Chapter IV: Act III: Scene I.--HEROIC (1)

All that thou sayest I can bear unmoved; for thou hast a voice bereft of power, like a shadow. Thou canst do nought but talk.--_Euripides_.

It was dusk when Drayton entered the parish of Thorlund, after a wearisome railway journey, and a long tramp of nine miles from the station. He walked straight to the partly-open iron gate, without pausing to seek information from a homeward-bound ploughman, the only being whom he met upon the road. He knew he had reached the Strath. He felt that he had known the place all his life. To one born and brought up in the metropolis, to struggle for daily bread, it was a joy to see that wilderness of flowers, and to breathe the heavy perfume wafted across the grass. The weary man pushed at the gate and passed in. Great stagbeetles were droning across the bushes. He removed his hat reverently, and waded through the tall herbage towards the house.

His eyes were heavy, as though with sleep, when he reached the door and rapped upon it, gently at first, then loudly, and finally with an energy akin to fury.

He had no idea how long an interval elapsed, before an old woman shuffled across the hall, and held up a sharp white face to hear what he had to say. She was short-sighted, deaf, and asthmatic, incapable of deep feeling, untroubled by emotions. This poor creature had been on the eve of being cast out “broke” from the cottage home of her relatives; and the rector, hearing of it by chance, had rescued her for a time, and secured her poor services for the owner of the Strath. The influence of the house failed with her, perhaps because there was in her so little that was capable of responding to its dramatic power.

“Mr. Conway,” she whined sadly. “He is walking in the orchard.”

Drayton recrossed the weedy moat and walked away, plucking flowers as he went, pushing them into his button-holes, the brim of his hat, behind his ears, and even into his hair; and when they fell replacing them with others.

A ragged hedge appeared before him, and beyond were apple and pear trees with sparse foliage fluttering and whispering above mossy trunks. Hearing a human voice, Drayton peered through a gap to behold the man whom he had come so far to seek, walking through the long grass among the drooping branches, reading aloud from a book, and smiling as he read. Pausing close beside the hedge which concealed Drayton from his view he recited thoughtfully:

“I profess I know not what to think, but still there are some scruples remaining with me. Is it not certain I see things at a distance? Do we not perceive the stars and moon, for example, to be a great way off? Is not this, I say, manifest to the senses?”

“It is manifest,” muttered Drayton, as he tumbled stupidly through the hedge.

Not a sign of surprise crossed Conway’s white face, when the apparition fantastically dressed with flowers stood by him in the fading light. He continued his even paces, after motioning to the visitor to keep step at his side; and when Drayton obeyed the two men walked on through the orchard to the music of the evening, regarding one another, if they considered the matter at all, as spiritual beings unnecessarily encumbered with flesh.

“Tell me, my friend,” said the late debauchee, who in his former state had hated the sight of books and the thought of philosophy, “what was the cause that impelled the rustic mentioned by Horace to lie on the bank of the stream, waiting until the waters should pass? Have we there ignorance in its most inexplicable form, or a super-normal belief in the wonder working power of faith?”

“Or a passionate longing for a revolution of nature’s laws,” Drayton added in the same gentle manner. “So often had he watched the flow of the stream that the sight may have wearied him. His wish might have suggested a half-belief that the source had failed, that the waters were actually flowing away, that any moment might witness their final exhaustion. Perhaps again, in monstrous arrogance, the fool believed that he stood beyond the law and at his word the waters would be stayed.”

“When the brain has been wrought upon by insanity the sufferer will lift himself to the plane of godship,” Conway mused, drawing down a mossy branch and gazing thoughtfully at the little emerald apples. “But our author assumes that his hero is sane.”

“Yet we are unable to deduce sanity from his actions,” Drayton argued. “There are limits to the imaginings of ignorance. The most insensate mortal knows that the apple, if detached from the bough, will fall to the ground. The observation of countless generations of ancestors has imbued him with so much knowledge. Instinct alone should advise him that the river must flow continually.”

“I acknowledge it,” Conway murmured. “The sanest philosopher is also the humblest. He who loses his reason holds up giants and examines them through a microscope.”

They continued to pace the orchard through the thickening air; and Conway still felt no astonishment at finding Drayton by his side, attired in a suit of his own clothes. As for the latter he had certainly some dim remembrance of a visit to a pawn-shop, of a landlord waiting for the overdue rent, and of a back attic in a noisy street; but such matters were very distant and indistinct. Had he been told he had pawned the masks a decade ago, or even assured he had not pledged them at all, he would have assented.

“Is this happiness?” he inquired of his companion.

“Wonderful happiness,” Conway answered. “I sleep much. My head aches a little, but it is no pain. It is a gentle heaviness, which does not cloud my vision. When I am awake I read. After supper I will read to you. The house is full of books.”

“Do you hear voices?”

Conway shook his head with a sleepy smile.

“It is always peaceful here.”

“To-morrow I shall write,” went on the uneducated man confidently.

They went by slow periods to the house.

