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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39802-h.zip b/39802-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a5b192 --- /dev/null +++ b/39802-h.zip diff --git a/39802-h/39802-h.htm b/39802-h/39802-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..561228b --- /dev/null +++ b/39802-h/39802-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4982 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tommy Wideawake, by H. H. Bashford. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} +.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +hr.sm {width: 25%;} +hr.tb {width: 45%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tommy Wideawake, by H. H. Bashford + +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: Tommy Wideawake + +Author: H. H. Bashford + +Release Date: May 26, 2012 [EBook #39802] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY WIDEAWAKE *** + + + + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h1>TOMMY WIDEAWAKE</h1> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>TOMMY</h2> + +<h2>WIDEAWAKE</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>H. H. BASHFORD</h2> + +<hr class="sm" /> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Published by</span> JOHN LANE</h4> + +<h4>The Bodley Head</h4> + +<h4>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h4> + +<h4>MCMIII</h4> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h4><i>Copyright, 1903</i></h4> + +<h4>By <span class="smcap">John Lane</span></h4> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="6" summary=""> +<tr><td align="right">I</td><td align="left"><a href="#I">In which four men make a promise</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II</td><td align="left"><a href="#II">In which two rats meet a sudden death</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III</td><td align="left"><a href="#III">In which a hat floats down stream</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV</td><td align="left"><a href="#IV">In which a young lady is left upon the bank</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V</td><td align="left"><a href="#V">In which April is mistress</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI</td><td align="left"><a href="#VI">In which four men meet a train</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII</td><td align="left"><a href="#VII">In which Madge whistles in a wood</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII</td><td align="left"><a href="#VIII">In which two adjectives are applied to Tommy</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX</td><td align="left"><a href="#IX">In which Tommy climbs a stile</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X</td><td align="left"><a href="#X">In which I receive two warnings, and neglect one</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI</td><td align="left"><a href="#XI">In which Tommy is in peril</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII</td><td align="left"><a href="#XII">In which Tommy makes a resolve</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII</td><td align="left"><a href="#XIII">In which the poet plucks a foxglove</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV</td><td align="left"><a href="#XIV">In which Tommy converses with the Pale Boy</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV</td><td align="left"><a href="#XV">In which some people meet in a wheatfield</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI</td><td align="left"><a href="#XVI">In which Tommy crosses the ploughing</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII</td><td align="left"><a href="#XVII">In which Tommy takes the upland road</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII</td><td align="left"><a href="#XVIII">And last</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I">I</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH FOUR MEN MAKE A PROMISE</h3> + +<p>We were sitting round the fire, in the study—five men, all of us +middle-aged and sober-minded, four of us bachelors, one a widower.</p> + +<p>And it was he who spoke, with an anxious light in his grey eyes, and two +thoughtful wrinkles at the bridge of his military nose.</p> + +<p>"Tommy," he observed, "Tommy is not an ordinary boy."</p> + +<p>We were silent, and I could see the doctor's lips twitching beneath his +moustache, as he gazed hard into the fire, and sucked at his cigar. The +colonel knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and resumed:</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he said, "that it is a comparatively unusual circumstance +to find five men, unrelated by birth or marriage, who, having been +friends at school and college and having reached years of maturity, +find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> themselves resident in the same village, with that early +friendship not merely still existent, but, if I may say so, stronger +than ever."</p> + +<p>We nodded.</p> + +<p>"It is unusual," observed the vicar.</p> + +<p>"As you know," proceeded the colonel, a little laboriously, for he was a +poor conversationalist, "the calls of my profession have forbidden me, +of late years, to enjoy as much of your company as I could have +wished—and now, after a very pleasant winter together, I must once +again take the Eastern trail for an indefinite period."</p> + +<p>We were regretfully silent—perhaps also a little curious, for our +friend was not wont to discourse thus fully to us.</p> + +<p>The poet appeared even a little dismayed, owing, doubtless, to that +intuition which has made him so justly renowned in his circle of +admirers, for the colonel's next remarks filled us all with a similar +emotion.</p> + +<p>"Dear friends," he said, leaning forward in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> his chair, and placing his +pipe upon the whist table, "may I—would you allow me so to trespass on +this friendship of ours, as to ask for your interest in my only son, +Thomas?"</p> + +<p>For a minute all of us, I fancy, trod the fields of memory.</p> + +<p>The poet's thoughts hovered round a small grave in his garden, wherein +lay an erstwhile feline comrade of his solitude, whose soul had leaped +into space at the assault of an unerring pebble.</p> + +<p>The vicar and the doctor would seem to have had similar +reminiscences—and had I not seen a youthful figure wading complacently +through my cucumber frames? We all were interested in Tommy.</p> + +<p>Another chord was touched.</p> + +<p>"He is motherless, you see, and very alone," the colonel pleaded, as +though our thoughts had been audible.</p> + +<p>We remembered the brief bright years, and the long grey ones, and +steeled our hearts for service.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have seen so little of him, myself," continued the colonel. "He is at +school and he will go to college, but a boy needs more than school and +college can give him—he needs a hand to guide his thoughts and fancies, +and liberty, in which they may unfold. He needs developing in a way in +which no school or college can develop him. I would have him see nature, +and learn her lessons; see men and things, and know how to discern and +appreciate. I would have him a little different—wider shall I +say?—than the mere stereotyped public-school and varsity +product—admirable as it is. I would have him cultured, but not a +worshipper of culture, to the neglect of those deeper qualities without +which culture is a mere husk.</p> + +<p>"I would have him athletic, but not of those who deify athletics.</p> + +<p>"Above all, I would have him such a gentleman as only he can be who +realises that the privilege of good birth is in no way due to indigenous +merit."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>He paused, and for a while we smoked in silence.</p> + +<p>"He will, of course, be away at school for the greater part of each +year. But if you, dear friends, would undertake—in turn, if you +will—to supervise his holidays, I should be more than grateful. We +grown men regard our life in terms—a boy punctuates his, by +holidays—and it is in them, that I would beg of you to influence him +for good."</p> + +<p>He turned to the poet.</p> + +<p>"Tommy," he said, "has, I feel sure, a deeply imaginative nature, and I +am by no means certain that he is not poetical. In fact, I believe he +once wrote something about a star, which was really quite +creditable—quite creditable."</p> + +<p>The poet looked a little bewildered.</p> + +<p>"And I believe that Tommy has scientific bents"—the colonel looked at +the doctor, who bowed silently.</p> + +<p>Then he regarded me a little doubtfully—after a pause.</p> + +<p>"Tommy is not an ordinary boy," he repeated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> somewhat ambiguously I +thought. Lastly, he turned to the vicar, "I could never repay the man +who taught my boy to love God," he said simply, and we fell once more to +our silence, and our smoking, while the flames leaped merrily in the old +grate, and flung strange shadows over the black wainscot and polished +floor.</p> + +<p>Camslove Grange was old and serene and aristocratic, an antithesis, in +all respects, to its future owner, whose round head pressed a pillow +upstairs, while his spirit wandered, at play, through a boy's dreamland. +The colonel waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"It will all be his, you see, one day," he said, almost apologetically, +"and I want the old place to have a good master."</p> + +<p>I have said that the colonel's request had filled us with dismay, and +this indeed was very much the case.</p> + +<p>We all had our habits. We all—even the doctor, who was the youngest of +us by some years—loved peace and regularity. Moreover, we all, if not +possessed of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> actual dislike for boys, nevertheless preferred them at +a considerable distance.</p> + +<p>And yet, in spite of all these things, we could not but fall in with the +colonel's appeal, both for the sake of unbroken friendship—and in one +case, at least (he will not mind, if I confess it), for the sake of a +sweet lost face.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that we clasped hands, in the silence of the old +study, where, if rumour be true, more than one famous treaty has been +made and signed, and took upon our shoulders the burden of Thomas, only +son of our departing friend.</p> + +<p>The colonel rose to his feet, and there was a glad light in his eyes. He +held out both hands towards us.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, old comrades," he said. Then, in answer to a question,</p> + +<p>"Tommy returns to school, to-morrow, for the Easter term, and his +holiday will be in April, I fancy. To whom is he to go first?"</p> + +<p>We all looked at each other with questioning eyes—then we looked at the +fire.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>The silence began to get awkward.</p> + +<p>"Shall we—er—shall we toss—draw lots, that is?" suggested the vicar, +rather nervously.</p> + +<p>The idea seemed good, and we resorted to the time-honoured, yet most +unsatisfactory, expedient of spinning a penny in the air.</p> + +<p>The results, combined with a process of exclusion, left the choice +between the poet and the doctor.</p> + +<p>The vicar spun, and the poet called. "Heads!" he cried, feverishly.</p> + +<p>And heads it was.</p> + +<p>A smile of relief and triumph was dawning on the doctor's face, when the +poet looked at him, anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Is there not—" he asked. "Is there not a method of procedure, by which +one may call thrice?"</p> + +<p>"Threes," remarked the vicar, genially.</p> + +<p>"Of course there is—would you like me to toss again?"</p> + +<p>"I—I think I would," said the poet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> meekly. Then turning, +apologetically, to the colonel,</p> + +<p>"It's better to make <i>quite</i> sure, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>The doctor looked a little crestfallen, but agreed, and the vicar once +more sent the coin into the air.</p> + +<p>"Tails," cried the poet, and as the coin fell, the sovereign's head lay +upward.</p> + +<p>The poet drew a deep breath.</p> + +<p>"It would seem," he said, bowing to the doctor, "that Tommy may yet +become your guest."</p> + +<p>"There is another go," said the doctor, and the vicar tossed a third +time.</p> + +<p>"Heads," cried the poet, and heads it proved to be.</p> + +<p>The poet wiped his forehead, after which the colonel grasped his hand.</p> + +<p>"Write and tell me how he gets on," he said. "I cannot tell you how +grateful I am to you—to all of you."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not—that is, it's nothing you know—only too delighted +to have the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> dear boy," stammered the poet. "Er—does he—can he undress +himself and—and all that, you know?"</p> + +<p>The colonel laughed.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's thirteen," he cried.</p> + +<p>A little later we took our departure.</p> + +<p>In a shadowy part of the drive the poet pulled my sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Can boys of that age undress themselves and brush their own teeth, do +you suppose?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I believe so," I answered.</p> + +<p>The poet shook his head sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what Mrs. Chundle will say," he remarked.</p> + +<p>And at the end of the drive we parted, with averted looks and scarce +concealed distress, each taking a contemplative path to the hitherto +calm of his bachelor shrine.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="II" id="II">II</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TWO RATS MEET A SUDDEN DEATH</h3> + +<p>"The country is just now at its freshest," said the poet, waving his +hand towards the open window and the green lawn. "The world is waking +again to its—er, spring holiday, Tommy, and you must be out in the air +and the open fields, and share it while you may."</p> + +<p>The poet beamed, a little apprehensively it is true, across the +breakfast table at Tommy, who was mastering a large plate of eggs and +bacon with courage and facility.</p> + +<p>"It's jolly good of you to have me, you know," observed Tommy, pausing a +moment to regard his host.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, it is my very glad privilege. I have often felt that +my youth has been left behind a little oversoon—I am getting, I fancy, +a trifle stiff and narrowed. You must lead me, Tommy, into the world of +action and sport—we will play games together—hide and go seek. You +must buy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> me a hoop, and we will play marbles and cricket—" and the +poet smiled complacently over his spectacles.</p> + +<p>Tommy wriggled a little uneasily in his chair, and looked out of the +window.</p> + +<p>The trees were bending to the morning wind, which sang through the +budding branches and hovered over the garden daffodils. Away beyond the +lawn and the meadows the hills rose clear and bracing to the eye, and +through a chain of willows sped the wavering blue gleam of sunny waters.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm an awful duffer at games," said Tommy, with a blush on his brown +cheeks, and horrid visions of the poet and himself bowling hoops.</p> + +<p>The poet drew a deep breath of relief.</p> + +<p>"You love nature, dear boy—the sights and sounds and mysteries of the +hedgerow and the stream—is it not so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Tommy, dubiously. "I—I'm rather a hot shot with a +catapult."</p> + +<p>The poet gazed out across the garden. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> small green mound beneath the +chestnut tree marked the grave of the fond Delicia—a tribute to Tommy's +skill.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily, the poet sighed.</p> + +<p>Tommy looked up from the marmalade.</p> + +<p>"You don't mind, do you?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"No, no, of course not, dear boy," said the poet with an effort. "That +is—you—you won't hit anything, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," cried Tommy. "You jolly well see if I don't."</p> + +<p>Delicia's successor looked up from her saucer on the rug, and the +"Morning Post" slipped from the poet's nerveless grasp.</p> + +<p>"You—oh Tommy, you will spare the tabby," he gasped tragically, +indicating the rug and its occupant.</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said,—adding as a comforting afterthought, "And cats +are awful poor sport, you know—they're so jolly slow."</p> + +<p>But the poet was far away.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>With every meal Mrs. Chundle brought a pencil and paper, for as likely +as not inspiration would not scorn to come with coffee or hover over a +rasher of bacon. And it was even so, at this present.</p> + +<p>Tommy watched the process with some curiosity. Then he stole to the +window, for all the world was calling him.</p> + +<p>But he paused with one foot on the first step, as the poet looked up +from his manuscript.</p> + +<p>"How do you like this?" he asked eagerly:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Oh the daffodils sing of my lady's gown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">The hyacinths dream of her eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">And the wandering breezes across the down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">The harmonies dropt from the skies,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Are full of the song of the love that swept</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">My citadel by surprise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Oh the woods they are bright with my lady's voice,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">The paths they are sweet with her tread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">And the kiss of her gown makes the lawn rejoice,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">The violet lift her head.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Yet, lady, I know not if I must smile</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Or weep for the days long sped.</span><br /> +</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>The poet blinked rapturously through his glasses at Tommy, listening +respectfully, by the window.</p> + +<p>"They're jolly good—but I say, who is she?"</p> + +<p>The poet seemed a little puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I do not comprehend you," he said.</p> + +<p>"The lady," observed Tommy. "I didn't know you were in love, you know, +or anything of that sort."</p> + +<p>The poet rose to his feet, with some dignity.</p> + +<p>"I am not in love, Thomas," he said. "I—I never even think about such +things." Tommy turned back.</p> + +<p>"I say, if you're going to the post-office with that will you buy me +some elastic—for my catty, you know?" he said.</p> + +<p>Just then the housekeeper entered, and Tommy went out upon the lawn.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, there's a friend o' Mister Thomas's a settin' in the +kitchen, an' 'e's bin there a hower, pretty nigh—an' 'is talk—it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +fairly makes me blood rise, and me pore stomach that sour—an', please, +'e wants ter know if Mister Thomas is ready to go after them rats 'e was +talkin' of, an' if the Cholmondeleys, which is me blood relations, 'ad +'eard 'im—Lord."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chundle wiped her brow at this appalling supposition, and the poet +gazed helplessly at her.</p> + +<p>"Did you say a friend of Mr. Thomas's?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, an' that common 'e—'e's almost took the shine off of the +plates."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear! how very—very peculiar, Mrs. Chundle."</p> + +<p>A genial, red countenance appeared at the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Beg pawdon, sir, but the young gemman 'e wanted me to show 'im a nest +or two o' rats down Becklington stream, sir—rare fat uns they be, sir, +too."</p> + +<p>"I—I do not approve of sport—of slaying innocent beings—even if they +be but rodents; I must ask you to leave me."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>The poet waved his hand.</p> + +<p>The rubicund sportsman looked disappointed. "Beg pawdon, sir, I'm sure. +Thought 's 'ow it were all right, sir."</p> + +<p>"I do not blame you, my good man. I merely protest against the ruling +spirit of destruction which our country worships so deplorably. You may +go."</p> + +<p>And all this while Tommy stood bare-headed on the lawn, filling his +lungs with the morning's sweetness, and feeling the grip of its appeal +in his heart and blood and limbs. A sturdy little figure he was, clad in +a short jacket and attenuated flannel knickerbockers which left his +brown knees bare above his stockings.</p> + +<p>The blood in his round cheeks shone red beneath the tan, and there were +some freckles at the bridge of his nose. In his hand was a battered +wide-awake hat—his usual headgear—and the origin of his sobriquet—for +he will, I imagine, be known as Tommy Wideawake until the crack of doom, +and, maybe, even after that.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>With all his appreciation of the day, however, no word of the +conversation just recorded missed his ears, and I regret to say that +when the red-cheeked intruder turned a moment at the garden gate, +Tommy's right eyelashes trembled a moment upon his cheek while his lips +parted over some white teeth for the smallest fraction of a second.</p> + +<p>Then he kicked viciously at a daisy and blinked up at the friendly sun.</p> + +<p>The poet stepped out on the lawn beside him with a worried wrinkle on +his forehead.</p> + +<p>"I feel rather upset," he said.</p> + +<p>"Let's go for a walk," suggested Tommy.</p> + +<p>The poet considered a moment.</p> + +<p>An epic, which lagged somewhat, held out spectral arms to him from the +recesses of his writing-desk, but the birds' spring songs were too +winsome for prolonged resistance, and to their wooing the poet +capitulated.</p> + +<p>"Let us come," he said, and they stepped through the wicker gate into +the water-meadows.</p> + +<p>The Becklington brook is only a thin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> thread here, but lower down it +receives tributaries from two adjoining valleys and becomes a stream of +some importance, turning, indeed, a couple of mills, before it reaches +the Arrowley, which enters the Isis.</p> + +<p>The day was hot—one of those early heralds of June so often encountered +in late April, and the meadows basked dreamily in the sun, while from +the hills came a dull glow of budding gorse.</p> + +<p>The poet was full of fancies, and as the house grew farther behind them, +and the path led ever more deeply among copse and field, his natural +calm soon reasserted itself. From time to time he would jot down a happy +phrase or quaint expression, enlarging thereon to Tommy, who listened +patiently enough.</p> + +<p>Plop.</p> + +<p>A lazy ripple cut the surface of the stream, and another, and another.</p> + +<p>Tommy lifted a warning hand and held his breath.</p> + +<p>Yes, sure enough, there was a brown nose stemming the water.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>In an instant Tommy was crouching in the reeds, his hand feeling in his +pocket, and his small body quivering.</p> + +<p>The poet's mouth was open.</p> + +<p>Followed a twang, and the whistle of a small projectile, and the rat +disappeared. But the stone had not hit him.</p> + +<p>"Tommy!" protested the poet.</p> + +<p>But his appeal fell on deaf ears, for Tommy was watching the far side of +the stream with an anxious gaze. Suddenly the brown nose reappeared.</p> + +<p>He was a very ugly rat.</p> + +<p>"Tommy!" said the poet again, weakly.</p> + +<p>The rat was making for a bit of crumbled bank opposite, and Tommy stood +up for better aim. The poet held his breath.</p> + +<p>One foot more and the prey would be lost, but Tommy stood like a young +statue—then whang; and slowly the rat turned over on his back and +vanished from sight, to float presently—a swollen corpse—down the +quiet stream.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well hit, sir," cried the poet.</p> + +<p>Tommy turned with dancing eyes.</p> + +<p>"Jolly nearly lost him," he said. "You should just see young Collins +with a catty. He's miles better than me."</p> + +<p>But the poet had remembered himself.</p> + +<p>"Tommy," he said, huskily, "I—I don't approve of sport of this kind. +Cannot you aim at—at inanimate objects?"</p> + +<p>"It's a jolly poor game," said Tommy—then holding out the wooden fork, +with its pendant elastic.</p> + +<p>"Have a try," he said.</p> + +<p>The poet accepted a handful of ammunition.</p> + +<p>"I must amuse the boy and enter into his sports as far as I may if I +would influence his character," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>Tommy stuck a clod of earth on a stick some few yards away, at which, +for some time, the poet shot wildly enough.</p> + +<p>Yet, with each successive attempt, the desire for success grew stronger +within him, and when at last the clod flew into a thousand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> crumbs, he +flushed with triumph, and had to wipe the dimness from his glasses.</p> + +<p>Oh, poets! it is dangerous to play with fire.</p> + +<p>Plop.</p> + +<p>And another lusty rat held bravely out into the stream.</p> + +<p>"Oh, get him, get him!" cried Tommy, jumping up and down. "Lend me the +catty. Let me have a shot. Do buck up."</p> + +<p>But the poet waved him aside.</p> + +<p>"There shall be no—" he hesitated.</p> + +<p>This rat was surely uglier than the last.</p> + +<p>"No unseemly haste," concluded the poet.</p> + +<p>Did the rat scent danger? I know not, but, on a sudden, he turned back +to shelter. And, alas, this was too much for even Principle and +Conscience—and whang went the catapult, and lo, even as by a miracle +(which, indeed, it surely was), the bullet found its mark.</p> + +<p>And I regret to say that the vicar, leaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> unnoticed on a neighbouring +gate, heard the poet exclaim, with some exultation: "Got him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>well</i> hit!" cried Tommy. "By Jove, that was a ripping shot."</p> + +<p>The poet blushed at the praise—but alas for human pleasures, and +notably stolen ones, for they are fleeting.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said a sonorous voice.</p> + +<p>They both turned, and the vicar smiled.</p> + +<p>The poet was hatless and flushed. From one hand dangled a catapult; in +the other he clutched some convenient pebbles.</p> + +<p>"Really," said the vicar, "I should never have thought it."</p> + +<p>The poet sighed, and handed the weapon to Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Run away now, old chap," he said, "and have a good time. I think I +shall go home."</p> + +<p>Tommy trotted off into the wood, and the vicar and the poet held back +towards the village.</p> + +<p>"How goes the experiment?" asked the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> former, magnanimously ignoring the +scene he had just witnessed.</p> + +<p>The poet shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It is hard to say yet," he replied. "I have not seen any <i>marked</i> +development of the poetical and imaginative side of him—and he brings +some very queer friends to my house. But he's a good boy, on the whole, +and the holidays have only just begun."</p> + +<p>In the village street they paused.</p> + +<p>"I—I want to go to the post-office," said the poet.</p> + +<p>"All right," said the vicar.</p> + +<p>"Don't—please don't wait for me," said the poet.</p> + +<p>"It's a pleasure," replied the vicar. "The day is fine and young, and it +is also Monday. I am not busy."</p> + +<p>"I really wish you wouldn't."</p> + +<p>The vicar was a man of tact, and had known the poet since boyhood, so he +bowed.</p> + +<p>"Good day," he said, and strolled towards the parsonage.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>The poet looked up and down the long, lazy street. There was no one in +sight. Then he plunged into the little shop.</p> + +<p>"Some elastic, please," he said, nervously. "Thick and square—for a +catapult."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III">III</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH A HAT FLOATS DOWN STREAM</h3> + +<p>"And so my boy has taken up his abode with our friend, the poet," wrote +the colonel to me. "Do you know, I fancy it will be good for both of +them. I have long felt that our poet was getting too solitary and +remote—too self-centred, shall I say?</p> + +<p>"And yet I have, too, some misgivings as to his power of controlling +Tommy—although my faith in Mrs. Chundle is profound.</p> + +<p>"Tommy, as you know, is not perhaps quite so strong as he might be, and +needs careful watching—changing clothes and so on. You recollect his +sudden and quite severe illness just after the Chantrey's garden party +last year."</p> + +<p>I laid down the letter and smiled, for I had wondered at the time at +Tommy's survival, so appalling had been his powers of absorption.</p> + +<p>"Poor colonel," I reflected. "He is too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> ridiculously wrapped up in the +young rascal, for anything."</p> + +<p>The letter ran on:</p> + +<p>"Spare no expense as to his keep and the supplying of his reasonable +wishes, but do not let him know, at any rate for the present, that he is +heir to Camslove—I think he does not realise it yet—and for a while it +is better he should not.</p> + +<p>"My greeting to all the brothers. There are wars and rumours of wars in +the air of the Northwest...."</p> + +<p>I restored the letter to my pocket, and lay back in the grass, beneath +the branches.</p> + +<p>Wars and rumours of wars—well, they were far enough from here, as every +twittering birdling manifested.</p> + +<p>The colonel had always been the man of action among us, though he, of us +all, had the wherewithal to be the most at ease.</p> + +<p>One of those strange incongruities with which life abounds, and which, I +reflected, must be accepted with resignation.</p> + +<p>I had always rather prided myself upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the completeness with which I +had resigned myself to my lot of idleness and obscurity, and to my own +mind was a philosopher of no small merit.</p> + +<p>I lay back under the trees full of the content of the day and the green +woods and abandoned myself to meditation.</p> + +<p>Whether it was the spirit of Spring or some latent essence of activity +in my being, I do not know, but certain it is that a wave of discontent +spread over me—a weariness (very unfamiliar) of myself and my cheap +philosophy.</p> + +<p>I sat up, wondering at the change and its suddenness, groping in my mind +for a solution to the problem.</p> + +<p>Could it be that my rule of life was based on a fallacy?</p> + +<p>Surely not. Suddenly I thought of Tommy and took a deep breath of the +sweet woodland air, for I had found what I had wanted.</p> + +<p>Resignation—it was a sacrilege to use the word on such a day.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yes, I thought, there is no doubt that the instinctive philosophy of +boyhood is the true rule of life, as indeed one ought to have suspected +long ago.</p> + +<p>To enjoy the present with all the capacity of every sense, to regard the +past with comparative indifference, since it is irrevocable, and the +future with a healthy abandonment, since it is unknown, and to leave the +sorrows of introspection to those who know no better—avaunt with your +resignation. And even as I said it I saw the reeds by the pool quiver +and a pair of brown eyes twinkle joyously at me from their midst.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Tommy!" I cried.</p> + +<p>He emerged, clad only in an inconspicuous triangular garment about his +waist.</p> + +<p>"I've been watching you ever so long," he said triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"Been bathing?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Rather. It's jolly fine and not a bit cold. I say, you should have seen +the old boy potting rats."</p> + +<p>"The poet?" I murmured in amaze.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy nodded.</p> + +<p>"He is getting quite a good shot," he said. "He was doing awful well +till the vicar saw him about an hour ago—an' then he wouldn't go on any +more."</p> + +<p>"I should think not," said I. "The humanitarian, the naturalist, the +anti-vivisectionist, the anti-destructionist—it passes comprehension."</p> + +<p>Tommy took a header and came up on to the sunny bank beside me, where he +stood a moment with glowing cheeks and lithe shining limbs.</p> + +<p>"This is ripping," he said—every letter an italic. "This is just +ab-solutely ripping."</p> + +<p>I laughed at his enthusiasm, and, as I laughed, shared it—oh the wine +of it, of youth and health and spring—was I talking about resignation +just now?—surely not.</p> + +<p>Tommy squatted down beside me on his bare haunches, with his hands +clasped over his knees.</p> + +<p>"I have heard from your father to-day," I said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy grunted, and threw a stick at an early butterfly.</p> + +<p>He was always most uncommunicative where he felt most, so I waited with +discretion.</p> + +<p>"All right?" he queried, presently, in a nonchalant voice.</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>"He says he's afraid you're not very strong."</p> + +<p>Tommy stared, then he looked a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"I—of course I'm not <i>very</i> strong, you know," he said thoughtfully, +casting a glance down his sturdy young arms. "But I can lick young +Collins, an' he weighs seven pounds more than me, an' I can pull up on +the bar at gym—"</p> + +<p>I hastened to reassure him.</p> + +<p>"He referred to your attack last summer, you know, after the Chantrey +affair."</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned expansively.</p> + +<p>"I expect the pater didn't know what it was," he said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But I did."</p> + +<p>"You—you never told him?" in an anxious voice.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Tommy sighed.</p> + +<p>"The pater does hate a chap being greedy, you see, and—those strawbobs +were so awfully good. I couldn't help it—an' father thought I'd got +a—intestinal chill, I think he said."</p> + +<p>Tommy gave a passing moment to remembrance. Then he jumped up.</p> + +<p>"I'm quite dry again," he said, looking down at me. "So I guess I'll hop +in."</p> + +<p>The remark appeared to me slightly inconsequent, but Tommy laughed and +drew back under the shade of the tree. Then came a rush of white limbs, +and he was bobbing up again in the middle of the sunny pool.</p> + +<p>"Well dived," I cried, encouragingly, but he looked a little +contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"It was a jolly bad one," he said, "a beastly...." Delicacy forbids me +to record<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> the exact word he used, but it ended with "flopper."</p> + +<p>He crawled out again, and shook the water from his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I say, won't you come in?" he cried eagerly. "It's simply grand in +there, and a gravel bottom."</p> + +<p>But I am a man of careful habits, and sober ways, with a reputation for +some stateliness both of behaviour and bearing, and I shook my head.</p> + +<p>Tommy urged again.</p> + +<p>"It's not as if you were an old man," he cried.</p> + +<p>The thought had not occurred to me. Age, in our little fraternity had +been a matter of but small interest. We had pursued the same routine of +gentle exercise, and dignified diversion, quiet jest and cultured +occupation, for so many years now, that we had seemed to be alike +removed from youth and age, in a quiet, unalterable, back-water of life, +quite apart from the hurrying stream of contemporary event.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>No, I was certainly not an old man, unless a well preserved specimen of +forty-eight, with simple habits, can so be styled.</p> + +<p>Tommy stood expectant before me, his bare feet well apart, a very +embodiment of young health, and, as I looked at him, a horrid doubt +crept into my mind—had I—could I possibly have become that most +objectionable of persons, a man in a groove?</p> + +<p>"Do come," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," said Wisdom (only I was not quite sure of the +speaker).</p> + +<p>I looked round at the meadow, and the wood, and saw that we were alone.</p> + +<p>"It is April," I said weakly.</p> + +<p>"But it's quite warm—it is really." And so I fell.</p> + +<p>To you, O reader, it may seem a quite small matter, but to me it was far +from being so, for as I climbed the bank from each glad plunge I felt in +my blood a strange desire growing to do something, to achieve, to +surmount.</p> + +<p>Such emotions I had not known for years—not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> since—a time, when, on a +day, I had set myself to love seclusion and inactivity, and to live in +study and retrospect, on the small means that were mine.</p> + +<p>Ah, Tommy, never think that if any one desire be unfulfilled, life has +therefore lost its sweetness, and its mission, and its responsibility!</p> + +<p>"Cave," hissed Tommy, from the water.</p> + +<p>I held my breath, and sure enough there were voices along the path, and +close at hand, too.</p> + +<p>I made a desperate leap, and entered the water with a quite colossal +flop, for I am moderately stout.</p> + +<p>And, even so, I had barely time to wade in up to my neck, before two +figures, those of a little girl and a young lady, tripped into sight.</p> + +<p>"Why," said the little girl, "there's old Mr. Mathews and a little boy +in the pool. How funny."</p> + +<p>The young lady—it was Lady Chantrey's governess—hesitated a moment and +then courageously held on.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," I heard her say. "It certainly is peculiar, quite peculiar."</p> + +<p>Whether she referred to me, or the situation, or an affair of previous +conversation, I did not know.</p> + +<p>I did not, indeed, much care, for surely this was enough that I, a +philosopher of dignity, a bachelor of some importance, at any rate in +Camslove, should have been seen in a small pool, with only a draggled +head above the surface, by Lady Chantrey's daughter, and her governess.</p> + +<p>I crept out, and had perforce to sit in the sun to dry, praying +earnestly lest any other members of the surrounding families should come +that way.</p> + +<p>Tommy was in high spirits.</p> + +<p>"It's done you lots of good," he said.</p> + +<p>I glared at him.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" I asked coldly, for his words seemed suggestive.</p> + +<p>"You look so jolly fresh," he observed, dressing himself leisurely.</p> + +<p>I felt that it was time I returned, and invited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Tommy to partake of +lunch with me. He declined, however, as he had thoughtfully provided +himself with food, before starting out with the poet.</p> + +<p>"So long," he said.</p> + +<p>As I glanced up the brook, before returning homewards, I saw a sailor +hat, navigating a small rapid.</p> + +<p>"But I have no walking-stick," I reflected. "And it is in the middle of +the stream."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV">IV</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH A YOUNG LADY IS LEFT UPON THE BANK</h3> + +<p>The sailor hat bobbed, merrily, down the stream, scorning each friendly +brown boulder that would have stopped it, and dodging every drooping +bough that would have held it back. For was not its legend of H. M. S. +Daring, and must not the honour of Britain's navy be manfully +maintained?</p> + +<p>Tommy sat peacefully just above the bathing pool, munching his +sandwiches, and letting the clear water trickle across his toes, very +much contented with himself, and, consequently, with his environment +also.</p> + +<p>"Oh please—my hat," said a pathetic voice.</p> + +<p>Tommy turned round, and on the path behind him stood the little girl, +who had passed, a short while before.