TATTERDEMALION

by

JOHN GALSWORTHY

"Gentillesse cometh fro' God allone."Chaucer

New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1920

Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1920, byCharles Scribner's Sons

Copyright, 1915, 1916, by The RidgwayCompany Copyright, 1919, by The

New Republic Publishing Co., Inc.Copyright, 1914, 1916, 1919, by TheAtlantic Monthly Co.

* * * * *

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

VILLA RUBEIN, and Other StoriesTHE ISLAND PHARISEES THEMAN OF PROPERTY THECOUNTRY HOUSE FRATERNITYTHE PATRICIAN THE DARKFLOWER THE FREELANDSBEYOND FIVE TALES SAINT'SPROGRESS TATTERDEMALION

A COMMENTARY A MOTLEY THEINN OF TRANQUILLITY THELITTLE MAN, and Other Satires ASHEAF ANOTHER SHEAFADDRESSES IN AMERICA: 1919

PLAYS: FIRST SERIES and Separately

THE SILVER BOX JOY STRIFE

PLAYS: SECOND SERIES andSeparately

THE ELDEST SON THE LITTLEDREAM JUSTICE

PLAYS: THIRD SERIES and Separately

THE FUGITIVE THE PIGEONTHE MOB

A BIT O' LOVE

MOODS, SONGS, ANDDOGGERELS MEMORIES.Illustrated

* * * * *

TO ELIZABETH LUCAS

CONTENTS

PART I. OF WAR-TIME PAGE

I. THE GREY ANGEL 3

II. DEFEAT 27

III. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 51

IV. THE BRIGHT SIDE 75

V. "CAFARD" 105

VI. RECORDED 117

VII. THE RECRUIT 125

VIII. THE PEACE MEETING 137

IX. "THE DOG IT WAS THATDIED" 147

X. IN HEAVEN AND EARTH 169

XI. THE MOTHER STONE 173

XII. POIROT AND BIDAN 179

XIII. THE MUFFLED SHIP 187

XIV. HERITAGE 191

XV. 'A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY' 199

PART II. OF PEACE-TIME

I. SPINDLEBERRIES 209

II. EXPECTATIONS 227

III. MANNA 239

IV. A STRANGE THING 255

V. TWO LOOKS 271

VI. FAIRYLAND 279

VII. THE NIGHTMARE CHILD 283

VIII. BUTTERCUP-NIGHT 295

TATTERDEMALION

PART I

OF WAR-TIME

I

THE GREY ANGEL

Her predilection for things Frenchcame from childish recollections ofschool-days in Paris, and a hasty

removal thence by her father during therevolution of '48, of later travels as alittle maiden, by diligence, to Pau andthe then undiscovered Pyrenees, to aMontpellier and a Nice as yetunspoiled. Unto her seventy-eighthyear, her French accent had remainedunruffled, her soul in love with Frenchgloves and dresses; and her face had thepale, unwrinkled, slightly aquilineperfection of the 'French marquise'type it may, perhaps, be doubtedwhether any French marquise everlooked the part so perfectly.

How it came about that she had settleddown in a southern French town, inthe summer of 1914, only her roving

spirit knew. She had been a widow tenyears, which she had passed in the questof perfection; all her life she had beenhaunted by that instinct, half-smothered in ministering to herhusband, children, and establishmentsin London and the country. Now, inloneliness, the intrinsic independenceof her soul was able to assert itself, andfrom hotel to hotel she had wanderedin England, Wales, Switzerland, France,till now she had found what seeminglyarrested her. Was it the age of thatoldest of Western cities, that littlemother of Western civilisation, whichcaptured her fancy Or did a curiousperversity turn her from more obviousabodes, or was she kept there by the

charm of a certain church which shewould enter every day to steep herselfin mellow darkness, the scent ofincense, the drone of incantations, andquiet communion with a God higherindeed than she had been brought upto, high-church though she had alwaysbeen She had a pretty little apartment,where for very little the bulk of hersmall wealth was habitually at theservice of others she could managewith one maid and no "fuss." She hadsome "nice" French friends there, too.But more probably it was simply thewar which kept her there, waiting, likeso many other people, for it to be overbefore it seemed worth while to moveand re-establish herself. The immensity

and wickedness of this strange eventheld her, as it were, suspended, bodyand spirit, high up on the hill whichhad seen the ancient peoples, theRomans, Gauls, Saracens, and all, andstill looked out towards the flatCamargue. Here in her three rooms,with a little kitchen, the maidAugustine, a parrot, and the Paris DailyMail, she dwelt as it were marooned bya world event which seemed to stunher. Not that she worried, exactly. Thenotion of defeat or of real danger toher country and to France neverentered her head. She only grievedquietly over the dreadful things thatwere being done, and every now andthen would glow with admiration at the

beautiful way the King and Queen werebehaving. It was no good to "fuss," andone must make the best of things, justas the "dear little Queen" was doing;for each Queen in turn, and she hadseen three reign in her time, was alwaysthat to her. Her ancestors had beenuprooted from their lands, their houseburned, and her pedigree diverted, inthe Stuart wars a reverence for royaltywas fastened in her blood.

Quite early in the business she hadbegun to knit, moving her slim fingersnot too fast, gazing at the grey woolthrough glasses, specially rimless andinvisible, perched on the bridge of herfirm, well-shaped nose, and now and

then speaking to her parrot. The birdcould say, "Scratch a poll, Poll," already,and "Hullo!" those keys to the Englishlanguage. The maid Augustine, havingcompleted some small duty, wouldoften come and stand, her head on oneside, gazing down with a sort ofinquiring compassion in her wise,young, clear-brown eyes. It seemed toher who was straight and sturdy as ayoung tree both wonderful and sad thatMadame should be seventy-seven, andso frail Madame who had no lines in herface and such beautiful grey hair; whohad so strong a will-power, too, andknitted such soft comforters "pour nosbraves chers poilus." And suddenly shewould say: "Madame n'est pas fatiguee "

And Madame would answer: "No. SpeakEnglish, Augustine Polly will pick upyour French! Come here!" And,reaching up a pale hand, she would setstraight a stray fluff of the girl's dark-brown hair or improve the set of herfichu.

Those two got on extremely well, forthough madame was oh! but veryparticular, she was always "tres gentille ettoujours grande dame." And that love ofform so deep in the French soulpromoted the girl's admiration for onewhom she could see would in nocircumstances lose her dignity. Besides,Madame was full of dainty householddevices, and could not bear waste; and

these, though exacting, were qualitieswhich appealed to Augustine. With herFrench passion for "the family" sheused to wonder how in days like theseMadame could endure to be far awayfrom her son and daughter and thegrandchildren, whose photographshung on the walls; and the long lettersher mistress was always writing in abeautiful, fine hand, beginning, "Mydarling Sybil," "My darling Reggie," andending always "Your devoted mother,"seemed to a warm and simple heart butmeagre substitutes for flesh-and-bloodrealities. But as Madame would informher they were too busy doing things forthe dear soldiers, and working for thewar; they could not come to her that

would never do. And to go to themwould give so much trouble, when therailways were so wanted for the troops;and she had their lovely letters, whichshe kept as Augustine observed everyone in a lavender-scented sachet, andfrequently took out to read. Anotherpoint of sympathy between those twowas their passion for military music andseeing soldiers pass. Augustine'sbrother and father were at the front,and Madame's dead brother had been asoldier in the Crimean war "long beforeyou were born, Augustine, when theFrench and English fought theRussians; I was in France then, too, alittle girl, and we lived at Nice; it was solovely, you can't think the flowers! And

my poor brother was so cold in thesiege of Sebastopol." Somehow, thattime and that war were more real to herthan this.

In December, when the hospitals werealready full, her French friends firsttook her to the one which theyattended. She went in, her face verycalm, with that curious inwardcomposure which never deserted it,carrying in front of her with bothhands a black silk bag, wherein she hadconcealed an astonishing collection oftreasures for the poor men! A bottle ofacidulated drops, packets of cigarettes,two of her own mufflers, a pocket setof drafts, some English riddles

translated by herself into French (verycurious), some ancient copies of anillustrated paper, boxes of chocolate, aball of string to make "cat's cradles"(such an amusing game), her own packsof Patience cards, some photographframes, post-cards of Arles, and mostsingular a kettle-holder. At the head ofeach bed she would sit down andrummage in the bag, speaking in herslow but quite good French, to explainthe use of the acidulated drops, or togive a lesson in cat's cradles. And thepoilus would listen with their polite,ironic patience, and be left smiling, andcuriously fascinated, as if they had beenvisited by a creature from anotherworld. She would move on to other

beds, quite unconscious of the effectshe had produced on them and of theirremarks: "Cette vieille dame, comme elle estbonne!" or "Espece d'ange aux cheveux gris.""L'ange anglaise aux cheveux gris" becamein fact her name within those walls.And the habit of filling that black silkbag and going there to distribute itscontents soon grew to be with her aruling passion which neither weathernor her own aches and pains, notinconsiderable, must interfere with. Thethings she brought became moremarvellous every week. But, howevermuch she carried coals to Newcastle, ortobacco pouches to those who did notsmoke, or homoeopathic globules tosuch as crunched up the whole

bottleful for the sake of the sugar, assoon as her back was turned, no oneever smiled now with anything but realpleasure at sight of her calm and trulysweet smile, and the scent of soap onher pale hands. "Cher fils, je croyais que cecivous donnerait un peu de plaisir. Voyez-vouscomme c'est commode, n'est ce pas " Eachnewcomer to the wards was warned byhis comrades that the English angelwith the grey hair was to be takenwithout a smile, exactly as if she werehis grandmother.

In the walk to the hospital Augustinewould accompany her, carrying the bagand perhaps a large peasant's umbrellato cover them both, for the winter was

hard and snowy, and carriages costmoney, which must now be keptentirely for the almost dailyreplenishment of the bag and othercalls of war. The girl, to her chagrin,was always left in a safe place, for itwould never do to take her in and putfancies into her head, and perhapsexcite the dear soldiers with a view ofanything so taking. And when the visitwas over they would set forth home,walking very slowly in the high, narrowstreets, Augustine pouting a little andshooting swift glances at anything inuniform, and Madame making firm herlips against a fatigue which sometimesalmost overcame her before she couldget home and up the stairs. And the

parrot would greet them indiscreetlywith new phrases "Keep smiling!" and"Kiss Augustine!" which he sometimesvaried with "Kiss a poll, Poll!" or"Scratch Augustine!" to Madame's regret.Tea would revive her somewhat, andthen she would knit, for as time wenton and the war seemed to get fartherand farther from that end which, incommon with so many, she hadexpected before now, it seemeddreadful not to be always doingsomething to help the poor dearsoldiers; and for dinner, to Augustine'shorror, she now had nothing but a littlesoup, or an egg beaten up with milkand brandy. It saved such a lot of timeand expense she was sure people ate

too much; and afterwards she wouldread the Daily Mail, often putting itdown to sigh, and press her lipstogether, and think, "One must look onthe bright side of things," and wondera little where it was. And Augustine,finishing her work in the tiny kitchen,would sigh too, and think of redtrousers and peaked caps, not yet outof date in that Southern region, and ofher own heart saying "Kiss Augustine!"and she would peer out between theshutters at the stars sparkling over theCamargue, or look down where theground fell away beyond an old, oldwall, and nobody walked in the winternight, and muse on her nineteenthbirthday coming, and sigh with the

thought that she would be old beforeany one had loved her; and of howMadame was looking "tres fatiguee."

Indeed, Madame was not merely looking"tres fatiguee" in these days. The world'svitality and her own were at sad Januaryebb. But to think of oneself was quiteimpossible, of course; it would be allright presently, and one must not fuss,or mention in one's letters to the dearchildren that one felt at all poorly. Asfor a doctor that would be sinful waste,and besides, what use were they exceptto tell you what you knew So she wasterribly vexed when Augustine foundher in a faint one morning, and shefound Augustine in tears, with her hair

all over her face. She rated the girlsoundly, but feebly, for making such afuss over "a little thing like that," andwith extremely trembling fingerspushed the brown hair back and toldher to wash her face, while the parrotsaid reflectively: "Scratch a poll Hullo!"The girl who had seen her owngrandmother die not long before, andremembered how "fatiguee" she hadbeen during her last days, was reallyfrightened. Coming back after she hadwashed her face, she found her mistresswriting on a number of little envelopesthe same words: "En bonne Amitie." Shelooked up at the girl standing soominously idle, and said:

"Take this hundred-franc note,Augustine, and go and get it changedinto single francs the ironmonger willdo it if you say it's for me. I am goingto take a rest. I sha'n't buy anything forthe bag for a whole week. I shall justtake francs instead."

"Oh, Madame! You must not go out:vous etes trop fatiguee."

"Nonsense! How do you suppose ourdear little Queen in England would geton with all she has to do, if she were togive in like that We must none of usgive up in these days. Help me to puton my things; I am going to church,and then I shall take a long rest before

we go to the hospital."

"Oh, Madame! Must you go to church Itis not your kind of church. You do notpray there, do you "

"Of course I pray there. I am very fondof the dear old church. God is in everychurch, Augustine; you ought to knowthat at your age."

"But Madame has her own religion "

"Now, don't be silly. What does thatmatter Help me into my cloth coat notthe fur it's too heavy and then go andget that money changed."

"But Madame should see a doctor. IfMadame faints again I shall die withfright. Madame has no colour but nocolour at all; it must be that there issomething wrong."

Madame rose, and taking the girl's earbetween thumb and finger pinched itgently.

"You are a very silly girl. What wouldour poor soldiers do if all the nurseswere like you "

Reaching the church she sat downgladly, turning her face up towards herfavourite picture, a Virgin standing withher Baby in her arms. It was only faintly

coloured now; but there were thosewho said that an Arlesienne must havesat for it. Why it pleased her so shenever quite knew, unless it were by itscool, unrestored devotion, by the faintsmiling in the eyes. Religion with herwas a strange yet very real thing.Conscious that she was not clever, shenever even began to try and understandwhat she believed. Probably shebelieved nothing more than that if shetried to be good she would go to Godwhatever and wherever God might besome day when she was too tired to liveany more; and rarely indeed did sheforget to try to be good. As she satthere she thought, or perhaps prayed,whichever it should be called: "Let me

forget that I have a body, and rememberall the poor soldiers who have them."

It struck cold that morning in thechurch the wind was bitter from thenortheast; some poor women in blackwere kneeling, and four candles burnedin the gloom of a side aisle thin, steadylittle spires of gold. There was nosound at all. A smile came on her lips.She was forgetting that she had a body,and remembering all those young facesin the wards, the faces too of her ownchildren far away, the faces of all sheloved. They were real and she was notshe was nothing but the devotion shefelt for them; yes, for all the poor soulson land and sea, fighting and working

and dying. Her lips moved; she wassaying below her breath, "I love themall"; then, feeling a shiver run down herspine, she compressed those lips andclosed her eyes, letting her mind alonemurmur her chosen prayer: "O God,who makes the birds sing and the starsshine, and gives us little children,strengthen my heart so that I mayforget my own aches and wants andthink of those of other people."

On reaching home again she tookgelseminum, her favourite remedyagainst that shivering, which, howeverhard she tried to forget her own body,would keep coming; then, coveringherself with her fur coat, she lay down,

closing her eyes. She was seeminglyasleep, so that Augustine, returningwith the hundred single francs, placedthem noiselessly beside the little pile ofenvelopes, and after looking at thewhite, motionless face of her mistressand shaking her own bonny head,withdrew. When she had gone, twotears came out of those closed eyes andclung on the pale cheeks below. Theseeming sleeper was thinking of herchildren, away over there in England,her children and their children. Almostunbearably she was longing for a sightof them, not seen for so long now,recalling each face, each voice, eachdifferent way they had of saying,"Mother darling," or "Granny, look

what I've got!" and thinking that if onlythe war would end how she wouldpack at once and go to them, that is, ifthey would not come to her for a nicelong holiday in this beautiful place. Shethought of spring, too, and how lovelyit would be to see the trees come outagain, and almond blossom against ablue sky. The war seemed so long, andwinter too. But she must not complain;others had much greater sorrows thanshe the poor widowed women kneelingin the church; the poor boys freezing inthe trenches. God in his great mercycould not allow it to last much longer.It would not be like Him! Though shefelt that it would be impossible to eat,she meant to force herself to make a

good lunch so as to be able to go downas usual, and give her little presents.They would miss them so if she didn't.Her eyes, opening, rested almostgloatingly on the piles of francs andenvelopes. And she began to think howshe could reduce still further herpersonal expenditure. It was sodreadful to spend anything on oneselfan old woman like her. Doctor, indeed!If Augustine fussed any more shewould send her away and do forherself! And the parrot, leaving hiscage, which he could always do,perched just behind her and said:"Hullo! Kiss me, too!"

That afternoon in the wards every one

noticed what a beautiful colour shehad. "L'ange anglaise aux cheveux gris" hadnever been more popular. One poilu,holding up his envelope, remarked tohis neighbour: "Elle verse des gouttes d'ciel,notr' 'tite gran'me." To them, grateful evenfor those mysterious joys "cat's cradles,"francs were the true drops from heaven.

She had not meant to give them all to-day, but it seemed dreadful, when shesaw how pleased they were, to leave anyout, and so the whole ninety-seven hadtheir franc each. The three over wouldbuy Augustine a little brooch to makeup to the silly child for her fright in themorning. The buying of this broochtook a long time at the jeweller's in the

rue des Romains, and she had only justfixed on an amethyst before feelingdeadly ill with a dreadful pain throughher lungs. She went out with her tinypackage quickly, not wanting any fuss,and began to mount towards home.There were only three hundred yards togo, and with each step she said toherself: "Nonsense! What would theQueen think of you! Remember thepoor soldiers with only one leg! Youhave got both your legs! And the poormen who walk from the battlefield withbullets through the lungs. What is yourpain to theirs! Nonsense!" But the pain,like none she had ever felt a pain whichseemed to have sharp double edges likea knife kept passing through and

through her, till her legs had nostrength at all, and seemed to movesimply because her will said: "If youdon't, I'll leave you behind. So there!"She felt as if perspiration were flowingdown, yet her face was as dry as a deadleaf when she put up her hand to it.Her brain stammered; seemed to flyloose; came to sudden standstills. Hereyes searched painfully each grey-shuttered window for her own house,though she knew quite well that shehad not reached it yet. From sheer painshe stood still, a wry little smile on herlips, thinking how poor Polly wouldsay: "Keep smiling!" Then she movedon, holding out her hand, whetherbecause she thought God would put

his into it or only to pull on someimaginary rope to help her. So, foot byfoot, she crept till she reached her door.A most peculiar floating sensation hadcome over her. The pain ceased, and asif she had passed through no doors,mounted no stairs she was up in herroom, lying on her sofa, with strangeimages about her, painfully consciousthat she was not in proper control ofher thoughts, and that Augustine mustbe thinking her ridiculous. Making agreat effort, she said:

"I forbid you to send for a doctor,Augustine. I shall be all right in a day ortwo, if I eat plenty of francs. And youmust put on this little brooch I bought

it for you from an angel in the street.Put my fur coat on Polly he's shivering;dry your mouth, there's a good girl. Tellmy son he mustn't think of leaving thepoor War Office; I shall come and seehim after the war. It will be over to-morrow, and then we will all go andhave tea together in a wood. Grannywill come to you, my darlings."

And when the terrified girl had rushedout she thought: "There, now she'sgone to get God; and I mustn't disturbHim with all He has to see to. I shall getup and do for myself." When they cameback with the doctor they found herhalf-dressed, trying to feed a perch inthe empty cage with a spoon, and

saying: "Kiss Granny, Polly. God iscoming; kiss Granny!" while the parrotsat away over on the mantelpiece, withhis head on one side, deeply interested.

When she had been properly undressedand made to lie down on the sofa, forshe insisted so that she would not go tobed that they dared not oppose her, thedoctor made his diagnosis. It wasdouble pneumonia, of that sudden sortwhich declares for life or death in forty-eight hours. At her age a desperate case.Her children must be wired to at once.She had sunk back, seeminglyunconscious; and Augustine,approaching the drawer where sheknew the letters were kept, slipped out

the lavender sachet and gave it to thedoctor. When he had left the room toextract the addresses and send thosetelegrams, the girl sat down by the footof the couch, leaning her elbows onher knees and her face on her hands,staring at that motionless form, whilethe tears streamed down her broadcheeks. For many minutes neither ofthem stirred, and the only sound wasthe restless stropping of the parrot'sbeak against a wire of his cage. Thenher mistress's lips moved, and the girlbent forward. A whispering came forth,caught and suspended by breathlesspausing:

"Mind, Augustine no one is to tell my

children I can't have them disturbedover a little thing like this and in mypurse you'll find another hundred-francnote. I shall want some more francs forthe day after to-morrow. Be a good girland don't fuss, and kiss poor Polly, andmind I won't have a doctor taking himaway from his work. Give me mygelseminum and my prayer-book. Andgo to bed just as usual we must all keepsmiling like the dear soldiers " Thewhispering ceased, then began again atonce in rapid delirious incoherence.And the girl sat trembling, coveringnow her ears from those uncannysounds, now her eyes from the flushand the twitching of that face, usuallyso pale and still. She could not follow

with her little English the swerving,intricate flights of that old spirit mazedby fever the memories released, thelongings disclosed, the half-utteredprayers, the curious little half-consciousefforts to regain form and dignity. Shecould only pray to the Virgin. Whenrelieved by the daughter of Madame'sFrench friend, who spoke goodEnglish, she murmured desperately:"Oh! mademoiselle, madame est tres fatiguee lapauvre tete faut-il enlever les cheveux Elle faitca toujours pour elle-meme." For, to the girl,with her reverence for the fastidiousdignity which never left her mistress, itseemed sacrilege to divest her of hercrown of fine grey hair. Yet, when itwas done and the old face crowned

only by the thin white hair of nature,that dignity was still there surmountingthe wandering talk and the moaningfrom her parched lips, which every nowand then smiled and pouted in a kiss, asif remembering the maxims of theparrot. So the night passed, with all thatcould be done for her, whose mostcollected phrase, frequently uttered inthe doctor's face, was: "Mind,Augustine, I won't have a doctor I canmanage for myself quite well." Oncefor a few minutes her spirit seemed torecover its coherence, and she washeard to whisper: "God has given methis so that I may know what the poorsoldiers suffer. Oh! they've forgotten tocover Polly's cage." But high fever soon

passes from the very old; and earlymorning brought a deathlikeexhaustion, with utter silence, save forthe licking of the flames at the olive-wood logs, and the sound as theyslipped or settled down, calcined. Thefirelight crept fantastically about thewalls covered with tapestry of French-grey silk, crept round the screen-headof the couch, and betrayed the ivorypallor of that mask-like face, whichcovered now such tenuous threads oflife. Augustine, who had come onguard when the fever died away, sat inthe armchair before those flames, tryinghard to watch, but dropping off intothe healthy sleep of youth. And out inthe clear, hard shivering Southern cold,

the old clocks chimed the hours intothe winter dark, where, remote fromman's restless spirit, the old townbrooded above plain and river underthe morning stars. And the girl dreameddreamed of a sweetheart under theacacias by her home, of his pinningtheir white flowers into her hair, till shewoke with a little laugh. Light wasalready coming through the shutterchinks, the fire was but red embers andwhite ash. She gathered it stealthilytogether, put on fresh logs, and stoleover to the couch. Oh! how white! howstill! Was her mistress dead The icyclutch of that thought jerked her handsup to her full breast, and a cry mountedin her throat. The eyes opened. The

white lips parted, as if to smile; a voicewhispered: "Now, don't be silly!" Thegirl's cry changed into a little sob, andbending down she put her lips to theringed hand that lay outside the quilt.The hand moved faintly as ifresponding, the voice whispered: "Theemerald ring is for you, Augustine. Is itmorning Uncover Polly's cage, andopen his door."

Madame spoke no more that morning.A telegram had come. Her son anddaughter would arrive next morningearly. They waited for a moment ofconsciousness to tell her; but the daywent by, and in spite of oxygen andbrandy it did not come. She was sinking

fast; her only movements were a tinycompression now and then of the lips,a half-opening of the eyes, and once asmile when the parrot spoke. The rallycame at eight o'clock. Mademoiselle wassitting by the couch when the voicecame fairly strong: "Give my love to mydear soldiers, and take them their francsout of my purse, please. Augustine,take care of Polly. I want to see if theemerald ring fits you. Take it off,please"; and, when it had been put onthe little finger of the sobbing girl:"There, you see, it does. That's verynice. Your sweetheart will like thatwhen you have one. What do you say,Mademoiselle My son and daughtercoming All that way " The lips smiled a

moment, and then tears forced theirway into her eyes. "My darlings! Howgood of them! Oh! what a cold journeythey'll have! Get my room ready,Augustine, with a good fire! What areyou crying for Remember what Pollysays: 'Keep smiling!' Think how bad itis for the poor soldiers if we women gocrying! The Queen never cries, and shehas ever so much to make her!"

No one could tell whether she knewthat she was dying, except perhaps forthose words, "Take care of Polly," andthe gift of the ring.

She did not even seem anxious as towhether she would live to see her

children. Her smile moved Mademoiselleto whisper to Augustine: "Elle a lasourire divine."

"Ah! mademoiselle, comme elle est brave, lapauvre dame! C'est qu'elle pense toujours auxautres." And the girl's tears dropped onthe emerald ring.

Night fell the long night; would shewake again Both watched with her,ready at the faintest movement toadminister oxygen and brandy. She wasstill breathing, but very faintly, when atsix o'clock they heard the express comein, and presently the carriage stopbefore the house. Mademoiselle stoledown to let them in.

Still in their travelling coats her son anddaughter knelt down beside the couch,watching in the dim candle-light for asign and cherishing her cold hands.Daylight came; they put the shuttersback and blew out the candles.Augustine, huddled in the far corner,cried gently to herself. Mademoiselle hadwithdrawn. But the two still knelt, tearsrunning down their cheeks. The face oftheir mother was so transparent, soexhausted; the least little twitching ofjust-opened lips showed that shebreathed. A tiny sigh escaped; hereyelids fluttered. The son, leaningforward, said:

"Sweetheart, we're here."

The eyes opened then; something morethan a simple human spirit seemed tolook through it gazed for a long, longminute; then the lips parted. They bentto catch the sound.

"My darlings don't cry; smile!" And theeyes closed again. On her face a smileso touching that it rent the heartflickered and went out. Breath hadceased to pass the faded lips.

In the long silence the French girl'shelpless sobbing rose; the parrot stirreduneasily in his still-covered cage. Andthe son and daughter knelt, pressing

their faces hard against the couch.

II

DEFEAT

She had been standing there on thepavement a quarter of an hour or soafter her shilling's worth of concert.Women of her profession are notsupposed to have redeeming points,especially when like May Belinski, asshe now preferred to dub herself theyare German; but this woman certainlyhad music in her soul. She often gaveherself these "music baths" when the

Promenade Concerts were on, and hadjust spent half her total wealth inlistening to some Mozart and aBeethoven symphony.

She was feeling almost elated, full ofdivine sound, and of the wonderfulsummer moonlight which was fillingthe whole dark town. Women "of acertain type" have, at all events,emotions and what a comfort that is,even to themselves! To stand just therehad become rather a habit of hers. Onecould seem to be waiting for somebodycoming out of the concert, not yet overwhich, of course, was precisely whatshe was doing. One need not forever bestealthily glancing and perpetually

moving on in that peculiar way, which,while it satisfied the police and Mrs.Grundy, must not quite deceive othersas to her business in life. She had only"been at it" long enough to haveacquired a nervous dread of almosteverything not long enough to havepassed through that dread tocallousness. Some women take so muchlonger than others. And even for awoman "of a certain type" her positionwas exceptionally nerve-racking in war-time, going as she did by a false name.Indeed, in all England there couldhardly be a greater pariah than was thisGerman woman of the night.

She idled outside a book-shop

humming a little, pretending to read thetitles of the books by moonlight, takingoff and putting on one of her stainedyellow gloves. Now and again shewould move up as far as the postersoutside the Hall, scrutinising them as ifinterested in the future, then stroll backagain. In her worn and discreet darkdress, and her small hat, she hadnothing about her to rouse suspicion,unless it were the trail of violet powdershe left on the moonlight.

For the moonlight this evening wasalmost solid, seeming with its cool stillvibration to replace the very air; in it thewar-time precautions against lightseemed fantastic, like shading candles in

a room still full of daylight. What lightsthere were had the effect of strokes andstipples of dim colour laid by apainter's brush on a background ofghostly whitish blue. The dreamlikequality of the town was perhapsenhanced for her eyes by the veil shewas wearing in daytime no longerwhite. As the music died out of her,elation also ebbed. Somebody hadpassed her, speaking German, and shewas overwhelmed by a rush ofnostalgia. On this moonlight night bythe banks of the Rhine whence shecame the orchards would be heavy withapples; there would be murmurs, andsweet scents; the old castle would standout clear, high over the woods and the

chalky-white river. There would besinging far away, and the churning of adistant steamer's screw; and perhaps onthe water a log raft still drifting down inthe blue light. There would be Germanvoices talking. And suddenly tearsoozed up in her eyes, and crept downthrough the powder on her cheeks. Sheraised her veil and dabbed at her facewith a little, not-too-cleanhandkerchief, screwed up in her yellow-gloved hand. But the more she dabbed,the more those treacherous tears ran.Then she became aware that a tallyoung man in khaki was also standingbefore the shop-window, not looking atthe titles of the books, but eyeing heraskance. His face was fresh and open,

with a sort of kindly eagerness in hisblue eyes. Mechanically she droopedher wet lashes, raised them obliquely,drooped them again, and uttered a littlesob....

This young man, Captain in a certainregiment, and discharged from hospitalat six o'clock that evening, had enteredQueen's Hall at half-past seven. Stillrather brittle and sore from his wound,he had treated himself to a seat in theGrand Circle, and there had sat, verystill and dreamy, the whole concertthrough. It had been like eating after along fast something of the sensationPolar explorers must experience whenthey return to their first full meal. For

he was of the New Army, and beforethe war had actually believed in music,art, and all that sort of thing. With amonth's leave before him, he couldafford to feel that life wasextraordinarily joyful, his ownexperiences particularly wonderful; and,coming out into the moonlight, he hadtaken what can only be described as agreat gulp of it, for he was a youngman with a sense of beauty. When onehas been long in the trenches, lain outwounded in a shell-hole twenty-fourhours, and spent three months inhospital, beauty has such an edge ofnovelty, such a sharp sweetness, that italmost gives pain. And London at nightis very beautiful. He strolled slowly

towards the Circus, still drawing themoonlight deep into his lungs, his captilted up a little on his forehead in thatmoment of unmilitary abandonment;and whether he stopped before thebook-shop window because the girl'sfigure was in some sort a part ofbeauty, or because he saw that she wascrying, he could not have made clear toany one.

Then something perhaps the scent ofpowder, perhaps the yellow glove, orthe oblique flutter of the eyelids toldhim that he was making what he wouldhave called "a blooming error," unlesshe wished for company, which had notbeen in his thoughts. But her sob

affected him, and he said:

"What's the matter "

Again her eyelids fluttered sideways,and she stammered:

"Not'ing. The beautiful evening that'swhy!"

That a woman of what he now clearlysaw to be "a certain type" shouldperceive what he himself had just beenperceiving, struck him forcibly, and hesaid:

"Cheer up."

She looked up again swiftly: "Cheer up!You are not lonelee like me."

For one of that sort, she lookedsomehow honest; her tear-streaked facewas rather pretty, and he murmured:

"Well, let's walk a bit, and talk it over."

They turned the corner, and walkedeast, along streets empty, and beautiful,with their dulled orange-glowing lamps,and here and there the glint of someblue or violet light. He found it queerand rather exciting for an adventure ofjust this kind he had never had. And hesaid doubtfully:

"How did you get into this Isn't it anawfully hopeless sort of life "

"Ye-es, it ees " her voice had a queersoft emphasis. "You are limping hafyou been wounded "

"Just out of hospital to-day."

"The horrible war all the misery isbecause of the war. When will it end "

He looked at her attentively, and said:

"I say what nationality are you "

"Rooshian."

"Really! I never met a Russian girl."

He was conscious that she looked athim, then very quickly down. And hesaid suddenly:

"Is it as bad as they make out "

She slipped her yellow-gloved handthrough his arm.

"Not when I haf any one as nice asyou; I never haf yet, though"; shesmiled and her smile was like herspeech, slow, confiding "you stoppedbecause I was sad, others stop becauseI am gay. I am not fond of men at all.When you know, you are not fond of

them."

"Well! You hardly know them at theirbest, do you You should see them atthe front. By George! they're simplysplendid officers and men, everyblessed soul. There's never beenanything like it just one long bit of jollyfine self-sacrifice; it's perfectlyamazing."

Turning her blue-grey eyes on him, sheanswered:

"I expect you are not the last at that.You see in them what you haf inyourself, I think."

"Oh! not a bit you're quite out. I assureyou when we made the attack where Igot wounded, there wasn't a single manin my regiment who wasn't an absolutehero. The way they went in neverthinking of themselves it was simplysuperb!"

Her teeth came down on her lower lip,and she answered in a queer voice: "It isthe same too perhaps with the enemy."

"Oh yes, I know that."

"Ah! You are not a mean man. How Ihate mean men!"

"Oh! they're not mean really they simply

don't understand."

"Oh! you are a baby a good baby, aren'tyou "

He did not quite like being called ababy, and frowned; but was at oncetouched by the disconcertion in herpowdered face. How quickly she wasscared!

She said clingingly:

"But I li-ike you for it. It is so good tofind a ni-ice man."

This was worse, and he said abruptly:

"About being lonely Haven't you anyRussian friends "

"Rooshian! No!" Then quickly added:"The town is so beeg! Haf you been inthe concert "

"Yes."

"I, too I love music."

"I suppose all Russians do."

She looked up at his face again, andseemed to struggle to keep silent; thenshe said quietly:

"I go there always when I haf the

money."

"What! Are you so on the rocks "

"Well, I haf just one shilling now." Andshe laughed.

The sound of that little laugh upsethim she had a way of making him feelsorry for her every time she spoke.

They had come by now to a narrowsquare, east of Gower Street.

"This is where I lif," she said. "Comein!"

He had one long moment of violent

hesitation, then yielded to the softtugging of her hand, and followed. Thepassage-hall was dimly lighted, and theywent upstairs into a front room, wherethe curtains were drawn, and the gasturned very low. Opposite the windowwere other curtains dividing off therest of the apartment. As soon as thedoor was shut she put up her face andkissed him evidently formula. What aroom! Its green and beetroot colouringand the prevalence of cheap plushdisagreeably affected him. Everythingin it had that callous look of roomswhich seem to be saying to theiroccupants: "You're here to-day andyou'll be gone to-morrow." Everythingexcept one little plant, in a common

pot, of maidenhair fern, fresh andgreen, looking as if it had been wateredwithin the hour; in this room it had justthe same unexpected touchingness thatpeeped out of the girl's matter-of-factcynicism.

Taking off her hat, she went towardsthe gas, but he said quickly:

"No, don't turn it up; let's have thewindow open, and the moonlight in."He had a sudden dread of seeinganything plainly it was stuffy, too, andpulling the curtains apart, he threw upthe window. The girl had comeobediently from the hearth, and satdown opposite him, leaning her arm on

the window-sill and her chin on herhand. The moonlight caught her cheekwhere she had just renewed thepowder, caught her fair crinkly hair; itcaught the plush of the furniture, andhis own khaki, giving them all a touchof unreality.

"What's your name " he said.

"May. Well, I call myself that. It's nogood askin' yours."

"You're a distrustful little party, aren'tyou "

"I haf reason to be, don't you think "

"Yes, I suppose you're bound to thinkus all brutes "

"Well, I haf a lot of reasons to beafraid all my time. I am dreadfullynervous now; I am not trustinganybody. I suppose you haf beenkilling lots of Germans "

He laughed.

"We never know, unless it happens tobe hand to hand; I haven't come in forthat yet."

"But you would be very glad if you hadkilled some "

"Glad I don't think so. We're all in thesame boat, so far as that's concerned.We're not glad to kill each other. We doour job that's all."

"Oh! it is frightful. I expect I haf mybroders killed."

"Don't you get any news ever "

"News! No indeed, no news ofanybody in my country. I might not hafa country; all that I ever knew is gonefader, moder, sisters, broders, all neverany more I shall see them, I suppose,now. The war it breaks and breaks, itbreaks hearts." Her little teeth fastenedagain on her lower lip in that sort of

pretty snarl. "Do you know what I wasthinkin' when you came up I wasthinkin' of my native town, and theriver there in the moonlight. If I couldsee it again, I would be glad. Were youever homeseeck "

"Yes, I have been in the trenches; butone's ashamed, with all the others."

"Ah! ye-es!" It came from her with ahiss. "Ye-es! You are all comrades there.What is it like for me here, do youthink, where everybody hates anddespises me, and would catch me, andput me in prison, perhaps "

He could see her breast heaving with a

quick breathing painful to listen to. Heleaned forward, patting her knee, andmurmuring: "Sorry sorry."

