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Title: The Splendid Fairing

Creator: Constance Holme

Release date: August 20, 2012 [eBook #40545]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40545

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPLENDID
FAIRING ***

Cover

THE MESSENGER FROM THE DEEP. J. D. Wilson

THE SPLENDID
FAIRING

BY
CONSTANCE HOLME

"All night long the water is crying to me."

MILLS & BOON, LIMITED
49 RUPERT STREET
LONDON, W.1

Published 1919

TO
MABEL AND JIMMY
Boscombe, March 28th--April 5th, 1919

CONTENTS

SIMON AND SARAH

ELIZA

MAY

GEORDIE-AN'-JIM

PART I

SIMON AND SARAH

I

Perhaps it would never have happened but for the day. A brave, buoyant
day, with a racing wind, might have scattered the clinging obsession just in
time. A tender, laughing day might have laid a healing finger on old sores.
A clean, frosty day might have braced the naturally sane old mind. But Fate,
out of all the days in the year, took upon itself to send just this.
The human soul, which seems so utterly out of reach, is only shut
away from every other soul. In every other respect it is like a harp hung on
a tree. Even the actual day as it comes is itself a lever in many a fate. Deeds
are done on certain days which on others would be mere passing impulses
easily dead before the night. This blind Martinmas Day went all day long

with its head among the clouds, as if it thought that never again would there
be any sun. Indeed, it was out of the lack of every sort of sight that the evil
grew; since, otherwise--"Mothers couldn't have done those things," as
Geordie would have said.
All day the earth retained that stillness which it keeps as a rule only for
the last hour before the dawn. Everywhere in the morning there was mist,--
that strange, wandering, thinking mist that seems to have nothing to do with
either earth or air; and when the slow dark drew back there would be mist
everywhere again. Between those shadowy tide-marks of the air there was a
space when the white mist shredded above the trees, leaving the atmosphere
with the look of a glass that has been breathed upon and never clears.
The Simon Thornthwaites were going to market simply because they
did not know how to stay away. They went as naturally as the sun comes
out of the east, but with a good deal less of decision about the journey. They
looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they were setting out than as if
they were wearily trundling home again. Both horse and trap looked as
though they might fall to pieces after an extra jolt, and the jumble of
harness was mended here and there with string. There was neither butter nor
fowl in the market-basket behind; there was not even a limp rabbit dangling
over the wheel. But all the time they were part of a chain which gave them a
motive and impulse not their own, since others, more sure of their errand,
were taking the same road. Sometimes a horseman on a young Shire went
past with a flash of feather and a clumping of hoofs. Livelier traps spun by
at a trot and gave them a hail. Behind and before them they had an
occasional glimpse of the procession stretching to the town.
They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it dropped like a colourless
cloth beside the sea, and already they seemed to have been a long time on
the road. They had not slept much, and, waking, had had the cheated

feeling, common to the weary, that the foregoing day had never really ended
nor the incoming morning ever quite begun. Indeed, the strange, dreamlike
day had never really seemed to come awake. Looking back and west, they
saw everything grey, with just a lightened shadow marking the far sea, and
the marsh lying down on its face like a figure flung down to die. Houses sat
low to the earth as if they crouched, and the trees were vague, bodiless
wisps, without backbone or sap. When they had their first glimpse of
Witham, they saw the town on the fell-side like a fortress through smoked
glass, and the Castle alone on its hill was of shadow-stones poised on a
poised cloud.
The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and under-dogs in the tussle
of life, but they had once been as strong and confident as most. Sometimes
they had a vision of their former selves, and wondered how this could ever
have been that. The old man was thin and bent, the sort that shows the
flame through the lantern long before the end, but the woman was stronger-
boned, squarer, and still straight. Most of her life she had worked like a
horse, but she was still straight. Her face was mask-like and her mouth
close. Only her hands betrayed her at times,--old, over-done hands that
would not always be still. Her eyes seemed to look straight before her at
something only she could see,--staring and staring at the image which she
had set up.
They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh, a lonely bit of a spot that
looked as if it had been left there for a winter's tide to take away. It had
always had an unlucky name, and, like many unlucky people and things,
seemed to have the trick of attracting to itself those who were equally ill-
starred. Certainly, Sandholes and the Thornthwaites between them had
achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck. No doubt both farm and folk
would have done better apart, but then they had never succeeded in getting

apart. It was just as if Fate had thrown and kept them together in order to do
each other down. Luck to luck--there seemed nothing else to be said about
the Thornthwaites' plight. They even carried the stamp of each other plain
to be seen. You had only to look at the farm to know how its tenants looked;
you had only to see the folk to know what their home was like. Perhaps it
was just that the double weight of misfortune was too big a thing to lift.
Perhaps the canker at the heart of it all would allow nothing to prosper and
grow sweet.
They had an easy landlord, easy and rich; too easy and rich, perhaps,
for the Thornthwaites' good. That farm had money--landlord's and tenant's--
spent on it above its due; yes, and a certain amount of borrowed brass as
well. It had work put into it, thought and courage sufficient to run a colony,
and good-will enough to build a church. And all that it did in return was to
go back and back and be a deadhead and a chapter of accidents and an
everlasting disappointment and surprise. It was a standing contradiction of
the saying--"Be honest with the land, and it will be honest with you."
Everything went wrong with that farm that could go wrong, as well as other
things that couldn't by any chance have gone anything but right. Most
people would have thrown a stone at it at an early stage, but it was part of
the Thornthwaite doom that they could not tear themselves away. Even
when there seemed no longer a reason for staying, still they stayed. The one
streak of sentiment in them that survived the dismal years held them there
captive by its silken string.
But to-day, as they jogged and jolted endlessly towards Witham, the
whole, drear, long business came to an end. No matter what they had
thought of the probable future to themselves, they had hitherto shut their
mouths obstinately and clung close. They had never even said to each other
that some day they would have to quit. They had put it off so long that it

seemed the least little push would always put it further still. But to-day the
matter suddenly settled itself for good; almost, it seemed, between one
telegraph-post and the next.
Martinmas hirings would be in full swing when they got in, but there
was no need now for Simon to enter the ring. Their hired man had seen
them through the busiest time, but they could manage without him through
the winter months. Their hired men had never stayed very long, because the
depression of the place seemed to get into their bones. They tired of crops
which seemed to make a point of 'finger and toe,' and of waiting through
dismal weeks to get in the hay. Now the Thornthwaites would never have
the worry of hay-time on their own account again,--never open the door to
catch the scent from their waiting fields,--never watch the carts coming
back on the golden evening to the barn. 'Never again' would be written over
many things after to-day, but perhaps it was there that they saw it written
first. After all this time things had somehow stopped of themselves, and
after all this time there was nothing to do but go.
Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or tugging bundles as they
walked; youth with bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear eyes,
taking its health and strength to the market to be hired. Some of them
greeted the old folks as they passed, but others did not as much as know
their names. Both Simon and Sarah came of old and respectable stock, but
to the young generation skimming by on wheels these two had been as good
as buried years ago. Sarah's eyes strained themselves after the lithe bodies
of the lads, while Simon looked at the lasses with their loads. He would
have liked to have offered some of them a lift, but he knew he would catch
it from Sarah if he did. Sarah hated the younger end of folk, she always
said, and the fly-away lasses she hated most of all. She saw them going past
her into beautiful life, just as their swifter wheels went past the trap. Always

they were leaving her behind as it seemed to her that she had always been
left. It was true, of course, that she had had her turn, but now it seemed so
far away it might never have been. All she could see in the background
when she looked behind was the cheerless desert which she had had to
cover since.
They were about half-way to Witham when the moment of spoken
decision caught them unawares. All their stolid resistance and obstinate
clinging to the farm gave in that instant as easily as a pushed door. It was as
if a rock at the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no more than a cloud
pausing before it in the act of drifting by. The end came as nearly always
after a prolonged fight,--smoothly, painlessly, with a curious lack of interest
or personal will. The burden had been so heavy that the last straw passed
almost unnoticed which brought them finally to the ground. They had lived
so close to the edge for so many years that the step which carried them over
it scarcely jarred.
They were climbing the long hill that runs from Doestone Hall, the
Tudor house standing close to the cross-roads. By turning their heads they
could see its gabled front with the larches set like lances beside its door.
The river ran swift below the beech-covered slope of the park, reaching
impatiently after the ebbed tide. The house, for all the weight of its age,
looked unsubstantial in the filmy air. Fast as the river flowed below, from
above it looked like a sheeted but still faintly moving corpse.
The road was damp and shadowy under the overhanging trees, and
padded with the hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves. The fields on
either side were formless and wet, and seemed to stretch away to unknown
lengths. The hedges appeared to wander and wind across the land without
purpose and without end. Under all the hedges and trees there were leaves,
wet splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass. Simon lifted his whip to

point at the hips and haws, and said it would be a hard winter when it came,
but Sarah did not so much as turn her head.
"I'm bothered a deal wi' my eyes, Simon," she said in a quiet tone. "I
thought I'd best see doctor about 'em to-day."
He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a startled stare. "Oh, ay?
That's summat fresh, isn't it?" he enquired. "You've never said nowt about it
afore."
"Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old age. But I've gitten a deal
worse these last few week. I can't shape to do a bit o' sewing or owt."
"Ay, well, you'd best see doctor right off," Simon said, and the horse
crawled a little further up the hill. They did not speak again for some time,
but those who live together in a great loneliness grow to speak together in
thought as much as in words. That was why his next speech seemed to
come out placidly enough. "I doubt it's about time for us to quit."
"I doubt it is."
"I never meant to gang till I was carried," Simon said, "and then I
doubt there'd still ha' been some o' me left. But I've seen the end o' things
coming for a while back now. It seems kind o' meant, you being bothered
wi' your eyes an' all."
"Happen it is," she said again, and sighed. Then she laughed, a slight
laugh, but bitter and grim. "It nobbut wanted that on top o' the rest!"
Simon threw her an uneasy glance.
"Nay, now, you mustn't get down about it, missis," he said hastily. "It
waint do to get down. Doctor'll likely see his way to put you right. But
we've had a terble poor time wi' it all," he went on glumly, forgetting his
own advice. "Seems like as if we'd been overlooked by summat, you and
me. 'Tisn't as if we'd made such a bad start at things, neither. We were both

on us strong and willing when we was wed. It's like as if there'd been a
curse o' some sort on the danged spot!"
"There's been a curse on the lot of us right enough!" Sarah said. "Ay,
and we don't need telling where it come from, neither!"
Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no
notice of her bitter speech. He knew only too well that haunted corner of
her mind. That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every inch.
"Ay, well, we're through on t'far side on't now," he said morosely.
"Sandholes can grind the soul out o' some other poor body for the next forty
year! I never hear tell o' such a spot!" he went on crossly, with that puzzled
exasperation which he always showed when discussing the marsh-farm.
"It'd be summat to laugh at if only it didn't make you dancin' mad! What,
it's like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen sticking to t'roof! We've had
t'tide in t'house more nor once, and sure an' certain it'd be when we'd
summat new in the way o' gear. We'd a fire an' all, you'll think on, and it
took us a couple o' year getting to rights agen. Burned out and drownded
out,--why, it's right silly, that's what it is! As for t'land, what it fair swallers
up lime an' slag and any mak' o' manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can
for it in return. Nigh every crop we've had yet was some sort of a let-down,-
-that's if we'd happen luck to get it at all! Kitchen garden's near as bad; lile
or nowt'll come up in't, nobbut you set by it and hod its hand! Ay, and the
stock, now,--if there was sickness about, sure an' certain it'd fix on us. You'd
nobbut just to hear o' tell o' foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o' the
sort, an' it'd be showing at Sandholes inside a week! Same wi' t'folk in
t'house as wi' folk in t'shuppon,--fever, fluenzy, diphthery,--the whole
doctor's bag o' tricks. Nay, there's summat queer about spot, and that's Bible
truth! We should ha' made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and
tried our luck somewheres else."

"We'd likely just ha' taken our luck along wi' us," Sarah said, "and
there was yon brass we'd sunk in the spot,--ay, and other folks' brass an'
all." (Simon growled "Ay, ay," to this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he
thought it might well have been left unsaid.) "We were set enough on
Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was running
about as a bit of a lad."
"Ay, and Jim."
"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"
"Ay, well, it's a bit since now," Simon said hastily, thinking that it
seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland to
the marsh.
"Over forty year."
"It's a bit since," he said again, just as he said equally of the Creation
of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham Show.
"Surely to goodness we were right enough then? We shouldn't ha' said
thank you for any other spot. Nay, and we wouldn't ha' gone later on,
neither, if we'd gitten chanst. It would never ha' done for Geordie to come
back and find the old folks quit."
"Nay, nor for Jim----" he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off. "Ay,
well, I doubt he'll never come back now!"
"He's likely best where he is." Sarah shut her mouth with a hard snap.
Once again she stared straight in front of her over the horse's head, staring
and staring at the image which she had set up.
A motor-horn challenged them presently from behind, and Simon
pulled aside without even turning his head. He had never really grown used
to the cars and the stricter rule of the road. He belonged to the days when
the highway to Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers' shandrydans,
peat-carts, and carriers' carts with curved hoods; with here and there a

country gentleman's pair of steppers flashing their way through. He never
took to the cars with their raucous voices and trains of dust, their sudden
gusts of passage which sent his heart into his mouth. His slack-reined
driving forced him to keep to the crown of the road, and only an always
forthcoming miracle got him out of the way in time. He used to shrink a
little when the cars drew level, and the occupants turned their curious
heads. Somehow the whole occurrence had the effect of a definite personal
attack. Sometimes he thought they laughed at the jolting trap, the shabby
old couple and the harness tied with string. The rush of the cars seemed to
bring a crescendo of mocking voices and leave a trail of diminishing mirth.
But as a matter of fact he did not often look at them when they looked at
him. There was nothing to link their hurrying world with his.
This particular car, however, seemed an unusually long time in getting
past. The horn sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he pulled still
further into the hedge-side. He held his breath for the usual disturbance and
rush, but they did not come. The car kept closely behind him, but it did not
pass. Round each corner, as they reached it, he lost and then caught again
the subdued purring of the engine and the soft slurring of the wheels. When
they met anything, it fell further back, so that at times he felt sure that it
must have stopped. Then he would draw his breath, and drop into a walk,
but almost at once it would be at his back again. The note of it grew to have
a stealthy, stalking sound, as of something that waited to spring upon its
prey.
The strangeness of this proceeding began suddenly to tell upon
Simon's nerves. Lack of interest had at first prevented him from turning his
head, but now it changed into sheer inability to look behind. Soon he was in
the grip of a panic fear that the car at his back might not be a real car, after
all. He began to think that he had only imagined the horn, the gentle note of

the engine and the soft sound of the wheels. Perhaps, now that he was old,
his ears were playing him false, just as Sarah's eyes, so it seemed, were
suddenly playing her false. Presently he was sure, if he turned, he would see
nothing at all, or that, instead of nothing at all, he would see a ghost.
Something that moved in another world would be there, with spidery
wheels and a body through which he could see the fields; something that
had once belonged to life and gone out with a crash, or was only just
coming into it on the road....
It was quite true that there was something peculiar about the behaviour
of the car. From its number, it must have come from the county next below,
and it was splashed as if it had travelled far and fast. During the last few
miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl. More than one farmer had
heard it behind him and wondered why it took so long to pass, but it had
never dallied and dawdled so long before. Almost at once it had gathered
speed and slithered by, and the man inside had turned with a friendly hail.
He was a stranger, so they said afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the
time they answered the hail as if he were one of themselves.
But Simon, at least, had no intention of hailing anybody just then.
Indeed, he was fast losing both his sense and his self-control. He slapped
the reins on the horse's back, making urgent, uncouth sounds, and doing his
best to yank it into a sharper trot. It plunged forward with an air of surprise,
so that the old folks bumped in their seats, knocked against each other and
were jerked back. Presently it bundled itself into an aged gallop, while
Simon clicked at it through his scanty teeth.
"Nay, now, master, what are you at!" Sarah protested, gripping the rail.
"We've no call to hurry ourselves, think on."
"It's yon danged car!" Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he
were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his

track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his
nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving
the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just
for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was
wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was
perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes,
fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not
have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot
on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided,
panting, into its slowest crawl.
Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which
Simon had collapsed. "Whatever took you to act like yon?" she asked.
"There was nowt to put you about as I could see."
"It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered again, but beginning already
to feel rather ashamed. "It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by.
What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn't a motor-car at all! More like a
hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert, black hearse wi' nid-noddin'
feathers on top...." He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would
never stop. "Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!"
He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on
him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear.
The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and
stirred the trap. Simon's hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot,
his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road
the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved
away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings,--feathery, velvet-black
and soft on the misty air....

II

Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even
more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon,--that
face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other,--a
voice from the void,--was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to
most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events.
Something that is not so much memory as re-vision reaches out of the past
into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off
hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and
a blowing sky. The firm circlet of To-Day is bound again shining and hard
about the narrow earth.
For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road.
No more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon
felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his
excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought,
standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the
tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he got
in. It wasn't as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing how things
were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And there was one
person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy
day. He hoped fervently that it might not reach her ears.
Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made
mock of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they
would not meet her to-day, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd. Sarah
would never stand any nonsense from her to-day, depressed as she was by
the trouble about her eyes. There would be a scuffle between them, as sure

as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that quarter,
too. He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened his mouth,
and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again.
Not that they ever did keep off it, as he knew perfectly well. Sooner or
later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at market. They
had discussed it so often from every possible point that they did not always
know which it was that spoke. They had long since forgotten from which of
their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had first been born. Often they
waked in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept and wakened only to
talk of it again. There was nothing good that they had which it had not
poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was made a double sorrow
thereby. There was scarcely one of their memories that did not ache because
of that constant sword-point in its heart.
It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was
continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than one,
but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their lives. It
was like a vice of some sort which had long become an imperative need.
Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each
week they went again to look on the thing that they both loathed.
Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would
not see them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land
surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay. Indeed, in this
part of the little county it was hard to get away from the knowledge of the
sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks, you had only to
climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw. On days like this,
however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which was water and which
mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from beneath, those who looked
at it from the hills could not tell whether it went or stayed.

Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a
drowned appearance to-day. It reminded him of the marsh after it had been
swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the sea
drew back. Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the dead or
drugged. Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose, though it was the
purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep.
Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying
slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the
mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the road.
Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the distorting
air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and the gleam of its
expressionless eye. It moved in that lifeless atmosphere as a ship that has
lost the wind moves still by its gathered momentum over a deadened sea,
but when it came over the road it turned to follow the trap, instead of
making away at an angle towards the west. Simon concluded that it must
have lost its way in the mist, and was following them as sea-birds follow a
boat, but presently he was reminded of the car in this leisurely gliding on
their track. Like the car, too, it drew level at last, but this time he was not
afraid. He looked up at it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its
lone vagrancy with apathetic eyes. It was silent at first as it circled and
swooped, looping its aimless, unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on.
It might have been a piece of the wandering mist that had taken shape, yet
the sluggish, unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have sufficient
strength to carry its weight. So low it flew at last that it almost brushed their
faces and the horse's ears, and in fancy he felt the touch of it damp and soft
against his cheek. And then, as it dropped for the hundredth time, it
suddenly spoke.

Sarah started violently when the cry broke over her head, the harsh
wailing cry that makes all sands desolate and all moorland lone. She lifted
her face to search the curtained sky as well as she could, but already the
bird had left them and mounted higher, as if called and turned to another
road. Each cry as it came was fainter than the last, like the speech of a
passing soul ever further off. There was about it something of the majesty
and terror of all irrevocable retreats, of those who go forth unhesitatingly
when summoned, never to return. It left behind it the same impulse to reach
out passionate, yearning arms, to cry aloud for the fainting answer that
would still go on long after the ear had ceased to take it in.
Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last, trembling and drawing short,
uneven breaths. Simon was silent until she had settled again, and then--"It
was nobbut a gull," he said, at length.
She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands tightly before her in their
black cotton gloves.
"We've plenty on 'em, I'm sure, down on t'marsh.... I'm that used to
them, I never hear their noise."
She turned her head slightly towards him, as if in a vain attempt to see
his face.
"Ay, but it was that like," she answered in a suppressed tone. "Eh, man,
but it was terble like!"
He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing well enough what she
meant, but knowing also that there was nothing to say. It was not true, of
course, that he never heard the gulls. He heard them always, and behind
them the voice that called across the years. But they had long since ceased
to talk about it or to take the voice of the present for the voice of the past.
Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window on a stormy night,
they started and looked at each other, and then looked away. But it was not

often that they were deceived, as Sarah had been to-day. Even now, he felt
sure, she was straining after the voice, that would never cease crying until it
reached the tide.
They were passed again before they reached the town, but this time it
was by the cheerful rap of hoofs. It caught them as they creaked their way
up the last hill,--the smart going of a good horse that even on the smothered
highway managed to ring sharp. A whip was waved as the dog-cart dashed
by, and the driver turned back to give them a smile. She was Fleming's
motherless daughter from the 'Ship' Inn across the sands, and Simon and
Sarah had known her all her life. All her life she had lived looking out
across the bay, and half her life looking a thousand miles beyond.
Simon threw up his hand to her with an answering smile, a sudden
sweetness changing his whole face. Even Sarah relaxed when she knew
who it was, and both of them brightened for a little while. They were fond
of May, a good girl who did not change, and who never made light of those
whom Fate was counting out. She had always had the power to strengthen
their hold on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame. There was a
serene yet pulsing strength about her that had the soothing stimulus of a
summer tide. Sarah had been jealous of her when she was young, and had
fended her off, but May had long since found her patient way to her heart.
Now she stood to both the old people as their one firm link with the past,
and as such she was more precious to them than rubies and dearer than
bright gold.
"A good lass!" Simon observed, with the smile still present on his lips.
"Ay."
"I've always thought a deal o' May."
"Ay, an' me."
"Geordie an' all," he added, with a faintly mischievous air.

Sarah did not speak.
"An' Jim----"
"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!"
Simon drew the lash gently along the horse's back.
"I hear Fleming's been none so well lately," he resumed, as they
rumbled into Witham. "We mun think on to ax. Happen I could slip across
to t' 'Ship' after we've gitten back. Tide's about six, isn't it? I could happen
do it."
"Fleming's nobbut going the same road as t'rest on us," Sarah said.
"He'll be glad to see you, though, like enough. But it'll be dark soon, think
on, wi' all this fog."
"There's summat queer about t'weather," Simon said broodingly,
knitting his brows. "Tides is fairish big, and yet it's terble whyet. Happen
we'll have a change o' some sort afore so long."
"I've noticed it's often whyet afore a big change. Seems like as if it
knew what was coming afore it was on t'road."
"Ay, but it's different, some way.... It's more nor that. There's a blind
look about things, seems to me."
"Blind weather for blind folk!" Sarah put in with a grim laugh. Simon
grunted a protest but she took no notice. "I never thought as I should be
blind," she went on, almost as if to herself. "I've always been terble sharp
wi' my eyes; likely that's why I've managed to wear 'em out. And I've
always been terble feared o' folk as couldn't see. There's no telling what
blind weather and a blind body's brain may breed.... Ay, well, likely I'll
know a bit more about they sort o' things now...."

III

All old and historical towns seem older and richer in meaning on some days
than they do on others. But the old and the rich days are also the most aloof.
The towns withdraw, as it were, to ponder on their past. By some magic of
their own they eliminate all the latest features, such as a library, a garage, or
a new town hall, and show you nothing but winding alleys filled with
leaning walls and mossy roofs. The eye finds for itself with ease things
which it has seen for a lifetime and yet never seen,--carved stone dates,
colour-washed houses jutting out over worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses
tucked away between the shops. The old pigments and figures stand out
strangely on the well-known signs, and the old names of the inns make a
new music in the ear. The mother-church by the river seems bowed to the
earth with the weight of the prayers that cling to her arched roof. The flags
in the chancel seem more fragile than they did last week. The whole spirit
of the town sinks, as the eyelids of the old sink on a twilit afternoon.
Witham wore this air of detachment when Simon and Sarah came to it
to-day, as if it held itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of the year.
The long main street, rising and dipping, but otherwise running as if on a
terrace cut in the side of the hill, was strung from end to end with the
scattered units of the road. The ambling traffic blocked and dislocated itself
with the automatic ease of a body of folk who are all acquainted with each
other's ways. Groups clustered on the pavements, deep in talk, and
overflowed carelessly into the street. Horses' heads came up over their
shoulders and car wheels against their knees, without disturbing either their
conversation or their nerves. Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters' heels,
or slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but
those who wandered outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their
time. Simon's personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and

the busy matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse's
nose.
He made as if to draw up at the house of a well-known doctor in the
town, but Sarah stopped him before he reached the kerb. "Nay, nay," she
said nervously, "it'll likely bide. I don't know as I'm that fain to hear what
he's got to say. Anyway, I'd a deal sooner get my marketing done first."
So instead of stopping they went straight to the inn where they had put
up on market-day for the last forty years, and where Simon's father had put
up before Simon was born. Turning suddenly across the pavement through a
narrow entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a sloping yard. The back
premises of old houses shut it in on every side, lifting their top windows for
a glimpse of the near moor. The inn itself, small and dark, with winding
staircases and innumerable doors, had also this sudden vision of a lone,
high world against the sky.
An ancient ostler came to help Simon with the horse, while Sarah
waited on the sloping stones. The steep yard was full of traps, pushed under
sheds or left in the open with their shafts against the ground. Fleming's dog-
cart was there, with its neat body and light wheels; but May was already
gone on her business in the town. Simon had an affection for a particular
spot of his own, and it always put him about to find it filled. It was taken
this morning, he found, though not by May. May would never have played
him a trick like that. It was a car that was standing smugly in Simon's place,
with a doubled-up driver busy about its wheels. Cars were always intruders
in the cobbled old yard, but it was a personal insult to find one in his 'spot.'
He went and talked to the driver about it in rising tones, and the driver
stood on his head and made biting comments between his feet. A man came
to one of the inn windows while the scene was on, and listened attentively
to the feast of reason and the flow of soul.

Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the time Simon returned,
thinking of something new to say to the very last. He left the newest and
best unsaid, however, when he saw her face.
"You'd best set down for a bit," he observed, leading her anxiously
towards the inn. "You're fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that's what it
is. You'd ha' done better to call as we come in."
But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling about the doctor in the
least. She had been right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had suddenly
come over all queer. "Happen it's standing that long while you and morter-
man sauced each other about car!" she added, with shaky spirit. "You made
a terble song about it, I'm sure. Trap'll do well enough where it is."
"I can't abide they morter-folk!" Simon muttered, crestfallen but still
vexed. "But never mind about yon. Gang in and set you down. If I happen
across May, I'll tell her to look you up."
A door opened at the end of the dark passage, showing a warm parlour
with flowers and crimson blinds. The stout landlady came swimming
towards them, speaking as she swam, so that the vibrations of her
welcoming voice reached them first like oncoming waves. Another door
opened in the wall on the right, and a man looked out from the dim corner
behind.
"That you, Mrs. Thornthet? What?--not so well? Nay, now, it'll never
do to start market-day feeling badly, I'm sure! Come along in and rest
yourself by t'fire, and a cup of tea'll happen set you right."
Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit down, yet hesitated as if
afraid to step inside. It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was some
ordeal in front of her which she could not face. Her heart beat and her throat
was dry, and though she longed to go in, she was unable to stir. The man
inside saw her against a background of misty yard, a white face and homely

figure dressed in threadbare black. Once or twice his gaze left her to dwell
on Simon, but it was always to the more dramatic figure that it returned.
There was a current in the passage, full and sweeping like the wind that
went before the still, small Voice of God. Sarah was caught by it, urged
forward, filled with it with each breath. But even as she lifted her foot she
heard a woman's voice in the room beyond.
"We've Mrs. Will here an' all," the landlady called, as she swam away.
"She'll see to you if there's anything you want, I'm sure."
She might just as well have slammed and locked the door in the old
folks' teeth. At once they made a simultaneous movement of recoil,
stiffening themselves as if against attack. The spirit in the passage died
down, leaving it filled to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering voice. Sarah
was well away from the doorstep before she opened her mouth.
"Nay, I don't know as I won't go right on, thank ye, Mrs. Bond. I'm
feeling a deal better already,--I am that. If I set down, I'll likely not feel like
getting up again, and I've a deal to see to in t'town."
Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised, but Sarah was already
well across the yard. Simon, when appealed to, said nothing but, "Nay, I
reckon she'll do," and seemed equally bent upon getting himself away. They
retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to the street, leaving Mrs. Bond
to say, "Well, I never, now!" to the empty air. The man's face came back to
the window as they went, looking after this sudden retirement with a
troubled frown.
The driver was still working at his car when he found his passenger
suddenly at his side. He was a queer customer, he thought to himself,
looking up at the moody expression on his handsome face. He had behaved
like a boy on their early morning ride, continually stopping the car, and then
hustling it on again. He had sung and whistled and shouted at people on the

road, laughed without any apparent reason, and dug the unfortunate driver
in the back. He was clean off it, the man thought, grinning and vexed by
turn, and wondering when and where the expedition would end. People as
lively as that at blush of dawn were simply asking for slaps before the sun
was down. He had steadied a trifle when they reached the Witham road, but
the queerest thing of all that he did was that checking behind the traps. The
driver was sure he was cracked by the time they got to the town, and he was
surer than ever when he came out now and told him to move the car. He
might have refused if his fare had not been so big and broad, and if he had
not already shown himself generous on the road. As it was, he found
himself, after a moment of sulky surprise, helping to push the trap into the
disputed place. He still wore his injured expression when he went back to
his job, but it was wasted on his employer, who never looked his way.
Instead, he was standing and staring at Simon's crazy rig, and he smiled as
he stared, but it was not a happy smile. Presently he, too, made his way to
the arch, and disappeared into the crowded street.
The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry to be gone, but, as a
matter of fact, they halted as soon as they got outside. "I couldn't ha' gone in
there whatever," Sarah said, in an apologetic tone, and Simon nodded,
looking anxiously up and down.
"If I could nobbut catch a sight o' May," he muttered worriedly,
searching the crowd. "May'd see to you right off, and get you a snack o'
summat an' all. I've Mr. Dent to see about chucking t'farm, and I've a two-
three other things to do as well."
But instead of May, who was nowhere to be seen, a man came shyly
towards them from a neighbouring group. He was like Simon to look at,
only younger and better clad, showing none of the other's signs of trouble

and hard toil. His voice was like Simon's, too, when Simon was at his best,
but Sarah stiffened when she heard him speak.
"You'll not ha' seen Fleming's lass?" Simon asked, devouring the street,
and Will swung about at once to cast his own glance over the press.
"She was by a minute since," he said thoughtfully. "She can't ha' gone
far...." He hunted a moment longer, and turned shyly back. "Likely you'll
give us a call at Blindbeck this afternoon?"
Sarah said nothing in reply to the invitation, but Simon gave a nod.
"I could do wi' a word wi' you, Will, if you're not throng. It's about
time we were thinking o' making a change. Sarah's bothered wi' her eyes."
"Nay, now, that's bad news, to be sure." Will was genuinely concerned.
He glanced at Sarah kindly, though with a diffident air. "Happen a pair o'
glasses'll fix you," he said, in his gentle tones. There was a pause, and then
he jerked his head towards the arch that led to the inn. "I left my missis
behind there, talking to Mrs. Bond. If you're thinking o' seeing t'doctor,
you'd best have a woman to come along."
"I meant to ax May," Simon said hurriedly, praying for May to spring
out of the ground, and, as if by way of reply, she came out of a shop on the
far side. He plunged forward, waving and calling her name, and she
stopped, smiling, as he caught her by the arm. She was grave at once,
however, when she heard what he had to say, and her eyes rested on Sarah
with a troubled look. She gave a nod of comprehension when he pointed
towards the arch, and, without waiting to hear more, crossed over to Sarah's
side. By the time the stranger appeared the women had vanished down the
street, while the brothers were making their way to the market square. This
was the second time that the Thornthwaites had fled at the sound of a name,
and this time, as it happened, May was sent speeding away, too.

