Chapter VI: Act III: Scene I.--HEROIC (3)

Conway could not understand, nor was he able to reason with the rachitic dame, who insisted upon dragging the custom of another world into his paradise. Why this turmoil because another character had been added to the drama? He did not know why she should seek to disturb his state of peace. There were the iron gates in all visibility; she might so easily walk off the stage. The birds did not first come to him, and scold noisily, if they intended to fly away.

“Human nature has many phases,” observed the philosophic Drayton, when the respectable dame came and appealed to him. “One well-defined trait is a longing after change.” Then he gravely handed her the Ethics of Aristotle, and bade her study the pages for her soul’s good.

Finally the poor muddy-minded creature became appeased, not through the wisdom of Aristotle, nor yet by the indifference of her masters, but owing to the natural passing of her indignation after the noisy assertion of her wrongs. She returned to the kitchen, after a manner mollified, to grope grumbling among the pots, and to prepare the evening meal which differed not from day to day.

That same evening rumour went rustling into Kingsmore, where the relations of Lone Nance lived, and charges were brought against Conway, as gross as they were false, while wiseacres nodded heads of clay and recalled predictions made by them aforetime. They had seen the squire of Thorlund at the fair, and had written him down a fellow of the baser sort. They exhorted the lone girl’s guardians to take immediate action; but these practical folk merely realised that there was no longer a superfluous mouth to feed and an irresponsible spirit to suppress. Only one old man was sage enough to say, “No harm will come to her if she is at the Strath.” To those who reminded him of Henry Reed’s fate the grandfather replied, “He set himself against the place.”

When Dr. Berry came into the garden at his accustomed time he discovered a young woman, dressed in the mode of the eighteenth century, selecting blooms from the rose-bushes. He bent his head courteously and passed without a word.

The night fell, close, humid, and dark. There was not a breath of wind to move the heavy clouds which obliterated space and its starlight. Through a mist hanging about he garden beamed the light of a single candle, set beside the stone under the topiary hedge. The long yellow flame rose like an ear of wheat, and only flickered when a moth darted into it. There was a sound of music in the house, and presently the chorus reached the garden, and loomed into the misty radiance of the candlelight. First came Nance, grave and self-possessed, her head bare, her hands full of white roses; then Drayton and Conway; and finally Dr. Berry. They were holding sprigs of rosemary gathered from the herb-garden.

They took their stand about the stone, and when the girl had covered it with her roses the exarchus recited the office of the dead. The garden was steeped in silence outside the halo of light. The window of the saloon could be seen faintly glowing in the distance, but the outlines of the house were lost.

The Dithyramb was sung and the chorus marched away, leaving the solemn candle to burn itself away among the blooms. The Bacchanalians sat down to eat and to drink, but there was no sound of laughter, nor any careless word. The mind of the house was grim.

The procession made its way out the second time, Dr. Berry leading. Behind him came Conway and Drayton carrying iron bars and chisels. They passed the gate leading into the churchyard. Beneath a drip-stone terminating in a diabolic face, at the west end of the building, the scholar left them and went to his house for the key. The atmosphere continued to be dense; not a sound was heard, except the squeaking of bats, and the cry of a nightjar.

When the heavily clamped door had been opened, the three men passed into the mouldy interior. The rector locked the door, lighted one of the chancel lamps, and indicated a long stone let into the tiles, beneath the north wall of the building; and, when the others hesitated, he snatched the bar from Conway’s nervous hands and forced its point into the mortar which crumbled in the crevice.

A canopied memorial, adorned by miniature fluted columns and capitals of spiral volutes, acanthus-leaf bosses, brackets of decorated foliage, grape pendants, and crotchets terminating in mitre-head finials, had been let into the chancel wall, where a marble slab lyingly recited virtues of dead and gone Hoopers. There was no mention of Sir John, nor of his wife Edith, nor of his daughter Winifred; and the parish registers dealing with their period had been destroyed by carelessness and by fire. The baronet, as was well known, had been buried in unconsecrated ground. The stone which closed the entry to the vault was soft and much chipped. The cement crumbled at a touch. Conway, who had joined the work in fearful expectancy, felt the slab heave. Another moment it came up, and they could hear the hollow sound made by fragments of mortar falling into the vault below.

A step appeared, dry and dusty, and when a candle was brought and lowered they discerned a narrow flight leading into the silent space. Dr. Berry was the first to descend, and Conway the last. A brick arch sloped over them, and on either side appeared stout shelves, supporting narrow berths where the bodies of the extinct family had been put aside like old garments in a press.

“This is the one,” the scholar whispered, raising the candle above his head, and tapping a worm-eaten plank which gave forth a hollow echo.

“Died December 12th, aged 20,” muttered Conway.

“Let us see whether her lover came to her,” the scholar murmured.

There was nothing terrible about those swathed remains. Only a lock of fair hair, which had escaped from its bonds somehow, glistened when the candlelight entered the coffin. What had been little white hands were folded; and between them Conway perceived a tiny packet, bound with white ribbon, and inscribed with one word “Geoffrey.” He put out his hand, but shrank, afraid to rob the dead.

“It was never meant for me,” he whispered.

“Nevertheless take it,” urged the rector. “She does not need it now.”