</p> + +<p>She was quite breathless, and her hair was very tangled, as it crept +about her cheeks, and hung over her brow.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her hands were clasped, and she looked at Tommy, appealingly.</p> + +<p>Tommy surveyed the hat, which had swung into the pool.</p> + +<p>"It's too deep, just there, for me to go in, with my clothes on," he +said.</p> + +<p>"But there's a shallow part a little way down, and I'll go for it there. +Come on."</p> + +<p>He jumped up, and crammed his stockings and shoes into his pockets, as +they ran down the path, beside the brook.</p> + +<p>"How did you lose it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I was climbing a tree—and—and the wind blowed it off."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"My governess is reading a book, about half a mile up the stream, where +the poplars are."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>Tommy felt strangely tongue-tied—a new and wholly perplexing +experience. He was relieved when they arrived at the shallows, and waded +carefully into the stream.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p>As the hat sailed down, he dexterously caught it, and came back in +triumph.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you so much. I hope you aren't very wet."</p> + +<p>Tommy examined the upturned edge of his knickerbockers, and then looked +into a pair of wide black eyes.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit, hardly," he said, and he thought her cheeks were redder than +any he had seen. He did not, as a rule, approve of girls, but he felt +that there was a kindred spirit twinkling behind those black eyes.</p> + +<p>"I think I must go back," said she.</p> + +<p>"Wh—what is your name?" stammered Tommy, with a curious desire to +prolong the time.</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"I think you might tell me yours."</p> + +<p>"I got your hat for you."</p> + +<p>"You liked getting it."</p> + +<p>"You'd have lost it, if I hadn't gone in."</p> + +<p>"No, I shouldn't. I could have got it myself. I'm not afraid."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy capitulated.</p> + +<p>"They call me Tommy Wideawake," he said.</p> + +<p>"What a funny name. I thought you looked rather sleepy, when I saw you +on the bank just now."</p> + +<p>"You looked jolly untidy," retorted Tommy irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Are you the browny whitey colonel's son?"</p> + +<p>Tommy spoke with aroused dignity.</p> + +<p>"You must not call my father names," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I think he's a splendid brave man, and I always call him that, +because his face is so brown and his moustache and hair so very white."</p> + +<p>Tommy blushed. Then he said very slowly, and with some hesitation, for +to no one before had he confided so much:</p> + +<p>"I think he is the bravest—the bravest officer in the whole army."</p> + +<p>Then his eyes fell, and he looked confusedly at his toes.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>The stream was rippling softly over the shallows, full of its young +dream.</p> + +<p>Then—</p> + +<p>"I'm Madge Chantrey," said a shy voice.</p> + +<p>Tommy looked up eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Why, then I must have seen you in church—but you looked so different +you know, so jolly—jolly different."</p> + +<p>Madge laughed.</p> + +<p>"I've often seen you, in an eton jacket, with a very big collar, and you +always went to sleep in the sermon, and forgot to get up when the vicar +said 'And now.'"</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned.</p> + +<p>Then an inspiration seized him.</p> + +<p>"I say; let's go on to the mill, an' we'll pot water-rats on the way, +an' get some tea there. He's an awful good sort, is the miller. His +name's Berrill, and he's ridden to London and back in a day, and it's a +hundred and fifty miles, and he can carry two bags of wheat at once, and +there's sure to be some rats up at Becklington End, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> it's only about +three o'clock—and it's such an absolutely ripping day."</p> + +<p>He stopped and pulled up some grass.</p> + +<p>"You might as well," he concluded, in a voice which implied that her +choice was of no consequence to him.</p> + +<p>Her black eyes danced, and she swung her hat thoughtfully round her +finger.</p> + +<p>"It would be rather nice," she said. "But there is Miss Gerald, you +know; she will wonder where I am."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I'll bring you home."</p> + +<p>And down the chain of water-meadows from one valley to another they +wandered through the April afternoon, till the old mill-pool lay before +them deep and shadowy beneath the green, wet walls. A long gleam of +light lay athwart its surface, dying slowly as the sunset faded.</p> + +<p>"It is tea-time," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Poor Miss Gerald," murmured Madge.</p> + +<p>"She's all right," replied Tommy, cheerfully. "I expect she's jolly well +enjoying herself."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>As I passed the poet's gate I saw him pacing the lawn, and hailed him.</p> + +<p>"Have you enjoyed the morning?" I asked.</p> + +<p>He looked at me a little suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"You haven't seen the vicar?" he queried.</p> + +<p>I shook my head.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he observed. "Thomas and I have been bathed, I may say, in +nature."</p> + +<p>He waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"I saw Tommy bathing," said I.</p> + +<p>Again the poet looked at me sharply.</p> + +<p>"Did you—did you have any converse with the boy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Only a little. He seemed to be thoroughly happy."</p> + +<p>The poet smiled.</p> + +<p>"Ah! the message of Spring is hope, and happiness, and life," he said, +"and Tommy is even now in Spring."</p> + +<p>I bowed.</p> + +<p>"I saw a dead rat floating down stream," I remarked, casually.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>The poet gave me a dark glance, but my expression was innocent and +frank.</p> + +<p>"<i>In media vitae, sumus in morte</i>," he observed, sententiously, and +walked back to the lawn.</p> + +<p>As I turned away, I met the doctor hurrying home.</p> + +<p>He greeted me pleasantly, but there was curiosity in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" I asked, genially, for I felt I had scored one +against the poet.</p> + +<p>"Whatever has happened to your hair? It looks very clammy and +streaky—and it's hanging over your ears."</p> + +<p>I crammed my hat on a little tighter.</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all," I said, hurriedly. "It's—it's rather warm work, you +know, walking in this weather."</p> + +<p>But I could see he didn't believe me.</p> + +<p>"Seen Tommy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Been fooling up the stream, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>I coloured.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, of course not—er, that is, yes——Tommy has."</p> + +<p>The doctor smiled.</p> + +<p>"Good day, Mathews," he said.</p> + +<p>And we parted.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald sat reading, on the bank.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="V" id="V">V</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH APRIL IS MISTRESS</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I have heard the song that the Spring-time sings</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">In my journey over the hills,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">The wild <i>reveille</i> of life, that rings</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">To the broad sky over the hills:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">For the banners of Spring to the winds are spread,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Her hosts on the plain overrun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">And the front is led, where the earth gleams red,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">And the furze-bush flares to the sun.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I have seen the challenge of Spring-time flung</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">To the wide world over the hills;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I have marched its resolute ranks among,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">In my journey over the hills.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">The strong young grass has carried the crest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">And taken the vale by surprise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">As it leapt from rest on the Winter's breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">To its conquest under the skies.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I have heard the secret of Spring-time told</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">In a whisper over the hills,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">That life and love shall arise and hold</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Dominion over the hills</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Till the Summer, at length, shall awake from sleep,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 22em;">Warm-cheeked, on the wings of the day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Where the still streams creep, and the lanes lie deep,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">And the green boughs shadow the way.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Four o'clock!" sang the church bells down the valley, as the poet +stooped to cull an early blue-bell.</p> + +<p>"Daring little blossom—why, your comrades are still sleeping," he said.</p> + +<p>The blue-bell was silent, but all the tiny green leaves laughed, blowing +cheekily in the sun.</p> + +<p>"Poor, silly poet," they seemed to say, "why not wake up, like the +blue-bell, from your land of dreams, and drink the real nectar—live for +a day or two in a real, wild, glorious Spring?"</p> + +<p>But the poet dreamed on, stringing his conceits heavily together, and +with a knitted brow; for, somehow, the feet of the muse lagged tardily +this April afternoon.</p> + +<p>Then he stumbled over a parasol which lay across the path.</p> + +<p>He looked up.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said, looking into a pair of blue eyes—or were +they grey, or hazel? He was not quite sure, but they seemed, at any +rate, Hibernian.</p> + +<p>"It was quite my fault; I am so sorry."</p> + +<p>"Nay, I was dreaming," said the poet.</p> + +<p>"And, sure, so was I, too."</p> + +<p>"I have not hurt it, I trust."</p> + +<p>"Not at all, but it must be quite late."</p> + +<p>"It is four o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, where can the child have got to?"</p> + +<p>"You have lost some one?"</p> + +<p>"My pupil."</p> + +<p>The poet bowed.</p> + +<p>"A sorrow that befalls all leaders of disciples," he observed.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald stared, and the poet continued, "The young will only learn +when they have fledged their wings and found them weak."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"They come to us older ones for a remedy. Knowledge is associated, +madam, with broken wings."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But I cannot take philosophy home to her mother—she will most +certainly require Madge—and can you tell me where this path leads?"</p> + +<p>The poet waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"Up-stream to the village—down-stream to the mill," he said.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald thought a moment.</p> + +<p>"She will have gone down stream," she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>The poet meditated.</p> + +<p>"I, too, have lost a boy," he said.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald looked surprised.</p> + +<p>"The son of a friend," explained the poet.</p> + +<p>"I must look for Madge at once," cried Miss Gerald, gathering up her +books.</p> + +<p>"May we search together—you know the proverb about the heads?"</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"If you like," she said, and they followed the stream together.</p> + +<p>"You are the poet, are you not?" asked Miss Gerald presently.</p> + +<p>"A mere amateur."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Lady Chantrey has a copy of your works. I have read some of them."</p> + +<p>"I trust they gave you pleasure—at any rate amusement."</p> + +<p>"A little of both," said Miss Gerald.</p> + +<p>"You are very frank."</p> + +<p>"Some of them puzzled me a little—and—and I think you belie your +writings."</p> + +<p>"For instance?"</p> + +<p>"You sing of action, and Spring, and achievement—and love. But you live +in dreams, and books, and solitude."</p> + +<p>"I believe what I write, nevertheless."</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald was silent, and in a minute the poet spoke again.</p> + +<p>"You think my writings lack the ring of conviction?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"They would be stronger if they bore the ring of experience," she said. +"<i>Experientia docet</i>, you know, and the poets are supposed to teach us +ordinary beings."</p> + +<p>"I don't pretend to teach."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then you ought to. Is it not the duty of 'us older ones,' as you said +just now?—The old leaves living over again in the new, you know," and +she smiled. "That's quite poetical, isn't it, even if it is a bit of a +platitude?"</p> + +<p>"And be laughed at for our pains, even as those hopeful young debutantes +are laughing at the dowdy old leaves, on that dead tree yonder."</p> + +<p>"I knew you were no true singer of Spring."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Two children wandered back along the path.</p> + +<p>"I say, you're not a bad sort," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>Madge laughed.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Tommy," cried the poet.</p> + +<p>"My dear Madge, where <i>have</i> you been?" cried Miss Gerald.</p> + +<p>The poet smiled.</p> + +<p>"It is April, Miss Gerald," he said. "We must not be too severe on the +young people. As you know, this is proverbially<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> an irresponsible, +changeable, witch of a month."</p> + +<p>"We must hurry home, Madge," said Miss Gerald, holding out a graceful, +though strong, hand to the poet.</p> + +<p>He clasped it a moment.</p> + +<p>"That was an interesting chat we had, Miss Gerald. I shall remember it. +Come, Tommy, it is time that we also returned."</p> + +<p>They walked slowly home together, Tommy chattering away freely of the +day's adventures. The poet seemed more than usually abstracted. In a +pause of Tommy's babbling, the name on the fly leaf of a book came back +to him. He had seen it, in the sunshine, by the stream.</p> + +<p>"Mollie Gerald," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Tommy, politely.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," snapped the poet.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"Which I says to Berrill, 'Berrill,' I says, 'Jest look 'ee 'ere now, if +the pote ain't a-walkin' along o' Miss Gerald from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> 'all, as close +an' hinterested as never was, an' 'im, fer all the world, a +'missusogynist,' I says, meanin' a wimming-'ater.</p> + +<p>"An' Berrill 'e said 'imself as 'e'd 'ardly a believed it if 'e 'adn't +seed it wi' 'is own heyes, so to speak.</p> + +<p>"'It do be a masterpiece,' 'e said, 'a reg'lar masterpiece it be.'"</p> + +<p>They were sitting in Mrs. Chundle's kitchen, and Mrs. Berrill seemed +excited.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chundle wiped a moist forehead with her apron, and shook her head.</p> + +<p>"What with Mister Thomas, an' catapults—I could believe hanythink, Mrs. +Berrill," she said.</p> + +<p>"The pote's changin' 'is ways, Mrs. Chundle."</p> + +<p>"'E is that, Mrs. Berrill, which as me haunt Jane Chundle, as is related +to me blood-relations, the Cholmondeleys, 'eard Mrs. Cholmondeley o' +Barnardley say to the rector's wife, an' arterwards told me private, +'Yer never do know oo's oo nowadays'—be they poits or hanybody else."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It bees just what the parson wer a sayin' a fortnight Sunday, wars an' +rumours o' wars, an' bloody moons, an' disasters an' catapults, in the +last days, 'e says—they be hall signs o' the times, Mrs. Chundle."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chundle sipped her tea, and looked round her immaculate kitchen. +Then she lowered her voice,</p> + +<p>"I'm 'opin', Mrs. Berrill, I'm 'opin' hearnest as 'ow when Mister Thomas +goes back, the master will come to 'imself, like the prodigale."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Berrill looked doubtful.</p> + +<p>"When once the worm hentereth Eden, Mrs. Chundle," she began, +enigmatically—and they both shook their heads.</p> + +<p>"The worm bein' Mister Thomas," remarked Mrs. Chundle. "An' 'im that +vilent an' himpetuous I never does know what 'e's agoin' hafter next."</p> + +<p>"You should be firm, Mrs. Chundle."</p> + +<p>"Which I ham, Mrs. Berrill, by nature hand intention, an' if I 'ad me +own way I'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> spank 'im 'earty twice a week, Mrs. Berrill, Wednesdays an' +Saturdays."</p> + +<p>"Why Wednesdays an' Saturdays, Mrs. Chundle?"</p> + +<p>"Wednesdays ter teach 'im the hemptiness o' riches, Mrs. Berrill, which +'e gets 'is pocket-money on Wednesdays—an' Saturdays to give 'im a +chastened spirit fer the Sabbath—an' ter keep 'im from a sittin' sleepy +in church, Mrs. Berrill."</p> + +<p>Here the door opened suddenly and Tommy came in, very muddy, with a +peaceful face, and a large rent in his coat.</p> + +<p>"I say, Mrs. Chundle, do sew this up for me—hullo, Mrs. Berrill, that +was a ripping tea you gave us last week—you are an absolute gem, Mrs. +Chundle," and Tommy sat himself down on the kitchen bench, while Mrs. +Chundle ruefully examined the coat.</p> + +<p>In Mrs. Berrill's eye was a challenge, as who should say, "Now, Mrs. +Chundle, arise and assert your authority, put down a firm foot and say, +this shall not be.'"</p> + +<p>That lady doubtless saw it, for she pursed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> her lips and gazed at Tommy +with some dignity.</p> + +<p>"Mister Thomas," she began—but Tommy interrupted her.</p> + +<p>"I say, I didn't know you an' Mrs. Berrill were pals. Mrs. Berrill gave +me a huge tea the other day, Mrs. Chundle—awful good cake she makes, +don't you, Mrs. Berrill? An', I say, Mrs. Berrill, has old—has Mrs. +Chundle told you all about the Cholmondeleys, an' how they married, an' +came to England—how long ago was it?" Mrs. Chundle blushed modestly.</p> + +<p>"With William the Norming," she said gently.</p> + +<p>"An' how she was derived from them, you know, an' all that?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Berrill nodded.</p> + +<p>"We hall know as 'ow Mrs. Chundle is a—a very superior person," she +said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Chundle stitched away in silent graciousness.</p> + +<p>"Tommy," cried a distant voice—it was the poet's—"Tommy, come here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> +I've just hit the bottle three times running."</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned.</p> + +<p>"I must go," he said. "I'm jolly glad you and Mrs. Berrill are pals," +and he disappeared in the direction of the poet.</p> + +<p>"Which I 'ope 'e won't turn out no worse than 'is dear father. God bless +'im," said Mrs. Berrill, as they discussed the tattered jacket.</p> + +<p>And so the days tripped by, sunny and showery—true April days. Up in +the downs was a new shrill bleating of lambs, and down in the valley +rose the young wheat, green and strong and hopeful.</p> + +<p>The water-meadows grew each day more velvety and luscious, as the young +grass thickened, and between the stems, in the copse, came a shimmer of +blue and gold, of blue-bell and primrose.</p> + +<p>The stream sang buoyantly down to the mill, and Tommy wandered over the +country-side, happy in it all—and indeed almost part of it.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Madge and her governess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> would often come upon him, all +unexpectedly, too, in some byway of their daily travel, and he would +show them flowers and bird's-nests, and explain for their benefit the +position of each farmhand and labourer in the commonwealth of Camslove, +and thus the days went by so happily that they seemed to have vanished +almost as they came, and on a morning Tommy woke up to the fact that the +holidays had ended. A grim showery day it was, too—a day of driving +wind and cold rain—and Tommy loitered dismally from arbour to house, +and house to arbour.</p> + +<p>The poet was busy on a new work, and Mrs. Chundle, too intent on marking +and packing his clothes to be good company.</p> + +<p>Madge would be indoors, as it was raining, and it was too cold and +uninviting for a bathe.</p> + +<p>He spent the afternoon trudging about the muddy lanes with the doctor, +but the evening found him desolate.</p> + +<p>Ah, these sad days that form our characters, as men tell us—characters +that, at times, we feel we could willingly dispense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> with, so that the +days might be always sunny, and the horizons clear.</p> + +<p>Even the longest of dreary days ends at last, however, and Tommy fell +sorrowfully asleep in the summer house, a rain-drop rolling dismally +down his freckled nose, and his mind held captive by troubled visions of +school.</p> + +<p>A day or two after Tommy's departure, the poet stooped, in a side path +of his garden, to pick up a stray sheet of paper.</p> + +<p>On it he saw two words in his own handwriting.</p> + +<p>"Mollie—folly—"</p> + +<p>He sighed.</p> + +<p>"I remember," he said.</p> + +<p>Then he looked again, for in a round, sprawling hand was written yet +another word—"jolly."</p> + +<p>The poet wiped his glasses and folded up the paper.</p> + +<p>Then he coughed.</p> + +<p>"I had not thought of that," he observed, meditatively.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI">VI</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH FOUR MEN MEET A TRAIN</h3> + +<p>A hot August noon blazed over Becklington common, as I lay thinking and +thinking, staring up into the blue sky, and for all the richness of the +day, sad enough in heart.</p> + +<p>In the valley below me the stream still splashed happily down to the +mill, and away on the far hills the white flocks were grazing peacefully +as ever.</p> + +<p>And above my head poised and quivering sang a lark.</p> + +<p>The Spring had rounded into maturity, and Summer, lavish and wonderful +and queenly, rested on her throne.</p> + +<p>Why should there be war anywhere in the world? I asked.</p> + +<p>And yet along a far frontier it flickered even now, sinister and +relentless. A little war and, to me, a silent one—yet there it rose and +fell and smouldered, and grew fierce, and in the grip of it two brave +grey eyes had closed forever.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>I heard the quiet, well-known voice.</p> + +<p>"Tommy is not an ordinary boy," it said.</p> + +<p>How we had smiled at the simple honest pride that this soldier had taken +in his son.</p> + +<p>I turned over and groaned, as I thought of it all—our parting in the +old study—our promise—the half-comedy, half-responsibility of the +situation.</p> + +<p>And we had borne it so lightly, tossed for the boy, taken him more as an +obstreperous plaything than a serious charge.</p> + +<p>And now—well it matters not upon which of us the mantle of his legal +guardian had fallen, nor upon whom lay the administration of his +affairs—for we all had silently renewed our vows to one who was dead, +and felt that there was something sacred in this mission, which lay upon +the shoulders of each one of us.</p> + +<p>Poor Tommy—none of us knew how the blow had taken him, for to none of +us had he written since the news reached England, save indeed when, in a +brief line to me, he had announced his return next week.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>We had all written to him, as our separate natures and feelings had +dictated, but no reply had reached us—and how should we know that of +all the letters he had received, only one was deemed worthy of +preservation—and that written in a round childish hand?</p> + +<p>"Dear Tommy—I am so sorry. Your loving Madge."</p> + +<p>A damp sorry little note it was, but it remained in Tommy's pocket long +after our more stately compositions had been torn up and forgotten.</p> + +<p>To us, leading our quiet commonplace peaceful life in this little +midland village, the shock had come with double force.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we had been apt to dwell so little on the eternal verities of +chance and change and life and death as to have become almost oblivious +of their existence, at any rate in our own sphere.</p> + +<p>Those of the villagers who, year by year, in twos and threes, were +gathered to their fathers, were old and wrinkled and ready for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> death, +resting quietly under the good red earth, well content with sleep.</p> + +<p>And these we had missed, but scarcely mourned, feeling that, in the +fitness of things, it was well that they should cease from toil.</p> + +<p>But here was our friend, straight and strong and vigorous, cut down by +some robber bullet in an Indian pass—and to us all, I fancy, the shock +came with something of terror, and something of awakening in its +tragedy. Outwardly we had shown little enough.</p> + +<p>The poet, when the first stun of the blow had passed, had written his +grief in the best lines I had ever seen from his pen.</p> + +<p>The vicar had preached a quiet scholarly sermon in our friend's memory.</p> + +<p>And now all reference to the dead had ceased among us, for the time.</p> + +<p>To-morrow, Tommy was to come back from school, and all of us, I fancy, +dreaded the first meeting.</p> + +<p>We had arranged that each of our houses was to be open to him, and that +in each a bed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> should be prepared, so that, as the mood took him, he +might sleep where he thought best.</p> + +<p>But the meeting, at the station, was a matter of considerable +trepidation to us.</p> + +<p>I strolled down the hill to the poet's house.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," I said, "I—I am rather keen on running up to town, +to-morrow, to see those pictures, you know."</p> + +<p>The poet smiled.</p> + +<p>"I did not know you were a patron of art," he observed. "I am gratified +at this development."</p> + +<p>"Ah—could you meet Tommy at 2.15?"</p> + +<p>The poet's face fell.</p> + +<p>"I—I am very busy," he said, deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>"'Lucien and Angelica' ought to be concluded by to-morrow evening."</p> + +<p>We were silent, both looking into the trembling haze, up the valley.</p> + +<p>"The doctor," suggested the poet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I will try."</p> + +<p>But the doctor was also very much engaged.</p> + +<p>"Two cases up at Bonnor, in the downs," he explained.</p> + +<p>I called on the vicar.</p> + +<p>"I—I want to go up to town to see that china exhibit," I observed.</p> + +<p>He looked interested.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were a connoisseur," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, not at all—the merest tyro."</p> + +<p>"I am glad. You will find the show well worth your attention."</p> + +<p>I bent my head to the vicar's roses.</p> + +<p>"These Richardsons are very lovely," I said.</p> + +<p>The vicar smiled.</p> + +<p>"I think they have repaid a little trouble," he said modestly.</p> + +<p>"Ah—could you possibly meet the 2.15 to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"You are expecting a parcel?"</p> + +<p>"No—not exactly. Tommy, you know."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>The vicar took a turn on the lawn. Then he came to a standstill in front +of me.</p> + +<p>"I had planned a visit to Becklington," he said.</p> + +<p>I bowed.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry," said I, and turned to go.</p> + +<p>At the gate he touched my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mathews!"</p> + +<p>I paused.</p> + +<p>"I am a coward, Mathews—but I will go."</p> + +<p>We looked into each other's eyes, and I repented.</p> + +<p>"No, old friend. I ought to go and I will go. By Jove, I will."</p> + +<p>"So be it," said the vicar.</p> + +<p>I had played with my luncheon, to the concern of my man, who regarded me +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Are you not well, sir?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Quite well," I replied, icily, with a remark about bad cooking, and +careless service, and strode towards the station.</p> + +<p>I paced the platform moodily twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> minutes before the advertised +arrival of the train.</p> + +<p>I was very early, but somebody, apparently, was before me.</p> + +<p>I caught a glimpse of a strangely characteristic hat in the corner of +the little waiting-room.</p> + +<p>Its shapelessness was familiar.</p> + +<p>I looked in, and the poet seemed a little confused.</p> + +<p>"Lucien and Angel—?" I began, enquiringly.</p> + +<p>He waved his hand, with some superiority.</p> + +<p>"Inspiration cannot be commanded," he observed. "They shall wait until +Saturday."</p> + +<p>We sat down in the shade, and conversation flagged. Presently steps +approached, pacing slowly along the wooden platform.</p> + +<p>It was the vicar.</p> + +<p>He looked a little conscious, and no doubt read the enquiry in my eyes.</p> + +<p>"It is too hot," he said, "to drive to Becklington before tea," and the +three of us sat silently down together.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>At last a porter came, and looked up and down the line.</p> + +<p>Apparently he saw no obstruction, for he proceeded to lower the signal.</p> + +<p>We rose and paced to and fro, with valorously concealed agitation.</p> + +<p>A trap dashed along the white road, and some one ran, breathlessly, up +the stairs.</p> + +<p>He seemed a little surprised at the trio which awaited him.</p> + +<p>"I thought you had two cases in Bonnor," I observed, with a piercing +glance.</p> + +<p>The doctor looked away, but did not reply, and I forbore to press the +point.</p> + +<p>Far down the line shone a cloudlet of white smoke and the gleam of brass +through the dust.</p> + +<p>"Becklington, Harrowley, Borcombe and Hoxford train," roared the porter, +apparently as a reminder to the station-master, for there were no +passengers.</p> + +<p>We stood, a nervous group, in the shadow of the waiting-room.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy—poor little chap," said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> vicar at last. "We must cheer +him up—God bless him."</p> + +<p>Youth is not careless of grief, but God has made it the master of +sorrow, and Tommy's eyes were bright, as he jumped onto the platform.</p> + +<p>He smiled complacently into our anxious faces—so genuine a smile that +our poor carved ones relaxed into reality.</p> + +<p>"I've got a ripping chameleon," he observed cheerfully.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII">VII</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH MADGE WHISTLES IN A WOOD</h3> + +<p>Through the still boughs the sunlight fell, as it seemed to me, in +little molten streams, and I pushed back my chair still deeper into the +shadow of the elm.</p> + +<p>Even there it was not cool, but at any rate the contrast to the glaring +close-cropped lawn was welcome.</p> + +<p>I stared up through the listless, delicate leaves into a sky of +Mediterranean blue. Surely, it was the hottest day of summer—of memory.</p> + +<p>The flowers with which my little garden is so profusely peopled hung +languorously above the borders, and the hum of a binder in the +neighbouring wheat field seemed an invitation to siesta.</p> + +<p>Down sunny paths, I dropped into oblivion.</p> + +<p>A touch awoke me, but my eyes were held tight beneath a pair of cool +hands.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good gracious," I gasped. "Bless my——"</p> + +<p>Tommy laughed and sauntered into view.</p> + +<p>"You were making a beastly row," he observed, frankly. "I thought it was +a thunderstorm."</p> + +<p>I looked at him with envious eyes.</p> + +<p>His sole attire consisted of a striped blazer and a pair of +knickerbockers. He was crowned in a battered wide-awake hat, and from +this to the tips of his brown toes he looked buoyant and cool despite +the tan on his chest and legs.</p> + +<p>He deposited the rest of his garments and a towel upon the grass, and +sprawled contentedly beside them.</p> + +<p>"It was so jolly hot that I didn't bother about dressing," he observed, +lazily.</p> + +<p>Then he sat up quickly.</p> + +<p>"I say; you don't mind, do you? it's awful slack of me to come round +here like this."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said I, as my thoughts fled back to the days when I also +was lean and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> springy, and blissfully contemptuous of changes in the +weather.</p> + +<p>Ah, well-a-day—well-a-day!</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Linger the dreams of the golden days—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">They were bright, though they fled so soon,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Rosy they gleamed in the early rays</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 22em;">Of the sun, that dispelled them at noon.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The joys of reminiscence are mellow, but at times they may become a +little soporific—I awoke with a start.</p> + +<p>"Whoo—ee."</p> + +<p>It was a whistle, low and penetrating, and would seem to have risen from +the wood beyond the stream.</p> + +<p>I noticed that Tommy was alert and listening.</p> + +<p>"Whoo—ee."</p> + +<p>Again it rose, with something of caution in its tone, but a spice of +daring in the higher note of its conclusion.</p> + +<p>I watched Tommy, idly, with half-closed eyes.</p> + +<p>He was performing a rapid toilet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presently he looked up at me from his shoe-laces.</p> + +<p>"I taught her that whistle," he observed, complacently.</p> + +<p>"Whom?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, Madge—Madge Chantrey," he said.</p> + +<p>"You seem to have found an apt pupil."</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"But I hope," I spoke severely, "I trust, Tommy, that you haven't taught +her to play truant."</p> + +<p>He looked at me, cheekily; then he vanished through the gate.</p> + +<p>"Happy dreams," he said, "and, I say, don't snore <i>quite</i> so loudly, you +know."</p> + +<p>And I heard him singing as he ran through the wood.</p> + +<p>Said Madge, from the first stile, on the right:</p> + +<p>"I managed it beautifully; she was reading some of those stupid rhymes +by the poet—only I oughtn't to call them names, because he's a friend +of yours—and I watched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> her getting sleepier and sleepier, and then I +came through the little gate behind the greenhouse and simply ran all +the way, and, I expect, she's fast asleep, and I wonder why grown-up +people always go to sleep in the very best part of all the day."</p> + +<p>"I think it's their indigestions, you know," said Tommy thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"But they never eat anything all day—only huge big feeds at night."</p> + +<p>"I think everybody's a <i>little</i> sleepy after lunch."</p> + +<p>"I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Not after two helps of jam roll?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know I had two helps?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Tommy, then.</p> + +<p>"See that spadger," he cried suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Got him, no—missed him, by Jove."</p> + +<p>The sparrow was twittering, mockingly, behind the hedge, and a +bright-eyed rabbit scuttled into safety.</p> + +<p>"Let's go through the park," cried Tommy.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you a ripping little path, right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> by the house, where there's +a cave I made before—no one knows it but father and I, an' you can go +right by it, an' never see it. Come on."</p> + +<p>They scrambled over the iron railings that bound the neat, though +modest, domain surrounding Camslove Grange. Through the tall tree trunks +they could see the old house with its rough battlements and extended +wings. In front of it the trim lawns sloped down to the stream, while +behind, the Italian garden was cut out of a wild tangle of shrubs and +brushwood.</p> + +<p>Into this Tommy plunged, with the unerring steps of long acquaintance, +holding back the branches, as Madge followed close upon his heels.</p> + +<p>Once he turned, and looked back eagerly into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"We're just by the path now—Isn't it grand?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," she said.</p> + +<p>Presently, with much labour, they reached a microscopical track through +the underwood.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There," observed Tommy, with the proud air of a proprietor, "Didn't I +tell you?"</p> + +<p>"No one could possibly find it, I should think," said Madge.</p> + +<p>"Rather not. Let's go to the cave."</p> + +<p>Followed some further scrambling, and Tommy drew back the bushes +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"See—" he began, but the words died upon his lips, for there, standing +all unabashed upon this sacred ground, was a boy about his own age.</p> + +<p>Tommy stammered and grew silent, looking amazedly at the stranger. He +was a pale boy with dark eyes, and a Jewish nose.</p> + +<p>"You are trespassing," he said coolly.</p> + +<p>Tommy gasped.</p> + +<p>"Who—who are you?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"I tell you you are trespassing."</p> + +<p>Tommy flushed.</p> + +<p>"I'm not," he said. "I—I belong here."</p> + +<p>The other boy gave a shout.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father," he cried, "Here's some trespassers."</p> + +<p>Tommy stood his ground, surveying the intruder with some contempt, while +Madge wide-eyed held his arm.</p> + +<p>There were footsteps through the bushes, and a tall stout man in a +panama hat came into view.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," he said, "This is private property, you know."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at him gravely.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand—I—I belong here, you know."</p> + +<p>The big man smiled.</p> + +<p>"You're a native, are you?" he said cheerfully. "Well, you're a pretty +healthy looking specimen—but this place here is mine—for the time, at +any rate."</p> + +<p>"It was my father's," said Tommy, with a strange huskiness in his +throat.</p> + +<p>"Don't know anything about that—got it from the agents for six +years—like to see the deed, heh?" and he chuckled, a little +ponderously.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy looked downcast and hesitant, and the big man turned to his son.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," he said, "I guess they'll know better next time. Take 'em +down the drive, Ernie, and show 'em out decently."</p> + +<p>The three walked silently down the old avenue.</p> + +<p>At the gate, the pale boy turned to Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Back my father's got more money than yours," he said.</p> + +<p>Tommy's eyes swept him with a look of profound contempt, but a lump in +his throat forbade retort, and he turned away silent.</p> + +<p>Madge, dear little woman, saw the sorrow in his eyes, and held her +peace, picking flowers from the bank as they walked slowly down the +path.</p> + +<p>On a green spray a little way ahead a bird was singing full-throated and +joyous, but to Tommy its music was mockery.