Part 5

They tell me that I, too, lost my temper, and even now I cannot remember all I said to Morris and his satellites and the little crowd in the Flaming Lion. I remember taking Tommy home, and helping my man to undress and wash him and put him to bed, and I shall never forget the evening that I spent downstairs in my study, staring dumbly over the misty valley to the far downs, and seeing only two grave grey eyes looking rebukingly into mine.

Late in the evening the vicar joined me, and we sat silently together in the little study.

My man lit the lamp, and brought us our coffee, and came again to fetch it away, untasted.

Perhaps you smile as you read this.

"You ridiculous old men," I can hear you say. "To magnify so trivial an incident into a veritable calamity."

And, again, I can only plead that, in our quiet life, maybe, we attached undue importance to such a slight occurrence.

Yet, nevertheless, to us it was very real, almost overwhelmingly real, and the tragedy of it lay, nearly two years back, in the panelled study of Camslove Grange.

Presently the vicar looked at me, and his face, in the red lamplight, seemed almost haggard.

"'I could never repay the man who taught my boy to love God,'" he repeated, "and he said those words to me--to me."

I bowed my head.

"And I--I accepted the responsibility, and it has come to this."

I was silent, and, indeed, what was there to say?

I suppose we both tried to think out the best course for the future, but for myself my brain refused to do aught but call up, and recall, and recall again, that last meeting in Camslove Grange:

"I want the old place to have a good master.

"I want my son to be a gentleman.

"God bless you, old comrades."

Back they came, those old ghosts of the past, until the gentle, well-bred voice seemed even now appealing to me, and the well-loved form apparent before my eyes. And I writhed in my chair.

A little later the poet came in. He looked almost frightened, and spoke in a hushed voice.

"Is--is he better?" he asked.

"He is asleep," I answered, moodily.

The poet sighed.

"Ah! that's good, that's good."

For a little while we talked, the aimless, useless talk of unnerved men, and at last the poet suggested we should go upstairs.

As I held the candle over Tommy's bed we could see that the flush had faded from his cheeks, and as he lay there he might well have been a healthy cherub on some earthly holiday.

I think the sight cheered us all, and in some measure restored our hope.

The vicar turned to us, gravely.

"There is one thing we can all do," he said; "we ought to have thought of it first, and it is surely the best."

As we parted, the poet turned to me.

"I will take him over the downs with me to-morrow; they always appeal to Tommy, and one is never saner, or nearer to God, or more ready for repentance, than out there upon the ranges."

There was a sound of wheels down the lane, and in a minute the doctor drove by.

"Hullo," he called out, cheerily, "I have just got myself a new bat."

XII

IN WHICH TOMMY MAKES A RESOLVE

It is one of the privileges of youth that alimentary indulgence is but rarely penalized, and if either of us next morning was pale and disinclined for breakfast it was certainly not Tommy.

On the contrary, he seemed cool, and fit, and hungry, and although he looked at me occasionally in a shy, questioning way, yet he chattered away much as usual, and made no reference to yesterday's adventures.

Only when the poet called for him and at the window I laid a hand upon his shoulder to bid him a happy day, he turned to me, impulsively:

"You are a ripper," he said.

There is no sweeter or more genuine praise than a boy's.

I watched them down the lane, and my eyes sought the downs, clear, and wide, and sunny. I thought of the tawdry inn, and its associations, and prayed that Tommy might learn a lesson from the contrast.

Says Jasper the gipsy:

"Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

Hark back to your well-thumbed Lavengro and you will find, if you do not remember, his reasons.

Nor are they weightier than these:

"Night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."

Deep in the heart of every boy lies something of the gipsy, and even if, in after life, it grows sick and stifled by reason of much traffic among crowded streets, yet I doubt if it ever so far vanishes that to it the wind on the heath shall appeal in vain. Nor was the poet wrong in his prognosis, for to Tommy, at any rate, it was full of unspoken messages on this August morning. Wind on the heath--yes, it is always there, clean, and strong, and happy, lingering with soft wings over furze and bracken, full of whispered melodies from the harp of God.

Are you in trouble?

Go up and face this wind on the heath. Bare your head to it, open your lungs to it. Let it steal about your heart, with its messages of greatness, and futurity, and hope.

Are you listless and discouraged?