Conway put out his arm, but again the effort failed. The packet was retained jealously, and the grave-breaker had neither the courage nor the inclination to use force. He turned away quickly, and sought the steps, muttering as he escaped, “She will not let it go.”

“I wished to bury it beneath the stone where her lover lies,” murmured Dr. Berry, as he also turned away. “But she knows what is best.”

As they replaced the stone, the light went out. Velvety darkness, heavy as cobwebs, closed down, submerging them, leaving them standing as it were upon the bottom of the sea of space. Then Drayton spoke:

“A current of cold air passed me. It was going from east to west.”

“It passed me also,” said the rector. “And I could see its outline and its eyes.”

Scene VI.--MELODRAMA

And the Voices of the Dialogue would be Strong and Manly. And the Ditty High and Tragicall; Not nice or Dainty.--_Bacon_.

Drinkers of tea in Kingsmore continued to talk scandal concerning Conway and Nancy Reed; but when the evil practice extended beyond the farm-houses and reached the untidy Vicarage, Mr. Price considered the time had come for him to act. The breath of ill-report was poison to the simple squire. Having drunk his customary four cups of tea, he roundly lectured his sister and niece; and when he had finished his sermon he went out to the stable-yard, saddled a cob with his own hands, then jogged across the hills to Thorlund, to acquaint himself personally with the facts relating to his peccant parishioner Lone Nance.

The squire remained a very short time at the Strath; yet it was long enough to satisfy him. He trotted back contented, although ignorant that he had regarded his neighbour’s domestic affairs through the spectacles which the spirit of the place had thought good to push before his eyes. Reaching home, he fell in with Flora, and after removing himself slowly from the saddle thus expressed his mind:

“The only way of punishing scandal-mongers is to disgrace them publicly. Our ancestors had the sense to know that. When gossips made a nuisance of themselves they had their heads harnessed in an iron cage. I could name a few chattering people who would be none the worse for a dose of old English penalties. Give me the stocks again, and let me see the public nuisances with their ankles picketed, and a beadle handy to encourage honest folk to jeer at them--”

“I suppose you have been to the Strath?” broke in Flora, who knew by experience that when her uncle was mounted upon a hobby his speech was liable to flow.

“Where I discovered the truth,” the vicar snapped. “Mr. Conway finds that old woman totally inadequate, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. It appears that Nancy Reed came and offered her services and he accepted them. It is all quite respectable and right. But the extraordinary part of it is the girl appears to be perfectly sane.”

“Did you go into the house?” Flora asked, with meaning.

“I stood in the hall for about five minutes, and enjoyed a very interesting conversation with Mr. Drayton. A most well-informed man, my dear, and as clear-headed as anyone could be. I have asked him to come and visit us. Really I found the Strath quite fascinating. After all I should be sorry to see it pulled down.”

“Did you interview this young woman?” Flora pursued.

“What?” said her uncle, somewhat blankly. “Well, I cannot remember that I did,” he went on crossly. “I was perfectly satisfied. Anyhow it’s not a subject for you to discuss, and I do not wish to hear any more questions.”

The squire was walking beside the girl, who was tall enough to look down upon him. As they came near the house he turned to her, and asked sharply, for he was not in a good humour that evening, how many men it had pleased her to refuse to marry.

“Four at present,” replied Flora carelessly.

“Ah!” exclaimed her uncle. “It is evident you are incapable of selecting a husband for yourself. When is your reply going to be in the affirmative?”

“Probably never. I don’t want to marry, and I don’t want to talk about it,” returned Flora.

“Bless my soul! A good-looking girl not want to talk about matrimony!” said the astounded squire. “I want to see you settled,” he went on seriously. “I am an old man, and I should like to have the pleasure of uniting you to some suitable partner before I take my departure.”

“You have someone in your mind,” she suggested. “Is it Mr. Conway?”

“You might do worse, I suppose,” said the vicar, stroking his chin, and glancing at her out of the corners of his eyes.

“And live at the Strath?” she went on.

“You might improve it.”

“Not very long ago you told me Mr. Conway was not a gentleman,” Flora reminded him. “You remarked that he was connected with the Reeds of this village. You called the Strath a haunted house. Do you know what has caused your mind to change so completely?”

The vicar stared her in amazement.

“It is the house,” she said. “You have just come from there, and I believe its influence is still upon you. You were not expressing your own opinions just now. They are not your opinions.”

“Flora,” the old gentleman exclaimed angrily, “I may be over seventy, but I am not a fool, and I am not to be told by a young girl that I do not know what I am talking about. I want you to marry, and of course I hope you will choose a worthy gentleman. In my young days girls were not allowed to have opinions of their own, and it was very much better for them. I did not ask your poor dear aunt if she would marry me. I went to her father, who, I believe, was far more capable of judging a man than she could ever have been and told him I wanted his daughter. That is the way marriages ought to be arranged. If any man asks me for you, and I think him desirable, I shall take it upon myself to answer for you, and if you refuse to accept him I shall leave my money elsewhere. I have an idea you have behaved disgracefully.”

With that the squire led his horse off to the stable; while Flora, very white and angry, mounted her bicycle and rode across country to seek consolation from Maude.