The deaf old woman had no culinary skill, therefore the meal awaiting them was of the plainest--thin soup, a piece of mutton, a milk pudding, and a little fruit. Both men were silent, Conway reading from a book beside his plate, Drayton already absorbed upon the first act of a play which he intended to begin at once. When his host rose he also pushed back his chair, and they stood gazing at one another foolishly, until Conway pointed towards the flight of stairs. Side by side they crept up into the darkness.

Passing along the passage they entered a windowless room cumbered with much furniture and mouldy books; a great bed, heavily draped, occupied the centre; the carpet had been eaten away, and the rotten planks crumbled beneath their tread; a sofa and two chairs occupied spaces at the foot of the bed, and between the chairs stood a marble table, and upon the table two candles in bronze candlesticks, which when lighted revealed also a manuscript book in shagreen covers and a floriated cross. On one arm of this cross some long vanished hand had scratched the name of Winifred; on the other Geoffrey in similarly tremulous characters.

Drayton seated himself upon the sofa, and drawing the heavy draperies apart admitted light across the bed. There was nothing to be seen, except a mass of tumbled garments, and a black heap which might once have been a wreath of flowers.

There came a scurrying of rats from beyond the wainscoting, and after that silence.

“What room is this?” asked Drayton, as he permitted the damp curtains to fall and close.

“The bedroom of Winifred Hooper,” Conway replied, without raising his eyes from a closely written page, dated along the margin January 14th, 1742. The writing was fine, and perfectly distinct, sloping from left to right, blurred occasionally by the damps of time, or perhaps by tears from the writer’s eyes. The master of the house snuffed the candles, and said:

“I found this book to-day, in that cupboard beside the fireplace. It is the journal of one who formerly lived in this house. I will read you a few pages, and if you grow weary, or desire to sleep, put up your hand and I will cease.”

Drayton was huddled at the end of the sofa, his arms folded tightly across his breast, his eyes fixed upon the cross. He made a motion of assent, and straightway the host began to read:

“I write to you, my Geoffrey, although I know you may never see these lines, therefore I will not commence with Beloved, or My Love. Such words spring warmly from my heart, but lie as cold as snow upon these pages. Yet I write them. ’Tis but a little happiness. I am alone in the wind. It is so cold a wind. It howls round the house, and enters this room, to make my candle flicker. Snow has been falling all the day, and the garden lies buried, and the great tombs in the churchyard are covered with white sheets. The dead shall sleep to-night more warmly than I. My father is playing chess with Mr. Blair, the rector of Thorlund, in the saloon. At the end of their game a summons will come for me, and I must go down and sing. They say my voice is beautiful, but that is because I sing to you, and sometimes you seem so near that tears will come into my eyes, and my voice will tell again what it has already told, and would so gladly tell again, until I hear the drunken parson thumping his great shoes upon the floor, and shouting, ‘My God! She sings like Farinelli.’

“Let me tell you how I have passed this day. In the morning I walked out. It was so still, and winter fog was lying along the valley. I heard the horses stamping in the stable, and saw the white mist steaming off the moat, while I scattered bread for my hungry sparrows. (Pardon this careful account of my trivial actions, Geoffrey. I could not write if I did not hope that Providence might place this little book into your hands some day, perhaps when you are wedded, and I am in the vault. You will not be false to your wife if you kiss this page, because my hand has rested for a cold hour upon it.) Then I walked into the plantation, and beneath the bushes were snowdrops, so pale and white. They seemed to be shivering and to say, ‘Why does the sun not shine?’ But I knew that it was I who shivered, because the snow flowers are children of the winter, and I am made for the bluebell and the rose. Do you, I wonder, sometimes recall to mind that daffodil I plucked and gave to you last spring? I planted a chestnut beside the bulb, and the tiny tree grows strongly and the daffodil will come up again this spring in just the same spot, and will bear a bloom like that I gave to you, but you will not be here to take it from my hand.

“That same day, while walking with me through the plantation, you stepped upon and crushed a crocus. After you had gone, I went back for the bulb, and planted it in a box which stands beside me now. The divided bulb has sent up two little spikes of bloom, but one is very much stronger than the other. The weak one is mine, the strong is yours. Mine will flower last and fade first. I cannot water mine without watering yours, or I would be selfish and make the spears of equal strength.

“During the afternoon I walked to Queensmore to visit my uncle the vicar, a man I cannot love, because he is so hard, and I fear a miser also. The wheels of the coaches had beaten down the snow, but it was slippery to walk, and once I went down. Had you been there you would have taken me up, and carried me against my will--so I would have declared--down Stone Hill, as you carried me once when my foot gave me pain from the sign-post to the village stocks. A coach passed me, the guard blowing upon his horn as though to warm himself, the passengers very cold and miserable, the poor horses sadly weary. A woman in the basket called, ‘Good-luck, pretty dear,’ and I started when I understood the good wish was intended for me. It cheered me on my lonely walk. I am sure the sharp wind had put colour into my face and brightened my eyes. Perhaps I was pretty then. But I am white again now, and the mirror opposite tells me that my prettiness was borrowed after all. It was only for the hour. And, Geoffrey, you were not there to see it.

