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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40545
   :PG.Title: The Splendid Fairing
   :PG.Released: 2012-08-20
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Constance Holme
   :DC.Title: The Splendid Fairing
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1919
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE SPLENDID FAIRING
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      Cover

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      :alt: THE MESSENGER FROM THE DEEP.  *J. D. Wilson*

      THE MESSENGER FROM THE DEEP.  *J. D. Wilson*

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      THE SPLENDID
      FAIRING

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      BY

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      CONSTANCE HOLME

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      "All night long the water is crying to me."

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      MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
      49 RUPERT STREET
      LONDON, W.1

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      *Published 1919*

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      TO
      MABEL AND JIMMY

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      Boscombe, March 28th--April 5th, 1919

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      CONTENTS

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      `SIMON AND SARAH`_

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      `ELIZA`_

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      `MAY`_

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      `GEORDIE-AN'-JIM`_

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.. _`SIMON AND SARAH`:

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   PART I

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   SIMON AND SARAH

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   I

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Perhaps it would never have happened
but for the day.  A brave, buoyant day,
with a racing wind, might have scattered the
clinging obsession just in time.  A tender,
laughing day might have laid a healing finger
on old sores.  A clean, frosty day might have
braced the naturally sane old mind.  But Fate,
out of all the days in the year, took upon itself
to send just this.

The human soul, which seems so utterly out
of reach, is only shut away from every other
soul.  In every other respect it is like a harp
hung on a tree.  Even the actual day as it comes
is itself a lever in many a fate.  Deeds are done
on certain days which on others would be mere
passing impulses easily dead before the night.
This blind Martinmas Day went all day long
with its head among the clouds, as if it thought
that never again would there be any sun.
Indeed, it was out of the lack of every sort of
sight that the evil grew; since, otherwise--"Mothers
couldn't have done those things," as
Geordie would have said.

All day the earth retained that stillness which
it keeps as a rule only for the last hour before
the dawn.  Everywhere in the morning there
was mist,--that strange, wandering, thinking
mist that seems to have nothing to do with
either earth or air; and when the slow dark
drew back there would be mist everywhere
again.  Between those shadowy tide-marks of
the air there was a space when the white mist
shredded above the trees, leaving the
atmosphere with the look of a glass that has been
breathed upon and never clears.

The Simon Thornthwaites were going to
market simply because they did not know how
to stay away.  They went as naturally as the
sun comes out of the east, but with a good
deal less of decision about the journey.  They
looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they
were setting out than as if they were wearily
trundling home again.  Both horse and trap
looked as though they might fall to pieces after
an extra jolt, and the jumble of harness was
mended here and there with string.  There was
neither butter nor fowl in the market-basket
behind; there was not even a limp rabbit
dangling over the wheel.  But all the time they
were part of a chain which gave them a motive
and impulse not their own, since others, more
sure of their errand, were taking the same road.
Sometimes a horseman on a young Shire went
past with a flash of feather and a clumping of
hoofs.  Livelier traps spun by at a trot and
gave them a hail.  Behind and before them
they had an occasional glimpse of the
procession stretching to the town.

They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it
dropped like a colourless cloth beside the sea,
and already they seemed to have been a long
time on the road.  They had not slept much,
and, waking, had had the cheated feeling,
common to the weary, that the foregoing day
had never really ended nor the incoming
morning ever quite begun.  Indeed, the strange,
dreamlike day had never really seemed to come
awake.  Looking back and west, they saw
everything grey, with just a lightened shadow
marking the far sea, and the marsh lying down
on its face like a figure flung down to die.
Houses sat low to the earth as if they crouched,
and the trees were vague, bodiless wisps,
without backbone or sap.  When they had their first
glimpse of Witham, they saw the town on the
fell-side like a fortress through smoked glass,
and the Castle alone on its hill was of
shadow-stones poised on a poised cloud.

The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and
under-dogs in the tussle of life, but they had
once been as strong and confident as most.
Sometimes they had a vision of their former
selves, and wondered how this could ever have
been that.  The old man was thin and bent, the
sort that shows the flame through the lantern
long before the end, but the woman was stronger-boned,
squarer, and still straight.  Most of her
life she had worked like a horse, but she was
still straight.  Her face was mask-like and her
mouth close.  Only her hands betrayed her at
times,--old, over-done hands that would not
always be still.  Her eyes seemed to look straight
before her at something only she could see,--staring
and staring at the image which she had
set up.

They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh,
a lonely bit of a spot that looked as if it had
been left there for a winter's tide to take away.
It had always had an unlucky name, and, like
many unlucky people and things, seemed to
have the trick of attracting to itself those who
were equally ill-starred.  Certainly, Sandholes
and the Thornthwaites between them had
achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck.
No doubt both farm and folk would have done
better apart, but then they had never succeeded
in getting apart.  It was just as if Fate had
thrown and kept them together in order to do
each other down.  Luck to luck--there seemed
nothing else to be said about the Thornthwaites'
plight.  They even carried the stamp of each
other plain to be seen.  You had only to look
at the farm to know how its tenants looked;
you had only to see the folk to know what their
home was like.  Perhaps it was just that the
double weight of misfortune was too big a thing
to lift.  Perhaps the canker at the heart of it all
would allow nothing to prosper and grow sweet.

They had an easy landlord, easy and rich;
too easy and rich, perhaps, for the
Thornthwaites' good.  That farm had money--landlord's
and tenant's--spent on it above its due;
yes, and a certain amount of borrowed brass as
well.  It had work put into it, thought and
courage sufficient to run a colony, and
good-will enough to build a church.  And all that it
did in return was to go back and back and be a
deadhead and a chapter of accidents and an
everlasting disappointment and surprise.  It
was a standing contradiction of the saying--"Be
honest with the land, and it will be honest
with you."  Everything went wrong with that
farm that could go wrong, as well as other
things that couldn't by any chance have gone
anything but right.  Most people would have
thrown a stone at it at an early stage, but it was
part of the Thornthwaite doom that they could
not tear themselves away.  Even when there
seemed no longer a reason for staying, still they
stayed.  The one streak of sentiment in them
that survived the dismal years held them there
captive by its silken string.

But to-day, as they jogged and jolted
endlessly towards Witham, the whole, drear,
long business came to an end.  No matter what
they had thought of the probable future to
themselves, they had hitherto shut their mouths
obstinately and clung close.  They had never
even said to each other that some day they
would have to quit.  They had put it off so long
that it seemed the least little push would always
put it further still.  But to-day the matter
suddenly settled itself for good; almost, it
seemed, between one telegraph-post and the next.

Martinmas hirings would be in full swing
when they got in, but there was no need now
for Simon to enter the ring.  Their hired man
had seen them through the busiest time, but
they could manage without him through the
winter months.  Their hired men had never
stayed very long, because the depression of the
place seemed to get into their bones.  They
tired of crops which seemed to make a point of
'finger and toe,' and of waiting through dismal
weeks to get in the hay.  Now the Thornthwaites
would never have the worry of hay-time on their
own account again,--never open the door to
catch the scent from their waiting fields,--never
watch the carts coming back on the
golden evening to the barn.  'Never again'
would be written over many things after to-day,
but perhaps it was there that they saw it written
first.  After all this time things had somehow
stopped of themselves, and after all this time
there was nothing to do but go.

Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or
tugging bundles as they walked; youth with
bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear
eyes, taking its health and strength to the
market to be hired.  Some of them greeted the
old folks as they passed, but others did not as
much as know their names.  Both Simon and
Sarah came of old and respectable stock, but to
the young generation skimming by on wheels
these two had been as good as buried years ago.
Sarah's eyes strained themselves after the lithe
bodies of the lads, while Simon looked at the
lasses with their loads.  He would have liked to
have offered some of them a lift, but he knew
he would catch it from Sarah if he did.  Sarah
hated the younger end of folk, she always said,
and the fly-away lasses she hated most of all.
She saw them going past her into beautiful life,
just as their swifter wheels went past the trap.
Always they were leaving her behind as it
seemed to her that she had always been left.
It was true, of course, that she had had her
turn, but now it seemed so far away it might
never have been.  All she could see in the
background when she looked behind was the
cheerless desert which she had had to cover since.

They were about half-way to Witham when
the moment of spoken decision caught them
unawares.  All their stolid resistance and obstinate
clinging to the farm gave in that instant as
easily as a pushed door.  It was as if a rock at
the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no
more than a cloud pausing before it in the act
of drifting by.  The end came as nearly always
after a prolonged fight,--smoothly, painlessly,
with a curious lack of interest or personal will.
The burden had been so heavy that the last
straw passed almost unnoticed which brought
them finally to the ground.  They had lived so
close to the edge for so many years that the
step which carried them over it scarcely jarred.

They were climbing the long hill that runs
from Doestone Hall, the Tudor house standing
close to the cross-roads.  By turning their
heads they could see its gabled front with the
larches set like lances beside its door.  The
river ran swift below the beech-covered slope
of the park, reaching impatiently after the
ebbed tide.  The house, for all the weight of its
age, looked unsubstantial in the filmy air.  Fast
as the river flowed below, from above it
looked like a sheeted but still faintly moving corpse.

The road was damp and shadowy under the
overhanging trees, and padded with the
hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves.  The fields
on either side were formless and wet, and seemed
to stretch away to unknown lengths.  The
hedges appeared to wander and wind across the
land without purpose and without end.  Under
all the hedges and trees there were leaves, wet
splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass.
Simon lifted his whip to point at the hips and
haws, and said it would be a hard winter when
it came, but Sarah did not so much as turn her head.

"I'm bothered a deal wi' my eyes, Simon,"
she said in a quiet tone.  "I thought I'd best
see doctor about 'em to-day."

He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a
startled stare.  "Oh, ay?  That's summat
fresh, isn't it?" he enquired.  "You've never
said nowt about it afore."

"Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old
age.  But I've gitten a deal worse these last
few week.  I can't shape to do a bit o' sewing
or owt."

"Ay, well, you'd best see doctor right off,"
Simon said, and the horse crawled a little
further up the hill.  They did not speak again
for some time, but those who live together in a
great loneliness grow to speak together in
thought as much as in words.  That was why
his next speech seemed to come out placidly
enough.  "I doubt it's about time for us to  quit."

"I doubt it is."

"I never meant to gang till I was carried,"
Simon said, "and then I doubt there'd still ha'
been some o' me left.  But I've seen the end o'
things coming for a while back now.  It seems
kind o' meant, you being bothered wi' your
eyes an' all."

"Happen it is," she said again, and sighed.
Then she laughed, a slight laugh, but bitter and
grim.  "It nobbut wanted that on top o' the rest!"

Simon threw her an uneasy glance.

"Nay, now, you mustn't get down about it,
missis," he said hastily.  "It waint do to get
down.  Doctor'll likely see his way to put you
right.  But we've had a terble poor time wi' it
all," he went on glumly, forgetting his own
advice.  "Seems like as if we'd been overlooked
by summat, you and me.  'Tisn't as if we'd
made such a bad start at things, neither.  We
were both on us strong and willing when we
was wed.  It's like as if there'd been a curse o'
some sort on the danged spot!"

"There's been a curse on the lot of us right
enough!" Sarah said.  "Ay, and we don't
need telling where it come from, neither!"

Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable
air, though he took no notice of her bitter
speech.  He knew only too well that haunted
corner of her mind.  That sour, irreclaimable
pasture had been trodden in every inch.

"Ay, well, we're through on t'far side on't
now," he said morosely.  "Sandholes can grind
the soul out o' some other poor body for the
next forty year!  I never hear tell o' such a
spot!" he went on crossly, with that puzzled
exasperation which he always showed when
discussing the marsh-farm.  "It'd be summat
to laugh at if only it didn't make you dancin'
mad!  What, it's like as if even slates had
gitten a spite agen sticking to t'roof!  We've
had t'tide in t'house more nor once, and sure
an' certain it'd be when we'd summat new in the
way o' gear.  We'd a fire an' all, you'll think on,
and it took us a couple o' year getting to rights
agen.  Burned out and drownded out,--why,
it's right silly, that's what it is!  As for t'land,
what it fair swallers up lime an' slag and any
mak' o' manure, and does as lile or nowt as it
can for it in return.  Nigh every crop we've had
yet was some sort of a let-down,--that's if we'd
happen luck to get it at all!  Kitchen garden's
near as bad; lile or nowt'll come up in't, nobbut
you set by it and hod its hand!  Ay, and the
stock, now,--if there was sickness about, sure
an' certain it'd fix on us.  You'd nobbut just
to hear o' tell o' foot and mouth, or anthrax, or
summat o' the sort, an' it'd be showing at
Sandholes inside a week!  Same wi' t'folk in t'house
as wi' folk in t'shuppon,--fever, fluenzy,
diphthery,--the whole doctor's bag o' tricks.  Nay,
there's summat queer about spot, and that's
Bible truth!  We should ha' made up our
minds to get shot of it long since, and tried our
luck somewheres else."

"We'd likely just ha' taken our luck along
wi' us," Sarah said, "and there was yon brass
we'd sunk in the spot,--ay, and other folks'
brass an' all."  (Simon growled "Ay, ay," to
this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he thought
it might well have been left unsaid.)  "We were
set enough on Sandholes when we was wed,
think on; and when Geordie was running about
as a bit of a lad."

"Ay, and Jim."

"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"

"Ay, well, it's a bit since now," Simon said
hastily, thinking that it seemed as long ago as
when there was firm land stretching from Ireland
to the marsh.

"Over forty year."

"It's a bit since," he said again, just as he
said equally of the Creation of the world, or his
own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham
Show.

"Surely to goodness we were right enough
then?  We shouldn't ha' said thank you for
any other spot.  Nay, and we wouldn't ha'
gone later on, neither, if we'd gitten chanst.
It would never ha' done for Geordie to come
back and find the old folks quit."

"Nay, nor for Jim----" he began again
thoughtlessly, and bit it off.  "Ay, well, I
doubt he'll never come back now!"

"He's likely best where he is."  Sarah shut
her mouth with a hard snap.  Once again she
stared straight in front of her over the horse's
head, staring and staring at the image which
she had set up.

A motor-horn challenged them presently from
behind, and Simon pulled aside without even
turning his head.  He had never really grown
used to the cars and the stricter rule of the road.
He belonged to the days when the highway to
Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers'
shandrydans, peat-carts, and carriers' carts with
curved hoods; with here and there a country
gentleman's pair of steppers flashing their way
through.  He never took to the cars with their
raucous voices and trains of dust, their sudden
gusts of passage which sent his heart into his
mouth.  His slack-reined driving forced him to
keep to the crown of the road, and only an
always forthcoming miracle got him out of the
way in time.  He used to shrink a little when
the cars drew level, and the occupants turned
their curious heads.  Somehow the whole occurrence
had the effect of a definite personal attack.
Sometimes he thought they laughed at the
jolting trap, the shabby old couple and the harness
tied with string.  The rush of the cars seemed
to bring a crescendo of mocking voices and leave
a trail of diminishing mirth.  But as a matter of
fact he did not often look at them when they
looked at him.  There was nothing to link their
hurrying world with his.

This particular car, however, seemed an
unusually long time in getting past.  The horn
sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he
pulled still further into the hedge-side.  He held
his breath for the usual disturbance and rush,
but they did not come.  The car kept closely
behind him, but it did not pass.  Round each
corner, as they reached it, he lost and then
caught again the subdued purring of the engine
and the soft slurring of the wheels.  When they
met anything, it fell further back, so that at
times he felt sure that it must have stopped.
Then he would draw his breath, and drop into
a walk, but almost at once it would be at his
back again.  The note of it grew to have a
stealthy, stalking sound, as of something that
waited to spring upon its prey.

The strangeness of this proceeding began
suddenly to tell upon Simon's nerves.  Lack of
interest had at first prevented him from turning
his head, but now it changed into sheer inability
to look behind.  Soon he was in the grip of a
panic fear that the car at his back might not be
a real car, after all.  He began to think that he
had only imagined the horn, the gentle note of
the engine and the soft sound of the wheels.
Perhaps, now that he was old, his ears were
playing him false, just as Sarah's eyes, so it
seemed, were suddenly playing her false.
Presently he was sure, if he turned, he would see
nothing at all, or that, instead of nothing at all,
he would see a ghost.  Something that moved
in another world would be there, with spidery
wheels and a body through which he could see
the fields; something that had once belonged
to life and gone out with a crash, or was only
just coming into it on the road....

It was quite true that there was something
peculiar about the behaviour of the car.  From
its number, it must have come from the county
next below, and it was splashed as if it had
travelled far and fast.  During the last few
miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl.
More than one farmer had heard it behind him
and wondered why it took so long to pass, but
it had never dallied and dawdled so long before.
Almost at once it had gathered speed and
slithered by, and the man inside had turned
with a friendly hail.  He was a stranger, so they
said afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the
time they answered the hail as if he were one of
themselves.

But Simon, at least, had no intention of
hailing anybody just then.  Indeed, he was fast
losing both his sense and his self-control.  He
slapped the reins on the horse's back, making
urgent, uncouth sounds, and doing his best to
yank it into a sharper trot.  It plunged forward
with an air of surprise, so that the old folks
bumped in their seats, knocked against each
other and were jerked back.  Presently it
bundled itself into an aged gallop, while Simon
clicked at it through his scanty teeth.

"Nay, now, master, what are you at!"
Sarah protested, gripping the rail.  "We've no
call to hurry ourselves, think on."

"It's yon danged car!" Simon growled,
feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too.
He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot
on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow
as he slapped and lashed.  Losing his nerve
completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at
the same time waving the car to pass ahead.  It
obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and
just for a breath slowing again as it reached his
side.  The hired driver was wearing a cheerful
grin, but the man leaning out of the back of
the car was perfectly grave.  He was a big man,
tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on
the old couple with an earnest gaze.  Simon,
however, would not have looked at him for gold,
and after its momentary hesitation, the car
shot on.  The horse felt its master drop back
again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into
its slowest crawl.

Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged
at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed.
"Whatever took you to act like yon?" she
asked.  "There was nowt to put you about as
I could see."

"It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered
again, but beginning already to feel rather
ashamed.  "It give me the jumps, taking so
long to get by.  What, I got thinking after a
bit it wasn't a motor-car at all!  More like a
hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert,
black hearse wi' nid-noddin' feathers on top...."  He
let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if
he would never stop.  "Danged if yon new
strap baint gone and give out first thing!"

He climbed down, grumbling at the new
strap which had gone back on him so soon, and
began to add a fresh ornamentation to the
mended gear.  The horse stood with drooped
head, emitting great breaths which shook and
stirred the trap.  Simon's hands trembled as he
worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of
that vision of sweeping plumes.  Further down
the road the car had stopped again, but as soon
as Simon had finished, it moved away.  It went
over the hill as if it indeed had wings,--feathery,
velvet-black and soft on the misty air....





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   II

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Another thing happened to them on the
road to Witham, though it was even more
trivial than the last.  The first, perhaps, was
meant for Simon,--that face coming out of the
void and trying to look him in the eyes.  The
other,--a voice from the void,--was a call to the
woman with the failing sight.  But to most
people there come these days of slight, blind,
reasonless events.  Something that is not so
much memory as re-vision reaches out of the
past into the present; faint foretellings shape
themselves out of some far-off hour.  And then
on the following morning there is sun, and clear
outlines and a blowing sky.  The firm circlet of
To-Day is bound again shining and hard about
the narrow earth.

For a short time they seemed almost alone on
the processional road.  No more cars passed
them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap.
Simon felt more than ever ashamed of himself
as his nerve steadied and his excitement cooled.
He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought,
standing up and shouting as if he was cracked.
Witham would snap at the tale like a meaty
bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him
when he got in.  It wasn't as if he were in the
mood for a joke, either, seeing how things were;
he would find it hard to take it as it was meant.
And there was one person at least to whom the
tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy
day.  He hoped fervently that it might not
reach her ears.

Sooner or later it would reach her, of course;
everything that made mock of them always did.
The most that could be hoped for was that they
would not meet her to-day, backed by her usual
sycophantic crowd.  Sarah would never stand
any nonsense from her to-day, depressed as she
was by the trouble about her eyes.  There would
be a scuffle between them, as sure as eggs were
eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in
that quarter, too.  He thought of giving her a
hint to be careful, and opened his mouth, and
then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again.

Not that they ever *did* keep off it, as he knew
perfectly well.  Sooner or later it was on their
lips, and certainly always after a day at market.
They had discussed it so often from every
possible point that they did not always know which
it was that spoke.  They had long since forgotten
from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual
speeches had first been born.  Often they waked
in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept
and wakened only to talk of it again.  There was
nothing good that they had which it had not
poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was
made a double sorrow thereby.  There was
scarcely one of their memories that did not ache
because of that constant sword-point in its heart.

It was on market-day each week that their
fount of bitterness was continually refreshed.
They kept up the old habit for more reasons
than one, but most of all because of this thing
which hurt and cramped their lives.  It was like
a vice of some sort which had long become an
imperative need.  Each week they came home
with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each
week they went again to look on the thing that
they both loathed.

Now they were right away from the marsh
and the sands, and would not see them until
they returned, although from the moor and
fell-land surrounding Witham it was always possible
to see the bay.  Indeed, in this part of the little
county it was hard to get away from the knowledge
of the sea, and even further in, among the
shouldering peaks, you had only to climb awhile
to find the water almost within a throw.  On
days like this, however, even on the beach it was
hard to tell which was water and which mist,
and when at last the tide drew silently from
beneath, those who looked at it from the hills
could not tell whether it went or stayed.

Simon, looking drearily around, thought that
the whole earth had a drowned appearance
to-day.  It reminded him of the marsh after it had
been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land
emerged soddenly as the sea drew back.  Everything
was so still, too, with the stillness of the
dead or drugged.  Only the mist moved steadily
and of set purpose, though it was the purpose
of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep.

Out of the low vapour softly roofing the
fields a gull came flying slowly over their heads.
First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the
mist, and then it came swooping and circling
until it hung above the road.  Its long, pointed
wings and drooping legs were magnified by the
distorting air, and presently he could see the
colour of its bill and the gleam of its expressionless
eye.  It moved in that lifeless atmosphere
as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by
its gathered momentum over a deadened sea,
but when it came over the road it turned to
follow the trap, instead of making away at an
angle towards the west.  Simon concluded that
it must have lost its way in the mist, and was
following them as sea-birds follow a boat, but
presently he was reminded of the car in this
leisurely gliding on their track.  Like the car,
too, it drew level at last, but this time he was
not afraid.  He looked up at it, indeed, but
without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy
with apathetic eyes.  It was silent at first as it
circled and swooped, looping its aimless,
unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on.  It
might have been a piece of the wandering mist
that had taken shape, yet the sluggish,
unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have
sufficient strength to carry its weight.  So low
it flew at last that it almost brushed their faces
and the horse's ears, and in fancy he felt the
touch of it damp and soft against his cheek.
And then, as it dropped for the hundredth time,
it suddenly spoke.

Sarah started violently when the cry broke
over her head, the harsh wailing cry that makes
all sands desolate and all moorland lone.  She
lifted her face to search the curtained sky as
well as she could, but already the bird had left
them and mounted higher, as if called and
turned to another road.  Each cry as it came
was fainter than the last, like the speech of a
passing soul ever further off.  There was about
it something of the majesty and terror of all
irrevocable retreats, of those who go forth
unhesitatingly when summoned, never to return.
It left behind it the same impulse to reach out
passionate, yearning arms, to cry aloud for the
fainting answer that would still go on long after
the ear had ceased to take it in.

Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last,
trembling and drawing short, uneven breaths.
Simon was silent until she had settled again, and
then--"It was nobbut a gull," he said, at length.

She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands
tightly before her in their black cotton gloves.

"We've plenty on 'em, I'm sure, down on
t'marsh....  I'm that used to them, I never
hear their noise."

She turned her head slightly towards him, as
if in a vain attempt to see his face.

"Ay, but it was *that like*," she answered in a
suppressed tone.  "Eh, man, but it was terble like!"

He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing
well enough what she meant, but knowing also
that there was nothing to say.  It was not true,
of course, that he never heard the gulls.  He
heard them always, and behind them the voice
that called across the years.  But they had long
since ceased to talk about it or to take the voice
of the present for the voice of the past.
Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window
on a stormy night, they started and looked at
each other, and then looked away.  But it was
not often that they were deceived, as Sarah had
been to-day.  Even now, he felt sure, she was
straining after the voice, that would never cease
crying until it reached the tide.

They were passed again before they reached
the town, but this time it was by the cheerful
rap of hoofs.  It caught them as they creaked
their way up the last hill,--the smart going of
a good horse that even on the smothered
highway managed to ring sharp.  A whip was waved
as the dog-cart dashed by, and the driver turned
back to give them a smile.  She was Fleming's
motherless daughter from the 'Ship' Inn across
the sands, and Simon and Sarah had known her
all her life.  All her life she had lived looking
out across the bay, and half her life looking a
thousand miles beyond.

Simon threw up his hand to her with an
answering smile, a sudden sweetness changing his
whole face.  Even Sarah relaxed when she knew
who it was, and both of them brightened for a
little while.  They were fond of May, a good girl
who did not change, and who never made light
of those whom Fate was counting out.  She had
always had the power to strengthen their hold
on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame.
There was a serene yet pulsing strength about
her that had the soothing stimulus of a summer
tide.  Sarah had been jealous of her when she
was young, and had fended her off, but May had
long since found her patient way to her heart.
Now she stood to both the old people as their
one firm link with the past, and as such she was
more precious to them than rubies and dearer
than bright gold.

"A good lass!" Simon observed, with the
smile still present on his lips.

"Ay."

"I've always thought a deal o' May."

"Ay, an' me."

"Geordie an' all," he added, with a faintly
mischievous air.

Sarah did not speak.

"An' Jim----"

"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"

Simon drew the lash gently along the horse's back.

"I hear Fleming's been none so well lately,"
he resumed, as they rumbled into Witham.
"We mun think on to ax.  Happen I could slip
across to t' 'Ship' after we've gitten back.
Tide's about six, isn't it?  I could happen do it."

"Fleming's nobbut going the same road as
t'rest on us," Sarah said.  "He'll be glad to see
you, though, like enough.  But it'll be dark
soon, think on, wi' all this fog."

"There's summat queer about t'weather,"
Simon said broodingly, knitting his brows.
"Tides is fairish big, and yet it's terble whyet.
Happen we'll have a change o' some sort afore
so long."

"I've noticed it's often whyet afore a big
change.  Seems like as if it knew what was
coming afore it was on t'road."

"Ay, but it's different, some way....  It's
more nor that.  There's a blind look about
things, seems to me."

"Blind weather for blind folk!" Sarah put
in with a grim laugh.  Simon grunted a protest
but she took no notice.  "I never thought as I
should be blind," she went on, almost as if to
herself.  "I've always been terble sharp wi' my
eyes; likely that's why I've managed to wear
'em out.  And I've always been terble feared o'
folk as couldn't see.  There's no telling what
blind weather and a blind body's brain may
breed....  Ay, well, likely I'll know a bit more
about they sort o' things now...."





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   III

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All old and historical towns seem older and
richer in meaning on some days than they
do on others.  But the old and the rich days
are also the most aloof.  The towns withdraw,
as it were, to ponder on their past.  By some
magic of their own they eliminate all the latest
features, such as a library, a garage, or a new
town hall, and show you nothing but winding
alleys filled with leaning walls and mossy roofs.
The eye finds for itself with ease things which
it has seen for a lifetime and yet never seen,--carved
stone dates, colour-washed houses jutting
out over worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses
tucked away between the shops.  The old
pigments and figures stand out strangely on the
well-known signs, and the old names of the inns
make a new music in the ear.  The mother-church
by the river seems bowed to the earth
with the weight of the prayers that cling to her
arched roof.  The flags in the chancel seem more
fragile than they did last week.  The whole
spirit of the town sinks, as the eyelids of the old
sink on a twilit afternoon.

Witham wore this air of detachment when
Simon and Sarah came to it to-day, as if it held
itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of
the year.  The long main street, rising and
dipping, but otherwise running as if on a terrace
cut in the side of the hill, was strung from end
to end with the scattered units of the road.  The
ambling traffic blocked and dislocated itself with
the automatic ease of a body of folk who are
all acquainted with each other's ways.  Groups
clustered on the pavements, deep in talk, and
overflowed carelessly into the street.  Horses'
heads came up over their shoulders and car
wheels against their knees, without disturbing
either their conversation or their nerves.
Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels, or
slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs.
The shops were full, but those who wandered
outside to wait could always find a friend to fill
their time.  Simon's personal cronies jerked their
heads at him as he passed, and the busy matrons
nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the
horse's nose.

He made as if to draw up at the house of a
well-known doctor in the town, but Sarah
stopped him before he reached the kerb.  "Nay,
nay," she said nervously, "it'll likely bide.  I
don't know as I'm that fain to hear what he's
got to say.  Anyway, I'd a deal sooner get my
marketing done first."

So instead of stopping they went straight to
the inn where they had put up on market-day
for the last forty years, and where Simon's father
had put up before Simon was born.  Turning
suddenly across the pavement through a narrow
entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a
sloping yard.  The back premises of old houses
shut it in on every side, lifting their top windows
for a glimpse of the near moor.  The inn itself,
small and dark, with winding staircases and
innumerable doors, had also this sudden vision of
a lone, high world against the sky.

An ancient ostler came to help Simon with
the horse, while Sarah waited on the sloping
stones.  The steep yard was full of traps, pushed
under sheds or left in the open with their shafts
against the ground.  Fleming's dog-cart was
there, with its neat body and light wheels; but
May was already gone on her business in the
town.  Simon had an affection for a particular
spot of his own, and it always put him about to
find it filled.  It was taken this morning, he
found, though not by May.  May would never
have played him a trick like that.  It was a car
that was standing smugly in Simon's place, with
a doubled-up driver busy about its wheels.  Cars
were always intruders in the cobbled old yard,
but it was a personal insult to find one in his
'spot.'  He went and talked to the driver about
it in rising tones, and the driver stood on his
head and made biting comments between his
feet.  A man came to one of the inn windows
while the scene was on, and listened attentively
to the feast of reason and the flow of soul.

Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the
time Simon returned, thinking of something new
to say to the very last.  He left the newest and
best unsaid, however, when he saw her face.

"You'd best set down for a bit," he observed,
leading her anxiously towards the inn.  "You're
fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that's what
it is.  You'd ha' done better to call as we come in."

But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling
about the doctor in the least.  She had been
right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had
suddenly come over all queer.  "Happen it's
standing that long while you and morter-man
sauced each other about car!" she added, with
shaky spirit.  "You made a terble song about
it, I'm sure.  Trap'll do well enough where it is."

"I can't abide they morter-folk!" Simon
muttered, crestfallen but still vexed.  "But
never mind about yon.  Gang in and set you
down.  If I happen across May, I'll tell her to
look you up."

A door opened at the end of the dark passage,
showing a warm parlour with flowers and
crimson blinds.  The stout landlady came
swimming towards them, speaking as she swam, so
that the vibrations of her welcoming voice
reached them first like oncoming waves.  Another
door opened in the wall on the right, and a man
looked out from the dim corner behind.

"That you, Mrs. Thornthet?  What?--not
so well?  Nay, now, it'll never do to start
market-day feeling badly, I'm sure!  Come along
in and rest yourself by t'fire, and a cup of tea'll
happen set you right."

Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit
down, yet hesitated as if afraid to step inside.
It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was
some ordeal in front of her which she could not
face.  Her heart beat and her throat was dry,
and though she longed to go in, she was unable
to stir.  The man inside saw her against a
background of misty yard, a white face and homely
figure dressed in threadbare black.  Once or
twice his gaze left her to dwell on Simon, but it
was always to the more dramatic figure that it
returned.  There was a current in the passage,
full and sweeping like the wind that went
before the still, small Voice of God.  Sarah was
caught by it, urged forward, filled with it with
each breath.  But even as she lifted her foot she
heard a woman's voice in the room beyond.

"We've Mrs. Will here an' all," the landlady
called, as she swam away.  "She'll see to you
if there's anything you want, I'm sure."

She might just as well have slammed and
locked the door in the old folks' teeth.  At once
they made a simultaneous movement of recoil,
stiffening themselves as if against attack.  The
spirit in the passage died down, leaving it filled
to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering voice.
Sarah was well away from the doorstep before
she opened her mouth.

"Nay, I don't know as I won't go right on,
thank ye, Mrs. Bond.  I'm feeling a deal better
already,--I am that.  If I set down, I'll likely
not feel like getting up again, and I've a deal
to see to in t'town."

Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised,
but Sarah was already well across the
yard.  Simon, when appealed to, said nothing
but, "Nay, I reckon she'll do," and seemed
equally bent upon getting himself away.  They
retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to
the street, leaving Mrs. Bond to say, "Well, I
never, now!" to the empty air.  The man's face
came back to the window as they went, looking
after this sudden retirement with a troubled frown.

The driver was still working at his car when
he found his passenger suddenly at his side.  He
was a queer customer, he thought to himself,
looking up at the moody expression on his
handsome face.  He had behaved like a boy on their
early morning ride, continually stopping the car,
and then hustling it on again.  He had sung and
whistled and shouted at people on the road,
laughed without any apparent reason, and dug
the unfortunate driver in the back.  He was
clean off it, the man thought, grinning and vexed
by turn, and wondering when and where the
expedition would end.  People as lively as that at
blush of dawn were simply asking for slaps
before the sun was down.  He had steadied a trifle
when they reached the Witham road, but the
queerest thing of all that he did was that
checking behind the traps.  The driver was sure he
was cracked by the time they got to the town,
and he was surer than ever when he came out
now and told him to move the car.  He might
have refused if his fare had not been so big and
broad, and if he had not already shown himself
generous on the road.  As it was, he found
himself, after a moment of sulky surprise, helping
to push the trap into the disputed place.  He
still wore his injured expression when he went
back to his job, but it was wasted on his
employer, who never looked his way.  Instead, he
was standing and staring at Simon's crazy rig,
and he smiled as he stared, but it was not a
happy smile.  Presently he, too, made his way
to the arch, and disappeared into the crowded street.

The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry
to be gone, but, as a matter of fact, they halted
as soon as they got outside.  "I couldn't ha'
gone in there whatever," Sarah said, in an
apologetic tone, and Simon nodded, looking
anxiously up and down.

"If I could nobbut catch a sight o' May,"
he muttered worriedly, searching the crowd.
"May'd see to you right off, and get you a snack
o' summat an' all.  I've Mr. Dent to see about
chucking t'farm, and I've a two-three other
things to do as well."

But instead of May, who was nowhere to be
seen, a man came shyly towards them from a
neighbouring group.  He was like Simon to look
at, only younger and better clad, showing none
of the other's signs of trouble and hard toil.  His
voice was like Simon's, too, when Simon was at
his best, but Sarah stiffened when she heard
him speak.

"You'll not ha' seen Fleming's lass?" Simon
asked, devouring the street, and Will swung
about at once to cast his own glance over the press.

"She was by a minute since," he said thoughtfully.
"She can't ha' gone far...."  He
hunted a moment longer, and turned shyly back.
"Likely you'll give us a call at Blindbeck this
afternoon?"

Sarah said nothing in reply to the invitation,
but Simon gave a nod.

"I could do wi' a word wi' you, Will, if you're
not throng.  It's about time we were thinking
o' making a change.  Sarah's bothered wi' her eyes."

"Nay, now, that's bad news, to be sure."  Will
was genuinely concerned.  He glanced at
Sarah kindly, though with a diffident air.
"Happen a pair o' glasses'll fix you," he said,
in his gentle tones.  There was a pause, and then
he jerked his head towards the arch that led to
the inn.  "I left my missis behind there, talking
to Mrs. Bond.  If you're thinking o' seeing
t'doctor, you'd best have a woman to come along."

"I meant to ax May," Simon said hurriedly,
praying for May to spring out of the ground,
and, as if by way of reply, she came out of a
shop on the far side.  He plunged forward,
waving and calling her name, and she stopped,
smiling, as he caught her by the arm.  She was
grave at once, however, when she heard what
he had to say, and her eyes rested on Sarah with
a troubled look.  She gave a nod of comprehension
when he pointed towards the arch, and,
without waiting to hear more, crossed over to
Sarah's side.  By the time the stranger appeared
the women had vanished down the street, while
the brothers were making their way to the
market square.  This was the second time that
the Thornthwaites had fled at the sound of a
name, and this time, as it happened, May was
sent speeding away, too.





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   IV

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May, however, was only thinking of how
she could be of use, and was very
cheery and pleasant all along the street.  Already
she had come across one or two pieces of news,
and laughed about them to Sarah until Sarah
was laughing, too.  Once or twice they met
somebody who had something else to tell, and
they stood on the pavement together and
thrashed the matter out.  May's laugh sounded
young and gay, and a girlish colour came into
her cheeks.  The old figure beside her seemed
to draw vitality from her generous warmth, her
brave air which made an adventure of every
commonplace of life.  Sarah even rose to a joke
or two on her own account, and was wonderfully
heartened when they got to the doctor's
house.  She would not hear of having a cup of
tea or even a rest.  Time enough for such
things, she said with spirit, when they were
through.

She had both of them, however, at the doctor's,
because he would not let her go away without.
May took her into the dining-room by his orders,
and found her an easy chair beside the fire.  A
parlourmaid brought a tray, and Sarah drank
her tea cheerfully enough, soothed by the
comfort and quiet and the presence of some
sweet-smelling flower.  The doctor had been kindness
itself, and had felt a little depressed when he
sent the women away.  He did not know that
the last thing that was in their minds as they
sat by the fire was the terrible fact that Sarah
was going blind.

They spoke of it, indeed, but only casually, as
it were, before passing on to the greater thing
at its back.  Sarah's sense of courtesy forced
her at least to give the doctor a pat on the head.

"Ay, he was right kind," she said in a matter-of-fact
tone, "and I will say this for him that
he seemed to know his job.  I've had my doubts
for a while there was summat badly wrong.  I
don't know as it's news to me, after all.  As for
yon operation he says might do summat for me,
I doubt I'm over old.  We've no brass for
notions o' that sort, neither, come to that."

"There's hospitals," May said,--"homes and
suchlike where they take you free.  Plenty of
folk go to 'em, even at your age, and they'd see
to you well enough, I'm sure."

"Ay, doctor said that an' all," Sarah assented,
though in an uninterested tone.  "But I'd only
take badly to they sort o' spots now," she added,
sipping her tea.  "I'd be marching out agen,
likely, as soon as ever I'd set my foot inside of
the door."

"They say folks settle wonderfully when
they've made up their minds.  It's worth a bit
of trouble, if they put you right."

"Happen," Sarah said casually, and withdrew
it at once.  "I don't know as it is."

"You're down, that's what it is.  You'll feel
better after a bit."

"I don't know as I shall."

"You'll feel different about it in a day or
two.  You'd come through it right as a bobbin.
You've pluck enough for ten."

