly, "that tends to elevate the mind to better things. It may be true +what you say of the butcher's shop, but the pastrycook's is a pleasanter +place any day." + +"Ah, my young friend, that way lies indigestion," the other retorted, +smiling. "It is none of the artist's business to elevate; it is his +function to interpret life, and you will tramp far along the dusty road +of life to find anything that elevates. The fact is, when I--I mean, +when Adrian Grant set himself to write that book, I believe his purpose +was to attack the mawkish sentimentality of our contemporary fiction, +to strike a blow at the shoddy romance which is the worst form of art. +For my part, deliver me, I pray, from all writers who seek to elevate. +The true watchword is 'Art for art's sake.'" + +"To me it seems rather 'Art for dirt's sake,'" Henry rejoined a little +savagely, and a shadow of displeasure clouded the features of his +visitor at the words. "But admitting all you say, is there no Power +apart from ourselves that tends to draw our thoughts, our very souls, +upward?" + +"I have looked for it in vain," the other speaker replied, with a +languid wave of the hand. "What about the life of our slums, for +instance? Is every man and woman there a villain, a lost soul? Surely +not. Yet we see every evil rampant, we see every virtue dead; vice +triumphant. Who is to blame? The people: the victims? Surely not. Reason +says no, a thousand times. Where is this Power you speak of when +slumland exists, a horror? But in Kensington there is as little that +elevates as there is in Whitechapel. The honest man loses generally in +the struggle; the scoundrel flaunts himself before high heaven; he rides +in mayoral furs, he swarms into Parliament, he mounts the very pulpit +itself." + +Henry was abashed and silent before the impassioned language of the +speaker, who had suddenly flamed up and risen from his seat, pacing the +room with restless strides while he declaimed and gesticulated +surprisingly for one who had seemed so self-possessed, so _blase_. Henry +was silent because of his inability to understand the mystery of pain--a +mystery to older heads than his. + +"I have searched the world for a principle, for a law of life," +exclaimed Mr. P., stopping suddenly and looking the journalist straight +in the face, "and I have never scented one." + +"We are told to love one another," said Henry, almost timidly. + +"Well, do you find that principle at work? I find hate, malice, +inhumanity, wherever I turn my eyes. That is what I meant by the +butcher's shop. I find ministers preaching the gospel of peace and +buttressing the policy of war and plunder. I find hypocrisy enthroned, +honesty contemned." + +"But if one believes in the Word of God, is it not better to be the +honest man contemned than the throned hypocrite?" + +"If we find every fact of life at cross-purpose with Scripture, what +then?" + +"Perhaps you don't believe in the Bible?" Henry put it thus bluntly to +him. + +"I prefer to say that it does not convince me. It tells, for example, of +a man who was guilty of a paltry fraud in attempting to cheat a small +number of his fellows; and upon whom, in the very act, sudden +destruction fell. He was struck down dead, we are told. Where to-day is +that Power which meted out such swift and deadly punishment? Here, in +this town, men lie and cheat with impunity, and on a scale which +involves hundreds of innocent victims. The Divine vengeance slumbers. +God--if there is a God--sleeps; or else looks on with supreme +indifference to the sufferings of His creatures." + +"It is all a great mystery, I confess," returned Henry, with something +very like a sigh. + +The anchor of faith, which had of late been dragging, seemed almost to +have slipped, and he felt himself drifting out into dark and troubled +waters. This was the young man who, less than an hour ago, was vowing to +trounce the author of "Ashes" for his gloomy view of life. The thought +had come to him that perhaps his very faith was a mere convention of +early teaching. He sat ill at ease before his visitor, whose passionate +outburst had left both without further speech. It was a strange +conclusion of an irresponsible gossip on the art of literature. After +looking for a minute or two at Henry's book-shelves, Mr. Puddephatt said +abruptly: + +"I am indebted to you for a most enjoyable hour, Mr. Charles, and hope +we shall see more of each other in the future." + +"I hope so too," answered Henry, at a loss for words, his brain in a +whirl of distracting thought. + +When the mysterious Mr. P. quitted the room, Henry felt that his +lightly-chosen epithet was more suitable than ever. But it was less of +the man he thought, as he now unconsciously imitated him in pacing his +room, than of the ideas he had enunciated; these had instantly become +detached from their originator and boiled up in Henry's mind with all +the lees of youthful doubts and questionings that had been lying there. +The mental ferment had a harassing effect on him. Almost for the first +time in his life he felt a strange desire to turn inside out his +spiritual nature and find what it consisted of. And the next instant the +thought was madness to him. + +"I said to him that we are told to love one another," he reflected, +setting his teeth defiantly. "If we did, then evil would cease out of +the world. So the religion which teaches this must be right. But we +don't do so--he was right there--and if our natures are not capable of +this love, what profits the advice? He's no fool; but the way seems very +dark. I half wish he hadn't touched the subject." + +As these thoughts were coursing through Henry's mind, the strains of a +'cello, soothing and sensuous, came from the room above, adding a +dramatic touch to a memorable experience, and reminding him startlingly +that he had never spoken a word to Mr. P. about his music. + +The lateness of the hour surprised Henry, who threw himself down in a +chair and stared blankly at the dying embers in the grate, while the +musician sounded with exquisite touch the closing bars of a nocturne. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + DRIFTING + + +WHEN Henry's review of "Ashes" appeared, it was not so violent an attack +on the author as he had meant it to be. Indeed, he was half-ashamed when +he read in print what he had written about that much-discussed book; in +certain passages it sounded suspiciously like Mr. P.'s own phrases. + +"We shall admit that it is no business of art to concern itself with +morals." Where did we hear the words before? "It is, alas, only too true +that life is not all sweetness: it has more than a dash of bitter." A +platitude; and borrowed at that. "But we must not suppose that only +beauty is true and artistic: ugliness may still be of the very essence +of art." Really, the fiddler fellow might have done the review himself. +No doubt, when he read it, he felt that it was mainly his. + +Henry had yet to discover that the opinions he gave forth with so much +pomp and circumstance had been unconsciously pilfered. The mind of every +young man is an unblushing thief. It drifts into honest ways in due +time, however, and when it does not, the aged plagiarist may argue that +he still remains young. + +In a word, the influence of Mr. Puddephatt fell upon Henry at a most +critical moment in his zigzag journey towards sober common-sense, and +the modified tone of the review indicated a similar change in the inner +thoughts of the young journalist--too sudden, perhaps, to be alarming. + +But it was apparent that he had become unsettled in his religious +convictions as the result of frequent subsequent meetings with his +fellow-lodger, who exercised a conscious fascination over the younger +man, and could induce Henry to reveal his inmost thoughts without +himself volunteering much about his own personal history. Mr. P. was +actuated, no doubt, mainly by sheer interest in his friend, and had no +sinister end--as he conceived it--in view. So the friendship grew, to +the no small annoyance of Flo Winton, who had frequent cause to chide +her lover for giving more of his scanty leisure to Mr. P. than to +one--mentioning no names--who had perhaps more claim upon it. + +At the _Leader_ office he was finding things less to his mind than he +had hoped. Five years ago the editorship of a daily paper was a golden +dream to him; a year ago, his brightest hope; to-day, a post involving +much drudgery, more diplomacy and temporising; small satisfaction. + +He imagined that his case was exceptional. "If this," and "granted +that," the editorship of the _Leader_ was an ideal post. Minus the ifs, +it was not a bed of roses. The cyclist who is bumping along a rough road +notices that his friend is wheeling smoothly on the other side, and +steers across to get on the smooth track, just as his friend leaves it +for the same reason reversed. + +We all suppose our trials to be exceptional, and the chances are that +the people we are envying are envying us. Conceivably, the editorship of +the _Times_ is not heavenly. There were some hundreds of ambitious +journalists ready to rush for Henry's post the moment he showed signs of +quitting. A newspaper that has had fifteen editors in five years will +have five hundred candidates for the job when the fifteenth gives up the +struggle. Henry had learned at the rate of a year a week since he became +editor. + +That leader yesterday had displeased the chairman of directors, as it +was somewhat outspoken in favour of municipal trams, and the chairman +was a shareholder in the existing company. Another director wanted to +see more news from the colliery districts than the paper usually +contained, and a third fancied that the City news was not full enough. +Yet another, a wealthy hosiery manufacturer, who was wont to boast +himself a "self-made man," pointed out that they didn't like leaders to +be humorous, and he was open to bet as the heditor was wrong in saying +"politics was tabu," when everybody knoo as 'ow the word was "tabooed." +He'd looked it hup in the dictionary 'imself. Politics and +newspaper-editorship bring us strange bedfellows. + +The simple truth was that Henry, all too soon, had learned what an +editor's responsibility meant. It meant supporting the political +programme of the party which the paper represented, temporising with +selfish interests, humouring ignorance when it wore diamond rings, +toiling for others to take the credit, and blundering for oneself to +bear the blame. + +Many of these worries would have been absent from the editorship of a +really first-class newspaper; but first-class journals are seldom edited +by young men of twenty-two or thereby. Henry had no financial control--a +good thing for him, perhaps--and the manager had won the confidence of +the directors through procuring dividends by cutting down expenses. He +saved sixpence a week by insisting on the caretaker, who made tea for +the staff every evening, buying in a less quantity of milk. He pointed +out to the poor woman that she was unduly severe on scrubbing-brushes, +and after refusing to sign a bill for a sixpenny ball of string +required in the packing department, on the plea that "there was a deal +of waste going on," he went out to dine with Sir Henry Field, the +chairman of directors, to the tune of a guinea a head "for the prestige +of the paper." He had even stopped the _Spectator_ and the _Saturday +Review_, which had been bought for the editor in the past, urging that +it was dangerous to read them, as that might interfere with the editor's +originality in his leaders. Besides, it saved a shilling a week, and +really one didn't know what journalistic competition was coming to. + +Yet Henry had "succeeded," though he had not "arrived." Best evidence of +his success was the jealousy which he created among the older members of +the staff, and the contempt in which his name was held in the rival +newspaper offices. But he was not satisfied. In less than a year he had +ceased to thrill with pride when he was spoken of as editor of the +_Leader_. The political party of which his paper was the avowed local +mouthpiece had won a splendid victory at the School Board election, +"thanks in no small degree to the able support of the _Leader_," the +orators averred when they performed the mutual back-patting at the +Liberal Club meeting. Sir Henry Field bowed his acknowledgments of the +praise when he rose; and the manager of the _Leader_ was much in +evidence. Henry was at that moment writing away at his desk with his +coat off. This is the pathetic side of journalism and of life--one man +sows, another reaps. + +Nor was Henry's love affair progressing more happily than his experience +of editing. The swelled head was subsiding; perhaps the swelled heart +also. He heard frequently from home, and there was occasional mention of +Eunice; and when his eye caught the name in his sister's letters he had +a momentary twinge of a regret which he could not express, and did not +quite understand. + +Flo Winton had in no wise altered so far as he was capable of judging. +She was still the bright, attractive young woman he had grown suddenly +conscious of a few years ago. Nothing had been whispered of +"engagement," but she had indicated in many unmistakable little ways +that she regarded Henry's future as bound up with her own. Yet he now +began to wonder if he were wise to let things drift on as they were +shaping. He wondered, and let things drift. Flo was quite clear in her +mind that they were "as good as engaged." She understood that the woman +who hesitates is lost. + +Mr. P. was away from Laysford for the winter, the second he had spent in +London and on the Continent since Henry and he became acquainted, when +the journalist had the first real glimpse into the mysteriousness of his +friend. + +While compiling his weekly column of literary gossip for the _Leader_--a +feature which more than one director had stigmatised as shameful waste +of good space that might have been filled with real news or market +reports--Henry found a short paragraph in the personal column of a +London weekly which made him stare at the print: + + "I understand that Adrian Grant, whose book 'Ashes' was so + widely discussed last autumn, is the pen-name of a Mr. Phineas + Pudifant, a country gentleman who is well known in certain + select circles of London's literary and musical world. His + previous novel, 'The Corrupter,' published two years before + 'Ashes,' had a distinct artistic success; but the great + popularity of his later book was as remarkable as it was + unexpected and unsought. Adrian Grant is essentially a writer + for art's