The little lady was not at home. A man of general uselessness, who was rolling the lawn without energy, volunteered the information that his mistress had driven off in her donkey-cart half an hour earlier. Flora returned to the road, and tempted by a long declivity ran down into Thorlund.

She saw no one in the hamlet; not a living thing appeared upon the road; only a subdued hammering issued from the smithy on the side of the hill. The Strath never appeared more alluring than when flooded in evening sunlight. It seemed to be breathing softly, reaching a dreamy influence over church, fields, and hills, hushing nature into silence. Flora walked to the gate in the churchyard, responding to a summons which would accept no denial; and for the second time found herself in the garden with the eyes of the house upon her soul.

The mood had changed; on her former visit the house had transferred her into a light-hearted mummer. Then it suggested solemn truths, responsibilities which might not be avoided, and the necessary sorrows of existence. It suggested that a thin veil separated knowledge from belief; creatures of a day could not afford to dally; the mind which faces the whirlwind must bend or be broken; women who will not obey the call of destiny must die, even as Henry Reed had died; tragedy arises from self-will; obedience is the road to happiness. Through this atmosphere Flora wandered, with an indefinite longing for a guide, beginning to comprehend that she could no more struggle against destiny than the butterfly against the storm.

A rebellious desire came over her to defy those influences, and in that moment it seemed to her that the light darkened. She experienced the stunning sensation of walking out to execution before a howling mob; there was the ancient tragic wail, “Alas, my sister!” and she saw a stage with curtain descending slowly before a dying body. Here then was the end of those who opposed themselves to destiny. So she resigned herself, and immediately the light became clear, and her mind was at rest. She was told contemptuously that she was human, therefore ignorant, and fated to stumble. She was like a foolish moth coming out of darkness, burning its beauty, and returning into darkness.

Life must be something more than a glimmering meteor. It is a flame burning well, or flickering feebly, according to the supply of soul. A life might light the world, and continue burning. Far back in the morning mists of time a fair woman had struck the lyre. It still vibrated. Four thousand men had held at bay three millions of foes, falling at last, envied, their tomb an altar; and a general in command of a few heroes had faced the fighting force of the world, and hurled it back, with death in the front, destruction in the rear. The light shed by such lives might never be extinguished.

Flora had sought originality. She had longed to render herself conspicuous by a line of action contrary to the laws of the drama. It was for the Strath to open her eyes, and point out, what should have been obvious, namely that she was a very ordinary woman. Originality does not consist in doing uncommon things, but in doing common things in an uncommon way. Thousands of men had fought and fallen, before Miltiades occupied the plain of Marathon, or Leonidas led his handful to the pass of the Hot Springs. Hundreds of singers had lifted up their voices, before Sappho’s throat melted with its music. They were immortal, because they had played the fine old parts as well as it was possible to play them. But let a man or woman create a fresh part which was contrary to the laws of the drama--then would come failure, dishonour, and the hisses of the audience.

The voice of warning was clear. Away from the Strath the girl might assume her part of attracting men with no idea of union; but there at least she was bound by the custom of ages. She stirred among strange forces. The dramatic fingers of destiny indicated the well-worn paths along which she must walk, through pain and difficulties by performing a woman’s duty, to attain present happiness and rest at last. The influence suggested, moreover, that she might not turn into that beaten track without a punishment for having gone astray.

The lessons of the Strath were those of the didactic drama, which teaches that mortals must submit to unchanging laws. The battle of free-will against destiny was its theme when serious, but under the teaching there lurked undoubtedly the sting of malevolence, of hatred for the actors upon its stage, and a desire to destroy them if it might. It had no phantasm to show, nor could it terrify by any sound; it could only shape minds for good or evil, causing the puppets to act and speak in comic or in tragic mood, showing them that life is not a small thing, the world no passing scene, but rather a permanent stage, upon which actors pass and repass, each playing many characters, with the same passions in them, and the same destiny always behind.

Unmindful of time or place Flora walked on until she reached the orchard. And there other voices came to her ears, and looking out she saw Conway and Nance walking beneath the mossy branches.

She stood aloof, watching those dream-like figures crossing the bright green orchard, her ears filled with the drowsy hum of their voices, until the knowledge came that she was jealous of the brown village girl who trailed across the grass the long discarded garments of Winifred Hooper, and rested a hand, half hidden in lace ruffles, upon the arm of her new-found friend.

Flora swayed to and fro beside the hedge, and endeavoured to reason with her sane self, but the Strath held her fast. Could this wild Medea-like passion be love, or was it hatred? There was hatred in her heart, but it was for Nance, and her eyes had never seen the girl before that day. A breath of wind shivered through the trees, and strong-minded Flora bent beneath the tragic influence of the place.

She ran to the house and entered the hall, which was filled with dust-flecked sunbeams. Then into the saloon, where Drayton was lying asleep with a smile upon his white face. A mask of tragedy stared from the wall with pitiful blank eyes. Flora smiled wildly at the emblem; then, catching the reflection of her own face in one of the mirrors, shrank because of its tragic similarity. She caught up the rusty sword, which her uncle had handled upon their former visit, and passed again through the garden with the day upon one side, and the night upon the other.