She said in a smothered voice:

"You are the first who has been kind tome for so long! I will tell you the truthI am not Rooshian at all I am German."

Hearing that half-choked confession,his thought was: "Does she really thinkwe fight against women " And he said:

"My dear girl, who cares "

Her eyes seemed to search right intohim. She said slowly:

"Another man said that to me. But hewas thinkin' of other things. You are averee ni-ice boy. I am so glad I met you.You see the good in people, don't youThat is the first thing in the worldbecause there is really not much goodin people, you know."

He said, smiling:

"You're a dreadful little cynic!" Thenthought: "Of course she is poor thing!"

"Cyneec How long do you think Iwould live if I was not a cyneec Ishould drown myself to-morrow.Perhaps there are good people, but, you

see, I don't know them."

"I know lots."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Well now see, ni-ice boy you haf neverbeen in a hole, haf you "

"I suppose not a real hole."

"No, I should think not, with your face.Well, suppose I am still a good girl, as Iwas once, you know, and you took meto some of your good people, and said:'Here is a little German girl that has nowork, and no money, and no friends.'Your good people they will say: 'Oh!

how sad! A German girl!' and they willgo and wash their hands."

Silence fell on him. He saw his mother,his sisters, others good people, hewould swear! And yet ! He heard theirvoices, frank and clear; and they seemedto be talking of the Germans. If onlyshe were not German!

"You see!" he heard her say, and couldonly mutter:

"I'm sure there are people."

"No. They would not take a German,even if she was good. Besides, I don'twant to be good any more I am not a

humbug I have learned to be bad.Aren't you going to kees me, ni-ice boy"

She put her face close to his. Her eyestroubled him, but he drew back. Hethought she would be offended orpersistent, but she was neither; justlooked at him fixedly with a curiousinquiring stare; and he leaned againstthe window, deeply disturbed. It was asif all clear and simple enthusiasm hadbeen suddenly knocked endways; as ifa certain splendour of life that he hadfelt and seen of late had been dipped incloud. Out there at the front, over herein hospital, life had been seeming so asit were heroic; and yet it held such

mean and murky depths as well! Thevoices of his men, whom he had cometo love like brothers, crude burringvoices, cheery in trouble, makingnothing of it; the voices of doctors andnurses, patient, quiet, reassuring voices;even his own voice, infected by it all,kept sounding in his ears. Allwonderful somehow, and simple; andnothing mean about it anywhere! Andnow so suddenly to have lighted uponthis, and all that was behind it thisscared girl, this base, dark, thoughtlessuse of her! And the thought came tohim: "I suppose my fellows wouldn'tthink twice about taking her on! Why!I'm not even certain of myself, if sheinsists!" And he turned his face, and

stared out at the moonlight. He heardher voice:

"Eesn't it light No air raid to-night.When the Zepps burned what ahorrible death! And all the peoplecheered it is natural. Do you hate usveree much "

He turned round and said sharply:

"Hate I don't know."

"I don't hate even the English I despisethem. I despise my people too perhapsmore, because they began this war. Oh,yes! I know that. I despise all thepeoples. Why haf they made the world

so miserable why haf they killed all ourlives hundreds and thousands andmillions of lives all for not'ing Theyhaf made a bad world everybodyhating, and looking for the worsteverywhere. They haf made me bad, Iknow. I believe no more in anything.What is there to believe in Is there aGod No! Once I was teaching littleEnglish children their prayers isn't thatfunnee I was reading to them aboutChrist and love. I believed all thosethings. Now I believe not'ing at all noone who is not a fool or a liar canbelieve. I would like to work in ahospital; I would like to go and helppoor boys like you. Because I am aGerman they would throw me out a

hundred times, even if I was good. It isthe same in Germany and France andRussia, everywhere. But do you think Iwill believe in love and Christ and aGod and all that not I! I think we areanimals that's all! Oh! yes you fancy it isbecause my life has spoiled me. It is notthat at all that's not the worst thing inlife. Those men are not ni-ice, like you,but it's their nature, and," she laughed,"they help me to live, which issomething for me anyway. No, it is themen who think themselves great andgood, and make the war with their talkand their hate, killing us all killing allthe boys like you, and keeping poorpeople in prison, and telling us to goon hating; and all those dreadful cold-

blooded creatures who write in thepapers the same in my country, just thesame; it is because of all them that Ithink we are only animals."

He got up, acutely miserable. He couldsee her following him with her eyes,and knew she was afraid she had drivenhim away. She said coaxingly: "Don'tmind me talking, ni-ice boy. I don'tknow any one to talk to. If you don'tlike it, I can be quiet as a mouse."

He muttered:

"Oh! go on, talk away. I'm not obligedto believe you, and I don't."

She was on her feet now, leaningagainst the wall; her dark dress andwhite face just touched by the slantingmoonlight; and her voice came again,slow and soft and bitter:

"Well, look here, ni-ice boy, what sortof a world is it, where millions arebeing tortured horribly tortured, for nofault of theirs, at all A beautiful world,isn't it! 'Umbug! Silly rot, as you boyscall it. You say it is all 'Comrade'! andbraveness out there at the front, andpeople don't think of themselves. Well,I don't think of myself veree much.What does it matter I am lost now,anyway; but I think of my people athome, how they suffer and grieve. I

think of all the poor people there andhere who lose those they love, and allthe poor prisoners. Am I not to thinkof them And if I do, how am I tobelieve it a beautiful world, ni-ice boy "

He stood very still, biting his lips.

"Look here! We haf one life each, andsoon it is over. Well, I think that islucky."

He said resentfully:

"No! there's more than that."

"Ah!" she went on softly; "you thinkthe war is fought for the future; you are

giving your lives for a better world,aren't you "

"We must fight till we win," he saidbetween his teeth.

"Till you win. My people think that,too. All the peoples think that if theywin the world will be better. But it willnot, you know, it will be much worse,anyway."

He turned away from her and caughtup his cap; but her voice followed him.

"I don't care which win, I despise themall animals animals animals! Ah! Don'tgo, ni-ice boy I will be quiet now."

He took some notes from his tunicpocket, put them on the table, and wentup to her.

"Good-night."

She said plaintively:

"Are you really going Don't you likeme, enough "

"Yes, I like you."

"It is because I am German, then "

"No."

"Then why won't you stay "

He wanted to answer: "Because youupset me so"; but he just shrugged hisshoulders.

"Won't you kees me once "

He bent, and put his lips to herforehead; but as he took them away shethrew her head back, pressed hermouth to his, and clung to him.

He sat down suddenly and said:

"Don't! I don't want to feel a brute."

She laughed. "You are a funny boy, but

you are veree good. Talk to me a little,then. No one talks to me. I wouldmuch rather talk, anyway. Tell me, hafyou seen many German prisoners "

He sighed from relief, or was it fromregret

"A good many."

"Any from the Rhine "

"Yes, I think so."

"Were they very sad "

"Some were some were quite glad to betaken."

"Did you ever see the Rhine Isn't itbeaudiful It will be wonderful to-night.The moonlight will be the same here asthere; in Rooshia too, and France,everywhere; and the trees will look thesame as here, and people will meetunder them and make love just as here.Oh! isn't it stupid, the war as if it wasnot good to be alive."

He wanted to say: "You can't tell howgood it is to be alive, till you're facingdeath, because you don't live till then.And when a whole lot of you feel likethat and are ready to give their lives foreach other, it's worth all the rest of lifeput together." But he couldn't get it out

to this girl who believed in nothing.

"How were you wounded, ni-ice boy "

"Attacking across open ground fourmachine-gun bullets got me at one gooff."

"Weren't you veree frightened whenthey ordered you to attack " No, he hadnot been frightened just then! And heshook his head and laughed.

"It was great. We did laugh thatmorning. They got me much too soon,though a swindle!"

She stared at him.

"You laughed "

"Yes, and what do you think was thefirst thing I was conscious of nextmorning my old Colonel bending overme and giving me a squeeze of lemon.If you knew my Colonel you'd stillbelieve in things. There is something,you know, behind all this evil. After all,you can only die once, and if it's foryour country all the better."

Her face, with intent eyes just touchedwith bistre, had in the moonlight amost strange, otherworld look. Her lipsmoved:

"No, I believe in nothing. My heart isdead."

"You think so, but it isn't, you know, oryou wouldn't have been crying, when Imet you."

"If it were not dead, do you think Icould live my life walking the streetsevery night, pretending to like strangemen never hearing a kind word nevertalking, for fear I will be known for aGerman. Soon I shall take to drinking,then I shall be 'Kaput' very quick. Yousee, I am practical, I see things clear. To-night I am a little emotional; the moonis funny, you know. But I live formyself only, now. I don't care for

anything or anybody."

"All the same, just now you werepitying your people, and prisoners, andthat."

"Yes, because they suffer. Those whosuffer are like me I pity myself, that's all;I am different from yourEnglishwomen. I see what I am doing;I do not let my mind become a turnipjust because I am no longer moral."

"Nor your heart either."

"Ni-ice boy, you are veree obstinate. Butall that about love is 'umbug. We loveourselves, nothing more."

Again, at that intense soft bitterness inher voice, he felt stifled, and got up,leaning in the window. The air out therewas free from the smell of dust andstale perfume. He felt her fingers slipbetween his own, and stay unmoving.Since she was so hard, and cynical, whyshould he pity her Yet he did. Thetouch of that hand within his ownroused his protective instinct. She hadpoured out her heart to him a perfectstranger! He pressed it a little, and felther fingers crisp in answer. Poor girl!This was perhaps a friendlier momentthan she had known for years! Andafter all, fellow-feeling was bigger thanprincipalities and powers! Fellow-

feeling was all-pervading as thismoonlight, which she had said wouldbe the same in Germany as this whiteghostly glamour that wrapped the trees,making the orange lamps so quaint anddecoratively useless out in the narrowsquare, where emptiness and silencereigned. He looked around into herface in spite of bistre and powder, andthe faint rouging on her lips, it had aqueer, unholy, touching beauty. And hehad suddenly the strangest feeling, as ifthey stood there the two of themproving that kindness and humanfellowship were stronger than lust,stronger than hate; proving it againstmeanness and brutality, and the suddenshouting of newspaper boys in some

neighbouring street. Their cries,passionately vehement, clashed intoeach other, and obscured the wordswhat was it they were calling His headwent up to listen; he felt her hand rigidwithin his arm she too was listening.The cries came nearer, hoarser, moreshrill and clamorous; the emptymoonlight seemed of a suddencrowded with footsteps, voices, and afierce distant cheering. "Great victorygreat victory! Official! British! Defeatof the 'Uns! Many thousand prisoners!"So it sped by, intoxicating, filling himwith a fearful joy; and leaning far out,he waved his cap and cheered like amadman; and the whole night seemedto him to flutter and vibrate, and

answer. Then he turned to rush downinto the street, struck against somethingsoft, and recoiled. The girl! She stoodwith hands clenched, her faceconvulsed, panting, and even in themadness of his joy he felt for her. Tohear this in the midst of enemies! Allconfused with the desire to dosomething, he stooped to take herhand; and the dusty reek of the table-cloth clung to his nostrils. She snatchedaway her fingers, swept up the notes hehad put down, and held them out tohim.

"Take them I will not haf your Englishmoney take them." And suddenly shetore them across twice, three times, let

the bits flutter to the floor, and turnedher back to him. He stood looking ather leaning against the plush-coveredtable which smelled of dust; her headdown, a dark figure in a dark roomwith the moonlight sharpening heroutline hardly a moment he stayed,then made for the door....

When he was gone she still stood there,her chin on her breast she who caredfor nothing, believed in nothing withthe sound in her ears of cheering, ofhurrying feet, and voices; stood, in thecentre of a pattern made by fragmentsof the torn-up notes, staring out intothe moonlight, seeing, not this hatedroom and the hated square outside, but

a German orchard, and herself, a littlegirl, plucking apples, a big dog besideher; a hundred other pictures, too, suchas the drowning see. Her heart swelled;she sank down on the floor, laid herforehead on the dusty carpet, andpressed her body to it.

She who did not care who despised allpeoples, even her own began,mechanically, to sweep together thescattered fragments of the notes,assembling them with the dust into alittle pile, as of fallen leaves, anddabbling in it with her fingers, while thetears ran down her cheeks. For hercountry she had torn them, her countryin defeat! She, who had just one shilling

in this great town of enemies, whowrung her stealthy living out of theembraces of her foes! And suddenly inthe moonlight she sat up and began tosing with all her might "Die Wacht amRhein."

1916.

III

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

A REMINISCENCE

The tides of the war were washing up

millions of wrecked lives on all theshores; what mattered the flotsam of aconscripted deep-sea Breton fisherman,slowly pining away for lack of all hewas accustomed to; or the jetsam of atall glass-blower from the 'invadedcountries,' drifted into the hospital noone quite knew why prisoner for twentymonths with the Boches, released at lastbecause of his half-paralysed tongueWhat mattered they What matteredanything, or any one, in days like those

Corporal Mignan, wrinkling a thin,parchmenty face, full of suffering andkindly cynicism, used to call them 'mesdeux phenomenes.' Riddled to the soul bygastritis, he must have found them

trying roommates, with the tricks andmanners of sick and naughty childrentowards a long-suffering nurse. Tounderstand all is to forgive all, they say;but, though he had suffered enough tounderstand much, Mignan was temptedat times to deliver judgment forexample, when Roche, the Bretonfisherman, rose from his bed more thanten times in the night, and wanderedout into the little courtyard of thehospital, to look at the stars, because hecould not keep still within four walls sounreasonable of the 'type.' Or whenGray, the tall glass-blower hisgrandfather had been English refusedwith all the tenacity of a Britishworkman to wear an undervest, with

the thermometer below zero,Centigrade.

They inhabited the same room, Flotsamand Jetsam, but never spoke to oneanother. And yet in all that hospital ofFrench soldiers they were the only twowho, in a manner of speaking, hadcome from England. Fourteen hundredyears have passed since the Britonancestors of Roche crossed in theirshallow boats. Yet he was as hopelesslyun-French as a Welshman of the hills isto this day un-English. His dark face,shy as a wild animal's, his peat-browneyes, and the rare, strangely-sweet smilewhich once in a way strayed up intothem; his creased brown hands always

trying to tie an imaginary cord; thetobacco pouched in his brown cheek;his improperly-buttoned blue trousers;his silence eternal as the starsthemselves; his habit of climbing treesall marked him out as no trueFrenchman. Indeed, that habit ofclimbing trees caused every soul whosaw him to wonder if he ought to be atlarge: monkeys alone pursue thispastime. And yet, surely one mightunderstand that trees were for Rochethe masts of his far-off fishing barque,each hand-grip on the branch of planeor pine-tree solace to his overmasteringhunger for the sea. Up there he wouldcling, or stand with hands in pockets,and look out, far over the valley and the

yellowish-grey-pink of the pan-tiledtown-roofs, a mile away, far into themountains where snow melted not, farover this foreign land of 'midi troisquarts,' to an imagined Breton coast andthe seas that roll from there to CapeBreton where the cod are. Since henever spoke unless spoken to no, notonce it was impossible for hislandsmen comrades to realise why hegot up those trees, and they wouldsummon each other to observe this'phenomene,' this human ourang-outang,who had not their habit of keepingfirm earth beneath their feet. Theyunderstood his other eccentricitiesbetter. For instance, he could not staystill even at his meals, but must get up

and slip out, because he chewedtobacco, and, since the hospitalregulations forbade his spitting on thefloor, he must naturally go and spitoutside. For 'ces types-la' to chew anddrink was life! To the presence oftobacco in the cheek and the absenceof drink from the stomach theyattributed all his un-French ways, savejust that one mysterious one ofclimbing trees.

And Gray though only one-fourthEnglish how utterly British was that'arrogant civilian,' as the 'poilus' calledhim. Even his clothes, somehow, wereBritish no one knew who had giventhem to him; his short grey workman's

jacket, brown dingy trousers, mufflerand checked cap; his long, idle walk, hisabsolute sans-gene, regardless of any onebut himself; his tall, loose figure, with asort of grace lurking somewhere in itsslow, wandering movements, and long,thin fingers. That wambling,independent form might surely be seenany day outside a thousand Britishpublic-houses, in time of peace. Hisface, with its dust-coloured hair,projecting ears, grey eyes withsomething of the child in them, andsomething of the mule, and somethingof a soul trying to wander out of theforest of misfortune; his little, tip-tiltednose that never grew on pure-bloodedFrenchman; under a scant moustache

his thick lips, disfigured by infirmity ofspeech, whence passed so continually adribble of saliva sick British workmanwas stamped on him. Yet he waspassionately fond of washing himself;his teeth, his head, his clothes. Into thefrigid winter he would go, and stand atthe 'Source' half an hour at a time,washing and washing. It was a cause ofconstant irritation to Mignan that his'phenomene' would never come to time,on account of this disastrous habit; thehospital corridors resounded almostdaily with the importuning of thoseshapeless lips for something clean ashirt, a pair of drawers, a bath, ahandkerchief. He had a fixity ofpurpose; not too much purpose, but so

fixed. Yes, he was English!

For 'les deux phenomenes' the soldiers, theservants, and the 'Powers' of thehospital all were sorry; yet they couldnot understand to the point of quiteforgiving their vagaries. The twain wereoutcast, wandering each in a dumbworld of his own, each in the endlesscircle of one or two hopeless notions.It was irony or the French systemwhich had ordered the Breton Roche toget well in a place whence he could seenothing flatter than a mountain, smellno sea, eat no fish. And God knowswhat had sent Gray there. His story wastoo vaguely understood, for hisstumbling speech simply could not

make it plain. 'Les Boches ils vont en payercher les Boches,' muttered fifty times a day,was the burden of his song. ThoseBoches had come into his village earlyin the war, torn him from his wife andhis 'petite fille.' Since then he had 'hadfear,' been hungry, been cold, eatengrass; eyeing some fat little dog, hewould leer and mutter: 'J'ai mange cela,c'est bon!' and with fierce triumph add:'Ils ont faim, les Boches!' The 'arrogantcivilian' had never done his militaryservice, for his infirmity, it seemed, hadbegun before the war.

Dumb, each in his own way, anddiffering in every mortal thing exceptthe reality of their misfortunes, never

were two beings more lonely. Theirquasi-nurse, Corporal Mignan, was nodoubt right in his estimate of theircharacters. For him, so patient in thewintry days, with his 'deux phenomenes,'they were divested of all that halowhich misfortune sets round the headsof the afflicted. He had too much todo with them, and saw them as theywould have been if undogged by Fate.Of Roche he would say: 'Il n'est pas monreve. Je n'aime pas ces types taciturnes; quandmeme, il n'est pas mauvais. Il est marin lesmarins !' and he would shrug hisshoulders, as who should say: 'Thosepoor devils what can you expect ' 'Maisce Gray' it was one bitter day when Grayhad refused absolutely to wear his

great-coat during a motor drive 'c'est unmauvais type! Il est malin il sait tres bien cequ'il veut. C'est un egoiste!' An egoist! PoorGray! No doubt he was, instinctivelyconscious that if he did not make themost of what little personality was leftwithin his wandering form, it wouldslip and he would be no more. Even awinter fly is mysteriously anxious notto become dead. That he was 'malin'cunning became the accepted viewabout Gray; not so 'malin' that he could'cut three paws off a duck,' as the oldgrey Territorial, Grandpere Poirot,would put it, but 'malin' enough toknow very well what he wanted, andhow, by sticking to his demand, to getit. Mignan, typically French, did not

allow enough for the essentialEnglishman in Gray. Besides, one mustbe malin if one has only the power tosay about one-tenth of what one wants,and then not be understood once intwenty times. Gray did not like hisgreat-coat a fine old French-bluemilitary thing with brass buttons thearrogant civilian would have none of it!It was easier to shift the Boches on theWestern front than to shift an idea,once in his head. In the poor soil of hissoul the following plants of thoughtalone now flourished: Hatred of theBoches; love of English tobacco 'Il estbon il est bon!' he would say, tapping hisVirginian cigarette; the wish to seeagain his 'petite fille'; to wash himself;

to drink a 'cafe natur' and bottled beerevery day after the midday meal, and togo to Lyons to see his uncle and workfor his living. And who shall say thatany of these fixed ideas were evil inhim

But back to Flotsam, whose fixed ideawas Brittany! Nostalgia is a long word,and a malady from which the Englishdo not suffer, for they carry theircountry on their backs, walk the wideworld in a cloud of their ownatmosphere, making that worldEngland. The French have eyes to see,and, when not surrounded by housesthat have flatness, shutters, and subtlecolouring yellowish, French-grey,

French-green by cafe's, by plane-trees,by Frenchwomen, by scents of wood-smoke and coffee roasted in the streets;by the wines, and infusions of theherbs of France; by the churches ofFrance and the beautiful silly chimingof their bells when not surrounded byall these, they know it, feel it, suffer. Buteven they do not suffer so dumbly andinstinctively, so like a wild animal caged,as that Breton fisherman, caged up in aworld of hill and valley not the worldas he had known it. They called his case'shell-shock' for the French systemwould not send a man to convalescencefor anything so essentially civilian ashome-sickness, even when it had takena claustrophobic turn. A system

recognises only causes which you cansee; holes in the head, hamstrung legs,frostbitten feet, with other of thelegitimate consequences of war. But itwas not shell-shock. Roche was reallypossessed by the feeling that he wouldnever get out, never get home, smellfish and the sea, watch the bottle-greenbreakers roll in on his native shore, thesun gleaming through wave-crests liftedand flying back in spray, never knowthe accustomed heave and roll underhis feet, or carouse in a seaport cabaret,or see his old mother la veuve Roche.And, after all, there was a certainfoundation for his fear. It was not as ifthis war could be expected to stopsome day. There they were, in the

trenches, they and the enemy set overagainst each other, 'like china dogs,' inthe words of Grandpere Poirot; andthere they would be, so far as Roche'sungeared nerves could grasp, for ever.And, while like china dogs they sat, heknew that he would not be released,not allowed to go back to the sea andthe smells and the sounds thereof; forhe had still all his limbs, and no bullet-hole to show under his thick dark hair.No wonder he got up the trees andlooked out for sight of the waves, andfluttered the weak nerves of thehospital 'Powers,' till they sawthemselves burying him with a brokenspine, at the expense of the subscribers.Nothing to be done for the poor fellow,

except to take him motor-drives, and toinsist that he stayed in the dining-roomlong enough to eat some food.

Then, one bright day, a 'Power,'watching his hands, conceived the ideaof giving him two balls of string, oneblue, the other buff, and all thatafternoon he stayed up a single tree,and came down with one of his raresweet smiles and a little net, half blue,half buff, with a handle covered with atwist of Turkey-red twill such a thingas one scoops up shrimps with. He waspaid for it, and his eyes sparkled. Yousee, he had no money the 'poilu' seldomhas; and money meant drink, andtobacco in his cheek. They gave him

more string, and for the next few days itrained little nets, beautifully if simplymade. They thought that his salvationwas in sight. It takes an eye to tellsalvation from damnation, sometimes....In any case, he no longer roamed fromtree to tree, but sat across a singlebranch, netting. The 'Powers' began tospeak of him as 'rather a dear,' for it ischaracteristic of human nature to takeinterest only in that which by some signof progress makes you feel that you aredoing good.

Next Sunday a distinguished doctorcame, and, when he had been fed, someone conceived the notion of interestinghim, too, in Flotsam. A learned, kindly,

influential man well-fed somethingmight come of it, even that 'reforme,'that sending home, which all agreedwas what poor Roche needed, torestore his brain. He was brought in,therefore, amongst the chattering party,and stood, dark, shy, his head down,like the man in Millet's 'Angelus,' hishands folded on his cap, in front of hisunspeakably buttoned blue baggytrousers, as though in attitude of prayerto the doctor, who, uniformed andgrey-bearded, like an old somnolentgoat, beamed on him throughspectacles with a sort of shrewdbenevolence. The catechism began. Sohe had something to ask, had he Aswift, shy lift of the eyes: 'Yes.' 'What

then ' 'To go home.' 'To go home Whatfor To get married ' A swift, shy smile.'Fair or dark ' No answer, only a shiftof hands on his cap. 'What! Was thereno one no ladies at home ' 'Ce n'est pasca qui manque!' At the laughter greetingthat dim flicker of wit the uplifted facewas cast down again. That lonely, lostfigure must suddenly have struck thedoctor, for his catechism became along, embarrassed scrutiny; and withan: 'Eh bien! mon vieux, nous verrons!'ended. Nothing came of it, of course.'Cas de reforme ' Oh, certainly, if it haddepended on the learned, kindlydoctor. But the system and all its doorsto be unlocked! Why, by the time thelast door was prepared to open, the first

would be closed again! So the 'Powers'gave Roche more string so good, youknow, to see him interested insomething!... It does take an eye to tellsalvation from damnation! For hebegan to go down now of anafternoon into the little old town notsmelless, but most quaint all yellowish-grey, with rosy-tiled roofs. Once it hadbeen Roman, once a walled city of theMiddle Ages; never would it bemodern. The dogs ran muzzled; from afirst-floor a goat, munching greenfodder, hung his devilish black beardabove your head; and through the mainstreet the peasant farmers, abovemilitary age, looking old as sun-driedroots, in their dark pelerines, drove their

wives and produce in little slow carts.Parched oleanders in pots one wouldpass, and old balconies with wiltingflowers hanging down over the stone,and perhaps an umbrella with a littlesilver handle, set out to dry. Rochewould go in by the back way, where theold town gossips sat on a bench in thewinter sunshine, facing the lonely crossshining gold on the high hill-topopposite, placed there in days whenthere was some meaning in such things;past the little 'Place' with the oldfountain and the brown plane-trees infront of the Mairie; past the church, soancient that it had fortunately beenforgotten, and remained unfinishedand beautiful. Did Roche, Breton that

he was half the love-ladies in Paris, theysay falsely, no doubt are Bretonnes everenter the church in passing Some rascalhad tried to burn down its beautifulold door from the inside, and theflames had left on all that high westernwall smears like the fingermarks of hell,or the background of a VelasquezCrucifixion. Did he ever enter andstand, knotting his knot which nevergot knotted, in the dark loveliness ofthat grave building, where in the deepsilence a dusty-gold little angel blowson his horn from the top of thecanopied pulpit, and a dim carvedChrist of touching beauty looks downon His fellow-men from above somedry chrysanthemums; and a tall candle

burned quiet and lonely here and there,and the flags of France hung above thealtar, that men might know how Godthough resting was with them and theircountry Perhaps! But, more likely, hepassed it, with its great bell riding highand open among scrolls of ironwork,and Breton that he was entered thenearest cabaret, kept by the womanwho would tell you that her soldierhusband had passed 'within twofingers' of death. One cannot spendone's earnings in a church, nor appeasethere the inextinguishable longings of asailor.

And lo! on Christmas day Roche cameback so drunk that his nurse Mignan

took him to his bedroom and turnedthe key of the door on him. But youmust not do this to a Breton fishermanfull of drink and claustrophobia. It wasone of those errors even Frenchmenmay make, to the after sorrow of theirvictims. One of the female 'Powers,'standing outside, heard a roar, the crashof a foot against the panel of a door,and saw Roche, 'like a great cat' comeslithering through the hole. He flunghis arm out, brushed the 'Power' backagainst the wall, cried out fiercely: 'Laboite je ne veux pas la boite!' and rushed forthe stairs. Here were other female'Powers'; he dashed them aside andpassed down. But in the bureau at thefoot was a young Corporal of the

'Legion Etrangere' a Spaniard who hadvolunteered for France great France; heran out, took Roche gently by the arm,and offered to drink with him. And sothey sat, those two, in the little bureau,drinking black coffee, while the youngCorporal talked like an angel andRoche like a wild man about hismother, about his dead brother whohad been sitting on his bed, as he said,about 'la boite,' and the turning of thatkey. And slowly he became himself orso they thought and all went in tosupper. Ten minutes later one of the'Powers,' looking for the twentieth timeto make sure he was eating, saw anempty place: he had slipped out like ashadow and was gone again. A big

cavalryman and the Corporal retrievedhim that night from a cafe near thestation; they had to use force at times tobring him in. Two days later he wastransferred to a town hospital, wherediscipline would not allow him to getdrunk or climb trees. For the 'Powers'had reasoned thus: To climb trees isbad; to get drunk is bad; but to do bothputs on us too much responsibility; hemust go! They had, in fact, been scared.And so he passed away to a roomunder the roof of a hospital in the bigtown miles away la boite indeed! wherefor liberty he must use a courtyardwithout trees, and but little tobaccocame to his cheek; and there he eats hisheart out to this day, perhaps. But some

say he had no heart only the love ofdrink, and climbing. Yet, on that lastevening, to one who was paying himfor a little net, he blurted out: 'Someday I will tell you something not nowin a year's time. Vous etes le seul !' Whatdid he mean by that, if he had no heartto eat ... The night after he had gone, alittle black dog strayed up, and amongthe trees barked and barked at someportent or phantom. 'Ah! the camel!Ah! the pig! I had him on my back allnight!' Grandpere Poirot said nextmorning. That was the very last ofFlotsam....

And now to Jetsam! It was on the daybut one after Roche left that Gray was

reported missing. For some time pasthe had been getting stronger, clearer inspeech. They began to say of him: 'It'swonderful the improvement since hecame wonderful!' His salvation alsoseemed in sight. But from the words'He's rather a dear!' all recoiled, for as hegrew stronger he became morestubborn and more irritable 'cunningegoist' that he was! According to themen, he was beginning to showhimself in his true colours. He hadthreatened to knife any one who playeda joke on him the arrogant civilian! Onthe day that he was missing it appearsthat after the midday meal he had askedfor a 'cafe natur' and for some reasonhad been refused. Before his absence

was noted it was night already, clear anddark; all day something as of Springhad stirred in the air. The Corporal anda 'Power' set forth down the woodedhill into the town, to scour the cafes andhang over the swift, shallow river, to seeif by any chance Gray had beenovertaken by another paralytic strokeand was down there on the dark sand.The sleepy gendarmes too were warnedand given his description. But the onlynews next morning was that he hadbeen seen walking on the main road upthe valley. Two days later he was found,twenty miles away, wandering towardsItaly. 'Perdu' was his only explanation,but it was not believed, for now beganthat continual demand: 'Je voudrais aller a

Lyon, voir mon oncle travailler!' As the bigcavalryman put it: 'He is bored here!' Itwas considered unreasonable, bysoldiers who found themselves betteroff than in other hospitals; even the'Powers' considered it ungrateful,almost. See what he had been like whenhe came a mere trembling bag ofbones, only too fearful of being sentaway. And yet, who would not bebored, crouching all day long about thestoves, staunching his poor dribblingmouth, rolling his inevitable cigarette,or wandering down, lonely, to hangover the bridge parapet, havingthoughts in his head and for everunable to express them. His state wasworse than dumbness, for the dumb

have resigned hope of conversation.Gray would have liked to talk if it hadnot taken about five minutes tounderstand each thing he said exceptthe refrain which all knew by heart: 'LesBoches ils vont en payer cher les Boches!' Theidea that he could work and earn hisliving was fantastic to those whowatched him dressing himself, orsweeping the courtyard, pausing everyfew seconds to contemplate someinvisible difficulty, or do over againwhat he had just not done. But withthat new access of strength, or perhapsthe open weather as if Spring had comebefore its time his fixed idea governedhim completely; he began to threaten tokill himself if he could not go to work

and see his uncle at Lyon; and everyfive days or so he had to be broughtback from far up some hill road. Thesituation had become so ridiculous thatthe 'Powers' said in despair: 'Very well,my friend! Your uncle says he can't haveyou, and you can't earn your own livingyet; but you shall go and see foryourself!' And go he did, a little solemnnow that it had come to his point inspecially bought yellow boots herefused black and a specially boughtovercoat with sleeves he would havenone of a pelerine, the arrogant civilian,no more than of a military capote. For aweek the hospital knew him not. Deepwinter set in two days before he went,and the whole land was wrapped in

snow. The huge, disconsolate crowsseemed all the life left in the valley, andpoplar-trees against the rare blue skywere dowered with miraculous snow-blossoms, beautiful as any blossom ofSpring. And still in the winter sun thetown gossips sat on the bench underthe wall, and the cross gleamed out, andthe church bell, riding high in itswhitened ironwork, tolled almost everyday for the passing of some winteredsoul, and long processions, very blackin the white street, followed it, followedit home. Then came a telegram fromGray's uncle: 'Impossible to keepAristide (the name of the arrogantcivilian), takes the evening train to-morrow. Albert Gray.' So Jetsam was

coming back! What would he be likenow that his fixed idea had failed himWell! He came at midday; thinner, moreclay-coloured in the face, with a badcold; but he ate as heartily as ever, andat once asked to go to bed. At fouro'clock a 'Power,' going up to see,found him sleeping like a child. Heslept for twenty hours on end. No oneliked to question him about his timeaway; all that he said and bitterly was:'They wouldn't let me work!' But thesecond evening after his return therecame a knock on the door of the littleroom where the 'Powers' were sittingafter supper, and there stood Gray, longand shadowy, holding on to the screen,smoothing his jaw-bone with the other

hand, turning eyes like a child's fromface to face, while his helpless lipssmiled. One of the 'Powers' said: 'Whatdo you want, my friend '

'Je voudrais aller a Paris, voir ma petite fille.'

'Yes, yes; after the war. Your petite fille isnot in Paris, you know.'

'Non ' The smile was gone; it was seentoo plainly that Gray was not as he hadbeen. The access of vigour, stirring ofnew strength, 'improvement' haddeparted, but the beat of it, while there,must have broken him, as the beat ofsome too-strong engine shatters a frailframe. His 'improvement' had driven

him to his own undoing. With thefailure of his pilgrimage he had lost allhope, all 'egoism.'... It takes an eye,indeed, to tell salvation fromdamnation! He was truly Jetsam nowterribly thin and ill and sad; andcoughing. Yet he kept the independenceof his spirit. In that bitter cold, nothingcould prevent him stripping to thewaist to wash, nothing could keep himlying in bed, or kill his sense of theproprieties. He would not wear hisovercoat it was invalidish; he would notwear his new yellow boots and keep hisfeet dry, except on Sundays: 'Ils sontbons!' he would say. And before hewould profane their goodness, his oldworn-out shoes had to be reft from

him. He would not admit that he wasill, that he was cold, that he wasanything. But at night, a 'Power' wouldbe awakened by groans, and, hurryingto his room, find him huddled nose toknees, moaning. And now, everyevening, as though craving escape fromhis own company, he would come tothe little sitting-room, and stand withthat deprecating smile, smoothing hisjaw-bone, until some one said: 'Sitdown, my friend, and have somecoffee.' 'Merci, ma soeur il est bon, il est bon!'and down he would sit, and roll acigarette with his long fingers, taperingas any artist's, while his eyes fixedthemselves intently on anything thatmoved. But soon they would stray off

to another world, and he would saythickly, sullenly, fiercely: 'Les Boches ilsvont en payer cher les Boches!' On the wallswere some trophies from the war of'seventy.' His eyes would gloat overthem, and he would get up and finger along pistol, or old papier-mache helmet.Never was a man who so lacked gene athome in any company; it inspiredreverence, that independence of his,which had survived twenty months ofimprisonment with those who, it issaid, make their victims salute them tosuch a depth has their civilisationreached. One night he tried to tellabout the fright he had been given. TheBoches it seemed had put him and twoothers against a wall, and shot those

other two. Holding up two taperingfingers, he mumbled: 'Assassins assassins!Ils vont en payer cher les Boches!' Butsometimes there was something almostbeautiful in his face, as if his soul hadrushed from behind his eyes, to answersome little kindness done to him, orgreet some memory of the days beforehe was 'done for' foutu, as he called it.

One day he admitted a pain about hisheart; and time, too, for at moments hewould look like death itself. His nurse,Corporal Mignan, had long left his'deux phenomenes!' having drifted away onthe tides of the system, till he shouldbreak down again and drag through thehospitals once more. Gray had a room

to himself now; the arrogant civilian'sgroaning at night disturbed the others.Yet, if you asked him in the morning ifhe had slept well, he answeredinvariably, 'Oui oui toujours, toujours!' For,according to him, you see, he was stillstrong; and he would double his armand tap his very little muscle, to showthat he could work. But he did notbelieve it now, for one day a 'Power,'dusting the men's writing-room, saw aletter on the blotter, and with anashamed eye read these words:

'Cher Oncle,

J'ai eu la rage contre toi, mais c'est passemaintenant. Je veux seulement me reposer. Je

ne peux pas me battre pour la France j'aivoulu travailler pour elle; mais on ne m'a paspermi.

Votre neveu, qui t'embrasse de loin.'

Seulement me reposer only to rest! Rest hewill, soon, if eyes can speak. Pass, andleave for ever that ravished France forwhom he wished to work pass, withouthaving seen again his petite fille. Nomore in the corridor above the stove,no more in the little dining-room or theavenue of pines will be seen his long,noiseless, lonely figure, or be heard histhick stumbling cry:

'Les Boches ils vont en payer cher les Boches!'

1917.