IV

May, however, was only thinking of how she could be of use, and was very
cheery and pleasant all along the street. Already she had come across one or
two pieces of news, and laughed about them to Sarah until Sarah was
laughing, too. Once or twice they met somebody who had something else to
tell, and they stood on the pavement together and thrashed the matter out.
May's laugh sounded young and gay, and a girlish colour came into her
cheeks. The old figure beside her seemed to draw vitality from her generous
warmth, her brave air which made an adventure of every commonplace of
life. Sarah even rose to a joke or two on her own account, and was
wonderfully heartened when they got to the doctor's house. She would not
hear of having a cup of tea or even a rest. Time enough for such things, she
said with spirit, when they were through.
She had both of them, however, at the doctor's, because he would not
let her go away without. May took her into the dining-room by his orders,
and found her an easy chair beside the fire. A parlourmaid brought a tray,
and Sarah drank her tea cheerfully enough, soothed by the comfort and
quiet and the presence of some sweet-smelling flower. The doctor had been
kindness itself, and had felt a little depressed when he sent the women
away. He did not know that the last thing that was in their minds as they sat
by the fire was the terrible fact that Sarah was going blind.
They spoke of it, indeed, but only casually, as it were, before passing
on to the greater thing at its back. Sarah's sense of courtesy forced her at
least to give the doctor a pat on the head.
"Ay, he was right kind," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "and I will
say this for him that he seemed to know his job. I've had my doubts for a

while there was summat badly wrong. I don't know as it's news to me, after
all. As for yon operation he says might do summat for me, I doubt I'm over
old. We've no brass for notions o' that sort, neither, come to that."
"There's hospitals," May said,--"homes and suchlike where they take
you free. Plenty of folk go to 'em, even at your age, and they'd see to you
well enough, I'm sure."
"Ay, doctor said that an' all," Sarah assented, though in an uninterested
tone. "But I'd only take badly to they sort o' spots now," she added, sipping
her tea. "I'd be marching out agen, likely, as soon as ever I'd set my foot
inside of the door."
"They say folks settle wonderfully when they've made up their minds.
It's worth a bit of trouble, if they put you right."
"Happen," Sarah said casually, and withdrew it at once. "I don't know
as it is."
"You're down, that's what it is. You'll feel better after a bit."
"I don't know as I shall."
"You'll feel different about it in a day or two. You'd come through it
right as a bobbin. You've pluck enough for ten."
"Ay, well, I can't settle it one way or t'other," Sarah said stubbornly,
turning a deaf ear. "Things is a bit ham-sam just now," she added evasively,
fiddling with her cup, and wondering why she could not bring herself to
announce that they were leaving the farm. But as long as they did not speak
of it, it was just as if nothing had happened, as though the words which had
framed the decision had never been said. And yet at that very moment
Simon was probably telling Will and Mr. Dent, and the news would be
racing its way round Witham until it came to Eliza's ear....
"We'll work it some way," May urged, not knowing of the big pause
that had come into Sarah's life. "You may have to get a word put in for you,

but that's easy done. I'll see the Squire and Mrs. Wilson and maybe a few
more, and it'll be all fixed up without you putting yourself about."
"You're right kind, you are that."
"It's worth it," May said again.
"Ay ... I don't know..." Sarah answered her absently, and then sat up
straight. "It'd ha' been worth it once," she broke out suddenly, as if letting
herself go. "There was a time when I'd a deal sooner ha' been dead than
blind, but it don't matter much now. There's not that much left as I care to
look at, I'm sure. It's the eyes make the heart sore more nor half the time.
But I'd ha' felt badly about it if Geordie was coming back, and I couldn't ha'
framed to see his face."
May said--"It's best not to think of such things," as cheerfully as she
could, but her own face clouded as she spoke, and suddenly she looked old.
Here was the old trouble, if the doctor had known, that was still big enough
to make the new one seem almost small. Blindness was not so dreadful a
thing to these two women, who had both of them lost the light of their eyes
so long before. Long ago they had known what it was to rise and see no
shine in the day, no blue in the sea for May who had lost her lover, no sun
in the sky for Sarah without her child.
It was twenty years now since Geordie had gone away, clearing out
over-seas as casually as if into the next field. Eliza's eldest from Blindbeck
had gone as well, as like him in face and voice as if hatched in the same
nest. They were too lively, too restless for the calm machinery of English
country life, and when the call came from over the ocean they had vanished
in a night. Canada, which has so many links with Westmorland now,
seemed farther away then than the world beyond the grave. Death at least
left you with bones in a green yard and a stone with a graven name, but
Canada made you childless, and there was no sign of your grief beneath the

church's wall. Geordie had written, indeed, from time to time, but though
the letters were light enough on the top, there was heartache underneath. He
was a failure there, they gathered, after a while, just as they were failures
here; as if the curse of the Sandholes luck had followed even across the sea,
Jim was a failure, too, as far as they knew, though their impression of Jim's
doings was always vague. His very name on the page seemed to have the
trick of dissolving itself in invisible ink, and his own letters were never
answered and barely even read. He had been fond of his aunt, but Sarah had
given him only the scantiest tolerance in return. Sarah, indeed, would not
have cared if Jim had been burning in everlasting fire....
"We'd a letter from Geordie a month back," she said suddenly, after the
pause, "begging the loan of a pound o' two to fetch him home."
May started a little, and the colour came back to her cheek. It was a
long time now since anything fresh about Geordie had come her way. Once
she had been in the habit of going to Sandholes for news, asking for it by
indirect methods of which she was still rather ashamed. Sarah had been
jealous of her in those days and grudged her every word; and since she had
stopped being jealous there had been next to nothing to grudge.....
"Ay, he axed for his fare, but we hadn't got it to send. I don't know as
we want him, neither, if he can't shape better than that."
May felt her heart shake as she leaned forward, clasping her hands.
"I've a bit put by I could spare," she began, with a thrill in her voice.
"It could go from you, Mrs. Thornthet,--he need never know. You've only to
say the word, and you can have it when you want."
A twinge of the ancient jealousy caught suddenly at Sarah's heart. With
difficulty she remembered May's kindness and the long bond of the years.
"I'll not spend any lass's savings on my lad!" she answered roughly,
and then softened again. "Nay, May, my girl, you mean well enough, but it

wain't do. Losh save us! Hasn't he done badly enough by you, as it is?" she
added grimly. "You should ha' been wed this many a long year, instead o'
hanging on for the likes o' him!"
"I doubt I'd never have married in any case," May said. "I don't know
as I'd ever have made up my mind to leave my dad."
"You'd ha' wed right enough but for Geordie,--dad or no dad!" Sarah
scoffed. "You're the sort as is meant to be wed, from the start. Nay, he's
spoilt your life, and no doubt about it, but there's no sense in lossing the can
because you've gone and spilt the milk. Say you sent him the brass, and he
come back without a cent, what'd be the end o' the business then? You'd
wed him, I'll be bound,--for pity, if for nowt else. Your father'll likely leave
you a nice bit, and you'd get along on that, but who's to say how Geordie'd
frame after all these years? Happen he's lost the habit o' work by now, and
it'll be a deal more likely than not if he's taken to drink."
"Geordie wasn't that sort." May shook her head. "He'll not have taken
to drink, not he!"
"Folks change out of all knowledge,--ay, and inside as well as out."
"Not if they're made right," May said stubbornly, "and Geordie was all
right. He was a daft mafflin, I'll give you that, always playing jokes and the
like, but it was just the life in him,--nowt else. He was a fine lad then, in
spite of it all, and I don't mind swearing that he's a fine man now."
"Ay," Sarah said slowly, "fine enough, to be sure! A fine lad to leave
his folks for t'far side o' the world wi' never a word! A fine man as can't
look to himself at forty, let alone give his father and mother a bit o' help! ...
Nay, my lass, don't you talk to me!" she finished brusquely. "We've thought
a deal o' Geordie, me and Simon and you, but I reckon he's nowt to crack
on, all the same!"

"You'd think different when he was back," May pleaded,--"I'm sure
you would. And you needn't fret about me if that's all there is in the road. I
made up my mind long since as I shouldn't wed. But I'd be rarely glad, all
the same, to have had a hand in fetching him home."
"You're real good, as I said, but it's over late." She paused a moment
and then went on again. "Letter went a couple o' week ago."
The tears came into May's eyes.
"You don't mean as you said him no? Eh, Mrs. Thornthet, but I'm sorry
to hear that!"
"Yon sort o' thing's best answered right off."
For a moment or two May put her hand to her face. "Eh, but what a
pity!" she murmured, after a while. "What does it matter whose brass
fetches him home?"
"It matters to me."
"It matters a deal more that you're breaking your heart----"
"Nay, then, I'm not! ... Ay, well, then, what if I be?"
"Let me get the brass right off!" May said, in a coaxing tone. "Let me,-
-do now! Send it to him to-day."
"Nay."
"You've got it into your head he's different, but I'll swear you're wrong!
Different in looks, maybe, but he'll be none the worse for that. He always
framed to be a fine figure of a man when he was set. You'd be as throng wi'
him as a clockie hen wi' a pot egg."
Sarah snorted scorn, but her face softened a little.
"He's forty, but I'll be bound he hasn't changed. I'll be bound he's
nobbut the same merry lad inside."
"Happen none the better for that."
"Geordie isn't the sort as grows old--Geordie an' Jim----"

"Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!" Sarah flared, and the other
laughed.
"It's hard to think of 'em apart even now,--they were that like. Why,
I've mixed 'em myself, over and over again, and fine fun it was for them, to
be sure!"
"I never mixed 'em!" Sarah snapped, with a blind glare. "I never see a
scrap o' likeness myself."
"Why, the whole countryside couldn't tell 'em apart,--school-folk an'
all! 'Twasn't only their faces was like; 'twas their voices, too."
"Hold your whisht!"
"You'll remember yon calls they had, Geordie an' Jim----"
"Whisht, I tell ye!" There was something scared as well as angry in
Sarah's tone, and May was hushed into silence in spite of herself. "Jim was
sweet on you, too," the old woman went on surlily, after a pause. "If there
wasn't that much to choose between 'em, why didn't you choose him?"
"There was all the world to choose between them, when it come to it,"
May said smiling, but with tears in her voice. "Once Geordie'd kissed me, I
never mixed 'em up again!"
The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah's face. She tried to turn it
away, with the pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot tell what
others may be reading there in spite of their will. May, however, was
looking away from her into the past.
"Not but what Jim was a rare good sort," she was saying, with the
tenderness of a woman towards a lover who once might have been and just
was not. "Eh, and how fond he was of you, Mrs. Thornthet!" she added,
turning again. "No lad could ha' thought more of his own mother than he
did of you."

"I wanted nowt wi' his fondness," Sarah said in a hard tone. "And I
want no mewling about him now, as I said afore!"
"Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but he was that set on you he
didn't mind. He used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn't he,--same as
Geordie did? It was never his mother he fetched 'em for; 'twas always you."
"Eliza never had no need o' fairings, wi' all she had at her back!" Sarah
stood up sharply and began to grope about for her mantle and gloves.
"You're bringing things back just to coax me about yon brass!" she added,
as May came forward to help.... "Your father's none so well, I'm sorry to
hear?"
"He hasn't been himself for a while now, and he's getting worse. I
doubt he's going down the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!"
"Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we wouldn't wish for owt else.
But it'll be rare an' lonely for you wi'out him, all the same."
"I'm used to being alone, though I can't say it's very grand.... You'll
have to let me come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet," she added, with a
cheerful laugh.
"We're over old for the likes o' you. You want friends of your own age
to keep you lively-like."
"I'm not so young myself, if it comes to that," May said. "And I don't
know as I ever had a real friend, barring Geordie-an'-Jim."
"That's enough o' the two on 'em!" Sarah snarled, as they went out.
"Geordie's been a bonny friend to you, anyway,--he has that! We'd best be
getting about our business. Talking o' things as is dead and gone won't make
us any more lish."
"Simon'll be bothered about my eyes," she said presently, as they
turned towards the shops. "It's a deal worse having to tell him than to put up
wi' it myself."

"Happen you'd like me to tell him for you?" May suggested, but Sarah
shook her head.
"Nay, you'd do it right enough, I'm sure," she said kindly, "but it'd
come best from me. You've enough o' your own to fash you, wi'out that.
Married folk mun do their own telling over things like yon...."

V

But though Sarah had held to the telling of Simon, she seemed in no hurry
to break the dismal news. All morning she clung to May, as if they drew
together as a matter of course, and May was glad to have her, not only
because she was old and needed help, but because of the tie between them
which had never been loosed. It was true that they had seen little of each
other of late years, but it had only needed the talk in the doctor's house to
draw them together again. The dwelling upon a lost hope may sometimes
make the impossible possible and the dead live, if only for a space. The two
of them had recreated Geordie in the quiet room, so that his mother had
seen him plain before her darkened eyes, and his sweetheart had felt his
kisses on her lips.
So all morning they stayed together, even though they did not speak of
him again, because while they were together the glamour persisted and the
dream remained. Just as one name had robbed them that day, though they
did not know it, so another name sweetened everything for them, and for a
little space made them rich. Things might so easily have been as they
wished that it seemed as if even now just a little determination might twist
them into shape. In the ordinary course of events, and with ever such an

ordinary share of luck, Geordie and May should have been married long
ago, with a home of their own to offer the old folk at the last. Even now, so
it seemed, Geordie might be somewhere in the street, in the midst of that
crowd of healthy youth, sturdy manhood and wiry age. Instinctively, as they
came out of each shop, they looked to find him the centre of some chaffing
group, the laughing, handsome, witty centre, as he had always been. He
would break away when he saw them to ask his old mother how she did,
and suddenly the greatest and best of all happenings would have happened,
and they would have heard the miracle of his speech....
This was the spell they wove for each other, making the day brighter
and the world kinder, and helping them to laugh at things which otherwise
would have been too light to stir their hearts. Sarah's shopping was dull and
soon finished, but May had an exciting list, and seemed constantly in need
of help. The old woman actually enjoyed herself as she peered at stockings
and linen buttons, and nipped longcloth and serge between her finger and
thumb. It might have been wedding-gear they were after, she told May, with
a grim chuckle, and May laughed and sighed, thinking of a bottom drawer
at home that had been locked for many years. The salesman laughed, too,
and asked Sarah which of them it was that was thinking of getting wed, and
Sarah, with all her arduous married life behind her, was yet as pleased as a
young girl. She was a shrewd marketer, even now, in spite of her sight,
especially in the food-shops, where one nose can often be quite as useful as
a pair of eyes; while, as for pots and pans, she knew them as a hen knows
her chickens and a shepherd his sheep.
They had many a chat over a counter, making and receiving enquiries
about friends, opening their mouths at any lively piece of news, and pursing
them sympathetically when there was trouble around the door. In the low
shops with the new windows in their old walls and new slates on their

bowed roofs, little, low doorways stooping for their heads, little, worn
doorsteps watching for their feet, they heard many a hint of the romance of
evolving or changing trade, many a precious historic touch that would never
find its way into print. You cannot put your ear to the past anywhere but in
the old places where men are born to their trades, where they know the
customer's pedigree as the customer knows theirs, and where everybody has
time for the human as well as the commercial exchange. Only there can you
learn in the space of an hour wonderful things about drapery and furniture
and hardware and tea, and feel the glamour of the whole budding and fruit-
bearing earth come into the florist's, and the atmosphere of old posting-inns
into the pot-shop with the clink of glass. And no man who is born to his
trade is ever a cobbler who may not look beyond his last. The potman will
tell you where to order a stylish suit of clothes, and the florist instruct you
how to smoke a ham. And every one of them will tell you, with or without
their knowing it, what they have learned of human nature and the hope of
eternity in their quiet little town, and with what eyes they have looked
abroad upon the world.
All that morning the tides of life swept against Sarah and her friend as
they went about the streets,--tides of humanity and sympathy, memory and
custom,--all the currents that move in the air and the blood and the brain
when a hand is shaken or a friendly voice is heard. It was life at its fullest as
it is known to the northern farmer and his kind, the public recognition in a
given place of the great and intimate system of which he is a part. The
dumb beasts had their place in it, too,--perhaps the chief place,--and though
only the wise dogs and the cobby, half-clipped horses were there in the
flesh, the all-absorbing stock was never absent from the mind. Into every
conversation before so long some grand bull-calf or pedigree shearling was
sure to push its way. Moving among the warm human tides was like moving

in a flood, while, overhead, low almost as the roofs, the mist drifted and the
sky drooped. Seven miles away, the sands lay bare as a hand, as if never in
any æon of time would the sea return.
Sarah and May had their dinner together in a café overlooking one of
the steep streets, and, choosing a table by one of the windows, so that they
could look out, spread their parcels about them, and discussed their bargains
and their mistakes. They were still happy, as happiness went for them in
those days, because of the miracle that seemed always possible down in the
street. Folks in plenty were coming and going on the narrow stair, and as
each head rose above the floor of the room in which they sat, they felt a
thrill of anticipation that was yet too slight to bring disappointment in its
train. May, perhaps, was slightly puzzled by the persistence of the feeling in
the air, but Sarah was well used, like all who are old, to the strange reality
of these glamour-days that are fashioned from the past.
They had their heads together over a new-fangled floor-cloth when the
ubiquitous stranger came quietly up the stairs; and they were so absorbed,
and Sarah was so exuberant in her wrath, that he had time to look about him
before the final word was said. There was no room for him, he saw, except
at the table where they sat, and presently, though rather uncertainly, he
advanced a foot. If they had looked at him, he would have gone forward at
once, but when they lifted their eyes it was only to turn them towards the
window and the street. The little action seemed somehow to shut him out,
and, drawing back almost guiltily, he found a seat for himself in the
adjoining room. May looked round as he did so, just as though somebody
had called, and stared intently at the place where he had been.
He could still see them, however, from where he sat, and he noticed
many things about them as he watched. He noticed, for instance, how strong
and capable May looked, like a woman who had long since taken her life in

her hands and ruled it well. He noticed her good clothes and Sarah's shabby
ones, and that the multitudinous parcels were most of them May's. He
noticed the shake which Time, in spite of her, had put into Sarah's hands,
and was puzzled by the groping manner in which she used her fork. He
noticed that the two of them ate little and that without much heart, and that
always they turned their faces towards the street. And finally he noticed
how Sarah, in the midst of her talk, went suddenly rigid as a woman came
into the room.
She was a big woman over sixty years of age, with smooth, high-
coloured cheeks and thick dark hair that was still a long way from turning
white. Her face said plainly that she had had a full, comfortable, healthy
life, with plenty to interest her and little to fret. Her brown eyes, which had
been beautiful in youth, had kept their expression of self-satisfaction wholly
undisturbed. She looked, indeed, what she was, the mother of a big family,
the mistress of a good-class farm, and the wife of a man whose banking-
account had long since ceased to keep him awake at nights. She wore a
black hat and a black plush coat, and round her shoulders was a big fur
wrap. In a kid-gloved hand she carried a muff and a silver-mounted bag,
and May, looking down, saw patent-toed boots showing beneath her neat,
black skirt. Sarah was sure of them, too, though she could not see them. It
was not with her physical eye that she looked at Eliza of Blindbeck,
Simon's brother's wife.
She, too, had paused in the doorway, looking for a place, but as soon
as she saw the two in the window, she advanced at once. As she passed she
spoke to several people in a noisy, hearty voice, that seemed to have a
blustering quality somewhere at its back. By the time she had reached
Sarah's table and come to a stop, the man in the other room noticed that
Sarah had suddenly grown small....

"Eh, now, if I haven't been seeking you all over the shop!" Eliza
exclaimed. "Will had it you wanted me most particular, so I've been looking
out. I couldn't find you, though, whatever I did. I never see folks so set on
keeping out of the road!"
Sarah still continued to look as though she had shrunk. Even her voice
seemed to have grown less. It sounded far off and rather prim.
"Nay, I don't know as I did, thank ye," was all she said. "Will mun ha'
gitten hold o' the wrong end o' the stick."
Eliza looked at her with the little smile which the sight of Sarah always
brought to her lips. She pulled a chair towards her and collapsed into it
without waiting to be asked.
"Ay, well, that's queer, to be sure! Will's no more muddled than most
on market-day, as a rule. I made sure you were wanting me right off the
reel, from what he said."
May explained nervously that she had come to Sarah's assistance
instead. Eliza always made her nervous, because she never seemed to know
she was in the room. "There wasn't that much to do," she finished hurriedly,
stumbling over her words. "It's a pity Mr. Thornthwaite set you looking her
up."
"Nay, I don't know.... I'd have been glad to do anything, I'm sure!"
Eliza spoke in her heartiest tones, so that everybody could hear. "Nobody
can say I'm one as can't be bothered to lend a hand. I reckon me and Will
have done as much in that line as most." She looked at Sarah again, the
smile growing on her lips.... "You'll not mind me sitting down with you, I
suppose?"
"We're through, thank ye. We're just off." Sarah pushed her plate from
her, and began to fumble shakily for the thread gloves. May looked across

at her with a troubled glance, and gathered the parcels together, ready to
move. Eliza, however, had no intention of allowing them to escape so soon.
"You're surely not thinking o' stirring yet!" she exclaimed, in a hurt
tone. "What, we've barely as much as passed the time o' day! You'll not
grudge me a word or two after all my trouble, and me that throng wi'
shopping I didn't know where to turn. Will was as full of nods and becks as
a row o' poppies in a wind, and I've been fair aching ever since to know
what he could be at."
She turned in her seat to call a waitress, and ordered a substantial
meal; after which, throwing back her fur, she leaned her arms on the table,
and resumed her smile. Everybody in the place knew what Eliza
Thornthwaite was having for her dinner, and here and there they were
saying to each other, "They do themselves rarely at Blindbeck.... There's a
deal o' brass to Blindbeck ... ay, Blindbeck's plenty o' brass!" Eliza knew
what they were saying, of course, and felt unctuously pleased; but May's
heart swelled as she looked at Sarah's scanty, unfinished repast and the thin
thread gloves that she was smoothing over her wrists. Eliza had taken off
her own gloves by now, showing thick fingers and short nails. They were
trapped in the alcove as long as she sat at the table-end, because of her big,
overflowing figure which shut the two of them in. They would have to push
their way past her if they wanted to get out, and Sarah would never as much
as touch her with the end of a ten-foot pole.
"I'd ha' done what I could, I'm sure," Eliza was busy telling them
again. "I'd never say no to folks as can't help themselves. But there,--I
needn't ha' bothered about it,--you're as right as rain. Will had it you were
off to t'doctor's, but I made sure he was wrong. I haven't seen you looking
so well for a month o' Sundays, and that's the truth."

She raised herself as the waitress set a steaming plate in front of her,
and stared at it critically.
"Eh, well, you've not that much to bother you, have you?" she added
kindly, setting to work,--"nobbut Simon to see to, and just that bit of a spot?
'Tisn't the same for you as it is for me, with that great place of our'n on my
hands, and the house fair crowded out."
Sarah did not speak, but she saw, as she was intended to see, a picture
of the good farm where Mrs. Will reigned supreme, of her sons and
daughters and their friends, and her hired lasses and lads; and after that
another picture of her own empty home, where no youthful steps sounded
along the floors, and no vibrant young voices rang against the roof. The
pictures hurt her, as they were meant to do, as well as the cheerful comment
upon her looks. Eliza always assumed that you were as strong as a horse,
even if you lay on your death-bed at her feet.
"I never heard tell you were badly," she persisted, fixing her eyes on
Sarah's face, which looked like parchment against the misty pane, "and
surely to goodness I'd be more like to know than Will?"
"I'll do, thank ye. I'm right enough," Sarah said stiffly, forced into
speech at last; and Eliza laughed victoriously and returned to her food with
zest.
"You've always been rarely strong, as far as I can think on. I never
heard tell as you ailed anything in your life. You were always a rare hand
wi' a knife and fork an' all!" she finished, laughing again. "Will's a bonny
fool to go scaring folk wi' such-like tales."
"Yes, but we did go to the doctor's!" May broke out warmly, goaded
into speech. "Mrs. Thornthwaite's bothered with her eyes."
Mrs. Will lifted her own sharply for a fresh stare at the defenceless
face.

"Eh, now, you don't say so!" she exclaimed cheerfully, with a quite
uninterested air. "It's bad hearing, is that, but they look right enough, I'm
sure."
"They're bad, all the same!" May answered indignantly, on the verge of
tears. "Doctor says she ought to have an operation right off."
There was a little pause after the dread word operation, poignant in
every class, but especially so in this. Even Mrs. Will was shocked
momentarily into quiet. Her fork stayed arrested in mid-air, half-way to her
mouth.
"Well, I never!" she observed at last, withdrawing her startled gaze.
"Eh, now, I never did!" She set to work again at her food like a machine that
has been stopped for a second by an outside hand. "I don't hold much by
operations myself," she went on presently, growing fluent again. "I doubt
they're never no use. They're luxuries for rich folk, anyway, seems to me,
same as servants and motor-cars and the like. But you'll likely be asking
somebody for a hospital ticket, so as you needn't pay?"
"Nay, I think not," Sarah said calmly, though her hands gripped each
other in her threadbare lap.
"You'll never go wasting your own brass on a job like yon!"
"Nay, nor that, neither."
"You'll borrow it, likely?" A slyness came into her voice. She peered at
Sarah over her cup.
"Nay."
"Ay, well, no matter where it come from, it would nobbut be money
thrown away. You're an old body now, Sarah, and folk don't mend that much
when they get to your age. It's real lucky you've only that small spot, as I
said, and neither chick nor child to fret after you when you've gone."

Sarah stood up suddenly when she said that, trying to focus her eyes
on Eliza's face. She stood very stiff and straight, as if she were all of one
piece from feet to crown. A sudden notion came to May that, if she had
thrown off the shabby black cloak, a column of fierce flame would have
shot up towards the roof....
"I'll be saying good day, Eliza," was all she said, however, and moved,
but stopped because the other's skirts still lay before her feet. Mrs. Will
leaned back in her chair, looking up at her, and smiled.
"Nay, now, Sarah, what's the sense o' getting mad? I'm real sorry about
your eyes, but you'd ha' done better to tell me right off. As for saying good
day and such-like so mighty grand, you know as well as me we're looking
to see you at Blindbeck this afternoon." She paused a moment, and then her
voice rose on an insolent note. "Ay, and you know well enough what you're
coming for an' all!"
"Nay, then, I don't." Sarah seemed actually to grow in height. She
looked down at her quietly. "Nay, I don't."
"That's a lie, if I say it to all Witham!" Eliza cried in furious tones.
Battle was really joined now, and her voice, strident and loud, carried into
and disturbed even the street. Those near turned about openly to listen, or
listened eagerly without turning. The man in the adjoining room got up and
came to the door. May stood poised for flight, looking from one to the other
of the warriors with dismay.
"You're leaving Sandholes, aren't you?" Eliza asked, exactly as if she
were addressing somebody over the road,--"leaving because you're broke!
You're coming to Blindbeck to beg of Blindbeck, just as you've begged of
us before. Simon told Will, if you want to know, and Will told me, and
every farmer at market'll be taking it home by now...."