</p> + +<p>He took a long aim and brought the little songster, warm and quivering, +on to the pathway in front of them.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<p>As they came to it he kicked it aside, but Madge, stooping, lifted it +from the long grass and hid it, quite dead, in her frock.</p> + +<p>The tears had risen to her eyes, and she was on the point of challenging +this seemingly wanton cruelty.</p> + +<p>But there was something in Tommy's face that her eyes were quick to +notice, and she was silent.</p> + +<p>Thus is tact so largely a matter of instinct.</p> + +<p>And, in a minute, Tommy turned to her.</p> + +<p>"I—I should jolly well like to—to kill that chap," he said.</p> + +<p>Madge said nothing, fondling the warm little body that she held beneath +her pinafore.</p> + +<p>As they turned the corner of the hedge, they came into the full flood of +the sunlight over the meadows, and Tommy smiled.</p> + +<p>"I say, I'm awfully sorry we should have got turned out like that, +Madge, but I—I didn't know there was somebody else in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> there—an' that +I wasn't to go there, an' that."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Madge, "let's come up home, and I'll show you my +cave—I've got one, too. It's not so good as yours, of course, because +you're a boy, but I think it's very pretty all the same, and it's +<i>almost</i> as hard to get at."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII">VIII</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TWO ADJECTIVES ARE APPLIED TO TOMMY</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">My lady's lawn is splashed with shade</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">All intertwined with sun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">And strayingly beneath the boughs</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Their tapestry is spun,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">For the angel hands of summer-time</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Have woven them in one.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">My lady's lawn is wrapped with peace,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Its life throbs sweet and strong.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Caressingly across its breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">The laughing breezes throng,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">And the angel wings of summer-time</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">Have touched it into song.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Lady Chantrey. "I feel so honoured, you know, to have +my little garden immortalised in verse."</p> + +<p>The poet wrapped up his papers and restored them to his pocket, with a +smile.</p> + +<p>"Not immortalised, Lady Chantrey," he replied modestly, "not even +described—only, if I may say so, appreciated."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>From her invalid chair, in the shade, Lady Chantrey looked out over the +lawn, sunny and fragrant, a sweet foreground to the wide hills beyond.</p> + +<p>She turned to the poet with something like a sigh.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why it is that we fortunate ones are so few," she said. "Why +we few should be allowed to drown ourselves in all this beauty, that so +many can only dream about. It would almost seem a waste of earth's good +things."</p> + +<p>The poet was silent.</p> + +<p>"After all, they can dream—the others, I mean," he said, presently.</p> + +<p>"But never attain."</p> + +<p>"It is good that they know it is all here—somewhere."</p> + +<p>Lady Chantrey lay back in her chair.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could give it to them," she said, opening her hands. "I wish I +could give it to them, but I am so stupid, and weak, and poor;—you +can."</p> + +<p>"I?" stammered the poet.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked at him, with bright eyes.</p> + +<p>"You have the gift," she said. "You can at any rate minister to their +dreams."</p> + +<p>"But nobody reads poetry, and I—I do not write for the crowd."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I think everybody reads poetry," she said, "and I think, in every +house, if one could but find it, there is some line or thought or dream, +if you will, cut out, long since, and guarded secretly—and more, +read—read often, as a memory, perhaps only as a dream, but, for all +that, a very present help—I would like to be the writer of such a +poem."</p> + +<p>"It would certainly be gratifying," assented the poet.</p> + +<p>"It would be worth living for."</p> + +<p>The poet looked at her gravely—at the sweet-lined face, and the white +hair, and tired grey eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Lady Chantrey," he said, "you always give me fresh +inspiration. I—I wonder—"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>But what the poet wondered was only the wonder, I suppose, of all +writers of all ages, and, in any case, it was not put into words, for +across the lawn came a rustle of silk and muslin, heralding visitors, +and the poet became busy about tea-cups and cream.</p> + +<p>Though physical weakness, and want of means, prevented Lady Chantrey +from entertaining to any large extent, yet I doubt if any woman in the +county was more really popular than this gentle hostess of Becklington +Hall; for Lady Chantrey was of those who had gained the three choicest +gifts of suffering—sweetness and forbearance and sympathy.</p> + +<p>Such as Lady Chantrey never want for friends, for indeed they give, I +fancy, more than they receive.</p> + +<p>On this sunny afternoon several groups were dotted about the cool lawns +of Becklington, when Tommy and Madge came tea-wards from the cave.</p> + +<p>Lady Chantrey beckoned them to her side.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am so glad to see you again, Tommy," she said. "You never come to see +me now. I suppose old women are poor company."</p> + +<p>"I wish they were all like you," said Tommy, squatting upon the grass at +her feet.</p> + +<p>Then he remembered a question he had meant to ask her,</p> + +<p>"I say, Lady Chantrey, who's living at the Grange?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Tommy. I heard that your guardian had let it—it was your +father's wish, you know—but I did not know the tenants had arrived."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lady Chantrey, there's a boy there, an' he's such an awful cad."</p> + +<p>"Cad?" echoed Lady Chantrey, questioningly.</p> + +<p>"He—he isn't one little atom of a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"And therefore a cad?"</p> + +<p>Tommy coloured.</p> + +<p>"He's an awful bounder, Lady Chantrey."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>Everybody was busy in conversation, and Lady Chantrey laid a frail hand +on Tommy's shoulder—then,</p> + +<p>"Tommy," she said in a low voice, "a gentleman never calls anyone a +cad—for that reason. It implies a comparison, you see."</p> + +<p>Tommy blushed furiously, and looked away.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm awful sorry. Lady Chantrey," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about your holidays," she said.</p> + +<p>A servant stepped across the lawn to Lady Chantrey's chair followed by a +stout lady, in red silk.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Cholmondeley," she announced.</p> + +<p>"And how do you do, my dear Lady Chantrey? Feeling a little stronger, I +hope. Ah, that's very delightful. Isn't it too hot for anything? I have +just been calling at the dear Earl's—Lady Florence is looking so +well—"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cholmondeley swept the little circle gathered about the tea-table +with a quick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> glance. It is good to have the Earl on one's visiting +list.</p> + +<p>Her eyes rested on Mollie Gerald, pouring out tea, and she turned to +Lady Chantrey:</p> + +<p>"Is that the young person who has been so successful with your +daughter's music, Lady Chantrey?"</p> + +<p>Mollie's cheeks were scarlet, as she bent over the tea-pot, for Mrs. +Cholmondeley's lower tones were as incisive as her ordinary voice was +strident.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is my friend, Miss Gerald," said Lady Chantrey, smiling at +Mollie.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cholmondeley continued a diatribe upon governesses.</p> + +<p>"You never know, <i>dear</i> Lady Chantrey, who they may be. So many of them +are so exceedingly—"</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I have been very fortunate," said Lady Chantrey.</p> + +<p>Tommy wandered up with some cake, which he offered to Mrs. Cholmondeley, +who smiled graciously.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And who is this?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Lady Chantrey explained.</p> + +<p>"Not the poor colonel's heir?"</p> + +<p>Lady Chantrey nodded.</p> + +<p>"Really; how interesting—how are you, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"All right," said Tommy, in obvious good health.</p> + +<p>"This is Mrs. Cholmondeley, of Barnardley."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked interested.</p> + +<p>"I've heard about you from Mrs. Chundle," he said. "She's a sort of +relation of yours, derived from the same lot, you know."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cholmondeley looked a little bewildered, and the poet patently +nervous.</p> + +<p>"Really I—"</p> + +<p>"She's an awful good sort—Mrs. Chundle. She's the poet's +housekeeper—so I expect she has to work for her living, you know."</p> + +<p>The poet gasped.</p> + +<p>"It's—it's all a mistake," he stammered, but not before Mrs. +Cholmondeley had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> turned a violent purple, and a smile had travelled +round the little ring of visitors.</p> + +<p>All at once Tommy became aware that somehow things had gone wrong and +retreated hastily from the lawn, seeking the refuge of the cave among +the laurels, and in a minute or two, the poet, with a murmured pretext +about a view, also vanished.</p> + +<p>Tommy wandered disconsolately down the flagged path between the bushes, +ruminating upon the strange contrariness of affairs on this chequered +afternoon.</p> + +<p>Near the arbour in the laurels Miss Gerald met him.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were dancing.</p> + +<p>"O, Tommy, you celestial boy," she cried.</p> + +<p>Tommy was doubtful of the adjective, but the tone was certainly one of +approbation, and he looked modestly at the path.</p> + +<p>"You're a perfect young angel," proceeded Miss Gerald, enthusiastically, +"and I'd kiss you only I suppose you wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at her, dubiously.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I shouldn't very much," he observed, but chivalry stepped manfully to +the fore, and he turned a brown cheek towards her.</p> + +<p>"You can if you like, you know," he added, looking resignedly across the +valley.</p> + +<p>She stooped and dropped a kiss upon his cheek.</p> + +<p>"You're the very broth of a boy," she said, as she ran back to the +house.</p> + +<p>Presently the laurels rustled, and the poet stole out into the pathway.</p> + +<p>Tommy was disappearing into a sidewalk, and the poet looked after him +with a curious expression.</p> + +<p>"O you incomprehensible person," said he.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX">IX</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY CLIMBS A STILE</h3> + +<p>"You daren't climb into the hay-loft."</p> + +<p>"Daren't I?" said Tommy, scornfully. "You see if I don't." And he +shinned easily up the ladder.</p> + +<p>The hay-loft was cool and fragrant—a welcome contrast to the glaring +yard.</p> + +<p>"Come up too," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>Madge's black eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"I will," she said, clambering up the steps.</p> + +<p>Tommy stooped down and gave her a hand.</p> + +<p>"Good girl," he said, approvingly. Then he laid his hand on her lips, +and they crouched back into the shade.</p> + +<p>For into the barn stepped one of the farm labourers.</p> + +<p>"We mustn't get found out, for the man here is an awful beast of a +chap," said Tommy, in a low whisper.</p> + +<p>The labourer had not perceived them and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> was soon bent over a machine +chopping up fodder for the cattle.</p> + +<p>His back was towards them, and he breathed heavily, for the work was +hard. His red neck formed a tempting target, and Tommy was an accurate +shot. Moreover, his pockets were full of peas.</p> + +<p>He took a careful aim and let fly, and there was a hoarse exclamation +from the man at the wheel.</p> + +<p>Tommy drew back into shelter, where Madge was curled up in the new hay.</p> + +<p>"Got him rippingly," said Tommy, "plumb in the back of the neck."</p> + +<p>Madge looked a little reproachful.</p> + +<p>"O Tommy, it must have hurt him dreadfully."</p> + +<p>Tommy chuckled.</p> + +<p>"'Spect it did tickle him a bit," he said, looking cautiously round the +corner.</p> + +<p>The man had resumed work and the hum of the wheel filled the barn.</p> + +<p>Tommy selected another portion of the man's anatomy and let fly a little +harder.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a shout and a sound of muttered exclamation in the barn below +them, as Tommy backed into the hay with quiet enjoyment.</p> + +<p>As they listened they could hear the man stumping round the barn, +swearing softly, and presently he was joined by some one else, for a +loud voice broke into his grumbling.</p> + +<p>"What the dickens are you doing, Jake?"</p> + +<p>"Darned if I know," said the man. "On'y there bees summat as hits I +unnever I goes at the wheel, master."</p> + +<p>"That's the farmer himself just come in," said Tommy burrowing deeper +into the hay.</p> + +<p>They could hear him speaking.</p> + +<p>"Get on wi' your work, Jake, an' don't get talkin' your nonsense to me, +man."</p> + +<p>The man grumbled.</p> + +<p>"Darned if it are nonsense, master," he said. "Just you wait till you be +hit yoursen—right in the bark o' your neck, too."</p> + +<p>"O Tommy, do hit him—the farmer I mean."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do," he said.</p> + +<p>Madge looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You daren't," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Tommy flushed.</p> + +<p>"We should be caught."</p> + +<p>"Oh—then you daren't?"</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, and the farmer's foot was heavy in the barn below.</p> + +<p>"You daren't," repeated Madge.</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at her, with bright eyes.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. "If you want to see, look round the corner, only +don't let him cob you."</p> + +<p>Then he drew back a little from the opening and took a flying shot, +finding a target in one of the farmer's rather conspicuous ears.</p> + +<p>He gave a sudden yell, and his pale eyes seemed to stand out from his +head, as he looked amazedly round the building.</p> + +<p>The man at the wheel spat into his hands, with a quiet grin.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Darned if they ain't hit you, master," he said, grinding with some +zest.</p> + +<p>"My word, they shall pay for it," shouted the farmer, conning the +situation with frowning brows.</p> + +<p>Then he stepped to the ladder.</p> + +<p>"See as they don't get out, Jake, if I send anyone down," he said +loudly, and Jake grunted an assent.</p> + +<p>Madge was trembling.</p> + +<p>"O Tommy, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. Tell him it's all my fault."</p> + +<p>"It's all right," said Tommy cheerfully, "He—he won't dare to touch +me."</p> + +<p>A pair of red cheeks appeared above the floor of the loft, and the pale +eyes looked threateningly into the gloom.</p> + +<p>In a minute they encountered Tommy's brown ones, bright and defiant.</p> + +<p>The farmer grunted.</p> + +<p>"Bees you there, eh?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Tommy grinned.</p> + +<p>"All right, you needn't get shirty," he said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shirty, eh? I wunt get shirty. Don't you make no mistake. Jake!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>"My stick down there?"</p> + +<p>"Ah."</p> + +<p>"Will you 'ave it up 'ere or down yon, young man?"</p> + +<p>Tommy flushed hotly, and Madge held his arm.</p> + +<p>"You daren't hit me," he said.</p> + +<p>The farmer laughed.</p> + +<p>"You've bin trespassin' more'n once, young man, wi' your catapult an' +your sharp tongue, an' now I'm goin' to 'ave my bit. Up 'ere or down +yon?"</p> + +<p>Tommy temporized.</p> + +<p>"Let us come down," he said, eyeing the door warily.</p> + +<p>"Young miss, you get down first," said the farmer.</p> + +<p>Madge obeyed with pale cheeks, and stood, half in sunlight, at the door.</p> + +<p>"Jake!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"See the young rip don't get out."</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>Tommy clambered down, standing between the two men. Then he made a bolt +for freedom, dodging Jake's half-hearted attempt at resistance.</p> + +<p>But the farmer held him as he recoiled from Jake and jerked him over a +truss of hay.</p> + +<p>And for the next few minutes Tommy was very uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you cad, you cad, you beastly, putrid cad."</p> + +<p>Tommy spoke between his teeth at each stroke of the farmer's stick.</p> + +<p>The man released him in a minute or two, and Tommy rushed at him with +both fists. The farmer laughed.</p> + +<p>"Guess you won't come knockin' about this barn again in a hurry," he +said as he pushed him easily into the yard and closed the great door +with a thud.</p> + +<p>For a moment Tommy stood, white with anger. Then he thought of Madge, +who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> had been a spectator of the tragedy. But she was nowhere to be +seen, and he walked gloomily down the lane.</p> + +<p>Now Madge, with a beating heart and a stricken conscience, had fled for +help, running blindly down the lane, with the idea of securing the first +ally who should appear.</p> + +<p>And she almost ran into the arms of the pale boy from the Grange.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, what's the matter?" he asked, looking at Madge curiously.</p> + +<p>Madge blurted out the story, with eager eyes.</p> + +<p>'Could he help her? Was there anybody near who could save Tommy from a +probable and violent death?'</p> + +<p>The pale boy looked at her admiringly, as he considered the question.</p> + +<p>Then,</p> + +<p>"My father knows the man—he owes my father some money, I think. I'll +see if I can do anything."</p> + +<p>They ran down the lane together, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> doing so encountered Tommy, +flushed and ruffled.</p> + +<p>"O, Tommy"—Madge began, but stopped suddenly, at the look on Tommy's +face.</p> + +<p>For to Tommy this seemed the lowest depth of his degradation, that the +pale boy should be a witness of his discomfiture.</p> + +<p>He looked at them angrily, and then, turning on his heel, struck out +across the fields, the iron entering deeply into his soul.</p> + +<p>Youth is imitative, and Tommy had often heard the phrase.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't care a damn," he said.</p> + +<p>For a moment he felt half-frightened, but the birds were still singing +in the hedge, and, in the next field, the reapers still chattered gaily +at their work.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the phrase seemed both consolatory and emphatic.</p> + +<p>"I don't care a damn," he repeated, slowly, climbing the stile, into the +next field.</p> + +<p>Said a voice from behind the hedge:</p> + +<p>"Girl in it?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy looked round, and encountered a tall young man in tweeds. He was +looking at him, with amused eyes.</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know what you mean," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>The young man laughed.</p> + +<p>"They're the devil, girls are," he observed.</p> + +<p>Tommy was puzzled and eyed the stranger cautiously, thinking him the +handsomest man he had seen.</p> + +<p>Nor, in a way, was he at fault, for the young man was straight, and +tall, and comely.</p> + +<p>But there was something in the eyes—a lack of honest lustre—and in the +lips—too sensuous for true manliness, that would have warned Tommy, had +he been older, or even in a different frame of mind. Just now, however, +a friend was welcome, and Tommy told his tale, as they strolled through +the fields together.</p> + +<p>Presently,</p> + +<p>"You belong to Camslove Grange, don't you?" asked the stranger.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"And will again, I suppose, eh?"</p> + +<p>Tommy looked doubtful, and the young man laughed.</p> + +<p>"Sorry—I ought to have put it the other way round, for it will belong +to you."</p> + +<p>Tommy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," he said. "Some other Johnny's got it, you see."</p> + +<p>The young man looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"My name's Morris—I live at Borcombe House—you'd better come and feed +with me."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, I'd like to, awfully."</p> + +<p>"That's right—the old man will be glad to see you, and we'll have a +game of billiards."</p> + +<p>"I can't play."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I'll teach you—good game, pills."</p> + +<p>Squire Morris was cordial from the grip of his hand to the moisture in +his baggy eyes.</p> + +<p>"The heir of Camslove," he said. "Well,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> well, I am so glad to see you, +dear boy, so very glad to see you. You must come often."</p> + +<p>For a moment a misgiving arose in Tommy's heart.</p> + +<p>"Did you know my father?" he asked, as the old man held his hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; not as well as I would have liked to know him, by no means as +well as I would have liked to know him—but I knew him, oh yes. I knew +him well enough."</p> + +<p>Tommy felt reassured, and the three entered the old hall, hung with +trophies of gun and rod and chase.</p> + +<p>"A bachelor's abode," laughed the young man. "We're wedded to sport—no +use for girls here, eh dad?"</p> + +<p>The squire laughed wheezily.</p> + +<p>"The dog," he chuckled, "the young dog."</p> + +<p>Presently the squire led them to the dining room, where a bountiful meal +was spread—so bountiful that Tommy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> already predisposed for +friendship, rapidly thawed into intimacy.</p> + +<p>Both the squire and his son seemed intent on amusing him, and Tommy took +the evident effort for the unaccomplished deed—for, in truth, the +stories that they told were almost unintelligible to him, though, to the +others, they appeared humorous enough.</p> + +<p>Presently the squire grew even more affectionate. He had always loved +boys, he said, and Tommy was not to forget it. He was a stern enemy, but +a good friend, and Tommy was not to forget it. He would always be proud +to shake hands with Tommy, wherever he met him, and Tommy was to keep +this in remembrance.</p> + +<p>Presently he retired to the sofa, with a cigar, which he was continually +dropping.</p> + +<p>The young man winked, genially, at Tommy.</p> + +<p>"He always gets sleepy about this time," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Sleepy?" interrupted his father, "not a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> bit of it. See here," and he +filled the three glasses once more from the decanter.</p> + +<p>"To the master of Camslove Grange," he cried, lifting his glass. And +they drank the health, standing.</p> + +<p>As Tommy walked home over the starlit fields, the scene came back to +him.</p> + +<p>The old man, wheezy but gracious, his son flushed and handsome, the +panelled walls and their trophies, and the sparkling glasses—a brave +picture.</p> + +<p>True—he was still sore, but the episode of the farmer and his stick +seemed infinitely remote, and Madge and the pale boy, ghosts of an era +past: for had he not drunk of the good red wine, and kept company with +gentlemen?</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="X" id="X">X</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH I RECEIVE TWO WARNINGS, AND NEGLECT ONE</h3> + +<p>I suppose that, by this time, I had grown fond of Tommy, in a very real +way, for, as the weeks passed by, I was quick to notice the change in +the boy.</p> + +<p>There was a suggestion of swagger and an assumption of manliness in his +manner, that troubled me.</p> + +<p>I noticed, too, that he avoided many of his old haunts.</p> + +<p>Often he would strike out across the downs and be away from early +morning until starlight, and concerning his adventures he would be +strangely reticent.</p> + +<p>But I do not profess to have fathomed the ways and moods of boys, and I +merely shrugged my shoulders, perhaps a little sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is growing up," thought I. And yet, for all that, I could +not keep myself from wondering what influence was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> at work upon the +boy's development. Even the doctor, who, of us all, saw the least of +him, noticed the change, for he asked me suddenly, one late September +day,</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with Tommy?"</p> + +<p>I looked at him with feigned surprise.</p> + +<p>"I—he's all right, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>The doctor shook his head.</p> + +<p>"He has altered very much this summer, and I am afraid the alteration +has not been good."</p> + +<p>I cut at a nettle with my walking-stick.</p> + +<p>"He is growing, of course."</p> + +<p>The doctor raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Then you have noticed nothing else—nothing in his demeanour or +conversation—or friends?"</p> + +<p>I abandoned my defences.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have noticed it, and I cannot understand it—and I am sorry for +it."</p> + +<p>"When does he return to school?"</p> + +<p>"To-morrow."</p> + +<p>The doctor appeared to be thinking. In a minute he looked into my face.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is a good thing, on the whole," he said, adding slowly.</p> + +<p>"Don't drive the boy; let him forget."</p> + +<p>He drove away, and I looked after him in some wonderment, for his words +seemed enigmatical.</p> + +<p>As I walked back to my garden I could hear Tommy whistling in his +bedroom. There was a light in the room, and I could see him, half +undressed, fondling one of his white rats. I remembered how he had +insisted on their company and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Sir."</p> + +<p>From the shadow of the hedge a voice addressed me.</p> + +<p>"Sir."</p> + +<p>"Hullo," I said. Then, as I peered through the gloom, I saw a young +woman standing before me, and, even in the dusk, I could read the +eagerness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Her face was familiar.</p> + +<p>"Surely I know you?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm Liza Berrill."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>She spoke rapidly; yet, over her message she seemed hesitant.</p> + +<p>Then:</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, don't let him be friends wi' that gentleman."</p> + +<p>I stared.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>She pointed to the window!</p> + +<p>Tommy was in his night-shirt, with the white rat running over his +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Master Tommy, sir. There's a-many 'ave noticed it; don't let 'im get +friends wi'——"</p> + +<p>"With whom?"</p> + +<p>Even in the dusk I could see the dull crimson creep into her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Squire Morris's son," she muttered.</p> + +<p>We stood silent and face to face for a minute.</p> + +<p>"You understand, sir?"</p> + +<p>I remembered, and held out my hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Liza; I understand. Thank you."</p> + +<p>"Good night, sir."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>She ran, with light footsteps, down the lane, and I stood alone beneath +the poplars.</p> + +<p>Far up into the deepening sky they reached, like still black sentinels, +and between them glimmered a few early stars. In his bedroom I could see +Tommy, holding the white rat in one hand and kneeling a moment at his +very transient prayers.</p> + +<p>I remembered a day whereon the colonel's riding-whip had been laid about +Squire Morris's shoulders.</p> + +<p>My heart beat high at the thought, for the squire had insulted one whose +sweet face had long lain still. I thought of the son.</p> + +<p>"Poor Liza," I murmured, and lifted the garden latch.</p> + +<p>And as I looked up at Tommy's darkened window:</p> + +<p>"God forbid," I said.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>Next morning I called Tommy aside.</p> + +<p>"Do you know young Morris, of Borcombe?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"Tommy, I—I wish you would endeavour to avoid him in the future. He is +no fit companion for you."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I—you would not understand yet, Tommy; you must take my word for it."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked a little sullen.</p> + +<p>"He's a jolly good sort," he said. "I know him well; he's a jolly good +sort."</p> + +<p>"I am asking you, Tommy,"—I hesitated then. "For your father's sake," I +added.</p> + +<p>Tommy looked straight into my eyes.</p> + +<p>"He was a friend of father's," he said, quietly.</p> + +<p>"Your father thrashed the squire with his own hand; I saw him do it."</p> + +<p>Tommy stood very still.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I—I cannot explain it exactly; you must take my word."</p> + +<p>Tommy turned on his heels.</p> + +<p>"He's a jolly good sort," he muttered.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you must not make him a friend."</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, kicking at the carpet.</p> + +<p>"I shall if I like," he said, presently; and that was the last word.</p> + +<p>And it was only when I came back, rather sadly, from the station that I +remembered the doctor's words and found a meaning for them.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a fool I am!" I said.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI">XI</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY IS IN PERIL</h3> + +<p>Tommy spent his Christmas in town, with a distant relative, for I had +been called abroad upon a matter of business, and his Easter holidays, +since I was still away, were passed in Camslove vicarage.</p> + +<p>It was, therefore, a year before I saw Tommy again, and on an August +morning I met him at the little station.</p> + +<p>I think we were both glad to see each other, and I found Tommy a little +longer, perhaps a little leaner, but as brown and ruddy as ever.</p> + +<p>"I say, it is ripping to get back here again, an' I've got into the +third eleven, an' that bat you sent me is an absolute clinker, an' how's +the poet, an' did you have a good time in Italy, an', I say, you are +shoving on weight, you know, an' there's old Berrill, an' I say, +Berrill, that's a ripping young jackdaw you sent, an' he's an' awful +thief—that is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> he was, you know, but young Jones's dog eat him, or +most of him, an' I punched young Jones's head for letting 'em be +together, an' I say—how ripping the downs are looking, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>Tommy's spirits were infectious, and on the way home it would be hard to +say which of us talked the most nonsense.</p> + +<p>Our journey through the village was slow, for Tommy's friends were +numerous, and spread out over the whole social scale, from the +hand-to-mouth daysman to the unctuous chemist and stationer. They +included the vicar, leaning over his garden gate, in his shirt-sleeves, +surrounded by implements of horticulture, and also, I regret to say, the +pot-boy of the Flaming Lion—a graceless young scamp, with poacher +written in every lineament of his being.</p> + +<p>I was not unprepared for his royal progress, since, during the summer, I +had been frequently accosted by his friends, of varying rank and +respectability, enquiring of "Master Thomas, sir."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That young 'awk, sir, as I sent him last week?"</p> + +<p>"Made many runs this year, sir, d'ye know?"</p> + +<p>"Master Thomas in pretty good 'ealth, sir. Bad livin' in they big +schools, sir, ben't it?"</p> + +<p>And so on.</p> + +<p>Far down the road I saw a horseman, but Tommy could not, by any means, +be hurried, and a meeting I did not wish became inevitable.</p> + +<p>As young Morris rode up he looked at me a little insolently—maybe it +was only my fancy, for prejudice is a poor interpreter of +expression—and nodded good day.</p> + +<p>I saw that Tommy looked a little uncomfortable and his flow of chatter +ceased suddenly.</p> + +<p>Morris bent from the saddle and called him, and as I turned to the shop +window I could hear them greeting one another.</p> + +<p>I did not hear their further conversation, and it was only brief, but +the Tommy who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> walked home with me thenceforward was not the same who +had met me so buoyantly at the station.</p> + +<p>Ah, these clouds, that are no greater than a man's hand and by reason of +their very slenderness are so difficult to dispel!</p> + +<p>The early days of August sped away happily enough, and their adventures +were merely those of field, and stream, and valley, engrossing enough of +the time and fraught no doubt with lessons of experience, but too +trivial, I suppose, for record.</p> + +<p>And yet I would rather write of them than of the day—the 8th of +August—when the Borcombe eleven beat Camslove by many runs.</p> + +<p>And yet again, I am not sure, for a peril realised early, even through a +fall, may be the presage of ultimate victory.</p> + +<p>I had been in town all day myself, and therefore had not been amongst +the enthusiastic little crowd gathered in the field behind the church to +watch this annual encounter, and a typical English country crowd it +was,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> brimful of sport—see the eager movements of those gnarled hands +and the light in the clear open-air eyes and wrinkled faces.</p> + +<p>Camslove, too, had more than justified the prediction of their adherents +and had made a hundred and fifty runs, a very creditable score.</p> + +<p>"An' if they can stand Berrill's fast 'uns they bees good 'uns," +chuckled they of Camslove, as they settled down to watch the Borcombe +innings.</p> + +<p>Tommy was hanging about the little tin-roofed pavilion, divided between +a natural patriotism and a desire to see his hero perform wonders, for +Squire Morris's son had consented to represent Borcombe.</p> + +<p>Young Morris had never played for his village before, but his reputation +as a cricketer was considerable, and the country-side awaited his +display with some curiosity.</p> + +<p>Nor were they disappointed, for in every way he played admirable +cricket, and even Berrill's fast ones merely appeared to offer him +opportunities of making boundary hits.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> His fellow cricketers spent more +or less brief periods in his company, and disconsolately sought the +shade of the pavilion and the trees, but Morris flogged away so +mercilessly that the Camslove score was easily surpassed, with three +wickets yet to fall, and in the end Borcombe obtained a very solid +victory.</p> + +<p>Young Morris was not held in high esteem in the country-side, and there +were many who cordially disliked him—it was even whispered that one or +two had sworn, deeply, a condign revenge for certain deeds of his—but +he had played the innings of a master, and, as such, he received great +applause on his return to the pavilion.</p> + +<p>Tommy was in the highest spirits, and, full of a reflected glory, strode +manfully, on his hero's arm, down the village street.</p> + +<p>In the bar-room of the Flaming Lion many healths were drunk to the +victors, to the defeated, to Berrill's fast 'uns, to the young squire's +long success, to Tommy Wideawake.</p> + +<p>Tommy, flushed and exultant, stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> among the little group, with glowing +cheeks.</p> + +<p>Presently a grimy hand pulled his sleeve. It was the pot-boy.</p> + +<p>"Don't 'ee 'ave no more, sir—not now," he whispered. But Tommy looked +at him hotly.</p> + +<p>"Can't a gentleman drink when he likes—damn you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The pot-boy slunk away, and a loud laugh rang round the little audience.</p> + +<p>"Good on you, Tommy," cried Morris.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, the girls—bless 'em." He filled their glasses, at his +expense, and coupled a nameless wish with his toast.</p> + +<p>Tommy, unconscious of its meaning, drank with the others.</p> + +<p>Then he walked unsteadily to the door. There was a strange buzzing in +his head, and a dawning feeling of nausea in him, which he strove to +fight down.</p> + +<p>And as he stood at the porch, flushed and bright-eyed, Madge Chantrey +and the pale boy passed along the road. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> going to meet Miss +Gerald, but Tommy staggered out and faced them.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Madge, old girl," he said, but she drew back, staring at him, +with wide eyes.</p> + +<p>The pale boy laughed.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's drunk—dead drunk," he said.</p> + +<p>Tommy lurched forward and struck him in the face, and in a moment the +pale boy had sent him rolling heavily in the road. I picked him up, for +I was passing on my way home from the station, and noticed the flush on +his cheeks, and saw that they were streaked with blood and dust.</p> + +<p>They tell me that I, too, lost my temper, and even now I cannot remember +all I said to Morris and his satellites and the little crowd in the +Flaming Lion. I remember taking Tommy home, and helping my man to +undress and wash him and put him to bed, and I shall never forget the +evening that I spent downstairs in my study, staring dumbly over the +misty valley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> to the far downs, and seeing only two grave grey eyes +looking rebukingly into mine.</p> + +<p>Late in the evening the vicar joined me, and we sat silently together in +the little study.</p> + +<p>My man lit the lamp, and brought us our coffee, and came again to fetch +it away, untasted.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you smile as you read this.</p> + +<p>"You ridiculous old men," I can hear you say. "To magnify so trivial an +incident into a veritable calamity."</p> + +<p>And, again, I can only plead that, in our quiet life, maybe, we attached +undue importance to such a slight occurrence.</p> + +<p>Yet, nevertheless, to us it was very real, almost overwhelmingly real, +and the tragedy of it lay, nearly two years back, in the panelled study +of Camslove Grange.</p> + +<p>Presently the vicar looked at me, and his face, in the red lamplight, +seemed almost haggard.</p> + +<p>"'I could never repay the man who taught<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> my boy to love God,'" he +repeated, "and he said those words to me—to me."</p> + +<p>I bowed my head.</p> + +<p>"And I—I accepted the responsibility, and it has come to this."</p> + +<p>I was silent, and, indeed, what was there to say?</p> + +<p>I suppose we both tried to think out the best course for the future, but +for myself my brain refused to do aught but call up, and recall, and +recall again, that last meeting in Camslove Grange:</p> + +<p>"I want the old place to have a good master.</p> + +<p>"I want my son to be a gentleman.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, old comrades."</p> + +<p>Back they came, those old ghosts of the past, until the gentle, +well-bred voice seemed even now appealing to me, and the well-loved form +apparent before my eyes. And I writhed in my chair.