*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63546 ***

  _The_
  UNDEFEATED

  BY

  J. C. SNAITH

  AUTHOR OF "THE SAILOR," "BROKE OF COVENDEN," ETC.

  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  NEW YORK           1919




  COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY


  Printed in the United States of America.




  DEDICATED RESPECTFULLY
  TO
  "A DECENT AND A DAUNTLESS PEOPLE"




THE UNDEFEATED




I


It was hot.

It was so hot that a certain Mr. William Hollis sitting on an old bacon
box in the lee of a summerhouse in his lock-up garden had removed coat
and waistcoat tie and collar, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and
loosened his braces. The presence of a neighbor's elbows on the party
hedge forbade a complete return to nature, but the freedom of Old Man
Adam from the restraints imposed by society was envied just now by one
at least of his heirs.

By the side of Bill Hollis was a stone jar of Blackhampton ale, a
famous brew, but even this could not save him from gasping like a carp.
It was a scorcher and no mistake--thick, slab and hazy, the sort of
heat you can almost cut with a knife.

Leaning gracefully across from the next plot was a large, rotund
gentleman with the face of a well-nourished ferret. Draped in an artful
festoon beneath an old straw hat, a wreath of burdock leaves defended
him from the weather. "Mr. Hollis"--he addressed the man on the bacon
box with conversational charm--"if you want my opinion they're putting
in a bit of overtime in Hell."

"Mr. Goldman, you've got it." His neighbor, a man of somber
imagination, was struck by the force of the image. First he glanced up
to a sky of burnished copper and then he glanced down over the edge of
sheer hillside upon which he and his friend were poised like a couple
of black ants on the face of a hayrick. Below he saw a cauldron in
which seethed more than a quarter of a million souls. Floating above
the cauldron and its many thousands of chimneys was a haze of soot
thick enough to conceal what in point of mere size was the fourteenth
city of Great Britain. But speaking geographically, and Blackhampton's
inhabitants were prone to do that, it was the exact center of England,
of the United Kingdom, of the British Empire, and therefore--

Somewhere in the mind of William Hollis lurked a poet, a philosopher
and an artist. He pointed over the dip of the hill into the middle of
the cauldron. "Reminds me," he said, half to himself, for he was not
consciously an artist, "of the Inferno of Dant, with Lustrations by
Door."

Mr. Goldman frowned at the simile. What else could he do? He was a
solid citizen, of a solid city, of a solid empire: he was not merely a
Philistine, he was proud of being a Philistine. He suddenly remembered
that his neighbor was a failure as a man of business. And in a flash
Mr. Goldman knew why.

"Yes, Hollis--hot." The ferret-faced gentleman spoke with more caution
and less charm. Commercially and socially he was secure, but the same
could hardly be said for the man on the bacon box who spoke of the
Inferno of Dant with Lustrations by Door--whatever the Inferno of Dant
with Lustrations by Door might be.

"Hot enough, Mr. Goldman, to melt those three brass balls of yours." It
was a graceful allusion to a trade symbol, yet a prosperous pawnbroker
felt that in making it a semi-bankrupt greengrocer was verging upon the
familiar. He had just reached that conclusion when a boy selling papers
came along the narrow lane that ran past the end of the garden, and
thrust a tousled head over the fence.

"Four o'clock, mister?"

Bill Hollis produced a halfpenny. A minute later he produced a note of
disgust. "County's beat. Yorkshire won by an innings an' four runs.
Funny thing, our chaps can't never play against Yorkshire--not for sour
apples."

Mr. Goldman gave a slow deep grunt and then artistically readjusted his
garland.

"Hirst six for twenty-two. Them Tykes can _bahl_ a bit. Rhodes four for
nineteen."

Mr. Goldman grunted again. And it was now clear by the look in his
small eyes that disapproval was intended. The Inferno of Dant with
Lustrations by Door was still in his mind. That was the key to his
neighbor's financial failure, but this squandering of money, time and
brain power on things of no value was just as significant.

"Cricket." The tone was very scornful. "One o' these days cricket is
going to be the ruin of the country."

William Hollis stoutly dissented. "It's cricket that makes us what we
are."

"It's business, Hollis, that makes a country." There was an accession
of moral superiority in the pawnbroker's tone. "That's the thing that
counts. All this sport is ruination--ruination, Hollis--the road to
nowhere."

William Hollis was unconvinced, but a man so successful had him at a
hopeless disadvantage. In theory he was sure that he was right, but the
pawnbroker knew that he had just made a composition with his creditors,
so that it didn't matter how sound the argument or how honest the
cause, he was out of court. Truth doesn't matter. It is public opinion
that matters. And public opinion is conditioned by many subtleties,
among which a banking account is foremost.

Bill Hollis covered his retreat from a position that should have been
impregnable, by turning to another part of the paper which was the
Blackhampton _Evening Star_.

"Ultimatum to Serbia. Ugly situation. I don't think."

Mr. Goldman asked why he didn't.

"A dodge to sell the paper."

"I expect you're right," said the pawnbroker judicially. "They've
always got some flam or other."

"Civil war in Ireland," announced Bill Hollis.

"I daresay. And next week we shall have the sea serpent and the giant
gooseberry. And all for a halfpenny, mark you. We're living in great
days, Hollis."

The little greengrocer was silent a moment and then he said
thoughtfully, "I sometimes think, Mr. Goldman, what this country wants
is a really good war."

Mr. Goldman smiled in a superior way. "Well, I don't mind telling you,"
he said, "that I've thought that for the last twenty years. Not this
country only, but Europe, the whole world."

"You're right, Mr. Goldman." There was a grandeur in the conception
that in spite of the weather almost moved his neighbor to enthusiasm.

"Stands to reason, my boy, and I'll tell you why. The world is
overpoppylated. Look at this town of ours." With the finger of an
Olympian the pawnbroker pointed down the hillside to the smoking
cauldron below. "Poppylation two hundred and sixty odd thousand at the
last census. And when I first set up in business, the year before the
Franco-Prussian War, it was seventy-two thousand. And it's not only
here, it's all over the world alike."

"That is so, Mr. Goldman. And they say that in America it's even
worse. In fact, wherever you look the competition is cruel."

"Yes, Hollis, a real good war would do a power of good. We want Old
Boney back again--then there might be breathing space for a bit. As it
is this country is overrun with aliens."

William assented gloomily.

"This town of ours, my boy, is crawling with Germans. They come over
here and take the bread out of our mouths. They work for nothing and
they live on nothing. They learn all our trades and then they go back
to the Fatherland, and undersell us."

Said Bill Hollis with the air of a prophet, "I reckon that sooner or
later we'll be having a scrap with the Germans."

"Not likely." The pawnbroker's tone was a little contemptuous. "The
Germans can get all they want without fighting. Peaceful penetration's
their game. They are the cleverest nation in the world. In another
twenty years they'll own it all."

Upon this last expression of his wisdom Mr. Goldman gave a final touch
to his straw hat and its cool garland, waddled down a box-bordered path
and out of the gate at the bottom of his garden.




II


The departure of Mr. Goldman left a void in the heart of Mr. William
Hollis. He was a sociable man, with a craving for the company of his
fellows, and although for quite a long time now his distinguished
neighbor had been clearly labeled in his mind as "a pursy old pig," he
was an interesting person to talk to when he was in the humor. He was
not always in the humor, it was true, for he was a "warm" man, an owner
of house property; therefore he was in the happy position of not having
to be civil to anybody when he didn't feel like it. This afternoon,
however, he had unbent.

The slowly receding form of Mr. Goldman waddled along by the hedge,
turned into the lane, passed from view. In almost the same moment
William Hollis felt a severe depression. He had reached the stage of
life and fortune when he could not bear to be alone. With a kind of
dull pain he realized that this was his forty-first birthday and that
he had failed in life.

He was going down the hill. Unless he could take a pull on himself he
was done. Already it might be too late. The best part of his life was
behind him. A year ago that day, in this very garden, his only source
of happiness, he had told himself that; two years ago, three years
ago, five years ago, this had been the burden of his thoughts. But he
was in a rut and there seemed to be no way out.

Twenty years ago he had felt it was in him to do something. He was
an ambitious young fellow with a mind that looked forward to the day
after to-morrow. Such a man ought to have done something. But now he
knew that there had been a soft spot in him somewhere and that a moral
and mental dry rot had already set in. He was a talker, a thinker, a
dreamer; action was not his sphere. Unless he took a strong pull on
himself he was out of the race.

He poured what remained of the jar of ale into the earthenware mug he
kept for the purpose--Blackhampton ale tastes better out of a mug--and
drank it slowly, without relish. Then he cut a few flowers to take
home to his wife--to the wife who hadn't spoken to him for nearly a
week--arranged them in a bunch, with the delicacy of one unconsciously
sensitive to form and color, looped a bit of twitch neatly round them,
put on his coat, a stained and worn alpaca, put on his hat, a battered,
disreputable straw, cast the eye of a lover round his precious garden,
locked its dilapidated green door and started down the lane and down
the hill towards the city.

It was now five o'clock and a little cooler, yet William Hollis walked
very slowly. There was a lot of time to kill before the day was
through. But his thoughts were biting him harder than ever as he turned
into the famous road leading to the city, known as The Rise. This
salubrious eminence, commanding the town from the northeast, was sacred
to the city magnates. When a man made good in Blackhampton, really
good, he built a house on The Rise. It was the ambition of every true
Blackhamptonian to express his individuality in that way. Until he had
achieved a house entirely to his own fancy and taste on The Rise, no
son of Blackhampton could be said really to have "arrived."

William Hollis trudged slowly along a well kept road, between two
irregular lines of superb villas, gleaming with paint and glass,
standing well back from the road in ample grounds of their own, with
broad and trim gravel approaches. The first on the right was Rosemere,
the residence of Sir Reuben Jope, three times Mayor of Blackhampton,
a man of large fortune and robust taste, whose last expression was
greenhouses and conservatories. They were said to produce fabulous
things--flowers, fruits, shrubs, plants known only to tropical
countries. Many a time from afar had Bill gazed upon them with rather
wistful awe.

A little farther along was The Haven, the ancestral home of the Clints,
a famous Blackhampton family whose local prestige was on a par with
that of the Rothschilds in the city of London. Across the road was
The Gables, the modest house of Lawyer Mossop, the town's leading
solicitor; then on the right, again, the reticulated dwelling of the
philanthropic Stephen Mortimore, head of the great engineering firm
of Mortimore, Barrow, and Mortimore. For a true son of Blackhampton
these were names to conjure with. Even to walk along such a road gave
one a feeling of worldly success, financial security, aristocratic
exclusiveness.

Still a little further along on the left was what was clearly intended
to be the _pièce de resistance_ of The Rise. It was the brand-new
residence of the very latest arrival and no house had been more
discussed by Blackhampton society. It was intended to eclipse every
other dwelling on The Rise, but it was of nondescript design, half
suburban villa, half mediæval castle. From the æsthetic standpoint the
result was so little satisfactory that a local wit had christened it
"Dammit 'All."

As "Dammit 'All" came into view, Bill Hollis found an almost morbid
fascination in gazing at its turrets and the tower so regally crowning
them. It was the house of his father-in-law, Mr. Josiah Munt. Sixteen
years ago, in that very month of July, an ambitious young man had
married his master's eldest daughter. Melia Munt had espoused Bill
Hollis in direct defiance of her father's wishes and had lived long
enough already to rue the day. Josiah, at that time, was not the great
man he had since become, but he was a hard, unbending parent; and he
gave Melia to understand clearly that if she married Hollis he would
never speak to her again. Melia chose to defy him, as he always
thought out of sheer perversity, and her implacable father had been
careful to keep his word to the letter. Not again did he mention her
name; not again did her old home receive her.

In those sixteen years Josiah Munt had gone up in the world, and if
William Hollis could not be said to have come down in it, he had
certainly made very little headway. At the time of his marriage he was
the chief barman at "the Duke of Wellington," an extremely thriving
public house, at the corner of Waterloo Square in the populous
southeastern part of the city. He was now a small greengrocer in Love
Lane, within a stone's throw of the famous licensed house of his
father-in-law, and he was continually haunted by the problem of how
much longer he would be able to carry on his business. On the other
hand, his old master had prospered so much that he had recently built
for himself a fine house on The Rise.

Mr. Josiah Munt was still the owner of the Duke of Wellington. Over the
top of its swing doors his name appeared below the spirited effigy of
the Iron Duke as "licensed to sell wines, spirits, beer and tobacco,"
but years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family. As far as
possible he liked to disassociate himself from it in the public mind,
but he was too shrewd a man to part with the goose that laid the golden
eggs; besides, in his heart, there was a tender spot for the old house
which had been the foundation of his fortunes. His womenfolk might
despise it; in some ways he had outgrown it himself; but he knew better
than to crab his luck by parting with an extremely valuable property
which at the present time was not appreciated at its true worth by the
surveyor of rates and taxes.

As William Hollis trudged along the dusty road and his father-in-law's
new and amazing house came into view, he became the prey of many
emotions. The sight of this magnificence was a bitter pill to swallow.
It brought back vividly to his mind the scene that was printed on it
forever--the scene that followed his diffident request for the hand
of Melia. He could still hear the stinging taunts of his employer, he
could still feel the impact of Josiah's boot. It may have been that
boot--for women are queer!--which caused the final capitulation of
Melia. But the hard part was that time had justified the prediction of
her far-sighted parent. Melia in throwing herself away on "a man of no
class" would do a bad day's work when she married Hollis.

It had been the son-in-law's intention to give the lie to that
prophecy. But!--there was a kink in him somewhere. He had always loved
to dream of the future, yet he had not the power of making his dreams
come true. If only he had had a good education! If only he had known
people who could have put him on the right road to success when he was
young and sharp and the sap was in his brain! If only there hadn't
been so much competition, so much to fight against; if only he could
have had a bit of luck; if only Melia had really cared for him; if only
he hadn't speculated with the hundred pounds she had inherited from
her Aunt Elizabeth; if only he wasn't so apt to be hurt by things that
didn't matter a damn!

William Hollis was a disappointed and embittered man. Life had gone
wrong with him; but a small jar of Blackhampton Old Ale softens failure
and evokes the quality of self-pity. However, as he approached Mr.
Munt's gate and gained a clearer view of the newest and most imposing
house on The Rise, the sense of failure rose in him to a pitch that was
hard to bear. So this was what Melia's father had done! No wonder she
despised a man like himself. It was not very surprising after all that
she hardly threw a word to him now from one day's end to another.




III


A man in an apron that had once been white and in a cloth cap that had
once been navy blue was painting a series of bold letters on Mr. Josiah
Munt's front gate. Bill Hollis was overwhelmed with depression, but
at this interesting sight curiosity stirred him. He advanced upon the
decorative artist who was whistling gently over a job in which he took
a pride and a pleasure. Upon the ornate front of the large green gate
was being inscribed the word

  STRATHFIELDSAYE

Bill recognized the artist as a near neighbor of his own in Love Lane.

"Working for the Nobs, are you, Wickens?" There was a world of scorn
in the tone of William Hollis, a world of sarcasm. And yet what was
scorn and what was sarcasm in the presence of a hard fact, clear,
outstanding, fully accomplished!

The artist expectorated a silent affirmative.

"Piecework, I suppose? Cut rates?" Mr. Munt had the reputation of being
a very keen man of business.

The artist was too much absorbed in his labors to indulge in
promiscuous talk.

William Hollis peered through the gate, to the rows of newly planted
shrubs on either side the curving carriage drive. "Bleeding upstart" he
muttered; then he turned on his heel and walked on up the road.

He had gone but a few yards when quite unexpectedly he came upon a
massive figure in a black and white checked summer suit and a white
billycock hat worn at a rather rakish angle. It was his father-in-law
and they were face to face.

Mr. Munt was proceeding with a kind of elephantine dignity along the
exact center of the sidewalk, and instinctively, before he was aware of
what he had done, his son-in-law by stepping nimbly into the grassgrown
gutter had conceded it to him. But in almost the same instant he
scorned himself for his action; and the gesture of lordly indifference
with which the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington directed his gaze
upon the western gables of Strathfieldsaye, without a flicker of
recognition of the person who had made way for him, suddenly brought
William Hollis to the bursting point.

The world allows that in a stone jar of Blackhampton Old Ale there are
magic qualities; and far down in Bill himself was hidden some deep
strain of independent manhood. The City records proved--vide Bazeley's
famous Annals of Blackhampton, a second-hand copy of which was one
of his most cherished possessions--that the name of Hollis had been
known and honored in the town long before the name of Munt had been
heard of. The Hollises were an old and distinguished Blackhampton
clan. A William Hollis was mayor of the Borough in the year of the
Armada. It was a family of wide ramifications. There was the great
John Hollis the inventor, circa 1724-1798, there was Henry Hollis the
poet, circa 1747-1801. Of these their present descendant was a kinsman
so remote that the science of genealogy had lost track of their actual
relationship. But beyond a doubt his father's uncle, Troop Sergeant
Major William Hollis, had fought at Waterloo. He himself was named
after that worthy, and the old boy's portrait and portions of his kit
had long embellished the sitting room in Love Lane.

It was then, perhaps, force of ancestry quite as much as the virtue
of the Blackhampton ale that moved William Hollis to his sudden
and remarkable act of self-assertion. For as Josiah Munt passed
him, head in air, and weather eye fixed upon the western gables of
Strathfieldsaye, his son-in-law stopped, swung round and called after
him in a voice that could be heard even by the decorative artist at
work on the gate--

"Sally out of Quod yet?"




IV


By not so much as the quiver of an eyelid did Mr. Munt betray that he
had even heard, much less taken cognizance, of that which amounted to
a studied insult on the part of William Hollis. The proprietor of the
Duke of Wellington converged upon the gate of Strathfieldsaye with head
upheld, with dignity unimpaired. He even cast one cool glance at the
handiwork of the inspired Wickens, but made no comment upon it, while
the artist suspended his labors, opened the gate obsequiously, and
waited for the great man to pass through. But when Mr. Munt had walked
along the carriage drive to within a few yards of his newly bedizened
front door, he stopped all of a sudden like a man who has received a
blow in the face.

Had Bill Hollis at that moment been able to obtain a glimpse of his
father-in-law he would have seen that his shaft had gone right home. A
sternly domineering countenance was distorted with passion. There was a
rage of suffering in the fierce yellow-brown eyes, there was a twist of
half strangled torment in the lines of the hard mouth. As the lord of
Strathfieldsaye stood clenching his hands in the center of the gravel
he was not an attractive figure. Before entering the house he took off
the white hat and soothed the pressure upon head and neck by passing
over them a red bandanna handkerchief.

A trim parlor maid, bright as a new pin, received the lord of
Strathfieldsaye. The smart and shining creature was in harmony with her
surroundings. Everything in the spacious and lofty entrance hall shone
with paint and polish, with new curtains, new carpets, new fittings,
new furniture.

Mr. Munt handed his hat to the parlor maid rather roughly. "Tea's in
the drawing-room, sir," she said, calmly and modestly. It was the air
of a very superior servant.

Josiah went into the drawing-room and found two ladies drinking tea and
consuming cake, strawberries and cream and bread and butter. One was a
depressed lady in puce silk to whom her lord paid little attention; the
other was much more sprightly, although by no means in the first blush
of youth. She had the air of a visitor.

Before heralding his arrival by any remark, Mr. Munt gazed with an air
of genuine satisfaction round the large cool room smelling of paint and
general newness, and then he said in a tone of rather grim heartiness
to the more sprightly of the two ladies, "Well, Gert, what do you think
on us?"

There was a careful marshaling of manner on the part of the lady
addressed as Gert. "Almost _too_ grand, Josiah--since you ask my
opinion. Still I've been telling Maria that she must show Spirit."

The nod of Josiah might be said to express approval. Miss Gertrude
Preston was a half-sister of his wife, and she was perhaps the only
woman among his strictly limited acquaintance who was able to sustain
a claim to his respect. She had character and great common sense
and having acted for many years as resident companion to no less a
person than Lawyer Mossop's aunt, the late Miss Selina Gregg, she had
seen something of the world. Upon all subjects her views were well
considered and uncommonly shrewd; therefore they were not to be passed
over lightly. Aunt Gerty was a favorite of Josiah, not merely for the
reason that "she knew a bit more than most," but also because she was
clever enough to play up to his rising fortunes and growing renown.

"Maria shown you round?" said Josiah, accepting a cup of tea from the
graceful hands of his sister-in-law.

The depressed lady in puce silk sighed a limp yes.

"Eggshell china tea service," Gerty fixed a purposeful eye upon
Josiah's cup.

"Out of old Nickerson's sale," Josiah performed an audible act of
deglutition. "Four pun ten the set. Slop basin's cracked though."

"I see it is, but you have a bargain, Josiah. You always seem to have a
bargain, no matter what you buy."

Josiah purred under the subtle flattery.

"Seen that chayney vawse?" He pointed across the room to a pedestal
upon which was a blue china bowl.

"Looks like genuine Ming," Gertrude opened a pair of long-handled
tortoiseshell glasses. There was less than a score of ladies in the
whole of Blackhampton who sported glasses of that ultra-fashionable
kind, but Miss Preston was one of them.

"That young feller Parish said it was genuine and he ought to know."

"Charming," Gerty sighed effectively; then her eyes went slowly round
the room. "This room is perfect. And such a view. You stand so high
that you can look right over the city without knowing that it's there.
And there's the Sharrow beyond. Isn't that Corfield Weir on the right?"

Rather proudly Josiah said that it was Corfield Weir.

"And that great bank of trees going up into the sky must be Dibley
Chase."

"Dibley right enough," vouched Josiah. "Have you had a look from the
tower?"

"Yes, I have. Wonderful. Maria says on a clear day you can see Cliveden
Castle."

"Aye. And a sight farther than that. You can see three counties up
there. To my mind, Gert, this house stands on the plumb bit of The
Rise."

Gertrude fully agreed.

"So it ought if it comes to that. I had to pay seven and sixpence a
yard for the land, before I could put a brick on it."

Gertrude was impressed.

"What do you think o' that oak paneling in the dining-room?"

She thought it was charming.

"Has Maria shown you the greenus--I should say conservatory--an' the
rockery--an' the motor garidge? We haven't got the motor yet, but it's
coming next week."

Gertrude had seen these things. It only remained for her to enter upon
a diplomatic rapture at the recital of their merits.

"No strawberries, thank you," Josiah's voice was rather sharp as the
depressed lady tactlessly offered these delicacies at a moment when
her lord was fully engaged in describing the unparalleled difficulties
he had had to surmount in order to get the water fountain beyond the
tennis lawn to work properly.

"Fact o' the matter is, our Water Board wants wackenin' up."

"Well, you are the man to do that, Josiah. You are an alderman now."

"I am." The slight note of inflation was unconscious. "And old
Scrimshire an' that pettifoggin' crew are goin' to have a word in
season from Alderman Munt."

"Mustn't get yourself disliked though."

Josiah smiled sourly. "Gel," he said, "a man worth his salt is never
afraid o' being unpopular. Right is right an' wrong is no man's right.
Our Water Board's got to be run on new lines. It's a disgrace to the
city."

Miss Preston was far too wise to offer an opinion upon that matter. She
knew, none better, the limits imposed by affairs upon the sex to which
she belonged. But she was very shrewd and perceptive and underneath the
subtle flatteries she dealt out habitually to this brother-in-law of
hers was a genuine respect for great abilities and his terrific force
of character.

Among all the outstanding figures in Blackhampton his was perhaps the
least attractive. His name, in polite circles, was almost a byword,
for he never studied the feelings of anybody; he deferred only to his
own will and invariably took the shortest way to enforce it. There was
generally a covert laugh or a covert sneer at the mention of his name
and the house he had recently built on The Rise had set a seal upon his
unpopularity. Nevertheless, the people who knew him best respected him
most. His sister-in-law knew him very well indeed.

Maria poured out a second cup of tea rather nervously for Josiah to
whom Miss Preston handed it archly.

"No cake, thanks. I dussent." He tapped his chest significantly; then
he cast a complacent glance through the wide-flung drawing-room windows
to the fair pleasaunce beyond. "So you think, Gert, take it altogether,
this is a cut above Waterloo Villa, eh?"

Gertrude's only answer to such a question was a discreet laugh.

"Waterloo Villa was _so_ comfortable," sighed the depressed lady in
puce silk.

"But there's no comparison, Maria, really no comparison." It was
wonderful how the caressing touch of the woman of the world dispersed
the cloud upon Josiah's brow almost before it had time to gather.

"Of course there isn't, Gerty. Any one with a grain o' sense knows
that. Why, only this morning as I went down in the tram with Lawyer
Mossop, he said, 'Mr. Munt, this new house of yours is quite the pick
of the basket.'"

"It is, Josiah." The discreet voice rose to enthusiasm. "And no one
knows that better than Maria."

The lady in puce silk gave a little sigh and a little sniff. "Waterloo
Villa was quite good enough for _me_," she murmured tactlessly.




V


There was silence for a moment and then said Josiah: "Talking of Lawyer
Mossop--that reminds me. I'm going round to see him. I wonder what time
he gets back from his office." He looked at his watch. "Quarter past
five. Bit too soon, I suppose."

Maria ventured to ask what he wanted Lawyer Mossop for.

Josiah did not answer the question immediately. When he did answer it
his voice had such a depth of emotion that both ladies felt as if a
knife had been plunged suddenly into their flesh.

"I'm goin' to take our Sally out of my will." There was something
almost terrible in the sternness and finality of the words.

The depressed lady in puce silk gave a gasp. A moment afterwards large
tears began to drip freely from her eyes.

Aunt Gerty sat very upright on a satinwood chair, her hands folded
in front of her, and two prominent teeth showing beyond a line of
extremely firm lips. She didn't speak.

"Nice thing"--each word was slowly distilled from a feeling of
outrage that was almost unbearable--"to be made the talk and the
mark of the whole city. And after what I've done for that gel!
School--college--France--Germany--your advice, you know, Gerty----"

Aunt Gerty didn't speak.

"And then she comes home and gets herself six weeks' hard labor. Hard
labor, mark you!"

Both ladies shivered audibly.

"Nice thing for a man who has always kept himself up, to have his
daughter pitchin' brick ends through the windows of the Houses o'
Parliament, to say nothin' of assaulting the police. Gerty, that comes
of higher education."

Still Aunt Gerty didn't speak.

"Fact is, women ain't ripe for higher education. It goes to their
heads. But I'll let her see. In a few minutes I'll be off round to
Lawyer Mossop."

"But--Josiah!" ventured a quavering voice.

"Not a word, Mother. My mind's made up. That gel has fairly made the
name o' Munt stink in the nostrils of the nation. Not ten minutes ago
that rotten little dog Bill Hollis flung it in my teeth as I came in at
the front gate. The little wastrel happened to be passing and he called
after me, 'Sally out of Quod yet?' One o' these days I'll quod him--the
little skunk--or Josiah Munt J.P. is not my name."

Maria continued to weep copiously but in silence. She dare not make her
grief vocal with the stern eye of her husband upon her. The tragedy of
her eldest girl's defiance, now sixteen years old, was still green
in her memory. Josiah had given Amelia plainly to understand that if
she married William Hollis he would never speak to her again and he
had kept his word. Maria had not got over it even yet; and now their
youngest girl, Sally, on whose upbringing a fabulous sum had been
lavished, had disgraced them in the sight of everybody.

Josiah was meting out justice no doubt, but mothers are apt to be
irrational where their offspring are concerned; and had Maria been able
to muster the courage she would have broken a lance with him, even
now, in this matter of the youngest girl. But she was afraid of him.
And she knew he was in the right. Sally's name had appeared in all the
papers. That morning, by a cruel stroke, they had come out with her
portrait--Miss Sarah Ann Munt, youngest daughter of Alderman Munt J.P.
of Blackhampton, sentenced to six weeks hard labor. Yes, it was cruel!
It would take her father a long time to get over it. And for Maria
herself, it was like the loss in infancy of the young Josiah; it was a
thing she would always remember but never quite be able to grasp.

The silence grew intolerable. At last it was broken by Gertrude Preston.

"You'll be having splendid roses, Josiah--next year." Those mincing
tones, quite cool and untroubled, somehow did wonders. Josiah had
always been a noted rose grower and as his sister-in-law pointed
elegantly to the rows of young bushes beyond the drawing-room windows
something in him began to respond. After all that was his great asset
as a human entity: the power to react strongly and readily to the many
things in which he was interested.

"Aye," he said, almost gratefully. "Next year they'll be a sight. I've
had a double course o' manure put down."

"I hope there'll be some of my favorite Gloire de Dijons," said Gerty
with fervor.

"You bet there will be. There's a dozen bushes over yond. By the way,
Gert, you're comin' to the show to-morrow week."

Miss Preston, for all her enthusiasm for roses, was not sure that she
could get to the show. But Josiah informed her that she would _have_
to come. And he enforced his command by taking a leather case from his
breast pocket and producing a small blue card on which was printed:

  BLACKHAMPTON AND DISTRICT ROSE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION
  PRESIDENT, ALDERMAN JOSIAH MUNT J.P.

  The twenty-seventh annual Show will be held in the Jubilee Park on
  Tuesday, August the Fourth. Prizes will be presented at six o'clock to
  successful competitors by Mrs. Alderman Munt. The Blackhampton Prize
  Brass Band will be in attendance. Dancing in the evening, weather
  permitting.

   Admission one shilling.

"That'll get you in, Gert." The card was placed in her hand. "Come and
stand by Maria and keep her up to it."

Had Maria dared she would have groaned dismally. As it was she had to
be content with a slight gesture of dismay.

"You see it'll be a bit o' practice for her. In 1916--the year after
next--she'll be the Mayoress."

The lady in puce silk shuddered audibly.




VI


In the process of time the clock on the drawing-room chimneypiece
chimed six and Josiah "stepped round" to Lawyer Mossop's.

That celebrity lived at The Gables, the next house but one along The
Rise. Outwardly a more modest dwelling than Strathfieldsaye, it was
less modern in style, more reticent, more compact. As Josiah walked up
the drive he noted with approval its well kept appearance and its fine
display of rhododendrons, phlox, delphiniums, purple irises and many
other things that spoke to him. He was a genuine lover of flowers.

Mr. Munt's pressure of the electric button was answered by a manservant
in a starched shirt and a neat black cutaway. The visitor noted him
carefully as he noted everything. "I wonder what he pays a month for
that jockey!" was the form the memorandum took on the tablets of his
mind.

"Mr. Mossop in?"

"If you'll come this way I'll inquire, sir."

Josiah was led across a square-tiled hall, covered in the center by a
Persian rug, into a room delightfully cool, with a large window in a
western angle opening on to a pergola ablaze with roses, along which
the westering sun streamed amazingly.

"What name, sir?"

"Hey?" Josiah frowned. As if there was a man, woman or child in
Blackhampton who didn't know him! Still, it was good style. "Munt--Mr.
Munt."

"Thank you, sir!" The manservant bowed and withdrew.

Yes, it was good style. And this cool, clean but rather somber room had
the same elusive quality. Three of its four walls were covered with
neat rows of books, for the most part in expensive bindings. Style
again. All the same the visitor looked a little doubtfully upon those
shining shelves. Books were not in his line, and although he did not
go quite to the length of despising them he was well content that they
shouldn't be. Books stood for education, and in the purview of Mr.
Josiah Munt, "if they didn't watch it education was going to be the
ruin of the country."

Still to that room, plainly but richly furnished, those rows of shining
leather lent a tone, a value. A shrewd eye ran them up and down.
Meredith--Swinburne--Tennyson--Browning--Dickens--Thackeray--all flams, of
course, but harmless, if not carried too far. Personally he preferred
a good billiard room, but no one in Blackhampton disputed that Lawyer
Mossop was the absolute head of his profession; he could be trusted
therefore to know what he was doing. There was one of these books open
on a very good table--forty guineas worth of anybody's money--printed
in a foreign language, French probably, of which he couldn't read a
word. Il Purgatorio, Dante. Fine bit of printing. Wonderful paper! Yes,
wonderful! He handled it appraisingly. And then he realized that Lawyer
Mossop was in the room and smiling at him in that polite way, that was
half soft sawder, half good feeling. The carpet was so thick that he
had not heard him come in.

"Good evening, Mr. Munt." The greeting was very friendly and pleasant.
"Sit down, won't you?"

"No, I'll stand--and grow better." Mr. Munt had a stock of stereotyped
pleasantries which he kept for social use. They seemed to make for ease
and geniality.

The two men stood looking at each other, the solicitor all rounded
corners and quiet ease, the client stiff, angular, assertive, perhaps a
shade embarrassed.

"Anything I can do for you, Mr. Munt?"

The answer was slow in coming. It was embodied in a harsh growl.
"Mossop, I want you to take that gel of mine, Sally, out of my will."

The lawyer said nothing, but pursed his lips a little, a way he had
when setting the mind to work, but that was the only expression of
visible feeling in the heavily lined face.

"Excuse my troubling you to-night, Mossop. But I felt I couldn't wait.
Give me an appointment for the morning and I'll look in at the office.
Nice goings on! And to think what her education cost me!"

The lawyer made a silent gesture, spreading his hands like a stage
Frenchman, half dismay, half tacit protest.

"Better have a new document, eh?" The outraged parent had been already
dismissed; the highly competent man of affairs was now in control.
"My second girl, Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, can have it all now,
except"--Josiah hesitated an instant--"except five thousand pounds I
shall leave to Gertrude Preston."

Lawyer Mossop was still silent. But the mobile lips were working
curiously. "Not for me to advise," he said at last, very slowly, with
much hesitation, "but if I might----"

Josiah cut him short with a stern lift of the hand.

"I know what you're going to say, but if she was your gel what'd you
do, eh?"

Lawyer Mossop rubbed his cheek perplexedly. "At bottom I might be
rather proud of her."

"You--might--be--rather--proud--of--her!" It was the tone of Alderman
Munt J.P. to a particularly unsatisfactory witness at a morning session
at the City Hall. An obvious lie, yet a white one because it was used
for a moral purpose. Mossop had no ax to grind; he merely wanted to
soften things a bit for a client and neighbor. "You can't tell _me_,
Mossop, you really think _that_."

The solicitor gazed steadily past the purple face of his client through
the open window to the riot of color beyond. "Why not?" he said. "Think
of the pluck required to do a thing like that."

Josiah shook his head angrily. "It's the devil that's in her." He spoke
with absolute conviction. "And it's always been there. When she was
that high"--he made an indication with his hand--"I've fair lammoxed
her, but I could never turn her an inch. If she wanted to do a thing
she'd do it--and if she didn't nothing would make her."

"A lady of strong character."

"Cussedness, my friend, cussedness. The devil. And it's brought her to
this."

The lawyer, however, shook his head gently. "Well, Mr. Munt, as I say,
it is not for me to advise, but if she was a daughter of mine----"

"You'd be proud of her." The sneer was rather ugly.

"In a way--yes--perhaps ... I don't say positively ... because one
quite sees.... On the other hand, I might ... I don't say I should ...
I _might_ be just as angry as you are."

The thundercloud began to lift a little. "Come now, that's sense. Of
course, Mossop, you'd be as mad as anybody--it's human nature. Every
Tom, Dick, and Harry pointin' the finger of scorn"--_Sally out of Quod
yet_ was still searing him like a flame--"you'd be so mad, Mossop, that
you'd want to forget that she belonged to you."

"It might be so." Mr. Mossop's far-looking eyes were still fixed on the
pergola. "At the same time, before I took any definite step, I think I
should give myself a clear fortnight in which to think it over."

Josiah laughed harshly. "No, Mossop--not if you were as mad as I am."

It was so true that the solicitor was not able to reply.

"When I think on her"--the great veins began to swell in the head
and neck of the lord of Strathfieldsaye--"I feel as if I'd like to
kill her. Did you see that picture in the _Morning Mirror_? And that
paragraph in the _Mail_? It's horrible, Mossop, horrible. And first and
last her education's cost me every penny of three thousand pound."

Mr. Mossop nodded appreciatively; then, sympathetically, he lifted
the lid of a silver box on a charming walnut-wood stand and asked his
visitor to have a cigar.

"No, I never smoke before my dinner," said Josiah sternly. "She hasn't
been home a month from Germany." The veins in his forehead grew even
more distended.

"Where--in Germany?"

"Eight months at Dresden. Pity she didn't stop there. Fact o' the
matter is she's over-educated."

The lawyer looked a little dubious.

"Oh, yes, Mossop. Not having a boy, I don't mind tellin' you I've
been a bit too ambitious for that gel. And over-education is what
this country is suffering from at the present time. It's the national
disease. And women take it worse than men. School--college--Paris--and
Germany on the top of 'em. I must have been mad. However ... there it
is! ... let me know when the document's ready and I'll look in at the
office and sign it."

The lawyer would have liked to continue his protest but the face of his
client forbade. He crossed to his writing table, took up a pencil and
a sheet of notepaper and said, "Miss Sarah's portion to Mrs. Cockburn
except----"

"Five thousand pounds to Gertrude Preston."

The lawyer made a brief note. "Right," he said gravely. "I hope a
codicil will be sufficient; we'll avoid a new instrument, if we can.
You shall know when it's ready."

Josiah gave a curt nod.

"Going to be war in Europe, do you think?" said the solicitor in
a lighter, more conversational tone. It was merely to relieve the
tension; somehow the atmosphere of the room was heavy and electric.

"Don't know," said Josiah. "But I'll not be surprised if there is--and
a big one."

Mr. Mossop showed a courteous surprise. This question of a coming big
war was a perennial subject for discussion in social and business
circles. It had been for years and it had now come to rank in his mind
as purely academic. He could not bring himself to believe in "the big
burst up" that to some astute minds had long seemed inevitable.

"Any particular reason for thinking so just now?" To the lawyer it was
hardly a live issue; somehow it was against all his habits of thought;
but it was an act of charity at this moment to direct the mind of his
client.

"Stands to reason," Josiah spoke with his usual decision. "Germany's
got thousands of millions locked up in her army. She'll soon be looking
for some return in the way of dividends."

"But one might say the same of us and our navy."

"That's our insurance."

"That's how they speak of their army, don't they?--with Russia one side
of them, France the other."

"I daresay, but"--there was a pause which, brief as it was, seemed to
confer upon Mr. Munt an air of profound wisdom--"mark my words, Mossop,
they're not piling up all these armaments for nothing. It's not their
way."

"But they are so prosperous," said the lawyer. "They are hardly likely
to risk the loss of their foreign markets."

"Nothing venture, nothing win. And they do say the German workingman is
waking up and that he is asking for a share in the government."

"One hears all sorts of rumors, but in these matters one likes to be an
optimist."

"I daresay," Josiah looked very dour. "But I'll tell you this. I'm main
glad I got out of all my Continental investments a year last March."

The solicitor had to own that that was a matter in which his client
had shown uncommon foresight. The present state of the market was a
remarkable vindication of his sagacity.

There was another little pause in which the solicitor, himself an able
man of business, could not help reflecting upon the native shrewdness
of this client so keen, so hardheaded, so self-willed. And then it was
broken by Mr. Munt taking a step towards the door and saying, "When are
you and the wife and daughter coming to see us, Mossop? Come to a meal
one evening, won't you?"

The invitation was point blank; but behind the lawyer's genial courtesy
was the trained fencer, the ready-witted man of the world. "Most kind
of you," he said heartily. "Only too delighted, but, unfortunately, my
womenfolk are going up to Scotland to-morrow"--he gave private thanks
to Allah that it was so!--"and I follow on Saturday, so perhaps if we
may leave it till our return"--the solicitor raised his frank and ready
smile to the stern eyes.

"Quite so, Mossop!" The client frowned a little. "Leave it open. But
I'd like you to see the house. And Mrs. M. would like to know your wife
and daughter."

"They'll like to know her, I'm sure." The air of sincerity was balm.
"But they've been so busy gadding about just lately"--the laugh was
charming--"that they've had to neglect their social duties."

Josiah was far too elemental to feel slighted, even if the lawyer had
not been so disarming. "But you people here on The Rise have the name
of being a stuck-up lot, especially some of you old standards. And I'm
bound to say, Mossop, my experience is that you seem to live up to it."

Lawyer Mossop laughed his soft rich note as he followed Mr. Munt across
the hall. He opened the front door for his client, and then, hatless as
he was, accompanied the visitor down the short drive as far as the gate.

"Nice things here, Mossop," Josiah pointed to the flower beds on either
side. "That a Charlotte Fanning?" A finger indicated a glorious white
rose whose dazzling purity of color stood out beyond all the rest.

Mr. Mossop said it was a Charlotte Fanning.

"Not sure you are going to beat mine, though."

Mr. Mossop said modestly that he did not expect to do that. Mr. Munt
had long been famous for his roses; and by comparison the lawyer
declared he was but a novice. The client was flattered considerably by
the compliment.

At the gate, the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington pointed to the
distant gables of Strathfieldsaye, and said, "Well, come round when you
get back. The garden won't be much of a show for twelve months yet, but
the house is first class. I designed it myself."

With the winning charm which even Josiah, who felt that he paid for it
on the High Court scale could not resist, Mr. Mossop promised that he
would come round when he got back.

"An' don't forget the wife and daughter."

The wife and daughter should come round too. And then as the lord of
Strathfieldsaye said, "Good-night, Mossop," and was about to turn away
from the open gate, he felt suddenly the hand of the solicitor upon
his shoulder and the impact of a pair of grave, kind eyes. "I wish, my
dear friend," said Lawyer Mossop, "you could see your way to taking a
fortnight to think over that little matter."

It was not mere conventional man-of-the-worldly good feeling. It was
the human father, and the sheer unexpectedness of the obtrusion through
the highly polished surface of the city's foremost solicitor caused his
client to take a sharp breath. But Josiah's strength had always been
that he knew his own mind. And he knew it now. "No, Mossop." A final
shake of the dour head. "That gel is comin' out of my will. Good-night."

The solicitor sighed gently and closed the gate. And then he stood a
moment to watch the slow-receding lurch of the elephantine figure up
the road.




VII


"If that boy had lived--which he didn't," reflected the lord of
Strathfieldsaye as he opened carefully the fresh painted gate of his
own demesne, "I'd like him to have been educated at Rugby."

Lawyer Mossop had been educated at Rugby. Somehow that gentleman
always left in the mind of this shrewd, oddly perceptive client an
impression of being "just right," of not having anything in excess.
His reputation in Blackhampton was very high. Just as Dr. Perrin had
been for years its leading physician, Mr. Mossop had been for years
its leading lawyer. To be a patient of the one, a client of the other,
almost conferred a diploma of merit. Not only was it a proof in itself
of social standing, an ability "to pay for the best," but it also
expressed a knowledge, greatly valued by the elect, that the best was
worth paying for. Josiah was a firm believer in that maxim.

Still ... he closed the gate of Strathfieldsaye as carefully as he had
opened it ... when all was said education was dangerous. Up to a point
a good thing, no doubt. You couldn't be a Lawyer Mossop without it. But
it was like vaccination: some people it suited, others it didn't.

There was a trim slight figure coming down the path, in a hat not
without pretensions to fashion.

"Leaving us, Gert?" said Josiah. "Better stop to supper."

Miss Preston reluctantly declined the invitation.

"Why not? Always a knife and fork for you here, you know."

"I'd love to, Josiah, but they'll be waiting for me at home."

"Well, if you won't, you won't--but you'd be very welcome." And then he
embraced the house and its surroundings in a large gesture. "One better
than Waterloo Villa, eh?"

"It is," said Gerty, with tempered enthusiasm. She looked at her
brother-in-law with wary eyes. "You must be a very rich man, Josiah."

He narrowed his gaze a little and scratched his cheek delicately with
the side of his forefinger, an odd trick he had when thinking deeply on
questions of money. "So, so," he said. "So, so."

"But a place like this means _heaps_ of money," Gerty waved a
knowledgeable parasol.

"I daresay." It was the air of a very "substantial" man indeed. "The
year after next I expect to be mayor. And then"--a note of triumph
crept into his voice--"we may be able to show some of 'em a thing or
two."

Miss Preston was diplomatically quite sure of that. And yet as she
stood with the crude bulk of Strathfieldsaye behind her, she looked
somehow a little dubious. It was as if, respect this brother-in-law of
hers as she might, she had certain mental reservations in regard to him.

He was too busy with his own thoughts to detect what was passing in her
mind; besides the curves of his own mind were too large for him to care
very much even had he done so.