sake, and not for so much per thousand words." + +Henry doubted the evidence of his eyes as he read the startling news. +The journal in which the paragraph appeared, and the _chroniqueur_ +responsible for it, were noted for the authoritative character of their +information, and he knew that such a statement could not have been made +so deliberately unless it were true to the facts. The very misspelling +of the name was in its favour. There were queer names in England, but +Mr. P.'s was especially odd, and even wrongly spelt it retained its +peculiarity. Still, it was a tremendous strain on his mind to accept the +statement as accurate. Never, so far as he could remember, had Mr. P. +given him cause to couple his name with that of the author of "Ashes," +but after the first shock of surprise, he began to recall how warmly his +reticent friend had defended the book on the evening when they first +met. It must be true, and now his wonder was that "Adrian Grant"--he +began to think of him under the more euphonious name--could have +suppressed "the natural man," which is in every author and prides him on +the work of his pen. The mysterious Mr. P. had deepened in mystery; the +more Henry's acquaintance with him progressed, the less he knew him. + +Henry was tempted to make a paragraph out of this newly acquired +information, and to add thereto some references of a local nature which +would have been widely quoted from the _Leader_. But he had second +thoughts that the subject of the paragraph would not be pleased, and +heroically he restrained himself, avoiding all mention of the matter. +The ordinary person who has no means other than word of mouth for +advertising abroad some choice bit of gossip that has come his way, can +but vaguely estimate the personal restraint which the journalist +possessed of a tit-bit of news must exercise in keeping the information +to himself. It is the journalist's business to blab, and he is as +fidgety as a woman with a secret. Henry, however, had the consolation +that perhaps after all the statement might not be correct. There were +frequent cases of coincidence in the most absurd cognomens. + +He had to nurse his mystery for the remainder of that winter and into +the early summer, as Mr. P. remained away from Laysford, and his +movements for a time were quite unknown even to Mrs. Arkwright, who +usually received periodical cheques for reserving his rooms while he was +absent. A brief note to that lady early in the year had explained that +her well-paying guest would be longer in returning than he had intended, +as he was making a stay of some months in Sardinia. Another paragraph +with the name properly spelt had found its way into the newspaper where +Henry saw the first. The second was even briefer, and merely mentioned +that Mr. P. was at present staying in the Mediterranean island, "where +probably some scenes in his next novel would be laid." + +Doubt as to the identity of Adrian Grant had finally left Henry's mind, +and he had even persuaded himself that there were many passages both in +"The Corrupter" and "Ashes" which revealed the man behind the book. It +is surprisingly easy to find the man in his style when you start by +knowing him. + +And now the man himself was back in Laysford once more. Henry heard the +strains of his 'cello before he met the player again. It was a Saturday +night, and Mr. P. had come downstairs for a chat with him. + +"You must have thought that I had gone away for good," he said, after +warmly greeting his young friend. "I had it often on my mind to write, +but I am a bad correspondent. The most of my time away I spent in +Sardinia. My mother was a native of that country, and I find it most +interesting." + +"I had heard you were making a prolonged stay there. Indeed, I saw some +mention of your movements in the _Weekly Review_." + +Henry thought this an adroit remark, and fancied it must lead to a +confession, but his companion merely inclined his head as if he had not +quite caught the words, and went on: + +"Ah, but Browning has expressed with grand simplicity the impulse that +sends the wanderer back--'Oh, to be in England now that April's there!'" + +The chance had gone, "conversational openings" were valueless to one +pitted against Adrian Grant. Henry fumbled nervously among the +commonplaces of speech, and his friend, with scarcely another reference +to himself, was presently making the young journalist talk of--Henry +Charles. + +"You seem to have been burning the midnight oil too assiduously, I +think. A trifle paler than when I saw you last. Still grinding away, I +suppose." + +"Yes; it is grinding. I have moments when I think journalism sheer +hack-work. The glamour of the thing is as delusive as the _ignis +fatuus_." + +"And there you have life itself. _Ergo_, to journalise is to live." + +"I begin to believe you are right, but I could have wished to make the +discovery later." + +"It's never too early to know the truth. But come, you are surely +thriving professionally, for I heard your study of the Bronte's which +you wrote for the _Lyceum_ highly praised by the editor when I was in +London last week." + +"That is indeed welcome news. You know Swainton, then?" + +"A little. You see, I have done some work for him myself. The fact is--" + +"Are you Adrian Grant?" + +Henry blurted out the question and eyed his friend eagerly, nervously, +ashamed of his clumsiness and desperate to have done with it. Without a +tremor of his eyelids the other replied: + +"Since you put it so bluntly--I am. But I have peculiar ideas of +authorship, and you will search my rooms in vain for any book or article +I have written. My conception of literature is an artistic expression of +what life has told me. I say my say and have done with that work. I say +it as it pleases my artistic sense, and I pass to some other phase of +life that attracts me and asks me to express it. To the profession of +letters I have no strong attachment. To live is better than to write. I +know some Sardinian peasants who are kings compared with Tennyson--yes, +I will say Tennyson." + +Henry was dumb at the vagaries of the man. + +"The craft of letters," he went on, "I know only as a branch of life, +and far from the noblest." + +Adrian Grant could make a thousand pounds, perhaps two, out of any novel +he now cared to write. The thought flashed through Henry's mind and left +confusion in its tract. What were fame, success, fortune, if one who had +won them set such small store thereby? + +"I have no wish to be associated with my books," he continued. "The +reverse. All great art should be anonymous. Think of the precious +sculptures of Greece, the work of unknown men who knew that the joy of +expressing truth was immortal fame. It is a stupid convention of a +stupid age that a book should bear an author's name. My own name is +scarcely pleasant to eye or ear; but I do not quarrel with a scurvy +trick of Fate. It tickets the man, and that is enough. My pen-name has +served its purpose in securing a sort of impersonal appeal for my books, +which cease to be mine once the printer has done his work. You will +never, I hope, identify me with my works in anything you may write. I am +taking steps to prevent such senseless twaddle about Adrian Grant as +appeared in the _Weekly Review_ from becoming general. Who betrayed my +secret I know not." + +"You will find it difficult to contradict." + +"No doubt, but once contradicted by my solicitors, who shall be able to +swear to its truth?" + +"But why suppress truth, since your aim is to express it?" asked Henry +laughingly. + +"Ah, there we have to use the word in its common commercial sense. The +truth that my name is what it is, and the truth that life is an +Armageddon, a phantasmagoria, have no relationship." + +Mr. P. had risen to the passionate height of his unforgotten first +meeting with Henry, whose mind was now swaying in a chaos of wild and +whirling thought at the touch of this strange creature. + +"But there," exclaimed the novelist savagely, "let us talk of simpler +things," and he threw himself into the chair he had vacated to pace the +room. "You say you are less enamoured of your work than you used to be. +I can understand it, and I should like to help you. From what I have +seen of you, the more literary work of a high-class journal would suit +you better; give you the chance to express yourself--if you have +anything to express--and I think you have some sense of style, though +your ideas are deplorably British--that is to say, Philistine." + +"Do you really think I might succeed in London?" Henry asked, ignoring +the sneer at his ideas. + +"Succeed as the world accounts success, most probably. You have the +dogged British quality of sticking to a thing, or you'd never have been +where you are so soon. But it's soulless work churning out this +political twaddle." + +"I realise that, and I'm no politician; only one by force, so to speak. +You see, I write for a living." + +"A terrible condition, but there is worse. Well, there is some zest, at +least, in getting into handgrips with London. If you've a stomach for +the fray, I could help. The whole scheme of life there is different. The +provinces have nothing to compare with it, as you would soon discover." + +"But I believe it would be best to try my fortune as soon as I could." + +"Yes, it's well to know the worst early," and Mr. P. gave a melancholy +smile. "If you care, I shall mention you to Swainton of the _Lyceum_. I +have some influence with him, I fancy; and he knows you already as a +promising contributor." + +"I should be most grateful," said Henry, not without misgivings. + +But his mind was now trained direct on London, his earliest ambition. He +had made his way with surprising quickness in the provinces, and still +he was not happy. + +"Who is happy?" asked his friend. "Call no man happy until he is +dead!--Solon was at his wisest there." + +"Happiness is worth pursuing, all the same," Henry returned, lamely +enough, since he allowed the pagan fallacy to pass unquestioned. "I +shan't be happy till I try my luck in London; and if not then--well, +we'll see." + +Truly, his mind was seriously unsettled by the spell of this man's +strange personality. + +Henry's eyes were turned to London, but he was soon to find that there +was one person who did not relish the prospect, for reasons of her own. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + THE WAY OF A WOMAN + + +"WHAT makes you think of London, when you're doing so well in Laysford?" +Flo Winton asked her sweetheart, strolling one Sunday by the banks of +the Lays. + +"But well in Laysford may be ill in London," he replied. + +"That's just it. Why not be content, and don't play the dog with the +bone?" + +A woman seldom sees beyond the end of her nose. Flo Winton was no doubt +perfectly honest in her counsel to Henry, and entirely selfish. Let his +professional chances go hang; he was doing pretty well in Laysford, and +she rather fancied the town as a place to live in. Besides, "out of +sight, out of mind." + +"It is the reverse from the dog and the bone," returned Henry. "What I +now hold is little better than the mere shadow of success, the real +thing is only to be found in Fleet Street. Comfort, food, raiment, +furniture, money to spend--these can be earned in the provinces, but +the success I aim at must be sought in London." + +"Dear me! And what will you do with it when you've found it--if you ever +do so?" + +This was scarcely lover-like, and Henry felt the implied sneer; but he +was determined not to be shaken from his plan. He did not answer Flo. + +"Money to keep a nice home and go about a bit among the smart set of the +town--isn't that success?" she continued. "You are working that way +here. You're a somebody here; in London you'd be one of the crowd. At +least, that's what I believe." + +"And I too, Flo. Fancy being a somebody in a town whose Lord Mayor can +barely sign his name, whose chief constable is a habitual drunkard, +whose town clerk wouldn't be fit for devilling to a London barrister, +whose whole corporation is a gang of plunderers scheming for their own +ends. Fancy having to whitewash these ruffians in my leading articles. A +somebody! Rather the millioneth man in London than the first in +Laysford." + +This looked bad for Flo; her reason for his staying was his own reason +for wishing himself away. Henry was horridly honest and absurdly upright +to be a newspaper editor in a thriving provincial town. + +"I tell you frankly," he went on, while Flo walked now in moody silence +by his side, "I could never settle down in Laysford. Any ass with money +is courted here." + +"And it's the same everywhere; the same in London," she snapped. + +"Perhaps; only in London you can avoid the society of the +money-grubbers, and find a congenial clime where the foul element does +not enter. You see, London isn't a town; it's a country, and there are +communities of kindred interests within its borders." + +"How do you know?" + +"Well, I can gather as much from my inquiries, and from what I read." + +"A lot of use that is. I know it's fearfully expensive to live in +London." + +"But one can make more money." + +"I thought you despised money-grubbing." + +"For the mere sake of the grubbing, yes. But where it costs more to live +there is usually more to live for, and more means of earning the +necessary cash." + +"Money; you simply can't get away from it, yet you sneer at the wealthy +folk here. You only wish you had half of their complaint, as the thirsty +cabby said of the drunk who was supposed to be ill." + +Flo laughed aridly at her simile, without looking her companion in the +face. Henry felt irritated by her as never before. But his teeth were +set. Both kept silence for a time. + +"Of course you never think of me," said Flo at length, trailing her +sunshade among the pebbles. + +"That's just what I do, though." + +"How kind of you!" + +The sneer froze Henry like a sudden frost. + +"Men are such unselfish things, to be sure," she went on; the ice +thickening rapidly. + +Henry had really thought a great deal about her, and not without some +misgivings. He had seen himself a successful worker in Fleet Street, +with a dainty house out Hampstead way--he did not know where that might +be, but he thought it was the literary quarter--and Flo looking her best +as mistress of that home, with many a notable personage for guest. But +he had also moments when he wondered if he were not a fool to bother his +head about her, and when she said, "How kind of you!" he was glad they +were not married yet. For all that, if Flo insisted, he supposed it +would have to be, though there had