</p> + +<p>A little later the poet came in. He looked almost frightened, and spoke +in a hushed voice.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is—is he better?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He is asleep," I answered, moodily.</p> + +<p>The poet sighed.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's good, that's good."</p> + +<p>For a little while we talked, the aimless, useless talk of unnerved men, +and at last the poet suggested we should go upstairs.</p> + +<p>As I held the candle over Tommy's bed we could see that the flush had +faded from his cheeks, and as he lay there he might well have been a +healthy cherub on some earthly holiday.</p> + +<p>I think the sight cheered us all, and in some measure restored our hope.</p> + +<p>The vicar turned to us, gravely.</p> + +<p>"There is one thing we can all do," he said; "we ought to have thought +of it first, and it is surely the best."</p> + +<p>As we parted, the poet turned to me.</p> + +<p>"I will take him over the downs with me to-morrow; they always appeal to +Tommy, and one is never saner, or nearer to God, or more ready for +repentance, than out there upon the ranges."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a sound of wheels down the lane, and in a minute the doctor +drove by.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," he called out, cheerily, "I have just got myself a new bat."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII">XII</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY MAKES A RESOLVE</h3> + +<p>It is one of the privileges of youth that alimentary indulgence is but +rarely penalized, and if either of us next morning was pale and +disinclined for breakfast it was certainly not Tommy.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, he seemed cool, and fit, and hungry, and although he +looked at me occasionally in a shy, questioning way, yet he chattered +away much as usual, and made no reference to yesterday's adventures.</p> + +<p>Only when the poet called for him and at the window I laid a hand upon +his shoulder to bid him a happy day, he turned to me, impulsively:</p> + +<p>"You are a ripper," he said.</p> + +<p>There is no sweeter or more genuine praise than a boy's.</p> + +<p>I watched them down the lane, and my eyes sought the downs, clear, and +wide, and sunny. I thought of the tawdry inn, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> its associations, and +prayed that Tommy might learn a lesson from the contrast.</p> + +<p>Says Jasper the gipsy:</p> + +<p>"Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"</p> + +<p>Hark back to your well-thumbed Lavengro and you will find, if you do not +remember, his reasons.</p> + +<p>Nor are they weightier than these:</p> + +<p>"Night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, all +sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."</p> + +<p>Deep in the heart of every boy lies something of the gipsy, and even if, +in after life, it grows sick and stifled by reason of much traffic among +crowded streets, yet I doubt if it ever so far vanishes that to it the +wind on the heath shall appeal in vain. Nor was the poet wrong in his +prognosis, for to Tommy, at any rate, it was full of unspoken messages +on this August morning. Wind on the heath—yes, it is always there, +clean, and strong, and happy, lingering with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> soft wings over furze and +bracken, full of whispered melodies from the harp of God.</p> + +<p>Are you in trouble?</p> + +<p>Go up and face this wind on the heath. Bare your head to it, open your +lungs to it. Let it steal about your heart, with its messages of +greatness, and futurity, and hope.</p> + +<p>Are you listless and discouraged?</p> + +<p>Go up and breathe this wind on the heath, and it will sting to life the +ambition and resolve in you, and in it you will hear, if you listen +aright, the saga of victory.</p> + +<p>"In sickness, Jasper?"</p> + +<p>"There's the sun and stars, brother."</p> + +<p>"In blindness, Jasper?"</p> + +<p>"There's the wind on the heath, brother: if I could only feel that, I +would gladly live forever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on +the gloves, and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be +alive, brother."</p> + +<p>Tommy and the poet were bound for some ruins which lay across +Becklington common and beyond the downs.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>Harvest ruled the world, and the fields in the valley and on the +hillside were dotted with stooks and stacks.</p> + +<p>It was a day on which it was good to be alive, and, if a little subdued, +yet they were both in good spirits.</p> + +<p>The poet's latest volume, ahead of the autumn rush of poetry and +fiction, had been favourably criticised.</p> + +<p>It was stronger, happier, more real, said the critics, than any other +from his pen.</p> + +<p>If not great, said they, it was at any rate graceful, and even, in some +places, vigorous. Therefore was the poet happy.</p> + +<p>And Tommy—well, there was the sun and the wind, good red blood in his +arteries, and no care in his heart—and though he could not have told +you so, these, no doubt, were strong enough reasons for the buoyancy of +his spirit.</p> + +<p>As they climbed the green side of the downs they met a shepherd singing, +a happy, irresponsible fellow, with his coat over his head, and his +sleek flock browsing round him.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>And as they passed him with a welcome, the poet remembered some lines +which he repeated to Tommy:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I could sing it fine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">If e'er a word were mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">But there's no words could tell it you—the song that I would sing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Wide horizons beckoning, far beyond the hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Little lazy villages, sleeping in the vale,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Greatness overhead</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">The flock's contented tread</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">An' trample o' the morning wind adown the open trail.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Bitter storms o' winter-time ringing down the range,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Angel nights above the hill, beautiful with rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I would sing o' Life,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">O' Enterprise, and Strife,</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 21em;">O' Love along the upland road, an' God beyond the crest.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">An' this should be my matin song—magic o' the down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Mystery, an' majesty, an' wistfulness, an' hope,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I would sing the lay</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">O' Destiny an' Day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">As morning mounts the hill with me, an' summer storms the slope.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">But this would be my vesper song—best at last is Peace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Whispered where the valleys lie, all deep in dying gold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Stealing through the gloam</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">To speed the shepherd home</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">With one last dreamy echo o' the music in the fold.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">I could sing it fine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">If e'er a word were mine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 21em;">But there's no words could tell it you—the song that I would sing.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Jolly good," said Tommy, easiest of critics, and the poet smiled.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, Tommy," he said, "I wish you were a publisher."</p> + +<p>Over the crest of the downs rose a thin wisp of blue smoke; and as they +descended on the other side, some dark-eyed children looked out of a +little brown tent.</p> + +<p>They reminded the poet of Jasper and his company of Pharaoh's children, +and he repeated to Tommy the conversation I have touched upon.</p> + +<p>Tommy's eyes sparkled.</p> + +<p>"That's good," he said, approvingly. "Just what a fellow feels, you +know."</p> + +<p>They walked on across the green springy turf, and for a time both were +silent.</p> + +<p>There was something, too, in the day and its purity that was speaking to +Tommy.</p> + +<p>Presently he spoke, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"I—I was drunk last night, wasn't I?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>The poet affected not to have heard the question, but Tommy persisted.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Tommy sighed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I say," he said, after a pause, "I—I'd have licked that fellow hollow +if my head hadn't been so jolly queer."</p> + +<p>The poet looked at him, curiously.</p> + +<p>"I expect you would," he said.</p> + +<p>Tommy took a deep breath, and looked straight at the poet.</p> + +<p>"I'll never touch it again—never," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>They shook hands there on the hillside.</p> + +<p>Thus it was, and for this reason, that Tommy took upon himself a vow +that he has to my best belief never broken.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but the motive?" you ask.</p> + +<p>Well, maybe the shrug of your shoulder is justified, but, after all, the +result was brought about by nature, who seldom errs, and to the poet, +who, in spite of all, was really a simple soul—the result was +abundantly gratifying.</p> + +<p>As they walked home in the evening, Tommy turned to the poet.</p> + +<p>"I say, what was it that gipsy fellow said—at the end, you know?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dosta, we'll now go to the tent and put on the gloves, and I'll try to +make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked grimly into the twilight.</p> + +<p>"It would be a jolly good thing to teach that fellow at the Grange," he +said, "only I'm blowed if I'll take any gloves."</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII">XIII</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH THE POET PLUCKS A FOXGLOVE</h3> + +<p>Madge sat by the window, swinging disconsolate legs and struggling, with +a nauseated heart, to master those Latin prepositions which govern the +ablative case. A more degraded army she had never encountered, and +though some misguided sage had committed them to rhyme, this device +merely added a flavour of hypocrisy to their obvious malevolence. +Moreover, the whole universe appeared to be so disgustingly cheerful +that the contrast was well nigh unbearable.</p> + +<p>Beyond the open window the day was young and bright, and the honey bees +sang briskly over the lawn.</p> + +<p>Even the gardener, most dismal of men, was humming: "A few more years +shall roll," a sure sign of unwonted buoyancy of spirit. Miss Gerald was +writing some letters for Lady Chantrey in another room, and Madge was +alone in the study.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus, every factor combined to make temptation almost irresistible.</p> + +<p>And, naturally enough, it came, and in the guise of a well-known, +long-agreed-on whistle.</p> + +<p>From the laurels it rose, low and clear, and Madge's heart jumped +quickly as she heard, for the whistle was Tommy's, and she could not +remember how long ago it was since she had heard it.</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that it must not be answered—for was not Tommy in +disgrace—at any rate, as far as she was concerned?</p> + +<p>And had they not quarrelled so deeply that repair was almost an +impossibility?</p> + +<p>It was very presumptuous of him to think that she should answer it.</p> + +<p>She would remain where she was, in icy stillness, mastering the +prepositions with an iron hand.</p> + +<p>A pleasing sense of virtue stole into her being, mixed with visions of a +downcast, brown face somewhere in the shrubbery, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> for five long +minutes silence reigned. Then the whistle rang out again, a little +louder, and surely it sounded almost penitent.</p> + +<p>A picture of a broken-hearted Tommy, whistling in dry-eyed sorrow, rose +to her eyes.</p> + +<p>It was true that his offences had been great, but then, was not +forgiveness divine?</p> + +<p>Madge felt sure that this was so. Was it not written in fair characters +in her last copy-book?</p> + +<p>She closed her book and stood by the glass doors.</p> + +<p>It is but rarely that we rise to the divine. Yet here was an +opportunity, and down the steps she ran, light-footed, over the thin +strip of lawn and into the deep laurels.</p> + +<p>And it was not Tommy after all, but only the pale boy who, with +commendable perspicacity, had borrowed Tommy's whistle.</p> + +<p>For a moment Madge flushed angrily, for she did not greatly like the +pale boy, and this was a deception.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the morning was sweet, and the pale boy was surely better than a +preposition.</p> + +<p>"I say: let's go through the wood," he said. "I've hidden some +sandwiches in a tree up there and we'll have a picnic, and you can be +back in time for lunch."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Madge, "come along."</p> + +<p>And in the wood they met Tommy, with the light of resolve in his eye and +battle written in his face.</p> + +<p>Madge was not quite sure whether she was glad or sorry to meet him, nor +could she tell, as they looked straight into one another's eyes, the +nature of Tommy's feelings on the subject.</p> + +<p>He looked a little grave, and spoke as one who had rehearsed against a +probable encounter.</p> + +<p>"I want to apologise to you for our meeting the other day," he said +stiffly.</p> + +<p>Madge stared, and Tommy turned to the pale boy.</p> + +<p>"And to you," he said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pale boy looked a little puzzled, but grinned.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," he said. "I could see—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, I haven't quite finished"—and the pale boy stopped, with +his mouth open.</p> + +<p>"I think you had better go home, Madge."</p> + +<p>"Why—Tommy?"</p> + +<p>Tommy looked down.</p> + +<p>"You had better—really," he repeated.</p> + +<p>The pale boy interposed.</p> + +<p>"She is out with me," he said.</p> + +<p>"So I see—she had better go home."</p> + +<p>"Why—who says so?"</p> + +<p>"If she doesn't she will see you get a licking. P'raps—p'raps she +wouldn't like that."</p> + +<p>Tommy still looked at the path.</p> + +<p>"I—I'm not going to fight anyone to-day."</p> + +<p>"You are—you're jolly well going to fight me, now."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pale boy smiled, a little uncertainly.</p> + +<p>"You—I shouldn't have thought you'd want a second dose," he said.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Tommy, cheerfully.</p> + +<p>Madge looked from one to the other.</p> + +<p>"Don't fight," she said. "Please—please don't fight—why should you?"</p> + +<p>"You'd much better run home," said Tommy again.</p> + +<p>"I shan't—I shall stay here."</p> + +<p>Tommy sighed.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said, taking off his coat. "Then, of course, you must, +you know."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I'm not going to fight," repeated the pale boy.</p> + +<p>"Rot," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later Tommy contentedly resumed his coat, his face flushed +with victory.</p> + +<p>The pale boy was leaning against a tree, with a handkerchief to his nose +and one eye awry, whimpering vindictive epithets at his opponent—but +Madge was nowhere to be seen.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy looked up and down the leafy vistas a little disappointedly. Then,</p> + +<p>"Never mind," he said, philosophically.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, it's a jolly sweet thing is life—ripping, simply ripping. +Good bye, old chap. Sniff upwards and it'll soon stop. So long."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>In a brake where the wood falls back a little from the inroad of the +common the poet paused, for the gleam of a straw hat against a dark +background caught his eye.</p> + +<p>"Why surely—no—yes, it is—how singular—so it is," he murmured, +wiping his glasses.</p> + +<p>He left the path and struck out over the springy turf into the shade of +the wood, keeping his eyes nevertheless upon the ground, and walking +guilelessly, as one who contemplates.</p> + +<p>And by chance his meditations were broken, and before him, among some +tall foxgloves, stood Mollie Gerald.</p> + +<p>The poet looked surprised.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How—how quietly you must walk, Miss Gerald," he said.</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"How deeply you must think," she said.</p> + +<p>"It—it is good to wake from thought to—to this, you know," he +answered, with a bow.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald looked comprehensively into the wood.</p> + +<p>"It is pretty, isn't it?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I was not referring to the wood," said the poet, hardily.</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald bent over a foxglove rising gracefully over the bracken:</p> + +<p>"Aren't they lovely?" she asked, showing the poet a handful of the +purple flowers.</p> + +<p>"You came out to gather flowers?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no. I came to look for my pupil."</p> + +<p>"Surely not again a truant?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid so."</p> + +<p>"It is hard to believe."</p> + +<p>"And I stopped in my search to gather some of these. After all, it isn't +much good looking for a child in a wood, is it?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Quite useless, I should think."</p> + +<p>"If they want to be found they'll come home, and if they don't, they +know the woods far better than we, and they'll hide."</p> + +<p>"They always come back at meal-times—at least, Tommy does."</p> + +<p>"I think meal-times are among the happiest hours of an average +childhood."</p> + +<p>"Before the higher faculties have gained their powers of +appreciation—it depends on the child."</p> + +<p>"Madge is not an imaginative child."</p> + +<p>"Nor Tommy, I think, and yet I don't know. It is hard to appraise the +impressions that children receive and cannot record."</p> + +<p>"And the experiment—how does it progress?"</p> + +<p>"Alas, it is an experiment no longer; it is a very real responsibility, +and I am inadequate. Individually, I fancy we are all inadequate, and, +collectively, we do not seem quite to have found the way."</p> + +<p>Miss Gerald nodded emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Good," she said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"To feel inadequate is the beginning of wisdom; is it not so? There, I +have gathered my bunch."</p> + +<p>"May I beg one foxglove for my coat?"</p> + +<p>She laughed.</p> + +<p>"There are plenty all round you. Why, you are standing in the middle of +a plant at this moment."</p> + +<p>The poet stooped a little disconsolately, and plucked a stalk, and when +he looked up Miss Gerald was already threading her way through the +slender trunks.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she cried, gaily, over her shoulder, and the poet raised his +hat.</p> + +<p>As he sauntered back to the path the doctor rode by on his pony.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," he said; "been picking flowers?"</p> + +<p>The poet looked up.</p> + +<p>"A pretty flower, the foxglove," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"Digitalis purpurea—a drug, too, is it not?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>The doctor nodded.</p> + +<p>"It has an action on the heart," he said. "Steadies and slows it, you +know."</p> + +<p>But the poet shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I fancy you are mistaken," he observed.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV">XIV</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY CONVERSES WITH THE PALE BOY</h3> + +<p>A sky of stolid grey had communicated a certain spirit of melancholy to +the country-side—a spirit not wholly out of keeping with Tommy's mood.</p> + +<p>The holidays were nearly over. The doctor was busy, the poet had a cold, +Madge had been sent away to school, and Tommy, for the nonce, felt a +little at a loss to know how to occupy these last mournful days of +freedom.</p> + +<p>As he tramped, a trifle moodily, down the lane, a point of light against +a dark corner of the hedge caught his eye, and further examination +revealed the pale boy, smoking a cigarette.</p> + +<p>Tommy had not yet aspired to tobacco, and for a moment felt a little +resentful.</p> + +<p>But the memory of last week's battle restored his equanimity, and, +indeed, brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> with it a little complacent contempt for the pale boy +and his ways.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," said Tommy, pulling up in front of his reposing foe, and not +sorry to have some one to talk to.</p> + +<p>The pale boy looked at him coldly.</p> + +<p>"Well," he observed, cheerlessly.</p> + +<p>Tommy sat down on the grass.</p> + +<p>"I say, let's forget about all that," he said.</p> + +<p>The pale boy puffed away in silence.</p> + +<p>"Let's forget; you—you'd probably have whopped me, you know, if you'd +done some boxing at our place. You've a much longer reach than me, +an'—an' you got me an awful nasty hit in the chest, you know."</p> + +<p>The pale boy looked at him gloomily.</p> + +<p>"I don't profess to know much about fighting," he said, with some +dignity. "I think it's jolly low."</p> + +<p>For a few minutes they sat in silence, then,</p> + +<p>"Where do you go to school?" asked Tommy.</p> + +<p>"I don't go anywhere; I've got a tutor."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"You see, I'm not at all strong."</p> + +<p>"Bad luck. You—ought you to smoke, if you're—if your constitution's +rocky, you know?"</p> + +<p>The pale boy knocked the ashes off his cigarette.</p> + +<p>"I find it very soothing," he said. "Besides, it's all right, if you +smoke good stuff. I wouldn't advise fellows who didn't know their way +about a bit to take it up."</p> + +<p>The pale boy spoke with an air of superiority that awed Tommy a little.</p> + +<p>"How—how did you come to know all about it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh—just knocking about town, you know," replied the other, carelessly.</p> + +<p>Tommy sighed.</p> + +<p>"I hardly know anything about London," he said.</p> + +<p>The pale boy looked at him, pityingly.</p> + +<p>"I've lived there all my life," he said, "Dormanter Gardens, in +Bayswater—one of the best neighbourhoods, you know."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy racked his memory.</p> + +<p>"I was in London, at Christmas, with a sort of aunt-in-law," he said. +"She lives in Eaton Square, I think it is—somewhere near Maskelyne & +Cook's."</p> + +<p>"I haven't heard of it," said the pale boy. "But London's so jolly big +that it's impossible to know all of it, and I've spent most of my time +in the West End."</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, but the pale boy seemed at home with his subject.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you don't know the Cherry House," he continued. "It's an +awful good place to feed in—near the Savoy, you know. Reggie, he's my +cousin, takes me there sometimes. He always goes. He says there are such +damned fine girls there. I don't care a bit about 'em, though."</p> + +<p>The pale boy smoked contemplatively.</p> + +<p>"I think it's awful rot, thinking such a beastly lot about girls, and +all that sort of thing, you know, don't you?" said Tommy.</p> + +<p>The pale boy nodded.</p> + +<p>"Rather," he said. "I agree with dad.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> He says there's only one thing +worth bothering about down here."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Money," snapped the pale boy, looking at Tommy, between narrowed +eyelids. "I'm going to be a financier when I'm old enough to help dad."</p> + +<p>Tommy stretched himself lazily.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be strong," he said.</p> + +<p>The pale boy looked at him, curiously.</p> + +<p>"What a rum chap you are. What's that got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>Tommy lay back on the grass, and stared up at the passing clouds.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a bit keen on making money, somehow," he said. "I'd just like +to knock around, and have a dog, and—a jolly good time, you know."</p> + +<p>"What—always?"</p> + +<p>Tommy sat up.</p> + +<p>"Yes—why not?"</p> + +<p>The pale boy shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," he said. "But it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> seems funny, and don't you think +you'd find it rather slow?"</p> + +<p>Tommy stared at him, with open eyes.</p> + +<p>"Rather not," he said. "Why, think how ripping it would be to go just +where you liked, and come back when you liked, an' not to have any +beastly meal-times to worry about, an' no terms, an' a horse or two to +ride, an' wear the oldest clothes you had; by Jove, it would be +like—something like Heaven, I should think."</p> + +<p>The pale boy laughed as he rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"It's beginning to rain," he said.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Tommy, "I like the rain. It doesn't hurt, either, and +I like talking to you; you make me think of things."</p> + +<p>The pale boy turned up his collar, and shivered a little.</p> + +<p>"Let's find a shelter, somewhere," he said, looking round anxiously.</p> + +<p>"We'd better walk home over the common," said Tommy. "Besides, it's +ripping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> walking in the rain, don't you think, an' it makes you feel so +good, an' fit, when you're having grub afterwards, in front of the +fire."</p> + +<p>But the pale boy shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I hate it," he said, "and I'm going up to the farm there, till it +stops."</p> + +<p>Tommy cast an accustomed eye round the horizon.</p> + +<p>"It won't stop for a jolly long while," he said. "However, do as you +like. We don't seem to agree about things much, do we? So long."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. It's all the way a fellow's brought up, you know."</p> + +<p>And as Tommy shouldered sturdily through the rain, the pale boy lit +another cigarette and turned back towards the farm door.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV">XV</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE MEET IN A WHEAT-FIELD</h3> + +<p>Never was such a harvest—such crops—such long splendid days—such +great yellow moons. Even now the folk tell of it when harvest-time comes +round.</p> + +<p>"Ah," say they, and shake their heads, "that were a harvest an' no +mistake, an' long, an' long will it be afore us sees another such a +one."</p> + +<p>Through the great white fields of wheat the binders sang from dew-dry to +dew-fall, and over the hills rang the call of the reapers.</p> + +<p>All hands were called to the gathering, the gipsies from the hedge and +the shepherd from his early fold, and the stooks were built over the +stubble and drawn away into stacks, and still the skies shone cloudless +and the great moons rose over the dusk. Never was such a harvest. And +little we at home saw of Tommy in these days, save when, late at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> night, +he would wander back from one and another field, lean and sunburnt and +glad of sleep. One day the poet tracked him to the harvesting on the +down-side fields, and found him in his shirt-sleeves, stooking with the +best.</p> + +<p>For a little while the poet, under considerable pressure from Tommy, +assisted also, but the unaccustomed toil soon became distasteful, and he +retired to the shade of a stook for purposes of rest and meditation.</p> + +<p>And here, as he sat, he was joined by the same genial shepherd whom they +had met on the day they trod the downs to the Roman ruins.</p> + +<p>"Deserted the flocks, then?" asked the poet.</p> + +<p>The shepherd grinned.</p> + +<p>"'Ess, sir. Folded 'em early, do 'ee see, sir, an' come down to make +some money at the harvest, sir."</p> + +<p>He paused to fill his mouth with bread, taking at the same time a long +pull of cold tea.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hungry work, sir, it be, this harvest work."</p> + +<p>"It must undoubtedly stimulate the appetite, as you say."</p> + +<p>"'Ess, sir, that it do. But it's good work fer the likes o' I, sir, it +be, means more money, doan't 'ee see, sir; not as I bees in want o' +money, sir, but it's always welcome, sir. No, sir, I needn't do no work +fer a year an' more, sir, an' live like a gen'lman arl the time, too, +sir."</p> + +<p>"You have saved, then?"</p> + +<p>"'Ess, that I have, an' there's a many as knows it, sir, an' asked I to +marry 'em, sir, too, they 'as, but not I, sir. I sticks to what I makes, +sir. An' look 'ee 'ere, sir, money's easy spent along o' they gals, sir, +ben't it, onst they gets their 'ands on it?"</p> + +<p>The poet looked at him reflectively.</p> + +<p>"They ask you then, do they?"</p> + +<p>"'Ess, sir, fower or five on 'em, sir. But I wants none on 'em, sir, an' +I tells 'em straight, sir."</p> + +<p>The poet sighed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It must save a lot of trouble to—when the suggestion comes from the +fairer side."</p> + +<p>The shepherd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.</p> + +<p>"Fower or five on 'em," he observed, meditatively.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear, what a—what a conqueror of hearts you must be!"</p> + +<p>The shepherd looked at him a little dubiously.</p> + +<p>"Fower or five on 'em," he repeated. "An' one on 'em earnin' eighteen +shillin' a week an' forty pound laid by. An' I walked out wi' 'er a bit, +I did, sir, but I warn't 'avin' none on 'er when she asked I to marry +'er, an' I told 'er, an' my parents, they was main angry, too, wi' me, +they was, sir.</p> + +<p>"But there y'are, sir. I didn't want none o' 'er forty pounds, sir, an' +you bees got to stick to 'em wen you marries 'em, ben't 'ee, sir?"</p> + +<p>The shepherd shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I don't believe in marryin' no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> one as you doesn't kind o' +like, do 'ee see, sir."</p> + +<p>The poet nodded.</p> + +<p>"An excellent sentiment," he said.</p> + +<p>"Money ben't everything sir, bee 't, as I told 'em, sir, all on 'em. +Money ben't everythin'."</p> + +<p>"But isn't it—isn't it a little embarrassing to be sought in matrimony +by four or five ladies?"</p> + +<p>The shepherd paused, between two bites, and looked at the poet, in some +bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"If 'ee means worrittin', sir—it bees a deal more worrittin' to ask +'em, yourself, sir—fower or five on 'em."</p> + +<p>He rose and lurched off to join his comrades, and the poet looked after +him, with something of envy in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"O you fortunate man," he murmured, as he lay back, watching the busy +scene, with half-closed eyes.</p> + +<p>Presently he half started to his feet, for at the far end of the field +he could see Tommy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> talking to two newcomers, a tall, slender figure, +with a carriage and poise possessed by one alone, and a little girl in a +smock frock.</p> + +<p>He rose and wandered slowly down the field.</p> + +<p>"Four or five," he murmured, "and they asked him—O the lucky, lucky +man—they asked him. Dear me, dear me."</p> + +<p>"A lovely evening, Miss Gerald."</p> + +<p>Mollie looked up, with a smile, from the sheaf she was binding.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it jolly—it must be a glad life these open-air folk lead, don't +you think?"</p> + +<p>"The best of lives—but they don't know it."</p> + +<p>Mollie rose, and tossed back a wisp or two of hair from her forehead.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I should love it, if it were my lot—the white stems on my +arms and the warm sun on my face, and the songs in the wagon, at dusk. +Listen to that man singing there—I'm sure he is just glad of life."</p> + +<p>"A strange man," said the poet, following<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> her gaze. "A most curious, +fortunate person."</p> + +<p>"You know him?"</p> + +<p>"A little—he is quite a Napoleon of hearts."</p> + +<p>Mollie laughed.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't look even a little bit romantic."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he isn't. I fancy the romance, if there is any, must be usually on +the other side. He has had four or five offers of marriage."</p> + +<p>"What a perfectly horrid idea."</p> + +<p>The poet stroked his chin.</p> + +<p>"Yet think of the confusion and questioning of heart, and of the hours +of agony that it would save a diffident man."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't look diffident."</p> + +<p>"He may not be. I merely make a supposition."</p> + +<p>"I think it's an appalling idea."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know, I know, and yet I can imagine it a bridge to paradise."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then, suppose a man so stormed by love that by it all life has been +renewed and made beautiful for him; and suppose this man so utterly and +in every way unsuited to its realisation, that though all there is in +him urges him to speak of it, yet he dare not lest he should lose even +the cold solace of friendship. Do you not see how it might——?"</p> + +<p>Mollie's grey eyes looked him straight in the face.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "It would be better for him never to speak, than to lose +his ideal, as he assuredly would."</p> + +<p>"You—you would bid him never speak?"</p> + +<p>Mollie laughed.</p> + +<p>"It depends on so many things—on how and why he was unsuitable, and by +whose standard he gauged his shortcoming."</p> + +<p>"His own."</p> + +<p>"He might be wrong."</p> + +<p>"Who could know better?"</p> + +<p>"The girl he asked."</p> + +<p>"You would bid him ask?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was silent; then,</p> + +<p>"If—if he were quite sure the girl were worthy," she said, in a low +voice.</p> + +<p>The poet held out his hands.</p> + +<p>"Mollie—my dear, my dear," he said.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"And she's quite young, too," observed Tommy, as they walked home in the +starlight.</p> + +<p>The poet waved his hand.</p> + +<p>"Love laughs at age—takes no account of it," he said.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah," cried Tommy.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI">XVI</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY CROSSES THE PLOUGHING</h3> + +<p>The early days of January were shadowed by Lady Chantrey's illness.</p> + +<p>I fancy that over all hung the presentiment that it would bear her away +from our midst, and there was no home in Camslove or Becklington, nor a +heart in any of the far-scattered farms around them, but would be the +sadder for the loss.</p> + +<p>And on a January afternoon she kissed Madge for the last time.</p> + +<p>To Madge it seemed that heaven and earth alike had become black and +desolate, for ever, as she sobbed upon the bed-clothes, and besought her +mother to come back.</p> + +<p>The household was too overwhelmed, and itself too sorrow-stricken to +take much notice at first of the child, and for an hour or more she lay +with her arms about her mother's neck.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then, at last, she slipped from the bed and stole out into the dusk. A +thin rain was falling over the country-side, but she hardly noticed it +as she crossed the barren fields and stumbled through the naked hedges.</p> + +<p>At the ploughing she stopped.</p> + +<p>Something in the long, relentless furrows seemed to speak to her of the +finality of it all, and it was only when she flung herself down upon the +upturned earth that, as to all in sorrow, the great mother put forth her +words of cheer to her, as who should say:</p> + +<p>"See, now, the plough is set, the furrow drawn, and the old life hidden +away; and who can make it any more the same? But Spring, little girl, is +surely coming, and even, after long months, harvest."</p> + +<p>Down the path, across the fields, came Tommy, dangling a contented +catapult, and ruminating on the day's successes.</p> + +<p>As he passed the ploughing he stopped, and gave a low whistle of +surprise—then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> guessed quickly enough what had happened. Madge lay +stretched out, face downwards, upon the black loam, and for a moment +Tommy stood perplexed.</p> + +<p>Then he called, in a low voice, almost as he would have spoken in a +church:</p> + +<p>"Madge, Madge."</p> + +<p>But she did not move.</p> + +<p>He knelt beside her, and some strange instinct bade him doff his cap. +Then he touched her shoulder and her black hair, with shy fingers.</p> + +<p>"Madge," he called, again.</p> + +<p>The child jumped to her feet, and tossing back her hair, looked at him +with half-frightened eyes.</p> + +<p>He noticed that her cheeks were stained with the soft earth, and he saw +tears upon them.</p> + +<p>Tommy had never willingly kissed anyone in his life—he had not known a +mother—but now, without thought or hesitation—almost without +consciousness, for he was still very much a child—he laid his arms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +about her neck and kissed her cheek—once, twice.</p> + +<p>But what he said to her only the great night, and the old plough, know.</p><hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII">XVII</a></h2> + +<h3>IN WHICH TOMMY TAKES THE UPLAND ROAD</h3> + +<p>If I have not, so far, touched upon Tommy's religious life it is chiefly +for the reason that, to me, at this time, it was practically as a sealed +book.</p> + +<p>Nor had I ever talked with him on these matters. And this for two +reasons—one of them being, no doubt, the natural hesitation of the +average Englishman to lay his hands upon the veil of his neighbour's +sanctuary, and one, a dawning doubt in my mind as to the capacity of my +own creed to meet the requirements of Tommy's nature. For, to me, at +this time, the idea of God was of One in some distant Olympus watching +His long-formulated laws work out their appointed end—a Being +infinitely beneficent, and revealed in all nature and beauty, but, +spiritually, entirely remote.</p> + +<p>And my religion had been that of a reverent habit and a peaceable +moderation, and to live contented with my fellows.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>But here was a boy put into my hands, with a future to be brought about, +and already at the outset I had seen a glimpse of the dangers besetting +his path, and the glimpse had, as I have already confessed, frightened +me not a little. Nor had my musings so far comforted me, but rather +shown me the lamentable weakness of my position. True, I could lay down +rules, and advise and warn, but the whole of Tommy's every word and +action showed me the powerlessness of such procedure.</p> + +<p>And I dared not let things drift. The matter I felt sure should be +approached on religious grounds, and it was this conviction that +revealed to me my absolute impotence.</p> + +<p>So far as I remembered, no great temptations had assailed me, no violent +passions had held me in thrall.</p> + +<p>My life had been a smooth one, and of moral struggle and defeat I seemed +to know nothing. But that such would be Tommy's lot I felt doubtful, and +the doubt (it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> almost a certainty) filled me with many +apprehensions.</p> + +<p>So full was I of my musings that I had not noticed how in my walk I had +reached the doctor's garden.