Chapter IV: Part 4

Taking the fits as proved, we will now look more closely beneath the pie-crust of Northwich. The best way to do so is to get into a big tub which will just hold two people and go down the shaft of a salt mine, lowered by a windlass. First of all you pass through 32 feet of soil and drift, and then about 92 feet of what would commonly be called rock. Then below these 124 feet you come to the first bed of rock salt, which averages about 75 feet in thickness. Passing through this you come to 30 feet more of rock, and below again is found another bed of rock salt, which averages in thickness about 90 feet. It is the lower bed of rock salt which is mined. The bottom of the mine down which I went was 330 feet below the surface, but the atmosphere was delightful, being cool and dry and not in the least oppressive. A magnificent chamber, 25 feet high and 17 acres in extent, had been dug out of the salt, and its extent could easily be gauged by the help of the candles which had been lit all round the mine. Massive pillars of salt of 10 or 12 feet square are left at intervals of 25 yards to support the roof.

The rock is got largely by blasting. A hole is drilled, and into the bottom of the hole a small powder ball is put. Loose powder is placed in a piece of straw and the straw is lighted. In a few seconds it burns down to the powder ball, and the rock salt which has lain so quietly in its bed for æons breaks up, and in process of time may find itself in any quarter of the globe.

[_Warrington._

A FLOOD IN THE STREETS OF NORTHWICH.]

No damage is done to the surface by the mining of this lower bed of rock salt. It is too deep for that. The subsidences are all connected with the upper bed of salt. These upper beds used to be worked because the lower beds were not known, and when they were neglected they fell in, and in this way the large sheets of water of which I have spoken were formed above the earth's crust.

[_Warrington._

HOUSES WHICH COLLAPSED OWING TO A SUBSIDENCE.]

But the mining of the upper bed of salt by man does not account for the subsidences here recorded. The name of the dangerous miner is "water." When water reaches the upper bed of salt it dissolves it as water does snow. Water can take in 26 degrees of salt and no more, and then it is called brine. Underneath Northwich is a sea of brine which lies on the top of the upper bed of salt rock. From this brine white salt is made by a process of evaporation, and that is why all over Northwich you see numbers of pumping stations which pump up the brine as fast almost as it is made. As the brine is taken out fresh water flows in and takes up its 26 degrees of salt. In this way the great cavities under Northwich which cause all the subsidences are made; they will grow bigger and bigger as long as the pumping up of brine is continued.

Truly Northwich lives and moves and has its being in salt, and promises to be buried in it too.

Brine pumping is the source of a terrible injustice. A man may buy a piece of land large enough to erect a pumping station, and if on that spot he can tap the brine there is nothing to prevent him from drawing brine from any part of Northwich. And though his neighbour's house is engulfed in the process, and though he is ruined thereby, he can secure no compensation. If you were to mine salt or coal under your neighbour's house you could be brought to book, but not if you take water, salt or fresh.

Such was the law till a few months ago. But after a tremendous fight a bill has been passed which gives a Compensation Board power to levy not more than three-pence a ton on all brine pumped at Northwich. This levy is to go to the compensation of those whose houses and property have suffered. But at present not a penny has been paid and in no case will a penny ever be paid for all the damage done before the passing of the Act. Such is the tragedy of salt getting.

Illustration: OUR ARTIST'S WAKING DREAM OF A STREET IN NORTHWICH.]

Northwich has been called the salt metropolis of the world, and as becomes a metropolis it is unique. It has a Salt Museum, the only one in existence, which contains the finest collection of Indian and American salts in the country. It also contains some very interesting exhibits. Among them are a pair of boots and an old broom-head which were left in an old salt mine for fifteen years. They had not much beauty when they were left, but Nature has made them exquisitely beautiful, for they are encased in salt crystals which were formed upon them in those fifteen years.

No one can go down a salt mine without asking, How did this salt come here? And no one can fail to be impressed by the answer. Æons before the footfall of man was heard upon the earth there stretched across Cheshire a great salt lake; and under the hot sun of a semi-tropical age the salt crystallised out of the water and rested at the bottom of the lake. How many years it is since the first layer was deposited can hardly be imagined, for it was formed under deep waters, while now it is over 300 feet beneath the earth's crust. But there are few finer fields for the exercise of the imagination than in trying to conceive the vastness of time and change which have elapsed since then. And when one does realise something of the eternity of that time one ceases to wonder that Northwich has fits when its heart of salt is taken from it.

THAT FIVE HUNDRED POUND PRIZE.

THE STORY OF A GENIUS.

BY RICHARD MARSH.

_Illustrated by John H. Bacon._

To him, the idea, from all points of view, suggested nothing but objections. He told her so.