IV

THE BRIGHT SIDE

A little Englishwoman, married to aGerman, had dwelt with him eighteenyears in humble happiness and thedistrict of Putney, where her husbandworked in the finer kinds of leather. Hewas a harmless, busy little man with thegift for turning his hand to anythingwhich is bred into the peasants of theBlack Forest, who on their upland

farms make all the necessaries of dailylife their coarse linen from home-grown flax, their leather gear from thehides of their beasts, their clothes fromthe wool thereof, their furniture fromthe pine logs of the Forest, their breadfrom home-grown flour milled insimple fashion and baked in the home-made ovens, their cheese from the milkof their own goats. Why he had cometo England he probably did notremember it was so long ago; but hewould still know why he had marriedDora, the daughter of the Putneycarpenter, she being, as it were, salt ofthe earth: one of those Cockneywomen, deeply sensitive beneath a well-nigh impermeable mask of humour

and philosophy, who quiteunselfconsciously are always doingthings for others. In their little greyPutney house they had dwelt thoseeighteen years, without perhaps everhaving had time to move, though theyhad often had the intention of doingso for the sake of the children, ofwhom they had three, a boy and twogirls. Mrs. Gerhardt she shall be called,for her husband had a very Germanname, and there is more in a name thanShakespeare dreamed of Mrs. Gerhardtwas a little woman with large hazel eyesand dark crinkled hair in which therewere already a few threads of greywhen the war broke out. Her boyDavid, the eldest, was fourteen at that

date, and her girls, Minnie and Violet,were eight and five, rather prettychildren, especially the little one.Gerhardt, perhaps because he was sohandy, had never risen. His firmregarded him as indispensable and paidhim fair wages, but he had no "push,"having the craftsman's temperament,and employing his spare time in littleneat jobs for his house and hisneighbours, which brought him noreturn. They made their way, therefore,without that provision for the futurewhich necessitates the employment ofone's time for one's own ends. But theywere happy, and had no enemies; andeach year saw some mild improvementsin their studiously clean house and tiny

back garden. Mrs. Gerhardt, who wascook, seamstress, washerwoman,besides being wife and mother, wasalmost notorious in that street of semi-detached houses for being at thedisposal of any one in sickness ortrouble. She was not strong in body, forthings had gone wrong when she boreher first, but her spirit had that peculiarpower of seeing things as they were,and yet refusing to be dismayed, whichso embarrasses Fate. She saw herhusband's defects clearly, and his goodqualities no less distinctly they neverquarrelled. She gauged her children'scharacters too, with an admirableprecision, which left, however,loopholes of wonder as to what they

would become.

The outbreak of the war found themon the point of going to Margate forBank Holiday, an almost unparalleledevent; so that the importance of theworld catastrophe was brought hometo them with a vividness which wouldotherwise have been absent from folksso simple, domestic, and far-removedfrom that atmosphere in which the eggof war is hatched. Over the origin andmerits of the struggle, beyond saying toeach other several times that it was adreadful thing, Mr. and Mrs. Gerhardtheld but one little conversation, lying intheir iron bed with an immortal browneiderdown patterned with red wriggles

over them. They agreed that it was acruel, wicked thing to invade "that littleBelgium," and there left a matter whichseemed to them a mysterious andinsane perversion of all they hadhitherto been accustomed to think ofas life. Reading their papers a daily anda weekly, in which they had as muchimplicit faith as a million other readersthey were soon duly horrified by thereports therein of "Hun" atrocities; sohorrified that they would express theircondemnation of the Kaiser and hismilitarism as freely as if they had beenBritish subjects. It was therefore withan uneasy surprise that they began tofind these papers talking of "the Hunsat large in our midst," of "spies," and

the national danger of "nourishingsuch vipers." They were deeplyconscious of not being "vipers," andsuch sayings began to awaken in boththeir breasts a humble sense ofinjustice as it were. This was more acutein the breast of little Mrs. Gerhardt,because, of course, the shafts weredirected not at her but at her husband.She knew her husband so well, knewhim incapable of anything but homely,kindly busyness, and that he should belumped into the category of "Huns"and "spies" and tarred with the brushof mass hatred amazed and stirred herindignation, or would have, if herCockney temperament had allowed herto take it very seriously. As for

Gerhardt, he became extremely silent,so that it was ever more and moredifficult to tell what he was feeling. Thepatriotism of the newspapers took aconsiderable time to affect the charityof the citizens of Putney, and so longas no neighbour showed signs ofthinking that little Gerhardt was amonster and a spy it was fairly easy forMrs. Gerhardt to sleep at night, and toread her papers with the feeling that theremarks in them were not reallyintended for Gerhardt and herself. Butshe noticed that her man had given upreading them, and would push themaway from his eyes if, in the tiny sitting-room with the heavily-flowered walls,they happened to rest beside him. He

had perhaps a closer sense ofimpending Fate than she. The boy,David, went to his first work, and thegirls to their school, and so thingsdragged on through that first long warwinter and spring. Mrs. Gerhardt, in theintervals of doing everything, knittedsocks for "our poor cold boys in thetrenches," but Gerhardt no longersought out little jobs to do in thehouses of his neighbours. Mrs.Gerhardt thought that he "fancied"they would not like it. It was early inthat spring that she took a deaf aunt tolive with them, the wife of her mother'sbrother, no blood-relation, but thepoor woman had nowhere else to go;so David was put to sleep on the

horsehair sofa in the sitting-roombecause she "couldn't refuse the poorthing." And then, of an Aprilafternoon, while she was washing thehousehold sheets, her neighbour, Mrs.Clirehugh, a little spare woman all eyes,cheekbones, hair, and decision, came inbreathless and burst out:

"Oh! Mrs. Gerhardt, 'ave you 'eardThey've sunk the Loositania! Has I saidto Will: Isn't it horful "

Mrs. Gerhardt, with her round armsdripping soap-suds, answered: "What adreadful thing! The poor drowningpeople! Dear! Oh dear!"

"Oh! Those Huns! I'd shoot the lot, Iwould!"

"They are wicked!" Mrs. Gerhardtechoed: "That was a dreadful thing todo!"

But it was not till Gerhardt came in atfive o'clock, white as a sheet, that sheperceived how this dreadful catastropheaffected them.

"I have been called a German," werethe first words he uttered; "Dollee, Ihave been called a German."

"Well, so you are, my dear," said Mrs.

Gerhardt.

"You do not see," he answered, with aheat and agitation which surprised her."I tell you this Lusitania will finish ourbusiness. They will have me. They willtake me away from you all. Already thepapers have: 'Intern all the Huns.'" Hesat down at the kitchen table andburied his face in hands still grimyfrom his leather work. Mrs. Gerhardtstood beside him, her eyes unnaturallybig.

"But Max," she said, "what has it to dowith you You couldn't help it. Max!"

Gerhardt looked up, his white face,

broad in the brow and tapering to athin chin, seemed all distraught.

"What do they care for that Is my nameMax Gerhardt What do they care if Ihate the war I am a German. That'senough. You will see."

"Oh!" murmured Mrs. Gerhardt, "theywon't be so unjust."

Gerhardt reached up and caught herchin in his hand, and for a momentthose two pairs of eyes gazed, straining,into each other. Then he said:

"I don't want to be taken, Dollee. Whatshall I do away from you and the

children I don't want to be taken,Dollee."

Mrs. Gerhardt, with a feeling of terrorand a cheerful smile, answered:

"You mustn't go fancyin' things, Max.I'll make you a nice cup of tea. Cheerup, old man! Look on the bright side!"

But Gerhardt lapsed into the silencewhich of late she had begun to dread.

That night some shop windows werebroken, some German names effaced.The Gerhardts had no shop, no namepainted up, and they escaped. In Pressand Parliament the cry against "the

Huns in our midst" rose with a freshfury; but for the Gerhardts the face ofFate was withdrawn. Gerhardt went tohis work as usual, and their laboriousand quiet existence remainedundisturbed; nor could Mrs. Gerhardttell whether her man's ever-deepeningsilence was due to his "fancying things"or to the demeanour of his neighboursand fellow workmen. One would havesaid that he, like the derelict aunt, wasdeaf, so difficult to converse with hadhe become. His length of sojourn inEngland and his value to his employers,for he had real skill, had saved him forthe time being; but, behind the screen,Fate twitched her grinning chaps.

Not till the howl which followed someair raids in 1916 did they take offGerhardt, with a variety of other elderlymen, whose crime it was to have beenborn in Germany. They did it suddenly,and perhaps it was as well, for aprolonged sight of his silent miserymust have upset his family till theywould have been unable to look onthat bright side of things which Mrs.Gerhardt had, as it were, always up hersleeve. When, in charge of a big andsympathetic constable, he was gone,taking all she could hurriedly gettogether for him, she hastened to thepolice station. They were friendly to herthere: She must cheer up, Missis, 'e'd beall right, she needn't worry. Ah! she

could go down to the 'Ome Office, ifshe liked, and see what could be done.But they 'eld out no 'ope! Mrs. Gerhardtwaited till the morrow, having the littleViolet in bed with her, and cryingquietly into her pillow; then, putting onher Sunday best she went down to abuilding in Whitehall, larger than anyshe had ever entered. Two hours shewaited, sitting unobtrusive, with biganxious eyes, and a line between herbrows. At intervals of half an hour shewould get up and ask the messengercheerfully: "I 'ope they haven'tforgotten me, sir. Perhaps you'd see toit." And because she was cheerful themessenger took her under hisprotection, and answered: "All right,

Missis. They're very busy, but I'll wangleyou in some'ow."

When at length she was wangled intothe presence of a grave gentleman ineye-glasses, realisation of the utterimportance of this moment overcameher so that she could not speak. "Oh!dear" she thought, while her heartfluttered like a bird "he'll neverunderstand; I'll never be able to makehim." She saw her husband buriedunder the leaves of despair; she saw herchildren getting too little food, the deafaunt, now bedridden, neglected in thenew pressure of work that must fall onthe only breadwinner left. And,choking a little, she said:

"I'm sure I'm very sorry to take up yourtime, sir; but my 'usband's been takento the Palace; and we've been marriedover twenty years, and he's been inEngland twenty-five; and he's a verygood man and a good workman; and Ithought perhaps they didn't understandthat; and we've got three children and arelation that's bedridden. And ofcourse, we understand that theGermans have been very wicked;Gerhardt always said that himself. Andit isn't as if he was a spy; so I thoughtif you could do something for us, sir, Ibeing English myself."

The gentleman, looking past her at the

wall, answered wearily:

"Gerhardt I'll look into it. We have todo very hard things, Mrs. Gerhardt."

Little Mrs. Gerhardt, with big eyesalmost starting out of her head, for shewas no fool, and perceived that this wasthe end, said eagerly:

"Of course I know that there's a bigoutcry, and the papers are askin' for it;but the people in our street don't mind'im, sir. He's always done little thingsfor them; so I thought perhaps youmight make an exception in his case."

She noticed that the gentleman's lips

tightened at the word outcry, and thathe was looking at her now.

"His case was before the Committee nodoubt; but I'll inquire. Good-morning."

Mrs. Gerhardt, accustomed to notbeing troublesome, rose; a tear rolleddown her cheek and was arrested byher smile.

"Thank you, sir, I'm sure. Good-morning, sir."

And she went out. Meeting themessenger in the corridor, and hearinghis: "Well, Missis " she answered: "Idon't know. I must look on the bright

side. Good-bye, and thank you for yourtrouble." And she turned away feelingas if she had been beaten all over.

The bright side on which she lookeddid not include the return to her oflittle Gerhardt, who was duly detainedfor the safety of the country. Obedientto economy, and with a dim sense thather favourite papers were in some wayresponsible for this, she ceased to takethem in, and took in sewing instead. Ithad become necessary to do so, for theallowance she received from thegovernment was about a quarter ofGerhardt's weekly earnings. In spite ofits inadequacy it was something, andshe felt she must be grateful. But,

curiously enough, she could not forgetthat she was English, and it seemedstrange to her that, in addition to thegrief caused by separation from herhusband from whom she had neverbeen parted not even for a night, sheshould now be compelled to worktwice as hard and eat half as muchbecause that husband had paid hercountry the compliment of preferringit to his own. But, after all, many otherpeople had much worse trouble togrieve over, so she looked on the brightside of all this, especially on those daysonce a week when alone, oraccompanied by the little Violet, shevisited that Palace where she had readin her favourite journals to her great

comfort that her husband was treatedlike a prince. Since he had no money hewas in what they called "the battalion,"and their meetings were held in thebazaar, where things which "theprinces" made were exposed for sale.Here Mr. and Mrs. Gerhardt wouldstand in front of some doll, someblotting-book, calendar, or walking-stick, which had been fashioned by oneof "the princes." There they wouldhold each others' hands and try toimagine themselves unsurrounded byother men and wives, while the littleViolet would stray and return toembrace her father's leg spasmodically.Standing there, Mrs. Gerhardt wouldlook on the bright side, and explain to

Gerhardt how well everything wasgoing, and he mustn't fret about them,and how kind the police were, and howauntie asked after him, and Minniewould get a prize; and how he oughtn'tto mope, but eat his food, and look onthe bright side. And Gerhardt wouldsmile the smile which went into herheart just like a sword, and say:

"All right, Dollee. I'm getting on fine."Then, when the whistle blew and hehad kissed little Violet, they would bequite silent, looking at each other. Andshe would say in a voice so matter-of-fact that it could have deceived no one:

"Well, I must go now. Good-bye, old

man!"

And he would say:

"Good-bye, Dollee. Kiss me."

They would kiss, and holding littleViolet's hand very hard she wouldhurry away in the crowd, taking carenot to look back for fear she mightsuddenly lose sight of the bright side.But as the months went on, became ayear, eighteen months, two years, andstill she went weekly to see her "prince"in his Palace, that visit became for herthe hardest experience of all her hardweek's doings. For she was a realist, aswell as a heroine, and she could see the

lines of despair not only in her man'sheart but in his face. For a long time hehad not said: "I'm getting on fine,Dollee." His face had a beaten look, hisfigure had wasted, he complained ofhis head.

"It's so noisy," he would say constantly;"oh! it's so noisy never a quiet momentnever alone never never never never.And not enough to eat; it's all reducednow, Dollee."

She learned to smuggle food into hishands, but it was very little, for they hadnot enough at home either, with theprice of living ever going up and herdepleted income ever stationary. They

had her "man" told her made a fuss inthe papers about their being fed liketurkeycocks, while the "Huns" weresinking the ships. Gerhardt, always aspare little man, had lost eighteenpounds. She, naturally well covered,was getting thin herself, but that shedid not notice, too busy all day long,and too occupied in thinking of her"man." To watch him week by week,more hopeless, as the months draggedon, was an acute torture, to disguisewhich was torture even more acute. Shehad long seen that there was no brightside, but if she admitted that she knewshe would go down; so she did not.And she carefully kept from Gerhardtsuch matters as David's overgrowing

his strength, because she could not feedhim properly; the completely bedriddennature of auntie; and worse than these,the growing coldness and unkindnessof her neighbours. Perhaps they didnot mean to be unkind, perhaps theydid, for it was not in their nature towithstand the pressure of masssentiment, the continual personaldiscomfort of having to stand inqueues, the fear of air raids, thecumulative indignation caused bystories of atrocities true and untrue. Inspite of her record of kindlinesstowards them she became tarred withthe brush at last, for her nerves hadgiven way once or twice, and she hadsaid it was a shame to keep her man like

that, gettin' iller and iller, who hadnever done a thing. Even herreasonableness and she was veryreasonable succumbed to the strain ofthat weekly sight of him, till she couldno longer allow for the difficultieswhich Mrs. Clirehugh assured her theGovernment had to deal with. Thenone day she used the words "fair play,"and at once it became current that shehad "German sympathies." From thattime on she was somewhat doomed.Those who had received kindnessesfrom her were foremost in showing hercoldness, being wounded in their self-esteem. To have received little benefits,such as being nursed when they weresick, from one who had "German

sympathies" was too much for thepride which is in every human being,however humble an inhabitant ofPutney. Mrs. Gerhardt's Cockney spiritcould support this for herself, but shecould not bear it for her children.David came home with a black eye, andwould not say why he had got it.Minnie missed her prize at school,though she had clearly won it. That wasjust after the last German offensivebegan; but Mrs. Gerhardt refused to seethat this was any reason. Little Violettwice put the heart-rending question toher: "Aren't I English, Mummy "

She was answered: "Yes, my dear, ofcourse."

But the child obviously remainedunconvinced in her troubled mind.

And then they took David for theBritish army. It was that which so upsetthe applecart in Mrs. Gerhardt that shebroke out to her last friend, Mrs.Clirehugh:

"I do think it's hard, Eliza. They takehis father and keep him there for adangerous Hun year after year like that;and then they take his boy for the armyto fight against him. And how I'm toget on without him I don't know."

Little Mrs. Clirehugh, who was Scotch,

with a Gloucestershire accent, replied:

"Well, we've got to beat them. They'resuch a wicked lot. I daresay it's 'ard onyou, but we've got to beat them."

"But we never did nothing," cried Mrs.Gerhardt; "it isn't us that's wicked. Wenever wanted the war; it's nothing butruin to him. They did ought to let mehave my man, or my boy, one or theother."

"You should 'ave some feeling for theGovernment, Dora; they 'ave to do 'ardthings."

Mrs. Gerhardt, with a quivering face,

had looked at her friend.

"I have," she said at last in a tone whichimplanted in Mrs. Clirehugh's heart thefeeling that Dora was "bitter."

She could not forget it; and she wouldflaunt her head at any mention of herformer friend. It was a blow to Mrs.Gerhardt, who had now no friends,except the deaf and bedridden aunt, towhom all things were the same, war orno war, Germans or no Germans, solong as she was fed.

About then it was that the tide turned,and the Germans began to knowdefeat. Even Mrs. Gerhardt, who read

the papers no longer, learned it daily,and her heart relaxed; that bright sidebegan to reappear a little. She felt theycould not feel so hardly towards her"man" now as when they were all infear; and perhaps the war would beover before her boy went out. ButGerhardt puzzled her. He did notbrighten up. The iron seemed to haveentered his soul too deeply. And oneday, in the bazaar, passing an opendoorway, Mrs. Gerhardt had a glimpseof why. There, stretching before herastonished eyes, was a great, as it were,encampment of brown blankets, slungand looped up anyhow, dividing fromeach other countless sordid beds, whichwere almost touching, and a whiff of

huddled humanity came out to herkeen nostrils, and a hum of sound toher ears. So that was where her manhad dwelt these thirty months, in thatdirty, crowded, noisy place, with dirty-looking men, such as those she couldsee lying on the beds, or crouching bythe side of them, over their work. Hehad kept neat somehow, at least on thedays when she came to see him but thatwas where he lived! Alone again (forshe no longer brought the little Violetto see her German father), she grievedall the way home. Whatever happenedto him now, even if she got him back,she knew he would never quite get overit.

And then came the morning when shecame out of her door like the otherinhabitants of Putney, at sound of themaroons, thinking it was an air raid;and, catching the smile on the toothlessmouth of one of her old neighbours,hearing the cheers of the boys in theschool round the corner, knew that itwas Peace. Her heart overflowed then,and, withdrawing hastily, she sat downon a shiny chair in her little emptyparlour. Her face crumpled suddenly,the tears came welling forth; she criedand cried, alone in the little cold room.She cried from relief and utterthankfulness. It was over over at last!The long waiting the long misery theyearning for her "man" the grieving for

all those poor boys in the mud, and thedreadful shell holes, and the fighting,the growing terror of anxiety for herown boy over, all over! Now theywould let Max out, now David wouldcome back from the army; and peoplewould not be unkind and spiteful toher and the children any more!

For all she was a Cockney, hers was asimple soul, associating Peace withGood-will. Drying her tears, she stoodup, and in the little cheap mirror abovethe empty grate looked at her face. Itwas lined, and she was grey; for morethan two years her man had not seenher without her hat. What ever wouldhe say And she rubbed and rubbed her

cheeks, trying to smooth them out.Then her conscience smote her, and sheran upstairs to the back bedroom,where the deaf aunt lay. Taking up thelittle amateur ear trumpet whichGerhardt himself had made for"auntie," before he was taken away, shebawled into it:

"Peace, Auntie; it's Peace! Think of that.It's Peace!"

"What's that " answered the deafwoman.

"It's Peace, Auntie, Peace."

The deaf lady roused herself a little,

and some meaning came into the lack-lustre black eyes of her long, leatheryface. "You don't say," she said in herwooden voice, "I'm so hungry, Dolly,isn't it time for my dinner "

"I was just goin' to get it, dearie,"replied Mrs. Gerhardt, and hurried backdownstairs with her brain teeming, tomake the deaf woman's bowl of bread,pepper, salt, and onions.

All that day and the next and the nextshe saw the bright side of things withalmost dazzling clearness, waiting tovisit her "prince" in his Palace. Shefound him in a strange and pitiful stateof nerves. The news had produced too

intense and varied emotions amongthose crowded thousands of menburied away from normal life so long.She spent all her hour and a half tryingdesperately to make him see the brightside, but he was too full of fears anddoubts, and she went away smiling, bututterly exhausted. Slowly in the weekswhich followed she learned thatnothing was changed. In the fond hopethat Gerhardt might be home now anyday, she was taking care that his slippersand some clothes of David's wereready for him, and the hip bath handyfor him to have a lovely hot wash. Shehad even bought a bottle of beer andsome of his favourite pickle, saving theprice out of her own food, and was

taking in the paper again, lettingbygones be bygones. But he did notcome. And soon the paper informedher that the English prisoners werereturning many in wretched state, poorthings, so that her heart bled for them,and made her fiercely angry with thecruel men who had treated them so;but it informed her too, that if thepaper had its way no "Huns" would betolerated in this country for the future."Send them all back!" were the words itused. She did not realise at first that thisapplied to Gerhardt; but when she did,she dropped the journal as if it hadbeen a living coal of fire. Not let himcome back to his home, and family, notlet him stay, after all they'd done to him,

and he never did anything to them! Notlet him stay, but send him out to thatdreadful country, which he had almostforgotten in these thirty years, and hewith an English wife and children! Inthis new terror of utter dislocation thebright side so slipped from her that shewas obliged to go out into the backgarden in the dark, where a sou'-westerly wind was driving the rain.There, lifting her eyes to the eveningsky she uttered a little moan. It couldn'tbe true; and yet what they said in herpaper had always turned out true, likethe taking of Gerhardt away, and thereduction of his food. And the face ofthe gentleman in the building atWhitehall came before her out of the

long past, with his lips tightening, andhis words: "We have to do very hardthings, Mrs. Gerhardt." Why had they todo them Her man had never done noharm to no one! A flood, bitter as seawater, surged in her, and seemed tochoke her very being. Those gentlemenin the papers why should they go onlike that Had they no hearts, no eyes tosee the misery they brought to humblefolk "I wish them nothing worse thanwhat they've brought to him and me,"she thought wildly: "nothing worse!"

The rain beat on her face, wetted hergrey hair, cooled her eyeballs. "I mustn'tbe spiteful," she thought; and bendingdown in the dark she touched the glass

of the tiny conservatory built againstthe warm kitchen wall, and heated bythe cunning little hot-water pipe herman had put there in his old handydays. Under it were one little monthlyrose, which still had blossoms, andsome straggly small chrysanthemums.She had been keeping them for thefeast when he came home; but if hewasn't to come, what should she doShe raised herself. Above the wet roofssky-rack was passing wild and dark, butin a little cleared space one or two starsshone the brighter for the blacknessbelow. "I must look on the bright side,"she thought, "or I can't bear myself."And she went in to cook the porridgefor the evening meal.

The winter passed for her in the mostdreadful anxiety. "Repatriate the Huns!"That cry continued to spurt up in herpaper like a terrible face seen in somerecurrent nightmare; and each weekthat she went to visit Gerhardt broughtsolid confirmation to her terror. Hewas taking it hard, so that sometimesshe was afraid that "something" washappening in him. This was the utmostshe went towards defining whatdoctors might have diagnosed asincipient softening of the brain. Heseemed to dread the prospect of beingsent to his native country.

"I couldn't stick it, Dollee," he would

say. "What should I do whatevershould I do I haven't a friend. I haven'ta spot to go to. I should be lost. I'mafraid, Dollee. How could you comeout there, you and the children Icouldn't make a living for you. Icouldn't make one for myself now."

And she would say: "Cheer up, oldman. Look on the bright side. Think ofthe others." For, though those otherswere not precisely the bright side, themental picture of their sufferings, allthose poor "princes" and their families,somehow helped her to bear her own.But he shook his head:

"No; I should never see you again."

"I'd follow you," she answered. "Neverfear, Max, we'd work in the fields meand the children. We'd get on somehow.Bear up, my dearie. It'll soon be overnow. I'll stick to you, Max, never youfear. But they won't send you, theynever will."

And then, like a lump of ice pressed onher breast, came the thought: "But ifthey do! Auntie! My boy! My girls!However shall I manage if they do!"

Then long lists began to appear, and ingreat batches men were shovelledwholesale back to the country whosespeech some of them had well-nigh

forgotten. Little Gerhardt's name hadnot appeared yet. The lists were hungup the day after Mrs. Gerhardt's weeklyvisit, but she urged him if his name didappear to appeal against repatriation. Itwas with the greatest difficulty that sheroused in him the energy to promise."Look on the bright side, Max," sheimplored him. "You've got a son in theBritish army; they'll never send you.They wouldn't be so cruel. Never saydie, old man."

His name appeared but was taken out,and the matter hung again in awfulsuspense, while the evil face of therecurrent nightmare confronted Mrs.Gerhardt out of her favourite journal.

She read that journal again, because, sofar as in her gentle spirit lay, she hatedit. It was slowly killing her man, and allher chance of future happiness; shehated it, and read it every morning. Tothe monthly rose and straggly littlebrown-red chrysanthemums in the tinyhothouse there had succeeded springflowers a few hardy Januarysnowdrops, and one by one blue scillas,and the little pale daffodils called"angels' tears."

Peace tarried, but the flowers came uplong before their time in their tinyhothouse against the kitchen flue. Andthen one wonderful day there came toMrs. Gerhardt a strange letter,

announcing that Gerhardt was cominghome. He would not be sent toGermany he was coming home! To-day,that very day any moment he might bewith her. When she received it, whohad long received no letters save theweekly letters of her boy still in thearmy, she was spreading margarine onauntie's bread for breakfast, and, movedbeyond all control, she spread it thick,wickedly, wastefully thick, thendropped the knife, sobbed, laughed,clasped her hands on her breast, andwithout rhyme or reason, begansinging: "Hark! the herald angels sing."The girls had gone to school already,auntie in the room above could nothear her, no one heard her, nor saw her

drop suddenly into the wooden chair,and, with her bare arms stretched outone on either side of the plate of breadand margarine, cry her heart out againstthe clean white table. Coming home,coming home, coming home! Thebright side! The little white stars!

It was a quarter of an hour before shecould trust herself to answer theknocking on the floor, which meantthat "auntie" was missing her breakfast.Hastily she made the tea and went upwith it and the bread and margarine.The woman's dim long face gleamedgreedily when she saw how thick themargarine was spread; but little Mrs.Gerhardt said no word of the reason

for that feast. She just watched her onlyfriend eating it, while a little moisturestill trickled out from her big eyes on toher flushed cheeks, and the words stillhummed in her brain:

"Peace on earth and mercy mild, JesusChrist a little child."

Then, still speaking no word, she ranout and put clean sheets on her and herman's bed. She was on wires, she couldnot keep still, and all the morning shepolished, polished. About noon shewent out into her garden, and fromunder the glass plucked every flowerthat grew there snowdrops, scillas,"angels' tears," quite two dozen

blossoms. She brought them into thelittle parlour and opened its windowwide. The sun was shining, and fell onthe flowers strewn on the table, readyto be made into the nosegay oftriumphant happiness. While she stoodfingering them, delicately breaking halfan inch off their stalks so that theyshould last the longer in water, shebecame conscious of someone on thepavement outside the window, andlooking up saw Mrs. Clirehugh. Thepast, the sense of having been desertedby her friends, left her, and she calledout:

"Come in, Eliza; look at my flowers!"

Mrs. Clirehugh came in; she was inblack, her cheekbones higher, her hairlooser, her eyes bigger. Mrs. Gerhardtsaw tears starting from those eyes,wetting those high cheekbones, andcried out:

"Why, what's the matter, dear "

Mrs. Clirehugh choked. "My baby!"

Mrs. Gerhardt dropped an "angels'tear," and went up to her.

"Whatever's happened " she cried.

"Dead!" replied Mrs. Clirehugh. "Deado' the influenza. 'E's to be buried to-

day. I can't I can't I can't " Wild chokingstopped her utterance. Mrs. Gerhardtput an arm round her and drew herhead on to her shoulder.

"I can't I can't " sobbed Mrs. Clirehugh;"I can't find any flowers. It's seein'yours made me cry."

"There, there!" cried Mrs. Gerhardt."Have them. I'm sure you're welcome,dearie. Have them I'm so sorry!"

"I don't know," choked Mrs. Clirehugh,"I 'aven't deserved them." Mrs.Gerhardt gathered up the flowers.

"Take them," she said. "I couldn't think

of it. Your poor little baby. Take them!There, there, he's spared a lot oftrouble. You must look on the brightside, dearie."

Mrs. Clirehugh tossed up her head.

"You're an angel, that's what you are!"she said, and grasping the flowers shehurried out, a little black figure passingthe window in the sunlight.

Mrs. Gerhardt stood above the emptiedtable, thinking: "Poor dear I'm glad shehad the flowers. It was a mercy I didn'tcall out that Max was coming!" Andfrom the floor she picked up one"angels' tear" she had dropped, and set

it in a glass of water, where the sunlightfell. She was still gazing at it, pale,slender, lonely in that coarse tumbler,when she heard a knock on the parlourdoor, and went to open it. There stoodher man, with a large brown-paperparcel in his hand. He stood quite still,his head a little down, the face verygrey. She cried out; "Max!" but thethought flashed through her: "Heknocked on the door! It's his door heknocked on the door!"

"Dollee " he said, with a sort ofquestion in his voice.

She threw her arms round him, drewhim into the room, and shutting the

door, looked hard into his face. Yes, itwas his face, but in the eyes somethingwandered lit up, went out, lit up.

"Dollee," he said again, and clutchedher hand.

She strained him to her with a sob.

"I'm not well, Dollee," he murmured.

"No, of course not, my dearie man; butyou'll soon be all right now home againwith me. Cheer up, cheer up!"

"I'm not well," he said again.

She caught the parcel out of his hand,

and taking the "angels' tear" from thetumbler, fixed it in his coat.

"Here's a spring flower for you, Max;out of your own little hothouse. You'rehome again; home again, my dearie.Auntie's upstairs, and the girls'll becoming soon. And we'll have dinner."

"I'm not well, Dollee," he said.

Terrified by that reiteration, she drewhim down on the little horsehair sofa,and sat on his knee. "You're home,Max, kiss me. There's my man!" and sherocked him to and fro against her,yearning yet fearing to look into hisface and see that "something" wander

there light up, go out, light up. "Look,dearie," she said, "I've got some beerfor you. You'd like a glass of beer "

He made a motion of his lips, a soundthat was like the ghost of a smack. Itterrified her, so little life was there in it.

He clutched her close, and repeatedfeebly:

"Yes, all right in a day or two. They letme come I'm not well, Dollee." Hetouched his head.

Straining him to her, rocking him, shemurmured over and over again, like acat purring to its kitten:

"It's all right, my dearie soon be wellsoon be well! We must look on thebright side My man!"

V

"CAFARD"

The soldier Jean Liotard lay, face to theearth, by the bank of the river Drome.He lay where the grass and trees ended,and between him and the shrivelledgreen current was much sandyforeshore, for summer was at height,and the snows had long finished

melting and passing down. Theburning sun had sucked up allmoisture, the earth was parched, but to-day a cool breeze blew, willow andaspen leaves were fluttering and hissingas if millions of tiny kisses were beinggiven up there; and a few swathes ofwhite cloud were drawn, it seemed notdriven along the blue. The soldier JeanLiotard had fixed his eyes on theground, where was nothing to see but afew dry herbs. He had "cafard," for hewas due to leave the hospital to-morrow and go up before the militaryauthorities, for "prolongation." There hewould answer perfunctory questions,and be told at once: Au depot; or have tolie naked before them that some "major"

might prod his ribs, to find out whetherhis heart, displaced by shell-shock, hadgone back sufficiently to normalposition. He had received one"prolongation," and so, wherever his heartnow was, he felt sure he would not getanother. "Au depot" was the fate beforehim, fixed as that river flowing down toits death in the sea. He had "cafard" thelittle black beetle in the brain, whichgnaws and eats and destroys all hopeand heaven in a man. It had beenworking at him all last week, and nowhe was at a monstrous depth of eviland despair. To begin again the cursedbarrack-round, the driven life, until in amonth perhaps, packed like bleatingsheep, in the troop-train, he made that

journey to the fighting line again "A lahachette a la hachette!"