There was a murmur of discomfort and disapproval all over the room,
and then somebody in a corner whispered something and laughed. May
roused herself and pushed her way past Eliza with burning cheeks; but
Sarah stood perfectly still, looking down at the blurred presence sneering
from her chair.
"Ay, we're quitting right enough," she answered her in a passionless
voice. "We're finished, Simon and me, and there's nowt for it but to give up.
But I've gitten one thing to be thankful for, when everything's said and done
... I'm that bad wi' my eyes I can't rightly see your face...."
The person who had laughed before laughed again, and faint titters
broke out on every side. Sarah, however, did not seem to hear. She lifted a
thread-gloved hand and pointed at Eliza's skirts. "Happen you'll shift yon
gown o' yours, Eliza Thornthet?" she added, coolly. "I've a deal o' dirt on
my shoes as I reckon you won't want."
The laughter Was unrestrained now, and Eliza flushed angrily as she
dragged her skirts reluctantly out of the way. From the corner of a raging
eye she observed the elaborate care with which Sarah went by.
"We'll finish our bit of a crack at Blindbeck!" she called after her with
a coarse laugh; but Sarah and May were already on the stairs. The stranger
put out his hand to them as they brushed past, but in their anger and
concentration they did not notice that he was there. Even if he had spoken
to them they would not have heard him, for through the cloud of hate which
Eliza had cast about them the voice of the Trump itself would never have
found a way. He stood aside, therefore, and let them go, but presently, as if
unable to help himself, he followed them into the street. They were soon
cheerful again, he noticed, walking at their heels, as the charm which they
had for each other reasserted its power. Once, indeed, as they looked in at a
window, they even laughed, and he frowned sharply and felt aggrieved.

When they laughed again he turned on his heel with an angry movement,
and flung away down the nearest street. He could not know that it was only
in their memories they ever really laughed or smiled....

VI

Simon had been right in thinking that the tale of the car would be all over
the town by the time he arrived. He came across it, indeed, almost the
moment that he got in. The driver of the car had told a farmer or two in the
inn-yard, and the farmer or two had chuckled with glee and gone out to
spread it among the rest. Of course, they took good care that it lost nothing
in the telling, and, moreover, the driver had given it a good shove-off at the
start. He told them that Simon had shaken his fist and wept aloud, and that
Sarah had fainted away and couldn't be brought round. A later account had
it that the chase had lasted fast and furious for miles, ending with an
accident in Witham streets. Simon encountered the tale in many lengths and
shapes, and it was hard to say whether the flippant or sympathetic folk
annoyed him most. He always started out by refusing to discuss the matter
at all, and then wouldn't stop talking about it once he had begun.
"Ay, well, ye see, I thought it was a hearse," he always growled, when
forced to admit that part of the tale, at least, was true. "Mebbe I was half
asleep, or thinking o' summat else; or likely I'm just daft, like other folk not
so far." Here he usually threw a glance at the enquiring friend, who gave a
loud guffaw and shifted from foot to foot. "Ay, a hearse,--yon's what I
thought it was, wi' nid-noddin' plumes, and happen a corp in a coffin fleein'
along inside. You've no call to make such a stir about it as I can see," he

wound up helplessly, with a threatening scowl. "Boggles isn't out o' date yet
by a parlish long while, and there's many a body still wick as can mind
seeing Jamie Lowther's headless Coach and Four!"
He forgot to feel annoyed, however, when he found that his story had
made him in some sort the hero of the day. He could see folks talking about
him and pointing him out as he went along, and men came up smiling and
wanting a chat who as a rule had no more for him than a casual nod. Often,
indeed, he had only a dreary time, bemoaning his fate with one or two
cronies almost as luckless as himself; listening, perhaps, on the edge of an
interested group, or wandering into some bar for a sup of ale and a pipe. But
to-day he was as busy as an old wife putting the story to rights, and when he
had stopped being angry for having behaved like a fool, he began to feel
rather proud of himself for having done something rather fine. He ended,
indeed, by laughing as heartily as the rest, and allowed several points to
pass which had nothing whatever to do with the truth. He felt more
important than he had done for years, and forgot for a while the press of his
troubles and the fear about Sarah's eyes. Will told himself that he hadn't
seen him so cheerful for long, and wondered whether things were really as
bad at the farm as his brother had made out.
They made a curious couple as they went about, because in face and
figure they were so alike, and yet the stamp of their different circumstances
was so plain. They had the same thin face and dreamy eyes, lean figure and
fine bones, but whereas one carried his age well and his head high, the other
had long since bowed himself to the weight of the years. Will wore a light
overcoat of a modern make, brown boots and a fashionable soft hat; but
Simon's ancient suit was of some rough, hard stuff that had never paid any
attention to his frame. Will had a white collar and neat tie; but Simon had a
faded neckcloth with colourless spots, and he wore dubbined boots that had

clogged soles, and a wideawake that had once been black but now was
green. Eliza often observed in her kindly way that Simon looked old enough
to be Will's father, but indeed it was in the periods to which they seemed to
belong that the difference was most marked. Will had been pushed ahead by
prosperity and a striving brood; while Simon had gone steadily down the
hill where the years redouble the moment you start to run.
They had encountered the agent early on, and fixed an appointment for
twelve o'clock; and afterwards they spent the morning together until noon
struck from the Town Hall. Will had grown rather tired of hearing the
hearse story by then, and felt slightly relieved when the time came for them
to part. "Nay, I'll not come in," he demurred, as Simon urged him at the
door of the 'Rising Sun.' "You'll manage a deal better by yourself. You
needn't fear, though, but what I'll see you through. We'll settle summat or
other at Blindbeck this afternoon."
But at the very moment he turned away he changed his mind again and
turned back. "I can't rightly make out about yon car," he asked, almost as if
against his will. "What, in the name o' fortune, made you behave like yon?"
Simon muttered gloomily that he didn't know, and shuffled his feet
uncomfortably on the step. Now that the shadow of the coming interview
was upon him, he was not so perfectly sure as he had been that the story
was a joke. He remembered his terror when the car was at his back, his
frantic certainty that there were strange things in the air. He took it amiss,
too, both as a personal insult and from superstition, that the Town Hall
chimes should be playing "There is no luck about the house" just as he
stepped inside.
"It was nobbut a hired car, wasn't it," Will went on,--"wi' two chaps in
it, they said, as come from Liverpool way?"

"That's what they've tellt me since," Simon agreed, "though I never see
it plain.... Seems as if it might be a warning or summat," he added, with a
shamefaced air.
"Warning o' what?" Will threw at him with a startled glance. "Nay,
now! Whatever for?"
"Death, happen," Simon said feebly,--"nay, it's never that! I'm wrong in
my head, I doubt," he added, trying to laugh; "but there's queerish things, all
the same. There's some see coffins at the foot o' their beds, and you'll think
on when last Squire's missis died sudden-like yon hard winter, she had it
she could smell t'wreaths in t'house every day for a month before."
"Ay, well, you'd best put it out of your head as sharp as you can," Will
soothed him, moving away. "You're bothering overmuch about the farm,
that's what it is. A nip o' frost in the air'll likely set you right. Weather's
enough to make anybody dowly, it's that soft."
"Ay, it's soft," Simon agreed, lifting his eyes to look at the sky, and
wondering suddenly how long it had taken the gull to get itself out to sea.
His brother nodded and went away, and he drifted unwillingly into the inn.
The chimes had finished their ill-omened song, but the echo of it still
seemed to linger on the air. They told him inside that Mr. Dent was
engaged, so he went into the bar to wait, seating himself where he could see
the stairs. The landlord tried to coax him to talk, but he was too melancholy
to respond, and could only sit waiting for the door to open and summon him
overhead. He was able to think, now that he was away from the crowd and
the chaff about the hearse, but no amount of thinking could find him a way
out. He had already given the agent a hint of his business, and would only
have to confirm it when he got upstairs, but it seemed to him at the moment
as if the final words would never be said. After a while, indeed, he began to
think that he would sneak away quietly and let the appointment go. He

would say no more about the notice to Mr. Dent, and things might take their
way for another year. It was just possible, with the promised help from Will,
that they might manage to scrape along for another year....
He left it there at last and got to his feet, but even as he did so he
remembered Sarah's eyes. He wondered what the doctor had said and
wished he knew, because, of course, there would be no question of staying
if the report were bad. He was still standing, hesitating, and wondering what
he should do, when the door of the Stewards' Room opened above, and a
man came out.
It was, as somehow might have been expected, the stranger of the car,
otherwise Simon's now celebrated 'hearse.' Simon, however, had not looked
at him then, and he barely glanced at him now. It was a blind day, as Sarah
had said, and all through the Thornthwaites seemed determined to be as
blind as the day. The agent followed him out, looking cheerful and amused.
"I wish you luck all round!" Simon heard him say, as he shook the stranger's
hand, and thought morosely that it was easy and cheap to wish folks luck.
"This should be the finest day of your life," he added more gravely, looking
over the rail, and the man going down looked up and said "That's so!" in a
fervent tone. The old farmer waiting in the bar felt a spasm of envy and
bitterness at the quietly triumphant words. "The finest day of your life,"--
that was for the man going down. "The heaviest day of your life,"--that was
for the man going up. With a touch of dreary humour he thought to himself
that it was really he who was going down, if it came to that....
With a feeling of something like shame he kept himself out of sight
until the stranger had disappeared, and then experienced a slight shock
when Dent called to him in the same cheery tone. Almost without knowing
it he had looked for the voice to change, and its geniality jarred on his
dismal mood. Somehow it seemed to put him about at the start, and when

Dent laid a hand on his shoulder, saying--"Well, Simon!" with a smile, it
was all he could do not to give him a surly snarl by way of reply. They went
into the old-fashioned room, which smelt of horsehair and wool mats, and
Simon seated himself miserably on the extreme edge of a chair. Dent went
to the window and lifted a finger to somebody in the street, and then seated
himself at the table, and said "Well, Simon!" and smiled again. He was a
strongly built man, with a pleasant face, which seemed rather more pleasant
than need be to his visitor's jaundiced eye.
He looked away from it, however, staring at the floor, and after the
first conventional remarks began his tale of woe, that slow trickle of
disaster which always gathered itself into terrible spate. "You'll know what
I'm here for, sir," he concluded, at the end of his first breath, twisting his hat
like a tea-tray in his restless hands. "Things has got that bad wi' us I doubt
we can't go on, and so we've made up our minds we'd best clear out next
year."
Dent nodded kindly in answer, but with a rather abstracted air. He had
listened patiently enough to the slow tale, but Simon had a feeling that his
tragic recital was not receiving the sympathy it deserved. He began a fresh
relation of the ills which had befallen him at the farm, intending a grand
climax to be capped by Sarah's eyes; but there were so many dead troubles
to dig out of their graves as he went along, that the last and most vital
dropped from the reckoning, after all.
"Ay, well, you've likely heard all this before," he finished lamely in the
middle of a speech, conscious that he had missed his point, though without
being able to say how. "We've had a bad year this year an' all, and I can't see
as it's any use holding on. Me and my missis fixed it up as we come in, so if
you'll take my notice, sir, we'll go next spring."

"Your wife's in town, is she?" Dent asked. For some reason he looked
again at the window from which he had waved. "How does she take the
thought of leaving the farm?"
"Well, sir, we'll both feel it, after all these years, but I don't know as it's
any use calling out. I put it to her as we'd better quit, and she agreed to it
right off."
"I wish you'd brought her along," the agent said, still speaking in a
detached tone. There were some notes on the table within reach of his hand,
and he glanced thoughtfully at them as he spoke.
Simon stiffened a little, and looked surprised. "I'm speaking for both
on us, sir, as I said before."
"Of course, Simon," Dent said, rousing himself. "I know that. But I'd
have liked a word with her, all the same." His glance went back to the notes,
and he smiled as if at his own thoughts.... "And so you've really made up
your minds that you'd better go?"
"Haven't I been saying so, sir, all along?" Simon was really injured
now, and his wounded dignity showed in his tone. Mr. Dent was taking the
whole thing far too easily, he thought. First of all, he did not seem to be
listening as much as he might, and then, when the notice was offered, he
actually smiled! Tenants of forty years' standing do not look to have their
departure speeded with smiles. Simon thought it heartless, to say the least,
and only to be excused because Mr. Dent did not know what they had to
face. They had not been very satisfactory tenants, of course,--even Simon
admitted that,--and it was more than likely that the agent was rather
relieved. At least he was saved the unpleasant task of turning them out, a
duty which, as Simon knew, had seemed imminent more than once. But
they were respectable folk of good stock, and they were not entirely to
blame because they were failures, too. Gravity was their due, anyhow, if not

sympathy, but Mr. Dent, on this solemn occasion, seemed to be failing them
in both.
"Of course you know you're late with your notice?" he observed
presently, looking up. "You ought to have made up your minds a couple of
months ago."
"Ay, we're late, I know, but we weren't thinking of owt o' the sort then.
I'm sorry if we've put you about, but you'll not have that much trouble in
getting rid of the farm. It's nobbut a small spot, you'll think on. It'll let right
off the reel."
"It's been going back a long while, though," Dent said thoughtfully,
and then felt penitent as the old man flushed. Just for the moment he had
forgotten that Simon was in the room.
"Of course I know you've had pretty rough luck," he went on hastily,
trying to cover it up. "Sandholes holds the record for every sort of
mischance. It sounds like one of the old fairy-tales," he added, laughing,--
"curses and all that! ... But I can't help thinking it would have been better
for everybody if there had been a change earlier on."
"Ay, well, you've gitten your change now, and no mistake about it!"
Simon retorted angrily, deeply hurt. There was something wrong with the
scene, though he could not tell what it was. He only knew that he had not
expected it to go in the very least like this.
"It should have been made long since if it was to do you any good...."
Dent did not seem to notice that there was anything amiss. He sat, tapping
the table, deep in thought, while Simon seethed.... "Sure you couldn't put on
for another year?"
This change of front upset his visitor so completely that he dropped his
hat. He sat glaring at Mr. Dent with a dropped mouth.

"Nay, then, I just couldn't!" he snapped at last, wondering whether he
was on his head or his heels. "Losh save us!" he added angrily, "haven't I
tellt you I meant to gang ever since I come in? It'll take me all my time to
hang on till spring, as it is."
"You've run it as close as that?" Dent enquired, and Simon gave a
grunt.
"Ay, and I'm not the first as has done it, neither!"
"Couldn't your Blindbeck brother see to give you a hand? He's done
well for himself, I should say, and his children are getting on."
"He's given us a hand more than once already, has Will, but there's no
sense in throwing good money after bad. We'll have to quit next year, if we
don't this. Farm's going back, as you say, and I'm over old to pull it round. I
can't keep going for ever, nay, nor my missis, neither."
He remembered Sarah's eyes as he spoke, and how they were enough
to clinch the matter in themselves, but he was too offended even to mention
them by now. There was no telling to-day how Mr. Dent would take the
tragic news. He had smiled and looked cheerful over the notice to quit, but
Simon felt he would not be able to bear it if he smiled at Sarah's eyes.
Indeed, it was all he could do to keep a hold on himself, as it was,--first of
all hearing that he ought to have gone long since, and then being told to
stop when he'd settled to clear out!
The trend of his injured thought must have reached the other at last, for
he roused himself to look at his sulky face.
"You needn't think I'm trying to shove the place down your throat!" he
said, with a laugh. "But I certainly thought you'd rather be stopping on!"
Simon felt a little appeased, though he took care not to show any sign.
He growled miserably that they had never intended to quit except under a
coffin-lid.

"This is where you want a lad of your own to take hold,--a lad with a
good wife who would be able to see to you both. You've no news, I
suppose, of that son of yours that went overseas?"
"A word or two, now and then,--nowt more. Nowt as'd set you running
across t'countryside to hear."
"No chance of getting him home again, is there?" Dent enquired, and
Simon stared at the floor and shook his head. He must have felt a change in
the atmosphere, however, for suddenly he began to repeat what Sarah had
told May, how Geordie had written for money, and there had been none to
send. The words came easily after he had made a start, and for the time
being he forgot his resentment and injured-tenant's pride.
"I reckon you know, sir, how it all come about. There'll ha' been plenty
o' folk ready to tell you, I'll be bound, and them as knowed least'll likely ha'
tellt you most. We never had but the one lad, Sarah and me, and, by Gox!
but he was a limb! The queer thing was that my brother Will's eldest should
ha' been the very marrow o' mine,--looks, voice, ways, ay, and character an'
all. Will and me were whyet enough lads, I'm sure; it was terble strange we
should breed a pair o' rattlehorns like yon. You couldn't rightly say there
was any harm to 'em, but they were that wick they mun always be making a
stir. Being that like, too, helped 'em rarely when there was chanst o' their
getting catched. Each on 'em had a call for telling when he was about. Jim's
was a heron like, but Geordie's was nobbut a gull----"
This time it was his own glance that went to the window, as again he
remembered the bird gone out to the waves. When Dent spoke, his mind
came back from its flight with a tiny jerk.
"Then they made off to Canada, didn't they, the two lads? You told me
something about it when I first came."

"Ay, they cleared off in a night without a word or owt, and they've
never done no good from then to this. Sarah sticks to it Geordie would
never ha' gone at all if it hadn't been for Jim, and Will's missis sticks to it
t'other way about. I reckon there was nowt to choose between 'em myself,
but my missis never could abide poor Jim. He was that set on her, though,
there was no keeping him off the spot. Right cruel she was to him
sometimes, but she couldn't drive him off. He'd just make off laughing and
whistling, and turn up again next day. Of course, she was bound to have her
knife into him, for his mother's sake. She and Eliza have always been fit to
scratch at each other all their lives."
"Long enough to finish any feud, surely, and a bit over? It's a pity they
can't bury the hatchet and make friends."
"They'll happen make friends when the rabbit makes friends wi' the
ferret," Simon said grimly, "and the blackbird wi' the cat! I don't say Sarah
isn't to blame in some ways, but she's had a deal to put up wi', all the same.
There's summat about Eliza as sets you fair bilin' inside your bones! It's like
as if she'd made up her mind to pipe Sarah's eye straight from the very start.
She never said ay to Will, for one thing, till Sarah and me had our wedding-
day fixed, and then danged if she didn't make up her mind to get wed that
day an' all! She fixed same church, same parson, same day and same time,--
ay, an' there's some folk say she'd ha' fixed on t'same man if she'd gitten
chanst!" He paused for a moment to chuckle when he had said that, but he
was too bitter to let his vanity dwell on it for long. "She tellt parson it was a
double wedding or summat o' the sort, but she never let wit on't to Sarah
and me until she was fair inside door. Sarah and me walked to kirk arm in
arm, wi' nowt very much by-ordinar' on our backs; but Eliza come
scampering up in a carriage and pair, donned up in a white gown and wi' a
gert, waggling veil. Will was that shammed on it all he couldn't abide to

look me in t'face, but there, I reckon he couldn't help hisself, poor lad!
Sarah was that wild I could feel her fair dodderin' wi' rage as we stood
alongside at chancel-step. She was that mad she could hardly shape to get
her tongue round Weddin'-Service or owt, and when we was in t'vestry I see
her clump both her feet on the tail of Eliza's gown. She would have it
nobody knew she was as much as getting wed at all,--they were that busy
gawping at Eliza and her veil. She was a fine, strapping lass, Eliza was, and
I'd a deal o' work keeping my eyes off'n her myself! ... ay, and I won't say
but what she give me a sheep's eye or so at the back o' Will as well...." He
chuckled again, and his face became suddenly youthful, with a roguish eye.
"But yon was no way o' starting in friendly, was it, Mr. Dent?
"Ay, well, things has gone on like that atween 'em more or less ever
since, and I won't say but Sarah's gitten a bit of her own back when she's
gitten chanst. Will having all the luck and such-like hasn't made things
better, neither. Blindbeck's ganged up and Sandholes has ganged down,--ay,
and seems like to hit bottom afore it stops! Will and me have hung together
all along, but the women have always been at each other's throats. It riled
Eliza Jim being always at our spot, and thinking a deal more o' Sarah than
he did of her. Neither on 'em could break him of it, whatever they said or
did. He always stuck to it Sandholes was his home by rights."
"Pity the two of them aren't here to help you now," Dent said. "Those
runabout lads often make fine men."
"Nay, I doubt they've not made much out, anyway round." Simon
shook his head. "Likely they're best where they be," he said, as Sarah had
said on the road in. He sat silent a moment longer for politeness' sake, and
then was stopped again as he rose to go.
"May I enquire what you intend to do when you leave the farm?"

The old man's face had brightened as he talked, but now the shadow
came over it again.
"I can't rightly tell, sir, till I've had a word wi' Will, but anyway he'll
not let us come to want. He's offered us a home at Blindbeck afore now, but
I reckon his missis'd have summat to say to that. Ay, and mine an' all!" he
added, with a fresh attempt at a laugh. "There'd be lile or nowt done on
t'farm, I reckon, if it ever come about. It'd take the lot on us all our time to
keep them two apart!"
Again, as he finished, he remembered Sarah's eyes, and once again he
let the opportunity pass. He was on his feet now, anxious to get away, and
there seemed little use in prolonging this evil hour. Mr. Dent would think
they were for ever whingeing and whining and like enough calling out
before they were hurt.... He moved hurriedly to the door, conscious of a
sense of relief as well as of loss, and Sarah's eyes missed their final chance
of getting into the talk....
"You're likely throng, sir," he finished, "and I'll not keep you." He put
a hand to the latch. "Anyway, you'll kindly take it as we'll quit next year."
Dent said--"No, Simon, I shan't do anything of the sort!" and laughed
when the other shot round on him again with open mouth. His expression
was grave, however, as he ended his speech. "I want you to think it over a
bit first."
Simon felt his head going round for the second time. The red came into
his thin face.
"I don't rightly know what you're driving at, sir," he said, with a
dignified air. "I reckon I can give in my notice same as anybody else?"
"Oh, Lord, yes, Simon! Of course." Dent's eyes went back to the notes.
"Yes, of course you can."
"Ay, well, then?" Simon demanded stiffly. "What's all this stir?"

"Well, ... it's like this, you see ... you've missed your time. It was due a
couple of months back, as I said before."
"Ay, but you're not that hard and fast about notice, as a rule! Tom
Robison did t'same thing last year, you'll think on, and you let it pass.
Seems to me you're by way of having a joke wi' me, sir," he added, in a
pitiful tone, "and I don't know as it's kind, seeing how I'm placed."
Dent jumped to his feet and came across to lay a hand on his arm.
"It's only that I've a feeling you'll change your mind, Simon," he said
earnestly, "and you'll be sorry if you've spread it about that you're going to
quit. A week, say,--a week won't make that much difference, will it? Can't
you let it stand over another week?"
"You said a minute back 'twas a pity we'd stopped so long! I can't
make out what you're at, Mr. Dent,--I'm danged if I can!"
The agent laughed and left him to stroll back again to the window,
where he stood looking down into the full street.
"Perhaps we're neither of us as clear in our minds as we might be!" he
observed, with a cryptic smile. "The weather, perhaps; it's only a dreary day.
I'm not one of the folks who like November grey."
"Tides is big an' all," Simon found himself saying, unable to resist the
lure. "We've had t'watter up agen t'wall every night this week. Last night I
went out for a look afore it was dark, but it was that thick it was all I could
do to tell it was there at all. There was just summat grey-like lifting under
my nose; but, by Gox! it was deep enough for all it was so whyet!"
Dent shivered at the drear little picture which the other had conjured
up.
"I don't know how you sleep," he said, "perched on the edge of things
like that! It would give me fits to have the sea knocking twice a day at my
back door."

"Ay, it knocks," Simon said slowly, with a thoughtful air. "There's
whiles you'd fair think it was axing for somebody to come out.... You'll
mind yon time you were near catched by the tide?" he went on, after a
pause. "Eh, man, but I was in a terble tew yon night!"
"It was my own fault," Dent laughed,--"not that it was any the nicer for
that! I knew the time of the tide, but I'd forgotten the time of day. It was a
day something like this, much the same dismal colour all through. Lord,
no!" He shivered again. "I've not forgotten, not I! I'll never forget pounding
away from that horrible wave, and finding myself, quite without knowing it,
back below the farm!"
"It was my missis saved you that night," Simon said, "and a near shave
it was an' all! Tide would ha' got you even then if it hadn't been for her. We
heard you hollerin' and came out to look, but we couldn't see nowt, it was
that dark. I thought we'd fancied it like, as we didn't hear no more, but
Sarah wouldn't hear of owt o' the sort. She would have it she could see you
liggin' at bottom o' t'bank, and she give me no peace till I'd crammelled
down to look."
"Well, you may be sure I'm grateful enough," the agent said, as they
shook hands. "I wouldn't wish my worst enemy a death like that. I hope it's
been put to the credit side of her account."
He followed this caller out as he had done the last, and again, leaning
over the railing, he called "Good luck!" Simon, looking up, full of
resentment, saw the face above him bright with smiles. He went out with
offended dignity written in every line.

PART II

ELIZA

I

It was two o'clock and after before the old folks left Witham. Simon had
gone to his dinner on quitting the agent, and at his favourite eating-house he
encountered others who wanted the hearse-story at first hand. He was not at
all averse to talking about it by now, and after a good dinner it improved
with the telling every time. Once more he forgot the interview of the
morning as well as the coming one in the afternoon, and stayed smoking
and talking and sunning himself in the fine atmosphere of success.
Sarah, however, had neither pipe nor admiring circle to soothe or
enliven the heavy, dragging hours. She went into the inn after the 'Ship'
dog-cart had rattled off, and tried to gather a little comfort from the parlour
fire; but the glamour of the morning had departed with May, and now that
she was alone she felt depressed and tired. The doctor's verdict, which had
passed her by at the time, rushed back upon her, shaking her nerves and
chilling her heart. She began to wonder what it would be like to be really
blind, and in a sudden panic she made a strained attempt to discern the
pictures and almanacks in the room, tracing the patterns of the
antimacassars with a shaking finger, and the shapes of the chair-backs and
table-legs. When she was really blind, Simon would have to do for her
instead of her doing for him, but he would only make a poorish job of it,
she felt sure. There would still be plenty for both of them to do, in spite of
the fact that 'things had come to an end.' There were the long winter months
to be got through before they left, as well as the work and worry of
changing house. May would help her, no doubt; she could always count on

May; but she knew that she did not want to owe her more than she could
help. It was partly a new uprising of dead jealousy, of course, as well as
pride refusing dependence upon one who did not belong. But at the back of
all there was a more just and generous motive than either of these,--the
consciousness that May had given too much already, and should not be
called upon for more. Months ahead though it lay, she began presently to
think a woman's thoughts about the breaking-up of the home. Little as they
possessed of any value in itself, there would be many things, she knew, that
they would want to keep. There were certain things, expensive to renew,
which still had a flicker of useful life, and others, useless to others as well
as themselves, which were yet bone of their bone and flesh of their ancient
flesh. She began to make a list in her head, and to value the furniture as
well as she knew how. She had been to many a sale in her time, and had a
sufficiently good memory of what the things had fetched, as well as of
whose house had eventually raked them in. She saw Sandholes full of
peering and poking folk, a chattering crowd stretching into the garden and
yard, and forming a black procession along the roads of the marsh. She saw
traps and heavy carts and laden human beings slowly departing with the
stuff of her human life, while the shreds that were left to her, piled and
roped on a waiting lorry, looked poorer than ever in the light of day. She
saw the garden gravel printed by many boots, and the yard trenched and
crossed by wheels. She saw the windows open in a house from which
nobody looked, and scrubbed, bare floors which seemed to have forsworn
the touch of feet. She saw the lorry pass reluctantly away into the great,
homeless place that was the world. And last of all she saw herself and
Simon shutting the door that finally shut them out. There was all the
difference in ten thousand worlds between the sound of a door that was
shutting you in and the sound of the same door shutting you out....

She had always been a still woman, when she had had time to be still,
but she found it impossible to be still to-day. She began to walk up and
down, listening for Simon's voice, and in the strange room she hurt herself
against the furniture, and received little shocks from the cold surface of
strange objects and the violent closing-up of the walls. She gave it up after a
while, forcing herself to a stand, and it was so that Simon found her when
he opened the door at last.
She had a further wait, however, when he found that the trap had
managed to oust the car from the coveted place. At first he was rather afraid
that the hearse-story had earned him too many drinks, but even to marketing
eyes the fact was plain. He chuckled as he walked from one to the other,
saying "Gox!" and "Did ye ever now?" and "Losh save us!" and "Wha'd ha'
thowt it!" The driver was not to be seen, or the wait might have been longer
still, but as it was they were mounted presently on the emaciated seats, and
Simon jerked up the horse in a last spasm of victorious glee.
For some miles he talked of nothing but the sensation that he had
caused in Witham, and how he had found the hearse-story everywhere in
the town.
"I'd nobbut to turn a corner," he announced proudly, though pretending
disgust, "but sure an' certain there'd be somebody waiting to tax me on t'far
side! There was Burton, and Wilson, and Danny Allen and a deal more, all
on 'em ready wi'--'Well, Simon, and what about yon hearse?' I could see 'em
oppenin' their mouths half a street off!" he chuckled loudly. "Folk clipped
me by t'arm and begged me tell 'em how it was, and t'others rushed out o'
shops and fair fell on me as I ganged by!"
"They mun ha' been terble hard set for summat to do," Sarah answered
unkindly. "What did you make out wi' Mr. Dent?"
At once the shadow fell again on the fine sun of Simon's success.

"Nay, you may well ax," he growled, "but I'm danged if I rightly
know! He was that queer there was no doing owt wi' him at all. Seemed to
be thinking o' summat else most o' the time,--gaping out at winder and
smiling at nowt. He was a deal queerer nor me, hearse or no hearse, and so I
tell ye!"
"But you give notice in, didn't you? You likely got that fixed?"
"Well, I did and I didn't, after a manner o' speaking. I kept handing it in
like, and he kept handing it back. He said we'd best take a bit more time to
think."
"We've had time and plenty, I'm sure!" Sarah sighed,--"ay, that we
have! ... I reckon you tellt him about my eyes?"
Simon stirred uneasily when she mentioned her eyes, remembering
how they had played in and out of his mind, but never once managed to
come to the front.
"Nay, then, I didn't, if you want to know, because I never gitten chanst.
I didn't rightly know what to say, neither, come to that. You catched doctor
right enough, I suppose?"
"Ay, we hadn't to wait or owt. And he was right kind, he was that!"
"Happen he hadn't a deal to say, after all?" Simon enquired hopefully,
and she gave a faint laugh.
"Nobbut that if I didn't have an operation right off, I'd be as blind as a
barn-door owl by next year!"
Simon said "Gox!" and jerked the horse so violently that it nearly went
through the hedge. "Losh, missis, that's bad!" he went on dismally, when he
had straightened out. "It's worse than I looked for, by a deal. I've always
been terble feared of operations and such-like. What's to be done about it,
d'ye think?"
"Nowt."