“The bushes are covered with berries this winter, and I am glad to know that my singing-birds will not starve. But I have found some stiff little bodies upon the road. There is miseltoe in our orchard, but none has been brought into the house. On Christmas night my father was out late, and when he returned drank deep, and would have beaten me, for no fault whatsoever save that I had seen him come home, had I not run from him and hidden in the lumber-room. No Yule log burnt in this house; no hackin, nor turkey, nor plum-porridge was served at our table; the village mummers did not enter this garden; and when I heard the bells a-ringing I shut myself in my room and tried to be brave. I had seen woodmen hauling the Yule log merrily towards Kingsmore, and Mr. Price himself was sitting atop, with a great branch of holly in his hand, singing a carol with all his might. They are merry folk at Kingsmore. I could hear their drums and fifes on Christmas Eve, and Deborah tells me the whole company gambolled and danced all night, and their boar’s head was one of the largest seen, and their masque the most diverting, and their ale the finest ever brewed. Happy that ’tis given to some to spend their lives in giving pleasure to their fellow-men. Deborah tells me also, or will whisper it rather, how that she heard the phantom bells in the long pasture between here and Queensmore.

“But, Geoffrey, I wander. Would you desire to hear of my uncle, whom I found this afternoon in his study, sitting without a fire, a red cloak round him, and stiff white gloves upon his hands? I think you would rather I wrote about myself. I will promise you I am no bigger than when you saw me last, and then you thought me, I fear, somewhat too small a person to contain a heart so big with love. But there, wise sweetheart, you were deceived. My face has not greatly changed. My eyes are just as blue, but as they look back at me from the mirror they do not smile. I would not have them try, because happiness cannot cannot be forced. I see I have written the word cannot twice. I have a little scar upon my wrist, which was not there when you departed. Shall I tell you how it came? But, no! I would not have you think me impatient. I am like the willow tree beside the stream, which yields to every blast, and rises forgetful of the few weak leaves that the wind has taken away.

“I have been to the window in the passage. The snow is deep and smooth, and all the world is silent. What a pitiless thing is this frost, and yet how kindly does it work! It soothes the unprotected into sleep, and draws life away, so painlessly, so gently. How different from cruel man or beast. Yesterday I discovered my cat playing with a poor mouse. I took the little thing from her, but alas, it shivered once and died in my hand. I could have cried for it. I knew!

“My candle is burning out. I would gladly seek warmth in my bed, but dare not while the noise below continues. Where are you, Geoffrey? Oh, my love, I know you will play the man amid the wicked society of our time. I pray you shun the court, the painted faces, the cringing favourites, shun also the gaming-house, and the cockpit. Nay, I mean no harm. My father is shouting for me upon the stairs. Ah, Geoffrey! Come again.”

Scene II.--PASTORAL

Let me, neither in adversity, nor in the joys of prosperity, be associated with women.--_Aeschylus_.

After searching diligently Flora discovered a little farm-house some three miles to the west of Kingsmore, which the tenants were glad to let at a weekly rental, sufficient to give them a long awaited opportunity of visiting relations elsewhere. On a set day Maude presented herself with a cartload of baggage; and after spending a night beneath Mr. Price’s roof, and horrifying that simple old gentleman exceedingly, went on with her friend in the morning to the retreat on the side of the hill, with which she was graciously pleased to declare herself “pretty well satisfied on the whole.” During the week that ensued she was occupied, putting the place into her idea of order, and endeavouring to regain the prettiness which she believed London had taken from her by driving abroad in a donkey cart. But before the first week had elapsed she had begun to complain, ungrateful person that she was, of the monotony of country life.

The empty-headed little woman would have been horrified had anyone dared to suggest that she was not a perfectly righteous person. What harm, she would have argued indignantly, had she done in the world? It was true she had married Mr. Juxon for the sake of his money, but then she did not believe people ever married for love. It was certainly too comical to suppose that any woman could possibly fall in love with Herbert, who was short and bald-headed. She had been true to him, she considered, and constancy was all that could reasonably be required from her. It was his duty to go on making money, and when he remained in the city until dark, as he had been doing lately, she did not inquire the cause. She had certainly been surprised when he raised no objection to her proposed jaunt; but it never entered her head to imagine that his affairs might not be going any too prosperously. She would have been vastly astounded could she have heard the remark which he made when he watched her train depart. He had given a sigh of relief, and said, “It will be better for her not to know.”

“I have nothing but trouble, my dear,” said the ungrateful person, who had been a penniless little nobody before the stockbroker married her, to Flora, as they sat together on a tiny lawn under a dwarfed tree in front of the bijou residence. “I have lately suspected that Herbert drinks. Men who stay late in the city, as he has been doing, cannot be at work, because as everyone knows there is no work done after four o’clock. They meet together in some horrid low place, drink brandy and swear, and make bets on horse-races.”

Flora trailed her handkerchief along the grass for the delectation of a fat kitten, and made no reply.

“It is disgusting,” went on the little lady. “Drunkenness is so vulgar and costermongery. I had a letter this morning,” she added in aggrieved tones. “He wants to come here from Saturday to Monday, and I have written to say that I have not got the house in order yet, and he is not to come. I am here for privacy,” she concluded pathetically.

