The longest journey

rase

University of California • Berkeley
A Gift of the Hearst Corporation

The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey

BY

E. M. FORSTER

AUTHOR OF 'WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MCMVII

FRA TRIB US.

Contents

PART I.

PAGE

CAMBRIDGE ..... 1

PART II.
SAWSTON ..... 185

PART III.

WILTSHIRE ..... 287

THE LONGEST JOUBNEY.

PART I.— CAMBRIDGE.

" The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match
and holding it out over the carpet. No one
spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell
off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow.
There, now."

"You have not proved it," said a voice.

"I have proved it to myself."

" I have proved to myself that she isn't,"
said the voice. "The cow is not there." Ansell
frowned and lit another match.

"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't
care whether she's there for you or not. Whether
I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow
will be there."

It was philosophy. They were discussing the
existence of objects. Do they exist only when
there is some one to look at them? or have they
a real existence of their own? It is all very

A

2 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

interesting, but at the same time it is difficult.
Hence the cow. She seemed to make things
easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely
the truths that she illustrated would in time be-
come familiar and solid also. Is the cow there
or not? This was better than deciding between
objectivity and subjectivity. So at Oxford, just
at the same time, one was asking, "What do
our rooms look like in the vac?"

"Look here, Ansell. I'm there — in the meadow
— the cow's there. You're there — the cow's there.
Do you agree so far?"

"Well?"

"Well, if you go, the cow stops; but if I go,
the cow goes. Then what will happen if you
stop and I go?"

Several voices cried out that this was
quibbling.

"I know it is," said the speaker brightly, and
silence descended again, while they tried honestly
to think the matter out.

Rickie, on whose carpet the matches were
being dropped, did not like to join in the dis-
cussion. It was too difficult for him. He could
not even quibble. If he spoke, he should simply
make himself a fool. He preferred to listen, and
to watch the tobacco-smoke stealing out past the
window -seat into the tranquil October air. He
could see the court too, and the college cat teas-
ing the college tortoise, and the kitchen -men
with supper -trays upon their heads. Hot food
for one — that must be for the geographical don,
who never came in for Hall ; cold food for three,
apparently at half-a-crown a head, for some one
he did not know; hot food, a la carte — obviously

CAMBRIDGE. 3

for the ladies haunting the next staircase ; cold
food for two, at two shillings — going to Ansell's
rooms for himself and Ansell, and as it passed under
the lamp he saw that it was meringues again.
Then the bedmakers began to arrive, chatting to
each other pleasantly, and he could hear Ansell's
bedmaker say, " Oh dang ! " when she found she
had to lay Ansell's tablecloth ; for there was not a
breath stirring. The great elms were motionless,
and seemed still in the glory of midsummer, for
the darkness hid the yellow blotches on their
leaves, and their outlines were still rounded
against the tender sky. Those elms were Dryads
— so Rickie believed or pretended, and the line
between the two is subtler than we admit. At
all events they were lady trees, and had for
generations fooled the college statutes by their
residence in the haunts of youth.

But what about the cow? He returned to her
with a start, for this would never do. He also
would try to think the matter out. Was she
there or not? The cow. There or not. He
strained his eyes into the night.

Either way it was attractive. If she was
there, other cows were there too. The darkness
of Europe was dotted with them, and in the far
East their flanks were shining in the rising sun.
Great herds of them stood browsing in pastures
where no man came nor need ever come, or
plashed knee -deep by the brink of impassable
rivers. And this, moreover, was the view of
Ansell. Yet Tilliard's view had a good deal in
it. One might do worse than follow Tilliard,
and suppose the cow not to be there unless
oneself was there to see her. A cowless world,

4 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

then, stretched round him on every side. Yet
he had only to peep into a field, and, click ! it
would at once become radiant with bovine life.

Suddenly he realised that this, again, would
never do. As usual, he had missed the whole
point, and was overlaying philosophy with gross
and senseless details. For if the cow was not
there, the world and the fields were not there
either. And what would Ansell care about sun-
lit flanks or impassable streams? Rickie rebuked
his own grovelling soul, and turned his eyes
away from the night, which had led him to
such absurd conclusions.

The fire was dancing, and the shadow of Ansell,
who stood close up to it, seemed to dominate
the little room. He was still talking, or rather
jerking, and he was still lighting matches and
dropping their ends upon the carpet. Now and
then he would make a motion with his feet as
if he were running quickly backward upstairs,
and would tread on the edge of the fender, so
that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-
bun dishes crashed against each other in the
hearth. The other philosophers were crouched
in odd shapes on the sofa and table and chairs,
and one, who was a little bored, had crawled to
the piano and was timidly trying the Prelude to
Rhinegold with his knee upon the soft pedal.
The air was heavy with good tobacco - smoke
and the pleasant warmth of tea, and as Rickie
became more sleepy the events of the day seemed
to float one by one before his acquiescent eyes.
In the morning he had read Theocritus, whom
he believed to be the greatest of Greek poets ;
he had lunched with a merry don and had tasted

CAMBRIDGE. 5

Zwieback biscuits ; then he had walked with
people he liked, and had walked just long enough ;
and now his room was full of other people whom
he liked, and when they left he would go and
have supper with Ansell, whom he liked as well
as any one. A year ago he had known none of
these joys. He had crept cold and friendless
and ignorant out of a great public school, pre-
paring for a silent and solitary journey, and
praying as a highest favour that he might be
left alone. Cambridge had not answered his
prayer. She had taken and soothed him, and
warmed him, and had laughed at him a little,
saying that he must not be so tragic yet awhile,
for his boyhood had been but a dusty corridor
that led to the spacious halls of youth. In one
year he had made many friends and learnt much,
and he might learn even more if he could but
concentrate his attention on that cow.

The fire had died down, and in the gloom the
man by the piano ventured to ask what would
happen if an objective cow had a subjective calf.
Ansell gave an angry sigh, and at that moment
there was a tap on the door.

" Come in ! " said Rickie,

The door opened. A tall young woman stood
framed in the light that fell from the passage.

" Ladies ! " whispered every one in great agita-
tion.

"Yes?" he said nervously, limping towards
the door (he was rather lame). "Yes? Please
come in. Can I be any good "

"Wicked boy!" exclaimed the young lady, ad-
vancing a gloved finger into the room. "Wicked,
wicked boy!"

6 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

He clasped his head with his hands.

" Agnes ! Oh how perfectly awful ! "

"Wicked, intolerable boy!" She turned on the
electric light. The philosophers were revealed
with unpleasing suddenness. "My goodness, a
tea-party ! Oh really, Rickie, you are too bad !
I say again : wicked, abominable, intolerable boy !
I'll have you horsewhipped. If you please" — she
turned to the symposium, which had now risen
to its feet — "If you please, he asks me and my
brother for the week-end. We accept. At the
station, no Rickie. We drive to where his old
lodgings were — Trumpery Road or some such
name — and he's left them. I'm furious, and be-
fore I can stop my brother, he's paid off the cab
and there we are stranded. I've walked — walked
for miles. Pray can you tell me what is to be
done with Rickie ? "

" He must indeed be horsewhipped," said Tilliard
pleasantly. Then he made a bolt for the door.

"Tilliard — do stop — let me introduce Miss Pem-
broke— don't all go ! " For his friends were flying
from his visitor like mists before the sun. "Oh,
Agnes, I am so sorry; I've nothing to say. I
simply forgot you were coming, and everything
about you."

" Thank you, thank you ! And how soon will
you remember to ask where Herbert is?"

"Where is he, then?"

"I shall not tell you."

"But didn't he walk with you?"

"I shall not tell, Rickie. It's part of your
punishment. You are not really sorry yet. I
shall punish you again later."

She was quite right. Rickie was not as much

CAMBRIDGE. 7

upset as he ought to have been. He was sorry
that he had forgotten, and that he had caused
his visitors inconvenience. But he did not feel
profoundly degraded, as a young man should
who has acted discourteously to a young lady.
Had he acted discourteously to his bedmaker or
his gyp, he would have minded just as much,
which was not polite of him.

"First, 111 go and get food. Do sit down and
rest. Oh, let me introduce "

Ansell was now the sole remnant of the dis-
cussion party. He still stood on the hearthrug
with a burnt match in his hand. Miss Pem-
broke's arrival had never disturbed him.

" Let me introduce Mr Ansell — Miss Pembroke."

There came an awful moment — a moment when
he almost regretted that he had a clever friend.
Ansell remained absolutely motionless, moving
neither hand nor head. Such behaviour is so
unknown that Miss Pembroke did not realise
what had happened, and kept her own hand
stretched out longer than is maidenly.

"Coming to supper?" asked Ansell in low,
grave tones.

"I don't think so," said Rickie helplessly.

Ansell departed without another word.

"Don't mind us," said Miss Pembroke pleas-
antly. "Why shouldn't you keep your engage-
ment with your friend? Herbert's finding lodg-
ings, — that's why he's not here, — and they're
sure to be able to give us some dinner. What
jolly rooms you've got!"

"Oh no — not a bit. I say, I am sorry. I am
sorry. I am most awfully sorry."

"What about?"

8 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" Ansell " Then he burst forth. " Ansell isn't

a gentleman. His father's a draper. His uncles
are farmers. He's here because he's so clever —
just on account of his brains. Now, sit down.
He isn't a gentleman at all." And he hurried
off to order some dinner.

"What a snob the boy is getting!" thought
Agnes, a good deal mollified. It never struck
her that those could be the words of affection —
that Rickie would never have spoken them about
a person whom he disliked. Nor did it strike
her that Ansell's humble birth scarcely explained
the quality of his rudeness. She was willing to
find life full of trivialities. Six months ago and
she might have minded ; but now — she cared not
what men might do unto her, for she had her own
splendid lover, who could have knocked all these
unhealthy undergraduates into a cocked-hat. She
dared not tell Gerald a word of what had hap-
pened : he might have come up from wherever he
was and half killed Ansell. And she determined
not to tell her brother either, for her nature was
kindly, and it pleased her to pass things over.

She took off her gloves, and then she took off
her ear-rings and began to admire them. These
ear-rings were a freak of hers — her only freak.
She had always wanted some, and the day Gerald
asked her to marry him she went to a shop and
had her ears pierced. In some wonderful way
she knew that it was right. And he had given
her the rings — little gold knobs, copied, the
jeweller told them, from something prehistoric —
and he had kissed the spots of blood on her hand-
kerchief. Herbert, as usual, had been shocked.

" I can't help it," she cried, springing up. " I'm

CAMBRIDGE. 9

not like other girls." She began to pace about
Rickie's room, for she hated to keep quiet. There
was nothing much to see in it. The pictures
were not attractive, nor did they attract her —
school groups, Watts' " Sir Percival," a dog
running after a rabbit, a man running after
a maid, a cheap brown Madonna in a cheap
green frame, — in short, a collection where one
mediocrity was generally cancelled by another.
Over the door there hung a long photograph of
a city with waterways, which Agnes, who had
never been to Venice, took to be Venice, but
which people who had been to Stockholm knew
to be Stockholm. Rickie's mother, looking rather
sweet, was standing on the mantelpiece. Some
more pictures had just arrived from the framers
and were leaning with their faces to the wall,
but she did not bother to turn them round. On
the table were dirty teacups, a flat chocolate
cake, and Omar Khayyam, with an Oswego biscuit
between his pages. Also a vase filled with the
crimson leaves of autumn. This made her smile.
Then she saw her host's shoes: he had left
them lying on the sofa. Rickie was slightly
deformed, and so the shoes were not the same
size, and one of them had a thick heel to help
him towards an even walk. " Ugh ! " she ex-
claimed, and removed them gingerly to the bed-
room. There she saw other shoes and boots and
pumps, a whole row of them, all deformed. " Ugh !
Poor boy ! It is too bad. Why shouldn't he be
like other people? This hereditary business is
too awful." She shut the door with a sigh.
Then she recalled the perfect form of Gerald,
his athletic walk, the poise of his shoulders, his

10 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

arms stretched forward to receive her. Gradually
she was comforted.

" I beg your pardon, miss, but might I ask
how many to lay?" It was the bedmaker, Mrs
Aberdeen.

"Three, I think," said Agnes, smiling pleas-
antly. "Mr Elliot '11 be back in a minute. He
has gone to order dinner."

" Thank you, miss."

" Plenty of teacups to wash up ! "

"But teacups is easy washing, particularly Mr
Elliot's."

"Why are his so easy?"

"Because no nasty corners in them to hold
the dirt. Mr Anderson — he's below — has crinkly
noctagons, and one wouldn't believe the differ-
ence. It was I bought these for Mr Elliot. His
one thought is to save one trouble. I never
seed such a thoughtful gentleman. The world, I
say, will be the better for him." She took the
teacups into the gyp room, and then returned
with the tablecloth, and added, "if he's spared."

"I'm afraid he isn't strong," said Agnes.

" Oh, miss, his nose ! I don't know what he'd
say if he knew I mentioned his nose, but really I
must speak to some one, and he has neither father
nor mother. His nose ! It poured twice with
blood in the Long."

"Yes?"

"It's a thing that ought to be known. I as-
sure you, that little room ! . . . And in any case,
Mr Elliot's a gentleman that can ill afford to
lose it. Luckily his friends were up ; and I
always say they're more like brothers than any-
thing else."

CAMBRIDGE. 11

"Nice for him. He has no real brothers."

"Oh, Mr Hornblower, he is a merry gentleman,
and Mr Tilliard too ! And Mr Elliot himself likes
his romp at times. Why, it's the merriest stair-
case in the buildings ! Last night the bedmaker
from W said to me, 'What are you doing to
my gentlemen? Here's Mr Ansell come back 'ot
with his collar flopping.' I said, 'And a good
thing.' Some bedders keep their gentlemen just
so ; but surely, miss, the world being what it
is, the longer one is able to laugh in it the
better."

Bedmakers have to be comic and dishonest.
It is expected of them. In a picture of uni-
versity life it is their only function. So when
we meet one who has the face of a lady, and
feelings of which a lady might be proud, we
pass her by.

"Yes?" said Miss Pembroke, and then their
talk was stopped by the arrival of her brother.

" It is too bad ! " he exclaimed. " It is really
too bad."

" Now, Bertie boy, Bertie boy ! I'll have no
peevishness,"

"I am not peevish, Agnes, but I have a full
right to be. Pray, why did he not meet us?
Why did he not provide rooms? And pray, why
did you leave me to do all the settling? All the
lodgings I knew are full, and our bedrooms look
into a mews. I cannot help it. And then — look
here ! It really is too bad." He held up his
foot like a wounded dog. It was dripping with
water.

M Oho ! This explains the peevishness. Off
with it at once. It'll be another of your colds."

12 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"1 really think I had better." He sat down
by the fire and daintily unlaced his boot. "I
notice a great change in university tone. I can
never remember swaggering three abreast along
the pavement and charging inoffensive visitors
into a gutter when I was an undergraduate.
One of the men, too, wore an Eton tie. But the
others, I should say, came from very queer
schools, if they came from any schools at all."

Mr Pembroke was nearly twenty years older
than his sister, and had never been as hand-
some. But he was not at all the person to
knock into a gutter, for though not in orders,
he had the air of being on the verge of them,
and his features, as well as his clothes, had the
clerical cut. In his presence conversation became
pure and colourless and full of under state-
ments, and — just as if he was a real clergyman —
neither men nor boys ever forgot that he was
there. He had observed this, and it pleased him
very much. His conscience permitted him to
enter the Church whenever his profession, which
was the scholastic, should demand it.

"No gutter in the world's as wet as this," said
Agnes, who had peeled off her brother's sock,
and was now toasting it at the embers on a
pair of tongs.

"Surely you know the running water by the
edge of the Trumpington road? It's turned on
occasionally to clear away the refuse — a most
primitive idea. When I was up we had a joke
about it, and called it the 'Pern.'"

"How complimentary!"

"You foolish girl, — not after me, of course.
We called it the ' Pern ' because it is close to

CAMBRIDGE. 13

Pembroke College. I remember " He smiled

a little, and twiddled his toes. Then he re-
membered the bedmaker, and said, "My sock is
now dry. My sock, please."

"Your sock is sopping, No, you don't!" She
twitched the tongs away from him. Mrs Aber-
deen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickie's
socks and a pair of Rickie's shoes.

"Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr
Elliot would allow it." Then he said in French
to his sister, " Has there been the slightest sign
of Frederick?"

"Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English.
I found him here. He had forgotten about us,
and was very sorry. Now he's gone to get some
dinner, and I can't think why he isn't back."

Mrs Aberdeen left them.

" He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing
original in absent-mindedness. True originality
lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no
nous. However can I wear such deformities ? "
For he had been madly trying to cram a right-
hand foot into a left-hand shoe.

"Don't!" said Agnes hastily. "Don't touch
the poor fellow's things." The sight of the smart,
stubby patent leather made her almost feel
faint. She had known Rickie for many years,
but it seemed so dreadful and so different now
that he was a man. It was her first great con-
tact with the abnormal, and unknown fibres of
her being rose in revolt against it. She frowned
when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs.

"Agnes — before he arrives — you ought never to
have left me and gone to his rooms alone. A
most elementary transgression. Imagine the un-

14 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

pleasantness if yon had found him with friends.
If Gerald "

Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the
kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn
came — he had had to wait — he had yielded his
place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter.
And he had wasted more precious time buying
bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes
were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and
chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All
the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs
Aberdeen's virtues were not practical. The fish
seemed never to have been alive, the meat had
no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid
forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents.
Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her
brother could not recover himself. He still
remembered their desolate arrival, and he could
feel the waters of the Pern eating into his
instep.

" Rickie," cried the lady, " are you aware
that you haven't congratulated me on my en-
gagement ? "

Rickie laughed nervously, and said, " Why no !
No more I have."

"Say something pretty, then."

" I hope you'll be very happy," he mumbled.
"But I don't know anything about marriage."

" Oh, you awful boy ! Herbert, isn't he just the
same ? But you do know something about Gerald,
so don't be so chilly and cautious. I've just
realised, looking at those groups, that you must
have been at school together. Did you come
much across him?"

"Very little," he answered, and sounded shy.

CAMBRIDGE. 15

He got up hastily, and began to muddle with the
coffee.

"But he was in the same house. Surely that's
a house group?"

"He was a prefect." He made his coffee on
the simple system. One had a brown pot, into
which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before
serving one put in a drop of cold water, and the
idea was that the grounds fell to the bottom.

" Wasn't he a kind of athletic marvel ? Couldn't
he knock any boy or master down ? "

"Yes."

"If he had wanted to," said Mr Pembroke, who
had not spoken for some time.

"If he had wanted to," echoed Rickie. "I do
hope, Agnes, you'll be most awfully happy. I don't
know anything about the army, but I should
think it must be most awfully interesting."

Mr Pembroke laughed faintly.

"Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting
profession, — the profession of Wellington and
Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interest-
ing profession, as you observe. A profession that
may mean death — death, rather than dishonour."

"That's nice," said Rickie, speaking to himself.
"Any profession may mean dishonour, but one
isn't allowed to die instead. The army's different.
If a soldier makes a mess, it's thought rather
decent of him, isn't it, if he blows out his
brains? In the other professions it somehow
seems cowardly."

"I am not competent to pronounce," said Mr
Pembroke, who was not accustomed to have his
schoolroom satire commented on. " I merely
know that the army is the finest profession in

16 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

the world. Which reminds me, Rickie — have you
been thinking about yours?"

" No."

"Not at all?"

"No."

" Now, Herbert, don't bother him. Have an-
other meringue."

"But, Rickie, my dear boy, you're twenty. It's
time you thought. The Tripos is the beginning
of life, not the end. In less than two years you
will have got your B.A. What are you going to
do with it?"

"I don't know."

" You're M.A., aren't you ? " asked Agnes ; but
her brother proceeded —

"I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives
wrecked simply on account of this — not settling
soon enough. My dear boy, you must think.
Consult your tastes if possible — but think. You
have not a moment to lose. The Bar, like your
father?"

" Oh, I wouldn't like that at all."

"I don't mention the Church."

" Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman ! " said Miss
Pembroke. "You'd be simply killing in a wide-
awake."

He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kind-
ness and competence overwhelmed him. "I wish
I could talk to them as I talk to myself," he
thought. "I'm not such an ass when I talk
to myself. I don't believe, for instance, that
quite all I thought about the cow was rot."
Aloud he said, " I've sometimes wondered about
writing."

"Writing?" said Mr Pembroke, with the tone

CAMBRIDGE. 17

of one who gives everything its trial. "Well,
what about writing? What kind of writing?"

"I rather like," — he suppressed something in
his throat, — "I rather like trying to write little
stories."

" Why, I made sure it was poetry ! " said Agnes.
"You're just the boy for poetry."

" I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me
see something? Then I could judge."

The author shook his head. "I don't show it
to any one. It isn't anything. I just try because
it amuses me."

"What is it about?"

" Silly nonsense."

"Are you ever going to show it to any one?"

"I don't think so."

Mr Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the
meringue he was eating was, after all, Rickie's;
secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his jaws
together. Agnes observed that the writing was
really a very good idea: there was Rickie's aunt,
— she could push him.

" Aunt Emily never pushes any one ; she says
they always rebound and crush her."

"I only had the pleasure of seeing your aunt
once. I should have thought her a quite un-
crushable person. But she would be sure to
help you."

"I couldn't show her anything. She'd think
them even sillier than they are."

" Always running yourself down ! There speaks
the artist!"

"I'm not modest," he said anxiously. "I just
know they're bad."

Mr Pembroke's teeth were clear of meringue,

B

18 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

and he could refrain no longer. "My dear Rickie,
your father and mother are dead, and you often
say your aunt takes no interest in you. There-
fore your life depends on yourself. Think it
over carefully, but settle, and having once settled,
stick. If you think that this writing is practic-
able, and that you could make your living by it
— that you could, if needs be, support a wife —
then by all means write. But you must work.
Work and drudge. Begin at the bottom of the
ladder and work upwards."

Rickie's head drooped. Any metaphor silenced
him. He never thought of replying that art is
not a ladder — with a curate, as it were, on the
first rung, a rector on the second, and a bishop,
still nearer heaven, at the top. He never re-
torted that the artist is not a bricklayer at all,
but a horseman, whose business it is to catch
Pegasus at once, not to practise for him by mount-
ing tamer colts. This is hard, hot, and generally
ungraceful work, but it is not drudgery. For
drudgery is not art, and cannot lead to it.

" Of course I don't really think about writing,"
he said, as he poured the cold water into the
coffee. "Even if my things ever were decent, I
don't think the magazines would take them, and
the magazines are one's only chance. I read
somewhere, too, that Marie Corelli's about the
only person who makes a thing out of literature.
I'm certain it wouldn't pay me."

"I never mentioned the word 'pay,'" said Mr
Pembroke uneasily. " You must not consider
money. There are ideals too."

"I have no ideals."

" Rickie ! " she exclaimed. " Horrible boy ! "

CAMBRIDGE. 19

"No, Agnes, I have no ideals." Then he got
very red, for it was a phrase he had caught
from Ansell, and he could not remember what
came next.

" The person who has no ideals," she exclaimed,
" is to be pitied."

"I think so too," said Mr Pembroke, sipping
his coffee. "Life without an ideal would be like
the sky without the sun."

Rickie looked towards the night, wherein there
now twinkled innumerable stars — gods and
heroes, virgins and brides, to whom the Greeks
have given their names.

"Life without an ideal " repeated Mr Pem-
broke, and then stopped, for his mouth was full
of coffee grounds. The same affliction had over-
taken Agnes. After a little jocose laughter they
departed to their lodgings, and Rickie, having
seen them as far as the porter's lodge, hurried,
singing as he went, to Ansell's room, burst open
the door, and said, " Look here ! Whatever do
you mean by it?"

" By what ? " Ansell was sitting alone with a
piece of paper in front of him. On it was a
diagram — a circle inside a square, inside which
was again a square.

"By being so rude. You're no gentleman, and
I told her so." He slammed him on the head
with a sofa-cushion. "I'm certain one ought to
be polite, even to people who aren't saved." (" Not
saved" was a phrase they applied just then to
those whom they did not like or intimately know.)
" And I believe she is saved. I never knew any
one so always good-tempered and kind. She's been
kind to me ever since I knew her. I wish you'd

20 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

heard her trying to stop her brother : you'd
have certainly come round. Not but what he
was only being nice as well. But she is really
nice. And I thought she came into the room so
beautifully. Do you know — oh, of course, you
despise music — but Anderson was playing Wagner,
and he'd just got to the part where they sing

'Rheingold!
Rheingold!'

and the sun strikes into the waters, and the
music, which up to then has so often been in E
flat "

"Goes into D sharp. I have not understood a
single word, partly because you talk as if your
mouth was full of plums, partly because I don't
know whom you're talking about."

"Miss Pembroke — whom you saw."

"I saw no one."

"Who came in?"

" No one came in."

"You're an ass!" shrieked Rickie. "She came
in. You saw her come in. She and her brother
have been to dinner."

" You only think so. They were not really
there."

"But they stop till Monday."

" You only think that they are stopping."

" But — oh, look here, shut up ! The girl like an
empress "

" I saw no empress, nor any girl, nor have you
seen them."

"Ansell, don't rag."

" Elliot, I never rag, and you know it. She
was not really there."

There was a moment's silence, Then Rickie

CAMBRIDGE. 21

exclaimed, " I've got you. You say — or was it
Tilliard ? — no, you say that the cow's there. Well
— there these people are, then. Got you. Yah ! "

"Did it never strike you that phenomena may
be of two kinds : one, those which have a real
existence, such as the cow; two, those which are
the subjective product of a diseased imagination,
and which, to our destruction, we invest with
the semblance of reality? If this never struck
you, let it strike you now."

Rickie spoke again, but received no answer.
He paced a little up and down the sombre room.
Then he sat on the edge of the table and watched
his clever friend draw within the square a circle,
and within the circle a square, and inside that
another circle, and inside that another square.

"Why will you do that?"

No answer.

"Are they real?"

"The inside one is — the one in the middle of
everything, that there's never room enough to
draw."

II.

A little this side of Madingley, to the left of
the road, there is a secluded dell, paved with
grass and planted with fir-trees. It could not
have been worth a visit twenty years ago, for
then it was only a scar of chalk, and it is not
worth a visit at the present day, for the trees
have grown too thick and choked it. But when
Rickie was up, it chanced to be the brief season

22 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

of its romance, a season as brief for a chalk-pit
as a man — its divine interval between the bare-
ness of boyhood and the stuffiness of age. Rickie
had discovered it in his second term, when the
January snows had melted and left fiords and
lagoons of clearest water between the inequalities
of the floor. The place looked as big as Switzer-
land or Norway — as indeed for the moment it was
— and he came upon it at a time when his life too
was beginning to expand. Accordingly the dell be-
came for him a kind of church — a church where
indeed you could do anything you liked, but where
anything you did would be transfigured. Like
the ancient Greeks, he could even laugh at his
holy place and leave it no less holy. He chatted
gaily about it, and about the pleasant thoughts
with which it inspired him; he took his friends
there; he even took people whom he did not
like. " Procul este, profani!" exclaimed a delighted
aesthete on being introduced to it. But this was
never to be the attitude of Rickie. He did not
love the vulgar herd, but he knew that his own
vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it in-
gress, and that it was not by preciosity that he
would attain to the intimate spirit of the dell.
Indeed, if he had agreed with the aesthete, he
would possibly not have introduced him. If the
dell was to bear any inscription, he would have
liked it to be " This way to Heaven," painted on
a sign -post by the high-road, and he did not
realise till later years that the number of visitors
would not thereby have sensibly increased.

On the blessed Monday that the Pembrokes left,
he walked out here with three friends. It was a
day when the sky seemed enormous. One cloud,

CAMBRIDGE. 23

as large as a continent, was voyaging near the
sun, whilst other clouds seemed anchored to the
horizon, too lazy or too happy to move. The
sky itself was of the palest blue, paling to white
where it approached the earth ; and the earth,
brown, wet, and odorous, was engaged beneath it
on its yearly duty of decay. Rickie was open to
the complexities of autumn ; he felt extremely
tiny — extremely tiny and extremely important ;
and perhaps the combination is as fair as any
that exists. He hoped that all his life he would
never be peevish or unkind.

"Elliot is in a dangerous state," said Ansell.
They had reached the dell, and had stood for
some time in silence, each leaning against a tree.
It was too wet to sit down.

"How's that?" asked Rickie, who had not
known he was in any state at all. He shut up
Keats, whom he thought he had been reading,
and slipped him back into his coat - pocket.
Scarcely ever was he without a book.

"He's trying to like people."

"Then he's done for," said Widdring ton. "He's
dead."

" He's trying to like Hornblower."

The others gave shrill agonised cries.

"He wants to bind the college together. He
wants to link us to the beefy set."

" I do like Hornblower," he protested. " I don't
try."

"And Hornblower tries to like you."

"That part doesn't matter."

"But he does try to like you. He tries not to
despise you. It is altogether a most public-
spirited affair."

24 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Tilliard started them," said Widdrington.
" Tilliard thinks it- such a pity the college should
be split into sets."

" Oh, Tilliard ! " said Ansell, with much irrita-
tion. "But what can you expect from a person
who's eternally beautiful ? The other night we
had been discussing a long time, and suddenly
the light was turned on. Every one else looked
a sight, as they ought. But there was Tilliard,
sitting neatly on a little chair, like an undersized
god, with not a curl crooked. I should say he
will get into the Foreign Office."

"Why are most of us so ugly?" laughed
Rickie.

"It's merely a sign of our salvation — merely
another sign that the college is split."

"The college isn't split," cried Rickie, who got
excited on this subject with unfailing regularity.
"The college is, and has been, and always will
be, one. What you call the beefy set aren't a
set at all. They're just the rowing people, and
naturally they chiefly see each other; but they're
always nice to me or to any one. Of course,
they think us rather asses, but it's quite in a
pleasant way."

"That's my whole objection," said Ansell.
"What right have they to think us asses in a
pleasant way? Why don't they hate us? What
right has Hornblower to smack me on the back
when I've been rude to him?"

"Well, what right have you to be rude to
him?"

"Because I hate him. You think it is so
splendid to hate no one. I tell you it is a
crime. You want to love every one equally, and

CAMBRIDGE. 25

that's worse than impossible — it's wrong. When
you denounce sets, you're really trying to destroy
friendship."

"I maintain," said Rickie — it was a verb he
clung to, in the hope that it would lend stability
to what followed — "I maintain that one can like
many more people than one supposes."

"And I maintain that you hate many more
people than you pretend."

"I hate no one," he exclaimed with extra-
ordinary vehemence, and the dell re-echoed that
it hated no one.

"We are obliged to believe you," said Wid-
drington, smiling a little ; " but we are sorry
about it."

"Not even your father?" asked Ansell.

Rickie was silent.

" Not even your father ? "

The cloud above extended a great promontory
across the sun. It only lay there for a moment,
yet that was enough to summon the lurking
coldness from the earth.

"Does he hate his father?" said Widdrington,
who had not known. " Oh, good ! "

"But his father's dead. He will say it doesn't
count."

" Still, it's something. Do you hate yours ? "

Ansell did not reply. Rickie said: "I say, I
wonder whether one ought to talk like this?"

"About hating dead people?"

"Yes "

"Did you hate your mother?" asked Wid-
drington.

Rickie turned crimson.

" I don't see Hornblower's such a rotter,"

26 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

remarked the other man, whose name was
James.

"James, you are diplomatic," said Ansell.
" You are trying to tide over an awkward
moment. You can go."

Widdrington was crimson too. In his wish to
be sprightly he had used words without think-
ing of their meanings. Suddenly he realised that
"father" and "mother" really meant father and
mother — people whom he had himself at home.
He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie
had been rather queer. He too tried to revert
to Hornblower, but Ansell would not let him.
The sun came out, and struck on the white
ramparts of the dell. Rickie looked straight at
it. Then he said abruptly —

" I think I want to talk."

" I think you do," replied Ansell.

" Shouldn't I be rather a fool if I went through
Cambridge without talking? It's said never to
come so easy again. All the people are dead too.
I can't see why I shouldn't tell you most things
about my birth and parentage and education."

" Talk away. If you bore us, we have books."

With this invitation Rickie began to relate his
history. The reader who has no book will be
obliged to listen to it.

Some people spend their lives in a suburb, and
not for any urgent reason. This had been the
fate of Rickie. He had opened his eyes to filmy
heavens, and taken his first walk on asphalt.
He had seen civilisation as a row of semi-
detached villas, and society as a state in which
men do not know the men who live next door.

CAMBRIDGE. 27

He had himself become part of the grey mon-
otony that surrounds all cities. There was no
necessity for this — it was only rather convenient
to his father.

Mr Elliot was a barrister. In appearance he
resembled his son, being weakly and lame, with
hollow little cheeks, a broad white band of fore-
head, and stiff impoverished hair. His voice,
which he did not transmit, was very suave, with
a fine command of cynical intonation. By alter-
ing it ever so little he could make people wince,
especially if they were simple or poor. Nor did
he transmit his eyes. Their peculiar flatness, as
if the soul looked through dirty window-panes,
the unkindness of them, the cowardice, the fear
in them, were to trouble the world no longer.

He married a girl whose voice was beautiful.
There was no caress in it, yet all who heard
it were soothed, as though the world held some
unexpected blessing. She called to her dogs one
night over invisible waters, and he, a tourist up
on the bridge, thought "that is extraordinarily
adequate." In time he discovered that her figure,
face, and thoughts were adequate also, and as
she was not impossible socially, he married her.
"I have taken a plunge," he told his family.
The family, hostile at first, had not a word to
say when the woman was introduced to them ;
and his sister declared that the plunge had been
taken from the opposite bank.

Things only went right for a little time.
Though beautiful without and within, Mrs Elliot
had not the gift of making her home beautiful;
and one day, when she bought a carpet for the
dining-room that clashed, he laughed gently, said

28 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

he "really couldn't," and departed. Departure is
perhaps too strong a word. In Mrs Elliot's
mouth it became, " My husband has to sleep
more in town." He often came down to see
them, nearly always unexpectedly, and occasion-
ally they went to see him. "Father's house," as
Rickie called it, only had three rooms, but these
were full of books and pictures and flowers ; and
the flowers, instead of being squashed down into
the vases as they were in mummy's house, rose
gracefully from frames of lead which lay coiled
at the bottom, as doubtless the sea serpent has
to lie, coiled at the bottom of the sea. Once he
was let to lift a frame out — only once, for he
dropped some water on a creton. "I think he's
going to have taste," said Mr Elliot languidly.
" It is quite possible," his wife replied. She had
not taken off her hat and gloves, nor even pulled
up her veil. Mr Elliot laughed, and soon after-
wards another lady came in, and they went
away.

"Why does father always laugh?" asked Rickie
in the evening when he and his mother were
sitting in the nursery.

" It is a way of your father's."

"Why does he always laugh at me? Am I so
funny?" Then after a pause, "You have no
sense of humour, have you, mummy?"

Mrs Elliot, who was raising a thread of cotton
to her lips, held it suspended in amazement.

"You told him so this afternoon. But I have
seen you laugh." He nodded wisely. " I have
seen you laugh ever so often. One day you
were laughing alone all down in the sweet
peas."

CAMBRIDGE. 29

"Was I?"

" Yes. Were you laughing at me ? "

"I was not thinking about you. Cotton, please
— a reel of No. 50 white from my chest of
drawers. Left-hand drawer. Now which is your
left hand?"

" The side my pocket is."

" And if you had no pocket ? "

" The side my bad foot is."

"I meant you to say, 'the side my heart is,'"
said Mrs Elliot, holding up the duster between
them. "Most of us — I mean all of us — can feel
on one side a little watch, that never stops
ticking. So even if you had no bad foot you
would still know which is the left. No. 50 white,
please. No ; 111 get it myself." For she had
remembered that the dark passage frightened
him.

These were the outlines. Rickie filled them in
with the slowness and the accuracy of a child.
He was never told anything, but he discovered
for himself that his father and mother did not
love each other, and that his mother was lov-
able. He discovered that Mr Elliot had dubbed
him Rickie because he was rickety, that he took
pleasure in alluding to his son's deformity, and
was sorry that it was not more serious than his
own. Mr Elliot had not one scrap of genius.
He gathered the pictures and the books and the
flower- supports mechanically, not in any impulse
of love. He passed for a cultured man because
he knew how to select, and he passed for an
unconventional man because he did not select
quite like other people. In reality he never did
or said or thought one single thing that had the

30 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

slightest beauty or value. And in time Rickie
discovered this as well.

The boy grew up in great loneliness. He
worshipped his mother, and she was fond
of him. But she was dignified and reticent,
and pathos, like tattle, was disgusting to her.
She was afraid of intimacy, in case it led
to confidences and tears, and so all her life
she held her son at a little distance. Her
kindness and unselfishness knew no limits,
but if he tried to be dramatic and thank
her, she told him not to be a little goose.
And so the only person he came to know at
all was himself. He would play Halma against
himself. He would conduct solitary conversa-
tions, in which one part of him asked and
another part answered. It was an exciting game,
and concluded with the formula: "Good-bye.
Thank you. I am glad to have met you. I
hope before long we shall enjoy another chat."
And then perhaps he would sob for loneliness,
for he would see real people — real brothers, real
friends — doing in warm life the things he had
pretended. "Shall I ever have a friend?" he
demanded at the age of twelve. "I don't see
how. They walk too fast. And a brother I shall
never have."

("No loss," interrupted Widdrington.

"But I shall never have one, and so I quite
want one, even now.")

When he was thirteen Mr Elliot entered on
his illness. The pretty rooms in town would not
do for an invalid, and so he came back to his
home. One of the first consequences was that
Rickie was sent to a public school, Mrs Elliot

CAMBRIDGE. 31

did what she could, but she had no hold what-
ever over her husband.

"He worries me," he declared. "He's a joke
of which I have got tired."

"Would it be possible to send him to a private
tutors?"

"No," said Mr Elliot, who had all the money.
" Coddling."

"I agree that boys ought to rough it; but
when a boy is lame and very delicate, he roughs
it sufficiently if he leaves home. Rickie can't
play games. He doesn't make friends. He isn't
brilliant. Thinking it over, I feel that as it's
like this, we can't ever hope to give him the
ordinary education. Perhaps you could think it
over too."

"No."

"I am sure that things are best for him as
they are. The day-school knocks quite as many
corners off him as he can stand. He hates it,
but it is good for him. A public school will not
be good for him. It is too rough. Instead of
getting manly and hard, he will "

"My head, please."

Rickie departed in a state of bewildered misery,
which was scarcely ever to grow clearer.

Each holiday he found his father more irrit-
able, and a little weaker. Mrs Elliot was quickly
growing old. She had to manage the servants,
to hush the neighbouring children, to answer the
correspondence, to paper and re-paper the rooms
— and all for the sake of a man whom she did
not like, and who did not conceal his dislike for
her. One day she found Rickie tearful, and said
rather crossly, "Well, what is it this time?"

32 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

He replied, "Oh, mummy, I've seen your
wrinkles — your grey hair — I'm unhappy."

Sudden tenderness overcame her, and she cried,
"My darling, what does it matter? Whatever
does it matter now?"

He had never known her so emotional. Yet
even better did he remember another incident.
Hearing high voices from his father's room, he
went upstairs in the hope that the sound of his
tread might stop them. Mrs Elliot burst open
the door, and seeing him, exclaimed, " My dear !
If you please, he's hit me." She tried to laugh
it off, but a few hours later he saw the bruise
which the stick of the invalid had raised upon
his mother's hand.

God alone knows how far we are in the grip
of our bodies. He alone can judge how far the
cruelty of Mr Elliot was the outcome of ex-
tenuating circumstances. But Mrs Elliot could
accurately judge of its extent.

At last he died. Rickie was now fifteen, and
got off a whole week's school for the funeral.
His mother was rather strange. She was much
happier, she looked younger, and her mourning
was as unobtrusive as convention permitted. All
this he had expected. But she seemed to be
watching him, and to be extremely anxious for
his opinion on any subject — more especially
on his father. Why? At last he saw that
she was trying to establish confidence between
them. But confidence cannot be established
in a moment. They were both shy. The
habit of years was upon them, and they alluded
to the death of Mr Elliot as an irreparable
loss.

CAMBRIDGE. 33

"Now that your father has gone, things will
be very different."

"Shall we be poorer, mother?"

"No."

"Oh!"

"But naturally things will be very different."

"Yes, naturally."

"For instance, your poor father liked being
near London, but I almost think we might move.
Would you like that?"

" Of course, mummy." He looked down at the
ground. He was not accustomed to being con-
sulted, and it bewildered him.

"Perhaps you might like quite a different life
better?"

He giggled.

"It's a little difficult for me," said Mrs Elliot,
pacing vigorously up and down the room, and
more and more did her black dress seem a
mockery. "In some ways you ought to be con-
sulted: nearly all the money is left to you, as
you must hear some time or other. But in other
ways you're only a boy. What am I to do ? "

"I don't know," he replied, appearing more
helpless and unhelpful than he really was.

"For instance, would you like me to arrange
things exactly as I like?"

" Oh do ! " he exclaimed, thinking this a most
brilliant suggestion. "The very nicest thing of
all." And he added, in his half- pedantic, half-
pleasing way, " I shall be as wax in your hands,
mamma."

She smiled. "Very well, darling. You shall
be." And she pressed him lovingly, as though
she would mould him into something beautiful.

c

34 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

For the next few days great preparations were
in the air. She went to see his father's sister,
the gifted and vivacious Aunt Emily. They were
to live in the country — somewhere right in
the country, with grass and trees up to the
door, and birds singing everywhere, and a tutor.
For he was not to go back to school. Un-
believable! He was never to go back to school,
and the headmaster had written saying that
he regretted the step, but that possibly it was
a wise one.

It was raw weather, and Mrs Elliot watched
over him with ceaseless tenderness. It seemed
as if she could not do too much to shield him
and to draw him nearer to her.

"Put on your greatcoat, dearest," she said to
him.

"I don't think I want it," answered Rickie,
remembering that he was now fifteen.

"The wind is bitter. You ought to put it on."

" But it's so heavy."

"Do put it on, dear."

He was not very often irritable or rude, but
he answered, "Oh, I shan't catch cold. I do
wish you wouldn't keep on bothering."

He did not catch cold, but while he was out
his mother died. She only survived her husband
eleven days, a coincidence which was recorded on
their tombstone.
• •••••••

Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie
told his friends as they stood together in the
shelter of the dell. The green bank at the
entrance hid the road and the world, and now,
as in spring, they could see nothing but snow-

CAMBRIDGE. 35

white ramparts and the evergreen foliage of the
firs. Only from time to time would a beech leaf
flutter in from the woods above, to comment on
the waning year, and the warmth and radiance
of the sun would vanish behind a passing cloud.
About the greatcoat he did not tell them,
for he could not have spoken of it without
tears.

III.

Mr Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate
prosperity, ought by rights to have been classed
not with the cow, but with those phenomena that
are not really there. But his son, with pardon-
able illogicality, excepted him. He never sus-
pected that his father might be the subjective
product of a diseased imagination. From his
earliest years he had taken him for granted, as
a most undeniable and lovable fact. To be born
one thing and grow up another — Ansell had ac-
complished this without weakening one of the
ties that bound him to his home. The rooms
above the shop still seemed as comfortable, the
garden behind it as gracious, as they had seemed
fifteen years before, when he would sit behind
Miss Appleblossom's central throne, and she, like
some allegorical figure, would send the change
and receipted bills spinning away from her in
little boxwood balls. At first the young man
had attributed these happy relations to his own
tact. But in time he perceived that the tact was
all on the side of his father. Mr Ansell was not

36 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

merely a man of some education ; he had what
no education can bring — the power of detect-
ing what is important. Like many fathers, he
had spared no expense over his boy, — he had
borrowed money to start him at a rapacious
and fashionable private school ; he had sent him
to tutors ; he had sent him to Cambridge. But
he knew that all this was not the important
thing. The important thing was freedom. The
boy must use his education as he chose, and if
he paid his father back it would certainly not be
in his own coin. So when Stewart said, " At
Cambridge, can I read for the Moral Science
Tripos ? " Mr Ansell had only replied, " This
philosophy — do you say that it lies behind every-
thing?"

"Yes, I think so. It tries to discover what is
good and true."

"Then, my boy, you had better read as much
of it as you can."

And a year later : " I'd like to take up this
philosophy seriously, but I don't feel justified."

"Why not?"

"Because it brings in no return. I think I'm
a great philosopher, but then all philosophers
think that, though they don't dare to say so.
But, however great I am, I shan't earn money.
Perhaps I shan't ever be able to keep myself.
I shan't even get a good social position. You've
only to say one word, and I'll work for the Civil
Service. I'm good enough to get in high."

Mr Ansell liked money and social position.
But he knew that there is a more important
thing, and replied, "You must take up this
philosophy seriously, I think."

CAMBRIDGE. 37

"Another thing — there are the girls."

"There is enough money now to get Mary and
Maud as good husbands as they deserve." And
Mary and Maud took the same view.

It was in this plebeian household that Rickie
spent part of the Christmas vacation. His own
home, such as it was, was with the Silts, needy
cousins of his father's, and combined to a peculiar
degree the restrictions of hospitality with the dis-
comforts of a boarding-house. Such pleasure as
he had outside Cambridge was in the homes of
his friends, and it was a particular joy and honour
to visit Ansell, who, though as free from social
snobbishness as most of us will ever manage to
be, was rather careful whom he drove up to the
fagade of his shop.

"I like our new lettering," he said thought-
fully. The words " Stewart Ansell " were re-
peated again and again along the High Street —
curly gold letters that seemed to float in tanks
of glazed chocolate.

"Rather!" said Rickie. But he wondered
whether one of the bonds that kept the Ansell
family united might not be their complete absence
of taste — a surer bond by far than the identity
of it. And he wondered this again when he sat
at tea opposite a long row of crayons — Stewart
as a baby, Stewart as a small boy with large
feet, Stewart as a larger boy with smaller feet,
Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick
as eider-downs. And yet again did he wonder it
when he woke with a gasp in the night to find
a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glower-
ing at him from the adjacent wall. " Watch and
pray" was written on the harp, and until Rickie

38 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

hung a towel over it the exhortation was parti-
ally successful.

It was a very happy visit. Miss Appleblossom
— who now acted as housekeeper — had met him
before, during her never -forgotten expedition to
Cambridge, and her admiration of University life
was as shrill and as genuine now as it had been
then. The girls at first were a little aggressive,
for on his arrival he had been tired, and Maud
had taken it for haughtiness, and said he was
looking down on them. But this passed. They
did not fall in love with him, nor he with them,
but a morning was spent very pleasantly in snow-
balling in the back garden. Ansell was rather
different to what he was in Cambridge, but to
Rickie not less attractive. And there was a
curious charm in the hum of the shop, which
swelled into a roar if one opened the partition
door on a market-day.

" Listen to your money ! " said Rickie. " I
wish I could hear mine. I wish my money was
alive."

"I don't understand."

"Mine's dead money. It's come to me through
about six dead people — silently."

"Getting a little smaller and a little more re-
spectable each time, on account of the death-
duties."

"It needed to get respectable."

"Why? Did your people, too, once keep a
shop ? "

"Oh, not as bad as that! They only swindled.
About a hundred years ago an Elliot did some-
thing shady and founded the fortunes of our
house."

CAMBRIDGE. 39

"I never knew any one so relentless to his
ancestors. You make up for your soapiness
towards the living."

"You'd be relentless if you'd heard the Silts,
as I have, talk about ' a fortune, small perhaps,
but unsoiled by trade ! ' Of course Aunt Emily
is rather different. Oh, goodness me ! I've for-
gotten my aunt. She lives not so far. I shall
have to call on her."

Accordingly he wrote to Mrs Failing, and said
he should like to pay his respects. He told her
about the Ansells, and so worded the letter that
she might reasonably have sent an invitation to
his friend.

She replied that she was looking forward to
their tete-a-tSte.

"You mustn't go round by the trains," said
Mr Ansell. " It means changing at Salisbury. By
the road it's no great way. Stewart shall drive
you over Salisbury Plain, and fetch you too."

"There's too much snow," said Ansell.

"Then the girls shall take you in their sledge."

"That I will," said Maud, who was not unwill-
ing to see the inside of Cadover. But Rickie
went round by the trains.

"We have all missed you," said Ansell, when
he returned. "There is a general feeling that
you are no nuisance, and had better stop till the
end of the vac."

This he could not do. He was bound for
Christmas to the Silts — "as a real guest," Mrs
Silt had written, underlining the word "real"
twice. And after Christmas he must go to the
Pembrokes.

"These are no reasons. The only real reason

40 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

for doing a thing is because you want to do it.
I think the talk about 'engagements' is cant."

"I think perhaps it is," said Rickie. But he
went. Never had the turkey been so athletic, or
the plum-pudding tied into its cloth so tightly.
Yet he knew that both these symbols of hilarity
had cost money, and it went to his heart when
Mr Silt said in a hungry voice, " Have you thought
at all of what you want to be ? No ? Well, why
should you? You have no need to be anything."
And at dessert: "I wonder who Gadover goes
to? I expect money will follow money. It
always does." It was with a guilty feeling of
relief that he left for the Pembrokes.

The Pembrokes lived in an adjacent suburb,
or rather "sububurb," — the tract called Sawston,
celebrated for its public school. Their style of
life, however, was not particularly suburban. Their
house was small and its name was Shelthorpe,
but it had an air about it which suggested a
certain amount of money and a certain amount
of taste. There were decent water-colours in the
drawing-room. Madonnas of acknowledged merit
hung upon the stairs. A replica of the Hermes
of Praxiteles — of course only the bust — stood in
the hall with a real palm behind it. Agnes, in
her slap-dash way, was a good housekeeper, and
kept the pretty things well dusted. It was she
who insisted on the strip of brown holland that
led diagonally from the front door to the door
of Herbert's study : boys' grubby feet should not
go treading on her Indian square. It was she
who always cleaned the picture - frames and
washed the bust and the leaves of the palm. In
short, if a house could speak — and sometimes it

CAMBRIDGE. 41

does speak more clearly than the people who
live in it — the house of the Pembrokes would
have said, " I am not quite like other houses,
yet I am perfectly comfortable. I contain works
of art and a microscope and books. But I do
not live for any of these things or suffer them
to disarrange me. I live for myself and for the
greater houses that shall come after me. Yet
in me neither the cry of money nor the cry for
money shall ever be heard."

Mr Pembroke was at the station. He did better
as a host than as a guest, and welcomed the young
man with real friendliness.

" We were all coming, but Gerald has strained
his ankle slightly, and wants to keep quiet, as
he is playing next week in a match. And, need-
less to say, that explains the absence of my
sister."

" Gerald Dawes ? "

11 Yes ; he's with us. I'm so glad you'll meet
again."

" So am I," said Rickie with extreme awkward-
ness. " Does he remember me ? "

"Vividly."

Vivid also was Rickie's remembrance of him.

"A splendid fellow," asserted Mr Pembroke.

"I hope that Agnes is well."

" Thank you, yes ; she is well. And I think
you're looking more like other people yourself."

" I've been having a very good time with a
friend."

"Indeed. That's right, Who was that?"

Rickie had a young man's reticence. He
generally spoke of "a friend," "a person I know,"
"a place I was at." When the book of life is

42 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

opening, our readings are secret, and we are
unwilling to give chapter and verse. Mr Pem-
broke, who was half way through the volume,
and had skipped or forgotten the earlier pages,
could not understand Rickie's hesitation, nor
why with such awkwardness he should pro-
nounce the harmless dissyllable "Ansell."

"Ansell? Wasn't that the pleasant fellow who
asked us to lunch?"

" No. That was Anderson, who keeps below.
You didn't see Ansell. The ones who came to
breakfast were Tilliard and Hornblower."

" Of course. And since then you have been
with the Silts. How are they?"

"Very well, thank you. They want to be re-
membered to you."

The Pembrokes had formerly lived near the
Elliots, and had shown great kindness to Rickie
when his parents died. They were thus rather
in the position of family friends.

"Please remember us when you write." He
added, almost roguishly, "The Silts are kindness
itself. All the same, it must be just a little —
dull, we thought, and we thought that you
might like a change. And of course we are de-
lighted to have you besides. That goes without
saying."

" It's very good of you," said Rickie, who had
accepted the invitation because he felt he ought
to.

"Not a bit. And you mustn't expect us to be
otherwise than quiet in the holidays. There is
a library of a sort, as you know, and you will
find Gerald a splendid fellow."

" Will they be married soon ? "

CAMBRIDGE. 43

" Oh no ! " whispered Mr Pembroke, shutting
his eyes, as if Rickie had made some terrible
faux pas. " It will be a very long engagement.
He must make his way first. I have seen such
endless misery result from people marrying be-
fore they have made their way."

"Yes. That is so," said Rickie despondently,
thinking of the Silts.

"It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr Pem-
broke, thinking that the despondency might be
personal, "but one must accept it. My sister
and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted
it, though naturally it has been a little pill."

Their cab lurched round the corner as he
spoke, and the two patients came in sight.
Agnes was leaning over the creosoted garden-
gate, and behind her there stood a young man
who had the figure of a Greek athlete and the
face of an English one. He was fair and clean-
shaven, and his colourless hair was cut rather
short. The sun was in his eyes, and they, like
his mouth, seemed scarcely more than slits in
his healthy skin. Just where he began to be
beautiful the clothes started. Round his neck
went an up-and-down collar and a mauve-and-
gold tie, and the rest of his limbs were hidden
by a grey lounge suit, carefully creased in the
right places.

" Lovely ! lovely ! " cried Agnes, banging on
the gate. "Your train must have been to the
minute."

" Hullo ! " said the athlete, and vomited with
the greeting a cloud of tobacco-smoke. It must
have been imprisoned in his mouth some time,
for no pipe was visible.

44 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" Hullo ! " returned Rickie, laughing violently.
They shook hands.

" Where are you going, Rickie ? " asked Agnes.
"You aren't grubby. Why don't you stop?
Gerald, get the large wicker-chair. Herbert has
letters, but we can sit here till lunch. It's like
spring."

The garden of Shelthorpe was nearly all
in front — an unusual and pleasant arrange-
ment. The front gate and the servants' entrance
were both at the side, and in the remaining
space the gardener had contrived a little lawn
where one could sit concealed from the road
by a fence, from the neighbour by a fence, from
the house by a tree, and from the path by a
bush.

"This is the lovers' bower," observed Agnes,
sitting down on the bench. Rickie stood by her
till the chair arrived.

11 Are you smoking before lunch ? " asked Mr
Dawes.

"No, thank you. I hardly ever smoke."

"No vices. Aren't you at Cambridge now?"

"Yes."

" What's your college ? "

Rickie told him.

"Do you know Carruthers?"

"Rather!"

"I mean A. P. Carruthers, who got his socker
blue."

" Rather ! He's secretary to the college musical
society."

"A. P. Carruthers?"

"Yes."

Mr Dawes seemed offended. He tapped on his

CAMBRIDGE. 45

teeth, and remarked that the weather had no
business to be so warm in winter.

" But it was fiendish before Christmas," said
Agnes.

He frowned, and asked, "Do you know a man
called Gerrish ? "

"No."

"Ah."

"Do you know James?"

"Never heard of him."

" He's my year too. He got a blue for hockey
his second term."

"I know nothing about the 'Varsity."

Rickie winced at the abbreviation "'Varsity."
It was at that time the proper thing to speak
of "the University."

"I haven't the time," pursued Mr Dawes.

"No, no," said Rickie politely.

"I had the chance of being an Undergrad.
myself, and, by Jove, I'm thankful I didn't ! "

"Why?" asked Agnes, for there was a pause.

"Puts you back in your profession. Men who
go there first, before the Army, start hopelessly
behind. The same with the Stock Exchange or
Painting. I know men in both, and they've
never caught up the time they lost in the
'Varsity — unless, of course, you turn parson."

"I love Cambridge," said she. "All those
glorious buildings, and every one so happy and
running in and out of each other's rooms all
day long."

"That might make an Undergrad. happy, but
I beg leave to state it wouldn't me. I haven't
four years to throw away for the sake of being
called a 'Varsity man and hobnobbing with lords."

46 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Rickie was prepared to find his old school-
fellow ungrammatical and bumptious, but he
was not prepared to find him peevish. Athletes,
he believed, were simple, straightforward people,
cruel and brutal if you like, but never petty.
They knocked you down and hurt you, and then
went on their way rejoicing. For this, Rickie
thought, there is something to be said : he had
escaped the sin of despising the physically strong
— a sin against which the physically weak must
guard. But here was Dawes returning again
and again to the subject of the University, full
of transparent jealousy and petty spite, nagging,
nagging, nagging, like a maiden lady who has
not been invited to a tea-party. Rickie wondered
whether, after all, Ansell and the extremists might
not be right, and bodily beauty and strength be
signs of the soul's damnation.