"Ay, well, I can't settle it one way or t'other,"
Sarah said stubbornly, turning a deaf ear.
"Things is a bit ham-sam just now," she added
evasively, fiddling with her cup, and wondering
why she could not bring herself to announce
that they were leaving the farm.  But as long
as they did not speak of it, it was just as if
nothing had happened, as though the words
which had framed the decision had never been
said.  And yet at that very moment Simon was
probably telling Will and Mr. Dent, and the
news would be racing its way round Witham
until it came to Eliza's ear....

"We'll work it some way," May urged, not
knowing of the big pause that had come into
Sarah's life.  "You may have to get a word
put in for you, but that's easy done.  I'll see the
Squire and Mrs. Wilson and maybe a few more,
and it'll be all fixed up without you putting
yourself about."

"You're right kind, you are that."

"It's worth it," May said again.

"Ay ... I don't know..." Sarah answered
her absently, and then sat up straight.  "It'd
ha' been worth it once," she broke out suddenly,
as if letting herself go.  "There was a time
when I'd a deal sooner ha' been dead than blind,
but it don't matter much now.  There's not that
much left as I care to look at, I'm sure.  It's the
eyes make the heart sore more nor half the
time.  But I'd ha' felt badly about it if Geordie
was coming back, and I couldn't ha' framed to
see his face."

May said--"It's best not to think of such
things," as cheerfully as she could, but her own
face clouded as she spoke, and suddenly she
looked old.  Here was the old trouble, if the
doctor had known, that was still big enough to
make the new one seem almost small.  Blindness
was not so dreadful a thing to these two
women, who had both of them lost the light of
their eyes so long before.  Long ago they had
known what it was to rise and see no shine in
the day, no blue in the sea for May who had
lost her lover, no sun in the sky for Sarah
without her child.

It was twenty years now since Geordie had
gone away, clearing out over-seas as casually as
if into the next field.  Eliza's eldest from
Blindbeck had gone as well, as like him in face and
voice as if hatched in the same nest.  They were
too lively, too restless for the calm machinery
of English country life, and when the call came
from over the ocean they had vanished in a
night.  Canada, which has so many links with
Westmorland now, seemed farther away then
than the world beyond the grave.  Death at
least left you with bones in a green yard and a
stone with a graven name, but Canada made
you childless, and there was no sign of your
grief beneath the church's wall.  Geordie had
written, indeed, from time to time, but though
the letters were light enough on the top, there
was heartache underneath.  He was a failure
there, they gathered, after a while, just as they
were failures here; as if the curse of the
Sandholes luck had followed even across the sea,
Jim was a failure, too, as far as they knew,
though their impression of Jim's doings was
always vague.  His very name on the page
seemed to have the trick of dissolving itself in
invisible ink, and his own letters were never
answered and barely even read.  He had been
fond of his aunt, but Sarah had given him only
the scantiest tolerance in return.  Sarah, indeed,
would not have cared if Jim had been burning
in everlasting fire....

"We'd a letter from Geordie a month back,"
she said suddenly, after the pause, "begging
the loan of a pound o' two to fetch him home."

May started a little, and the colour came
back to her cheek.  It was a long time now
since anything fresh about Geordie had come
her way.  Once she had been in the habit of
going to Sandholes for news, asking for it by
indirect methods of which she was still rather
ashamed.  Sarah had been jealous of her in those
days and grudged her every word; and since
she had stopped being jealous there had been
next to nothing to grudge.....

"Ay, he axed for his fare, but we hadn't got
it to send.  I don't know as we want him,
neither, if he can't shape better than that."

May felt her heart shake as she leaned
forward, clasping her hands.

"I've a bit put by I could spare," she began,
with a thrill in her voice.  "It could go from
you, Mrs. Thornthet,--he need never know.
You've only to say the word, and you can have
it when you want."

A twinge of the ancient jealousy caught
suddenly at Sarah's heart.  With difficulty she
remembered May's kindness and the long bond of
the years.

"I'll not spend any lass's savings on my
lad!" she answered roughly, and then softened
again.  "Nay, May, my girl, you mean well
enough, but it wain't do.  Losh save us!  Hasn't
he done badly enough by you, as it is?" she
added grimly.  "You should ha' been wed this
many a long year, instead o' hanging on for the
likes o' him!"

"I doubt I'd never have married in any
case," May said.  "I don't know as I'd ever
have made up my mind to leave my dad."

"You'd ha' wed right enough but for
Geordie,--dad or no dad!" Sarah scoffed.
"You're the sort as is meant to be wed, from
the start.  Nay, he's spoilt your life, and no
doubt about it, but there's no sense in lossing
the can because you've gone and spilt the milk.
Say you sent him the brass, and he come back
without a cent, what'd be the end o' the business
then?  You'd wed him, I'll be bound,--for
pity, if for nowt else.  Your father'll likely
leave you a nice bit, and you'd get along on
that, but who's to say how Geordie'd frame
after all these years?  Happen he's lost the
habit o' work by now, and it'll be a deal more
likely than not if he's taken to drink."

"Geordie wasn't that sort."  May shook her
head.  "He'll not have taken to drink, not he!"

"Folks change out of all knowledge,--ay,
and inside as well as out."

"Not if they're made right," May said
stubbornly, "and Geordie was all right.  He was a
daft mafflin, I'll give you that, always playing
jokes and the like, but it was just the life in
him,--nowt else.  He was a fine lad then, in
spite of it all, and I don't mind swearing that
he's a fine man now."

"Ay," Sarah said slowly, "fine enough, to be
sure!  A fine lad to leave his folks for t'far side
o' the world wi' never a word!  A fine man as
can't look to himself at forty, let alone give
his father and mother a bit o' help! ... Nay,
my lass, don't you talk to me!" she finished
brusquely.  "We've thought a deal o' Geordie,
me and Simon and you, but I reckon he's nowt
to crack on, all the same!"

"You'd think different when he was back,"
May pleaded,--"I'm sure you would.  And you
needn't fret about me if that's all there is in the
road.  I made up my mind long since as I
shouldn't wed.  But I'd be rarely glad, all the
same, to have had a hand in fetching him home."

"You're real good, as I said, but it's over
late."  She paused a moment and then went on
again.  "Letter went a couple o' week ago."

The tears came into May's eyes.

"You don't mean as you said him no?  Eh,
Mrs. Thornthet, but I'm sorry to hear that!"

"Yon sort o' thing's best answered right off."

For a moment or two May put her hand to
her face.  "Eh, but what a pity!" she
murmured, after a while.  "What does it matter
whose brass fetches him home?"

"It matters to me."

"It matters a deal more that you're breaking
your heart----"

"Nay, then, I'm not! ... Ay, well, then,
what if I be?"

"Let me get the brass right off!" May said,
in a coaxing tone.  "Let me,--do now!  Send
it to him to-day."

"Nay."

"You've got it into your head he's different,
but I'll swear you're wrong!  Different in looks,
maybe, but he'll be none the worse for that.
He always framed to be a fine figure of a man
when he was set.  You'd be as throng wi' him
as a clockie hen wi' a pot egg."

Sarah snorted scorn, but her face softened a little.

"He's forty, but I'll be bound he hasn't
changed.  I'll be bound he's nobbut the same
merry lad inside."

"Happen none the better for that."

"Geordie isn't the sort as grows old--Geordie
an' Jim----"

"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"  Sarah
flared, and the other laughed.

"It's hard to think of 'em apart even now,--they
were that like.  Why, I've mixed 'em
myself, over and over again, and fine fun it was
for them, to be sure!"

"*I* never mixed 'em!" Sarah snapped, with
a blind glare.  "I never see a scrap o' likeness
myself."

"Why, the whole countryside couldn't tell
'em apart,--school-folk an' all!  'Twasn't only
their faces was like; 'twas their voices, too."

"Hold your whisht!"

"You'll remember yon calls they had, Geordie
an' Jim----"

"Whisht, I tell ye!"  There was something
scared as well as angry in Sarah's tone, and May
was hushed into silence in spite of herself.  "Jim
was sweet on you, too," the old woman went on
surlily, after a pause.  "If there wasn't that
much to choose between 'em, why didn't you
choose him?"

"There was all the world to choose between
them, when it come to it," May said smiling,
but with tears in her voice.  "Once Geordie'd
kissed me, I never mixed 'em up again!"

The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah's
face.  She tried to turn it away, with the
pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot
tell what others may be reading there in spite
of their will.  May, however, was looking away
from her into the past.

"Not but what Jim was a rare good sort,"
she was saying, with the tenderness of a woman
towards a lover who once might have been and
just was not.  "Eh, and how fond he was of
you, Mrs. Thornthet!" she added, turning
again.  "No lad could ha' thought more of his
own mother than he did of you."

"I wanted nowt wi' his fondness," Sarah
said in a hard tone.  "And I want no mewling
about him now, as I said afore!"

"Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but
he was that set on you he didn't mind.  He
used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn't
he,--same as Geordie did?  It was never his
mother he fetched 'em for; 'twas always you."

"Eliza never had no need o' fairings, wi' all
she had at her back!"  Sarah stood up sharply
and began to grope about for her mantle and
gloves.  "You're bringing things back just to
coax me about yon brass!" she added, as May
came forward to help....  "Your father's
none so well, I'm sorry to hear?"

"He hasn't been himself for a while now,
and he's getting worse.  I doubt he's going down
the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!"

"Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we
wouldn't wish for owt else.  But it'll be rare an'
lonely for you wi'out him, all the same."

"I'm used to being alone, though I can't say
it's very grand....  You'll have to let me
come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet," she
added, with a cheerful laugh.

"We're over old for the likes o' you.  You
want friends of your own age to keep you
lively-like."

"I'm not so young myself, if it comes to
that," May said.  "And I don't know as I ever
had a real friend, barring Geordie-an'-Jim."

"That's enough o' the two on 'em!" Sarah
snarled, as they went out.  "Geordie's been a
bonny friend to you, anyway,--he has that!
We'd best be getting about our business.
Talking o' things as is dead and gone won't
make us any more lish."

"Simon'll be bothered about my eyes," she
said presently, as they turned towards the shops.
"It's a deal worse having to tell him than to
put up wi' it myself."

"Happen you'd like me to tell him for you?"
May suggested, but Sarah shook her head.

"Nay, you'd do it right enough, I'm sure,"
she said kindly, "but it'd come best from me.
You've enough o' your own to fash you, wi'out
that.  Married folk mun do their own telling
over things like yon...."





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   V

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But though Sarah had held to the telling of
Simon, she seemed in no hurry to break
the dismal news.  All morning she clung to May,
as if they drew together as a matter of course,
and May was glad to have her, not only because
she was old and needed help, but because of the
tie between them which had never been loosed.
It was true that they had seen little of each
other of late years, but it had only needed the
talk in the doctor's house to draw them together
again.  The dwelling upon a lost hope may
sometimes make the impossible possible and the
dead live, if only for a space.  The two of them
had recreated Geordie in the quiet room, so
that his mother had seen him plain before her
darkened eyes, and his sweetheart had felt his
kisses on her lips.

So all morning they stayed together, even
though they did not speak of him again, because
while they were together the glamour persisted
and the dream remained.  Just as one name
had robbed them that day, though they did not
know it, so another name sweetened everything
for them, and for a little space made them rich.
Things might so easily have been as they wished
that it seemed as if even now just a little
determination might twist them into shape.  In the
ordinary course of events, and with ever such an
ordinary share of luck, Geordie and May should
have been married long ago, with a home of
their own to offer the old folk at the last.  Even
now, so it seemed, Geordie might be somewhere
in the street, in the midst of that crowd of
healthy youth, sturdy manhood and wiry age.
Instinctively, as they came out of each shop,
they looked to find him the centre of some
chaffing group, the laughing, handsome, witty
centre, as he had always been.  He would break
away when he saw them to ask his old mother
how she did, and suddenly the greatest and
best of all happenings would have happened,
and they would have heard the miracle of his
speech....

This was the spell they wove for each other,
making the day brighter and the world kinder,
and helping them to laugh at things which
otherwise would have been too light to stir their
hearts.  Sarah's shopping was dull and soon
finished, but May had an exciting list, and
seemed constantly in need of help.  The old
woman actually enjoyed herself as she peered
at stockings and linen buttons, and nipped
longcloth and serge between her finger and
thumb.  It might have been wedding-gear they
were after, she told May, with a grim chuckle,
and May laughed and sighed, thinking of a
bottom drawer at home that had been locked for
many years.  The salesman laughed, too, and
asked Sarah which of them it was that was
thinking of getting wed, and Sarah, with all her
arduous married life behind her, was yet as
pleased as a young girl.  She was a shrewd
marketer, even now, in spite of her sight,
especially in the food-shops, where one nose can
often be quite as useful as a pair of eyes; while,
as for pots and pans, she knew them as a hen
knows her chickens and a shepherd his sheep.

They had many a chat over a counter, making
and receiving enquiries about friends, opening
their mouths at any lively piece of news, and
pursing them sympathetically when there was
trouble around the door.  In the low shops with
the new windows in their old walls and new
slates on their bowed roofs, little, low doorways
stooping for their heads, little, worn doorsteps
watching for their feet, they heard many a hint
of the romance of evolving or changing trade,
many a precious historic touch that would
never find its way into print.  You cannot put
your ear to the past anywhere but in the old
places where men are born to their trades,
where they know the customer's pedigree as
the customer knows theirs, and where
everybody has time for the human as well as the
commercial exchange.  Only there can you
learn in the space of an hour wonderful things
about drapery and furniture and hardware and
tea, and feel the glamour of the whole budding
and fruit-bearing earth come into the florist's,
and the atmosphere of old posting-inns into the
pot-shop with the clink of glass.  And no man
who is born to his trade is ever a cobbler who
may not look beyond his last.  The potman will
tell you where to order a stylish suit of clothes,
and the florist instruct you how to smoke a
ham.  And every one of them will tell you, with
or without their knowing it, what they have
learned of human nature and the hope of
eternity in their quiet little town, and with
what eyes they have looked abroad upon the world.

All that morning the tides of life swept against
Sarah and her friend as they went about the
streets,--tides of humanity and sympathy,
memory and custom,--all the currents that move
in the air and the blood and the brain when a
hand is shaken or a friendly voice is heard.  It
was life at its fullest as it is known to the
northern farmer and his kind, the public recognition
in a given place of the great and intimate
system of which he is a part.  The dumb beasts
had their place in it, too,--perhaps the chief
place,--and though only the wise dogs and the
cobby, half-clipped horses were there in the
flesh, the all-absorbing stock was never absent
from the mind.  Into every conversation before
so long some grand bull-calf or pedigree shearling
was sure to push its way.  Moving among the
warm human tides was like moving in a flood,
while, overhead, low almost as the roofs, the
mist drifted and the sky drooped.  Seven miles
away, the sands lay bare as a hand, as if never
in any æon of time would the sea return.

Sarah and May had their dinner together in a
café overlooking one of the steep streets, and,
choosing a table by one of the windows, so that
they could look out, spread their parcels about
them, and discussed their bargains and their
mistakes.  They were still happy, as happiness
went for them in those days, because of the
miracle that seemed always possible down in
the street.  Folks in plenty were coming and
going on the narrow stair, and as each head
rose above the floor of the room in which they
sat, they felt a thrill of anticipation that was
yet too slight to bring disappointment in its
train.  May, perhaps, was slightly puzzled by
the persistence of the feeling in the air, but
Sarah was well used, like all who are old, to the
strange reality of these glamour-days that are
fashioned from the past.

They had their heads together over a new-fangled
floor-cloth when the ubiquitous stranger
came quietly up the stairs; and they were so
absorbed, and Sarah was so exuberant in her
wrath, that he had time to look about him
before the final word was said.  There was no
room for him, he saw, except at the table where
they sat, and presently, though rather uncertainly,
he advanced a foot.  If they had looked
at him, he would have gone forward at once,
but when they lifted their eyes it was only to
turn them towards the window and the street.
The little action seemed somehow to shut him
out, and, drawing back almost guiltily, he found
a seat for himself in the adjoining room.  May
looked round as he did so, just as though
somebody had called, and stared intently at the
place where he had been.

He could still see them, however, from where
he sat, and he noticed many things about them
as he watched.  He noticed, for instance, how
strong and capable May looked, like a woman
who had long since taken her life in her hands
and ruled it well.  He noticed her good clothes
and Sarah's shabby ones, and that the
multitudinous parcels were most of them May's.  He
noticed the shake which Time, in spite of her,
had put into Sarah's hands, and was puzzled by
the groping manner in which she used her fork.
He noticed that the two of them ate little and
that without much heart, and that always they
turned their faces towards the street.  And
finally he noticed how Sarah, in the midst of
her talk, went suddenly rigid as a woman came
into the room.

She was a big woman over sixty years of age,
with smooth, high-coloured cheeks and thick
dark hair that was still a long way from turning
white.  Her face said plainly that she had had
a full, comfortable, healthy life, with plenty to
interest her and little to fret.  Her brown eyes,
which had been beautiful in youth, had kept
their expression of self-satisfaction wholly
undisturbed.  She looked, indeed, what she was,
the mother of a big family, the mistress of a
good-class farm, and the wife of a man whose
banking-account had long since ceased to keep
him awake at nights.  She wore a black hat
and a black plush coat, and round her shoulders
was a big fur wrap.  In a kid-gloved hand she
carried a muff and a silver-mounted bag, and
May, looking down, saw patent-toed boots
showing beneath her neat, black skirt.  Sarah
was sure of them, too, though she could not see
them.  It was not with her physical eye that
she looked at Eliza of Blindbeck, Simon's
brother's wife.

She, too, had paused in the doorway, looking
for a place, but as soon as she saw the two in
the window, she advanced at once.  As she
passed she spoke to several people in a noisy,
hearty voice, that seemed to have a blustering
quality somewhere at its back.  By the time she
had reached Sarah's table and come to a stop,
the man in the other room noticed that Sarah
had suddenly grown small....

"Eh, now, if I haven't been seeking you all
over the shop!" Eliza exclaimed.  "Will had
it you wanted me most particular, so I've been
looking out.  I couldn't find you, though,
whatever I did.  I never see folks so set on
keeping out of the road!"

Sarah still continued to look as though she
had shrunk.  Even her voice seemed to have
grown less.  It sounded far off and rather prim.

"Nay, I don't know as I did, thank ye," was
all she said.  "Will mun ha' gitten hold o' the
wrong end o' the stick."

Eliza looked at her with the little smile which
the sight of Sarah always brought to her lips.
She pulled a chair towards her and collapsed
into it without waiting to be asked.

"Ay, well, that's queer, to be sure!  Will's
no more muddled than most on market-day, as a
rule.  I made sure you were wanting me right
off the reel, from what he said."

May explained nervously that she had come
to Sarah's assistance instead.  Eliza always made
her nervous, because she never seemed to know
she was in the room.  "There wasn't that much
to do," she finished hurriedly, stumbling over
her words.  "It's a pity Mr. Thornthwaite set
you looking her up."

"Nay, I don't know....  I'd have been glad
to do anything, I'm sure!"  Eliza spoke in her
heartiest tones, so that everybody could hear.
"Nobody can say I'm one as can't be bothered
to lend a hand.  I reckon me and Will have done
as much in that line as most."  She looked at
Sarah again, the smile growing on her lips....
"You'll not mind me sitting down with you, I suppose?"

"We're through, thank ye.  We're just off."  Sarah
pushed her plate from her, and began to
fumble shakily for the thread gloves.  May
looked across at her with a troubled glance, and
gathered the parcels together, ready to move.
Eliza, however, had no intention of allowing
them to escape so soon.

"You're surely not thinking o' stirring yet!"
she exclaimed, in a hurt tone.  "What, we've
barely as much as passed the time o' day!
You'll not grudge me a word or two after all
my trouble, and me that throng wi' shopping I
didn't know where to turn.  Will was as full of
nods and becks as a row o' poppies in a wind,
and I've been fair aching ever since to know
what he could be at."

She turned in her seat to call a waitress, and
ordered a substantial meal; after which,
throwing back her fur, she leaned her arms on the
table, and resumed her smile.  Everybody in
the place knew what Eliza Thornthwaite was
having for her dinner, and here and there they
were saying to each other, "They do themselves
rarely at Blindbeck....  There's a deal o' brass
to Blindbeck ... ay, Blindbeck's plenty o'
brass!"  Eliza knew what they were saying,
of course, and felt unctuously pleased; but
May's heart swelled as she looked at Sarah's
scanty, unfinished repast and the thin thread
gloves that she was smoothing over her wrists.
Eliza had taken off her own gloves by now,
showing thick fingers and short nails.  They
were trapped in the alcove as long as she sat at
the table-end, because of her big, overflowing
figure which shut the two of them in.  They
would have to push their way past her if they
wanted to get out, and Sarah would never as
much as touch her with the end of a ten-foot pole.

"I'd ha' done what I could, I'm sure," Eliza
was busy telling them again.  "I'd never say
no to folks as can't help themselves.  But
there,--I needn't ha' bothered about it,--you're as
right as rain.  Will had it you were off to
t'doctor's, but I made sure he was wrong.  I
haven't seen you looking so well for a month o'
Sundays, and that's the truth."

She raised herself as the waitress set a
steaming plate in front of her, and stared at it
critically.

"Eh, well, you've not that much to bother
you, have you?" she added kindly, setting to
work,--"nobbut Simon to see to, and just that
bit of a spot?  'Tisn't the same for you as it is
for me, with that great place of our'n on my
hands, and the house fair crowded out."

Sarah did not speak, but she saw, as she was
intended to see, a picture of the good farm where
Mrs. Will reigned supreme, of her sons and
daughters and their friends, and her hired lasses
and lads; and after that another picture of her
own empty home, where no youthful steps
sounded along the floors, and no vibrant young
voices rang against the roof.  The pictures hurt
her, as they were meant to do, as well as the
cheerful comment upon her looks.  Eliza always
assumed that you were as strong as a horse,
even if you lay on your death-bed at her feet.

"I never heard tell you were badly," she
persisted, fixing her eyes on Sarah's face, which
looked like parchment against the misty pane,
"and surely to goodness I'd be more like to
know than Will?"

"I'll do, thank ye.  I'm right enough," Sarah
said stiffly, forced into speech at last; and Eliza
laughed victoriously and returned to her food
with zest.

"You've always been rarely strong, as far as
I can think on.  I never heard tell as you ailed
anything in your life.  You were always a rare
hand wi' a knife and fork an' all!" she finished,
laughing again.  "Will's a bonny fool to go
scaring folk wi' such-like tales."

"Yes, but we *did* go to the doctor's!" May
broke out warmly, goaded into speech.
"Mrs. Thornthwaite's bothered with her eyes."

Mrs. Will lifted her own sharply for a fresh
stare at the defenceless face.

"Eh, now, you don't say so!" she exclaimed
cheerfully, with a quite uninterested air.  "It's
bad hearing, is that, but they look right enough,
I'm sure."

"They're bad, all the same!" May answered
indignantly, on the verge of tears.  "Doctor
says she ought to have an operation right off."

There was a little pause after the dread word
operation, poignant in every class, but especially
so in this.  Even Mrs. Will was shocked momentarily
into quiet.  Her fork stayed arrested in
mid-air, half-way to her mouth.

"Well, I never!" she observed at last,
withdrawing her startled gaze.  "Eh, now, I never
did!"  She set to work again at her food like
a machine that has been stopped for a second
by an outside hand.  "I don't hold much by
operations myself," she went on presently,
growing fluent again.  "I doubt they're never no
use.  They're luxuries for rich folk, anyway,
seems to me, same as servants and motor-cars
and the like.  But you'll likely be asking
somebody for a hospital ticket, so as you needn't pay?"

"Nay, I think not," Sarah said calmly,
though her hands gripped each other in her
threadbare lap.

"You'll never go wasting your own brass on
a job like yon!"

"Nay, nor that, neither."

"You'll borrow it, likely?"  A slyness came
into her voice.  She peered at Sarah over her cup.

"Nay."

"Ay, well, no matter where it come from, it
would nobbut be money thrown away.  You're
an old body now, Sarah, and folk don't mend
that much when they get to your age.  It's real
lucky you've only that small spot, as I said, and
neither chick nor child to fret after you when
you've gone."

Sarah stood up suddenly when she said that,
trying to focus her eyes on Eliza's face.  She
stood very stiff and straight, as if she were all
of one piece from feet to crown.  A sudden
notion came to May that, if she had thrown off
the shabby black cloak, a column of fierce flame
would have shot up towards the roof....

"I'll be saying good day, Eliza," was all she
said, however, and moved, but stopped because
the other's skirts still lay before her feet.
Mrs. Will leaned back in her chair, looking up at her,
and smiled.

"Nay, now, Sarah, what's the sense o' getting
mad?  I'm real sorry about your eyes, but
you'd ha' done better to tell me right off.  As
for saying good day and such-like so mighty
grand, you know as well as me we're looking to
see you at Blindbeck this afternoon."  She
paused a moment, and then her voice rose on
an insolent note.  "Ay, and you know well
enough what you're coming for an' all!"

"Nay, then, I don't."  Sarah seemed actually
to grow in height.  She looked down at her
quietly.  "Nay, I don't."

"That's a lie, if I say it to all Witham!"
Eliza cried in furious tones.  Battle was really
joined now, and her voice, strident and loud,
carried into and disturbed even the street.
Those near turned about openly to listen, or
listened eagerly without turning.  The man in
the adjoining room got up and came to the door.
May stood poised for flight, looking from one to
the other of the warriors with dismay.

"You're leaving Sandholes, aren't you?"
Eliza asked, exactly as if she were addressing
somebody over the road,--"leaving because
you're broke!  You're coming to Blindbeck to
beg of Blindbeck, just as you've begged of us
before.  Simon told Will, if you want to know,
and Will told me, and every farmer at market'll
be taking it home by now...."

There was a murmur of discomfort and
disapproval all over the room, and then somebody
in a corner whispered something and laughed.
May roused herself and pushed her way past
Eliza with burning cheeks; but Sarah stood
perfectly still, looking down at the blurred presence
sneering from her chair.

"Ay, we're quitting right enough," she
answered her in a passionless voice.  "We're
finished, Simon and me, and there's nowt for it
but to give up.  But I've gitten one thing to be
thankful for, when everything's said and done
... I'm that bad wi' my eyes I can't rightly
see your face...."

The person who had laughed before laughed
again, and faint titters broke out on every side.
Sarah, however, did not seem to hear.  She
lifted a thread-gloved hand and pointed at
Eliza's skirts.  "Happen you'll shift yon gown
o' yours, Eliza Thornthet?" she added, coolly.
"I've a deal o' dirt on my shoes as I reckon you won't want."

The laughter Was unrestrained now, and Eliza
flushed angrily as she dragged her skirts
reluctantly out of the way.  From the corner of a
raging eye she observed the elaborate care with
which Sarah went by.

"We'll finish our bit of a crack at Blindbeck!"
she called after her with a coarse laugh; but
Sarah and May were already on the stairs.  The
stranger put out his hand to them as they
brushed past, but in their anger and concentration
they did not notice that he was there.  Even
if he had spoken to them they would not have
heard him, for through the cloud of hate which
Eliza had cast about them the voice of the
Trump itself would never have found a way.
He stood aside, therefore, and let them go, but
presently, as if unable to help himself, he
followed them into the street.  They were soon
cheerful again, he noticed, walking at their
heels, as the charm which they had for each
other reasserted its power.  Once, indeed, as
they looked in at a window, they even laughed,
and he frowned sharply and felt aggrieved.
When they laughed again he turned on his heel
with an angry movement, and flung away down
the nearest street.  He could not know that it
was only in their memories they ever really
laughed or smiled....





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   VI

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Simon had been right in thinking that the
tale of the car would be all over the town
by the time he arrived.  He came across it,
indeed, almost the moment that he got in.  The
driver of the car had told a farmer or two in
the inn-yard, and the farmer or two had chuckled
with glee and gone out to spread it among the
rest.  Of course, they took good care that it lost
nothing in the telling, and, moreover, the driver
had given it a good shove-off at the start.  He
told them that Simon had shaken his fist and
wept aloud, and that Sarah had fainted away
and couldn't be brought round.  A later account
had it that the chase had lasted fast and furious
for miles, ending with an accident in Witham
streets.  Simon encountered the tale in many
lengths and shapes, and it was hard to say
whether the flippant or sympathetic folk
annoyed him most.  He always started out by
refusing to discuss the matter at all, and then
wouldn't stop talking about it once he had begun.

"Ay, well, ye see, I thought it was a hearse,"
he always growled, when forced to admit that
part of the tale, at least, was true.  "Mebbe I
was half asleep, or thinking o' summat else; or
likely I'm just daft, like other folk not so
far."  Here he usually threw a glance at the enquiring
friend, who gave a loud guffaw and shifted from
foot to foot.  "Ay, a hearse,--yon's what I
thought it was, wi' nid-noddin' plumes, and
happen a corp in a coffin fleein' along inside.
You've no call to make such a stir about it as
I can see," he wound up helplessly, with a
threatening scowl.  "Boggles isn't out o' date
yet by a parlish long while, and there's many a
body still wick as can mind seeing Jamie
Lowther's headless Coach and Four!"

He forgot to feel annoyed, however, when he
found that his story had made him in some sort
the hero of the day.  He could see folks talking
about him and pointing him out as he went along,
and men came up smiling and wanting a chat
who as a rule had no more for him than a
casual nod.  Often, indeed, he had only a
dreary time, bemoaning his fate with one or
two cronies almost as luckless as himself;
listening, perhaps, on the edge of an interested group,
or wandering into some bar for a sup of ale and
a pipe.  But to-day he was as busy as an old
wife putting the story to rights, and when he
had stopped being angry for having behaved like
a fool, he began to feel rather proud of himself
for having done something rather fine.  He
ended, indeed, by laughing as heartily as the
rest, and allowed several points to pass which
had nothing whatever to do with the truth.  He
felt more important than he had done for years,
and forgot for a while the press of his troubles
and the fear about Sarah's eyes.  Will told
himself that he hadn't seen him so cheerful for long,
and wondered whether things were really as bad
at the farm as his brother had made out.

They made a curious couple as they went
about, because in face and figure they were so
alike, and yet the stamp of their different
circumstances was so plain.  They had the same
thin face and dreamy eyes, lean figure and fine
bones, but whereas one carried his age well and
his head high, the other had long since bowed
himself to the weight of the years.  Will wore a
light overcoat of a modern make, brown boots
and a fashionable soft hat; but Simon's ancient
suit was of some rough, hard stuff that had never
paid any attention to his frame.  Will had a
white collar and neat tie; but Simon had a
faded neckcloth with colourless spots, and he
wore dubbined boots that had clogged soles, and
a wideawake that had once been black but now
was green.  Eliza often observed in her kindly
way that Simon looked old enough to be Will's
father, but indeed it was in the periods to which
they seemed to belong that the difference was
most marked.  Will had been pushed ahead by
prosperity and a striving brood; while Simon
had gone steadily down the hill where the years
redouble the moment you start to run.

They had encountered the agent early on, and
fixed an appointment for twelve o'clock; and
afterwards they spent the morning together
until noon struck from the Town Hall.  Will
had grown rather tired of hearing the hearse
story by then, and felt slightly relieved when
the time came for them to part.  "Nay, I'll not
come in," he demurred, as Simon urged him at
the door of the 'Rising Sun.'  "You'll manage
a deal better by yourself.  You needn't fear,
though, but what I'll see you through.  We'll
settle summat or other at Blindbeck this afternoon."

But at the very moment he turned away he
changed his mind again and turned back.  "I
can't rightly make out about yon car," he asked,
almost as if against his will.  "What, in the
name o' fortune, made you behave like yon?"

Simon muttered gloomily that he didn't know,
and shuffled his feet uncomfortably on the step.
Now that the shadow of the coming interview
was upon him, he was not so perfectly sure as he
had been that the story was a joke.  He
remembered his terror when the car was at his back,
his frantic certainty that there were strange
things in the air.  He took it amiss, too, both as
a personal insult and from superstition, that the
Town Hall chimes should be playing "There is
no luck about the house" just as he stepped inside.

"It was nobbut a hired car, wasn't it," Will
went on,--"wi' two chaps in it, they said, as
come from Liverpool way?"

"That's what they've tellt me since," Simon
agreed, "though I never see it plain....  Seems
as if it might be a warning or summat," he
added, with a shamefaced air.

"Warning o' what?" Will threw at him with
a startled glance.  "Nay, now!  Whatever for?"

"Death, happen," Simon said feebly,--"nay,
it's never that!  I'm wrong in my head, I
doubt," he added, trying to laugh; "but
there's queerish things, all the same.  There's
some see coffins at the foot o' their beds, and
you'll think on when last Squire's missis died
sudden-like yon hard winter, she had it she could
smell t'wreaths in t'house every day for a month
before."

"Ay, well, you'd best put it out of your head
as sharp as you can," Will soothed him, moving
away.  "You're bothering overmuch about the
farm, that's what it is.  A nip o' frost in the
air'll likely set you right.  Weather's enough to
make anybody dowly, it's that soft."

"Ay, it's soft," Simon agreed, lifting his eyes
to look at the sky, and wondering suddenly how
long it had taken the gull to get itself out to sea.
His brother nodded and went away, and he
drifted unwillingly into the inn.  The chimes had
finished their ill-omened song, but the echo of
it still seemed to linger on the air.  They told
him inside that Mr. Dent was engaged, so he
went into the bar to wait, seating himself where
he could see the stairs.  The landlord tried to
coax him to talk, but he was too melancholy to
respond, and could only sit waiting for the door
to open and summon him overhead.  He was
able to think, now that he was away from the
crowd and the chaff about the hearse, but no
amount of thinking could find him a way out.
He had already given the agent a hint of his
business, and would only have to confirm it when
he got upstairs, but it seemed to him at the
moment as if the final words would never be
said.  After a while, indeed, he began to think
that he would sneak away quietly and let the
appointment go.  He would say no more about
the notice to Mr. Dent, and things might take
their way for another year.  It was just possible,
with the promised help from Will, that they
might manage to scrape along for another year....

He left it there at last and got to his feet, but
even as he did so he remembered Sarah's eyes.
He wondered what the doctor had said and
wished he knew, because, of course, there would
be no question of staying if the report were bad.
He was still standing, hesitating, and wondering
what he should do, when the door of the
Stewards' Room opened above, and a man came out.

It was, as somehow might have been expected,
the stranger of the car, otherwise Simon's now
celebrated 'hearse.'  Simon, however, had not
looked at him then, and he barely glanced at
him now.  It was a blind day, as Sarah had said,
and all through the Thornthwaites seemed
determined to be as blind as the day.  The agent
followed him out, looking cheerful and amused.
"I wish you luck all round!" Simon heard him
say, as he shook the stranger's hand, and thought
morosely that it was easy and cheap to wish
folks luck.  "This should be the finest day of
your life," he added more gravely, looking over
the rail, and the man going down looked up and
said "That's so!" in a fervent tone.  The old
farmer waiting in the bar felt a spasm of envy
and bitterness at the quietly triumphant words.
"The finest day of your life,"--that was for the
man going down.  "The heaviest day of your
life,"--that was for the man going up.  With a
touch of dreary humour he thought to himself
that it was really he who was going down, if it
came to that....

With a feeling of something like shame he
kept himself out of sight until the stranger had
disappeared, and then experienced a slight
shock when Dent called to him in the same
cheery tone.  Almost without knowing it he
had looked for the voice to change, and its
geniality jarred on his dismal mood.  Somehow
it seemed to put him about at the start, and
when Dent laid a hand on his shoulder,
saying--"Well, Simon!" with a smile, it was all he
could do not to give him a surly snarl by way
of reply.  They went into the old-fashioned
room, which smelt of horsehair and wool mats,
and Simon seated himself miserably on the
extreme edge of a chair.  Dent went to the
window and lifted a finger to somebody in the
street, and then seated himself at the table, and
said "Well, Simon!" and smiled again.  He
was a strongly built man, with a pleasant face,
which seemed rather more pleasant than need
be to his visitor's jaundiced eye.

He looked away from it, however, staring at
the floor, and after the first conventional
remarks began his tale of woe, that slow trickle of
disaster which always gathered itself into terrible
spate.  "You'll know what I'm here for, sir,"
he concluded, at the end of his first breath,
twisting his hat like a tea-tray in his restless
hands.  "Things has got that bad wi' us I doubt
we can't go on, and so we've made up our
minds we'd best clear out next year."

Dent nodded kindly in answer, but with a
rather abstracted air.  He had listened patiently
enough to the slow tale, but Simon had a feeling
that his tragic recital was not receiving the
sympathy it deserved.  He began a fresh
relation of the ills which had befallen him at the
farm, intending a grand climax to be capped by
Sarah's eyes; but there were so many dead
troubles to dig out of their graves as he went
along, that the last and most vital dropped
from the reckoning, after all.

"Ay, well, you've likely heard all this before,"
he finished lamely in the middle of a speech,
conscious that he had missed his point, though
without being able to say how.  "We've had a
bad year this year an' all, and I can't see as it's
any use holding on.  Me and my missis fixed it
up as we come in, so if you'll take my notice,
sir, we'll go next spring."

"Your wife's in town, is she?" Dent asked.
For some reason he looked again at the window
from which he had waved.  "How does she take
the thought of leaving the farm?"

"Well, sir, we'll both feel it, after all these
years, but I don't know as it's any use calling
out.  I put it to her as we'd better quit, and she
agreed to it right off."

"I wish you'd brought her along," the agent
said, still speaking in a detached tone.  There
were some notes on the table within reach of
his hand, and he glanced thoughtfully at them
as he spoke.

Simon stiffened a little, and looked surprised.
"I'm speaking for both on us, sir, as I said
before."

"Of course, Simon," Dent said, rousing himself.
"I know that.  But I'd have liked a word
with her, all the same."  His glance went back
to the notes, and he smiled as if at his own
thoughts....  "And so you've really made up
your minds that you'd better go?"

"Haven't I been saying so, sir, all along?"  Simon
was really injured now, and his wounded
dignity showed in his tone.  Mr. Dent was
taking the whole thing far too easily, he thought.
First of all, he did not seem to be listening as
much as he might, and then, when the notice
was offered, he actually smiled!  Tenants of
forty years' standing do not look to have their
departure speeded with smiles.  Simon thought
it heartless, to say the least, and only to be
excused because Mr. Dent did not know what
they had to face.  They had not been very
satisfactory tenants, of course,--even Simon
admitted that,--and it was more than likely
that the agent was rather relieved.  At least he
was saved the unpleasant task of turning them
out, a duty which, as Simon knew, had seemed
imminent more than once.  But they were
respectable folk of good stock, and they were
not entirely to blame because they were failures,
too.  Gravity was their due, anyhow, if not
sympathy, but Mr. Dent, on this solemn
occasion, seemed to be failing them in both.

"Of course you know you're late with your
notice?" he observed presently, looking up.
"You ought to have made up your minds a
couple of months ago."

"Ay, we're late, I know, but we weren't
thinking of owt o' the sort then.  I'm sorry if
we've put you about, but you'll not have that
much trouble in getting rid of the farm.  It's
nobbut a small spot, you'll think on.  It'll let
right off the reel."