Go up and breathe this wind on the heath, and it will sting to life the ambition and resolve in you, and in it you will hear, if you listen aright, the saga of victory.

"In sickness, Jasper?"

"There's the sun and stars, brother."

"In blindness, Jasper?"

"There's the wind on the heath, brother: if I could only feel that, I would gladly live forever. Dosta, we'll now go to the tents and put on the gloves, and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother."

Tommy and the poet were bound for some ruins which lay across Becklington common and beyond the downs.

Harvest ruled the world, and the fields in the valley and on the hillside were dotted with stooks and stacks.

It was a day on which it was good to be alive, and, if a little subdued, yet they were both in good spirits.

The poet's latest volume, ahead of the autumn rush of poetry and fiction, had been favourably criticised.

It was stronger, happier, more real, said the critics, than any other from his pen.

If not great, said they, it was at any rate graceful, and even, in some places, vigorous. Therefore was the poet happy.

And Tommy--well, there was the sun and the wind, good red blood in his arteries, and no care in his heart--and though he could not have told you so, these, no doubt, were strong enough reasons for the buoyancy of his spirit.

As they climbed the green side of the downs they met a shepherd singing, a happy, irresponsible fellow, with his coat over his head, and his sleek flock browsing round him.

And as they passed him with a welcome, the poet remembered some lines which he repeated to Tommy:

Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down, Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring? I could sing it fine, If e'er a word were mine, But there's no words could tell it you--the song that I would sing.

Wide horizons beckoning, far beyond the hill, Little lazy villages, sleeping in the vale, Greatness overhead The flock's contented tread An' trample o' the morning wind adown the open trail.

Bitter storms o' winter-time ringing down the range, Angel nights above the hill, beautiful with rest, I would sing o' Life, O' Enterprise, and Strife, O' Love along the upland road, an' God beyond the crest.

An' this should be my matin song--magic o' the down, Mystery, an' majesty, an' wistfulness, an' hope, I would sing the lay O' Destiny an' Day, As morning mounts the hill with me, an' summer storms the slope.

But this would be my vesper song--best at last is Peace Whispered where the valleys lie, all deep in dying gold, Stealing through the gloam To speed the shepherd home With one last dreamy echo o' the music in the fold.

Wouldst a song o' shepherding, out upon the down, Splendid days o' summer-time, an' roaring days o' spring? I could sing it fine, If e'er a word were mine, But there's no words could tell it you--the song that I would sing.

"Jolly good," said Tommy, easiest of critics, and the poet smiled.

"Ah, Tommy," he said, "I wish you were a publisher."

Over the crest of the downs rose a thin wisp of blue smoke; and as they descended on the other side, some dark-eyed children looked out of a little brown tent.

They reminded the poet of Jasper and his company of Pharaoh's children, and he repeated to Tommy the conversation I have touched upon.

Tommy's eyes sparkled.

"That's good," he said, approvingly. "Just what a fellow feels, you know."

They walked on across the green springy turf, and for a time both were silent.

There was something, too, in the day and its purity that was speaking to Tommy.

Presently he spoke, hesitatingly.

"I--I was drunk last night, wasn't I?" he asked anxiously.

The poet affected not to have heard the question, but Tommy persisted.

"Yes."

Tommy sighed.

"I say," he said, after a pause, "I--I'd have licked that fellow hollow if my head hadn't been so jolly queer."

The poet looked at him, curiously.

"I expect you would," he said.

Tommy took a deep breath, and looked straight at the poet.

"I'll never touch it again--never," he said slowly.

They shook hands there on the hillside.

Thus it was, and for this reason, that Tommy took upon himself a vow that he has to my best belief never broken.

"Ah, but the motive?" you ask.

Well, maybe the shrug of your shoulder is justified, but, after all, the result was brought about by nature, who seldom errs, and to the poet, who, in spite of all, was really a simple soul--the result was abundantly gratifying.

As they walked home in the evening, Tommy turned to the poet.

"I say, what was it that gipsy fellow said--at the end, you know?"

"Dosta, we'll now go to the tent and put on the gloves, and I'll try to make you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother."

Tommy looked grimly into the twilight.

"It would be a jolly good thing to teach that fellow at the Grange," he said, "only I'm blowed if I'll take any gloves."