The man and the girl were still walking within the orchard. Flora felt no sense of nervousness, when they approached her hiding-place. She could see the lone girl’s face, idealised in that atmosphere, its large eyes roaming restfully across the sun-mists. She could hear the long grass brushing against their garments. A few more steps and they would have passed; but the opposing influence had already issued its warning, and Nance stopped a few paces from the hedge, and lifting her hand pointed towards the exact spot where Flora stood concealed.

“What is that?” she said to her companion.

“It is a holly bush,” Conway answered.

“A flash of light passed through it,” the girl said.

“It was the sun. See how it flashes through the apple-trees.”

“There is a dark shadow round the holly bush, and the light that I saw was cold,” Nance went on. “This morning a robin was singing there. It has flown away, and now the sun has gone too. Let us follow them. I hear the robin singing beside the stream.”

They turned and went away, Nance casting back glances at the deep green bush, until they came into a jungle of roses, leading towards a little stream which murmured evermore among its weeds. Here the girl paused and pushed Conway back into the sunlight. “Go to the holly bush,” she said. “There is an enemy in the garden.”

He regarded her with calm astonishment.

“There is danger there, and it is to me,” she went on. “You are safe. I will sit here, and watch the water until you come.”

Her wild eyes aroused him and he returned, smiling in perplexity, wading through masses of scented herbs, and tangled brakes of briars, scattering rose petals all over the slope; and so advanced, forgetful of his mission, until he saw Flora walking to meet him with the bent sword hanging from her hand.

He remembered her dimly as one who had scorned him once, but the thought that she was out of place in that garden did not occur, until another breath of wind came from the house and set the leaves in motion; and then there came a suggestion of treachery and the memory of bodily death.

“So you would have killed her,” he said quietly, as they stopped face to face.

Flora was deathly pale. After that wave of passion a spirit of cunning had entered into her. She was following her enemy, hoping to find her alone; but now that she was confronted by the man of her desires resolution began to ebb and the deeper self came uppermost.

“I would only have frightened her,” she said glibly. “She has no right to be here--in my place.”

“This is not your place,” he answered. “Nor is it mine. I was brought here to learn, but I am on probation. One who was here before me rebelled against the master of the house, and he was punished.”

“Have you always acted according to the dictates of your master’s mind?” she asked.

“I dare not do otherwise.”

“Neither do I,” she cried. “My enemy is here, and I was told to hide in the holly-bush and kill her as she passed.”

“She has done you no wrong.”

“She is winning your love. She is drawing you away from me. She walks by your side, with her hand upon yours, and looks into your eyes, and you return her words of affection, and give her smile for smile. I was watching while you walked together in the orchard. I heard your flatteries--”

“You are lying,” the male actor interposed. “She is as clear as the light. I gave her no word of flattery. She has a place in this garden. You have none. I do not know you, and I do not desire to see you again. Put down that sword, and go.”

The wind was blowing steadily from the house.

“Do not speak so cruelly,” she prayed. “Do not look at me with those hard eyes. It is my love which has driven me to this. I will go if you bid me, or come if you call, or kill myself if you would be rid of me. Have pity upon me. Let me walk with you. Come into the orchard, and talk to me as you talked to her, and let me rest my hand upon your arm.”

Conway stepped from her to an open spot, and faced the wind.

“I believe there is no sincerity in you,” he said. “I have had dreams of a woman like you, one who would lead men on by smiles, and later spurn them. You are tall and you are beautiful, but I do not trust you. I am told you are incapable of love, and this one thing I feel--it is dangerous for you to be here. Give me that sword.”

She put out her arm and gave it him.

“Come with me.”

“Give me something to carry away with me,” she prayed.

He plucked a white rose and handed it to her. She touched it, and screamed. That environment, which had caused her to forget the world and to act a strange part, had not removed her natural antipathies. The bloom was dashed to pieces between them. She allowed herself to be hurried on, through the deepening shadows and that cold scrutinising wind, in silence and hopelessness, towards the ivy-covered wall and the gate which stood ajar as she had left it. Conway fell back from her, as she fled through and escaped.

At the sight of the grass road, and blue hills beyond, the girl’s normal conditions were established. But as she passed out there was a feeling in her body, as though some vital essence, which had abandoned her temporarily, was then restored, and with it came a dull pain throbbing above her eyes.

Conway stumbled stupidly back to the side of the stream, where he found Nance singing to the water and making boats of buttercups. He gave her the old sword without a word of explanation, and she as silently received and flung it into the water, where the long tresses of weeds closed over and hid it from their sight.

Then she sang him an old sad song.

Mr. Price had just returned from the farm, and was standing on his lawn drawing long white hairs meditatively off the arm of his overcoat. Seeing his niece he hurried to her, smiling in his genial fashion, because he had been afraid she might have taken his late lecture too much to heart, and it was not in his nature to play the part of stern guardian for long.

“Been taking the air?” he cried. “Your mother was wondering where you had gone to. Why, child, your face is as white as chalk.”

“I have a horrible headache,” said Flora sulkily. “I am going to lie down. I actually went into the Strath and met Mr. Conway, and I believe I had a row with him about something or other, but I really cannot remember, because my head is so bad. It was an extraordinary thing my going there at all.”

Scene VII.--IDYLL

Now fast beside the pathway stood A ruin’d village, shagg’d with wood, A melancholy place.--_William Stewart Rose_.