He glanced at Agnes. She was writing down
some orderings for the tradespeople on a piece
of paper. Her handsome face was intent on the
work. The bench on which she and Gerald were
sitting had no back, but she sat as straight as
a dart. He, though strong enough to sit straight,
did not take the trouble.

"Why don't they talk to each other?" thought
Rickie.

"Gerald, give this paper to the cook."

"I can give it to the other slavey, can't I?"

"She'll be dressing."

"Well, there's Herbert."

"He's busy. Oh, you know where the kitchen
is. Take it to the cook."

He disappeared slowly behind the tree.

CAMBRIDGE. 47

"What do you think of him?" she immediately
asked.

He murmured civilly.

"Has he changed since he was a schoolboy?"

"In a way."

"Do tell me all about him. Why won't you?"

She might have seen a flash of horror pass
over Rickie's face. The horror disappeared, for,
thank God, he was now a man, whom civilisation
protects. But he and Gerald had met, as it were,
behind the scenes, before our decorous drama
opens, and there the elder boy had done things
to him — absurd things, not worth chronicling
separately. An apple-pie bed is nothing ; pinches,
kicks, boxed ears, twisted arms, pulled hair,
ghosts at night, inky books, befouled photo-
graphs, amount to very little by themselves. But
let them be united and continuous, and you
have a hell that no grown-up devil can devise.
Between Rickie and Gerald there lay a shadow
that darkens life more often than we suppose.
The bully and his victim never quite forget their
first relations. They meet in clubs and country
houses, and clap one another on the back ; but
in both the memory is green of a more stren-
uous day, when they were boys together.

He tried to say, "He was the right kind of
boy, and I was the wrong kind." But Cambridge
would not let him smooth the situation over by
self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind
of boy, Gerald had been a worse kind. He mur-
mured, "We are different, very," and Miss Pem-
broke, perhaps suspecting something, asked no
more, But she kept to the subject of Mr Dawes,

48 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

humorously depreciating her lover and discussing
him without reverence. Rickie laughed, but felt
uncomfortable. When people were engaged, he
felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet
here he was criticising. He could not help it.
He was dragged in.

"I hope his ankle is better."

"Never was bad. He's always fussing over
something."

"He plays next week in a match, I think Her-
bert says."

" I dare say he does."

'Shall we be going?"

'Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home.
I've had enough of cold feet."

It was all very colourless and odd.

Gerald returned, saying, "I can't stand your
cook. What's she want to ask me questions for?
I can't stand talking to servants. I say, 'If I
speak to you, well and good' — and it's another
thing besides if she were pretty."

"Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch
ready in a minute," said Agnes. "We're fright-
fully unpunctual this morning, and I daren't say
anything, because it was the same yesterday, and
if I complain again they might leave. Poor
Rickie must be starved."

"Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and
I've never eaten them. They always stuff one."

"And you thought you'd better, eh?" said Mr
Dawes, "in case you weren't stuffed here."

Miss Pembroke, who house - kept somewhat
economically, looked annoyed.

The voice of Mr Pembroke was now heard
calling from the house, " Frederick ! Frederick !

CAMBRIDGE. 49

My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important

letter about the Church Defence, otherwise

Come in and see your room."

He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had
learnt too much there. It was dreadful: they
did not love each other. More dreadful even
than the case of his father and mother, for they,
until they married, had got on pretty well. But
this man was already rude and brutal and cold :
he was still the school bully who twisted up the
arms of little boys, and ran pins into them at
chapel, and struck them in the stomach when
they were swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor
Agnes ; why ever had she done it ? Ought not
somebody to interfere?

He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went
back to get them.

Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other's
arms.

He only looked for a moment, but the sight
burnt into his brain. The man's grip was the
stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his
knee, was pressing her, with all his strength,
against him. Already her hands slipped off him,

and she whispered, " Don't — you hurt " Her

face had no expression. It stared at the intruder
and never saw him. Then her lover kissed it,
and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty,
like some star.

Rickie limped away without the sandwiches,
crimson and afraid. He thought, " Do such
things actually happen?" and he seemed to
be looking down coloured valleys. Brighter
they glowed, till gods of pure flame were born
in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles

D

50 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

of virgin snow. While Mr Pembroke talked, the
riot of fair images increased. They invaded his
being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines. Their
orchestra commenced in that suburban house,
where he had to stand aside for the maid to
carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him
like a river. He stood at the springs of creation
and heard the primeval monotony. Then an
obscure instrument gave out a little phrase. The
river continued unheeding. The phrase was re-
peated, and a listener might know it was a frag-
ment of the Tune of tunes. Nobler instruments
accepted it, the clarionet protected, the brass en-
couraged, and it rose to the surface to the
whisper of violins. In full unison was Love
born, flame of the flame, flushing the dark river
beneath him and the virgin snows above. His
wings were infinite, his youth eternal ; the sun
was a jewel on his finger as he passed it in
benediction over the world. Creation, no longer
monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody,
in brighter radiances. Was Love a column of
fire? Was he a torrent of song? Was he
greater than either — the touch of a man on a
woman ?

It was the merest accident that Rickie had
not been disgusted. But this he could not
know.

Mr Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers
into lunch, was aware of a hand on his arm
and a voice that murmured, "Don't — they may
be happy,"

He stared, and struck the gong. To its music
they approached, priest and high priestess.

"Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the

CAMBRIDGE. 51

boot boy ? " said the one. " He would love
them."

" The gong ! Be quick ! The gong ! "

"Are you smoking before lunch?" said the
other.

But they had got into heaven, and nothing
could get them out of it. Others might think
them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could re-
member every word they spoke. He would
treasure every motion, every glance of either,
and so in time to come, when the gates of heaven
had shut, some faint radiance, some echo of wis-
dom might remain with him outside.

As a matter of fact, he saw them very little dur-
ing his visit. He checked himself because he was
unworthy. What right had he to pry, even in
the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to
have seen them on the lawn. It would be a
crime to go to it again. He tried to keep him-
self and his thoughts away, not because he was
ascetic, but because they would not like it if
they knew. This behaviour of his suited them
admirably. And when any gracious little thing
occurred to them — any little thing that his sym-
pathy had contrived and allowed — they put it
down to chance or to each other.

So the lovers fall into the background. They
are part of the distant sunrise, and only the
mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr
Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-
habitable world.

52 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

IV.

Sawston School had been founded by a trades-
man in the seventeenth century. It was then a
tiny grammar-school in a tiny town, and the
City Company who governed it had to drive half
a day through woods and heath on the occasion
of their annual visit. In the twentieth century
they still drove, but only from the railway station ;
and found themselves not in a tiny town, nor yet
in a large one, but amongst innumerable resid-
ences, detached and semi-detached, which had
gathered round the school. For the intentions
of the founder had been altered, or at all events
amplified, and instead of educating the "poore
of my home," he now educated the upper middle
classes of England. The change had taken
place not so very far back. Till the nineteenth
century the grammar - school was still composed
of day scholars from the neighbourhood. Then
two things happened. Firstly, the school's prop-
erty rose in value, and it became rich. Secondly,
for no obvious reason, it suddenly emitted a
quantity of bishops. The bishops, like the stars
from a Roman candle, were of all colours, and
flew in all directions, some high, some low, some
to distant colonies, one into the Church of Rome.
But many a father traced their course in the
papers ; many a mother wondered whether her
son, if properly ignited, might not burn as
bright ; many a family moved to the place where
living and education were so cheap, where day-
boys were not looked down upon, and where the

CAMBRIDGE. 53

orthodox and the up-to-date were said to be
combined. The school doubled its numbers. It
built new class-rooms, laboratories, and a gym-
nasium. It dropped the prefix " Grammar." It
coaxed the sons of the local tradesmen into a
new foundation, the "Commercial School," built
a couple of miles away. And it started boarding-
houses. It had not the gracious antiquity of
Eton or Winchester, nor, on the other hand,
had it a conscious policy like Lancing, Welling-
ton, and other purely modern foundations.
Where traditions served, it clung to them.
Where new departures seemed desirable, they
were made. It aimed at producing the average
Englishman, and, to a very great extent, it
succeeded.

Here Mr Pembroke passed his happy and in-
dustrious life. His technical position was that
of master to a form low down on the Modern
Side. But his work lay elsewhere. He organised.
If no organisation existed, he would create one.
If one did exist, he would modify it. " An organ-
isation," he would say, "is after all not an end
in itself. It must contribute to a movement."
When one good custom seemed likely to corrupt
the school, he was ready with another; he be-
lieved that without innumerable customs there
was no safety, either for boys or men. Perhaps
he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps
each of us would go to ruin if for one short
hour we acted as we thought fit, and attempted
the service of perfect freedom. The school caps,
with their elaborate symbolism, were his ; his the
many -tinted bathing - drawers, that showed how
far a boy could swim ; his the hierarchy of jerseys

54 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

and blazers. It was he who instituted Bounds,
and Call, and the two sorts of exercise - paper,
and the three sorts of caning, and 'The Saw-
stonian,' a bi- terminal magazine. His plump
finger was in every pie. The dome of his skull,
mild but impressive, shone at every master's
meeting. He was generally acknowledged to be
the coming man.

His last achievement had been the organisa-
tion of the day-boys. They had been left too
much to themselves, and were weak in esprit de
corps; they were apt to regard home, not school,
as the most important thing in their lives. More-
over, they got out of their parents' hands ; they
did their preparation any time and sometimes
anyhow. They shirked games, they were out at
all hours, they ate what they should not, they
smoked, they bicycled on the asphalt. Now all
was over. Like the boarders, they were to be
in at 7.15 p.m., and were not allowed out after
unless with a written order from their parent
or guardian ; they, too, must work at fixed
hours in the evening, and before breakfast
next morning from 7 to 8. Games were com-
pulsory. They must not go to parties in term
time. They must keep to bounds. Of course the
reform was not complete. It was impossible to
control the dieting, though, on a printed circular,
day- parents were implored to provide simple
food. And it is also believed that some mothers
disobeyed the rule about preparation, and al-
lowed their sons to do all the work over -night
and have a longer sleep in the morning. But
the gulf between day-boys and boarders was con-
siderably lessened, and grew still narrower when

CAMBRIDGE. 55

the day-boys too were organised into a House
with house - master and colours of their own.
" Through the House," said Mr Pembroke, "one
learns patriotism for the school, just as through
the school one learns patriotism for the country.
Our only course, therefore, is to organise the day-
boys into a House." The headmaster agreed, as he
often did, and the new community was formed.
Mr Pembroke, to avoid the tongues of malice,
had refused the post of house-master for himself,
saying to Mr Jackson, who taught the sixth,
"You keep too much in the background. Here
is a chance for you." But this was a failure.
Mr Jackson, a scholar and a student, neither felt
nor conveyed any enthusiasm, and when con-
fronted with his House, would say, " Well, I don't
know what we're all here for. Now I should
think you'd better go home to your mothers."
He returned to his background, and next term
Mr Pembroke was to take his place.

Such were the themes on which Mr Pembroke
discoursed to Rickie's civil ear. He showed him
the school, and the library, and the subterranean
hall where the day-boys might leave their coats
and caps, and where, on festal occasions, they
supped. He showed him Mr Jackson's pretty
house, and whispered, "Were it not for his
brilliant intellect, it would be a case of Quick-
march ! " He showed him the racquet - court,
happily completed, and the chapel, unhappily still
in need of funds. Rickie was impressed, but
then he was impressed by everything. Of course
a House of day-boys seemed a little shadowy
after Agnes and Gerald, but he imparted some
reality even to that.

56 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"The racquet - court," said Mr Pembroke, "is
most gratifying. We never expected to manage
it this year. But before the Easter holidays
every boy received a subscription card, and was
given to understand that he must collect thirty
shillings. You will scarcely believe me, but they
nearly all responded. Next term there was a
dinner in the great school, and all who had col-
lected, not thirty shillings, but as much as a
pound, were invited to it — for naturally one was
not precise for a few shillings, the response being
the really valuable thing. Practically the whole
school had to come."

"They must enjoy the court tremendously."
" Ah, it isn't used very much. Racquets, as I
daresay you know, is rather an expensive game.
Only the wealthier boys play — and I'm sorry to
say that it is not of our wealthier boys that we
are always proudest. But the point is that no
public school can be called first-class until it has
one. They are building them right and left."
"And now you must finish the chapel?"
" Now we must complete the chapel." He
paused reverently, and said, "And here is a frag-
ment of the original building."

Rickie at once had a rush of sympathy. He,
too, looked with reverence at the morsel of Jaco-
bean brickwork, ruddy and beautiful amidst the
machine-squared stones of the modern apse. The
two men, who had so little in common, were
thrilled with patriotism. They rejoiced that their
country was great, noble, and old.

" Thank God I'm English," said Rickie suddenly.
" Thank Him indeed," said Mr Pembroke, laying
a hand on his back.

CAMBRIDGE. 57

"We've been nearly as great as the Greeks, I
do believe. Greater, I'm sure, than the Italians,
though they did get closer to beauty. Greater
than the French, though we do take all their
ideas. I can't help thinking that England is
immense. English literature certainly."

Mr Pembroke removed his hand. He found such
patriotism somewhat craven. Genuine patriotism
comes only from the heart. It knows no parley-
ing with reason. English ladies will declare
abroad that there are no fogs in London, and
Mr Pembroke, though he would not go to this,
was only restrained by the certainty of being
found out. On this occasion he remarked that
the Greeks lacked spiritual insight, and had a
low conception of woman.

"As to women — oh ! there they were dread-
ful," said Rickie, leaning his hand on the chapel.
"I realise that more and more. But as to
spiritual insight, I don't quite like to say;
and I find Plato too difficult, but I know men
who don't, and I fancy they mightn't agree with
you."

"Far be it from me to disparage Plato. And
for philosophy as a whole I have the greatest
respect. But it is the crown of a man's educa-
tion, not the foundation. Myself, I read it with
the utmost profit, but I have known endless
trouble result from boys who attempted it too
soon, before they were set."

"But if those boys had died first," cried Rickie
with sudden vehemence, "without knowing what
there is to know "

" Or isn't to know ! " said Mr Pembroke sar-
castically.

58 THE LONGEST JOUKNEY.

" Or what there isn't to know. Exactly. That's
it."

"My dear Rickie, what do you mean? If an
old friend may be frank, you are talking great
rubbish." And, with a few well-worn formulae,
he propped up the young man's orthodoxy. The
props were unnecessary. Rickie had his own
equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails
a boy at about the age of fifteen, nor the scepti-
cism that meets him five years later, could sway
him from his allegiance to the church into which
he had been born. But his equilibrium was per-
sonal, and the secret of it useless to others. He
desired that each man should find his own.

"What does philosophy do?" the propper con-
tinued. "Does it make a man happier in life?
Does it make him die more peacefully? I fancy
that in the long-run Herbert Spencer will get
no further than the rest of us. Ah, Rickie ! I
wish you could move among schoolboys, and see
their healthy contempt for all that they cannot
touch ! " Here he was going too far, and had to
add, "Their spiritual capacities, of course, are
another matter." Then he remembered the
Greeks, and said, " Which proves my original
statement."

Submissive signs, as of one propped, appeared
in Rickie's face. Mr Pembroke then questioned
him about the men who found Plato not difficult.
But here he kept silence, patting the school chapel
gently, and presently the conversation turned to
topics with which they were both more com-
petent to deal.

" Does Agnes take much interest in the school ? "

"Not as much as she did. It is the result of

CAMBRIDGE. 59

her engagement. If our naughty soldier had not
carried her off, she might have made an ideal
schoolmaster's wife. I often chaff him about it,
for he a little despises the intellectual profes-
sions. Natural, perfectly natural. How can a
man who faces death feel as we do towards
mensa or tupto ? "

"Perfectly true. Absolutely true."

Mr Pembroke remarked to himself that Fred-
erick was improving.

"If a man shoots straight and hits straight
and speaks straight, if his heart is in the right
place, if he has the instincts of a Christian and
a gentleman — then I, at all events, ask no better
husband for my sister."

"How could you get a better?" he cried. "Do
you remember the thing in ■ The Clouds ' ? " And
he quoted, as well as he could, from the invita-
tion of the Dikaios Logos, the description of the
young Athenian, perfect in body, placid in mind,
who neglects his work at the Bar and trains
all day among the woods and meadows, with a
garland on his head and a friend to set the
pace ; the scent of new leaves is upon them ;
they rejoice in the freshness of spring ; over
their heads the plane-tree whispers to the elrn,
— perhaps the most glorious invitation to the
brainless life that has ever been given.

"Yes, yes," said Mr Pembroke, who did not
want a brother-in-law out of Aristophanes. Nor
had he got one, for Mr Dawes would not have
bothered over the garland or noticed the spring,
and would have complained that the friend ran
too slowly or too fast.

" And as for her ! " But he could think of

60 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

no classical parallel for Agnes. She slipped be-
tween examples. A kindly Medea, a Cleopatra
with a sense of duty — these suggested her a
little. She was not born in Greece, but came
overseas to it — a dark, intelligent princess. With
all her splendour, there were hints of splendour
still hidden — hints of an older, richer, and more
mysterious land. He smiled at the idea of her
being "not there." Ansell, clever as he was, had
made a bad blunder. She had more reality than
any other woman in the world.

Mr Pembroke looked pleased at this boyish
enthusiasm. He was fond of his sister, though
he knew her to be full of faults. "Yes, I envy
her," he said. "She has found a worthy help-
meet for life's journey, I do believe. And though
they chafe at the long engagement, it is a
blessing in disguise. They learn to know each
other thoroughly before contracting more in-
timate ties."

Rickie did not assent. The length of the en-
gagement seemed to him unspeakably cruel.
Here were two people who loved each other,
and they could not marry for years because
they had no beastly money. Not all Herbert's
pious skill could make this out a blessing. It
was bad enough being " so rich " at the Silts ;
here he was more ashamed of it than ever. In
a few weeks he would come of age and his
money be his own. What a pity things were so
crookedly arranged. He did not want money,
or at all events he did not want so much.

"Suppose," he meditated, for he became much
worried over this, — " suppose I had a hundred
pounds a -year less than I shall have. Well, I

CAMBRIDGE. 61

should still have enough. I don't want anything
but food, lodging, clothes, and now and then a
railway fare. I haven't any tastes. I don't
collect anything or play games. Books are nice
to have, but after all there is Mudie's, or if it
comes to that, the Free Library. Oh, my pro-
fession ! I forgot I shall have a profession.
Well, that will leave me with more to spare
than ever." And he supposed away till he lost
touch with the world and with what it permits,
and committed an unpardonable sin.

It happened towards the end of his visit —
another airless day of that mild January. Mr
Dawes was playing against a scratch team of
cads, and had to go down to the ground in the
morning to settle something. Rickie proposed
to come too.

Hitherto he had been no nuisance. "You will
be frightfully bored," said Agnes, observing the
cloud on her lover's face. "And Gerald walks
like a maniac."

"I had a little thought of the Museum this
morning," said Mr Pembroke. "It is very strong
in flint arrow-heads."

"Ah, that's your line, Rickie. I do envy you
and Herbert the way you enjoy the past."

"I almost think I'll go with Dawes, if he'll
have me. I can walk quite fast just to the
ground and back. Arrow-heads are wonderful,
but I don't really enjoy them yet, though I
hope I shall in time."

Mr Pembroke was offended, but Rickie held
firm.

In a quarter of an hour he was back at the
house alone, nearly ciying.

62 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Oh, did the wretch go too fast?" called Miss
Pembroke from her bedroom window.

"I went too fast for him." He spoke quite
sharply, and before he had time to say he was
sorry and didn't mean exactly that, the window
had shut.

"They've quarrelled," she thought. "Whatever
about?"

She soon heard. Gerald returned in a cold
stormy temper. Rickie had offered him money.

"My dear fellow, don't be so cross. The child's
mad."

"If it was, I'd forgive that. But I can't stand
unhealthiness."

"Now, Gerald, that's where I hate you. You
don't know what it is to pity the weak."

"Woman's job. So you wish I'd taken a
hundred pounds a -year from him. Did you
ever hear such blasted cheek? Marry us — he,
you, and me — a hundred pounds down and as
much annual — he, of course, to pry into all we
did, and we to kowtow and eat dirt -pie to him.
If that's Mr Rickety Elliot's idea of a soldier
and an Englishman, it isn't mine, and I wish
I'd had a horse-whip."

She was roaring with laughter. "You're
babies, a pair of you, and you're the worst.
Why couldn't you let the little silly down
gently ? There he was puffing and sniffing
under my window, and I thought he'd insulted
you. Why didn't you accept?"

"Accept?" he thundered.

" It would have taken the nonsense out of him
for ever. Why, he was only talking out of a
book."

CAMBRIDGE. 63

"More fool he."

"Well, don't be angry with a fool. He means
no harm. He muddles all day with poetry and
old dead people, and then tries to bring it into
life. It's too funny for words."

Gerald repeated that he could not stand un-
healthiness.

" I don't call that exactly unhealthy."

"I do. And why he could give the money's
worse."

"What do you mean?"

He became shy. "I hadn't meant to tell you.
It's not quite for a lady." For, like most men
who are rather animal, he was intellectually a
prude. "He says he can't ever marry, owing to
his foot. It wouldn't be fair to posterity. His
grandfather was crocked, his father too, and he's
as bad. He thinks that it's hereditary, and may
get worse next generation. He's discussed it all
over with other Undergrads. A bright lot they
must be. He daren't risk having any children.
Hence the hundred quid."

She stopped laughing. "Oh, little beast, if he
said all that!"

He was encouraged to proceed. Hitherto he
had not talked about their school days. Now he
told her everything, — the "barley -sugar," as he
called it, the pins in chapel, and how one after-
noon he had tied him head downward on to a
tree -trunk and then ran away — of course only
for a moment.

For this she scolded him well. But she had
a thrill of joy when she thought of the weak
boy in the clutches of the strong one.

64 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

V.

Gerald died that afternoon. He was broken up
in the football match. Rickie and Mr Pembroke
were on the ground when the accident took
place. It was no good torturing him by a drive
to the hospital, and he was merely carried to
the little pavilion and laid upon the floor. A
doctor came, and so did a clergyman, but it
seemed better to leave him for the last few
minutes with Agnes, who had ridden down on
her bicycle.

It was a strange lamentable interview. The
girl was so accustomed to health, that for a
time she could not understand. It must be a
joke that he chose to lie there in the dust, with
a rug over him and his knees bent up towards
his chin. His arms were as she knew them, and
their admirable muscles showed clear and clean
beneath the jersey. The face, too, though a
little flushed, was uninjured: it must be some
curious joke.

" Gerald, what have you been doing ? "
He replied, " I can't see you. It's too dark."
"Oh, I'll soon alter that," she said in her old
brisk way. She opened the pavilion door. The
people who were standing by it moved aside.
She saw a deserted meadow, steaming and grey,
and beyond it slate -roofed cottages, row beside
row, climbing a shapeless hill. Towards London
the sky was yellow. "There. That's better."
She sat down by him again, and drew his hand
into her own. "Now we are all right, aren't we?"

CAMBRIDGE. 65

" Where are you ? "

This time she could not reply.

" What is it ? Where am I going ? "

"Wasn't the rector here?" said she after a
silence.

"He explained heaven, and thinks that I — but
— I couldn't tell a parson ; but I don't seem to
have any use for any of the things there."

"We are Christians," said Agnes shyly. "Dear
love, we don't talk about these things, but we
believe them. I think that you will get well
and be as strong again as ever ; but, in any case,
there is a spiritual life, and we know that some
day you and I "

"I shan't do as a spirit, M he interrupted, sigh-
ing pitifully. "I want you as I am, and it can-
not be managed. The rector had to say so. I
want — I don't want to talk. I can't see you.
Shut that door."

She obeyed, and crept into his arms. Only
this time her grasp was the stronger. Her heart
beat louder and louder as the sound of his grew
more faint. He was crying like a little fright-
ened child, and her lips were wet with his tears.
"Bear it bravely," she told him.

"I can't," he whispered. "It isn't to be done.
I can't see you," and passed from her trembling,
with open eyes.

She rode home on her bicycle, leaving the
others to follow. Some ladies who did not know
what had happened bowed and smiled as she
passed, and she returned their salute.

"Oh, miss, is it true?" cried the cook, her
face streaming with tears.

Agnes nodded. Presumably it was true.

E

66 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Letters had just arrived : one was for Gerald
from his mother. Life, which had given them
no warning, seemed to make no comment now.
The incident was outside nature, and would
surely pass away like a dream. She felt slightly
irritable, and the grief of the servants annoyed
her.

They sobbed. " Ah, look at his marks ! Ah,
little he thought — little he thought!" In the
brown holland strip by the front door a
heavy football boot had left its impress. They
had not liked Gerald, but he was a man, they
were women, he had died. Their mistress
ordered them to leave her.

For many minutes she sat at the foot of the
stairs, rubbing her eyes. An obscure spiritual
crisis was going on. Should she weep like the
servants ? or should she bear up and trust in
the consoler Time ? Was the death of a man
so terrible after all? As she invited herself to
apathy there were steps on the gravel, and
Rickie Elliot burst in. He was splashed with
mud, his breath was gone, and his hair fell
wildly over his meagre face. She thought,
" These are the people who are left alive ! "
From the bottom of her soul she hated him.

" I came to see what you're doing," he cried.

"Resting."

He knelt beside her, and she said, " Would you
please go away?"

" Yes, dear Agnes, of course ; but I must see
first that you mind."

Her breath caught. Her eyes moved to the
treads, going outwards, so firmly, so irretrievably.

He panted, " It's the worst thing that can

CAMBRIDGE. 67

ever happen to you in all your life, and you've
got to mind it — you've got to mind it. They'll
come saying, ' Bear up — trust to time.' No, no ;
they're wrong. Mind it."

Through all her misery she knew that this boy
was greater than they supposed. He rose to his
feet, and with intense conviction cried : " But I
know — I understand. It's your death as well as
his. He's gone, Agnes, and his arms will never
hold you again. In God's name, mind such a
thing, and don't sit fencing with your soul.
Don't stop being great ; that's the one crime
he'll never forgive you."

She faltered, "Who — who forgives?"

" Gerald."

At the sound of his name she slid forward,
and all her dishonesty left her. She acknow-
ledged that life's meaning had vanished. Bend-
ing down, she kissed the footprint. " How can
he forgive me ? " she sobbed. " Where has he
gone to? You never could dream such an awful
thing. He couldn't see me though I opened the
door — wide — plenty of light ; and then he could
not remember the things that should comfort
him. He wasn't a — he wasn't ever a great reader,
and he couldn't remember the things. The rector

tried, and he couldn't — I came, and I couldn't "

She could not speak for tears. Rickie did not
check her. He let her accuse herself, and fate,
and Herbert, who had postponed their marriage.
She might have been a wife six months ; but
Herbert had spoken of self-control and of all life
before them. He let her kiss the footprints till
their marks gave way to the marks of her
lips. She moaned, " He is gone — where is he ? "

68 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

and then he replied quite quietly, " He is in
heaven."

She begged him not to comfort her; she could
not bear it.

"I did not come to comfort you. I came to
see that you mind. He is in heaven, Agnes.
The greatest thing is over."

Her hatred was lulled. She murmured, " Dear
Rickie ! " and held up her hand to him. Through
her tears his meagre face showed as a seraph's
who spoke the truth and forbade her to juggle
with her soul. "Dear Rickie — but for the rest
of my life what am I to do?"

"Anything — if you remember that the ^greatest
thing is over."

"I don't know you," she said tremulously.
"You have grown up in a moment. You never
talked to us, and yet you understand it all. Tell
me again — I can only trust you — where he is."

"He is in heaven."

"You are sure?"

It puzzled her that Rickie, who could scarcely
tell you the time without a saving clause, should
be so certain about immortality.

VI.

He did not stop for the funeral. Mr Pembroke
thought that he had a bad eifect on Agnes, and
prevented her from acquiescing in the tragedy
as rapidly as she might have done. As he
expressed it, " one must not court sorrow," and

CAMBRIDGE. 69

he hinted to the young man that they desired
to be alone. Rickie went back to the Silts.

He was only there a few days. As soon as
term opened he returned to Cambridge, for which
he longed passionately. The journey thither was
now familiar to him, and he took pleasure in
each landmark. The fair valley of Tewin Water,
the cutting into Hitchin where the train trav-
erses the chalk, Baldock Church, Royston with
its promise of downs, were nothing in themselves,
but dear as stages in his pilgrimage towards
the abode of peace. On the platform he met
friends. They had all had pleasant vacations : it
was a happy world. The atmosphere alters.

Cambridge, according to her custom, welcomed
her sons with open drains. Pettycury was up, so
was Trinity Street, and navvies peeped out of
King's Parade. Here it was gas, there electric
light, but everywhere something, and always a
smell. It was also the day that the wheels fell
off the station tram, and Rickie, who was nat-
urally inside, was among the passengers who
" sustained no injury but a shock, and had as
hearty a laugh over the mishap afterwards as
any one."

Tilliard fled into a hansom, cursing himself for
having tried to do the thing cheaply. Horn-
blower also swept past yelling derisively, with
his luggage neatly piled above his head. "Let's
get out and walk," muttered Ansell. But Rickie
was succouring a distressed female — Mrs Aber-
deen. " Oh, Mrs Aberdeen, I never saw you ; I
am so glad to see you — I am so very glad." Mrs
Aberdeen was cold. She did not like being
spoken to outside the college, and was also dis-

70 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

trait about her basket. Hitherto no genteel eye
had ever seen inside it, but in the collision its
little calico veil fell off, and there was revealed
— nothing. The basket was empty, and never
would hold anything illegal. All the same she
was distrait, and "We shall meet later, sir, I
dessy," was all the greeting Rickie got from her.

"Now what kind of life has Mrs Aberdeen?"
he exclaimed, as he and Ansell pursued the
Station Road. "Here these bedders come and
make us comfortable. We owe an enormous
amount to them, their wages are absurd, and
we know nothing about them. Off they go to
Barnwell, and then their lives are hidden. I just
know that Mrs Aberdeen has a husband, but
that's all. She never will talk about him. Now
I do so want to fill in her life. I see one -half
of it. What's the other half? She may have
a real jolly house, in good taste, with a little
garden, and books, and pictures. Or, again, she
mayn't. But in any case one ought to know.
I know she'd dislike it, but she oughtn't to dis-
like. After all, bedders are to blame for the
present lamentable state of things, just as much
as gentlefolk. She ought to want me to come.
She ought to introduce me to her husband."

They had reached the corner of Hills Road.
Ansell spoke for the first time. He said, " Ugh ! "

"Drains?"

"Yes. A spiritual cesspool."

Rickie laughed.

"I expected it from your letter."

"The one you never answered?"

"I answer none of your letters. You are quite
hopeless by now. You can go to the bad. But

CAMBRIDGE. 71

I refuse to accompany you. I refuse to believe
that every human being is a moving wonder of
supreme interest and tragedy and beauty — which
was what the letter in question amounted to.
You'll find plenty who will believe it. It's a
very popular view among people who are too
idle to think; it saves them the trouble of de-
tecting the beautiful from the ugly, the interest-
ing from the dull, the tragic from the melodra-
matic. You had just come from Sawston, and
were apparently carried away by the fact that
Miss Pembroke had the usual amount of arms
and legs."

Rickie was silent. He had told his friend how
he felt, but not what had happened. Ansell
could discuss love and death admirably, but
somehow he would not understand lovers or a
dying man, and in the letter there had been
scant allusion to these concrete facts. Would
Cambridge understand them either? He watched
some dons who were peeping into an excavation,
and throwing up their hands with humorous
gestures of despair. These men would lecture
next week on Catiline's conspiracy, on Luther,
on Evolution, on Catullus. They dealt with so
much and they had experienced so little. Was it
possible he would ever come to think Cambridge
narrow? In his short life Rickie had known
two sudden deaths, and that is enough to dis-
arrange any placid outlook on the world. He
knew once for all that we are all of us bubbles
on an extremely rough sea. Into this sea
humanity has built, as it were, some little break-
waters— scientific knowledge, civilised restraint —
so that the bubbles do not break so frequently

72 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

or so soon. But the sea has not altered, and it
was only a chance that he, Ansell, Tilliard, and
Mrs Aberdeen had not all been killed in the
tram.

They waited for the other tram by the Roman
Catholic Church, whose florid bulk was already
receding into twilight. It is the first big build-
ing that the incoming visitor sees. " Oh, here
come the colleges ! " cries the Protestant parent,
and then learns that it was built by a Papist
who made a fortune out of movable eyes for
dolls. "Built out of doll's eyes to contain idols"
— that, at all events, is the legend and the joke.
It watches over the apostate city, taller by many
a yard than anything within, and asserting, how-
ever wildly, that here is eternity, stability, and
bubbles unbreakable upon a windless sea.

A costly hymn tune announced five o'clock, and
in the distance the more lovable note of St
Mary's could be heard, speaking from the heart
of the town. Then the tram arrived — the slow
stuffy tram that plies every twenty minutes be-
tween the unknown and the market-place — and
took them past the desecrated grounds of Down-
ing, past Addenbrooke's Hospital, girt like any
Venetian palace with a mantling canal, past the
Fitz William, towering upon immense substruc-
tions like any Roman temple, right up to the
gates of one's own college, which looked like
nothing else in the world. The porters were glad
to see them, but wished it had been a hansom.
"Our luggage," explained Rickie, "comes in the
hotel omnibus, if you would kindly pay a shilling
for mine." Ansell turned aside to some large
lighted windows, the abode of a hospitable don,

CAMBRIDGE. 73

and from other windows there floated familiar
voices and the familiar mistakes in a Beethoven
sonata. The college, though small, was civilised,
and proud of its civilisation. It was not sufficient
glory to be a Blue there, nor an additional glory-
to get drunk. Many a maiden lady who had
read that Cambridge men were sad dogs, was
surprised and perhaps a little disappointed at the
reasonable life which greeted her. Miss Apple-
blossom in particular had had a tremendous
shock. The sight of young fellows making tea
and drinking water had made her wonder whether
this was Cambridge College at all. "It is so,"
she exclaimed afterwards. "It is just as I say ;
and what's more, I wouldn't have it otherwise,
Stewart says it's as easy as easy to get into the
swim, and not at all expensive." The direction
of the swim was determined a little by the genius
of the place — for places have a genius, though
the less we talk about it the better — and a good
deal by the tutors and resident fellows, who
treated with rare dexterity the products that
came up yearly from the public schools. They
taught the perky boy that he was not every-
thing, and the limp boy that he might be some-
thing. They even welcomed those boys who were
neither limp nor perky, but odd — those boys who
had never been at a public school at all, and
such do not find a welcome everywhere. And
they did everything with ease — one might almost
say with nonchalance, — so that the boys noticed
nothing, and received education, often for the
first time in their lives.

But Rickie turned to none of these friends, for
just then he loved his rooms better than any

74 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

person. They were all he really possessed in the
world, the only place he could call his own.
Over the door was his name, and through the
paint, like a grey ghost, he could still read the
name of his predecessor. With a sigh of joy he
entered the perishable home that was his for a
couple of years. There was a beautiful fire, and
the kettle boiled at once. He made tea on the
hearth-rug and ate the biscuits which Mrs Aber-
deen had brought for him up from Anderson's.
"Gentlemen," she said, "must learn to give and
take." He sighed again and again, like one who
has escaped from danger. With his head on the
fender and all his limbs relaxed, he felt almost
as safe as he felt once when his mother killed a
ghost in the passage by carrying him through
it in her arms. There was no ghost now; he
was frightened at reality; he was frightened at
the splendours and horrors of the world.

A letter from Miss Pembroke was on the table.
He did not hurry to open it, for she, and all that
she did, was overwhelming. She wrote like the
Sibyl ; her sorrowful face moved over the stars
and shattered their harmonies ; last night he saw
her with the eyes of Blake, a virgin widow, tall,
veiled, consecrated, with her hands stretched out
against an everlasting wind. Why would she
write? Her letters were not for the likes of
him, nor to be read in rooms like his.

"We are not leaving Sawston," she wrote. "I
saw how selfish it was of me to risk spoiling
Herbert's career. I shall get used to any place.
Now that he is gone, nothing of that sort can
matter. Every one has been most kind, but
you have comforted me most, though you did

CAMBRIDGE. 75

not mean to. I cannot think how you did it,
or understood so much. I still think of you
as a little boy with a lame leg, — I know you
will let me say this, — and yet when it came to
the point you knew more than people who have
been all their lives with sorrow and death."

Rickie burnt this letter, which he ought not
to have done, for it was one of the few tributes
Miss Pembroke ever paid to imagination. But
he felt that it did not belong to him : words so
sincere should be for Gerald alone. The smoke
rushed up the chimney, and he indulged in a
vision. He saw it reach the outer air and beat
against the low ceiling of clouds. The clouds
were too strong for it; but in them was one
chink, revealing one star, and through this the
smoke escaped into the light of stars innumer-
able. Then — but then the vision failed, and the
voice of science whispered that all smoke remains
on earth in the form of smuts, and is trouble-
some to Mrs Aberdeen.

"I am jolly unpractical," he mused. "And
what is the point of it when real things are so
wonderful? Who wants visions in a world that
has Agnes and Gerald?" He turned on the
electric light and pulled open the table -drawer.
There, among spoons and corks and string, he
found a fragment of a little story that he had
tried to write last term. It was called " The Bay
of the Fifteen Islets," and the action took place
on St John's Eve off the coast of Sicily. A party
of tourists land on one of the islands. Suddenly
the boatmen become uneasy, and say that the
island is not generally there. It is an extra one,
and they had better have tea on one of the

76 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

ordinaries. " Pooh, volcanic ! " says the leading
tourist, and the ladies say how interesting. The
island begins to rock, and so do the minds of its
visitors. They start and quarrel and jabber.
Fingers burst up through the sand — black fingers
of sea devils. The island tilts. The tourists go
mad. But just before the catastrophe one man,
integer vitce scelerisque purus, sees the truth.
Here are no devils. Other muscles, other minds,
are pulling the island to its subterranean home.
Through the advancing wall of waters he sees

no grisly faces, no ghastly medieval limbs, but

But what nonsense ! When real things are so
wonderful, what is the point of pretending?

And so Rickie deflected his enthusiasms. Hither-
to they had played on gods and heroes, on the
infinite and the impossible, on virtue and beauty
and strength. Now, with a steadier radiance,
they transfigured a man who was dead and a
woman who was still alive.

VII.

Love, say orderly people, can be fallen into by
two methods: (1) through the desires, (2) through
the imagination. And if the orderly people are
English, they add that (1) is the inferior method,
and characteristic of the South. It is inferior.
Yet those who pursue it at all events know
what they want ; they are not puzzling to them-
selves or ludicrous to others ; they do not take
the wings of the morning and fly into the utter-

CAMBRIDGE. 77

most parts of the sea before walking to the
registry office; they cannot breed a tragedy
quite like Rickie's.

He is, of course, absurdly young — not twenty-
one — and he will be engaged to be married at
twenty - three. He has no knowledge of the
world ; for example, he thinks that if you do
not want money you can give it to friends who
do. He believes in humanity because he knows
a dozen decent people. He believes in women
because he has loved his mother. And his friends
are as young and as ignorant as himself. They
are full of the wine of life. But they have not
tasted the cup — let us call it the teacup — of ex-
perience, which has made men of Mr Pembroke's
type what they are. Oh, that teacup ! To be
taken at prayers, at friendship, at love, till we
are quite sane, quite efficient, quite experienced,
and quite useless to God or man. We must
drink it, or we shall die. But we need not drink
it always. Here is our problem and our salva-
tion. There comes a moment — God knows when
— at which we can say, "I will experience no
longer. I will create. I will be an experience."
But to do this we must be both acute and heroic.
For it is not easy, after accepting six cups of
tea, to throw the seventh in the face of the
hostess. And to Rickie this moment has not, as
yet, been offered.

Ansell, at the end of his third year, got a
first in the Moral Science Tripos. Being a
scholar, he kept his rooms in college, and at
once began to work for a Fellowship. Rickie
got a creditable second in the Classical Tripos,
Part I., and retired to sallow lodgings in Mill

78 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Lane, carrying with him the degree of B.A. and
a small exhibition, which was quite as much as
he deserved. For Part II. he read Greek Archae-
ology, and got a second. All this means that
Ansell was much cleverer than Rickie. As for
the cow, she was still going strong, though
turning a little academic as the years passed
over her.

"We are bound to get narrow," sighed Rickie.
He and his friend were lying in a meadow
during their last summer term. In his in-
curable love for flowers he had plaited two
garlands of buttercups and cow -parsley, and
Ansell's lean Jewish face was framed in one of
them. "Cambridge is wonderful, but — but it's
so tiny. You have no idea — at least, I think
you have no idea — how the great world looks
down on it."

"I read the letters in the papers."

"It's a bad look-out."

"How?"

"Cambridge has lost touch with the times."

"Was she ever intended to touch them?"

11 She satisfies," said Rickie mysteriously,
"neither the professions, nor the public schools,
nor the great thinking mass of men and women.
There is a general feeling that her day is over,
and naturally one feels pretty sick."

"Do you still write short stories?"

"Why?"

"Because your English has gone to the devil.
You think and talk in Journalese. Define a
great thinking mass."

Rickie sat up and adjusted his floral crown.

"Estimate the worth of a general feeling."

CAMBRIDGE. 79

Silence.

"And thirdly, where is the great world?"

«Oh, that !"

"Yes. That," exclaimed Ansell, rising from
his couch in violent excitement. "Where is it?
How do you set about finding it? How long
does it take to get there? What does it think?
What does it do? What does it want? Oblige
me with specimens of its art and literature."
Silence. "Till you do, my opinions will be as
follows: There is no great world at all, only a
little earth, for ever isolated from the rest of
the little solar system. The little earth is full
of tiny societies, and Cambridge is one of them.
All the societies are narrow, but some are good
and some are bad — just as one house is
beautiful inside and another ugly. Observe the
metaphor of the houses : I am coming back to
it. The good societies say, 'I tell you to do this
because I am Cambridge.' The bad ones say, 'I
tell you to do that because I am the great world '
— not because I am 'Peckham,' or 'Billingsgate,'
or ' Park Lane,' but ' because I am the great
world.' They lie. And fools like you listen to
them, and believe that they are a thing which
does not exist and never has existed, and con-
fuse 'great,' which has no meaning whatever,
with 'good,' which means salvation. Look at
this great wreath : it'll be dead to - morrow.
Look at that good flower : it'll come up again
next year. Now for the other metaphor. To
compare the world to Cambridge is like com-
paring the outsides of houses with the inside of
a house. No intellectual effort is needed, no
moral result is attained. You only have to say,

80 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

1 Oh, what a difference ! Oh, what a difference ! '
and then come indoors again and exhibit your
broadened mind."

" I never shall come indoors again," said Rickie.
"That's the whole point." And his voice began
to quiver. "It's well enough for those who'll get
a Fellowship, but in a few weeks I shall go
down. In a few years it'll be as if I've never
been up. It matters very much to me what
the world is like. I can't answer your questions
about it ; and that's no loss to you, but so much
the worse for me. And then you've got a house
— not a metaphorical one, but a house with
father and sisters. I haven't, and never shall
have. There'll never again be a home for me
like Cambridge. I shall only look at the outsides
of homes. According to your metaphor, I shall
live in the street, and it matters very much to
me what I find there."

"You'll live in another house right enough,"
said Ansell, rather uneasily. "Only take care
you pick out a decent one. I can't think why
you flop about so helplessly, like a bit of sea-
weed. In four years you've taken as much root
as any one."

"Where?"

"I should say you've been fortunate in your
friends."

" Oh — that ! " But he was not cynical — or cynical
in a very tender way. He was thinking of the
irony of friendship — so strong it is, and so fragile.
We fly together, like straws in an eddy, to part
in the open stream. Nature has no use for us ;
she has cut her stuff differently. Dutiful sons,
loving husbands, responsible fathers — these are

CAMBRIDGE, 81

what she wants, and if we are friends it must
be in our spare time. Abram and Sarai were
sorrowful, yet their seed became as sand of the
sea, and distracts the politics of Europe at this
moment. But a few verses of poetry is all that
survives of David and Jonathan.

"I wish we were labelled," said Rickie. He
wished that all the confidence and mutual know-
ledge that is born in such a place as Cambridge
could be organised. People went down into the
world saying, "We know and like each other;
we shan't forget." But they did forget, for man
is so made that he cannot remember long with-
out a symbol ; he wished there was a society, a
kind of friendship office, where the marriage of
true minds could be registered.

"Why labels?"

"To know each other again."

"I have taught you pessimism splendidly." He
looked at his watch.

"What time?"

"Not twelve."

Rickie got up.

"Why go?" He stretched out his hand and
caught hold of Rickie's ankle.

" I've got that Miss Pembroke to lunch — that
girl whom you say never's there."

"Then why go? All this week you have pre-
tended Miss Pembroke awaited you. Wednesday
— Miss Pembroke to lunch. Thursday — Miss Pem-
broke to tea. Now again — and you didn't even
invite her."

"To Cambridge, no. But the Hall man they're
stopping with has so many engagements that
she and her friend can often come to me, I'm

F

82 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

glad to say. I don't think I ever told you much,
but over two years ago the man she was going
to marry was killed at football. She nearly died
of grief. This visit to Cambridge is almost the
first amusement she has felt up to taking. Oh,
they go back to - morrow ! Give me breakfast
to-morrow."

"All right."

"But I shall see you this evening. I shall be
round at your paper on Schopenhauer. Lemme
go."

"Don't go," he said idly. "It's much better
for you to talk to me."

"Lemme go, Stewart."

"It's amusing that you're so feeble. You —
simply — can't — get — away. I wish I wanted to
bully you."

Rickie laughed, and suddenly overbalanced into
the grass. Ansell, with unusual playfulness, held
him prisoner. They lay there for a few minutes,
talking and ragging aimlessly. Then Rickie seized
his opportunity and jerked away.

" Go, go ! " yawned the other. But he was a
little vexed, for he was a young man with great
capacity for pleasure, and it pleased him that
morning to be with his friend. The thought of
two ladies waiting lunch did not deter him ;
stupid women, why shouldn't they wait? Why
should they interfere with their betters? With
his ear on the ground he listened to Rickie's de-
parting steps, and thought, "He wastes a lot of
time keeping engagements. Why will he be
pleasant to fools?" And then he thought, "Why
has he turned so unhappy? It isn't as if he's a
philosopher, or tries to solve the riddle of exist-

CAMBRIDGE. 83

ence. And he's got money of his own." Thus
thinking, he fell asleep.

Meanwhile Rickie hurried away from him, and
slackened and stopped, and hurried again. He
was due at the Union in ten minutes, but he
could not bring himself there. He dared not
meet Miss Pembroke : he loved her.

The devil must have planned it. They had
started so gloriously; she had been a goddess
both in joy and sorrow. She was a goddess still.
But he had dethroned the god whom once he
had glorified equally. Slowly, slowly, the image
of Gerald had faded. That was the first step.
Rickie had thought, " No matter. He will be
bright again. Just now all the radiance chances
to be in her." And on her he had fixed his
eyes. He thought of her awake. He entertained
her willingly in dreams. He found her in poetry
and music and in the sunset. She made him
kind and strong. She made him clever. Through
her he kept Cambridge in its proper place, and
lived as a citizen of the great world. But
one night he dreamt that she lay in his arms.
This displeased him. He determined to think
a little about Gerald instead. Then the fabric
collapsed.

It was hard on Rickie thus to meet the devil.
He did not deserve it, for he was comparatively
civilised, and knew that there was nothing shame-
ful in love. But to love this woman ! If only it
had been any one else ! Love in return — that he
could expect from no one, being too ugly and
too unattractive. But the love he offered would
not then have been vile. The insult to Miss
Pembroke, who was consecrated, and whom he

84 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

had consecrated, who could still see Gerald, and
always would see him, shining on his everlasting
throne — this was the crime from the devil, the
crime that no penance would ever purge. She
knew nothing. She never would know. But the
crime was registered in heaven.

He had been tempted to confide in Ansell.
But to what purpose ? He would say, " I love
Miss Pembroke," and Stewart would reply, "You
ass." And then, "I'm never going to tell her."
"You ass," again. After all, it was not a
practical question ; Agnes would never hear of
his fall. If his friend had been, as he expressed
it, " labelled " ; if he had been a father, or still
better a brother, one might tell him of the dis-
creditable passion. But why irritate him for no
reason ? Thinking " I am always angling for
sympathy ; I must stop myself," he hurried on-
ward to the Union.

He found his guests half way up the stairs,
reading the advertisements of coaches for the
Long Vacation. He heard Mrs Lewin say, "I
wonder what he'll end by doing." A little over-
acting his part, he apologised nonchalantly for
his lateness.

"It's always the same," cried Agnes. "Last
time he forgot I was coming altogether." She
wore a flowered muslin — something indescribably
liquid and cool. It reminded him a little of
those swift piercing streams, neither blue nor
green, that gush out of the dolomites. Her face
was clear and brown, like the face of a moun-
taineer ; her hair was so plentiful that it seemed
banked up above it ; and her little toque, though
it answered the note of the dress, was almost ludi-

CAMBRIDGE. 85

crous, poised on so much natural glory. When
she moved, the sunlight flashed on her ear-rings.

He led them up to the luncheon -room. By
now he was conscious of his limitations as a
host, and never attempted to entertain ladies in
his lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less
intimate. It had a faint flavour of a London
club ; it marked the undergraduate's nearest ap-
proach to the great world. Amid its waiters
and serviettes one felt impersonal, and able to
conceal the private emotions. Rickie felt that
if Miss Pembroke knew one thing about him, she
knew everything. During this visit he took her
to no place that he greatly loved.

"Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I'm sorry. I was
out towards Coton with a dreadful friend."

Mrs Lewin pushed up her veil. She was a
typical May - term chaperon, always pleasant,
always hungry, and always tired. Year after
year she came up to Cambridge in a tight silk
dress, and year after year she nearly died of it.
Her feet hurt, her limbs were cramped in a
canoe, black spots danced before her eyes from
eating too much mayonnaise. But still she came,
if not as a mother as an aunt, if not as an aunt
as a friend. Still she ascended the roof of King's,
still she counted the balls of Clare, still she was
on the point of grasping the organisation of the
May races. " And who is your friend ? " she asked.

" His name is Ansell."

"Well, now, did I see him two years ago — as
a bedmaker in something they did at the Foot
Lights? Oh, how I roared."

" You didn't see Mr Ansell at the Foot Lights,"
said Agnes, smiling.

86 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"How do you know?" asked Rickie.

"He'd scarcely be so frivolous."

"Do you remember seeing him?"

" For a moment."

What a memory she had ! And how splendidly
during that moment she had behaved !

" Isn't he marvellously clever ? "

"I believe so."

" Oh, give me clever people ! " cried Mrs Lewin.
"They are kindness itself at the Hall, but I
assure you I am depressed at times. One cannot
talk bump-rowing for ever."

" I never hear about him, Rickie ; but isn't he
really your greatest friend?"

" I don't go in for greatest friends."

"Do you mean you like us all equally?"

"All differently, those of you I like."

"Ah, you've caught it!" cried Mrs Lewin.
" Mr Elliot gave it you there well."

Agnes laughed, and, her elbows on the table,
regarded them both through her fingers — a habit
of hers. Then she said, " Can't we see the great
Mr Ansell?"

"Oh, let's. Or would he frighten me?"

" He would frighten you," said Rickie. " He's
a trifle weird."

" My good Rickie, if you knew the deathly
dulness of Sawston — every one saying the proper
thing at the proper time, I so proper, Herbert
so proper ! Why, weirdness is the one thing I
long for ! Do arrange something."

"I'm afraid there's no opportunity. Ansell
goes some vast bicycle ride this afternoon ; this
evening you're tied up at the Hall ; and to-
morrow you go."

CAMBRIDGE. 87

" But there's breakfast to-morrow," said Agnes.
"Look here, Rickie, bring Mr Ansell to breakfast
with us at Buol's."

Mrs Lewin seconded the invitation.

"Bad luck again," said Rickie boldly; "I'm
already fixed up for breakfast. I'll tell him of
your very kind intention."

"Let's have him alone," murmured Agnes.

" My dear girl, I should die through the floor !
Oh, it'll be all right about breakfast. I rather
think we shall get asked this evening by that
shy man who has the pretty rooms in Trinity."

"Oh, very well. Where is it you breakfast,
Rickie?"

He faltered. " To Ansell's, it is " It seemed

as if he was making some great admission. So
self-conscious was he, that he thought the two
women exchanged glances. Had Agnes already
explored that part of him that did not belong
to her? Would another chance step reveal the
part that did ? He asked them abruptly what
they would like to do after lunch.

"Anything," said Mrs Lewin, — "anything in
the world."

A walk? A boat? Ely? A drive? Some ob-
jection was raised to each. " To tell the truth,"
she said at last, "I do feel a wee bit tired, and
what occurs to me is this. You and Agnes shall
leave me here and have no more bother. I shall be
perfectly happy snoozling in one of these delight-
ful drawing-room chairs. Do what you like, and
then pick me up after it."

" Alas ! it's against regulations," said Rickie.
"The Union won't trust lady visitors on its
premises alone."

88 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"But who's to know I'm alone? With a lot
of men in the drawing-room, how's each to know
that I'm not with the others?"

"That would shock Rickie," said Agnes, laugh-
ing. "He's frightfully high-principled."

"No, I'm not," said Rickie, thinking of his
recent shiftiness over breakfast.

" Then come for a walk with me. I want
exercise. Some connection of ours was once
rector of Madingley. I shall walk out and see
the church."

Mrs Lewin was accordingly left in the Union.

" This is jolly ! " Agnes exclaimed as she strode
along the somewhat depressing road that leads
out of Cambridge past the observatory. "Do I
go too fast?"

"No, thank you. I get stronger every year.
If it wasn't for the look of the thing, I should
be quite happy."

"But you don't care for the look of the thing.
It's only ignorant people who do that, surely."

"Perhaps. I care. I like people who are well-
made and beautiful. They are of some use in the
world. I understand why they are there. I
cannot understand why the ugly and crippled
are there, however healthy they may feel inside.
Don't you know how Turner spoils his pictures
by introducing a man like a bolster in the fore-
ground? Well, in actual life every landscape is
spoilt by men of worse shapes still."

" You sound like a bolster with the stuffing
out." They laughed. She always blew his cob-
webs away like this, with a puff of humorous
mountain air. Just now — the associations he
attached to her were various — she reminded him

CAMBRIDGE. 89

of a heroine of Meredith's — but a heroine at the
end of the book. All had been written about
her. She had played her mighty part, and knew
that it was over. He and he alone was not
content, and wrote for her daily a trivial and
impossible sequel.

Last time they had talked about Gerald. But
that was some six months ago, when things felt
easier. To - day Gerald was the faintest blur.
Fortunately the conversation turned to Mr Pem-
broke and to education. Did women lose a lot
by not knowing Greek? "A heap," said Rickie,
roughly. But modern languages? Thus they
got to Germany, which he had visited last
Easter with Ansell ; and thence to the German
Emperor, and what a to-do he made ; and from
him to our own king (still Prince of Wales),
who had lived while an undergraduate at Mad-
ingley Hall. Here it*»was. And all the time
he thought, "It is hard on her. She has no
right to be walking with me. She would be ill
with disgust if she knew. It is hard on her to
be loved."

They looked at the Hall, and went inside the
pretty little church. Some Arundel prints hung
upon the pillars, and Agnes expressed the opinion
that pictures inside a place of worship were a
pity. Rickie did not agree with this. He said
again that nothing beautiful was ever to be
regretted.

"You're cracked on beauty," she whispered —
they were still inside the church. "Do hurry up
and write something."

" Something beautiful ? "

"I believe you can. I'm going to lecture you

90 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

seriously all the way home. Take care that you
don't waste your life."

They continued the conversation outside. " But
I've got to hate my own writing. I believe that
most people come to that stage — not so early
though. What I write is too silly. It can't
happen. For instance, a stupid vulgar man is
engaged to a lovely young lady. He wants her
to live in the towns, but she only cares for
woods. She shocks him this way and that, but
gradually he tames her, and makes her nearly as
dull as he is. One day she has a last explosion
— over the snobby wedding - presents — and flies
out of the drawing-room window, shouting,
' Freedom and truth ! ' Near the house is a
little dell full of fir-trees, and she runs into it.
He comes there the next moment. But she's
gone."

" Awfully exciting. Where ? "

" Oh Lord, she's a Dryad ! " cried Rickie, in
great disgust. "She's turned into a tree."

"Rickie, it's very good indeed. That kind of
thing has something in it. Of course you get it
all through Greek and Latin. How upset the
man must be when he sees the girl turn."

"He doesn't see her. He never guesses. Such
a man could never see a Dryad."

" So you describe how she turns just before he
comes up?"

"No. Indeed I don't ever say that she does
turn. I don't use the word 'Dryad' once."

"I think you ought to put that part plainly.
Otherwise, with such an original story, people
might miss the point. Have you had any luck
with it?"