</p> + +<p>The click of a cricket bat struck into my thoughts and brought me into +the warm afternoon again, with all its sweetness of scent and sound.</p> + +<p>I could hear Tommy laughing, and as I drew back the bushes, I caught a +glimpse of the doctor coaching him in the right manipulation of the bat.</p> + +<p>"I say, I never knew you played cricket, you know," said Tommy. "I +thought you were an awful ass at games, and all that sort of thing."</p> + +<p>The doctor laughed.</p> + +<p>"I'm jolly rusty at 'em, anyway," he said. "But I used to play a bit in +the old days."</p> + +<p>Tommy continued to bat, and I lounged, unnoticed, upon the rails, +watching the practice.</p> + +<p>Presently the doctor took a turn, and I,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> too, was surprised at his +evident mastery of the art, for I had long since disregarded him as a +sportsman.</p> + +<p>Tommy's lobs were easy enough, and once the doctor drove a hot return +straight at his legs.</p> + +<p>Tommy jumped out of the way, but the doctor called to him sharply:</p> + +<p>"Field up," he said, and Tommy coloured.</p> + +<p>Another return came straight and hard, but Tommy stooped and held it, +and the doctor dropped his bat.</p> + +<p>"Good," I heard him say. "Stand up to 'em like a man—hurts a bit at the +time—but it saves heaps of trouble in the end, and—and the other +fellow doesn't score."</p> + +<p>They were looking straight into each other's eyes, as man to man, and +after a pause the doctor spoke again, in a low voice. I could not hear +what he said, but Tommy's face was grave as he listened.</p> + +<p>I sauntered on down the lane, and a few minutes later felt a hand on my +arm.</p> + +<p>"Well, and what did you think of it?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of what?"</p> + +<p>"The boy's batting. I saw you watching."</p> + +<p>"I am not an expert, but he'll do, won't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—he'll do."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know that you had kept up your cricket."</p> + +<p>"I haven't. But I mean to revive it if I can. We—we must beat Borcombe +next time, you know."</p> + +<p>We walked on in silence for a little, then.</p> + +<p>"Tommy's main desire appears to be a cricketer just now," observed the +doctor.</p> + +<p>"As it was to be a poacher, yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Or a steam-roller driver, in the years gone by."</p> + +<p>"And what, I wonder, to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>The doctor was looking thoughtfully over the wide fields, red with +sunset.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow? Ah, who knows?" He pointed to a pile of cumulus clouds, +marching magnificently in the southern sky, bright as Heaven, and +changeable as circumstance.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A boy's dreams," he said. "A little while here and a little while +there, always changing but always tinged with a certain fleeting +magnificence."</p> + +<p>"And never realised?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. We most of us march and march to our +cloud mountain-tops, and, maybe, some of us at the day's end find a +little low-browed hill somewhere where our everlasting Alps had seemed +to stand."</p> + +<p>"Surely you are a pessimist."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. If we had not marched for the clouds, maybe we should never +have achieved the little hill."</p> + +<p>"You would have Tommy march, then, for the clouds?"</p> + +<p>The doctor laughed.</p> + +<p>"He is an average boy. He will do that anyway. But I would have the true +light on the clouds, to which he lifts his eyes."</p> + +<p>"Ah—if his face were set upon them now," I said half to myself.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the road to the downs was a small figure.</p> + +<p>"See," said my companion, "He is on the upland road. Let us take it as +an omen."</p> + +<p>And we turned homeward.</p> + +<p>Late into the night we talked, and I unfolded my fears for Tommy with a +fulness that was foreign to me.</p> + +<p>And our talk drifted, as such conversation will, into many and intimate +matters, such as men rarely discuss between each other.</p> + +<p>And in the end, as I rose to depart, the doctor held my hand.</p> + +<p>"See, old friend," he said, "we are nearer to-night than ever for all +our seeming fundamental differences, and you will not mind what I have +to say.</p> + +<p>"To you the idea of God is so great, so infinitely high, that the notion +of personal friendship with such an One would seem to be an almost +criminal impertinence, and the idea of His interference in our trivial +hum-drum lives a gross profanity.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To me, a plain man, and not greatly read, this personal God, this +Friend Christ, is more than all else has to offer me.</p> + +<p>"It is life's motive, and weapon, and solace, and joy. It is its light +and colour and its very <i>raison d'etre</i>. And I believe that for the +great majority of men this idea of the Divine, and this only, is +powerful enough to assure them real victory and moral strength.</p> + +<p>"I grant you all the beauty, and majesty, and truth, of your ideal, but +I would no more dare to lay it before an average healthy, passionate man +alone than I would to send an army into battle—with a position to +take—unarmed and leaderless."</p> + +<p>The doctor paused. Then:</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," he said, "I don't often talk like this, but, believe me, +it is the knowledge of his God, as a strong, sympathetic, personal +friend, that Tommy needs—that most of us need—to ensure life's truest +success."</p> + +<p>We shook hands again and parted.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am glad you have spoken," said I, "and thank you for your words."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"A tramp—merely a tramp," said the stranger, puffing contentedly at his +pipe, on the winding road that led over the dim downs.</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at him doubtfully.</p> + +<p>He was very tall and broad, and clean, and his Norfolk suit was well +made and of stout tweed.</p> + +<p>"You don't look much like one," he said.</p> + +<p>The stranger laughed.</p> + +<p>"For the matter of that no more do you," he observed.</p> + +<p>"I'm not one," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>The stranger smoked in silence for a little, and Tommy sat down beside +him on the grass.</p> + +<p>"I'm not one," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Shakespeare says we are all players in a great drama, of which the +world is the stage, you know. I don't quite know if that's altogether +true, but I'm pretty sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> that we're all of us tramps, going it with +more or less zest, it is true, and in different costumes—but tramps at +the last, every one of us."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at him with puzzled eyes.</p> + +<p>"What a rum way of talking you have—something like the poet, only +different somehow."</p> + +<p>"The poet?"</p> + +<p>"Down there at Camslove."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I remember. I read some of his things; pretty little rhymes, too, +if I remember rightly."</p> + +<p>"They're jolly good," said Tommy, warmly.</p> + +<p>"A friend of yours, eh?"</p> + +<p>Tommy nodded.</p> + +<p>"He wrote one just here, where we're sitting."</p> + +<p>"Did he, by Jove—which was it?"</p> + +<p>Tommy pondered.</p> + +<p>"I forget most of it, but it was jolly good. He told it me one day on +the downs, just as we met a shepherd singing, and it was about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> life and +enterprise, and all that sort of thing, and love on the upland road +and—and God beyond the crest."</p> + +<p>"Sounds good, and partly true."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean; why isn't it altogether true?"</p> + +<p>The stranger smoked a minute or two in silence, then:</p> + +<p>"Where is the crest?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Tommy pointed up into the twilight.</p> + +<p>"It's a long way to the crest," he said.</p> + +<p>"Ah—and the fellows who never get there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"If God be only beyond the crest, how shall they fare?"</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, looking away down the dusky valley.</p> + +<p>He saw a light or two glimmering among the trees.</p> + +<p>"It's time I went back," he muttered, but sat where he was.</p> + +<p>"You see what I mean?" continued the stranger. "There is only one crest +worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> striving for, and that is always beyond our reach, and God is +beyond it and above it, all right. But there's many a poor fellow who +would have his back to it now if he were not sure that God was also on +the upland road, among the tramps."</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, plucking uncomfortably at the grass.</p> + +<p>"You haven't thought much about these things?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but you must, though. You see, until a fellow knows the road he is +on, he cannot achieve, nor even begin to surmount."</p> + +<p>"How did you know the road you're on, then?"</p> + +<p>"I had a friend."</p> + +<p>"And he knew?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, been over it all before, knew every turn, and all the steep +places. He has come with me. He is with me now."</p> + +<p>Tommy peered up the darkening road.</p> + +<p>"I can't see him," he said.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, but you will. I'm sure you will."</p> + +<p>"What is his name?"</p> + +<p>The stranger rose to his feet, and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Christ," he said, as Tommy looked into his eyes. Then,</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, old chap—meet again somewhere, perhaps—and, I say, about +the road, shall it be the upland road for both of us?"</p> + +<p>Tommy was silent, then, as they shook hands.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>"Hullo, Tommy," said I, on my return that night, from the doctor's +study, "Enjoyed the evening?"</p> + +<p>"Had some awful good practice with the doctor's bat."</p> + +<p>"We saw you on the downs afterwards."</p> + +<p>Tommy looked at me, with bright eyes, as if about to tell me something, +but he changed his mind.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I met a stranger there."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII">XVIII</a></h2> + +<h3>AND LAST</h3> + +<p>And so these brief sketches plucked here and there from the boyhood of +Tommy Wideawake, and patched unskilfully together, must be gathered up +and docketed as closed, even as the boyhood from which they have been +drawn.</p> + +<p>Yet the story of Tommy Wideawake is still being written, where all may +read who have eyes for the strength, and godliness of a country squire's +life, and a hand for his stalwart grip.</p> + +<p>On the occasion of Tommy's twenty-first birthday, there were, of course, +great rejoicings in Camslove, and a general gathering of the +country-side to the old Grange.</p> + +<p>Tommy, in the course of a successful, if not eloquent speech, made some +extravagant remarks as to the debt he owed to his four friends, and +guardians—the poet, the vicar, the doctor, and myself.</p> + +<p>Modesty forbids their repetition, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> doubtless youthful enthusiasm +accounted for their absurdity.</p> + +<p>One other he mentioned in his speech—a stranger whom, long ago, he had +met on the upland road.</p> + +<p>Thus Tommy in his maiden speech.</p> + +<p>Three years later he brought a bride to Camslove, and her name was +Madge, and the rest of us live on in much the old way, excepting of +course the poet, who, as a married man, affects a fine pity for us less +fortunate ones.</p> + +<p>And yet we are not altogether the same men, I fancy, as in those days.</p> + +<p>The vicar's house has become a perfect playground for the poet's +children, and my own is occasionally sadly mauled by certain +sacrilegious nephews, much to the annoyance of my man.</p> + +<p>The doctor is president, and indeed the shining light of the village +cricket team, and we, at Camslove, flatter ourselves that we can put up +a very decent game.</p> + +<p>So I lay aside my pen awhile and read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> what I have written, and as I +read I am glad that I am led from garden to valley, and stream, and +mill, and over the common, and up the windy down.</p> + +<p>For if a boy's will be indeed the wind's will, let it be that of the +wind on the heath, which the gipsies breathe. And if the thoughts of a +boy be long, long thoughts, let them be born of earth, and air, and sun.</p> + +<p>And his sins, since sin and sunlight are incompatible, must needs be +easy of correction.</p> + +<p>And his faith, when of a sudden he shall find that there is God in all +these things, shall be so deep that not all the criticism of all the +schools shall be able to root it out of his heart.</p> + +<p>And the moral, if you must needs hammer one out, would be this, that +soundness is more to be desired than scholarship, and that the heart of +boyhood is, by nature, nearer to God than that of later life.</p> + +<p>But let him who would draw the veil aside, do so with tender hands.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h4>TO THE EDITOR OF "THE OUTLOOK"</h4> + +<h4>FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT SUNDRY</h4> + +<h4>VERSES THE AUTHORS THANKS ARE</h4> + +<h4>DUE</h4> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h4>TWO BOOKS VERY LIKE</h4> + +<h3>TOMMY WIDEAWAKE</h3> + +<p class="center">ARE</p> + +<h4>KENNETH GRAHAME'S</h4> + +<h2>THE GOLDEN AGE</h2> + +<p class="center">AND</p> + +<h2>DREAM DAYS</h2> + +<p>MR. RICHARD <span class="smcap">LeGALLIENNE</span>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I can think of no truer praise of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's 'Golden Age' +than that it is worthy of being called 'A Child's Garden—of Prose.'"</p></div> + +<p>MR. ISRAEL ZANGWILL:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"No more enjoyable interpretation of the child's mind has been accorded +us since Stevenson's 'Child's Garden of Verses.'"</p></div> + +<p>MR. SWINBURNE:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The art of writing adequately and acceptably about children is among +the rarest and most precious of arts.... 'The Golden Age' is one of the +few books which are well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise.... The fit +reader—and the 'fit' readers should be far from 'few'—finds himself a +child again while reading it. Immortality should be the reward.... +Praise would be as superfluous as analysis would be impertinent."</p></div> + +<p>THE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In this province, the reconstruction of child life, Kenneth Grahame is +masterly. In fact we know of no one his equal."</p></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h3>The International</h3> + +<h2>STUDIO</h2> + +<h4>An Illustrated Magazine of Arts and Crafts</h4> + +<p class="center">Subscription, 35 cents per month, $3.50 per year</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 182px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="182" height="200" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">Three Months' Trial Subscription, $1.00</p> + +<p>It is the aim of "The International Studio" to treat of every Art and +Craft—Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Ceramics, Metal, Glass, +Furniture, Decoration, Design, Bookbinding, Needlework, Gardening, etc. +Color supplements and every species of black-and-white reproduction +appear in each number. In fact this magazine authoritatively presents to +the reader the progress of the Arts and Crafts.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<h4>JOHN LANE, <i>The Bodley Head</i></h4> + +<h4>67 Fifth Avenue, New York</h4> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tommy Wideawake, by H. H. Bashford + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY WIDEAWAKE *** + +***** This file should be named 39802-h.htm or 39802-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/8/0/39802/ + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. 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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: Tommy Wideawake + +Author: H. H. Bashford + +Release Date: May 26, 2012 [EBook #39802] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY WIDEAWAKE *** + + + + +Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +TOMMY WIDEAWAKE + + + + +TOMMY +WIDEAWAKE + + +BY +H. H. BASHFORD + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY JOHN LANE +The Bodley Head +NEW YORK AND LONDON +MCMIII + + + + +_Copyright, 1903_ +By JOHN LANE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I--In which four men make a promise 9 + II--In which two rats meet a sudden death 19 + III--In which a hat floats down stream 34 + IV--In which a young lady is left upon the bank 46 + V--In which April is mistress 55 + VI--In which four men meet a train 69 + VII--In which Madge whistles in a wood 79 + VIII--In which two adjectives are applied to Tommy 90 + IX--In which Tommy climbs a stile 100 + X--In which I receive two warnings, and neglect one 114 + XI--In which Tommy is in peril 121 + XII--In which Tommy makes a resolve 133 + XIII--In which the poet plucks a foxglove 142 + XIV--In which Tommy converses with the Pale Boy 153 + XV--In which some people meet in a wheatfield 160 + XVI--In which Tommy crosses the ploughing 169 + XVII--In which Tommy takes the upland road 173 + XVIII--And last 186 + + + + +I + +IN WHICH FOUR MEN MAKE A PROMISE + + +We were sitting round the fire, in the study--five men, all of us +middle-aged and sober-minded, four of us bachelors, one a widower. + +And it was he who spoke, with an anxious light in his grey eyes, and two +thoughtful wrinkles at the bridge of his military nose. + +"Tommy," he observed, "Tommy is not an ordinary boy." + +We were silent, and I could see the doctor's lips twitching beneath his +moustache, as he gazed hard into the fire, and sucked at his cigar. The +colonel knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and resumed: + +"I suppose," he said, "that it is a comparatively unusual circumstance +to find five men, unrelated by birth or marriage, who, having been +friends at school and college and having reached years of maturity, +find themselves resident in the same village, with that early +friendship not merely still existent, but, if I may say so, stronger +than ever." + +We nodded. + +"It is unusual," observed the vicar. + +"As you know," proceeded the colonel, a little laboriously, for he was a +poor conversationalist, "the calls of my profession have forbidden me, +of late years, to enjoy as much of your company as I could have +wished--and now, after a very pleasant winter together, I must once +again take the Eastern trail for an indefinite period." + +We were regretfully silent--perhaps also a little curious, for our +friend was not wont to discourse thus fully to us. + +The poet appeared even a little dismayed, owing, doubtless, to that +intuition which has made him so justly renowned in his circle of +admirers, for the colonel's next remarks filled us all with a similar +emotion. + +"Dear friends," he said, leaning forward in his chair, and placing his +pipe upon the whist table, "may I--would you allow me so to trespass on +this friendship of ours, as to ask for your interest in my only son, +Thomas?" + +For a minute all of us, I fancy, trod the fields of memory. + +The poet's thoughts hovered round a small grave in his garden, wherein +lay an erstwhile feline comrade of his solitude, whose soul had leaped +into space at the assault of an unerring pebble. + +The vicar and the doctor would seem to have had similar +reminiscences--and had I not seen a youthful figure wading complacently +through my cucumber frames? We all were interested in Tommy. + +Another chord was touched. + +"He is motherless, you see, and very alone," the colonel pleaded, as +though our thoughts had been audible. + +We remembered the brief bright years, and the long grey ones, and +steeled our hearts for service. + +"I have seen so little of him, myself," continued the colonel. "He is at +school and he will go to college, but a boy needs more than school and +college can give him--he needs a hand to guide his thoughts and fancies, +and liberty, in which they may unfold. He needs developing in a way in +which no school or college can develop him. I would have him see nature, +and learn her lessons; see men and things, and know how to discern and +appreciate. I would have him a little different--wider shall I +say?--than the mere stereotyped public-school and varsity +product--admirable as it is. I would have him cultured, but not a +worshipper of culture, to the neglect of those deeper qualities without +which culture is a mere husk. + +"I would have him athletic, but not of those who deify athletics. + +"Above all, I would have him such a gentleman as only he can be who +realises that the privilege of good birth is in no way due to indigenous +merit." + +He paused, and for a while we smoked in silence. + +"He will, of course, be away at school for the greater part of each +year. But if you, dear friends, would undertake--in turn, if you +will--to supervise his holidays, I should be more than grateful. We +grown men regard our life in terms--a boy punctuates his, by +holidays--and it is in them, that I would beg of you to influence him +for good." + +He turned to the poet. + +"Tommy," he said, "has, I feel sure, a deeply imaginative nature, and I +am by no means certain that he is not poetical. In fact, I believe he +once wrote something about a star, which was really quite +creditable--quite creditable." + +The poet looked a little bewildered. + +"And I believe that Tommy has scientific bents"--the colonel looked at +the doctor, who bowed silently. + +Then he regarded me a little doubtfully--after a pause. + +"Tommy is not an ordinary boy," he repeated, somewhat ambiguously I +thought. Lastly, he turned to the vicar, "I could never repay the man +who taught my boy to love God," he said simply, and we fell once more to +our silence, and our smoking, while the flames leaped merrily in the old +grate, and flung strange shadows over the black wainscot and polished +floor. + +Camslove Grange was old and serene and aristocratic, an antithesis, in +all respects, to its future owner, whose round head pressed a pillow +upstairs, while his spirit wandered, at play, through a boy's dreamland. +The colonel waved his hand. + +"It will all be his, you see, one day," he said, almost apologetically, +"and I want the old place to have a good master." + +I have said that the colonel's request had filled us with dismay, and +this indeed was very much the case. + +We all had our habits. We all--even the doctor, who was the youngest of +us by some years--loved peace and regularity. Moreover, we all, if not +possessed of an actual dislike for boys, nevertheless preferred them at +a considerable distance. + +And yet, in spite of all these things, we could not but fall in with the +colonel's appeal, both for the sake of unbroken friendship--and in one +case, at least (he will not mind, if I confess it), for the sake of a +sweet lost face. + +And so it came about that we clasped hands, in the silence of the old +study, where, if rumour be true, more than one famous treaty has been +made and signed, and took upon our shoulders the burden of Thomas, only +son of our departing friend. + +The colonel rose to his feet, and there was a glad light in his eyes. He +held out both hands towards us. + +"God bless you, old comrades," he said. Then, in answer to a question, + +"Tommy returns to school, to-morrow, for the Easter term, and his +holiday will be in April, I fancy. To whom is he to go first?" + +We all looked at each other with questioning eyes--then we looked at the +fire. + +The silence began to get awkward. + +"Shall we--er--shall we toss--draw lots, that is?" suggested the vicar, +rather nervously. + +The idea seemed good, and we resorted to the time-honoured, yet most +unsatisfactory, expedient of spinning a penny in the air. + +The results, combined with a process of exclusion, left the choice +between the poet and the doctor. + +The vicar spun, and the poet called. "Heads!" he cried, feverishly. + +And heads it was. + +A smile of relief and triumph was dawning on the doctor's face, when the +poet looked at him, anxiously. + +"Is there not--" he asked. "Is there not a method of procedure, by which +one may call thrice?" + +"Threes," remarked the vicar, genially. + +"Of course there is--would you like me to toss again?" + +"I--I think I would," said the poet, meekly. Then turning, +apologetically, to the colonel, + +"It's better to make _quite_ sure, don't you think?" + +The doctor looked a little crestfallen, but agreed, and the vicar once +more sent the coin into the air. + +"Tails," cried the poet, and as the coin fell, the sovereign's head lay +upward. + +The poet drew a deep breath. + +"It would seem," he said, bowing to the doctor, "that Tommy may yet +become your guest." + +"There is another go," said the doctor, and the vicar tossed a third +time. + +"Heads," cried the poet, and heads it proved to be. + +The poet wiped his forehead, after which the colonel grasped his hand. + +"Write and tell me how he gets on," he said. "I cannot tell you how +grateful I am to you--to all of you." + +"No, of course not--that is, it's nothing you know--only too delighted +to have the dear boy," stammered the poet. "Er--does he--can he undress +himself and--and all that, you know?" + +The colonel laughed. + +"Why, he's thirteen," he cried. + +A little later we took our departure. + +In a shadowy part of the drive the poet pulled my sleeve. + +"Can boys of that age undress themselves and brush their own teeth, do +you suppose?" he asked. + +"I believe so," I answered. + +The poet shook his head sorrowfully. + +"I don't know what Mrs. Chundle will say," he remarked. + +And at the end of the drive we parted, with averted looks and scarce +concealed distress, each taking a contemplative path to the hitherto +calm of his bachelor shrine. + + + + +II + +IN WHICH TWO RATS MEET A SUDDEN DEATH + + +"The country is just now at its freshest," said the poet, waving his +hand towards the open window and the green lawn. "The world is waking +again to its--er, spring holiday, Tommy, and you must be out in the air +and the open fields, and share it while you may." + +The poet beamed, a little apprehensively it is true, across the +breakfast table at Tommy, who was mastering a large plate of eggs and +bacon with courage and facility. + +"It's jolly good of you to have me, you know," observed Tommy, pausing a +moment to regard his host. + +"On the contrary, it is my very glad privilege. I have often felt that +my youth has been left behind a little oversoon--I am getting, I fancy, +a trifle stiff and narrowed. You must lead me, Tommy, into the world of +action and sport--we will play games together--hide and go seek. You +must buy me a hoop, and we will play marbles and cricket--" and the +poet smiled complacently over his spectacles. + +Tommy wriggled a little uneasily in his chair, and looked out of the +window. + +The trees were bending to the morning wind, which sang through the +budding branches and hovered over the garden daffodils. Away beyond the +lawn and the meadows the hills rose clear and bracing to the eye, and +through a chain of willows sped the wavering blue gleam of sunny waters. + +"I--I'm an awful duffer at games," said Tommy, with a blush on his brown +cheeks, and horrid visions of the poet and himself bowling hoops. + +The poet drew a deep breath of relief. + +"You love nature, dear boy--the sights and sounds and mysteries of the +hedgerow and the stream--is it not so?" + +"Yes," said Tommy, dubiously. "I--I'm rather a hot shot with a +catapult." + +The poet gazed out across the garden. A small green mound beneath the +chestnut tree marked the grave of the fond Delicia--a tribute to Tommy's +skill. + +Involuntarily, the poet sighed. + +Tommy looked up from the marmalade. + +"You don't mind, do you?" he asked anxiously. + +"No, no, of course not, dear boy," said the poet with an effort. "That +is--you--you won't hit anything, will you?" + +"Rather," cried Tommy. "You jolly well see if I don't." + +Delicia's successor looked up from her saucer on the rug, and the +"Morning Post" slipped from the poet's nerveless grasp. + +"You--oh Tommy, you will spare the tabby," he gasped tragically, +indicating the rug and its occupant. + +Tommy grinned. + +"All right," he said,--adding as a comforting afterthought, "And cats +are awful poor sport, you know--they're so jolly slow." + +But the poet was far away. + +With every meal Mrs. Chundle brought a pencil and paper, for as likely +as not inspiration would not scorn to come with coffee or hover over a +rasher of bacon. And it was even so, at this present. + +Tommy watched the process with some curiosity. Then he stole to the +window, for all the world was calling him. + +But he paused with one foot on the first step, as the poet looked up +from his manuscript. + +"How do you like this?" he asked eagerly: + + Oh the daffodils sing of my lady's gown, + The hyacinths dream of her eyes, + And the wandering breezes across the down, + The harmonies dropt from the skies, + Are full of the song of the love that swept + My citadel by surprise. + + Oh the woods they are bright with my lady's voice, + The paths they are sweet with her tread, + And the kiss of her gown makes the lawn rejoice, + The violet lift her head. + Yet, lady, I know not if I must smile + Or weep for the days long sped. + +The poet blinked rapturously through his glasses at Tommy, listening +respectfully, by the window. + +"They're jolly good--but I say, who is she?" + +The poet seemed a little puzzled. + +"I am afraid I do not comprehend you," he said. + +"The lady," observed Tommy. "I didn't know you were in love, you know, +or anything of that sort." + +The poet rose to his feet, with some dignity. + +"I am not in love, Thomas," he said. "I--I never even think about such +things." Tommy turned back. + +"I say, if you're going to the post-office with that will you buy me +some elastic--for my catty, you know?" he said. + +Just then the housekeeper entered, and Tommy went out upon the lawn. + +"Please, sir, there's a friend o' Mister Thomas's a settin' in the +kitchen, an' 'e's bin there a hower, pretty nigh--an' 'is talk--it +fairly makes me blood rise, and me pore stomach that sour--an', please, +'e wants ter know if Mister Thomas is ready to go after them rats 'e was +talkin' of, an' if the Cholmondeleys, which is me blood relations, 'ad +'eard 'im--Lord." + +Mrs. Chundle wiped her brow at this appalling supposition, and the poet +gazed helplessly at her. + +"Did you say a friend of Mr. Thomas's?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir, an' that common 'e--'e's almost took the shine off of the +plates." + +"Dear, dear! how very--very peculiar, Mrs. Chundle." + +A genial, red countenance appeared at the doorway. + +"Beg pawdon, sir, but the young gemman 'e wanted me to show 'im a nest +or two o' rats down Becklington stream, sir--rare fat uns they be, sir, +too." + +"I--I do not approve of sport--of slaying innocent beings--even if they +be but rodents; I must ask you to leave me." + +The poet waved his hand. + +The rubicund sportsman looked disappointed. "Beg pawdon, sir, I'm sure. +Thought 's 'ow it were all right, sir." + +"I do not blame you, my good man. I merely protest against the ruling +spirit of destruction which our country worships so deplorably. You may +go." + +And all this while Tommy stood bare-headed on the lawn, filling his +lungs with the morning's sweetness, and feeling the grip of its appeal +in his heart and blood and limbs. A sturdy little figure he was, clad in +a short jacket and attenuated flannel knickerbockers which left his +brown knees bare above his stockings. + +The blood in his round cheeks shone red beneath the tan, and there were +some freckles at the bridge of his nose. In his hand was a battered +wide-awake hat--his usual headgear--and the origin of his sobriquet--for +he will, I imagine, be known as Tommy Wideawake until the crack of doom, +and, maybe, even after that. + +With all his appreciation of the day, however, no word of the +conversation just recorded missed his ears, and I regret to say that +when the red-cheeked intruder turned a moment at the garden gate, +Tommy's right eyelashes trembled a moment upon his cheek while his lips +parted over some white teeth for the smallest fraction of a second. + +Then he kicked viciously at a daisy and blinked up at the friendly sun. + +The poet stepped out on the lawn beside him with a worried wrinkle on +his forehead. + +"I feel rather upset," he said. + +"Let's go for a walk," suggested Tommy. + +The poet considered a moment. + +An epic, which lagged somewhat, held out spectral arms to him from the +recesses of his writing-desk, but the birds' spring songs were too +winsome for prolonged resistance, and to their wooing the poet +capitulated. + +"Let us come," he said, and they stepped through the wicker gate into +the water-meadows. + +The Becklington brook is only a thin thread here, but lower down it +receives tributaries from two adjoining valleys and becomes a stream of +some importance, turning, indeed, a couple of mills, before it reaches +the Arrowley, which enters the Isis. + +The day was hot--one of those early heralds of June so often encountered +in late April, and the meadows basked dreamily in the sun, while from +the hills came a dull glow of budding gorse. + +The poet was full of fancies, and as the house grew farther behind them, +and the path led ever more deeply among copse and field, his natural +calm soon reasserted itself. From time to time he would jot down a happy +phrase or quaint expression, enlarging thereon to Tommy, who listened +patiently enough. + +Plop. + +A lazy ripple cut the surface of the stream, and another, and another. + +Tommy lifted a warning hand and held his breath. + +Yes, sure enough, there was a brown nose stemming the water. + +In an instant Tommy was crouching in the reeds, his hand feeling in his +pocket, and his small body quivering. + +The poet's mouth was open. + +Followed a twang, and the whistle of a small projectile, and the rat +disappeared. But the stone had not hit him. + +"Tommy!" protested the poet. + +But his appeal fell on deaf ears, for Tommy was watching the far side of +the stream with an anxious gaze. Suddenly the brown nose reappeared. + +He was a very ugly rat. + +"Tommy!" said the poet again, weakly. + +The rat was making for a bit of crumbled bank opposite, and Tommy stood +up for better aim. The poet held his breath. + +One foot more and the prey would be lost, but Tommy stood like a young +statue--then whang; and slowly the rat turned over on his back and +vanished from sight, to float presently--a swollen corpse--down the +quiet stream. + +"Well hit, sir," cried the poet. + +Tommy turned with dancing eyes. + +"Jolly nearly lost him," he said. "You should just see young Collins +with a catty. He's miles better than me." + +But the poet had remembered himself. + +"Tommy," he said, huskily, "I--I don't approve of sport of this kind. +Cannot you aim at--at inanimate objects?" + +"It's a jolly poor game," said Tommy--then holding out the wooden fork, +with its pendant elastic. + +"Have a try," he said. + +The poet accepted a handful of ammunition. + +"I must amuse the boy and enter into his sports as far as I may if I +would influence his character," he said to himself. + +Tommy stuck a clod of earth on a stick some few yards away, at which, +for some time, the poet shot wildly enough. + +Yet, with each successive attempt, the desire for success grew stronger +within him, and when at last the clod flew into a thousand crumbs, he +flushed with triumph, and had to wipe the dimness from his glasses. + +Oh, poets! it is dangerous to play with fire. + +Plop. + +And another lusty rat held bravely out into the stream. + +"Oh, get him, get him!" cried Tommy, jumping up and down. "Lend me the +catty. Let me have a shot. Do buck up." + +But the poet waved him aside. + +"There shall be no--" he hesitated. + +This rat was surely uglier than the last. + +"No unseemly haste," concluded the poet. + +Did the rat scent danger? I know not, but, on a sudden, he turned back +to shelter. And, alas, this was too much for even Principle and +Conscience--and whang went the catapult, and lo, even as by a miracle +(which, indeed, it surely was), the bullet found its mark. + +And I regret to say that the vicar, leaning unnoticed on a neighbouring +gate, heard the poet exclaim, with some exultation: "Got him." + +"Oh, _well_ hit!" cried Tommy. "By Jove, that was a ripping shot." + +The poet blushed at the praise--but alas for human pleasures, and +notably stolen ones, for they are fleeting. + +"Hullo," said a sonorous voice. + +They both turned, and the vicar smiled. + +The poet was hatless and flushed. From one hand dangled a catapult; in +the other he clutched some convenient pebbles. + +"Really," said the vicar, "I should never have thought it." + +The poet sighed, and handed the weapon to Tommy. + +"Run away now, old chap," he said, "and have a good time. I think I +shall go home." + +Tommy trotted off into the wood, and the vicar and the poet held back +towards the village. + +"How goes the experiment?" asked the former, magnanimously ignoring the +scene he had just witnessed. + +The poet shook his head. + +"It is hard to say yet," he replied. "I have not seen any _marked_ +development of the poetical and imaginative side of him--and he brings +some very queer friends to my house. But he's a good boy, on the whole, +and the holidays have only just begun." + +In the village street they paused. + +"I--I want to go to the post-office," said the poet. + +"All right," said the vicar. + +"Don't--please don't wait for me," said the poet. + +"It's a pleasure," replied the vicar. "The day is fine and young, and it +is also Monday. I am not busy." + +"I really wish you wouldn't." + +The vicar was a man of tact, and had known the poet since boyhood, so he +bowed. + +"Good day," he said, and strolled towards the parsonage. + +The poet looked up and down the long, lazy street. There was no one in +sight. Then he plunged into the little shop. + +"Some elastic, please," he said, nervously. "Thick and square--for a +catapult." + + + + +III + +IN WHICH A HAT FLOATS DOWN STREAM + + +"And so my boy has taken up his abode with our friend, the poet," wrote +the colonel to me. "Do you know, I fancy it will be good for both of +them. I have long felt that our poet was getting too solitary and +remote--too self-centred, shall I say? + +"And yet I have, too, some misgivings as to his power of controlling +Tommy--although my faith in Mrs. Chundle is profound. + +"Tommy, as you know, is not perhaps quite so strong as he might be, and +needs careful watching--changing clothes and so on. You recollect his +sudden and quite severe illness just after the Chantrey's garden party +last year." + +I laid down the letter and smiled, for I had wondered at the time at +Tommy's survival, so appalling had been his powers of absorption. + +"Poor colonel," I reflected. "He is too ridiculously wrapped up in the +young rascal, for anything." + +The letter ran on: + +"Spare no expense as to his keep and the supplying of his reasonable +wishes, but do not let him know, at any rate for the present, that he is +heir to Camslove--I think he does not realise it yet--and for a while it +is better he should not. + +"My greeting to all the brothers. There are wars and rumours of wars in +the air of the Northwest...." + +I restored the letter to my pocket, and lay back in the grass, beneath +the branches. + +Wars and rumours of wars--well, they were far enough from here, as every +twittering birdling manifested. + +The colonel had always been the man of action among us, though he, of us +all, had the wherewithal to be the most at ease. + +One of those strange incongruities with which life abounds, and which, I +reflected, must be accepted with resignation. + +I had always rather prided myself upon the completeness with which I +had resigned myself to my lot of idleness and obscurity, and to my own +mind was a philosopher of no small merit. + +I lay back under the trees full of the content of the day and the green +woods and abandoned myself to meditation. + +Whether it was the spirit of Spring or some latent essence of activity +in my being, I do not know, but certain it is that a wave of discontent +spread over me--a weariness (very unfamiliar) of myself and my cheap +philosophy. + +I sat up, wondering at the change and its suddenness, groping in my mind +for a solution to the problem. + +Could it be that my rule of life was based on a fallacy? + +Surely not. Suddenly I thought of Tommy and took a deep breath of the +sweet woodland air, for I had found what I had wanted. + +Resignation--it was a sacrilege to use the word on such a day. + +Yes, I thought, there is no doubt that the instinctive philosophy of +boyhood is the true rule of life, as indeed one ought to have suspected +long ago. + +To enjoy the present with all the capacity of every sense, to regard the +past with comparative indifference, since it is irrevocable, and the +future with a healthy abandonment, since it is unknown, and to leave the +sorrows of introspection to those who know no better--avaunt with your +resignation. And even as I said it I saw the reeds by the pool quiver +and a pair of brown eyes twinkle joyously at me from their midst. + +"Hello, Tommy!" I cried. + +He emerged, clad only in an inconspicuous triangular garment about his +waist. + +"I've been watching you ever so long," he said triumphantly. + +"Been bathing?" I asked. + +"Rather. It's jolly fine and not a bit cold. I say, you should have seen +the old boy potting rats." + +"The poet?" I murmured in amaze. + +Tommy nodded. + +"He is getting quite a good shot," he said. "He was doing awful well +till the vicar saw him about an hour ago--an' then he wouldn't go on any +more." + +"I should think not," said I. "The humanitarian, the naturalist, the +anti-vivisectionist, the anti-destructionist--it passes comprehension." + +Tommy took a header and came up on to the sunny bank beside me, where he +stood a moment with glowing cheeks and lithe shining limbs. + +"This is ripping," he said--every letter an italic. "This is just +ab-solutely ripping." + +I laughed at his enthusiasm, and, as I laughed, shared it--oh the wine +of it, of youth and health and spring--was I talking about resignation +just now?