"Nay, but dang it!" he cried sharply,--"we can't leave it like yon! If
there's owt they can do for you, we mun let them try. They say some folk
come out right enough, wi' a bit o' luck."
"Luck isn't much in our way, I doubt," she said, with a sigh, "and it'd
mean begging o' somebody, I reckon, and I've had enough o' that. May says
there's free spots for such as us, but there's not that much free in this world
as I've ever seen. I doubt it'd mean somebody's brass or other going to pay
for it in the end."
"I could ax Will----" Simon began hurriedly, without pausing to think,
but she stopped him before the well-known formula was out.
"Nay, then, master, you'll do nowt o' the sort, so that's all there is about
it! You're his brother, and you've a right to do as you choose, but I'll never
take a penny piece from him if it's nobbut for myself."
"He'd have his hand in his pocket for you right off. He's never been
close about brass and suchlike, hasn't Will."
"Ay, but it's Eliza's brass as well, you'll think on, and she's close, right
enough! She'd see me blind and on t'streets afore she'd lift a hand, and if
happen she did lift it, I'd strike it down! Nay, master, you can ax what you
like for yourself, but you'll ax nowt for me. As for the farm and Mr. Dent,
we're bound to get shot of it now, whatever happens. The sooner things is
fixed the better I'll be suited, so I'll thank you to get 'em seen to as soon as
you can."
"'Tisn't my fault they're not fixed this very minute!" Simon grumbled,
feeling hardly used.... "Did you happen across Eliza in Witham?" he asked
her suddenly, after a while.
Sarah laughed faintly again, though this time it was an echo of
triumph.

"We'd a few words together in t'caif," she answered tranquilly, "and wi'
a few folks looking on an' all. She was setting it round we were broke, and
had gitten the sack, and a deal more; but I reckon I give her summat to bite
on afore I was through.... Seems as if you an' me had been having a sort o'
side-show," she finished, with a grim smile. "Ay, well, we've given Witham
summat to crack about, if we've never done nowt else...."
Their minds had been full of Eliza as they drove to market, and now
they were busy turning her over in their minds again. Sarah's account of her
splendid effort cheered and uplifted them for a while, but they knew only
too well that their sense of superiority would not last. Even their victories,
ever so dearly bought, turned to Eliza's advantage in the end. Life was on
the side of Eliza, for whom all things were certain to work out well. Heaven
was on the side of Eliza, whose face had never registered a single memory
of pain. The Simon Thornthwaites never got over the feeling that somehow
she had played them false, had wheedled by undue influence the balance of
justice off the straight. Alone, they were able to see some dignity in their
tragic lives, but once with Eliza they were suddenly cheap,--mere poor
relations fawning at her skirts. They saw themselves framed as such in her
mocking eyes, and felt for the moment the shameful thing they seemed.
She mocked them,--that was the evil thing she did; that petty, insidious
crime which human nature finds so difficult to forgive. Mockery by
comparison was her method, and one which was almost impossible to fight.
In all that Eliza said and did, by her attitude and her dress, she invited the
world to mark the incredible gulf that yawned between the Simon
Thornthwaites and the Wills. She had made her opening point on the double
wedding-day, though the actual cause of the enmity lay further back than
that. Eliza, indeed, had intended to marry Simon and not Will,--Simon, the
elder, the better-looking, and even the smarter in those far-off days. But in

this, at least, Sarah had won the fall, and Eliza had never recovered from
her surprise. From that moment the spoilt beauty had seen in the other's
plain person an opponent worthy of her steel, an antagonist whom it would
take her all her life to down. Sneer and strike as she might, she could never
be quite sure that she had finally got home, and in mingled inquisitiveness
and wrath she sneered and struck again. There must be an end sometime to
this spirit that would not break, but even after forty years there was little
sign. Something deathless in Sarah rose up again after every stroke, and
was always left standing erect when her world was in the dust.
Sarah thought of her wedding-day as they drove through the torpid
afternoon, and under the low sky that was shut over the earth like a
parsimonious hand. The wedding-day had been soft and sunny and sweet,
with a high blue sky that looked empty from zone to zone, until, looking up
until you were almost blind, you saw that you stared through layer upon
layer of tender-coloured air. The mountains had been like that, too, clear yet
vapour-veiled, and even the blue of the sea had been just breathed upon as
well. It was a real bridal day, with its hint of beauty only just withheld, its
lovely actual presences that still dropped curtains between. The earth-veils
had had nothing in common with Eliza's flaunting mockery of a veil, nor
was there anything in common between the mysteries behind. The strong
mountain was more subtle and shy than Eliza, the terrible sea more tender,
the great sky with its hidden storms more delicate and remote. Eliza's bold
and confident beauty had clashed with them as a brass band clashes with a
stretching, moonlit shore. It was for Sarah in her stiff straw bonnet and
brown gown that the bridal veils of the world had been sweetly worn.
She had thought herself neat and suitable when she looked in the glass,
and had found it enough, because all her instincts were neat and plain. It
was a cruel irony of fate that had forced her into a morbid, passionate

groove. In those days she had never as much as heard of obsessions of the
mind, and would not have believed they could touch her, if she had. She
had asked nothing of life but that it should be clean and straight, and still
found it hard to believe in the shadowed, twisted thing which it had proved.
Her parents had died before Simon had made her a home, so she had
gone out to service and had been married from her 'place.' She found him
waiting when she went downstairs, in clothes as neat and suitable as her
own, and he had given her a bunch of lilies of the valley, and a little Prayer
Book with a brown back. They had always been matter-of-fact as lovers,
and they were very matter-of-fact now, but Sarah, from this far-off distance,
knew that, after all, they had not missed the thrill. Even in the small-
windowed, silent house that had a maiden lady for tenant there was a touch
of the exquisite thing,--the same delicate rapture that was spreading its
diaphanous wings over the coloured sea and land....
They walked to church by the path across the fields, and the cattle
raised their heads to look at Simon's suitable clothes, and the inch of
escaped ribbon frisking on Sarah's suitable bonnet. They went arm-in-arm
through the still churchyard, where their forefathers, lying together, saw
nothing strange in this new conjunction of old names; and arm-in-arm up
the empty aisle towards the cave of the chancel that had the flower of its
rose window set in it like a jewelled eye. Their boots sounded terribly loud
on the uncarpeted tiles, and they trod on tiptoe when they crossed the stones
of the vaults, because the names looking up seemed somehow to turn into
the uplifted faces of the prostrate dead. And presently the stone of the
chancel-steps had stopped them as with a bar, bidding them think, in that
last moment, whether the feet of their purpose had been rightly set.
They felt very small as they waited among the climbing pillars and
under the spring of the groined roof, smaller and smaller as the unmarked

minutes passed and nobody came. A shaft of light from the clerestory
touched them like the point of a sacrificial knife, showing their faces
humble and patient and a little too anxious to be glad. A bird flashed in
through the open chancel-door, sat for a moment on the altar-rail and sang,
and then caught sight of the sunlit country and flashed out again. It had not
even seen the waiting couple who were so very quiet and so terribly small.
And then, just as they were at their smallest, the Pageant of Eliza had swept
in.
There were many to tell them afterwards of the sensation in the village
when Eliza in gorgeous apparel had come driving with trampling horses to
the old lych-gate. At the sound of the horses' hoofs and the first flash of the
veil the houses had emptied themselves as a teapot empties itself when you
tilt the spout. Veils were the prerogative of the 'quality' in those days, and
that in itself was sufficient to make a stir. In a moment there were groups on
the green, children running up the street and folk pressing into the
churchyard, and in a moment more the veiled yet flaunting figure had
passed into the church, an over-rigged ship up the straight estuary of the
aisle.
Behind Simon and Sarah the place was suddenly full of noise,
whispering and shuffling and treading of heavy feet, and the ringing of
nailed boots on the smooth tiles. Presently all that had been inside the
church had gone out as if swept by a broom, and all that had been outside
had come in with a blatant rush, filling it with curious faces and crowded
bodies and suppressed laughter and muttered speech. Into the quiet hour
that had been meant for Simon and Sarah alone, Eliza came full tilt with a
tumult of sight-seers in her train. Not for her was the peace between the
springing pillars which rent before her like a curtain rent by hands. She trod
with bold, self-satisfied strides over the dead faces which to her were only

names. She created a vulgar raree-show out of the simple blessing of a
tranquil God.
Only outside the sea and the mountains kept their mystery till the knot
was tied. The sacred hour of Simon and Sarah was withdrawn silently into
higher courts.
All that was human in Sarah, however, remained at the mercy of the
broken hour below. Now and then she caught a glimpse of Eliza's face
through the veil, or a gleam of her shining gown as she twisted and turned.
She thought to herself savagely that Eliza looked a fool, but that did not
prevent her from feeling, by contrast, a fool, too. Even Will, shy and
ashamed, but tricked out in unaccustomed gauds, helped to point the
comparison between the pairs. She remembered how her cheeks had burned
and her heart battered and her knees shook, while she strained her ears for
the least sign of mirth from the crowded pews behind. The whole parody of
her precious hour was bitter beyond words, but it was the mocking
distinction in clothes that went furthest home. For the rest of her life Sarah
was sharply conscious of all that Eliza wore, and hated it right to the sheep
that had carried the wool on its innocent back, and the harmless cotton-plant
that had grown for her unaware.
Eliza sailed down the aisle again amid giggles and loud asides, but
Simon and Sarah crept quietly out of the church by the door through which
the singing-bird had flown. They stood in the grass among the rose-bushes
on the graves, and watched Eliza drive triumphantly away. The parson
followed them out to make a kindly speech, which they were far too angry
and humiliated to hear. He wanted to tell them that God had certainly liked
them best, but he knew they would not believe him if he did. They were so
certain that it was Eliza who had had the beautiful hour. They were too

simple to know that it was only they who had any of the beauty to carry
home....

II

All their lives Simon and Sarah had been the victims of Eliza's Method.
Nothing they had, horse, cow or cart, but was sooner or later measured by
Blindbeck standards and condemned. Their furniture figured in Eliza's talk
as often as her own,--their humble horsehair abased by her proud plush, her
stout mahogany lording it over their painted deal. They had scarcely a cup
or plate, hay-crop, dog or friend, but it was flung in the scale and instantly
kicked the beam. People grew tired of Eliza's Method after a while, but long
before they had ceased to enjoy it its work was done. By that time they
knew to the last inch exactly how the Simon Thornthwaites had fallen
behind the Wills. The Simons were stamped in their eyes as poor relations
to the end of time, and they treated them differently, spoke to them casually,
and as often as not forgot that they were there. But Simon and Sarah did not
forget, or cease to notice, or cease to be hurt. Always they felt pilloried by
Eliza's blatant cry,--"Look here, upon this picture, and on this!"
Only in one respect had Sandholes and the Simons ever managed to
hold their own. Simon's son had been every whit as fine as Will's, for all the
wooden spoon that was hanging over his cradle. It was true that more and
more children came to Blindbeck, passing Sandholes by, but that was
nothing to Sarah as long as Geordie was at hand. Geordie alone seemed
more than sufficient to right them in the eyes of an Eliza-magicked world.
He was a rattlehorn and a limb, but he had stuff in him, all the same, and
sooner or later he would prove that stuff to the world and the lordly Wills.
All the working and scraping of those years went to the one passionate

purpose of doing Eliza down. Those were the happiest years of Sarah's life,
because for the time being she had a weapon against her foe.
Yet even here she found herself mocked by the amazing likeness
between the brothers' sons. It had an uncanny effect upon her, as of
something not quite human, even, indeed, as if there were something evil at
its back. She had an uneasy feeling that, in some mysterious way, this was
still another expression of Eliza's malice. The pride of stock in Simon and
Will was stirred by this double evidence of breed, but Sarah, when people
mistook the lads, was fretted to fierce tears. There were times when she
even hated the smile on Geordie's lips, because of its exact similitude on
Jim's. Most of all she hated herself when the wrong lad called and she
answered before she knew, or waved to a figure over the sands, and it came
laughing and was not her son....
She had much the same sense of something not quite canny about Jim's
extraordinary passion for Sandholes and herself. It was almost, indeed, as if
she feared it, as if she knew that in the future it might do her harm. Even
she was not always proof against his laughing, kindly ways, and nothing but
some such fear of a clutching love could have made her steel her heart.
Through all her absorption in her splendid Geordie she could not help
guessing at the greater depths in Jim. Geordie had yet to learn in exile what
Jim had learned on the very threshold of his home. She remembered nursing
him through an illness much against her will, and even now she could not
shed that clinging memory and its appeal....
It was perhaps because of this hidden terror that she never used his
affection for her against his mother. She was often tempted to do so, for
Eliza was sore in spite of her loud denials, and when the Method was hard
at work on the furniture or the crops it would have been pleasant to give her
news--and generally none too pleasing news--of Jim. Often enough the

words were on her tongue, but she never spoke them. Always something
held her back from taking this easy means to strike.
Her ironic reward, however, was such as might well have made her
think herself bewitched, for even out of her self-denial it was Eliza who
gathered triumph. As time went on, and more and more lads appeared at
Blindbeck, she deftly changed her tactics by a single twist of the wheel. She
handed over to Sandholes, as it were, the one member of the Blindbeck
family that did not come up to Blindbeck standards. Not that she ever said
as much in words, or relinquished any claim that was likely to be of use.
She merely contrived to convey the impression that he belonged by nature
more to the Have-Nots than the Haves, to the penniless Simons rather than
the wealthy Wills. The impression hardened, however, after the lads had run
away, and Jim had finally nailed his sympathies to the mast. His father,
indeed, did not give him up without a struggle, but Eliza became ever more
detached from the wastrel who was her son. Smilingly, so to speak, she
dropped her thumbs and let him go. It was not long before strangers were
thinking him Simon's son instead of Will's, and presently even Sarah awoke
to the fact that she was saddled with the Blindbeck failure as well as her
own.
It was a smug young cousin of Eliza's who finally opened her eyes, at
one of those family feasts which Simon and Sarah were always expected to
attend. Eliza was never at her brightest and best without them, as she very
rightly said,--the organ-grinder without his necessary monkey, the circus-
master without his jumping clown. As usual, the Simon Thornthwaites
heard their belongings catalogued and found utterly wanting, and, as usual,
for the time being, shared the general sentiment that they were beneath
scorn. The comparisons, passing in and out of shippon and parlour, leaping

from feather-bed to sofa, and over root-crops and stacks of hay, arrived
finally at the missing sons.
"Our Harry's for learning the violin," Eliza informed the tea-party,
swelling with conscious pride. "Master wouldn't hear tell o' such a thing at
first, but me and the girls talked him round between us. I reckon he'll be
suited all right, though, when he hears our Harry play. Ah, now, Sarah, but
wouldn't that ha' been just the thing for Geordie-an'-Jim? They were that
fond o' music, the poor lads, though they'd no more tune to the pair on 'em
than a steam-whistle. Eh, well, poor things, fiddle-playing and suchlike
wouldn't ha' been no use to 'em where they're at. Brass wasted, that's what it
would ha' been, so it's just as well...."
Harry, also swelling with pride, looked for some sign of admiration
from his aunt, but did not get it. Eliza soothed him with a meaning glance.
"The trouble is you've got to keep your hands terble nice for the violin.
Our Harry's terble set on keeping his hands nice.... Geordie-an'-Jim would
never ha' come to such-like quality ways, would they, Sarah? I never see
such hands as the two on 'em used to show at meals! I mind you said they
got sent home that often from school, at last the folks took to washing 'em
on the spot! I used to be right sorry for you, Sarah, I was that, wi' their gert
finger-marks all over the walls and the chair-backs. It's queer how different
folk shape, I'm sure, even when they're as you might say near-bred. Our
Harry frames rarely at folding tablecloths and the like, and no more dirt to
'em when he's finished than if he was a lass!"
The town-bred cousin gazed complacently at his hands, and observed
that, if Geordie-an'-Jim were in Canada, as he understood, from all accounts
it was much the best place for them. Eliza nodded lugubriously, the tail of
her eye on Sarah's unstirred face.

"Ay, they're in Canada right enough, and like to be,--aren't they, Sarah?
--for a goodish while yet. They wrote home as they'd sworn to make their
fortunes afore they crossed the pond again, but fortunes isn't as easy come
by as some folk seem to think. Me and Will likely know as much about it as
most, having managed middlin' well, but even for the best o' folk it isn't as
simple as it sounds. There's always somebody at you one way or another,
wanting to share what you've earned wi' your own hands. You've just got to
keep lifting your feet right high off the ground, or you'll have folk hanging
on to your shoe-wangs all the time. Ay, Geordie-an'-Jim'll find as fortunes
don't come that slape off the reel! 'Tisn't as if it was our Harry and Tom
here, ay, and Bill and Fred an' all, as'll find everything ready for 'em when
they want to start on their own. They'll step into good farms as if it was
stepping out o' bed, and they'll have Blindbeck behind them and its brass as
well. They'll have a bit o' their own, come to that; I started 'em saving-
books myself. Eh, yes, they'll do right well, but I doubt there's never farm
nor Post Office book as'll come to Geordie-an'-Jim!"
Later in the day, the smug cousin, trying to be kind, had enquired of
Sarah whether Geordie-an'-Jim were twins. She was too angry at first to
answer him at all, and by the time she managed to get her breath her mood
had changed. They were alone at the time, and even Sarah could sometimes
laugh at herself when Eliza was out of sight. The touch of humour freed her
heart for an instant, and at once it rose up and stood by the lad whose
mother had cast him off. Jim was suddenly before her, with his tricks of
affection and his borrowed face, his constant cry that he had only been born
at Blindbeck by mistake. "I'm your lad, really, Aunt Sarah," she heard him
saying, as of old. "I'm your lad really, same as Geordie is!" Jim was forty by
now, but it was a child's voice that she heard speaking and couldn't deny.
The cousin repeated his question, and she smiled grimly.

"Twins? Ay ... and as like as a couple o' peas. As like as a couple o'
gulls on the edge o' the tide...."
It was the only time in her life that she ever stood openly by Eliza's
hated son. But perhaps even that one occasion may count in the final sum of
things....

III

Now they had left the high-road and were making south-east through the
winding lanes. Their shoulders were turned to the sea, though in that lost
world of the mist only the native could tell where the bay was supposed to
lie. It was one of the dead hours, too, when even the salt goes out of the
marsh-air, and no pulse in it warns you subconsciously of the miracle
coming. Between the high-mounted hedges it was still and close, and
beyond them the land rose until its dank green surface stood soft against the
sky. All the way Simon looked at the land with a critical eye, the eye of the
lover which loves and asks at the same time. He looked at the ploughland
and knew the rotation through which it had run and would have to run
again; at rich grass-land which seemed never to have known the steel, and
fields which, at rest for a hundred years, still spoke to some long-rusted
share. He loved it, but he thought of it first and foremost as good material
for the good workman engaged on the only job in the world. It was always
the land that he coveted when he came to Blindbeck, never the house. Eliza
had made of the house a temple to the god of Blessed Self-Satisfaction, but
even Eliza could not spoil the honest, workable land.

The farm kept showing itself to them as they drove, a quadrangle of
long, well-kept buildings backed by trees. When the sun shone, the white
faces of house and shippon looked silver through the peeping-holes of the
hedge, but to-day they were wan and ghostly in the deadening mist. The
turned beeches and chestnuts were merely rusty, instead of glowing, and
seemed to droop as if with the weight of moisture on their boughs. The
Scotch firs on a mound alone, stark, straight, aloof, had more than ever that
air of wild freedom which they carry into the tamest country; and the pearly
shadow misting their green alike in wet weather or in dry, was to-day the
real mist, of which always they wear the other in remembrance.
The farm had its back well into the grassy hill, and the blind river
which gave it its name wound its way down to it in a hidden channel and
went away from it in a hidden dip in a field below. There was water laid on
at Blindbeck, as Sarah knew, with a copper cylinder in a special linen-room,
and a hot towel-rail and a porcelain bath. Simon's particular envy was the
electric light, that marvel of marvels on a northern farm. He never got over
the wonder of putting his hand to the switch, and seeing the light flash out
on the second to his call. Once he had sneaked out of the house on a
winter's night, and in the great shippon had turned the lights on full. Eliza,
of course, had been nasty about it when she heard, but Will had understood
him and had only laughed. Later, swinging a lantern in his own dark
shippon, Simon had thought of those switches with envious longing. He did
not know that they had taken the warm glamour out of the place, and slain
in a blow the long tradition of its beauty. The lantern went with him like a
descended star as he moved about, and out of the cattle's breath wove for
itself gold-dusted halos. There had been something precious about it all
before, some sense of mystery and long-garnered peace, but to-night he
could only remember Blindbeck and its modern toy. For the time being he

ceased to feel the pull of the sweetest chain in the world, which runs
straight back through all the ages to the Child in the Bethlehem Stall....
There was a billiard-table at Blindbeck, too, with more switches to tempt
Simon, and a well-laid tennis-lawn in the neat garden by the stream. On the
far side of the farm was a great highway running north and south, as well as
a main-line station over the drop of the hill. It seemed as if everything was
made easy for those who lived at Blindbeck, from the washing of pots and
the moving of stock to the amusement and education of the bairns.
Folk who came to Blindbeck for the first time believed that at last they
had found the farm of all their dreams. They called it an Earthly Paradise, a
model miniature village, a moral object-lesson, a True Home. They came to
it between well-cropped fields, marked by trim hedges and neat stone walls,
and through uniformly painted gates secure in hinge and hasp into a tidy
yard. They looked with pleasure at the shining knocker on the green house-
door and the fruit tree lustily climbing the warm south wall. They looked
with delight at the healthy, handsome family, the well-placed buildings and
the show of pedigree stock. They looked at Will as he went shyly by, and
said that his wife was undoubtedly the better horse. They looked at Eliza
and said that she was the Housewife of Romance. When they went away
they told others of this Paradise which was Blindbeck, and the others came
in their turn and looked and said the same. But to Simon and Sarah it was
plain Purgatory and nothing else, and with each gate that they loosed they
unloosed a devil as well.
There was a party at Blindbeck this afternoon, as long custom might
have led them to expect. It was part of Eliza's Method to gather a party
together when the poor relations were due. There was always a noisy
crowd, it seemed to the Simons, when they were tired, or when they had
any particular business to transact. On the day after the lads had flown there

had been an unusually large crowd, with faces that looked like masks to the
parents' tired eyes.... Will was fond of young folk, and made no objection to
the stream of 'company' passing beneath his roof. His shy, quiet eyes
watched the young tide of life surging ahead, with Eliza floundering like a
porpoise in its midst. He was content only to watch, but he was not
stranded, like the thirsty Simons; the waves still lapped about his feet. He
could see youth and the pride of youth without the sense of desolation
which embittered his brother and took his brother's wife by the throat.
Simon was always surly when he came to Blindbeck, while Sarah was like
a bomb in the hand which any unconscious soul might throw. Will did not
know that for them every lad that they looked at should have been Geordie,
and each lass a lass of their own with Geordie's face. He was sorry and
sympathetic, but he did not know those things. It was Eliza who knew, and
used the knowledge for her private ends. You could always be sure that
Eliza knew where your hidden things were kept.
To-day, tired as they were with the hours in town, and already reacting
from their great decision, a jovial party seemed more than they could stand.
Signs of it reached them as they came to the last gate, making Sarah draw in
her lips and Simon scowl. The sounds seemed intensified by the stillness of
the day, crossing and jarring the mood of Nature as well as that of the
approaching guests. Faces were pressed to panes as they rattled up, but
nobody came out to give Sarah a hand down, or to offer to help Simon with
the horse. They were too common a sight to arouse any interest or even
courtesy in that house.
She climbed down gropingly, and he led the horse away, leaving her
standing, waiting, in the empty yard. She stood with her back turned to the
kitchen window, conscious, though she could not see them, of the eyes that
were raking her shabby figure through the glass. The sounds of merriment

burst out afresh, and she winced a little, though she did not move. They
were laughing at her, she felt sure, but there was nothing new to that. They
often laughed, she knew, since she had ceased to be able to stop them with a
glance. She shivered, standing there, and her bones ached with the damp,
but she was in no hurry to enter the warm, crowded room. It was better to
shiver in the coldest spaces of earth than to be shut into Heaven itself with
Eliza and her tongue.
The green house-door with its brass knocker was close at her left hand,
but she did not attempt to open it and go in. That was a privilege only
accorded to the rich and proud, not to a poor relation come to beg.
Nevertheless, it was one of her hidden dreams that someday she would
enter by that grand front-door. In the Great Dream Geordie came home with
a fortune in his hands, so that all doors, even the Door of Blindbeck,
instantly stood wide. They would drive up to it in a smart cart behind a fast
young horse, with Geordie, a pattern of fashion, holding the reins. His
mother would be beside him, of course, in crackling silk, with a velvet
mantle and a bonnet of plumes and jet. Simon, the lesser glory, would have
to sit behind, but even Simon would be a sight for Blindbeck eyes. When
the Dream came true, the house could be as full of pryers as it chose, with
crushed noses and faces green with envy set like bottle-ends in every pane.
The farm-men would come to the doors and gape, and even the dogs would
stop to sniff at so much that was new. Geordie would jump down, reins in
hand, and bang the brass knocker until it shook the house, while Sarah,
secure in the presence of her golden lad, would sit aloft and aloof like any
other silken queen. Soon they would hear Eliza's step along the sacred, oil-
clothed passage; and she, when she opened the door, would see their glory
framed beyond. Sarah would throw her a graceful word, asking leave to
step inside, and climb down with a rustle of silk on the arms of her husband

and son. She would set her feet on the snowy steps and never as much as
trouble to look for a mat. With a smile she would offer her hostess a kindly,
kid-gloved hand. In the whole armour of the successful mother she would
bear down upon her foe....
It was one of those things that seem as if they might happen so easily,
and never do,--never do. Simon returned presently, accompanied by Will,
and they entered the house as usual through the old stone porch. No dog
even looked aside at them as they crossed to the kitchen door. No portent of
coming wonder shed a sudden sunlight on the day. The old trap was tipped
on its shafts behind a sheltering wall. The old horse, himself mere waiting
food for the nearest hounds, munched his way happily through his feed of
Blindbeck corn.
Will talked shyly as he led the way, trying to brighten the melancholy
pair.
"You must have a sup o' tea before we get to business," he said to his
brother, "and Sarah can rest herself while we have our crack. We're over
soon wi' tea to-day, but I reckon you won't mind that. You'll be tired likely,
and it's none so warm. I'll be bound Simon'll have a thirst on him anyway!"
he smiled to Sarah. "He's done a deal o' tattling, Simon has, to-day!"
He could not get any response from them, however; indeed, they
scarcely seemed to hear. The fear of Eliza was upon them, that was always
so strong until they were actually in her presence, the same fear that had
sent them scuttling like scared rabbits out of the Witham inn. Sarah was
struggling with the usual jealous ache as they entered the spacious, cleanly
place, with the kindly smell of new-baked bread filling the whole house.
She knew as well as the mistress where the kitchen things were kept, the
special glories such as the bread-maker, the fruit-bottler, and the aluminium
pans. The Blindbeck motto had always been that nothing beats the best.

Half her own tools at home were either broken or gone, and there was only
a blind woman to make shift with the rest as well as she could. Little need,
indeed, for a great array, with the little they had to cook; and little heart in
either cooking or eating since Geordie had gone away....
Will opened the door of the main kitchen, and at once the warmth and
jollity sweeping out of it smote the shrinking visitors like an actual blast.
The party were already at table, as he had said, and met the late-comers
with a single, focussed stare. It was one of their chief bitternesses, indeed,
that they always seemed to arrive late. Eliza was at the back of it, they felt
almost sure, but they had never been able to discover how. No matter how
they hurried the old horse, asked the hour of passers-by, or had Simon's old
watch put as right as it would allow, they never seemed to arrive at the right
time. They could not be certain, of course, that she had watched for them
from upstairs, and at the first sign of their coming had hustled the party into
tea, but somehow or other they knew it in their bones. Things happened like
that, they would have told you, when you were up against Mrs. Will; things
that never by any chance would have happened with anybody else.
The room was cloudy to Sarah as she went in, but jealousy had long
ago printed its details on her mind. She knew what the vivid wall-paper was
like, the modern furniture and the slow-combustion grate. Once it had been
a beautiful old houseplace with a great fire-spot and a crane, an ingle-nook,
a bacon-loft, and a chimney down which both sun and moon could slant a
way. Eliza, however, had soon seen to it that these absurdities were
changed, and Sarah, though she affected contempt, approved of the changes
in her heart. It was true that she always returned to Sandholes with a great
relief, but she did not know that its bare austerity soothed her finer taste.
She only knew that her mind expanded and her nerves eased, and, though

grief went with her over every flag and board, a cool hand reached to her
forehead as she went in.
Simon included in one surly glance the faces round the loaded table,
the bright flowers, the china with the gilded rim, and the new window-
curtains which he would never even have seen in any house but this. "Plush,
by the look on 'em, and the price of a five pun note!" he thought resentfully,
as he stood waiting to be given a place, and wondering which of the people
present he disliked the most. There were the two Swainson lasses from the
nearest farm, with their young duke of a brother, who was in a Witham
bank. There was a Lancashire youth whom Will had taken as pupil, and
Stephen Addison and his missis, who were both of them preaching-mad. He
held forth at chapel and she at Institute meetings and the like, and folk said
they kept each other awake at nights, practising which of them could do it
best. There was Sam Battersby of Kitty Fold, who never knew where his
own heaf ended and other people's began, and the familiar smug cousin,
long since formally pledged to Eliza's eldest lass. There was a grandchild or
two, and of course the Blindbeck brood, with the exception of a couple of
married daughters and the obliterated Jim.... It was small wonder, indeed,
that, after all those years, nobody missed him in that upcoming crowd.
Eliza's hearty voice, that was never hearty at core, rose like a strong-
winged, evil bird at the unwanted guests. The sight of them seemed to
surprise her so much that she dropped a gold-rimmed cup.
"Surely to goodness, Simon and Sarah, yon's never you! I'd give you
up an hour back or more, I had indeed. You've been a terble while on t'road,
surely,--a terble while after us? But there,--I always forget how fast yon
grand little mare of ours gets over t'ground! You'd need to start sooner than
most folk wi' your poor old crock."