"You've got to come to the show, Gert," he said abruptly. "To-morrow
week--don't forget."

Gerty began to hedge a bit, but he would take no denial. It was her
duty "to bring Maria up to the scratch."

There was no way out, it seemed, so finally she must make up her mind
to yield and to suffer. It would be a horrible affair--common people,
brass band, a general atmosphere of vulgarity and alcohol; it would be
all that her prim soul abhorred. And the heat would be terrific. Her
spirit quailed, but how could the miserable Maria hope to get through
without her to lean upon! Besides if she showed the white feather
Josiah might lose some of his respect for her. And she couldn't afford
that, especially after it had cost her so much for him to gain it.

"She must get into the habit of showing herself to the public as she's
going to be mayoress."

Miss Preston quite saw that. She yielded with as much grace as she
could muster. Josiah took her down to the gate and told her to mind the
paint. And then as she was about to pass through, her gloved hand was
laid upon his arm, almost exactly as Lawyer Mossop's had been, and she
said softly and gravely in a voice curiously similar, "Josiah, if I
were you, I should not be in a hurry about ... about Sally."

The grimness of the eyes that met hers would have scared most women,
but Gertrude Preston was not one to be frightened easily. There was
hesitancy, a slight nervousness, all the same.

Josiah shook his head. "No," he said slowly, "that gel is coming' out
o' my will."

The look of him as he stood there with the sun's shadow falling across
his heavy face told her that argument would be worse than useless.
Rather abruptly she said good-night and marched primly away along the
road.




VIII


The annual Flower Show and Gala in Jubilee Park was in part a serious
function, in part a popular festival. But its secondary aspect was
undoubtedly predominant.

Jubilee Park was sacred to those who thronged the close-packed southern
and eastern areas of the city. Among many other things, held by the
people of Blackhampton to be vastly more important, the town and its
suburbs had a reputation for flowers. It was odd that it should have.
Except perhaps a subtle quality in the soil, there was little in its
corporate life or in its physical expression to account for the fact
that it had long been famous for its roses. Among the hundreds of
allotment holders on the outskirts of the city, practical rose growers
abounded and these claimed an apotheosis at the annual show in Jubilee
Park.

Almost the only vanity Mr. Josiah Munt had permitted himself in his
earlier days was that he was a practical rose grower. He had competed
at the show ever since there had been a show, and he had garnered so
many prizes in the process that he now took rank as an expert. But he
was more than that. He was now regarded as chief patron of a cult that
was largely confined to the humbler and the poorer classes. A hard
man, known throughout the city as very "near" in his business dealings,
he was a despiser of public opinion and no seeker of popular applause.
But of late years, having grown remarkably prosperous and a figure of
ever-increasing consequence in the town, he made a practice just once
in the year of "letting himself out a bit" at the function in Jubilee
Park.

For one thing the Park itself was almost within a stone's throw of the
Duke of Wellington; and in Josiah's opinion its sole merit was its
contiguity to that famous public house. Personally he despised Jubilee
Park and the class of persons who frequented it--they were a common
lot--but now he had taken rank as the great man of this particular
neighborhood, wherein he had been born and had sown the seeds of his
fortune, it did him no harm in his own esteem or in that of the people
who had known him in humbler days, once a year to savor his preëminence.

Tuesday, August the Fourth, was one of the hottest days within the
memory of Blackhampton. And in that low-lying, over-populated area of
which Jubilee Park was the center it seemed hotter than anywhere else.
Being the day after Bank Holiday, a large section of the community "had
taken another day off," therefore several thousand persons of all ages
and both sexes assembled on the brown bare grass in the course of the
afternoon.

To say that the bulk of these had been attracted to those shadeless
precincts by a display of roses would be too polite a compliment. The
Blackhampton Prize Brass Band was the undoubted magnet of the many.
Then there were tea al fresco for the ladies, a baby show and a beauty
competition, beer and bowls for the gentlemen, dancing to follow and
also fireworks. When the Show was considered in all its aspects, the
roses only appealed to a small minority; the roses in fact were hardly
more than a pretext for a local saturnalia, but in the middle of the
sward was a large tent wherein the competing blooms were displayed.
Close by was a tent considerably less in size if intrinsically the more
imposing, to which a square piece of cardboard was attached by a blue
ribbon. It bore the legend "President and Committee."

At the entrance to this smaller tent a number of important looking but
perspiring gentlemen were seated in a semicircle on garden chairs.
And in the center of these, with rather the air of Jupiter among his
satellites, was Mr. Josiah Munt. Several members of the committee,
all badged and rosetted as they were, had removed their coats out of
deference to the thermometer, but the President was not of these. Under
the famous white pot hat, which in the southeastern district of his
native city was as famous as the Gladstone collar and the Chamberlain
eyeglass, was artfully disposed a cool cabbage leaf, and over all was a
large white sun umbrella.

The sun umbrella marked a precedent. It was a symbol, a herald of
the President's ever advancing social status. All the same it was
not allowed to mar a certain large geniality with which he always
bore himself at the Rose Show. By nature the proprietor of the Duke
of Wellington was not an expansive man, particularly in the world of
affairs, but once a year, at least, he made a point of unbending as far
as it was in him to do so.

This afternoon the President was accessible to all and sundry as of
yore. Moreover he had followed his time-honored custom of regaling the
committee, most of whom were "substantial men" and the cronies of an
earlier, more primitive phase in the ascending fortunes of the future
mayor of the city, with whisky and cigars, conveyed specially from
the Duke of Wellington by George the head barman. But it was clear as
the afternoon advanced and the heat increased with the ever-growing
throng, that the subject of roses and even the martial strains of Rule
Britannia, Hearts of Oak and other accepted masterpieces rendered with
amazing _brio_ by the B.P.B.B. did not wholly occupy the thoughts of
these distinguished men.

Among the Olympians who sat in the magic semicircle at the mouth of
their own private tent and enjoyed the President's whisky and cigars
and the privilege of personal intercourse with him was a foxy-looking
man with large ears and large spectacles. Julius Weiss by name, he
had migrated from his native Germany thirty years before, and by
specializing in what was technically known as "a threepenny hair-cut"
had risen to the position of a master hair-dresser with six shops
of his own in the city. A man of keen intelligence and cosmopolitan
outlook, there were times in the course of the afternoon when he seemed
to claim more of the President's attention than the ostensible business
in hand.

"No, I don't trust our gov'ment," said Josiah for the tenth time,
when a cornet solo, the Battle of Prague ("Bandsman Rosher") had been
brought to a triumphant close. "Never have trusted 'em if it comes to
that."

"That's because you're a blooming Tory," ventured the only hungry
looking member of an extremely well-nourished looking committee--an
obvious intellectual with piercing black eyes and fiercely picturesque
mustache whose hue was as the raven.

"Politics is barred, Lewis!" It was the President's Saturday morning
manner at the City Hall, but its austerity was tactfully mitigated by
a dexterous passing of the cigar box. "We ought to go in now ... this
minute. What do you say, Weiss?"

The master hair-dresser screwed up a pair of vulpine eyes and then
replied in a low harsh guttural, "It is a big t'ing to fight Chermany."

"We are not afraid of you," interjected a pugnacious Committee-man.
"Don't you think that."

The President held up a stern finger. "No, no, Jennings." It was a
breach of taste and the President glared at the offender from under
his cabbage leaf. He had a deep instinct for fair play, a curious
impartiality that enabled him to see the merits of Weiss as a taxpayer
and a citizen. In the lump he approved of Germans as little as any
one else, but such a man as Weiss with his unceasing industry, his
organizing capacity, his business ability and his social qualities was
a real asset to the city.

The little hair-dresser broke a solemn pause. "_We_ are not ready
for war." He stressed the "we" to the plain annoyance of several
committee-men, although Josiah was not of the number. "A month from now
they'll be in Paris."

"I don't think," said the truculent Jennings.

"You'll see, my tear," said Julius Weiss.




IX


At five o'clock Maria and Aunt Gerty arrived on the scene.
Blackhampton's future mayoress had been taken very firmly in hand by
her step-sister who was fully determined that the social credit of
Alderman Munt should not be lowered in the sight of the world. Gerty
had really taken enormous pains with a naturally timid and weakly
constituted member of society.

After a battle royal, in which tears had been shed, the hapless Maria
had been compelled to renounce a pair of old-fashioned stays which
on common occasions foreshortened her figure to the verge of the
grotesque, in favor of sinuous, long-lined, straight-fronted corsets.
With such ruthless art had outlying and overlapping portions of Maria
been folded away within their fashionable confines, that, as she
breathlessly remarked to her torturer as she looked in the glass, "She
didn't know herself, she didn't really."

Maria could hardly breathe as she waddled across the parched expanse of
Jubilee Park. She was more miserably self-conscious than she had ever
been in the whole course of a miserably self-conscious existence. Her
corsets, she was sure, filled the world's eye. At her time of life to
take such liberties with the human form was hardly decent, it wasn't
really. Moreover Gerty had perched a great hat on the top of her,
almost a flower show in itself, the sort that was worn, Gerty assured
her, by the local duchess on public occasions; and it was kept in place
on a miraculous new-fangled coiffure by a white veil with black spots.
Then her comfortable elastic-sided boots, the stand-bys of a fairly
long and very honorable life, had gone by the board at the instance
of the ruthless Gerty. She had to submit to patent leathered, buckled
affairs, that could only be coaxed on to the human foot by a shoehorn.
No wonder that Mrs. Alderman Munt walked with great delicacy across the
baking expanse of Jubilee Park. And the intensely respectable black
kid gloves that for more than half a century had served her so well
for chapel goings, prayer meetings, weddings, funerals, christenings
and the concerts of the Philharmonic Society had been forced to yield
to a pair whose virgin whiteness in Maria's opinion carried fashion to
the verge of immodesty. Nor did even these complete the catalogue of
Gerty's encroachments. There was also a long-handled black and white
parasol.

As Maria and Gerty debouched across the grass, Josiah arose from his
chair in the midst of the committee and strutted impressively past the
bandstand to receive them.

"Why, Mother, I hardly knew you." There was high approval in the
greeting. "Up to the knocker, what!" He offered a cordial hand to his
heroically beaming sister-in-law, "How are you, Gert?"

The ladies had been careful to have tea before they came but this
precaution did not avail. Josiah insisted on their going into the
special tent labeled "Refreshments." Here they had to sit on a form
rickety and uncomfortably narrow which promised at any moment either to
lay them prone beneath the tea urn or enable them to form a parabola
over against the patent bread-cutter at the other end of the table.

The tea was lukewarm and undrinkable, the bread and butter was thick
and so uninviting that both ladies were sure it was margarine, but
after a moment's hesitation in which she felt the stern eye of Josiah
upon her, the heroic Gerty dexterously removed one white glove and came
to grips with a plate of buttered buns. In the buns were undeniable
currants, and their genial presence enabled Gerty to make a spirited
bluff at consuming them.

Where Gerty walked, Maria must not fear to tread. The ladies got
somehow through their second tea and then they were haled into the
open, past the bandstand and through the crowd surrounding it, to the
large tent containing the exhibits. Here, in a select corner, draped
with festoons of red cloth, were the prizes which Maria, half an hour
hence, would be called upon to distribute with her own white-gloved
hands to the victorious competitors.

The heat in the tent being unbearable the President's party had it to
themselves. Therefore Maria's audible groan at the sight of the task
before her was heard by none save her lord.

"Bear up, Mother," Josiah's tone was a highly judicious blend of
sternness, banter and persuasion. "It's not as if you had to make a
speech, you know. And if you did have there's nobody here who'd bite
you. I'd see to that."

This was encouraging, yet certain gyrations of the black and white
parasol betrayed to the lynx-eyed Gerty the sinister presence of stage
fright. "Maria," said the inexorable monitress, "you must show Spirit.
Hold your sunshade as I've shown you. Keep your chin up. And try to
smile."

This counsel of perfection was, at the moment, clearly beyond Maria.
But the President's nod approved it, and Gerty, one of those powerful
spirits that loves to do with public affairs, proceeded on a flute-like
note, "Dear me, what lovely prizes!"

It was hyperbole to speak of the prizes as lovely, but it was, of
course, the correct thing to say, and in the ear of Josiah the correct
thing was said in the correct way. It would have been difficult for the
duchess herself to have bettered that pure note of lofty enthusiasm.

"Not so bad, Gert, are they? What do you think o' that little vawse?
Presented by Coppin, the jeweler."

To assess the gift of Coppin, the jeweler, it was necessary for Miss
Preston to bring into action her famous tortoiseshell folders. She had
no need for glasses at all. But Lawyer Mossop's aunt, the late Miss
Selina Gregg, had aroused in her a passion for their use on appropriate
occasions. "A ducky little vahse!" That vexed word was pronounced after
the manner of the late Miss Gregg, from whose practice there was no
appeal.

"Not so bad--for Coppin. Better anyway than his silver-plated eggstand
last year."

Gerty made an admiring survey of the bounty of the patrons of the
Blackhampton Rose Growers' Association. "And here, I see, is the
President's special prize." She had kept in reserve her appreciation
of this _chef d'oeuvre_ of public munificence, a much beribboned
silver gilt goblet to which a card was attached, "President's Special
Prize for Rose of Purest Color. Donor Alderman Munt J.P." It was the
first thing her eye had lit on, but she had worked up to it slowly,
via the lesser gifts of lesser men, so that anything in the nature of
anticlimax might be avoided.

"Josiah, tell me, who is the fortunate winner?" The archness of the
tone verged upon coquetry.

"Look and see, my gel." The response was unexpectedly gruff. But, as
soon as Gerty had looked and seen, the reason for the President's
austerity grew clear. On a second card, smaller but beribboned like
the first, was inscribed in a fair clerkly hand, "Presented to Mr. W.
Hollis for Exhibit 16."




X


Had a pin fallen in the tent at that moment, any one of those three
people might have expected to hear it do so. Gerty was too wise to ask
why the husband of the outcast Melia had come to enjoy the special
gift of his father-in-law; Maria simply dare not. In truth it was an
odd story. Josiah did his best to put a gloss on an incredible fact of
which he was rather ashamed; it looked so much like moral weakness, a
public giving in; but, as he informed Gerty with a half apologetic air,
Jannock was Jannock. In other words, fair play in the eyes of honest
men was a jewel.

There could be no question that, in point of color, the fairest bloom
sent in was Exhibit Sixteen. It was a rose of such a dazzling snowy
whiteness that it had caught and held the expert eye of the President
at the morning inspection. "An easy winner, Jennings," he had said, as
soon as he had seen it, "Nothing to put beside it, my boy."

The astute Jennings, a professional nurseryman along The Rise, made
no comment. He had taken the trouble to find out the name of the
grower before bringing a mature judgment to bear on the fruits of his
craft. "Sound" criticism is always a priori. Critics who value their
reputation are careful not to pronounce an opinion on any work of
art until they know who has produced it. Otherwise mistakes are apt
to occur. None knew better than Jennings that the grower of Exhibit
Sixteen could not hope to receive the President's prize; indeed
Jennings was amazed at the little tick's impudence in daring to compete
at all for his father-in-law's silver gilt goblet. It was an act of
bravado. Jennings, therefore, shook his head coldly. He declined to
show enthusiasm in the presence of what to the unsuspecting eye of the
President was an almost too obvious masterpiece.

"All over a winner, Jennings, that is."

Jennings shook the sober head of a professional expert. "To me," he
said, "Twenty-one 'as more quality."

"Rubbish, man!" The President threw up his head sharply, a favorite
trick when goaded by contradiction. "Twenty-one can't be mentioned on
the same day o' the week. What do you say, Penney?"

Before Mr. Councilor Penney, an acknowledged light of the a priori
school of criticism, ventured to express an opinion he winged a glance
at Nurseryman Jennings. And that glance, in the technical language of
experts, conveyed a clear request for "the office."

"The office" was given sotto voce behind the adroit hand of Jennings,
"Mester Munt--Twenty-one, Sixteen--Bill Hollis."

Thereupon Mr. Councilor Penney closed one eye and proceeded to examine
the competing blooms. "Well, Mester Munt," he said solemnly, "I am
bound to say, to my mind Twenty-one 'as it."

The impetuous president had a short way with the Councilor Penneys
of the earth. "Have you no eyes, man! Twenty-one can't live beside
Sixteen. Not the same class. Look at the color--look at the shape--look
at the size----"

It was realized now that it had become necessary to warn the President.
And the situation must be grappled with at once. The deeper the
President floundered, the more perilous the job of extrication. Rescue
was a man's work, but finally in response to a mute appeal from the
pusillanimous Jennings, Mr. Councilor Penney took his courage in his
hands. "Mr. Munt," he said warily, "don't you know that Twenty-one was
sent in by Joe Mellers, your own gardener?"

It was the best that Mr. Councilor Penney could muster in the way of
tact. But at all times a very great deal of tact was needed to handle
the President. Clearly the shot was not a lucky one. "Nowt to do with
it, Penney." The great man nearly bit off his head. "Ought to know
that. Sixteen's the best bloom on the bench."

"Sixteen's that Hollis!" It was an act of pure valor on the part of Mr.
Councilor Penney. Nurseryman Jennings held his breath.

"That Hollis!" The President repeated the words calmly. For a moment
it was not certain that human dignity could accept their implication.
But there was a world of meaning in the nervous frown of Mr. Councilor
Penney, in the tense furtiveness of Nurseryman Jennings.

Was it possible?... Was it possible that the little skunk had dared?...
Had dared to compete at this show of all shows?... Had dared to win
honestly that prize of all prizes?...

The story of Bill Hollis and Melia Munt was a commonplace with every
member of the Committee. They were familiar with all the circumstances;
and though there might be those among them who felt privately that
their august President carried family pride rather far, even these
could not help admiring the rigidity of his attitude. It meant enormous
strength of character; and character in the shrine at which the true
Briton worships. But now that the Committee was up against the problem
Bill Hollis had raised they keenly regretted that they had not taken
steps to disqualify him from the outset, or had not apprised the
President beforehand of the state of the case.

The pause that followed was rather irksome for all parties. It was
ended at last by Nurseryman Jennings. That practical expert, having
enjoyed an afternoon of free whisky at the President's expense, was now
able to clothe his judgment becomingly. "Don't suppose the little Snot
grew it hisself!" said Jennings.

Half the Committee saw at once that a way out had been found for the
President. But the President was not of the number. "Why don't you?" he
said curtly.

The practical expert was hardly prepared with reasons. Why should he
be? His doubts were inspired by the purest altruism. "Why don't you,
Jennings?" repeated the President.

Really there is no helping some people!

"Because I don't!" It was rather lame, but Jennings was doing his best
in extremely trying circumstances.

The longer, tenser pause that followed none was stout enough to break.
Up to a hundred might have been counted before the President said,
slowly and gruffly, as a large and shaggy bear endowed with a few
limited human vocables might have done, "Have the goodness, Jennings,
to mark Exhibit Sixteen for the President's Special."




XI


Thus it was, that among the successful competitors who lined up by the
bandstand at six o'clock to receive awards of merit from the fair hands
of Mrs. Alderman Munt, was her son-in-law Mr. William Hollis.

Wonders never cease to happen in a world of wonders. When in a moment
of sheer bravado Bill Hollis had paid the necessary shilling and had
entered the choicest bloom in his garden for the Annual Show he would
have staked his davy that he stood about as much chance of walking
off with the Special Prize as he did of going to heaven in a golden
chariot. The Old Un himself would see to that.

Taken on its merits, this pure white rose that had come as the crown of
many years of loving labor would be hard to beat. But, as Bill Hollis
knew, things are not taken on their merits by the a priori school of
criticism. He knew that its judgments are conditioned by many things
and that intrinsic worth is apt to weigh least in the scale. He had
shown his bloom in pride and defiance; he had not expected to get
anything by it; and now that the despised Committee had acted better
than itself he was inclined to regret that it had not lived up to its
reputation.

The table containing the prizes had been carried out on to the grass.
Beside it stood Mrs. Alderman Munt, white-gloved and anxious, her eyes
not unlike those of a frightened rabbit. And yet lurking somewhere in
the folds of a rather redundant frame was a certain dignity, as there
is bound to be in one who has given four children to the state; in
one, moreover, who has accompanied such a mate as Josiah step by step
in his steady rise to wealth and power. Beside Mrs. Munt stood the
secretary of the society, an important pince-nezed gentleman, with a
scroll in his hand bearing the names of the prize winners; immediately
behind these, on a row of chairs, were various notabilities, among whom
Alderman Munt was conspicuously foremost; and then facing them, in a
curious, rather impressed semicircle, were the members of that general
public which not for worlds would miss anything in the nature of a
giving of prizes by the wife of a real live alderman.

The proprietor of the Duke of Wellington sat glaring fiercely from
under his white billycock hat, clutching a little convulsively the
knob of his sun umbrella. A ruthless eye raked the distant corps of
successful competitors, as one by one they came round the corner of the
bandstand and converged upon the timid lady whose task it was publicly
to reward their skill. All were awkward, some were abashed, some tried
to hide their feelings by an ill-timed facetiousness.

There he was, the little dog! Josiah's grip tightened on the knob
of the sun umbrella. If the little cur had "had a drop," as he most
probably had, he was very likely to insult Maria--it was such a great,
such a golden, opportunity. Josiah was not troubled as a rule by
vain regrets, but as the Secretary in his far flung voice announced,
"President's Special Prize for best Single Bloom, winner Mr. W.
Hollis," and there came an expectant hush in which the meager form
of Mr. W. Hollis emerged into the full glare of the public gaze, his
father-in-law would have paid a substantial sum to be able to rescind
his recent verdict. The little Stoat could not be expected to bear
himself like a gentleman.

Aunt Gerty, standing prim and tense at the back of the invertebrate
Maria, grew as white as if she had seen a ghost. But she drew in her
thin lips sternly and, great warrior as she was, literally transfixed
poor Melia's declassé husband with her tortoiseshell folders. How
common he was! It was really very stupid of Josiah to let him have a
prize in such circumstances. It was very stupid, indeed! He was just
the kind of man who might be tempted to indulge in some form of cheap
revenge.

As Melia's husband shuffled across the grass Josiah held himself ready
to spring upon him. Public or no public he would certainly do so if the
little beast made any sign of insulting Maria. But as Bill Hollis came
slowly and doggedly into the picture he was visited by a reluctant
grace. Half way across the grass, midway between the bandstand and the
alderman's lady, he took his shabby hands from his shabby pockets; a
little farther on several degrees of slouch passed from the unpleasing
curve of his narrow shoulders. And finally, as the silver gilt goblet
was bestowed upon him by a pair of trembling hands, he ducked solemnly,
the best he could do in the way of a bow, and then retired modestly,
silently, respectfully, the trophy under his arm.

Josiah and Aunt Gerty breathed again. Great was their relief. And
so intensely had they been preoccupied with the bearing of Melia's
husband, that, very luckily for Maria, they were not able to notice
hers. It was well this was so. For the alderman's lady had disgraced
herself on an important public occasion by allowing her eyes to fill
with tears.




XII


Bill's first thought was to take the trophy straight home to his wife.
But for various reasons he didn't obey it. Relations had grown very
strained between Melia and himself. For months past she had been giving
him such a bad time that there was little pleasure to be got out of his
home.

He was a bit of an idealist in his way. Sixteen years ago, at any rate,
he had begun married life by idealizing his home and Melia. But Melia
was not an idealist. She was a decidedly practical person, and, like
her father, endowed with much shrewd sense. In a perverse hour she had
yielded against her better judgment to the quiet persistency of William
Hollis; but almost before she married him she knew it wouldn't answer.
In her heart she wanted somebody better. She felt that a daughter of
Josiah Munt was entitled to somebody better. And in waiving all her
rights as the eldest child of a tyrannical, overbearing father, the
least she could ask of the man to whose star she had pinned her faith
was that he should prove himself a forcible and successful citizen.

Unhappily Bill had proved to be neither. He was a wordster, a dreamer;
there was nothing at the back of his rose-colored ideas. It was not
that he was a vicious man. For such a nature as Melia's it had perhaps
been better if he had been. She asked for the positive in man, even
positive badness; anything rather than muddling mediocrity, ignoble
envy of other men's prosperity and continual whinings against fate.

There were times when Melia was so bored with the inadequacy of this
mate of hers that she half hoped to goad him into getting drunk enough
to repay some of her insults with a good beating. At least it would
have been an event, an excitement. But he was not even a thorough-going
drinker; at the best, or the worst, he never drank enough beer to rise
to the heroic, as a real man might have done; his deepest potations did
not carry him beyond maudlin sentiment or vapid braggadocio, both very
galling to a woman of spirit. And now, having realized that there was
nothing to hope for, that they were going steadily down a hill at the
bottom of which was the gutter--just as her clear-sighted father had
predicted from the first--years of resentment had crystallized into
a hard and fixed hostility. She had an ever-growing contempt for the
spineless fool who was dragging her down in his own ruin.

Bill's instinct was to go home at once with the silver gilt goblet. In
spite of all the bitterness the last few years had brought him he still
had a wish to please Melia. In spite of a cat and dog existence they
were man and wife. They had lived sixteen years together but he still
wished to propitiate her. But hardly had he borne his prize through the
throng by the bandstand and begun to steer for the main gate of Jubilee
Park than there came a change of mind.

It was one of those sudden, causeless changes of mind that was always
overtaking him. He never seemed able to do anything now for the reason
that almost before he had decided upon one thing he was overpowered by
a desire to do another. He had not reached the park gate before he felt
the humiliation of accepting such a prize from such hands; and Melia
would probably tell him that he ought to have had more self-respect
than to take it--if she thought it worth while to express herself on
the subject.

The President's Special Prize would bring no pleasure to Melia. True,
there was no need to tell her whence it came. No ... there was no
need! Suddenly the band broke into a hearty strain. Beyond a doubt the
atmosphere of Jubilee Park was far more genial than that of Number
Five Love Lane. Perhaps he ought to have brought Melia to witness
his triumph. One reason was that he had been far from expecting it;
another, that he daren't invite her. For many months now she had been
careful to keep herself to herself, declining always to be seen with
him in public.

There was a vacant seat by the gate, out of the sun and within sound
of the gay music. This, after all, was far better than Number Five
Love Lane. For a few brief moments "The Merry Widow" (selection) made
him feel happier. It would have been nice for Melia--still it couldn't
be helped. He ought to have refused the prize--still he had honestly
won it. But only an oversight on the part of the blinking Committee
had given it him; he could read that in Josiah's ugly mug and in the
face of that stuck-up Gerty Preston--so it was one in the eye for them
after all! And what price Ma! Her son-in-law broke into a guffaw of
melancholy laughter. The old barrel-bodied image got up like one of the
Toffs! And yet ... how her hands trembled! ... white gloves on 'em too!
... and that was a queer look she gave him. The old girl, after all,
was the best of a rotten bunch.

"The Merry Widow" crashed to an abrupt finale, and a light went out
suddenly, as it so often did, in the heart of Bill Hollis. Again the
stern edge of reality pressed upon him from every side, but almost at
once it was swept away by a new excitement. And yet the excitement
was not so new as it seemed. All the afternoon it had been present, a
chorus, a background, thrilling and momentous, to a series of formal
proceedings to which it had nothing in common, to which it did not bear
the slightest relation, and yet with a power truly sinister to cast a
pall over them.

A youth with lungs of brass came through the gate crying the
Blackhampton _Evening Star_.

Terrible Fighting in Belgium! Awful German Losses! Great Speech by Sir
Edward Grey!

A sharp thrill ran through the veins of Bill Hollis. It was one more
lively variation on a theme that had been kindling his senses at short
intervals throughout the afternoon. War, a real big war, was coming,
had come. Of course to him personally it wouldn't matter, except that
it might make life more interesting. Yes, somehow it was bound to
do that. Whether it would make it interesting enough for a man like
himself to care to go on living, that was another question.

"Here y'are, boy."

The boy came across the grass, handed Bill an _Evening Star_ and firmly
declined the halfpenny that was offered him.

"Penny, sir."

A penny for a _Star_ was unheard of. Even the result of the Derby, the
result of the match with Yorkshire, the result of the Cup Final itself
could not command a penny. Evidently this war, now that it had come at
last, was going to be a Record.

Yes, a Record. All the same he was not going to pay a penny for it. One
halfpenny was the legal price of the Blackhampton _Evening Star_, and
he told the boy "that if he had any of his sauce he'd have the police
of him."




XIII


William Hollis, having defeated the boy, turned his back to the sun and
was assured by the Blackhampton _Star_ that he was living in a great
moment of the world's history. Germany had, it seemed, until twelve
o'clock that evening to decide whether she would take on England. She
had taken on France, Russia and Belgium already; a few hours hence, if
she wasn't careful, she would have to fight the British Empire.

Even to Bill Hollis, dizzied by the sheer magnitude of the headlines
of his favorite journal which actually surpassed those of the Crippen
trial, the sinking of the _Titanic_ and the late King Edward's visit
to Blackhampton, that phrase "the British Empire" was full of magic.
Lurking somewhere in a compound of half-baked inefficiencies was the
vision of a poet, and at this moment it was queerly responsive to this
symbol.

"It's all up with 'em if they take on Us." In strict order of priority
that was the first message to flash through the sentient being of Mr.
William Hollis to be duly recorded by the central office. Hard upon it
came a second message. "They've got a Nerve--them Germans."

In the column for late news were blurred fragments of the speech of
the Foreign Minister in the House of Commons. Intellectually William
Hollis was not conspicuously bright, but, as he read the simple words,
the nature of the terrible misprision against the human race came home
to him and he could only gasp.

He got up presently and moved away from the band. As always the band
was very nice, but for some reason or other he didn't want to hear it
just now. For a short time he walked about on the brown grass, the
President's cup under his arm, wrapped in the _Evening Star_. But he
wasn't thinking now of the President, of the cup, of Melia, of the
injustice of Fate to a private citizen. His thoughts were centered on
a Thing that made all these other things, painfully intimate as they
were, of no moment at all. These were but trivial matters, and he was
now in the presence of the inconceivable, the stupendous.

Coming back to the throng, perhaps for the latent solace these clusters
of fellow beings afforded him, he saw from their blank eyes, their set
faces, that his own terrible thoughts were shared more or less by them
all. The boy had sold his papers already. Other boys had sold theirs.
The whole place was alive with fluttering news sheets, gleaming white
and spectral in the sun. Already these people, these stout females
in farcical clothes, for the most part trundling queer abortions on
the end of a string, and these hard-faced, grasping men who were
always overreaching one in trade, were living in a different world.
They were not thinking now of flowers and vegetables, of bands or
dancing, although the first couples of juniors had just begun to sway
rhythmically to the strains of "Hitchy Koo." Something else had come
into their lives.

Passing the tent sacred to the President and Committee, it gave him one
more thrill to mark the bearing of the grandees. The famous white hat
no longer adorned the head of the President. The great man nursed it
upon his fat loud-checked knees. All the reluctant geniality a public
function had inspired had passed from his ugly face. Yet in the purview
of his son-in-law it looked a little less ugly at that moment than he
ever remembered to have seen it. Those fierce eyes were not occupied
now with the narrow round of their own affairs, nor with a swelling
vision of self-importance. The world was on fire. He was simply a man
among his fellow men; and like them he was wondering what ought to be
done.

At seven o'clock a vaguely excited but profoundly depressed William
Hollis made his way out of Jubilee Park. He turned down Short Hill in
the direction of his home. But by the time he had reached the foot of
that brief declivity, and was involved in an airless maze of bricks and
mortar, the thought of his home grew suddenly intolerable. He needed
freedom and space, he needed an atmosphere more congenial. Melia would
not understand. Or if she did understand she would be dumb and just
now he simply longed for a little human intercourse.

At the end of Love Lane, a mean and crooked little street debouching
from the Mulcaster Road which wound a somber trail to the very heart
of the city, he stood a moment gazing at the dingy sign a few doors up
on the left, W. Hollis, Fruiterer. The obvious course was to go and
deposit the prize he had won on the dresser in the back sitting room,
or still better, give it into the personal care of Melia. But instead,
he wrapped up the trophy a little more carefully, resettled it under
his arm, and then allowed himself to drift slowly with the throng in
the direction of the Market Place.

As was usual with him now, his actions were aimless and uncertain.
There was no particular reason why he should be going to the Market
Place beyond the fact that other people seemed to be going there, as
somehow they always did seem to be going there at great moments in
the national life. The factories and warehouses who happened to be
working that day had disgorged their human cargoes and these under the
stimulus of hourly editions of the _Evening Star_ were moving slowly
and solemnly towards the nodal point.

What the Market Place is to the city as a whole, Waterloo Square is
to the teeming, close-packed population of its southeastern area.
And at the busiest corner of Waterloo Square, at its confluence with
Mulcaster Road, that main artery which leads directly to the center
of all things, is the Duke of Wellington public house. William Hollis,
drifting with the tide, felt a sudden, uncontrollable desire to "have
one" at this famous landmark of the local life.

The Duke of Wellington was a "free" house and Mr. Josiah Munt had
been able to maintain in its integrity the declining art of brewing
Blackhampton Old Ale. This had a bite and a sting in it, with which the
more diluted beverages of "tied" houses could not compare. At the Duke
of Wellington you paid for the best and you got it; therefore it was
patronized by all in the neighborhood who knew what was what; it had,
moreover, peculiar advantages of tradition and geography which gave it
a cachet of its own.

"To have one" at the Duke of Wellington, in the eyes of those who
lived near by, was almost on a par with "looking in" at Brooks's
or the Carlton. It conferred a kind of diploma of local worth and
responsibility. At the same time no form of politics was barred, but
the proprietor himself was a staunch conservative and it was very
difficult to find a welcome in the bar parlor without sharing that
faith.

It could not be said that William Hollis had ever aspired to the good
graces of the house. There were obvious reasons why this was the
case. For sixteen years he had not passed through its doors; in that
long period he had not even entered the humbler part of the premises
known as "the vaults," sacred to Tom, Dick and Harry, where the more
substantial patrons of the establishment disdained to set foot.

To-night, however, new and strange forces were at work in Bill. Borne
along a tide of cosmic events as far as those fascinating doors he was
suddenly and quite irrationally mastered by a desire to go in.

Partly it may have been bravado; certainly it was a daring act to
cross that threshold. But Josiah himself, for whose personal prowess
his son-in-law had a wholesome respect, was safe at the Show; besides,
the proprietor was too great a man these days to visit the house very
often. Years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family; and in
his steady social ascent he was careful not to emphasize a dubious but
extremely lucrative connection with that which regarded in perspective
was but a common public house.

The chances were that Bill Hollis would be spared this evening an
encounter with his father-in-law and former master. But why he should
decide so suddenly to take the risk was hard to say, unless it was
the half fantastic reaction of an exceedingly impressionable mind to
a crisis almost without a precedent in human experience. By nature a
sociable fellow, he had now an intense desire to exchange ideas with
responsible, knowledgeable people, with those possessing more light
than himself. The Duke of Wellington was the headquarters of such
in that part of the city; it was the haunt of the quidnuncs and the
well informed; and it may have been for that reason that Bill dived
suddenly through the swing doors, an act he had not performed for
sixteen years, and crossed the dark, cool passage with its highly
spiced but not unattractive odors.

It may have been the magnitude of the situation in Europe which had
suddenly rendered all private matters ridiculous, or it may have
been the talisman under his arm which inspired him with an unwonted
hardihood, but instead of turning into the taproom, the first on the
left, which would have satisfied the claims of honor and wisdom, he
pushed boldly on past the glass-surrounded cubicle of the celebrated
but haughty Miss Searson, into the Mecca of the just and the good,
sublimely guarded by that peri.

In a kind of dull excitement he entered the famous Bar Parlor. To his
surprise, and rather perversely, to his relief, it was empty, except
that, behind a counter in a strategical angle that commanded the room
as well as the passage, Miss Searson was overwhelmingly present, but
absorbed apparently at that moment in crocheting a two-inch lace border
to an article of female attire sacred to the pages of the realists.

Nothing seemed to have altered in sixteen years, even to the fly-blown
advertisement of Muirhead's Pale Brandy facing the door, and
surrounding Miss Searson the double row of brass taps, it had once been
a part of his duties to keep clean. And that lady herself, sixteen
years had altered her surprisingly little, if at all. She was what is
known technically as a chemical blonde, a high-bosomed, high-voiced,
large-featured, large-earringed lady, with remarkable teeth and an
aloofness of manner which might almost be said to enforce respect at
the point of the bayonet.

When Miss Searson looked up from her crochet she could hardly believe
her eyes. William Hollis, in his former incarnation, had been known
to her as Bill the Barman, and she in that distant epoch had been
known to him as a Stuck-Up Piece. Unofficially of course. Outwardly
everybody paid deference to Miss Searson; even the proprietor himself,
if he could be said to pay deference to any human being, had always
adopted that attitude to Miss Searson; as for Bill the Barman, he had
been hardly more than a worm in her sight. And then had come the Great
Romance. It had come like a bolt out of clear sky, knocking a whole
world askew as Miss Searson understood it; a whole world of sacred
values by which Miss Searson and those within her orbit regulated their
lives.

The entrance of Bill Hollis into the bar struck Miss Searson dumb with
surprise. In a mind temporarily bewildered sixteen years were as but a
single day. This was the first occasion in that long period that the
incredible adventurer who had suborned the eldest daughter of his stern
master into marrying him had dared to revisit the scene of his crime.
To weak minds a great romance, no doubt, but the lady behind the bar
had not a weak mind, therefore she was not in the least romantic. She
saw things as they were, she knew what life was. It was very well for
such things to happen in the pages of a novel, but in the daily round
of humdrum existence they simply didn't answer.

It seemed an age to Miss Searson before William the Incredible girded
his courage to the point of ordering a pint of bitter. She drew it in
stately silence, handed it across the counter and accepted threepence
with superb hauteur.

He drank a little. It was no mean brew; and he felt so much a man for
the experience that he was able to ask Miss Searson what she thought of
the news.

"News," said Miss Searson loftily. "News?"

"War with Germany."

"Oh, that!" A Juno-like toss of Miss Searson's coiffure. But there she
stopped. War with Germany was none of her business, nor was it going to
be her business to be forced into conversation with a character whose
standing was so doubtful as the former barman. Miss Searson was not a
believer in finesse. Her methods had a brutal simplicity which made
them tremendously effective.

However, this evening they were less effective than usual. The world
itself was tottering, and a deep, deep chord in the amazing Bill Hollis
was responsive to the cataclysm. This evening he was not himself, he
was more than himself; his appearance in the Private Bar was proof of
it.

Miss Searson was but a woman, a human female. She meant nothing, she
meant less than nothing in this hour of destiny. "Yes, that!" He
filled in the pause, after waiting in vain for her to do so. "War with
Germany. Do you realize it?" His voice was full of emotion.

But Miss Searson did not intend to be drawn into a discussion of
anything so fanciful as war with Germany. She was practical. A
censorious mouth shut like a trap. She regarded Bill with the eye of a
codfish.

"D'you realize what it means?"

By an adroit turn of the head towards the farther beer-engine she gave
William Hollis the full benefit of a pile of stately back hair. And
then she said slowly, as if she were trying to bite off the head of
each blunt syllable, "Do you realize that the Mester sometimes looks in
about this time of a Thursday?"




XIV


A normal Bill Hollis would not have been slow to analyze this speech
and to find a lurking insult. But he was not a normal Bill Hollis this
evening; it was the last place he was likely to be in if he had been.
Therefore he shook his head gently at Miss Searson without submitting
her to any more destructive form of criticism. What a fool the woman
was, what a common fool not to understand that in the presence of a war
with Germany nothing else could possibly matter.

"I don't think I'd stop here--if I was you." Yes, there was a
bluntness about Miss Searson which at ordinary times had a unique
power of "getting there." But Bill merely smiled at her now. The
chrysanthemum-topped fathead! Suddenly he reached the limit of his
endurance; he expressed a boundless contempt for her and all her tribe
by recourse to a spittoon.

How _could_ Melia ever have married him ... Melia Munt who might have
married an architect!...

Bill Hollis defensively went on with his bitter. He was consumed with
scorn of a person whom he had once respected immensely. She was found
out, the shallow fool, fringe and back hair included! When he came to
the end of the pint, he paused a moment in the midst of the pleasant
sensations it had inspired and then decided that he would have another,
not because he wanted another, but because he felt that it would annoy
this Toplofty Crackpot.

The second pint did annoy the T.C., annoyed her obviously; emotionally
she was a very obvious lady. But it was odd that Bill Hollis, shaken to
the depths by a world catastrophe, should desire a cheap revenge and
stoop to gratify it. Perhaps it was a case of multiple personality.
There were several Bill Hollises in this moment of destiny.

There was the Bill Hollis who gave the defiant order for another pint
of bitter, the Bill Hollis who paid for it with truculent coolness,
the Bill Hollis who bore it to the window the better to regard the
somber stream of fellow citizens flowing steadily in the direction of
the Market Place, the Bill Hollis who took a beer-stained copy of the
Blackhampton _Tribune_ from a table with a marble top and glanced at
the portentous headings of its many columns. And finally there was
the Bill Hollis who suddenly heard with a sick thrill that came very
near to nausea a footfall heavily familiar and a voice outside in the
passage.

Could it be...! Could it be that...!

There was a look of obvious triumph on the almost unnaturally fair
countenance of Miss Searson. In her grim eyes was "I told you so!"

The ex-barman, in the peril of the moment, glanced hastily around, but
the eyes of Miss Searson assured him that he was a rat and that he was
caught in a trap. Moreover they assured him that if ever rat deserved
a fate so ignominious, William Hollis was the name of that rodent. And
the loathsome animal had time to recall before that voice and those
footsteps were able to enter the private bar that sixteen years ago
Miss Searson had been the witness of a certain incident. And if her
warlike bearing meant anything she was now looking for a repetition,
with modern improvements and variations.

Escape was impossible, that was clear. And on the strength of a fact so
obvious all the various kinds of Bill Hollises promptly came together
and decided to hand over the body politic to the only Bill Hollis who
could hope to deal with the crisis. This was the Bill Hollis who had
had a pint and a half of his father-in-law's excellent bitter and felt
immeasurably the better for it.

As a measure of precaution this Bill Hollis spread wide the _Tribune_
and by taking cover behind it greatly reassured his brethren. None of
the others would have had the wit to think of that. Even as it was only
a pint and a half of a very choice brew enabled the device to be put
coolly and quietly into practice.

He had hardly taken cover when Josiah came in. Following close behind
were Julius Weiss and Councilor Kersley. It was a tense moment, but
these grandees were occupied with a matter more important than the
identity of the man behind the newspaper in the corner by the window.

"Miss Searson!" The tone of the proprietor was like unto that of Jove.
"Ring up Strathfieldsaye and tell them I am going to eat at the Club."

Bill Hollis was sensible of a thrill. He was a mere cat in the presence
of a king, except that this was a king whom he dare not look at. It was
a disgusting feeling yet somehow it was exalting. And this sense of
uplift grew when Josiah and his friends disposed themselves augustly at
one of the tables with a marble top, and three tankards of an exclusive
brew were brought to them and they began to talk.

It was "inner circle talk" and in the ear of William Hollis that lent
it piquancy. Really it was what he was there for. The newspapers
were unsatisfying. He craved to hear the matter discussed by men of
substance, standing, general information, by men of the world. Sitting
there behind his paper in the private bar, he felt nearer to the heart
of things than he had ever been in his life.

"Is it going to make so much difference?" Councilor Kersley, the
eminent retail grocer, asked the question.

"It's going to alter everything, Kersley--you mark me." The tone of
Josiah was as final as an act of parliament and Julius Weiss slowly
nodded in deep concurrence with it.

"Of course we shall down 'em," said Councilor Kersley.

"Yes, we shall down 'em, but----" Josiah's "but" left a good deal to
the imagination.

"Don't be too sure, my friends," said the master-hair-dresser.

"Our Navy'll settle it at the finish," Josiah's growl was that of a
very big dog.

Julius Weiss shook his head solemnly but he didn't speak again. An odd,
uneasy silence settled on the three of them while they drank their
beer. But of a sudden there came a wholly unexpected obtrusion into the
conversation.

The man by the window lowered his paper. "We're not going to have a
walk over, so don't let us think we are." For a reason he could not
have explained had his life depended on it, William Hollis revealed his
presence and plunged horse, foot and artillery into the matter in hand.




XV


Josiah gave him a look. But it was not the look he might have expected
to receive. It was less the look of a vindictive parent and employer
than the gesture a Chamberlain might have bestowed on a Jesse Collings
or a Gladstone on a John Morley.

