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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Foolish Lovers, by St. John G. Ervine
+
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+
+Title: The Foolish Lovers
+
+Author: St. John G. Ervine
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9461]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 3, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO=8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOOLISH LOVERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon,
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+THE FOOLISH LOVERS
+
+BY
+
+ST. JOHN G. ERVINE
+
+
+New York
+
+
+1920
+
+
+TO MY MOTHER
+
+who asked me to write a story without any "Bad words" in it;
+
+and
+
+TO MRS. J. O. HANNAY
+
+who asked me to write a story without any "Sex" in it.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST BOOK OF THE FOOLISH LOVERS
+
+  Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love!
+     _The Merchant of Venice._
+
+  Love unpaid does soon disband.
+     ANDREW MARVELL
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+If you were to say to an Ulster man, "Who are the proudest people in
+Ireland?" he would first of all stare at you as if he had difficulty in
+believing that any intelligent person could ask a question with so
+obvious an answer, and then he would reply, "Why, the Ulster people, of
+course!" And if you were to say to a Ballyards man, "Who are the
+proudest people in Ulster?" he would reply ... if he deigned to reply
+at all ... "A child would know that! The Ballyards people, of course!"
+
+It is difficult for anyone who is not a native of the town, to
+understand why the inhabitants of Ballyards should possess so great a
+pride in their birthplace. It is not a large town ... it is not even
+the largest town in the county ... nor has it any notable features to
+distinguish it from a dozen other towns of similar size in that part of
+Ireland. Millreagh, although it is now a poor, scattered sort of place,
+was once of great importance: for the mail-boats sailed from its
+harbour to Port Michael until the steamship owners agreed that Port
+Michael was too much exposed to the severities of rough weather, and
+chose another harbour elsewhere. Millreagh mourns over its lost glory,
+attributable in no way to the fault of Millreagh, but entirely to the
+inscrutable design of Providence which arranged that Port Michael, and
+not Kirkmull, should lie on the opposite side of the Irish Sea; and
+every Sunday morning, after church, and sometimes on Sunday afternoon,
+the people walk along the breakwater to the lighthouse and remind each
+other of the days when their town was of consequence. "We spent a
+hundred and fifty thousand pounds on our harbour," they say to each
+other, "and then the Scotch went and did the like of that!"--the like
+of that being their stupidity in living in an exposed situation.
+Millreagh does not admit that it has suffered any more than a temporary
+diminishment of its greatness, and it makes optimistic and boastful
+prophecies of the fortune and repute that will come to it when the
+engineers make a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland. Sometimes an
+article on the Channel Tunnel will appear in the _Newsletter_ or
+the _Whig_, and for weeks afterwards Millreagh lives in a fever of
+expectancy; for whatever else may be said about the Tunnel, this is
+certain to be said of it, that it will start, in Ireland, from
+Millreagh. On that brilliant hope, Millreagh, tightening its belt,
+lives in a fair degree of happiness, eking out its present poverty by
+fishing and by letting lodgings in the summer.
+
+Pickie, too, has much reputation, more, perhaps, than Millreagh, for it
+is a popular holiday town and was once described in the _Evening
+Telegraph_ as "the Blackpool of Ireland." This description, although
+it was apt enough, offended the more pretentious people in Pickie who
+were only mollified when the innocent reporter, in a later article,
+altered the description to, "the Brighton of Ireland." With consummate
+understanding of human character, he added, remembering the Yacht Club,
+that perhaps the most accurate description of Pickie would be "the
+Cowes of Ireland." In this way, the reporter, who subsequently became a
+member of parliament and made much money, pleased the harmless vanity
+of the lower, the middle and the upper classes of Pickie; and for a
+time they were "ill to thole" on account of the swollen condition of
+their heads, and it became necessary to utter sneers at "ham-and-egg
+parades" and "the tripper element" and to speak loudly and frequently
+of the superior merits of Portrush, "a really nice place," before they
+could be persuaded to believe that Pickie, like other towns, is
+inhabited by common human beings.
+
+Ballyards never yielded an inch of its pride of place to Millreagh or
+to Pickie. "What's an oul' harbour when there's no boat in it?"
+Ballyards said to Millreagh; and, "Sure, the man makes his livin'
+sellin' sausages!" it said to Pickie when Pickie bragged of the great
+grocer who had joined the Yacht Club in order that he might issue a
+challenge for the Atlantic Cup. Tunnels and attractive seaboards were
+extraneous things that might bring fortune, but could not bring merit,
+to those lucky enough to possess them; but Ballyards had character ...
+its men were meritable men ... and Ballyards would not exchange the
+least of its inhabitants for ten tunnels. Nor did Ballyards abate any
+of its pride before the ancient and indisputable renown of Dunbar,
+which distils a whiskey that has soothed the gullets of millions of men
+throughout the world. When Patrickstown bragged of its long history ...
+it was once the home of the kings of Ulster ... and tried to make the
+world believe that St. Patrick was buried in its cathedral, Ballyards,
+magnificently imperturbed, murmured: "Your population is goin' down!";
+nor does it manifest any respect for Greenry, which has a member of
+parliament to itself and has twice the population of Ballyards. "It's
+an ugly hole," says Ballyards, "an' it's full of Papishes!"
+
+Millreagh and Pickie openly sneer at Ballyards, and Greenry affects to
+be unaware of it, but the pride of Ballyards remains unaltered,
+incapable of being diminished, incapable even of being increased ...
+for pride cannot go to greater lengths than the pride of Ballyards has
+already gone ... and in spite of contention and denial, it asserts,
+invincibly persistent, that it is the finest and most meritabie town in
+Ireland. When sceptics ask for proofs, Ballyards replies, "We don't
+need proofs!" A drunken man said, on a particularly hearty Saturday
+night, that Ballyards was the finest town in the world, but the general
+opinion of his fellow-townsmen was that this claim, while very human,
+was excessively expressed. London, for example, was bigger than
+Ballyards. So was New York!.... The drunken man, when he had recovered
+his sobriety, admitted that this was true, but he contended, and was
+well supported in his contention, that while London and New York might
+be bigger than Ballyards, neither of these cities were inhabited by men
+of such independent spirit as the men of Ballyards. A Ballyards man, he
+asserted, was beholden to no one. Once, and once only, a Millreagh man
+said that a Ballyards man thought he was being independent when he was
+being ill-bred; but Ballyards people would have none of this talk, and,
+after they had severely assaulted him, they drove the Millreagh man
+back to his "stinkin' wee town" and forbade him ever to put his foot in
+Ballyards again. "You know what you'll get if you do. Your head in your
+hands!" was the threat they shouted after him. And surely the wide
+world knows the story ... falsely credited to other places ... which
+every Ballyards child learns in its cradle, of the man who, on being
+rebuked in a foreign city for spitting, said to those who rebuked him,
+"I come from the town of Ballyards, an' I'll spit where I like!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+It was his pride in his birthplace which sometimes made John MacDermott
+hesitate to accept the advice of his Uncle Matthew and listen leniently
+to the advice of his Uncle William. Uncle Matthew urged him to seek his
+fortune in foreign parts, but Uncle William said, "Bedam to foreign
+parts when you can live in Ballyards!" Uncle Matthew, who had never
+been out of Ireland in his life, had much knowledge of the works of
+English writers, and from these works, he had drawn a romantic picture
+of London. The English city, in his imagination, was a place of
+marvellous adventures, far mere wonderful than the ancient city of
+Bagdad or the still more ancient city of Damascus, wherein anything
+might happen to a man who kept his eyes open or, for the matter of
+that, shut. He never tired of reading Mr. Andrew Lang's _Historical
+Mysteries_, and he liked to think of himself suddenly being accosted
+in the street by some dark stranger demanding to know whether he had a
+taste for adventure. Uncle Matthew was not quite certain what he would
+do if such a thing were to happen to him: whether to proclaim himself
+as eager for anything that was odd and queer or to threaten the
+stranger with the police. "You might think a man was going to lead you
+to a hidden place, mebbe, where there'd be a lovely woman waiting to
+receive you, and you blindfolded 'til you were shown into the room
+where she was ... and mebbe you'd be queerly disappointed, for it
+mightn't be that sort of a thing at all, but only some lad trying to
+steal your watch and chain!"
+
+He had heard very unpleasant stories of what he called the Confidence
+Trick, whereby innocent persons were beguiled by seemingly amiable men
+into parting with all their possessions!...
+
+"Of course," he would admit, "you'd never have no adventures at all, if
+you never ran no risks, and mebbe in the end, you do well to chance
+things. It's a queer pity a man never has any adventures in this place.
+Many's and many's a time I've walked the roads, thinking mebbe I'd meet
+someone with a turn that way, but I never in all my born days met
+anything queer or unusual, and I don't suppose I ever will now!"
+
+Uncle Matthew had spoken so sadly and so longingly that John had deeply
+pitied him. "Did you never fall in love with no one, Uncle Matthew?" he
+asked.
+
+"Och, indeed I did, John!" Uncle Matthew replied. "Many's and many's
+the time! Your Uncle William used to make fun of me and sing
+_'Shilly-shally with the wee girls, ha, ha, ha!'_ at me when I was
+a wee lad because I was always running after the young girls and
+sweethearting with them. He never ran after any himself: he was always
+looking for birds' nests or tormenting people with his tricks. He was a
+daft wee fellow for devilment, was your Uncle William, and yet he's
+sobered down remarkably. Sometimes, I think he got more romance out of
+his tormenting and nesting than I got out of my courting, though love's
+a grand thing, John, when you can get it. I was always falling in love,
+but sure what was the good? I never could be content with the way the
+girls talked about furniture and us setting up house together, when all
+the time I was wanting hard to be rescuing them from something. No
+wonder they wouldn't have me in the end, for, of course, it's very
+important to get good furniture and to set up a house somewhere nice
+and snug ... but I never was one for scringing and scrounging ... my
+money always melted away from the minute I got it ... and I couldn't
+bear the look of the furniture-men when you asked them how much it
+would cost to furnish a house on the hire-system!"
+
+He paused for a moment, reflecting perhaps on the pleasures that had
+been missed by him because of his inability to save money and his
+dislike of practical concerns. Then in a brisker tone, as if he were
+consoling himself for his losses, he said, "Oh, well, there's
+consolation for everyone somewhere if they'll only take the trouble to
+look for it, and after all I've had a queer good time reading books!"
+
+"Mebbe, Uncle Matthew," John suggested, "if you'd left Ballyards and
+gone to London, you'd have had a whole lot of adventures!"
+
+"Mebbe I would," Uncle Matthew replied. "Though sometimes I think I'm
+not the sort that has adventures, for there's men in the world would
+find something romantic wherever they went, and I daresay if Lord Byron
+were living here in Ballyards, he'd have the women crying their eyes
+out for him. That was a terrible romantic man, John! Lord Byron! A
+terrible man for falling in love, God bless him!..."
+
+It was Uncle Matthew who urged John to read Shakespeare--"a very
+plain-spoken, knowledgable man, Shakespeare!"--and Lord Byron--"a terrible
+bad lord, John, but a fine courter of girls and a grand poet!"--and
+Herrick--"a queer sort of minister, that man Herrick, but a good poet
+all the same!"--and Dickens. Dickens was the incomparable one who
+filled dull streets with vital figures: Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick and
+Mr. Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby and Mr. Mantalini and Steerforth and
+David Copperfield and Barkis; and terrible figures: Fagan and Bill
+Sykes and Uriah Heap and Squeers and Mr. Murdstone and that fearful man
+who drank so much that he died of spontaneous combustion; and pathetic
+figures: Sidney Carton and Little Nell and Oliver Twist and Nancy and
+Dora and Little Dorritt and the Little Marchioness.
+
+"You'd meet the like of them any minute of the day in London," said
+Uncle Matthew. "You'd mebbe be walking up a street, the Strand, mebbe,
+or in Hyde Park or Whitechapel, and in next to no time at all, you'd
+run into the whole jam-boiling of them. London's the queer place for
+seeing queer people. Never be content, John, when you're a man, to stay
+on in this place where nothing ever happens to anyone, but quit off out
+of it and see the world. There's all sorts in London, black men and
+yellow men, and I wouldn't be surprised but there's a wheen of Red
+Indians, too, with, feathers in their head!...."
+
+"I'd be afeard of them fellows," said John. "They'd scalp you, mebbe!"
+
+"Ah, sure, the peelers wouldn't let them," said Uncle Matthew. "And
+anyway you needn't go near them. They keep that sort down by the Docks
+and never let them near the places where the fine, lovely women live.
+London's the place to see the lovely women, John, all dressed up in
+silk dresses, for that's where the high-up women go ... in the Season,
+they call it ... and they take their young, lovely daughters with them,
+grand wee girls with nice hair and fine complexions and a grand way of
+talking ... to get them married, of course. I read in a book one time,
+there was a young fellow, come of a poor family, was walking in one of
+the parks where the quality-women take their horses every day, and a
+young and lovely girl was riding up and down as nice as you like, when
+all of a sudden her horse ran away with her. The young fellow never
+hesitated for a minute, but jumped over the railings and stopped the
+horse, and the girl was that thankful and pleased, him and her was
+married after. And she was a lord's daughter, John! A very high-up
+lord! She belonged to a queer proud family, but she wasn't too proud to
+fall in love with him, and they had a grand time together!"
+
+"Were they rich?" said John.
+
+Uncle Matthew nodded his head. "It would be a great thing now," he
+said, "if a lord's daughter was to take a fancy to you!..."
+
+"I'd have to be queer and adventurous for the like of that to happen to
+me, Uncle Matthew," John exclaimed. He had never seen a lord's
+daughter, but he had seen Lady Castlederry, a proud and beautiful
+woman, who seemed to be totally unaware of his existence when he passed
+by her on the road.
+
+"Well, and aren't you as fond of adventure as anybody in the wide
+world?" Uncle Matthew retorted.
+
+"Indeed, that's true," John admitted, "but then I never had any
+adventures in my born days, and you yourself would like to have one,
+but you've never had any!"
+
+Uncle Matthew sat quietly in his chair for a few moments. Then he drew
+his nephew close to him and stroked his hair.
+
+"Come here 'til I whisper to you," he said. "D'you know why I never had
+any adventures, John?"
+
+"No, Uncle Matthew, I do not!'
+
+"Well, I'll tell you then, though I never admitted it to anyone else in
+the world, and I'll mebbe never admit it again. I never had any because
+I was afraid to have them!"
+
+"Afeard, Uncle Matthew?" John exclaimed. He had net yet trimmed his
+tongue to say "afraid."
+
+"Aye, son, heart-afraid. There's many a fine woman I'd have run away
+with, only I was afraid mebbe I'd be caught. You'll never have no
+adventures if you're afraid to have them, that's a sure and certain
+thing!"
+
+John struggled out of his Uncle's embrace and turned squarely to face
+him.
+
+"I'm not afeard, Uncle Matthew," he asserted.
+
+"Are you not, son?"
+
+"I'm not afeard of anything. I'd give anybody their cowardy-blow!..."
+
+"There's few people in the world can say that, John!" Uncle Matthew
+said.
+
+
+
+III
+
+People often said of Uncle Matthew that he was "quare in the head," but
+John had never noticed anything queer about him. Mrs. MacDermott,
+finding her son in the attic where Uncle Matthew kept his books,
+reading an old, torn copy of Smollett's translation of _Gil Blas_,
+had said to him, "Son, dear, quit reading them oul' books, do, or
+you'll have your mind moidhered like your Uncle Matthew!"
+
+And Willie Logan, tormenting him once because he had refused to
+acknowledge his leadership, had called after him that his Uncle Matthew
+was astray in the mind. It was a very great satisfaction to John that
+just as Willie Logan uttered his taunt, Uncle William came round
+McCracken's corner and heard it. Uncle William, a hasty, robust man,
+had clouted Willie Logon's head for him and sent him home howling.
+
+"Go home and learn your manners," he had shouted at the blubbering boy.
+"Go home and learn your manners, you ill-bred brat, you!"
+
+Uncle William had spoken very gravely and tenderly to John after that
+affair, as they walked home together. "Never let anyone make little of
+your Uncle Matthew!" he had said to his nephew. "He's a well-read man,
+for all his queer talk, and many's a wise thing he says when you're not
+expecting it. I never was much of a one for trusting to books
+myself.... I couldn't give my mind to them somehow ... but I have a
+great respect for books, all the same. It isn't every man can spare the
+time for learning or has the inclination for it, but we can all pay
+respect to them that has, whatever sort of an upbringing we've got!"
+
+It was then that John MacDermott learned to love his Uncle William
+almost as much as he loved his Uncle Matthew. He had always liked Uncle
+William ... for he was his uncle, of course, and a kind man in spite of
+his rough, quick ways and sharp words ... but Uncle Matthew had
+commanded his love. There had been times when he almost disliked Uncle
+William ... the times when Uncle William made fun of Uncle Matthew's
+romantic talk. John would be sitting in front of the kitchen fire,
+before the lamp was lit, listening while his Uncle Matthew told him
+stories of high, romantical things, of adventures in aid of beautiful
+women, and of life freely given for noble purposes, until he was
+wrought up into an ecstasy of selflessness and longing ... and then
+Uncle William would come into the kitchen from the shop, stumbling,
+perhaps, in the dark, and swear because the lamp was not lit.
+
+Once, after he had listened for a few moments to one of Uncle Matthew's
+tales, he had laughed bitterly and said, "I declare to my good God, but
+you'd be in a queer way, the whole pack of you, if I was to quit the
+shop and run up and down the world looking for adventures and women in
+distress. I tell you, the pair of you, it's a queer adventure taking
+care of a shop and making it prosper and earning the keep of the house.
+There's no lovely woman hiding behind the counter 'til the young lord
+comes and delivers her, but by the Holy Smoke, there's a terrible lot
+of hard work!"
+
+It had seemed to John then, as he contemplated his Uncle Matthew's
+doleful face and listened to his plaintive admission, "I know I'm no
+help to you!" that his Uncle William was a cruel-hearted man, and in
+his anger he could have struck him. But now, after the affair with
+Willie Logan and the talk about Uncle Matthew, and remembering, too,
+that Uncle William was always very gentle with Uncle Matthew, even
+though his words were sometimes rough, he felt that his heart had ample
+room inside it for this rough, bearded man who made so few demands on
+the affection of his family, and deserved so much.
+
+John knew that his Uncle William and his mother shared the common
+belief that Uncle Matthew was "quare," but, although he had often
+thought about the matter, he could not understand why people held this
+opinion. It was true that Uncle Matthew had been dismissed from the
+Ballyards National School, in which he had been an assistant teacher,
+but when John considered the circumstances in which Uncle Matthew had
+been dismissed, he felt satisfied that his uncle, so far from having
+behaved foolishly, had behaved with great courage and chivalry. Uncle
+Matthew, so the story went, had been in Belfast a few days after the
+day on which Queen Victoria had died, and had stopped in Royal Avenue
+for a few moments to read an advertisement which was exhibited in the
+window of a haberdasher's shop. These are the words which he read in
+the advertisement:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WE MOURN
+
+OUR
+
+DEPARTED QUEEN
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MOURNING ORDERS PROMPTLY
+
+EXECUTED
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had read through the advertisement twice, Uncle Matthew broke
+the haberdasher's window!
+
+He was seized by a policeman, and in due time was brought before the
+magistrates who, in addition to fining him and compelling him to pay
+for the damage he had done, caused the Resident Magistrate to admonish
+him not merely for breaking the window and interfering with the
+business of a respectable merchant, but also for offering a frivolous
+excuse for his behaviour. Uncle Matthew had said that he broke the
+window as a protest against a counterjumper's traffic in a nation's
+grief. "I loved the Queen, sir," he said, "and I couldn't bear to see
+her death treated like that!" This was more than the Magistrates could
+endure, and the Resident Magistrate made an impatient gesture and said,
+"Tch, tch, tch!" with his tongue against his palate. He went on to say
+that Uncle Matthew's loyalty to the Throne was very touching, very
+touching, indeed, especially in these days when a lot of people seemed
+to have very little respect for the Royal Family. He thought that his
+brother-magistrates would agree with him. ("Hear, hear!" and "Oh, yes,
+yes!" and an "Ulster was always noted for its loyalty to the Queen!"
+from his brother-magistrates.) But all the same, there had to be
+moderation and reason in everything. It would never do if people were
+to go about the country breaking other people's windows in the name of
+patriotism. It was bad enough to have a pack of Nationalists and
+Papists going about the country, singing disloyal songs and terrorising
+peaceable, lawabiding loyalists, without members of respected
+Protestant and Unionist families like the prisoner ... for Uncle
+Matthew was in the dock of the Custody Court and had spent the night in
+a cell ... imitating their behaviour in the name of loyalty. He had
+taken into the consideration the fact that the prisoner had acted from
+the best motives and not from any feeling of disaffection to the
+Throne, and also the fact that he belongs to a respectable family, and
+so he would not send him to gaol. He gave him the option of paying a
+fine, together with costs and the bill for repairing the window, or of
+going to prison for one calendar month; and he warned the public that
+any other person who broke a window, however loyal he might be, would
+be sent to gaol without the option of a fine.
+
+Uncle Matthew had turned to where Uncle William was sitting with the
+family solicitor in the well of the court, and Uncle William had nodded
+his head comfortingly. Then the warder had opened the door in the side
+of the dock, and Uncle Matthew had stepped out of the place of shame
+into the company of the general public. The solicitor had attended to
+the payment of the fine and the cost of repairing the fractured glass,
+and then Uncle William had led Uncle Matthew away. Someone had tittered
+at Uncle Matthew as they passed up the steps of the court towards the
+door, and Uncle William, disregarding the fact that he was in a court
+of law, had turned on him very fiercely, and had said "Damn your
+sowl!..." but a policeman, saying "S-s-sh!", had bustled him out of the
+court before he could complete his threat. And an old woman, with a
+shawl happed about her head, had gazed after Uncle Matthew and said,
+"The poor creature! Sure, he's not right!"
+
+The arrest and trial of Uncle Matthew had created a great scandal in
+Ballyards, and responsible people went about saying that he had always
+been "quare" and was getting "quarer." Willie Logan's father had even
+talked of the asylum. Whose windows, he demanded, were safe when, a
+fellow like that was let loose on the town? Uncle William had gone to
+see Mr. Logan ... no one knew quite what he said to that merchant ...
+but it was evident ever after that he had accepted Uncle William's
+advice to keep a civil tongue in his head. The Reverend Mr. McCaughan,
+who was manager of the Ballyards National School, went specially to the
+house of Mr. Cairnduff, the headmaster of the school, to consult him on
+the subject. He said that something would have to be done about the
+matter. The MacDermotts, he said, were a highly-respected family ... a
+MacDermott had been an elder of the church for generations past... and
+he would be very sorry, very sorry, indeed to do anything to upset
+them, but it was neither right nor reasonable to expect parents to rest
+content while their children were taught their lessons by a man who was
+both queer in his manner and very nearly a criminal ... for after all,
+he had spent a night in a prison-cell and had stood in the dock where
+thieves and forgers and wife-beaters and even murderers had stood!
+
+Mr. Cairnduff was in complete agreement with Mr. McCaughan. He, too,
+had the greatest respect for the MacDermotts ... no man could help
+having respect for them ... and he might add that he had the greatest
+possible respect for Matthew MacDermott himself ... a well-read and a
+kindly man, though a wee bit, just a _wee_ bit unbalanced
+mebbe!...
+
+"Aye, but it's that wee bit that makes all the difference, Mr.
+Cairnduff!" said the minister, interrupting the schoolmaster.
+
+"It is," Mr. Cairnduff agreed. "You're right there, Mr. McCaughan. You
+are, indeed. All the same, though, I would not like to be a party to
+anything that would hurt the feelings of a MacDermott, and if it could
+be arranged in some way that Matthew should retire from the profession
+through ill-health or something, with a wee bit of a pension, mebbe, to
+take the bad look off the thing... well, I for one would not be against
+it!"
+
+"You've taken the words out of my mouth," said the minister. "I had it
+in my mind that if something of the kind could be arranged!..."
+
+"It would be the best for all concerned," said Mr. Cairnduff.
+
+But it had not been possible to arrange something of the kind. The
+member for the Division was not willing to use his influence with the
+National Board of Education in Uncle Matthew's behalf. He remembered
+that Uncle Matthew, during an election, had interrupted him in a
+recital of his services to the Queen, by a reminder that he was only a
+militia man, and that rough, irreverent lads, who treated an election
+as an opportunity for skylarking instead of improving their minds, had
+followed him about his constituency, jeering at him for "a mileeshy
+man." Uncle Matthew, too, had publicly declared that Parnell was the
+greatest man that had ever lived in Ireland and was worth more than the
+whole of the Ulster Unionist members of parliament put together...
+which was, of course, very queer doctrine to come from a member of an
+Ulster Unionist and Protestant family. The member for the Division
+could not agree with Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff that the
+MacDermotts were a bulwark of the Constitution. Matthew MacDermott's
+brother... the one who was dead... had been a queer sort of a fellow.
+Lady Castlederry had complained of him more than once!... No, he was
+sorry that, much as he should like to oblige Mr. McCaughan and Mr.
+Cairnduff, he could not consent to use his influence to get the Board
+to pension Matthew MacDermott....
+
+"That man's a blether!" said the minister, as he and the schoolmaster
+came away from the member's house. "He won't use his influence with the
+Board because he hasn't got any. We'd have done better, mebbe, to go to
+a Nationalist M.P. Those fellows have more power in their wee fingers
+than our men have in their whole bodies. I wonder, now, could we
+persuade Matthew to send in his resignation. I can't bear to think of
+the Board dismissing him!"
+
+Uncle William solved their problem for them. "Don't bother your heads
+about him," he said when they informed him of their trouble. "I'll
+provide for him right enough. He'll send in his resignation to you the
+night, Mr. McCaughan. I'm sure, we're all queer and obliged to you for
+the trouble you have taken in the matter."
+
+"Ah, not at all, not at all," they said together.
+
+"And I'll not forget it to either of you, you can depend on that. I
+daresay Matthew'll be a help to me in the shop!..."
+
+Thus it was that, unpensioned and in the shadow of disgrace, Uncle
+Matthew left the service of the National Board of Education.
+
+John admitted to himself, though he would hardly have admitted it to
+anyone else, that his Uncle Matthew's behaviour had been very unusual.
+He could not, when invited to do so, imagine either Mr. McCaughan or
+Mr. Cairnduff breaking the windows of a haberdasher's shop because of
+an advertisement which showed, in the opinion of some reputable people,
+both feeling and enterprise. Nevertheless, he did not consider that
+Uncle Matthew, on that occasion, had proved himself to be lacking in
+mental balance. He said that it was a pity that people were not more
+ready than they were to break windows, and he was inclined to think
+that Uncle Matthew, instead of being forcibly retired from the school,
+ought to have been promoted to a better position.
+
+"If you go on talking that way," his mother said to him, "people'll
+think you're demented mad!"
+
+
+"I wouldn't change my Uncle Matthew for the whole world," John stoutly
+replied.
+
+"No one's asking you to change him," Mrs. MacDermott retorted. "All
+we're asking you to do, is not to go about imitating him with his
+romantic talk!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+John did not wish to imitate his Uncle Matthew ... he did not wish to
+imitate anyone ... for, although he could not discover that "quareness"
+in him which other people professed to discover, yet when he saw how
+inactive Uncle Matthew was, how dependent he was on Uncle William and,
+to a less extent, on Mrs. MacDermott, and how he seemed to shrink from
+things in life, which, when he read about them in books, enthralled
+him, John felt that if he were to model his behaviour on that of anyone
+else, it must not be on the behaviour of Uncle Matthew. Uncle William
+had a quick, decided manner ... he knew exactly what he wanted and
+often contrived to get what he wanted. John remembered that his Uncle
+William had said to him once, "John, boy, if I want a thing and I can't
+get it, I give up wanting it!"
+
+"But you can't help wanting things, Uncle William," John had protested.
+
+"No, boy, you can't" Uncle William had retorted, "but the Almighty
+God's given you the sense to understand the difference between wanting
+things you can get and wanting things you can't get, and He leaves it
+to you to use your sense. Do you never suppose that I want something
+strange and wonderful to happen to me the same as your Uncle Matthew
+there, that sits dreaming half the day over books? What would become of
+you all, your ma and your Uncle Matthew and you, if I was to do the
+like of that I? Where would your Uncle Matthew get the money to buy
+books to dream over if it wasn't for me giving up my dreams?..."
+
+John's heart had suddenly filled with pity for his Uncle William whom
+he saw as a thwarted man, an angel expelled from heaven, reduced from a
+proud position in a splendid society to the dull work of one who
+maintains others by small, but prolonged, efforts. He felt ashamed of
+himself and of Uncle Matthew ... even, for a few moments, of his
+mother. Here was Uncle William, working from dawn until dark, denying
+himself this pleasure and that, refusing to go to the "shore" with them
+in the summer on the assertion that he was a strong man and did not
+need holidays ... doing all this in order that he might maintain three
+people in comfort and ... yes, idleness! Mrs. MacDermott might be
+excluded from the latter charge, for she attended to the house and the
+cooking, but how could Uncle Matthew and himself expect to escape from
+it? Uncle Matthew had more hope than he had, for Uncle Matthew
+sometimes balanced the books for Uncle William, and did odds and ends
+about the shop. He would write out the accounts in a very neat hand and
+would deliver them, too. But John made no efforts at all. He was the
+complete idler, living on his Uncle's bounty, and making no return for
+it.
+
+He was now in his second year of monitorship at the school where his
+Uncle Matthew had been a teacher, and was in receipt of a few pounds
+per annum to indicate that he was more than a pupil; but the few pounds
+were insufficient to maintain him ... he knew that ... and even if they
+had been sufficient, he was well aware of the fact that his Uncle
+William had insisted that the whole of his salary should be placed in
+the Post Office Savings Bank for use when he had reached manhood.... He
+made a swift resolve, when this consciousness came upon him: he would
+quit the school and enter the business, so that he could be of help to
+his Uncle William.
+
+"Will you let me leave the school, Uncle?" he said. "I'm tired of the
+teaching, and I'd like well to go into the shop with you!"
+
+Uncle William did not answer for a little while. He was adding up a
+column of figures in the day-book, and John could hear him counting
+quietly to himself. "And six makes fifty-four... six and carry four!"
+he said entering the figures in pencil at the foot of the column.
+
+"What's that you say, John, boy?"
+
+"I want to leave school and come into the shop and help you," John
+answered.
+
+"God love you, son, what put that notion into your head?"
+
+"I don't want to be a burden to you, Uncle William!"
+
+"A burden to me!" Uncle William swung round on the high office stool
+and regarded his nephew intently. "Man, dear, you're no burden to me!
+Look at the strength of me! Feel them muscles, will you?" He held out
+his tightened arm as he spoke. "Do you think a wee fellow like you
+could be a burden to a man with muscles like them, as hard as iron?"
+
+But John was not to be put off by talk of that sort. "You know rightly
+what I mean," he said. "You never get no rest at all, and here's me
+still at the school!..."
+
+"Ah, wheesht with you, boy!" Uncle William interrupted. "What sort of
+talk is this? You will not leave the school, young man! The learning
+you're getting will do you a world of benefit, even if you never go on
+with the teachering. You're a lucky wee lad, so you are, to be getting
+paid to go to school. There was no free learning when I was a child, I
+can tell you. Your grandda had to pay heavy for your da and your Uncle
+Matthew and me. Every Monday morning, we had to carry our fees to the
+master. Aye, and bring money for coal in the winter or else carry a few
+sods of turf with us if we hadn't the money for it. That was what
+children had to do when I was your age, John. I tell you there's a
+queer differs these times between schooling from what there was when I
+was a scholar, and you'd be the great gumph if you didn't take
+advantage of your good fortune!"
+
+"But I'd like to _help_ you, Uncle William. Do you not understand
+me? I want to be doing something for you!" John insisted.
+
+"I understand you well enough, son. You've been moidhering your mind
+about me, but sure there's no call for you to do that. No call at all!
+Now, not another word out of your head! I've said my say on that
+subject, and I'll say no more. Go on with your learning, and when
+you've had your fill of it, we'll see what's to be done with you. How
+much is twelve and nine?"
+
+"Twenty-one, Uncle William!"
+
+"Twenty-one!" said Uncle William, at his day-book again. "Nine and
+carry one!..."
+
+In this way Uncle William settled John's offer to serve in the shop,
+and restored learning and literature to his affection and esteem. John
+had not given in so easily as the reader may imagine. He had insisted
+that his Uncle William worked much too hard, had even hinted that Uncle
+Matthew spent more time over books than he spent over "_the_
+books," the day-book and the ledger; but his Uncle William had firmly
+over-ruled him.
+
+"Books are of more account to your Uncle Matthew than an oul' ledger
+any day," he said, "and it'll never be said that I prevented him from
+reading them. We all get our happiness in different ways, John, and it
+would be a poor thing to prevent a man from getting his happiness in
+his way just because it didn't happen to be your way. Books are your
+Uncle Matthew's heart's-idol, and I wouldn't stop him from them for the
+wide world!"
+
+"But he does nothing, Uncle William," John said, intent on justice,
+even when it reflected on his beloved Uncle.
+
+"I know, but sure the heart was taken out of him that time when he was
+arrested for breaking the man's window. It was a terrible shock to him,
+that, and he never overed it. You must just let things go on as they're
+going. I don't believe you'll foe content to be a teacher. Not for one
+minute do I believe that. But whatever you turn out to be, it'll be no
+harm to have had the extra schooling you're getting, so you'll stay on
+a monitor for a while longer. And now quit talking, do, or you'll have
+me deafened with your clatter!"
+
+Uncle William always put down attempts to combat his will by
+assertions of that sort.
+
+"Are you angry with me, Uncle William?" John anxiously asked.
+
+"Angry with you, son?" He swung round again on the high stool. "Come
+here 'til I show you whether I am or not!"
+
+And then Uncle William gathered him up in his arms and crushed the
+boy's face into his beard. "God love you, John," he said, "how could I
+be angry with you, and you your da's son!"
+
+"I love you queer and well, Uncle," John murmured shyly.
+
+"Do you, son? I'm glad to hear that."
+
+"Aye. And I love my Uncle Matthew, too!..."
+
+"That's right. Always love your Uncle Matthew whatever you do or
+whatever happens. He's a man that has more need of love nor most of us.
+Your da loved him well, John!"
+
+"Did he?"
+
+"Aye, he did, indeed!" Uncle William put his pen down on the desk, and
+leaning against the ledger, rested his head in the cup of his hand.
+"Your da was a strange man, John," he said, "a queer, strange man, with
+a powerful amount of knowledge in his head. That man could write Latin
+and Greek and French and German, and he was the first man in Ballyards
+to write the Irish language ... and them was the days when people said
+Irish was a Papist language, and would have nothing to do with it. Your
+da never paid no heed to anyone... he just did what he wanted to do, no
+matter what anyone said or who was against him. Many's the time I've
+heard him give the minister his answer, and the high-up people, too.
+When Lord Castlederry came bouncing into the town, ordering people to
+do this or to do that, just because the Queen's grandson was coming to
+the place, your da stood up fornenst him and said, as bold as brass,
+'The people of this town are not Englishmen, my lord, to be ordered
+about like dogs! They're Ballyards men, and a Ballyards man never bent
+the knee to no one!' That was what your da said to him, and Lord
+Castlederry never forgot it and never forgave it neither, but he could
+do no harm to us, for the MacDermotts owned land and houses in
+Ballyards before ever a Castlederry put his foot in the place. He was a
+proud man your da, with a terrible quick temper, but as kindly-natured
+a man as ever drew breath. Your ma thinks long for him many's a time,
+though I think there were whiles he frightened her. Your Uncle Matthew
+and me is poor company for her after living with a man like that."
+
+"Am I like my da, Uncle William! My ma says sometimes I am ... when
+she's angry with me!"
+
+"Sometimes you're like him and sometimes you're like her. You'll be a
+great fellow, John, if you turn out to be like your da. I tell you,
+boy, he was a man, and there's few men these times ... only a lot of
+oul' Jinny-joes, stroking their beards and looking terrible wise over
+ha'penny bargains!"
+
+"And then he died, Uncle William!"
+
+"Aye, son, he died. You were just two years old when he died, a little,
+wee child just able to walk and talk. I mind it well. He called me into
+the bedroom where he was lying, and he bid the others leave me alone
+with him. Your ma didn't want to go, but he wouldn't let her stay, and
+so she went, too. 'William,' he said, when the door was shut behind
+them, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' Them was his very
+words, John, 'I depend on you to look after them all!' I couldn't
+answer him, so I just nodded my head. He didn't say anything more for a
+wee while, but lay back in the bed and breathed hard, for he was in
+pain, and couldn't breathe easy. Then, after a wee while, he looked
+round at me, and he said, 'I'm only thirty-one, William, and I'm dying.
+And oul' Peter Clancy up the street, that's been away in the head since
+he was a child, is over sixty years of age!... I thought he was going
+to spring out of the bed when he said that, the temper come over him so
+quick and sudden, but I held him down and begged him to control
+himself, and he quietened himself. I heard him saying, half under his
+breath, 'And God thinks He knows how to rule the world!' He died that
+night, rebellious to the end!... He said he depended on me to look
+after you all, and I've tried hard, John, as hard as I could!"
+
+His voice quavered, and he turned away from his nephew. "Your da was my
+hero," he said. "I'd have shed my heart's blood for him. It was hard
+that him that was the best of us should be the first to go!"
+
+John stood by his uncle's side, very moved by his distress, but not
+knowing what to do to comfort him.
+
+"My da would be queer and proud of you, Uncle William," he said at
+last, "queer and proud if he could see you!"
+
+But Uncle William did not answer nor did he look round.
+
+
+
+V
+
+It was understood, after that conversation between John and his Uncle
+William, that the boy should remain at school for a year or two longer,
+working as a monitor, not in order that he might become a schoolmaster,
+but so that he might equip his mind with knowledge. Mrs. MacDermott
+wished her son to become a minister. It would be the proudest day of
+her life, she said, if she could see John standing in a pulpit,
+preaching a sermon. Who knew but that he might be one day be the
+minister of the Ballyards First Presbyterian Church itself, the very
+church in which his family had worshipped their God for generations.
+
+John, however, had no wish to be a minister.
+
+"You have to be queer and good to be one," he said, "and I'm not as
+good as all that!"
+
+"Well, mebbe, you'll get better as you get older," Mrs. MacDermott
+insisted.
+
+"I might get worse," he replied. "It would be a fearful thing to be a
+minister, and then find out you wanted to commit a sin!"
+
+"Ministers is like ourselves, John," Mrs. MacDermott said, "and I
+daresay Mr. McCaughan sometimes wants to do wicked things, for all he's
+such a good man, and has to pray to God many's a while for the strength
+to resist temptation. That doesn't prove he's not fit to be a minister.
+It only shows he understands our nature all the more because he has
+temptations himself!"
+
+But John would not be convinced by her arguments. "I don't know, ma!"
+he said. "If I wanted to be wicked, I'm afraid I'd be it, so don't ask
+me to be a minister for I'd mebbe disgrace you with my carryings-on!"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott had been deeply hurt by his refusal to consider the
+ministry.
+
+"Anybody'd think to hear you," she said, "that you'd made up your mind
+to lead a sinful life. As if a MacDermott couldn't conquer his sins
+better nor anybody else!"
+
+His mother, he often observed, spoke more boastfully of the MacDermotts
+than either his Uncle William or his Uncle Matthew.
+
+John's final, overwhelming retort to her was this: "Would my da have
+liked me to be a minister?"
+
+"I never knew what your da liked," she retorted; "I only knew what he
+did!..."
+
+"Do you think he would have liked me to be a minister?" John persisted.
+
+"Mebbe he wouldn't, but he's not here now!..."
+
+"You wouldn't do behind his back what you'd be afraid to do fornenst
+his face, would you?"
+
+"You've no right to talk to me that way. I'm your mother!..."
+
+"You knew rightly he wouldn't have liked it," John continued,
+inexorably.
+
+And then Mrs. MacDermott yielded.
+
+"You're your da over again," she complained. "He always had his way in
+the end, whatever was against him. What _do_ you want to be, then,
+when you grow up?"
+
+"I don't know yet, ma. I only know the things I don't want to be, and
+teaching is one of them. And a minister's another! Mebbe I'll know in a
+wee while!"
+
+He did not like to tell her that in his heart he wished to go in search
+of adventures. His Uncle Matthew's imaginings had filled his mind with
+romantic desires, and he longed to leave Ballyards and go somewhere ...
+anywhere, so long as it was a difficult and distant place ... where he
+would have to contend with dangers. There were times when he felt that
+he must instantly pack a bundle of clothes into a red handkerchief ...
+he could buy one at Conn's, the draper's ... and run away from home and
+stow himself in the hold of a big ship bound for America or Australia
+or some place like that ... and was only prevented from doing so by his
+fear that his mother and uncles would be deeply grieved by his flight.
+"It would look as if they hadn't been kind to me," he said in
+remonstrance to himself, "and that wouldn't be fair to them!" But
+although he did not run away from home, he still kept the strong desire
+in his heart to go out into a dangerous and bewildering world and seek
+fortune and adventures. "I want to fight things," he said to himself.
+"I want to fight things and, ... and win!"
+
+Mixed up with his desire for adventure was a vision of a beautiful girl
+to whom he should offer his love and service. He could not picture her
+clearly to himself ... none of the girls in Ballyards bore the
+slightest resemblance to her. Sometimes, indeed, he thought that this
+beautiful girl was like Lady Castlederry ... only Lady Castlederry,
+somehow, although she was so very lovely, had a cold stupid look in her
+eyes, and he was very certain that this beautiful girl had bright,
+alert eyes.
+
+There had been a passage of love-making between Aggie Logan and him,
+conducted entirely by Aggie Logan. She had taken him aside one day, in
+the middle of a game of "I spy," and had said to him "Will you court
+me, Johnnie?"
+
+"No," he had replied.
+
+"Do you not love me then?" she enquired.
+
+"No," he said again.
+
+"But I want you to court me," she persisted.
+
+"I don't care what you want," he retorted. "I won't court you because I
+don't want to court you. I don't like you. You're too much of a girner
+for me!"
+
+"I'm not a girner," she protested.
+
+"You are. You start crying the minute anything happens to you or if
+people won't do what you want them to do. I wouldn't marry a girner for
+the wide world!"
+
+"I won't girn any more if you'll court me," she promised.
+
+"I daresay," he replied skeptically.
+
+She considered for a moment or two. "Well, if you won't court me," she
+said, "I'll let Andy Cairnduff court me!"
+
+"He can have you," said John, undismayed by the prospect of the
+schoolmaster's son as a rival.
+
+She stood before him for a little while, without speaking. Then she
+turned and walked a little distance from him. She stopped, with her
+back turned towards him, and he knew by the way her head was bent, that
+she was thinking out a way of retaliating on him. The end of her
+pinafore was in her mouth!... She turned to him sharply, letting the
+pinafore fall from her lips, and pointing at him with her finger, she
+began to laugh shrilly.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" she said. "I have you quarely gunked!"
+
+"Gunked!" he exclaimed, unable to see how he had been hoaxed.
+
+"Yes," she answered. "I gunked you nicely. You thought I wanted you to
+court me, but I was only having you on. Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+He burst out laughing. "I that consoles you," he said; "you're welcome
+to it!"
+
+Then she ran away and would not play "I spy" or "Tig" any more.
+
+He had not told his mother of that passage of love with Aggie Logan. It
+did not occur to him to tell anything to his mother. His instinct,
+indeed, was not to tell things to her, to conceal them from her.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+If anyone had said to him that he did not love his mother as much as he
+loved his Uncle Matthew and his Uncle William, he would have been very
+angry. Not love his mother more than anyone else on earth!... Only a
+blow could make a proper answer to such a charge. Nevertheless his
+mother was associated in his mind with acts of repression, with
+forbidding and restraint. She seemed always to be telling him not to do
+things. When he wanted to go to the Lough with Willie Logan to play
+Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday or to light a bonfire in Teeshie
+McBratney's field with shavings from Galpin's mill in the pretence that
+he was a Red Indian preparing for a war-dance, it was his mother who
+said that he was not to do it. He might fall into the water and get
+drowned, she said, or, he might fall into the fire and get roasted to
+death. As if he were not capable of controlling a raft or a bonfire!...
+
+He felt, too, that sometimes she punished him unjustly. When the Logans
+and he had played Buffalo Bill and the Red Indians attacking the
+defenceless pale-face woman, he had had a fierce argument with Willie
+Logan about the part of Buffalo Bill. Willie, being older, had claimed
+the part for himself, and, when denied the right to it, had declared
+that neither Aggie nor he would play in the game. Then a compromise had
+been arranged: Willie was allowed to play the part of Buffalo Bill and
+to slay the Red Indian on condition that John, before being slain,
+should be allowed to scalp the helpless pale-face woman. He scalped her
+so severely, by tugging tightly at her long hair, that she began to
+cry, and Willie, more conscious of the fact that he was Aggie's brother
+than that he was Buffalo Bill, bore down upon John and gave him his
+"cowardy-blow." They fought a fierce and bitter fight, and in the end,
+Willie went home with a bleeding nose, and John went home with a black
+eye.
+
+Willie had not played the man over that affair. He went to his mother
+and complained of John's selfish and brutal behaviour, alleging that he
+had suffered terrible punishment in a chivalrous effort to protect his
+sister from ruffianly assault; and his mother, a thin, acidulous woman,
+whose voice was half snarl and half whine, carried her son's complaint
+to Mrs. MacDermott.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott had not stopped to enquire into the truth of the charge
+against John beyond asking if it were true that he had pulled Aggie
+Logan's hair and fought with Willie Logan. John had replied "Yes, ma!"
+That was sufficient for Mrs. MacDermott, that and the testimony of
+John's discoloured eye, and she had beaten him with the leather tawse
+that was kept hanging from a nail at the side of the fireplace. "That
+my son should do the like of that!" she said over and over again until
+a cold fury of resentment against her had formed in his heart. It was
+true that he had pulled Aggie's hair much harder than he ought to have
+done, but he had not intended to hurt her. What he had done, had been
+done, not out of malice, but in the excitement of the game; and it was
+not fair to beat him so severely for so little a thing as that. He
+would not cry ... he would not give his mother the satisfaction of
+hearing him cry, although the lashing he was receiving was hurting his
+bare pelt very sorely. She could keep on saying, "That my son should do
+the like of that!" but he would not mind her....
+
+Then, as if she understood his thoughts and perceived that he was
+unmoved by her outraged feelings, she had changed her complaint against
+him. Glancing up at the portrait of her husband which was hanging over
+the fireplace, she said, "That your father's son should do the like of
+that!" Compunction came to him then. He, too, looked up at the portrait
+of his father, and suddenly he wanted to cry. The pale face, made more
+pale in appearance by the thick, black beard, and having the faded look
+which photographs of the dead seem always to have, appeared to him to
+be alive and full of reproach, and the big burning eyes, aflame, they
+looked, with the consuming thing that took his life, had anger in them,
+anger against him!...
+
+He had not any regret for hurting Aggie Logan ... he did not believe
+that he had hurt her any more severely than was necessary for the
+purposes of the game, and even if he had hurt her, she ought to have
+borne it as part of the pretence ... he did not care whether he had
+hurt her or not, for she was a "cry-ba" at all times, ready to "girn"
+at anything ... but he had sorrow at the thought that he had done
+something of which his father might have disapproved. Mrs. MacDermott,
+with that penetration which is part of the nature of people who are
+accustomed to yield to stronger personalities had discovered that she
+could win John to her obedience by reminding him of his father; and she
+used her power without pity. "What would your father think of you, if
+he knew!" she would say.
+
+She was not a hard or a cruel woman ... she was very kind and loved her
+son with a long clutching love ... but her life with her husband had
+contained so many disturbances of comfortable courses, thrilling enough
+at the time, but terrifying when viewed in retrospect, that her nature,
+inclined to quiet, fixed ways and to acceptance, with slight
+resistance, of whatever came to her, made all the efforts that were
+possible to it to keep her life and her son's life in peace. She hated
+change of any sort, whether of circumstances or of friends, and she
+loved old, familiar things. The tradition of the MacDermotts, their
+life in one place for generations and the respect with which they were
+greeted by their townsmen, gave immense pleasure to her, and her
+dearest dream was that John should continue in the place where his
+forefathers had lived, and that his son and his son's son should
+continue there, too!
+
+And so it was that she was always telling John not to do things. She
+loathed Uncle Matthew's romances and his talk of adventures in foreign
+parts, and she insisted that he was "away in the mind" when her son
+spoke of him to her. She tried to make the boy walk inconspicuously, to
+keep, always, in the background, to do only those things that were
+generally approved of. His quick temper, his haste with his fists, his
+habit of contradicting even those who were older than he was, his
+unwillingness to admit that he was in the wrong ... all these disturbed
+and frightened her. They would lead him into disputes and set him up in
+opposition to other people. His delight in the story of his father's
+encounter with Lord Castlederry troubled her, and she tried to convince
+her son that Lord Castlederry was a well-meaning man, but, as she knew,
+without success. She had delighted in her husband's great courage and
+self-sufficiency, his sureness, his strong decision and his
+unconquerable pride and independence ... but now, in contemplation,
+these things frightened her ... she wondered sometimes why it was that
+they had not frightened her in his lifetime ... and the thought that
+she might have to live again in contention and opposition roused all
+her strength to resist that fate. She had lived down much of the
+dislike that her husband had aroused. It was not necessary now to
+pretend that she did not see people, that she might escape from the
+mortification of being stared at, without a sign of recognition; and
+she would not lightly yield up her comfortable situation. If only she
+could only persuade John to become a minister! There was nothing in
+that to frighten her: there was everything to make her feel content and
+proud.
+
+When she took John to Belfast, she made the holiday, so eagerly
+anticipated, a mortification to him. While they were in the train, she
+would tell him not to climb on to the seat of the carriage to look out
+of the window at the telegraph-poles flying past and the telegraph-wires
+rising and falling like birds ... she would tell him not to stand
+at the door in case it should fly open and he should fall out and be
+killed ... she would tell him, when the train reached the terminus in
+Belfast, to take tight hold of her hand and not to budge from her
+side ... she would refuse to cross the Lagan in the steam ferry-boat and
+insist on going round by tram-car across the Queen's Bridge ... she
+would tell him not to wander about in Forster Green's when he edged
+away from her to look at the coffee-mills in which the richly-smelling
+berries were being roasted. When she took him to Linden's to tea ...
+Linden's which made cakes for the Queen and had the Royal Arms over the
+door of the shop! ... she spoiled the treat for him by refusing to let
+him sit on one of the stools at the counter and eat his "cookies" like
+a man: she made him sit by her side at a table ... an ordinary table
+such as anyone could sit on anywhere ... at home, even!
+
+His Uncle William had taken him up to Belfast one market-day, and that
+Friday was made memorable to him forever because his Uncle had said to
+him, "Well, boy, what would you like to do?" and had consented, without
+demur, to cross the Lagan in the ferry-boat. Uncle William had not
+clutched at him all the time in fear lest he should fall into the river
+and be drowned, and had allowed him to stand at the end of the boat and
+watch the swirl of the water against the ferry-steps when they reached
+the Antrim side. He had said to him, too, "I've a wee bit of business
+to attend to, boy, that'll not interest you much. Would you like to
+stay here in the market for an hour by yourself while I go and do it?"
+
+Would he like?...
+
+And not one word about taking great care of himself or of not doing
+this or doing that ... of keeping away from the horse-fair, and not
+going too near the cattle. Uncle William trusted him, took it for
+granted that he was capable of looking after himself....
+
+"Very well, then," Uncle William said, "I'll meet you here in an hour's
+time. No later, mind you, for I've a deal to do the day!"
+
+And for a whole hour, John had wandered about the market, not holding
+anyone's hand and free to go wherever he liked! He had walked through
+the old market where the horses were bought and sold ... had even
+stroked a mare's muzzle while some men bargained over it ... and then
+had crossed the road to the new market where he smelt the odour of
+flowers and fruit and listened to the country-women chaffering over
+their butter and eggs. He spent a penny without direction!... He bought
+a large, rosy American apple ... without being asked whether he would
+like to have that or an orange, or being told that he could not have an
+orange, but must have an apple because an apple in the morning was good
+for him...
+
+When he told his mother that night of the splendid time he had had by
+himself, she said, "You might have lost yourself!..." That chilled him,
+and he did not tell her of the gallant way in which he had rubbed his
+hand on a horse's side. He knew very well that she would say, "It might
+have kicked you!..."
+
+
+
+VII
+
+It was she who was most particular about the dyeing of his Easter eggs
+and the ritual of hanging up his stocking on Christmas Eve. She had
+wanted to go on dyeing eggs for him at Easter and hanging up his
+stocking on Christmas Eve, even when he was twelve years of age and
+could not be expected to tolerate such things any longer. He liked the
+Easter ceremonial better, perhaps, than that of Christmas. His mother
+would bid Uncle Matthew take him out of the town to the fields to
+gather whin-blossoms so that she could dye the eggs to a pretty brown
+colour. Tea-leaves could be used to dye the eggs to a deeper brown than
+that of the whin-blossoms, but there was not so much pleasure in taking
+tea-leaves from the caddy as there was in plucking whin-blossoms from
+the furze-bushes. The Logans bought their Easter eggs, already dyed,
+from old Mrs. Dobbs, the dulce-woman, but John disliked the look of her
+eggs, apart from the fact that his mother would not permit him to buy
+them. Mrs. Dobbs used some artificial dyes which stained the eggshells
+a horrible purple or a less horrible red, and John had a feeling of
+sickness when he looked at them. Mrs. MacDermott said that if the eggs
+were to crack during the process of boiling, the dye would penetrate
+the meat and might poison anyone who ate it; and even if the shells
+remained uncracked, the dye would soil the fingers and perhaps soil the
+clothes. She wondered at Mrs. Logan!...
+
+And on Easter Monday, she and Uncle Matthew and Uncle William would go
+to Bryson's field where there was a low mound covered with short grass,
+and from the top of this mound, he would trundle his Easter egg down
+the slope to the level ground until the shell was broken. Then he would
+sit beside his mother and uncles, and eat the hard-boiled meat of the
+egg while Uncle Matthew explained to him that he was celebrating an
+ancient Druidical rite.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+But he loved his mother very dearly when she came to him at night to
+put him to bed and listen to his prayers. He would kneel down in front
+of her, in the warmth of the kitchen so that he might not catch cold in
+the unheated bedroom, and would shut his eyes very tightly because God
+did not like to see little boys peeping through their distended fingers
+at Him, and would say his verse:
+
+  I lay my body down to sleep....
+  I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
+  And if I die before I wake,
+  I pray the Lord my soul to take.
+
+and having said that, he would add a general prayer for his family.
+"God bless my Mother" ... he always said _"Mother"_ in his
+prayers, although he said _"Ma"_ in ordinary talk ... "and my
+Uncle William and my Uncle Matthew and all my friends and relations,
+and make me a good boy for Jesus' sake, Amen. Our Father which art...."
+Then he would scamper up the stairs to bed, and his mother would hap
+the clothes about him and tell him to go to sleep soon. She would bend
+over him and kiss him very tightly, and he would put his arms about
+her, too. "Son, dear!" she would say.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+When John MacDermott was seventeen years of age and entering into his
+fourth year of monitorship, his Uncle William said to him, "John, boy,
+you're getting on to be a man now, and it's high time you began to
+think of what you're going to do with yourself when you are one!"
+
+"You're mebbe right," said John.
+
+"The next year'll be your last one at the monitoring, won't it?" Uncle
+William continued.
+
+John nodded his head.
+
+"Well, if I were you I'd make a plan of some sort during the next year
+or two, for it would never do for you to come to the years of
+discretion, and have to take to the teachering because you couldn't
+think of anything else to do. I can see well your heart's not in that
+trade."
+
+"It is not, indeed!" John said vigorously. "It's a terrible tiring job,
+teaching children, and some of them are that stupid you feel provoked
+enough to slap the hands off them! I'm nearly afraid of myself
+sometimes with the stupid ones, for fear I'd lose my temper with them
+and hurt them hard. Mr. Cairnduff says no one should be a teacher that
+has a bad temper, and dear knows, Uncle William, I've a fearful temper!
+He's a quare wise man, Mr. Cairnduff: he doesn't let any of his
+monitors use the cane, for he says it's an awful temptation to be
+cruel, especially if you're young and impatient the way I am!"
+
+"Is that so now?" said Uncle William.
+
+"Oh, it is, right enough. I know well there's times when a child's
+provoked me, that I want to be cruel to it ... and I'd hate to be cruel
+to any child. There's a wee girl in my class now.... Lizzie Turley's
+her name!..."
+
+"John Turley's child?"
+
+"Yes. God knows she's the stupidest child in the world!"
+
+"Her da's a match, for her, then, for he's the stupidest man I've ever
+known. That fellow ought not to have been let have children!..."
+
+"It's not her fault, I know," John continued, "but you forget that when
+you're provoked. I've tried hard to teach that child ... vowed to
+myself I'd teach her ... to add up, but I'm afraid she's beaten me. She
+can subtract well enough ... that's the queer part about her ... but
+she cannot add up. You'll mebbe not believe me. Uncle William, but that
+child can't put two and one together and be sure of getting the right
+answer. At first she couldn't add two and one together at all. She'd
+put down twelve for the answer as likely as not. But I worked hard with
+her, and I got her to add up to two and six make eight ... and there
+she stuck. I couldn't get her past that: she couldn't add two and seven
+together and get nine for the answer. But if you asked her to subtract
+two from nine, she'd say "seven" all right! That's a queer thing, now!
+Isn't it?"
+
+"Aye, it's queer enough!"
+
+"There's been times when I've wanted to hit that wee girl ... hit her
+with my shut fists ... and I don't like to feel that way about a child
+that's not all there ... or any child! I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a
+teacher, Uncle William. You have to be very good and patient... and
+it's no use pretending you haven't. Mr. Cairnduff says it's more
+important for a teacher to be good than it is for a minister, and he's
+right, too. He says a child should never be slapped by the teacher
+that's offended with it, but by another teacher that knows nothing
+about the bother. He doesn't use the cane much himself, but there's
+some teachers likes using it. Miss Gebbie does... she carries a big
+bamboo about with her, and gives you a good hard welt across the hand
+with it, if you annoy her. I wouldn't like to be in that woman's grip,
+I can tell you. Some women are fearful hard, Uncle William!"
+
+"Worse nor men, some of them," Uncle William agreed.
+
+"Mr. Cairnduff told me one time of a teacher he knew that got to like
+the cane so much that he used to try and trip the children into making
+mistakes so's he could slap them for it. Isn't it fearful, that?"
+
+"Terrible, John!"
+
+"I'd be ashamed to death if I got that way. Oh, I couldn't go on with
+the teaching, Uncle William. I wouldn't be near fit for it."
+
+"Well, never mind, John. There's one thing, the extra schooling you've
+had has done you no harm, and I daresay it's done you a lot of good.
+But you'll have to think of something to do!..."
+
+"Yes, I will!"
+
+"Do you never think of anything? Is there any particular thing you'd
+like to do?"
+
+"There's a whole lot of things I've fancied I'd like to be, but after a
+wee while I always change my mind. The first time I went to Belfast, I
+thought it would be lovely to be a tram-driver 'til I saw a navvy
+tearing up the street ... and then I thought a navvy had the best job
+in the world. You know, Uncle William, it takes me a long while to find
+out what it is I want, but when I do find it out, I take to it queer
+and quick. I'll mebbe go footering about the world like a lost thing,
+and then all of a sudden I'll know what I want to do ... and I'll just
+do it!"
+
+"Hmmm!" said Uncle William.
+
+"It sounds queer and foolish, doesn't it?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, John. Many's a thing sounds silly, but isn't."
+
+"It's true, anyway. I've noticed things like that about myself.
+It's ... it's like a man getting converted. One minute he's a guilty,
+hell-deserving sinner, the way John Hutton says he was, footering about
+the world, drinking and guzzling and leading a rotten life ... and then
+all of a sudden, he's hauled up and made to give his testimony and do
+God's will for the rest of his life! I daresay I'll drift from one thing
+to another ... and then I'll know, just like a flash of lightning ... and
+I'll go and do it!"
+
+"That's a dangerous kind of a doctrine," said Uncle William. "It's
+easier to get into the way of drifting nor it is to get out of it
+again. And you're a young lad to be thinking strange thoughts like
+that!"
+
+"I'm seventeen," John replied. "That's not young!"
+
+"It's not oul' anyway. Anybody'd think to hear you, you had the years
+of Methuselah. I suppose, now, you never thought of coming into the
+shop?"
+
+"I did think of it one time, but you wouldn't let me!..."
+
+"That was when you wanted to help me. But did you never think of it for
+your own sake? You see, John, you're the last of us, and this shop has
+been in our family for a long while ... it's a good trade, too, and
+you'll have no fear of hardship as long as you look after it, although
+the big firms in Belfast are opening branches here. The MacDermotts can
+hold their heads up against any big firm in the world, I'm thinking ...
+in this place, anyway. Did you never feel you'd like to come into the
+shop?"
+
+John glanced about the shop, at the assistants who were serving
+customers with tea and groceries....
+
+"No," he said, shaking his head, "I don't think I'd like it!"
+
+Uncle William considered for a few moments. Then he said, "No, I
+thought you wouldn't care for it. Your da felt that way too. The shop
+wasn't big enough for him. All the same, there has to be shops, and
+there has to be people to look after that!"
+
+"Oh, I know that right enough, Uncle William. I'm not saying anything
+against them. They're all right for them that likes them!..."
+
+He paused for a while, and his Uncle waited for him to proceed.
+"Sometimes," he said at last, "I'm near in the mind to go and be a
+soldier!..."
+
+"For dear sake!" said Uncle William impatiently.
+
+"Or a sailor. I went down to the Post Office once and got a bill about
+the Navy!..."
+
+"Well, I would think you were demented mad to go and do the like of
+that," said Uncle William. "You might as well be a peeler!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+His mind turned now very frequently to the consideration of work other
+than that of teaching. He made a mental catalogue of the things that
+were immediately possible to him: teaching, the ministry of the
+Presbyterian Church, the shop ... and ruled them all out of his list.
+The thought of soldiering or of going to sea lingered in his mind for a
+long time ... because he associated soldiering and sailoring with
+travel in strange places ... but he abandoned that thought when he
+balanced the tradition of his class against the Army, and Navy. All the
+men of his acquaintance who had joined the Army or the Navy had done
+so, either because they were in disgrace or because they were unhappy
+at home. It was generally considered that in joining either of the
+Services, they had brought shame upon their families, less, perhaps in
+the case of the Navy than in the case of the Army. In any event, his
+Uncle William's statement that a MacDermott could not endure to be
+ordered about by any one settled his mind for him on that subject. He
+would have to get his adventures in other ways. He might emigrate to
+America. He had a cousin in New York and one in Chicago. He might go to
+Canada or Australia or South Africa ... digging for gold or diamonds!
+There was nothing in Ireland that attracted him ... all the desirable
+things were in distant places. Farming in Canada or Australia had a
+romantic attraction that was not to be found in farming in Ireland. He
+had _seen_ farmers in Ireland ... and he did not wish to be like
+them!
+
+But, no matter how much he considered the question, he came no nearer
+to a solution of it.
+
+He would go out to the fields that lay on the shores of the Lough,
+going one day to this side, and another day to that, and lie down in
+the sunshine and dream of a brilliant career. He might go into
+parliament and become a great statesman, like that man, Lord Salisbury,
+who had come to Belfast once during the Home Rule agitation. Or he
+might turn Nationalist and divert himself by roaring in the House of
+Commons against the English! He wished that he could write poetry ...
+if he could write poetry, he might become famous. There was an old
+exercise book at home, full of poems that he had made up when he was
+much younger, about Ireland and the Pope and Love and Ballyards ... but
+they were poor things, he knew, although Mr. Cairnduff, to whom he had
+shown them, had said that, considering the age John was when he wrote
+them, they might have been a great deal worse. Mr. Cairnduff had given
+generous praise to a long poem on the election of a Nationalist for the
+city of Derry, beginning with this wail:
+
+  _Oh, Derry, Derry, what have you done?
+  Sold your freedom to Home Rule's son!_
+
+but neither Uncle William nor Uncle Matthew had had much to say for it.
+Uncle William said that his father would not have liked to think of his
+son writing a poem full of sentiments of that sort, and Uncle Matthew
+went upstairs to the attic and brought down, a copy of _Romeo and
+Juliet_ and presented it to him. But Mrs. MacDermott was pleased in
+a queer way. She hoped he was not going to take up politics, but she
+was glad that he was not a Home Ruler!
+
+Sometimes, when he had been much younger than he now was ... John
+always thought of himself as a man of great age ... he had resolved
+that he would become a writer; but although he began many stories and
+solemn books ... there was one called, _The Errors of Rome_ in
+which the Papists were to be finally and conclusively exposed ... none
+of them were ever finished. Then had come a phase of preaching. His
+mother read the _Christian Herald_ every week, and John would get
+a table cloth, and wrap it round himself to represent a surplice ...
+for the Church of Ireland was more decorative than the Presbyterian
+Church ... and deliver the sermons of Dr. Talmage and Mr. Spurgeon in a
+loud sing-song voice that greatly delighted Mrs. MacDermott. That, too,
+had passed, very swiftly indeed, because of the alarming discovery that
+he was an atheist! He would never forget the sensation he had created
+in school when he had suddenly turned to Willie Logan and said,
+"Willie, I don't believe there's a God at all. It's all a catch!..."
+
+Willie, partly out of fright, but chiefly because of his incorrigible
+tendency to "clash," immediately reported him to Miss Gebbie, who had
+been a teacher even then ... it seemed to him sometimes that Miss
+Gebbie had always been a teacher and would never cease to be one ...
+and she had converted him to a belief in God's existence at the point
+of her bamboo....
+
+Then came a time of mere dreaming of a future in which some beautiful
+girl would capture all his mind and heart and service. He would rescue
+her from a dire situation ... he would invent some wonderful thing that
+would bring fame and fortune to him ... and he would offer all his fame
+and fortune to her. His visions of this girl, constantly recurring,
+prevented him from falling in love with any girl in Ballyards. When he
+contrasted the girl of his dream with the girls he saw about him, he
+could not understand how anyone could possibly love a Ballyards girl.
+Aggie Logan!...
+
+He would come away from the fields, pleased with his dreams, but still
+as far from a solution of his problem as ever.
+
+
+
+III
+
+One evening, his Uncle William came into the kitchen where John was
+reading _John Halifax, Gentleman_ to his mother.
+
+"I ought to go to Belfast the morrow," he said, "but Saturday's an
+awkward day for me. I was wondering whether to send John instead. He's
+nothing to do on Saturdays, and it would be a great help to me!"
+
+John closed the book, "Of course, I'll go, Uncle William!" he said.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott coldly regarded them both. "You know rightly," she
+said, "that I'm as busy on Saturday as you are, William. How can he go
+up to Belfast when I can't go with him?"
+
+"I never said nothing about you going with him," Uncle William
+retorted. "He's well able to go by himself!" _"Go by himself!"_
+Mrs. MacDermott almost shouted the words at her brother-in-law. "A lad
+that never was out of the town by his lone in his life before!"
+
+"He'll have to go by his lone some day, won't he? And he's a big lump
+of a lad now, and well able to look after himself!"
+
+"He'll not stir an inch from the door without me," Mrs. MacDermott
+declared in a determined voice. "Think shame to yourself, William, to
+be putting such thoughts into a lad's head ... suggesting that he
+should be sent out in the world by himself at his age!..."
+
+Uncle William shifted uneasily in his seat. "I'm not suggesting that he
+should be sent out into the world," he said. "I'm only suggesting that
+he should be sent to Belfast for the day!..."
+
+"And what sort of a place is Belfast on a Saturday afternoon with a lot
+of drunk footballers flying about? He will not go, William. You can
+send Matthew!..."
+
+Uncle William made a gesture of impatience. "You know rightly,
+Matthew's no good for a job of this sort!"
+
+"Well, then, you'll have to go yourself. I'll keep an eye to the shop,
+forby my own work!..."
+
+John got up and put _John Halifax, Gentleman_ on the window-ledge.
+
+"You needn't bother yourself, ma," he said. "I'm going to Belfast the
+morrow. What is it you want me to do, Uncle William?"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott stared at him for a moment, then she got up and hurried
+out of the kitchen. They could hear her mounting the stairs, and then
+they heard the sound of her bedroom door being violently slammed.
+
+"Women are queer, John," said Uncle William, "but the queerest women of
+all are the women that are mothers. Anybody'd think I was proposing to
+send you to the bad place, and dear knows, Belfast's not that!"
+
+"What's the job you want me to do?"
+
+"Come into the shop and I'll tell you!"
+
+John followed his Uncle into the shop and they sat down together in the
+little Counting House.
+
+"There's really nothing that a postcard couldn't do," Uncle William
+said. "That was the excuse. I've been thinking about you, John, and I
+thought it was a terrible pity you should never get out and about by
+yourself a bit ... out of Ballyards, I mean ... to look round you. It's
+no good to a lad to be always running about with his ma!"
+
+"You're a terrible schemer, Uncle William," said John.
+
+"Ah, g'long with you," his Uncle answered. "Here, pay heed to me now,
+while I tell you. This is what I want you to do!..."
+
+He showed a business letter to John and invited him to read it. Then he
+explained the nature of the small commission he wished him to execute.
+
+"It'll not take you long," he said, "and then you can look about
+yourself in Belfast. You'll want a few coppers in your pocket!" He put
+a coin into John's hand and then closed the lad's fingers over it.
+"It's great value to go down the quays and have a look at the ships,"
+he went on, "and mebbe you could get a look over the shipyard! ... And
+perhaps when you're knocking about Belfast, you'll see something you'd
+like to do!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+In this way, his Saturday trips to Belfast began. He found them much
+less exhilarating then he had imagined they would be. He inspected the
+City Hall in the company of a beadle and was informed, with great
+preciseness, of the cost of the building and of the price paid to each
+artist for the portraits of the Lord Mayors which were suspended from
+the walls of the Council Chamber. The beadle seemed to think that the
+portraits represented a waste of ratepayers' money, and he considered
+that if the Corporation had given a contract to one artist for all the
+pictures, a great reduction in price could have been obtained.... The
+Museum and the Free Library depressed him, precisely in the way in
+which Museums and Free Libraries always depress people; but he found
+pleasure in the Botanic Gardens and the Ormeau Park. He devised an
+excellent scheme of walking, which enabled him to go through the
+Botanic Gardens, then, by side streets, to the Lagan, where a ferryman
+rowed him across to the opposite bank and landed him in the Ormeau
+Park. He would walk briskly through the Park, and then, when he had
+emerged from it, would cross the Albert Bridge, hurry along the Sand
+Quay, and stand at the Queen's Bridge to watch the crowds of workmen
+hurrying home from the shipyards. He never tired of watching the
+"Islandmen," grimy from their labour, as they passed over the bridge in
+a thick, dusky stream to their homes. Thousands and thousands of men
+and boys seemed to make an endless procession of shipbuilders,
+designers and rivetters and heater-boys. But it never occurred to him
+that there was something romantic in the enterprise and labours of
+these men, that out of their energies, great ships grew and far lands
+were brought near to each other. He liked to witness the dispersal of
+the shipyard's energies, but he did not think of the miracle which
+their assembled energies performed every day. By this narrow, shallow
+river Lagan, a great company of men and boys and women met daily to
+make the means whereby races reached out to each other; and their ships
+sailed the seas of the world, carrying merchandise from one land to
+another, binding the East to the West and the South to the North, and
+making chains of friendship and kindliness between diverse peoples. It
+was an adventure to sail in a ship, in John's mind, but he did not
+know, had never thought or been told, that it is also an adventure to
+build a ship. The pleasure which he found in watching the "Islandmen"
+crossing the Queen's Bridge was not related to their work: it was found
+in the spectacle of a great crowd. Any crowd passing over the Bridge
+would have pleased John equally well....
+
+But the crowd of "Islandmen" was soon dispersed; and John found that
+there was very little to do in Belfast. He did not care for football
+matches, he had no wish to enter the City Hall again, he could not walk
+through the Botanic Gardens and the Ormeau Park all day long, and he
+certainly did not wish to visit the Museum or the Free Library again.
+He became tired of walking aimlessly about the streets. There was a wet
+Saturday when, as he stood under the shelter of an awning in Royal
+Avenue, he resolved that he would return to Ballyards by an early
+train. "It's an awful town, this, on a wet day!" he said to himself,
+unaware that any town in which a man is a stranger is unpleasant on a
+wet day ... and sometimes on a fine day. "Somehow," he went on, "there
+seems to be more to do in Ballyards on a wet day than there is in
+Belfast on a wet day!" A sense of loneliness descended upon him as
+he gazed at the grey, dribbling skies and the damp pavements. The
+trams were full of moist, huddled men and women; the foot-passengers
+hurried homewards, their heads bent against the wind and rain; the
+bleak-looking newspaper boys, barefooted, pinched, hungry and cold, stood
+shivering in doorways, with wet, sticky papers under their arms; and
+wherever he looked, John saw only unfriendliness, haste and discomfort.
+There would not be a train to Ballyards until late in the afternoon,
+and as he stood there, growing less cheerful each moment, he wondered
+how he could occupy the time of waiting. The wind blew down the street,
+sending the rain scudding in front of it, and chilling him, and, half
+unconsciously, he hurried across the road to take shelter in a side
+street where, it seemed to him, he would be less exposed. He walked
+along the street, keeping in the shadow of the houses, and presently he
+found himself before the old market of Smithfield.
+
+"Amn't I the fool," he said to himself, "not to have come here before?"
+
+For here, indeed, was entertainment for any man or woman or child. In
+this ancient market for the sale of discarded things, a lonely person
+could pass away the dull hours very agreeably. The auctioneers,
+wheedling and joking and bullying, could be trusted to amuse any
+reasonable man for a while, and when their entertainment was exhausted
+there were the stalls to visit and explore. He stood to listen to a
+loud-voiced man who was selling secondhand clothes, and then, turning
+away, found himself standing before a bookstall. Piles of books, of all
+sizes and shapes and colours, lay on a long shutter that rested on
+trestles; and in the shop, behind the trestles, were great stacks of
+books reaching to the ceiling. He fingered the books with the affection
+with which he had seen his Uncle Matthew finger those in the attic at
+home. Some of them had the dreary, dull look observable in books that
+have long passed out of favour and have lain disregarded in some dark
+and dusty corner; and some, though they were old, looked bright and
+pleasant as if they were confident that the affection which had been
+theirs for years would be continued to them by new owners. He picked up
+old volumes and spent much time in contemplating the inscriptions
+inside them ... fading inscriptions in a thin, genteel handwriting that
+had the careful look of writing done by people who were anxious that
+the record should not offend a schoolmaster's eye ... and as he read
+these inscriptions, a queer dejection settled on him. These books,
+dusty and disregarded, he told himself, represented love and thought
+that had perished. Doubt and damp pessimism clutched hold of him. At
+the end of every brave adventure was Smithfield Market. He put down a
+book which contained an inscription to "Charles Dunwoody from his
+affectionate Mother," and looked about him. Everywhere, secondhand,
+rejected things were for sale: clothes, furniture, books, pictures ...