XIII

IN WHICH THE POET PLUCKS A FOXGLOVE

Madge sat by the window, swinging disconsolate legs and struggling, with a nauseated heart, to master those Latin prepositions which govern the ablative case. A more degraded army she had never encountered, and though some misguided sage had committed them to rhyme, this device merely added a flavour of hypocrisy to their obvious malevolence. Moreover, the whole universe appeared to be so disgustingly cheerful that the contrast was well nigh unbearable.

Beyond the open window the day was young and bright, and the honey bees sang briskly over the lawn.

Even the gardener, most dismal of men, was humming: "A few more years shall roll," a sure sign of unwonted buoyancy of spirit. Miss Gerald was writing some letters for Lady Chantrey in another room, and Madge was alone in the study.

Thus, every factor combined to make temptation almost irresistible.

And, naturally enough, it came, and in the guise of a well-known, long-agreed-on whistle.

From the laurels it rose, low and clear, and Madge's heart jumped quickly as she heard, for the whistle was Tommy's, and she could not remember how long ago it was since she had heard it.

Then she remembered that it must not be answered--for was not Tommy in disgrace--at any rate, as far as she was concerned?

And had they not quarrelled so deeply that repair was almost an impossibility?

It was very presumptuous of him to think that she should answer it.

She would remain where she was, in icy stillness, mastering the prepositions with an iron hand.

A pleasing sense of virtue stole into her being, mixed with visions of a downcast, brown face somewhere in the shrubbery, and for five long minutes silence reigned. Then the whistle rang out again, a little louder, and surely it sounded almost penitent.

A picture of a broken-hearted Tommy, whistling in dry-eyed sorrow, rose to her eyes.

It was true that his offences had been great, but then, was not forgiveness divine?

Madge felt sure that this was so. Was it not written in fair characters in her last copy-book?

She closed her book and stood by the glass doors.

It is but rarely that we rise to the divine. Yet here was an opportunity, and down the steps she ran, light-footed, over the thin strip of lawn and into the deep laurels.

And it was not Tommy after all, but only the pale boy who, with commendable perspicacity, had borrowed Tommy's whistle.

For a moment Madge flushed angrily, for she did not greatly like the pale boy, and this was a deception.

But the morning was sweet, and the pale boy was surely better than a preposition.

"I say: let's go through the wood," he said. "I've hidden some sandwiches in a tree up there and we'll have a picnic, and you can be back in time for lunch."

"All right," said Madge, "come along."

And in the wood they met Tommy, with the light of resolve in his eye and battle written in his face.

Madge was not quite sure whether she was glad or sorry to meet him, nor could she tell, as they looked straight into one another's eyes, the nature of Tommy's feelings on the subject.

He looked a little grave, and spoke as one who had rehearsed against a probable encounter.

"I want to apologise to you for our meeting the other day," he said stiffly.

Madge stared, and Tommy turned to the pale boy.

"And to you," he said.

The pale boy looked a little puzzled, but grinned.

"That's all right," he said. "I could see--"

"Excuse me, I haven't quite finished"--and the pale boy stopped, with his mouth open.

"I think you had better go home, Madge."

"Why--Tommy?"

Tommy looked down.

"You had better--really," he repeated.

The pale boy interposed.

"She is out with me," he said.

"So I see--she had better go home."

"Why--who says so?"

"If she doesn't she will see you get a licking. P'raps--p'raps she wouldn't like that."

Tommy still looked at the path.

"I--I'm not going to fight anyone to-day."

"You are--you're jolly well going to fight me, now."

The pale boy smiled, a little uncertainly.

"You--I shouldn't have thought you'd want a second dose," he said.

"Rather," said Tommy, cheerfully.

Madge looked from one to the other.

"Don't fight," she said. "Please--please don't fight--why should you?"

"You'd much better run home," said Tommy again.

"I shan't--I shall stay here."

Tommy sighed.

"All right," he said, taking off his coat. "Then, of course, you must, you know."

"I tell you I'm not going to fight," repeated the pale boy.

"Rot," said Tommy.

Five minutes later Tommy contentedly resumed his coat, his face flushed with victory.

The pale boy was leaning against a tree, with a handkerchief to his nose and one eye awry, whimpering vindictive epithets at his opponent--but Madge was nowhere to be seen.