"You're right, my lad--not a walk over."

For a few minutes these great men talked on and William Hollis by sheer
force of some innate capacity, now first brought to life in the stress
of an overwhelming affair, talked with them as an equal. These were
proud moments in which the power of vision, the understanding heart
seemed to come by their own. The world was on fire, and if the flames
were to be brought under control many estimates must be revised, many
standards must go by the board. Self-preservation, the primal instinct,
was already uppermost. Brains, foresight, mental energy were at a
premium now. Any man, no matter who or what he might be, who had it
in him to contribute to the common stock was more than welcome to do
so. The conflagration had only just begun but a new range of ideas was
already rife. Men were no longer taken on trust, institutions no longer
accepted at their face value.

But all too soon for William Hollis the proceedings came to an
end. He would have liked to sit there all night, tossing the ball
among his peers, listening politely and now and again throwing in
a word. Suddenly, however, the door of the private bar opened and
a flaming-haired, shirt-sleeved appearance in a green baize apron
abruptly thrust in its head. At the sight of the grandees it was thrust
out again even more abruptly.

"That George?"

George it was.

"Go out and step that there Bus." In the command of Josiah was all the
power of the man of privilege, the almost superhuman authority of a
city alderman. Bill Hollis, who had once worn the green apron himself,
was thrilled by the recollection that even in his day, when Josiah was
first elected to the town council, the public vehicle plying for hire
between Jubilee Park and the Market Place was always at the beck and
call of Mr. Councilor Munt. Few had a good word for him, but even in
those days in that part of the city his word was law.

Josiah rose and his friends rose with him. But as he moved to the
door he turned a dour eye upon Bill Hollis. Whole volumes were in it,
beyond tongue or pen to utter. To-night even he, in the stress of what
was happening to the world in which he had prospered so greatly, was
less than himself and also more. An eye of wary truculence pinned the
ex-barman to the wainscot while the master of the house uttered his
slow, unwilling growl. "Not a bad bloom ye sent in, my lad."

It was a very big dog to a very little dog, but somehow it told far
more than was intended. Almost in spite of himself, the man who on a
day had abused the confidence of his master by marrying his eldest
daughter was forced to realize that no matter what Josiah Munt might
be, he was ... well, he was Jannock!




XVI


Twenty minutes later William Hollis, feeling inches taller, and more in
harmony with himself than for many a day, went forth to grapple with
the situation in Europe.

Half Blackhampton, at least, if its streets meant anything, was bent on
a similar errand. From every part of the city, its people were slowly
filtering in twos and threes to the Great Market Place, that nodal
point of the local life and of the life of the empire. Blackhampton
claims to be the exact center of England, speaking geographically,
and its position on the map is reflected in its mental outlook. It
combines a healthy tolerance for the ways and ideas of places less
happily situated with a noble faith in itself. Time and again history
has justified that faith; time and again it has chosen the famous town
as the scene of a memorable manifestation, as its castle, its churches,
its ancient buildings, its streets and monuments bear witness. Here
an ill-starred king declared war on his people, here a great poet was
born, to give but a single deed and a single name among so much that
has passed into history. Many of its sons have shed luster on their
birthplace. Here is a street bearing the name of one who revolutionized
industry; yonder the humble abode of the prizefighter who gave his
name to one of the most important towns of Australia; over there the
obscure conventicle of the plain citizen who founded a world religion;
"up yond" the early home of one whose name is a household word on five
continents; across the road the public house where a famous athlete has
chosen to live in a modest but honored retirement.

Biologists say that all forms of organic life are determined by
climate. Blackhampton owed much, no doubt, to its happy situation as
the exact center of the Empire, but no city in the kingdom could have
lived more consciously in that fact. London was not without importance
as places went; the same might be said for New York; but in the eyes
of the true Blackhamptonian, after all, these centers of light were
comparatively provincial.

This evening the streets of the city were alive with true
Blackhamptonians. In the sight of these only Blackhampton mattered. Its
attitude was of decisive consequence in this unparalleled crisis. No
matter what other places were doing and thinking, Blackhampton itself
was fully determined to pull its weight in the boat.

The press of citizens was very great by the time Bill Hollis arrived
in the Market Place. In particular, they were gathered in serious
groups before the City Hall, the Imperial Club and the offices of the
Blackhampton _Tribune_, which continued to emit hourly editions of the
_Evening Star_ with fuller accounts of the proceedings in Parliament
and the latest telegrams concerning the fighting in Belgium.

The British Cabinet had given Germany until midnight, but Blackhampton
had fully made up its mind in the matter by five minutes past nine,
which was the precise hour that Mr. William Hollis arrived to bear
his part in the local witenagemot. His part was the relatively humble
one of standing in front of the Imperial Club and gazing with rather
wistful eyes into that brightly tiled and glazed and highly burnished
interior as it was momentarily revealed by the entrance of a member.

Even so early in the world's history as five minutes past nine it was
known to those privileged sons of the race who had assembled in front
of the sandstone and red brick façade of the Blackhampton Imperial
Club that Germany "was going to get it in the neck." There must be a
limit to all things and Germany had already exceeded it. The Cabinet
having unluckily omitted to provide itself with even one Blackhampton
man was yet doing its best to keep pace with informed Blackhampton
opinion, but events were moving very quickly in front of the Imperial
Club. At a quarter past nine Sir Reuben Jope, the chairman of _the_
Party, drove up in his electric brougham, a bearded fierce-eyed figure
whose broadcloth trousers allied to a prehistoric box hat seemed to
make him a cross between a rather aggressive Free Kirk elder and an
extraordinarily respectable pirate. At twenty minutes past nine Mr.
Whibley, the Club porter, an imposing vision in pale brown, gold braid,
and brass buttons, came down the steps and informed a friend on the
curb "that the Fleet was fully mobilized."

Other luminaries continued to arrive. It was like the night of a very
hotly contested election, except for the fact that every one of the
thousands of human beings thronging the Market Place were of one mind.
But there was neither boasting nor revelry. This was a sagacious, a
keen-bitten, a practical race. A terrible job was on hand, but it was
realized already that it would have to be done. The thing had gone
too far. There were no demonstrations; on the contrary, a quietude
so intense as to seem unnatural gave the measure and the depth of
Blackhampton's feeling upon the subject.

Had Bill Hollis used the forty-one years of his life in a way to
justify his early ambitions he would have been inside the Club on this
historical evening, sitting on red leather and smoking a cigar with the
best of them. As it was he had to be content with a foremost place in
the ever-growing throng outside the Club portals, from which point of
vantage he was able to witness the arrival of many renowned citizens
and also to gaze through the famous bow window which abutted on to the
Square at the array of notables within. In the intensity of the hour
the Club servants had omitted to draw down the blinds.

At ten minutes to ten Mr. Alderman Munt, sustained by roast saddle
of mutton and green peas, fruit tart and custard, appeared in the
embrasure with a large cigar. Seen from the street he looked a
tremendously imposing figure. Even in the midst of the men of light
and leading who surrounded him he was a Saul towering among the
prophets. Not even his admirers, and in the city of his birth these
were singularly few, ventured to call him genial, but there was power,
virility, unconscious domination in the far flung glance that marked
the press beyond the Club windows. Somehow there was a bulldog look
about him that was extraordinarily British. Somehow he looked a good
man in a tight place and a bad one to cross.

Had the question been asked there was not one among that throng of
hushed spectators who could have explained his own presence in the
Market Place, nor could he have said just what he was doing there. A
powerful magnet had drawn the many together into a limited space on an
airless evening in August to gaze at one another and to wonder what
was going to happen, yet well knowing that nothing could happen as
far as that evening was concerned. But in this strange gathering, in
the solemn hush that came upon it from time to time, was the visible
evidence that the people of Blackhampton were standing together in a
supreme moment. Perhaps it gave a feeling of security that each was
shoulder to shoulder with his neighbor in this hour so fateful for
themselves, for Blackhampton, for the human race.

Nothing happened, yet everything happened. The throng grew denser
inside and outside the Imperial Club, but casual remarks became even
less frequent, newsboys ceased to shout, and presently the hour of
midnight boomed across the square from the great clock on the Corn
Exchange and from many neighboring steeples. Nothing happened. But it
was Wednesday, August the fifth. The silent multitude began slowly to
disperse. A new phase had opened in history.

It was not until a quarter past one, by which time four-fifths of the
crowd had gone away as quietly as it had assembled, that Bill Hollis
slowly made his way home to Love Lane. In his hand was the prize he had
so unexpectedly gained, wrapped in the _Evening Star_, but somehow the
Show and all the other incidents of a crowded, memorable, even glorious
day seemed very far off as his boots echoed along the narrow streets.
An imaginative man in whom psychic perception was sometimes raised to
a high power, he was oppressed by a stealthy sense of disaster. It was
as if an earthquake had shaken the world from pole to pole. It was as
if all the people in it were a little dizzy with a vibration they could
hardly feel which yet had shivered the foundations of society.




XVII


Blackhampton was in the war from the first moment. Never its custom
to do things by halves, this body of clear thinking Britons did its
best to rise to the greatest occasion in history. Its best was not
enough--nothing human could have been--but as far as it went it was
heroic.

In the first days of the disaster none could tell its magnitude. Forces
had been set in motion whose colossal displacement was beyond human
calculation. Something more than buckets of water are required to cope
with a prairie fire, but at first there seemed no other means at hand
of dealing with it.

Within the tentative and narrow scope of the machinery provided by the
state wonders were performed in the early weeks of the holocaust. Every
bucket the country could boast was called into use, but the flames
seemed always to gain in power and fury.

From the outset this midland city, like the kingdom itself, betrayed
not a sign of panic. In the presence of fathomless danger it remained
calm. British nerves lie deep down, and in those first shattering weeks
the entire nation stood stolidly to its guns under the threat of night
and disruption.

The energy shown by Blackhampton in organizing hospitals and in
raising men to fill them was truly amazing, yet in this it was no more
than the mirror of the whole country. City vied with city, shire vied
with shire, in voluntary service to a state, that, no matter what
its defects, was able to maintain a sense of proportion which may be
claimed as the common measure of the republic. The curious anachronism,
magniloquently miscalled the British Empire, rose at once to a moral
height without a precedent in the history of the world. It would have
been fatally easy in the circumstances of the case for a brotherhood of
free peoples to have turned a deaf ear to the voice of honor. The mine
was sprung so quickly, the issues at stake were so cunningly veiled,
that only "a decent and a dauntless people," unprepared as they were
and taken by surprise, would have cast themselves into the breach at
an hour's notice, fully alive to the nature of the act and by a divine
instinct aware of its necessity, yet without fully comprehending what
it involved.

Governments and politicians, like books and writers, exist to be
criticized, and it is their common misfortune that impudence is now the
first function of wisdom. History is not likely to deny the great part
played in a supreme moment by certain brave and enlightened men. In the
end the mean arts of the party journal will not rob of their need those
who have made still possible a decent life.

Within a fortnight of the outbreak arose a crying need for men.
Few, even at that moment, were bold enough to breathe the word
"conscription." Britain was a maritime power. Armies on the Continental
scale were none of her business. Russia and France bred to European
conditions, with a fundamental man power fully equal to that of the
Central Empires could be trusted to hold their own. But these fallacies
were soon exposed.

Still, even then, the country hesitated to take the plunge.
Conscription seemed to many the direct negation of what it had stood
for in the past. These still pinned their faith to the system of
voluntary levies. The rally of the country's manhood to a cause only
indirectly its own was beyond all precedent. Field Marshal Viscount
Partington mobilized his very best mop and sent it to deal with the
Atlantic. For all that the flood did not subside and it gradually
dawned on the public mind that more comprehensive methods might be
needed.

In the meantime the Hun was at the gate of Paris. The Channel ports, if
not actually in the hands of the enemy, were as good as lost. Belgium
was being ground under the heel of a savage conqueror. And in the city
of Blackhampton, as elsewhere in Britain, these things made a very deep
impression.

Among the many forcible men that a new world phase revealed
Blackhampton to possess, none stood out more boldly in those first
grim weeks than Josiah Munt. The proprietor of the Duke of Wellington
was a man of peculiar gifts, and it was soon only too clear that not
only Blackhampton, but England herself, had need of them. His was the
ruthless energy that disdains finesse. It sees what to do, or believes
it does--almost as important in life as we know it!--and goes straight
ahead and gets it done.

One evening in the middle of September Josiah came home to dinner in a
very black mood. It was not often that he yielded to depression. But
he had had a hard day on local war committees in the course of which
he had been in contact with men nearer to the center of things than
he was himself. Moreover, these were men from whom this shrewd son of
the midlands was only too ready to learn. They were behind the scenes.
Sources of information were open to them which even a Blackhampton
alderman might envy; and they were far from echoing the airy optimism
of the public press. The fabric of society, stable but elastic, by
means of which Josiah himself and so many like him had been able in
the course of two or three decades to rise from obscurity to a certain
power and dignity was in urgent danger. The whole of the western world
was in the melting pot. That which had been could never be again.
Cherished institutions were already in the mire. And all this was but
the prelude to a tragedy of which none could see the end.

Josiah's mood that evening was heavy. Even the presence at the meal of
his sister-in-law, as a rule a natural tonic, did little to lighten it.

"They won't get Paris now," she affirmed.

"We don't know that." He shook his head with the gesture of a tired
man. "Nobody knows it."

"No, I suppose they don't." Miss Preston read in that somber manner the
need for mental readjustment. "But the papers say that General Joffre
has the situation in hand."

Josiah renounced a plate of mutton broth only half consumed. "Mustn't
believe a word you see in the papers, my gel. They don't know much, and
half of what they do know they are not allowed to tell." Miss Preston
discreetly supposed that it was so. "But things are going better,
aren't they?"

"We'll hope they are." Josiah's fierce attack upon the joint in front
of him seemed to veto the subject.

The silence that followed was broken by Maria, whose entrance into the
conversation was quite unexpected and rather startling. "Did you know,"
she said, "that Melia's husband has joined the army?"

Josiah suspended operations to poise an interrogatory carving knife.
"Who tells you that?" he said frostily.

"The boy from Murrell's, the greengrocer's,"--somehow the infrequent
voice of Maria had an odd precision--"said to Alice this morning that
he heard that Mr. Hollis had gone for a soldier."

Josiah returned to the joint, content for the time being with the
remark, "that it was a bad lookout for the Germans," a sally that won a
timely laugh from his sister-in-law. On the other hand, Maria, who had
never been known to laugh at anything in all her anxious days, began to
wonder somberly whether Melia would be able to carry on the business.

"From all that I hear," growled Josiah, "there ain't a sight o'
business to be carried on."

In the silence which followed Maria gave a sniff that was slightly
lachrymose, and then the strategic Gerty after a veiled glance towards
the head of the table, ventured on "Poor Amelia."

Josiah was in the act of giving himself what he called "a man's
helping" of beans. "She made her own bed," he said in a tone that
gained in force by not being forcible, "and now she's got to lie in it."

For the first time in many years, however, Maria seemed to be visited
by a spark of spirit. "Well, I think it's credible of that Hollis, very
creditable."

Josiah raised a glass of beer to the light with a connoisseur's
disparagement of its color, and then he said, "In my opinion he's
running away from his creditors. I hear he owes money all round."

"He's going to risk his life, though," ventured Aunt Gerty. "And that's
something."

"It is--if he risks it," Josiah reluctantly allowed.

Maria became so tearful that she was unable to continue her dinner.




XVIII


The next morning, about a quarter to ten, Josiah boarded a Municipal
tram at the foot of The Rise, earning in the process the almost
groveling respect of its conductor, and paid twopence for a journey to
Love Lane. Five doors up on the left was a meager house that had been
converted into a greengrocer's shop. By far the most imposing thing
about it was a signboard, which, although sadly in need of a coat of
paint, boldly displayed the name William Hollis Fruiterer, in white
letters on a black ground. For the last sixteen years, whenever the
proprietor of the Duke of Wellington had occasion to pass this eyesore
which was clearly visible from the busy main thoroughfare that ran by
the end of the street, he made it a fixed rule to look the other way.
But this morning when he got off the tram car at the corner, he set his
teeth, faced the signboard resolutely and walked slowly towards it.

A stately thirty seconds or so of progress brought him to the shop
itself. For a moment he stood looking in the window, which was neither
more nor less than that of a visibly unprosperous greengrocer in a very
small way of business. He then entered a rather moribund interior, the
stock in trade of which consisted in the main of baskets of potatoes
and carrots and an array of stale cabbages laid in a row on the counter.

The shop had no one in it, but the first step taken by an infrequent
customer across its threshold rang a bell attached to the underside
of a loose board in the floor, thereby informing a mysterious entity
beyond a glass door draped with a surprisingly clean lace curtain that
it was required elsewhere.

The entity did not immediately respond to Josiah's heavy-footed
summons. When it did respond it was seen to be that of a thin faced,
exceedingly unhappy looking woman of thirty-five whose hair was
beginning to turn gray. Her print dress, much worn but scrupulously
clean and neat, had its sleeves rolled back beyond the elbows; and this
fact and a coarse sackcloth apron implied that she had been interrupted
in the task of scrubbing the floor of the back premises.

The interior of the shop was rather dark and Josiah, having taken up a
position in its most sunless corner, was not recognized at once by his
eldest daughter.

They stood looking at each other, not knowing what to say or how to
carry themselves after a complete estrangement of sixteen years.
Josiah, however, had taken the initiative; he was a ready-witted man
of affairs and he had been careful to enter the shop with a formula
already prepared to his mind. It might or might not bridge the gulf,
but in any case that did not greatly matter. He had not come out of a
desire to make concessions; he was there at the call of duty.

"They tell me your man's joined th' army." That was the formula, but
it needed speaking. And when spoken it was, after a moment uncannily
tense, it was not as Alderman Munt J.P. had expected and intended to
utter it. Instead of being quite impersonal, the tone and the manner
were rude and grim. Somehow they had thrown back to an earlier phase of
autocratic parenthood.

Melia turned very white. It did not seem possible for her to say
anything beyond a defiant "yes." Breathing hard, she stood looking
stonily at her father.

"When did he go?"

"Monday." The tone of Melia was queerly like his own.

Josiah rolled the scrub of whisker under his chin between his thumb and
forefinger, and then slowly transferred the weight of his ponderous
body from one massive foot to the other. "Don't seem to be doing much
trade."

"Not much." But the tone of Melia rather implied that it was none of
his business even if such was the case.

"Will ye be able to carry on?"

Melia didn't know. Her father didn't either. He was inclined to think
not, but without expressing that opinion he stood with narrowed eyes
and pursing his lips somberly. "Where's the books?" he said abruptly.

The desire uppermost in Melia was to tell him in just a few plain
words that the books were no concern of his and that she would be much
obliged if he would go about his own affairs. But for some reason she
was not able to do so. She was no longer afraid of him; years ago she
had learned to hate and despise him; but either she was not strong
enough, not a big enough character to be openly rude to him, or the
subtle feelings of a daughter, long since rejected and forgotten, may
have intervened. For after a horrible moment, in which devils flew
round in her, she said impassively, "Don't keep none."

"Not books! Don't keep books!" The man of affairs caught up the
admission and treated it almost as a young bull in a paddock might have
treated a red parasol. "Never heard the like!" He cast a truculent
glance round the half denuded shop. "No wonder the jockey has to make
compositions with his creditors."

Melia flushed darkly. She would have given much had she been able at
that moment to order this father of hers out of the shop, but every
minute now seemed to bring him an increasing authority. The Dad, the
tyrant and the bully whom she had feared, defied and secretly admired,
was now in full possession. At bottom, sixteen years had not changed
him and it had not changed her. Had the man for whom she had wrecked
her life had something of her father's quality she might have forgiven
his inefficiency, his tragic failure as a human being, or at any rate
have been more able to excuse herself for an act which, look at it as
one would, was simply unforgivable.

"I don't know what you mean." Her hard voice trembled and then broke
harshly--but anger and defiance could not go beyond that. "He paid the
quarter's rent before he went. He owes a few pounds but he's going to
send me a bit every week until it's paid."

"I suppose you've got a list of his liabilities." Even his voice shook
a little, but he treated the scorn, the anger, the hard defiance in her
eyes as if they were not there.

Again the paramount desire was to insult this father of hers, had it
been humanly possible to do so. But again was she bereft of the power
even to make the attempt. "Yes, I have," she said sullenly.

"Let me see it, gel."

For nearly a minute she stood biting her lips and looking at him,
while for his part he coolly surveyed the shop in all its miserable
inadequacy. She still wanted to order him out. His proprietary air
enraged her. Yet she could not repress a sneaking admiration for it
and that enraged her even more. But she suddenly gave up fighting and
retired in defeat to the mysterious region beyond the curtained door,
whence she returned very soon with a piece of paper in her hand.

Josiah impressively put on his gold-rimmed eyeglasses, a recent
addition to his greatness, and examined the paper critically. The
amount of William Hollis's indebtedness, declared in hurried, rather
illiterate pencil, as if the heart of the writer had not been in his
task, came to rather less than twenty pounds.

"This the lot?" He spoke as if he had a perfect right to ask the
question.

"It is." Her eyes and her voice contested the right, yet in spite of
themselves they admitted it.

"Who owns this here property?" Again the half truculent glance explored
every nook and cranny of the meager premises.

"Whatmore the builder."

Josiah rubbed a thick knuckle upon his cheek. "Ah!" That was his only
comment. "Owns the row, I suppose?"

Melia supposed he did.

"What rent do you pay?"

"Twenty-five." She resented the question, but the growing magnetism of
having again a real live man to deal with was making her clay in his
hands.

He took a step to the shop door, the paper still in his hand, and stood
an instant looking up the dreary length of narrow street. It was only
an instant he stood there, but it was long enough to enable him to make
up his mind. Suddenly he swung round on his heel to confront the still
astonished and resentful Melia.

"Want more window space," he said. "Casement ought to be lower
and larger. Those flowers"--he pointed to a bowl of stocks on the
counter--"ought to be where people can look at 'em. But this isn't a
neighborhood for flowers. Offer vegetables and fruit at a low price,
but more shop room's needed so that folks can see 'em and so that you
can buy in bigger quantities. Who is your wholesaler?" He looked down
the list. "Coggins, eh? Coggins in the Market Place?"

Melia nodded. Should she tell him that Coggins had that morning refused
to supply anything else until the last delivery of potatoes, bananas
and tomatoes had been paid for? Pride said no, but a force more
elemental than pride had hold of her now.

"Owe him six pound, I see. What does he let you have in the way of
credit?"

"He won't let me have anything else until I've paid his account," said
the reluctant Melia. "And he says it's all got to be cash for the
future."

"When did he say that?"

"He's just been up to see me."

"Can you pay him?"

"I promised him two pounds by Saturday."

Josiah made no comment. Once more his eyes made the tour of the shop.
And then he said with the slow grunt that Melia knew so well:

"Very creditable to your man to join up ... if he sticks it."

The four last little words were almost sinister. And then in the
unceremonious way in which he had entered the shop the great man
walked out. The place was as distasteful to him as his presence in it
was distasteful to his eldest daughter. Yet for both, and in spite of
themselves, their meeting after long years had had an extraordinary
grim fascination.




XIX


At Christmas Private Hollis was granted forty-eight hours' leave. He
had been a member of the Blackhampton Battalion rather less than three
months, but this was a piece of luck for which he felt very grateful.

Those three months had been a grueling time. His age was forty-one,
and, in order to comply with the arbitrary limit of thirty-eight
imposed by Field Marshal Viscount Partington in the first days of
strife, it had been necessary to falsify his age. Many another had done
likewise. Questions were not asked, and if a man had physical soundness
and the standards of measurement demanded by the noble Viscount there
seemed no particular reason why they should be. All the same the sudden
and severe change from a soft life found some weak places in Private
Hollis.

How he stuck it he hardly knew. Many a time in those trying early weeks
he was sorely tempted to go sick with "a pain in his hair." But ever at
the back of his mind hovered the august shade of Troop Sergeant Major
William Hollis, the distinguished kinsman who had fought at Waterloo,
whose spurs and sword hung in the little back sitting room of Number
Five, Love Lane; and that old warrior simply would not countenance any
such proceeding. Therefore, Christmas week arrived without Private
Hollis having missed a single parade. Although not one of the bright
boys of the Battalion, he was not looked upon unfavorably, and on
Christmas Eve, about four o'clock, he returned to his home from the
neighboring town of Duckingfield.

His home in the course of the sixteen years he had lived in it had
brought him precious little in the way of happiness. More than once
he had wondered if ever he would be man enough to break its sinister
thrall; more than once he had wished to end the ever-growing aversion
of man and wife by doing something violent. He had really grown to hate
the place. And yet after an absence of less than three months he was
returning to it with a thankfulness that was surprising.

All the same he was not sure how Melia would receive him. When at last
he had made the great decision and had told her that he was going
to join up he had said she must either carry on the business in his
absence, or that it could be wound up and she must be content with the
separation allowance. Her answer had been a gibe. However, she proposed
to carry on in spite of the fact that W. Hollis Fruiterer as a means
of livelihood was likely to prove a stone about her neck. Still there
was a pretty strong vein of independence in her and if she could keep
afloat by her own exertions she meant to do so.

During his three months' absence in camp their correspondence had been
meager; it had also been formal, not to say cold. The estrangement into
which they had drifted was so wide that even the step he had recently
taken could not bridge it. He had told her on a picture postcard with
a view of Duckingfield Parish Church that he was quite well and he
hoped that she was and that things were going on all right; and with a
view of the Market Place she replied that she was glad to know that he
was quite well as it left her at present. However, he was careful to
supplement this marital politeness with a few words every Saturday when
he sent her five shillings, all he could spare of his pay. The money
was always acknowledged briefly and coldly. No clew was given to her
feelings, or to her affairs, but when he told her he was coming home at
Christmas for two days she wrote to say that she would be pleased to
see him.

As he stepped off the tram into the raw Blackhampton mirk which awaited
him at the end of Love Lane that formal phrase came rather oddly into
his mind. It gave him a sort of consolation to reflect that Melia was
one who said what she meant and meant what she said. But, whether or
not she would be pleased to see him at the present moment, he was
genuinely pleased to be seeing her.

It was strange that it should be so. But Melia with all her grim
humors stood for freedom, a life of physical ease and cushioned
independence, and this was what a slack fibered man of one and forty
simply longed for after three months' "grueling." For a man past his
physical best, of slothful habits and civilian softness, the hard
training had not been child's play. Besides, his home meant something.
It always had meant something. That was why in the face of many
difficulties he had struggled in his spasmodic way to keep it together.
It had seemed to give him no pleasure, it had seemed to bring nothing
into his life, but somehow he had felt that if once he let go of it, as
far as he was concerned it would mean the end of all things. He would
simply fall to pieces. He would sink into the gutter and he would never
be able to rise again.

Getting off the tram at the end of Love Lane he felt a sensation that
was almost pride to think that he had a place of his own to come home
to. After all it stood for sixteen years of life and struggle. And
at that moment he was particularly glad that he had sent that five
shillings a week regularly. Unless he had done so he would not now have
been able to go and face Melia.

There was not much light in the little street, but it was not yet quite
dark. And the first sight of his home gave him a shock. The outside
of the shop had changed completely. Not only was the signboard and
the rest of the woodwork resplendent with new paint, but the window
was more than twice the size it had been. Moreover it was brilliantly
lighted; there was a fine display of apples, oranges, prunes, nuts,
even boxes of candied fruits and bonbons; and in the center of this
amazing picture was a large Christmas tree, artfully decorated, in a
pot covered with pink paper.

William Hollis gave a gasp. And then a slow chill spread over him as
he realized the truth. Somebody had taken over the business, somebody
with capital, brains, business experience. But that being the case why
had Melia kept it all so dark? And why, if the business belonged to
somebody else, was his name still on the signboard? And why had it had
that new coat of paint?

The sheer unexpectedness struck him internally, as if a bucket of water
had been dashed in his face. It was the worst set-back he had ever had
in his life. Not until that moment did he realize how much the shop
meant to him. He was bitterly angry that such a trick had been played.
It showed, as hardly anything else could have done, the depth of
Melia's venom; it showed to what a point she was prepared to carry her
resentment.

It took him a minute to pull himself together, and then he walked into
the shop, not defiantly, not angrily, but with a sense of outrage.
There was nobody in it, but, as he cast round one indignant glance at
its new and guilty grandeur and then crossed heavily to the curtained
door, he held himself ready to meet the new proprietor.

Beyond that mysterious portal the small living room was very spick and
span. Almost to his surprise he found Melia there. She matched the
room in appearance and at the moment he came in she was putting a log
of wood on the fire. Great Uncle William's sword and accouterments,
hanging from the wall, were decorated with holly, the pictures also and
a new grocer's almanac, and a small bunch of mistletoe was suspended
from the gas bracket in the middle of the ceiling. Everything was far
more cheerful and homelike than he ever remembered to have seen it. The
note of Christmas was there, which in itself meant welcome and good
cheer.

He stood at the threshold of the curtained door, a neat soldierlike
figure with a chastened mustache, looking wonderfully trim and erect
in his uniform. She greeted him with a kind of half smile on her hard
sad face, but he didn't offer to kiss her. Not for long years had they
been on those terms; they were man and wife in hardly more than name.
And if in his absence, as there was reason to suspect, she had played
him a trick in revenge for her years of disappointment, he somehow felt
man enough at that moment to make an end of things altogether so far as
she was concerned. There were faults on both sides, no doubt. Perhaps
he hadn't quite played jannock; but if the business now belonged to
somebody else, he would simply walk straight out of the place and he
would never enter it again.

She stood looking at him, as if she expected him to speak first. But he
didn't know what to say to her, with that doubt in his mind. Braced by
the stern discipline which he felt already had made him so much more a
man than he had ever been in his life, he had come home fully prepared
to make a fresh start. In spite of her embittered temper, he had not
lost quite all his affection for her. He was the kind of man who craves
for affection; absence and hardship had made him realize that. He had
looked forward to this homecoming, not merely as a relief from the
grind of military routine, which galled him at times so that he could
hardly bear it, but as an assertion of the manhood, of the husbandhood,
that had long been overdue.

"Evenin', Melia," he said at last.

"Evenin', Bill," as she spoke she dropped her eyes.

"Happy Christmas to you." Somehow his voice sounded much deeper than
ever before.

"Same to you. Bill." There was almost a softness in the fall of the
words that took his mind a long way back.

"How goes it?" Her reception was thawing him a little in spite of
himself, but he hesitated about taking off his overcoat. If this fair
seeming was intended to mask a blow there was only one way to meet it.
There was a pause and then he took the plunge. "Business good?" He
held himself ready for the consequences.

"Pretty fair." The tone told nothing.

"Seems to be that," he said mordantly. "Had a coat o' paint, I see,
outside." He steeled himself again. "Had a new window put in an' all."

She nodded.

"How did you manage it?" Again the plunge.

"Got a new landlord."

Ha! they were coming to it now. He held himself tensely. "Old Whatmore
gone up the spout or something?" He remembered that some time back
there had been rumors of an impending bankruptcy on the part of
Whatmore the builder.

"No, Whatmore's all right, but he's sold this shop and the whole row
with it."

"Sold it, eh?" His excitement was so great that in spite of a cool
military air it was impossible to disguise it. All the same she waited
for him to ask the all-important question, but he was slow to do so.

"Who's bought it?" he said at last.

"Father's bought it." She did her best to speak quite casually, but she
didn't succeed.




XX


It was a knife. Yet it had not dealt exactly the kind of blow that he
had looked for. Even if the stab was softer, and of that at the moment
he was not quite sure, undoubtedly there was poison in the wound. In
a flash he saw that, somehow, it had strengthened her position and
weakened his. "You never told me he'd bought the business." The tone
was a confession of impotence.

"He hasn't bought it."

But, in face of the facts, the fine exterior and the large and
expensive stock this was a quibble and it was too palpable. "How did
you come by all that stuff in the window then?"

"He's helping me to run it."

"Helping you to run it!" His face was a picture of simple incredulity.

"He paid up all we owed so that we could start fair. And he looks in
every Monday morning and tells me what to buy and where to buy it."

"Does he pay for it?"

"He does." There was something like pride in her voice. "He pays cash.
And I have to keep books--like I used to at the Duke of Wellington. Of
course he's only lending the money. I pay him back at the end of the
month when I balance the accounts."

He was dumfounded by this precise statement. The hand of his mean,
narrow father-in-law was not recognizable. Somehow it seemed to alter
everything, but not at once was he able to turn his mind to the new and
unexpected situation.

One thing was clear, however; it would be vain to resent Josiah's
interference. He had bought the property over their heads and he could
do what he liked with his own. Again Melia had been left in debt and
her husband knew well enough that unless some special providence had
intervened she might not have been able to carry on. Exactly why Josiah
had done as he had done neither his daughter nor his son-in-law could
fathom. They hated to receive these belated favors, yet as things were
there was no way of escaping them.

A little reluctantly, yet with a feeling of intense relief, Bill took
off his good khaki overcoat and hung it on the nail provided for the
purpose on the curtained door. Melia toasted a pickelet at the clear
fire, buttered it richly, set it in a dish in the fender to keep warm;
then the kettle began to boil and she brewed the tea.

As she did all this Bill noticed that there was a new air of alertness,
of competence about her; there was a light in her eyes, a decision
in her actions; she seemed to have more interest in life. And for
himself, as he sat at the table with its clean cloth and shining knives
and spoons and bright sugar bowl and she handed him his tea just as
he liked it, with one lump of sugar and not too much milk, he felt
something changing in him suddenly. In a way of speaking it was a kind
of rebirth.

They didn't talk much. Melia was not a talking sort, nor was he except
when he had "had a drop," and he didn't get "drops" now. Besides, in
any case, the army seemed to have taken anything superfluous in the way
of talk out of him, as it did with most. But he was honestly glad to be
back in the peaceful four walls of his home. And it was not certain,
although Melia carefully refrained from hinting as much, that she was
not honestly glad to see him there. At all events she got his slippers
for him presently out of the boot cupboard; and then, unasked, she
made a spill of paper for him and laid it on the table by his elbow, a
sufficient intimation that he was expected to light his pipe.




XXI


They went to bed at a quarter to ten. For a time they talked and
then Bill fell asleep. And he slept as perhaps he had never slept in
that room in all the years of their married life. How good the old
four-poster seemed! It was a family heirloom in which he had been born
forty-one and a half years ago. Many a miserable, almost intolerable
night had he passed in it, but this Christmas Eve in the course of ten
minutes or so it was giving him one of the best sleeps he had ever
known.

He woke in pitch darkness. Melia was breathing placidly and regularly
by his side. He didn't venture to move lest he should disturb her, and
he lay motionless but strangely comfortable; somehow it had never given
him such exquisite pleasure to lie in that old bed.

Everything was very still; there was none of the intolerable fuss and
clatter of barrack life at all hours of the day and night. It was so
peaceful that he was just about to doze again when a distant clock
began to strike. It was the familiar clock of Saint George's Church,
along Mulcaster Road, a hundred yards or so away, and it told the hour
of seven.

Two or three minutes later bells began to ring. It was Christmas
morning; they were proclaiming peace on earth and good will towards
men. How rum they sounded! Yet as he lay motionless in that bed, with
a slow succession of deeply harmonious breaths near by, he wished harm
to no man, not even to the Boche. Peace on earth and good will towards
men ... yes, and women! Then it was, just in that pulse of time, the
inspiration came to him to make Christmas morning memorable.

The idea was very simple. He would steal out of bed without harm to
the slumbers of Melia, slip on his clothes in the dark, go downstairs,
light the kitchen fire, boil the kettle and presently bring her a cup
of tea. Never before had it occurred to him to pay her such a delicate
attention, but this morning he appeared to have a new mind and a new
heart; somehow, this morning he was seeing things with other eyes.

Without disturbing her he was able to carry out his plan. But twenty
minutes later when he returned to the room with a cup of tea on a small
tray, Melia was awake and wondering what the time was.

"Needn't get up yet," he said. "I've lit the fire. Happy Christmas to
you!" Then he handed her the tea.

She seemed much surprised and just for a moment a little embarrassed.
But she drank the tea gratefully, yet wondering all the time what had
made him bring it to her. Then she announced her intention of getting
up, but he bade her lie quiet as it was Christmas morning and he was
well able to cook the breakfast.

Quite a pretty passage of arms developed between them on the subject,
but in the end she prevailed in spite of his protests, and came
downstairs to deal in person with the vital matter of the bacon and
eggs.

Somehow their half playful contention made a good beginning to the day.
And, take it altogether, it was quite the best they had ever known in
that ill-starred house. There had been times when week had followed
week of such hostility that they had hardly exchanged a look or a
word, times in fact of soul-destroying antipathy in which they almost
loathed the sight of one another. But there was nothing of that now. So
much had happened in three short months of separation that there were
a hundred things to talk about; both of them seemed to be living in a
different world.

Their outlook on life had altered. Everything they did now had a
purpose, a meaning; it was not merely a question of getting through a
day that had neither reason nor rhyme. He was a soldier in a uniform,
he felt and looked a man in it, he stood for something. She was proud,
in a way she had never been proud, of having a husband in the army. It
was her duty and her privilege to keep his home together against his
return to civil life.

Soon after breakfast they were visited by a second inspiration, but
this time it came to Melia. Suppose they attended the eleven o'clock
service at Saint George's Church? In their early married life they had
gone there together once or twice, but for many years now when Melia
went there on Sunday evenings she had invariably been alone.

It may have been a desire to let the neighbors see how well his
khaki suited him, or life in the army had aroused an odd craving for
religion, or perhaps it was simply a wish to give pleasure to Melia; at
any rate Bill fell in with the idea. She had just time to arrange with
the lady next door, Mrs. Griggs by name, who had once been a cook in
good service, to give an eye to the turkey which was set cooking in the
oven, then to put on her best dress, not much of a best, it was true,
but to have gone to church in any other would have been unthinkable,
to put on her only decent hat and a sorely mended pair of black cotton
gloves, and to get there on the stroke of eleven, just as the bells
ceased and the choir were moving down to their stalls. Melia, at any
rate, had seldom enjoyed a service so much as this one, and her friend
the Reverend Mr. Bontine, who called to see her regularly once a
quarter, preached the finest sermon she had ever heard in the course of
long years of worship.

For all that, it was not certain that Private Hollis was not bored
a little by the Reverend Mr. Bontine. He could not help a yawn in
the middle of the homily, but this may have been a concession to his
length of days as a civilian when "he didn't hold with persons," but
as Melia was too much absorbed to notice him, her sense of a manly and
fruitful discourse was not marred; and she was able to enjoy the same
happy oblivion of martial restiveness during the long prayer. Taking
one consideration with another Private Hollis may be said to have borne
extremely well an ordeal to which he had not submitted for many years;
and at the end of the service as he came out of church he grew alive to
the fact that in the sight of the congregation he was a person of far
more consequence than he had ever been in his life.

More than one pair of eyes, once hostile or aloof, were upon him and
also upon Melia. People looked at him as if they would have been only
too proud to know him, substantial people like Wilmers, the insurance
agent, and Jenkinson the tailor; but the climax came as he stepped on
to the flags of Mulcaster Road and no less a man than Mr. Blades, the
druggist of Waterloo Square, took off his tall hat to Melia and said,
"Happy Christmas to you, Mr. Hollis."

A year ago that was an incident that simply could not have happened.
But after all it was just one among many. He was an equal now with the
best of his neighbors, no matter what their substance and standing.
He was a man who counted. In the Blackhampton Battalion he was merely
Private Hollis, and not much of a private at that, as many loud voiced
and authoritative people made a point of telling him, but in civilian
circles apparently the outlook was different.

When they turned into Love Lane they were met by further evidence of
the new status of W. Hollis Fruiterer. A flaming-haired youth in a
green baize apron had been knocking in vain on the shuttered door of
the shop. There was a parcel in his hand whose shape was familiar but
not on that account the less intriguing.

"Mester Munt's compliments--sir." It was against the tradition of
the green baize apron to indulge the general public with promiscuous
"sirs," but, in handing ceremoniously the parcel to Private Hollis,
democracy in its purest form deferred a little to his martial aspect.

Bill never felt less in need of his father-in-law's compliments than
at that moment, but the abrupt departure of George the Barman somehow
forced them upon him. All the same, as Private Hollis fitted the key
into the shop door he wondered what the Old Swine was up to now.

Divested of its trappings on the sitting room table the parcel turned
out to be a handsome bottle of port wine. It would not have been human
for William Hollis to remain impervious to this largesse from the
famous cellar of the Duke of Wellington. And he knew by the screen of
cobwebs that it was out of the sacred corner bin.

Bill was puzzled. What had come over the Old Pig! However.... With
the care of one who knew the worth of what he handled he put the royal
visitor in the cupboard, among plebeian bottles of stout and beer, and
then proceeded, chuckling rather grimly at certain thoughts, to help
Melia "set the dinner."

It was a modest feast, but when in the course of time he sat down to
carve a roast turkey, a plump and proper young bird, flanked with
sausages and chestnuts, he informed Melia "that he wouldn't give a
thank you to dine with the King of England." She could not help smiling
at this disloyal utterance, which so ill became his uniform, as she
freely ladled out bread sauce, that purely Anglo-Saxon dainty, for
which his affection amounted almost to a passion, and helped him hugely
to potatoes and Brussels sprouts, so that it should be no fault of
hers if he was unable to plead provocation for his lapse. Plum pudding
followed. It was of the regulation Blackhampton pattern and Melia, no
mean cook when she gave her mind to it, had given her mind to this one,
so that it expressed her genius and the festive genius of her native
city in a hearty time of cheer.

At the end of the meal, in spite of the fact that he was told rather
sternly "to set quiet," he insisted like a soldier and a sportsman
in helping to clear the table and in bearing a manly but subordinate
part in the washing up. And when the table had once more assumed the
impersonal red cloth of its hours of leisure, a couple of wine glasses
were produced, which, although polished twice a week, had not seen
active service for fifteen years, and then William drew the cork of the
cobwebbed bottle.

"Not a drop for me, Bill."

"You've got to have it, Mother."

"No, Bill."

"Yes. Fairation!" He gave one deep sniff at the glass he had measured
already with a care half reverent, half comic. "By Gum, it's prime." In
spite of protests he poured out another glass. "Fairation! Better drink
the health, eh, of the Old Un as it's Christmas Day."

They honored the Old Un discreetly, in a modest sip of a wine which of
itself could not have denied him a claim to honor, and then with equal
modesty they drank to each other.

Melia then had an inspiration, though not subject to them as a rule,
and due in this case, no doubt, to the juice of the grape. She procured
a plate full of walnuts from beyond the curtained door and they
entered on a further phase of discreet festivity. Bill insisted on
cracking three nuts and peeling them for her with his own delicately
accomplished fingers; and in the process he complimented her on the
Christmas fare and hoped piously that "the Chaps had had half as good."

Mention of the Chaps moved him for the first time to reminiscence. As
was to be expected, the Blackhampton Battalion was one of the wonders
of the world. To begin with, its members were nearly all gentlemen.
All the nobs of the town under forty were tommies in the B.B. It was
very remarkable that it should be so, but there the fact was. And it
made men of his sort who liked to think a bit when they had the time
to spare feel regular democratic when they saw real toffs like Lawyer
Mossop's nephew, Marling the barrister, carting manure, or the son of
Sir Reuben Jope on his knees scrubbing the floor of the sergeants' mess.

To mix in such company was a rare opportunity for a man who knew how
to use it. Melia had noted already that Bill had learned to express
himself better, that his conversation was at a higher level and that it
was full of new ideas. And these facts were never so palpable as when,
slowly and solemnly, a furtive light of humor in his blue eyes, he went
on to tell of his great Bloomer.

It seemed that the cubicle next to his was occupied by a man named
Stanning, and he had got to be rather pals with him. Stanning was a
serious sort of cove with hair turning gray at the temples, but Private
Hollis had been attracted to him because he was one of the right sort
and because it was clear from his talk that he had thought and seen a
bit. He was a good kind of man to talk to, a sympathetic sort of card,
one of those who made you feel that you had things in common.

Private Hollis gradually got so "thick" with Private Stanning that
they began to discuss things in an intellectual way, politics one
time, education another, so on and so on, until one evening they found
themselves talking of Art. As Melia knew, Private Hollis had a feeling
for Art. Many an hour had he spent in the City Museum, looking at its
collection of famous pictures; and he told Private Stanning of the
water color he had done of the Sharrow at Corfield Weir, inspired by
the great work on the same subject of his celebrated namesake Stanning,
R.A., which had been bought by the City Authorities for the fabulous
sum of a thousand guineas....