+The market was a mortuary of ambition and hope, the burial ground of
+little enterprises, confidently begun and miserably ended. Here were
+the signs of disruption and dispersal, of things attempted but not
+achieved, of misfortune and failure, of things used and abandoned for
+more coveted things. John had imagined himself performing great feats
+to win the love and favour of some beautiful woman ... but now he saw
+his adventure in love ending in a loud-voiced auctioneer mouthing jokes
+over a ruined home. Behind these piles of books and pictures and
+clothes and furniture, one might see young couples bravely setting out
+on their little ships of love to seek their fortunes, light-heartedly
+facing perils and dangers because of the high hope in their hearts ...
+and coming to wreck on a rough coast where their small cargoes were
+seized by creditors and brought to this place for sale, and they were
+left bare and hurt and discouraged...
+
+"Oh, well!" said John, shrugging his shoulders and picking up a newer
+book.
+
+That would not happen to him. If he failed in one enterprise he would
+start off on another. If he made a fortune and lost it, he would make
+another one. If the things he built were to be destroyed ... well, he
+would start building again....
+
+But the mood of pessimism still held him and he could not bear to look
+at the books any longer. An unhappy ghost hid behind the covers of each
+one of them. He hurried out of the market into the street. The rain had
+ceased to fall, but the streets were wet and dirty, and the air struck
+at him coldly. He glanced at his watch, and saw that he could not now
+catch the train by which he had intended to return to Ballyards.
+
+"I'll go and get my tea somewhere," he said, and then, "I don't think
+I'll come to Belfast again. I'm tired of the town!"
+
+He turned into Royal Avenue and passed across Castle Junction into
+Donegall Place where there was a shop in which new books were sold. The
+shop was closed now, but he was able to see books with handsome covers
+in the window and he stayed for a time reading the titles of them.
+There was a bustle of people about him, of newspaper boys and flower
+girls, bedraggled and cheerless-looking, and of young men and women
+tempted to the Saturday evening parade in the chief street of the city
+in spite of the rain. The sound of voices in argument and barter and
+bright talk mingled with laughter and the noise of the tram-cars and
+carts clattering over the stony street. John liked the sound of Belfast
+on a Saturday night, the pleased sound of released people intent on
+enjoyment and with the knowledge that on the morrow there would still
+be freedom from labour, and as he stood in front of the bookshop, half
+intent on the books in the window and half intent on the crowd that
+moved about him, the gloom which had seized hold of him in Smithfield
+began to relax its grip: and when two girls, jostled against him by the
+disordered movement of the crowd on the pavement, smiled at him in
+apology, he smiled back at them.
+
+He thrust himself through the crowd, breaking into a group of excited
+newspaper boys who were thrusting copies of the _Evening
+Telegraph_ and _Ireland's Saturday Night_ at possible purchasers,
+and walked towards the City Hall, but, changing his mind
+unaccountably, he turned down Castle Lane and presently found himself
+by the Theatre Royal. He had never been to a theatre in his life, but
+Uncle Matthew and Uncle William, when they were young men, used
+frequently to come to Belfast from Ballyards to see a play, and they
+had told him of the great pleasure they had had at the "old Royal."
+
+"I've a good mind to go there to-night," he said to himself, as he
+crossed the street to examine the playbills which were posted on the
+walls of the theatre. Mr. F.R. Benson's Shakespearean Company, he read
+on the bill by the stage-door, would perform _The Merchant of
+Venice_ that evening. The Company would remain in Belfast during the
+following week and would produce other plays by Shakespeare.
+
+"I _will_ go," he said to himself. "I'll go somewhere now and have
+my tea, and then I'll hurry back!"
+
+He remembered that he had seen a volume of Shakespeare's plays in the
+bookshop in Donegall Place and that Uncle Matthew had each of the plays
+in a separate volume in the attic at home. He had read _The Merchant
+of Venice_ a long time ago, but had only a vague recollection of it.
+In one of the school-books, Portia's speech on mercy was printed, and
+he could say that piece off by heart. The Jew had snarled at Portia
+when she had said "Then must the Jew be merciful!" "On what compulsion
+must I?" he had demanded, and she had replied, "The quality of mercy is
+not strained...." The school-book did not print Portia's statement that
+the Jew must be merciful or the Jew's snarling demand, "On what
+compulsion must I?"; but Mr. Cairnduff had explained the story of the
+play to the class and had told them of these two speeches, and John,
+interested by the story, had gone home and searched through the attic
+for the play, and there had read it through.
+
+His mind went back to the bookshop. "It must be fine to work in a place
+like that, with all the books you can want to read all round you," he
+said to himself while he hurried through Corn Market on his way to a
+restaurant. He stopped for a moment or two, as an idea suddenly
+presented itself to him. "I know what I'll do," he said aloud. "I'll
+start a bookshop myself. _New_ books ... not old ones. That sort
+of life would suit me fine!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+He ate his meal in great haste, and then hurried back to the theatre
+where a queue of people had already formed outside the entrance to the
+pit. Soon after he joined the queue, the doors were opened, and in a
+little while he found himself sitting at the end of the second row. He
+had chosen this seat so that he might be able to hurry out of the
+theatre quickly, without disturbing anyone, if he should have to leave
+before the play was ended to catch the last train to Ballyards.
+
+A boy about his own age was sitting next to him, and this boy asked
+John to let him have a look at his programme.
+
+"Did you ever see this piece before?" John said to him, as he passed
+the programme to him.
+
+"I did not," he replied. "I'm not much of a one for plays. I generally
+go to the 'Lhambra on a Saturday, but somehow I didn't go there the
+night!"
+
+"That's a terrible place, that 'Lhambra," said John.
+
+"What's terrible about it?" his neighbour replied.
+
+"I don't know. I was never there. This is the first time I've ever been
+in a theatre. But I've heard fearful things about that place, about
+women coming out and dancing with hardly any clothes on, and then
+kicking up their legs and all. I have an uncle went there once, and
+when the woman began kicking up her legs and showing off her clothes,
+he got up and stood with his back to the stage 'til she was done, he
+was that disgusted."
+
+John remembered how shocked Uncle William had been when he told that
+story of himself.
+
+"Your uncle must be very easy shocked," said the boy. "I can look at
+women kicking up their legs, and I don't think nothing of it at all. I
+like a good song and dance myself. I don't like plays much. Gimme a
+woman that's nice-looking and can sing and dance a bit, and I wouldn't
+ask you for nothing nicer. Is there any dancin' in this bit, do you
+know?"
+
+"I don't think so," said John. "I've never seen the piece before, but
+I've read it. I don't think there's any dancing in it!"
+
+"And no comic songs?..."
+
+"Sure, you'll see for yourself in a wee minute!"
+
+John's neighbour considered. "I wonder would they give me my money back
+if I was to go to the pay-box and let on I was sick!"
+
+"They'd never do that," said John. "They'd know rightly you weren't
+sick by the look of you!"
+
+The boy returned the programme to John. "Well, I wish they'd hurry up
+and begin," he murmured.
+
+The members of the orchestra came through a door beneath the stage and
+took their places, and the sound of fiddles being tuned was heard for a
+while. Then the leader of the orchestra came to his place, and after a
+pause, the music began.
+
+"A fiddle's great value," John's neighbour whispered to him. "I'm a
+great hand at the Jew's harp myself!..."
+
+The music ceased, the lights were lowered in the theatre and the
+footlights were raised, throwing a great soft yellow glow on the
+picture of the Lakes of Killarney which decorated the drop-curtain.
+Then, the curtain was rolled up, and the performance began.
+
+He had been interested by the play when he read it, but now he was
+enthralled by it. He wished that the boy sitting next to him would not
+keep on asking for the programme every time a fresh character appeared
+on the stage and would refrain from making comments on the play while
+it was being performed. "Them people wore quare clothes in them days!"
+he had whispered to John soon after the play began, and when Shylock
+made his first entrance, he said, "Ah, for Jase' sake, look at the oul'
+Sheeny!"
+
+"Ssh!" said John. "Don't talk!..."
+
+"Sure, why?..."
+
+"Ah, shut up," said John.
+
+He did not wish to talk during the intervals between the acts. He
+wished to sit still in his seat and perform the play over again in his
+mind. He tried to remember Bassanio's description of Portia:
+
+  _In Belmont is a lady richly left,
+  And she is fair, and fairer than that word,
+  Of wondrous virtues...._
+
+He could not think of the words that came after that ... except one
+sentence:
+
+  _ ...And her sunny locks
+  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._
+
+He repeated this sentence to himself many times, as if he were tasting
+each word with his tongue and with his mind, and once he said it aloud
+in a low voice.
+
+"Eh?" said his neighbour.
+
+"I was just reciting a piece from the play," he explained.
+
+"What were you reciting?"
+
+"Do you remember that piece: _and her sunny locks hang on her temples
+like a golden fleece?"_
+
+"No!"
+
+"In the first act? When the young fellow, Bassanio, was telling Antonio
+about his girl in Belmont?"
+
+His neighbour turned to him eagerly. "I wonder did they just put that
+bit in about Belmont," he said. "There's a place near Belfast called
+Belmont ... just beyond the Hollywood Arches there! Do you know it?"
+John shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised but they just put that
+bit in to make it look more like the thing. What was the piece you were
+reciting?" John repeated it to him again. "What's the sense of that?"
+the boy exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, don't you see? It's ... it's ..." He did not know how to explain
+the speech. "It's poetry," he said lamely.
+
+"Oh" said the boy. "Portry. I see now. Ah, well, I suppose they have to
+fill up the piece some way! Do you think that woman, what's her name
+again?..."
+
+"Portia?"
+
+"Aye. D'you think she did live at Belmont? Some of them stories is
+true, you know, and there was quare things happened in the oul' ancient
+days in this neighbourhood, I can tell you. I wouldn't be surprised
+now!..."
+
+But before he could say any more, the lights were lowered again, and
+there was a hushing sound, and then the play proceeded.
+
+"Oh, isn't it grand?" John said to his neighbour when the trial scene
+was over.
+
+But his neighbour remained unmoved. "D'you mean to tell me," he said,
+"that man didn't know his wife when he saw her in the Coort?"
+
+"What man?"
+
+"That fellow what-you-may-call-him? The man that was married on the
+girl with the red dress on her!..."
+
+"Bassanio?"
+
+"Aye. D'you mean to tell me that fellow didn't know her again, and him
+only just after leaving her!..."
+
+John tried to explain. "It's a play," he said. "He's not supposed to
+recognize her!..."
+
+"Och, what's the good of supposing a thing that couldn't be!" said
+John's neighbour. "Any man with half an eye in his head could have seen
+who she was. I wish I'd gone to the 'Lhambra. This is a damn silly
+play, this!"
+
+John was horrified. "Silly," he said. "It's by Shakespeare!"
+
+"I don't care who it's by," was the reply. "It's damn silly to let on a
+man doesn't know his own wife when he sees her. I suppose that's
+portry!" he sneered.
+
+John did not answer, and his neighbour went on. "Well, if it is
+portry ... God help it, that's all!"
+
+But John did not care whether Bassanio had recognized Portia in the
+court scene or not. He left the theatre in an exalted mood in which he
+had little thought for the realities. Next week he told himself, he
+would visit the Royal again. He would see two plays on the following
+Saturday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The bills for
+the following week's programme were already pasted on the walls of the
+theatre when he came out, and he risked the loss of his train by
+stopping to read one of them. _Romeo and Juliet_ was to be
+performed in the afternoon, and _Julius Caesar_ in the evening.
+
+He hurried down Ann Street and across the Queen's Bridge, and reached
+the railway station just in time to catch his train; and all the way
+across the bridge and all the way home in the train, one sentence
+passed continually through his mind:
+
+  _...And her sunny locks
+  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._
+
+
+
+VI
+
+While he ate his supper, he spoke to his mother and his uncles of his
+intention to open a bookshop.
+
+"I'm going to start a bookshop," he said. "I made up my mind in Belfast
+to-day!"
+
+"A what?" Mrs. MacDermott demanded.
+
+"A bookshop, ma. I'll have every book you can think of in it!..."
+
+"In the name of God," his mother exclaimed, "who do you think buys
+books in this place?"
+
+"Plenty of people, ma. Mr. McCaughan!..."
+
+"Mr. McCaughan never buys a book from one year's end to another," she
+interrupted. "And if he did, you can't support a shop on one man's
+custom. The people of this town doesn't waste their time on reading:
+they do their work!"
+
+John turned angrily on her. "It's not a waste of time to read books,
+ma. Is it, Uncle Matthew?"
+
+"You may well ask him," she said before Uncle Matthew could answer.
+
+"What do you think, Uncle William?" John went on.
+
+Uncle William thought for a few moments. "I don't know what to think,"
+he said. "It's not a trade I know much about, John, but I doubt whether
+there's a living in it in Ballyards."
+
+"There's no living in it," Mrs. MacDermott exclaimed passionately, "and
+if there was, you shouldn't earn your living by it!"
+
+John gazed at her in astonishment. Her eyes were shining, not with
+tears, though tears were not far from them, but with resentment and
+anger.
+
+"Why, ma?" he said.
+
+"Because books are the ruin of people's minds," she replied. "Your da
+was always reading books, wild books that disturbed him. He was never
+done reading _The Rights of Man_. And look at your Uncle Matthew!..."
+
+She stopped suddenly as if she realised that she had said too much.
+Uncle Matthew did not speak. He looked at her mournfully, and then he
+turned away.
+
+"I don't want to say one word to hurt anyone's feelings," she continued
+in a lower tone, "but my life's been made miserable by books, and I
+don't want to see my son made miserable, too. And you know well,
+Matthew," she added, turning to her brother-in-law, "that all your
+reading has done you no good, but a great deal of harm. And what's the
+use of books, anyway? Will they help a man to make a better life for
+himself?"
+
+Uncle Matthew turned to her quickly. "They will, they will," he said,
+and his voice trembled with emotion. "People can take your work from
+you and make little of you in the street because you did what your
+heart told you to do, but you'll get your comfort in a book, so you
+will. I know what you're hinting at, Hannah, but I'm not ashamed of
+what I did for the oul' Queen, and I'd do it again, gaol or no gaol, if
+I was to be hanged for it the day after!"
+
+He turned to John.
+
+"I don't know what sort of a living you'll make out of selling books,"
+he said, "and I don't care either, but if you do start a shop to sell
+them, let me tell you this, you'll never prosper in it if it doesn't
+hurt you sore to part with a book, for books is like nothing else on
+God's earth. You _have_ to love them ... you _have_ to love
+them!..."
+
+"You're daft," said Mrs. MacDermott.
+
+"Mebbe I am," Uncle Matthew replied wearily. "But that's the way I
+feel, and no man can help the way he feels!"
+
+He sat down at the table, resting his head in his hands, and gazed
+hungrily at his nephew.
+
+"You can help putting notions into a person's head," said Mrs.
+MacDermott. "John might as well try to _write_ books as try to
+sell them in this town!"
+
+"_Write_ books!" John exclaimed.
+
+"Aye, write them!..."
+
+But Uncle Matthew would not let her finish her sentence. "And why
+shouldn't he write books if he has a mind to it?" he demanded. "Wasn't
+he always the wee lad for scribbling bits of stories in penny exercise
+books?..."
+
+"He was ... 'til I beat him for it," she replied. "Why can't you settle
+down here in the shop with your Uncle William?" she said to her son.
+"It's a comfortable, quiet sort of a life, and it's sure and steady,
+and when we're all gone, it'll be yours for yourself. Won't it,
+William?"
+
+"Oh, aye!" said Uncle William. "Everything we have'll be John's right
+enough, but I doubt he's not fond of the shop!..."
+
+"What's wrong with the shop? It's as good as any in the town!" She
+coaxed John with her voice. "You can marry some nice, respectable girl
+and bring her here," she said, "and I'll gladly give place to her when
+she comes!" She rocked herself gently to and fro in the rocking-chair.
+"I'd like well to have the nursing of your children in the house that
+you yourself were born in!..."
+
+"Och, ma, I'm not in the way of marrying!..."
+
+"You'll marry some time, won't you? And there's plenty would be glad to
+have you. Aggie Logan, though I can't bear the sight of her, would give
+the two eyes out of her head for you. Of course you'll marry, and I'd
+be thankful glad to think of your son being born in this house. You
+were born in it, and your da, too, and his da, and his da's da. Four
+generations of you in one house to be pleased and proud of, and I pray
+to God he'll let me live to see the fifth generation of the MacDermotts
+born here, too. I'm a great woman for clinging to my home, and I love
+to think of the generations coming one after the other in the same
+house that the family's always lived in. How many people in this town
+can say they've always lived in the one house like the MacDermotts?"
+
+"Not very many," Uncle William proudly replied.
+
+"No, indeed there's not, I tell you, John, son, the MacDermotts are
+someone in this town, as grand in their way and as proud as Lord
+Castlederry himself. That's something to live up to, isn't it! The good
+name of your family! But if you go tramping the world for adventures
+and romances, the way your Uncle Matthew would have you do, you'll lose
+it all, and there'll be strangers in the house that your family's lived
+in all these generations. And mebbe you'll come here, when you're an
+oul' man and we're all dead and buried, and no one in the place'll have
+any mind of you at all, and you'll be lonelier here nor anywhere else.
+Oh, it would be terrible to be treated like a stranger in your own
+town! And if you did start a bookshop and it failed on you, and you
+lost all your money, wouldn't it be worse disgrace than any not to be
+able to pay your debts in a place where everyone knows you ... to be
+made a bankrupt mebbe?"
+
+"Ah, but, ma, the world would never move at all if everybody stopped in
+the one place!" John said.
+
+"The world'll move well enough," she answered. "God moves it, not you."
+
+John got up from the table and went, and sat on a low stool by the
+fire. "I don't know so much," he said. "I read in a book one time!..."
+
+"In a book!" Mrs. MacDermott sneered.
+
+"Aye, ma, in a book!" John stoutly answered. "After all, you know the
+Bible's a book!" Mrs. MacDermott had not got a retort to that
+statement, and John, aware that he had scored a point, hurriedly
+proceeded, "I was reading one time that all the work in the world was
+started by men that wrote books. There never was any change or progress
+'til someone started to think and write!..."
+
+Mrs. MacDermott recovered her wits. "Were they happy and contented
+men?" she demanded.
+
+"I don't know, ma," John replied. "The book didn't say that. I suppose
+not, or they wouldn't have wanted to make any alterations!"
+
+"Let them that wants to make changes, make them," said Mrs. MacDermott.
+"There's no need for you to go about altering the world when you can
+stay at home here happy and content!"
+
+Uncle Matthew rose from the table and came towards Mrs. MacDermott.
+"What does it matter whether you're happy and contented or not, so long
+as things are happening to you?" he exclaimed.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott burst into bitter laughter. "You have little wit," she
+said, "to be talking that daft way. Eh, William?" she added, turning to
+her other brother-in-law. "What do you think about it?"
+
+Uncle William had lit his pipe, and was sitting in a listening
+attitude, slowly puffing smoke. "I'm wondering," he said, "whether it's
+more fun to be writing about things nor it is to be doing things!"
+
+John turned to him and tapped him on the knee. "I've thought of that,
+Uncle William," he said, "and I tell you what! I'll go and do
+something, and then I'll write a book about it!"
+
+"What'll you do?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.
+
+"Something," said John. "I can easily do _some_thing!"
+
+"And what about the bookshop?" said Uncle Matthew.
+
+"Och, that was only a notion that came into my head," John answered. "I
+won't bother myself selling books: I'll write them instead!" He glanced
+about the kitchen. "I've a good mind to start writing something now!"
+he said.
+
+His mother sprang to her feet. "You'll do no such thing at this hour,"
+she said. "It's nearly Sunday morning. Would you begin your career by
+desecrating God's Day!"
+
+"If you start doing things," said Uncle, reverting to John's
+declaration of work, "you'll mebbe have no time to write about them!"
+
+"Oh, I'll have the time right enough. I'll make the time," John said.
+
+Uncle William got up and walked towards the staircase. "Where are you
+going, William?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.
+
+"To my bed," said Uncle William.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Suddenly the itch to write came to John, and he began to rummage among
+the papers and books on the shelves for writing-paper.
+
+"What are you looking for?" his mother enquired.
+
+"Paper to write on," he said.
+
+"You'll not write one word the night!..."
+
+"Ah, quit, ma!" he said. "I must put down an idea that's come in my
+head. I'd mebbe forget it in the morning!"
+
+"The greatest writers in the world have sat up all night, writing out
+their thoughts," Uncle Matthew murmured.
+
+John did not pay any heed to his mother's scowls and remonstrances. He
+found sheets of writing-paper and placed them neatly on the table,
+together with a pen and ink. He looked at the materials critically.
+There was paper, there was ink and there was a pen with a new nib in
+it, and blotting paper!...
+
+He drew a chair up to the table and sat down in front of the writing
+paper. He contemplated it for a long time while Mrs. MacDermott put
+away the remnants of his supper, and his Uncle Matthew sat by the fire
+watching him.
+
+"What are you waiting for, John?" his Uncle Matthew asked.
+
+"Inspiration," John replied.
+
+He sat still, scarcely moving even for ease in his chair, staring at
+the white paper until it began to dance in front of his eyes, but he
+did not begin to write on it.
+
+"Are you still waiting for inspiration, John?" his Uncle asked.
+
+"Aye," he answered.
+
+"You don't seem to be getting any," Mrs. MacDermott said.
+
+He got up and put the writing materials away. "I'll wait 'til the
+morning," he replied.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+John wrote his first story during the following week, and when he had
+completed it, he made a copy of it on large sheets of foolscap in a
+shapely hand, and sewed the pages together with green thread. Uncle
+Matthew had purchased brass fasteners to bind the pages together, but
+Uncle William said that a man might easily tear his fingers with "them
+things" and contract blood-poisoning.
+
+"And that would give him a scunner against your story, mebbe!" he
+added.
+
+John accepted Uncle William's advice, not so much in the interests of
+humanity, as because he liked the look of the green thread. He had read
+the story to his uncles, after the shop was closed. They had drawn
+their chairs up to the fire, in which sods of turf and coal were
+burning, and the agreeable odour of the turf soothed their senses while
+they listened to John's sharp voice. Mrs. MacDermott would not join the
+circle before the fire. She declared that she had too much work to do
+to waste her time on trash, and she wondered that her brothers-in-law
+could find nothing better to do than to encourage a headstrong lad in a
+foolish business. She went about her work with much bustle and clatter,
+which, however, diminished considerably as John began to read the
+story, and ended altogether soon afterwards.
+
+"D'you like it, Uncle William?" John said, when he had read the story
+to them.
+
+"Aye," said Uncle William.
+
+"I'm glad," John answered. "And you, do you like it, Uncle Matthew?"
+
+"I like it queer and well," Uncle Matthew murmured, "only!..." He
+hesitated as if he were reluctant to make any adverse comment on the
+story.
+
+"Only what?" John demanded with some impatience. He had asked for the
+opinions of his uncles, indeed, but it had not occurred to him that
+they would not think as highly of the story as he thought of it
+himself.
+
+"Well ... there's no love in it!" Uncle Matthew went on.
+
+"Love!"
+
+"Aye," Uncle Matthew said. "There's no mention of a woman in it from
+start to finish. I think there ought to be a woman in it!"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott, who had been silent now for some time, made a noise
+with a dish on the table. "Och, sure, what does he know about love?"
+she exclaimed angrily. "A child that's not long left his mother's arms
+would know as much. Mebbe, now you've read your oul' story, John, the
+whole of yous will sit up to the table and take your tea!"
+
+John, disregarding his mother, sat back in his chair and contemplated
+his Uncle Matthew.
+
+"I wonder now, are you right?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I am," Uncle Matthew replied. "The best stories in the world have
+women in them, and love-making! I never could take any interest in
+_Robinson Crusoe_ because he hadn't got a girl on that island with
+him, and I thought to myself many's a time, it was a queer mistake not
+to make Friday a woman. He could have fallen in love with her then!"
+
+Uncle William said up sharply. "Aye, and had a wheen of black babies!"
+he said. "Man, dear, Matthew, think what you're saying! What sort of
+romance would there be in the like of that? I never read much, as you
+know, but I always had a great fancy for _Robinson Crusoe_. The
+way that man turned to and did things for himself ... I tell you my
+heart warmed to him. _I_ like your story, John, women or no women.
+Sure, love isn't the only thing that men make!..."
+
+"It's the most important," said Uncle Matthew.
+
+"And why shouldn't a story be written about any other thing nor a lot
+of love?" Uncle William continued, ignoring the interruption. "I
+daresay you'll get a mint of money for that story, John. I've heard
+tell that some of these writers gets big pay for their stories. Pounds
+and pounds!"
+
+John crinkled his manuscript in his hand and regarded it with a modest
+look. "I don't suppose I'll get much for the first one," he said. "In
+fact, if they'll print it, I'll be willing to let them have it for
+nothing ... just for the satisfaction!"
+
+"That would be a foolish thing to do," Uncle William retorted. "Sure,
+if it's worth printing, it's worth paying for. That's the way I look at
+it, anyhow!"
+
+"I daresay I'll make more, when I know the way of it better!" John
+answered. "What paper will I send it to, do you think?"
+
+"Send it to the best one," said Uncle William.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott took a plate of toast from the fender where it had been
+put to keep warm. "Send it to the one that pays the most," she
+suggested.
+
+"I thought you weren't listening, ma!" John exclaimed, laughing at her.
+
+"A body can't help hearing when people are talking at the top of their
+voices," she said tartly. "Come on, for dear sake, and have your teas,
+the whole of yous!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+It was Uncle William who advised John to send the story to
+_Blackwood's Magazine_. He said that in his young days, people
+said _Blackwood's Magazine_ was the best magazine in the world.
+Uncle Matthew had demurred to this. "I'm not saying it's not a good
+one," he said, "but it's terribly bitter against Ireland. The man that
+writes that magazine must have a bitter, blasting tongue in his head!"
+
+"Never mind what it says about Ireland," Uncle William retorted. "Sure,
+they're only against the Papishes, anyway!..."
+
+"The Papishes are as good as the Protestants," Uncle Matthew exclaimed.
+
+"I daresay they are," Uncle William admitted, "but I'm only saying that
+_Blackwood's Magazine_ is against _them:_ it's not against
+us; and I don't see why John shouldn't send his story to it. He's a
+Protestant!"
+
+"If I wrote a story," Uncle Matthew went on, "I wouldn't send it to any
+paper that made little of my country, Protestant or Papish, no matter
+how good a paper it was nor how much it paid me for my story. Ireland
+is as good as England any day!..."
+
+"It's better," said Uncle William complacently. "Sure, God Himself
+knows the English would be on the dung-heap if it wasn't for us and the
+Scotchmen. But that's no reason why John shouldn't send his story to
+_Blackwood's Magazine_. In one way, it's a good reason why he
+should send it there, for sure, if he does nothing else, he'll improve
+the tone of the thing. You do what I tell you, John!..."
+
+And so, accepting his Uncle William's advice, John sent the manuscript
+of his story to the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine;_ and each
+morning, after he had done so, he eagerly awaited the advent of the
+postman. But the postman, more often than not, went past their door.
+When he did deliver a letter to them, it was usually a trading letter
+for Uncle William.
+
+"Them people get a queer lot of stories to read," Uncle William said to
+console his nephew, disappointed because he had not received a letter
+of acceptance from the editor by Saturday morning, four days after he
+had posted the manuscript. "It'll mebbe take them a week or two to
+reach yours!..."
+
+"They could have sent a postcard to say they'd got it all right," John
+replied ruefully. "That's the civil thing to do, anyway!"
+
+He remembered that the Benson Shakespearean Company was still in
+Belfast and that _Romeo and Juliet_ was to be performed in the
+afternoon, and _Julius Caesar_ in the evening; and he went up to
+the city by an earlier train than usual so that he might be certain of
+getting to the theatre in time to secure an end seat near the front of
+the pit. He had proposed to his Uncle Matthew that he should go to
+Belfast, too, to see the plays, but Uncle Matthew shook his head and
+murmured that he was not feeling well. He had been listless lately,
+they had noticed, and Uncle William, regarding him one afternoon as he
+stood at the door of the shop, had turned to John and said that he
+would be glad when the summer weather came in again, so that Uncle
+Matthew could go down to the shore and lie in the sun.
+
+"He's not a robust man, your Uncle Matthew!" he said. "I don't think he
+tholes the winter well!"
+
+"Och, he's mebbe only a wee bit out of sorts," John answered. "I wish,
+he'd come to Belfast with me!..."
+
+"He'll never go next or near that place again," Uncle William replied.
+"He's never been there since that affair!..."
+
+"You'd wonder at a man letting a thing of that sort affect his mind the
+way Uncle Matthew let it affect his," John murmured.
+
+"When a man believes in a thing as deeply as he believed in the oul'
+Queen," said Uncle William, "it's a terrible shock to him to find out
+that other people doesn't believe in it half as much as he does ... or
+mebbe doesn't believe in it at all!"
+
+"I suppose you're right," said John.
+
+"I am," said Uncle William.
+
+John was the first person to reach the door of the pit that afternoon.
+The morning had been rough and blusterous, and although the streets
+were dry, the cold wind blowing down from the hills made people
+reluctant to stand outside a theatre door. John, who was hardy and
+indifferent to cold, stood inside the shelter of the door and read the
+copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ which he had borrowed from his Uncle
+Matthew; and while he read the play he remembered his uncle's criticism
+of the story he had written for _Blackwood's Magazine_: that it
+ought to have had a woman in it! This play was full of love. Romeo,
+sighing and groaning because his lady will not look kindly upon him,
+runs from his friends who "jest at scars that never felt a wound" ...
+and finds Juliet! In _The Merchant of Venice_, Bassanio and
+Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Nerissa had all made love.
+Even young Gobbo, in a coarse, philandering way, had made love, too! In
+all the books he had read, women were prominent. Queer and distressing
+things happened to the heroes; they were constantly in trouble and
+under suspicion of wrong-doing; poverty and persecution were common to
+them; frequently, they were misunderstood; but in the end, they had
+their consolations and their rights and rewards. Love was the great
+predominating element in all these stories, the support and inspiration
+and reward of the troubled and tortured hero; and Woman was the symbol
+of victory, of achievement. At the end of every journey, at the finish
+of every fight, there was a Woman. Uncle Matthew had spoken wisely,
+John thought, when he said that you cannot leave women out of your
+schemes and plans.
+
+John had not thought of leaving women out of his schemes and plans. In
+all his romantic imaginings, a woman of superb beauty had figured in a
+dim way; but the woman had been a dream woman only, bearing no
+resemblance whatever to the visible women about him. He had so much
+regard for this woman of his imagined adventures ... she changed her
+looks as frequently as he changed the scene of his romances ... that he
+had no regard left for the women of his acquaintance. He nodded to the
+girls he knew when he met them in the street, but he had never felt any
+desire to "go up the road" with one of them. Willie Logan, as John
+knew, was "coortin' hard" and laying up trouble for himself by his
+diverse affections; and Aggie Logan, forgetful, perhaps, of the rebuff
+that John had given to her childish offers of love, had lately taken to
+hanging about the street when John was due to pass along it. She would
+pretend not to see him until he was close to her. Then she would start
+and giggle and say, "Oh, John, is that you? You're a terrible stranger
+these days!..." Once while he was listening to her as she made some
+such remark as that, Lady Castlederry drove by in her carriage, and his
+eyes wandered from the sallow, giggling girl in front of him to the
+beautiful woman in the carriage; and Aggie suffered severely by the
+comparison. And yet Aggie had a quicker and more intelligent look than
+Lady Castlederry. The beautiful, arrogant woman was like the dream-woman
+of his romances ... and again, she was not like her; for the dream-women
+had not got Lady Castlederry's look of settled stupidity in her eyes.
+
+John had hurriedly quitted Aggie's company on that occasion. He knew
+why Aggie always contrived to meet him in the street, and he thought
+that she was a poor fool of a girl to do it. And her brother Willie was
+a "great gumph of a fellow," to go capering up and down the road in the
+evenings after any girl that would say a civil word to him or laugh
+when he laughed!...
+
+All the same, women mattered to men. Uncle Matthew had said so, and
+Uncle Matthew was in the right of it. In the story-books, women surged
+into the hero's life, good women and bad women and even indifferent
+women. And, now, in these plays, he could see for himself that women
+mattered enormously. Yet he had never been in love with a girl! He was
+not even in love with the dream-woman of his romances. She was his
+reward for honourable and arduous service ... that was all. He was not
+in love with her any more than he was in love with a Sunday School
+prize. It was a reward for regular attendance and for accurate answers
+to Biblical questions, and he was glad to have it. It rested on the
+bookshelf in the drawing-room, and sometimes, when there were visitors
+in the house, his mother would request him to take it down and show it
+to them. They would read the inscription and make remarks on the oddness
+of Mr. McCaughan's signature and turn over the pages of the book ... and
+then they would hand it back to him and he would replace it on the
+shelf ... and no more was said about it. Really, his dream-woman
+had not meant much more to him than that. She would be given to him
+when he had won his fight, and he would take her and be glad to get
+her ... he would be very proud of her and would exhibit her to his
+friends and say, "This is my beautiful wife!" and then!... oh, well,
+there did not appear to be anything else after that. The book always
+came to an end when the hero married the heroine. Probably she and he
+had children ... but, beyond the fact that they lived happily ever
+afterwards, there did not appear to be much more to say about them....
+
+Somehow, it seemed to him now, as he stood in the shelter of the Pit
+Entrance to the Theatre Royal, reading _Romeo and Juliet_, that
+the heroine was different from his dream-woman. His dream-woman had
+always been very insubstantial and remote, but Juliet was a real woman,
+alive and passionate, with a real father and a real mother. The odd
+thing about his dream-woman was that she did not appear to have any
+relatives ... at least he had never heard of any. She had not even got
+a name. She never spoke to him. Always, when the adventure was ended,
+he went up to the dream-woman, waiting for him in a misty manner, and
+he took hold of her hand and led her away ... and while he was leading
+her away, the adventure seemed to come to an end ... the picture
+dissolved ... and he could not see any more. Once, indeed, he had
+kissed his dream-woman ... he had kissed her exactly as he had kissed
+his great-aunt, Miss Clotworthy, who was famous for the fact that
+she had attended a Sunday School in Belfast as pupil and teacher for
+fifty-seven years without a break ... and the dream-woman had taken the
+kiss in the unemotional manner in which she took hold of his hand when he
+led her away ... and lost her!...
+
+There was something wrong with his dream-woman, he told himself. This
+man Shakespeare, so everybody said, was the greatest poet England had
+produced ... perhaps the greatest poet the world had produced ... and
+he ought to know something of what women were like. Whatever else
+Juliet might be, she certainly was not like John's dream-woman. She did
+not stand at the end of the road waiting for Romeo to come to her. She
+did not wait until the fight was fought and won. She did not offer a
+cold hand or cold lips to Romeo. Her behaviour was really more like
+that of Aggie Logan than that of the dream-woman!...
+
+Aggie Logan! That "girner" with the sallow look and the giggle! He
+could see her now, standing in the street waiting for him, dabbing at
+her mouth with the foolish handkerchief she always carried in her hand.
+What did she want to keep on dabbing at her mouth with her handkerchief
+for! Men didn't dab at _their_ mouths.... Nor did the dream-woman
+dab at hers.... But it was just possible ... indeed, it was very
+likely, that Juliet dabbed at hers!...
+
+At that moment, the Pit Door opened, and John, having paid his
+shilling, passed into the theatre.
+
+
+
+III
+
+He came away from the play in a disturbed and exalted state. Suddenly
+and compellingly, he had become aware of the fact of Women. While he
+sat in the front row of the pit, listening with his whole body to the
+play, something stirred in him and he became aware of Women. The
+actress who played the part of Juliet had turned towards the audience
+for a few moments during the performance and, so it seemed to him, had
+looked straight into his eyes. She did not avert her gaze immediately,
+nor did he avert his. He imagined that she was appealing to him ... he
+forgot that he was sitting in the pit of a theatre listening to a play
+written by a man who had died three hundred years ago ... and
+remembered only that he was a young man with aspirations and romantic
+longings, and that a young woman, in a pitiable plight, was gazing into
+his eyes ... and his heart reached out to her. He drew in his breath
+quickly, murmuring a soft "Oh," and as he did so, his dream-woman fell
+dead and he did not even turn to look at her.
+
+When the play was over, he had sat still in his seat, more deeply moved
+than he had ever been before, overwhelmed by the disaster which had
+come upon the young lovers through the foolish brawls of their foolish
+elders; and it was not until an impatient woman had prodded him in the
+side that he returned to reality.
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am!" he said and got up and hurried out of the
+theatre into the street.
+
+He went along High Street towards Castle Place, and as he walked along,
+he regarded each woman and girl that approached him with interest.
+
+"That one's nice-looking!" he said of a girl, and "That one's ugly!" he
+said of another. He wondered why it was that all the older women of the
+working-class were so misshapen and lacking in good looks, when so many
+of the girls of the working-class were shapely and pretty. Mr.
+Cairnduff had told him that Belfast girls were prettier than London
+girls. "London girls aren't pretty at all," Mr. Cairnduff had said.
+"You'd walk miles in London before you'd see a pretty girl, but you
+wouldn't walk ten yards in Belfast before you'd meet dozens!" And yet,
+all those pretty working-girls grew into dull, misshapen, displeasing
+women. "It's getting married that does it, I suppose," he said to
+himself. "They were all nice once, but they married and grew ugly!"
+
+He did not look long at the ugly and misshapen women. His eyes quickly
+searched through the crowds of passers-by for the pretty girls, and at
+them he looked with eagerness.
+
+"There's no doubt about it," he said to himself, "girls are nice to
+look at!"
+
+He found a restaurant in the street off High Street. He climbed up some
+stairs, and then, pushing a door open, entered a large room, at the
+back of which was a smaller room. A girl was standing at a window,
+looking out on to the street, but she turned her head when she heard
+him entering. She smiled pleasantly as he sat down, and came forward to
+take his order.
+
+"It's turned out a brave day after all," she said.
+
+He said "Aye" and smiled at her in return. She had thick, fair hair,
+and he remembered Bassanio's description of Portia:
+
+     _And her sunny locks
+  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._
+
+He had a curious desire to talk to the girl about the play he had just
+seen, and before he gave his order, he glanced about the room. She and
+he were the only persons in it.
+
+"You don't seem to be very busy," he said.
+
+"Och, indeed, we're not," she replied. "We seldom are on a Saturday.
+Mrs. Bothwall ... her that owns the place ... thought mebbe some
+football fellows might come here for their tea after the matches so's
+they needn't go home before starting for the Empire or the Alhambra:
+but, sure, none of them ever comes. We might as well be shut for the
+custom we get!"
+
+He ordered his tea, and she went to the small room at the back of the
+large room to prepare it. He thought it would be a good plan to ask the
+girl if she would care to have her tea with him, but a sudden shyness
+prevented him from doing so, and he was unable to say more than "Thank
+you" when she put the teapot by his side. There was plenty for two on
+the table, he said to himself: a loaf and a bap and some soda-farls and
+a potato cake and the half of a barn-brack and butter and raspberry
+jam. He looked across the room to where the girl was again looking out
+of the window. He liked the way she stood, with one hand resting on her
+hip and the other on her cheek. He could see that she had small feet
+and slender ankles, and while he looked at her, she rubbed her foot
+against her leg and he saw for a moment or two the flash of a white
+petticoat....
+
+"I was at the Royal the day!" he called to her.
+
+She turned round quickly. "Were you?" she said. "Was it good?"
+
+"It was grand. I enjoyed it the best," he answered.
+
+She came towards him and sat down at a table near to his. "What piece
+was it you saw?" she asked. "It's Benson's Company, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. I saw _Romeo and Juliet_."
+
+"Oh, that's an awful sad piece. I cried my eyes out one year when I saw
+it!"
+
+"It's a great play," John said.
+
+"I suppose you often go?" she went on.
+
+"Last Saturday was the first time I ever went to a theatre. I saw
+_The Merchant of Venice_. I'll go every Saturday after this, when
+there's a good piece on. I'm going again to-night to see _Julius
+Caesar!_"
+
+"I'd love to see that piece!"
+
+"Would you?"
+
+"Aye, indeed I would. I'm just doting on the theatre. The last piece I
+saw was _The Lights of London_. It was lovely."
+
+"I never saw that bit," John answered. "You see I live in Ballyards and
+I only come up to town on Saturdays."
+
+"By your lone?" she asked.
+
+He nodded his head. He poured out his tea, and then began to spread
+butter on a piece of soda-farl.
+
+"I'd be awful dull walking the streets by myself," she said, watching
+him as he did so. "I'm a terrible one for company. I can't bear being
+by myself!"
+
+"Company's good," he said. "Have you had your tea yet?"
+
+"I'll be having it in a wee while!"
+
+"I wish you'd have it with me!" He spoke hesitatingly.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Sure, what's to hinder you?" His voice became bolder.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't. I couldn't really!..."
+
+"You might as well have it with me as have it by yourself. And there's
+nobody'll see you. Where's Mrs. Bothwell?"
+
+"She's away home with a headache!..."
+
+"Then you're all by yourself here!" She nodded her head. "What time do
+you shut?" he went on.
+
+"Half-six generally, but Mrs. Bothwell said I'd better shut at six the
+night!"
+
+He took a cup and saucer and a knife and plate from an adjoining table
+and put them down opposite his own.
+
+"Come on," he said, "and have your tea!"
+
+"Och, I couldn't," she protested weakly.
+
+He poured out some of the tea for her, "I suppose you take milk and
+sugar?" he said.
+
+"You're a terrible fellow," she murmured admiringly, and he could see
+that her eyes were shining with pleasure.
+
+"Draw up to the table," he replied.
+
+She hesitated for a little while, and then she sat down. "This is not
+very like the thing," she murmured.
+
+"It doesn't matter whether it is or not," he replied. "What'll you
+have ... bread or soda-farl?"
+
+She helped herself.
+
+"You know," he said, "I was thinking it would be a good plan for the
+two of us to go to the theatre to-night!"
+
+"The two of us," she exclaimed. "Me and you!"
+
+"Aye! Why not?"
+
+She put down her cup and laughed. "I never met anybody in my life that
+made so much progress in a short time as you do," she said. "What in
+the earthly world put that notion into your head?"
+
+"There's no notion about it," he exclaimed. "I'm asking you plump and
+plain will you come to the theatre with me to-night!..."
+
+"But it wouldn't be like the thing at all to go to the theatre with a
+boy that I never saw before and never heard tell of 'til this minute. I
+don't even know your name!..."
+
+"John MacDermott," he said.
+
+"Are you a Catholic?"
+
+"No. I'm a Presbyterian."
+
+"It's a Catholic name," she mused. "I know a family by the name of
+MacDermott, and they're desperate Catholics. They live over in
+Ballymacarrett. Do you know them?"
+
+"I do not. There never was a person in our family was a Catholic ...
+not that we have mind of. Will you come with me?"
+
+"Ooh, I couldn't!"
+
+"I'll not take 'No' for an answer!" he said, "and I'll not put another
+bite in my mouth 'til you say 'Yes.' D'you hear me?"
+
+"You've an awful abrupt way of talking," she replied.
+
+"What's abrupt about it?" he demanded.
+
+"Well, queer then!" she said.
+
+"I see nothing abrupt or queer about it. Are you coming or are you
+not?"
+
+"As if you were used to getting what you wanted, the minute you wanted
+it," she went on, disregarding his question and intent on explaining
+the queerness of his speech. "I'd be afeard to be _your_ wife,
+you'd be such a bossy man!"
+
+"Ah, quit!" he said. "Will you come?"
+
+"I might!..."
+
+"Will you?"
+
+"Well, perhaps!..."
+
+"Will you or will you not?"
+
+"You're an awful man," she protested.
+
+"Will you come?"
+
+"All right, then," she replied, "but!..."
+
+"I'll have some more tea," said John. He looked round the room while
+she poured the tea into his cup. "Are there any more cakes or buns?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, would you like some?"
+
+"Bring a plate full," he said. "Bring some with sugar on the top and
+jam in the middle!"
+
+"Florence cakes?"
+
+"Aye!"
+
+"You've a sweet tongue in your head!" She went to the small room as she
+spoke.
+
+"I have," he exclaimed. "And I daresay you have, too!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"You never told me your name," he said, when she returned with the
+plate of cakes.
+
+"Give a guess!" she teased.
+
+He looked at her for a moment. "Maggie!" he said.
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"I didn't know," he answered. "You look like a Maggie. What's your
+other name?"
+
+"Carmichael!"
+
+"Maggie Carmichael!" he exclaimed. "It's a nice name!"
+
+"I'm glad you like it," she said.
+
+
+
+V
+
+He sat back in his chair while she went to prepare for the theatre. How
+lucky it was that he had asked his Uncle William for more money that
+morning "in case I need it!" If he had not done so, he would not have
+been able to offer to take Maggie to the theatre.... They would go in
+by the Early Door. There was certain to be a crowd outside the ordinary
+door on a Saturday night. What a piece of luck it was that he had
+chosen to take his tea in this place instead of the restaurant to which
+he usually went. Mrs. Bothwell's headache, too, that was a piece of
+luck, for him, although not, perhaps, for her. He liked the look of
+Maggie. He liked her bright face and her laugh and her beautiful,
+golden hair. What was that bit again?
+
+  _In Belmont is a lady richly left,
+  And she is fair and fairer than that word
+  Of wondrous virtue...._
+
+and then again:
+
+    _...and her sunny locks
+  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece._
+
+Maggie came out of the small room, ready for the street, and he sat and
+watched her as she shut the door behind her.
+
+"I believe I'm in love," he said to himself. "I believe I am!"
+
+"Are you ready?" he said aloud.
+
+"I've only to draw the blinds and then lock the door!" she replied.
+
+"I'll draw them for you," he said, going over to the windows and
+drawing down the blinds as he spoke. "Did you ever see _The Merchant
+of Venice_?" he asked when he had done so.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"There's a bit in it that makes me think of you," he went on.
+
+"Oh, now, don't start plastering me," she exclaimed gaily.
+
+"I mean it," he said, and he quoted the lines about Portia's sunny
+locks.
+
+"That's poetry." she said.
+
+"It is!" he replied.
+
+"It's queer and nice!"
+
+She opened the door leading to the stairs, and then went back to the
+room to turn out the light. The room was in semi-darkness, save where a
+splash of yellow light from the staircase fell at the doorway.
+
+He turned towards her as she made her way to the door, and put out his
+hand to her. She took hold of it, and as she did so, he caught her
+quickly to him and drew her into his arms and kissed her soft, warm
+lips.
+
+"You're an awful wee fellow," she said, freeing herself from his
+embrace and smiling at him.
+
+He did not answer her, but his heart was singing inside him. _I love
+her. I know I love her. I love her. I love her. I know I love her._
+
+They went down the stairs together, and as they emerged into the
+street, he put his arm in hers and drew, her close to him. Almost he
+wished that they were not going to the theatre, that they might walk
+like this, arm in arm, for the remainder of the evening. He could still
+feel the warmth of her lips on his, and he wished that they could go to
+some quiet place so that he might kiss her again. But he had asked her
+to go to the theatre, and he did not wish to disappoint her. They
+entered the theatre by the Early Door, and sat in the middle of the
+front row of the pit. There was a queer silence in the theatre, for the
+ordinary doors had not yet opened, and the occasional murmur of a voice
+echoed oddly. John put his arm in Maggie's and wound his fingers in
+hers, and felt the pressure of her hand against his hand. When the
+ordinary doors of the theatre were opened and the crowd came pouring
+in, he hardly seemed aware of the people searching for good seats.
+Maggie had tried to withdraw her hand from his when she heard the noise
+of the people hurrying down the stone steps, but he had not released
+her, and she had remained content. And so they sat while the theatre
+quickly filled. Presently an attendant with programmes and chocolates
+came towards them, and he purchased a box of chocolates for her.
+
+"You shouldn't have done that," she said, making the polite protest.
+
+"I've always heard girls are fond of sweeties," he replied.
+
+He put the box of chocolates in her lap, and opened the programme and
+handed it to her.
+
+"It's a long piece," she said, "with a whole lot of acts and scenes in
+it. That's the sort of piece I like ... with a whole lot of changes in
+it!"
+
+"Do you?" he said.
+
+"Yes. I came here one time to see a piece that was greatly praised in
+the _Whig_ and the _Newsletter_, and do you know they used
+the same scene in every act! I thought it was a poor miserly sort of a
+play. The bills said it was a London company, but I don't believe that
+was true. They were just letting on to be from London. They couldn't
+have had much money behind them when they couldn't afford more nor the
+one scene, could they!"
+
+"Mebbe you're right," he answered.
+
+The members of the orchestra came into the theatre, and after a while
+the music began. The lights in the theatre were diminished and then
+were extinguished, and the curtain went up. John snuggled closer to
+Maggie.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+He was scarcely aware of the performance on the stage, so aware was he
+of the nearness of Maggie. He heard applause, but he did not greatly
+heed it. He was in love. He had never been in love before, and he had
+always thought of it as something very different from this, something
+cold and austere and aloof, and very dignified ... not at all like this
+warm, intimate, careless thing. He slipped his hand from Maggie's and
+slowly put his arm round her waist. She did not resist him, and when he
+drew her more closely to him so that their heads were nearly touching,
+she yielded to him without demur. He could feel her heart beating where
+his hand pressed against her side, and he heard the slow rise and fall
+of her breath as she inhaled and exhaled. He could not get near enough
+to her. He wanted to draw her head down on to his shoulder, to put both
+his arms about her, to feel again his lips on her lips....
+
+He started suddenly. Someone was tapping him, on the shoulder. He
+turned round to meet the gaze of an elderly, indignant woman who was
+seated immediately behind him.
+
+"Sit still," she said in a loud whisper. "I can't see the stage for you
+two ducking your heads together!"
+
+
+
+VII
+
+He took his arm away from Maggie's waist, and edged a little away from
+her. He felt angry and humiliated. He told himself that he did not care
+who saw him putting his arm about Maggie's waist, but was aware that
+this was not true, that he deeply resented being overlooked in his
+love-making. He did not wish anyone to behold him in this intimate
+relationship with Maggie, and he was full of fury against the woman
+behind him because she had seen him fondling her. For of course the
+woman knew that he had his arm about Maggie ... and now her neighbours
+would know, too. The whole theatre would know that he had been
+embracing the girl!... Well, what if they did know? Let them know!
+There was no harm in a fellow putting his arm round a girl's waist. It
+was a natural thing for a fellow to do, particularly if the girl were
+so pretty and warm and loving as Maggie Carmichael. The woman herself
+had no doubt had a man's arm round her waist once upon a time. He did
+not care who knew!... All the same!... No, he did not care!... He
+slipped his hand into Maggie's hand again, and then quickly withdrew
+it. She was holding a sticky chocolate in her fingers!...
+
+He lost all interest in the play now. It would be truer, perhaps, to
+say that he had not begun to be interested in it, and now that he tried
+to follow it, he could not do so. His mind constantly reverted to the
+indignant woman behind him. He imagined her looking, first this way and
+then that, in her efforts to see the stage, getting angrier and more
+angry as she was thwarted in her desire, and then, in her final
+indignation, leaning forward to tap on his shoulder and beg him to keep
+his head apart from Maggie's so that she might conveniently see the
+stage. His sense of violated privacy became stronger. His love for
+Maggie, for he accepted it now as a settled fact, was not a thing for
+prying eyes to witness: it was a secret, intimate thing in which she
+and he alone were concerned. He hated the thought that anyone else in
+the theatre should know that Maggie and he were sweethearts, newly in
+love and warm with the glow of their first affection. And then, when he
+had slipped his hand back into hers, he had encountered a sticky
+chocolate! While he was burning with feeling for her and with
+resentment against the old woman's intrusion into their love affair,
+Maggie had been chewing chocolate quite unconcernedly. In that crisis
+of their love, she had remained unmoved. When he had released her hand,
+she had simply put it into the box of chocolates and taken out a sticky
+sweet and had eaten it with as little emotion as if he had not been
+present at all, as if his ardent, pressing arm had not been suddenly
+withdrawn from her waist because of that angry intruder into their
+happiness. She had taken his hand when he gave it to her, and had
+released it again when he withdrew it, without any appearance of desire
+or reluctance. He had imagined that she would take his hand eagerly and
+yield it up unwillingly, that she would try to restrain him when he
+endeavoured to take his hand away from hers ... but she had not done
+so.
+
+Perhaps she did not love him as he loved her. Perhaps she did not love
+him at all. After all, he had met her for the first time about three
+hours earlier in the evening. Only three hours ago! It was hard to
+believe that he had not loved her for centuries, had not often felt her
+heart beating beneath the pressure of his hand, had not frequently put
+his lips to her lips and been enchanted by her kisses. Why, he had only
+kissed her once. Only once! Once only!... He looked at her as she sat
+by his side, gazing intently at the stage. He could see a protuberance
+in her cheek, made by a piece of chocolate, and as he looked at her, it
+seemed to him to be a terrible thing that this girl did not love him.
+His love had gone out to her, quickly, insurgently and fully, and
+perhaps she thought no more of him than she might think of any chance
+friend who offered to take her to see a play. She might have spent many
+evenings in this very theatre with other men. Had she not told him that
+afternoon that she hated to be alone! He had put his arm about her
+waist in a public place and had been humiliated for doing so, but
+nothing of this had meant much to Maggie. She was quite willing to let
+him embrace her ... perhaps she thought that she ought to allow him to
+hug her as a return for the treat at the theatre ... or perhaps she
+liked to feel a man's arm about her waist and did not much care who the
+man might be. Some girls were like that. Willie Logan had told him that
+Carrie Furlong was the girl of any fellow who liked to walk up the road
+with her. She did not care with whom she went; all that she cared about
+was that she should have some boy in her company. She would kiss
+anybody.
+
+Was Maggie Carmichael like that? Would she kiss this one or that one,
+just as the mood took her?... Oh, no, she could not be like that. It
+was impossible for him to fall in love with a girl who distributed
+kisses as carelessly and impassionately as a boy distributes handbills.
+He felt certain that he could not fall in love with a girl of that
+sort, that some instinct in him would prevent him from going so. Other
+fellows might make a mistake of that kind ... Willie Logan, for
+example ... but a MacDermott could not make one. Maggie must be in love
+with him ... she must have fallen in love with him as suddenly as he had
+fallen in love with her ... otherwise she could not have consented so
+readily to accompany him to the theatre. When he had taken her in his
+arms and kissed her, she had yielded to him so naturally, as if she had
+been in his arms many times before!... Perhaps, though, the ease with
+which she had yielded to him denoted that she had had much
+experience!... Oh, no, no! No, no! She was his girl, not anybody else's
+girl. He could not have her for a sweetheart, if she shared her love
+with other men. He must have her entirely to himself!...
+
+Oh, what a torturing, doubt-raising, perplexing thing this Love was! A
+few hours ago he had known nothing whatever of it ... had merely
+imagined cold, austere, wrong things about it ... and now it had hold
+of him and was hurting him. Every particle of his mind was concentrated
+on this girl by his side ... a stranger to him. He knew nothing of her
+except her name and that she was employed as a waitress in a
+restaurant. She was a stranger to him ... and yet a fierce,
+unquenchable love for her was raging in his heart. Each moment, the
+flames of his passion increased in strength. When he looked away from
+her, he could see her in his mind's eye. Each of the players on the
+stage looked like Maggie.... And there she was, all unaware of this
+strong emotion in him, placidly sitting in her seat, gazing at the
+actors! Do women feel love as strongly as men do? he asked himself as
+he looked at her, and as he did so she turned, her head to him,
+conscious perhaps of his stare, and when her eyes met his in the
+glowing dusk of the theatre, she smiled, and, seeing her smile, he
+forgot his doubt and remembered only the great joy of loving her.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+He insisted on taking her to her home, although she stoutly declared
+that this was unnecessary. She lived at Stranmillis, she said, and
+the journey there and back would make him miss his train; but he swore
+that he had plenty of time, and would not listen to her dissuasions.
+When they reached the terminus at the Botanic Gardens, she tried to
+insist that he should return to town in the tram by which they had come
+out, but he said that he must walk with her for a while. She would not
+let him accompany her to the door of her home ... he must leave her at
+a good distance from it ... and to this he agreed, for he knew what the
+etiquette of these matters is. He put his arm in hers, again drawing
+her close to him, and, listening to her laughter, he walked in gladness
+by her side. It was she who stopped. "I'll say 'Good-night' to you
+here," she said.
+
+"Not yet," he replied.
+
+"You'll miss your train," she warned him.
+
+He did not heed her warning, but drew her into the shadow and held her
+tightly to him.
+
+"Don't!" she stammered, but could not speak any more because of the
+strength of his kisses.
+
+Very long he held her thus, his arms tightly round her and her lips
+closebound to his, and then with a great sigh of pleasure, he released
+her.
+
+"You're a desperate fellow," she said, half scared, and she laughed a
+little.
+
+She glanced about her for a moment. "I must run now," she said, holding
+out her hand.
+
+"Not yet," he said again.
+
+"Oh, but I must. I must!" she insisted. "Good-night!"
+
+He took her hand. "Good-night," he replied, but did not let her hand
+go.
+
+She laughed nervously. "What's wrong with you?" she said.
+
+"I ... I'm in love with you, Maggie!" he murmured, almost
+inarticulately.
+
+Her laughter lost its nervousness. "You're a boy in a hurry and a
+half!" she said.
+
+"I know. Kiss me, Maggie!"
+
+She held up her face to him. "There, then!" she said.
+
+He kissed her again, and then again, and yet again.
+
+"You're hurting me," she exclaimed ruefully.
+
+"It's because I love you so much, Maggie!" he said.
+
+"Well, let me go now!..." She stood away from him. "You have me all
+crumpled up," she said. "I'll be a terrible sight when I get in!
+Anybody'd think you'd never kissed a girl before in your life!"
+
+"I haven't," he replied.
+
+"You what?"
+
+"I haven't. I've never kissed any other girl but you!"
+
+"You don't expect me to believe a yarn like that?" she said.
+
+"It's the God's truth," he answered.
+
+"Well, nobody'd think it from the way you behave!"
+
+He regarded her in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "Have you
+ever kissed anyone before?"
+
+"I'm twenty-two." she replied.
+
+He had not thought of her age, but if he had done so, he would not have
+imagined that she was more than nineteen.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" he asked.
+
+"A lot," she replied. "You don't think a girl as nice-looking as me has
+reached my age without having kissed a fellow, do you?"
+
+"Then you have kissed someone else?"
+
+"I've kissed dozens," she said. "Good-night, John!"
+
+She turned and ran swiftly from him, laughing lightly as she ran, and
+for a second or two, he stood blankly looking after her. Then he called
+to her, "Wait, Maggie, wait a minute!" and ran after her.
+
+She stopped when she heard him calling, and waited for him to come up
+to her.
+
+"When'll I see you again?" he said.
+
+"Oh, dear knows!" she replied.
+
+"Will you come to the theatre with me next Saturday?"
+
+"I might!"
+
+"Will you get the day off, and we'll go in the afternoon and evening,
+too!"
+
+"I mightn't be let," she said. "Mrs. Bothwell mightn't agree to it!"
+
+"Ask her anyway!..."
+
+"I will, then. Good-night, John!"
+
+He snatched at her hand. "Listen, Maggie," he said.
+
+"What?" she answered.
+
+"Do you ... do you like me?"
+
+"Ummm ... mebbe I do!"
+
+"I love you, Maggie!"
+
+"Aye, so you say!" she said.
+
+"Do you not believe me?..."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"It's true," he affirmed. "I love you!..."
+
+"Good-night," she said.
+
+"Good-night, Maggie!"
+
+He released her hand, but she did not go immediately. She came close to
+him, and put her arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers,
+and kissed him.
+
+"You're a nice wee fellow," she said. "I like you queer and well!"
+
+Then she withdrew her arms, and this time he did not try to detain her.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+He missed the last train to Ballyards, but he did not mind that. He set
+out bravely to walk from Belfast. The silence of the streets, the
+deeper silence of the country roads, accorded with the pleasure in his
+heart. He sang to himself, and sometimes he sang aloud. He was in love
+with Maggie Carmichael, and she ... she liked him queer and well. He
+could hardly feel the ground beneath his feet. The road ran away from
+him. The moon and the stars shared his exultation, and the trees gaily
+waved their branches to him, and the leaves of the trees beat their
+hands together in applause. "And her sunny locks Hang on her temples
+like a golden fleece," he said aloud...
+
+It was very late when he reached the door of the shop in Ballyards. His
+Uncle William was standing in the shade of the doorway, peering
+anxiously into the street.
+
+"Is that you, John?" he called out, while John was still some distance
+away from the shop.
+
+"Aye, Uncle William," John called out in reply.
+
+Uncle William came to meet him. "Oh, whatever kept you, boy?" he said
+when they met.
+
+"I missed the train," John answered.
+
+"Your Uncle Matthew, John!..."
+
+Anxiety came into John's mind. "Yes, Uncle?" he said.
+
+"He's bad, John. Desperate bad! We had to send for Dr. Dobbs an hour
+ago, and he's still with him. I thought you'd never reach home!"
+
+All the joy fell straight out of John's heart. He did not speak. He
+walked swiftly to the house, and passing through the shop, entered the
+kitchen, followed by his Uncle William.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+"Your ma's upstairs with the doctor and him," said Uncle William,
+closing the kitchen door behind him.
+
+"Is he very bad?" John asked in an anxious voice.
+
+"I'm afeard so," Uncle William replied.
+
+John went towards the staircase, but his uncle called him back. "Better
+not go up yet awhile," he said. "The doctor'll be down soon, mebbe, and
+he'll tell you whether you can go up or not."
+
+"Very well," John murmured, coming back into the kitchen and sitting
+down beside the fire.
+
+"It come on all of a sudden just before bedtime," Uncle William went
+on, "He wasn't looking too grand all the morning, as you know, but we
+never thought much of it. He never was strong, and he hasn't the
+strength to fight against his disease. If he dies, I'll be the last of
+the three brothers. Death's a strange thing, John. Your da was the
+cleverest and the wisest of us all, and he was the first to go; and now
+your Uncle Matthew, that's wise in his way, and has a great amount of
+knowledge in his head, is going too ... the second of us ... and I'm
+left, the one that could be easiest spared. It's queer to take the best
+one first and leave the worst 'til the last. You'd near think God had a
+grudge against the world!... What were you doing in Belfast the day?"
+
+"I went to the theatre."
+
+"Aye. What did you see?"
+
+"I saw _Romeo and Juliet_ in the middle of the day, and _Julius
+Caesar_ at night!" John answered. "Is my Uncle Matthew unconscious?"
+
+"No. He has all his senses about him. He knows well he's dying. Did he
+never speak to you about that?"
+
+John shook his head. "I couldn't bear it if he did. Does he mind, d'you
+think?"
+
+"No, he does not. Why should he mind? It's us that's left behind that's
+to be pitied, not them that goes. I can't make out the people of these
+days, the way they pity the dead and dying, when it's the living's to
+be pitied. Did you like the plays, John?"
+
+John roused himself to answer. "Aye," he said, "they were grand. What
+happened when he took bad?"
+
+"We had just had our supper, and he started to go up the stairs, and
+all of a sudden he called out for your ma, and we both ran to him
+together, her and me, and the look on his face frightened me. I didn't
+stop to hear what was wrong. I went off to fetch Dr. Dobbs as quick as
+I could move. I never saw _Julius Caesar_ myself, but I mind well
+the time I saw _Romeo and Juliet_. It was an awful long time ago,
+when the oul' Theatre Royal ... not this one, but the one before it,
+that was burnt down ... and we saw _Romeo and Juliet_. That's a
+tremendous piece, John! It gripped a hold of my heart, I can tell you,
+and I came away from the theatre with the tears streaming down my face.
+I always was a soft one, anyway. That poor young boy and his lovely wee
+girl tormented and tortured by people that was older nor them, but
+hadn't half the sense! It grips you, that play!"
+
+"Aye," said John.
+
+"You'll hardly believe me, John, but the play was so real to me that
+when they talked about getting married, I said to myself I'd go and see
+the wedding. I did by my troth!"
+
+"Eh?" said John abstractedly.
+
+"I was talking about the play!..."
+
+"Oh, aye, aye! Aye!"
+
+"It sounds silly, I know," Uncle William continued, "but it's the God's
+own truth, as sure as I'm sitting here. And whenever I pass 'The
+Royal,' I always think of _Romeo and Juliet,_ and I see that poor
+boy and girl stretched dead, and them ought to have been happy together
+and having fine, strong childher!"
+
+"I wonder how he is now. Do you think I should go up now?" John said.
+
+"Wait 'til the doctor comes down. I have great faith in Dr. Dobbs. He
+never humbugs you, that man, but tells you plump and plain what's wrong
+with you!" He sat back in his chair, and for a while there was no sound
+in the kitchen, but the noise of the clock and the small drooping noise
+made by the dying fire. There was no sound from overhead.
+
+Uncle William glanced at the clock. He got up and stopped the pendulum.
+"I can't bear the sound of it," he said to John as he sat down again.
+They remained in silence for a while longer, and then Uncle William got
+up and started the clock again. "Mebbe ... mebbe, it's better for it to
+be going." he said.
+
+He searched for his pipe on the mantel-shelf and, when he had found it,
+lit it with a coal which he picked out of the fire with the tongs.
+
+"Your Uncle Matthew was terribly upset by it," he said, reverting to
+the play. "It was a wild and wet night, we had to walk every inch, of
+the way, for there was no late trains in them days, John, and we were
+drenched to the skin. Your Uncle Matthew never said one word to me the
+whole road home. He just held his head high and stared straight in
+front of him, and when I looked at him, though the night was dark, I
+could see that his fists were clenched and his lips were moving, though
+he didn't speak. You never see no plays like that, these days, John.
+The last piece I saw in Belfast was a fearful foolish piece, with a lot
+of love and villainy in it. The girl was near drowned in real water,
+and then the villain tied her on to a circular saw, and if it hadn't
+been for the hero coming in the nick of time, she'd have been cut in
+two. No man would treat a woman that way, tying her on to a saw! I'm
+afeard some of these pieces nowadays are terribly foolish, John, so I
+never want to go now!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs, and presently Dr. Dobbs,
+a lean, stooping man, came into the kitchen, followed by Mrs.
+MacDermott. The Doctor nodded to John, and Mrs. MacDermott said,
+"You're back!" and then went into the scullery from which she soon
+returned, carrying a glass with which she hurried upstairs again.
+
+"Your Uncle's been asking for you, John," said the doctor, drawing on
+his gloves.
+
+"Can I go up and see him, sir?" John asked.
+
+"In a minute or two. Your mother'll call for you when he's ready. I'm
+afraid there's not much hope, William!" the doctor said.
+
+John leant against the mantel-shelf, waiting to hear more. He listened
+in a dazed way to what the doctor was saying, but hardly comprehended
+it, for in his mind the words, "I'm afraid there's not much hope!" made
+echoes and re-echoes. Uncle Matthew was dying, might, in a little
+while, be dead. Dear, simple, honest, kindly Uncle Matthew who had
+loved literature and good faith too well, and had suffered for his
+simple loyalty.
+
+"He's easier now than he was," the doctor continued, "and he may last a
+good while ... and he may not. I _think_ he'll last a while yet,
+but he might die before the morning. I want you to be prepared for the
+worst. You know where to find me if you want me, William!"
+
+"Yes, doctor!"
+
+"I've left him in good hands. Your mother's a great nurse, John," he
+said, turning to the boy.
+
+"Can I go up to him now, doctor?"
+
+"Yes, I think perhaps ... oh, yes, I think you may. But go up quietly,
+will you, in case he's dozed off!..."
+
+John did not wait to hear any more, but, walking on tiptoe, went up the
+stairs to his uncle's room.
+
+Uncle Matthew turned to greet him as he entered the room.
+
+"Is that you, John?" he said.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Matthew," John answered, tiptoeing to the side of the bed.
+"I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier. I never thought!..."
+
+Uncle Matthew smiled at him. "Sure, son, it doesn't matter. You
+couldn't know ... none of us did. Well, was the play good?"
+
+But John did not wish to speak about the play. He wished only to sit by
+his Uncle's bed and hold his Uncle's hand.
+
+"I'll go downstairs now for a wee while," Mrs. MacDermott said. "I have
+a few things to do, and John can call me if you need me, Matt!"
+
+"Aye, Hannah!" said Uncle Matthew.
+
+John looked up at his mother, but she had turned to leave the room, and
+he could not see her face.
+
+He had never heard her call his Uncle by the name of "Matt" before, nor
+had he often heard Uncle Matthew use her Christian name in addressing
+her. He avoided it, John had observed, as much as possible, and it had
+seemed to him that his Uncle did so because of his mother's antagonism
+to him.
+
+"What are you staring at, John?" Uncle Matthew said feebly.
+
+"She called you 'Matt', Uncle!"
+
+"That's my name," Uncle Matthew replied, smiling at his nephew.
+
+"Aye, but!..."
+
+"She used to call me 'Matt' before she was married, and for a wee while
+afterwards, when we were all friends together. Your da's death was a
+fearful blow to her, and she never overed it. And she thought I was a
+bad influence on you, filling your head with stuff out of books. You
+see, John, women are not like men ... they don't value things the way
+we do ... and things that seem important to us, aren't worth a flip of
+your hand to them. And the other way round, I suppose. But a woman
+can't be bitter against a sick man, no matter how much she hated him
+when he had his health. That's where we have the whiphand of them,
+John. They can't stand against us when we're sick, but we can stand up
+against anything, well or sick!..."
+
+John remembered his mother's caution that he was not to let his Uncle
+talk much.
+
+"You ought to lie still, Uncle Matthew," he said, but Uncle Matthew
+would not heed him.
+
+"I'm as well as I'll ever be." he said. "I know rightly I'll never
+leave this bed 'til I'm carried out of it for good and all. And I'm not
+going to deny myself the pleasure of a talk for the sake of an extra
+day or two!..."
+
+"Wheesht, Uncle Matthew!" John begged.
+
+"Why, son, what's there to cry about? I'm not afeard to die. No
+MacDermott was ever afeard to die, and _I_ won't be the first to
+give in. Oh, dear, no!"
+
+"But you'll get better, Uncle Matthew, you will, if you'll only take
+care of yourself!..."
+
+"Ah, quit blethering John. I won't get better!... What were we saying?
+Something about your ma!..."
+
+"Yes. Her calling you 'Matt'!"
+
+"Oh, aye. You'd be surprised, mebbe, to hear that your Uncle William
+and me both had a notion of her before your da stepped in and took her
+from us? We had no chance against him. That man could have lifted a
+queen from a king's bed!..."
+
+"You ought not to be talking so much, Uncle Matthew!"
+
+"Ah, let me talk, John. It's the only comfort I have, and I'll get all
+the rest I want by and bye. Was it a girl kept you late the night?"
+
+"How did you know, Uncle Matthew?"
+
+"How did I know!" Uncle Matthew said with raillery. "How would anyone
+know anything but by using the bit of wit the Almighty God's put in his
+head. What is it makes any lad lose his train, and walk miles in the
+dark? It's either women or drink ... and you're no drinker, John. Tell
+me about her. I'd like to be the first to know!"
+
+"I only met her the day!..."
+
+"Aye?"
+
+"I hardly know her yet ... but she's lovely!"
+
+"Go on ... go on!"
+
+"I took her to the theatre with me to see _Julius Caesar_ and then
+I left her home. She lives up near the Lagan ... out Stranmillis
+way!..."
+
+"I know it well," said Uncle Matthew. "Is she a fair girl or a dark
+girl?"
+
+"She has the loveliest golden hair you ever clapped your eyes on. It
+was that made me fall in love with her!..."
+
+"You're in love with her then! You're not just going with her?"
+
+"Of course I'm in love with her. I never was in the habit of just going
+with girls. That's all right, mebbe, for Willie Logan, but I'm not fond
+of it," said John indignantly.
+
+"You fell in love with her in a terrible great hurry," Uncle Matthew
+exclaimed.
+
+"Aye," said John laughing. "It was queer and comic the way I fell in
+love with her, for I had no notion of such a thing when I went in the
+shop to have my tea. She's in a restaurant off High Street. I'd been to
+the Royal to see _Romeo and Juliet_, and I was full of the play
+and just wandering about, not thinking of what I was doing, when all of
+a sudden I saw this place fornent my eyes, and I just went in, and she
+was there by her lone. The woman that keeps the place had gone home
+with a sore head, and left her to look after it!"
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Maggie Carmichael. It's a nice name. They don't do much trade on a
+Saturday, and her and me were alone in the shop by ourselves so I asked
+her to have tea with me, and then I asked her to go to the Royal, and
+she agreed after a while, and when it was over, I took her home, and
+that's why I missed the train and had to tramp it the whole way home.
+She's older nor I am. She says she's twenty-two. She was codding me for
+never having kissed any other girl but her!..."
+
+"You got that length, did you?"
+
+"Aye," said John in confusion.
+
+"You're like your da. Take what you want, the minute you want it.
+She'll think you're in earnest, John!"
+
+"I am in earnest. I couldn't be any other way. How could a man feel
+about a woman, the way I feel about her, and not be in earnest?"
+
+"As easy as winking," said Uncle Matthew. "You'll mebbe be in love a
+hundred times before you marry, and every time you'll think it's the
+right one at last. There's no law in love, John. You can't say about
+it, that you've got to know a woman well before you're safe in marrying
+her, nor you can't just shut your eyes and grab hold of the first one
+that comes to your hand. There's no law, John ... none at all. It's an
+adventure, love. That's what it is. You don't know what lies at the end
+of your journey ... and you can't know ... and mebbe when you reach the
+end, you don't know. You just have to take your chance, and trust to
+God it'll be all right! Is she in love with you?"
+
+"I don't know. I don't suppose so. She made fun of me, so I suppose she
+can't be. But she said she liked me."
+
+"Making fun of you is nothing to go by. Some women would make fun of
+God Almighty, and think no harm of it. You'll soon know whether she's
+in love with you or not, my son!"
+
+"How will I, Uncle Matthew?"
+
+"When she begins to treat you as if you were her property. That's a
+sure and certain sign. The minute a woman looks at a man as much as to
+say, 'That fellow belongs to me,' she's in love with him, as sure as
+death. Anyway, she's going to marry him! Boys-a-boys, John, but you're
+the lucky lad with all your youth and health in front of you, and
+you setting out in the world. Many's the time I've longed at nights
+to be lying snug and comfortable and quiet in a woman's arms, but
+I never had that pleasure. Whatever you do, John, don't die an unmarried
+man like your Uncle William and me. It's better to live with a cross
+sour-natured woman nor it is to live with no woman at all; for even the
+worst woman in the world has given a wee while of happiness to her man,
+and he always has that in his mind to comfort him however bad she turns
+out after. And if she is bad, sure you can run away from her!"
+
+"Run away from her! You'd never advocate the like of that, Uncle
+Matthew?"
+
+"I would. I'm a dying man, John, and mebbe I'll be dead by the morrow's
+morn, so you may be sure I'm saying things now that I mean with all my
+heart, for no man wants to go before his God with lies on his lips. And
+I tell you now, boy, that if a man and woman are not happy together,
+they ought to separate and go away from each other as far as they can
+get, no matter what the cost is. Them's my solemn words, John. I'd like
+well to see this girl you're after, but I'll mebbe not be able. No
+matter for that. Pay heed to me now, for fear I don't get the
+opportunity to say it to you again. Whatever adventures you set out on,
+never forget they're only adventures, and if one turns out to be bad,
+another'll mebbe turn out to be good. Don't be like me, don't let one
+thing affect your life for ever!..." He lay back on his pillow for a
+few moments and did not speak. John waited a little while, and then he
+leant forward. "Will I fetch my ma?" he asked.