“Pretty people must not expect to have privacy. Especially when they have husbands,” said Flora.

Maude Juxon laughed delightedly. Flora could say what she liked, so long as she wrapped the sting of her truth in a sheath of flattery. The kitten jumped across the lawn sideways, its tail like a lamp-brush, flung a mad somersault, and dashed into a briar-bush, bringing down a shower of petals.

“When are you going to take me to that remarkable house in Thorlund?” asked the beauty.

Flora turned grave at once, and answered shortly, “Never.”

“That’s jealousy,” murmured Mrs. Juxon. “I want to see the house.”

“You can tell that to Mr. Conway. He is coming to Kingsmore on Thursday, that is if he can remember the engagement,” said Flora. “I am not going with you to that house.”

“Is that clever delightful poet coming too?” cried Maude, sincerely interested at last. “That nice, handsome, doctor clergyman?”

“He never goes into society,” said Flora. “I suppose he’s afraid of meeting fascinating little women like you. Do you really think him handsome?”

“Oh yes, superb. His head is like one of those pictures you see, somewhere or other. And that beautiful silvered hair, and smooth grave face, and great grey eyes--why, Flora, there isn’t an actor in London half as handsome. I’m sure he looks a saint.”

“He neglects his parish fearfully,” said the girl.

“Well, you can’t expect him to take any interest in those stupid labouring people,” said Maude with some asperity. “I shall intercept him in one of his walks, and tell him he’s to come to Kingsmore on Thursday. Now do say something, and don’t leave all the talking to me,” she went on fretfully. “You have become such a silent person lately. Tell me all about Mr. Conway. Does he like you? Has he money? Do you think we could persuade him to give a dance in his wonderful house?”

Flora was troubled. She had been given reason to suppose that Conway did “like her,” when at a distance from the Strath. She supposed him to be fairly well off; he gave the idea of a man who had never done a day’s work in his life. As for a dance at the Strath, she found herself smiling at the suggestion, then began to wonder why the idea should appear incongruous.

Neither she nor her uncle could recall what had taken place during their visit to the Strath. When upon the road they had discovered themselves costumed after the fashion of a by-gone day; but memory had given them no answer when they asked why those old habits were upon them, or what had been their actions inside the house. Soberly and silently they had returned to reassume their modern garments, and Mr. Price had since avoided any reference to that afternoon.

The same with Conway, Drayton, and, in a lesser degree, with Dr. Berry. Inside the Strath they were puppets; outside they resumed--although there were exceptions to this rule--their normal selves. The time spent among the antique furniture, or along the tangled walks, left no more memory than a night of sleep. They discovered a subtle influence drawing them back, as opium will recall its victims to their dreams. They knew that the sleep induced by the Strath was delightful, that happiness was given there; but former experience told them nothing concerning the nature of that sleep, or the substance of that happiness.

Outside the garden Conway fell beneath Flora’s spell, and would decide to settle every pressing affair in London by letter upon his return; Dr. Berry continued his work on Aeolian poetry, and vaguely remembered that he had a flock. Inside the garden the world went away from them, and they were mimes, speaking the words put into their mouths, and playing the parts which had been assigned to them. All that their minds were capable of producing was brought out there. So long as they did not attempt to oppose their will against that of the controller of the masque, as Henry Reed had done, all went well.

“Of course the place is haunted,” said Maude with a dainty shiver, when her friend had told her all that she knew. “I don’t think I want to go there after all. But I should like to see the china. You say there is lovely china in the drawing-room?”

“Beautiful,” said Flora. “Uncle says there was a rage for china during Queen Anne’s reign.”

“No atrocities? No horrible wool-work, or samplers, or antimacassars? No wax-flowers, or leather fruit, or horsehair sofas?” went on the little lady, confusing her periods.

“I saw none,” said Flora. “I only remember the china, and some pictures which wouldn’t be allowed nowadays, and a quantity of mirrors and candles.”

“I am glad there is nothing vulgar,” said Maude. “I almost think I could go there, if there were plenty of people with me. If the house is haunted I expect it will all be done in a proper and genteel fashion. When I went to see Hamlet I was quite prepared to be frightened when the ghost came on, but I wasn’t, not in the least. He was such a gentle and aristocratic ghost. I expect the bogey of the Strath would be just like that.”

The stars in their courses were propitious to Maude. Towards evening on the following day she encountered the rector of Thorlund, after driving over to the hamlet in a gig drawn by a tandem of donkeys, and placing herself in ambush so to speak along his usual walk. She had been introduced to the scholar by Mr. Price in his offhand fashion upon the day of her arrival, chancing upon him as they drove from the station towards Kingsmore. Directly she espied the scholar, she abandoned gig and donkeys, and fluttered along the field road, pretending to be busily engaged in gathering a handful of marguerites and ragged-robins.

He, poor man, was fully occupied with the problem of Sappho’s morality, mentally weighing the evidence in her favour, sifting the chaff of legend from the grains of fact as best he might. He did not perceive Madame Papillon until he heard her salutation; and then he started and stared up into the golden mist which the sun was trailing across the side of the hill.