Maude Juxon had failed to materialize at the time of Flora’s visit, because she was on the other side of the great chalky billows, enjoying life after her usual manner, that is to say by wasting it in vain pursuits. Had Flora dropped into the Thorlund valley earlier, she would certainly have seen the notorious little tandem of asses in front of the rectory. So glorious was the evening that Maude determined to give herself the gratification of calling upon Dr. Berry, to offer him a drive through the serene and poetic atmosphere.

The spoilt beauty had soon forgiven the scholar for that indiscreet praise of herself before her husband. Indeed she liked him the better for his panegyric, which at least convinced her of the thorough genuineness of his nature. She knew that he liked her; it flattered her that he should think her clever. She had been indeed so impressed by this fact that she spent two terrible days struggling to compose an equal number of original lines of poetry; and when the effort brought forth, after much ruffling of silken hair and puckering of pretty brows, nothing but a silly series of ragged syllables, she shamelessly copied Sir Nicholas Breton’s “Farewell to the World” from an old book of English poetry which she discovered in the house, and this inky forgery was crumpled in her pocket when she jumped into the cart.

The rector was in the church, said the housekeeper, and thither Maude repaired, to discover him unpoetically engaged in discussing the condition of the roof with a pair of ruddy sheep-farmers. Some mossy tiles had been worked awry by wind and weather, and in time of rain a puddle would occur symbolically in the vicinity of the font. As Maude’s bright colours illuminated the porch, the first bucolic was expressing his conviction that a certain handy labourer in his employ would experience no difficulty in resettling the recalcitrant tiles: the second bucolic indifferently suggested that the repairer should be summoned forthwith; the rector dreamily concurred, and the meeting was adjourned.

“Now you are coming for a drive,” said Maude, when the farmers had clamped away, side by side like twin brethren. “I am sure you deserve it, after being shut up with those things. What funny voices they have, and the red on their cheeks is just like blobs of paint! Why is it that big men squeak, and little men bellow? How can you talk to them? I shouldn’t know what to say after I had exhausted the weather.”

“With these men, fortunately, that subject cannot be exhausted,” said the poet. “It is very kind of you to invite me to drive with you on this magnificent evening, but I always find you kind and good,” he went on, gazing into the marvellous flora of her hat with his calm thought-filled eyes. “I have not seen you for three days, and in that time have made, I am ashamed to say, no appreciable progress with my work. I dream too much. Even when I sit beside my table I am unable to control my thoughts. I am carried away beyond the border, and there wander at will tween truths and half-truths. And there I am lost, and when I awake it is late, and nothing has been recorded.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Maude. “I hope you don’t talk like that to the sheep-men and the cow-men?”

“I speak upon such matters to you only,” he replied tenderly. “Because I know you understand.”

He dropped the church key among the weeds on the gravel walk, and did not appear to notice his loss until Maude stooped and picked it up for him.

“Look at my cart!” she exclaimed, with childish pleasure. “Doesn’t it shine? I have just had it varnished, and those pink lines painted round it. May I have some of your poppies?”

“Let me gather them for you,” said the scholar, as she hovered about the border. “You will soil your gloves.”

Immediately he began to decollate all manner of poppies, scarlet, white, and variegated, great sleep-scented globes of blossom, ragged, and fluffy, and seed-capped, until Maude arrested his hand with a scream of laughter.

“No, no! What could I do with those things--as big as cabbages? It is the pink Shirley ones I want.”

Laughing and chattering, she selected half-a-dozen of the prettiest, and fastened them into her dress; while the abashed scholar strewed the flowers of his own selection about the turf.

“Don’t waste them,” cried Maude. “Go and stick them about the heads of my donkeys.”

The poet did so, but as he bent his silvered head over the long ears of the little steeds, a voice out of the breeze from the garden of the Strath sardonically whispered, “Oh, scholar, scholar! How has your wisdom served you? Has it fitted you for nothing better than to deck a donkey’s head with poppies? Reason and infatuation, to say truth, keep little company together.”

“You too must wear a flower,” said Maude, approaching him. “Here is a pink rose for you.” She lifted her dainty self on tip-toe, and fastened the bloom into his coat with perfumed white-gloved fingers, rattling on, “We must preserve the scheme of colour. I like every thing on me and near me pink. When I die I should like to be carried away on one of those delicious pink clouds we see at sunset.”

“A beautiful thought,” he said reverently, touching her hand lightly as it brushed a petal from his coat. “And beautifully expressed by a true poetic mind.”

“I am clever?” cried Maude eagerly. “I really am a little clever?”

He smiled upon her, as he replied devoutly, “Cleverness is a small thing. It is an attribute we allow even to the lower animals. You are inspired.”

Then he submitted to be packed into the little cart and driven from the valley.

At the sign-post Maude whipped her leader round to the right, and they descended the slope which ended among the ruins of Queensmore. The little lady had been silent for some minutes. That copied poem made itself uncomfortable in her pocket. She knew that her companion was widely read. He might recognise it, and she would be shamefully unmasked. She did not so much mind his discovering her shallowness, because it was somewhat of a strain to maintain the part; but what she did fear was lest a forced acknowledgement of her sheer ignorance might also deprive her of beauty in his eyes. She did not want to lose her present hold upon him. She liked him, she told herself, immensely, because he was handsome and dignified, so immeasurably, if unconsciously, superior to all the men she had known. She had seen her husband standing by his side. She could never have believed it possible for two men to be so widely different; the one had seemingly all the gifts Nature had to bestow; the other had--mere money.