+
+Uncle Matthew shook his head and waved feebly with his hand, and John
+sat back again in his chair.
+
+"Life's just balancing one adventure against another," Uncle Matthew
+said at last, without raising his head from the pillow. "The good
+against the bad. And the happy man is him that can set off a lot of
+good adventures against bad ones, and have a balance of good ones in
+his favour. But it takes courage to have a lot, John. The Jenny-joes of
+the world never try again after the first bad one. I ... I was
+staggered that time ... I ... I never got my foothold again. The
+balance is against me, John!..."
+
+Mrs. MacDermott came into the room.
+
+"It's time you went to your bed, son," she said, "and your Uncle'll
+want to get to sleep, mebbe. Are you all right, Matt?"
+
+"I'm nicely, thank you, Hannah!"
+
+John got up from his seat and said "Good-night!" to his Uncle.
+
+"Good-night, John. Mind well what I've said to you!"
+
+"I will, Uncle Matthew!"
+
+"Good-night, son, dear!" said Uncle Matthew, smiling at him.
+
+
+
+III
+
+In the morning, Uncle Matthew was better than he had been during the
+night, and Dr. Dobbs, when he called to see him, thought that he would
+live for several weeks more. John went down to the kitchen from his
+Uncle's room, happy at the thought that his Uncle might recover in
+spite of the doctor's statement that death was inevitable within a
+short time. Doctors, he told himself, had made many mistakes, and
+perhaps Dr. Dobbs was making a mistake about Uncle Matthew.
+
+He had lain late, heavy with fatigue, for Mrs. MacDermott had not
+called him at his usual hour and so the morning was well advanced when
+he came down.
+
+"There's a letter for you," said Uncle William, pointing to the
+mantel-shelf, where a foolscap envelope rested against the clock. "It'll
+be about the story, I'm thinking!"
+
+John took the letter in his trembling fingers and tore it open.
+
+"They've sent it back," he said in a low tone.
+
+"There'll be a note with it," Uncle William murmured.
+
+"Yes!..." He straightened out the printed note and read it. "They've
+declined it," he said.
+
+"They've what?" Uncle William exclaimed, taking the printed slip from
+John's hands. He read the note of rejection through several times.
+
+"What does it say?" Mrs. MacDermott asked.
+
+"It's a queer kind of a note, this!" said Uncle William. "You'd think
+the man was breaking his heart at the idea of not printing the story.
+He doesn't say anything about it, whether it's good or bad. He just
+thanks John for sending it to him and says he's sorry he can't accept
+it. If he's so sorry as all that, why the hell doesn't he print it?"
+
+"William!" said Mrs. MacDermott sharply. "This is Sunday!"
+
+"Well, dear knows I don't want to desecrate God's Day," Uncle William
+answered, accepting the rebuke, "but that is a lamentable letter to
+get. I must say!"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott held her hand out for the letter. "Give it to me," she
+said, and she took it from Uncle William.
+
+"This is his way of saying your story's no good, John," she said, when
+she had read through the note. "No man would refuse a thing if he
+thought it was worth printing!"
+
+Her words hurt John very sorely. He looked at her, but he did not
+speak, and then, after a moment or two, he turned away.
+
+"Now, now, that's not right at all," Uncle William said comfortingly.
+"There might be a thousand things to prevent the man from printing the
+story. Mebbe he doesn't know a good story when he sees it. Sure, half
+these papers nowadays print stories that would turn a child's stomach,
+and a thing's not bad just because one paper won't take it. There's
+other magazines besides _Blackwood's_, John, as good, too, and
+mebbe better!" He went over to his nephew and put his hand on the boy's
+shoulder. "There, there, now, don't let this upset you! Your Uncle
+Matthew was telling me the other day that some of the greatest writers
+in the world had their best stories refused time after time. Don't lose
+heart over a thing like that!"
+
+"I haven't lost heart, Uncle William. I daresay it isn't as good as I
+thought it was, but I'll improve. It wasn't to be expected I'd succeed
+the first time!"
+
+"That's the spirit, boy. That's the spirit!"
+
+"Only I'm disappointed all the same. It's likely I don't know enough
+yet!"
+
+"Oh, that's very likely," said Uncle William. "You're only a young
+fellow yet, you know!"
+
+"Mebbe that story of mine is full of ignorant mistakes I wouldn't have
+made if I'd been about the world a bit and seen more!"
+
+"I daresay you're right! I daresay you're right!..."
+
+Mrs. MacDermott came between them. "What are you leading up to?" she
+demanded.
+
+"I must travel a bit before I start writing things," John answered. "I
+must know more and see more. My Uncle Matthew's right. You have to go
+out into the world to get adventure and romance!..."
+
+"Can't you get all the adventure and romance you need in this place,
+and not go tramping among strangers and foreigners for it?" Mrs.
+MacDermott retorted angrily.
+
+"How can I get adventure and romance in a place where I know
+everybody?" John rejoined.
+
+"Are you proposing to leave home, John!" Uncle William asked.
+
+"Aye! For a while anyway," John answered, "I'll go to London!..."
+
+"You'll not go to no London," Mrs. MacDermott retorted, "and your
+Uncle, Matthew lying on his deathbed!..."
+
+"I'm not proposing to go this minute, ma!..."
+
+"You'll not go at all," she insisted.
+
+"I will!"
+
+"You will not, I tell you. What would a lump of a lad like you do in a
+place of that sort, where there's temptation and sin at every corner!
+Doesn't everyone know that the Devil's roaming up and down the streets
+of London day and night, luring young men to their ruin? There's bad
+women in London!..."
+
+"There's bad women everywhere," John replied. "You don't need to be
+your age to know that!"
+
+She listened angrily while John explained his point of view to his
+Uncle William. Travel and new experiences were necessary to the
+development of his mind.
+
+"Don't you go up to Belfast every week!" Mrs. MacDermott interrupted.
+
+"I was in Belfast yesterday," John retorted, "but there wasn't a thing
+happened to me, romantic or anything else!..." He stopped abruptly,
+smitten by the recollection of his meeting with Maggie Carmichael.
+After all, _that_ was a romantic adventure! Most strange that he
+had not thought of his love affair in that way before! Of course, it
+was a romantic adventure! He had walked straight out of a dull street,
+you might say, into an enchanted café ... and had found Maggie in
+captivity, waiting for him to deliver her from it. She had been
+lonely ... and he had come to comfort her. He had taken her from that
+dull, cheerless ... prison ... you could call it that!... and had taken
+her to a pleasant place and made love to her! Oh, but of course it was a
+romantic adventure, with love and a beautiful golden-haired girl at the
+end of it. And here he was, moping over the misadventure of a
+manuscript and talking of travel in distant places in search of
+exciting experiences as if he had not already had the most thrilling
+and wonderful adventure that is possible to a man! Why, if he were to
+leave Ballyards and go to London, he would lose Maggie ... would not
+see her again!... By the Holy O, his mother was right after all! Women
+_were_ right sometimes! There was plenty of romance and adventure
+lying at your hand, if you only took the trouble to look for it.
+Mebbe... mebbe a thing was romantic or not romantic, just according to
+the way you looked at it. One man could see romance in a grocer's shop,
+and another man could not see romance anywhere but in places where he
+had never been!...
+
+"Mebbe you're right, ma," he said.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott looked suspiciously at him. "You changed your mind very
+quick," she said.
+
+"I always change my mind quick," he replied.
+
+They heard the noise of tapping overhead.
+
+"That's your Uncle Matthew," said Mrs. MacDermott, rising from her
+chair.
+
+"I'll go," John exclaimed hastily. "It's mebbe me he wants!"
+
+He ran quickly up the stairs and entered his Uncle's room.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Matthew?" he said.
+
+"I heard you all talking together," Uncle Matthew answered. "What's
+happened?"
+
+"Oh, nothing! My story's been refused. That's all."
+
+Uncle Matthew put out his hand and took hold of John's. "Are you very
+disappointed?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I am. I made sure they'd take it!"
+
+"There ought to have been a woman in it. You know, John, I told you
+that. There was no love in that story, and people like to read about
+love. That's natural. Sure, it's the beginning of everything!"
+
+"I didn't know anything about it then, Uncle!..."
+
+"No, but you do now ... a wee bit ... and you might have imagined it.
+You'd never be your father's son, if you hadn't a heart brimful of
+love. What else were you talking about?"
+
+John told his Uncle of his proposal to go to London in search of
+experience.
+
+"Aye, you'll have to do that some day," his Uncle replied, "but there's
+no hurry yet awhile. You'd better finish your schooling first, and you
+could go on writing here 'til you get more mastery of it. You might try
+to write a book, and then when it's done, you could go to London or
+somewhere. I'd be sorry if you went just now!..."
+
+"I'm not meaning to go yet, Uncle!"
+
+"Very good, son. I'd like you to be here when I ... when!..."
+
+He did not finish his sentence, but the pressure of his hand on John's
+increased.
+
+"Eh, John?" he said.
+
+"Yes, Uncle Matthew!" John replied. He quickly changed the
+conversation. "You're looking a lot better," he said.
+
+Uncle Matthew smiled. "Oh, aye," he replied, "I feel a lot better, too.
+I'll mebbe beat the doctor yet. He thinks I'm done for, but mebbe I'll
+teach him different!"
+
+"You will, indeed. And why wouldn't you? You're young yet!"
+
+Uncle Matthew did not reply to this. He turned on his pillow and
+glanced towards the dressing-table.
+
+"Are you looking for anything?" John asked.
+
+"Is there a book there?"
+
+"No," John said. "Do you want one?"
+
+"Your ma read a wee bit to me in the night, after you went to bed. I
+thought mebbe you'd read a wee bit more to me. _Willie Reilly_, it
+was."
+
+"I'll get it for you," John replied, going to the door. He called to
+his mother, and she told him that she had brought the book downstairs
+with her.
+
+"Wait a minute and I'll fetch it," she said.
+
+She returned in a moment or two, carrying the book in her hand, and
+mounted half-way up the staircase to meet him. She pointed to a place
+in the book. "I read up to there to him in the night," she said. John
+looked at his mother, as he took the book from her hands, and saw how
+tired she looked.
+
+"Did you not get any sleep at all, ma?" he asked with concern.
+
+"I'm all right, son," she answered.
+
+"No, you're not," he insisted. "You'll just go to your bed this minute
+and lie down for a while!..."
+
+"And the dinner to cook and all," she interrupted.
+
+"Well, after your dinner then. You'll lie down the whole afternoon.
+Uncle William and me'll get the tea ready, and we'll take it in turns
+to look after Uncle Matthew!"
+
+She stood on the step beneath him, looking at him with dark, tired
+eyes, and then she put out her hand and touched him on the shoulder.
+"You'll not leave me, John?" she pleaded.
+
+"No, ma," he answered. "Not for a long while yet!"
+
+She turned away from him and went down the stairs again.
+
+John returned to his Uncle's room, and sat down by the side of the bed.
+He opened the book and began to read of Willie Reilly and his Colleen
+Bawn. Now and then he glanced at his Uncle and wondered at the
+childlike and innocent look on his face. There was a strange simplicity
+in his eyes ... not the simplicity of those who have not got
+understanding, but of those who have a deep and unchangeable knowledge
+that is very different from the knowledge of other men; and once again
+John assured himself that while Uncle Matthew's behaviour might be
+"quare" when compared with that of other people, yet it was not foolish
+behaviour nor the behaviour of the feeble-minded: it was the conduct of
+a man who responded immediately to simple and honest emotions, who did
+not stop to consider questions of discretion or interest, but did the
+thing which seemed to him to be right.
+
+"What are you thinking of, Uncle Matthew?" he said suddenly, putting
+down the book, for it seemed to him that his Uncle was no longer
+listening.
+
+"I was thinking I wouldn't have missed my life for the wide world!"
+Uncle Matthew replied.
+
+"After everything?" John asked.
+
+"Aye, in spite of everything," said Uncle Matthew. "There's great value
+in life ... great value!"
+
+John picked up the book again, but he did not begin to read, nor did
+Uncle Matthew show any signs that he wished the reading to be resumed.
+
+"Our minds go this way and that way," Uncle Matthew went on, "and some
+of us are not happy 'til we're away here and there!..."
+
+"You were always wanting to be off after adventures yourself, Uncle
+Matthew!"
+
+"Aye, John, I was, and I never went. I've oftentimes thought little of
+myself for that, but I'm wondering now, lying here, whether it wasn't a
+great adventure to stop at home. I don't know! I don't know! But I'll
+know in a wee while! John!"
+
+"Yes, Uncle!"
+
+"I wouldn't change places with the King of England, at this minute, not
+for all the money in the mint and my weight in gold!"
+
+"Why, Uncle Matthew?"
+
+"Do you know why? Because in a wee while, I'll know all there is to
+know, and he'll be left here knowing no more nor the rest of you. God
+is good, John. He shares out his knowledge without favour to anyone.
+The like of us'll know as much in the next world as the like of
+them!..."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+When the sharper anxieties concerning Uncle Matthew had subsided,
+John's mind was filled with thoughts of Maggie Carmichael. It seemed to
+him to be impossible that any seven days in the history of the world
+had been so long in passing as the seven days which separated him from
+his next meeting with her. His work at the Ballyards National School
+lost any interest it ever had for him: the pupils seemed to be at once
+the stupidest and laziest and most aggravating children on earth.
+Lizzie Turley completely lost her power to add two and one together and
+make three of them. Strive as he might, he could not make her
+comprehend or remember that two and one, when added together, did not
+amount to five. There was even a dreadful day when she lost her power
+to subtract.... Miss Gebbie, the teacher to whom he was most often
+monitor, had always had hard, uncouth manners, but they became almost
+intolerable before the seven days had passed by ... and it seemed
+certain that there must be a crisis in her life and in his before the
+clock struck three on Friday afternoon! If she complained again, he
+said to himself, about the way in which he marked the children's
+exercise books, he would tell her in very plain language what he
+thought of her and her big bamboo-cane. When she slapped the children,
+the corners of her mouth went down and her large lips tightened and a
+cruel glint came into her eyes!...
+
+It was only during the reading half-hour that his mind was at ease in
+school that week, for then he could let his thoughts roam from
+Ballyards to Belfast, and fill his eyes with visions of Maggie. The
+droning voices of the children, reading "Jack has got a cart and can
+draw sand and clay in it," were almost soothing, and it was sufficient
+for supervision, if now and then, he would call out, "Next!" The child
+who was reading would instantly stop, and the child next to her would
+instantly begin....
+
+It seemed to him that he had the clearest impressions of Maggie
+Carmichael, and yet had also the vaguest impressions of her. He
+remembered very distinctly that she had bright, laughing eyes, and that
+her hair was fair, and that she had pretty teeth: white and even. He
+had often read in books of the beauty of a woman's teeth, but he had
+never paid much attention to them. After all, what was the purpose of
+teeth? To bite. It was ridiculous, he had told himself, to talk and
+write of beauty in teeth when all that mattered was whether they could
+bite well or not.... But now, remembering the beauty of Maggie
+Carmichael's mouth, he saw that the writers had done well when they
+insisted on the beauty of teeth. Any sort of a good tooth would do for
+biting and chewing, but there was something more than that to be said
+for good, white, even teeth. If teeth were of no value otherwise than
+for biting and chewing, false teeth were better than natural teeth!...
+And false teeth were so hideous to look at; so smug, so self-conscious.
+Aggie Logan had false teeth. So had Teeshie McBratney and Sadie
+Cochrane. Things with pale gums!...
+
+He had wanted to kiss Maggie Carmichael's teeth, so beautiful were
+they. Just her teeth. It had been splendid to kiss her lips, but then
+one always kissed lips. Men, according to the books, even kissed hair
+and ears and eyes. He had read recently of a man who kissed a woman on
+the neck, just behind the ear; and at the time he had thought that this
+was a very queer thing to do. Love, he supposed, was responsible for a
+thing like that. He could not account for it in any other way. He
+understood _now_, of course. When a man loved a woman, every part
+of her was very dear and beautiful to him, and to kiss her neck just
+behind the ear was as exquisite as to kiss her lips. No one, in any of
+the books he had read, had wished to kiss a woman's teeth. There were
+still hidden joys in kissing ... and he had discovered one of them. He
+would kiss Maggie's teeth on Saturday. He would kiss her lips, too, of
+course, and her hair and her eyes and ears and the part of her neck
+that was just behind her ear, but most of all he would kiss her
+teeth!...
+
+He thought that it was very strange that he should think so ardently of
+kissing Maggie. He could have kissed Aggie Logan dozens of times, but
+he had never had the slightest desire to kiss her. He remembered how
+foolish he had thought her that night at the soiree when someone
+proposed that they should play Postman's Knock. Aggie Logan had called
+him out to the lobby. There was a letter for him, she said, with three
+stamps on it. Three stamps! Did anyone ever hear the like of that? And
+he was to go into the lobby and give her three kisses, one after the
+other ... peck, peck, peck ... and then it would be his turn to call
+for someone, and Aggie would expect him to call for her! ... Willie
+Logan had called for a girl. He had a letter for her with fifty stamps
+on it ... A great roar of laughter had gone up from the others when
+they heard of the amount of the postage, and Willie was thought to be a
+daring, desperate fellow ... until the superintendent of the Sunday
+School said that there must be reason in all things and proposed a
+limit of three stamps on each letter ... no person to be called for
+more than twice in succession. Willie, boisterous and very amorous,
+whispered to John that he did not care what limit they made ... no one
+could tell how many extra stamps you put on your letter out in the
+lobby....
+
+John had not answered Aggie's call. He had contrived to get out of the
+school-room without being observed, and Aggie had been obliged to call
+for someone else. Kissing!... Kiss her!... Three stamps!... Peck, peck,
+_peck_!...
+
+
+
+V
+
+Wednesday dragged itself out slowly and very reluctantly; Thursday was
+worse than Wednesday; and Friday was only saved from being as bad as
+Thursday by its nearness to Saturday. On the morrow, he would see
+Maggie again. Many times during the week, he had debated with himself
+as to whether he should write to her or not, but the difficulty of
+knowing what to say to her, except that he loved her and was longing
+for the advent of Saturday, prevented him front doing so. In any case,
+it would be difficult to write to her without questions from his
+mother, and if Maggie were to reply to him, there would be no end to
+the talk from her. After all, a week was only a week. On Monday, a week
+had seemed to be an interminable period of time, but on Friday, it had
+resumed the normal aspect of a week, a thing with a definite and
+reachable end. It was odd to observe how, as the week drew to its
+close, the intolerable things became tolerable. Miss Gebbie seemed to
+be a little less inhuman on Friday than she had been on Monday, and
+Lizzie Turley marvellously recovered her power to add two and one
+together and get the correct result. Beyond all doubt, he was in love.
+There could not be any other explanation of his behaviour and his
+peculiar impatience. That any man should conduct himself as he had done
+during the week now ending, for any other reason than that he was in
+love, was impossible. Why, he woke up in the morning, thinking of
+Maggie, and he went to sleep at night, thinking of Maggie. He thought
+of her when he was at school, and he thought of her in the street, in
+the shop, in the kitchen, even in his Uncle Matthew's room. When it was
+his turn to sit by Uncle Matthew's side, his mind, for more than half
+the time, was in Belfast with Maggie. He had read more than a hundred
+pages of _Willie Reilly_ to his Uncle, but he had not comprehended
+one of them. He had been thinking exclusively of Maggie.
+
+He wondered whether he would always be in this state of absorption.
+Other people fell in love, as he knew, but they seemed to be able to
+think of other things besides their love. Perhaps they were not so much
+in love as he was! He began to see difficulties arising from this great
+devotion of his to Maggie. It would be very hard to concentrate his
+mind on a story if it were full of thoughts of her. He would probably
+spoil any work he attempted to do, because his mind would not be on it,
+but away with Maggie. In none of the books he had read, had he seen any
+account of the length of time a pair of lovers took in which to get
+used to each other and to adjust their affections to the ordinary needs
+of life. He would never cease to love Maggie, of course, but he
+wondered how long it would be before his mind would become capable of
+thinking of Maggie and of something else at the same time ... or even
+of thinking of something else without thinking of Maggie at all....
+
+
+
+VI
+
+His mother had looked dubiously at him when he talked of going to
+Belfast on Saturday. She said that he ought not to leave home while his
+Uncle Matthew was so ill, but Dr. Dobbs had given a more optimistic
+opinion on the sick man's condition, and so, after they had argued over
+the matter, she withdrew her objection. Uncle William had insisted that
+John ought to go up to the city for the sake of the change. The lad had
+had a hard week, what with his school work and his writing and his
+attention to Uncle Matthew, and the change would be good for him. "Only
+don't miss the train this time," he added to John.
+
+Maggie met him outside the theatre. He had not long to wait for her,
+and his heart thrilled at the sight of her as she came round Arthur's
+Corner.
+
+"So you have come," she said to him, as she shook hands with him.
+
+"Did you think I wouldn't?" he answered.
+
+"Oh, well," she replied, "you never know with fellows! Some of them
+makes an appointment to meet you, and you'd think from the way they
+talk about it that they were dying to meet you; and then when the time
+comes, you might stand at the corner 'til your feet were frozen to the
+ground, but not a bit of them would turn up. I'd never forgive a boy
+that treated me that way!"
+
+"I'm not the sort that treats a girl that way," said John.
+
+"Oh, indeed you could break your word as well as the next! Many's a
+time I've give my word to a fellow and broke it myself, just because I
+didn't feel like keeping it. But it's different for a girl nor it is
+for a fellow. There's no harm in a girl disappointing a fellow. I hear
+this piece at the Royal is awfully good this week. It's about a girl
+that nearly gets torn to pieces by a mad lion. I don't know whether I
+like that sort of piece or not. It seems terrible silly, and it would
+be awful if the hero come on a minute or two late and the girl was ate
+up fornent your eyes!"
+
+John laughed. "There's not much danger of that," he replied.
+
+There were very few people waiting outside the Pit Door, and so they
+were able to secure good seats with ease. "The best of coming in the
+daytime," John said, "is you have a better chance of the front row than
+you have at night!"
+
+She nodded her head. "But it's better at night," she answered. "A piece
+never seems real to me in the daylight."
+
+"Where'll we go to-night?" he said to her.
+
+"Oh, I can't go with you to-night again," she exclaimed, taking a
+chocolate from the box which he had bought for her.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have another appointment!..."
+
+"Break it," he commanded.
+
+"I couldn't do that!..."
+
+"Oh, yes, you could," he insisted. "You told me yourself you'd
+disappointed fellows many's a time!"
+
+"I daresay I did, but I can't break this one," she retorted.
+
+Suspicion entered his mind. "Is it with another fellow?" he asked.
+
+"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," she said.
+
+"Is it?" he demanded.
+
+"And what if it is?"
+
+"I don't want you to go out with anybody else but me!"
+
+She ate another chocolate. "Have one?" she said, passing the box to
+him. He shook his head moodily. "Are you going to do what I ask or are
+you not?" he said.
+
+"Don't be childish," she replied. "I've promised a friend to go to a
+concert to-night, and I'll have to go. That's all about it!"
+
+"Is it a fellow?"
+
+"Mebbe it is and mebbe it's not!" she teased.
+
+"You know I'm in love with you!" She laughed lightly, and he bent his
+head closer to her. "Listen, Maggie," he went on, "I know I only met
+you for the first time last Saturday, but I'm terrible in love with
+you. Listen! I want to marry you, Maggie!..."
+
+She burst out laughing.
+
+"Don't make a mock of me," he pleaded.
+
+She turned to look at him. "What age are you?" she demanded.
+
+"I'm near nineteen," he answered.
+
+"And I'm twenty-two," she retorted. "Twenty-two past, I am. Four years
+older nor you!..."
+
+"That doesn't matter," he insisted.
+
+"It wouldn't if the ages was the other way round ... you twenty-two and
+me nineteen!"
+
+"It doesn't matter what way they are. It's not age that matters: it's
+feeling!"
+
+"You'll feel different, mebbe, when you're a bit older. What would
+people say if I was to marry you now, after meeting you a couple of
+times, and you four years younger nor me?"
+
+"It doesn't matter what they'd say," he replied. "Sure, people are
+always saying something!"
+
+She ruminated! "I like going out with you well enough, and you're a
+queer, nice wee fellow, but it's foolish talk to be talking of getting
+married. What trade are you at?"
+
+"I'm a monitor," he answered. "I'm in my last year!..."
+
+"You're still at the school," she said.
+
+"I'm a monitor," he replied, insisting on his status.
+
+"Och, sure that's only learning. When in the earthly world would you be
+able to keep a wife?"
+
+"I'm going to write books!..."
+
+"What sort of books?"
+
+"Story books," he said.
+
+"Have you writ any yet?"
+
+"No, but I wrote a short story once!"
+
+She looked at him admiringly. "How much did you get for it?" she asked.
+
+"I didn't get anything for it," he replied. "They wouldn't take it!"
+
+She remained silent for a few moments. Then she said, "Your prospects
+aren't very bright!"
+
+"But they'll get brighter," he said. "They will. I tell you they will!"
+
+"When?" she asked.
+
+"Some day," he answered.
+
+"Some day may be a long day in coming," she went on. "I might have to
+wait a good while before you were able to marry me. Five or six years,
+mebbe, and then I'd be getting on to thirty, John. You'd better be
+looking out for a younger girl nor me!"
+
+"I don't want anybody else but you," he replied.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+When the play was over, they walked arm in arm towards the restaurant
+where she was employed. "I promised Mrs. Bothwell we'd have our tea
+there," Maggie said to John. "It put her in a sweet temper, the thought
+of having two customers for certain. She'll mebbe give up that place.
+It's not paying her well. She wasn't going to give me the time off at
+first, but I told you were my cousin up from the country for the
+day!..."
+
+"But I'm not your cousin," John objected.
+
+"That doesn't matter. Sure, you have to tell a wee bit of a lie now and
+again, or you'd never get your way at all. And it saves bother and
+explaining!"
+
+They crossed High Street and were soon at the foot of the stairs
+leading up to Bothwell's Restaurant. "Mind," said Maggie in a whisper,
+"you're my cousin!"
+
+He did not speak, but followed her up the stairs and into the
+restaurant where she introduced him to a plain, stoutly-built, but
+cheerless woman who came from the small room into the large one as they
+entered it. There was one customer in the room, but he finished his tea
+and departed soon after Maggie and John arrived. In a little while, she
+and he were eating their meal. John politely asked Mrs. Bothwell to
+join them, but she declined.
+
+She sat at a neighbouring table and talked to them of the play.
+
+"I don't know when I was last at a theatre," she said, "and I don't
+know when I'll go again. I always say to myself when I come away,
+'Well, that's over and my money's spent and what satisfaction have I
+got for it?' And when I think it all out, there doesn't seem to be any
+satisfaction. You've spent your money, and the play's over, and that's
+all. It seems a poor sort of return!'"
+
+"You might say that about anything," John said. "A football match
+or ... or one of these nice wee cookies of yours!"
+
+"Oh, indeed, you might," Mrs. Bothwell admitted. "Sure, there's no
+pleasure in the world that's lasting, and mebbe if there were we
+wouldn't like it. You pay your good money for a thing, and you have it
+a wee while, and then it's all over, and you have to pay more money for
+something else. Or mebbe you have it a long while, only you're not
+content with it. That's the way it always is. There's very little
+satisfaction to be got out of anything. Look at the Albert Memorial!
+That looks solid enough, but there's people says it'll tumble to the
+ground one of these days with the running water that's beneath it!"
+
+Maggie took a big bite from a cookie. "Oh, now, there's satisfaction in
+everything," she said, "if you only go the right way about getting it
+and don't expect too much. I always say you get as much in this world
+as you're able to take ... and it's true enough. I know I take all in
+the way of enjoyment that I can put my two hands on. There's no use in
+being miserable, and it's nicer to be happy!"
+
+"You're mebbe right." said Mrs. Bothwell. "But you can't just be
+miserable or happy when you like. I can't anyway!"
+
+"You should try," said Maggie.
+
+Mrs. Bothwell went to the small room and did not return. John was glad
+that her dissatisfaction with the universe did not make her oblivious
+of the fact that Maggie and he were content enough with each other's
+company and did not require the presence of a third party.
+
+He leant across the table and took hold of one of Maggie's hands.
+"You've not answered my question yet?" he said.
+
+"What question?" she said.
+
+"About going out with me," he replied.
+
+"I'll go to the Royal with you next Saturday," she said.
+
+"Ah, but for good! I mean it when I say I want to marry you!..."
+
+"You're an awful wee fool," she exclaimed, drawing her hand from his
+and slapping him playfully.
+
+"Fool!"
+
+"Yes. I thought at first you were having me on, but I think now you're
+only a wee fool. But I like you all the same!"
+
+"Am I a fool for loving you?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, no, not for that, but for knowing so little!"
+
+"Marry me, Maggie," he pleaded.
+
+"Wheesht," she said, "Mrs. Bothwell will hear you!..."
+
+"I don't care who hears!..."
+
+"But I do," she interrupted. "You're an awful one for not caring.
+You've said that more nor once to-day!" She glanced at the clock. "I'll
+have to be going soon," she said.
+
+"No, not yet awhile!..."
+
+"But I will. I'll be late if I stop!..."
+
+She began to draw on her gloves as she spoke.
+
+"Well, when will I see you again?" he asked.
+
+"Next Saturday if you like!..."
+
+"Can I not see you before? I could come up to Belfast on Wednesday!..."
+
+"I'm engaged on Wednesday," she said.
+
+"But!"
+
+"Och, quit butting," she retorted. "I'll see you on Saturday and no
+sooner. Pay Mrs. Bothwell and come on!..."
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+She insisted on leaving him at the Junction, and he moodily watched her
+climbing into a tram. She waved her hand to him as the tram drove off,
+and he waved his in reply. And then she was gone, and he had a sense of
+loss and depression. He stared gloomily about him. What should he do
+now? He might go to the Opera House or to one of the music-halls or he
+might just walk about the streets....
+
+He thought of what Mrs. Bothwell had said earlier in the day. "There's
+very little satisfaction in anything!"
+
+"There's a lot in that," he said to himself. "I'll go home," he
+continued. "There's no pleasure in mouching round the town by
+yourself!"
+
+He got into a tram and was soon at the railway station. On the
+platform, a little way in front of him, he saw Willie Logan, flushed
+and excited, with two girls, one on either side of him. Willie had an
+arm round each girl's waist.
+
+"That fellow's getting plenty of fun anyway," John said, as he climbed
+into an empty carriage. He did not wish to join Willie's party. He knew
+too well what Willie was like: a noisy, demonstrative fellow,
+indiscriminately amorous. "Nearly every girl's worth kissing," Willie
+had said to him on one occasion. "If you can't get your bit of fun with
+one woman, sure you can get it with another!"
+
+Willie, in the carriage, would kiss one girl, John knew, and then would
+turn and kiss the other, "just to show there's no ill will." He might
+even invite John to kiss them in turn ... so that John might not feel
+uncomfortable and "out of it." He would lie back in the carriage, his
+big face flushed and his eyes bright with pleasure, an arm round each
+of his companions, and when he was not kissing them, he would be
+bawling out some song, or, at stations, hanging half out of the window
+to chaff the porters and the station-master. "Get all you can," he
+would say, "and do without the rest!"
+
+But John was not a promiscuist: he was a monopolist. He put the whole
+of his strength into his love for one woman, and he demanded a similar
+singleness of devotion from her. His mind was full of Maggie, but he
+felt that she had cast him out of her mind the moment that the tram
+bore her out of his sight.
+
+"I'll make her want me," he said, tightening his fists. "I'll make her
+want me 'til she's heartsore with wanting!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Uncle Matthew died three days later. He slipped out of life without
+ostentation or murmur. "The MacDermotts are not afeard to die," he had
+said to John at the beginning of his illness, and in that spirit he had
+died. In the morning, he had asked Mrs. MacDermott to look for _Don
+Quixote_ in the attic and bring it to him, and she had done so. He
+had tried to read the book, but it was too heavy for him--his strength
+was swiftly going from him--and it had fallen from his hands on to the
+quilt and then had rolled on to the floor.
+
+"I can't hold it," he murmured.
+
+"Will I read it to you?" she said to him.
+
+"Yes, if you please!" he said.
+
+It was a badly-bound book, printed in small, eye-tormenting type,
+and it was difficult to hold; but she made no complaint of these
+things, and for an hour or so, she read to Uncle Matthew. She put
+the book down when his breathing denoted that he was asleep, but
+she did not immediately go from the room. She sat for a time, looking
+at the delicate face on the pillow, and then she picked the book
+up again and began to examine it, turning the pages over slowly,
+reading here and reading there, and examining the illustrations closely.
+There was a puzzled look on her face, and the flesh, between her
+eyebrows was puckered and deeply lined. She put the book down on
+her lap and looked intently in front of her, as if she were considering
+some problem. She picked the book up again, and once more turned over
+the pages and examined the pictures; but she did not appear to find
+any solution of her problem as she did so, for she put the book down
+on the dressing-table and left it there. She bent over the sleeping
+man for a few moments, listening to his breathing, and then she went
+out of the room leaving the door ajar.
+
+And while she was downstairs, Uncle Matthew died. He had not wakened
+from his sleep. He seemed to be exactly in the same position as he was
+when she left the room. He was not breathing ... that was all. She
+called to Uncle William, and he came quickly up the stairs.
+
+"Is anything wrong?" he said anxiously.
+
+"Matt's dead!" she replied.
+
+He stood still.
+
+"Shut the shop," she said, "and send for John and the doctor!"
+
+He did not move.
+
+She touched him on the shoulder. "Do you hear me, William?"
+
+He started. "Aye," he said, "I hear you right enough!"
+
+But he still remained in the room, gazing blindly at his brother. Then
+he went over to the bed and sat down and cried.
+
+"Poor William!" said Mrs. MacDermott, putting her arms around him.
+
+
+
+II
+
+John wrote to Maggie Carmichael to tell her of his Uncle's death. It
+would not be possible for him to keep his engagement with her on the
+following Saturday. She sent a thinly-written note of sympathy to him,
+telling him that she would not expect to see him for a while because of
+his bereavement. "_You'll not be in the mood for enjoying yourself at
+present,_" she wrote, "_and I daresay you would prefer to stay at
+home at present. I expect you'll miss your Uncle terribly!--_"
+
+Indeed, he did miss his Uncle terribly!
+
+There was a strange quietness in the house before the day of the
+burial, which was natural, but it was maintained after Uncle Matthew
+had been put in the grave where John's father lay. Uncle William's
+quick, loud voice became hushed and slow and sometimes inaudible, and
+Mrs. MacDermott went about her work with few words to anyone. John had
+come on her, an hour or two before the coffin lid was screwed down,
+putting a book in Uncle Matthew's hands. He saw the title of it ...
+_Don Quixote_ ... and he said to her, "What are you doing, ma?"
+She looked up quickly and hesitated. "Nothing!" she answered, and
+suddenly aware that she did not wish to be observed, he went away and
+left her alone. It seemed to him afterwards that she resented his
+knowledge of what she had done ... that she looked at him sometimes as
+if she were forbidding him ever to speak of it ... but she did not talk
+of it. She spoke as seldom as Uncle William did, and it seemed to John
+that the voice had been carried out of the house when Uncle Matthew had
+been carried to the graveyard. He felt that he could not endure the
+oppression of this silence any longer, that he must, speak to someone,
+and, in his search for comfort, his mind wandered in search of Maggie
+Carmichael with intenser devotion than he had ever experienced before.
+If only Uncle Matthew were alive, John could talk to him of Maggie.
+Uncle Matthew would listen to him. Uncle Matthew always had listened to
+him. He had never shown any impatience when John had talked to him of
+this scheme and that scheme, and he would not have mocked his love for
+Maggie. How queer a thing it was that Uncle Matthew who had seemed to
+be the least important person in the house should have so ... so
+stifled the rest of them by his death!
+
+Uncle William, who bore the whole burden of maintaining the family,
+mourned for Uncle Matthew as if he had lost his support; and Mrs.
+MacDermott began to talk, when she talked at all, of the things that
+Matt had liked. Matt liked this and Matt liked that ... and yet she had
+seemed not merely to disregard Uncle Matthew when he was alive, but
+actually to dislike him. Uncle Matthew must have had a stronger place
+in the house than any of them had imagined. John could not bear to go
+to the attic now, although he wished to turn over the books which were
+now his. It was in the attic that Uncle Matthew had found most of his
+happiness, in the company of uncomplaining, unreproachful books, and
+the memory of that happiness had drawn John to the attic one day when
+he most missed his Uncle. He had handled the books very fondly, turning
+over pages and pausing now and then to read a passage or two ... and
+while he had turned the pages of an old book with faded, yellow leaves,
+he had found a cutting from a Belfast newspaper. It contained a report
+of the police proceedings against Uncle Matthew, and it was headed,
+STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF A BALLYARDS MAN!... John hurriedly put the book
+down and went out of the room. He had not shed a tear over Uncle
+Matthew. He did not wish to cry over him. He felt that Uncle Matthew
+would like his mourners to have dry eyes ... but it was hard not to cry
+when one read that bare, uncomprehending account of Uncle Matthew's
+chivalrous act. _Strange_ behaviour, the reporter named it, when
+every instinct in John demanded that it should be called _noble_
+behaviour. Was a man to be called a fool because his heart compelled
+him to perform an act of simple loyalty?... _Strange behaviour_!
+John seized the cutting and crumpled it in his hand. Then he
+straightened it out again and tore it in pieces. Were people so poor in
+faith and devotion that they could not recognise the nobility of what
+Uncle Matthew had done? And for that act of goodness, Uncle Matthew had
+gone to his grave under stigma. "Poor sowl," they said in Ballyards,
+"it's a merciful release for him. He was always quare in the head!"
+
+John could not stay in the house with his memories of Uncle Matthew,
+and so he went for walks along the shores of the Lough, to Cubbinferry
+and Kirklea or turning coastwards, towards Millreagh and Holmesport;
+but there was no comfort to be found in these walks. He returned from
+them, tired in body, but unrested in mind. He tried to write another
+story, but he had to put the pen and ink and paper away again, and he
+told himself that he had no ability to write a story. Wherever he went
+and whatever he did, the loss of Uncle Matthew pressed upon him and
+left him with a sense of impotence, until at last, his nature, weary of
+its own dejection, turned and demanded relief. And so he set his
+thoughts again on Maggie Carmichael, and each day he found himself,
+more and more, thinking of her until, after a while, he began to think
+only of her. He had written to her a second time, but she had not
+answered his letter. He remembered that she had protested against her
+incompetence as a correspondent. "I'm a poor hand at letter-writing,"
+she had said laughingly. She could talk easily enough, but she never
+knew what to put in a letter, and anyhow it was a terrible bother to
+write one. A letter would be a poor substitute for her, he told
+himself. He must see her soon. Mourning or no mourning, he would go to
+Belfast on the next Saturday and would see her. It would not be
+possible for him to take her to a theatre, but she and he could go for
+a long walk or they could sit together in the restaurant and talk to
+each other. This loneliness and silence was becoming unendurable: he
+must get away from the atmosphere of loss and mourning into an
+atmosphere of life and love. Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that.
+He felt certain that Uncle Matthew would wish him to do that. Uncle
+Matthew would hate to think of his nephew prowling along the roads in
+misery and suffering when his whole desire had been that he should have
+opportunity and satisfaction. He had bequeathed his property and his
+money "to my beloved nephew John MacDermott," and John had been deeply
+moved by the affection that glowed through the legal phraseology of the
+will. It was not yet known how much money there would be, for Mr.
+McGonigal, the solicitor, had not completed his account of Uncle
+Matthew's affairs; but the amount of it could not be very large. That
+was immaterial to John. What mattered to him was that his Uncle's love
+for him had never flickered for a moment, but had shone steadily and
+surely until the day of his death.
+
+"I never told anyone but him about Maggie," John thought. "I'm glad I
+told him ... and I know he'd want me to go to her now!"
+
+And so, late on Friday evening, he resolved that he would go to Belfast
+on the following day. He sent a short note to Maggie, addressing it to
+the restaurant, in which he told her that he would call for her on
+Saturday. He begged that she would go for a walk with him. "_We might
+go to the Cave Hill_," he wrote, "_and be back in plenty of time
+for tea!_"
+
+
+
+III
+
+He crossed the Lagan in the ferry-boat, so impatient was he to get
+quickly to Maggie, but when he reached the restaurant, Maggie was not
+there. He stood in the doorway, looking about the large room, but there
+was no one present, for it was too early yet for mid-day meals. Maggie
+was probably engaged in the small room at the back of the restaurant
+and would presently appear. It was Mrs. Bothwell who came to answer his
+call.
+
+"Oh, good morning!" he said, trying to keep the note of disappointment
+out of his voice.
+
+"Good morning," she answered.
+
+"It's a brave day!"
+
+"It's not so bad," she grudgingly admitted.
+
+"Is ... is Maggie in?" he asked.
+
+"In!" she exclaimed, looking at him with astonishment plain on her
+face.
+
+"Yes. Isn't she in? She's not sick or anything, is she?" he replied
+anxiously.
+
+"Oh, dear bless you, no! She's not sick," Mrs. Bothwell said. "Do you
+mean to say you don't know where she is?"
+
+"No, I ... I don't, Mrs. Bothwell!" There was a note of apprehension in
+his voice. "I thought, she'd be here!"
+
+"But haven't you been to the house?"
+
+"No," he answered. "I've just arrived from Ballyards this minute.
+What's wrong, Mrs. Bothwell!"
+
+"There's nothing wrong that I know of. Only I don't understand you not
+knowing about it. Why aren't you at the church?"
+
+"Church!"
+
+"Aye. Sure, I'd be there myself only I can't leave the shop. I'm glad
+she's getting a fine day for it anyway!"
+
+John touched her on the arm. "I don't understand what you're talking
+about, Mrs. Bothwell," he said. "What's happening!"
+
+"Didn't you know she's being married the day on a policeman?..."
+
+"Married!" he exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"Aye. She's been going with him this long while back, and now that he's
+been promoted ... they've made him a sergeant ... they've got married.
+She's done well for herself. How is it you didn't know about it, and
+you and her such chums together?"
+
+"Did I hear you saying she's getting married the day?" he murmured,
+gazing at her in a stupefied fashion.
+
+"That's what. I keep on telling you," she replied, "only you don't pay
+no heed to me. I thought you were her cousin!..."
+
+"No, I'm not her cousin," he answered. "I was ... I was going with her.
+That's all. I'm sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Bothwell!"
+
+"Oh, it's no bother at all. She must have been having you on, for the
+banns was up at St. George's this three weeks!..."
+
+"St. George's!" he repeated.
+
+"Aye, these three weeks. She had a fancy to be married in St. George's
+Church, for all it's a ritualistic place, and people says they're going
+fast to Popery there. But I don't wonder at her, for it's quare and
+nice to see the wee boys in their surplices, singing the hymns!..."
+
+He interrupted her. "Three weeks ago," he said, as if calculating.
+"That must have been soon after I met her for the first time. I met her
+here in this room, Mrs. Bothwell. I'd been to the Royal to see a play,
+and I came in here for my tea, and I struck up to her for I liked her
+look!..."
+
+"Oh, she's a nice enough looking girl is Maggie, though looks is not
+everything," Mrs. Bothwell interjected.
+
+"She never told me!..."
+
+"Oh, well, if it comes to that, you never told her anything about
+yourself, did you?" Mrs. Bothwell demanded. "I suppose she thought you
+were just a fellow out for a bit of fun, and she might as well have a
+bit of fun, too!"
+
+"But I wasn't out for fun," he exclaimed. "I was in earnest!"
+
+"That's where you made your mistake," said Mrs. Bothwell. "I'm sorry
+for you, but sure you're young enough not to take a thing like that to
+heart, and she's not the only girl in the world by a long chalk. By the
+time you're her age, she'll have a child or two, and'll mebbe be
+feeling very sorry for herself ... and you'll have the world fornent
+you still! A young fellow like you isn't going to let a wee thing like
+that upset you?"
+
+"It isn't a wee thing, Mrs. Bothwell. It's a big thing," he insisted.
+
+"Och, sure, everything's big looking 'til you see something bigger. One
+of these days you'll be wondering what in the earthly world made you
+think twice about her!"
+
+He turned away from her and moved towards the door, but suddenly he
+remembered the letter which he had written to Maggie on the previous
+evening.
+
+"Did a letter for her come this morning?" he said, turning again to
+Mrs. Bothwell. "I wrote to her last night to tell her I was coming up
+the day!"
+
+"One did come," she answered. "I put it in the kitchen, intending to
+re-address it when I had a minute to spare. I'll go and get it. I
+suppose you don't want it sent on to her now?"
+
+"No, I don't. It was only to tell her I'd meet her here!"
+
+"Well, I'll bring it to you then." She went into the kitchen and
+presently returned, carrying John's letter in her hand. "Is this it?"
+she said. "It's got the Ballyards postmark on it."
+
+He took it from her. "Yes, that's it," he replied, tearing it in
+pieces. "Could I trouble you to put it in the fire," he said, handing
+the torn paper to her.
+
+"It's no trouble at all," she answered, taking the pieces from him.
+
+"Good morning, Mrs. Bothwell!" he said.
+
+"Well, good morning to you!"
+
+He opened the door and was about to pass out of the restaurant when she
+spoke to him again.
+
+"I wouldn't let a thing like that upset me if I was you," she said.
+"Sure, what's one girl more nor another girl! You'll get your pick and
+choice before long. A fine fellow like you'll not go begging for
+nothing!"
+
+"I'm not letting it upset me," he said, "but it'll be the queer girl
+that'll make a fool of me in a hurry!"
+
+"That's the spirit,'"' said Mrs. Bothwell.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+He walked down the stairs and into the street in a state of fury. He
+had been treated as if he were a corner-boy.
+
+Willie Logan, who was any girl's boy, could not have been treated so
+contemptuously as he, who had never cared for any other girl, had been
+treated. She had married a policeman ... _a peeler!_ She might as
+well have married a soldier or a militia-man. A MacDermott had been
+rejected in favour of a peeler! She had gone straight from his embraces
+to the embraces of a policeman ... a common policeman. She had refused
+to meet him on a Wednesday, he remembered, because, probably, she had
+engaged to meet the peeler on that evening. He would be off duty then!
+While she was yielding her lips to John, she was actually engaged to be
+married to ... to a policeman! By heaven!...
+
+What a good and fortunate thing it was that he had not spoken of her to
+anyone except to Uncle Matthew! If anyone were to know that a
+MacDermott had fallen in love with a girl who had preferred to marry a
+peeler ... _a peeler_, mind you! ... they would split their sides
+laughing. What a humiliation! What an insufferable thing to have
+happened to him! That was your love for you! That was your romance for
+you! ... Och! Och, och!! This was a lesson for him, indeed. No more
+love or romance for him. Willie Logan could run after girls until the
+soles dropped off his boots, but John MacDermott would let the girls do
+the running after him in future. No girl would ever get the chance
+again to throw him over for ... for a _peeler!_ If that was their
+love, they could keep their love!...
+
+He walked about the town until, after a while, he found himself at the
+Theatre Royal. Still raging against Maggie, he paid for a seat in the
+pit. He had forgotten that he was in mourning, and he remembered only
+that he was a jilted lover, a MacDermott cast aside for a policeman. He
+sat through the first act of the play, without much comprehension of
+its theme. Then in the middle of the second act, he heard the heroine
+vowing that she loved the hero, and he got up and walked out of the
+theatre.
+
+"I could write a better play than that with one hand tied behind my
+back," he said to himself. "Her and her love!"
+
+He walked rapidly from the theatre, conscious of hunger, for he had
+omitted to get a meal before going into the theatre, but he was
+unwilling to forego the pleasure of starving himself as a sign of his
+humiliation. He made his way towards Smithfield and stopped in front of
+a bookstall. A couple of loutish lads were fingering a red-bound book
+as he approached the stall, and he heard them tittering in a sneaky,
+furtive fashion as he drew near. The owner of the stall emerged from
+the back of his premises, and when they saw him, they hurriedly put the
+book down and walked away. John glanced at it and read the title on the
+cover: The Art of Love by Ovid.
+
+"Love!" he exclaimed aloud. "Ooo-oo-oo!"
+
+The streets were full of young men and women intent on an evening's
+pleasure, and as he hurried away from Smithfield Market towards the
+railway station, he received bright glances from girls who were willing
+to make friends with him. He scowled heavily at them, and when they
+looked away to other men, he filled his mind with sneers and bitter
+thoughts. A few hours before, these young girls would have seemed to
+him to be very beautiful and innocent, but now they appeared to him to
+be deceitful and wicked. Each evening, he told himself, these girls
+came out of their houses in search of "boys" whom they lured into
+love-making, teasing and tormenting them, until at last they tired of them
+and sent them empty away. That was your love for you! Uncle Matthew had
+dreamed of romantic love, and John had set out to find it, and behold,
+what was it! A girl's frolic, a piece of feminine sport, in which the
+girl had the fun and the boy had the humiliation and pain. Maggie could
+go from him, her lips still warm with his kisses, to her policeman ...
+and take kisses from him! There might be other hoaxed lovers ... if she
+had one, why not have two or three or four ... and his kisses might
+have meant no more to her than the kisses of half-a-dozen other men.
+Well, he had learned his lesson! No more love for him....
+
+He crossed the Queen's Bridge, and when he reached the station, he came
+upon Willie Logan, moodily gazing at the barriers which were not yet
+open. John, undesirous of society, nodded to him and would have gone
+away, but Willie suddenly caught hold of his arm.
+
+"I want to speak to you a minute, John!" he said thickly.
+
+The smell of drink drifted from him.
+
+"What about?" John answered sourly.
+
+"Come over here 'til a quiet place," Willie said, still holding John's
+arm, and drawing him to a seat at the other end of the station. "Sit
+here 'til the gates is open," he added, as he sat down.
+
+"Is there anything up?" John demanded.
+
+"Aye," Willie replied in a bewildered voice. "John, man, I'm in
+terrible trouble!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Sore disgrace, John. I don't know what my da and ma'll say to me at
+all when they hear about it. Such a thing!..."
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"Do you know a wee girl called Jennie Roak?" John shook his head. "Her
+aunt lives in Ballyards ... Mrs. Cleeland!..."
+
+"Oh, yes. Is that her aunt?"
+
+"Aye. Well, me an' her has been going out together for a wee while
+past, and she says now she's goin' to have a child!"
+
+John burst into laughter.
+
+"What the hell are you laughing at?" Willie demanded angrily.
+
+"I was thinking it doesn't matter whether it's one girl or a dozen
+you're after, you'll get into bother just the same!"
+
+"Aye, but what am I to do, John? I'll have to tell the oul' fella, and
+he'll be raging mad when he hears about it. He's terrible against that
+sort of thing, and dear knows I'm an awful one for slipping into
+trouble. I can not keep away from girls, John, and that's the God's
+truth of it. And I've been brought up as respectable as anybody.
+Jennie's in an awful state about it!"
+
+"I daresay," said John.
+
+"She says I'll have to marry her over the head of it, but sure I don't
+want to get married at all ... not yet, anyway. I don't know what to
+do. I'll have to tell the oul' lad and he'll have me scalded with his
+tongue. I suppose I'll have to marry her. It's a quare thing a fella
+can't go out with a girl without getting into bother. I wish to my
+goodness I had as much control over myself as you have!"
+
+"Control!" said John.
+
+"Aye. You'll never get into no bother!"
+
+"Huh!" said John.
+
+The barriers were opened, and Willie and John passed through on to the
+platform, and presently seated themselves in a carriage.
+
+"This'll be a lesson to me," said Willie, lying back against the
+cushions of the carriage. "Not to be running after so many girls in
+future!"
+
+John did not make any answer to him. He let his thoughts wander out of
+the carriage. He had loved Maggie Carmichael deeply, and she had served
+him badly; and Willie Logan, who treated girls in a light fashion, was
+complaining now because one girl had loved him too well. And that was
+your love for you! That was the high romantical thing of which Uncle
+Matthew had so often spoken and dreamed...
+
+He came out of his thoughts suddenly, for Willie Logan was shaking him.
+
+There was a glint in Willie Logan's eye!...
+
+"I say, John," he said, "come on into the next carriage! There's two
+quare nice wee girls just got in!"
+
+"No," said John.
+
+"Ah, come on," Willie coaxed.
+
+"No," John almost shouted.
+
+"Well, stay behind then. I'll have the two to myself," Willie
+exclaimed, climbing out of the carriage as he spoke.
+
+"That lad deserves all he gets," John thought.
+
+
+
+V
+
+His mother called to him as he passed through the kitchen on his way to
+the attic where his Uncle Matthew's books were stored.
+
+"Your Uncle William's wanting a talk with you," she said. "Mr.
+McGonigal's been here about the will!"
+
+"I'll be down in a wee while," John replied as he climbed the stairs.
+He wished to sit in some quiet place until he had composed his mind
+which was still disturbed. He had hoped to have the railway compartment
+to himself after Willie Logan had left it, but two drovers had
+hurriedly entered it as the train was moving out of the station, and
+their noisy half-drunken talk had prevented him from thinking with
+composure. Willie Logan's loud laughter, accompanied by giggles and the
+sound of scuffling, penetrated from the next compartment....
+
+In the attic, there would be quietness.
+
+He entered the room and stood among the disordered piles of books that
+lay about the floor. A mania for rearrangement had seized hold of him
+one day, but he had done no more than take the books from their shelves
+and leave them in confused heaps. He had promised that he would make
+the attic tidy again, when his mother complained of the room's
+disarray. His mind would become quiet, perhaps, if he were to spend a
+little time now in replacing the books on the shelves in the order in
+which he wished them to be. He sat down on the floor and contemplated
+them. Most of these volumes, new and old, were concerned with the love
+of men for women. It seemed impossible to escape from the knowledge of
+this passion in any book that one might read. Love made intrusions even
+into the history books, and bloody wars had been fought and many men
+had been slain because of a woman's beauty or to gratify her whim. Even
+in the Bible!...
+
+He remembered that Uncle Matthew had told him that the Song of Solomon
+was a real love song or series of songs, and not, as the headlines to
+the chapters insisted, an allegorical description of Christ's love for
+the Church. There was a Bible lying near to his hand, and he picked it
+up and turned the pages until he reached the Song of Songs which is
+called Solomon's, and he hurriedly read through it as if he were
+searching for sentences.
+
+_I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the
+lilies. Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem,
+terrible as an army with banners!_
+
+So the woman sang. Then the man, less abstract than the woman, sang in
+his turn.
+
+_How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O Prince's daughter: the
+joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a
+cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet which wanted not
+liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy
+two breasts are like two young roes that are twins!..._
+
+John glanced at the headline to this song. "It's a queer thing to call
+that 'a further description of the church's graces'," he said to
+himself, and then his eye searched through the verses of the song until
+he reached the line,
+
+_How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!_...
+
+"I daresay," he murmured to himself. "I daresay! But there's a terrible
+lot of misery in it, too!"
+
+He read the whole of the last song.
+
+_Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for
+love is strong as death: jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals
+thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many
+waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it_....
+
+"That's true," he said. "That's very true! I love her just the same,
+for all she's treated me so bad! _Many waters cannot quench love,
+neither can the floods drown it._ Oh, I wish to my God I could
+forget things as easy as Willie Logan forgets them!"
+
+He closed the Bible and put it down on the floor beside him, and sat
+with his hands clutching hold of his ankles. He would have to go away
+from Ballyards. He would not be able to rest contentedly near Belfast
+where Maggie lived ... with her peeler! He must go away from home, and
+the further away he went, the better it would be. Then he might forget
+about her. Perhaps, after all, it was not true that "_many waters
+cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it_." Poets had a
+terrible habit of exaggerating things, and perhaps he would forget his
+love for Maggie in some distant place!...
+
+There was a copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ perched on top of a pile of
+books. "That was the cause of all my trouble," he said, pushing it so
+that it fell off the pile on to the floor at his feet. He picked it up
+and opened it, and as he did so, his eyes rested on Mercutio's speech,
+_If love be rough with you, be rough with love_.
+
+Comfort instantly came into his mind.
+
+"I will," he said, rising from the floor.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+His Uncle William was in the kitchen when he descended the stairs from
+the attic.
+
+"Mr. McGonigal was here this morning after you went up to Belfast," he
+said, as John entered the kitchen. "Everything's settled up. Your Uncle
+Matthew left you £180 and his books. It's more nor I imagined he had,
+though I knew well he hardly spent a copper on himself, beyond the
+books he bought. He was inclined to be an extravagant man like the rest
+of us before that bother he got into in Belfast over the head of the
+oul' Queen, but he changed greatly after. The money'll be useful to
+you, boy, when you start off in life!"
+
+"I'll come into the shop with you, Uncle William," John said, glancing
+towards the scullery where his mother was. "I want to have a word or
+two with you!"
+
+"Very good," Uncle William replied, leading the way into the shop.
+
+They sat down together in the little counting-house while John told his
+Uncle of his desire to go away from home.
+
+"And where in the earthly world do you want to go to?" Uncle William
+demanded.
+
+"Anywhere. London, mebbe! I'm near in the mind to go to America. Mebbe,
+I'll just travel the world!"
+
+"A hundred and eighty pounds'll not carry you far," Uncle William
+exclaimed.
+
+"It'll take me a good piece of the way, and if I can't earn enough to
+take me the rest of it, sure, what good am I?"
+
+Uncle William shrugged his shoulders. "You must do as you please, I
+suppose, but I'll miss you sore when you do go. It'll be poor pleasure
+for me to live on here, with you gone and your Uncle Matthew dead!"
+
+"I'll come back every now and then to see you," John promised. "I'm not
+going to cut myself off from you altogether. You know that rightly. I
+just want to see a bit of the world. I ... I want to find out things!"
+
+"What things, John?"
+
+"Oh ... everything! Whatever there is to find out!"
+
+"I sometimes think," said Uncle William, "you can find out all there is
+to find out at home, if you have enough gumption in you to find out
+anything at all. Have you told your ma yet?"
+
+John shook his head.
+
+"It'll want a bit of telling," Uncle William prophesied.
+
+"I daresay, but she'll have plenty of time to get used to it. I'm not
+going this minute. I'm going to try and do some writing at home first,
+'til I get my hand in. Then when I think I know something about the
+job, I'll go and see what I can make out of it."
+
+Uncle William sat in silence for a few moments, tapping noiselessly on
+the desk with his fingers.
+
+"It's a pity you've no notion of the grocery," he said. "This shop'll
+be yours one of these days!"
+
+"I haven't any fancy for it," John replied.
+
+"I know you haven't. It's a pity all the same. I suppose, when I'm
+dead, you'll sell the shop!"
+
+"You're in no notion of dying yet awhile, Uncle William. A hearty man
+like you'll outlive us all!"
+
+"Mebbe, but that's not the point, John. The MacDermotts have owned this
+shop a powerful while, as your ma tells you many's a time. When I'm
+dead, you'll be the last of us ... and you'll want to give up the shop.
+That's what I think's a pity. I'm with your ma over that. I suppose,
+though, the whole history of the world is just one record of change and
+alteration, and it's no use complaining. The shop'll have to go, and
+the MacDermotts, too!..." He did not speak for a few moments, and then,
+in a brisker tone, he said, "Mebbe, one of the assistants'll buy it
+from you. Henry Blackwood has money saved, I know, and by the time you
+want to sell it, he'll mebbe have a good bit past him. I'll drop a wee
+hint to him that you'll be wanting to sell, so's to prepare him!"
+
+"Very well, Uncle!" John said.
+
+"If you do sell the shop, make whoever buys it change the name over the
+door. If the MacDermott family is not to be in control of it, then I'd
+like well for the name to be painted out altogether and the new name
+put in its place. I'd hate to think of anyone pretending the
+MacDermotts was still here, carrying on their old trade, and them mebbe
+not giving as good value as we gave. The MacDermotts have queer pride,
+John!"
+
+"I know they have, Uncle William. I have, too!"
+
+"And they wouldn't lie content in their graves if they thought their
+names was associated with bad value!"
+
+"You're taking it for granted, Uncle, I'll want to sell the shop.
+Mebbe, I won't. I'll mebbe not be good at anything else but the
+grocery. I'm talking big now about writing books, but who knows whether
+I'll ever write one!"
+
+"Oh, you'll write one, John. You'll write plenty. You'll do it because
+you want to do it. You've got your da's nature. When he wanted a thing,
+he got it, no matter who had it!"
+
+"There was one thing he wanted, Uncle William, and wanted bad, but
+couldn't get!"
+
+"What was that, son?" Uncle William demanded.
+
+"He wanted to live, but he wasn't let," John answered.
+
+Uncle William considered for a few moments. "Of course," he said,
+"there's some things that even a MacDermott can't do!"
+
+
+
+VII
+
+John left his Uncle in the shop and went into the kitchen to tell his
+mother of his decision. He felt certain that she would oppose him, and
+he braced himself to resist her appeals that he should change his mind.
+
+But she took his announcement very quietly.
+
+"I've made up my mind to go to London, ma!" he said to her.
+
+She did not look up immediately. Then she turned towards him, and said,
+"Oh, yes, John!"
+
+He paused, nonplussed by her manner, as if he were waiting for her to
+proceed, but finding that she did not say any more, he continued. "I
+daresay it'll upset you," he said.
+
+"I'm used to being upset," she replied, "and I expected it. When will
+you be going?"
+
+"I don't know yet. In a wee while. I'll have to speak to Mr. Cairnduff
+first about quitting the school, and then I'll stay at home for a bit,
+writing 'til I'm the master of it. After that I'll go to London ... or
+mebbe to America!"
+
+She sat quite still in the armchair beneath the window that overlooked
+the yard. He felt that he ought to say more to her, that she ought to
+say more to him, but he could not think of anything to say to her,
+because she had said so little to him.
+
+"I hope you're not upset about it," he said.
+
+"Upset!" she exclaimed, with a sound of bitterness in her tone.
+
+"Yes. I know you never approved of the idea!"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference whether I approve or not, does it?..."
+
+"That's not a fair way to put it, ma!"
+
+"But it amounts to that all the same," she retorted. "No, John, I'm
+not upset. What would be the good? I had other hopes for you, but
+they weren't your hopes, and I daresay you're right. I daresay you
+are. After all, we ... we have to ... to do the best we can for
+ourselves ... haven't we?"
+
+"Yes, ma!"
+
+"And if you think you can do better in London ... or America nor you
+can in Ballyards ... well, you're right to ... to go, aren't you?"
+
+"That's what I think, ma!" John answered.
+
+She did not say any more, and he sat at the table, tapping on it with a
+pencil. There was no sound in the kitchen but the ticking of the clock
+and the noise of the water boiling in the kettle and the little tap,
+tap ... tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap ... of his pencil on the table. Mrs.
+MacDermott had been hemming a handkerchief when John entered the
+kitchen, and as he glanced at her now, he saw that her head was bent
+over it again. He looked at her for a long while, it seemed to him, but
+she did not raise her head to return his look. If she would only rebuke
+him for wishing to go ... but this awful silence!...
+
+He looked about the kitchen, as if he were assuring himself that the
+old, familiar things were still in their places. He would be glad, of
+course, to go away from home, because he wished to adventure into
+bigger things ... but he would be sorry to go, too. There was something
+very dear and friendly about the house. He had experienced much love
+and care in it, and had had much happiness here. Nevertheless, he would
+be glad to go. He needed a change, he wished to have things happening
+to him. He remembered very vividly something that his Uncle Matthew had
+said to him in this very room. "Sure, what does it matter whether
+you're happy and contented or not, so long as things are happening to
+you!"
+
+That was the right spirit. Uncle Matthew had known all the time what
+was the right life for a man to lead, even although he had never gone
+out into the world himself. What if Maggie Carmichael _had_
+treated him badly? _If love be rough with you, be rough with
+love!_ Who was Maggie Carmichael anyway? One woman in a world full
+of women! She was only Maggie Carmichael ... or Maggie whatever the
+policeman's name was! _If love be rough with you, be rough with
+love!_ ... Oh, he would, he would! There were finer women in the
+world than Maggie Carmichael, and what was to prevent him from getting
+the finest woman amongst them if he wanted her. Had it not been said of
+his father that he could have taken a queen from a king's bed, lifted
+her clean out of a palace in face of the whole court and taken her to
+his home, a happy and contented woman?... Well, then, what one
+MacDermott could do, another MacDermott could do....
+
+His mother got up from her chair and, putting down her hemmed
+handkerchief, said, "It's time I wet the tea!"
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+He watched her as she went about the kitchen, making preparations for
+the meal, and he wondered why it was that she did not look at him. Very
+carefully she averted her eyes from him as she passed from the
+fireplace to the scullery; and when she had to approach the place where
+he was sitting, she did so with downcast gaze. Suddenly he knew why she
+would not look at him. He knew that if she were to do so, she would
+cry, and as the knowledge came to him, a great tenderness for her arose
+in his heart, and he stood up and putting out his hands drew her to him
+and kissed her. And then she cried. Her body shook with sobs as she
+clung to him, her face thrust tightly against his breast. But she did
+not speak. Uncle William, coming from the shop, looked into the kitchen
+for a moment, but, observing his sister's grief, went hurriedly back to
+the shop.
+
+"Don't, ma!" John pleaded, holding her as if she were a distressed
+child.
+
+"I can't help it, John," she cried. "I'll be all right in a wee while,
+but I can't help it yet!"
+
+After a time, she gained control of herself, and gradually her sobs
+subsided, and then they ceased.
+
+"I didn't mean to cry," she said.
+
+"No, ma!"
+
+"But I couldn't control myself any longer. I'll not give way again,
+John!"
+
+She went to the scullery and returned with cups and saucers which she
+put on the table.
+
+"Would you like some soda-bread or wheaten farls?" she asked.
+
+"I'll have them both," he answered. He paused for a moment, and then,
+before she had time to go to the pantry, he went on. "You know, ma,
+I ... I _have_ to go. I mean I ... I _have_ to go!"
+
+"_Have_ to go, John?"
+
+"Yes. I ... I _have_ to go. I was friends with a girl!..."
+
+She came quickly to his side, and put her arms round his neck. The
+misery had suddenly gone from her face, and there was a look of
+anxiety, mingled with gratification, in her eyes.
+
+"That's it, is it?" she said. "Oh, I thought you were tired of your
+home. Poor son, poor son, did she not treat you well?"
+
+"She was married this morning on a peeler, ma!"
+
+"And you in love with her?" she exclaimed indignantly.
+
+"Aye, ma!"
+
+"The woman's a fool," said Mrs. MacDermott. "You're well rid of
+her!..."
+
+He saw now that there would be no further objection made by his mother
+against his going from home. As clearly as if she had said so, he
+understood that she now regarded his departure from home as a
+pilgrimage from which in due time he would return, purged of his grief.
+And she was content.
+
+"A woman that would marry a peeler when she might marry a MacDermott,
+is not fit to marry a MacDermott," she said, almost to herself.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+And so, when three months later, he decided to go to London, she did
+not try to hold him back. He had worked hard on a bitter novel that
+would, he imagined, fill men with amazement and women with shame, and
+when he had completed it, he bound the long, loose sheets of foolscap
+together and announced that he was now ready to go to London. Mr.
+Cairnduff told him of lodgings in Brixton, where an old friend of his,
+an Ulsterman and a journalist, was living, and Mr. McCaughan gave him a
+very vivid account of the perils of London life. "Bad women!" he said,
+ominously, "are a terrible temptation to a young fellow all by himself
+in a big town!" and then, brightening a little, he remarked that he
+need not tell so sensible a lad as John how to take care of himself.
+John had only to remember that he was a MacDermott!...
+
+But Mrs. MacDermott did not offer any advice to him. She packed his
+trunk and his bag on the day he was to leave Ballyards, taking care to
+put a Bible at the bottom of the trunk, and told him that they were
+ready for him. He was to travel by the night boat from Belfast to
+Liverpool, and it was not necessary for him to leave Ballyards until
+the evening, nor did he wish to spend more time in Belfast than was
+absolutely necessary. His Uncle and his mother were to accompany him to
+the boat: Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff would say good-bye to him at
+Ballyards station. Willie Logan, now safely married to his Jennie and a
+little dashed in consequence of the limitations imposed upon him by
+marriage, had volunteered to come to the station "and see the last of"
+him. There was to be a gathering of friends on the platform ... but he
+wished in his heart they would allow him to go away in peace and
+quietness.
+
+It was strange, he thought, that his mother did not talk to him about
+his journey to London. He had imagined that she would have a great deal
+to say about it, but it was not until the day of his departure that she
+spoke of it to him.
+
+She came to him, after she had packed his trunk and bag, and said,
+"Come into the return room a wee minute!" and, obediently, he followed
+her.
+
+"I want to show you something," she said in explanation. "Shut the door
+behind you!"
+
+"Is there anything wrong, ma?" he asked, puzzled by the mystery in her
+manner.
+
+"No," she answered, "only I don't want the whole world to see us!"
+
+She went to the cupboard and took out a bottle of whiskey.
+
+"Sit down," she said.
+
+"Is that whiskey?" he asked as he seated himself.
+
+She nodded her head and returned to the table.
+
+"You're not thinking of giving me a drop, are you?" he exclaimed
+laughingly.
+
+There was a look in her eyes that checked laughter.
+
+"If I had my way," she said with great bitterness, "I'd take the men
+that make this stuff and I'd drown them in it. I'd pour it down their
+throats 'til they choked!..." She poured a little of the whiskey into a
+saucer. "Give me a light," she demanded.
+
+He went to the mantel-shelf and brought the box of matches from it.
+
+"Strike one," she said, and added when he had done so, "Set fire to the
+whiskey!"
+
+He succeeded in making the spirit burn, and for a little while she and
+he stood by the table while the cold blue flames curled out of the
+saucer, wavering and spurting, until the spirit was consumed and the
+flame flickered and expired.
+
+"That's what a drunkard's inside is like," said Mrs. MacDermott,
+picking up the saucer and carrying it downstairs to the scullery to be
+washed. He heard the water splashing in the sink, and when he had put
+the bottle of whiskey back in the cupboard, he went downstairs and
+waited until she had finished. She returned to the kitchen, carrying
+the washed saucer, and when she had placed it on the dresser, she took
+up a Bible and brought it to him.
+
+"I want you to swear to me," she said, "that you'll never taste a drop
+of drink as long as you live!"
+
+"That's easy enough," he answered. "I don't like it!"
+
+She looked up at him in alarm. "Have you tasted it already, then?" she
+asked.
+
+"Yes. How would I know I didn't like it if I hadn't tasted it? The
+smell of it is enough to knock you down!"
+
+She put the Bible back on the dresser. "It doesn't matter," she said
+when he held out his hand for it. "Mebbe you have enough strength of
+your own to resist it. I ... I don't always understand you, John, and
+I'm fearful sometimes to see you so sure of yourself." She came to him
+suddenly and swiftly, and clasped him close to her. "I love you with
+the whole of my heart, son," she said, "and I'm desperate anxious about
+you!"
+
+"You needn't be anxious about me, ma!" he answered. "I'm all right!"
+
+
+
+X
+
+The minister said, "God bless you, boy!" and patted him on the
+shoulder, and the schoolmaster wished him well and begged that now and
+then John would write to him. Willie Logan, hot and in a hurry, entered
+the station, eager to say good-bye to him, but the stern and
+disapproving eye of the minister caused him to keep in the background
+until John, understanding what was in his mind, went up to him.
+
+"I'm sure I wish you all you can wish yourself," Willie said very
+heartily. "I wish to my God I was going with you, but sure, I'm one of
+the unlucky ones. Aggie sent her love to you, but I couldn't persuade
+her to come and give it to you herself!"
+
+"Thank you, Willie. You might tell her I'm obliged to her."
+
+"You never had no notion of her, John?"
+
+"I had not, Willie. How's Jennie keeping?"
+
+"Och, she's well enough," he answered sulkily, "Look at the minister
+there, glaring at me as I was dirt. Sure, didn't I marry the girl, and
+got intil a hell of a row over it with the oul' fella! And what's he
+got to glare at? There's no need to be giving _you_ good advice
+about weemen, John, for you're well able to take care of yourself as
+far as I can see, but all the same, mind what you're doing when you get
+into their company or you'll mebbe get landed the same as me!..."
+
+"Don't you like being married, then?"
+
+"Ah, quit codding," said Willie.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SECOND BOOK OF THE FOOLISH LOVERS
+
+  Whoever loved that loved not at first sight.
+    MARLOWE.
+
+  "Love is a perfect fever of the mind. I question if any man has been
+  more tormented with it than myself."
+    JAMES BOSWELL, _in a letter to the Rev. W. J. Temple._
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Mr. Cairnduff's friend, George Hinde, met John at Euston Station. He
+was a stoutly-built, red-haired man, with an Ulster accent that had not
+been impaired in any degree by twenty years of association with
+Cocknies. "How're you!" he said, going up to John and seizing hold of
+his hand.
+
+"Rightly, thank you! How did you know me?" John replied, laughing and
+astonished.
+
+"That's a question and a half to ask!" Hinde exclaimed. "Wouldn't an
+Ulsterman know another Ulsterman the minute he clapped his eyes on him?
+Boys O, but it's grand to listen to a Belfast voice again. Here you,"
+he said, turning quickly to a porter, "come here, I want you. Get this
+gentleman's luggage, and bring it to that hansom there. Do you hear
+me?"
+
+"Yessir," the porter replied.
+
+"What have you got with you?" he went on, turning to John.
+
+"A trunk and a bag," John answered. "They have my name on them. John
+MacDermott!"
+
+"Mac what, sir?" the porter asked.
+
+"MacDermott. John MacDermott. Passenger from Ballyards to London, via
+Belfast and Liverpool!"
+
+"It's no good telling him about Ballyards," Hinde interrupted. "The
+people of this place are ignorant: they've never heard of Ballyards. Go
+on, now," he said to the porter, "and get the stuff and bring it here!"
+
+The porter hurried off to the luggage-van. "Ill only just be able to
+put you in the hansom," said Hinde to John, "and start you off home,
+I've got to go north, tonight to write a special report of a
+meeting!..."
+
+"What sort of a meeting?" John enquired.
+
+"Political. An address to Mugs by a Humbug. That's what it ought to be
+called. I was looking forward to having a good crack with you the
+night, but sure a newspaper man need never hope to have ten minutes to
+himself. I've given Miss Squibb orders to have a good warm supper ready
+for you. That's a thing the English people never think of having on a
+Sunday night. They're afraid God 'ud send them to hell if they didn't
+have cold beef for their Sunday supper. But there'll be a hot supper
+for you, anyway. A man that's been travelling all night and all day
+wants something better nor cold beef in his inside on a cold night!"
+
+"It's very kind of you!..."
+
+"Ah, what's kind about? Aren't you an Ulsterman? You've a great accent!
+Man, dear, but you've a great accent! If ever you lose it I'll never
+own you for a friend, and I'll get you the sack from any place you're
+working in. I'll blacken your character!..."
+
+"You're a terrible cod," said John, laughing at him.
+
+"Damn the cod there's about it! You listen to these Cockney fellows
+talking, and then you'll understand me. It's worse nor the Dublin
+adenoids voice. There's no people in the earthly world talks as fine as
+the Ulster people. Here's the man with your luggage!" The porter
+wheeled a truck, bearing John's trunk and bag, up to them as he spoke.
+"Is that all you have?"
+
+"Aye," said John.
+
+"And enough, too! What anybody wants with more, I never can make out,
+unless they're demented with the mania of owning things! That's a bit
+out of Walt Whitman. Ever read any of him?"