been no arrangement in so many +binding words. He was inclined to let her have to insist, however; and +if she did--why, life would be ever after the making the best of a bad +job. Not a healthy condition of love, it will be perceived. + +As they were nearing the Wintons' again, Henry thawed a little. + +"Wouldn't you really like to live in London, Flo?" he said. + +"Perhaps, and perhaps not. No doubt I would. But what I don't like--and +I may as well be frank about it--is living here and you in London." + +"Ah, but that need not be for long," Henry returned kindly. + +"So you say. But one never knows." + +She was honestly unhappy at the idea of his leaving her, and Henry, when +he understood this, felt his heart rise a little in sympathy--the +swelling had gone down since we last saw them together. But he did not +guess that he was pleased rather by the flattering thought that she +would miss him, than softened by the sentiment of leaving her behind +him. + +"After all," he said, "I'm not away yet." + +"It's that horrid Puddy--what-you-call-him--that's to blame for stuffing +your head with ideas of throwing up such a good post as you have. Take +my advice, Henry, stay where you are, for a while at any rate. There's a +dear, good fellow!" + +But the dear, good fellow kissed Flo somewhat frigidly when he parted +from her that night, and decided that Adrian Grant was right in his +estimate of women as creatures who, in the mass, had no ideas beyond +social comfort, no ambition higher than "society," and who were only +interested in the projects of men to the extent these might advance +their own selfish desires. + +"She said I never considered her. By Jove, I could wish I did not," +Henry reflected, biting his moustache savagely in his mood of +discontent. "I wonder what P. would think of her?" + +When a man wonders what another would think of his sweetheart it is a +cloudy day for the latter. When the man hesitates, the woman is lost. + +Mr. P. had never encountered Miss Winton; but a few days after the +frosty episode in her love-story, Henry and his friend met Flo in the +market-place, and stopping, she was introduced. This not without qualms +to Henry, who could scarce avoid the meeting, and was yet loth to +present his friend to Flo, in view of her expressed dislike for him. But +the ready courtesy and charming manner of the author-musician seemed to +please her, and to Henry's surprise, her eyes, her smiles, were more for +Mr. P. than for himself. She could be most attractive when she liked, +this young lady who had called his friend "horrid," and was absurdly +opposed to his dream of London. Henry did not know whether to be pleased +or disappointed at the bearing of Miss Winton. He was glad she had not +been cold to Mr. P., hurt that she was pleasant--so superfluously +pleasant. On the whole, he was irritated, uneasy. + +Something in the manner of his friend contributed to this result. Not a +word had been spoken in the short conversation on the pavement of the +old market-place to awaken or enliven doubt or jealousy, but there was +an indefinable something in Mr. P.'s manner to Flo, and his remarks when +they parted from her, to indicate that he had not been favourably +impressed. + +A year or two ago happiness seemed such an easy thing--so simple, so +difficult to escape--that by contrast, Henry's present state of +querulous unrest put it as far away as a fog removes the wonted +position of a prominent landmark. He had an inclination to kick +somebody--himself, deservedly. Could Flo be right about settling down +in Laysford, where he was a potential "somebody"? Suppose he had an +opportunity to go to London now, should he take it? If the man who +wrote as Adrian Grant had unsettled his mind so far as his old simple +faith in God's goodness and mercy was concerned, and Stratford and +Wheelton and Laysford together had muddied his pictures of journalism, +and even Flo had clouded his thoughts of happiness, what was worth +while? Might London be all he had painted it? Was it to be "never glad, +confident morning again"? + +Such was the muddle of Henry's mind when the two returned to Mrs. +Arkwright's from their afternoon stroll, and each went to his own rooms. +Henry threw himself into an arm-chair and gave himself up to brooding +thoughts--dark, distracting. He was not long alone, for his +fellow-lodger came to his door in the space of five minutes, with a +letter open in his hand and a smiling face, which betokened good news. + +"How's this for a piece of fortune?" he exclaimed, stepping briskly +towards Henry, and handing him the letter. "Read. It has just come with +the afternoon post." + +What Henry read was a brief note from Mr. Swainton of the _Lyceum_, +saying, that, curiously enough, the very week he had received Mr. P.'s +letter asking him if he knew of any suitable post for his friend, Mr. +Charles, the editor of the _Watchman_ had mentioned that he was on the +lookout for a smart young journalist as assistant editor of that weekly +review. He had spoken to him of Mr. Charles, and he now wrote to say +that if the latter would run up to town and see Mr. Godfrey Pilkington, +the gentleman in question, he might "pull off" the job. It would be +worth L350 a year, he fancied. + +Good news, indeed. At the magic touch of "London" Henry's doubts were +dissipated. They had existed only while the prospect still seemed to be +uncertain. He would have preferred an editorship; but an assistant in +London was (he imagined) as good as any editor in the provinces. + +"You know the _Watchman_, I suppose?" said Mr. P., who had closely +observed the young editor's delighted expression while reading the +letter. + +"Know it? I should think I do," he answered, with his old buoyancy of +spirit. "A perfect production, the best of all the sixpenny weeklies, +although it is the youngest. How can I thank you?" + +"Not so fast; you've still 'to pull it off,' as Swainton says. All that +I have done has been to open the door for you." + +"But isn't that everything?" + +"Almost, but not quite. If Henry Charles is found 'as advertised,' all +will be well. Something, you see, depends on yourself." + +"Get it or not, I'm eternally your debtor. Anyhow, my varied experience +should be of value, though they usually hanker after university chaps on +these weekly reviews. But the _Watchman_ is a rare old Tory, and here +I'm shrieking Radicalism at five pound a week." + +"Don't let that disturb you. I fancy your politics are of no importance. +It's your journalistic knowledge that's wanted. To make up the paper, +arrange the book reviews, write some of them--the paragraphs and so +forth. Pilkington is a society fellow who takes life easily, and wants a +competent sub. That's about the situation, I should say. I believe Lord +Dingleton finances the paper as a hobby." + +"In any case, it would mean a footing in London, and that is all I +want." + +"I am confident you'll suit, and although I advise you not to build too +much on London, I believe it's worth having a try at--if only to knock +on the head your romantic notions of life there. When will you go?" + +"To-morrow; first train; back in the evening. Nobody the wiser if it +doesn't come off." + +But it did; and for good or ill, with scarce a thought of Flo, Henry +returned to Laysford engaged as assistant-editor of the _Watchman_, on +the understanding that he would start as soon as he could possibly get +away from the _Leader_. The gentleman then assisting Mr. Pilkington was +a distinguished Oxford man, oozing learning at every pore, but as +incompetent a journalist as one would meet within the radius of +Newspaperland. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + IN LONDON TOWN + + +THE directors of the _Leader_ were more gracious about his resignation +than Henry had expected. Evidently, although quite satisfied with his +work, they did not apprehend any insurmountable difficulty in securing a +successor. The manager hinted (after Henry's going was certain) that +rather than have had the trouble of changing editors, they might even +have arranged to advance his salary--supreme proof that he had not been +without his merits in the eyes of his employers. Mr Jones, by virtue of +his superior years, took leave to warn him of the gravity of the step he +was taking, and assured him that at L350 a year in London he would be no +better off than he was with L100 less in Laysford. For one brief moment +Flo's desire that he should stay passed through his mind, but in his +heart he knew that it was not entirely a matter of money, and he set his +teeth to "Now or never." + +When it had been arranged that he was to leave the _Leader_, the manager +exhibited almost indecent haste in appointing his successor, and was +careful to remind him that although, as events turned out, he would be +free to go in a month's time, the Company was entitled to at least three +months' notice, and possibly six. Mr. Jones had a habit of making +generosity fit in with business; he did not mention that he had secured +a successor who was to receive L50 a year less than Henry had been +getting. At one time an editor of the _Leader_ had been paid as much as +L750 a year, but that was in the days of a showy start, when money went +out more rapidly than it came in, and during the succeeding years the +pay-books would show a steady decline in the rate of editorial salaries. +By strict limitation of payments, Mr. Jones was steadily increasing the +dividends of the shareholders, and steadily depreciating the standard of +the staff. The day that Henry left, the literary touch which Adrian +Grant and a limited few had noticed in the _Leader_ under his editorship +disappeared, and the market and police intelligence again gave the tone +of the sheet. + +The most serious feature of his removal was the conduct of Miss Winton, +who gave him more than one bad quarter of an hour for his selfishness in +actually accepting the engagement "without a single thought of her." Flo +harped so steadily on this note, that Henry was half-persuaded he was +indeed a shamefully selfish young man; and when he closely examined his +conduct, he wondered whether the satisfaction with which he had +reported his fortune to his father arose from filial affection or from +downright vanity. + +The upshot of Miss Winton's exposition of his selfishness and her +tearful protestations against his deserting her was a formal engagement, +where only an "understanding" had existed before. This seemed to still +her anxious heart, but Henry had made the proposition with none of the +fervour with which more than once in fancy he had seen himself begging +for her hand. In truth, his heart misgave him, and he did not mention +the matter in any of his letters home. He rightly judged that such news +might dull the keen edge of pleasure his London appointment would afford +to his own folk at Hampton. He did not even mention it to Mr. +Puddephatt. For the first time in his life he felt himself something of +a dissembler. In this way his removal to London rather aggravated his +state of mental unrest than modified it. His brightest dream had come +true, but-- + +The first weeks in London, however, were so full of new sensations and +agreeable distractions, that he had scarcely been a fortnight away from +Laysford when it looked like a year. To walk down Fleet Street and the +Strand each day, or to thread the old byways between the Embankment and +Holborn, with the knowledge that no excursion train was to rush him off +northward at the end of fourteen days, was a pleasure which only the +provincial settling in London could enjoy. How he had longed for years +to tread these pavements as a resident, and not merely as a gaping +visitor. His feet gripped them while he walked, as though he thought at +every stride, "Ye are firm beneath me at last, O Streets of London!" + +Fleet Street, he knew in his heart, was outwardly as shabby a +thoroughfare as ever served for the main artery of a great city, but he +also knew that if the buildings were mean and the crowd that surged +along its pavements as common to the eye as any in the frowsiest +provincial city, there was more romance behind many of these shabby +windows which bore the names of journals, famous and obscure, than in +stately Whitehall or in Park Lane. The hum of printing-presses from +dingy basements, the smell of printer's ink from many open doors, had a +charm for him which perversely recalled the scent of new-mown hay in a +Hampton meadow long years before. + +At first, he rarely passed a street without noting its name, an odd +building without finding something to engage his interest, a man of +uncommon aspect without wondering who he might be--what paper did he +edit? But soon his daily walk from his lodgings in Woburn Place to the +office of the _Watchman_ opposite the Law Courts was performed with +less attention to the common objects of the route. + +A sausage shop hard by his office, sending forth at all hours of the day +a strong odour of frying fat and onions, remained the freshest of his +impressions; he never passed it without thinking of its impertinence in +such a quarter; but one day he discovered that it was not without claim +to literary associations. + +A young man with a chin that had required a shave for at least three +days, wearing a shabby black mackintosh suggestive of shabbier things +below, and boots much down at heel, came out of the shop with the aroma +of sausage and onion strong upon him, and the fag-end of a savoury +mouthful in the act of descending his throat. Something in the features +of this dilapidated person struck Henry as oddly familiar, so that he +glanced at him intently, and looked back, still puzzling as to who the +fellow could be, when he found the shabby one looking at him, and +evidently equally exercised concerning his identity. After a moment's +hesitation, Henry walked back to him, and the sausage-eater flushed as +he said: + +"Why, Hen--Mr. Charles--can it be you? I knew you were in London, and +had half a mind to call on you, but you--well--" + +The reason why was too obvious to call for explanation. + +Henry himself was quite as much confused as the speaker. It was a shock +to him to recognise in the person before him none other than one who had +first pointed out to him the road to Journalism--"Trevor Smith, if you +please." + +What a change from those Stratford days, when he had talked so jauntily +of fortunes made in Fleet Street, so hopefully of the coming of his own +chance there. The greasy hat was worn with none of the old rakish air, +but served only as a sorry covering for unkempt locks; and if London +streets were paved with