CAMBRIDGE. 91

"Magazines? I haven't tried. I know what
the stuff's worth. You see, a year or two ago
I had a great idea of getting into touch with
Nature, just as the Greeks were in touch ; and
seeing England so beautiful, I used to pretend
that her trees and coppices and summer fields of
parsley were alive. It's funny enough now, but
it wasn't funny then, for I got in such a state
that I believed, actually believed, that Fauns
lived in a certain double hedgerow near the Gog
Magogs, and one evening I walked round a mile
sooner than go through it alone."

" Good gracious ! " She laid her hand on his
shoulder.

He moved to the other side of the road. "It's
all right now. I've changed those follies for
others. But while I had them I began to write,
and even now I keep on writing, though I know
better. I've got quite a pile of little stories, all
harping on this ridiculous idea of getting into
touch with Nature."

"I wish you weren't so modest. It's simply
splendid as an idea. Though — but tell me about
the Dryad who was engaged to be married.
What was she like?"

" I can show you the dell in which the young
person disappeared. We pass it on the right in
a moment."

"It does seem a pity that you don't make
something of your talents. It seems such a
waste to write little stories and never publish
them. You must have enough for a book. Life
is so full in our days that short stories are the
very thing ; they get read by people who'd never
tackle a novel. For example, at our Dorcas we

92 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

tried to read out a long affair by Henry James
— Herbert saw it recommended in 'The Times.'
There was no doubt it was very good, but one
simply couldn't remember from one week to
another what had happened. So now our aim
is to get something that just lasts the hour. I
take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am
so offensive. You are too modest. People who
think they can do nothing so often do nothing.
I want you to plunge."

It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took
him seriously. Could he but thank her for her
divine affability ! But the words would stick in
his throat, or worse still, would bring other
words along with them. His breath came quickly,
for he seldom spoke of his writing, and no one,
not even Ansell, had advised him to plunge.

"But do you really think that I could take up
literature ? "

"Why not? You can try. Even if you fail,
you can try. Of course we think you tremend-
ously clever ; and I met one of your dons at tea,
and he said that your degree was not in the
least a proof of your abilities : he said that you
knocked up and got flurried in examinations.
Oh ! " — her cheek flushed, — "I wish I was a
man. The whole world lies before them. They
can do anything. They aren't cooped up with
servants and tea-parties and twaddle. But where's
this dell where the Dryad disappeared?"

"We've passed it." He had meant to pass it.
It was too beautiful. All he had read, all he
had hoped, all he had loved, seemed to quiver in
its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared
not enter it with such a woman.

CAMBRIDGE. 93

" How long ago ? " She turned back. " I don't
want to miss the dell. Here it must be," she
added after a few moments, and sprang up the
green bank that hid the entrance from the road.
11 Oh, what a jolly place ! "

" Go right in if you want to see it," said Rickie,
and did not offer to go with her. She stood for
a moment looking at the view, for a few steps
will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind
blew her dress against her. Then, like a cataract
again, she vanished pure and cool into the dell.

The young man thought of her feelings no
longer. His heart throbbed louder and louder,
and seemed to shake him to pieces.

"Rickie!"

She was calling from the dell. For an answer
he sat down where he was, on the dust-bespattered
margin. She could call as loud as she liked. The
devil had done much, but he should not take
him to her.

" Rickie ! " — and it came with the tones of an
angel. He drove his fingers into his ears, and
invoked the name of Gerald. But there was no
sign, neither angry motion in the air nor hint
of January mist. June — fields of June, sky of
June, songs of June. Grass of June beneath
him, grass of June over the tragedy he had
deemed immortal. A bird called out of the dell :
" Rickie ! "

A bird flew into the dell.

"Did you take me for the Dryad?" she asked.
She was sitting down with his head on her lap.
He had laid it there for a moment before he went
out to die, and she had not let him take it away.

94 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"I prayed you might not be a woman," he
whispered.

''Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not
vanish into groves and trees. I thought you
would never come to me."

"Did you expect ?"

"I hoped. I called hoping."

Inside the dell it was neither June nor January.
The chalk walls barred out the seasons, and the
fir-trees did not seem to feel their passage. Only
from time to time the odours of summer slipped
in from the wood above, to comment on the
waxing year. She bent down to touch him with
her lips.

He started, and cried passionately, "Never for-
get that your greatest thing is over. I have
forgotten: I am too weak. You shall never
forget. What I said to you then is greater
than what I say to you now. What he gave
you then is greater than anything you will get
from me."

She was frightened. Again she had the sense
of something abnormal. Then she said, "What
is all this nonsense?" and folded him in her
arms.

VIII.

Ansell stood looking at his breakfast - table,
which was laid for four instead of for two. His
bedmaker, equally peevish, explained how it had
happened. Last night, at one in the morning,
the porter had been awoke with a note for

CAMBRIDGE. 95

the kitchens, and in that note Mr Elliot said
that all these things were to be sent to Mr
Ansell's.

"The fools have sent the original order as
well. Here's the lemon -sole for two. I can't
move for food."

" The note being ambigerous, the Kitchens
judged best to send it all." She spoke of the
kitchens in a half - respectful, half -pitying way,
much as one speaks of Parliament.

"Who's to pay for it?" He peeped into the
new dishes. Kidneys entombed in an omelette,
hot roast chicken in watery gravy, a glazed but
pallid pie.

"And who's to wash it up?" said the bedmaker
to her help outside.

Ansell had disputed late last night concerning
Schopenhauer, and was a little cross and tired.
He bounced over to Tilliard, who kept opposite.
Tilliard was eating gooseberry jam.

"Did Elliot ask you to breakfast with me?"

"No," said Tilliard mildly.

"Well, you'd better come, and bring every one
you know."

So Tilliard came, bearing himself a little form-
ally, for he was not very intimate with his
neighbour. Out of the window they called to
Widdrington. But he laid his hand on his
stomach, thus indicating it was too late.

"Who's to pay for it?" repeated Ansell, as a
man appeared from the Buttery carrying coffee
on a bright tin tray.

" College coffee ! How nice ! " remarked Tilliard,
who was cutting the pie. " But before term ends
you must come and try my new machine. My

96 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

sister gave it me. There is a bulb at the top,

and as the water boils "

" He might have counter-ordered the lemon-sole.
That's Rickie all over. Violently economical, and
then loses his head, and all the things go bad."

"Give them to the bedder while they're hot."
This was done. She accepted them dispassion-
ately, with the air of one who lives without
nourishment. Tilliard continued to describe his
sister's coffee machine.

"What's that?" They could hear panting and
rustling on the stairs.

"It sounds like a lady," said Tilliard fearfully.
He slipped the piece of pie back. It fell into
position like a brick.

"Is it here? Am I right? Is it here?" The
door opened and in came Mrs Lewin. "Oh
horrors ! I've made a mistake."

" That's all right," said Ansell awkwardly.

"I wanted Mr Elliot. Where are they?"

"We expect Mr Elliot every moment," said
Tilliard.

" Don't tell me I'm right," cried Mrs Lewin,
" and that you're the terrifying Mr Ansell." And,
with obvious relief, she wrung Tilliard warmly
by the hand.

"I'm Ansell," said Ansell, looking very uncouth
and grim.

" How stupid of me not to know it," she gasped,
and would have gone on to I know not what,
but the door opened again. It was Rickie.

" Here's Miss Pembroke," he said. " I am going
to marry her."

There was a profound silence.

"We oughtn't to have done things like this,"

CAMBRIDGE. 97

said Agnes, turning to Mrs Lewin. "We have
no right to take Mr Ansell by surprise. It is
Rickie's fault. He was that obstinate. He would
bring us. He ought to be horsewhipped."

" He ought, indeed," said Tilliard pleasantly,
and bolted. Not till he gained his room did
he realise that he had been less apt than usual.
As for Ansell, the first thing he said was, "Why
didn't you counter-order the lemon-sole?"

In such a situation Mrs Lewin was of priceless
value. She led the way to the table, observing,
"I quite agree with Miss Pembroke. I loathe
surprises. Never shall I forget my horror when
the knife -boy painted the dove's cage with the
dove inside. He did it as a surprise. Poor
Parsival nearly died. His feathers were bright
green ! "

"Well, give me the lemon-soles," said Rickie.
"I like them."

"The bedder's got them."

"Well, there you are! What's there to be
annoyed about ? "

"And while the cage was drying we put
him among the bantams. They had been the
greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for
a parrot or a hawk, or something that bantams
hate ; for while his cage was drying they picked
out his feathers, and picked out his feathers, and
Picked out his feathers, till he was perfectly bald.
1 Hugo, look,' said I. ' This is the end of Parsival.
Let me have no more surprises.^ He burst into
tears."

Thus did Mrs Lewin create an atmosphere. At
first it seemed unreal, but gradually they got
used to it, and breathed scarcely anything else

G

98 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

throughout the meal. In such an atmosphere
everything seemed of small and equal value, and
the engagement of Rickie and Agnes, like the
feathers of Parsival, fluttered lightly to the
ground. Ansell was generally silent. He was
no match for these two quite clever women.
Only once was there a hitch.

They had been talking gaily enough about the
betrothal when Ansell suddenly interrupted with,
" When is the marriage ? "

"Mr Ansell," said Agnes, blushing, "I wish you
hadn't asked that. That part's dreadful. Not
for years, as far as we can see."

But Rickie had not seen as far. He had not
talked to her of this at all. Last night they had
spoken only of love. He exclaimed, "Oh, Agnes
— don't ! " Mrs Lewin laughed roguishly.

"Why this delay?" asked Ansell.

Agnes looked at Rickie, who replied, " I must
get money, worse luck."

"I thought you'd got money."

He hesitated, and then said, "I must get my
foot on the ladder, then."

Ansell began with, "On which ladder?" but
Mrs Lewin, using the privilege of her sex, ex-
claimed, "Not another word. If there's a thing
I abominate, it is plans. My head goes whirling
at once." What she really abominated was ques-
tions, and she saw that Ansell was turning seri-
ous. To appease him, she put on her clever
manner and asked him about Germany. How
had it impressed him? Were we so totally un-
fitted to repel invasion ? Was not German scholar-
ship overestimated? He replied discourteously,
but he did reply; and if she could have stopped

CAMBRIDGE. 99

him thinking, her triumph would have been com-
plete.

When they rose to go, Agnes held Ansell's
hand for a moment in her own.

" Good-bye," she said. " It was very unconven-
tional of us to come as we did, but I don't think
any of us are conventional people."

He only replied, " Good-bye." The ladies started
off. Rickie lingered behind to whisper, "I would
have it so. I would have you begin square to-
gether. I can't talk yet — I've loved her for years
— I can't think what she's done it for. I'm going
to write short stories. I shall start this after-
noon. She declares there may be something in
me."

As soon as he had left, Tilliard burst in, white
with agitation, and crying, "Did you see my
awful faux pas — about the horsewhip ? What
shall I do? I must call on Elliot. Or had I
better write?"

"Miss Pembroke will not mind," said Ansell
gravely. "She is unconventional." He knelt in
an arm-chair and hid his face in the back.

" It was like a bomb," said Tilliard.

" It was meant to be."

"I do feel a fool. What must she think?"

"Never mind, Tilliard. You've not been as big
a fool as myself. At all events, you told her
he must be horsewhipped."

Tilliard hummed a little tune. He hated any-
thing nasty, and there was nastiness in Ansell.
"What did you tell her?" he asked.

" Nothing."

"What do you think of it?"

" I think : Damn those women."

100 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" Ah, yes. One hates one's friends to get en-
gaged. It makes one feel so old : I think that
is one of the reasons. The brother just above
me has lately married, and my sister was quite
sick about it, though the thing was suitable in
every way."

"Damn these women, then," said Ansell, bounc-
ing round in the chair. " Damn these particular
women."

"They looked and spoke like ladies."

"Exactly. Their diplomacy was ladylike. Their
lies were ladylike. They've caught Elliot in a
most ladylike way. I saw it all during the
one moment we were natural. Generally we
were clattering after the married one, whom —
like a fool — I took for a fool. But for one
moment we were natural, and during that
moment Miss Pembroke told a lie, and made
Rickie believe it was the truth."

"What did she say?"

"She said 'we see' instead of 'I see.'"

Tilliard burst into laughter. This jaundiced
young philosopher, with his kinky view of life,
was too much for him.

"She said 'we see,'" repeated Ansell, "instead
of 'I see/ and she made him believe that it was
the truth. She caught him and makes him be-
lieve that he caught her. She came to see me
and makes him think that it is his idea. That
is what I mean when I say that she is a lady."

"You are too subtle for me. My dull eyes
could only see two happy people."

"I never said they weren't happy."

"Then, my dear Ansell, why are you so cut
up? It's beastly when a friend marries, — and I

CAMBRIDGE. 101

grant he's rather young, — but I should say it's
the best thing for him. A decent woman — and
you have proved not one thing against her — a
decent woman will keep him up to the mark
and stop him getting slack. She'll make him
responsible and manly, for much as I like Rickie,

I always think him a little effeminate. And,
really," — his voice grew sharper, for he was
irritated by Ansell's conceit, — " and, really, you
talk as if you were mixed up in the affair. They
pay a civil visit to your rooms, and you see
nothing but dark plots and challenges to war."

" War ! " cried Ansell, crashing his fists together.
"It's war, then!"

"Oh, what a lot of tommy-rot," said Tilliard.

II Can't a man and woman get engaged? My
dear boy — excuse me talking like this — what on
earth is it to do with us? We're his friends,
and I hope we always shall be, but we shan't
keep his friendship by fighting. We're bound to
fall into the background. Wife first, friends
some way after. You may resent the order, but
it is ordained by nature."

"The point is, not what's ordained by nature
or any other fool, but what's right."

" You are hopelessly unpractical," said Tilliard,
turning away. "And let me remind you that
you've already given away your case by acknow-
ledging that they're happy."

" She is happy because she has conquered ; he
is happy because he has at last hung all the
world's beauty on to a single peg. He was
always trying to do it. He used to call the peg
humanity. Will either of these happinesses last?
His can't. Hers only for a time. I fight this

102 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

woman not only because she fights me, but be-
cause I foresee the most appalling catastrophe.
She wants Rickie, partly to replace another man
whom she lost two years ago, partly to make
something out of him. He is to write. In time
she will get sick of this. He won't get famous.
She will only see how thin he is and how lame.
She will long for a jollier husband, and I don't
blame her. And, having made him thoroughly
miserable and degraded, she will bolt — if she can
do it like a lady."

Such were the opinions of Stewart Ansell.

IX.

Seven letters written in June

Cambridge.

Dear Rickie, — I would rather write, and you
can guess what kind of letter this is when I say
it is a fair copy: I have been making rough
drafts all the morning. When I talk I get
angry, and also at times try to be clever — two
reasons why I fail to get attention paid to me.
This is a letter of the prudent sort. If it makes
you break off the engagement, its work is done.
You are not a person who ought to marry at all.
You are unfitted in body : that we once discussed.
You are also unfitted in soul: you want and you
need to like many people, and a man of that
sort ought not to marry. "You never were at-
tached to that great sect" who can like one

CAMBRIDGE. 103

person only, and if you try to enter it you will
find destruction. I have read in books — and I
cannot afford to despise books, they are all that
I have to go by — that men and women desire
different things. Man wants to love mankind ;
woman wants to love one man. When she has
him her work is over. She is the emissary of
Nature, and Nature's bidding has been fulfilled.
But man does not care a damn for Nature — or
at least only a very little damn. He cares for
a hundred things besides, and the more civilised
he is the more he will care for these other
hundred things, and demand not only a wife and
children, but also friends, and work, and spiritual
freedom.

I believe you to be extraordinarily civilised. —
Yours ever, Q -

fe. A.

Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston.

Dear Ansell, — But I'm in love — a detail
you've forgotten. I can't listen to English Essays.
The wretched Agnes may be an "emissary of
Nature," but I only grinned when I read it. I
may be extraordinarily civilised, but I don't feel
so ; I'm in love, and I've found a woman to love
me, and I mean to have the hundred other things
as well. She wants me to have them — friends,
and work, and spiritual freedom, and everything.
You and your books miss this, because your books
are too sedate. Read poetry — not only Shelley.
Understand Beatrice, and Clara Middleton, and
Brunhilde in the first scene of Gotterdammer-

104 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

ung. Understand Goethe when he says " the
eternal feminine leads us on," and don't write
another English Essay. — Yours ever affection-

ately,

R. E.

Cambridge.

Dear Rickib, — What am I to say? "Under-
stand Xanthippe, and Mrs Bennett, and Elsa in
the question scene of Lohengrin"? "Understand
Euripides when he says the eternal feminine leads
us a pretty dance"? I shall say nothing of the
sort. The allusions in this English Essay shall
not be literary. My personal objections to Miss
Pembroke are as follows : —

(1) She is not serious.

(2) She is not truthful.

Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston.

My dear Stewart, — You couldn't know. I
didn't know for a moment. But this letter of
yours is the most wonderful thing that has ever
happened to me yet — more wonderful (I don't ex-
aggerate) than the moment when Agnes promised
to marry me. I always knew you liked me, but
I never knew how much until this letter. Up to
now I think we have been too much like the
strong heroes in books who feel so much and say
so little, and feel all the more for saying so little.
Now that's over and we shall never be that kind
of an ass again. We've hit — by accident — upon

CAMBRIDGE. 105

something permanent. You've written to me,
"I hate the woman who will be your wife,"
and I write back, "Hate her. Can't I love
you both?" She will never come between us,
Stewart (she wouldn't wish to, but that's by the
way), because our friendship has now passed
beyond intervention. No third person could break
it. We couldn't ourselves, I fancy. We may
quarrel and argue till one of us dies, but the
thing is registered. I only wish, dear man, you
could be happier. For me, it's as if a light was
suddenly held behind the world. -p ^

Shelthorpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston.

Dear Mrs Lewin, — The time goes flying, but
I am getting to learn my wonderful boy. We
speak a great deal about his work. He has just
finished a curious thing called 'Nemi' — about a
Roman ship that is actually sunk in some lake.
I cannot think how he describes the things, when
he has never seen them. If, as I hope, he goes
to Italy next year, he should turn out something
really good. Meanwhile we are hunting for a
publisher. Herbert believes that a collection of
short stories is hard to get published. It is, after
all, better to write one long one.

But you must not think we only talk books.
What we say on other topics cannot so easily
be repeated ! Oh, Mrs Lewin, he is a dear, and
dearer than ever now that we have him at
Sawston. Herbert, in a quiet way, has been
making inquiries about those Cambridge friends

106 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

of his. Nothing against them, but they seem to
be terribly eccentric. None of them are good
at games, and they spend all their spare time
thinking and discussing. They discuss what one
knows and what one never will know and what
one had much better not know. Herbert says it
is because they have not got enough to do. — Ever
your grateful and affectionate friend,

Agnes Pembroke.

Shelthokpe, 9 Sawston Park Road,
Sawston.

Dear Mr Silt, — Thank you for the congratu-
lations, which I have handed over to the delighted
Rickie.1 I am sorry that the rumour reached
you that I was not pleased. Anything pleases
me that promises my sister's happiness, and I
have known your cousin nearly as long as you
have. It will be a very long engagement, for he
must make his way first. The dear boy is not
nearly as wealthy as he supposed; having no
tastes, and hardly any expenses, he used to talk
as if he was a millionaire. He must at least
double his income before they can dream of
more intimate ties. This has been a bitter pill,
but I am glad to say that they have accepted
it bravely.

Hoping that you and Mrs Silt will profit by
your week at Margate. — I remain, yours very
sincere y, Herbert Pembroke.

1 The congratulations were really addressed to Agnes— a
social blunder which Mr Pembroke deftly corrects.

CAMBRIDGE. 107

Cadover, Wilts.

^ r Miss Pembroke, ) T , , ,

Dear -j , > — I near that you are

going to marry my nephew. I have no idea
what he is like, and wonder whether you would
bring him that I may find out. Isn't September
rather a nice month? You might have to go to
Stone Henge, but with that exception would be
left unmolested. I do hope you -will manage the
visit. We met once at Mrs Lewin's, and I have
a very clear recollection of you. — Believe me,
yours sincerely, EmLy ^^

The rain tilted a little from the south-west.
For the most part it fell from a grey cloud
silently, but now and then the tilt increased, and
a kind of sigh passed over the country as the
drops lashed the walls, trees, shepherds, and other
motionless objects that stood in their slanting
career. At times the cloud would descend and
visibly embrace the earth, to which it had only
sent messages ; and the earth itself would
bring forth clouds — clouds of a whiter breed —
which formed in the shallow valleys and fol-
lowed the courses of the streams. It seemed the
beginning of life. Again God said, "Shall we
divide the waters from the land or not? Was
not the firmament labour and glory sufficient?"
At all events it was the beginning of life pastoral,
behind which imagination cannot travel.

108 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Yet complicated people were getting wet — not
only the shepherds. For instance, the piano-tuner
was sopping. So was the vicar's wife. So were
the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his
Battleston car. Gallantry, charity, and art pur-
sued their various missions, perspiring and muddy,
while out on the slopes beyond them stood the
eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal
sheep until the world is vegetarian.

Inside an arbour — which faced east, and thus
avoided the bad weather — there sat a complicated
person who was dry. She looked at the drenched
world with a pleased expression, and would smile
when a cloud lay down on the village, or when
the rain sighed louder than usual against her
solid shelter. Ink, paper-clips, and foolscap paper
were on a table before her, and she could also
reach an umbrella, a waterproof, a walking-stick,
and an electric bell. Her age was between
elderly and old, and her forehead was wrinkled
with an expression of slight but perpetual pain.
But the lines round her mouth indicated that
she had laughed a great deal during her life,
just as the clean tight skin round her eyes per-
haps indicated that she had not often cried.
She was dressed in brown silk. A brown silk
shawl lay most becomingly over her beautiful hair.

After long thought she wrote on the paper
in front of her, " The subject of this memoir
first saw the light at Wolverhampton on May
the 14th, 1842." She laid down her pen and said
"Ugh!" A robin hopped in and she welcomed
him. A sparrow followed and she stamped her
foot. She watched some thick white water which
was sliding like a snake down the gutter of the

CAMBRIDGE. 109

gravel path. It had just appeared. It must
have escaped from a hollow in the chalk up be-
hind. The earth could absorb no longer. The
lady did not think of all this, for she hated
questions of whence and wherefore, and the
ways of the earth ("our dull stepmother") bored
her unspeakably. But the water, just the snake
of water, was amusing, and she flung her golosh
at it to dam it up. Then she wrote feverishly,
" The subject of this memoir first saw the light
in the middle of the night. It was twenty to
eleven. His pa was a parson^ but he was not
his pa's son, and never went to heaven." There
was the sound of a train, and presently white
smoke appeared, rising laboriously through the
heavy air. It distracted her, and for about a
quarter of an hour she sat perfectly still, doing
nothing. At last she pushed the spoilt paper
aside, took a fresh piece, and was beginning to
write, "On May the 14th, 1842," when there was
a crunch on the gravel, and a furious voice said,
" I am sorry for Flea Thompson."

"I daresay I am sorry for him too," said the
lady : her voice was languid and pleasant. " Who
is he?"

"Flea's a liar, and next time we meet he'll be
a football." Off slipped a sodden ulster. He
hung it up angrily upon a peg : the arbour pro-
vided several.

"But who is he, and why has he that dis-
astrous name?"

" Flea ? Fleance. All the Thompsons are named
out of Shakespeare. He grazes the Rings."

"Ah, I see. A pet lamb."

"Lamb! Shepherd!"

110 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"One of my shepherds?"

"The last time 1 go with his sheep. But not
the last time he sees me. I am sorry for him.
He dodged me to-day."

"Do you mean to say" — she became animated
— "that you have been out in the wet keeping
the sheep of Flea Thompson?"

"I had to." He blew on his fingers and took
off his cap. Water trickled over his unshaven
cheeks. His hair was so wet that it seemed
worked upon his scalp in bronze.

"Get away, bad dog!" screamed the lady, for
he had given himself a shake and spattered her
dress with water. He was a powerful boy of
twenty, admirably muscular, but rather too broad
for his height. People called him " Podge " until
they were dissuaded. Then they called him
"Stephen" or "Mr Wonham." Then he said,
" You can call me Podge if you like."

"As for Flea !" he began tempestuously.

He sat down by her, and with much heavy
breathing told the story, — " Flea has a girl at
Wintersbridge, and I had to go with bis sheep
while he went to see her. Two hours. We
agreed. Half an hour to go, an hour to kiss
his girl, and half an hour back — and he had my
bike. Four hours ! Four hours and seven min-
utes I was on the Rings, with a fool of a dog,
and sheep doing all they knew to get the turnips."

" My farm is a mystery to me," said the lady,
stroking her fingers. "Some day you must
really take me to see it. It must be like a Gilbert
and Sullivan opera, with a chorus of agitated
employers. How is it that I have escaped ? Why
have I never been summoned to milk the cows,

CAMBRIDGE. Ill

or flay the pigs, or drive the young bullocks to
the pasture?"

He looked at her with astonishingly blue eyes
— the only dry things he had about him. He
could not see into her: she would have puzzled
an older and a cleverer man. He may have
seen round her.

"A thing of beauty you are not. But I some-
times think you are a joy for ever."

"I beg your pardon?"

" Oh, you understand right enough," she ex-
claimed irritably, and then smiled, for he was
conceited, and did not like being told that he was
not a thing of beauty. "Large and steady feet,"
she continued, " have this disadvantage — you
can knock down a man, but you will never
knock down a woman."

"I don't know what you mean. I'm not
likely "

"Oh, never mind — never, never mind. I was
being funny. I repent. Tell me about the sheep.
Why did you go with them ? "

" I did tell you. I had to."

"But why?"

"He had to see his girl."

"But why?"

His eyes shot past her again. It was so
obvious that the man had to see his girl. For
two hours though — not for four hours seven
minutes.

"Did you have any lunch?"

"I don't hold with regular meals."

"Did you have a book?"

"I don't hold with books in the open. None
of the older men read,"

112 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Did you commune with yourself, or don't
you hold with that ? "

" Oh Lord, don't ask me ! "

" You distress me. You rob the Pastoral of
its lingering romance. Is there no poetry and
no thought in England? Is there no one, in all
these downs, who warbles with eager thought
the Doric lay?"

" Chaps sing to themselves at times, if you
mean that."

" I dream of Arcady. I open my eyes : Wilt-
shire. Of Amaryllis : Flea Thompson's girl. Of
the pensive shepherd, twitching his mantle blue :
you in an ulster. Aren't you sorry for me?"

"May I put in a pipe?"

" By all means put a pipe in. In return, tell
me of what you were thinking for the four hours
and the seven minutes."

He laughed shyly. "You do ask a man such
questions."

" Did you simply waste the time ? "

"I suppose so."

"I thought that Colonel Robert Ingersoll says
you must be strenuous."

At the sound of this name he whisked open a
little cupboard, and declaring, "I haven't a mo-
ment to spare," took out of it a pile of 'Clarion'
and other reprints, adorned as to their covers
with bald or bearded apostles of humanity. Se-
lecting a bald one, he began at once to read,
occasionally exclaiming, "That's got them,"
"That's knocked Genesis," with similar ejacula-
tions of an aspiring mind. She glanced at the
pile. Renan, minus the style. Darwin, minus
the modesty. A comic edition of the book of

CAMBRIDGE. 113

Job, by "Excelsior," Pittsburg, Pa. 'The Begin-
ning of Life,' with diagrams. 'Angel or Ape?'
by Mrs Julia P. Chunk. She was amused, and
wondered idly what was passing within his
narrow but not uninteresting brain. Did he
suppose that he was going to " find out " ? She
had tried once herself, but had since subsided
into a sprightly orthodoxy. Why didn't he read
poetry, instead of wasting his time between books
like these and country like that?

The cloud parted, and the increase of light
made her look up. Over the valley she saw a
grave sullen down, and on its flanks a little
brown smudge — her sheep, together with her
shepherd, Fleance Thompson, returned to his
duties at last. A trickle of water came through
the arbour roof. She shrieked in dismay.

" That's all right," said her companion, moving
her chair, but still keeping his place in his book.

She dried up the spot on the manuscript. Then
she wrote : " Anthony Eustace Failing, the subject
of this memoir, was born at Wolverhampton."
But she wrote no more. She was fidgety.
Another drop fell from the roof. Likewise an
earwig. She wished she had not been so playful
in flinging her golosh into the path. The boy
who was overthrowing religion breathed some-
what heavily as he did so. Another earwig.
She touched the electric bell.

" I'm going in," she observed. " It's far too
wet." Again the cloud parted and caused her to
add, " Weren't you rather kind to Flea ? " But he
was deep in the book. He read like a poor
person, with lips apart and a finger that followed
the print. At times he scratched his ear, or ran

114 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

his tongue along a straggling blonde moustache.
His face had after all a certain beauty : at all
events the colouring was regal — a steady crimson
from throat to forehead: the sun and the winds
had worked on him daily ever since he was born.
"The face of a strong man," thought the lady.
" Let him thank his stars he isn't a silent strong
man, or I'd turn him into the gutter." Suddenly
it struck her that he was like an Irish terrier.
He worried infinity as if it was a bone. Gnashing
his teeth, he tried to carry the eternal subtleties
by violence. As a man he often bored her, for
he was always saying and doing the same things.
But as a philosopher he really was a joy for
ever, an inexhaustible buffoon. Taking up her
pen, she began to caricature him. She drew a
rabbit-warren where rabbits were at play in four
dimensions. Before she had introduced the prin-
cipal figure, she was interrupted by the footman.
He had come up from the house to answer the
bell. On seeing her he uttered a respectful cry.

" Madam ! Are you here ? I am very sorry. I
looked for you everywhere. Mr Elliot and Miss
Pembroke arrived nearly an hour ago."

" Oh dear, oh dear ! " exclaimed Mrs Failing.
"Take these papers. Where's the umbrella? Mr
Stephen will hold it over me. You hurry back
and apologise. Are they happy?"

"Miss Pembroke inquired after you, madam."

"Have they had tea?"

"Yes, madam."

" Leighton ! "

"Yes, sir."

" I believe you knew she was here all the time,
You didn't want to wet your pretty skin,"

CAMBRIDGE. 115

"You must not call me 'she' to the servants,"
said Mrs Failing as they walked away, she limp-
ing with a stick, he holding a great umbrella
over her. " I will not have it." Then more pleas-
antly, "And don't tell him he lies. We all lie.
I knew quite well they were coming by the four-
six train. I saw it pass."

" That reminds me. Another child run over at
the Roman crossing. Whish — bang — dead."

" Oh my foot ! Oh my foot, my foot ! " said Mrs
Failing, and paused to take breath.

''Bad?" he asked callously.

Leighton, with bowed head, passed them with
the manuscript and disappeared among the laurels.
The twinge of pain, which had been slight, passed
away, and they proceeded, descending a green
airless corridor which opened into the gravel
drive.

"Isn't it odd," said Mrs Failing, "that the
Greeks should be enthusiastic about laurels — that
Apollo should pursue any one who could possibly
turn into such a frightful plant? What do you
make of Rickie?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Shall I lend you his story to read?"

He made no reply.

"Don't you think, Stephen, that a person in
your precarious position ought to be civil to my
relatives ? "

"Sorry, Mrs Failing. I meant to be civil. I
only hadn't anything to say."

She laughed. "Are you "a dear boy? I some-
times wonder ; or are you a brute ? "

Again he had nothing to say. Then she laughed
more mischievously, and said —

116 THE LONGEST JOUENEY.

" How can you be either, when you are a phil-
osopher? Would you mind telling me — I am so
anxious to learn — what happens to people when
they die?"

" Don't ask me." He knew by bitter experience
that she was making fun of him.

" Oh, but I do ask you. Those paper books of
yours are so up-to-date. For instance, what has
happened to the child you say was killed on the
line?"

The rain increased. The drops pattered hard
on the leaves, and outside the corridor men and
women were struggling, however stupidly, with
the facts of life. Inside it they wrangled. She
teased the boy, and laughed at his theories, and
proved that no man can be an agnostic who has
a sense of humour. Suddenly she stopped, not
through any skill of his, but because she had
remembered some words of Bacon : " The true
atheist is he whose hands are cauterised by holy
things." She thought of her distant youth. The
world was not so humorous then, but it had
been more important, For a moment she re-
spected her companion, and determined to vex
him no more.

They left the shelter of the laurels, crossed
the broad drive, and were inside the house at
last. She had got quite wet, for the weather
would not let her play the simple life with
impunity. As for him, he seemed a piece of
the wet.

"Look here," she cried, as he hurried up to his
attic, " don't shave ! "

He was delighted with the permission.

CAMBRIDGE. 117

"I have an idea that Miss Pembroke is of the
type that pretends to be unconventional and really
isn't. I want to see how she takes it. Don't
shave."

In the drawing-room she could hear the guests
conversing in the subdued tones of those who
have not been welcomed. Having changed her
dress and glanced at the poems of Milton, she
went to them, with uplifted hands of apology
and horror.

"But I must have tea," she announced, when
they had assured her that they understood.
" Otherwise I shall start by being cross. Agnes,
stop me. Give me tea."

Agnes, looking pleased, moved to the table and
served her hostess. Rickie followed with a
pagoda of sandwiches and little cakes.

"I feel twenty -seven years younger. Rickie,
you are so like your father. I feel it is twenty-
seven years ago, and that he is bringing your
mother to see me for the first time. It is
curious — almost terrible — to see history repeating
itself."

The remark was not tactful.

"I remember that visit well," she continued
thoughtfully. "I suppose it was a wonderful
visit, though we none of us knew it at the time.
We all fell in love with your mother. I wish
she would have fallen in love with us. She
couldn't bear me, could she ? "

" I never heard her say so, Aunt Emily."

" No ; she wouldn't. I am sure your father
said so, though. My dear boy, don't look so
shocked. Your father and I hated each other.

118 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

He said so, I said so, I say so ; say so too. ■ Then
we shall start fair. — Just a cocoanut cake. — Agnes,
don't you agree that it's always best to speak
out?"

" Oh, rather, Mrs Failing. But I'm shockingly
straightforward."

"So am I," said the lady. "I like to get down
to the bed-rock. — Hullo ! Slippers ? Slippers in
the drawing-room?"

A young man had come in silently. Agnes
observed with a feeling of regret that he had
not shaved. Rickie, after a moment's hesitation,
remembered who it was, and shook hands with
him.

"You've grown since I saw you last."

He showed his teeth amiably.

"How long ago was that?" asked Mrs Failing.

"Three years, wasn't it? Came over from the
Ansells — friends."

" How disgraceful, Rickie ! Why don't you
come and see me of tener ? "

He could not retort that she never asked
him.

"Agnes will make you come. Oh, let me in-
troduce— Mr Wonham — Miss Pembroke."

"I am deputy hostess," said Agnes. "May I
give you some tea?"

"Thank you, but I have had a little beer."

"It is one of the shepherds," said Mrs Failing,
in low tones. Agnes smiled rather wildly. Mrs
Lewin had warned her that Cadover was an
extraordinary place, and that one must never
be astonished at anything. A shepherd in the
drawing-room! No harm. Still one ought to

CAMBRIDGE. 119

know whether it was a shepherd or not. At
all events he was in gentleman's clothing. She
was anxious not to start with a blunder, and
therefore did not talk to the young fellow,
but tried to gather what he was from the de-
meanour of Rickie.

" I am sure, Mrs Failing, that you need not
talk of 'making' people come to Cadover. There
will be no difficulty, I should say."

"Thank you, my dear. Do you know who once
said those exact words to me ? "

"Who?"

"Rickie's mother."

"Did she really?"

"My sister-in-law was a dear. You will
have heard Rickie's praises, but now you must
hear mine. I never knew a woman who was
so unselfish and yet had such capacities for
life."

" Does one generally exclude the other ? " asked
Rickie.

"Unselfish people, as a rule, are deathly dull.
They have no colour. They think of other people
because it is easier. They give money because
they are too stupid or too idle to spend it properly
on themselves. That was the beauty of your
mother — she gave away, but she also spent on
herself, or tried to."

The light faded out of the drawing-room, in
spite of it being September and only half -past
six. From her low chair Agnes could see the
trees by the drive, black against a blackening
sky. That drive was half a mile long, and she
was praising its gravelled surface when Rickie

120 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

called in a voice of alarm, "I say, when did our
train arrive?"

" Four-six."

"I said so."

"It arrived at four-six on the time-table," said
Mr Wonham. "I want to know when it got to
the station?"

"I tell you again it was punctual. I tell you
I looked at my watch. I can do no more."

Agnes was amazed. Was Rickie mad? A
minute ago and they were boring each other
over dogs. What had happened?

"Now, now! Quarrelling already?" asked Mrs
Failing. The footman, bringing a lamp, lit up
two angry faces.

"He says "

"He says "

"He says we ran over a child."

"So you did. You ran over a child in the vil-
lage at four-seven by my watch. Your train was
late. You couldn't have got to the station till
four-ten."

"I don't believe it. We had passed the village
by four-seven. Agnes, hadn't we passed the vil-
lage? It must have been an express that ran
over the child."

"Now is it likely" — he appealed to the prac-
tical world — " is it likely that the company would
run a stopping train and then an express three
minutes after it?"

" A child " said Rickie. " I can't believe

that the train killed a child." He thought of
their journey. They were alone in the carriage.
As the train slackened speed he had caught her

CAMBRIDGE, 121

for a moment in his arms. The rain beat on the
windows, but they were in heaven.

"You've got to believe it," said the other, and
proceeded to " rub it in." His healthy, irritable
face drew close to Rickie's. "Two children were
kicking and screaming on the Roman crossing.
Your train, being late, came down on them. One
of them was pulled off the line, but the other
was caught. How will you get out of that?"

"And how will you get out of it?" cried Mrs
Failing, turning the tables on him. "Where's
the child now? What has happened to its soul?
You must know, Agnes, that this young gentle-
man is a philosopher."

" Oh, drop all that," said Mr Wonham, suddenly
collapsing.

"Drop it? Where? On my nice carpet?"

" I hate philosophy," remarked Agnes, trying
to turn the subject, for she saw that it made
Rickie unhappy.

"So do I. But I daren't say so before Stephen.
He despises us women."

"No, I don't," said the victim, swaying to and
fro on the window-sill, whither he had retreated.

" Yes, he does. He won't even trouble to
answer us. Stephen ! Podge ! Answer me. What
has happened to the child's soul?"

He flung open the window and leant from
them into the dusk. They heard him mutter
something about a bridge.

"What did I tell you? He won't answer my
question." The delightful moment was approach-
ing when the boy would lose his temper: she
knew it by a certain tremor in his heels.

122 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"There wants a bridge," he exploded. "A
bridge instead of all this rotten talk and the
level-crossing. It wouldn't break you to build a
two-arch bridge. Then the child's soul, as you
call it — well, nothing would have happened to
the child at all."

A gust of night air entered, accompanied by
rain. The flowers in the vases rustled, and the
flame of the lamp shot up and smoked the glass.
Slightly irritated, she ordered him to close the
window.

XI.

Cadover was not a large house. But it is the
largest house with which this story has dealings,
and must always be thought of with a respect.
It was built about the year 1800, and favoured
the architecture of ancient Rome — chiefly by
means of five lank pilasters, which stretched
from the top of it to the bottom. Between the
pilasters was the glass front door, to the right
of them the drawing-room windows, to the left
of them the. windows of the dining - room, above
them a triangular area, which the better -class
servants knew as a " pendiment," and which
had in its middle a small round hole, according
to the usage of Palladio. The classical note
was also sustained by eight grey steps which led
from the building down into the drive, and by
an attempt at a formal garden on the adjoining
lawn. The lawn ended in a Ha-ha (" Ha ! ha !

CAMBRIDGE. 123

who shall regard it?"), and thence the bare land
sloped down into the village. The main garden
(walled) was to the left as one faced the house,
while to the right was that laurel avenue, lead-
ing up to Mrs Failing's arbour.

It was a comfortable but not very attractive
place, and, to a certain type of mind, its situa-
tion was not attractive either. From the dis-
tance it showed as a grey box, huddled against
evergreens. There was no mystery about it.
You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of the
beetling romance of Devonshire, none of the subtle
contours that prelude a cottage in Kent, but prof-
fered its burden crudely, on a huge bare palm.
" There's Cadover," visitors would say. " How
small it still looks. We shall be late for lunch."
And the view from the windows, though exten-
sive, would not have been accepted by the Royal
Academy. A valley, containing a stream, a road,
a railway ; over the valley fields of barley and
wurzel, divided by no pretty hedges, and passing
into a great and formless down — this was the
outlook, desolate at all times, and almost terrify-
ing beneath a cloudy sky. The down was called
"Cadbury Rings" ("Cocoa Squares" if you were
young and funny), because high upon it — one
cannot say " on the top," there being scarcely
any tops in Wiltshire — because high upon it there
stood a double circle of entrenchments. A bank
of grass enclosed a ring of turnips, which en-
closed a second bank of grass, which enclosed
more turnips, and in the middle of the pattern
grew one small tree. British? Roman? Saxon?
Danish? The competent reader will decide. The

124 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Thompson family knew it to be far older than
the Franco-German war. It was the property of
Government. It was full of gold and dead sol-
diers who had fought with the soldiers on Castle
Rings and been beaten. The road to Lon-
dinium, having forded the stream and crossed
the valley road and the railway, passed up by
these entrenchments. The road to London lay
half a mile to the right of them.

To complete this survey one must mention the
church and the farm, both of which lay over the
stream, in Cadford. Between them they ruled
the village, one claiming the souls of the labourers,
the other their bodies. If a man desired other
religion or other employment he must leave.
The church lay up by the railway, the farm
was down by the water meadows. The vicar,
a gentle charitable man, scarcely realised his
power, and never tried to abuse it. Mr Wil-
braham, the agent, was of another mould. He
knew his place, and kept others to theirs : all
society seemed spread before him like a map.
The line between the county and the local, the
line between the labourer and the artisan — he
knew them all, and strengthened them with no
uncertain touch. Everything with him was grad-
uated— carefully graduated civility towards his
superior, towards his inferiors carefully grad-
uated incivility. So — for he was a thoughtful
person — so alone, declared he, could things be
kept together.

Perhaps the Comic Muse, to whom so much is
now attributed, had caused this estate to be left
to Mr Failing. Mr Failing was the author of

CAMBRIDGE. 125

some brilliant books on socialism, — that was why
his wife married him, — and for twenty-five years
he reigned up at Cadover and tried to put his
theories into practice. He believed that things
could be kept together by accenting the similar-
ities, not the differences of men. "We are all
much more alike than we confess," was one of
his favourite speeches. As a speech it sounded
very well, and his wife had applauded ; but when
it resulted in hard work, evenings in the reading-
room, mixed parties, and long unobtrusive talks
with dull people, she got bored. In her piquant
way she declared that she was not going to love
her husband, and succeeded. He took it quietly,
but his brilliancy decreased. His health grew
worse, and he knew that when he died there
was no one to carry on his work. He felt,
besides, that he had done very little. Toil as
he would, he had not a practical mind, and
could never dispense with Mr Wilbraham. For
all his tact, he would often stretch out the hand
of brotherhood too soon, or withhold it when it
would have been accepted. Most people mis-
understood him, or only understood him when
he was dead. In after years his reign became a
golden age ; but he counted a few disciples in
his lifetime, a few young labourers and tenant
farmers, who swore tempestuously that he was
not really a fool. This, he told himself, was as
much as he deserved.

Cadover was inherited by his widow. She
tried to sell it ; she tried to let it ; but she asked
too much, and as it was neither a pretty place
nor fertile, it was left on her hands. With many

126 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

a groan she settled down to banishment. Wilt-
shire people, she declared, were the stupidest in
England. She told them so to their faces, which
made them no brighter. And their county was
worthy of them: no distinction in it — no style —
simply land.

But her wrath passed, or remained only as a
graceful fretfulness. She made the house com-
fortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr Wil-
braham. With a good deal of care she selected
a small circle of acquaintances, and had them to
stop in the summer months. In the winter she
would go to town and frequent the salons of the
literary. As her lameness increased she moved
about less, and at the time of her nephew's visit
seldom left the place that had been forced upon
her as a home. Just now she was busy. A
prominent politician had quoted her husband.
The young generation asked, " Who is this Mr
Failing?" and the publishers wrote, "Now is the
time." She was collecting some essays and pen-
ning an introductory memoir.

Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for
her. She reminded him too much of his father.
She had the same affliction, the same heartless-
ness, the same habit of taking life with a laugh
— as if life is a pill ! He also felt that she had
neglected him. He would not have asked much :
as for " prospects," they never entered his head ;
but she was his only near relative, and a little
kindness and hospitality during the lonely years
would have made incalculable difference. Now
that he was happier and could bring her Agnes,
she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as

CAMBRIDGE. 127

it rose next morning spoke to him of a new life.
He too had a purpose and a value in the world
at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed at
the earth washed clean and heard through the
pure air the distant noises of the farm.

But that day nothing was to remain divine but
the weather. His aunt, for reasons of her own,
decreed that he should go for a ride with the
Wonham boy. They were to look at Old Sarum,
proceed thence to Salisbury, lunch there, see the
sights, call on a certain canon for tea, and return
to Cadover in the evening. The arrangement
suited no one. He did not want to ride, but to
be with Agnes ; nor did Agnes want to be parted
from him, nor Stephen to go with him. But the
clearer the wishes of her guests became, the more
determined was Mrs Failing to disregard them.
She smoothed away every difficulty, she converted
every objection into a reason, and she ordered the
horses for half -past nine.

"It is a bore," he grumbled as he sat in their
little private sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails
upon the coachman's gaiters. " I can't ride. I
shall fall off. We should have been so happy
here. It's just like Aunt Emily. Can't you im-
agine her saying afterwards, 'Lovers are absurd.
I made a point of keeping them apart,' and then
everybody laughing."

With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes
knelt before him and did the gaiters up. "Who
is this Mr Wonham, by the bye?"

"I don't know. Some connection of Mr Fail-
ing's, I think."

" Does he live here ? "

128 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"He used to be at school or something. He
seems to have grown into a tiresome person."

" I suppose that Mrs Failing has adopted him."

" I suppose so. I believe that she has been quite
kind. I do hope that she'll be kind to you this
morning. I hate leaving you with her."

" Why, you say she likes me."

"Yes, but that wouldn't prevent — you see she
doesn't mind what she says or what she repeats
if it amuses her. If she thought it really funny,
for instance, to break off our engagement, she'd
try."

"Dear boy, what a frightful remark! But it
would be funnier for us to see her trying. What-
ever could she do ? "

He kissed the hands that were still busy with
the fastenings. "Nothing. I can't see one thing.
We simply lie open to each other, you and I.
There isn't one new corner in either of us
that she could reveal. It's only that I always
have in this house the most awful feeling of
insecurity."

"Why?"

"If any one says or does a foolish thing it's
always here. All the family breezes have started
here. It's a kind of focus for aimed and aimless
scandal. You know, when my father and mother
had their special quarrel, my aunt was mixed up
in it, — I never knew how or how much — but you
may be sure that she didn't calm things down,
unless she found things more entertaining calm."

" Rickie ! Rickie ! " cried the lady from the
garden, "your riding-master's impatient."

"We really oughtn't to talk of her like this
here," whispered Agnes. "It's a horrible habit,"

CAMBRIDGE. 129

"The habit of the country, Agnes. Ugh, this
gossip ! " Suddenly he flung his arms over her.
"Dear — dear — let's beware of I don't know what
— of nothing at all perhaps."

" Oh, buck up ! " yelled the irritable Stephen.
"Which am I to shorten — left stirrup or right?"

" Left ! " shouted Agnes.

" How many holes ? "

They hurried down. On the way she said : " I'm
glad of the warning. Now I'm prepared. Your
aunt will get nothing out of me."

Her betrothed tried to mount with the wrong
foot, according to his invariable custom. She also
had to pick up his whip. At last they started, the
boy showing off pretty consistently, and she was
left alone with her hostess.

"Dido is quiet as a lamb," said Mrs Failing,
"and Stephen is a good fielder. What a blessing
it is to have cleared out the men. What shall
you and I do this heavenly morning?"

" I'm game for anything."

" Have you quite unpacked ? "

" Yes."

" Any letters to write ? "

"No."

"Then let's go to my arbour. No, we won't.
It gets the morning sun, and it'll be too hot
to-day." Already she regretted clearing out the
men. On such a morning she would have liked
to drive, but her third animal had gone lame.
She feared, too, that Miss Pembroke was going
to bore her. However, they did go to the arbour.
In languid tones she pointed out the various
objects of interest.

"There's the Cad, which goes into the some-

i

130 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

thing, which goes into the Avon. Cadbury Rings
opposite, Cadchurch to the extreme left: you
can't see it. You were there last night. It is
famous for the drunken parson and the railway-
station. Then Cad Dauntsey. Then Cadford,
that side of the stream, connected with Cadover,
this. Observe the fertility of the Wiltshire mind."

"A terrible lot of Cads," said Agnes brightly.

Mrs Failing divided her guests into those who
made this joke and those who did not. The
latter class was very small.

"The vicar of Cadford — not the nice drunkard
— declares the name is really 'Chadford,' and he
worried on till I put up a window to St Chad in
our church. His wife pronounces it 'Hyadford.'
I could smack them both. How do you like
Podge ? Ah ! you jump ; I meant you to. How
do you like Podge Wonham?"

"Very nice," said Agnes, laughing.

" Nice ! He is a hero."

There was a long interval of silence. Each
lady looked, without much interest, at the
view. Mrs Failing's attitude towards Nature was
severely aesthetic — an attitude more sterile than
the severely practical. She applied the test of
beauty to shadow and odour and sound; they
never filled her with reverence or excitement;
she never knew them as a resistless trinity that
may intoxicate the worshipper with joy. If she
liked a ploughed field, it was only as a spot of
colour — not also as a hint of the endless strength
of the earth. And to-day she could approve of
one cloud, but object to its fellow. As for Miss
Pembroke, she was not approving or objecting
at all, "A hero?" she questioned, when the

CAMBRIDGE. 131

interval had passed. Her voice was indifferent,
as if she had been thinking of other things.

"A hero? Yes. Didn't you notice how heroic
he was?"

"I don't think I did."

"Not at dinner? Ah, Agnes, always look out
for heroism at dinner. It is their great time.
They live up to the stiffness of their shirt fronts.
Do you mean to say that you never noticed how
he set down Rickie?"

"Oh, that about poetry!" said Agnes, laughing.
"Rickie would not mind it for a moment. But
why do you single out that as heroic?"

" To snub people ! to set them down ! to be
rude to them ! to make them feel small ! Surely
that's the life-work of a hero?"

"I shouldn't have said that. And as a matter
of fact Mr Wonham was wrong over the poetry.
I made Rickie look it up afterwards."

" But of course. A hero always is wrong."

" To me," she persisted, rather gently, " a hero
has always been a strong wonderful being, who
champions "

"Ah, wait till you are the dragon! I have
been a dragon most of my life, I think. A dragon
that wants nothing but a peaceful cave. Then
in comes the strong, wonderful, delightful being,
and gains a princess by piercing my hide. No,
seriously, my dear Agnes, the chief characteristics
of a hero are infinite disregard for the feelings
of others, plus general inability to understand
them."

"But surely Mr Wonham "

" Yes ; aren't we being unkind to the poor boy.
Ought we to go on talking?"

132 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Agnes waited, remembering the warnings of
Rickie, and thinking that anything she said might
perhaps be repeated.

" Though even if he was here he wouldn't
understand what we are saying."

"Wouldn't understand?"

Mrs Failing gave the least flicker of an eye
towards her companion. "Did you take him for
clever?"

"I don't think I took him for anything." She
smiled. "I have been thinking of other things,
and of another boy."

"But do think for a moment of Stephen. I
will describe how he spent yesterday. He rose
at eight. From eight to eleven he sang. The
song was called, * Father's boots will soon fit
Willie.' He stopped once to say to the footman,
* She'll never finish her book. She idles.' 'She'
being I. At eleven he went out, and stood in the
rain till four, but had the luck to see a child run
over at the level-crossing. By half -past four he
had knocked the bottom out of Christianity."

Agnes looked bewildered.

"Aren't you impressed? I was. I told him
that he was on no account to unsettle the vicar.
Open that cupboard. One of those sixpenny
books tells Podge that he's made of hard little
black things, another that he's made of brown
things, larger and squashy. There seems a dis-
crepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful
youth than to be made in the Garden of Eden.
Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever cost to
the probable." Then for a moment she spoke
more gravely. " Here he is at twenty, with
nothing to hold on by. I don't know what's to

CAMBRIDGE. 133

be done. I suppose it's my fault. But I've never
had any bother over the Church of England ;
have you?"

"Of course I go with my Church," said Miss
Pembroke, who hated this style of conversation.
"I don't know, I'm sure. I think you should
consult a man."

"Would Rickie help me?"

"Rickie would do anything he can." And Mrs
Failing noted the half official way in which she
vouched for her lover. "But of course Rickie
is a little — complicated. I doubt whether Mr
Wonham would understand him. He wants —
doesn't he? — some one who's a little more assert-
ive and more accustomed to boys. Some one
more like my brother."

"Agnes!" she seized her by the arm. "Do
you suppose that Mr Pembroke would undertake
my Podge?"

She shook her head. "His time is so filled up.
He gets a boarding-house next term. Besides —
after all I don't know what Herbert would do."

" Morality. He would teach him morality. The
Thirty-Nine Articles may come of themselves, but
if you have no morals you come to grief. Morality
is all I demand from Mr Herbert Pembroke. He
shall be excused the use of the globes. You
know, of course, that Stephen was expelled from
a public school? He stole."

The school was not a public one, and the ex-
pulsion, or rather request for removal, had taken
place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent
spasm of dishonesty — such as often heralds the
approach of manhood — had overcome him. He
stole everything, especially what was difficult to

134 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank
in the passage. He was betrayed by the inclusion
of a ham. This was the crisis of his career. His
benefactress was just then rather bored with
him. He had stopped being a pretty boy, and
she rather doubted whether she would see him
through. But she was so enraged with the letters
of the schoolmaster, and so delighted with those
of the criminal, that she had him back and gave
him a prize.

"No," said Agnes, "I didn't know. I should be
happy to speak to Herbert, but, as I said, his
time will be very full. But I know he has friends
who make a speciality of weakly or — or unusual
boys."

"My dear, I've tried it. Stephen kicked the
weakly boys and robbed apples with the unusual
ones. He was expelled again."

Agnes began to find Mrs Failing rather tire-
some. Wherever you trod on her, she seemed
to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes
liked to know where she was and where other
people were as well. She said : " My brother
thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he'd
think that Mr Wonham is best where he is — with
you. You have been so kind to him. You " — she
paused — " have been to him both father and
mother."

"I'm too hot," was Mrs Failing's reply. It
seemed that Miss Pembroke had at last touched
a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the
electric bell, — it was only to tell the footman to
take the reprints to Mr Wonham's room, — and
then murmuring something about work, pro-
ceeded herself to the house.

CAMBRIDGE. 135

"Mrs Failing " said Agnes, who had not ex-
pected such a speedy end to their chat.

"Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?"

"Aunt Emily, what did you think of that
story Rickie sent you?"

"It is bad," said Mrs Failing. "But. But.
But." Then she escaped, having told the truth,
and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind
her.

XII.

The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor
business — in fact, Rickie never got there. They
were not out of the drive before Mr Wonham
began doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how
very quickly he could turn round in his saddle
and sit with his face to iEneas's tail. "I see,"
said Rickie coldly, and became almost cross when
they arrived in this condition at the gate behind
the house, for he had to open it, and was afraid
of falling. As usual, he anchored just beyond
the fastenings, and then had to turn Dido, who
seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief a
man came forward, and murmuring, "Worst gate
in the parish," pushed it wide and held it re-
spectfully. "Thank you," cried Rickie; "many
thanks." But Stephen, who was riding into the
world back first, said majestically, " No, no ; it
doesn't count. You needn't think it. You make
it worse by touching your hat. Four hours and
seven minutes ! You'll see me again." The man
answered nothing,

136 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Eh, but I'll hurt him," he chanted, as he
swung into position. "That was Flea. Eh, but
he's forgotten my fists; eh, but I'll hurt him."

"Why?" ventured Rickie. Last night, over
cigarettes, he had been bored to death by the
story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded
him of Gerald — the Gerald of history, not the
Gerald of romance. He was more genial, but
there was the same brutality, the same peevish
insistence on the pound of flesh.

"Hurt him till he learns."

"Learns what?"

"Learns, of course," retorted Stephen. Neither
of them was very civil. They did not dislike
each other, but they each wanted to be some-
where else — exactly the situation that Mrs Failing
had expected.

"He behaved badly," said Rickie, "because he
is poorer than we are, and more ignorant. Less
money has been spent on teaching him to
behave."

" Well, I'll teach him for nothing."

"Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!"

"They aren't. I looked."

