Chapter VII: Alone on Plowman's Ridge

I

She was as quickly gone from Percival's mind as from his sight. Now that he was free and alone--as he had wished to be alone--he faced about with an abrupt movement and began to set homewards at a swift pace along the Ridge; simultaneously his mind returned to his own business.

He had reached a sudden determination while he talked with Japhra; he found his mind carried forward to the scenes of its prosecution, and he was made to breathe deeply and to walk fast as he visioned them. A conflict possessed him and tore at him as he went. Before he got to bed that night he would have from Aunt Maggie what she purposed for his future--he would have it in definite words--he would not be put off by vague generalisations--he would accept nothing in the nature of "next year will be time enough to decide"--nay, nor "next month," nor "next week"--he would have it definitely, clearly, unmistakably now. That was his determination; thence arose the conflict. He assured himself as he walked that let him but know Aunt Maggie's intentions, and however cruel, however impossible, however unendurable they might be, he would follow wise Japhra's advice--would meet in the ring as if it were a physical antagonist the passionate impulse to reward all kind Aunt Maggie's love by violent refusal to obey her--would meet and would defeat it there.

He threw up his head as he so thought and had his fists clenched and his jaw set. The action made him conscious of old friend wind. At this the pitch of his heat, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" shouted old friend wind in his ears. "Accept idleness if Aunt Maggie so desires, will you?--and the laughter and contempt, eh? Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some buffeting.

He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct.

"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he cried.

He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the battle was already begun.

II

The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while he walked--only could be master of himself while he stood still and centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding--not understanding!--unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. "A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A man's part--or a coward's?"

"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to look at it!"

And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A man must do something with his life--he admitted that. Is it fight you would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a man! You are no better than a baby here--worse than a baby; you're a lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself--your natural desires, your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout--then tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really won--tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!"

The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head--think of something else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head ached--ached. It would all come right--there was no cause for all this worrying. He had often thought about it before--never till now, till to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain--why, why was he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, could think of something else till he got home! There would be the jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind--if he went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go near her--and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live thing within his brain? why?

III

More reasoned thoughts these--at least a consciousness of his condition and an attempt to plumb its cause. More reasoned thoughts--and they brought him suddenly to a calmer moment and there to the answer he sought: Dora.

He was not far in person from the very spot where earlier in the day the vision of her had come to him and he had breathed her name and had her name come floating about him--Dora! Dora! Dora! soft as rose petals fall, sweet as they. He was not far in person from that spot--realising her in spirit he was aswoon again in that vision's ecstasy; and suddenly knew what reason urged his burning mood, and suddenly discovered why he burned to do. She the sweet cause of all this new distress!--hers the dear fault that life was now thus changed!

Further than that he might not go--nor cared to seek. It was not his--nor ever belongs to youth suddenly under the sex attraction--to know a new ichor was mingled with his blood, causing it to surge and boil and test the very fibre of his veins. Not his to know a sap that had been storing in his vigour was now released whence it had stored--touching new strengths that had not yet been felt; flushing the brain in cells not yet aroused; and crying, and crying to be relieved; and causing in his strength a tingling vibrancy, as a willow rod that has been bent springs upright and vibrates when its constraint is cut. Not his to know, nor care to seek, how love manifested itself within him, nor what love was, nor why he loved, nor if, indeed, love were this sudden thing. He only knew that what had served his boyhood could not suffice now Dora filled his mind; he only knew that in all the world to bring to Dora's eyes the light of admiration was his sole desire; he only knew that to have her hold him in contempt--even in slight regard--was to endure an outrage unendurable; he only knew he was possessed to challenge mighty businesses--of arms, of strength, of courage, of riches--that he might win her smile.

He had the new thoughts now for which he had cried while the tumult of right and wrong conduct vexed him. She filled his mind, suffused his being, stood with her exquisite face before his eyes. Peace in the guise of ardour came where conflict in passion's flame had burned. "If only I could see her before I go home!" he thought.

The recollection came of a hot day earlier in the week when, at lunch with Dora and Rollo at the Old Manor, they had conspired to abuse the sultry weather. "But the evenings are worth it," Dora had said. "In London it is different;" with her mother she had just come from London for a few days at Abbey Royal before she went, for her last term, to the "finishing" school near Paris. "In London it is different--of ten more stifling at night than in the day. But here! Here the evenings are worth it. Always after dinner I stroll in the garden--and love it."

If only he could see her before he went home! He looked at his watch beneath the moonlight. Almost nine o'clock it told him. That would be about her hour. He could strike across to Abbey Royal in fifteen minutes if he ran. There was just the chance!--just the chance of a glimpse of her, the first glimpse since this new and adorable sense of her had come to be his. He might even speak with her--hear her voice. Hear her voice!--it was the utmost desire he had in all the world! There was just the chance!--if it failed, still he could see the home where she lived, see it with the new eyes that now were his--her home, the grounds her feet had trod, the gates her hand had touched, the flowers perhaps her dress had brushed or she had stooped to breathe.

There was just the chance!--along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine that had his heart.