gold, the precious metal had worn away the heels +of Trevor's boots as surely as any of the baser sorts. + +It was difficult for one so transparently honest as Henry to pretend not +to notice the pitiable condition of his old friend, and there was a +forced cordiality in his tone when he greeted him. + +"My dear fellow, I am delighted to meet you again. Odd, isn't it, that +we should meet among London's millions? Come along with me to the Press +Restaurant for a bit of lunch and a chat over old times." + +"Thank you very much," said Trevor, "but the fact is I have just had +something to eat--" + +"Never mind that; so have I. Let it be coffee and a chat." + +Together they crossed the street and sought out a remote corner of the +restaurant, where, despite his protestations, Trevor submitted to adding +two poached eggs on toast to the sumptous repast he had taken at the +sausage-shop. + +The story he had to tell was as threadbare as his clothes; with +variations, it might stand for that of fifty per cent, of Fleet Street's +wrecks; the other moiety being explained by the one word, Drink. + +Some two years after Henry left Wheelton the Stratford edition of the +_Guardian_ had been discontinued. Despite the brilliancy of the "Notes +and Comments" from Trevor's pungent pen, the number of copies sold +brought no profit to the proprietors, and the journalist who had +demanded weekly "the liberty to know, to think, and to utter freely +above all other liberties," was given the liberty to find another +situation. Every effort to secure a reportership had failed, though he +confessed to having answered upwards of eighty advertisements; and then, +as a last resource, he had found his way to London, which calls for only +those who have fought and won their fight in the provinces, but receives +with every one such a waggon-load of wastrels. + +"And now?" asked Henry. + +"Writing introductions about different towns for the British +Directories, Limited, at half-a-crown a thousand words. Some weeks it +means as much as fifteen shillings, but the job will soon be finished, +and I see nothing ahead of it." + +Trevor was near to weeping point, but perhaps Henry was more affected +than he by the recital of his woes. Gone was every vestige of his old +journalistic chatter, and in the very highway of the profession he +ranked as an alien compared with the position he had held when he and +Henry lodged together at Stratford. Stranger still, in dropping the old +jargon of the newspaper man, he seemed to have lost even the confidence +to ask a loan now that he stood more in need of it, and Henry could +better spare the money. + +It was left to Henry to suggest that perhaps the loan of a pound, "as +between two fellow-journalists," would not be amiss. "Most men of +letters," he added kindly, "have at one time or other experienced +reverses of fortune. There is no hurry for repayment." + +"I am most grateful; you are indeed a good friend to me," said Trevor, +not without a touch of real emotion; "and if only I can get _Jinks's +Weekly_ to use a three-guinea article on 'A Week in a Dosshouse,' you +shall have the money back soon. They took an article from me--nearly two +years ago--on 'Fortunes made in Journalism.' I got four guineas for it; +but it was the only thing of any length I have managed to place since +coming to town." + +The odd couple parted at the restaurant door, and Trevor Smith shuffled +off Strandwards without any profuse thanks, for he was one of those who, +lacking both the capacity and the opportunity to succeed, when overtaken +by misfortune become so shrivelled in character that they display not +even the melancholy pluck necessary to mendicancy. The chances were that +he and Henry would never meet again. The stout ship under full sail had +sighted the derelict for a moment--that was all. Like so many of his +kind, Trevor Smith was fated to sink out of sight in the dark, +mysterious oubliette of London's failures. + +The assistant editor of the _Watchman_ returned to his office almost as +sad at heart, if not more so, than the man he had left, whose heart was +numbed and passionless. + +The office of his paper was scarcely so elegant as he had once imagined +all London editorial quarters to be. The entrance was a fairly wide slit +between a barber's and a tobacconist's, the stairs as mean as those at +the office of the _Wheelton Guardian_; but the first floor, occupied by +the newspaper, was remarkably well furnished, Mr. Godfrey Pilkington +being a gentleman of some taste, and the proprietor of the _Watchman_ +did not stint him in such items of expense. At first Henry had marvelled +that a peer of the realm could have deigned to mount such miserable +stairs or to trust his august person in elbowing between the barber's +and the tobacconist's, but he soon learned that the most unpretentious +accommodation on the highway of journalism may cost as much as marble +halls in a provincial city. + +The editor, as Adrian Grant had hinted, was no glutton for work, and an +hour or two each day appeared to satisfy his taste. Thus all the details +of the _Watchman_ were left to Henry, the chief articles being +contributed by friends of Mr. Pilkington. A cashier, a clerk, and an +advertising manager were the only members of the office staff; and as +the paper was distributed by a large wholesale house, no business beyond +the editorial and advertising affairs of the _Watchman_ was conducted at +the office. A very humdrum place, in truth, except on the rare occasions +when the lordly proprietor put in an appearance, or Mr. Pilkington +received some political person with an axe to grind, and an eye on the +_Watchman_, as a possible grinder. + +For all that, the _Watchman_ made a brave show every Friday, and its +articles were quoted widely in the provincial Press as representing the +weighty opinion of Tory inner circles; and the more the _Watchman_ was +quoted the higher rose the hopes of Mr. Pilkington that Lord Dingleton +would continue to bridge the monthly chasm which yawned between the +income of the _Watchman_ and the cost of its production, for--let us +blab the horrid truth, as yet unknown to Henry--the paper was merely the +expensive hobby of his lordship. + +On returning to his office after his encounter with Trevor Smith, the +young journalist was surprised and delighted to find Adrian Grant seated +in his chair, and smoking the eternal cigarette. + +"Thought I would just drop in to see how you were getting along," the +visitor said, rising and shaking hands with his protege. "Very +comfortable quarters here," glancing round Henry's well-furnished room. + +"I had just been wondering this very day when I should have the pleasure +of seeing you again." The sincerity of Henry's words was apparent on his +face. + +"I have only run up to town for a week or two before leaving for another +spell in Sardinia. I am getting restless again, and there flow the +waters of Nepenthe. But the question is: How are you?" + +"Pleased with my work, at least, I must say, and fascinated by London. +But only to-day I have had a peep at its under side, and I fear that +the less one knows of that the better for one's peace." + +"'See all, nor be afraid.' Surely you will let Browning advise you if +that decadent Adrian Grant is too pessimistic for your healthy British +taste," said the visitor, with the hint of a smile. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + THE PEN AND PENCIL CLUB + + +THE "Magpie" is, or was, a hotel of the good old-fashioned homely type, +standing in a street off the Strand, in the Adelphi quarter. One must +speak thus indefinitely, since the whole face of the neighbourhood has +been transformed within recent years, and many a memory-laden house +demolished. At the "Magpie" the era of electric bells, elevators, +ostentation, had produced no effect, and within hail of many +_caravanserais_, where the pomp and circumstance of King Money might +have been seen in all its extravagance, the "Magpie" retained its +flavour of old-time cosiness and plainness. + +It was a hotel much frequented by the better class of country visitors; +the London man of fashion never strayed within its portals. But here, by +reason of the retired situation of the place, the accommodation of the +rooms, and in some degree (we may suppose) the moderate terms, the +headquarters of the Pen and Pencil Club were situated. Less than three +hundred yards away, the Strand was a turgid stream of noises; here was +a backwater startlingly quiet. + +Though certain of the vulgar upstarts, who manage to sneak into every +community of proper men, not excepting literary clubland, complained +that they could not get eatable food at the "Magpie," the members of the +club, as a whole, did eat with some heartiness whenever they assembled +around the board, which was twice a month during autumn and winter. Few +of the members turned up in evening dress; the average author does not +find it necessary to entirely expose his shirt-front when he sits down +to his evening meal. Something of the older Bohemianism hung, like +lavender in an ancient chest, about the Pen and Pencil Club; from which +it will be understood that it was not exactly the Bohemianism of dirty +clothes and stale beer, but rather that brotherliness which enables men +of kindred tastes and interests to dispense with the artificial +ceremonies of society. + +Such was the spirit of the company to which Henry was introduced by his +friend at the "Magpie." The buzz of talk in the club-room dazed him a +little at first, and very timidly did he submit to be introduced to this +celebrity and to that. Most of the members and guests assembled were +standing talking familiarly, awaiting the summons to dinner. + +"Let me introduce my friend Mr. Charles, of the _Watchman_, Mr. Angus +St. Clair," said Mr. P., thus mentioning the name of a world-famous +Scottish novelist, with whom Henry almost funked shaking hands. + +Yet Mr. Sinclair was scarcely so impressive to gaze upon as many a City +clerk; far less so than any young man behind a draper's counter in +Oxford Street. He was below medium height, quite without distinction of +features, and wore a faded brown suit. Withal, his publishers could sell +fifty thousand copies of any book he cared to write, and the Press of +the Anglo-Saxon race resounded with anecdotes about him. + +"Ma name's pronounced Sinkler, but they pock-puddens will ca' me St. +Clair, so what can a body do, Mr. Chairles?" + +Mr. Charles couldn't enlighten him; but his host suggested that the +Scotch didn't know how to pronounce their own names, and weren't very +particular how they treated English ones. The secretary of the club +dragged Mr. Sinclair off before he could return fire to introduce him to +one craving his hand-shake, and Mr. Puddephatt, who appeared to be known +only as Adrian Grant among the members, said to Henry that whenever he +saw Sinclair he thought of a boiled egg, because the fellow seemed so +small and thin that he felt he could break his skull with a tap of a +spoon. + +"Ah, Mr. Grinton, how do you do?... My guest, Mr. Charles, of the +_Watchman_--a coming man, my dear Grinton, a coming man." + +Mr. Edward Grinton shook hands with the coming man, who was never in a +more retiring mood. + +"I read the _Watchman_," he said, "and like it, but I wish it wouldn't +worry about my literary style. The only test of merit in novels, Mr. +Charles, is sales. Ask at any bookseller if his customers care a straw +for literary style. They want a story, and I give 'em what they--Ah, +Tredgold! Still slogging at that play?" and Mr. Grinton turned abruptly +to another member who had two plays running at London theatres, and, in +Grinton's phrase, "made pots of money." + +This Grinton no longer holds the bookstalls in the palm of his hand. His +star has set; but at that time his stories sold enormously, and earned +him a large income. They were common trash, concerned chiefly with +mysterious murders, and each had a startling picture on the cover, which +the publisher alleged was the chief cause of their success. He had curly +hair. That was the only thing about him Henry noticed. + +In turn he was next introduced to Henry Davies, the editor of the +_Morning Sun_, the great Radical daily--a man who stuttered strangely, +and had difficulty in saying that he was p--p--pleased to m--m--meet Mr. +Ch--Ch--Charles; Mr. Frederick Fleming, the well-known dramatic critic +of the _Daily Journal_; and other celebrities whom he had long +worshipped from afar. The most ordinary mortals all; not one of them had +the mystic touch of Adrian Grant, who seemed to Henry the most +distinguished man among the company. + +"Dinner is served, gentlemen," the waiter called, in rousing tones, and +instantly the babble ceased, and members and guests filed out to the +dining-room. + +Henry was seated next to his host, and had on his right Mr. Bone, the +eminent publisher, who happened to be the guest of Grinton, the +novelist. The lion lay down with the lamb in the Pen and Pencil Club. + +It was the custom of the fraternity after dining to carry on a +discussion on some literary topic, and to "talk shop" to their heart's +content. The chairman, Mr. Diamond Jones, a highly successful literary +critic, whose profound ignorance of literature's deeper depths was the +standing joke of his fellow-clubmen, mentioned that they did talk shop +there, but contended that "literary shop" was worth talking, as +everybody was interested in it; other "shop" was only "shop," and +therefore contemptible. Your literary worker has a fine disdain for +every branch of life but his own. + +The speaking was scarcely enthralling. It happened to turn on the +subject of humour in literature, and a celebrated humorist opened the +discussion with some observations which suggested (unfairly) that he +knew very little of what he was talking about. Apparently he had never +heard that Shakespeare was a humorist, or that Carlyle was not devoid of +the quality, or that Thackeray had some of it, not to mention Dickens. +Even Meredith and Hardy escaped the notice of all the speakers, who +talked about most things but the topic that had been introduced. Henry +concluded that the gifts of writing and oratory are seldom wedded in the +one. The best speaker was a novelist, whose books were as free from +humour as Ireland is from snakes. He thought that humour wasn't a high +quality. Good for him that he had none, as the great reading public +likes a man who is either as serious as an owl or as giddy as a Merry +Andrew. Sinclair was reputedly a humorist, but it was difficult to get +him to open his mouth on the subject, and when he