--surely not. + +Tommy squatted down beside me on his bare haunches, with his hands +clasped over his knees. + +"I have heard from your father to-day," I said. + +Tommy grunted, and threw a stick at an early butterfly. + +He was always most uncommunicative where he felt most, so I waited with +discretion. + +"All right?" he queried, presently, in a nonchalant voice. + +I nodded. + +"He says he's afraid you're not very strong." + +Tommy stared, then he looked a little frightened. + +"I--of course I'm not _very_ strong, you know," he said thoughtfully, +casting a glance down his sturdy young arms. "But I can lick young +Collins, an' he weighs seven pounds more than me, an' I can pull up on +the bar at gym--" + +I hastened to reassure him. + +"He referred to your attack last summer, you know, after the Chantrey +affair." + +Tommy grinned expansively. + +"I expect the pater didn't know what it was," he said. + +"But I did." + +"You--you never told him?" in an anxious voice. + +"No." + +Tommy sighed. + +"The pater does hate a chap being greedy, you see, and--those strawbobs +were so awfully good. I couldn't help it--an' father thought I'd got +a--intestinal chill, I think he said." + +Tommy gave a passing moment to remembrance. Then he jumped up. + +"I'm quite dry again," he said, looking down at me. "So I guess I'll hop +in." + +The remark appeared to me slightly inconsequent, but Tommy laughed and +drew back under the shade of the tree. Then came a rush of white limbs, +and he was bobbing up again in the middle of the sunny pool. + +"Well dived," I cried, encouragingly, but he looked a little +contemptuous. + +"It was a jolly bad one," he said, "a beastly...." Delicacy forbids me +to record the exact word he used, but it ended with "flopper." + +He crawled out again, and shook the water from his eyes. + +"I say, won't you come in?" he cried eagerly. "It's simply grand in +there, and a gravel bottom." + +But I am a man of careful habits, and sober ways, with a reputation for +some stateliness both of behaviour and bearing, and I shook my head. + +Tommy urged again. + +"It's not as if you were an old man," he cried. + +The thought had not occurred to me. Age, in our little fraternity had +been a matter of but small interest. We had pursued the same routine of +gentle exercise, and dignified diversion, quiet jest and cultured +occupation, for so many years now, that we had seemed to be alike +removed from youth and age, in a quiet, unalterable, back-water of life, +quite apart from the hurrying stream of contemporary event. + +No, I was certainly not an old man, unless a well preserved specimen of +forty-eight, with simple habits, can so be styled. + +Tommy stood expectant before me, his bare feet well apart, a very +embodiment of young health, and, as I looked at him, a horrid doubt +crept into my mind--had I--could I possibly have become that most +objectionable of persons, a man in a groove? + +"Do come," said Tommy. + +"Don't be a fool," said Wisdom (only I was not quite sure of the +speaker). + +I looked round at the meadow, and the wood, and saw that we were alone. + +"It is April," I said weakly. + +"But it's quite warm--it is really." And so I fell. + +To you, O reader, it may seem a quite small matter, but to me it was far +from being so, for as I climbed the bank from each glad plunge I felt in +my blood a strange desire growing to do something, to achieve, to +surmount. + +Such emotions I had not known for years--not since--a time, when, on a +day, I had set myself to love seclusion and inactivity, and to live in +study and retrospect, on the small means that were mine. + +Ah, Tommy, never think that if any one desire be unfulfilled, life has +therefore lost its sweetness, and its mission, and its responsibility! + +"Cave," hissed Tommy, from the water. + +I held my breath, and sure enough there were voices along the path, and +close at hand, too. + +I made a desperate leap, and entered the water with a quite colossal +flop, for I am moderately stout. + +And, even so, I had barely time to wade in up to my neck, before two +figures, those of a little girl and a young lady, tripped into sight. + +"Why," said the little girl, "there's old Mr. Mathews and a little boy +in the pool. How funny." + +The young lady--it was Lady Chantrey's governess--hesitated a moment and +then courageously held on. + +"Yes," I heard her say. "It certainly is peculiar, quite peculiar." + +Whether she referred to me, or the situation, or an affair of previous +conversation, I did not know. + +I did not, indeed, much care, for surely this was enough that I, a +philosopher of dignity, a bachelor of some importance, at any rate in +Camslove, should have been seen in a small pool, with only a draggled +head above the surface, by Lady Chantrey's daughter, and her governess. + +I crept out, and had perforce to sit in the sun to dry, praying +earnestly lest any other members of the surrounding families should come +that way. + +Tommy was in high spirits. + +"It's done you lots of good," he said. + +I glared at him. + +"What do you mean?" I asked coldly, for his words seemed suggestive. + +"You look so jolly fresh," he observed, dressing himself leisurely. + +I felt that it was time I returned, and invited Tommy to partake of +lunch with me. He declined, however, as he had thoughtfully provided +himself with food, before starting out with the poet. + +"So long," he said. + +As I glanced up the brook, before returning homewards, I saw a sailor +hat, navigating a small rapid. + +"But I have no walking-stick," I reflected. "And it is in the middle of +the stream." + + + + +IV + +IN WHICH A YOUNG LADY IS LEFT UPON THE BANK + + +The sailor hat bobbed, merrily, down the stream, scorning each friendly +brown boulder that would have stopped it, and dodging every drooping +bough that would have held it back. For was not its legend of H. M. S. +Daring, and must not the honour of Britain's navy be manfully +maintained? + +Tommy sat peacefully just above the bathing pool, munching his +sandwiches, and letting the clear water trickle across his toes, very +much contented with himself, and, consequently, with his environment +also. + +"Oh please--my hat," said a pathetic voice. + +Tommy turned round, and on the path behind him stood the little girl, +who had passed, a short while before. + +She was quite breathless, and her hair was very tangled, as it crept +about her cheeks, and hung over her brow. + +Her hands were clasped, and she looked at Tommy, appealingly. + +Tommy surveyed the hat, which had swung into the pool. + +"It's too deep, just there, for me to go in, with my clothes on," he +said. + +"But there's a shallow part a little way down, and I'll go for it there. +Come on." + +He jumped up, and crammed his stockings and shoes into his pockets, as +they ran down the path, beside the brook. + +"How did you lose it?" he asked. + +"I was climbing a tree--and--and the wind blowed it off." + +"Oh!" + +"My governess is reading a book, about half a mile up the stream, where +the poplars are." + +"Oh!" + +Tommy felt strangely tongue-tied--a new and wholly perplexing +experience. He was relieved when they arrived at the shallows, and waded +carefully into the stream. + +As the hat sailed down, he dexterously caught it, and came back in +triumph. + +"Oh, thank you so much. I hope you aren't very wet." + +Tommy examined the upturned edge of his knickerbockers, and then looked +into a pair of wide black eyes. + +"Not a bit, hardly," he said, and he thought her cheeks were redder than +any he had seen. He did not, as a rule, approve of girls, but he felt +that there was a kindred spirit twinkling behind those black eyes. + +"I think I must go back," said she. + +"Wh--what is your name?" stammered Tommy, with a curious desire to +prolong the time. + +She laughed. + +"I think you might tell me yours." + +"I got your hat for you." + +"You liked getting it." + +"You'd have lost it, if I hadn't gone in." + +"No, I shouldn't. I could have got it myself. I'm not afraid." + +Tommy capitulated. + +"They call me Tommy Wideawake," he said. + +"What a funny name. I thought you looked rather sleepy, when I saw you +on the bank just now." + +"You looked jolly untidy," retorted Tommy irrelevantly. + +"Are you the browny whitey colonel's son?" + +Tommy spoke with aroused dignity. + +"You must not call my father names," he said. + +"I'm not. I think he's a splendid brave man, and I always call him that, +because his face is so brown and his moustache and hair so very white." + +Tommy blushed. Then he said very slowly, and with some hesitation, for +to no one before had he confided so much: + +"I think he is the bravest--the bravest officer in the whole army." + +Then his eyes fell, and he looked confusedly at his toes. + +The stream was rippling softly over the shallows, full of its young +dream. + +Then-- + +"I'm Madge Chantrey," said a shy voice. + +Tommy looked up eagerly. + +"Why, then I must have seen you in church--but you looked so different +you know, so jolly--jolly different." + +Madge laughed. + +"I've often seen you, in an eton jacket, with a very big collar, and you +always went to sleep in the sermon, and forgot to get up when the vicar +said 'And now.'" + +Tommy grinned. + +Then an inspiration seized him. + +"I say; let's go on to the mill, an' we'll pot water-rats on the way, +an' get some tea there. He's an awful good sort, is the miller. His +name's Berrill, and he's ridden to London and back in a day, and it's a +hundred and fifty miles, and he can carry two bags of wheat at once, and +there's sure to be some rats up at Becklington End, and it's only about +three o'clock--and it's such an absolutely ripping day." + +He stopped and pulled up some grass. + +"You might as well," he concluded, in a voice which implied that her +choice was of no consequence to him. + +Her black eyes danced, and she swung her hat thoughtfully round her +finger. + +"It would be rather nice," she said. "But there is Miss Gerald, you +know; she will wonder where I am." + +"Never mind. I'll bring you home." + +And down the chain of water-meadows from one valley to another they +wandered through the April afternoon, till the old mill-pool lay before +them deep and shadowy beneath the green, wet walls. A long gleam of +light lay athwart its surface, dying slowly as the sunset faded. + +"It is tea-time," said Tommy. + +"Poor Miss Gerald," murmured Madge. + +"She's all right," replied Tommy, cheerfully. "I expect she's jolly well +enjoying herself." + + * * * * * + +As I passed the poet's gate I saw him pacing the lawn, and hailed him. + +"Have you enjoyed the morning?" I asked. + +He looked at me a little suspiciously. + +"You haven't seen the vicar?" he queried. + +I shook my head. + +"Yes," he observed. "Thomas and I have been bathed, I may say, in +nature." + +He waved his hand. + +"I saw Tommy bathing," said I. + +Again the poet looked at me sharply. + +"Did you--did you have any converse with the boy?" he asked. + +"Only a little. He seemed to be thoroughly happy." + +The poet smiled. + +"Ah! the message of Spring is hope, and happiness, and life," he said, +"and Tommy is even now in Spring." + +I bowed. + +"I saw a dead rat floating down stream," I remarked, casually. + +The poet gave me a dark glance, but my expression was innocent and +frank. + +"_In media vitae, sumus in morte_," he observed, sententiously, and +walked back to the lawn. + +As I turned away, I met the doctor hurrying home. + +He greeted me pleasantly, but there was curiosity in his eyes. + +"What's the matter?" I asked, genially, for I felt I had scored one +against the poet. + +"Whatever has happened to your hair? It looks very clammy and +streaky--and it's hanging over your ears." + +I crammed my hat on a little tighter. + +"Nothing at all," I said, hurriedly. "It's--it's rather warm work, you +know, walking in this weather." + +But I could see he didn't believe me. + +"Seen Tommy?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"Been fooling up the stream, I suppose?" + +I coloured. + +"No, of course not--er, that is, yes----Tommy has." + +The doctor smiled. + +"Good day, Mathews," he said. + +And we parted. + +Miss Gerald sat reading, on the bank. + + + + +V + +IN WHICH APRIL IS MISTRESS + + + I have heard the song that the Spring-time sings + In my journey over the hills, + The wild _reveille_ of life, that rings + To the broad sky over the hills: + For the banners of Spring to the winds are spread, + Her hosts on the plain overrun, + And the front is led, where the earth gleams red, + And the furze-bush flares to the sun. + + I have seen the challenge of Spring-time flung + To the wide world over the hills; + I have marched its resolute ranks among, + In my journey over the hills. + The strong young grass has carried the crest, + And taken the vale by surprise, + As it leapt from rest on the Winter's breast + To its conquest under the skies. + + I have heard the secret of Spring-time told + In a whisper over the hills, + That life and love shall arise and hold + Dominion over the hills + Till the Summer, at length, shall awake from sleep, + Warm-cheeked, on the wings of the day, + Where the still streams creep, and the lanes lie deep, + And the green boughs shadow the way. + +"Four o'clock!" sang the church bells down the valley, as the poet +stooped to cull an early blue-bell. + +"Daring little blossom--why, your comrades are still sleeping," he said. + +The blue-bell was silent, but all the tiny green leaves laughed, blowing +cheekily in the sun. + +"Poor, silly poet," they seemed to say, "why not wake up, like the +blue-bell, from your land of dreams, and drink the real nectar--live for +a day or two in a real, wild, glorious Spring?" + +But the poet dreamed on, stringing his conceits heavily together, and +with a knitted brow; for, somehow, the feet of the muse lagged tardily +this April afternoon. + +Then he stumbled over a parasol which lay across the path. + +He looked up. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, looking into a pair of blue eyes--or were +they grey, or hazel? He was not quite sure, but they seemed, at any +rate, Hibernian. + +"It was quite my fault; I am so sorry." + +"Nay, I was dreaming," said the poet. + +"And, sure, so was I, too." + +"I have not hurt it, I trust." + +"Not at all, but it must be quite late." + +"It is four o'clock." + +"Good gracious, where can the child have got to?" + +"You have lost some one?" + +"My pupil." + +The poet bowed. + +"A sorrow that befalls all leaders of disciples," he observed. + +Miss Gerald stared, and the poet continued, "The young will only learn +when they have fledged their wings and found them weak." + +"And then?" + +"They come to us older ones for a remedy. Knowledge is associated, +madam, with broken wings." + +"But I cannot take philosophy home to her mother--she will most +certainly require Madge--and can you tell me where this path leads?" + +The poet waved his hand. + +"Up-stream to the village--down-stream to the mill," he said. + +Miss Gerald thought a moment. + +"She will have gone down stream," she exclaimed. + +The poet meditated. + +"I, too, have lost a boy," he said. + +Miss Gerald looked surprised. + +"The son of a friend," explained the poet. + +"I must look for Madge at once," cried Miss Gerald, gathering up her +books. + +"May we search together--you know the proverb about the heads?" + +She laughed. + +"If you like," she said, and they followed the stream together. + +"You are the poet, are you not?" asked Miss Gerald presently. + +"A mere amateur." + +"Lady Chantrey has a copy of your works. I have read some of them." + +"I trust they gave you pleasure--at any rate amusement." + +"A little of both," said Miss Gerald. + +"You are very frank." + +"Some of them puzzled me a little--and--and I think you belie your +writings." + +"For instance?" + +"You sing of action, and Spring, and achievement--and love. But you live +in dreams, and books, and solitude." + +"I believe what I write, nevertheless." + +Miss Gerald was silent, and in a minute the poet spoke again. + +"You think my writings lack the ring of conviction?" he asked. + +She laughed. + +"They would be stronger if they bore the ring of experience," she said. +"_Experientia docet_, you know, and the poets are supposed to teach us +ordinary beings." + +"I don't pretend to teach." + +"Then you ought to. Is it not the duty of 'us older ones,' as you said +just now?--The old leaves living over again in the new, you know," and +she smiled. "That's quite poetical, isn't it, even if it is a bit of a +platitude?" + +"And be laughed at for our pains, even as those hopeful young debutantes +are laughing at the dowdy old leaves, on that dead tree yonder." + +"I knew you were no true singer of Spring." + + * * * * * + +Two children wandered back along the path. + +"I say, you're not a bad sort," said Tommy. + +Madge laughed. + +"Hullo, Tommy," cried the poet. + +"My dear Madge, where _have_ you been?" cried Miss Gerald. + +The poet smiled. + +"It is April, Miss Gerald," he said. "We must not be too severe on the +young people. As you know, this is proverbially an irresponsible, +changeable, witch of a month." + +"We must hurry home, Madge," said Miss Gerald, holding out a graceful, +though strong, hand to the poet. + +He clasped it a moment. + +"That was an interesting chat we had, Miss Gerald. I shall remember it. +Come, Tommy, it is time that we also returned." + +They walked slowly home together, Tommy chattering away freely of the +day's adventures. The poet seemed more than usually abstracted. In a +pause of Tommy's babbling, the name on the fly leaf of a book came back +to him. He had seen it, in the sunshine, by the stream. + +"Mollie Gerald," he murmured. + +"I beg your pardon," said Tommy, politely. + +"Nothing," snapped the poet. + + * * * * * + +"Which I says to Berrill, 'Berrill,' I says, 'Jest look 'ee 'ere now, if +the pote ain't a-walkin' along o' Miss Gerald from the 'all, as close +an' hinterested as never was, an' 'im, fer all the world, a +'missusogynist,' I says, meanin' a wimming-'ater. + +"An' Berrill 'e said 'imself as 'e'd 'ardly a believed it if 'e 'adn't +seed it wi' 'is own heyes, so to speak. + +"'It do be a masterpiece,' 'e said, 'a reg'lar masterpiece it be.'" + +They were sitting in Mrs. Chundle's kitchen, and Mrs. Berrill seemed +excited. + +Mrs. Chundle wiped a moist forehead with her apron, and shook her head. + +"What with Mister Thomas, an' catapults--I could believe hanythink, Mrs. +Berrill," she said. + +"The pote's changin' 'is ways, Mrs. Chundle." + +"'E is that, Mrs. Berrill, which as me haunt Jane Chundle, as is related +to me blood-relations, the Cholmondeleys, 'eard Mrs. Cholmondeley o' +Barnardley say to the rector's wife, an' arterwards told me private, +'Yer never do know oo's oo nowadays'--be they poits or hanybody else." + +"It bees just what the parson wer a sayin' a fortnight Sunday, wars an' +rumours o' wars, an' bloody moons, an' disasters an' catapults, in the +last days, 'e says--they be hall signs o' the times, Mrs. Chundle." + +Mrs. Chundle sipped her tea, and looked round her immaculate kitchen. +Then she lowered her voice, + +"I'm 'opin', Mrs. Berrill, I'm 'opin' hearnest as 'ow when Mister Thomas +goes back, the master will come to 'imself, like the prodigale." + +Mrs. Berrill looked doubtful. + +"When once the worm hentereth Eden, Mrs. Chundle," she began, +enigmatically--and they both shook their heads. + +"The worm bein' Mister Thomas," remarked Mrs. Chundle. "An' 'im that +vilent an' himpetuous I never does know what 'e's agoin' hafter next." + +"You should be firm, Mrs. Chundle." + +"Which I ham, Mrs. Berrill, by nature hand intention, an' if I 'ad me +own way I'd spank 'im 'earty twice a week, Mrs. Berrill, Wednesdays an' +Saturdays." + +"Why Wednesdays an' Saturdays, Mrs. Chundle?" + +"Wednesdays ter teach 'im the hemptiness o' riches, Mrs. Berrill, which +'e gets 'is pocket-money on Wednesdays--an' Saturdays to give 'im a +chastened spirit fer the Sabbath--an' ter keep 'im from a sittin' sleepy +in church, Mrs. Berrill." + +Here the door opened suddenly and Tommy came in, very muddy, with a +peaceful face, and a large rent in his coat. + +"I say, Mrs. Chundle, do sew this up for me--hullo, Mrs. Berrill, that +was a ripping tea you gave us last week--you are an absolute gem, Mrs. +Chundle," and Tommy sat himself down on the kitchen bench, while Mrs. +Chundle ruefully examined the coat. + +In Mrs. Berrill's eye was a challenge, as who should say, "Now, Mrs. +Chundle, arise and assert your authority, put down a firm foot and say, +this shall not be.'" + +That lady doubtless saw it, for she pursed her lips and gazed at Tommy +with some dignity. + +"Mister Thomas," she began--but Tommy interrupted her. + +"I say, I didn't know you an' Mrs. Berrill were pals. Mrs. Berrill gave +me a huge tea the other day, Mrs. Chundle--awful good cake she makes, +don't you, Mrs. Berrill? An', I say, Mrs. Berrill, has old--has Mrs. +Chundle told you all about the Cholmondeleys, an' how they married, an' +came to England--how long ago was it?" Mrs. Chundle blushed modestly. + +"With William the Norming," she said gently. + +"An' how she was derived from them, you know, an' all that?" + +Mrs. Berrill nodded. + +"We hall know as 'ow Mrs. Chundle is a--a very superior person," she +said. + +Mrs. Chundle stitched away in silent graciousness. + +"Tommy," cried a distant voice--it was the poet's--"Tommy, come here, +I've just hit the bottle three times running." + +Tommy grinned. + +"I must go," he said. "I'm jolly glad you and Mrs. Berrill are pals," +and he disappeared in the direction of the poet. + +"Which I 'ope 'e won't turn out no worse than 'is dear father. God bless +'im," said Mrs. Berrill, as they discussed the tattered jacket. + +And so the days tripped by, sunny and showery--true April days. Up in +the downs was a new shrill bleating of lambs, and down in the valley +rose the young wheat, green and strong and hopeful. + +The water-meadows grew each day more velvety and luscious, as the young +grass thickened, and between the stems, in the copse, came a shimmer of +blue and gold, of blue-bell and primrose. + +The stream sang buoyantly down to the mill, and Tommy wandered over the +country-side, happy in it all--and indeed almost part of it. + +Moreover, Madge and her governess would often come upon him, all +unexpectedly, too, in some byway of their daily travel, and he would +show them flowers and bird's-nests, and explain for their benefit the +position of each farmhand and labourer in the commonwealth of Camslove, +and thus the days went by so happily that they seemed to have vanished +almost as they came, and on a morning Tommy woke up to the fact that the +holidays had ended. A grim showery day it was, too--a day of driving +wind and cold rain--and Tommy loitered dismally from arbour to house, +and house to arbour. + +The poet was busy on a new work, and Mrs. Chundle, too intent on marking +and packing his clothes to be good company. + +Madge would be indoors, as it was raining, and it was too cold and +uninviting for a bathe. + +He spent the afternoon trudging about the muddy lanes with the doctor, +but the evening found him desolate. + +Ah, these sad days that form our characters, as men tell us--characters +that, at times, we feel we could willingly dispense with, so that the +days might be always sunny, and the horizons clear. + +Even the longest of dreary days ends at last, however, and Tommy fell +sorrowfully asleep in the summer house, a rain-drop rolling dismally +down his freckled nose, and his mind held captive by troubled visions of +school. + +A day or two after Tommy's departure, the poet stooped, in a side path +of his garden, to pick up a stray sheet of paper. + +On it he saw two words in his own handwriting. + +"Mollie--folly--" + +He sighed. + +"I remember," he said. + +Then he looked again, for in a round, sprawling hand was written yet +another word--"jolly." + +The poet wiped his glasses and folded up the paper. + +Then he coughed. + +"I had not thought of that," he observed, meditatively. + + + + +VI + +IN WHICH FOUR MEN MEET A TRAIN + + +A hot August noon blazed over Becklington common, as I lay thinking and +thinking, staring up into the blue sky, and for all the richness of the +day, sad enough in heart. + +In the valley below me the stream still splashed happily down to the +mill, and away on the far hills the white flocks were grazing peacefully +as ever. + +And above my head poised and quivering sang a lark. + +The Spring had rounded into maturity, and Summer, lavish and wonderful +and queenly, rested on her throne. + +Why should there be war anywhere in the world? I asked. + +And yet along a far frontier it flickered even now, sinister and +relentless. A little war and, to me, a silent one--yet there it rose and +fell and smouldered, and grew fierce, and in the grip of it two brave +grey eyes had closed forever. + +I heard the quiet, well-known voice. + +"Tommy is not an ordinary boy," it said. + +How we had smiled at the simple honest pride that this soldier had taken +in his son. + +I turned over and groaned, as I thought of it all--our parting in the +old study--our promise--the half-comedy, half-responsibility of the +situation. + +And we had borne it so lightly, tossed for the boy, taken him more as an +obstreperous plaything than a serious charge. + +And now--well it matters not upon which of us the mantle of his legal +guardian had fallen, nor upon whom lay the administration of his +affairs--for we all had silently renewed our vows to one who was dead, +and felt that there was something sacred in this mission, which lay upon +the shoulders of each one of us. + +Poor Tommy--none of us knew how the blow had taken him, for to none of +us had he written since the news reached England, save indeed when, in a +brief line to me, he had announced his return next week. + +We had all written to him, as our separate natures and feelings had +dictated, but no reply had reached us--and how should we know that of +all the letters he had received, only one was deemed worthy of +preservation--and that written in a round childish hand? + +"Dear Tommy--I am so sorry. Your loving Madge." + +A damp sorry little note it was, but it remained in Tommy's pocket long +after our more stately compositions had been torn up and forgotten. + +To us, leading our quiet commonplace peaceful life in this little +midland village, the shock had come with double force. + +Perhaps we had been apt to dwell so little on the eternal verities of +chance and change and life and death as to have become almost oblivious +of their existence, at any rate in our own sphere. + +Those of the villagers who, year by year, in twos and threes, were +gathered to their fathers, were old and wrinkled and ready for death, +resting quietly under the good red earth, well content with sleep. + +And these we had missed, but scarcely mourned, feeling that, in the +fitness of things, it was well that they should cease from toil. + +But here was our friend, straight and strong and vigorous, cut down by +some robber bullet in an Indian pass--and to us all, I fancy, the shock +came with something of terror, and something of awakening in its +tragedy. Outwardly we had shown little enough. + +The poet, when the first stun of the blow had passed, had written his +grief in the best lines I had ever seen from his pen. + +The vicar had preached a quiet scholarly sermon in our friend's memory. + +And now all reference to the dead had ceased among us, for the time. + +To-morrow, Tommy was to come back from school, and all of us, I fancy, +dreaded the first meeting. + +We had arranged that each of our houses was to be open to him, and that +in each a bed should be prepared, so that, as the mood took him, he +might sleep where he thought best. + +But the meeting, at the station, was a matter of considerable +trepidation to us. + +I strolled down the hill to the poet's house. + +"Good morning," I said, "I--I am rather keen on running up to town, +to-morrow, to see those pictures, you know." + +The poet smiled. + +"I did not know you were a patron of art," he observed. "I am gratified +at this development." + +"Ah--could you meet Tommy at 2.15?" + +The poet's face fell. + +"I--I am very busy," he said, deprecatingly. + +"'Lucien and Angelica' ought to be concluded by to-morrow evening." + +We were silent, both looking into the trembling haze, up the valley. + +"The doctor," suggested the poet. + +"I will try." + +But the doctor was also very much engaged. + +"Two cases up at Bonnor, in the downs," he explained. + +I called on the vicar. + +"I--I want to go up to town to see that china exhibit," I observed. + +He looked interested. + +"I didn't know you were a connoisseur," he remarked. + +"Not at all, not at all--the merest tyro." + +"I am glad. You will find the show well worth your attention." + +I bent my head to the vicar's roses. + +"These Richardsons are very lovely," I said. + +The vicar smiled. + +"I think they have repaid a little trouble," he said modestly. + +"Ah--could you possibly meet the 2.15 to-morrow?" + +"You are expecting a parcel?" + +"No--not exactly. Tommy, you know." + +The vicar took a turn on the lawn. Then he came to a standstill in front +of me. + +"I had planned a visit to Becklington," he said. + +I bowed. + +"I am sorry," said I, and turned to go. + +At the gate he touched my shoulder. + +"Mathews!" + +I paused. + +"I am a coward, Mathews--but I will go." + +We looked into each other's eyes, and I repented. + +"No, old friend. I ought to go and I will go. By Jove, I will." + +"So be it," said the vicar. + +I had played with my luncheon, to the concern of my man, who regarded me +anxiously. + +"Are you not well, sir?" he asked. + +"Quite well," I replied, icily, with a remark about bad cooking, and +careless service, and strode towards the station. + +I paced the platform moodily twenty minutes before the advertised +arrival of the train. + +I was very early, but somebody, apparently, was before me. + +I caught a glimpse of a strangely characteristic hat in the corner of +the little waiting-room. + +Its shapelessness was familiar. + +I looked in, and the poet seemed a little confused. + +"Lucien and Angel--?" I began, enquiringly. + +He waved his hand, with some superiority. + +"Inspiration cannot be commanded," he observed. "They shall wait until +Saturday." + +We sat down in the shade, and conversation flagged. Presently steps +approached, pacing slowly along the wooden platform. + +It was the vicar. + +He looked a little conscious, and no doubt read the enquiry in my eyes. + +"It is too hot," he said, "to drive to Becklington before tea," and the +three of us sat silently down together. + +At last a porter came, and looked up and down the line. + +Apparently he saw no obstruction, for he proceeded to lower the signal. + +We rose and paced to and fro, with valorously concealed agitation. + +A trap dashed along the white road, and some one ran, breathlessly, up +the stairs. + +He seemed a little surprised at the trio which awaited him. + +"I thought you had two cases in Bonnor," I observed, with a piercing +glance. + +The doctor looked away, but did not reply, and I forbore to press the +point. + +Far down the line shone a cloudlet of white smoke and the gleam of brass +through the dust. + +"Becklington, Harrowley, Borcombe and Hoxford train," roared the porter, +apparently as a reminder to the station-master, for there were no +passengers. + +We stood, a nervous group, in the shadow of the waiting-room. + +"Poor boy--poor little chap," said the vicar at last. "We must cheer +him up--God bless him." + +Youth is not careless of grief, but God has made it the master of +sorrow, and Tommy's eyes were bright, as he jumped onto the platform. + +He smiled complacently into our anxious faces--so genuine a smile that +our poor carved ones relaxed into reality. + +"I've got a ripping chameleon," he observed cheerfully. + + + + +VII + +IN WHICH MADGE WHISTLES IN A WOOD + + +Through the still boughs the sunlight fell, as it seemed to me, in +little molten streams, and I pushed back my chair still deeper into the +shadow of the elm. + +Even there it was not cool, but at any rate the contrast to the glaring +close-cropped lawn was welcome. + +I stared up through the listless, delicate leaves into a sky of +Mediterranean blue. Surely, it was the hottest day of summer--of memory. + +The flowers with which my little garden is so profusely peopled hung +languorously above the borders, and the hum of a binder in the +neighbouring wheat field seemed an invitation to siesta. + +Down sunny paths, I dropped into oblivion. + +A touch awoke me, but my eyes were held tight beneath a pair of cool +hands. + +"Good gracious," I gasped. "Bless my----" + +Tommy laughed and sauntered into view. + +"You were making a beastly row," he observed, frankly. "I thought it was +a thunderstorm." + +I looked at him with envious eyes. + +His sole attire consisted of a striped blazer and a pair of +knickerbockers. He was crowned in a battered wide-awake hat, and from +this to the tips of his brown toes he looked buoyant and cool despite +the tan on his chest and legs. + +He deposited the rest of his garments and a towel upon the grass, and +sprawled contentedly beside them. + +"It was so jolly hot that I didn't bother about dressing," he observed, +lazily. + +Then he sat up quickly. + +"I say; you don't mind, do you? it's awful slack of me to come round +here like this." + +"Not a bit," said I, as my thoughts fled back to the days when I also +was lean and springy, and blissfully contemptuous of changes in the +weather. + +Ah, well-a-day--well-a-day! + + Linger the dreams of the golden days-- + They were bright, though they fled so soon, + Rosy they gleamed in the early rays + Of the sun, that dispelled them at noon. + +The joys of reminiscence are mellow, but at times they may become a +little soporific--I awoke with a start. + +"Whoo--ee." + +It was a whistle, low and penetrating, and would seem to have risen from +the wood beyond the stream. + +I noticed that Tommy was alert and listening. + +"Whoo--ee." + +Again it rose, with something of caution in its tone, but a spice of +daring in the higher note of its conclusion. + +I watched Tommy, idly, with half-closed eyes. + +He was performing a rapid toilet. + +Presently he looked up at me from his shoe-laces. + +"I taught her that whistle," he observed, complacently. + +"Whom?" I asked. + +"Why, Madge--Madge Chantrey," he said. + +"You seem to have found an apt pupil." + +"Rather." + +"But I hope," I spoke severely, "I trust, Tommy, that you haven't taught +her to play truant." + +He looked at me, cheekily; then he vanished through the gate. + +"Happy dreams," he said, "and, I say, don't snore _quite_ so loudly, you +know." + +And I heard him singing as he ran through the wood. + +Said Madge, from the first stile, on the right: + +"I managed it beautifully; she was reading some of those stupid rhymes +by the poet--only I oughtn't to call them names, because he's a friend +of yours--and I watched her getting sleepier and sleepier, and then I +came through the little gate behind the greenhouse and simply ran all +the way, and, I expect, she's fast asleep, and I wonder why grown-up +people always go to sleep in the very best part of all the day." + +"I think it's their indigestions, you know," said Tommy thoughtfully. + +"But they never eat anything all day--only huge big feeds at night." + +"I think everybody's a _little_ sleepy after lunch." + +"I'm not." + +"Not after two helps of jam roll?" + +"How do you know I had two helps?" + +"Never mind," said Tommy, then. + +"See that spadger," he cried suddenly. + +"Got him, no--missed him, by Jove." + +The sparrow was twittering, mockingly, behind the hedge, and a +bright-eyed rabbit scuttled into safety. + +"Let's go through the park," cried Tommy. + +"I'll show you a ripping little path, right by the house, where there's +a cave I made before--no one knows it but father and I, an' you can go +right by it, an' never see it. Come on." + +They scrambled over the iron railings that bound the neat, though +modest, domain surrounding Camslove Grange. Through the tall tree trunks +they could see the old house with its rough battlements and extended +wings. In front of it the trim lawns sloped down to the stream, while +behind, the Italian garden was cut out of a wild tangle of shrubs and +brushwood. + +Into this Tommy plunged, with the unerring steps of long acquaintance, +holding back the branches, as Madge followed close upon his heels. + +Once he turned, and looked back eagerly into her eyes. + +"We're just by the path now--Isn't it grand?" + +"Rather," she said. + +Presently, with much labour, they reached a microscopical track through +the underwood. + +"There," observed Tommy, with the proud air of a proprietor, "Didn't I +tell you?" + +"No one could possibly find it, I should think," said Madge. + +"Rather not. Let's go to the cave." + +Followed some further scrambling, and Tommy drew back the bushes +triumphantly. + +"See--" he began, but the words died upon his lips, for there, standing +all unabashed upon this sacred ground, was a boy about his own age. + +Tommy stammered and grew silent, looking amazedly at the stranger. He +was a pale boy with dark eyes, and a Jewish nose. + +"You are trespassing," he said coolly. + +Tommy gasped. + +"Who--who are you?" he asked at last. + +"I tell you you are trespassing." + +Tommy flushed. + +"I'm not," he said. "I--I belong here." + +The other boy gave a shout. + +"Father," he cried, "Here's some trespassers." + +Tommy stood his ground, surveying the intruder with some contempt, while +Madge wide-eyed held his arm. + +There were footsteps through the bushes, and a tall stout man in a +panama hat came into view. + +"Hullo," he said, "This is private property, you know." + +Tommy looked at him gravely. + +"I don't understand--I--I belong here, you know." + +The big man smiled. + +"You're a native, are you?" he said cheerfully. "Well, you're a pretty +healthy looking specimen--but this place here is mine--for the time, at +any rate." + +"It was my father's," said Tommy, with a strange huskiness in his +throat. + +"Don't know anything about that--got it from the agents for six +years--like to see the deed, heh?" and he chuckled, a little +ponderously. + +Tommy looked downcast and hesitant, and the big man turned to his son. + +"Well, well," he said, "I guess they'll know better next time. Take 'em +down the drive, Ernie, and show 'em out decently." + +The