"You know, Philippa, I don't believe, as the cant of the day has it, that a woman ought to earn for herself her daily bread; and that a woman should earn her husband's daily bread as well--to me, the mere idea of such a thing is nauseous. There may be men who are content to take the good which their wives provide. Thank goodness, I am not one of them. In this matter I am old-fashioned in my notions. I look at woman from a point of view which is, perhaps, my own. To me, the woman who, urged even by necessity, works for money, soils her womanhood, falls away from her high estate. I pity her, but--not _that_ woman, if you please, for me. Necessity, Philippa, surely does not urge you. Am I not always at your side? Believe me, my day will come--come shortly! Only wait!" Putting his arm about her waist, he looked up into her face, with, in his eyes, a certain light of laughter. "Besides, in the great army of the workers, what work do you think there is for you? Do you think that in you there is the making of a woman of letters, Philippa?"

So he kissed her, and she said nothing. She could say nothing. She could only let him fondle her, as though they still were sweethearts. For she loved him, and he loved her. But though she loved him, in her heart there was a hot remonstrance, which she allowed to remain unspoken, because she loved him. It was easy to say that there was no necessity to prick her with a spur. But there were the tradesmen's bills unpaid, the rent in arrear, and the children wanted things--not to speak of herself and of him. And there was a drawer full of his unaccepted manuscripts. They went hither and thither, from editor to editor, and then for the most part they seemed to settle in the drawer.

She understood well enough what he meant when he asked if she thought that she had in herself the making of a woman of letters. She had been a nothing and a nobody. She had not even been very pretty. Certainly no superfluity of money had been thrown away upon her education. It was not at all as it is in the story books, but, quite by chance, he met her. Before he knew it, he was wooing her. And, when things came to the worst at home, he married her--she having nothing which she could call her own except the things which she was wearing. And he had very little more. It was not strange that he should doubt if in her there was the making of a woman of letters--she, who, save in the way of love letters, had scarcely ever written a line.

Geoffrey Ford was a genius. He had given her to understand that from the very first--in the days when, in her ignorance, she scarcely understood what a genius was. He gave her to understand it still, almost every day. With him, to write was to live. To be a great writer was the dream of his life. He strove to realise his dream with that dogged pertinacity which is only to be seen in the case of a master passion. When they first were married, he was struggling to be a dramatist. He was quite conscious that, in the trade of the writer, wealth was only to be achieved by the successful playwright. He believed that his was essentially the playwright's instinct. Although his plays met with abundance of good words, they did not attain production. It seemed as if they never would. When they began to be actually starving, she suggested that he should put aside playwriting for a time, and try to earn money by other products of his pen. He had acted on her suggestion. He had become that curiosity of modern civilisation--a writer for the magazines. And, in a way, he had been successful. He was earning, perhaps, an irregular hundred and fifty pounds a year. But what are an irregular, a very irregular, hundred and fifty pounds a year, when there are three babies? And yet he said that there was no spur of necessity to urge her on.

The worst of it was, she was beginning to be a doubter. She would not own it, even to herself, but she was beginning to fear that he might be mistaking the desire to be, for the power to be. What he considered his best work invariably came back. He said that this was because editors were unable to appreciate strikingly original ideas when they were presented to them by a wholly unknown man. What they desired was a commonplace, and when he said this, she--well, she said nothing. From the first she had insisted on his reading aloud to her everything he wrote. Unconsciously to herself she had become a critic. She was beginning to fear that he was only at home in the lower levels. When he soared, he floundered. It was only among the hacks that he held his own. Even then, at times, he lagged behind. So far from hinting to him her fears, she would almost rather have died than have allowed him to know she had them. Their love for each other had never faltered, even when their cupboard was emptiest. It had seemed to grow stronger with the coming of each child. And, what is more, it appeared to her that, but for him, she would have dropped into a ditch.

Lately there had been growing up within her a desire to add to the family income. And, oddly enough, it had seemed to her that the best way to do this would be by writing. She had hinted something of this desire to Geoffrey. She had suggested, playfully, that she should join her pen to his--that they should collaborate. He had received her playful suggestion in such a way that she had not ventured to repeat it in earnest. She knew him, through and through. She knew that he desired to succeed, not only for himself, but, first of all, for her. He loved his work for the work's sake. He cared nothing for fame in the sense of popularity, or its equivalent, notoriety. In that respect he was a clear-sighted man--he knew what the thing was worth. For himself he cared nothing for the material products of success. His own tastes were of the simplest kind. He desired to achieve success simply that he might pour the fruits of success into her lap. He wished her to owe nothing to anyone but to himself, to owe nothing even to her own self. He wanted to be all in all to her, to have his love her beginning, and her end.

She knew this. Yet--the rent was overdue. Of late his manuscripts seemed coming back worse than ever. He seemed to be out of the vein. And the children wanted things so badly. And so----

Well, one day he came to her with an expression of countenance which she knew so well. It meant that a new idea, some fresh project, either was germinating, or else had germinated, in his mind. In his hand he held a newspaper.