"It's been going back a long while, though,"
Dent said thoughtfully, and then felt penitent
as the old man flushed.  Just for the moment
he had forgotten that Simon was in the room.

"Of course I know you've had pretty rough
luck," he went on hastily, trying to cover it up.
"Sandholes holds the record for every sort of
mischance.  It sounds like one of the old
fairy-tales," he added, laughing,--"curses and all
that! ... But I can't help thinking it would
have been better for everybody if there had
been a change earlier on."

"Ay, well, you've gitten your change now,
and no mistake about it!" Simon retorted
angrily, deeply hurt.  There was something
wrong with the scene, though he could not tell
what it was.  He only knew that he had not
expected it to go in the very least like this.

"It should have been made long since if it
was to do you any good...."  Dent did not
seem to notice that there was anything amiss.
He sat, tapping the table, deep in thought,
while Simon seethed....  "Sure you couldn't
put on for another year?"

This change of front upset his visitor so
completely that he dropped his hat.  He sat glaring
at Mr. Dent with a dropped mouth.

"Nay, then, I just couldn't!" he snapped at
last, wondering whether he was on his head or
his heels.  "Losh save us!" he added angrily,
"haven't I tellt you I meant to gang ever since
I come in?  It'll take me all my time to hang
on till spring, as it is."

"You've run it as close as that?" Dent
enquired, and Simon gave a grunt.

"Ay, and I'm not the first as has done it,
neither!"

"Couldn't your Blindbeck brother see to give
you a hand?  He's done well for himself, I
should say, and his children are getting on."

"He's given us a hand more than once
already, has Will, but there's no sense in
throwing good money after bad.  We'll have to quit
next year, if we don't this.  Farm's going back,
as you say, and I'm over old to pull it round.
I can't keep going for ever, nay, nor my missis,
neither."

He remembered Sarah's eyes as he spoke,
and how they were enough to clinch the matter
in themselves, but he was too offended even to
mention them by now.  There was no telling
to-day how Mr. Dent would take the tragic
news.  He had smiled and looked cheerful over
the notice to quit, but Simon felt he would not
be able to bear it if he smiled at Sarah's eyes.
Indeed, it was all he could do to keep a hold on
himself, as it was,--first of all hearing that he
ought to have gone long since, and then being
told to stop when he'd settled to clear out!

The trend of his injured thought must have
reached the other at last, for he roused himself
to look at his sulky face.

"You needn't think I'm trying to shove the
place down your throat!" he said, with a laugh.
"But I certainly thought you'd rather be stopping on!"

Simon felt a little appeased, though he took
care not to show any sign.  He growled
miserably that they had never intended to quit
except under a coffin-lid.

"This is where you want a lad of your own to
take hold,--a lad with a good wife who would
be able to see to you both.  You've no news, I
suppose, of that son of yours that went overseas?"

"A word or two, now and then,--nowt
more.  Nowt as'd set you running across
t'countryside to hear."

"No chance of getting him home again, is
there?" Dent enquired, and Simon stared at
the floor and shook his head.  He must have
felt a change in the atmosphere, however, for
suddenly he began to repeat what Sarah had
told May, how Geordie had written for money,
and there had been none to send.  The words
came easily after he had made a start, and for
the time being he forgot his resentment and
injured-tenant's pride.

"I reckon you know, sir, how it all come
about.  There'll ha' been plenty o' folk ready
to tell you, I'll be bound, and them as knowed
least'll likely ha' tellt you most.  We never had
but the one lad, Sarah and me, and, by Gox! but
he was a limb!  The queer thing was that
my brother Will's eldest should ha' been the
very marrow o' mine,--looks, voice, ways, ay,
and character an' all.  Will and me were whyet
enough lads, I'm sure; it was terble strange
we should breed a pair o' rattlehorns like yon.
You couldn't rightly say there was any harm
to 'em, but they were that wick they mun
always be making a stir.  Being that like, too,
helped 'em rarely when there was chanst o'
their getting catched.  Each on 'em had a
call for telling when he was about.  Jim's was
a heron like, but Geordie's was nobbut a
gull----"

This time it was his own glance that went to
the window, as again he remembered the bird
gone out to the waves.  When Dent spoke, his
mind came back from its flight with a tiny jerk.

"Then they made off to Canada, didn't they,
the two lads?  You told me something about it
when I first came."

"Ay, they cleared off in a night without a
word or owt, and they've never done no good
from then to this.  Sarah sticks to it Geordie
would never ha' gone at all if it hadn't been for
Jim, and Will's missis sticks to it t'other way
about.  I reckon there was nowt to choose
between 'em myself, but my missis never could
abide poor Jim.  He was that set on her, though,
there was no keeping him off the spot.  Right
cruel she was to him sometimes, but she couldn't
drive him off.  He'd just make off laughing and
whistling, and turn up again next day.  Of
course, she was bound to have her knife into
him, for his mother's sake.  She and Eliza have
always been fit to scratch at each other all their
lives."

"Long enough to finish any feud, surely, and
a bit over?  It's a pity they can't bury the
hatchet and make friends."

"They'll happen make friends when the
rabbit makes friends wi' the ferret," Simon
said grimly, "and the blackbird wi' the cat!
I don't say Sarah isn't to blame in some ways,
but she's had a deal to put up wi', all the same.
There's summat about Eliza as sets you fair bilin'
inside your bones!  It's like as if she'd made up
her mind to pipe Sarah's eye straight from the
very start.  She never said ay to Will, for one
thing, till Sarah and me had our wedding-day
fixed, and then danged if she didn't make up
her mind to get wed that day an' all!  She fixed
same church, same parson, same day and same
time,--ay, an' there's some folk say she'd ha'
fixed on t'same man if she'd gitten chanst!"  He
paused for a moment to chuckle when he
had said that, but he was too bitter to let his
vanity dwell on it for long.  "She tellt parson
it was a double wedding or summat o' the sort,
but she never let wit on't to Sarah and me until
she was fair inside door.  Sarah and me walked
to kirk arm in arm, wi' nowt very much
by-ordinar' on our backs; but Eliza come scampering
up in a carriage and pair, donned up in a
white gown and wi' a gert, waggling veil.  Will
was that shammed on it all he couldn't abide to
look me in t'face, but there, I reckon he couldn't
help hisself, poor lad!  Sarah was that wild I
could feel her fair dodderin' wi' rage as we
stood alongside at chancel-step.  She was that
mad she could hardly shape to get her tongue
round Weddin'-Service or owt, and when we
was in t'vestry I see her clump both her feet on
the tail of Eliza's gown.  She would have it
nobody knew she was as much as getting wed
at all,--they were that busy gawping at Eliza
and her veil.  She was a fine, strapping lass,
Eliza was, and I'd a deal o' work keeping my
eyes off'n her myself! ... ay, and I won't say
but what she give me a sheep's eye or so at the
back o' Will as well...."  He chuckled again,
and his face became suddenly youthful, with a
roguish eye.  "But yon was no way o' starting
in friendly, was it, Mr. Dent?

"Ay, well, things has gone on like that
atween 'em more or less ever since, and I won't
say but Sarah's gitten a bit of her own back
when she's gitten chanst.  Will having all the
luck and such-like hasn't made things better,
neither.  Blindbeck's ganged up and Sandholes
has ganged down,--ay, and seems like to hit
bottom afore it stops!  Will and me have hung
together all along, but the women have always
been at each other's throats.  It riled Eliza
Jim being always at our spot, and thinking a deal
more o' Sarah than he did of her.  Neither on
'em could break him of it, whatever they said
or did.  He always stuck to it Sandholes was
his home by rights."

"Pity the two of them aren't here to help
you now," Dent said.  "Those runabout lads
often make fine men."

"Nay, I doubt they've not made much out,
anyway round."  Simon shook his head.  "Likely
they're best where they be," he said, as Sarah
had said on the road in.  He sat silent a moment
longer for politeness' sake, and then was stopped
again as he rose to go.

"May I enquire what you intend to do when
you leave the farm?"

The old man's face had brightened as he
talked, but now the shadow came over it again.

"I can't rightly tell, sir, till I've had a word
wi' Will, but anyway he'll not let us come to
want.  He's offered us a home at Blindbeck
afore now, but I reckon his missis'd have summat
to say to that.  Ay, and mine an' all!" he
added, with a fresh attempt at a laugh.  "There'd
be lile or nowt done on t'farm, I reckon, if it
ever come about.  It'd take the lot on us all
our time to keep them two apart!"

Again, as he finished, he remembered Sarah's
eyes, and once again he let the opportunity pass.
He was on his feet now, anxious to get away,
and there seemed little use in prolonging this
evil hour.  Mr. Dent would think they were for
ever whingeing and whining and like enough
calling out before they were hurt....  He moved
hurriedly to the door, conscious of a sense of
relief as well as of loss, and Sarah's eyes missed
their final chance of getting into the talk....

"You're likely throng, sir," he finished,
"and I'll not keep you."  He put a hand to the
latch.  "Anyway, you'll kindly take it as we'll
quit next year."

Dent said--"No, Simon, I shan't do anything
of the sort!" and laughed when the
other shot round on him again with open mouth.
His expression was grave, however, as he ended
his speech.  "I want you to think it over a bit first."

Simon felt his head going round for the second
time.  The red came into his thin face.

"I don't rightly know what you're driving
at, sir," he said, with a dignified air.  "I
reckon I can give in my notice same as anybody else?"

"Oh, Lord, yes, Simon!  Of course."  Dent's
eyes went back to the notes.  "Yes, of course
you can."

"Ay, well, then?" Simon demanded stiffly.
"What's all this stir?"

"Well, ... it's like this, you see ... you've
missed your time.  It was due a couple of
months back, as I said before."

"Ay, but you're not that hard and fast
about notice, as a rule!  Tom Robison did
t'same thing last year, you'll think on, and you
let it pass.  Seems to me you're by way of
having a joke wi' me, sir," he added, in a pitiful
tone, "and I don't know as it's kind, seeing
how I'm placed."

Dent jumped to his feet and came across to
lay a hand on his arm.

"It's only that I've a feeling you'll change
your mind, Simon," he said earnestly, "and
you'll be sorry if you've spread it about that
you're going to quit.  A week, say,--a week
won't make that much difference, will it?
Can't you let it stand over another week?"

"You said a minute back 'twas a pity we'd
stopped so long!  I can't make out what you're
at, Mr. Dent,--I'm danged if I can!"

The agent laughed and left him to stroll back
again to the window, where he stood looking
down into the full street.

"Perhaps we're neither of us as clear in our
minds as we might be!" he observed, with a
cryptic smile.  "The weather, perhaps; it's
only a dreary day.  I'm not one of the folks
who like November grey."

"Tides is big an' all," Simon found himself
saying, unable to resist the lure.  "We've had
t'watter up agen t'wall every night this week.
Last night I went out for a look afore it was
dark, but it was that thick it was all I could do
to tell it was there at all.  There was just
summat grey-like lifting under my nose; but,
by Gox! it was deep enough for all it was so whyet!"

Dent shivered at the drear little picture
which the other had conjured up.

"I don't know how you sleep," he said,
"perched on the edge of things like that!  It
would give me fits to have the sea knocking
twice a day at my back door."

"Ay, it knocks," Simon said slowly, with a
thoughtful air.  "There's whiles you'd fair
think it was axing for somebody to come out....
You'll mind yon time you were near
catched by the tide?" he went on, after a
pause.  "Eh, man, but I was in a terble tew
yon night!"

"It was my own fault," Dent laughed,--"not
that it was any the nicer for that!  I
knew the time of the tide, but I'd forgotten the
time of day.  It was a day something like this,
much the same dismal colour all through.  Lord,
no!"  He shivered again.  "I've not forgotten,
not I!  I'll never forget pounding away from
that horrible wave, and finding myself, quite
without knowing it, back below the farm!"

"It was my missis saved you that night,"
Simon said, "and a near shave it was an' all!
Tide would ha' got you even then if it hadn't
been for her.  We heard you hollerin' and came
out to look, but we couldn't see nowt, it was
that dark.  I thought we'd fancied it like, as
we didn't hear no more, but Sarah wouldn't
hear of owt o' the sort.  She would have it she
could see you liggin' at bottom o' t'bank, and
she give me no peace till I'd crammelled down
to look."

"Well, you may be sure I'm grateful enough,"
the agent said, as they shook hands.  "I
wouldn't wish my worst enemy a death like
that.  I hope it's been put to the credit side of
her account."

He followed this caller out as he had done the
last, and again, leaning over the railing, he
called "Good luck!"  Simon, looking up, full
of resentment, saw the face above him bright
with smiles.  He went out with offended dignity
written in every line.





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.. _`ELIZA`:

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   PART II

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   ELIZA

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.. class:: center large

   I

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It was two o'clock and after before the old
folks left Witham.  Simon had gone to his
dinner on quitting the agent, and at his favourite
eating-house he encountered others who wanted
the hearse-story at first hand.  He was not at
all averse to talking about it by now, and after
a good dinner it improved with the telling every
time.  Once more he forgot the interview of the
morning as well as the coming one in the
afternoon, and stayed smoking and talking and
sunning himself in the fine atmosphere of success.

Sarah, however, had neither pipe nor
admiring circle to soothe or enliven the heavy,
dragging hours.  She went into the inn after the
'Ship' dog-cart had rattled off, and tried to
gather a little comfort from the parlour fire;
but the glamour of the morning had departed
with May, and now that she was alone she felt
depressed and tired.  The doctor's verdict,
which had passed her by at the time, rushed back
upon her, shaking her nerves and chilling her
heart.  She began to wonder what it would be
like to be really blind, and in a sudden panic
she made a strained attempt to discern the
pictures and almanacks in the room, tracing
the patterns of the antimacassars with a shaking
finger, and the shapes of the chair-backs and
table-legs.  When she was really blind, Simon
would have to do for her instead of her doing
for him, but he would only make a poorish job
of it, she felt sure.  There would still be plenty
for both of them to do, in spite of the fact that
'things had come to an end.'  There were the
long winter months to be got through before
they left, as well as the work and worry of
changing house.  May would help her, no doubt;
she could always count on May; but she knew
that she did not want to owe her more than she
could help.  It was partly a new uprising of
dead jealousy, of course, as well as pride refusing
dependence upon one who did not belong.  But
at the back of all there was a more just and
generous motive than either of these,--the
consciousness that May had given too much
already, and should not be called upon for more.
Months ahead though it lay, she began
presently to think a woman's thoughts about
the breaking-up of the home.  Little as they
possessed of any value in itself, there would be
many things, she knew, that they would want
to keep.  There were certain things, expensive
to renew, which still had a flicker of useful life,
and others, useless to others as well as
themselves, which were yet bone of their bone and
flesh of their ancient flesh.  She began to make
a list in her head, and to value the furniture as
well as she knew how.  She had been to many a
sale in her time, and had a sufficiently good
memory of what the things had fetched, as well
as of whose house had eventually raked them in.
She saw Sandholes full of peering and poking
folk, a chattering crowd stretching into the
garden and yard, and forming a black
procession along the roads of the marsh.  She saw
traps and heavy carts and laden human beings
slowly departing with the stuff of her human
life, while the shreds that were left to her, piled
and roped on a waiting lorry, looked poorer
than ever in the light of day.  She saw the
garden gravel printed by many boots, and the
yard trenched and crossed by wheels.  She saw
the windows open in a house from which nobody
looked, and scrubbed, bare floors which seemed
to have forsworn the touch of feet.  She saw the
lorry pass reluctantly away into the great,
homeless place that was the world.  And last
of all she saw herself and Simon shutting the
door that finally shut them out.  There was all
the difference in ten thousand worlds between
the sound of a door that was shutting you in
and the sound of the same door shutting you out....

She had always been a still woman, when she
had had time to be still, but she found it
impossible to be still to-day.  She began to walk
up and down, listening for Simon's voice, and
in the strange room she hurt herself against the
furniture, and received little shocks from the
cold surface of strange objects and the violent
closing-up of the walls.  She gave it up after a
while, forcing herself to a stand, and it was so
that Simon found her when he opened the door at last.

She had a further wait, however, when he
found that the trap had managed to oust the
car from the coveted place.  At first he was
rather afraid that the hearse-story had earned
him too many drinks, but even to marketing
eyes the fact was plain.  He chuckled as he
walked from one to the other, saying "Gox!"
and "Did ye ever now?" and "Losh save us!"
and "Wha'd ha' thowt it!"  The driver was
not to be seen, or the wait might have been
longer still, but as it was they were mounted
presently on the emaciated seats, and Simon
jerked up the horse in a last spasm of victorious glee.

For some miles he talked of nothing but the
sensation that he had caused in Witham, and
how he had found the hearse-story everywhere
in the town.

"I'd nobbut to turn a corner," he announced
proudly, though pretending disgust, "but sure
an' certain there'd be somebody waiting to tax
me on t'far side!  There was Burton, and Wilson,
and Danny Allen and a deal more, all on 'em
ready wi'--'Well, Simon, and what about yon
hearse?'  I could see 'em oppenin' their mouths
half a street off!" he chuckled loudly.  "Folk
clipped me by t'arm and begged me tell 'em
how it was, and t'others rushed out o' shops
and fair fell on me as I ganged by!"

"They mun ha' been terble hard set for
summat to do," Sarah answered unkindly.
"What did you make out wi' Mr. Dent?"

At once the shadow fell again on the fine sun
of Simon's success.

"Nay, you may well ax," he growled, "but
I'm danged if I rightly know!  He was that
queer there was no doing owt wi' him at all.
Seemed to be thinking o' summat else most o'
the time,--gaping out at winder and smiling at
nowt.  He was a deal queerer nor me, hearse or
no hearse, and so I tell ye!"

"But you give notice in, didn't you?  You
likely got that fixed?"

"Well, I did and I didn't, after a manner o'
speaking.  I kept handing it in like, and he kept
handing it back.  He said we'd best take a bit
more time to think."

"We've had time and plenty, I'm sure!"
Sarah sighed,--"ay, that we have! ... I
reckon you tellt him about my eyes?"

Simon stirred uneasily when she mentioned
her eyes, remembering how they had played in
and out of his mind, but never once managed
to come to the front.

"Nay, then, I didn't, if you want to know,
because I never gitten chanst.  I didn't rightly
know what to say, neither, come to that.  You
catched doctor right enough, I suppose?"

"Ay, we hadn't to wait or owt.  And he was
right kind, he was that!"

"Happen he hadn't a deal to say, after all?"
Simon enquired hopefully, and she gave a faint laugh.

"Nobbut that if I didn't have an operation
right off, I'd be as blind as a barn-door owl by
next year!"

Simon said "Gox!" and jerked the horse so
violently that it nearly went through the hedge.
"Losh, missis, that's bad!" he went on
dismally, when he had straightened out.  "It's
worse than I looked for, by a deal.  I've always
been terble feared of operations and such-like.
What's to be done about it, d'ye think?"

"Nowt."

"Nay, but dang it!" he cried sharply,--"we
can't leave it like yon!  If there's owt
they can do for you, we mun let them try.
They say some folk come out right enough, wi'
a bit o' luck."

"Luck isn't much in our way, I doubt," she
said, with a sigh, "and it'd mean begging o'
somebody, I reckon, and I've had enough o'
that.  May says there's free spots for such as
us, but there's not that much free in this world
as I've ever seen.  I doubt it'd mean somebody's
brass or other going to pay for it in the end."

"I could ax Will----" Simon began hurriedly,
without pausing to think, but she
stopped him before the well-known formula was out.

"Nay, then, master, you'll do nowt o' the
sort, so that's all there is about it!  You're his
brother, and you've a right to do as you choose,
but I'll never take a penny piece from him if
it's nobbut for myself."

"He'd have his hand in his pocket for you
right off.  He's never been close about brass
and suchlike, hasn't Will."

"Ay, but it's Eliza's brass as well, you'll
think on, and she's close, right enough!  She'd
see me blind and on t'streets afore she'd lift a
hand, and if happen she did lift it, I'd strike it
down!  Nay, master, you can ax what you like
for yourself, but you'll ax nowt for me.  As for
the farm and Mr. Dent, we're bound to get shot
of it now, whatever happens.  The sooner things
is fixed the better I'll be suited, so I'll thank you
to get 'em seen to as soon as you can."

"'Tisn't my fault they're not fixed this very
minute!" Simon grumbled, feeling hardly used....
"Did you happen across Eliza in Witham?"
he asked her suddenly, after a while.

Sarah laughed faintly again, though this time
it was an echo of triumph.

"We'd a few words together in t'caif," she
answered tranquilly, "and wi' a few folks
looking on an' all.  She was setting it round we
were broke, and had gitten the sack, and a deal
more; but I reckon I give her summat to bite
on afore I was through....  Seems as if you
an' me had been having a sort o' side-show," she
finished, with a grim smile.  "Ay, well, we've
given Witham summat to crack about, if we've
never done nowt else...."

Their minds had been full of Eliza as they
drove to market, and now they were busy
turning her over in their minds again.  Sarah's
account of her splendid effort cheered and
uplifted them for a while, but they knew only too
well that their sense of superiority would not
last.  Even their victories, ever so dearly
bought, turned to Eliza's advantage in the end.
Life was on the side of Eliza, for whom all
things were certain to work out well.  Heaven
was on the side of Eliza, whose face had never
registered a single memory of pain.  The Simon
Thornthwaites never got over the feeling that
somehow she had played them false, had
wheedled by undue influence the balance of
justice off the straight.  Alone, they were able
to see some dignity in their tragic lives, but once
with Eliza they were suddenly cheap,--mere
poor relations fawning at her skirts.  They saw
themselves framed as such in her mocking eyes,
and felt for the moment the shameful thing
they seemed.

She mocked them,--that was the evil thing
she did; that petty, insidious crime which
human nature finds so difficult to forgive.
Mockery by comparison was her method, and
one which was almost impossible to fight.  In
all that Eliza said and did, by her attitude and
her dress, she invited the world to mark the
incredible gulf that yawned between the Simon
Thornthwaites and the Wills.  She had made
her opening point on the double wedding-day,
though the actual cause of the enmity lay
further back than that.  Eliza, indeed, had
intended to marry Simon and not Will,--Simon,
the elder, the better-looking, and even the
smarter in those far-off days.  But in this, at
least, Sarah had won the fall, and Eliza had
never recovered from her surprise.  From that
moment the spoilt beauty had seen in the other's
plain person an opponent worthy of her steel, an
antagonist whom it would take her all her life
to down.  Sneer and strike as she might, she
could never be quite sure that she had finally
got home, and in mingled inquisitiveness and
wrath she sneered and struck again.  There
must be an end sometime to this spirit that
would not break, but even after forty years
there was little sign.  Something deathless in
Sarah rose up again after every stroke, and was
always left standing erect when her world was
in the dust.

Sarah thought of her wedding-day as they
drove through the torpid afternoon, and under
the low sky that was shut over the earth like a
parsimonious hand.  The wedding-day had been
soft and sunny and sweet, with a high blue sky
that looked empty from zone to zone, until,
looking up until you were almost blind, you saw
that you stared through layer upon layer of
tender-coloured air.  The mountains had been
like that, too, clear yet vapour-veiled, and even
the blue of the sea had been just breathed upon
as well.  It was a real bridal day, with its hint
of beauty only just withheld, its lovely actual
presences that still dropped curtains between.
The earth-veils had had nothing in common
with Eliza's flaunting mockery of a veil, nor
was there anything in common between the
mysteries behind.  The strong mountain was
more subtle and shy than Eliza, the terrible sea
more tender, the great sky with its hidden
storms more delicate and remote.  Eliza's bold
and confident beauty had clashed with them as
a brass band clashes with a stretching, moonlit
shore.  It was for Sarah in her stiff straw bonnet
and brown gown that the bridal veils of the
world had been sweetly worn.

She had thought herself neat and suitable
when she looked in the glass, and had found it
enough, because all her instincts were neat and
plain.  It was a cruel irony of fate that had
forced her into a morbid, passionate groove.
In those days she had never as much as heard
of obsessions of the mind, and would not have
believed they could touch her, if she had.  She
had asked nothing of life but that it should be
clean and straight, and still found it hard to
believe in the shadowed, twisted thing which it
had proved.

Her parents had died before Simon had made
her a home, so she had gone out to service and
had been married from her 'place.'  She found
him waiting when she went downstairs, in clothes
as neat and suitable as her own, and he had
given her a bunch of lilies of the valley, and a
little Prayer Book with a brown back.  They
had always been matter-of-fact as lovers, and
they were very matter-of-fact now, but Sarah,
from this far-off distance, knew that, after all,
they had not missed the thrill.  Even in the
small-windowed, silent house that had a maiden
lady for tenant there was a touch of the exquisite
thing,--the same delicate rapture that was
spreading its diaphanous wings over the coloured
sea and land....

They walked to church by the path across the
fields, and the cattle raised their heads to look at
Simon's suitable clothes, and the inch of escaped
ribbon frisking on Sarah's suitable bonnet.  They
went arm-in-arm through the still churchyard,
where their forefathers, lying together, saw
nothing strange in this new conjunction of old
names; and arm-in-arm up the empty aisle
towards the cave of the chancel that had the
flower of its rose window set in it like a jewelled
eye.  Their boots sounded terribly loud on the
uncarpeted tiles, and they trod on tiptoe when
they crossed the stones of the vaults, because
the names looking up seemed somehow to turn
into the uplifted faces of the prostrate dead.
And presently the stone of the chancel-steps
had stopped them as with a bar, bidding them
think, in that last moment, whether the feet of
their purpose had been rightly set.

They felt very small as they waited among
the climbing pillars and under the spring of the
groined roof, smaller and smaller as the
unmarked minutes passed and nobody came.  A
shaft of light from the clerestory touched them
like the point of a sacrificial knife, showing their
faces humble and patient and a little too anxious
to be glad.  A bird flashed in through the open
chancel-door, sat for a moment on the altar-rail
and sang, and then caught sight of the sunlit
country and flashed out again.  It had not even
seen the waiting couple who were so very quiet
and so terribly small.  And then, just as they
were at their smallest, the Pageant of Eliza had
swept in.

There were many to tell them afterwards of
the sensation in the village when Eliza in
gorgeous apparel had come driving with trampling
horses to the old lych-gate.  At the sound of the
horses' hoofs and the first flash of the veil the
houses had emptied themselves as a teapot
empties itself when you tilt the spout.  Veils
were the prerogative of the 'quality' in those
days, and that in itself was sufficient to make a
stir.  In a moment there were groups on the
green, children running up the street and folk
pressing into the churchyard, and in a moment
more the veiled yet flaunting figure had passed
into the church, an over-rigged ship up the
straight estuary of the aisle.

Behind Simon and Sarah the place was suddenly
full of noise, whispering and shuffling and
treading of heavy feet, and the ringing of nailed
boots on the smooth tiles.  Presently all that
had been inside the church had gone out as if
swept by a broom, and all that had been outside
had come in with a blatant rush, filling it with
curious faces and crowded bodies and suppressed
laughter and muttered speech.  Into the quiet
hour that had been meant for Simon and Sarah
alone, Eliza came full tilt with a tumult of
sight-seers in her train.  Not for her was the
peace between the springing pillars which rent
before her like a curtain rent by hands.  She
trod with bold, self-satisfied strides over the dead
faces which to her were only names.  She created
a vulgar raree-show out of the simple blessing of
a tranquil God.

Only outside the sea and the mountains kept
their mystery till the knot was tied.  The
sacred hour of Simon and Sarah was withdrawn
silently into higher courts.

All that was human in Sarah, however, remained
at the mercy of the broken hour below.
Now and then she caught a glimpse of Eliza's
face through the veil, or a gleam of her shining
gown as she twisted and turned.  She thought
to herself savagely that Eliza looked a fool, but
that did not prevent her from feeling, by
contrast, a fool, too.  Even Will, shy and
ashamed, but tricked out in unaccustomed
gauds, helped to point the comparison between
the pairs.  She remembered how her cheeks
had burned and her heart battered and her
knees shook, while she strained her ears for the
least sign of mirth from the crowded pews
behind.  The whole parody of her precious hour
was bitter beyond words, but it was the
mocking distinction in clothes that went furthest
home.  For the rest of her life Sarah was sharply
conscious of all that Eliza wore, and hated it
right to the sheep that had carried the wool on
its innocent back, and the harmless cotton-plant
that had grown for her unaware.

Eliza sailed down the aisle again amid giggles
and loud asides, but Simon and Sarah crept
quietly out of the church by the door through
which the singing-bird had flown.  They stood
in the grass among the rose-bushes on the graves,
and watched Eliza drive triumphantly away.
The parson followed them out to make a kindly
speech, which they were far too angry and
humiliated to hear.  He wanted to tell them
that God had certainly liked them best, but he
knew they would not believe him if he did.
They were so certain that it was Eliza who had
had the beautiful hour.  They were too simple
to know that it was only they who had any of
the beauty to carry home....





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.. class:: center large

   II

.. vspace:: 2

All their lives Simon and Sarah had been
the victims of Eliza's Method.  Nothing
they had, horse, cow or cart, but was sooner
or later measured by Blindbeck standards and
condemned.  Their furniture figured in Eliza's
talk as often as her own,--their humble
horsehair abased by her proud plush, her stout
mahogany lording it over their painted deal.
They had scarcely a cup or plate, hay-crop, dog
or friend, but it was flung in the scale and
instantly kicked the beam.  People grew tired
of Eliza's Method after a while, but long before
they had ceased to enjoy it its work was done.
By that time they knew to the last inch exactly
how the Simon Thornthwaites had fallen behind
the Wills.  The Simons were stamped in their
eyes as poor relations to the end of time, and
they treated them differently, spoke to them
casually, and as often as not forgot that they
were there.  But Simon and Sarah did not forget,
or cease to notice, or cease to be hurt.  Always
they felt pilloried by Eliza's blatant cry,--"Look
here, upon this picture, and on this!"

Only in one respect had Sandholes and the
Simons ever managed to hold their own.  Simon's
son had been every whit as fine as Will's, for all
the wooden spoon that was hanging over his
cradle.  It was true that more and more children
came to Blindbeck, passing Sandholes by, but
that was nothing to Sarah as long as Geordie
was at hand.  Geordie alone seemed more than
sufficient to right them in the eyes of an
Eliza-magicked world.  He was a rattlehorn and a
limb, but he had stuff in him, all the same, and
sooner or later he would prove that stuff to the
world and the lordly Wills.  All the working
and scraping of those years went to the one
passionate purpose of doing Eliza down.  Those
were the happiest years of Sarah's life, because
for the time being she had a weapon against her foe.

Yet even here she found herself mocked by
the amazing likeness between the brothers'
sons.  It had an uncanny effect upon her, as
of something not quite human, even, indeed,
as if there were something evil at its back.
She had an uneasy feeling that, in some
mysterious way, this was still another expression
of Eliza's malice.  The pride of stock in Simon
and Will was stirred by this double evidence of
breed, but Sarah, when people mistook the lads,
was fretted to fierce tears.  There were times
when she even hated the smile on Geordie's
lips, because of its exact similitude on Jim's.
Most of all she hated herself when the wrong lad
called and she answered before she knew, or
waved to a figure over the sands, and it came
laughing and was not her son....

She had much the same sense of something
not quite canny about Jim's extraordinary
passion for Sandholes and herself.  It was
almost, indeed, as if she feared it, as if she
knew that in the future it might do her harm.
Even she was not always proof against his
laughing, kindly ways, and nothing but some
such fear of a clutching love could have made
her steel her heart.  Through all her absorption
in her splendid Geordie she could not help
guessing at the greater depths in Jim.  Geordie
had yet to learn in exile what Jim had learned
on the very threshold of his home.  She
remembered nursing him through an illness much
against her will, and even now she could not
shed that clinging memory and its appeal....

It was perhaps because of this hidden terror
that she never used his affection for her against
his mother.  She was often tempted to do so,
for Eliza was sore in spite of her loud denials,
and when the Method was hard at work on the
furniture or the crops it would have been
pleasant to give her news--and generally none
too pleasing news--of Jim.  Often enough the
words were on her tongue, but she never spoke
them.  Always something held her back from
taking this easy means to strike.

Her ironic reward, however, was such as
might well have made her think herself
bewitched, for even out of her self-denial it was
Eliza who gathered triumph.  As time went on,
and more and more lads appeared at Blindbeck,
she deftly changed her tactics by a single twist
of the wheel.  She handed over to Sandholes,
as it were, the one member of the Blindbeck
family that did not come up to Blindbeck
standards.  Not that she ever said as much in
words, or relinquished any claim that was
likely to be of use.  She merely contrived to
convey the impression that he belonged by
nature more to the Have-Nots than the Haves,
to the penniless Simons rather than the wealthy
Wills.  The impression hardened, however,
after the lads had run away, and Jim had
finally nailed his sympathies to the mast.  His
father, indeed, did not give him up without a
struggle, but Eliza became ever more detached
from the wastrel who was her son.  Smilingly,
so to speak, she dropped her thumbs and let
him go.  It was not long before strangers were
thinking him Simon's son instead of Will's,
and presently even Sarah awoke to the fact that
she was saddled with the Blindbeck failure as
well as her own.

It was a smug young cousin of Eliza's who
finally opened her eyes, at one of those family
feasts which Simon and Sarah were always
expected to attend.  Eliza was never at her
brightest and best without them, as she very
rightly said,--the organ-grinder without his
necessary monkey, the circus-master without his
jumping clown.  As usual, the Simon Thornthwaites
heard their belongings catalogued and
found utterly wanting, and, as usual, for the
time being, shared the general sentiment that
they were beneath scorn.  The comparisons,
passing in and out of shippon and parlour,
leaping from feather-bed to sofa, and over
root-crops and stacks of hay, arrived finally at the
missing sons.

"Our Harry's for learning the violin," Eliza
informed the tea-party, swelling with conscious
pride.  "Master wouldn't hear tell o' such a
thing at first, but me and the girls talked him
round between us.  I reckon he'll be suited all
right, though, when he hears our Harry play.
Ah, now, Sarah, but wouldn't that ha' been
just the thing for Geordie-an'-Jim?  They were
that fond o' music, the poor lads, though they'd
no more tune to the pair on 'em than a
steam-whistle.  Eh, well, poor things, fiddle-playing
and suchlike wouldn't ha' been no use to 'em
where they're at.  Brass wasted, that's what it
would ha' been, so it's just as well...."

Harry, also swelling with pride, looked for
some sign of admiration from his aunt, but did
not get it.  Eliza soothed him with a meaning glance.

"The trouble is you've got to keep your
hands terble nice for the violin.  Our Harry's
terble set on keeping his hands nice....
Geordie-an'-Jim would never ha' come to
such-like quality ways, would they, Sarah?  I never
see such hands as the two on 'em used to show
at meals!  I mind you said they got sent home
that often from school, at last the folks took
to washing 'em on the spot!  I used to be
right sorry for you, Sarah, I was that, wi' their
gert finger-marks all over the walls and the
chair-backs.  It's queer how different folk
shape, I'm sure, even when they're as you
might say near-bred.  Our Harry frames rarely
at folding tablecloths and the like, and no more
dirt to 'em when he's finished than if he was a lass!"

The town-bred cousin gazed complacently at
his hands, and observed that, if Geordie-an'-Jim
were in Canada, as he understood, from all
accounts it was much the best place for them.
Eliza nodded lugubriously, the tail of her eye
on Sarah's unstirred face.

"Ay, they're in Canada right enough, and
like to be,--aren't they, Sarah?--for a goodish
while yet.  They wrote home as they'd sworn
to make their fortunes afore they crossed the
pond again, but fortunes isn't as easy come by
as some folk seem to think.  Me and Will likely
know as much about it as most, having managed
middlin' well, but even for the best o' folk it
isn't as simple as it sounds.  There's always
somebody at you one way or another, wanting to
share what you've earned wi' your own hands.
You've just got to keep lifting your feet right
high off the ground, or you'll have folk hanging
on to your shoe-wangs all the time.  Ay,
Geordie-an'-Jim'll find as fortunes don't come that slape
off the reel!  'Tisn't as if it was our Harry and
Tom here, ay, and Bill and Fred an' all, as'll
find everything ready for 'em when they want
to start on their own.  They'll step into good
farms as if it was stepping out o' bed, and they'll
have Blindbeck behind them and its brass as
well.  They'll have a bit o' their own, come to
that; I started 'em saving-books myself.  Eh,
yes, they'll do right well, but I doubt there's
never farm nor Post Office book as'll come to Geordie-an'-Jim!"

Later in the day, the smug cousin, trying to
be kind, had enquired of Sarah whether Geordie-an'-Jim
were twins.  She was too angry at first
to answer him at all, and by the time she
managed to get her breath her mood had
changed.  They were alone at the time, and
even Sarah could sometimes laugh at herself
when Eliza was out of sight.  The touch of
humour freed her heart for an instant, and at
once it rose up and stood by the lad whose
mother had cast him off.  Jim was suddenly
before her, with his tricks of affection and his
borrowed face, his constant cry that he had only
been born at Blindbeck by mistake.  "I'm your
lad, really, Aunt Sarah," she heard him saying,
as of old.  "I'm your lad really, same as Geordie
is!"  Jim was forty by now, but it was a
child's voice that she heard speaking and
couldn't deny.  The cousin repeated his
question, and she smiled grimly.

"Twins?  Ay ... and as like as a couple
o' peas.  As like as a couple o' gulls on the edge
o' the tide...."

It was the only time in her life that she ever
stood openly by Eliza's hated son.  But
perhaps even that one occasion may count in the
final sum of things....





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   III

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Now they had left the high-road and were
making south-east through the winding
lanes.  Their shoulders were turned to the sea,
though in that lost world of the mist only the
native could tell where the bay was supposed to
lie.  It was one of the dead hours, too, when
even the salt goes out of the marsh-air, and no
pulse in it warns you subconsciously of the
miracle coming.  Between the high-mounted
hedges it was still and close, and beyond them
the land rose until its dank green surface stood
soft against the sky.  All the way Simon looked
at the land with a critical eye, the eye of the
lover which loves and asks at the same time.
He looked at the ploughland and knew the
rotation through which it had run and would
have to run again; at rich grass-land which
seemed never to have known the steel, and
fields which, at rest for a hundred years, still
spoke to some long-rusted share.  He loved it,
but he thought of it first and foremost as good
material for the good workman engaged on the
only job in the world.  It was always the land
that he coveted when he came to Blindbeck,
never the house.  Eliza had made of the house
a temple to the god of Blessed Self-Satisfaction,
but even Eliza could not spoil the honest, workable land.

The farm kept showing itself to them as they
drove, a quadrangle of long, well-kept buildings
backed by trees.  When the sun shone, the
white faces of house and shippon looked silver
through the peeping-holes of the hedge, but
to-day they were wan and ghostly in the deadening
mist.  The turned beeches and chestnuts were
merely rusty, instead of glowing, and seemed to
droop as if with the weight of moisture on their
boughs.  The Scotch firs on a mound alone,
stark, straight, aloof, had more than ever that
air of wild freedom which they carry into the
tamest country; and the pearly shadow misting
their green alike in wet weather or in dry,
was to-day the real mist, of which always they
wear the other in remembrance.