After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced
back at Cadover, and thought of the insipid day
that lay before him. Generally he was attracted
by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh :
they had been to him symbols of the unknown,
and all that they did was interesting. But now
he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew.

Mr Wilbraham passed them in his dog -cart,
and lifted his hat to his employer's nephew.
Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on
the map.

CAMBRIDGE. 137

"Good morning," said Rickie. "What a lovely
morning ! "

"I say," called the other, "another child dead!"
Mr Wilbraham, who had seemed inclined to chat,
whipped up his horse and left them.

"There goes an out and outer," said Stephen;
and then, as if introducing an entirely new sub-
ject— "Don't you think Flea Thompson treated
me disgracefully?"

" I suppose he did. But I'm scarcely the person
to sympathise." The allusion fell flat, and he
had to explain it. "I should have done the same
myself, — promised to be away two hours, and
stopped four."

"Stopped — oh — oh, I understand. You being in
love, you mean?"

He smiled and nodded.

" Oh, I've no objection to Flea loving. He says
he can't help it. But as long as my fists are
stronger, he's got to keep it in line."

"In line?"

"A man like that, when he's got a girl, thinks
the rest can go to the devil. He goes cutting
his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham
ought to sack him. I promise you when I've a
girl I'll keep her in line, and if she turns nasty,
I'll get another.'"

Rickie smiled and said no more. But he was
sorry that any one should start life with such a
creed — all the more sorry because the creed cari-
catured his own. He too believed that life should
be in a line — a line of enormous length, full of
countless interests and countless figures, all well
beloved. But woman was not to be "kept" to
this line. Rather did she advance it continually,

138 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

like some triumphant general, making each unit
still more interesting, still more lovable, than it
had been before. He loved Agnes, not only for
herself, but because she was lighting up the
human world. But he could scarcely explain this
to an inexperienced animal, nor did he make
the attempt.

For a long time they proceeded in silence. The
hill behind Cadover was in harvest, and the horses
moved regretfully between the sheaves. Stephen
had picked a grass leaf, and was blowing cat-
calls upon it. He blew very well, and this morn-
ing all his soul went into the wail. For he was
ill. He was tortured with the feeling that he
could not get away and do — do something, instead
of being civil to this anaemic prig. Four hours
in the rain was better than this: he had not
wanted to fidget in the rain. But now the air
was like wine, and the stubble was smelling of
wet, and over his head white clouds trundled
more slowly and more seldom through broadening
tracts of blue. There never had been such a
morning, and he shut up his eyes and called to it.
And whenever he called, Rickie shut up his eyes
and winced.

At last the blade broke. "We don't go quick,
do we?" he remarked, and looked on the weedy
track for another.

" I wish you wouldn't let me keep you. If you
were alone you would be galloping or something
of that sort."

"I was told I must go your pace," he said
mournfully. "And you promised Miss Pembroke
not to hurry."

"Well, I'll disobey." But he could not rise

CAMBRIDGE. 139

above a gentle trot, and even that nearly jerked
him out of the saddle.

"Sit like this" said Stephen. "Can't you see —
like thist" Rickie lurched forward, and broke
his thumb-nail on the horse's neck. It bled a
little, and had to be bound up.

" Thank you — awfully kind — no tighter, please
— I'm simply spoiling your day."

"I can't think how a man can help riding.
You've only to leave it to the horse so ! — so ! —
just as you leave it to the water in swimming."

Rickie left it to Dido, who stopped immed-
iately.

"I said leave it." His voice rose irritably. "I
didn't say 'die.' Of course she stops if you die.
First you sit her as if you're Sandow exercising,
and then you sit like a corpse. Can't you tell
her you're alive? That's all she wants."

In trying to convey the information, Rickie
dropped his whip. Stephen picked it up and
rammed it into the belt of his own Norfolk
jacket. He was scarcely a fashionable horseman.
He was not even graceful. But he rode as a
living man, though Rickie was too much bored
to notice it. Not a muscle in him was idle, not
a muscle working hard. When he returned
from a gallop his limbs were still unsatisfied
and his manners still irritable. He did not know
that he was ill : he knew nothing about himself
at all.

"Like a howdah in the Zoo," he grumbled.
"Mother Failing will buy elephants." And he
proceeded to criticise his benefactress. Rickie,
keenly alive to bad taste, tried to stop him, and
gained instead a criticism of religion. Stephen

140 THE LONGEST JOURNEY

overthrew the Mosaic cosmogony. He pointed
out the discrepancies in the Gospels. He levelled
his wit against the most beautiful spire in the
world, now rising against the southern sky. Be-
tween whiles he went for a gallop. After a
time Rickie stopped listening, and simply went
his way. For Dido was a perfect mount, and as
indifferent to the motions of iEneas as if she
was strolling in the Elysian fields. He had had
a bad night, and the strong air made him sleepy.
The wind blew from the Plain. Cadover and its
valley had disappeared, and though they had not
climbed much and could not see far, there was
a sense of infinite space. The fields were enor-
mous, like fields on the Continent, and the
brilliant sun showed up their colours well. The
green of the turnips, the gold of the harvest,
and the brown of the newly turned clods, were
each contrasted with morsels of grey down. But
the general effect was pale, or rather silvery, for
Wiltshire is not a county of heavy tints. Be-
neath these colours lurked the unconquerable
chalk, and wherever the soil was poor it emerged.
The grassy track, so gay with scabious and bed-
straw, was snow-white at the bottom of its ruts.
A dazzling amphitheatre gleamed in the flank of
a distant hill, cut for some Olympian audience.
And here and there, whatever the surface crop,
the earth broke into little embankments, little
ditches, little mounds : there had been ho lack of
drama to solace the gods.

In Gadover, the perilous house, Agnes had al-
ready parted from Mrs Failing. His thoughts
returned to her. Was she, the soul of truth, in
safety? Was her purity vexed by the lies and

CAMBRIDGE. 141

selfishness? Would she elude the caprice which
had, he vaguely knew, caused suffering before?
Ah, the frailty of joy ! Ah, the myriads of long-
ings that pass without fruition, and the turf
grows over them ! Better men, women as noble
— they had died up here and their dust had been
mingled, but only their dust. These are morbid
thoughts, but who dare contradict them? There
is much good luck in the world, but it is luck.
We are none of us safe. We are children, play-
ing or quarrelling on the line, and some of us
have Rickie's temperament, or his experiences,
and admit it.

So he mused, that anxious little speck, and all
the land seemed to comment on his fears and
on his love.

Their path lay upward, over a great bald skull,
half grass, half stubble. It seemed each moment
there would be a splendid view. The view never
came, for none of the inclines were sharp enough,
and they moved over the skull for many minutes,
scarcely shifting a landmark or altering the blue
fringe of the distance. The spire of Salisbury did
alter, but very slightly, rising and falling like the
mercury in a thermometer. At the most it would
be half hidden; at the least the tip would show
behind the swelling barrier of earth. They passed
two elder-trees — a great event. The bare patch,
said Stephen, was owing to the gallows. Rickie
nodded. He had lost all sense of incident. In
this great solitude— more solitary than any Alpine
range — he and Agnes were floating alone and for
ever, between the shapeless earth and the shape-
less clouds. An immense silence seemed to move
towards them. A lark stopped singing, and they

142 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

were glad of it. They were approaching the
Throne of God. The silence touched them ; the
earth and all danger dissolved, but ere they
quite vanished Rickie heard himself saying, "Is
it exactly what we intended?"

"Yes," said a man's voice; "it's the old plan."
They were in another valley. Its sides were
thick with trees. Down it ran another stream
and another road: it, too, sheltered a string of
villages. But all was richer, larger, and more
beautiful — the valley of the Avon below Amesbury.

" I've been asleep ! " said Rickie, in awestruck
tones.

" Never ! " said the other facetiously. " Pleasant
dreams ? "

"Perhaps — I'm really tired of apologising to
you. How long have you been holding me on ? "

"All in the day's work." He gave him back
the reins.

"Where's that round hill?"

"Gone where the good niggers go. I want a
drink."

This is Nature's joke in Wiltshire — her one
joke. You toil on windy slopes, and feel very
primeval. You are miles from your fellows,
and lo ! a little valley full of elms and cottages.
Before Rickie had waked up to it, they had
stopped by a thatched public-house, and Stephen
was yelling like a maniac for beer.

There was no occasion to yell. He was not
very thirsty, and they were quite ready to serve
him. Nor need he have drunk in the saddle,
with the air of a warrior who carries important
despatches and has not the time to dismount.
A real soldier, bound on a similar errand, rode up

CAMBRIDGE. 143

to the inn, and Stephen at first feared that he
would yell louder, and was hostile. But they
made friends and treated each other, and slanged
the proprietor and ragged the pretty girls ; while
Rickie, as each wave of vulgarity burst over him,
sunk his head lower and lower, and wished that
the earth would swallow him up. He was only
used to Cambridge, and to a very small corner
of that. He and his friends there believed in
free speech. But they spoke freely about gen-
eralities. They were scientific and philosophic.
They would have shrunk from the empirical free-
dom that results from a little beer.

That was what annoyed him as he rode down
the new valley with two chattering companions.
He was more skilled than they were in the prin-
ciples of human existence, but he was not so
indecently familiar with the examples. A sordid
village scandal — such as Stephen described as a
huge joke — sprang from certain defects in human
nature, with which he was theoretically acquainted.
But the example ! He blushed at it like a
maiden lady, in spite of its having a parallel in
a beautiful idyll of Theocritus. Was experience
going to be such a splendid thing after all?
Were the outside of houses so very beautiful?

"That's spicy!" the soldier was saying. "Got
any more like that?"

"I'se got a pome," said Stephen, and drew a
piece of paper from his pocket. The valley had
broadened. Old Sarum rose before them, ugly
and majestic.

"Write this yourself?" he asked, chuckling.

"Rather," said Stephen, lowering his head and
kissing iEneas between the ears.

144 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"But who's old Em'ly?" Rickie winced and
frowned.

"Now you're asking.

" ■ Old Em'ly she limps,
And as '"

"I am so tired," said Rickie. Why should he
stand it any longer? He would go home to the
woman he loved. "Do you mind if I give up
Salisbury?"

" But we've seen nothing ! " cried Stephen.

"I shouldn't enjoy anything, I am so absurdly
tired."

"Left turn, then — all in the day's work." He
bit at his moustache angrily.

" Good gracious me, man ! — of course I'm going
back alone. I'm not going to spoil your day.
How could you think it of me?"

Stephen gave a loud sigh of relief. " If you
do want to go home, here's your whip. Don't
fall off. Say to her you wanted it, or there
might be ructions."

"Certainly. Thank you for your kind care of

me."

■ ' Old Em'ly she limps,
And as '"

Soon he was out of earshot. Soon they were
lost to view. Soon they were out of his thoughts.
He forgot the coarseness and the drinking and
the ingratitude. A few months ago he would
not have forgotten so quickly, and he might also
have detected something else. But a lover is
dogmatic. To him the world shall be beautiful
and pure. When it is not, he ignores it.

"He's not tired," said Stephen to the soldier;

CAMBRIDGE. 145

"he wants his girl." And they winked at each
other, and cracked jokes over the eternal comedy
of love. They asked each other if they'd let a
girl spoil a morning's ride. They both exhibited
a profound cynicism. Stephen, who was quite
without ballast, described the household at Cad-
over: he should say that Rickie would find Miss
Pembroke kissing the footman.

"I say the footman's kissing old Em'ly."
"Jolly day," said Stephen. His voice was sud-
denly constrained. He was not sure whether he
liked the soldier after all, nor whether he had
been wise in showing him his compositions.

" ' Old Em'ly she limps,
And as I '"

"All right, Thomas. That'll do."

"< Old Em'ly '"

" I wish you'd dry up, like a good fellow. This
is the lady's horse, you know, hang it, after all."

"In-deed!"

"Don't you see — when a fellow's on a horse,
he can't let another fellow — kind of — don't you
know?"

The man did know. "There's sense in that,"
he said approvingly. Peace was restored, and
they would have reached Salisbury if they had
not had some more beer. It unloosed the sol-
dier's fancies, and again he spoke of old Em'ly,
and recited the poem, with Aristophanic variations.

"Jolly day," repeated Stephen, with a straight-
ening of the eyebrows and a quick glance at the
other's body. He then warned him against the
variations. In consequence he was accused of

K

146 THE LONGEST JOUKNEY.

being a member of the Y. M. 0. A. His blood
boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and be-
came great friends with the soldier, for the third
time.

" Any objection to ' Sorcy Mr and Mrs Tackle-
ton'?"

" Rather not."

The soldier sang " Saucy Mr and Mrs Tackleton."
It is really a work for two voices, most of the
sauciness disappearing when taken as a solo.
Nor is Mrs Tackleton's name Em'ly.

"I call it a jolly rotten song," said Stephen
crossly. "I won't stand being got at."

"P'raps y'like therold songs. Lishen.

" ' Of all the gulls that arsshmart,

There's none like pretty — Em'ly ;
For she's the darling of merart ' "

"Now, that's wrong." He rode up close to the
singer.

" Shright."

"Tisn't."

"It's as my mother taught me."

"I don't care."

"I'll not alter from mother's way."

Stephen was baffled. Then he said, "How does
your mother make it rhyme?"

"Wot?"

"Squat. You're an ass, and I'm not. Poems
want rhymes. * Alley ' comes next line."

He said "alley" was welcome to come if

it liked.

4 'It can't. You want Sally. Sally — alley. Em'ly
— alley doesn't do."

"Emily — femily!" cried the soldier, with an

CAMBRIDGE. 147

inspiration that was not his when sober. " My
mother taught me femily.

" ' For she's the darling of merart,
And she lives in my femily.' "

" Well, you'd best be careful, Thomas, and your
mother too."

" Your mother's no better than she should be,"
said Thomas vaguely.

"Do you think I haven't heard that before ? "
retorted the boy.

The other concluded he might now say any-
thing. So he might — the name of old Emily
excepted. Stephen cared little about his bene-
factress's honour, but a great deal about his own.
He had made Mrs Failing into a test. For the
moment he would die for her, as a knight would
die for a glove. He is not to be distinguished
from a hero.

Old Sarum was passed. They approached the
most beautiful spire in the world. " Lord !
another of these large churches ! " said the
soldier. Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both
hands to his nose, and declared that old Em'ly
was buried there. He lay in the mud. His
horse trotted back towards Amesbury, Stephen
had twisted him out of the saddle.

" I've done him ! " he yelled, though no one was
there to hear. He rose up in his stirrups and
shouted with joy. He flung his arms round
iEneas's neck. The elderly horse understood,
capered, and bolted. It was a centaur that
dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people.
In the stable he would not dismount. "I've
done him ! " he yelled to the ostlers — apathetic

148 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

men. Stretching upwards, he clung to a beam,
^neas moved on and he was left hanging.
Greatly did he incommode them by his exercises.
He pulled up, he circled, he kicked the other
customers. At last he fell to the earth, delici-
ously fatigued. His body worried him no longer.
He went, like the baby he was, to buy a white
linen hat. There were soldiers about, and he
thought it would disguise him. Then he had a
little lunch to steady the beer. This day had
turned out admirably. All the money that should
have fed Rickie he could spend on himself. In-
stead of toiling over the Cathedral and seeing the
stuffed penguins, he could stop the whole time in
the cattle market. There he met and made some
friends. He watched the cheap -jacks, and saw
how necessary it was to have a confident manner.
He spoke confidently himself about lambs, and
people listened. He spoke confidently about pigs,
and they roared with laughter. He must learn
more about pigs. He witnessed a performance
— not too namby-pamby — of Punch and Judy.
" Hullo, Podge ! " cried a naughty little girl. He
tried to catch her, and failed. She was one of
the Cadford children. For Salisbury on market
day, though it is not picturesque, is certainly rep-
resentative, and you read the names of half
the Wiltshire villages upon the carriers' carts.
He found, in Penny Farthing Street, the cart
from Wintersbridge. It would not start for
several hours, but the passengers always used it
as a club, and sat in it every now and then
during the day. No less than three ladies were
there now, staring at the shafts. One of them
was Flea Thompson's girl. He asked her, quite

CAMBRIDGE. 149

politely, why her lover had broken faith with
him in the rain. She was silent. He warned
her of approaching vengeance. She was still
silent, but another woman hoped that a gentle-
man would not be hard on a poor person. Some-
thing in this annoyed him; it wasn't a question
of gentility and poverty — it was a question of
two men. He determined to go back by Cadbury
Rings, where the shepherd would now be.

He did. But this part must be treated lightly.
He rode up to the culprit with the air of a
Saint George, spoke a few stern words from the
saddle, tethered his steed to a hurdle, and took
oif his coat. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Flea, and flung him on his
back.

"That's not fair," he protested,

The other did not reply, but flung him on his
head.

" How on earth did you learn that ? "

"By trying often," said Flea.

Stephen sat on the ground, picking mud out
of his forehead. " I meant it to be fists," he said
gloomily.

"I know, sir."

"It's jolly smart though, and — and I beg your
pardon all round." It cost him a great deal to say
this, but he was sure that it was the right thing
to say. He must acknowledge the better man.
Whereas most people, if they provoke a fight
and are flung, say, "You cannot rob me of my
moral victory."

There was nothing further to be done. He
mounted again, not exactly depressed, but feeling
that this delightful world is extraordinary un-

150 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

reliable. He had never expected to fling the
soldier, or to be flung by Flea. " One nips or is
nipped," he thought, "and never knows before-
hand. I should not be surprised if many people
had more in them than I suppose, while others
were just the other way round. I haven't seen
that sort of thing in Ingersoll, but it's quite
important." Then his thoughts turned to a
curious incident of long ago, when he had been
"nipped" — as a little boy. He was trespassing
in those woods, when he met in a narrow glade
a flock of sheep. They had neither dog nor
shepherd, and advanced towards him silently.
He was accustomed to sheep, but had never
happened to meet them in a wood before, and
disliked it. He retired, slowly at first, then fast ;
and the flock, in a dense mass, pressed after
him. His terror increased. He turned and
screamed at their long white faces ; and still they
came on, all stuck together, like some horrible
jelly. If once he got into them ! Bellowing
and screeching, he rushed into the undergrowth,
tore himself all over, and reached home in con-
vulsions. Mr Failing, his only grown-up friend,
was sympathetic, but quite stupid. "Pan ovium
custos," he remarked as he pulled out the thorns.
"Why not?" "Pan ovium custos." Stephen
learnt the meaning of the phrase at school, "A
pan of eggs for custard." He still remem-
bered how the other boys looked as he peeped
at them between his legs, awaiting the descending
cane.

So he returned, full of pleasant disconnected
thoughts. He had had a rare good time. He
liked every one — even that poor little Elliot — and

CAMBRIDGE. 151

yet no one mattered. They were all out. On
the landing he saw the new housemaid. He felt
skittish and irresistible. Should he slip his arm
round her waist ? Perhaps better not ; she
might box his ears. And he wanted to smoke
on the roof before dinner. So he only said,
"Please will you stop the boy blacking my
brown boots," and she, with downcast eyes,
answered, "Yes, sir; I will indeed."

His room was in the pediment. Classical
architecture, like all things in this world that
attempt serenity, is bound to have its lapses
into the undignified, and Cadover lapsed hope-
lessly when it came to Stephen's room. It
gave him one round window, to see through
which he must lie upon his stomach, one trap-
door opening upon the leads, three iron girders,
three beams, six buttresses, no circling, unless
you count the walls, no walls unless you count
the ceiling, and in its embarrassment presented
him with the gurgly cistern that supplied the
bath water. Here he lived, absolutely happy,
and unaware that Mrs Failing had poked him
up here on purpose, to prevent him from grow-
ing too bumptious. Here he worked and sang
and practised on the ocharoon. Here, in the
crannies, he had constructed shelves and cup-
boards and useless little drawers. He had only
one picture — the Demeter of Cnidos — and she
hung straight from the roof like a joint of meat.
Once she was in the drawing-room; but Mrs
Failing had got tired of her, and decreed her
removal and this degradation. Now she faced the
sunrise ; and when the moon rose its light also
fell on her, and trembled, like light upon the sea.

152 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

For she was never still, and if the draught
increased she would twist on her string, and
would sway and tap upon the rafters until
Stephen woke up and said what he thought of
her. " Want your nose ? " he would murmur.
"Don't you wish you may get it." Then he
drew the clothes over his ears, while above him,
in the wind and the darkness, the goddess con-
tinued her motions.

To-day, as he entered, he trod on the pile of
sixpenny reprints. Leighton had brought them
up. He looked at the portraits on their covers,
and began to think that these people were not
everything. What a fate, to look like Colonel
Ingersoll, or to marry Mrs Julia P. Chunk ! The
Demeter turned towards him as he bathed, and
in the cold water he sang —

" They aren't beautiful, they aren't modest ;
I'd just as soon follow an old stone goddess," —

and sprang upward through the skylight on to
the roof.

Years ago, when a nurse was washing him, he
had slipped from her soapy hands and got up
here. She implored him to remember that he
was a little gentleman ; but he forgot the fact
— if it was a fact — and not even the butler
could get him down. Mr Failing, who was sitting
alone in the garden too ill to read, heard a
shout, "Am I an aero - terium ? " He looked up
and saw a naked child poised on the summit of
Cadover. "Yes," he replied; "but they are un-
fashionable. Go in," and the vision had remained
with him as something peculiarly gracious. He
felt that nonsense and beauty have close con-

CAMBRIDGE. 153

nections, — closer connections than Art will allow,
— and that both would remain when his own
heaviness and his own ugliness had perished.
Mrs Failing found in his remains a sentence that
puzzled her. "I see the respectable mansion. I
see the smug fortress of culture. The doors are
shut. The windows are shut. But on the roof
the children go dancing for ever."

Stephen was a child no longer. He never stood
on the pediment now, except for a bet. He never,
or scarcely ever, poured water down the chimneys.
When he caught the cat, he seldom dropped her
into the housekeeper's bedroom. But still, when
the weather was fair, he liked to come up after
bathing, and get dry in the sun. To - day he
brought with him a towel, a pipe of tobacco, and
Rickie's story. He must get it done some time,
and he was tired of the sixpenny reprints. The
sloping gable was warm, and he lay back on it
with closed eyes, gasping for pleasure. Starlings
criticised him, soots fell on his clean body, and
over him a little cloud was tinged with the colours
of evening. " Good ! good ! " he whispered. " Good,
oh good ! " and opened the manuscript reluctantly.

What a production ! Who was this girl ? Where
did she go to? Why so much talk about trees?
"I take it he wrote it when feeling bad," he
murmured, and let it fall into the gutter. It
fell face downwards, and on the back he saw a
neat little resume in Miss Pembroke's handwrit-
ing, intended for such as him. "Allegory. Man
= modern civilisation (in bad sense). Girl = get-
ting into touch with Nature."

In touch with Nature ! The girl was a tree !
He lit his pipe and gazed at the radiant earth.

154 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

The foreground was hidden, but there was the
village with its elms, and the Roman Road, and
Cadbury Rings. There, too, were those woods,
and little beech copses, crowning a waste of
down. Not to mention the air, or the sun, or
water. Good, oh good !

In touch with Nature ! What cant would the
books think of next? His eyes closed. He was
sleepy. Good, oh good ! Sighing into his pipe, he
fell asleep.

XIII.

Glad as Agnes was when her lover returned
for lunch, she was at the same time rather dis-
mayed: she knew that Mrs Failing would not
like her plans altered. And her dismay was
justified. Their hostess was a little stiff, and
asked whether Stephen had been obnoxious.

"Indeed he hasn't. He spent the whole time
looking after me."

"From which I conclude he was more obnox-
ious than usual."

Rickie praised him diligently. But his candid
nature showed everything through. His aunt
soon saw that they had not got on. She had
expected this — almost planned it. Nevertheless
she resented it, and her resentment was to fall
on him.

The storm gathered slowly, and many other
things went to swell it. Weakly people, if they
are not careful, hate one another, and when the
weakness is hereditary the temptation increases.

CAMBRIDGE. 155

Elliots had never got on among themselves. They
talked of "The Family," but they always turned
outwards to the health and beauty that lie so
promiscuously about the world. Rickie's father
had turned, for a time at all events, to his mother.
Rickie himself was turning to Agnes. And Mrs
Failing now was irritable, and unfair to the
nephew who was lame like her horrible brother
and like herself. She thought him invertebrate
and conventional. She was envious of his happi-
ness. She did not trouble to understand his art.
She longed to shatter him, but knowing as she
did that the human thunderbolt often rebounds
and strikes the wielder, she held her hand.

Agnes watched the approaching clouds. Rickie
had warned her; now she began to warn him.
As the visit wore away she urged him to be
pleasant to his aunt, and so convert it into a
success.

He replied, "Why need it be a success?" — a
reply in the manner of Ansell.

She laughed. " Oh, that's so like you men — all
theory ! What about your great theory of hating
no one? As soon as it comes in useful you
drop it."

"I don't hate Aunt Emily. Honestly. But
certainly I don't want to be near her or think
about her. Don't you think there are two great
things in life that we ought to aim at — truth and
kindness? Let's have both if we can, but let's be
sure of having one or the other. My aunt gives
up both for the sake of being funny."

" And Stephen Wonham," pursued Agnes.
" There's another person you hate — or don't
think about, if you prefer it put like that."

156 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"The truth is, I'm changing. I'm beginning to
see that the world has many people in it who
don't matter. I had time for them once. Not
now." There was only one gate to the kingdom
of heaven now.

Agnes surprised him by saying, " But the
Wonham boy is evidently a part of your aunt's
life. She laughs at him, but she is fond of him."

"What's that to do with it?"

" You ought to be pleasant to him on account
of it."

"Why on earth?"

She flushed a little. "I'm old-fashioned. One
ought to consider one's hostess, and fall in with
her life. After we leave it's another thing. But
while we take her hospitality I think it's our
duty."

Her good sense triumphed. Henceforth he tried
to fall in with Aunt Emily's life. Aunt Emily
watched him trying. The storm broke, as storms
sometimes do, on Sunday.

Sunday church was a function at Cadover, though
a strange one. The pompous landau rolled up to
the house at a quarter to eleven. Then Mrs
Failing said, "Why am I being hurried?" and
after an interval descended the steps in her
ordinary clothes. She regarded the church as a
sort of sitting-room, and refused even to wear
a bonnet there. The village was shocked, but at
the same time a little proud ; it would point out
the carriage to strangers and gossip about the
pale smiling lady who sat in it, always alone,
always late, her hair always draped in an ex-
pensive shawl.

This Sunday, though late as usual, she was not

CAMBRIDGE. 157

alone. Miss Pembroke, en grande toilette, sat
by her side. Rickie, looking plain and devout,
perched opposite. And Stephen actually came
too, murmuring that it would be the Benedicite,
which he had never minded. There was also the
Litany, which drove him into the air again,
much to Mrs Failing's delight. She enjoyed this
sort of thing. It amused her when her pi^otege
left the pew, looking bored, athletic, and dishev-
elled, and groping most obviously for his pipe.
She liked to keep a thoroughbred pagan to shock
people. " He's gone to worship Nature," she whis-
pered. Rickie did not look up. "Don't you think
he's charming ? " He made no reply. " Charm-
ing," whispered Agnes over his head.

During the sermon she analysed her guests.
Miss Pembroke — undistinguished, unimaginative,
tolerable. Rickie — intolerable. "And how pedan-
tic!" she mused. "He smells of the University
library. If he was stupid in the right way he
would be a don." She looked round the tiny
church ; at the whitewashed pillars, the humble
pavement, the window full of magenta saints.
There was the vicar's wife. And Mrs Wilbraham's
bonnet. Ugh ! The rest of the congregation
were poor women, with flat, hopeless faces — she
saw them Sunday after Sunday, but did not know
their names — diversified with a few reluctant
ploughboys, and the vile little school children,
row upon row. " Ugh ! what a hole," thought
Mrs Failing, whose Christianity was of the type
best described as "cathedral." "What a hole for
a cultured woman ! I don't think it has blunted
my sensations, though; I still see its squalor as
clearly as ever. And my nephew pretends he is

158 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

worshipping. Pah ! the hypocrite." Above her
the vicar spoke of the danger of hurrying from
one dissipation to another. She treasured his
words, and continued: "I cannot stand smugness.
It is the one, the unpardonable sin. Fresh air !
The fresh air that has made Stephen Wonham
fresh and companionable and strong. Even if it
kills, I will let in the fresh air."

Thus reasoned Mrs Failing, in the facile vein of
Ibsenism. She imagined herself to be a cold-
eyed Scandinavian heroine. Really she was an
English old lady, who did not mind giving other
people a chill provided it was not infectious.

Agnes, on the way back, noted that her hostess
was a little snappish. But one is so hungry after
morning service, and either so hot or so cold,
that he would be a saint indeed who becomes a
saint at once. Mrs Failing, after asserting vin-
dictively that it was impossible to make a living
out of literature, was courteously left alone.
Roast-beef and moselle might yet work miracles,
and Agnes still hoped for the introductions — the
introductions to certain editors and publishers —
on which her whole diplomacy was bent. Rickie
would not push himself. It was his besetting sin.
Well for him that he would have a wife, and a
loving wife, who knew the value of enterprise.

Unfortunately lunch was a quarter of an hour
late, and during that quarter of an hour the aunt
and the nephew quarrelled. She had been in-
veighing against the morning service, and he
quietly and deliberately replied, "If organised
religion is anything — and it is something to me
— it will not be wrecked by a harmonium and a
dull sermon."

CAMBRIDGE. 159

Mrs Failing frowned. "I envy you. It is a
great thing to have no sense of beauty."

" I think I have a sense of beauty, which leads
me astray if I am not careful."

"But this is a great relief to me. I thought
the present - day young man was an agnostic !
Isn't agnosticism all the thing at Cambridge?"

"Nothing is the 'thing' at Cambridge. If a
few men are agnostic there, it is for some grave
reason, not because they are irritated with the
way the parson says his vowels."

Agnes intervened. "Well, I side with Aunt
Emily. I believe in ritual."

"Don't, my dear, side with me. He will only
say you have no sense of religion either."

"Excuse me," said Rickie, — perhaps he too was
a little hungry, — " I never suggested such a thing.
I never would suggest such a thing. Why cannot
you understand my position? I almost feel it is
that you won't."

"I try to understand your position night and
day, dear — what you mean, what you like, why you
came to Cadover, and why you stop here when my
presence is so obviously unpleasing to you."

"Luncheon is served," said Leighton, but he
said it too late. They discussed the beef and
the moselle in silence. The air was heavy and
ominous. Even the Wonham boy was affected by
it, shivered at times, choked once, and hastened
anew into the sun. He could not understand
clever people.

Agnes, in a brief anxious interview, advised
the culprit to take a solitary walk. She would
stop near Aunt Emily, and pave the way for an
apology.

160 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Don't worry too much. It doesn't really
matter."

"I suppose not, dear. But it seems a pity,
considering we are so near the end of our visit."

" Rudeness and crossness matter, and I've shown
both, and already I'm sorry, and hope she'll let
me apologise. But from the selfish point of view
it doesn't matter a straw. She's no more to us
than the Wonham.boy or the boot boy."

"Which way will you walk?"

"I think to that entrenchment. Look at it."
They were sitting on the steps. He stretched
out his hand to Cadbury Rings, and then let it
rest for a moment on her shoulder. "You're
changing me," he said gently. " God bless you
for it."

He enjoyed his walk. Cadford was a charming
village, and for a time he hung over the bridge
by the mill. So clear was the stream that it
seemed not water at all, but some invisible quint-
essence in which the happy minnows and the
weeds were vibrating. And he paused again at
the Roman crossing, and thought for a moment
of the unknown child. The line curved suddenly :
certainly it was dangerous. Then he lifted his
eyes to the down. The entrenchment showed like
the rim of a saucer, and over its narrow line
peeped the summit of the central tree. It looked
interesting. He hurried forward, with the wind
behind him.

The Rings were curious rather than impressive.
Neither embankment was over twelve feet high,
and the grass on them had not the exquisite
green of Old Sarum, but was grey and wiry. But
Nature (if she arranges anything) had arranged

CAMBEIDGE. 161

that from them, at all events, there should be
a view. The whole system of the country lay
spread before Rickie, and he gained an idea of
it that he never got in his elaborate ride. He
saw how all the water converges at Salisbury;
how Salisbury lies in a shallow basin, just at the
change of the soil. He saw to the north the Plain,
and the stream of the Cad flowing down from it,
with a tributary that broke out suddenly, as the
chalk streams do : one village had clustered round
the source and clothed itself with trees. He saw
Old Sarum, and hints of the Avon valley, and the
land above Stone Henge. And behind him he
saw the great wood beginning unobtrusively, as
if the down too needed shaving ; and into it the
road to London slipped, covering the bushes with
white dust. Chalk made the dust white, chalk
made the water clear, chalk made the clean rolling
outlines of the land, and favoured the grass and
the distant coronals of trees. Here is the heart
of our island : the Chilterns, the North Downs,
the South Downs radiate hence. The fibres of
England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend
to worship her, here we should erect our national
shrine.

People at that time were trying to think im-
perially. Rickie wondered how they did it, for
he could not imagine a place larger than England.
And other people talked of Italy, the spiritual
fatherland of us all. Perhaps Italy would prove
marvellous. But at present he conceived it as
something exotic, to be admired and reverenced,
but not to be loved like these unostentatious
fields. He drew out a book, — it was natural for
him to read when he was happy, and to read out

L

162 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

loud, — and for a little time his voice disturbed
the silence of that glorious afternoon. The book
was Shelley, and it opened at a passage that he
had cherished greatly two years before, and
marked as " very good."

" I never was attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select
Out of the world a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion, — though it is the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world, — and so
With one sad friend, perhaps a jealous foe,
The dreariest and the longest journey go."

It was " very good " — fine poetry, and, in a
sense, true. Yet he was surprised that he had
ever selected it so vehemently. This afternoon
it seemed a little inhuman. Half a mile off two
lovers were keeping company where all the vil-
lagers could see them. They cared for no one
else; they felt only the pressure of each other,
and so progressed, silent and oblivious, across the
land. He felt them to be nearer the truth than
Shelley. Even if they suffered or quarrelled, they
would have been nearer the truth. He wondered
whether they were Henry Adams and Jessica
Thompson, both of this parish, whose banns had
been asked, for the second time, in the church
this morning. Why could he not marry on fifteen
shillings a- week? And he looked at them with
respect, and wished that he was not a cumber-
some gentleman.

Presently he saw something less pleasant — his

CAMBRIDGE. 163

aunt's pony carriage. It had crossed the railway,
and was advancing up the Roman road along by
the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but
some one waved to him. It was Agnes. She
waved continually, as much as to say, "Wait for
us." Mrs Failing herself raised the whip in a non-
chalant way. Stephen Wonham was following on
foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back
into his pocket and waited for them. When the
carriage stopped by some hurdles he went down
from the embankment and helped them to dis-
mount. He felt rather nervous.

His aunt gave him one of her disquieting
smiles, but said pleasantly enough, "Aren't the
Rings a little immense? Agnes and I came here
because we wanted an antidote to the morning
service."

" Pang ! " said the church bell suddenly ; " pang !
pang ! " It sounded petty and ludicrous. They all
laughed. Rickie blushed, and Agnes, with a glance
that said "apologise," darted away to the en-
trenchment, as though unable to restrain her
curiosity.

"The pony won't move," said Mrs Failing.
"Leave him for Stephen to tie up. Will you
walk me to the tree in the middle ? Booh ! I'm
tired. Give me your arm — unless you're tired
as well."

"No. I came out partly in the hope of helping
you."

"How sweet of you." She contrasted his blat-
ant unselfishness with the hardness of Stephen.
Stephen never came out to help you. But if you
got hold of him he was some good. He didn't
wobble and bend at the critical moment. Her

164 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

fancy compared Rickie to the cracked church bell
sending forth its message of "Pang! pang!" to
the countryside, and Stephen to the young pagans
who were said to lie under this field guarding
their pagan gold.

" This place is full of ghosties," she remarked ;
"have you seen any yet?"

"I've kept on the outer rim so far."

"Let's go to the tree in the centre."

"Here's the path." The bank of grass where
he had sat was broken by a gap, through which
chariots had entered, and farm carts entered now.
The track, following the ancient track, led straight
through turnips to a similar gap in the second
circle, and thence continued, through more turnips,
to the central tree.

" Pang ! " said the bell, as they paused at the
entrance.

"You needn't unharness," shouted Mrs Failing,
for Stephen was approaching the carriage.

"Yes, I will," he retorted.

"You will, will you?" she murmured with a
smile. " I wish your brother wasn't quite so
uppish. Let's get on. Doesn't that church dis-
tract you?"

" It's so faint here," said Rickie. And it sounded
fainter inside, though the earthwork was neither
thick nor tall; and the view, though not hidden,
was greatly diminished. He was reminded for a
moment of that chalk pit near Madingley, whose
ramparts excluded the familiar world. Agnes was
here, as she had once been there. She stood on
the farther barrier, waiting to receive them when
they had traversed the heart of the camp.

"Admire my mangel- wurzels," said Mrs Failing.

CAMBRIDGE. 165

"They are said to grow so splendidly on account
of the dead soldiers. Isn't it a sweet thought?
Need I say it is your brother's?"

"Wonham's ?" he suggested. It was the

second time that she had made the little slip.
She nodded, and he asked her what kind of
ghosties haunted this curious field.

"The D.," was her prompt reply. "He leans
against the tree in the middle, especially on
Sunday afternoons, and all his worshippers rise
through the turnips and dance round him."

" Oh, these were decent people," he replied, look-
ing downwards — " soldiers and shepherds. They
have no ghosts. They worshipped Mars or Pan —
Erda perhaps ; not the devil."

"Pang!" went the church, and was silent, for
the afternoon service had begun. They entered
the second entrenchment, which was in height,
breadth, and composition similar to the first, and
excluded still more of the view. His aunt con-
tinued friendly. Agnes stood watching them.

"Soldiers may seem decent in the past," she
continued, "but wait till they turn into Tommies
from Bulford Camp, who rob the chickens."

"I don't mind Bulford Camp," said Rickie,
looking, though in vain, for signs of its snowy
tents. "The men there are the sons of the men
here, and have come back to the old country.
War's horrible, yet one loves all continuity. And
no one could mind a shepherd."

"Indeed! What about your brother — a shep-
herd if ever there was ? Look how he bores
you ! Don't be so sentimental."

" But — oh, you mean "

"Your brother Stephen."

166 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

He glanced at her nervously. He had never
known her so queer before. Perhaps it was
some literary allusion that he had not caught;
but her face did not at that moment suggest
literature. In the deferential tones that one uses
to an old and infirm person he said, "Stephen
Wonham isn't my brother, Aunt Emily."

"My dear, you're that precise. One can't say
'half-brother' every time."

They approached the central tree.

"How you do puzzle me," he said, dropping her
arm and beginning to laugh. " How could I have
a half-brother?"

She made no answer.

Then a horror leapt straight at him, and he
beat it back and said, "I will not be frightened."
The tree in the centre revolved, the tree dis-
appeared, and he saw a room — the room where
his father had lived in town. " Gently," he told
himself, "gently."

Still laughing, he said, "I, with a brother —
younger — it's not possible." The horror leapt
again, and he exclaimed, " It's a foul lie ! "

" My dear, my dear ! "

" It's a foul lie ! He wasn't — I won't stand "

"My dear, before you say several noble things
remember that it's worse for him than for you —
worse for your brother, for your half-brother, for
your younger brother."

But he heard her no longer. He was gazing
at the past, which he had praised so recently,
which gaped ever wider, like an unhallowed
grave. Turn where he would, it encircled him.
It took visible form : it was this double en-
trenchment of the Rings. His mouth went cold,

CAMBRIDGE. 167

and he knew that he was going to faint
among the dead. He started running, missed
the exit, stumbled on the inner barrier, fell
into darkness

" Get his head down," said a voice. " Get the
blood back into him. That's all he wants. Leave
him to me. Elliot!" — the blood was returning —
44 Elliot, wake up!"

He woke up. The earth he had dreaded lay
close to his eyes, and seemed beautiful. He
saw the structure of the clods. A tiny beetle
swung on the grass blade. On his own neck
a human hand pressed, guiding the blood back
to his brain.

There broke from him a cry, not of horror but
of acceptance. For one short moment he under-
stood. " Stephen " he began, and then he

heard his own name called : " Rickie ! Rickie ! "
Agnes had hurried from her post on the margin,
and, as if understanding also, caught him to her
breast.

Stephen offered to help them further, but finding
that he made things worse, he stepped aside to
let them pass and then sauntered inwards. The
whole field, with its concentric circles, was visible,
and the broad leaves of the turnips rustled in
the gathering wind. Miss Pembroke and Elliot
were moving towards the Cadover entrance. Mrs
Failing stood watching in her turn on the opposite
bank. He was not an inquisitive boy; but as he
leant against the tree he wondered what it was
all about, and whether he would ever know.

168 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

XIV.

On the • way back — at that very level-crossing
where he had paused on his upward route —
Rickie stopped suddenly and told the girl why
he had fainted. Hitherto she had asked him in
vain. His tone had gone from him, and he told
her harshly and brutally, so that she started away
with a horrified cry. Then his manner altered,
and he exclaimed: "Will you mind? Are you
going to mind?"

" Of course I mind," she whispered. She turned
from him, and saw up on the sky-line two figures
that seemed to be of enormous size.

"They're watching us. They stand on the edge
watching us. This country's so open — you — you
can't — they watch us wherever we go. Of course
you mind."

They heard the rumble of the train, and she
pulled herself together. " Come, dearest, we shall
be run over next. We're saying things that have
no sense." But on the way back he repeated:
"They can still see us. They can see every inch
of this road. They watch us for ever." And
when they arrived at the steps, there, sure enough,
were still the two figures gazing from the outer
circle of the Rings.

She made him go to his room at once : he was
almost hysterical. Leighton brought out some
tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little
terrace. Of course she minded. Again she was
menaced by the abnormal. All had seemed so
fair and so simple, so in accordance with her

CAMBRIDGE. 169

ideas; and then, like a corpse, this horror rose
up to the surface. She saw the two figures de-
scend and pause while one of them harnessed the
pony; she saw them drive downward, and knew
that before long she must face them and the
world. She glanced at her engagement ring.

When the carriage drove up Mrs Failing dis-
mounted, but did not speak. It was Stephen who
inquired after Rickie. She, scarcely knowing the
sound of her own voice, replied that he was a
little tired.

" Go and put up the pony," said Mrs Failing
rather sharply. "Agnes, give me some tea."

" It is rather strong," said Agnes as the carriage
drove oif and left them alone. Then she noticed
that Mrs Failing herself was agitated. Her lips
were trembling, and she saw the boy depart with
manifest relief.

" Do you know," she said hurriedly, as if talking
against time — " do you know what upset Rickie ? "

" I do indeed know."

" Has he told any one else ? "

" I believe not."

" Agnes — have I been a fool ? "

" You have been very unkind," said the girl, and
her eyes filled with tears.

For a moment Mrs Failing was annoyed. "Un-
kind? I do not see that at all. I believe in
looking facts in the face. Rickie must know his
ghosts some time. Why not this afternoon?"

She rose with quiet dignity, but her tears came
faster. "That is not so. You told him to hurt
him. I cannot think what you did it for. I
suppose because he was rude to you after church.
It is a mean, cowardly revenge."

170 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"What— what if it's a lie?"

"Then, Mrs Failing, it is sickening of you.
There is no other word. Sickening. I am sorry
— a nobody like myself — to speak like this. How
could you, oh, how could you demean yourself?
Why, not even a poor person " Her indigna-
tion was fine and genuine. But her tears fell no
longer. Nothing menaced her if they were not
really brothers.

"It is not a lie, my dear; sit down. I will
swear so much solemnly. It is not a lie, but "

Agnes waited.

" — we can call it a lie if we choose."

"I am not so childish. You have said it, and
we must all suffer. You have had your fun : I
conclude you did it for fun. You cannot go back.

He " She pointed towards the stables, and

could not finish her sentence.

"I have not been a fool twice."

Agnes did not understand.

" My dense lady, can't you follow ? I have not
told Stephen one single word, neither before
nor now."

There was a long silence.

Indeed, Mrs Failing was in an awkward posi-
tion. Rickie had irritated her, and, in her desire
to shock him, she had imperilled her own peace.
She had felt so unconventional upon the hill-
side, when she loosed the horror against him ;
but now it was darting at her as well. Suppose
the scandal out. Stephen, who was absolutely
without delicacy, would tell it to people as soon
as tell them the time. His paganism would be
too assertive ; it might even be in bad taste.
After all, she had a prominent position in the

CAMBRIDGE. 171

neighbourhood ; she was talked about, respected,
looked up to. After all, she was growing old.
And therefore, though she had no true regard
for Rickie, nor for Agnes, nor for Stephen, nor
for Stephen's parents, in whose tragedy she had
assisted, yet she did feel that if the scandal re-
vived it would disturb the harmony of Cadover,
and therefore tried to retrace her steps. It is
easy to say shocking things : it is so different to
be connected with anything shocking. Life and
death were not involved, but comfort and dis-
comfort were.

The silence was broken by the sound of feet on
the gravel. Agnes said hastily, "Is that really
true — that he knows nothing ? "

"You, Rickie, and I are the only people alive
that know. He realises what he is — with a pre-
cision that is sometimes alarming. Who he is,
he doesn't know and doesn't care. I suppose he
would know when I'm dead. There are papers."
"Aunt Emily, before he comes, may I say to
you I'm sorry I was so rude?"

Mrs Failing had not disliked her courage. " My
dear, you may. We're all off our hinges this
Sunday. Sit down by me again."

Agnes obeyed, and they awaited the arrival of
Stephen. They were clever enough to under-
stand each other. The thing must be hushed up.
The matron must repair the consequences of her
petulance. The girl must hide the stain in her
future husband's family. Why not? Who was
injured? What does a grown-up man want with
a grown-up brother ? Rickie upstairs, how grate-
ful he would be to them for saving him.
"Stephen!"

172 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

-Yes."

"I'm tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea."

"All right."

And the whole thing was settled. She liked no
fuss, and so did he. He sat down on the step to
tighten his boot-laces. Then he would be ready.
Mrs Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the
step above him. Agnes tried to make conversa-
tion, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea
was a long way off.

"The sea's downhill. That's all I know about
it." He swept up the money with a word of
pleasure : he was kept like a baby in such things.
Then he started off, but slowly, for he meant to
walk till the morning.

" He will be gone days," said Mrs Failing. " The
comedy is finished. Let us come in."

She went to her room. The storm that she
had raised had shattered her. Yet, because it
was stilled for a moment, she resumed her
old emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a
comedy.

As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be
emancipated no longer. People like " Stephen
Wonham" were social thunderbolts, to be
shunned at all costs, or at almost all costs.
Her joy was now unfeigned, and she hurried
upstairs to impart it to Rickie.

"I don't think we are rewarded if we do right,
but we are punished if we lie. It's the fashion
to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe in
half of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters,
and after many days it really will come back to
you." These were the words of Mr Failing. They
were also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another

CAMBRIDGE. 173

unpractical person. Rickie was trying to write
to him when she entered with the good news.

"Dear, we're saved! He doesn't know, and he
never is to know. I can't tell you how glad I
am. All the time we saw them standing together
up there, she wasn't telling him at all. She was
keeping him out of the way, in case you let it
out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but
she is nice, really. She said, 'I've been a fool,
but I haven't been a fool twice.' You must for-
give her, Rickie. I've forgiven her, and she me ;
for at first I was so angry with her. Oh, my
darling boy, I am so glad ! "

He was shivering all over, and could not reply.
At last he said, "Why hasn't she told him?"

"Because she has come to her senses."

" But she can't behave to people like that. She
must tell him."

"Why?"

"Because he must be told such a real thing."

"Such a real thing?" the girl echoed, screwing
up her forehead. "But — but you don't mean
you're glad about it?"

His head bowed over the letter. " My God — no !
But it's a real thing. She must tell him. I nearly
told him myself — up there — when he made me look
at the ground, but you happened to prevent me."

How Providence had watched over them !

" She won't tell him. I know that much."

" Then, Agnes, darling " — he drew her to the
table — "we must talk together a little. If she
won't, then we ought to."

" We tell him ? " cried the girl, white with horror.
"Tell him now, when everything has been com-
fortably arranged?"

174 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" You see, darling " — he took hold of her hand —
" what one must do is to think the thing out and
settle what's right. I'm still all trembling and
stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I
want you to help me. It seems to me that here
and there in life we meet with a person or incident
that is symbolical. It's nothing in itself, yet for
the moment it stands for some eternal principle.
We accept it, at whatever cost, and we have
accepted life. But if we are frightened and re-
ject it, the moment, so to speak, passes ; the
symbol is never offered again. Is this nonsense?
Once before a symbol was offered to me — I shall
not tell you how; but I did accept it, and cher-
ished it through much anxiety and repulsion, and
in the end I am rewarded. There will be no
reward this time, I think, from such a man — the
son of such a man. But I want to do what is
right."

"Because doing right is its own reward," said
Agnes anxiously.

" I do not think that. I have seen few examples
of it. Doing right is simply doing right."

" I think that all you say is wonderfully clever ;
but since you ask me, it is nonsense, dear Rickie,
absolutely."

"Thank you," he said humbly, and began to
stroke her hand. "But all my disgust; my in-
dignation with my father, my love for " He

broke off ; he could not bear to mention the name
of his mother. "I was trying to say, I oughtn't
to follow these impulses too much. There are
other things. Truth. Our duty to acknowledge
each man accurately, however vile he is. And
apart from ideals " (here she had won the battle),

CAMBRIDGE. 175

— "and leaving ideals aside, I couldn't meet him
and keep silent. It isn't in me. I should blurt
it out."

" But you won't meet him ! " she cried. " It's
all been arranged. We've sent him to the sea.
Isn't it splendid? He's gone. My own boy won't
be fantastic, will he?" Then she fought the fan-
tasy on its own ground. " And, by the bye, what
you call the ' symbolic moment ' is over. You had
it up by the Rings. You tried to tell him. I
interrupted you. It's not your fault. You did
all you could."

She thought this excellent logic, and was sur-
prised that he looked so gloomy. "So he's gone
to the sea. For the present that does settle it.
Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?"

" No. Ask her to-morrow if you wish to know.
Ask her kindly. It would be so dreadful if you
did not part friends, and "

"What's that?"

It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He
had come back. Agnes threw out her hand in
despair.

"Elliot!" the voice called.

They were facing each other, silent and motion-
less. Then Rickie advanced to the window. The
girl darted in front of him. He thought he had
never seen her so beautiful. She was stopping
his advance quite frankly, with widespread arms.

"Elliot!"

He moved forward — into what? He pretended
to himself he would rather see his brother be-
fore he answered; that it was easier to acknow-
ledge him thus. But at the back of his soul he
knew that the woman had conquered, and that

176 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

he was moving forward to acknowledge her. "If
he calls me again " he thought.

"Elliot!"

" Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer
him, vile as he is."

He did not call again.

Stephen had really come back for some tobacco,
but as he passed under the windows he thought
of the poor fellow who had been " nipped " (nothing
serious, said Mrs Failing), and determined to
shout good-bye to him. And once or twice, as
he followed the river into darkness, he wondered
what it was like to be so weak, — not to ride, not
to swim, not to care for anything but books and
a girl.

They embraced passionately. The danger had
brought them very near to each other. They
both needed a home to confront the menacing
tumultuous world. And what weary years of
work, of waiting, lay between them and that
home ! Still holding her fast, he said, " I was
writing to Ansell when you came in."

"Do you owe him a letter?"

"No." He paused. "I was writing to tell him
about this. He would help us. He always picks
out the important point."

"Darling, I don't like to say anything, and I
know that Mr Ansell would keep a secret, but
haven't we picked out the important point for
ourselves ? "

He released her and tore the letter up.

CAMBRIDGE. 177

XV.

The sense of purity is a puzzling, and at times
a fearful thing. It seems so noble, and it starts
at one with morality. But it is a dangerous
guide, and can lead us away not only from what
is gracious, but also from what is good. Agnes,
in this tangle, had followed it blindly, partly
because she was a woman, and it meant more
to her than it can ever mean to a man ; partly
because, though dangerous, it is also obvious, and
makes no demand upon the intellect. She could
not feel that Stephen had full human rights.
He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a man
diseased. And Rickie, remembering whose son
he was, gradually adopted her opinion. He, too,
came to be glad that his brother had passed
from him untried, that the symbolic moment
had been rejected. Stephen was the fruit of sin ;
therefore he was sinful. He, too, became a sexual
snob.

And now he must hear the unsavoury details.
That evening they sat in the walled garden.
Agnes, according to arrangement, left him alone
with his aunt. He asked her, and was not
answered.

" You are shocked," she said in a hard, mocking
voice. "It is very nice of you to be shocked,
and I do not wish to grieve you further. We
will not allude to it again. Let us all go on just
as we are. The comedy is finished."

He could not tolerate this. His nerves were
shattered, and all that was good in him revolted as

U

178 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

well. To the horror of Agnes, who was within
earshot, he replied, "You used to puzzle me,
Aunt Emily, but I understand you at last. You
have forgotten what other people are like. Con-
tinual selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it.
I see now how you look at the world. 'Nice
of me to be shocked!' I want to go to-morrow,
if I may."

"Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the
best." And so the disastrous visit ended.

As he walked back to the house he met a
certain poor woman, whose child Stephen had
rescued at the level -crossing, and who had de-
cided, after some delay, that she must thank the
kind gentleman in person. " He has got some
brute courage," thought Rickie, "and it was
decent of him not to boast about it." But he
had labelled the boy as "Bad," and it was con-
venient to revert to his good qualities as seldom
as possible. He preferred to brood over his
coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his irreligion.
Out of these he constructed a repulsive figure,
forgetting how slovenly his own perceptions had
been during the past week, how dogmatic and
intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love.

During the packing he was obliged to go up
to the attic to find the Dryad manuscript, which
had never been returned. Leighton came too,
and for about half an hour they hunted in the
flickering light of a candle. It was a strange,
ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled
when a picture swung towards him, and he saw
the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering and grey.
Leighton suggested the roof: Mr Stephen some-
times left things on the roof. So they climbed

CAMBRIDGE. 179

out of the skylight — the night was perfectly still
— and continued the search among the gables.
Enormous stars hung overhead, and the roof was
bounded by chasms, impenetrable and black. " It
doesn't matter," said Rickie, suddenly convinced
of the futility of all that he did. "Oh, let us
look properly," said Leighton, a kindly, pliable
man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who
was genuinely sympathetic now that he had
come. They were rewarded : the manuscript lay
in a gutter, charred and smudged.

The rest of the year was spent by Rickie
partly in bed, — he had a curious breakdown, —
partly in the attempt to get his little stories
published. He had written eight or nine, and
hoped they would make up a book, and that the
book might be called ' Pan Pipes.' He was very
energetic over this ; he liked to work, for some
imperceptible bloom had passed from the world,
and he no longer found such acute pleasure in
people. Mr Failing's old publishers, to whom the
book was submitted, replied that, greatly as they
found themselves interested, they did not see
their way to making an offer at present. They
were very polite, and singled out for special
praise 'Andante Pastorale,' which Rickie had
thought too sentimental, but which Agnes had
persuaded him to include. The stories were sent
to another publisher, who considered them for
six weeks, and then returned them. A fragment
of red cotton, placed by Agnes between the
leaves, had not shifted its position.

"Can't you try something longer, Rickie?" she
said; "I believe we're on the wrong track. Try
an out-and-out love-story."

180 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"My notion just now," he replied, "is to leave
the passions on the fringe." She nodded, and
tapped for the waiter : they had met in a London
restaurant. " I can't soar ; I can only indicate.
That's where the musicians have the pull, for
music has wings, and when she says 'Tristan'
and he says 'Isolde,' you are on the heights at
once. What do people mean when they call
love music artificial?"

"I know what they mean, though I can't ex-
actly explain. Or couldn't you make your stories
more obvious? I don't see any harm in that.
Uncle Willie floundered hopelessly. He doesn't
read much, and he got muddled. I had to ex-
plain, and then he was delighted. Of course, to
write down to the public would be quite another
thing and horrible. You have certain ideas, and
you must express them. But couldn't you express
them more clearly ? "

"You see " He got no further than "you

see."

"The soul and the body. The soul's what
matters," said Agnes, and tapped for the waiter
again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt
that she was not a perfect critic. Perhaps she
was too perfect to be a critic. Actual life
might seem to her so real that she could not
detect the union of shadow and adamant that
men call poetry. He would even go further and
acknowledge that she was not as clever as him-
self— and he was stupid enough ! She did not like
discussing anything or reading solid books, and
she was a little angry with such women as did.
It pleased him to make these concessions, for
they touched nothing in her that he valued. He

CAMBRIDGE. 181

looked round the restaurant, which was in Soho,
and decided that she was incomparable.

"At half -past two I call on the editor of the
'Holborn.' He's got a stray story to look at,
and he's written about it."