"Philippa, I am going to do what I have told you I thought that I should never do--I am going in for a prize competition. See here." He opened the paper out in front of her. "The _North British Telegraph_ is offering £500 for the best story, £250 for the second best, and £100 for the third best. I am going to win one of those prizes--mark my words, and see if I don't."

He was kneeling at the table by her chair. She had her hand upon his shoulder. She smiled as he spoke. She knew his tone so well. He was always going to do this, that, or the other. But somehow, after all, he seldom did it.

"Are you? The money would be very useful."

"Useful! I should think it would. Why, to us, it would be a fortune. But that's not the only thing. You know how ideas come to me in an instant. Directly I saw that announcement I saw _the_ story which will be the very thing."

"Did you?" Her heart grew faint. She was beginning to be a little afraid of his sudden flashes of inspiration. "How long is the story to be?"

"It does not say exactly, but it says that it should not exceed a hundred and fifty thousand words. It will give me elbow room. I shall have a chance to let myself go--to get into my stride. I am sick of dancing in fetters, with a limit of four thousand words or so."

"But it will take you a long time to write, won't it?"

"Oh, about six weeks. It will take me no time, when I am once well into the story. You know how I do travel, when I once have got my grip. It is half mapped out in my head already. Every line of it will practically be written before I begin. There will only be the pen work to do." Putting both his hands upon her shoulders, he stooped his eager face to hers. "Philippa, you see if I don't do the trick this time."

"Geoffrey, if I were you, I wouldn't be so sanguine. You know how disappointed you have been before."

Thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets, he began to stride about the room.

"Yes, I know that is so, and I won't be sanguine. But, somehow, I feel quite certain that, this time, I have the thing--however, I'll say nothing. But don't you tell me not to be sanguine, or you'll put me clean off--you know how funny I am, that way. You keep the children quiet, and don't let me hear a sound, and you'll see--well, you'll see what you will see." He laughed, and she laughed too. "Don't you laugh at me! If I don't get the first prize, it'll be hard lines if I don't get one of the three--even a hundred pounds is not to be despised."

"But, Geoffrey, what will become of your other work during those six weeks? And you know, when you have finished a long story, you never feel inclined to start again at once."

"Don't talk to me like that, or you'll drive me off my head. Philippa, I've set my heart upon doing this thing--do let me do it. You don't want me to be a penny-a-liner all my life, sweetheart, do you? By the way, I saw _The Leviathan_ at the library. There's a first-rate story in it, by a new man--Philip Ayre. I know good work when I see it, and that is good work. And, do you know, it might almost be a story about us--you should read it. It is called 'Two in One.'" Wandering hither and thither about the room, he did not notice that his wife's face had suddenly been bent low over her mending, and that her cheeks had paled. "Another thing, I met old Briggs." Mr. Briggs was their landlord. "I assure you, when I saw him coming, I was half inclined, Dick Swiveller fashion, to dodge down some side street. I made sure he was going to dun, and that I should have to shuffle. But, to my surprise, he was quite friendly. He asked how you were, and how the children were, and never said a word about the rent. So, of course, I said nothing either. I'm just going for a stroll, and a smoke, and a think. Mind, when you go to the library, that you don't forget to read that thing in _The Leviathan_."

When he had gone, spreading out the paper which he had brought in front of her she began attentively to study the announcement of the _North British Telegraph_ prize story competition. Putting down the figures--150,000--upon a scrap of paper, she began to divide and to sub-divide them, as if she were trying to find out exactly what they meant. When she had finished her calculations, she continued to sit in a brown study, quite oblivious of the heap of mending which still lay unfinished on her knee.

"If I could only help him to win it--if I only could! Poor Geoff! The day on which he gave me five hundred pounds, as the product of his own work, would be the happiest day that he had ever known. My own, own Geoff!

"I wonder if he will win it? Oh, if he only would! But supposing that he does not win it, it would be just as well that--that someone else should win it--someone in--in his own home. Oh, what a wicked wretch I am! What's that? It's baby! I do hope she won't wake up. There's all this mending, and I've only milk enough for one more bottle. There! She is waking up! You naughty, naughty, _darling_ child!"

The next day Geoffrey Ford began his story. He began to pour it out upon the paper, white-hot from the furnace of his brain. Seldom had he seen his way so clearly. It had come, as he said, in an instant. It possessed him, as it were, body and soul and mind, as his work was wont to possess him when, as he thought, he saw his way. His ideas would come to him with the force of a mighty rushing river. He could not dam them back. He felt that he was obliged to give them instant utterance or they would overflow the banks, and so be lost. He worked best, or he thought that he worked best, at high pressure. He believed in striking the iron when the force of the fire had almost made it liquid. Not for him was the journeyman labour of hammering out tediously, and with infinite care, cold iron.