He had stripped off his red flanneljacket, and lay with shirt opened to thewaist, to get the breeze against hisheart. In his brown good-looking facethe hazel eyes, which in these threeGod-deserted years had acquired a sortof startled gloom, stared out like adog's, rather prominent, seeing only thethoughts within him thoughts andimages swirling round and round in adark whirlpool, drawing his wholebeing deeper and deeper. He wasunconscious of all the summer humand rustle the cooing of the dove up inthat willow tree, the winged enamelled

fairies floating past, the chirr of thecicadas, that little brown lizard amongthe pebbles, almost within reach,seeming to listen to the beating ofsummer's heart so motionless it lay;unconscious, as though in verity hewere again deep in some stifling trench,with German shells whining over him,and the smell of muck and bloodmaking foetid the air. He was in themood which curses God and dies; forhe was devout a Catholic, and still wentto Mass. And God had betrayed theearth, and Jean Liotard. All theenormities he had seen in his two yearsat the front the mouthless mangledfaces, the human ribs whence ratswould steal; the frenzied tortured

horses, with leg or quarter rent away,still living; the rotted farms, the dazedand hopeless peasants; his innumerablesuffering comrades; the desert of no-man's land; and all the thunder andmoaning of war; and the reek and thefreezing of war; and the driving thecallous perpetual driving, by some greatForce which shovelled warm humanhearts and bodies, warm human hopesand loves by the million into thefurnace; and over all, dark sky withouta break, without a gleam of blue, or liftanywhere all this enclosed him, lying inthe golden heat, so that not a glimmerof life or hope could get at him. Backinto it all again! Back into it, he whohad been through forty times the hell

that the "majors" ever endured, fivehundred times the hell ever glimpsed atby those deputes, safe with their fatsalaries, and their gabble about victoryand the lost provinces, and the futureof the world the Canaille! Let themallow the soldiers, whose lives theyspent like water "les camarades" on bothsides poor devils who bled, and froze,and starved, and sweated let themsuffer these to make the peace! Ah!What a peace that would be its firstcondition, all the sacred politicians andpressmen hanging in rows in everycountry; the mouth fighters, the penfighters, the fighters with other men'sblood! Those comfortable citizenswould never rest till there was not a

young man with whole limbs left inFrance! Had he not killed enoughBoches, that they might leave him andhis tired heart in peace He thought ofhis first charge; of how queer and softthat Boche body felt when his bayonetwent through; and another, andanother. Ah! he had "joliment" done hisduty that day! And somethingwrenched at his ribs. They were onlyBoches, but their wives and children,their mothers faces questioning, facespleading for them pleading with whomAh! Not with him! Who was he thathad taken those lives, and others since,but a poor devil without a life himself,without the right to breathe or moveexcept to the orders of a Force which

had no mind, which had no heart, hadnothing but a blind will to go on, itknew not why. If only he survived itwas not possible but if only hesurvived, and with his millions ofcomrades could come back and holdthe reckoning! Some scare-the-crowsthen would waggle in the wind. Thebutterflies would perch on a fewmouths empty at last; the flies enjoy afew silent tongues! Then slowly hisfierce unreasoning rancour vanishedinto a mere awful pity for himself. Wasa fellow never again to look at the sky,and the good soil, the fruit, the wheat,without this dreadful black cloudabove him, never again make loveamong the trees, or saunter down a

lighted boulevard, or sit before a cafe,never again attend Mass, without thisblack dog of disgust and dread sittingon his shoulders, riding him to deathAngels of pity! Was there never to bean end One was going mad under ityes, mad! And the face of his mothercame before him, as he had seen herlast, just three years ago, when he lefthis home in the now invaded country,to join his regiment his mother who,with all his family, was in the power ofthe Boche. He had gone gaily, and shehad stood like stone, her hand heldover her eyes, in the sunlight, watchinghim while the train ran out. Usually thethought of the cursed Boches holdingin their heavy hands all that was dear to

him, was enough to sweep his soul to aclear, definite hate, which made all thisnightmare of war seem natural, andeven right; but now it was not enoughhe had "cafard." He turned on his back.The sky above the mountains mighthave been black for all the joy its bluegave him. The butterflies, those driftingflakes of joy, passed unseen. He wasthinking: No rest, no end, except bywalking over bodies, dead, mangledbodies of poor devils like himself,poor hunted devils, who wantednothing but never to lift a hand incombat again so long as they lived, whowanted as he wanted nothing butlaughter and love and rest! Quelle vie! Acarnival of leaping demonry! A dream

unutterably bad! "And when I go backto it all," he thought, "I shall go allshaven and smart, and wave my hand asif I were going to a wedding, as we alldo. Vive la France! Ah! what mockery!Can't a poor devil have a dreamlesssleep!" He closed his eyes, but the sunstruck hot on them through the lids,and he turned over on his face again,and looked longingly at the river theysaid it was deep in mid-stream; it stillran fast there! What was that down bythe water Was he really mad And heuttered a queer laugh. There was hisblack dog the black dog off hisshoulders, the black dog which rodehim, yea, which had become his veryself, just going to wade in! And he

called out:

"He! le copain!" It was not his dog, for itstopped drinking, tucked its tail in, andcowered at the sound of his voice.Then it came from the water, and satdown on its base among the stones,and looked at him. A real dog was itWhat a guy! What a thin wretch of alittle black dog! It sat and stared amongrel who might once have beenpretty. It stared at Jean Liotard with thepathetic gaze of a dog so thin andhungry that it earnestly desires to go tomen and get fed once more, but hasbeen so kicked and beaten that it darenot. It seemed held in suspense by theequal overmastering impulses, fear and

hunger. And Jean Liotard stared back.The lost, as it were despairing look ofthe dog began to penetrate his brain.He held out his hand and said: "Viens!"But at the sound the little dog onlysquirmed away a few paces, then againsat down, and resumed its stare. AgainJean Liotard uttered that queer laugh. Ifthe good God were to hold out hishand and say to him: "Viens!" he woulddo exactly as that little beast; he wouldnot come, not he! What was he too buta starved and beaten dog a drivenwretch, kicked to hell! And again, as ifexperimenting with himself, he held outhis hand and said: "Viens!" and againthe beast squirmed a little further away,and again sat down and stared. Jean

Liotard lost patience. His head droopedtill his forehead touched the ground.He smelt the parched herbs, and a faintsensation of comfort stole through hisnerves. He lay unmoving, trying tofancy himself dead and out of it all.The hum of summer, the smell ofgrasses, the caress of the breeze goingover! He pressed the palms of hisoutstretched hands on the warm soil, asone might on a woman's breast. If onlyit were really death, how much betterthan life in this butcher's shop! Butdeath, his death was waiting for himaway over there, under the moaningshells, under the whining bullets, at theend of a steel prong a mangled, foetiddeath. Death his death, had no sweet

scent, and no caress save the kisses ofrats and crows. Life and Death whatwere they Nothing but the preying ofcreatures the one on the other nothingbut that; and love, the blind instinctwhich made these birds and beasts ofprey. Bon sang de bon sang! The Christ hidhis head finely nowadays! That cross upthere on the mountain top, with thesun gleaming on it they had been rightto put it up where no man lived, andnot even a dog roamed, to be pitied!"Fairy tales, fairy tales," he thought;"those who drive and those who aredriven, those who eat and those whoare eaten we are all poor devils together.There is no pity, no God!" And the fliesdrummed their wings above him. And

the sun, boring into his spine throughhis thin shirt, made him reach for hisjacket. There was the little dog, still,sitting on its base, twenty yards away. Itcowered and dropped its ears when hemoved; and he thought "Poor beast!Someone has been doing the devil'swork on you, not badly!" There weresome biscuits in the pocket of hisjacket, and he held one out. The dogshivered, and its thin pink tongue lolledout, panting with desire, and fear. JeanLiotard tossed the biscuit gently abouthalf way. The dog cowered back a stepor two, crept forward three, and againsquatted. Then very gradually it creptup to the biscuit, bolted it, andregained its distance. The soldier took

out another. This time he threw it fivepaces only in front of him. Again thelittle beast cowered, slunk forward,seized the biscuit, devoured it; but thistime it only recoiled a pace or two, andseemed, with panting mouth and faintwagging of the tail, to beg for more.Jean Liotard held a third biscuit as farout in front of him as he could, andwaited. The creature crept forward andsquatted just out of reach. There it sat,with saliva dripping from its mouth;seemingly it could not make up itsmind to that awful venture. The soldiersat motionless; his outstretched handbegan to tire; but he did not budge hemeant to conquer its fear. At last itsnatched the biscuit. Jean Liotard

instantly held out a fourth. That toowas snatched, but at the fifth he wasable to touch the dog. It coweredalmost into the ground at touch of hisfingers, and then lay, still tremblingviolently, while the soldier continued tostroke its head and ears. And suddenlyhis heart gave a twitter, the creature hadlicked his hand. He took out his lastbiscuit, broke it up, and fed the dogslowly with the bits, talking all the time;when the last crumb was gone hecontinued to murmur and crumple itsears softly. He had become aware ofsomething happening within the dogsomething in the nature of conversion,as if it were saying: "O my master, mynew master I worship, I love you!" The

creature came gradually closer, quiteclose; then put up its sharp black noseand began to lick his face. Its little hotrough tongue licked and licked, andwith each lick the soldier's heartrelaxed, just as if the licks were beinggiven there, and something licked away.He put his arms round the thin body,and hugged it, and still the creaturewent on feverishly licking at his face,and neck, and chest, as if trying tocreep inside him. The sun poureddown, the lizards rustled and whiskedamong the pebbles; the kissing neverceased up there among the willow andaspen leaves, and every kind of flyingthing went past drumming its wings.There was no change in the summer

afternoon. God might not be there, butPity had come back; Jean Liotard nolonger had "cafard." He put the littledog gently off his lap, got up, andstretched himself. "Voyons, mon brave,faut aller voir les copains! Tu es a moi." Thelittle dog stood up on its hind legs,scratching with its forepaws at thesoldier's thigh, as if trying to get at hisface again; as if begging not to be left;and its tail waved feverishly, half inpetition, half in rapture. The soldiercaught the paws, set them down, andturned his face for home, making thenoises that a man makes to his dog; andthe little dog followed, close as hecould get to those moving ankles,lifting his snout, and panting with

anxiety and love.

1917

VI

RECORDED

Just as the train was going out thecompartment was stormed by a figurein khaki, with a rifle, a bad cold, a wife,a basket, a small bundle, and twobabies. Setting his rifle down in thecorner, he said:

"Didn't think we shud ever 'a caught

it!"

His lean face was streaming withperspiration, and when he took off hisovercoat there rose the sweetish sourishscent of a hot goatskin waistcoat. Itreached below his waist, and wouldhave kept cold out from a manstanding in a blizzard, and he had beencarrying a baby, a rifle, a bundle, abasket, and running, on a warmish day.

"Grand things, these," he said, and tookit off. He also took off his cap, and satdown with the elder baby in a howlingdraught.

"Proper cold I've caught comin' over

here," he added.

His wife, quite a girl, broad-faced,fresh-coloured, with small grey eyesand a wonderfully placid, comely face,on which a faint shadow seemedprinted, sat beside him with theyounger baby, a real hairless one, ascould be seen when its white knittedcap slipped. The elder baby, perhapstwo years old, began whimpering alittle. He jigged it gently, and said:

"We 'ad a lot o' trouble wi' this oneyesterday. The Doctor didn't think 'er fitto travel; but I got to see the old peopledown there, before I go back outacross. Come over Sunday night only

got a week's leave. So here we are," andhe laughed.

"What is your corps " I asked.

"Engineers."

"Join since the war "

He looked at me as if to say: What aquestion!

"Twelve years' service. Been everywhereIndia, South Africa, Egypt. Come overto the front from Egypt."

"Where Ypres "

"Beg pardon Wipers No, Labassy."

"Rough time "

He winked. "Proper rough time."

He looked straight at me, and his eyesCeltic-grey, with a good deal of light inthem stared, wide and fixed, at thingsbeyond me, as only do the eyes ofthose who have seen much death.There was a sort of burnt-gunpowderlook about their rims and lashes, and afixity that nothing could have stareddown.

"The Kazer he says it'll all be over byApril!" He laughed, abandoning the

whole of him to enjoyment of thatjoke.

He was thin as a rail; his head with itsthick brown hair was narrow, his facenarrowish too. He had irregular ears,and no feature that could be calledgood, but his expression was utterlygenuine and unconscious of itself.When he sat quiet his face would beheld a little down, his eyes would belooking at something or was it atnothing far-off, in a kind of frowningdream. But if he glanced at his babieshis rather thick mouth became allsmiles, and he would make a remark tohis wife about them. Once or twice shelooked at him softly, but I could never

catch him responding to that; his lifewas rather fuller than hers just now.Presently she took from him the elderbaby which, whimpering again, wasquieted at once by her broad placidity.The younger baby she passed to him;and, having secured it on his knee, hesaid:

"This one's a proper little gem; nevermakes a sound; she's a proper littlegem. Never cude stand hearin' a babycry." It certainly was an admirable baby,whether her little garments were liftedso that you saw portions of her scarletfrom being held too tight, whether theshawl was wrapped over her too muchor too little, or her little knitted trousers

seemed about to fall off. For both thesebabies were elegantly dressed, and sowas the mother, with a small blue hatand a large-checked blouse over herbroad bosom, and a blue skirt allcrumbs and baby. It was pleasant to seethat he had ceased to stream withperspiration now, and some one at theother end of the carriage having closedthe window, he and the babies nolonger sat in a howling draught not thatthey had ever noticed it.

"Yes," he said suddenly, "proper roughtime we 'ad of it at first. Terrible yucude 'ardly stick it. We Engineers 'ad theworst of it, tu. But must laugh, youknow; if yu're goin' to cop it next

minute must laugh!" And he did. Buthis eyes didn't quite lose that stare.

"How did you feel the first day underfire "

He closed one eye and shook his head.

"Not very grand not very grand not fortwo or three days. Soon get used to it,though. Only things I don't care aboutnow are those Jack Johnsons. LongToms out in South Africa now JackJohnsons funny names " and he wentinto a roar. Then leaning forward and,to make sure of one's attention, sawingthe air with a hand that held perhapsthe longest used handkerchief ever

seen, "I seen 'em make a hole whereyou could 'ave put two 'underd andfifty horses. Don't think I shall ever getto like 'em. Yu don't take no notice o'rifle fire after a little not a bit o' notice. Iwas out once with a sapper and two o'the Devons, fixin' up barbed wirebullets strikin' everywhere just like rain.One o' the Devons, he was sittin' on abiscuit-tin, singin': 'The fields werewhite wi' daisies' singing. All of asudden he goes like this " And giving aqueer dull "sumph" of a sound, hejerked his body limp towards his knees"Gone! Dig a hole, put 'im in. Yourturn to-morrow, perhaps. Pals an' all.Yu get so as yu don't take no notice."

On the face of the broad, placid girlwith the baby against her breast theshadow seemed printed a little deeper,but she did not wince. The tiny baby onhis knees woke up and crowed faintly.He smiled.

"Since I been out there, I've oftenwished I was a little 'un again, like this.Well, I made up my mind when first Iwent for a soldier, that I'd like to 'ave amedal out of it some day. Now I'll getit, if they don't get me!" and he laughedagain: "Ah! I've 'ad some good times,an' I've 'ad some bad times "

"But never a time like this "

"Yes, I reckon this has about put thetop hat on it!" and he nodded his headabove the baby's. "About put the tophat on! Oh! I've seen things enough tomake your 'eart bleed. I've seen a lot ofthem country people. Cruel it is!Women, old men, little children,'armless people enough to make your'eart bleed. I used to think of the folkover 'ere. Don't think English women'dstand what the French and Belgianwomen do. Those poor women overthere wonderful they are. There yu'll see'em sittin' outside their 'omes just aheap o' ruins clingin' to 'em. Wonderfulbrave and patient make your 'eart bleedto see 'em. Things I've seen! There'ssome proper brutes among the

Germans must be. Yu don't feel verykind to 'em when yu've seen what I'veseen. We 'ave some games with 'em,though" he laughed again: "Verynervous people, the Germans. If westop firin' in our lines, up they send thestar shells, rockets and all, to see what'sgoin' on think we're goin' to attackregular 'lumination o' fireworks verynervous people. Then we send up somerockets on our side just to 'ave somefun proper display o' fireworks." Hewent off into a roar: "Must 'ave a bit o'fun, you know."

"Is it true they can't stand the bayonet "

"Yes, that's right they'll tell yu so

themselves very sensitive, nervouspeople."

And after that a silence fell. The elderbabe was still fretful, and the mother'sface had on it that most movingphenomenon of this world the strange,selfless, utterly absorbed look, mouthjust loosened, eyes off where wecannot follow, the whole beingwrapped in warmth of her baby againsther breast. And he, with the tiny placidbaby, had gone off into another sort ofdream, with his slightly frowning, far-away look. What was it all aboutnothing perhaps! A great quality, to beable to rest in vacancy.

He stirred and I offered him the paper,but he shook his head.

"Thank yu; don't care about lookin' at'em. They don't know half what we doout there from what I've seen of 'emsince I come back, I don't seem to 'aveany use for 'em. The pictures, too " Heshrugged and shook his head. "We 'avethe real news, y'see. They don't keepnothin' from us. But we're not allowedto say. When we advance there'll besome lives lost, I tell yu!"

He nodded, thinking for a secondperhaps of his own. "Can't be helped!Once we get 'em on the run, we shan'tgive 'em much time." Just then the baby

on his knee woke up and directed onhim the full brunt of its wide-openbright grey eyes. Its rosy cheeks were sobroad and fat that its snub nose seemedbut a button; its mouth, too tiny, onewould think, for use, smiled. Seeingthat smile he said:

"Well, what do yu want Proper littlegem, ain't yu!" And suddenly lookingup at me, he added with a sort ofbashful glee: "My old people'll go fairmad when they see me go fair mad theywill." He seemed to dwell on thethought, and I saw the wife give him along soft smiling look. He addedsuddenly:

"I'll 'ave to travel back, though,Saturday catch the six o'clock fromVictoria, Sunday to cross over there."

Very soon after that we arrived at wherehe changed, and putting on hisgoatskin, his cap, and overcoat, he gotout behind his wife, carrying with theutmost care those queer companions,his baby and his rifle.

Where is he now Alive, dead Whoknows

1915.

VII

THE RECRUIT

Several times since that fateful Fourthof August he had said: "I sh'll 'ave togo."

And the farmer and his wife wouldlook at him, he with a sort ofamusement, she with a queercompassion in her heart, and one or theother would reply smiling: "That's allright, Tom, there's plenty Germans yet.Yu wait a bit."

His mother, too, who came daily fromthe lonely cottage in the little combe on

the very edge of the big hill to work inthe kitchen and farm dairy, would turnher dark taciturn head, with stillplentiful black hair, towards his facewhich, for all its tan, was so weirdlyreminiscent of a withered baby, pinkishand light-lashed, with forelock and fairhair thin and rumpled, and small blueeyes, and she would mutter:

"Don't yu never fret, boy. They'll comefor 'ee fast enough when they want 'ee."No one, least of all perhaps his mother,could take quite seriously that littlesquare short-footed man, born whenshe was just seventeen. Sure of workbecause he was first-rate with everykind of beast, he was yet not looked on

as being quite 'all there.' He couldneither read nor write, had scarcely everbeen outside the parish, and then onlyin a shandrydan on a Club treat, and heknew no more of the world than thenative of a small South Sea Island. Hislife from school age on had beenpassed year in, year out, from dawn tilldark, with the cattle and their calves, thesheep, the horses and the wild moorponies; except when hay or cornharvest, or any exceptionally exactingfestival absorbed him for the moment.From shyness he never went into thebar of the Inn, and so had missed thegreater part of village education. Hecould of course read no papers, a mapwas to him but a mystic mass of marks

and colours; he had never seen the sea,never a ship; no water broader than theparish streams; until the war had nevermet anything more like a soldier thanthe constable of the neighbouringvillage. But he had once seen a RoyalMarine in uniform. What sort ofcreatures these Germans were to himwho knows They were cruel he hadgrasped that. Something noxious,perhaps, like the adders whose backs hebroke with his stick; somethingdangerous like the chained dog atShapton Farm; or the big bull atVannacombe. When the war first brokeout, and they had called the youngerblacksmith (a reservist and notedvillage marksman) back to his regiment,

the little cowman had smiled and said:"Wait till regiment gets to front, Fred'llsoon shoot 'em up."

But weeks and months went by, and itwas always the Germans, the Germans;Fred had clearly not yet shot them up;and now one and now another wentoff from the village, and two from thefarm itself; and the great Fred returnedslightly injured for a few weeks' rest,and, full of whisky from morning tillnight, made the village ring; and finallywent off again in a mood of manifestreluctance. All this weighed dumbly onthe mind of the little cowman, themore heavily that because of hisinarticulate shyness he could never talk

that weight away, nor could anyone bytalk relieve him, no premises ofknowledge or vision being there. Fromsheer physical contagion he felt thegrizzly menace in the air, and a sense ofbeing left behind when others weregoing to meet that menace with theirfists, as it were. There was somethingproud and sturdy in the little man, evenin the look of him, for all that he was'poor old Tom,' who brought a smile tothe lips of all. He was passionate, too,if rubbed up the wrong way; but itneeded the malevolence and ingenuityof human beings to annoy him with hisbeasts he never lost his temper, so thatthey had perfect confidence in him. Heresembled indeed herdsmen of the

Alps, whom one may see in dumbcommunion with their creatures up inthose high solitudes; for he too dweltin a high solitude cut off from realfellowship with men and women bylack of knowledge, and by thesupercilious pity in them. Living insuch a remote world his talk when hedid say something had ever thesurprising quality attaching to thethoughts of those by whom the normalproportions of things are quiteunknown. His short square figure,hatless and rarely coated in any weather,dotting from foot to foot, a bit of stickin one hand, and often a straw in themouth he did not smoke was familiarin the yard where he turned the handle

of the separator, or in the fields andcowsheds, from daybreak to dusk, savefor the hours of dinner and tea, whichhe ate in the farm kitchen, makingsparse and surprising comments. To hispeculiar whistles and calls the cattle andcalves, for all their rumination andstubborn shyness, were amazinglyresponsive. It was a pretty sight to seethem pushing against each other roundhim for, after all, he was as much thesource of their persistence, especiallythrough the scanty winter months, as amother starling to her unfledged young.

When the Government issued theirrequest to householders to return thenames of those of military age ready to

serve if called on, he heard of it, andstopped munching to say in his abruptfashion: "I'll go fight the Germans."But the farmer did not put him down,saying to his wife:

"Poor old Tom! 'Twidden be 'ardly fairthey'd be makin' game of 'un."

And his wife, her eyes shining withmotherliness, answered: "Poor lad, he'snot fit-like."

The months went on winter passing tospring and the slow decking of thetrees and fields began with leaves andflowers, with butterflies and the songsof birds. How far the little cowman

would notice such a thing as that noone could ever have said, devoid as hewas of the vocabulary of beauty, butlike all the world his heart must havefelt warmer and lighter under his oldwaistcoat, and perhaps more than mosthearts, for he could often be seenstanding stock-still in the fields, hisbrowning face turned to the sun.

Less and less he heard talk of Germansdogged acceptance of the state of warhaving settled on that far countrysidethe beggars were not beaten and killedoff yet, but they would be in goodtime. It was unpleasant to think ofthem more than could be helped. Oncein a way a youth went off and ''listed,'

but though the parish had given moreperhaps than the average, a good fewof military age still clung to life as theyhad known it. Then some bright spiritconceived the notion that a countyregiment should march through theremoter districts to rouse them up.

The cuckoo had been singing five days;the lanes and fields, the woods and thevillage green were as Joseph's coat, sovaried and so bright the foliage, fromgolden oak-buds to the brilliant littlelime-tree leaves, the feathery greenshoots of larches, and the alreadydarkening bunches of the sycamores.The earth was dry no rain for afortnight when the cars containing the

brown-clad men and a recruiting banddrew up before the Inn. Here wereclustered the farmers, the innkeeper, thegrey-haired postman; by the Churchgate and before the schoolyard wereknots of girls and children,schoolmistress, schoolmaster, parson;and down on the lower green a groupof likely youths, an old labourer or two,and apart from human beings as washis wont, the little cowman in browncorduroys tied below the knee, and anold waistcoat, the sleeves of his blueshirt dotted with pink, rolled up to theelbows of his brown arms. So hestood, his brown neck and shaven-looking head quite bare, with his bit ofstick wedged between his waist and the

ground, staring with all his light-lashedwater-blue eyes from under the thatchof his forelock.

The speeches rolled forth glib; thekhaki-clad men drank their second fillthat morning of coffee and cider; thelittle cowman stood straight and still,his head drawn back. Two figuresofficers, men who had been at the frontdetached themselves and came towardsthe group of likely youths. Thesewavered a little, were silent, sniggered,stood their ground the khaki-cladfigures passed among them. Hackneyedwords, jests, the touch of flattery,changing swiftly to chaff all thecustomary performance, hollow and

pathetic; and then the two figures re-emerged, their hands clenched, theireyes shifting here and there, their lipsdrawn back in fixed smiles. They hadfailed, and were trying to hide it. Theymust not show contempt the youngslackers might yet come in, when theband played.

The cars were filled again, the bandstruck up: 'It's a long long way toTipperary.'

And at the edge of the green withintwo yards of the car's dusty passage thelittle cowman stood apart and stared.His face was red. Behind him they werecheering the parson and farmers, school

children, girls, even the group ofyouths. He alone did not cheer, but hisface grew still more red. When the dustabove the road and the distant blare ofTipperary had dispersed and died, hewalked back to the farm dotting fromone to other of his short feet. All thatafternoon and evening he spoke noword; but the flush seemed to havesettled in his face for good and all. Hemilked some cows, but forgot to bringthe pails up. Two of his precious cowshe left unmilked till their distressfullowing caused the farmer's wife to godown and see. There he was standingagainst a gate moving his brown neckfrom side to side like an animal in pain,oblivious seemingly of everything. She

spoke to him:

"What's matter, Tom " All he couldanswer was:

"I'se goin', I'se goin'." She milked thecows herself.

For the next three days he could settleto nothing, leaving his jobs half done,speaking to no one save to say:

"I'se goin'; I'se got to go." Even thebeasts looked at him surprised.

On the Saturday the farmer havingconsulted with his wife, said quietly:

"Well, Tom, ef yu want to go, yu shall.I'll drive 'ee down Monday. Us won't dunothin' to keep yu back."

The little cowman nodded. But he wasrestless as ever all through that Sunday,eating nothing.

On Monday morning arrayed in hisbest clothes he got into the dog-cart.There, without good-bye to anyone,not even to his beasts, he sat staringstraight before him, square, and joltingup and down beside the farmer, whoturned on him now and then a dubiousalmost anxious eye.

So they drove the eleven miles to the

recruiting station. He got down,entered, the farmer with him.

"Well, my lad," they asked him, "whatd'you want to join "

"Royal Marines."

It was a shock, coming from the short,square figure of such an obviouslandsman. The farmer took him by thearm.

"Why, yu'm a Devon man, Tom, bettertake county regiment. An't they gudeenough for yu "

Shaking his head he answered: "Royal

Marines."

Was it the glamour of the words or theRoyal Marine he had once seen, thatmoved him to wish to join thatoutlandish corps Who shall say Therewas the wish, immovable; they tookhim to the recruiting station for theRoyal Marines.

Stretching up his short, square body,and blowing out his cheeks to increasehis height, he was put before thereading board. His eyes were splendid;little that passed in hedgerows or theheaven, in woods or on the hillsides,could escape them. They asked him toread the print.

Staring, he answered: "L."

"No, my lad, you're guessing."

"L."

The farmer plucked at the recruitingofficer's sleeve, his face was twitching,and he whispered hoarsely:

"'E don' know 'is alphabet."

The officer turned and contemplatedthat short square figure with thebrowned face so reminiscent of awithered baby, and the little blue eyesstaring out under the dusty forelock.

Then he grunted, and going up to him,laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Your heart's all right, my lad, but youcan't pass."

The little cowman looked at him,turned, and went straight out. An hourlater he sat again beside the farmer onthe way home, staring before him andjolting up and down.

"They won't get me," he said suddenly:"I can fight, but I'se not goin'." A fireof resentment seemed to have been litwithin him. That evening he ate his tea,and next day settled down again amonghis beasts. But whenever, now, the war

was mentioned, he would look up withhis puckered smile which seemed tohave in it a resentful amusement, andsay:

"They a'nt got me yet."

His dumb sacrifice passing theircomprehension, had been rejected or soit seemed to him He could notunderstand that they had spared him.Why! He was as good as they! His pridewas hurt. No! They should not get himnow!

1916.

VIII

THE PEACE MEETING

Colin Wilderton, coming from the Weston his way to the Peace Meeting, fell inwith John Rudstock, coming from theNorth, and they walked on together.After they had commented on the newsfrom Russia and the inflation ofmoney, Rudstock said abruptly:

"We shall have a queer meeting, Iexpect."

"God knows!" answered Wilderton.

And both smiled, conscious that theywere uneasy, but predetermined not toshow it under any circumstances. Theirsmiles were different, for Rudstock wasa black-browed man, with dark beardand strong, thick figure, and Wildertona very light-built, grey-haired man, withkindly eyes and no health. He hadsupported the war an immense time,and had only recently changed hisattitude. In common with all men ofwarm feelings, he had at first beenprofoundly moved by the violation ofBelgium. The horrors of the Germanadvance through that little country andthrough France, to which he wastemperamentally attached, had stirred inhim a vigorous detestation, freely

expressed in many ways. Extermination,he had felt all those early months, washardly good enough for brutes whocould commit such crimes againsthumanity and justice; and his sense ofthe need for signal defeat of a noxiousforce riding rough-shod over the hard-won decency of human life hadsurvived well into the third year of thewar. He hardly knew, himself, when hisfeeling had begun not precisely tochange, but to run, as it were, in adifferent channel. A man of generousinstincts, artistic tastes, and unsteadynerves too thinly coated with that God-given assurance which alone fits a manfor knowing what is good for theworld, he had become gradually

haunted by the thought that he was notlaying down his own life, but only thelives of his own and other peoples'sons. And the consideration that he waslaying them down for the benefit oftheir own future had lost its grip onhim. At moments he was still able tosee that the war he had so longsupported had not yet attainedsufficient defeat of the Prussianmilitary machine to guarantee thatfuture; but his pity and distress for allthese young lives, cut down without achance to flower, had grown till he hadbecome, as it were, a gambler. Whatgood he would think to secure thefuture of the young in a Europe whichwould soon have no young! Every

country was suffering hideously thecriminal country not least, thank God!Suppose the war were to go on foranother year, two, three years, and thenstop from sheer exhaustion of bothsides, while all the time these boys werebeing killed and maimed, for nothingmore, perhaps, than could be obtainedto-day. What then True, theGovernment promised victory, but theynever promised it within a year.Governments did not die; what if theywere to go on promising it a year hence,till everybody else was dead! Didhistory ever show that victory in thepresent could guarantee the future Andeven if not so openly defeated as wasdesirable, this damnable Prussianism

had got such a knock that it couldnever again do what it had in the past.These last, however, were but sidereflections, toning down for him thefact that his nerves could no longerstand this vicarious butchery of youth.And so he had gradually become that"traitor to his country, a weak-kneedPeace by Negotiation man." Physicallyhis knees really were weak, and he usedto smile a wry smile when he read theexpression.

John Rudstock, of vigorous physique,had opposed the war, on principle,from the start, not because, any morethan Wilderton, he approved ofPrussianism, but because, as an

essentially combative personality, heopposed everything that was supportedby a majority; the greater the majority,the more bitterly he opposed it; and noone would have been more astonishedthan he at hearing that this was hisprinciple. He preferred to put it that hedid not believe in opposing Force byForce. In peace-time he was a"stalwart," in war-time a "renegade."

The street leading to the chapel whichhad been engaged seemed quietenough. Designed to make animpression on public opinion, everycare had been taken that the meetingshould not attract the public eye. God'sprotection had been enlisted, but two

policemen also stood at the entrance,and half a dozen others weresuspiciously near by. A thin trickle ofpersons, mostly women, were passingthrough the door. Colin Wilderton,making his way up the aisle to theplatform, wrinkled his nose, thinking:"Stuffy in here." It had always been hismisfortune to love his neighboursindividually, but to dislike them in abunch. On the platform some fifteenmen and women were already gathered.He seated himself modestly in the backrow, while John Rudstock, less retiring,took his place at the chairman's righthand. The speakers began with aprecipitancy hardly usual at a publicmeeting. Wilderton listened, and

thought: "Dreadfully cliche; why can'tsomeone say straight out that boysenough have been killed " He hadbecome conscious of a mutteringnoise, too, as of the tide coming in on aheavy wind; it broke suddenly intocomponent parts human voicesclamouring outside. He heard blowsraining on the door, saw stickssmashing in the windows. The audiencehad risen to its feet, some rushing todefend the doors, others standingirresolute. John Rudstock was holdingup the chair he had been sitting on.Wilderton had just time to think: "Ithought so," when a knot of youngmen in khaki burst into the chapel,followed by a crowd. He knew he was

not much good in a scrimmage, but heplaced himself at once in front of thenearest woman. At that moment,however, some soldiers, pouringthrough a side-door, invaded theplatform from behind, and threw himdown the steps. He arrived at thebottom with a bump, and was unableto get up because of the crowd aroundhim. Someone fell over him; it wasRudstock, swearing horribly. He stillhad the chair in his hand, for it hitWilderton a nasty blow. The latter sawhis friend recover his feet and swing theweapon, and with each swing downwent some friend or foe, until he hadcleared quite a space round him.Wilderton, still weak and dizzy from

his fall, sat watching this Homericbattle. Chairs, books, stools, sticks wereflying at Rudstock, who parried them,or diverted their course so that theycarried on and hit Wilderton, orcrashed against the platform. He heardRudstock roar like a lion, and saw himadvance, swinging his chair; down wenttwo young men in khaki, down went athird in mufti; a very tall young soldier,also armed with a chair, dashedforward, and the two fought in singlecombat. Wilderton had got on his feetby now, and, adjusting his eyeglass, forhe could see little without, he caughtup a hymn-book, and, flinging it at thecrowd with all his force, shouted:"Hoo-bloodyray!" and followed with

his fists clenched. One of themencountered what must have been thejaw of an Australian, it was so hardagainst his hand; he received a viciouspunch in the ribs and was again seatedon the ground. He could still hear hisfriend roaring, and the crash of chairsmeeting in mid-air. Something fellheavily on him. It was Rudstock he wasinsensible. There was a momentary lull,and peering up as best he could fromunderneath the body, Wilderton sawthat the platform had been cleared ofall its original inhabitants, and wasoccupied mainly by youths in navy-blueand khaki. A voice called out:

"Order! Silence!"

Rubbing Rudstock's temples withbrandy from a flask which he had hadthe foresight to slip into his pocket, helistened as best he could, with the feetof the crowd jostling his anatomy.

"Here we are, boys," the voice wassaying, "and here we'll always be whenthese treacherous blighters try theirgames on. No peace, no peace at anyprice! We've got to show them that wewon't have it. Leave the women alonethough they ought to be ashamed ofthemselves; but for the men the skunksshooting's too good for them. Let themkeep off the course or we'll make them.We've broken up this meeting, and we'll

break up every meeting that tries to talkof peace. Three cheers for the old flag!"

During the cheers which followedWilderton was discovering signs ofreturning consciousness in his friend.Rudstock had begun to breathe heavily,and, pouring some brandy into hismouth, he propped him up as best hecould against a wooden structure,which he suddenly perceived to be thechapel's modest pulpit. A thought cameto his dazed brain. If he could get upinto that, as if he had dropped fromHeaven, they might almost listen tohim. He disengaged his legs from underRudstock, and began crawling up thesteps on hands and knees. Once in the

pulpit he sat on the floor below thelevel of visibility, getting his breath, andlistening to the cheers. Then,smoothing his hair, he rose, and waitedfor the cheers to stop. He hadcalculated rightly. His suddenappearance, his grey hair, eyeglass, andsmile deceived them for a moment.There was a hush.

"Boys!" he said, "listen to me a second,I want to ask you something. What onearth do you think we came here forSimply and solely because we can't bearto go on seeing you killed day after day,month after month, year after year.That's all, and it's Christ's truth. Amen!"

A strange gasp and mutter greeted thislittle speech; then a dull voice calledout:

"Pro-German!"

Wilderton flung up his hand.

"The Germans to hell!" he said simply.

The dull voice repeated:

"Pro-German!" And the speaker on theplatform called out: "Come out of that!When we want you to beg us off we'lllet you know."

Wilderton spun round to him.

"You're all wonderful!" he began, but ahymn-book hit him fearfully on theforehead, and he sank down into thebottom of the pulpit. This last blow,coming on the top of so many others,had deprived him of intelligentconsciousness; he was but vaguelyaware of more speeches, cheers, andtramplings, then of a long hush, andpresently found himself walking out ofthe chapel door between Rudstock anda policeman. It was not the door bywhich they had entered, and led to anempty courtyard.

"Can you walk " said the policeman.

Wilderton nodded.

"Then walk off!" said the policeman,and withdrew again into the house ofGod.

They walked, holding each other's arms,a little unsteadily at first. Rudstock hada black eye and a cut on his ear, theblood from which had stained hiscollar and matted his beard. Wilderton'scoat was torn, his forehead bruised, hischeek swollen, and he had a pain in hisback which prevented him fromwalking very upright. They did notspeak, but in an archway did what theycould with pins and handkerchiefs, andby turning up Rudstock's coat collar, to

regain something of respectability.When they were once more under wayRudstock said coldly:

"I heard you. You should have spokenfor yourself. I came, as you know,because I don't believe in opposingforce by force. At the next peacemeeting we hold I shall make thatplainer."

Wilderton murmured:

"Yes, yes; I saw you I'm sure you will. Iapologise; I was carried away."

Rudstock went on in a deep voice:

"As for those young devils, they maydie to a man if they like! Take myadvice and let them alone."

Wilderton smiled on the side whichwas not swollen.

"Yes," he said sadly, "it does seemdifficult to persuade them to go onliving. Ah, well!"

"Ah, well!" he said again, five minuteslater, "they're wonderful poor youngbeggars! I'm very unhappy, Rudstock!"

"I'm not," said Rudstock, "I've enjoyedit in a way! Good-night!"

They shook hands, screwing up theirmouths with pain, for their fists werebadly bruised, and parted, Rudstockgoing to the North, Wilderton to theWest.

1917.

IX

"THE DOG IT WAS THAT DIED"

Until the great war was over I had noidea that some of us who stayed athome made the great sacrifice.

My friend Harburn is, or rather was, aNorthumbrian, or some kind ofNortherner, a stocky man of perhapsfifty, with close-clipped grizzled hairand moustache, and a deep-colouredface. He was a neighbour of mine inthe country, and we had the same kindof dogs Airedales, never less than threeat a time, so that for breeding purposeswe were useful to each other. We often,too, went up to Town by the same train.His occupation was one which gavehim opportunity of prominence inpublic life, but until the war he tooklittle advantage of this, sunk in a kindof bluff indifferentism which wasalmost cynical. I used to look on him asa typically good-natured blunt

Englishman, rather enjoying hiscynicism, and appreciating his open-airtendencies for he was a devotee of golf,and fond of shooting when he had thechance; a good companion, too, withan open hand to people in distress. Hewas unmarried, and dwelled in abungalow-like house not far frommine, and next door to a Germanfamily called Holsteig, who had lived inEngland nearly twenty years. I knewthem pretty well also a very united trio,father, mother, and one son. The father,who came from Hanover, wassomething in the City, the mother wasScotch, and the son the one I knewbest and liked most had just left hispublic school. This youth had a frank,

open, blue-eyed face, and thick lighthair brushed back without a parting avery attractive, slightly Norwegian-looking type. His mother was devotedto him; she was a real West Highlander,slight, with dark hair going grey, highcheekbones, a sweet but rather ironicalsmile, and those grey eyes which havesecond sight in them. I several timesmet Harburn at their house, for hewould go in to play billiards withHolsteig in the evenings, and the wholefamily were on very friendly terms withhim.

The third morning after we haddeclared war on Germany Harburn,Holsteig, and I went up to Town in the

same carriage. Harburn and I talkedfreely. But Holsteig, a fair, well-set-upman of about fifty, with a pointedbeard and blue eyes like his son, satimmersed in his paper till Harburn saidsuddenly:

"I say, Holsteig, is it true that your boywas going off to join the German army"

Holsteig looked up.

"Yes," he said. "He was born inGermany; he's liable to military service.But thank heaven, it isn't possible forhim to go."

"But his mother " said Harburn. "Shesurely wouldn't have let him "

"She was very miserable, of course, butshe thought duty came first."

"Duty! Good God! my dear man! HalfBritish, and living in this country all hislife! I never heard of such a thing!"Holsteig shrugged his shoulders.

"In a crisis like this, what can you doexcept follow the law strictly He is ofmilitary age and a German subject. Wewere thinking of his honour; but ofcourse we're most thankful he can't getover to Germany."

"Well, I'm damned!" said Harburn."You Germans are too ballyconscientious altogether."

Holsteig did not answer.

I travelled back with Harburn the sameevening, and he said to me:

"Once a German, always a German.Didn't that chap Holsteig astonish youthis morning In spite of living here solong and marrying a British wife, hissympathies are dead German, you see."