She refused to consider Herbert Juxon’s healthy mind and honest heart, and resolutely turned her eyes from his excessive forbearance. She had received a letter from him that morning. Somehow his kindly utterances always irritated her. He was coming to her on Saturday; he wished he could take her upon the Continent for a time, but business was holding him closely to the city; he intended to look out for a house in the country, which he hoped might suit her health; it was his ambition to make her happy. But his kindly words and thoughts were merely hailstones upon this butterfly.

The wheels jolted round a bend in the grass-grown road, and the entrance to what had been the village appeared before them. On a dark winter’s day the scene would have inspired with melancholy; then, mellowed with sunshine and enriched by flowering grasses, lush reeds and lichens, it made a gratifying picture for the artist. Ruin and decay were all around; here, brambles choked the bleak foundation of a former ale-house, the bricks and woodwork of which had been carted away; there, a roofless cottage gaped with doorless mouth and stared with empty window sockets.

The church had been a low thatched building with a shingled spire. The remains were tottering upon a slight eminence beside a gigantic yew. The thatch sagged heavily, loaded with moist mosses of an emerald green, and the rotten rafters snagged inward like broken ribs. The interior was stripped bare. Its bell miles away was used for calling children to school; its encaustic tiles and fittings had been distributed abroad; its font and brasses had passed into the hands of collectors of antiques; even the burying place had been rifled, and the old grave stones taken to fill gaps in walls or to floor pig-sties.

A portion of the parsonage stood gaunt and spectral, its windows gloomy gaps fringed with ivy, its garden a pasture ground for straying cattle and adventurous sheep. The roof was golden with lichen, and the gutter-line broken picturesquely into a dog-tooth pattern by tiles, jutting off, awaiting removal by October winds. Swallows were darting in and out of the space once occupied by the door, where old parson Hooper had often entered in ragged red-lined coat and stiff gloves eager to count his gold. The village green beyond, where a rust-red pump leaned far out of the perpendicular, was a mere field, lined geometrically by four cart-tracks. White butterflies were swarming, and fruit-trees grew unpruned, and all the old gardens writhed with caterpillars; the grass and reeds fluttered lazily; a gentle sound issued through the vacant windows that were left.

Maude tried to be solemn as they drove through this desolation. She quickly found herself incapable of sustaining the effort, and dropping the reins demanded from her companion accurate information as to whether _asinus vulgaris_ really delighted in consuming herbaceous plants of a spiny character.

“By refusing to do so the animal would destroy a long cherished belief,” the scholar replied.

“Then their little hearts shall rejoice,” said Maude. “There are enough thistles here to feed a hundred donkeys for a year. I will tie one of the reins round this pump, and the beasts may eat prickles while we explore.”

When the tethering process had been accomplished they roamed through the village of the past, and presently entered the churchyard. A low tomb beneath a cypress offered a shady resting-place which met with Maude’s approval, and thither she led the scholar, who was prepared to indulge her smallest whim. Seating themselves upon the sunken masonry, they watched the drops of sunlight filtering through the leaves, and making satin-like patches upon the mouldering and mossy stones which sealed down the bodies of those who long ago had taken the mystic road, which, in the words of a wise Greek, is not of difficult passage, nor uneven, nor full of windings, but all very straight and downhill, and can be gone along with shut eyes.

“It is heavenly,” said Maude with a sigh, firmly believing she was perfectly happy, and fortunately ignorant of the saying of another Greek, that a woman knows only two happy days, that of her marriage, and that of her funeral.

Dr. Berry was leaning forward, his beautifully shaped hands clasped between his knees, his eyes fixed upon an inscription still faintly legible beside a laurel, “Here innocence and beauty lie.” A beautiful woman was close beside him and in her soul, he believed, innocence was personified. The gently rounded summit of Deadman’s Hill rose in the distance. Clearly outlined against the rosy sky stood the tall rugged post which marked the spot of the gallows where former villains had been compelled to submit to fate. The gallows had long ago been swept away. The post, which stood as its representative, cast a long narrow shadow across the ruins.

“Say something,” urged the pink idol.

“I shall remember this,” he answered dreamily.

Maude flushed a little. She did not like to be reminded of the future, when her dainty bloom must ripen off and the wrinkle assert its tyranny. “Ruins always make people sad,” she said a little crossly. “The only ruins which could deject me would be those of my prettiness,” she went on in a lower voice.

“Dear lady,” murmured the poet, taking her hand impulsively. “Beauty will never leave you. It is the soul gazing from your eyes that gives you loveliness, and the soul does not age. Fifty years hence there may be snow upon your head and lines along your brow, but the beauty that is within can defy the years.”

Maude conceived that moment profitable for the production of her borrowed master-piece. Releasing her hand, she burrowed into her pocket and brought forth an inky ball of manuscript, which she unrolled with blushes and smoothed modestly upon her knee, saying in a small faltering voice:

“You’ve never asked if I have written anything, but I--I’ve listened to you so often I want you to--to hear what I have done. Will you let me read you a little poem of my own?”