" Oh, Rickie ! Rickie ! Why didn't you put on
a boiled shirt ! "

He laughed, and teased her. "The soul's what
matters. We literary people don't care about
dress."

"Well, you ought to care. And I believe you
do. Can't you change?"

" Too far." He had rooms in South Kensington.
" And I've forgot my card-case. There's for you ! "

She shook her head. " Naughty, naughty boy !
Whatever will you do?"

"Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper
and write it. Hullo ! that's Tilliard ! "

Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux
pas he had made last June, partly on account
of the restaurant. He explained how he came
to be pigging in Soho : it was so frightfully
convenient and so frightfully cheap.

"Just why Rickie brings me," said Miss Pem-
broke.

" And I suppose you're here to study life ? " said
Tilliard, sitting down.

"I don't know," said Rickie, gazing round at
the waiters and the guests.

"Doesn't one want to see a good deal of life
for writing? There's life of a sort in Soho, — Un
peu de faisan, sil vous plait"

Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid.
She always did the paying, Rickie muddled so
with his purse.

182 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" I'm cramming," pursued Tilliard, " and so
naturally I come into contact with very little at
present. But later on I hope to see things." He
blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie's
edification. "It is most frightfully important not
to get a narrow or academic outlook, don't you
think? A person like Ansell, who goes from
Cambridge, home — home, Cambridge — it must tell
on him in time."

"But Mr Ansell is a philosopher."

"A very kinky one," said Tilliard abruptly.
"Not my idea of a philosopher. How goes his
dissertation ? "

"He never answers my letters," replied Rickie.
" He never would. I've heard nothing since June."

"It's a pity he sends in this year. There are
so many good people in. He'd have a far better
chance if he waited."

" So I said, but he wouldn't wait. He's so keen
about this particular subject."

"What is it?" asked Agnes.

"About things being real, wasn't it, Tilliard?"

"That's near enough."

" Well, good luck to him ! " said the girl. " And
good luck to you, Mr Tilliard ! Later on, I hope,
we'll meet again."

They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he
did not feel that she was quite in his couche
sociale. His sister, for instance, would never
have been lured into a Soho restaurant — ex-
cept for the experience of the thing. Tilliard's
couche sociale permitted experiences. Provided
his heart did not go out to the poor and the
unorthodox, he might stare at them as much as
he liked. It was seeing life.

CAMBRIDGE. 183

Agnes put her lover safely into an omnibus at
Cambridge Circus. She shouted after him that
his tie was rising over his collar, but he did not
hear her. For a moment she felt depressed, and
pictured quite accurately the effect that his ap-
pearance would have on the editor. The editor
was a tall neat man of forty, slow of speech,
slow of soul, and extraordinarily kind. He and
Rickie sat over a fire, with an enormous table
behind them, whereon stood many books waiting
to be reviewed.

"I'm sorry," he said, and paused.

Rickie smiled feebly.

" Your story does not convince." He tapped it.
"I have read it — with very great pleasure. It
convinces in parts, but it does not convince as
a whole; and stories, don't you think, ought to
convince as a whole?"

"They ought indeed," said Rickie, and plunged
into self - depreciation. But the editor checked
him.

"No — no. Please don't talk like that. I can't
bear to hear any one talk against imagination.
There are countless openings for imagination, —
for the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all
the things you are trying to do, and which, I
hope, you will succeed in doing. I'm not object-
ing to imagination ; on the contrary, I'd advise
you to cultivate it, to accent it. Write a really
good ghost story and we'd take it at once.
Or" — he suggested it as an alternative to im-
agination— "or you might get inside life. It's
worth doing."

"Life?" echoed Rickie anxiously. He looked
round the pleasant room, as if life might be

184 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

fluttering there, like an imprisoned bird. Then
he looked at the editor ; perhaps he was sitting
inside life at this very moment.

"See life, Mr Elliot, and then send us another
story." He held out his hand. "I am sorry I
have had to say * No, thank you ' ; it's so much
nicer to say, 'Yes, please.'" He laid his hand
on the young man's sleeve, and added, "Well,
the interview's not been so alarming after all,
has it?"

" I . don't think that either of us is a very
alarming person," was not Rickie's reply. It was
what he thought out afterwards in the omnibus.
His reply was " Ow," delivered with a slight
giggle.

As he rumbled westward, his face was drawn,
and his eyes moved quickly to the right and left,
as if he would discover something in the squalid
fashionable streets — some bird on the wing, some
radiant archway, the face of some god beneath
a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved, he had
seen death and other things ; but the heart of
all things was hidden. There was a password
and he could not learn it, nor could the kind
editor of the 'Holborn' teach him. He sighed,
and then sighed more piteously. For had he
not known the password once — known it and
forgotten it already?

But at this point his fortunes become intimately
connected with those of Mr Pembroke.

PART II.-SAWSTON.

XVI.

In three years Mr Pembroke had done much to
solidify the day-boys at Sawston School. If they
were not solid, they were at all events curdling,
and his activities might reasonably turn else-
where. He had served the school for many
years, and it was really time he should be en-
trusted with a boarding-house. The headmaster,
an impulsive man who darted about like a minnow
and gave his mother a great deal of trouble,
agreed with him, and also agreed with Mrs Jack-
son when she said that Mr Jackson had served
the school for many years and that it was really
time he should be entrusted with a boarding-
house. Consequently, when Dunwood House fell
vacant, the headmaster found himself in rather
a difficult position.

Dunwood House was the largest and most
lucrative of the boarding-houses. It stood almost
opposite the school buildings. Originally it had
been a villa residence — a red-brick villa, covered
with creepers and crowned with terra - cotta
dragons. Mr Annison, founder of its glory, had

186 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

lived here, and had had one or two boys to live
with him. Times changed. The fame of the
bishops blazed brighter, the school increased, the
one or two boys became a dozen, and an addition
was made to Dunwood House that more than
doubled its size. A huge new building, replete
with every convenience, was stuck on to its right
flank. Dormitories, cubicles, studies, a prepara-
tion-room, a dining-room, parquet floors, hot-air
pipes — no expense was spared, and the twelve
boys roamed over it like princes. Baize doors
communicated on every floor with Mr Annison's
part, and he, an anxious gentle man, would stroll
backwards and forwards, a little depressed at
the hygienic splendours, and conscious of some
vanished intimacy. Somehow he had known his
boys better when they had all muddled together
as one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the
drawing - room chairs. As the house filled, his
interest in it decreased. When he retired — which
he did the same summer that Rickie left Cam-
bridge — it had already passed the summit of
excellence and was beginning to decline. Its
numbers were still satisfactory, and for a little
time it would subsist on its past reputation. But
that mysterious asset the tone had lowered, and
it was therefore of great importance that Mr
Annison's successor should be a first-class man.
Mr Coates, who came next in seniority, was passed
over, and rightly. The choice lay between Mr
Pembroke and Mr Jackson, the one an organiser,
the otHer a humanist. Mr Jackson was master
of the Sixth, and — with the exception of the head-
master, who was too busy to impart knowledge —
the only first-class intellect in the school. But

SAWSTON. 187

he could not, or rather would not, keep order.
He told his form that if it chose to listen to him
it would learn ; if it didn't, it wouldn't. One half
listened. The other half made paper frogs, and
bored holes in the raised map of Italy with their
penknives. When the penknives gritted he pun-
ished them with undue severity, and then forgot
to make them show the punishments up. Yet
out of this chaos two facts emerged. Half the
boys got scholarships at the University, and
some of them — including several of the paper-
frog sort — remained friends with him through-
out their lives. Moreover, he was rich, and
had a competent wife. His claim to Dun-
wood House was stronger than one would have
supposed.

The qualifications of Mr Pembroke have already
been indicated. They prevailed — but under con-
ditions. If things went wrong, he must promise
to resign.

"In the first place," said the headmaster, "you
are doing so splendidly with the day-boys. Your
attitude towards the parents is magnificent. I
don't know how to replace you there. Whereas,
of course, the parents of a boarder "

" Of course," said Mr Pembroke.

The parent of a boarder, who only had to re-
move his son if he was discontented with the
school, was naturally in a more independent
position than the parent who had brought all
his goods and chattels to Sawston, and was rent-
ing a house there.

" Now the parents of boarders — this is my second
point — practically demand that the house-master
should have a wife."

188 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"A most unreasonable demand," said Mr
Pembroke.

"To my mind also a bright motherly matron
is quite sufficient. But that is what they demand.
And that is why — do you see ? — we have to regard
your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss
Pembroke will be able to help you. Or I don't

know whether if ever " He left the sentence

unfinished. Two days later Mr Pembroke pro-
posed to Mrs Orr.

He had always intended to marry when he
could afford it; and once he had been in love,
violently in love, but had laid the passion aside,
and told it to wait till a more convenient season.
This was, of course, the proper thing to do, and
prudence should have been rewarded. But when,
after the lapse of fifteen years, he went, as it
were, to his spiritual larder and took down Love
from the top shelf to offer him to Mrs Orr, he
was rather dismayed. Something had happened.
Perhaps the god had flown ; perhaps he had been
eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not
there.

Mr Pembroke was conscientious and romantic,
and knew that marriage without love is intoler-
able. On the other hand, he could not admit
that love had vanished from him. To admit this,
would argue that he had deteriorated. Whereas
he knew for a fact that he improved, year by
year. Each year he grew more moral, more effi-
cient, more learned, more genial. So how could
he fail to be more loving? He did not speak to
himself as follows, because he never spoke to
himself; but the following notions moved in the
recesses of his mind : " It is not the fire of youth.

SAWSTON. 189

But I am not sure that I approve of the fire of
youth. Look at my sister! Once she has suf-
fered, twice she has been most imprudent, and
put me to great inconvenience besides, for if she
was stopping with me she would have done the
housekeeping. I rather suspect that it is a nobler,
riper emotion that I am laying at the feet of Mrs
Orr." It never took him long to get muddled, or
to reverse cause and effect. In a short time he
believed that he had been pining for years, and
only waiting for this good fortune to ask the
lady to share it with him.

Mrs Orr was quiet, clever, kindly, capable, and
amusing, and they were old acquaintances. Al-
together it was not surprising that he should ask
her to be his wife, nor very surprising that she
should refuse. But she refused with a violence
that alarmed them both. He left her house de-
claring that he had been insulted, and she, as
soon as he left, passed from disgust into tears.

He was much annoyed. There was a certain
Miss Herriton who, though far inferior to Mrs
Orr, would have done instead of her. But now
it was impossible. He could not go offering him-
self about Sawston. Having engaged a matron
who had a reputation for being bright and
motherly, he moved into Dunwood House and
opened the Michaelmas term. Everything went
wrong. The cook left ; the boys had a disease
called roseola; Agnes, who was still drunk with
her engagement, was of no assistance, but kept
flying up to London to push Rickie's fortunes ;
and, to crown everything, the matron was too
bright and not motherly enough : she neglected
the little boys and was over-attentive to the big

190 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

ones. She left abruptly, and the voice of Mrs
Jackson arose, prophesying disaster.

Should he avert it by taking orders? Parents
do not demand that a house-master should be a
clergyman, yet it reassures them when he is.
And he would have to take orders some time, if
he hoped for a school of his own. His religious
convictions were ready to hand, but he spent
several uncomfortable days hunting up his re-
ligious enthusiasms. It was not unlike his
attempt to marry Mrs Orr. But his piety was
more genuine, and this time he never came to
the point. His sense of decency forbade him
hurrying into a Church that he reverenced.
Moreover, he thought of another solution: Agnes
must marry Rickie in the Christmas holidays,
and they must come, both of them, to Sawston,
she as housekeeper, he as assistant-master. The
girl was a good worker when once she was
settled down ; and as for Rickie, he could easily
be fitted in somewhere in the school. He was
not a good classic, but good enough to take
the Lower Fifth. He was no athlete, but boys
might profitably note that he was a perfect gentle-
man all the same. He had no experience, but he
would gain it. He had no decision, but he could
simulate it. "Above all," thought Mr Pembroke,
" it will be something regular for him to do." Of
course this was not " above all." Dunwood House
held that position. But Mr Pembroke soon came
to think that it was, and believed that he was
planning for Rickie, just as he had believed that
he was pining for Mrs Orr.

Agnes, when she got back from the lunch in
Soho, was told of the plan. She refused to give

SAWSTON. 191

any opinion until she had seen her lover. A
telegram was sent to him, and next morning he
arrived. He was very susceptible to the weather,
and perhaps it was unfortunate that the morning
was foggy. His train had been stopped outside
Sawston Station, and there he had sat for half
an hour, listening to the unreal noises that came
from the line, and watching the shadowy figures
that worked there. The gas was alight in the
great drawing-room, and in its depressing rays
he and Agnes greeted each other, and discussed
the most momentous question of their lives. They
wanted to be married : there was no doubt of that.
They wanted it, both of them, dreadfully. But
should they marry on these terms?

"I'd never thought of such a thing, you see.
When the scholastic agencies sent me circulars
after the Tripos, I tore them up at once."

"There are the holidays," said Agnes. "You
would have three months in the year to yourself,
and could do your writing then."

" But who'll read what I've written ? " and he
told her about the editor of the 'Holborn.'

She became extremely grave. At the bottom
of her heart she had always mistrusted the little
stories, and now people who knew agreed with
her. How could Rickie, or any one, make a living
by pretending that Greek gods were alive, or that
young ladies could vanish into trees ? A sparkling
society tale, full of verve and pathos, would have
been another thing, and the editor might have
been convinced by it.

"But what does he mean?" Rickie was saying.
"What does he mean by life?"

"I know what he means, but I can't exactly

192 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

explain. You ought to see life, Rickie. I think
he's right there. And Mr Tilliard was right when
he said one oughtn't to be academic."

He stood in the twilight that fell from the
window, she in the twilight of the gas. "I
wonder what Ansell would say," he murmured.

"Oh, poor Mr Ansell!"

He was somewhat surprised. Why was Ansell
poor ? It was the first time the epithet had be'en
applied to him.

" But to change the conversation," said Agnes.
"If we did marry, we might get to Italy at Easter
and escape this horrible fog."

"Yes. Perhaps there " Perhaps life would

be there. He thought of Renan, who declares
that on the Acropolis at Athens beauty and
wisdom do exist, really exist, as external powers.
He did not aspire to beauty or wisdom, but he
prayed to be delivered from the shadow of un-
reality that had begun to darken the world. For
it was as if some power had pronounced against
him — as if, by some heedless action, he had
offended an Olympian god. Like many another,
he wondered whether the god might be appeased
by work — hard uncongenial work. Perhaps he
had not worked hard enough, or had enjoyed his
work too much, and for that reason the shadow
was falling.

" — And above all, a schoolmaster has wonder-
ful opportunities of doing good; one mustn't
forget that."

To do good ! For what other reason are we
here ? Let us give up our refined sensations, and
our comforts, and our art, if thereby we can make
other people happier and better. The woman

SAWSTON. 193

he loved had urged him to do good ! With a
vehemence that surprised her, he exclaimed, "I'll
do it."

" Think it over," she cautioned, though she was
greatly pleased.

" No ; I think over things too much."
The room grew brighter. A boy's laughter
floated in, and it seemed to him that people were
as important and vivid as they had been six
months before. Then he was at Cambridge, idling
in the parsley meadows, and weaving perishable
garlands out of flowers. Now he was at Sawston,
preparing to work a beneficent machine. No
man works for nothing, and Rickie trusted that
to him also benefits might accrue; that his
wound might heal as he laboured, and his eyes
recapture the Holy Grail.

XVII.

In practical matters Mr Pembroke was often
a generous man. He offered Rickie a good salary,
and insisted on paying Agnes as well. And as
he housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would
also have a salary from the school, the money
question disappeared — if not for ever, at all
events for the present.

"I can work you in," he said. "Leave all that
to me, and in a few days you shall hear from
the headmaster. He shall create a vacancy.
And once in, we stand or fall together. I am re-
solved on that."

N

194 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Rickie did not like the idea of being "worked
in," but he was determined to raise no difficulties.
It is so easy to be refined and high-minded when
we have nothing to do. But the active, useful
man cannot be equally particular. Rickie's pro-
gramme involved a change in values as well as
a change of occupation.

"Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude," Mr
Pembroke continued. "I do not advise you at
present even to profess any interest in athletics
or organisation. When the headmaster writes,
he will probably ask whether you are an all-
round man. Boldly say no. A bold 'no' is at
times the best. Take your stand upon classics
and general culture."

Classics ! A second in the Tripos. General
culture ! A smattering of English Literature, and
less than a smattering of French.

"That is how we begin. Then we get you a
little post — say that of librarian. And so on,
until you are indispensable."

Rickie laughed ; the headmaster wrote, the reply
was satisfactory, and in due course the new life
began.

Sawston was already familiar to him. But he
knew it as an amateur, and under an official
gaze it grouped itself afresh. The school, a bland
Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of
learning, whose outworks were the boarding-
houses. Those straggling roads were full of the
houses of the parents of the day - boys. These
shops were in bounds, those out. How often
had he passed Dunwood House ! He had once
confused it with its rival, Cedar View. Now he
was to live there — perhaps for many years. On

SAWSTON. 195

the left of the entrance a large saffron drawing-
room, full of cosy corners and dumpy chairs:
here the parents would be received. On the right
of the entrance a study, which he shared with
Herbert : here the boys would be caned— he hoped
not often. In the hall a framed certificate
praising the drains, the bust of Hermes, and a
carved teak monkey holding out a salver. Some
of the furniture had come from Shelthorpe, some
had been bought from Mr Annison, some of it
was new. But throughout he recognised a certain
decision of arrangement. Nothing in the house
was accidental, or there merely for its own sake.
He contrasted it with his room at Cambridge,
which had been a jumble of things that he loved
dearly and of things that he did not love at
all. Now these also had come to Dunwood
House, and had been distributed where each was
seemly — Sir Percival to the drawing-room, the
photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his
chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his mother
to the study. And then he contrasted it with
the Ansells' house, to which their resolute ill-
taste had given unity. He was extremely sen-
sitive to the inside of a house, holding it an
organism that expressed the thoughts, conscious
and subconscious, of its inmates. He was equally
sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge
with Sawston, and either with a third type of
existence, to which, for want of a better name,
he gave the name of "Wiltshire."

It must not be thought that he is going to
waste his time. These contrasts and comparisons
never took him long, and he never indulged in
them until the serious business of the day was

196 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

over. And, as time passed, he never indulged in
them at all.

The school returned at the end of January, be-
fore he had -been settled in a week. His health
had improved, but not greatly, and he was
nervous at the prospect of confronting the as-
sembled house. All day long cabs had been
driving up, full of boys in bowler hats too big
for them ; and Agnes had been superintending the
numbering of the said hats, and the placing of
them in cupboards, since they would not be
wanted till the end of the term. Each boy had,
or should have had, a bag, so that he need not
unpack his box till the morrow. One boy had
only a brown-paper parcel, tied with hairy string,
and Rickie heard the firm pleasant voice say,
" But you'll bring a bag next term," and the sub-
missive, "Yes, Mrs Elliot," of the reply. In the
passage he ran against the head boy, who was
alarmingly like an undergraduate. They looked
at each other suspiciously, and parted. Two
minutes later he ran into another boy, and then
into another, and began to wonder whether they
were doing it on purpose, and if so, whether he
ought to mind. As the day wore on, the noises
grew louder — trampings of feet, breakdowns,
jolly little squawks — and the cubicles were as-
signed, and the bags unpacked, and the bathing
arrangements posted up, and Herbert kept on
saying, " All this is informal — all this is in-
formal. We shall meet the house at eight
fifteen."

And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and
gown, — hitherto symbols of pupilage, now to be
symbols of dignity, — the very cap and gown that

SAWSTON. 197

Widdrington had so recently hung upon the
college fountain. Herbert, similarly attired, was
waiting for him in their private dining - room,
where also sat Agnes, ravenously devouring
scrambled eggs. " But you'll wear your hoods," she
cried. Herbert considered, and then said she was
quite right. He fetched his white silk, Rickie the
fragment of rabbits' wool that marks the degree
of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded through
the baize door. They were a little late, and the
boys, who were marshalled in the preparation
room, were getting uproarious. One, forgetting
how far his voice carried, shouted, " Cave ! Here
comes the Whelk." And another young devil
yelled, "The Whelk's brought a limpet with
him ! "

" You mustn't mind," said Herbert kindly. " We
masters make a point of never minding nick-
names— unless, of course, they are applied openly,
in which case a thousand lines is not too much."
Rickie assented, and they entered the preparation
room just as the prefects had established order.

Here Herbert took his seat on a high -legged
chair, while Rickie, like a queen - consort, sat
near him on a chair with somewhat shorter legs.
Each chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert
flung up the lid of his, and then looked round
the preparation room with a quick frown, as if
the contents had surprised him. So impressed
was Rickie that he peeped sideways, but could
only see a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then
he noticed that the boys were impressed too.
Their chatter ceased. They attended.

The room was almost full. The prefects, in-
stead of lolling disdainfully in the back row,

198 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

were ranged like councillors beneath the central
throne. This was an innovation of Mr Pem-
broke's. Carruthers, the head boy, sat in the
middle, with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd
who had made the matron too bright : he nearly
lost his colours in consequence. These two were
very grown up. Beside them sat Tewson, a
saintly child in spectacles, who had risen to this
height by reason of his immense learning. He,
like the others, was a school prefect. The house
prefects, an inferior brand, were beyond, and
behind came the indistinguishable many. The
faces all looked alike as yet — except the face of
one boy, who was inclined to cry.

"School," said Mr Pembroke, slowly closing the
lid of the desk, — " school is the world in miniature."
Then he paused, as a man well may who has
made such a remark. It is not, however, the
intention of this work to quote an opening ad-
dress. Rickie, at all events, refused to be critical :
Herbert's experience was far greater than his,
and he must take his tone from him. Nor could
any one criticise the exhortations to be patriotic,
athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like
a four -part fugue from Mr Pembroke's mouth.
He was a practised speaker — that is to say,
he held his audience's attention. He told them
that this term, the second of his reign, was
the term for Dunwood House ; that it behoved
every boy to labour during it for his house's
honour, and, through the house, for the honour
of the school. Taking a wider range, he spoke
of England, or rather of Great Britain, and of
her continental foes. Portraits of empire-builders
hung on the wall, and he pointed to them. He

SAWSTON. 199

quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism
has broadened since the days of Shakespeare, who,
for all his genius, could only write of his country
as —

" This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea."

And it seemed that only a short ladder lay be-
tween the preparation room and the Anglo-
Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused,
and in the silence came " sob, sob, sob," from a
little boy, who was regretting a villa in Guildford
and his mother's half acre of garden.

The proceeding terminated with the broader
patriotism of the school anthem, recently com-
posed by the organist. Words and tune were
still a matter for taste, and it was Mr
Pembroke (and he only because he had the
music) who gave the right intonation to

" Perish each laggard ! Let it not be said
That Sawston such within her walls hath bred."

" Come, come," he said pleasantly, as they ended
with harmonies in the style of Richard Strauss.
"This will never do. We must grapple with the
anthem this term. You're as tuneful as — as day-
boys ! " Hearty laughter, and then the whole
house filed past them and shook hands.

"But how did it impress you?" Herbert asked,
as soon as they were back in their own part.
Agnes had provided them with a tray of food :
the meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly
at once to see after the boys.

"I liked the look of them."

200 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"I meant rather, how did the house impress
you as a house?"

"I don't think I thought," said Rickie rather
nervously. "It is not easy to catch the spirit of
a thing at once. I only saw a room full of
boys."

"My dear Rickie, don't be so diffident. You
are perfectly right. You only did see a room-
ful of boys. As yet there's nothing else to
see. The house, like the school, lacks tradition.
Look at Winchester. Look at the traditional
rivalry between Eton and Harrow. Tradition
is of incalculable importance, if a school is
to have any status. Why should Sawston be
without?"

"Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And
I envy those schools that have a natural connec-
tion with the past. Of course Sawston has a
past, though not of the kind that you quite want.
The sons of poor tradesmen went to it at first.
So wouldn't its traditions be more likely to
linger in the Commercial School?" he concluded
nervously.

"You have a great deal to learn — a very great
deal. Listen to me. Why has Sawston no tradi-
tions?" His round, rather foolish, face assumed
the expression of a conspirator. Bending over
the mutton, he whispered, "I can tell you why.
Owing to the day-boys. How can traditions
flourish in such soil? Picture the day-boy's life
— at home for meals, at home for preparation, at
home for sleep, running home with every fancied
wrong. There are day-boys in your class, and,
mark my words, they will give you ten times as
much trouble as the boarders, — late, slovenly,

SAWSTON. 201

stopping away at the slightest pretext. And
then the letters from the parents ! * Why has
my b°y n°t been moved this term?' 'Why has
my boy been moved this term ? ' 'I am a dis-
senter, and do not wish my boy to subscribe to
the school mission.' ' Can you let my boy off
early to water the garden?' Remember that I
have been a day-boy house -master, and tried to
infuse some esprit de corps into them. It is prac-
tically impossible. They come as units, and units
they remain. Worse. They infect the boarders.
Their pestilential, critical, discontented attitude is
spreading over the school. If I had my own
way "

He stopped somewhat abruptly.

" Was that why you laughed at their singing ? "

"Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to
set one section of the school against the other."

After a little they went the rounds. The boys
were in bed now. " Good-night ! " called Herbert,
standing in the corridor of the cubicles, and from
behind each of the green curtains came the sound
of a voice replying, " Good - night, sir ! " " Good-
night," he observed into each dormitory. Then
he went to the switch in the passage and plunged
the whole house into darkness. Rickie lingered
behind him, strangely impressed. In the morning
those boys had been scattered over England, lead-
ing their own lives. Now, for three months, they
must change everything — see new faces, accept
new ideals. They, like himself, must enter a
beneficent machine, and learn the value of esprit
de corps. Good luck attend them — good luck and
a happy release. For his heart would have them
not in these cubicles and dormitories, but each

202 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

in his own dear home, amongst faces and things
that he knew.

Next morning, after chapel, he made the ac-
quaintance of his class. Towards that he felt
very differently. Esprit de corps was not ex-
pected of it. It was simply two dozen boys who
were gathered together for the purpose of learn-
ing Latin. His duties and difficulties would not
lie here. He was not required to provide it with
an atmosphere. The scheme of work was already
mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar
words —

"Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maanala curse,
Adsis, O Tegeee, favens."

"Do you think that beautiful?" he asked, and
received the honest answer, " No, sir ; I don't
think I do." He met Herbert in high spirits in
the quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert
thought his enthusiasm rather amateurish, and
cautioned him.

" You must take care they don't get out of
hand. I approve of a lively teacher, but disci-
pline must be established first."

"I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I'm
wrong over a point, or don't know, I mean to
tell them at once."

Herbert shook his head.

"It's different if I was really a scholar. But I
can't pose as one, can I ? I know much more than
the boys, but I know very little. Surely the honest
thing is to be myself to them. Let them accept
or refuse me as that. That's the only attitude we
shall any of us profit by in the end."

Mr Pembroke was silent. Then he observed,

SAWSTON. 203

"There is, as you say, a higher attitude and a
lower attitude. Yet here, as so often, cannot we
find a golden mean between them?"

" What's that ? " said a dreamy voice. They
turned and saw a tall, spectacled man, who greeted
the newcomer kindly, and took hold of his arm.
"What's that about the golden mean?"

"Mr Jackson — Mr Elliot: Mr Elliot — Mr Jack-
son," said Herbert, who did not seem quite pleased.
" Rickie, have you a moment to spare me?"

But the humanist spoke to the young man
about the golden mean and the pinchbeck mean,
adding, " You know the Greeks aren't broad
church clergymen. They really aren't, in spite
of much conflicting evidence. Boys will regard
Sophocles as a kind of enlightened bishop, and
something tells me that they are wrong."

" Mr Jackson is a classical enthusiast," said
Herbert. "He makes the past live. I want to
talk to you about the humdrum present."

"And I am warning him against the humdrum
past. That's another point, Mr Elliot. Impress
on your class that many Greeks and most Romans
were frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you,
read Ctesiphon with them, or Valerius Flaccus.
Whatever is that noise?"

"It comes from your class-room, I think,"
snapped the other master.

"So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting
your little Tewson into the waste-paper basket."

"I always lock my class-room in the in-
terval "

"Yes?"

" — and carry the key in my pocket."

" Ah. But, Mr Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdring-

204 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

ton's. He wrote to me about you. I am so glad.
Will you, first of all, come to supper next Sunday ? "

"I am afraid," put in Herbert, "that we poor
house - masters must deny ourselves festivities in
term time."

"But mayn't he come once, just once?"

"May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is
not a baby. He decides for himself."

Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were
out of hearing, Herbert said, "This is a little
unfortunate. Who is Mr Widdrington ? "

"I knew him at Cambridge."

"Let me explain how we stand," he continued,
after a pause. "Jackson is the worst of the re-
actionaries here, while I — why should I conceal
it? — have thrown in my lot with the party of
progress. You will see how we suffer from him
at the masters' meetings. He has no talent for
organisation, and yet he is always inflicting his
ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to
dictate to you what authors you should read,
and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-
garden, and a school prefect being put into the
waste - paper basket. My good Rickie, there's
nothing to smile at. How is the school to go
on with a man like that? It would be a case
of 'quick march,' if it was not for his brilliant
intellect. That's why I say it's a little unfor-
tunate. You will have very little in common,
you and he."

Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of
Widdrington, who was a quaint, sensitive person.
And he could not help being attracted by Mr
Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly
with the official breeziness of his other colleagues.

SAWSTON. 205

He wondered, too, whether it is so very reaction-
ary to contemplate the antique.

"It is true that I vote Conservative," pursued
Mr Pembroke, apparently confronting some ob-
jector. "But why? Because the Conservatives,
rather than the Liberals, stand for progress. One
must not be misled by catch-words."

"Didn't you want to ask me something?"

" Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called
Varden?"

"Varden? Yes; there is."

" Drop on him heavily. He has broken the
statutes of the school. He is attending as a
day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy must
reside with his parents or guardians. He does
neither. It must be stopped. You must tell the
headmaster."

"Where does the boy live?"

" At a certain Mrs Orr's, who has no con-
nection with the school of any kind. It must be
stopped. He must either enter a boarding-house
or go."

"But why should I tell?" said Rickie. He
remembered the boy, an unattractive person
with protruding ears. "It is the business of his
house-master."

" House-master — exactly. Here we come back
again. Who is now the day-boys' house-master?
Jackson once again — as if anything was Jackson's
business ! I handed the house back last term in
a most flourishing condition. It has already gone
to rack and ruin for the second time. To return
to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up job. Mrs
Jackson and Mrs Orr are friends. Do you see?
It all works round."

206 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"I see. It does — or might."

"The headmaster will never sanction it when
it's put to him plainly."

"But why should I put it?" said Rickie, twisting
the ribbons of his gown round his fingers.

" Because you're the boy's form-master."

" Is that a reason ? "

" Of course it is."

" I only wondered whether " He did not like

to say that he wondered whether he need do it his
first morning.

"By some means or other you must find out —
of course you know already, but you must find
out from the boy. I know — I have it ! Where's
his health certificate ? "

"He had forgotten it."

" Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it
will be signed by Mrs Orr, and you must look at
it and say, ' Orr — Orr — Mrs Orr ? ' or something
to that effect, and then the whole thing will come
naturally out."

The bell rang, and they went in for the hour
of school that concluded the morning. Varden
brought his health certificate — a pompous docu-
ment asserting that he had not suffered from
roseola or kindred ailments in the holidays — and
for a long time Rickie sat with it before him,
spread open upon his desk. He did not quite like
the job. It suggested intrigue, and he had come
to Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. Doubt-
less Herbert was right, and Mr Jackson and Mrs
Orr were wrong. But why could they not have
it out among themselves? Then he thought, "I
am a coward, and that's why I'm raising these
objections," called the boy up to him, and it did

SAWSTON. 207

all come out naturally, more or less. Hitherto
Varden had lived with his mother; but she had
left Sawston at Christmas, and now he would
live with Mrs Orr. "Mr Jackson, sir, said it
would be all right."

"Yes, yes," said Rickie; "quite so." He remem-
bered Herbert's dictum: "Masters must present a
united front. If they do not — the deluge." He
sent the boy back to his seat, and after school
took the compromising health certificate to the
headmaster. The headmaster was at that time
easily excited by a breach of the constitution.
"Parents or guardians," he repeated — "parents or
guardians," and flew with those words on his lips
to Mr Jackson.

To say that Rickie was a cat's-paw is to put it
too strongly. Herbert was strictly honourable,
and never pushed him into an illegal or really
dangerous position ; but there is no doubt that
on this and on many other occasions he had to
do things that he would not otherwise have done.
There was always some diplomatic corner that
had to be turned, always something that he had
to say or not to say. As the term wore on he
lost his independence — almost without knowing
it. He had much to learn about boys, and he
learnt not by direct observation — for which he
believed he was unfitted — but by sedulous imita-
tion of the more experienced masters. Originally
he had intended to be friends with his pupils,
and Mr Pembroke commended the intention
highly; but you cannot be friends either with
boy or man unless you give yourself away in
the process, and Mr Pembroke did not commend
this. He, for "personal intercourse," substituted

208 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

the safer " personal influence," and gave his
junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in
which the boy does give himself away and re-
veals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master,
intact, commends or corrects them. Originally
Rickie had meant to help boys in the anxieties
that they undergo when changing into men : at
Cambridge he had numbered this among life's
duties. But here is a subject in which we must
inevitably speak as one human being to another,
not as one who has authority or the shadow of
authority, and for this reason the elder school-
master could suggest nothing but a few formulae.
Formulas, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's
line, so he abandoned these subjects altogether
and confined himself to working hard at what
was easy. In the house he did as Herbert did,
and referred all doubtful subjects to him. In
his form, oddly enough, he became a martinet.
It is so much simpler to be severe. He grasped
the school regulations, and insisted on prompt
obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of
collective responsibility. When one boy was late,
he punished the whole form. "I can't help it,"
he would say, as if he was a power of nature.
As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his
own enthusiasms, finding that they distracted his
attention, and that while he throbbed to the
music of Virgil the boys in the back row were
getting unruly. But on the whole he liked his
form work : he knew why he was there, and
Herbert did not overshadow him so completely.

What was amiss with Herbert ? He had known
that something was amiss, and had entered into
partnership with open eyes. The man was kind

SAWSTON. 209

and unselfish ; more than that, he was truly-
charitable, and it was a real pleasure to him to
give pleasure to others. Certainly he might talk
too much about it afterwards ; but it was the
doing, not the talking, that he really valued, and
benefactors of this sort are not too common. He
was, moreover, diligent and conscientious : his
heart was in his work, and his adherence to the
Church of England no mere matter of form. He
was capable of aif ection : he was usually courteous
and tolerant. Then what was amiss? Why, in
spite of all these qualities, should Rickie feel that
there was something wrong with him — nay, that
he was wrong as a whole, and that if the Spirit
of Humanity should ever hold a judgment he
would assuredly be classed among the goats ?
The answer at first sight appeared a graceless
one — it was that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid
in the ordinary sense — he had a business-like brain,
and acquired knowledge easily — but stupid in the
important sense : his whole life was coloured by
a contempt of the intellect. That he had a
tolerable intellect of his own was not the point :
it is in what we value, not in what we have, that
the test of us resides. Now, Rickie's intellect was
not remarkable. He came to his worthier results
rather by imagination and instinct than by logic.
An argument confused him, and he could with
difficulty follow it even on paper. But he saw
in this no reason for satisfaction, and tried to
make such use of his brain as he could, just as
a weak athlete might lovingly exercise his body.
Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch the
exploits, or rather the efforts, of others — their
efforts not so much to acquire knowledge as to

o

210 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

dispel a little of the darkness by which we and
all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge
had taught him this, and he knew, if for no
other reason, that his time there had not been
vain. And Herbert's contempt for such efforts
revolted him. He saw that for all his fine talk
about a spiritual life he had but one test for
things — success: success for the body in this life
or for the soul in the life to come. And for
this reason Humanity, and perhaps such other
tribunals as there may be, would assuredly reject
him.

XVIII.

Meanwhile he was a husband. Perhaps his
union should have been emphasised before.
The crown of life had been attained, the
vague yearnings, the misread impulses, had
found accomplishment at last. Never again
must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out
of the broad highway of the world and fears,
like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest
journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the
accomplishment for granted. But as the term
passed he knew that behind the yearning there
remained a yearning, behind the drawn veil a
veil that he could not draw. His wedding had
been no mighty landmark : he would often wonder
whether such and such a speech or incident came
after it or before. Since that meeting in the
Soho restaurant there had been so much to do
— clothes to buy, presents to thank for, a brief

SAWSTON. 211

visit to a Training College, a honeymoon as brief.
In such a bustle, what spiritual union could take
place? Surely the dust would settle soon: in
Italy, at Easter, he might perceive the infinities
of love. But love had shown him its infinities
already. Neither by marriage nor by any other
device can men insure themselves a vision ; and
Rickie's had been granted him three years be-
fore, when he had seen his wife and a dead man
clasped in each other's arms. She was never to
be so real to him again.

She ran about the house looking handsomer
than ever. Her cheerful voice gave orders to
the servants. As he sat in the study correcting
compositions, she would dart in and give him a

kiss. "Dear girl " he would murmur, with a

glance at the rings on her hand. The tone of
their marriage life was soon set. It was to be a
frank good-fellowship, and before long he found
it difficult to speak in a deeper key.

One evening he made the effort. There had
been more beauty than was usual at Sawston.
The air was pure and quiet. To-morrow the fog
might be here, but to-day one said, "It is like
the country." Arm in arm they strolled in
the side-garden, stopping at times to notice the
crocuses, or to wonder when the daffodils would
flower. Suddenly he tightened his pressure, and
said, "Darling, why don't you still wear ear-
rings t

"Ear-rings?" She laughed. "My taste has
improved, perhaps."

So after all they never mentioned Gerald's
name. But he hoped it was still dear to her.
He did not want her to forget the greatest

212 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

moment in her life. His love desired not owner-
ship but confidence, and to a love so pure it
does not seem terrible to come second.

He valued emotion — not for itself, but be-
cause it is the only final path to intimacy. She,
ever robust and practical, always discouraged
him. She was not cold ; she would willingly
embrace him. But she hated being upset, and
would laugh or thrust him off when his voice
grew serious. In this she reminded him of his
mother. But his mother — he had never concealed
it from himself — had glories to which his wife
would never attain ; glories that had unfolded
against a life of horror — a life even more horrible
than he had guessed. He thought of her often
during these earlier months. Did she bless his
union, so different to her own? Did she love
his wife? He tried to speak of her to Agnes,
but again she was reluctant. And perhaps it
was this aversion to acknowledge the dead, whose
images alone have immortality, that made her
own image somewhat transient, so that when
he left her no mystic influence remained, and
only by an effort could he realise that God had
united them for ever.

They conversed and differed healthily upon
other topics. A rifle corps was to be formed : she
hoped that the boys would have proper uniforms,
instead of shooting in their old clothes, as Mr
Jackson had suggested. There was Tewson ; could
nothing be done about him? He would slink
away from the other prefects and go with boys
of his own age. There was Lloyd: he would not
learn the school anthem, saying that it hurt his
throat. And above all there was Varden, who,

SAWSTON. 213

to Rickie's bewilderment, was now a member of
Dunwood House.

" He had to go somewhere," said Agnes. " Lucky
for his mother that we had a vacancy."

"Yes — but when I meet Mrs Orr — I can't help
feeling ashamed."

" Oh, Mrs Orr ! Who cares for her ? Her teeth
are drawn. If she chooses to insinuate that we
planned it, let her. Hers was rank dishonesty.
She attempted to set up a boarding-house."

Mrs Orr, who was quite rich, had attempted
no such thing. She had taken the boy out of
charity, and without a thought of being un-
constitutional. But in had come this officious
"Limpet" and upset the headmaster, and she
was scolded, and Mrs Varden was scolded, and
Mr Jackson was scolded, and the boy was scolded
and placed with Mr Pembroke, whom she revered
less than any man in the world. Naturally
enough, she considered it a further attempt of
the authorities to snub the day-boys, for whose
advantage the school had been founded. She
and Mrs Jackson discussed the subject at their
tea-parties, and the latter lady was sure that
no good, no good of any kind, would come to
Dunwood House from such ill-gotten plunder.

"We say, 'Let them talk,'" persisted Rickie,
"but I never did like letting people talk. We
are right and they are wrong, but I wish the
thing could have been done more quietly. The
headmaster does get so excited. He has given
a gang of foolish people their opportunity. I
don't like being branded as the 'day-boy's foe,'
when I think how much I would have given
to be a day-boy myself. My father found

214 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

me a nuisance, and put me through the mill,
and I can * never forget it — particularly the
evenings."

" There's very little bullying here," said Agnes.

"There was very little bullying at my school.
There was simply the atmosphere of unkindness,
which no discipline can dispel. It's not what
people do to you, but what they mean, that
hurts."

"I don't understand."

" Physical pain doesn't hurt — at least not what
I call hurt — if a man hits you by accident or in
play. But just a little tap, when you know it
comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate
each other : I remember it, and see it again.
They can make strong isolated friendships, but of
general good-fellowship they haven't a notion."

"All I know is there's very little bullying
here."

"You see, the notion of good-fellowship de-
velops late : you can just see its beginning here
among the prefects : up at Cambridge it flourishes
amazingly. That's why I pity people who don't
go up to Cambridge : not because a University is
smart, but because those are the magic years,
and — with luck — you see up there what you
couldn't see before and mayn't ever see again."

"Aren't these the magic years?" the lady de-
manded.

He laughed and hit at her. " I'm getting
somewhat involved. But hear me, O Agnes, for
I am practical. I approve of our public schools.
Long may they flourish. But I do not approve
of the boarding-house system. It isn't an in-
evitable adjunct "

SAWSTON. 215

" Good gracious me ! " she shrieked. " Have you
gone mad?"

"Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert,
or he'll give us the sack. But seriously, what is the
good of throwing boys so much together? Isn't
it building their lives on a wrong basis? They
don't understand each other. I wish they did,
but they don't. They don't realise that human
beings are simply marvellous. When they do,
the whole of life changes, and you get the true
thing. But don't pretend you've got it before
you have. Patriotism and esprit de corps are all
very well, but masters a little forget that they
must grow from a sentiment. They cannot create
one. Cannot — cannot — cannot. I never cared a
straw for England until I cared for Englishmen,
and boys can't love the school when they hate
each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now
conclude my address. And most of it is copied
out of Mr Ansell."

The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He
had been carried away on a flood of his old
emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had
stood before him passionately clear, and beside
it stood his mother and the sweet family life
which nurses up a boy until he can salute his
equals. He was ashamed, for he remembered his
new resolution — to work without criticising, to
throw himself vigorously into the machine, not
to mind if he was pinched now and then by the
elaborate wheels.

" Mr Ansell ! " cried his wife, laughing somewhat
shrilly. "Aha! Now I understand. It's just the
kind of thing poor Mr Ansell would say. Well,
I'm brutal. I believe it does Varden good to

216 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

have his ears pulled now and then, and I don't
care whether they pull them in play or not. Boys
ought to rough it, or they never grow up into
men, and your mother would have agreed with
me. Oh yes ; and you're all wrong about patriot-
ism. It can, can, can create a sentiment."

She was unusually precise, and had followed
his thoughts with an attention that was also
unusual. He wondered whether she was not
right, and regretted that she proceeded to say,
"My dear boy, you mustn't talk these heresies
inside Dunwood House ! You sound just like one
of that reactionary Jackson set, who want to
fling the school back a hundred years and have
nothing but day-boys all dressed anyhow."

"The Jackson set have their points."

"You'd better join it."

"The Dunwood House set has its points." For
Rickie suffered from the Primal Curse, which is
not — as the Authorised Version suggests — the
knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge
of good-and-evil.

"Then stick to the Dunwood House set."

"I do, and shall." Again he was ashamed.
Why would he see the other side of things ? He
rebuked his soul, not unsuccessfully, and then
they returned to the subject of Varden.

"I'm certain he suffers," said he, for she would
do nothing but laugh. "Each boy who passes
pulls his ears — very funny, no doubt ; but every
day they stick out more and get redder, and this
afternoon, when he didn't know he was being
watched, he was holding his head and moaning.
I hate the look about his eyes."

"I hate the whole boy. Nasty weedy thing."

SAWSTON. 217

"Well, I'm a nasty weedy thing, if it comes to
that."

"No, you aren't," she cried, kissing him. But
he led her back to the subject. Could nothing
be suggested? He drew up some new rules —
alterations in the times of going to bed, and so
on — the effect of which would be to provide
fewer opportunities for the pulling of Varden's
ears. The rules were submitted to Herbert, who
sympathised with weakliness more than did his
sister, and gave them his careful consideration.
But unfortunately they collided with other rules,
and on a closer examination he found that they
also ran contrary to the fundamentals on which
the government of Dunwood House was based.
So nothing was done. Agnes was rather pleased,
and took to teasing her husband about Varden.
At last he asked her to stop. He felt uneasy
about the boy — almost superstitious. His first
morning's work had brought sixty pounds a-year
to their hotel.

XIX.

They did not get to Italy at Easter. Herbert
had the offer of some private pupils, and needed
Rickie's help. It seemed unreasonable to leave
England when money was to be made in it, so
they went to Ilfracombe instead. They spent
three weeks among the natural advantages and
unnatural disadvantages of that resort. It was
out of the season, and they encamped in a huge
hotel, which took them at a reduction. By a dis-

218 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

astrous chance the Jacksons were down there too,
and a good deal of constrained civility had to pass
between the two families. Constrained it was
not in Mr Jackson's case. At all times he was
ready to talk, and as long as they kept off the
school it was pleasant enough. But he was very
indiscreet, and feminine tact had often to inter-
vene. " Go away, dear ladies," he would then
observe. "You think you see life because you
see the chasms in it. Yet all the chasms are
full of female skeletons." The ladies smiled
anxiously. To Rickie he was friendly and even
intimate. They had long talks on the deserted
Capstone, while their wives sat reading in the
Winter Garden and Mr Pembroke kept an eye
upon the tutored youths. "Once I had tutored
youths," said Mr Jackson, "but I lost them all
by letting them paddle with my nieces. It is so
impossible to remember what is proper." And
sooner or later their talk gravitated towards his
central passion — the Fragments of Sophocles.
Some day ("never," said Herbert) he would edit
them. At present they were merely in his blood.
With the zeal of a scholar and the imagination
of a poet he reconstructed lost dramas — Niobe,
Phaedra, Philoctetes against Troy, whose names,
but for an accident, would have thrilled the world.
"Is it worth it?" he cried. "Had we better be
planting potatoes?" And then: "We had; but
this is the second best."

Agnes did not approve of these colloquies. Mr
Jackson was not a buffoon, but he behaved like
one, which is what matters ; and from the Winter
Garden she could see people laughing at him, and
at her husband, who got excited too. She hinted

SAWSTON. 219

once or twice, but no notice was taken, and at
last she said rather sharply, " Now, you're not
to, Rickie. I won't have it."

"He's a type that suits me. He knows people
I know, or would like to have known. He was
a friend of Tony Failing's. It is so hard to realise
that a man connected with one was great. Uncle
Tony seems to have been. He loved poetry and
music and pictures, and everything tempted him
to live in a kind of cultured paradise, with the
door shut upon squalor. But to have more
decent people in the world — he sacrificed every-
thing to that. He would have * smashed the
whole beauty-shop ' if it would help him. I really
couldn't go as far as that. I don't think one
need go as far — pictures might have to be
smashed, but not music or poetry; surely they
help — and Jackson doesn't think so either."

"Well, I won't have it, and that's enough."
She laughed, for her voice had a little been that
of the professional scold. "You see we must
hang together. He's in the reactionary camp."

"He doesn't know it. He doesn't know that
he is in any camp at all."

"His wife is, which comes to the same."

" Still, it's the holidays " He and Mr Jackson

had drifted apart in the term, chiefly owing to
the affair of Varden. "We were to have the
holidays to ourselves, you know." And following
some line of thought, he continued, "He cheers
one up. He does believe in poetry. Smart, senti-
mental books do seem absolutely absurd to him,
and gods and fairies far nearer to reality. He
tries to express all modern life in the terms of
Greek mythology, because the Greeks looked very

220 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

straight at things, and Demeter or Aphrodite are
thinner veils than 'The survival of the fittest,'
or 'A marriage has been arranged,' and other
draperies of modern journalese."

"And do you know what that means?"

"It means that poetry, not prose, lies at the
core."

"No. I can tell you what it means — balder-
dash."

His mouth fell. She was sweeping away the
cobwebs with a vengeance. " I hope you're
wrong," he replied, "for those are the lines on
which I've been writing, however badly, for the
last two years."

"But you write stories, not poems."

He looked at his watch. "Lessons again. One
never has a moment's peace."

" Poor Rickie ! You shall have a real holiday
in the summer." And she called after him to
say, "Remember, dear, about Mr Jackson. Don't
go talking so much to him."

Rather arbitrary. Her tone had been a little
arbitrary of late. But what did it matter? Mr
Jackson was not a friend, and he must risk the
chance of offending Widdrington. After the
lesson he wrote to Ansell, whom he had not seen
since June, asking him to come down to Ilfra-
combe, if only for a day. On reading the letter
over, its tone displeased him. It was quite
pathetic: it sounded like a cry from prison. "I
can't send him such nonsense," he thought, and
wrote again. But phrase it as he would, the letter
always suggested that he was unhappy. "What's
wrong?" he wondered. "I could write anything
I wanted to him once." So he scrawled " Come ! "

SAWSTON. 221

on a post-card. But even this seemed too serious.
The post-card followed the letters, and Agnes
found them all in the waste-paper basket.

Then she said, "I've been thinking — oughtn't
you to ask Mr Ansell over ? A breath of sea air
would do the poor thing good."

There was no difficulty now. He wrote at once,
"My dear Stewart, — We both so much wish you
could come over." But the invitation was refused.
A little uneasy, he wrote again, using the dialect
of their past intimacy. The effect of this letter
was not pathetic but jaunty, and he felt a keen
regret as soon as it slipped into the box. It was
a relief to receive no reply.

He brooded a good deal over this painful yet
intangible episode. Was the pain all of his own
creating? or had it been produced by something
external? And he got the answer that brooding
always gives — it was both. He was morbid, and
had been so since his visit to Cadover — quicker
to register discomfort than joy. But, none the
less, Ansell was definitely brutal, and Agnes de-
finitely jealous. Brutality he could understand,
alien as it was to himself. Jealousy, equally alien,
was a harder matter. Let husband and wife be
as sun and moon, or as moon and sun. Shall
they therefore not give greeting to the stars ? He
was willing to grant that the love that inspired
her might be higher than his own. Yet did it
not exclude them both from much that is gra-
cious? That dream of his when he rode on the
Wiltshire expanses — a curious dream : the lark
silent, the earth dissolving. And he awoke from
it into a valley full of men.

She was jealous in many ways — sometimes in

222 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

an open humorous fashion, sometimes more subtly,
never content till " we " had extended our patron-
age and, if possible, our pity. She began to
patronise and pity Ansell, and most sincerely
trusted that he would get his fellowship. Other-
wise what was the poor fellow to do ? Ridiculous
as it may seem, she was even jealous of Nature.
One day her husband escaped from Ilfracombe
to Morthoe, and came back ecstatic over its fangs
of slate, piercing an oily sea. "Sounds like an
hippopotamus," she said peevishly. And when
they returned to Sawston through the Virgilian
counties, she disliked him looking out of the
window, for all the world as if Nature was some
dangerous woman.

He resumed his duties with a feeling that he
had never left them. Again he confronted the
assembled house. This term was again the term ;
school still the world in miniature. The music of
the four-part fugue entered into him more deeply,
and he began to hum its little phrases. The
same routine, the same diplomacies, the same old
sense of only half knowing boys or men — he re-
turned to it all ; and all that changed was the
cloud of unreality, which ever brooded a little
more densely than before. He spoke to his wife
about this, — he spoke to her about everything, —
and she was alarmed, and wanted him to see a
doctor. But he explained that it was nothing of
any practical importance, nothing that interfered
with his work or his appetite, nothing more than
a feeling that the cow was not really there. She
laughed, and "How is the cow to-day?" soon
passed into a domestic joke.

SAWSTON. 223

XX.

Ansell was in his favourite haunt — the reading-
room of the British Museum. In that book-
encircled space he always could find peace. He
loved to see the volumes rising tier above tier
into the misty dome. He loved the chairs that
glide so noiselessly, and the radiating desks, and
the central area, where the catalogue shelves
curve round the superintendent's throne. There
he knew that his life was not ignoble. It was
worth while to grow old and dusty seeking for
truth though truth is unattainable, restating
questions that have been stated at the beginning
of the world. Failure would await him, but not
disillusionment. It was worth while reading
books, and writing a book or two which few
would read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He
was not a hero, and he knew it. His father
and sisters, by their steady goodness, had made
this life possible. But, all the same, it was not
the life of a spoilt child.

In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, en-
gaged in his historical research. His desk was
edged with enormous volumes, and every few
moments an assistant brought him more. They
rose like a wall against Ansell. Towards the end
of the morning a gap was made, and through it
they held the following conversation.

" I've been stopping with my cousin at Sawston."

"M'm."

"It was quite exciting. The air rang with
battle, About two-thirds of the masters have lost

224 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

their heads, and are trying to produce a gimcrack
copy of Eton. Last term, you know, with a great
deal of puffing and blowing, they fixed the num-
bers of the school. This term they want to create
a new boarding-house."

"They are very welcome."

" But the more boarding-houses they create, the
less room they leave for day-boys. The local
mothers are frantic, and so is my queer cousin.
I never knew him so excited over sub -Hellenic
things. There was an indignation meeting at his
house. He is supposed to look after the day-
boys' interests, but no one thought he would —
least of all the people who gave him the post.
The speeches were most eloquent. They argued
that the school was founded for day-boys, and
that it's intolerable to handicap them. One poor
lady cried, * Here's my Harold in the school, and
my Toddie coming on. As likely as not I shall be
told there is no vacancy for him. Then what am
I to do ? If I go, what's to become of Harold ;
and if I stop, what's to become of Toddie?' I
must say I was touched. Family life is more real
than national life — at least I've ordered all these
books to prove it is — and I fancy that the bust
of Euripides agreed with me, and was sorry for
the hot-faced mothers. Jackson will do what he
can. He didn't quite like to state the naked truth
— which is, that boarding-houses pay. He ex-
plained it to me afterwards : they are the only
future open to a stupid master. It's easy enough
to be a beak when you're young and athletic, and
can offer the latest University smattering. The
difficulty is to keep your place when you get old
and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up

SAWSTON. 225

behind you. Crawl into a boarding-house and
you're safe. A master's life is frightfully tragic.
Jackson's fairly right himself, because he has got
a first-class intellect. But I met a poor brute who
was hired as an athlete. He has missed his shot at
a boarding-house, and there's nothing in the world
for him to do but to trundle down the hill."

Ansell yawned.

"I saw Rickie too. Once I dined there."

Another yawn.

"My cousin thinks Mrs Elliot one of the most
horrible women he has ever seen. He calls her
'Medusa in Arcady.' She's so pleasant, too. But
certainly it was a very stony meal."

"What kind of stoniness?"

"No one stopped talking for a moment."

"That's the real kind," said Ansell moodily.
"The only kind."

"Well, I," he continued, "am inclined to com-
pare her to an electric light. Click ! she's on.
Click! she's off. No waste. No flicker."

"I wish she'd fuse."

"She'll never fuse — unless anything was to
happen at the main."

" What do you mean by the main ? " said Ansell,
who always pursued a metaphor relentlessly.

Widdrington did not know what he meant, and
suggested that Ansell should visit Sawston to see
whether one could know.

"It is no good me going. I should not find Mrs
Elliot : she has no real existence."

"Rickie has."

"I very much doubt it. I had two letters from
Ilfracombe last April, and I very much doubt that
the man who wrote them can exist." Bending

p

226 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

downwards, he began to adorn the manuscript
of his dissertation with a square, and inside that
a circle, and inside that another square. It was
his second dissertation : the first had failed.

"I think he exists: he is so unhappy."

Ansell nodded. "How did you know he was
unhappy ? "

" Because he was always talking." After a pause
he added, "What clever young men we are ! "

" Aren't we ? I expect we shall get asked in mar-
riage soon. I say, Widdrington, shall we ? "

"Accept? Of course. It is not young manly
to say no."

"I meant shall we ever do a more tremendous
thing,— fuse Mrs Elliot."

"No," said Widdrington promptly. "We shall
never do that all our lives." He added, "I think
you might go down to Sawston, though."

"I have already refused or ignored three in-
vitations."

"So I gathered."

"What's the good of it?" said Ansell through
his teeth. "I will not put up with little things.
I would rather be rude than listen to twaddle
from a man I've known."

"You might go down to Sawston, just for a
night, to see him."