The story was to be called "The Beggar." He had even got the title! It was one of those half-psychological, half-transcendental stories, in the turnings and twistings of which he liked to give his fancy scope. His fault was not too little imagination, but too much. The task of keeping it within due bounds was not only a task which he hated, but possibly it was a task which was beyond his strength. There are impressionists in painting. He was an impressionist in literature. He was fond of large effects--effects which were dashed in by a single movement of the brush. To descend to details was, he thought, a descent indeed. He was conscious that there was a public which would read a volume which, from first to last, only dealt with the minutest particularity, with a couple of days in the life of a single individual. That was a public he despised. He preferred to deal with a whole life in the course of a couple of pages.

He was, in short, a genius. And when I say a genius, I mean, in this connection, a wholly unmanageable person. As you read his work, you felt that you were in the presence of an exceptional mind--in the presence of a man who saw things, great things, things worth seeing, which were hidden from other men--who saw them, as it were, by flashes of lightning. That was just how he did see them--by flashes of lightning. He saw them for an instant, then no more. Partially, and not the whole. In a lurid light, which almost blinded the beholder. So, when you read a work of his, you were startled, first by the light, then by the darkness. It seemed strange that a man who one moment could be so light, the next could be so dull. Soon you began to be irritated. Then you were bored. When you reached the end--if you ever reached the end--you wondered if the man was mad, or if he was merely stupid. But he was neither mad nor stupid. He was a genius, who, so far, declined to allow himself to be managed. When he became manageable, he would cease to be a genius--in the sense in which the word is here being used. Then, if he wrote at all, he would write what the plainest of plain men could plainly read.

The idea of his story was not an unattractive one--to a certain sort of writer. It was to be the story of a beggar, of a man who asked for alms in the streets, and who, by the exercise of certain arts, which verged upon the marvellous, amassed a fortune. Geoffrey Ford proposed to follow the beggar, as he amassed his fortune, and to show what he did with his fortune, when he once had gained it. And in the little room upstairs, the wife sat with the children, watching over their every movement to see that they made no unnecessary sound. They were good children. When papa was writing, even the baby seemed to do her best to keep the peace. The little ones seemed willing to give up the birthright of the child--the right to enter into the heritage of life with a rush of happy noise. And, below, the husband, and the father, wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and rushed about the room, chasing his dreams, so that he might imprison them, with ink, on paper.

The days went by, and the story grew. And so wrapped up was the writer in its growth, that he failed to notice that about his wife there was something unusual, and even a little strange. She was interested in his work, there could be no doubt of that. But she did not, as he was inclined to think that she was apt to do, worry him with continual questions as to how it was getting on, and inquiries into this, or that. She let him go his own way, without making so much as even one suggestion. She was wont to be a little too free with her suggestions, he sometimes fancied. For her suggestions hampered him. And--but this he did not notice--she went her own way too. Rather an odd way it seemed to be. For one thing, she seemed to be unusually busy. She did not come into the room in which he was working even after the children had gone to bed. She seemed to have something on her mind. She became distinctly paler. It might have been illness, or it might have been anxiety, or it might have been overwork. A queer look came into her eyes. Sometimes it was almost like a look of apprehension. Then there would come a timidity in all her movements, as if she were even afraid of him. Then it would be like a look of vacancy, as if her thoughts were far away. When that vacant look was there, she seemed to be unconscious of her husband's presence--just as he had a trick, in his meditative moods, when he was thinking of his work, of becoming unconscious of her. Then again, as one looked into her eyes, one would have thought that she was possessed by some mastering excitement--a flaming fire which glowed within.

One afternoon her husband came in from his daily visit to the Library Reading Room. He was not in his happiest mood. He was a man of moods. When the black mood was upon him, all the world was black.

"On my word, I do not know what things are coming to. There's Graham, of _The Leviathan_, sends back everything I send him. That MS. which came back this morning, he has had two months, and it's a first-rate thing. Then he goes and fills his pages with stuff which I wouldn't put my name to. The new number's out, and there's another story in it by that man Philip Ayre. I never read such rubbish in my life."

His wife had looked up at him, as he came in, with a smile of welcome. When he began to speak of _The Leviathan_, her face dropped again. It went paler than even it was wont to do. There was a tremor in her voice.

"I thought you said that that other story of his was rather good."

"It was good enough--of its kind. But it's a kind I hate. There's a craze about for sickly pathos, which, to me, is simply disgusting. In that man Ayre there's the making of a popular writer. Mark my words, and see if he doesn't make a hit. In a few months he will be all the rage--you see. And it is to make room for such men as Ayre that I shall be condemned to eat my heart out till I die."

Putting down her work, his wife came to him from the other side of the table.

"Geoffrey, don't say that!"

Tears were actually in her eyes.

"Philippa, what's the matter?" As he put his arms about her and drew her on to his knee, he felt that she was trembling. "Sweetheart, what is wrong?"

"Don't speak like that of Philip Ayre!"