She broke off to throw a remonstrance at Will, who was bundling two
of his daughters out of their seats to make room for their uncle and aunt.
"Nay, now, Will," she called vexedly down the table. "What d'ye think
you're at? Leave t'lasses alone, can't you? Let the poor things be! If it's a
chair you're wanting, there's one here by me as'll suit Sarah just grand.
Sarah can't abide a chair wi' a cane bottom,--says it rubs her gown. It's right
enough, too, I'm sure, wi' velvet and the like,--(I made a bonny mess o' yon
grand gown I had when Annie Belle was wed),--but I can't see as it'll do any
harm to a bit o' poorish serge. Anyway, Sarah can have the best plush to set
on, if she sets here, and, as for Simon, you're for ever sticking him where I
can't so much as see the end of his nose! You're never thinking I'm still
sweet on him, surely," she added, laughing, "or that happen he'll be making
sheep's eyes at me, as he used to do?"
She looked at the young folk, and chuckled and winked, and they
nudged each other and laughed, too. But Sarah did not laugh as she waited
behind the chairs, or Simon, red to the ears, and recalling the machinations
of Eliza's youth. He pushed one of his nieces roughly out of his way and
took her place, while Sarah went slowly to seat herself on the red plush
chair that was warranted not to hurt her poor patched gown.
"I hope there's summat for you, I'm sure!" Eliza went on, when the
giggling and whispering had died down, and Simon's thin cheeks had lost
their furious red. She cast an anxious glance down the well-filled table, but
her tone was complacency itself. "Folks as come late can't expect to find
everything just so.... Ay, I give you up a long while back. Sally here'll tell
you I give you up. 'Sally,' I says to her, 'likely yon old horse'll be put to it to
do the extra bit, and so they've happen thought better on't, and gone straight
home. You're that used to good horses, Sally,' I says, 'you don't rightly know
how poor folks has to shift. Not but what they'll get a deal better tea here

than they will at home, Sally,' I says, 'and though I says it as shouldn't, that's
the truth! Ay, they'll come to tea, I'll be bound, Sally,' I says, but I changed
my mind when I thought on the old horse."
Sarah said nothing in reply to this, partly because her brain was
swimming with the heat of the room, but chiefly because she never did say
anything until Eliza was well ahead in the race for speech. This particular
method helped her to reserve her strength, but at the same time it deepened
the bitterness in her heart. It would have been better for both of them if they
could have got the inevitable tussle over at the start; exhaustion on both
sides might have brought at least a pretence at amity in its train. But it had
always been Sarah's instinct to hold herself back, and time had turned the
instinct into a fixed need. For the moment, at least, her strength was
certainly to sit still.
"I doubt there's no tea for you just this minute, Sarah," Eliza said,
affecting great concern as she lifted the tea-pot lid. "Sally, my lass, you'd
best see about mashing another pot. There'll be a deal o' folk sending up for
more in a brace o' shakes, and we can't have them saying they're not as
well-tret at Blindbeck as they're used. Not as anybody's ever said it yet as
I've heard tell, though you never know what folks'll do for spite. Most on
'em get through their three cups afore they're done, and me like as not just
barely through my first. Eh, but I used to be terble bothered, just at the start,
keeping folks filled and their mugs as they rightly should! You bairns wasn't
up then, of course, but we'd farm-lads in the house, and wi' a rare twist to
'em an' all! Yon's a thing you've never been bothered with, Sarah, wi' such a
small spot and lile or nowt in the way o' work. You'd nobbut a couple o'
hands at any time, had you, and not them when you'd Geordie-an'-Jim?
You've a deal to be thankful for, I'm sure, you have that! You've always

been able to set down comfortable to your meat, instead o' fretting yourself
to skin and bone seeing as other folk had their wants."
Here Mrs. Addison offered to pass her cup, and then thought better of
it, remembering the new brew. Eliza, however, urged it forward. Apparently
she had discovered concealed virtue under the tea-pot lid.
"Nay, now, Mrs. Addison, there's a sup in the pot yet! You've no call to
look shy about it,--I wasn't talking at you! ... Pass Mrs. Addison the cream,
Mary Phyllis, and waken up and look sharp about it! Blindbeck tea's none
the worse, I reckon, for a drop o' Blindbeck cream...." She returned the cup,
smiling benignly, and then pretended to have lost Sarah and suddenly found
her again. "Losh, Mrs. Simon, you're that whyet I'd clean forgot you were
there! You'll not want to be waiting on Sally and the fresh brew. I'll wet
leaves again for you just to be going on with!"
So Sarah got the bottom of the pot after a little more talk, a hunt for a
clean cup and an address on the value of the spoons. Half a cup--consisting
chiefly of tea-leaves--was passed to Simon, but was intercepted on its way
by Will. Simon did not notice the manoeuvre, being busy glowering at a
niece's shoulder turned sulkily on him from the left; but Eliza saw it from
her end of the table and turned an angry red. She never forgot Simon's
indifference to her as a girl, and would have made him pay for the insult if
she could. She could not always reach him, however, because of the family
tie which nothing seemed able to break. But Sarah, at least, it was always
consoling to think, could be made to pay. There were times when all her
reserve could not hide from a gleeful Eliza that she paid....
So Simon got the new brew without even knowing that it was new,
while Sarah drank the unpleasant concoction that was weak at the top and
bitter as sea-water at the bottom. Sally came in with another great brown
pot, and sat down languidly at her aunt's side. She and the smug cousin had

been engaged for years, but there seemed little prospect of the wedding
taking place. She had been a handsome girl, and was good to look at still,
but there were handsomer Thornthwaites growing and grown up, as
apparently the cousin was quick enough to perceive. To-day he had found a
seat for himself beside Mary Phyllis, who kept glancing across at her sister
with defiant pride. Sally had a cheap town-look nowadays, the cousin
thought, not knowing that she had assumed it long ago to please himself.
Now that he was more mature, he preferred the purer country type of Mary
Phyllis, as well as the fresher atmosphere of her youth. Sally talked to
young Swainson, and pretended not to care, but she was too unhappy to
bother about her aunt. The Simon Thornthwaites were boring at any time,
like most permanently unlucky people, and to-day she was too worried even
to try to be kind. So Sarah, after whom she was called, and who was her
godmother to boot, got very little to eat and only the dregs of things to
drink; and nobody at all rose up to deliver her from Eliza.
Mrs. Addison had opened her mouth very impressively more than
once, but it was only now that she got a chance to speak. In spite of their
boasted fluency, both she and her husband had always to yield the palm to
Mrs. Will. Mrs. Addison, however, always watched her chance, while
Stephen was simply flabby, and did not try. She and Eliza in the same room
were like firmly opposing currents, flowing strongly in the same stream.
"Mr. Addison's to preach at this mission they're having, next week,"
she announced proudly. "There's to be a Service for men only, and our
Stephen's to give 'em a talk. I won't say but what he'll do as well as a real
minister, even though I do happen to be his wife. Likely you'll think on
about it, and send some of your lads along, Mrs. Will?"
Eliza was quite unable to conceal her disgust at a distinction achieved
by somebody not her own.

"I'll do my best, I'm sure," she assented casually and without looking at
her, "though I doubt they'll want coaxing a bit wi' a broom-handle or a
clout!" She disliked being called Mrs. Will, and knew that Mrs. Addison did
it with fell intent. It was galling to be reminded that, in spite of his success,
Will had still not managed to make himself into the elder son.... "I can't say
they're that set on either church or chapel unless it's to see a lass," she went
on, busy with the cups, "and I doubt they don't reckon much o' sermons
unless they're good. They've been better eddicated than most folk, you'll
think on, so they're hard to suit. 'Tisn't likely they could do wi' second-hand
preaching from some as happen never went to school at all."
Mr. A'ddison made a sudden attempt to speak, but choked instead,
while Eliza looked as innocent as a large-sized lamb.
"Ay, I've heard a deal o' sermons as was just waste breath," she went
on kindly, "and that's the truth. All the same, I'll likely look in at Mission
myself, one o' these days, if I can get away. I'm always glad to set still after
a hard week, and to get a look at other folks' jackets and hats. Not that
there's much to crack on at chapel, that way.... I'm a deal fonder o' church. I
was wed at St. Michael's, you'll think on,--ay, and Sarah an' all. Eh, I could
laugh even yet at yon march we stole on her, me an' Will!"
Sally moved impatiently at her aunt's elbow, and muttered something
under her breath. She was tired of the old story, and disapproved of it as
well. Sarah had lifted her cup to her lips, but now she set it down....
Mary Phyllis stopped giggling a moment, and leaned forward to speak.
"I was telling Cousin Elliman about it only this morning," she said
noisily, "and he says it's the funniest thing he ever heard! I thought
everybody knew about it, but he says he didn't. He said it was real smart of
you, Mother, and he wished he could have been there...."

"I'll be bound Sarah didn't think it smart!" Eliza chuckled, but without
glancing at her victim's face. She had a trick of discussing people when they
were present, as Sarah knew. She could tell by the trend of Eliza's voice that
she spoke without turning her head.
"Smart? Nay! Sarah was real wild, you take my word! I spoke to her in
t'vestry when the show was through, and she give me a look as was more
like a dog's bite. Eh, well, I reckon poor Sarah was jealous o' my gown,
seeing her own was nowt to crack on,--and nowt then! I'd always settled to
be real smart when I got wed, and my own lasses was just the same. None o'
my folk can do wi' owt as isn't first-class and happen a bit over. Yon's the
photo we had took at Annie Belle's wedding," she added, turning to point,
"and there's another of Alice Evelyn's in the parlour."
The cousin and Mary Phyllis left their seats to giggle together over the
stiff figures, and presently the girl turned to her sister with a malicious
taunt.
"I say, our Sally, you'd best look out when you do get wed, or happen
I'll play a trick on you, same as mother did Aunt Sarah! You'll be rarely
riled if I come marching up the aisle with a fine young man, taking all the
shine out of you and Elliman!"
The cousin said something in a low tone which made her flush and
laugh, and Sally guessed at it quickly enough, though it did not reach her
ears. The tears came into her eyes, and on an impulse of fellow-feeling she
turned towards her aunt. She was asking after May Fleming when her
mother broke across her talk.
"Eh, now, Sarah, yon was never May, was it, along wi' you in Witham?
I'll be bound I'd never have known her if she hadn't been with you, but
there's not that many you're seen about with nowadays at market. 'Tisn't like
me, as can't stir a step without somebody wanting a crack or hanging on to

my gown. But May's changed out of all knowledge,--I was fair bothered to
see her look so old! I'll swear our Annie Belle looks as young again, for all
she's been wed a dozen year at least. Ay, I thought May terble old, and
terble unmannerly as well. I'd be shammed to think as any lass o' mine had
suchlike ways. You weren't over-pleasant spoken yourself, Sarah, if it
comes to that. The folk in the caif were laughing a deal after you'd gone out,
and saying you must be wrong in the garrets to act so queer."
Sarah had regained her spirit a little, in spite of her poor tea. She
straightened herself on the plush chair and answered calmly.
"They can say what suits 'em and welcome, as long as they let me be.
You know what put me about, Eliza, and nobody to thank for it but yourself.
As for folks laughing and making game o' me and suchlike, it was you they
was sniggering at plain enough when I come out."
Eliza's colour rose, but she struggled to keep her virtuous air. She
looked at Sarah with a sorrowful eye.
"I wouldn't get telling lies about it, Sarah," she observed kindly, "I
wouldn't indeed! Mrs. Addison's listening, think on, and she'll be rarely
shocked at suchlike ways. Caif-folk were shocked more than a deal, an' me
just having a friendly talk an' all!"
"It's a queer sort o' friendliness as puts folk to open shame!" Sarah's
colour was flying a flag, too. "It's nobbut a queer sort o' friend as goes
shouting your private business at the end of a bell!"
"There isn't a deal that's private, surely, about the mess o' things you've
made on the marsh?..." The fight was really begun now, and Eliza turned in
her seat, fixing her adversary with merciless eyes. Sarah could see very
little but a monstrous blur, but she felt her malignant atmosphere in every
nerve. She could hear the big, solid presence creaking with malice as it
breathed, and had an impression of strained whalebone and stretching cloth.

But it was always Eliza's most cherished garments that she visioned when
they fought,--the velvet gown that was folded away upstairs ... gloves, furs,
and a feathered hat; furthest of all, the wedding-gown and the flaunting
veil....
"Private!" Eliza repeated the sneered word as if it were something too
precious to let go. "There can't be that much private about things as we've
all on us known for years. What, folks has puzzled no end why you've never
ended in t'bankruptcy court long since! Will and me could likely ha' tellt
them about it, though, couldn't we, Sarah? Will an' me could easy ha' tellt
'em why! Will and me could ha' tellt where brass come from as was keeping
you on t'rails----"
Will had been lending a careful ear to Simon's surly talk, but he lifted
his head at the sound of his name.
"Now, missis, just you let Mrs. Simon be!" he admonished, with a
troubled frown. "You're over fond of other folks' business by a deal."
"I'll let her be and welcome, if she'll keep a civil tongue in her head!"
Eliza cried. She went redder than ever, and slapped a tea-spoon angrily on
the cloth. "But if our brass isn't our business, I'd like to know what is, and
as for this stir about quitting Sandholes, it's nothing fresh, I'm sure! We all
on us know it's a marvel landlord didn't get shot on 'em long ago."
The last remark galvanised Battersby into lively speech. Hitherto he
had been busily concentrated on his food, but now his mean little features
sharpened and his mean little eyes shone. He bent eagerly forward, leaning
on the cloth, knife and fork erect like stakes in a snatched plot.
"What's yon about quitting Sandholes?" he asked, in a thin voice. "Are
you thinking o' leaving, Simon? Is it true?"
"I don't see as it's any affair o' yours if it is," Simon answered him,
with a sulky stare.

"Nay, it was nobbut a friendly question between man and man. If
you're quitting the farm it would only be neighbourly just to give me a hint.
There's a lad o' mine talking o' getting wed, and I thought as how
Sandholes'd likely be going cheap. Has anybody put in for it yet wi' t'agent,
do ye think?"
"Nay, nor like to do, yet awhile," Simon answered glumly, full of
sullen hurt. All his love for his tiresome dwelling-place rose to the surface
at this greed. "I don't mind telling you, Mr. Battersby, as you ax so kind,
that I give in my notice but it wasn't took. Mr. Dent would have it I mun
think it over a bit more. Your lad'll just have to bide or look out for
somebody else's shoes."
This dreadful exhibition of meanness aggrieved Battersby almost to
the verge of tears.
"Well, now, if yon isn't dog-in-the-manger and nowt else!" he appealed
to the company at large. "What, you're late wi' your notice already, and yet
you're for sitting tight to the farm like a hen on a pot egg! I shouldn't ha'
thought it of you, Simon, I shouldn't indeed. Here's a farmer wanting to quit
and my lad wanting a farm, and yet the moment I ax a decent question I get
sneck-posset geyly sharp. You're jealous, that's what it is, Simon; you're
acting jealous-mean. You've nobbut made a terble poor job o' things
yourself, and you want to keep others from getting on an' all!"
Simon gave vent to an ironic laugh.
"Nay, now, Sam, never fret yourself!" he jeered. "You and your lad'll
get on right enough, I'll be bound, what wi' your heaf-snatching and your
sheep-grabbing and the rest o' your bonny ways! What, man, one o' your
breed'd be fair lost on a marsh farm, wi' nowt to lay hands on barrin' other
folks' turmuts, and never a lile chance of an overlap!"

Battersby's reputation was well known, and an irrepressible laugh
greeted Simon's speech, but was instantly cut short by the terrible spectacle
of the victim's face. Only the smug cousin went on laughing, because he
was ignorant as well as smug, and did not know what a heaf meant, let
alone how it was possible to add to it by Sam's skilful if unlawful ways.
Battersby jumped to his feet and thumped the table, so that the blue and
gold china danced like dervishes from end to end. Mrs. Addison's tea made
a waterfall down her second-best bodice, and Sarah's heart, not being
prepared for the thump, leaped violently into her mouth.
"I'll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody else's," he stormed at Will;
"nay, and I'll not take telling from yon wastrel you call brother, neither! All
on us know what a bonny mess o' things he's made at Sandholes. All on us
know it'll be right fain to see his back.... As for you, you gomeless half-
thick," he added, swinging round so suddenly on the smug cousin that he
was left gaping, "you can just shut yon calf's head o' yours and mighty
sharp or I'll shut it for you! Them as knows nowt'd do best to say nowt, and
look as lile like gawping jackasses as Nature'll let 'em!" ... He sent a final
glare round the stifled table, and let Eliza have the sting in his tail. "I'd been
looking to be real friendly wi' Blindbeck," he finished nastily, "and my lad
an' all, but I don't know as we'll either on us be fain for it after this. Nay, I
wain't set down agen, missis, and that's flat, so you needn't ax me! I'm off
home and glad to be going, and no thanks to none o' you for nowt!"
He glanced at his plate to make certain there was nothing left, snatched
at his cup and hastily swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair
backward so violently that it fell to the floor, he clapped his hat on his head
and marched rudely out. Eliza, catching a glance from a tearful daughter,
got to her feet, too. They swam from the room in a torrent of loud apologies
and bitter, snarled replies.

Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted expression on his gentle
face. The cousin, slowly turning from red to mottled mauve, observed to
Mary Phyllis that the old man's language was 'really remarkably like my
chief's!' Some of the younger end started to giggle afresh, but Sarah was
still trembling from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt gloomy again
after his public effort. He could see that he had upset Will, and that was the
last thing he wanted to do, to-day. Will did not like Battersby, but he liked
peace, and there were other reasons for friendly relations at present. Will's
youngest daughter had a direct interest in Battersby's lad and his hopes of a
farm, and now the father had shaken the Blindbeck dust from his proud feet.
She looked across at the cause of the trouble with tear-filled, indignant eyes.
"Seems to me things is always wrong when you come to Blindbeck,
Uncle Simon!" she exclaimed hotly. "Nobody wants your old farm, I'm
sure! I wouldn't have it at a gift! But you might have spoken him fair about
it, all the same. I never see such folks as you and Aunt Sarah for setting
other folk by the ears!"
Will said "Whisht, lass, whisht!" in as cross a tone as he ever used to
his girls, and Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not speak. She was a
fair, pretty thing, with Geordie-an'-Jim's eyes, and he did not wish to injure
her happiness in any way. It was true enough, as she said, that there was
generally something in the shape of a row as soon as he and Sarah set foot
in the house, but he could not tell for the life of him how it came about. It
could not be altogether their fault, he thought resentfully, yet with a sort of
despair. To-day, for instance, he had every reason for keeping the peace, and
yet that fool of a Battersby must come jumping down his throat! Nobody
could be expected to stand such manners and such nasty greed,--grabbing a
man's homestead before his notice was well in! There was nothing
surprising, of course, in the fact that the women had already come to blows.

He had expected it from the start, and, with the resignation of custom,
thought it as well over soon as late. They had had one scrap, as it was, from
what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot of passion would still be hot
enough to stir.
"It's a shame, that's what it is!" the girl was saying, over and over
again. Tears dropped from the Geordie-an'-Jim eyes, and Simon felt furious
with everybody, but particularly with himself.
"You needn't bother yourself," he growled across at last, making a
rough attempt to put the trouble right. "Young Battersby's over much sense
to go taking a spot like ourn, and as for his dad, he'll be back afore you can
speak. 'Tisn't Sam Battersby, I'll be bound, if he isn't as pleased as punch to
be running in double harness wi' Blindbeck and its brass!"
"Ay, like other folk!" Eliza dropped on him from the clouds,
reappearing panting from her chase. "Like other folk a deal nearer home,
Simon Thornthet, as you don't need telling! Battersby wanted nowt wi' the
farm,--he tellt me so outside. 'Tisn't good enough for the likes of him, nor
for our Emily Marion, neither! He was that stamping mad he was for
breaking it all off, but I got him promised to look in again next week. I'd a
deal o' work wi' him, all the same," she added, flushing angrily at her
brother-in-law's ironic smile, "and no thanks to you, neither, if I come out
top, after all! Anyway, I'll thank you to speak folk civilly at my table, if you
can, whatever-like hired man's ways you keep for your own!"
She would have hectored him longer if Will had not got to his feet and
taken himself and his brother out of the room, so instead she went back to
her seat and drank a large cup of tea in angry gulps. Between drinks,
however, she managed to say to the wife the things she had wanted to say to
the man, though Sarah was silent and paid little or no heed. She wished she
could have gone outside with the men, and helped to decide what her future

was to be. But it was not for her to advise, who would soon be no better
than a helpless log. It was her part to wait patiently until Simon fetched her
away.
But it was not easy to wait at all in that atmosphere of critical dislike.
The successive passages of arms had had their natural effect, and the party
which had been so merry at the start was now in a state of boredom and
constraint. The thoughts of most of those present were unfriendly towards
the folk of the marsh, and Sarah could feel the thoughts winding about her
in the air. Emily Marion was right, so they were saying in their minds;
trouble always followed the Thornthwaites the moment they appeared.
Storms arose out of nowhere and destroyed some festive occasion with a
rush. Even to look at them, dowdy and disapproving, was to take the heart
out of any happy day. It was certainly hard on the poor Will Thornthwaites
that the tiresome Simons should dare to exist.
Sarah, bringing her mind back from the absent brothers with an effort,
found the Method working again at top speed. The tea had soothed Eliza's
nerves and stimulated her brain. She was now at her very best for behaving
her very worst.
"And so Mr. Addison's preaching next week, is he?" she reverted
suddenly, making even that supreme egotist blink and start. Her Voice,
furred and soft, reminded Sarah of a paw reaching out for someone to
scratch. "Eh, now, but I should be in a rare twitter if it was Will as was
setting up to preach! But there, we're none of us much of a hand at talking
at our spot, and Will's summat better to do than just wagging a loose
tongue. I'll see the lads come along, though, as it's you, Mrs. Addison, and
an old friend, unless there's summat useful they're happen wanted for at
home. Eh, Sarah, but wouldn't they talks to young men ha' done a sight o'
good to Geordie-an'-Jim? It's a sad pity you didn't start preaching before

they went, Mr. Addison,--it is that! Like enough, if you had, they'd be at
Sandholes yet."
The preacher's brow had been thunderous during the early part of this
speech, but now he looked suddenly coy. Sally, dropping her glance to her
aunt's lap, saw her fingers clench and unclench on a fold of her own black
gown.
"Any news of the prodigals?" Elliman Wilkinson suddenly enquired.
He looked at Eliza as he spoke, and smiled as at a well-known joke. "I'm
always in hopes to find one of them eating the fatted calf."
"Nay, you must ask Sarah, not me!" Eliza answered, with an affected
laugh. She despised Elliman in her heart, but she was grateful for the cue.
"Sarah knows what they're at, if there's anybody does at all. Like enough
they'll turn up one o' these days, but I don't know as we'll run to calves.
They'll be terble rough in their ways, I doubt, after all this time. Out at
elbows an' all, as like as not, and wi' happen a toe or two keeking through
their boots!"
There was a ripple of laughter at this show of wit, and then Elliman,
urged by a nudge and a whisper from Mary Phyllis, repeated the question in
the proper quarter. He raised his voice when he spoke to Sarah, as if she
were deaf as well as blind, and when she paused a moment before replying,
he apostrophised her again. The whole table had pricked its ears and was
listening by the time the answer came.
Sarah felt the giggles and the impertinent voice striking like arrows
through the misty ring in which she sat. Sharpest of all was Eliza's laugh,
introducing the question and afterwards punctuating it when it was put. She
was achingly conscious of the antipathetic audience hanging on her lips.
They were baiting her, and she knew it, and her heart swelled with helpless
rage. A passionate longing seized her to be lord of them all for once,--just

for once to fling back an answer that would slay their smiles, put respect
into their mocking voices and change their sneers into awed surprise. If
only for once the Dream and the glory might be true,--the trap and the new
clothes and Geordie and the green front door! But nothing could be further
from what they expected, as she knew too well. They were waiting merely
to hear her say what she had often said before,--for news that there was no
news or news that was worse than none. She had faced more than one trial
that day, and had come out of them with her self-respect intact, but this
unexpected humiliation was more than she could bear. She was telling
herself in the pause that she would not answer at all, when something that
she took for the total revolt of pride spoke to the mockers through her lips.
"Ay, but there's rare good news!" she heard herself saying in a cheerful
tone, and instantly felt her courage spring up and her heart lighten as the lie
took shape. "I'd been saving it up, Eliza, for when we were by ourselves,
but there's no sense, I reckon, in not saying it straight out. Geordie's on his
way home to England at this very minute, and he says he's a rare good
lining to his jacket an' all!"
The air changed about her at once as she had always dreamed it would,
and she heard the gasp of surprise pass from one to another like a quick-
thrown ball. Eliza started so violently that she upset her cup and let it lie.
She stared malevolently at the other's face, her own set suddenly into heavy
lines.
"Nay, but that's news and no mistake!" she exclaimed, striving after
her former tone, but without success. The note in her voice was clear to her
blind hearer, sending triumphant shivers through her nerves.... "Tell us
again, will you, Sarah?" she added sharply. "I doubt I heard you wrong."
"I'll tell you and welcome till the cows come home!" Sarah said, with a
sudden sprightliness that made the Wilkinson cousin open his eyes. It was

almost as if another person had suddenly taken possession of Sarah's place.
There was a vitality about her that seemed to change her in every feature, an
easy dignity that transformed the shabbiest detail of her dress. Her voice,
especially, had changed,--that grudging, dully defiant voice. This was the
warm, human voice of one who rejoiced in secret knowledge, and possessed
her soul in perfect security and content.
"He's coming, I tell you,--our Geordie's coming back!" The wonderful
words seemed to fill her with strong courage every time she spoke. "I can't
rightly tell you when it'll be, but he said we could look for him any minute
now. Likely we'll find him waiting at Sandholes when we've gitten home.
He's done well an' all, from what he says.... I'll be bound he's a rich man. He
talks o' buying Sandholes, happen,--or happen a bigger spot. I make no
doubt he's as much brass as'd buy Blindbeck out an' out!"
She fell silent again after this comprehensive statement, merely
returning brief ayes and noes to the questions showered upon her from
every side. Her air of smiling dignity, however, remained intact, and even
her blind eyes, moving from one to another eager face, impressed her
audience with a sense of truth. And then above the excited chatter there rose
Eliza's voice, with the mother-note sounding faintly through the jealous
greed.
"Yon's all very fine and large, Sarah, but what about my Jim? Jim's
made his pile an' all, I reckon, if Geordie's struck it rich. He's as smart as
Geordie, is our Jim, any day o' the week! Hark ye, Sarah! What about my
Jim?"
Quite suddenly Sarah began to tremble, exactly as if the other had
struck her a sharp blow. She shrank instantly in her chair, losing at once her
dignity and ease. The fine wine of vitality ran out of her as out of a crushed
grape, leaving only an empty skin for any malignant foot to stamp into the

earth. She tried to speak, but could find no voice brave enough to meet the
fierce rain of Eliza's words. A mist other than that of blindness came over
her eyes, and with a lost movement she put out a groping, shaking hand.
Sally, in a sudden access of pity, gathered it in her own.
She slid her arm round her aunt, and drew her, tottering and trembling,
to her feet.
"It's overmuch for her, that's what it is," she said kindly, but taking care
to avoid her mother's angry glance. "It's knocked her over, coming that
sudden, and no wonder, either. Come along, Aunt Sarah, and sit down for a
few minutes in the parlour. You'll be as right as a bobbin after you've had a
rest."
She led her to the door, a lithe, upright figure supporting trembling
age, and Elliman's eyes followed her, so that for once he was heedless of
Mary Phyllis when she spoke. Most of the company, indeed, had fallen into
a waiting silence, as if they knew that the act was not yet finished, and that
the cue for the curtain still remained to be said. And the instinct that held
them breathless was perfectly sound, for in the square of the door Sarah
halted herself and turned. Her worn hands gripped her gown on either side,
and if May had been there to see her, she would again have had her
impression of shrouded flame. She paused for a moment just to be sure of
her breath, and then her voice went straight with her blind glance to the
point where Eliza sat.
"Jim's dead, I reckon!" she said, clearly and cruelly... "ay, I doubt he's
dead. Geordie'd never be coming without him if he was over sod. You'd best
make up your mind, Eliza, as he's dead and gone!"
It was the voice of an oracle marking an open grave, of Cassandra,
crying her knowledge in Troy streets. It held them all spellbound until she
had gone out. Even Eliza was silent for once on her red plush chair....