"Well," I replied; "put yourself in hisplace."

"I can't; I could never have lived inGermany. I wonder," he addedreflectively, "I wonder if the chap's allright, Cumbermere "

"Of course he's all right." Which wasthe wrong thing to say to Harburn ifone wanted to re-establish hisconfidence in the Holsteigs, as Icertainly did, for I liked them and wassure of their good faith. If I had said:"Of course he's a spy" I should haverallied all Harburn's confidence inHolsteig, for he was naturallycontradictious.

I only mention this little passage toshow how early Harburn's thoughts

began to turn to the subject whichafterwards completely absorbed andinspired him till he died for his country.

I am not sure what paper first took upthe question of interning all the Huns;but I fancy the point was raisedoriginally rather from the instinct,deeply implanted in so many journals,for what would please the public, thanout of any deep animus. At all events Iremember meeting a sub-editor, whotold me he had been opening letters ofapproval all the morning. "Never," saidhe, "have we had a stunt catch on soquickly. 'Why should that bally Germanround the corner get my custom ' andso forth. Britain for the British!"

"Rather bad luck," I said, "on peoplewho've paid us the compliment offinding this the best country to live in!"

"Bad luck, no doubt," he replied, "maisla guerre c'est la guerre. You knowHarburn, don't you Did you see thearticle he wrote By Jove, he pitched itstrong."

When next I met Harburn himself, hebegan talking on this subject at once.

"Mark my words, Cumbermere, I'll haveevery German out of this country." Hisgrey eyes seemed to glint with the snapand spark as of steel and flint and

tinder; and I felt I was in the presenceof a man who had brooded so over theGerman atrocities in Belgium that hewas possessed by a sort of abstracthate.

"Of course," I said, "there have beenmany spies, but "

"Spies and ruffians," he cried, "thewhole lot of them."

"How many Germans do you knowpersonally " I asked him.

"Thank God! Not a dozen."

"And are they spies and ruffians "

He looked at me and laughed, but thatlaugh was uncommonly like a snarl.

"You go in for 'fairness,'" he said; "andall that slop; take 'em by the throat it'sthe only way."

It trembled on the tip of my tongue toask him whether he meant to take theHolsteigs by the throat, but Iswallowed it, for fear of doing them aninjury. I was feeling much the samegeneral abhorrence myself, and had tohold myself in all the time for fear itshould gallop over my commonsense.But Harburn, I could see, was giving itfull rein. His whole manner and

personality somehow had changed. Hehad lost geniality, and that good-humoured cynicism which had madehim an attractive companion; he was asif gnawed at inwardly in a word, healready had a fixed idea.

Now, a cartoonist like myself has got tobe interested in the psychology of menand things, and I brooded overHarburn, for it seemed to meremarkable that one whom I had alwaysassociated with good humour andbluff indifference should be thusobsessed. And I formed this theoryabout him: 'Here' I said to myself 'isone of Cromwell's Ironsides, born outof his age. In the slack times of peace

he discovered no outlet for the grimwithin him his fire could never belighted by love, therefore he drifted inthe waters of indifferentism. Nowsuddenly in this grizzly time he hasfound himself, a new man, girt andarmed by this new passion of hate;stung and uplifted, as it were, by thesight of that which he can smite with awhole heart. It's deeply interesting' Isaid to myself 'Who could havedreamed of such a reincarnation; forwhat on the surface could possibly beless alike than an 'Ironside,' andHarburn as I've known him up to now' And I used his face for the basis of acartoon which represented a humanweather-vane continually pointing to

the East, no matter from what quarterthe wind blew. He recognised himself,and laughed when he saw me ratherpleased, in fact, but in that laugh therewas a sort of truculence, as if the manhad the salt taste of blood at the backof his mouth.

"Ah!" he said, "you may joke about it,but I've got my teeth into them all right.The swine!"

And there was no doubt he had theman had become a force; unhappyGermans, a few of them spies, nodoubt, but the great majority ascertainly innocent, were beingwrenched from their trades and

families, and piled into internmentcamps all day and every day. And thefaster they were piled in, the highergrew his stock, as a servant of hiscountry. I'm sure he did not do it togain credit; the thing was a crusade tohim, something sacred 'his bit'; but Ibelieve he also felt for the first time inhis life that he was really living, gettingout of life the full of its juice. Was henot smiting hip and thigh He longed, Iam sure, to be in the thick of the actualfighting, but age debarred him, and hewas not of that more sensitive typewhich shrinks from smiting thedefenceless if it cannot smite anythingstronger. I remember saying to himonce:

"Harburn, do you ever think of thewomen and children of your victims "

He drew his lips back, and I saw howexcellent his teeth were.

"The women are worse than the men, Ibelieve," he said. "I'd put them in, too,if I could. As for the children, they'reall the better for being without fathersof that kidney."

He really was a little mad on thesubject; no more so, of course, thanany other man with a fixed idea, butcertainly no less.

In those days I was here, there, andeverywhere, and had let my countrycottage, so I saw nothing of theHolsteigs, and indeed had pretty wellforgotten their existence. But comingback at the end of 1917 from a longspell with the Red Cross I foundamong my letters one from Mrs.Holsteig:

"Dear Mr. Cumbermere,

You were always so friendly to us that Ihave summoned up courage to writethis letter. You know perhaps that myhusband was interned over a year ago,and repatriated last September; he haslost everything, of course; but so far he

is well and able to get along inGermany. Harold and I have beenjogging on here as best we can on myown little income 'Huns in our midst'as we are, we see practically nobody.What a pity we cannot all look intoeach other's hearts, isn't it I used tothink we were a 'fair-play' people, but Ihave learned the bitter truth that thereis no such thing when pressure comes.It's much worse for Harold than forme; he feels his paralysed positionintensely, and would, I'm sure, reallyrather be 'doing his bit' as an interned,than be at large, subject to everyone'ssuspicion and scorn. But I am terrifiedall the time that they will intern him.You used to be intimate with Mr.

Harburn. We have not seen him sincethe first autumn of the war, but weknow that he has been very active in theagitation, and is very powerful in thismatter. I have wondered whether he canpossibly realise what this indiscriminateinternment of the innocent means tothe families of the interned. Could younot find a chance to try and make himunderstand If he and a few others wereto stop hounding on the government, itwould cease, for the authorities mustknow perfectly well that all thedangerous have been disposed of longago. You have no notion how lonelyone feels in one's native land nowadays;if I should lose Harold too I think Imight go under, though that has never

been my habit.

Believe me, dear Mr. Cumbermere,Most truly yours HELENHOLSTEIG."

On receiving this letter I was moved bycompassion, for it required no stretchof imagination to picture the life ofthat lonely British mother and her son;and I thought very carefully over theadvisability of speaking to Harburn,and consulted the proverbs: "Speech issilver, but Silence is golden When indoubt play trumps." "Second thoughtsare best He who hesitates is lost."

"Look before you leap Delays aredangerous." They balanced so perfectlythat I had recourse to Commonsense,which told me to abstain. But meetingHarburn at the Club a few days laterand finding him in a genial mood, I letimpulse prevail, and said:

"By the way, Harburn, you rememberthe Holsteigs I had a letter from poorMrs. Holsteig the other day; she seemsterrified that they'll intern her son, thatparticularly nice boy. Don't you thinkit's time you let up on these unhappypeople "

The moment I reached the wordHolsteig I saw I had made a mistake,

and only went on because to havestopped at that would have been worsestill. The hair had bristled up on hisback, as it were, and he said:

"Holsteig That young pup who was offto join the German army if he couldBy George, is he at large still ThisGovernment will never learn. I'llremember him."

"Harburn," I stammered, "I spoke ofthis in confidence. The boy is halfBritish, and a friend of mine. I thoughthe was a friend of yours too."

"Of mine " he said. "No thank you. Nomongrels for me. As to confidence,

Cumbermere, there's no such thing inwar time over what concerns thecountry's safety."

"Good God!" I exclaimed. "You reallyare crazy on this subject. That boy withhis bringing-up!"

He grinned. "We're taking no risks," hesaid, "and making no exceptions. TheBritish army or an internment camp. I'llsee that he gets the alternatives."

"If you do," I said, rising, "we cease tobe friends. I won't have my confidenceabused."

"Oh! Hang it all!" he grumbled; "sit

down! We must all do our duty."

"You once complained to Holsteighimself of that German peculiarity."

He laughed. "I did," he said; "Iremember in the train. I've changedsince then. That pup ought to be inwith all the other swine-hounds. But letit go."

There the matter rested, for he had said:"Let it go," and he was a man of hisword. It was, however, a lesson to menot to meddle with men oftemperament so different from myown. I wrote to young Holsteig andasked him to come and lunch with me.

He thanked me, but could not, ofcourse, being confined to a five-mileradius. Really anxious to see him, Imotorbiked down to their house. Ifound a very changed youth; moodyand introspective, thoroughly forced inupon himself, and growing bitter. Hehad been destined for his father'sbusiness, and, marooned as he was byhis nationality, had nothing to do butraise vegetables in their garden and readpoetry and philosophy not occupationsto take a young man out of himself.Mrs. Holsteig, whose nerves wereevidently at cracking point, had becomeextremely bitter, and lost all power ofseeing the war as a whole. All the uglyhuman qualities and hard people which

the drive and pressure of a greatstruggle inevitably bring to the topseemed viewed by her now as if theywere the normal character of her fellowcountrymen, and she made noallowance for the fact that those fellowcountrymen had not commenced thisstruggle, nor for the certainty that thesame ugly qualities and hard peoplewere just as surely to the fore in everyother of the fighting countries. Thecertainty she felt about her husband'shonour had made her regard hisinternment and subsequent repatriationas a personal affront, as well as awicked injustice. Her tall thin figureand high-cheekboned face seemed tohave been scorched and withered by

some inner flame; she could not havebeen a wholesome companion for herboy in that house, empty even ofservants. I spent a difficult afternoon inmuzzling my sense of proportion, andjourneyed back to Town sore, but verysorry.

I was off again with the Red Crossshortly after, and did not return toEngland till August of 1918. I wasunwell, and went down to my cottage,now free to me again. The influenzaepidemic was raging, and there Ideveloped a mild attack; when I wasconvalescent my first visitor wasHarburn, who had come down to hisbungalow for a summer holiday. He

had not been in the room five minutesbefore he was off on his favouritetopic. My nerves must have been onedge from illness, for I cannot expressthe disgust with which I listened to himon that occasion. He seemed to me justlike a dog who mumbles and chews amouldy old bone with a sort of fury.There was a kind of triumph abouthim, too, which was unpleasant, thoughnot surprising, for he was more of a'force' than ever. 'God save me from thefixed idea!' I thought, when he wasgone. That evening I asked my oldhousekeeper if she had seen young Mr.Holsteig lately.

"Oh! no," she said; "he's been put away

this five month. Mrs. 'Olsteig goes uponce a week to see 'im, 'Olsteig. She'snigh out of her mind, poor lady thebaker says; that fierce she is about theGover'ment."

I confess I could not bring myself togo and see her.

About a month after the armistice hadbeen signed I came down to my cottageagain. Harburn was in the same train,and he gave me a lift from the station.He was more like his old good-humoured self, and asked me to dinnerthe next day. It was the first time I hadmet him since the victory. We had amost excellent repast, and drank the

health of the Future in some of hisoldest port. Only when we had drawnup to the blazing wood fire in thatsoftly lighted room, with our glassesbeside us and two Airedales asleep atour feet, did he come round to hishobby.

"What do you think " he said, suddenlyleaning towards the flames, "some ofthese blazing sentimentalists want torelease our Huns. But I've put my footon it; they won't get free till they're outof this country and back in theirprecious Germany." And I saw thefamiliar spark and smoulder in his eyes.

"Harburn," I said, moved by an

impulse which I couldn't resist, "I thinkyou ought to take a pill."

He stared at me.

"This way madness lies," I went on."Hate is a damned insidious disease;men's souls can't stand very much of itwithout going pop. You want purging."

He laughed.

"Hate! I thrive on it. The more I hatethe brutes, the better I feel. Here's tothe death of every cursed Hun!"

I looked at him steadily. "I often think,"I said, "that there could have been no

more unhappy men on earth thanCromwell's Ironsides, or the redrevolutionaries in France, when theirwork was over and done with."

"What's that to do with me " he said,amazed.

"They too smote out of sheer hate, andcame to an end of their smiting. Whena man's occupation's gone "

"You're drivelling!" he said sharply.

"Far from it," I answered, nettled."Yours is a curious case, Harburn. Mostof our professional Hun-haters havefound it a good stunt, or are merely

weak sentimentalists; they can drop iteasily enough when it ceases to be agood stunt, or a parrot's war-cry. Youcan't; with you it's mania, religion.When the tide ebbs and leaves you highand dry "

He struck his fist on the arm of hischair, upsetting his glass and awakeningthe Airedale at his feet.

"I won't let it ebb," he said; "I'm goingon with this Mark me!"

"Remember Canute!" I muttered. "MayI have some more port " I had got upto fill my glass when I saw to myastonishment that a woman was

standing in the long window whichopened on to the verandah. She hadevidently only just come in, for she wasstill holding the curtain in her hand. Itwas Mrs. Holsteig, with her fine greyhair blown about her face, lookingstrange and almost ghostly in a greygown. Harburn had not seen her, so Iwent quickly towards her, hoping to gether to go out again as silently, andspeak to me on the verandah; but sheheld up her hand with a gesture as ifshe would push me back, and said:

"Forgive my interrupting; I came tospeak to that man."

Startled by the sound of her voice,

Harburn jumped up and spun roundtowards it.

"Yes," she repeated quite quietly; "Icame to speak to you; I came to put mycurse on you. Many have put theircurses on you silently; I do so to yourface. My son lies between life and deathin your prison your prison. Whether helives or dies I curse you for what youhave done to poor wives and mothersto British wives and mothers. Be forever accursed! Good-night!"

She let the curtain fall, and hadvanished before Harburn had time toreach the window. She vanished soswiftly and silently, she had spoken so

quietly, that both he and I stoodrubbing our eyes and ears.

"A bit theatrical!" he said at last.

"Perhaps," I answered slowly; "but youhave been cursed by a live Scotswoman.Look at those dogs!"

The two Airedales were standing stock-still with the hair bristling on theirbacks.

Harburn suddenly laughed, and itjarred the whole room.

"By George!" he said, "I believe that'sactionable."

But I was not in that mood, and saidtartly:

"If it is, we are all food for judges."

He laughed again, this time uneasily,slammed the window to, bolted it, andsat down again in his chair.

"He's got the 'flue,' I suppose," he said."She must think me a prize sort ofidiot to have come here with suchtomfoolery."

But our evening was spoiled, and Itook my leave almost at once. I wentout into the roupy raw December night

pondering deeply. Harburn had madelight of it, and though I suppose noman likes being cursed to his face in thepresence of a friend, I felt his skin wasquite thick enough to stand it. Besides,it was too cheap and crude a way ofcarrying on. Anybody can go into hisneighbour's house and curse him andno bones broken. And yet what shehad said was no doubt true; hundredsof women of his fellowcountrywomen must silently have puttheir curse on one who had been thechief compeller of their misery. Still, hehad put his curse on the Huns and theirbelongings, and I felt he was manenough to take what he had given. 'No,'I thought, 'she has only fanned the

flame of his hate. But, by Jove! that'sjust it! Her curse has fortified myprophecy!' It was of his own state ofmind that he would perish; and she hadwhipped and deepened that state ofmind. And, odd as it may seem, I feltquite sorry for him, as one is for a poordog that goes mad, does what harm hecan, and dies. I lay awake that night along time thinking of him, and of thatunhappy, half-crazed mother, whoseson lay between life and death.

Next day I went to see her, but she wasup in London, hovering round the cageof her son, no doubt. I heard from her,however, some days later, thanking mefor coming, and saying he was out of

danger. But she made no allusion tothat evening visit. Perhaps she wasashamed of it. Perhaps she wasdemented when she came, and had noremembrance thereof.

Soon after this I went to Belgium toillustrate a book on Reconstruction,and found such subjects that I was notback in Town till the late summer of1919. Going into my Club one day Icame on Harburn in the smoking-room. The curse had not done himmuch harm, it seemed, for he lookedthe picture of health.

"Well, how are you " I said. "You lookat the top of your form."

"Never better," he replied.

"Do you remember our last eveningtogether "

He uttered a sort of gusty grunt, anddid not answer.

"That boy recovered," I said. "What'shappened to him and his mother, since"

"The ironical young brute! I've just hadthis from him." And he handed me aletter with the Hanover post mark.

"Dear Mr. Harburn,

It was only on meeting my mother hereyesterday that I learned of her visit toyou one evening last December. I wishto apologise for it, since it was myillness which caused her to so forgetherself. I owe you a deep debt ofgratitude for having been at least partmeans of giving me the mostwonderful experience of my life. In thatcamp of sorrow where there wassickness of mind and body such as Iam sure you have never seen or realised,such endless hopeless mental anguishof poor huddled creatures turning andturning on themselves year after year Ilearned to forget myself, and to do mylittle best for them. And I learned, and

I hope I shall never forget it, thatfeeling for one's fellow creatures is allthat stands between man and death; Iwas going fast the other way before Iwas sent there. I thank you from myheart, and beg to remain,

Very faithfully yours HAROLDHOLSTEIG."

I put it down, and said:

"That's not ironical. He means it."

"Bosh!" said Harburn, with the oldspark and smoulder in his eyes. "He's

pulling my leg the swinelet Hun!"

"He is not, Harburn; I assure you."

Harburn got up. "He is; I tell you he is.Ah! Those brutes! Well! I haven't donewith them yet."

And I heard the snap of his jaw, andsaw his eyes fixed fiercely on someimaginary object. I changed the subjecthurriedly, and soon took my departure.But going down the steps, an old jinglecame into my head, and has hardly leftit since:

"The man recovered from the bite, Thedog it was that died."

1919.

X

IN HEAVEN AND EARTH

We were yarning after dinner, and,whether because three of us werefishermen, or simply that we were allEnglish, our yarns were taking acompetitive turn. The queerest thingseen during the War was the subject ofour tongues, and it was not till afterseveral tit-bits had been digested thatMallinson, the painter, ill and ironical,

blue-eyed, and with a fair pointedbeard, took his pipe out of his mouth,and said:

"Well, you chaps, what I saw last weekdown in Kent takes some beating. I'dbeen sketching in a hay-field, and wasjust making back along the top hedgeto the lane when I heard a sound fromthe other side like a man's crying. I putmy eye to a gap, and there, about threeyards in, was a grey-haired bloke in aNorfolk jacket and flannel trousers,digging like a fiend, and crying like ababy blowing, and gasping andsobbing, tears and sweat rolling downinto his beard like rivers. He'd plungehis pick in, scratch, and shovel, and

hack at the roots as if for dear life hewas making the hole too close to thehedge, of course and all the timecarrying on like that. I thought he mustbe digging his own grave at least.Suddenly he put his pick down, andthere just under the hedge I saw a deadbrown dog, lying on its side, all limp. Inever see a dead animal myself, youknow, without a bit of a choke; they'reso soft, and lissom; the peace, and thepity a sort of look of: "Why why whenI was so alive " Well, this elderly Johnnytook a good squint at it, to see if thehole was big enough, then off he wentagain, sobbing and digging like a fiend.It was really a bit too weird, and Imouched off. But when I'd gone about

half a mile, I got an attack of the want-to-knows, came back, and sneakedalong the hedge. There he was still, buthe had finished, and was having a mopround, and putting the last touches to aheap of stones. I strolled up, and said:

'Hot work, Sir, digging, this weather!'

He was a good-looking old grey-beard,with an intellectual face, high foreheadand all that.

'I'm not used to it,' he said, looking athis blisters.

'Been burying a dog Horrid job that!favourite, I'm afraid.'

He seemed in two minds whether toshut me up and move off, but hedidn't.

'Yes,' he said; 'it's cut me up horribly. Inever condemned a creature to deathbefore. And dogs seem to know.'

'Ah! They're pretty uncanny,' I said, forI wasn't going to let on, of course, thatI had seen him.

'I wouldn't have done it but for theWar,' he muttered; 'but she stole eggs,poor thing; you couldn't break her ofit. She ate three times as much as anyother dog, too, and in spite of it was

always a perfect skeleton somethingwrong inside. The sort of dog, youknow, no one would take, or treatdecently if they did. Bad habits ofevery kind, poor dear. I bought herbecause she was being starved. But shetrusted me, that's why I feel so like amurderer. When the Vet and I were inthe yard discussing her, she knew therewas something wrong she kept lookingat my face. I very nearly went back on it;only, having got him out on purpose, Iwas ashamed to. We brought her downhere, and on the way she found theremains of a rabbit about a week oldthat was one of her accomplishmentsbringing me the most fearful offal. Shebrought it up wagging her tail as much

as to say: 'See I am some use!' The Vettied her up here and took his gun; shewagged her tail at that, too; and I ranaway. When the shot came, my ownlittle spaniel fawned on me they areuncanny licked me all over, never wasso gushing, seemed saying: 'What awfulpower you have! I do love you! Youwouldn't do that to me, would youWe've got rid of that other one,though!' When I came back here tobury the poor thing, and saw her lyingon her side so still, I made a real foolof myself. I was patting her an hourago, talking to her as if she were ahuman being. Judas!'"

Mallinson put his pipe back into his

mouth. "Just think of it!" he said: "Thesame creatures who are blowing eachother to little bits all the time, bombingbabies, roasting fellow creatures in theair and cheering while they roast,working day and night to inflict everyimaginable kind of horror on othermen exactly like themselves these samechaps are capable of feeling like thatabout shooting a wretched ill cur of adog, no good to anybody. There aremore things in Heaven and Earth !"And he relit his pipe, which had goneout.

His yarn took the prize.

1917.

XI

THE MOTHER STONE

It was after dinner, and five elderlyEnglishmen were discussing the causesof the war.

"Well," said Travers, a big, fresh-coloured grey-beard, with littletwinkling eyes and very slow speech,"you gentlemen know more about itthan I do, but I bet you I can lay myfinger on the cause of the war at anyminute."

There was an instant clamour ofjeering. But a man called Askew, whoknew Travers well, laughed and said:"Come, let's have it!" Travers turnedthose twinkling little eyes of his slowlyround the circle, and with heavy,hesitating modesty began:

"Well, Mr. Askew, it was in '67 or '68that this happened to a great big fellerof my acquaintance named Ray one ofthose fellers, you know, that are alwayson the look-out to make their fortunesand never do. This Ray was comingback south one day after a huntin' triphe'd been in what's now calledBechuanaland, and he was in a pretty

bad way when he walked one evenin'into the camp of one of thosewanderin' Boers. That class of Boer hasdisappeared now. They had no farmsof their own, but just moved on withtheir stock and their boys; and whenthey came to good pasture they'doutspan and stay there till they'd clearedit out and then trek on again. Well, thisold Boer told Ray to come right in, andtake a meal; and heaven knows what itwas made of, for those old Boers,they'd eat the devil himself withoutonion sauce, and relish him. After themeal the old Boer and Ray sat smokin'and yarnin' in the door of the tent,because in those days these wanderin'Boers used tents. Right close by in the

front, the children were playin' in thedust, a game like marbles, with three orfour round stones, and they'd pitch 'emup to another stone they called theMoer-Klip, or Mother-stone one, two,and pick up two, three, and pick up youknow the game of marbles. Well, thesun was settin' and presently Raynoticed this Moer-Klip that they werepitchin' 'em up to, shinin'; and helooked at it, and he said to the oldBoer: 'What's that stone the children areplayin' with ' And the old Boer lookedat him and looked at the stone, andsaid: 'It's just a stone,' and went onsmokin'.

"Well, Ray went down on his knees and

picked up the stone, and weighed it inhis hand. About the size of a hazel-nutit was, and looked well, it looked like apiece of alum; but the more he lookedat it, the more he thought: 'By Jove, Ibelieve it's a diamond!'

"So he said to the old Boer: 'Where didthe children get this stone ' And the oldBoer said: 'Oh! the shepherd picked itup somewhere.' And Ray said: 'Wheredid he pick it up ' And the old Boerwaved his hand, and said: 'Over theKopje, there, beyond the river. Howshould I know, brother a stone is astone!' So Ray said: 'You let me take thisstone away with me!' And the old Boerwent on smokin', and he said: 'One

stone's the same as another. Take it,brother!' And Ray said: 'If it's what Ithink, I'll give you half the price I getfor it.'

"The old Boer smiled, and said: 'That'sall right, brother; take it, take it!'

"The next morning Ray left this oldBoer, and, when he was going, he saidto him: 'Well,' he said, 'I believe this is avaluable stone!' and the old Boer smiledbecause he knew one stone was thesame as another.

"The first place Ray came to was C ,and he went to the hotel; and in theevenin' he began talkin' about the

stone, and they all laughed at him,because in those days nobody hadheard of diamonds in South Africa. Sopresently he lost his temper, and pulledout the stone and showed it round; butnobody thought it was a diamond, andthey all laughed at him the more. Thenone of the fellers said: 'If it's adiamond, it ought to cut glass.'

"Ray took the stone, and, by Jove, hecut his name on the window, and thereit is I've seen it on the bar window ofthat hotel. Well, next day, you bet, hetravelled straight back to where the oldBoer told him the shepherd had pickedup the stone, and he went to a nativechief called Jointje, and said to him:

'Jointje,' he said, 'I go a journey. While Igo, you go about and send all your"boys" about, and look for all thestones that shine like this one; andwhen I come back, if you find meplenty, I give you gun.' And Jointje said:'That all right, Boss.'

"And Ray went down to Cape Town,and took the stone to a jeweller, and thejeweller told him it was a diamond ofabout 30 or 40 carats, and gave him fivehundred pound for it. So he bought awaggon and a span of oxen to give tothe old Boer, and went back to Jointje.The niggers had collected skinfuls ofstones of all kinds, and out of all theskinfuls Ray found three or four

diamonds. So he went to work and gotanother feller to back him, and betweenthem they made the Government move.The rush began, and they found thatplace near Kimberley; and after thatthey found De Beers, and after thatKimberley itself."

Travers stopped, and looked aroundhim.

"Ray made his fortune, I suppose "

"No, Mr. Askew; the unfortunate fellermade next to nothin'. He was one ofthose fellers that never do any good forthemselves."

"But what has all this to do with thewar "

Again Travers looked round, and moreslowly than ever, said:

"Without that game of marbles, wouldthere have been a Moer-Klip withoutthe Moer-Klip, would there have been aKimberley without Kimberley, wouldthere have been a Rhodes without aRhodes, would there have been a Raidwithout a Raid, would the Boers havestarted armin' if the Boers hadn'tarmed, would there have been aTransvaal War And if there hadn't beenthe Transvaal War, would there havebeen the incident of those two German

ships we held up; and all the generalfeelin' in Germany that gave the Kaiserthe chance to start his Navyprogramme in 1900 And if theGermans hadn't built their Navy, wouldtheir heads have swelled till theychallenged the world, and should wehave had this war "

He slowly drew a hand from hispocket, and put it on the table. On thelittle finger was blazing an enormousdiamond.

"My father," he said, "bought it of thejeweller."

The mother-stone glittered and glowed,

and the five Englishmen fixed their eyeson it in silence. Some of them had beenin the Boer War, and three of them hadsons in this. At last one of them said:

"Well, that's seeing God in a dew-dropwith a vengeance. What about the oldBoer "

Travers's little eyes twinkled.

"Well," he said, "Ray told me the oldfeller just looked at him as if hethought he'd done a damn silly thing togive him a waggon; and he nodded hisold head, and said, laughin' in hisbeard: 'Wish you good luck, brother,with your stone.' You couldn't humbug

that old Boer; he knew one stone wasthe same as another."

1914.

XII

POIROT AND BIDAN

A RECOLLECTION

Coming one dark December eveningout of the hospital courtyard into thecorridor which led to my littleworkroom, I was conscious of twonew arrivals. There were several men

round the stove, but these two weresitting apart on a bench close to mydoor. We used to get men in all stagesof decrepitude, but I had never seentwo who looked so completely underthe weather. They were the extremes inage, in colouring, in figure, ineverything; and they sat there, notspeaking, with every appearance ofapathy and exhaustion. The one was aboy, perhaps nineteen, with a sunken,hairless, grey-white face under hispeaked cap never surely was face sogrey! He sat with his long grey-blueovercoat open at the knees, and hislong emaciated hands nervouslyrubbing each other between them.Intensely forlorn he looked, and I

remember thinking: "That boy's dying!"This was Bidan.

The other's face, in just the glimpse Ihad of it, was as if carved out ofwood, except for that something yousee behind the masks of drivenbullocks, deeply resentful. His cap wasoff, and one saw he was grey-haired; hischeeks, stretched over cheekbones solidas door-handles, were a purplish-red,his grey moustache was damp, his lightblue eyes stared like a codfish's. Hereminded me queerly of those Parisiancochers one still sees under their shininghats, wearing an expression of beingyour enemy. His short stocky figure wasdumped stolidly as if he meant never to

move again; on his thick legs and feethe wore mufflings of cloth boot, intowhich his patched and stained grey-blue trousers were tucked. One of hisgloved hands was stretched out stiff onhis knee. This was Poirot.

Two more dissimilar creatures werenever blown together into our haven.So far as I remember, they had bothbeen in hospital about six months, andtheir ailments were, roughly speaking,Youth and Age. Bidan had not finishedhis training when his weak constitutiongave way under it; Poirot was aTerritorial who had dug behind theFront till rheumatism claimed him forits own. Bidan, who had fair hair and

rather beautiful brown eyes over whichthe lids could hardly keep up, camefrom Aix-en-Provence, in the verysouth; Poirot from Nancy, in thenortheast. I made their acquaintancethe next morning.

The cleaning of old Poirot took,literally speaking, days to accomplish.Such an encrusted case we had neverseen; nor was it possible to go,otherwise than slowly, against hisprejudices. One who, unless takenexactly the right way, consideredeveryone leagued with Nature to get thebetter of him, he had reached that statewhen the soul sticks its toes in andrefuses to budge. A coachman in civil

life a socialist, a freethinker, a wit, hewas the apex of shall we saydetermination. His moral being wasencrusted with perversity, as his poorhands and feet with dirt. Oil was theonly thing for him, and I, for one, usedoil on him morally and physically, formonths. He was a "character!" His lefthand which he was never tired ofsaying the "majors" had ruined ("Ah! lescochons!") by leaving it alone was stiff inall its joints, so that the fingers wouldnot bend; and the little finger of theright hand, "le petit," "le coquin,""l'empereur," as he would severally call it,was embellished by chalky excrescences.The old fellow had that peculiarartfulness which comes from life-long

dealing with horses, and he knewexactly how far and how quickly it wasadvisable for him to mend in health.About the third day he made up hismind that he wished to remain with usat least until the warm weather came.For that it would be necessary heconcluded to make a cheering amountof progress, but not too much. Andthis he set himself to do. He wasconvinced, one could see, that afterPeace had been declared andcompensation assured him, he wouldrecover the use of his hand, even if"l'empereur" remained stiff and chalky.As a matter of fact, I think he wasmistaken, and will never have a suppleleft hand again. But his arms were so

brawny, his constitution so vigorous,and his legs improved so rapidly underthe necessity of taking him down intothe little town for his glass, of anafternoon, that one felt he mightpossibly be digging again sooner thanhe intended.

"Ah, les cochons!" he would say; "whileone finger does not move, they shallpay me!" He was very bitter against all"majors" save one, who it seemed hadactually sympathised with him, and alldeputes, who for him constituted thepowers of darkness, drawing theirsalaries, and sitting in their chairs. ("Ah!les chameaux!")

Though he was several years youngerthan oneself, one always thought ofhim as "Old Poirot" indeed, he wassoon called "le grand-pere," though nomore confirmed bachelor everinhabited the world. He was a regular"Miller of Dee," caring for nobody;and yet he was likeable, that humorousold stoic, who suffered from gall-stones, and bore horrible bouts of painlike a hero. In spite of all his disabilitieshis health and appearance soon becamerobust in our easy-going hospital,where no one was harried, the foodexcellent, and the air good. He wouldtell you that his father lived to eighty,and his grandfather to a hundred, both"strong men" though not so strong as

his old master, the squire, of whosefeats in the hunting-field he would givemost staggering accounts in an argotwhich could only be followed byinstinct. A great narrator, he woulddescribe at length life in the town ofNancy, where, when the War broke out,he was driving a market cart, anddistributing vegetables, which had madehim an authority on municipal reform.Though an incorrigible joker, hisstockfish countenance would remainperfectly grave, except for an occasionalhoarse chuckle. You would havethought he had no more power ofcompassion than a cat, no moresensibility than a Chinese idol; but thiswas not so. In his wooden, shrewd,

distrustful way he responded tosympathy, and was even sorry forothers. I used to like very much hisattitude to the young "stable-companion" who had arrived with him;he had no contempt, such as he mighteasily have felt for so weakly a creature,but rather a real indulgence towards hisfeebleness. "Ah!" he would say at first;"he won't make old bones that one!"But he seemed extremely pleased when,in a fortnight or so, he had to modifythat view, for Bidan (Prosper)prospered more rapidly even thanhimself. That grey look was out of theboy's face within three weeks. It waswonderful to watch him come back tolife, till at last he could say, with his

dreadful Provencal twang, that he felt"tres biang." A most amiable youth, hehad been a cook, and his chiefambition was to travel till he hadattained the summit of mortal hopes,and was cooking at the Ritz in London.When he came to us his limbs seemedalmost to have lost their joints, theywambled so. He had no muscle at all.Utter anaemia had hold of all his body,and all but a corner of his Frenchspirit. Round that unquenchable gleamof gaiety the rest of him slowly rallied.With proper food and air and freedom,he began to have a faint pink flush inhis china-white cheeks; his lids nolonger drooped, his limbs seemed toregain their joints, his hands ceased to

swell, he complained less and less ofthe pains about his heart. When, of amorning, he was finished with, and "legrand-pere" was having his hands done,they would engage in lively reparteeoblivious of one's presence. We beganto feel that this grey ghost of a youthhad been well named, after all, whenthey called him Prosper, so lyricalwould he wax over the constitution andcooking of "bouillabaisse," over theSouth, and the buildings of his nativeAix-en-Provence. In all France youcould not have found a greater contrastthan those two who had come to us sounder the weather; nor in all Francetwo better instances of the way mencan regain health of body and spirit in

the right surroundings.

We had a tremendous fall of snow thatwinter, and had to dig ourselves out ofit. Poirot and Bidan were of those whodug. It was amusing to watch them.Bidan dug easily, without afterthought."Le grand-pere" dug, with half an eye atleast on his future; in spite of thosestiff fingers he shifted a lot of snow,but he rested on his shovel wheneverhe thought you could see him for hewas full of human nature.

To see him and Bidan set off for towntogether! Bidan pale, and wambling alittle still, but gay, with a kind ofbirdlike detachment; "le grand-pere"

stocky, wooden, planting his huge feetrather wide apart and regarding hiscompanion, the frosted trees, and thewhole wide world, with his humorousstare.

Once, I regret to say, when spring wasbeginning to come, Bidan-Prosperreturned on "le grand-pere's" arm withthe utmost difficulty, owing to thepresence within him of a liquid calledClairette de Die, no amount of whichcould subdue "le grand-pere's" power ofplanting one foot before the other.Bidan-Prosper arrived hilarious,revealing to the world unsuspectedpassions; he awoke next morning sad,pale, penitent. Poirot, au contraire, was

morose the whole evening, and awokenext morning exactly the same as usual.In such different ways does the gift ofthe gods affect us.

They had their habits, so diverse, theirconstitutions, and their dreams alas! notyet realised. I know not where they maybe now; Bidan-Prosper cannot yet becooking at the Ritz in London town;but "grand-pere" Poirot may perchancebe distributing again his vegetables inthe streets of Nancy, driving his twogood little horses des gaillards with thereins hooked round "l'empereur." Goodfriends good luck!

XIII

THE MUFFLED SHIP

It was cold and grey, but the band onshore was playing, and the flags onshore were fluttering, and the longdouble-tiered wharf crowded withwelcomers in each of its open gaps,when our great ship slowly drewalongside, packed with cheering,chattering crowds of khaki figures,letting go all the pent-up excitement ofgetting home from the war. The air wasfull of songs and laughter, of cheers,and shouted questions, the hooting ofthe launches' sirens, the fluttering flags

and hands and handkerchiefs; and therewere faces of old women, and of girls,intent, expectant, and the white gullswere floating against the grey sky, whenour ship, listed slightly by thosethousands of figures straining towardsthe land which had bred them, gentlyslurred up against the high wharf, andwas made fast.

The landing went on till night had longfallen, and the band was gone. At lastthe chatter, the words of command, thesnatches of song, and that mostfavourite chorus: "Me! and my girl!"died away, and the wharf was silent andthe ship silent, and a wonderful cleardark beauty usurped the spaces of the

sky. By the light of the stars and a halfmoon the far harbour shores were justvisible, the huddled buildings on thenear shore, the spiring masts andfeathery appanage of ropes on themoored ship, and one blood-red lightabove the black water. The night had allthat breathless beauty which steeps thesoul in a quivering, quiet rapture....