The farm had its back well into the grassy
hill, and the blind river which gave it its name
wound its way down to it in a hidden channel
and went away from it in a hidden dip in a field
below.  There was water laid on at Blindbeck, as
Sarah knew, with a copper cylinder in a special
linen-room, and a hot towel-rail and a
porcelain bath.  Simon's particular envy was the
electric light, that marvel of marvels on a
northern farm.  He never got over the wonder
of putting his hand to the switch, and seeing the
light flash out on the second to his call.  Once
he had sneaked out of the house on a winter's
night, and in the great shippon had turned the
lights on full.  Eliza, of course, had been nasty
about it when she heard, but Will had
understood him and had only laughed.  Later,
swinging a lantern in his own dark shippon, Simon
had thought of those switches with envious
longing.  He did not know that they had taken
the warm glamour out of the place, and slain in
a blow the long tradition of its beauty.  The
lantern went with him like a descended star as
he moved about, and out of the cattle's breath
wove for itself gold-dusted halos.  There had
been something precious about it all before,
some sense of mystery and long-garnered peace,
but to-night he could only remember Blindbeck
and its modern toy.  For the time being he
ceased to feel the pull of the sweetest chain in
the world, which runs straight back through all
the ages to the Child in the Bethlehem Stall....
There was a billiard-table at Blindbeck, too,
with more switches to tempt Simon, and a
well-laid tennis-lawn in the neat garden by the
stream.  On the far side of the farm was a great
highway running north and south, as well as a
main-line station over the drop of the hill.  It
seemed as if everything was made easy for those
who lived at Blindbeck, from the washing of
pots and the moving of stock to the amusement
and education of the bairns.

Folk who came to Blindbeck for the first time
believed that at last they had found the farm of
all their dreams.  They called it an Earthly
Paradise, a model miniature village, a moral
object-lesson, a True Home.  They came to it
between well-cropped fields, marked by trim
hedges and neat stone walls, and through
uniformly painted gates secure in hinge and
hasp into a tidy yard.  They looked with
pleasure at the shining knocker on the green
house-door and the fruit tree lustily climbing
the warm south wall.  They looked with delight
at the healthy, handsome family, the well-placed
buildings and the show of pedigree stock.
They looked at Will as he went shyly by, and
said that his wife was undoubtedly the better
horse.  They looked at Eliza and said that she
was the Housewife of Romance.  When they
went away they told others of this Paradise
which was Blindbeck, and the others came in
their turn and looked and said the same.  But
to Simon and Sarah it was plain Purgatory and
nothing else, and with each gate that they
loosed they unloosed a devil as well.

There was a party at Blindbeck this afternoon,
as long custom might have led them to
expect.  It was part of Eliza's Method to gather
a party together when the poor relations were
due.  There was always a noisy crowd, it seemed
to the Simons, when they were tired, or when
they had any particular business to transact.
On the day after the lads had flown there had
been an unusually large crowd, with faces that
looked like masks to the parents' tired eyes....
Will was fond of young folk, and made no
objection to the stream of 'company' passing
beneath his roof.  His shy, quiet eyes watched
the young tide of life surging ahead, with Eliza
floundering like a porpoise in its midst.  He was
content only to watch, but he was not stranded,
like the thirsty Simons; the waves still lapped
about his feet.  He could see youth and the pride
of youth without the sense of desolation which
embittered his brother and took his brother's
wife by the throat.  Simon was always surly
when he came to Blindbeck, while Sarah was
like a bomb in the hand which any unconscious
soul might throw.  Will did not know that for
them every lad that they looked at should have
been Geordie, and each lass a lass of their own
with Geordie's face.  He was sorry and
sympathetic, but he did not know those things.  It
was Eliza who knew, and used the knowledge
for her private ends.  You could always be sure
that Eliza knew where your hidden things were kept.

To-day, tired as they were with the hours in
town, and already reacting from their great
decision, a jovial party seemed more than they
could stand.  Signs of it reached them as they
came to the last gate, making Sarah draw in her
lips and Simon scowl.  The sounds seemed
intensified by the stillness of the day, crossing
and jarring the mood of Nature as well as that
of the approaching guests.  Faces were pressed
to panes as they rattled up, but nobody came
out to give Sarah a hand down, or to offer to
help Simon with the horse.  They were too
common a sight to arouse any interest or even
courtesy in that house.

She climbed down gropingly, and he led the
horse away, leaving her standing, waiting, in the
empty yard.  She stood with her back turned
to the kitchen window, conscious, though she
could not see them, of the eyes that were raking
her shabby figure through the glass.  The
sounds of merriment burst out afresh, and she
winced a little, though she did not move.  They
were laughing at her, she felt sure, but there was
nothing new to that.  They often laughed, she
knew, since she had ceased to be able to stop
them with a glance.  She shivered, standing
there, and her bones ached with the damp, but
she was in no hurry to enter the warm, crowded
room.  It was better to shiver in the coldest
spaces of earth than to be shut into Heaven
itself with Eliza and her tongue.

The green house-door with its brass knocker
was close at her left hand, but she did not
attempt to open it and go in.  That was a
privilege only accorded to the rich and proud,
not to a poor relation come to beg.  Nevertheless,
it was one of her hidden dreams that someday
she would enter by that grand front-door.
In the Great Dream Geordie came home with a
fortune in his hands, so that all doors, even the
Door of Blindbeck, instantly stood wide.  They
would drive up to it in a smart cart behind a
fast young horse, with Geordie, a pattern of
fashion, holding the reins.  His mother would
be beside him, of course, in crackling silk, with
a velvet mantle and a bonnet of plumes and
jet.  Simon, the lesser glory, would have to sit
behind, but even Simon would be a sight for
Blindbeck eyes.  When the Dream came true,
the house could be as full of pryers as it chose,
with crushed noses and faces green with envy
set like bottle-ends in every pane.  The
farm-men would come to the doors and gape, and
even the dogs would stop to sniff at so much that
was new.  Geordie would jump down, reins in
hand, and bang the brass knocker until it
shook the house, while Sarah, secure in the
presence of her golden lad, would sit aloft and
aloof like any other silken queen.  Soon they
would hear Eliza's step along the sacred,
oil-clothed passage; and she, when she opened
the door, would see their glory framed beyond.
Sarah would throw her a graceful word, asking
leave to step inside, and climb down with a
rustle of silk on the arms of her husband and
son.  She would set her feet on the snowy steps
and never as much as trouble to look for a mat.
With a smile she would offer her hostess a
kindly, kid-gloved hand.  In the whole armour
of the successful mother she would bear down
upon her foe....

It was one of those things that seem as if they
might happen so easily, and never do,--never
do.  Simon returned presently, accompanied by
Will, and they entered the house as usual
through the old stone porch.  No dog even
looked aside at them as they crossed to the
kitchen door.  No portent of coming wonder
shed a sudden sunlight on the day.  The old
trap was tipped on its shafts behind a sheltering
wall.  The old horse, himself mere waiting food
for the nearest hounds, munched his way
happily through his feed of Blindbeck corn.

Will talked shyly as he led the way, trying
to brighten the melancholy pair.

"You must have a sup o' tea before we get
to business," he said to his brother, "and
Sarah can rest herself while we have our crack.
We're over soon wi' tea to-day, but I reckon
you won't mind that.  You'll be tired likely,
and it's none so warm.  I'll be bound Simon'll
have a thirst on him anyway!" he smiled to
Sarah.  "He's done a deal o' tattling, Simon
has, to-day!"

He could not get any response from them,
however; indeed, they scarcely seemed to hear.
The fear of Eliza was upon them, that was always
so strong until they were actually in her
presence, the same fear that had sent them scuttling
like scared rabbits out of the Witham inn.
Sarah was struggling with the usual jealous
ache as they entered the spacious, cleanly place,
with the kindly smell of new-baked bread filling
the whole house.  She knew as well as the
mistress where the kitchen things were kept,
the special glories such as the bread-maker, the
fruit-bottler, and the aluminium pans.  The
Blindbeck motto had always been that nothing
beats the best.  Half her own tools at home
were either broken or gone, and there was only
a blind woman to make shift with the rest as
well as she could.  Little need, indeed, for a
great array, with the little they had to cook;
and little heart in either cooking or eating since
Geordie had gone away....

Will opened the door of the main kitchen,
and at once the warmth and jollity sweeping
out of it smote the shrinking visitors like an
actual blast.  The party were already at table,
as he had said, and met the late-comers with a
single, focussed stare.  It was one of their chief
bitternesses, indeed, that they always seemed to
arrive late.  Eliza was at the back of it, they
felt almost sure, but they had never been able
to discover how.  No matter how they hurried
the old horse, asked the hour of passers-by, or
had Simon's old watch put as right as it would
allow, they never seemed to arrive at the right
time.  They could not be certain, of course,
that she had watched for them from upstairs,
and at the first sign of their coming had hustled
the party into tea, but somehow or other they
knew it in their bones.  Things happened like
that, they would have told you, when you were
up against Mrs. Will; things that never by any
chance would have happened with anybody else.

The room was cloudy to Sarah as she went in,
but jealousy had long ago printed its details on
her mind.  She knew what the vivid wall-paper
was like, the modern furniture and the
slow-combustion grate.  Once it had been a beautiful
old houseplace with a great fire-spot and a
crane, an ingle-nook, a bacon-loft, and a chimney
down which both sun and moon could slant a
way.  Eliza, however, had soon seen to it that
these absurdities were changed, and Sarah,
though she affected contempt, approved of the
changes in her heart.  It was true that she
always returned to Sandholes with a great
relief, but she did not know that its bare austerity
soothed her finer taste.  She only knew that her
mind expanded and her nerves eased, and,
though grief went with her over every flag and
board, a cool hand reached to her forehead as
she went in.

Simon included in one surly glance the faces
round the loaded table, the bright flowers, the
china with the gilded rim, and the new
window-curtains which he would never even have seen
in any house but this.  "Plush, by the look on
'em, and the price of a five pun note!" he
thought resentfully, as he stood waiting to be
given a place, and wondering which of the
people present he disliked the most.  There
were the two Swainson lasses from the nearest
farm, with their young duke of a brother, who
was in a Witham bank.  There was a Lancashire
youth whom Will had taken as pupil, and
Stephen Addison and his missis, who were both
of them preaching-mad.  He held forth at
chapel and she at Institute meetings and the
like, and folk said they kept each other awake
at nights, practising which of them could do it
best.  There was Sam Battersby of Kitty Fold,
who never knew where his own heaf ended and
other people's began, and the familiar smug
cousin, long since formally pledged to Eliza's
eldest lass.  There was a grandchild or two,
and of course the Blindbeck brood, with the
exception of a couple of married daughters and
the obliterated Jim....  It was small wonder,
indeed, that, after all those years, nobody
missed him in that upcoming crowd.

Eliza's hearty voice, that was never hearty
at core, rose like a strong-winged, evil bird at
the unwanted guests.  The sight of them seemed
to surprise her so much that she dropped a gold-rimmed cup.

"Surely to goodness, Simon and Sarah, yon's
never you!  I'd give you up an hour back or
more, I had indeed.  You've been a terble while
on t'road, surely,--a terble while after us?
But there,--I always forget how fast yon grand
little mare of ours gets over t'ground!  You'd
need to start sooner than most folk wi' your
poor old crock."

She broke off to throw a remonstrance at
Will, who was bundling two of his daughters
out of their seats to make room for their uncle
and aunt.

"Nay, now, Will," she called vexedly down the
table.  "What d'ye think you're at?  Leave
t'lasses alone, can't you?  Let the poor things
be!  If it's a chair you're wanting, there's one
here by me as'll suit Sarah just grand.  Sarah
can't abide a chair wi' a cane bottom,--says it
rubs her gown.  It's right enough, too, I'm sure,
wi' velvet and the like,--(I made a bonny mess
o' yon grand gown I had when Annie Belle was
wed),--but I can't see as it'll do any harm to a
bit o' poorish serge.  Anyway, Sarah can have
the best plush to set on, if she sets here, and, as
for Simon, you're for ever sticking him where I
can't so much as see the end of his nose!  You're
never thinking I'm still sweet on him, surely,"
she added, laughing, "or that happen he'll be
making sheep's eyes at me, as he used to do?"

She looked at the young folk, and chuckled
and winked, and they nudged each other and
laughed, too.  But Sarah did not laugh as she
waited behind the chairs, or Simon, red to the
ears, and recalling the machinations of Eliza's
youth.  He pushed one of his nieces roughly out
of his way and took her place, while Sarah
went slowly to seat herself on the red plush
chair that was warranted not to hurt her poor
patched gown.

"I hope there's summat for you, I'm sure!"
Eliza went on, when the giggling and whispering
had died down, and Simon's thin cheeks had
lost their furious red.  She cast an anxious
glance down the well-filled table, but her tone
was complacency itself.  "Folks as come late
can't expect to find everything just so....
Ay, I give you up a long while back.  Sally
here'll tell you I give you up.  'Sally,' I says to
her, 'likely yon old horse'll be put to it to do
the extra bit, and so they've happen thought
better on't, and gone straight home.  You're
that used to good horses, Sally,' I says, 'you
don't rightly know how poor folks has to shift.
Not but what they'll get a deal better tea here
than they will at home, Sally,' I says, 'and
though I says it as shouldn't, that's the truth!
Ay, they'll come to tea, I'll be bound, Sally,' I
says, but I changed my mind when I thought
on the old horse."

Sarah said nothing in reply to this, partly
because her brain was swimming with the heat
of the room, but chiefly because she never did
say anything until Eliza was well ahead in the
race for speech.  This particular method helped
her to reserve her strength, but at the same
time it deepened the bitterness in her heart.  It
would have been better for both of them if they
could have got the inevitable tussle over at the
start; exhaustion on both sides might have
brought at least a pretence at amity in its train.
But it had always been Sarah's instinct to hold
herself back, and time had turned the instinct
into a fixed need.  For the moment, at least,
her strength was certainly to sit still.

"I doubt there's no tea for you just this
minute, Sarah," Eliza said, affecting great
concern as she lifted the tea-pot lid.  "Sally, my
lass, you'd best see about mashing another pot.
There'll be a deal o' folk sending up for more in
a brace o' shakes, and we can't have them
saying they're not as well-tret at Blindbeck as
they're used.  Not as anybody's ever said it
yet as I've heard tell, though you never know
what folks'll do for spite.  Most on 'em get
through their three cups afore they're done,
and me like as not just barely through my first.
Eh, but I used to be terble bothered, just at the
start, keeping folks filled and their mugs as they
rightly should!  You bairns wasn't up then, of
course, but we'd farm-lads in the house, and wi'
a rare twist to 'em an' all!  Yon's a thing you've
never been bothered with, Sarah, wi' such a
small spot and lile or nowt in the way o' work.
You'd nobbut a couple o' hands at any time,
had you, and not them when you'd Geordie-an'-Jim?
You've a deal to be thankful for, I'm
sure, you have that!  You've always been able
to set down comfortable to your meat, instead
o' fretting yourself to skin and bone seeing as
other folk had their wants."

Here Mrs. Addison offered to pass her cup,
and then thought better of it, remembering the
new brew.  Eliza, however, urged it forward.
Apparently she had discovered concealed virtue
under the tea-pot lid.

"Nay, now, Mrs. Addison, there's a sup in
the pot yet!  You've no call to look shy about
it,--I wasn't talking at you! ... Pass
Mrs. Addison the cream, Mary Phyllis, and waken
up and look sharp about it!  Blindbeck tea's
none the worse, I reckon, for a drop o' Blindbeck
cream...."  She returned the cup, smiling
benignly, and then pretended to have lost Sarah
and suddenly found her again.  "Losh, Mrs. Simon,
you're that whyet I'd clean forgot you
were there!  You'll not want to be waiting on
Sally and the fresh brew.  I'll wet leaves again
for you just to be going on with!"

So Sarah got the bottom of the pot after a
little more talk, a hunt for a clean cup and an
address on the value of the spoons.  Half a
cup--consisting chiefly of tea-leaves--was passed
to Simon, but was intercepted on its way by
Will.  Simon did not notice the manoeuvre,
being busy glowering at a niece's shoulder
turned sulkily on him from the left; but Eliza
saw it from her end of the table and turned an
angry red.  She never forgot Simon's indifference
to her as a girl, and would have made him
pay for the insult if she could.  She could not
always reach him, however, because of the
family tie which nothing seemed able to break.
But Sarah, at least, it was always consoling to
think, could be made to pay.  There were times
when all her reserve could not hide from a
gleeful Eliza that she paid....

So Simon got the new brew without even
knowing that it was new, while Sarah drank the
unpleasant concoction that was weak at the
top and bitter as sea-water at the bottom.
Sally came in with another great brown pot,
and sat down languidly at her aunt's side.  She
and the smug cousin had been engaged for
years, but there seemed little prospect of the
wedding taking place.  She had been a
handsome girl, and was good to look at still, but
there were handsomer Thornthwaites growing
and grown up, as apparently the cousin was
quick enough to perceive.  To-day he had
found a seat for himself beside Mary Phyllis,
who kept glancing across at her sister with
defiant pride.  Sally had a cheap town-look
nowadays, the cousin thought, not knowing
that she had assumed it long ago to please
himself.  Now that he was more mature, he
preferred the purer country type of Mary Phyllis,
as well as the fresher atmosphere of her youth.
Sally talked to young Swainson, and pretended
not to care, but she was too unhappy to bother
about her aunt.  The Simon Thornthwaites were
boring at any time, like most permanently
unlucky people, and to-day she was too worried
even to try to be kind.  So Sarah, after whom
she was called, and who was her godmother to
boot, got very little to eat and only the dregs
of things to drink; and nobody at all rose up
to deliver her from Eliza.

Mrs. Addison had opened her mouth very
impressively more than once, but it was only now
that she got a chance to speak.  In spite of their
boasted fluency, both she and her husband had
always to yield the palm to Mrs. Will.  Mrs. Addison,
however, always watched her chance,
while Stephen was simply flabby, and did not
try.  She and Eliza in the same room were like
firmly opposing currents, flowing strongly in
the same stream.

"Mr. Addison's to preach at this mission
they're having, next week," she announced
proudly.  "There's to be a Service for men
only, and our Stephen's to give 'em a talk.  I
won't say but what he'll do as well as a real
minister, even though I do happen to be his
wife.  Likely you'll think on about it, and send
some of your lads along, Mrs. Will?"

Eliza was quite unable to conceal her disgust
at a distinction achieved by somebody not her own.

"I'll do my best, I'm sure," she assented
casually and without looking at her, "though I
doubt they'll want coaxing a bit wi' a
broom-handle or a clout!"  She disliked being called
Mrs. Will, and knew that Mrs. Addison did it
with fell intent.  It was galling to be reminded
that, in spite of his success, Will had still not
managed to make himself into the elder
son....  "I can't say they're that set on either
church or chapel unless it's to see a lass," she
went on, busy with the cups, "and I doubt
they don't reckon much o' sermons unless they're
good.  They've been better eddicated than
most folk, you'll think on, so they're hard to
suit.  'Tisn't likely they could do wi'
second-hand preaching from some as happen never
went to school at all."

Mr. A'ddison made a sudden attempt to speak,
but choked instead, while Eliza looked as
innocent as a large-sized lamb.

"Ay, I've heard a deal o' sermons as was
just waste breath," she went on kindly, "and
that's the truth.  All the same, I'll likely look
in at Mission myself, one o' these days, if I can
get away.  I'm always glad to set still after a
hard week, and to get a look at other folks'
jackets and hats.  Not that there's much to
crack on at chapel, that way....  I'm a deal
fonder o' church.  I was wed at St. Michael's,
you'll think on,--ay, and Sarah an' all.  Eh, I
could laugh even yet at yon march we stole on
her, me an' Will!"

Sally moved impatiently at her aunt's elbow,
and muttered something under her breath.  She
was tired of the old story, and disapproved of it
as well.  Sarah had lifted her cup to her lips, but
now she set it down....

Mary Phyllis stopped giggling a moment, and
leaned forward to speak.

"I was telling Cousin Elliman about it only
this morning," she said noisily, "and he says
it's the funniest thing he ever heard!  I thought
everybody knew about it, but he says he didn't.
He said it was real smart of you, Mother, and
he wished he could have been there...."

"I'll be bound Sarah didn't think it smart!"
Eliza chuckled, but without glancing at her
victim's face.  She had a trick of discussing
people when they were present, as Sarah knew.
She could tell by the trend of Eliza's voice that
she spoke without turning her head.

"Smart?  Nay!  Sarah was real wild, you
take my word!  I spoke to her in t'vestry when
the show was through, and she give me a look as
was more like a dog's bite.  Eh, well, I reckon
poor Sarah was jealous o' my gown, seeing her
own was nowt to crack on,--and nowt then!
I'd always settled to be real smart when I got
wed, and my own lasses was just the same.
None o' my folk can do wi' owt as isn't
first-class and happen a bit over.  Yon's the photo
we had took at Annie Belle's wedding," she
added, turning to point, "and there's another
of Alice Evelyn's in the parlour."

The cousin and Mary Phyllis left their seats
to giggle together over the stiff figures, and
presently the girl turned to her sister with a
malicious taunt.

"I say, our Sally, you'd best look out when
you *do* get wed, or happen I'll play a trick on
you, same as mother did Aunt Sarah!  You'll
be rarely riled if I come marching up the aisle
with a fine young man, taking all the shine out
of you and Elliman!"

The cousin said something in a low tone which
made her flush and laugh, and Sally guessed at
it quickly enough, though it did not reach her
ears.  The tears came into her eyes, and on an
impulse of fellow-feeling she turned towards
her aunt.  She was asking after May Fleming
when her mother broke across her talk.

"Eh, now, Sarah, yon was never May, was
it, along wi' you in Witham?  I'll be bound I'd
never have known her if she hadn't been with
you, but there's not that many you're seen
about with nowadays at market.  'Tisn't like
me, as can't stir a step without somebody
wanting a crack or hanging on to my gown.
But May's changed out of all knowledge,--I
was fair bothered to see her look so old!  I'll
swear our Annie Belle looks as young again, for
all she's been wed a dozen year at least.  Ay, I
thought May terble old, and terble unmannerly
as well.  I'd be shammed to think as any lass
o' mine had suchlike ways.  You weren't
over-pleasant spoken yourself, Sarah, if it comes to
that.  The folk in the caif were laughing a deal
after you'd gone out, and saying you must be
wrong in the garrets to act so queer."

Sarah had regained her spirit a little, in spite
of her poor tea.  She straightened herself on the
plush chair and answered calmly.

"They can say what suits 'em and welcome,
as long as they let me be.  You know what put
me about, Eliza, and nobody to thank for it
but yourself.  As for folks laughing and making
game o' me and suchlike, it was you they was
sniggering at plain enough when I come out."

Eliza's colour rose, but she struggled to keep
her virtuous air.  She looked at Sarah with a
sorrowful eye.

"I wouldn't get telling lies about it, Sarah,"
she observed kindly, "I wouldn't indeed!
Mrs. Addison's listening, think on, and she'll be
rarely shocked at suchlike ways.  Caif-folk were
shocked more than a deal, an' me just having a
friendly talk an' all!"

"It's a queer sort o' friendliness as puts folk
to open shame!"  Sarah's colour was flying a
flag, too.  "It's nobbut a queer sort o' friend
as goes shouting your private business at the
end of a bell!"

"There isn't a deal that's private, surely,
about the mess o' things you've made on the
marsh?..."  The fight was really begun now,
and Eliza turned in her seat, fixing her
adversary with merciless eyes.  Sarah could see very
little but a monstrous blur, but she felt her
malignant atmosphere in every nerve.  She
could hear the big, solid presence creaking with
malice as it breathed, and had an impression of
strained whalebone and stretching cloth.  But
it was always Eliza's most cherished garments
that she visioned when they fought,--the velvet
gown that was folded away upstairs ... gloves,
furs, and a feathered hat; furthest of all, the
wedding-gown and the flaunting veil....

"Private!"  Eliza repeated the sneered word
as if it were something too precious to let go.
"There can't be that much private about things
as we've all on us known for years.  What,
folks has puzzled no end why you've never
ended in t'bankruptcy court long since!  Will
and me could likely ha' tellt them about it,
though, couldn't we, Sarah?  Will an' me
could easy ha' tellt 'em why!  Will and me
could ha' tellt where brass come from as was
keeping you on t'rails----"

Will had been lending a careful ear to Simon's
surly talk, but he lifted his head at the sound of
his name.

"Now, missis, just you let Mrs. Simon be!"
he admonished, with a troubled frown.  "You're
over fond of other folks' business by a deal."

"I'll let her be and welcome, if she'll keep a
civil tongue in her head!" Eliza cried.  She
went redder than ever, and slapped a tea-spoon
angrily on the cloth.  "But if our brass isn't
our business, I'd like to know what is, and as
for this stir about quitting Sandholes, it's
nothing fresh, I'm sure!  We all on us know it's
a marvel landlord didn't get shot on 'em long ago."

The last remark galvanised Battersby into
lively speech.  Hitherto he had been busily
concentrated on his food, but now his mean
little features sharpened and his mean little
eyes shone.  He bent eagerly forward, leaning
on the cloth, knife and fork erect like stakes in
a snatched plot.

"What's yon about quitting Sandholes?"
he asked, in a thin voice.  "Are you thinking
o' leaving, Simon?  Is it true?"

"I don't see as it's any affair o' yours if it
is," Simon answered him, with a sulky stare.

"Nay, it was nobbut a friendly question
between man and man.  If you're quitting the
farm it would only be neighbourly just to give
me a hint.  There's a lad o' mine talking o'
getting wed, and I thought as how Sandholes'd
likely be going cheap.  Has anybody put in for
it yet wi' t'agent, do ye think?"

"Nay, nor like to do, yet awhile," Simon
answered glumly, full of sullen hurt.  All his
love for his tiresome dwelling-place rose to the
surface at this greed.  "I don't mind telling
you, Mr. Battersby, as you ax so kind, that I
give in my notice but it wasn't took.  Mr. Dent
would have it I mun think it over a bit more.
Your lad'll just have to bide or look out for
somebody else's shoes."

This dreadful exhibition of meanness aggrieved
Battersby almost to the verge of tears.

"Well, now, if yon isn't dog-in-the-manger
and nowt else!" he appealed to the company
at large.  "What, you're late wi' your notice
already, and yet you're for sitting tight to the
farm like a hen on a pot egg!  I shouldn't ha'
thought it of you, Simon, I shouldn't indeed.
Here's a farmer wanting to quit and my lad
wanting a farm, and yet the moment I ax a
decent question I get sneck-posset geyly sharp.
You're jealous, that's what it is, Simon; you're
acting jealous-mean.  You've nobbut made a
terble poor job o' things yourself, and you want
to keep others from getting on an' all!"

Simon gave vent to an ironic laugh.

"Nay, now, Sam, never fret yourself!" he
jeered.  "You and your lad'll get on right
enough, I'll be bound, what wi' your heaf-snatching
and your sheep-grabbing and the rest
o' your bonny ways!  What, man, one o' your
breed'd be fair lost on a marsh farm, wi' nowt
to lay hands on barrin' other folks' turmuts,
and never a lile chance of an overlap!"

Battersby's reputation was well known, and
an irrepressible laugh greeted Simon's speech,
but was instantly cut short by the terrible
spectacle of the victim's face.  Only the smug
cousin went on laughing, because he was
ignorant as well as smug, and did not know
what a heaf meant, let alone how it was possible
to add to it by Sam's skilful if unlawful ways.
Battersby jumped to his feet and thumped the
table, so that the blue and gold china danced
like dervishes from end to end.  Mrs. Addison's
tea made a waterfall down her second-best
bodice, and Sarah's heart, not being prepared
for the thump, leaped violently into her mouth.

"I'll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody
else's," he stormed at Will; "nay, and I'll not
take telling from yon wastrel you call brother,
neither!  All on us know what a bonny mess o'
things he's made at Sandholes.  All on us know
it'll be right fain to see his back....  As for
you, you gomeless half-thick," he added, swinging
round so suddenly on the smug cousin that
he was left gaping, "you can just shut yon
calf's head o' yours and mighty sharp or I'll
shut it for you!  Them as knows nowt'd do
best to say nowt, and look as lile like gawping
jackasses as Nature'll let 'em!" ... He sent
a final glare round the stifled table, and let
Eliza have the sting in his tail.  "I'd been
looking to be real friendly wi' Blindbeck," he
finished nastily, "and my lad an' all, but I
don't know as we'll either on us be fain for it
after this.  Nay, I wain't set down agen, missis,
and that's flat, so you needn't ax me!  I'm
off home and glad to be going, and no thanks to
none o' you for nowt!"

He glanced at his plate to make certain there
was nothing left, snatched at his cup and hastily
swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair
backward so violently that it fell to the floor,
he clapped his hat on his head and marched
rudely out.  Eliza, catching a glance from a
tearful daughter, got to her feet, too.  They
swam from the room in a torrent of loud
apologies and bitter, snarled replies.

Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted
expression on his gentle face.  The cousin,
slowly turning from red to mottled mauve,
observed to Mary Phyllis that the old man's
language was 'really remarkably like my
chief's!'  Some of the younger end started to
giggle afresh, but Sarah was still trembling
from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt
gloomy again after his public effort.  He could
see that he had upset Will, and that was the
last thing he wanted to do, to-day.  Will did
not like Battersby, but he liked peace, and there
were other reasons for friendly relations at
present.  Will's youngest daughter had a direct
interest in Battersby's lad and his hopes of a
farm, and now the father had shaken the
Blindbeck dust from his proud feet.  She looked
across at the cause of the trouble with
tear-filled, indignant eyes.

"Seems to me things is always wrong when
you come to Blindbeck, Uncle Simon!" she
exclaimed hotly.  "Nobody wants your old
farm, I'm sure!  I wouldn't have it at a gift!
But you might have spoken him fair about
it, all the same.  I never see such folks as
you and Aunt Sarah for setting other folk by
the ears!"

Will said "Whisht, lass, whisht!" in as
cross a tone as he ever used to his girls, and
Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not
speak.  She was a fair, pretty thing, with
Geordie-an'-Jim's eyes, and he did not wish to
injure her happiness in any way.  It was true
enough, as she said, that there was generally
something in the shape of a row as soon as he
and Sarah set foot in the house, but he could
not tell for the life of him how it came about.
It could not be altogether their fault, he thought
resentfully, yet with a sort of despair.  To-day,
for instance, he had every reason for keeping
the peace, and yet that fool of a Battersby
must come jumping down his throat!  Nobody
could be expected to stand such manners and
such nasty greed,--grabbing a man's homestead
before his notice was well in!  There was
nothing surprising, of course, in the fact that
the women had already come to blows.  He had
expected it from the start, and, with the
resignation of custom, thought it as well over soon as
late.  They had had one scrap, as it was, from
what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot
of passion would still be hot enough to stir.

"It's a shame, that's what it is!" the girl
was saying, over and over again.  Tears dropped
from the Geordie-an'-Jim eyes, and Simon felt
furious with everybody, but particularly with
himself.

"You needn't bother yourself," he growled
across at last, making a rough attempt to put
the trouble right.  "Young Battersby's over
much sense to go taking a spot like ourn, and
as for his dad, he'll be back afore you can
speak.  'Tisn't Sam Battersby, I'll be bound, if
he isn't as pleased as punch to be running in
double harness wi' Blindbeck and its brass!"

"Ay, like other folk!" Eliza dropped on
him from the clouds, reappearing panting from
her chase.  "Like other folk a deal nearer home,
Simon Thornthet, as you don't need telling!
Battersby wanted nowt wi' the farm,--he tellt
me so outside.  'Tisn't good enough for the
likes of him, nor for our Emily Marion, neither!
He was that stamping mad he was for breaking it
all off, but I got him promised to look in again
next week.  I'd a deal o' work wi' him, all the
same," she added, flushing angrily at her
brother-in-law's ironic smile, "and no thanks
to you, neither, if I come out top, after all!
Anyway, I'll thank you to speak folk civilly at
my table, if you can, whatever-like hired man's
ways you keep for your own!"

She would have hectored him longer if Will
had not got to his feet and taken himself and
his brother out of the room, so instead she went
back to her seat and drank a large cup of tea
in angry gulps.  Between drinks, however, she
managed to say to the wife the things she had
wanted to say to the man, though Sarah was
silent and paid little or no heed.  She wished
she could have gone outside with the men, and
helped to decide what her future was to be.
But it was not for her to advise, who would soon
be no better than a helpless log.  It was her
part to wait patiently until Simon fetched her away.

But it was not easy to wait at all in that
atmosphere of critical dislike.  The successive
passages of arms had had their natural effect,
and the party which had been so merry at the
start was now in a state of boredom and
constraint.  The thoughts of most of those present
were unfriendly towards the folk of the marsh,
and Sarah could feel the thoughts winding
about her in the air.  Emily Marion was right,
so they were saying in their minds; trouble
always followed the Thornthwaites the moment
they appeared.  Storms arose out of nowhere
and destroyed some festive occasion with a
rush.  Even to look at them, dowdy and
disapproving, was to take the heart out of any
happy day.  It was certainly hard on the poor
Will Thornthwaites that the tiresome Simons
should dare to exist.

Sarah, bringing her mind back from the
absent brothers with an effort, found the
Method working again at top speed.  The tea
had soothed Eliza's nerves and stimulated her
brain.  She was now at her very best for
behaving her very worst.

"And so Mr. Addison's preaching next week,
is he?" she reverted suddenly, making even
that supreme egotist blink and start.  Her
Voice, furred and soft, reminded Sarah of a paw
reaching out for someone to scratch.  "Eh,
now, but I should be in a rare twitter if it was
Will as was setting up to preach!  But there,
we're none of us much of a hand at talking at
our spot, and Will's summat better to do than
just wagging a loose tongue.  I'll see the lads
come along, though, as it's you, Mrs. Addison,
and an old friend, unless there's summat useful
they're happen wanted for at home.  Eh, Sarah,
but wouldn't they talks to young men ha' done
a sight o' good to Geordie-an'-Jim?  It's a sad
pity you didn't start preaching before they went,
Mr. Addison,--it is that!  Like enough, if you
had, they'd be at Sandholes yet."

The preacher's brow had been thunderous
during the early part of this speech, but now he
looked suddenly coy.  Sally, dropping her
glance to her aunt's lap, saw her fingers clench
and unclench on a fold of her own black gown.

"Any news of the prodigals?" Elliman
Wilkinson suddenly enquired.  He looked at
Eliza as he spoke, and smiled as at a well-known
joke.  "I'm always in hopes to find one of
them eating the fatted calf."

"Nay, you must ask Sarah, not me!" Eliza
answered, with an affected laugh.  She despised
Elliman in her heart, but she was grateful for
the cue.  "Sarah knows what they're at, if
there's anybody does at all.  Like enough they'll
turn up one o' these days, but I don't know as
we'll run to calves.  They'll be terble rough in
their ways, I doubt, after all this time.  Out at
elbows an' all, as like as not, and wi' happen a
toe or two keeking through their boots!"

There was a ripple of laughter at this show of
wit, and then Elliman, urged by a nudge and a
whisper from Mary Phyllis, repeated the question
in the proper quarter.  He raised his voice
when he spoke to Sarah, as if she were deaf as
well as blind, and when she paused a moment
before replying, he apostrophised her again.
The whole table had pricked its ears and was
listening by the time the answer came.

Sarah felt the giggles and the impertinent
voice striking like arrows through the misty
ring in which she sat.  Sharpest of all was
Eliza's laugh, introducing the question and
afterwards punctuating it when it was put.
She was achingly conscious of the antipathetic
audience hanging on her lips.  They were baiting
her, and she knew it, and her heart swelled
with helpless rage.  A passionate longing seized
her to be lord of them all for once,--just for
once to fling back an answer that would slay
their smiles, put respect into their mocking
voices and change their sneers into awed
surprise.  If only for once the Dream and the glory
might be true,--the trap and the new clothes
and Geordie and the green front door!  But
nothing could be further from what they
expected, as she knew too well.  They were waiting
merely to hear her say what she had often said
before,--for news that there was no news or
news that was worse than none.  She had faced
more than one trial that day, and had come out
of them with her self-respect intact, but this
unexpected humiliation was more than she could
bear.  She was telling herself in the pause that
she would not answer at all, when something
that she took for the total revolt of pride spoke
to the mockers through her lips.

"Ay, but there's rare good news!" she heard
herself saying in a cheerful tone, and instantly
felt her courage spring up and her heart lighten
as the lie took shape.  "I'd been saving it up,
Eliza, for when we were by ourselves, but
there's no sense, I reckon, in not saying it
straight out.  Geordie's on his way home to
England at this very minute, and he says he's
a rare good lining to his jacket an' all!"

The air changed about her at once as she had
always dreamed it would, and she heard the
gasp of surprise pass from one to another like a
quick-thrown ball.  Eliza started so violently
that she upset her cup and let it lie.  She stared
malevolently at the other's face, her own set
suddenly into heavy lines.

"Nay, but that's news and no mistake!" she
exclaimed, striving after her former tone, but
without success.  The note in her voice was
clear to her blind hearer, sending triumphant
shivers through her nerves....  "Tell us again,
will you, Sarah?" she added sharply.  "I
doubt I heard you wrong."

"I'll tell you and welcome till the cows come
home!" Sarah said, with a sudden sprightliness
that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes.
It was almost as if another person had suddenly
taken possession of Sarah's place.  There was
a vitality about her that seemed to change her
in every feature, an easy dignity that transformed
the shabbiest detail of her dress.  Her
voice, especially, had changed,--that grudging,
dully defiant voice.  This was the warm, human
voice of one who rejoiced in secret knowledge,
and possessed her soul in perfect security and
content.

"He's coming, I tell you,--our Geordie's
coming back!"  The wonderful words seemed
to fill her with strong courage every time she
spoke.  "I can't rightly tell you when it'll be,
but he said we could look for him any minute
now.  Likely we'll find him waiting at
Sandholes when we've gitten home.  He's done well
an' all, from what he says....  I'll be bound
he's a rich man.  He talks o' buying Sandholes,
happen,--or happen a bigger spot.  I make no
doubt he's as much brass as'd buy Blindbeck
out an' out!"

She fell silent again after this comprehensive
statement, merely returning brief ayes and noes
to the questions showered upon her from every
side.  Her air of smiling dignity, however,
remained intact, and even her blind eyes, moving
from one to another eager face, impressed her
audience with a sense of truth.  And then
above the excited chatter there rose Eliza's
voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly
through the jealous greed.

"Yon's all very fine and large, Sarah, but
what about my Jim?  Jim's made his pile an'
all, I reckon, if Geordie's struck it rich.  He's as
smart as Geordie, is our Jim, any day o' the
week!  Hark ye, Sarah!  What about my Jim?"

Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble,
exactly as if the other had struck her a sharp
blow.  She shrank instantly in her chair, losing
at once her dignity and ease.  The fine wine of
vitality ran out of her as out of a crushed grape,
leaving only an empty skin for any malignant
foot to stamp into the earth.  She tried to speak,
but could find no voice brave enough to meet
the fierce rain of Eliza's words.  A mist other
than that of blindness came over her eyes, and
with a lost movement she put out a groping,
shaking hand.  Sally, in a sudden access of pity,
gathered it in her own.