Her heart began to thump.

“My sister! My dear sister!” the scholar cried. “This is indeed a privilege. How selfish I have been! Completely engrossed in my own work, I had forgotten yours. Let me put myself in the disciple’s place and learn.”

He stretched himself upon the grass by her feet, and in that posture of humility put back his uncovered head, that he might behold her pretty features, and the brilliant curls fluttering beneath the brim of her hat.

“I am ready,” he murmured.

“It is sad,” said Maude warningly.

“We poets love the sorrowful theme. The sweetest music is also the saddest. But read! I am impatient to hear.”

“It is called Farewell to the World,” she murmured, with shy deprecation, and then hurriedly, “I believe you don’t want to hear it. I’m sure you’ll think it stupid.”

“I shall feel only admiration, with perhaps some little envy,” he answered. “But why are you so diffident? Am not I a poor weaver of fancies, like yourself?”

His encouragement was so kindly and sincere that Maude gained courage. With increasing colour she began to read:

“Go! Bid the world, with all its trash, farewell.”

“Slower,” he entreated with upraised hand. “The music is lost when the time gallops.”

Maude’s fear began to be dissipated when the title and opening line passed unchallenged. She continued with more confidence, until her dainty voice sounded disdainfully the last of the stanza, “Leave it, I say, and bid the world farewell.”

A few moments of silence intervened before the poet spoke:

“For freshness of conception, strength of imagery, and purity of line, that verse is only to be surpassed by the best work of the Elizabethan poets. It recalls indeed to my mind Sir Nicholas Breton’s--”

“Oh!” Maude interrupted, dreadfully pale. “You don’t think I--” And there she stopped in dire confusion.

“Indeed the similarity is but upon the surface,” he continued. “We all have our models. The Elizabethan, to whom I have just referred, had neither your originality nor your strength of metaphor. To draw from the model is one thing; to improve upon it is another. Talent may copy, but genius will improve.”

Maude breathed again and, after resolutely repelling the idea that she was acting with shameless wickedness, read the second stanza with boldness, the third and last with impudence, and sat, joyous in her sins, awaiting the verdict.

“That verse again,” he prayed.

When she had complied with this request, he repeated the first line in a resonant voice, with his eyes fixed upon the ruined church:

“Then let us lie as dead, till there we live.”

Silence fell again, intensified by the ticking of the insects in the grass and the wings of the swallows cutting through the air. Dr. Berry turned abruptly and seizing Maude’s right hand pressed it passionately to his lips. He was paying his tribute then, not to face and figure, nor to dainty garments, but to a beautiful soul which was not there at all.

“I am a mere clerk,” he said in a thrilling voice. “A poor transcriber of the ideas of others, while you soar through the clouds, and drink out of the golden cup of the gods. How hollow must my poor lines have sounded upon your ears! Yet you listened patiently, and approved, condescending to stoop and lift me upon your pinions and point out to me the path to the stars. My feeble song is but a piping of pan-pipes. Yours is a trumpet blast, stirring the depths.”

“I’m so glad you like it,” said Maude, blushing deeply, and delighted by his praise.

“What is your inspiration?” he continued, gazing up into her flushed face. “Tell me what stirs your soul. It is not true, as men have said, and will still affirm, that wisdom lies latent in the mind. We are the inspired media of an influence, that influence emanating from the minds which have preceded us. One great poet of the past heard a gentle fluttering of wings above his head. Another thought he could see a butterfly quivering about his pen. I, if I may mention my unworthy self, have a strange nervousness, the sense of a presence, a quickened heart, and a pricking sensation round my forehead. When the inspiration passes I am depressed and weak.”

“I don’t know,” quavered Maude. “Oh yes! I like to smell roses.”

“It is fitting,” he said reverently. “Daintiness and sweetness make appropriate food for the divine soul. I see now that I have been misled. I have always refused to admit that the poetess, if born into this present age, would be able to break the bonds of social and domestic life, and fly upward with her song. Tell me,” he added in a low and pleading tone. “Confide in me, dear sister. Only the heart which has been wrung, and the mind which has cried, ‘The hand of God has touched me,’ could have controlled the brain to fashion such sorrowful truths as those you have recited. You have already passed through tribulation?”

A robin darted into the cypress, and his beautiful little body throbbed with song.

“Indeed I have,” said Maude pathetically. “I have had dreadful troubles, but I have never told anyone.”

Honestly she believed what she said. She did not know that her silly life had been a mere ramble through a pleasance. Never having seen suffering, she did not know what it was. But she had a husband whom she did not care for, ambitions which had not been realised, clothes which had not come up to her expectations, and friends whom she knew had scoffed at her idle ways. So she had passed indeed through the valley of tribulation.

“We do not talk of these things,” the scholar gently answered. “Like the young Laconian, we hold the fox to our bosom, and though it may gnaw, and we may wince and faint, we still declare the creature is not there. We clutch the rose tightly, and aver there are no thorns. But those who love us know, and we are glad that they should know, because we need sympathy even as the flowers need dew. I have not known suffering, and while thankful for the privilege, I confess my work lacks that refining touch which suffering alone can give. Dear sister, put your hands for one moment upon mine.”