+
+"No," said John.
+
+"It's about time you begun then. Put this stuff in the hansom, will
+you?" he went on to the porter, and while the porter did so, he
+continued his conversation with John. "Miss Squibb ... that's the name
+of the landlady ... comic name, isn't it? ... like a name out of
+Dickens ... and she's a comic-looking woman, too ... hasn't got a spare
+sitting-room to let you have, but you can share mine 'til she has. My
+bedroom's on the same floor as the sitting-room, but yours is on the
+floor above. We're a rum crew in that house. There's a music-hall man
+and his wife on the ground-floor ... a great character altogether ...
+Cream is their name ... and a Mr. and Mrs. Tarpey ... but you'll see
+them all for yourself. I'll be back on Tuesday night. Give this porter
+sixpence, and the cabman's fare'll be three and sixpence, but you'd
+better give him four bob. If he tries to charge you more nor that,
+because you're a stranger, take his number. Good-bye, now, and don't
+forget I'll be back on Tuesday night!"
+
+He helped John into the hansom, and after giving instructions to the
+cabman, stood back on the pavement, smiling and waving his hand, while
+the cab, with a flourish of whip from the driver and a jingle of
+harness, drove out of the station.
+
+"I like that man," said John to himself, as he lay back against the
+cushions and gave himself up to the joy of riding in a hansom cab.
+
+
+
+II
+
+The house to which John was carried was in the Brixton Road, near to
+the White House public-house. Fifty years ago it had been a rich
+merchant's home and was almost a country house, but now, like many
+similar houses, it had fallen to a dingy estate: it was, without
+embroidery of description, a lodging-house. Miss Squibb, who opened the
+door to him, had a look of settled depression on her face that was not,
+as he at first imagined, due to disapproval of him, but, as he speedily
+discovered, to a deeply-rooted conviction that the rest of humanity was
+engaged in a conspiracy to defraud her. She eyed the cabman with so
+much suspicion that he became uneasy in his mind and deposited the
+trunk and the bag in the hall in silence, nor did he make any comment
+on the amount of his fare.
+
+Miss Squibb helped John to carry the luggage to his room. Her niece,
+Lizzie, who usually performed such work, was spending the week-end with
+another aunt in North London, so Miss Squibb said, and she was due to
+return before midnight, but Miss Squibb would expect her when she saw
+her. It would not surprise her to find that Lizzie did not return to
+her home until Monday evening. Nothing would surprise Miss Squibb. Miss
+Squibb had long since ceased to be surprised at anything. No one had
+had more cause to feel surprised than Miss Squibb had had in the course
+of her life, but now she never felt surprised at anything. She
+prophesied that a time would come when John would cease to feel
+surprise at things....
+
+She stood in the centre of his bedroom in a bent attitude, with her
+hands folded across her flat chest, and regarded him with large,
+protruding eyes. "You're Irish, aren't you?" she said, accusingly.
+
+"Yes, Miss Squibb," he said, using her name with difficulty, because it
+created in him a desire to laugh.
+
+"Like Mr. 'Inde?"
+
+"Inde!" he repeated blankly, and then comprehension came to him. "Oh,
+Mr. Hinde! Yes! Oh, yes, yes!"
+
+"I thought so," she continued. "You have the syme sort of talk. Funny
+talk, I calls it. Wot time du want your breakfis?"
+
+"Eight o'clock," he said.
+
+"I s'pose you'll do syme as Mr. 'Inde ... leave it to me to get the
+things for you, an' charge it up?"
+
+"Oh, yes," John replied. "I'll do just what Mr. Hinde does!"
+
+He looked around the dingy room, and as he did so, he felt depression
+coming over him; but Miss Squibb misjudged his appraising glance.
+
+"It's a nice room," she said, as if she were confirming his judgment on
+it.
+
+"Yes," he said dubiously, glancing at the bed and the table and the
+ricketty washstand. There were pictures and framed mottoes on the
+walls. Over his bed was a large motto-card, framed in stained deal,
+bearing the word: ETERNITY; and on the opposite wall, placed so that he
+should see it immediately he awoke, was a coloured picture of Daniel in
+the Lions' Den, in which the lions seemed to be more dejected than
+Daniel.
+
+"A gentleman wot used to be a lodger 'ere done that," said Miss Squibb
+when she saw that he was looking at the picture. "'E couldn't py 'is
+rent an' 'e offered to pynt the bath-room, but we 'aven't got a bath-room
+so 'e pynted that instead. It used to be a plyne picture 'til 'e
+pynted it. 'E sort of livened it up a bit. Very nice gentleman 'e was,
+only 'e did get so 'orribly drunk. Of course, 'e was artistic!"
+
+The drawing was out of perspective, and John remarked upon the fact,
+but Miss Squibb, fixing him with her protruding eyes, said that she
+could not see that there was anything wrong with the picture. It was
+true, as she admitted, that if you were to look closely at the lion on
+the extreme right of the picture, you would find he had two tails, or
+rather, one tail and the remnant of another which the artist had not
+completely obliterated. But that was a trifle.
+
+"Pictures ain't meant to be looked at close," said Miss Squibb, "an'
+any'ow you can't expect to 'ave everythink in this world. Some people's
+never satisfied without they're finding fault in things!"
+
+John, feeling that her final sentence was a direct rebuke to himself,
+hurriedly looked away from the picture.
+
+"There's a good view from the window," he said to console her for his
+depreciation of the picture.
+
+"That's wot I often says myself," she replied. "People says it's 'igh
+up 'ere an' a long way to climb, but wot I says is, it's 'ealthy when
+you get 'ere, _and_ you 'ave a view. I'll leave you now," she
+concluded. "When you've 'ad a wash, your supper'll be waitin' for you.
+in Mr. 'Inde's sitting-room. I expect you'll be glad to 'ave it!"
+
+"I shall," he replied. "I'm hungry!"
+
+"Yes, I expect so," she said, closing the door.
+
+He sat down on the bed and again looked about the room, and the
+dreariness of it filled him with nostalgia. He had not yet unpacked his
+trunk or his bag, and he felt that he must immediately carry them down
+the stairs again, that he must call for a cabman and have his luggage
+and himself carried back to Euston Station so that he might return to
+his home. The clean air of Ballyards and the bright sunlit bedroom over
+the shop seemed incomparably lovely when he looked about the dingy
+Brixton bedroom. If this was the beginning of adventure!... He gazed at
+the picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, and wished that a lion would
+eat Daniel or that Daniel would eat a lion!...
+
+Then he went to the washstand and washed his face and hands, and when
+he had done so, he went downstairs and ate his supper.
+
+
+
+III
+
+In the morning, there was a thump on his bedroom door, and before he
+had had time to consider what he should do, the door opened and a girl
+entered, carrying a tray. "Eight o'clock," she said, "an' 'ere's your
+breakfast! Aunt said you'd better 'ave it in bed 'smornin', after your
+journey!"
+
+She set the tray down on the table so carelessly that she spilled some
+of the contents of the coffee-pot.
+
+"Aunt forgot to ask would you have tea or coffee, so she sent up
+coffee. Mr. 'Inde always 'as coffee, so she thought you would, too! An'
+there's a 'addick. Mr. 'Inde likes 'addick. It ain't a bad fish!"
+
+John looked at her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the
+room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother,
+had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that
+this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in
+bed. He had never in his life seen so untidy a woman as this. Her hair
+had been hastily pinned together in a shapeless lump on the top of her
+head, and loose ends straggled from it. Her dress was _on_ her ...
+that was certain ... but _how_ it was on her was more than he
+could understand. She seemed to bristle with safety-pins!...
+
+Her total lack of shame, in the presence of a man, undressed and in
+bed, caused him to wonder whether she was one of the Bad Women against
+whom Mr. McCaughan had so solemnly warned him. If she, were, the
+warning was hardly necessary!...
+
+"I think you got everythink?" she said briskly, glancing over the table
+to see that nothing was missing.
+
+He saw now that, she bore some facial resemblance to Miss Squibb. She
+was not, as that lady was, ashen-hued, but her eyes, though less
+prominently, bulged. This must be Lizzie!...
+
+"Who are you?" he asked, as she turned to leave the room. "Eih?"
+
+"What's your name? I've not seen you before!"
+
+"Naow," she exclaimed, "I've been awy! I'm Lizzie. 'Er niece!"
+
+She nodded her head towards the door, and he interpreted this to mean
+Miss Squibb.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said. "She told me about you. Were you very late last
+night?"
+
+She laughed. "Naow," she replied, "I was very early this mornin'!"
+
+She stood with her hand on the knob of the door. "If you want anythink
+else," she said, "just 'oller down, the stairs for it. An' you needn't
+'urry to get up. I know wot travellin's like. I've travelled a bit
+myself in my time. That 'addick ain't as niffy as it smells!..."
+
+She closed the door behind her and he could hear her quick steps all
+the way down the stairs to the ground floor.
+
+"That's a queer sort of woman," he said to himself.
+
+As he ate his breakfast, he wondered at Lizzie's lack of embarrassment
+as she stood in his bedroom and saw him lying in bed. She had behaved
+as coolly as if she had been in a dining-room and he had been
+completely clothed. What would his mother say if she knew that a girl
+had entered his bedroom as unconcernedly as if she were entering a
+tramcar? Never in all his life had such a thing happened to him before.
+He had been very conscious of his bare neck, for the collar of his
+night-shirt had come unfastened. He had tried to fasten it again, but
+in his desire to do so without drawing Lizzie's attention to his state,
+he had merely fumbled with it, and had, finally, to abandon the
+attempt. What astonished him was that Lizzie appeared to be totally
+unaware of anything unusual in the fact that she was in the bedroom of
+a strange man. She did not look like a Bad Woman ... and surely Mr.
+Hinde would not live in a house where Bad Women lived!... Perhaps
+Englishwomen were not so particular about things as Irishwomen!...
+Anyhow the haddock was good and the coffee tasted nice enough, although
+he would much rather have had tea.
+
+He finished his meal, and then dressed himself and went downstairs to
+the sitting-room which he was to share with Hinde. It was less dreary
+than the bedroom from which he had just emerged, but what brightness it
+had was not due to any furnishing provided by Miss Squibb, but to a
+great case full of books which occupied one side of the room. "He's as
+great a man for books as my Uncle Matthew," John thought, examining a
+volume here and a volume there. He opened a book of poems by Walt
+Whitman. "That's the man he was telling me about last night," he said
+to himself, as he turned the pages. He read a passage aloud:
+
+  _Come, Muse, migrate--from Greece and Ionia,
+  Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
+  That matter of Troy and Achilles' wrath, and Aeneas',
+        Odysseus' wanderings,
+  Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy
+        Parnassus,
+  Repeat at Jerusalem, place the notice high on Jaffa's gate and
+        on Mount Moriah,
+  The same on the walls of your German, French and Spanish castles,
+        and Italian collections,
+  For know a better, fresher, busier sphere, a wide, untried domain
+        awaits, demands you_.
+
+"That's strange poetry," he murmured, turning over more of the pages.
+"Queer stuff! I never read poetry like that before!" He began to read
+"The Song of the Broad Axe," at first to himself, and then aloud:
+
+  _What do you think endures?
+  Do you think a great city endures?
+  Or a teeming manufacturing State? or a prepared Constitution? or
+          the best built steamships?
+  Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chefs d'oeuvre of engineering,
+          forts, armaments?
+  Away! these are not to be cherished for themselves,
+  They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them,
+  The show passes, all does well, of course,
+  All does very well till one flash of defiance.
+  A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,
+  If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the world.
+  How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
+  How the floridness of the materials of cities shrivels before a man's
+          or woman's look!_
+
+He re-read aloud the last four lines, and then closed the book and
+replaced it on the shelf. "That man must have been terribly angry," he
+said to himself.
+
+Lizzie came into the room. "I 'eard you," she said, "syin' poetry to
+yourself. You're as bad as Mr. 'Inde, you are. 'E's an' awful one for
+syin' poetry. Why down't you go out for a walk? You 'aven't seen
+nothink of London yet, an' 'ere you are wystin' the mornin' syin'
+poetry. If I was you, now, I'd go and see the Tahr of London where they
+used to be'ead people. An' the Monument, too! You can go up that for
+thruppence. An' the view you get! Miles an' miles an' miles! Well, you
+can see the Crystal Palace anywy! I do like a view! Or if you down't
+like the Tahr of London, you could go to the Zoo. Ow, the monkeys! Ow,
+dear! They're so yooman, I felt quite uncomfortable. Any'ow, I should
+go out if I was you, an' 'ave a look at London. Wot's the good of
+comin' to London if you don't 'ave a look at it!"
+
+"I think I will," said John.
+
+"I should," Lizzie added emphatically. "I don't suppose we'll see you
+until dinner time. Seven o'clock, we 'ave it!"
+
+"I always had my dinner in the middle of the day at home," John
+replied.
+
+"Ow, yes, in Ireland," said Lizzie tolerantly. "But this is London.
+London's different from Ireland, you know. You'll find things very
+diff'rent 'ere from wot they are in Ireland. I've 'eard a lot about
+Ireland. Mr. 'Inde ... 'e does go on about it. Anybody would think to
+'ear 'im there wasn't any other plyce in the world!..." She changed the
+subject abruptly, speaking in a more hurried tone. "I ought reely to be
+dustin' this room ... only of course you're in it!"
+
+John apologised to her. "I'm interfering with your work," he murmured
+in confusion.
+
+"Ow, no you ain't. It don't matter if it's dusted or not ... reely.
+Only Aunt goes on about it. Mr. 'Inde wouldn't notice if it was never
+dusted. I think he likes dust reely. I suppose you're goin' to do some
+work now you're 'ere, or are you a writer, too, like Mr. 'Inde?"
+
+"I want to be a writer," John shyly answered.
+
+"Well, there's no 'arm in it," Lizzie said, "But it ain't reg'lar. I
+believe in reg'lar work myself. Of course, there's no 'arm in bein' a
+writer, but you'd be much better with a tryde or a nice business, I
+should think. Reely!"
+
+"Oh, yes," John murmured. "Well, I think I'll go out now!"
+
+"Are you goin' to the Tahr, then?" "No," he answered. "No, I hadn't
+thought of that. I want to see Fleet Street!..."
+
+"Fleet Street!" Lizzie exclaimed. "Wotever is there to see there."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I want to see it. That's all!"
+
+"You 'ave got funny tyste. I should, 'ave thought you'd go to see the
+Tahr reely!..." She broke off as she observed him moving to the door.
+"Mind, be back at seven sharp. I 'ate the dinner kep' 'angin' about. I
+don't get no time to myself if people aren't punctual. Mr. 'Inde's
+awful, 'e is. 'E don't care about no one else, 'e don't. Comes in any
+time, 'e does, an' expects a 'ot dinner just the syme. Never thinks
+nobody else never wants to go nowhere!..."
+
+"I'll be back in time," said John, hurrying from the room.
+
+"Well, mind you are," she called after him.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+In the street, he remembered that he had forgotten to ask Lizzie to
+tell him how to find Fleet Street, but her capacity for conversation
+prevented him from returning to the house to ask her. The number of
+trams and 'buses of different colours bewildered him, as he stood
+opposite to the White Horse, and watched them go by: and the accents of
+the conductors, when they called out their destinations, were
+unintelligible to him. He heard a man shouting "Beng, Beng, Beng, Beng,
+Beng, BENGK!" in a voice that sounded like a quick-firing gun, but the
+noise had no meaning for him. He saw names of places that were familiar
+to him through his reading or his talk with Uncle Matthew, painted on
+the side of the trams and buses, but he could not see the name of Fleet
+Street among them. He turned to a policeman and asked for advice, and
+the policeman put him in the care of a 'bus-conductor.
+
+"You 'op on top, an' I'll tell you where to git off," the 'bus
+conductor said, and John did as he was bid.
+
+He took a seat in the front of the 'bus, just behind the driver, for he
+had often heard stories of the witty sayings of London 'busmen and he
+was anxious to hear a 'bus-driver's wit being uttered.
+
+"That's a nice day," he said, when the 'bus had gone some distance.
+
+The driver, red-faced, obese and sleepy-eyed, slowly turned and
+regarded John, and having done so, nodded his head, and turned away
+again.
+
+"Nice pair of horses you have," John continued affably.
+
+"Yes," the driver grunted, without looking around.
+
+John felt dashed by the morose manner of the driver and he remained
+silent for a few moments, but he leant forward again and said, "I
+expect you see a good deal of life on this 'bus?"
+
+"Eih?" said the driver, glancing sharply at him. "Wot you sy?"
+
+"I suppose you've seen a good many queer things from that seat?" John
+answered.
+
+"'Ow you mean ... queer things?"
+
+"Well, strange things!..."
+
+The driver turned away and whipped up the horses.
+
+"I've never seen anythink strynge in my life," he said. "Kimmup there!
+Kimmup!..."
+
+"But I thought that 'bus-drivers always saw romantic things!"
+
+"I dunno wot you're talkin' abaht. Look 'ere, young feller, are you a
+reporter, or wot are you?"
+
+"A reporter!"
+
+"Yus. One of these 'ere noospyper chaps?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, anybody'd think you was, you ast so many questions!"
+
+John's face coloured. "I beg your pardon," he said in confusion. "I
+didn't mean to be inquisitive!"
+
+"That's awright. No need to 'pologise. I can see you down't mean no
+'arm!" His manner relaxed a little, as if he would atone to John for
+his former surliness. "That's the 'Orns," he said, pointing to a large
+public-house. "Well-known 'ouse, that is. Best known 'ouse in Sahth
+London, that is. Bert ... that's the conductor ... 'e says the White
+'Orse at Brixton is better-known, an' I know a chep wot says the
+Elephant an' Castle is!..."
+
+"It's mentioned in Shakespeare," John eagerly interrupted.
+
+"Wot is?"
+
+"The Elephant and Castle. In _Twelfth Night_. My Uncle, who knew
+Shakespeare by heart, told me about it. It was a public-house in those
+days, too. But I never heard of the Horns!"
+
+The 'bus-driver was impressed by this statement, but he would not
+lightly yield in the argument. "Of course," he said, "The Elephant my
+'ave been well-known in them dys, and I don't sy it ain't well-known in
+these dys, but I do sy thet it ain't so well-known now as wot the 'Orns
+is. There ain't a music-'all chep in London wot down't know the 'Orns.
+Not one!"
+
+"Shakespeare didn't know it," John exclaimed.
+
+"Well, 'e didn't know everythink did 'e?" the driver retorted. "P'raps
+the 'Orns wasn't built then. I dessay not. 'E'd 'ave mentioned it if
+'e'd 'ave known abaht it. All these actor cheps know it, so of course
+'e'd 'a' known abaht it, too. We'll be at the Elephant presently. I
+always sy to Bert we 'ave the most interestin' pubs in London on this
+route, White 'Orse, the 'Orns, the Elephant an' the Ayngel. Ever 'eard
+of the Ayngel at Islington?"
+
+"Yes," said John, "That's where Paine wrote _The Rights of Man_."
+
+"Did 'e?" the driver answered. "Well, I dessay 'e did. It's a
+celebrated 'ouse, it is. Celebrated in 'istory. There's a song abaht
+it. You know it, down't you!...
+
+  Up and dahn the City Rowd,
+  In at the Ayngel...
+  Thet's the wy the money gows,
+  Pop gows the weasel.
+
+Ever 'eard thet?"
+
+"Oh, yes," John replied, smiling. "I used to sing that song at home!"
+
+"Did you nah. An' w'ere is your 'ome?"
+
+"In Ireland!"
+
+"Ow! Thet acahnts for it. I couldn't myke aht 'ow it was you never
+'eard of the 'Orns. Fency you hearin' abaht the Elephant in Ireland!"
+
+"Well, you see, Shakespeare mentions it!..."
+
+"I down't tyke much interest in 'im. 'Ere's the Elephant! Thet's
+Spurgeon's Tabernacle over there!..."
+
+The driver became absorbed in the business of pulling up at the
+stopping-place and alluring fresh passengers on to the 'bus in place of
+those who were now leaving it, and John had time to look about him. The
+public-house was big and garish and even at this hour of the morning
+the hot odour of spirits floated out of it when a door was swung open.
+"I don't suppose it was like that in Shakespeare's day," he said to
+himself, as he turned away and gazed at the flow of people and traffic
+that passed without ceasing through the circus where the six great
+roads of South London meet and cross. It seemed to him that an accident
+must happen, that these streams of carts and trams and 'buses and
+hurrying people must become so involved that disaster must follow. He
+became reassured when he observed how imperturbed everyone was. There
+were moments when the whole traffic seemed to become chaotic and the
+roads were choked, and then as suddenly as the congestion was created,
+it was relieved. He felt enthralled by this wonder of traffic, of great
+crowds moving with ease through a criss-cross of confusing streets.
+
+"It's wonderful," he said, leaning forward and speaking almost in a
+whisper to the driver.
+
+"Wot is?"
+
+"All that traffic!"
+
+"Ow, thet's nothink. We think nothink of thet owver 'ere," the driver
+replied. "We down't tyke no notice of a little lot like thet!"
+
+The conductor rang his bell, and the driver whipped up his horses, and
+the 'bus proceeded on its way.
+
+John remembered that he had not heard any witticisms from the driver.
+Uncle Matthew had told him that one could always depend upon a 'busman
+to provide comic entertainment, but this man, although, after a while,
+he had become talkative enough, had not said one funny thing. He had
+not chaffed a policeman or a footpassenger or another 'busman, and now
+that they had passed away from the Elephant and Castle, his
+conversation seemed to have dried up. The 'bus tooled through the
+Newington Butts, along the Borough High Street (past the very inn where
+Mr. Pickwick first met Sam Weller, although John was then unaware that
+he was passing it) and under the railway bridge at St. Saviour's
+Cathedral Church of Southwark.
+
+"What's that place?" John said to the driver, pointing to the
+Cathedral.
+
+"Eih? Ow, thet! Thet's a cathedral!"
+
+"A cathedral! Hidden away like that!..."
+
+A hideous railway bridge cramped St. Saviour's on one side, and hideous
+warehouses and offices cramped it on the other. There was a mess of
+vegetable debris lying about the Cathedral pavement, the refuse from
+the Borough Market.
+
+"What cathedral is it?" John demanded.
+
+"Southwark!" the driver replied, pronouncing it "Suth-ark." "Suthark!"
+John said vaguely. "Do you mean Southwark?..." He pronounced the name
+as it is spelt.
+
+"We call it Suthark!" said the driver. "Yes, thet's it, Southwark
+Cathedral!..."
+
+"But that's where Shakespeare used to go to church!" John exclaimed.
+
+"Ow!" the driver replied.
+
+"And look at it!..."
+
+"Wot's wrong with it?" The 'bus was now rolling over London Bridge, and
+the Cathedral could not be seen.
+
+"They've hidden it. That awful bridge!..."
+
+"I down't see nothink wrong with it," the driver interrupted.
+
+"Nothing wrong with it! You'd think they were ashamed of it, they've
+hidden it so!"
+
+"I down't see nothink wrong with it. Wot you gettin' so excited abaht?"
+
+"_Shakespeare said his prayers there!_" John ejaculated.
+
+"Well, wot if 'e did?" the driver replied. "We down't think nothink of
+Cathedrals owver 'ere! We've got 'undreds of 'em!"
+
+John sat back in his seat and stared at the driver. He was incapable of
+speaking, and the driver, busy with his horses, said no more. The 'bus
+crossed the river, drove along King William Street into Prince's
+Street, and stopped. The conductor climbed to the roof and called to
+John. "You chynge 'ere," he said, beckoning him.
+
+"Good-morning," John said to the driver as he rose from his seat.
+
+"Goo'-mornin'!" said the driver. He paused while John got out of the
+seat into the gangway. "You know," he went on, "you wown't git so
+excited abaht things after you bin 'ere a bit. You'll tyke things more
+calm. Like me. I down't go an' lose my 'ead abaht Shykespeare!..."
+
+"Good-morning," said John.
+
+"Ow, goo'-mornin'!" said the driver.
+
+The conductor was standing on the pavement when John descended.
+
+"You'll get a 'bus owver there at the Mansion 'Ouse," he said, "thet'll
+tyke you right into Fleet Street. Or you can walk it easy from 'ere.
+'Long Cheapside, just rahnd the corner!..."
+
+"Cheapside!" John said with interest. Uncle Matthew had told him that
+Herrick, the poet, was born in Cheapside, and that Richard Whittington,
+resting in Highgate Woods, had heard Bow Bells pealing from a Cheapside
+steeple, bidding him return to be Lord Mayor of London and marry the
+mercer's daughter.
+
+"Yus, Cheapside!" the conductor dully repeated. "Go 'long Cheapside,
+turn to the left pas' St. Paul's, and you'll be in Ludgate 'ill. After
+thet, follow your nowse! See?"
+
+"Thank you!" said John.
+
+The throng of traffic seemed to be greater here than it had been at
+Elephant and Castle, and John, confused by it, stood looking about him.
+"Thet's the Benk of England, thet!" the conductor hurriedly continued,
+pointing across the street to the low, squat, dirty-looking building
+which occupied the whole of one side of the street. "An' thet's the
+Royal Exchynge owver there, an' this 'ere is the Mansion 'Ouse where
+the Lord Mayor lives. I can't stop to tell you no more. Ayngel, Ayngel,
+Ayngel! Any more for the Ayngel?..."
+
+Several persons climbed on to the 'bus, and then, after attempting to
+persuade people, anxious to go to Charing Cross, to go to the Angel at
+Islington instead, the conductor rang his bell. He waved his hand in
+farewell to John, who smiled at him. The 'bus lumbered off, John
+watched it roll out of sight and, when it had gone, turned to find
+Cheapside. There was an immense pressure of people in the streets, and
+for a few moments he imagined that he had wandered into the middle of a
+procession.
+
+"Is there anything up?" he said to a lounger.
+
+"Up?" the man repeated in a puzzled tone.
+
+"Yes. All these people!..."
+
+"Oh, no," the man said, "It's always like this!"
+
+_Always like this!_...
+
+He had never seen so many people or so much traffic before. The crowd
+of workmen pouring out of the shipyards in Belfast was more impressive
+than this London crowd, but not so perturbing, for that was a definite
+crowd, having a beginning and an end and a meaning: it was composed
+entirely of men engaged in a common enterprise; but this crowd had no
+beginning and no end and no meaning: there was no common enterprise. It
+was an amorphous herd, and almost it frightened him. If that herd were
+to become excited ... to lose its head!... Hardly had the thought come
+into his mind when an accident happened. A four-wheeler cab, trundling
+across Mansion House Place towards Liverpool Street, overbalanced and
+fell on its side. The driver was thrown into the road, and John,
+imagining that he must be killed by a passing vehicle, shut his eyes so
+that he might not see the horrible thing happen.... When he opened his
+eyes again, the driver was on his feet and, assisted by policemen and
+some passers-by, was freeing his horse from its harness, while two
+other policemen dragged an old lady through the window of the cab and
+placed her on the pavement.
+
+"Really, driver!" she said, "you ought to be mere careful. I shall lose
+my train!"
+
+"You'd think I'd done it a-purpose to 'ear 'er," the driver mumbled.
+
+And the traffic swept by on either side of the overturned cab, and
+there was no confusion, no excitement, no disaster. The careless,
+traffic of the streets which seemed so likely to end in disorder never
+ended otherwise than satisfactorily. There was control over it, but the
+control was not obtrusive.
+
+He felt reassured in a measure, but a sense of loneliness filled
+him. He stood with his back, against the wall of a large building
+and regarded the scene. Wherever he looked there were masses of people
+and vehicles and tall buildings. Crowds and crowds of people with
+no common, interest save that of speedily reaching a destination.
+He might stand there for hours, with his back to this wall, and not
+see the end of that crowd. In Belfast, at twelve o'clock on Saturday
+morning, the workmen would hurry over the bridge to their homes:
+a thick, black, unyielding mass of men; but at thirty minutes after
+twelve, that thick, black, seemingly solid mass would be dissolved
+into the ordinary groupings of a provincial city and there would
+be no sign of it. This London crowd would never dissolve. The man
+had told him that "it's always like this"!... There were nearly seven
+millions of men and women and children in London, but he did not
+know one of them. He had seen George Hinde for a few moments, and
+he had spoken to Miss Squibb, and to Lizzie ... but he did not know
+anyone. He was alone in this seven-million-fold herd, without a relative
+or an intimate friend. He might stand at this corner for days, for weeks,
+on end, viewing the passersby until his eyes were sore with the sight
+of them, and never see one person whom he knew even slightly. In
+Ballyards, he could not walk a dozen yards without encountering an
+acquaintance. In Belfast, he was certain to see someone whom he knew
+in the course of a day. But in this place!... He became horrified at
+the thought that if he were suddenly to drop dead at that moment,
+none of the persons who would gather round his body could say who
+he was. He would be carried off to a morgue and laid on a marble
+slab in the hope that someone would turn up and identify him ... and
+he might never be identified; he might be buried as "a person unknown."
+He determined to keep a note of his name and address in his breast-pocket,
+together with a note of his mother's name and address.
+
+"I'm not going to run the risk of them burying me without knowing who I
+am." he murmured to himself.
+
+Someone jostled him roughly, and mumbling "Sorry!" hurried on. In
+Ireland, John thought to himself, had a man jostled a stranger so
+rudely, he would have stopped and apologised to him and would have
+asked for assurance that he had not hurt him. "I beg your pardon, sir,"
+he would have said. "I'm very sorry. I hope I haven't hurt you!" But
+this stranger who had roughly shoved against him, had not paused in his
+rude progress. He had shouted "Sorry!" at him, but he had barely turned
+his head to do it.
+
+"Of course, I ought not to be standing here, blocking the way!" John
+admitted to himself. "I wonder is London always like this, rough and in
+a hurry!"
+
+He crossed the street, not without alarm, and stood by the entrance to
+the Central London Railway. There were some flower-sellers sitting by
+the railings, but they had no resemblance to the flower-girls of whom
+Uncle Matthew had often told him. He glanced at them with distaste.
+"It's queer," he thought, "how disappointed I am with everything!" and
+then, as if he would account for his disappointment, he added, "I'm
+bitter. That's what's wrong with me! I'm bitter about Maggie
+Carmichael!"
+
+He turned to a man who was leaning against the iron railings. "What's
+down there?" he asked, pointing to the stairs leading to the Central
+London Railway.
+
+"The Toob," said the man.
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The Toob. The Tuppeny Toob. Undergrahnd Rylewy!"
+
+"Oh, is that what you call the Tuppeny Tube?" John exclaimed, as
+comprehension came to him. He had read of the Underground Railway built
+in the shape of two long tubes stretching from the centre of the City
+to Shepherd's Bush, but he had imagined a much more dramatic entrance
+to it than this dull flight of steps.
+
+"But you _walk_ into it," he exclaimed to his informant.
+
+"There's lifts down below," the man replied unemotionally.
+
+"I thought it would be different," John continued.
+
+"Different? 'Ow ... different?"
+
+"Well ... different!"
+
+The man spat. "I down't see wot more you could expect," he said. "It's
+there, ain't it? Wot more du want?"
+
+"Oh, it's there, of course ... only!..."
+
+The man interrupted him. "Wot's a toob for?" he said. He answered his
+own question. "To travel by. Well, you can travel by it. Wot more du
+want?"
+
+"But I thought it would be exciting!..."
+
+"An' 'oo the 'ell wants excitement in a toob!" the man answered.
+
+John considered the matter for a moment or two. "I expect you're
+right," he said, and then, more briskly, added, "Yes, of course. Of
+course, you're right. Travelling in a train would not be pleasant if it
+were exciting."
+
+"It would not," the man answered.
+
+"But it sounded such an extraordinary thing, a Tube, when I read about
+it that I expected to see something different," John continued.
+
+"Well, it is an extraordinary thing," the man said. "You walk down them
+steps there, an' get into a lift, an' wot'll 'appen to you? You'll be
+dropped 'undreds of feet into the earth, an' when you get ta the
+bottom, you'll find trains runnin' by electricity. I call that
+extraordinary, if you down't ... only I down't want to myke a song
+abaht it!"
+
+John felt that he had been rebuked for an excess of enthusiasm. The
+Englishman was right about the Tube. It was a wonderful thing, more
+wonderful, perhaps, because of the quietness of its approach: it would
+not be any more wonderful if people were to go about the town uttering
+shouts of astonishment over it, nor was it any less wonderful because
+the English people treated it as if it were an ordinary affair.
+
+He looked across the road at the Bank of England, devoid equally of
+dignity and sensation, and then turned and looked at the Royal
+Exchange. A pigeon flew up from the ground and perched among the
+figures carved over the portico, and as he watched it, he read the
+inscription beneath the figure of Justice: _The Earth is the Lord's
+and the Fullness Thereof_.
+
+"Dear me!" he said, turning away again.
+
+He began to feel hungry, and he moved away to search for a place in
+which to find a meal.
+
+"Good-morning," he said to the man who had instructed him concerning
+the Tube.
+
+"Oh. goo'-mornin'!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+He walked along Queen Victoria Street and, without considering what he
+was doing, turned into a narrow street that ran off it at an angle of
+seventy-five degrees. It was a perilous street to traverse for every
+building in it seemed to have a crane near its roof, and every crane
+seemed to have a heavy bale dangling from it in mid-air; and from the
+narrow pavement cellar flaps were raised so that an unwary person might
+suddenly find himself descending into deep, dark holes in the ground.
+The roadway was occupied by lorries, and John had to turn and cross,
+and cross and turn many times before he could extricate himself from
+the labyrinth into which he had so carelessly intruded. While he was
+crossing the street at one point, and passing between two lorries, he
+found himself in front of a coffee-house, and again aware of his
+hunger, he entered it. He passed to the back of the L-shaped shop, and
+sat down at a small marble-topped table and waited for a waitress to
+come and take his order. There was a girl sitting on the other side of
+the table, but he did not observe her particularly, for her head was
+bent over a letter which she was reading. He looked about him. The room
+was full of men and young women, all eating or waiting to eat, and from
+a corner of the room came a babble of conversation carried on by a
+group of young clerks, and while John looked at them, a waitress came
+to him, and said, "Yes, sir?"
+
+He looked up at her hurriedly. "Oh, I want something to eat!" he said.
+She waited for him to proceed. "What have you?" he asked. She handed a
+bill of fare to him, and he glanced through it, feeling incapable of
+choice.
+
+"The sausages are very nice," the waitress suggested.
+
+"I'll have sausages," he replied, thankful for the suggestion.
+
+"Two?"
+
+He nodded his head.
+
+"Tea or coffee?"
+
+"Tea, please. And a roll and butter!"
+
+The waitress left him, and he sat back in his chair, and now he
+regarded the bent head of the girl sitting opposite to him, and as he
+did so, she looked up and their eyes met. She looked away.
+
+"What lovely eyes she has," John said to himself.
+
+She stood up as he thought this, and prepared to leave the restaurant,
+and he saw again that her eyes were very beautiful: blue eyes that had
+a dark look in them; and he said to himself that a woman who had
+beautiful eyes had everything. He wished that he had come earlier to
+the restaurant or that she had come later, so that they might have sat
+opposite to each other for a longer time. He listened while she asked
+the waitress for her bill. The softness of her voice was like gentle
+music. He thought of the tiny noise of a small stream, of the song of a
+bird heard at a distance, of leaves slightly stirring in a quiet wind,
+and told himself that the sound of her voice had the quality of all
+these. He wondered what it was that brought her to the City of London.
+Perhaps she was employed in an office. Perhaps she had come up to do
+some shopping.... She moved away, and as she did so, he saw that she
+had left her letter lying on the table. He leant over and picked it up,
+reading the name written on the envelope: _Miss Eleanor Moore_. He
+got up and hurried after her.
+
+The restaurant was a narrow cramped one, and it was not easy for him to
+make his way through the people who were entering or leaving it, and he
+feared that he would not be able to catch up with her before she had
+reached the street. Customers in that restaurant, however, had to stop
+at the counter to pay their bills, and so he reached her in time.
+
+"Excuse me," he said. "I think you left this letter behind you."
+
+She looked up in a startled manner, and then, seeing the letter which
+he held out to her, smiled and said, "Oh, thank you! Thank you very
+much. I left it on the table!"
+
+She took it from him, and put it in a pocket of her coat.
+
+"Thank you very much," she said again, and turned to take her change
+from the man behind the counter.
+
+John stood for a moment, looking at her, and then, remembering his
+manners, went back to his seat and began to eat his meal of tea and
+bread and butter and sausages.
+
+"Eleanor Moore!" he murmured to himself as he cut off a large piece of
+sausage and put it into his mouth. "That's a very nice name!" He
+munched the sausage. "A very nice name," he thought again. "Much nicer
+than Maggie Carmichael."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+He left the restaurant and, having enquired the way, proceeded along
+Cheapside towards Fleet Street. There was nothing of interest to him in
+Cheapside, and so, in spite of its memories of Richard Whittington and
+Robert Herrick, he hurried out of it. He turned into St. Paul's
+Churchyard, eager to see the Cathedral, but as he did so, his heart
+fell. The Eastern end of the Cathedral does not impress the beholder.
+John ought to have seen St. Paul's first from Ludgate Hill, but, coming
+on it from Cheapside, he could not get a proper view of it. He had
+expected to turn a corner and see before him, immense and wonderful,
+the great church, rich in tradition and dignity, rearing itself high
+above the houses like a strong man rising up from the midst of
+pigmies ... and he had turned a corner and seen only a grimy, blackened
+thing, huddled into a corner ... jostled almost ... by greedy shopkeepers
+and warehousemen. A narrow passage, congested by carts, separated the
+eastern end of the cathedral from ugly buildings; a narrower passage
+separated the railings of the churchyard from shops where men sold baby
+linen and women's blouses and kitchen ranges and buns and milk....
+
+His Uncle Matthew had told him that the dome of St. Paul's could be
+seen from every part of London. "If ever you lose yourself in London,"
+he had said, "search the sky 'til you see the dome of St. Paul's and
+then work your way towards it!" And here, in the very churchyard of the
+Cathedral, the dome was not visible because the shop-keepers had not
+left enough of room for a man to stand back and view it properly. John
+wondered whether the whole of London would disappoint him so much as
+St. Paul's had done. The English seemed to have very little regard for
+their cathedrals, for they put them into cramped areas and allowed
+merchants to encircle them with ugly shops and offices. In Southwark,
+he had seen the church where Shakespeare prayed, hidden behind a
+hideous railway bridge, with its pavement fouled by rotting cabbage
+leaves and the stinking debris of a vegetable market. And here, now,
+was St. Paul's surrounded by dingy, desolating houses, as if an effort
+were being made to conceal the church from view.
+
+He hurried through the churchyard until he reached the western end of
+the Cathedral, where some of his disappointment dropped out of his
+mind. The great front of the church, with its wide, deep steps and its
+great, strong pillars, black and grey from the smoke and fog of London,
+filled him with a sense of imperturbable dignity. Men might build their
+dingy, little shops and their graceless, scrambling warehouses, and try
+to crowd the Cathedral into a corner, but the great church would still
+retain its dignity and strength however much they might succeed in
+obscuring it. He walked across the pavement, scattering the pigeons as
+he did so, undecided whether to enter the Cathedral or not, until he
+reached the flagstone on which is chiselled the statement that "Here
+Queen Victoria Returned Thanks to Almighty God for the Sixtieth
+Anniversary of Her Accession. June 22, 1897." As he contemplated the
+flagstone, he forgot about the Cathedral, and remembered only his Uncle
+Matthew. On this spot, a little, old woman had said her thankful
+prayers, the little, old woman for whom his Uncle, who had never seen
+her, had cracked a haberdasher's window and suffered disgrace; and she
+and he were dead, and the little, old lady was of no more account than
+the simple-minded man who had nearly been sent to gaol because of his
+devotion to her memory. Many times in his life, had John heard people
+speak of "the Queen" almost in an awe-stricken fashion, until, now and
+then, she seemed to him to be a legendary woman, a great creature in a
+heroic story, someone of whom he might dream, but of whom he might
+never hope to catch a glimpse. It startled him to think that she had
+human qualities, that she ate and drank and slept and suffered pain and
+laughed and cried like other people. She was "the Queen": she owned the
+British Empire and all that it contained. She owned white men and black
+men and yellow men and red men; she owned islands and continents and
+deserts and seas; a great tract of the world belonged to her ... and
+here he was standing on the very spot where she had sat in her
+carriage, offering thanks in old quavering accents to the Almighty God
+for allowing her to reign for sixty years. The fact that he was able to
+stand on that very spot seemed comical to him. There ought to have been
+a burning bush on the place where "the Queen" had said her prayers.
+Uncle Matthew would have expected something of that sort ... but there
+was nothing more dramatic than this plainly-chiselled inscription. And
+the little, old woman was as dusty in her grave as Uncle Matthew was in
+his....
+
+
+
+VII
+
+He passed down Ludgate Hill, across Ludgate Circus, into Fleet Street,
+turning for a few moments to look back at the Cathedral. Again, he had
+a sense of anger against the English people who could allow a railway
+company to fling an ugly bridge across the foot of Ludgate Hill and
+destroy the view of St. Paul's from the Circus; but he had had too many
+shocks that morning to feel a deep anger then, and so, turning his back
+on the Cathedral, he walked up Fleet Street. He stared about him with
+interest, gazing up at the names of the newspapers that were exhibited
+in large letters on the fronts of the houses. The street seemed to be
+shouting at him, yelling out names as if it were afraid to be silent.
+It was a disorderly street. It seemed to straggle up the hill to the
+Strand, as if it had not had time to put its clothes on properly. All
+along its length, he could see, at intervals, scaffold-poles and
+builders' hoardings. Houses and offices were being altered or repaired
+or rebuilt. He felt that the street had been constructed for a great
+game of hide-and-seek, for the flow of the buildings was irregular:
+here, a house stood forward; there, a house stood back. In one of these
+bays, a player might hide from a seeker!... Somewhere in this street,
+John remembered, Dr. Johnson had lived, and he tried to imagine the
+scene that took place on the night of misery when Oliver Goldsmith went
+to the Doctor and wept over the failure of _The Good Natured Man_,
+and was called a ninny for his pains. But he could not make the scene
+come alive because of the noise and confusion in the street. The air of
+immediacy which enveloped him made quiet imagination impossible. His
+head began to ache with the sounds that filled his ears, and he wished
+that he could escape from the shouting herd into some little soundless
+place where his mind could become easy again and free from pain. He
+stared around him, glancing at the big-lettered signs over the
+newspaper offices, at the omnibuses, at the crowds of men and women,
+and once his heart leaped into his throat as he saw a boy on a bicycle,
+carrying a bag stuffed with newspapers on his back, ride rapidly out of
+a side street into the middle of the congested traffic as if there were
+nothing substantial to hinder his progress ... and as he stared about
+him, it seemed to him that Fleet Street was on the verge of a nervous
+breakdown....
+
+"I must get out of this," he said to himself, turning aimlessly out of
+the street.
+
+He found himself presently in a narrow lane, and, looking up at the
+sign, saw that it was called "Hanging Sword Alley." He looked at the
+bye-way, a mere gutter of a street, and wondered what sort of a man had
+given it that romantic name; and while he wondered, it seemed to him
+that his mind had suddenly become illuminated. His Uncle Matthew had
+had romantic imaginings all his life about everything except the things
+that were under his nose. He had never seen Queen Victoria, but he had
+suffered for her sake. He had never seen London, but he had declared it
+to be a city of romance and colour and vivid happenings. Perhaps Uncle
+Matthew was like the man who had named this dull, grimy, narrow
+passage, "Hanging Sword Alley"! Perhaps Queen Victoria was not
+quite ... not quite all that Uncle Matthew had imagined her to be. The
+thought staggered him, and he felt as if he had filled his mind with
+treason and sedition!... He could not say what Queen Victoria was, but
+with his own eyes he had seen London, and London had as little of
+romance in it as Hanging Sword Alley had. There were noise and scuffle
+and dingy distraction and mobs of little white-faced, nervous men and
+women, and a drab content with blotched beauty ... but none of these
+things had romance in them. He had been told that London flower-girls
+were pretty ... and he had seen only coarse and unclean women, with
+towsled hair. He had been told that London 'busdrivers were cheerful,
+witty men ... but the driver to whom he had spoken had been surly at
+the beginning and witless to the end. If Uncle Matthew had come into
+this dirty bye-way, he would have seen only the name of Hanging Sword
+Alley, but John had seen more than the name: he had seen the inadequacy
+of the bye-way to the name it bore.
+
+"Perhaps," he said to himself, "I can't see the romance in things.
+Mebbe, Uncle Matthew could see more than I can!..."
+
+His head ached more severely now, and he wandered into Tudor Street. A
+great rurr-rurr came from the cellars of the houses, and glancing into
+them, he could see big machines working, and he guessed that these were
+the engines that printed the newspapers. The thump of the presses, as
+they turned great rolls of white paper into printed sheets, seemed to
+beat inside his head, causing him pain with every stroke. He pressed
+his fingers, against his temples in an effort to relieve the ache, but
+it would not be relieved. "Oh!" he exclaimed aloud after one very sharp
+twinge, and then, as he spoke, he found himself before a gate and,
+heedless of what he was doing, he passed through it ... and found
+himself in an oasis in a desert of noise. The harsh sounds died down,
+the _rurr-rurr-rurr_ of the machines ceased to trouble him, the
+scuffle and haste no longer offended his sense of decency. He was in a
+place of cool cloisters and wide green lawns. He could see young men in
+white flannels playing tennis ... in Ballyards it was called "bat and
+ball" ... and beyond the tennis-courts, he saw the shining river.
+
+"What place is this?" he said to a man who went by.
+
+"Temple Gardens!" the man replied.
+
+He walked about the Gardens, delighting in the quiet and the coolness.
+Pigeons flew down from the roof of a house and began to pick bread-crumbs
+almost at his feet. There was a sweet noise of birds....
+
+He looked at the names of the barristers painted on the doorways of the
+houses, and wondered which of them were judges. He wished he could see
+a judge in his crimson robes and his long, curly wig, coming out of the
+chambers, and while he wished for this splendid spectacle, he saw a
+barrister in his black gown and horse-hair wig, come down a narrow
+passage from the Strand and enter the doorway of one of the houses. He
+walked on into Pump Court and watched the sparrows washing themselves
+in the fountain where Tom Pinch met Ruth ... and while he watched them,
+his sense of loneliness returned to him. His head still ached and now
+his heart ached, too. Disappointment had come to him all day. He was
+alone in a city full of people who knew nothing of him and cared
+nothing for him. And his heart was aching. The peace of Pump Court only
+served to make him more aware of the ache in his head. As he dipped his
+hand in the water of the fountain, he wished that he could go round a
+corner and meet Uncle William or Mr. Cairnduff or the minister or even
+Aggie Logan ... meet someone whom he knew!...
+
+"I'd give the world for a cup of tea," he said to himself suddenly, and
+then, "I wonder could I find that place where I saw the girl. Mebbe
+she'd be there again!..."
+
+He looked about him in an indeterminate way. Then he moved from the
+fountain in the direction of the Strand. "I can try anyway!" he said.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The girl was sitting at a large table in a corner of the restaurant,
+and he saw with joy that there was a vacant seat immediately opposite
+to her. He looked at her as he sat down, but she gave no sign of
+recognition. He had hoped that their encounter earlier in the day would
+have entitled him to a smile from her, but her features remained
+unrelaxed, although he knew that she was aware of him and remembered
+him. Her eyes and his had met, and he had been ready to answer her
+smile with another smile, but she averted her eyes from his stare and
+looked down at her plate. What eyes she had ... grey at one moment and
+blue at another as her face turned in the light! When she looked
+downwards, he could see long lashes fringing her eyelids, and when she
+looked up, the changing colour of her irises and the blue tinge that
+suffused the cornea, caused him to think of her eyes as pools of light.
+Her face was pale, and in repose it had an appearance of puzzled pathos
+that made him feel that he must instantly offer comfort to her, and he
+would have done so had not her nervous reticence prevented him. What
+would she do if he were to speak to her? There was an illustrated paper
+lying close to her plate. He leant across the table and, pointing to
+the paper, said, "Are you using that?"
+
+She started, and then, without a smile, said, "No," and passed the
+paper to him.
+
+"Thank you!" he murmured, taking it from her.
+
+It was an old paper, and he did not wish to read it, but he had to
+pretend to be interested in it, for the girl showed no desire to offer
+any more than the casual civilities of one stranger to another. He
+hoped that he might suddenly look up and find that she was regarding
+him intently ... she would hurriedly glance away from him with an air
+of pretty confusion ... but although he looked up at her many times, he
+never caught her gazing at him. He wished that she would take her hat,
+a wide-brimmed one, off so that he might see her hair. How ridiculous
+it was of women to sit at meals with hats on!... He could just see a
+wave of dark brown hair under the brim of her hat, flowing across her
+broad brow. Her eyebrows were dark and level and very firm, and he
+thought how wonderfully the darkness of her eyebrows and her eyelids
+and the pallor of her skin served to enrich the beauty of her eyes.
+Maggie Carmichael's eyes had had laughter in them ... they seemed
+always to be sparkling with merriment ... but this girl's eyes had
+tears in them. She might often smile, John told himself, but she would
+seldom laugh. Her air of listening for an alarm and the nervous
+movement of her fingers made him imagine that a magician had changed
+some swift and beautiful and timid animal into a woman. The magicians
+in the _Arabian Nights_ frequently turned men and women into
+hounds and antelopes, but the process had been reversed with this girl:
+an antelope had been turned into a woman.... If only she would give him
+an opportunity of speaking to her, of making friends with her! He
+suddenly held out the paper to her. "Thank you!" he said.
+
+"It isn't mine," she answered indifferently.
+
+He became confused and clumsy, and he put the paper down on the table
+so that it upset a spoon on to the floor with a noise that seemed loud
+enough to wake the dead; and as he stooped to pick it up, he pushed the
+paper against her plate, causing it almost to fall into her lap.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he exclaimed.
+
+"It's all right," she replied coldly.
+
+He could feel the blood running hotly through his body, and the warm
+flush of it spreading over his cheeks. "That was a cut," he said to
+himself, and wondered what he should do or say next. What a fool he
+must appear to her! ... It would be ridiculous to ask her to tell him
+the time, for there was a large and palpable clock over her head so
+fixed that he could not fail to see it. It was very odd, he thought,
+that she should not wish to speak to him when he so ardently wished to
+speak to her. She had finished her meal and he knew that in a moment or
+two she would rise and go out of the restaurant. He leant across the
+table.
+
+"Miss Moore," he said, "I wish you would be friends with me!"
+
+She looked at him as if she were not certain that he had spoken to her,
+and as she saw how earnestly he gazed at her, the expression of her
+face changed from one of astonishment to one of alarm.
+
+"Won't you?" he said.
+
+She gave a little gasp and rose hurriedly from her seat.
+
+"Miss Moore!" he said appealingly.
+
+"I don't know you," she replied, hurrying away.
+
+He sat still. It seemed to him that every person in the restaurant must
+be looking at him and condemning him for his behaviour. He had spoken
+to a girl who did not know him, and he had frightened her. The look of
+alarm in her face was unmistakable. What must she think of him? Would
+she ever believe that he had no wish to frighten her, that he wished
+only to be her friend, to talk to her? If he had told her that he did
+not know anyone in London and was feeling miserably lonely, perhaps she
+would have been kind to him ... but what opportunity had he had to tell
+her anything. Well, that was the end of that! He was not likely to see
+Eleanor Moore again, and even if he were, he could hardly hope, after
+such a rebuff, to win her friendship unless a miracle were to
+happen ... and he had begun to feel dubious about miracles since he had
+arrived in London. Perhaps, if he were to follow her and explain
+matters to her!...
+
+He hurried out of the restaurant, and stood for a moment or two on the
+pavement glancing up and down the street. She was turning out of the
+lane into Queen Victoria Street, and as he stood looking at her, she
+turned round the corner and he lost sight of her.
+
+"I'll go after her," he said.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+He ran into Queen Victoria Street and glanced eagerly about him. It was
+difficult in the press of people to distinguish a single person, but
+fortunately the street was fairly clear of traffic, and he saw her
+crossing the road near the Mansion House. He hastened after her and saw
+her enter a block of offices in Cornhill. He reached the door of this
+building in time to see her being carried out of sight in the lift. He
+entered the hall and stood by the gate until the lift had descended.
+
+"Can you tell me which of these offices that lady works in?" he said to
+the liftman. "The lady you've just taken up, Miss Moore?"
+
+The liftman looked at him suspiciously.
+
+"Wot you want to know for?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, I ... I'm a friend of hers," John answered lamely.
+
+"Well, if you're a friend of 'ers, I daresay she'll tell you 'erself
+next time she sees you," said the liftman. "Any-'ow, I sha'n't. See?"
+
+"But I particularly want to know," John persisted. "Look here, I'll
+give you half-a-crown if you'll tell me!..."
+
+"An' I'll give you a thick ear if you don't 'op it out of this quick,"
+the liftman retorted angrily. "I know you. Nosey Parker, that's wot you
+are! Comin' 'round 'ere, annoyin' girls! I know you! I seen fellers
+like you before, I 'ave!..."
+
+"What do you mean?" said John.
+
+"Mean! 'Ere's wot I mean. You're either a broker's man!..."
+
+"No, I'm not," John interrupted.
+
+"Or you're up to no good, see! An' wotever you are, you can just 'op
+it, see! You'll get no information out of me, Mr. Nosey Parker, see!
+An' if I ketch you 'angin' about 'ere, annoyin' 'er or anybody else
+I'll 'it you on the jawr, see, an' then I'll 'and you over to the
+police. An' that'll learn you!"
+
+John stared at the man. "Do you mean to say?..."
+
+"I mean to say wot I 'ave said," the liftman interjected. "An' I don't
+mean to say no more. 'Op it. That's all. Or it'll be the worse for
+you!"
+
+The lift bell rang, and the man entered the lift and closed the gate.
+Then he ascended out of sight. John gaped through the gate into the
+well of the lift.
+
+"I've a good mind to break that chap's skull," he said to himself as he
+turned away.
+
+He left the block of offices and went towards Prince's Street.
+
+"It's no good hanging about here any longer," he said. "I'll go home!"
+
+A 'bus drove up as he reached the corner, and he climbed into it. "I'll
+come again to-morrow," he said, "and try and find her. She'll have to
+listen to me. I'm really in love this time!"
+
+He had been provided with a latch-key before leaving Miss Squibb's
+house in the morning, and, with an air of responsibility, he let
+himself in. Lizzie, carrying a tray of dishes, came into the hall as he
+opened the door.
+
+"Just in time," she said affably. "If you'd 'a' been a bit sooner,
+you'd 'a' seen the Creams. They come back just after you went out
+'smornin'. I told 'em all about you ... you bein' Irish an' littery an'
+never 'avin' been to the Zoo or anythink. They _was_ interested!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"'E's such a nice man, Mr. Cream is. She ain't bad, but 'e's nice. They
+gone to the Oxford now. I wish you'd seen 'em start off in their
+broom!"
+
+"Broom?"
+
+"Yes, their carriage. They 'ave to 'ire one when they're in London so's
+to get about from one 'all to another. They act in two or three 'alls a
+night in London. I do like to see 'em go off in their broom of a
+evenin'. Mykes the 'ouse look a bit classy, I think, but Aunt says
+they're living in sin an' she down't feel 'appy about it. But wot I sy
+is, wot's it matter so long as they pys their rent reg'lar an' down't
+go an' myke no fuss. They couldn't be less trouble. They keep on their
+rooms 'ere, just the same whether they're 'ere or not, an' sometimes
+they're away for months at a stretch. It ain't every dy you get lodgers
+like them, and wot I sy is, if they are livin' in sin, it's them
+that'll ave to go to 'ell for it, not us. Aunt's very religious, but
+she can see sense syme's anybody else, so she 'olds 'er tongue about
+it. I down't 'old with sin myself, mind you, but I down't believe in
+cuttin' off your nose to spite someone else's fyce. You go an' wash
+your 'ands, an' I'll 'ave your dinner up in 'alf a jiff!..."
+
+John stared at her. "I don't know what you mean by living in sin," he
+said.
+
+"Well, you are innercent," she replied. "'Aven't you never 'eard of no
+one livin' together without bein' married?"
+
+"I've read about it!..."
+
+"Well, that's livin' in sin, that is. Pers'nally, I down't see wot
+diff'rence it mykes. They be'ave about the syme, married or not. 'E's a
+bit more lovin', per'aps, than a 'usband, but otherwise it's about the
+syme!"
+
+The bluntness of Lizzie's speech disconcerted him, and yet the
+simplicity of it reassured him. He did not now feel, as he has felt in
+the morning, that she was a Bad Woman; but he could not completely
+comprehend her. Girls in Ballyards did not speak as she spoke. One knew
+that there were Bad Women in the world and that there was much sin in
+love-making, but one did not speak of it, except in shuddering
+whispers. Lizzie, however, spoke of it almost as if she were talking of
+the weather. Evidently, life and habit in England were very different
+from life and habit in Ballyards.... He went up the stairs to his room,
+in a mood partly of horror and partly of curiosity. He was shocked to
+think that he was living in the same house with guilty sinners, but he
+had an odd desire to see them.
+
+When he had reached the first landing, Lizzie called after him.
+"There's a poce-card for you," she said. "From Mr. 'Inde. 'E says 'e'll
+be 'ome to-morrow, an' 'e asts you to give me 'is love. Saucy 'ound!
+'E's a one, 'e is!"
+
+John turned towards her. "It won't be necessary for me to give his love
+to you, will it?" he said sarcastically. "You seem to have taken it
+already!"
+
+She was unaware of his sarcasm. "So I 'ave," she said. "I'll tell 'im
+that when 'e comes back!"
+
+"Do you always read post-cards, Lizzie?" he asked.
+
+"Of course I do," she answered. "So does everybody. You 'urry on now,
+an' I'll 'ave your dinner up before you finish dryin' your fyce!" She
+contemplated him for a moment. "You got nice 'air," she said, "only it
+wants brushin'. An' cuttin', too!"
+
+Then she disappeared down the stairs leading to the basement.
+
+"That's a _very_ rum sort of a woman," John murmured to himself as
+he proceeded to his room.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+He had gone to bed before the Creams returned from their round of the
+music-halls, but in the morning, when Lizzie had removed the remnants
+of his breakfast, John heard a tap on the door of the sitting-room, and
+on opening it, found a small, wistful-looking man, with a smiling face,
+standing outside.
+
+"Good-morning," said the stranger, holding his hand out. "I'm Cream
+from the ground-floor!"
+
+"Oh, yes," John answered, shaking hands with him. "Come in, won't you!"
+
+"Well, I was going to suggest you should come down and be introduced to
+the wife. She'd like to meet you!" Mr. Cream said, entering the
+sitting-room as he spoke.
+
+John had a sensation of self-consciousness when he heard the word
+"wife."
+
+"Settling down comfortably?" Mr. Cream continued.
+
+"Oh, yes, thank you," said John. "I went out all day yesterday and had
+my first look at London!"
+
+"And what do you think of it? Great place, eh?"
+
+John confessed that he had been disappointed in London, and in a few
+moments he began to recite a list of the things that had disappointed
+him.
+
+"Wait 'til you've been here a few months," Mr. Cream interrupted.
+"You'll love this town. You'll hate loving it, but you won't be able to
+help yourself. I've been all over the world, the wife and me, and I've
+seen some of the loveliest places on earth, but London's got me. You'll
+be the same. You see!" He glanced about the room, casting his eyes
+critically at the books. "I hear you're a writer, too?" he said, less
+as an assertion than as a question.
+
+"I've written one book," John replied, "but it hasn't been printed. I
+want to discuss it with Mr. Hinde, but I haven't had a chance to do
+that yet. He's been away ever since I arrived. He'll be home the day
+though!"
+
+"So Lizzie told me. Queer bird, Lizzie, isn't she?"
+
+"Very," said John.
+
+"But she's a good soul. I'd trust Lizzie with every ha'penny I have,
+but I wouldn't trust that old cat of an aunt of hers with a brass
+farthing. She's too religious to be honest. That's my opinion of her.
+Come on down and see the wife!" He rose from his seat as he spoke. "I
+suppose you've never tried your hand at a play, have you?" he asked,
+leading the way to the door.
+
+"No, not yet, but I had a notion of trying," John said, following him.
+
+"I could give you a few tips if you needed advice," Mr. Cream
+continued, as they descended the stairs. "As a matter of fact, the wife
+and me are in need of a new piece for the halls, and it struck me this
+morning when I heard you were a writer, that mebbe you could do a piece
+for us. It would be practice for you!"
+
+"What about Mr. Hinde?" John asked.
+
+"I've tried him time after time, but it's no good asking. He's a
+journalist, and a journalist can only work when he's excited. Put him
+down to something that needs thought and care, and he's lost. And he
+always says he's writing a tragedy about St. Patrick and can't think of
+anything else!"
+
+John smiled, without quite understanding why he was smiling, and
+followed Mr. Cream into the ground floor sitting-room where Mrs. Cream
+was lying on a sofa.
+
+"This is the wife," Mr. Cream said. "Dolly, this is Mr.... Mr!..."
+
+"MacDermott," John prompted.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course. Mr. MacDermott. Lizzie did tell me, but I can
+never remember Irish names somehow!"
+
+Mrs. Cream extended a limp hand to John. "You must excuse me for not
+getting up," she said, "but I'm always very tired in the morning!"
+
+"You see, Mac," Mr. Cream explained, "Dolly is a very intense
+actress ... I think she's the most intense actress on the stage ... and
+she gets very worked up in emotional pieces. Don't you, Dolly?"
+
+Dolly nodded her head, and then, as if the effort of doing so had been
+too great an exertion for her, she lay back on the sofa and closed her
+eyes.
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go!..." John suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no! She's always like that. All right in the afternoon. Won't
+you, Dolly?"
+
+Dolly waved her hand feebly.
+
+"Her acting takes a lot out of her," Mr. Cream said. "Very exhausting
+all that emotional work. Bound to be ... _bound_ to be! Now, comic
+work's different. I can be as comic as you like, and all that happens
+is I'm nicely tired about bedtime, and I sleep like a top. In fact, I
+might say I sleep like two tops, for the wife's so unnerved, as you
+might say, by her own acting that it takes her half the night to settle
+down. Nerves, my boy. That's what it is! Nerves! I tell you, Mac, old
+chap, if you want to have a good night's rest, go in for comic work,
+but if you want to lie awake and think, tragedy's your trade. Nerves
+all on edge. Overwrought. Terrible thing, tragedy! Isn't it, Dolly?"
+
+Mrs. Cream moaned slightly and twisted about on the sofa. "Too much
+talk!" she murmured.
+
+"All right, my dear, all right. Suppose we just go up to your room
+again, Mac, and talk until she's quieted down? Eh?"
+
+"Very well," said John who was feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.
+
+They left the room together, John walking on tiptoe, for he felt that
+the situation made such a solemnity necessary.
+
+"Temperament is a peculiar thing," Mr. Cream said as they ascended the
+stairs.
+
+"Evidently," John answered.
+
+"I may as well warn you that Dolly'll make love to you when she's
+recovered herself, but you needn't let it worry you. She can't help it,
+poor dear, and I often think it's the only real relaxation she has ...
+with her temperament. Just humour her, old chap, if she does. I'll know
+you don't mean anything by it. It's temperament, that's all it is.
+Dolly wouldn't do anything ... not for the world ... but it gives her a
+lot of satisfaction to pretend she's doing something. Lot of women like
+that, Mac. Not nice women, really ... except Dolly, of course ... and
+you can excuse her because of her temperament!"
+
+They entered the sitting-room and sat down at the table.
+
+"And I may as well tell you," Cream continued, "that Dolly and me
+aren't married. I'd like to be regular myself, but Dolly says she'd
+feel respectable if she was married ... and she thinks you can't be
+tragic if you're respectable. She always says that she's at her best
+when she feels that I've ruined her life. I daresay she's right, old
+chap, only I'd like to be regular myself. As I tell her, if it's hard
+to be tragic when you're respectable, it's damn hard to be comic when
+you're not. I expect Lizzie told you about me and Dolly?"
+
+John nodded his head.
+
+"I thought as much. Lizzie always tells people. I don't know what the
+hell she'd do for gossip if we were to get married. I can't think how
+she found out ... unless Dolly told her ... but you can be certain of
+this, Mac, if there's a skeleton in your cupboard, Lizzie'll discover
+it. Dolly's the skeleton in my cupboard. Of course, old chap, I don't
+want it talked about. I wouldn't have told you anything about it, only
+I guessed that Lizzie'd told you. Not that I mind _you_ or Hinde
+knowing ... you're writers ... but music-hall people are so particular
+about things of that sort. You wouldn't believe how narrow-minded and
+old-fashioned they are about marriage ... not like actors. That's
+really why I mentioned the matter. I don't want you to think I'm
+bragging about it or anything!"
+
+"Oh, no, no," said John. "No, of course not. I wouldn't dream of saying
+a word to anybody!"
+
+"Thanks, Mac, old chap!" Cream extended his hand to John, and John,
+wondering why it was offered to him, shook it. "Now about this idea of
+mine for a play!"
+
+"Play?"
+
+"Yes, for me and Dolly. Why shouldn't you do one for us? The minute I
+heard you were a writer, I turned to Dolly and I said, 'Dolly, darling,
+let's get him to do a play for us!' And she agreed at once. She said,
+'Do what you like, darling, but don't worry me about it!' You see, Mac,
+we're getting a bit tired of this piece we're doing now ... we've been
+doing it twice-nightly for four years ... _The Girl Gets Left_, we
+call it ... and we want new stuff. See? We'd like a good dramatic
+piece ... a little bit of high-class in it ... for Dolly ... if you like,
+only not too much. Classy stuff wants living up to it, and I haven't
+got it in me, and people aren't always in the mood for it either. In
+the music-halls, anyway. See?"
+
+"But!..."
+
+"Dramatic stuff ... that's what we want. Go! Snap! Plenty of ginger!
+Raise hell's delight and then haul down the curtain quick before the
+audience has had time to pull itself together. See? We'd treat the
+author very handsome if we could get hold of a good piece with a big
+emotional part for the wife ... and although I'm her husband ... in the
+sight of God, anyway ... I will say this for her, Mac, there's not
+another woman on the stage ... Ellen Terry, Mrs. Pat or Sarah Bernhardt
+herself ... can hold a candle to Dolly for emotional parts. Of course,
+there'd have to be a comic part for me, too, but you needn't worry much
+about that. I always make up my own part to a certain extent. Just give
+me the bare outline: I'll do the rest. You see, I understand the
+public ... it's a knack, of course ... and I can always improve the
+author's stuff easy. What do you say?"
+
+"I don't know," said John.
+
+"You needn't put your name to it, if you don't want to. Use a nom de
+plume or leave the name out altogether. _Our_ audience doesn't pay
+any attention to authors, so that won't matter. And it'll be a start
+for you, Mac!"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"Any little bit of success, even if you're half ashamed of it, bucks
+you wonderful, Mac ... I say, you don't mind me calling you Mac, do
+you?..."
+
+"No," John replied.
+
+"Somehow it's homely when you can call a chap Mac, somehow! Now, if you
+was to do a play for us, and it went well, it'd put heart into you for
+something better. If you can find your way to the heart of a music-hall
+audience, Mac, my boy, you can find your way anywhere. Now, what about
+it, eh! Will you try to do a piece for us?"
+
+"I'll try, but!..."
+
+"That's all right," said Cream, again extending his hand to John.
+"Dolly'll be very pleased to hear we've settled it!"
+
+"But I've never seen a music-hall play!" John exclaimed, "and you
+haven't said how much you'll pay me for it!"
+
+"Never been in a music-hall!... Where was you brought up, Mac!"
+
+"In Ballyards," John replied seriously.
+
+"Where's that?"
+
+"Have you never heard of Ballyards, Mr. Cream?"
+
+"No," the comedian replied.
+
+"Well, where were you brought up then?"
+
+Cream regarded him closely for a few moments. Then he burst into
+laughter and again shook John fervently by the hand.
+
+"That's one up for you, Mac!" he said genially. "Quite a repartee.
+Well, come with us to-night and see _The Girl Gets Left_. That'll
+give you a notion of the sort of stuff we want. See?"
+
+"How much will you pay me for it?"
+
+"Well, we gave the chap that wrote _The Girl Gets Left_ ... poor
+chap, he died of drink about six weeks ago ... couldn't keep away from
+it ... signed the pledge ... ate sweets ... did everything ... no
+good ... always thought out his best jokes when he was drunk ... well, we
+gave him thirty bob a week for _The Girl Gets Left_ ... and mind
+you he was an experienced chap, too ... but Dolly and me, we've decided
+you have to pay a bit extra for classy stuff, and we'll give you two
+quid a week for the piece if it suits us. Two quid a week as long as
+the play runs, Mac. _The Girl Gets Left_ has been played for four
+years ... four years, Mac ... all over the civilised globe. If your
+piece was to run that long, you'd get Four Hundred and Sixteen Quid.
+Four Hundred and Sixteen shiny Jimmy o' Goblins, Mac! Think of it! And
+all for a couple of afternoons' work!..."
+
+"And how much will you get out of it?" John asked.
+
+"Oh, I dunno. Enough to pay the rent anyhow. You know, Mac, these
+high-class chaps like Barrie and Bernard Shaw, they've never had a play
+run for four years anywhere, and yet old Hookings, that nobody never knew
+nothing about and died of drink, his play was performed all over the
+civilised world for four years. That's something to be proud of, that
+is. Four solid years! But there was nothing in the papers about him,
+when he died ... nothing ... not a word. And if Barrie was to die, or
+Bernard Shaw ... columns, pages! Barrie ... well, he's all right, of
+course ... not bad ... but compare him with Hookings. Why, he doesn't
+know the outside of the human heart, not the outside of it he doesn't,
+and Hookings knew what the inside of it's like. You take that play of
+Barrie's, _The Twelve Pound Look_. Not bad...not a bad play, at
+all ... but where's the feeling heart in it? Play that piece in front
+of an audience of coalminers and what 'ud you get? The bird, my boy!
+That sort of stuff is all right for the West End ... but the people,
+Mac, want something that hits 'em straight between the eyes and gives
+'em a kick in the stomach as well. The best way to make a man sit up
+and take a bit of notice is to hit him a punch on the jaw, and the best
+way to make the public feel sympathetic is to hit it a punch in the
+heart!..."
+
+The little man broke off suddenly and glanced towards the door. "I must
+toddle down to Dolly now. She gets fretful if I'm out of her sight for
+long. I'll see you later on ... seven o 'clock, old chap!"
+
+"Very good," John answered.
+
+"Aw reservoir, then!" said Cream, as he left the room and hurried
+downstairs.
+
+
+
+II
+
+He told himself that he ought to do some work, but the desire to see
+more of London overcame his good resolution, and so he left the house
+and set out again for the town. He hoped that he might see Eleanor
+Moore. If he were to go to the tea-shop at the same hour as she had
+entered it yesterday, he might contrive to seat himself at her table
+again, and this time perhaps she would listen to him. When he reached
+the City, he found that he was too early for the mid-day meal, and so
+he resolved to go and stand about the entrance to the office where
+Eleanor Moore was employed. He would see her coming out of it and could
+follow discreetly after her.... But although he waited for an hour, she
+did not appear, nor was she to be seen in the tea-shop, when, tired and
+disappointed, he took his place in it. He dallied over his meal, hoping
+every moment that she would turn up, but at length he had to go away
+without seeing her. At teatime, he told himself, he would come again
+and wait for her. He climbed on to a 'bus and let himself be taken to
+Charing Cross, where he enquired the way to the National Gallery. He
+wandered through the rooms until his eyes ached with looking at the
+pictures and his feet were sore with walking on the polished floors. He
+felt self-conscious when he looked at the nudes, and he blushed when he
+found a woman standing by his side as he looked at the portrait of Jean
+Arnolfini and Jeanne his wife by van Eyck. He turned hotly away, and
+wondered that there was no blush on the face of the woman. In
+Ballyards, a man always pretended not to see a woman about to have a
+child ... unless, of course, he was with other men and the woman could
+not see him, when he would crack jokes about her condition!... Here,
+however, people actually exhibited pictures of pregnant women in a
+public place where all sorts, old and young, male and female, could
+look at them ... and no one appeared to mind. It might be all right, of
+course, and after all a woman in that way was natural enough ... but he
+had been brought up to be ashamed of seeing such things, and he could
+not very well become easy about them in a moment.... And he became very
+tired of Holy Families and Crucifixions!...
+
+"I'll walk back to the place," he said to himself as he left the
+Gallery and crossed Trafalgar Square. He dappled his fingers in the
+water of one of the fountains, and listened to two little Cocknies
+wrangling together....
+
+"They've a queer way of talking," he said to himself.
+
+...and then he started off down the Strand towards Fleet Street and the
+City. Eleanor Moore was not in the tea-shop when he entered it, nor did
+she come into it while he remained there. He finished his meal and
+walked in the direction of the Royal Exchange and just as he was
+running out of the way of a 'bus, he saw her going towards the stairs
+leading into the Tube.
+
+"There she is," he murmured and hurried after her.
+
+She was at the foot of the stairs when he reached the top of them, and
+when he had got to the foot of them, she was almost at the entrance to
+the booking-office of the Tube. He tried to get near her so that he
+might speak to her, but the press of people going home prevented him
+from doing so. He saw her go down the steps and take her place in the
+queue of people purchasing tickets, and he walked across to the
+bookstall and stood there until she had obtained her ticket. Then as
+she walked to the lift, he moved towards her. She was examining her
+change as she walked along, and did not see him until he was close to
+her. He meant to say, "Oh, Miss Moore, may I speak to you for a
+moment!" but suddenly he became totally inarticulate, and while he was
+struggling to say something, she looked up and saw him. She started
+slightly, then her face became flushed, and she hurried forward and
+joined the group of wedged people in the lift. He determined to follow
+her, but while he was resolving to do so, the lift attendant shouted,
+"Next lift, please!" and pulled the gates together. He watched the
+light disappear from the little windows at the top of the gates!...
+
+"I've missed her again," he said.
+
+
+
+III
+
+He was just in time to swallow a hurried meal and set off to the
+theatre with the Creams. Mrs. Cream, recovered from the devastating
+effects of a tragical temperament, was very vivacious as they sat in
+the brougham; and she rallied him on his authorship. She told him that
+when he was a celebrated writer, she would be able to say that she had
+discovered him....
+
+"As a matter of fact, Dolly," said her husband, "it was me that thought
+of the idea!"
+
+She ignored her husband. She pretended that John would become too proud
+to know the poor little Creams!...
+
+"I'm not too proud to know anyone," he interrupted.
+
+She burbled at him, and pressed closer to him. "You're quite
+complimentary," she said.
+
+Cream had given John a note to the manager of the theatre which induced
+that gentleman to admit him, free of charge, to the stalls. He would
+travel home by himself, for the Creams had to play at other music-halls,
+and would not be able to take him back to Brixton in their brougham.
+"We finish up at Walham Green," said Cream, as John left the carriage.