IV

Each of the brothers Thornthwaite drew a breath of relief as soon as he got
outside. They were at ease together at once as soon as they were alone. The
contrast in their positions, so obvious to the world, made little or no
difference to the men themselves. It would have made less still but for the
ever-recurring problem of the women-folk, and even that they did their best
to put away from them as soon as they were out of sight. Each could only
plead what he could for the side he was bound to support, and pass on
hurriedly to a less delicate theme. Alone they fell back easily into the
relation which had been between them as lads, and forgot that the younger
was now a man of substance and weight, while the elder had made an
inordinate muddle of things. Will had always looked up to Simon and taken
his word in much, and he still continued to take it when Eliza was not
present to point to the fact that Simon's wonderful knowledge had not
worked out in practice. To-day, as they wandered round the shippons, he
listened respectfully while his brother criticised the herd, quarrelled with
the quality of the food-stuffs, and snorted contempt at the new American
method of tying cattle in the stall. Experience had taught him that Simon
was not the first who had made a mess of his own affairs while remaining
perfectly competent to hand out good advice to others. The well-arranged
water-supply was Simon's idea, as well as the porcelain troughs which were
so easy to keep clean, and the milking-machine which saved so much in
labour. There were other innovations,--some, Eliza's pride,--which were due
to Simon, if she had only known it. He was a good judge of a beast as well,
and had a special faculty for doctoring stock, a gift which had certainly not

been allowed to run to waste during those bewitched and disease-ridden
years at Sandholes. Will was indebted to him for many valuable lives, and
often said that Simon had saved him considerably more than he had ever
lent him. It remained a perpetual mystery why so useful a man should have
achieved so much for others and so little for himself. The answer could only
lie in the curse that was glooming over Sandholes,--if there was a curse.
Nature certainly plays strange tricks on those who do not exactly suit her
book, but in any case the hate at the heart of things was enough to poison
luck at the very source.
While Sarah sat through her long torment in the kitchen, rising up at
last for that great blow which at all events felled her adversary for the time
being, Simon was enjoying himself airing his knowledge in the buildings,
contradicting his brother on every possible occasion, and ending by feeling
as if he actually owned the place. However, the reason of his visit came up
at length, as it was bound to do, and his air of expert authority vanished as
the position changed. One by one, as he had already done to Mr. Dent, he
laid before his brother his difficulties and disappointments, much as a
housewife lays out the chickens that some weasel has slain in the night. He
wore the same air of disgust at such absurd accumulation of disaster, of
incredulity at this overdone effort on the part of an inartistic fate. The story
was not new to Will, any more than to the agent, but he listened to it
patiently, nevertheless. He knew from experience that, unless you allow a
man to recapitulate his woes, you cannot get him to the point from which a
new effort may be made. He may seem to be following you along the fresh
path which you are marking out, but in reality he will be looking back at the
missed milestones of the past. And there were so many milestones in
Simon's case,--so many behind him, and so few to come. After all, it could

only be a short road and a bare into which even the kindest brotherly love
had power to set his feet.
So for the second time that day Simon lived his long chapter of
accidents over again, his voice, by turns emphatic and indignant or
monotonous and resigned, falling like slanting rain over the unheeding
audience of the cattle. Will, listening and nodding and revolving the
question of ways and means, had yet always a slice of attention for his
immediate belongings. His eye, casual yet never careless, wandered over
the warm roan and brown and creamy backs between the clean stone slabs
which Simon had advocated in place of the ancient wooden stalls. The herd
was indoors for the winter, but had not yet lost its summer freshness, and he
had sufficient cause for pride in the straight-backed, clean-horned stuff,
with its obvious gentle breeding and beautiful feminine lines. That part of
his mind not given to his brother was running over a string of names, seeing
in every animal a host of others whose characteristics had gone to its
creation, and building upon them the stuff of the generations still to come,--
turning over, in fact, that store of knowledge of past history and patient
prophecy for the future which gives the study of breeding at once its dignity
and its fascination. At the far end of the shippon, where the calf-pens were,
he could see the soft bundles of calves, with soft eyes and twitching ears, in
which always the last word in the faith of the stock-breeder was being either
proved or forsworn. The daylight still dropping through skylights and
windows seemed to enter through frosted glass, dimmed as it was by the
warm cloud of breathing as well as the mist that lined the sky beyond. A
bird flew in at intervals through the flung-back swinging panes, and
perched for a bar of song on the big cross-beams supporting the pointed
roof. A robin walked pertly but daintily down the central aisle, a brave little
spot of colour on the concrete grey, pecking as it went at the scattered corn

under the monster-noses thrust between the rails. Simon leaned against a
somnolent white cow, with an arm flung lengthways down her back, his
other hand fretting the ground with the worn remnant of a crooked stick.
Will's dog, a bushy, silvered thing, whose every strong grey hair seemed
separately alive, curled itself, with an eye on the robin, at its master's feet.
He roused himself to greater attention when Simon reached the
account of his interview with Mr. Dent. Accustomed as he was to more or
less traditional behaviour under the traditional circumstances which govern
such lives as his, he fastened at once on the puzzling attitude of the agent.
"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think he was at," he observed
thoughtfully. "Once you'd settled to quit there was no sense in keeping you
hanging on. Best make a job and ha' done wi' it, seems to me. 'Tisn't like
Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion. I wonder what made him
act so strange?"
Simon wore his original air of injured dignity as he leaned against the
cow.
"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was terble queer! You might ha'
thought he was badly or summat, but he seemed all right. Come to that, he
looked as fit as a fiddle and as pleased as a punch! You might ha' thought
he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"
"Happen it was some private business," Will said, "and nowt to do wi'
you at all.... What did you think o' doing when you've quit the farm?"
Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and from injured dignity sank
to sulks. The sudden pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow to a
sharp kick. When he spoke it was in a surly tone, and with his eyes turned
away from Will's.
"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon, to keep us going. I'm over
old for most folk, but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching milk and

siding up, and a bit o' gardening and suchlike. The trouble is the missis
won't be able to do for herself before so long. The doctor tellt her to-day she
was going blind."
His brother's face filled at once with sympathy and dismay. In that
forbidden compartment of his mind where he sometimes ventured to
criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she would take the news. This latest
trouble of Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's triumph. Poverty
Sarah had withstood; blindness she might have mastered, given time; but
poverty and blindness combined would deliver her finally into the enemy's
hand.
"I never thought it would be as bad as that," he murmured pityingly.
"It's a bad business, is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was anything could be
done?"
"There was summat about an operation, but it'll get no forrarder,"
Simon said. "They fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."
"If it's brass that's wanted, you needn't fash over that...." He added
more urgently as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I grudged you
brass for a thing like yon!"
"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully, "but it isn't no use. She's
that proud, is Sarah, she'll never agree. I doubt she just means to let things
slide."
"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with me!" Will's voice was almost
hot. "I've always been ready any time to stand her friend. Anyway, there's
the offer, and she can take it or leave it as best suits her. If she changes her
mind after a while, she won't find as I've altered mine.... But there's no
sense in your taking a job and leaving a blind woman to fend for herself.
There's nowt for it but Sarah'll have to come to us."

Simon laughed when he said that, a grim, mirthless laugh which made
the dog open his sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.
"Nay, nay, Will, my lad! It's right good of you, but it wouldn't do. A
bonny time you'd have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house! And
anyway your missis'd never hear tell o' such a thing, so that fixes it right
off."
"It's my own spot, I reckon!" Will spoke with unusual force. "I can do
as suits me, I suppose. T'lasses hasn't that much to do they can't see to a
blind body, and as for room and suchlike, there'll be plenty soon. Young
Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more than time yon Elliman
Wilkinson was thinking o' getting wed. He's been going with our Sally a
terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis seem mighty throng just now.
Anyway, there'll be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and for you an'
all."
But Simon shook his head again, and stood up straight and took his
arm off the back of the cow.
"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite simply, and this time he did
not laugh. "There's bad blood between they two women as nobbut death'll
cure. Nay, I thank ye right enough, Will, but yon horse won't pull....
"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on quickly, before Will could
speak again, "and some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look to the
missis while I'm off. I'll see t'agent agen and try to ram into him as I mean
to gang, and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll likely let me know?"
Will nodded but did not answer because of approaching steps, and they
stood silently waiting until the cowman showed at the door. At once the
deep symphony of the hungry broke from the cattle at sight of their servant
with his swill. The quiet picture, almost as still as if painted on the wall,
upheaved suddenly into a chaos of rocking, bellowing beasts. The great

heads tugged at their yokes, the great eyes pleaded and rolled. The big
organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded and jarred, dropping into
satisfied silence as the man passed from stall to stall. Will jerked his head
after him as he went out at the far door, and said that he would be leaving
before so long.
"Eh? Taylor, did ye say?" Simon stared, for the man had been at
Blindbeck for years. "What's amiss?"
"Nay, there's nowt wrong between us, if you mean that. But his wife's
father's had a stroke, and wants him to take over for him at Drigg. News
didn't come till I was off this morning, or I might ha' looked round for
somebody while I was in t'town."
Simon began a fresh violent poking with his ancient stick. "You'll ha'
somebody in your eye, likely?" he enquired. "There'll be plenty glad o' the
job."
"Oh, ay, but it's nobbut a weary business learning folk your ways." He
glanced at his brother a moment, and then looked shyly away. "If you're
really after a shop, Simon, what's wrong wi' it for yourself?"
The painful colour came into the other's averted face. He poked so
recklessly that he poked the dog, who arose with an offended growl.
"Nay, it's charity, that's what it is! I'm over old.... You know as well as
me I'd never get such a spot anywheres else."
"You know the place, and you're a rare hand wi' stock. I could trust
you same as I could myself."
"I'm over old," Simon demurred again, "and done to boot. I'd not be
worth the brass."
"We've plenty o' help on the place," Will said. "It'd be worth it just to
have you about. Nigh the same as having a vet on t'spot!" he added
jokingly, trying to flatter him into acquiescence. "I'd be main glad for my

own sake," he went on, his face grave again and slightly wistful. "There's
times I fair ache for a crack wi' somebody o' my own. Women is nobbut
women, when all's said and done, and lads is like to think they know a deal
better than their dad.... Ay, well, you can think it over and let me know," he
finished, in a disappointed tone.
Simon poked for a while longer, and succeeded in poking the cow as
well as the dog. He was fighting hard with his pride as he scraped busily at
the flags. The tie of blood pulled him, as well as the whole atmosphere of
the prosperous place. He knew in his heart that he was never so happy as
when he was with his brother, never so good a man as when he was
preaching in Will's shippons. As for pride, that would have to go by the
board sooner or later; indeed, who would say that he had any right to it,
even now? He made up his mind at last on a sudden impulse, lifting his
head with a hasty jerk.
"I've had enough o' thinking things over, thank ye all the same. I'll be
main glad o' the job, Will, and that's the truth...." He sank back instantly,
however, and fell to poking again. "Folk'll have plenty to say, though, I
reckon," he added bitterly, "when they hear as I'm hired man to my younger
brother!"
"They've always a deal to say, so what's the odds? As for younger and
older, there isn't a deal to that when you get up in years.... There's a good
cottage across t'road," he went on eagerly, bringing up reinforcements
before Simon should retire. "It's handy for t'stock, and there's a garden and
orchard as well. Lasses could see to Sarah, you'll think on, if she's that
closer. There's berry-bushes in t'garden and a deal besides...."
Simon was busy shaking his head and saying he wasn't worth it and
that he was over old, but all the time he was listening with interest and even
pleasure to Will's talk. Milking had now begun, and already, as the levers

swung back and forwards over the cattle's heads, he found himself looking
about the shippon with a possessive eye. Even in these few moments, life
had taken a turn for the Thornthwaite of the desolate marsh farm. Already
his back felt straighter, his eye brighter, his brain more alive. The
drawbacks of the proposed position began to recede before the many
advantages it had to offer. It was true, of course, that he would be his
brother's hired man, but it was equally true that he was the master's brother,
too. To all intents and purposes he would be master himself,--that is to say,
when Eliza wasn't about! Will's cottages were good, like everything else of
Will's, and the lasses could see to Sarah, as he said. For himself there would
be the constant interest and stimulant of a big farm, as well as the mental
relief of a steady weekly wage. He felt almost excited about it as they
crossed the yard, making for Taylor's cottage over the road. He tried not to
think of what Sarah might say when she heard the news, still less of what
Mrs. Will would most certainly say. He felt equal to both of them in his
present spirited mood, and even tried to convince himself that in time they
would make friends.
As they stood looking at Taylor's cottage and Taylor's gooseberry
bushes and canes, Will suddenly asked his brother whether there was any
news of Geordie. And Simon, when he had given the old answer that there
was no news that was worth crossing the road to hear, turned his face away
in the direction of Taylor's hens, and enquired whether there was any news
of Jim.
"There's been none for a sight o' years now," Will answered sadly,
leaning on the wall. "Eliza wrote him a letter as put his back up, and he's
never sent us a line since. He always set a deal more by you and your missis
than he ever did by us. I'd ha' stood his friend, poor lad, if he'd ha' let me,
but he always took it I was agen him, too."

There was silence between them for a while, and then,--"Eh, well,
you've a mort of others to fill his place!" Simon sighed, watching a well-
built lad swing whistling across the yard.
Will raised himself from the wall, and watched him, too.
"Ay, but I'd nobbut the one eldest son!" was all he said.

V

Sally led her aunt to the grand but unused parlour in which so many
expensive and handsome things were doomed to spend their lives. There
was a piano, of course, which none of the Blindbeck folk knew how to play,
in spite of Eliza's conviction that the gift was included in the price. A
Chippendale bookcase made a prison for strange books never opened and
never named, and the shut doors of a cabinet kept watch and ward over
some lovely china and glass. There was a satin-wood table with a velvet
sheen, whose polished mirror never reflected a laughing human face. There
was an American rocking-chair, poised like a floating bird, with cushions
filled with the finest down ever drawn from an heirloom of a feather-bed.
Sarah would not have taken the rocking-chair, as a rule; she would have
thought herself either too humble or too proud. But to-day she went to it as
a matter of course, because of the false pomp that she had drawn to herself
like a stolen royal robe. With a sigh of relief that was half physical and half
mental, she let herself gently down, dropped her rusty bonnet against the
silk, and peacefully closed her eyes.
Sally stood looking at her with an expression of mingled pity, curiosity
and awe. She had pitied her often enough before, but she had never before

seen her through the slightest veil of romance. Sometimes, indeed, the tale
of the damaged wedding-day had touched her imagination like the scent of
a bruised flower, but it was so faint and far-off that it passed again like a
breath. To-day, however, she had that sudden sense of exquisite beauty in
the old, which all must feel who see in them the fragile storehouses of life.
The old woman had known so much that she would never know, looked on
a different world with utterly different eyes. There was romance in the
thought of the dead she had seen and spoken to and laughed with and
touched and loved. And even now, with the flower of her life apparently
over and withered back again to its earth, this sudden splendour of Geordie
had blossomed for her at the end.
The girl waited a moment, hoping for a word, and then, though rather
reluctantly, turned towards the door. She wanted to hear still more about the
marvellous news, but the old woman looked so tired that she did not like to
ask. She was anxious, too, to get back to the kitchen to keep an eye on Mary
Phyllis. Yet still she lingered, puzzled and curious, and still touched by that
unusual sense of awe. An exotic beauty had passed swiftly into the musty
air of Eliza's parlour, a sense of wonder from worlds beyond ... the strong
power of a dream.
"You're over-tired, aren't you, Aunt Sarah?" she repeated, for want of
something better to say. She spoke rather timidly, as if aware that the words
only brushed the surface of deeper things below.
Sarah answered her without opening her eyes.
"Ay, my lass. Just a bit."
"You'd best stop here quietly till Uncle Simon's yoked up. I'll see
nobody bothers you if you feel like a nap. I'd fetch you a drop of cowslip
wine, but mother's got the key."

"Nay, I want nowt wi' it, thank ye," Sarah said. "I'll do all right." She
lifted her hands contentedly, and folded them in her lap. "Likely I'll drop off
for a minute, as you say."
"Ay, well, then, I'd best be getting back." She moved resolutely now,
but paused with her hand on the latch. "Aunt Sarah," she asked rather
breathlessly, "was all that about Cousin Geordie true?"
Sarah's lids quivered a little, and then tightened over her eyes.
"Ay. True enough."
"It's grand news, if it is! ... I'm right glad about it, I'm sure! I've always
thought it hard lines, him going off like that. And you said he'd done well
for himself, didn't you, Aunt Sarah? ... Eh, but I wish Elliman could make
some brass an' all!"
"There's a deal o' power in brass." The words came as if of themselves
from behind the mask-like face. "Folks say it don't mean happiness, but it
means power. It's a stick to beat other folk wi', if it's nowt else."
"I don't want to beat anybody, I'm sure!" Sally laughed, though with
tears in her voice. "I only want what's my own."
"Ay, we all on us want that," Sarah said, with a grim smile. "But it's
only another fancy name for the whole world!"

――――

She sat still for some time after the girl had gone out, as if she were
afraid that she might betray herself before she was actually alone. Presently,
however, she began to rock gently to and fro, still keeping her hands folded
and her eyes closed. The good chair moved easily without creak or jar, and
the good cushions adapted themselves to every demand of her weary bones.
Geordie should buy her a chair like this, she told herself as she rocked, still

maintaining the wonderful fiction even to herself. She would have cushions,
too, of the very best, covered with silk and cool to a tired cheek. A
footstool, also, ample and well stuffed, and exactly the right height for a
pair of aching feet.
But though one half of her brain continued to dally with these pleasant
fancies, the other was standing amazed before her late stupendous act. She
was half-aghast, half-proud at the ease with which she had suddenly flung
forth her swift, gigantic lie. Never for a moment had she intended to affirm
anything of the kind, never as much as imagined that she might hint at it
even in joke. She had been angry, of course, bitter and deeply hurt, but there
had been no racing thoughts in her mind eager to frame the princely tale. It
had seemed vacant, indeed, paralysed by rage, unable to do little else but
suffer and hate. And then suddenly the words had been said, had shaped
themselves on her lips and taken flight, as if by an agency with which she
had nothing to do. It was just as if somebody had taken her arm and used it
to wave a banner in the enemy's face; as if she were merely an instrument
on which an angry hand had suddenly played.
So she was not ashamed, or even really alarmed, because of this
inward conviction that the crime was not her own. Yet the voice had been
hers, and most certainly the succeeding grim satisfaction and ironic joy had
been hers! She allowed herself an occasional chuckle now that she was
really alone, gloating freely over Eliza's abasement and acute dismay. For
once at least, in the tourney of years, she had come away victor from the
fray. No matter how she was made to pay for it in the end, she had had the
whip-hand of Blindbeck just for once. Indeed, now that it was done,--and so
easily done,--she marvelled that she had never done it before. At the back of
her mind, however, was the vague knowledge that there is only one possible
moment for tremendous happenings such as these. Perhaps the longing

engendered by the Dream in the yard had suddenly grown strong enough to
act of its own accord. Perhaps, as in the decision about the farm, a sentence
lying long in the brain is spoken at length without the apparent assistance of
the brain....
She did not trouble herself even to speculate how she would feel when
at last the truth was out. This was the truth, as long as she chose to keep it
so, as long as she sat and rocked and shut the world from her dreaming
eyes. From pretending that it was true she came very soon to believing that
it might really be possible, after all. Such things had happened more than
once, she knew, and who was to say that they were not happening now? She
told herself that, if she could believe it with every part of herself just for a
moment, it would be true. Up in Heaven, where, as they said, a star winked
every time a child was born, they had only to move some lever or other, and
it would be true.
A clock ticked on the mantelpiece with a slow, rather hesitating sound,
as if trying to warn the house that Sunday and the need of the winding-key
were near. There was a close, secretive feeling in the room, the atmosphere
of so many objects shut together in an almost terrible proximity for so many
days of the week. She was so weary that she could have fallen asleep, but
her brain was too excited to let her rest. The magnitude of her crime still
held her breathlessly enthralled; the glamour of it made possible all
impossible hopes. She dwelt again and again on the spontaneity of the lie,
which seemed to give it the unmistakable stamp of truth.
She had long since forgotten what it was like to be really happy or
even at peace, but in some sort of fierce, gloating, heathenish way she was
happy now. She was conscious, for instance, of a sense of importance
beyond anything she had ever known. Even that half of her brain which
insisted that the whole thing was pretence could not really chill the

pervading glow of pride. She had caught the reflection of her state in Eliza's
voice, as well as in others less familiar to her ear. She had read it even in
Sally's kindly championship and support; through the sympathy she had not
failed to hear the awe. The best proof,--if she needed proof,--was that she
was actually here in the sacred parlour, and seated in the precious chair.
Eliza would have turned her out of both long since, she knew, if she had not
been clad in that new importance as in cloth of gold.
The impossible lies nearer than mere probability to the actual fact; so
near at times that the merest effort seems needed to cross the line. Desire,
racking both soul and body with such powerful hands, must surely be strong
enough to leap the slender pale. The peculiar mockery about ill-luck is
always the trifling difference between the opposite sides of the shield. It is
the difference between the full glass and the glass turned upside-down. But
to-day at least this tired old woman had swung the buckler round, and
laughed as she held the glass in her hand and saw the light strike through
the wine.
In this long day of Simon's and Sarah's nothing was stranger than the
varying strata of glamour and gloom through which in turn they passed.
Their days and weeks were, as a rule, mere grey blocks of blank,
monotonous life, imperceptibly lightened or further shadowed by the subtle
changes of the sky. But into these few hours so closely packed with
dreadful humiliations and decisions, so much accumulated unkindness and
insult and cold hate, there kept streaming upon them shafts of light from
some centre quite unknown. For Simon there had been the unexpected
stimulant of his Witham success, and later the new interest in life which
Will's proposal had seemed to offer. For Sarah there was the wistful
pleasure of her morning with May, as well as the unlawful but passionate
pleasure of her present position. The speed of the changes kept them over-

strung, so that each as it came found them more sensitive than the last. They
were like falling bodies dropping by turn through cloud and sunlit air. They
were like total wrecks on some darkened sea, catching and losing by turn
the lights of an approaching vessel.
The slow clock dragged the protesting minutes on, and still no one
disturbed her and the dream widened and grew. Tea would be brought in
soon, she told herself in the dream,--strong, expensive, visitor's tea, freshly
boiled and brewed. The silver teapot would be queening it over the tray,
flanked by steaming scones and an oven-new, home-made cake. Eliza
herself would appear to entertain her guest, always with that new note of
reverence in her voice. When the door opened they would hear another
voice,--Geordie's, laughing and talking in some room beyond. All the happy
young voices of the house would mingle with his, but always the youngest
and happiest would be Geordie's own. Hearing that voice, she would make
mock of herself for ever having feared Eliza's tongue, still more for ever
having cared enough to honour her with hate. A small thing then would be
the great Eliza, in spite of her size, beside the mother for whom the dead
had been made alive. She would talk with Eliza as the gods talk when they
speak with the humble human from invisible heights. So strong was the
vision that she found herself framing the godlike sentences with gracious
ease. The silver teaspoons clinked against the cups, and the visitor's tea was
fragrant in the musty room. She spread a linen handkerchief across her knee
... a snowy softness against her silken knee.... And always, always, as the
meal progressed, the voice of her ecstasy sang in her happy ear....
She had that one moment of clear beauty unprofaned by hate, with
Geordie's face swimming before her in a golden haze. Then her hand, going
out to the silk and linen of the dream, encountered the darned and
threadbare serge of dreary fact. The dream rent violently all around her,

letting her out again into the unlovely world. Even her blindness had been
forgotten for the time, for in the dream she was never blind. Now the touch
of the darns under her hand brought back the long hours of mending by
candlelight which had had their share in despoiling her of her sight. She
would never be able to darn by candlelight again, and the loss of that
drudgery seemed to her now an added grief, because into this and all similar
work, as women know, goes the hope of the future to emerge again as the
soul of the past.... Sarah knew that her hand would ache for her needle as
the sailor's hand aches for the helm, or the crippled horseman's for the feel
of the flat rein. She felt, too, a sudden desperate anger against the woman
who would have the mending of Simon's clothes. Geordie's, she knew, she
would simply have wrenched from any stranger's hands, but since there was
no Geordie she need not think of that. The Dream had been merely the
make-believe of the bitterly oppressed, who had taken to desperate lying as
a last resort. Yet still the sweetness lingered, keeping her serene, like the last
scent of a passed garden or the last light upon darkening hills.
She smoothed her hands on the arms of the precious chair, and reached
out and smoothed the satin of the table. Through the dimness the solid piano
loomed, the rosewood coffin of a thousand songs. The carpet under her feet
felt elastic yet softly deep. There were ornaments in the room, good stuff as
well as trash, trifles pointing the passions of Eliza's curious soul. But for
once, after all these years, Eliza's soul would be sorrowful in spite of her
great possessions. Back in the kitchen she would be gritting her teeth on the
fact that it was Sarah's son who was coming home, coming with money to
burn and a great and splendid will to burn it. She would exact payment, of
course, when the truth was known, but even the last ounce of payment
could not give her back this hour. For this hour, at least, it was hers to suffer

and Sarah's to reign. For this hour, at least, the heavily-weighted tables of
destiny were turned.

VI

That which had been the terrible Eliza sat still for a long moment after
Sarah had gone out. There was silence about the table until Elliman
Wilkinson took upon himself to speak.
"But Jim's never your son, Cousin Eliza?" he exclaimed, puzzled,
rushing in where not only angels would have feared to tread, but where the
opposite host also would have taken care to keep their distance. "It's very
stupid of me, of course, but I've always made sure that Geordie-an'-Jim
were twins."
Eliza turned baleful eyes upon the eager, inquisitive face. Her mind,
concentrated in sullen fury upon the enemy recently departed with banners,
found a difficulty in focussing itself upon this insignificant shape. When it
succeeded, however, she ground him into dust.
"Ay, well, next time you feel sure of anything, you can make certain
you're dead wrong!" she told him cruelly, surveying his bland countenance
with cold contempt. "Jim's my eldest, if you want to know, and as much the
better o' Geordie as Blindbeck's the better o' yon mudhole down on the
marsh! He was always the smarter lad o' the two,--'tisn't likely he'd ha' been
left.... I'll lay what you like it's Jim as is really coming, after all!"
"But in that case you would surely have heard from him yourself?"
Elliman was still disporting himself with the brazen folly of innocence upon

the forbidden ground. "He'd have written to tell his mother, surely,--not his
aunt?"
A distinct thrill of apprehension ran through the company at this tactful
speech. Mary Phyllis's nudge on this occasion was one of sharp reproof.
The clouds thickened on Eliza's brow.
"Nay, then, he just wouldn't, Mr. Clever-Lad-Know-All, so that's that!
I'm his mother right enough, as nobody but a fool would ha' needed telling,
but he wouldn't ha' written me, all the same. Me and Jim got across a while
back, and he's taken sulks with me ever since. He'd be like enough to write
to Sarah, by way of giving me back a bit o' my own. She always cockered
him fearful, did Sarah, and set him agen me whenever she could. And if
there's brass about, as she says, she'll keep it warm for him, never fear!
She'll take right good care it never gets past her to Blindbeck or any of his
own!"
"Jim would ha' been right enough but for Geordie all along." Mrs.
Addison shook a loose and agile bonnet with an impressive air. "He was a
right-down nuisance, was Geordie Thornthet,--a bad lad as well as a reg'lar
limb! Such tricks as he was up to, I'm sure,--turmut-lanterns and the like,
booin' at folks' winders after dark, and hiding behind hedges when folk was
courtin' about t'lanes! Stephen and me wasn't wed then, you'll think on, and
I mind a terble fright as Geordie give us one summer night. Stephen was
terble sweet on me, as you'll likely know, though he'd choke himself black
in the face afore he'd own to it now. Well, yon night as I'm speaking of he
had hold o' my hand, and was looking as near like a dying duck in a
thunderstorm as ever I see. 'Jenny Sophia,' he was saying, as sweet as a
field of clover, 'I'm that set on you, Jenny Sophia'--when up pops Geordie
on t'far side o' the hedge, girning and making a hullaballoo like a donkey
afore rain!"

"You've no call to go raking up yon d--d rubbish!" Mr. Addison burst
out, crimson to the hair, and quite forgetting the obligations of his Christian
mission. He had said the same thing to Eliza's eldest lass, and much about
the same time, and knew that Eliza knew it as well as he. "Folks isn't right
in their heads when they're courtin', as everybody knows, and it's real mean
to bring it agen 'em after all these years. As for Geordie Thornthet, there
was lile or nowt I could learn him, and that's sure! T'lasses was always after
him like bees at a bottle o' rum."
"Nay, now, you mean our Jim!" Jim's mother corrected him with an air
of offence. "Nobody never reckoned nowt o' Geordie but May Fleming. He
couldn't hold a candle to Jim, any day o' the week. Folk said they couldn't
tell 'em apart, but I never see a scrap o' likeness myself." She glanced
defiantly round the table, as if expecting opposition, and then swung round
eagerly as Sally reappeared. "Well, my lass, well?" she rapped out,--"did
she tell you anything more? You've taken your time about coming back, I'm
sure!"
"Nay, she said nowt fresh," Sally answered evasively, without meeting
her eyes. She advanced to the table and began to gather the china together,
ready for clearing away. Her mother pushed back her chair with an angry
scrape.
"Well, of all the gert, helpless gabies!" she exploded violently. "I made
sure she'd talk when she'd gitten you by herself. Didn't she say when letter
come, or how much brass there was, or owt? ... Eh, well, it's never Geordie
as made it, that I'll swear!"
"She said it was Geordie." Sally went on mechanically with her task,
collecting cups and plates from under the noses of the still-stupefied clan.
"It's real nice, anyway, to see somebody happy," she added suddenly, raising
her eyes to look at the smug cousin. Elliman met them unexpectedly and

coloured furiously. On a sudden remorseful impulse he shuffled a couple of
plates together, and handed them to her with a deprecating air.
"I can't say she looked very set up about it, anyhow!" Eliza sneered.
"What, she was even more glumpy than usual, seemed to me!"
"More like a burying than a home-coming, by a deal!" Mary Phyllis
finished for her, with a scornful laugh.
"As for Uncle Simon, he was as cross as a pair of shears!" Emily
Marion added in a fretted tone. The Thornthwaites were making things
awkward to-day for the bride-to-be. Simon had nearly queered the
engagement at the start, and now the company's interest was all for a
Thornthwaite whom she had never seen.
"Not how I should take good news, certainly!" Elliman said, hoping
that no one had noticed his menial act. "I should have something more to
say for myself, I hope, than that."
Eliza's eyes brightened considerably at this unanimous point of view.
"Nay, you're right there," she took them up eagerly, "you're right
enough! 'Tisn't natural to be so quiet. I'll tell you what it is," she added
impressively, "it's one o' two things, that's all. It's either a lie from
beginning to end, or else--or else--well, it's our Jim!" She pushed her chair
further still, and got hurriedly to her feet. "Ay, well, whichever it is, I'd best
see for myself," she added quickly. "You'll not mind me leaving you, Mrs.
Addison, just for a little while? I don't know as we're doing right to leave
Sarah so long alone. She's getting a bit of an old body now, you know, and
she was never that strong in her poor head."
She departed noisily after this surprisingly sympathetic speech, and
Sarah, hearing her heavy step along the passage, chuckled for the last time.
Her mind braced itself for the coming contest with a grim excitement that
was almost joy. Nothing could have been more unlike her attitude of the

morning in the inn-yard. She lay back in her chair again and closed her
eyes, and was rocking peacefully when Eliza opened the door.
Just for the moment the sight of the tranquil figure gave her pause, but
neither sleep nor its greater Counterpart could still Eliza for very long.
"Feeling more like yourself, are you, Sarah?" she enquired cautiously,
peering in, and then repeated the question when she got no answer. Finally,
irritated by the other's immobility which was obviously not sleep, she
entered the room heavily, shutting the door with a sharp click. "There's
nowt amiss, from the look of you," she added loudly, as she advanced.
Sarah exclaimed, "Eh now, whatever's yon!" at the sound of the harsh
voice, and sat up stiffly, winking her blind eyes. She even turned her head
and blinked behind, as if she thought the voice had come out of the
grandfather's clock. "Nay, I'll do now, thank ye," she answered politely,
discovering Eliza's whereabouts with a show of surprise. "It'll be about time
we were thinking of getting off."
Eliza, however, had no intention of parting with her just yet. She
stopped her hastily when she tried to rise.
"Nay, now, there isn't that much hurry, is there?" she demanded
sharply. "Yon old horse o' yourn'll barely have stretched his legs. Your
master and mine'd have a deal to say to each other an' all." She paused a
moment, creaking from foot to foot, and staring irresolutely at the mask-like
face. "You talked a deal o' stuff in t'other room, Sarah," she broke out at
last, "but I reckon you meant nowt by it, after all?"
Sarah wanted to chuckle again, but was forced to deny herself the
pleasure. For appearance' sake she stiffened her back, and bristled a little at
Eliza's tone.
"Ay, but I did!" she retorted briskly, her voice firm. "Whatever else
should I mean, I'd like to know?"