Then it was that clearly, as if I had beena welcomer standing on land in one ofthe wharf gaps, I saw her come slow,slow, creeping up the narrow channel,in beside the wharf, a great grey silentship. At first I thought her utterlyempty, deserted, possessed only by thethick coiled cables forward, the huge

rusty anchors, the piled-up machineryof structure and funnel and mast,weird in the blue darkness. A lanternon the wharf cast a bobbing goldengleam deep into the oily water at herside. Gun-grey, perfectly mute, sheceased to move, coming to rest againstthe wharf. And then, with a shiver, Isaw that something clung round her, agrey film or emanation, which shiftedand hovered, like the invisible wings ofbirds in a thick mist. Gradually to mystraining eyes that filmy emanationgranulated, and became faces attachedto grey filmy forms, thousands onthousands, and every face bent towardsthe shore, staring, as it seemed, throughme, at all that was behind me. Slowly,

very slowly, I made them out faces ofhelmeted soldiers, bulky with the gearof battle, their arms outstretched, andthe lips of every one opened, so that Iexpected to hear the sound of cheering;but no sound came. Now I could seetheir eyes. They seemed to beseech likethe eyes of a little eager boy who askshis mother something she cannot tellhim; and their outstretched handsseemed trying to reach her, lovingly,desperately trying to reach her! Andthose opened lips, how terribly theyseemed trying to speak! "Mother!Mother Canada!" As if I had heard, Iknew they were saying those openedlips which could speak no more!"Mother! Mother Canada! Home!

Home!..."

And then away down the wharf someone chanted: "Me and my girl!" And,silent as she had come, the muffledship vanished in all her length, withthose grey forms and those mute faces;and I was standing again in the bowsbeside a huge hawser; below me thegolden gleam bobbing deep in the oilywater, and above me the cold start inbeauty shining.

XIV

HERITAGE

(AN IMPRESSION)

From that garden seat one could seethe old low house of pinkish brick,with a path of queer-shaped flagstonesrunning its length, and the tall greychapel from which came the hummingand chanting and organ drone of theConfirmation Service. But for that, andthe voices of two gardeners workingbelow us among the fruits and flowers,the July hush was complete. Andsuddenly one became aware of beingwatched.

That thin white windmill on the hill!

Away past the house, perhaps sixhundred yards, it stood, ghostly, with aface like that of a dark-eyed white owl,made by the crossing of its narrowsails. With a black companion a yew-tree cut to pyramid form, on the centralpoint of Sussex it was watching us, forthough one must presume it built ofold time by man, it looked up thereagainst the sky, with its owl's face andits cross, like a Christo-Pagan presence.

What exactly Paganism was we shallnever know; what exactly Christianismis, we are as little likely to discover; buthere and there the two principles seemto dwell together in amity. ForPaganism believed in the healthy and

joyful body; and Christianism in thesoul superior thereto. And, where wewere sitting that summer day, was thehome of bodies wrecked yet learningto be joyful, and of souls not above theprocess.

We moved from the grey-wood seat,and came on tiptoe to where house andchapel formed a courtyard. The doorswere open, and we stood unseen,listening. From the centre of a squarestone fountain a little bubble of watercame up, and niched along one highwall a number of white pigeons werepreening their feathers, silent, andalmost motionless, as though attendingto the Service.

The sheer emotion of church soundswill now and then steal away reasonfrom the unbeliever, and take himdrugged and dreaming. "Defend, OLord, this Thy child!...." So it came outto us in the dream and drowse ofsummer, which the little bubble ofwater cooled.

In his robes cardinal, and white, andviolet the good Bishop stood in fullsunlight, speaking to the crippled andthe air-raid children in their drilledrows under the shade of the doves'wall; and one felt far from this age, as ifone had strayed back into that timewhen the builders of the old house laid

slow brick on brick, wetting theirwhistles on mead, and knowing nottobacco.

And then, out by the chapel porchmoved three forms in blue, with redneckties, and we were again in this newage, watching the faces of thoselistening children. The good Bishopwas making them feel that he washappy in their presence, and that madethem happy in his. For the great thingabout life is the going-out offriendliness from being to being. Andif a place be beautiful, and friendlinessever on the peace-path there, whatmore can we desire And yet howironical this place of healing, this

beautiful "Heritage!" Verily a heritageof our modern civilisation whichmakes all this healing necessary! If lifewere the offspring of friendliness andbeauty's long companionship, therewould be no crippled children, no air-raid children, none of those goodfellows in blue with red ties andmaimed limbs; and the colony to whichthe Bishop spoke, standing grey-headedin the sun, would be dissolved.Friendliness seems so natural, beauty soappropriate to this earth! But in thistorn world they are as fugitives whonest together here and there. Yetstumbling by chance on their dove-cotes and fluttering happiness, onemakes a little golden note, which does

not fade off the tablet.

* * * * *

How entrancing it is to look at anumber of faces never seen before andhow exasperating! stamped coins oflives quite separate, quite different fromevery other; masks pallid, sunburned,smooth, or crumpled, to peep behindwhich one longs, as a lover looking forhis lady at carnival, or a man aching atsummer beauty which he cannot quitefathom and possess. If one had athousand lives, and time to know andsympathy to understand the heart ofevery creature met with, one wouldwant a million! May life make us all

intuitive, strip away self-consciousness,and give us sunshine and unknownfaces!

What were they all feeling and thinkingthose little cripples doing their drill oncrutches; those air-raid waifs swellingtheir Cockney chests, rising on theirtoes, puffing their cheeks out in anxietyto do their best; those soldiers in theirblue "slops," with a hand gone thereand a leg gone here, and this and thatgrievous disability, all carrying on socheerfully

Values are queer in this world. We areaccustomed to exalt those who can say"bo" to a goose; but that gift of

expression which twines a halo round alofty brow is no guarantee of goodnessin the wearer. The really good are thoseplucky folk who plod their silent, oftensuffering, generally exploited ways,from birth to death, out of reach ofthe music of man's praise.

The first thing each child cripple makeshere is a little symbolic ladder. Inmaking it he climbs a rung on the wayto his sky of self-support; and when atlast he leaves this home, he steps offthe top of it into the blue, and so theysay walks there upright andundismayed, as if he had never sufferedat Fate's hands. But what do he and shefor many are of the pleasant sex think

of the sky when they get there; thatdusty and smoke-laden sky of theindustrialism which begat them Howcan they breathe in it, coming from thisplace of flowers and fresh air, of cleanbright workshops and elegant huts,which they on crutches built forthemselves

Masters of British industry, and leadersof the men and women who slave tomake its wheels go round, make apilgrimage to this spot, and learn whatfoul disfigurement you have broughton the land of England these last fivegenerations! The natural loveliness inthis Heritage is no greater than theloveliness that used to be in a thousand

places which you have blotted out ofthe book of beauty, with your smutsand wheels, your wires and welter. Andto what end To manufacture crippledchildren, and pale, peaky little Cockneyswhose nerves are gone; (and, to be sure,the railways and motor cars which willbring you here to see them coming tolife once more in sane and naturalsurroundings!) Blind and deaf anddumb industrialism is the accursedthing in this land and in all others.

If only we could send all our crippledsoldiers to relearn life, in places such asthis; if, instead of some forty or fifty,forty or fifty thousand could beginagain, under the gaze of that white

windmill! If they could slough off herenot only those last horrors, but thedinge and drang of their upbringing intowns, where wheels go round, lightsflare, streets reek, and no larks sing,save some little blinded victim in a cage.Poor William Blake:

"I will not cease from fighting, nor shallmy sword sleep in my hand, Till wehave built Jerusalem in England's greenand pleasant land!"

A long vigil his sword is keeping, whilethe clock strikes every hour of thetwenty-four. We have not yet even laidJerusalem's foundation stone. Ask oneof those maimed soldier boys. "I like it

here. Oh, yes, it's very pleasant for achange." But he hastens to tell you thathe goes in to Brighton every day to histraining school, as if that saved thesituation; almost surprised he seemsthat beauty and peace and good air arenot intolerable to his town-bred soul.The towns have got us nearly all. Notuntil we let beauty and the quiet voiceof the fields, and the scent of clovercreep again into our nerves, shall webegin to build Jerusalem and learnpeacefulness once more. Thecountryman hates strife; it breaks hisdream. And life should have itscovering of dream bird's flight, bird'ssong, wind in the ash-trees and thecorn, tall lilies glistening, the evening

shadows slanting out, the nightmurmuring of waters. There is noother genuine dream; without it tosweeten all, life is harsh and shrill andeast-wind dry, and evil overruns hermore quickly than blight be-gums therose-tree or frost blackens fern of acold June night. We elders are past re-making England, but our children, eventhese crippled children here, may yettake a hand....

We left the tinies to the last allMontessorians, and some of them littlecripples, too, but with cheeks so redthat they looked as if the colour mustcome off. They lived in a house past thewhite mill, across the common; and

they led us by the hand down spotlesscorridors into white dormitories. Thesmile of the prettiest little maid ofthem all was the last thing one saw,leaving that "Heritage" of print frocksand children's faces, of flowers andnightingales, under the lee of a groupof pines, the only dark beauty in thelong sunlight.

XV

'A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY'

Was it indeed only last March, or inanother life, that I climbed this green

hill on that day of dolour, the Sundayafter the last great German offensivebegan A beautiful sun-warmed day itwas, when the wild thyme on thesouthern slope smelled sweet, and thedistant sea was a glitter of gold. Lyingon the grass, pressing my cheek to itswarmth, I tried to get solace for thatnew dread which seemed so cruellyunnatural after four years of war-misery.

'If only it were all over!' I said tomyself; 'and I could come here, and toall the lovely places I know, withoutthis awful contraction of the heart, andthis knowledge that at every tick of mywatch some human body is being

mangled or destroyed. Ah, if only Icould! Will there never be an end '

And now there is an end, and I am upon this green hill once more, inDecember sunlight, with the distant seaa glitter of gold. And there is no crampin my heart, no miasma clinging to mysenses. Peace! It is still incredible. Nomore to hear with the ears of thenerves the ceaseless roll of gunfire, orsee with the eyes of the nervesdrowning men, gaping wounds, anddeath. Peace, actually Peace! The warhas gone on so long that many of ushave forgotten the sense of outrageand amazement we had, those first daysof August, 1914, when it all began. But

I have not forgotten, nor ever shall.

In some of us I think in many whocould not voice it the war has leftchiefly this feeling: 'If only I could finda country where men cared less for allthat they seem to care for, where theycared more for beauty, for nature, forbeing kindly to each other. If only Icould find that green hill far away!' Ofthe songs of Theocritus, of the life ofSt. Francis, there is no more among thenations than there is of dew on grass inan east wind. If we ever thoughtotherwise, we are disillusioned now. Yetthere is Peace again, and the souls ofmen fresh-murdered are not flying intoour lungs with every breath we draw.

Each day this thought of Peacebecomes more real and blessed. I canlie on this green hill and praise Creationthat I am alive in a world of beauty. Ican go to sleep up here with thecoverlet of sunlight warm on my body,and not wake to that old dull misery. Ican even dream with a light heart, formy fair dreams will not be spoiled bywaking, and my bad dreams will becured the moment I open my eyes. Ican look up at that blue sky withoutseeing trailed across it a mirage of thelong horror, a film picture of all thethings that have been done by men tomen. At last I can gaze up at it, limpidand blue, without a dogging

melancholy; and I can gaze down atthat far gleam of sea, knowing thatthere is no murk of murder on it anymore.

And the flight of birds, the gulls androoks and little brown wavering thingswhich flit out and along the edge ofthe chalk-pits, is once more refreshmentto me, utterly untempered. A merle issinging in a bramble thicket; the dewhas not yet dried off the brambleleaves. A feather of a moon floatsacross the sky; the distance sends forthhomely murmurs; the sun warms mycheeks. And all of this is pure joy. Nohawk of dread and horror keepsswooping down and bearing off the

little birds of happiness. No accusingconscience starts forth and beckons meaway from pleasure. Everywhere issupreme and flawless beauty. Whetherone looks at this tiny snail shell,marvellously chased and marked, a veryelf's horn whose open mouth iscoloured rose; or gazes down at the flatland between here and the sea,wandering under the smile of theafternoon sunlight, seeming almost tobe alive, hedgeless, with its manywatching trees, and silver gulls hoveringabove the mushroom-coloured'ploughs,' and fields green in manifoldhues; whether one muses on this littlepink daisy born so out of time, orwatches that valley of brown-rose-grey

woods, under the drifting shadows oflow-hanging chalky clouds all is perfect,as only Nature can be perfect on alovely day, when the mind of him wholooks on her is at rest.

On this green hill I am nearer than Ihave been yet to realisation of thedifference between war and peace. Inour civilian lives hardly anything hasbeen changed we do not get morebutter or more petrol, the garb andmachinery of war still shroud us,journals still drip hate; but in our spiritsthere is all the difference betweengradual dying and gradual recoveryfrom sickness.

At the beginning of the war a certainartist, so one heard, shut himself awayin his house and garden, taking in nonewspaper, receiving no visitors,listening to no breath of the war, seeingno sight of it. So he lived, buried in hiswork and his flowers I know not forhow long. Was he wise, or did he suffereven more than the rest of us who shutnothing away Can man, indeed, shutout the very quality of his firmament,or bar himself away from the generalmisery of his species

This gradual recovery of the world thisslow reopening of the great flower,Life is beautiful to feel and see. I pressmy hand flat and hard down on those

blades of grass, then take it away, andwatch them very slowly raise themselvesand shake off the bruise. So it is, andwill be, with us for a long time to come.The cramp of war was deep in us, as aniron frost in the earth. Of all thecountless millions who have foughtand nursed and written and spoken anddug and sewn and worked in athousand other ways to help on thebusiness of killing, hardly any havelaboured in real love of war. Ironical,indeed, that perhaps the most beautifulpoem written these four years, JulianGrenfell's 'Into Battle!' was in heartfeltpraise of fighting! But if one couldgather the deep curses breathed by manand woman upon war since the first

bugle was blown, the dirge of themcould not be contained in the air whichwraps this earth.

And yet the 'green hill,' where dwellbeauty and kindliness, is still far away.Will it ever be nearer Men have foughteven on this green hill where I am lying.By the rampart markings on its chalkand grass, it has surely served for anencampment. The beauty of day andnight, the lark's song, the sweet-scentedgrowing things, the rapture of health,and of pure air, the majesty of the stars,and the gladness of sunlight, of songand dance and simple friendliness, havenever been enough for men. We craveour turbulent fate. Can wars, then, ever

cease Look in men's faces, read theirwritings, and beneath masks andhypocrisies note the restless creeping ofthe tiger spirit! There has never beenanything to prevent the millenniumexcept the nature of the human being.There are not enough lovers of beautyamong men. It all comes back to that.Not enough who want the green hill faraway who naturally hate disharmony,and the greed, ugliness, restlessness,cruelty, which are its parents and itschildren.

Will there ever be more lovers ofbeauty in proportion to those who areindifferent to beauty Who shall answerthat question Yet on the answer

depends peace. Men may have a mintof sterling qualities be vigorous,adventurous, brave, upright, and self-sacrificing; be preachers and teachers;keen, cool-headed, just, industrious ifthey have not the love of beauty, theywill still be making wars. Man is afighting animal, with sense of theridiculous enough to know that he is afool to fight, but not sense of thesublime enough to stop him. Ah, well!we have peace!

It is happiness greater than I haveknown for four years and four months,to lie here and let that thought go on itswings, quiet and free as the windstealing soft from the sea, and blessed

as the sunlight on this green hill.

1918.

PART II

OF PEACE-TIME

I

SPINDLEBERRIES

The celebrated painter Scudamorewhose studies of Nature had been

hung on the line for so many years thathe had forgotten the days when, not yetin the Scudamore manner, theydepended from the sky stood where hiscousin had left him so abruptly. Hislips, between comely grey moustacheand comely pointed beard, wore amortified smile, and he gazed ratherdazedly at the spindleberries fallen onto the flagged courtyard from thebranch she had brought to show him.Why had she thrown up her head as ifhe had struck her, and whisked roundso that those dull-pink berries quiveredand lost their rain-drops, and four hadfallen He had but said: "Charming! I'dlike to use them!" And she hadanswered: "God!" and rushed away.

Alicia really was crazed; who wouldhave thought that once she had been soadorable! He stooped and picked upthe four berries a beautiful colour, thatdull pink! And from below the coatingsof success and the Scudamore mannera little thrill came up; the stir ofemotional vision. Paint! What good!How express He went across to the lowwall which divided the courtyard of hisexpensively restored and beautiful oldhouse from the first flood of the RiverArun wandering silvery in pale wintersunlight. Yes, indeed! How expressNature, its translucence and mysteriousunities, its mood never the same fromhour to hour! Those brown-tuftedrushes over there against the gold grey

of light and water those restlesshovering white gulls! A kind of disgustat his own celebrated manner welled upwithin him the disgust akin to Alicia's"God!" Beauty! What use how expressit! Had she been thinking the samething

He looked at the four pink berriesglistening on the grey stone of the wall,and memory stirred. What a lovely girlshe had been with her grey-green eyes,shining under long lashes, the rose-petal colour in her cheeks and the too-fine dark hair now so very grey alwaysblowing a little wild. An enchanting,enthusiastic creature! He remembered,as if it had been but last week, that day

when they started from Arundel stationby the road to Burpham, when he wastwenty-nine and she twenty-five, bothof them painters and neither of themfamed a day of showers and sunlight inthe middle of March, and Naturepreparing for full Spring! How they hadchattered at first; and when their armstouched, how he had thrilled, and thecolour had deepened in her wet cheeks;and then, gradually, they had grownsilent; a wonderful walk, which seemedleading so surely to a more wonderfulend. They had wandered roundthrough the village and down, past thechalk-pit and Jacob's ladder, onto thefield path and so to the river-bank. Andhe had taken her ever so gently round

the waist, still silent, waiting for thatmoment when his heart would leap outof him in words and hers he was surewould leap to meet it. The path entereda thicket of blackthorn, with a fewprimroses close to the little riverrunning full and gentle. The last dropsof a shower were falling, but the sunhad burst through, and the sky abovethe thicket was cleared to the blue ofspeedwell flowers. Suddenly she hadstopped and cried: "Look, Dick! Oh,look! It's heaven!" A high bush ofblackthorn was lifted there, starry whiteagainst the blue and that bright cloud.It seemed to sing, it was so lovely; thewhole of Spring was in it. But the sightof her ecstatic face had broken down

all his restraint; and tightening his armround her, he had kissed her lips. Heremembered still the expression of herface, like a child's startled out of sleep.She had gone rigid, gasped, startedaway from him; quivered and gulped,and broken suddenly into sobs. Then,slipping from his arm, she had fled. Hehad stood at first, amazed and hurt,utterly bewildered; then, recovering alittle, had hunted for her full half anhour before at last he found her sittingon wet grass, with a stony look on herface. He had said nothing, and shenothing, except to murmur: "Let's goon; we shall miss our train!" And all therest of that day and the day after, untilthey parted, he had suffered from the

feeling of having tumbled down offsome high perch in her estimation. Hehad not liked it at all; it had made himvery angry. Never from that day to thishad he thought of it as anything but apiece of wanton prudery. Had it had itbeen something else

He looked at the four pink berries, and,as if they had uncanny power to turnthe wheel of memory, he saw anothervision of his cousin five years later. Hewas married by then, and already hungon the line. With his wife he had gonedown to Alicia's country cottage. Asummer night, just dark and very warm.After many exhortations she hadbrought into the little drawing-room

her last finished picture. He could seeher now placing it where the light fell,her tall slight form already rather sharpand meagre, as the figures of somewomen grow at thirty, if they are notmarried; the nervous, fluttering look onher charming face, as though she couldhardly bear this inspection; the way sheraised her shoulder just a little as if toward off an expected blow ofcondemnation. No need! It had been abeautiful thing, a quite surprisinglybeautiful study of night. Heremembered with what a really jealousache he had gazed at it a better thingthan he had ever done himself. And,frankly, he had said so. Her eyes hadshone with pleasure.

"Do you really like it I tried so hard!"

"The day you show that, my dear," hehad said, "your name's made!" She hadclasped her hands and simply sighed:"Oh, Dick!" He had felt quite happy inher happiness, and presently the threeof them had taken their chairs out,beyond the curtains, on to the darkverandah, had talked a little, thensomehow fallen silent. A wonderfulwarm, black, grape-bloom night,exquisitely gracious and inviting; thestars very high and white, the flowersglimmering in the garden-beds, andagainst the deep, dark blue, roseshanging, unearthly, stained with beauty.

There was a scent of honeysuckle, heremembered, and many moths camefluttering by towards the tall narrowchink of light between the curtains.Alicia had sat leaning forward, elbowson knees, ears buried in her hands.Probably they were silent because shesat like that. Once he heard her whisperto herself: "Lovely, lovely! Oh, God!How lovely!" His wife, feeling the dew,had gone in, and he had followed;Alicia had not seemed to notice. Butwhen she too came in, her eyes wereglistening with tears. She saidsomething about bed in a queer voice;they had taken candles and gone up.Next morning, going to her little studioto give her advice about that picture, he

had been literally horrified to see itstreaked with lines of Chinese whiteAlicia, standing before it, was dashingher brush in broad smears across andacross. She heard him and turnedround. There was a hard red spot ineither cheek, and she said in a quiveringvoice: "It was blasphemy. That's all!"And turning her back on him, she hadgone on smearing it with Chinesewhite. Without a word, he had turnedtail in simple disgust. Indeed, so deephad been his vexation at that wantondestruction of the best thing she hadever done, or was ever likely to do, thathe had avoided her for years. He hadalways had a horror of eccentricity. Tohave planted her foot firmly on the

ladder of fame and then deliberatelykicked it away; to have wantonlyforegone this chance of making moneyfor she had but a mere pittance! It hadseemed to him really too exasperating, athing only to be explained by tappingone's forehead. Every now and then hestill heard of her, living down there,spending her days out in the woodsand fields, and sometimes even hernights, they said, and steadily growingpoorer and thinner and more eccentric;becoming, in short, impossiblydifficult, as only Englishwomen can.People would speak of her as "such adear," and talk of her charm, butalways with that shrug which is hard tobear when applied to one's relations.

What she did with the productions ofher brush he never inquired, toodisillusioned by that experience. PoorAlicia!

The pink berries glowed on the greystone, and he had yet another memory.A family occasion when Uncle MartinScudamore departed this life, and theyall went up to bury him and hear hisWill. The old chap, whom they hadlooked on as a bit of a disgrace,money-grubbing up in the little greyYorkshire town which owed its rise tohis factory, was expected to makeamends by his death, for he had nevermarried too sunk in Industry,apparently, to have the time. By tacit

agreement, his nephews and nieces hadselected the Inn at Bolton Abbey,nearest beauty spot, for their stay. Theyhad driven six miles to the funeral inthree carriages. Alicia had gone withhim and his brother, the solicitor. Inher plain black clothes she looked quitecharming, in spite of the silver threadsalready thick in her fine dark hair,loosened by the moor wind. She hadtalked of painting to him with all herold enthusiasm, and her eyes hadseemed to linger on his face as if shestill had a little weakness for him. Hehad quite enjoyed that drive. They hadcome rather abruptly on the smallgrimy town clinging to the river-banks,with old Martin's long yellow-brick

house dominating it, about twohundred yards above the mills.Suddenly under the rug he felt Alicia'shand seize his with a sort ofdesperation, for all the world as if shewere clinging to something to supporther. Indeed, he was sure she did notknow it was his hand she squeezed.The cobbled streets, the muddy-lookingwater, the dingy, staring factories, theyellow staring house, the little dark-clothed, dreadfully plain work-people,all turned out to do a last honour totheir creator; the hideous new greychurch, the dismal service, the brand-new tombstones and all of a gloriousautumn day! It was inexpressibly sordidtoo ugly for words! Afterwards the Will

was read to them, seated decorously onbright mahogany chairs in the yellowmansion; a very satisfactory Will,distributing in perfectly adjustedportions, to his own kinsfolk andnobody else, a very considerable wealth.Scudamore had listened to it dreamily,with his eyes fixed on an oily picture,thinking: "My God! What a thing!" andlonging to be back in the carriagesmoking a cigar to take the reek ofblack clothes, and sherry sherry! out ofhis nostrils. He happened to look atAlicia. Her eyes were closed; her lips,always sweet-looking, quiveredamusedly. And at that very moment theWill came to her name. He saw thoseeyes open wide, and marked a beautiful

pink flush, quite like that of old days,come into her thin cheeks. "Splendid!"he had thought; "it's really jolly for her.I am glad. Now she won't have topinch. Splendid!" He shared with her tothe full the surprised relief showing inher still beautiful face.

All the way home in the carriage he feltat least as happy over her good fortuneas over his own, which had beensubstantial. He took her hand underthe rug and squeezed it, and sheanswered with a long, gentle pressure,quite unlike the clutch when they weredriving in. That same evening hestrolled out to where the river curvedbelow the Abbey. The sun had not

quite set, and its last smoky radianceslanted into the burnished autumnwoods. Some white-faced Herefordswere grazing in lush grass, the riverrippled and gleamed, all over goldenscales. About that scene was the magicwhich has so often startled the heartsof painters, the wistful gold theenchantment of a dream. For someminutes he had gazed with delightwhich had in it a sort of despair. Alittle crisp rustle ran along the bushes;the leaves fluttered, then hung quitestill. And he heard a voice Alicia'sspeaking. "My lovely, lovely world!"And moving forward a step, he saw herstanding on the river-bank, bracedagainst the trunk of a birch-tree, her

head thrown back, and her armsstretched wide apart as though to claspthe lovely world she had apostrophised.To have gone up to her would havebeen like breaking up a lovers'interview, and he turned round insteadand went away.

A week later he heard from his brotherthat Alicia had refused her legacy. "Idon't want it," her letter had saidsimply, "I couldn't bear to take it. Giveit to those poor people who live in thatawful place." Really eccentricity couldgo no further! They decided to godown and see her. Such mad neglect ofher own good must not be permittedwithout some effort to prevent it. They

found her very thin, and charming;humble, but quite obstinate in herrefusal. "Oh! I couldn't, really! I shouldbe so unhappy. Those poor littlestunted people who made it all for him!That little, awful town! I simplycouldn't be reminded. Don't talk aboutit, please. I'm quite all right as I am."They had threatened her with luridpictures of the workhouse and adestitute old age. To no purpose, shewould not take the money. She hadbeen forty when she refused that aidfrom heaven forty, and already past anyhope of marriage. For thoughScudamore had never known forcertain that she had ever wished orhoped for marriage, he had his theory

that all her eccentricity came fromwasted sexual instinct. This last follyhad seemed to him monstrous enoughto be pathetic, and he no longeravoided her. Indeed, he would oftenwalk over to tea in her little hermitage.With Uncle Martin's money he hadbought and restored the beautiful oldhouse over the River Arun, and wasnow only five miles from Alicia's acrosscountry. She too would come trampingover at all hours, floating in with wildflowers or ferns, which she would putinto water the moment she arrived. Shehad ceased to wear hats, and had bynow a very doubtful reputation forsanity about the countryside. This wasthe period when Watts was on every

painter's tongue, and he seldom sawAlicia without a disputation concerningthat famous symbolist. Personally, hehad no use for Watts, resenting hisfaulty drawing and crude allegories, butAlicia always maintained with herextravagant fervour that he was greatbecause he tried to paint the soul ofthings. She especially loved a paintingcalled "Iris" a female symbol of therainbow, which indeed in its floatingeccentricity had a certain resemblanceto herself. "Of course he failed," shewould say; "he tried for the impossibleand went on trying all his life. Oh! Ican't bear your rules, and catchwords,Dick; what's the good of them!Beauty's too big, too deep!" Poor Alicia!

She was sometimes very wearing.

He never knew quite how it came aboutthat she went abroad with them toDauphine in the autumn of 1904 arather disastrous business never againwould he take anyone travelling whodid not know how to come in out ofthe cold. It was a painter's country, andhe had hired a little chateau in front ofthe Glandaz mountain himself, hiswife, their eldest girl, and Alicia. Theadaptation of his famous manner tothat strange scenery, its browns andFrench greys and filmy blues, sopreoccupied him that he had scant timefor becoming intimate with these hillsand valleys. From the little gravelled

terrace in front of the annex, out ofwhich he had made a studio, there wasan absorbing view over the pan-tiledold town of Die. It glistened below inthe early or late sunlight, flat-roofedand of pinkish-yellow, with the dim,blue River Drome circling one side, andcut, dark cypress-trees dotting thevineyarded slopes. And he painted itcontinually. What Alicia did withherself they none of them very muchknew, except that she would come inand talk ecstatically of things andbeasts and people she had seen. Onefavourite haunt of hers they did visit, aruined monastery high up in theamphitheatre of the Glandazmountain. They had their lunch up

there, a very charming and remote spot,where the watercourses and ponds andchapel of the old monks were stillvisible, though converted by the farmerto his use. Alicia left them abruptly inthe middle of their praises, and theyhad not seen her again till they foundher at home when they got back. It wasalmost as if she had resented laudationof her favourite haunt. She hadbrought in with her a great bunch ofgolden berries, of which none of themknew the name; berries almost asbeautiful as these spindleberriesglowing on the stone of the wall. Anda fourth memory of Alicia came.

Christmas Eve, a sparkling frost, and

every tree round the little chateau rimedso that they shone in the starlight, asthough dowered with cherry blossoms.Never were more stars in clear black skyabove the whitened earth. Down in thelittle town a few faint points of yellowlight twinkled in the mountain wind,keen as a razor's edge. A fantasticallylovely night quite "Japanese," butcruelly cold. Five minutes on theterrace had been enough for all ofthem except Alicia. She unaccountable,crazy creature would not come in.Twice he had gone out to her, withcommands, entreaties, and extra wraps;the third time he could not find her,she had deliberately avoided hisonslaught and slid off somewhere to

keep this mad vigil by frozen starlight.When at last she did come in she reeledas if drunk. They tried to make herreally drunk, to put warmth back intoher. No good! In two days she wasdown with double pneumonia; it wastwo months before she was up again avery shadow of herself. There hadnever been much health in her sincethen. She floated like a ghost throughlife, a crazy ghost, who still would stealaway, goodness knew where, and comein with a flush in her withered cheeks,and her grey hair wild blown, carryingher spoil some flower, some leaf, sometiny bird, or little soft rabbit. She neverpainted now, never even talked of it.They had made her give up her cottage

and come to live with them, literallyafraid that she would starve herself todeath in her forgetfulness ofeverything. These spindleberries even!Why, probably she had been right upthis morning to that sunny chalk-pit inthe lew of the Downs to get them,seven miles there and back, when youwouldn't think she could walk sevenhundred yards, and as likely as not hadlain there on the dewy grass, looking upat the sky, as he had come on hersometimes. Poor Alicia! And once hehad been within an ace of marryingher! A life spoiled! By what, if not bylove of beauty! But who would haveever thought that the intangible couldwreck a woman, deprive her of love,

marriage, motherhood, of fame, ofwealth, of health! And yet by George! ithad!

Scudamore flipped the four pinkberries off the wall. The radiance andthe meandering milky waters; that swanagainst the brown tufted rushes; thosefar, filmy Downs there was beauty!Beauty! But, damn it all moderation!Moderation! And, turning his back onthat prospect, which he had painted somany times, in his celebrated manner,he went in, and up the expensivelyrestored staircase to his studio. It hadgreat windows on three sides, andperfect means for regulating light.Unfinished studies melted into walls so

subdued that they looked likeatmosphere. There were no completedpictures they sold too fast. As hewalked over to his easel, his eye wascaught by a spray of colour the branchof spindleberries set in water, ready forhim to use, just where the pale sunlightfell, so that their delicate colour mightglow and the few tiny drops ofmoisture still clinging to them shine.For a second he saw Alicia herself asshe must have looked, setting themthere, her transparent hands hovering,her eyes shining, that grey hair of hersall fine and loose. The vision vanished!But what had made her bring themafter that horrified "God!" when hespoke of using them Was it her way of

saying: "Forgive me for being rude!"Really she was pathetic, that poordevotee! The spindleberries glowed intheir silver-lustre jug, sprayed upagainst the sunlight. They lookedtriumphant as well they might, whostood for that which had ruined or, wasit, saved a life! Alicia! She had made apretty mess of it, and yet who knewwhat secret raptures she had felt withher subtle lover, Beauty, by starlight andsunlight and moonlight, in the fieldsand woods, on the hilltops, and byriverside! Flowers, and the flight ofbirds, and the ripple of the wind, andall the shifting play of light and colourwhich made a man despair when hewanted to use them; she had taken

them, hugged them to her with noafterthought, and been happy! Whocould say that she had missed the prizeof life Who could say it ...Spindleberries! A bunch ofspindleberries to set such doubts astirin him! Why, what was beauty but justthe extra value which certain forms andcolours, blended, gave to things just theextra value in the human market!Nothing else on earth, nothing! Andthe spindleberries glowed against thesunlight, delicate, remote!

Taking his palette, he mixed crimsonlake, white, and ultramarine. What wasthat Who sighed, away out there behindhim Nothing!

"Damn it all!" he thought; "this ischildish. This is as bad as Alicia!" Andhe set to work to paint in his celebratedmanner spindleberries.

1918.

II

EXPECTATIONS

Not many years ago a couple wereliving in the South of England whosename was Wotchett Ralph and EileenWotchett; a curious name, derived,

Ralph asserted, from a Saxon Thegncalled Otchar mentioned in Domesday,or at all events when search of thebook had proved vain on the edge ofthat substantial record.

He possibly the thirtieth descendant ofthe Thegn was close on six feet inheight and thin, with thirsty eyes, and asmile which had fixed itself in hischeeks, so on the verge of appearingwas it. His hair waved, and was of adusty shade bordering on grey. Hiswife, of the same age and nearly thesame height as himself, was ofsanguine colouring and a Cornishfamily, which had held land in such amanner that it had nearly melted in

their grasp. All that had come to Eileenwas a reversion, on the mortgageablevalue of which she and Ralph had beenliving for some time. Ralph Wotchettalso had expectations. By profession hewas an architect, but perhaps becauseof his expectations, he had always hadbad luck. The involutions of thereasons why his clients died, becameinsolvent, abandoned their projects, orotherwise failed to come up to thescratch were followed by him alone inthe full of their maze-like windings.The house they inhabited, indeed, wasone of those he had designed for aclient, but the 'fat chough' had refusedto go into it for some unaccountablereason; he and Eileen were only

perching there, however, on the edge ofsettling down in some more permanenthouse when they came into theirexpectations.

Considering the vicissitudes anddisappointments of their life together,it was remarkable how certain theyremained that they would at last crossthe bar and reach the harbour ofcomfortable circumstance. They had,one may suppose, expectations in theirblood. The germ of getting 'somethingfor nothing' had infected their systems,so that, though they were not selfish orgreedy people, and well knew how torough it, they dreamed so of what theyhad not, that they continually got rid of

what they had in order to obtain moreof it. If for example Ralph received anorder, he felt so strongly that this wasthe chance of his life if properlygrasped, that he would almost as amatter of course increase andcomplicate the project till it becameunworkable, or in his zeal omit somevital calculation such as a rise in theprice of bricks; nor would anyone bemore surprised than he at this, or morecertain that all connected with thematter had been 'fat choughs' excepthimself. On such occasions Eileenwould get angry, but if anyonesuggested that Ralph had overreachedhimself, she would get still angrier. Shewas very loyal, and fortunately rather

flyaway both in mind and body; beforelong she always joined him in hisfeeling that the whole transaction hadbeen just the usual 'skin-game' on thepart of Providence to keep them outof their expectations. It was the same indomestic life. If Ralph had to eat abreakfast, which would be almost everymorning, he had so many and suchimaginative ways of getting from it abetter breakfast than was in it, that heoften remained on the edge of it, as itwere. He had special methods ofcooking, so as to extract fromeverything a more than ordinaryflavour, and these took all the time thathe would have to eat the results in.Coffee he would make with a whole

egg, shell and all, stirred in; it had to beleft on the hob for an incomparabletime, and he would start to catch histrain with his first cup in his hand;Eileen would have to run after him andtake it away. They were, in fact, ratherlike a kitten which knows it has a tail,and will fly round and round all daywith the expectation of catching thatdesirable appendage. Sometimesindeed, by sheer perseverance, of whichhe had a great deal in a roundaboutway, Ralph would achieve something,but, when this happened, somethingelse, not foreseen by him, had alwayshappened first, which rendered thataccomplishment nugatory and left itexpensive on his hands. Nevertheless

they retained their faith that some daythey would get ahead of Providenceand come into their own.

In view of not yet having come intotheir expectations they had waited tohave children; but two had ratherunexpectedly been born. The babes hadsuccumbed, however, one topreparation for betterment tooingenious to be fulfilled, the other tofulfilment, itself, a special kind of foodhaving been treated so ingeniously thatit had undoubtedly engendered poison.And they remained childless.