Maude was pretty--just then wonderfully so, because she was anxious to please--somewhat doll-like perhaps, but beautifully made, and scented, and bravely tricked out in _batiste_ and lace and flowers and innocent infant hat. Her throat was as white and soft as the petal of a lily, and her little nose as dainty as a rosebud. She was frothing over with life and health, and her feet in toy white shoes were as light as bird’s wings. Perhaps it was unfortunate for the scholar that his mind should have been occupied by thoughts of Sappho, whom he admired and loved academically as the world’s one poetess. Some Greek escaped his lips involuntarily; he was no pedant, but the sweet Ionic words were as familiar as his own tongue, and better expressed his thoughts.

“How funny I should have met you!” cried lady frivolous. “Because I was wondering whether I could summon up enough courage to go all by myself to the rectory and leave a message. I don’t believe you recognise me. The sun is dazzling, isn’t it?”

“Ah,” said the scholar. “Yes, the sun blinds me.” He took off his hat, and the light glinted across the silver of his hair and made it live.

He did not question himself as to whether this divinity was maid, wife, or widow; he only knew that the apparition was very good to gaze upon, and he found himself hoping that it would not vanish suddenly.

“I hope your carriage is safe,” he murmured.

“My carriage!” exclaimed Maude with ringing laughter. “Why, it’s only a wobbly gig, drawn by two of the most ridiculous donkeys. Do come and look at them. They have ears as long as--as--”

“King Midas after his transformation,” suggested the scholar.

“That’s it,” said Maude, who had no idea what he meant. “But they are champion trotters. Come into the cart and I’ll drive you home. We shall be packed tight, but I’m small.”

There was something here which made lyric poetry doubly sweet to the scholar’s mind. A life of dreams, of fingers on pen, and eyes in books, had fallowed his heart unconsciously for the reception of a seed which had been with him nothing but a name. His eyes were sleepy as he approached the cart, and the lines about his mouth showed weakness, and there was irresolution in all his actions. This was not Dr. Berry of the study and the Strath. It was Dr. Berry who was learning that he was a man.

“Get in,” said Maude.

The scholar obeyed, and the dainty creature followed. The cart was, as she had said, very small. They filled it, as they sat facing one another, Maude’s scented frills trailing upon the scholar’s feet, her breath coming to him when she spoke, her hat brushing his forehead when she turned with some sudden motion. For the first time in his life Dr. Berry cast down his eyes and was ashamed. He did not know that the little beauty was a butterfly: but he began to understand why Leander swam across the Hellespont and why Sappho flung herself from the Leucadian rock.

The birds were singing in the beech-wood as they had never sung before.

“The country is beautiful,” Maude was saying. “Oh, Dr. Berry, I could live here always, just to walk, sleep, and dream in the sun. But there would be winter. How I wish we could have summer every day!”

Maude meant nothing that she said. She knew how pretty she looked in furs. She was a rattle, not understanding her own noise; but the scholar hung upon her words, and believed them inspired, and did not know they were murmurings from a shell.

“You have a message for me?” he said, without perception of a labourer, who passed, and grinned as he touched his hat, at the strange conjunction of the stately poet with that tiny cart and the donkeys and the pretty lady.

“Yes,” said Maude, flicking at the flies with her toy whip. “You are to be at Kingsmore on Thursday. Flora commands your presence, and so do I. It is impossible for you to refuse.”

“You will be there?” mused the thinker.

“Of course. And I’ll see that you have a comfortable chair in the rosiest corner of the lawn, and if you feel a sudden desire to write you shall have pen and ink, and if you are lazy you can talk to me. But you must not be too clever. I shall tell Flora you are coming. How do you go to Kingsmore?”

“I seldom leave my home,” the poet answered. “I am not able to fit myself into society.”

“It’s easy,” said Maude.

“I always walk,” he went on.

“But that must be tiring, especially when the sun is hot. Suppose,” said Maude, “suppose you found this little cart on the top of the hill outside Thorlund at half-past-three on Thursday afternoon, and suppose I drove you in triumph across to Kingsmore--wouldn’t that save you a lot of trouble, and mightn’t it be rather an inducement for you to keep your promise?”

Dr. Berry could not remember how he answered, whether indeed he spoke at all. He looked towards the hill which rose above his valley, and saw the white road bending away in the far distance. “Would it not be cruel upon these little animals?” he said, with a more confident smile.

“Not a bit,” replied Maude. “They are full of oats, and they shall eat all Thursday morning to prepare themselves for the honour of drawing wisdom and--”

“Beauty,” added the scholar, sincerely. Folly he should have said, but Maude was well masked.

One low thatched roof peeped from its green bower, and the mossy spire of the church pointed reproachfully upward. The poet did not look there. His eyes were upon the things of earth. A pink rose at Maude’s throat shed its petals when the cart jolted across a ridge, and the dainty fragments rained upon his hands. He began to gather them up one by one, storing them unconsciously in the warm hollow of his hand. Maude’s eyes were dancing with satisfaction. He had called her beautiful and she was happy.

