Part 2

I had always rather prided myself upon the completeness with which I had resigned myself to my lot of idleness and obscurity, and to my own mind was a philosopher of no small merit.

I lay back under the trees full of the content of the day and the green woods and abandoned myself to meditation.

Whether it was the spirit of Spring or some latent essence of activity in my being, I do not know, but certain it is that a wave of discontent spread over me--a weariness (very unfamiliar) of myself and my cheap philosophy.

I sat up, wondering at the change and its suddenness, groping in my mind for a solution to the problem.

Could it be that my rule of life was based on a fallacy?

Surely not. Suddenly I thought of Tommy and took a deep breath of the sweet woodland air, for I had found what I had wanted.

Resignation--it was a sacrilege to use the word on such a day.

Yes, I thought, there is no doubt that the instinctive philosophy of boyhood is the true rule of life, as indeed one ought to have suspected long ago.

To enjoy the present with all the capacity of every sense, to regard the past with comparative indifference, since it is irrevocable, and the future with a healthy abandonment, since it is unknown, and to leave the sorrows of introspection to those who know no better--avaunt with your resignation. And even as I said it I saw the reeds by the pool quiver and a pair of brown eyes twinkle joyously at me from their midst.

"Hello, Tommy!" I cried.

He emerged, clad only in an inconspicuous triangular garment about his waist.

"I've been watching you ever so long," he said triumphantly.

"Been bathing?" I asked.

"Rather. It's jolly fine and not a bit cold. I say, you should have seen the old boy potting rats."

"The poet?" I murmured in amaze.

Tommy nodded.

"He is getting quite a good shot," he said. "He was doing awful well till the vicar saw him about an hour ago--an' then he wouldn't go on any more."

"I should think not," said I. "The humanitarian, the naturalist, the anti-vivisectionist, the anti-destructionist--it passes comprehension."

Tommy took a header and came up on to the sunny bank beside me, where he stood a moment with glowing cheeks and lithe shining limbs.

"This is ripping," he said--every letter an italic. "This is just ab-solutely ripping."

I laughed at his enthusiasm, and, as I laughed, shared it--oh the wine of it, of youth and health and spring--was I talking about resignation just now?--surely not.

Tommy squatted down beside me on his bare haunches, with his hands clasped over his knees.

"I have heard from your father to-day," I said.

Tommy grunted, and threw a stick at an early butterfly.

He was always most uncommunicative where he felt most, so I waited with discretion.

"All right?" he queried, presently, in a nonchalant voice.

I nodded.

"He says he's afraid you're not very strong."

Tommy stared, then he looked a little frightened.

"I--of course I'm not _very_ strong, you know," he said thoughtfully, casting a glance down his sturdy young arms. "But I can lick young Collins, an' he weighs seven pounds more than me, an' I can pull up on the bar at gym--"

I hastened to reassure him.

"He referred to your attack last summer, you know, after the Chantrey affair."

Tommy grinned expansively.

"I expect the pater didn't know what it was," he said.

"But I did."

"You--you never told him?" in an anxious voice.

"No."

Tommy sighed.

"The pater does hate a chap being greedy, you see, and--those strawbobs were so awfully good. I couldn't help it--an' father thought I'd got a--intestinal chill, I think he said."

Tommy gave a passing moment to remembrance. Then he jumped up.

"I'm quite dry again," he said, looking down at me. "So I guess I'll hop in."

The remark appeared to me slightly inconsequent, but Tommy laughed and drew back under the shade of the tree. Then came a rush of white limbs, and he was bobbing up again in the middle of the sunny pool.

"Well dived," I cried, encouragingly, but he looked a little contemptuous.

"It was a jolly bad one," he said, "a beastly...." Delicacy forbids me to record the exact word he used, but it ended with "flopper."

He crawled out again, and shook the water from his eyes.

"I say, won't you come in?" he cried eagerly. "It's simply grand in there, and a gravel bottom."

But I am a man of careful habits, and sober ways, with a reputation for some stateliness both of behaviour and bearing, and I shook my head.

Tommy urged again.

"It's not as if you were an old man," he cried.

The thought had not occurred to me. Age, in our little fraternity had been a matter of but small interest. We had pursued the same routine of gentle exercise, and dignified diversion, quiet jest and cultured occupation, for so many years now, that we had seemed to be alike removed from youth and age, in a quiet, unalterable, back-water of life, quite apart from the hurrying stream of contemporary event.

No, I was certainly not an old man, unless a well preserved specimen of forty-eight, with simple habits, can so be styled.