Over the walnuts and the wine Private Hollis began to chuckle hugely
as his great Bloomer came back to his mind in all its entrancing
details....

P.H. When I first see the price mentioned in the _Evening Star_ I says
to my Missus that's the way they chuck public money about. No picture
was never painted, not a Hangelo nor even a Lord Leighton that was ever
worth a thousand guineas. It's a fancy price.

P.S. 'Tis in a way. A matter of sentiment, I suppose.

P.H. Just what I said to the Missus. However, being a bit of a critic
I went to examine that picture for myself. And would you believe it,
Stanning--I'm not saying this to flatter you because the chap who done
it has the same name as yours--when I see that picture it fair knocked
me endways. You see I know every yard of Corfield Weir; in my time
I've had more than one good fish out of it; and as soon as I set eyes
on it, I said to myself, "Stanning R.A.'s a fisherman. He's chosen one
of them gray days that's good for barbel." I give you my word, he'd got
just the proper light coming out of the valley and stealing along the
Sharrow. Only an artist and a fisherman could have done it.

P.S. Did you ever get bream there?

P.H. I should say so. And I've had trout in my time.

P.S. Trout?

P.H. I'm talking of twenty years back. But to resume. I see at a glance
why the City Authorities had paid a thousand guineas for that picture.
It was not because Stanning, R.A., was a local man; it was pure merit
and I felt very glad it was so.

P.S. Glad you thought so.

P.H. You know, of course, that Stanning, R.A., is Blackhampton born?

P.S. So I've heard.

P.H. Born in that old house with the high-walled garden along Blue Bell
Hill that was pulled down to widen the road.

P.S. That so?

P.H. By the way, Stanning, is he a relation of yours? Of course, it's a
very common name in the City.

P.S. Ye--es, I suppose he is in a way.

P.H. That's something to be proud of. I'm not saying it to flatter you,
but at this minute I'd rather be Stanning, R.A., than any one else in
the wide world.

Private Stanning laughed like a good one.

P.H. Honest. I'm not talking out of the back of my neck. Stanning,
R.A., for me. You can have all my share of the Kitcheners and the
Joffres and the von Klucks. If I could be born again and born somebody
as mattered I'd like to be Stanning, R.A. Why, what the hell are you
grinning at?

P.S. That's rheumatism. And if you'll only take it over, old son, you
can have all the remainder of my interest in Stanning, R.A., as a going
concern.

P.H. What! do you mean to say----!

"I told you, Mother," concluded Private Hollis in his port-wine-inspired
narrative, "that he was going gray at the temples. And there he set
like a himage at the foot of his shakedown all twisted with rheumatics,
groaning like one o'clock. And then he began to laugh. Queer world,
ain't it, what?"

Melia, however, was one of those precise but rather immobile intellects
with which her tight little native island is full to overflowing. "You
don't mean to say, Bill, it was Stanning, R.A., himself?"

"You bet your life it was." Private Hollis handed a peeled walnut, his
masterpiece so far, across an expanse of red tablecloth. "One of the
youngest R.A.'s on record, but a bit long in the tooth for the Army.
And we're pals, I tell you. One of these days I'm going to take him
barbel fishing at Gawsey's Pool. And he's given me a couple of lessons
in drawing already. If only I'd begun sooner I think I might have done
something."

It was such an incredible story that Melia was fain to smile, but
Private William Hollis, inspired by port wine and enthusiasm, lingered
lovingly over his portrait of one who stood forth in his mind as the
greatest man the city of Blackhampton had yet produced.




XXII


Forty-eight hours is not a long time even as time is reckoned in a
world war, when the infinitely much can happen in a little space. Only
one-fourth of that term, a meager twelve hours, was permitted to Russia
by Germany in which to decide whether she should yield unconditionally
to an unheard of demand, on pain of provoking that conflict, the end
of which even some of the most penetrating minds in Blackhampton were
hardly able to predict with certainty. So much may happen in a little
while. Yet Private Hollis had just four times as long to re-establish
terms of conjugal felicity with his wife Melia. In that period he
kissed her twice.

Whether that Christian practice would have continued as a regular thing
is difficult to say. This was a special occasion and these were not
demonstrative natures. Even in the heyday of their romance, when Love
not being quite strong enough to turn the door handle, peered once or
twice through the keyhole, yet without ever proving quite bold enough
to come in and make himself at home on that childless hearth, they were
too practical to acquire a permanent taste for that particular kind of
nonsense.

Still, it hardly does to dogmatize in time of war. For as the
forty-eight hours went on, Melia seemed to grow more and more impressed
by Private Hollis, his martial bearing. Or it may have been the
uniform. Why is it that any kind of uniform has such a fatal attraction
for the ladies?

In this case, at any rate, it seemed to make a remarkable difference.
There is no doubt it suited Bill. He looked so much more a man in it;
his chest was bigger, his back was straighter, his hair was shorter,
his chin was cleaner and the ragged mustache that used to be all over
his face was now refined to the extreme point of military elegance.
Really he came much nearer to the ideal of manhood there had been in
Melia's mind when she had first married him. Besides he was so much
surer of himself, his voice was deeper, his bearing more authoritative,
his talk was salted with infinitely more knowledge and wisdom.

When the time came for Private Hollis to return to his regiment, the
boy who delivered the vegetables was left in charge of the shop,
while Melia in Sunday attire went to see her man off at the Central
Station. It was a compliment he had hardly looked for; all the same it
was appreciated. Somehow it made a difference. Other wives, mothers,
sisters, sweethearts were thick on the ground for a similar purpose,
but Private Hollis was of opinion that Melia with her serious face and
a figure you couldn't call stout and in a hat she had trimmed herself
with black and white wings was somehow able to hold her own with the
best of them.

Moreover they parted at the carriage door as if they meant something
to each other now. It was a public place but he kissed her solemnly
and she said, "You'll write me a bit oftener, Bill, won't you?" in the
manner of the long ago. Then the train began to move, he waved a hand
and she waved hers; and each trundled back alone to a hard life with
its many duties, yet somehow, in a subtle way, the stronger and the
happier for that brief interregnum.

Life had altered for them both in that short time. They saw each other
with new eyes or perhaps with old eyes reawakened. Sixteen years had
rubbed so much of the bloom off their romance that it was a miracle
almost that they were able to renew it. Yet the delicate process was
only just beginning. It was very odd, but the trite and difficult
business of existence was colored now continually with new thoughts
about each other. Neither had ever been a great hand at writing
letters, but Bill suddenly burgeoned forth into four closely written
pages weekly, and Melia, flattered but not to be outdone, burst out in
equal volume.

His letters were really very interesting indeed and so were hers,
although of course in an entirely different way. She was kept abreast
of the military situation and the latest Service gossip, with spicy
yarns of the Toffs with whom he rubbed shoulders as an equal in the
B.B., not omitting the details of an ever-ripening friendship with
Private Stanning, who, however, was soon to acquire the rank of a full
corporal. Melia, of course, had not the advantage of this range of
information or contiguity to high affairs, nor did her letters sparkle
with soldierly flashes of wit and audacity, but week by week they gave
a conscientious account of the state of the business, of sales and
purchases, of current prices and money outstanding, all in the manner
of a careful bookkeeper, who, now she had been put on her mettle, was
able and willing to show that the root of the matter was in her.

Bill, in consequence, had to own that the business in all its luckless
history had never been so flourishing. They didn't like admitting it,
but in their hearts they knew that this new prosperity was directly
due to "the damned interference" (military phrase) of the august
proprietor of the Duke of Wellington. Some men are hoo-doos, they are
born under the wrong set of planets; whatever they do or refrain from
doing turns out equally unwise. W. Hollis Fruiterer had always been one
of that kind. If he bought a barrel of Ribstone Pippins they went bad
before he could sell them, if he bought William pears they refused to
ripen, if he bought peas or runner beans he would have done better with
gooseberries or tomatoes; anything he stocked in profitable quantities
was bound to be left on his hands. But the lord of Strathfieldsaye was
another kind of man altogether. He simply couldn't do wrong when it
came to a question of barter. Up to a point a matter of judgment, no
doubt, but "judgment" does not altogether explain it. There is a subtle
something, over and beyond all mundane wisdom, that confers upon some
men the Midas touch. Everything they handle turns to gold. Josiah Munt
was notoriously one of that kind.

Certainly from the day he touched the moribund business of W. Hollis
Fruiterer with his magic wand, it took a remarkable turn for the
better. Mr. Munt's own explanation of the phenomenon was that for the
first time in its history it was run on sound business lines. That had
something to do with the mystery of course; not only was Josiah a man
of method and foresight, he was also a man of capital. Money makes
money all the world over; and of that fact Josiah's ever-growing store
was a shining proof.

Not until the middle of the summer did Bill get leave again. And then
there was a special reason for it. The Battalion had been ordered to
France. That was an epic Saturday evening in July when he came home
with full kit, brown as a bean, hard as a nail, in rare fighting trim.
Time was his own until the Thursday following, when he had to go to
Southampton to join the Chaps.

Martial his bearing at Christmas, but it was nothing to what it was
now. There seemed to be a consciousness of power about him. For one
thing he was wearing the stripe of a lance corporal. Then, too, he was
a small man, and, as biologists know, small men always have a knack of
looking bigger than they are really. Physically speaking, great men are
generally on the small side, perhaps for the reason that they have more
vitality. Certainly Corporal Hollis, on the eve of his Odyssey, looked
more important than the neighbors ever thought possible. Poor Melia
began to wonder if she would be able to live up to him.

Melia had never been to London and when Bill proposed that she should
accompany him to the metropolis and see him off from Waterloo the
suggestion came as quite a shock to a conservative nature. It meant
almost as much as a journey to the middle of Africa or the wilds of the
Caucasus to more traveled people. She was not easily fluttered; hers
was a mind of the slow-moving sort, but it was only after a night and a
day, fraught with grave questionings, that she finally consented to do
so.

For one thing the shop would have to close for twenty-four hours,
at least; besides, and a more vital matter, even her best dress was
nothing like fashionable enough for London, the capital city of the
empire. Both these objections were promptly overruled. An obliging
neighbor--during the last few months the neighbors had proved
wonderfully obliging--consented to take charge of the shop in Melia's
absence; while at the psychological moment a paragraph appeared in the
_Evening Star_ saying that as the Best people were making a point of
wearing old clothes, any attempt at fashion in war time was bad taste.
This interesting fact left so little for further discussion that at a
quarter past nine on the morning of an ever-memorable Wednesday they
steamed out of Blackhampton Central Station, London bound.

It was the beginning of a day such as Melia had never known. Looking
back upon it afterwards, and she was to look back upon it many times
in the days to follow, she felt it would have been impossible to
surpass it in sheer human interest. Even the journey to such a place as
London was thrilling to one whose travels by train had been confined
to half a dozen visits to Duckingfield, two to Matlock Bath and one to
Blackpool at the age of seven, nice places yet relatively unimportant
in comparison with the capital city of the British Empire.

As the train did not leave for Southampton until well on in the evening
they had about eight hours in which to see the sights. And so much
happened in those eight hours that they made a landmark in their lives.
Indeed they began with so signal an event that the muse of history
peremptorily demands a past chapter in which to relate it.




XXIII


As soon as he arrived in the metropolis, Corporal Hollis with Melia
rather nervously gripping his arm stepped boldly into the Euston Road
to have a look at London. Almost the first thing he saw was a Canteen,
a token that at once reminded him that his rifle and kit were heavy,
that the wife and he had breakfasted rather early and rather hurriedly
and that nothing at that moment could hope to compare with a couple of
ham sandwiches and a cup of coffee.

When the question was put to Melia she was inclined to think so too,
although far too bewildered by the mighty flux around her to give any
special thought to the matter. However very wisely, nay providentially,
as it turned out, after a moment's hesitation they decided to cross
the road and follow the promptings of nature. As they passed through
the inviting doors of the Canteen there was nothing to tell them that
anything particular was going to happen, yet perhaps they ought to
have remembered that this was London where the Particular is always
happening.

They had not to fight their way through a crowd in order to get in
or anything of that sort. Nor were people walking on one another's
heads when they did get in. There was plenty of room for all. Full
privates were in the majority, but the non-commissioned ranks were also
represented, among whom was a Scotsman who had risen to be a sergeant.
But Corporal Hollis appeared to be the only warrior who had brought
his lawful wedded missus. It was a breach of the rules for one thing,
but there was any amount of room, and he managed to stow her away in a
quiet corner where they could have a table to themselves; and then he
moved across to a cubbyhole where a nice fatherly old sportsman with
side whiskers and brown spats relieved him of his rifle and kit and
gave him a card with a number in exchange. Then the gallant Corporal, a
composite of well-bred diffidence and martial mien, sauntered up to the
counter at the end of the room where a Real Smart Piece in a mob cap
and jumper gave him the smile interrogative. After a moment's survey of
the good things around him, he magnificently went the limit. The limit
was ninepence: to wit, two fried eggs, a rasher of bacon, bread and
butter and a cup of tea; in this case ditto repeato, once for himself,
once for Melia.

The Corporal was by no means sure that the R.S.P. would stand for a
Twicer but she was one of the noble breed that prefers to use common
sense rather than raise obstacles. After one arch glance in the
direction of Melia she booked the order without demur.

In the process of time the order was executed and they set to upon
this second breakfast with a breadth of style which almost raised it to
the dignity of luncheon. By the time they were through it was half-past
midday already, and they were discussing this fact and its bearing on
the general program when the great Event began to happen.

It came about unobtrusively, in quite a casual way. Neither the
Corporal nor his lady paid much attention at first, but of a sudden
the nice fatherly old sportsman who had relieved the former of his
rifle and kit came out of his cubbyhole and a dashing trio of R.S.P.'s
emerged from a mysterious region at the back of beyond, proving
thereby that the counter had no monopoly of these luxuries, and the
Scotch sergeant moved a pace or two nearer the door, where the London
daylight seemed a bit better in quality, and then Bill's R.S.P., who
was absolutely the pick of the bunch, although such comparisons are
invariably as idle as they are to be deplored, was heard to use a word
that appeared to rhyme with Mother.

Of course it could not have been Bother or any word like it. And
whatever it may have been, was not, at that moment, as far as the
Corporal and his lady were concerned, of the slightest importance. To
them it meant nothing. It meant less than nothing. For a startling
rumor was afoot....

The Queen was coming.

William was a military man and fully determined to bear himself with
the coolness of one on parade, but his air of stoicism was but a
poor cloak to his feelings. As for Melia, if not exactly _flustered_,
she was excited more than a little. Still in this epic moment it was
a strengthening thought that she had had that yard and a half of new
ribbon put on her hat.

That was an instance of subconscious but prophetic foresight. There was
nothing to tell her that the first lady in the land would nip across
from Buckingham Palace as soon as she heard that Bill was in London.
It was hardly to have been expected. In the first place it was truly
remarkable that she should so soon have heard of his arrival. And of
course it was by no means certain that this casual and informal visit
of hers was inspired by William. In fact if you came to think of it----

But there was really no time to weigh the pros and the cons of what
after all was a superfluous inquiry, for a commotion had arisen already
beyond the farther door. And even at this late moment, and in spite of
a general stiffening of the phalanx of R.S.P.'s and other details, and
the stately advance of the nice old warrior through the swing doors
into the Euston Road, even then Corporal Hollis, with true military
skepticism, was not sure that it was not an Oaks.

However the question was soon settled. The commotion increased, the
throng of important looking people surprisingly grew, and in the
midst of it appeared a lady whom William and Melia would have known
anywhere. She was remarkably like her portraits except that the reality
surpassed them. There was a great deal of bowing and walking backwards
and the serried rows of R.S.P.'s made curtsys, and then all ranks stood
up and removed their hats. William and Melia stood up too, but only
William doffed his helmet.

It was the Scotsman who claimed the first share of the august
visitor's notice. Her eye lit at once on this son of Caledonia, who
unconsciously, by sheer force of climate, began to tower above all
the rest, returning answer for question with inimitable coolness and
mastery. All the Saxons present were lost in envy, but they were fain
to acquiesce in the stern truth that nature has made it impossible to
keep back a Scotsman. In spite of top hats and swallow-tails it was
clear at a glance that he was the best man there.

All the same the august visitor, helped by a simple and friendly lady
who accompanied her, contrived to distribute her favors impartially.
The son of Caledonia was so compelling that it would have been a
pleasure to talk to him for an hour, but duty and justice forbade, and
she found a smile and a word for humbler mortals. Among these, and last
of all in her tour of the large room were Bill and Melia.

Corporal Hollis could not be expected to display the entrain of a
sergeant of the Black Watch. Besides he had yet to cross the water
whereas Caledonia's son was a hero of Mons and the Marne. But the
gallant corporal did his regiment no discredit in that great moment,
likewise his wife Melia, nor famed Blackhampton, his fair natal city.




XXIV


When about twenty minutes later William and Melia, haloed with history,
emerged from the precincts of the Canteen, and as they did so treading,
in a manner of speaking, the circumambient air, they were at once
confronted by the spectacle of Bus 49 next the adjacent curb. And Bus
49, according to its own account of the matter, was going amongst other
places to Piccadilly Circus.

It was the first visit of the Corporal to the metropolis, but in his
mind was lurking the sure knowledge that Piccadilly Circus was the
exact and indubitable center thereof; and by an association of ideas,
he also seemed to remember that Piccadilly Circus was where the King
lived. Such being the case, the apparition at that moment of Bus 49 was
about as providential as anything could have been.

It was the work of an instant to get aboard the gracious engine, so
swift the workings of the human mind in those dynamic moments when Fate
itself appears, as the sailors say, to stand by to go about. Moreover
the conductor had politely informed the Corporal that there was room
for two on the top.

That was a golden journey, a kind of voyage to silken Samarcand and
cedared Lebanon, allowing of course for reduction according to scale.
So miraculously were their hearts attuned to venturing, that for one
rapt hour they drank deep of poetry and romance this glorious midday of
July.

Bus 49 knew its business thoroughly, no bus better. Instead of turning
pretty sharp to the left into that complacent purlieu Portland Place,
as a bus of less experience might have done in order to follow the line
of flight of some mythical crow or other, it chose to go on and on,
past Madame Tussaud's, the Hotel Great Central, and then by a series
of minor but hardly less historic landmarks along Edgware Road to the
Marble Arch, thence via Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner.

No doubt Bus 49 had ideas. The ordinary machine of commerce would have
got from Euston to Piccadilly Circus in two shakes of a duck's tail.
Not so this accomplished metropolitan, this gorgeous midday of July.
From Hyde Park Corner it proceeded to Victoria, thence via the Army
and Navy Stores to the Houses of Parliament, down Whitehall, past the
lions and Horatio, Viscount Nelson, past the Crédit Lyonnais, up the
Haymarket and so at last to Swan and Edgar's corner, where William and
Melia dismounted, thrilled as never before in all their lives.

Piccadilly Circus, all the same, was a shade disappointing. It was not
quite so grand as they expected. The Criterion was just opposite, but
they looked in vain for the King's residence. There did not appear to
be a sign of that. Bill, however, noticed a policeman, and decided to
make inquiries.

"I want Buckingham Palace, please," said the wearer of the King's
uniform.

Constable X 20, an intelligent officer, told the gallant corporal to
walk along Piccadilly, to which famous thoroughfare he pointed with
professional majesty, to turn down the street of Saint James, to keep
right on until he got to the bottom and then to ask again.

The constable was thanked for his lucidity and William and Melia
proceeded according to instructions. Along Piccadilly itself their
progress was a triumph. For, as Melia was quick to observe, all the
best people saluted Bill. Of course they could tell by the stripe on
his sleeve that he had been made a corporal, but such open, public
and official recognition of his merit was intensely gratifying.
Brass-hatted, beribboned, extraordinarily distinguished looking
warriors were as punctilious as could be in saluting Bill. Those
placed less highly, the rank and file, the common herd, paid him less
attention, but what were these in the scale of an infinitely larger
and nobler tribute? By the time William and Melia turned down Saint
James's street, had an observant visitor from Mars had the privilege of
walking behind them he would have been bound to conclude that the most
important man in the Empire was Corporal Hollis.

He would not have been alone in that feeling for Melia was in a
position to share it with him. In fact by the time they had traversed
the historic thoroughfare and had reached Pall Mall the feeling
dominated her mind. On every hand the great ones of the earth mustered
thicker and thicker, but they kept on saluting Bill. Such a reception
was hardly to have been expected at the center of all things, yet in
those thrilling moments so proud was Melia of her man that it did not
seem very surprising after all.

They crossed the road to the fine and ancient building with the clock
on it, and after making quite sure that the King didn't live there--a
pardonable delusion under which for a moment they had labored--they
proceeded past it, leaving Marlborough House on the port bow, and then
suddenly, as they came into the Mall, they caught a first glimpse of
that which they were out for to see.

Converging slowly upon the King's residence Melia's courage began to
fail.

It was a very warm day for one thing. And the sentry in his box, not to
mention his brethren marching up and down in front of the railings, may
have daunted her. Moreover, the Palace itself was an exceeding stately
pile. Besides, she had seen the Queen already. And Bill had passed the
time of day with her. Thus it was, gazing in silent awe through those
stern railings across that noble courtyard, Melia suddenly made up her
mind.

"No, Bill, I don't think I'll see the King to-day--not in this dress."

Corporal Hollis looked solemnly at the dress in question and then at
its wearer. "It's as _you_ like, you know, Mother," he said.




XXV


After that they walked about for a while, but the day was terribly
hot, and all too soon the process of seeing London on foot amid the
dust of a torrid July began to lose its charm for Melia. Besides, had
they not seen the best of London already? Piccadilly Circus, it was
true, was a washout; but they had seen Buckingham Palace, the Houses
of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and the outside of
Madame Tussaud's. Even in such a place as London what else was there to
compare with these glories?

Such skepticism, however, was not according to the book, and the
Special Providence which had been detailed to look after them on this
entrancing day was soon able to bring that fact to their notice. For
when they had come to the quadriga at the southwestern extremity of
the Green Park, an equestrian piece which in the opinion of Corporal
Hollis would have done no discredit to the recognized masterpieces in
Blackhampton's famous gallery, and they had sincerely admired it and
the Corporal had placed his judgment on record, lo! beyond the arch, a
short stone's throw away, a certain Bus, 26 by name, the exact replica
of Bus 49, that immortal machine, was miraculously awaiting them.

Bus 26 was going to the Zoölogical Gardens. And the highly efficient
Special Providence who had the arrangements in hand had contrived to
book two places on the top. That is to say its conductor informed the
Corporal with an indulgent smile that there was just room outside for
one and a little one. Whether the conductor would have extended the
same accommodating politeness to a mere civilian belongs to the region
of conjecture, but room was undoubtedly found for the Corporal's lady,
and by taking upon his knee a future Wellington--under the shadow of
whose effigy the pleasing incident occurred--in the person of a Boy
Scout in full panoply of war, the gallant Corporal contrived to make
room for himself also.

At the Zoölogical Gardens they admired George, although rather glad to
find that he was only a distant relation. They pitied the polar bears,
they shuddered at the pythons, the parrots charmed them, the larger
carnivora impressed them deeply! and then the Corporal looked at his
watch, found it was a quarter to four and promptly ordered an ample
repast for two persons.

The Genie in attendance made no bones at all about finding a small
private table for them, beneath the shade of a friendly deodar which
gave a touch of the Orient to the northwestern postal district and
there they sat for one sweet and memorable hour. Perhaps it was the
sweetest, most memorable hour that life so far had given them. She
admired this man of hers in a way she had long ceased expecting to
admire him; she was proud of him, she was grateful to him for the
great sacrifice he was making. And when the inner Corporal had been
comforted, a crude fellow who has to be humored even in moments of
feeling, and he had lit a Blackhampton Straight Cut, a famous sedative
known from Bond Street to Bagdad, he took the hand of the honest woman
opposite.

Somehow he was glad to think that she belonged to him. The rather pale
face, the careworn eyes, the tired smile were all he had to nerve him
for the task ahead. These his only talisman in this grim hour. Yet, a
true knight, he asked no more. She was his, a homely thing but a good
and faithful one, who had once believed in him, who had come to believe
in him again. He was able to recall the sacrifices she had made for
him, for her faith in him, for her vision of him. As he looked across
at her he felt content to bear the gauge of this honest, doggedly
courageous woman who had helped to buckle on his armor. He must see
that he didn't disgrace her.

There was not much to say to one another. At the best of times they
were seldom articulate. But she was able to tell him that she would be
very lonely without him. And she made him promise solemnly to do his
best to come back to her safely.

"You mean it?" He knew she meant it, but he allowed himself the luxury
of embarrassing her. There was a subtle pleasure in it, even if it was
not quite fair.

"You know I do, Bill. I'll be that lonely."

Poor old girl! Of course she would be lonely. It made him sigh a little
when he thought how lonely she would be. He looked at her with a rather
queer softness in his eyes. Their marriage seemed to have brought them
no luck in anything. A time there had been, a time less than a year
ago, when he had felt very thankful that there had been no children to
hasten their steady, hopeless drift downhill. Now, however, it was a
different story. Poor Melia! Her hand responded to the pressure of his
fingers; and a large tear crept slowly into eyes that had known them
perhaps too seldom.

"Never mind, Mother," he said softly. "I mean to come back."

"Yes, Bill." The words had a curious intensity. "I mean you to.
I've set my mind on it. And if you really set your mind on a thing
happening----"

He loved the spirit in her, even if he felt obliged to touch wood as a
concession to the manes of wisdom. It didn't do to boast in times like
these.

Presently they noticed that the heat was less. Bill looked again at
his watch and then they realized that the hour of parting had drawn
much nearer. Reluctantly they got up and left the gardens, so putting
an end to an hour of life they would never forget. Then arm in arm
they walked to Euston which was not far off, where the Corporal
retrieved his kit from the Canteen and exchanged a valedictory smile
with a R.S.P., although he didn't feel like smiling. Thence by Tube
to Waterloo. It was their first experience of this medium of travel.
Even in Blackhampton, in so many ways the home of modernity, Tubes were
unknown; they seemed exclusively, rather bewilderingly, metropolitan.

The attendant Genie had to be watchful indeed to prevent their going
all round London en route from Euston to Waterloo, but it was so
alive to its duties that they were only once baffled and then but
temporarily. Thus in the end they found themselves on a seat on
Platform Six with a full hour to wait for the Southampton train.

She left him at the carriage door, a few minutes before he was due out
on his own grim journey, so that she might have plenty of time to catch
the train for the north. Minute instructions had to be given to enable
her to do this, for London is a bewildering maze to those not up to its
ways. But the Corporal's lady had a typical Blackhampton head, a thing
cool, resolute, hardy in the presence of any severe demand upon it; and
he was quite sure, and she was quite sure, that she would be able to
catch the 8:55 from Euston, no matter what traps were laid for her.

It was a very simple good-by, but yet they were torn by it in a way
they had hardly expected. She with her worn face and tired eyes was all
there was to hold him to life--she and a terrible, impersonal sense
of duty which seemed to frighten him almost. As he watched the drab
figure disappear among the crowd on the long platform he couldn't help
wondering....

But it was no use wondering. He must set his teeth and get his head
down and try to stick it no matter what the dark fates had in store.




XXVI


The Corporal even at his best was not a great hand at writing letters.
And the series he wrote from France did not flatter his powers. Really
they told hardly anything and that which they did tell might have
been far more vividly rendered. Still in the eyes of Melia they were
precious; and they did something to soften months of loneliness and
toil.

One other gleam there was in that sore time; a fitful one, no doubt,
and the ray it cast upon her life so dubious, that, all things
considered, it meant small comfort. Yet, perhaps, it may have been
wrong not to accept this doubtful boon more gratefully.

One morning, about a fortnight after Bill's departure for France, her
father paid one of his periodical visits to Love Lane. Since W. Hollis
Fruiterer had taken a turn for the better he was content with a monthly
survey instead of a weekly one in order to assure himself that the
enterprise was shipshape and its affairs in order.

Melia's reception of her father was invariably cool. She had a proud,
unyielding nature, and Josiah's tardy concession to the sternness of
the times even if it had thawed the ice a little had not really melted
it. Neither was quite at ease in the presence of the other; in both
was a smoldering resentment and the spirit of unforgiveness.

The books, on inspection, proved to be in very fair order. They were
carefully and neatly kept and, in comparison with the state of affairs
before a business man came on the scene to direct them, they showed a
refreshing change for the better. The accounts had been made up to the
half year. And as a result of eight months trading under new conditions
there was a clear profit of forty-five pounds after a full allowance
for expenses.

Josiah expressed himself well satisfied. In common with the great
majority of his race, material success was the shrine at which he
worshiped. Success in this case, moreover, was doubly gratifying; it
lent point to his own foresight and judgment and it exhibited a latent
capacity in his eldest daughter. Time alone would be able to disperse
the bitterness he cherished against her in his heart, but it did him
good to feel that she was not wholly a fool and that in some quite
important particulars she was a chip of the old block.

He congratulated her solemnly in the manner of a Chairman of Directors
addressing a General Manager and hoped she would go on as she had
begun. Resentful as she still was, she was secretly flattered by the
compliment; and she hastened to offer to repay the sum he had advanced
for the satisfaction of the former creditors.

"Let it stand over," he said, "until your position's a bit firmer."

She insisted, but he was not to be shaken; and then, as was his way
when at a loss for an argument, he gave the contest of wills a new,
unexpected turn. "Doing anything particular Sunday afternoon?"

No, she was not doing a thing particular.

"Better come up home and have a cup of tea with us." Then in a tone
less impersonal: "Your mother would like to see you."

The blood rushed over Melia's face. At first she feigned not to hear,
but that did not help her. Dignity had many demands to make, but the
brusque insistence of this father of hers seemed to cut away the ground
on which it stood.

"Say what time and I'll send the car for you."

The tone was so final that anything she could raise in the way of
protest seemed weakly ridiculous. But the car for _her_! She didn't
want the car and she mustered force enough to say so.

"Might as well have it. Doing nothing Sunday. Save you a climb up the
hill this hot weather."

Of one thing, however, she was quite sure. She didn't want the car.
This recent and remarkable expression of her father's wealth and
ever-growing social importance had taken the form of a superb motor
and a smart lady chauffeur in the neatest of green liveries which
already she had happened to see on two occasions in Waterloo Square.
No, such a vehicle was not for her; and she contrived to say so with
the bluntness demanded by the circumstances, yet tempered a little by a
certain regard for anything her father might be able to muster in the
way of feelings.

"Might as well make use of it," he said. "Eating its head off Sunday
afternoon."

But she remained quite firm. The car was not for her.

"Well, it's there for you if you want it." His air was majestic.
"Better pay that money into the bank. And I shall tell your mother to
expect you Sunday tea time."

It was left at that. He had gained both his points. The third was
subsidiary; it didn't matter. All the same it was like Josiah to raise
it as a cover for those that did.




XXVII


Melia was frankly annoyed with herself for not having put up a better
resistance. The sight of her father strutting down the street with
the honors of war upon him was a little too much for her. He had been
guilty of sixteen years of tyrannical cruelty and she was unable to
forgive. In those sixteen years she had suffered bitterly and her
stubborn nature had great powers of resentment.

Who was he that he should walk down Love Lane not merely as if he owned
it--in sober truth he now owned half--but also the souls of the people
who lived there? She could not help resenting that invincible flare,
that overweening success, particularly when she compared it with the
fecklessness of the man she had so imprudently married. After all, she
was the first-born of this vain image and she knew his shortcomings
better than he knew them himself. He had had more than his share of
luck. No matter what the world might think of him, however fortune
might treat him, he was not worthy of the position he had come to
occupy.

As soon as the ponderous broadcloth back had turned the corner of Love
Lane and was lost in that strong-moving stream, Mulcaster Road, she
made up her mind that she would not go up to tea on Sunday afternoon.
It was not that he really cared whether she went or not; had he done so
he would have asked her sooner. Maybe his conscience was pricking him
a bit, but he was not one to be much troubled in that way. In any case
let it hurt him--so much the better if it did. This was a matter in
which she would like him to be hurt as he had never been hurt before.

Here again, however, her father had an unfair advantage. If she stayed
away on Sunday she might punish him a little--and even that was
doubtful--but she would certainly punish her mother far more. And she
had not the slightest wish to do that. She was sorry for her mother,
whose sins of omission sprang from weakness of character. Nature had
placed her in a very different category. She had fought this tyrant as
hard as it was in her to fight any one, but she was one of nature's
underlings whose lot was always to be trampled on.

Alas, if Melia didn't turn up on Sunday it was her mother who would
suffer. And it was a matter in which she had suffered too much already.
Melia had no particular affection now remaining for her mother; she
even despised her for being so poor a creature, but at least her only
crime was weakness and it was hardly fair that she should endure more
than was necessary. Melia's was rather a masculine nature in some ways;
at any rate her father and she had one trait in common. They had a
sense of justice. Hence she was now on the horns of a dilemma.

It was not until Sunday itself, after morning service at Saint
George's, that the decision was finally made. And then fortified by
Mr. Bontine, a clergyman for whom Melia had a regard, she decided much
against her inclination to go up to The Rise in the afternoon. It was
a reluctant decision, made in soreness of heart; the only satisfaction
to be got out of it would arise from the dubious process which the
reverend gentleman described as "conquest of self."

She set out rather later than she meant to, in a decidedly heavy mood.
And it was not made lighter by the fact that the afternoon was sultry
with the promise of thunder, and that the long and tedious climb to
The Rise had to be made without the help of the tram on which she had
counted. Long before the trams from the Market Place had reached the
end of Love Lane they were full to overflowing, as she ought to have
known they would be on a fine Sunday afternoon in the middle of the
summer. In the process of painfully mounting the stuffy length of mean
streets to achieve the space and grandeur of The Rise she grew vexed
and hot. When at last she reached the famous eminence she was far
indeed from the frame of mind proper to the paying of a call in its
exclusive society. But it served her right. She should have stayed at
home, or at least have allowed the motor to be sent for her.

As it was, it was nearly five o'clock when, limp and fagged, she
came at last in view of the many-windowed, much-gabled elevation of
Strathfieldsaye. In spite of herself the sight of it made her feel
nervous. It was the home of her father and mother, but its note
of grandeur gave her a cruel sense of her own inadequacy. At the
brilliantly painted gate she lingered a moment. Courage was called for
to walk up the broad gravel path as far as the porch with its fine oak
door studded with brass nails.

At last, however, she went up and rang the bell. An extremely grand
parlor maid received her almost scornfully, and led her across
a slippery but superb entrance hall which was disconcertingly
magnificent. It was hard to grasp at that moment that such an interior
was the creation of her commonplace parents, harder still to believe
that this servant whose clothes and manners were superior to her own
was at their beck and call.

However, she would go through the ordeal now she had got so far. But
this afternoon luck was heavily against her. The ordeal proved to be
more severe than even her gloomiest moments had foreshadowed. She was
ushered just as she was, in her shabby hat and much mended gloves,
straight into the drawing-room into the midst of company. And the
company was of the kind she would have given much to avoid.

She had hoped that she might find her mother alone, or at the worst,
drinking tea with her father. Instead, the first person she saw was
the insufferable Gertrude Preston, that mass of airs and graces which
always enabled their wearer to stand out in Melia's mind as all that
a woman ought not to be. And as if the sight of Gertrude was not
sufficiently chilling and embarrassing, the second person she realized
as being present was her own stuck-up sister Ethel, invariably known
in the family as Mrs. Doctor Cockburn. She was accompanied, however,
by her two children, little peacocks of six and seven, spoiled fluffy
masses of pink ribbons and conceit.

Last of all was her mother. She was always last in any assembly.
Somehow she never seemed to count. In the old days even in her own
home she could always be talked down, or put out of countenance or
elbowed to the wall; and now, after the flight of years, in these grand
surroundings, she had not altered in the least. She still had the eyes
of a rabbit and a fat hand that wobbled; and on Melia's entrance into
the room Gerty and Ethel at once took the lead of her in the way they
had always taken it.

"Why, I do declare!" Gerty rose at once with cleverly simulated
surprise tempered by a certain stock brand of archness, kept always on
tap, and unfailingly effective in moments of sudden crisis or emotional
tension. "How are you, Amelia?" She would have liked to offer her
cheek, but the look in Amelia's eyes forbade her risking it. Therefore,
a hand had to suffice, an elegant hand, but a wary one which met with
scant ceremony.

Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, also rose, but not immediately. "Glad to
see you, Amelia."

Melia knew it was a lie on Ethel's part, and had she had a little more
self-possession might have been moved to say so.

The three daughters of Mr. Josiah Munt marked three stages in his
meteoric career. Melia, the eldest, was the child of the primitive
era. Compared with her sisters she was almost a savage. Between her
and Ethel had been a boy, Josiah, whose birth had nearly killed Maria
and who had died untimely in his babyhood. She was not allowed in
consequence to bear any more children for ten years, and Ethel was the
natural fruit of the interregnum. Ethel was generally allowed to be
the masterpiece of the family. Five years after her had come Sally who
perhaps in point of time and opportunity should have put out the light
even of Ethel; but in her case it seemed the blessed word progress had
moved a little too fast. Sally, as the world knew only too well, was
over-educated; from the uplands of high intellectual development Sally
had slipped over the precipice into a mental and moral abyss.

From the social and even the physical standpoint Ethel was indubitably
the pick of Mr. Josiah Munt's three daughters. And Mrs. Doctor's rather
frigid reception of her eldest sister showed a nice perception of
the fact. Amelia had thrown her back to a prehistoric phase. She had
something of the air and manner of a charwoman. When she entered the
room, little shivers had crept down Ethel's sensitive spine. She could
hardly bear to look at her.

Melia also felt very uncomfortable. She couldn't find a word to say
and the children stared at her. But she sat on the edge of a chair
that Gerty provided; tea, bread and butter and cake were given her;
she began to eat and drink mechanically, but still she felt strangely
hostile and unhappy. She resented the bright plumage, the amazing
prosperity of those among whom she had been born; above all, she
resented Ethel's superciliousness and Gerty's patronage. Ethel, of
course, had a right to be supercilious, and that fact was an added
barb. Her light shone. SHE was the only one who had shed any luster
on the family; her marriage with a doctor rising to eminence in the
town was a model of judicious ambition. Ethel "had done very well for
herself," and even the set of her hat, black tulle and white feathers
and the opulent lines of her spotted muslin dress, seemed to proclaim
it. Her bearing completed the picture. She had not been in the same
room with Amelia for many years, although she had passed her once or
twice in the street without speaking; and at the moment her judicious
mind was fully engaged with the problem as to whether Gwenneth and
Gwladys could or could not call her "Auntie." Finally, but not at
once, the answer was in the negative.

Amelia, without a word to say for herself, and suffering acutely from
a social awkwardness which a lonely life in sordid circumstances had
made much worse, was altogether out of it. Ethel and Gerty had charm
and elegance; they spoke a different language; they might have belonged
to a different race. Amelia's natural ally should have been her mother.
They had much in common but that depressed and inefficient woman was
nearly as tongue-tied as her eldest daughter. Ethel and Gerty were
almost as far beyond the range of Maria as they were beyond the range
of Amelia; their expensive clothes and their correct talk of This and
That and These and Those, with clear, high-pitched intonation filled
her with dismay. Maria, even in her own drawing-room, was in such awe
of them that she could make no overtures to Amelia, although she simply
longed to point to the vacant sofa beside her and to say, "Come and sit
over here, my dear."

The eldest daughter of the house bitterly regretted the folly that had
brought her among them again after so many years of outlawry. But in
a few minutes her father came in and then she got on better. He was
the real cause of her present sufferings, but his own freedom from
self-consciousness or the least tendency to pose amid surroundings
which seemed to crave that form of weakness was exactly what the
situation called for.

"Hulloa, Melia," he said heartily. "Pleased to see you, gel." His lips
saluted her cheek with a loud smack. There was not a suspicion of false
shame about him. He was master in his own house at any rate. And when
he made up his mind to do a thing he did it thoroughly. "What do you
think on 'em?" He pointed to his grandchildren rather proudly. "That's
Gwennie. And that's Gladdie. This is your Auntie Melia."

The ears of Mrs. Doctor Cockburn began to burn a little as the eyes of
Gwennie and Gladdie grew rounder and rounder.

"Gladdie favors her ma. Don't you think so, eh? And they've both got a
look of Grandma--what?"

"I see a look of you, you know, Josiah," said Auntie Gerty with an air
of immense discretion.

"Um. Maybe. Have they had any strawberries, Grandma?"

Their mother thought they ought not to have strawberries, but their
grandfather was convinced that a few would not hurt them and chose half
a dozen himself from a blue dish on the tea table and presented them
personally.

"There, Gwenneth, what do you say?" Mrs. Doctor Cockburn's own mouth
was full of prunes and prisms. "Thank you what--thank you, Grandpa."

"That's a good little gel." There was a geniality, an indulgence, in
the tone of Josiah that he had never thought of extending to his own
children in their nursery days. "And I tell you what, Ma--if they get a
pain under their pinnies they must blame their old grand-dad."

Altogether, a pleasant episode, and to everybody, Gwenneth and Gwladys
included, a welcome diversion.

"Have some more tea, Melia." Her father took her cup from her in spite
of the protest her tongue was unable to utter and handed it to the
inefficient lady in charge of the teapot. "And you must have a few
strawberries. Fresh picked out of the garden. Ethel, touch that bell."

Mrs. Doctor, with an air of resolute fineladyism, pressed the electric
button at her elbow. The grand parlor maid entered with a smile of
imperfectly concealed cynicism.

"Alice, more cream!"

Melia wondered how even her father was able to address Alice in that
way; but his coolness ministered to the reluctant respect he was
arousing in her by his manly attitude to his own grandeur.

The cream appeared. Gwenneth and Gwladys were forbidden to have
any--their lives so far had been a series of negations and
inhibitions--but Melia had some, although she didn't want it, but the
will of her father was greater than her powers of resistance. And then
he said to her, "When you've had your tea, I'll show you the greenus."

"Conservatory, Josiah," said Aunt Gerty with an arch preen of features
and a show of plumage. "Much too big for a mere greenhouse."

"Greenus is more homelike, Gert. What do you say, Mother?" He laughed
almost gayly at Maria. The eldest daughter was amazed at the change
that seemed to be coming over her father. In the dismal days of
drudgery and gloomy terrorism at the public house in Waterloo Square
which now seemed so far away in the past, there was not a trace of this
large and rich geniality. Prosperity, power, worldly success must have
mellowed her father as well as enlarged him. He seemed so much bigger
now, so much riper, he seemed to care more for others.

Ethel and Gertrude were quite put into the shade by the force and the
heartiness of Josiah, but Mrs. Doctor was not one lightly to play
second fiddle to any member of her own family. "I hear," she said,
pitching her voice upon an almost perilous note of fashion--there
was even a suspicion of a drawl which brought an involuntary curl to
Melia's lip--"that young Nixey, the architect, has been recommended for
the M.C."

"Has he so?" Josiah's eye lighted up over his suspended teacup. "I've
always said there was something in that young Nixey. And I'm not often
mistaken. He designed that row of cottages I built down Bush Lane."

"A row of cottages in Bush Lane, have you, Josiah?" said Aunt Gerty
with an air of statesmanlike interest. "You seem to be what they call
going into bricks and mortar."

"You bet I am--for some time now. And bricks and mortar are not going
to get less in value if this war keeps on, take it from me."

"I suppose not," said Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, a judge of values.

"I've one regret." It was not like Josiah to harbor regrets of any
kind, and Aunt Gerty visibly adjusted her mind to hear something
memorable. "That young Nixey's as smart as paint. I nearly let him
have the contract for this house. In some ways he might have suited us
better."

"But this house is splendid," said Gerty with flagrant optimism. She
knew in her heart that the house was too splendid.

"Young Nixey's idea was something neater, more in the Mossop style. I
didn't see at the time, so I got Rawlins to do it to my own design. Of
course, what I didn't like about Nixey was that he would have it that
he knew better than I did, and I'm not sure----" Josiah hovered on the
brink of a very remarkable admission.

"I don't agree, Josiah. This house is almost perfect." The specious
Gertrude was amazed that he of all men should be so near a confession
that he might have been wrong. Dark influences were at work in him
evidently.