"I saw him last month — at least, so Tilliard
informs me. He says that we all three lunched
together, that Rickie paid, and that the conversa-
tion was most interesting."

"Well, I contend that he does exist, and that
if you go — oh, I can't be clever any longer. You
really must go, man. I'm certain he's miserable
and lonely. Dunwood House reeks of commerce
and snobbery and all the things he hated most.

SAWSTON 227

He doesn't do any writing. He doesn't make any
friends. He is so odd, too. In this day-boy row
that has just started he's gone for my cousin.
Would you believe it? Quite spitefully. It made
quite a difficulty when I wanted to dine. It isn't
like him — either the sentiments or the behaviour.
I'm sure he's not himself. Pembroke used to
look after the day-boys, and so he can't very
well take the lead against them, and perhaps
Rickie's doing his dirty work — and has overdone
it, as decent people generally do. He's even
altering to talk to. Yet he's not been married
a year. Pembroke and that wife simply run
him. I don't see why they should, and no more
do you ; and that's why I want you to go to
Sawston, if only for one night."

Ansell shook his head, and looked up at the
dome as other men look at the sky. In it the
great arc lamps sputtered and flared, for the
month was again November. Then he lowered
his eyes from the cold violet radiance to the
books.

" No, Widdrington ; no. We don't go to see
people because they are happy or unhappy. We
go when we can talk to them. I cannot talk
to Rickie, therefore I will not waste my time at
Sawston."

" I think you're right," said Widdrington softly.
" But we are bloodless brutes. I wonder whether
— if we were different people — something might
be done to save him. That is the curse of being
a little intellectual. You and our sort have always
seen too clearly. We stand aside — and meanwhile
he turns into stone. Two philosophic youths re-
pining in the British Museum ! What have we
done? What shall we ever do? Just drift and

228 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

criticise, while people who know what they want
snatch it away from us and laugh."

" Perhaps you are that sort. I'm not. When
the moment comes I shall hit out like any plough-
boy. Don't believe those lies about intellectual
people. They're only written to soothe the
majority. Do you suppose, with the world as it
is, that it's an easy matter to keep quiet? Do
you suppose that I didn't want to rescue him
from that ghastly woman ? Action ! Nothing's
easier than action ; as fools testify. But I want
to act rightly."

"The superintendent is looking at us. I must
get back to my work."

"You think this all nonsense," said Ansell, de-
taining him. " Please remember that if I do act,
you are bound to help me."

Widdrington looked a little grave. He was no
anarchist. A few plaintive cries against Mrs
Elliot were all that he was prepared to emit.

"There's no mystery," continued Ansell. "I
haven't the shadow of a plan in my head. I
know not only Rickie but the whole of his his-
tory : you remember the day near Madingley.
Nothing in either helps me : I'm just watching."

"But what for?"

"For the Spirit of Life."

Widdrington was surprised. It was a phrase
unknown to their philosophy. They had tres-
passed into poetry.

"You can't fight Medusa with anything else.
If you ask me what the Spirit of Life is, or to
what it is attached, I can't tell you. I only tell
you, watch for it. Myself I've found it in books.
Some people find it out of doors or in each
other. Never mind. It's the same spirit, and I

SAWSTON. 229

trust myself to know it anywhere, and to use it
rightly."

But at this point the superintendent sent a
message.

Widdrington then suggested a stroll in the
galleries. It was foggy: they needed fresh air.
He loved and admired his friend, but to-day he
could not grasp him. The world as Ansell saw
it seemed such a fantastic place, governed by
bran-new laws. What more could one do than
to see Rickie as often as possible, to invite his
confidence, to offer him spiritual support? And
Mrs Elliot — what power could "fuse" a respect-
able woman ?

Ansell consented to the stroll, but, as usual, only
breathed depression. The comfort of books de-
serted him among those marble goddesses and
gods. The eye of an artist finds pleasure in tex-
ture and poise, but he could only think of the
vanished incense and deserted temples beside an
unfurrowed sea.

"Let us go," he said. "I do not like carved
stones."

"You are too particular," said Widdrington.
"You are always expecting to meet living
people. One never does. I am content with
the Parthenon frieze." And he moved along a
few yards of it, while Ansell followed, conscious
only of its pathos.

"There's Tilliard," he observed. "Shall we kill
him?"

"Please," said Widdrington, and as he spoke
Tilliard joined them. He brought them news.
That morning he had heard from Rickie : Mrs
Elliot was expecting a child.

"A child?" said Ansell, suddenly bewildered.

230 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Oh, I forgot," interposed Widdrington. "My
cousin did tell me."

"You forgot! Well, after all, I forgot that it
might be. We are indeed young men." He leant
against the pedestal of Ilissus and remembered
their talk about the Spirit of Life. In his ignor-
ance of what a child means, he wondered whether
the opportunity he sought lay here.

"I am very glad," said Tilliard, not without in-
tention. "A child will draw them even closer
together. I like to see young people wrapped
up in their child."

"I suppose I must be getting back to my dis-
sertation," said Ansell. He left the Parthenon to
pass by the monuments of our more reticent
beliefs — the temple of the Ephesian Artemis, the
statue of the Cnidian Demeter. Honest, he knew
that here were powers he could not cope with,
nor, as yet, understand.

XXI.

The mists that had gathered round Rickie
seemed to be breaking. He had found light
neither in work for which he was unfitted nor
in a woman who had ceased to respect him,
and whom he was ceasing to love. Though he
called himself fickle and took all the blame of
their marriage on his own shoulders, there re-
mained in Agnes certain terrible faults of heart
and head, and no self-reproach would diminish
them. The glamour of wedlock had faded ; in-
deed, he saw now that it had faded even before

SAWSTON. 231

wedlock, and that during the final months he
had shut his eyes and pretended it was still
there. But now the mists were breaking.

That November the supreme event approached.
He saw it with Nature's eyes. It dawned on him,
as on Ansell, that personal love and marriage
only cover one side of the shield, and that on
the other is graven the epic of birth. In the
midst of lessons he would grow dreamy, as one
who spies a new symbol for the universe, a
fresh circle within the square. Within the square
shall be a circle, within the circle another square,
until the visual eye is baffled. Here is meaning
of a kind. His mother had forgotten herself in
him. He would forget himself in his son.

He was at his duties when the news arrived
— taking preparation. Boys are marvellous crea-
tures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes ;
perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness.
Though they despised Rickie, and had suffered
under Agnes's meanness, their one thought this
term was to be gentle and to give no trouble.

" Rickie — one moment "

His face grew ashen. He followed Herbert
into the passage, closing the door of the prepar-
ation room behind him. " Oh, is she safe ? " he
whispered.

" Yes, yes," said Herbert ; but there sounded in
his answer a sombre hostile note.

"Our boy?"

" Girl — a girl, dear Rickie ; a little daughter.
She — she is in many ways a healthy child. She
will live — oh yes." A flash of horror passed over
his face. He hurried into the preparation room,
lifted the lid of his desk, glanced mechanically at
the boys, and came out again.

232 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Mrs Lewin appeared through the door that led
into their own part of the house.

" Both going on well ! " she cried ; but her voice
also was grave, exasperated.

"What is it?" he gasped. "It's something you
daren't tell me."

"Only this " stuttered Herbert. "You

mustn't mind when you see — she's lame."

Mrs Lewin disappeared.

" Lame ! but not as lame as I am ? "

" Oh, my dear boy, worse. Don't — oh, be a man
in this. Come away from the preparation room.
Remember she'll live — in many ways healthy —
only just this one defect."

The horror of that week never passed away
from him. To the end of his life he remembered
the excuses — the consolations that the child would
live ; suffered very little, if at all ; would walk
with crutches ; would certainly live. God was
more merciful. A window was opened too wide
on a draughty day. After a short, painless illness
his daughter died. But the lesson he had learnt
so glibly at Cambridge should be heeded now;
no child should ever be born to him again.

XXII.

That same term there took place at Dunwood
House another event. With their private tragedy
it seemed to have no connection ; but in time
Rickie perceived it as a bitter comment. Its
developments were unforeseen and lasting. It

SAWSTON. 233

was perhaps the most terrible thing he had to
bear.

Varden had now been a boarder for ten months.
His health had broken in the previous term, —
partly, it is to be feared, as the result of the
indifferent food, — and during the summer holidays
he was attacked by a series of agonising earaches.
His mother, a feeble person, wished to keep him
at home, but Herbert dissuaded her. Soon after
the death of the child there arose at Dunwood
House one of those waves of hostility of which
no boy knows the origin nor any master can
calculate the course. Varden had never been
popular — there was no reason why he should
be — but he had never been seriously bullied
hitherto. One evening nearly the whole house
set on him. The prefects absented themselves,
the bigger boys stood round, and the lesser boys,
to whom power was delegated, flung him down,
and rubbed his face under the desks, and wrenched
at his ears. The noise penetrated the baize
doors, and Herbert swept through and punished
the whole house, including Varden, whom it
would not do to leave out. The poor man was
horrified. He approved of a little healthy rough-
ness, but this was pure brutality. What had
come over his boys? Were they not gentlemen's
sons ? He would not admit that if you herd
together human beings before they can under-
stand each other the great god Pan is angry,
and will in the end evade your regulations and
drive them mad. That night the victim was
screaming with pain, and the doctor next day
spoke of an operation. The suspense lasted a
whole week. Comment was made in the local

234 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

papers, and the reputation not only of the house
but of the school was imperilled. " If only I
had known," repeated Herbert — " if only I had
known I would have arranged it all differently.
He should have had a cubicle." The boy did not
die, but he left Sawston, never to return.

The day before his departure Rickie sat with
him some time, and tried to talk in a way that
was not pedantic. In his own sorrow, which he
could share with no one, least of all with his
wife, he was still alive to the sorrows of others.
He still fought against apathy, though he was
losing the battle.

" Don't lose heart," he told him. " The world
isn't all going to be like this. There are tempta-
tions and trials, of course, but nothing at all of
the kind you have had here."

" But school is the world in miniature, is it
not, sir?" asked the boy, hoping to please one
master by echoing what had been told him by
another. He was always on the look-out for
sympathy : it was one of the things that had
contributed to his downfall.

"I never noticed that myself. I was unhappy
at school, and in the world people can be very
happy."

Varden sighed and rolled about his eyes. "Are
the fellows sorry for what they did to me?" he
asked in an affected voice. "I am sure I forgive
them from the bottom of my heart. We ought
to forgive our enemies, oughtn't we, sir?"

"But they aren't your enemies. If you meet
in five years' time you may find each other
splendid fellows."

The boy would not admit this. He had been
reading some revivalistic literature. "We ought

SAWSTON. 235

to forgive our enemies," he repeated ; " and how-
ever wicked they are, we ought not to wish them
evil. When I was ill, and death seemed nearest,
I had many kind letters on this subject."

Rickie knew about these " many kind letters."
Varden had induced the silly nurse to write
to people — people of all sorts, people that he
scarcely knew or did not know at all — detailing
his misfortune, and asking for spiritual aid and
sympathy.

"I am sorry for them," he pursued. "I would
not like to be like them."

Rickie sighed. He saw that a year at Dun-
wood House had produced a sanctimonious prig.
"Don't think about them, Varden. Think about
anything beautiful — say, music. You like music.
Be happy. It's your duty. You can't be good
until you've had a little happiness. Then perhaps
you will think less about forgiving people and
more about loving them."

"I love them already, sir." And Rickie, in
desperation, asked if he might look at the many
kind letters.

Permission was gladly given. A neat bundle
was produced, and for about twenty minutes the
master perused it, while the invalid kept watch
on his face. Rooks cawed out in the playing-
fields, and close under the window there was the
sound of delightful, good - tempered laughter. A
boy is no devil, whatever boys may be. The
letters were chilly productions, somewhat clerical
in tone, by whomsoever written. Varden, be-
cause he was ill at the time, had been taken
seriously. The writers declared that his illness
was fulfilling some mysterious purpose : suffer-
ing engendered spiritual growth: he was showing

236 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

signs of this already. They consented to pray

for him, some majestically, others shyly. But

they all consented with one exception, who
worded his refusal as follows : —

Dear A. C. Varden, — I ought to say that I
never remember seeing you. I am sorry that
you are ill, and hope you are wrong about it.
Why did you not write before, for I could have
helped you then. When they pulled your ear,
you ought to have gone like this (here was a
rough sketch). I could not undertake praying,
but would think of you instead, if that would do.
I am twenty -two in April, built rather heavy,
ordinary broad face, with eyes, &c. I write all
this because you have mixed me with some one
else, for I am not married, and do not want to
be. I cannot think of you always, but will
promise a quarter of an hour daily (say 7.0-
7.15 A.M.), and might come to see you when you
are better — that is, if you are a kid, and you
read like one. I have been otter-hunting. — Yours
sincerely, Stephen Wonham.

XXIII.

Rickie went straight from Varden to his wife,
who lay on the sofa in her bedroom. There was
now a wide gulf between them. She, like the
world she had created for him, was unreal.

"Agnes, darling," he began, stroking her hand,
"such an awkward little thing has happened."

SAWSTON. 237

"What is it, dear? Just wait till I've added
up this book."

She had got over the tragedy: she got over
everything.

When she was at leisure he told her. Hitherto
they had seldom mentioned Stephen. He was
classed among the unprofitable dead.

She was more sympathetic than he expected.
"Dear Rickie," she murmured with averted eyes.
"How tiresome for you."

" I wish that Varden had stopped with Mrs
Orr."

"Well, he leaves us for good to-morrow."

" Yes, yes. And I made him answer the letter
and apologise. They had never met. It was some
confusion with a man in the Church Army,
living at a place called Codford. I asked the
nurse. It is all explained."

"There the matter ends."

" I suppose so — if matters ever end."

" If, by ill-luck, the person does call, I will just
see him and say that the boy has gone."

" You, or I. I have got over all nonsense by
this time. He's absolutely nothing to me now."
He took up the tradesman's book and played with
it idly. On its crimson cover was stamped a
grotesque sheep. How stale and stupid their life
had become !

"Don't talk like that, though," she said un-
easily. "Think how disastrous it would be if
you made a slip in speaking to him."

"Would it? It would have been disastrous
once. But I expect, as a matter of fact, that
Aunt Emily has made the slip already."

His wife was displeased. "You need not talk

238 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

in that cynical way. I credit Aunt Emily with
better feeling. When I was there she did
mention the matter, but only once. She, and I,
and all who have any sense of decency, know
better than to make slips, or to think of making
them."

Agnes kept up what she called "the family
connection." She had been once alone to Cadover,
and also corresponded with Mrs Failing. She had
never told Rickie anything about her visit, nor
had he ever asked her. But, from this moment,
the whole subject was re-opened.

"Most certainly he knows nothing," she con-
tinued. "Why, he does not even realise that
Varden lives in our house ! We are perfectly
safe — unless Aunt Emily were to die. Perhaps
then — but we are perfectly safe for the present."

"When she did mention the matter, what did
she say?"

"We had a long talk," said Agnes quietly.
" She told me nothing new — nothing new about
the past, I mean. But we had a long talk about
the present. I think" — and her voice grew dis-
pleased again — "that you have been both wrong
and foolish in refusing to make up your quarrel
with Aunt Emily."

"Wrong and wise, I should say."

"It isn't to be expected that she — so much
older and so sensitive — can make the first step.
But I know she'd be glad to see you."

"As far as I can remember that final scene in
the garden, I accused her of 'forgetting what
other people were like.' She'll never pardon me
for saying that."

Agnes was silent. To her the phrase was mean-

SAWSTON. 239

ingless. Yet Rickie was correct : Mrs Failing had
resented it more than anything.

" At all events," she suggested, " you might go
and see her."

"No, dear. Thank you, no."

"She is, after all " She was going to say

"your father's sister," but the expression was
scarcely a happy one, and she turned it into,
" She is, after all, growing old and lonely."

" So are we all ! " he cried, with a lapse of tone
that was now characteristic in him.

" She oughtn't to be so isolated from her proper
relatives."

There was a moment's silence. Still playing
with the book, he remarked, " You forget, she's
got her favourite nephew."

A bright red flush spread over her cheeks.
"What is the matter with you this afternoon?"
she asked. "I should think you'd better go for
a walk."

" Before I go, tell me what is the matter with
you." He also flushed. "Why do you want me
to make it up with my aunt?"

"Because it's right and proper."

"So? Or because she is old?"

"I don't understand," she retorted. But her
eyes dropped. His sudden suspicion was true:
she was legacy-hunting.

"Agnes, dear Agnes," he began with passing
tenderness, "how can you think of such things?
You behave like a poor person. We don't want
any money from Aunt Emily, or from any one
else. It isn't virtue that makes me say it : we
are not tempted in that way: we have as much
as we want already."

240 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"For the present," she answered, still looking
aside.

"There isn't any future," he cried in a gust
of despair.

"Rickie, what do you mean?"

What did he mean? He meant that the re-
lations between them were fixed — that there would
never be an influx of interest, nor even of passion.
To the end of life they would go on beating
time, and this was enough for her. She was
content with the daily round, the common task,
performed indifferently. But he had dreamt of
another helpmate, and of other things.

"We don't want money — why, we don't even
spend any on travelling. I've invested all my
salary and more. As far as human foresight
goes, we shall never want money." And his
thoughts went out to the tiny grave. "You
spoke of 'right and proper,' but the right and
proper thing for my aunt to do is to leave every
penny she's got to Stephen."

Her lip quivered, and for one moment he
thought that she was going to cry. "What am
I to do with you?" she said. "You talk like a
person in poetry."

"I'll put it in prose. He's lived with her for
twenty years, and he ought to be paid for it."

Poor Agnes ! Indeed, what was she to do ?
The first moment she set foot in Cadover she
had thought, "Oh, here is money. We must try
and get it." Being a lady, she never mentioned
the thought to her husband, but she concluded
that it would occur to him too. And now, though
it had occurred to him at last, he would not even
write his aunt a little note.

SAWSTON. 241

He was to try her yet further. While they
argued this point he flashed out with, "I ought
to have told him that day when he called up to
our room. There's where I went wrong first."

"Rickie!"

"In those days I was sentimental. I minded.
For two pins I'd write to him this afternoon.
Why shouldn't he know he's my brother ? What's
all this ridiculous mystery?"

She became incoherent.

"But why not? A reason why he shouldn't
know."

"A reason why he should know," she retorted.
" I never heard such rubbish ! Give me a reason
why he should know."

" Because the lie we acted has ruined our lives."

She looked in bewilderment at the well-ap-
pointed room.

"It's been like a poison we won't acknowledge.
How many times have you thought of my brother ?
I've thought of him every day — not in love ; don't
misunderstand ; only as a medicine I shirked.
Down in what they call the subconscious self he
has been hurting me." His voice broke. "Oh,
my darling, we acted a lie then, and this letter
reminds us of it and gives us one more chance.
I have to say 'we' lied. I should be lying again
if I took quite all the blame. Let us ask God's
forgiveness together. Then let us write, as coldly
as you please, to Stephen, and tell him he is my
father's son."

Her reply need not be quoted. It was the last
time he attempted intimacy. And the remainder
of their conversation, though long and stormy,
is also best forgotten.

242 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Thus the first effect of Varden's letter was to
make them quarrel. They had not openly dis-
agreed before. In the evening he kissed her and
said, "How absurd I was to get angry about
things that happened last year. I will certainly
not write to the person." She returned the kiss.
But he knew that they had destroyed the habit
of reverence, and would quarrel again.

On his rounds he looked in at Varden and asked
nonchalantly for the letter. He carried it off to
his room. It was unwise of him, for his nerves
were already unstrung, and the man he had tried
to bury was stirring ominously. In the silence
he examined the handwriting till he felt that a
living creature was with him, whereas he, because
his child had died, was dead. He perceived more
clearly the cruelty of Nature, to whom our re-
finement and piety are but as bubbles, hurrying
downwards on the turbid waters. They break,
and the stream continues. His father, as a final
insult, had brought into the world a man unlike
all the rest of them, — a man dowered with coarse
kindliness and rustic strength, a kind of cynical
ploughboy, against whom their own misery and
weakness might stand more vividly relieved.
"Born an Elliot — born a gentleman." So the
vile phrase ran. But here was an Elliot whose
badness was not even gentlemanly. For that
Stephen was bad inherently he never doubted
for a moment. And he would have children : he,
not Rickie, would contribute to the stream; he,
through his remote posterity, might be mingled
with the unknown sea.

Thus musing he lay down to sleep, feeling
cliseased in body and soul, It was no wonder

SAWSTON. 243

that the night was the most terrible he had ever
known. He revisited Cambridge, and his name
was a grey ghost over the door. Then there
recurred the voice of a gentle shadowy woman,
Mrs Aberdeen, "It doesn't seem hardly right."
Those had been her words, her only complaint
against the mysteries of change and death.
She bowed her head and laboured to make her
"gentlemen" comfortable. She was labouring
still. As he lay in bed he asked God to grant
him her wisdom ; that he might keep sorrow
within due bounds ; that he might abstain from
extreme hatred and envy of Stephen. It was
seldom that he prayed so definitely, or ventured
to obtrude his private wishes. Religion was to
him a service, a mystic communion with good ;
not a means of getting what he wanted on the
earth. But to-night, through suffering, he was
humbled, and became like Mrs Aberdeen.

Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to
endure the faces that frothed in the gloom — his
aunt's, his father's, and, worst of all, the triumph-
ant face of his brother. Once he struck at it,
and awoke, having hurt his hand on the wall.
Then he prayed hysterically for pardon and rest.

Yet again did he awake, and from a more
mysterious dream. He heard his mother crying.
She was crying quite distinctly in the darkened
room. He whispered, "Never mind, my darling,
never mind," and a voice echoed, "Never mind —
come away — let them die out — let them die out."
He lit a candle, and the room was empty. Then,
hurrying to the window, he saw above mean
houses the frosty glories of Orion.

Henceforward he deteriorates. Let those who

244 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

censure him suggest what he should do. He has
lost the work that he loved, his friends, and his
child. He remained conscientious and decent, but
the spiritual part of him proceeded towards ruin.

XXIV.

The coming months, though full of degradation
and anxiety, were to bring him nothing so terrible
as that night. It was the crisis of his agony.
He was an outcast and a failure. But he was
not again forced to contemplate these facts so
clearly. Varden left in the morning, carrying
the fatal letter with him. The whole house was
relieved. The good angel was with the boys
again, or else (as Herbert preferred to think)
they had learnt a lesson, and were more humane
in consequence. At all events, the disastrous
term concluded quietly.

In the Christmas holidays the two masters
made an abortive attempt to visit Italy, and at
Easter there was talk of a cruise in the iEgean.
Herbert actually went, and enjoyed Athens and
Delphi. The Elliots paid a few visits together
in England. They returned to Sawston about
ten days before school opened, to find that
Widdrington was again stopping with the Jack-
sons. Intercourse was painful, for the two
families were scarcely on speaking terms ; nor did
the triumphant scaffoldings of the new boarding-
house make things easier. (The party of pro-
gress had carried the day.) Widdrington was by

SAWSTON. 245

nature touchy, but on this occasion he refused
to take offence, and often dropped in to see
them. His manner was friendly but critical.
They agreed he was a nuisance. Then Agnes
left, very abruptly, to see Mrs Failing, and while
she was away Rickie had a little stealthy inter-
course.

Her absence, convenient as it was, puzzled him.
Mrs Silt, half goose, half stormy -petrel, had re-
cently paid a flying visit to Cadover, and thence
had flown, without an invitation, to Sawston.
Generally she was not a welcome guest. On this
occasion Agnes had welcomed her, and — so Rickie
thought — had made her promise not to tell him
something that she knew. The ladies had talked
mysteriously. "Mr Silt would be one with you
there," said Mrs Silt. Could there be any con-
nection between the two visits?

Agnes's letters told him nothing : they never
did. She was too clumsy or too cautious to
express herself on paper. A drive to Stone-
henge ; an anthem in the Cathedral ; Aunt
Emily's love. And when he met her at Waterloo
he learnt nothing (if there was anything to
learn) from her face.

" How did you enjoy yourself ? "
" Thoroughly."

"Were you and she alone?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes other people."
"Will Uncle Tony's Essays be published?"
Here she was more communicative. The book
was at last in proof. Aunt Emily had written a
charming introduction ; but she was so idle, she
never finished things off.

They got into an omnibus for the Army and

246 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Navy Stores: she wanted to do some shopping
before going down to Sawston.

"Did you read any of the Essays?"

"Every one. Delightful. Couldn't put them
down. Now and then he spoilt them by statistics
— but you should read his descriptions of Nature.
He agrees with you : says the hills and trees are
alive ! Aunt Emily called you his spiritual heir,
which I thought nice of her. We both so
lamented that you have stopped writing." She
quoted fragments of the Essays as they went
up in the Stores' lift.

"What else did you talk about?"

"I've told you all my news. Now for yours.
Let's have tea first."

They sat down in the corridor amid ladies in
every stage of fatigue — haggard ladies, scarlet
ladies, ladies with parcels that twisted from
every finger like joints of meat. Gentlemen were
scarcer, but all were of the sub-fashionable type,
to which Rickie himself now belonged.

"I haven't done anything," he said feebly.
"Ate, read, been rude to tradespeople, talked to
Widdrington. Herbert arrived this morning. He
has brought a most beautiful photograph of the
Parthenon."

" Mr Widdrington ? "

"Yes."

"What did you talk about?"

She might have heard every word. It was
only the feeling of pleasure that he wished to
conceal. Even when we love people, we desire
to keep some corner secret from them, however
small : it is a human right : it is personality.
She began to cross-question him, but they were

SAWSTON. 247

interrupted. A young lady at an adjacent table
suddenly rose and cried, "Yes, it is you. I
thought so from your walk." It was Maud
Ansell.

"Oh, do come and join us!" he cried. "Let
me introduce my wife."

Maud bowed quite stiffly, but Agnes, taking it
for ill-breeding, was not offended.

" That I will come ! " she continued in shrill,
pleasant tones, adroitly poising her tea things
on either hand, and transferring them to the
Elliots' table. "Why haven't you ever come to
us, pray?"

" I think you didn't ask me ! "

"You weren't to be asked." She sprawled
forward with a wagging finger. But her eyes
had the honesty of her brother's. "Don't you
remember the day you left us? Father said,

'Now, Mr Elliot ' Or did he call you 'Elliot'?

How one does forget. Anyhow, father said you
weren't to wait for an invitation, and you said,
' No ; I won't.' Ours is a fair-sized house," — she
turned somewhat haughtily to Agnes, — "and the
second spare room, which we call the ■ harp
room ' on account of a harp that hangs on
the wall, is always reserved for Stewart's
friends."

"How is Mr Ansell, your brother?"

Maud's face fell. "Hadn't you heard?" she
said in awestruck tones.

" No."

"He hasn't got his fellowship. It's the second
time he's failed. That means he will never get
one. He will never be a don, nor live in Cam-
bridge and that, as we had hoped."

248 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Oh, poor, poor fellow!" said Mrs Elliot with
a remorse that was sincere, though her con-
gratulations would not have been. "I am so
very sorry."

But Maud turned to Rickie. "Mr Elliot, you
might know. Tell me. What is wrong with
Stewart's philosophy? What ought he to put in,
or to alter, so as to succeed?"

Agnes, who knew better than this, smiled.

"I don't know," said Rickie sadly. They were
none of them so clever, after all.

" Hegel," she continued vindictively. " They say
he's read too much Hegel. But they never tell
him what to read instead. Their own stuffy
books, I suppose. Look here — no, that's the
* Windsor.' " After a little groping she produced
a copy of 'Mind,' and handed it round as if it
was a geological specimen. "Inside that there's
a paragraph written about something Stewart's
written about before, and there it says he's read
too much Hegel, and it seems now that that's
been the trouble all along." Her voice trembled.
"I call it most unfair, and the fellowship's gone
to a man who has counted the petals on an
anemone."

Rickie had no inclination to smile.

"I wish Stewart had tried Oxford instead."

"I don't wish it!"

" You say that," she continued hotly, " and then
you never come to see him, though you knew
you were not to wait for an invitation."

"If it comes to that, Miss Ansell," retorted
Rickie, in the laughing tones that one adopts
on such occasions, "Stewart won't come to me,
though he has had an invitation."

SAWSTON. 249

"Yes," chimed in Agnes, "we ask Mr Ansell
again and again, and he will have none of us."

Maud looked at her with a flashing eye. "My
brother is a very peculiar person, and we ladies
can't understand him. But I know one thing, and
that's that he has a reason all round for what he
does. Look here, I must be getting on. Waiter !
Wai-ai-aiter ! Bill, please. Separately, of course.
Call the Army and Navy cheap ! I know
better ! "

"How does the drapery department compare?"
said Agnes sweetly.

The girl gave a sharp choking sound, gathered
up her parcels, and left them. Rickie was too
much disgusted with his wife to speak.

" Appalling person ! " she gasped. " It was
naughty of me, but I couldn't help it. What a
dreadful fate for a clever man ! To fail in life
completely, and then to be thrown back on a
family like that!"

" Maud is a snob and a Philistine. But, in her
case, something emerges."

She glanced at him, but proceeded in her sauv-
est tones, "Do let us make one great united
attempt to get Mr Ansell to Sawston."

"No."

" What a changeable friend you are ! When
we were engaged you were always talking about
him."

"Would you finish your tea, and then we will
buy the linoleum for the cubicles."

But she returned to the subject again, not only
on that day but throughout the term. Could
nothing be done for poor Mr Ansell? It seemed
that she could not rest until all that he had once

250 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

held dear was humiliated. In this she strayed
outside her nature : she was unpractical. And
those who stray outside their nature invite dis-
aster. Rickie, goaded by her, wrote to his friend
again. The letter was in all ways unlike his old
self. Ansell did not answer it. But he did
write to Mr Jackson, with whom he was not
acquainted.

" Dear Mr Jackson, — I understand from Wid-
drington that you have a large house. I would
like to tell you how convenient it would be for
me to come and stop in it. June suits me best. —
Yours truly, Stewart Ansell."

To which Mr Jackson replied that not only in
June but during the whole year his house was at
the disposal of Mr Ansell and of any one who
resembled him.

But Agnes continued her life, cheerfully beating
time. She, too, knew that her marriage was a
failure, and in her spare moments regretted it.
She wished that her husband was handsomer,
more successful, more dictatorial. But she would
think, "No, no; one mustn't grumble. It can't be
helped." Ansell was wrong in supposing she
might ever leave Rickie. Spiritual apathy pre-
vented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by
a jollier man. Here criticism would willingly alter
its tone. For Agnes also has her tragedy. She
belonged to the type — not necessarily an elevated
one — that loves once and once only. Her love for
Gerald had not been a noble passion : no imagin-
ation transfigured it. But such as it was, it
sprang to embrace him, and he carried it away

SAWSTON. 251

with him when he died. Les amours qui suivrent
sont moins involuntaires : by an effort of the will
she had warmed herself for Rickie.

She is not conscious of her tragedy, and there-
fore only the gods need weep at it. But it is fair
to remember that hitherto she moves as one from
whom the inner life has been withdrawn.

XXV.

"I am afraid," said Agnes, unfolding a letter
that she had received in the morning, " that things
go far from satisfactorily at Cadover."

The three were alone at supper. It was the
June of Rickie's second year at Sawston.

"Indeed?" said Herbert, who took a friendly
interest. "In what way?"

"Do you remember us talking of Stephen —
Stephen Wonham, who by an odd coin-
cidence "

"Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable
failure Varden. I do."

"It is about him."

"I did not like the tone of his letter."

Agnes had made her first move. She waited
for her husband to reply to it. But he, though
full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She
moved again.

"I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much
as I like her, is the kind of person to bring a
young man up. At all events the results have
been disastrous this time."

252 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"What has happened?"

"A tangle of things." She lowered her voice.
" Drink."

"Dear! Really! Was Mrs Failing fond of
him ? "

"She used to be. She let him live at Cadover
ever since he was a little boy. Naturally that
cannot continue."

Rickie never spoke.

" And now he has taken to be violent and rude,"
she went on.

" In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he ?
Has he no relatives?"

"She has always been both father and mother
to him. Now it must all come to an end. I
blame her — and she blames herself — for not being
severe enough. He has grown up without fixed
principles. He has always followed his inclin-
ations, and one knows the result of that."

Herbert assented. " To me Mrs Failing's course
is perfectly plain. She has a certain responsibility.
She must pay the youth's passage to one of the
colonies, start him handsomely in some business,
and then break off all communications."

" How funny ! It is exactly what she is going
to do."

" I shall then consider that she has behaved in
a thoroughly honourable manner." He held out
his plate for gooseberries. " His letter to Varden
was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if
written at all, it ought to have been both. I am
not in the least surprised to learn that he has
turned out badly. When you write next, would
you tell her how sorry I am?"

" Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was

SAWSTON. 253

already a little anxious, she did so wish you could
undertake him."

"I could not alter a grown man." But in his
heart he thought he could, and smiled at his
sister amiably. "Terrible, isn't it?" he remarked
to Rickie. Rickie, who was trying not to mind
anything, assented. And an onlooker would have
supposed them a dispassionate trio, who were
sorry both for Mrs Failing and for the beggar
who would bestride her horses' backs no longer.
A new topic was introduced by the arrival of the
evening post.

Herbert took up all the letters, as he often did.

"Jackson?" he exclaimed. "What does the
fellow want ? " He read, and his tone was molli-
fied, "'Dear Mr Pembroke, — Could you, Mrs
Elliot, and Mr Elliot come to supper with us on
Saturday next? I should not merely be pleased,
I should be grateful. My wife is writing formally
to Mrs Elliot' — (Here, Agnes, take your letter), —
'but I venture to write as well, and to add my
more uncouth entreaties.' — An olive-branch. It is
time 1 But (ridiculous person !) does he think that
we can leave the House deserted and all go out
pleasuring in term time ? — Rickie, a letter for
you."

"Mine's the formal invitation," said Agnes.
M How very odd ! Mr Ansell will be there.
Surely we asked him here ! Did you know he
knew the Jacksons?"

" This makes refusal very difficult," said Herbert,
who was anxious to accept. " At all events, Rickie
ought to go."

"I do not want to go," said Rickie, slowly
opening his own letter. "As Agnes says, Ansell

254 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

has refused to come to us. I cannot put myself
out for him."

"Who's yours from?" she demanded.

"Mrs Silt," replied Herbert, who had seen the
handwriting.

"I trust she does not want to pay us a visit
this term, with the examinations impending and
all the machinery at full pressure. Though,
Rickie, you will have to accept the Jacksons'
invitation."

11 1 cannot possibly go. I have been too rude ;
with Widdrington we always meet here. I'll stop

with the boys " His voice caught suddenly.

He had opened Mrs Silt's letter.

"The Silts are not ill, I hope?"

"No. But, I say," — he looked at his wife, —
"I do think this is going too far. Really,
Agnes "

"What has happened?"

"It is going too far," he repeated. He was
nerving himself for another battle. "I cannot
stand this sort of thing. There are limits."

He laid the letter down. It was Herbert who
picked it up, and read: "Aunt Emily has just
written to us. We are so glad that her troubles
are over, in spite of the expense. It never does
to live apart from one's own relatives so much
as she has done up to now. He goes next Satur-
day to Canada. What you told her about him
just turned the scale. She has asked us "

"No, it's too much," he interrupted. "What
I told her — told her about him — no, I will have
it out at last. Agnes ! "

"Yes?" said his wife, raising her eyes from
Mrs Jackson's formal invitation.

SAWSTON. 255

"It's you — it's you. I never mentioned him to
her. Why, I've never seen her or written to her
since. I accuse you."

Then Herbert overbore him, and he collapsed.
He was asked what he meant. Why was he so
excited? Of what did he accuse his wife. Each
time he spoke more feebly, and before long the
brother and sister were laughing at him. He
felt bewildered, like a boy who knows that he
is right but cannot put his case correctly. He
repeated, "I've never mentioned him to her. It's
a libel. Never in my life." And they cried, "My
dear Rickie, what an absurd fuss ! " Then his
brain cleared. His eye fell on the letter that
his wife had received from his aunt, and he
reopened the battle.

"Agnes, give me that letter, if you please."

"Mrs Jackson's?"

" My aunt's."

She put her hand on it, and looked at him
doubtfully. She saw that she had failed to bully
him.

"My aunt's letter," he repeated, rising to his
feet and bending over the table towards her.

"Why, dear?"

" Yes, why indeed ? " echoed Herbert. He too
had bullied Rickie, but from a purer motive : he
had tried to stamp out a dissension between
husband and wife. It was not the first time he
had intervened.

"The letter. For this reason: it will show me
what you have done. I believe you have ruined
Stephen. You have worked at it for two years.
You have put words into my mouth to 'turn
the scale' against him. He goes to Canada — and

256 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

all the world thinks it is owing to me. As I
said before — I advise you to stop smiling — you
have gone a little too far."

They were all on their feet now, standing
round the little table. Agnes said nothing, but
the fingers of her delicate hand tightened upon
the letter. When her husband snatched at it she
resisted, and with the effect of a harlequinade
everything went on the floor — lamb, mint sauce,
gooseberries, lemonade, whisky. At once they
were swamped in domesticities. She rang the
bell for the servant, cries arose, dusters were
brought, broken crockery (a wedding present)
picked up from the carpet ; while he stood wrath-
fully at the window, regarding the obscured sun's
decline.

"I must see her letter," he repeated, when the
agitation was over. He was too angry to be
diverted from his purpose. Only slight emotions
are thwarted by an interlude of farce.

"I've had enough of this quarrelling," she re-
torted. " You know that the Silts are inaccurate.
I think you might have given me the benefit of
the doubt. If you will know — have you for-
gotten that ride you took with him ? "

"I " he was again bewildered. "The ride

where I dreamt "

"The ride where you turned back because you
could not listen to a disgraceful poem?"

"I don't understand."

"The poem was Aunt Emily. He read it
to you and a stray soldier. Afterwards you
told me. You said, 'Really it is shocking, his
ingratitude. She ought to know about it.' She
does know, and I should be glad of an apology."

SAWSTON. 257

He had said something of the sort in a fit of
irritation. Mrs Silt was right — he had helped
to turn the scale.

"Whatever I said, you knew what I meant.
You knew I'd sooner cut my tongue out than
have it used against him. Even then." He
sighed. Had he ruined his brother? A curious
tenderness came over him, and passed when he
remembered his own dead child. " We have ruined
him, then. Have you any objection to ' we ' ? We
have disinherited him."

"I decide against you," interposed Herbert. "I
have now heard both sides of this deplorable
affair. You are talking most criminal nonsense.
' Disinherit ! ' Sentimental twaddle. It's been
clear to me from the first that Mrs Failing has
been imposed upon by the Wonham man, a
person with no legal claim on her, and any one
who exposes him performs a public duty "

" — And gets money."

" Money ? " He was always uneasy at the word.
" Who mentioned money ? "

"Just understand me, Herbert, and of what
it is that I accuse my wife." Tears came into
his eyes. "It is not that I like the Wonham
man, or think that he isn't a drunkard and
worse. He's too awful in every way. But he
ought to have my aunt's money, because he's
lived all his life with her, and is her nephew
as much as I am. You see, my father went
wrong." He stopped, amazed at himself. How
easy it had been to say ! He was withering
up : the power to care about this stupid secret
had died.

When Herbert understood, his first thought was

R

258 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

for Dunwood House. "Why have I never been
told?" was his first remark.

"We settled to tell no one," said Agnes.
" Rickie, in his anxiety to prove me a liar, has
broken his promise."

"I ought to have been told," said Herbert, his
anger increasing. " Had I known, I could have
averted this deplorable scene."

"Let me conclude it," said Rickie, again col-
lapsing and leaving the dining-room. His im-
pulse was to go straight to Cadover and make
a business - like statement of the position to
Stephen. Then the man would be armed, and
perhaps fight the two women successfully. But
he resisted the impulse. Why should he help
one power of evil against another? Let them
go intertwined to destruction. To enrich his
brother would be as bad as enriching himself.
If their aunt's money ever did come to him, he
would refuse to accept it. That was the easiest
and most dignified course. He troubled himself
no longer with justice or pity, and the next day
he asked his wife's pardon for his behaviour.

In the dining-room the conversation continued.
Agnes, without much difficulty, gained her brother
as an ally. She acknowledged that she had been
wrong in not telling him, and he then declared
that she had been right on every other point.
She slurred a little over the incident of her
treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clear-
sighted over details, though easily muddled in
a general survey. Mrs Failing had had plenty
of direct causes of complaint, and she dwelt on
these. She dealt, too, on the very handsome way
in which the young man, 'though he knew

SAWSTON. 259

nothing, and had never asked to know,' was
being treated by his aunt.

" ' Handsome ' is the word," said Herbert. " I
hope not indulgently. He does not deserve
indulgence."

And she knew that he, like herself, could re-
member money, and that it lent an acknow-
ledged halo to her cause.

"It is not a savoury subject," he continued,
with sudden stiffness. " I understand why Rickie
is so hysterical. My impulse" — he laid his hand
on her shoulder — "is to abandon it at once. But
if I am to be of any use to you, I must hear it
all. There are moments when we must look
facts in the face."

She did not shrink from the subject as much
as he thought, as much as she herself could have
wished. Two years before, it had filled her with
a physical loathing. But by now she had accus-
tomed herself to it.

"I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else
to hear. I have tried to find out again and
again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I
suppose it is natural. She wants to shield the
Elliot name. She only told us in a fit of temper ;
then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves ; then
Rickie again mismanaged her, and ever since she
has refused to let us know any details."

"A most unsatisfactory position."

"So I feel." She sat down again with a sigh.
Mrs Failing had been a great trial to her orderly
mind. "She is an odd woman. She is always
laughing. She actually finds it amusing that we
know no more."

" They are an odd family."

260 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"They are indeed."

Herbert, with unusual sweetness, bent down
and kissed her.

She thanked him.

Their tenderness soon passed. They exchanged
it with averted eyes. It embarrassed them. There
are moments for all of us when we seem obliged
to speak in a new unprofitable tongue. One
might fancy a seraph, vexed with our normal
language, who touches the pious to blasphemy,
the blasphemous to piety. The seraph passes,
and we proceed unaltered — conscious, however,
that we have not been ourselves, and that we
may fail in this function yet again. So Agnes
and Herbert, as they proceeded to discuss the
Jacksons' supper -party, had an uneasy memory
of spiritual deserts, spiritual streams.

XXVI.

Poor Mr Ansell was actually sitting in the garden
of Dunwood House. It was Sunday morning.
The air was full of roasting beef. The sound
of a manly hymn, taken very fast, floated over
the road from the school chapel. He frowned,
for he was reading a book, the Essays of Anthony
Eustace Failing.

He was here on account of this book — at least
so he told himself. It had just been published,
and the Jacksons were sure that Mr Elliot would
have a copy. For a book one may go anywhere.
It would not have been logical to enter Dunwood
House for the purpose of seeing Rickie, when

SAWSTON. 261

Rickie had not come to supper yesterday to see
him. He was at Sawston to assure himself of
his friend's grave. With quiet eyes he had in-
tended to view the sods, with unfaltering fingers
to inscribe the epitaph. Love remained. But in
high matters he was practical. He knew that it
would be useless to reveal it.

" Morning ! " said a voice behind him.

He saw no reason to reply to this superfluous
statement, and went on with his reading.

" Morning ! " said the voice again.

As for the Essays, the thought was somewhat
old-fashioned, and he picked many holes in it;
nor was he anything but bored by the prospect
of the brotherhood of man. However, Mr Failing
stuck to his guns, such as they were, and fired
from them several good remarks. Very notable
was his distinction between coarseness and vul-
garity (coarseness, revealing something ; vulgarity,
concealing something), and his avowed preference
for coarseness. Vulgarity, to him, had been the
primal curse, the shoddy reticence that prevents
man opening his heart to man, the power that
makes against equality. From it sprang all the
things that he hated — class shibboleths, ladies,
lidies, the game laws, the Conservative party —
all the things that accent the divergencies rather
than the similarities in human nature. Whereas
coarseness But at this point Herbert Pem-
broke had scrawled with a blue pencil : " Childish.
One reads no further."

" Morning ! " repeated the voice.

Ansell read further, for here was the book of
a man who had tried, however unsuccessfully, to
practice what he preached. Mrs Failing, in her

262 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Introduction, described with delicate irony his
difficulties as a landlord ; but she did not record
the love in which his name was held. Nor could
her irony touch him when he cried : " Attain the
practical through the unpractical. There is no
other road." Ansell was inclined to think that
the unpractical is its own reward, but he re-
spected those who attempted to journey beyond
it. We must all of us go over the mountains.
There is certainly no other road.

" Nice morning ! " said the voice.

It was not a nice morning, so Ansell felt bound
to speak. He answered: "No. Why?" A clod
of earth immediately struck him on the back.
He turned round indignantly, for he hated physi-
cal rudeness. A square man of ruddy aspect was
pacing the gravel path, his hands deep in his
pockets. He was very angry. Then he saw that
the clod of earth nourished a blue lobelia, and
that a wound of corresponding size appeared on
the pie-shaped bed. He was not so angry. " I
expect they will mind it," he reflected. Last
night, at the Jacksons', Agnes had displayed a
brisk pity that made him wish to wring her
neck. Maud had not exaggerated. Mr Pembroke
had patronised through a sorrowful voice and large
round eyes. Till he met these people he had
never been told that his career was a failure.
Apparently it was. They would never have been
civil to him if it had been a success, if they or
theirs had anything to fear from him.

In many ways Ansell was a conceited man ;
but he was never proud of being right. He had
foreseen Rickie's catastrophe from the first, but
derived from this no consolation. In many ways

SAWSTON. 263

he was pedantic ; but his pedantry lay close to
the vineyards of life — far closer than that fetich
Experience of the innumerable teacups. He had
a great many facts to learn, and before he died
he learnt a suitable quantity. But he never for-
got that the holiness of the heart's imagination
can alone classify these facts — can alone decide
which is an exception, which an example. " How
unpractical it all is ! " That was his comment on
Dun wood House. " How unbusiness-like ! They
live together without love. They work without
conviction. They seek money without requiring
it. They die, and nothing will have happened,
either for themselves or for others." It is a
comment that the academic mind will often
make when first confronted with the world.

But he was becoming illogical. The clod of
earth had disturbed him. Brushing the dirt off
his back, he returned to the book. What a curi-
ous aif air was the essay on " Gaps " ! Solitude,
star-crowned, pacing the fields of England, has a
dialogue with Seclusion. He, poor little man,
lives in the choicest scenery — among rocks, forests,
emerald lawns, azure lakes. To keep people out
he has built round his domain a high wall, on
which is graven his motto — "Procul este profani."
But he cannot enjoy himself. His only pleasure
is in mocking the absent Profane. They are in
his mind night and day. Their blemishes and
stupidities form the subject of his great poem,
"In the Heart of Nature." Then Solitude tells
him that so it always will be until he makes a
gap in the wall, and permits his seclusion to be
the sport of circumstance. He obeys. The Pro-
fane invade him ; but for short intervals they

264 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

wander elsewhere, and during those intervals the
heart of Nature is revealed to him.

This dialogue had really been suggested to Mr
Failing by a talk with his brother-in-law. It
also touched Ansell. He looked at the man who
had thrown the clod, and was now pacing with
obvious youth and impudence upon the lawn.
"Shall I improve my soul at his expense?" he
thought. "I suppose I had better." In friendly
tones he remarked, "Were you waiting for Mr
Pembroke?"

" No," said the young man. " Why ? "

Ansell, after a moment's admiration, flung the
Essays at him. They hit him in the back. The
next moment he lay on his own back in the
lobelia pie.

" But it hurts ! " he gasped, in the tones of a
puzzled civilisation. " What you do hurts ! " For
the young man was nicking him over the shins
with the rim of the book cover. "Little brute
— ee — ow ! "

" Then say Pax ! "

Something revolted in Ansell. Why should he
say Pax? Freeing his hand, he caught the little
brute under the chin, and was again knocked into
the lobelias by a blow on the mouth.

"Say Pax!" he repeated, pressing the philos-
opher's skull into the mould ; and he added, with
an anxiety that was somehow not offensive, "I
do advise you. You'd really better."

Ansell swallowed a little blood. He tried to
move, and he could not. He looked carefully
into the young man's eyes and into the palm
of his right hand, which at present swung un-
clenched, and he said " Pax ! "

SAWSTON. 265

"Shake hands!" said the other, helping him
up. There was nothing Ansell loathed so much
as the hearty Britisher; but he shook hands,
and they stared at each other awkwardly. With
civil murmurs they picked the little blue flowers
off each other's clothes. Ansell was trying to
remember why they had quarrelled, and the
young man was wondering why he had not
guarded his chin properly. In the distance a
hymn swung off —

" Fight the good . Fight with . All thy . Might."

They would be across from chapel soon.

" Your book, sir ? "

" Thank you, sir — yes."

" Why ! " cried the young man — " why, it's 'What
We Want ' ! At least the binding's exactly the
same."

" It's called ■ Essays,' " said Ansell.

"Then that's it. Mrs Failing, you see, she
wouldn't call it that, because three W's, you see,
in a row, she said, are vulgar, and sound like
Tolstoy, if you've heard of him."

Ansell confessed to an acquaintance, and then
said, "Do you think 'What We Want' vulgar?"
He was not at all interested, but he desired to
escape from the atmosphere of pugilistic courtesy,
more painful to him than blows themselves.

"It is the same book," said the other — "same
title, same binding." He weighed it like a brick
in his muddy hands.

"Open it to see if the inside corresponds," said
Ansell, swallowing a laugh and a little more blood
with it.

With a liberal allowance of thumb-marks, he

266 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

turned the pages over and read, " ' the rural

silence that is not a poet's luxury but a practical
need for all men.' Yes, it is the same book."
Smiling pleasantly over the discovery, he handed
it back to the owner.

"And is it true?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Is it true that rural silence is a practical
need?"

"Don't ask me!"

" Have you ever tried it ? "

"What?"

"Rural silence."

" A field with no noise in it, I suppose you mean.
I don't understand."

Ansell smiled, but a slight fire in the man's eye
checked him. After all, this was a person who
could knock one down. Moreover, there was no
reason why he should be teased. He had it in
him to retort "No. Why?" He was not stupid
in essentials. He was irritable — in Ansell's eyes
a frequent sign of grace. Sitting down on the
upturned seat, he remarked, "I like the book in
many ways. I don't think 'What We Want'
would have been a vulgar title. But I don't in-
tend to spoil myself on the chance of mending
the world, which is what the creed amounts to.
Nor am I keen on rural silences."

" Curse ! " he said thoughtfully, sucking at an
empty pipe.

"Tobacco?"

" Please."

"Rickie's is invariably filthy."

"Who says I know Rickie?"

"Well, you know his aunt. It's a possible

SAWSTON. 267

link. Be gentle with Rickie. Don't knock him
down if he doesn't think it's a nice morning."

The other was silent.

" Do you know him well ? "

"Kind of." He was not inclined to talk. The
wish to smoke was very violent in him, and
Ansell noticed how he gazed at the wreaths that
ascended from bowl and stem, and how, when
the stem was in his mouth, he bit it. He gave
the idea of an animal with just enough soul to
contemplate its own bliss. United with refine-
ment, such a type was common in Greece. It is
not common to-day, and Ansell was surprised to
find it in a friend of Rickie's. Rickie, if he could
even "kind of know" such a creature, must be
stirring in his grave.

" Do you know his wife too ? "

" Oh yes. In a way I know Agnes. But thank
you for this tobacco. Last night I nearly died.
I have no money."

"Take the whole pouch — do."

After a moment's hesitation he did. "Fight
the good " had scarcely ended, so quickly had
their intimacy grown.

"I suppose you're a friend of Rickie's?"

Ansell was tempted to reply, "I don't know
him at all." But it seemed no moment for the
severer truths, so he said, "I knew him well at
Cambridge, but I have seen very little of him
since."

"Is it true that his baby was lame ? "

" I believe so."

His teeth closed on his pipe. Chapel was over.
The organist was prancing through the voluntary,
and the first ripple of boys had already reached

268 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Dunwood House. In a few minutes the masters
would be here too, and Ansell, who was becoming
interested, hurried the conversation forward.

"Have you come far?"

"From Wiltshire. Do you know Wiltshire?"
And for the first time there came into his face
the shadow of a sentiment, the passing tribute
to some mystery. "It's a good country. I live
in one of the finest valleys out of Salisbury Plain.
I mean, I lived."

"Have you been dismissed from Cadover, with-
out a penny in your pocket?"

He was alarmed at this. Such knowledge
seemed simply diabolical. Ansell explained that
if his boots were chalky, if his clothes had ob-
viously been slept in, if he knew Mrs Failing, if
he knew Wiltshire, and if he could buy no tobacco
— then the deduction was possible. " You do just
attend," he murmured.

The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw,
to his regret, the head of Agnes over the thuyia
hedge that separated the small front garden from
the side lawn where he was sitting. After a
few minutes it was followed by the heads of
Rickie and Mr Pembroke. All the heads were
turned the other way. But they would find his
card in the hall, and if the man had left any
message they would find that too. "What are
you?" he demanded. "Who are you — your name
— I don't care about that. But it interests me
to class people, and up to now I have failed with
you."

" I " He stopped. Ansell reflected that there

are worse answers. "I really don't know what
I am. Used to think I was something special,

SAWSTON. 269

but strikes me now I feel much like other chaps.
Used to look down on the labourers. Used to
take for granted I was a gentleman, but really
I don't know where I do belong."

" One belongs to the place one sleeps in and
to the people one eats with."

"As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat
by myself, so that doesn't get you any further."

A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was
it only a pose to like this man, or was he really
wonderful? He was not romantic, for Romance
is a figure with outstretched hands, yearning for
the unattainable. Certain figures of the Greeks,
to whom we continually return, suggested him a
little. One expected nothing of him — no purity
of phrase nor swift edged thought. Yet the con-
viction grew that he had been back somewhere
— back to some table of the gods, spread in a
field where there is no noise, and that he be-
longed for ever to the guests with whom he had
eaten.

Meanwhile he was simple and frank, and what
he could tell he would tell to any one. He had
not the suburban reticence. Ansell asked him,
" Why did Mrs Failing turn you out of Cadover ?
I should like to hear that too."

" Because she was tired of me. Because, again,
I couldn't keep quiet over the farm hands. I ask
you, is it right?" He became incoherent. Ansell
caught, "And they grow old — they don't play
games — it ends they can't play." An illustration
emerged. " Take a kitten — if you fool about
with her, she goes on playing well into a cat."

"But Mrs Failing minded no mice being
caught."

270 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Mice?" said the young man blankly. "What
I was going to say is, that some one was jealous
of my being at Cadover. I'll mention no names,
but I fancy it was Mrs Silt. I'm sorry for her
if it was. Anyhow, she set Mrs Failing against
me. It came on the top of other things — and
out I went."

"What did Mrs Silt, whose name I don't
mention, say?"

He looked guilty. " I don't know. Easy enough
to find something to say. The point is that she
said something. You know, Mr — I don't know
your name, mine's Wonham, but I'm more grate-
ful than I can put it over this tobacco. I mean,
you ought to know there is another side to this
quarrel. It's wrong, but it's there."

Ansell told him not to be uneasy: he had al-
ready guessed that there might be another side.
But he could not make out why Mr Wonham
should have come straight from the aunt to the
nephew. They were now sitting on the up-
turned seat. 'What We Want,' a good deal
shattered, lay between them.

" On account of above-mentioned reasons, there
was a row. I don't know — you can guess the
style of thing. She wanted to treat me to the
colonies, and had up the parson to talk soft-
sawder and make out that a boundless continent
was the place for a lad like me. I said, 'I can't
run up to the Rings without getting tired, nor
gallop a horse out of this view without tiring it,
so what is the point of a boundless continent?'
Then I saw that she was frightened of me, and
bluffed a bit more, and in the end I was nipped.
She caught me — just like her — when I had nothing

SAWSTON. 271

on but flannels, and was coming into the house,
having licked the Cadchurch team. She stood
up in the doorway between those stone pilasters
and said, ' No ! Never again ! ' and behind her was
Wilbraham, whom I tried to turn out, and the
gardener, and poor old Leighton, who hates being
hurt. She said, 'There's a hundred pounds for
you at the London bank, and as much more in
December. Go ! ' I said, ' Keep your — money, and
tell me whose son I am.' I didn't care really. I
only said it on the off-chance of hurting her.
Sure enough, she caught on to the door-handle
(being lame) and said, 'I can't — I promised — I
don't really want to,' and Wilbraham did stare.
Then — she's very queer — she burst out laugh-
ing, and went for the packet after all, and we
heard her laugh through the window as she got
it. She rolled it at me down the steps, and she
says, 'A leaf out of the eternal comedy for you,
Stephen,' or something of that sort. I opened
it as I walked down the drive, she laughing
always and catching on to the handle of the
front door. Of course it wasn't comic at all.
But down in the village there were both cricket
teams, already a little tight, and the mad plumber
shouting « Rights of Man ! ' They knew I was
turned out. We did have a row, and kept it up
too. They daren't touch Wilbraham's windows,
but there isn't much glass left up at Cadover.
When you start, it's worth going on, but in the
end I had to cut. They subscribed a bob here
and a bob there, and these are Flea Thomp-
son's Sundays. I sent a line to Leighton not
to forward my own things : I don't fancy them.
They aren't really mine." He did not mention

272 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

his great symbolic act, performed, it is to be
feared, when he was rather drunk and the
friendly policeman was looking the other way.
He had cast all his flannels into the little mill-
pond, and then waded himself through the dark
cold water to the new clothes on the other side.
Some one had flung his pipe and his packet after
him. The packet had fallen short. For this
reason it was wet when he handed it to Ansell,
and ink that had been dry for twenty-three years
had begun to run again.