Tommy looked up and down the leafy vistas a little disappointedly. Then,

"Never mind," he said, philosophically.

"By Jove, it's a jolly sweet thing is life--ripping, simply ripping. Good bye, old chap. Sniff upwards and it'll soon stop. So long."

* * * * *

In a brake where the wood falls back a little from the inroad of the common the poet paused, for the gleam of a straw hat against a dark background caught his eye.

"Why surely--no--yes, it is--how singular--so it is," he murmured, wiping his glasses.

He left the path and struck out over the springy turf into the shade of the wood, keeping his eyes nevertheless upon the ground, and walking guilelessly, as one who contemplates.

And by chance his meditations were broken, and before him, among some tall foxgloves, stood Mollie Gerald.

The poet looked surprised.

"How--how quietly you must walk, Miss Gerald," he said.

She laughed.

"How deeply you must think," she said.

"It--it is good to wake from thought to--to this, you know," he answered, with a bow.

Miss Gerald looked comprehensively into the wood.

"It is pretty, isn't it?" she said.

"I was not referring to the wood," said the poet, hardily.

Miss Gerald bent over a foxglove rising gracefully over the bracken:

"Aren't they lovely?" she asked, showing the poet a handful of the purple flowers.

"You came out to gather flowers?"

"Why, no. I came to look for my pupil."

"Surely not again a truant?"

"I am afraid so."

"It is hard to believe."

"And I stopped in my search to gather some of these. After all, it isn't much good looking for a child in a wood, is it?"

"Quite useless, I should think."

"If they want to be found they'll come home, and if they don't, they know the woods far better than we, and they'll hide."

"They always come back at meal-times--at least, Tommy does."

"I think meal-times are among the happiest hours of an average childhood."

"Before the higher faculties have gained their powers of appreciation--it depends on the child."

"Madge is not an imaginative child."

"Nor Tommy, I think, and yet I don't know. It is hard to appraise the impressions that children receive and cannot record."

"And the experiment--how does it progress?"

"Alas, it is an experiment no longer; it is a very real responsibility, and I am inadequate. Individually, I fancy we are all inadequate, and, collectively, we do not seem quite to have found the way."

Miss Gerald nodded emphatically.

"Good," she said.

"Eh?"

"To feel inadequate is the beginning of wisdom; is it not so? There, I have gathered my bunch."

"May I beg one foxglove for my coat?"

She laughed.

"There are plenty all round you. Why, you are standing in the middle of a plant at this moment."

The poet stooped a little disconsolately, and plucked a stalk, and when he looked up Miss Gerald was already threading her way through the slender trunks.

"Good-bye," she cried, gaily, over her shoulder, and the poet raised his hat.

As he sauntered back to the path the doctor rode by on his pony.

"Hullo," he said; "been picking flowers?"

The poet looked up.

"A pretty flower, the foxglove," he murmured.

"Digitalis purpurea--a drug, too, is it not?"

The doctor nodded.

"It has an action on the heart," he said. "Steadies and slows it, you know."

But the poet shook his head.

"I fancy you are mistaken," he observed.

XIV

IN WHICH TOMMY CONVERSES WITH THE PALE BOY

A sky of stolid grey had communicated a certain spirit of melancholy to the country-side--a spirit not wholly out of keeping with Tommy's mood.

The holidays were nearly over. The doctor was busy, the poet had a cold, Madge had been sent away to school, and Tommy, for the nonce, felt a little at a loss to know how to occupy these last mournful days of freedom.

As he tramped, a trifle moodily, down the lane, a point of light against a dark corner of the hedge caught his eye, and further examination revealed the pale boy, smoking a cigarette.

Tommy had not yet aspired to tobacco, and for a moment felt a little resentful.

But the memory of last week's battle restored his equanimity, and, indeed, brought with it a little complacent contempt for the pale boy and his ways.

"Hullo," said Tommy, pulling up in front of his reposing foe, and not sorry to have some one to talk to.

The pale boy looked at him coldly.

"Well," he observed, cheerlessly.

Tommy sat down on the grass.

"I say, let's forget about all that," he said.

The pale boy puffed away in silence.