The strong hope that had sprung in Eliza's heart died down again
before this brazen show.
"You can't rightly know what you're saying, Sarah," she said coldly,
"you can't, indeed! Geordie coming after all these years,--nay, now, yon
isn't true!"
"Ay, but it is, I tell ye,--true enough! True as yon Sunday fringe o'
yourn as you bought in Witham!"
"And wi' brass, you said?" Eliza let the flippant remark pass without
notice, and Sarah nodded. "A deal o' brass?"
"Yon's what he says."
"Eh, well, I never did!" The angry wind of her sigh passed over Sarah's
head and rustled the honesty in a vase behind. She repeated "I never did!"
and creaked away from the enemy towards the window. Behind her,
Geordie's mother allowed the ghost of a smile to find a fleeting resting-
place on her lips.
"And so he's on his road home, is he,--coming right back?" Mrs. Will
kept her back turned, thinking hard as she spoke. There was no section of
Sarah's statement but she intended to prove by the inch. "Ay, well, it's what
they mostly do when they've made their brass."
"He'll be over here, I reckon, afore you can say knife! Taking first
boat, he says he is, or the fastest he can find." She turned her head towards
the door through which his voice had come in the dream. "What, I shouldn't
be that surprised if he was to open yon door now!"
There was such conviction in her tone that Eliza, too, was startled into
turning her head. There was nothing to see, of course, and she turned back,
but her ears still thrilled with the thrill in Sarah's voice. The cowman,
passing, saw her face behind the glass, and said to himself that the missis
was out for trouble once again.

She was silent for a while, trying vainly to grapple the situation in the
pause. She saw well enough that there was nothing to be gained by dispute
if the story were true. She still looked to be top-dog in that or any other
case, because Blindbeck pride was founded on solid Blindbeck gold; but
there was no denying that the enemy would lie in a totally different
position, and would have to be met on totally different ground. If, on the
other hand, the great statement was a lie, there would be plenty of time for
vengeance when the facts were known. Her malicious soul argued that the
real game was to give Sarah plenty of rope, but her evil temper stood in the
way of the more subtle method. It got the upper hand of her at last, and she
flung round with an angry swing.
"Nay, then, I can't believe it!" she exclaimed passionately,--"I just
can't! It's a pack o' lies, that's what it is, Sarah,--a gert string o' senseless
lies!"
This coarse description of her effort hurt Sarah in her artistic pride.
She stiffened still further.
"I reckoned you'd take it like that," she replied in a dignified tone.
"'Tisn't decent nor Christian, but it's terble nat'ral."
"I don't see how you could look for folks to take it different!" Eliza
cried. "'Tisn't a likely sort o' story, any way round. Ne'er-do-weels don't
make their fortunes every day o' the week, and your Geordie was a wastrel,
if ever there was one yet. You don't look like good news, neither, come to
that. They've just been saying so in t'other room."
"Good news wants a bit o' getting used to," Sarah said quietly, "same
as everything else. When you've never had no luck for years and years you
don't seem at first as if you could rightly take it in."
"More particular when you're making it up out o' your own head!"
Eliza scoffed, but growing more and more unwillingly convinced. "Nay,

now, Sarah!" she added impatiently, her hands twitching,--"what d'ye think
ye're at? What about all yon talk o' giving up the farm? No need for such a
to-do if Geordie's coming home!"
For the first time, though only just for a second, Sarah quailed. For the
first time she had a glimpse of the maze in which she had set her feet, and
longed sharply for her physical sight as if it would help her mental vision.
But her brain was still quick with the power of the dream, and it rose easily
to the sudden need. "It's like this, d'ye see," she announced firmly. "Simon
knows nowt about it yet. I didn't mean telling him till we'd gitten back."
Eliza had followed the explanation with lowering brows, but now she
burst into one of her great laughs.
"Losh, Sarah, woman! but I'd have a better tale than that! What, you'd
never ha' let him give in his notice, and you wi' your tongue in your cheek
all the time! ... When did you get yon precious letter o' yours?" she enquired
swiftly, switching on to another track.
"Just last minute this morning as we was starting off." Sarah was
thoroughly launched now on her wild career. Each detail as she required it
rose triumphantly to her lips. "Simon was back in t'stable wi' t'horse when
postman come, so I put it away in my pocket and settled to say nowt. I
thought it was likely axing for money or summat like that, and Simon had
more than enough to bother him as it was. I got May Fleming to read it for
me at doctor's," she finished simply, with a supreme touch. "I'm terble bad
wi' my eyes, Eliza, if you'll trouble to think on."
Once again Eliza was forced to belief against her will, and then once
again she leaped at the only discrepancy in the tale.
"You could ha' tellt Simon easy enough on the road out!" she threw at
her in a swift taunt. "There's time for a deal o' telling at your rate o' speed!"

But now, to her vexed surprise, it was Sarah who laughed, and with a
society smoothness that would have been hard to beat. It was in matters like
these that the dream lifted her into another sphere, puzzling her clumsy
antagonist by the finer air she seemed to breathe.
"Eh, now, Eliza!" she said good-humouredly, and with something
almost like kindliness in her voice, "whatever-like use is it telling a man
owt when he's chock full o' summat else? Simon was fit to crack himself
over some joke as he'd heard in Witham, talking a deal o' nonsense and
laughing fit to shake the trap! Coming from market's no time any day for
telling a man important news, and anyway I'd never ha' got a word in
edgeways if I'd tried." She paused a moment, and then continued, aspiring
to still greater heights. "I'd another reason an' all for wanting it kept quiet. I
knew he'd be sure an' certain to go shouting it out here."
"Ay, and why ever not, I'd like to know!" Eliza gasped, when she was
able to speak. "Come to that, you were smart enough shoving it down our
throats yourself!"
"Ay, but that was because I lost my temper," Sarah admitted, with a
noble simplicity which again struck the other dumb. "If I hadn't ha' lost my
temper," she added, "I should ha' said nowt,--nowt!"--a statement so
perfectly true in itself that it needed nothing to make it tell. "I never meant
you should hear it so sudden-like," she went on gently, the kindness
growing in her voice. "It's hard lines our Geordie should ha' done so well
for himself, and not your Jim. I never meant to crow over you about it,
Eliza,--I didn't, indeed. I never thought o' such a thing!"
Eliza was making a noise like a motor-car trying to start, but Sarah
took up her tale before she could reply.
"As for letting Simon give in his notice as we'd fixed, I don't know as
it'll make that much differ, after all. There's my eyes, for one thing, as I

mentioned before. Blind folk is only a nuisance wherever they be, but
they're a real, right-down nuisance on a farm. And Geordie'll want more nor
a farm, I reckon, wi' all yon brass to splash. He'll want summat wi' stables
and gardens and happen fishing an' all,--a grand gentleman's spot, likely,
same as the Hall itself."
Mrs. Will felt the world wheeling rapidly about her, and tried to clutch
at it as it went. Her temples throbbed and her throat worked, and her staring
eyes went blind. She groped her way to the window, and flung up the stiff
sash; and, as she stood there, drawing panting breaths, Simon and Will
came sauntering through the yard. Her eyes, clearing again in the rush of
air, caught the incipient smile on Simon's face, the new signs of interest and
life in his whole look. He could know nothing about the great news, if what
Sarah said was true; the utmost that he could do was to sense it in the air.
But his look of subtle contentment was a sufficient annoyance in itself. It
was the last straw, indeed, which broke the back of Eliza's self-control.
When she turned again her words and her breath came with the leap of a
mountain stream.
"I wonder you're not afraid, Sarah Thornthet, to be setting there reeling
off lies like hanks o' cotton off a bobbin! Happen you're just thinking you'll
get a rise out o' me and mine, but if that's the best you can do by way of a
joke, well, I think nowt on't, and so I tell you! Geordie coming home wi'
brass! Geordie wanting the Hall and suchlike! Nay, Sarah, I might ha'
believed the rest wi' a bit o' pulling and pushing, but yon last's taking it over
far. Why, I'd as lief believe he was going to get the King's Crown right out,
wi' mappen Witham Town Hall for a spot to live in! As for thinking o' me
and my feelings and suchlike stuff, you've never troubled that much about
'em to start bothering now. There's only two ways about it, Sarah, and I

reckon I know which it is. It's either a smart lie you've been telling from end
to end, or else it's never Geordie that's coming, but our Jim!"
She choked when she came to the last words, both from sudden
nervousness, and lack of breath, and again Sarah gave her well-bred laugh.
"I wouldn't be as hard o' faith as you, Eliza," she said placidly,--"not
for a deal! It's you, not me, would have heard if Jim was coming home.
What's Jim to do wi' me?"
"He'd a deal to do wi' you when he was in England, as everybody
knows! Nay, you hated the sight o' him,--that's true enough,--but you were
right keen on trying to set him agen me, all the same. What, the last letter I
had from him,--and terble saucy an' all,--was blacking me over summat I'd
said of you as his lordship didn't like! Nay, if he come home, Sarah, he'd
come to you, not me, and right glad you'd be to have him while he'd a
penny before his teeth! Ay, and why shouldn't our lad ha' done as well as
yours, and happen better, come to that? He was the smarter lad o' the two,
and come o' smarter folk,--ay, but he did now, Sarah, so you'll kindly shut
your mouth! You've only to look at the way we've done at Blindbeck, me
and Will, and then at the mess o' things you've made at yon pig-hull on the
marsh! It stands to reason our lad would be the likely one to make out, just
as it isn't in reason to expect owt from yours!"
She came a step nearer as she finished, twisting her plump hands, her
voice, as it mounted higher, full of bewilderment and angry tears.
"Will you swear to it Jim isn't coming, Sarah?" she demanded,--"will
you swear? Will you swear as it isn't my lad that's coming and not yours?"
Sarah said, "Ay, I will that!" in a hearty tone, and with such absolute
readiness that Eliza bit her lip. "If you've a Bible anywhere handy," she
went on tranquilly, "I'll swear to it right off."

But already Eliza had drawn back in order to follow a fresh trail. Quite
suddenly she had perceived the only means of getting at the truth.
"Nay, I'll not trouble you," she sneered. "'Tisn't worth it, after all. I
shouldn't like our grand Family Bible to turn yeller wi' false swearing!
Geordie's letter'll be proof enough, Sarah, now I come to think on. I'll
believe owt about Halls and suchlike, if you'll show me that!"
She came a step nearer still, holding out her hand, and instantly Sarah's
lips tightened and her eyes narrowed. She might have had a dozen sacred
letters about her, from the look of her, at that moment. It might have been
Geordie's face itself that she guarded from the touch of Eliza's hands.
"Ay, I'd be like to show you his letter, wouldn't I?" she answered, with
a wicked smile. "You and me have been such terble friends all these years,--
I'd be like to show you owt from my bonny lad! Nay, Eliza, you know I'd
shove it in t'fire unread, afore I'd let you as much as clap eyes on a single
word!"
Eliza wheeled away from her with an angry oath, and began to walk to
and fro, setting the loose planks jumping and creaking under her feet, and
the china rattling and clinking on the shelves. Her hands worked in and out
of each other with convulsive movements, and now and then she flung out
her heavy arms. She was working herself into one of those storms which the
folk at the farm knew only too well, but Sarah, who was the cause of it, did
not seem to care. She, too, however, was breathing faster than before, and a
faint colour had stayed in her waxen cheek. She still felt as if, in that last
bout, she had protected something vital from Eliza's hands.
"I'll be bound it's Jim!" Eliza was saying senselessly, over and over
again. "I'll swear it's Jim!" ... It was like a giant's voice, Sarah thought to
herself, the voice of a cruel, clumsy giant-child. "You're telling a lie, Sarah,-

-a nasty lie! You're jealous, that's what it is,--jealous and mean! Geordie wi'
brass? Not likely! ... Nay, it's Jim!"
"It's plain enough it's the brass you're after and nowt else," Sarah said
in her cool tones. "You'd have no use for the poor lad if he come back
without a cent!"
But even while the words were on her lips, Eliza, creaking to and fro,
was brought to a sudden halt. The thing that held her was a photograph of
Jim, catching her eye in its frame of crimson plush. If he had been older
when it was taken, it would have been banished long ago, but here he was
only a mischievous baby, struggling in his mother's arms. Eliza stared at it
as she stood in front of the mantelpiece, and quite suddenly she began to
cry. The tears poured down her face, and her hands trembled and her body
shook. Into the brutal voice came a note at which Sarah, unable to trace the
cause, yet quivered in every nerve.
"Nay, then, Sarah, you're wrong, Sarah, you're dead wrong! I'd be glad
to see him just for himself, I would that! He's been nowt but a trouble and
disappointment all his life, but I'd be glad to see him, all the same." She put
out the plump fingers which Sarah loathed, and drew them caressingly over
the baby face. "I can't do wi' failures," she added brokenly; "they make me
wild; and Jim was the only failure Blindbeck ever hatched. But for all that
he was the bonniest baby of the lot, and there's times I never remember
nowt but that. There's days I just ache for the sound of his voice, and fair
break my heart to think he'll never come back."
There was no doubting the sincerity of her grief, and the big sobs
shaking their way through her shook Sarah, too. Her own lips trembled, and
her eyes filled; her hands quivered on the arms of the chair. She could not
see the pitiful fingers stroking the child's face, but she who had offered that
worship herself needed little help to guess. She had her revenge in full as

she sat and listened to the passion that never dies, forcing its way upward
even through Eliza's leathern soul; but the revenge was a two-edged sword
that wounded herself as well. All the generosity in her that was still alive
and kind would have sprung to the surface instantly if the story had been
true. She would have groped her way to Eliza's side in an effort to console,
and perhaps the lifelong enemies might have drawn together for once. But
the story was not true, and she had nothing to offer and no right of any sort
to speak. She could only sit where she was and suffer and shake, hating
herself more in this moment of absolute conquest than she had ever hated
Eliza in her darkest hour.
But, as a matter of fact, Eliza's grief would have passed before she
could even have tottered to her feet. Her own lips were still shaking when
Eliza's had hardened again; her own eyes were still wet when Eliza's were
dry with hate. The passion which for a brief moment had been selfless and
sincere was turned once again into the channel of jealous rage. She swung
round so swiftly that her sleeve caught the little frame, and it fell forward
unnoticed with a sharp tinkle of broken glass.
"There's summat wrong about it all," she cried venomously, "and I'll
not rest till I find out what it is! What's Geordie mean by landing up so
smart, and leaving our Jim a thousand mile behind? It's a nasty sort o' trick,
if it's nothing worse, seeing how they were thick as thieves as lads. I'll tell
you what it is, Sarah, and you may swallow it as you can,--if Geordie's
gitten brass, it's because he's robbed it off our Jim! Like enough he's put an
end to him for it, the poor, honest lad--knifed him ... finished him ... put him
out o' the road...!"
The fierce malice of the voice penetrated into the passage, and carried
its message into the kitchen and the yard. Will and Simon heard it at the
stable door and looked at each other and turned instantly towards the house.

Passing the parlour window, they saw the women rigid on their feet, and felt
the current of hate sweep strongly across their path. They had a glimpse of
Sarah's face, white, blind and quiet: and Eliza's, vindictive, purple, and
bathed with furious tears. Her heavy tone beat at the other's immobility as if
with actual blows, and the glass in the cabinet rang and rang in sweet reply.
Will quickened his pace as he neared the house, for he knew that Eliza did
not always stop at words. Indeed, her hands were reaching out towards
Sarah's throat at the very moment he stepped inside.
"Whisht, can't ye, Eliza!" he ordered roughly, his voice harsh with the
swift reaction from the little space of content through which he and his
brother had just passed. "What's taken you, missis, to be going on like
yon?"
He was now in the parlour, with Simon at his heels, while the company
from the kitchen clustered round the door. Peering into the tiny arena round
each other's heads, they giggled and whispered, curious and alarmed. Sarah
could hear them stirring and gurgling just beyond her sight, and felt their
rapacious glances fastened upon her face. Sally tried to push her way
through to her aunt's side, but was stopped by the solid figure of Elliman,
set in the very front. The lads had forsaken the milking to run to the window
and peep in, and a dog lifted its bright head and planted its forefeet on the
sill. All the life of the place seemed drawn to this little room, where at last
the women were fighting things out to the very death.
"What's amiss, d'ye say?" Eliza echoed his speech. "Nay, what isn't
amiss! Here's Sarah has it her Geordie's a-coming home, but never a word
as I can hear about our Jim!"
The eyes of the brothers met in a startled glance, and the red came
painfully into Simon's face. Before they could speak, however, Eliza swept
their intention from them like a western gale.

"What's come to Jim, I want to know? Why isn't it our Jim? Geordie's
made his pile, so Sarah says, but I can't hear of a pile for Jim. He's dead,
that's what it is! ... Geordie's finished him, I'll swear! He's robbed him! ...
knifed him! ... given him a shove in t'beck...!"
Again she made that threatening movement towards Sarah's throat, but
Will put out his hand and caught her by the wrist. Both the giggles and
whispers had died a sudden death, and the lads at the window pressed
nearer and looked scared. Sally succeeded at last in forcing her way
through, careless that Elliman suffered severely as she passed.
"For goodness' sake, stop it, mother!" she cried sharply. "You're fair
daft! Can't you wait to make a stir till Geordie's landed back? He'll tell us
right enough then what's happened to our Jim."
"He'll tell us nowt--nowt----!" Eliza began again on a high note, but
Simon threw up his hand with a sudden snarl.
"Whisht, can't ye! You fair deafen a body, Eliza!" he flung out. "What's
all this stir about Geordie coming back?"
"It's a lie, that's what it is!" Eliza exploded again, and again he silenced
her with an angry "Whisht!" He kept his eyes on her a moment longer, as if
daring her to speak, and then let them travel slowly and almost reluctantly
to his wife's face. He opened his lips to address her and then changed his
mind, turning instead to the crew beyond the door.
"Tell me about it, can't you?" he demanded angrily. "One o' you speak
up! Emily Marion--Addison--you wi' the fat face!" He jerked a
contemptuous thumb at Elliman, who went crimson with extreme disgust.
"One o' you tell me the meaning o' this precious hullaballoo!"
Elliman looked across to Sally for help, but did not get it. Instead, she
turned her eyes away, ignoring his appeal.

"It's hardly my place to enlighten you, sir," he said, with an offended
shrug, "but I don't mind telling you the little I know. Apparently your son
Geordie is expected soon, and with a fat purse in his pocket to buy him a
welcome home."
"Geordie's coming back, d'ye say?" Simon stared at him with
bewildered eyes.
"So Mrs. Thornthwaite has given us to understand."
"And wi' brass? Plenty o' brass? Geordie wi' brass?"
"Enough and to spare, if all we're told is true."
"Ay, but that's just what it isn't!" Eliza broke out on a peacock scream,
and this time Will actually shook her into silence. The poignancy of the
moment had hushed the rest of the audience into complete quiet. There was
no sound in the room but Eliza's breathing as Simon turned again to look at
his wife.
"What's it all about, Sarah?" he asked quietly, though his voice shook.
"You never said nowt about Geordie coming to me."
In the pause that followed Sally drew away from her aunt's side, as if
conscious that this moment was for the two of them alone. The silence
waited for Sarah's answer, but she could not bring herself to speak. In the
heat of her victory she had forgotten that Simon also would hear the lying
tale. It was the only hitch in the splendid machinery of the lie, but it was
enough in itself to bring the whole of it to the ground. Here was Simon in
front of her, asking for the truth, and if a hundred Elizas had been present
she could still have given him nothing but the truth. But indeed, at that
moment, Eliza, and all that Eliza stood for, was swept away. In that hush
and sudden confronting of souls Sarah and Simon were indeed alone.
"Geordie's never coming, is he, Sarah?" he asked anxiously. "Nay,
you've dreamed it, my lass! And he's rich, d'ye say?--why, that settles it

right out! Why, it was nobbut the other day he was writing home for brass!"
Still she did not speak, and quite suddenly he was wroth, vexed by her
mask-like face and the sudden diminishing of his hope.
"Losh, woman!" he cried angrily. "You look half daft! Is yon lad of
ours coming, or is he not? Is it truth you're telling me, or a pack o' lies?"
She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound in his angry voice. She
gave a sigh. The fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and glorious, but it
had come to an end. "It was just lies," she heard herself saying in a
passionless tone, and then with a last twinge of regret, she sighed again.
Eliza's scream of "I knew it! I knew it!" merged in the chorus of
exclamation from the group about the door. Will said nothing, fixing his
sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but Simon fell back muttering, and
staring as if afraid. He wondered, looking at her unemotional face, whether
the trouble about her eyes was beginning to touch her brain. She herself had
said there was no knowing what blind weather might possibly do, no telling
what a blind body's brain might someday suddenly breed....
He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's voice as a man from the
dead hears the roar of life as he returns.
"I wonder you're not struck down where you stand, Sarah Thornthet! I
wonder you're not liggin' dead on t'floor! But you'll be punished for it, right
enough; you'll be paid for it, never fear! You'll see, summat'll happen to you
afore so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it happened before morn! Like enough,
the next news as we have o' Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned.... I'll
serve you a slap on t'lugs, Will, if you can't shape to let me be!"
It was Sally who saved the situation for the second time that day.
"Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look sharp about it!" she
commanded smartly, "and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah, until it's

round. Let her be, can't you!" she added roughly, flinging round on her
mother. "She's that tired and put out she don't know what's she's at."
She shook her fist at the window, and the faces disappeared like
morning frost. Then she turned on the others and ordered them out, too.
"You'd best be getting about your business!" she commanded them,
hand on hip. "You should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you know
that as well as me. I'd think shame o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to be
helping other folks' wi' their weekly wash! Same to you, Elliman
Wilkinson, and a bit over, come to that! You're not one o' the family yet by a
long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither, if you don't see to mend
your ways!"
Eliza still lingered, however, loth that anything should be left unsaid,
but Sally ushered her resolutely to the door. She protested to the last inch,
and the hand that had been denied judgment on Sarah flew up and slapped
Sally's face. The girl looked at her with scornful eyes.
"Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can you?" she said bitterly.
"You never could. I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it when we
were bairns. That was why he always liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than he
liked you!"
"You'll find other folk free wi' their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you're
that free wi' your impident tongue! Yon fool of an Elliman'll stand no
nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft! Not that he wants any truck wi'
you at all, as far as I can see. It's Mary Phyllis he can't take his eyes off, and
no wonder, neither. She was always a sight better-looking than you, and
she's younger, by a deal. You're that old and teptious you fair turn the cream
sour just by being along wi't in t'house! Nay, I reckon you can put wedding
and suchlike out o' your head as soon as you like! You'll never have a house

of your own, or a man to put in it; and as for bairns o' your own to slap,
why, you'll never have none o' them...!"
She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she
was reluctant to attack. In the few pauses that she allowed herself she could
hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest,
she waddled heavily away along the passage. She was in the dairy a minute
later, and saw through the window the brothers yoking the old horse.
Through the window, too, she caught scraps of their talk, and strained her
ears eagerly to catch its bent. As if by magic the anger left her face, and a
little smile grew happily on her lips. She even hummed a little tune to
herself, as she watched and listened, leaning against the frame....
The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was so
laden with words that it would hold no more. Sarah groped her way to the
rocking-chair and sat down again to wait. Sally went to the window, and
stared miserably into the yard. So they waited together until they heard the
rattle of the wheels along the stones....

VII

Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out. Eliza
had still to give it its finishing touch. The lately routed audience must have
been conscious of this, for they assembled again in order to watch the
Thornthwaites take their leave. As a rule, the Simons simply faded away,
unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will. They were not welcome when
they came, and they were not lamented when they went away. But to-day
Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd, arousing

unwilling admiration and even respect. The Addisons, for instance, though
outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime which they would
never have had the courage to commit themselves. Even Elliman was heard
to remark that Sarah's psychology seemed possibly worthy of study, after
all. The main motive with all, however, was a sneaking hope that, on some
ground or another, the opponents might go for each other again.
As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out of the house, and on
Sarah's appearance were to be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls, or
leaning in graceful attitudes against the porch. Sarah could not see them,
but Simon could, and divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot. The
Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap when Eliza came bustling
after them into the yard.
It was such a different Eliza, however, that at first it looked as if the
audience were to be cheated of their scene. The virulent harridan of ten
minutes ago had vanished as if she had never been. This Eliza was hearty,
smiling, serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued mocker which Sarah
detested most. Even her hair and dress, lately dishevelled by rage, were now
as tidy and sleek as the fur of a well-brushed cat. She came to a halt close
beside the wheel, and Sarah started when she heard her speak.
"So you're off, are you, Sarah? Ay, well, you'll be best at home! I
reckon our Sally's right, and you're not yourself at all. Mind and see doctor
again, first thing as ever you can. It's a bad sign, they say, to go making up
fancy tales. Folks as get telling lies is framing for softening of the brain."
Will looked back with a frown as he hurried on to open the gate.
"We've had enough o' that, missis!" he called sharply. "Just you let
Sarah be!"
Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to preserve her compassionate
air.

"Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly. "You've no call to speak so
sharp. I'm meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure! She's
welcome to tell lies till they turn her black in the face, but it isn't healthy for
her, all the same. I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in Garland's Asylum, or
some such spot as yon. Ay, well, we'll be having her close at hand afore so
long, and then we can do our best for her ourselves!"
Sarah started a second time when she said that, and the pig-sty
audience brightened and pricked its ears. Simon muttered an oath and
pulled at the horse until it sidled and backed, forcing the subtle tormentor to
retreat.
"You stand back, missis," he cried angrily, waving a threatening whip,
"and take your long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in t'road!"
There was a burst of laughter at this show of wit, and Eliza flared
instantly into open war. She raised her voice after the departing pair,
stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet.
"You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called
shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"
The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short. Simon, red
to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it was
checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand.
"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on. What's Eliza
meaning to say by that?"
Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces
on all sides. "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get away.
"It's time we were getting on, missis. Ax me on t'road!"
"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing
again. "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp! Likely you've
been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm? Ay, well,

our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your master's
thinking o' taking it on."
There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was
hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those
nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which she
had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream. The next moment Simon had
thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out of the
still yard....
Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting
into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause. But for once her usually
appreciative audience failed her of her due. They avoided her eyes and
looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a
passionate interest in the pigs. The Addisons, in whom Christian charity
was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid thanks for their
entertainment, and hurried away. Even the smug cousin refused to play up
to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent fineness of feeling which she
had hurt, but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes. Turning his back
determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's
ear. She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then
followed him slowly towards the track across the fields.

VIII

Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm.
"Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up. "Just
hold on a minute, and let me see."
He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the
house, and wondering uneasily what she was about. She knew the house
well enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it
just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was
wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to live
in it herself.
When he found that she did not speak, he began to offer clipped
remarks, anxiously pointing out objects that she was quite unable to see.
"It's a good house, missis.... You'll remember it's a tidy spot. There's a
fairish garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of a drying-ground as
well. As for berry-bushes, there's gooseberry and black currant and red ...
and danged if there isn't a few rasps over at far side wall an' all!"
Sarah looked away from the house the moment he started to speak, as
if some spell were broken by the sound of his voice. "Ay," she said, with a
total lack of interest, and staring ahead.... "Now, master, we'd best get on."
Simon, cut off in mid-flight, repeated "Rasps!" in a feeble tone, and
again Sarah said "Ay," and requested him to get on. He drove away rather
reluctantly, looking behind him as he went, and muttering of Taylor's rasps
and cabbishes until they were finally lost to sight.