She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew
her, tottering and trembling, to her feet.

"It's overmuch for her, that's what it is,"
she said kindly, but taking care to avoid her
mother's angry glance.  "It's knocked her
over, coming that sudden, and no wonder,
either.  Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit down
for a few minutes in the parlour.  You'll be as
right as a bobbin after you've had a rest."

She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure
supporting trembling age, and Elliman's eyes
followed her, so that for once he was heedless of
Mary Phyllis when she spoke.  Most of the
company, indeed, had fallen into a waiting
silence, as if they knew that the act was not
yet finished, and that the cue for the curtain
still remained to be said.  And the instinct that
held them breathless was perfectly sound, for in
the square of the door Sarah halted herself and
turned.  Her worn hands gripped her gown on
either side, and if May had been there to see her,
she would again have had her impression of
shrouded flame.  She paused for a moment just
to be sure of her breath, and then her voice
went straight with her blind glance to the point
where Eliza sat.

"Jim's dead, I reckon!" she said, clearly
and cruelly... "ay, I doubt he's dead.
Geordie'd never be coming without him if he
was over sod.  You'd best make up your mind,
Eliza, as he's dead and gone!"

It was the voice of an oracle marking an
open grave, of Cassandra, crying her knowledge
in Troy streets.  It held them all spellbound
until she had gone out.  Even Eliza was silent
for once on her red plush chair....





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   IV

.. vspace:: 2

Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew
a breath of relief as soon as he got outside.
They were at ease together at once as soon as
they were alone.  The contrast in their positions,
so obvious to the world, made little or no
difference to the men themselves.  It would have
made less still but for the ever-recurring problem
of the women-folk, and even that they did their
best to put away from them as soon as they
were out of sight.  Each could only plead what
he could for the side he was bound to support,
and pass on hurriedly to a less delicate theme.
Alone they fell back easily into the relation
which had been between them as lads, and
forgot that the younger was now a man of
substance and weight, while the elder had made
an inordinate muddle of things.  Will had
always looked up to Simon and taken his word
in much, and he still continued to take it when
Eliza was not present to point to the fact that
Simon's wonderful knowledge had not worked
out in practice.  To-day, as they wandered
round the shippons, he listened respectfully
while his brother criticised the herd, quarrelled
with the quality of the food-stuffs, and snorted
contempt at the new American method of tying
cattle in the stall.  Experience had taught him
that Simon was not the first who had made a
mess of his own affairs while remaining
perfectly competent to hand out good advice to
others.  The well-arranged water-supply was
Simon's idea, as well as the porcelain troughs
which were so easy to keep clean, and the
milking-machine which saved so much in labour.
There were other innovations,--some, Eliza's
pride,--which were due to Simon, if she had
only known it.  He was a good judge of a beast
as well, and had a special faculty for doctoring
stock, a gift which had certainly not been
allowed to run to waste during those bewitched
and disease-ridden years at Sandholes.  Will
was indebted to him for many valuable lives,
and often said that Simon had saved him
considerably more than he had ever lent him.  It
remained a perpetual mystery why so useful
a man should have achieved so much for others
and so little for himself.  The answer could only
lie in the curse that was glooming over
Sandholes,--if there was a curse.  Nature certainly
plays strange tricks on those who do not exactly
suit her book, but in any case the hate at the
heart of things was enough to poison luck at the
very source.

While Sarah sat through her long torment
in the kitchen, rising up at last for that great
blow which at all events felled her adversary for
the time being, Simon was enjoying himself
airing his knowledge in the buildings,
contradicting his brother on every possible occasion,
and ending by feeling as if he actually owned
the place.  However, the reason of his visit came
up at length, as it was bound to do, and his air
of expert authority vanished as the position
changed.  One by one, as he had already done
to Mr. Dent, he laid before his brother his
difficulties and disappointments, much as a
housewife lays out the chickens that some
weasel has slain in the night.  He wore the
same air of disgust at such absurd accumulation
of disaster, of incredulity at this overdone
effort on the part of an inartistic fate.  The
story was not new to Will, any more than to
the agent, but he listened to it patiently,
nevertheless.  He knew from experience that,
unless you allow a man to recapitulate his
woes, you cannot get him to the point from
which a new effort may be made.  He may
seem to be following you along the fresh path
which you are marking out, but in reality he
will be looking back at the missed milestones
of the past.  And there were so many milestones
in Simon's case,--so many behind him, and
so few to come.  After all, it could only be a
short road and a bare into which even the
kindest brotherly love had power to set his feet.

So for the second time that day Simon lived
his long chapter of accidents over again, his
voice, by turns emphatic and indignant or
monotonous and resigned, falling like slanting
rain over the unheeding audience of the cattle.
Will, listening and nodding and revolving the
question of ways and means, had yet always
a slice of attention for his immediate belongings.
His eye, casual yet never careless, wandered
over the warm roan and brown and creamy
backs between the clean stone slabs which
Simon had advocated in place of the ancient
wooden stalls.  The herd was indoors for the
winter, but had not yet lost its summer freshness,
and he had sufficient cause for pride in the
straight-backed, clean-horned stuff, with its
obvious gentle breeding and beautiful feminine
lines.  That part of his mind not given to his
brother was running over a string of names,
seeing in every animal a host of others whose
characteristics had gone to its creation, and
building upon them the stuff of the generations
still to come,--turning over, in fact, that
store of knowledge of past history and patient
prophecy for the future which gives the study
of breeding at once its dignity and its fascination.
At the far end of the shippon, where the calf-pens
were, he could see the soft bundles of calves,
with soft eyes and twitching ears, in which
always the last word in the faith of the
stock-breeder was being either proved or forsworn.
The daylight still dropping through skylights
and windows seemed to enter through frosted
glass, dimmed as it was by the warm cloud of
breathing as well as the mist that lined the
sky beyond.  A bird flew in at intervals through
the flung-back swinging panes, and perched for
a bar of song on the big cross-beams supporting
the pointed roof.  A robin walked pertly but
daintily down the central aisle, a brave little
spot of colour on the concrete grey, pecking
as it went at the scattered corn under the
monster-noses thrust between the rails.  Simon
leaned against a somnolent white cow, with an
arm flung lengthways down her back, his other
hand fretting the ground with the worn remnant
of a crooked stick.  Will's dog, a bushy, silvered
thing, whose every strong grey hair seemed
separately alive, curled itself, with an eye on the
robin, at its master's feet.

He roused himself to greater attention when
Simon reached the account of his interview with
Mr. Dent.  Accustomed as he was to more or
less traditional behaviour under the traditional
circumstances which govern such lives as his,
he fastened at once on the puzzling attitude of
the agent.

"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think
he was at," he observed thoughtfully.  "Once
you'd settled to quit there was no sense in
keeping you hanging on.  Best make a job and
ha' done wi' it, seems to me.  'Tisn't like
Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion.
I wonder what made him act so strange?"

Simon wore his original air of injured dignity
as he leaned against the cow.

"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was
terble queer!  You might ha' thought he was
badly or summat, but he seemed all right.
Come to that, he looked as fit as a fiddle and as
pleased as a punch!  You might ha' thought
he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"

"Happen it was some private business,"
Will said, "and nowt to do wi' you at all....
What did you think o' doing when you've quit
the farm?"

Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and
from injured dignity sank to sulks.  The sudden
pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow
to a sharp kick.  When he spoke it was in a
surly tone, and with his eyes turned away from
Will's.

"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon,
to keep us going.  I'm over old for most folk,
but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching
milk and siding up, and a bit o' gardening and
suchlike.  The trouble is the missis won't be
able to do for herself before so long.  The
doctor tellt her to-day she was going blind."

His brother's face filled at once with sympathy
and dismay.  In that forbidden compartment
of his mind where he sometimes ventured to
criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she
would take the news.  This latest trouble of
Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's
triumph.  Poverty Sarah had withstood; blindness
she might have mastered, given time; but
poverty and blindness combined would deliver
her finally into the enemy's hand.

"I never thought it would be as bad as that,"
he murmured pityingly.  "It's a bad business,
is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was
anything could be done?"

"There was summat about an operation, but
it'll get no forrarder," Simon said.  "They
fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."

"If it's brass that's wanted, you needn't
fash over that...."  He added more urgently
as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I
grudged you brass for a thing like yon!"

"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully,
"but it isn't no use.  She's that proud, is Sarah,
she'll never agree.  I doubt she just means to
let things slide."

"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with
me!"  Will's voice was almost hot.  "I've
always been ready any time to stand her
friend.  Anyway, there's the offer, and she can
take it or leave it as best suits her.  If she
changes her mind after a while, she won't find
as I've altered mine....  But there's no sense
in your taking a job and leaving a blind woman
to fend for herself.  There's nowt for it but
Sarah'll have to come to us."

Simon laughed when he said that, a grim,
mirthless laugh which made the dog open his
sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.

"Nay, nay, Will, my lad!  It's right good of
you, but it wouldn't do.  A bonny time you'd
have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house!
And anyway your missis'd never hear tell o'
such a thing, so that fixes it right off."

"It's my own spot, I reckon!"  Will spoke
with unusual force.  "I can do as suits me, I
suppose.  T'lasses hasn't that much to do they
can't see to a blind body, and as for room and
suchlike, there'll be plenty soon.  Young
Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more
than time yon Elliman Wilkinson was thinking
o' getting wed.  He's been going with our Sally
a terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis
seem mighty throng just now.  Anyway, there'll
be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and for
you an' all."

But Simon shook his head again, and stood up
straight and took his arm off the back of the cow.

"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite
simply, and this time he did not laugh.  "There's
bad blood between they two women as nobbut
death'll cure.  Nay, I thank ye right enough,
Will, but yon horse won't pull....

"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on
quickly, before Will could speak again, "and
some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look
to the missis while I'm off.  I'll see t'agent agen
and try to ram into him as I mean to gang,
and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll
likely let me know?"

Will nodded but did not answer because of
approaching steps, and they stood silently
waiting until the cowman showed at the door.
At once the deep symphony of the hungry
broke from the cattle at sight of their servant
with his swill.  The quiet picture, almost as
still as if painted on the wall, upheaved
suddenly into a chaos of rocking, bellowing beasts.
The great heads tugged at their yokes, the
great eyes pleaded and rolled.  The big
organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded and
jarred, dropping into satisfied silence as the man
passed from stall to stall.  Will jerked his head
after him as he went out at the far door, and
said that he would be leaving before so long.

"Eh?  Taylor, did ye say?"  Simon stared,
for the man had been at Blindbeck for years.
"What's amiss?"

"Nay, there's nowt wrong between us, if
you mean that.  But his wife's father's had a
stroke, and wants him to take over for him at
Drigg.  News didn't come till I was off this
morning, or I might ha' looked round for
somebody while I was in t'town."

Simon began a fresh violent poking with his
ancient stick.  "You'll ha' somebody in your
eye, likely?" he enquired.  "There'll be
plenty glad o' the job."

"Oh, ay, but it's nobbut a weary business
learning folk your ways."  He glanced at his
brother a moment, and then looked shyly away.
"If you're really after a shop, Simon, what's
wrong wi' it for yourself?"

The painful colour came into the other's
averted face.  He poked so recklessly that he
poked the dog, who arose with an offended growl.

"Nay, it's charity, that's what it is!  I'm
over old....  You know as well as me I'd
never get such a spot anywheres else."

"You know the place, and you're a rare hand
wi' stock.  I could trust you same as I could
myself."

"I'm over old," Simon demurred again,
"and done to boot.  I'd not be worth the brass."

"We've plenty o' help on the place," Will
said.  "It'd be worth it just to have you about.
Nigh the same as having a vet on t'spot!" he
added jokingly, trying to flatter him into
acquiescence.  "I'd be main glad for my own
sake," he went on, his face grave again and
slightly wistful.  "There's times I fair ache for
a crack wi' somebody o' my own.  Women is
nobbut women, when all's said and done, and
lads is like to think they know a deal better than
their dad....  Ay, well, you can think it over
and let me know," he finished, in a disappointed
tone.

Simon poked for a while longer, and succeeded
in poking the cow as well as the dog.  He was
fighting hard with his pride as he scraped busily
at the flags.  The tie of blood pulled him, as
well as the whole atmosphere of the prosperous
place.  He knew in his heart that he was never
so happy as when he was with his brother,
never so good a man as when he was preaching
in Will's shippons.  As for pride, that would
have to go by the board sooner or later; indeed,
who would say that he had any right to it,
even now?  He made up his mind at last on a
sudden impulse, lifting his head with a hasty jerk.

"I've had enough o' thinking things over,
thank ye all the same.  I'll be main glad o'
the job, Will, and that's the truth...."  He
sank back instantly, however, and fell to
poking again.  "Folk'll have plenty to say,
though, I reckon," he added bitterly, "when
they hear as I'm hired man to my younger
brother!"

"They've always a deal to say, so what's the
odds?  As for younger and older, there isn't
a deal to that when you get up in years....
There's a good cottage across t'road," he went
on eagerly, bringing up reinforcements before
Simon should retire.  "It's handy for t'stock, and
there's a garden and orchard as well.  Lasses
could see to Sarah, you'll think on, if she's that
closer.  There's berry-bushes in t'garden and a
deal besides...."

Simon was busy shaking his head and saying
he wasn't worth it and that he was over old, but
all the time he was listening with interest and
even pleasure to Will's talk.  Milking had now
begun, and already, as the levers swung back
and forwards over the cattle's heads, he found
himself looking about the shippon with a
possessive eye.  Even in these few moments, life
had taken a turn for the Thornthwaite of the
desolate marsh farm.  Already his back felt
straighter, his eye brighter, his brain more
alive.  The drawbacks of the proposed position
began to recede before the many advantages it
had to offer.  It was true, of course, that he
would be his brother's hired man, but it was
equally true that he was the master's brother,
too.  To all intents and purposes he would be
master himself,--that is to say, when Eliza
wasn't about!  Will's cottages were good, like
everything else of Will's, and the lasses could
see to Sarah, as he said.  For himself there
would be the constant interest and stimulant
of a big farm, as well as the mental relief of a
steady weekly wage.  He felt almost excited
about it as they crossed the yard, making for
Taylor's cottage over the road.  He tried not
to think of what Sarah might say when she
heard the news, still less of what Mrs. Will
would most certainly say.  He felt equal to
both of them in his present spirited mood, and
even tried to convince himself that in time they
would make friends.

As they stood looking at Taylor's cottage and
Taylor's gooseberry bushes and canes, Will
suddenly asked his brother whether there was
any news of Geordie.  And Simon, when he
had given the old answer that there was no
news that was worth crossing the road to hear,
turned his face away in the direction of Taylor's
hens, and enquired whether there was any news of Jim.

"There's been none for a sight o' years now,"
Will answered sadly, leaning on the wall.
"Eliza wrote him a letter as put his back up,
and he's never sent us a line since.  He always
set a deal more by you and your missis than he
ever did by us.  I'd ha' stood his friend, poor
lad, if he'd ha' let me, but he always took it I
was agen him, too."

There was silence between them for a while,
and then,--"Eh, well, you've a mort of others
to fill his place!"  Simon sighed, watching a
well-built lad swing whistling across the yard.

Will raised himself from the wall, and watched
him, too.

"Ay, but I'd nobbut the one eldest son!"
was all he said.





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   V

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Sally led her aunt to the grand but unused
parlour in which so many expensive and
handsome things were doomed to spend their
lives.  There was a piano, of course, which
none of the Blindbeck folk knew how to play,
in spite of Eliza's conviction that the gift was
included in the price.  A Chippendale bookcase
made a prison for strange books never opened
and never named, and the shut doors of a
cabinet kept watch and ward over some lovely
china and glass.  There was a satin-wood table
with a velvet sheen, whose polished mirror never
reflected a laughing human face.  There was
an American rocking-chair, poised like a floating
bird, with cushions filled with the finest down
ever drawn from an heirloom of a feather-bed.
Sarah would not have taken the rocking-chair,
as a rule; she would have thought herself either
too humble or too proud.  But to-day she went
to it as a matter of course, because of the false
pomp that she had drawn to herself like a
stolen royal robe.  With a sigh of relief that was
half physical and half mental, she let herself
gently down, dropped her rusty bonnet against
the silk, and peacefully closed her eyes.

Sally stood looking at her with an expression
of mingled pity, curiosity and awe.  She had
pitied her often enough before, but she had
never before seen her through the slightest veil
of romance.  Sometimes, indeed, the tale of
the damaged wedding-day had touched her
imagination like the scent of a bruised flower,
but it was so faint and far-off that it passed
again like a breath.  To-day, however, she had
that sudden sense of exquisite beauty in the
old, which all must feel who see in them the
fragile storehouses of life.  The old woman had
known so much that she would never know,
looked on a different world with utterly different
eyes.  There was romance in the thought of
the dead she had seen and spoken to and
laughed with and touched and loved.  And
even now, with the flower of her life apparently
over and withered back again to its earth, this
sudden splendour of Geordie had blossomed for
her at the end.

The girl waited a moment, hoping for a word,
and then, though rather reluctantly, turned
towards the door.  She wanted to hear still
more about the marvellous news, but the old
woman looked so tired that she did not like to
ask.  She was anxious, too, to get back to the
kitchen to keep an eye on Mary Phyllis.  Yet
still she lingered, puzzled and curious, and
still touched by that unusual sense of awe.
An exotic beauty had passed swiftly into the
musty air of Eliza's parlour, a sense of wonder
from worlds beyond ... the strong power of
a dream.

"You're over-tired, aren't you, Aunt Sarah?"
she repeated, for want of something better to
say.  She spoke rather timidly, as if aware that
the words only brushed the surface of deeper
things below.

Sarah answered her without opening her eyes.

"Ay, my lass.  Just a bit."

"You'd best stop here quietly till Uncle
Simon's yoked up.  I'll see nobody bothers you
if you feel like a nap.  I'd fetch you a drop of
cowslip wine, but mother's got the key."

"Nay, I want nowt wi' it, thank ye," Sarah
said.  "I'll do all right."  She lifted her hands
contentedly, and folded them in her lap.  "Likely
I'll drop off for a minute, as you say."

"Ay, well, then, I'd best be getting back."  She
moved resolutely now, but paused with her
hand on the latch.  "Aunt Sarah," she asked
rather breathlessly, "was all that about Cousin
Geordie true?"

Sarah's lids quivered a little, and then
tightened over her eyes.

"Ay.  True enough."

"It's grand news, if it is! ... I'm right glad
about it, I'm sure!  I've always thought it
hard lines, him going off like that.  And you
said he'd done well for himself, didn't you,
Aunt Sarah? ... Eh, but I wish Elliman
could make some brass an' all!"

"There's a deal o' power in brass."  The
words came as if of themselves from behind
the mask-like face.  "Folks say it don't mean
happiness, but it means power.  It's a stick to
beat other folk wi', if it's nowt else."

"I don't want to beat anybody, I'm sure!"
Sally laughed, though with tears in her voice.
"I only want what's my own."

"Ay, we all on us want that," Sarah said,
with a grim smile.  "But it's only another
fancy name for the whole world!"

----

She sat still for some time after the girl had
gone out, as if she were afraid that she might
betray herself before she was actually alone.
Presently, however, she began to rock gently
to and fro, still keeping her hands folded and
her eyes closed.  The good chair moved easily
without creak or jar, and the good cushions
adapted themselves to every demand of her
weary bones.  Geordie should buy her a chair
like this, she told herself as she rocked, still
maintaining the wonderful fiction even to
herself.  She would have cushions, too, of the very
best, covered with silk and cool to a tired
cheek.  A footstool, also, ample and well
stuffed, and exactly the right height for a pair
of aching feet.

But though one half of her brain continued
to dally with these pleasant fancies, the other
was standing amazed before her late stupendous
act.  She was half-aghast, half-proud at the
ease with which she had suddenly flung forth
her swift, gigantic lie.  Never for a moment
had she intended to affirm anything of the kind,
never as much as imagined that she might hint at
it even in joke.  She had been angry, of course,
bitter and deeply hurt, but there had been no
racing thoughts in her mind eager to frame the
princely tale.  It had seemed vacant, indeed,
paralysed by rage, unable to do little else but
suffer and hate.  And then suddenly the words
had been said, had shaped themselves on her
lips and taken flight, as if by an agency with
which she had nothing to do.  It was just as if
somebody had taken her arm and used it to
wave a banner in the enemy's face; as if she
were merely an instrument on which an angry
hand had suddenly played.

So she was not ashamed, or even really
alarmed, because of this inward conviction that
the crime was not her own.  Yet the voice had
been hers, and most certainly the succeeding
grim satisfaction and ironic joy had been hers!
She allowed herself an occasional chuckle now
that she was really alone, gloating freely over
Eliza's abasement and acute dismay.  For once at
least, in the tourney of years, she had come away
victor from the fray.  No matter how she was
made to pay for it in the end, she had had the
whip-hand of Blindbeck just for once.  Indeed,
now that it was done,--and so easily done,--she
marvelled that she had never done it before.
At the back of her mind, however, was the
vague knowledge that there is only one possible
moment for tremendous happenings such as
these.  Perhaps the longing engendered by the
Dream in the yard had suddenly grown strong
enough to act of its own accord.  Perhaps, as in
the decision about the farm, a sentence lying long
in the brain is spoken at length without the
apparent assistance of the brain....

She did not trouble herself even to speculate
how she would feel when at last the truth was
out.  This was the truth, as long as she chose
to keep it so, as long as she sat and rocked
and shut the world from her dreaming eyes.
From pretending that it was true she came very
soon to believing that it might really be possible,
after all.  Such things had happened more than
once, she knew, and who was to say that they
were not happening now?  She told herself that,
if she could believe it with every part of herself
just for a moment, it would be true.  Up in
Heaven, where, as they said, a star winked
every time a child was born, they had only to
move some lever or other, and it would be true.

A clock ticked on the mantelpiece with a
slow, rather hesitating sound, as if trying to
warn the house that Sunday and the need of
the winding-key were near.  There was a
close, secretive feeling in the room, the
atmosphere of so many objects shut together in an
almost terrible proximity for so many days of
the week.  She was so weary that she could
have fallen asleep, but her brain was too
excited to let her rest.  The magnitude of her
crime still held her breathlessly enthralled; the
glamour of it made possible all impossible hopes.
She dwelt again and again on the spontaneity
of the lie, which seemed to give it the
unmistakable stamp of truth.

She had long since forgotten what it was
like to be really happy or even at peace, but
in some sort of fierce, gloating, heathenish way
she was happy now.  She was conscious, for
instance, of a sense of importance beyond
anything she had ever known.  Even that half of
her brain which insisted that the whole thing
was pretence could not really chill the
pervading glow of pride.  She had caught the
reflection of her state in Eliza's voice, as well as
in others less familiar to her ear.  She had
read it even in Sally's kindly championship
and support; through the sympathy she had not
failed to hear the awe.  The best proof,--if she
needed proof,--was that she was actually here
in the sacred parlour, and seated in the precious
chair.  Eliza would have turned her out of both
long since, she knew, if she had not been clad
in that new importance as in cloth of gold.

The impossible lies nearer than mere probability
to the actual fact; so near at times that
the merest effort seems needed to cross the
line.  Desire, racking both soul and body with
such powerful hands, must surely be strong
enough to leap the slender pale.  The peculiar
mockery about ill-luck is always the trifling
difference between the opposite sides of the
shield.  It is the difference between the full
glass and the glass turned upside-down.  But
to-day at least this tired old woman had swung
the buckler round, and laughed as she held the
glass in her hand and saw the light strike
through the wine.

In this long day of Simon's and Sarah's
nothing was stranger than the varying strata of
glamour and gloom through which in turn they
passed.  Their days and weeks were, as a rule,
mere grey blocks of blank, monotonous life,
imperceptibly lightened or further shadowed
by the subtle changes of the sky.  But into
these few hours so closely packed with dreadful
humiliations and decisions, so much accumulated
unkindness and insult and cold hate, there
kept streaming upon them shafts of light from
some centre quite unknown.  For Simon there
had been the unexpected stimulant of his
Witham success, and later the new interest in
life which Will's proposal had seemed to offer.
For Sarah there was the wistful pleasure of her
morning with May, as well as the unlawful but
passionate pleasure of her present position.  The
speed of the changes kept them over-strung, so
that each as it came found them more sensitive
than the last.  They were like falling bodies
dropping by turn through cloud and sunlit air.
They were like total wrecks on some darkened
sea, catching and losing by turn the lights of an
approaching vessel.

The slow clock dragged the protesting minutes
on, and still no one disturbed her and the dream
widened and grew.  Tea would be brought in
soon, she told herself in the dream,--strong,
expensive, visitor's tea, freshly boiled and
brewed.  The silver teapot would be queening it
over the tray, flanked by steaming scones and
an oven-new, home-made cake.  Eliza herself
would appear to entertain her guest, always
with that new note of reverence in her voice.
When the door opened they would hear another
voice,--Geordie's, laughing and talking in some
room beyond.  All the happy young voices of
the house would mingle with his, but always
the youngest and happiest would be Geordie's
own.  Hearing that voice, she would make
mock of herself for ever having feared Eliza's
tongue, still more for ever having cared enough
to honour her with hate.  A small thing then
would be the great Eliza, in spite of her size,
beside the mother for whom the dead had been
made alive.  She would talk with Eliza as the
gods talk when they speak with the humble
human from invisible heights.  So strong was
the vision that she found herself framing the
godlike sentences with gracious ease.  The
silver teaspoons clinked against the cups, and
the visitor's tea was fragrant in the musty
room.  She spread a linen handkerchief across
her knee ... a snowy softness against her
silken knee....  And always, always, as the
meal progressed, the voice of her ecstasy sang
in her happy ear....

She had that one moment of clear beauty
unprofaned by hate, with Geordie's face
swimming before her in a golden haze.  Then her
hand, going out to the silk and linen of the
dream, encountered the darned and threadbare
serge of dreary fact.  The dream rent violently
all around her, letting her out again into the
unlovely world.  Even her blindness had been
forgotten for the time, for in the dream she
was never blind.  Now the touch of the darns
under her hand brought back the long hours of
mending by candlelight which had had their
share in despoiling her of her sight.  She would
never be able to darn by candlelight again, and
the loss of that drudgery seemed to her now an
added grief, because into this and all similar work,
as women know, goes the hope of the future
to emerge again as the soul of the past....
Sarah knew that her hand would ache for her
needle as the sailor's hand aches for the helm,
or the crippled horseman's for the feel of the flat
rein.  She felt, too, a sudden desperate anger
against the woman who would have the mending
of Simon's clothes.  Geordie's, she knew,
she would simply have wrenched from any
stranger's hands, but since there was no Geordie
she need not think of that.  The Dream had been
merely the make-believe of the bitterly
oppressed, who had taken to desperate lying as a
last resort.  Yet still the sweetness lingered,
keeping her serene, like the last scent of a
passed garden or the last light upon darkening hills.

She smoothed her hands on the arms of the
precious chair, and reached out and smoothed
the satin of the table.  Through the dimness
the solid piano loomed, the rosewood coffin of
a thousand songs.  The carpet under her feet
felt elastic yet softly deep.  There were
ornaments in the room, good stuff as well as trash,
trifles pointing the passions of Eliza's curious
soul.  But for once, after all these years, Eliza's
soul would be sorrowful in spite of her great
possessions.  Back in the kitchen she would be
gritting her teeth on the fact that it was Sarah's
son who was coming home, coming with money
to burn and a great and splendid will to burn it.
She would exact payment, of course, when
the truth was known, but even the last ounce
of payment could not give her back this hour.
For this hour, at least, it was hers to suffer
and Sarah's to reign.  For this hour, at least,
the heavily-weighted tables of destiny were turned.





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   VI

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That which had been the terrible Eliza
sat still for a long moment after Sarah
had gone out.  There was silence about the
table until Elliman Wilkinson took upon
himself to speak.

"But Jim's never your son, Cousin Eliza?"
he exclaimed, puzzled, rushing in where not only
angels would have feared to tread, but where
the opposite host also would have taken care
to keep their distance.  "It's very stupid of
me, of course, but I've always made sure
that Geordie-an'-Jim were twins."

Eliza turned baleful eyes upon the eager,
inquisitive face.  Her mind, concentrated in
sullen fury upon the enemy recently departed
with banners, found a difficulty in focussing
itself upon this insignificant shape.  When it
succeeded, however, she ground him into dust.

"Ay, well, next time you feel sure of
anything, you can make certain you're dead
wrong!" she told him cruelly, surveying his
bland countenance with cold contempt.  "Jim's
my eldest, if you want to know, and as much
the better o' Geordie as Blindbeck's the better
o' yon mudhole down on the marsh!  He was
always the smarter lad o' the two,--'tisn't
likely he'd ha' been left....  I'll lay what you
like it's Jim as is really coming, after all!"

"But in that case you would surely have
heard from him yourself?"  Elliman was still
disporting himself with the brazen folly of
innocence upon the forbidden ground.  "He'd
have written to tell his mother, surely,--not his aunt?"

A distinct thrill of apprehension ran through
the company at this tactful speech.  Mary
Phyllis's nudge on this occasion was one of
sharp reproof.  The clouds thickened on Eliza's brow.

"Nay, then, he just wouldn't, Mr. Clever-Lad-Know-All,
so that's that!  I'm his mother
right enough, as nobody but a fool would ha'
needed telling, but he wouldn't ha' written me,
all the same.  Me and Jim got across a while
back, and he's taken sulks with me ever since.
He'd be like enough to write to Sarah, by way of
giving me back a bit o' my own.  She always
cockered him fearful, did Sarah, and set him
agen me whenever she could.  And if there's
brass about, as she says, she'll keep it warm for
him, never fear!  She'll take right good care it
never gets past her to Blindbeck or any of his own!"

"Jim would ha' been right enough but for
Geordie all along."  Mrs. Addison shook a
loose and agile bonnet with an impressive air.
"He was a right-down nuisance, was Geordie
Thornthet,--a bad lad as well as a reg'lar limb!
Such tricks as he was up to, I'm sure,--turmut-lanterns
and the like, booin' at folks' winders
after dark, and hiding behind hedges when folk
was courtin' about t'lanes!  Stephen and me
wasn't wed then, you'll think on, and I mind
a terble fright as Geordie give us one summer
night.  Stephen was terble sweet on me, as
you'll likely know, though he'd choke himself
black in the face afore he'd own to it now.
Well, yon night as I'm speaking of he had hold
o' my hand, and was looking as near like a
dying duck in a thunderstorm as ever I see.
'Jenny Sophia,' he was saying, as sweet as a
field of clover, 'I'm that set on you, Jenny
Sophia'--when up pops Geordie on t'far side
o' the hedge, girning and making a hullaballoo
like a donkey afore rain!"

"You've no call to go raking up yon d--d
rubbish!" Mr. Addison burst out, crimson to
the hair, and quite forgetting the obligations of
his Christian mission.  He had said the same
thing to Eliza's eldest lass, and much about
the same time, and knew that Eliza knew it as
well as he.  "Folks isn't right in their heads
when they're courtin', as everybody knows, and
it's real mean to bring it agen 'em after all these
years.  As for Geordie Thornthet, there was lile
or nowt I could learn him, and that's sure!
T'lasses was always after him like bees at a
bottle o' rum."

"Nay, now, you mean our Jim!"  Jim's
mother corrected him with an air of offence.
"Nobody never reckoned nowt o' Geordie but
May Fleming.  He couldn't hold a candle to
Jim, any day o' the week.  Folk said they
couldn't tell 'em apart, but I never see a scrap
o' likeness myself."  She glanced defiantly
round the table, as if expecting opposition, and
then swung round eagerly as Sally reappeared.
"Well, my lass, well?" she rapped out,--"did
she tell you anything more?  You've
taken your time about coming back, I'm sure!"

"Nay, she said nowt fresh," Sally answered
evasively, without meeting her eyes.  She
advanced to the table and began to gather the
china together, ready for clearing away.  Her
mother pushed back her chair with an angry
scrape.

"Well, of all the gert, helpless gabies!" she
exploded violently.  "I made sure she'd talk
when she'd gitten you by herself.  Didn't she
say when letter come, or how much brass there
was, or owt? ... Eh, well, it's never Geordie
as made it, that I'll swear!"

"She said it was Geordie."  Sally went on
mechanically with her task, collecting cups and
plates from under the noses of the still-stupefied
clan.  "It's real nice, anyway, to see somebody
happy," she added suddenly, raising her eyes
to look at the smug cousin.  Elliman met them
unexpectedly and coloured furiously.  On a
sudden remorseful impulse he shuffled a couple
of plates together, and handed them to her with
a deprecating air.

"I can't say she looked very set up about it,
anyhow!" Eliza sneered.  "What, she was
even more glumpy than usual, seemed to me!"

"More like a burying than a home-coming,
by a deal!" Mary Phyllis finished for her,
with a scornful laugh.

"As for Uncle Simon, he was as cross as a
pair of shears!" Emily Marion added in a
fretted tone.  The Thornthwaites were making
things awkward to-day for the bride-to-be.
Simon had nearly queered the engagement at the
start, and now the company's interest was all
for a Thornthwaite whom she had never seen.

"Not how *I* should take good news,
certainly!" Elliman said, hoping that no one had
noticed his menial act.  "I should have something
more to say for myself, I hope, than that."

Eliza's eyes brightened considerably at this
unanimous point of view.

"Nay, you're right there," she took them up
eagerly, "you're right enough!  'Tisn't natural
to be so quiet.  I'll tell you what it is," she
added impressively, "it's one o' two things,
that's all.  It's either a lie from beginning to
end, or else--or else--well, it's our Jim!"  She
pushed her chair further still, and got hurriedly
to her feet.  "Ay, well, whichever it is, I'd best
see for myself," she added quickly.  "You'll
not mind me leaving you, Mrs. Addison, just
for a little while?  I don't know as we're doing
right to leave Sarah so long alone.  She's
getting a bit of an old body now, you know,
and she was never that strong in her poor head."

She departed noisily after this surprisingly
sympathetic speech, and Sarah, hearing her
heavy step along the passage, chuckled for the
last time.  Her mind braced itself for the coming
contest with a grim excitement that was almost
joy.  Nothing could have been more unlike her
attitude of the morning in the inn-yard.  She
lay back in her chair again and closed her eyes,
and was rocking peacefully when Eliza opened
the door.

Just for the moment the sight of the tranquil
figure gave her pause, but neither sleep nor its
greater Counterpart could still Eliza for very
long.  "Feeling more like yourself, are you,
Sarah?" she enquired cautiously, peering in,
and then repeated the question when she got
no answer.  Finally, irritated by the other's
immobility which was obviously not sleep, she
entered the room heavily, shutting the door
with a sharp click.  "There's nowt amiss, from
the look of you," she added loudly, as she
advanced.

Sarah exclaimed, "Eh now, whatever's
yon!" at the sound of the harsh voice, and sat
up stiffly, winking her blind eyes.  She even
turned her head and blinked behind, as if she
thought the voice had come out of the grandfather's
clock.  "Nay, I'll do now, thank ye,"
she answered politely, discovering Eliza's
whereabouts with a show of surprise.  "It'll be about
time we were thinking of getting off."

Eliza, however, had no intention of parting
with her just yet.  She stopped her hastily when
she tried to rise.

"Nay, now, there isn't that much hurry, is
there?" she demanded sharply.  "Yon old
horse o' yourn'll barely have stretched his legs.
Your master and mine'd have a deal to say to
each other an' all."  She paused a moment,
creaking from foot to foot, and staring irresolutely
at the mask-like face.  "You talked a
deal o' stuff in t'other room, Sarah," she broke
out at last, "but I reckon you meant nowt by
it, after all?"

Sarah wanted to chuckle again, but was forced
to deny herself the pleasure.  For appearance'
sake she stiffened her back, and bristled a little
at Eliza's tone.

"Ay, but I did!" she retorted briskly, her
voice firm.  "Whatever else should I mean, I'd
like to know?"

The strong hope that had sprung in Eliza's
heart died down again before this brazen show.

"You can't rightly know what you're saying,
Sarah," she said coldly, "you can't, indeed!
Geordie coming after all these years,--nay, now,
yon isn't true!"

"Ay, but it is, I tell ye,--true enough!  True
as yon Sunday fringe o' yourn as you bought in
Witham!"

"And wi' brass, you said?"  Eliza let the
flippant remark pass without notice, and Sarah
nodded.  "A deal o' brass?"

"Yon's what he says."

"Eh, well, I never did!"  The angry wind
of her sigh passed over Sarah's head and rustled
the honesty in a vase behind.  She repeated
"I never did!" and creaked away from the
enemy towards the window.  Behind her,
Geordie's mother allowed the ghost of a smile
to find a fleeting resting-place on her lips.

"And so he's on his road home, is he,--coming
right back?"  Mrs. Will kept her back turned,
thinking hard as she spoke.  There was no
section of Sarah's statement but she intended
to prove by the inch.  "Ay, well, it's what they
mostly do when they've made their brass."

"He'll be over here, I reckon, afore you can
say knife!  Taking first boat, he says he is, or
the fastest he can find."  She turned her head
towards the door through which his voice had
come in the dream.  "What, I shouldn't be that
surprised if he was to open yon door now!"

There was such conviction in her tone that
Eliza, too, was startled into turning her head.
There was nothing to see, of course, and she
turned back, but her ears still thrilled with the
thrill in Sarah's voice.  The cowman, passing,
saw her face behind the glass, and said to himself
that the missis was out for trouble once again.

She was silent for a while, trying vainly to
grapple the situation in the pause.  She saw well
enough that there was nothing to be gained by
dispute if the story were true.  She still looked
to be top-dog in that or any other case, because
Blindbeck pride was founded on solid Blindbeck
gold; but there was no denying that the enemy
would lie in a totally different position, and
would have to be met on totally different ground.
If, on the other hand, the great statement was
a lie, there would be plenty of time for vengeance
when the facts were known.  Her malicious soul
argued that the real game was to give Sarah
plenty of rope, but her evil temper stood in the
way of the more subtle method.  It got the
upper hand of her at last, and she flung round
with an angry swing.

"Nay, then, I can't believe it!" she exclaimed
passionately,--"I just can't!  It's a
pack o' lies, that's what it is, Sarah,--a gert
string o' senseless lies!"

This coarse description of her effort hurt
Sarah in her artistic pride.  She stiffened still
further.

"I reckoned you'd take it like that," she
replied in a dignified tone.  "'Tisn't decent
nor Christian, but it's terble nat'ral."

"I don't see how you could look for folks to
take it different!" Eliza cried.  "'Tisn't a
likely sort o' story, any way round.  Ne'er-do-weels
don't make their fortunes every day o' the
week, and your Geordie was a wastrel, if ever
there was one yet.  You don't look like good
news, neither, come to that.  They've just been
saying so in t'other room."