"I wonder if you're right about the hundred
pounds," said Ansell gravely. " It is pleasant to
be proud, but it is unpleasant to die in the night
through not having any tobacco."

" But I'm not proud. Look how I've taken your
pouch ! The hundred pounds was — well, can't you
see yourself, it was quite different ? It was, so to
speak, inconvenient for me to take the hundred
pounds. Or look again how I took a shilling from
a boy who earns nine bob a-week ! Proves pretty
conclusively I'm not proud."

Ansell saw it was useless to argue. He per-
ceived, beneath the slatternly use of words, the
man, — buttoned up in them, just as his body was
buttoned up in a shoddy suit, — and he wondered
more than ever that such a man should know
the Elliots. He looked at the face, which was
frank, proud, and beautiful, if truth is beauty.
Of mercy or tact such a face knew little. It
might be coarse, but it had in it nothing vulgar
or wantonly cruel. "May I read these papers?"
he said.

" Of course. Oh yes ; didn't I say ? I'm Rickie's
half-brother, come here to tell him the news. He

SAWSTON. 273

doesn't know. There it is, put shortly for you.
I was saying, though, that I bolted in the dark,
slept in the rifle-butts above Salisbury, — the sheds
where they keep the cardboard men, you know,
never locked up as they ought to be. I turned
the whole place upside down to teach them."

"Here is your packet again," said Ansell.
" Thank you. How interesting ! " He rose from
the seat and turned towards Dunwood House.
He looked at the bow-windows, the cheap pictur-
esque gables, the terra -cotta dragons clawing a
dirty sky. He listened to the clink of plates and
to the voice of Mr Pembroke taking one of his
innumerable roll-calls. He looked at the bed of
lobelias. How interesting ! What else was there
to say?

" One must be the son of some one," remarked
Stephen. And that was all he had to say. To
him those names on the moistened paper were
mere antiquities. He was neither proud of them
nor ashamed. A man must have parents, or he
cannot enter the delightful world. A man, if he
has a brother, may reasonably visit him, for they
may have interests in common. He continued his
narrative, — how in the night he had heard the
clocks, how at daybreak, instead of entering the
city, he had struck eastward to save money, — while
Ansell still looked at the house and found that
all his imagination and knowledge could lead him
no farther than this : how interesting !

" — And what do you think of that for a holy
horror ? "

"For a what?" said Ansell, his thoughts far
away.

"This man I am telling you about, who gave

s

274 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

me a lift towards Andover, who said I was a blot
on God's earth."

One o'clock struck. It was strange that neither
of them had had any summons from the house.

" He said I ought to be ashamed of myself. He
said, '711 not be the means of bringing shame
to an honest gentleman and lady.' I told him
not to be a fool. I said I knew what I was about.
Rickie and Agnes are properly educated, which
leads people to look at things straight, and
not go screaming about blots. A man like me,
with just a little reading at odd hours — I've got so
far, and Rickie has been through Cambridge."

"And Mrs Elliot?"

" Oh, she won't mind, and I told the man so ;
but he kept on saying, 'I'll not be the means of
bringing shame to an honest gentleman and lady,'
until I got out of his rotten cart." His eye
watched the man, a Nonconformist, driving away
over God's earth. " I caught the train by running.
I got to Waterloo at "

Here the parlour-maid fluttered towards them.
Would Mr Wonham come in? Mrs Elliot would
be glad to see him now.

"Mrs Elliot?" cried Ansell. "Not Mr Elliot?"

"It's all the same," said Stephen, and moved
towards the house. " You see, I only left my
name. They don't know why I've come."

"Perhaps Mr Elliot sees me meanwhile?"

The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr Elliot had
not said so. He had been with Mrs Elliot and
Mr Pembroke in the study. Now the gentlemen
had gone upstairs.

"All right, I can wait." After all, Rickie was
treating him as he had treated Rickie, as one

SAWSTON. 275

in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any-
loving motion. Gone upstairs — to brush his hair
for dinner ! The irony of the situation appealed
to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek
Drama, where the actors know so little and the
spectators so much.

"But, by the bye," he called after Stephen, "I

think I ought to tell you — don't "

"What is it?"

"Don't " Then he was silent. He had been

tempted to explain everything, to tell the fellow
how things stood, — that he must avoid this if he
wanted to attain that ; that he must break the
news to Rickie gently ; that he must have at least
one battle royal with Agnes. But it was con-
trary to his own spirit to coach people : he held
the human soul to be a very delicate thing, which
can receive eternal damage from a little patron-
age. Stephen must go into the house simply as
himself, for thus alone would he remain there.
" I ought to knock my pipe out ? Was that it ? "
" By no means. Go in, your pipe and you."
He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire.
Then he followed the parlour-maid into the house
smoking. As he entered the dinner-bell rang, and
there was the sound of rushing feet, which died
away into shuffling and silence. Through the
window of the boys' dining-hall came the colour-
less voice of Rickie —

" * Benedictus benedicat.' "

Ansell prepared himself to witness the second
act of the drama ; forgetting that all this world,
and not part of it, is a stage.

276 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

XXVII.

The parlour - maid took Mr Wonham to the
study. He had been in the drawing-room before,
but had got bored, and so had strolled out into
the garden. Now he was in better spirits, as a
man ought to be who has knocked down a man.
As he passed through the hall he sparred at the
teak monkey, and hung his cap on the bust of
Hermes. And he greeted Mrs Elliot with a
pleasant clap of laughter. " Oh, I've come with
the most tremendous news ! " he cried.

She bowed, but did not shake hands, which
rather surprised him. But he never troubled
over " details." He seldom watched people, and
never thought that they were watching him.
Nor could he guess how much it meant to her
that he should enter her presence smoking. Had
she not said once at Cadover, " Oh, please smoke ;
I love the smell of a pipe"?

"Would you sit down? Exactly there, please."
She placed him at a large table, opposite an ink-
pot and a pad of blotting-paper. "Will you tell
your ' tremendous news ' to me ? My brother and
my husband are giving the boys their dinner."

" Ah ! " said Stephen, who had had neither time
nor money for breakfast in London.

"I told them not to wait for me."

So he came to the point at once. He trusted this
handsome woman. His strength and his youth
called to hers, expecting no prudish response.
"It's very odd. It is that I'm Rickie's brother.
I've just found out. I've come to tell you all,"

SAWSTON. 277

"Yes?"

He felt in his pocket for the papers. " Half-
brother I ought to have said."

"Yes?"

"I'm illegitimate. Legally speaking, that is,
I've been turned out of Cadover. I haven't a
penny. I "

"There is no occasion to inflict the details."
Her face, which had been an even brown, began
to flush slowly in the centre of the cheeks. The
colour spread till all that he saw of her was
suffused, and she turned away. He thought he
had shocked her, and so did she. Neither knew
that the body can be insincere and express not
the emotions we feel but those that we should
like to feel. In reality she was quite calm, and
her dislike of him had nothing emotional in it
as yet.

" You see " he began. He was determined to

tell the fidgety story, for the sooner it was over the
sooner they would have something to eat. Deli-
cacy he lacked, and his sympathies were limited.
But such as they were, they rang true : he put no
decorous phantom between him and his desires.

"I do see. I have seen for two years." She
sat down at the head of the table, where
there was another ink-pot. Into this she dipped
a pen. " I have seen everything, Mr Wonham —
who you are, how you have behaved at Cadover,
how you must have treated Mrs Failing yester-
day; and now" — her voice became very grave —
"I see why you have come here, penniless. Be-
fore you speak, we know what you will say."

His mouth fell open, and he laughed so merrily
that it might have given her a warning. But

278 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

she was thinking how to follow up her first suc-
cess. " And I thought I was bringing tremendous
news ! " he cried. " I only twisted it out of Mrs
Failing last night. And Rickie knows too?"

"We have known for two years."

"But come, by the bye, if you've known for

two years, how is it you didn't " The laugh

died out of his eyes. "You aren't ashamed?" he
asked, half rising from his chair. "You aren't
like the man towards Andover?"

"Please, please sit down," said Agnes, in the
even tones she used when speaking to the servants ;
"let us not discuss side issues. I am a horribly
direct person, Mr Wonham. I go always straight
to the point." She opened a cheque-book. "I
am afraid I shall shock you. For how much?"

He was not attending.

"There is the paper we suggest you shall sign."
She pushed towards him a pseudo-legal document,
just composed by Herbert.

"'In consideration of the sum of , I agree

to perpetual silence — to restrain from libellous
. . . never to molest the said Frederick Elliot by
intruding ' "

His brain was not quick. He read the docu-
ment over twice, and he could still say, "But
what's that cheque for?"

"It is my husband's. He signed for you as
soon as we heard you were here. We guessed
you had come to be silenced. Here is his signa-
ture. But he has left the filling in for me. For
how much ? I will cross it, shall I ? You will
just have started a banking account, if I under-
stand Mrs Failing rightly. It is not quite accurate

SAWSTON. 279

to say you are penniless : I heard from her just
before you returned from your cricket. She allows
you two hundred a-year, I think. But this addi-
tional sum — shall I date the cheque Saturday or
for to-morrow?"

At last he found words. Knocking his pipe
out on the table, he said slowly, "Here's a very
bad mistake."

"It is quite possible," retorted Agnes. She
was glad she had taken the offensive, instead of
waiting till he began his blackmailing, as had
been the advice of Rickie. Aunt Emily had said
that very spring, " One's only hope with Stephen
is to start bullying first." Here he was, quite
bewildered, smearing the pipe -ashes with his
thumb. He asked to read the document again.
" A stamp and all ! " he remarked.

They had anticipated that his claim would ex-
ceed two pounds.

" I see. All right. It takes a fool a minute.
Never mind. I've made a bad mistake."

" You refuse ? " she exclaimed, for he was stand-
ing at the door. "Then do your worst! We
defy you ! "

"That's all right, Mrs Elliot," he said roughly.
"I don't want a scene with you, nor yet with
your husband. We'll say no more about it. It's
all right. I meant no harm."

"But your signature then! You must sign —
you "

He pushed past her, and said as he reached for
his cap, " There, that's all right. It's my mistake.
I'm sorry." He spoke like a farmer who has failed
to sell a sheep. His manner was utterly prosaic,
and up to the last she thought he had not under-

280 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

stood her. " But it's money we offer you," she
informed him, and then darted back to the study,
believing for one terrible moment that he had
picked up the blank cheque. When she returned to
the hall he had gone. He was walking down the
road rather quickly. At the corner he cleared
his throat, spat into the gutter, and disappeared.

" There's an odd finish," she thought. She was
puzzled, and determined to recast the interview a
little when she related it to Rickie. She had not
succeeded, for the paper was still unsigned. But
she had so cowed Stephen that he would prob-
ably rest content with his two hundred a-year,
and never come troubling them again. Clever
management, for one knew him to be rapacious :
she had heard tales of him lending to the poor
and exacting repayment to the uttermost farthing.
He had also stolen at school. Moderately triumph-
ant, she hurried into the side -garden: she had
just remembered Ansell : she, not Rickie, had re-
ceived his card.

" Oh, Mr Ansell ! " she exclaimed, awaking him
from some day-dream. " Haven't either Rickie or
Herbert been out to you? Now, do come into
dinner, to show you aren't offended. You will
find all of us assembled in the boys' dining-hall."

To her annoyance he accepted.

"That is, if the Jacksons are not expecting
you."

The Jacksons did not matter. If he might
brush his clothes and bathe his lip, he would like
to come.

"Oh, what has happened to you? And oh, my
pretty lobelias ! "

He replied, " A momentary contact with reality,"

SAWSTON. 281

and she, who did not look for sense in his remarks,
hurried away to the dining-hall to announce him.

The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation
room. There was the same parquet floor, and dado
of shiny pitch-pine. On its walls also were im-
perial portraits, and over the harmonium to which
they sang the evening hymns was spread the
Union Jack. Sunday dinner, the most pompous
meal of the week, was in progress. Her brother
sat at the head of the high table, her husband
at the head of the second. To each she gave a
reassuring nod and went to her own seat, which
was among the junior boys. The beef was being
carried out ; she stopped it. " Mr Ansell is com-
ing," she called. "Herbert, there is more room
by you ; sit up straight, boys." The boys sat up
straight, and a respectful hush spread over the
room.

" Here he is ! " called Rickie cheerfully, taking
his cue from his wife. "Oh, this is splendid!"
Ansell came in. "I'm so glad you managed this.
I couldn't leave these wretches last night ! " The
boys tittered suitably. The atmosphere seemed
normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear
what had happened to the blackmailer, gave ade-
quate greeting to their guest : " Come in, Mr
Ansell ; come here. Take us as you find us ! "

"I understood," said Stewart, "that I should
find you all. Mrs Elliot told me I should. On
that understanding I came."

It was at once evident that something had gone
wrong.

Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then
clearing his throat and ruffling his hair, he
began —

282 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"I cannot see the man with whom I have
talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden."

The worst of it was they were all so far from
him and from each other, each at the end of a
tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters
looked at Agnes for information, for her reassur-
ing nod had not told them much. She looked
hopelessly back.

"I cannot see this man," repeated Ansell, who
remained by the harmonium in the midst of
astonished waitresses. "Is he to be given no
lunch?"

Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings.
Rickie knew that the contest was lost, and that
his friend had sided with the enemy. It was
the kind of thing he would do. One must face
the catastrophe quietly and with dignity. Per-
haps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and
left behind him only vague suspicions, if Mrs
Elliot had not tried to talk him down. " Man,"
she cried — " what man ? Oh, I know — terrible
bore ! Did he get hold of you ? " — thus com-
mitting their first blunder, and causing Ansell to
say to Rickie, "Have you seen your brother?"

"I have not."

" Have you been told he was here ? "

Rickie's answer was inaudible.

" Have you been told you have a brother ? "

" Let us continue this conversation later."

"Continue it? My dear man, how can we until
you know what I'm talking about? You must
think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you
have a brother of whom you've never heard, and
that he was in this house ten minutes ago." He
paused impressively. "Your wife has happened

SAWSTON. 283

to see him first. Being neither serious nor truth-
ful, she is keeping you apart, telling him some
lie and not telling you a word."

There was a murmur of alarm. One of the
prefects rose, and Ansell set his back to the wall,
quite ready for a battle. For two years he had
waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at
Mrs Elliot like any ploughboy now that it had
come. Rickie said : " There is a slight misunder-
standing. I, like my wife, have known what
there is to know for two years " — a dignified
rebuff, but their second blunder.

" Exactly," said Agnes. " Now I think Mr Ansell
had better go."

" Go ? " exploded Ansell. " I've everything to
say yet. I beg your pardon, Mrs Elliot, I am
concerned with you no longer. This man" — he
turned to the avenue of faces — "this man who
teaches you has a brother. He has known of
him two years and been ashamed. He has — oh
— oh — how it fits together ! Rickie, it's you, not
Mrs Silt, who must have sent tales of him to your
aunt. It's you who've turned him out of Cadover.
It's you who've ordered him to be ruined to-day.
Mrs Elliot, I beg your pardon."

Now Herbert arose. "Out of my sight, sir!
But have it from me first that Rickie and his
aunt have both behaved most generously. No,
no, Agnes, I will not be interrupted. Garbled
versions must not get about. If the Wonham
man is not satisfied now, he must be insatiable.
He cannot levy blackmail on us for ever. Sir, I
give you two minutes ; then you will be expelled
by force."

" Two minutes ! " sang Ansell. " I can say a

284 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

great deal in that." He put one foot on a chair
and held his arms over the quivering room.
He seemed transfigured into a Hebrew prophet
passionate for satire and the truth. " Oh, keep
quiet for two minutes," he cried, "and I'll tell
you something you'll be glad to hear. You're a
little afraid Stephen may come back. Don't
be afraid. I bring good news. You'll never
see him nor any one like him again. I must
speak very plainly, for you are all three fools.
I don't want you to say afterwards, 'Poor Mr
Ansell tried to be clever.' Generally I don't
mind, but I should mind to-day. Please listen.
Stephen is a bully ; he drinks ; he knocks one
down ; but he would sooner die than take money
from people he did not love. Perhaps he will
die, for he has nothing but a few pence that the
poor gave him and some tobacco which, to my
eternal glory, he accepted from me. Please listen
again. Why did he come here? Because he
thought you would love him, and was ready to
love you. But I tell you, don't be afraid. He
would sooner die now than say you were
his brother. Perhaps he will die, for he has
nothing but a few pence that the poor gave him
and some tobacco which, to my eternal glory, he

accepted from me. Please listen again "

"Now, Stewart, don't go on like that," said
Rickie bitterly. " It's easy enough to preach
when you are an outsider. You would be more
charitable if such a thing had happened to your-
self. Easy enough to be unconventional when
you haven't suffered and know nothing of the
facts. You love anything out of the way, any-
thing queer, that doesn't often happen, and so

SAWSTON. 285

you get excited over this. It's useless, my dear
man ; you have hurt me, but you will never
upset me. As soon as you stop this ridiculous
scene we will finish our dinner. Spread this
scandal ; add to it. I'm too old to mind such
nonsense. I cannot help my father's disgrace, on
the one hand ; nor, on the other, will I have
anything to do with his blackguard of a son."

So the secret was given to the world. Agnes
might colour at his speech ; Herbert might cal-
culate the effect of it on the entries for Dunwood
House ; but he cared for none of these things.
Thank God ! he was withered up at last.

''Please listen again," resumed Ansell. "Please
correct two slight mistakes : firstly, Stephen is one
of the greatest people I have ever met ; secondly,
he's not your father's son. He's the son of your
mother."

It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried
from the hall, and it was Herbert who pronounced
the blessing —

" Benedicto benedicatur."

A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and
the boys, slipping away from their meal, told the
news to the rest of the school, or put it in the
letters they were writing home.

XXVIII.

The soul has her own currency. She mints her
spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image
of some beloved face. With it she pays her

286 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

debts, with it she reckons, saying, " This man
has worth, this man is worthless." And in time
she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a
thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also
have her bankruptcies.

Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In
her agony she learns to reckon clearly. Fair as
the coin may have been, it was not accurate ;
and though she knew it not, there were treasures
that it could not buy. The face, however beloved,
was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to
err. We do but shift responsibility by making a
standard of the dead.

There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on
it not man's image but God's. It is incorruptible,
and the soul may trust it safely; it will serve
her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us
friends, or the embrace of a lover, or the touch
of children, for with our fellow-mortals it has
no concern. It cannot even give the joys we
call trivial — fine weather, the pleasures of meat
and drink, bathing and the hot sand afterwards,
running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the
true discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to
such coinage as this ? Will it really profit us
so much if we save our souls and lose the whole
world ?

PART IIL-WILTSHIRE.

XXIX.

Robert — there is no occasion to mention his
surname : he was a young farmer of some educa-
tion who tried to coax the aged soil of Wiltshire
scientifically — came to Cadover on business and
fell in love with Mrs Elliot. She was there on
her bridal visit, and he, an obscure nobody, was
received by Mrs Failing into the house and
treated as her social equal. He was good-look-
ing in a bucolic way, and people sometimes mis-
took him for a gentleman until they saw his
hands. He discovered this, and one of the slow,
gentle jokes he played on society was to talk
upon some cultured subject with his hands be-
hind his back and then suddenly reveal them.
"Do you go in for boating?" the lady would
ask; and then he explained that those particular
weals are made by the handles of the plough.
Upon which she became extremely interested, but
found an early opportunity of talking to some
one else.

He played this joke on Mrs Elliot the first
evening, not knowing that she observed him as

288 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

he entered the room, He walked heavily, lifting
his feet as if the carpet was furrowed, and he
had no evening clothes. Every one tried to put
him at his ease, but she rather suspected that
he was there already, and envied him. They
were introduced, and spoke of Byron, who was
still fashionable. Out came his hands — the only
rough hands in the drawing-room, the only
hands that had ever worked. She was filled
with some strange approval, and liked him.

After dinner they met again, to speak not of
Byron but of manure. The other people were so
clever and so amusing that it relieved her to
listen to a man who told her three times not
to buy artificial manure ready made, but, if she
would use it, to make it herself at the last
moment. Because the ammonia evaporated. Here
were two packets of powder. Did they smell?
No. Mix them together and pour some coffee —
An appalling smell at once burst forth, and
every one began to cough and cry. This was
good for the earth when she felt sour, for he
knew when the earth was ill. He knew, too,
when she was hungry : he spoke of her tantrums
— the strange unscientific element in her that
will baffle the scientist to the end of time.
" Study away, Mrs Elliot," he told her ; " read
all the books you can get hold of; but when it
comes to the point, stroll out with a pipe in
your mouth and do a bit of guessing." As he
talked, the earth became a living being — or
rather a being with a living skin, — and manure
no longer dirty stuff, but a symbol of regen-
eration and of the birth of life from life. "So
it goes on for ever ! " she cried excitedly. He

WILTSHIRE. 289

replied : " Not for ever. In time the fire at
the centre will cool, and nothing can go on
then."

He advanced into love with open eyes, slowly,
heavily, just as he had advanced across the
drawing-room carpet. But this time the bride
did not observe his tread. She was listening to
her husband, and trying not to be so stupid.
When he was close to her — so close that it was
difficult not to take her in his arms — he spoke
to Mr Failing, and was at once turned out of
Cadover.

"I'm sorry," said Mr Failing, as he walked
down the drive with his hand on his guest's
shoulder. "I had no notion you were that sort.
Any one who behaves like that has to stop at
the farm."

"Any one?"

"Any one." He sighed heavily, not for any
personal grievance, but because he saw how
unruly, how barbaric, is the soul of man. After
all, this man was more civilised than most.

"Are you angry with me, sir?" He called him
" sir," not because he was richer or cleverer or
smarter, not because he had helped to educate
him and had lent him money, but for a reason
more profound — for the reason that there are
gradations in heaven.

"I did think you — that a man like you wouldn't
risk making people unhappy. My sister-in-law
— I don't say this to stop you loving her; some-
thing else must do that — my sister-in-law, as far
as I know, doesn't care for you one little bit.
If you had said anything, if she had guessed
that a chance person was in this fearful state,

T

290 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

you would simply have opened hell. A woman
of her sort would have lost all "

"I knew that."

Mr Failing removed his hand. He was dis-
pleased.

"But something here," said Robert incoherently.
"This here." He struck himself heavily on the
heart. "This here, doing something so unusual,

makes it not matter what she loses — I "

After a silence he asked, "Have I quite followed
you, sir, in that business of the brotherhood of
man ? "

"How do you mean?"

"I thought love was to bring it about."

"Love of another man's wife? Sensual love?
You have understood nothing — nothing." Then
he was ashamed, and cried, "I understand noth-
ing myself." For he remembered that sensual
and spiritual are not easy words to use ; that
there are, perhaps, not two Aphrodites, but one
Aphrodite with a Janus face. " I only understand
that you must try to forget her."

"I will not try."

" Promise me just this, then — not to do anything
crooked."

"I'm straight. No boasting, but I couldn't do
a crooked thing — no, not if I tried."

And so appallingly straight was he in after
years, that Mr Failing wished that he had
phrased the promise differently.

Robert simply waited. He told himself that it
was hopeless ; but something deeper than himself
declared that there was hope. He gave up drink,
and kept himself in all ways clean, for he wanted
to be worthy of her when the time came. Women

WILTSHIRE. 291

seemed fond of him, and caused him to reflect
with pleasure, "They do run after me. There
must be something in me. Good. I'd be done
for if there wasn't." For six years he turned up
the earth of Wiltshire, and read books for the
sake of his mind, and talked to gentlemen for
the sake of their patois, and each year he rode
to Cadover to take off his hat to Mrs Elliot, and,
perhaps, to speak to her about the crops. Mr
Failing was generally present, and it struck
neither man that those dull little visits were so
many words out of which a lonely woman might
build sentences. Then Robert went to London
on business. He chanced to see Mr Elliot with
a strange lady. The time had come.

He became diplomatic, and called at Mr Elliot's
rooms to find things out. For if Mrs Elliot was
happier than he could ever make her, he would
withdraw, and love her in renunciation. But if he
could make her happier, he would love her in
fulfilment. Mr Elliot admitted him as a friend
of his brother-in-law's, and felt very broad-
minded as he did so. Robert, however, was a
success. The youngish men there found him
interesting, and liked to shock him with tales
of naughty London and naughtier Paris. They
spoke of " experience " and " sensations " and
"seeing life," and when a smile ploughed over
his face, concluded that his prudery was van-
quished. He saw that they were much less
vicious than they supposed : one boy had obvious-
ly read his sensations in a book. But he could
pardon vice. What he could not pardon was
triviality, and he hoped that no decent woman
would pardon it either. There grew up in him a

292 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

cold, steady anger against these silly people who
thought it advanced to be shocking, and who
described, as something particularly choice and
educational, things that he had understood and
fought against for years. He inquired after Mrs
Elliot, and a boy tittered. It seemed that she
" did not know " that she lived in a remote
suburb, taking care of a skinny baby. "I shall
call some time or other," said Robert. " Do," said
Mr Elliot, smiling. And next time he saw his wife
he congratulated her on her rustic admirer.

She had suffered terribly. She had asked for
bread, and had been given not even a stone.
People talk of hungering for the ideal, but there
is another hunger, quite as divine, for facts.
She had asked for facts and had been given
"views," "emotional standpoints," "attitudes to-
wards life." To a woman who believed that facts
are beautiful, that the living world is beautiful
beyond the laws of beauty, that manure is neither
gross nor ludicrous, that a fire, not eternal, glows
at the heart of the earth, it was intolerable to
be put off with what the Elliots called "phil-
osophy," and, if she refused, to be told that she
had no sense of humour. "Marrying into the
Elliot family." It had sounded so splendid, for
she was a penniless child with nothing to offer,
and the Elliots held their heads high. For what
reason ? What had they ever done, except say
sarcastic things, and limp, and be refined? Mr
Failing suffered too, but she suffered more, inas-
much as Frederick was more impossible than
Emily. He did not like her, he practically lived
apart, he was not even faithful or polite. These
were grave faults, but they were human ones : she

WILTSHIRE. 293

could even imagine them in a man she loved.
What she could never love was a dilettante.

Robert brought her an armful of sweet-peas.
He laid it on the table, put his hands behind his
back, and kept them there till the end of the
visit. She knew quite well why he had come, and
though she also knew that he would fail, she
loved him too much to snub him or to stare in
virtuous indignation. "Why have you come?"
she asked gravely, "and why have you brought
me so many flowers?"

"My garden is full of them," he answered.
" Sweet-peas need picking down. And, generally
speaking, flowers are plentiful in July."

She broke his present into bunches — so much
for the drawing-room, so much for the nursery,
so much for the kitchen and her husband's room :
he would be down for the night. The most
beautiful she would keep for herself. Presently
he said, " Your husband is no good. I've watched
him for a week. I'm thirty, and not what you
call hasty, as I used to be, or thinking that
nothing matters like the French. No. I'm a

plain Britisher, yet — I I've begun wrong end,

Mrs Elliot ; I should have said that I've thought
chiefly of you for six years, and that though I
talk here so respectfully, if I once unhooked my
hands "

There was a pause. Then she said with great
sweetness, " Thank you ; I am glad you love me,"
and rang the bell.

"What have you done that for?" he cried.

"Because you must now leave the house, and
never enter it again."

" I don't go alone," and he began to get furious.

294 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Her voice was still sweet, but strength lay in
it too, as she said, " You either go now with my
thanks and my blessing, or else you go with the
police. I am Mrs Elliot. We need not discuss
Mr Elliot. I am Mrs Elliot, and if you make one
step towards me I give you in charge."

But the maid answered the bell not of the
drawing-room, but of the front door. They were
joined by Mr Elliot, who held out his hand with
much urbanity. It was not taken. He looked
quickly at his wife, and said, "Am I de trop?"
There was a long silence. At last she said, " Fred-
erick, turn this man out."

"My love, why?"

Robert said that he loved her.

" Then I am de trop" said Mr Elliot, smoothing
out his gloves. He would give these sodden bar-
barians a lesson. " My hansom is waiting at the
door. Pray make use of it."

" Don't ! " she cried, almost affectionately. " Dear
Frederick, it isn't a play. Just tell this man to
go, or send for the police."

"On the contrary; it is French comedy of the
best type. Don't you agree, sir, that the police
would be an inartistic error?" He was perfectly
calm and collected, whereas they were in a
pitiable state.

"Turn him out at once!" she cried. "He has
insulted your wife. Save me, save me ! " She
clung to her husband and wept. " He was going
— I had managed him — he would never have

known " Mr Elliot repulsed her.

" If you don't feel inclined to start at once," he
said with easy civility, "let us have a little tea.
My dear sir, do forgive me for not shooting you.

WILTSHIRE. 295

Nous avons change tout cela. Please don't look so
nervous. Please do unclasp your hands "

He was alone.

" That's all right," he exclaimed, and strolled to
the door. The hansom was disappearing round
the corner. "That's all right," he repeated in
more quavering tones as he returned to the
drawing-room and saw that it was littered with
sweet - peas. Their colour got on his nerves —
magenta, crimson ; magenta, crimson. He tried to
pick them up, and they escaped. He trod them
underfoot, and they multiplied and danced in the
triumph of summer like a thousand butterflies.
The train had left when he got to the station.
He followed on to London, and there he lost all
traces. At midnight he began to realise that his
wife could never belong to him again.

Mr Failing had a letter from Stockholm. It
was never known what impulse sent them there.
"I am sorry about it all, but it was the only
way." The letter censured the law of England,
" which obliges us to behave like this, or else we
should never get married. I shall come back to
face things : she will not come back till she is my
wife. He must bring an action soon, or else we
shall try one against him. It seems all very un-
conventional, but it is not really. It is only a
difficult start. We are not like you or your wife :
we want to be just ordinary people, and make
the farm pay, and not be noticed all our lives."

And they were capable of living as they wanted.
The class difference, which so intrigued Mrs
Failing, meant very little to them. It was there,
but so were other things. They both cared for
work and living in the open, and for not speaking

296 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

unless they had got something to say. Their love
of beauty, like their love for each other, was not
dependent on detail : it grew not from the nerves
but from the soul.

" I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of

the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and

the egg of the wren,
And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of

heaven."

They had never read these lines, and would
have thought them nonsense if they had. They
did not dissect — indeed they could not. But she,
at all events, divined that more than perfect
health and perfect weather, more than personal
love, had gone to the making of those seventeen
days. -

" Ordinary people ! " cried Mrs Failing on hearing
the letter. At that time she was young and dar-
ing. " Why, they're divine ! They're forces of
Nature ! They're as ordinary as volcanoes. We
all knew my brother was disgusting, and wanted
him to be blown to pieces, but we never thought
it would happen. Do look at the thing bravely,
and say, as I do, that they are guiltless in the
sight of God."

"I think they are," replied her husband. "But
they are not guiltless in the sight of man."

" You conventional ! " she exclaimed in disgust.

" What they have done means misery not only
for themselves but for others. For your brother,
though you will not think of him. For the little
boy — did you think of him ? And perhaps for
another child, who will have the whole world

WILTSHIRE. 297

against him if it knows. They have sinned against
society, and you do not diminish the misery by
proving that society is bad or foolish. It is the
saddest truth I have yet perceived that the
Beloved Republic" — here she took up a book —
"of which Swinburne speaks" — she put the book
down — " will not be brought about by love alone.
It will approach with no nourish of trumpets,
and have no declaration of independence. Self-
sacrifice and — worse still — self-mutilation are the
things that sometimes help it most, and that is
why we should start for Stockholm this evening."
He waited for her indignation to subside, and
then continued. "I don't know whether it can
be hushed up. I don't yet know whether it ought
to be hushed up. But we ought to provide the
opportunity. There is no scandal yet. If we go,
it is just possible there never will be any. We
must talk over the whole thing and "

" — And lie ! " interrupted Mrs Failing, who hated
travel.

" — And see how to avoid the greatest un-
happiness."

There was to be no scandal. By the time they
arrived Robert had been drowned. Mrs Elliot
described how they had gone swimming, and how,
"since he always lived inland," the great waves
had tired him. They had raced for the open sea.

"What are your plans?" he asked. "I bring
you a message from Frederick."

"I heard him call," she continued, "but I
thought he was laughing. When I turned, it was
too late. He put his hands behind his back and
sank. For he would only have drowned me with
him. I should have done the same."

298 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Mrs Failing was thrilled, and kissed her. But
Mr Failing knew that life does not continue heroic
for long, and he gave her the message from her
husband: Would she come back to him?

To his intense astonishment — at first to his
regret — she replied, "I will think about it. If I
loved him the very least bit I should say no. If I
had anything to do with my life I should say no.
But it is simply a question of beating time till
I die. Nothing that is coming matters. I may
as well sit in his drawing-room and dust his
furniture, since he has suggested it."

And Mr Elliot, though he made certain stipula-
tions, was positively glad to see her. People had
begun to laugh at him, and to say that his wife
had run away. She had not. She had been with
his sister in Sweden. In a half miraculous way
the matter was hushed up. Even the Silts only
scented " something strange." When Stephen was
born, it was abroad. When he came to England, it
was as the child of a friend of Mr Failing's. Mrs
Elliot returned unsuspected to her husband.

But though things can be hushed up, there is
no such thing as beating time ; and as the years
passed she realised her terrible mistake. When
her lover sank, eluding her last embrace, she
thought, as Agnes was to think after her, that
her soul had sunk with him, and that never again
should she be capable of earthly love. Nothing
mattered. She might as well go and be useful
to her husband and to the little boy who looked
exactly like him, and who, she thought, was
exactly like him in disposition. Then Stephen
was born, and altered her life. She could still
love people passionately; she still drew strength

WILTSHIRE. 299

from the heroic past. Yet, to keep to her bond,
she must see this son only as a stranger. She
was protected by the conventions, and must pay
them their fee. And a curious thing happened.
Her second child drew her towards her first. She
began to love Rickie also, and to be more than
useful to him. And as her love revived, so did
her capacity for suffering. Life, more important,
grew more bitter. She minded her husband more,
not less ; and when at last he died, and she saw
a glorious autumn, beautiful with the voices of
boys who should call her mother, the end came
for her as well, before she could remember the
grave in the alien north and the dust that would
never return to the dear fields that had given it.

XXX.

Stephen, the son of these people, had one in-
stinct that troubled him. At night — especially
out of doors — it seemed rather strange that he
was alive. The dry grass pricked his cheek, the
fields were invisible and mute, and here was he,
throwing stones at the darkness or smoking a
pipe. The stones vanished, the pipe would burn
out. But he would be here in the morning when
the sun rose, and he would bathe, and run in
the mist. He was proud of his good circulation,
and in the morning it seemed quite natural. But
at night, why should there be this difference be-
tween him and the acres of land that cooled all
round him until the sun returned? What lucky

300 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

chance had heated him up, and sent him, warm
and lovable, into a passive world ? He had other
instincts, but these gave him no trouble. He
simply gratified each as it occurred, provided he
could do so without grave injury to his fellows.
But the instinct to wonder at the night was not
to be thus appeased.

At first he had lived under the care of Mr
Failing — the only person to whom his mother
spoke freely, the only person who had treated
her neither as a criminal nor as a pioneer. In
their rare but intimate conversations she had
asked him to educate her son. "I will teach
him Latin," he answered. "The rest such a boy
must remember." Latin, at all events, was a
failure : who could attend to Virgil when the
sound of the thresher arose, and you knew that the
stack was decreasing and that rats rushed more
plentifully each moment to their doom? But he
was fond of Mr Failing, and cried when he died.
Mrs Elliot, a pleasant woman, died soon after.

There was something fatal in the order of
these deaths. Mr Failing had made no provision
for the boy in his will : his wife had promised to
see to this. Then came Mr Elliot's death, and,
before the new home was created, the sudden
death of Mrs Elliot. She also left Stephen no
money: she had none to leave. Chance threw
him into the power of Mrs Failing. "Let things
go on as they are," she thought. "I will take
care of this pretty little boy, and the ugly little
boy can live with the Silts. After my death —
well, the papers will be found after my death,
and they can meet then. I like the idea of their
mutual ignorance. It is amusing."

WILTSHIRE. 301

He was then twelve. With a few brief in-
tervals of school, he lived in Wiltshire until he
was driven out. Life had two distinct sides — the
drawing-room and the other. In the drawing-
room people talked a good deal, laughing as
they talked. Being clever, they did not care for
animals : one man had never seen a hedgehog.
In the other life people talked and laughed
separately, or even did neither. On the whole, in
spite of the wet and gamekeepers, this life was
preferable. He knew where he was. He glanced
at the boy, or later at the man, and behaved
accordingly. There was no law — the policeman
was negligible. Nothing bound him but his own
word, and he gave that sparingly.

It is impossible to be romantic when you have
your heart's desire, and such a boy disappointed
Mrs Failing greatly. His parents had met for
one brief embrace, had found one little interval
between the power of the rulers of this world
and the power of death. He was the child of
poetry and of rebellion, and poetry should run in
his veins. But he lived too near to the things
he loved to seem poetical. Parted from them, he
might yet satisfy her, and stretch out his hands
with a pagan's yearning. As it was, he only
rode her horses, and trespassed, and bathed, and
worked, for no obvious reason, upon her fields.
Affection she did not believe in, and made no
attempt to mould him ; and he, for his part, was
very content to harden untouched into a man.
His parents had given him excellent gifts — health,
sturdy limbs, and a face not ugly, — gifts that his
habits confirmed. They had also given him a
cloudless spirit — the spirit of the seventeen days

302 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

in which he was created. But they had not given
him the spirit of their six years of waiting, and
love for one person was never to be the greatest
thing he knew.

" Philosophy " had postponed the quarrel be-
tween them. Incurious about his personal origin,
he had a certain interest in our eternal prob-
lems. The interest never became a passion :
it sprang out of his physical growth, and was
soon merged in it again. Or, as he put it himself,
"I must get fixed up before starting." He was
soon fixed up as a materialist. Then he tore up
the sixpenny reprints, and never amused Mrs
Failing so much again.

About the time he fixed himself up, he took
to drink. He knew of no reason against it. The
instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here,
as elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he
passed at once from roaring jollity to silence. For
those who live on the fuddled borderland, who
crawl home by the railings and maunder repent-
ance in the morning, he had a biting contempt.
A man must take his tumble and his headache.
He was, in fact, as little disgusting as is conceiv-
able; and hitherto he had not strained his con-
stitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as
often as Agnes suggested. The real quarrel
gathered elsewhere.

Presentable people have run wild in their youth.
But the hour comes when they turn from their
boorish company to higher things. This hour
never came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by
nature, he kept where his powers would tell, and
continued to quarrel and play with the men he
had known as boys. He prolonged their youth

WILTSHIKE. 303

unduly. "They won't settle down," said Mr Wil-
braham to his wife. " They're wanting things. It's
the germ of a Trades Union. I shall get rid of
a few of the worst." Then Stephen rushed up
to Mrs Failing and worried her. "It wasn't fair.
So-and-so was a good sort. He did his work.
Keen about it? No. Why should he be? Why
should he be keen about somebody else's land?
But keen enough. And very keen on football."
She laughed, and said a word about So-and-so to
Mr Wilbraham. Mr Wilbraham blazed up. " How
could the farm go on without discipline? How
could there be discipline if Mr Stephen interfered ?
Mr Stephen liked power. He spoke to the men
like one of themselves, and pretended it was all
equality, but he took care to come out top.
Natural, of course, that, being a gentleman, he
should. But not natural for a gentleman to loiter
all day with poor people and learn their work,
and put wrong notions into their heads, and carry
their new - fangled grievances to Mrs Failing.
Which partly accounted for the deficit on the
past year." She rebuked Stephen. Then he lost
his temper, was rude to her, and insulted Mr
Wilbraham.

The worst days of Mr Failing's rule seemed to
be returning. And Stephen had a practical ex-
perience, and also a taste for battle, that her
husband had never possessed. He drew up a list
of grievances, some absurd, others fundamental.
No newspapers in the reading-room, you could
put a plate under the Thompsons' door, no
level cricket - pitch, no allotments and no time
to work in them, Mrs Wilbraham's knife - boy
underpaid. "Aren't you a little unwise?" she

304 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

asked coldly. "I am more bored than you think
over the farm." She was wanting to correct the
proofs of the book and re - write the prefatory
memoir. In her irritation she wrote to Agnes.
Agnes replied sympathetically, and Mrs Failing,
clever as she was, fell into the power of the
younger woman. They discussed him at first as
a wretch of a boy; then he got drunk and some-
how it seemed more criminal. All that she needed
now was a personal grievance, which Agnes
casually supplied. Though vindictive, she was
determined to treat him well, and thought with
satisfaction of our distant colonies. But he burst
into an odd passion : he would sooner starve than
leave England. "Why?" she asked. "Are you
in love?" He picked up a lump of the chalk —
they were by the arbour — and made no answer.
The vicar murmured, •" It is not like going abroad

— Greater Britain — blood is thicker than water "

A lump of chalk broke her drawing-room window
on the Saturday.

Thus Stephen left Wiltshire, half - blackguard,
half - martyr. Do not brand him as a socialist.
He had no quarrel with society, nor any particular
belief in people because they are poor. He only
held the creed of " here am I and there are you,"
and therefore class distinctions were trivial things
to him, and life no decorous scheme, but a personal
combat or a personal truce. For the same reason
ancestry also was trivial, and a man not the dearer
because the same woman was mother to them
both. Yet it seemed worth while to go to Sawston
with the news. Perhaps nothing would come of
it ; perhaps friendly intercourse, and a home while
he looked around.

WILTSHIRE. 305

When they wronged him he walked quietly
away. He never thought of allotting the blame,
nor of appealing to Ansell, who still sat brooding
in the side-garden. He only knew that educated
people could be horrible, and that a clean liver
must never enter Dunwood House again. The
air seemed stuffy. He spat in the gutter. Was
it yesterday he had lain in the rifle-butts over
Salisbury? Slightly aggrieved, he wondered why
he was not back there now. "I ought to have
written first," he reflected. " Here is my money
gone. I cannot move. The Elliots have, as it
were, practically robbed me." That was the only
grudge he retained against them. Their suspicions
and insults were to him as the curses of a tramp
whom he passed by the wayside. They were dirty
people, not his sort. He summed up the compli-
cated tragedy as a "take in."

While Rickie was being carried upstairs, and
while Ansell (had he known it) was dashing
about the streets for him, he lay under a rail-
way arch trying to settle his plans. He must
pay back the friends who had given him shillings
and clothes. He thought of Flea, whose Sundays
he was spoiling — poor Flea, who ought to be in
them now, shining before his girl. "I daresay
he'll be ashamed and not go to see her, and then
she'll take the other man." He was also very
hungry. That worm Mrs Elliot would be through
her lunch by now. Tying his braces round him,
and tearing up those old wet documents, he stepped
forth to make money. A villainous young brute
he looked : his clothes were dirty, and he had lost
the spring of the morning. Touching the walls,
frowning, talking to himself at times, he slouched

U

306 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

disconsolately northwards ; no wonder that some
tawdry girls screamed at him, or that matrons
averted their eyes as they hurried to after-
noon church. He wandered from one suburb
to another, till he was among people more
villainous than himself, who bought his tobacco
from him and sold him food. Again the
neighbourhood " went up," and families, instead
of sitting on their doorsteps, would sit behind
thick muslin curtains. Again it would " go
down " into a more avowed despair. Far into
the night he wandered, until he came to a
solemn river majestic as a stream in hell.
Therein were gathered the waters of Central
England — those that flow off Hindhead, off the
Chilterns, off Wiltshire north of the Plain.
Therein they were made intolerable ere they
reached the sea. But the waters he had known
escaped. Their course lay southward into the
Avon by forests and beautiful fields, even swift,
even pure, until they mirrored the tower of
Christchurch and greeted the ramparts of the
Isle of Wight. Of these he thought for a
moment as he crossed the black river and
entered the heart of the modern world.

Here he found employment. He was not ham-
pered by genteel traditions, and, as it was near
quarter - day, managed to get taken on at a
furniture warehouse. He moved people from
the suburbs to London, from London to the
suburbs, from one suburb to another. His
companions were hurried and querulous. In
particular, he loathed the foreman, a pious
humbug who allowed no swearing, but indulged
in something far more degraded — the Cockney

WILTSHIRE. 307

repartee. The London intellect, so pert and
shallow, like a stream that never reaches the
ocean, disgusted him almost as much as the
London physique, which for all its dexterity is
not permanent, and seldom continues into the
third generation. His father, had he known it,
had felt the same ; for between Mr Elliot and
the foreman the gulf was social, not spiritual :
both spent their lives in trying to be clever.
And Tony Failing had once put the thing into
words : " There's no such thing as a Londoner.
He's only a country man on the road to
sterility."

At the end of ten days he had saved scarcely
anything. Once he passed the bank where a
hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it was still
inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty
sent him to a suburb not very far from Sawston.
In the evening a man who was driving a trap
asked him to hold it, and by mistake tipped
him a sovereign. Stephen called after him ; but
the man had a woman with him and wanted to
show off, and though he had meant to tip a
shilling, and could not afford that, he shouted
back that his sovereign was as good as any one's,
and that if Stephen did not think so he could
do various things and go to various places. On
the action of this man much depends. Stephen
changed the sovereign into a postal order, and
sent it off to the people at Cadford. It did not
pay them back, but it paid them something, and
he felt that his soul was free.

A few shillings remained in his pocket. They
would have paid his fare towards Wiltshire, a good
county ; but what should he do there ? Who would

308 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

employ him ? To-day the journey did not seem
worth while. "To-morrow, perhaps," he thought,
and determined to spend the money on pleasure
of another kind. Twopence went for a ride on
an electric tram. From the top he saw the sun
descend — a disc with a dark red edge. The same
sun was descending over Salisbury intolerably
bright. Out of the golden haze the spire would
be piercing, like a purple needle ; then mists
arose from the Avon and the other streams.
Lamps nickered, but in the outer purity the
villages were already slumbering. Salisbury is
only a Gothic upstart beside these. For genera-
tions they have come down to her to buy or to
worship, and have found in her the reasonable
crisis of their lives ; but generations before she
was built they were clinging to the soil, and
renewing it with sheep and dogs and men, who
found the crisis of their lives upon Stonehenge.
The blood of these men ran in Stephen ; the
vigour they had won for him was as yet untar-
nished ; out on those downs they had united
with rough women to make the thing he spoke
of as " himself " ; the last of them had rescued
a woman of a different kind from streets and
houses such as these. As the sun descended he
got off the tram with a smile of expectation.
A public-house lay opposite, and a boy in a
dirty uniform was already lighting its enormous
lamp. His lips parted, and he went in.

Two hours later, when Rickie and Herbert
were going the rounds, a brick came crashing
at the study window. Herbert peered into the
garden, and a hooligan slipped by him into the
house, wrecked the hall, lurched up the stairs,

WILTSHIRE. 309

fell against the banisters, balanced for a moment
on his spine, and slid over. Herbert called for
the police. Rickie, who was upon the landing,
caught the man by the knees and saved his
life.

" What is it ? " cried Agnes, emerging.

"It's Stephen come back," was the answer.
"Hullo, Stephen!"

XXXI.

Hither had Rickie moved in ten days — from
disgust to penitence, from penitence to longing,
from a life of horror to a new life, in which
he still surprised himself by unexpected words.
Hullo, Stephen ! For the son of his mother had
come back, to forgive him, as she would have
done, to live with him, as she had planned.

" He's drunk this time," said Agnes wearily. She
too had altered: the scandal was aging her, and
Ansell came to the house daily.

" Hullo, Stephen ! "

But Stephen was now insensible.

"Stephen, you live here "

" Good gracious me ! " interposed Herbert. " My
advice is, that we all go to bed. The less said
the better while our nerves are in this state.
Very well, Rickie. Of course, Wonham sleeps
the night if you wish." They carried the drunken
mass into the spare room. A mass of scandal it
seemed to one of them, a symbol of redemption to
the other. Neither acknowledged it a man, who
would answer them back after a few hours' rest.

310 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Ansell thought he would never forgive me,"
said Rickie. "For once he's wrong."

"Come to bed now, I think." And as Rickie
laid his hand on the sleeper's hair, he added, " You
won't do anything foolish, will you? You are

still in a morbid state. Your poor mother

Pardon me, dear boy ; it is my turn to speak out.
You thought it was your father, and minded. It
is your mother. Surely you ought to mind more ? "

"I have been too far back," said Rickie gently.
"Ansell took me a journey that was even new
to him. We got behind right and wrong, to a
place where only one thing matters — that the
Beloved should rise from the dead."

" But you won't do anything rash ? "

"Why should I?"

"Remember poor Agnes," he stammered. "I
— I am the first to acknowledge that we might
have pursued a different policy. But we are com-
mitted to it now. It makes no difference whose
son he is. I mean, he is the same person. You
and I and my sister stand or fall together. It
was our agreement from the first. I hope — No
more of these distressing scenes with her, there's
a dear fellow. I assure you they make my heart
bleed."

" Things will quiet down now."

" To bed now ; I insist upon that much."

"Very well," said Rickie, and when they were
in the passage, locked the door from the outside.
"We want no more muddles," he explained.

Mr Pembroke was left examining the hall. The
bust of Hermes was broken. So was the pot of
the palm. He could not go to bed without once
more sounding Rickie. "You'll do nothing rash,"

WILTSHIRE. 311

he called. "The notion of him living here was,
of course, a passing impulse. We three have
adopted a common policy."

" Now, you go away ! " called a voice that was
almost flippant. "I never did belong to that
great sect whose doctrine is that each one should
select — at least, I'm not going to belong to it any
longer. Go away to bed."

" A good night's rest is what you need," threat-
ened Herbert, and retired, not to find one for
himself.

But Rickie slept. The guilt of months and the
remorse of the last ten days had alike departed.
He had thought that his life was poisoned, and
lo ! it was purified. He had cursed his mother,
and Ansell had replied, "You may be right, but
you stand too near to settle. Step backwards.
Pretend that it happened to me. Do you want
me to curse my mother? Now, step forward and
see whether anything has changed." Something
had changed. He had journeyed — as on rare
occasions a man must — till he stood behind right
and wrong. On the banks of the grey torrent
of life, love is the only flower. A little way up
the stream and a little way down had Rickie
glanced, and he knew that she whom he loved
had risen from the dead, and might rise again.
" Come away — let them die out — let them die
out." Surely that dream was a vision ! To-night
also he hurried to the window — to remember,
with a smile, that Orion is not among the stars
of June.

"Let me die out. She will continue," he mur-
mured, and in making plans for Stephen's happi-
ness, fell asleep.

312 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

Next morning after breakfast he announced
that his brother must live at Dunwood House.
They were awed by the very moderation of his
tone. " There's nothing else to be done. Cad-
over's hopeless, and a boy of those tendencies
can't go drifting. There is also the question of a
profession for him, and his allowance."

"We have to thank Mr Ansell for this," was
all that Agnes could say ; and " I foresee disaster,"
was the contribution of Herbert.

"There's plenty of money about," Rickie con-
tinued. "Quite a man's- worth too much. It has
been one of our absurdities. Don't look so sad,
Herbert. I'm sorry for you people, but he's sure
to let us down easy." For his experience of
drunkards and of Stephen was small. He sup-
posed that he had come without malice to renew
the offer of ten days ago.

" It is the end of Dunwood House."

Rickie nodded, and hoped not. Agnes, who was
not looking well, began to cry. "Oh, it is too
bad," she complained, "when I've saved you from
him all these years." But he could not pity her,
nor even sympathise with her wounded delicacy.
The time for such nonsense was over. He would
take his share of the blame : it was cant to assume
it all.

Perhaps he was over-hard. He did not realise
how large his share was, nor how his very virtues
were to blame for her deterioration. "If I had
a girl, I'd keep her in line," is not the remark of
a fool nor of a cad. Rickie had not kept his wife
in line. He had shown her all the workings of
his soul, mistaking this for love ; and in conse-
quence she was the worse woman after two years

WILTSHIRE. 313

of marriage, and he, on this morning of freedom,
was harder upon her than he need have been.

The spare room bell rang. Herbert had a pain-
ful struggle between curiosity and duty, for the
bell for chapel was ringing also, and he must go
through the drizzle to school. He promised to
come up in the interval. Rickie, who had rapped
his head that Sunday on the edge of the table,
was still forbidden to work. Before him a quiet
morning lay. Secure of his victory, he took the
portrait of their mother in his hand and walked
leisurely upstairs. The bell continued to ring.

" See about his breakfast," he called to Agnes,
who replied, "Very well." The handle of the
spare room door was moving slowly. " I'm com-
ing," he cried. The handle was still. He un-
locked and entered, his heart full of charity.
But within stood a man who probably owned
the world.

Rickie scarcely knew him ; last night he had
seemed so colourless, so negligible. In a few
hours he had recaptured motion and passion and
the imprint of the sunlight and the wind. He
stood, not consciously heroic, with arms that
dangled from broad stooping shoulders, and feet
that played with a hassock on the carpet. But
his hair was beautiful against the grey sky, and
his eyes, recalling the sky unclouded, shot past
the intruder as if to some worthier vision. So
intent was their gaze that Rickie himself glanced
backwards, only to see the neat passage and the
banisters at the top of the stairs. Then the lips
beat together twice, and out burst a torrent of
amazing words.

" Add it all up, and let me know how much, I'd

314 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

sooner have died. It never took me that way
before. I must have broken pounds' worth. If
you'll not tell the police, I promise you shan't
lose, Mr Elliot, I swear. But it may be months
before I send it. Everything is to be new.
You've not to be a penny out of pocket, do you
see? Do let me go, this once again."

"What's the trouble?" asked Rickie, as if they
had been friends for years. " My dear man, we've
other things to talk about. Gracious me, what
a fuss ! If you'd smashed the whole house I
wouldn't mind, so long as you came back."

" I'd sooner have died," gulped Stephen.

"You did nearly! It was I who caught you.
Never mind yesterday's rag. What can you man-
age for breakfast?"

The face grew more angry and more puzzled.
" Yesterday wasn't a rag," he said without focus-
sing his eyes. "I was drunk, but naturally meant
it."

"Meant what?"

" To smash you. Bad liquor did what Mrs
Elliot couldn't. I've put myself in the wrong.
You've got me."

It was a poor beginning.

"As I have got you," said Rickie, controlling
himself, "I want to have a talk with you. There
has been a ghastly mistake."

But Stephen, with a countryman's persistency,
continued on his own line. He meant to be civil,
but Rickie went cold round the mouth. For he
had not even been angry with them. Until he
was drunk, they had been dirty people — not his
sort. Then the trivial injury recurred, and he had
reeled to smash them as he passed. "And I will

WILTSHIRE. 315

pay for everything," was his refrain, with which
the sighing of raindrops mingled. "You shan't
lose a penny, if only you let me free."

"You'll pay for my coffin if you talk like that
any longer ! Will you, one, forgive my frightful
behaviour; two, live with me?" For his only
hope was in a cheerful precision.

Stephen grew more agitated. He thought it
was some trick.

" I was saying I made an unspeakable mistake.
Ansell put me right, but it was too late to find you.
Don't think I got off easily. Ansell doesn't spare
one. And you've got to forgive me, to share my
life, to share my money. — I've brought you this
photograph — I want it to be the first thing you
accept from me — you have the greater right — I
know all the story now. You know who it is ? "

"Oh yes ; but I don't want to drag all that in."

"It is only her wish if we live together. She
was planning it when she died."

"I can't follow — because — to share your life?
Did you know I called here last Sunday week?"

"Yes. But then I only knew half. I thought
you were my father's son."

Stephen's anger and bewilderment were increas-
ing. He stuttered. "What — what's the odds if
you did?"

" I hated my father," said Rickie. " I loved my
mother." And never had the phrases seemed so
destitute of meaning,

" Last Sunday week," interrupted Stephen, his
voice suddenly rising, " I came to call on you.
Not as this or that's son. Not to fall on your
neck. Nor to live here. Nor — damn your dirty
little mind! I meant to say I didn't come for

316 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

money. Sorry. Sorry. I simply came as I was,
and I haven't altered since."