three walked silently down the old avenue. + +At the gate, the pale boy turned to Tommy. + +"Back my father's got more money than yours," he said. + +Tommy's eyes swept him with a look of profound contempt, but a lump in +his throat forbade retort, and he turned away silent. + +Madge, dear little woman, saw the sorrow in his eyes, and held her +peace, picking flowers from the bank as they walked slowly down the +path. + +On a green spray a little way ahead a bird was singing full-throated and +joyous, but to Tommy its music was mockery. + +He took a long aim and brought the little songster, warm and quivering, +on to the pathway in front of them. + +As they came to it he kicked it aside, but Madge, stooping, lifted it +from the long grass and hid it, quite dead, in her frock. + +The tears had risen to her eyes, and she was on the point of challenging +this seemingly wanton cruelty. + +But there was something in Tommy's face that her eyes were quick to +notice, and she was silent. + +Thus is tact so largely a matter of instinct. + +And, in a minute, Tommy turned to her. + +"I--I should jolly well like to--to kill that chap," he said. + +Madge said nothing, fondling the warm little body that she held beneath +her pinafore. + +As they turned the corner of the hedge, they came into the full flood of +the sunlight over the meadows, and Tommy smiled. + +"I say, I'm awfully sorry we should have got turned out like that, +Madge, but I--I didn't know there was somebody else in there--an' that +I wasn't to go there, an' that." + +"Never mind," said Madge, "let's come up home, and I'll show you my +cave--I've got one, too. It's not so good as yours, of course, because +you're a boy, but I think it's very pretty all the same, and it's +_almost_ as hard to get at." + + + + +VIII + +IN WHICH TWO ADJECTIVES ARE APPLIED TO TOMMY + + + My lady's lawn is splashed with shade + All intertwined with sun, + And strayingly beneath the boughs + Their tapestry is spun, + For the angel hands of summer-time + Have woven them in one. + + My lady's lawn is wrapped with peace, + Its life throbs sweet and strong. + Caressingly across its breast + The laughing breezes throng, + And the angel wings of summer-time + Have touched it into song. + +"Thank you," said Lady Chantrey. "I feel so honoured, you know, to have +my little garden immortalised in verse." + +The poet wrapped up his papers and restored them to his pocket, with a +smile. + +"Not immortalised, Lady Chantrey," he replied modestly, "not even +described--only, if I may say so, appreciated." + +From her invalid chair, in the shade, Lady Chantrey looked out over the +lawn, sunny and fragrant, a sweet foreground to the wide hills beyond. + +She turned to the poet with something like a sigh. + +"I wonder why it is that we fortunate ones are so few," she said. "Why +we few should be allowed to drown ourselves in all this beauty, that so +many can only dream about. It would almost seem a waste of earth's good +things." + +The poet was silent. + +"After all, they can dream--the others, I mean," he said, presently. + +"But never attain." + +"It is good that they know it is all here--somewhere." + +Lady Chantrey lay back in her chair. + +"I wish I could give it to them," she said, opening her hands. "I wish I +could give it to them, but I am so stupid, and weak, and poor;--you +can." + +"I?" stammered the poet. + +She looked at him, with bright eyes. + +"You have the gift," she said. "You can at any rate minister to their +dreams." + +"But nobody reads poetry, and I--I do not write for the crowd." + +She shook her head. + +"I think everybody reads poetry," she said, "and I think, in every +house, if one could but find it, there is some line or thought or dream, +if you will, cut out, long since, and guarded secretly--and more, +read--read often, as a memory, perhaps only as a dream, but, for all +that, a very present help--I would like to be the writer of such a +poem." + +"It would certainly be gratifying," assented the poet. + +"It would be worth living for." + +The poet looked at her gravely--at the sweet-lined face, and the white +hair, and tired grey eyes. + +"Do you know, Lady Chantrey," he said, "you always give me fresh +inspiration. I--I wonder--" + +But what the poet wondered was only the wonder, I suppose, of all +writers of all ages, and, in any case, it was not put into words, for +across the lawn came a rustle of silk and muslin, heralding visitors, +and the poet became busy about tea-cups and cream. + +Though physical weakness, and want of means, prevented Lady Chantrey +from entertaining to any large extent, yet I doubt if any woman in the +county was more really popular than this gentle hostess of Becklington +Hall; for Lady Chantrey was of those who had gained the three choicest +gifts of suffering--sweetness and forbearance and sympathy. + +Such as Lady Chantrey never want for friends, for indeed they give, I +fancy, more than they receive. + +On this sunny afternoon several groups were dotted about the cool lawns +of Becklington, when Tommy and Madge came tea-wards from the cave. + +Lady Chantrey beckoned them to her side. + +"I am so glad to see you again, Tommy," she said. "You never come to see +me now. I suppose old women are poor company." + +"I wish they were all like you," said Tommy, squatting upon the grass at +her feet. + +Then he remembered a question he had meant to ask her, + +"I say, Lady Chantrey, who's living at the Grange?" + +She shook her head. + +"I don't know, Tommy. I heard that your guardian had let it--it was your +father's wish, you know--but I did not know the tenants had arrived." + +"Oh, Lady Chantrey, there's a boy there, an' he's such an awful cad." + +"Cad?" echoed Lady Chantrey, questioningly. + +"He--he isn't one little atom of a gentleman." + +"And therefore a cad?" + +Tommy coloured. + +"He's an awful bounder, Lady Chantrey." + +Everybody was busy in conversation, and Lady Chantrey laid a frail hand +on Tommy's shoulder--then, + +"Tommy," she said in a low voice, "a gentleman never calls anyone a +cad--for that reason. It implies a comparison, you see." + +Tommy blushed furiously, and looked away. + +"I--I'm awful sorry. Lady Chantrey," he mumbled. + +"Tell me about your holidays," she said. + +A servant stepped across the lawn to Lady Chantrey's chair followed by a +stout lady, in red silk. + +"Mrs. Cholmondeley," she announced. + +"And how do you do, my dear Lady Chantrey? Feeling a little stronger, I +hope. Ah, that's very delightful. Isn't it too hot for anything? I have +just been calling at the dear Earl's--Lady Florence is looking so +well--" + +Mrs. Cholmondeley swept the little circle gathered about the tea-table +with a quick glance. It is good to have the Earl on one's visiting +list. + +Her eyes rested on Mollie Gerald, pouring out tea, and she turned to +Lady Chantrey: + +"Is that the young person who has been so successful with your +daughter's music, Lady Chantrey?" + +Mollie's cheeks were scarlet, as she bent over the tea-pot, for Mrs. +Cholmondeley's lower tones were as incisive as her ordinary voice was +strident. + +"Yes, that is my friend, Miss Gerald," said Lady Chantrey, smiling at +Mollie. + +Mrs. Cholmondeley continued a diatribe upon governesses. + +"You never know, _dear_ Lady Chantrey, who they may be. So many of them +are so exceedingly--" + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"I have been very fortunate," said Lady Chantrey. + +Tommy wandered up with some cake, which he offered to Mrs. Cholmondeley, +who smiled graciously. + +"And who is this?" she asked. + +Lady Chantrey explained. + +"Not the poor colonel's heir?" + +Lady Chantrey nodded. + +"Really; how interesting--how are you, my dear?" + +"All right," said Tommy, in obvious good health. + +"This is Mrs. Cholmondeley, of Barnardley." + +Tommy looked interested. + +"I've heard about you from Mrs. Chundle," he said. "She's a sort of +relation of yours, derived from the same lot, you know." + +Mrs. Cholmondeley looked a little bewildered, and the poet patently +nervous. + +"Really I--" + +"She's an awful good sort--Mrs. Chundle. She's the poet's +housekeeper--so I expect she has to work for her living, you know." + +The poet gasped. + +"It's--it's all a mistake," he stammered, but not before Mrs. +Cholmondeley had turned a violent purple, and a smile had travelled +round the little ring of visitors. + +All at once Tommy became aware that somehow things had gone wrong and +retreated hastily from the lawn, seeking the refuge of the cave among +the laurels, and in a minute or two, the poet, with a murmured pretext +about a view, also vanished. + +Tommy wandered disconsolately down the flagged path between the bushes, +ruminating upon the strange contrariness of affairs on this chequered +afternoon. + +Near the arbour in the laurels Miss Gerald met him. + +Her eyes were dancing. + +"O, Tommy, you celestial boy," she cried. + +Tommy was doubtful of the adjective, but the tone was certainly one of +approbation, and he looked modestly at the path. + +"You're a perfect young angel," proceeded Miss Gerald, enthusiastically, +"and I'd kiss you only I suppose you wouldn't like it." + +Tommy looked at her, dubiously. + +"I shouldn't very much," he observed, but chivalry stepped manfully to +the fore, and he turned a brown cheek towards her. + +"You can if you like, you know," he added, looking resignedly across the +valley. + +She stooped and dropped a kiss upon his cheek. + +"You're the very broth of a boy," she said, as she ran back to the +house. + +Presently the laurels rustled, and the poet stole out into the pathway. + +Tommy was disappearing into a sidewalk, and the poet looked after him +with a curious expression. + +"O you incomprehensible person," said he. + + + + +IX + +IN WHICH TOMMY CLIMBS A STILE + + +"You daren't climb into the hay-loft." + +"Daren't I?" said Tommy, scornfully. "You see if I don't." And he +shinned easily up the ladder. + +The hay-loft was cool and fragrant--a welcome contrast to the glaring +yard. + +"Come up too," said Tommy. + +Madge's black eyes flashed. + +"I will," she said, clambering up the steps. + +Tommy stooped down and gave her a hand. + +"Good girl," he said, approvingly. Then he laid his hand on her lips, +and they crouched back into the shade. + +For into the barn stepped one of the farm labourers. + +"We mustn't get found out, for the man here is an awful beast of a +chap," said Tommy, in a low whisper. + +The labourer had not perceived them and was soon bent over a machine +chopping up fodder for the cattle. + +His back was towards them, and he breathed heavily, for the work was +hard. His red neck formed a tempting target, and Tommy was an accurate +shot. Moreover, his pockets were full of peas. + +He took a careful aim and let fly, and there was a hoarse exclamation +from the man at the wheel. + +Tommy drew back into shelter, where Madge was curled up in the new hay. + +"Got him rippingly," said Tommy, "plumb in the back of the neck." + +Madge looked a little reproachful. + +"O Tommy, it must have hurt him dreadfully." + +Tommy chuckled. + +"'Spect it did tickle him a bit," he said, looking cautiously round the +corner. + +The man had resumed work and the hum of the wheel filled the barn. + +Tommy selected another portion of the man's anatomy and let fly a little +harder. + +There was a shout and a sound of muttered exclamation in the barn below +them, as Tommy backed into the hay with quiet enjoyment. + +As they listened they could hear the man stumping round the barn, +swearing softly, and presently he was joined by some one else, for a +loud voice broke into his grumbling. + +"What the dickens are you doing, Jake?" + +"Darned if I know," said the man. "On'y there bees summat as hits I +unnever I goes at the wheel, master." + +"That's the farmer himself just come in," said Tommy burrowing deeper +into the hay. + +They could hear him speaking. + +"Get on wi' your work, Jake, an' don't get talkin' your nonsense to me, +man." + +The man grumbled. + +"Darned if it are nonsense, master," he said. "Just you wait till you be +hit yoursen--right in the bark o' your neck, too." + +"O Tommy, do hit him--the farmer I mean." + +Tommy shook his head. + +"It wouldn't do," he said. + +Madge looked at him with a challenge in her eyes. + +"You daren't," she whispered. + +Tommy flushed. + +"We should be caught." + +"Oh--then you daren't?" + +Tommy was silent, and the farmer's foot was heavy in the barn below. + +"You daren't," repeated Madge. + +Tommy looked at her, with bright eyes. + +"All right," he said. "If you want to see, look round the corner, only +don't let him cob you." + +Then he drew back a little from the opening and took a flying shot, +finding a target in one of the farmer's rather conspicuous ears. + +He gave a sudden yell, and his pale eyes seemed to stand out from his +head, as he looked amazedly round the building. + +The man at the wheel spat into his hands, with a quiet grin. + +"Darned if they ain't hit you, master," he said, grinding with some +zest. + +"My word, they shall pay for it," shouted the farmer, conning the +situation with frowning brows. + +Then he stepped to the ladder. + +"See as they don't get out, Jake, if I send anyone down," he said +loudly, and Jake grunted an assent. + +Madge was trembling. + +"O Tommy, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. Tell him it's all my fault." + +"It's all right," said Tommy cheerfully, "He--he won't dare to touch +me." + +A pair of red cheeks appeared above the floor of the loft, and the pale +eyes looked threateningly into the gloom. + +In a minute they encountered Tommy's brown ones, bright and defiant. + +The farmer grunted. + +"Bees you there, eh?" he asked. + +Tommy grinned. + +"All right, you needn't get shirty," he said. + +"Shirty, eh? I wunt get shirty. Don't you make no mistake. Jake!" + +"Ah!" + +"My stick down there?" + +"Ah." + +"Will you 'ave it up 'ere or down yon, young man?" + +Tommy flushed hotly, and Madge held his arm. + +"You daren't hit me," he said. + +The farmer laughed. + +"You've bin trespassin' more'n once, young man, wi' your catapult an' +your sharp tongue, an' now I'm goin' to 'ave my bit. Up 'ere or down +yon?" + +Tommy temporized. + +"Let us come down," he said, eyeing the door warily. + +"Young miss, you get down first," said the farmer. + +Madge obeyed with pale cheeks, and stood, half in sunlight, at the door. + +"Jake!" + +"Ah!" + +"See the young rip don't get out." + +"Ah!" + +Tommy clambered down, standing between the two men. Then he made a bolt +for freedom, dodging Jake's half-hearted attempt at resistance. + +But the farmer held him as he recoiled from Jake and jerked him over a +truss of hay. + +And for the next few minutes Tommy was very uncomfortable. + +"Oh, you cad, you cad, you beastly, putrid cad." + +Tommy spoke between his teeth at each stroke of the farmer's stick. + +The man released him in a minute or two, and Tommy rushed at him with +both fists. The farmer laughed. + +"Guess you won't come knockin' about this barn again in a hurry," he +said as he pushed him easily into the yard and closed the great door +with a thud. + +For a moment Tommy stood, white with anger. Then he thought of Madge, +who had been a spectator of the tragedy. But she was nowhere to be +seen, and he walked gloomily down the lane. + +Now Madge, with a beating heart and a stricken conscience, had fled for +help, running blindly down the lane, with the idea of securing the first +ally who should appear. + +And she almost ran into the arms of the pale boy from the Grange. + +"Hullo, what's the matter?" he asked, looking at Madge curiously. + +Madge blurted out the story, with eager eyes. + +'Could he help her? Was there anybody near who could save Tommy from a +probable and violent death?' + +The pale boy looked at her admiringly, as he considered the question. + +Then, + +"My father knows the man--he owes my father some money, I think. I'll +see if I can do anything." + +They ran down the lane together, and doing so encountered Tommy, +flushed and ruffled. + +"O, Tommy"--Madge began, but stopped suddenly, at the look on Tommy's +face. + +For to Tommy this seemed the lowest depth of his degradation, that the +pale boy should be a witness of his discomfiture. + +He looked at them angrily, and then, turning on his heel, struck out +across the fields, the iron entering deeply into his soul. + +Youth is imitative, and Tommy had often heard the phrase. + +"I--I don't care a damn," he said. + +For a moment he felt half-frightened, but the birds were still singing +in the hedge, and, in the next field, the reapers still chattered gaily +at their work. + +Moreover, the phrase seemed both consolatory and emphatic. + +"I don't care a damn," he repeated, slowly, climbing the stile, into the +next field. + +Said a voice from behind the hedge: + +"Girl in it?" + +Tommy looked round, and encountered a tall young man in tweeds. He was +looking at him, with amused eyes. + +"I--I don't know what you mean," said Tommy. + +The young man laughed. + +"They're the devil, girls are," he observed. + +Tommy was puzzled and eyed the stranger cautiously, thinking him the +handsomest man he had seen. + +Nor, in a way, was he at fault, for the young man was straight, and +tall, and comely. + +But there was something in the eyes--a lack of honest lustre--and in the +lips--too sensuous for true manliness, that would have warned Tommy, had +he been older, or even in a different frame of mind. Just now, however, +a friend was welcome, and Tommy told his tale, as they strolled through +the fields together. + +Presently, + +"You belong to Camslove Grange, don't you?" asked the stranger. + +"I did." + +"And will again, I suppose, eh?" + +Tommy looked doubtful, and the young man laughed. + +"Sorry--I ought to have put it the other way round, for it will belong +to you." + +Tommy shook his head. + +"I don't think so," he said. "Some other Johnny's got it, you see." + +The young man looked at his watch. + +"My name's Morris--I live at Borcombe House--you'd better come and feed +with me." + +"Thanks, I'd like to, awfully." + +"That's right--the old man will be glad to see you, and we'll have a +game of billiards." + +"I can't play." + +"Never mind. I'll teach you--good game, pills." + +Squire Morris was cordial from the grip of his hand to the moisture in +his baggy eyes. + +"The heir of Camslove," he said. "Well, well, I am so glad to see you, +dear boy, so very glad to see you. You must come often." + +For a moment a misgiving arose in Tommy's heart. + +"Did you know my father?" he asked, as the old man held his hand. + +"Yes, yes; not as well as I would have liked to know him, by no means as +well as I would have liked to know him--but I knew him, oh yes. I knew +him well enough." + +Tommy felt reassured, and the three entered the old hall, hung with +trophies of gun and rod and chase. + +"A bachelor's abode," laughed the young man. "We're wedded to sport--no +use for girls here, eh dad?" + +The squire laughed wheezily. + +"The dog," he chuckled, "the young dog." + +Presently the squire led them to the dining room, where a bountiful meal +was spread--so bountiful that Tommy, already predisposed for +friendship, rapidly thawed into intimacy. + +Both the squire and his son seemed intent on amusing him, and Tommy took +the evident effort for the unaccomplished deed--for, in truth, the +stories that they told were almost unintelligible to him, though, to the +others, they appeared humorous enough. + +Presently the squire grew even more affectionate. He had always loved +boys, he said, and Tommy was not to forget it. He was a stern enemy, but +a good friend, and Tommy was not to forget it. He would always be proud +to shake hands with Tommy, wherever he met him, and Tommy was to keep +this in remembrance. + +Presently he retired to the sofa, with a cigar, which he was continually +dropping. + +The young man winked, genially, at Tommy. + +"He always gets sleepy about this time," he explained. + +"Sleepy?" interrupted his father, "not a bit of it. See here," and he +filled the three glasses once more from the decanter. + +"To the master of Camslove Grange," he cried, lifting his glass. And +they drank the health, standing. + +As Tommy walked home over the starlit fields, the scene came back to +him. + +The old man, wheezy but gracious, his son flushed and handsome, the +panelled walls and their trophies, and the sparkling glasses--a brave +picture. + +True--he was still sore, but the episode of the farmer and his stick +seemed infinitely remote, and Madge and the pale boy, ghosts of an era +past: for had he not drunk of the good red wine, and kept company with +gentlemen? + + + + +X + +IN WHICH I RECEIVE TWO WARNINGS, AND NEGLECT ONE + + +I suppose that, by this time, I had grown fond of Tommy, in a very real +way, for, as the weeks passed by, I was quick to notice the change in +the boy. + +There was a suggestion of swagger and an assumption of manliness in his +manner, that troubled me. + +I noticed, too, that he avoided many of his old haunts. + +Often he would strike out across the downs and be away from early +morning until starlight, and concerning his adventures he would be +strangely reticent. + +But I do not profess to have fathomed the ways and moods of boys, and I +merely shrugged my shoulders, perhaps a little sorrowfully. + +"I suppose he is growing up," thought I. And yet, for all that, I could +not keep myself from wondering what influence was at work upon the +boy's development. Even the doctor, who, of us all, saw the least of +him, noticed the change, for he asked me suddenly, one late September +day, + +"What's the matter with Tommy?" + +I looked at him with feigned surprise. + +"I--he's all right, isn't he?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"He has altered very much this summer, and I am afraid the alteration +has not been good." + +I cut at a nettle with my walking-stick. + +"He is growing, of course." + +The doctor raised his eyebrows. + +"Then you have noticed nothing else--nothing in his demeanour or +conversation--or friends?" + +I abandoned my defences. + +"Yes, I have noticed it, and I cannot understand it--and I am sorry for +it." + +"When does he return to school?" + +"To-morrow." + +The doctor appeared to be thinking. In a minute he looked into my face. + +"It is a good thing, on the whole," he said, adding slowly. + +"Don't drive the boy; let him forget." + +He drove away, and I looked after him in some wonderment, for his words +seemed enigmatical. + +As I walked back to my garden I could hear Tommy whistling in his +bedroom. There was a light in the room, and I could see him, half +undressed, fondling one of his white rats. I remembered how he had +insisted on their company and smiled. + +"Sir." + +From the shadow of the hedge a voice addressed me. + +"Sir." + +"Hullo," I said. Then, as I peered through the gloom, I saw a young +woman standing before me, and, even in the dusk, I could read the +eagerness in her eyes. + +Her face was familiar. + +"Surely I know you?" I asked. + +"I'm Liza Berrill." + +She spoke rapidly; yet, over her message she seemed hesitant. + +Then: + +"Oh, sir, don't let him be friends wi' that gentleman." + +I stared. + +"What do you mean?" + +She pointed to the window! + +Tommy was in his night-shirt, with the white rat running over his +shoulders. + +"Well?" + +"Master Tommy, sir. There's a-many 'ave noticed it; don't let 'im get +friends wi'----" + +"With whom?" + +Even in the dusk I could see the dull crimson creep into her cheeks. + +"Squire Morris's son," she muttered. + +We stood silent and face to face for a minute. + +"You understand, sir?" + +I remembered, and held out my hand. + +"Yes, Liza; I understand. Thank you." + +"Good night, sir." + +"Good night." + +She ran, with light footsteps, down the lane, and I stood alone beneath +the poplars. + +Far up into the deepening sky they reached, like still black sentinels, +and between them glimmered a few early stars. In his bedroom I could see +Tommy, holding the white rat in one hand and kneeling a moment at his +very transient prayers. + +I remembered a day whereon the colonel's riding-whip had been laid about +Squire Morris's shoulders. + +My heart beat high at the thought, for the squire had insulted one whose +sweet face had long lain still. I thought of the son. + +"Poor Liza," I murmured, and lifted the garden latch. + +And as I looked up at Tommy's darkened window: + +"God forbid," I said. + + * * * * * + +Next morning I called Tommy aside. + +"Do you know young Morris, of Borcombe?" + +He nodded. + +"Tommy, I--I wish you would endeavour to avoid him in the future. He is +no fit companion for you." + +"Why?" + +"I--you would not understand yet, Tommy; you must take my word for it." + +Tommy looked a little sullen. + +"He's a jolly good sort," he said. "I know him well; he's a jolly good +sort." + +"I am asking you, Tommy,"--I hesitated then. "For your father's sake," I +added. + +Tommy looked straight into my eyes. + +"He was a friend of father's," he said, quietly. + +"Your father thrashed the squire with his own hand; I saw him do it." + +Tommy stood very still. + +"Why?" + +"I--I cannot explain it exactly; you must take my word." + +Tommy turned on his heels. + +"He's a jolly good sort," he muttered. + +"But you must not make him a friend." + +Tommy was silent, kicking at the carpet. + +"I shall if I like," he said, presently; and that was the last word. + +And it was only when I came back, rather sadly, from the station that I +remembered the doctor's words and found a meaning for them. + +"Oh, what a fool I am!" I said. + + + + +XI + +IN WHICH TOMMY IS IN PERIL + + +Tommy spent his Christmas in town, with a distant relative, for I had +been called abroad upon a matter of business, and his Easter holidays, +since I was still away, were passed in Camslove vicarage. + +It was, therefore, a year before I saw Tommy again, and on an August +morning I met him at the little station. + +I think we were both glad to see each other, and I found Tommy a little +longer, perhaps a little leaner, but as brown and ruddy as ever. + +"I say, it is ripping to get back here again, an' I've got into the +third eleven, an' that bat you sent me is an absolute clinker, an' how's +the poet, an' did you have a good time in Italy, an', I say, you are +shoving on weight, you know, an' there's old Berrill, an' I say, +Berrill, that's a ripping young jackdaw you sent, an' he's an' awful +thief--that is, he was, you know, but young Jones's dog eat him, or +most of him, an' I punched young Jones's head for letting 'em be +together, an' I say--how ripping the downs are looking, aren't they?" + +Tommy's spirits were infectious, and on the way home it would be hard to +say which of us talked the most nonsense. + +Our journey through the village was slow, for Tommy's friends were +numerous, and spread out over the whole social scale, from the +hand-to-mouth daysman to the unctuous chemist and stationer. They +included the vicar, leaning over his garden gate, in his shirt-sleeves, +surrounded by implements of horticulture, and also, I regret to say, the +pot-boy of the Flaming Lion--a graceless young scamp, with poacher +written in every lineament of his being. + +I was not unprepared for his royal progress, since, during the summer, I +had been frequently accosted by his friends, of varying rank and +respectability, enquiring of "Master Thomas, sir." + +"That young 'awk, sir, as I sent him last week?" + +"Made many runs this year, sir, d'ye know?" + +"Master Thomas in pretty good 'ealth, sir. Bad livin' in they big +schools, sir, ben't it?" + +And so on. + +Far down the road I saw a horseman, but Tommy could not, by any means, +be hurried, and a meeting I did not wish became inevitable. + +As young Morris rode up he looked at me a little insolently--maybe it +was only my fancy, for prejudice is a poor interpreter of +expression--and nodded good day. + +I saw that Tommy looked a little uncomfortable and his flow of chatter +ceased suddenly. + +Morris bent from the saddle and called him, and as I turned to the shop +window I could hear them greeting one another. + +I did not hear their further conversation, and it was only brief, but +the Tommy who walked home with me thenceforward was not the same who +had met me so buoyantly at the station. + +Ah, these clouds, that are no greater than a man's hand and by reason of +their very slenderness are so difficult to dispel! + +The early days of August sped away happily enough, and their adventures +were merely those of field, and stream, and valley, engrossing enough of +the time and fraught no doubt with lessons of experience, but too +trivial, I suppose, for record. + +And yet I would rather write of them than of the day--the 8th of +August--when the Borcombe eleven beat Camslove by many runs. + +And yet again, I am not sure, for a peril realised early, even through a +fall, may be the presage of ultimate victory. + +I had been in town all day myself, and therefore had not been amongst +the enthusiastic little crowd gathered in the field behind the church to +watch this annual encounter, and a typical English country crowd it +was, brimful of sport--see the eager movements of those gnarled hands +and the light in the clear open-air eyes and wrinkled faces. + +Camslove, too, had more than justified the prediction of their adherents +and had made a hundred and fifty runs, a very creditable score. + +"An' if they can stand Berrill's fast 'uns they bees good 'uns," +chuckled they of Camslove, as they settled down to watch the Borcombe +innings. + +Tommy was hanging about the little tin-roofed pavilion, divided between +a natural patriotism and a desire to see his hero perform wonders, for +Squire Morris's son had consented to represent Borcombe. + +Young Morris had never played for his village before, but his reputation +as a cricketer was considerable, and the country-side awaited his +display with some curiosity. + +Nor were they disappointed, for in every way he played admirable +cricket, and even Berrill's fast ones merely appeared to offer him +opportunities of making boundary hits. His fellow cricketers spent more +or less brief periods in his company, and disconsolately sought the +shade of the pavilion and the trees, but Morris flogged away so +mercilessly that the Camslove score was easily surpassed, with three +wickets yet to fall, and in the end Borcombe obtained a very solid +victory. + +Young Morris was not held in high esteem in the country-side, and there +were many who cordially disliked him--it was even whispered that one or +two had sworn, deeply, a condign revenge for certain deeds of his--but +he had played the innings of a master, and, as such, he received great +applause on his return to the pavilion. + +Tommy was in the highest spirits, and, full of a reflected glory, strode +manfully, on his hero's arm, down the village street. + +In the bar-room of the Flaming Lion many healths were drunk to the +victors, to the defeated, to Berrill's fast 'uns, to the young squire's +long success, to Tommy Wideawake. + +Tommy, flushed and exultant, stood among the little group, with glowing +cheeks. + +Presently a grimy hand pulled his sleeve. It was the pot-boy. + +"Don't 'ee 'ave no more, sir--not now," he whispered. But Tommy looked +at him hotly. + +"Can't a gentleman drink when he likes--damn you?" he asked. + +The pot-boy slunk away, and a loud laugh rang round the little audience. + +"Good on you, Tommy," cried Morris. + +"Gentlemen, the girls--bless 'em." He filled their glasses, at his +expense, and coupled a nameless wish with his toast. + +Tommy, unconscious of its meaning, drank with the others. + +Then he walked unsteadily to the door. There was a strange buzzing in +his head, and a dawning feeling of nausea in him, which he strove to +fight down. + +And as he stood at the porch, flushed and bright-eyed, Madge Chantrey +and the pale boy passed along the road. They were going to meet Miss +Gerald, but Tommy staggered out and faced them. + +"Hullo, Madge, old girl," he said, but she drew back, staring at him, +with wide eyes. + +The pale boy laughed. + +"Why, he's drunk--dead drunk," he said. + +Tommy lurched forward and struck him in the face, and in a moment the +pale boy had sent him rolling heavily in the road. I picked him up, for +I was passing on my way home from the station, and noticed the flush on +his cheeks, and saw that they were streaked with blood and dust. + +They tell me that I, too, lost my temper, and even now I cannot remember +all I said to Morris and his satellites and the little crowd in the +Flaming Lion. I remember taking Tommy home, and helping my man to +undress and wash him and put him to bed, and I shall never forget the +evening that I spent downstairs in my study, staring dumbly over the +misty valley to the far downs, and seeing only two grave grey eyes +looking rebukingly into mine. + +Late in the evening the vicar joined me, and we sat silently together in +the little study. + +My man lit the lamp, and brought us our coffee, and came again to fetch +it away, untasted. + +Perhaps you smile as you read this. + +"You ridiculous old men," I can hear you say. "To magnify so trivial an +incident into a veritable calamity." + +And, again, I can only plead that, in our quiet life, maybe, we attached +undue importance to such a slight occurrence. + +Yet, nevertheless, to us it was very real, almost overwhelmingly real, +and the tragedy of it lay, nearly two years back, in the panelled study +of Camslove Grange. + +Presently the vicar looked at me, and his face, in the red lamplight, +seemed almost haggard. + +"'I could never repay the man who taught my boy to love God,'" he +repeated, "and he said those words to me--to me." + +I bowed my head. + +"And I--I accepted the responsibility, and it has come to this." + +I was silent, and, indeed, what was there to say? + +I suppose we both tried to think out the best course for the future, but +for myself my brain refused to do aught but call up, and recall, and +recall again, that last meeting in Camslove Grange: + +"I want the old place to have a good master. + +"I want my son to be a gentleman. + +"God bless you, old comrades." + +Back they came, those old ghosts of the past, until the gentle, +well-bred voice seemed even now appealing to me, and the well-loved form +apparent before my eyes. And I writhed in my chair. + +A little later the poet came in. He looked almost frightened, and spoke +in a hushed voice. + +"Is--is he better?" he asked. + +"He is asleep," I answered, moodily. + +The poet sighed. + +"Ah! that's good, that's good." + +For a little while we talked, the aimless, useless talk of unnerved men, +and at last the poet suggested we should go upstairs. + +As I held the candle over Tommy's bed we could see that the flush had +faded from his cheeks, and as he lay there he might well have been a +healthy cherub on some earthly holiday. + +I think the sight cheered us all, and in some measure restored our hope. + +The vicar turned to us, gravely. + +"There is one thing we can all do," he said; "we ought to have thought +of it first, and it is surely the best." + +As we parted, the poet turned to me. + +"I will take him over the downs with me to-morrow; they always appeal to +Tommy, and one is never saner, or nearer to God, or more ready for +repentance, than out there upon the ranges." + +There was a sound of wheels down the lane, and in a minute the doctor +drove by. + +"Hullo," he called out, cheerily, "I have just got myself a new bat." + + + + +XII + +IN WHICH TOMMY MAKES A RESOLVE + + +It is one of the privileges of youth that alimentary indulgence is but +rarely penalized, and if either of us next morning was pale and +disinclined for breakfast it was certainly not Tommy. + +On the contrary, he seemed cool, and fit, and hungry, and although he +looked at me occasionally in a shy, questioning way, yet he chattered +away much as usual, and made no reference to yesterday's adventures. + +Only when the poet called for him and at the window I laid a hand upon +his shoulder to bid him a happy day, he turned to me, impulsively: + +"You are a ripper," he said. + +There is no sweeter or more genuine praise than a boy's. + +I watched them down the lane, and my eyes sought the downs, clear, and +wide, and sunny. I thought of the tawdry inn, and its associations, and +prayed that Tommy might learn a lesson from the contrast. + +Says Jasper the gipsy: + +"Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?" + +Hark back to your well-thumbed Lavengro and you will find, if you do not +remember, his reasons. + +Nor are they weightier than these: + +"Night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, all +sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath." + +Deep in the heart of every boy lies something of the gipsy, and even if, +in after life, it grows sick and stifled by reason of much traffic among +crowded streets, yet I doubt if it ever so far vanishes that to it the +wind on the heath shall appeal in vain. Nor was the poet wrong in his +prognosis, for to Tommy, at any rate, it was full of unspoken messages +on this August morning. Wind on the heath--yes, it is always there, +clean, and strong, and happy, lingering with soft wings over furze and +bracken, full of whispered melodies from the harp of God. + +Are you in trouble? + +Go up and face this wind on the heath. Bare your head to it, open your +lungs to it. Let it steal about your heart, with its messages of +greatness, and futurity, and hope. + +Are you listless and discouraged? + +Go up and breathe this wind on the heath, and it will sting to life the +ambition and resolve in you, and in it you will hear, if you listen +aright, the saga of victory. + +"In sickness, Jasper?" + +"There's the sun and stars, brother." + +"In blindness, Jasper?" + +"There's the wind on the heath, brother: if I could only feel that, I +would gladly live forever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on +the gloves, and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be +alive, brother." + +Tommy and the poet were bound for some ruins which lay across +Becklington common and beyond the downs. + +Harvest ruled the world, and the fields in the valley and on the +hillside were dotted with stooks and stacks. + +It was a day on which it was good to be alive, and, if a little subdued, +yet they were both in good spirits. + +The poet's latest volume, ahead of the autumn rush of poetry and +fiction, had been favourably criticised. + +It was stronger, happier, more real, said the critics, than any other +from his pen. + +If not great, said they, it was at any rate graceful, and even, in some +places, vigorous. Therefore was the poet happy. + +And Tommy--well, there was the sun and the wind, good red blood in his +arteries, and no care in his heart--and though he could not have told +you so, these, no doubt, were strong enough reasons for the buoyancy of +his spirit. + +As they climbed the green side of the downs they met a shepherd singing, +a happy, irresponsible fellow, with his coat over his head, and his +sleek flock browsing round him. + +And as they passed him with a welcome, the poet remembered some lines +which he repeated to Tommy: + + Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down, + Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring? + I could sing it fine, + If e'er a word were mine, + But there's no words could tell it you--the song that I would sing. + + Wide horizons beckoning, far beyond the hill, + Little lazy villages, sleeping in the vale, + Greatness overhead + The flock's contented tread + An' trample o' the morning wind adown the open trail. + + Bitter storms o' winter-time ringing down the range, + Angel nights above the hill, beautiful with rest, + I would sing o' Life, + O' Enterprise, and Strife, + O' Love along the upland road, an' God beyond the crest. + + An' this should be my matin song--magic o' the down, + Mystery, an' majesty, an' wistfulness, an' hope, + I would sing the lay + O' Destiny an' Day, + As morning mounts the hill with me, an' summer storms the slope. + + But this would be my vesper song--best at last is Peace + Whispered where the valleys lie, all deep in dying gold, + Stealing through the gloam + To speed the shepherd home + With one last dreamy echo o' the music in the fold. + + Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down, + Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring? + I could sing it fine, + If e'er a word were mine, + But there's no words could tell it you--the song that I would sing. + +"Jolly good," said Tommy, easiest of critics, and the poet smiled. + +"Ah, Tommy," he said, "I wish you were a publisher." + +Over the crest of the downs rose a thin wisp of blue smoke; and as they +descended on the other side, some dark-eyed children looked out of a +little brown tent. + +They reminded the poet of