+
+He waited impatiently for the performance of _The Girl Gets Left_,
+and he had an extraordinary sense of pleasure when he saw Cream's
+wistful face peering through a window immediately after the curtain
+went up. The little man was remarkably funny. His look, his voice, his
+gestures, all compelled laughter from the audience without the audience
+understanding quite why it was amused. He had the pathetic appearance
+that all great comedians have, the look of appeal that one saw in the
+face of Dan Leno, in the face of James Welch, and it seemed that he
+might as easily cry as laugh. The words he had to say were poor, vapid
+things, but when he said them, he put some of his own life into them
+and gave them a greater value than they deserved. The turn of his head
+was comic; a queer little helpless movement of his hands was comic; the
+way in which he seemed to stop short and gulp as if he were bracing
+himself up was comic; the swift downward and then upward glance of his
+eyes, followed by an assumption of complete humility and resignation,
+these were comic. And when he appeared on the stage, the audience,
+knowing something of his quality, collectively lifted itself into an
+attitude of attention.
+
+A dismal young woman, singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an
+immense quantity of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six
+minutes in boring the audience before _The Girl Gets Left_ began;
+and an air of lassitude had enveloped the men who were sitting in
+relaxed attitudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and
+they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they
+paid to the young woman's underclothing.... But when _The Girl Gets
+Left_ began, and the whimsical face of Cream was seen peering
+through the window of the scene, the lassitude was lifted and the men's
+eyes began to brighten again. The first words, the first gesture of
+comic helplessness, from Cream sent a ripple of laughter round the
+theatre, and immediately the place was full of that queer,
+uncontrollable thing, personality.
+
+John laughed heartily at the acting of his new friend, and he decided
+that he would certainly try to write a play for him. How good Mrs.
+Cream must be if she were better than her husband, as he so proudly
+declared she was. It would be a privilege to write a play for people so
+clever.... Then Mrs. Cream, magnificently dressed, appeared, and as she
+did so, some of the atmosphere that enveloped the stage and the
+auditorium and made them one and very intimate, was dispelled. John
+watched her as she moved about the stage, and wondered why it was that
+the audience had suddenly become a little fidgetty. His eyes were full
+of astonishment. He gazed at Mrs. Cream as if he were trying to
+understand some ineluctable mystery.... He remembered how enthralled he
+had been by the acting of the girl who had played Juliet. He had been
+caught up and transported from the theatre to the very streets of
+Verona. He had felt that he was one of the crowd that followed the
+Montagues or the Capulets, and had been ready to bite his thumb with
+the best.... But here was something that left him uneasy and alien. He
+felt as if he were prying into private affairs, that at any moment
+someone, a policeman, perhaps, might come along and seize him for
+trespassing. He did not then know that bad acting always leaves an
+audience with a sensation of having intruded upon privacies ... that an
+actor who is incompetent leaves the people who see him acting badly
+with the feeling that they have vulgarly peeped into his dressing-room
+and seen him taking off his wig and wiping the paint from his face.
+Mrs. Cream acted with great vigour; her voice roared over the
+footlights; and she seemed to hurl herself about the scene as if she
+were determined either to smash the furniture or to smash herself. She
+made much noise. Her gestures were lavish. Her dresses were very costly
+and full of glitter. She worked hard....
+
+"But she can't act," said John to himself, sighing with relief when at
+last she left the stage to her husband.
+
+The little man's small, fragile voice, with its comic hesitation and
+its puzzled note, sounded very restful after the torrential noises made
+by his wife, and in a few moments he had the minds of the audience
+fused again into one mind and made completely attentive. When the play
+was ended, there was very hearty applause, but none of it so hearty as
+the applause from John. The last few moments of the piece had been
+given to Mr. Cream, and he had left the audience with the pleased
+impression of himself and forgetful of the jar it had received from his
+wife....
+
+"That wee man can act all right," said John, clapping his hands until
+they were sore.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Hinde was waiting for him in the sitting-room when he returned to the
+lodging-house.
+
+"What did you think of the Creams?" the journalist asked when they had
+greeted each other and had ended their congratulations on being
+Ulstermen.
+
+"He's very good," John began....
+
+"And she's rotten?" Hinde interrupted.
+
+"Well!..."
+
+"Oh, my dear fellow, you needn't be afraid of telling me what you
+think. There's only one person in the world who doesn't realise that
+Mrs. Cream can't act and never will be able to act ... and that's
+poor old Cream himself. He's as good a comedian as there is in the
+world--that little man: the essence of Cockney wit; and he does not know
+how good he is. He thinks that she is much better than he can ever hope to
+be, and she thinks so, too; but if it were not for him, MacDermott, she
+wouldn't get thirty shillings a week in a penny gaff!"
+
+"They've asked me to write a play for them," John said.
+
+"Are you going to do it?"
+
+"I don't know. That play to-night was a very common sort of a piece.
+It's not the style of play I want to do!..."
+
+"What style of play _do_ you want to do?" Hinde asked.
+
+"Good plays. Plays like Shakespeare wrote."
+
+Hinde looked at him quickly. "Oh, well," he said, "there's no harm in
+aiming high!"
+
+John told him of the book he had written at Ballyards, and of the story
+he had sent to _Blackwood's Magazine_.
+
+"I've a great ambition to do big things," he said.
+
+"There's no harm in that either," Hinde replied. "In the meantime, what
+are you going to do? It'll be a wheen of years yet before you can hope
+to get anything big done!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that," John answered confidently. "The
+MacDermotts are great people for getting their own way!"
+
+"Mebbe they are ... in Ballyards," Hinde retorted, "but this isn't
+Ballyards. And you can't spend all your time writing masterpieces.
+You'll have to do a wee bit of ordinary common work. What about trying
+to get a job on a paper?"
+
+"I don't mind taking a job if there's one to be got. Only what sort of
+a job?..."
+
+Hinde teased him. "They'll not let you edit the _Times_ yet
+awhile," he said.
+
+"I don't want to edit it," John replied.
+
+"Well, that's a lucky thing for the man that's got the job now!"
+
+John felt aggrieved at once. "You're coddin' me," he complained.
+
+"Say that again," Hinde exclaimed enthusiastically.
+
+"Say what again?"
+
+"Say I'm coddin' you. I haven't heard that word for years. Gwon! Say
+it!"
+
+"You're coddin' me!..."
+
+"Isn't it lovely? Isn't it a grand word, that? Good Ulster talk!..."
+
+The door opened and Lizzie entered the room.
+
+"Mr. 'Inde!..." she said.
+
+"Don't call me 'Inde," he shouted, jumping up from his chair. "What do
+you think the letter _h_ was put in the alphabet for? For you to
+leave it out?"
+
+Lizzie smiled amiably at him. "Ow, go on," she said, "you're always
+'avin' me on!" She turned to John. "'E's a 'oly terror, 'e is. Talks
+about me speakin' funny, but wot about 'im? I think Irish is the
+comicest way of talkin' I ever heard. Wot'll you 'ave for your
+breakfis, Mr. 'Inde?"
+
+"_H_inde, woman, _H_inde!..."
+
+"Well, wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis?"
+
+"One of these days I'll have you fried and boiled and stewed!..."
+
+Lizzie giggled.
+
+"Ow, you are a funny man, Mr. 'Inde," she said between her titters.
+
+Hinde gaped at her as if he were incapable of expressing himself in
+adequate language.
+
+"That female," He said turning to John, "always tells me I'm a funny
+man!..."
+
+"Well, so you are, Mr. 'Inde!" Lizzie interrupted.
+
+"Get out," he roared at her.
+
+Lizzie addressed John. "You'll get used to 'is comic ways when you know
+'im as well as I do. Wot'll you 'ave for breakfis?" she continued,
+speaking again to Hinde.
+
+"Anything," he replied. "Anything on God's earth, so long as you get
+out!"
+
+"That's all I wanted to know," said Lizzie. "It'll be 'am an' eggs.
+Goo'-night, Mr. MacDermott!"
+
+"Good-night, Lizzie," John murmured.
+
+"Goo'-night, Mr. 'Inde!"
+
+"Come here!" said Hinde.
+
+She came across the room and stood beside him. He took hold of her
+chin. "If you hadn't such a rotten accent," he said, "I'd marry you!"
+
+She giggled. "You do myke me laugh, Mr. 'Inde!" she said.
+
+"_H_inde, woman, _H_inde!..."
+
+She moved away from him as if he had uttered some perfectly commonplace
+remark. "Very well," she said, "it'll be 'am an' eggs for breakfis. I'm
+glad you chose them, because we ain't got nothink else in the 'ouse.
+Goo'-night, all!"
+
+She went out of the room, but hardly had she shut the door behind her,
+when she opened it again.
+
+"'Ere's the Creams 'ome again!" she said. "Goo'-night all!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+A few minutes later, Cream tapped on their door and, in response to
+Hinde's "Come in!" entered. He greeted Hinde lavishly, and then turned
+to John.
+
+"Well, my boy," he said, "what do you think of her? Great, isn't she?
+Absolute eye-opener, that's what she is, I knew you'd be struck dumb by
+her. That's the effect she has on people. Paralyses them. Lays 'em out.
+By Gum, Mac, that woman's a wonder!..."
+
+"How is she?" John asked.
+
+Cream shook his head. "All in bits, as usual, Mac. I ought not to let
+her do the work ... it's wearing her out ... but you can't keep a great
+artist away from the stage. She'd die quicker if she weren't doing her
+work than she will while she's doing. That's Art, Mac. Extraordinary
+thing, Art!..."
+
+"Have a drink, Cream," Hinde exclaimed.
+
+"I don't mind if I do, Hinde, old chap. Did you notice how she held the
+audience, Mac? The minute she stepped on to the stage, she got 'em.
+Absolute! She played with 'em ... did what she liked with 'em!... I
+wish I could get hold of 'em like that. By Heaven, Mac, it must be
+wonderful to have that woman's power to make an audience do just what
+you want it to do!..."
+
+Hinde handed a glass of whiskey and soda to him. "Thanks, old chap!" he
+said, taking it from him. He raised the glass. "Well, here's health!"
+he murmured, swallowing some of the drink. He put the glass down on the
+table beside him. "When do you think you'll be able to let us have the
+manuscript of the play, Mac?"
+
+John started. "Well," he began nervously, "well, I haven't thought much
+about it yet!..."
+
+"Look here," said Cream, "I've been talking to Dolly about the matter,
+and this is her idea. She wants to play in a piece about a naval
+lieutenant. See? In a submarine or something. Something with a bit of
+snap in it. She'd like to be an Irish girl called Kitty in love with
+the lieutenant. See? Make it so's he can wear his uniform and a cocked
+hat and a sword. See? The audience likes to see a bit of style. You
+could put a comic stoker in ... that 'ud do for me, but of course as I
+told you, you needn't worry much about my part. I'll look after myself.
+Now, do you think you could do anything with that idea? Dolly's dead
+set on playing an Irish girl, and of course, you being Irish and all
+that, you'd know the ropes!"
+
+"I'll think about it," said John.
+
+"Do. That's a good chap. And perhaps you can let me have the manuscript
+at the end of the week ... in the rough anyhow!"
+
+He finished his whiskey and soda.
+
+"Have another?" Hinde said.
+
+"No, thanks, no. You know. Mac, the stage is a funny place. The average
+author doesn't realise what a funny place it is. I've met a few authors
+in my time, high-brow and low-brow and no-brow-at-all, and they're all
+the same: think they know more about the theatre than the actor does.
+But they don't. They all want to be littery. And that's no good ... in
+the music-halls anyhow. If you've got anything to say to a music-hall
+audience, don't waste time in being littery or anything like that. Bung
+It At 'Em, Mac!" He pronounced the last injunction with enormous
+emphasis. "An audience is about the thickest thing on earth. Got no
+brains to speak of, and doesn't want to have any. Mind you, each person
+in the audience may be as clever as you like, but as an audience ...
+see? ... they're simply thick. And if you want 'em to understand
+anything, you've got to Bung It At 'Em. No use being delicate or pretty
+or anything like that. That's what authors don't understand. Now, you
+heard those back-chat-comedians at the Oxford to-night?"
+
+John nodded his head. "They weren't much good," he said.
+
+"Why?" Cream demanded, and then, before John could speak, he went on to
+give the answer to his question. "Because they don't know how to get
+their stuff over the footlights. That's why! They had good stuff to
+work with, but they didn't know what to do with it. _I_ could have
+told 'em. Do you remember that joke about the dog that swallowed the
+tape-measure and died?"
+
+"Yes. It sounded rather silly!..."
+
+"And it didn't get a laugh. The silliness of a thing doesn't matter if
+it makes you laugh. This is how they said it. The tall chap says to the
+little one, 'How's your dog, Joe?' and the little one answered, 'Oh, he
+died last week. He swallowed a tape-measure and died by inches!...'"
+
+Hinde laughed. "Do people pay good money to listen to that sort of
+stuff?"
+
+"You're a journalist," Cream replied, "and you ought to know they pay
+money to _read_ worse than that!"
+
+"So they do," Hinde admitted.
+
+"When I heard those two duffers ruining that joke," Cream continued, "I
+felt as if I wanted to run on to the stage and tell 'em how to get it
+over to the audience. This is how they ought to have done it!"
+
+He stood up and enacted the characters of the two back-chat comedians,
+and as John watched him and listened to him, he realised what a great
+actor the little man was.
+
+_"Say, Joe, what're you in mourning for?"
+
+"I'm in mourning for my little dog!"
+
+"Your little dog. Why, your little dog ain't dead, is it?"
+
+"Yes, my little dog's dead!"
+
+"Well, Joe, I'm sorry to hear your little dog's dead. What was the
+matter with your little dog?"
+
+"My little dog died last week."
+
+"Yes, your little dog died last week?..."
+
+"He swallowed a tape-measure!..."
+
+"Good heavens, your little dog swallowed a tape-measure?"
+
+"Yes, my little dog swallowed a tape measure, and HE DIED BY
+INCHES!"_
+
+Cream sat down when he had finished giving his performance. "That's how
+they ought to have done it," he said.
+
+"It makes me angry to see men ruining a good story. You see, Mac,
+you've got to lead up to things. Everything in this world has to be led
+up to. You can't rush bald-headed at anything. And you've got to get a
+climax. These back-chat chaps hadn't got a climax. The joke was over
+before the audience had time to realise it was a joke. See?"
+
+"I see," said John.
+
+A few minutes later, Cream went downstairs to his own room.
+
+"That little man knows just how to get an effect," said Hinde. "The
+amazing thing about him is that he doesn't know that he can act and
+that his wife can't!..."
+
+"Why do you call her his wife?" John replied.
+
+"Out of civility," said Hinde. "I don't see that it matters much
+whether she is or not!"
+
+"That's what Lizzie says."
+
+"Lizzie is an intelligent woman. I hope you don't think I was rude to
+Lizzie just now?..."
+
+"Oh, no," John answered insincerely.
+
+"I wouldn't hurt Lizzie's feelings for the world," said Hinde. "I'm
+going to bed now, but you needn't hurry unless you want to. I'm tired,
+and I shall have a busy day to-morrow. I'll see if there's any work
+that would suit you on my paper. You ought to have some sort of a job
+besides scribbling masterpieces. I suppose you left a girl behind you
+in Ballyards?"
+
+John's face flushed. "No," he replied.
+
+"That's good," Hinde said. "You'll be able to get on with your work
+instead of wasting time writing letters to a girl. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night. Mr. Hinde!" said John, suddenly ceremonious.
+
+"Not so much of the Mister. Call me Hinde. I think I'll follow Cream's
+example and call you Mac!"
+
+"Very well, Hinde," said John.
+
+"We'll go up to town in the morning together, if you like!"
+
+"I would," said John.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+John's dreams that night were queerly complicated. Eleanor Moore
+flitted through a scene on a submarine in which a dog was dying by
+inches while a naval lieutenant made passionate love to an Irish girl
+called Kitty; and while Eleanor passed vaguely from side to side of the
+submarine, a gigantic piece of red tape came and enveloped her and
+enveloped John, too, when, unaccountably, he appeared and tried to save
+her. He felt himself being strangled by red tape, and he knew that
+Eleanor was being strangled, too. He felt that if only the dog would
+eat the red tape, both Eleanor and he would be delivered from it, but
+somehow the Irish girl called Kitty prevented the dog from eating it.
+And in the dream, he called pitifully to Eleanor, "She won't let us
+work up to a climax! She's preventing us from working up to a
+climax!..."
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+At the end of a month from the day on which he arrived in London,
+John MacDermott began to consider his position and ended by finding
+it in a very unsatisfactory state. He had spent much of his time in
+sight-seeing, and would have spent more of it, had not Hinde informed him
+that the only way in which to know a city is to live in it, not as a
+tourist, but as an ordinary citizen. "Change your lodgings every twelve
+months," he said, "and go and live in a different part of the town
+every time you change them. Then you'll get to know London. It's no use
+tearing round the place like an American ... half an hour here and a
+couple of minutes there, and a Baedeker never out of your hands.
+Americans think they're getting an impression of a country when they're
+only getting a sick-headache; and when they go home again, they can
+never remember whether Mont Blanc was a picture they saw in Paris or a
+London chop-house where they had old English fare at modern English
+prices. If you want to _know_ St. Paul's Cathedral, don't go there
+with a guide-book in your hand. Go as one of the congregation!..."
+
+He had sent the manuscript of his novel to a publisher who had not yet
+expressed any eagerness to accept it, and he had made a half-hearted
+effort to write a play for the Creams, but had not been very successful
+with it, chiefly because he felt contempt for _The Girl Gets Left_
+and had little liking for Mrs. Cream. She came to the sitting-room one
+morning when Hinde was away and her husband was interviewing his agent,
+and went straight to John, nibbling a pen at the writing desk, and put
+her arms about his neck.
+
+"Don't do that," he said, disengaging her arms from about him.
+
+"I love you," she replied very intensely.
+
+"I daresay, but I'm not in love with you, Mrs. Cream, and I never will
+be. I don't like you. I like your wee man, but I don't like you. I
+think you're an awful humbug of a woman!..."
+
+Mrs. Cream stood still as if she had been suddenly paralysed.
+
+"You don't like me!..." she said at last, utterly incredulous.
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+She raised her hands, and for a few moments he imagined that she was
+about to strike him. Then she dropped them to her side again and
+laughed.
+
+"I don't know whether to hug you or slap you," she said. "You impudent
+brat!"
+
+"I wouldn't advise you to do either the one or the other," he answered.
+
+She came nearer to him, and laid her hand on his sleeve.
+
+"You're very cold and hard," she said, and then, in a softer voice, she
+added his name, "John!"
+
+"What's cold about me? Or hard?" he asked.
+
+"Everything. You must know that I feel more for you than for my
+husband!..."
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing, Mrs.
+Cream. I want you to understand that I'm not that sort. I come from
+Ballyards, and we don't do things like that there. Forby, I'm not in
+love with you. I'm in love with somebody else ... a nice girl, not a
+married woman ... and I've no time to think of anybody else but her.
+I'm very busy the day, Mrs. Cream!..."
+
+"Is she an Irish girl?"
+
+"I don't know what nationality she is. I've not managed to get speaking
+to her yet. It'll be an advantage if she is Irish, but I'll overlook it
+if she isn't. I'm terrible busy, Mrs. Cream!"
+
+She stood before him in an indecisive attitude.... "You're really a
+fool," she said, turning away. "I thought you were clever, but you're
+simply thick-headed!..."
+
+"Because I won't start making love to you, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. MacDermott. You're thick apart from that. You're so thick
+that you'll never know how thick you are. I can't think why I wasted a
+minute's thought on you!..."
+
+John sat down at his desk again. "_Sticks an' stones'll break my
+bones, but names'll never hurt me_," he quoted at her. "_When
+you're dead and in your grave, you'll suffer for what you called
+me!_"
+
+She came behind him and put her arms tightly round his neck and forced
+his head back so that she could conveniently kiss him.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, hurrying from the room, "I've kissed you
+anyhow!"
+
+He leaped up and ran to the top of the stairs and leant over the
+banisters.
+
+"If you do that again," he shouted at her, "I'll give you in charge!"
+
+"Bogie-bogie!" she mocked.
+
+Soon after that time, the Creams had gone on tour again, and John, with
+a vague promise to Mr. Cream that he would try and do a play for him,
+let Mrs. Cream slip out of his mind altogether. She had not attempted
+to make love to him again, and her attitude towards him became more
+natural, almost, he thought, more friendly. She appeared to bear him no
+malice, and her friendliness caused him to shed some of his antagonism
+to her. When they bade goodbye to Hinde and John, she turned to her
+husband as they were leaving, and said, "I kissed him one morning, and
+do you know what he did?"
+
+"No," her husband answered.
+
+"He said he'd give me in charge if I tried to do it again," she
+exclaimed, laughing as she spoke.
+
+"Goo' Lor'!" said Cream. "That's the first time that's ever been said
+to you, Dolly!" He turned to John. "You're a funny sort of a chap, you
+are! Fancy not letting Dolly kiss you. Goo' Lor'!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+He had tried hard to see Eleanor Moore again, but without success.
+Every day for a fortnight he went to lunch in the tea-shop where he had
+first seen her, and in the evening he would hang about the entrance to
+the offices where she was employed; but he did not see her either there
+or in the tea-shop, and when a fortnight of disappointment had gone by,
+he concluded that he would never see her again. He imagined that she
+was ill, that she had left London, that she had obtained work
+elsewhere, that he had frightened her ... for he remembered her
+startled look when she hurried from him into the Tube lift ... and
+finally and crushingly that she had married someone else. In the mood
+of bitterness that followed this devastating thought, he planned a
+tragedy, and in the evenings, when Hinde was engaged for his paper, he
+worked at it. But the bitterness which he put into it failed to relieve
+him of any of the bitterness that was in his own mind. He felt doubly
+betrayed by Eleanor Moore because he had had so little encouragement
+from her. It hurt him to think that he had only succeeded in alarming
+her. Maggie Carmichael had responded instantly when he spoke to her and
+had accepted his embraces and his kisses as amiably as she had accepted
+his chocolates he had bought for her; but this girl with the tender
+blue eyes that changed their expression so frequently, had made no
+response to his offer of affection, had run away from it. If only she
+had listened to him! He was certain that he could have persuaded her to
+"go out" with him. He had only to tell her that he loved her, and she
+would realise that a man who could fall in love with her so immediately
+as he had done must be acceptable!... The affair with Maggie Carmichael
+had considerably dashed his belief in romantic love, but he told
+himself now that it would be ridiculous to condemn his Uncle Matthew's
+ideals because one girl had fallen short of them. If Maggie Carmichael
+had behaved badly, that was not a sign that Eleanor Moore would also
+behave badly. Besides, Eleanor was different from Maggie. There was no
+comparison between the two girls. After all, he had not really cared
+for Maggie: he had only fancied that he cared for her. But there was no
+fancying or imagination about his love for Eleanor, and if he had the
+good fortune to meet her again, he would not let anything prevent him
+from telling her plump and plain that he wanted to marry her. Whenever
+he left the house, he looked about, no matter where he went, in the
+hope that he might see her.
+
+
+
+III
+
+Hinde urged him to do journalism and advised him to make a study of the
+London newspapers so that he might discover which of them he could most
+happily work for. "You could do a few articles, perhaps, and then it
+wouldn't matter whether you agreed with the paper or not, but I'd
+advise you to try and get a job on one paper for a while. You'll learn
+a lot from journalism if you don't stay at it too long. It'll be a good
+while yet before you can make a living at writing books, and you'll
+want something to keep you going until you can. Journalism's as good as
+anything, and in some ways, it's a lot better than most things, and let
+me tell you, Mac, anybody can make a decent living out of newspapers if
+he only takes the trouble to earn it. Half the fellows in Fleet Street
+treat journalism as if it were a religious vocation, and they lie about
+in pubs all day waiting for the Holy Ghost to come down and inspire
+them with a scoop!"
+
+John studied the London newspapers, as Hinde advised him, but he did
+not feel drawn towards them. He considered that the morning papers were
+very inferior to the _Northern Whig_, and he was certain that the
+_North Down Herald_ was far more interesting than the
+_Times_. The London evening papers, he said to Hinde, gave less
+value for a half-penny than the _Belfast Evening Telegraph_, and
+he complained that there was nothing to read in them.
+
+"You'll have to start a paper yourself, Mac," said Hinde. "All the best
+papers were started by men who couldn't find anything to read in other
+papers. It would be a grand notion now to set up a paper for Ulstermen
+who can't find anything in London that's fit to read. By the Hokey O,
+that would be a grand notion. We could call the paper _To Hell With
+the Pope or No Surrender!_..."
+
+"Ah, quit your codding," John interrupted. "You know rightly what's
+wrong with these London papers. They're not telling the truth!"
+
+"And do you think the _Whig_ and the _Telegraph_ are?" Hinde
+demanded.
+
+"Well, it's what _we_ call the truth anyway," John stoutly
+retorted.
+
+Hinde slapped him on the back. "That's right," he said. "Ulster against
+the whole civilised world!"
+
+"If I was to take a job on one of these papers," John continued, "I'd
+insist on telling the truth to the people!"
+
+"You would, would you? And do you know what 'ud happen to you? The
+people 'ud cut your head off at the end of a fortnight."
+
+"I wouldn't let them."
+
+Hinde sat in silence for a few minutes. Then he leant forward and
+tapped John on the shoulder, "The editor of the _Daily Sensation_
+is a Tyrone man," he said. "He comes from Cookstown!..."
+
+"I never was in it," John murmured.
+
+"Mebbe not, but it exists all the same. Go up the morrow evening to his
+office and tell him you want a job on his paper so's you can start
+telling everybody the truth. And see what happens to you."
+
+John answered angrily. "You think you're having me on," he said, "but
+you're queerly mistaken. I will go, and we'll see what happens!"
+
+"That's what I'm bidding you do," Hinde continued. "And listen! There's
+a couple I know, called Haverstock, living out at Hampstead. They have
+discussions every month at their house on some subject or other, and
+there's to be one next Wednesday. Will you come with me if I go to it?"
+
+John nodded his head.
+
+"Good! The Haverstocks'll be glad to welcome you as you're a friend of
+mine, but it's not them I'm wanting you to see. It's the crowd they get
+round them. All the cranks and oddities and solemn mugs of London seem
+to go to that house one time or another, and I'd just like you to have
+a look at some of them. The minute they find out you're Irish, they'll
+plaster you with praise. They'll expect you to talk like a clown, one
+minute, and weep bitter tears over England's tyranny the next. They're
+all English, most of them, and they'll tell you that England is the
+worst country in the world, and that Ireland would be the greatest if
+it weren't for the fact that some piffling Balkan State is greater. And
+they'll ram Truth down your throat till you're sick of it. You've only
+to bleat about Ireland's woes to them, and call yourself a member of a
+subject race, and they'll be all over you before you know where you
+are. There's only one other man has a better chance of shining in their
+society than an Irishman, and that's an Armenian."
+
+"Well, that's great credit to them," John, replied. "I must say it
+makes me think well of the English!..."
+
+"Don't do that. Never acknowledge to an Englishman that you think well
+of him. He'll think little of you if you do. Tell him he's a fool, that
+he's muddle-headed, that he's a tyrant, that he's a materialist and a
+compromiser and a hypocrite, and he'll pay you well for saying it. But
+if you tell the truth and say he's the decent fellow he is, he'll land
+you in the workhouse!..."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It had not been easy to interview the editor of the _Daily
+Sensation_. A deprecating commissionaire, eyeing him suspiciously,
+had cross-examined him in the entrance hall of the newspaper office,
+and then had compelled him to fill in a form with particulars of
+himself ... his name and his address ... and of his business. "I
+suppose," John said sarcastically to the commissionaire, "you don't
+want me to swear an affidavit about it?"
+
+The commissionaire regarded him contemptuously, but did not reply to
+the sarcasm.
+
+After a lengthy wait and much whistling and talking through rubber
+speaking-tubes, John was conducted to a lift, given into the charge of
+a small boy in uniform who treated him as a nuisance, and taken to the
+office of the editor. Here he had to wait in the society of the
+editor's secretary for another lengthy period. He had almost resolved
+to come away from the office without seeing the editor, when a bell
+rang and the secretary rising from her desk, bade him to follow her. He
+was led into an inner room where he saw a man seated at a large desk.
+The editor glared at him for a moment or two as if he were accusing him
+of an attempt to commit a fraud. Then he said "Sit down" and began to
+speak on the telephone. John glanced interestedly about him. There was
+a portrait of Napoleon ... _The Last Phase_ ... on one wall, and,
+on the wall opposite to it, a portrait of the proprietor of the
+_Daily Sensation_ in what might fairly be described as the first
+phase. On the editor's desk was a framed card bearing the legend: SAY
+IT QUICK....
+
+The telephonic conversation ended, and Mr. Clotworthy ... the
+editor ... put down the receiver and turned to John, frowning heavily at
+him. "Well?" he said so shortly that the word was almost unintelligible.
+"I can give you two minutes," he added, pulling out his watch and placing
+it on the desk.
+
+"That'll be enough," John, replied. "I want a job on this paper!"
+
+"Everybody wants a job on this paper. The people who are most anxious
+to get on our staff are the people who are never tired of running us
+down!..."
+
+"I daresay," said John.
+
+"Ever done any newspaper work before?" the editor demanded.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then what qualifications have you for the work?..."
+
+"I've written a novel!..."
+
+"That's not a qualification!" Mr. Clotworthy exclaimed.
+
+"But it's not been published yet," John replied.
+
+"Oh, well!... Anything else?"
+
+"I've written several articles which have not been printed, but they're
+as good as the stuff that's printed in any paper in London.."
+
+"Quite so!"
+
+"And I come from Ulster where all the good men come from," John
+concluded.
+
+"I've seen some poor specimens from Ulster," Mr. Clotworthy said.
+
+"Mebbe you have, but I'm not one of them."
+
+The editor remained silent for a few moments. He tapped on his desk
+with an ivory paper-knife and glanced quickly now and then at John.
+
+"What part of Ulster do you come from?" he demanded.
+
+"Ballyards."
+
+"I've heard of it," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "It's not much of a
+place, is it?"
+
+John flared up angrily. "It's better than Cookstown any day," he said.
+
+"Who told you I came from Cookstown?"
+
+"Never mind who told me. If you don't want to give me a job on your
+paper, you needn't. There's plenty of other papers in this town!..."
+
+"That temper of yours'll get you into serious bother one of these days,
+young fellow," said Mr. Clotworthy. "I'm willing to give you work on
+the paper if you're fit to do it, but don't run away with the notion
+that you've only to walk in here and say you're an Ulsterman, and
+you'll immediately get a position. What sort of work do you want to do?
+You know our paper, I suppose? Well, how would you improve it?"
+
+John opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, the
+editor stopped him.
+
+"Don't," he exclaimed, "say it doesn't need improvement. A lot of
+third-rate fellows have tried that tack with me, as if they'd flatter me
+into giving them a job. The fools never seemed to realise that when
+they said the paper didn't need improvement they were giving the best
+reason that could be given why they shouldn't be employed on it. If you
+weren't a plain-spoken and direct young fellow I wouldn't give you that
+warning. Go on!"
+
+"In my opinion," John replied, "what's wrong with your paper is that it
+doesn't tell the truth. It tells lies to its readers. My idea is to
+tell them the truth instead!"
+
+Mr. Clotworthy laughed at him. "You won't do it on this paper," he
+said.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because it can't be done. There's no such thing as truth. There
+never was, and there never will be such a thing as truth. There's only
+point-of-view!..."
+
+"Well, I've got my point-of-view," John interrupted.
+
+"Yes, but on this paper we express the point-of-view of the man that
+owns it. That's him there!" He pointed to the companion picture to
+the portrait of Napoleon. "If you imagine that we spend hundreds
+of thousands of pounds every year to express your point-of-view,
+you're making a big mistake, young fellow my lad. What you want is
+a soap-box in Hyde Park. You can express your own point-of-view there
+if you can get anybody to listen to you. Or you can start a paper
+of your own. But this paper is the soap-box of that chap, and his
+is the only point-of-view that'll be expressed in it. Do you understand
+me?"
+
+"I do," said John "All the same, I believe in telling the people the
+truth!"
+
+The editor touched the bell on his desk. "Are you quite sure," said he,
+"that you know what the truth is?"
+
+"Of course I'm sure." John began, but before he could finish his
+sentence, the door of the editor's room was opened by the lady-secretary.
+
+"Good-morning, Mr. MacDermott!" said the editor, reaching for the
+telephone receiver.
+
+"But I haven't finished yet," John protested.
+
+"I have." He tapped the handle of the telephone.
+
+"You can come and see me again when you've learned sense," he added,
+after he had given an instruction to the telephone operator. "Good
+morning!"
+
+"Ah, but wait a minute!..."
+
+"We've no use for John the Baptists here. Good morning!"
+
+"All the same!..."
+
+The editor impatiently waved him aside.
+
+"This way, please!" the lady secretary commanded.
+
+John glared at her, half in the mood to ask her what she meant by
+interrupting him and half in the mood to tell her that it little became
+a woman to intrude herself into the conversation of men, but the moods
+did not become complete, and, sulkily calling "Good morning!" to Mr.
+Clotworthy, he left the office.
+
+"One of these days," he said to the lady secretary when they were in
+the outer office, "I'll be your boss. And his, too. And I'll sack the
+pair of you!"
+
+"You'll find the lift at the end of the passage," she replied.
+
+
+
+V
+
+Hinde mocked him for his failure to make the editor of the _Daily
+Sensation_ accept his view of the universe.
+
+"That man sized you up the minute he clapped his eyes on you," he said.
+"He's seen hundreds of young fellows like you. We've all seen them.
+They come down from Oxford and Cambridge with their heads stuffed with
+ideas pinched from Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, and they try to
+stampede old Clotworthy. 'By God, I'm a superman!' is their cry, and
+they say that night and morning and before and after every meal until
+even they get sick of listening to it. Then they say 'Oh, damn!' and go
+into the Civil Service, and in three years' time an earthquake wouldn't
+rouse them. All you youngsters want to go about telling the truth,
+especially when it's disagreeable, but there isn't one in a million of
+you is fit to be let loose with the truth, and there isn't one in ten
+million of men or women wants to be bothered by the truth. Lord alive,
+Mac, can't you young fellows leave us a few decent lies to comfort
+ourselves with?..."
+
+"You'll get no lies from me," John replied.
+
+"I can see very well you're going to be a nice cheerful chum to have in
+the house," Hinde said. "However, I'll bear it. The Haverstocks' 'At
+Home' is to-night. I don't suppose you have a dress suit?"
+
+"No, I haven't!"
+
+"It doesn't matter. Half the people who go to the Haverstocks don't
+wear evening dress on principle. That's their way of showing their
+contempt for conventionality. I suppose you'll come with me?" John
+nodded his head. "Good! We'll start off immediately after we've had our
+dinner. You'll get a good dose of Truth to-night, my son. There was a
+couple went there once ... the rummest couple I ever saw in my life.
+They thought they must do something for Progress and Advanced Thought,
+so they pretended they weren't married, but were living in sin!..."
+
+"Like the two downstairs?" said John.
+
+"Aye, only they were legally married all right. You'll observe in time,
+Mac, that the people who make changes are never the advanced people who
+talk about them, but the ordinary, conventional people who have no
+theories about things, but just alter them when they become
+inconvenient. Butter wouldn't melt in the mouth of the man who is a
+devil of a fellow in print. This couple went to live at a Garden City
+and made an enormous impression on the Nut-eaters; and every Sunday
+evening crowds went to see them, living in sin. I went myself one
+night: it was terribly dull, and I thought if that's the best sin can
+do for a man, I'm going to join the Salvation Army. The woman took off
+her wedding-ring and hid it in the clock, and the man made a point of
+snorting every time he passed a parson. They had a grand time, as I
+tell you, until a terrible thing happened. A jealous nut-eater ... and
+I can tell you there's nothing on earth so fearful and vindictive as a
+jealous vegetarian ... discovered that these two were really married
+all the time, and he exposed them to their admirers. He produced a copy
+of their marriage-certificate at a public meeting which the man was
+addressing on the subject of Intolerable Bonds, and the meeting broke
+up in disorder. They had to leave the Garden City after that, and
+they're now hiding somewhere in the north of England and leading a life
+of shameful matrimony!..."
+
+John giggled. "Are there really people like that?" he asked.
+
+"Lots of them. You'll see some of them, mebbe, at the Haverstocks the
+night. I think there's to be some sort of a discussion, but I'm not
+sure. Mrs. Haverstock is a great woman for discussions, but I will say
+this for her, she doesn't humbug herself over them. She told me once
+that it was better to talk about adultery than to commit it!..."
+
+John blushed frightfully. He felt the hot blood running all over his
+body. This casual way of speaking of things that were only acknowledged
+in the Ten Commandments had a very disturbing effect upon him. He hoped
+that Hinde would not observe his confusion, and he put his hand in
+front of his eyes so that he might conceal his red cheeks. If Hinde
+noticed that John was embarrassed, he did not make any comment about
+the matter.
+
+"And I daresay it is," he went on. "As long as you're letting off
+steam, there's no danger of the engine bursting. I've often noticed
+that there's less misbehaviour in places where people are always
+chattering as if they had never conducted themselves with decency in
+their lives than there is in places where they never say a word about
+it. _You'll_ notice that too, when you've learned to use your eyes
+better!..."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+The Haverstocks lived in an old creeper-covered and slightly decrepit
+house in the Spaniards' Road. It was without a bathroom until the
+Haverstocks took possession of it, for it had been built in the days
+when the middle-classes had not yet contracted the habit of frequently
+washing their bodies. From the front windows of the house one saw
+across Hampstead Heath towards London, and from the back windows one
+saw across the Heath towards Harrow. The house, in spite of its slight
+decrepitude and the clumsiness of its construction--the stairs were
+obviously an afterthought of the architect--had that air of comfortable
+kindliness which is only to be seen in houses which have been occupied
+by several generations of human beings. Mr. Haverstock was vaguely
+known as a sociologist. He investigated the affairs of poor people, and
+was constantly engaged in inveigling labourers into filling large
+_questionnaires_ with particulars of the wages they earned, the
+manner in which they spent those wages, the food they ate, the number
+of children they procreated, and other intimate and personal matters.
+He was anxious to discover exactly how much proteid was necessary to
+the maintenance of a labouring man in health and efficiency, and he
+conducted the most elaborate experiments with beans and bananas for
+that purpose. It was one of the most discouraging features of modern
+civilisation, he often said, that the spirit of research and
+disinterested enquiry was less prevalent among the labouring classes
+than was desirable. He could not induce a labouring man to live
+exclusively on beans and bananas for six months in order that he might
+compare his physical condition at the end of that period with his
+physical condition after a period spent in flesh-eating. He told sad
+stories of the reception that had been accorded to some of his
+assistants at the time that they were obtaining data from workmen on
+the question of the limitation of the family!...
+
+He was a kindly, solemn man, with large, astonished eyes, and he wore a
+beard, less as a decoration than as a protest. The beard was really a
+serious nuisance to him, for he had dainty manners and he disliked to
+think of soup dribbling down it; but someone had convinced him that a
+man who wore a beard early in life was definitely bidding defiance to
+the conventions of the time, and so he sacrificed his sense of niceness
+to his desire to _épater les bourgeois_. He said that a beard was
+a sign of Virility!... Mrs. Haverstock and he were childless. Mrs.
+Haverstock, a quick-witted and merry-minded American, had married her
+husband in the days when she believed that a man who wrote books of
+sufficient dullness must be a distinguished and desirable man; and
+since she brought a considerable fortune to England with her, she
+enabled him to write more dull books than he could otherwise have had
+published. Much of her awe of her husband had disappeared in the course
+of time, but it had, fortunately, been replaced by deep affection: for
+his generosity and kindliness appealed to her increasingly as her
+respect for his learning and solemnity declined. She often said of him
+that he would do more for his friends than his friends would do for
+themselves ... and indeed many of them were willing to allow him to do
+anything and everything for them ... but so long as knight-errantry
+with an entirely sociological intent made him happy, she did not mind
+how he spent her money. He had many moments of dubiety about her
+fortune ... he frequently threatened to cross the Atlantic in order to
+discover whether the money was justly earned ... but he invariably
+comforted himself with the reflection that even if the money were
+ill-gained, he could at least put it to better use than anyone else; and
+so he refrained from crossing the Atlantic, not without a sensation of
+relief, for he was an unhappy sailor.
+
+He loved discussions and arguments about Deep Things, and Mrs.
+Haverstock had invented her series of At Homes in order that her
+husband might get rid of some of his noble principles at them. She felt
+that if he could dissipate part of them in argument with other very
+high-minded men, life, between the At Homes, would be a little more
+human and livable for her. She secured a regular supply of attendants
+at these discussions by the simple method of supplying an excellent
+supper to those who came to them.
+
+"I first met Haverstock," Hinde said to John as they walked along the
+Spaniards' Road, "during a strike at Canning Town. He was trying to
+persuade the police to remember that the strikers were men and
+brothers, and he was trying also to persuade the strikers that force
+was no argument and that they ought to use constitutional means of
+settling their disputes with their employers. And between the two, he
+was in danger of getting his eye knocked out, until I hauled him out of
+the crowd and shoved him into a cab and took him home. Mrs. Haverstock
+was so grateful to me that she's invited me to her house ever since ...
+but the people I meet there make me feel murderous. I like her, a
+sensible, sonsy woman, and I like him too, although his solemn,
+priggish airs make me tired, but I cannot bear the crowd they get round
+them: all the cranks and oddities and smug, self-sufficient,
+interfering people seem to get into their house, and they're all
+reforming something or uplifting something else or generally bleating
+against this country. Things done in England are always inferior to
+things done elsewhere. English cooking is inferior to French cooking:
+English organisation is inferior to German organisation. Whatever is
+done in England is wrongly done. The English are hypocrites, the
+English are sordid and materialistic, the English are everlastingly
+compromising, the English are this, that and the other that is
+unpleasant and objectionable!... I tell you, Mac, there's nobody makes
+me feel so sick as the Englishman who belittles England!"
+
+"Well, we make little of the English, don't we?" John protested.
+
+"I know we do, and perhaps it is natural that we should, but it's a
+poor, cheap thing at the best, and does very little credit to our
+intelligence. The English ideal of life is as good an ideal as there is
+in the world. I think it is far the finest ideal there is, chiefly
+because it does not make impossible demands on human beings. When
+everything that can be alleged against the English is alleged and
+admitted, it remains true that they love freedom far more constantly
+than other people, and that without them, freedom would have a very
+thin time in the world. You ask any liberty-loving American which
+country has more freedom, his country or this country, and he'll tell
+you very quickly, England! Englishmen don't argue about freedom: they
+just are free, and on the whole, they carry freedom with them. An
+American will argue about liberty even while he is clapping you into
+gaol for asserting your right to freedom!... Here's the house!"
+
+They turned into the front garden of the Haverstocks' house as he
+spoke.
+
+"In a way," he said, as they walked along the gravel path leading to
+the door, "the English Radical is the strongest testimony to the
+English ideal of freedom that you could have. He is so jealous of his
+country's good name that he is always ready to shout out if he is not
+satisfied with her behaviour. That's a good sign, really! Only they're
+so smug about it!..."
+
+Most of the guests were already assembled when they entered the
+drawing-room where Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock bade them welcome. Hinde
+introduced John to them, mentioning that he had only lately arrived
+from Ireland. Mrs. Haverstock smiled and hoped he would often come
+to see them, and Mr. Haverstock looked pontifical and said, "Ah,
+yes. Poor Ireland! _Poor_ Ireland! Tragic! Tragic!" He waved his
+hand in a vague fashion, and then turned to greet the representative
+of another distressed nation. John could hear him murmuring, "Ah,
+yes. Poor Georgia! _Poor_ Georgia! Tragic! Tragic!" but was unable
+to hear any more because Mrs. Haverstock led him up to a lean, staring
+youth with goggle eyes who, she said, had promised to read several
+of his poems to the guests and to open a discussion on Marriage. The
+goggle-eyed poet informed John that Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton,
+Shelley and Browning were comic old gentlemen who entirely misunderstood
+the nature and function of poetry. He had founded a new school of poetry.
+It appeared from his account of this school that the important thing
+was not what was said in a poem, but what was left out of it. He
+illustrated his meaning by allowing John to read the manuscript of one
+of the poems he proposed to read that evening. It was entitled "Life,"
+and it contained two lines!...
+
+LIFE
+
+  Big, black crows on bare, black branches,
+  Cawing!...
+
+"Where's the rest of it!" said John innocently.
+
+The poet looted at him with such contempt that he felt certain he had
+committed an indiscretion. "Is that the whole of it?" he hurriedly
+asked.
+
+"That fact that you ask such a question," said the poet, "shows that
+you have no knowledge of the completeness of life!..."
+
+"Well, I only came here about a fortnight ago," John humbly replied ...
+but the poet had moved away and would not listen to him any longer. "I
+seem to have put my foot in it," John murmured to himself.
+
+He made his way to Hinde's side, resolved that he would not budge from
+it for the rest of the evening. The people present frightened him,
+particularly after his experience with the poet, and he determined that
+he would keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. He felt that all
+these people were terribly clever and that his ignorance would be
+immediately apparent if he opened his mouth in their presence. He tried
+hard to realise the magnitude of "Life," but he could not convince
+himself that it was either an adequate description of existence or that
+it was a description of anything; and, in his innocence, he believed
+that he was mentally deficient. Hinde named some of the guests to him.
+This one was a novelist and that one had written a play ... and in the
+excitement of seeing and listening to men who had actually done things
+that he wished to do, John forgot some of his humiliation.
+
+"I saw you talking to Palfrey," Hinde said to him.
+
+"The poet chap?" John replied.
+
+Hinde nodded his head. "What did you think of him?" he continued.
+
+"He showed me one of his poems. I couldn't understand it, and when I
+said so, he walked away!"
+
+Hinde laughed. "That's as good a description of him as you could
+invent," he said. "He always walks away when you can't understand what
+he's getting at. The reason why he does that is he's afraid someone'll
+discover he isn't getting at anything. He's just an impertinent person.
+He thinks he's being great when he's only being cheeky!"
+
+John repeated the poem entitled "Life" to Hinde. "What do you think of
+that?" he asked.
+
+"I don't think anything of it," Hinde replied.
+
+John felt reassured. "I asked him where the rest of it was, and he
+nearly ate the face off me," he said. "I was afraid he'd think me a
+terrible gumph!..."
+
+"If you let a humbug like that impose upon you, Mac, I'll never own you
+for my friend. Any intelligent office-boy could write poems like that
+all day long!"
+
+There was a movement in the room, and the guests began to settle in
+their seats or on the floor, and after a short while, Mr. Haverstock,
+who acted as chairman of the meeting, took his place in front of a
+small table, and Mr. Palfrey sat down beside him. The poet, said the
+chairman, would honour them by reading some new poems to them, after
+which he would open a discussion on Marriage. They all knew that
+Marriage was an important matter, affecting the lives of men and women
+to a far greater extent, probably, than anything else in the world, and
+it was desirable therefore that they should discuss it frankly and
+frequently. Problems would remain insoluble so long as people remained
+silent about them. He could not help expressing his regret to those
+present at the extraordinary reluctance which the average person had to
+revealing experiences of matrimony. He had initiated an important
+enquiry into the question of marital relationships with a view to
+discovering exactly what it was that caused so many marriages to fail,
+and he had had to abandon the enquiry because very few people were
+willing to tell anything about their marriages to him. There was a
+great deal of foolish reticence in the world ... at this point Mr.
+Palfrey emphatically said, "Hear! Hear!"... and he trusted that those
+present that evening would cast away false modesty and would say quite
+openly what their experiences had been. He would not detain them any
+longer ... he was quite certain that they were all very anxious to hear
+Mr. Palfrey ... and so without any more ado he would call upon him to
+read his poems and then to discuss the great and important question of
+Marriage.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Mr. Palfrey read his poems in a curious sing-song fashion, beating time
+with his right hand as he did so. He seemed to be performing physical
+exercises rather than modulating his own accents, and on two occasions
+his gesture was longer than his poem. He read "Life" very slowly and
+very deliberately, saying the word "cawing" in a high-pitched tone, and
+prolonging it until his breath was exhausted. He recited a dozen of
+these poems, obtaining his greatest effect with, the last of them,
+which was entitled, "The Sea":
+
+  Immense, incalculable waste,
+  The dribblings from a giant's beard....
+
+"Isn't it wonderful?" said an ecstatic girl sitting next to John.
+
+"No," he replied.
+
+She looked at him interrogatively, and he added, very aggressively, "I
+think it's twaddle!"
+
+"Oh, _do_ you?" she exclaimed as if she could scarcely believe her
+ears.
+
+"I do," said John.
+
+He would have said more, but that Mr. Haverstock was on his feet
+proposing that they should now have supper and take the more important
+business of the evening afterwards, namely, the discussion of this
+great problem of Marriage. They had all been deeply moved by Mr.
+Palfrey's beautiful verses and would no doubt like an opportunity of
+discussing them in an informal manner....
+
+Mrs. Haverstock led John to a girl who was sitting at the back of the
+room, and introduced him to her. Miss Bushe was the daughter of the
+editor of the _Daily Groan_, and Mrs. Haverstock desired that John
+would take her into supper.
+
+"Mr. MacDermott is Irish--he has only just arrived from Ireland," Mrs.
+Haverstock said to Miss Bushe by way of explanation or possibly as a
+means of providing them with conversation.
+
+"I've always wanted to go to Ireland," said Miss Bushe, taking his arm
+and allowing him to lead her to the dining-room.
+
+"Well, why don't you go?" he asked.
+
+All evening people had been telling him that they had always wanted to
+go to Ireland, but had somehow omitted to do so.
+
+"Well, mother likes Bournemouth," Miss Bushe replied, "and so we always
+go there. She says that she knows there'll be a bathroom at
+Bournemouth, and plenty of hot water and she can't bear the thought of
+going to some place where hot water isn't laid on. I suppose I shall go
+to Ireland some day!"
+
+"There's plenty of hot water in Ireland," said John.
+
+Miss Bushe giggled. "You're so satirical," she said.
+
+"Satirical?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes. About the hot water in Ireland!"
+
+He gazed blankly at her. "I don't understand you," he replied. "I meant
+just what I said. You can get hot water in Ireland as easily as you can
+in England. Some people have it laid on in pipes, and other people have
+to boil it on the fire; but you can get it all right!"
+
+There was a look of disappointment on Miss Bushe's face. "I thought you
+were making a reference to politics," she said.
+
+John stared at her. Then he turned away. "Will I get you something to
+eat?" he murmured as he did so. He had observed the other men gallantly
+waiting upon the ladies.
+
+"Oh, thank you," she said. She glanced towards the table. "I wonder if
+that trifle has got anything intoxicating in it?" she added.
+
+"I daresay," he answered. "Trifles usually have drink of some sort in
+them!"
+
+"I couldn't take it if it has anything intoxicating in it," she
+burbled.
+
+"Why not?" John demanded. "It'll do you no harm!"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't. I simply couldn't if it has anything intoxicating in
+it. We're very strict about intoxicants. They do so much harm!"
+
+John did not know what to do or say next. She still stared longingly at
+the trifle, and it was clear that she would greatly like to eat some of
+it.
+
+"Well?" he said vaguely.
+
+"I wonder," she replied, "whether you'd mind tasting it first, just to
+see whether it has anything intoxicating in it?"
+
+John thought that this was a strange sort of young woman to take into
+supper, but he did as she bid him. He took a large portion of the
+trifle on to a plate and tasted it. She gazed at him in a very anxious
+manner.
+
+"It has," he said, "and it's lovely!"
+
+The light went out of her eyes. "Then I think I'll just have some
+blanc-mange," she said.
+
+"There's nothing intoxicating in that," he replied, going to get it for
+her.
+
+"Do you know," she murmured when he had returned and she was eating the
+blanc-mange, "I almost wish you had said there was nothing intoxicating
+in the trifle!..."
+
+"That would have been a lie," John interrupted.
+
+"Yes, but!... Oh, well, this blanc-mange is quite nice!"
+
+John tempted, her. "Taste the trifle anyway," he said.
+
+"Oh, no," she replied, shrinking back. "I couldn't. We're very
+strict!..."
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+After supper, Mr. Palfrey opened the discussion on Marriage. He
+declared that Marriage was the coward's refuge from Love. He said that
+Marriage had been invented by lawyers and parsons for the purpose of
+obtaining fees and authority. These unpleasant people, the lawyers and
+the parsons, had contrived to make Love an impropriety and had reduced
+Holy Passion to the status of a schedule to an act of parliament. Cupid
+had been furnished with a truncheon and a helmet and had been robbed of
+his wings in order that he might more suitably serve as a policeman. He
+demanded Free Love, and pleaded for the chaste promiscuity of the
+birds!... After he had said a great deal in the same strain, he sat
+down amid applause, and Mr. Haverstock invited discussion. He would
+like to say, however, that he strongly believed in regulation. In his
+opinion there was something beautiful in the sight of a bride and a
+bridegroom signing the parish register in the presence of their
+friends. The young couple, he said, asked for the approval and sanction
+of the community in their love-making. Love without Law was License,
+and he trusted that Mr. Palfrey was not inviting them to approve of
+Licentiousness....
+
+Mr. Palfrey created an enormous sensation and some laughter by saying
+that that was precisely what he did invite them to do. All law was
+composed of hindrances and obstacles and forbiddings, and therefore he
+was entirely opposed to Law. This statement so nonplussed Mr.
+Haverstock that he abruptly sat down, and for a few moments the meeting
+was in a state of chaotic silence. Then a large man rose from the floor
+where he had been lying almost at full length and announced that in his
+opinion the world would cease to have any love in it at all if the
+present craze for vegetable diet increased to any great extent. How
+could a bean-feaster, he demanded, feel passion in his blood? Meat, he
+declared, excited the amorous instincts. All the great lovers of the
+world were extravagantly carnivorous, and all poetry, in the last
+resort, rested on a foundation of beef-steak puddings. What sort of
+lover would Romeo have been had he lived on a diet of lentils? Would
+Juliet have had the power to move the sympathies of generations of men
+and women if she had nourished her love on haricot beans?...
+
+Immediately he sat down, a lean and bearded youth sprang to his feet
+and announced in vibrant tones that he had been a practising vegetarian
+from birth and could affirm from personal experience that a vegetable
+diet, so far from suppressing the passions, actually stimulated them;
+and he offered to prove from statistics that vegetarians, in proportion
+to their number, had been more frequently engaged in romantic
+philandering than carnivorous persons had. Look at Shelley!... He
+could assure those present that he was as amorous and passionate as any
+meat-eater in the room....
+
+The discussion went to pieces after that, and became a wrangle about
+proteid and food values. There was an elderly lady who insisted on
+telling John all about the gastric juices!... Hinde rescued him on the
+plea that they had a long journey in front of them, and very gratefully
+John accepted the suggestion that they should set off at once in order
+to reach their lodgings at a reasonable hour. Mr. and Mrs. Haverstock
+conducted them to the door ... a chilly and contemptuous nod had been
+accorded to John by Mr. Palfrey ... and pressed them to come again
+soon. "Every Wednesday evening," said Mr. Haverstock, "we're at home,
+and we discuss ... everything!..."
+
+They hurried along the Spaniards' Road towards the Tube Station, and as
+they did so, John told Hinde of his encounter with Miss Bushe over the
+trifle.
+
+"That accounts for it," Hinde exclaimed aloud.
+
+"Accounts for what?" John demanded.
+
+"The _Daily Groan_. I've often wondered what was the matter with
+that paper, and now I know. They're always wondering whether there's
+anything intoxicating in the trifle!... I don't mind a boy talking in
+that wild way. A clever, intelligent lad ought to talk revolutionary
+stuff, but when a man reaches Palfrey's age and is still gabbling that
+silly-cleverness, then the man's an ass. There's no depth in him!..."
+
+
+
+IX
+
+They sat in the sitting-room for a long while after they had returned
+to Brixton, and Hinde related some of his reminiscences to John.
+
+"I'm one of the world's failures," he said. "I came to London to try
+and do great work, and I'm still a journalist. I can recognise a fine
+book when I see it, but I can't create one. I'm just a journalist, and
+a journalist isn't really a man. He has no life of his own ... he goes
+home on sufferance, and may be called up by his editor at any minute to
+go galloping off in search of a 'story.' We go everywhere and see
+nothing. We meet everybody and know nobody. A journalist is a man
+without beliefs and almost without hope. The damned go to Fleet Street
+when they die. It's an exciting life ... oh, yes, quite exciting, but
+it's horrible to see men merely as 'copy' and to think of the little
+secret, intimate things of life only as materials for a good 'story.' I
+wish I were a grocer!..."
+
+"Why?" John demanded.
+
+"Well, at least a grocer does not look upon human beings merely as
+consumers of sugar!"
+
+"I could have been a grocer if I'd wanted to," John continued. "My
+mother wanted me to be a clergyman!"
+
+"What put it into your head to turn scribbler?"
+
+"I just wanted to write a book. I can't make you out, Hinde. One minute
+you're advising me to go on a paper, and the next minute you're telling
+me a journalist isn't a man!..."
+
+"When you know more of us," Hinde interrupted, "you'll know that all
+journalists belittle journalism. It's the one consolation that's left
+to them. Unless you're prepared to associate only with journalists,
+Mac, you'd much better keep out of Fleet Street. Newspaper men always
+feel like fish out of water when they're in the company of other men.
+They must be near the newspaper atmosphere ... they can't breathe
+without the stink of ink in their nostrils!..."
+
+"All the same I'll have a try at the life," said John.
+
+
+
+X
+
+But at the end of his first month in London, John had no more to his
+account than this, that he had begun but had not completed a music-hall
+sketch, that he had begun but had not made much progress with a
+tragedy, that he had tried to obtain employment on the staff of the
+_Daily Sensation_ and had failed to do so, and, worst of all, that
+he had fallen in love with Eleanor Moore but could not find her
+anywhere. His novel supplied the one element of hope that lightened his
+thoughts on his month's work. He wished now that he had asked Hinde to
+read it before it had been sent to the publisher. Perhaps it would
+redeem the month from its dismal state.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+It was Hinde who brought the good news to John. Mr. Clotworthy, the
+editor of the _Daily Sensation_, had met Hinde in Tudor Street
+that afternoon and when he had heard that John and Hinde were living
+together, he said, "Tell him I'll take him on the staff if he'll
+promise to keep the Truth well under control!" and had named the
+following morning for an appointment.
+
+"It's a queer thing," said Hinde as he related the news to John, "that
+I'm advising you to take the job when I was telling you the other night
+that journalism's no work for a man; but that only shows what a
+journalist I am. No stability ... carried off my feet by any
+excitement. And mebbe the life'll disgust you and you'll go home
+again!..."
+
+"With my tail between my legs?" John demanded. "No, I'll not do that.
+I'd be ashamed to go home and admit I hadn't done what I set out to do.
+What time does Mr. Clotworthy want me?"
+
+Hinde told him.
+
+"I'll write to my mother at once," said John, "and tell her he's sent
+for me. That'll impress her. Shell be greatly taken, with the notion
+that he sent for me instead of me running after him!..."
+
+"The great fault in an Ulsterman," said Hinde, "is his silly pride that
+won't let him acknowledge his mistake when he's made one. You'll get
+into a lot of bother, John MacDermott, if you go about the world
+letting on you've done right when you've done wrong, and pretending a
+mistake is not a mistake!"
+
+"I'll run the risk of that," John replied.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Mr. Clotworthy spoke very sharply to him. "You understand," he said,
+"that you're here to write what we want you to write, and not to write
+what you think. If you start any of your capering about Truth and
+Reforming the world, I'll fire you into the street the minute I catch
+you at it. You're here to interest people. That's all. You're not here
+to elevate their minds or teach them anything. You're here to keep up
+our sales and increase them if you can. D'you understand me?"
+
+"I do," said John.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'll try the job for a while and see how I like it!"
+
+Mr. Clotworthy sat back in his chair and rubbed his glasses with his
+handkerchief. "You've a great nerve," he said, smiling. "I don't know
+whether you talk like that because you're sure of yourself or just
+stupid!"
+
+"I always knew my own mind," John replied.
+
+Mr. Clotworthy turned him over to Mr. Tarleton, the news-editor, who
+was instructed to give him hints on his work and introduce him to other
+members of the staff.
+
+For two days John did very little in the office, beyond finding his way
+about, but on the third day of his employment, Tarleton suddenly called
+him into his room and told him that the musical critic had telephoned
+to say he was unwell and would not be able to attend a concert at the
+Albert Hall that evening.
+
+"You'll have to go instead," said Tarleton.
+
+"But I don't know anything about music," John protested.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?"
+
+"Well, I thought one was supposed to know something about music before
+you wrote a criticism of it!"
+
+"Look here, young fellow," said Tarleton. "Let me give you a piece of
+advice. Never admit that there's anything in this world that you don't
+know. A _Daily Sensation_ man knows everything! ..."
+
+"But I have no ear for music. I hardly know a minim from a semi-quaver!..."
+
+"Well, that doesn't matter. Get a programme. Mark on it the songs and
+pieces that get the most applause. Those are the best things. See?
+Anybody can criticise music when he knows a tip or two like that. If
+the singer is a celebrated person, like Melba or Tetrazzini, you say
+she was in her usual brilliant form. If the singer isn't celebrated,
+just say that she shows promise of development!..."
+
+"But supposing I don't like her?"
+
+"Then say nothing about her. If we can't praise people on this paper,
+we ignore them. Get your stuff in before eleven, will you? Here's the
+ticket!"
+
+Tarleton thrust the card into John's hand and, a little dazed and a
+little excited, John went out of the room. This was his first important
+job. Words that he had written would appear in print in the morning,
+and hundreds of thousands of people would read them. The _Daily
+Sensation_ had an enormous circulation ... a million people bought
+it every morning, so Tarleton said, and that meant, he explained, that
+about three or four million people read it. Each copy of a paper was
+probably seen by several persons. The thought that some judgment of his
+would be read by a million men and women in the morning caused John to
+feel tremendously responsible. He must be careful to give his praise
+judiciously. All of the persons present at the concert that night, but
+more especially the singers and instrumentalists, would turn first of
+all to his notice. There might be a great political crisis or a
+sensational murder reported in the morning's news, but these people
+would turn first to his notice to see what he had said about the music.
+And it would not do to let them have a wrong impression about the
+concert. Tarleton had told him not to dispraise anything ... "it'll be
+cut out if you do" ... but at all events he would take care that his
+praise was justly given. He would send copies of the papers, marked
+with blue pencil, to his mother and Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff. He
+could imagine the talk there would be in Ballyards about his criticism
+of the concert. The minister and the schoolmaster would be greatly
+impressed when they realised that the paper with the largest
+circulation in the world had asked him to say what he thought of Madame
+Tetrazzini. Mr. McCaughan had never heard anything greater than a
+cantata sung by the church choir in the church room, and he had been
+deeply impressed by the statements made about it by a reporter from the
+_North Down Herald_ who declared that the rendering of the sacred
+work reflected great credit on all concerned in it, but particularly on
+the Reverend Mr. McCaughan to whose sterling instruction in the
+principles of true religion, the young people engaged in singing the
+cantata clearly owed the sincerity and fervour with which they sang
+their parts. If he were so greatly impressed by a report in the
+_North Down Herald_, would he not be overwhelmed by the fact that
+one of his congregation had been chosen to pronounce judgment on the
+greatest singer in the world in the greatest newspaper in the world ...
+for John was now satisfied that the _Daily Sensation_ was
+enormously more important than any other paper that was published. He
+went to a tea-shop in Fleet Street where he knew he could hope to meet
+Hinde, and found him sitting in a corner with a friend who, soon after
+John's arrival, went away.
+
+"You needn't go to the concert if you're not desperately keen on it,"
+Hinde said when John had told him of his job. "You can write your
+notice now!..."
+
+"Write it now! ... But I haven't been to the concert!"
+
+"I wouldn't give much for the man who couldn't write a criticism of a
+concert without going to it," Hinde contemptuously replied. "Say that
+Tetrazzini's wonderful voice enthralled the audience and that there
+were scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm as the diva graciously responded
+to the clamorous demands for encores. Add a few words about the man who
+played her accompaniments and the number of floral tributes she
+received, and there you are. That's all that's necessary!"
+
+"I couldn't do it," said John. It wouldn't be honest!"
+
+"Don't be a prig," Hinde exclaimed.
+
+"Prig! Is it being a prig to do your work fairly?"
+
+"No, but it's being a prig to treat a thing as important that isn't
+important at all. I wanted you to come to a music-hall with me to-night!"
+
+"I'm sorry," John replied stiffly, "I'd like to go with you, but I
+couldn't think of doing such a thing as you suggest to me!"
+
+"I wonder how long you'll feel like that, Mac?" Hinde laughed.
+
+"All my life, I hope!"
+
+"Well, have it your own way, then. But you're wasting your time!"
+
+"And another thing," John continued, "I want to hear the woman singing.
+I've never heard anybody great at the music yet!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+He entered the great circular hall, and sat, very solemnly, in his seat
+on the ground floor. He felt nervous and uneasy and certain that he
+would not be able to write adequately of the concert. He tried to think
+of suitable words to great music, but it seemed to him that he could
+not think at all. He glanced about the Hall, hoping that perhaps he
+would find inspiration in the ceiling, but there was no inspiration
+there. He could see wires stretched across the roof from side to side,
+and there were great pieces of canvas radiating from the central
+cluster of lights in the dome. He wondered why the wires were there.
+Blondin, he remembered, had walked across a wire, as thin-looking as
+those, which was stretched high up in the roof of the Exhibition at the
+Old Linen Hall in Belfast; but he could scarcely believe that these
+wires were intended for tight-rope performances. He turned to a man at
+his side. "Would you mind telling me what those things are for?" he
+asked, pointing to them.
+
+"To break the echoes," the man replied, entering into an involved
+account of acoustics. "It's all humbug really," he added. "They don't
+break the echoes at all, but we all imagine that they do, and so we're
+quite happy!"
+
+The warm, comfortable look of the red-curtained boxes in the softened
+electric light pleased him, and he liked the effect of the tiers rising
+up to the high roof, and the great spread of floor, and the gigantic
+magnificence of the organ.
+
+"How many people does this place hold?" he demanded of his neighbour.
+
+"About ten thousand," his neighbour answered, glancing at him
+quizzically. "Is this the first time you've been here?"
+
+"Yes. I'm new to London. They must take a great deal of money in a
+night at a place like this. An immense amount!"
+
+"They do. It's part of the Albert Memorial, this hall. The other part
+is in the Park across the road. Have you seen it?"
+
+"No," said John. "Is it any good?"
+
+"Well," said the stranger, "we've tried to overlook it ... but
+unfortunately it's too big. There are some excellent bits in it, but
+the whole effect!... Poor dear Queen Victoria ... she was a little
+woman, and so, of course, she believed in magnitude. She liked Bigness.
+She's out of fashion, nowadays ... people titter behind their hands
+when they speak of her ... and there's a tendency to regard her as a
+somewhat foolish and sentimental old woman ... but really, she was a
+very capable old girl in her narrow way, and there was nothing soft
+about her. She was as hard as nails ... almost a cruel woman ... she'd
+compel her maids-of-honour to stand in her presence until the poor
+girls fainted with fatigue.... I'm sure she'd have made Queen Elizabeth
+feel uncomfortable in some ways. This hall is a memorial to her
+husband."
+
+"Yes," said John. "There's a Memorial in Belfast to him. What did he
+do?"
+
+"He was Queen Victoria's husband!"
+
+"I suppose," said John, "it wasn't much fun being her man?"
+
+"Fun!" exclaimed the stranger. "Well, of course, it depends on what you
+call fun!"
+
+There was a bustling sound from the platform and some applause, and
+then a dark-looking man emerged from the sloping gangway underneath the
+organ and sat down at the piano. He played Mascagni's _Pavana delle
+Maschere_, and while he played it, John took some writing paper from
+his pocket and prepared to note down his opinions of the evening's
+entertainment.
+
+"Hilloa," said the stranger in a whisper, "are you a critic?"
+
+John, feeling extraordinarily important, nodded his head and continued
+to listen to the music. It sounded quite pleasant, but it conveyed
+nothing to him. All he could think of was the contortions of the
+pianist as he played his piece, and he wished that all pianists could
+be concealed behind screens so that their grimaces and gyrations should
+not be seen. He ought to say something about the man, but he had no
+idea of what was fitting!... The solo ended and was followed by another
+one, and then the pianist stood up to acknowledge the applause.
+
+"What do you think of it?" the stranger respectfully asked, and John,
+aware of the respect in his voice and conscious that he did not know
+what to think of it, murmured, "Um-m-m! Not bad!"
+
+"Coldish, I think," the stranger continued. "Technically skilful, but
+hardly any feeling!"
+
+John considered for a moment or two, and then answered very judicially.
+"Yes! Yes, I think that's a fair description of him!"
+
+He waited until the stranger was engaged in reading the programme, and
+then he jotted down on his writing-paper, "Mr. Pietro Mancinelli played
+Mascagni's _Pavana delle Maschere_ with great technical ability,
+but with hardly any emotional quality!"
+
+"I'm very glad I sat down beside this chap," he murmured to himself, as
+the accompanist played the opening bars of Handel's _Droop not, young
+lover_, and then he settled down to listen to the man who sang it.
+He was happier here, for singing was more easy to judge than
+instrumental music. Either a song was well sung, he told himself, or it
+was not well sung, and the gentleman who was singing _Droop not,
+young lover_ certainly had a voice that sounded well in that great
+hall.... He wrote in his report that "Mr. Albert Luton's magnificent
+voice was heard to great advantage in Handel's charming aria..." and
+was exceedingly glad that he had lately read some musical notices in
+one of the newspapers, and could remember some of the phrases that had
+been used in them.
+
+"Now for a treat," said the stranger, as a burst of hearty applause
+opened out from the platform and went all round the hall.
+
+John glanced towards the passage leading to the artist's room and saw a
+smiling, plump lady, with very bright, dark eyes and dark hair come on
+to the platform. She was clad in white that made her Italian looks more
+pronounced.
+
+"Tetrazzini!" the stranger whispered in John's ear.
+
+The applause died down, and the singer stood rigidly in front of the
+platform while the pianist played the opening of Verdi's _Caro
+nome_. Then her voice sounded very clear and bell-like in the deep
+silence of the great hall. ... She sang _Solveig's Song_ by Greig
+and _A Pastoral_ by Veracini, and then the satiated audience
+allowed her to retire from the platform.
+
+John sat back in his seat in a dazed fashion. All round him were
+applauding men and women ... and he could not applaud. There was a buzz
+of admiring talk, and he could hear the words "wonderful" and
+"magnificent" ... and he had not been moved at all. The great voice had
+not caused him to feel any thrill or emotion whatever. It was
+wonderful, indeed, but that was all that it was. There was no generous
+glow in her music; she did not cause him to feel any emotion other than
+that of astonishment at the perfection of her vocal organs. He had
+imagined that the great singer's voice would compel him to jump out of
+his seat and wave his hands wildly and shout and cheer ... but instead
+he had sat still and wondered at the marvellous way in which her throat
+functioned.
+
+"Well?" said his neighbour, in the tone of one who would say that only
+words of an extremely adulatory character were conceivable after such a
+performance.
+
+"She's a very remarkable woman," John replied.
+
+"Remarkable!" his neighbour indignantly exclaimed. "She's a
+miracle!..."
+
+John disregarded his ecstatics. "I kept on thinking of a clever
+machine," he said. "The wheels went round without a hitch. She's a
+grand invention, that woman! She can sing her pieces without thinking
+about them. She hardly knows the notes are coming out of her mouth ...
+she doesn't know where they come from or why they come at all, and I
+don't suppose it matters to her where they go. There's a grand machine
+in our place that prints the papers. You put a big roll of white paper
+on to it, and you turn a wee handle, and the machine sends the roll
+spinning round and round until it's done, and a lot of folded papers,
+nicely printed, come tumbling out in counted batches, all ready to be
+taken away and sold in the shops and streets. It's a wonderful
+machine ... but it can't read its own printing and it doesn't know what's
+in the papers after it's done with them. That's what she's like; a
+wonderful machine!..."
+
+"My dear sir," the stranger exclaimed, but John prevented him from
+saying any more.
+
+"That's my opinion anyway," he went on, "and I can only think the
+things I think. I can't think what other people think!"
+
+"A limitation," said the stranger. "A distinct limitation!"
+
+"Mebbe it is, but I don't see what that matters!"
+
+After Tetrazzini had left the platform and the applause of her admirers
+had died away, there was a violin solo, and then came an interval of
+fifteen minutes. John determined to write part of his notice in the
+vestibule of the Hall, and he got up from his seat to do so. He mounted
+the stairs that led to the first tier of boxes, and as he approached
+them, he saw Eleanor Moore sitting in the box nearest the exit through
+which he was about to pass. There were other people in the box ...
+girls, he thought ... but he hardly saw them. As he came nearer to her,
+she raised her eyes from her programme and looked straight at him, and
+for a few moments neither of them averted their eyes. Then she looked
+away, and he passed through the curtained exit.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+He had found her again! She had not flown away from London ... she was
+not ill, as he had so alarmingly imagined, nor, as he had horribly
+imagined for one dreadful moment, was she dead. She lived ... she was
+well ... she was here in this very hall, separated from him only by a
+thin partition of wood ... and she had looked at him without fear in
+her eyes. He mounted the short flight of stairs leading to the corridor
+on to which the doors of the boxes opened, and read the name written on
+the card underneath the number painted on the door of the box in which
+Eleanor was sitting. "The Viscountess Walbrook." The name puzzled him,
+and he turned to an attendant, a lugubrious man in a dingy frock-coat
+looking extraordinarily like a dejected image of Albert the Good, and
+asked for an explanation.
+
+"It means that she owns that box," he explained. "Lots of the seats and
+boxes 'ere belong to private people. That one belongs to the
+Viscountess Walbrook. She in'erited it from 'er father. Very kind-'earted
+woman ... always gives 'er box to orphans and widders and people
+like that!"
+
+"Then the ladies in the box now are not friends of hers?" John asked,
+meaning by "friends," relatives.
+
+"I shouldn't think so," the attendant answered. "I noticed the party
+comin' in. They come in a 'ired carriage. No, they're orphans or
+widders or somethin'. There's always a lot of orphans an' widders about
+this 'All, partic'lar on a Sunday afternoon when they're doin' 'Andel's
+_Messiar_. And the _Elijiar_, too! You know! Mendelssohn's
+bit! Reg'lar fascination for orphans an' widders that 'as. I call it
+depressin' meself, but some 'ow it seems to fit in with orphans an'
+widders!..."
+
+John thanked the attendant and moved down the corridor. He must not
+lose sight of Eleanor now that he had found her again. If only he could
+discover where she lived ... He stood where he could see the door of
+the Viscountess Walbrook's box, and brooded over the chances of
+discovering Eleanor's home. He must not lose sight of her ... that was
+imperative. The luckiest thing in the world had brought him into her
+company again, and he might never have such an opportunity again if he
+let this one slip away from him. He could look round every now and then
+from his seat to assure himself that she was still in the box, but
+supposing she were to go away in the interval between his assuring
+glances? Even if he were to see her leaving the box, he would have some
+difficulty in getting to her in time to keep her in sight!... No, no,
+he must not run the risk of losing her again. He must stay in some
+place from which he could immediately see her leaving the box and from
+which he could easily follow her without ever missing her. He looked
+about him, and felt inclined to sit down in the corridor and wait there
+until Eleanor emerged from the Viscountess Walbrook's private property!