"Not speak like that of Philip Ayre! Why, lady, do you hold a brief for him? You silly child! It's only a foolish way I have. But if you could only realise how I long, and long, and strive, and strive, to stand up with the best of them, you would understand how it galls me to find how I am thrust aside by men whose work seems to me to be so poor a thing. For their work's sake, I almost begin to hate the man."

"Geoffrey! Geoffrey! Not that! not that!"

Flinging both her arms about his neck, she burst into an hysterical flood of weeping--she who never cried.

"Dear heart!--tell me!--what is wrong!--Philippa! Philippa!--my wife."

She did not tell him what was wrong. It seemed as if she could not tell him what was wrong. Perhaps, as he told himself, it was because, after all, there was nothing wrong. She was only out of sorts that day-unusually out of sorts for Philippa.

After a while he began upon another theme.

"Sweetheart, if something doesn't come in soon--and I don't know where it's going to come from--I can't see what we shall do for money. I don't know if you are acquainted with the state of the family finances. What we must owe the people I am afraid to think. Why they don't worry us more than they do is a mystery to me. I see you've been getting new boots for the children. They wanted them. But they'll have to be paid for, I suppose. Never mind! All things come to those who wait, and luck will come to me. I'm sure I've waited. Let's hope that an unexpected cheque will come along. Anyhow, wait until the 'The Beggar' is finished. It'll be a splendid thing-you see! I'm putting some of the best work into it I ever did. If it doesn't win the first prize, it's bound to win the third. Why, Philippa, your eyes are red. The idea of your crying because I was pushed against the wall to make room for an unknown ass like Mr. Philip Ayre!"

"The Beggar" was finished. It was sent in. Then came the weeks of waiting. Geoffrey Ford did scarcely any work. The larger proportion of the work he did came back again. He seemed to be in a curious frame of mind--as though he took it for granted that that five hundred pounds was already on its way to him.

"If I get that five hundred pounds," he would say, "I will do this, or that."

His wife grew sick at heart.

"Geoffrey, I wish you wouldn't think of it so much. You make me think about it, too. And then, if you don't get it, you know what a bitter disappointment it will be."

"I suppose you take it for granted that I shan't get it?"

"I don't take anything for granted. I never do. I wish you wouldn't either."

"There's one thing, I don't believe that these competitions are ever conducted fairly. I don't see how they can be. I don't see how any man, or any set of men, can wade through a cartload of MSS. in such a manner as to be able to judge, with critical nicety, which is the best one in the truckful. But I'm sure of this, I don't believe that any man sent in a better story than 'The Beggar'--a more original one, I mean. I know the sort of people who enter for these competitions-a lot of wretched amateurs."

She said nothing in reply. What could she say? She knew that it was not only conceit which prompted him to talk like that. She understood quite well the almost anguished longing which filled his heart. Her own heart throbbed pulse for pulse with his.

Returned MSS. seemed to annoy him more than usual. He was case-hardened, as a rule. When they reappeared, he simply packed them up again, and sent them off upon another journey. Especially was he irritated by the return of a MS. which he had sent to _The Monthly Magazine_.

"I knew that would come back. I see that Philip Ayre has something in this month's number. I don't know who he is. So far as I know, he is the very last discovery. But I believe that that man is destined to be my evil star."

His wife went white to the lips.

"Geoffrey! I wish you wouldn't talk like that. It doesn't sound like you at all."

"I suppose they're quite right in preferring his work to mine, only--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Philippa, I sometimes wish that you were a writer. Then you would understand me better. You would understand what I feel when I see the dream of my life growing dimmer and dimmer, and more dream-like, every day."

Philippa was still.

The day approached on which the conductors of the _North British Herald_ had stated that they would announce the winners in their competition for stories. Geoffrey Ford's anxiety increased to fever heat. His heart stood still every time he heard the postman's knock. His wife knew that it was so, although he did his best to hide how it was with him.

"To-morrow," he said, "I shall know if I have won."

"Or," his wife suggested faintly, "if you have lost."

"Or, as you say, if I have lost. But we won't speak of losing. I have never put my heart into anything as I have put it into this. I am sure that 'The Beggar' is the best work I have ever done--I am sure of it. I will go further, and say I believe it is as good work as I shall ever do. Upon my honour, Philippa, something tells me I shall win--it does! Oh, if I could only win!"

He had arranged that a copy of the issue of the paper containing the announcement should be sent to him by post. That morning the postman brought him two enclosures. One was a bulky parcel. When he saw it, his heart, all at once, ceased beating. He had to gasp for breath. Without a word, he began to unfasten it, with hands which trembled. Philippa bustled about the breakfast table, as if her own heart was not working like a wheezy pair of bellows.

"Philippa! it's 'The Beggar'! the manuscript--come back again!"

"Never mind." How she tried to speak in the most commonplace of voices. "You can send it somewhere else. It's sure to get accepted."