The little lady quivering slightly, permitted him to take her hands. Her eyes were hidden by her hat, and waves of pink chased one another across her face and throat.

“Our souls are here united,” he cried triumphantly. “Beautiful and inspired poetess! Did you not feel that restful sense of approaching union when first we met? We have grown together, during these blissful days, like two blooms upon one stem. Our ideals are the same. Together we may succeed in realising them. I have perhaps--pardon the presumption--more learning, but you have far clearer sight, a more perfect mind, and a soul quickened into fire by the suffering you have undergone. We will bring these forces together. How perfectly destiny works! She brought you to me at the time when I needed you most. And I have served you a little. You were neglecting your gifts. The fires were smouldering ineffectually. I flatter myself that, if we had failed to meet, that magnificent lyric I have just heard would never have been penned by this white hand.”

“It wouldn’t,” Maude quavered.

“Then I have served you, but the debt upon my side remains still large. What a mysterious thing is this union! You have often seen a climbing plant reaching out for support, and when it finds a stem to which it may cling it grows into full perfection; but if it cannot establish the union it must wither. The same with our souls. But destiny is so kind she would not see us wither. You and I have been languishing, but now we shall grow--together and undivided.”

He pressed her hands together, and bent his head over them.

INCIDENTAL

All things are changing; and thou thyself art perpetually altering and, so to speak, wasting away always.--_Marcus Antoninus_.

The time of ripened fruit had come, and the grass was yellow and sere. Change was upon the face of the country, the prospect was mantled in mists, and the shortened evenings were dark with rain-clouds. The note of Nature’s song had altered. Autumn had taken the lyre out of summer’s reluctant hand, and as she struck her fiercer notes the foliage turned from green to gold, and the migratory birds went away.

The spirit of change had settled upon the Bethel of Thorlund. The interior was in better order than formerly. The spider had been routed, and the mouse discomfited; the strong coarse flowers of autumn glimmered dimly at the east, where the old hangings had been replaced by new; the brass-work shone, and the damp altar itself awoke one day from a long lethargy to find itself resplendent in a new green mantle. The sleep which hung so long upon the rector’s eyes had been in some part dissipated. Foolish Maude was the murderess of that slumber. Through her trivial and wholly terrestrial mind Dr. Berry perceived that one side of his environment lacked the beauty which was requisite for his bodily peace. Hitherto his mind had been so fully occupied in its strange flights that his charge the church had been but lightly included. But, subsequent to that memorable evening in the churchyard of ruined Queensmore, his lower self noted, with a distinct uneasiness, a certain lack of harmony between dreamland and the earthly vision. His manner of life had made stains which he would willingly have seen eliminated. The neglected church was one of these blots. He opened his eyes, and removed this reproach, in order that his poetic soul might no longer receive offence. This partial awakening was not spiritual, because at the same time he attended more carefully to his own appearance. His hair was more thoughtfully arranged, and his shoes were more elegant. Selfishness was the root, pride the stem, and vanity the bloom of this sudden growth, which had been raised into being and propagated as a pastime by Maude.

Change had come also over the spirit of the influence. It was stronger, more assertive, and more binding. It was at the same time more sinister. Conway and Drayton had become drifting particles controlled by the house, the instruments of its will, like electrons imprisoned within the atom. They roamed the garden in a perpetual state of dreams, responding to every breath from the hidden chamber, where the heart of the Strath was beating. Had Drayton been able to remind his companion of those past days of profligacy, Conway might have shaken his head with a perplexed smile. Had the older man been told of his former struggles to keep oil in the lamp of life, he would probably have replied, “I am thankful such misfortunes have never occurred to me.”

As for Lone Nance she was noisy no longer. The Strath supplied what had been wanting in her. Had she wandered again into the country, she would doubtless have been seized by the former wildness, and claimed by the old evils; the borrowed reason would have left her; she would have sunk again to the level of the animals. Conway would often sit and gaze upon her face. Though she was brown and tanned, she brought back for him fair-haired Winifred, walking sadly through the orchard in glimmering white, her small pale face set towards the road, watching the night for the lover who did not come.

Flora too had changed since that evening when her soul had been stripped bare. She had the feeling that youth was departing from her, and that her woman’s pride of beauty was beginning to wane. Mr. Price regarded her with apprehension, believing her to be ill. But she was not ill. She was only undergoing her punishment for having defied the first principles of the drama. She had come to regard her former opinions with a sort of loathing akin to fear. She confessed that she was an unnatural woman, after all her boastings of having made a step in advance of the remainder of her sex. What had actually occurred during her visit to the house of the drama she did not know; but she carried away a dream that evening which became a cloud darkening her life.

Upon a cheerless afternoon when a mass of grey vapour spread across the sky dropping warm rain at intervals, Conway brought his fellow-dreamer to Kingsmore vicarage.

Flora flushed when the leading character of the Strath entered. She had never been backward in speaking to any man, but then she was afraid. She knew that she desired to attract Conway, that she would still draw back if she could make him approach, but the knowledge came to her that power was wanting. She had lost the old art. At a glance she understood that he had no real affection for her. Could she have come to the Strath with a pure mind, as a humble heroine seeking development, as one anxious to discharge the high, if seemingly commonplace, functions of a woman, even as Nancy Reed had unwittingly approached the house, it might have been otherwise.