"I agree with you, Father." Mrs. Doctor had nothing of Gerty's finesse.
"The Gables is so refined, a house for a gentleman."

"Don't know about that," Josiah frowned. "Never heard of a house being
refined. Comes to that, this place is good enough for me, any time." If
he went so far as to own that he might have been wrong it was clearly
the duty of others to hasten to contradict him. "But The Gables is more
compact. More comfort somehow, and less show."

"Stands in less ground, must have cost less," said Gerty softly.
"Compared to Strathfieldsaye, The Gables to my mind is rather
niggardly."

"That is so, Gert." He nodded approvingly. She was always there with
the right word. "All the same I believe in that young Nixey. Started,
you know, at the Council School. Won a scholarship at the University.
Why, I remember his mother when she used to come to the Duke of
Wellington and sew for Maria. Done everything for himself. And now he's
a commissioned officer in the B.B. Give honor where honor's due, I say."

Gerty and Ethel agreed, perhaps a little reluctantly. Maria expressed
a tacit approval. And then Melia made the discovery that her mind had
wandered as far as France; and for a moment or so the world's pressure
upon her felt a little less stifling.

"Wonderful, how that young man's got on!" There was reverence in the
tone of Gerty whose religion was "getting on."

"It is." Josiah was emphatic. "You can't hold some people back. I give
him another ten years to be the first architect in this town ... if he
comes through This."

"It's a big 'if.'" Before the words were out of Gerty's mouth she
remembered Amelia's husband and wished them unsaid. She had not had the
courage to mention William Hollis with poor Amelia so rigidly on the
defensive, but she had hoped that some one would introduce the subject
so that a tribute might be paid him. But no one had done so, and now
that Josiah was there the time seemed to have gone by. His views in
regard to Amelia's husband were far too definite to be challenged
lightly.

Interest in young Nixey, the architect, began to wane and then suddenly
Ethel startled them all by the statement that she had just had a letter
from Sally.

Josiah's geniality promptly received a coating of ice. His mouth closed
like a trap. Sally had not been forgiven by her father and those who
knew him best had the least hope that she would be. Her conduct had
struck him in a very tender place, and Gerty could not help thinking
that it was most imprudent of Ethel to mention Sally in his presence
in any circumstances.

Ethel, however, had long ceased to fear her father. For one thing, in
the eyes of the world her position was too secure. Besides, she was
obtuse. Where angels, etc., Mrs. Doctor could always be trusted to
walk with a certain measure of assurance, mainly because she didn't
see things and feel things in the way that most people did. For that
reason she was not at all disconcerted by the silence that followed
her announcement. And she supplemented it with another which compelled
Gerty, the adroit, to steal a veiled glance at the sphinx-like face of
her brother-in-law.

"She writes from Serbia, giving a long and wonderful account of her
doings with the Red Cross. I think I have her letter with me." Ethel
opened a green morocco bag that was on the sofa beside her. "Yes ...
here it is ... a long account. Care to read it, Father?" She offered
the letter unconcernedly to Josiah.

He shook his head somberly. "I'll not read it now."

"Let me leave it with you. Well worth reading. But I'd like to have it
back."

"No, take it with you, gel." The words were sharp. "Haven't much time
for reading anything these days. Happen I'll lose it or something." It
was lame and obvious, but Josiah had been taken too much by surprise
to do anything better. Gerty was annoyed with Ethel. She had no right
to be so tactless. None knew so well as Ethel the state of the case
in regard to Sally. At the same time Gerty's respect for Josiah which
amounted to genuine regard was a little wounded. He ought to have been
big enough to have read the letter.

Ethel had contrived to banish the ease and the sunshine from the
proceedings. The light of genial humor in the eyes of her father
yielded to the truculence of that earlier epoch so familiar to Amelia.
It was a great pity that it should be so; and after a tense moment the
gallant Gerty did her best to pour oil on the vexed waters. "The other
day in the _Tribune_ they were praising you finely, Josiah."

"Was they?" The King's English was not his strong point in moments of
tension. But in any moment, as Gerty knew, he had his share of the
legitimate vanity of the rising publicist. "What did they say?"

"The _Tribune_ said you deserved well, not only of your fellow
townsmen, but of the country at large for the excellent work you had
done in the last nine months for the national cause. They said your
work on the Recruiting and Munitions Committees had been most valuable."

Josiah was visibly mollified by this piping. "Very decent of the
_Tribune_."

"You'll make an excellent mayor, Josiah. Your turn next year, isn't it?"

Josiah nodded. The light came again into his eyes. "There's no saying
what sort of a mayor I'll make. It's a stiff job when you come to
tackle it. Big responsibility in times like these."

"You are not the man to shirk responsibility."

Josiah allowed that he was not, but the office of mayor in a place like
Blackhampton in times like these was no sinecure for a man with a sense
of civic duty. Once more he clouded. From what he heard things were
looking pretty bad. If England was going to win the war she should have
to find a better set of brains.

"But surely the Allies are quite as clever as the Germans?"

"They may be, but they haven't shown it so far. We are a scratch lot of
amateurs against a team of trained professionals. The raw material is
just as good, if not better, but it takes time to lick it in to shape.
And we've got to learn to use it." His gloom deepened. "Still we shall
never give in to the Hun ... not in a hundred years."

Ethel concurred in this robust sentiment. And then again she obtusely
referred to Sally's letter. It was such a wonderful letter that her
father really ought to read it. He was clearly annoyed by her tactless
persistence. In order to cloak his feelings he called upon Melia in the
old peremptory way to come and look at his tomatoes.

As they rose for that purpose, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn rose also. She must
really be going; it was the cook's evening out. Gwenneth and Gwladys
were bidden to say good-by to Grandpa. They did so shyly but rather
prettily.

"Now let me see you shake hands with your Auntie Melia," said Josiah.

Gwenneth and Gwladys accomplished this task less successfully. They
were half terrified by this shabby, gloomy, silent woman who had not a
word to say.




XXVIII


Weeks went by and Melia settled down to a hard and lonely winter in
Love Lane. She missed Bill sadly now he was no longer there. Absence
had conferred all sorts of virtues upon him. She quite forgot that for
many years and up till very recently she could hardly bear the sight of
him about the place. Their relations as man and wife had entered upon a
new and very remarkable phase.

About once a fortnight or so life was made a bit lighter for her
by a penciled scrawl from somewhere in France. Bill's letters told
surprisingly little, yet he maintained a kind of grim cheeriness and
seemed more concerned for the life she might be leading than for
anything that was happening to himself. He was very grateful for the
small comforts she sent him from time to time, he was much interested
in the continued prosperity of the business, and he mentioned with
evident pleasure that her mother had sent him a pair of socks and a
comforter she had knitted herself, also a "nice letter."

From his mother-in-law, whom Bill had always suspected of being a
good sort at heart, "if the Old Un would give her a chance," he had
an account of Melia's visit to Strathfieldsaye. Her mother said what
pleasure it would give her father if she would go there every Sunday.
The statement was incredible on the face of it; Bill frankly didn't
know what to think, but there it was. No doubt the old girl meant
kindly. Perhaps it was her idea of bucking him up.

In his letters to Melia he made no comment on the life he was leading,
but in one he told her that they had moved up into the Line; in another
that "the Boche had got it in the neck"; in another that "he had got
the rheumatics so that he could hardly move," but that he meant to
carry on as long as possible, adding, "We are very short of men."

Somehow the letters of that dark winter made her more proud than ever
of this man of hers. There was a determined note of quiet cheerfulness
that she had never known in him before. Instead of the eternal
grumbling that had done so much to embitter her, there was a tone of
whimsical humor which at a time made her laugh, although as a general
rule few people found it harder than she did to laugh at anything. She
had little imagination, still less of the penetration of mind that goes
with it, but there was one phrase he used that was hard to forget.
In one letter he was tempted to complain that the Boche had taken to
raiding them in the middle of the night, but he added a postscript,
"It's no use growsing here."

Somehow that phrase stuck in her mind. When she rose before daylight
in the bitter mornings of midwinter to light the kitchen fire and
prepare a meal she would have to eat alone, she would remember those
words which he of all men had used, he who was a born growser if ever
there was one. "It's no use growsing here." She tried to take in their
meaning, but the task was not easy. He wrote so cheerfully that he
could hardly mean what he said. And it was his nearest approach to
complaint, he whose life in peace time had been one long complaint. Now
and again she read in the _Tribune_ of things that made her shiver.
Sometimes in the winter darkness she awoke with these things in her
mind. Bill's letters, however, gave no details. If he spoke of "a
scrap," he did so casually, without embroidery, yet she remembered that
once when he had cut his thumb, not very badly, he fainted at the sight
of blood.

Such letters were a puzzle; they told so little. She couldn't make them
out. Reading between the lines, he seemed to be enjoying life more
than he had ever done, he seemed to realize the humor of it more. It
was very strange that it should be so, especially on the part of one
who had always taken things so hard. In one letter he said that spring
was coming and that the look of the sky made him think of the crocuses
along Sharrow Lane, and then added as a brief postscript, "Stanning's
gone."

Some weeks later he wrote from the Base to say that "he had had a whiff
of gas, nothing to speak of," but that he was out of the Line for a
bit. And then after a cheerful letter or two in the meantime, he wrote
a month later to say that he had got leave for ten days and that he was
coming home.

It was the middle of June when he turned up in Love Lane late one
evening, without notice, laden like a beast of burden, looking very
brown and well but terribly worn and shabby. So much had he changed
in appearance that Melia felt it would have been easy to pass him in
the street without recognizing him. He was thin and gray, even his
features, and particularly his eyes, seemed to have altered. The tone
of his voice was different; he spoke in a different way; the words and
phrases he used were not those of the William Hollis she had always
known.

He was glad to be back in his home, if only for a few days, and the
sight of him with his heavy pack and his gas mask and his helmet laid
on the new linoleum in the little sitting room behind the shop gave her
a deeper pleasure than anything life had offered her so far. Strange
as he was, new almost to the point of being somebody else, the mere
sight of him thrilled her. She was thrilled to the verge of happiness.
It was something beyond any previous emotion. Long ago she had given
up believing that ever again he would appeal to her in the way of that
brief time which had been once and had passed so soon.

He took off his heavy boots and lit his pipe and seemed childishly
glad to be home again. But he didn't talk much. He sighed luxuriously
and smiled at her in his odd new way, yet he was interested in the
excellent supper she gave him presently and in the account she
furnished of the business which was still on an ascending curve of
prosperity. The old wound, still unhealed, would not allow her to
praise her father, but there was more than one instance to offer of
that tardy repentance; and it was hard to repress a note of pride when
she announced that he was now Mayor of Blackhampton and by all accounts
a good one.

She tried to get her husband to speak of France, but some instinct
soon made it clear to her that he wanted to forget it. He could not be
induced to speak of his experiences, made light of his "whiff of gas,"
but confessed it was hell all the time; he also said that the German
was not a clean fighter. As he sat opposite to her, eating his supper,
his reticence made it impossible for her to realize what he had been
through. He did not seem to realize it himself, except that in a subtle
way he was altogether changed.

He was eight days at home and they spent a lot of the time together.
They had a new kind of intimacy; the world of men and affairs had
altered for them both. Everything came to them at a fresh angle. They
were dwellers in another atmosphere. The most commonplace actions meant
much more; events once of comparatively large importance meant much
less. She half suggested that they should go up on Sunday afternoon
to Strathfieldsaye, but the idea evidently did not appeal to him and
she did not press it. Still she threw out the hint, because it was an
opportunity to let bygones be bygones and she was sure that he would
meet with a good reception. A sense of justice impelled her to be
grateful to her father, much as she disliked him; in his domineering
way he had tried to make amends; all the same she was not sorry that
Bill was determined to hold himself aloof. It was not exactly that he
bore a grudge against her father; at the point he had reached men did
not bear grudges, but he had some decided views on the matter and they
gained in power by not being expressed.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, which was early closing day in
Blackhampton, Bill insisted on taking Melia to the Art Gallery. It was
in the historic low-roofed building in New Square--which dated from
the Romans--known as the old Moot Hall. It was now the home of one
of the finest collections of pictures in the country. Among ancient
masterpieces and some modern ones were several characteristic examples
of his friend, Stanning, R.A., whom he had carried dying into a dugout
not four months ago.

Corporal Hollis had it from Sergeant Stanning's own lips that the
best picture he had ever painted was hung in the middle room, and
that it was not the Sharrow at Corfield Weir, which the Corporal
himself admired so much, but the smaller, less ambitious piece called,
"The Leaves of the Tree"--a picture of the woods up at Dibley in the
sunlight of October, stripped by the winds of autumn, with the bent
figure in the foreground of a very old man raking the dead leaves
together.

They had no difficulty in finding it. "As the leaves of the trees are
the lives of men." That legend on the gilt frame seemed to them both at
that moment strangely, terribly prophetic. Bill did not tell Melia as
they stood in front of the picture that he had risked his own life in
a vain attempt to save the man who had painted it, nor did he tell her
that the blood of the artist had dyed the sleeves of his tunic.

The large room was empty and they sat down solemnly on the settee in
front of this canvas, looking at it in silence, yet as they did so
holding the hand of each other like a pair of children. Once before had
they sat there, in the early days of their marriage, when he had talked
to her of those ambitions that were never to materialize. And now,
again, with the spirit of peace upon him and stirred by old memories,
he sighed to himself and spoke for a moment or two of what might have
been. One of these days he had hoped to do something. He had always
intended to do something but the time had slipped away.

They were still sitting there looking at the picture when two people
came into the room. One was a commonplace elderly woman, the other
a young man in khaki. Although they were totally unlike in the
superficialities of outward bearing it was easy to tell that they were
mother and son. His trained movements and upright carriage, his poise
and alertness, were not able to conceal an odd resemblance to the
wholly different person at his side.

William and Melia were concealed by the high-backed, wide-armed settee
on which they sat; and as these two people came up the room and took up
a position behind it, they did not seem to realize that they could be
overheard.

"I want you, mother," said the young man in an eager voice, "to look
at what to my mind is the picture of this collection. Stand here and
you'll get it just right."

The Corporal and his lady on the high-backed settee offered a silent
prayer that the young man had as much wisdom and taste as the owner
of such a clear, confident voice ought to have. "As the leaves of the
tree are the lives of men." The Corporal breathed more freely; the
young man's voice had not belied him. "Homer's words." He reeled off
pat a large-sounding foreign language. "I want you to catch the ghost
of the sun glancing through these wind-torn branches. You'll get the
light if you stand just here. Wonderful composition ... wonderful
vision ... wonderful harmony ... wonderful everything. The big artists
feel with their eyes." It was charming to hear the voice in its
enthusiasm. "They look behind the curtain of appearances as you might
say. The life of man is but the shadow of a shadow ... you remember
that bit of Lucretius I read you last night? Look at the figure in
the foreground gathering the leaves. Modern critics say symbolism
is not art, but it depends on how it's done, doesn't it? The eyes of
the mind ... imagination ... and that's the only key we have to the
Riddle of the Sphinx." He ran on and on, laughing like a child. "Look
at his color. And how spacious!--imagination there!--the harmony, the
drawing! A marvelous draughtsman. If he'd lived he'd have been a second
Torrington, although you hear people say that Torrington couldn't
draw." He laughed like a schoolboy and then his voice fell. "I like to
think that Jim Stanning was one of us, that he was born among us, and
it's good to think that our old one-horse Art Committee has had the
luck to buy his magnum opus without knowing it. They paid twice as much
for Corfield Weir in the other room, which is not in the same class.
However ... posterity...."

Prattling on and on the young man came round the corner of the settee,
followed by the old lady.

And then his flow of words failed suddenly as he caught a glimpse of
William and Melia, whose presence he had been far from suspecting. His
little start of guilt betrayed a feeling that he had made rather an ass
of himself, for he said half shamefacedly, "Come on, my dear, let's go
and look at the Weir. We'll come back here later." The Corporal and his
lady could only catch a glimpse of him as he led his mother abruptly
into the next room; but Melia saw he was an officer with two pips on
his sleeve and that his tunic was adorned with a tiny strip of white
and purple ribbon with a star on it. In answer to her questions the
Corporal was able to inform her that the young man was a Captain in the
B.B. and that his decorations was the M.C. with Bar.

"And he looks so young!" said Melia.

"A very good soldier," said the Corporal with a professional air.

"Who is he, Bill? I seem to remember his mother."

"It's young Nixey, the architect."

Of course! But his uniform had altered him. He looked so handsome. And
that was Emma Nixey--Emma Price that was. How proud she must be to have
a boy like that!

"He's a good soldier." The deep voice of the Corporal broke in upon
Melia's thoughts. "A good soldier--that young feller."

"Bill, you remember Emma Price that used to live at the bottom of
Piper's Hill?" There was a note of envy in the tone of Melia.

"I remember old Price, the cobbler."

"Emma was his eldest girl--no, not the eldest. Polly who married Ford,
the ironmonger, was the eldest. Emma was the second. Married Harry
Nixey, whose mother kept the all-sorts shop in Curwood Street. A
drunken fellow, but very clever at his trade. Bolted with another woman
when this lad Harold was twelve months old. Emma never saw nor heard of
him again. Went to Australia, people said at the time. But I'll say
this for Emma, she was always a good plucked one."

There was a moment of silence and then the Corporal demanded weightily,
"Has she any others?"

"He's the only one. But brought up very respectable ... she's managed
to give him a rare good education. How she did it nobody knows.
Tremendous worker, was Emma. But that boy does her credit, I must say."

"He does that." The Corporal stared hard at the picture in front of
him. "Nothing like education." He sighed softly. "If only I'd had a bit
of education I sometimes think I might have done something myself."




XXIX


On the afternoon of the day before the Corporal returned to France he
went with Melia by bus to Sharrow Bridge and they walked thence to
Corfield Weir. Many hours had he spent with rod and tackle in this
hallowed spot. Those were the only hours in his drab life that he would
have desired to live over again. Many a good fish had he played in the
bend of the river below the famous Corfield Glade, much commemorated by
the local poets in whom the town and county were exceptionally rich. In
particular there was the legend of the fair Mary Corfield who in the
days of Queen Bess had cast herself for love of an honest yeoman into
the deep waters of the Sharrow. From Bill's favorite tree, where from
boyhood he had spun so many dreams that had come to naught, could be
seen the high chimneys of the Old Hall, the home of the ill-fated Mary,
about whose precincts her ghost still walked and was occasionally seen.

The day was perfect, a rare golden opulence of sky and earth with a
sheen of beauty on wood and field and flowing water. They came to
the little gnarled clump of alders, his old-time friends, whom the
swift-flowing Sharrow was always threatening to devour, and lay side
by side in the shade, on the dry grass, listening to the great rats
plopping into the cool water.

Both were very silent at first; it was as if nature spoke to them in a
new way. It was as if their eyes were bathed in a magical light. All
the things around them were clearer in outline, brighter, sharper, more
visible. Their ears, too, were attuned to a higher intensity. The swirl
of the water, the rustle of leaves, the cry of the birds, the little
voice of the wind, were more intimate, more harmonious, more audibly
full of meaning. The world itself had never seemed so richly amazing,
so gorgeously inexhaustible as at that moment.

At last the Corporal broke a very long silence. "Mother, it's something
to have lived."

Melia did not answer at once, but presently she sighed a little and
said, "I wonder, Bill."

He plucked a spear of grass. "It's a rum thing to say, but if it hadn't
been for this war I don't suppose I ever should have lived, really."

She didn't understand him, and her large round eyes, a little like
those of a cow, told him so.

"I've always been thinking too much about it, you see." His voice was
curiously gentle. "All my life, as you might say, I've always been
telling myself what a wonderful day it was going to be to-morrow. But
to-morrow never comes, you see. And you keep on thinking, thinking,
until you suddenly find that to-morrow was yesterday. That's how it was
with me. And if I hadn't had the guts to join up just when I did, my
belief is I should never have lived at all. Understand me?"

She shook a placid head at him, not understanding him in the least. But
this was the mood in which he had first captured her, in which he had
first impressed her with his intellectual quality, for which, as a raw
girl, who knew nothing about anything, she had had a sort of reverence.
But as she had come to see, it was this very power of mind, which she
had told herself was not shared by other, more common men, that had
been his undoing, that had brought them both to the verge of ruin. It
was fine and all that, but it didn't mean anything. It was just a kink
in the machine which prevented it from working properly.

The tears sprang to her eyes as she listened to him, and her youth and
his came back to her, but she turned her face to the river so that he
could not see it. Still it was not all pain to hear him talking. It was
the old, old way that she had loved once and had since despised, but
now lying there in the shade of those old trees, with the music of the
Weir and the glory of the earth and the sky all about her, she loved
again. Strange that it should be so! But the sad voice at her elbow
blended marvelously with all the things she could see and hear. And
what it said was quite true. By some miracle both were living now more
fully than ever before.

"I'll always have one regret, Mother." His voice had grown as deep as
the water itself. But it broke off in the middle suddenly.

A feeling came upon her that she ought to say something. "Don't let us
have no regrets, Bill." Those were the words she wanted to utter. "I'll
not have none." But they were not for her to speak. At that moment
she was not able to say anything. She waited tensely for him to go on
talking.

In the odd way he had, which was a part of his peculiar faculty, he
seemed to feel what was passing in her mind. "I'm not thinking of what
might have been. That's no good. The time's gone by. I'm thinking of my
friend, Stanning, R.A. You see we'd arranged that if we ever had the
chance we'd come here for a day's fishing. We had a bit one day when
we were up in the Line--in that canal--the Yser, I think they call it.
And he said, 'Auntie, I may be able to tell you a thing or two about
drawing, but when it comes to this game the boot's on the other leg.'
'Yes,' I said, 'that's because I've put my heart into it while you've
put your heart into something better.' 'Well, I don't know about that,'
he said--he was the broadest-minded, the best read, the wisest chap I
ever talked to--'nothing is but thinking makes it so, as Hamlet, that
old crackpot used to say. Whatever you happen to be doing, Auntie, the
only thing that matters is whether your heart is in it.' 'Yes,' I said,
'I daresay you are right there. But it's one thing to catch barbel.
It's another to paint Corfield Weir.'"

To Melia this seemed like philosophy. And she had no head for
philosophy, although inclined to be a little proud that Bill should be
able to swim in these deep waters in such distinguished company. But
one thing aroused her curiosity. Why was this man of hers called Auntie?

Bill laughed good humoredly when, a little scandalized, she came to put
the question. "They all call me that in C company." His frankness was
remarkable.

"But why?"

"They say I was born an old woman."

Melia thought it was like their impertinence and did not hesitate to
say so.

"Ah, you don't know the Chaps," Bill laughed heartily. "The Chaps is a
rum crowd. They call you anything."

"But to your face?" Melia couldn't help resenting it and spoke with
dignity. "You oughtn't to let them, Bill."

"Why not?"

"You're a Corporal."

"Well, Stanning was a sergeant, you see. And nobody means nothing by
it. It's a way they have in the army of being friendly and pleasant.
And I daresay it suits me. My fingers is all thumbs as you might say.
Fishing and a bit o' gardening are the only things I'm good for,
although Stanning told me that in time, if I stuck it, I might be able
to draw. And that was a lot for him to say."

Melia thought that it must be.

"I often wonder,"--the eyes of the Corporal were fixed on the
Sharrow--"what made Stanning take up with a chap like me. There was
lots of 'em in C company with far more education, but he told me once
that I was the same kind of fool that he was and I said that I wished
it was so. I suppose he meant that I liked to talk about this old river
and the lights on it and the look of it at different times of the year.
He knew every yard of the Sharrow between here and Dibley and so did I,
but he could see things that I couldn't, and he could remember 'em and
he'd a wonderful eye for nature. He wasn't the least bit of a soldier,
no more than myself, but he made a first-rate job of it--he was the
kind of chap who would make a first-rate job of anything. Our C.O.
wanted him to apply for a commission, but he said he couldn't face the
responsibility. That was queer, wasn't it, in a man of that sort?--for
he was a man, I give you my word." The Corporal plucked another spear
of grass and began to chew it pensively. "He had a cottage up at
Dibley, that largish white one on the left, standing back from the
road, you know the one I mean--the one with the iron gate, and that
funny sort of a tower at the end of the garden."

Melia said she did know, although she had half forgotten it, but she
hadn't been to Dibley since they were first married, and that was a
long time ago.

"It belonged to Torrington the artist. He lived and died there.
Stanning said he was the greatest painter of landscape that ever lived,
but nobody knew it while he was alive and he died in poverty. Not that
it mattered. Stanning said that money doesn't matter to an artist, but
he said that many an artist had been ruined by making it too easy."

This dictum of Stanning's sounded odd in the ear of Melia. No one could
be ruined by making money too easily, but she had not the heart to
contradict his disciple who was still chewing grass and looking up at
the sky.

"See what I mean, Mother?"

"Makes them take to drink and gambling, I suppose." After all, there
was that solution.

"Stanning meant that if an artist gets money too easy it'll take the
edge off his work. He was always afraid that was what was going to
happen to himself. In 1913 he made six thousand pounds--think on it,
Mother, six thousand pounds in one year painting pictures! He said
that was the writing on the wall for him; he said it was as much as
Torrington made in all his life and he lived beyond eighty. 'And I'm
not fit to tie Torrington's shoelace, Auntie.' I laughed at that, of
course, but he was not a man to want butter. 'I mean it, my dear.' If
he liked you he had a way of calling you 'my dear,' like one girl does
to another. 'Torrington was the only man that ever lived who could
handle sunlight. That's the test for a painter. If I touch sunlight I
burn holes in the canvas.' Of course, I laughed, but Stanning was a
very humble chap when he talked about his own paintings."

Suddenly the Corporal realized that he had let his tongue run away
with him, as it did sometimes. Melia was getting drowsy. He got up,
therefore, and stretched his legs on the soft turf and then he said,
"Let us go across to the Corfield Arms and see if we can get a cup of
tea. And then if you feel up to it we'll walk through the Glade as far
as Dibley and look at the house that Torrington lived in."




XXX


They went across to the Corfield Arms. It was an old, romantic looking
inn, spoiled a little in these later days by contiguity to a great
hive of commerce. But there were occasions, even now, when it retained
something of the halo of ancient peace it was wont to bear; and the
afternoon being Friday was an off day for visitors. When Bill and Melia
passed through the bowling green at the back of the house to the arbor
where last they had sat in the days of their courtship they found it
empty.

In the garden by the arbor an old man was plucking raspberries. He
turned out to be the landlord, and to the secret gratification of Melia
he addressed Bill as "sir," out of deference to his uniform. Upon
receiving the Corporal's commands he called loudly for "Polly."

In two shakes of a duck's tail Polly appeared: a blithe beauty in a
clean lilac print dress, a little shrunk in the wash, which showed
to advantage the lovely lines of her shape and the slender stem of a
brown but classic neck in which a nest of red-gold hair hung loose. The
Corporal ordered a royal repast for two persons; a pot of tea, boiled
eggs, bread and butter, cake, and a little of the honey for which the
house used to be famous.

While they waited for the tea, the Corporal gave the old chap a hand
with the raspberries. "Happen you remember Torrington, the artist who
lived up at Dibley?"

"Aye." The old man remembered him without difficulty. "Knew him well
when I was young. Soft Jack we used to call him; an old man and just
a bit touched like as I remember him. Long beard he had and blue
eyes--wonderful blue eyes had that old feller. Out painting in the open
all day long, in all weathers. I used to stand for hours and watch him.
He'd paint a bit, and then he'd paint it out, and then he'd paint it in
again. 'Course he was clever, you know, in a manner of speaking. Nobody
thought much of him then, but in these days, if you'll believe me, I've
known people come specially from London to ask about him."

The Corporal turned to Melia with an air of discreet triumph. But Melia
was so drowsy that she said she would go into the arbor until the tea
came. She was encouraged to do so while the landlord went on, "I was
a bit of a favorite with old Soft Jack. Many's the boy I've lammoxed
for throwing stones at his easel. Of course, at the time I speak of,
the old chap had got a bit tottery; he lived to be tight on ninety.
But as I say nobody thought much of him, yet if you'll believe me it's
only last year, or the year before last--I'm getting on myself--that a
college gentleman came down here to write a book about him. A very nice
civil-spoken gentleman; but fancy writing a book about old Soft Jack!"

"Ever buy any of his pictures?"

"My father did. Gave as much as five pounds for one, more out of
charity than anything, I've heard him say, but if you'll believe me
when the old boy was dead my father sold that picture for twenty
pounds, and they tell me--I've not seen it myself--that that picture is
now in our Art Gallery, and the college gentleman I'm speaking of--I
forget his name--says folk come from all parts of the world to look at
it."

"Happen there was the sun in it," said the Corporal.

"Very like. Most of his pictures had the sun in 'em, what I remember.
You know they do say that that old chap could look at the sun with the
naked eye. And such an eye as it was--like an eagle's, even when he was
old and past it."

"Got any of his pictures now?"

"Can't say I have. My father had one or two odd bits, but he sold 'em
or gave 'em away. No good having a picture, I've heard the dad say,
unless you've a frame to put it in. And frames was dear in those days.
If you'll believe me, the frame often cost more than the picture."

"Pity you haven't one or two by you now. They do say all Torrington's
pictures are worth a sight o' money."

"Shouldn't wonder. Money's more plentiful now than it used to be. My
father was 'mazed when he got twenty pounds for the one he sold, and
he heard afterwards it fetched as high as fifty. But I'm speaking, of
course, of when the old man was dead. That reminds me, the old chap,
being very hard up, painted our signboard. It wants a fresh coat now,
but it's wonderful how it's lasted."

The Corporal, in his devotion to art, ceased to pick raspberries, and
accompanied by his host, went to look at the expression of Soft Jack's
genius upon the ancient front of the Corfield Arms. As they crossed the
bowling green they came upon the smiling and gracious Polly, who bore a
tea tray heavily laden.

"Lady's in the summerhouse." The gallant Corporal returned smile for
smile. "Tell her to pour out the tea and I'll be along in a jiffy."

The signboard, after all, was not much to look at. The arms of the
Corfields consisted in the main of a rampant unicorn, reft by the
weather of a good deal of paint. But even here, by some miracle,
the sunlight was shining on the noble horns of the fabulous animal,
but whether the phenomenon was due to purely natural causes on this
glorious afternoon of July, or whether the great artist was personally
responsible for it was more than Corporal Hollis was able to say. It
needed the trained eye of a Stanning, R.A., or of a young Nixey, the
architect, to determine the point, but in the right-hand corner of the
signboard beyond a doubt, as the landlord was able to indicate with an
air of pride, was Soft Jack's monogram, J. T.

Somehow the monogram saved the signboard itself from being a washout
as a work of art, and the Corporal felt grateful for it as he returned
to the arbor to drink tea with his wife, while the landlord, less of a
critic, went back to the raspberries in his prolific garden.




XXXI


After an excellent tea William and Melia went up the road to Dibley. It
was two miles on and they took a path of classic beauty, fringed by a
grove of elms in which the rooks were cawing, along a carpet of green
bracken through which the lovely river wound. Dibley stood high, at the
crest of a great clump of woodland, with the Sharrow silver-breasted
below surging through a glorious valley.

It was getting on for twenty years since Bill had last handed Melia
over the stile at the top of the glade, famous in song and story, and
they had debouched arm in arm past the vicarage, along the bridle
path, and had threaded their way through a nest of thatched cottages
to the village green. The sun had now waned a little and the air had
cooled on these shaded heights, the tea had been refreshing, and, for
a few golden moments, inexpressibly sweet yet tragically fleeting, the
courage of youth came back to them. Just beyond the parson's gate the
Corporal stopped suddenly, took Melia in his arms and kissed her.

It was a sloppy thing to do, unworthy of old married people, but the
guilt of the act was upon them, though neither knew exactly why it
should have come about. They crossed the paddock and went on through
the romantic village, so sweetly familiar in its changelessness. It
seemed but yesterday since they walked through it last.

"I've wondered sometimes," whispered the Corporal at the edge of the
green, "what made you marry me?"

"I believed in you, Bill; I always believed in you." It was a great
answer, yet somehow it was unexpected. In his heart he knew he was not
worthy of it and that seemed to make it greater still.

Facing the duck pond, at the far end of the green, was the white
cottage in which Torrington the artist had lived and died. It had
changed a bit since his time. Things had been added by his more opulent
successor. There were an iron gate, a considerable garden and a tall
tower with a glass roof which nobly commanded the steep wooded slopes
of the valley of the Sharrow.

With the new eyes a great painter had given him Bill saw at once that
this was a rare pitch for an artist. It was one of the most beautiful
spots in the land. The immense city of Blackhampton with its thousands
of chimneys and its roaring factories might have been a hundred miles
off instead of a bare four miles down the valley. There was not a
glimpse or a sound of it here in this peace-haunted woodland, in this
enchantment of stream and hill, bathed in a pomp of golden cloud and
magic beauty.

The simple cottage had been modernized and amplified, but with
rare tact and cunning, so that it was still "all of a piece," much
as Torrington had left. But the house itself was empty, with green
shutters across the windows. On the gate was a padlock, the reason for
which was given in a printed bill stuck on a board that had been raised
beside it.

  By order of the executors of the late James Stanning, Esqre., A.R.A.,
  to be sold by auction the valuable and historical property known as
  Torrington Cottage Dibley, together with the following furniture and
  effects.

A list followed of the furniture and effects, but across the face of
the bill was pasted a diagonal red-lettered slip,

  This property has been sold by private treaty.

The Corporal tried to open the gate but found the padlock unyielding,
and then he gazed at the notice wistfully.

"Wonder who's bought it," he said.

Melia wondered too.

"Hope it's an artist," said the Corporal.

"So do I. But I expect it isn't. Artists is scarce."

"You're right, there." The Corporal sighed heavily. "Artists is
scarce." There was a strange look in his eyes and he turned them
suddenly upon the duck pond so that Melia shouldn't notice it.

Across the road, beside the duck pond, was a wooden bench, sacred to
the village elders, none of whom, however, was in occupation at this
moment. The Corporal pointed to it. "Let's go an' set there a minute,"
he said in a husky voice. As if she had been a child he took her by the
hand and led her to it.

They sat down and in a moment or two it was as if the spirit of the
place had descended upon them. The magic hush of evening crept into
their blood like a subtle wine. A strange soft rapture seemed to
pervade the air. The Unseen spoke to them as never before.

The Corporal took off his hat and wiped the dew from his forehead. And
then with a queer tightening of the throat and breast he scanned earth
and sky. They seemed marvelous indeed. He felt them speak to him, to
the infinite, submerged senses whose presence he had hardly suspected.
Never had he experienced such awe as now in the presence of this peace
that passed all understanding.

In a little while the silence of the Corporal began to trouble Melia. A
cold hand crept into his. "What is it, love?" she said softly.

Not daring to look at her, he kept his eyes fixed on the sky.

"What is it, love--tell me?" He hardly knew the voice for hers; not
until that moment had he heard her use it; but it had the power to ease
just a little the intolerable pressure of his thoughts.

"I was wondering," he said slowly, at last, "whether it would not have
been better never to have been born."

She shivered, not at his words, but at the gray look on his face.

"Stanning said the night before he went he thought that taking it
altogether it would have been better if there had never been a human
race at all. I'll never forget that last talk with him, not if I live
to be a hundred--which I shall not." The Corporal had begun to think
his thoughts aloud. "You see, he knew then that his number was up. I
can see him settin' there, Mother, just as you are now, lookin' at that
old sunset, his back to that old canal--the Yser, I think they call
it--an' stinkin' it was, fair cruel. 'Auntie,' he said suddenlike,
'tell me what brought you into this?' I said, 'No, boy'--just like a
child he was as he set there--'it's for me to ask _you_ that question.
You're a big gun, you know, a shining light; I'm a never-was-er.' That
seemed to make him laugh; he was one that could always raise a laugh,
even when he felt most solemn. 'I come of a long stock of high-nosed
old Methodists,' he said. 'Always made a thing they call Conscience
their watchword and fetish. There was a Stanning went to the stake for
it in the time of Bloody Mary; there was another helped Oliver Cromwell
to cut the head off King Charles. A poisonous, uncomfortable crowd, and
all my life they've seemed to come back and worry me just at the times
I should have been most pleased to do without them. People talk about
free will--but there isn't such a thing, my dear.'

"I allowed that there wasn't in my case. Then I told him about Troop
Sergeant Major Hollis, who fought at Waterloo. 'Yes,' he said, 'yours
is an old name in the city, older than mine, I dare say.' 'Well,' I
said, 'according to Bazeley's Annals there was a William Hollis who
was mayor of the borough in the year of the Spanish Armada.' 'Good for
you, Auntie,' he said, chaffing-like; he was a rare one for chaff. 'One
up to you. Then,' he said, 'there was William Hollis who was "some"
poet in the eighteenth century, who wrote the famous romantic poem,
"The Love Lorn Lady of Corfield." Still,' he said, 'these things don't
explain you dragging your old bones to rot out here.' 'They do in a
way, though,' I said. 'When we come up against a big thing it isn't us
that really matters, it's what's at the back of us. I used to set in
my old garden on The Rise,' I said, 'in those early days when those
dirty dogs opposite was just beginning to wipe their feet on Europe.
And I said to myself, Bill Hollis, how would _you_ like it if they
broke through the fence into your garden, trampling your young seeds
and goose-stepping all over your roses and your tulips. And I tell
you, Jim--we got to be very familiar those last few weeks--it used to
make me fair mad to read in the _Tribune_ what they'd done ... Louvain
one time ... Termondy another ... et cetera.... And I kept on settin'
there day after day, in my old garden on the top o' The Rise, saying to
myself, Hollis, it's no use, me lad, you're going into this. You've
failed in every bloody thing so far, and if you take on this you'll
not be man enough to stick it out. War isn't thinking, it's doing, and
you've never been a doer, you've not. Then I read in the _Tribune_ one
morning that they'd got Antwerp and I said to myself, I can't stand
this no more. And I went right away to the Duke of Wellington and had
a liquor up--but only a mild one, you know--and then round the corner
to the Recruiting Office and gave my age as thirty-six and here I am
admiring this bleeding sunset with the eye of an artist.'

"That made him laugh some more. 'Well, Auntie,' he said, 'I'm very
proud to have known you and I hope you'll do me the honor of accepting
this as a keepsake.' He unbuttoned his greatcoat and took this old
watch out of his tunic."

The Corporal paused an instant in his story to follow the example of
his friend. He produced an old-fashioned gold hunting watch, with J. T.
in monogram at the back, and handed it to Melia.

"It's a rare good one, Mother," the Corporal's voice was very low,
"solid gold." He opened the lid and showed her the inscription:

  To John Torrington, Esquire, from a Humble Admirer of His
  Genius, 1859.

"Stanning said, 'I had the luck to buy that in a pawnshop in
Blackhampton long after he was dead, and if I had had a boy of my own
I should like him to have kept it as an heirloom, but as I have not
I want you to take it, Auntie, because I know you'll appreciate it.'
Somehow, I could tell from the way he spoke that he was done. I hadn't
the heart to refuse it, although I hadn't a boy or a girl of my own
neither." A huskiness in the Corporal's throat made it hard to go on
for a moment. "'I'm only thirty-nine,' he said, 'and all the best is in
me. I don't fancy having my light put out like this in a wet bog, but
it's got to come, my dear. I hate to think that sometime to-morrow I
shall be as if I had never been.' 'Not you,' I said. 'You're sickening
for the fever.' But I couldn't move him. He'd got the hoo-doo. 'No use
talking about it,' he said, 'but you and I'll never have that day's
fishing in Corfield Weir. I should like you to have seen my cottage
up at Dibley. It's got the ghost of that old boy.' He put his hand
on the watch, Mother, just like this. 'If there is a heaven for dead
painters, and I doubt it, I'd like to sit in John Torrington's corner
on his right hand. You see, I've learned all sorts of things, living
in his house. I was getting to know the lights on the Sharrow and the
feel of the clouds--in all the great Torringtons the clouds feel like
velvet--and he was going to show me the way to handle sunlight--I've
already been twice across to New York to see "An Afternoon in July in
the Valley of the Sharrow," the most wonderful thing of its kind in
existence. You get the view from my cottage--his cottage--at Dibley.
I should like you to have seen it, Auntie. And then I should like to
have taken you across to New York to show you what old John made of
it. Fancy having to go all the way to New York to look at it. So like
us to be caught on the hop, in the things that really matter.' I give
you my word, Mother, he raised a laugh even then, but of a sudden his
voice went all queer-like. 'However,' he said, 'there's a Mind in this
that knows more than we do.' Then the lad began to shiver just as if
he had the ague. And the next day, about the same time, or mayhap the
perishin' old sun had gone a bit more west, I had to go out across No
Man's Land to bring him in ... what there was left of him."

The Corporal ended his strange story as if after all it didn't much
matter. He was quite impersonal, but Melia sat beside him shivering
at the look in his eyes. Never before had the veil been torn aside in
this way. She was a dull soul, fettered heavily by her limitations,
but sitting there in the growing dusk it came on her almost with
horror that in all those long years it was the first peep she had had
behind the scenes of his mind. She hadn't realized the kind of man he
was. More than once she had cast it in his face that he was an idle
shack-about. Somehow, there had been nothing to give her the key to
him; and now, miraculously as it seemed, it had come to her, it was too
late.

She had the key to him now. But the sands were running out in fate's
hour glass. She couldn't bear to look at his thin gray face as the
light fell on it, nor at his strange eyes fixed on the padlocked gate
of the cottage opposite. Of a sudden the watch slipped from her shaking
hands, and fell lightly in a little brake of thistles by the end of the
bench on which they sat.

Cautiously and carefully he picked it out. "Take care on it, Mother,"
he said softly as he put it again in her hands. "I wish we'd a little
boy as could have had it. However, we've not. There was once a George
Hollis who was an artist; I showed you that picture of his, "The Glade
above Corfield," the other day; Jim said it was a good one. John
Torrington one time was his pupil. Don't suppose he was any relation
but it's the same name."

Melia put the watch in the pretty leather bag he had insisted on buying
for her. And then she said with a horrible clutch in her throat: "Bill,
promise! You'll come back ... won't you?"

His eyes didn't move.

"I'll be that lonely."

He sighed softly like a child who is very tired. "I'll do what I can,
Mother." The voice was gentleness itself. "I can't do more."

She didn't know ... she didn't realize ... what ... she ... was....




XXXII


They sat hand in hand on the bench by the duck pond until the shadows
began to lengthen along the valley of the Sharrow. For quite a long
time they didn't speak, but at last their reverie was broken by the
sight of a dusty figure with a sack on its back shambling along the
road towards them. It was the village postman.

"Who's bought the cottage opposite?" the Corporal asked.

"Zur?" said the postman.

The Corporal repeated his question.

"They do sey, zur," said the postman in slow, impressive Doric, "the
Mayor o' Blackhampton has bought it."

"What--Alderman Munt?" The voice of the Corporal was full of dismay.

"The Mayor o' Blackhampton, zur. Come here the other day in a motey car
to look at it. Large big genelman in a white hat."

The heart of the Corporal sank. What the hell had he, of all people,
to go buying it for! Somehow the postman had shattered the queer sad
little world in which they sat. A feeling of desperation came suddenly
upon the Corporal. He rose abruptly from the bench. "Come on, Mother,"
he said, "if we don't get along we'll be late for supper."

"Don't want no supper, Bill."

But the Corporal was firm.

"I'd like to stop here all night," Melia said as she rose limply from
the bench. "I'd like to stop here forever."

That was the desire uppermost in the Corporal also, but it would not do
to admit it.

Down the road, hand in hand, like two children out late, they trudged
in the gathering dusk to Corfield. It was a perfect evening. Just a
little ahead was one faint star; over to the left in the noble line of
woods that overlooked the river they could hear the nightingale. Once
they stopped and held their breaths to listen. They saw the rabbits
dart from among the ferns at their feet and run before them along the
white road. The evening pressed ever closer upon them as they marched
slowly on, until, at a turn in the road, Corfield with its fruit
orchards came into view.

It was a long trek home but they were in no hurry to get there. By the
time they had come to the old stone bridge which spanned the broad
river and united the country with the town it was quite dark and the
lamps of the city were shining in the distance.

Midway across the bridge they stopped to take one last look at the
Sharrow gleaming down its valley. Since the afternoon this mighty
symbol which from earliest childhood had dominated their every
recollection seemed to have gained in power, in magic and in mystery.