"Yes — yet our mother — for me she has risen
from the dead since then — I know I was
wrong "

" And where do I come in ? " He kicked the
hassock. "I haven't risen from the dead. /

haven't altered since last Sunday week. I'm "

He stuttered again. He could not quite explain
what he was. " The man towards Andover — after

all, he was having principles. But you've " His

voice broke. "I mind it — I'm — / don't alter —
blackguard one week — live here the next — I
keep to one or the other — you've hurt some-
thing most badly in me that I didn't know was
there."

" Don't let us talk," said Rickie. " It gets worse
every minute. Simply say you forgive me ; shake
hands, and have done with it."

"That I won't. That I couldn't. In fact, I
don't know what you mean."

Then Rickie began a new appeal — not to pity,
for now he was in no mood to whimper. For all
its pathos, there was something heroic in this
meeting. " I warn you to stop here with me,
Stephen. No one else in the world will look after
you. As far as I know, you have never been really
unhappy yet or suffered, as you should do, from
your faults. Last night you nearly killed your-
self with drink. Never mind why I'm willing to
cure you. I am willing, and I warn you to give me
the chance. Forgive me or not, as you choose. I
care for other things more."

Stephen looked at him at last, faintly approv-

WILTSHIRE. 317

ing. The offer was ridiculous, but it did treat
him as a man.

" Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I
was punished for it," continued Rickie. "Two
years ago I behaved badly to you, up at the Rings.
No, even a few days before that. We went for a
ride, and I thought too much of other matters, and
did not try to understand you. Then came the
Rings, and in the evening, when you called up to
me most kindly, I never answered. But the ride
was the beginning. Ever since then I have taken
the world at second-hand. I have bothered less
and less to look it in the face — until not only you,
but every one else has turned unreal. Never
Ansell : he kept away, and somehow saved himself.
But every one else. Do you remember in one of
Tony Failing's books, * Cast bitter bread upon
the waters, and after many days it really does
come back to you ' ? This has been true of my life ;
it will be equally true of a drunkard's, and I warn
you to stop with me."

"I can't stop after that cheque," said Stephen
more gently. "But I do remember the ride. I
was a bit bored myself."

Agnes, who had not been seeing to the break-
fast, chose this moment to call from the passage.
"Of course he can't stop," she exclaimed. "For
better or worse, it's settled. We've none of us
altered since last Sunday week."

" There you're right, Mrs Elliot ! " he shouted,
starting out of the temperate past. " We haven't
altered." With a rare flash of insight he turned on
Rickie. " I see your game. You don't care about
me drinking, or to shake my hand. It's some

318 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

one else you want to cure — as it were, that old
photograph. You talk to me, but all the time you
look at the photograph. He snatched it up. " I've
my own idea of good manners, and to look friends
between the eyes is one of them; and this" —
he tore the photograph across — "and this" — he

tore it again — " and these " He flung the pieces

at the man, who had sunk into a chair. " For
my part, I'm off."

Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning
round in his chair, he covered his face. The man
was right. He did not love him, even as he had
never hated him. In either passion he had de-
graded him to be a symbol for the vanished past.
The man was right, and would have been lovable.
He longed to be back riding over those windy
fields, to be back in those mystic circles, beneath
pure sky. Then they could have watched and
helped and taught each other, until the word was
a reality, and the past not a torn photograph,
but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring.
Ah, if he had seized those high opportunities !
For they led to the highest of all, the symbolic
moment, which, if a man accepts, he has ac-
cepted life.

The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then
("For my sake," she had whispered), pealed over
him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke into
sobs that had the effect of rain. He started up.
The anger had died out of Stephen's face, not
for a subtle reason but because here was a
woman, near him, and unhappy.

She tried to apologise, and brought on a fresh
burst of tears. Something had upset her. They

WILTSHIRE. 319

heard her locking the door of her room. From
that moment their intercourse was changed.

"Why does she keep crying to-day?" mused
Rickie, as if he spoke to some mutual friend.

" I can make a guess," said Stephen, and his
heavy face flushed.

" Did you insult her ? " he asked feebly.

"But who's Gerald?"

Rickie raised his hand to his mouth.

" She looked at me as if she knew me, and then
gasps ' Gerald,' and started crying."

" Gerald is the name of some one she once knew."

" So I thought." There was a long silence, in
which they could hear a piteous gulping cough.
" Where is he now ? " asked Stephen.

"Dead."

" And then you ? "

Rickie nodded.

" Bad, this sort of thing."

" I didn't know of this particular thing. She
acted as if she had forgotten him. Perhaps she
had, and you woke him up. There are queer
tricks in the world. She is overstrained. She
has probably been plotting ever since you burst
in last night."

" Against me ? "

" Yes."

Stephen stood irresolute. " I suppose you and
she pulled together?" he said at last.

"Get away from us, man! I mind losing you.
Yet it's as well you don't stop."

"Oh, that's out of the question," said Stephen,
brushing his cap.

"If you've guessed anything, I'd be obliged if

320 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

you didn't mention it. I've no right to ask, but
I'd be obliged."

He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing
and down the stairs. Rickie accompanied him,
and even opened the front door. It was as if Agnes
had absorbed the passion out of both of them.
The suburb was now wrapped in a cloud, not of
its own making. Sigh after sigh passed along
its streets to break against dripping walls. The
school, the houses were hidden, and all civilisation
seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds,
the simplest desires emerged. They agreed that
this weather was strange after such a sunset.

"That's a collie," said Stephen, listening.

"I wish you'd have some breakfast before
starting."

"No food, thanks. But you know " He

paused. " It's all been a muddle, and I've no
objection to your coming along with me."

The cloud descended lower.

" Come with me as a man," said Stephen, already
out in the mist. "Not as a brother; who cares
what people did years back ? We're alive together,
and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there
are you, a fair wreck. They've no use for you here,
— never had any, if the truth was known, — and
they've only made you beastly. This house, so
to speak, has the rot. It's common- sense that
you should come."

" Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean ? "

"Wait's what we won't do," said Stephen at the
gate.

" I must ask "

He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard,
faint, hopeless, vindictive. Then he trudged away,

WILTSHIRE. 321

and Rickie soon lost his colour and his form.
But a voice persisted, saying, "Come, I do mean
it. Come ; I will take care of you, I can manage
you."

The words were kind ; yet it was not for their
sake that Rickie plunged into the impalpable
cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guar-
antee. Habits and sex may change with the
new generation, features may alter with the play
of a private passion, but a voice is apart from
these. It lies nearer to the racial essence and
perhaps to the divine ; it can, at all events,
overleap one grave.

XXXII.

Mr Pembroke did not receive a clear account of
what had happened when he returned for the
interval. His sister — he told her frankly — was
concealing something from him. She could make
no reply. Had she gone mad, she wondered.
Hitherto she had pretended to love her hus-
band. Why choose such a moment for the
truth ?

"But I understand Rickie's position," he told
her. "It is an unbalanced position, yet I under-
stand it ; I noted its approach while he was ill.
He imagines himself his brother's keeper. There-
fore we must make concessions. We must negoti-
ate." The negotiations were still progressing in
November, the month during which this story
draws to its close.

x

322 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" I understand his position," he then told her.
"It is both weak and defiant. He is still with
those Ansells. Read this letter, which thanks me
for his little stories. We sent them last month,
you remember — such of them as we could find.
It seems that he fills up his time by writing : he
has already written a book."

She only gave him half her attention, for a
beautiful wreath had just arrived from the florist's.
She was taking it up to the cemetery : to-day her
child had been dead a year.

" On the other hand, he has altered his will.
Fortunately, he cannot alter much. But I fear
that what is not settled on you, will go. Should
I read what I wrote on this point, and also my
minutes of the interview with old Mr Ansell, and
the copy of my correspondence with Stephen
Wonham ? "

But her fly was announced. While he put the
wreath in for her, she ran for a moment up-
stairs. A few tears had come to her eyes. A
scandalous divorce would have been more bearable
than this withdrawal. People asked, " Why did
her husband leave her ? " and the answer came,
"Oh, nothing particular; he only couldn't stand
her ; she lied and taught him to lie ; she kept
him from the work that suited him, from his
friends, from his brother, — in a word, she tried
to run him, which a man won't pardon." A few
tears ; not many. To her, life never showed itself
as a classic drama, in which, by trying to advance
our fortunes, we shatter them. She had turned
Stephen out of Wiltshire, and he fell like a thun-
derbolt on Sawston and on herself. In trying
to gain Mrs Failing's money she had probably

WILTSHIRE. 323

lost money which would have been her own. But
irony is a subtle teacher, and she was not the
woman to learn from such lessons as these. Her
suffering was more direct. Three men had
wronged her; therefore she hated them, and, if
she could, would do them harm.

"These negotiations are quite useless," she told
Herbert when she came downstairs. "We had
much better bide our time. Tell me just about
Stephen Wonham, though."

He drew her into the study again. "Wonham
is or was in Scotland, learning to farm with con-
nections of the Ansells : I believe the money is
to go towards setting him up. Apparently he
is a hard worker. He also drinks ! "

She nodded and smiled. "More than he did?"

" My informant, Mr Tilliard — oh, I ought not to
have mentioned his name. He is one of the better
sort of Rickie's Cambridge friends, and has been
dreadfully grieved at the collapse, but he does
not want to be mixed up in it. This autumn he
was up in the Lowlands, close by, and very kindly
made a few unobtrusive inquiries for me. The
man is becoming an habitual drunkard."

She smiled again. Stephen had evoked her
secret, and she hated him more for that than
for anything else that he had done. The poise
of his shoulders that morning — it was no more —
had recalled Gerald. If only she had not been
so tired ! He had reminded her of the greatest
thing she had known, and to her cloudy mind this
seemed degradation. She had turned to him as
to her lover; with a look, which a man of his
type understood, she had asked for his pity ; for
one terrible moment she had desired to be held

324 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

in his arms. Even Herbert was surprised when
she said, "I'm glad he drinks. I hope he'll kill
himself. A man like that ought never to have
been born."

"Perhaps the sins of the parents are visited
on the children," said Herbert, taking her to the
carriage. "Yet it is not for us to decide."

"I feel sure he will be punished. What right

has he " She broke off. What right had he

to our common humanity? It was a hard lesson
for any one to learn. For Agnes it was impos-
sible. Stephen was illicit, abnormal, worse than
a man diseased. Yet she had turned to him : he
had drawn out the truth.

" My dear, don't cry," said her brother, drawing
up the windows. "I have great hopes of Mr
Tilliard — the Silts have written — Mrs Failing will
do what she can "

As she drove to the cemetery, her bitterness
turned against Ansell, who had kept her husband
alive in the days after Stephen's expulsion. If
he had not been there, Rickie would have re-
nounced his mother and his brother and all the
outer world, troubling no one. The mystic, inher-
ent in him, would have prevailed. So Ansell him-
self had told her. And Ansell, too, had sheltered
the fugitives and given them money, and saved
them from the ludicrous checks that so often
stop young men. But when she reached the
cemetery, and stood beside the tiny grave, all
her bitterness, all her hatred were turned against
Rickie.

"But he'll come back in the end," she thought.
"A wife has only to wait. What are his friends
beside me ? They too will marry. I have only to

WILTSHIRE. 325

wait. His book, like all that he has done, will
fail. His brother is drinking himself away. Poor
aimless Rickie ! I have only to keep civil. He
will come back in the end."

She had moved, and found herself close to the
grave of Gerald. The flowers she had planted
after his death were dead, and she had not liked
to renew them. There lay the athlete, and his
dust was as the little child's whom she had brought
into the world with such hope, with such pain.

XXXIII.

That same day Rickie, feeling neither poor nor
aimless, left the Ansells' for a night's visit to
Cadover. His aunt had invited him — why, he
could not think, nor could he think why he should
refuse the invitation. She could not annoy him
now, and he was not vindictive. In the dell
near Madingley he had cried, "I hate no one,"
in his ignorance. Now, with full knowledge, he
hated no one again. The weather was pleasant,
the country attractive, and he was ready for a
little change.

Maud and Stewart saw him off. Stephen, who
was down for a holiday, had been left with his
chin on the luncheon-table. He had wanted to
come to Cadover also. Rickie pointed out that
you cannot visit where you have broken the
windows. There was an argument — there gener-
ally was — and now the young man had turned
sulky.

326 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Let him do what he likes," said Ansell. "He
knows more than we do. He knows everything."

" Is he to get drunk ? " Rickie asked.

" Most certainly."

" And to go where he isn't asked ? "

Maud, though liking a little spirit in a man,
declared this to be impossible.

" Well, I wish you joy ! " Rickie called, as the
train moved away. "He means mischief this
evening. He told me piously that he felt it beat-
ing up. Good-bye!"

"But we'll wait for you to pass," they cried.
For the Salisbury train always backed out of the
station and then returned, and the Ansell family,
including Stewart, took an incredible pleasure in
seeing it do this.

The carriage was empty. Rickie settled himself
down for his little journey. First he looked at
the coloured photographs. Then he read the
directions for obtaining luncheon - baskets, and
felt the texture of the cushions. Through the
windows a signal-box interested him. Then he
saw the ugly little town that was now his home,
and up its chief street the Ansells' memorable
facade. The spirit of a genial comedy dwelt there.
It was so absurd, so kindly. The house was
divided against itself and yet stood. Metaphysics,
commerce, social aspirations — all lived together
in harmony. Mr Ansell had done much, but one
was tempted to believe in a more capricious power
— the power that abstains from " nipping." " One
nips or is nipped, and never knows beforehand,"
quoted Rickie, and opened the poems of Shelley,
a man less foolish than you supposed. How
pleasant it was to read ! If business worried him,

WILTSHIRE. 327

if Stephen was noisy or Ansell perverse, there
still remained this paradise of books. It seemed
as if he had read nothing for two years.

Then the train stopped for the shunting, and
he heard protests from minor officials who were
working on the line. They complained that
some one who didn't ought to, had mounted on
the footboard of the carriage. Stephen's face
appeared, convulsed with laughter. With the
action of a swimmer he dived in through the
open window, and fell comfortably on Rickie's
luggage and Rickie. He declared it was the finest
joke ever known. Rickie was not so sure.
"You'll be run over next," he said. "What did
you do that for?"

"I'm coming with you," he giggled, rolling all
that he could on to the dusty floor.

"Now, Stephen, this is too bad. Get up. We
went into the whole question yesterday."

"I know; and I settled we wouldn't go into it
again, spoiling my holiday."

" Well, it's execrable taste."

Now he was waving to the Ansells, and showing
them a piece of soap : it was all his luggage, and
even that he abandoned, for he flung it at Stewart's
lofty brow.

"I can't think what you've done it for. You
know how strongly I felt."

Stephen replied that he should stop in the village ;
meet Rickie at the lodge gates ; that kind of thing.

" It's execrable taste," he repeated, trying to keep
grave.

"Well, you did all you could," he exclaimed
with sudden sympathy. "Leaving me talking to
old Ansell, you might have thought you'd got

328 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

your way. I've as much taste as most chaps, but,
hang it ! your aunt isn't the German Emperor.
She doesn't own Wiltshire."

" You ass ! " sputtered Rickie, who had taken
to laugh at nonsense again.

"No, she isn't," he repeated, blowing a kiss out
of the window to maidens. " Why, we started for
Wiltshire on the wet morning ! "

"When Stewart found us at Sawston railway
station?" He smiled happily. "I never thought
we should pull through."

"Well, we didn't We never did what we
meant. It's nonsense that I couldn't have man-
aged you alone. I've a notion. Slip out after
your dinner this evening, and we'll get thundering
tight together."

" I've a notion I won't."

" It 'd do you no end of good. You'll get to

know people — shepherds, carters " He waved

his arms vaguely, indicating democracy. "Then
you'll sing."

"And then?"

"Plop."

" Precisely."

"But I'll catch you," promised Stephen. "We
shall carry you up the hill to bed. In the morning
you wake, have your row with old Em'ly, she
kicks you out, we meet — we'll meet at the Rings ! "
He danced up and down the carriage. Some one
in the next carriage punched at the partition, and
when this happens, all lads of mettle know that
they must punch the partition back.

" Thank you. I've a notion I won't," said Rickie
when the noise subsided — subsided for a moment
only, for the following conversation took place

WILTSHIRE. 329

to an accompaniment of dust and bangs. "Ex-
cept as regards the Rings. We will meet there."

" Then I'll get tight by myself."

" No, you won't."

"Yes, I will. I swore to do something special
this evening. I feel like it."

" In that case, I get out at the next station."
He was laughing, but quite determined. Stephen
had grown too dictatorial of late. The Ansells
spoilt him. " It's bad enough having you there at
all. Having you there drunk is impossible. I'd
sooner not visit my aunt than think, when I sat
with her, that you're down in the village teach-
ing her labourers to be as beastly as yourself. Go
if you will. But not with me."

"Why shouldn't I have a good time while I'm
young, if I don't harm any one?" said Stephen
defiantly.

" Need we discuss it again ? Because you harm
yourself."

" Oh, I can stop myself any minute I choose. I
just say 'I won't' to you or any other fool, and
I don't."

Rickie knew that the boast was true. He con-
tinued, "There is also a thing called Morality.
You may learn in the Bible, and also from the
Greeks, that your body is a temple."

" So you said in your longest letter."

"Probably I wrote like a prig, for the reason
that I have never been tempted in this way; but
surely it is wrong that your body should escape

you."

" I don't follow," he retorted, punching.

"It isn't right, even for a little time, to forget
that you exist."

330 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"I suppose youVe never been tempted to go to
sleep?"

Just then the train passed through a coppice
in which the grey undergrowth looked no more
alive than firewood. Yet every twig in it was
waiting for the spring. Rickie knew that the
analogy was false, but argument confused him,
and he gave up this line of attack also.

"Do be more careful over life. If your body
escapes you in one thing, why not in more? A
man will have other temptations."

"You mean women," said Stephen quietly,
pausing for a moment in his game. "But that's
absolutely different. That would be harming
some one else."

" Is that the only thing that keeps you
straight?"

"What else should?" And he looked not into
Rickie, but past him, with the wondering eyes of
a child. Rickie nodded, and referred himself to
the window.

He observed that the country was smoother and
more plastic. The woods had gone, and under a
pale-blue sky long contours of earth were flowing,
merging, rising a little to bear some coronal of
beeches, parting a little to disclose some green
valley, where cottages stood under elms or beside
translucent waters. It was Wiltshire at last. The
train had entered the chalk. At last it slackened
at a wayside platform. Without speaking he
opened the door.

"What's that for?"

"To go back."

Stephen had forgotten the threat. He said that
this was not playing the game.

WILTSHIRE. 331

"Surely!"

" I can't have you going back."

" Promise to behave decently then."

He was seized and pulled away from the
door.

"We change at Salisbury," he remarked.
"There is an hour to wait. You will find me
troublesome."

"It isn't fair," exploded Stephen. "It's a low-
down trick. How can I let you go back ? "

" Promise, then."

" Oh, yes, yes, yes. Y.M.C.A. But for this occa-
sion only."

" No, no. For the rest of your holiday."

" Yes, yes. Very well. I promise."

" For the rest of your life ? "

Somehow it pleased him that Stephen should
bang him crossly with his elbow and say, "No.
Get out. You've gone too far." So had the train.
The porter at the end of the wayside platform
slammed the door, and they proceeded towards
Salisbury through the slowly modulating downs.
Rickie pretended to read. Over the book he
watched his brother's face, and wondered how
bad temper could be consistent with a mind so
radiant. In spite of his obstinacy and conceit,
Stephen was an easy person to live with. He
never fidgeted or nursed hidden grievances, or
indulged in a shoddy pride. Though he spent
Rickie's money as slowly as he could, he asked for
it without apology: "You must put it down
against me," he would say. In time — it was still
very vague — he would rent or purchase a farm.
There is no formula in which we may sum up
decent people. So Ansell had preached, and had

332 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

of course proceeded to offer a formula : " They
must be serious, they must be truthful." Serious
not in the sense of glum ; but they must be con-
vinced that our life is a 'state of some importance,
and our earth not a place to beat time on. Of so
much Stephen was convinced : he showed it in
his work, in his play, in his self-respect, and above
all — though the fact is hard to face — in his sacred
passion for alcohol. Drink, to-day, is an unlovely
thing. Between us and the heights of Cithseron the
river of sin now flows. Yet the cries still call from
the mountain, and granted a man has responded
to them, it is better he respond with the candour
of the Greek.

"I shall stop at the Thompsons* now," said the
disappointed reveller. " Prayers."

Rickie did not press his triumph, but it was a
happy moment, partly because of the triumph,
partly because he was sure that his brother must
care for him. Stephen was too selfish to give up
any pleasure without grave reasons. He was cer-
tain that he had been right to disentangle himself
from Sawston, and to ignore the threats and tears
that still tempted him to return. Here there was
real work for him to do. Moreover, though he
sought no reward, it had come. His health was
better, his brain sound, his life washed clean, not
by the waters of sentiment, but by the efforts of a
fellow-man. Stephen was man first, brother after-
wards. Herein lay his brutality and also his virtue.
" Look me in the face. Don't hang on me clothes
that don't belong — as you did on your wife, giving
her saint's robes, whereas she was simply a woman
of her own sort, who needed careful watching. Tear
up the photographs. Here am I, and there are

WILTSHIRE. 333

you. The rest is cant." The rest was not cant,
and perhaps Stephen would confess as much in
time. But Rickie needed a tonic, and a man, not
a brother, must hold it to his lips.

" I see the old spire," he called, and then added,
"I don't mind seeing it again."

"No one does, as far as I know. People have
come from the other side of the world to see it
again."

" Pious people. But I don't hold with bishops."
He was young enough to be uneasy. The cathe-
dral, a fount of superstition, must find no place in
his life. At the age of twenty he had settled
things. "I've got my own philosophy," he once
told Ansell, "and I don't care a straw about
yours." Ansell's mirth had annoyed him not
a little. And it was strange that one so settled
should feel his heart leap up at the sight of an old
spire. "I regard it as a public building," he told
Rickie, who agreed. " It's useful, too, as a land-
mark." His attitude to-day was defensive. It was
part of a subtle change that Rickie had noted in
him since his return from Scotland. His face gave
hints of a new maturity. "You can see the old
spire from the Ridge way," he said, suddenly lay-
ing a hand on Rickie's knee, " before rain as
clearly as any telegraph post."

" How far is the Ridge way ? "

" Seventeen miles."

" Which direction ? "

"North, naturally. North again from that you
see Devizes, the vale of Pewsey, and the other
downs. Also towards Bath. It is something of
a view. You ought to get on the Ridgeway."

"I shouldn't have time for that."

334 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"Or Beacon Hill. Or let's do Stonehenge."

" If it's fine, I suggest the Rings."

" It will be fine." Then he murmured the names
of villages.

" I wish you could live here," said Rickie kindly.
" I believe you love these particular acres more
than the whole world."

Stephen replied that this was not the case : he
was only used to them. He wished they were
driving out, instead of waiting for the Cadchurch
train.

They had advanced into Salisbury, and the cathe-
dral, a public building, was grey against a tender
sky. Rickie suggested that, while waiting for the
train, they should visit it. He spoke of the in-
comparable north porch.

"I've never been inside it, and I never will.
Sorry to shock you, Rickie, but I must tell you
plainly. I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any-
thing."

" I do," said Rickie.

"When a man dies, it's as if he's never been,"
he asserted. The train drew up in Salisbury
station. Here a little incident took place which
caused them to alter their plans.

They found outside the station a trap driven
by a small boy, who had come in from Cadford
to fetch some wire-netting. "That'll do us," said
Stephen, and called to the boy, " If I pay your
railway-ticket back, and if I give you sixpence as
well, will you let us drive back in the trap ? " The
boy said no. " It will be all right," said Rickie.
" I am Mrs Failing's nephew." The boy shook his
head. " And you know Mr Wonham ? " The boy
couldn't say he didn't. " Then what's your objec-

WILTSHIRE. 335

tion? Why? What is it? Why not?" But
Stephen leant against the time-tables and spoke
of other matters.

Presently the boy said, " Did you say you'd pay
my railway- ticket back, Mr Wonham ? "

"Yes," said a bystander. "Didn't you hear
him?"

" I heard him right enough."

Now Stephen laid his hand on the splash-board,
saying, "What I want, though, is this trap here
of yours, see, to drive in back myself ; " and as he
spoke the bystander followed him in canon, "What
he wants, though, is that there trap of yours, see,
to drive hisself back in."

" Fve no objection," said the boy, as if deeply
offended. For a time he sat motionless, and then
got down, remarking, "I won't rob you of your
sixpence."

" Silly little fool," snapped Rickie, as they drove
through the town.

Stephen looked surprised. "What's wrong with
the boy? He had to think it over. No one had
asked him to do such a thing before. Next time
he'd let us have the trap quick enough."

" Not if he had driven in for a cabbage instead of
wire-netting."

" He never would drive in for a cabbage."

Rickie shuffled his feet. But his irritation passed.
He saw that the little incident had been a quiet
challenge to the civilisation that he had known.
"Organise," "Systematise." "Fill up every mo-
ment," " Induce esprit de corps." He reviewed the
watchwords of the last two years, and found that
they ignored personal contest, personal truces,
personal love. By following them Sawston School

336 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

had lost its quiet usefulness and become a frothy-
sea, wherein plunged Dunwood House, that un-
necessary ship. Humbled, he turned to Stephen
and said, "No, you're right. Nothing is wrong
with the boy. He was honestly thinking it out."
But Stephen had forgotten the incident, or else he
was not inclined to talk about it. His assertive
fit was over.

The direct road from Salisbury to Cadover is
extremely dull. The city — which God intended to
keep by the river; did she not move there, being
thirsty, in the reign of William Rufus? — the city
has strayed out of her own plain, climbed up her
slopes, and tumbled over them in ugly cataracts of
brick. The cataracts are still short, and doubtless
they meet or create some commercial need. But
instead of looking towards the cathedral, as all the
city should, they look outwards at a pagan en-
trenchment, as the city should not. They neglect
the poise of the earth, and the sentiments she has
decreed. They are the modern spirit.

Through them the road descends into an un-
obtrusive country where, nevertheless, the power
of the earth grows stronger. Streams do divide.
Distances do still exist. It is easier to know the
men in your valley than those who live in the
next, across a waste of down. It is easier to know
men well. The country is not paradise, and can
show the vices that grieve a good man everywhere.
But there is room in it, and leisure.

"I suppose," said Rickie as the twilight fell,
" this kind of thing is going on all over England."
Perhaps he meant that towns are after all ex-
crescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to
find one another, have lost themselves. But he

WILTSHIRE. 337

got no response, and expected none. Turning
round in his seat, he watched the winter sun
slide out of a quiet sky. The horizon was prim-
rose, and the earth against it gave momentary
hints of purple. All faded : no pageant would
conclude the gracious day, and when he turned
eastward the night was already established.

" Those verlands " said Stephen, scarcely above

his breath.

" What are verlands ? "

He pointed at the dusk, and said, "Our name
for a kind of field." Then he drove his whip into
its socket, and seemed to swallow something.
Rickie, straining his eyes for verlands, could only
see a tumbling wilderness of brown.

" Are there many local words ? "

" There have been."

" I suppose they die out."

The conversation turned curiously. In the tone
of one who replies, he said, "I expect that some
time or other I shall marry."

" I expect you will," said Rickie, and wondered a
little why the reply seemed not abrupt. "Would
we see the Rings in the daytime from here ? "

" (We do see them.) But Mrs Failing once said
no decent woman would have me."

" Did you agree to that ? "

"Drive a little, will you?"

The horse went slowly forward into the wilder-
ness, that turned from brown to black. Then a
luminous glimmer surrounded them, and the air
grew cooler: the road was descending between
parapets of chalk.

"But, Rickie, mightn't I find a girl — naturally
not refined — and be happy with her in my own

Y

338 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

way ? I would tell her straight I was nothing
much — faithful, of course, hut that she should
never have all my thoughts. Out of no disrespect
to her, but because all one's thoughts can't belong
to any single person."

While he spoke even the road vanished, and
invisible water came gurgling through the wheel-
spokes. The horse had chosen the ford.

" You can't own people. At least a fellow can't.
It may be different for a poet. (Let the horse
drink.) And I want to marry some one, and don't
yet know who she is, which a poet again will tell
you is disgusting. Does it disgust you? Being
nothing much, surely I'd better go gently. For
it's something rather outside that makes one
marry, if you follow me : not exactly oneself.
(Don't hurry the horse.) We want to marry, and
yet — I can't explain. I fancy I'll go wading: this
is our stream."

Romantic love is greater than this. There are
men and women — we know it from history — who
have been born into the world for each other, and
for no one else, who have accomplished the longest
journey locked in each other's arms. But romantic
love is also the code of modern morals, and, for
this reason, popular. Eternal union, eternal
ownership — these are tempting baits for the aver-
age man. He swallows them, will not confess
his mistake, and — perhaps to cover it — cries " dirty
cynic " at such a man as Stephen.

Rickie watched the black earth unite to the
black sky. But the sky overhead grew clearer,
and in it twinkled the Plough and the central
stars. He thought of his brother's future and of
his own past, and of how much truth might lie

WILTSHIRE. 339

in that antithesis of Ansell's : "A man wants to
love mankind, a woman wants to love one man."
At all events, he and his wife had illustrated
it, and perhaps the conflict, so tragic in their own
case, was elsewhere the salt of the world. Mean-
while Stephen called from the water for matches :
there was some trick with paper which Mr Failing
had showed him, and which he would show Rickie
now, instead of talking nonsense. Bending down,
he illumined the dimpled surface of the ford.
" Quite a current," he said, and his face nickered
out in the darkness. " Yes, give me the loose
paper, quick ! Crumple it into a ball."

Rickie obeyed, though intent on the transfigured
face. He believed that a new spirit dwelt there,
expelling the crudities of youth. He saw steadier
eyes, and the sign of manhood set like a bar of
gold upon steadier lips. Some faces are knit
by beauty, or by intellect, or by a great passion :
had Stephen's waited for the touch of the years?

But they played as boys who continued the
nonsense of the railway carriage. The paper
caught fire from the match, and spread into a
rose of flame. "Now gently with me," said
Stephen, and they laid it flower-like on the stream.
Gravel and tremulous weeds leapt into sight, and
then the flower sailed into deep water, and up
leapt the two arches of a bridge. " It'll strike ! "
they cried ; " no, it won't ; it's chosen the left,"
and one arch became a fairy tunnel, dropping
diamonds. Then it vanished for Rickie ; but
Stephen, who knelt in the water, declared that
it was still afloat, far through the arch, burning as
if it would burn for ever.

340 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

XXXIV.

The carriage that Mrs Failing had sent to meet
her nephew returned from Cadchurch station
empty. She was preparing for a solitary dinner
when he somehow arrived, full of apologies, but
more sedate than she had expected. She cut his
explanations short. "Never mind how you got
here. You are here, and I am quite pleased to
see you." He changed his clothes and they pro-
ceeded to the dining-room.

There was a bright fire, but the curtains were
not drawn. Mr Failing had believed that windows
with the night behind are more beautiful than
any pictures, and his widow had kept to the
custom. It was brave of her to persevere, lumps
of chalk having come out of the night last June.
For some obscure reason — not so obscure to
Rickie — she had preserved them as mementoes
of an episode. Seeing them in a row on the
mantelpiece, he expected that their first topic
would be Stephen. But they never mentioned
him, though he was latent in all that they
said.

It was of Mr Failing that they spoke. The
Essays had been a success. She was really pleased.
The book was brought in at her request, and
between the courses she read it aloud to her
nephew, in her soft yet unsympathetic voice. Then
she sent for the press notices — after all no one
despises them — and read their comments on her
introduction. She wielded a graceful pen, was
apt, adequate, suggestive, indispensable, unneces-

WILTSHIRE. 341

sary. So the meal passed pleasantly away, for
no one could so well combine the formal with the
unconventional, and it only seemed charming
when papers littered her stately table.

"My man wrote very nicely," she observed.
"Now, you read me something out of him that
you like. Read 'The True Patriot."'

He took the book and found : " Let us love one
another. Let our children, physical and spiritual,
love one another. It is all that we can do.
Perhaps the earth will neglect our love. Perhaps
she will confirm it, and suffer some rallying-point,
spire, mound, for the new generations to cherish."

"He wrote that when he was young. Later
on he doubted whether we had better love one
another, or whether the earth will confirm any-
thing. He died a most unhappy man."

He could not help saying, "Not knowing that
the earth had confirmed him."

"Has she? It is quite possible. We meet so
seldom in these days, she and I. Do you see much
of the earth?"

"A little."

" Do you expect that she will confirm you ? "

" It is quite possible."

" Beware of her, Rickie, I think."

" I think not."

"Beware of her, surely. Going back to her
really is going back — throwing away the artificial-
ity which (though you young people won't confess
it) is the only good thing in life. Don't pretend
you are simple. Once I pretended. Don't pretend
that you care for anything but for clever talk
such as this, and for books."

"The talk," said Leighton afterwards, "certainly

342 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

was clever. But it meant something, all the same."
He heard no more, for his mistress told him to
retire.

" And my nephew, this being so, make up your
quarrel with your wife." She stretched out her
hand to him with real feeling. " It is easier now
than it will be later. Poor lady, she has written
to me foolishly and often, but, on the whole, I
side with her against you. She would grant you
all that you fought for — all the people, all the
theories. I have it, in her writing, that she will
never interfere with your life again."

" She cannot help interfering," said Rickie, with
his eyes on the black windows. " She despises me.
Besides, I do not love her."

"I know, my dear. Nor she you. I am not
being sentimental. I say once more, beware of
the earth. We are conventional people, and con-
ventions— if you will but see it — are majestic in
their way, and will claim us in the end. We do
not live for great passions or for great memories,
or for anything great."

He threw up his head. " We do."

"Now listen to me. I am serious and friendly
to-night, as you must have observed. I have
asked you here partly to amuse myself — you belong
to my March Past — but also to give you good
advice. There has been a volcano — a phenomenon
which I too once greatly admired. The eruption
is over. Let the conventions do their work now,
and clear the rubbish away. My age is fifty-nine,
and I tell you solemnly that the important things
in life are little things, and that people are not
important at all. Go back to your wife."

He looked at her, and was filled with pity. He

WILTSHIRE. 343

knew that he would never be frightened of her
again. Only because she was serious and friendly
did he trouble himself to reply. "There is one
little fact I should like to tell you, as confuting
your theory. The idea of a story — a long story —
had been in my head for a year. As a dream to
amuse myself — the kind of amusement you would
recommend for the future. I should have had
time to write it, but the people round me coloured
my life, and so it never seemed worth while. For
the story is not likely to pay. Then came the
volcano. A few days after it was over I lay in
bed looking out upon a world of rubbish. Two
men I know — one intellectual, the other very much
the reverse — burst into the room. They said,
'What happened to your short stories? They
weren't good, but where are they ? Why have you
stopped writing ? Why haven't you been to Italy ?
You must write. You must go. Because to write,
to go, is you.' Well, I have written, and yesterday
we sent the long story out on its rounds. The
men do not like it, for different reasons. But it
mattered very much to them that I should write
it, and so it got written. As I told you, this is only
one fact ; other facts, I trust, have happened in the
last five months. But I mention it to prove that
people are important, and therefore, however much
it inconveniences my wife, I will not go back to
her."

"And Italy?" asked Mrs Failing.

This question he avoided. Italy must wait. Now
that he had the time, he had not the money.

" Or what is the long story about, then ? "

u About a man and a woman who meet and are
happy."

344 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" Somewhat of a tour de force, I conclude."

He frowned. "In literature we needn't intrude
our own limitations. I'm not so silly as to think
that all marriages turn out like mine. My
character is to blame for our catastrophe, not
marriage."

"My dear, I too have married; marriage is to
blame."

But here again he seemed to know better.

" Well," she said, leaving the table and moving
with her dessert to the mantelpiece, "so you are
abandoning marriage and taking to literature.
And are happy."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because, as we used to say at Cambridge, the
cow is there. The world is real again. This is
a room, that a window, outside is the night "

"Goon."

He pointed to the floor. "The day is straight
below, shining through other windows into other
rooms."

" You are very odd," she said after a pause, " and
I do not like you at all. There you sit, eating my
biscuits, and all the time you know that the earth
is round. Who taught you? I am going to bed
now, and all the night, you tell me, you and I and
the biscuits go plunging eastwards, until we reach
the sun. But breakfast will be at nine as usual.
Good-night."

She rang the bell twice, and her maid came with
her candle and her walking-stick : it was her
habit of late to go to her room as soon as dinner
was over, for she had no one to sit up with.
Rickie was impressed by her loneliness, and also

WILTSHIRE. 345

by the mixture in her of insight and obtuseness.
She was so quick, so clear-headed, so imagina-
tive even. But all the same, she had forgotten
what people were like. Finding life dull, she
had dropped lies into it, as a chemist drops a
new element into a solution, hoping that life would
thereby sparkle or turn some beautiful colour.
She loved to mislead others, and in the end her
private view of false and true was obscured, and
she misled herself. How she must have enjoyed
their errors over Stephen ! But her own error
had been greater, inasmuch as it was spiritual
entirely.

Leighton came in with some coffee. Feeling it
unnecessary to light the drawing-room lamp for
one small young man, he persuaded Rickie to say
he preferred the dining-room. So Rickie sat down
by the fire playing with one of the lumps of chalk.
His thoughts went back to the ford, from which
they had scarcely wandered. Still he heard the
horse in the dark drinking, still he saw the mystic
rose, and the tunnel dropping diamonds. He had
driven away alone, believing the earth had con-
firmed him. He stood behind things at last, and
knew that conventions are not majestic, and that
they will not claim us in the end.

As he mused, the chalk slipped from his fingers,
and fell on the coffee-cup, which broke. The china,
said Leighton, was expensive. He believed it was
impossible to match it now. Each cup was differ-
ent. It was a harlequin set. The saucer, without
the cup, was therefore useless. Would Mr Elliot
please explain to Mrs Failing how it happened.

Rickie promised he would explain.

He had left Stephen preparing to bathe, and had

346 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

heard him working up-stream like an animal,
splashing in the shallows, breathing heavily as
he swam the pools ; at times reeds snapped,
or clods of earth were pulled in. By the fire he
remembered it was again November. " Should
you like a walk?" he asked Leighton, and told
him who stopped in the village to-night. Leighton
was pleased. At nine o'clock the two young men
left the house, under a sky that was still only
bright in the zenith. "It will rain to-morrow,"
Leighton said.

" My brother says, fine to-morrow."

" Fine to-morrow," Leighton echoed.

"Now which do you mean?" asked Rickie,
laughing.

Since the plumes of the fir-trees touched over
the drive, only a very little light penetrated. It
was clearer outside the lodge gate, and bubbles of
air, which seemed to have travelled from an im-
mense distance, broke gently and separately on
his face. They paused on the bridge. He asked
whether the little fish and the bright green weeds
were here now as well as in the summer. The
footman had not noticed. Over the bridge they
came to the cross-roads, of which one led to Salis-
bury and the other up through the string of
villages to the railway station. The road in front
was only the Roman road, the one that went on
to the downs. Turning to the left, they were in
Cadford.

"He will be with the Thompsons," said Rickie,
looking up at dark eaves. "Perhaps he's in bed
already."

" Perhaps he will be at The Antelope."

" No. To-night he is with the Thompsons."

WILTSHIRE. 347

"With the Thompsons." After a dozen paces
he said, "The Thompsons have gone away."

"Where? Why?"

"They were turned out by Mr Wilbraham on
account of our broken windows."

"Are you sure?"

"Five families were turned out."

"That's bad for Stephen," said Rickie, after a
pause. " He was looking forward — oh, it's mon-
strous in any case ! "

" But the Thompsons have gone to London,"
said Leighton. "Why, that family — they say it's
been in the valley hundreds of years, and never
got beyond shepherding. To various parts of
London."

" Let us try The Antelope, then."

"Let us try The Antelope."

The inn lay up in the village. Rickie hastened
his pace. This tyranny was monstrous. Some
men of the age of undergraduates had broken
windows, and therefore they and their families
were to be ruined. The fools who govern us find
it easier to be severe. It saves them trouble to
say, "The innocent must suffer with the guilty."
It even gives them a thrill of pride. Against all
this wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and
Pembrokes who try to rule our world Stephen
would fight till he died. Stephen was a hero.
He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was
great enough to despise our small moralities.
He was attaining love. This evening Rickie
caught Ansell's enthusiasm, and felt it worth
while to sacrifice everything for such a man.

"The Antelope," said Leighton. "Those lights
under the greatest elm."

348 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

" Would you please ask if he's there, and if he'd
come for a turn with me. I don't think I'll go
in."

Leighton opened the door. They saw a little
room, blue with tobacco - smoke. Flanking the
fire were deep settles, hiding all but the legs of
the men who lounged in them. Between the
settles stood a table, covered with mugs and
glasses. The scene was picturesque — fairer than
the cut-glass palaces of the town.

"Oh yes, he's there," he called, and after a
moment's hesitation came out.

"Would he come?"

" No. I shouldn't say so," replied Leighton, with
a furtive glance. He knew that Rickie was a
milksop. "First night, you know, sir, among old
friends."

"Yes, I know," said Rickie. "But he might
like a turn down the village. It looks stuffy in-
side there, and poor fun probably to watch others
drinking."

Leighton shut the door.

" What was that he called after you ? "

"Oh, nothing. A man when he's drunk — he
says the worst he's ever heard. At least, so they
say."

" A man when he's drunk ? "

"Yes, sir."

" But Stephen isn't drinking ? "

"No, no."

" He couldn't be. If he broke a promise — I don't
pretend he's a saint. I don't want him one. But
it isn't in him to break a promise."

" Yes, sir ; I understand."

"In the train he promised me not to drink —

WILTSHIRE. 349

nothing theatrical : just a promise for these few
days."

" No, sir."

" * No, sir,' " stamped Rickie. " * Yes ! no ! yes ! '
Can't you speak out? Is he drunk or isn't
he?"

Leighton, justly exasperated, cried, "He can't
stand, and I've told you so again and again."

" Stephen ! " shouted Rickie, darting up the steps.
Heat and the smell of beer awaited him, and he
spoke more furiously than he had intended. "Is
there any one here who's sober?" he cried. The
landlord looked over the bar angrily, and asked
him what he meant. He pointed to the deep
settles. "Inside there he's drunk. Tell him he's
broken his word, and I will not go with him to
the Rings."

"Very well. You won't go with him to the
Rings," said the landlord, stepping forward and
slamming the door in his face.

In the room he was only angry, but out in the
cool air he remembered that Stephen was a law
to himself. He had chosen to break his word,
and would break it again. Nothing else bound
him. To yield to temptation is not fatal for
most of us. But it was the end of everything
for a hero.

" He's suddenly ruined ! " he cried, not yet re-
membering himself. For a little he stood by
the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of its bark.
Even so would he wrestle to-morrow, and Stephen,
imperturbable, reply, "My body is my own." Or
worse still, he might wrestle with a pliant Stephen
who promised him glibly again. While he prayed
for a miracle to convert his brother, it struck him

350 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

that he must pray for himself. For he, too, was
ruined.

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Leighton.
"Stephen's only being with friends. Mr Elliot,
sir, don't break down. Nothing's happened bad.
No one's died yet, or even hurt themselves."
Ever kind, he took hold of Rickie's arm, and,
pitying such a nervous fellow, set out with him
for home. The shoulders of Orion rose behind
them over the topmost boughs of the elm. From
the bridge the whole constellation was visible,
and Rickie said, "May God receive me and par-
don me for trusting the earth."

"But, Mr Elliot, what have you done that's
wrong ? "

" Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time.
Pretended again that people were real. May God
have mercy on me ! "

Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not
understand, a chill of disgust passed over him, and
he said, " I will go back to The Antelope. I will
help them put Stephen to bed."

"Do. I will wait for you here." Then he leant
against the parapet and prayed passionately, for
he knew that the conventions would claim him
soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far
beyond, and to be reached after what degradation !
At the end of this childish detour his wife awaited
him, not less surely because she was only his wife
in name. He was too weak. Books and friends
were not enough. Little by little she would claim
him and corrupt him and make him what he had
been; and the woman he loved would die out,
in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her strength
would be dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled

WILTSHIRE. 351

in a man. She would not continue. That mystic
rose and the face it illumined meant nothing.
The stream — he was above it now — meant nothing,
though jt burst from the pure turf and ran for
ever to the sea. The bather, the shoulders of
Orion — they all meant nothing, and were going
nowhere. The whole affair was a ridiculous
dream.

Leighton returned, saying, "Haven't you seen
Stephen ? They say he followed us : he can still
walk : I told you he wasn't so bad."

"I don't think he passed me. Ought one to
look?" He wandered a little along the Roman
road. Again nothing mattered. At the level-
crossing he leant on the gate to watch a slow
goods train pass. In the glare of the engine he
saw that his brother had come this way, perhaps
through some sodden memory of the Rings, and
now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily he did a
man's duty. There was time to raise him up and
push him into safety. It is also a man's duty to
save his own life, and therefore he tried. The
train went over his knees. He died up in Cad-
over, whispering, "You have been right," to Mrs
Failing.

She wrote of him to Mrs Lewin afterwards as
" one who has failed in all he undertook ; one of the
thousands whose dust returns to the dust, accom-
plishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I
buried him to the sound of our cracked bell, and
pretended that he had once been alive. The
other, who was always honest, kept away."

352 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

XXXV.

From the window they looked over a sober
valley, whose sides were not too sloping to be
ploughed, and whose trend was followed by a
grass-grown track. It was late on Sunday after-
noon, and the valley was deserted except for one
labourer, who was coasting slowly downward on
a rusty bicycle. The air was very quiet. A jay
screamed up in the woods behind, but the ring-
doves, who roost early, were already silent. Since
the window opened westward, the room was
flooded with light, and Stephen, finding it hot, was
working in his shirt-sleeves.

"You guarantee they'll sell?" he asked, with a
pen between his teeth. He was tidying up a pile
of manuscripts.

" I guarantee that the world will be the gainer,"
said Mr Pembroke, now a clergyman, who sat
beside him at the table with an expression of
refined disapproval on his face.

"I'd got the idea that the long story had its
points, but that these shorter things didn't — what's
the word?"

" ' Convince ' is probably the word you want.
But that type of criticism is quite a thing of the
past. Have you seen the illustrated American
edition ? "

"I don't remember."

" Might I send you a copy ? I think you ought
to possess one."

"Thank you." His eye wandered. The
bicycle had disappeared into some trees, and

WILTSHIRE. 353

thither, through a cloudless sky, the sun was
also descending.

"Is all quite plain?" said Mr Pembroke. "Sub-
mit these ten stories to the magazines, and make
your own terms with the editors. Then — I have
your word for it — you will join forces with me;
and the four stories in my possession, together with
yours, should make up a volume, which we might
well call 'Pan Pipes.'"

" Are you sure ' Pan Pipes ' haven't been used up
already?"

Mr Pembroke clenched his teeth. He had been
bearing with this sort of thing for nearly an hour.
" If that is the case, we can select another. A title
is easy to come by. But that is the idea it must
suggest. The stories, as I have twice explained
to you, all centre round a Nature theme. Pan,

being the god of "

" I know that," said Stephen impatiently.

" — Being the god of "

" All right. Let's get furrard. I've learnt that."

It was years since the schoolmaster had been

interrupted, and he could not stand it. "Very

well," he said. " I bow to your superior knowledge

of the classics. Let us proceed."

" Oh yes — the introduction. There must be one.
It was the introduction with all those wrong
details that sold the other book."

"You overwhelm me. I never penned the
memoir with that intention."

" If you won't do one, Mrs Keynes must ! "
"My sister leads a busy life. I could not ask
her. I will do it myself since you insist."
"And the binding?"

" The binding," said Mr Pembroke coldly, " must

z

354 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

really be left to the discretion of the publisher.
We cannot be concerned with such details. Our
task is purely literary." His attention wandered.
He began to fidget, and finally bent down and
looked under the table. "What have we here?"
he asked.

Stephen looked also, and for a moment they
smiled at each other over the prostrate figure of
a child, who was cuddling Mr Pembroke's boots.
"She's after the blacking," he explained. "If we
left her there, she'd lick them brown."

" Indeed. Is that so very safe ? "

" It never did me any harm. Come up ! Your
tongue's dirty."

" Can I " She was understood to ask whether

she could clean her tongue on a lollie.

" No, no ! " said Mr Pembroke. " Lollipops don't
clean little girls' tongues."

" Yes, they do," he retorted. " But she won't get
one." He lifted her on his knee, and rasped her
tongue with his handkerchief.

" Dear little thing," said the visitor perfunctorily.
The child began to squall, and kicked her father
in the stomach. Stephen regarded her quietly.
" You tried to hurt me," he said. " Hurting doesn't
count. Trying to hurt counts. Go and clean your
tongue yourself. Get off my knee." Tears of
another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed
him. "How's the great Bertie?" he asked.

" Thank you. My nephew is perfectly welL
How came you to hear of his existence?"

" Through the Silts, of course. It isn't five miles
to Cadover."

Mr Pembroke raised his eyes mournfully. "I
cannot conceive how the poor Silts go on in that

WILTSHIRE. 355

great house. Whatever she intended, it could not
have been that. The house, the farm, the money,
— everything down to the personal articles that
belong to Mr Failing, and should have reverted
to his family ! "

" It's legal. Intestate succession."

"I do not dispute it. But it is a lesson to one
to make a will. Mrs Keynes and myself were
electrified."

" They'll do there. They offered me the agency,

but " He looked down the cultivated slopes.

His manners were growing rough, for he saw
few gentlemen now, and he was either incoherent
or else alarmingly direct. " However, if Lawrie
Silt's a Cockney like his father, and if my next is

a boy and like me " A shy beautiful look came

into his eyes, and passed unnoticed. " They'll do,"
he repeated. " They've turned out Wilbraham and
built new cottages, and bridged the railway, and
made other necessary alterations." There was a
moment's silence.

Mr Pembroke took out his watch. "I wonder
if I might have the trap ? I mustn't miss my train,
must I ? It is good of you to have granted me an
interview. It is all quite plain ? "

"Yes."

" A case of half and half — division of profits."

" Half and half ? " said the young farmer slowly.
** What do you take me for ? Half and half, when
I provide ten of the stories and you only four ? "

" I — I " stammered Mr Pembroke.

" I consider you did me over the long story, and
I'm damned if you do me over the short ones ! "

" Hush ! if you please, hush ! — if only for your
little girl's sake." He lifted a clerical palm.

356 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

"You did me," his voice drove, "and all the
thirty -nine Articles won't stop me saying so.
That long story was meant to be mine. I got it
written. You've done me out of every penny it
fetched. It's dedicated to me — flat out — and you
even crossed out the dedication and tidied me
out of the introduction. Listen to me, Pembroke.
You've done people all your life — I think without
knowing it, but that won't comfort us. A wretched
devil at your school once wrote to me, and he'd been
done. Sham food, sham religion, sham straight
talks — and when he broke down, you said it was
the world in miniature." He snatched at him
roughly. " But I'll show you the world." He twisted
him round like a baby, and through the open door
they saw only the quiet valley, but in it a rivulet
that would in time bring its waters to the sea.
"Look even at that — and up behind where the
Plain begins and you get on the solid chalk — think
of us riding some night when you're ordering your
hot bottle — that's the world, and there's no minia-
ture world. There's one world, Pembroke, and you
can't tidy men out of it. They answer you back —
do you hear? — they answer back if you do them.
If you tell a man this way that four sheep equal
ten, he answers back you're a liar."

Mr Pembroke was speechless, and — such is
human nature — he chiefly resented the allusion
to the hot bottle; an unmanly luxury in which
he never indulged ; contenting himself with night-
socks. " Enough — there is no witness present — as
you had doubtless observed." But there was.
For a little voice cried, " Oh, mummy, they're fight-
ing-— such fun " and feet went pattering up the

stairs. "Enough. You talk of * doing,' but what

WILTSHIRE. 357

about the money out of which you ■ did ' my sister ?
What about this picture" — he pointed to a faded
photograph of Stockholm — "which you caused to
be niched from the walls of my house? What
about — enough ! Let us conclude this disheartening
scene. You object to my terms. Name yours. I
shall accept them. It is futile to reason with one
who is the worse for drink."

Stephen was quiet at once. " Steady on ! " he said
gently. " Steady on in that direction. Take one-
third for your four stories and the introduction, and
I will keep two-thirds for myself." Then he went
to harness the horse, while Mr Pembroke, watching
his broad back, desired to bury a knife in it. The
desire passed, partly because it was unclerical,
partly because he had no knife, and partly because
he soon blurred over what had happened. To him
all criticism was " rudeness " : he never heeded it,
for he never needed it : he was never wrong. All
his life he had ordered little human beings about,
and now he was equally magisterial to big ones :
Stephen was a fifth -form lout whom, owing to
some flaw in the regulations, he could not send up
to the headmaster to be caned.

This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before
long he felt merely an injured martyr. His brain
cleared. He stood deep in thought before the only
other picture that the bare room boasted — the
Demeter of Cnidus. Outside the sun was sinking,
and its last rays fell upon the immortal features
and the shattered knees. Sweet-peas offered their
fragrance, and with it there entered those more
mysterious scents that come from no one flower or
clod of earth, but from the whole bosom of even-
ing. He tried not to be cynical. But in his heart

358 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

he could not regret that tragedy, already half-
forgotten, conventionalised, indistinct. Of course
death is a terrible thing. Yet death is merciful
when it weeds out a failure. If we look deep
enough, it is all for the best. He stared at the
picture and nodded.

Stephen, who had met his visitor at the station,
had intended to drive him back there. But after
their spurt of temper he sent him with the boy.
He remained in the doorway, glad that he was
going to make money, glad that he had been angry;
while the glow of the clear sky deepened, and the
silence was perfected, and the scents of the night
grew stronger. Old vagrancies awoke, and he
resolved that, dearly as he loved his house, he
would not enter it again till dawn. " Good-night ! "
he called, and then the child came running, and
he whispered, " Quick, then ! Bring me a rug."
" Good-night," he repeated, and a pleasant voice
called through an upper window, "Why good-
night?" He did not answer till the child was
wrapped up in his arms.

" It is time that she learnt to sleep out," he cried.
" If you want me, we're out on the hillside, where I
used to be."

The voice protested, saying this and that.

" Stewart's in the house," said the man, " and it
cannot matter, and I am going anyway."

"Stephen, I wish you wouldn't. I wish you
wouldn't take her. Promise you won't say foolish
things to her. Don't — I wish you'd come up for a
minute "

The child, whose face was laid against his, felt the
muscles in it harden.

" Don't tell her foolish things about yourself —

WILTSHIRE. 359

things that aren't any longer true. Don't worry
her with old dead dreadfulnesses. To please me —
don't."

" Just to-night I won't, then."

"Stevie, dear, please me more — don't take her
with you."

At this he laughed impertinently. "I suppose
I'm being kept in line," she called, and, though he
could not see her, she stretched her arms towards
him. For a time he stood motionless, under her
window, musing on his happy tangible life. Then
his breath quickened, and he wondered why he
was here, and why he should hold a warm child
in his arms. "It's time we were starting," he
whispered, and showed the sky, whose orange was
already fading into green. "Wish everything
good-night."

"Good-night, dear mummy," she said sleepily.
" Good-night, dear house. Good-night, you pictures
— long picture — stone lady. I see you through
the window — your faces are pink."

The twilight descended. He rested his lips on her
hair, and carried her, without speaking, until he
reached the open down. He had often slept here
himself, alone, and on his wedding-night, and he
knew that the turf was dry, and that if you laid
your face to it you would smell the thyme. For a
moment the earth aroused her, and she began to

chatter. " My prayers " she said anxiously.

He gave her one hand, and she was asleep before
her fingers had nestled in its palm. Their touch
made him pensive, and again he marvelled why he,
the accident, was here. He was alive and had
created life. By whose authority? Though he
could not phrase it, he believed that he guided the

360 THE LONGEST JOURNEY.

future of our race, and that, century after century,
his thoughts and his passions would triumph in
England. The dead who had evoked him, the
unborn whom he would evoke — he governed the
paths between them. By whose authority?

Out in the west lay Cadover and the fields of his
earlier youth, and over them descended the cres-
cent moon. His eyes followed her decline, and
against her final radiance he saw, or thought he
saw, the outline of the Rings. He had always been
grateful, as people who understood him knew. But
this evening his gratitude seemed a gift of small
account. The ear was deaf, and what thanks of his
could reach it ? The body was dust, and in what
ecstasy of his could it share ? The spirit had fled,
in agony and loneliness, never to know that it
bequeathed him salvation.

He filled his pipe, and then sat pressing the unlit
tobacco with his thumb. " What am I to do ? " he
thought. "Can he notice the things he gave me?
A parson would know. But what's a man like me
to do, who works all his life out of doors ? " As he
wondered, the silence of the night was broken. The
whistle of Mr Pembroke's train came faintly, and a
lurid spot passed over the land — passed, and the
silence returned. One thing remained that a man
of his sort might do. He bent down reverently
and saluted the child; to whom he had given the
name of their mother.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.

r

in*