Tommy stood expectant before me, his bare feet well apart, a very embodiment of young health, and, as I looked at him, a horrid doubt crept into my mind--had I--could I possibly have become that most objectionable of persons, a man in a groove?

"Do come," said Tommy.

"Don't be a fool," said Wisdom (only I was not quite sure of the speaker).

I looked round at the meadow, and the wood, and saw that we were alone.

"It is April," I said weakly.

"But it's quite warm--it is really." And so I fell.

To you, O reader, it may seem a quite small matter, but to me it was far from being so, for as I climbed the bank from each glad plunge I felt in my blood a strange desire growing to do something, to achieve, to surmount.

Such emotions I had not known for years--not since--a time, when, on a day, I had set myself to love seclusion and inactivity, and to live in study and retrospect, on the small means that were mine.

Ah, Tommy, never think that if any one desire be unfulfilled, life has therefore lost its sweetness, and its mission, and its responsibility!

"Cave," hissed Tommy, from the water.

I held my breath, and sure enough there were voices along the path, and close at hand, too.

I made a desperate leap, and entered the water with a quite colossal flop, for I am moderately stout.

And, even so, I had barely time to wade in up to my neck, before two figures, those of a little girl and a young lady, tripped into sight.

"Why," said the little girl, "there's old Mr. Mathews and a little boy in the pool. How funny."

The young lady--it was Lady Chantrey's governess--hesitated a moment and then courageously held on.

"Yes," I heard her say. "It certainly is peculiar, quite peculiar."

Whether she referred to me, or the situation, or an affair of previous conversation, I did not know.

I did not, indeed, much care, for surely this was enough that I, a philosopher of dignity, a bachelor of some importance, at any rate in Camslove, should have been seen in a small pool, with only a draggled head above the surface, by Lady Chantrey's daughter, and her governess.

I crept out, and had perforce to sit in the sun to dry, praying earnestly lest any other members of the surrounding families should come that way.

Tommy was in high spirits.

"It's done you lots of good," he said.

I glared at him.

"What do you mean?" I asked coldly, for his words seemed suggestive.

"You look so jolly fresh," he observed, dressing himself leisurely.

I felt that it was time I returned, and invited Tommy to partake of lunch with me. He declined, however, as he had thoughtfully provided himself with food, before starting out with the poet.

"So long," he said.

As I glanced up the brook, before returning homewards, I saw a sailor hat, navigating a small rapid.

"But I have no walking-stick," I reflected. "And it is in the middle of the stream."

IV

IN WHICH A YOUNG LADY IS LEFT UPON THE BANK

The sailor hat bobbed, merrily, down the stream, scorning each friendly brown boulder that would have stopped it, and dodging every drooping bough that would have held it back. For was not its legend of H. M. S. Daring, and must not the honour of Britain's navy be manfully maintained?

Tommy sat peacefully just above the bathing pool, munching his sandwiches, and letting the clear water trickle across his toes, very much contented with himself, and, consequently, with his environment also.

"Oh please--my hat," said a pathetic voice.

Tommy turned round, and on the path behind him stood the little girl, who had passed, a short while before.

She was quite breathless, and her hair was very tangled, as it crept about her cheeks, and hung over her brow.

Her hands were clasped, and she looked at Tommy, appealingly.

Tommy surveyed the hat, which had swung into the pool.

"It's too deep, just there, for me to go in, with my clothes on," he said.

"But there's a shallow part a little way down, and I'll go for it there. Come on."

He jumped up, and crammed his stockings and shoes into his pockets, as they ran down the path, beside the brook.

"How did you lose it?" he asked.

"I was climbing a tree--and--and the wind blowed it off."

"Oh!"

"My governess is reading a book, about half a mile up the stream, where the poplars are."

"Oh!"

Tommy felt strangely tongue-tied--a new and wholly perplexing experience. He was relieved when they arrived at the shallows, and waded carefully into the stream.

As the hat sailed down, he dexterously caught it, and came back in triumph.

"Oh, thank you so much. I hope you aren't very wet."

Tommy examined the upturned edge of his knickerbockers, and then looked into a pair of wide black eyes.

"Not a bit, hardly," he said, and he thought her cheeks were redder than any he had seen. He did not, as a rule, approve of girls, but he felt that there was a kindred spirit twinkling behind those black eyes.

"I think I must go back," said she.

"Wh--what is your name?" stammered Tommy, with a curious desire to prolong the time.

She laughed.

"I think you might tell me yours."