+But the corridor was a draughty and conspicuous and depressing place in
+which to loiter, and he felt that the cheerless attendant might suspect
+him of some felonious or other criminal intent if he were to stay there
+during the whole of the second part of the programme. He peered through
+the curtains which separated the corridor from the auditorium and saw
+an empty seat on the opposite side of the gangway to that on which Lady
+Walbrook's box was situated; and when the interval was ended and the
+violinist began to play the first movement of Beethoven's _Romance in
+G_, he slipped into the seat, and sat so that he could see every
+movement that Eleanor made. How very beautiful she looked! She seemed
+more beautiful to him in her blue evening dress even than she had
+seemed on the first day that he saw her. Until he had come to London,
+he had never seen a woman in evening dress, except in photographs and
+in illustrated papers, and when, for the first time, he had seen real
+women in real evening clothes in a theatre, the sight of their bare
+white shoulders and bosoms had appeared to him both beautiful and
+improper. Eleanor's shoulders were bare, and as he looked at her, he
+could see her bosom very gently rising and falling with her breathing,
+but he felt no confusion in seeing her in that bare state. She was
+beautiful ... he could think of nothing else but her beauty. Her
+shapely head was perfectly poised upon her strong neck, and he was
+aware instantly of the graceful line of her shoulders. If she had not
+been in those pretty evening clothes, he would not have known that her
+neck and shoulders were so beautiful. Her soft, dark hair, loosely
+dressed over her ears, glowed with loveliness, and the narrow golden
+band that bound it was no brighter than her eyes. How lovely she is, he
+said to himself, indifferent to the applause that was offered to the
+violinist, and then he fell to admiring the way in which she clapped
+her gloved hands together, slowly but firmly. Her applause was not
+languid applause, neither was it without discrimination. She seemed to
+John to be telling the violinist that he had played well, but might
+have played better....
+
+"She's the great wee girl," he said to himself.
+
+He saw now that she shared the box with two other girls, but he had no
+further interest in them than that they were in her company and that
+they were not men. He wished that her hands were not gloved so that he
+might see whether she wore rings on her fingers, and if so, on which
+fingers they were worn. Supposing she were engaged to some other man
+... or worse still, supposing she were married! It was possible for her
+to have been married since he last saw her!... An agony of doubt and
+despair came upon him as he brooded over the thought of her possible
+marriage, and although he was aware that Tetrazzini was singing
+Mazzone's _Sogni e Canti_ and Benedict's _Carnevale di
+Venezia_, the music was no more than a noise in the air to him. What
+should he do if Eleanor were married? Bad enough if she were engaged,
+but married!... An engagement was not an irrefragable affair, and he
+could woo her so ardently that his rival would swiftly vanish from her
+thoughts ... but a marriage!... He knew that marriages were not so
+irrefragable as they might be, and that a very desperate couple might
+go to the length of running away together even though one of them were
+married to someone else ... but he did not like the thought of running
+away with a married woman. Eleanor might not wish to run away with
+him ... his agony of mind was such that he stooped to that humility of
+imagination ... she might very dearly love her husband!...
+
+Lord alive, why couldn't that Italian woman stop singing! Why was not
+this silly music ended so that he could settle his doubts about
+Eleanor's freedom to marry him! Why could the audience not be content
+with two songs from the woman instead of demanding encores from her!...
+
+And then the concert ended after what seemed an interminable time, and
+the audience began to emerge from the Hall. John went quickly into the
+corridor and waited until the door of the Viscountess Walbrook's box
+opened and Eleanor, followed by her friends, came out of it. She had a
+long coat with a furry collar over her pretty blue frock, and as she
+gathered her skirts about her, he could see that she was wearing blue
+satin shoes and blue silk stockings. One hand firmly grasped her skirts
+and the other hand held the furry collar in front of her mouth. She
+passed so close to him that he could have touched her glowing cheeks
+with his hands, but she did not see him. The crush of people made
+progress slow and difficult, but he was glad of this for it enabled him
+to be near to her much longer than he could otherwise have hoped to be.
+As she passed him, he had fallen in behind her, and now he could touch
+her very gently without her being aware that his touch was any more
+than the unavoidable contact of people in the crowd. There was a faint
+smell of violets about her clothes, and he snuffed up the delicate
+odour eagerly. Mrs. Cream had smelt strongly of perfume, an
+overpowering hothouse-smelling perfume that had made him feel as if he
+were stifling, but this delicate odour pleased him. How natural, how
+very obvious even, that Eleanor should use the scent of violets!
+
+When they reached the front of the Hall, Eleanor turned to her friends
+and made some remark about a carriage. He supposed they had hired a
+vehicle to bring them to the Hall and take them home again, and when he
+discovered that his supposition was right, a sense of disappointment
+filled him. He had hoped that they would walk home or that they would
+get on to a 'bus!...
+
+He watched them climb into the shabby hired brougham, and when the door
+was closed upon them and the driver had whipped up his horse, he
+followed it into the Kensington Road. The traffic was so congested that
+the horse had to move at a walking pace, and John was easily able to
+keep close to it; but in a few moments, he told himself, the driver
+would get clear of the congestion and then the horse would begin to
+trot; and while the thought passed through his mind, the driver cracked
+his whip and the slow, spiritless horse began to move more rapidly ...
+and as it gathered speed, resolution suddenly came to John out of a
+sudden vision of a boy's pleasure.
+
+"Fancy not thinking of this before," he said, as he swung himself on to
+the back of the carriage and balanced uncomfortably on the bar.
+
+
+
+V
+
+The brougham drove along Kensington Road and then turned sharply into
+Church Street along which it was drawn at an ambling pace to Notting
+Hill. It turned to the right, and went along the Bayswater Road, and
+then John lost his bearings. He was in one of the streets off the
+Bayswater Road, but in the darkness he could not tell what its name
+was. Presently the driver shouted "Whoa!" to his horse and drew up in
+front of a dreary, tall house, with a pillared portico, and John had
+only sufficient time in which to drop from the back of the carriage and
+skip across the street to the opposite pavement before the three girls
+alighted from the brougham and stood for a few moments in front of the
+house. The driver drove off, and John, lurking in the shadow of a
+doorway, watched the girls as they stood talking together. Then he saw
+two of them climb up the steps leading to the house, and Eleanor,
+calling out "Good-night!" to them, went round the corner. He hurried
+after her, and saw her going up the steps of a similar house
+immediately round the corner from the one into which her friends had
+entered. She was fumbling at the keyhole with her key as he came
+opposite the house, and she did not see him until he spoke to her.
+
+"Miss Moore," he said in a hesitating manner, taking off his hat as he
+spoke.
+
+She started and turned round. "What is it?" she said in an alarmed
+manner.
+
+"I ... I've been trying to find you for a long time!..."
+
+She shrank away from him. "I don't know you," she said. "You've made a
+mistake. Please go away!"
+
+"Don't be afraid of me," he pleaded. "I know you don't know me, but I
+know you. You're Eleanor Moore!..."
+
+She came forward from the shadow. "Yes," she said, half in alarm, half
+out of curiosity. "Yes, that's my name, but I don't know you!..." Then
+she recognised him. "Oh, you're that man!" she said, now wholly
+alarmed.
+
+"I saw you at the tea-shop," he replied hastily. "You remember you left
+a letter behind and I picked it up and gave it to you. That's how I
+know your name!"
+
+"Why are you persecuting me?" she demanded, almost tearfully.
+
+He was daunted by her tone. "Persecuting you!" he said.
+
+"Yes. You follow me about in the street, and stare at me. I saw you
+this evening at the Albert Hall, and you stared at me!..."
+
+"Because I love you, Eleanor!" He went nearer to her, and as he did so,
+she retreated further into the shadow. "Don't be afraid of me, please,"
+he said. "I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but I'm a
+stranger in this town and I had no way of getting to know you. I tried
+hard, Eleanor!..."
+
+"Don't call me Eleanor!"
+
+"I can't help it. I think of you as Eleanor. I always call you Eleanor
+to myself. You see, dear, I'm in love with you!"
+
+"But you don't know me. I wish you'd go away. I shall ring the bell or
+tell the policeman at the corner!..."
+
+"Let me tell you about myself," he pleaded.
+
+"I don't want to hear about you. I don't like you. You stare so hard,
+and you're always looking at my stockings!..."
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Yes, you are. You're looking at them now!"
+
+"Only because you mentioned them. I won't look at them if you tell me
+not to!..."
+
+"I don't want to tell you anything," she murmured. "I only want you to
+go away!..."
+
+"I know that, dearest, but just let me tell you this. My name is John
+MacDermott!..."
+
+"I don't care what your name is," she interrupted. "It doesn't interest
+me in the least!..."
+
+"But it will, Eleanor, darling. When you're married to me!..."
+
+She burst out laughing, "I think you're mad," she said.
+
+"I was very lonely, Eleanor, when I saw you. I have not got a friend in
+London!..." He omitted to remember the existence of Hinde. "I come from
+Ireland!..."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And I had not been in London more than a day when I saw you. I fell in
+love with you at once!..."
+
+"Absurd!" she said.
+
+"It's true. After you'd gone back to your office, I went for a long
+walk, but all the time, I was thinking of you, and I hurried back to
+the shop at teatime, hoping I'd see you. And you were there, looking
+lovelier than you looked in the middle of the day. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "You looked so ridiculous!..."
+
+"Perhaps I did, but I didn't care how I looked so long as I was near
+you. I felt miserable and lonely, and you were the only person in
+London I knew!..."
+
+"But you didn't know me!" she insisted.
+
+"I knew your name, and I was in love with you. That was enough. I tried
+to speak to you, but you would not let me. I asked you to be friends
+with me, and you got up and walked away. I felt ashamed of myself
+because I thought I had frightened you, and I hurried out of the shop
+and followed you so that I might tell you how sorry I was and how much
+I loved you, but I lost you at your office, and the man at the lift
+nearly had a fight with me!..."
+
+"Then it _was_ you who had been asking for me? He told me that a
+suspicious character had been hanging about the hall, enquiring for me.
+I thought it might be you!"
+
+"I don't look suspicious, do I?"
+
+"You behave suspiciously. You speak to people whom you do not know, and
+you follow them in the street!..."
+
+"Only you, Eleanor. Not anybody else!"
+
+There was a silence for a few moments, and then she turned to the door
+and inserted the key in the lock.
+
+"Well, please go away now," she said. "You can't do any good here!..."
+
+"Let me come in and tell your father and mother I want to marry you!"
+
+She opened the door and gazed at him as if she could not believe her
+ears.
+
+"This is a residential club for women," she said. "I have no parents, I
+think you're the silliest man I've ever encountered. Please go away!
+You'll get me talked about!..."
+
+She shut the door in his face.
+
+He stared blankly at the glass panels of the door for a few moments and
+then went down the steps into the street, and as he did so, he saw a
+light suddenly illuminate the room immediately above the pillared
+portico. He stared up at it, and saw that the window was open, and
+while he looked, he saw Eleanor come to it and begin to draw it down.
+
+He called out to her. "Eleanor!" he said, "Hi, Eleanor!"
+
+She peered out of the window, and then leant her head through the
+opening. "There's a policeman at the corner," she said, "I shall call
+him if you don't go away!"
+
+"Very well," he replied. "They can't put a man in gaol for loving a
+woman!"
+
+"They can put him in gaol for annoying her!"
+
+"I'm not annoying you. How can I annoy you when I'm in love with you?
+No, don't interrupt me. You haven't let me get a word out of my mouth
+all night!" He could hear her laughing at him. "Are you codding me?" he
+said.
+
+"What?" she replied in a puzzled voice.
+
+"Are you codding me?" he repeated. "Are you making fun of me?"
+
+She leant out of the window as if she were trying to see him more
+closely. "You really are funny," she said. "I was afraid of you ... you
+stared so ... but I'm not afraid of you now. You're a funny little
+fellow, but I do wish you'd go away!"
+
+"Come down and talk to me, and I'll go home content!..."
+
+"You're being silly again!"
+
+"No, I'm not. I tell you, girl, I'm mad in love with you, and I'll sit
+on your doorstep all night 'til you agree to go out with me!"
+
+"The policeman would lock you up if you were to do that," she replied.
+"I'm not in love with you ... I don't even like you ... I think you're
+a horrid man, staring at people the way you do ... and I won't 'go out
+with you,' as you call it. I'm not a servant girl!..."
+
+"What does it matter to me what sort of a girl you are, if I'm in love
+with you. You must like me ... you can't help it!..."
+
+"Oh, can't I?"
+
+"No. I never heard tell yet of a man loving a woman the way I love you,
+and her not to fall in love with him!"
+
+"Don't talk so loudly, please," she said in a lowered tone. "People
+will hear you, and there's someone coming down the street."
+
+"I don't care!..."
+
+"But I do. Now listen to me, Mr.... Mr.... I can't remember your name!"
+
+"My name's MacDermott, but you can call me John."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. MacDermott, but I don't wish to call you John. Now
+listen to me. I think you're a very romantic young man!... No, please
+let me finish one sentence! You're a very romantic young man, and I
+daresay you think that all you've got to do is to tell the first girl
+you meet that you're in love with her, and she'll say, 'Oh, thank you!'
+and fall into your arms. Well you're wrong! You may think you're very
+romantic, but I think you're just a tedious fool!..."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A tedious fool. You've made me feel exceedingly uncomfortable more
+than once. I had to stop going to that tea-shop because I couldn't eat
+my food without your eyes staring at me all the time. Fortunately, the
+work I was doing in the City was only a temporary job, and I got a
+permanent post elsewhere and was able to move away from the City
+altogether!..."
+
+"But Eleanor!..."
+
+"How dare you call me Eleanor!"
+
+"Because I love you!" he said.
+
+She seemed to be nonplussed by his reply. She did not speak for a few
+moments. Then, altering her tone, she said, "Oh, well, I daresay you
+think you do!"
+
+"I don't think. I know. I'll not be content till I marry you. Now,
+Eleanor, do you hear that?"
+
+"I know nothing whatever about you!..."
+
+"Come down to the doorstep and I'll tell you. Will you?"
+
+"No, of course not!"
+
+"Well, how can you blame me then if you won't listen to me when I offer
+to tell you about myself. You know my name. John MacDermott. And I'm
+Irish!..."
+
+"Yes," she interrupted, "I'm making big allowances for that!"
+
+"My family's the most respected family in Ballyards!..."
+
+"Where's that?" she asked.
+
+"Do you not know either? You're the second person I've met in London
+didn't know that. It's in County Down. My mother lives there, and so
+does my Uncle William. I've come here to write books!..."
+
+"Are you an author?" she exclaimed with interest.
+
+"I am," he said proudly. "I've written a novel and I'm writing a
+play!... Come down and I'll tell you about them!"
+
+"Oh, no, I can't. It's too late. And you must go home. Where do you
+live?"
+
+"At Brixton," he answered.
+
+"That's miles from here. And you'll miss the last bus if you don't
+hurry!..."
+
+"I can walk. Come down, will you!"
+
+"No. No, no. It's much too late," she said hurriedly. "And I can't stay
+here talking to you any longer. Someone will make a complaint about me.
+You'll get me into trouble!..."
+
+"Well, will you meet me to-morrow somewhere? Wherever you like!"
+
+"No!..."
+
+"Ah, do!"
+
+"No, I won't. Why should I?"
+
+"Because I'm in love with you and want you to meet me."
+
+"No!..."
+
+"Then I'll sit here all night then. I'll let the peeler take me up, and
+I'll tell the whole world I'm in love with you!"
+
+"You're a beast. You're really a beast!"
+
+"I'm not. I'm in love with you. That's all. Will you meet me the
+morrow?"
+
+"I don't know!..."
+
+"Well, make up your mind then."
+
+She remained silent for a few moments.
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"I don't see why I should meet you!..."
+
+"Never mind about that. Just meet me!"
+
+"Well ... perhaps ... only perhaps, mind you ... I don't promise
+really ... I might meet you ... just for a minute or two!..."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the bookstall in Charing Cross station. Do you know it?"
+
+"I'll soon find it. What time?"
+
+"Five o'clock!"
+
+"Right. I'll be there to the minute!..."
+
+"Go home now. You've a long way to go, and I'm very tired!"
+
+"All right, Eleanor. I wish you'd come down, though. Just for a wee
+while!"
+
+"I can't. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, my dear. You've the loveliest eyes!..."
+
+She closed the window, but he could see her standing behind the glass
+looking at him.
+
+He kissed his hand to her and then, when she had moved away, he walked
+off.
+
+"Good night, constable!" he said cheerily to the policeman at the
+corner.
+
+The policeman looked suspiciously at him.
+
+"How do you get to Brixton from here?" John continued.
+
+"First on the right, first on the left, first on the right again, and
+you're in the Bayswater Road. Turn to the left and keep on until you
+reach Marble Arch. You'll get a 'bus there, if you're lucky. If you're
+too late, you'll have to walk it. Go down Park Lane and ask again. Make
+for Victoria!"
+
+"Thanks," said John.
+
+He walked along the Bayswater Road, singing in his heart, and after a
+while, finding that the street was almost empty, he began to sing
+aloud. The roadway shone in the cold light thrown from the high
+electric lamps, and there was a faint mist hanging about the trees in
+Kensington Gardens. He looked up at the sky and saw that it was full of
+friendly stars. All around him was beauty and light. The gleaming
+roadway and the gleaming sky seemed to be illuminated in honour of his
+triumphant love, for he did not doubt that his love was triumphant. The
+night air was fresh and cool. It had none of the exhausted taste that
+the air seems always to have in London during the day. It was new,
+clean air, fresh from the sea or from the hills, and he took off his
+hat so that his forehead might be fanned by it. He glanced about him as
+if in every shadow he expected to see a friend. London no longer seemed
+too large to love.
+
+"I like this place," he said, waving his hat in the air.
+
+A policeman told him of a very late 'bus that went down Whitehall and
+would take him as far as Kensington Gate, and he hurried off to Charing
+Cross and was lucky enough to catch the 'bus.
+
+"How much?" he said to the conductor.
+
+"Sixpence on this 'bus," the conductor replied.
+
+John handed a shilling to him. "You can keep the change," he said.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Hinde was lying on the sofa in the sitting-room when John, slightly
+tired, but too elated to be aware of his fatigue, got home.
+
+"Hilloa," he said sleepily, "how did the concert go?"
+
+John suddenly remembered.
+
+"Holy O!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his head.
+
+"What's that?" Hinde said.
+
+"I forgot all about it," John replied.
+
+"Forgot all about it! Do you mean you didn't go to it?"
+
+"I went all right, but I forgot to take my notice to the office!"
+
+Hinde sat up and stared at him. "You _forgot_!..." He could not
+say any more.
+
+John told him of the encounter with Eleanor.
+
+"You mean to say you let your paper down for the sake of a girl," Hinde
+exclaimed incredulously.
+
+"I'll go back now," John said, turning to leave the room.
+
+"Go back _now_! What's the good of that? The paper's been put to
+bed half an hour and more ago. My God Almighty ... you let the paper
+down. For the sake of a girl!"
+
+He seemed to have difficulty in expressing his thoughts, and he sat
+back and gaped at John as if he had just been informed that the Last
+Day had been officially announced.
+
+"You needn't show your nose in _that_ office again," he said
+again. "I never heard of such a reason for letting a paper down! Good
+heavens, man, don't you realise what you've done? _You've let the
+paper down_!"
+
+"I'm in love with this girl!..."
+
+Hinde almost snarled at him. "Ach-h-h, _love_!" he shouted. "And
+you propose to be a journalist. Let your paper down. For a girl. You
+sloppy fellow!... My heavens above, I never heard of such a thing.
+Letting your paper down!..."
+
+He walked about the room, repeating many times that John had "let his
+paper down."
+
+"And I recommended you to Clotworthy, too. I told him you had the stuff
+in you. I thought you had. I thought you could do a job decently, but
+by the Holy O, you're no good. You let your own feelings come between
+you and your work. Oh! Oh, oh! Oh, go to bed quick or I'll knock the
+head off you. I'll not be responsible for myself if you stand there any
+longer like a moonstruck fool!"
+
+"If you talk to me like that," said John, "I'll hit you a welt on the
+jaw. I'm sorry I forgot about the paper, but sure what does it matter
+anyway?..."
+
+"What does it matter!" Hinde almost shrieked at him. "Your paper will
+be the only paper in London which won't have a report of that concert
+in it to-morrow. That's what it matters? I'd be ashamed to let my paper
+down for any reason on earth. If my mother was dying, I wouldn't let
+her prevent me from doing my job!... If you can't understand that, John
+MacDermott, you needn't try to be a journalist. You haven't got it in
+you. Your paper's your father and your mother and your wife and your
+children! Oh, go to bed, out of my sight, or I'll forget myself!..."
+
+John walked towards the door.
+
+"I'd rather love a woman any day than a paper," he said.
+
+"Well, go and love her then, and don't try to interfere with a paper
+again! Don't come down Fleet Street pretending you're a journalist!"
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+"Yah-h-h!" said Hinde.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+It had been exceedingly difficult for John to explain his defection to
+Mr. Clotworthy and to Tarleton. The only mitigating feature of the
+business was that the matter to be reported was only a concert. Both
+Mr. Clotworthy and Tarleton trembled when they thought of the calamity
+that would have befallen the paper if the forgotten report had been of
+a murder! They hardly dared contemplate such a devastating prospect.
+They invited John to think of another profession and wished him a very
+good morning. Tarleton quitted the room, leaving John alone with the
+editor, and as he went he showed such contempt towards him as is only
+shown towards the meanest of God's creatures.
+
+"Well, where's your Ulster now?" said Mr. Clotworthy very sardonically
+when they were alone together.
+
+"I know rightly I'm in the wrong from your point of view, Mr.
+Clotworthy," John replied, "but I'd do the same thing again if twenty
+jobs depended on it. It's hard to make you understand, and mebbe I'm a
+fool to try, but there it is. The minute I clapped my eyes on her, I
+forgot everything but her. I'm sorry I've lost my post here, but I'd be
+sorrier to have lost her. That's all about it. You were very kind to
+give me the work, and I wish I hadn't let your paper down the way Hinde
+says I did, but it's no good me pretending about it. I'd do it again if
+the same thing happened another time. That's the beginning and end of
+it all. I'd rather be her husband than edit a dozen papers like yours.
+I'd rather be her husband than be anything else in the world!"
+
+"Well, good afternoon!" said Mr. Clotworthy.
+
+"Good afternoon!" said John, turning away.
+
+He moved towards the door of the room, feeling much less assurance than
+he had felt when he came into it.
+
+"If you care to send in some articles for page six," Mr. Clotworthy
+added, "I'd be glad to see them!"
+
+"Thank you," said John.
+
+"Not at all," the editor replied without glancing up.
+
+He left the _Daily Sensation_ office, and walked towards Charing
+Cross. A queer depression had settled upon his spirits. Hinde had
+treated him as if he were mentally deficient, and he knew that Mr.
+Clotworthy and Tarleton, particularly Tarleton, regarded him with
+coldness, but he was not deeply affected by their disapproval.
+Nevertheless, depression possessed him. He felt that Eleanor would fail
+to keep her appointment. Quietly considered, there seemed to be no
+reason why she should keep it. She knew absolutely nothing of him
+except what he had told her while she leaned out of the window. How was
+she to know that he was speaking the truth? What right had he to expect
+her to pay any heed to him at all? Dreary, drizzling thoughts poured
+through his mind. He felt as certain that his novel would not be
+published as he felt that Eleanor would not be at the bookstall at
+Charing Cross station when he arrived there. The tragedy on which he
+was working had seemed to him to be a very marvellous play, but now he
+thought it was too poor to be worth finishing. He had been in London
+for what was quite a long time, but he had achieved nothing. He had not
+even written the music-hall sketch for the Creams. He had not earned a
+farthing during the time that he had been in London. All the exaltation
+which had filled him as he walked along the Bayswater Road on the
+previous night, with his mind full of Eleanor and love and starshine
+and moonlight and gleaming streets and trees hanging with mist and
+friendliness for all men, had gone clean out of him. Fleet Street was a
+dirty, ill-ventilated alley full of scuffling men and harassed women.
+London itself was a great angry thing, a place of distrust and
+contention, where no one ever offered a friendly greeting to a
+stranger. He would go to Charing Cross station and he would stand
+patiently in front of the bookstall, but Eleanor would not come to meet
+him. He would stand there, dumb and uncomplaining, and no one of the
+hurrying crowd of people would turn to him and say, "You're in trouble.
+I'm sorry!" They would neither know nor care. They would be too busy
+catching trains. He would stand there for an hour, for two hours ...
+until his legs began to ache with the pain of standing in one place for
+a long time ... and then, when it was apparent that waiting was useless
+and he had, perhaps, aroused the suspicions of policemen and railway
+porters concerning his purpose in loitering thus so persistently in
+front of the bookstall, he would go home in his misery to a
+contemptuous Hinde!...
+
+
+
+II
+
+And while these bitter thoughts poured through his mind, he entered
+Charing Cross station, and there in front of the bookstall was Eleanor
+Moore. The bitter thoughts poured out of his mind in a rapid flood. He
+felt so certain that his novel would be published that he could almost
+see it stacked on the bookstall behind Eleanor. He would finish the
+tragedy that week and in a short while England would be acclaiming him
+as a great dramatist!... He hurried towards her and held out his hand,
+and she shyly took it.
+
+"Have you been here long?" he anxiously asked.
+
+"No," she answered, "I've only just come!"
+
+"Let's go and have some tea," he went on.
+
+"I've had mine, thanks!..."
+
+"Well, have some more. I've not had any!..."
+
+"I don't think I can, thanks. I've really come to say that I can't!..."
+
+"There's a little place near here," he interrupted hurriedly, "where
+they give you lovely home-made bread. I found it one day when I was
+wandering about. We'll just go there and talk about whatever you want
+to say. Give me that umbrella of yours!" He took it from her hand as he
+spoke. "This is the way," he said, leading her from the station. As
+they crossed the road, he took hold of her arm. "These streets are
+terribly dangerous," he said. "You never know what minute you're going
+to be run over!"
+
+He still held her arm when they were safely on the pavement, but
+she contrived to free herself without making a point of doing so.
+He tried to bring her back to the mood in which they were when she
+leaned out of the window to listen to him ... "like Romeo and Juliet,"
+he told himself  ... but the congestion of the streets made such
+intimacies impossible. They were constantly being separated by the
+hurrying foot-passengers, and so they could only speak in short,
+dull sentences. He brought her at last to the quiet tea-shop where
+he ordered tea and home-made bread and honey!...
+
+"Eleanor," he said, when the waitress had taken his order and had
+departed to fulfil it, "it's no good, you telling me that you can't go
+out with me. You must, my dear. I want to marry you!..."
+
+"But it's absurd," she expostulated. "How can you possibly talk like
+that when we're such strangers to each other!"
+
+"You're no stranger to me. I've loved you for two months now. I've
+hardly ever had you out of my mind. I was nearly demented mad when I
+lost you. I used to go and hang about that office of yours day after
+day in the hope that you'd come out!... And if ever I get the chance,
+I'll break that liftman's neck for him. He insulted me the day I asked
+him what office you were in. He called me a Nosey Parker!"
+
+She laughed at him. "But that was right, wasn't it?" she said. "You
+wouldn't have him give information about me to any man who chooses to
+ask for it?"
+
+"He should have known that I was all right. A child could have seen
+that I wasn't just playing the fool. But you're mebbe right. I'll think
+no more about him. Do you know what happened last night?"
+
+"No."
+
+He told her of his relationship with the _Daily Sensation_.
+
+"Then you've lost your work?" she said.
+
+He nodded his head, and they did not speak again for a few moments. The
+waitress had brought the tea and bread and honey, and they waited until
+she had gone.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she said.
+
+"It doesn't bother me," he replied. "I only told you to show you how
+much I love you. I'm not codding you, Eleanor. You matter so much to me
+that I'd sacrifice any job in the world for you. I told Clotworthy that
+... he's the editor of the paper ... I told him I'd rather be your
+husband than have his job a hundred times over. And so I would. Will
+you marry me, Eleanor?"
+
+"I've never met anyone like you before!..."
+
+"I daresay you haven't but I'm not asking you about that. Will you
+marry me? We can fix the whole thing up in no time at all. I looked it
+up in a book this morning, and it says you can get married after three
+weeks' notice. If I give notice the morrow, we can be married in a
+month from to-day!"
+
+"Oh, stop, stop," she said. "Your mind is running away with you. I
+spoke to you for the first time last night!..."
+
+"Beg your pardon," he said, "you spoke to me the first day we met. I
+handed you your letter!..."
+
+"Oh, but that doesn't count. That was nothing. I really only spoke to
+you last night, and I don't know you. I'm not in love with you ... no,
+please be sensible. How can I possibly love you when I don't know
+you!..."
+
+"I love you, don't I?" he demanded.
+
+"You say so!"
+
+"Well, if I love you, you can love me, can't you. That's simple
+enough!"
+
+She passed a cup of tea to him. "Do all Irishmen behave like this?" she
+said.
+
+"I don't know and I don't care. It's the way I behave. I know my mind
+queer and quick, Eleanor, and when I want a thing, I don't need to go
+humming and hahhing to see whether I'm sure about it. I want you. I
+know that for a fact, and there's no need for me to argue about it.
+I'll not want you any more this day twelvemonth than I want you now,
+and I won't want you any less. Will you marry me?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"How long will it be before you will marry me, then?"
+
+She threw her hands with a gesture of comical despair. "Really," she
+said, "you're unbelievable. You seem to think that I must want to marry
+you merely because you want to marry me. I take no interest whatever in
+you!..."
+
+"No, but you will!"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't any use talking," she said. "Your
+mind is made up!..."
+
+"It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I
+have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got
+to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might
+as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about
+it when it's going to happen in the end!"
+
+She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. "I'm going home," she
+said. "This conversation makes me feel dizzy!"
+
+"There's no hurry," he exclaimed.
+
+She spoke coldly and deliberately, "It's not a question of hurry," she
+replied. "It's a question of desire, I _wish_ to go home. Your
+conversation bores and annoys me!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my
+own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely
+because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a
+gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!..."
+
+"What's wrong with my accent?" he demanded.
+
+"I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that
+before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you
+were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with
+Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in
+Ireland!"
+
+He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. "Sit down," he said.
+"Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!"
+
+She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. "Very well!" she said
+primly.
+
+"Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange
+to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a
+dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a
+hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll
+love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you.
+I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with
+you!..."
+
+She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. "But," she said,
+and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.
+
+"There's no buts about it," he replied. "I love you. I don't know why I
+love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that
+the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I
+schemed to make you talk to me!..."
+
+"Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted the
+_Graphic_ back again!..."
+
+"You remember that, do you?" he asked.
+
+"Well, it was so obvious and so stupid," she answered.
+
+"Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?
+It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!"
+
+"It's so difficult to say!..."
+
+"Do you believe me," he insisted. "Do I look like a man that would tell
+lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?"
+
+She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. "No," she said;
+"I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!..."
+
+"I do, Eleanor. As true as God's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe
+me?"
+
+"But I don't love you," she burst out.
+
+"Well, mebbe you don't. That's understandable!" he admitted.
+
+"And the whole thing's so unusual," she protested.
+
+"What does that matter? If I love you and you get to love me, does it
+matter about anything else? Have wit, woman, have wit!"
+
+"Don't speak to me like that. You're very abrupt, Mr. MacDermott!..."
+"My name's John to you! Now, don't flare up again. You were nice and
+amenable a minute ago. You can stop like that. You and me are going to
+marry some time. The sooner the better. All I want you to do now, as
+you say you don't love me, is to give me a chance to make you love me.
+Come out with me for a walk ... or we'll go to a theatre, if you like!
+Anyway, let's be friends. I don't know anybody in this town except one
+man, and him and me's had a row over the head of the _Daily
+Sensation!_..." "Yes," she interrupted, "you've lost your work
+through your foolishness. What are you going to do now? It isn't very
+easy to get work." "I'll get it all right if I want it, I've enough
+money to keep me easy for a year without doing a hand's turn, and I
+daresay my mother and my Uncle William 'ud let me have more if I wanted
+it. I don't want to be on a paper much. I want to write books!" Her
+interest was restored. "Tell me about the book you've written. Is it
+printed yet?" she said. He told her of his work, and of the Creams and
+of Hinde. He told her, too, of his life in Ballyards. "Where do you
+come from?" he said. "Devonshire," she answered. "My father was rector
+of a village there until he died. Then mother and I lived in Exeter
+until she died!..." "You're alone then?" he asked. "Yes. My mother
+had an annuity. That stopped when she died. My cousin ... he's a doctor
+in Exeter ... settled up her affairs for me, and when everything was
+arranged, there was just enough money to pay for my secretarial
+training and keep me for a year. I trained for six months and then I
+went as a stop-gap to that office where you saw me. I'm in an office in
+Long Acre now--a motor place!" "And have you no friends here--relations,
+I mean?" "Some cousins. I don't often see them. And one or
+two people who knew father and mother!" "You're really alone then ...
+like me?" he said. "Yes," she answered. "Yes, I suppose I am!" He
+leant back in his chair. "It seems like the hand of God," he said,
+"bringing the two of us together!" "I wish," she said, "you wouldn't
+talk about God so much!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+When he went home that evening, he wrote to his mother. _Dear
+Mother_, he wrote, _I've got acquainted with a girl here called
+Eleanor Moore, and I've made up my mind I'm going to marry her. She's
+greatly against it at present, but I daresay she'll change her
+mind_.... There was more than that in the letter, but it is not
+necessary to repeat the remainder of it here. He also wrote to Eleanor.
+_My dearest_, the letter ran, _I'm looking forward to meeting
+you again tomorrow night at the same place. I know you said you
+wouldn't meet me, but I'm hoping you'll change your mind. I'll be
+waiting for you anyway, and I'll wait till seven o'clock for you.
+Remember that, Eleanor! If you don't turn up, it'll be hard for you to
+sit in comfort and you thinking of me waiting for you. You'll never
+have the heart to refuse me, will you? We can have our tea together,
+and then go for a walk or a ride on a 'bus till dinner-time, and then,
+if you like, after we've had something to eat, we'll go to a theatre.
+Don't disappoint me, for I'm terribly in love with you. Yours only,
+John MacDermott. P. S. Don't be any later than you can help. I hate
+waiting about for people._
+
+
+
+IV
+
+She came, reluctantly so she said, to the bookstall at Charing
+Cross station, but only to tell him that she could not do as he wished
+her to do. She would take tea with him for this once, but it was
+useless to ask her to go for a walk with him or for a 'bus-ride either,
+and she certainly would not dine with him nor would she go to a
+theatre. Yet she went for a walk on the Embankment with him, and they
+paced up and down so long that she saw the force of his argument that
+she might as well have her dinner in town as go back to her club where
+the food would be tepid, if not actually cold, by the time she was
+ready to eat it. She need not go to a theatre unless she wished to do,
+but he could not help telling her that a great deal of praise had been
+given to a piece called _Justice_ by a man called Galsworthy.
+Mebbe she would like to see it. She was not to imagine that he was
+forcing her to go to the theatre.... And so she went, and they sat
+together in the pit, hearing with difficulty because of the horrible
+acoustics of the Duke of York's Theatre; and when the play was over, he
+had to comfort her, for the fate of Falder had pained her. They climbed
+on to the top of a 'bus at Oxford Circus and were carried along Oxford
+Street to the Bayswater Road. They sat close together on the back seat
+of the 'bus, with a waterproofed apron over their knees because the
+night was damp and chilly; and as the 'bus drove along to Marble Arch
+they did not speak. The rain had ceased to fall before they quitted
+the theatre, but the streets were still wet, and John found himself
+again realising their beauty. Trees and hills and rivers in the country
+and flowers and young animals were beautiful, but until this moment
+he had never known that wet pavements and wooden or macadamised roads
+were beautiful, too, when the lamps were lit and the cold grey gleam
+of electric arcs or the soft, yellow, reluctant light of gas lamps
+fell upon them. He could see a long wet gleam stretching far ahead
+of him, past the Marble Arch and the darkness of Hyde Park and Kensington
+Gardens into a region of which he knew nothing; and as he contemplated
+that loveliness, he remembered that the sight of tramlines shining at
+night had unaccountably moved him more than once. Once, at Ballyards,
+he had stood still for a few moments to look at the railway track
+glistening in the sunshine, and he remembered how puzzled he had been
+when, in some magazine, he had read a complaint of trains, that they
+marred the beauty of the fields. He had seen trains a long way off,
+moving towards him and sending up puffs of thick white smoke that
+trailed into thin strips of blown cloud, and had waited until the
+silence of the distant engine, broken once or twice by a shrill, sharp
+whistle, had become a stupendous noise, and the great machine,
+masterfully hauling its carriages behind it, had galloped past him,
+roaring and cheering and sending the debris swirling tempestuously
+about it! ... The sight of a train going at a great speed had always
+seemed to him to be a wonderful thing, but now he realised that it
+was more than wonderful, that it was actually beautiful.... He turned
+his head a little and looked past Eleanor to the Park. Little vague
+yellow lights flickered through the trees, all filmy with the evening
+mists, and he could smell the rich odour of wet earth. He looked
+at Eleanor and as he did so, they both smiled, and he realised that
+suddenly affection for him had come to life in her. Beneath the
+protection of the waterproofed apron, his hand sought for hers and
+held it. Half-heartedly she tried to withdraw her fingers from his grasp,
+but he would not let them go, and so she did not persist in her effort.
+
+"Look!" he said, snuggling closer to her.
+
+She turned towards the Park, and then, after a little while, turned
+back again. "I've always loved the Park," she said. "It's the most
+friendly thing in London!"
+
+He urged his love for her again. He had seen affection for him in her
+eyes and had felt that her hand was not being firmly withdrawn from
+his.
+
+"No, no," she protested, "don't let's talk about it any more. I don't
+love you!..."
+
+"Well, marry me anyhow!"
+
+Backwards and forwards their arguments passed, returning always to that
+point: _But I don't love you! Well, marry me anyhow!..._
+
+He took her to the door of her club, and for a while, they stood at the
+foot of the steps talking of the play they had seen that evening and of
+his love for her.
+
+"It's no good," she said, trying to leave him, but unable to do so
+because he had taken hold of her hand and would not release it.
+
+"Don't go in yet," he pleaded. "Wait a wee while longer!"
+
+"What's the use?" she exclaimed.
+
+"You'll meet me again to-morrow?..."
+
+"I can't meet you _every _night!"
+
+"Why not?" he demanded. "Tell me why not!"
+
+"Well... well, because I can't. It's ridiculous. You're so absurd. You
+keep on saying the same thing over and over... and it's so silly. If I
+were in love with you, I might go out with you every evening, but!..."
+
+"Do you like me!"
+
+"I don't know. I... I suppose I must or I wouldn't go out with you at
+all. Really, I'm sorry for you!..."
+
+"Well, if you're sorry for me, come out with me tomorrow night. We'll
+have our dinner in town again!"
+
+"No, no! Don't you understand, Mr. MacDermott!..."
+
+"John, John, John!" he said.
+
+"I can't call you by your Christian name!..."
+
+"Why not? I call you by yours, don't I?"
+
+"Yes, but you oughtn't to. I've asked you not to call me Eleanor, but
+it doesn't seem to be any good asking you to do anything that you don't
+want to do. But even you must understand that I can't let you take me
+out every evening. I can't let you pay for things!..."
+
+"Oh," he said, as if his mind were illuminated. "Is that your trouble?
+We can soon settle that. If you won't let me pay for things, pay for
+them yourself ... only let me be with you when you're doing it. You
+have to have food, haven't you? Well, so have I. We have no friends
+in London that matter to us, and you like me ... you admitted it
+yourself ... and I love you ... so why shouldn't we have our meals
+together even, if you do pay for your own food?"
+
+"Of course, it sounds all right as you put it," she answered, "but it
+isn't all right. I can't explain things. I don't know how to explain
+them, but I know about them all the same. And I know it isn't all
+right. You'll begin to think I'm in love with you!..."
+
+"I hope you will be, but you'll never be certain unless you see me fair
+and often. You'll come again to-morrow, won't you?"
+
+"Oh, good-night," she said impatiently, suddenly breaking from him.
+"You're like a baby. You think you've only got to keep on asking for
+things and people will get tired of saying 'No!' I won't go out with
+you again. You make me feel tired and cross!..."
+
+"Well, if you won't meet me to-morrow night, will you meet me the next
+night?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then will you stay a wee while longer now?"
+
+She turned on the top step and looked at him, and he saw with joy that
+the anger had gone out of her eyes and that she was smiling at him.
+"You really are!..." she said, and then she stopped. He waited for her
+to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders and said only, "I don't know!
+It simply isn't any good talking to you!"
+
+He went up the steps and stood beside her and took hold of her hand.
+"Let me kiss you, Eleanor," he said.
+
+She started away from him. "No, of course I won't!"
+
+"Just once!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, why not? You've let me hold your hand. What's the difference?"
+
+"There's every difference. Besides I didn't let you hold my hand. You
+took it. I couldn't prevent you. You're so rough!..."
+
+"No, my dear, not rough. Not really rough. Eleanor, just once!..."
+
+"No," she said again, this time speaking so loudly that she startled
+herself. "Please go away. I shan't go out with you again. I was silly
+to go out with you at all. You don't know how to behave!..."
+
+She broke off abruptly and turned to open the door, but she had
+difficulty with the key because of her anger.
+
+"Let me open it for you," he said, taking the key from her hand and
+inserting it in the lock. "There!" he added, when the door was open.
+
+"Thank you," she said, taking the key from him. "Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, Eleanor!" he replied very softly.
+
+They did not move. She stood with, her hand on the door and he stood on
+the top step and gazed at her.
+
+"Well--good-night," she said again.
+
+"Dear Eleanor," he replied. "My dear Eleanor!"
+
+She gulped a little. "Goo--good-night!" she said.
+
+"I love you, my dear, so much. I shall never love anyone as I love you.
+I have never loved anybody else but you, never, never!... Well, I
+thought I loved someone else, but I didn't!..."
+
+"It's no good," she began, but he interrupted her.
+
+"Well, meet me again to-morrow night at the same place!..."
+
+"No, I won't!"
+
+"At five o'clock. I'll be there before you ... long before you. You'll
+meet me, won't you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Please, Eleanor!"
+
+She hesitated. Then she said, "Oh, very well, then! But it'll be the
+last time. Good-night!"
+
+She pushed the door to, but before she could close it, he whispered
+"Good-night, my darling!" to her, and then the door was between them.
+
+He waited until he saw the flash of the light in her room, and hoped
+that she would come to the window; but she did not do so, and after a
+while he went away.
+
+
+
+V
+
+Up in her room, she was staring at her reflection in the mirror, while
+he was waiting below on the pavement for her to come to the window, and
+as he walked away, she began to talk to the angry, baffled girl she saw
+before her.
+
+"I won't marry him," she said. "I won't marry him. I don't love him. I
+don't even like him. I _won't_ marry him!..."
+
+
+
+
+THE SIXTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Now that he had found Eleanor again, he was able to settle down to
+work. It was necessary, he told himself, that he should have some
+substantial achievements behind him before she and he were married,
+particularly as he had lost his employment on the _Daily
+Sensation_. The money he possessed would not last for ever and he
+could hardly hope to sponge on his Uncle William ... even if he were
+inclined to do so ... for the rest of his life. He must earn money by
+his own work and earn it quickly. In one way, it was a good thing that
+he had lost his work on the newspaper ... for he would have all the
+more time to write his tragedy. The sketch for the Creams had been
+hurriedly finished and posted to them at a music-hall in Scotland where
+they were playing, so Cream wrote in acknowledging the MS., to
+"enormous business. Dolly fetching 'em every time!..." Two pounds per
+week, John told himself, would pay for the rent and some of the food
+until he was able to earn large sums of money by his serious plays. The
+tragedy would establish him. It would not make a fortune for him, for
+tragedians did not make fortunes, but it would make his name known, and
+Hinde had assured him that a man with a known name could easily earn a
+reasonable livelihood as an occasional contributor to the newspapers.
+It was Hinde who had proposed the subject of the tragedy to him. For
+years he had dallied with the notion of writing it himself, he said,
+but now he knew that he would never write anything but newspaper
+stuff!...
+
+"Do you know anything about St. Patrick?" he said to John.
+
+"A wee bit. Not much."
+
+"Well, you know he was a slave before he was a saint?" John nodded his
+head. "A man called Milchu," Hinde continued, "was his master. An
+Ulsterman. He was the chieftain of a clan that spread over Down and
+Antrim. Our country. He had Patrick for six years, and then he lost
+him. Patrick escaped. He returned to Ireland as a missionary and sent
+word to Milchu that he had come to convert him to Christianity, and
+Milchu sent word back that he'd see him damned first. Milchu wasn't
+going to be converted by his slave. No fear. And he destroyed
+himself ... set fire to his belongings and perished in his own flames
+rather than have it said that an Ulster chieftain was converted by his own
+slave. That's a great theme for a tragedy. I suppose you're a
+Christian, Mac?"
+
+"I am. I'm a Presbyterian!"
+
+"Oh, well, you won't see the tragedy of it as well as I see it. Think
+of a slave trying to convert a free man to a slave religion. There's a
+tragedy for you!..."
+
+"I don't understand you," said John.
+
+"No? Well, it doesn't matter. There's a theme for you to write about. A
+free man killing himself rather than be conquered by a slave! Of
+course, the real tragedy is that St. Patrick converted the rest of
+Ireland to Christianity! ... Milchu escaped: the others surrendered. It
+wasn't the English that beat the Irish, Mac. They were beaten before
+ever the English put their feet on Irish ground. St. Patrick beat them.
+The slave made slaves of them!..."
+
+"Is that what you call Christians?" John indignantly demanded.
+"Slaves?"
+
+Hinde shrugged his shoulders. "The Irish people are the most Christian
+people on earth," he said. "That's all!..."
+
+They put the subject away from them, because they felt that if they did
+not do so, there must be antagonism between them. But John determined
+that he would write a play about St. Patrick and the Pagan Milchu.
+Hinde lent him his ticket for the London Library, and he spent his
+mornings reading biographies of the saint: Todd and Whitley, Stokes and
+Zimmer and Professor J. B. Bury; and accounts of the ancient Irish
+church. Slowly there came into his mind a picture of the saint that was
+not very like the picture he had known before and was very different
+from Hinde's conception of the relationship between Milchu and St.
+Patrick. To him, the wonderful thing was that the slave had triumphed
+over his owner. Milchu, in his conception, had not been sufficiently
+manly to stand before Patrick and contend with him, and to own himself
+the inferior of the two. He had run away from St. Patrick! With that
+conception of the two men in his mind, he began to write his play.
+
+"You're wrong" said Hinde. "Milchu was a gentleman and Patrick was a
+slave!..."
+
+"The son of a magistrate!" John indignantly interrupted.
+
+"A lawyer's son!" Hinde sneered. "And Milchu, being a gentleman, would
+not be governed by a slave. Think of an Irish gentleman being governed
+by an Irish peasant!" There was a wry look on his face, "And a little
+common Irish priest to govern a little common Irish peasant!... They
+won't get gentlemen to live in a land like that!"
+
+"I'm a peasant," said John. "There's not much difference between a
+shopkeeper and a peasant!..."
+
+"I'm talking of minds," said Hinde, "not of positions. I believe in
+making peasants comfortable and secure, but I believe also in keeping
+them in their place. I'm one of the world's Milchus, Mac. I'd rather
+set fire to myself than submit to my inferiors!"
+
+John sat in his chair in silence for a few moments, trying to
+understand Hinde's argument. "Then why do you write for papers like the
+_Daily Sensation_?" he asked at last.
+
+Hinde winced. "I suppose because I'm not enough of a Milchu," he
+replied.
+
+
+
+II
+
+John had met Eleanor at their customary trysting-place, in front of the
+bookstall at Charing Cross Road, and they had walked along the
+Embankment towards Blackfriars. The theme of his tragedy was very
+present in his mind and he told the story to Eleanor as they walked
+along the side of the river in the glowing dusk. They stood for a
+while, with their elbows resting on the stone balustrade, and looked
+down on the dark tide beneath them. The great, grim arches of Waterloo
+Bridge, made melancholy by the lemon-coloured light of the lamps which
+surmounted them, cast big, black shadows on the water. They could hear
+little lapping waves splashing against the pillars, and presently a tug
+went swiftly down to the Pool. Neither of them spoke. Behind them the
+tramcars went whirring by, and once when John looked round, he felt as
+if he must cry because of the beauty of these swift caravans of light,
+gliding easily through the misty darkness of a London night. He had
+turned quickly again to contemplate the river, and as he did so,
+Eleanor stirred a little, moving more closely to him, demanding, so it
+seemed, his comfort and protection, and instantly he put his arm about
+her and drew her tightly to him. He did not care whether anyone saw
+them or not. It was sufficient for him that in her apprehension she had
+turned to him. Both his arms were about her, and his lips were on her
+lips. "Dear Eleanor," he said....
+
+Then she released herself from his embrace. "I felt frightened," she
+said. "I don't know why. It's so lovely to-night ... and yet I felt
+frightened!"
+
+"Will we go?" he asked.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+He put his arm in hers and she did not resist him. "You're my
+sweetheart now, aren't you, Eleanor?" he whispered to her, as they
+walked along towards Westminster.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"My dear sweetheart," he went on, "and presently you'll be my dear
+wife, and we'll have a little house somewhere, and we'll love each
+other for ever and ever. Won't we?" He pressed her arm in his. "Won't
+we, Eleanor? Every night when I come home from work and we have had our
+supper, we'll go for a walk like this, and I'll talk and you'll listen,
+and we'll be very happy, and we'll never be lonely again. Oh, I pity
+the poor men who don't know you, Eleanor!..."
+
+She smiled up at him, but still she did not speak.
+
+"I couldn't have believed I should be so happy as I am," he continued.
+"I wonder if it's right for one woman to have so much power over a
+man ... to be able to make him happy or miserable just as the fancy takes
+her ... but I don't care whether it's right or wrong. I'm content so
+long as I have you. We're going to be married, aren't we, Eleanor?
+Aren't we?"
+
+He stopped and turned her round so that they were facing each other.
+
+"Aren't we, Eleanor?" he repeated.
+
+"Don't let's talk about that," she murmured. "I'm so happy to-night,
+and I don't want to think about what's past or what's to come. I only
+want to be happy now!"
+
+"With me?"
+
+"Yes," she replied.
+
+"Then you do love me?..."
+
+"I don't know. I can't tell. But I'm frightfully happy. I expect I
+shall feel that I've made a fool of myself ... in the morning, but just
+now I don't care whether I'm fool or not. I'm like you. I'm content.
+Let's go on walking!"
+
+They turned back at Boadicea's statue, and when they were in the
+shadows again, he took his arm from hers and put it about her waist.
+"Let's pretend there's nobody else here but us," he said.
+
+
+
+III
+
+They dined in Soho, and when they had finished their meal, they walked
+to Oxford Circus and once more climbed to the top of a 'bus that would
+take them along the Bayswater Road.
+
+"You must like me, Eleanor," he said to her, as they sat huddled
+together on the back seat, "or you wouldn't come out with me as you
+do!"
+
+"Yes," she answered, "I think I do like you. It seems odd that I should
+like you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't ever like you. But I
+do. You're very likeable, really. It's because you're so silly, I
+suppose. And so persistent!"
+
+"Then why can't we get married, my dear? Isn't it sickening for you to
+be living in that club and me to be living at Brixton, when we might be
+living in our own home? I hate this beastly separation every night.
+Let's get married, Eleanor!"
+
+"I suppose we will in the end," she said, "but I don't feel like
+getting married to you. After all, John!..." She called him by his
+Christian name now. "After all, John, if I were to marry you now, when
+we know so little of each other, it would be very poor fun for me, if
+you discovered after we were married that you did not care for me as
+much as you imagined. And suppose I never fell in love with you?"
+
+"Yes," he said gloomily.
+
+"How awful!"
+
+"But I'd have you. I'd have the comfort of being your husband and of
+having you for my wife!"
+
+"It mightn't be a comfort. Oh, no, it's too risky, John. We must wait.
+We must know more of each other!..."
+
+"Will you get engaged to me then?" he suggested.
+
+"But that's a promise. No. Let's just go on as we are now, being
+friends and meeting sometimes!"
+
+"Supposing we were engaged without anybody knowing about it?" he said.
+"Would that do?"
+
+"I don't want either of us to be bound ... not yet. Oh, not yet. Do be
+sensible, John!"
+
+"I am sensible. I know that I want to marry you. That's sensible, isn't
+it?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose it is," she replied, laughing.
+
+"Well, isn't it sensible to want to be sensible as soon as possible?
+You needn't laugh. I mean it. It's just foolishness to be going on like
+this. I'm as sensible as anybody, and I can't see any sense in our not
+marrying at once. Get engaged to me for a while anyway!"
+
+"But what would be the good of that?"
+
+"All the good in the world. I just want the comfort of knowing there's
+a chance of you marrying me!"
+
+"It seems so unsatisfactory to me ... and so risky!" she protested.
+
+"I'm willing to take the risk. I'll wait as long as you like."
+
+"I'll think about it. But if I do get engaged to you, we won't get
+married for a long time!"
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Oh, a long time. A very long time."
+
+"What do you mean? Six months?"
+
+"No, years. Oh, five years, perhaps!"
+
+"My God Almighty!" he said. "Do you know what you're saying! Five
+years? We might all be dead and buried long before then. What age will
+I be in five years time. Oh, wheesht with you, Eleanor, and don't be
+talking such balderdash. Five years! Holy O!"
+
+"What does 'Holy O!' mean?" she demanded.
+
+"I don't know. It's just a thing to say when you can't think of
+anything else. Five years! Five minutes is more like it!"
+
+"We're too young to be married yet, and in five years' time we'll know
+each other much better!"
+
+"I should think so, too," he said. "It's a lifetime, woman! Whatever
+put that idea into your head!"
+
+"If I get engaged to you at all," she replied, "and I'm not sure that I
+will, it'll be for five years or not at all. You may be willing to take
+risks, but I'm not. Risks are all right for men ... they can afford to
+take them ... but women can't. If you don't agree to that, you'll have
+to give up the idea altogether!"
+
+"Then you'll get engaged to me?"
+
+"No, I didn't say that. I said that if I got engaged to you at all, it
+would be for five years. I'm not sure that I shall get engaged to you.
+I don't think I really like you. I think I'd just get tired of saying
+'No' to you!..." She could see that his face had become glum, and she
+hurriedly reassured him. "Yes, I do like you! I like you quite well ...
+but I'm not going to marry you ... if I ever marry you ... till I'm
+sure about you!"
+
+They descended from the 'bus and walked towards her club.
+
+"Anyway," he said, "I consider myself engaged to you. And I'll buy you
+a ring the morrow morning!"
+
+"Indeed, you won't," she said.
+
+"Indeed, I will," he replied. "I'll have it handy for the time you
+agree to have me!"
+
+"You won't be able to get one until you know the size, and I won't tell
+you that!..."
+
+They wrangled on the doorstep until it was late, but she would not
+yield to him. He could consider himself engaged to her if he liked ...
+she could not prevent him from considering anything he chose to
+consider ... but she would not consider herself engaged to him nor
+would she wear a ring until she was sure of her feelings.
+
+He kissed her when they parted, and she did not resist him. It was
+useless to try to resist an accomplished thing. His childlike
+insistence both attracted and irritated her. She felt drawn to him
+because his mind seemed to be so completely centred upon her, and
+repelled by him because his own wishes appeared to be the only
+considerations he had. She could not decide whether the love he had for
+her ... and she believed that he loved her ... was complete devotion or
+complete selfishness. Love at first sight was a perfectly credible,
+though unusual thing. It was possible that he had fallen in love with
+her ... her vanity was pleased by the thought that he had done so ...
+but she certainly had not fallen in love with him either at first or at
+second sight. She was not in love with him now. She felt certain of
+that. He was likeable and kind and a very comforting person, and there
+was much more pleasure to be had from a walk with him than from an
+evening spent in the club!... Ugh, that club, that dreadful
+conglomeration of isolated women! Oh, oh, oh! She gave little shudders
+as she reflected on her club-mates. Most of them were girls like
+herself, working as secretaries either in offices or in other places
+... to medical men or writers ... and, like her, they had few friends
+in London. Their homes were in the country. Among them were a number of
+aimless spinsters, subsisting sparely on private means ... poor,
+wilting women without occupation or interest. They were of an earlier
+generation than Eleanor, the generation which was too genteel to work
+for its living, and they had survived their friends and their families
+and were left high and dry, without any obvious excuse for existing,
+among young women who were profoundly contemptuous of a woman who could
+not earn a living for herself. They sat about in the drawing-room and
+sizzled! They knew exactly at what hour this girl came in on Monday
+night, and at exactly what hour the other girl came in on Tuesday
+night. They whispered things to each other! They thought it was very
+peculiar behaviour for a girl to come back to the club alone with a man
+at twelve o'clock ... "midnight, my dear!" they would say, as if
+"midnight" had a more terrible sound than twelve o'clock ... and they
+were certain that Miss Dilldall's parents should be informed of the
+fact that on Saturday evening she went off in a taxi-cab with a man who
+was wearing dress-clothes and a gibus-hat. Miss Dilldall publicly
+boasted of the fact that she had smoked a cigarette in a restaurant in
+Soho!...
+
+Ugh! Even if John were selfish, he was preferable to these drab women,
+these pitiful females herded together. Women in the mass were very
+displeasing to look at, and they frightened you. They turned down the
+corners of their mouths and looked coldly and condemningly at you. It
+was extraordinary how unanimous the girls were in their dislike of
+working under women. The woman in authority was more hateful to women
+even than to men. Eleanor had done some work for an advanced woman, an
+eminent suffragette, who had crept about the house in rubber-soled
+shoes so that she might come unexpectedly into the room where Eleanor
+was working and assure herself that she was getting value for her
+money!... She was always spying and sneaking round! What an experience
+that had been! How impossible it had been to work with that woman! A
+girl in the club had worked for a royal princess ... not at all an
+advanced woman ... and she, too, had had to seek for employment under a
+man. The princess was a foolish, spoilt, utterly incompetent person who
+did not know her own mind for two consecutive hours. She sneaked
+around, too, and spied!... All these women in authority seemed to spend
+half their day peering through keyholes.... Perhaps it was because the
+club was such a dingy, cheerless hole that she liked to go out with
+John. The food was meagre and poor in quality and vilely cooked.
+Somehow, women living together seemed unable to feed themselves
+decently. Miss Dilldall, gay little woman of the world, had solemnly
+proposed that a man should be hired to _growse_ about the meals.
+"We'll never get good food in this damned compound," she said, "until
+we get some men into it. Bringing them as guests isn't any good.
+They're too polite to their hostesses to say anything, but I'm sure
+that every man who has a meal in this place goes away convinced that
+the food we are content to eat is a strong argument against votes for
+women! And so it is. What a hole!"
+
+"That's really why I like going out with him," Eleanor confided to her
+reflection in the looking-glass as she brushed her hair. "It's really
+to escape from this dreary club! But I can't marry him for that reason.
+It wouldn't be fair to him. It would be much less fair to me. Of
+course, I _like_ him!... Oh, no! No, no!..."
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Lizzie was in the hall when John let himself into the house that night.
+
+"Hilloa," he said, "not gone to bed yet?"
+
+"I never 'ave time to go to bed," she said. "'Ow can I get any sleep
+when I 'ave to look after men! You an' Mr. 'Inde!" She came nearer to
+him. "You'll get a bit of a surprise when you go upstairs," she said
+very knowingly.
+
+"Me!"
+
+She nodded her head and giggled.
+
+"What sort of a surprise?" he demanded.
+
+"You'll see when you get upstairs. It's been, waitin' for you 'ere
+since seven o'clock!..."
+
+"Seven o'clock! What is it? A parcel?"
+
+Lizzie could not control her laughter when he said "parcel." "Ow!" she
+giggled. "Ow, dear, ow, dear! A parcel! Ow, yes, it's a parcel all
+right! You'll see when you get up!..."
+
+He began to mount the stairs. "You're an awful fool, Lizzie," he said
+crossly, leaning over the banisters.
+
+"Losin' your temper, eih?" she replied, bolting the street door.
+
+He hurried up to the sitting-room and as he climbed the flight of
+stairs that led directly to it, Hinde called out to him, "Is that you,
+Mac?"
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+Hinde came to the door and opened it fully. "There's someone here to
+see you," he said.
+
+"To see me! At this hour?"
+
+He entered the room as he spoke. His mother was sitting in front of the
+fire.
+
+"Mother!" he exclaimed, remembering just in time not to say "Ma!" which
+would have sounded very childish in front of Hinde.
+
+"This is a nice hour of the night to be coming home," she said, trying
+to speak severely, but she could not maintain the severity in her
+voice, for his arms were about her and she was hugging him.
+
+"You never told me you were coming," he said. "What brought you over?"
+
+"I've come to see this girl you've got hold of," she answered.
+
+
+
+V
+
+"But why didn't you tell me you were coming?" he asked. "I'd have met
+you at the station!"
+
+She ignored his question. "This is a terrible town," she said. "Mr.
+Hinde says there's near twice as many people in this place as there is
+in the whole of Ireland. How in the earthly world do they manage to get
+about their business?"
+
+"Oh, quite easily," he said nonchalantly, and as he spoke he realised
+that he had come to be a Londoner.
+
+"When I got out at the station," Mrs. MacDermott continued, "I called a
+porter and said to him, 'Just put that bag on your shoulder and carry
+it for me!' 'Where to, ma'am?' says he, and then I gave him your
+address. I thought the man 'ud drop down dead. 'Is it far?' says I.
+'Far!' says he. 'It's miles!' By all I can make out, John, you live as
+far from the station as Millreagh is from Ballyards. I had to come here
+in one of them things that runs without horses ... what do you call
+them?"
+
+"Taxi-cabs!"
+
+"That's the name. It's a demented mad place this. Such traffic! Worse
+nor Belfast on the fair-day!"
+
+"It's like that every day, Mrs. MacDermott!" Hinde interjected.
+
+"What bothers me," she went on, "is how ever you get to know your
+neighbours!"
+
+"We don't get to know them," Hinde replied. "I've lived in this house
+for several years, but I don't know the names of the people on either
+side of it!"
+
+"My God," said Mrs. MacDermott, "what sort of people are you at all!
+Are you all fell out with each other?"
+
+"No. We're just not interested!"
+
+"I wouldn't live in this place for the wide world," she exclaimed. "And
+you," she continued turning to her son, "could come here where you know
+nobody from a place where you knew everybody. The world's queer! What
+was that water I passed on the way out?..."
+
+"Water!"
+
+"Aye. We went over it on a bridge!"
+
+"Oh, the river!"
+
+"What river!" she said.
+
+"Why, the Thames, of course!"
+
+"Is that what you call it?"
+
+Hinde smiled at John. "So you've learned to call it the river, have
+you? Mrs. Hinde, in this town we always talk as if there were only one
+river in the world. A Londoner always says he's going up the river or
+down the river or on the river. He always speaks of it as the river. He
+never speaks of it as the Thames. In Belfast, you speak of the
+Lagan ... never of the river. The same in Dublin. They speak of the
+Liffey ... never of the river. John's become a Londoner. He knows the
+proper way to speak of the Thames!"
+
+"London seems to be full of very conceited and unneighbourly people,"
+Mrs. MacDermott said.
+
+John demanded information of his mother. How were Uncle William and Mr.
+Cairnduff and the minister and Willie Logan?...
+
+"His wife's got a child," Mrs. MacDermott replied severely.
+
+"A boy or a girl?"
+
+"A boy, and the spit of his father, God help him. Thon lad Logan'll
+come to no good. Aggie's courting hard. Some fellow from Belfast that
+travels in drapery. She told me to remember her to you!"
+
+"Thank you, mother!"
+
+Hinde rose to leave them. "You'll have a lot to say to each other, and
+I'm tired," he explained, as he went off to bed.
+
+"I like that man," said Mrs. MacDermott when he had gone. "And now tell
+me about this girl you've got. Are you in earnest?"
+
+"Yes, ma!" John answered, using the word "ma," now that he was alone
+with his mother.
+
+"Will she have you?"
+
+"I hope so. She hasn't said definitely yet, but I think she will!"
+
+"Who is she? Moore you said her name was. That's an Irish name!"
+
+"But she's not Irish. She's English. Her father was a clergyman, but
+he's dead. So is her mother. She has hardly any friends!"
+
+"Does she keep herself?"
+
+"Yes, ma. She works in a motor-place ... in the office, typing letters.
+She's an awful nice girl, ma! I'm just doting on her, so I am!"
+
+"Do you like her better nor that Belfast girl that married the
+peeler?..."
+
+"Och, that one," John laughed. "I never think of her now ... never for
+a minute. Eleanor's the one I think about!"
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?..."
+
+"As sure as God's in heaven, ma!"
+
+"Oh, yes, we know all about that, but are you sure you're sure? You
+were queerly set on that Belfast girl, you know!"
+
+He pledged himself as convincingly as he could to Eleanor, and told his
+mother that he could never be happy without her.
+
+"And how do you propose to keep her?" she said, when he had finished.
+
+"Work for her, of course!"
+
+"How much have you earned since you came here?"
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"And you've no work fornent you?"
+
+"No, not at the minute. I had a job, but I lost it!"
+
+He gave an account of his relationship with the _Daily Sensation._
+
+"You'll not be able to buy much with that amount of work," she
+interrupted.
+
+He told her of the sketch for the Creams and of the tragedy of St.
+Patrick.
+
+"What's the use of writing about him," she said. "Sure, he's been dead
+this long while back!"
+
+He did not attempt to make her understand. "And then there's the novel
+I wrote when I was at home," he concluded.
+
+"But you've heard nothing of it yet. As far as I can see you've done
+little here that you couldn't have done at home!"
+
+"Oh, yes I have. I've learned a great deal more than I could ever have
+learned in Ballyards. And I've met Eleanor!"
+
+"H'm!" she said, rising from her seat. "I'm going to my bed now. That
+girl Lizzie seems a good-natured sort of a soul. Where does Eleanor
+live?"
+
+"Oh, a long way from here!..."
+
+"Give me her address, will you?"
+
+"Yes, ma, but why?"
+
+"I'm going to see her the morrow!"
+
+He had to explain that Eleanor could not be seen in the day-time
+because of her employment, and he proposed that his mother should go
+with him in the evening to meet her at the bookstall at Charing Cross
+station.
+
+"Very well," she said as she kissed him, "Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Mrs. MacDermott had remained in London for a week. John, eager to show
+the sights to her, had tried to persuade her to stay for a longer
+period, but she was obstinate in her determination to return to Ireland
+at the end of the week. "I don't like the place," she said; "it's not
+neighbourly!" She repeated this objection so frequently that John began
+for the first time in his life to understand something of his mother's
+point of view. He remembered how she had insisted upon the fact that
+the MacDermotts had lived over the shop in Ballyards for several
+generations; and now, with her repetition of the statement that London
+was an unneighbourly town, he realised that Ballyards in her mind was a
+place of kinsmen, that the people of Ballyards were members of one
+family. She was horrified when she discovered that Hinde had been
+stating the bare truth when he said that he had lived in Miss Squibb's
+house for several years, but still was ignorant of the names of his
+neighbours. Miss Squibb had told her that people in London made a habit
+of taking a house on a three-years' lease. "When it expires, they go
+somewhere else," she had said. Miss Squibb had never heard of a family
+that had lived in the same house in London for several generations. She
+did not think it was a nice idea, that. She liked "chynge" herself, and
+was sorry she could not afford to get as much of it as she would like
+to have.
+
+"I do not understand the people in this place," Mrs. MacDermott had
+complained to Hinde. "They've no feeling for anything. They don't love
+their homes!..."
+
+But although she had stayed in London for a week only, she had seen
+much of Eleanor Moore in that time. It had not occurred to John, until
+the moment his mother and he entered Charing Cross station, that Mrs.
+MacDermott and Eleanor might not like each other. He imagined that his
+mother must like Eleanor simply because he liked her, but as he held a
+swing-door open so that his mother might pass through, a sudden dubiety
+took possession of him and he became full of alarm. Supposing they did
+not care for each other?... The doubt had hardly time to enter his mind
+when it was resolved for him. Eleanor arrived at the bookstall almost
+simultaneously with themselves. (It struck him then that Eleanor was a
+remarkably punctual girl.) "This is my mother, Eleanor!" he had said,
+and stood anxiously by to watch their greeting. The old woman and the
+girl regarded each other for a moment, and then Mrs. MacDermott had
+taken Eleanor's outstretched hand and had drawn her to her and had
+kissed her; and John's dubiety disappeared from his mind. They had
+dined together in Soho that night, but Mrs. MacDermott had not enjoyed
+the meal. The number of diners and the clatter of dishes and knives and
+the foreign look and the foreign language of the waiters disconcerted
+her and made her feel as if she were a stranger. Above all else in the
+world, Mrs. MacDermott hated to feel like a stranger! She demanded
+familiar surroundings and faces, and was unhappy when she found herself
+without recognition. The menu made her suspicious of the food because
+it was written in French. She distrusted foreigners. London appeared to
+be full of all sorts of people from all parts of the world. Never in
+her life had she seen so many black men as she had seen in London that
+day. John had taken her to St. Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon and
+had shown her the place where Queen Victoria returned thanks to
+Almighty God for her Diamond Jubilee ... and there, standing on the
+very steps of a Christian church, was a Chinaman! There were no
+Chinamen in Ballyards, thank God, nor were there any black men either.
+She realised, of course, that God had made black men and Chinamen and
+every other sort of men, but she wished that they would stay in the
+land in which God had put them and would not go trapesing about the
+world!...
+
+"What about us, then?" said John. "We don't stay in the one place!"
+
+"I know that," she replied. "That's what's wrong with the world.
+Everyone should stay in his own country!"
+
+The dinner had not entirely pleased John. Somehow, in a way that he
+could not understand, he found himself being edged out of the
+conversation, not altogether, but as a principal. His mother and
+Eleanor addressed each other primarily; they only addressed him now and
+then and in a way that seemed to indicate that they had suddenly
+remembered his presence and were afraid he might feel hurt at being
+left out of their talk. He was glad, of course, that his mother and
+Eleanor were getting on so well together, but after all he was in
+charge of this affair.... When his mother proposed to Eleanor that they
+should meet on the following evening and go somewhere for a quiet talk,
+he could hardly believe his ears.
+
+"But what about me?" he said.
+
+"Oh, you! You'll do rightly!" his mother replied.
+
+"But!..."
+
+"You can come and bring me home from wherever we go," Mrs. MacDermott
+continued.
+
+Eleanor had suggested that Mrs. MacDermott should meet her at the
+bookstall and go to her club from which John would fetch her at ten
+o'clock.
+
+"That'll do nicely, Eleanor!" Mrs. MacDermott said.
+
+John hardly noticed that his mother had called Eleanor by her Christian
+name: it seemed natural that she should do so; but he was vaguely
+disturbed by the arrangement that had just been made.
+
+"I wonder what she's up to?" he said to himself as he moodily examined
+his mother's face.
+
+He sat back in his chair and listened while Eleanor and his mother
+talked together. He was not accustomed to taking a subsidiary part in
+discussions and he greatly disliked his present position, but he could
+not think of any way of altering it.
+
+"Do you like living in London?" Mrs. MacDermott had suddenly said to
+Eleanor.
+
+"No, I hate it," Eleanor vehemently answered.
+
+"Then why do you stay?" Mrs. MacDermott continued.
+
+"I have to. A girl gets better-paid work in London than in the
+provinces. That's the only reason!"
+
+"Would you rather live in the country, then?"
+
+"Yes!" Eleanor said.
+
+"I wonder would you like Ballyards!" Mrs. MacDermott said almost as if
+she were speaking to herself. Then she began to talk of something else.
+
+
+
+II
+
+He had taken his mother to Charing Cross station on the following day,
+hoping that they would relent and allow him to go to Eleanor's club
+with them, but neither of them made any sign of relenting. His mother,
+indeed, turned to him immediately after Eleanor had arrived and said,
+"Well, we'll say 'Good-bye' for the present, John. We'll expect you at
+ten!" and very sulkily he had departed from them. He saw Eleanor lead
+his mother out of the station. She had taken hold of Mrs. MacDermott's
+arm and drawn it into hers, and linked thus, they had gone out, but
+neither of them had turned to look back at him. He had not known how to
+fill in the time between then and ten o'clock ... whether to go to a
+theatre or walk about the streets ... and had ended by spinning out his
+dinner-time as long as possible, and then walking from Soho to
+Eleanor's club. He had arrived there before ten o'clock, but they
+allowed him to sit with them!... He had an overwhelming sense of being
+_allowed_ to do so. Suddenly and unaccountably all his power had
+gone from him, his instinctive insistence upon his own will, his
+immediate assumption that what he desired must be acceptable to others
+and his complete indifference to whether what he desired was acceptable
+or not to others... suddenly and unaccountably these things had gone
+from him and he was submitting to the will of his mother and of
+Eleanor. His mother's conversation, too, had been displeasing to him.
+She talked of Ballyards and of the shop all the time. She talked of the
+prosperity of the business and of the respect in which the MacDermotts
+were held in their town. Mr. Hinde had told her of the harsh conditions
+in which journalists and writers had to work, particularly the
+journalists. They had no settled life... they went here, there and
+everywhere, but their wives stayed always in the one place... and
+sometimes money was not easily obtainable. Anything might happen to put
+a journalist out of employment!...
+
+"But I don't want to be a journalist, mother!" John had testily
+interrupted. "I want to write books and plays!"
+
+"That's even worse." she had said. "It takes a man years and years
+before he can earn a living out of books. Mr. Hinde told me that!..."
+
+"He seems to have told you a fearful lot," John sarcastically
+exclaimed.
+
+"I asked him a lot," Mrs. MacDermott replied. "If you ever get that
+book of yours printed at all, he says, you'll not get more nor thirty
+pounds for it, if you get that much. And there's little hope of you
+making your fortune with the tragedy you're wasting your time over.
+Now, your Uncle William has a big turnover in the shop!..."
+
+"I daresay he has," John snapped, "but I'm not interested in the shop,
+and I am interested in books!"
+
+"Oh, well," Mrs. MacDermott murmured, "It's nice to have work that
+takes your fancy, but if you get married I'm thinking your wife'll have
+a poor job of it making ends meet on the amount of interest you take in
+your work, if that's all the reward you get for it. You were a year
+writing that story of yours, and you haven't had a penny-farthing for
+it yet. However, you know best what suits you. I suppose it's time we
+were thinking about the road!" She rose as she spoke, and Eleanor rose
+too. "Come up to my room," Eleanor said, "and we'll get your things!"
+
+They left John sitting in the cheerless room. "That's a queer way for
+her to be talking," he said to himself. "Making little of me like
+that!"
+
+He maintained a sulky manner towards his mother as they returned to
+Brixton, but Mrs. MacDermott paid no heed to him.
+
+"Fancy having to go all this way to see your girl," she said, as they
+climbed the steps of Miss Squibb's house. "In Ballyards you'd only have
+to go round the corner!"
+
+"I daresay," he replied, "but you wouldn't find Eleanor's match there
+if you went!"
+
+"No," she agreed. "Eleanor's a fine girl. I like her queer and well.
+She was very interested to hear about Ballyards and the shop. Very
+interested!"
+
+She turned to him at the top of the stairs.
+
+"Good-night, son," she said. "I'm away to my bed. I'm tired!"
+
+She put her arms round him. "You're a queer headstrong wee fellow," she
+said. "Queer and headstrong! Good-night, son!"
+
+"Good-night, ma!" he replied as he kissed her.
+
+He held her for a moment. "I can't make out what you and Eleanor had to
+talk about," he said. "What were you talking about?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!" she replied. "Just about things that interest women. You
+wouldn't be bothered with such talk. And you know, son, women likes to
+have a wee crack together when there's no men about. It's just a wee
+comfort to them. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, ma!"