The day dedicated to Thor arrived. Down in the valley the sun scorched, but a gentle breeze was playing across the hills when Dr. Berry reached the summit and seated himself upon a hummock of short grass. He had done nothing all the morning, except pace study and garden, wondering at the tenderness with which he was able to criticise the self-dedicatory odes of comparatively obscure singers. So it was passion that called out what was best in mortals. Had Archilochus not loved Neobule he would have passed into the cloud of oblivion. Had Sappho been cold and chaste that magnificent ode to the Goddess of Love could never have been given to the world. The heart, mused the scholar, not the mind, strikes into being the living fire.

He saw nothing of a frivolous nature in the donkey tandem. He walked down to meet the cart as it ascended the hill, and Maude greeted him warmly and began to chat vigorously. She had never spoken so agreeably to her husband, but, as she would have argued, it was absurd to fascinate a man who belonged to her. She was a child, playing with fire, and not to be warned of danger until the fire burnt her.

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Price with more than his usual fervour, when the gig came jingling up the avenue. Flora contented herself with smiling, while Mrs. Neill, a fragile lady filled with inaccuracies of speech, put up her glasses and made her customary statement, _apropos_ of nothing in particular, that social customs had changed very much for the worse since that age of respectability when her dear brother and herself attended school.

The hill country was very sparsely populated with gentry. There were not more than a dozen guests, of whom the majority had covered a considerable distance and were on that account leaving early. Everyone knew the recluse of Thorlund, either by name or reputation, and upon him were showered the honours of the afternoon. Dr. Berry found himself in a new element which was not so distasteful as he had supposed.

“Maudie, how did you manage?” Flora whispered.

“I circumvented him, and told him he was to come,” explained the little lady. “And here he is.”

“But you drove him!”

“Why not? He brought himself down to my level beautifully.”

Flora slipped away to attend to her guests, giving thanks because she believed she was more righteous than her friend.

A bald-headed clergyman annexed the scholar, and was leading him apart with inaccurate historical chatter, when Maude intervened, routed the bald-headed clergyman, and installed Dr. Berry into the comfortable chair which she had promised him. Then she brought tea and little cakes and strawberries, and soothed him with empty talk, which seemed to him more worthy of attention than words of wisdom. This man, who had shunned women all his life, not from any innate dislike for the sex, but simply because no inclination had drawn him on, found his tongue loosened by the fascinations of the butterfly. Presently he began to speak of himself, his aspirations, and his work, Maude leading him on with skilful flattery.

“How I would like to see your wonderful book,” she sighed.

“It is not finished,” he said. “There is still much to be done and I work slowly. I have a conviction that my translations are, not only more accurate, but more artistic and powerful than any which have preceded them. I think if I could read you some of those early lyrics--”

“I should cry,” interrupted Maude pathetically. “I’m certain I should. Poetry, or music, or sad pieces at the theatre, always make me cry. I went to a dreadful pathetic play last winter, and I cried all down a pretty new frock and spoilt it.”

“Yours is indeed the true poetic temperament,” said the scholar earnestly. “What a rare and precious gift it is! You, more than anyone, can understand me when I say that my work has engrossed my life. Many in their ignorance sneer at the classics, but your mind can respond with mine to the true message of art. Being yourself beautiful you are able more readily to appreciate the pure beauty of those poetic jewels with which the human intellect has enriched the world.”

This last remark was balm and honey to the silly soul of his listener.

“When the book comes out I shall buy it,” she declared. “And you must write something nice and original upon the front page, and I shall read it again and again. Will it be out soon? I know a book doesn’t take long, because I met an author once, and he told me it took him three weeks to write one of his.”

“I have been fifteen years over my work, and I expect it will take me another five to complete,” said Dr. Berry.

“Oh, but I can’t wait all that time,” cried Maude. “I shall be old by then.”

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,” quoted the scholar with unmistakable sincerity.

“How lovely!” said smiling Maude.

He could not see through the pretence of that outward show to the empty soul within. He never doubted her sincerity; her beauty was apparent; and he thought her clever and a poetess at heart.

“I will tell you what you must do,” Maude rattled on brilliantly. “You must read me some of your beautiful poems. Pick out the very best, and come over to my farm-house on Sunday--no, that’s your workday--on Monday, and I will give you a cup of tea. I shall look forward to it immensely. You won’t forget? I shall expect you on Monday.”

“Would you like to hear my verses?” said the delighted scholar. “You shall hear them. We will discuss their merits. You will be able to help me by suggestion and advice. Two minds are better than one. Two kindred minds strike sparks.”

“And I will make you a nice rice cake,” said the little lady, irrelevantly, but as she thought very happily.

At that point Mrs. Neill interposed, to claim her share of the lion. She had met him upon previous visits to her brother’s house, and was desirous of showing him the hidden beauties of the garden; and obtaining at the same time a full account of the means and position of the young man who had been lavishing some polite attentions upon Flora, to-wit Conway, who had been expected that afternoon, but had failed to appear.

“Maude, you selfish child, I have come for your gentleman,” she announced. “I want to take you down the garden, Dr. Berry, and show you a pretty little corpse quite covered with fly-orchids.”