"I got your hat for you."

"You liked getting it."

"You'd have lost it, if I hadn't gone in."

"No, I shouldn't. I could have got it myself. I'm not afraid."

Tommy capitulated.

"They call me Tommy Wideawake," he said.

"What a funny name. I thought you looked rather sleepy, when I saw you on the bank just now."

"You looked jolly untidy," retorted Tommy irrelevantly.

"Are you the browny whitey colonel's son?"

Tommy spoke with aroused dignity.

"You must not call my father names," he said.

"I'm not. I think he's a splendid brave man, and I always call him that, because his face is so brown and his moustache and hair so very white."

Tommy blushed. Then he said very slowly, and with some hesitation, for to no one before had he confided so much:

"I think he is the bravest--the bravest officer in the whole army."

Then his eyes fell, and he looked confusedly at his toes.

The stream was rippling softly over the shallows, full of its young dream.

Then--

"I'm Madge Chantrey," said a shy voice.

Tommy looked up eagerly.

"Why, then I must have seen you in church--but you looked so different you know, so jolly--jolly different."

Madge laughed.

"I've often seen you, in an eton jacket, with a very big collar, and you always went to sleep in the sermon, and forgot to get up when the vicar said 'And now.'"

Tommy grinned.

Then an inspiration seized him.

"I say; let's go on to the mill, an' we'll pot water-rats on the way, an' get some tea there. He's an awful good sort, is the miller. His name's Berrill, and he's ridden to London and back in a day, and it's a hundred and fifty miles, and he can carry two bags of wheat at once, and there's sure to be some rats up at Becklington End, and it's only about three o'clock--and it's such an absolutely ripping day."

He stopped and pulled up some grass.

"You might as well," he concluded, in a voice which implied that her choice was of no consequence to him.

Her black eyes danced, and she swung her hat thoughtfully round her finger.

"It would be rather nice," she said. "But there is Miss Gerald, you know; she will wonder where I am."

"Never mind. I'll bring you home."

And down the chain of water-meadows from one valley to another they wandered through the April afternoon, till the old mill-pool lay before them deep and shadowy beneath the green, wet walls. A long gleam of light lay athwart its surface, dying slowly as the sunset faded.

"It is tea-time," said Tommy.

"Poor Miss Gerald," murmured Madge.

"She's all right," replied Tommy, cheerfully. "I expect she's jolly well enjoying herself."

* * * * *

As I passed the poet's gate I saw him pacing the lawn, and hailed him.

"Have you enjoyed the morning?" I asked.

He looked at me a little suspiciously.

"You haven't seen the vicar?" he queried.

I shook my head.

"Yes," he observed. "Thomas and I have been bathed, I may say, in nature."

He waved his hand.

"I saw Tommy bathing," said I.

Again the poet looked at me sharply.

"Did you--did you have any converse with the boy?" he asked.

"Only a little. He seemed to be thoroughly happy."

The poet smiled.

"Ah! the message of Spring is hope, and happiness, and life," he said, "and Tommy is even now in Spring."

I bowed.

"I saw a dead rat floating down stream," I remarked, casually.

The poet gave me a dark glance, but my expression was innocent and frank.

"_In media vitae, sumus in morte_," he observed, sententiously, and walked back to the lawn.

As I turned away, I met the doctor hurrying home.

He greeted me pleasantly, but there was curiosity in his eyes.

"What's the matter?" I asked, genially, for I felt I had scored one against the poet.

"Whatever has happened to your hair? It looks very clammy and streaky--and it's hanging over your ears."

I crammed my hat on a little tighter.

"Nothing at all," I said, hurriedly. "It's--it's rather warm work, you know, walking in this weather."

But I could see he didn't believe me.

"Seen Tommy?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Been fooling up the stream, I suppose?"

I coloured.

"No, of course not--er, that is, yes----Tommy has."

The doctor smiled.

"Good day, Mathews," he said.

And we parted.

Miss Gerald sat reading, on the bank.

V

IN WHICH APRIL IS MISTRESS

I have heard the song that the Spring-time sings In my journey over the hills, The wild _reveille_ of life, that rings To the broad sky over the hills: For the banners of Spring to the winds are spread, Her hosts on the plain overrun, And the front is led, where the earth gleams red, And the furze-bush flares to the sun.

I have seen the challenge of Spring-time flung To the wide world over the hills; I have marched its resolute ranks among, In my journey over the hills. The strong young grass has carried the crest, And taken the vale by surprise, As it leapt from rest on the Winter's breast To its conquest under the skies.