"Good news wants a bit o' getting used to,"
Sarah said quietly, "same as everything else.
When you've never had no luck for years and
years you don't seem at first as if you could
rightly take it in."

"More particular when you're making it up
out o' your own head!" Eliza scoffed, but
growing more and more unwillingly convinced.
"Nay, now, Sarah!" she added impatiently,
her hands twitching,--"what d'ye think ye're
at?  What about all yon talk o' giving up the
farm?  No need for such a to-do if Geordie's
coming home!"

For the first time, though only just for a
second, Sarah quailed.  For the first time she
had a glimpse of the maze in which she had set
her feet, and longed sharply for her physical
sight as if it would help her mental vision.  But
her brain was still quick with the power of the
dream, and it rose easily to the sudden need.
"It's like this, d'ye see," she announced firmly.
"Simon knows nowt about it yet.  I didn't
mean telling him till we'd gitten back."

Eliza had followed the explanation with
lowering brows, but now she burst into one of
her great laughs.

"Losh, Sarah, woman! but I'd have a
better tale than that!  What, you'd never ha'
let him give in his notice, and you wi' your
tongue in your cheek all the time! ... When
did you get yon precious letter o' yours?"
she enquired swiftly, switching on to another
track.

"Just last minute this morning as we was
starting off."  Sarah was thoroughly launched
now on her wild career.  Each detail as she
required it rose triumphantly to her lips.
"Simon was back in t'stable wi' t'horse when
postman come, so I put it away in my pocket
and settled to say nowt.  I thought it was
likely axing for money or summat like that, and
Simon had more than enough to bother him
as it was.  I got May Fleming to read it for me
at doctor's," she finished simply, with a supreme
touch.  "I'm terble bad wi' my eyes, Eliza,
if you'll trouble to think on."

Once again Eliza was forced to belief against
her will, and then once again she leaped at the
only discrepancy in the tale.

"You could ha' tellt Simon easy enough on
the road out!" she threw at her in a swift
taunt.  "There's time for a deal o' telling
at your rate o' speed!"

But now, to her vexed surprise, it was Sarah
who laughed, and with a society smoothness that
would have been hard to beat.  It was in matters
like these that the dream lifted her into another
sphere, puzzling her clumsy antagonist by the
finer air she seemed to breathe.

"Eh, now, Eliza!" she said good-humouredly,
and with something almost like
kindliness in her voice, "whatever-like use is
it telling a man owt when he's chock full o'
summat else?  Simon was fit to crack himself
over some joke as he'd heard in Witham,
talking a deal o' nonsense and laughing fit to
shake the trap!  Coming from market's no
time any day for telling a man important news,
and anyway I'd never ha' got a word in
edgeways if I'd tried."  She paused a moment, and
then continued, aspiring to still greater heights.
"I'd another reason an' all for wanting it kept
quiet.  I knew he'd be sure an' certain to go
shouting it out here."

"Ay, and why ever not, I'd like to know!"
Eliza gasped, when she was able to speak.
"Come to that, you were smart enough shoving
it down our throats yourself!"

"Ay, but that was because I lost my temper,"
Sarah admitted, with a noble simplicity which
again struck the other dumb.  "If I hadn't ha'
lost my temper," she added, "I should ha' said
nowt,--*nowt!*"--a statement so perfectly true
in itself that it needed nothing to make it tell.
"I never meant you should hear it so sudden-like,"
she went on gently, the kindness growing
in her voice.  "It's hard lines our Geordie
should ha' done so well for himself, and not
your Jim.  I never meant to crow over you
about it, Eliza,--I didn't, indeed.  I never
thought o' such a thing!"

Eliza was making a noise like a motor-car
trying to start, but Sarah took up her tale
before she could reply.

"As for letting Simon give in his notice as
we'd fixed, I don't know as it'll make that
much differ, after all.  There's my eyes, for one
thing, as I mentioned before.  Blind folk is only
a nuisance wherever they be, but they're a real,
right-down nuisance on a farm.  And Geordie'll
want more nor a farm, I reckon, wi' all yon
brass to splash.  He'll want summat wi' stables
and gardens and happen fishing an' all,--a
grand gentleman's spot, likely, same as the
Hall itself."

Mrs. Will felt the world wheeling rapidly
about her, and tried to clutch at it as it went.
Her temples throbbed and her throat worked,
and her staring eyes went blind.  She groped
her way to the window, and flung up the stiff
sash; and, as she stood there, drawing panting
breaths, Simon and Will came sauntering
through the yard.  Her eyes, clearing again
in the rush of air, caught the incipient smile
on Simon's face, the new signs of interest and
life in his whole look.  He could know nothing
about the great news, if what Sarah said was
true; the utmost that he could do was to sense
it in the air.  But his look of subtle contentment
was a sufficient annoyance in itself.  It was the
last straw, indeed, which broke the back of
Eliza's self-control.  When she turned again her
words and her breath came with the leap of a
mountain stream.

"I wonder you're not afraid, Sarah Thornthet,
to be setting there reeling off lies like
hanks o' cotton off a bobbin!  Happen you're
just thinking you'll get a rise out o' me and
mine, but if that's the best you can do by way
of a joke, well, I think nowt on't, and so I tell
you!  Geordie coming home wi' brass!  Geordie
wanting the Hall and suchlike!  Nay, Sarah,
I might ha' believed the rest wi' a bit o' pulling
and pushing, but yon last's taking it over far.
Why, I'd as lief believe he was going to get the
King's Crown right out, wi' mappen Witham
Town Hall for a spot to live in!  As for thinking
o' me and my feelings and suchlike stuff, you've
never troubled that much about 'em to start
bothering now.  There's only two ways about it,
Sarah, and I reckon I know which it is.  It's
either a smart lie you've been telling from end
to end, or else it's never Geordie that's coming,
but our Jim!"

She choked when she came to the last words,
both from sudden nervousness, and lack of
breath, and again Sarah gave her well-bred laugh.

"I wouldn't be as hard o' faith as you,
Eliza," she said placidly,--"not for a deal!  It's
you, not me, would have heard if Jim was
coming home.  What's Jim to do wi' me?"

"He'd a deal to do wi' you when he was in
England, as everybody knows!  Nay, you hated
the sight o' him,--that's true enough,--but you
were right keen on trying to set him agen me,
all the same.  What, the last letter I had from
him,--and terble saucy an' all,--was blacking
me over summat I'd said of you as his lordship
didn't like!  Nay, if he come home, Sarah, he'd
come to you, not me, and right glad you'd be to
have him while he'd a penny before his teeth!
Ay, and why shouldn't our lad ha' done as well
as yours, and happen better, come to that?
He was the smarter lad o' the two, and come
o' smarter folk,--ay, but he did now, Sarah, so
you'll kindly shut your mouth!  You've only
to look at the way we've done at Blindbeck, me
and Will, and then at the mess o' things you've
made at yon pig-hull on the marsh!  It stands
to reason our lad would be the likely one to
make out, just as it isn't in reason to expect owt
from yours!"

She came a step nearer as she finished,
twisting her plump hands, her voice, as it
mounted higher, full of bewilderment and angry
tears.

"Will you swear to it Jim isn't coming,
Sarah?" she demanded,--"will you swear?
Will you swear as it isn't my lad that's coming
and not yours?"

Sarah said, "Ay, I will that!" in a hearty
tone, and with such absolute readiness that
Eliza bit her lip.  "If you've a Bible anywhere
handy," she went on tranquilly, "I'll swear to
it right off."

But already Eliza had drawn back in order
to follow a fresh trail.  Quite suddenly she had
perceived the only means of getting at the truth.

"Nay, I'll not trouble you," she sneered.
"'Tisn't worth it, after all.  I shouldn't like our
grand Family Bible to turn yeller wi' false
swearing!  Geordie's letter'll be proof enough,
Sarah, now I come to think on.  I'll believe owt
about Halls and suchlike, if you'll show me that!"

She came a step nearer still, holding out her
hand, and instantly Sarah's lips tightened and
her eyes narrowed.  She might have had a
dozen sacred letters about her, from the look
of her, at that moment.  It might have been
Geordie's face itself that she guarded from the
touch of Eliza's hands.

"Ay, I'd be like to show you his letter,
wouldn't I?" she answered, with a wicked
smile.  "You and me have been such terble
friends all these years,--I'd be like to show you
owt from my bonny lad!  Nay, Eliza, you know
I'd shove it in t'fire unread, afore I'd let you as
much as clap eyes on a single word!"

Eliza wheeled away from her with an angry
oath, and began to walk to and fro, setting the
loose planks jumping and creaking under her
feet, and the china rattling and clinking on the
shelves.  Her hands worked in and out of each
other with convulsive movements, and now and
then she flung out her heavy arms.  She was
working herself into one of those storms which the
folk at the farm knew only too well, but Sarah,
who was the cause of it, did not seem to care.
She, too, however, was breathing faster than
before, and a faint colour had stayed in her
waxen cheek.  She still felt as if, in that last
bout, she had protected something vital from
Eliza's hands.

"I'll be bound it's Jim!" Eliza was saying
senselessly, over and over again.  "I'll swear
it's Jim!" ... It was like a giant's voice,
Sarah thought to herself, the voice of a cruel,
clumsy giant-child.  "You're telling a lie,
Sarah,--a nasty lie!  You're jealous, that's
what it is,--jealous and mean!  *Geordie* wi'
brass?  Not likely! ... Nay, it's Jim!"

"It's plain enough it's the brass you're after
and nowt else," Sarah said in her cool tones.
"You'd have no use for the poor lad if he come
back without a cent!"

But even while the words were on her lips,
Eliza, creaking to and fro, was brought to a
sudden halt.  The thing that held her was a
photograph of Jim, catching her eye in its frame
of crimson plush.  If he had been older when it
was taken, it would have been banished long
ago, but here he was only a mischievous baby,
struggling in his mother's arms.  Eliza stared
at it as she stood in front of the mantelpiece,
and quite suddenly she began to cry.  The tears
poured down her face, and her hands trembled
and her body shook.  Into the brutal voice came
a note at which Sarah, unable to trace the
cause, yet quivered in every nerve.

"Nay, then, Sarah, you're wrong, Sarah,
you're dead wrong!  I'd be glad to see him
just for himself, I would that!  He's been
nowt but a trouble and disappointment all
his life, but I'd be glad to see him, all the
same."  She put out the plump fingers which
Sarah loathed, and drew them caressingly over
the baby face.  "I can't do wi' failures," she
added brokenly; "they make me wild; and
Jim was the only failure Blindbeck ever
hatched.  But for all that he was the bonniest
baby of the lot, and there's times I never
remember nowt but that.  There's days I just
ache for the sound of his voice, and fair break
my heart to think he'll never come back."

There was no doubting the sincerity of her
grief, and the big sobs shaking their way through
her shook Sarah, too.  Her own lips trembled,
and her eyes filled; her hands quivered on the
arms of the chair.  She could not see the pitiful
fingers stroking the child's face, but she who had
offered that worship herself needed little help
to guess.  She had her revenge in full as she sat
and listened to the passion that never dies,
forcing its way upward even through Eliza's
leathern soul; but the revenge was a two-edged
sword that wounded herself as well.  All
the generosity in her that was still alive and
kind would have sprung to the surface instantly
if the story had been true.  She would have
groped her way to Eliza's side in an effort to
console, and perhaps the lifelong enemies might
have drawn together for once.  But the story
was not true, and she had nothing to offer and
no right of any sort to speak.  She could only
sit where she was and suffer and shake, hating
herself more in this moment of absolute conquest
than she had ever hated Eliza in her darkest hour.

But, as a matter of fact, Eliza's grief would
have passed before she could even have tottered
to her feet.  Her own lips were still shaking
when Eliza's had hardened again; her own
eyes were still wet when Eliza's were dry with
hate.  The passion which for a brief moment had
been selfless and sincere was turned once again
into the channel of jealous rage.  She swung
round so swiftly that her sleeve caught the little
frame, and it fell forward unnoticed with a sharp
tinkle of broken glass.

"There's summat wrong about it all," she
cried venomously, "and I'll not rest till I find
out what it is!  What's Geordie mean by landing
up so smart, and leaving our Jim a thousand
mile behind?  It's a nasty sort o' trick, if it's
nothing worse, seeing how they were thick as
thieves as lads.  I'll tell you what it is, Sarah,
and you may swallow it as you can,--if Geordie's
gitten brass, it's because he's robbed it off our
Jim!  Like enough he's put an end to him
for it, the poor, honest lad--knifed him
... finished him ... put him out o' the road...!"

The fierce malice of the voice penetrated into
the passage, and carried its message into the
kitchen and the yard.  Will and Simon heard
it at the stable door and looked at each other
and turned instantly towards the house.  Passing
the parlour window, they saw the women rigid
on their feet, and felt the current of hate sweep
strongly across their path.  They had a glimpse
of Sarah's face, white, blind and quiet: and
Eliza's, vindictive, purple, and bathed with
furious tears.  Her heavy tone beat at the other's
immobility as if with actual blows, and the glass
in the cabinet rang and rang in sweet reply.
Will quickened his pace as he neared the house,
for he knew that Eliza did not always stop at
words.  Indeed, her hands were reaching out
towards Sarah's throat at the very moment
he stepped inside.

"Whisht, can't ye, Eliza!" he ordered
roughly, his voice harsh with the swift reaction
from the little space of content through which
he and his brother had just passed.  "What's
taken you, missis, to be going on like yon?"

He was now in the parlour, with Simon at his
heels, while the company from the kitchen
clustered round the door.  Peering into the tiny
arena round each other's heads, they giggled and
whispered, curious and alarmed.  Sarah could
hear them stirring and gurgling just beyond her
sight, and felt their rapacious glances fastened
upon her face.  Sally tried to push her way
through to her aunt's side, but was stopped by
the solid figure of Elliman, set in the very front.
The lads had forsaken the milking to run to the
window and peep in, and a dog lifted its bright
head and planted its forefeet on the sill.  All the
life of the place seemed drawn to this little
room, where at last the women were fighting
things out to the very death.

"What's amiss, d'ye say?" Eliza echoed his
speech.  "Nay, what isn't amiss!  Here's Sarah
has it her Geordie's a-coming home, but never
a word as I can hear about our Jim!"

The eyes of the brothers met in a startled
glance, and the red came painfully into Simon's
face.  Before they could speak, however, Eliza
swept their intention from them like a western
gale.

"What's come to Jim, I want to know?  Why
isn't it our Jim?  Geordie's made his pile, so
Sarah says, but I can't hear of a pile for Jim.
He's dead, that's what it is! ... Geordie's
finished him, I'll swear!  He's robbed
him! ... knifed him! ... given him a shove in
t'beck...!"

Again she made that threatening movement
towards Sarah's throat, but Will put out his
hand and caught her by the wrist.  Both the
giggles and whispers had died a sudden death,
and the lads at the window pressed nearer and
looked scared.  Sally succeeded at last in
forcing her way through, careless that Elliman
suffered severely as she passed.

"For goodness' sake, stop it, mother!" she
cried sharply.  "You're fair daft!  Can't you
wait to make a stir till Geordie's landed back?
He'll tell us right enough then what's happened
to our Jim."

"He'll tell us nowt--nowt----!"  Eliza began
again on a high note, but Simon threw up his
hand with a sudden snarl.

"Whisht, can't ye!  You fair deafen a body,
Eliza!" he flung out.  "What's all this stir
about Geordie coming back?"

"It's a lie, that's what it is!" Eliza
exploded again, and again he silenced her with
an angry "Whisht!"  He kept his eyes on
her a moment longer, as if daring her to speak,
and then let them travel slowly and almost
reluctantly to his wife's face.  He opened his
lips to address her and then changed his mind,
turning instead to the crew beyond the door.

"Tell me about it, can't you?" he demanded
angrily.  "One o' you speak up!  Emily
Marion--Addison--you wi' the fat face!"  He
jerked a contemptuous thumb at Elliman, who
went crimson with extreme disgust.  "One o'
you tell me the meaning o' this precious hullaballoo!"

Elliman looked across to Sally for help, but
did not get it.  Instead, she turned her eyes
away, ignoring his appeal.

"It's hardly my place to enlighten you, sir,"
he said, with an offended shrug, "but I don't
mind telling you the little I know.  Apparently
your son Geordie is expected soon, and with a
fat purse in his pocket to buy him a welcome home."

"Geordie's coming back, d'ye say?"  Simon
stared at him with bewildered eyes.

"So Mrs. Thornthwaite has given us to understand."

"And wi' brass?  Plenty o' brass?  *Geordie*
wi' brass?"

"Enough and to spare, if all we're told is true."

"Ay, but that's just what it isn't!"  Eliza
broke out on a peacock scream, and this time
Will actually shook her into silence.  The
poignancy of the moment had hushed the rest
of the audience into complete quiet.  There
was no sound in the room but Eliza's breathing
as Simon turned again to look at his wife.

"What's it all about, Sarah?" he asked
quietly, though his voice shook.  "You never
said nowt about Geordie coming to me."

In the pause that followed Sally drew away
from her aunt's side, as if conscious that this
moment was for the two of them alone.  The
silence waited for Sarah's answer, but she could
not bring herself to speak.  In the heat of her
victory she had forgotten that Simon also
would hear the lying tale.  It was the only
hitch in the splendid machinery of the lie, but
it was enough in itself to bring the whole of it
to the ground.  Here was Simon in front of her,
asking for the truth, and if a hundred Elizas had
been present she could still have given him
nothing but the truth.  But indeed, at that
moment, Eliza, and all that Eliza stood for,
was swept away.  In that hush and sudden
confronting of souls Sarah and Simon were
indeed alone.

"Geordie's never coming, is he, Sarah?"
he asked anxiously.  "Nay, you've dreamed it,
my lass!  And he's rich, d'ye say?--why, that
settles it right out!  Why, it was nobbut the
other day he was writing home for brass!"

Still she did not speak, and quite suddenly
he was wroth, vexed by her mask-like face and
the sudden diminishing of his hope.

"Losh, woman!" he cried angrily.  "You
look half daft!  Is yon lad of ours coming, or
is he not?  Is it truth you're telling me, or a
pack o' lies?"

She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound
in his angry voice.  She gave a sigh.  The
fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and
glorious, but it had come to an end.  "It was
just lies," she heard herself saying in a passionless
tone, and then with a last twinge of regret,
she sighed again.

Eliza's scream of "I knew it!  I knew it!"
merged in the chorus of exclamation from the
group about the door.  Will said nothing, fixing
his sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but
Simon fell back muttering, and staring as if
afraid.  He wondered, looking at her
unemotional face, whether the trouble about her
eyes was beginning to touch her brain.  She
herself had said there was no knowing what
blind weather might possibly do, no telling
what a blind body's brain might someday
suddenly breed....

He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's
voice as a man from the dead hears the roar of
life as he returns.

"I wonder you're not struck down where you
stand, Sarah Thornthet!  I wonder you're not
liggin' dead on t'floor!  But you'll be punished
for it, right enough; you'll be paid for it, never
fear!  You'll see, summat'll happen to you afore
so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it happened before
morn!  Like enough, the next news as we have
o' Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned....
I'll serve you a slap on t'lugs, Will, if you can't
shape to let me be!"

It was Sally who saved the situation for the
second time that day.

"Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look
sharp about it!" she commanded smartly,
"and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah,
until it's round.  Let her be, can't you!" she
added roughly, flinging round on her mother.
"She's that tired and put out she don't know
what's she's at."

She shook her fist at the window, and the
faces disappeared like morning frost.  Then she
turned on the others and ordered them out, too.

"You'd best be getting about your business!"
she commanded them, hand on hip.  "You
should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you
know that as well as me.  I'd think shame
o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to be helping
other folks' wi' their weekly wash!  Same to
you, Elliman Wilkinson, and a bit over, come
to that!  You're not one o' the family yet by a
long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither,
if you don't see to mend your ways!"

Eliza still lingered, however, loth that
anything should be left unsaid, but Sally ushered
her resolutely to the door.  She protested to the
last inch, and the hand that had been denied
judgment on Sarah flew up and slapped Sally's
face.  The girl looked at her with scornful eyes.

"Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can
you?" she said bitterly.  "You never could.
I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it
when we were bairns.  That was why he always
liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than he liked you!"

"You'll find other folk free wi' their hands,"
Eliza stormed, "if you're that free wi' your
impident tongue!  Yon fool of an Elliman'll
stand no nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk
soft!  Not that he wants any truck wi' you at
all, as far as I can see.  It's Mary Phyllis he
can't take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither.
She was always a sight better-looking than you,
and she's younger, by a deal.  You're that old
and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just
by being along wi't in t'house!  Nay, I reckon
you can put wedding and suchlike out o' your
head as soon as you like!  *You'll* never have a
house of your own, or a man to put in it; and
as for bairns o' your own to slap, why, you'll
never have none o' *them*...!"

She said the rest to the closed door, a stout,
oaken door which even she was reluctant to
attack.  In the few pauses that she allowed
herself she could hear nothing inside the room,
and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest,
she waddled heavily away along the passage.
She was in the dairy a minute later, and saw
through the window the brothers yoking the
old horse.  Through the window, too, she
caught scraps of their talk, and strained her
ears eagerly to catch its bent.  As if by magic
the anger left her face, and a little smile grew
happily on her lips.  She even hummed a little
tune to herself, as she watched and listened,
leaning against the frame....

The silence persisted in the room that she had
left, as if the air was so laden with words that
it would hold no more.  Sarah groped her way
to the rocking-chair and sat down again to
wait.  Sally went to the window, and stared
miserably into the yard.  So they waited
together until they heard the rattle of the
wheels along the stones....





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   VII

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Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy
was not quite played out.  Eliza had
still to give it its finishing touch.  The lately
routed audience must have been conscious of
this, for they assembled again in order to watch
the Thornthwaites take their leave.  As a rule,
the Simons simply faded away, unperceived and
unsped of anybody but Will.  They were not
welcome when they came, and they were not
lamented when they went away.  But to-day
Sarah had managed to touch the imagination
of the crowd, arousing unwilling admiration and
even respect.  The Addisons, for instance,
though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by
proxy in a crime which they would never have
had the courage to commit themselves.  Even
Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah's
psychology seemed possibly worthy of study,
after all.  The main motive with all, however,
was a sneaking hope that, on some ground or
another, the opponents might go for each other again.

As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out
of the house, and on Sarah's appearance were to
be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls, or
leaning in graceful attitudes against the porch.
Sarah could not see them, but Simon could, and
divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot.  The
Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap
when Eliza came bustling after them into the yard.

It was such a different Eliza, however, that
at first it looked as if the audience were to be
cheated of their scene.  The virulent harridan
of ten minutes ago had vanished as if she had
never been.  This Eliza was hearty, smiling,
serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued
mocker which Sarah detested most.  Even her
hair and dress, lately dishevelled by rage, were
now as tidy and sleek as the fur of a
well-brushed cat.  She came to a halt close beside
the wheel, and Sarah started when she heard her speak.

"So you're off, are you, Sarah?  Ay, well,
you'll be best at home!  I reckon our Sally's
right, and you're not yourself at all.  Mind and
see doctor again, first thing as ever you can.
It's a bad sign, they say, to go making up
fancy tales.  Folks as get telling lies is framing
for softening of the brain."

Will looked back with a frown as he hurried
on to open the gate.

"We've had enough o' that, missis!" he
called sharply.  "Just you let Sarah be!"

Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to
preserve her compassionate air.

"Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly.
"You've no call to speak so sharp.  I'm
meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure!
She's welcome to tell lies till they turn her black
in the face, but it isn't healthy for her, all the
same.  I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in
Garland's Asylum, or some such spot as yon.
Ay, well, we'll be having her close at hand
afore so long, and then we can do our best for
her ourselves!"

Sarah started a second time when she said
that, and the pig-sty audience brightened and
pricked its ears.  Simon muttered an oath and
pulled at the horse until it sidled and backed,
forcing the subtle tormentor to retreat.

"You stand back, missis," he cried angrily,
waving a threatening whip, "and take your
long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in
t'road!"

There was a burst of laughter at this show of
wit, and Eliza flared instantly into open war.
She raised her voice after the departing pair,
stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet.

"You'll have to speak different from that,
Mr. Thornthet," she called shrilly, "if you're
coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"

The laughter broke out again, and then
stopped, cut short.  Simon, red to the ears,
raised the whip violently above the horse's back,
but it was checked before it descended by
Sarah's outstretched hand.

"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly.
"Just hold on.  What's Eliza meaning to say by that?"

Simon looked helplessly about him, noting
the interested gaping faces on all sides.  "Ax
me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to
get away.  "It's time we were getting on,
missis.  Ax me on t'road!"

"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it,
Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing again.  "Or
ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty
sharp!  Likely you've been wondering what's
to come o' you when you leave the farm?  Ay,
well, our cowman's job is going begging at
present, and I hear your master's thinking o'
taking it on."

There was a pause after that, in which even
the pig-sty audience was hushed as mice, and
the fretting horse itself was suddenly still.
Those nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh,
the same little sigh with which she had loosed
her hold on the Parlour Dream.  The next
moment Simon had thankfully eased the reins,
and the trap went creaking and jolting out of
the still yard....

Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very
last, and then, bursting into a laugh, turned
expectantly for applause.  But for once her
usually appreciative audience failed her of her
due.  They avoided her eyes and looked at their
boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and
pretended a passionate interest in the pigs.  The
Addisons, in whom Christian charity was apt
to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured
tepid thanks for their entertainment, and
hurried away.  Even the smug cousin refused
to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of
a latent fineness of feeling which she had hurt,
but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes.
Turning his back determinedly upon Mary
Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's
ear.  She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes
to his sobered face, and then followed him
slowly towards the track across the fields.





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   VIII

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Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again
put out a hand to Simon's arm.  "Yon's
Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the
cottage came up.  "Just hold on a minute, and
let me see."

He obeyed, watching her nervously as she
bent and peered at the house, and wondering
uneasily what she was about.  She knew the
house well enough, both inside and out, so she
could not be stopping to look at it just for that.
She must be trying to form some impression of
it that was wholly new, perhaps picturing it as
it would be when she had come to live in it herself.

When he found that she did not speak, he
began to offer clipped remarks, anxiously
pointing out objects that she was quite unable
to see.

"It's a good house, missis....  You'll
remember it's a tidy spot.  There's a fairish
garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of
a drying-ground as well.  As for berry-bushes,
there's gooseberry and black currant and
red ... and danged if there isn't a few rasps
over at far side wall an' all!"

Sarah looked away from the house the
moment he started to speak, as if some spell
were broken by the sound of his voice.  "Ay,"
she said, with a total lack of interest, and
staring ahead....  "Now, master, we'd best get on."

Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated
"Rasps!" in a feeble tone, and again Sarah
said "Ay," and requested him to get on.  He
drove away rather reluctantly, looking behind
him as he went, and muttering of Taylor's rasps
and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.

Now once more they were in the high-flanked
lane, with Blindbeck and all that Blindbeck
stood for fallen away at last.  The cross went
with them, indeed, but the calvary dropped
behind.  The horse turned homeward, and,
encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden
freakish revival of vanished youth.  Bicycles
met and passed them in the narrow road,
sliding by like thistledown on a wind, while the
riders saw only an elderly couple apparently
half asleep.  Yet even the dullest farm-lad
would have cried aloud to them if he had known
to what they went.  He would have flung
himself off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble
but valiant imitation of an Angel of God.

Evening was coming, but the day was still
alive, incredibly long as the afternoon had
seemed.  Simon's old watch, put right that
morning in Witham, asserted that it was only
half-past four.  The atmosphere had never been
really light, and only imperceptibly was it
drawing down to dusk.  The grey seemed to
have deepened and settled a little, but that was
all.  It was a day on which people forgot the
time, as Mr. Dent had said, a day when they had
every excuse for forgetting the right time.  Simon
felt suddenly as though he had never seen the
sun either rise or set for at least a week.
Yesterday there had been only a swift setting, hurriedly
blotted out, and to-day, if there had been any
fugitive brightness of farewell, it must have
passed while they were still at the farm.  The
night was coming unduly to the grey-green land
which had never had its meed of sun, just as the
night came unfairly to lives whose share of
glamour and glory had been missed.  He longed
to see a light spring out of the west, showing
the silver water in a shining line, and re-tinting
the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.

Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would
have made things easier for both of them, but
especially for his wife.  Even though there was
so little that she could see, the warmth and
light would at least have lain tenderly upon her
lids.  Trouble and change were always easier
to bear under a smiling sky; it did not mock
at the trouble, as smiling faces so often seemed
to do.  Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a
trouble in, so that change was a nameless peril
into which each step was into a void.  But
there was to be no sun for these lost folk who
seemed to be straying all the day long; only the
unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted west,
filling the mighty bowl at whose bottom lay the sea.

They felt strange with each other, now that
they were alone, because of all that the other
had done while the two of them were apart.
Simon's sudden decision was as inexplicable to
his wife as her afternoon's jest with Eliza had
seemed to him.  In his place she would never
have stooped to make of herself the younger
brother's man; she would have worked for
the hardest driver amongst them sooner than
that.  Even the close affection between the
brothers could not dignify the position in her
eyes.  She could understand something of
Simon's yearning towards the farm, but Sarah
was never the sort of which they make
doorkeepers in Heaven.  She would never really
have understood the strength of the pull, even
with no Eliza set like a many-eyed monster on
the farmyard wall.  He, on the other hand, could
not even pretend to understand the Lie, but then
the Vision of the Parlour had been granted to
her and not to him.

Both their minds, however, were at work
more on the change that was coming than on
Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing
business of life must supersede the dream.
Simon, indeed, did not want to think about
Sarah's behaviour further than he could help,
because of that sinister saying about the doings
of blind brains.  As for Sarah herself, she had
done with the dream for ever in that moment
when she came face to face with the limits of
her lie.  It had had its tremendous hour in the
down-treading of a lifelong foe, but in that one
stupendous achievement it had finally passed.
Never again would she be able to shut herself
in the spell, until the blind saw and the lost
spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap.  Never
again would she be able to believe that Geordie
might come home.

In spite of their shameful departure, fast
fading, however, from his mind, Simon was
already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of
their near return.  Like so many ideas impossible
and even repellent at the start, this had already
become natural and full of an acid charm.  For
the time being he was content to ignore the
drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate
only upon its obvious gains.  His mind,
hurrying forward over the next few months, was
already disposing of stock, farm-implements
and surplus household gear; and in his
complete absorption he forgot that he was not
alone, and kept jerking out fragments of
disjointed speech.  Sarah allowed him to amuse
himself after this fashion for some time, and
then broke dryly into his current of thought.

"You may as well tell me what's settled, and
get it by with," she observed in a sardonic tone.
"So far, even Eliza seems to know more about
it than me.  You and Will seem to ha' fixed
things up wi' a vengeance, that you have!
You'd best to tell me how it come about, instead
of booing away to yourself like a badly calf."

"Nay, it was all fixed that sharp," Simon
grumbled, with an injured air, though very
relieved at heart to hear her speak.  "There
was no time to ax nobody nor nowt.  I'm still
a bit maiselt about it myself, for the matter o'
that.  I don't know as I'll be that surprised if
I hear to-morrow it's all off.  As for Eliza, it
fair beats me how she could ha' got wind of it
so smart!  She likely hid herself somewheres
when we was talking it out; though she's not
that easy to miss,--gert, spying toad!"

He brisked considerably now that the first
awkwardness was past, and went on to tell her,
after his usual backwards and forwards fashion,
exactly how the new arrangement had come about.

"It's not much to crack on, I dare say," he
finished, pleading with her across the
disapproving silence which had again risen between
them like a wall, "but, when all's said and done,
it's a sight better than I'd looked for, by a
deal.  I'd ha' been bound to hire myself
somewheres, to help us make out, and there isn't a
decenter master in t'countryside than Will.  It's
a deal better than being odd-job man at some
one-horse spot, or maybe scrattin' up weeds and
suchlike at some private house.  There'll be a
decent wage, think on, and milk,--ay, and
happen a load o' coal an' all.  Will'll see as we're
rightly done by, never fret!  We'll be right
comfortable, I'm sure.  Will says his lasses'll
give you a hand wi' washing and the like, and
if happen we get a good sale we might run to a
bit o' help ourselves.  You'll miss t'horse and
cart, I reckon, but we'll find a way out o' yon
as well.  If you felt as you fancied a bit of a
ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap."

He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but
neither the coaxing nor the explanation seemed
to get any further than her ears.  Again he felt
the spasm of irritation which he had felt in the
parlour, and was at the same time reminded of
its original cause.

"I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either
on us," he went on vexedly, as she did not open
her lips, "but you'll likely admit I did the best
I could for us, all the same.  It's a sad pity you
and Eliza pull together so bad, but it's over
late to think o' mending it now.  Anyway, you
did nowt to mend it by telling yon string o' lies
this afternoon!  What, in the name o' goodness,
made you act so strange?"

She moved then, a touch of the afternoon
glamour reaching from Blindbeck, and following
her down the lane.

"Nay, I don't know....  Things come over
folk, now and then.  I'm right sorry, though, if
I set you thinking it was the lad."

"I've given up thinking owt o' the sort
long since," he said dejectedly.  "I should
ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all."

"Things come over folk," she repeated,
unwilling to say more, and he nodded his head,
relieved by her softer tone.  "You'll try to
make up your mind to Blindbeck, will you,
missis?" he pressed on nervously, hoping her
mood would last.  "It's a bad best, maybe, but
I nobbut did what I could."

She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was
firm.  "Ay, I'll make up my mind to it, after
a bit."

"It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll
settle, never fear."

"Ay, I'll settle all right.  Don't you fret."

"It's a good shop, Sarah."

"Ay."

"And Will's a right good sort."

"Oh, ay."

The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted
him to a further unburdening of his soul.  He
leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over
the grey fields, and with the note of pleading
rising and falling in his tone.

"I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've
been fair fretted out o' my senses all this while.
There's been times I've felt like just making off
on t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for
good an' all.  Ay, and by Gox! it very near come
about, too, one day when I was mooning along
and not looking where I was at!  But there was
you to see to, and I couldn't rightly bring myself
to chuck up the sponge.  'Tisn't as if the lad
was dead, neither,--there was that as well.  He's
as good as dead, likely, but it's a different thing,
all the same.  Folks can get along on a mighty
little hope,--same as yon old horse as died just
when it was learning to live on nowt!  We've
come to a bonny pass, these days, you and
Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past bearing
as long as the three on us is over sod."

It was with a sense of enlightenment and
escape that they came out finally on to the
high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve
of the land stole what little clarity was left to the
slowly withdrawing earth.  Even Sarah was
faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as of
easier breathing as the borders of the road
drew further apart.  In the lane they had been
high, looming presences, over-close to the
lurching wheels, but now they ceased to oppress
her, though she was still aware that they
marched with her as she went.  It was as if the
furniture of the land was being withdrawn into
the wings before the curtain of night was really
down; yet even in its slow departure it still
formed the picture and dominated the scene.
The only real comfort for brain and eyes was
on the unfurnished marsh, where even the
fenced roads lifted themselves as often as not
above their fences to look abroad.

There was more life, also, on the open road,--cycles
and traps, and people walking in twos and
threes; motor-cars, too, at which Simon never
so much as glanced aside, though now they were
really beginning to look like ghosts in the sinking
light.  Even when there was nobody on the
road there was still the sense of being part of an
unseen train, the link which binds traveller to
traveller on every principal highway in the land,
but especially on those which run north and
south.  The link strengthens and the thrill
deepens as the day lengthens and the hours
go on.  Each wonders instinctively to what home
the other is hastening before he is overtaken by
the dark.  From each to each at the hour of
dusk passes the unconscious Godspeed uniting
all who are drawing together towards the
adventure of the night.

And, for Simon and Sarah, as for all, either
man or beast, even in this bitter hour, there
was the comfort of the road that goes home.
There is always a lamp set high in the house to
which one returns, even though it be poor and
empty and dark.  The greatest sorrow awaiting
one at the end is not really a sorrow until one
steps inside.  The ease of the road home is the
ineffable ease of the mind.  Stout hearts and
limbs may carry us out, and barely suffice to
stagger us back, but the running and leaping
mind can comfort the body on.  There is always
a lamp set high at the end of the road that is
going home....

Not until they had lost it would they realise
the perpetual consolation of that long-accustomed
road.  Times without number they had
travelled it, seething with anger and hate, and
yet always they were the richer for having
passed that way.  Simon, busily thinking of
Blindbeck and all the advantages of the wealthy
farm, did not know that he was putting his real
wealth from him with every thought.  Yet he
would know it all the rest of his life when he
drove a road that was not consecrated by the
years, when the folk that hailed them in passing
were not part of a lifelong chain; when the
turns of the road were no longer pictures and
books, with each house where it should be and
would be for all time; when he stopped at a
gate in the dusk and knew it was not his; when
he entered a meaningless building at last and
knew it was not home....

But just for the moment he was thinking
neither of the immediate present nor of the
greater part of his long-reaching past.  His
mind, unusually stimulated by the day's events,
swung easily to and fro between the future at
Blindbeck and the far-off boyhood which he had
spent with Will.  Blindbeck had never been his
home in any sense, but his call to Blindbeck was
nevertheless the call of the past.  They would
renew their youth for each other, the two old
men, and forget when they were together that
they were old.  They turned instinctively to
each other, as all turn to those who can recreate
for them the young beginnings of their lives.
On the marsh Simon always felt immeasurably
old, weighted as with an actual burden by the
years.  He saw himself looking behind him at
them as at monsters created in his pride, which
now and for ever were out of his control.  With
Will beside him, they would lie in front as they
used to do, rolling meadowlands still untouched
by the plough of time.  Because they had been
young together it would be impossible for them
to be really old.  Because they had been young
together they could took smiling, shoulder to
shoulder, into the unbelievable grave.

Not that his longing had any such definite
frame of thought as this, though he was aware
that in it had lain the motive which had fixed
his mind.  He only moved towards its fulfilment
as all untutored souls move naturally towards
release from strain.  He scarcely remembered
Sarah after their talk had come to an end that
was hardly an end, like an unravelled cord of
which no one troubles to count the untwisted
strands.  That mighty leap which he was
taking across the years carried him well above
both Sarah's and Geordie's heads.  The school-years,
the climbing, running, hungry years were
more distinct to him than the heavy, responsible
years of marriage and middle life.  He saw
himself and Will running after the hounds,
paddling in calm lakes of gold-shot evening tides,
skating by slowly rising moons.  He saw a raw
lad going shyly but stolidly to his first place,
already a man in the awed estimation of the
brother left behind.  He heard the clink of the
first money he had ever earned, which had gone
straight from his pocket into the family purse.
He had handed it over without a twinge of
regret, and his empty hands had continued to
thrill with pride.  Later, he had begged a couple
of shillings for himself and Will, and had never
thought of the money then or since but as a
gift....