+
+She went up the stairs, and when she had disappeared round the bend of
+the bannisters, John went into the sitting-room. There was a postal
+packet for him lying on the table. It contained the MS. of his novel.
+Messrs. Hatchway and Seldon informed him that they had read his story
+with great interest, but they were sorry to have to inform him that
+conditions of the publishing trade at present were such that they saw
+no hope of a return for the money they would be obliged to spend on the
+book. They would esteem it a favour if he would permit them to see
+future work of his and they begged to remain his faithfully per pro
+Hatchway and Selden, J.P.T.
+
+"Asses!" he said, as he wrapped the MS. up again in the very paper in
+which Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had returned it to him. Then he tied
+the parcel securely and addressed it to Messrs. Gooden and Knight, who,
+he told himself, were much better publishers than Messrs. Hatchway and
+Selden. He would post it in the morning.
+
+
+
+III
+
+And then a queer thing happened to him. He had been about to extinguish
+the light and go to bed, when he remembered that the parcel of MS. was
+lying on the table and that his mother would see it in the morning. She
+would probably ask questions about it ... and he would have to tell her
+that Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had refused to publish it. He seized
+the parcel and tucked it under his arm. He would keep it in his room
+and post it without saying anything to her about it. He did not wish
+her to know that it had been declined. Messrs. Hatchway and Selden had
+given a very good excuse for not publishing it--conditions of the
+publishing trade--and they had manifested a desire to see other work of
+his. That could hardly be said to be a refusal to print the book ... at
+all events, it could not be called an ordinary, condemnatory refusal.
+No doubt, had the conditions of the publishing trade been easier,
+Messrs. Hatchway and Selden would have been extremely pleased to print
+the book. It was not their fault that the conditions of the publishing
+trade were so difficult!... Anyhow, he did not wish his mother to know
+that the book had been refused, even though the conditions of the
+publishing trade were so difficult. So he took the MS. up to his
+bedroom with him.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+He had been enormously relieved when his mother returned to Ireland.
+Eleanor and he had seen her off from Euston ... Hinde had come for
+a few moments snatched from an important job ... and he had been
+very conscious of some understanding between the two women which
+was not expressible. It was as if his mother were not his mother,
+but Eleanor's mother ... as if he were simply Eleanor's young man
+come to say good-bye to Eleanor's mother ... and she were being polite
+to him, because Eleanor would like her to be polite to him. He felt
+that things were being taken out of his control, that he had ceased
+to have charge of things and was now himself being ordered and controlled;
+but he could not definitely say what caused him to feel this nor
+could he think of any notable incident which would confirm him in his
+fear that control had passed out of his hands. All he knew was that
+he was glad his mother had resisted his importunities to her to stay
+for a longer time in London. This state of uncertainty had not begun
+until Mrs. MacDermott suddenly and without warning had arrived at his
+lodgings. He hoped that it would end with her departure from Euston.
+Eleanor's attitude towards him during the week of his mother's visit had
+been very odd. She accepted him now without any qualms, but not, he felt,
+as her husband to be, hardly even as her lover. She accepted him, instead,
+as one who might become her lover if she could persuade herself to
+consent to allow him to do so. Once, in a moment of dreadful humility,
+he imagined that she accepted him merely as Mrs. MacDermott's son!...
+He had watched the train haul itself out of the station and had waved
+his hat to his mother until she was no longer distinguishable, and then
+he had turned to Eleanor with a curiously determined look in his eye.
+
+"Are you going to marry me?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I think I will. I like your mother awf'lly, John!..."
+
+"It's me you're going to marry. Not her. Do you like me?"
+
+"Yes, I like you ... though you're frightfully conceited and
+selfish!..."
+
+"Selfish! Me? Because I try hard to get what I want?" he indignantly
+exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, we won't argue about it. You'll never understand. I don't know
+whether I love you or not. But I like you. I like you very much. Of
+course, we may be making a mistake. It's foolish of me to marry you
+when I know so little about you ... and that little scares me!..."
+
+"What scares you!"
+
+"Your selfishness scares me. You are selfish. You're frightfully
+selfish. You think of nothing and no one but yourself!..."
+
+"Amn't I always thinking of you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but only because you want me to marry you. That's all!"
+
+He was very puzzled by this statement. "What other reason would a man
+have for thinking of a woman?" he asked.
+
+"That's just it," she replied. "You can't think of any other reason for
+thinking about a woman ... and I can think of a whole lot of reasons.
+But I shall marry you in spite of your selfishness because I know
+you're as good as I'm likely to get!..."
+
+"That's a queer reason for marrying a man!"
+
+"I suppose it is. You're really rather a dear, John, and I daresay I
+shall get to love you quite well ... but I don't now. Why should I? I
+haven't known you very long ... and you've rather pestered me, haven't
+you?"
+
+"No, I haven't!"
+
+"Yes, you have. But I don't mind that. Being pestered by you is somehow
+different from being pestered by other men...."
+
+"Have any other men bothered you?" he interrupted.
+
+They were walking towards Tottenham Court Road as they spoke, and her
+arm was securely held in his.
+
+"Of course they have," she answered. "Do you think a girl can walk
+about London without some man pestering her. Old men!..." She shuddered
+and said "Oh!" in tones of disgust. "Why are old men so beastly?"
+
+"Are they?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course they are. Beastly old things. I think old men ought
+to be killed before they get nasty ... but never mind that. Being
+pestered by you is very different from that sort of thing. I know very
+well that you won't stop asking me to marry you until I either say I
+will or I run away from London altogether and hide myself from you; and
+I don't want to do that. So I'll marry you!"
+
+He glanced at her in a wrathful manner.
+
+"Is that what my mother told you to say?" he asked.
+
+"Your mother? She never said anything at all about it!"
+
+John laughed. "I told her about it," he said. "That's what she came
+over about. She wanted to have a look at you!"
+
+"Yes, I suppose I ought to have guessed that. I did in a way, but I
+didn't know you'd said anything definite about it!"
+
+"I'm always definite," said John.
+
+"Yes. M' yes, I suppose you are!"
+
+They walked down Tottenham Court Road and caught a 'bus going along
+Oxford Street.
+
+"You don't seem very pleased now that I've said I'll marry you," she
+murmured, as they sat together on the back seat on top of the 'bus.
+
+"I believe you're only marrying me to get away from that club you're
+living in!" he replied.
+
+"That's one reason, but it isn't the only reason. I _do_ like you,
+John. Really, I do!"
+
+"I want you to love me, love me desperately, the way I love you."
+
+"But you've no right to expect that. Women don't love men for a long
+time after men love them ... and sometimes they never love them.
+There's a girl in our club ... well, she's not a girl, but she's
+unmarried, so, of course we call her a girl ... and she says that most
+of us can live fairly happily with quite a number of people. She says
+that a person has one supreme love affair ... which may not come to
+anything ... and enough liking for about a hundred people to be able to
+marry and live happily with anyone of them. I think that's true. I've
+known plenty of men that I think I could have married and been happy
+enough with. You're one of them!..."
+
+"This is a nice thing to be telling me when my heart's bursting for
+you. I tell you, Eleanor, I love you till I don't know what I'm doing
+or thinking, and all you tell me is that I'm one out of a hundred and
+you like me well enough to put up with me!..."
+
+"You don't want me to tell you that I'm in love with you ... like
+that ... when I'm not?"
+
+"No, of course not ... only!..."
+
+"Perhaps you don't want to marry me now!"
+
+He put his arm round her and pressed her so tightly that she gave a
+little cry of rebuke. "I love you so much," he said, "that I'm thankful
+glad for the least bit of liking you have for me. I wish I'd known
+sooner. I'd have told my mother before she went back to Ballyards!"
+
+"I'll write and tell her myself," said Eleanor. "I'd like to tell her
+myself!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+"I'm going to be married," John said to Hinde that night.
+
+"I thought as much," Hinde replied.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, when a man does one dam-fool thing, he generally follows it up
+with another. You lose your job on the _Sensation,_ and then you
+get engaged to be married. I daresay your wife'll have a child just
+about the time you've spent every ha'penny you possess. I suppose that
+was her at the station to-night?" John nodded his head. "Well, you're a
+lucky man!"
+
+"Thank you," said John.
+
+"I don't know whether she's a lucky woman or not!"
+
+"_Thank_ you," said John. "If you've no more compliments to pay,
+I'll go to my bed!"
+
+"Good-night. Cream's coming back to-morrow. Miss Squibb had a letter
+from him this evening!"
+
+But John took no interest in the Creams.
+
+"If I were you, I wouldn't fall out with the Creams," said Hinde. "Now
+that you're going to get married, the money he'll pay you for a sketch
+will be useful. I suppose you'll begin to be serious when you're
+married?"
+
+"I'm serious now," John replied.
+
+"At present, Mac, you're merely bumptious. I was like that when I first
+came to London. I had noble ideals, but I very soon discovered that the
+other high-minded men were not quite so idealistic as I was. I know one
+high-souled fellow who went into a newspaper office and asked to be
+allowed to review a novel with the express intention of damning it
+because he had some grudge against the author. Half the exalted
+scribblers in London are busily employed scratching each other's backs,
+and if you aren't in their little gang, you either are not noticed at
+all in their papers or you are unfairly judged or very, very faintly
+praised. You've either got to be in a gang in London or to be so
+immeasurably great or lucky that you can disregard gangs ... otherwise
+there's very little likelihood of you getting a foothold in what you
+call good papers. I know these papers. Mr. Noblemind is editor of one
+paper and Mr. Greatfellow is a regular contributor to another and Mr.
+PraisemeandI'llpraiseyou is the literary editor of a third, and they
+employ each other; and Mr. Noblemind calls attention to the beauty of
+his pals' work in his paper, and they call attention to the beauty of
+his in theirs. My dear Mac, if you really want to know what dishonesty
+in journalism is, worm yourself into the secrets of the highbrow Press
+and the noble poets. I'm a Yellow Journalist and a failure, but by
+heaven, I'm an honest Yellow Journalist and an honest failure. I'm not
+an indifferent journalist pretending to be a poet!..."
+
+"I don't see what all this has got to do with me," John said.
+
+"No," Hinde replied in a quieter tone. "No, I suppose it hasn't
+anything to do with you. You're quite right. I'm in a bad temper
+to-night. I'm glad you're engaged to that girl. She looks a sensible
+sort of woman. Heard any more about your book?"
+
+"Yes. It's been returned to me!..."
+
+"Oh, my dear chap, I'm very sorry!"
+
+"I've sent it out again. It's sure to be printed by someone," John
+said.
+
+"I hope so. I wish you'd let me read it!"
+
+"Yes, I'd like you to read it. I wish I'd kept it back a while. But
+you'll see it some day. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, Mac!"
+
+
+
+VI
+
+The Creams returned to Miss Squibb's on the following evening, and
+Cream came to see Hinde and John soon after they arrived. Dolly, he
+said, was too tired after her journey to do more than send a friendly
+greeting to them.
+
+"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John.
+"It's very good, of course, quite classy, in fact, but it wants
+tightening up. Snap! That's what it wants. And a little bit of
+vulgarity. Oh, not too much. Of course not. But it doesn't do to
+overlook vulgarity, Mac. We've all got a bit of it in us, and
+pers'nally, I see no harm in it, _pro_-vided ... _pro-vided_,
+mind you ... that it's comic. That's the only excuse for vulgarity ...
+that it's comic. Now, the first thing is the title!"
+
+Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread
+it on the table. "This won't do at all," he said, pointing to the
+title-page of the play. "_Love's Tribute!_ My dear old Mac, what the
+hell's the good of a title like that? Where's the snap in it? Where's
+the attraction, the allurement? Nowhere. A title like that wouldn't
+draw twopence into a theatre. _Love's Tribute!_ I ask you!..." His
+feelings made him inarticulate and he gazed round the room in a
+helpless manner.
+
+"Well, what would you call it?" John demanded.
+
+"Something snappy. I often say a title's half the play. Now, take a
+piece like _The Girl Who Lost Her Character_ or _The Man With
+Two Wives_ ... there's a bit of snap about that. Titles like those
+simply haul 'em into the theatre. _Snap! Go! Ginger!_ Something
+that sounds 'ot, but isn't ... that's the stuff to give the British
+public. You make 'em think they're going to see something ... well,
+_you_ know ... and they'll stand four deep in the snow waiting to
+get into the theatre. If you were to put the Book of Genesis on the
+stage and call it _The Girl Who Took The Wrong Turning_, people
+'ud think they'd seen something they oughtn't to ... and they'd tell
+all their friends. Now, how about _The Guilty Woman_ for your
+sketch, Mac?"
+
+John looked at him in astonishment. "But the woman in it isn't guilty
+of anything," he protested.
+
+"That doesn't matter. The title needn't have anything to do with it.
+Very few titles have anything to do with the piece. So long as they're
+snappy, that's all you need think about. Pers'nally, I like _The
+Guilty Woman_ myself; but Dolly's keen on _The Sinful Woman_.
+And that just reminds me, Mac! Here's a tip for you. Always have
+_Woman_ in your title if you can. _A Sinful Woman_'ll draw
+better than _A Sinful Man_. People seem to expect women to be more
+sinful than men when they are sinful ... or p'raps they're more used to
+men being sinful than women. I dunno. But it's a fact ... _Woman_
+in the title is a bigger draw than _Man_. And you got to think of
+these little things. If you want to make a fortune out of a piece, take
+my advice and think of a snappy adjective to put in front of
+_Woman_ or _Girl!_ Really, you know, play-writing's very
+simple, if you only remember a few tips like that!..."
+
+"But my play isn't about sin at all," John protested.
+
+"Well, what's the good of it then?" Cream demanded. "All plays are
+about sin of some sort, aren't they? If people aren't breaking a rule
+or a commandment, there's no plot, and if there's no plot, there's no
+play. Of course, Bernard Shaw and all these chaps, they don't believe
+in plots or climaxes or anything, and they turn out pieces that sound
+as if they'd wrote the first half in their Oxford days and the second
+half when they were blind drunk. You've got to have a plot, Mac, and if
+you've got to have a plot, you've got to have sin. What 'ud Hamlet be
+without the sin in it? Nothing! Why, there wasn't any drama in the
+world 'til Adam and Eve fell! You take it from me, Mac, there'll be no
+drama in heaven. Why? Because there'll be no sin there. But there'll be
+a hell of a lot in hell! Now, I like _The Guilty Woman_. It's not
+quite so bare-faced as _The Sinful Woman_, but as Dolly likes it
+better ... she's more intense than I am ... we'll have to have it, I
+expect!"
+
+"I don't like either of those titles," John said, gulping as he spoke,
+for he felt that there was a difference of view between Cream and him
+that could not be overcome.
+
+"Well, think of a better one then," Cream good-naturedly answered.
+"There's another thing. As I said, the piece wants overhauling, but you
+can leave that to me. When I've had a good go at it!..."
+
+"But!..."
+
+"Now, look here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me.
+You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a
+young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from
+the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps
+don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays
+during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too.
+Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had
+a most unhappy end to _The Profligate_ ... the hero committed
+suicide in the last act ... but the public wouldn't have it. They said
+they wanted a happy end, and Pinero had the good sense to give it to
+them. In my opinion the public was right. The happy end was the right
+end for that piece!..."
+
+"But artistically!..." John pleaded.
+
+"Artistically!" Cream exclaimed in mocking tones to Hinde. "I ask you!
+Artistically! What's Art? Pleasing people. That's what Art is!"
+
+"Oh, no," John protested. "Pleasing yourself, perhaps!..."
+
+"And aren't you most pleased when you feel that people are pleased with
+you, I ask you! What do you publish books for if you only want to
+please yourself? Why don't you keep your great thoughts to yourself if
+you don't want to please anybody else? Yah-r-r, this Art talk makes me
+feel sick. You'd rather sell two thousand copies of a book than two
+hundred, wouldn't you? Of course, you would. I've heard these highbrow
+chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few. I acted in a play
+once by a fellow who was always bleating about the Tasteful Few ... and
+you should have heard the way he went on when his play only drew the
+Tasteful Few to see it. If his piece had had a chance of a long run, do
+you think he'd have stopped it at the end of a month because he
+objected to long runs as demoralizing to Art? Not likely, my lad!...
+Now, this piece of yours, Mac, has too much talk in it and not enough
+incident, see! You'll have to cut some of it. The talk's good, but in
+plays the talk mustn't take the audience off the point, no matter how
+good it is. See! You don't want long speeches: you want short ones. The
+talk ought to be like a couple of chaps sparring ... only not too much
+fancy work. I've seen a lot of boxing in my time. There's boxers that
+goes in for what's called pretty work ... nice, neat boxing ... but
+the spectators soon begin to yawn over it. What people like to see
+is one chap getting a smack on the jaw and the other chap getting a
+black eye. And it's the same with everything. Ever seen Cinquevalli
+balancing a billiard ball on top of another one? Took him years to learn
+that trick, but he'll tell you himself ... he lives round the corner from
+here ... that his audiences take more interest in some flashy-looking
+thing that's dead easy to do. When he throws a cannon-ball up into the
+air and catches it on the back of his neck ... they think that's
+wonderful ... but it isn't half so wonderful as balancing one billiard
+ball on top of another one. See? So it's no good being subtle before
+simple people. They don't understand you, and they just get up and walk
+out or give you the bird!..."
+
+"I'm going to tell you something," he continued, as if he had not said
+a word before. "I've noticed human nature a good deal, and I think I
+know something about it. There was a sketch we did once, called _The
+Twiddley Bits_. It was written by the same chap that did _The Girl
+Who Gets Left_ ... he had a knack, that chap ... only he took to
+drink and died. There was a joke in _The Twiddley Bits_ that went
+down everywhere. Here it is. I played the part of a comic footman, and
+I had to say to the villain, 'What are you looking at, guv'nor?' and he
+replied, 'I'm wondering what on earth that is!' and then he pointed to
+my face. That got a laugh to start with. Then I had to say, 'It's my
+face. What did you think it was? A sardine tin?' That got a roar.
+Brought the house down, that did. We played that piece all over the
+world, Mac, and that joke never failed once. Not once. We played it in
+England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, America, New Zealand, South Africa
+and Australia, and it never missed once. Fetched 'em every time. Human
+nature's about the same everywhere, once you get to understand it, Mac,
+and if you like you can put that joke in your play. It'll help it out a
+bit in the middle!..."
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"Well?" said Hinde to John when Cream had left them.
+
+"I'd rather sell happorths of tea and sugar than write the kind of play
+he wants," John replied.
+
+Hinde paused for a few moments. Then he said, "Why don't you sell tea
+and sugar. You've got a shop, haven't you?"
+
+"Because I'm going to write books," John answered tartly.
+
+"I see," said Hinde.
+
+
+
+
+THE EIGHTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Three months after Mrs. MacDermott departed from London, Eleanor and
+John were married. They walked into St. Chad's Church in the Bayswater
+Road, accompanied by Mr. Hinde and Mrs. MacDermott (who had come
+hurriedly to London again for the ceremony) and Lizzie and a cousin of
+Eleanor's who excited John's wrath by using the marriage ceremony for
+propaganda purposes in connexion with Women's Suffrage; and there,
+prompted by an asthmatic curate, they swore to love and cherish each
+other until death did them part. Mrs. MacDermott had begged for a
+Presbyterian marriage in Ballyards ... "where your da and me were
+married"... but there were difficulties in the way of satisfying her
+desire, and she had consented to see them married in what, to her mind,
+was an imitation of a Papist church. Eleanor had stipulated for at
+least a year's engagement, partly so that they might become more
+certain of each other and partly to enable John to prove that he could
+earn enough money to maintain a home, but John had worn down her
+opposition to an immediate marriage by asserting repeatedly that he
+could easily earn money for her, would, in fact, be better able to do
+so because of his marriage which would stimulate him to greater
+activity, and, finally, by his announcement that his tragedy had been
+accepted for production by the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. The manager
+had written to him to say that the Reading Committee were of opinion
+that his interesting play should be performed, and he enclosed an
+agreement which he desired John to sign and return to him at his
+convenience. He had not been able to restrain his joy when he received
+the letter, and he had hurried to the nearest post office so that he
+might telephone the news to Eleanor.
+
+"My dear!" she said proudly over the telephone.
+
+"Didn't I tell you I could do it," he exclaimed. "Didn't I?"
+
+"Yes, darling, you did!"
+
+"Wait till Hinde conies back! This'll be one in the eye for him. He
+thought the play was a very ordinary one, but this proves that it
+isn't, doesn't it, Eleanor?"
+
+"Yes, dear!"
+
+"It's a well-known theatre, the Cottenham Repertory. One of the best-known
+in the world. Can you get off for the day, do you think, and we'll
+go out and celebrate it?..."
+
+"Don't be silly, John!..."
+
+"Well, we'll have lunch together. We'll have wine for lunch!... Oh, my
+dear, I'm nearly daft with joy. We ought to make enough money out of
+the play to set up house at once. I don't know how much you make out of
+plays, but you make a great deal. We'll get married at once!..."
+
+"But we can't!..."
+
+"Och, quit, woman! This makes all the difference In the world. Aren't
+you just aching for a wee house of your own, the same way that I
+am!..."
+
+And after a struggle for time to think, Eleanor had consented to be
+married much sooner than she had ever meant to be. They were married in
+June, and the play was to be performed at the Cottenham Repertory
+Theatre in the following September. The manager had written to John,
+after the business preliminaries were settled, to say that if the play
+were successful in Cottenham, he would include it in the Company's
+repertoire of pieces to be performed in London during their annual
+season. "And of course, it'll be successful," said John when he had
+read the letter to Eleanor. "I should think we'd easily make several
+hundred pounds out of the play ... and there's always the chance that
+it may be a popular success!" His high hopes were dashed by the return
+of his novel from Messrs. Gooden and Knight who regretted that the
+novel was not suitable for publication by them; but he recovered some
+of them when he reflected that the fame he would achieve with his play
+would cause Messrs. Gooden and Knight to feel exceedingly sorry that
+they had not jumped at the chance of publishing his book. Hinde had
+read it and thought it was as good as most first novels. "Nothing very
+great about it," he said, "but it isn't contemptible!" That seemed very
+chilly praise to John, and he was grateful to Eleanor for her
+enthusiasm about the book. "Of course, it has faults," she admitted. "I
+daresay it has, but then it's your _first book_. You wouldn't be
+human if you could write a great book at the first attempt, would you?"
+
+That had consoled him for much, and very hopefully he sent the book on
+its third adventure, this time to Mr. Claude Jannissary, who called
+himself "The Progressive Publisher."
+
+
+
+II
+
+On the night before he was married, John, vaguely nervous, left his
+mother at Miss Squibb's and went for a walk. All day, he had been "on
+pins and needles," and now, although it was nine o'clock, he could not
+remain in the house any longer. He felt that his head would burst if he
+stayed indoors. The house seemed to be unusually stuffy, and the
+spectacle of Lizzie gazing at him with mawkish interest, made him wish
+to rise up and assault her. He had fidgetted about the room, taking a
+book from its shelf and then, without reading in it, replacing it,
+until his mother, observing him with cautious eyes, proposed that he
+should go for a walk. "I won't wait up for you," she said, "so you
+needn't hurry back!"
+
+"Very well, ma!" he said, getting ready to go out.
+
+He left the house and started to walk towards Streatham, but before he
+had gone very far, he felt drawn away from Streatham, and he turned and
+walked past his home and on towards Kennington. At the Horns, he paused
+indecisively. There were more light and stir towards the Elephant and
+Castle than there was in the Kennington Road, and light and stir were
+attractive to him, but to-night he ought to be in quiet places and in
+shadows. He was beginning to feel dubious about himself. Marriage,
+after all, was a very serious business, but here he was thrusting
+himself into it with very little consideration. Eleanor had protested
+all along that they were insufficiently acquainted with each other and
+had pleaded for a long engagement, but he had overruled her: they knew
+each other well enough. The best way for a man and woman to get to know
+each other, he said, was to marry. Eleanor had exclaimed against that
+doctrine because, she said, if the couple discovered that they did not
+care for each other, they could not get free without misery and
+possibly disgrace.
+
+"You have to run the risk of that," said John.
+
+That always had been his determining argument: that one must take
+risks. Now, on this night before his marriage, the risk he was about to
+take alarmed him. The fidgettiness, the nervous irritability which had
+been characteristic of him all day now concretely became fright. Who
+was this woman he was about to marry? What did he know of her? She was
+a pleasant, nice-looking girl and she had an extraordinary power over
+him ... but what did he _know_ of her? Nothing. Nothing whatever.
+He liked kissing her and holding her in his arms, but he had liked
+kissing Maggie Carmichael and holding her in his arms; and now he was
+very thankful he had not married Maggie. How was he to know that he
+would feel any more for Eleanor in six months' time than he now felt
+for Maggie ... for whom he had once felt everything? Eleanor had told
+him that she only liked him ... was not in love with him ... that he
+was one of a hundred men, anyone of whom she might have married and
+lived with in tolerable happiness!...
+
+A cold shiver ran through his body as he thought that he might be about
+to make the greatest mistake that any man could make ... marry the
+wrong woman. Ought he to postpone the marriage so that Eleanor and he
+should have more time in which to consider things? Postponement would
+mean terrible inconvenience to everybody, but it would be better to
+suffer such inconvenience than to enter into a dismal marriage because
+one was reluctant to upset arrangements. This marrying was a terrible
+affair!... He walked steadily along the Kennington Road and presently
+found himself in Westminster Bridge Road, and then he crossed the river
+and turned on to the Embankment. There was a cool breeze blowing from
+the sea, and he took his hat off and let the air play about his head.
+He leant against the parapet and gazed across the water to the dark
+warehouses on the Lambeth side and wondered why they were so beautiful
+at night when they were so hideous by day. Even the railway bridge at
+Charing Cross seemed to be beautiful in the dusk, and when a train
+rumbled across it, sending up clouds of lit smoke from the funnel of
+the engine and making flickering lights as the carriages rolled past
+the iron bars of the bridge-side, it seemed to him to be a very
+wonderful and appealing spectacle. His fidgettiness fell from him as he
+contemplated the swift river and the great dark shapes of warehouses
+and the black hulks of barges going down to the Pool and the immutable
+loveliness of Waterloo Bridge. He had walked along the Embankment past
+Hungerford Bridge, and then had stopped to look at Waterloo Bridge for
+a few moments. Even the moving lights of the advertisements of tea and
+whiskey on the Lambeth side of the river made beauty for him as they
+were reflected in the water. There were little crinkled waves of green
+and red and gold on the river as the changing lights of the
+advertisements ran up and down.... He had seen articles in the
+newspapers protesting against these illuminated signs ... "the ugly
+symbols of commercialism" ... but to-night they had the look of
+loveliness in his eyes. Very often since he had come to London had he
+found himself in disagreement with the views of men who wrote as if
+Almighty God had committed Beauty to their charge ... he had never been
+able to understand or agree with their arguments against great engines
+and the instruments of power and energy ... and it seemed to him that
+many of these writers were querulous, fractious people who had not the
+capacity to make themselves at ease in a striving world. That poet
+fellow ... what was his name? ... whom he had met at Hampstead ...
+Palfrey, that was the man's name ... had sneered at Commerce! John had
+not been able to make head or tail of his arguments against Commerce,
+and he had found himself defending it against the Poet ... "the very
+word is beautiful!" he had asserted several times ... mainly on his
+recollection of his Uncle William. Palfrey had had the best of the
+argument, because Palfrey could use his tongue more effectively,
+but John had felt certain that the truth was not in Palfrey, and here
+to-night, in this place where Commerce was most compactly to be seen, he
+knew that there was Beauty in the labours of men, that bargaining and
+competition and striving energies and rivalry in skill were elements of
+loveliness. "These little poets sitting in their stuffy attics
+scribbling about the moon!... Yah-rr-r!" he said, putting his hat on to
+his head again.
+
+His mind was quieter now. He was certain of his love for Eleanor. How
+wise his mother had been to suggest that he should go out for a walk.
+She had guessed, no doubt, that he was ill at ease and full of doubt,
+and had sent him forth to find rest in movement and ease in energy. It
+was a great comfort to have his mother by him now. That morning he had
+looked at her, sitting in the light of the window, and had seen for the
+first time the great depth of her eyes and the wonderful patience in
+her face.... He must consider her more in future. Eleanor liked her,
+and she liked Eleanor. That was all to the good!... He must go home
+now. He would walk to Blackfriars Bridge, cross the river and go home
+by the Elephant and Castle. He started to walk briskly along the
+Embankment, but he had not gone very far on his way when he heard his
+name called.
+
+"Oh, John!" the call was, and looking round, he saw Eleanor rising from
+one of the garden-seats near the kerb.
+
+"Eleanor!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
+
+She came quickly to him and he took hold of her hands.
+
+"I was frightened," she said, half sobbing as she spoke.
+
+"Frightened!"
+
+"Yes. I lost my nerve this evening and I ... I came out to think. Oh, I
+wonder are we wise!..."
+
+He drew her arm in his. "Come home, my dear," he said.
+
+He led her across the road, through the District Railway Station and up
+Villiers Street to the Strand, and as they walked along he told her of
+his own fears. "You were frightened, too?" she said in astonishment.
+
+"Not frightened," he replied, "only ... well, dubious!"
+
+"Perhaps we'd better wait," she suggested.
+
+"Oh, no, no. I should feel such a fool if I were to tell people we'd
+postponed our marriage because we'd both got scared about it!"
+
+"It's better to feel a fool than!..."
+
+"And anyhow I know that it's all right. I feel sure it's all right.
+When I walked along the Embankment before I met you, I became certain
+that I wanted you, Eleanor, and no one else but you. My dear, I'm
+terribly happy!"
+
+"Are you?"
+
+"Yes. Why, of course, I am. How can I be anything else when I shall be
+your husband this time to-morrow?"
+
+They walked along Bond Street because they had discovered that Bond
+Street, when the shops are shut, is dark and quiet, and once they
+stopped and faced each other, and John took her in his arms and kissed
+her. "Sweetheart!" he murmured, with his lips against hers.
+
+Then he took her to her club. "What a place for you to be married
+from!" he said, as he bade her good-night.
+
+"This is my last night in it," she answered. "I shall never live in a
+place where there are only women again!" She paused for a moment, and
+then, with a sigh of relief, added, "Thank Goodness!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+On the following morning they were married; and in the evening they
+went to Ireland for their honeymoon. They were to go to Dublin for a
+week, and then up to Ballyards for a fortnight. Eleanor had proposed
+that Mrs. MacDermott should cross to Ireland with them, but she shook
+her head and smiled. "I'm foolish enough," she said, "but I'm not as
+foolish as all that. You'll want to be by yourselves, my dear!"
+
+"I'll see your mother safely off from Euston," Hinde said, "when she
+makes up her mind to go!"
+
+They spent the day quietly together until the time came for Eleanor and
+John to go to the railway station. Mrs. MacDermott took him out of the
+room. "I want to have a wee talk with you," she said in explanation.
+
+"Here," she said, putting an envelope into his hand. "That's a wedding
+present for you from me!..."
+
+"But you've given me one already," he interrupted.
+
+"Oh, aye, that was just an ordinary one, but this is the one that
+matters. It'll be useful to you sometime!"
+
+He opened the envelope, and inside it were ten notes for ten pounds
+each. "Ma!" he said.
+
+"Now, now, never mention it," she exclaimed hurriedly. "What does an
+old woman like me want with money when there's two young ones in need
+of it. It'll help to keep you going till you're earning!"
+
+He hugged her to show his gratitude. "My son," she said, patting his
+back.
+
+"Listen, John," she went on, "while I speak to you!"
+
+"Yes, ma!"
+
+"Don't forget that Eleanor's a young girl with no one to tell her
+things. She's very young, and ... and!..." She stumbled over her words.
+"You'll be very kind to her, won't you, son?"
+
+"Of course, I will, ma," John replied with no comprehension whatever of
+what it was she was trying to say.
+
+Then she let him go back to Eleanor.
+
+They gathered in the hall to make their "Good-byes." There was a
+telegram from the Creams to wish them happiness that Eleanor insisted
+on taking with her although she had never seen the Creams; and Miss
+Squibb mournfully insisted on giving a packet of sandwiches to them to
+eat on the journey. She told them that they knew what these trains and
+boats were like, and that they would be lucky if they got anything at
+all to sustain them during their travels. "Though you probably won't
+want to eat nothink when you get on the boat," she added encouragingly.
+
+"Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!"
+
+John went up the hall to Lizzie. "Good-bye, Lizzie!" he said, and then,
+"What on earth are you crying for?"
+
+"I dunno," she answered, wiping her eyes. "Just 'appiness, I s'pose.
+I'll be doin' it myself some dy. See if I down't. It'd annoy aunt,
+anyway!"
+
+They scrambled into the cab and were driven off. They leant back
+against the cushions and looked at each other.
+
+"Well, we're married, Eleanor. I always said we would be," John said.
+
+"It's frightfully funny," Eleanor replied. "Isn't it?"
+
+He did not answer. He took her in his arms instead.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE THIRD BOOK OF THE FOOLISH LOVERS
+
+
+  Ask, is Love divine,
+  Voices all are, ay.
+  Question for the sign,
+  There's a common sigh.
+  Would we through our years,
+  Love forego,
+  Quit of scars and tears?
+  Ah, but no, no, no!
+     MEREDITH.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+The honeymoon at Ballyards had been a triumph for Eleanor. Uncle
+William had immediately surrendered to her, making, indeed, no pretence
+to resist her. She had demanded his company on a boating excursion on
+the Lough, and when he had turned to her, sitting behind him in the bow
+of the boat, and had said, "This is great health! It's the first time
+I've been in a boat these years and years!" she had retorted
+indignantly, "The first time! But why?"
+
+"Och ... busy!" he had explained.
+
+She had called to John, sitting with his mother in the stern, and
+demanded an explanation of the causes which prevented Uncle William
+from taking holidays like other people.
+
+"Sure, he likes work!" said John.
+
+"Nobody likes work to that extent," Eleanor replied, and then Mrs.
+MacDermott gave the explanation. "There's no one else but him to do
+it," she said. "Uncle Matthew had his head full of romantic dreams and
+John fancied himself in other ways, so Uncle William had to do it all
+by himself!"
+
+John flushed, and was angry with his mother for speaking in this way
+before Eleanor. He felt that she was stating the case unfairly. Had he
+not once offered to quit from his monitorial work to help in the shop
+and had not his offer been firmly refused?...
+
+"There'll be no need for Uncle William to work hard when my play is
+produced," he said.
+
+"Ah, quit blethering about hard work," Uncle William exclaimed, bending
+to the oars. "Sure, I'd be demented mad if I hadn't my work to do. What
+would an old fellow like me do gallivanting up and down the shore in my
+bare feet, paddling like a child in the water! Have sense, do, all of
+you. Eleanor, I'm surprised at you trying to make a loafer out of me!"
+
+She leant forward and pulled him suddenly backwards and he fell into
+the bottom of the boat. "We'll all be drowned," he shouted. "I'll cowp
+the boat if you assault me again!..."
+
+"What does 'cowp' mean?" she demanded.
+
+"In God's name, girl, where were you brought up not to know what 'cowp'
+means! Upset!" said he.
+
+"Well, why don't you say upset, you horrible old Orangeman," she
+retorted.
+
+"I'm no Orangeman," he giggled at her. "I wouldn't own the name!"
+
+"You are. You are. You say your prayers every night to King William and
+Carson!..."
+
+"Ah, you're the tormenting wee tory, so you are! Here, take a hold of
+these oars and do something for your living!"
+
+She had changed places with Uncle William, and John felt very proud of
+her as he observed the skilful way in which she handled the oars. Her
+strokes were clean and strong and deliberate. She did not thrust the
+oars too deeply into the water nor did she pull them, impotently along
+the surface nor did she lean too heavily on one oar so that the boat
+was drawn too much to one side or sent ungainly to this side and to
+that in an exhausting effort to keep a straight course. He lay back
+against his mother and regarded Eleanor out of half-shut eyes. She
+mystified him. Her timidity when he had first spoken to her had seemed
+to him then to be her chief characteristic and it had caused him to
+feel tenderly for her: he would be her protector. But she was not
+always timid. He had discovered courage in her and something uncommonly
+like obstinacy of mind. She uttered opinions which startled him, less
+because of the flimsy grounds on which they were built, than because of
+the queer chivalry that made her utter them. She defended the weak
+because they were weak, whereas he would have had her defend the truth
+because it was the truth. The attacked had her sympathy, whether they
+were in the right or in the wrong, and John demanded that sympathy
+should be given only to those who were in the right even if they
+happened also to be the stronger of the contestants. He had seen her
+behaving with extraordinary calmness at a time when he had been certain
+that she would show signs of hysteria, and while he was marvelling at
+her imperturbability, he had heard her screaming with fright at the
+sight of an ear-wig. He had rushed to her help, imagining that she was
+in terrible danger, and had found her trembling and shuddering because
+this pitiful insect had crawled on to her dressing-gown.... He had been
+very frightened when he heard her screaming to him for help, and he
+suffered so strange a reaction when he discovered that her trouble was
+trivial that he lost his temper. "Don't be such a fool," he said,
+putting his foot on the ear-wig. "You couldn't have made more noise if
+someone had been murdering you!"
+
+"I hate ear-wigs!" she replied, still shuddering. "I hate all crawly
+things. Oh-h-h!"
+
+And here was another aspect of her: her skill in doing things that
+required effort and thought. She handled a boat better than he could
+handle it. He was more astonished at this feat than he had been when he
+discovered that she had great skill in managing a house and in cooking
+food, for he assumed that all women were inspired by Almighty God with
+a genius for housekeeping and that only a deliberately sinful nature
+prevented a woman from serving her husband with an excellently-prepared
+dinner. In a vague way, he had imagined that Eleanor would need
+instruction in housekeeping, but that she would "soon pick it up." Any
+woman could "soon pick it up." His mother, he decided, would give tips
+to Eleanor while they were at Ballyards, and thereafter things would go
+very smoothly. He had determined that the flat at Hampstead which they
+had rented should be furnished according to his taste so that there
+should be no mistake about it; but when they began to choose furniture,
+he found that Eleanor had better judgment than he had, and he wisely
+deferred to her opinion. He was inclined, he discovered, to accept
+things which he disliked or did not want rather than take the trouble
+to get only the things he desired and appreciated; but Eleanor had no
+compunction in making a disinterested shop-assistant run about and
+fetch and carry until she had either obtained the thing for which she
+wished or was satisfied that it was not in the shop. John always had a
+sense of shame at leaving a shop without making a purchase when the
+assistant had been given much bother in their behalf; but Eleanor said
+that this was silliness. "That's what he's there for," she said of the
+shop-assistant. "I'm not going to buy things I don't want just because
+you're afraid of hurting his feelings!"
+
+He began to feel, while they were furnishing their flat, that she knew
+her own mind at least as well as he knew his, and a fear haunted his
+thoughts that perhaps this adequacy of knowledge might bring trouble to
+them. Gradually he found himself consulting her as an equal, even
+accepting her advice, and seldom instructing her as one instructs a
+beloved pupil. When she required advice, she asked for it. At
+Ballyards, he had seen his mother quickening into zestful life because
+of Eleanor's desire to be informed of things. One evening he had come
+home from a visit to Mr. Cairnduff to find Eleanor seated on the high
+stool in the "Counting House" of the shop while Uncle William explained
+the working of the business to her.
+
+"She's a great wee girl, that!" Uncle William said afterwards to John.
+"The great wee girl! You've done well for yourself marrying her, my
+son. She's a well-brought-up girl ... a girl with a family ... and
+that's more nor you could say for some of the women you might 'a'
+married. That Logan girl, now!..."
+
+"I'd never have married her," John interrupted.
+
+"No, I suppose you wouldn't. They're no family at all, the Logans ...
+just a dragged-up, thrown-together lot. They've no pride in themselves.
+They'd marry anybody, that family would. Willie's away to the bad
+altogether ... drinking and gambling and worse ... and Aggie got
+married on a traveller from Belfast, and two hours after she married
+the man, he was dead drunk. He's been drunk ever since, they say. Aw,
+she's a poor mouth, that woman, and not fit to hold a candle to
+Eleanor. I'm thankful glad you've married a sensible woman with her
+head on the right way, and not one of these flyaway pieces you see
+knocking around these times. I'd die of despair to see you married to a
+woman with no more gumption than an old hen!..."
+
+
+
+II
+
+He had experienced his most humiliating defect in comparison with
+Eleanor on board the mail-boat from Kingstown to Holyhead. He had been
+sea-sick, but she had seemed unaware of the fact that she was afloat on
+a rough sea. That terribly swift race of water that beats against a
+boat off Holyhead and causes the least queasy of stomachs a certain
+amount of discomposure, affected Eleanor not at all; and when they
+disembarked, it was she who found comfortable seats in the London train
+for them and saw to their luggage; for John still felt ill and
+miserable. "Poor old thing," she said, "you do look a sight!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+Mrs. MacDermott had begged him to stay beyond the stipulated time in
+Ballyards, and Uncle William, with a glance towards Eleanor, had
+reinforced her appeal; but John had refused to yield to it. There was
+work to be done in London, and Eleanor and he must return to town to do
+it. In a short while, his play would be produced ... he must attend the
+rehearsals of it ... and then there was his novel for which he had yet
+to find a publisher; and he must write another book. Eleanor had
+hesitated for a few moments, not irresponsive to Uncle William's look,
+but the desire to be in her own home had conquered her desire to remain
+in Ballyards, and so she had not asked John to stay away from London
+any longer. The flat was a small and incommodious one, but it was in a
+quiet street and not very far from Hampstead Heath. They had spent more
+money on furnishing it than they had intended to spend, but John had
+soothed Eleanor's mind by promising that his play would more than make
+up for their extravagance; and when, a fortnight after their return to
+town, Mr. Claude Jannissary, "the Progressive Publisher," wrote to John
+and invited him to call on him, they felt certain that their anxieties
+had been very foolish. John visited Mr. Jannissary on the morning after
+he had received that enlightened gentleman's letter, and was
+overwhelmed by the praise paid to his book. Mr. Jannissary said that he
+was not merely willing, but actually eager to publish it. He felt
+certain that its author had a great future before him, and he wished to
+be able to say in after years that he had been the first to recognize
+John's genius. He did not anticipate that he would make any profit
+whatever out of _The Enchanted Lover_ ... the title of the
+story ... at all events for several years, partly because John still had
+to create a reputation for himself and partly because of the appalling
+conditions with which enlightened publishers had to contend. In time,
+no doubt, John would attract a substantial body of loyal readers, but
+in the meantime there was, if John would forgive the gross
+commercialism of the expression, "no immediate money in him."
+Nevertheless, Mr. Jannissary was prepared to gamble on John's future.
+Even if he should never make enough to cover the expense of publishing
+John's book, he would still feel compensated for his loss merely
+through having introduced the world to so excellent a novel. Idealism
+was not very popular, he said, but thank God he was an idealist. He
+believed in Art _and_ Literature _and_ Beauty, and he was
+prepared to make sacrifices for his beliefs. He could not offer any
+payment in advance on account of royalties to John ... much as he would
+like to do so ... for the conditions with which an enlightened
+publisher who tried to preserve his ideals intact had to contend were
+truly appalling; but he would publish the book immediately if John
+would consent to forego all royalties on the first five hundred copies,
+and would accept a royalty of ten per cent on all copies sold in excess
+of that number, the royalty to rise to fifteen per cent when the copies
+sold exceeded two thousand. Mr. Jannissary would put himself to the
+great inconvenience of trying to find a publisher for the book in
+America, and would only expect to receive twenty-five per cent of the
+author's proceeds for his trouble....
+
+John had not greatly liked the look of Mr. Claude Jannissary. So
+uncompromising an idealist might have been expected to possess a more
+pleasing appearance and a less shifty look in his eyes ... but soothed
+vanity and youthful eagerness to appear in print and a feeling that
+very often appearances were against idealists, caused him to sign the
+agreement which Mr. Jannissary had already prepared for him. A great
+thrill of pleasure went through him as he signed the long document,
+full of involved clauses. He was now entitled to call himself an
+author. In a little while, a book of his would be purchaseable in
+bookshops.... "We'll print immediately," said Mr. Jannissary, handing a
+copy of the agreement, signed by himself, to John and putting the other
+copy carefully away. "I'm sure the book will be a great success ...
+_artistically_, at all events ... and after all, that's the chief
+thing. _That's_ the chief thing. Ah, Art, _Art_, Mr.
+MacDermott, what a compelling thing it is! I often feel that I have
+thrown my life away ever since I resolved to publish books instead of
+writing them. There are times when I long to throw up everything and
+run away into the country and meditate. Meditate! But one can't escape
+from the bonds of the body, Mr. MacDermott!"
+
+"Oh, no," John vaguely answered.
+
+"The world is too much for us ... poor, bewildered idealists, searching
+for the gleam and so often losing it. Rent has to be paid, butchers
+demand payment for their meat ... I'm speaking figuratively, of course,
+for I'm a vegetarian myself ... and one must pay one's way. So the body
+has us, and we have to compromise. Ah, yes! But at the bottom of
+Pandora's box, Mr. MacDermott, there is always.... Hope! This way,
+please, and _good_ afternoon! It's been very nice indeed to meet
+you!..."
+
+Hinde had disturbed John's complacency very considerably when he saw
+the agreement which John had signed. Eleanor had begun the process by
+failing to understand why the first five hundred copies of the novel
+should be published free of royalty. If Mr. Jannissary was to make
+money out of these five hundred copies why was John not to make any? He
+quelled her doubts momentarily by informing her that she was totally
+ignorant of the conditions of publishing. If she only knew how
+appalling they were!... Mr. Jannissary had so impressed John with the
+terrible state of the publisher's business that he had gone away from
+the office feeling exceedingly fortunate to have his book published at
+all without being asked to pay for it. Eleanor's doubts, however, had
+revived when Hinde, who dined with them on the evening of the day on
+which the agreement had been signed, declared with extraordinary
+emphasis that Mr. Jannissary was a common robber and would, if he had
+his way, be enduring torture in gaol.
+
+"He's a notorious little scoundrel who has been living for years on
+robbing young authors by flattering their vanity. I suppose he told you
+you were a marvel and bleated about his ideals?"
+
+John could not deny that Mr. Jannissary had spoken of his ideals
+several times during their interview.
+
+"I know him, the greasy little bounder!" Hinde exclaimed. "You'll never
+get one farthing from that book of yours, for he won't print more than
+five hundred copies!..."
+
+"He will if they're demanded."
+
+"_If_ they're demanded. Do you think they will be?"
+
+"I hope so!"
+
+"Oh, we can all hope, but there's not much chance of you realising your
+hope. Your book isn't a very good one!..." Eleanor glanced up at this.
+She had not felt very certain about John's book herself, but now that
+Hinde was belittling it, she was angry with him.
+
+"_I_ think it's good," she said decisively.
+
+"Even if it is," Hinde retorted, "it will only sell well if it's
+advertised well. Lots of good books don't sell even when they are
+advertised. But Jannissary doesn't advertise. He hasn't got enough
+money to advertise. Look at the newspapers! How many times do you see
+Jannissary's list in the advertisements?" John could not remember.
+"Very seldom," said Hinde. "His books get less attention from reviewers
+than other people's because the reviewers know that he's a rascal and
+that nine out of ten of his books aren't worth the paper they're
+printed on. Booksellers will hardly stock them. He makes his living by
+selling copies to the libraries and persuading mugs to pay for the
+publication of their books. That's how Jannissary lives!..."
+
+"He didn't ask me to pay for publishing my book," John murmured.
+
+"That's a wonder," Hinde replied. "Why didn't you ask for advice before
+you signed this thing?"
+
+"I want the book published as soon as possible. I have to make my name
+and I daresay I shall have to pay for making it!"
+
+Hinde put the agreement down. "Oh, well, if you look at it like that,"
+he said, "there's no more to be said, but you've done a silly thing!"
+
+"I don't see it," John boldly asserted, though there was doubt in his
+mind.
+
+"You'll see it some day!"
+
+Hinde had parted from them earlier that evening than he had intended or
+they had expected. He made an excuse for leaving them by saying that he
+was tired and needed sleep after late nights of work, but he went
+because John's vanity had been hurt by his criticism of the agreement
+and also because he had said that John's book had no remarkable
+qualities. "I'm telling you the truth that you're always demanding, and
+I won't tell you anything else. You've been very anxious to tell it to
+other people and now you'll have a chance of hearing it yourself. Your
+book is not a good book. There are dozens like it published every year.
+The _Sensation_ reviews them six-a-time in three or four hundred
+words. You may write good books some day, but _The Enchanted
+Lover_ is just an ordinary, mediocre book. I think your tragedy is
+better!..."
+
+"Well, it ought to be. It was written afterwards," John said, trying
+hard to speak without revealing resentment.
+
+"Yes. Yes, of course!" Hinde murmured.
+
+A little later, he had taken his leave of them.
+
+"I wonder if he's right!" Eleanor said to John when he had gone.
+
+"Of course he isn't," John tartly replied. "I believe he's jealous!"
+
+"Jealous!"
+
+"Yes. He's been talking for years of writing a tragedy about St.
+Patrick, but he's not done it, and then I come along and do it quite
+easily and get the play accepted. And my novel's to be published, too.
+Of course he's jealous! Any disappointed man's jealous when he sees
+someone else doing things he's failed to do. I'm sorry for him really!"
+
+"Perhaps that is it," Eleanor said, taking comfort to herself.
+
+"No doubt about it. Anyhow, even if the novel is a failure, there's the
+play. That's good. I know it's good. The novel was bound to have some
+faults. All first books have!"
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Then came the disappointment of the tragedy. The manager of the
+Cottenham Repertory Theatre wrote to say that they were compelled to
+postpone the production of it for a few weeks because their season had
+been unfortunate and they were eager to replenish their treasury by the
+production of popular pieces. They all admired John's play very much
+and were quite certain that it would be a great artistic success, but
+its tragical nature made it unlikely to be profitable to any of them
+just at present....
+
+"It's funny how these people keep on talking about _artistic_
+success when they think a thing isn't going to be any good," Eleanor
+said when he had finished reading the letter to her.
+
+"No good!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean, no good!"
+
+"Well ... of course I don't mean that your play isn't any good ... only
+I begin to feel doubtful about things when I hear the word
+_artistic_ mentioned."
+
+"They're only postponing the play for a short while until they've got
+enough money together to keep on. That's reasonable, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It's reasonable. I'm not saying anything about that ... only
+it's a disappointment!"
+
+"I'm disappointed myself," he said, ruefully contemplating the letter.
+
+"How much do you think you'll make out of it, John?" Eleanor asked
+pensively.
+
+"Make? Oh, I don't know. About a hundred pounds or so on the first
+performances ... and then there's the London season ... and of course
+if the play's a great success, we shall make our fortune. But I think
+we can reckon on a hundred pounds anyhow. I don't want to expect too
+much. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Well, I'm getting anxious about money. You see, dear, you haven't
+earned much since we got married, have you?"
+
+"No, not much. One or two articles in the _Sensation._ But you
+needn't worry about that. I'll look after the money part. Don't you
+worry!"
+
+"Perhaps you could get a regular job on the _Evening Herald_ now
+that Mr. Hinde's in charge of it," she suggested.
+
+Hinde had recently been appointed editor of the _Evening Herald._
+
+"Oh, no, Eleanor, I don't want a journalist's job. I'm a writer ... an
+artist ... not a reporter. Besides, I shouldn't have time to work at
+the book I'm doing now. Look at Hinde. He never has time to do anything
+but journalism. The worst of work like that is that after a time you
+can't do anything else. You think in paragraphs!..."
+
+"Supposing the play isn't a success ... I mean a financial success?"
+she asked.
+
+"Well, I'll make money for you some other way. Leave it to me, Eleanor,
+I'm pretty confident about myself. I feel convinced that the play
+_and_ the novel will be successful financially as well as
+artistically. I've always been confident about myself!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I feel quite confident about this. So don't worry your head any
+more like a good girl!"
+
+The receipt of the proofs and the excitement of correcting them caused
+Eleanor to forget her anxiety about their finances. John and she sat in
+front of the fire, she with one batch of galley sheets in her lap, he
+with another; and he read the story to her, correcting misprints and
+making alterations as he went along, while she copied the corrections
+on to her proofs.
+
+"Do you like it?" he asked, eager for her praise.
+
+"Yes," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder, "I do like it.
+It's ... it's quite good, isn't it?"
+
+He imagined that there was a note of dubiety in her voice, but he did
+not press her for greater praise, and they finished the correction of
+the proofs and sent them to Mr. Claude Jannissary as quickly as they
+could.
+
+"What does it feel like to have written a book?" Eleanor said to him
+when the proofs had been dispatched.
+
+"Fine," he replied. "I wish my Uncle Matthew were alive. He'd feel very
+proud of me!"
+
+"I'm proud of you," she said, drawing nearer to him.
+
+"Are you?" he exclaimed, his eyes brightening. He put his arm round her
+neck and she took hold of his hand. "Do you like me better now,
+Eleanor, than you did when we were married?"
+
+"Oh, yes, dear, of course I do."
+
+"Do you remember that night on the Embankment when we were both so
+scared of getting married?"
+
+"Yes. Weren't we silly? I very nearly ran away that night ... only I
+didn't know where to run to. I was awfully frightened, John. I thought
+we were both making terrible mistakes!..."
+
+"Well, we haven't regretted it yet, have we?"
+
+"No, not yet. So far our marriage has been successful!"
+
+"I told you it would be all right, didn't I? I knew I could make you
+happy. You're such a darling ... how could I help loving you?"
+
+
+
+V
+
+The novel was published in the same week that the tragedy was produced
+at the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. John had intended to be present at
+all the rehearsals of his play, but the manager of the theatre informed
+him that this was hardly necessary. It would be sufficient if he were
+to attend the last two and the dress rehearsal, and when John
+considered the state of his work on the second novel, he decided to
+accept the manager's advice. "After all," he said to Eleanor, "I don't
+know anything at all about producing plays and this chap spends his
+life at the job, so I can safely leave it to him!"
+
+The complimentary copies of his novel reached him on the evening before
+he was to travel to Cottenham to attend his first rehearsal. He opened
+the parcel with trembling fingers and took out the six red-covered
+volumes and spread them on the table. He liked the bold black letters
+in which the title of the book and his name were printed on the covers:
+THE ENCHANTED LOVER by JOHN MACDERMOTT. It seemed incredible to him
+that a book should bear his name, but there, in big, black letters on a
+red ground, was his name. He turned the pages, reading a sentence here
+and a sentence there until Eleanor, who had been out when the parcel
+arrived, came in.
+
+"Look!" he said, holding one of the books towards her. She exclaimed
+with delight and ran forward to take the book from him. "Oh, my dear,"
+she said, clasping the novel with one hand while she embraced him with
+the other. "I'm so proud of you, you clever creature!"
+
+He was greatly moved by her affection, and he felt that he wanted to
+cry. There were very queer sensations in his throat, and he had
+tremendous difficulty in keeping his eyes from blinking.
+
+"It's rather nice?" he said, touching the book.
+
+"It's lovely," she said. She went to the table. "Are these the others?"
+She drew a chair forward and sat down. "Let's send them out to-night.
+This one to your mother and this one to Uncle William. I'll keep this
+one!" She opened the book at the dedication "To Eleanor." "Here," she
+said, "write your name in it!" He found a pen and ink and wrote under
+the dedication, "from her devoted husband," and when she saw what he
+had written, she hugged him and told him again that she was proud of
+him.
+
+"What about the others? Are you going to send them out, too?" she
+asked, and he proposed to her that one should be sent to Hinde, one to
+Mr. Cairnduff and one to Mr. McCaughan....
+
+"We shan't have any left, except my copy, if you do that!" she
+objected.
+
+"We can easily get some more," he replied.
+
+"I'd like to send one to that beastly cousin in Exeter just to let him
+see how clever you are. He hadn't the decency to send us a wedding
+present, the stingy miser!"
+
+They packed up the books after John had inscribed them, and went off to
+the post-office together to send them off.
+
+"Won't it be fun reading the reviews?" said John as they walked up High
+Street.
+
+"I hope they'll like it, the people who review it," she answered.
+"Don't let's go in just yet. Let's walk along the Spaniards' Road a
+little while!"
+
+They walked up Heath Street, and when they came to the railings above
+The Vale of Health, they stood against them and looked towards London.
+A blue haze had settled over the city and the trees were like long
+hanging veils through which little, yellow lights from the street-lamps
+shone like tiny jewels. The air was full of drowsy sounds, as if the
+earth were happily tired and were resting for a while before the
+pleasures of the night began.
+
+"Would you like to go back to your club, Eleanor?" John said.
+
+"Silly old silly!" she replied, pinching his arm.
+
+"I feel as if I want to tell everybody that you've written a book and a
+play," she said, as they walked on. "It doesn't seem right that all
+these people don't know about you!"
+
+He went to Cottenham on the next day, carrying with him an early
+edition of the _Evening Herald_ in which Hinde had printed a very
+flattering review of _The Enchanted Lover._ Eleanor had been
+puzzled by the promptness with which the review had appeared until John
+explained to her that review copies of books were sent to the
+newspapers a week or a fortnight before the date of publication.
+
+"It's a very good review," she said. "I thought he didn't like the book
+much!"
+
+"So did I. I hope he isn't just writing like this to please me. I don't
+want insincere reviews!..."
+
+"I expect," said Eleanor, "he didn't tell you how much, he really liked
+it!"
+
+"Hmmm! Perhaps that's it," John replied.
+
+He put the paper in his pocket, and as the train drew out of Easton and
+started on its journey to Cottenham, he speculated on the sincerity of
+Hinde's review. He took the paper out of his pocket and read it again.
+The review was headed, "A REMARKABLE FIRST NOVEL" and was full of
+phrases that seemed fulsome even to John. "We prophesy that this
+notable novel will have a very great success among the reading public.
+It is certainly the finest story of its kind that has been _published
+in this country for a generation_."
+
+"I wouldn't have said that about it myself," John reflected. "Of
+course, I'd like to think it's true, but!... I hope this isn't just
+logrolling!" He remembered how fiercely Hinde had described the
+back-scratching, high-minded poets who boomed each other in their papers.
+"I don't want to get praise that way," he thought, putting the paper back
+into his pocket. "I'll order half-a-dozen copies of the _Herald_
+when I get back from Cottenham. My Uncle William will be glad of a
+copy, and so will Mr. Cairnduff and the minister!..."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+The Cottenham Repertory Theatre was a dingy, ill-built house in a back
+street in Cottenham. It had been a music-hall of a low class until the
+earnest playgoers of Cottenham, extremely anxious about the condition
+of the drama, formed themselves into a society to improve the theatre.
+By dint of agitation and much hard work, they contrived to get enough
+money together to take the music-hall over from its owner who was
+unable to compete against the syndicate halls and was steadily drinking
+himself to death in consequence, and turned it into a repertory
+theatre. Their success had been moderate, for they united to their good
+intentions a habit of denunciation of all plays that were not
+"repertory" plays which had the effect partly of irritating the common
+playgoer and partly of frightening him. All the plays that were
+labelled "repertory" plays were praised by these earnest students of
+the drama without any sort of discrimination, and when, as often
+happened, a very poor play was produced at the Repertory Theatre, any
+common playgoer who saw it and was bored by it, went away in the belief
+that he was not educated up to the standard of such austere work and
+resolved that he would seek his entertainment elsewhere in future. It
+was to this theatre that John went on the day after his arrival in
+Cottenham. The town itself depressed him immeasurably. It was the most
+shapeless, nondescript, undignified town he had ever seen, and yet it
+was one of the richest places in England. There was no seemliness in
+its main streets; little huckstering shops hustled larger and more
+pretentious shops, but all of them had an air of vivacious vulgarity.
+They had not been given the look of sobriety which age gives even to
+ugly streets in ugly towns. They seemed to be striving against each
+other in a competition to decide which was the commonest and shoddiest
+shop in the city. It seemed to John that all these Cottenham shops
+dropped their aitches!... The clouds were grey when he arrived in
+Cottenham, dirty-grey and very cheerless; they were still dirty-grey
+when he went to the theatre, and rain fell before he reached it; and
+the clouds remained in that dismal state until he quitted Cottenham
+after the first performance of _Milchu and St. Patrick: A
+Tragedy_. It seemed to John that they would never be otherwise than
+dirty-grey, that the streets would always be wet and the shops always
+clamantly vulgar.
+
+"I wouldn't live in this place for the wide world," he said, as he
+turned into the stage-door of the Repertory Theatre.
+
+He was directed to the manager's office by the doorkeeper. The Manager
+was on the stage, so the girl secretary informed him, and if Mr.
+MacDermott would kindly follow her she would take him there at once. He
+had never seen the stage side of the proscenium before, and although
+the place was dark and he stumbled over properties, he felt enormously
+interested in what he saw.
+
+"Is that the scenery?" he said to the secretary as they passed some
+tawdry looking flats lying against the walls of the scene-dock.
+
+"Yes," she answered. "It looks awful in the daylight, doesn't it? But
+when the footlights are on and the limes are lit, you'd be surprised to
+see how fine it looks. They say that common materials look better in
+limelight than good things do. Funny, isn't it?"
+
+She led him on to the stage and brought him to the manager.
+
+"This is Mr. MacDermott," she said to a tall, lean, worried man who was
+standing immediately in front of the footlights, directing the
+rehearsal which was then beginning.
+
+"Oh, ah, yes!" said the manager, and then he turned to John. "I'm
+Gidney," he said.
+
+John murmured a politeness.
+
+"Now, let me introduce you to people!" He turned to the players, all of
+whom had that appearance of depression which actors habitually wear in
+daylight, as if they felt naked and ashamed without their grease-paint.
+"This is the author of the play," he exclaimed to them. "Mr.
+MacDermott!" He led John to each of the players, naming them as he did
+so, and each of them murmured that he or she was delighted to have the
+pleasure!...
+
+"I think if you were to sit in the front row of the stalls, Mr.
+MacDermott!" said Gidney, "while the rehearsal proceeds, that would be
+best. You can tell me at the end of each act what alterations or
+suggestions you wish to propose!"
+
+"Very good," said John, feeling his spirits running rapidly into his
+boots. What were these cheerless people going to do with the play over
+which he had laboured and sweated for weeks and weeks?...
+
+They went through their parts with a lifeless facility that turned his
+tragedy, he imagined, into a neat piece of machinery and left it
+without any glow of emotion whatever. Now and then the ease with which
+they recited their words was interrupted by forgetfulness and the
+player, whose memory had failed him, would snap his fingers and call to
+the prompter, "What is it?" or "Give me that line, will you?"
+
+"How do you think it's going?" said the manager to John at the end of
+the first act.
+
+"Well, I don't know," he answered with a nervous laugh. "They aren't
+putting much enthusiasm into it, are they?"
+
+"Ah, but this is only a rehearsal. Wait till you see the dress
+rehearsal!"
+
+He felt considerably relieved. A rehearsal, of course, must be very
+different from a performance. But on the night of the dress
+rehearsal ... it took place on Sunday, for the stage was occupied on
+week-nights by regular performances ... the players seemed to go
+to pieces. All of them had difficulty in remembering their lines,
+and when at the end of the last act, a piece of the scenery collapsed
+upon St. Patrick, John felt that he could have cheerfully seen the
+entire theatre collapse on everybody concerned with it. He went to
+the grubby Temperance hotel in which he had taken a room, and gave
+himself completely to gloom and despair. He felt that his play was
+not quite so brilliant as he had imagined it to be, but he was not
+sure that his dissatisfaction with it ought not really to be displayed
+against the actors. Any play, treated as his had been treated, must seem
+to be a poor piece. Gidney had appeared to be pleased with the dress
+rehearsal and had wrung John's hand with great heartiness when they
+separated. "Going splendidly!" he murmured. "Congratulate you. Excellent
+piece!..." On the way to his hotel, he had seen a play-bill in the
+window of a tobacconist's shop, and a thrill of pleasure had quickened
+him as he stood in front of the glass and read his name beneath the
+title of the play. He must remember to ask Gidney for a copy of the
+play-bill to hang up in his flat! Now, in the dull and not very clean
+bedroom of the Temperance Hotel, he felt indifferent to play-bills and
+the thrill of seeing his name in print. He wished that Eleanor were
+with him. They had decided that she should not be present at the first
+night in Cottenham because of the expense of hotel bills and railway
+fares.
+
+"I'll see it in London," she had said bravely, trying to conceal her
+disappointment. Now, however, he wished that she were with him. She had
+remarkable powers of comforting. If he were depressed, Eleanor would
+draw his head down to her shoulder and would soothe him into a good
+temper again. There had been times since their marriage when he had
+been dubious about her ... when it seemed to him that she had only a
+kindly affection for him and still had not got love for him ... and the
+thought filled him with resentment against her. Why could she not love
+him? He was lovable enough and he loved her. A woman ought to love a
+man who loved her!... Then some perception of the self-sufficiency and
+the smugness of these thoughts went through his mind and he would abase
+himself in spirit before her and reproach himself for unkindnesses that
+he imagined he had shown to her ... hasty words that hurt her. His
+temper was quick to rise, but equally quick to fall; and sometimes he
+failed to realise that in the sudden outburst of anger he had said
+cruel, hurting things which made no impression on him because they were
+said without any feeling, but left a hard impression on those to whom
+they were addressed. He had seen pain in Eleanor's eyes when he had
+spoken some swift and biting word to her, and then, all repentance, he
+had tried to kiss the pain from her....
+
+To-night, in this grubby bedroom, smelling of teetotallers and grim,
+forbidding people in whom are to be found none of the genial foibles of
+ordinary, hearty men, he felt an excess of remorse for any unkind thing
+he had ever said to Eleanor. His pessimism about his play caused him to
+exaggerate the enormity of his offences. He pictured her, looking at
+him with that queer air of puzzled pathos that had so impressed him
+when he first saw her, and intense shame filled him when he thought
+that he had done or said anything to make her look at him in that way.
+Well, he would compensate her for any pain that he had caused her. He
+would love her so dearly that her life would be passed in continual
+sunshine and comfort. Even if she were never to return his love or to
+return only a slight share of it, he would devote himself to her just
+as completely as if she gave everything to him. His play might be
+miserably acted and be a failure, apart from the acting, but what
+mattered that! While he had Eleanor he had everything.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+He went down to the theatre on the evening of the first performance in
+a state of calm and quietness which greatly astonished him. He had
+expected to tremble and quake with nervousness and to be reluctant to
+go near the theatre. He remembered to have read somewhere an account of
+the way in which some melodramatist of repute behaved on a first night.
+He walked up and down the Embankment while his play was being
+performed, mopping his fevered brow and groaning in agony. Someone had
+found the melodramatist on one occasion, sitting at the foot of
+Cleopatra's Needle, howling into his handkerchief.... John, however,
+had no terrors whatever when he entered the theatre, and he told
+himself that the melodramatist was either an extremely emotional
+man or a very considerable liar. There was a moderate number of people
+in the auditorium, enough to preserve the theatre from seeming sparsely-
+occupied, but not enough to justify anyone in saying that the house was
+full. The atmosphere resembled that of a church. People spoke, when
+they spoke at all, in whispers, and John was so infected by the air of
+solemnity that when a small boy in the gallery began to call out "Acid
+drops or cigarettes!" he felt that a sidesman must appear from a pew
+and take the lad to the police-station for brawling in a sacred
+edifice. He waited for the orchestra to appear, but the play began
+without any preliminary music. The lights were lowered, and soon
+afterwards someone beat the floor of the stage with a wooden mallet ...
+sending forth three sepulchral sounds that seemed to hammer out of the
+audience any tendency it might have had to enjoy itself. Then the
+curtain ascended, and the play began.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+The actors were much better than they had promised to be at the dress
+rehearsal, but they were still far from being good. It was very plain
+that they had been insufficiently rehearsed and there were some bad
+cases of mis-casting. Nevertheless, the performance was better than he
+had anticipated, and his spirits rose almost as rapidly as they had
+fallen on the previous night; and when at the end of the performance
+there were calls for the author, he passed through the door that gave
+access from the auditorium to the stage with a great deal of elation.
+He was thrust on to the stage by Gidney, and found himself standing
+between two of the actresses. There was a great black cavern in front
+of him which, he realised, was the auditorium, and he could hear
+applause rising out of it. The curtain rose and fell again, and the
+buzz of voices calling praise to him grew louder. Then the curtain fell
+again, and this time it remained down. He realised that he had gripped
+the actresses by the hand and that he was holding them very tightly....
+"I beg your pardon!" he said, releasing them.
+
+"Awf'lly good!" said one of the actresses, smiling at him as she moved
+across the stage. How horrible actors and actresses in their make-up
+looked close to! He could not conceive of himself kissing that woman
+while she had so much paint on her face.... He turned to walk off the
+stage, and found that walking was very difficult. He was trembling so
+that his knees were almost knocking together and when he moved, he
+reeled slightly.
+
+"I say," he said to one of the actors, "my nerve's gone to pieces.
+Funny thing ... I ... felt nothing at all ... nothing ... until just
+now!"
+
+The actor took hold of his arm and steadied him. "Queer how nerves
+affect people," he said, as John and he left the stage. "I knew a
+man who got stage fright two days before the first night of a play
+in which he had a big part. Nearly collapsed in the street. All right
+afterwards ... never turned a hair on the stage. Must congratulate you on
+your play ... jolly good, I call it. Tragedy, of course!..."
+
+He had expected some sort of festivity after the performance, but there
+was none. The players were eager to get home, and Gidney had a
+headache, so John thanked each of them and went back to his hotel.
+
+"Thank goodness," he said, "I shall be at home tomorrow."
+
+He got into bed and lay quietly in the darkness, but he could not
+sleep, and so he turned on the light again and tried to read; but his
+head was thumping, thumping and the words had no meaning for him. He
+put the book down. How extraordinary is the common delusion, he
+thought, that actors and actresses lead gay lives! Could anything be
+more dull than the life of an actor in a repertory theatre? Daily
+rehearsals in a dingy and draughty theatre and nightly performances in
+half-rehearsed plays!... "Give me the life of a bank clerk for real
+gaiety," he murmured. "An actor's just a drudge ... and a dull drudge,
+too! Very uninteresting people, actors!... Why the devil did I leave
+Eleanor behind?"
+
+
+
+IX
+
+He returned to London on the following morning, carrying copies of the
+_Cottenham Daily Post_ and the _Cottenham Mercury_ with him.
+The notices of his play were mildly appreciative ... that of the
+_Post_ being so mild as to be almost denunciatory. The critic
+asserted that John's play, while interesting, showed that its author
+had no real understanding of the meaning of tragedy. He found no
+evidence in _Milchu and St. Patrick_ that John appreciated the
+importance of the pressure of the Significant Event. The Significant
+Event decided the development of a tragedy, but in Mr. MacDermott's
+play there was no Significant Event. The play just happened, so to
+speak, and it ought not to "just happen." It was an excellent discursus
+on the drama from the time of the morality plays to the time of the
+Irish Players, and it included references to Euripides, Ibsen, the Noh
+plays of Japan, Mr. Bernard Shaw (in a patronising manner), Synge and
+Mr. Masefield; but John felt, when he had read it, that most of it had
+been written before its author had seen his play. The other notice was
+less learned, but it left no doubt in the mind of the readers that
+although _Milchu and St. Patrick_ was an interesting piece ... the
+word "interesting," after he had read these notices, seemed to John to
+be equivalent to the word "poor" ... it was not likely to mark any
+epochs.
+
+"I don't think much of Cottenham anyhow!" said John, putting, the
+papers in his pocket.
+
+Eleanor met him at Euston. The fatigue which settles on a traveller in
+the last hour of a long railway journey had raised the devil of
+depression in John. He had reread the notices in the Cottenham papers,
+and as he considered their very restrained praises of his play, he
+remembered that Hinde had said _The Enchanted Lover_ was an
+ordinary novel.
+
+"I wonder am I any good," he said to himself as the train hauled itself
+into Euston.
+
+He looked out of the window and saw Eleanor standing on the platform,
+scanning the carriage as she sought for him.
+
+"Well, she thinks I am," he thought, as he alighted from the train.
+"Eleanor!" he called to her, and she turned and when she saw him, her
+eyes lit and she hurried to him.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+Hinde's enthusiastic review of _The Enchanted Lover_ had not been
+followed by other reviews equally enthusiastic or nearly so. Many
+papers failed to do more than include it in the List of Books Received.
+_The Times Literary Supplement_ gave six lines of small type to a
+cold account of it. The reviewer declared that "this first novel is not
+without merit" but either had not been able to discover the merit or
+had not enough space in which to describe it, for he omitted to say
+what it was. John had paid a visit to the local lending library every
+morning for a week in order that he might see all the London newspapers
+and such of the provincial papers as were exhibited, and had searched
+their columns eagerly for references to his book; but the references
+were few and slight. Mr. Claude Jannissary, when John visited him,
+wagged his head dolefully and uttered some mournful remarks on the sad
+state of idealism in England. He regretted to say that the book was not
+selling so well as he had hoped it would sell. The appalling conditions
+of the publishing trade were accentuated by the extraordinary
+reluctance of the booksellers to take risks or to show any enthusiasm
+for new things. Between Mr. Jannissary and John, he might say that
+booksellers were a very unsatisfactory lot. Most of them were quite
+uncultured men. Hardly any of them read books. Mr. Jannissary longed
+for the day when booksellers would look upon their shops as places of
+adventure and romance!...
+
+A curious sensation of distaste for these words passed through John
+when he heard them spoken by Mr. Jannissary. The booksellers, said the
+publishers, should be ambitious to earn the title of the new
+Elizabethans ... hungering and thirsting after dangerous experiences.
+He would like to see a bookseller turning disdainfully from "best
+sellers" and eagerly purchasing large quantities of books by unknown
+authors. "Think of the thrill of it," said Mr. Jannissary; and John,
+perturbed in his mind, tried hard to think of the thrill of it. His
+mental perturbation was due to the lean look of his bank balance. Money
+was going out of his house more rapidly than it was coming in, and
+Eleanor had been full of anxiety that morning. He had not yet received
+a cheque from the Cottenham Repertory Theatre for the royalties due on
+the week's performance of _Milchu and St. Patrick_, but he had
+soothed Eleanor's fears by assuring her that there would be the better
+part of a hundred pounds to come to them from Cottenham in a few days.
+In the meantime, he told her, he would call on Jannissary and see
+whether he could not obtain some money from him. "He must have sold
+much more than five hundred copies by this time," he said. "If all the
+bookshops in the country only took one copy each, he'd have sold more
+than five hundred, and I'm sure they'd all take two or three each.
+Perhaps more!"
+
+The suggestion that he might make a small advance to John on account
+of accrued royalties had a very chilling effect upon Mr. Jannissary.
+"My dear fellow," he said, putting up his hands in a benedictory
+manner and then dropping them as if to say that even he found difficulty
+in believing in the nobility of man, "impossible! Absolutely impossible!
+I've sunk ... Money ... much Money ... in your book ... I don't regret
+it ... not for a moment ... I believe in you, MacDermott ... strongly
+... but it will be a long time before I recover any of that ... Money
+... if I ever recover it. I'm sorry!..."
+
+John had come away from the publisher in a cheerless state of mind, and
+as he turned into the Strand, he collided with Hinde.
+
+"How's the book getting on?" Hinde demanded when they had greeted each
+other.
+
+John told him of what Jannissary had said.
+
+"I tell you what I'll do." said Hinde. "I'll work up a boom for it in
+the _Evening Herald_. I'll turn one of my chaps on to writing half
+a dozen letters to the Editor about it!..."
