CHAPTER LX

THE END OF A CHAPTER

The char-a-banc, called by courtesy a coach, which was bound for what is known locally as "the long drive," waited at Billing's Corner for any Old Town passengers.

It had started from Holywell, and Colonel and Mrs. Lewknor sat beside the driver.

A ramshackle old gentleman came rambling furtively across the road.

The coachman nudged the Colonel.

"That's old Mr. Caspar," he whispered. He had for learning the profound respect of the illiterate. "They say he knows so much he don't know all he do know. Talks Hebrew in his sleep, they say."

The Colonel answered musingly.

"Is that Caspar?" and thought how little this old man had changed from the young man who forty years before had shambled just thus about the courts of Trinity.

The old gentleman, who had the air of being pursued, climbed to his place at the back of the char-a-banc.

Mrs. Lewknor turned. She knew that for some reason Fear had laid hold once more of her Man of Faith.

"Ah, Mr. Caspar!" she called in her gay voice. "I thought it was you!--I forget if you've ever met my husband."

"I knew your boy in India, Mr. Caspar," said the Colonel in his delightful manner. "He was one of the best cricketers in the regiment."

The friendly voices and kind eyes appeared to soothe the old man.

"He's going to be married to-morrow," he panted. "I'm just going over to Aldwoldston to see the lady."

In the village the char-a-banc drew up under the great chestnut-tree by the market-cross; while the passengers descended for tea in the black-and-white-timbered _Lamb_.

Mr. Caspar, too, got down. Mrs. Lewknor heard him ask the way to Frogs' Hall, and saw him lumber off in that flurried way of his as if pursued.

She followed him into River Lane.

He heard her and turned with eyes aghast behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.

She met him with swiftest sympathy.

"May I come with you, Mr. Caspar?" she asked.

He seemed relieved.

"Yes," he panted, and started off down the steep lane, between the high flint-walls embedded in nettles, at a shuffling trot regardless of the little lady following at his heels.

In the silence she gave him of her strength.

In the Brooks he paused and mooned helplessly across at the river and the hills squandered in the sunshine beyond and the cattle who mooned back.

"This is it," said Mrs. Lewknor in her cool confident voice. "This yellow-washed one, the man said."

"Yes," grunted Edward, once again relieved, and trotted off to the little cottage on the bank beside the willows.

He went up the steps and knocked.

Mrs. Lewknor loitered down to the stream.

Ruth opened. Her visitor glanced at her through dim spectacles; and strength came to him.

"Are you Ruth?" he asked.

The young woman's face lit up.

"Yes, sir," she said. "And I know who you are. I been hopin you might happen along. Come you in and sit down."

The old man mopped his neck.

"I mustn't," he said in tones that meant "I daren't," and continued hurriedly, "I should be getting back. I'm expected home. But I had to come and wish you well." He touched her arm tremulously. "Bless you, my dear!--He's a good lad, only weak." He lowered his voice. "Keep him on the curb a bit," he whispered hurriedly. "But not too much. That's where his mother made her mistake. Drove him away from her."

Mrs. Lewknor, standing by a willow on the river-bank, saw the old man turn.

Slowly she walked across the field to the cottage.

The young woman in the door watched her with uncertain eyes that seemed to leap towards her and then retreat and leap again.

"Is that.... That aren't Ern's mother?" she asked.

The lady paused, her fine eyes dwelling on a distant roof.

"No," said Mr. Caspar. "That's a friend."

Mrs. Lewknor, who had the love of her race for beautiful things, allowed her eyes to rest on the noble creature in the door.

"I know your Ernie though," she said charmingly. "He's a very old friend of mine."

The two women exchanged friendly glances and a few words.

Then Edward Caspar and his companion moved off into Parson's Tye.

The church stood four-square on the mound above them, the red tiles of the roof peeping through the trees.

"Shall we go in?" said Mrs. Lewknor.

"Let's," replied the other.

They sat together side by side in the aisle, amid the haunting memories of centuries.

When they emerged the Man of Fear had given place once more to the Child of Faith.

It was a very small party that started next day from Old Town for the wedding.

Besides Mr. and Mrs. Trupp there were in the chocolate-bodied car Mr. and Mrs. Pigott.

The great surgeon was at his surliest.

Mrs. Pigott noted it at once, and of course must take advantage.

"Do you like weddings, Mr. Trupp?" she asked brightly.

"Call it a wedding!" growled the other. "I call it a funeral. It's the end of a good man. He'll go to pieces now he's got all he wants. No: if you want to get the most out of a man, keep him asking. Once he's sated he's done.... What does Mrs. Pigott say?"

Mrs. Pigott said:

"Bob the cherry near his lips, but don't let him gobble it." The young woman gave a bird-like toss of her head and threw a teasing glance at her husband. "Bob the cherry. That's it."

When the car swung off the road at the foot of the village into Parson's Tye, Mr. Trupp was in more sober mood.

As the other three crossed the green to the church, he lingered behind.

"Comin in then, Alf?" he asked.

The chauffeur shook his head.

"I know's too much, sir," he said firmly. "No good won't come of evil--as ever I heard tell."

Mr. Trupp rolled away, coughing.

"Alf turned moralist!" he muttered.

The pair were to be married in church. For Ruth herself was "church" in the sense the working-class understand that word. Miss Caryll had taken considerable pains to effect her conversion, while her people, with the quiet tolerance of their kind, had made no objection.

Ruth herself had been profoundly indifferent, and underwent the change mainly to oblige. But while she rarely attended divine service herself, and was neither interested in the religious community to which she belonged nor affected by it, on the vital occasions of her life she expected it to do its duty by her---to marry her, bury her, baptize and confirm her children; and she would have been astonished and aggrieved had it refused her the rites which were in her judgment her due.

The great church with its hollow-timbered roof like the bottom of an upturned ship, its bell-ropes looped and hanging from the central tower above the transept, is called by some the Cathedral of the Downs.

It was quiet now as a forest at evening, and empty save for Mr. and Mrs. Boam, straight-backed in black, Ruth sitting subdued between her father and mother, little Alice on her Granny's lap, and Ernie alone in the pew upon the right.

There was about the little gathering something of the solemnity of the hills which hemmed them round.

Mrs. Trupp, walking in the stillness up the aisle, was aware of it as she took her place at Ernie's side.

Then in the silence the singing voice of a little child floated out like a silver bubble of sound.

"Daddy," it said.

Ruth shot at the man across the aisle a sudden lovely look of affection and intimate confidence; and one soul at least, kneeling there in the sunshine, felt that the word sealed the covenant between this wayfaring couple, still only starting on their pilgrimage, as no offices of any priest could do.

THE END

Doubleday, Page & Co. hope to publish _One Woman: being the sequel to Two Men_, next spring.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

End of Project Gutenberg's Two Men: A Romance of Sussex, by Alfred Ollivant