"Send it somewhere else?" She saw that his lips were twitching, that his face seemed bloodless. "But--I don't understand. Not a word of explanation is enclosed. I don't know what it means. Perhaps there's some mistake. Let's--let's see who's won."

The other enclosure which had come for him was obviously a copy of the paper. He tore it open-still with hands which trembled. He searched its columns for the announcement.

"My God!"

"Geoffrey! what's the matter? Who has won? Oh, Geoffrey, have you won?"

"Me! me!" He rose to his feet, as it were, inch by inch. "It's Philip Ayre!"

"Philip Ayre!"

Falling on her knees beside the table, Mrs. Ford covered her face with her hands.

"It's Philip Ayre! Didn't I tell you he was destined to be my evil star? Curse----"

Mrs. Ford rose up in front of him.

"Geoffrey, be careful what you say! I am Philip Ayre."

"You? What do you mean?"

She advanced to him, on tottering feet, with outstretched hands.

"Geoffrey, I am Philip Ayre!"

"You are Philip Ayre? What on earth do you mean?"

"Oh, Geoffrey, don't you understand? Philippa--Philip Ayre!"

There was a moment's pause--a pause which, probably, neither of them ever would forget.

"You--you are Philip Ayre! How dull I must have been not to have seen the pretty play upon your name before. Philippa--Philip Ayre. Of course! So you have been my rival. My wife--the mother of my children--the woman I loved better than all the world."

"Geoffrey, don't say that I have been your rival!"

"No? Not my rival? What then?"

"I did it all for you!"

"For me? I see. I am beginning, for the first time, to understand the meaning of words. You did it for me? This is not a foreign language which you are speaking--I suppose it is English?"

"Geoffrey, will you listen to me for a moment?"

"Certainly; and I shall understand that I am listening to you, to your own self, for the first time. It is someone else I have listened to before. Proceed, Mr. Philip Ayre."

She seemed to find some difficulty in proceeding. Very soon she was to give another child unto the world. Perhaps it was that which made her seem so weak. She never had been very pretty. She had not grown prettier with the passage of the years. Now, as she stood trembling so that she had to clutch at the table to keep her stand, she seemed an insignificant, pale-faced, ill-shaped woman--not a thing of beauty to the eye. She seemed, also, to be in mortal terror.

"Geoffrey, I would have told you all along, only I was afraid."

"Afraid to tell me that you had set up as a rival in the business? I see. Go on."

"I wouldn't have done it at all if we hadn't been so short of money."

"Which was because you had a blundering fool for a husband. That is clear. Well?"

"The children wanted things, and--and there were the bills, and--and the rent."

"Which you paid. Now I understand Mr. Briggs' civility, the tradesmen's reticence. I have been living on my wife. What a blind worm a man who has the use of his eyes can be!"

"I--I never meant to be your rival--never, Geoffrey, never."

"Mr. Philip Ayre----"

"Don't call me Mr. Philip Ayre!"

"Why not? Aren't you Mr. Philip Ayre?"

"Oh, Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"

She knelt down before him, so that her hands fell on his knees as he was seated on his chair. He moved her hands and rose.

"Let us understand each other, quietly. Philippa, I told you, before we were married, that I objected to a woman who worked for money. I had no objection to _women_ who worked for money. That was no affair of mine. I simply objected to make such an one my wife. I imagined, when you became my wife, that you would make my hopes and my ambitions yours. Indeed, you told me that you would. I was poor, and you were poor. You knew that I would work for you with all my strength. And so I have done. When, a little time ago, you suggested that you, too, should become a labourer for hire, I told you, with such courtesy as I could command, that, to me, the idea was nauseous. Perhaps I should have told you then, what, indeed, I had told you before, and what I tell you now again, that rather than have a wife who worked for money, I would have no wife. You were perfectly aware of this. You were well acquainted with what I thought and felt upon the matter. I do not say that my thoughts and feelings were correct. Still, they were mine. You said you loved me. You swore it every day. I never dreamed that, to you, my wishes were nothing, and less than nothing. And that you should deliberately set yourself to cheat me out of the fruits of what you well knew was the labour and the longing of my life--"

"Not cheat you, Geoffrey--no, not cheat you!"

"Yes, cheat me! cheat me! I suppose that you sat upstairs and pretended to keep the children quiet, while I sat down here and wrote. And for every page I wrote, you wrote another, the object of which was to rob me of the life-blood with which I had written mine. But far be it from me to reproach you, Mr. Philip Ayre. You have won, and I--poor devil!--I have lost. It is the fortune of war. I am without a penny. You have your five hundred pounds. And, as it is quite impossible that I can consent to be the recipient of charity from the woman who calls herself my wife, I have the pleasure, Mr. Philip Ayre, of wishing you good day."

She sprang between the door and him.

"Geoffrey! What are you going to do?"