+
+"But you don't like the book," John expostulated. "You told me it
+wasn't much good!"
+
+"Och, I know that," Hinde replied, "but that doesn't matter. I'd like
+to do you a good turn. There's a smart chap working for me now ... he
+can put more superlatives into a paragraph than any other man in Fleet
+Street, and he isn't afraid of committing himself to anything. Most
+useful fellow to have on your staff. He does our Literary article, and
+he's discovered a fresh genius every week since he came to me. He'll
+get on, that chap! I'll turn him on to your book!"
+
+"I don't want praise that I don't deserve," John said, thrusting out
+his lower lip.
+
+"Oh, you'll deserve it all right. Everybody deserves some praise. How's
+Eleanor?"
+
+"All right!"
+
+Then Hinde hurried away, and John went home. There was a letter from
+the Cottenham Repertory Theatre awaiting him, and he eagerly opened the
+envelope.
+
+"You needn't worry any longer," he said to Eleanor as he took out the
+contents of the envelope....
+
+He gaped at the cheque and the Returns Sheet.
+
+"How much is it?" Eleanor asked.
+
+"There must be a mistake!..."
+
+"How much is it?" she repeated.
+
+"Sixteen pounds, nine shillings and sevenpence! But!..."
+
+
+II
+
+She took the Returns Sheet from him. "No," she said after she had
+examined it, "there doesn't appear to be any mistake. It seems to be
+all right!"
+
+She put the paper and the cheque down, and turned away.
+
+"It's queer, isn't it?" he said.
+
+"Yes. Yes, very! We shall have to do something, John. We've very little
+left!"
+
+"Of course, there's the London season to come yet," he said to comfort
+her.
+
+"Not for a very long time," she answered, "and it may not be any better
+than this!" She hesitated for a moment, then she hurriedly said, "John,
+why shouldn't I go on with my work!"
+
+"On with your work! What do you mean?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I get a job again? We could manage, I think, and the
+money I'd earn would be useful. You could finish your new book!..."
+
+His pride was hurt. "Oh, no," he said at once. "No, no, I can't agree
+to that. What sort of a husband would I look like if people heard that
+I couldn't maintain my wife. Oh, Eleanor, I couldn't think of such a
+thing!...
+
+"I don't see why not. You're not going to make money easily, so far as
+I can see, and either you or I must get work of some sort. I know you
+want to finish your book, so why shouldn't I earn something to help us
+to keep going?"
+
+"No," he said, "that's my job. I daresay Hinde would give me work if I
+asked for it!"
+
+"But you've always been against doing journalism."
+
+"I know. I'm still against it, but one can't always resist things.
+He might let me do literary work for him. I'll go in and see him
+to-morrow."
+
+He told her of his encounter with Hinde that day and of Hinde's
+proposal to boom _The Enchanted Lover_. "I don't like the idea
+much, but perhaps it'll be useful!" He picked up the cheque from the
+Cottenham Repertory Theatre. "I'm actually out of pocket over this
+affair," he said. "What with the cost of typing the play and my
+expenses in Cottenham...."
+
+"I wish we could go back to Ballyards," Eleanor said.
+
+"Go back to Ballyards!" he exclaimed, staring at her in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, we'd be much better off there!"
+
+"Go back and admit I've failed in London! Crawl home with my tail
+between my legs!..."
+
+"Don't be melodramatic," said Eleanor.
+
+"I have my pride," he retorted. "You can call that being melodramatic,
+if you like, but I call it decent pride. I won't admit to anybody that
+I've failed. I haven't failed!..."
+
+"I didn't say you had, dear!"
+
+"I won't fail. You wait. Just you wait. I'll succeed all right. If I
+have failed so far, I can try again, can't I? Can't I?"
+
+"Yes, John!..."
+
+"I'm not going to take a knock-down blow as a knockout. I know I can
+write. I feel the stuff inside me. The book I'm doing now, isn't that
+good?"
+
+"Well!..."
+
+"Isn't it good? You'll have to admit it's good!"
+
+"I daresay it is. It isn't the kind of book I like, but I'm sure it's
+good. That's why I want to get a job, so that you can finish it in
+peace. Let me try ... just until you've finished the book. Then perhaps
+things will be all right. I'd like to be able to say that I helped
+you!"
+
+"You're a lot too good for me."
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not. Any girl who _is_ a girl would want to help,
+wouldn't she?"
+
+His temper had subsided now, and the reproach he always felt after such
+a scene as this made him feel very ashamed of himself.
+
+"I'm sorry, Eleanor, that I lost my temper just now. I didn't mean to
+say what I did!..."
+
+"But, my dear," she exclaimed, "you didn't say much, and if you did it
+was because you were upset about the play and the novel. Don't worry
+about that. Now, listen to me. I met Mr. Crawford this morning!..."
+
+"Crawford?"
+
+"Yes. He's managing director of that motor place I used to be in. He
+told me he had never had a secretary so useful as I was, and that he
+wished I'd never met you!..."
+
+"Did he, indeed?"
+
+"Yes. Of course, that was only a joke. I'm sure he'd let me go back to
+my old job for a while!..."
+
+"No. No, no!"
+
+She stood up, half turned away from him, and said, "Well, I'm going to
+ask for it anyhow!"
+
+"You're what?"
+
+"Yes, John, I'm going to ask for it. Don't shout at me! You really must
+listen to sense. I'm not going to run into debt or have trouble with
+tradesmen about money just because of your pride. I want you to finish
+that book!"
+
+"I'd rather sweep the streets than let you go back to your old job."
+
+"Well, I'll get a new one then!"
+
+"Or any job," he said. "I don't care what it is. That man Crawford,
+what do you think he'd say if you went back to him? I know. 'Poor Mrs.
+MacDermott, her husband must be a rum sort of a fellow ... not able to
+keep his wife ... she had to go out to work again soon after he married
+her!' That's what he'd say!"
+
+"But does it matter what he says?"
+
+"Yes. I'm not going to have anybody say that I can't earn enough to
+keep you decently!"
+
+"That's all very fine, John, but you're not doing it. Your novel hasn't
+brought you any money at all, and you've spent as much on the play as
+you've got so far. You've had one or two articles printed, and that's
+all. The rest of the money we've lived on has come from your Uncle
+William!..."
+
+"Uncle William! None of it came from him. Uncle Matthew left me his
+money and my mother gave me the rest!"
+
+"Yes, and how did they get it? From your Uncle William, of course. His
+work has kept them, hasn't it? And you? We're sponging on your Uncle
+William, and I hate to think we're sponging on him. You're very proud
+about not letting me go out to work, but you're not so proud about
+letting Uncle William keep you!"
+
+This was a blow between the eyes for him. "That's a bitterly unkind
+thing to say," he murmured.
+
+"It's true, isn't it?" she retorted. "I don't want to be unkind, John,
+but we've really got to face things. I'm frightened. I don't like the
+thought of getting into debt. I've never been in debt before. Never!
+And I can't see what's going to happen when we've spent our money if
+one of us doesn't start to earn something now!" She changed her tone.
+"John, don't be silly about it. Do agree to my getting a job for the
+present. You'll be able to get on with your book at home, and any other
+writing you want to do, and then perhaps things will get straight and
+we'll be all right!"
+
+"The point is, do you believe in me?" he demanded.
+
+"Of course I believe in you!..."
+
+"Ah, but I mean in my work. In my writing. Do you believe in that?"
+
+"What's that got to do with it? Lots of books are very good that I
+don't much care for. I liked _The Enchanted Lover_--it was quite
+good--but I don't much care for the one you're doing now. I can't help
+that. I daresay other people will like it better!"
+
+"Why don't you like it?"
+
+"Well, it doesn't seem to me to be about anything."
+
+"Listen, Eleanor! I don't want just to be one of a mob of fairly good
+writers. If I can't be a great writer, I don't want to be a writer at
+all. I'll have everything or I'll have nothing!"
+
+"I see!"
+
+"So now you know. I feel I have greatness in me ... but you don't feel
+like that about me," he said.
+
+"I don't know anything about greatness. All I know is that I like some
+things and that I don't like others. I don't know why a book is great
+or why it isn't. You can't judge things by what I say. It's quite
+possible that you are a great writer, and that's why I want you to let
+me get a job, so that you can go on with your work and be able to show
+the world what you can do. I'd hate to think you'd been prevented from
+doing your best work because you'd had to use up your energy doing
+other things. It won't take long to finish this book, will it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, I shan't have to work for very long. By the time it's
+finished, _The Enchanted Lover_ may have earned a lot of money for
+us ... and the play, too ... and then we can just laugh at our troubles
+now!..."
+
+
+
+III
+
+He remained obdurate for a while, but in the end she wore his
+opposition down. Mr. Crawford gladly welcomed her back to her old job,
+and even offered her a larger salary than she had been receiving before
+her marriage. "I've learned your value since you went away," he said.
+"I'm a fool to tell you that, perhaps, but I can't help it. Half the
+young women who go out to offices nowadays would be dear at ninepence a
+week. The last girl we had here caused me to imperil my immortal soul
+twice a day through her incompetence. I've sworn more in a week since
+you left us, than I ever swore in my life before!..."
+
+Eleanor insisted that John should not inform his mother of her return
+to work. Intuitively she knew that Mrs. MacDermott's pride would be
+outraged by this knowledge, and that she would make bitter complaint to
+John of his failure to maintain his wife in a way worthy of his family;
+and so she urged John to say nothing at all of the matter either to
+Mrs. MacDermott or to Uncle William. He had made no comment on the
+matter, but she knew that he had been relieved by her request.
+
+Hinde had fulfilled his promise to boom _The Enchanted Lover_ in
+the _Evening Herald_, and Mr. Jannissary reluctantly admitted that
+the book was selling. "Slowly, of course, but still ... selling! I
+think I shall get my money back," he said.
+
+"Do you think I'll get any money out of it?" John asked.
+
+"Ah, these things are on the knees of the gods, my dear fellow! It is
+impossible to say!"
+
+The second book moved in a leisurely manner to its close, and Mr.
+Jannissary declared that he was delighted to hear that _The Enchanted
+Lover_ would shortly have a successor. He thought that perhaps he
+could promise to pay royalties from the first copy of the new novel!...
+
+"How do writers manage to live, Mr. Jannissary?" John said to him at
+this point, and Mr. Jannissary murmured that there was a divinity which
+shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may.
+
+"Oh, is that it?" said John.
+
+"Some men have been very hungry, MacDermott because they served their
+Art faithfully. Think of the garrets, the lonely attics in which
+beautiful things have been imagined!..."
+
+"I've no desire to go hungry or to live in a lonely attic, Mr.
+Jannissary. Let me tell you that!"
+
+"No ... no, of course not. None of us have. I trust I am not a
+voluptuary or self-indulgent in any way, but I too would dislike to be
+excessively hungry. Still, I think it must be a great consolation to a
+man to think that he had made a great work out of ... his pain, so to
+speak!"
+
+John reflected for a moment on this. Then he said, "How do you manage
+to keep going, Mr. Jannissary, when you publish so many books that
+don't bring you any return?"
+
+Mr. Jannissary glanced very interrogatively at John. Then he waved his
+hands, and murmured vaguely. "Sacrifices," he said. "We all have to
+make sacrifices!..."
+
+John left the publisher and went on to the office of the _Evening
+Herald_ where he saw Hinde. "I've brought an article I thought you'd
+like to print," he said when he had been admitted to Hinde's office.
+Hinde glanced quickly through it. "Good," he said, "I'll put it in
+to-morrow. I suppose," he continued, "you wouldn't like to do a job for
+me?"
+
+"What sort of a job?"
+
+"There's to be a great ceremony at Westminster Abbey to-morrow ...
+dedication of a chapel for the Order of the Bath. The King'll be there.
+Like to go and write an account of it?"
+
+"Yes, I would!"
+
+"Good. I'll get Masters to send the ticket of admission on to you
+to-night!"
+
+He felt much happier when he left the Herald offices than he had felt
+when he entered them. He had sold an article and had been commissioned
+to do an interesting job. Eleanor would be pleased. He hurried home so
+that he might be there to greet her when she returned from her work.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+She was sitting in front of the fire when he entered the flat.
+"Hilloa," he said, "you're home early, aren't you?"
+
+She looked up and smiled rather wanly at him.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I came home about three!..."
+
+"Why? Aren't you well?"
+
+"I'm not feeling very grand!"
+
+"What's the matter!"
+
+"I don't know. At least I ... Oh, I don't know. It may only be
+imagination!"
+
+He sat down beside her. "Imagination!..." She looked at him very
+steadily, and he found himself remembering how beautiful he had thought
+her eyes were that day when he saw her for the first time. They were
+still very beautiful.
+
+"I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know ... but I ... I think I'm going
+to have a baby!"
+
+"Holy Smoke!"
+
+"I don't know. I feel so stupid!..."
+
+She had been smiling while she was telling this to him, but now she
+dismayed him by bursting into tears.
+
+"Eleanor!" he exclaimed, not knowing what to say or to do, and she let
+herself subside into his arms and lay there, half laughing and half
+crying.
+
+"I'm being a ... frightful ... fool," she said between sobs, "but I ...
+I can't help it!"
+
+They sat together until the dusk had turned to darkness, holding each
+other and whispering explanations and hopes and fears. A queer sense of
+responsibility settled upon John, a feeling that he must bear burdens
+and be glad to bear them. Eleanor seemed to him now to be a very
+fragile and timid creature, turning instinctively to him for care and
+protection. Immeasureable love for her surged in his heart. This very
+dear and gentle girl, so full of courage and yet so full of alarm, had
+become inexpressibly precious to him. She had come to him in doubt and
+had entrusted her life to him, not certain that she cared for him
+sufficiently to be entirely happy with him. He had tried to make her
+happy, and slowly he had seen her liking for him growing into some sort
+of affection. Perhaps now she loved him as he loved her. Soon she would
+be the mother of a child ... his child!... How very extraordinary it
+seemed! A few months ago, Eleanor and he had been strangers to each
+other ... and now she was about to bear a child to him!
+
+"I must work hard," he said to himself, and then to her, "Of course,
+you can't go back to Mr. Crawford. I'll write to my mother and tell
+her!"
+
+He remembered the commission from Hinde, and while he was telling her
+of it, the postman delivered a letter from the Herald in which was the
+invitation card for the ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
+
+She examined it with interest. "But it says Morning Dress must be
+worn," she exclaimed, pointing to the notice in the corner of the card.
+"You haven't got any Morning Dress!"
+
+"Do you think it'll matter?"
+
+"They may not let you in if you go as you are now. You haven't even a
+silk hat!"
+
+"What shall I do then?" he asked.
+
+"We must think of something. Perhaps Mrs. Townley's husband would lend
+you his silk hat!" The Townleys were their neighbours. "He hardly ever
+wears it, and he's about your size!"
+
+"I shouldn't like to ask them!..."
+
+"Oh, I'll ask them all right," Eleanor said.
+
+She left the flat and crossed the staircase to the door of the
+Townleys' flat, and after a little while, she returned carrying a silk
+hat that was much in need of ironing.
+
+"She lent it quite willingly," Eleanor said. "She says Mr. Townley's
+only used it twice. Once when they were married and once at a funeral.
+Put it on!" She fixed it on his head. "It doesn't quite fit," she said.
+"Perhaps if I were to put some paper inside the band, that would make
+it sit better!"
+
+She lined the hat with, tissue paper and then, put it on his head
+again. "That's a lot better," she exclaimed. "Look at yourself in the
+glass!"
+
+"I feel an awful fool in it," he murmured, glancing at his reflection
+in the mirror.
+
+"Oh, well, I suppose all men do feel like fools when they put on silk
+hats ... at first anyhow ... but it isn't any worse than a bowler hat
+or one of those awful squash-hats that Socialists wear. Men's hats are
+hideous whatever shape they are. I don't know what we're to do about a
+morning coat for you. I didn't like to ask Mrs. Townley to lend her
+husband's to me!..."
+
+"Good Lord, no! You can't borrow the man's entire wardrobe from him!"
+
+"Your grey flannel trousers might look like ordinary trousers, if we
+could get a morning-coat for you!" She paused as if she were reflecting
+on the problem. "I know," she said at last. "It's sure to rain, in the
+morning. King George is going to the thing, so it's sure to rain. Wear
+your overcoat ... then you won't need a morning coat ... and the silk
+hat and your grey flannel trousers and your patent leather boots!..."
+
+"It's a bit of a mixture, isn't it?"
+
+"It won't be noticed. That'll do very nicely! Thank goodness, we've
+solved that problem! The money will be useful, dearest!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+"What luck!" said Eleanor, looking out of the window in the morning.
+The sky was grey and the streets were wet and dirty.
+
+John had urged her to stay at home, offering to explain to Mr. Crawford
+why she was not returning to her employment, but she had insisted that
+she was well enough now and must treat Mr. Crawford as fairly as he had
+treated her. "I'll give notice to him at once," she said, "and he can
+get someone else as soon as possible ... but I can't leave him in the
+lurch!"
+
+They travelled by Tube to town together, and John went on to
+Westminster Abbey. He was very early and when he arrived at the
+entrance nominated on the Invitation Card he found that he was the
+first arrival. Ten minutes afterwards, a grubby-looking man in a slouch
+hat ambled up the asphalt path to the narrow door against which John
+was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and
+the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this
+ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative
+and had a surly look. "But they won't let you in, like that!" said
+John.
+
+"Won't let me in! Who won't let me in?" the man demanded.
+
+"It says 'Morning Dress to be worn' on the Invitation Card," John
+answered, showing his card as he spoke.
+
+"That's all bunkum! They'd let me in if I were naked. I'm here to
+report the performance, not to display my elegance, and these people
+want the thing reported as much as possible. I don't suppose you know
+me?"
+
+"No, I don't," said John.
+
+"Well, I'm known as the Funeral Expert in Fleet Street. My paper always
+sends me out on special occasions to report big funerals. I'm very good
+at that sort of thing. I seem to have a flair for funerals somehow.
+I've never done a show like this before, but if I can only persuade
+myself to believe that there's a corpse about, I'll do it better than
+anybody else. I make a specialty of quoting the more literary parts of
+the Burial Service in my reports!..."
+
+"You won't be able to do that to-day. This isn't a funeral," said John.
+
+"No, but I can quote the hymns if they've got any merit at all.
+Otherwise I shall drag in the psalms. Hymns aren't very quotable as a
+rule. Shocking doggerel most of 'em!..."
+
+They were joined by other reporters, and John observed that he alone
+among them was wearing a silk hat. He commented on the fact to the
+Funeral Expert.
+
+"There's only one silk hat in the whole of Fleet Street," the Funeral
+Expert replied, "and it belongs to the man who specialises in Murders.
+He never investigates a murder without wearing his silk hat. He says
+it's in keeping with the theme!"
+
+The door was opened by a verger and the journalists entered the Abbey
+and were led up some very narrow and dark and damp stone stairs until
+at last they emerged on to a rude platform of planks high up in the
+roof. At one end of the platform a pole had been placed breast-high
+between two pillars, and against this the journalists were invited to
+lean. Far below, the ceremony was to take place. John felt giddy as he
+looked down on the floor of the Cathedral.
+
+"We shan't be able to see anything up here," he said to the Funeral
+Expert.
+
+"What do you want to see?" was the reply he received. "You've got a
+programme of the ceremony, haven't you, and an imagination. That's all
+you need. I suppose you've never done a job of this sort before?"
+
+"No. I'm a beginner!"
+
+"Well, write a lot of slushy staff about the sun shining through the
+rose-coloured window just as the King entered the Abbey. That always
+goes down well. There are three psalms to be sung during the service.
+If you quote the first one, I'll quote the second, and then we shan't
+clash. Is that agreed?"
+
+"All right!"
+
+Half the journalists retreated from the pole-barrier and sat on a pile
+of planks at the back of the platform. Like John, they suffered from
+giddiness. They had their writing-pads open, however, and were busily
+engaged in inventing accounts of the ceremonial that was presently to
+be performed. John glanced over a man's shoulder and caught sight of
+the words, "As His Majesty entered the ancient abbey, a burst of
+sunlight fell through the old rose window and cast a glorious crimson
+light on his beautiful regalia!...."
+
+"Lord!" said John, moving away.
+
+He went to the end of the platform, and then, moved by some feeling
+which he could not explain, descended the dark, stone stairs which he
+had lately mounted. He could hear the music of the organ, and presently
+the choir began to sing an anthem.
+
+"I suppose it's beginning," he thought.
+
+He reached the ground-floor, and presently found himself standing
+behind a stone-screen in the company of selected persons and officials
+in brilliant uniforms. There were three special reporters here, to whom
+an official in a gorgeous green garb, looking very like a figure on a
+pack of cards, was giving information. John edged nearer to them, and
+as he did so, he saw that some ceremony was proceeding in one of the
+chapels.
+
+"What's happening?" he asked in a whisper.
+
+His neighbor whispered back that this was to be the chapel of the Order
+of the Bath, and that the King was about to conduct some ceremonial
+with the Knights of the Order. He raised himself on the edge of a tomb
+and saw two lines of old men in rich claret-coloured robes facing each
+other, with a broad space between them, and while he looked, the King
+passed between the Knights who bowed to him as he passed towards the
+altar. He heard the murmur of old, feeble voices as the Knights swore
+to protect the widow and the orphan and the virgin from wrong and
+injury!...
+
+"They haven't the strength to protect a fly," John whispered to his
+neighbour.
+
+"Ssh!" his neighbour whispered back, "it's a symbolical promise!..."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+He hurried to the offices of the _Evening Herald_ and wrote his
+account of the ceremony he had seen. He described the old and venerable
+men who had sworn to protect the widow and the orphan and the
+distressed virgin, and demanded of those in authority by what right
+they degraded an ancient and honourable Order by allowing feeble
+octogenarians to make promises they were incapable of fulfilling.
+Heaven help the distressed virgin who depended on these tottering
+knights for succour!... He had written half a column of very
+vituperative stuff when Hinde came into the room.
+
+"Hilloa," said Hinde, "done that job all right?"
+
+John smiled and nodded his head.
+
+"I've got a letter for you," Hinde continued. "Cream sent it to me and
+asked me to pass it on to you. He hasn't got your address!"
+
+He handed the letter to John and then picked up some of the sheets on
+which the report of the ceremony in the Abbey was being written. He
+read the first two sheets and then uttered a sharp exclamation.
+
+"Anything wrong?" John asked.
+
+"Wrong!" Hinde gaped at him, incapable of expressing himself with
+sufficient force. He swallowed and then, with a great effort, spoke
+very calmly. "My dear chap," he said, "I regard it as a merciful act of
+God that I came into this room when I did. What the!... Oh, well, it's
+no good talking to you. You're absolutely hopeless!"
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Matter! I can't print your stuff. I should get the sack if I were to
+let this sort of thing go into the paper. Haven't you any sense of
+proportion at all?"
+
+"But the whole thing was ridiculous!..."
+
+"What's that got to do with it? Half the world is ridiculous, but
+there's no need to run about telling everybody!"
+
+"But if you'd seen them ... _old_ fellows swearing to draw their
+swords in defence of women and children, and them not fit to do more
+than draw their pensions!..."
+
+"Yes, yes, we know all about that. But a certain amount of humbug is
+decent and necessary!" He turned to a young man who had just entered
+the room. "Here, Chilvers, I want you to do a couple of columns on that
+stunt at the Abbey this morning!"
+
+"Righto," said Chilvers.
+
+"But he wasn't there!" John protested.
+
+"Wasn't there!" Hinde echoed scornfully. "A good journalist doesn't
+need to be there. Just give the programme to him, will you?" John
+handed the order of proceedings to Chilvers, and Hinde added a few
+instructions. "Write up the King," he said. "Every inch a sovereign and
+that sort of stuff. Royal dignity!... Was Kitchener there?" he said
+turning again to John.
+
+"Yes. A disappointing-looking man!..."
+
+"Write him up, too. Say something about soldierly mien and stern,
+unbending features!"
+
+"I see," said Chilvers. "The other chaps.... I'll work them off as
+venerable wiseacres!..."
+
+"No, don't rub their age in. Venerable's not a nice word to use about
+anything except a cathedral. You can call the Abbey a venerable edifice
+or the sacred fane, but it would look nicer if you call the old buffers
+"the Elder Statesmen." Good phrase that! Hasn't been used much, either.
+Get it done quickly, will you?" He turned to John. "You might have made
+us miss the Home Edition with your desire to tell the truth!"
+
+John turned away. The sense of failure that had been in possession of
+him since the production of _Milchu and St. Patrick_ filled him
+now and made him feel terribly desolate. Whatever he did seemed to
+fail. He set off with high hopes and fine intentions, but when he
+reached his destination, his arrival seemed to be of very little
+importance and his small boat seemed to be very small and his cargo of
+slight value. Almost mechanically he opened Cream's letter. Hinde,
+having discussed other matters with Chilvers, called to John. "Come and
+see me in my room, will you, before you go!" and John answered, "Very
+good!" He read Cream's note. Cream had suddenly to produce a new sketch,
+and he had overhauled John's piece and put it on at the Wolverhampton
+Coliseum. _"It went with a bang, my boy! Absolutely knocked 'em clean
+off their perch! I wish you'd do another!..."_
+
+He enclosed postal orders for two pounds, the fee for one week's
+performance. John put the letter into his pocket and, nodding to
+Chilvers, now busily writing up the King and Lord Kitchener, he left
+the room and went to Hinde's office.
+
+"I'm. sorry, Mac," Hinde said to him, "I'm sorry I let out at you just
+now, but you gave me a fright. I'd have been fired if I'd let your
+thing go to press!"
+
+"I quite understand," John answered. "I see that I'm not fit for this
+sort of work. I don't seem to be much good at anything!"
+
+"What about Cream? He told me he'd done your sketch very successfully!"
+
+John passed Cream's letter to him. "Well, you can do that sort of thing
+all right anyhow," Hinde said when he had read the letter.
+
+"Cream re-wrote it," John murmured. "And even if he hadn't, it's not
+much of an achievement, is it? I wanted to write good stuff, and I
+can't do it. I can't even do decent journalism!..."
+
+"Oh, those articles you do aren't too bad," Hinde said encouragingly.
+
+"What are a few articles! The only success I have is with a low
+music-hall sketch, and even that has to be rewritten!"
+
+"Come, come!" said Hinde. "You're feeling depressed now. You'll change
+your mind presently. I daresay there's plenty of good stuff in you and
+one of these days it'll come out. You needn't get into the dumps
+because you've failed to make good as a journalist. God knows that's no
+triumphant career! Plenty of good writers have tried to make a living
+at journalism and failed hopelessly. Haven't had half the success
+you've had! Finished that new book of yours yet?"
+
+"Very nearly!"
+
+"I suppose Jannissary is going to do it, too?"
+
+"Yes. I've contracted for three novels with him!"
+
+"I wonder how that man would live if it weren't for the vanity of young
+authors!"
+
+"I don't know," said John. "I'm too busy wondering how young authors
+manage to live!"
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+The money derived from Cream's sketch had compensated them for the loss
+of the money earned by Eleanor; but two pounds per week was
+insufficient for their needs, and, now that the bank balance was
+exhausted and they were dependent upon actual earnings, John had less
+time for creative work. Free lance journalism seemed likely to provide
+an adequate income for them, but he soon discovered that if he were to
+make a reasonable livelihood from it, he must give up the greater part
+of his time and thought to it. He could not depend upon certain or
+immediate acceptance of any article he wrote for the newspapers.
+Sometimes a topical article was sent to the wrong newspaper and kept
+there until too late for publication in another newspaper. Regularly-
+employed journalists, engaged to choose contributions from outside
+writers, were extraordinarily inconsiderate in their relationships with
+him. They would hold up a manuscript for a long time and then
+arbitrarily return it; they would return a manuscript in a dirty state,
+even scribbled over, because they had capriciously changed their minds
+about it, and he would waste time and money in having it re-typed; they
+even mislaid manuscripts and offered neither compensation nor apology
+for so doing.... In a very short while, John discovered that the more
+high-minded were the principles professed by a newspaper, the worse was
+the payment made to its contributors and the longer was the time
+consumed in making the payment. The low-minded journals paid for
+contributions well and quickly, but the noble-minded journals kept
+their contributors waiting weeks for small sums.... He could not depend
+upon the publication of one article each week. Could he have done so,
+his financial position, while meagre, would have been fairly easy and
+regular. There were weeks when no money was earned, and there were
+weeks when he earned ten or twelve guineas ... gay, exhilarating weeks
+were those ... and there were even weeks when he could not think of a
+suitable theme for an acceptable article. In this state of uncertainty
+and constant effort to get enough money to pay for common needs, the
+second novel became neglected, and it was not until several months
+after the adventure at Westminster Abbey that the manuscript was
+completed and sent to Mr. Jannissary. By that time, John was in debt to
+tradesmen and to a typewriting company from which he had purchased a
+typewriter on the hire system. The Cottenham Repertory Theatre had
+failed to arrange a London season, consequently he had had no further
+income from _Milchu and St. Patrick,_ and Mr. Jannissary, when
+John talked about royalties from _The Enchanted Lover_, never
+failed to express his astonishment at the fact that the sales of that
+excellent book had not exceeded five hundred copies. He had been
+certain that at least a thousand copies would have been sold as a
+result of the boom in the _Evening Herald._
+
+"Why don't you put a chartered accountant on his track?" said Hinde
+when John told him of what Mr. Jannissary had said.
+
+John shrugged his shoulders. His experience with the Cottenham
+Repertory Theatre had cured him of all desire to send good money after
+bad. He wished now that he had taken Hinde's advice and had kept away
+from Mr. Jannissary, but it was useless to repine over that. He turned
+instinctively to Hinde for advice, and Hinde was generous with it. He
+was generous, too, with more profitable things. He put work in John's
+way as often as he could, and in spite of the fiasco over the Abbey
+ceremony, had offered employment on the _Herald_ to him, but John
+had refused it, feeling that his novel would never reach its end if he
+were tied to a newspaper. When, however, the book was completed, he
+went to Hinde again and consulted him about the prospect of obtaining
+regular work. His immediate needs were important, but overshadowing
+these was the need that would presently come upon him. Eleanor in a few
+months would be brought to bed ... and he had no money saved for that
+time. She would need a nurse ... there would be doctor's bills!...
+
+"I must get a job of some sort that will bring a decent amount of
+money," he said to Hinde.
+
+Hinde nodded his head. "There's nothing on the _Herald_," he said,
+"but I may hear of something elsewhere. What about a short series of
+articles for us? Write six or seven articles on London Streets. Take
+Fleet Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, the Strand and the Mile End
+Road, and write about their characteristics, showing how different they
+are from each other. That kind of stuff. I'll give you three guineas
+each for them, and I'll take six for certain if they're good. If
+they're very good, I'll take some more. That'll help a bit, won't it?"
+
+"It'll help a lot," said John very heartily.
+
+
+
+II
+
+Soon after this interview, Hinde informed John that the
+_Sensation_ had a vacancy for a sub-editor, and that Mr.
+Clotworthy was willing to try him in the job for a month. "And for
+heaven's sake, don't make an ass of yourself this time!" he added.
+"Clotworthy was very unwilling to take you on, but I convinced him that
+you are sensible now and so he consented!" John had taken the news to
+Eleanor, expecting that she would be elated by it, but when he told her
+that his work would keep him in Fleet Street half the night, she showed
+very little enthusiasm for it. Her normal dislike of being alone was
+intensified now, and the thought of being in the flat by herself until
+one or two in the morning frightened her. "I shan't see anything of
+you," she complained.
+
+"I shall be at home in the daytime," he replied.
+
+"Yes ... writing," she said bitterly. "People like you have no right to
+get married or ... have children!"
+
+He considered for a while.
+
+"I wonder if my mother would come and stay with us?" he said at last.
+
+"And leave Uncle William alone?"
+
+"Oh, he could manage all right!"
+
+"Don't be childish, John. How can he manage all right? Is he to attend
+to the house and cook his meals as well as look after the shop? It
+looks as if someone has got to be left alone through this work of
+yours ... either me or Uncle William ... and you don't care much who it
+is!..."
+
+"That's unfair, Eleanor!"
+
+"Everything's unfair that isn't just exactly what you want it to be.
+I'm sick of this life ... debt and discomfort ... and now I'm to be
+left alone half the night!..."
+
+He remembered that she was overwrought, and made no answer to her
+complaint. He would write to his mother and ask her to think of a
+solution of their problem that would not involve Uncle William in
+difficulties. It was useless to talk to Eleanor while she was in this
+nervous state of mind. He could see quite plainly that decisions must
+be made by him even against her desire. Poor Eleanor would realise all
+this after the baby was born, and would thank him for not showing signs
+of weakness!... He wrote to Mr. Clotworthy, as Hinde had suggested,
+about the sub-editorial work, and to his mother about the problem that
+puzzled them.
+
+
+
+III
+
+Mrs. MacDermott solved the problem, not by letter, but by word of
+mouth. She telegraphed to John to meet her at Euston, and on the way
+from the station to Hampstead, she told him of her plan.
+
+"I'd settled this in my mind from the beginning," she said, "and you've
+only just advanced things a week or two by your letter. I'm going to
+take Eleanor back to Ballyards with me!..."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"What for!" she exclaimed. "So's your child can be born in the house
+where you were born and your da and his da!... That's why! Where else
+would a MacDermott be born but in his own home?"
+
+"But what about me?"
+
+"You! You can come home too, if you like!"
+
+"How can I come home when I have my work to do? It'll be three months
+yet before the child is born!..."
+
+"Well, you can stay here by yourself then!"
+
+"In the flat ... alone?"
+
+"Aye. What's to hinder you? That's what your Uncle William that's twice
+your age would have to do, if you had your way!"
+
+"I don't see that at all. He could easily give Cassie McClurg a few
+shillings a week to come and look after him while you stay here with
+us!..."
+
+"I'm not thinking about you or your Uncle William. I'm thinking about
+Eleanor and the child. I want it to be born at home!"
+
+"Och, what does it matter where it's born," John impatiently demanded,
+"so long as it is born?"
+
+"You _fool_!" said Mrs. MacDermott, and there was such scorn in
+her voice as John had never heard in any voice before. She turned away
+and would not speak to him again. He lay back against the cushions of
+the cab and considered Eleanor would certainly be well cared for at
+home, but ... "what about me?" he asked. He supposed he could manage by
+himself. Of course, he could. That was not the point that was worrying
+him. He hated the thought of being separated from Eleanor!...
+
+"No," he said to his mother, "I don't think I can agree to that!"
+
+"It doesn't matter whether you agree to it or not," she replied. "It's
+what's going to happen!" She turned on him furiously. "Have you no
+nature or pride? Where else would Eleanor be so well-tended as at
+home?..."
+
+"It isn't her home," he objected.
+
+"It _is_ her home. She's a MacDermott now, and anyway the child
+is. You'd keep her here in this Godforsaken town, surrounded by
+strangers, and no relation of her own to be near her when her trouble
+comes!... There's times, John, when I wonder are you a man at all? Your
+mind is so set on yourself that you're like a lump of stone. You and
+your old books ... as if they matter a tinker's curse to anybody!..."
+
+"I know you never thought anything of my work," he complained, "and
+Eleanor doesn't think much of it either. I get little encouragement
+from any of you!"
+
+"You get encouragement," Mrs. MacDermott retorted, "when you've earned
+it. It's no use pulling a poor mouth to me, my son. I come from a
+family that never asked for pity, and I married into one that never
+asked for pity. My family and your da's family went through the world,
+giving back as much as we got and a wee bit more, and we never let a
+murmur out of us when we got hurt. There were times when I thought it
+was hard on the women of the family, but I see now, well and plain,
+that there's no pleasure in this world but to be keeping your head
+high and never to let nothing downcast you. I'd be ashamed to be a
+cry-ba!..."
+
+"I'm no cry-ba!" he muttered sulkily.
+
+"Well, prove it then. Let Eleanor come without making a sour face over
+it. Come yourself if you want to, but anyway let her come!"
+
+"I don't believe she'll go," he said.
+
+"She will, if you persuade her!" Suddenly her tone altered, and the
+hard tone went out of her voice. She leant towards him, touching him on
+the arm. "Persuade her, son!" she said. "My heart's hungry to have her
+child born in its own home among its own people!"
+
+She looked at him so pleadingly that he was deeply moved. He felt his
+blood calling to him, and the ties of kinship stirring strongly in his
+heart. Pictures of Ballyards passed swiftly through his mind, and in
+rapid succession he saw the shop and Uncle Matthew and Uncle William
+and Mr. McCaughan and Mr. Cairnduff and the Logans and the Square and
+the Lough, and could smell the sweet odours of the country, the smell
+of wet earth and the reek of turf fires and the cold smell of brackish
+water....
+
+"Have your own way," he said to his mother, and she drew him to her and
+kissed him more tenderly than she had kissed him for many years.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+When they told their plan to Eleanor her eyes lit up immediately, and
+he saw that she was eager to go to Ballyards, but almost at once, she
+turned to him and said, "Oh, but you, John? What about you?"
+
+"I'll be all right," he replied. "Don't worry about me!"
+
+"Couldn't you come, too?"
+
+"You know I can't. How can I give up this job on the _Sensation_
+the minute I've got it!"
+
+"Easy enough," Mrs. MacDermott interjected. "If you've only just got
+it, there'll be no hardship to you or to them if you give it up now!"
+
+"I have to earn our keep," he insisted.
+
+"There's the shop," Mrs. MacDermott insisted.
+
+"I won't go next or near the shop," he shouted in sudden fury. "I came
+here to write books and I'll write them!"
+
+"You're not writing books when you're sitting up half the night in a
+newspaper office!"
+
+"I know I'm not. But I must get money to ... to pay for!..."
+
+"Are you worrying yourself about Eleanor's confinement, son? Never
+bother your head about that. I'll not let her want for anything!..."
+
+"I know you won't," he replied in a softer voice, "but I'd rather earn
+the money myself!"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott tightened her mouth. "Very well," she said.
+
+"I've a good mind to let the flat till you come back," John murmured to
+Eleanor.
+
+"What's that?" Mrs. MacDermott demanded.
+
+"I was saying I'd a good mind to let the flat until she comes back. I
+could go to Miss Squibb's for a while. It 'ud really be cheaper!..."
+
+"Would you let strangers walk into your house and use your furniture?"
+
+"Yes. Why not? We shall be able to pay the rent and have a profit out
+of what we shall get for sub-letting it."
+
+"Making a hotel out of your home," Mrs. MacDermott said in disgust.
+
+"Och, we're not all home-mad," John retorted.
+
+"That's the pity," his mother rejoined.
+
+
+
+V
+
+Three weeks later, Eleanor, and Mrs. MacDermott departed for Ballyards.
+Eleanor had refused to go away from London until she had seen John
+settled in his work and the flat sub-let to suitable tenants. She
+arranged for his return to Miss Squibb who, most opportunely, had his
+old room vacant, and she made Lizzie promise to take particular care of
+his comfort. "I can tyke care of 'im all right," Lizzie said. "I've
+tyken care of Mr. 'Inde for years, an' I feel I can tyke care of
+anybody after 'im. You leave 'im to me, Mrs. MacDermott, an' I wown't
+let 'im come to no 'arm!" She leant forward suddenly and whispered to
+Eleanor. "I do 'ope it's a boy," she said.
+
+"Why?" said Eleanor blushing.
+
+"Ow, I dunno. Looks better some'ow to 'ave a boy first go off. You can
+always 'ave a girl afterwards. Wot you goin' to call it, if it's a
+boy?"
+
+"John, of course!" said Eleanor.
+
+"Um-m-m. Well, I suppose you'll 'ave to, after 'is father, but if I 'ad
+a son I'd call 'im Perceval. I dunno why! I just would. It sounds nice
+some'ow. I mean it 'as a nice sound. Only people 'ud call 'im Perce, of
+course, an' that would be 'orrible. I dessay you're right. It's better
+to be called John than to be called Perce!"
+
+"Why don't you get married, Lizzie?" Eleanor said.
+
+"Never been ast. That's why. I'd jump at the chance if I got it. You
+down't think I'm 'angin' on 'ere out of love for Aunt. I'm just 'angin'
+on in 'ope!..."
+
+But before Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards, they realised
+that John's sub-editorial work was hard and inconvenient. The unnatural
+hours of labour in noisy and insanitary surroundings left him very
+tired and crochetty in the morning, and he felt disinclined for other
+work. He had written his series of articles on London Streets for the
+_Evening Herald_, and Hinde had professed to like them
+sufficiently to ask for more of them. Twelve of them had been
+printed ... one each day for a fortnight ... and the money had cleared
+John of debt and left a little for the coming expense. Cream's two pounds
+per week came regularly every Monday morning, and this, with the income
+from the _Sensation_, and an occasional article made the prospects
+of life seem clearer. "There's no fame in it," he told himself, "but at
+least I'm paying my way!" In a little while, his second novel would be
+published, and perhaps it would bring a reward which he had
+unaccountably missed with his first book and his tragedy. More than
+anything else now, he wanted recognition. Money was good and acceptable
+and he would gladly have much more of it, but far beyond money he
+valued recognition. If he had to make choice between a large income and
+a large reputation, he would unhesitatingly choose a large reputation.
+He longed to hear Hinde admitting that he had been mistaken in John's
+quality. Indeed, in the last analysis, it seemed that more than money
+and more than general recognition, he craved for recognition from
+Hinde. He wished to see Hinde coming to him in a respectful manner!...
+
+But there was little likelihood of that happening while he performed
+sub-editorial work on the _Sensation_. Every night he and the
+other sub-editors, young and unhealthy-looking men, sat round a big
+table, handling "flimsies" and scribbling rapidly. They invented
+head-lines and cross-headings, and they cut down the work of the outside
+staff. When a nugget of gold was found in Wales and was pronounced to
+be a lump of quartz with streaks of gold in it rather than a nugget of
+pure gold, John had headed the paragraph in which the news was
+reported, ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. He glanced at the heading
+after he had written it. "I seem to be getting into the way of this
+sort of thing," he said with a sigh. He put the paper down and got up
+from the table. The baskets lying about, full of "copy" or "flimsies"
+or cuttings from other papers; the hard, blinding light from the
+unshaded electric globes; the litter of newspapers and torn envelopes;
+the incessant _rurr-rurr-rurr_ of the printing machines; and the
+hot, exhausted air of the room ... all these seemed disgusting. He shut
+his eyes for a moment. "Oh, God," he prayed, "let my book be a success!
+Get me out of this, Oh, God, for Jesus Christ's sake!..."
+
+He understood the dislike which speedily grew up in Eleanor for this
+work. There would be very little fun for her, less even than for him,
+in a life that took him to Fleet Street in the evening and kept him
+there until the middle of the night. He must escape from it somehow,
+but in what way he was to escape from it he could not imagine. Vaguely,
+he felt that a book or a play would lift him out of Fleet Street and
+set him down in ease and comfort somewhere in agreeable surroundings;
+but it might be many years before that desired bliss was achieved. He
+would spend his youth in this atmosphere of neurosis and hasty
+judgment, and perhaps when he was old and no longer full of zest for
+enjoyment, he would have leisure for the things he could no longer
+delight in. And Eleanor, too ... she would have to struggle with penury
+until she grew tired and lustreless!... "No, she won't!" he vowed. "I'm
+not going to let her down whatever happens. I'll make a position
+somehow!..."
+
+Then Eleanor and Mrs. MacDermott went to Ballyards. He stood by the
+carriage-door talking to them both while the train filled with
+passengers, and as the guard blew a succession of blasts on his
+whistle, he leant forward to kiss Eleanor "Good-bye!" A tear rolled
+down her cheek.... "I wish I weren't going now," she said, clinging to
+him.
+
+"It won't be for long," he murmured. "Will it, mother?" he added to
+Mrs. MacDermott.
+
+But his mother did not make any reply. She sat very tightly in her
+seat, and he saw that there was a hard look in her eyes and that her
+lips were closely joined together.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+He wandered out of the station... it was Saturday night and therefore
+he had not to go to the _Sensation_ office ... and entered the
+Hampstead Tube railway. On Monday, the agent would make an inventory of
+the furniture, and John would move to Brixton. Until then, he would
+stay at the flat, taking his meals at restaurants. He left the Tube at
+Hampstead and walked home. The flat seemed very dark and cheerless when
+he entered it, and he wandered from room to room in a disturbed state
+as if he were searching for something and had forgotten for what he was
+searching. A petticoat of Eleanor's, flung hastily on to the bed,
+caught his eye, a blue silk petticoat that he remembered her buying
+soon after they were married. He wondered why she had thrown it aside,
+for she was fond of blue garments, and this was new from the laundry.
+He rubbed his hand over its silk surface and listened to the sound it
+made. Dear Eleanor! Most sweet and precious Eleanor!... He left the
+bedroom and went into the combined sitting and dining-room and then
+into the kitchen. At the door of the tiny spare bedroom, he stopped and
+turned away. What was the use of wandering about the house in this
+disconsolate manner? Eleanor had gone and it was idle to pretend
+that he might suddenly come to her in some corner of the flat. It
+was much too early to go to bed and, since he could not sit still
+indoors, he resolved to go out and walk off his mood of depression
+and loneliness. The trees on Hampstead Heath stood up in deep darkness,
+and overhead he saw the innumerable stars shining coldly. In the
+dusk and shadow he could hear the murmur of subdued voices and now
+and then a peal of girlish laughter, or the deeper sound of a man's
+mirth. Young, eager-eyed men and women went by, intent on love-making,
+their faces shining with youth and the happiness of the unburdened.
+All the beauty of the world lay still before them, untouched and undimmed,
+drawing them towards it with rich and strange promises of wonderful
+fulfilment. And no shadow fell upon their happiness to darken it or
+make it cold.... He could feel his heart singing within him, and he asked
+himself why it was that he should feel happy in this street, in which
+Eleanor and he had walked in love together, when he had felt restless
+and unhappy in the flat where they had lived and loved. He stood under
+a lamp to look at his watch, and wondered where Eleanor was now ... what
+stage of her journey she had reached. The train had left Euston at
+half-past eight, and now the hour was twenty minutes past ten. Nearly
+two hours since she had gone away from him. Sixty or eighty miles,
+perhaps a hundred, separated them, and every moment the distance between
+them was lengthening. He could stand here, leaning against these rails and
+looking over the hollows of the Heath towards the softened glare of
+London, and almost tell off the miles that were consumed by the
+rushing, roaring train!... One mile ... two miles ... three miles!...
+
+The laughter and the shining eyes of the young lovers made him feel
+old, now that Eleanor was not with him to make him feel young. He felt
+old, though he was not old, because he was lonely again, more lonely
+than he had been before he saw Eleanor at the Albert Hall. He had
+followed her as a man lost in a desert follows a star, and she had
+brought him home at last ... and now she was gone from him, bearing a
+baby. Soon, though, very soon, the time would pass and she would return
+to him and they would never be separated again. He would fulfil his
+desires. He would write great books and great plays, and Eleanor would
+grow in loveliness and dignity, and his son ... for he was certain that
+the child would be a boy ... would reach up from childhood to manhood
+in strength and beauty!...
+
+
+
+VII
+
+The last post had brought the proofs of his second novel to him. He
+tore the packet open, and began to correct them at once. _Hearts of
+Controversy_ was the title of the book, and it was dedicated:
+
+To the Memory of my Uncle Matthew.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+When Eleanor's son was born, John was still in London. He had intended
+to be with her, but Mr. Clotworthy would not give leave to him because
+of illness among the staff. "I'm sorry," he had said, "but I can't let
+you go. You'd only be in the way anyhow. A man's a cursed nuisance at a
+time like that. When Corcoran comes back, I'll see if I can manage a
+few days for you!" John murmured thanks and turned to go. "I hear good
+accounts of you," Mr. Clotworthy continued. "Tarleton says you're
+working splendidly. I'm glad you've learned sense at last!" John smiled
+rather drearily, and then left the editor's room. So he was learning
+sense, was he?... A few months ago, had Mr. Clotworthy told him that
+leave to go to his wife was denied to him, he would have sent Mr.
+Clotworthy to blazes ... but he was learning sense now, and so, though
+he ached to go to Eleanor, he was remaining in London. Tarleton ... the
+most common-minded man John had ever encountered ... said that he was
+working splendidly. They were all pleased with him. He could invent
+headlines and cross-headings and write paragraphs to the satisfaction
+of Tarleton, whose conception of a romantic love story was some dull,
+sordid intrigue heard in the Divorce Court. Tarleton always described a
+street accident as a tragedy. Tarleton referred ... in print ... to the
+greedy amours of a chorus girl as a "Thrilling Romance of the Stage,"
+though he had other words to describe them in conversation. And John
+was giving satisfaction to Tarleton....
+
+He wrote to his mother and to Eleanor explaining why he could not
+immediately go to Ballyards. Eleanor could not reply to his letter, but
+Mrs. MacDermott wrote that she was recovering rapidly from her illness
+and that the baby was a fine, healthy child. _"A MacDermott to the
+backbone,"_ she wrote. _"It's queer work that keeps a man out of
+his bed half the night and won't let him go to his wife when she's
+having a child! Your Uncle William isn't looking well ... he feels the
+weight of his years and the work on him ... and he is worried about the
+shop. But he's greatly pleased with Eleanor being here. Him and her
+gets on well together. He's near demented over the child!..."_
+
+
+
+II
+
+His son was a month old before John saw him. Mrs. MacDermott led him to
+the cradle where the baby was sleeping, and as he looked down on it,
+the child awoke and screwed up its face and began to cry. Mrs.
+MacDermott took it in her arms and soothed it.
+
+"Well?" she said to John.
+
+He looked at the child with puzzled eyes. "Is it all right?" he asked.
+
+"All right!" she exclaimed. "Of course, it's all right! What would be
+wrong with it?"
+
+"It's so ugly-looking!..."
+
+She stared incredulously at him. "Ugly," she said, "it's a beautiful
+baby. One of the loveliest children I've ever clapped my eyes on. Look
+at it!..." She held the baby forward to him.
+
+"I can see it right enough," he answered. "I think it's ugly!"
+
+"You don't know a fine-looking child when you see it," she answered
+indignantly.
+
+He went back to Eleanor's room ... she was out of bed now, but because
+the day was cold was sitting before a fire in her bedroom ... and sat
+with her while she talked of little things that had happened to her
+during their separation. "You know, John," she said, "you're not
+looking well. You're getting thin and grey!..."
+
+"Grey?"
+
+"Yes ... your face looks grey. I'm sure that life isn't good for you!"
+
+"I feel tired, but that may be the journey. The sea was rough last
+night, crossing from Liverpool to Belfast, and I didn't get any sleep.
+Mebbe that's what it is, I daresay I'll be looking all right to-morrow!"
+
+"How long are you going to stay?" she asked.
+
+"Well, Clotworthy told me to get back as soon as possible. Do you think
+you'll be able to come home with me at the end of the week?"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "we've got to get the tenants out of the flat
+first. I thought mebbe you'd come to Miss Squibb's with me till the
+flat was ready!"
+
+"I don't think I should like that," she answered.
+
+"No, mebbe not, but I'm terribly lonesome without you, Eleanor. It's
+been miserable all this while!..."
+
+She put her arms about him and kissed him. "Poor old thing," she said.
+
+"And I'd like you to come home as soon as possible."
+
+Mrs. MacDermott brought the baby into the room. "John says he's an ugly
+child," she said to Eleanor, glancing angrily at her son.
+
+"Oh, John!" Eleanor exclaimed reproachfully. "He isn't ugly. He's
+handsome!..."
+
+"Well, I don't know what women call beautiful or handsome," John said,
+"but if you call that screwed-up face good-looking, then I don't know
+what good looks are!"
+
+"I'm sure you weren't half so beautiful as baby is," Eleanor murmured.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott put the child in its mother's arms, and happed the
+covering about its head. "Eight pounds he weighed when he was born,"
+she said. "Eight pounds! And then you say he isn't beautiful! And him
+your own son, too!"
+
+"Oh, well, if you only mean he's weighty when you say he's beautiful,
+mebbe you're right!..."
+
+"You're unnatural, John," said Mrs. MacDermott.
+
+"Are all babies like that?" he asked.
+
+"All the good-looking ones are. Give him to me again, Eleanor, dear!"
+She took the baby from its mother, and holding it tightly in her arms,
+walked up and down the room singing it to sleep. "He's asleep," she
+said in a whisper, coming closer to them. She held the child so that
+they could see the tiny face in the firelight. They did not speak.
+Eleanor, leaning back in her chair, and John sitting forward in his,
+and Mrs. MacDermott standing with the baby in her arms, looked on the
+child.
+
+"I'm its father," said John, at last. "That seems comic!"
+
+"And I'm its mother," Eleanor murmured.
+
+Mrs. MacDermott lifted the child so that her lips could touch its tiny
+mouth. "Five generations in the one house," she said. "I bless God for
+this day!"
+
+
+
+III
+
+"Will you be able to come with me to London at the end of the week?"
+John said at tea that evening.
+
+"She's not near herself yet," Uncle William exclaimed.
+
+"No, indeed she's not. You'd best leave her here another month," Mrs.
+MacDermott added.
+
+"You're forgetting, aren't you that she's been here more than three
+months already."
+
+"Och, what's three months when you're young," Uncle William replied.
+
+"A great deal," said John. "Will you be ready, do you think, Eleanor?"
+
+Eleanor hesitated. "I don't know," she said. "I don't feel very well
+yet. Can't you stay on a while longer, John? You know you're tired and
+need a rest, and it'll do you a lot of good to stay on for a week or
+two!"
+
+"I must get back. I've a living to earn for three of us now!"
+
+"I shall be sorry to leave Ballyards," Eleanor replied.
+
+"There's no need for either of you to leave it," Mrs. MacDermott
+exclaimed. "Your home's here and there's no necessity for you to go
+tramping the world among strangers!"
+
+"We've settled all that, ma!" John retorted.
+
+"You don't like that life on newspapers, do you, John?" Eleanor asked.
+
+"No, but I have to live it until I can earn enough to keep us from my
+books. It's no use arguing, ma. My mind's made up on that subject. It
+was made up long ago!" Constraint fell upon them, and John, feeling
+that he must make conversation again, turned to his Uncle. "How's the
+shop doing?" he asked.
+
+"Middling ... middling," Uncle William replied. "We're having a wee bit
+of opposition to fight against. One of these big firms has just opened
+a branch here. Pippin's! They're causing me a bit of anxiety, the way
+they're cutting prices down, but I think we'll hold our own with them.
+We always gave good value for the money, and some of these big shops
+only pretends to do that. But it's anxious work!"
+
+"A MacDermott ought to be ready to fight for the good name of his
+family," said Mrs. MacDermott.
+
+"Oh, I'm willing to fight all right," Uncle William answered.
+
+"I know you are. I wasn't doubting you," Mrs. MacDermott assured him.
+
+Their conversation became vague and disjointed. Several times John
+turned to Eleanor and tried to settle a date on which she should return
+to town, but on each occasion something interrupted them, and Eleanor
+showed no inclination to be definite. "There's no hurry for a day or
+two, is there?" she said at last, and then, pleading fatigue, she went
+to bed.
+
+"I can't see what you want to go back to London for," Mrs. MacDermott
+said when Eleanor had gone. "The neither of you don't look well on that
+life, and you could write your books here just as well as you can
+there. Better, mebbe! Eleanor likes Ballyards. She doesn't care much
+for London."
+
+Suspicion entered John's mind. "Have you been putting notions into her
+head?" he demanded.
+
+"Notions! What notions?" she answered innocently.
+
+"You know rightly what notions. Have you been trying to persuade her to
+stay here?"
+
+"It's well you know, my son, I never try to persuade no one to do
+anything. I just let them find things out for themselves. It's the best
+way in the end."
+
+"As long as you act up to that, you can do what you like," John said.
+"You may as well know, though, for good and all, that we're going back
+to London. I've a new book coming out soon!..."
+
+"I wonder will you make as much out of it as you made out of your other
+book," Mrs. MacDermott said.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+There was a letter for John in the morning. His subtenant wrote to say
+that he liked the flat and found it so convenient that he was very
+anxious to know whether there was a chance of John giving up possession
+of it. He was willing to buy the furniture at a fair valuation!...
+
+"Damned cheek," said John. He told the others of the contents of the
+letter.
+
+"If we were to stay here," Eleanor said, "that offer would be very
+useful, wouldn't it?"
+
+"It's of no use to us," he answered. "We're not going to stay here!"
+
+In the afternoon, a telegram came from Clotworthy instructing John to
+return to London immediately. "Will you come with me or come later by
+yourself?" John said to Eleanor.
+
+She hesitated for a few moments, then going quickly to him and putting
+her arms about his neck, she whispered, "I don't want to go back to
+London, John. I want to stay here!"
+
+"You what?"
+
+"I want to stay here. Oh, give up this work and stay at home. Your
+Uncle is getting old and needs help, and I'll be much happier here than
+in London!..."
+
+"Give up writing!..."
+
+"You'll be able to do some writing here if you want to!"
+
+"Uncle William hasn't time to take a holiday. What time will I have to
+write if I take on his work?"
+
+"He has no one to help him. I'll help you!"
+
+"The thing's absurd!"
+
+"No, it isn't. I like being in the shop. I've helped Uncle William a
+lot. I've made suggestions!..."
+
+"My mother put this idea into your head!"
+
+"No, she didn't. She's talked to me about Ballyards, of course, and the
+MacDermotts and the shop, but she has not asked me to stay here. It's
+my own idea. I like this little town, John, and its quiet ways and the
+comfort of this house. I've always wanted comfort and quietness, and
+I've got it here. I don't want to go back to the misery of London ...
+always wondering whether we shall have enough money to pay our bills,
+and you out half the night. Oh, let's stay here!"
+
+He put her away from him. "No," he said obstinately. "I'm not going to
+give in!..."
+
+"I'm not asking you to give in!"
+
+"You are. You're asking me to come back here where everybody knows me
+and knows what I went out to do, and you're asking me to admit to them
+that I've failed!"
+
+"No, no, dear!..."
+
+"Yes, you are. Because I haven't made a fortune at the start, you all
+think I'm a failure. Hasn't every man had to struggle and fight for his
+position, and amn't I fighting and struggling for mine? If you cared
+for me!..."
+
+"I do care for you, John!"
+
+"Then you'd be glad to fight with me ... and struggle!..."
+
+"Yes, I am prepared to fight with you ... but I'm not going to take
+risks with the baby!..."
+
+"What's he got to do with it?"
+
+She turned on him angrily. "Are you willing to let him suffer for your
+books, too? Do you think I'm going to let my child go without things to
+feed your pride?..."
+
+"He won't have to go without things. I'll earn enough for him and for
+you."
+
+"Yes, I know. We've seen something of that already. Well, I'm not going
+back to London, John. I'm simply not going back. You can't expect me to
+go from this house where I'm happy to that little poky flat in
+Hampstead and sit there night after night while you are at the
+office!..."
+
+"Other women do it, don't they?"
+
+"Other women can do what they like. If they're content to live like
+that, they can, but I'm not content. I don't like that life, and I
+won't live it. You must make up your mind to that. It isn't necessary
+for you to go back to the _Sensation_ office--you can stay here
+and help Uncle William!"
+
+"Become a grocer!..."
+
+"Why not? Isn't it better to be a good grocer than a bad novelist?"
+
+His face flushed and he breathed very heavily. "You're all against me,
+the whole lot of you. You make little of me. I get no help or
+encouragement at all. My ma and you and Hinde!..."
+
+"If you were good at that work, you would not need encouragement, would
+you?"
+
+"I don't need it. I can do without it. I'll prove to you yet that I can
+write as well as anybody. Never you fear, Eleanor!..."
+
+"I'm not going back to London," she said.
+
+"Well, then, you can stay behind. I'll go back by myself!"
+
+Mrs. MacDermott came into the room. "What's the matter?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing," John replied. "I'm going back to London this evening.
+Eleanor says she's going to stay here!..."
+
+"For good?"
+
+"Aye ... for good."
+
+"And you? When are you coming back?"
+
+"I'm not coming back. She'll have to come to me. You're always talking
+about the pride of the MacDermotts. Well, I'll show you some of it.
+I'll not put my foot inside this house till Eleanor comes back to me.
+It's me that settles where we live ... not her ... not anybody. Do you
+think I'm going to throw up everything now when I've made a start? I've
+a new book coming out soon. You know that well ... the whole of you. I
+know you don't think much of it, Eleanor!..."
+
+"I didn't say that," she interjected.
+
+"But I think a lot of it. I know it's good. I'm sure it's good. And if
+it does well. I'll be able to leave the _Sensation_ office, and we
+can live happily together ... but you'll have to come to me. I won't
+come here to you!..."
+
+He turned to his mother. "Mebbe you're content now," he said. "You've
+got your way. There's a MacDermott in the house to carry on the
+business when he's old enough. You'll not need me now!"
+
+He went out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and a little
+while later, they heard him leaving the house.
+
+"Wait, daughter," said Mrs. MacDermott, taking hold of Eleanor by the
+hand. "Don't fret yourself, daughter, dear. I lived with his
+father!..."
+
+"But he always had his own way. You told me so yourself."
+
+"Yes, that's true, but John has some of my blood in him, and my blood
+clings to its home. Content yourself a wee while!"
+
+
+
+V
+
+He met Uncle William crossing the Square, and suddenly he realised how
+old Uncle William was, and how tired he looked.
+
+"Come a piece of the road with me," he said, putting his arm in his
+Uncle's. "Eleanor and me have just have a fall-out, and I want to walk
+my anger off. I'm going back to London to-night!..."
+
+"You're going soon, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. I had a telegram from the office a while ago. Eleanor doesn't
+want to go home. She wants to stay here!"
+
+"Aye, she's well content with us!"
+
+"But her place is with me. I'm her husband!..."
+
+"Indeed, you are. A wife's place is with her husband. It's a pity you
+can't agree to be in the same place!
+
+"Listen, John," he went on, as they came away from the town and
+strolled along the road leading to the Lough, "there's a thing I'm
+going to tell you that I've never said to no one before. It's this. The
+thing that destroyed your father and your Uncle Matthew was their pride
+in themselves. They never stopped to consider other people. They did
+what they wanted to do regardless of how it affected their neighbours
+or their friends. And nothing came out of their work. Your father died
+and left an angry memory behind him. Your Uncle Matthew died and left
+nothing but a wrong view of things to you. Your mother ... well, I
+hardly know what to say about her. She's had much to thole, and it's
+made her bitter in her mind, and many's a time I think she's demented
+about the pride of the MacDermotts. I'm proud of my name, too, and
+proud of the respect we've earned for ourselves, but I'm old and tired,
+John, and I've nothing to comfort me, and the pride of the MacDermotts
+gives me little consolation for the things I've missed. I'd give the
+two eyes out of my head to have a wife like your wife, and a wee child
+for my own, but I've had to do without the both of them. You see, John,
+I had to keep the family going when the others failed to support it,
+I'd be a glad and happy man if I had my wife and my child in the
+shop!..."
+
+"Do you want me to come home too, then?"
+
+"Every man must do the best for himself, I'm only telling you not to
+eat up other people's lives when you're holding on to your own opinion.
+I daresay you know what's best for yourself, but I wonder whether
+you'll think that in ten years' time. Or twenty years' time. If you can
+comfort your mind with the thought that this world is a romance, the
+way your Uncle Matthew did, then you'll mebbe be content, but I never
+saw any romance in it, and the only comfort I get from it is the
+thought that I'm keeping up a good name. The MacDermotts always gave
+good value for the money. I wouldn't mind if they put that on my
+gravestone!" He changed his tone abruptly. "Do you think you're a good
+writer, John?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know, Uncle William. I try hard to believe I am, but I'm not
+sure. Do you think I am?"
+
+"How can I tell? I've no knowledge of these things, and I can't
+distinguish between my pride in you and my judgment. I liked your book
+well enough, but I'm doubtful would I have bothered my head about it if
+someone else had written it. Is your next book a good one?"
+
+"_I_ think so, but Eleanor doesn't!"
+
+"The position isn't very satisfactory, is it? You're going to leave
+that young girl for the sake of something that you're uncertain of?"
+
+"I want to prove my worth to her!"
+
+"You mean you want to content yourself. You want to make her think you
+were right and she was wrong!"
+
+"I have my pride!..."
+
+"Aye, you have your pride, but I'm wondering would you rather have that
+than Eleanor?"
+
+They sat down on the edge of the Lough and did not speak for a long
+time. John picked up pebbles and threw them into the water, while his
+Uncle gazed at the opposite shore. They sat there until it was time to
+go home to tea.
+
+"We'd better be moving," said Uncle William. "Are you settled in your
+mind that you're going back to London?"
+
+"Yes," said John.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+"Good-bye, Eleanor!" he said when the time came to catch the train to
+Belfast.
+
+"Good-bye, John!"
+
+He took hold of her hand and waited for her to offer her lips to him,
+but she did not offer them.
+
+"If you change your mind," he said, but she interrupted him quickly.
+
+"I shan't change my mind," she said.
+
+"Very well. Good-bye!"
+
+She did not speak. She was afraid to speak.
+
+"Well, good-bye again!" he said.
+
+He turned to his mother. Her eyes were very bright, but there were no
+tears in them. She looked steadily at him.
+
+"It's a pity," she said.
+
+Her hand sought Eleanor's and pressed it. "We must all do what's for
+the best," she said. "None of us can do any more!"
+
+
+
+
+THE FIFTH CHAPTER
+
+
+I
+
+He oscillated between an almost uncontrollable desire to return to
+Eleanor and a cold rage against her. Women, he told himself, always
+stepped between men and their work. Women drew men away from great
+labours and made creatures of comfort of them. They took an aspiring
+angel and made a domestic animal of him. He was prepared to endure
+hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, but Eleanor demanded that
+first of all he should provide comfort and security for her and her
+child. She would gladly turn a creative artist into a small tradesman
+for the sake of the greater profit that was made by the small
+tradesman. He would not be seduced from his proper work ... and yet,
+when he went back to Miss Squibb's after the _Sensation_ had gone
+to bed, walking sometimes all the way from Fleet Street, over
+Blackfriars Bridge, he would spend the time of the journey in dreaming
+of Eleanor as he first saw her or as he saw her in the box at the
+Albert Hall when Tetrazzini sang. He would conjure up pictures of her
+standing at the bookstall at Charing Cross, waiting for him, or saying
+goodbye to him at the steps of the Women's Club in Bayswater or
+kneeling beside him in St. Chad's Church as the priest blessed their
+marriage or sitting before the fire in Ballyards holding her baby in
+her arms. And when these visions of her went through his mind, he felt
+an intense longing to go away from London at once and stay contentedly
+with her wherever she chose to be. Sometimes his mind was full of
+thoughts about his child. He had not felt much emotion about it when he
+was at Ballyards ... he had thought of it mostly with amazement and
+with some dislike of its shapeless face ... but now there were
+stirrings in his heart when he thought of it, and he wished that he
+could be with Eleanor and watch the gradual growth of the baby into a
+recognising being. His work at the _Sensation_ office had become
+mechanical, and he worked at the table in the sub-editors' room without
+any consciousness of it; but he consoled himself for the fatigue and
+the dullness by promising himself a swift and brilliant release from
+Fleet Street when his second book was published. Even if his book were
+not to make money, it would establish his reputation, and when that was
+done, he could surely persuade Eleanor to believe that his life must be
+lived elsewhere than behind the counter of the shop. He had written to
+her several times since his return to London, and she had written to
+him, but there were signs of restraint in his letters and in hers. He
+told her that he had made arrangements for the sub-tenants to remain in
+the flat for the present. He wrote "for the present" deliberately. The
+phrase that shaped itself in his mind as he wrote the letter was "until
+you come back to London," but he changed it before he put his thoughts
+into written words. She gave long accounts of the baby to him, and
+described her life in Ballyards. She was helping Uncle William who said
+that her help was very useful to him. They were going to fight Pippin's
+multiple shops and beat them. She had suggested some alterations in the
+shop to Uncle William, and he, agreeing that one must move with the
+times, had consented to make the alterations. She did not ask John to
+come back, but when he read her letters, he felt that she was
+preventing herself, with difficulty, from doing so.
+
+
+
+II
+
+A month after his return to London, _Hearts of Controversy_ was
+published. He took the complimentary copies out of their parcel and
+fingered them, turning the leaves backward and forward, and looking for
+a long while at the dedication "To the Memory of my Uncle Matthew." How
+pleased and proud Uncle Matthew would have been of this book, but how
+little pleasure John was deriving from it. He hardly cared now whether
+it failed or succeeded. If only something would happen that would
+enable him to return to Ballyards and Eleanor with some sort of pride
+left! ... Uncle Matthew's romantic dreams had remained romantic dreams
+because he had never left Ballyards; but John had gone out into the
+world to seek adventures, and all of them had ended dismally ... except
+his adventure with Eleanor. He had pursued her and won her and made her
+his wife and the mother of his son, and she was still his, even
+although he had left her and was living angrily away from her. He
+remembered how he had wandered into Hanging Sword Alley when he first
+came to London, and had been bitterly disappointed to find that this
+romantically-named lane was a dirty, grimy gutter of a street....
+
+"I've been living a fool's life," he said to himself. "I had one great
+adventure, finding Eleanor, and I did not realise that that was the
+only romance I could hope for!"
+
+He put the book down. "I'm not a writer," he said mournfully, "I'm a
+grocer. I'm not even a grocer. I'm ... a hack journalist!"
+
+He had written a tragedy that was dead. He had written a novel that was
+dead. This second novel ... in a little while it, too, would be dead.
+Perhaps it was dead already. Perhaps it had never been alive. And he
+had written a music-hall sketch ... that lived. He had done no other
+work than his sub-editing on the _Sensation_ since his return to
+London, and he realised that he would never do any more while he
+remained in Fleet Street....
+
+Hinde entered the room while these thoughts were in his mind. "When's
+Eleanor coming back?" he asked, throwing himself into a chair in front
+of the fire.
+
+"She's not coming back," John answered.
+
+Hinde looked up sharply. "Oh?" he said in a questioning manner.
+
+"I'm going to her ... as soon as I can. I've had my fill of this life.
+Do you remember asking me why I didn't sell happorths of tea and
+sugar?" Hinde nodded his head. "Well, I'm going back to sell them. The
+author of _The Enchanted Lover_ and _Hearts of Controversy_
+has retired from the trade of writing and will now ... now devote
+himself to ... selling happorths of tea and sugar!" He laughed
+nervously as he spoke.
+
+Hinde did not make any reply.
+
+"I shall go and see the man who has the flat to-morrow. He wants to buy
+our furniture. It's a piece of luck, isn't it? The only piece of luck
+I've had.... By God, Hinde, this serves me right. Eleanor always said I
+was selfish, and I am. I'm terribly self-satisfied and thick-skinned. I
+had no qualification for this work ... nothing but my conceit ... and
+I've been let down. I'm a failure!..."
+
+"We're all failures," said Hinde. "The only thing we can do, all of us,
+is to lull ourselves to sleep and hope for forgetfulness. Compared with
+you, I suppose I'm a success ... as a journalist anyhow ... but this is
+the end of my work ... this room, with Lizzie and Miss Squibb and
+sometimes the Creams. You've got Eleanor and a son ... what more do you
+want? Isn't it enough luck for a man to have a wife that he loves and
+who loves him, and to have a child? What's a book anyway? Paper with
+words on it. All over the world, there are thousands and thousands of
+books ... with millions and millions of words in them. What's the good
+of them? We make a little stir and then we die ... we poor scribblers.
+And that's all. It's much better to marry and breed healthy babies than
+to live in an attic making songs about the stars. The stars don't care,
+but the babies may!"
+
+"You're a cheerful fellow, Hinde," said John, rallying a little.
+
+"Don't pay any heed to me. I was always a dismal devil at the best of
+times. You see, Mac, I've got ink in my veins. I'm not a man ... I'm
+part of a printing press. That's what you'd become if you were to stay
+in Fleet Street. Go home, my lad, and get more babies!..."
+
+
+
+III
+
+He wrote to Eleanor that night, telling her that he would capitulate.
+Immediately he had settled about the flat and had arranged for his
+withdrawal from the office of the _Sensation_, he would return to
+Ballyards. He would write no more books!... In the morning, there was a
+letter from Eleanor. She could hold out no longer. If he would come and
+fetch her and the little John, she would do whatever he asked of her.
+She loved him so much that she could not keep up this pretence of
+strength!...
+
+He laughed to himself as he read her letter. "She wrote before I
+did," he said. "I suppose I've won. I suppose I held out longer than
+she did ... but I don't feel that I've gained anything!"
+
+The copies of _Hearts of Controversy_ were lying where he had left
+them on the previous night. "I don't care what the papers say about
+them," he said to himself picking one of them up. "What's a book anyway
+when I've got Eleanor!"
+
+He was able to arrange the sale of his furniture to the sub-tenant and
+get his release from the _Sensation_ in less than a week, and he
+wired to Eleanor to say that he was coming home and would arrive at
+Ballyards on Sunday. "I'm going home with my tail between my legs," he
+said to himself, as he walked down the gangway from the Liverpool boat
+on to the quay at Belfast. He was too early for the Ballyards train,
+and he went for a walk to fill the time of waiting. He passed the
+restaurant where Maggie Carmichael had been employed, and saw that a
+new name was on the lintel of the door. "Well, I hope she's happy with
+her peeler!" he said to himself. He went on, and presently found
+himself before the Theatre Royal, and when he glanced at the playbills,
+he saw that a Shakespearian Company were in possession of it. _Romeo
+and Juliet_ had been performed on Saturday night, and he remembered
+the line that had sustained him after his love-making with Maggie
+Carmichael:
+
+_If love be rough with you, be rough with love._
+
+"How can you?" he said aloud. "You can't, no matter what it does to
+you!"
+
+He went at last to the station and caught his train to Ballyards.
+Eleanor was waiting on the platform for him. She did not speak when he
+arrived. She ran to him and put her arms about him and hugged him and
+cried over him. "My dear, my dear!" she said when she had recovered
+herself. He took her arm and led her out of the station, and they
+walked home together.
+
+"It was terrible." she said. "I had to fight hard to keep myself from
+going to you. We've been very foolish, John, haven't we?"
+
+He nodded his head.
+
+They entered the house by the side-door and went into the kitchen where
+Mrs. MacDermott was preparing the mid-day meal. She waited for him to
+speak to her.
+
+"I've come home, mother!" he said, going to her and kissing her.
+
+"I'm thankful glad, son!" she replied.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Uncle William took him into the shop, and they sat together on stools
+in the "Counting House."
+
+"I'm troubled, John," he said, "about the shop. Pippin's have offered
+to buy the business!..."
+
+"Buy the business. But we don't want to sell it!"
+
+"I know that. They're threatening me. They say they'll undercut me till
+my trade's gone. I'm too old to fight them!..."
+
+John called to his mother and Eleanor. "Come here a minute," he said,
+and when they had done so, he told them of Pippin's offer and threat.
+"What do you think of that?" he demanded.
+
+"I think we should fight them," said Eleanor.
+
+"So we will," John replied. "The MacDermotts had a name in this town
+before ever a Pippin was heard of, and the MacDermotts'll still have a
+name when the Pippins are dead and damned!" He stopped suddenly, and
+then began to laugh. "By the Hokey O," he exclaimed, "there's a romance
+at the end of it all!"
+
+He looked at his mother. "I'm going to carry on the shop, mother!" he
+said.
+
+She did not answer. She put out her hands to him, and he saw that she
+was smiling with great content. And yet she was crying, too.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Foolish Lovers, by St. John G. Ervine
+
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