XXXIII


The hard and difficult months wore on. Summer passed to autumn; Europe
was locked in the most terrible conflict the world had ever seen, but
there was no sign of a decision.

Like Britain herself, Blackhampton was in the war to the last man
and the last shilling. From the moment the plunge had been taken the
conscience and the will of this brotherhood of free peoples had been in
grim unison behind the action of its government. The war was no affair
of sections or of classes; the issue was so clear that there was no
ground for misunderstanding it.

For years it had been freely declared that Britain was past her zenith,
that disintegration had already begun, that England herself was
enervated with prosperity. At the outset the enemy in making war had
counted on the fact too confidently. Britain would not dare to enter
the struggle, she who was suffering from fatty degeneration of the
soul, or if in the end she was driven into the whirlpool in spite of
herself she would prove a broken reed in this strife for human freedom.

These were dangerous heresies, even for a race of supermen, and nowhere
in the oldest of free communities was the task of dispelling it
undertaken more vigorously than in Blackhampton. As its archives bore
witness it had a long and proud record. No matter what great national
movement had been afoot in the past, Blackhampton, the central city of
England, geographically speaking, had invariably reacted to it with
force and urgency.

Among the many virile men who strove to meet a supreme occasion, none
deserved better of his country, or of his fellow citizens than Mr.
Josiah Munt. He was of a type suited beyond all others to deal with the
more obvious needs of a time that called for the unsparing use of every
energy; he had a genius of a plain, practical, ruthless kind; he was
the incarnation of "carry on" and "get things done."

From the first hour he took off his coat and buckled to. He worked like
a leviathan. No day was too long for him, no labor too arduous; his
methods were rough and now and again the clatter he made was a little
out of proportion to the amount of weight he pulled in the boat. His
life had been one of limited opportunity, but he had a knack of seeing
the thing to be done and of doing it. People soon began to realize that
he was the right man in the right place, and that as a driving force he
was a great asset to the city of Blackhampton.

The war was about fifteen months' old when Alderman Munt was chosen
mayor of Blackhampton. He took up an office that was by no means a
sinecure at a very critical moment. But it was soon clear that a
wise choice had been made; a certain Britishness of character of the
right bulldog breed did much to keep a population of two hundred and
eighty-six thousand souls "up to the collar." Somehow, the rude force
and the native honesty of the man appealed to the popular imagination;
if a prophet is ever honored in his own country it is in time of war.

During his mayoralty Josiah Munt came to occupy a place in the minds
of his own people that none could have predicted. When the grim hour
struck which altered the face of the world and changed the whole aspect
of human society few could have been found to say a word in favor of
the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington. He had begun low down, in a
common part of the town; and, although there was really nothing against
him, his name was never in specially good odor, perhaps for the reason
that he bore obvious marks of his origin and because the curves of his
mind were too broad for him to care very much about concealing them.
In the general opinion he had been a very "lucky" man, financially
successful beyond his merits, and for that reason arrogant. But in the
throes of the upheaval preconceived ideas were soon shed if they did
not happen to square with the facts; and it took considerably less than
a year for Josiah to prove to his fellow townsmen that the goddess
Fortune is not always the capricious fool she has the name of being.

Even in the stress of a terribly strenuous twelve months the Mayor
of Blackhampton, like the wise man he was, insisted upon taking his
annual fortnight's holiday at Bridlington. He had not missed his annual
fortnight at Bridlington once in the last thirty years. It did him so
much good, he was able to work so much the better for it afterwards,
that, as he informed Mr. Aylett the Town Clerk, on the eve of departure
in the second week of August, "it would take more than the likes o' the
Kaiser to keep him from the seaside."

Like a giant refreshed the Mayor returned to his civic duties at the
end of the month. His leisure at Bridlington had been enlivened by the
company of the Mayoress, by Mrs. Doctor Cockburn and her two children,
and also by Miss Gertrude Preston, who for quite a number of years now
had helped to beguile the tedium of her brother-in-law's annual rest
cure.

As soon as the Mayor returned to the scene of his labors he found
there was one very important question he would have to decide. In his
absence the City fathers had met several times to discuss the matter of
his successor and had come, in some cases perhaps reluctantly, to the
conclusion that none but himself could be his peer. According to the
aldermanic roster, Mr. Limpenny the maltster was next in office, but
that wise man was the first to own that he had not the driving power,
or the breadth of appeal of the present mayor.

In ordinary times that would not have mattered, but the times were very
far from ordinary. War was making still sterner demands, week by week,
upon every man and woman in the country. Blackhampton had done much,
as every town in England had, but its temporal directors felt that no
effort must be relaxed, and that it was ever increasingly their duty
"to keep it up to the collar." And Josiah Munt now filled the popular
mind.

The very qualities which in the gentler days, not so long ago, had
aroused antagonism were at a premium now. For superfine people the
Mayor was a full-blooded representative of a distressing type, but it
was now the reign of King Demos: all over the island from Westminster
itself to the parish hall of Little Pedlington-in-the-Pound the
Josiah Munts of the earth had come at last by their own. On every
public platform and in every newspaper was to be found a Josiah Munt
haranguing the natives at the top of his voice, thereby guaranteeing
his political vision and his mental capacity. King Demos is not a
rose born to blush unseen; he knows everything about everything and
he is not ashamed to say so. With a fraction of his colossal mind he
can conduct the most delicate and far-reaching military operations,
involving millions of men, and countless tons of machinery to which
even a Napoleon or a Clausewitz might be expected to give his
undivided attention; with another he is able to insure that the five
million dogs of the island, mainly untaxed, shall continue to pollute
the unscavengered streets of its most populous cities; with another he
is able to devise a Ministry of Health; with another he can pick his
way through the maze of world politics, and recast the map of Europe
and Asia on a basis to endure until the crack of doom; with yet another
he can devise a new handle for the parish pump.

King Demos is indeed a bright fellow. And in Mr. Josiah Munt he found
an ideal representative. Happily for Blackhampton, although there were
places of even greater importance who in this respect were not so
well off, he was a man of rude honesty. He said what he meant and he
meant what he said; he was no believer in graft, he did not willfully
mislead; he was not a seeker of cheap applause; and in matters of the
public purse he had a certain amount of public conscience. As Mr.
Aylett the town clerk said in the course of a private conversation with
Mr. Druce the chairman of the Finance Committee, "His worship is not
everybody's pretty boy, but just now we are lucky to have him and we
ought to be thankful that he is the clean potato."

Therefore, within a week of his return from Bridlington, the Mayor was
met by the request of the City fathers that he should take office for
another year. Josiah was flattered by the compliment, but he felt that
it was not a matter he could decide offhand. "He must talk to the wife."

At dinner that evening at Strathfieldsaye, when the question was
mooted, the hapless Maria was overcome. Only heaven knew, if heaven
did know, how she had contrived to fill the part of a Mayoress for so
many trying months. She had simply been counting the days when she
could retire into that life of privacy, from which by no desire of her
own had she emerged. It was too cruel that the present agony should be
prolonged for another year, and although her tremulous lips dare not
say so her eyes spoke for her.

"What do you say, Mother?" His worship proudly took a helping of
potatoes.

Maria did not say anything.

"A compliment, you know. Limpenny's next in, but the Council is
unanimous in asking me to keep on. I don't know that I want to, it's
terrible work, great responsibility and it costs money; but, between
you and me, I don't see who is going to do it better. Comes to that,
I don't see who is going to do it as well. Limpenny's a gentleman and
all that, college bred and so on, but he's not the man somehow. Give
Limpenny his due, he knows that. He button-holed me this morning after
the meeting of the Council. 'Mr. Mayor,' he said--Limpenny's one o'
those precise think-before-you-speak sort o' people--'I do hope you'll
continue in office. To my mind you're the right man in the right
place.' I thought that very decent of Limpenny. Couldn't have spoken
fairer, could he?"

The hapless Maria gave an audible sniff and discontinued the eating of
war beef.

"Well, Mother, what do you say? The Council seems to think that I've
got the half nelson on this town. So Aylett said. A bit of a wag in
his way, is that Aylett. He said I'd got two hundred and eighty-six
thousand people feeding from the hand. That's an exaggeration, but I
see what he means; and he's a man of considerable municipal experience.
Smartest town clerk in England, they tell me. 'It's all very well, Mr.
Aylett,' I said, 'but I'll have to talk to the Mayoress. And I'll let
you have an answer to-morrow.'"

The hapless Maria declined gooseberry fool proffered by the respectful
Alice.

"Don't seem to be eating, Mother," said his worship. "Aren't you well?
I expect it's the weather."

Maria thought it must be the weather; at any rate it could be nothing
else.

"Want a bit more air, I think," said Josiah in the midst of a royal
helping of a favorite delicacy. "Just roll back those sunblinds, Alice,
and let in a bit o' daylight."

The sphinx-like Alice carried out the order.

"And open the doors a bit wider."

Alice impassively obeyed.

"Would you like a nip of brandy? The weather, I suppose. Very hot
to-day. Temperature nearly a hundred this morning in the Council
Chamber. We'll have some new ventilators put in there or I'll know the
reason. At the best of times there's a great deal too much hot air in
the Council Chamber. And when you get a hot summer on the top of it...!
Alice, go and get some brandy for the Mistress."

Exit Alice.

"You'll feel better when you've had a drop of brandy. Antiquated things
those ventilators at the City Hall. Aylett thinks they've been there
since the time of Queen Anne. But they're not the only things I'm going
to scrap if I hold office another year. There's too much flummery and
red tape round about Corporation Square. Tradition is all very well but
we want something practical."

Alice entered with a decanter.

"Ah, that'll put you right. A little meat for the Mistress, Alice.
Never mind the soda. It'll not hurt you, Mother. Prime stuff is that
and prime stuff never does harm to no one. Some I've had by me at the
Duke of Wellington for many a year."

At first the Mayoress was very shy of the brandy, prime stuff though
it was, but his worship was adamant, and after a moment or two of
half-hearted resistance Maria seemed the better for her lord's
inflexibility.

"Talkin' of the Duke of Wellington ... funny how things work out! When
we went in there in '79, you and me, we little thought we should be
where we are now, in the most important time in history. That reminds
me. Alice, just ring up the _Tribune_ Office and give the editor my
compliments and tell him I've arranged to speak to-morrow at the Gas
Works at twelve o'clock and they had better send a reporter."

"Very good, sir."

"Alice!"

Alice halted sphinx-like at the door.

"Wait a minute. I'll go myself!" Josiah plucked his table napkin out
of his collar. "Nothing like doing a thing while it's fresh in your
mind. And do it yourself if you want it done right. I must have a word
with Parslow the editor. The jockey he sent to Jubilee Park to report
the flower show didn't know his business. The most important part
of the speech was left out." He laid down his table napkin and rose
determinedly. "Nice thing in a time like this for the Mayor of the City
not to be fully reported. I've half a mind to tell that Parslow what I
think of him. Some people don't seem to know there's a war on."

Five minutes later when Josiah returned in triumph to his gooseberries
he found Maria reclining on the sofa with her feet up, next the window
opening on to the spacious lawns of Strathfieldsaye. The impassive but
assiduous handmaid was fanning her mistress with a handkerchief.

"That's right, Alice!" Josiah sat down with an air of satisfaction. He
was not indifferent to the sufferings of Maria, but of recent years
she seemed to have developed a susceptibility to climatic conditions
perhaps a little excessive for the wife of one who at heart was still
a plain man. She had a proneness to whims and fancies now which in
robuster days was lacking. He could only ascribe it to a kind of
misplaced fineladyism, and he didn't quite approve it.

"I spoke pretty straight to the _Tribune_ ... to the subeditor. I said
I hoped they fully realized their duty to the public and also to the
Empire, but that I sometimes doubted it. He seemed a bit huffed, I
thought ... but you'll see I'll be reported to-morrow all right. I'll
look after your mistress, Alice. Go and get the coffee."

When Alice returned with the coffee she found the Mayor vigorously
fanning the Mayoress with a table napkin, and she was peremptorily
ordered "to nip upstairs for a bottle of sal volatile."




XXXIV


There was honest satisfaction in the town when it was known that the
Mayor had consented to remain another year in office. Most people
agreed that it was a good thing for Blackhampton. But the Mayoress took
to her bed.

Could she have had her way she would never have got up again. For
many years now life had been a nightmare of ever-growing duties,
of ever-increasing responsibilities. Her conservative temperament
resisted change. She had not wanted to leave the Duke of Wellington
for the comparative luxury of Waterloo Villa, she had not wanted to
leave Waterloo Villa for the defiant grandeur of Strathfieldsaye. When
she was faced with a whole year as Mayoress she fully expected to
die of it, and perhaps she would have died of it but for the oblique
influence of Gertrude Preston; but now she was threatened with a
further twelve months of the same embarrassing public grandeur she was
compelled to review her attitude towards an early demise.

Maria knew that if she allowed her light to be put out Gerty had the
makings of a highly qualified successor. No one was better at shaking
hands with a grandee, no one had a happier knack of saying the right
word at the right time; and neither the Mayor nor the Mayoress,
particularly the latter, knew what they would have done without her.
Gerty, in fact, had become a kind of unofficial standard bearer and
henchwoman of a great man. Every piece of gossip she heard about him
was faithfully reported, every paragraph that appeared in the paper
was brought to his notice, she flattered him continually and made him
out to be no end of a fellow; and in consequence poor Maria was bitten
with such a furious jealousy that she would like to have killed her
designing but indispensable step-sister.

When Maria took to her bed, the Mayor promptly requested the
accomplished Gertrude to do what she could in the matter.

"Josiah, she must show Spirit." As always that was her specific for
the hapless Maria, and at the request of his worship she went at once
to the big bedroom, from whose large bay windows a truly noble view of
the whole city and the open country beyond was to be obtained, and as
Josiah himself expressed it, "proceeded to read the riot act to the
Mayoress."

The Mayoress was in bed, therefore she had to take it lying down. For
that matter it was her nature to take all things lying down. But in
her heart she had never so deeply resented the obtrusion of Gerty as
at this moment. She wanted never to get up any more, but if she didn't
get up any more this meddlesome and dangerous rival would do as she
liked with Josiah, and in all human probability as soon as the lawful
Mayoress was decently and comfortably in her grave she would marry him.

It was really Gerty who kept the Mayoress going; not by the crude
method of personal admonition, however forcible its use, but by the
subtle spur that one mind may exert upon another. Maria had to choose
between showing spirit and allowing the odious Gerty to wear the
dubious mantle of her grandeur.

Hard was the choice, but Mother Eve prevailed in the weak flesh of the
lawful Mayoress. She made a silent vow that Gerty should not marry
Josiah if she could possibly help it. Yes, she would show spirit. Cruel
as the alternative was, she would be Mayoress a second year. Even if
she died of it, and in her present frame of mind she rather hoped she
would, she alone should sit in the chair of honor at the Annual Meeting
of the British Women's Tribute to the Memory of Queen Boadicea, she
alone should take precedence of the local duchess and the county ladies
at the annual bazaar in aid of the Society for Providing Black and
White Dogs with Brown Biscuits.

Maria, however, in her present low state, consented to Gerty deputizing
for her at the review of the Girl Scouts in the Arboretum. She was
reluctant to make even that minor concession--it was the thin end of
the wedge!--but it had been intimated to Josiah that the Mayoress was
always expected to say a few words on this spirited occasion. This was
altogether too much for Maria in the present condition of her health.

Before the Girl Scouts, Gerty bore herself in a manner that even
Miss Heber-Knollys, the august principal of the High School for
Young Ladies, who was present, a perfect dragon of silent criticism,
could hardly have improved upon. The Mayor at any rate was delighted
with his sister-in-law's performance, drove her back in triumph to
Strathfieldsaye and insisted on her staying to dinner.

The hapless Maria, after nearly three weeks of the peace and sanctity
of her chamber, had struggled down to tea for the first time. She sat
forlornly in the drawing-room, a white woolen shawl over her ample
shoulders. It had been a real relief to allow Gerty to deputize for
her, but now that the hour of trial was past Maria was inclined to
despise, for the moment at any rate, the human weakness that had played
into the hands of a highly dangerous schemer. It would have been so
easy to have done it oneself, after all; it was such a simple thing,
now that it was safely over!

Gerty consumed a pickelet and drank two cups of tea with an air of
rectitude, while Josiah recited the story of the afternoon for the
delectation of Maria. He was so well satisfied with the performance
of the deputy that the lawful Mayoress began to scent danger. "Gert
says," the Mayor informed her, "that if you don't feel up to it she'll
distribute the prizes on the Fifth, at the Floral Hall."

The Mayoress drew in her lips, a sign that she was thinking. She
_might_ be able to manage the Fifth, as "a few words" were not
expected, although, of course, they were always welcome.

Josiah, however, was not inclined to press the matter. Maria seemed
rather worried by her duties as Mayoress and Gerty having had greater
experience in that kind of thing and having already done extremely
well in the Arboretum, it now occurred to the Mayor that it might be
possible to arrange with the Town Clerk for her to take over the duties
permanently in his second year of office. "I don't say the Council will
consent," said Josiah. "It may be a bit irregular. But they know you're
not strong, Mother. I was careful to tell them that when I consented to
keep the job on. So the way is paved for you, as you might say, if you
really don't feel up to it. Anyhow, I'll hear what Aylett has to say
about it. No man in England, they tell me, is a safer guide in matters
of municipal practice. If Aylett thinks it will be all right, I'm sure
Gerty won't mind acting as Mayoress."

"Delighted, Josiah!" Gerty's bow and smile were positively regal; they
were modeled, in point of fact, upon those of Princess Mawdwin of
Connemara, the most celebrated bazaar-opener of the period.

The Mayoress drew in her lips still further. She began to think very
seriously. No human Mayoress could have been in lower spirits or have
felt less equal to her duties than did Maria at that moment, but if
Gerty was allowed to usurp the honors and the dignities so indubitably
hers it would be very hard to bear. The whole thing was so like Gerty.
Always a schemer; in spite of her soft manners and her pussy-cat ways,
always at heart a grabber. The Mayoress felt that if the weak state
of her health called for a deputy, and really it seemed to do so,
she would have preferred the Queen of Sheba herself to the designing
Gertrude. For years she had been able to twist Josiah round her little
finger. So like a man to be taken in by her! So like a man not to be
able to see what a Fox of a woman she really was.

Unfortunately Maria had reason to fear that she was very ill, indeed.
She was afraid of her heart. It is true that three times within the
past fortnight Horace, Doctor Cockburn, had solemnly assured his
mother-in-law that there was nothing the matter with it. But thinking
the matter over, as day after day she lay in her miserable bed, she
had come to the conclusion that Horace was a modern doctor and that a
modern doctor could hardly be expected to understand that old-fashioned
organ, the heart.

She had made up her mind, therefore, to have a second opinion. She
would go to a heart specialist, a man who really knew about hearts.
As a fact she had already made up her mind to have the opinion of Dr.
Tremlett who humored her, who understood her system and its ways.
Horace, who was so modern, rather smiled at Dr. Tremlett--he was
careful not to go beyond a smile at Doctor Tremlett, although his
demeanor almost suggested that he might have done so had not etiquette
intervened.

The Mayoress, therefore, was now placed in a difficult position by
the success of a base intriguer. She didn't know what to do. Three
days ago her mind had been made up that she would put herself in the
hands of Doctor Tremlett, but if she did that she was quite sure that
Doctor Tremlett, a physician of the old school who knew how important
the heart was in every human anatomy and therefore treated it with the
utmost respect, would not allow her to go overdoing it. Her time would
be divided between her bed and the drawing-room sofa; he would most
probably insist on a trained nurse--Doctor Tremlett really respected
the heart--and the trained nurse would mean, of course, that the
Mayoress had abdicated and that the way was open for the treacherous
Gertrude with her pussy-cat ways to take over the duties permanently.

It was a dilemma. And it was made needlessly painful for the Mayoress
by the blindness and folly of the Mayor; in some ways so very able, in
others he was such a shortsighted man! Really, he ought to have seen
what Gerty was up to. So like a man to be completely taken in by her.
One of her own sex would have seen at a glance that Gertrude was a Deep
one.

It was a most difficult moment for the Mayoress. Either she must be
false to Doctor Tremlett and give up her heart or she would have to
submit tamely to the rape of her grandeur and have it flaunted in her
face by a Designing creature. Heaven knew that she had no taste herself
for grandeur, but Gerty had a very decided taste for it and there was
the rub!

"Have a piece of this excellent pickelet, Josiah!" That smile and that
manner were very winning to some eyes no doubt, but those of Maria were
not of the number. That coat and skirt, how well they hung upon her!
Gerty had always had a slim figure. Some people thought her figure
very genteel, but again Maria was not of the number. Some people also
thought her voice was very ladylike--Josiah did for one. La-di-da
the Mayoress called it. Simpering creature! Even if the pickelet was
excellent it didn't need her to say so. What had she to do with the
pickelet? And there was Josiah submitting to her like a lamb and talking
to her about the Town Clerk and the City Council and wondering whether
she would mind giving him a hand on the Fifth at the Floral Hall.

"I'll be delighted, Josiah--simply delighted. Anything to help. If I
can be the slightest use to you--and to Maria."

That precious, "And to Maria," brought a curl to the lip of the lawful
Mayoress. Designing hussy! So like a man not to see through her. Maria
felt herself slowly turning green. The heart has been known to take
people that way.

"Gert is staying to dinner, Mother. Hope Billing sent up that salmon."

Billing had sent up the salmon, the Mayor was meekly informed by the
Mayoress.

"Chose it myself. Looked a good fish."

"It is wonderful to me, Josiah"--affected mouncing minx!--"how you
manage to get through your day. You seem to have time for everything.
Why, your work as mayor alone would keep most people fully occupied.
Yet you always seem able to attend personally to this and that and the
other."

"Oh, I don't know, Gert." Some of the great man's critics were inclined
to think that since he had made so good in his high office his amazing
self-confidence had abated a feather or two. "I've always tried to
be what I call a prattical man. If you want a thing done right do it
yourself--that's my motto."

"But you get through so much, Josiah."

"Just a habit. But there's a very busy year ahead. Being Mayor o' this
city is not child's play in times like these. We're up against the food
shortage now. Last year it was munitions. Next year it'll be coal. And
the Army's always crying out for men. And any labor that isn't in khaki
is that durned independent and very inefficient into the bargain. The
papers are always writing up what they call democracy. Well, you can
have all my share of democracy. Between you and me, Gert, it's mainly a
name for a lot of jumped-up ignoramuses who have no idea of how little
they do know. Yesterday I was over at Cleveley arranging with the Duke
about a certain matter. Now he's prattical fellow, is that. He said,
'Mr. Munt, to be candid, I don't know anything about the subject, but
I'm very willing to learn.' I tell you, Gert, you'd have to wait till
the cows come home to hear one of our jumped-up Jacks-in-Office talking
that way. There's nothing they don't know and they're not afraid to say
so. Why, it even takes _me_ all my time to tell them anything."




XXXV


At this critical moment Ethel came in. Mrs. Doctor Cockburn was raging
secretly. She had turned up at the Arboretum, dutifully prepared to
help her mother through a situation a little trying perhaps to the
nerve of inexperience and behold! there was Gertrude, smiling and pat,
going through it all without turning a hair and palpably not in need of
the least assistance from any one. The mortified Ethel, having missed a
Sunday at Strathfieldsaye, had not been in a position to realize that
her mother was going to be so weak as to allow Gerty, who as usual had
masked her intentions very cleverly, to take her place. It was such a
pity! Miss Heber-Knollys who was there, had said it was such a pity!

Ethel, an old and successful pupil of that distinguished lady, had
been carried off to tea by her at the end of the proceedings. And Miss
Heber-Knollys had expressed herself as a little disappointed. She
was sure the Girl Scouts had been so looking forward to having the
Mayoress with them that afternoon; at any rate, Miss Heber-Knollys
had, although of course she had no pretensions to speak for the Girl
Scouts; but speaking as a public, a semi-public woman of Blackhampton,
although born in Kent and educated at Girham, speaking therefore,
as a quasi-public and naturalized woman of Blackhampton with an M.A.
degree, she looked to the Mayoress to take a strong lead in all matters
relating to the many-sided activities of the City's feminine life.

Ethel quite saw that. And she now proceeded fully and pointedly to
report Miss Heber-Knollys for the future guidance of her father, the
admonition of her mother and for the confusion and general undoing of
the designing Gertrude. Mrs. Doctor Cockburn was far from realizing the
critical nature of the moment at which she had chanced to arrive, but
the general effect of her presence was just as stimulating as if she
had. The lawful Mayoress was in sore need of mental and moral support
if she was to prevail against the Schemer.

Ethel was in the nick of time, but yet it was by no means certain that
she was not too late to keep Gerty from the Floral Hall. The Floral
Hall would depend on Doctor Tremlett, bluntly remarked Josiah.

"Doctor Tremlett!" said Mrs. Doctor Cockburn sternly.

"Your man has got the sack." The Mayor indulged in an obvious wink at
Gerty who was looking as if butter would not melt in her mouth.

"But," said the horrified Ethel, "there's no comparison between Horace
and Doctor Tremlett. Horace belongs to the modern school; Doctor
Tremlett's an old fossil."

"Your Ma seems to think Doctor Tremlett understands her," said Josiah
bluntly. "And Doctor Tremlett says she's got to be very careful of her
heart or she'll have to lie up and have a trained nurse."

"But Horace declares there is nothing the matter with it."

"That's where Horace don't know his business as well as Doctor
Tremlett. Your Ma has got to be very careful, indeed, and I'm going
to arrange with Aylett for her to have a deputy for the whole of the
coming year. You see if anything happened to her she'd _have_ to have a
deputy, so it may be wise to take steps beforehand."

"Nonsense, Father! Horace says there's nothing the matter with her. He
says it's stage fright. You ought not to encourage her. Certainly it
isn't right that Gerty should be taking her place. Miss Heber-Knollys
says it may make a bad impression."

"Don't know, I'm sure, what business it is of hers." His worship spoke
with considerable asperity.

"Besides, if any one must deputize, surely it should be me."

There was a little pause and then said Gerty in her meek and dovelike
voice, "We all thought, dear, that just now you would not care to take
part in a public display. Perhaps after Christmas ... when the new
little one has safely arrived."

The other ladies realized that the Fox of a Gertrude had scored a
bull's-eye. At Christmas it was fondly hoped in the family that the
Mayor would at last have a grandson. Certainly, Mrs. Doctor could not
be expected to take an active part at the Floral Hall.

There were occasions, however, when Mrs. Doctor was visited by some
of her father's driving force and power of will. And this was one of
them. If a calamity of the first magnitude was to be averted--Gerty
as Deputy-Mayoress was unthinkable!--there must be no half measure.
"Horace says it will do Mother good to distribute the prizes at the
Floral Hall, and if she doesn't I am sure that quite a lot of people
will be disappointed."

Even for Ethel this was rather cynical. She was well aware that she had
greatly overrated the public's power of disappointment; at the same
time it was clearly a case for strong action. "You'll go to the Floral
Hall, Mother. And I'll come with you."

"_You_, dear?" Gerty spoke in a melodramatic whisper.

"I shall sit just behind her ... in the second row. We can't have
people talking. And I shall put on my fur coat."

It was a blow on the sconce for the specious Gertrude, but she took
it with disarming meekness, smiling, as Ethel mentally described her,
"like a prize Angora" down her long, straight, rather adventurous nose.

"It's your duty, Mother." Mrs. Doctor proceeded to administer a mental
and moral shaking. "The women of the city look up to you, they expect
you to set an example. Miss Heber-Knollys feels that very strongly. And
Horace, who is a far cleverer man than Doctor Tremlett, says all you
have to do is to keep yourself up."

"In other words, Maria," cooed Gerty in the voice of the dove, "you
must show Spirit. And that is what I always tell you."

There were times when Gerty was amazing. Her audacity took away the
breath even of Ethel. As for Maria she felt a little giddy. She was
fascinated.

The She serpent.




XXXVI


Maria went to the Floral Hall. And she was seen there to great
advantage. She wore a new hat chosen for her by Ethel at the most
fashionable shop in the city; she distributed the prizes to the
Orphans' Guild in a manner which extorted praise from even the
diminished Gertrude; she didn't actually "say a few words," but her
good heart--speaking figuratively of course--and her motherly presence
spoke for her; and as Miss Heber-Knollys said, in felicitously
proposing a vote of thanks to the Mayoress on whose behalf the Mayor
responded, she had brought a ray of sunshine into the lives of those
who saw the sun too seldom.

This achievement was a facer for the designing Gertrude, also for the
antiquated Doctor Tremlett. On the other hand, it was a triumph for
Ethel and for the modern school of medicine. Horace, Doctor Cockburn,
was reinstated. Maria would still have felt safer with some one who
really understood the heart and its ways, but, as Ethel pointed out to
her, she would earn the admiration of everybody if she could manage to
postpone her really serious illness until the following year.

Maria, at any rate, was open to reason. For the sake of the general
life of the community she would do her best. But it was very hard upon
her; far harder than people realized. As she had once pathetically told
Josiah, "she hadn't been brought up to that kind of thing," to which
the Mayor promptly rejoined, "that he hadn't either, but he was as good
as some who had."

Education was what the Mayor called a flam. In the main it wasn't
prattical. He allowed that it was useful in certain ways and in
carefully regulated doses, but of late years it had been ridiculously
overdone and was in a fair way to ruin the country. Education didn't
agree with everybody. He knew a case in point.

A classical instance of schooling misapplied would always remain in his
mind. There were times when he brooded over this particular matter in
secret, for he never spoke of it openly. His youngest girl, upon whose
upbringing a fabulous sum had been lavished, had cast such a blot on
the family escutcheon that it was almost impossible to forgive her. It
was all very well for Ethel to talk of Sally's doings in Serbia. That
seemed the best place for people like her. Yet, as a matter of strict
equity, and Josiah was a just man, although a harsh one, he supposed
that presently he would have to do something in the matter.

Under the surface he was a good deal troubled by Sally. She was out of
his will and he had fully made up his mind to have nothing more to
do with her; she had had carte blanche in the matter of learning, and
the only use she had made of it was to disgrace him in the eyes of the
world.

All that, however, was before the war. And there was no doubt that the
war had altered things. Before the war he lived for money and worldly
reputation; but now that he was in the thick of the fight some of his
ideas had changed. Money, for instance, seemed to matter far less
than formerly; and he had come to see that the only kind of worldly
reputation worth having didn't depend upon externals. His success as a
public man had taught him that. It wasn't his fine house on The Rise,
or the fact that he had become one of the richest men in the city, that
had caused him to be unanimously invited to carry on for another year.
Other qualities had commended him. He didn't pretend to be what he was
not, and the people of the soundest judgment seemed to like him all the
better on that account.

He was beginning to see now that the case of Sally would have to be
reconsidered. In spite of the damnable independence which had always
been hers from the time she was as high as the dining-room table, there
was no doubt that she was now fighting hard for a cause worth fighting
for. He had not reached the point of telling Mossop to put her back in
his will, but the conviction was growing upon him that he would have to
do so.

At the same time it was going to hurt. He could have wished now that he
hadn't been quite so hasty in the matter. It was not his way to indulge
in vain regrets or to pay much attention to unsolicited advice, but it
seemed a pity that he had not listened to Mossop in the first instance.
This business of Sally, in a manner of speaking, would be in the nature
of a public climb down. And there had been one already.

As far as Melia and her husband were concerned his conscience pricked
him more than a little. At first it had gone sorely against the grain
to revoke the ban upon his contemptuously defiant eldest daughter
and his former barman. But once having done so, it had come suddenly
upon him that he had gone wrong in that affair from the outset. The
provocation had been great, but he had let his feelings master him.
Melia and Hollis were not exonerated. She ought to have shown more
respect for his wishes, and a man in the position of Hollis ought to
prove himself before he ventures to ask for his employer's daughter;
but, if he had to deal with the episode again, he felt, in the light of
later experience, that he would have acted differently.

However, by the end of November, Josiah had made up his mind to restore
Melia and Sally to his will. It was only a question of when he should
do so. But this was a matter in which his usual power of volition
seemed to desert him. In other affairs of life to decide on a thing was
at once to do it; but now he hesitated, putting off from day to day.
It was a dose of particularly disagreeable medicine that there seemed
no immediate need to swallow.

A day soon came, however, when he was rather bitterly to rue his
vacillation. One morning Josiah arrived at the City Hall at a quarter
to ten. A meeting of the Ways and Means Committee was called for a
quarter past and he had to take the chair in the Mayor's parlor. When
he entered the room he found the Town Clerk standing in front of a fire
of the Best Blackhampton Bright, a twinkle in his eye and a formidable
sheaf of documents in his hand.

"Good morning, Mr. Mayor." Perhaps a faintly quizzical greeting,
respectful though it was. But this shrewd dog Aylett, with a pair of
humorous eyes looking through gold-rimmed glasses which hung by a cord
from his neck, had a slightly quizzical manner with everybody. He knew
his value to the city of Blackhampton; he was the ablest Town Clerk it
had ever had.

"Mornin', Aylett," said his worship in that official voice which seemed
to get deeper and deeper at every meeting over which he presided.

"I suppose you've read your _Tribune_ this morning?" Aylett had an easy
chatty way with everybody from the Mayor down. He was so well used to
high affairs that he could be slightly jocular without impairing the
dignity of a grandee and without loss of his own.

"As a matter of fact I haven't," said the Mayor. "The girl forgot to
deliver it this morning at Strathfieldsaye. Don't know, Aylett, what
things are coming to in this city, I don't really. We'll have to have
an alteration if we are not going to lose the war altogether."

The Town Clerk smiled at this, and then he took the municipal copy of
the _Tribune_ from among other works of reference on a side table,
folded back the page and handed the paper to the Mayor. "That youngest
girl of yours has been going it."

It was an unfortunate piece of phrasing on the part of one so
accomplished as Aylett. Josiah started a little and then with an air of
rather grim anxiety proceeded to read the _Tribune_.

There was three quarters of a column devoted to the doings of Miss
Sarah Ann Munt; a sight which, with certain sinister recollections in
his mind, went some way to assure Josiah that his worst fears were
realized. But he had but to read a line or so to be convinced that
there was no ground for pessimism. Miss Sarah Ann Munt, it seemed, had
rendered such signal service to the Allied Cause that she had brought
great honor upon herself, upon a name highly and justly esteemed in the
city of Blackhampton, and even upon the country of her origin.

The _Tribune_ told the thrilling story of her deeds with pardonable
gusto. On the outbreak of war she had volunteered for service with the
Serbian Army. Owing to her great skill as a motor driver, for which
in pre-war days she had been noted, she had been attached in that
capacity to the Headquarters Staff. She had endured the perils and the
hardships of the long retreat; and her coolness, her daring and her
mother wit had enabled her to bring her car, containing the Serbian
Commander and his Chief of Staff, in safety through the enemy lines at
a moment when they had actually been cut off. "It is not too much to
say," declared the _Tribune_ whose language was official, "that the
story of Miss Munt's deeds in Serbia is one of the epics of the war.
By her own personal initiative she did much to avert a disaster of the
first magnitude. No single individual since the war began has rendered
a more outstanding service to the Allied Cause. She has already been
the recipient of more than one high decoration, and on page five will
be found an official photograph of her receiving yet another last week
in Paris from the hands of the Chief of the Republic."

Josiah felt a little dizzy as with carefully assumed coolness he turned
to page five. There, sure enough, was Sally, looking rather fine drawn
in her close-fitting khaki, but with that half-wicked down-looking
smile upon her that he knew so well. With her leggings, and her square
chin and her "bobbed" hair which hung upon her cheeks in side pieces
and gave her a resemblance to Joan of Arc she was like an exceedingly
handsome, but as they say in Blackhampton, a rather "gallus" boy.
The hussy! He couldn't help laughing at the picture of her, it was
so exactly how he best remembered her. The amused slightly defiant
You-Be-Damned air was so extraordinarily like her.

"Blame my cats!" said the Mayor.

For several minutes it was his only remark.




XXXVII


The meeting of the Ways and Means Committee which had been called for a
quarter past ten was of more than local importance. It was of national
importance as the Mayor was careful to inform its members, among whom
were the picked brains of the community, when he informally opened the
business. But it was not until twenty minutes to eleven that he was
able to do so. It was not that the Committee itself was unpunctual; it
was simply that one and all had seen that morning's _Tribune_ and that
the common task had perforce to yield for the nonce to their hearty
congratulations.

For one thing, the Mayor had become decidedly popular; for another,
one more glorious page had been written in history by the Blackhampton
born. It was really surprising the number of absolutely eminent people
who at one time or another had contrived to be born at Blackhampton.
In no city in England did local patriotism run higher, in no city in
England was there better warrant for it. The Ways and Means Committee
was quite excited. It was almost childishly delighted at having, as
their Chairman, the rather embarrassed parent of one who, as Sir Reuben
Jope, senior alderman and thrice ex-mayor, said in a well turned
phrase, "bade fair to become the most famous woman in the Empire."

Perhaps a certain piquancy was lent to an event that was already
historical, by the knowledge in possession of those in the inner circle
of municipal life that the Mayor had been hard hit by a former episode
in the dashing career of Miss Sally. That episode belonged to the
pre-war period when the stock of Mr. Josiah Munt did not stand nearly
so high in the market as it did that morning. More than one of these
seated round the council board with their eyes on the Chairman had
relished the public chastening of the lord of Strathfieldsaye. He had
been smitten in a tender place and they were not so sorry for him as
they might have been. But other times other modes of thought. Since
July, 1914, water had flowed under Sharrow Bridge. Nothing could have
been more eloquent of the fact than the rather excited cordiality of
the present gathering.

"I really think, gentlemen," said Sir Reuben Jope, "that the City
should recognize Miss Munt's extremely gallant behavior. I presume, Mr.
Town Clerk, it is competent to do so."

"Oh, quite, sir--oh, quite." In the expressive words in which the Mayor
reconstructed the scene that evening for the benefit of the Mayoress,
"that Aylett was grinning all over his lantern-jawed mug like a Barbary
ape."

"Then I shall propose at the next meeting of the Council that a public
presentation be made to Miss Munt."

"I shall be glad to second that, Sir Reuben," said Mr. Alderman
Limpenny, "when the time comes to do so."

But the Mayor interposed with asperity: "No, no, no, gentlemen. We
can't have anything of the kind. Very good of you, I'm sure, but we
must get on with the business." His worship rapped smartly upon the
municipal mahogany. "This is war time, remember. We've got to discuss
that contract of Perkins and Baylis. Seems to me, as I said at the
last meeting, that those jockeys are over-charging the city forty per
cent. You know, gentlemen, we've got to stop this leakage of public
money. Whatever they may do in Whitehall, we are not going to stand for
it here. Signing blank checks and dropping them in Corporation Square
is not our form. As long as I sit in this chair there is going to be
strict control of the public purse. And there is not going to be graft
in this city neither. This is not Westminster. We don't propose to
allow a public department to make a little mistake in its accounts of
a few odd millions sterling and then jog quietly on as if nothing had
occurred."

"Hear! hear!" from the City Treasurer.

"This war is costing the British people more than seven millions a day
at the present time and to my mind it's wonderful that they are able
to do it at the price. However, gentlemen, that is by the way. Let us
return to the contract of Perkins and Baylis."

Truth to tell the contract of Perkins and Baylis had less attraction
for the Committee at that particular moment than the picture in the
_Tribune_. Somehow, the picture had captured its imagination. Whether
it was the leggings, the "bobbed" hair, the Joan of Arc profile, or the
"gallus" smile of the undefeated Miss Sally, it was quite certain that
the last had not been heard of her historic actions.

The Committee of Ways and Means was not alone in its response to the
picture in the _Tribune_ and the great deeds it commemorated. It was
the talk of the whole city. Josiah moved that day and for many days
in a kind of reflected glory. Wherever he went congratulations were
showered upon him. Three cheers were given him at the Club when he came
in to lunch. There was a decided tendency to identify him personally
with Sally's fame, which, if exceedingly gratifying, was in the
peculiar circumstances not a little disconcerting.

For one thing, he was rather at a loss to know what line he should take
in the matter. On the unhappy occasion of Sally's going to prison he
had written her what he called "a very stiff letter." In pretty blunt
language he had told her that as she had disgraced him in the sight of
the world he should have no more to do with her and that he intended to
disinherit her.

To this letter no reply had been received. It was the kind of letter
which did not call for one. Since that time nothing had passed between
Sally and himself on that subject or on any other. But for some months
now Josiah had rather keenly regretted that his attitude had been so
definite. The war seemed to soften the past and to sharpen the present.
In some respects he was a changed man; one less overbearing in temper,
one less harsh in judgment.

The times had altered. Life itself had altered. He was not a man to cry
over spilt milk, or to deplore the bygone, but at this moment he had
one sharp regret. Some weeks before Sally had burst into fame he had
made up his mind to restore her to his will and meant to write and tell
her so. But for a man of his sort the task was hard and he had weakly
put it off from day to day. And now, alas, it was too late to do it
with the grace of the original intention. It would seem like compulsion
now. Josiah was keenly vexed with himself. Nothing could have been more
eloquent of the rule which hitherto had controlled his life, "Do not
put off until to-morrow, etc." In times like those a cardinal maxim.




XXXVIII


The Mayor was in a false position in regard to his youngest daughter
and he had only himself to blame. But much of his strength lay in the
fact that he was the kind of man whom experience teaches. Delays, it
seemed, were highly dangerous. He must make up his mind to put his
pride in his pocket.

It was not an easy or pleasant operation, but it had to be performed.
Nevertheless, the town had been ringing a full ten days with the name
of Sally before he could bring himself to turn out after dinner of a
December evening and walk along the road as far as The Gables.

He was received in the library, as usual, by Lawyer Mossop. The city's
leading solicitor had recently aged considerably. He looked thinner
and grayer, his cheeks were hollow, there were more lines in his face.
His only son, George, who in the natural course of events would have
carried on a very old established business, had been killed in France,
and news had lately come that his sister Edith's boy, whom he had
helped to educate and who had already begun to make his way at the Bar,
had been permanently disabled by the explosion of a hand grenade.

Long training in self-conquest, backed by generations of emotional
restraint, enabled Lawyer Mossop still to play the man of the world. He
rose with a charming smile and an air of ready courtesy to receive his
distinguished client and neighbor. At a first glance there was nothing
to tell that for the solicitor, life had lost its savor.

The two men had a long and intimate talk. Oddly unlike as they were in
temperament, education, mental outlook, their minds had never marched
so well together as this evening in all their years of intercourse.
Somehow the rude vigor, the robust sense of the client appeared to
stimulate the more civilized, the more finely developed lawyer.
Moreover, he could not fail to perceive that it was a humaner, more
liberal-minded Josiah Munt than he had ever known who had come to
talk with him this evening. Success, popularity, response to the
overwhelming public need had ripened a remarkable man, rubbed off
some of the corners, softened and harmonized the curious dissonances
that had jarred in what, after all, was a fine character. Rough
diamond as Josiah Munt still was and must always remain in the eyes
of the critical, he stood out this evening as a right-thinking,
straight-seeing citizen, a real asset to the community.

"Mossop," he said a little shamefacedly, after their conversation had
gone on some time, "I don't like having to own up to it, but I'm bound
to say that I wish I'd had the sense to take that advice you gave me
in the matter of Sally."

The lawyer could not help a furtive smile at the humility of the tone.

"You've got to put that gel back in my will." It was a pretty stiff
dose now that it had to be swallowed and a fierce frown did not conceal
its nature. "And I want you to believe, Mossop,"--there was an odd
earnestness in the deep voice--"that I had made up my mind to do it
long before this--this damnable Serbian business happened."

The lawyer assured Mr. Munt that he was convinced of that.

"Serves me right, though, for delaying. Mossop, I'm annoyed with
myself. It has the look of a force-put now, but I as I say----"

The lawyer nodded a nice appreciation of the circumstances.

"And while I'm about it, I've made up my mind to put Melia, my eldest
girl, back as well."

The lawyer gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

"My three gels are now going to share alike. But you must provide six
thousand pounds for Gertrude Preston."

The lawyer penciled a brief note on his blotting pad.

"As you know, Mossop, I've made a goodish bit, one way and another,
since this war began. Those girls ought to be very well off. And you
know, of course, that we are takin' in the next house for my hospital
along The Rise. It'll give us another twenty beds--making forty in all."

The lawyer said in his level voice that he understood that to be the
Mayor's intention when he had negotiated the purchase with Mr. Harvey
Mortimore.