"I am going to live my own life. I am going to earn my own living under the shelter of a roof for which I myself have paid. I am going to meet you with the gloves off, in fair and open fight, not behind a hedgerow, with a gun in my hand, Mr. Philip Ayre."

"Geoffrey, any--any hour I may be taken ill."

"What do you wish me to do? I will stay here until you are well, but only until then, on the understanding that not a penny of your money is to be used for me."

"The children are upstairs. Won't you--won't you let them in?"

"Let them stay upstairs. Philippa! What is the matter?"

Her time was come--that was the matter. By noon their fourth child was born.

When the nurse came to the sitting-room door, she found Geoffrey pacing round and round like some wild creature in a cage.

"Mr. Ford, sir?"

He looked round with a start.

"Yes, nurse."

"Mrs. Ford would like to see you, sir."

"To see me? Oh! Is she well enough?"

"Well, sir, she's not so well as she might be. But she says that it would do her good to see you. Only you musn't let her talk too much, nor yet you musn't stay too long."

"I won't stay too long."

He went upstairs. He paused for a moment outside the bedroom door. Then he entered the room.

"_Geoff, I'm going to die!_"

Her words so frightened him that, in the suddenness of his fear, he staggered backwards.

"To die!"

"All along I knew that I should. I knew it when I was writing that wicked book--the book which has won the prize, I mean. Perhaps that was why I wrote it. It is the best way out of the trouble. I should never have been the same wife to you again. I know you so well. But, Geoffrey, you won't refuse to accept a legacy from me when I am dead. It is the only thing I have ever had to give you. For the children's sake, and the little baby's sake, and mine."

He sat on a chair by the bedside, trying to hold himself in, as it were, with every muscle of his body.

"Philippa, you musn't talk like that."

"If you'll forgive me, Geoff, I'll be content--only promise that you'll accept my legacy."

"Not if you die, I won't."

"Geoff!"

"I'll accept it if you live."

Holding the baby in his arms, he knelt beside the bed. She turned to him. They were face to face. As he began to perceive how she had wasted to a shadow, it did not seem as if he could read enough of the story which was told upon her face. She, in her turn, did not seem as if she could gaze long enough at him.

"Geoffrey, do you really mean that if I live, and get well, really and truly well, you will take me for your wife again--that I shall be to you the same wife that I have always been?"

"Philippa, if one of us is to die for the other, let me be the one to die."

"Geoff, I do believe that if there is anything which must be done, you must be the one to do it. Can't you understand, that if you love to do great things for me, I, also, love to do great things for you. I can't help it. It was that which made me Philip Ayre."

"Be Philippa--or Philip Ayre. Only--stay with baby and with me."

She was silent for some moments as she lay and looked at him with a singular intensity of gaze.

"I think, Geoffrey, I shall live."

THE MOST CRUEL SPORT IN THE WORLD.

THE HORRORS OF THE BULL-FIGHT.

_By Sidney Gowing._

Do not believe it when you are told that bull-fighting is near its end. The great sport is as popular and deeply rooted in Spain as cricket is in Britain, and will last as long. To attempt to stop bull-fighting by law would cause a bigger revolution among the Spaniards than the most fearful disasters at home or abroad.

The great home of bull-fighting is Seville, and when the Seville fights are in their glory even Madrid takes second place. The Seville bull-ring is a little larger than that of Madrid, though it is not quite so gorgeously designed. Still, it holds over 14,000 people.

Nearly every Sunday throughout the year there is a bull-fight of sorts to be seen.

About 300,000 people go to the bull-fight every week in Spain, on an average. One must also count in an infinite number of little amateur fights in outlying villages of the provinces.

But at a _pukka_ bull-fight in Seville, six of the finest bulls and at least forty horses are provided, to say nothing of the _cortège_ of gold-clad operators drawing terrific salaries. Fashion and the masses turn out together to hoot and whistle and shout, and nothing on earth short of Armageddon could stop a fight half-way.

Half-past two in the afternoon is the usual time for commencement. Seats in the sun cost between eighteenpence and two shillings, and in the shade anything from three shillings to five pounds. The bulk of the seats are merely stone steps, like the face of a pyramid, and above them a double row of chairs fenced in by a balcony. It is only these last that are covered from the sky. Half the ring is protected by its own height from the heat of the sun, and the other half is open to its glare.

When the amphitheatre is full of sun-hatted Spaniards, with a sprinkling of girls wearing white mantillas (only at bull-fights are white mantillas the thing), the president takes his place in a little box by the side of the big white platform that is set apart for special visitors.