I have heard the secret of Spring-time told In a whisper over the hills, That life and love shall arise and hold Dominion over the hills Till the Summer, at length, shall awake from sleep, Warm-cheeked, on the wings of the day, Where the still streams creep, and the lanes lie deep, And the green boughs shadow the way.

"Four o'clock!" sang the church bells down the valley, as the poet stooped to cull an early blue-bell.

"Daring little blossom--why, your comrades are still sleeping," he said.

The blue-bell was silent, but all the tiny green leaves laughed, blowing cheekily in the sun.

"Poor, silly poet," they seemed to say, "why not wake up, like the blue-bell, from your land of dreams, and drink the real nectar--live for a day or two in a real, wild, glorious Spring?"

But the poet dreamed on, stringing his conceits heavily together, and with a knitted brow; for, somehow, the feet of the muse lagged tardily this April afternoon.

Then he stumbled over a parasol which lay across the path.

He looked up.

"I beg your pardon," he said, looking into a pair of blue eyes--or were they grey, or hazel? He was not quite sure, but they seemed, at any rate, Hibernian.

"It was quite my fault; I am so sorry."

"Nay, I was dreaming," said the poet.

"And, sure, so was I, too."

"I have not hurt it, I trust."

"Not at all, but it must be quite late."

"It is four o'clock."

"Good gracious, where can the child have got to?"

"You have lost some one?"

"My pupil."

The poet bowed.

"A sorrow that befalls all leaders of disciples," he observed.

Miss Gerald stared, and the poet continued, "The young will only learn when they have fledged their wings and found them weak."

"And then?"

"They come to us older ones for a remedy. Knowledge is associated, madam, with broken wings."

"But I cannot take philosophy home to her mother--she will most certainly require Madge--and can you tell me where this path leads?"

The poet waved his hand.

"Up-stream to the village--down-stream to the mill," he said.

Miss Gerald thought a moment.

"She will have gone down stream," she exclaimed.

The poet meditated.

"I, too, have lost a boy," he said.

Miss Gerald looked surprised.

"The son of a friend," explained the poet.

"I must look for Madge at once," cried Miss Gerald, gathering up her books.

"May we search together--you know the proverb about the heads?"

She laughed.

"If you like," she said, and they followed the stream together.

"You are the poet, are you not?" asked Miss Gerald presently.

"A mere amateur."

"Lady Chantrey has a copy of your works. I have read some of them."

"I trust they gave you pleasure--at any rate amusement."

"A little of both," said Miss Gerald.

"You are very frank."

"Some of them puzzled me a little--and--and I think you belie your writings."

"For instance?"

"You sing of action, and Spring, and achievement--and love. But you live in dreams, and books, and solitude."

"I believe what I write, nevertheless."

Miss Gerald was silent, and in a minute the poet spoke again.

"You think my writings lack the ring of conviction?" he asked.

She laughed.

"They would be stronger if they bore the ring of experience," she said. "_Experientia docet_, you know, and the poets are supposed to teach us ordinary beings."

"I don't pretend to teach."

"Then you ought to. Is it not the duty of 'us older ones,' as you said just now?--The old leaves living over again in the new, you know," and she smiled. "That's quite poetical, isn't it, even if it is a bit of a platitude?"

"And be laughed at for our pains, even as those hopeful young debutantes are laughing at the dowdy old leaves, on that dead tree yonder."

"I knew you were no true singer of Spring."

* * * * *

Two children wandered back along the path.

"I say, you're not a bad sort," said Tommy.

Madge laughed.

"Hullo, Tommy," cried the poet.

"My dear Madge, where _have_ you been?" cried Miss Gerald.

The poet smiled.

"It is April, Miss Gerald," he said. "We must not be too severe on the young people. As you know, this is proverbially an irresponsible, changeable, witch of a month."

"We must hurry home, Madge," said Miss Gerald, holding out a graceful, though strong, hand to the poet.

He clasped it a moment.

"That was an interesting chat we had, Miss Gerald. I shall remember it. Come, Tommy, it is time that we also returned."

They walked slowly home together, Tommy chattering away freely of the day's adventures. The poet seemed more than usually abstracted. In a pause of Tommy's babbling, the name on the fly leaf of a book came back to him. He had seen it, in the sunshine, by the stream.

"Mollie Gerald," he murmured.

"I beg your pardon," said Tommy, politely.

"Nothing," snapped the poet.