"We bought that property very well, eh? Not going to get less in value."

The lawyer agreed.

"I'm now considering the question of making it over permanently to the
Corporation. Wouldn't make a bad nest egg for the city, eh?"

"A very generous gift, Mr. Munt."

"Anyhow, I'm arranging with the Duke to come over on the twenty-sixth
of January to open the new annex. And in the meantime we'll think about
giving it to the city as an orphanage or a cottage hospital."




XXXIX


The next morning Josiah paid a visit to Love Lane. The business of
Sally had taught him a lesson. Events moved so quickly in these crowded
days that it might not be wise to postpone a reconciliation with Melia.

So busy had the Mayor been since his return from Bridlington at the end
of August that he had not found time to visit his eldest daughter, nor
had she been to Strathfieldsaye since her first somewhat uncomfortable
appearance there. She was still inclined to be much on her dignity.
Women who lead lonely lives in oppressive surroundings are not easily
able to forget the past. The olive branch had been offered already; but
it was by no means certain that Melia intended to accept her father's
overtures.

This December morning, however, as the great man, proceeding
majestically on foot from the Duke of Wellington, turned up the narrow
street with its worn cobblestones and its double row of mean little
houses, he fully intended as far as might be humanly possible "to right
things with Melia once for all."

The Mayor entered the shop and found his eldest daughter serving a
woman in a white apron and a black and white checked shawl over her
head with two pennyworth of carrots and a stick of celery. The honest
dame was so taken aback by the arrival of the Mayor of the city, who
was personally known to every man, woman and child throughout the
district as one of a great triumvirate, of whom the King and the Prime
Minister were the other two, that she fled in hot haste without paying
for the spoils she bore away in her apron.

Melia, however, true to the stock whence she sprang, had no false
delicacy in the matter. Without taking the slightest notice of the
august visitor, she was the other side the counter in a jiffy, out of
the shop and calling after the fleeing customer, "You haven't paid your
fivepence, Mrs. Odell."

The Mayor stood at the shop door, watching with a kind of grim
enjoyment the process of the fivepence being extracted. He plainly
approved it. Melia, with all her limitations, had the root of the
matter in her. Upon her return, a little flushed and rather breathless,
he refrained from paying her the compliment he felt she deserved but
was content to ask if trade was brisk.

Trade was brisker, said Melia, than she had ever known it.

Josiah was glad of that. He then looked round to assure himself that
they were alone in the shop and being convinced that such was the case,
he stood a moment awkwardly silent, balancing himself like a stork
first on one leg and then on the other.

"Gel," he took her hand suddenly, "you are back in my will. Sally's
back too. You are both going to have an equal share with Ethel." He
felt the roughened, toil-stained hand begin to quiver a little in his
strong grasp. "Bygones have got to be bygones. Understand me." He drew
her towards him and kissed her stoutly and firmly in the middle of the
forehead.

He retained his hold while her hot tears dripped on to his hand. She
stood tense and rigid, unable to speak or move. But she knew as she
stood there that it was no use fighting him or fighting herself. His
masterfulness, his simplicity, his courage had reawakened her earliest
and deepest instinct, the love and admiration she had once had for
him. Of a sudden she began to sob pitifully. With a queer look on his
face he took out a large red handkerchief and put his arms round her
and wiped her eyes slowly and with a gentleness hard to credit in him,
just as he had done when as a very little girl she had fallen and hurt
herself on the tiled yard of the Duke of Wellington.

Speech was not possible to father or daughter for several minutes
as time is reckoned in Love Lane, although to both it seemed
infinitely longer, and then said the Mayor, "We'll expect you up at
Strathfieldsaye on Christmas Day. Lunch one-thirty sharp." Then he
added in a tone that was almost peremptory, "If that man o' yours
happens to get home on leave your mother would like him to come, too."

Her tear-dimmed eyes looked at him rather queerly. "Didn't you know,
Dad?" The voice had something in it of the child he remembered but it
was so faint that it was barely audible.

"Know what?" His own voice had more asperity than it was meant to have.
But she was able to make allowances for it, as she always had done in
the days when she really understood him.

"Bill's in hospital."

He drew in his breath quickly. The thought ran through his mind that
it was well he had had the sense to learn by experience. "Where? What
hospital?" He was just a trifle nervous, just a shade flurried. As near
as a toucher he had put it off too long, as in the case of Sally.

"In France. At the Base."

"Wound?"

"Yes."

"Bad one?"

"He says it's only a cushy ... but ... but somehow I don't trust him."

"How do you mean you don't trust him?"

"I mean this, Dad." She was quite composed now; the tears and the
shakings were under control; she spoke slowly and calmly. "No matter
how bad he was, he's not one as would ever let on."

"Why shouldn't he?"

"He'd be afraid it might upset you. He's got like that lately."
Suddenly the hard eyes filled again. "He grins and bears things now."

Josiah nodded rather grimly, but made no comment. He turned on his
heel. "See you this day fortnight up at the house." Abruptly, in deep
thought, he went away.




XL


Bill's wound, as it turned out, was a painful one, and it had an
element of danger. His right leg was shattered, also poisoned badly;
it would take a long time to heal and there was a fear that amputation
might be necessary. Such a case demanded special treatment, and to
Melia's joy at the beginning of Christmas week she received word from
her father that her husband had been transferred from France to the
Mayor of Blackhampton's hospital.

There is no saying how this providential arrangement came about. It
may have been coincidence; on the other hand it may not. Josiah in his
second year of office was certainly becoming a power, if not an actual
puller of strings. Influence may or may not have been at work; anyhow
the Corporal bore the long journey so well that Melia, as a special
concession, was allowed to see him for a short time on Christmas Eve.

She found him wonderfully cheerful in spite of the fact that he had
endured much pain; more cheerful perhaps than she had ever known him. A
subtle change had taken place since she had seen him last. The look of
utter weariness had yielded to something else. It was as if he had been
spiritualized by suffering; indeed as he smiled at her gently from his
bed she felt that he was not the kind of man she used to know.

The memory of those few exquisite days in the summer was still in their
minds. It was from that point they now took up their lives. For both
the world had changed. They saw each other with new eyes. This man of
hers had been as good as his word, he had done his best to come back
to her; and there, full of pain, he lay helpless as a baby, yet now
inexpressibly dear as the only thing in life that had any meaning for
her. As for himself, as he smiled up at her, the grace of his dreams
was again upon her. This was she about whom the romance of his youth
had been woven. He didn't see her as she was, a commonplace, worn,
gray-haired woman, or if he did he remembered the sacrifices she had
made for his sake; he remembered that she had once believed in him, and
after long days she had come to believe in him again.

There was rare conflict in the clean and quiet room. The walls were
hung with holly; everything about the place seemed to minister to a
wonderful sense of home. He sighed a deep content as she took a chair
by his bed and held a feverish hand in hers.

"Your father's hospital!" A deep sigh spoke of gratitude. "When you
happen to see him tell him from me I'm glad to be in it."

She promised to do so.

"It's a good place." His eyes and his voice grew softer than their
wont in speaking of his father-in-law. "A bit of luck to be here." He
sighed luxuriously.

Said Melia, "You must take your time getting well, Bill."

Eyes of suffering looked into hers. "I expect I won't be right just
yet." They were still together, passing the time with delightful
fragments of talk and with fragments of silence equally delightful
when a nurse came importantly into the room to say that the Mayor had
arrived unexpectedly to look round the hospital and to wish a happy
Christmas to his guests.

Melia rose rather nervously. "I think I'll be going, Bill."

"Not yet, my dear." The voice from the bed was calm and quiet. "We must
let bygones be bygones. The times has changed."

She was glad to hear him say that. And she had not told him yet of her
father's recent act of reparation. Should she tell him now? Was the
moment favorable? Or had she better wait until----

The question, however, was already decided. Too late to tell him now.
The door at the other end of the room was open and the Commandant had
entered followed by his worship the Mayor.

"Only one bed in this room, sir," said the Commandant. "A special case.
Corporal Hollis."

The Mayor looked calmly round. He didn't see Melia who was hidden by a
screen between the bedstead and the door. "I notice, ma'am, you've got
another door yonder." He pointed to the other end of the room. "Hope
these new casements fit well."

The new casements fitted very well indeed.

"All the same,"--the deep voice was very much that of the man of
affairs--"I expect you get a bit of draught here when the wind blows
from the northeast."

The draught was nothing to speak of, he was assured.

"Any complaints? Heating apparatus all right? Ventilators working
properly?"

There were no complaints to make of any kind.

"Thank you, ma'am," said the Mayor. "You can leave me here alone a few
minutes with Corporal Hollis--if he's well enough to talk to me."

The Commandant retired, closing the door after her, and the Mayor
slowly approached the bed.

"How are you, Bill?" It was a tone of simple, hearty kindness.

Before the occupant of the bed could answer the question, Josiah,
coming round the corner of the screen, was taken aback by the sight
of his eldest daughter. He was not prepared for her, yet he was quite
equal to the situation. "Hulloa, Melia"--it was a father's cordiality.
"How are you, gel? Happy Christmas to you. Happy Christmas to you both."

For a little while he stood talking to them, easily and without
constraint, while the Corporal lay in his bed saying nothing, but with
his worn face softened by pain and service and the thought of others.
From time to time he smiled grayly at the Mayor's pungent humor. Even
in the old days "the Mester" had always had a liberal share of that
quality in which his fellow townsmen excelled. Josiah's sense of humor
was very keen, particularly when it came to assessing the shortcomings
of other people; it had a breadth, a gusto, a penetration which high
office seemed to amplify. His stories, comments, criticisms of those
prominently before the world kept the Corporal quietly amused for some
time. Finally, the Mayor looked at his watch. "I must be getting on,"
he said. "I've got to address the War Workers' Association at six
o'clock. And at seven I've promised to look in at the Hearts of Oak
annual soiree and concert."

Very simply and with the manliness that was part of him he held out
his hand. Without hesitation the Corporal took it. They looked in the
eyes of one another. "I hope you're quite comfortable," said Josiah.
"If there's anything you need you have only to let me know. So long,
my boy, and don't be in a hurry to get well. See you to-morrow, Melia.
Wish you could have brought Bill along with you. Happy Christmas."

With a wave of the hand for them both the Mayor went away, exuding an
atmosphere of kindness and goodwill towards all men except Germans. In
the Mayor's opinion Germans were not men at all.




XLI


It would have been ungracious of Melia not to spend Christmas Day at
Strathfieldsaye. Indeed, she felt that she could hardly do otherwise.
That stubborn thing, pride, might still be lurking in the corners of
her heart, yet it durst not show itself openly; besides, whatever its
secret machinations, she could not overlook the fact that her father
was striving to wipe out the past. Perhaps the past is the only thing
easier to create than to destroy, but certainly Josiah was now trying
his best to undo it. And this Melia knew.

In view of the important function on Christmas Day, Melia had been
taken in hand by Aunt Gerty. It would have been natural to resent the
interference of that lady, but it was clear that her actions were
inspired "from above." At the same time no emissary could have been
more tactful, more discreet. In situations that called for finesse
she was hard to beat; and she was able to have Melia "fitted" for a
_really_ good coat and skirt by her own accomplished dressmaker, Miss
Pratt, and helped her also to choose a hat at Messrs. Rostron and
Merton's, the best shop in the city, without arousing antagonism in
that sensitive soul. Also she whispered in Melia's ear that there was
reason to believe that her father had a little surprise in store for
her on Christmas Day.

In regard to "the surprise" Gerty's information was correct. And as
Melia, looking and feeling far more fashionable than she had ever done
in her life, turned up at Strathfieldsaye at a quarter past one, "the
surprise" duly materialized even before the Christmas luncheon at
one-thirty. Her father gave her a check for fifty pounds.

On Melia's last visit to Strathfieldsaye she had felt quite "out of
it," but not so now. Partly it may have been the new clothes. Formerly,
she had felt self-conscious, awkward, hopelessly shabby in the midst of
a grandeur to which she was unused, whereby she was thrown back upon
her embittered self, but now her changing circumstances, the considered
kindness of her mother and Gerty, and especially her father's new
attitude towards her gave her a sense of happiness almost.

Perhaps the fact that Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, was unable to be
present may also have ministered a little to this feeling. Ethel's
absence was much deplored. Somehow a void was created which seemed to
rob the modest function of any claim to distinction it might have had;
yet in her heart Melia felt that the absence of Mrs. Doctor made it
easier for her personally, and even for her mother, whatever it may
have done for people so accomplished in the world as her father now
was, and for Aunt Gerty who somehow had learned to be genteel without
being stuck-up. With Ethel, on the other hand, she had never felt quite
at her ease. Nor did anybody, if it came to that. Putting people at
their ease was not among Mrs. Doctor Cockburn's many gifts. She was so
much a lady that simple folk were apt to be overwhelmed by her sense of
her happy condition. It was difficult for ordinary people to be their
plain selves in her presence; ordinary they might be, but in social
intercourse Mrs. Doctor seemed almost to resent their plainness as
being in the nature of a slight upon herself.

However, Ethel was not there. And in Melia's opinion her absence gave a
finer flavor to the turkey, a gentler quality to the plum pudding and a
more subtle aroma to the blazing fumes that crowned it. Nevertheless,
it was a theme for much comment. An Event of the first magnitude was
almost due to take place in the family; and the head of it, presiding
over the modest feast with a kind of genial majesty which ever-growing
public recognition of his unusual qualities seemed to enhance and to
humanize, made no secret of the fact that he very much wanted to have a
little grandson.

"Well, Josiah," said the gallant Gerty, adding a little water to some
excellent claret and smiling at him with two level rows of white teeth,
"I am sure we all hope your wish will be gratified. No man, I'm sure,
if I may be allowed to say so, more thoroughly deserves a little
grandson than yourself."

To some minds, perhaps, it was not quite in the Gertrude tradition.
It was Christmas Day and in crowning the Christmas pudding Josiah had
been a thought on the free side, no doubt, with some of the finest old
brandy even the Duke of Wellington could boast; but in any case she
meant well. All the same, the Mayoress could not repress a slight frown
of annoyance. The demonstration did not amount to more than that. It
did not really convict Gerty of bad taste, but Maria felt somehow that
she had to watch her continually. Gerty was such a Schemer. Besides,
what business was it of Gerty's anyway?

"Thank you, Gert." The Mayor raised his glass to the Serpent with the
homely charm that was never seen to greater advantage than on Christmas
Day in the family circle. "Good health and good luck all round. I must
have that little grandson, somehow. Melia, my gel, that's something for
you and your good man to bear in mind."

Melia flushed. She looked so confused and so unhappy that the watchful
Gerty, who with all her ways really spent a good deal of time thinking
for others, suddenly perceived that it might be kind to change the
subject.

"Josiah," said Gerty, "what is this one hears about a public
presentation to Sally?"

"You may well ask that." The Mayor held up a glass of '68 port to the
light. "Some of those jockeys on the City Council have been making
themselves very officious."

"Glad to hear it, Josiah." Gerty was just as pat as your hat. "Think
of the honor she's brought to the city. Surely right and surely proper
that what Sally has done should be publicly recognized. Even the
_Times_ says she's a credit to the Empire."

"All very well," said his worship. "But it's nothing like ten years
since I used to lay her across my knee and spank her. There was one
slipper I kept for the purpose." With a humorous sigh he converged upon
the brim of his wine glass. "But I could never make nothing of that
gel. There was always the devil in her. Public presentation's all very
well, but some of those jockeys on the Council have persuaded the Duke
to make it, and he's fair set on my takin' the chair as I'm Mayor o'
the city and so on."

"The Duke is such a sensible man!" An arch preen of Gerty's plumage.
"Only right and proper, Josiah, that you should take the chair. The
other day, according to the _Tribune_, the French Government gave her a
very high decoration. She's quite a heroine in Paris."

"I'm not surprised at anything." In the Mayor's grim eye was quite
as much vexation as there was humor. "Stubborn as a mule. And that
independent. Must always go her own gait. Nice thing my having to
preside over three thousand people while she's being handed an
illuminated address. Of course, that Aylett's at the back of it.
Mischievous dog! I said if there must be a public presentation, as I
was the father o' the hussy, it was up to somebody else to preside.
But, seemingly, they don't take to the idea."

"Of course not, Josiah."

Groaned the Mayor, "I'll have to make the best of it, I suppose. Still,
a scurvy trick on the part of that Aylett."




XLII


In spite of the Mayor's attitude, which was unsympathetic to the
verge of discouragement, the Town Clerk was able to inform him on New
Year's morning that Miss Sarah Ann Munt had graciously consented to
accept an illuminated address in commemoration of her deeds on January
twenty-fifth at the Floral Hall. The news was not received graciously.
Josiah had comforted himself with the not unreasonable hope that the
Hussy would decline the presentation; it would be so like her to upset
their plans. But no, after all, Sally preferred to behave with still
deeper cussedness. She wrote a charmingly polite letter from the Depôt
of the Northern Command at Screwton, where she was at present attached,
to inform the members of the Blackhampton City Council that it would
give her great pleasure to attend the function on January twenty-fifth
and that she was very sensible of the honor about to be conferred upon
her. And that, after all, was even more like her than a refusal of the
proposal would have been.

Josiah was more disconcerted than he cared to own. It was necessary
to hide his feelings as far as he could, but he was not a finished
dissembler, and, in addition to "that Aylett," there were several
members of the Council who seemed to enjoy the situation. Several
of these received a piece of the Mayor's mind in the course of the
morning. "He didn't know what they could be thinking of to be wastin'
the Town's money in that way." In other words, Josiah had decided to
carry things off with a high hand.

That evening, after dinner, he sat down and wrote a letter.

  "Dear Sarah Ann, I understand that you are to be presented with an
  Address on the twenty-fifth at the Floral Hall. Your mother and I hope
  that you will be able to come and stay here over the week end. Your
  affectionate Father, Josiah Munt. P.S. No need to tell you that this
  Affair is none of my doing."

It was not an easy letter to write nor was the Mayor altogether
satisfied when it was written. But in the circumstances it wouldn't do
to say too much.

By return of post came a dry, rather curt note from Sally. She thanked
her father for the invitation, but she had already promised Ethel that
when next in Blackhampton she would stay at Park Crescent.

Josiah felt annoyed. Once more it was so like her. Somehow the reply
left him less easy in his mind than ever. He would be glad when the
ordeal of the twenty-fifth was over. He didn't trust the minx. As
likely as not she would play some trick or other; she was quite capable
of affronting him publicly. However, the eyes of the world were upon
him, he must keep a stiff upper lip, he must see that she didn't down
him.

In the meantime, from another quarter, bitter disappointment came. The
high hopes of a little grandson did not materialize. Instead of a lusty
Horace Josiah Cockburn bursting upon a flattered world, the inferior
tribe of Gwenneths and Gwladyses had a Gwendolen added to their number.
It was quite a blow. The Mayor and all his family had set their hearts
on a boy. For once the successful Ethel had been less than herself. She
had failed conspicuously. It was impossible to conceal the fact that
people were a little disappointed with her.

Happily, Gwendolen had enough sense of proportion and right feeling to
arrive according to schedule. It would have been unpardonable in her
to have prevented Mrs. Doctor from attending the important function
on the twenty-fifth at the Floral Hall and the even more important
ceremony on the twenty-sixth when the Duke was to open the new annex
to the Mayor of Blackhampton's hospital, which at one acute moment she
had threatened to do. Fortunately Gwendolen remembered herself in time.
She contrived to make her appearance on January second in this vale of
tears, and, although from the outset not a popular member of society,
after all she was less unpopular than she might have been had she
deferred her arrival until a week later.




XLIII


The scene at the Floral Hall was worthy of the occasion. All that
was best in the public life of Blackhampton and of the county of
Middleshire was gathered in force in the ornate building in New Square.

There was more than one reason for the representative character of the
audience. In the first place it was felt to be a royal opportunity to
exalt the horn of patriotism. This public recognition of the heroic
Miss Munt was a compliment paid to the women of Britain, to those many
thousands of magnificent women whose deeds had proved them worthy of
their brothers, their husbands and their sons. Again, the figure of
Sally herself had fired the public imagination. A Joan of Arc profile
overlaid by a general air of you-be-damnedness made an ideal picture
postcard as her father had already found to his cost. All sorts of
people seemed to take a fantastic pleasure in addressing them to Josiah
Munt, Esquire, J.P., Strathfieldsaye, The Rise, Blackhampton. "How
proud you must be of her," et cetera. Ad nauseam.

Moreover, this function was intended as a tribute to the Mayor himself.
His worth was now recognized by all classes. He was the right man in
the right place; his boundless energy and his practical sense were of
the utmost value to the community; and the wise men of that thickly
populated district seized the chance of paying homage to Josiah and at
the same time of exploiting a powerful personality in the interests of
the state.

At three o'clock, when the Mayor came on to the platform, the large
hall was very full. He was followed by the Duke of Dumbarton, a genial,
young-middle-aged nobleman, who was to make the presentation, and by
other magnates. Behind the Chairman many notables were seated already;
and to lend point to the somewhat intimate nature of the proceedings,
which may or may not have been part of the design of these "in the
know," the members of Josiah's family with the national heroine in
their midst had been grouped prominently upon his right hand.

The Town Clerk, a little wickedly perhaps, had intimated beforehand
to the Mayor that the proceedings would really be in the nature of
"a family party." At all events, his worship took the hint "of that
Aylett" literally. Before sitting down at the table and taking formal
charge of the meeting his eyes chanced to light on a group of men in
hospital blue for whom places had been reserved in the front row of
the balcony. Among these he recognized Corporal Hollis, whose leg as a
result of five weeks' special treatment had improved quite remarkably.

The Mayor went to the end of the platform and called loudly, "Bill,
you are wanted down here. Come on to the platform, my boy."

The Corporal did not covet notoriety, but it would have been as wise to
thwart the waters of Niagara as to resist the will of the City's chief
magistrate at a public meeting. Until his instructions had been carried
out there was not a chance of a start being made. Reluctantly realizing
this the Corporal in the course of three minutes had made his way down
from the gallery and on to the platform, a crutch in each hand, where
his august father-in-law received him.

"Come on, Bill." He was shepherded along the front row of chairs as
if the presence of three thousand people was a very ordinary matter.
"You come and sit with the wife. Colonel Hickman, kindly move up a bit.
Thank you. Like a chair for your leg? If you do, I'll get one."

The Corporal declined a chair for his leg, just as the meeting incited
by certain officious members of the Town Council broke into cheers.
Melia and the Corporal, seated side by side, were covered in momentary
confusion. Then the chairman took his seat at the table, reduced the
meeting to silence by rapping the board sternly with his mallet and
stood up again briefly to open the proceedings. These consisted in
patriotic speeches from Lieutenant-General Sir William Hardcastle,
K.C.B., and the Duke of Dumbarton, and the presentation of an
illuminated scroll in a gold casket to Miss Sarah Ann Munt.

First, a speech excellent in its kind, which paid tribute to the deeds
of the sons and daughters of the Empire in all parts of the world; also
it emphasized the sternness of the hour and the need for "keeping on,
keeping on." Then, amid a flutter of excitement, came the presentation
to Miss Munt. It was made by the Duke, a figure deservedly popular all
over the district from which, to be sure, he derived immense revenues.
A master of courtly phrase and well turned compliment, he gave the
heroine of the occasion the full benefit of his powers. And when at
last, in the purview of three thousand people, the dauntless Sally came
forth to the table to receive the casket and scroll she was a sight to
behold.

Rather tall, very slender, brown of cheek and with the eye of a falcon,
in her simple, faded, but much beribboned khaki she looked at that
moment a child of the gods. At the sight of her a thrill ran through
the hall. Cinema, newspaper, picture postcard had led that assembly
to set its hopes high, but the reality, in its calm strength, with a
faintly ironical smile fusing a noble fixity of purpose, more than
fulfilled them. In the youngest daughter of the Mayor of the city was
symbolized the glorious spirit of the youth of the Empire.

A hush came over the great audience. The Duke opened the casket and
took out the scroll. Everybody seemed fascinated by her, including the
members of her own family in a group at the right-hand of the Chair.
But there was just one person there who did not seem willing to submit
without a struggle to her dynamic influence; and that person was her
rather rueful, slightly scandalized male parent.

Even now, in this, of all moments, his worship seemed to detect in
that amazing personality the spirit of Damnable Independence. How many
times in the past, in the stress of combat, when it had been his will
against hers, had he seen that dogged, oh-go-to-the-devil look which
would surely have driven him mad had not he been weak enough to admire
it secretly. There was no getting topside of a look of that kind. As
she stood in the presence of the ducal necktie, with a faint trace
of humorous scorn at the corners of her lips, the outraged Chairman
suddenly caught and fixed her eye. And as he did so his own eye, as of
old, seemed to say to her, "One word from You, our Sally, and I'll give
You such a Lammoxing!"

The casket and scroll were handed to Miss Munt, who acknowledged them
with a graceful inclination of an imperial head, and then cheers broke
out in a hurricane. In part, no doubt, they were inspired by family
associations, for her father had grown vastly popular; but in large
measure they were due beyond a doubt to sheer power of personality. The
secret force which distinguishes one human being from another, over
and beyond their works and their walk in life, belonged to Sally in
sovereign degree. Her portraits and her fame had kindled hopes which
the dauntless reality had more than fulfilled. In the sight of all she
stood a true daughter of her race, foursquare, unconquerable.

At last the cheers subsided and then arose demands for a speech from
the Mayor. As the result of assiduous practice in war oratory Josiah
had won remarkable success. He did not pretend to polish or to flights
of intellect or fancy, but he had a knack of speechmaking that was
immensely to the taste of his fellow citizens. In response to the
insistent demand of the meeting he rose ponderously.

On the crowded platform, as in the body of the hall itself, was many a
shrewd judge of men. The average Briton of all classes has an instinct
in such matters that is almost uncanny. He knows a man when he sees
one. And when the Mayor stood up to address them, a little yet not too
much, embarrassed by the nature of his reception, all present knew that
they saw one now. Charmed and delighted by the heroine of the piece, so
shrewd a body of persons may also have been rather amazed that she had
come to happen. But, somehow, her father seemed to explain her. A rough
diamond, no doubt, but at that moment, in his self-possession, in his
self-belief, in his titanic grappling power when faced with difficulty,
he was an expression of the genius of the race.

All the same it was not easy for the Mayor of Blackhampton to find
words at that moment. As a rule, when on his legs he did not suffer a
lack of them. He had a natural gift of speech and a faculty of humor
which found expression in many a racy idiom. But his powers threatened
to desert him now.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began. There was a pause and then he
began again. "Ladies and gentlemen." There was a second pause while
three thousand sympathetic fellow citizens hung upon the phrase.
And then at last slowly and grimly the great voice boomed out,
"Ladies and gentlemen, there are those who think they can down the
Anglo-Saxon race, but"--slight pause--"they don't know what they are
un-der-ta-kin'----"

There was one pause more. It lasted but an instant for the meeting
broke out in a roar. Only too well had the Mayor interpreted the
thought that was dominating the minds of his fellow citizens.




XLIV


On the Sunday after the famous meeting at the Floral Hall, Bill paid a
first visit to Strathfieldsaye. He was loth to yield to the will of his
father-in-law, but Josiah would take no denial. Corporal Hollis was a
stubborn man, but no one under the rank of a field marshal could hope
to resist effectively the Mayor of Blackhampton in his second year of
office.

Due notice was given by Josiah that he was going personally to fetch
Melia on Sunday afternoon. He intended to drive in his car to Love Lane
for that purpose. On the way back he would call at the hospital for
the Corporal "who must come along up home and drink a dish of tea with
Maria."

The program was not exactly to the taste of Bill, who had little use
for tea and perhaps even less use for his "in-laws." But what could he
do in face of the Mayor's ukase?

Thus it was that in the twilight of a memorable Sunday the Corporal
made his first appearance in Strathfieldsaye's spacious drawing-room.
In the past month his leg had surprisingly improved, but final recovery
would be long and slow, and he still required two crutches. On entering
the room he was a little disconcerted to find so distinguished
a company, for in addition to the Mayoress, mutely superb at the
tea table, was Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, more vocal in black velvet,
Miss Preston, as usual, touched with fashion, and, standing on the
hearthrug, near the fire, in her faded khaki was the slight but martial
form of Sally.

The presence of Sally was a surprise to the Mayor. He had not expected
to see her there, and as soon as his eye lit on her he gave a start.
First of all, however, he shepherded the Corporal into a comfortable
chair with a tenderness hard to credit in him, fixing up the injured
leg on a second chair and laying the crutches on the carpet by the
Corporal's side.

Having done all this, the Mayor moved up to the hearthrug, his hand
outstretched. "Very glad to see you here, my gel." Without hesitation
and in the frankest way he kissed Sally loudly upon the cheek. It was
manly and it was also bold, for such an act seemed perilously like
kissing in public a decidedly soldierlike young man.

Sally didn't seem to mind, however. She was just as frank and
unaffected as her father. Moreover, she had acquired a rich laugh and
an authority of manner almost the equal of his own. She complimented
him upon his speech and quizzically added that he ought to stand for
Parliament. Josiah promptly rejoined that if he did he'd be as much use
as some of those jackasses, no doubt.

The Mayor then carried a cup of tea to the Corporal and Aunt Gerty
provided him with bread and butter and a plate to put it on; and
then Sally moved across from the chimneypiece, sat down very simply
on a hassock by his side and began at once to talk to him. Plain,
direct talk it was, full of technical turns and queer out-of-the-way
information which could have only come from the most intimate
first-hand knowledge. But it was palpably unstudied, without the least
wish to pose or impress, and presently with almost the same air of
blunt modesty the Corporal began talking to her.

To Mrs. Doctor and even to Miss Preston it seemed rather odd that a
real live graduate of Heaven-knew-where should sit tête-à-tête with
poor Melia's husband and be completely absorbed by him and the crude
halting syllables he emitted from time to time. Still to the Mayor
himself, standing with his broad back to the fire and toying like a
large but domesticated wolf with a buttered scone, it didn't seem so
remarkable.

Josiah, at any rate, was able to perceive that his youngest daughter
and his son-in-law were occupied with realities. They had been through
the fire. Battle, murder, death in every unspeakable form had been
their companions months on end. These two were full-fledged Initiates
in an exclusive Order.

The Mayor, foursquare on the hearthrug, had never seemed more at home
in the family circle, but, even his noble self-assurance abated a
feather or two out of deference to Sally and the Corporal. They had
been there. They knew. If Josiah had respect for anything it was for
actual first-hand experience.

Mrs. Doctor, however, was not fettered by the vanities of hero worship.
In spite of Sally and in spite of the Corporal she was able as usual to
bring her light tea table artillery into play. At strategic intervals
her high-pitched, authoritative voice took spasmodic charge of the
proceedings. Now it was the Egg Fund and the incompetence of Lady
Jope, now the latest dicta of Miss Heber-Knollys, now the widespread
complaints of the Duke's inaudibility at the Floral Hall.

Miss Preston fully agreed. "So different from you, Josiah." She was
well on the target as usual. "But he made up for it, didn't he, by the
nice things he said of you when he opened the Annex?"

"Very flattering, wasn't he?" Mrs. Doctor took up the ball. "And wasn't
it charming of him to come here to lunch. Such an unaffected man!"

Josiah broke his scone in half and held a piece in each hand. "Why
shouldn't he come here?" The voice had the old huffiness, yet mitigated
now by an undeniable twinkle of humor. "He got quite as good food here
as he'd get at home, even if we don't run to gold plate and flunkeys."

"Quite, Josiah, quite," piped the undefeated Gerty. "And only too glad,
I'm sure, to come and see the Mayor of Blackhampton."

The laugh of his worship verged upon the whimsical. "Gert, if you want
my private opinion, he didn't come to see me at all."

"Pray, then, Father, who did he come to see?" fluted Mrs. Doctor.

Josiah jerked a humorous thumb in the direction of Sally, who was still
tête-à-tête with the Corporal.

"Nonsense, Father."

"Well, it's my opinion."

It was hard for Mrs. Doctor to believe that her youngest sister could
be the attraction. But her father was clear upon the point. And that
being the case it made the pity all the greater that Sally had declined
the invitation to be present. She had been urged to come to luncheon
and meet the Duke who was anxious to meet her, but she had preferred to
stay at Park Crescent and play with the children.

So like her!




XLV


"D'you mind if I smoke, Mother?"

The lady at the tea table looked mutely at her lord.

Josiah nodded graciously. "Do as you like, gel."

Sally produced a wisp of paper and a very masculine tobacco pouch and
began rolling a cigarette in an extremely competent manner. Josiah
proffered a box of Egyptian but Sally preferred her own and struck a
match on the sole of her shoe in a fashion at once so accomplished and
so boylike as to take away the breath of her mother and Aunt Gerty.

As she sat talking easily and yet gravely to the Corporal with her
long straight legs and trim ankles freely displayed by a surprisingly
short khaki skirt she looked more like a boy than ever. And such was
the thought in the minds of the other three ladies, who agreed tacitly
that the skirt and the cigarette and the astonishing freedom of pose
were not quite maidenly. Still with those ribbons, and that clear deep
voice and that wonderful eye she was fascinating. Even her father, who
on principle declined to admire her Damnable Independence, was unable
to resist the impact of a personality that was now world famous.

Gazing at her in stern astonishment he pointed to her abbreviated lower
garment. "Excuse me, gel," he said, "but do you mind telling us what
you've got underneath?"

Sally deigned no reply in words, but stuck the cigarette in the corner
of her mouth with unconscious grace and dexterously lifted her skirt. A
decidedly workmanlike pair of knickerbockers was disclosed.

Josiah gasped.

The unconcerned Sally continued to talk with the Corporal, while the
Mayor, half scandalized, struggled against a guffaw. "Things seem to be
changing a bit, as you might say. Don't you think so, Mother?"

Aunt Gerty took upon herself to answer, as she often did, for poor
bewildered Maria. "I fully agree, Josiah." She lowered her discreet
voice. "But almost a pity ... almost a pity ... don't you think?"

The Mayor pursed his lips. "Durned if I know what to think, Gert." He
scratched a dubious head. "Seems to me the Empire is not going to be
short o' man power for some little time to come, eh?"

"Still ... not ... quite ... maidenly ... Josiah."

"Daresay you're right." The Mayor fought down his feelings. "Next
chicken on the roost'll be the hussy puttin' up for parliament."

"Bound to get in if she does," Gerty sounded rather rueful. "There
isn't a constituency in England that wouldn't jump at the chance of
electing her just now."

Josiah breathed hard while this obvious truth sank into his bones, but
Mrs. Doctor assured Gerty that she was talking nonsense. Her father
being frankly opposed to this pious opinion, Ethel appealed to her
mother. Maria, alas, was in the position of a modest wether who has
given birth to a superb young panther. She simply didn't know what
to think, and by forlornly folding her hands on her lap gave mute
expression to her feelings.

At the best, however, it was a futile discussion as Gerty was quick
to realize. She turned the talk adroitly into other channels. "This
morning," she said, "as I was walking along Queen's Road I had quite
a shock. I met a blind man being led by an old woman. And who do you
think it was?"

Mrs. Doctor had no idea who it could be.

"It was Harold Nixey the architect. Such a pitiful object! Did you
know, Josiah, that he is now quite blind?"

Josiah was aware of the fact.

"How sad, how very sad!" said Ethel. "And he has done so well, so
wonderfully well, in France."

Gerty considered it nothing less than a calamity--for an architect of
all people. And for one who promised such great things.

Sally was apparently absorbed in talk with the Corporal, but she lifted
her eyes quickly. "Blind, did you say? Harold Nixey?"

"Yes," said Gerty. "Such a grievous thing."

"Aye, it is that!" The voice of Josiah was heavy and somber.

Ethel hoped for his recovery.

Her father shook his head. "From what they tell me the sight is
completely destroyed. I was with the lad yesterday." It was clear from
Josiah's manner that he was moved by real feeling. "Wonderful pluck
and cheerfulness. He knows he'll never draw another elevation, but he
pretends to that old mother of his that he's going to get better--just
to keep her going."

"And you say, Father"--it was the slow precise voice of Sally--"that he
can't get better?"

"Not a dog's chance from what Minyard the eye doctor tells me. It's a
gas those devils have been using." The Mayor sighed. "He's a good lad,
is that. And he'd have gone far. Rose from nothing, as you might say,
but in a year or two he'd have been at the top of the tree." Josiah,
whose gospel was "getting on," again sighed heavily.

"I think I'll go and see him, Father, if you'll give me his address."
Again the slow, precise voice of Sally.

"Do. It'll be a kindness. Number Fourteen, Torrington Avenue. The
second turn on the right past the Brewery along Corfield Road. Pleased
to have a visit from you, I'm sure. He talked about you a lot. His
mother had read him the _Tribune's_ account of Thursday. He says he
used to know you in London when he was studying at South Kensington."

Under Sally's deep tan the blood imperceptibly mounted. "Yes, I used
to know him quite well." She didn't add that she had refused rather
peremptorily to marry him.

"Well, go and see him, gel. A very good soldier they tell me--D.S.O.
and M.C. with two bars."

"_Two_ bars, Josiah!" Gerty put up her glasses impressively.

"And earned 'em--they tell me. Come to think of it, it's wonderful what
some of these young chaps have done."

"And some of the older ones, too, Josiah." Gerty looked across at
the Corporal who was toying pensively with a cigarette that had been
pressed upon him.

"Aye, and some of the old uns, too!" The Mayor followed the glance of
his sister-in-law with the eye of perfect candor. "And not been brought
up to it, mark you. They tell me our B.B. is second to none in the
British Army."

The Corporal looked as if he would like to have confirmed the Mayor's
statement had he not remembered that professional etiquette required so
delicate a topic to be left exclusively to civilians.

Sally and Ethel went after awhile, and Josiah led the Corporal across
the hall to what he called "his snuggery," wherein he considered
his business affairs and the affairs of the City, and, although by
no means a reading man, occasionally referred to the Encyclopedia
Britannica and kindred works. He was at pains to dispose the Corporal
in comfort near the fire and then gave him an excellent cigar and
insisted on his smoking it.

At first little passed between them in the way of words. They smoked
in silence, but the Corporal could not help thinking, as he delicately
savored the best cigar he had ever held between his fingers, how much
prosperity had improved "the Mester." He was so much mellower, so
much more generous than of yore. His outlook on the world was bigger
altogether; the Corporal's own outlook was larger also; somehow, he had
not the heart to resist the peace overtures of his father-in-law.

Said Josiah at last, pointing to the Corporal's leg: "A longish job, I
expect."

The doctors seemed to think it might be. Still it had got the turn now.
It was beginning to mend.

"I've been wondering," said the Mayor, "whether it mightn't be possible
to get you transferred to munitions. Johnson and Hartley are short o'
foremen. Pound a day to begin with. What do you say, my boy?"

The Corporal gazed into the fire without saying anything.

Said the Mayor, half apologetically, "You're not so young as you were,
you see. Forty-three, they tell me, is a bit long in the tooth for the
trenches. And you've done your bit. Why not give some o' the younger
ones a chance?"

In silence the Corporal went on gazing into the fire.

"Anyhow it might be worth thinking over."

The Corporal removed the cigar from his mouth and appeared laconically
to agree that it might be worth thinking over. But the suggestion
didn't seem to fire him.

A deeper silence followed and then said the Mayor with a certain gruff
abruptness which was a partial return to the old manner, "I'm thinking
it'll be a good thing for Melia to quit Love Lane. She's not done so
bad with the business lately, but it might be wise to sell it now.
And she'll be none the worse for a rest in country air. Happen I told
you that back in the spring I bought that cottage up at Dibley that
that artist chap--I forget his name for the moment--used to come and
paint in. Rare situation--sandstone foundation--highest point in the
county--see for miles from his studio at the end o' the garden. Don't
quite know why I bought it except that it was going cheap. An old
property--nobody seemed to fancy it--but the freehold is not going to
get less in value if I'm a judge o' such matters and the place is in
pretty good condition. Suppose, my boy, you and Melia moved in there?
Save me a caretaker, and some o' the finest air in Europe comes down
the valley of the Sharrow."

The heart of the Corporal leaped at these amazing words, but his eyes
were still fixed upon the fire.

"What was the name o' that artist chap? A local man, but quite well up,
they tell me."

"Stanning, R.A." Something hard and queer rose in the Corporal's throat.

"That's the jockey--Stanning, R.A. Now I remember ... a rare dust there
was in the Council some years ago when the Art Committee bought one of
his pictures for...." The Mayor drew heavily at his cigar ... "for ...
dram it! I'm losing my memory...."

"A thousand guineas," the Corporal whispered.

"Something like that. Something extortionate. I remember there was
a proper dust when the Council got to know of it. All very well to
encourage local talent, I remember saying, but a thousand guineas was
money. Maxon the curator resigned."

The Corporal kept his eyes on the fire.

With a rich chuckle the Mayor turned over the cigar in his mouth at
the memory of old battles in the Council Chamber. "The fur flew for
a bit, I can tell you. He wasn't an R.A. at that time and the poor
chap's gone now so happen he'll begin to rank as an old master. They
tell me fabulous sums are paid for these old masters, so one o' these
days Stanning, R.A., may grow into money and the City'll have a bargain
after all. But I don't pretend to understand such things myself. A
brave man, anyway. Joined up with the B.B. at the beginning and was
killed out yonder."

The Corporal nodded but said nothing. The Mayor went on with his
cigar. "I'm trying to remember the name of another artist chap who
used to live in that cottage when I was a boy. We used to jang from
school on fine afternoons in the summer and go bathing in Corfield
Weir. And painting by the river was an old chap with a long beard
like Tennyson--you've seen the picture of Tennyson"--Josiah pointed
to a lithograph of the bard on the wall behind the Corporal--"but
not quite so fierce looking. Wonderful blue eyes had that old feller
... lord love me, what _did_ they call him!... I remember we used to
throw stones at his easel. We got one right through it once, when he
had nearly finished his picture and he had to begin all over again.
What _was_ the name of the old feller?" The Mayor fingered his cigar
lovingly and looked into the fire. "Soft Billy ... that was it.... Soft
Billy." Josiah sighed gently. "Poor, harmless old boy. I can see those
blue eyes now."

The Mayor drew gently at his cigar while the Corporal kept his eyes on
the fire. "That reminds me.... I've got one of the old chap's pictures,
somewhere." The Mayor laughed softly to himself. "Took it for a bad
debt ... quite a small thing ... wonder what's become of it?" He grew
pensive. "Must be up in the box room." Suddenly he rose from his
chair. "I'll go and see if I can find it."

The man of action went out of the room, leaving the Corporal in silent
enjoyment of warmth, the tobacco and many reflections.

In a few minutes Josiah returned in triumph with a small piece of
unframed canvas in his hand. He rang the bell for a duster, of which it
was much in need, and when the duster had been duly applied he held the
picture up to the light. "It wants a frame." The tone was indulgent but
casual. "Looks like Dibley Chase to me." He handed the landscape to the
Corporal who gazed at it with wistful eagerness.

"Dibley Chase was always a favorite pitch for these artist chaps.
See the Sharrow gleaming between the trees?" Josiah traced with his
finger the line of the river. "I like that bit o' sun creeping down
the valley. Good work in it, I daresay ... but I don't pretend to be
up in such matters. Very small but it may be worth a frame. Been up in
the attic at Waterloo Villa for years ... aye, long before Waterloo
Villa...." Josiah took a loving puff of his cigar. "I must have had
that picture when I first went to the Duke o' Wellington in March,
'79. How time gets on! Had it of that lame chap who used to keep
the Corfield Arms who went up the spout finally. Used to supply him
with beer. Gave me this for a barrel he couldn't pay for." The Mayor
laughed richly and put on his spectacles. "Can you see the name o' the
artist? What was the name o' that old Soft Billy ... ha, there it is."
The Mayor brought his thumb to bear on the right-hand corner. "'J.
Torrington, 1854' ... a long time ago. John Torrington, that was his
name ... some of his work grew in value, I've heard say. A harmless old
man!"

The Mayor sighed a little and gave himself up to old memories while the
Corporal held the picture in his hand. "Soft Jack ... aye, that was his
name.... I can see him now with his white beard and long hair ... I'm
speakin' of fifty years ago. Soft Jack, yes ... had been a good painter
so they said ... but an old man, then. Used to sit by the Weir painting
the sun on the water. I've pitched many a stone at his easel ... in the
summertime after bathing."