They came at last to the dangerous,
right-angled turn which dropped them down to the
marsh, and as the horse began to jerk itself
down the hill a car passed slowly above them
along the open road.  Although the day still
lingered, the tail-light was already lit, as if the
car were setting out on a journey instead of
going home.  Yet it went slowly and almost
reluctantly, like a man who looks over his
shoulder all the while.  It was as if it was only
waiting its opportunity to turn itself in its
tracks.  But all the time it was drifting gradually
away, and the red light, that could hardly as
yet impress itself on the dusk, seemed to hesitate
for a moment at a curve of the road, and then,
as if a hand had been clapped in front of it, was
suddenly gone.

The drop from the highway was like being
dropped from a cliff, so distinct was the change
to the loneliness of the marsh.  The link was
broken which made them members of a purposed
line, leaving them mere strayed wanderers
of whom nobody was aware.  The few farmhouses,
lifeless-looking in the deadened light,
stared always towards great distances over their
puny heads.  The few trees sprang up before
them, suddenly strange, acquiring an almost
violent personality against the meaningless scene.

The straight miles dragged reluctantly past
their heavy wheels, and on the unending road
they seemed to go forward without purpose and
to be set on a journey that had no goal.  When
at length the stretches of meadow and cropped
land gave place to the pale-coloured desert of
the sand, there seemed no possible reason why
one should cease and the other begin.  Away
out behind the mist there was a living, moving
tide, but here on the marsh there was no
consciousness of tide.  Things just stopped,
that was all, and from the garden became the
waste, just as the growth and renewal of life
had stopped for the old pair, leaving nothing
but desolation before their feet.

Yet still the earth was with them, and Simon
turned his eyes again and again to its vague
outlines with relief.  Across the bay the cone
of the Knott still held to its tangibility and
form, protesting against the swamping hand
of night.  The crown of it, fitted with wood as
closely as with a cap, was darker against the
sky than the shadowy slopes on which the
houses climbed.  And, nearer inland still, on the
low edge of shore that was like a trail of smoke
on the farther side of the sands, a blur of
formless yet purposeful grey showed where the tiny
hamlet of Sandyeat clustered about the 'Ship.'

Sandholes was in sight now, and the horse
quickened its pace, triumphing over the last
few wearisome yards.  As they approached the
house, with its white face set on a body of
looming buildings behind, they had as always a
mingled sensation of sadness and relief.  Not
that the place was sad to them because of its
dreary emptiness set amongst formless fields.
In the course of years it had become for them
merely an atmosphere, not a thing of sight.
They were only depressed by it because for
them it was the heart of failure and loss.  And
in the same way they were relieved by it,
dignified, sanctuaried and consoled, because
this was their hiding-place against the world,
and here the heart of their few memories of joy.

The house was dark, but they were accustomed
to that, used to the door that would not
open, however they knocked, and the windows
that for ever would never frame a face,
however they hailed.  They were used to that
stumbling into the place in the folding dark, to
the striking of a match that brought them
nothing but the dreary waiting rigidity of the
things they had left behind.  They were used,
too, to an uprising fear on the struck light that
some terrible change might have taken place
in the empty house; that even the waiting
things might have played them false while they
were gone....

So lonely looked the place, that it seemed as
if it might even revenge itself upon those who
had the temerity to awaken it during that
sinking hour, but, as they reached the gate,
the old dog asleep in a loose box aroused
himself to a hoarse, recognising bark.  The few
cows, also, waiting to be fed, sent out deep
complaints at the sound of the coming wheels.
And as they finally rattled into the uneven yard,
a woman's figure stood up and waved to them
from the sea-wall.





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   PART III

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   MAY

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   I

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The afternoon which had seen Sarah's
short-lived splendour had been sweet
also for May.  Sweeter, indeed, since for her
there was no clashing of fierce passions to jar
the tender witchery of her mood.  And though
the glamour was of the past,--a sheet of gold
as of sunlight far at the back of her mind; a
sea of gold from which she moved ever inward
towards the darkness of the hills,--a tongue
of light had suddenly darted from it to stream
like a golden wind-blown ribbon over her
path.  That light was the knowledge that in
her own hands lay the possibility of Geordie's
return.

Youth came back to her with the thought,
and she sat straighter still in the trap, holding
her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the
elastic bar of the reins.  The good horse swung
homewards in a generous stride; the bright
wheels of the dog-cart flashed through the dull
country like a whirled autumn leaf.  The
passers-by found a special sweetness in her
ready smile, because it reflected the secret in
her heart.  As they went on their way they said
what they always said,--that it was a marvel
she had not married long ago.

Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the
folly of all great ventures, since, in laying her
hands upon the future, she risked the memory
that had coloured her whole life.  To bring
Geordie home might mean nothing but
disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment
and shame for a mis-spent girlish dream.  Things
would be different, at the very best; part of the
memory would have to go.  But the chief people
to be considered were the old folks who had so
often been the footballs of fate.  Nothing that
she might fear on her own account should stand
in the way of this sudden fulfilment for a
frustrated old man, this light to the eyes for an old
woman going blind.  In any case May was the
sort that would tenderly handle the cracked
and mended pot right up to the moment of
dissolution at the well.  No disappointment
that Geordie could bring her would remain
sordid for very long.  Out of her shattered
idols her wisdom and humour would gather
her fresh beauty; clear-eyed, uplifting affection
for youthful worship, and pity and tenderness
for passion.

It was true that Sarah had already rejected
her offer,--brutally, almost, in her determination
that May should suffer no further for her son.
But May had already almost forgotten the
rough sentences which for the time being had
slammed the opening door in her eager face.
Sarah was strong, she knew, but she herself,
because of love in the past and pity in the
present, felt stronger still.  She said to herself,
smiling, that sooner or later she would find an
argument that would serve.  Sooner or later
Sarah would yield, and share with secret delight
in the surprise that they would so gaily prepare
for the old man.  Sooner or later the boat
would put out from port that carried the lost
lad,--Geordie, with his pockets empty but his
heart full, and every nerve of him reaching
towards his home.

Now she had turned the end of the bay, and
was running along the flat road that hugged the
curve of the shore.  Below on her right were
the sands, almost within flick of her whip,
with the river-channel winding its dull length
a hundred yards away.  Beyond it, the sand
narrowed into the arm of the marsh, until the
eye caught the soft etching of the Thornthwaite
farm, set on the faint gold and green of the
jutting land.

The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the
light of it in the eyes that looked so far abroad,
was very quiet when she came to it about
three o'clock.  The odd-job man was waiting
about to take her horse, and she paused to have
a word or two with him in the yard.  Then she
went briskly into the silent place, and at once
the whole drowsy air of it stirred and became
alive.  The spotlessness of the house seemed
to take on a sparkling quality from the swift
vitality of her presence.  The very fire seemed
to burn brighter when she entered, and the
high lights on the steels and brasses to take a
finer gleam.  Her father called to her from the
room where he lay upstairs, and her buoyant
tread, as she went up, seemed to strengthen even
his numb limbs and useless feet.

She sat by his bed for some time, telling him
all the news, and conveying as much as she could
of the hiring and marketing stir combined.
This particular person had wished to know how
he was; the other had sent him a message to
be delivered word for word.  One had a
grandmother who had died in similar case; another
a remedy that would recover him in a week.
Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old
friends; stories of old traits cropping up again
which made him chuckle and cap them from the
past.  By the time she had finished he was
firmly linked again to life, and had forgotten
that deadly detachment which oppresses the
long-sick.  Indeed, he almost forgot, as he
listened, that he had not been in Witham
himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears and
seeing the familiar faces with his own eyes.
For the time being he was again part of that
central country life, the touchstone by which
country-folk test reality and the truth of things,
and by contact with which their own identity
is intensified and preserved.

But her eyes were turned continually to the
window as she chatted and laughed, dwelling
upon the misty picture even when they were
not followed by her mind.  Only her brain
answered without fail when her gaze travelled
to the farm on the farther shore.  Gradually the
picture shadowed and dimmed in line, but still
she sat by the bed and laughed with her lips
while her heart looked always abroad.  Neither
she nor her father ever drew a blind in the little
inn.  They had lived so long with that wide
prospect stretching into the house that they
would have stifled mentally between eyeless walls.

She talked until he was tired, and then she
made his tea, and left him happy with the
papers which she had brought from Witham.
Her own tea she ate mechanically, with the
whole of her mind still fixed on the promise of
the day, and when she had finished she was
drawn to the window again before she knew.
The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she
concluded, looking out.  Tired and discouraged,
they would be back again at the farm, feeling
none of the quivering hope which lifted and
thrilled her heart.  Sarah would not even dwell
on the offer, having put it by for good, and
Simon did not as much as know that there had
been an offer at all.  They would creep to bed
and sleep drearily, or wake drearily against
their will, while she would wake of her own
accord in order to clasp her purpose and find it
still alive.  She could not bear the thought of the
long, blank night which would so soon be
wrapping them round; even a stubborn refusal
of her hope would be a better friend to them
than that.  Stronger and stronger grew the
knowledge within her that she must see them
before they slept.  It was for their sake, she told
herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then,
as she clinched her decision, knew it was also
for her own.

She went upstairs again to put on her coat
and hat, wondering as she did so what her
father would have to say.  He would be sure to
enquire what took her across the sands so late,
yet he would wonder and fret if she left him
without a word.  Geordie's name had dropped
into silence between them for many a year, and,
lately as she had spoken it to Sarah, it would
be hard to speak it now.  She knew only too
well what her father would think of her offer
of hard-saved gold.  He had always been bitter
against Geordie for her sake, and would want
no wastrel fetched overseas to play on her
pity again.  She stole half-way down the stairs,
and then was vexed with herself and went up
again with a resolute tread.  Once more she
hesitated, with her hand on the door-latch, and
then it slipped from her finger and she found
herself in the room.

Fleming looked up from his paper with his
faded eyes.  "Off again, lass?" he enquired,
noticing how she was dressed.  "Is there a
pill-gill Milthrop way to-night?"

She shook her head.

"Not as I know of....  Nay, I'm sure
there's not."  She stood staring at him, uncertain
what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their
own accord, turned back towards the sands.
"I just felt like going out a bit again, that's all."

"Likely you're going up road for a crack wi'
Mrs. Bridge?"

"Nay ... I didn't think o' going there."

"To t'station, happen?"

"Nor that, neither...."  There was a little
pause.  "Just--out," she added, and the note
in her voice seemed to reach before her over the
sandy waste.  Fleming heard it, and saw the
track of her gaze as well.

"What's up, lass?" he asked quietly,
letting his paper drop.  "What d'you want to do?"

She braced herself then, swinging round to
him with one of her cheerful laughs.  "You'll
think I'm daft, I know," she said, looking down
at him with dancing eyes, "but I'm right set
on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again to-night.  We'd
a deal to say to each other this morning, but we
didn't finish our talk.  I thought I could slip
over sand and back before it was dark."

Fleming looked perturbed.

"It's over late for that, isn't it?" he asked.
"Light's going pretty fast an' all.  Hadn't you
best bide till morning, and gang then?"

"I don't feel as I can.  I'm set on going
to-night.  I've often been across as late, you'll
think on.  I'll take right good care."

"What about tide?"

"Not for a couple of hours yet, and I've not
that much to say.  Boat's ready alongside
channel; it nobbut wants shoving off.  I'll
be there and back before you can say knife."

"Ay, well, then, you'd best be off, and look
sharp about it!" Fleming conceded in a reluctant
tone.  "I'll have t'lamp put in winder as
usual to set you back.  Don't you get clattin'
now and forget to see if it's there."

"I'll look out for it, don't you fret.  Like as
not I'll never go inside the house.  There's just
something I want to make sure of before I sleep."

She nodded brightly and began to move away,
but he called her back before she reached the
door.  With the quickness of those who lie long
in a sick room, he had noticed the change in her
atmosphere at once.  Restlessness and
impatience were strange things to find in May, and
there was a touch of excitement in her manner
as well.  He looked at her thoughtfully as she
retraced her steps.

"Is there any news o' that wastrel lad o'
theirs?  Happen he's thinking o' coming back?"

The words spoken from another's mouth
brought a rush of certainty to her longing mind.
She answered him confidently, as if she held the
actual proof.

"That's it, father!  That's right."  She
laughed on a buoyant, happy note.  "Our
Geordie's coming home!"

"To-night?"  Fleming's mouth opened.
"D'ye mean he's coming to-night?"

"Nay, I don't know about that!" She
laughed again.  "But it'll be before so long.
I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at
Sandholes door!"

"You've no call to be glad of it, as I can see,"
Fleming said, with a touch of fretfulness in his
tone.  "Are you thinking o' wedding him after
all this time?"

Her head drooped a little.

"I'm past thinking o' that, and he'll have
been past it long ago.  I'm just glad for the old
folks' sake, that's all.  It's like as if it was
somebody dead that was coming back, so that
I needn't believe in death and suchlike any
more.  It's like as if it's myself as is coming
back,--as if I should open door and see the
lass I used to be outside."

"I'd be glad to see you settled afore I went,
but not wi' an idle do-nowt as'd spoil your life.
It'll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet's
made much out.  He was a wastrel, right enough,
for all his wheedlin' ways."

"I'm past thinking o' marriage," she said
again.  "It's just what it means to the old folks,
poor old souls!"

"Ay.  They've had a mighty poor time, they
have that."  He sighed, thinking of many a
tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed.
Then he looked up at her with a whimsical
smile.  "They'd nobbut the one bairn, same as
your mother and me, and there's been whiles
I've been real mad because you weren't a lad.
Ay, well, I've lived to see the folly o' my ways,
and to thank God I'd nobbut a lass!  You're
worth a dozen Geordie Thornthets any day o'
the week...."

She was gone with an answering smile directly
he finished his speech, and the sound of her feet
was light and swift on the stair.  Hearing her,
he, too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone
to meet Geordie Thornthwaite along the shore.
But instead of reviving and cheering him, it
made him sad.  He was too near the end to
wish himself back at the start.  He glanced at
the lamp on the table to make sure that it was
filled, and settled himself back to his papers
with a sigh.





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   II

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May stopped to speak to the hired girl as
she went out, and was alarmed by the
creeping dusk already in the inn.  She breathed
again when she was in the road, and saw the
dull light holding yet on either hand.  The soft
closing of the door behind her back gave her a
long-forgotten thrill, bringing back similar
autumn evening hours, when she had gone to
meet a lover from over the sands.

She got down to the shore about the time
that the scene at Blindbeck was drawing to an
end.  She hurried, not only because she had
little or no time to waste, but because she could
not have gone slowly if she had tried.  The
young May had never gone slowly, who was all
kindness and knew nothing of pride.  She ran
down the shingle and across the sand, only
pausing to draw breath and to reprove herself
at the channel's edge.  Passers-by on the flat
road stopped to stare at her as she sped across,
wondering what she could be doing at that hour.
Pausing, she looked across at the farm before she
bent to the boat, chiding herself for her almost
childish haste.  But her tongue ached to let
loose the words of persuasion that she carried
with her, and her heart ached for the word of
permission that she was sure she would carry
back.  She did not doubt for a moment that
Sarah would give way, so strong was her inward
belief that Geordie was coming home.

At last she pushed off, stepped in and punted
herself across, and once out again on dry ground
tried to hold herself to a walk.  The sand,
ribbed and hard beneath her feet, spoke to the
fact that the tide had been gone for hours.  It
was extraordinary how forgotten the sands
always seemed as soon as the tide had gone
away.  Only those who had proved it by
daily experience could believe that the water
would ever return.  Even to them it remained
something of the miracle that it was in truth,
arousing continually a thrill of awed surprise.
Yet, side by side with that impression of final
retreat, of waste that had always been waste
and would never be reclaimed, was one of a
brooding terror that was only waiting its hour.
The sea and the sands were like cat and mouse,
May thought,--the one, aloof, indifferent, yet
always poised to leap; the other, inert, paralysed
though apparently free, and always the certain
victim in the end.

She looked behind and before from the quiet
home which she had left to the still more lonely
and quiet house which was her goal.  There was
a point about half-way across at which it seemed
as if she would never reach the one, never get
back to the other in all time.  Both seemed
to recede from her equally as she moved, vague
shapes formed only of imagination and the
mist.  Just for a moment that vagueness of
things which she knew to be concrete caught
her by the throat.  The little that she could see
of the earth was so cloudlike, so lacking in
sturdy strength.  The very shore of the marsh
looked as though a breath might dissolve it in
thin air.  Though the distance across was little
more than a mile, the feeling of space around
her was infinite as the sky.  The sands seemed
suddenly to become a treadmill under her feet,
turning and turning, but never bringing her to
the horizon which she sought.  The whole
doorway of the bay was blocked by the great
wall of mist, and over the Lake mountains
there was a smother of mist, and mist over all
the land that went east to the Pennine range.
She began to fear even the crinkled sand which
felt so firm, as if it might suddenly sway and
shift like one of the many traps with which the
bay was sown.  Behind her, the grey,
faint-gleaming strip of the channel seemed to cut her
off from her safe home.  A slice of the bank
broke suddenly with an echoing spash, chilling
her with the lonely terror of water that has a
victim in its hold.  The boat, helpless-looking,
inert, a mere black speck on the channel edge,
seemed the only insoluble thing beside herself.
She longed for the comfort of her feet on the
tarred boards, for the reassurance of her hands
against the sculls.  It was a moment or two
before she had the courage to let it go, and face
a world that was full of bodiless shapes and
evanescent shores.

But almost before she knew it she was on the
opposite side, scrambling up the stones to the
grassy slope beyond, and so, panting and hurrying,
to the top of the sea-wall.  She saw at once that
there was nobody in the house, that it was still
with the growing stillness of augmented hours,
and a further chill fell on her happy mood.
Yet she was glad at least to be there to welcome
the old folks when they came, and in any case
they could not be very far.  Every jolt of the
trap must be bringing them nearer to the net
which she was spreading so lovingly for their
feet.  They would be tired, of course, and
probably very cross, but May was used to
market-day moods and would not care.  With
affectionate ruthlessness she told herself that
would yield to her all the sooner for being
tired.  Presently they would agree unwillingly
that she might have her way, and then she
would hurry home again as if on wings.  They
would be crosser than ever after she had gone,
vexed both with her and themselves and
terribly touched in their pride.  And then,
slowly but surely, the hope that she had forced
upon them would begin to race its stimulant
through their veins.  They would lie down
to sleep with a secret gladness that they had
not the courage to confess, and would wake
in the morning and know that the world had
been made for them anew.

She kept stopping the rush of her thoughts to
send her senses over the marsh, but no sign
of life came back to her, or sound of wheel or
hoof.  The wide stretches of grass and plough
and the long length of road seemed almost as
unsuggestive of human influence as the sands
themselves.  Swifter and swifter faded the
passionate confidence which had sent her out,
leaving the risks of the matter uppermost in
her mind.  She remembered that it was possible
to be patient all one's life, and yet to wreck the
fruits of it in an unguarded hour.  This sudden
mental and physical rashness might be
symbolical of a greater rashness of the soul.
Perhaps after to-night all her footholds and
anchorages might go, leaving the world that she had
managed so bravely only a nightmare blurred
by tears.

The dusk thickened about her as the night
tried to impress itself on the earth as a separate
entity from the mist.  The most that it could
do, however, was to produce the effect of a
hovering shadow from some huge arrested wing.
The real warning of night was in the deepened
sense of loneliness and dread of personal diminution
in a growing space, in the further recession
of things unseen as well as seen.  It lay, too, in
the stirring consciousness of the impending
advent of the tide.  She began to look anxiously
towards her father's window for the lamp, and
though she was comforted when she saw no
sign, it stamped the illusion of desolation on her
mind.  Then she heard the cattle stir in the
shippon as she walked along the wall, and was
cheered and companioned by them for a little
while.  She would have gone down to them,
or to the dog, who was always a firm friend,
but she was afraid of losing her consciousness
of time.  She could not tear herself, either, from
her breathless waiting for the silence to fill with
life.  She was cold whether she stood or walked,
and more and more oppressed by a sense of
folly and grave doubt.  She even laughed at the
middle-aged woman who had thrilled like a girl,
but she laughed between her tears.  Once or
twice she ran down the bank and on to the
sand, but always something drew her back,
and at last, when she had listened so long that
she had ceased to hear, there came the crunching
sound of the Thornthwaite wheels.  It was there
suddenly where there had been no sign, as if
it had only begun at the moment it reached her
ear.  At once her courage sprang up again, and
her spirits rose.  The whole affair was sweet and
brave once more.  It was as if she had heard her
lover himself coming surely towards her over
the lonely marsh....





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   III

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Simon uttered an exclamation when he saw
the figure on the wall.  His heart leaped
first with a supernatural fear, and then with
a sudden foreboding of some normal ill.  His
nerves were still unstrung from his experience
with the car, and ready enough to shape familiar
objects into ghosts.  Even when he had
recognised May and spoken her name, he could not
rid himself of his feeling of alarm.

So he was not pleased to see her when she
came running down, and Sarah, who had spent
so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased
either.  In the last few miles she had seemed
to travel out of human touch, and there was a
jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one
thing left to her to love.  Her brow contracted
both with the effort of thought and the effort
of sight, but indeed she knew well enough why
May was there.  Her intuition had worked
uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now.
She knew what impulse had brought May out
to await their coming home.

Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden
appearance at his journey's end.  He sat still
in the trap as she came swiftly through the
yard, and then leaned out to address her with
an anxious frown.

"Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin'
here so late?  Nowt wrong, is there?  Father
badly again?  Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"

She reassured him with a shake of the head
and a smile, and, as in the case of Mr. Dent, he
felt a sudden resentment towards smiles.  In
all his life Simon had never encountered so many
smiling faces as had looked at him that day.

"All's right, thank you....  Father's much
about the same.  I wanted a word with
Mrs. Thornthet, that was all.

"You've been a terble while on the road,
though!" she added gaily, before he could
speak.  "I'd about made up my mind as I'd
have to be getting back."

"We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it
was," Simon said, remembering suddenly and
with gloom the precise circumstances under
which they had been kept.  "But if you nobbut
wanted a word wi' the missis, you could surely
ha' waited while morn.  It's a daft-like trick
to be lakin' on t'sands when it's getting dark."

His words made her turn again to throw a
glance at the inn, but still there was no
summoning gleam from the room upstairs.  "Ay,
but tide isn't till six," she answered him
coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't be long.
Father'll show a light for me when it's time I
was setting off."

Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already
clambered out, and Simon remembered that he
had the horse to stable and the cows to milk
and feed.  "Danged foolishness, that's what it
is!" he growled, as he scrambled down, giving
May a very unaccustomed scowl.  "If I did
as I ought, I'd be skifting you pretty sharp.
Say what you've gitten to say, and then clear out!"

Sarah had been moving away from them
towards the house, but, as May followed her, she
swung about.  There was no invitation,
however, in her rigid face.

"You've nowt to say as I know on," she said
in a curt tone, "and I'm rarely tired.  Anyway,
there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of
a chat."

"I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed,
advancing towards her, full of kindly warmth.
She had been prepared for some such reception
as this, and was not depressed.  "What, I've
been across that often, it's the same to me as
the road!  I've been over when it was snowing,--ay,
and by moonlight, too.  As for Geordie," she
added, with a tender laugh, "he's crossed in the
pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where
he was at!

"I was bound to ask you again before I slept,"
she urged, casting a glance at Simon, busy with
the horse.  "Can't I come in a minute?--I
won't be long.  It's late to be telling my business
in the yard."

"You've no business wi' me," Sarah said
stolidly, "so you can stop off yon weam voice.
You're not coming into Sandholes to-night,
May Fleming, so that's flat!"

May laughed again, but there was less confidence
in the laugh.  She waited to speak again
until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping
and barking under the horse's nose.

"It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to
bother you so late, but I just couldn't bring
myself to wait.  It was you as brought it all
back, Mrs. Thornthet, come to that, with yon
talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming home!"

"There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said
coldly, "and never was."  With one magnificent
sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the
afternoon.  "You ought to ha' more sense than to
go fancying things like that!"

"But you'd a letter, you said, begging his
fare?"  May was slightly bewildered, but
went pressing on.  "You said he was keen to
come, if he had the brass."

"Ay, and there wasn't no brass; so yon's
finished and by wi'," Sarah said.

"Ay, but there is," May pleaded.  "Plenty
o' brass!"  She faltered a little before the
other's lack of response.  "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet,
don't you look like that!  What does it
matter where it comes from if it makes folks glad?"

"I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my
lass, as I said before."

"I can spare the brass right enough,--if it's
only that."

"Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it,"
Sarah said.

"Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my
happiness!" May begged.  "I'd be real proud
to think as I'd brought him back, even if he
never looked aside at me again."

"You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll
be bound!" There was a touch of weary
impatience in Sarah's voice.  "And what-like
happiness would it be for you in the end?  Nay,
May, my girl, we've thrashed the matter out,
and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."

May sighed, and stood looking at her with
troubled eyes, but she was unable to let the
whole of her hope go.

"I'm right sorry to have put you about,"
she said sadly.  "It's a real shame!  Can't you
promise to think it over a bit?  I'll come over
to-morrow for another talk."

"I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's
flat!" Sarah snapped.  "I'll promise to turn
key in the door when I see you coming, and
that's all!"

The tears came into May's eyes.

"You've no call to go telling me off like that,"
she said, with a little break in her voice.  "I
haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure."

"You've shoved your nose into other folks'
business," Sarah said roughly,--"that's what
you've done!  I'll thank you to leave us to do
for our lad as'll suit us best!"

"He was mine, too!" May flung at her
suddenly, roused at last.  "Long ago,
maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"

Sarah gave a sneering laugh.

"There'll be more than one lass, I reckon,
setting up to think that!"

May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart.

"Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!"
she exclaimed, in a voice quivering
with pain.  "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie
again, but it don't make that much difference
now.  It's for your sake and poor Mr. Thornthet's
that I want to see him back....

"You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went
on bravely, controlling herself again.  "You
like me well enough now, whatever you felt once.
Can't you take the money for the sake of bygone
times?"

But already Sarah had turned away from her
and was moving towards the door.  She fitted
the key in the lock with the ease of use, and
gave the rickety door an opening push.  And
again May followed and stood, strong in the
courage of those who plead for the thing that
they have at heart.

"Don't go away feeling mad with me,
Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged.  "I'm sorry I spoke
as I did.  Think on how happy we were together,
this morning, you and me.  Think how it would
be if he was to come marching into the yard...."

Sarah was now over the threshold, with her
hand against the door, but May's hand was also
against it, refusing to let it close.  Her face was
white as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading
and sweet with frank lips and tearful eyes.
Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house,
a shadow that was yet more surely a block than
the actual door.  It seemed to May that she had
all the passionless resistance of some ancient,
immovable stone.  A lantern across showed the
black squares of the shippon stalls, the white
coats of the beasts and Simon moving from
dark to light.  May did not know that the old
woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that
that last sentence of hers had broken the
stubborn will.  She waited despairingly, seeking for
more to say, and finding nothing, since the right
word had been said.  And because she despaired
she broke the pause too soon, in an access of
hopelessness flinging away her chance.  Taking
her hand from the door, she pointed to Simon
at his job.

"I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried
sharply, beginning to move away.  "Happen
he'll see to it for me instead of you.  Happen
he'll see the offer's kindly meant, and not let
pride and suchlike stand between!"

But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone
a yard, her voice harsh with wrath and a sort
of fear.

"You leave Simon be," she cried fiercely,--"let
him be!  I've had enough o' your worry,
without plaguin' him an' all.  You get back
to your dad, and don't come interfering again.
You came between me and my lad, but you
shan't meddle wi' my man!  You mean well
enough, I don't doubt, but you're nobbut a
meddler, all the same.  It never does to go
shoving kindnesses at folk who keep on saying
nay.  If you force 'em, you do 'em more harm
than good in the long run, by a deal.  D'you
think I want Geordie coming back in rags, as
like a tramp on t'roads as a couple o' peas?
D'you think I want a drunken do-nowt loafing
about t'spot,--a thief, maybe, or happen
summat worse?  What sort o' food and drink would
yon be to Blindbeck, d'you think?  Eliza's
gitten enough on her tongue, without the likes
o' that!  Nay, the lad as went was a limb,
but he was bonny and smart, and Eliza'll always
think of him like yon.  She'll always think
in her heart as he was the better o' Jim, for
all she talks so loud.  But if he come back to
shame us, it'd rob me even o' that.  I couldn't
abide it!" she finished vehemently.  "It'd
be worse than death.  I'd rather the sea took
him afore ever he reached home!"

She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the
door, creaking abruptly, showed that her
weight was heavy on the latch.  May stood still
in the yard, as still as the shadow that had
once again turned to ancient stone.  The silence
that had fallen between them seemed to push
her away, to drive them so far apart that never
again would they be able to speak.  At last,
in that terrible outpouring, May had
discovered the real barrier to her desire.  There
were pride and generosity in the way, but there
was also something which she could not fight.
The monstrous, lifelong obsession of Eliza had
slopped even the natural road to a mother's heart.

Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than
had taken her on the sands.  In the quiet spot
that should have been homely because of the
moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a
hint of something not quite sane.  Things that
had no place in the life of the soil seemed
suddenly to have forced a passage in.  She
peered into the darkness of Sarah's mind, as her
bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.

She was startled into action again by the old
dog's nose thrust kindly into her hand.  He had
listened to the urgent voices with constantly
pricked ears, knowing by instinct that
somebody suffered and was afraid.  Now he came
to May, begging her to take charge of her soul,
lest he, too, whose only trust was in Man,
should suffer fear.  She laid her hand for a
moment on the warmth of his head, dropping
her gaze to meet his upturned eyes.  Instantly,
however, as if he had brought her a further
message, she looked towards the bay, and saw
the lamp in her father's window spring to life.

She was loth to go with this wreck of things
at her feet, but in her destitution of heart she
was afraid to stay.  Armed with the promise,
she would have cared nothing for dark or tide,
but with this weight at her heart it seemed as
if it would take her all the night to cross the
sand.  She tried to believe that she would
return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she
knew well enough that she would never return.
Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant in their
spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across
her path.

She wondered drearily what had become of
the passionate certainty with which she had
set out.  The sea still sundered her lover and
herself, the bar of the sea so much greater than
any possible stretch of land.  There were people
to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and
perhaps, without knowing it, she was one of those.
She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that
it had taken her first hope.  Perhaps it mocked
at her love as Sarah had mocked her love.
Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do
her harm....

She made one last entreating movement
towards the shadow that was stone, but nobody
moved in the darkness and nobody spoke.  She
could not be sure at that moment whether
Sarah was there, or whether all that she begged
of was merely blackened space.  Then she began
by degrees to move away, wrenching her feet,
as it were, from the ground of the yard.  Sadly,
without looking back, she mounted the
sea-wall, bowed by her burden of failure and sorrow
and self-contempt.  But the fear took her again
as soon as she faced the sands, and she hurried
down the further side.  The good angel of the
Thornthwaites fled away into the night as if
driven by flails.





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.. _`GEORDIE-AN'-JIM`:

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   PART IV

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   GEORDIE-AN'-JIM

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   I

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The blackness stirred in the doorway and
became human again, setting the door
to the jamb with a firm, decisive push.  Sarah
followed the dark stone passage to the kitchen,
moving with freedom on the ground she knew.
In the bare, silent room, that seemed at the same
time barer and yet more peopled because of the
dusk, she took off her old mantle, her shabby
bonnet and her black thread gloves.  She set a
lighted candle on the table in the middle of the
room, and from the cupboard by the hearth she
took paper and wood, and kindled a pale,
unhomely glow in the dusty, ash-filled grate.  In
the outer darkness that was the scullery she
filled the kettle, and brought it to wait the
reluctant patronage of the fire.  It was not yet
night over the sands, but the candle was more
than sufficient to quench the fainting effort of
the day.  The only outside light was the steady
glow of the lamp, set in the face of the inn to
call its daughter home.

Still, however, the house seemed unaroused,
and would remain so until the master came in,
because those who live much by themselves do
not hear the sound of their own feet.  They
seem to themselves to move like ghosts through
the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they
hear about the place.  And there are no houses
so quiet as those which spend half their days
hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea.  The
other half of their lives is still as the sands
are still, sharing that same impression of
quittance for all time.

The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already
beginning to show signs of Sarah's failing sight.
There were holes in the cloth rug which she
unrolled before the fire, and slits in the
patch-work cushions on the rush-bottomed chairs.
The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all
askew, and the battered pewter and brass had
ceased to put in its claim to be silver and gold.
There was an out-of-date almanack under the
old clock, and an ancient tide-table over the
mantelshelf.  But the real tragedy of the place
was not in its poverty but in its soul.  Behind
the lack of material comfort there was a deeper
penury still,--the lack of hope and a forward
outlook and a reason for going on.  The place
was cold because the hearts of its tenants were
growing cold.

The candle, as always, drove the impression
of utter desolation home.  No other light
produces that same effect of a helpless battle
against the dark.  No other is so surely a symbol
of the defiant human soul, thinking it shines
on the vast mysteries of space.  No other shows
so clearly the fear of the soul that yet calls its
fear by the name of courage and stands straight,
and in the midst of the sea of the dark cries to
all men to behold that courage and take heart.

All about that little challenge of light were the
brooding obscurities of sand and marsh, and,
nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty
house.  At the back of the mind there was
always the consciousness of unlit rooms, of
echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs.
Always at night there is that mystery of terror
in a half-used house, pressing on those who
crouch in some charmed corner of its walls.

Sarah was different, somehow, now that she
was at home, and free of the outdoor-clothes
which she had worn all day.  It was as if bonnet
and mantle were the armour of her class, in
which she was ready to face the offensive of the
world.  Without it she was more primitive and
more human, relaxed in muscles and nerves.
Now one could guess at the motherliness in her
to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting
in spite of her dislike.  Her grey hair had been
slightly ruffled both by the bonnet and the
drive, and on her old neck it even curled a little,
showing itself still soft and fine.

She was tired with that terrible tiredness
which sees the day behind like a series of
folding cardboard views.  She seemed to have
lived many days in that single day, with never
a moment between them to fit her for the
next.  More than once, indeed, she had been
ready to collapse, but always the stimulus
of some fresh event had set her going again.
Now she had reached the point when she was
too tired to allow herself to be tired, when body
and mind, usually careful to save the next day's
strength, recklessly lay both hands upon their all.

Even at the last moment had come the sudden
struggle with May, and the zest of that strife
still tingled in her veins.  After that long
day of damaged pride it was pleasant to have
asserted it in the end, to have claimed the right
to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed.  All
day she had tasted in prospect the salt savour
of another's bread, but here was something that
she could refuse.  She was still too stiff with
fight to care that she had wounded a generous
nature in the act.  It was true that she could
not have borne the sight of a Geordie who would
have brought her fresh disgrace.  The love that
cares for the broken more than the sound
could not thrive while she feared the sneer of
the idol to whom she would not bow.

Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound
of metalled boots, and the pails spoke musically
on the flags as Simon set them down.  She
heard him shuffling across to open the inner
door, and then--"Milk's in, missis!" he
called to her, as his head came through.

There was a nervous sound in his voice, at
which Sarah almost smiled, knowing that his
conscience must be ill at ease.  She answered
"Oh, ay," without turning, for she was busy
with the fire, which, as if hating the atmosphere
into which it was born, was doing its best to
escape from it again.

"I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said,
crossing to her side.  "Set you down and be
easy a bit.  You're likely tired."

"Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested
stolidly, and then suddenly yielded to him,
and moved away.  She did not sit down,
however, but remained standing on the hearth,
while he went on his knees to set the bellows
between the bars.

"May give me a fair start," he observed
presently, when the flame had consented to
grow.  "What was she after, coming off like that?"

"Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily,
in an indifferent tone.  "It was nobbut some
daftness she'd got in her head, that's all."

"She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across
so late.  Was it summat or other she wanted you
to do?"

"Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see
my way.  I tellt her so this morning when I see
her in town."

"Summat about your eyes, likely?" he
enquired nervously, blowing hard.

"Losh save us, no!  It was nowt to do wi' that."

"Will was rarely put out when I tellt him
what doctor had said," Simon went on.  "He
was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do
what he could."

"Ay, he's kind, is Will.  He's a right good
friend.  But I won't take owt I can help from
him, all the same."

"Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon
asked angrily, stumbling to his feet.  He threw
a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed
resigned to its now evident fate.  He was sorry
for Sarah, and guiltily conscious of his own
relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his
mind to rage.  This was nothing new, though,
either to man or wife, after the usual meeting
at the end of the week.  However long they had
held their tongues from her name, it was
suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at once
with the rising tremolo of their hate.

"Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it,
any way round?  Will's money's his own, I
reckon, and he can do as he likes.  Happen
you'll choose to see sense about it come
Judgment Day, but not afore!"

"A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we
all know that.  You can't touch a man
wi'out laying a finger on his folks."

"A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed,
"barrin' giving him best of her tongue!  I'll
be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass
if you and Eliza was friends.  It's this spite as
there is atween you as sets you taking things
amiss.  Eliza would likely ha' been no worse
than most, if you hadn't made sure she was
always wanting a slap!"

Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile.

"Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think,"
she asked, "if I'd nobbut seen my way to a
bit more care?"

"Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that,"
he returned grandly, hedging with ease.  "But
we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if
you hadn't been that smart to take offence."

"Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue,
when she was telling all Witham we'd gitten
notice to quit?"

"Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He
was stamping about the floor.  "A bit o' tact
wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't
know! ... Leastways, you needn't ha' tellt
her yon rubbish this afternoon," he concluded,
brought to a stand.

"You'd have had me set by and say nowt
while she sneered at our lad?"

"Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I
wouldn't, that's flat!"

"You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon
day we was wed,--give her a kiss, happen, and
praise her gown----?"

"Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you!  Blast
you!  Nowt o' the sort!"  Simon was fairly
shouting now.  He thumped at the table in his
rage.  "I wish to Gox I could ha' gitten my
hands round her throat wi'out having to swing!"

Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the
same ironic smile.

"Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that
wi' Eliza, by a deal.  D'ye think I haven't
gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then?
I've had my knife in her deep,--ay, deep!--time
and again.  There's better ways wi' Eliza
than just twisting her neck.  What, this very
day I've made her weep tears as she's never
wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as
Eliza'll ever weep...."  She stopped, recalling
the scene in which Nature had shone like a star
in Eliza just for once....  "Nay, Simon," she
went on quietly, "there's no sense in our
getting mad.  It's over late to go preaching
love atween Eliza and me.  Men don't know what
hate can be between women when it's gitten
hold.  It's a thing best let alone,--never
mentioned,--let alone.  It's a big thing, caged-like,
as was small once, and then comes full-grown.
It's over late to go trying to stroke it through
the bars."

"I nobbut wanted to make the best o'
things," Simon muttered, ashamed.  "The
Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog
of Eliza just for once.  But I'm not denying
I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up.  I
reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks.
I'm right sorry, though, if you're taking it hard."

"I'll take it right enough when it's here,"
Sarah said gently, turning away.  "I won't
make no bother about it, don't you fret."

She picked up the kettle and set it on the
fire, as if she meant to put an end to the talk.
Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances
at her face.

"I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he
said at last, and lighted the old lantern that
swung against the wall....  "Yon's tide,
surely?" he added suddenly, as he took it
down....  "Nay, it's over soon."