The good lady had meant to say copse. Maude shrieked with laughter, and corrected her rudely, because she was indignant at being deprived of her property; and, having revenged herself, she tripped away across the lawn in a pink froth of frills, with one innocent blue-eyed glance behind.

“She is very beautiful,” murmured Dr. Berry. “And as clever and good as she is beautiful.”

Scene III.--EXTRAVAGANZA

Human nature is so constituted as to be incapable of lonely satisfaction; man, like those plants which are formed to embrace others, is led by an instinctive impulse to recline on his species.--_Cicero_.

To account for Conway’s non-appearance at Kingsmore vicarage it will be necessary to revert to the day of Dr. Berry’s meeting with Maude upon the upland, because that encounter was in the main responsible, although indirectly, for the young man’s absence. The scholar walked back to the rectory, but did not open his books that evening. Outpourings from the intellects of the immortals would not content him then. In a heat he cast off an original poem and proceeded with it into the garden of the Strath; and there he came upon Conway who was confused by struggling memories and a present anxiety. Money had been required of him for the settlement of accounts. Being unable to comprehend the meaning of that demand he had taken his trouble to Drayton; but the writer, who was entirely engrossed upon his historical play, gave him little satisfaction. “If the woman asks for money, give it her,” he said, and straightway had returned to his work.

Dr. Berry’s understanding was less obscured. After listening to Conway’s complaint, he advised him to leave the garden, and walk out of the valley. “You will then perceive what should be done,” he added. “If you require to write letters, go into my study, and write them there.”

Conway did as he was directed, that is to say he left the garden; but he did not enter the rectory. He walked out of the valley, and when darkness came upon the country he was still walking, with his face set towards the town. Night fell upon the Strath, but the master was absent. The next day Drayton noticed that he was alone, but his mind had no desire to learn the cause. Another day went, but Conway remained absent. The next morning a letter came to Drayton, and the dazed writer found himself charged with various heinous offences. It appeared that the profligate’s furniture had been seized for non-payment of rent, and among the articles on the inventory made by the agent the two masks did not appear. Therefore, the writer argued, Drayton had most perfidiously stolen them. The shaky epistle concluded with the statement that the writer was about to return to Thorlund for the sole purpose of dragging the “ungrateful, sponging, thievish brute,” Drayton to-wit, out of his house by the ears.

“A strange document,” murmured the gentle scribe. “Interesting also as illustrating a phase of the human mind. Penned, I should determine, by a dissolute character, somewhat under the influence of _aqua-fortis_.”

As the letter was not of sufficient interest to be subjected to any more critical analysis, he set it aside, and went into the orchard to think of other things. Late in the evening Conway returned; but so soon as he entered upon his property, shame took the place of anger. He became dimly conscious that he had degraded himself during the past three days. Very soon the determination, which he had made that morning, to offer the Strath for sale, and to resume his former manner of living, became forgotten. As he made towards the house, feeling sleep settling again about his eyes, he encountered the perfidious Drayton; but, instead of seizing the thief by the ears, he passed his arm within that of the writer, and asked, “Have you finished the translation of that ode of Horace, the song in which he deals with woman’s love?”

Drayton put a hand to his forehead, and presently replied, “I have forgotten. I will make you the English rendering to-night. Have you not been out a long time?” he added.

“Yes,” said Conway absently. “I have been troubled with bad dreams of late.” This was Conway’s first and final effort to break from the influence of the Strath; and after failure his mind, like that of his companion, succumbed entirely.

There came a day when rain soaked the moss-grown garden and the trunks of the trees were black with moisture. Mists were exhaled from the stagnant moat to form into shapes about the house. The spell-bound wanderers, hovering between the seen and unseen, found the Strath altered. It remained peaceful in its decay; there was neither fluttering of tapestries nor whisper of misery; but over all brooded an indefinable sensation of calamity impending.

In that room where Winifred Hooper had slept and written, Conway sat alone, with her journal between his hands. The influence impelled him to reason concerning himself. “What was he?” A card, engraved with a mere name, lay on the table, but the words Charles Conway brought no answer to his question. Perhaps he was a product of that damp old house, an ephemeral growth like the mosses and lichens upon its walls, or a passing shadow, with a name to distinguish it from other shadows. One touch of sunlight might cause him to vanish into vapour. Or again a little spark roving like Jack o’ lanthorn through space, seeking another spark with which to unite and strike the wondrous flame called life. He saw a face in the time-stained mirror. Was it that of Flora Neill, or of Winifred Hooper, or of Lone Nance of the hills? The spark which was himself became blown into fire, and waved to and fro.… The place became a museum, and he a dry and dusty exhibit, catalogued Charles Conway, and numbered 31. He was a curiosity, genuine and of some practical use once, but now out of fashion. What had he done in his foolish life? Walked out with his hair in papers, inhaling snuff through the pepper-pot head of a clouded cane; sauntered at auctions, or in the Mall; spent one quarter of the day in dressing, another in dining, a third at the coffee-house, a fourth at play; half the night in drawing-rooms, the other half in sleep. What noise had he made in the world, beyond piping on the French horn, or springing the rattle of a drunken watchman? If there had been work to his hand he had closed his eyes. Work! Why should a man work? What was the reward for a life devoted to tilling the ground, to fighting the French, to ministering to the sick, to sitting at the king’s council? The finest machine must break down some day, and rust, and become old framework. Work! What about Southey, poet laureate, sweating heart and brain, and confessing at the end that it had not been possible for him to lay by anything for old age? What about old learned Johnson, putting off his threadbare clothes upon his birthday, and muttering bitterly, “I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent or importunate distress?” What about Lamb, thanking for nothing a great minister who brought the reward of labour as the hand of death dragged him off the scene?