did the company was in +doubt whether to laugh or applaud. + +"Humour," he said, in his drawling Scotch accent, "is, according to +Russell Lowell, the great antiseptic of leeterature. For my pairt, +'werna ma heart licht I wad dee.'" And he sat down. + +Really these great guns of literature thundered no better than a +twopenny cannon. Henry had heard as good at a church debating society in +Wheelton. At least, the disparity was scarce appreciable, and yet the +men he had listened to were, each of them, capable of great things pen +in hand; most of them would have been a loadstar of interest in any +large provincial city. They were best beheld at a distance and behind +the glamour of their books, he thought. + +But he had reason to modify his opinion in the light of the club-room +gossip which followed the dinner and discussion. He was soon tingling +with delight at hearing men whose names were widely known discussing the +affairs of the literary world. He felt that he stood at the very fount +of those streams of gossip which flow far and wide through the channels +of the Press. He knew that many a paragraph he had clipped from a London +journal and printed in his column in the _Laysford Leader_ had +originated in the after-dinner chatter of his club, or some such +coterie. "I am informed that Mr. Blank's next novel will deal with," or +"My readers may be interested to know that Mr. So-and-So, the celebrated +author of this or that, is about to," or again, "Mr. Such-and-Such is +contemplating a holiday in Timbuctoo with a view to local colour for his +next romance, which has been arranged to appear in"--he could now see +that these pleasant pars, with their delightful "behind-the-scenes" +flavour, grew out of meetings like this. + +After leaving the "Magpie," Adrian Grant walked with Henry as far as +Long Acre, where the latter could get a 'bus Bloomsburyward. + +"An interesting gathering," said the novelist; "how did it impress you?" + +"Chiefly that distinguished authors are very like human beings, on the +whole." + +"I'm glad of that. Now you're learning. But you'll find much true +camaraderie among them, if you allow for the little eccentricities of +the artistic temperament, which you are sure to notice the more you know +of them. I overheard a very third-rate novelist to-night telling a guest +that his own books were divided into three periods; the middle one being +a bridge that linked the two expressions of his mind together. Heavens! +I don't suppose there's a score of people in the country who are the +least concerned in his work. But he's a good fellow for all his vanity. +We're all of us vain, more or less." + +"I was also struck by the number of well-known people--men, I mean, +whose names are discussed throughout the whole country," Henry observed. +"It was difficult to realise the distinguished nature of the company. +You couldn't see the wood for trees, if the simile will hold water." + +"Quite so. Should you become as famous as Maister Sinkler, you'll still +find that in any club you enter there will be someone better known than +yourself. That's the best of London. It brings you to your level. Where +life is prolific--look at China--it is least valued. Where geniuses, or +men of talent, most abound, why, it's like Gilbert's era, 'when dukes +were four a penny.' At best, you're only a bit of vegetable in London's +broth-pot. But it's good that it should be so. In the country you are +inclined to esteem yourself too highly, and of all human follies that's +the worst." + +Mr. P.'s speech sounded like a literary setting of Flo's opinion: +"You're a somebody here; in London you'd be one of the crowd." + +They walked without speaking through the musty-smelling region of Covent +Garden, and had reached Long Acre before Henry broke the silence +suddenly by remarking, as if after much considering of the point: + +"You said that one would find some true camaraderie among the literary +set. That scarcely tallies with your rather pessimistic views of human +nature in general." + +"Well, after all, it's difficult to be consistent--and speak your mind. +My views of human nature remain unchanged, and though, as you have said, +authors are very like folk, they do have a touch of brotherliness which +you will find in no other profession; certainly not in the musical, of +which I know something. There may appear to be a good deal of +back-biting and jealousy among literary men; but they are always ready +to encourage the new man, to applaud the conscientious worker. Remember +that most authors of genius have first been proclaimed by their fellows +of the pen. In the nature of things it must be so. The asinine public +has to be told who are the writers worth reading. Mind you, the duffer +will get never a leg up, and before any one gets a lift he has to show +himself worthy of it. But I suppose the same might be said of the +business world as well." + +"Do you think I'm going the right way for a leg up, then?--if I may bore +you with my own petty affairs." + +"Not yet; but you'll soon be shaping that way. This I realise: +journalism will give any moderately clever fellow a living, but even a +genius will scarcely win a reputation that way. Billy Ricketts writes a +book, and even if it's a bad one, Billy is for a week or two more +noticed in the papers than the editor of the _Times_ will be in five +years. The journalist who gives his best to his paper is a pathetic +figure--from the British or Henry Charles point of view, I mean, as I'm +looking at the situation with your ideas to direct me, your view of +success. He is probably our nearest approach to the Greek sculptors I +seem to remember quoting to you once. Anonymity is essential to the true +artist, I hold; and strangely, it is the newspaper man--none less +artistic--who conforms to this law in England, perhaps unwillingly." + +"Of course, we'll never agree on that point," said Henry, "as I'm all +for personality." + +"So; that's what I know, and hence my line of reasoning. Play up your +personality for all it's worth, and be happy. It's not my way; but no +matter. And to do so, journalism is at best only a training school. What +you must do is a book. Once you make a moderate success with a book, +your precious personality has become a marketable thing in modern +Philistia." + +"You mean a novel, I suppose?" + +"I mean a book. You're not a poet, or the song within would have rilled +out long ago. _Ergo_, it's not a book of poetry. You have a literary +touch, and might do well in the essay; but essays are 'off' just now, +says the Ass-in-Chief of the great B. P. You haven't gone round the +world on your hands and knees, or walked from Charing Cross to St. +Paul's on your head--either of which achievements would have given you +copy for a sensational book hot with personality, and made you the most +sought-after lecturer of the day. So there remains only the novel, and +the B. P. shouts for more novel, like the whimpering infant it is. Give +it novel, my lad. You, as well as anybody. That the novel has become a +contemptible convention of the publishing trade is not its fault. Always +remember we have Meredith and Hardy and Stevenson writing novels, and +you will think well of that vehicle of expression." + +"But I have no great impulse to write fiction. I'd rather write about +the men who write it," Henry said. + +"A pity that; for little of real value is done without the impulse. But +one never knows. Try and see. The impulse may follow in the same sense +that certain psychologists believe the simulation of an emotion produces +its effect. I like the idea; but am not quite ready to accept it. +Reproduce the muscular expressions of sorrow or joy, and you will after +a time be sorrowful or glad, says Nordau. There's something in the +thought, perhaps. Similarly, determine to write a novel, and the mood +for novel-writing will be induced. I don't say I agree with the theory. +But it's worth a trial, and anyhow a novel is the easiest form in which +to make a public appeal, to make merchandise of your personality." + +Adrian Grant's face wore its half-cynical smile as he said this, and +extending his hand to Henry, he added abruptly, as his manner was: "This +is your 'bus, I think; I must make for Kensington." + +Henry shook hands at once with a hurried expression of thanks for his +friend's kindness, and jumped on the 'bus, while Mr. P. hailed a passing +hansom, and set out for his rooms in Gloucester Road. + +Vague and confused were the thoughts of Henry as the 'bus lumbered its +way by historic Drury Lane and across Holborn, to his door in +Bloomsbury. A 'bus ride was still full of romance to him, and the +glimmering lamps of London were dearer to his mind than "the swing of +Pleiades"; every jingling cab that passed, every lighted window, was +touched with romance in his eyes. To make this wondrous City listen to +him--how the dream thrilled him! That the unknown thousands who flitted +through these world-famous streets, and lived behind these lighted +windows, might read what he wrote and know him for the writer--it was +worth trying for. Already he had seen his book brave in bright gilt, +shouldering the best of them in the book-shops of Holborn and the +Strand; he could read the reviews distinctly: noticed even the size and +style of the type they were set in, was gratified to find them so +remarkably favourable, and--"Wob'n Plice!" shouted the conductor. + +Henry descended to asphalt, and was presently putting on his slippers in +his small sitting-room in a Bloomsbury boarding-house. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + THREE LETTERS, AND SOME OTHERS + + +ON the mantelpiece of his room, set on end against the little marble +clock which ignored the flight of time, Henry found three letters. He +examined the addresses and postmarks of each, and saw at a glance that +one was from his sister Dora, another from Flo, and the third from Edgar +Winton. For a moment he hesitated, undecided which to open first. Home +for him had a far-off call by now, and it was with the vague sense of a +dream that was past that he read Dora's fortnightly letters. Flo--hers +was a more recent influence--and from a fascinating it had come to be an +irksome one: the more real by that token. He burst open Edgar's letter +with his forefinger, and read: + + "DEAR HENRY,--I've been going to write you any time these last + six weeks, but--well, old man, I'm no hand at correspondence + unless it's a penny a line. Besides, I hear about you through + Flo, who is quite reconciled to your absence, which the poet + tells us makes the heart grow fonder. I wonder! + + "But first of all, you'll want an inside view of the dear old + rickety old _Leader_. Your successor is a daisy, and no mistake. + Walks into the office in knickers and a cloth cap, and shaves + once a week when his beard is ready for clipping. Even Dodge, + the newest junior, sneers at him, and refuses to recognise 'that + josser' as editor. It's hard cheese on a youngster to run up + against a weed like Steel for his first editor. Gives a low idea + of our noble profession, don't you know. + + "Steel's greatest feat has been to assault his wife in the + street while drunk (that's Steel, not the wife, I mean, who was + lushing), and get run in; but a word from 'Puggie' [Mr. Albert + Scriven, the chief reporter, so called by reason of his physical + appearance], who happened to be at the police station at the + time, put the matter right, and 'Puggie' took our warrior to his + ''appy little 'ome.' It fell to my lot to vamp up the usual + editorial cackle myself that night, but I've got to help the + beauty most nights, as he doesn't like work. Jones knows of his + little exploits, but does nothing. He's got him cheap, and + that's enough for him. Besides, nobody outside the office--and + nobody in it, for that matter--would believe that Steel was + editor of the paper, so Jones swaggers about the town, and has + taken to describing himself as 'managing editor.' Oh, we enjoy + life here! there's a lot of fun in the game. Steel wonders how + the paper lived through the editorship of 'a literary ass.' He + isn't nuts on literature; but with a pair of scissors, some gum, + and a pencil, the Johnnie can knock out leaders while you cough, + and the joke is nobody seems to be a bit the worse. Hope you + don't mind my telling you this; but really, do you think anybody + reads leaders? I hope they don't read mine. + + "The _Leader_ appeared four hours late yesterday. What do you + think of that? Jones again. He's a treat. A cog-wheel of the Hoe + machine burst, and there wasn't a spare one in stock, nor in the + town. Though he had been warned months ago, when a similar + accident happened, that the last spare wheel had been used, he + would not spend the money to stock one or two. We had to borrow + one from the _Milton Daily Post_. You are well out of the hole, + I can tell you. + + "I read the _Watchman_ every week, and think it immense; but you + fly above me, old man. I'm only a country scribbler, and must + admire you a long way off. I takes off my hat to you, sir. + + "The mater is rather queer just now, and I hope she isn't going + to kipper. But one never can tell. 'Our times are in His hand,' + that's Browning, isn't it? I saw it quoted the other day, and + managed to drag it into a leaderette this week. Sounds well, I + think. + + "Pater joins in kind regards--at least, I suppose he does, + though I haven't asked him--and Flo is sending her warmest + breathings direct, I understand.