He lifted the lantern to look at the table
above the shelf, but Sarah shook her head.

"Yon's an old table, think on.  It's no use
looking there.  Tide's six o'clock, it you want
to know."

He said, "Oh, ay.  I'd clean forgot," and
still stood on the hearth, as if reluctant to go.
Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern
in his hand.

"It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down
like this.  I don't know as I like it myself, but
it's worse for you.  But we've been right kind
wi' each other all these years.  You'll not think
shame on me when I'm a hired man?"

She turned back to him, then, trying to see
his face, and it seemed to him that she really
saw him for the first time in many months.
But, in point of fact, it was the eyes of the
mind that were looking at the eyes of the
mind....  And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile.

"Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you
mun be wrong in t'garrets to think that!  If
there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like
yon.  You're the same lad to me as when we
was wed, just as Eliza's the same cruel, jibing
lass.  I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if
it come to that.  Love and hate don't change,
neither on 'em, all our lives.  D'you think I'd
ha' kept my hate so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"

He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began
slowly to edge away.  But before he had reached
the threshold he paused again.

"Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he
cried triumphantly, as if inspired.  "Eliza's
had what looks most, but we've had the real
things, you and me!"  And then, as she did
not speak, the spirit died in him, and his head
drooped.  "Ay, well, we mun do what we can,"
he finished lamely.  "We mun do what we can.
'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for either on us,
after all."

"Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added
diffidently, but was refused.

"Nay," Sarah said.  "I can manage right
well.  I know they milk-pans better than my
face.  I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."

Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!"
and looked at the door; and stared at the
door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again.
He had an uneasy feeling that he ought to stay,
but there was that job in the far shippon he
wanted to do.  He wandered uncertainly towards
the outer door, and then, almost as if the
door had pushed him, stumbled into the yard.





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   II

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Sarah stood thinking after Simon had
gone, following with ease the troubled
workings of his mind.  The smile came back to
her lips as she recalled his obvious sense of guilt.
Behind all his anger and chafing humiliation it
was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief.
It was more than likely, indeed, that he would
be priding himself on his new position before
so long.  Perhaps age, which has a merciful as
well as a cruel blindness of its own, might
prevent him from ever realising where he stood.
She could picture him lording it over the
gentler-natured Will, and even coming in time
to dominate the farm.  It was only for her that
there would be no lording it,--and open sight.
It was only on her account that he was still
ashamed.

It was cruel to grudge him the little solace
he had left, but the thing which eased the
position for him would form a double cross for
her.  Hitherto, they had stood together in their
hatred of Blindbeck and its female head, and in
the very depth of their darkness still had each
other to soothe their shame.  But now Simon's
attitude was bound to alter at least towards the
farm.  There would come a day when he would
turn upon her for some chance remark, and from
that hour he would be openly on Blindbeck's
side.  The new tie would make him forget those
bitter upheavals of jealous rage.  Slowly the
place would come between them until she was
left to hate alone.

For her, the change would simply deliver her,
blind and bound, into Eliza's hand.  She could
have laughed as she saw how the thing she had
fought against all her life had captured her at
last.  Even with Eliza dead or gone, Blindbeck
would still have stifled her as with unbreathable
air.  Her spirit and Eliza's would have lived their
battles again, and even over a grave she would
have suffered and struggled afresh.  But Eliza
was neither dead nor mercifully removed, but
was already snuffing the battle-smoke from afar.
The whole account of their lives would come up
in full, and be settled against the under-dog for
good.  It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that
she would go to the house by Blindbeck gates.

At the present moment, however, she neither
suffered nor rebelled.  Physically, she had
reached the point at which the mind detaches
itself resolutely from further emotional strain.
The flame of hate burnt steadily but without
effort, and with almost as pure a light as the
flame of love itself.  Like all great passions, it
lifted her out of herself, lending her for the time
being a still, majestic strength.  There is little
to choose at the farthest point of all between the
exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of
hate.  To the outside eye they show the same
shining serenity, almost the same air of smiling
peace.  It is the strangest quality in the strange
character of this peculiarly self-destroying sin.
Because of it she was able to go about her
evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to
Simon in the little scene which had just passed,
and even to dwell on his methods with a
humorous smile upon her lips.

In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose
sharply before her, covering all the years, yet
remaining aloof as pictures, and never stirring
her pulse.  So clear they were that they might
have been splashed on the canvas that instant
with a new-filled brush.  They sprang into being
as a group springs under the white circle of a
lamp, as the scenes the alive and lit brain makes
for itself on the dark curtain of the night.  The
few journeys she had taken in life she travelled
over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and
Yorkshire ... Grasmere ... Brough Hill
Fair.  They had stayed in her mind because of
the slow means by which they were achieved,
but they counted for very little in the tale
of things.  It is not of these casual experiences
that the countryman thinks when the time comes
for a steady reviewing of his life, that intent,
fascinated returning upon tracks which is the
soul's preparation for the next great change.
They flit to and fro, indeed, like exotic birds
against a landscape with which they have
nothing to do, but it is the landscape itself
which holds the eye, and from which comes the
great, silent magic that is called memory, and
mostly means youth.  It is the little events
of everyday life that obsess a man at the last,
the commonplace, circular come-and-go that
runs between the cradle and the grave.  Not
public health problems, or new inventions, or
even the upheavals of great wars, but marriage,
birth and death, the coming of strangers destined
to be friends, the changing of tenants in houses
which mean so much more than they ever mean
themselves.  Binding all is the rich thread of
the seasons, with its many-coloured strands;
and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of
Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of
beauty growing ever more complex and yet
more clear, more splendid and yet more simple
as the pulses slow to a close.

She loved the plain, beautiful farming life
that a man may take up in his hand because it
is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain
run even from end to end.  Even now she could
see the fair-haired child she had been still
running about her home, the child that we all
of us leave behind in our sacred place.  She
could hear the clatter of clogs in her father's
yard, and all about her the sound of voices
which the daisied earth had stopped.  It was
strange, when she came to think of it, that she
never heard her own.  In all her memories of
the child it seemed to her lip-locked, listening
and dumb.  Perhaps it was because she was
shut in the child's brain that she could not hear
it speak.  She could hear her mother's voice,
light and a little sharp, and her father's a deep
rumble in a beard.  Even in the swift pictures
flashing by her he looked slow, drifting with
steady purpose from house to farm.  Because
of his slowness he seemed to her more alive
than his wife; there was more time, somehow,
to look at him as he passed.  Her bustling,
energetic mother had become little more than
a voice, while the seldom-speaking man was
a vital impression that remained.

Rising up between the shadows that blotted
them out was a certain old woolly sheep-dog
and the red torch of the flowering currant
beside the door.  There was also a nook in the
curve of the garden wall, where, under a young
moon, she had seen the cattle coming across
the fields, sunk to their horns in a fairy-silver
mist....

It was an open-air life that took her long
miles to school, clogging on frozen roads,
through slanting rain or fighting against the
wind.  School itself seemed patched in a rather
meaningless fashion on that life, much as the
books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking
house.  A life of constant and steadily
increasing work, from errands of all sorts, feeding
the hens and fetching home the cows, to the
heavier labour of washing and baking, milking,
helping with the stock.  Presently there had
been the excitement of the first shy dance, and
then the gradual drawing towards marriage as
the tide draws to the moon.

And all the time there had been Eliza making
part of her life, from the plump little girl whom
people stopped to admire to the bold intruder
at the altar-rail.  Looking back, she could see
herself as a stiff and grave-eyed child, grimly
regarding the round-faced giggler from the
start.  Even then she had always been the
dumb man in the stocks, of whom the street-urchin
that was Eliza made mock as she danced
and played.  Only once had she ever definitely
got the better of her, and it had had to last her
all her life.  Eliza had had many lovers, drawn
by the counterfeit kindliness which hid her
callous soul, but when she had chosen at last, it
was Simon who was her choice.  Perhaps the
one gleam of romance in Eliza's life had been
when she looked at Simon ... and Simon
had looked away.  Quite early he had fixed his
affections on Sarah, and during their long
courtship he had never swerved.  Plain, business-like
Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon
draws the willing tide....

She began to put away the things she had
bought in Witham, stowing them in a cupboard
between the pot-rail and the door.  During the
morning she had felt royally that she was buying
half the town, but now she saw how small her
share of the marketing had been.  There was
a troubled feeling at the back of her mind that
something had been missed, and even though
she was sure of her purchases, she counted
them again.  Afterwards, she stood muttering
worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a
reel of cotton ... and the rest.  And then,
suddenly, without any help from the candles
and cotton, she remembered what it was, and
smiled at the childish memory that would not
stay asleep.

More than twenty years, she reminded
herself,--and yet she still looked for the fairing
that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas
Day!  There had scarcely been any special
season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or
Mid-Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by
some frolicsome gift.  He had always withheld
it from her until the last, and then had stood
by her laughing while she unwrapped some
foolish monkey on dancing wires.  All the time
he was saying how splendid the fairing was
going to be,--"It's gold, mother, real gold,--as
bright as the King's crown!"  And when
she had opened it, she would pretend to be cast
down, and then put it snugly away and say it
was "real grand!"

Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she
was trying her very hardest not to remember
those.  Jim's had been prettier and more
thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long
since forgotten what the things were like.  A
mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a
brooch,--long ago broken or lost, or even given
away.  But every ridiculous object of Geordie's
was under lock and key, with even a bit of
camphor to keep the monkey from the moth....

She stood there smiling, softly folding her
hands, as if she laid them lightly over some
sudden gift.  On either side of her was a laughing
face, and even she found it hard to tell which
was which.  She was very still as she made that
perfect transition into the past, and the only
sound in her ears was through the lips that
laughed.  And then, into that full stillness, in
which no step moved or voice called or bird
flew, there came the cry of a heron outside the door.





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   III

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It did not reach her at first.  She heard it,
indeed, coming back to the present with the
sound, but that Was all.  The thing behind it
had to travel after her over twenty years.  The
cry of the heron was natural enough, with a
famous heronry so near, and it was only because
of the exceptional stillness of the night that it
drew her attention now.  Her mind went
mechanically to the high wood behind the Hall,
to the long-necked, slender-legged birds going
home to the tall trees that on this unstirred
evening would be stiff as a witch's broom.  She
even had time to remember the old legend of
their battle with the rooks, before the thing that
had been running for twenty years entered her
consciousness with a rush.

She stiffened then.  From being softly still
she became a rigid thing, stiller than sleep,
stiller than death, because it was passionate
will-power that held her still.  It was already
a moment or two since the sound had passed,
but it still rang in the ear which had seemed to
refuse to take it in.  It had flashed through her
brain like a bright sword flung in a high arc
through a night without a star, but the truth
that was behind it she held rigidly from her
even as it tried to step within.  She knew that
it was too low for a bird's call, too sharp and
clear in that muffle of mist, but she shut the
knowledge out.  She would not let herself either
breathe or think until she had heard the sound again.

The shock was as great the second time, but
it had a different effect.  She began to tremble
from head to foot; even her lips parted and
shook; her hands relaxed and began to pluck
at her gown.  Her breath came in quick gasps
that were almost sobs as her eyes strained
towards the darkness that held the door.  Her
brain kept telegraphing her body that it must
be still, but it was too strong for it, and paid no
heed.  Her heart alone, beating in hard, ponderous
strokes, seemed as if by itself it must shut
out any further sound; and when the call came
the third time, breaking the silence so that it
could not close again, her own power of restraint
went by the board as well.  Her hands lifted
themselves and gripped each other across her
breast, and her voice, shaken and full of tears,
forced itself into her throat.  "Jim!" she
heard herself saying, "Jim!"--with no knowledge
that she had meant to speak, and in that
one word admitted the final defeat of all her life.

Then the knocking began, the terrible brazen
knocking which soulless iron makes on the
unresponsive door of an empty house.  It was
as if whoever knocked frightened himself by
the knocking, and tried to beat away his fear
with still louder blows.  But to the woman
who tried to pretend that the house was really
empty it was more terrible still.  It seemed to
take on the sound of a summons to the soul itself
to issue forth.  The noise of it flooded the place,
echoed its way upstairs and into far rooms, so
that strange voices answered it sharply from
wood and stone.  The heavy, storm-tried walls
were suddenly no more than paper, so that the
knocking became folly when a push would have
forced them in.  It seemed to Sarah that they
must hear it from end to end of the marsh,
across at the 'Ship,' and out to the hidden edge
of sea.  She wondered why Simon did not come
running, and the dog break into hoarse barks,
for even in the far shippon they must surely
hear.  But there was only that great knocking
in all the world, cheerful, impatient, or resigned
by turn.  It paused at moments, but only as the
passing-bell pauses, Sarah thought, waiting to
speak its single word afresh.

The noise had swept away in a moment both
the false serenity of hate and the almost falser
calm of that dwelling memory of love.  From the
respite, indeed, the live passion seemed to have
sunk, as it were, on its haunches for a fiercer leap.
She could not think clearly or control her limbs
under the sudden impact of its spring.  It
seemed to fling itself on her as she had seen the
tides in the winter crash against the wall.  She,
too, went under as if the water had beaten her
down, and the noise at the door became the
blows of the waves and the roar of the dragged beach.

She had that impulse to laughter which comes
with long-expected woe, as if the gods were
guilty of bathos when they stooped at last to
strike.  Scorn is the first sensation of those who
seem to have watched the springs of action long
before the hour.  Sudden sorrows, quick blows
have a majesty of their own, as if the gifts of the
gods made for honour in good or ill.  But
long-deferred trouble, like suspended joy, has a
meaner quality in fulfilment, and a subtle
humiliation in its ache.  That when the gods
come they come quickly is true for both libations
from the emptied cup.  Royal sorrows, like
royal joys, fall swift as thunderbolts from heaven.

She had always known in her heart that there
was no fighting Blindbeck luck, that even the
dregs of it were more potent than the best of
the Sandholes brand.  It could hardly fail to
reach even across the sea, so that one of the
failures would be less of a failure than the other
in the end.  The trouble of being the under-dog
too long is that even the dog himself begins
at last to think it his rightful place.  For all her
dreaming and lying on Geordie's behalf, she
would have found it hard to believe in his
ultimate success.  Not for nothing had Eliza
carefully tended her Method all this while, and
watered it weekly with the Simons' tears.

At first she told herself that she would put
out the light, and let the knocker knock until
he was tired.  Perhaps he would open the door
and step inside, but the darkness would surely
thrust him out again.  He might even go to the
foot of the stairs and call, until the silence itself
put a hand upon his throat.  But already the
strain was more than she could bear, and each
blow as it came was a blow on her own heart.
She tried to move, but was afraid of the sound
of her own feet, and it was only under the cover
of fresh knocking that she made the effort at
last.  Now she was facing the door which she
could not see, though she knew its panels like
the palm of her hand.  Behind it, she felt the
knocking ring on her brain, but now she had
come within range of a more persistent power
than that.  Plainly, through the wooden barrier
that was raised between them, she felt the
presence of the man who stood without.

There is always an effort, a faint dread, about
the opening of a door, as if the one who entered
were admitted to more than a room.  From
each personality that enters even for a moment
into one's life something is always involuntarily
received.  The opening is only a symbol of the
more subtle admission of the two, which leaves
an intruder behind when the actual bodily
presence has passed away.  And of all openings
there is none that includes such realisation and
such risk as that which lets in the night and a
stranger's face.

And then suddenly the knocking ceased, as if
the knocker was now as aware of her presence
as she of his.  They were like enemies, crouched
on either side of a barricade; or like lovers, so
near and yet so far, in the last, long second
before the bars are down.  Each waited for a
breath, a touch, a turn of the hand that would
bring the flash of the final blow or the thrill
of the first kiss.

Their consciousness of each other was so
strong that she knew at once when he lifted his
arm again, just as he knew when she stirred in
fear of the fresh attack.  The latch gave its
loose, metallic clink as she raised it and let it
drop, and then the door began to open with
the almost human grudging of old doors.  The
stranger put out a hand to help it on its way,
and with a harsh shriek that sounded like
protest it dragged across the flags.

At once the bulk of his big form was in the
open square, substantial even in the dissolving
light.  There was a last pause as the shock of
the actual meeting smote upon their minds, and
then his voice, cheerful and loud as the
knocking, flooded the house.

"Everybody dead here?" he demanded
gaily, bending forward to peer at the figure set
like a statue just inside.  The tone of his voice,
deep and kindly, had yet a touch of nervousness
at its back.  The strain of the waiting had told
upon him as well as on her.  "Say, you *are* real,
ain't you?" he enquired sharply, and then
laughed.  "Mercy!  I sure thought everybody
must be dead!"

Sarah had another shock at the sound of his
voice, topped by the accent from over the pond
as the deep note of flood is topped by the
thinner note of the surf.  She had listened
instinctively for the Jim-an'-Geordie voice, but
this was the voice of neither Geordie nor Jim.
It was as strange to her who knew nothing of
other peoples' speech as if it had been a voice
from another star.  She shrank away from him,
saying--"I thought it was Jim."  And then,
almost violently, "You're never Jim!"

The man laughed a second time, but more
naturally, as if reassured the moment he heard
her speak.  "I sure am!" he answered her
joyfully.  "Why shouldn't I be?  Leastways,
I'm all of Jim Thornthet that's managed to
swim across!"  The smile stayed on his lips
as he stared, but died when she did not respond.
"May I come in a spell?" he enquired
anxiously.  "I've only struck England to-day,
and I've a bag of news."

But again she blocked the entrance as she had
blocked it for May.  It was the way into herself
as well as into the house that these people
sought, and she yielded to neither of them by an
inch.  "You can get out, if you're Jim," she
said caustically, "and as smart as you like!
Blindbeck's your spot.  We want nowt wi' you here."

The sharp words did not depress him, however.
They were too reminiscent of old time.

"That's a real mean Howdy!" he answered
her humorously, advancing a foot.  "'Tisn't
like Westmorland folk to keep folk tugging at
the latch....  Shucks for Blindbeck!" he
added laughingly, as she began the word again.
"Sandholes is my little old home,--always was,
and always will be."  He advanced further, a
merry, teasing note in his big voice.  "You
can't keep me out, old woman!  You never
could.  I'm coming right in, old woman! ... I'm
sure coming....  I'm right in!"

It was true, too.  He was in the passage now,
making his way by a force of desire stronger
than May's entreating love.  Something else
helped him as well, perhaps,--some old extorted
freedom of house and board.  He put out his
hand to Sarah as he turned to the light, but she
shrank away from him against the wall.

"I won't have you in t'house!" she cried
angrily to his dim form.  "Be off with you now,
and look sharp about it!"

But again he seemed to be pleasantly cheered
by her wrath, as if with a happy echo from the
past.

"I'll shin off right quick when I've had a
word," he coaxed.  "Come on in, old woman,
and look at me where there's a bit more sun!"  The
flickering light seemed to beckon him on,
for he began to move towards its dim dwelling.
"I've news of Geordie for you," he called back
to her, as she did not stir.  "You'll sure be
wanting to hear that!"

She heard him pass into the kitchen, his firm,
confident tread raising a ring from every flag,
and wondered, as with the knocking, why it
did not carry all over the marsh.  But still she
stayed behind, fighting with herself and with the
longing to hear his news.  It could be of nothing
but failure, she reminded herself, and her
heart answered that that would be better than
nothing at all.  She heard him walking about
the kitchen, as if he walked from this memory
to that, peering into old cupboards and laying
a hand upon old chairs.  Presently, however,
there came a silence as if he had seen enough,
and, in a sudden panic lest he should be gone,
she hurried after him into the room.

At once, as she went in, she traced the shape
of him on the hearth, though she could not see
his huge shadow that climbed the ceiling and
swamped the wall.  Clearly, too, she could feel
his dominant personality all about, too heady a
wine for the frail, cob webbed bottle of the place.
Paused on the hearth, he was still looking
around him with a wistful, humorous smile.  He
was thinking, as all think who return, how
strong and yet how slender was the chain, how
futile and yet how tenacious were the humble
things which had held him through the years!
He was thinking, too, how amazingly tiny
everything had grown,--the house, the kitchen,
and the old woman within the door.  Even the
stretch of sand, which he could vaguely see,
seemed narrow to him who had known much
greater wastes.

He turned his smiling eyes suddenly to Sarah's face.

"How's the old man, by the way?  Still
keeping uppermost of the weeds?"

"He's nobbut middlin', that's all," she forced
herself to reply.

"Is he anywhere about?"

"Like enough ... but you needn't wait."

"I'd like a chin with him, all the same!"  He
hugged himself as he stood on the hearth, and
his huge shadow hugged itself on the wall.  The
same mischievous sound crept back into his
voice.  "I'm mighty glad to see you again,
old woman, I am that!  Perhaps you'll feel like
slinging me a smile or two after a bit."

"Eliza'll smile, I'll warrant, if you've nobbut
a pound or two in your poke."

"I have that--sure!"  He slapped his coat
as he spoke, laughing a great laugh which shook
her as cruelly as his knock.  "It's up to me to
keep my pockets stitched, nowadays," he
finished, in a contented tone.

"I'm main glad to hear it," she said sardonically,
and he nodded gaily.

"That's real nice of you, old woman!  You
can keep right on.  You'd a terrible down on
me in the old days, hadn't you now?"

"I've no use for you, Jim Thornthwaite,
and never had.  You know that as well as me."

"That's so!"  He laughed again.  "But I
was always mighty fond of *you*."  He made
a movement as if to cross to her side, but she
backed instantly, as if she guessed.  "Of
course, you'd a deal rather it had been
Geordie," he said.  "I know that.  But he was
never much of a sparkle in the family tarara,
and that's honest.  I left him serving in a
store,--poor lad Geordie,--and hankering like honey
after the old spot!"

"And you left him behind," Sarah flung at
him,--"you wi' brass?"

"He wouldn't take a red cent.  I looked him
up as soon as I struck it rich, but he was
always set on hoeing his own row.  He'd have
taken it from his own folks, but he wouldn't
from me.  Guess it was Blindbeck hate in him
coming out at last!  But if ever he'd had the
dollars, he'd have been home before you could
hear him shout."

"He's best where he is," Sarah said coldly,
repenting her charge.  Eliza's son should not
see that she grudged or cared.  "Them as
makes beds can likely lie on the straw."

"Well, Blindbeck luck still holds, anyway!"
Jim smiled.  "See here!"  He put his hand in
the great-coat that seemed to hide from her that
he was a creature of flesh and blood, and
instantly she heard the rustle of notes.  He opened
the big pocket-book under the light, running his
hand over the clean slips with joyous pride.
"Don't that talk?" he said cheerfully.
"Doesn't it sure talk?" and in spite of her
resolve she shrank from the crisp,
unaccustomed sound.

"Good enough, eh?" he demanded warmly,--"and
there's plenty more behind!  That's
only to pass the time o' day with, so to speak.
Guess it'll do for a fairing for my old mother,
that's about all."  He snapped the elastic again
and flung the book on the table, so that it slid
across within Sarah's reach.  Lifting his eyes
he met her gaze fixed blindly upon his face,
and his brow contracted as he puzzled over that
hard, unrecognising stare.

"Can't we sit down for a spell?" he asked her
coaxingly, turning back to the hearth.  "I feel
real unwanted, standing on my hind legs."

"Eliza'll be waiting on you," Sarah said,
through a stiff throat.

"She's waited twenty years."  He laid a
hand on a chair, and pulled it nearer to the
warmth.  It protested violently when it felt
his weight, but he settled himself snugly, and
did not care.  The fire, as if heartened at sight
of him on the hearth, changed its cold yellow
for a crimson glow.

"It's good to be home," he said happily,--"good
as a Sunday-school, treat,--sure!"  He
pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to fill
it meditatively, with quiet hands....  "Now,
if it had been Geordie that had struck it rich, it
would have been a real hum for you, wouldn't it,
old woman?  Guess I feel real mean, for your
sake, that it's only me.  Guess I could almost
wish it was Geordie out and out!"

He leaned forward with the firelight on his
face, looking at her with the same smile that was
like a hand that he reached out.

"He was always making a song," he said,
"about what he'd do when he struck it rich.
'I'll be off home that slick you'll hear the
bump,' he used to say, 'and I'll be planning
all the way how I'll burn the cash!'  I'd like to
buy the farm for the old dad;--guess Squire'd
part all right if I could pass him enough.  As
for the old woman, there's just no end to what
I'd do,--glad rags and brooches, and help all
round the house.  It'd be just Heaven and
Witham Gala, playing Providence to the old
woman! ... That's what I want my brass for,
when I strike it rich!'"

"A fool's dream!" Sarah said.

"A fine fool's dream."

"Them as dreams over much likely never does
nowt else."

He leaned forward still further, the smile more
urgent on his lips.  "There was only one thing
used to fret him," he went on, "and he spent
a powerful lot of time thinking about it, and
wearing himself thin.  'S'pose she don't know
me when I sail in?' he used to say.  'S'pose
I'm that changed I might as well be any other
mother's son as well as hers?  There's a mighty
pile o' years between us,--big, terrible years!
I'd sure break my heart if she didn't know me
right off, even if I'd grown a face like a
pump-handle and a voice like a prize macaw!  But
I guess I needn't trouble,' he used to say,
'because mothers always know.  I've got that
slick by heart,--they always know.'"  He
waited a moment, and then pressed on, with a
note that was like alarm.  "Say, he was right,
wa'n't he?"--he asked anxiously,--"dead
right?  It's a sure cinch that mothers always
know?"

The force of his demand seemed almost to
shake the obstinate figure so cynically aloof.
It was as if he were prompting her to something
that she knew as well as he, but would not admit
for some reason of her own.  Even after he had
stopped speaking the demand seemed to persist,
and she answered at last with a cold smile
on her hard face.

"Nay, my lad," she said sneeringly, "you
needn't put yourself about!  Eliza'll be fain to
see you, wherever you got your brass.  She'll
know you well enough, never fret, wi' yon pack
o' cards in your hand!"

His smile died as if she had struck him,--the
whole laughing pleasure of him died.  "I
worked for it honest," he said in reply, but his
voice sounded dull and tired.  Even in the dusk
she might have seen the spirit go out of him, the
lines in his face deepen, his head sink, his
shoulders droop.  The merry boy that had come
into the house was gone, leaving the stern man
of middle age.  Sarah could not see what she
had done to him, but she could feel the change.
Scenes with Jim in the old days had always
ended much as this.  Many a time he had come
to her full of affection and fun, and in a few
moments she had slain them both.  He had
looked up at her with hurt eyes that still laughed
because they couldn't do anything else, and had
held to his old cry--"I'm *your* lad *really*, Aunt
Sarah,--same as Geordie is!"

He sat for a few minutes staring at the floor,
his pipe with its filled bowl hanging idly from
his hand.  He seemed to be adjusting himself
to new ideas, painfully making room for them
by throwing overboard the old.  Then he rose
to his feet with a half-sigh, half-yawn,--and
laughed.  Sarah heard him, and started,--it
was so like the old-time Jim!  But though she
might have winced in the old days, it did not
trouble her now.  If she had had no tenderness
for the scapegrace lad she was not likely to pity
the grown, successful man....  Without
looking at her again he went across to the window
and stared out.  The pane swung open wide on
its bent rod, and not a breath of wind troubled
its buckled frame.  Across the vanished sands
the light still glowed from the 'Ship,' red on
the dark that seemed like a mere dissolution of
everything into mist.

"Old Fleming still at the 'Ship'?" he
enquired, keeping his back turned.  "And
May?"  His voice warmed again on the little
name.  "May's married this many a year, I guess!"

"Nay, not she!" Sarah said.  "She's not
wed, nor like to be."  Unconsciously she
relaxed a little.  "She was always terble sweet on
Geordie, was May."

The man looking out smiled at the light as if
it had been a face.  He spoke low, as if speaking
to himself.

"I'd sure forgot!"

"I reckon she's waiting for him yet, but I
doubt she'll wait till the Judgment, and after
that!"

"She was always a sticker, was May...."  He
swung round, cheerful again, though lacking
the ecstasy with which he had come in.  "Sweet
on Geordie, was she?  Well, I guess a live
dog's better than a dead lion!  I'll hop across
for a chin."

"You'll loss yourself, crossing t'sand."

"I've crossed it every night in my dreams!"  He
came back to her, with his face tender again,
the thin flame of the candle showing his pleasant
eyes and kindly lips.  "Say, though!" he
added anxiously.  "I can come back?"

"Best bide at t' 'Ship.'"

"But I'd a deal rather sleep here!"

"Well, you wain't, and that's flat!"

"There's Geordie's bed, ain't there?" he
urged her, in pleading tones.  "I'll lay you've
kept it fixed for him all along!"

"Ay,--for Geordie!" said Geordie's mother,
setting her mouth.

"Couldn't you kinder think I was Geordie once
in a while?"

"Nay."

"Not for a mite of a minute?"  His voice shook.

"Nay, not I!"

He lifted his shoulders, and let them droop
again.  "I'm sure coming back, though!" he
finished, in his persistent way....  "Stop a
shake, though!  What about the tide?"

His eyes turned from old custom to the table
over the hearth, and, crossing over to it, he
struck a light.  The silver box in his hand
flashed a tiny scintilla on the dusky air.  He
looked up at the table, but he did not see it,
the match dwindling above his brooding face.

"You might ha' been just a mite glad to
see me!" he exclaimed wistfully, stamping
it out upon the flags.  "Why, you'd never
ha' known me from Adam if I hadn't given you
the call!  It'll give me the knock right out if
May don't know me neither when I sail in.  They
say sweethearts don't forget, no more than
mothers, but perhaps it's all a doggoned lie!"

"She was Geordie's lass,--not yours!" Sarah
told him, with jealous haste.

"Sure!" he said with a smile, and struck a
second match.

Now he looked at the table in earnest, but
only for a space.  "Saturday," she heard him
murmuring, in an absent voice.  "Martinmas,
ain't it? ... Tide at ten...."

She made a movement forward and put out
her hands.

"Nay, but yon's never----" she began; and stopped.

"Eh, old woman?"

"Nay, it's nowt."

"It's Saturday, ain't it?"

"I reckon it is."

"Saturday's my day for luck," she heard him
saying, as the match died down.  "I've got a
cinch on Saturdays, that's sure!"  The gaiety
in his tone was only a mockery of what it had
been before.  "Tide at ten, eh?--and it's six,
now."  He drew his watch from his pocket and
gave it a glance.  "Well, so long!  I'll be right
back!"

To both the moments seemed endless in which
he moved across the floor.  His look dwelt upon
her in a last effort to reach her heart, and then
lingered about the room on the dim fellowships
of his youth.  But even Geordie himself could
hardly have touched her in that hour.  The
strongest motive that had ruled her life had her
finally by the throat.

Yet she called to him even as he went, afraid,
woman-like, of the sound of the shut door.
"Jim!" she flung after him.  "Jim, lad! ... Jim!"

"Say!  Did you call?"  He was back again on wings.

"Nay ... it was nowt."  She indicated the
pocket-book within reach of her hand.  "You'd
best take yon truck along wi' you an' all."

Even in his disappointment he was still able
to smile.  "It don't need a safe between it and
a Thornthet, I guess!" was all he said.  In
that moment, indeed, the money was nothing
and less than nothing to them both.  Sarah was
honest to the core, and never remembered once
that dead men tell no tales and that the sea
does not betray....  The thing that had
conquered her soul was at least also above that.

"Ten, wa'n't it?" he asked, drifting
reluctantly out again.  His voice came from further
away, like the gull's voice from the sky.  "So
long!  Cheero!  I'll be back again with the tide...."





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   IV

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She heard rather than felt the silence
re-enfold the house, like the swish of a curtain
softly tumbled down.  She was vividly on the
alert for every change in the brooding quiet, but
she was not afraid of the inevitable sound that
must shortly break it again.  To herself she
seemed to be shut into the very heart of things,
where everyone knows his secret hiding-place
to be.  Nothing could hurt her there, because
it was shut away from pain.  Neither remorse
nor fear could touch her in that calm.

Yet all the time her mind had followed the
man who had gone out, hearing the thud of his
feet on the sandy ground, and seeing the bulk
of him huge on the sea-wall.  The sound of his
feet would be sharper on the beach, but when he
got to the sand it would be muffled as if with
cloths.  When he came to the channel he would
stand and hail, and the light from the 'Ship'
would lie on the water like a road....

But never to-night or in all time would he
get as far as the bank.  Suddenly, as he walked,
he would hear a whisper out of the west.  It
would mean nothing to him at first, nor the wind
feeling along his cheek.  He would only say to
himself that the trees were astir on the far
point.  Then he would hear a noise like a coming
shower, and lift up his face to meet the first
of the rain.  But the sound that came after
would come running along the sand, until every
rib was vibrating its message to his feet.  When
he knew what it was, he would stand perfectly
still, and then he would spring in the air and
start to run.  But, run as he might, he would
never reach the shore, or stand on the gold road
that would take him over to May.  The white
tide-horses were swifter far than he; their
unshod hoofs would outrun his heavy boots.  The
sweeping advance-water would suddenly hem
him in, swirling before his feet and shooting
behind his back.  He would run this way and
that in the dark, but it would be no use.  He
would run and run, but it would never be any use....

From complete detachment she passed
gradually to a comforting sense of quittance
and ease.  It was as if a burden that she had
carried all her life had been cut away, so that
she could lift up her head and look in front of
her and breathe free.  The sickening jealousy was
gone, the gnawing pain at her heart, the fierce
up-swelling of decimating rage, the long,
narrowed-down brooding of helpless hate.  Never
again would she be able to see herself as the
poor relation fawning at Eliza's skirts.  The
thing had been done at last which paid Eliza
in full.

She had, as she came back within range of
feeling again, one last, great moment of exultant
pride.  She seemed to herself actually to grow
in size, to tower in the low room as the shadow
of the home-comer had towered over ceiling and
wall.  Into the hands of this oppressed and
poverty-stricken woman there had suddenly
been given the heady power of life and death,
and the stimulant of it was like wine in her
thin blood, making her heart steady as a
firm-blown forge.  She felt strong enough in that
moment to send every child of Eliza's out to its
death in the maw of the Night Wave.  She felt
an epic figure poised on the edge of the world,
heroic, tremendous, above all laws.  Indeed, she
seemed, as it were, to be the very Finger of God
itself....

And then faintly the exultation sank;
dimmed, rather, as on a summer day the
sharpness goes out of the high lights on lawn
and wall.  The sun is not gone, but the farthest
and finest quality of it is suddenly withdrawn.
In some such way a blurring of vivid certainties
came upon her brain.  A breath of wind was
blown sharply through the open window, and
with a touch of surprise she found that she was
cold.  The fire, so lately encouraged by the
visitor's presence, had died sulkily into grey
clinkers tinged with red that had no more
warmth to it than a splash of paint.  The candle,
on the other hand, had sprung into a tall
flame from a high wick.  It was as if it was
making a last effort to illumine the world for
the woman over whose mind was creeping that
vague and blurring mist.

With the slackening of the mental tension
her physical self slackened, too.  She began
to rock to and fro, muttering softly as she
swayed.

"Blind thoughts in a blind body's brain!"
she was saying to herself....  "Ay, it's about
time.  A blind night and a blind tide....  Ay,
it's about time...."

And yet through the blind night and with her
blind sight she still saw the figure swinging over
the sands, broad, confident, strong, as were
all at Blindbeck,--successful and rich.  Always
her mind kept close at its back, seeing the solid
print of it on the air, feeling the muscular
firmness of its tread, and hearing the little
whistled tune that kept escaping between its
teeth....

Suddenly she raised her voice, as if addressing
somebody a long way off.

"What d'you want wi' a bed as'll never sleep
in bed again?  Nay, my lad, you'll have nowt
but churchyard mould! ... Yon's if they find
him, when the tide comes in.  There'll be a
bonny fairing for Eliza when the tide comes in!"

She stopped abruptly as Simon clattered into
the room, holding herself motionless by a final
effort of will.  He glanced uneasily at the still
figure, the unspread table and the dead fire,
but he did not speak.  He was still conscious
of guilt and ready to make amends, even to the
extent of going supperless to bed.  Outside the
door, he had felt curiously certain that Sarah
was not alone, and even now he looked into
corners for figures that were not there.  Coming
in from the dark on the marsh, his instinct had
told him instantly that the atmosphere had
changed, but the knowledge faded once he was
well inside.  He wondered whether anything
had been done with the milk, but did not like
to ask, and, setting the still-lighted lantern
on the floor, stooped to unloose his boots.

"All yon talk about Geordie's fair give me
the jumps!" he remarked suddenly, with an
embarrassed laugh.  "I could ha' sworn I
heard his voice as I was snecking shuppon
door!"

She did not answer, and with an inward curse
at his own foolishness he bent lower over his
boots.  "Another o' yon big tides," he went on
hurriedly, when the thongs were loosed.  "It's
sharp on t'road now.  I could hear it as I come in."

Even as he spoke the room was suddenly filled
with the sound of the sea.  Before the majesty
of the coming presence the whole house seemed
to cringe and cower.  Sarah felt the room swing
round with her, and caught at the table, gripping
the edge of it until her very fingers seemed of wood.

"There it be!" Simon said, raising himself.
"It's big, as I said."  He clanked across to the
window as he spoke, the laces slapping and
trailing on the flags, and again, as he put his
face to the square, the wind that blows before
the tide stirred mightily through the room.
Far-off, but coming fast, they could hear the
messenger from the deep, sweeping its garment
over the head of the crouched waste, as it
sped to deliver its challenge at the locked gate
of the sea-wall.

Sarah had still control over her actual body,
but no more.  With Simon's entrance she had
realised herself again, and knew that she was
weak and old, with a mind that had got beyond
her, and cried and ran to and fro as Jim would
run when he heard the Wave.  Always she
seemed to herself to be close at his back, but
now she ran to warn him and stumbled as she
ran.  She flung out her arms towards him in an
aching passion to hold him close, and in that
moment felt the truth drop, stilly, into her
whirling brain.  He turned his face towards her
swiftly as they went, and for all its likeness it
was not Jim's face.  She saw him swept and
helpless in the swirl of the tide, and in the dark
and the tumult knew that the precious body
was not Jim's.  She saw him borne in the
stillness of morning to the haunted Tithe-Barn
where all the drowned were laid, and by the
light of the truth that there is between living
and dead knew she had always known it was
not Jim....

"I hope May's gitten back," Simon was
saying anxiously, as he peered out.  "I hope
she's landed back...."  Presently he leaned
further, and gave a sigh of relief.  "Ay,--there
goes Fleming's lamp!"

Instantly, as the light went out, there came
from the sands a whistle and then a cry.  Simon
spun round, saying, "What's yon?" with a
frightened look, and when the call came again
he snatched the lantern from the floor.  The
third call came suddenly faint, as if its author
were running towards the tide, and with a
harsh cry a gull swept white and huge beyond
the pane.  Simon fell back at the sight of it,
crying aloud, and throwing his arm before his eyes.

But at the same moment Sarah burst her
bonds.  "Geordie, Geordie!" she screamed,
and ran frenziedly to the door.  "Nay, it's
over now," she finished, falling back against the
wall.  "Gang out and seek our fairing,
master,--mine and thine!"

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