The Strath was in a morbid mood. Drayton was pacing the saloon, crying like a woman. The deaf crone prepared food in the kitchen, working out her time indifferent to the drama. The rain poured heavily flooding the worm-eaten boards of the upper rooms. Conway raised his hands, which held the book in shagreen covers, brought the yellow pages nearer to his eyes, and read aloud:

“To-day the wind is warm, and the birds sing merrily. For it is spring, the gladdest time in all the year. Were this a letter to you, my love, as I would cheer myself by believing, I might tell you much that would bring you pleasure, and much that would not be true. I might describe to you the beauty of the country. I might tell you how happy I am to breathe the odours of the young larches, and to feel the warmth of the sun. I might assure you how I laugh in the mornings, and sometimes sing the songs you taught me, and how I watch the roads with a light heart, sure that you are upon your way. And I might promise you, praying God the same moment to forgive the lie, that I know no trouble. But, alas, this is my journal, and here I may not cheat myself.

“Spring will never come again, unless it brings you, Geoffrey. All day I have sat beside a downstairs window, listening to the joyful sounds of life, watching the little leaves unfolding, and the first yellow butterfly playing across the lawn. Everything in nature has something to do, and I alone am idle. I can only sit, with my hands together, wondering that there should be joy upon earth for the brown sparrow, and none for me. Yet the sparrow might pine and cease her twitter, perchance give up her little ghost, were she to be imprisoned in a cage. Even so there might be happiness for her. She might see her mate, and sometimes hear his song.

“Last night my father threw at me a log of wood, which struck my ankle, and to-day I cannot bear my shoe. Ah, Geoffrey, could you but see my poor swollen foot! I dwell upon the happy thought that you are nursing it in your dear hands, and looking up into my face with your tender eyes. Would you not come through fire and water to save me? But I know all now. The light of life has gone, and each morning and evening the message of curfew comes, ringing, ‘No more! No more!’

“My father has admitted much over his wine. Your messengers have never reached this valley. Perhaps they have been killed upon the highway, for my father’s men are instructed to watch the roads, and he has lost all scruples. I cannot warn you, Geoffrey. I am not able to bid you keep away from me. Would I, if I could? I do not know. I have become selfish. You might meet Sir John, and he is stronger than you. Were they to carry you dead into this house.… well, we should be together at last, for I would throw away my chance of heaven in the hope that my soul might pass with yours through space. If you killed my father I would yet receive you with the same love. I am unnatural indeed, but he has beaten me with a cane when in his cruel mood, and has pulled me to the ground by my hair, and closed his hand round my arm, tighter and tighter like a vice, until I have satisfied his cruelty by fainting.

“I know that my father is a highwayman and the most daring of them all. It is when I am so unfortunate as to see him returning from some expedition that he is more than usual pitiless. I have seen Thomas Reed, his trusted man, leading the chestnut mare--the swiftest horse in the country, they say--sweating to her stable at midnight, and I have seen his masks, his pistols, and his sword. He will have this Reed into the saloon to drink with him. I have heard them fighting, but Reed is a strong-willed fellow, and know my father cannot break with him, lest he should turn informer. I know the vileness of their lives; but God also must know, and if there be justice above--which sometimes I am wicked enough to doubt--an end must come, and soon.

“Placing before me the beloved face which I hold in my heart, I painted your portrait, and finished it last Saturday at sunset. It was a happy sorrow to kiss those cold lips, to touch and retouch that fair hair, only one shade darker than my own, and to bring into being your own dear smile. During that night the portrait seemed to me to have taken life, and through the hours of darkness--for I sleep but little--I thought you were protecting me, and I felt the warmth of your eyes, and heard your breathing, and your soft whisper, ‘Winifred,’ just as you whispered it--ah, so long ago--with your lips against my hair. It was so like you, Geoffrey. Even that tiny spot, where you were cut as a child above your left eyebrow, was there in all the beauty of its blemish. On Sunday I went to church, not indeed to listen to Mr. Blair’s hypocrisies, but to pray with all my soul for you and for myself; and returning hurried to your portrait to tell it how I love you. But it had been cut into pieces, and the pieces were strewed about the floor.

“I did not shed any tears. Indeed it is seldom that I cry now, not because I am stronger, but perhaps I have shed them all. I began to sing, and put a flower into my hair, and laughed and talked to you, so that I might forget how I was shivering. I am made of tough stuff, though I am small and white, and as for my heart is it not yours, and did you not replace my loss with the gift of your own? It is your strength that holds me up. But it was a good portrait, Geoffrey, else my father had not recognised it.