They were about fifty when Ralphreceived one morning a solicitor's letter

announcing the death of hisgodmother, Aunt Lispeth. When heread out the news they looked at theirplates a full minute without speaking.Their expectations had matured. At lastthey were to come into something inreturn for nothing. Aunt Lispeth, whohad latterly lived at Ipswich in a housewhich he had just not built for her, wasan old maid. They had often discussedwhat she would leave them though inno mean or grasping spirit, for they didnot grudge the 'poor old girl' her fewremaining years, however they mightfeel that she was long past enjoyingherself. The chance would come tothem some time, and when it did ofcourse must be made the best of. Then

Eileen said:

"You must go down at once, Ralph!"

Donning black, Ralph set off hurriedly,and just missed his train; he caught one,however, in the afternoon, and arrivedthat evening in Ipswich. It was October,drizzling and dark; the last cab movedout as he tried to enter it, for he hadbeen detained by his ticket which hehad put for extra readiness in his glove,and forgotten as if the ticket collectorcouldn't have seen it there, the 'fatchough!' He walked up to his Aunt'shouse, and was admitted to a mansionwhere a dinner-party was going on. Itwas impossible to persuade the servant

that this was his Aunt's, so he wasobliged to retire to a hotel and wire toEileen to send him the right address the'fat choughs' in the street did not seemto know it. He got her answer thefollowing midday, and going to theproper number, found the darkenedhouse. The two servants who admittedhim described the manner of theirmistress's death, and showed him upinto her room. Aunt Lispeth had beenlaid out daintily. Ralph contemplatedher with the smile which never movedfrom his cheeks, and with a sort of awein his thirsty eyes. The poor old girl!How thin, how white! It had been timeshe went! A little stiffened twist in herneck, where her lean head had fallen to

one side at the last, had not been setquite straight; and there seemed theghost of an expression on her face,almost cynical; by looking closer he sawthat it came from a gap in the whitelashes of one eye, giving it an air of notbeing quite closed, as though she weretrying to wink at him. He went outrather hastily, and ascertaining that thefuneral was fixed for noon next day,paid a visit to the solicitor.

There he was told that the lawyerhimself was sole executor, and heRalph residuary legatee. He could nothelp a feeling of exultation, for he andEileen were at that time particularlyhard pressed. He restrained it, however,

and went to his hotel to write to her.He received a telegram in answer nextmorning at ten o'clock: 'For goodness'sake leave all details to lawyer, Eileen,'which he thought very peculiar. Helunched with the lawyer after thefuneral, and they opened his Aunt'swill. It was quite short and simple,made certain specific bequests of laceand jewellery, left a hundred pounds toher executor the lawyer, and the rest ofher property to her nephew RalphWotchett. The lawyer proposed toadvertise for debts in the usual way, andRalph with considerable controlconfined himself to urging all speed inthe application for Probate, anddisposal of the estate. He caught a late

train back to Eileen. She received hisaccount distrustfully; she was sure hehad put his finger in the pie, and if hehad it would all go wrong. Well, if hehadn't, he soon would! It was really asif loyalty had given way in her now thattheir expectations were on the point ofbeing realised.

They had often discussed his Aunt'sincome, but they went into it again thatnight, to see whether it could not byfresh investment be increased. It wasderived from Norwich andBirmingham Corporation Stocks, andRalph proved that by going intoindustrial concerns the four hundred ayear could quite safely be made into six.

Eileen agreed that this would be a goodthing to do, but nothing definite wasdecided. Now that they had come intomoney they did not feel so inclined tomove their residence, though both feltthat they might increase their scale ofliving, which had lately been at adistressingly low ebb. They spoke, too,about the advisability of a small car.Ralph knew of one a second-handFord to be had for a song. They oughtnot he thought to miss the chance. Hewould take occasion to meet the ownercasually and throw out a feeler. Itwould not do to let the fellow knowthat there was any money coming tothem, or he would put the price up fora certainty. In fact it would be better to

secure the car before the news gotabout. He secured it a few days later foreighty pounds, including repairs, whichwould take about a month. A letterfrom the lawyer next day informedthem that he was attending to matterswith all speed; and the next five weekspassed in slowly realising that at lastthey had turned the corner of theirlives, and were in smooth water. Theyordered among other things thematerials for a fowl-house long desired,which Ralph helped to put up; and aconsiderable number of fowls, forfeeding which he had a design whichwould enable them to lay a great manymore eggs in the future than couldreasonably be expected from the

amount of food put into the fowls. Healso caused an old stable to beconverted into a garage. He still went toLondon two or three times a week, toattend to business, which was not, as arule, there. On his way from St. Pancrasto Red Lion Square, where his officewas, he had long been attracted by anemerald pendant with pearl clasp, in ajeweller's shop window. He went innow to ask its price. Fifty-eight poundsemeralds were a rising market. Theexpression rankled in him, and going toHatton Garden to enquire into itstruth, he found the statementconfirmed. 'The chief advantage ofhaving money,' he thought, 'is to beable to buy at the right moment.' He

had not given Eileen anything for along time, and this was an occasionwhich could hardly be passed over. Hebought the pendant on his way back toSt. Pancras, the draft in paymentabsorbing practically all his balance.Eileen was delighted with it. They spentthat evening in the nearest approach tofestivity that they had known forseveral years. It was, as it were, thecrown of the long waiting forsomething out of nothing. All thoselittle acerbities which creep into themanner of two married people who arealways trying to round the corner fellaway, and they sat together in one largechair, talking and laughing over thecountless tricks which Providence that

'fat chough' had played them. Theycarried their light-heartedness to bed.

They were awakened next morning bythe sound of a car. The Ford was beingdelivered with a request for payment.Ralph did not pay; it would be 'all right'he said. He stabled the car, and wrote tothe lawyer that he would be glad tohave news, and an advance of L100.On his return from town in the eveningtwo days later he found Eileen in thedining-room with her hair wild and anopened letter before her. She looked upwith the word: "Here!" and Ralph tookthe letter:

Lodgers & Wayburn, Solicitors, Ipswich

Dear Mr. Wotchett,

In answer to yours of the fifteenth, Ihave obtained Probate, paid all debts,and distributed the various legacies.The sale of furniture took place lastMonday. I now have pleasure inenclosing you a complete and I thinkfinal account, by which you will seethat there is a sum in hand of L43 dueto you as residuary legatee. I am afraidthis will seem a disappointing result,but as you were doubtless aware(though I was not when I had thepleasure of seeing you), the greater partof your Aunt's property passed under aDeed of Settlement, and it seems she

had been dipping heavily into thecapital of the remainder for some yearspast.

Believe me, Faithfully yours, EDWARDLODGERS.

For a minute the only sounds were thesnapping of Ralph's jaws, and Eileen'srapid breathing. Then she said:

"You never said a word about aSettlement. I suppose you got itmuddled as usual!"

Ralph did not answer, too deep in his

anger with the old woman who had leftthat 'fat chough' a hundred pounds toprovide him Ralph with forty-three.

"You always believe what you want tobelieve!" cried Eileen; "I never saw sucha man."

Ralph went to Ipswich on the morrow.After going into everything with thelawyer, he succeeded in varying theaccount by fifteen shillings,considerably more than which wasabsorbed by the fee for this interview,his fare, and hotel bill. The conduct ofhis Aunt, in having caused him to get itinto his head that there was noSettlement, and in living on her capital,

gave him pain quite beyond the powerof expression; and more than once herecalled with a shudder that slightlyquizzical look on her dead face. Hereturned to Eileen the following day,with his brain racing round and round.Getting up next morning, he said:

"I believe I can get a hundred for thatcar; I'll go up and see about it."

"Take this too," said Eileen, handinghim the emerald pendant. Ralph took itwith a grunt.

"Lucky," he muttered, "emeralds are arising market. I bought it on purpose."

He came back that night more cheerful.He had sold the car for L65, and thependant for L42 a good price, foremeralds were now on the fall! With thecheque for L43, which represented hisexpectations, he proved that they wouldonly be L14 out on the whole businesswhen the fowls and fowl-house hadbeen paid for; and they would have thefowls the price of eggs was going up.Eileen agreed that it was the moment todevelop poultry-keeping. They mightexpect good returns. And holding upher face, she said:

"Give me a kiss, dear Ralph "

Ralph gave it, with his thirsty eyes fixed,

expectant, on something round thecorner of her head, and the smile,which never moved, on his cheeks.

After all there was her reversion! Theywould come into it some day.

1919.

III

MANNA

I

The Petty Sessions court at Linstowe

was crowded. Miracles do not happenevery day, nor are rectors frequentlycharged with larceny. The interestroused would have relieved all thosewho doubt the vitality of our ancientChurch. People who never wentoutside their farms or plots of garden,had walked as much as three miles tosee the show. Mrs. Gloyn, the sandy-haired little keeper of the shop wheresoap and herrings, cheese, matches,boot-laces, bulls'-eyes, and the otherluxuries of a countryside could beprocured, remarked to Mrs. Redland,the farmer's wife, ''Tis quite a gatherin'like.' To which Mrs. Redland replied,''Most like Church of a Sunday.'

More women, it is true, than men, werepresent, because of their greater piety,and because most of them had partedwith pounds of butter, chickens, ducks,potatoes, or some such offertory inkind during the past two years, at theinstance of the rector. They had avested interest in this matter, and werepresent, accompanied by their grief atvalue unreceived. From Trover, theirlittle village on the top of the hill twomiles from Linstowe, with the squatchurch-tower, beautifully untouched,and ruined by the perfect restoration ofthe body of the building, they hadtrooped in; some even coming from theshore of the Atlantic, a mile beyond,across the downs, whence other upland

square church-towers could be viewedon the sky-line against the grey Januaryheavens. The occasion was in a senseunique, and its piquancy strengthenedby that rivalry which is the essence ofreligion.

For there was no love lost betweenChurch and Chapel in Trover, and therector's flock had long been fortified intheir power of 'parting' by fear lest'Chapel' (also present that day in court)should mock at his impecuniousness.Not that his flock approved of hispoverty. It had seemed 'silly-like' eversince the news had spread that hisdifficulties had been caused by a faithin shares. To improve a secure if

moderate position by speculation,would not have seemed wrong, if hehad not failed instead, and madehimself dependent on their butter, theirpotatoes, their eggs and chickens. Inthat parish, as in others, the saying'Nothing succeeds like success' wastrue, nor had the villagers any abnormaldisposition to question the title-deedsof affluence.

But it is equally true that nothingirritates so much as finding that one ofwhom you have the right to beg isbegging of you. This was why therector's tall, thin, black figure, downwhich a ramrod surely had been passedat birth; his narrow, hairless, white and

wasted face, with red eyebrows overeyes that seemed now burning and nowmelting; his grizzled red hair under ahat almost green with age; his abruptand dictatorial voice; his abrupt andmirthless laugh all were on their nerves.His barked-out utterances, 'I want apound of butter pay you Monday!' 'Iwant some potatoes pay you soon!' hadsounded too often in the ears of thosewho had found his repayments so farpurely spiritual. Now and then one ofthe more cynical would remark, 'Ah! Itold un my butter was all to market.' Or,'The man can't 'ave no principles hedidn't get no chicken out o' me.' Andyet it was impossible to let him and hisold mother die on them it would give

too much pleasure 'over the way.' Andthey never dreamed of losing him inany other manner, because they knewhis living had been purchased. Moneyhad passed in that transaction; thewhole fabric of the Church and ofSociety was involved. His professionalconduct, too, was flawless; his sermonslong and fiery; he was always ready toperform those supernumerary dutiesweddings, baptisms, and burials whichyielded him what revenue he had, nowthat his income from the living wasmortgaged up to the hilt. Their loyaltyheld as the loyalty of people will whensome great institution of which theyare members is endangered.

Gossip said that things were in adreadful way at the Rectory; theexternal prosperity of that red-brickbuilding surrounded by laurels whichdid not flower, heightened ironicallythe conditions within. The old lady, hismother, eighty years of age, wasreported never to leave her bed thiswinter, because they had no coal. Shelay there, with her three birds flyingabout dirtying the room, for neither shenor her son would ever let a cage-doorbe shut deplorable state of things! Theone servant was supposed never to bepaid. The tradesmen would no longerleave goods because they could not gettheir money. Most of the furniture hadbeen sold; and the dust made you

sneeze 'fit to bust yourself like.'

With a little basket on his arm, therector collected for his household threetimes a week, pursuing a kind ofmethod, always in the apparent beliefthat he would pay on Monday, andobserving the Sabbath as a day of rest.His mind seemed ever to cherish thefaith that his shares were on the pointof recovery; his spirit never to losebelief in his divine right to besupported. It was extremely difficult torefuse him; the postman had twice seenhim standing on the railway line thatran past just below the village, 'with 'is'at off, as if he was in two minds-like.'This vision of him close to the shining

metals had powerfully impressed manygood souls who loved to make fleshcreep. They would say, 'I wouldn' neverbe surprised if something 'appened to'im one of these days!' Others, lessromantic, shook their heads, insistingthat 'he wouldn' never do nothin' whilehis old mother lived.' Others again,more devout, maintained that 'hewouldn' never go against the Scriptures,settin' an example like that!'

II

The Petty Sessions court that morningresembled Church on the occasion of awedding; for the villagers of Troverhad put on their black clothes and

grouped themselves according to theirreligious faiths 'Church' in the right,'Chapel' in the left-hand aisle. Theypresented all that rich variety of typeand monotony of costume which theremoter country still affords to theobserver; their mouths were almost all alittle open, and their eyes fixed withintensity on the Bench. The threemagistrates Squire Pleydell in the chair,Dr. Becket on his left, and 'the Honble'Calmady on his right were by most seenfor the first time in their judicialcapacity; and curiosity was dividedbetween their proceedings andobservation of the rector's prosecutor,a small baker from the town whencethe village of Trover derived its

necessaries. The face of this fellow, likethat of a white walrus, and the back ofhis bald head were of interest toeveryone until the case was called, andthe rector himself entered. In his thinblack overcoat he advanced and stoodas if a little dazed. Then, turning hisravaged face to the Bench, he jerkedout:

'Good morning! Lot of people!'

A constable behind him murmured:

'Into the dock, sir, please.'

Moving across, he entered the woodenedifice.

'Quite like a pulpit,' he said, and utteredhis barking laugh.

Through the court ran a stir andshuffle, as it might be of sympathy withhis lost divinity, and every eye was fixedon that tall, lean figure, with the shavenface, and red, grey-streaked hair.

Entering the witness-box, theprosecutor deposed as follows:

'Last Tuesday afternoon, your Honours,I 'appened to be drivin' my cart meselfup through Trover on to the cottagesjust above the dip, and I'd gone in toMrs. 'Oney's, the laundress, leavin' my

cart standin' same as I always do. I 'ad abit o' gossip, an' when I come out, I seethis gentleman walkin' away in fronttowards the village street. It so 'appensI 'appened to look in the back o' mycart, and I thinks to meself, That'sfunny! There's only two flat rounds 'aveI left two 'ere by mistake I calls to Mrs.'Oney, an' I says, "I 'aven't been absent,'ave I, an' left ye two " "No," she says,"only one 'ere 'tis! Why " she says."Well," I says, "I 'ad four when I comein to you, there's only two now. 'Tisfunny!" I says. "'Ave you dropped one "she says. "No," I says, "I counted 'em.""That's funny," she says; "perhaps adog's 'ad it." "'E may 'ave," I says, "butthe only thing I see on the road is that

there." An' I pointed to this gentleman."Oh!" she says, "that's the rector." "Yes,"I says, "I ought to know that, seein' 'e'sowed me money a matter of eighteenmonths. I think I'll drive on," I says.Well, I drove on, and come up to thisgentleman. 'E turns 'is 'ead, and looks atme. "Good afternoon!" he says likethat. "Good afternoon, sir," I says."You 'aven't seen a loaf, 'ave you " 'Epulls the loaf out of 'is pocket. "Onthe ground," 'e says; "dirty," 'e says. "Dofor my birds! Ha! ha!" like that. "Oh!" Isays, "indeed! Now I know," I says. Ikept my 'ead, but I thinks: "That's a bittoo light-'earted. You owes me onepound, eight and tuppence; I'vewhistled for it gettin' on for two years,

but you ain't content with that, it seems!Very well," I thinks; "we'll see. An' Idon't give a darn whether you're aparson or not!" I charge 'im with takin'my bread.'

Passing a dirty handkerchief over hiswhite face and huge gingery moustache,the baker was silent. Suddenly from thedock the rector called out: 'Bit of dirtybread feed my birds. Ha, ha!'

There was a deathly little silence. Thenthe baker said slowly:

'What's more, I say he ate it 'imself. Icall two witnesses to that.'

The Chairman, passing his hand overhis hard, alert face, that of a master ofhounds, asked:

'Did you see any dirt on the loaf Becareful!'

The baker answered stolidly:

'Not a speck.'

Dr. Becket, a slight man with a shortgrey beard, and eyes restive from havingto notice painful things, spoke.

'Had your horse moved '

''E never moves.'

'Ha, ha!' came the rector's laugh.

The Chairman said sharply:

'Well, stand down; call the next witness.Charles Stodder, carpenter. Very well!Go on, and tell us what you know.'

But before he could speak the rectorcalled out in a loud voice: 'Chapel!'

'Hsssh! Sir!' But through the body ofthe court had passed a murmur, ofchallenge, as it were, from one aisle tothe other.

The witness, a square man with a red

face, grey hair, whiskers, andmoustache, and lively excitable darkeyes, watering with anxiety, spoke in afast soft voice:

'Tuesday afternoon, your Worships, itmight be about four o'clock, I waspassin' up the village, an' I saw therector at his gate, with a loaf in 'is 'and.'

'Show us how.'

The witness held his black hat to hisside, with the rounded top outwards.

'Was the loaf clean or dirty '

Sweetening his little eyes, the witness

answered:

'I should say 'twas clean.'

'Lie!'

The Chairman said sternly:

'You mustn't interrupt, sir. You didn'tsee the bottom of the loaf '

The witness's little eyes snapped.

'Not eggzactly.'

'Did the rector speak to you '

The witness smiled. 'The rector wouldn'

never stop me if I was passin'. I collectsthe rates.'

The rector's laugh, so like a desolatedog's bark, killed the bubble of gaietyrising in the court; and again thatdeathly little silence followed.

Then the Chairman said:

'Do you want to ask him anything '

The rector turned. 'Why d' you tell lies '

The witness screwing up his eyes, saidexcitedly:

'What lies 'ave I told, please '

'You said the loaf was clean.'

'So 'twas clean, so far as I see.'

'Come to Church, and you won't telllies.'

'Reckon I can learn truth faster inChapel.'

The Chairman rapped his desk.

'That'll do, that'll do! Stand down! Nextwitness. Emily Bleaker. Yes What areyou Cook at the rectory Very well.What do you know about the affair ofthis loaf last Tuesday afternoon '

The witness, a broad-faced, brown-eyedgirl, answered stolidly: 'Nothin', zurr.'

'Ha, ha!'

'Hssh! Did you see the loaf '

'Noa.'

'What are you here for, then '

'Master asked for a plate and a knaife.He an' old missus ate et for dinner. Isee the plate after; there wasn't on'ycrumbs on et.'

'If you never saw the loaf, how do you

know they ate it '

'Because ther' warn't nothin' else in the'ouse.'

The rector's voice barked out:

'Quite right!'

The Chairman looked at him fixedly.

'Do you want to ask her anything '

The rector nodded.

'You been paid your wages '

'Noa, I 'asn't.'

'D'you know why '

'Noa.'

'Very sorry no money to pay you. That'sall.'

This closed the prosecutor's case; andthere followed a pause, during whichthe Bench consulted together, and therector eyed the congregation, noddingto one here and there. Then theChairman, turning to him, said:

'Now, sir, do you call any witnesses '

'Yes. My bell-ringer. He's a good man.

You can believe him.'

The bell-ringer, Samuel Bevis, whotook his place in the witness-box, was akind of elderly Bacchus, withpermanently trembling hands. Hedeposed as follows:

'When I passed rector Tuesdayarternoon, he calls after me: "See this!"'e says, and up 'e held it. "Bit o' dirrtybread," 'e says; "do for my burrds."Then on he goes walkin'.'

'Did you see whether the loaf was dirty'

'Yaas, I think 'twas dirrty.'

'Don't think! Do you know '

'Yaas; 'twas dirrty.'

'Which side '

'Which saide I think 'twas dirrty on thebottom.'

'Are you sure '

'Yaas; 'twas dirrty on the bottom, forzartain.'

'Very well. Stand down. Now, sir, willyou give us your version of this matter '

The rector, pointing at the prosecutorand the left-hand aisle, jerked out thewords:

'All Chapel want to see me down.'

The Chairman said stonily:

'Never mind that. Come to the facts,please.'

'Certainly! Out for a walk passed thebaker's cart saw a loaf fallen in the mudpicked it up do for my birds.'

'What birds '

'Magpie and two starlings; quite free

never shut the cage-door; well fed.'

'The baker charges you with taking itfrom his cart.'

'Lie! Underneath the cart in a puddle.'

'You heard what your cook said aboutyour eating it. Did you '

'Yes, birds couldn't eat all nothing inthe house Mother and I hungry.'

'Hungry '

'No money. Hard up very! Oftenhungry. Ha, ha!'

Again through the court that queerrustle passed. The three magistratesgazed at the accused. Then 'the Honble'Calmady said:

'You say you found the loaf under thecart. Didn't it occur to you to put itback You could see it had fallen. Howelse could it have come there '

The rector's burning eyes seemed tomelt.

'From the sky. Manna.' Staring roundthe court, he added: 'Hungry God'select to the manna born!' And,throwing back his head, he laughed. Itwas the only sound in a silence as of

the grave.

The magistrates spoke together in lowtones. The rector stood motionless,gazing at them fixedly. The people inthe court sat as if at a play. Then theChairman said:

'Case dismissed.'

'Thank you.'

Jerking out that short thanksgiving, therector descended from the dock, andpassed down the centre aisle, followedby every eye.

III

From the Petty Sessions court thecongregation wended its way back toTrover, by the muddy lane, 'Church'and 'Chapel,' arguing the case. To dimthe triumph of the 'Church' the factremained that the baker had lost hisloaf and had not been compensated.The loaf was worth money; no moneyhad passed. It was hard to be victoriousand yet reduced to silence and darklooks at girding adversaries. The nearerthey came to home, the more angrywith 'Chapel' did they grow. Then thebell-ringer had his inspiration.Assembling his three assistants, hehurried to the belfry, and in twominutes the little old tower was

belching forth the merriest andmaddest peal those bells had everfurnished. Out it swung in the still airof the grey winter day, away to the verysea.

A stranger, issuing from the inn,hearing that triumphant sound, andseeing so many black-clothed peopleabout, said to his driver:

'What is it a wedding '

'No, zurr, they say 'tis for the rector,like; he've a just been acquitted forlarceny.'

* * * * *

On the Tuesday following, the rector'sravaged face and red-grey hair appearedin Mrs. Gloyn's doorway, and his voice,creaking like a saw, said:

'Can you let me have a pound of butterPay you soon.'

What else could he do Not even toGod's elect does the sky always senddown manna.

1916.

IV

A STRANGE THING

Not very long ago, during a sojourn ina part of the West country never yetvisited by me, I went out one fine butrather cold March morning for a longramble. I was in one of thosedisillusioned moods that come towriters, bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt ofconfidence, a prey to that recurrentdespair, the struggle with which makesthe profession of the pen as a friendonce said to me "a manly one." "Yes" Iwas thinking, for all that the air was sobrisk, and the sun so bright "nothingcomes to me nowadays, no flashes oflight, none of those suddenly shaped

visions that bring cheer and warmth toa poor devil's heart, and set his brainand pen to driving on. A bad, badbusiness!" And my eyes, wanderingover the dip and rise, the woods, themoor, the rocks of that finecountryside, took in the lovelinessthereof with the profound discontentof one who, seeing beauty, feels that hecannot render it. The high lane-bankshad just been pollarded, one could seeright down over the fields and gorseand bare woods tinged with that rosybrown of beech and birch twigs, andthe dusty saffron of the larches. Andsuddenly my glance was arrested bysomething vivid, a sort of black andwhite excitement in the air. "Aha!" I

thought, "a magpie. Two! Three! Good!Is it an omen " The birds had risen atthe bottom of a field, their twining,fluttering voyage most decorative of allbird flights was soon lost in the woodbeyond, but something it had leftbehind in my heart; I felt more hopeful,less inclined to think about the failureof my spirit, better able to give myselfup to this new country I was passingthrough. Over the next rise in the verywinding lane I heard the sound ofbrisk church bells, and not threehundred yards beyond came to a villagegreen, where knots of men dressed inthe dark clothes, light ties, and bowlerhats of village festivity, and of womensmartened up beyond belief, were

gathered, chattering, round the yard ofan old, grey, square-towered church.

"What's going on " I thought. "It's notSunday, not the birthday of a Potentate,and surely they don't keep Saint days inthis manner. It must be a wedding. Yesthere's a favour! Let's go in and see!"And, passing the expectant groups, Ientered the church and made my wayup the aisle. There was already a fairsprinkling of folk all turned roundtowards the door, and the usuallicensed buzz and whisper of awedding congregation. The church, asseems usual in remote parishes, hadbeen built all those centuries ago tohold a population in accordance with

the expectations of its tenet, "Befruitful and multiply." But the wholepopulation could have been seated in aquarter of its space. It was lofty andunwarmed save by excitement, and thesmell of bear's-grease. There wascertainly more animation than I hadever seen or savoured in a truly ruraldistrict.

The bells which had been ringing witha sort of languid joviality, fell now intothe hurried crashing which marks theapproach of a bride, and the people Ihad passed outside came thronging in. Iperceived a young man little more thana boy, who by his semi-detachment, thefumbling of his gloved hands, and the

sheepishness of the smile on his good-looking, open face, was obviously thebridegroom. I liked the looks of him acut above the usual village bumpkinsomething free and kind about his face.But no one was paying him the leastattention. It was for the bride they werewaiting; and I myself began to beexcited. What would this young thingbe like Just the ordinary village maidenwith tight cheeks, and dress; coarse veil,high colour, and eyes like a rabbit's; orsomething something like that littleWelsh girl on the hills whom I oncepassed and whose peer I have neversince seen Bending forward, I accostedan apple-faced woman in the next pew."Can you tell me who the bride is "

Regarding me with the grey, round,defensive glance that one bestows onstrangers, she replied:

"Aw, don't 'ee know 'Tes Gwenny Maraprettiest, brightest maid in these parts."And, jerking her thumb towards theneglected bridegroom, she added: "He'sa lucky young chap. She'm a sunnymaid, for sure, and a gude maid tu."

Somehow the description did notreassure me, and I prepared for theworst.

A bubble, a stir, a rustle!

Like everyone else, I turned franklyround. She was coming up the aisle onthe arm of a hard-faced, rather gipsy-looking man, dressed in a farmer's verybest.

I can only tell you that to see hercoming down the centre of that greychurch amongst all those dark-clothedpeople, was like watching the dance ofa sunbeam. Never had I seen a face sohappy, sweet, and radiant. Smiling,eager, just lost enough to hersurroundings, her hair unconquerablygolden through the coarse veil; herdancing eyes clear and dark as a peatpool she was the prettiest sight. Onecould only think of a young apple-tree

with the spring sun on its blossom. Shehad that kind of infectious brightnesswhich comes from very simplegoodness. It was quite a relief to havetaken a fancy to the young man's face,and to feel that she was passing intogood hands.

The only flowers in the church wereearly daffodils, but those first childrenof the sun were somehowextraordinarily appropriate to thewedding of this girl. When she cameout she was pelted with them, and withthat miserable confetti without whichnot even the simplest souls can pass tobliss, it seems. There are things in lifewhich make one feel good sunshine,

most music, all flowers, many children,some animals, clouds, mountains, bird-songs, blue sky, dancing, and here andthere a young girl's face. And I had thefeeling that all of us there felt good forthe mere seeing of her.

When she had driven away, I foundmyself beside a lame old man, withwhiskers, and delightful eyes, whocontinued to smile after the carriagehad quite vanished. Noticing, perhaps,that I, too, was smiling, he said: "'Tes afunny thing, tu, when a maid like thatgets married makes you go all of atremble so it du." And to my nod headded: "Brave bit o' sunshine we'll missher hereabout; not a doubt of it. We

ain't got another one like that."

"Was that her father " I asked, for thewant of something to say. With asharpish look at my face, he shook hishead.

"No, she an't got no parents, Mr. Marabein' her uncle, as you may say. No, shean't got no parents," he repeated, andthere was something ill at ease, yet juicy,about his voice, as though he knewthings that he would not tell.

Since there was nothing more to waitfor, I went up to the little inn, andordered bread and cheese. The malecongregation was whetting its whistle

noisily within, but, as a stranger, I hadthe verandah to myself, and, finishingmy simple lunch in the March sunlight,I paid and started on. Taking at randomone of the three lanes that debouchedfrom the bottom of the green, Imeandered on between high banks,happy in the consciousness of notknowing at all where it would lead methat essential of a country ramble.Except one cottage in a bottom andone farm on a rise, I passed nothing,nobody. The spring was late in theseparts, the buds had hardly formed asyet on any trees, and now and thenbetween the bursts of sunlight a fewfine specks of snow would comedrifting past me on the wind. Close to a

group of pines at a high corner, thelane dipped sharply down to a longfarm-house standing back in its yard,where three carts were drawn up, andan empty waggonette with its shafts inthe air. And suddenly, by some brokendaffodils on the seats and confetti onthe ground, I perceived that I hadstumbled on the bride's home, wherethe wedding feast was, no doubt, inprogress.

Gratifying but by no means satisfyingmy curiosity by gazing at the lichenedstone and thatch of the old house, atthe pigeons, pigs, and hens at largebetween it and the barns, I passed ondown the lane, which turned up steeply

to the right beside a little stream. To myleft was a long larch wood, to my rightrough fields with many trees. The lanefinished at a gate below the steepmoorside crowned by a rocky tor. Istood there leaning on the top bar,debating whether I should ascend orno. The bracken had, most of it, beencut in the autumn, and not a hundredyards away the furze was being swaled;the little blood-red flames and the bluesmoke, the yellow blossoms of thegorse, the sunlight, and some flecks ofdrifting snow were mingled in anamazing tangle of colour.

I had made up my mind to ascend thetor, and was pushing through the gate,

when suddenly I saw a woman sittingon a stone under the wall bordering thelarch wood. She was holding her headin her hands, rocking her body to andfro; and her eyes were evidently shut,for she had not noticed me. She wore ablue serge dress; her hat reposed besideher, and her dark hair was stragglingabout her face. That face, all blowsyand flushed, was at once wild andstupefied. A face which has beenbeautiful, coarsened and swollen by lifeand strong emotion, is a pitiful enoughsight. Her dress, hat, and the way herhair had been done were redolent ofthe town, and of that unnameablesomething which clings to womenwhose business it is to attract men. And

yet there was a gipsyish look about her,as though she had not always been ofthe town.

The sight of a woman's unrestraineddistress in the very heart of untouchednature is so rare that one must bepeculiar to remain unmoved. And thereI stood, not knowing what on earth todo. She went on rocking herself to andfro, her stays creaking, and a faintmoaning sound coming from her lips;and suddenly she drooped over her lap,her hands fallen to her sides, as thoughshe had gone into a kind of coma.How go on and leave her thus; yet howintrude on what did not seem to memere physical suffering

In that quandary I stood and watched.This corner was quite sheltered fromthe wind, the sun almost hot, and thebreath of the swaling reached one inthe momentary calms. For three fullminutes she had not moved a finger;till, beginning to think she had reallyfainted, I went up to her. From herdrooped body came a scent of heat,and of stale violet powder, and I couldsee, though the east wind hadoutraddled them, traces of rouge onher cheeks and lips; their surface had asort of swollen defiance, butunderneath, as it were, a wasted look.Her breathing sounded faint andbroken.

Mustering courage, I touched her onthe arm. She raised her head andlooked up. Her eyes were the bestthings she had left; they must have oncebeen very beautiful. Bloodshot nowfrom the wind, their wild, stupefiedlook passed after a moment into thepeculiar, half-bold, half-furtive stare ofwomen of a certain sort. She did notspeak, and in my embarrassment I drewout the flask of port I always take withme on my rambles, and stammered:

"I beg your pardon are you feeling faintWould you care " And, unscrewing thetop, I held out the flask. She stared at ita moment blankly, then taking it, said:

"That's kind of you. I feel to want it,tu." And, putting it to her lips, shedrank, tilting back her head. Perhaps itwas the tell-tale softness of her u's,perhaps the naturally strong lines ofher figure thus bent back, butsomehow the plumage of the townbird seemed to drop off her suddenly.

She handed back the flask, as empty asit had ever been, and said, with a hardsmile:

"I dare say you thought me funny sittin''ere like that."

"I thought you were ill."

She laughed without the faintest mirth,and muttered:

"I did go on, didn't I " Then, almostfiercely, added: "I got some reason, too.Seein' the old place again after all theseyears." Her dark eyes, which the wineseemed to have cleared and boldened,swept me up and down, taking me in,making sure perhaps whether or no shehad ever seen me, and what sort of abrute I might be. Then she said: "I wasborn here. Are you from these parts " Ishook my head "No, from the otherside of the county."

She laughed. Then, after a moment's

silence, said abruptly:

"I been to a weddin' first I've seen sinceI was a girl."

Some instinct kept me silent.

"My own daughter's weddin', butnobody didn't know me not likely."

I had dropped down under the shelterof the wall on to a stone opposite, andat those words looked at her withinterest indeed. She this coarsened,wasted, suspiciously scented woman ofthe town the mother of that sweet,sunny child I had just seen married.And again instinctively silent about my

own presence at the wedding, Imurmured:

"I thought I saw some confetti in thatfarmyard as I came up the lane."

She laughed again.

"Confetti that's the little pink and whiteand blue things plenty o' that," and sheadded fiercely: "My own brother didn'know me let alone my girl. How shouldshe I haven't seen her since she was ababy she was a laughin' little thing,"and she gazed past me with that look inthe eyes as of people who are staringback into the bygone. "I guess we waslaughin' when we got her. 'Twas just

here summer-time. I 'ad the moon inmy blood that night, right enough."Then, turning her eyes on my face, sheadded: "That's what a girl will 'ave, youknow, once in a while, and like as notit'll du for her. Only thirty-five now, Iam, an' pretty nigh the end o' my tether.What can you expect I'm a gay woman.Did for me right enough. Her father'sdead, tu."

"Do you mean," I said, "because ofyour child "

She nodded. "I suppose you can saythat. They made me bring an orderagainst him. He wouldn't pay up, so hewent and enlisted, an' in tu years 'e was

dead in the Boer War so it killed himright enough. But there she is, a sweetsprig if ever there was one. That's astrange thing, isn't it " And she staredstraight before her in a sudden silence.Nor could I find anything to say, slowlytaking in the strangeness of this thing.That girl, so like a sunbeam, of whomthe people talked as though she were ablessing in their lives her coming intolife to have been the ruin of the twowho gave her being!

The woman went on dully: "Funnyhow I knew she was goin' to bemarried 'twas a farmer told me comesto me regular when he goes to Exetermarket. I always knew he came from

near my old home. 'There's a weddin'on Tuesday,' 'e says, 'I'd like to be thebridegroom at. Prettiest, sunniest maidyou ever saw'; an' he told me where shecome from, so I knew. He found me abit funny that afternoon. But he don'tknow who I am, though he used to goto school with me; I'd never tell, not forworlds." She shook her headvehemently. "I don't know why I toldyou; I'm not meself to-day, and that's afact." At her half-suspicious, half-appealing look, I said quickly:

"I don't know a soul about here. It's allright."

She sighed. "It was kind of you; and I

feel to want to talk sometimes. Well,after he was gone, I said to myself: 'I'lltake a holiday and go an' see mydaughter married.'" She laughed "Inever had no pink and white and bluelittle things myself. That was all doneup for me that night I had the moon inme blood. Ah! my father was a properhard man. 'Twas bad enough before Ihad my baby; but after, when I couldn'tget the father to marry me, an' he cutan' run, proper life they led me, himand stepmother. Cry! Didn' I cry I wasa soft-hearted thing never went to sleepwith me eyes dry never. 'Tis a cruelthing to make a young girl cry."

I said quietly: "Did you run away, then

"

She nodded. "Bravest thing I ever did.Nearly broke my 'eart to leave my baby;but 'twas that or drownin' myself. I wassoft then. I went off with a youngfellow bookmaker that used to comeover to the sports meetin', wild aboutme but he never married me" again sheuttered her hard laugh "knew a thingworth tu o' that." Lifting her handtowards the burning furze, she added:"I used to come up here an' help 'emlight that when I was a little girl." Andsuddenly she began to cry. It was not sopainful and alarming as her firstdistress, for it seemed natural now.

At the side of the cart-track by the gatewas an old boot thrown away, and itserved me for something to keep myeyes engaged. The dilapidated blackobject among the stones and wildplants on that day of strange mixedbeauty was as incongruous as thisunhappy woman herself revisiting heryouth. And there shot into my mind avision of this spot as it might havebeen that summer night when she had"the moon in her blood" queer phraseand those two young creatures in thetall soft fern, in the warmth and thedarkened loneliness, had yielded to theimpulse in their blood. A briskfluttering of snowflakes began fallingfrom the sky still blue, drifting away

over our heads towards the blood-redflames and smoke. They powdered thewoman's hair and shoulders, and with asob and a laugh she held up her handand began catching them as a childmight.