--Believe me, ever thine, + + "EDGAR WINTON." + +Henry was inclined to resent the flippant tone of the letter, the +senseless slang; but he remembered that it was "only Edgar's way," and +stuffed the sheets back into their envelope and into his inside pocket. +Flo's letter he turned over again as he lifted it and Dora's from his +knee. He opened his sister's next, and laid the other down. + +It was the usual Hampton budget of uninteresting details about the +doings of that little community, and Henry read it in his usual +perfunctory way, scarce recollecting the people whose names were +recalled by it. "Who on earth is old Gatepost? I believe she means old +John Crew, the farm bailiff. I'm surprised he is only dying now. Thought +he would have been dead long ago." Often his thoughts would run thus +over some bit of news from Dora. She seemed to write from out the past. + + "Hoping you are well, as we all are when this leaves. No more at + present, from your loving Sis." + +The phrase might have been stereotyped; it was Dora's one form of +"drawing to a close." Indeed, she did not draw thither; she simply +closed according to formula when she had spun her loose threads of news +into some semblance of a web of words. + +Dora's letter was presently keeping Edgar's company, with many another +tattered envelope and note, in Henry's pocket. + +He turned to the third of the letters with no apparent zest. + +"She writes a neat hand after all," he murmured, as he scanned the +superscription. A bad sign that. A man in love should be the last person +to ask for an opinion of the handwriting of his sweetheart. When he can +speak with deliberation on the subject or think of it with detachment, +he has become critical, and the end--happy or otherwise--is not far off. +Happy only if there is still time or courage to draw back. + +"She writes a neat hand after all," said Henry, as he rammed his finger +into the flap of the scented envelope and burst it open. "After all!" +These even more than the words preceding them were suggestive. + +The hour was late, and who knows but that may, to some extent, have been +responsible for the blinking mood in which the young man read his +sweetheart's letter? It was the typical feminine scrawl, chiefly chatter +about society doings in Laysford. + + "Oh, I'm becoming quite a giddy girl, dearest, and me engaged. + It's too awful. Just fancy, I've been to three + functions--_three_! Poor me that used to go nowhere at all. The + Mellises' garden party was a very swell affair. I was there + because I teach the daughter the pianoforte--and a silly thing + she is. But--_don't_ be angry now, Hal--who do you think took me + to the Mayor's reception? Why, that terrible goose, Mr. + Trentham, the Mayor's secretary. You remember him? Short, stout, + fair moustache, but _always_ well dressed. Fancies himself, + _rather_. He has asked me to go with him to another reception, + when some sort of conference comes to Laysford. I don't know + what it is, but the receptions are all right. Lots of fun and + the best of everything. Perhaps you wouldn't like me to go, + dearest? But really you needn't be _jealous_. Trentham is + _really_ a goose. Only one is so dull, and then _everybody_ + knows I'm engaged." + +Henry knew, certainly; and he had no doubt the "everybody" was not +unjustified. He accepted the information without a pang of jealousy. + +"Everybody knows I'm engaged." Somehow, he would not readily have +confessed to delight in the fact. Trentham he did not recall as +suggestive of the ungainly biped. "Rather a decent sort of chap," +thought Henry. "Not much in Flo's way, I imagine." He blinked through +the remainder of the letter, never dreaming--though near to +dreamtime--that Trentham was wondering what Flo could see in Henry +Charles. The man who can divine just why another man loves or admires +one woman, or why a woman "sees anything" in another man, has yet to be +born. He was certainly neither Henry Charles nor Mr. Trentham. + +"Not a word from Flo about her mother," Henry reflected, on his way to +bed. "Just like her--all about herself. I wonder if I'm an ass!" + +How unreasonable men are. Why should Flo have written about anyone but +herself? + +It was time for Henry to wonder. But he was still wondering months +later, when Trentham was not. + +The fact is, this Trentham was a very fair specimen of the average +bull-headed Englishman, and better than most in the eyes of Miss Winton, +since he enjoyed a private income, which made him quite independent of +the salary attaching to his official position. His name cropped up +frequently for a time in Flo's letters to Henry, but the latter +scarcely referred to it in any of his replies, from which Flo judged him +jealous, and when Trentham had never a mention from her, Henry supposed +him circling in some other orbit. Here, of course, he was wrong, and he +might have noticed a lowering temperature in the tone of Flo's epistles. +There was still need to ask himself whether he was an ass, and to answer +in the affirmative. But he never thought out an answer until one day it +came ready-made in a fine right-hander, which took his breath away: + + "DEAR HENRY,--I am so sorry to tell you that I cannot continue + our engagement. My affections have undergone a change, and I + think it best for both of us that we should not carry out the + engagement. I have promised to marry Mr. Trentham, who really + thought we were never engaged. I haven't worn the ring much, as + I didn't care greatly for the style of it, and now return it. + I feel it is best for both of us to cease our correspondence. + I shall always wish you well.--Sincerely yours, + + "FLO WINTON." + +"An ass," undoubtedly. The thing that he had often wished had happened, +yet he felt chagrined, and the sense of having been wronged leaped up +at him. + +"She has made a fool of me," thought Henry, after reading the brief +note, "and yet I'm glad." But he was nothing of the kind. He knew that +he ought to be glad; he had hoped for this for nearly a year in the +odd moments when he saw things clearly, and realised that Flo was +receding from the place she had once held in his esteem. His visits +to Laysford had not improved matters. He was vexed, irritated, +disappointed--anything but glad. His self-esteem was wounded, and to +have avoided an injury there he would have faced even the obligation +he had entered into before coming to London. + +"She has taken up Trentham because the creature has a bit of money," he +muttered savagely, crumpling up the offending note, and then opening it +out to read the fateful words again. "So much for women!" And he swept +the sex aside for the perfidy of this one, though the woman's very +selfishness was the saving of him. + +"Delighted!" he wrote in bold letters on a postcard, and put her name +and address on it. Then he tore it up, and feared he was a cad to the +bargain. + +Delighted! He was miserable for three days, until he could sit down and +pen a sensible letter, in which he expressed the opinion that Flo had a +better knowledge of her affections than he had, and that while he would +never have given her the pain of breaking their engagement, he accepted +the situation with some philosophy, since it did not altogether run +against his own inclination. + +A silly affair enough, as he came to understand once the final letter +had been posted, and even so he had a delusion that at some time he had +been actually in love with Flo. One cannot tell whether she had any +delusions on the same object. She was not of the kind who dream dreams. + +"I'm terribly sorry, old man, that Flo has cut up this way," wrote +Edgar. "I always fancied you and she were engaged, but evidently not. +Trentham is a very decent sort. They're to be married soon now that the +mater is all right again. Flo is nuts on 'style,' you know, and you are +not--unless it's literary style. After all, perhaps it's for the best. I +think everything is for the best except what happens at the _Leader_ +office. Steel still keeps the uneven tenor of his way. I make wonderful +progress. Don't gasp when I tell you that, quite unsolicited, I got a +rise of half-a-crown last week. I think I shall buy a motor-car with +it. Fancy, Jones has gone in for electric light. You wouldn't know the +place now--the light shows up the dirt so strongly." + +But Laysford had entirely lost interest for Henry now. To fancy one has +been in love is almost as serious a condition as to be in love. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + "THAT BOOK" + + +ADRIAN GRANT had gone away to Sardinia, but he had left Henry urged to +the point of writing "that book." At first Henry approached the task +with but little taste, for he had the good sense to doubt whether his +talent lay in the direction of creative work, as the writing of fiction +is so comically miscalled. But the thing had to be done, and as well now +as again. At first progress was slow, as book-reviewing for the +_Watchman_ kept him busy most nights at home, while sub-editorial duties +filled out all too amply his office hours. There was agony of mind in +the writing of the early chapters, and he had not gone far when the +rupture with Flo came to disturb his thoughts and to agitate his +feelings. But it had the effect of setting him almost savagely to his +novel again, and gloomy was the atmosphere he created in his chapters. +It was a romance of town and country life, and was entitled +provisionally, "Grey Life." + +For a while after Flo's exit from his life the book went ahead rapidly; +then he set it aside almost afraid to go on after reading what he had +written; it was so savage, so unlike anything he had ever hoped to +write. If at that time he could have been impersonal enough in his +criticism, he would have seen at a glance that Adrian Grant was not only +responsible for his having essayed the task, but that he had projected +something of his pessimism into the mind of the writer. + +The unfolding young editor, who had meant to write such a scathing +review of "Ashes," would have been as incensed by the unhealthy gloom, +the wintry sadness, of "Grey Life." Of course, it is to be remembered +that the said young editor had never delivered the terrible slating he +intended to devote to Adrian Grant's popular work, but he had at least +thought it, and believed it would have been justified, even after he had +written something different. Though the morbidity of sex was entirely +absent from "Grey Life," it contained a good deal that was as deserving +of ban as anything in "Ashes." + +When Mr. P. returned in the late autumn of the year from his sojourn in +the South, he asked to be shown the manuscript, incomplete as it was; +and pronounced it good. + +"You've stuck almost in sight of the end," he said. + +"Wrecked in port," replied Henry, laughing. + +"Not quite wrecked, but floating rudderless. There's no reason why this +shouldn't hit--if you want to make a hit. But it's generally books that +are published without intent to 'boom' that stumble into success. At +least, it's been so with mine." + +"But I'm uneasy about it all. Don't you think the picture intolerably +grey?" + +"None too grey, my lad--grey is the colour of life," said the man who +had just come back from cloudless blue skies and gorgeous sunsets. + +"Somehow I felt like that when writing, but when I read it I have an +inkling that life is brighter than I have shown it to be; that it's +worth while living both in country and in town." + +"It's not for me to advise one who has done so well off his own bat, but +I would suggest that you work the thing out to its bitter end, keeping +true to the artistic impulse which will settle each of the characters +for you, and without you, if you but let it have its sway." + +"But it would be a bitter end for two of them." + +"Precisely. For all of them, probably. It is for most of us." + +"There I don't agree with you. Don't you think the bitter end is at the +beginning? The book ends bitterly at the start, so to speak." + +"I do, and I don't object to that in the least. The fact is, you have +subordinated your Philistine nature most wonderfully, and are in a fair +way to produce a work of art, but here the Philistine part of you comes +uppermost at a critical moment, and has its usual fit of remorse at a +piece of genuine art. I would not have credited you with the capacity to +produce such a work as this manuscript contains. That is frank, isn't +it?" + +"And I ought to be flattered, I suppose. But I'm not. I've been +disillusioned all along the line, but surely when the illusions fall +away life is not merely a corner for moping in. Besides, is it a worthy +work to disillusionise others?" + +"It is. It is the business of sane men to expose for what they are the +fools' paradises of the world." + +"Surely not. Let the fools find it out themselves; and if they never do, +the better for them." + +"Look here, my young friend, your best plan is to take a holiday at once +and go down home for two or three weeks, to get over this mood of +contrariness. I'm surprised that you've been slogging away in London all +through the stifling summer. It was mere madness. You're suffering from +mental clog. Shake free of Fleet Street for a week or two, and the book +will finish, never fear. Whatever you do, don't have one of those +maudlin, barley-sugar ends. Be true to life, and let all else go. +Perhaps a visit home would supply the contrast necessary to re-start the +mind." + +"I've been thinking of that this very day." + +"Then my advice is: Go. You're not looking well. London is a hard +task-master, and the slave who runs to the eternal crack of his whip is +by way of being untimely worn out." + +The idea of spending an autumn holiday at home had been with Henry for +some time, even to the exclusion of plans for a visit to the Continent, +and it was evidence of the influence this strange friend had over him, +that so soon as he suggested it the project was distinctly forwarded. + +In another week he was to be homeward-bound: heart-free, but +disappointed. Successful in a sense, and a failure in the light of his +inner desires. London had not brought him peace of mind, and Hampton, he +feared, would only bore him into accepting the life of the City as the +lesser of two evils. + +If Henry could have looked inward then he would have seen that all his +uneasiness came from the dragging of the old anchor of faith which began +long ago at Laysford on his first meeting with Mr. Puddephatt. That, and +naught else. Edward John believed in the Bible _verbatim et litteratim_; +worshipped it with the superstitious awe wherewith a sentimental woman +bobs to tuppenceworth of stucco and a penn'orth of paint fashioned into +a Bambino; would have believed it implicitly had the story ran that +Jonah swallowed the whale; and often, indeed, expressed his readiness +for that supreme test of faith. + +To Henry, as to every young man who thinks, came the inevitable +collision between inherited belief and acquired knowledge. Also the +inevitable wreckage. Many thousands had gone his road before him, and +more will follow. To the father the roads of Knowledge and of Faith ran +neatly parallel, the one narrow and the other broad; but as the son +laboured at the widening of the former, the road of Faith, trodden less +and less, was dwindling into a crooked and uncertain footway. It's an +old, old story--why say more than that the miraculous basis of belief is +a mere quicksand when Knowledge attempts to stand upon it? + +But Edward John was as much a man as his son would ever be, and Henry +could see that his father was as important a unit in the Kingdom of +Heaven as he could hope to become. Was Ignorance, then, the kindest +friend? No, there must be a way for the cultured as for the unlettered; +but was it a different way? + +Thus and so forth went the unrestful soul of the young man, who was +even then writing his undecided mind into a novel, and by that token +giving evidence of an ignorance as essential as his father's, different +in kind but not in degree. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + HOME AGAIN + + +TWO days before Henry had planned to leave London for his holiday at +home, Adrian Grant looked in upon him hurriedly at the _Watchman_ office +to ask if it were possible for him to secure accommodation at Hampton. + +"You!" exclaimed Henry, in surprise, and something akin to a feeling of +shame for the meagre possibilities of entertainment at his home flushed +his face. + +"Why not?" said his friend, with a smile. "I know less than nothing of +English rural life, and it came to me as an inspiration this morning +that here was a chance to try the effect of country quiet at home. I +have a bit of work to finish, and most of my writing has been done +abroad in drowsy places. Strange I have never tried our own rural +shades, though I produce but little either in London or at Laysford." + +"It's an idea, certainly," Henry observed, in a very uncertain tone. +"I'm sorry my people--" + +"Of course, I would not dream of troubling your folk, but I suppose +there's such a thing as a village inn even in your secluded corner of +earth." + +"There's the 'Wings and Spur,' to be sure, but I am doubtful of its +comfort." + +"It's an inn, and that's enough for one who has wandered strange roads," +and the bright earnestness of the novelist proved to Henry that he +really meant to carry out this whim of his. + +Nor did he fail to notice a strange elation of manner in Mr. P. for +which he could not satisfactorily account. + +The incident, however, was the matter of a moment, and the novelist went +away as hurriedly as he entered after ascertaining the train by which +Henry purposed travelling from St. Pancras, leaving the journalist with +the uncomfortable sense of being party to some absurd freak. + +His wits were not nimble enough, thus suddenly taxed, to see all sides +of the project, and he swayed between the pleasant thought of visiting +his old home in the company of one so distinguished as Adrian Grant, and +the dubious fear of the impression which his humble relatives might make +upon this polished man of the world. His father's doubtful h's sounded +uncomfortably on the ear of his memory; the prospect of his toil-worn +mother entertaining such a guest, if only for an occasional meal, seemed +too unlikely a thing to contemplate. He turned again to his work with +the wish that Adrian Grant might stay in London, or find some other +rural retreat to suit his capricious taste. + +But it was necessary to warn the folks at home, and to make the best of +what might well prove an awkward business. So Henry wrote to his father +that night, explaining that he was bringing a distinguished visitor to +the village, and though he would reside at the inn, he would no doubt be +a good deal at their house. This he did after having seriously debated +with himself the idea of writing to his friend and framing a set of +excuses or plausible reasons why he should not go. Henry's ingenuity was +not equal to that. + +All this explains why on a certain autumn afternoon the Post Office of +Hampton Bagot, and indeed the whole of the village street, exhaled an +air of expectancy. There were hurried traffickings between the shop of +Edward John Charles, the "Wings and Spur," the butcher's, and sundry +others. Perhaps the loudest note of warning that an event of unusual +interest portended was struck by the bright red necktie which Edward +John Charles had donned at the urgent request of his daughters. This was +truly a matter for surprise, for while he had been seen occasionally on +weekdays wearing a collar, the tie had always been a Sunday vanity. His +clothes, too, were his Sunday best. His appearances at the door were +frequent and short, with no pleasant play of the coat-tails; and his +earnest questing glances towards the road from the station, which opened +into the main street of the village some little distance east of the +Post Office, were foolishly unjustified before the dinner hour, as there +was no possibility of the visitors arriving until the late afternoon. + +Customers at the Post Office were all condemned to a delightfully +exaggerated account of the "lit'ry gent from Lunnon" who was to grace +the village with his presence and suffuse Henry Charles with reflected +glory, though it seemed a difficult thing to conceive the pride of +Hampton as in need of glorifying. But the customers were as keen for +Edward John's gossip as he to purvey it, and it is more than probable +that several ounces of shag were bought that day by persons who stood in +no immediate need of them, but were glad of an excuse for a chat with +the postmaster. Even the snivelling Miffin shuffled across with such an +excuse for a chat, and returned to tell his apprentice that he could see +no reason for all this "'ow d'y' do." + +"S'possin' there was a railway haccident! Stranger things 'ave 'appened, +merk moi werds," said he, with a waggle of his forefinger in the +direction of his junior, who, though much in use as an object for +Miffin's addressing, seldom had the courage to comment upon his +employer's opinions. + +At the "Wings and Spur," as the afternoon wore on, there was also the +unusual excitement of despatching a creaky old gig to the station to +bring up the travellers, and Edward John must needs wander down to +exchange opinions with his friend Mr. Jukes as the vehicle was being got +ready. + +Even the aged vicar was among the callers at the Post Office, inquiring +if it was certain that Henry would be at home for the next Sunday, as +that day was to be memorable by the preaching of Mr. Godfrey Needham's +farewell sermon, and nothing would please him better than to see among +his congregation "one over whom he had watched with interest and +admiration from his earliest years." + +Time had dealt severely with the once quaint and sprightly figure of +this good man. Since Eunice had taken him in hand he had lost his old +eccentric touches of habit, but year by year age had slackened his gait +and slowed him down to a grey-haired, tottering figure, who, when we +first saw him, took the village street like the rising wind. He had now +decided to give up the hard work of his parish and his pulpit, and this +was to devolve upon an alert young curate who had recently been +appointed. + +"We need new blood, Mr. Charles, even in the pulpit. And we old men must +make way for the younger generation," he said sadly to his faithful +parishioner. + +"Aye, Mr. Needham, none o' us can stand up again' Natur'. But you're +good for many a year yet to come, and I hope I am too." + +"You are hale as ever, but I can say with the Psalmist: 'My days are +like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.'" + +"True, Mr. Needham, all flesh is grass, but it is some comfort to the +grass that's withering to see the new blades a-growing around it"--a +speech Edward John recalled in later years as one of his happiest +efforts in the art of conversation. + +"Yes, if the old grass knows that the new is its seedling. You are +happy, Mr. Charles, in that way." + +Edward John hitched at his uncomfortable collar and modestly fingered +his necktie, while Mr. Needham proceeded to sound the praises of Henry. + +"But I confess," the vicar went on to say, "I am at times troubled in my +mind as to how his faith has withstood the shocks it must receive in the +buffetings of City life. I trust the good seed which I strove to plant +in his heart as a boy has grown up unchoked by the thistles which the +distractions of the world so often sow there." + +"Oh, 'is 'eart's all right, Mr. Needham," said the postmaster cheerily, +as the vicar shook hands with him, and moved slowly away towards his +home. + +Despite the excitement of preparation both at the Post Office and the +inn, and the beguilement of gossip which brought the most improbable +stories into circulation among the village folk, as, for example, that +Mrs. Charles had borrowed a silver teapot from the wife of the estate +agent to Sir Henry Birken; a story devoid of fact, for Edward John had +paid in hard cash at Birmingham for that article, as well as a cream jug +to match, making a special journey for the purpose the previous day, and +thus carrying out a twenty-five-year-old promise to his patient +wife--despite these excellent reasons for speeding the time, the hours +wore slowly on, and the postmaster must have covered a mile or two in +his wanderings between his shop door and the corner of the street, from +which a distant view of the returning vehicle might be had. It was +expected back by four o'clock, and when on the stroke of five it had not +returned, Mrs. Charles was sitting in gloom, with terrible pictures of +railway accidents passing before her mind, gazing in a sort of mental +morgue upon her dead boy. + +Soon after five o'clock the gig pulled up before the door at a moment +when the vigilance of the postmaster had been relaxed, and Henry had +stepped into the shop before his father was there to greet him; but it +had been Dora's good fortune to see him arrive while giving some +finishing touches to his bedroom upstairs, and the clatter of her +descent brought the whole group about him in a twinkling. + +In the excitement of the moment Henry's expected companion was +forgotten, until his father asked suddenly: "And where's your lit'ry +friend?" + +"Oh, I've missed him somehow. He didn't turn up at St. Pancras this +morning, and I've no idea what's become of him." + +The news fell among them like a thunderbolt, and all but Henry +immediately thought of that silver teapot and other preparations for the +distinguished visitor. Edward John secretly regretted his journey to +Birmingham; but Mrs. Charles was glad she had the teapot, visitor or no +visitor. + +Henry was not altogether sorry, if he had spoken his mind, for he had +never quite reconciled himself to his friend's proposal. But he did not +speak his mind, and he endeavoured to sympathise with his father's +regrets at the absence of Adrian Grant, as Mrs. Charles had been +straining every nerve to provide a meal worthy of the man. + +"P'raps he'll be to-morrow," said Edward John "Poor old Jukes 'll feel a +bit left. He'd been building on 'aving 'im." + +"I'm sorry for the trouble he has caused you all, and I hope he may yet +turn up so that you won't be disappointed." + +"Never mind, 'Enry, my lad, it's you we want in the first place, and +right glad we are to see you. The vicar was in asking for you this +afternoon. You'll know a difference on the old man. Going down the 'ill, +he is. But we're all growing older every day, as the song says. You're +filling out now, and that's good. I said you were growing all to legs +last time. Aye, aye, 'ere you are again." + +"You haven't been troubled with your chest, Henry, I hope," said Mrs. +Charles, taking advantage of a moment when her husband did not seem to +have a question to ask. + +"Chest! dear no, mother; always wear flannel next the skin, you know," +her son replied lightly. + +Mrs. Charles sighed, and her lips tightened as in pain. + +"What books has Mr. Grant written?" Dora asked, _a propos_ of nothing. + +"Some novels which I don't advise you to read," said Henry. + +"Why that? I'm growing quite literary," his sister returned. "Eunice has +infected me; she's a great reader now." + +At mention of the name, Henry coloured a little. + +"Indeed!" he said. "She always had good taste, I think; but really I'm +sick of books and writing. I think you used to do pretty well without +them." + +"Hearken at that," said his father. "Sick of books! It's the same all +over. Old Brag the butcher used to say, leave a cat free for a night in +the shop to eat all it could get, and it was safe to leave the beef +alone ever after. I'm sick o' postage stamps, but we've got to sell +'em." + +"I'm not so tired of my work as all that," Henry went on, "but down here +I'm glad to get away from it." + +We know this was scarcely true, as he had brought down his unfinished +manuscript of "that book" to work at it if he felt the mood come on. He +spoke chiefly to divert the conversation from the topic of Adrian +Grant's novels, which he felt he could not frankly discuss in this home +of simple life. + +"I must call on Mr. Needham before Sunday," he added inconsequently to +his father. + +"Eunice is at home just now, but she's going away on a visit to her aunt +at Tewksbury next week," said Dora, and Mrs. Charles watched the face +of her son anxiously as his sister spoke. + +"Oh, indeed!" said Henry, without betraying any feeling. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + A TRAGIC ENDING + + +IT was on a Friday that Henry arrived at Hampton. He had expected a +telegram from Adrian Grant that evening, explaining his failure to join +him at St. Pancras, but no word was received. Nor did Saturday morning +bring a note. But it brought the morning papers and tragic news. + +Henry was seated in the garden behind his father's house--a real +old-world garden, with rudely-made paths and a charming tangle of +flowers--gigantic hollyhocks, bright calceolarias, sweet-smelling +jasmine, stocks, early asters and chrysanthemums, growing in rich +profusion and in the most haphazard manner. The jasmine climbed over the +trellis-work of the summer-seat, made long years ago by the hands of +Edward John before he had grown stout and lazy, and now creaking aloud +to be repaired. + +He had come out here with a Birmingham morning paper in his hand--a +paper which made his journalistic blood boil when he thought how +intolerably dull and self-sufficient it was--and he had only opened it +at the London letter when he saw a name that made him fumble the sheets +quickly into small compass for close reading--Adrian Grant! + +A new book by him? a bit of personal gossip? No. He read: + + "The literary world will be shocked this morning to hear of the + tragic death of Mr. Adrian Grant, the celebrated author of + 'Ashes' and other novels, which have achieved great success in + this country and America. As is well known, the name of the + novelist is an assumed one, his own cognomen being the somewhat + curious one of Phineas Puddephatt. He was a gentlemen of private + means, and peculiar in his habits. There is probably no other + living writer of his eminence about whose private life less is + known. He was frequently absent from this country for long + periods, and cared little for the usual attractions of literary + life in London. This morning (Friday) he was found dead in his + apartments at Gloucester Road, Kensington, under mysterious + circumstances. He had intended leaving to-day for a short stay + in the country, but as he did not appear at breakfast at the + usual hour, and gave no response when summoned, the door of his + bedroom was opened, and he was not there, nor had his bed been + slept in. Entering his study, which adjoined the bedroom, the + domestics were shocked to find Mr. Grant--to give him the name + he is best known by--seated on a chair, with the handle of his + 'cello in his left hand and the bow held in his right, in the + very act of drawing it across the strings. He was dead; and the + extraordinary life-likeness of the pose added greatly to the + tragic nature of the discovery. At present no explanation is + forthcoming, and an inquest will be held. The deceased novelist + was an accomplished performer on the 'cello, and those who knew + him describe him even as a master of that instrument, and + capable of having achieved as great, if not greater, distinction + as a musician than as a novelist. He is believed to have been + just about forty years of age." + +It seemed but yesterday that Henry read in the _Weekly Review_ a +paragraph about the identity of Adrian Grant, and now--this! The stabs +of Fate come fast and ruthless to the young man, to rid him of youth's +illusion of immortality. He sees men rise up suddenly into fame, and +dreams that one day he shall do so too. Then a brief year or two glides +by, and the hearse draws up at the door of Fame's latest favourite, and +youth begins to understand that the bright game of life must now be +played with a blinking eye on the end of all things mortal. If he also +understands that the end is in truth the beginning, that "the best is +yet to be," then he may be happy no less. If not, he is booked for +cynicism and things unlovely. + +Adrian Grant dead! Fame, fortune his, and but half-way through life. +Dead, and "mysteriously." Henry sat dumb, struck thoughtless with +amazement. + +"'Ow d'you like them 'olly'ocks, 'Enry; ain't they tremenjous?" + +The voice of his father recalled him, and the good human ring of it was +sweet in his ears. + +"Father, a terrible thing has happened. My friend Mr. Grant is dead." + +Edward John pursed his mouth to whistle in token of blank surprise, but +the scared look on Henry's face stayed him in the act, and he said +"Well, well!" instead. + +"'Ow did it happen? Run over?" + +An accident was about the only means of death to people under seventy +that was known in Hampton, if we except consumption. + +"Listen to this, father; it's dreadful!" + +And Henry re-read the paragraph, turning also to the news columns, where +the information was supplemented by the statement of a servant to the +effect that the novelist had been heard playing his 'cello late in the +night, and had stopped suddenly in the middle of a bar. + +"Well, well," said Edward John, "that beats all! Poor fellow, and me +went up to Brum to get some things all on account of 'im." + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + ONE SUNDAY, AND AFTER + + +SUNDAY morning came sweet with the soft breath of golden autumn, and +Henry awoke with the breeze whispering through his open window, "Adrian +Grant is dead." For a moment it seemed that nothing else mattered, and +in a moment more the need to wash and dress dispelled that gloomy +thought. + +"Poor Grant!" said Henry to himself, as he soused his face at the +wash-stand. "Poor Grant! I wonder what he thinks of life and death +to-day?" All the cynical utterances of the dead man crowded back on the +memory of the living. His contempt of the spiritual life, his jaundiced +views of humanity. It was terrible to think of a gifted man dying with +such cold thoughts in his mind. The mysterious nature of the death also +troubled Henry, and his knowledge of the man led him to suspect the use +of some drug. + +But these thoughts and speculations were suppressed, if not banished, by +the pleasant routine of the rural morning and the going to morning +church. Henry found himself searching anxiously with his eyes for +Eunice Lyndon, and he was disappointed not to see her there. She was +absent owing to household duties, and a pressing visit to be made to a +sick member of Mr. Needham's flock. + +At the close of the service the vicar announced that his farewell sermon +would be delivered in the evening, and extended a fatherly invitation to +his parishioners to come and hear his last words to them. + +When the clang of the evening bell shook the drowsy air of the village, +it evoked an unusual response. Many a wheezing veteran and worn old +woman toiled their way up the hill. Never before was the little church +so full as on that peaceful autumn evening. + +The entire Charles family was present, Henry sitting next to his mother; +and as he looked round upon that homely congregation, nearly every face +in which was familiar to him, the emotions of his boyhood stirred within +him again, and he felt as if all he had passed through since then was as +a troubled dream. + +The slanting rays of the setting sun streamed through the western +windows as Mr. Needham slowly mounted the pulpit. Every eye was raised +to him as he stood there with his open Bible in his hand. What would he +say? What would be his last words to them? They were these: + +"I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept +the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." + +In coughless silence, with those listening eyes fixed upon him, the +vicar began his discourse, making a brave attempt to preserve his +outward calm. He dwelt upon the career of St. Paul; followed him in his +wanderings, his perils of waters, his perils in the wilderness, and many +trials and sufferings through which he had passed. And now, in a dungeon +at Rome, with a cruel death awaiting him, as he looked back on it all +the triumphant note broke from him: "I have fought the good fight." + +From that the vicar turned to the career of another: a great poet, one +who had all the world could offer, and who had drunk so deeply of the +pleasures of life that his soul was satiated with them--Lord Byron. And +when at the last, a stranger in a strange land, away from friends and +kindred, he took up his pen to write, the last words which he gave to +the world were these: + + "My days are in the yellow leaf; + The flowers and fruits of love are gone; + The worm, the canker, and the grief + Are mine alone!" + +The vicar paused; and then, with simple, touching earnestness, added: + +"Which, my brethren will be yours at the last--'the worm, the canker, +and the grief,' or the crown of righteousness that fadeth not away?" + +Eyes were moist, and hearts throbbed unusually among the simple-minded +village folk as they filed out, but little was said; they felt they had +been assisting at one of the solemn mysteries of the church, and no +dubious composition, no grandiloquence of the vicar's came between them +and the heart-cry of the old man. + +Edward John broke the silence in which his little group walked homeward +by saying: "There's a deal of truth in what the vicar said about +_vanitas vanitatium_, 'Enry. Seems to me there ain't nothing much worth +having in this world unless we're keepin' in mind the world that is to +come." + +"That is so, father," Henry assented shortly; for his mind was full of +new and comforting thoughts, and his heart suffused with a tenderness he +could not speak. + +A great love for his father had been budding steadily when he fancied +most it was withering, and it had burst almost at once into full bloom. +To Mr. Needham also his point of view was suddenly and for ever changed. + +Both his father and the vicar had been objects of his youthful +admiration; but when there came the illuminating knowledge of the world +and the intimate contact with life which journalism brings to its young +professors--as they in their fond hearts fancy--both figures began to +recede into the background, in common with others that had once been +cherished; for, unwillingly it may have been, but still actually, the +cynic which is in us all was raised up in Henry by the touch of a master +cynic. + +Frankly, he had been dangerously near the condition of a "superior +person"--of all human states the most contemptible. His father's +ignorant ways, the vicar's little affectations of learning, his mother's +curl-papers, his sisters' dowdiness of dress--these were the things that +caused them to recede to the background of the young man's mind when the +young man was in the first lust of his life-experience. And all the time +he was uneasily conscious that he himself was at fault, and they +wholesomer bits of God's handiwork than he. + +But the tragic ending of the disturber of his mind, the almost certainty +of the cause, was a crushing commentary on all the philosophy which +Adrian Grant had preached. Art for the sake of art, and a dose of poison +when you take the fancy to be rid of your responsibilities. That was how +Henry's experience of the novelist summed itself up in his mind after +Mr. Needham's artless little human sermon. The vicar might be a +hide-bound thinker, a mere echo of ages of hide-bound Bible +interpreters, but he was a better and a bigger man than he who went out +with his 'cello between his knees, thought Henry. Oh, all this prattle +of those who were devoted to the arts! How futile it sounded when, as +with a new revelation, the young man saw and loved at sight the good, +rude health of his father and his sisters, living as bits of Nature, and +standing not up to rail at Fate, but without whimpering playing their +tiny parts in the drama of life. + +"But all need not be vanity, don't you think, Mr. Needham?" said Henry, +when he called on the vicar next day. "All isn't vanity, I now feel +sure, if we can keep green a simple faith in God's goodness to us; and +surely if we only attempt to model our conduct on the life of Jesus we +shall be in the way of spiritual happiness." + +"My boy, you have got the drift of what I said. There's nothing in life +to place above that. Surely to do these things is to fight the good +fight, and learning or want of it matters nothing. All the learning, so +far as I can see, brings one only to the starting-place of ignorance +when we face the Eternal. Hold fast by that belief, and all will be +well. Let your motto be _Servabo fidem_, or as the French hath it, +_Gardez la foi_." + +Henry did not smile even in his mind at the Latin and French tags. He +could now accept and almost welcome these little foibles for the sake +of the sheltered life the old man had led, and the white flower of +simple faith which had blossomed in the garden of his soul. + +"Yes, Mr. Needham, I'm not the first who went to gather wisdom, and came +back empty-handed to find it at my own door." + +"Nor the last, Henry; nor the last." + +Mr. Needham was not the only one at the vicarage whom Henry went to see, +and during the remainder of his holiday his visits were remarkably +frequent. Henry's new interest in the vicar seemed extraordinary to +Edward John, though it rejoiced hearts at the Post Office in a way the +postmaster did not then suspect. + +Eunice was lovelier than ever, but with the first charm of loveliness to +Henry, who had at length discovered that she had violet eyes, and was +quite the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. + +"How blind I must have been!" said he to himself. + +How blind!--nay, he had only been focussing his gaze on things so far +off and vain, that the things near at hand and to be cherished he had +overlooked. He had been peering at the mysteries of the heavens through +a telescope, and trampling the while on the loveliness of earth. But at +last with the naked eye of his heart he saw all things in a truer +perspective--a heart refreshed with the re-entry of its old first, +simple faith. + +"That book" was never finished. Henry read over what he had written, and +had the courage to destroy it, convinced that it was gloomy and unhappy. +Eunice probably had something to do with that; for he found her ardent +in praise of those who wrote happy books. And when he was in the train +for Fleet Street once again it was with a great contentment in his soul, +and high hope of doing zestfully his daily task; for he had found that +not only wisdom, but love, often lies at our own door if we but open our +eyes--and our heart. + + THE END + + _Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth._ + + + + + EVERETT'S NEW NOVELS + _By Popular Authors._ + At all Libraries and Booksellers. + + =THE GHOST.= + By Mrs. Campbell Praed. + + =A ROUMANIAN VENDETTA.= + By "Carmen Sylva" (Queen of Roumania). + + =A SON OF MARS.= + By Major Arthur Griffiths. + + =BEFORE THE BRITISH RAJ.= + By Major Arthur Griffiths. + + =THE GENTLEMEN FROM GOODWOOD.= + By Edward H. Cooper. + + =THE MAN WHO DIED= + By G. B. Burgin. + + =THE DAUGHTERS OF JOB.= + By "Darley Dale". + + =THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.= + By "Darley Dale". + + =A SPORTING ADVENTURER.= + By Fox Russell. + + =THE VIKING STRAIN.= + By A. G. Hales. + + =THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MAGISTRATE.= + By T. R. Threlfall, J.P. + + =THE KINGS YARD.= + By Walter Jeffery. + + =THE EXTRAORDINARY ISLANDERS.= + By Aston Forest. + + =A FRONTIER OFFICER.= + By H. Caldwell Lipsett. + + =MY JAPANESE WIFE.= + By Clive Holland. + + =THE CHASE OF THE RUBY.= + By Richard Marsh. + + =THE GOLD WHIP.= + By Nat Gould. + + =IN FEAR OF MAN.= + By A. St. John Adcock. + + =GOTTLIEB KRUMM: MADE IN ENGLAND.= + By George Darien. + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + + +Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_), and text in +bold is enclosed by equal signs (=bold=). + +Text in small caps are replaced by either Title case or ALL CAPS, +depending on how the words were used. + +The ads were moved from the front of the book to the end of the book. + +Errors in punctuations were not corrected unless otherwise noted below: + On page 15, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + On page 51, a period was added after "by himself". + On page 171, the [oe] ligature was replaced with "oe". + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Town, by John Alexander Hammerton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 33763.txt or 33763.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/6/33763/ + +Produced by Ernest Schaal, Nick Wall and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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