Then the door at the far end of the arena opens, and the suite comes forth. There are a couple of sombre-looking cloaked horsemen mounted on rather sorry nags, and these amble forward, salute the president, and request the key of the _Toril_, the great stable where the bulls wait to die. Then come the matadors--they who do the killing--from two to four of them, dressed in knickerbocker attire, with short jackets, after the fashion of an Eton coat. These are generally of light pink or blue silk, hung with infinite short tassels of spun gold or silver. The cloak, which is as fine a piece of embroidery as one could find anywhere, is lapped round the back and held tight in front. The hats are not of the inverted saucepan-lid type that are always depicted in bull-fight pictures, but big black furry structures, bulging at the sides. The men are short, but well made, and carry themselves with a lithe swing that at times savours distinctly of swagger.

In a double row the banderilleros come next--they whose duty it is to place the papered darts--and behind them a few chulos, who are in the first stages of the art, and whose duties are confined to agile exercises with the red cloak.

In the rear ride the picadors--heavily clad lancers--gaily dressed somewhat after the Mexican fashion, and carrying long wooden lances that bear nothing more hurtful than a short blade, the size of a flattened tea-spoon, at the end. These lancers would look still more impressive but for the fact that their steeds are aged and weary carriage hacks, such as would in Britain be sent to the knacker's yard.

Six picadors complete the _cortège_, with a hanger-on or two behind to help direct the horses. They, poor brutes, are bandaged over one eye--the eye that is to be nearest the bull.

The suite salutes the president, who is a Town Magnate of high degree, and he bows his stateliest in reply. The gorgeous cloaks are only for show, and they are thrown over the barrier into the little corridor that separates the ring from the tiers of seats, and held by an official. In return, the fighters receive their working cloaks--scarlet, blood-stained, and ragged--and range themselves round the walls of the ring. And here let us get rid of the word "toreador"--it is never used in Spain. All other nations seem to take kindly to it, but _torero_ is the Spanish for bull-fighter.

The heralds at the far end of the arena lead off with a flourish of trumpets, and the great door with the iron bull's head over the top swings open and shows a gloomy cavity beyond. There is nothing to see for about ten seconds. There is a hush all round the tiers of waiting people, and presently a blurred shadow looms through the dark.

The bull trots out nimbly to the rim of the arena, glares aggressively at the empty space ahead of him, shakes his mighty head, and every line of his lithe frame says "Ready!" He is not like our British bulls, heavy and ponderous, but spry and agile as a terrier, twisting on his own axis like a small rater in stays. He was not goaded or tortured before the entry, to make him savage, as the historians of bull-fights would have us believe--there is no necessity. It is almost the finest part of the spectacle, this first entry, and those who cannot bring themselves to sit out the drama of blood and steel that comes later should witness it and then go. So the bull trots in and looks round for something to slay. This is a chance for a young and agile torero to show his skill.

The seeker of fame runs out to about the centre of the sandy arena and stands with his arms folded. His Majesty the bull waits for nothing farther, but puts all four hoofs to the ground and thunders towards the youngster at full gallop. Just as the great horns lash upwards for the toss, the boy twists himself round, and at that moment the space between the two is to be counted by inches. The bull usually puts so much vicious power into this first effort, that at the attempted toss he flings his forequarters clear of the ground, and his forefeet come down with a sounding crack on the hard floor. There is nothing left for the fighter to do but run, and he vaults the barrier into the corridor beyond. The bull frequently gathers so much impetus in following at the runner's heels, that he too must leap the fence--a goodly jump for a bull--about five feet. Then follows a wild scramble of corpulent policemen, sweetmeat-sellers, water-carriers, and so forth, and they scuffle heavily over the barrier into the deserted ring. But a door is soon opened, the bull turned back into the arena, and the herd of onlookers climb feverishly back into safety.

There are three picadors on their sorry mounts standing round the fence, but before these come a little knot of chulos, men with cloaks, inviting the bull to a species of game of "touch." The chances are largely in favour of the men here, for the cloaks are large, and can be fluttered in the bull's face while the holder is two or three yards away. Besides, a bull charges with closed eyes, and always attacks the cloak, not the man. There are exceptions to this, but such exceptions give a new turn to the fight, and moreover give work to the little surgeon in the whitewashed room beyond the stables, and to the priest who attends without for the peace of soul of those that may need him before the sixth bull is slain.

Here, again, a matador, he who kills, will often take a cloak and show the audience three or four artistic passes with it, as distinct from the go-as-you-please way in which cloaks are wielded by the chulo. These passes only allow the cloaker to miss the bull by a short breadth, and are well defined and recognised by all connoisseurs. The bull has now given up those wild rushes from a distance, and fences warily, evidently much annoyed at the fruitlessness of his charges, and the impossibility of driving his horns home in solid flesh. So out comes the picador on his halting steed, and plants himself well away from the barrier, so that he may not be thrown against it in the fall. His legs are cased beneath the yellow leggings with sheet iron, for he cannot shield them from the enemy's rush. Horsemanship is absent--there is no need for it. To plant his lance, and fall without hurting himself, is the whole art of a picador, and this part is the greatest blot on the performance. It is merely an act of deliberate slaughter, for the horse is intended to be killed, and will be kept there till it is killed.