* * * * *

"Which I says to Berrill, 'Berrill,' I says, 'Jest look 'ee 'ere now, if the pote ain't a-walkin' along o' Miss Gerald from the 'all, as close an' hinterested as never was, an' 'im, fer all the world, a 'missusogynist,' I says, meanin' a wimming-'ater.

"An' Berrill 'e said 'imself as 'e'd 'ardly a believed it if 'e 'adn't seed it wi' 'is own heyes, so to speak.

"'It do be a masterpiece,' 'e said, 'a reg'lar masterpiece it be.'"

They were sitting in Mrs. Chundle's kitchen, and Mrs. Berrill seemed excited.

Mrs. Chundle wiped a moist forehead with her apron, and shook her head.

"What with Mister Thomas, an' catapults--I could believe hanythink, Mrs. Berrill," she said.

"The pote's changin' 'is ways, Mrs. Chundle."

"'E is that, Mrs. Berrill, which as me haunt Jane Chundle, as is related to me blood-relations, the Cholmondeleys, 'eard Mrs. Cholmondeley o' Barnardley say to the rector's wife, an' arterwards told me private, 'Yer never do know oo's oo nowadays'--be they poits or hanybody else."

"It bees just what the parson wer a sayin' a fortnight Sunday, wars an' rumours o' wars, an' bloody moons, an' disasters an' catapults, in the last days, 'e says--they be hall signs o' the times, Mrs. Chundle."

Mrs. Chundle sipped her tea, and looked round her immaculate kitchen. Then she lowered her voice,

"I'm 'opin', Mrs. Berrill, I'm 'opin' hearnest as 'ow when Mister Thomas goes back, the master will come to 'imself, like the prodigale."

Mrs. Berrill looked doubtful.

"When once the worm hentereth Eden, Mrs. Chundle," she began, enigmatically--and they both shook their heads.

"The worm bein' Mister Thomas," remarked Mrs. Chundle. "An' 'im that vilent an' himpetuous I never does know what 'e's agoin' hafter next."

"You should be firm, Mrs. Chundle."

"Which I ham, Mrs. Berrill, by nature hand intention, an' if I 'ad me own way I'd spank 'im 'earty twice a week, Mrs. Berrill, Wednesdays an' Saturdays."

"Why Wednesdays an' Saturdays, Mrs. Chundle?"

"Wednesdays ter teach 'im the hemptiness o' riches, Mrs. Berrill, which 'e gets 'is pocket-money on Wednesdays--an' Saturdays to give 'im a chastened spirit fer the Sabbath--an' ter keep 'im from a sittin' sleepy in church, Mrs. Berrill."

Here the door opened suddenly and Tommy came in, very muddy, with a peaceful face, and a large rent in his coat.

"I say, Mrs. Chundle, do sew this up for me--hullo, Mrs. Berrill, that was a ripping tea you gave us last week--you are an absolute gem, Mrs. Chundle," and Tommy sat himself down on the kitchen bench, while Mrs. Chundle ruefully examined the coat.

In Mrs. Berrill's eye was a challenge, as who should say, "Now, Mrs. Chundle, arise and assert your authority, put down a firm foot and say, this shall not be.'"

That lady doubtless saw it, for she pursed her lips and gazed at Tommy with some dignity.

"Mister Thomas," she began--but Tommy interrupted her.

"I say, I didn't know you an' Mrs. Berrill were pals. Mrs. Berrill gave me a huge tea the other day, Mrs. Chundle--awful good cake she makes, don't you, Mrs. Berrill? An', I say, Mrs. Berrill, has old--has Mrs. Chundle told you all about the Cholmondeleys, an' how they married, an' came to England--how long ago was it?" Mrs. Chundle blushed modestly.

"With William the Norming," she said gently.

"An' how she was derived from them, you know, an' all that?"

Mrs. Berrill nodded.

"We hall know as 'ow Mrs. Chundle is a--a very superior person," she said.

Mrs. Chundle stitched away in silent graciousness.

"Tommy," cried a distant voice--it was the poet's--"Tommy, come here, I've just hit the bottle three times running."

Tommy grinned.

"I must go," he said. "I'm jolly glad you and Mrs. Berrill are pals," and he disappeared in the direction of the poet.

"Which I 'ope 'e won't turn out no worse than 'is dear father. God bless 'im," said Mrs. Berrill, as they discussed the tattered jacket.

And so the days tripped by, sunny and showery--true April days. Up in the downs was a new shrill bleating of lambs, and down in the valley rose the young wheat, green and strong and hopeful.