Jasper and his company of Pharaoh's children, +and he repeated to Tommy the conversation I have touched upon. + +Tommy's eyes sparkled. + +"That's good," he said, approvingly. "Just what a fellow feels, you +know." + +They walked on across the green springy turf, and for a time both were +silent. + +There was something, too, in the day and its purity that was speaking to +Tommy. + +Presently he spoke, hesitatingly. + +"I--I was drunk last night, wasn't I?" he asked anxiously. + +The poet affected not to have heard the question, but Tommy persisted. + +"Yes." + +Tommy sighed. + +"I say," he said, after a pause, "I--I'd have licked that fellow hollow +if my head hadn't been so jolly queer." + +The poet looked at him, curiously. + +"I expect you would," he said. + +Tommy took a deep breath, and looked straight at the poet. + +"I'll never touch it again--never," he said slowly. + +They shook hands there on the hillside. + +Thus it was, and for this reason, that Tommy took upon himself a vow +that he has to my best belief never broken. + +"Ah, but the motive?" you ask. + +Well, maybe the shrug of your shoulder is justified, but, after all, the +result was brought about by nature, who seldom errs, and to the poet, +who, in spite of all, was really a simple soul--the result was +abundantly gratifying. + +As they walked home in the evening, Tommy turned to the poet. + +"I say, what was it that gipsy fellow said--at the end, you know?" + +"Dosta, we'll now go to the tent and put on the gloves, and I'll try to +make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother." + +Tommy looked grimly into the twilight. + +"It would be a jolly good thing to teach that fellow at the Grange," he +said, "only I'm blowed if I'll take any gloves." + + + + +XIII + +IN WHICH THE POET PLUCKS A FOXGLOVE + + +Madge sat by the window, swinging disconsolate legs and struggling, with +a nauseated heart, to master those Latin prepositions which govern the +ablative case. A more degraded army she had never encountered, and +though some misguided sage had committed them to rhyme, this device +merely added a flavour of hypocrisy to their obvious malevolence. +Moreover, the whole universe appeared to be so disgustingly cheerful +that the contrast was well nigh unbearable. + +Beyond the open window the day was young and bright, and the honey bees +sang briskly over the lawn. + +Even the gardener, most dismal of men, was humming: "A few more years +shall roll," a sure sign of unwonted buoyancy of spirit. Miss Gerald was +writing some letters for Lady Chantrey in another room, and Madge was +alone in the study. + +Thus, every factor combined to make temptation almost irresistible. + +And, naturally enough, it came, and in the guise of a well-known, +long-agreed-on whistle. + +From the laurels it rose, low and clear, and Madge's heart jumped +quickly as she heard, for the whistle was Tommy's, and she could not +remember how long ago it was since she had heard it. + +Then she remembered that it must not be answered--for was not Tommy in +disgrace--at any rate, as far as she was concerned? + +And had they not quarrelled so deeply that repair was almost an +impossibility? + +It was very presumptuous of him to think that she should answer it. + +She would remain where she was, in icy stillness, mastering the +prepositions with an iron hand. + +A pleasing sense of virtue stole into her being, mixed with visions of a +downcast, brown face somewhere in the shrubbery, and for five long +minutes silence reigned. Then the whistle rang out again, a little +louder, and surely it sounded almost penitent. + +A picture of a broken-hearted Tommy, whistling in dry-eyed sorrow, rose +to her eyes. + +It was true that his offences had been great, but then, was not +forgiveness divine? + +Madge felt sure that this was so. Was it not written in fair characters +in her last copy-book? + +She closed her book and stood by the glass doors. + +It is but rarely that we rise to the divine. Yet here was an +opportunity, and down the steps she ran, light-footed, over the thin +strip of lawn and into the deep laurels. + +And it was not Tommy after all, but only the pale boy who, with +commendable perspicacity, had borrowed Tommy's whistle. + +For a moment Madge flushed angrily, for she did not greatly like the +pale boy, and this was a deception. + +But the morning was sweet, and the pale boy was surely better than a +preposition. + +"I say: let's go through the wood," he said. "I've hidden some +sandwiches in a tree up there and we'll have a picnic, and you can be +back in time for lunch." + +"All right," said Madge, "come along." + +And in the wood they met Tommy, with the light of resolve in his eye and +battle written in his face. + +Madge was not quite sure whether she was glad or sorry to meet him, nor +could she tell, as they looked straight into one another's eyes, the +nature of Tommy's feelings on the subject. + +He looked a little grave, and spoke as one who had rehearsed against a +probable encounter. + +"I want to apologise to you for our meeting the other day," he said +stiffly. + +Madge stared, and Tommy turned to the pale boy. + +"And to you," he said. + +The pale boy looked a little puzzled, but grinned. + +"That's all right," he said. "I could see--" + +"Excuse me, I haven't quite finished"--and the pale boy stopped, with +his mouth open. + +"I think you had better go home, Madge." + +"Why--Tommy?" + +Tommy looked down. + +"You had better--really," he repeated. + +The pale boy interposed. + +"She is out with me," he said. + +"So I see--she had better go home." + +"Why--who says so?" + +"If she doesn't she will see you get a licking. P'raps--p'raps she +wouldn't like that." + +Tommy still looked at the path. + +"I--I'm not going to fight anyone to-day." + +"You are--you're jolly well going to fight me, now." + +The pale boy smiled, a little uncertainly. + +"You--I shouldn't have thought you'd want a second dose," he said. + +"Rather," said Tommy, cheerfully. + +Madge looked from one to the other. + +"Don't fight," she said. "Please--please don't fight--why should you?" + +"You'd much better run home," said Tommy again. + +"I shan't--I shall stay here." + +Tommy sighed. + +"All right," he said, taking off his coat. "Then, of course, you must, +you know." + +"I tell you I'm not going to fight," repeated the pale boy. + +"Rot," said Tommy. + +Five minutes later Tommy contentedly resumed his coat, his face flushed +with victory. + +The pale boy was leaning against a tree, with a handkerchief to his nose +and one eye awry, whimpering vindictive epithets at his opponent--but +Madge was nowhere to be seen. + +Tommy looked up and down the leafy vistas a little disappointedly. Then, + +"Never mind," he said, philosophically. + +"By Jove, it's a jolly sweet thing is life--ripping, simply ripping. +Good bye, old chap. Sniff upwards and it'll soon stop. So long." + + * * * * * + +In a brake where the wood falls back a little from the inroad of the +common the poet paused, for the gleam of a straw hat against a dark +background caught his eye. + +"Why surely--no--yes, it is--how singular--so it is," he murmured, +wiping his glasses. + +He left the path and struck out over the springy turf into the shade of +the wood, keeping his eyes nevertheless upon the ground, and walking +guilelessly, as one who contemplates. + +And by chance his meditations were broken, and before him, among some +tall foxgloves, stood Mollie Gerald. + +The poet looked surprised. + +"How--how quietly you must walk, Miss Gerald," he said. + +She laughed. + +"How deeply you must think," she said. + +"It--it is good to wake from thought to--to this, you know," he +answered, with a bow. + +Miss Gerald looked comprehensively into the wood. + +"It is pretty, isn't it?" she said. + +"I was not referring to the wood," said the poet, hardily. + +Miss Gerald bent over a foxglove rising gracefully over the bracken: + +"Aren't they lovely?" she asked, showing the poet a handful of the +purple flowers. + +"You came out to gather flowers?" + +"Why, no. I came to look for my pupil." + +"Surely not again a truant?" + +"I am afraid so." + +"It is hard to believe." + +"And I stopped in my search to gather some of these. After all, it isn't +much good looking for a child in a wood, is it?" + +"Quite useless, I should think." + +"If they want to be found they'll come home, and if they don't, they +know the woods far better than we, and they'll hide." + +"They always come back at meal-times--at least, Tommy does." + +"I think meal-times are among the happiest hours of an average +childhood." + +"Before the higher faculties have gained their powers of +appreciation--it depends on the child." + +"Madge is not an imaginative child." + +"Nor Tommy, I think, and yet I don't know. It is hard to appraise the +impressions that children receive and cannot record." + +"And the experiment--how does it progress?" + +"Alas, it is an experiment no longer; it is a very real responsibility, +and I am inadequate. Individually, I fancy we are all inadequate, and, +collectively, we do not seem quite to have found the way." + +Miss Gerald nodded emphatically. + +"Good," she said. + +"Eh?" + +"To feel inadequate is the beginning of wisdom; is it not so? There, I +have gathered my bunch." + +"May I beg one foxglove for my coat?" + +She laughed. + +"There are plenty all round you. Why, you are standing in the middle of +a plant at this moment." + +The poet stooped a little disconsolately, and plucked a stalk, and when +he looked up Miss Gerald was already threading her way through the +slender trunks. + +"Good-bye," she cried, gaily, over her shoulder, and the poet raised his +hat. + +As he sauntered back to the path the doctor rode by on his pony. + +"Hullo," he said; "been picking flowers?" + +The poet looked up. + +"A pretty flower, the foxglove," he murmured. + +"Digitalis purpurea--a drug, too, is it not?" + +The doctor nodded. + +"It has an action on the heart," he said. "Steadies and slows it, you +know." + +But the poet shook his head. + +"I fancy you are mistaken," he observed. + + + + +XIV + +IN WHICH TOMMY CONVERSES WITH THE PALE BOY + + +A sky of stolid grey had communicated a certain spirit of melancholy to +the country-side--a spirit not wholly out of keeping with Tommy's mood. + +The holidays were nearly over. The doctor was busy, the poet had a cold, +Madge had been sent away to school, and Tommy, for the nonce, felt a +little at a loss to know how to occupy these last mournful days of +freedom. + +As he tramped, a trifle moodily, down the lane, a point of light against +a dark corner of the hedge caught his eye, and further examination +revealed the pale boy, smoking a cigarette. + +Tommy had not yet aspired to tobacco, and for a moment felt a little +resentful. + +But the memory of last week's battle restored his equanimity, and, +indeed, brought with it a little complacent contempt for the pale boy +and his ways. + +"Hullo," said Tommy, pulling up in front of his reposing foe, and not +sorry to have some one to talk to. + +The pale boy looked at him coldly. + +"Well," he observed, cheerlessly. + +Tommy sat down on the grass. + +"I say, let's forget about all that," he said. + +The pale boy puffed away in silence. + +"Let's forget; you--you'd probably have whopped me, you know, if you'd +done some boxing at our place. You've a much longer reach than me, +an'--an' you got me an awful nasty hit in the chest, you know." + +The pale boy looked at him gloomily. + +"I don't profess to know much about fighting," he said, with some +dignity. "I think it's jolly low." + +For a few minutes they sat in silence, then, + +"Where do you go to school?" asked Tommy. + +"I don't go anywhere; I've got a tutor." + +"Oh!" + +"You see, I'm not at all strong." + +"Bad luck. You--ought you to smoke, if you're--if your constitution's +rocky, you know?" + +The pale boy knocked the ashes off his cigarette. + +"I find it very soothing," he said. "Besides, it's all right, if you +smoke good stuff. I wouldn't advise fellows who didn't know their way +about a bit to take it up." + +The pale boy spoke with an air of superiority that awed Tommy a little. + +"How--how did you come to know all about it?" he asked. + +"Oh--just knocking about town, you know," replied the other, carelessly. + +Tommy sighed. + +"I hardly know anything about London," he said. + +The pale boy looked at him, pityingly. + +"I've lived there all my life," he said, "Dormanter Gardens, in +Bayswater--one of the best neighbourhoods, you know." + +Tommy racked his memory. + +"I was in London, at Christmas, with a sort of aunt-in-law," he said. +"She lives in Eaton Square, I think it is--somewhere near Maskelyne & +Cook's." + +"I haven't heard of it," said the pale boy. "But London's so jolly big +that it's impossible to know all of it, and I've spent most of my time +in the West End." + +Tommy was silent, but the pale boy seemed at home with his subject. + +"I suppose you don't know the Cherry House," he continued. "It's an +awful good place to feed in--near the Savoy, you know. Reggie, he's my +cousin, takes me there sometimes. He always goes. He says there are such +damned fine girls there. I don't care a bit about 'em, though." + +The pale boy smoked contemplatively. + +"I think it's awful rot, thinking such a beastly lot about girls, and +all that sort of thing, you know, don't you?" said Tommy. + +The pale boy nodded. + +"Rather," he said. "I agree with dad. He says there's only one thing +worth bothering about down here." + +"What's that?" + +"Money," snapped the pale boy, looking at Tommy, between narrowed +eyelids. "I'm going to be a financier when I'm old enough to help dad." + +Tommy stretched himself lazily. + +"I'd rather be strong," he said. + +The pale boy looked at him, curiously. + +"What a rum chap you are. What's that got to do with it?" + +Tommy lay back on the grass, and stared up at the passing clouds. + +"I'm not a bit keen on making money, somehow," he said. "I'd just like +to knock around, and have a dog, and--a jolly good time, you know." + +"What--always?" + +Tommy sat up. + +"Yes--why not?" + +The pale boy shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. + +"Oh, I don't know," he said. "But it seems funny, and don't you think +you'd find it rather slow?" + +Tommy stared at him, with open eyes. + +"Rather not," he said. "Why, think how ripping it would be to go just +where you liked, and come back when you liked, an' not to have any +beastly meal-times to worry about, an' no terms, an' a horse or two to +ride, an' wear the oldest clothes you had; by Jove, it would be +like--something like Heaven, I should think." + +The pale boy laughed as he rose to his feet. + +"It's beginning to rain," he said. + +"Never mind," said Tommy, "I like the rain. It doesn't hurt, either, and +I like talking to you; you make me think of things." + +The pale boy turned up his collar, and shivered a little. + +"Let's find a shelter, somewhere," he said, looking round anxiously. + +"We'd better walk home over the common," said Tommy. "Besides, it's +ripping walking in the rain, don't you think, an' it makes you feel so +good, an' fit, when you're having grub afterwards, in front of the +fire." + +But the pale boy shook his head. + +"I hate it," he said, "and I'm going up to the farm there, till it +stops." + +Tommy cast an accustomed eye round the horizon. + +"It won't stop for a jolly long while," he said. "However, do as you +like. We don't seem to agree about things much, do we? So long." + +"Good-bye. It's all the way a fellow's brought up, you know." + +And as Tommy shouldered sturdily through the rain, the pale boy lit +another cigarette and turned back towards the farm door. + + + + +XV + +IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE MEET IN A WHEAT-FIELD + + +Never was such a harvest--such crops--such long splendid days--such +great yellow moons. Even now the folk tell of it when harvest-time comes +round. + +"Ah," say they, and shake their heads, "that were a harvest an' no +mistake, an' long, an' long will it be afore us sees another such a +one." + +Through the great white fields of wheat the binders sang from dew-dry to +dew-fall, and over the hills rang the call of the reapers. + +All hands were called to the gathering, the gipsies from the hedge and +the shepherd from his early fold, and the stooks were built over the +stubble and drawn away into stacks, and still the skies shone cloudless +and the great moons rose over the dusk. Never was such a harvest. And +little we at home saw of Tommy in these days, save when, late at night, +he would wander back from one and another field, lean and sunburnt and +glad of sleep. One day the poet tracked him to the harvesting on the +down-side fields, and found him in his shirt-sleeves, stooking with the +best. + +For a little while the poet, under considerable pressure from Tommy, +assisted also, but the unaccustomed toil soon became distasteful, and he +retired to the shade of a stook for purposes of rest and meditation. + +And here, as he sat, he was joined by the same genial shepherd whom they +had met on the day they trod the downs to the Roman ruins. + +"Deserted the flocks, then?" asked the poet. + +The shepherd grinned. + +"'Ess, sir. Folded 'em early, do 'ee see, sir, an' come down to make +some money at the harvest, sir." + +He paused to fill his mouth with bread, taking at the same time a long +pull of cold tea. + +"Hungry work, sir, it be, this harvest work." + +"It must undoubtedly stimulate the appetite, as you say." + +"'Ess, sir, that it do. But it's good work fer the likes o' I, sir, it +be, means more money, doan't 'ee see, sir; not as I bees in want o' +money, sir, but it's always welcome, sir. No, sir, I needn't do no work +fer a year an' more, sir, an' live like a gen'lman arl the time, too, +sir." + +"You have saved, then?" + +"'Ess, that I have, an' there's a many as knows it, sir, an' asked I to +marry 'em, sir, too, they 'as, but not I, sir. I sticks to what I makes, +sir. An' look 'ee 'ere, sir, money's easy spent along o' they gals, sir, +ben't it, onst they gets their 'ands on it?" + +The poet looked at him reflectively. + +"They ask you then, do they?" + +"'Ess, sir, fower or five on 'em, sir. But I wants none on 'em, sir, an' +I tells 'em straight, sir." + +The poet sighed. + +"It must save a lot of trouble to--when the suggestion comes from the +fairer side." + +The shepherd wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. + +"Fower or five on 'em," he observed, meditatively. + +"Dear, dear, what a--what a conqueror of hearts you must be!" + +The shepherd looked at him a little dubiously. + +"Fower or five on 'em," he repeated. "An' one on 'em earnin' eighteen +shillin' a week an' forty pound laid by. An' I walked out wi' 'er a bit, +I did, sir, but I warn't 'avin' none on 'er when she asked I to marry +'er, an' I told 'er, an' my parents, they was main angry, too, wi' me, +they was, sir. + +"But there y'are, sir. I didn't want none o' 'er forty pounds, sir, an' +you bees got to stick to 'em wen you marries 'em, ben't 'ee, sir?" + +The shepherd shook his head. + +"No, sir, I don't believe in marryin' no one as you doesn't kind o' +like, do 'ee see, sir." + +The poet nodded. + +"An excellent sentiment," he said. + +"Money ben't everything sir, bee 't, as I told 'em, sir, all on 'em. +Money ben't everythin'." + +"But isn't it--isn't it a little embarrassing to be sought in matrimony +by four or five ladies?" + +The shepherd paused, between two bites, and looked at the poet, in some +bewilderment. + +"If 'ee means worrittin', sir--it bees a deal more worrittin' to ask +'em, yourself, sir--fower or five on 'em." + +He rose and lurched off to join his comrades, and the poet looked after +him, with something of envy in his eyes. + +"O you fortunate man," he murmured, as he lay back, watching the busy +scene, with half-closed eyes. + +Presently he half started to his feet, for at the far end of the field +he could see Tommy talking to two newcomers, a tall, slender figure, +with a carriage and poise possessed by one alone, and a little girl in a +smock frock. + +He rose and wandered slowly down the field. + +"Four or five," he murmured, "and they asked him--O the lucky, lucky +man--they asked him. Dear me, dear me." + +"A lovely evening, Miss Gerald." + +Mollie looked up, with a smile, from the sheaf she was binding. + +"Isn't it jolly--it must be a glad life these open-air folk lead, don't +you think?" + +"The best of lives--but they don't know it." + +Mollie rose, and tossed back a wisp or two of hair from her forehead. + +"I am sure I should love it, if it were my lot--the white stems on my +arms and the warm sun on my face, and the songs in the wagon, at dusk. +Listen to that man singing there--I'm sure he is just glad of life." + +"A strange man," said the poet, following her gaze. "A most curious, +fortunate person." + +"You know him?" + +"A little--he is quite a Napoleon of hearts." + +Mollie laughed. + +"He doesn't look even a little bit romantic." + +"Oh, he isn't. I fancy the romance, if there is any, must be usually on +the other side. He has had four or five offers of marriage." + +"What a perfectly horrid idea." + +The poet stroked his chin. + +"Yet think of the confusion and questioning of heart, and of the hours +of agony that it would save a diffident man." + +"He doesn't look diffident." + +"He may not be. I merely make a supposition." + +"I think it's an appalling idea." + +"Oh, I know, I know, and yet I can imagine it a bridge to paradise." + +"I don't understand." + +"Then, suppose a man so stormed by love that by it all life has been +renewed and made beautiful for him; and suppose this man so utterly and +in every way unsuited to its realisation, that though all there is in +him urges him to speak of it, yet he dare not lest he should lose even +the cold solace of friendship. Do you not see how it might----?" + +Mollie's grey eyes looked him straight in the face. + +"No," she said. "It would be better for him never to speak, than to lose +his ideal, as he assuredly would." + +"You--you would bid him never speak?" + +Mollie laughed. + +"It depends on so many things--on how and why he was unsuitable, and by +whose standard he gauged his shortcoming." + +"His own." + +"He might be wrong." + +"Who could know better?" + +"The girl he asked." + +"You would bid him ask?" + +She was silent; then, + +"If--if he were quite sure the girl were worthy," she said, in a low +voice. + +The poet held out his hands. + +"Mollie--my dear, my dear," he said. + + * * * * * + +"And she's quite young, too," observed Tommy, as they walked home in the +starlight. + +The poet waved his hand. + +"Love laughs at age--takes no account of it," he said. + +"Hurrah," cried Tommy. + + + + +XVI + +IN WHICH TOMMY CROSSES THE PLOUGHING + + +The early days of January were shadowed by Lady Chantrey's illness. + +I fancy that over all hung the presentiment that it would bear her away +from our midst, and there was no home in Camslove or Becklington, nor a +heart in any of the far-scattered farms around them, but would be the +sadder for the loss. + +And on a January afternoon she kissed Madge for the last time. + +To Madge it seemed that heaven and earth alike had become black and +desolate, for ever, as she sobbed upon the bed-clothes, and besought her +mother to come back. + +The household was too overwhelmed, and itself too sorrow-stricken to +take much notice at first of the child, and for an hour or more she lay +with her arms about her mother's neck. + +Then, at last, she slipped from the bed and stole out into the dusk. A +thin rain was falling over the country-side, but she hardly noticed it +as she crossed the barren fields and stumbled through the naked hedges. + +At the ploughing she stopped. + +Something in the long, relentless furrows seemed to speak to her of the +finality of it all, and it was only when she flung herself down upon the +upturned earth that, as to all in sorrow, the great mother put forth her +words of cheer to her, as who should say: + +"See, now, the plough is set, the furrow drawn, and the old life hidden +away; and who can make it any more the same? But Spring, little girl, is +surely coming, and even, after long months, harvest." + +Down the path, across the fields, came Tommy, dangling a contented +catapult, and ruminating on the day's successes. + +As he passed the ploughing he stopped, and gave a low whistle of +surprise--then guessed quickly enough what had happened. Madge lay +stretched out, face downwards, upon the black loam, and for a moment +Tommy stood perplexed. + +Then he called, in a low voice, almost as he would have spoken in a +church: + +"Madge, Madge." + +But she did not move. + +He knelt beside her, and some strange instinct bade him doff his cap. +Then he touched her shoulder and her black hair, with shy fingers. + +"Madge," he called, again. + +The child jumped to her feet, and tossing back her hair, looked at him +with half-frightened eyes. + +He noticed that her cheeks were stained with the soft earth, and he saw +tears upon them. + +Tommy had never willingly kissed anyone in his life--he had not known a +mother--but now, without thought or hesitation--almost without +consciousness, for he was still very much a child--he laid his arms +about her neck and kissed her cheek--once, twice. + +But what he said to her only the great night, and the old plough, know. + + + + +XVII + +IN WHICH TOMMY TAKES THE UPLAND ROAD + + +If I have not, so far, touched upon Tommy's religious life it is chiefly +for the reason that, to me, at this time, it was practically as a sealed +book. + +Nor had I ever talked with him on these matters. And this for two +reasons--one of them being, no doubt, the natural hesitation of the +average Englishman to lay his hands upon the veil of his neighbour's +sanctuary, and one, a dawning doubt in my mind as to the capacity of my +own creed to meet the requirements of Tommy's nature. For, to me, at +this time, the idea of God was of One in some distant Olympus watching +His long-formulated laws work out their appointed end--a Being +infinitely beneficent, and revealed in all nature and beauty, but, +spiritually, entirely remote. + +And my religion had been that of a reverent habit and a peaceable +moderation, and to live contented with my fellows. + +But here was a boy put into my hands, with a future to be brought about, +and already at the outset I had seen a glimpse of the dangers besetting +his path, and the glimpse had, as I have already confessed, frightened +me not a little. Nor had my musings so far comforted me, but rather +shown me the lamentable weakness of my position. True, I could lay down +rules, and advise and warn, but the whole of Tommy's every word and +action showed me the powerlessness of such procedure. + +And I dared not let things drift. The matter I felt sure should be +approached on religious grounds, and it was this conviction that +revealed to me my absolute impotence. + +So far as I remembered, no great temptations had assailed me, no violent +passions had held me in thrall. + +My life had been a smooth one, and of moral struggle and defeat I seemed +to know nothing. But that such would be Tommy's lot I felt doubtful, and +the doubt (it was almost a certainty) filled me with many +apprehensions. + +So full was I of my musings that I had not noticed how in my walk I had +reached the doctor's garden. + +The click of a cricket bat struck into my thoughts and brought me into +the warm afternoon again, with all its sweetness of scent and sound. + +I could hear Tommy laughing, and as I drew back the bushes, I caught a +glimpse of the doctor coaching him in the right manipulation of the bat. + +"I say, I never knew you played cricket, you know," said Tommy. "I +thought you were an awful ass at games, and all that sort of thing." + +The doctor laughed. + +"I'm jolly rusty at 'em, anyway," he said. "But I used to play a bit in +the old days." + +Tommy continued to bat, and I lounged, unnoticed, upon the rails, +watching the practice. + +Presently the doctor took a turn, and I, too, was surprised at his +evident mastery of the art, for I had long since disregarded him as a +sportsman. + +Tommy's lobs were easy enough, and once the doctor drove a hot return +straight at his legs. + +Tommy jumped out of the way, but the doctor called to him sharply: + +"Field up," he said, and Tommy coloured. + +Another return came straight and hard, but Tommy stooped and held it, +and the doctor dropped his bat. + +"Good," I heard him say. "Stand up to 'em like a man--hurts a bit at the +time--but it saves heaps of trouble in the end, and--and the other +fellow doesn't score." + +They were looking straight into each other's eyes, as man to man, and +after a pause the doctor spoke again, in a low voice. I could not hear +what he said, but Tommy's face was grave as he listened. + +I sauntered on down the lane, and a few minutes later felt a hand on my +arm. + +"Well, and what did you think of it?" + +"Of what?" + +"The boy's batting. I saw you watching." + +"I am not an expert, but he'll do, won't he?" + +"Yes--he'll do." + +"I didn't know that you had kept up your cricket." + +"I haven't. But I mean to revive it if I can. We--we must beat Borcombe +next time, you know." + +We walked on in silence for a little, then. + +"Tommy's main desire appears to be a cricketer just now," observed the +doctor. + +"As it was to be a poacher, yesterday." + +"Or a steam-roller driver, in the years gone by." + +"And what, I wonder, to-morrow?" + +The doctor was looking thoughtfully over the wide fields, red with +sunset. + +"To-morrow? Ah, who knows?" He pointed to a pile of cumulus clouds, +marching magnificently in the southern sky, bright as Heaven, and +changeable as circumstance. + +"A boy's dreams," he said. "A little while here and a little while +there, always changing but always tinged with a certain fleeting +magnificence." + +"And never realised?" + +"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. We most of us march and march to our +cloud mountain-tops, and, maybe, some of us at the day's end find a +little low-browed hill somewhere where our everlasting Alps had seemed +to stand." + +"Surely you are a pessimist." + +"Not at all. If we had not marched for the clouds, maybe we should never +have achieved the little hill." + +"You would have Tommy march, then, for the clouds?" + +The doctor laughed. + +"He is an average boy. He will do that anyway. But I would have the true +light on the clouds, to which he lifts his eyes." + +"Ah--if his face were set upon them now," I said half to myself. + +On the road to the downs was a small figure. + +"See," said my companion, "He is on the upland road. Let us take it as +an omen." + +And we turned homeward. + +Late into the night we talked, and I unfolded my fears for Tommy with a +fulness that was foreign to me. + +And our talk drifted, as such conversation will, into many and intimate +matters, such as men rarely discuss between each other. + +And in the end, as I rose to depart, the doctor held my hand. + +"See, old friend," he said, "we are nearer to-night than ever for all +our seeming fundamental differences, and you will not mind what I have +to say. + +"To you the idea of God is so great, so infinitely high, that the notion +of personal friendship with such an One would seem to be an almost +criminal impertinence, and the idea of His interference in our trivial +hum-drum lives a gross profanity. + +"To me, a plain man, and not greatly read, this personal God, this +Friend Christ, is more than all else has to offer me. + +"It is life's motive, and weapon, and solace, and joy. It is its light +and colour and its very _raison d'etre_. And I believe that for the +great majority of men this idea of the Divine, and this only, is +powerful enough to assure them real victory and moral strength. + +"I grant you all the beauty, and majesty, and truth, of your ideal, but +I would no more dare to lay it before an average healthy, passionate man +alone than I would to send an army into battle--with a position to +take--unarmed and leaderless." + +The doctor paused. Then: + +"Forgive me," he said, "I don't often talk like this, but, believe me, +it is the knowledge of his God, as a strong, sympathetic, personal +friend, that Tommy needs--that most of us need--to ensure life's truest +success." + +We shook hands again and parted. + +"I am glad you have spoken," said I, "and thank you for your words." + + * * * * * + +"A tramp--merely a tramp," said the stranger, puffing contentedly at his +pipe, on the winding road that led over the dim downs. + +Tommy looked at him doubtfully. + +He was very tall and broad, and clean, and his Norfolk suit was well +made and of stout tweed. + +"You don't look much like one," he said. + +The stranger laughed. + +"For the matter of that no more do you," he observed. + +"I'm not one," said Tommy. + +The stranger smoked in silence for a little, and Tommy sat down beside +him on the grass. + +"I'm not one," he repeated. + +"Shakespeare says we are all players in a great drama, of which the +world is the stage, you know. I don't quite know if that's altogether +true, but I'm pretty sure that we're all of us tramps, going it with +more or less zest, it is true, and in different costumes--but tramps at +the last, every one of us." + +Tommy looked at him with puzzled eyes. + +"What a rum way of talking you have--something like the poet, only +different somehow." + +"The poet?" + +"Down there at Camslove." + +"Ah, I remember. I read some of his things; pretty little rhymes, too, +if I remember rightly." + +"They're jolly good," said Tommy, warmly. + +"A friend of yours, eh?" + +Tommy nodded. + +"He wrote one just here, where we're sitting." + +"Did he, by Jove--which was it?" + +Tommy pondered. + +"I forget most of it, but it was jolly good. He told it me one day on +the downs, just as we met a shepherd singing, and it was about life and +enterprise, and all that sort of thing, and love on the upland road +and--and God beyond the crest." + +"Sounds good, and partly true." + +"How do you mean; why isn't it altogether true?" + +The stranger smoked a minute or two in silence, then: + +"Where is the crest?" he asked. + +Tommy pointed up into the twilight. + +"It's a long way to the crest," he said. + +"Ah--and the fellows who never get there?" + +"I don't understand." + +"If God be only beyond the crest, how shall they fare?" + +Tommy was silent, looking away down the dusky valley. + +He saw a light or two glimmering among the trees. + +"It's time I went back," he muttered, but sat where he was. + +"You see what I mean?" continued the stranger. "There is only one crest +worth striving for, and that is always beyond our reach, and God is +beyond it and above it, all right. But there's many a poor fellow who +would have his back to it now if he were not sure that God was also on +the upland road, among the tramps." + +Tommy was silent, plucking uncomfortably at the grass. + +"You haven't thought much about these things?" + +"No." + +"Ah, but you must, though. You see, until a fellow knows the road he is +on, he cannot achieve, nor even begin to surmount." + +"How did you know the road you're on, then?" + +"I had a friend." + +"And he knew?" + +"Yes, been over it all before, knew every turn, and all the steep +places. He has come with me. He is with me now." + +Tommy peered up the darkening road. + +"I can't see him," he said. + +"Ah, but you will. I'm sure you will." + +"What is his name?" + +The stranger rose to his feet, and held out his hand. + +"Christ," he said, as Tommy looked into his eyes. Then, + +"Good-bye, old chap--meet again somewhere, perhaps--and, I say, about +the road, shall it be the upland road for both of us?" + +Tommy was silent, then, as they shook hands. + +"Yes," he said. + + * * * * * + +"Hullo, Tommy," said I, on my return that night, from the doctor's +study, "Enjoyed the evening?" + +"Had some awful good practice with the doctor's bat." + +"We saw you on the downs afterwards." + +Tommy looked at me, with bright eyes, as if about to tell me something, +but he changed his mind. + +"Yes," he said, "I met a stranger there." + + + + +XVIII + +AND LAST + + +And so these brief sketches plucked here and there from the boyhood of +Tommy Wideawake, and patched unskilfully together, must be gathered up +and docketed as closed, even as the boyhood from which they have been +drawn. + +Yet the story of Tommy Wideawake is still being written, where all may +read who have eyes for the strength, and godliness of a country squire's +life, and a hand for his stalwart grip. + +On the occasion of Tommy's twenty-first birthday, there were, of course, +great rejoicings in Camslove, and a general gathering of the +country-side to the old Grange. + +Tommy, in the course of a successful, if not eloquent speech, made some +extravagant remarks as to the debt he owed to his four friends, and +guardians--the poet, the vicar, the doctor, and myself. + +Modesty forbids their repetition, and doubtless youthful enthusiasm +accounted for their absurdity. + +One other he mentioned in his speech--a stranger whom, long ago, he had +met on the upland road. + +Thus Tommy in his maiden speech. + +Three years later he brought a bride to Camslove, and her name was +Madge, and the rest of us live on in much the old way, excepting of +course the poet, who, as a married man, affects a fine pity for us less +fortunate ones. + +And yet we are not altogether the same men, I fancy, as in those days. + +The vicar's house has become a perfect playground for the poet's +children, and my own is occasionally sadly mauled by certain +sacrilegious nephews, much to the annoyance of my man. + +The doctor is president, and indeed the shining light of the village +cricket team, and we, at Camslove, flatter ourselves that we can put up +a very decent game. + +So I lay aside my pen awhile and read what I have written, and as I +read I am glad that I am led from garden to valley, and stream, and +mill, and over the common, and up the windy down. + +For if a boy's will be indeed the wind's will, let it be that of the +wind on the heath, which the gipsies breathe. And if the thoughts of a +boy be long, long thoughts, let them be born of earth, and air, and sun. + +And his sins, since sin and sunlight are incompatible, must needs be +easy of correction. + +And his faith, when of a sudden he shall find that there is God in all +these things, shall be so deep that not all the criticism of all the +schools shall be able to root it out of his heart. + +And the moral, if you must needs hammer one out, would be this, that +soundness is more to be desired than scholarship, and that the heart of +boyhood is, by nature, nearer to God than that of later life. + +But let him who would draw the veil aside, do so with tender hands. + + + + +TO THE EDITOR OF "THE OUTLOOK" +FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT SUNDRY +VERSES THE AUTHORS THANKS ARE +DUE + + + + +TWO BOOKS VERY LIKE +TOMMY WIDEAWAKE + +ARE + +KENNETH GRAHAME'S + +THE GOLDEN AGE + +AND + +DREAM DAYS + +MR. RICHARD LEGALLIENNE: + +"I can think of no truer praise of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's 'Golden Age' +than that it is worthy of being called 'A Child's Garden--of Prose.'" + +MR. ISRAEL ZANGWILL: + +"No more enjoyable interpretation of the child's mind has been accorded +us since Stevenson's 'Child's Garden of Verses.'" + +MR. SWINBURNE: + +"The art of writing adequately and acceptably about children is among +the rarest and most precious of arts.... 'The Golden Age' is one of the +few books which are well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise.... The fit +reader--and the 'fit' readers should be far from 'few'--finds himself a +child again while reading it. Immortality should be the reward.... +Praise would be as superfluous as analysis would be impertinent." + +THE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW: + +"In this province, the reconstruction of child life, Kenneth Grahame is +masterly. In fact we know of no one his equal." + + + + +The International STUDIO + +An Illustrated Magazine of Arts and Crafts + +Subscription, 35 cents per month, $3.50 per year + +[Illustration] + +Three Months' Trial Subscription, $1.00 + +It is the aim of "The International Studio" to treat of every Art and +Craft--Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Ceramics, Metal, Glass, +Furniture, Decoration, Design, Bookbinding, Needlework, Gardening, etc. +Color supplements and every species of black-and-white reproduction +appear in each number. In fact this magazine authoritatively presents to +the reader the progress of the Arts and Crafts. + + * * * * * + +JOHN LANE, _The Bodley Head_ +67 Fifth Avenue, New York + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tommy Wideawake, by H. H. 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