"Let's forget; you--you'd probably have whopped me, you know, if you'd done some boxing at our place. You've a much longer reach than me, an'--an' you got me an awful nasty hit in the chest, you know."

The pale boy looked at him gloomily.

"I don't profess to know much about fighting," he said, with some dignity. "I think it's jolly low."

For a few minutes they sat in silence, then,

"Where do you go to school?" asked Tommy.

"I don't go anywhere; I've got a tutor."

"Oh!"

"You see, I'm not at all strong."

"Bad luck. You--ought you to smoke, if you're--if your constitution's rocky, you know?"

The pale boy knocked the ashes off his cigarette.

"I find it very soothing," he said. "Besides, it's all right, if you smoke good stuff. I wouldn't advise fellows who didn't know their way about a bit to take it up."

The pale boy spoke with an air of superiority that awed Tommy a little.

"How--how did you come to know all about it?" he asked.

"Oh--just knocking about town, you know," replied the other, carelessly.

Tommy sighed.

"I hardly know anything about London," he said.

The pale boy looked at him, pityingly.

"I've lived there all my life," he said, "Dormanter Gardens, in Bayswater--one of the best neighbourhoods, you know."

Tommy racked his memory.

"I was in London, at Christmas, with a sort of aunt-in-law," he said. "She lives in Eaton Square, I think it is--somewhere near Maskelyne & Cook's."

"I haven't heard of it," said the pale boy. "But London's so jolly big that it's impossible to know all of it, and I've spent most of my time in the West End."

Tommy was silent, but the pale boy seemed at home with his subject.

"I suppose you don't know the Cherry House," he continued. "It's an awful good place to feed in--near the Savoy, you know. Reggie, he's my cousin, takes me there sometimes. He always goes. He says there are such damned fine girls there. I don't care a bit about 'em, though."

The pale boy smoked contemplatively.

"I think it's awful rot, thinking such a beastly lot about girls, and all that sort of thing, you know, don't you?" said Tommy.

The pale boy nodded.

"Rather," he said. "I agree with dad. He says there's only one thing worth bothering about down here."

"What's that?"

"Money," snapped the pale boy, looking at Tommy, between narrowed eyelids. "I'm going to be a financier when I'm old enough to help dad."

Tommy stretched himself lazily.

"I'd rather be strong," he said.

The pale boy looked at him, curiously.

"What a rum chap you are. What's that got to do with it?"

Tommy lay back on the grass, and stared up at the passing clouds.

"I'm not a bit keen on making money, somehow," he said. "I'd just like to knock around, and have a dog, and--a jolly good time, you know."

"What--always?"

Tommy sat up.

"Yes--why not?"

The pale boy shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "But it seems funny, and don't you think you'd find it rather slow?"

Tommy stared at him, with open eyes.

"Rather not," he said. "Why, think how ripping it would be to go just where you liked, and come back when you liked, an' not to have any beastly meal-times to worry about, an' no terms, an' a horse or two to ride, an' wear the oldest clothes you had; by Jove, it would be like--something like Heaven, I should think."

The pale boy laughed as he rose to his feet.

"It's beginning to rain," he said.

"Never mind," said Tommy, "I like the rain. It doesn't hurt, either, and I like talking to you; you make me think of things."

The pale boy turned up his collar, and shivered a little.

"Let's find a shelter, somewhere," he said, looking round anxiously.

"We'd better walk home over the common," said Tommy. "Besides, it's ripping walking in the rain, don't you think, an' it makes you feel so good, an' fit, when you're having grub afterwards, in front of the fire."

But the pale boy shook his head.

"I hate it," he said, "and I'm going up to the farm there, till it stops."

Tommy cast an accustomed eye round the horizon.

"It won't stop for a jolly long while," he said. "However, do as you like. We don't seem to agree about things much, do we? So long."

"Good-bye. It's all the way a fellow's brought up, you know."

And as Tommy shouldered sturdily through the rain, the pale boy lit another cigarette and turned back towards the farm door.

XV

IN WHICH SOME PEOPLE MEET IN A WHEAT-FIELD

Never was such a harvest--such crops--such long splendid days--such great yellow moons. Even now the folk tell of it when harvest-time comes round.

"Ah," say they, and shake their heads, "that were a harvest an' no mistake, an' long, an' long will it be afore us sees another such a one."