The Corporal was too absorbed in the picture to heed the Mayor's
reminiscences. Josiah laughed softly at his thoughts and chose a second
cigar. "Too small to be worth much," he said. "But Melia might like it.
She was always a one for pictures. We'll pop a bit o' the _Tribune_
round it and she can stick it in the front parlor up at Dibley where
the old boy lived and died."




XLVI


The next morning, Monday, towards eleven o'clock, Sally dropped
expertly off the municipal tram, without waiting for it to stop, at the
second turn on the right past the Brewery, along the suburban end of
the Corfield Road, and entered a street that she had never seen before.

Torrington Avenue was one of those thoroughfares on the edge of large
cities that seem to spring into being in a day and a night. In spite of
the obvious haste with which its small houses had been flung together
it was not unpleasing. But when Sally was last in her native city, a
year before the war, this area had been a market garden.

Number Fourteen was a well kept little dwelling in the middle of a neat
row. Just as Sally reached it, an old woman with a wicker shopping
basket came out of the iron gate.

"Mrs. Nixey?"

The visitor had recognized the old lady but the converse did not hold
true.

"You don't remember me, Mrs. Nixey. I'm Sally Munt."

The old lady gave vent to surprise, pleasure, incredulity. But even
then she was not able to identify one who but a few years ago had been
almost as familiar to her as her own son until Sally had lifted her cap
and rolled back the fur collar of her immense khaki overcoat.

"Well, I never!" The old woman's voice was shrill and excited. "It
_is_ Miss Munt. I _am_ pleased to see you, my dear." The distinguished
visitor suddenly received a peck on a firm brown cheek. "He knows all
about you. I read him the account of the doings at the Floral Hall. He
wanted to be there, but the Doctor thought it wouldn't be good for him.
It _is_ kind of you to come and see him.... It'll please him so."

Sally cut the old lady short with a brief, pointed question or two. He
was very well in health except that he couldn't see, but he was always
telling his mother that he was quite sure he would be able to see
presently, although Dr. Minyard had told her privately that he couldn't
promise anything.

The old lady led the way along the short path and applied a latchkey to
the front door. As it opened, Sally caught the delicately played notes
of a piano floating softly across the tiny hall.

"He plays for hours and hours and hours," said the old lady. "Your
dear father has just given him a beautiful new piano. He's been such a
friend to Harold. Wonderful the interest he's taken in him."

She opened the door of a small sitting room, whence the music came,
but the player wholly absorbed did not hear them enter.

"Harold, who do you think has come to see you!"

As the piano stopped and the musician swung round slowly on his stool,
Sally shivered at the pallor of the face and the closed eyes. She saw
that tears were trickling from them.

"Miss Munt has come to see you." There was excitement in the voice of
the old lady. "You remember Miss Sally of Waterloo Villa. And to think
what we've been reading about her in the _Tribune_!"

The musician sprang up with a boy's impulsiveness. "You don't say,
Mother--you don't say!" The eager voice had a music of its own. "Where
are you, Miss Sally?" He held out his hand. "Put your hand there and
then I shall believe it."

Sally did as she was asked.

"Well, well, it's really the great and famous you." He seemed to caress
that strong and competent paw with his delicate fingers.

She couldn't find the courage to say anything.

But he did not allow the silence to become awkward. "Better go and look
after your coupons, Mother, while Miss Sally and I talk shop."

Upon that plain hint the old lady went away, closing the front door
after her, and then the blind man helped the visitor to take off her
heavy coat and put her into a chair. He found his way back to the music
stool without difficulty, but in sitting down he brushed the keys of
the piano with his coat sleeve.

"Your dear, good father gave me this. A wonderful improvement on
the one we've scrapped. Did you hear me murdering Beethoven as you
came in? One's only chance now to score off the poor blighters!" His
cheerfulness, his whimsical courage, were amazing to Sally. "Since
last we met things have happened, haven't they? South Kensington Tube
Station, December, 1913. Æons ago." He sighed like a child. "By the
way, tell me, did you get a letter I sent to you when you did your 'go'
of time?"

Sally had received the letter. Soft the admission and also blushing,
although he could not see that.

"Wasn't meant as an impertinence, though perhaps it was one. Always
doing the wrong things at that time, wasn't I? And I'm saying 'em now.
Born under bad stars." He laughed a little and paused. "Jove! what
wonderful things you've done, though."

"I've had luck." Her voice was firm at last.

"Not more than you deserve. Hell of a time in Serbia ... must have had.
Don't know how you managed to come through it."

"Just the stars." Sally laughed a little now. But never in her life had
she felt so little like laughing. She remembered that she used to think
him a bounder; she remembered how much his proposal had annoyed her.
Yet he was just the same now--the same Harold Nixey--only raised to a
higher power. Once she had despised his habit of thinking aloud, yet
now it almost enchanted her....

But she was not very forthcoming. He seemed to have to do the talking
for both. "Fritz beginning to get cold feet, do you think?"

She didn't think so.

"What are you doing now?" It was the dry tone of the professional
soldier.

"I'm detailed for special duty in France." The tone of Sally was
professional also.

He sighed a gentle, "When?"

"Off to-morrow."

He sighed again.

"It was not until last evening,"--her voice changed oddly--"that I
heard you were at home."

"Nice of you to come and see me," he said. "You must excuse the room
being in a litter." There was a table in the center on which was a
drawing board, geometrical instruments, many sheets of paper. "I've
been trying to work. I'm always trying ... but ... you need eyes to be
an architect ... you need eyes."

Sally was suddenly pierced by the thought of his ambition and his
passion for work. He was going to do so much, he had begun so well.

"I have an idea for a new cathedral for Louvain. Been studying
ecclesiastical architecture for years in my spare time." As he paused
his face looked ghastly. "It's all in my head ... but...."

"Is it possible"--she could hardly speak--"for any one to help you--in
the details, I mean?"

"They would have to get right inside my mind ... some one practical ...
yet very sympathetic ... and then the chances are that it wouldn't work
out."

"It might, though."

"Somehow, I don't think so." He was curiously frank. "I tell myself it
might, just to keep going. There's always the bare chance if I get the
right person to help me ... some one with great intelligence, great
insight, great sympathy, yet without ideas of their own."

"You mean they wouldn't have to know too much?"

"That's it ... not know too much. They would have to sink their
individuality in ... in one who couldn't.... Your father suggested
a partnership. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? Besides I should
be terribly trying to work with ... terribly trying ... perhaps
impossible."

"Do you think you would be?"

"In a partnership, yes. It couldn't answer. I'm so creative.... I have
always to stamp myself on my work ... if you know what I mean. Then
... as I say ... I don't know yet ... that ... I can pick up all the
threads that have been...."

"You need," said Sally slowly and softly, "some intelligent amateur,
capable of drawing a ground plan, who would give himself up to you."

He threw up his head eagerly. "That's it ... somebody quite
intelligent ... but without ambition ... who would"--the voice began to
tail off queerly--"have the courage ... not to mind ... the ferocious
egotism ... of the ... baffled." Suddenly he covered his face with his
hands.

"It wouldn't take me very long to learn the rudiments, I think," said
Sally. "I'm rather quick at picking up the things that interest me.
It would be enormously interesting to see what could be done with
this--this----"

"But you are off to France to-morrow."

"The war won't last forever."

The tone of her voice startled him. His heart leapt queerly. There was
a time, not so long ago, when he would have given his soul to have
surprised just that note in it. He began to shake violently.

With all the will his calamity had left him he strove to hold himself
in. Her voice was music, her nearness magical; what she offered him now
was beyond his wildest hopes. Once he had jumped at her too soon, in
a moment of delirium; but he had always known, by force of the strong
temperament, that was such a torment to him now, that she was the only
woman in the world he would ever really care for.

"I see just the kind of helper you need." Divinely practical, yet
divinely modern! "I could mug up my drawing in a week or two and I
should never know enough to want to interfere with anything that
mattered."

He held himself tensely like one who sees a precipice yawning under
his feet. "America coming in, do you think?" It was a heroic change of
voice. "I wish she would. I'm afraid it may be a draw without her."

Sally, with all her ribbons and her uniform, could rise to no immediate
interest in America.

"Our poor lads have had an awful grueling on the Somme. Seven hundred
thousand casualties and nothing to show for it so far."

"I know." The sightless eyes were lacerating her. "They ought to help
us. It's their war as much as it's ours."

"We can't blame them for staying out. Can't blame anybody for staying
out. But we'll never get the right peace unless they help us."

"Some people think they'd not make much difference."

"My God!" It was the vehemence she used not to like. "They'd simply tip
the scale. Have you ever been there?"

"No."

"I have. Some country, America. They've pinched our best Torrington,
curse them ... not that that took me there. One afternoon, though, I
happened to be looking for it in a moldy, one-horse museum just off
Washington Square--I forget the name of it--when I walked straight into
the arms of dear old Jim Stanning who had actually come all the way
from Europe on purpose to gaze at it."

Sally emitted becoming surprise.

"If you read that in a novel you'd say it was the sort of thing that
doesn't happen. But it did happen. Fancy old Jim coming all those miles
by flood and field to look at a strip of canvas not as big as that
drawing board. 'The Valley of the Sharrow on an afternoon in July.' By
the way, did you ever happen to meet him?"

Sally had never met Stanning the painter.

"One of the whitest men that ever lived. Lies out there. A great chap,
Jim Stanning. Another Torrington almost for a certainty ... although he
doubted himself, whether he was big enough to fight his own success.
See what he meant?"

It thrilled him a little when he realized that she did.

For an instant the extinguished eyes seemed to well with light. "That
picture of his, 'As the Leaves of the Tree,' carries technique to a
point that makes one dizzy. Some say technique doesn't matter, but
there's nothing permanent without it." He sighed heavily. "Of course
the undaunted soul of man has to shine through it. And that's just what
Jim Stanning was--an undaunted soul. Dead at thirty-nine. We shan't
realize ... if we ever realize ... however...."

Overcome by his thoughts for a moment, he could not go on. Sally sat
breathing hard.

"If I were a rich man, as rich as Ford or Carnegie, I'd buy that
picture of old Jim's and send it to them in Berlin. Some day it might
help them to ask themselves just what it was that brought the man who
painted it, a man who simply lived for beauty, to die like a dog, half
mad, in a poisoned muckyard in Flanders."

Suddenly he stopped and the light seemed to die in his face. Then he
turned round on the piano stool and broke delicately into the opening
bars of the haunted, wild and terrible Fifth Symphony. For the moment
he had forgotten that Sally was there.

She got up from her chair and came to him as a child to a wounded and
suffering animal. Putting an arm round his clean but frayed collar she
kissed his forehead.

"I shall come and see you again ... if I may."

His sightless flesh seemed to contract as he lifted his thin hands from
the keyboard. "Don't!" he gasped. "Better not ... better not ... for
both of us."

She knew he was right and something in her voice told him so. "... If I
may," she repeated weakly.

He didn't answer. She pressed her lips again upon his forehead, then
took up her coat and went hastily from the room.

The old woman was in the act of turning the latchkey in the front door.
She had got her coupons and was returning in triumph with a full basket.

"Not going, Miss Sally, are you? I should like you to have seen his
decorations--D.S.O. with two Bars and such a wonderful letter from the
General."

"I'm afraid I simply must go, Mrs. Nixey. Off to France to-morrow, and
I've got to pack."

"Yes, my dear, I suppose so. Very good of you to come and see him."

"Don't say that."

At the sight of Sally's eyes the voice of the old woman changed
suddenly. "He thinks, my dear, he'll get better ... he quite thinks
he'll get better ... but ... but, Dr. Minyard...." Again the voice of
the old woman changed. "Ah, there he is playing again. How beautifully
he does play, doesn't he? Hours ... and hours ... and hours. So soft
and gentle ... the bit he's playing now reminds him of the wind in
Dibley Chase. Yes, and that bit too ... he says it makes him see the
sun dancing along the Sharrow on an afternoon in July. Beautiful
piano! So kind and thoughtful of your dear father! He quite thinks ...
he'll...."




XLVII


The Corporal's leg was a long time getting well.

First it came on a bit, then it went back a bit; but the process of
recovery was a painful and a tardy business. Still it was much softened
by the judicious help of others. By the interest of the Mayor of the
city, whose model hospital on The Rise and its last word in equipment
meant access to more than one influential ear, Corporal Hollis in the
later stages of a long convalescence had the privileges of an out
patient.

These privileges, moreover, were enjoyed in ideal conditions. Early in
April, Melia was installed at Torrington Cottage, Dibley. To the secret
gratification of her family, the business in Love Lane was given up,
and Melia's checkered life entered upon a new phase amid surroundings
wholly different from any it had known before.

At first the change seemed almost too great to be enjoyed. After the
gloom, the semi-squalor, the hard toil of Love Lane, it was like an
entrance into paradise. And when, at the end of that enchanted month
of April, the Corporal joined her in the new abode, Melia's cup of
happiness seemed quite perilously full.

That was a summer of magic days. For weeks on end they lived in a dream
that had come true. To Melia the well appointed house, the beautiful
surroundings, the bounty of her father were sources of perpetual
amazement; to the Corporal the extensive garden, so gloriously stocked
with flowers, fruit and vegetables, was a thing of delight; above all,
the tower at the end of it, commanding on every hand his lovely native
county, was a sacred thing, a temple of august memories.

The Corporal sunning himself and smoking his pipe by the south
wall, where the peaches grew, could never have believed it to be
possible. Melia, tending the flowerbeds and the grass, at the end of a
not-too-strenuous summer's day, felt somehow that this was fairyland.
Yes, their dreams of the long ago had more than come true. And,
crowning consummation, in the eyes of each other, they were honored
husband and cherished wife.

The Corporal was a long time getting well, but in that he was obeying
instructions. Those most competent to speak of his case had told him
not to be in a hurry; otherwise he might be permanently lame. And he
was entitled to take his time. He had done his bit. Moreover, as his
father-in-law assured him, it was the turn of younger men to "carry
on." He had been through more than a year and a half in the trenches
amid some of the cruelest fighting of the war; he was entitled to wear
two stripes of gold braid on his sleeve. If any man could nurse a
painful injury with a good conscience that man was Corporal Hollis.

In spite of searing memories, in spite of the whole nation's anxieties,
in a measure made less, yet not wholly dispelled by the entrance into
the war of a great Ally, the Corporal was allowed a taste of those
half-forbidden fruits, Poetry and Romance. At such a time, perhaps,
with the issue still undecided and the trials of the people growing
more severe every week, the gilt on life's gingerbread should have
been denied him altogether. And yet by dogged pluck he had earned that
guerdon, and Melia by her simple faith was worthy to share it with him.

The famous erection at the end of the garden, a weathercock at its
apex, a course of bricks and twelve stone steps at its base, was
haunted continually by an unseen presence. And it was a presence with
whom the Corporal long communed. Many an odd hour between sunrise and
sunset, a humble disciple of the Highest, pencil or brush in hand,
strove with hardly more than infantile art to surprise some of the
secrets of woodland, stream and hill.

No wonder that at that particular corner, where mile upon lovely
mile of England rolled back to the frontiers of three counties, two
of her greatest painters had gloried in Beauty and drunk deep. The
lights tossed from the sky to the silver-breasted river gleaming a
thousand feet below and then cast back again were so many heralds and
sconce-bearers for those who had eyes to see.

When the Corporal was not being wheeled round his enchanted garden,
or was not smoking his pipe in the sun, he was sitting with his back
to the weather, drawing and painting and dwelling in spirit with the
genius of place and, through it, with one immortal friend.

Autumn came and the Corporal still needed a crutch. But he could get
about the garden now and even pluck the weeds, although not yet able
to dig. And he was so happy that he didn't chafe against the slow
recovery. He needed rest and he had earned it; of that there could be
no question.

Meanwhile the months passed and events moved quickly. The war, to which
no glimpse of an end was yet in sight, continued to press ever more
severely upon all sections of the population. There was a shortage
of everything now except the spirit of grim determination. It was a
people's war, as no war had ever been, and the people, come what might,
were set on winning it.

In November the signal compliment was paid Josiah of electing him to
office a third consecutive year. If anything, his second term had
enhanced his prestige; his authority in the city of Blackhampton
was greater than ever. More and more did he seem to be the man such
abnormal times required. And the Mayoress, although under the constant
threat of dissolution throughout a strenuous year, was still in the
land of the living. Looking back on what she had suffered, the fact
appeared miraculous; and yet as the end of the second term drew near,
had she been quite honest with herself, she might have been tempted
to own that she was none the worse for her experience. In some ways,
although the admission would have called for wild horses, she might
almost be said to be the better for it. Gertrude Preston, at any rate,
openly said so.

Such being the case, Josiah did not hesitate to accept office for a
third term. By now he realized that he was the best man in the city, at
all events for that particular job. Everybody said so, from the Town
Clerk down; and it was no mere figure of speech. Indeed, Josiah felt
that Blackhampton could hardly "carry on" without him.

He was an autocrat, it was true, his temper was despotic, but that was
the kind of man the times called for. It was no use having a divided
mind, it was no use having a mealy-mouth. With the political instinct
of a hardheaded race he had contrived to find a formula of government.
He could talk to Labor in the language it understood; and the employers
of Labor allowed him to talk to them, perhaps mainly for the reason
that he was not himself an employer, but a disinterested and, if
anything, slightly too honest, private citizen.

Therefore, no great surprise was caused at the beginning of the New
Year when it was announced that the dignity of a Knight of the British
Empire had been conferred upon the Mayor of Blackhampton. Sir Josiah
Munt, K.B.E., took it as "all in the day's work." A democrat pur sang,
yet he didn't doubt "that he'd make as good a knight as some of 'em."
But the hapless Maria showed less stoicism. According to credible
witnesses, when the news came to her that Lady Munt was her future
style and degree, she fainted right off, and when at last the assiduous
Alice had brought her to, she put herself to bed for three days.

Be that as it may, old issues were revived in that tormented breast.
Horace, Doctor Cockburn, had immensely strengthened his position in
the triumphant course of the preceding year, but the new situation
cried aloud for Doctor Tremlett. However, the Mayor telephoned to his
sister-in-law "to come at once and set her ladyship to rights," the
call was promptly obeyed by the dauntless Gerty, and the crisis passed.




XLVIII


The early months of the year 1918 saw the entire Allied Cause in the
gravest jeopardy. Even a superficial study of facts only partially
revealed has made it clear that disaster was invited by an almost
criminal taking of chances. The time is not yet for the whole truth to
be known. Meanwhile the muse of history continues to weave her Dædalian
spells....

On the last Sunday morning of that momentous and terrible March the
Mayor sent his car to Torrington Cottage. Melia and her husband had
been invited to spend the day at Strathfieldsaye. For several months
the Corporal had been working at a new aerodrome along the valley,
which happened to be within easy reach of his tricycle. His last
Medical Board had proved that his leg was still weak and in its opinion
not unlikely to remain so. But he had not been invalided out of the
Army, as there was still a chance that presently he might be able to
pass the doctor; at the same time, having regard to his age and the
nature of his injury, he had a reasonable hope of getting his discharge
whenever he cared to apply for it.

More than once had Melia urged him to do so. Her arguments were strong.
He was not a young man and he had already "done his bit"; they were
very happy together in their charming house; and her father had said
that it would continue to be theirs as long as they cared to live in
it. The Corporal, however, could not quite bring himself to quit the
Army, even had such a course been possible. Something still held him.
He didn't know exactly what it was, but even now that the chance had
been given him he was loathe "to cut the painter." Pride seemed to lie
at the root of his reluctance. Melia felt it must be that. But the
Corporal knew that alchemies more potent were at work.

On this fateful Sunday in March, after the midday meal, as he sat
smoking one of his father-in-law's cigars in the little room across the
hall he realized that pressure was being brought to bear upon him to
make a decision. Moreover, in Josiah's arguments, he heard the voice of
his wife. Melia had lately astonished the world with the news that she
was expecting a baby. The fact was very hard to credit that she was now
preparing clothes for her first-born. A nine days' wonder had ensued.
Such a thing was almost beyond precedent, yet, after all, Dame Nature
had been known to indulge in these caprices! The startled, fluttered,
rather piqued Mrs. Doctor, after consultation with her lord, was able
to furnish instances. Still, it was remarkable! And it lent much
cogency to Melia's desire that the Corporal should now apply for his
discharge from the Army.

This afternoon it was clear that Josiah was pleading Melia's case.
There was an excellent billet waiting for the Corporal at Jackson and
Holcroft's if he cared to take it. They offered short hours and good
pay. Why not? He was still going a trifle lame; the Medical Board was
not likely to raise any objection; and it would be a relief to Melia
who ought to be considered now.

The Corporal, however, shifted uneasily in his chair. All through
luncheon he had seemed terribly gloomy; and, if anything, his
father-in-law's arguments had deepened the clouds. One reason was,
perhaps, that Josiah himself was terribly gloomy. The whole country was
terribly gloomy. It had suddenly swung back to the phase of August,
1914.

The simple truth was that disaster was in the air. A crushing blow had
fallen, a blow doubly cruel because so long foreseen and, therefore, to
be parried if not actually prevented.

"Over a wide front the British Army is beaten!" Such was the enemy
message to the Sunday papers. "Ninety thousand prisoners and an
enormous booty have been taken!" And the greatest disaster in the long
history of British arms was confirmed by the artless official meiosis.
"Our Fourth and Fifth Armies have retired to a previously prepared
position." It omitted to state that the position was some thirty miles
nearer Paris, but that fact received confirmation from the French
communiqué in the next column, "The capital is being bombarded by
long-range guns."

No day could have been less propitious for Melia. And after the Mayor
had sat smoking a few minutes with his gloomy son-in-law he appeared
to realize the state of the case. As the Corporal drew at his cigar in
a silence that was almost morose, Josiah's own thoughts and feelings
began to take color from their surroundings. He lapsed into silence
also. It seemed to come home to him all at once and for the first time
in his life that he had been guilty of impertinence. This little man
with his bloodshot eyes and few struggling wisps of gray hair, with his
twitching hands and his air of smoldering rage, had been through it.
Even to have been Mayor of Blackhampton three years running was very
little by comparison. Josiah was man enough to feel keenly annoyed for
having allowed his tongue so free a rein.

There came at last a deep growl from the Corporal. It was the note of
an old dog, whose life of many battles has not improved his temper. "If
the bloody politicians will interfere!"

The words found an echo in the heart of the Mayor. Sinister tales were
rife on every hand. And of his own knowledge he was aware that there
were hundreds of thousands of trained men in the country at that moment
whose presence was most imperatively called for on the perilously
weakened and extended British line to France.

"Goin' to call up the grandads, I see," said the Corporal, grimly.

"Aye!" The Mayor laughed bitterly. "Fat lot o' use they'll be when
they've got 'em. Muddle, muddle, muddle." Like the Corporal, he was in
a very black humor. "It's a mercy the Yankees are with us now--if they
are not in too late."

"Fancy muckin' it," said the Corporal, "with the game in our hands. A
year ago we'd got 'em beat."

"Press government," said Josiah savagely.

The Corporal proceeded to chew a good cigar. "Dad," he said at last,
and it was the first time in his life he had addressed his former
employer so familiarly, "I'm thinking I'll have to go before the
Medical Board again."

Josiah combed an incipient goatee with a dubious forefinger. "But, my
boy, from what you told me, you thought you could get your discharge
any time you liked to ask for it."

"That was back in January."

"You're no fitter now than you were then, are you?"

The Corporal slowly stretched his right leg to its full length, and
then, gathering it under him leant his whole weight upon it. "I'm much
firmer on my pins than I was then." His rough voice suddenly regained
its usual gentleness. "Work seems to suit me." He laughed rather
wryly. "I expect the Board'll pass me now--if I ask 'em to."

It was the turn of Josiah to maltreat his cigar. "Not thinking of going
back into the Line, are you?"

"If they'll take me." The Corporal spoke slowly and softly. "And I
daresay they will--if I ask 'em polite."

Josiah's keen face was full of queer emotion. "Not for me to say
anything." But he had been charged with a mission by the urgent Melia.
No matter what his private feelings let him not betray it! "Seems to
me, my boy, although it's not for me to say anything, that no one'll
blame you, after what you've been through, if you stand aside and make
room for others."

The Corporal extended both legs towards the fire. He gazed into it
solemnly without speaking.

"Well, think it over, Bill." The voice of the tempter. "No one can
blame you, if you stick to your present billet, which suits you so
well--or even if you go into munitions at a good salary. You'll have
earned anything they give you. And in a manner o' speaking you'll still
be doing your bit. But as I say ... it's not for me...."

Strangling a groan, the Corporal rose suddenly from his chair, "I must
think it over." He threw the stump of his cigar into the fire. "You
see, I don't like leaving the Chaps." The voice of the Corporal sank
almost to a whisper.

The Mayor gave his guest a second cigar and chose another for himself.
But he didn't say anything.

"You see--as you might say--I've had Experience."

The Mayor looked a little queerly at the Corporal. Then he took a
penknife out of the pocket of a rather ornate knitted waistcoat and
dexterously removed the tip from his cigar.

"I've had Experience." The Corporal sighed and sat down heavily in his
cushioned chair. He fixed his eyes again on the fire.

The Mayor applied a lighted spill to his cigar and then in silence
offered it to the Corporal. But the Corporal's cigar was not yet ready
for smoking.

"If I do go"--the voice of the Corporal was soft and thick and rather
husky--"you'll ... you'll...."

His father-in-law nodded. "Don't you worry about that. I'll see _her_
all right."

Josiah took out his handkerchief and blew his nose violently.




XLIX


That evening, about nine o'clock, when Melia and the Corporal returned
to Torrington Cottage, they found a cosy fire awaiting them in the
charming sitting room, an act of grace on the part of Fanny, a
handmaiden from the village, for the evenings were chilly. They sat
a few minutes together and then Melia retired for the night after
having drawn a promise from the Corporal that he would not be long in
following her example.

Alas, the Corporal did not feel in the least like going to bed. There
was a decision to be made. In fact he had half made it already. But the
good wife upstairs and the very chair in which he sat had cast their
spells upon him. Gazing into the heart of the fire he realized that
he was deliciously and solidly comfortable. All his days he had been
a catlike lover of the comfortable. In the first instance it had been
that as much as anything that had so nearly undone him. Conflicting
voices were urging him, as somehow they always did, at critical moments
in his life.

This beautiful room with its old furniture, its china, its bric-a-brac,
its soft carpet, its one rare landscape upon the wall was an enchanted
palace. Even now, after all these months of occupation, it seemed
like sacrilege to be sitting in it. But it was a symptom of a changed
condition. This lovely place with its poetry and its elegance was a
dream come true. And the honor and the affection with which a world
formerly so hard and so supercilious surrounded him now made life so
much sweeter than ever before.

Sitting there in front of a delicious fire he felt that the peace and
the beauty all about him had entered his soul. He had a right to these
languors; he had purchased them with many unspeakable months of torture
and pain. No one would blame him, no one could blame him if he left the
dance to younger men. Suddenly he heard a little wind steal along the
valley and he shivered at the image that was born upon its whisper.
Just beyond these cosy, lamplit walls was Night, Chaos, Panic. Outside
the tiny harbor he had won at such a price was all hell let loose.

He heard the awful Crumps, he could taste the icy mud they flung over
him, he was plunged again in endless, hideous hours, he could see
and feel the muck, the senseless muck, the boredom, the excruciating
misery. The wind in the valley grew a little louder and he shuddered in
the depths of his spirit.

The crocuses were out in the fields by the river. Next week would be
April, the time of cloud, of glowing brake and flowering thorn, of
daffodils and miraculous lights along the Sharrow. The little picture
over the chimneypiece, which he had copied three times in his long
convalescence, showed what April meant along the Sharrow. Friendship
had taught him something, had given him eyes. He had been initiated
into the higher mysteries. Beauty for the sake of Beauty--the world
religion of the future--had been revealed to him. The sense of it
seemed to fill him with passion as he gazed into the fire.

"Auntie!" Surely there was a voice in the room. Or was it the little
wind outside softly trying the shutters? "Auntie!" It was there again.
He got up unsteadily, but in a kind of ecstasy, half entrancement, half
pain, and crossed to the French window. Very gently he slipped back
the bolts and flung open the door. The darkness hit him, but there
was nothing there. He knew there was nothing there, yet in his old
carpet slippers he stepped out gingerly on to the wet lawn. The air was
moist and mild and friendly, and as his eyes grew used to the mirk the
rosebushes and the fruit trees took shape on either hand.

The shafts of light from the room he had left guided him across the
grass as far as the path which led to the tower at the end of the
garden. As soon as his feet were on the gravel he thought he heard the
voice again. Of course it couldn't be so. It was only the wind along
the valley. And yet ... no ... if the wind wasn't calling....

The gaunt line of the many-windowed tower loomed ahead. Less by
calculation than by instinct he suddenly found the lowest of the twelve
stone steps which led to its high door--in that darkness he couldn't
see it, and if he had seen it there was not the slightest reason for
ascending, but just now he was possessed. Step after step shaped itself
with a kind of intelligence to his old waterlogged slippers, the damp
knob of the door came into his hand.

The door was locked. Silly fool he was! Must be cracked anyway! But
the starched cuff of his best Sunday shirt had got entangled with
something. The key, of course. It had been left in the lock. Careless
to leave it like that.

Of a sudden the door came open. The ghostly abyss within smelt very
damp and cheerless. Ought to have had an occasional fire there during
the winter months. He felt his way cautiously in and his eyes adjusted
themselves to the grimmer texture of the darkness. The chill made his
teeth chatter. He felt in his pockets for a match, but he hadn't got
one; he moved gingerly forward, past a wooden table and a wicker chair;
the spectral outline of an unshuttered window confronted him.

Outside was nothing but the wind in the valley. He couldn't see a yard
beyond the glass. The chill of the musty place was settling into his
bones. What a fool not to be in his comfortable bed! But ... a voice
was still whispering. There _was_ something ... somewhere....

The wind was just like the little wind along that damned Canal. No
wonder his teeth chattered. And then right out in the void he saw a
star. It was so faint, so far beyond the valley and the wind's voice
that he was not sure it was a star. But as he stood looking at it the
voice seemed to come quite close.

"Auntie ... Auntie...."

"That you, Jim ... here I am, boy...."

... Only a fool would stand with chattering teeth, in carpet slippers,
at a goodish bit past midnight, talking to something that wasn't
there....

Somewhere in the darkness there was a presence. Perhaps it was outside
the window. He felt his way back to the open door, as far as the veiled
peril of the twelve stone steps. It was so dark that he couldn't even
see the topmost; there was not even a railing for such an emergency; a
single false step and he would break his neck.

Queerly excited he stood poised on the threshold, feeling into space
with one foot. The wind was in the garden below him. And then oddly,
at a fresh angle, over by his left hand, he caught a glimpse of the
star. He swayed forward into the void but the lamp of faith had been
lit in his eyes. His taut nerves awoke to the fact that he was really
descending the unseen steps one by one and that he was counting them.
If he didn't take extraordinary care he was very likely to kill
himself, but the care he was taking seemed by no means extraordinary.

His old carpet slippers were shuffling along the gravel at last. He
could make out a line of currant bushes by which ran the path to the
house. As he moved forward the wind died away in the valley and he
lost sight of the star. But he knew his way now. Pent up forces flowed
from him through the wall of living darkness. "I'm coming, Jim!" he
muttered. The wind seemed to answer him. And then he came to the end of
the row of bushes and there beyond a patch of wet grass was the door of
the cosy room still open with a subdued glow of lamp and fire shining
beyond.

When he came in he took off his soaked slippers that they might not
soil the beautiful carpet of which Melia was so proud. As he barred the
door and drew the curtains across the window, the pretty old-fashioned
clock on the chimneypiece chided him by melodiously striking one
o'clock. He must be a fool--he had to be up at seven; but the enchanted
room that was like a dream embodied cast one last spell upon him.

He had no need ... the Chaps wouldn't expect it ... he was
forty-five....

The voice was in the valley. It was a quarter past one. He raked out
the last faint embers of the fire, then he put out the lamp and carried
his wet slippers into the hall. After his recent adventure it was but a
simple matter to find his way up the richly carpeted stairs without a
light and creep into the room where his wife slept.

She was sleeping now. So cunningly he crept into the room that she did
not stir. He listened to the gentle rise and fall of her soft breath.
Good woman! brave woman! He tiptoed past the bed to where the window
was and managed to draw up the clever new-fangled blinds without making
a sound. Yes, there was the star. That was all he wanted to see. Faint
it was, so faint that faith was needed to believe that it was a star.
But there was nothing else it could be.

The little sobbing voice, now no more than a whisper, that, too, was
out there. Jim's voice ... cracked he must be ... such sloppy notions
... the wind along that damned canal....

Suddenly he turned from the star. At the beck of a queer impulse he
knelt by the bed, burying his eyes in the soft counterpane. He prayed
for the Chaps. He prayed for Melia. He prayed for the life that lay
with her, the life coming to them so miraculously they knew not whence,
after all those years.

Could it be that Jim was coming back to complete his great beginnings?
Coming back to witch the world with beauty? Just a fancy. But
everything was just a fancy. Jim had said so once, looking at the
sunset on the bank of that canal.

And he was one who....




L


The months went by. In the meantime, upon the fields of France, was
being decided the fate of the world for generations to come. Day
followed day whose story will echo down the ages, but in the cottage
with the green shutters at the head of the valley there was little to
indicate that it was a time of destiny.

The Corporal was allowed to return to his old regiment. Experience had
made him doubly valuable and its ranks had been grievously thinned.
After three months at the Depôt he was sent to France.

When at the end of July he came home on draft leave to bid Melia
good-by, her time was drawing near. And in spite of the burdens life
had laid upon them, the feeling now uppermost was a subtle sense of
triumph. In the final bitterness of conflict the dark Fates had given
them courage to bear their heads high.

A strange reward was coming to them, bringing with it new obligations,
new responsibilities. But they were not afraid. Somewhere, a Friend was
helping them. It must be so, or else the dire perils to which they had
been exposed would not have allowed their happiness to bear so late a
flower. Besides, they had been given a specific token that in the sum
of things they mattered.

As the Corporal held his wife in a last embrace it came to him all at
once that he was never to see the young life that was to bear his name.
"If we can put the job through to a finish," he whispered huskily, "I'd
like it to be a boy. If we can't, a girl'd be better."

She asked why a girl would be better. As usual she was not very quick
in the uptake.

"The world'll not be a place for boys--unless we can do the job clean."

"But you will do it, Bill." The almost cowlike eyes expressed a divine
instinct. "God won't let the Germans win."

Somehow the words shamed him, yet not for the reason that turned her
own heart to fire. It was treason to the Chaps to talk of girls.

"O' course we'll make a clean job on it." He pressed a final caress
upon her. "You can set there, my dear, in that nice chair all covered
with wild flowers, and the door open just as it is, so that you can get
a glimpse o' that old river with the sun on it and when your eyes get
tired-like, my dear, you can fix 'em on that little picture over the
chimneypiece opposite. See what I mean, like? There's the sun in that,
too. John Torrington painted it. Look at it sometimes. We are going to
win--it isn't right to think otherwise. That means a boy. And if a boy
it is, I'd like him to be called Jim."




LI


Civilization was ringing with great news at the very hour that a son
was born to the Corporal. But at that time he was a Corporal no longer.
A letter had already reached Melia to say that "he was promoted Color
Sergeant." The fighting was awful, but the Chaps had got their tails
up, and the time was coming "when Fritz would be bound to throw in his
hand."

It was very well, therefore, that the half comic, rather pathetic,
somewhat crumpled but perfectly healthy creature snuggling up against
its mother in a lovely chintz-clad bedroom looking southwest,
proved to be a small but perfectly formed specimen of the human
male. The delighted grandmother herself took the incredible news to
Strathfieldsaye.

Josiah, who for several days past had been hard set to conceal a
growing excitement, rubbed his hands with glee. "One in the eye for
Park Crescent--what? Fancy ... Melia!"

Lady Munt agreed that wonders are never likely to cease in this world.

"Mother," she never remembered to have seen Josiah so excited,
"this means a bottle o' champagne." He pressed the bell and gave
comprehensive orders to Alice. "Seems to me that Victory's in the
air." Secretly he had always had a grudge against Fate, that, with all
his worldly success, his family could not muster one solitary male
among them. "Funny thing, y' know, how you can be deceived in people. I
always said that chap Hollis was a good-for-nothing. Well, I was wrong."

Her ladyship sniffed a little and wiped tearful eyes. She was in
perversely low spirits, but good soup, in spite of the food crisis
and good wine, which she was simply forced to drink, did something to
restore her.

"Yes, you can be deceived in people." The cool trickle down Josiah's
throat generated a desire for conversation. "Take the Germans.
Everybody thought they were a white race. Well, they aren't. Then take
the Americans. Everybody said they were too proud to fight. And, when
finally they came in, people said they'd not be much use anyway. But it
shows how easy it is to be wrong." Again the Mayor took up his glass.
"For I tell you, Mother, those Yankees have made a difference. Since
that mix-up back in March they've done wonders. The Yankees have turned
the scale."

Maria had a head for domestic affairs only; she did not pretend to
be wise in international matters. She sighed gently and thought of a
certain chintz-clad room up at Dibley.

"Get on with it!" Her lord pointed at her glass peremptorily. "Pol
Roger '04'll hurt nobody." Strong in that faith, he lifted his own
glass and bowed and beamed over the top of it. "Grandma, here's now!"

At the toast Maria hoisted a blush which brought Josiah to the verge
of catastrophe. Tears, her one form of emotional luxury, came into her
honest eyes.

"In a year or two, Grandma, we'll have to be thinking of your
golden wedding--touching wood!" He laid a ritualistic finger upon
the mahogany. "You little thought, did you now, when we started out
together in that funny little box up Parker's Entry that one day you'd
be My Lady? Funny world--what? I remember going to fetch the Doctor the
night that gel was born. Bitter cold it was." Suddenly Josiah stopped
and again took up his glass. "Wind had an edge like a knife round the
corner by Waterloo Square." Then came an odd change of voice. "Did I
understand you to say the gel would like me to be godfather?"

Maria understood that Melia understood that Bill would like it.

A sigh escaped Josiah. He laid down his knife and fork. "Well, well, I
never made such a mistake in my life as over that chap." His voice grew
humbler than Maria had ever heard it. "Shows how you can be deceived.
Something big about that feller. Never made a greater mistake in my
life. We'll hope he'll come through. Better write him a line, Mother.
Don't suppose it's any use tryin' to send a wire."




LII


Some weeks later, on a cold Sunday morning in November, Sir Josiah
and Lady Munt drove over to Torrington Cottage. They were accompanied
by Sally, on short leave from France, and by Gertrude Preston. Before
the party walked across the village green to the little parish church,
where a service of National Thanksgiving was to be held, it found that
a matter of great importance claimed attention.

The matter was Jim. The rector of the parish had arranged to christen
him that afternoon at three o'clock. Near a good log fire in the sunny
embrasure of the charming little drawing-room his grand cradle had been
set; and here the wonderful infant was duly inspected by his godparents.

Jim was a picture. His grandfather said he was. There was no other
word. Yet even in the presence of this phenomenal youth there was but
a chastened joy. He was sleeping for one thing, calmly, sweetly and
superbly; and his pale, fine-drawn, yet strangely proud-looking mother
was clad in the livery of widowhood.

Said Josiah in a low voice, so as not to wake the baby, "What's
happened to the picture that used to be there?" He pointed to the wall
above the chimneypiece.

"It fell down, Dad." The voice of Melia was calm.

"When?"

"One night last week--the night before the news came."

"You don't say!" Josiah was not superstitious, still it was queer.

"No one was in the room when it happened. No one heard it fall. Didn't
break the frame or the glass or anything. Just the snapping of the
cord."

"War cord, I expect." Josiah's voice was grim. "Need a cord of a better
quality to hang a certain party. Better have it put up again. Young
Nixey tells me that picture may be worth a sight o' money."

Melia promised that it should be put up again. _He_ always set such
great store by it.

Of a sudden, Sally, who had been wholly absorbed in the contemplation
of James, said, "Tell me, Father, when did you last see young Nixey?"

"Thursday--Friday. Happened to look in Friday morning as I was passing."

"How was he?"

"Wonderfully cheerful considerin'. Tries to gammon his old mother, but
I guess the old lady knows...."

"... he'll never...."

"No, poor fellow. Wonderful pluck. Tells me he's plannin' a cathedral
... a cathedral, mark you ... and stone blind."

Sally sighed a little and turned again to look at Jim. Aunt Gerty
laid a white-gloved hand gently on the Mayor's sleeve. "Ten minutes
to eleven, Josiah. Won't do to be late--_you_ of all people. Will it
Maria?"




LIII


Maria and Aunt Gerty, carrying respectability to the verge of fashion,
led the way by the path across the green to the village church. Josiah,
walking with his daughters, followed ten paces behind. Wearing the tall
hat of public life he looked imposing, but four and a quarter years
of war had chastened him. The roll and the swagger were not what they
were; four and a quarter years of incessant but fruitful labor for the
common weal had molded his mind, had modified an aggressive personality.

The church, although in excess of the local requirements as a rule, was
very full this morning in November. It was an hour of Thanksgiving. The
goal had been reached. Victory, complete and final, had come almost
like a thief in the night. And its coming had revealed, in a manner
transcending even the awful dramas of old, the omnipotence of the
moral law. Yet again the God of Righteousness had declared Himself in
Sovereign power.

Grim perils had been surmounted by the devotion of the sons and
daughters of the race, but very much remained to do. Behind the humble
gratitude to the Giver of Victory, behind the sense of exultation
so rightly uppermost this Sabbath morning, was in every heart a
desolating sense of the cost in human lives and a deep anxiety for the
future.

The Vicar of the parish, by name the Reverend Corfield Stanning, was a
white-haired man who had given soul and kin freely to the Cause. He was
a son of the soil, a type of the almost extinct squarson who survives
here and there in England, half landowner, half patriarch, less a
scholar than a sportsman and a man of the world. For that reason,
perhaps, he had the practical wisdom that books do not give. He had the
instinct for affairs which men of his type seldom lack.

Victory was with the arms of Right. The people did well to rejoice.
But also it was a time for prayer, for steadfast dedication to the
gigantic tasks ahead. The man-eating tiger was in the net. It now
remained to repair the havoc he had wrought, and to provide security
for generations unborn against his kind.

Having humbly thanked the Giver, the old man prayed for his country and
for those noble races of which it was the foster-mother. He prayed for
all her wide-flung peoples to whom the Keys had been given; he prayed
that the Pioneers of sacred liberties so long in peril, those one in
name and in blood over all the wide seas, who hold Milton's faith, who
speak Shakespeare's tongue may ever stand as now, shoulder to shoulder
in the gate.

He prayed for all those children of men grown old and weak in bondage,
whose chains had at last been cast off. He besought the Divine grace
to guide them.

Finally, he prayed for the Co-trustees of the future and that the
Divine wisdom encompass them in their reckoning with a cruel and
unworthy foe. He asked that mercy be extended to those who had denied
it to others, not that it was in his heart to pity them in their
eclipse or to spare them aught of their desert, but that the name of
the Master be served, in whom lay the ultimate hope of the world, might
be honored in mankind's supreme yet most terrible hour.

When the old man came to his brief and simple sermon the words of his
text pierced every heart. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he
lay down his life for his friends."

It began with commemoration of a humble hero, known to many in that
church, who had given all he had to give without stint or question. And
he read a letter written from the sacred and recovered soil of France
by the officer commanding that Band of Brothers raised in their midst
to the wife of one Sergeant William Hollis, who had died a soldier and
a gentleman that his faith and his friends might live.

                            THE END




Transcriber's Notes:

Words and phrases that were typeset as italic in the printed version
of this book have been shown with an underscore (_) at the beginning
and end of the word or phrase.

Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters' errors
and to regularize hyphenation; variant spellings have been retained.

In chapter XXIV, the sentence that was typeset as "By the time William
and Melia turned down Saint James his street," has been changed to
"By the time William and Melia turned down Saint James's street," to
make sense grammatically.

In several places, Josiah Munt refers to himself or others as
"prattical" in conversation. In chapter XXXVI, he is musing about
education for women as not being "prattical"; the Transcriber has
chosen to retain this spelling as fitting the author's style and intent.

In four instances in the book, the author refers to a "pickelet", and
in one place to a "pikelet". Because of the frequency of pickelet, the
Transcriber has chosen to retain the variant spelling.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63546 ***