"'Tis a funny day for my girl's weddin',"she said. Then with a sort of fiercenessadded: "She'll never know her mothershe's in luck there, tu!" And, grabbingher feathered hat from the ground, shegot up. "I must be gettin' back for mytrain, else I'll be late for anappointment."

When she had put her hat on, rubbedher face, dusted and smoothed her

dress, she stood looking at the burningfurze. Restored to her town plumage, toher wonted bravado, she was more thanever like that old discarded boot,incongruous.

"I'm a fool ever to have come," shesaid; "only upset me and you don'twant no more upsettin' than you get,that's certain. Good-bye, and thank youfor the drink it lusened my tonguepraaper, didn't it " She gave me a looknot as a professional but a human,puzzled look. "I told you my baby wasa laughin' little thing. I'm glad she's stilllike that. I'm glad I've seen her." Herlips quivered for a second; then, with afaked jauntiness, she nodded. "So

long!" and passed through the gatedown into the lane.

I sat there in the snow and sunlightsome minutes after she was gone. Then,getting up, I went and stood by theburning furze. The blowing flames andthe blue smoke were alive andbeautiful; but behind them they wereleaving blackened skeleton twigs.

"Yes," I thought, "but in a week or twothe little green grass-shoots will bepushing up underneath into the sun.So the world goes! Out of destruction!It's a strange thing!"

1916.

V

TWO LOOKS

The old Director of the 'Yew Trees'Cemetery walked slowly across fromhis house, to see that all was ready.

He had seen pass into the square ofearth committed to his charge so manyto whom he had been in the habit ofnodding, so many whose faces even hehad not known. To him it was theeveryday event; yet this funeral, onemore in the countless tale, disturbed

him a sharp reminder of the passage oftime.

For twenty years had gone by since thedeath of Septimus Godwin, the cynical,romantic doctor who had been hisgreatest friend; by whose cleverness allhad sworn, of whose powers offascination all had gossiped! And nowthey were burying his son!

He had not seen the widow since, forshe had left the town at once; but herecollected her distinctly, a tall, darkwoman with bright brown eyes, muchyounger than her husband, and onlymarried to him eighteen months beforehe died. He remembered her slim figure

standing by the grave, at that long-pastfuneral, and the look on her face whichhad puzzled him so terribly a look of amost peculiar look!

He thought of it even now, walkingalong the narrow path towards his oldfriend's grave the handsomest in thecemetery, commanding from thetopmost point the whitened slope andriver that lay beyond. He came to itslittle private garden. Spring flowerswere blossoming; the railings had beenfreshly painted; and by the door of thegrave wreaths awaited the new arrival.All was in order.

The old Director opened the

mausoleum with his key. Below, seenthrough a thick glass floor, lay theshining coffin of the father; beneath,on the lower tier, would rest the coffinof the son.

A gentle voice, close behind him, said:

"Can you tell me, sir, what they aredoing to my old doctor's grave "

The old Director turned, and sawbefore him a lady well past middle age.He did not know her face, but it waspleasant, with faded rose-leaf cheeks,and silvered hair under a shady hat.

"Madam, there is a funeral here this

afternoon."

"Ah! Can it be his wife "

"Madam, his son; a young man of onlytwenty."

"His son! At what time did you say "

"At two o'clock."

"Thank you; you are very kind."

With uplifted hat, he watched her walkaway. It worried him to see a face hedid not know.

All went off beautifully; but, dining

that same evening with his friend, acertain doctor, the old Director asked:

"Did you see a lady with grey hairhovering about this afternoon "

The doctor, a tall man, with a beard stillyellow, drew his guest's chair nearer tothe fire.

"I did."

"Did you remark her face A very oddexpression a sort of what shall I call itVery odd indeed! Who is she I saw herat the grave this morning."

The doctor shook his head.

"Not so very odd, I think."

"Come! What do you mean by that "

The doctor hesitated. Then, taking thedecanter, he filled his old friend's glass,and answered:

"Well, sir, you were Godwin's greatestchum I will tell you, if you like, thestory of his death. You were away atthe time, if you remember."

"It is safe with me," said the oldDirector.

"Septimus Godwin," began the doctor

slowly, "died on a Thursday about threeo'clock, and I was only called in to seehim at two. I found him far gone, butconscious now and then. It was a caseof but you know the details, so Ineedn't go into that. His wife was in theroom, and on the bed at his feet lay hispet dog a terrier; you may recollect,perhaps, he had a special breed. I hadn'tbeen there ten minutes, when a maidcame in and whispered something toher mistress. Mrs. Godwin answeredangrily, 'See him Go down and say sheought to know better than to comehere at such a time!' The maid went, butsoon came back. Could the lady seeMrs. Godwin for just a moment Mrs.Godwin answered that she could not

leave her husband. The maid lookedfrightened, and went away again. Shecame back for the third time. The ladyhad said she must see Dr. Godwin; itwas a matter of life and death! 'Deathindeed!' exclaimed Mrs. Godwin:'Shameful! Go down and tell her, if shedoesn't go immediately, I will send forthe police!'

"The poor maid looked at me. I offeredto go down and see the visitor myself. Ifound her in the dining room, andknew her at once. Never mind hername, but she belongs to a countyfamily not a hundred miles from here.A beautiful woman she was then; buther face that day was quite distorted.

"'For God's sake, Doctor,' she said, 'isthere any hope '

"I was obliged to tell her there wasnone.

"'Then I must see him,' she said.

"I begged her to consider what she wasasking. But she held me out a signetring. Just like Godwin wasn't it that sortof Byronism, eh

"'He sent me this,' she said, 'an hourago. It was agreed between us that ifever he sent that, I must come. If itwere only myself I could bear it a

woman can bear anything; but he'll diethinking I wouldn't come, thinking Ididn't care and I would give my life forhim this minute!'

"Now, a dying man's request is sacred. Itold her she should see him. I made herfollow me upstairs, and wait outside hisroom. I promised to let her know if herecovered consciousness. I have neverbeen thanked like that, before or since.

"I went back into the bedroom. He wasstill unconscious, and the terrierwhining. In the next room a child wascrying the very same young man weburied to-day. Mrs. Godwin was stillstanding by the bed.

"'Have you sent her away '

"I had to say that Godwin really wishedto see her. At that she broke out:

"'I won't have her here the wretch!'

"I begged her to control herself, andremember that her husband was a dyingman.

"'But I'm his wife,' she said, and flewout of the room."

The doctor paused, staring at the fire.He shrugged his shoulders, and wenton: "I'd have stopped her fury if I

could! A dying man is not the same asthe live animal, that he must needs bewrangled over! And suffering's sacred,even to us doctors. I could hear theirvoices outside. Heaven knows whatthey said to each other. And there layGodwin with his white face and hisblack hair deathly still fine-lookingfellow he always was! Then I saw thathe was coming to! The women hadbegun again outside first, the wife,sharp and scornful; then the other,hushed and slow. I saw Godwin lift hisfinger and point it at the door. I wentout, and said to the woman, 'Dr.Godwin wishes to see you; pleasecontrol yourself.'

"We went back into the room. The wifefollowed. But Godwin had lostconsciousness again. They sat down,those two, and hid their faces. I can seethem now, one on each side of the bed,their eyes covered with their hands,each with her claim on him, allmurdered by the other's presence; eachwith her torn love. H'm! What theymust have suffered, then! And all thetime the child crying the child of oneof them, that might have been theother's!"

The doctor was silent, and the oldDirector turned towards him his white-bearded, ruddy face, with a look as ifhe were groping in the dark.

"Just then, I remember," the doctorwent on suddenly, "the bells of St.Jude's close by began to peal out for thefinish of a wedding. That broughtGodwin back to life. He just lookedfrom one woman to the other with aqueer, miserable sort of smile, enoughto make your heart break. And theyboth looked at him. The face of thewife poor thing! was as bitter hard as acut stone, but she sat there, withoutever stirring a finger. As for the otherwoman I couldn't look at her. Hebeckoned to me; but I couldn't catchhis words, the bells drowned them. Aminute later he was dead.

"Life's a funny thing! You wake in themorning with your foot firm on theladder One touch, and down you go!You snuff out like a candle. And it'slucky when your flame goes out, ifonly one woman's flame goes out too.

"Neither of those women cried. Thewife stayed there by the bed. I got theother one away to her carriage, downthe street. And so she was there to-day!That explains, I think, the look yousaw."

The doctor ceased, and in the silencethe old Director nodded. Yes! Thatexplained the look he had seen on theface of that unknown woman, the

deep, unseizable, weird look. Thatexplained the look he had seen on thewife's face at the funeral twenty yearsago!

And peering wistfully, he said:

"They looked they looked almosttriumphant!"

Then, slowly, he rubbed his hands overhis knees, with the secret craving of theold for warmth.

1914.

VI

FAIRYLAND

It was about three o'clock, thisNovember afternoon, when I rodedown into "Fairyland," as it is calledabout here. The birch-trees there aremore beautiful than any in the world;and when the clouds are streaming overin rain-grey, and the sky soaring abovein higher blue, just-seen, those goldand silver creatures have such magicalloveliness as makes the hearts ofmortals ache. The fairies, who havebeen driven off the moor, alone watchthem with equanimity, if they be notindeed the birch-trees themselves

especially those little very golden oneswhich have strayed out into the heather,on the far side of the glen. "Revenge!"the fairies cried when a century agothose, whom they do not exist just toamuse, made the new road over themoor, cutting right through the homeof twilight, that wood above the"Falls," where till then they had alwaysenjoyed inviolable enchantment. Theytrooped forthwith in theirmultitudinous secrecy down into theglen, to swarm about the old road. Inhalf a century or so they had it almostabandoned, save for occasionalhorsemen and harmless personsseeking beauty, for whom the fairieshave never had much feeling of

aversion. And now, after a hundredyears, it is all theirs; the ground sogolden with leaves and bracken that theold track is nothing but a vaguehardness beneath a horse's feet, nothingbut a runnel for the rains to gather in.There is everywhere that glen scent ofmouldering leaves, so sweet when thewind comes down and stirs it, and thesun frees and livens it. Not very manybirds, perhaps because hawks are fondof hovering here. This was once theonly road up to the village, the onlycommunication with all that lies to thesouth and east! Now the fairies havegot it indeed, they have witched toskeletons all the little bridges across theglen stream; they have mossed and

thinned the gates to wraiths. With theirdapple-gold revelry in sunlight, andtheir dance of pied beauty under themoon, they have made all their own.

I have ridden many times down intothis glen; and slowly up among thebeeches and oaks into the lanes again,hoping and believing that, some day, Ishould see a fairy take shape to mythick mortal vision; and to-day, at last, Ihave seen.

I heard it first about half-way up thewood, a silvery voice piping out verytrue what seemed like mortal words,not quite to be caught. Resolved not tomiss it this time, I got off quietly and

tied my mare to a tree. Then, tiptoeingin the damp leaves which did notrustle, I stole up till I caught sight of it,from behind an oak.

It was sitting in yellow bracken as highas its head, under a birch-tree that had afew branches still gold-feathered. Itseemed to be clothed in blue, and to beswaying as it sang. There was somethingin its arms, as it might be a creaturebeing nursed. Cautiously I slipped fromthat tree to the next, till I could see itsface, just like a child's, fascinating, very,very delicate, the little open mouthpoised and shaped ever so neatly to thewords it was singing; the eyes wideapart and ever so wide open, fixed on

nothing mortal. The song, and the littlebody, and the spirit in the eyes, allseemed to sway sway together, like asoft wind that goes sough-sough,swinging, in the tops of the ferns. Andnow it stretched out one arm, and nowthe other, beckoning in to it those towhich it was singing; so that oneseemed to feel the invisible onesstealing up closer and closer.

These were the words which came sosilvery and slow through that littlemouth: "Chil-dren, chil-dren! Hussh!"

It seemed as if the very rabbits mustcome and sit-up there, the jays andpigeons settle above; everything in all

the wood gather. Even one's own heartseemed to be drawn in by thosebeckoning arms, and the slowenchantment of that tinkling voice, andthe look in those eyes, which, lost in theunknown, were seeing no mortal glen,but only that mazed wood, wherefriendly wild things come, who have nosound to their padding, no whirr to themovement of their wings; whose gaywhisperings have no noise, whose eagershapes no colour the fairy dream-woodof the unimaginable.

"Chil-dren, chil-dren! Hus-s-h!"

For just a moment I could see thatspirit company, ghosts of the ferns and

leaves, of butterflies and bees andbirds, and four-footed thingsinnumerable, ghosts of the wind, thesun-beams, and the rain-drops, and tinyflickering ghosts of moon-rays. For justa moment I saw what the fairy's eyeswere seeing, without knowing whatthey saw.

And then my mare trod on a deadbranch, and all vanished. My fairy wasgone; and there was only little"Connemara," as we called her, nursingher doll, and smiling up at me from thefern, where she had come to practiseher new school-song.

1911.

VII

THE NIGHTMARE CHILD

I set down here not precisely the wordsof my friend, the country doctor, butthe spirit of them:

"You know there are certain creaturesin this world whom one simply darenot take notice of, however sorry onemay be for them. That has often beenborne in on me. I realised it, I think,before I met that little girl. I used toattend her mother for varicose veins

one of those women who really oughtnot to have children, since they haven'tthe very least notion of how to bringthem up. The wife of a Sussexagricultural labourer called Alliner, shewas a stout person, with most peculiarprominent epileptic eyes, such eyes asone usually associates with men ofletters or criminals. And yet there wasnothing in her. She was just a lazy,slatternly, easy-going body, rather givento drink. Her husband was a thin, dirty,light-hearted fellow, who did his workand offended nobody. Her eldestdaughter, a pretty and capable girl, waswild, got into various kinds of trouble,and had to migrate, leaving twoillegitimate children behind her with

their grandparents. The younger girl,the child of this story, who was calledEmmeline, of all names pronouncedEm'leen, of course was just fifteen atthe time of my visits to her mother. Shehad eyes like a hare's, a mouth whichreadily fell open, and brown lockscaught back from her scared andknobby forehead. She was thin, andwalked with her head poked a littleforward, and she so manoeuvred herlegs and long feet, of which one turnedin rather and seemed trying to get infront of the other, that there wassomething clodhopperish in her gait.Once in a way you would see her incurl-papers, and then indeed she wasplain, poor child! She seemed to have

grown up without ever having had theleast attention paid to her. I don't thinkshe was ill-treated she was simply nottreated at all. At school they had beenkind enough, but had regarded her asalmost deficient. Seeing that her fatherwas paid about fifteen shillings a week,that her mother had no conception ofhousekeeping, and that there were twobabies to be fed, they were, of course,villainously poor, and Em'leen wasalways draggle-tailed and badly shod.One side of her too-short dress seemedever to hang lower than the other, herstockings always had one hole at least,and her hat such queer hats wouldseem about to fly away. I have knownher type in the upper classes pass

muster as "eccentric" or "full ofcharacter." And even in Em'leen therewas a sort of smothered naturalcomeliness, trying pathetically to pushthrough, and never getting a chance.She always had a lost-dog air, and whenher big hare's eyes clung on your face, itseemed as if she only wanted a sign tomake her come trailing at your heels,looking up for a pat or a bit of biscuit.

"She went to work, of course, themoment she left school. Her first placewas in a small farm where they tooklodgers, and her duties were to doeverything, without, of course,knowing how to do anything. She hadto leave because she used to take soap

and hairpins, and food that was leftover, and was once seen licking a dish.It was just about then that I attendedher mother for those veins in herunwieldy legs, and the child was athome, waiting to secure some otherfate. It was impossible not to look atthat little creature kindly, and to speakto her now and then; she would notexactly light up, because her face wasnot made that way, but she would hangtowards you as if you were a magnet,and you had at once the uncomfortablesensation that you might find herclinging, impossible to shake off. Ifone passed her in the village, too, orcoming down from her blackberryingin the thickets on the Downs their

cottage lay just below the South Downsone knew that she would be lingeringalong, looking back till you were out ofsight. Somehow one hardly thought ofher as a girl at all, she seemed so farfrom all human hearts, so wandering ina queer lost world of her own, and toimagine what she could be thinkingwas as impossible as it is with animals.Once I passed her and her motherdawdling slowly in a lane, then heardthe dot-and-go-one footsteps patteringafter me, and the childish voice, rathersoft and timid, say behind my shoulder:"Would you please buy someblackberries, sir " She was almost prettyat that moment, flushed and breathlessat having actually spoken to me, but her

eyes hanging on my face brought a sortof nightmare feeling at once of beingunable to get rid of her.

"Isn't it a cruel thing when you come tothink of it, that there should be borninto the world poor creatures children,dogs, cats, horses who want badly tolove and be loved, and yet whom noone can quite put up with, much lessfeel affection for!

"Well, what happened to her is whatwill always happen to such as those,one way or another, in a world wherethe callous abound; for, howeverunlovable a woman or girl, she has heruse to a man, just as a dog or a horse

has to a master who cares nothing forit.

"Soon after I bought those blackberriesI went out to France on military duty. Igot my leave a year later, and wenthome. It was late September, very lovelyweather, and I took a real holidaywalking or lying about up on theDowns, and only coming down atsunset. On one of those days when youreally enter heaven, so pure are the linesof the hills, so cool the blue, the green,the chalk-white colouring under thesmile of the afternoon sun I wasreturning down that same lane, when Icame on Em'leen sitting in a gap of thebank, with her dishevelled hat beside

her, and her chin sunk on her hands.My appearance seemed to drag her outof a heavy dream her eyes awoke,became startled, rolled furtively; shescrambled up, dropped her little, oldschool curtsey, then all confused, facedthe bank as if she were going to climbit. She was taller, her dress longer, herhair gathered up, and it was very clearwhat was soon going to happen to her.I walked on in a rage. At her age barelysixteen even yet! I am a doctor, andaccustomed to most things, but thisparticular crime against children of thathelpless sort does make my blood boil.Nothing, not even passion to excuse itwho could feel passion for that poorchild nothing but the cold, clumsy lust

of some young ruffian. Yes, I walkedon in a rage, and went straight to hermother's cottage. That wretched womanwas incapable of moral indignation, orelse the adventures of her elderdaughter had exhausted her powers ofexpression. 'Yes,' she admitted, 'Em'leenhad got herself into trouble too, butshe would not tell, she wouldn't saynothin' against nobody. It was a badbusiness, surely, an' now there would bethree o' them, an' Alliner was properlyupset, that he was!' That was all therewas to be had out of her. One felt thatshe knew or suspected more, but herfingers had been so burned over theelder girl that anything to her was betterthan a fuss.

"I saw Alliner; he was a decent fellow,though dirty, distressed in his simple,shallow-pated way, and more obviouslyignorant than his wife. I spoke to theschoolmistress, a shrewd and kindlymarried woman.

"Poor Emmeline! Yes, she had noticed.It was very sad and wicked! She hinted,but would not do more than hint, atthe son of the miller, but he was backagain, fighting in France now, and, afterall, her evidence amounted to no morethan his reputation with girls. Besides,one is very careful what one says in acountry village. I, however, was soangry that I should not have been

careful if I could have got hold ofanything at all definite.

"I did not see the child again before myleave was up. The very next thing Iheard of her, was in a newspaperEmmeline Alliner, sixteen, had beencommitted for trial for causing thedeath of her illegitimate child byexposure. I was on the sick list inJanuary, and went home to rest. I hadnot been there two days before Ireceived a visit from a solicitor of ourassize town, who came to ask me if Iwould give evidence at the girl's trial asto the nature of her homesurroundings. I learned from him thedetails of the lugubrious business. It

seems that she had slipped out onebitter afternoon in December, barely afortnight after her confinement,carrying her baby. There was snow onthe ground, and it was freezing hard,but the sun was bright, and it was thatperhaps which tempted her. She musthave gone up towards the Downs bythe lane where I had twice met her;gone up, and stopped at the very gap inthe bank where she had been sittinglost in that heavy dream when I saw herlast. She appears to have subsided therein the snow, for there she was found bythe postman just as it was getting dark,leaning over her knees as if stupefied,with her chin buried in her hands andthe baby stiff and dead in the snow

beside her. When I told the lawyer howI had seen her there ten weeks before,and of the curious dazed state she hadbeen in, he said at once: 'Ah! the exactspot. That's very important; it looksuncommonly as if it were there that shecame by her misfortune. What do youthink It's almost evident that she'd lostsense of her surroundings, baby andall. I shall ask you to tell us about thatat the trial. She's a most peculiar child; Ican't get anything out of her. I keepasking her for the name of the man, orsome indication of how it came about,but all she says is: "Nobody nobody!"Another case of immaculateconception! Poor little creature, she'svery pathetic, and that's her best chance.

Who could condemn a child like that '

"And so indeed it turned out. I sparedno feelings in my evidence. The motherand father were in court, and I hopeMrs. Alliner liked my diagnosis of hermaternal qualities. My description ofhow Em'leen was sitting when I mether in September tallied so exactly withthe postman's account of how he mether, that I could see the jury wereimpressed. And then there was thefigure of the child herself, lonely therein the dock. The French have a word,Hebetee. Surely there never was a humanobject to which it applied better. Shestood like a little tired pony, whosehead hangs down, half-sleeping after

exertion; and those hare eyes of herswere glued to the judge's face, for allthe world as if she were worshippinghim. It must have made himextraordinarily uncomfortable. Hesummed up very humanely, dwelling onthe necessity of finding intention in herconduct towards the baby; and he usedsome good strong language against theunknown man. The jury found her notguilty, and she was discharged. Theschoolmistress and I, anticipating this,had found her a refuge with someSisters of Mercy, who ran a sort ofhome not far away, and to that we tookher, without a 'by your leave' to themother.

"When I came home the followingsummer, I found an opportunity ofgoing to look her up. She wasamazingly improved in face and dress,but she had attached herself to one ofthe Sisters a broad, fine-looking womanto such a pitch that she seemed hardlyalive when out of her sight. The Sisterspoke of it to me with real concern.

"'I really don't know what to do withher,' she said; 'she seems incapable ofanything unless I tell her; she only feelsthings through me. It's really quitetrying, and sometimes very funny, poorlittle soul! but it's tragic for her. If Itold her to jump out of her bedroomwindow, or lie down in that pond and

drown, she'd do it without a moment'shesitation. She can't go through life likethis; she must learn to stand on herown feet. We must try and get her agood place, where she can learn whatresponsibility means, and get a will ofher own.'

"I looked at the Sister, so broad, socapable, so handsome, and so puzzled,and I thought, 'Yes, I know exactly.She's on your nerves; and where in theworld will you find a place for herwhere she won't become a sort ofnightmare to some one, with herdevotion, or else get it taken advantageof again ' And I urged them to keepher a little longer. They did; for when I

went home for good, six months later, Ifound that she had only just gone intoa place with an old lady-patient ofmine, in a small villa on the outskirtsof our village. She used to open thedoor to me when I called there on myrounds once a week. She retainedvestiges of the neatness which hadbeen grafted on her by the Sister, buther frock was already beginning to sagdown on one side, and her hair to lookill-treated. The old lady spoke to herwith a sort of indulgent impatience,and it was clear that the girl's devotionwas not concentrated upon her. Icaught myself wondering what wouldbe its next object, never able to help thefeeling that if I gave a sign it would be

myself. You may be sure I gave no sign.What's the good I hold the belief thatpeople should not force themselves tohuman contacts or relationships whichthey cannot naturally and withoutirritation preserve. I've seen these heroicattempts come to grief so often; in fact,I don't think I've ever seen one succeed,not even between blood relations. Inthe long run they merely pervert andspoil the fibre of the attempter, withoutreally benefiting the attemptee. Behindhealthy relationships between humanbeings, or even between human beingsand animals, there must be at least somerudimentary affinity. That's the tragedyof poor little souls like Em'leen. Whereon earth can they find the affinity

which makes life good The very factthat they must worship is theirdestruction. It was a soldier or so theysaid who had brought her to her firstgrief; I had seen her adoring the judgeat the trial, then the handsomeuniformed Sister. And I, as the villagedoctor, was a sort of tin-pot deity inthose parts, so I was very careful tokeep my manner to her robust andalmost brusque.

"And then one day I passed her comingfrom the post office; she was lookingback, her cheeks were flushed, and shewas almost pretty. There by the inn abutcher's cart was drawn up. The youngbutcher, new to our village (he had a

stiff knee, and had been dischargedfrom the Army), was taking out a leg ofmutton. He had a daredevil face; andeyes that had seen much death. He hadevidently been chatting with her, for hewas still smiling, and even as I passedhim he threw her a jerk of the head.

"Two Sundays after that I was comingdown past Wiley's copse at dusk, andheard a man's coarse laugh. There,through a tiny gap in the nut-bushes, Isaw a couple seated. He had his legstiffly stretched out, and his arm roundthe girl, who was leaning towards him;her lips were parted, and those hare'seyes of hers were looking up into hisface. Adoration!

"I don't know what it was my duty tohave done, I only know that I didnothing, but slunk on with a lump inmy throat.

"Adoration! There it was again!Hopeless! Incurable devotions to thosewho cared no more for her than for aslice of suet-pudding to be eaten hot,gulped down, forgotten, or loathed inthe recollection. And there they are,these girls, one to almost every villageof this country a nightmare to us all.The look on her face was with me allthat evening and in my dreams.

"I know no more, for two days later I

was summoned North to take up workin a military hospital."

1917.

VIII

BUTTERCUP-NIGHT

Why is it that in some places one hassuch a feeling of life being, not merelya long picture-show for human eyes,but a single breathing, glowing,growing thing, of which we are nomore important a part than theswallows and magpies, the foals and

sheep in the meadows, the sycamoresand ash-trees and flowers in the fields,the rocks and little bright streams, oreven than the long fleecy clouds andtheir soft-shouting drivers, the winds

True, we register these parts of being,and they so far as we know do notregister us; yet it is impossible to feel, insuch places as I speak of, the busy, dry,complacent sense of being all thatmatters, which in general we humanshave so strongly.

In these rare spots, which are always inthe remote country, untouched by theadvantages of civilisation, one isconscious of an enwrapping web or

mist of spirit is it, perhaps theglamourous and wistful wraith of allthe vanished shapes once dwellingthere in such close comradeship

It was Sunday of an early June when Ifirst came on one such, far down in theWest country. I had walked with myknapsack twenty miles; and, there beingno room at the tiny inn of the verylittle village, they directed me to awicket gate, through which, by a pathleading down a field, I would come to afarm-house, where I might findlodging. The moment I got into thatfield I felt within me a peculiarcontentment, and sat down on a rockto let the feeling grow. In an old holly-

tree rooted to the bank about fifty yardsaway, two magpies evidently had a nest,for they were coming and going,avoiding my view as much as possible,yet with a certain stealthy confidencewhich made one feel that they had longprescriptive right to that dwelling-place.Around, far as one could see, washardly a yard of level ground; all hilland hollow, long ago reclaimed fromthe moor; and against the distant foldsof the hills the farm-house and itsthatched barns were just visible,embowered amongst beeches and somedark trees, with a soft bright crown ofsunlight over the whole. A gentle windbrought a faint rustling up from thosebeeches, and from a large lime-tree

which stood by itself; on this windsome little snowy clouds, very high andfugitive in that blue heaven, werealways moving over. But I was moststruck by the buttercups. Never wasfield so lighted up by those tiny lamps,those little bright pieces of flowerchina out of the Great Pottery. Theycovered the whole ground, as if thesunlight had fallen bodily from the sky,in millions of gold patines; and thefields below as well, down to what wasevidently a stream, were just as thickwith the extraordinary warmth andglory of them.

Leaving the rock at last, I went towardsthe house. It was long and low, and

rather sad, standing in a garden allmossy grass and buttercups, with a fewrhododendrons and flowery shrubs,below a row of fine old Irish yews. Onthe stone verandah a grey sheep-dogand a very small golden-haired childwere sitting close together, absorbed ineach other. A woman came in answer tomy knock, and told me, in a pleasantsoft, slurring voice, that I might stay thenight; and dropping my knapsack, Iwent out again. Through an old gateunder a stone arch I came on thefarmyard, quite deserted save for acouple of ducks moving slowly down agutter in the sunlight; and noticing theupper half of a stable-door open, Iwent across, in search of something

living. There, in a rough loose-box, onthick straw, lay a chestnut, long-tailedmare, with the skin and head of athoroughbred. She was swathed inblankets, and her face, all cut about thecheeks and over the eyes, rested on anordinary human's pillow, held by abearded man in shirt-sleeves; while,leaning against the white-washed walls,sat fully a dozen other men, perfectlysilent, very gravely and intently gazing.The mare's eyes were half-closed, andwhat could be seen of them was dulland blueish, as though she had beenthrough a long time of pain. Save forher rapid breathing, she lay quite still,but her neck and ears were streakedwith sweat, and every now and then her

hind-legs quivered. Seeing me at thedoor, she raised her head, uttering aqueer, half-human noise; but thebearded man at once put his hand onher forehead, and with a "Woa, my dear,woa, my pretty!" pressed it down again,while with the other hand he plumpedup the pillow for her cheek. And, as themare obediently let fall her head, oneof the men said in a low voice: "I neversee anything so like a Christian!" andthe others echoed him, in chorus, "Likea Christian like a Christian!" It went toone's heart to watch her, and I movedoff down the farm lane into an oldorchard, where the apple-trees were stillin bloom, with bees very small onesbusy on the blossoms, whose petals

were dropping on to the dock leavesand buttercups in the long grass.Climbing over the bank at the far end, Ifound myself in a meadow the like ofwhich so wild and yet so lush I think Ihave never seen. Along one hedge ofits meandering length were masses ofpink mayflower; and between two littlerunning streams quantities of yellowwater iris "daggers," as they call themwere growing; the "print-frock" orchis,too, was all over the grass, andeverywhere the buttercups. Great stonescoated with yellowish moss werestrewn among the ash-trees and darkhollies; and through a grove of beecheson the far side, such as Corot mighthave painted, a girl was running with a

youth after her, who jumped downover the bank and vanished. Thrushes,blackbirds, yaffles, cuckoos, and oneother very monotonous little bird werein full song; and this, with the soundof the streams, and the wind, and theshapes of the rocks and trees, thecolours of the flowers, and the warmthof the sun, gave one a feeling of beinglost in a very wilderness of Nature.Some ponies came slowly from the farend, tangled, gipsy-headed littlecreatures, stared, and went off again atspeed. It was just one of those placeswhere any day the Spirit of all Naturemight start up in one of those whitegaps which separate the trees and rocks.But though I sat a long time waiting,

hoping Pan did not come.

They were all gone from the stable,when I went back to the farm, exceptthe bearded nurse, and one tall fellow,who might have been the "DyingGaul," as he crouched there in thestraw; and the mare was sleeping herhead between her nurse's knees.

That night I woke at two o'clock, tofind it bright as day, almost, withmoonlight coming in through theflimsy curtains. And, smitten with thefeeling which comes to us creatures ofroutine so rarely of what beauty andstrangeness we let slip by without everstretching out hand to grasp it I got up,

dressed, stole downstairs, and out.

Never was such a night of frozenbeauty, never such dream-tranquillity.The wind had dropped, and the silencewas such that one hardly liked to treadeven on the grass. From the lawn andfields there seemed to be a mist risingin truth, the moonlight caught on thedewy buttercups; and across thisghostly radiance the shadows of theyew-trees fell in dense black bars.Suddenly, I bethought me of the mare.How was she faring, this marvellousnight Very softly opening the door intothe yard, I tiptoed across. A light wasburning in her box. And I could hearher making the same half-human noise

she had made in the afternoon, as ifwondering at her feelings; and instantlythe voice of the bearded man talking toher as one might talk to a child: "Oover,me darlin'; yu've a-been long enough o'that side. Wa-ay, my swate yu let oldJack turn 'u, then!" Then came ascuffling in the straw, a thud, again thathalf-human sigh, and his voice: "Puttyour 'ead to piller, that's my dandy gel.Old Jack wouldn' 'urt 'u; no more'n ef'u was the queen!" Then only her quickbreathing could be heard, and hiscough and mutter, as he settled downonce more to his long vigil. I crept verysoftly up to the window, but she heardme at once; and at the movement ofher head the old fellow sat up, blinking

his eyes out of the bush of his grizzledhair and beard. Opening the door, Isaid:

"May I come in "

"Oo, ay! Come in, Zurr, if 'u'm a mindto."

I sat down beside him on a sack, andfor some time we did not speak, takingeach other in. One of his legs was lame,so that he had to keep it stretched outall the time; and awfully tired helooked, grey-tired.

"You're a great nurse!" I said at last. "Itmust be hard work, watching out here

all night."

His eyes twinkled; they were of thatbright grey kind through which thesoul looks out.

"Aw, no!" he said. "Ah don't grudge itvur a dumb animal. Poor things theycan't 'elp theirzelves. Many's the naightah've zat up with 'orses and beasts tu.'Tes en me can't bear to zee dumbcreatures zuffer!" And, laying his handon the mare's ears: "They zay 'orses'aven't no souls. 'Tes my belief they'mgotten souls, zame as us. Many's theChristian ah've seen ain't got the soulof an 'orse. Zame with the beasts an'the sheep; 'tes only they can't spake

their minds."

"And where," I said, "do you think theygo to when they die " He looked at mea little queerly, fancying, perhaps, that Iwas leading him into some trap; makingsure, too, that I was a real stranger,without power over him, body or soulfor humble folk in the country must becareful; then, reassured, and nodding inhis bushy beard, he answeredknowingly:

"Ah don't think they goes zo very far!"

"Why Do you ever see their spirits "

"Naw, naw; I never zeen none; but, for

all they zay, ah don't think none of usgoes such a brave way off. There'sroom for all, dead or alive. An' there'sChristians ah've zeen well, ef they'mnot dead for gude, then neither aren'tdumb animals, for sure."

"And rabbits, squirrels, birds, eveninsects How about them "

He was silent, as if I had carried him alittle beyond the confines of hisphilosophy, then shook his head:

"'Tes all a bit dimsy-like. But yu watchdumb animals, Zurr, even the lastelittlest one, and yu'll zee they knows alot more'n what us thenks; an' they du's

things, tu, that putts shame on a man'soften as not. They've a got that in 'emas passes show." And not noticing mystare at that unconscious plagiarism, headded: "Ah'd zuuner zet up of a naightwith an 'orse than with an 'uman;they've more zense, and patience." And,stroking the mare's forehead, he added:"Now, my dear, time for yu t' 'ave yurebottle."

I waited to see her take her draught,and lay her head down once more onthe pillow. Then, hoping he would get asleep, I rose to go.

"Aw, 'tes nothin' much," he said, "thistime o' year; not like in winter. 'Twill

come day before yu know, thesebuttercup-nights"; and twinkling up atme out of his kindly bearded face, hesettled himself again into the straw. Istole a look back at his rough figurepropped against the sack, with themare's head down beside his knee, ather swathed chestnut body, and thegold of the straw, the white walls, anddusky nooks and shadows of that oldstable, illumined by the "dimsy" lightof the old lantern. And with the senseof having seen something holy, I creptaway up into the field where I hadlingered the day before, and sat downon the same half-way rock. Close ondawn it was, the moon still sailing wideover the moor, and the flowers of this

"buttercup-night" fast closed, not takenin at all by her cold glory!

Most silent hour of all the twenty-fourwhen the soul slips half out of sheath,and hovers in the cool; when the spiritis most in tune with what, soon or late,happens to all spirits; hour when a mancares least whether or no he be alive, aswe understand the word.... "None of usgoes such a brave way off there's roomfor all, dead or alive." Though it wasalmost unbearably colourless, and quiet,there was warmth in thinking of thosewords of his; in the thought, too, ofthe millions of living things snuglyasleep all round; warmth in realisingthat unanimity of sleep. Insects and

flowers, birds, men, beasts, the veryleaves on the trees away in slumber-land. Waiting for the first bird tochirrup, one had, perhaps, even astronger feeling than in daytime of theunity and communion of all life, of thesubtle brotherhood of living thingsthat fall all together into oblivion, and,all together, wake.

When dawn comes, while moonlight isstill powdering the world's face, quite along time passes before one realiseshow the quality of the light haschanged; and so, it was day before Iknew it. Then the sun came up abovethe hills; dew began to sparkle, andcolour to stain the sky. That first praise

of the sun from every bird and leafand blade of grass, the tremulous flushand chime of dawn! One has strayedfar from the heart of things that itshould come as something strange andwonderful! Indeed, I noticed that thebeasts and birds gazed at me as if Isimply could not be there at this hourwhich so belonged to them. And to me,too, they seemed strange and new withthat in them "which passeth show," andas of a world where man did not exist,or existed only as just another sort ofbeast or bird.

But just then began the crowning gloryof that dawn the opening and lightingof the buttercups. Not one did I

actually see unclose, yet, of a sudden,they were awake, and the fields oncemore a blaze of gold.

THE END