Now once more they were in the high-flanked lane, with Blindbeck
and all that Blindbeck stood for fallen away at last. The cross went with
them, indeed, but the calvary dropped behind. The horse turned homeward,
and, encouraged by Will's corn, showed a sudden freakish revival of
vanished youth. Bicycles met and passed them in the narrow road, sliding
by like thistledown on a wind, while the riders saw only an elderly couple
apparently half asleep. Yet even the dullest farm-lad would have cried aloud
to them if he had known to what they went. He would have flung himself
off his bicycle and barred the road, a humble but valiant imitation of an
Angel of God.
Evening was coming, but the day was still alive, incredibly long as the
afternoon had seemed. Simon's old watch, put right that morning in
Witham, asserted that it was only half-past four. The atmosphere had never
been really light, and only imperceptibly was it drawing down to dusk. The
grey seemed to have deepened and settled a little, but that was all. It was a
day on which people forgot the time, as Mr. Dent had said, a day when they
had every excuse for forgetting the right time. Simon felt suddenly as
though he had never seen the sun either rise or set for at least a week.
Yesterday there had been only a swift setting, hurriedly blotted out, and to-
day, if there had been any fugitive brightness of farewell, it must have
passed while they were still at the farm. The night was coming unduly to
the grey-green land which had never had its meed of sun, just as the night
came unfairly to lives whose share of glamour and glory had been missed.
He longed to see a light spring out of the west, showing the silver water in a
shining line, and re-tinting the heavy, neutral-coloured earth.
Sun,--evening sun lying over the sea,--would have made things easier
for both of them, but especially for his wife. Even though there was so little
that she could see, the warmth and light would at least have lain tenderly

upon her lids. Trouble and change were always easier to bear under a
smiling sky; it did not mock at the trouble, as smiling faces so often seemed
to do. Rain and the dark seemed to narrow a trouble in, so that change was a
nameless peril into which each step was into a void. But there was to be no
sun for these lost folk who seemed to be straying all the day long; only the
unstirred breath of the mist in the blotted west, filling the mighty bowl at
whose bottom lay the sea.
They felt strange with each other, now that they were alone, because of
all that the other had done while the two of them were apart. Simon's
sudden decision was as inexplicable to his wife as her afternoon's jest with
Eliza had seemed to him. In his place she would never have stooped to
make of herself the younger brother's man; she would have worked for the
hardest driver amongst them sooner than that. Even the close affection
between the brothers could not dignify the position in her eyes. She could
understand something of Simon's yearning towards the farm, but Sarah was
never the sort of which they make doorkeepers in Heaven. She would never
really have understood the strength of the pull, even with no Eliza set like a
many-eyed monster on the farmyard wall. He, on the other hand, could not
even pretend to understand the Lie, but then the Vision of the Parlour had
been granted to her and not to him.
Both their minds, however, were at work more on the change that was
coming than on Sarah's sudden craze, since always the pressing business of
life must supersede the dream. Simon, indeed, did not want to think about
Sarah's behaviour further than he could help, because of that sinister saying
about the doings of blind brains. As for Sarah herself, she had done with the
dream for ever in that moment when she came face to face with the limits of
her lie. It had had its tremendous hour in the down-treading of a lifelong
foe, but in that one stupendous achievement it had finally passed. Never

again would she be able to shut herself in the spell, until the blind saw and
the lost spoke, and the sea was crossed in a leap. Never again would she be
able to believe that Geordie might come home.
In spite of their shameful departure, fast fading, however, from his
mind, Simon was already planning the bitter-sweet prospect of their near
return. Like so many ideas impossible and even repellent at the start, this
had already become natural and full of an acid charm. For the time being he
was content to ignore the drawbacks of the position, and to concentrate only
upon its obvious gains. His mind, hurrying forward over the next few
months, was already disposing of stock, farm-implements and surplus
household gear; and in his complete absorption he forgot that he was not
alone, and kept jerking out fragments of disjointed speech. Sarah allowed
him to amuse himself after this fashion for some time, and then broke dryly
into his current of thought.
"You may as well tell me what's settled, and get it by with," she
observed in a sardonic tone. "So far, even Eliza seems to know more about
it than me. You and Will seem to ha' fixed things up wi' a vengeance, that
you have! You'd best to tell me how it come about, instead of booing away
to yourself like a badly calf."
"Nay, it was all fixed that sharp," Simon grumbled, with an injured air,
though very relieved at heart to hear her speak. "There was no time to ax
nobody nor nowt. I'm still a bit maiselt about it myself, for the matter o'
that. I don't know as I'll be that surprised if I hear to-morrow it's all off. As
for Eliza, it fair beats me how she could ha' got wind of it so smart! She
likely hid herself somewheres when we was talking it out; though she's not
that easy to miss,--gert, spying toad!"
He brisked considerably now that the first awkwardness was past, and
went on to tell her, after his usual backwards and forwards fashion, exactly

how the new arrangement had come about.
"It's not much to crack on, I dare say," he finished, pleading with her
across the disapproving silence which had again risen between them like a
wall, "but, when all's said and done, it's a sight better than I'd looked for, by
a deal. I'd ha' been bound to hire myself somewheres, to help us make out,
and there isn't a decenter master in t'countryside than Will. It's a deal better
than being odd-job man at some one-horse spot, or maybe scrattin' up
weeds and suchlike at some private house. There'll be a decent wage, think
on, and milk,--ay, and happen a load o' coal an' all. Will'll see as we're
rightly done by, never fret! We'll be right comfortable, I'm sure. Will says
his lasses'll give you a hand wi' washing and the like, and if happen we get
a good sale we might run to a bit o' help ourselves. You'll miss t'horse and
cart, I reckon, but we'll find a way out o' yon as well. If you felt as you
fancied a bit of a ride, Will'd like enough loan me a horse and trap."
He was coaxing her for all he was worth, but neither the coaxing nor
the explanation seemed to get any further than her ears. Again he felt the
spasm of irritation which he had felt in the parlour, and was at the same
time reminded of its original cause.
"I don't say it'll be over pleasant for either on us," he went on vexedly,
as she did not open her lips, "but you'll likely admit I did the best I could for
us, all the same. It's a sad pity you and Eliza pull together so bad, but it's
over late to think o' mending it now. Anyway, you did nowt to mend it by
telling yon string o' lies this afternoon! What, in the name o' goodness,
made you act so strange?"
She moved then, a touch of the afternoon glamour reaching from
Blindbeck, and following her down the lane.
"Nay, I don't know.... Things come over folk, now and then. I'm right
sorry, though, if I set you thinking it was the lad."

"I've given up thinking owt o' the sort long since," he said dejectedly.
"I should ha' thought you would ha' done the same an' all."
"Things come over folk," she repeated, unwilling to say more, and he
nodded his head, relieved by her softer tone. "You'll try to make up your
mind to Blindbeck, will you, missis?" he pressed on nervously, hoping her
mood would last. "It's a bad best, maybe, but I nobbut did what I could."
She gave a sharp sigh, but her voice was firm. "Ay, I'll make up my
mind to it, after a bit."
"It's a big change at our time of life, but you'll settle, never fear."
"Ay, I'll settle all right. Don't you fret."
"It's a good shop, Sarah."
"Ay."
"And Will's a right good sort."
"Oh, ay."
The sudden gentleness of her mood prompted him to a further
unburdening of his soul. He leaned forward a little in the trap, staring over
the grey fields, and with the note of pleading rising and falling in his tone.
"I don't mind telling you now, Sarah, but I've been fair fretted out o'
my senses all this while. There's been times I've felt like just making off on
t'sands, and letting tide settle it for me for good an' all. Ay, and by Gox! it
very near come about, too, one day when I was mooning along and not
looking where I was at! But there was you to see to, and I couldn't rightly
bring myself to chuck up the sponge. 'Tisn't as if the lad was dead, neither,--
there was that as well. He's as good as dead, likely, but it's a different thing,
all the same. Folks can get along on a mighty little hope,--same as yon old
horse as died just when it was learning to live on nowt! We've come to a
bonny pass, these days, you and Geordie an' me, but the world isn't past
bearing as long as the three on us is over sod."

It was with a sense of enlightenment and escape that they came out
finally on to the high road, for in the cleft of the lane every curve of the
land stole what little clarity was left to the slowly withdrawing earth. Even
Sarah was faintly conscious of lightened lids, as well as of easier breathing
as the borders of the road drew further apart. In the lane they had been high,
looming presences, over-close to the lurching wheels, but now they ceased
to oppress her, though she was still aware that they marched with her as she
went. It was as if the furniture of the land was being withdrawn into the
wings before the curtain of night was really down; yet even in its slow
departure it still formed the picture and dominated the scene. The only real
comfort for brain and eyes was on the unfurnished marsh, where even the
fenced roads lifted themselves as often as not above their fences to look
abroad.
There was more life, also, on the open road,--cycles and traps, and
people walking in twos and threes; motor-cars, too, at which Simon never
so much as glanced aside, though now they were really beginning to look
like ghosts in the sinking light. Even when there was nobody on the road
there was still the sense of being part of an unseen train, the link which
binds traveller to traveller on every principal highway in the land, but
especially on those which run north and south. The link strengthens and the
thrill deepens as the day lengthens and the hours go on. Each wonders
instinctively to what home the other is hastening before he is overtaken by
the dark. From each to each at the hour of dusk passes the unconscious
Godspeed uniting all who are drawing together towards the adventure of the
night.
And, for Simon and Sarah, as for all, either man or beast, even in this
bitter hour, there was the comfort of the road that goes home. There is
always a lamp set high in the house to which one returns, even though it be

poor and empty and dark. The greatest sorrow awaiting one at the end is not
really a sorrow until one steps inside. The ease of the road home is the
ineffable ease of the mind. Stout hearts and limbs may carry us out, and
barely suffice to stagger us back, but the running and leaping mind can
comfort the body on. There is always a lamp set high at the end of the road
that is going home....
Not until they had lost it would they realise the perpetual consolation
of that long-accustomed road. Times without number they had travelled it,
seething with anger and hate, and yet always they were the richer for having
passed that way. Simon, busily thinking of Blindbeck and all the advantages
of the wealthy farm, did not know that he was putting his real wealth from
him with every thought. Yet he would know it all the rest of his life when he
drove a road that was not consecrated by the years, when the folk that
hailed them in passing were not part of a lifelong chain; when the turns of
the road were no longer pictures and books, with each house where it
should be and would be for all time; when he stopped at a gate in the dusk
and knew it was not his; when he entered a meaningless building at last and
knew it was not home....
But just for the moment he was thinking neither of the immediate
present nor of the greater part of his long-reaching past. His mind,
unusually stimulated by the day's events, swung easily to and fro between
the future at Blindbeck and the far-off boyhood which he had spent with
Will. Blindbeck had never been his home in any sense, but his call to
Blindbeck was nevertheless the call of the past. They would renew their
youth for each other, the two old men, and forget when they were together
that they were old. They turned instinctively to each other, as all turn to
those who can recreate for them the young beginnings of their lives. On the
marsh Simon always felt immeasurably old, weighted as with an actual

burden by the years. He saw himself looking behind him at them as at
monsters created in his pride, which now and for ever were out of his
control. With Will beside him, they would lie in front as they used to do,
rolling meadowlands still untouched by the plough of time. Because they
had been young together it would be impossible for them to be really old.
Because they had been young together they could took smiling, shoulder to
shoulder, into the unbelievable grave.
Not that his longing had any such definite frame of thought as this,
though he was aware that in it had lain the motive which had fixed his
mind. He only moved towards its fulfilment as all untutored souls move
naturally towards release from strain. He scarcely remembered Sarah after
their talk had come to an end that was hardly an end, like an unravelled
cord of which no one troubles to count the untwisted strands. That mighty
leap which he was taking across the years carried him well above both
Sarah's and Geordie's heads. The school-years, the climbing, running,
hungry years were more distinct to him than the heavy, responsible years of
marriage and middle life. He saw himself and Will running after the
hounds, paddling in calm lakes of gold-shot evening tides, skating by
slowly rising moons. He saw a raw lad going shyly but stolidly to his first
place, already a man in the awed estimation of the brother left behind. He
heard the clink of the first money he had ever earned, which had gone
straight from his pocket into the family purse. He had handed it over
without a twinge of regret, and his empty hands had continued to thrill with
pride. Later, he had begged a couple of shillings for himself and Will, and
had never thought of the money then or since but as a gift....
They came at last to the dangerous, right-angled turn which dropped
them down to the marsh, and as the horse began to jerk itself down the hill a
car passed slowly above them along the open road. Although the day still

lingered, the tail-light was already lit, as if the car were setting out on a
journey instead of going home. Yet it went slowly and almost reluctantly,
like a man who looks over his shoulder all the while. It was as if it was only
waiting its opportunity to turn itself in its tracks. But all the time it was
drifting gradually away, and the red light, that could hardly as yet impress
itself on the dusk, seemed to hesitate for a moment at a curve of the road,
and then, as if a hand had been clapped in front of it, was suddenly gone.
The drop from the highway was like being dropped from a cliff, so
distinct was the change to the loneliness of the marsh. The link was broken
which made them members of a purposed line, leaving them mere strayed
wanderers of whom nobody was aware. The few farmhouses, lifeless-
looking in the deadened light, stared always towards great distances over
their puny heads. The few trees sprang up before them, suddenly strange,
acquiring an almost violent personality against the meaningless scene.
The straight miles dragged reluctantly past their heavy wheels, and on
the unending road they seemed to go forward without purpose and to be set
on a journey that had no goal. When at length the stretches of meadow and
cropped land gave place to the pale-coloured desert of the sand, there
seemed no possible reason why one should cease and the other begin. Away
out behind the mist there was a living, moving tide, but here on the marsh
there was no consciousness of tide. Things just stopped, that was all, and
from the garden became the waste, just as the growth and renewal of life
had stopped for the old pair, leaving nothing but desolation before their feet.
Yet still the earth was with them, and Simon turned his eyes again and
again to its vague outlines with relief. Across the bay the cone of the Knott
still held to its tangibility and form, protesting against the swamping hand
of night. The crown of it, fitted with wood as closely as with a cap, was
darker against the sky than the shadowy slopes on which the houses

climbed. And, nearer inland still, on the low edge of shore that was like a
trail of smoke on the farther side of the sands, a blur of formless yet
purposeful grey showed where the tiny hamlet of Sandyeat clustered about
the 'Ship.'
Sandholes was in sight now, and the horse quickened its pace,
triumphing over the last few wearisome yards. As they approached the
house, with its white face set on a body of looming buildings behind, they
had as always a mingled sensation of sadness and relief. Not that the place
was sad to them because of its dreary emptiness set amongst formless
fields. In the course of years it had become for them merely an atmosphere,
not a thing of sight. They were only depressed by it because for them it was
the heart of failure and loss. And in the same way they were relieved by it,
dignified, sanctuaried and consoled, because this was their hiding-place
against the world, and here the heart of their few memories of joy.
The house was dark, but they were accustomed to that, used to the
door that would not open, however they knocked, and the windows that for
ever would never frame a face, however they hailed. They were used to that
stumbling into the place in the folding dark, to the striking of a match that
brought them nothing but the dreary waiting rigidity of the things they had
left behind. They were used, too, to an uprising fear on the struck light that
some terrible change might have taken place in the empty house; that even
the waiting things might have played them false while they were gone....
So lonely looked the place, that it seemed as if it might even revenge
itself upon those who had the temerity to awaken it during that sinking
hour, but, as they reached the gate, the old dog asleep in a loose box
aroused himself to a hoarse, recognising bark. The few cows, also, waiting
to be fed, sent out deep complaints at the sound of the coming wheels. And

as they finally rattled into the uneven yard, a woman's figure stood up and
waved to them from the sea-wall.

PART III

MAY

I

The afternoon which had seen Sarah's short-lived splendour had been sweet
also for May. Sweeter, indeed, since for her there was no clashing of fierce
passions to jar the tender witchery of her mood. And though the glamour
was of the past,--a sheet of gold as of sunlight far at the back of her mind; a
sea of gold from which she moved ever inward towards the darkness of the
hills,--a tongue of light had suddenly darted from it to stream like a golden
wind-blown ribbon over her path. That light was the knowledge that in her
own hands lay the possibility of Geordie's return.
Youth came back to her with the thought, and she sat straighter still in
the trap, holding her unused whip at a jaunty angle across the elastic bar of
the reins. The good horse swung homewards in a generous stride; the bright
wheels of the dog-cart flashed through the dull country like a whirled
autumn leaf. The passers-by found a special sweetness in her ready smile,
because it reflected the secret in her heart. As they went on their way they
said what they always said,--that it was a marvel she had not married long
ago.

Yet the secret, fair as it was, had also the folly of all great ventures,
since, in laying her hands upon the future, she risked the memory that had
coloured her whole life. To bring Geordie home might mean nothing but
disappointment for herself, sordid disappointment and shame for a mis-
spent girlish dream. Things would be different, at the very best; part of the
memory would have to go. But the chief people to be considered were the
old folks who had so often been the footballs of fate. Nothing that she might
fear on her own account should stand in the way of this sudden fulfilment
for a frustrated old man, this light to the eyes for an old woman going blind.
In any case May was the sort that would tenderly handle the cracked and
mended pot right up to the moment of dissolution at the well. No
disappointment that Geordie could bring her would remain sordid for very
long. Out of her shattered idols her wisdom and humour would gather her
fresh beauty; clear-eyed, uplifting affection for youthful worship, and pity
and tenderness for passion.
It was true that Sarah had already rejected her offer,--brutally, almost,
in her determination that May should suffer no further for her son. But May
had already almost forgotten the rough sentences which for the time being
had slammed the opening door in her eager face. Sarah was strong, she
knew, but she herself, because of love in the past and pity in the present, felt
stronger still. She said to herself, smiling, that sooner or later she would
find an argument that would serve. Sooner or later Sarah would yield, and
share with secret delight in the surprise that they would so gaily prepare for
the old man. Sooner or later the boat would put out from port that carried
the lost lad,--Geordie, with his pockets empty but his heart full, and every
nerve of him reaching towards his home.
Now she had turned the end of the bay, and was running along the flat
road that hugged the curve of the shore. Below on her right were the sands,

almost within flick of her whip, with the river-channel winding its dull
length a hundred yards away. Beyond it, the sand narrowed into the arm of
the marsh, until the eye caught the soft etching of the Thornthwaite farm,
set on the faint gold and green of the jutting land.
The inn, low, white-faced, dark, with all the light of it in the eyes that
looked so far abroad, was very quiet when she came to it about three
o'clock. The odd-job man was waiting about to take her horse, and she
paused to have a word or two with him in the yard. Then she went briskly
into the silent place, and at once the whole drowsy air of it stirred and
became alive. The spotlessness of the house seemed to take on a sparkling
quality from the swift vitality of her presence. The very fire seemed to burn
brighter when she entered, and the high lights on the steels and brasses to
take a finer gleam. Her father called to her from the room where he lay
upstairs, and her buoyant tread, as she went up, seemed to strengthen even
his numb limbs and useless feet.
She sat by his bed for some time, telling him all the news, and
conveying as much as she could of the hiring and marketing stir combined.
This particular person had wished to know how he was; the other had sent
him a message to be delivered word for word. One had a grandmother who
had died in similar case; another a remedy that would recover him in a
week. Bits of gossip she had for him, sketches of old friends; stories of old
traits cropping up again which made him chuckle and cap them from the
past. By the time she had finished he was firmly linked again to life, and
had forgotten that deadly detachment which oppresses the long-sick.
Indeed, he almost forgot, as he listened, that he had not been in Witham
himself, hearing the gossip with his own ears and seeing the familiar faces
with his own eyes. For the time being he was again part of that central
country life, the touchstone by which country-folk test reality and the truth

of things, and by contact with which their own identity is intensified and
preserved.
But her eyes were turned continually to the window as she chatted and
laughed, dwelling upon the misty picture even when they were not followed
by her mind. Only her brain answered without fail when her gaze travelled
to the farm on the farther shore. Gradually the picture shadowed and
dimmed in line, but still she sat by the bed and laughed with her lips while
her heart looked always abroad. Neither she nor her father ever drew a blind
in the little inn. They had lived so long with that wide prospect stretching
into the house that they would have stifled mentally between eyeless walls.
She talked until he was tired, and then she made his tea, and left him
happy with the papers which she had brought from Witham. Her own tea
she ate mechanically, with the whole of her mind still fixed on the promise
of the day, and when she had finished she was drawn to the window again
before she knew. The Thornthwaites would be home by now, she
concluded, looking out. Tired and discouraged, they would be back again at
the farm, feeling none of the quivering hope which lifted and thrilled her
heart. Sarah would not even dwell on the offer, having put it by for good,
and Simon did not as much as know that there had been an offer at all. They
would creep to bed and sleep drearily, or wake drearily against their will,
while she would wake of her own accord in order to clasp her purpose and
find it still alive. She could not bear the thought of the long, blank night
which would so soon be wrapping them round; even a stubborn refusal of
her hope would be a better friend to them than that. Stronger and stronger
grew the knowledge within her that she must see them before they slept. It
was for their sake, she told herself, at first, thirsting to be across, and then,
as she clinched her decision, knew it was also for her own.

She went upstairs again to put on her coat and hat, wondering as she
did so what her father would have to say. He would be sure to enquire what
took her across the sands so late, yet he would wonder and fret if she left
him without a word. Geordie's name had dropped into silence between them
for many a year, and, lately as she had spoken it to Sarah, it would be hard
to speak it now. She knew only too well what her father would think of her
offer of hard-saved gold. He had always been bitter against Geordie for her
sake, and would want no wastrel fetched overseas to play on her pity again.
She stole half-way down the stairs, and then was vexed with herself and
went up again with a resolute tread. Once more she hesitated, with her hand
on the door-latch, and then it slipped from her finger and she found herself
in the room.
Fleming looked up from his paper with his faded eyes. "Off again,
lass?" he enquired, noticing how she was dressed. "Is there a pill-gill
Milthrop way to-night?"
She shook her head.
"Not as I know of.... Nay, I'm sure there's not." She stood staring at
him, uncertain what to say, and then her eyes, as if of their own accord,
turned back towards the sands. "I just felt like going out a bit again, that's
all."
"Likely you're going up road for a crack wi' Mrs. Bridge?"
"Nay ... I didn't think o' going there."
"To t'station, happen?"
"Nor that, neither...." There was a little pause. "Just--out," she added,
and the note in her voice seemed to reach before her over the sandy waste.
Fleming heard it, and saw the track of her gaze as well.
"What's up, lass?" he asked quietly, letting his paper drop. "What d'you
want to do?"

She braced herself then, swinging round to him with one of her
cheerful laughs. "You'll think I'm daft, I know," she said, looking down at
him with dancing eyes, "but I'm right set on seeing Mrs. Thornthet again to-
night. We'd a deal to say to each other this morning, but we didn't finish our
talk. I thought I could slip over sand and back before it was dark."
Fleming looked perturbed.
"It's over late for that, isn't it?" he asked. "Light's going pretty fast an'
all. Hadn't you best bide till morning, and gang then?"
"I don't feel as I can. I'm set on going to-night. I've often been across
as late, you'll think on. I'll take right good care."
"What about tide?"
"Not for a couple of hours yet, and I've not that much to say. Boat's
ready alongside channel; it nobbut wants shoving off. I'll be there and back
before you can say knife."
"Ay, well, then, you'd best be off, and look sharp about it!" Fleming
conceded in a reluctant tone. "I'll have t'lamp put in winder as usual to set
you back. Don't you get clattin' now and forget to see if it's there."
"I'll look out for it, don't you fret. Like as not I'll never go inside the
house. There's just something I want to make sure of before I sleep."
She nodded brightly and began to move away, but he called her back
before she reached the door. With the quickness of those who lie long in a
sick room, he had noticed the change in her atmosphere at once.
Restlessness and impatience were strange things to find in May, and there
was a touch of excitement in her manner as well. He looked at her
thoughtfully as she retraced her steps.
"Is there any news o' that wastrel lad o' theirs? Happen he's thinking o'
coming back?"

The words spoken from another's mouth brought a rush of certainty to
her longing mind. She answered him confidently, as if she held the actual
proof.
"That's it, father! That's right." She laughed on a buoyant, happy note.
"Our Geordie's coming home!"
"To-night?" Fleming's mouth opened. "D'ye mean he's coming to-
night?"
"Nay, I don't know about that!" She laughed again. "But it'll be before
so long. I feel as sure about it as if he was knocking at Sandholes door!"
"You've no call to be glad of it, as I can see," Fleming said, with a
touch of fretfulness in his tone. "Are you thinking o' wedding him after all
this time?"
Her head drooped a little.
"I'm past thinking o' that, and he'll have been past it long ago. I'm just
glad for the old folks' sake, that's all. It's like as if it was somebody dead
that was coming back, so that I needn't believe in death and suchlike any
more. It's like as if it's myself as is coming back,--as if I should open door
and see the lass I used to be outside."
"I'd be glad to see you settled afore I went, but not wi' an idle do-nowt
as'd spoil your life. It'll be queer to me if Geordie Thornthet's made much
out. He was a wastrel, right enough, for all his wheedlin' ways."
"I'm past thinking o' marriage," she said again. "It's just what it means
to the old folks, poor old souls!"
"Ay. They've had a mighty poor time, they have that." He sighed,
thinking of many a tale of woe unfolded by Simon beside his bed. Then he
looked up at her with a whimsical smile. "They'd nobbut the one bairn,
same as your mother and me, and there's been whiles I've been real mad
because you weren't a lad. Ay, well, I've lived to see the folly o' my ways,

and to thank God I'd nobbut a lass! You're worth a dozen Geordie
Thornthets any day o' the week...."
She was gone with an answering smile directly he finished his speech,
and the sound of her feet was light and swift on the stair. Hearing her, he,
too, seemed to see her a girl again, gone to meet Geordie Thornthwaite
along the shore. But instead of reviving and cheering him, it made him sad.
He was too near the end to wish himself back at the start. He glanced at the
lamp on the table to make sure that it was filled, and settled himself back to
his papers with a sigh.

II

May stopped to speak to the hired girl as she went out, and was alarmed by
the creeping dusk already in the inn. She breathed again when she was in
the road, and saw the dull light holding yet on either hand. The soft closing
of the door behind her back gave her a long-forgotten thrill, bringing back
similar autumn evening hours, when she had gone to meet a lover from over
the sands.
She got down to the shore about the time that the scene at Blindbeck
was drawing to an end. She hurried, not only because she had little or no
time to waste, but because she could not have gone slowly if she had tried.
The young May had never gone slowly, who was all kindness and knew
nothing of pride. She ran down the shingle and across the sand, only
pausing to draw breath and to reprove herself at the channel's edge. Passers-
by on the flat road stopped to stare at her as she sped across, wondering
what she could be doing at that hour. Pausing, she looked across at the farm

before she bent to the boat, chiding herself for her almost childish haste.
But her tongue ached to let loose the words of persuasion that she carried
with her, and her heart ached for the word of permission that she was sure
she would carry back. She did not doubt for a moment that Sarah would
give way, so strong was her inward belief that Geordie was coming home.
At last she pushed off, stepped in and punted herself across, and once
out again on dry ground tried to hold herself to a walk. The sand, ribbed and
hard beneath her feet, spoke to the fact that the tide had been gone for
hours. It was extraordinary how forgotten the sands always seemed as soon
as the tide had gone away. Only those who had proved it by daily
experience could believe that the water would ever return. Even to them it
remained something of the miracle that it was in truth, arousing continually
a thrill of awed surprise. Yet, side by side with that impression of final
retreat, of waste that had always been waste and would never be reclaimed,
was one of a brooding terror that was only waiting its hour. The sea and the
sands were like cat and mouse, May thought,--the one, aloof, indifferent,
yet always poised to leap; the other, inert, paralysed though apparently free,
and always the certain victim in the end.
She looked behind and before from the quiet home which she had left
to the still more lonely and quiet house which was her goal. There was a
point about half-way across at which it seemed as if she would never reach
the one, never get back to the other in all time. Both seemed to recede from
her equally as she moved, vague shapes formed only of imagination and the
mist. Just for a moment that vagueness of things which she knew to be
concrete caught her by the throat. The little that she could see of the earth
was so cloudlike, so lacking in sturdy strength. The very shore of the marsh
looked as though a breath might dissolve it in thin air. Though the distance
across was little more than a mile, the feeling of space around her was

infinite as the sky. The sands seemed suddenly to become a treadmill under
her feet, turning and turning, but never bringing her to the horizon which
she sought. The whole doorway of the bay was blocked by the great wall of
mist, and over the Lake mountains there was a smother of mist, and mist
over all the land that went east to the Pennine range. She began to fear even
the crinkled sand which felt so firm, as if it might suddenly sway and shift
like one of the many traps with which the bay was sown. Behind her, the
grey, faint-gleaming strip of the channel seemed to cut her off from her safe
home. A slice of the bank broke suddenly with an echoing spash, chilling
her with the lonely terror of water that has a victim in its hold. The boat,
helpless-looking, inert, a mere black speck on the channel edge, seemed the
only insoluble thing beside herself. She longed for the comfort of her feet
on the tarred boards, for the reassurance of her hands against the sculls. It
was a moment or two before she had the courage to let it go, and face a
world that was full of bodiless shapes and evanescent shores.
But almost before she knew it she was on the opposite side, scrambling
up the stones to the grassy slope beyond, and so, panting and hurrying, to
the top of the sea-wall. She saw at once that there was nobody in the house,
that it was still with the growing stillness of augmented hours, and a further
chill fell on her happy mood. Yet she was glad at least to be there to
welcome the old folks when they came, and in any case they could not be
very far. Every jolt of the trap must be bringing them nearer to the net
which she was spreading so lovingly for their feet. They would be tired, of
course, and probably very cross, but May was used to market-day moods
and would not care. With affectionate ruthlessness she told herself that
would yield to her all the sooner for being tired. Presently they would agree
unwillingly that she might have her way, and then she would hurry home
again as if on wings. They would be crosser than ever after she had gone,

vexed both with her and themselves and terribly touched in their pride. And
then, slowly but surely, the hope that she had forced upon them would begin
to race its stimulant through their veins. They would lie down to sleep with
a secret gladness that they had not the courage to confess, and would wake
in the morning and know that the world had been made for them anew.
She kept stopping the rush of her thoughts to send her senses over the
marsh, but no sign of life came back to her, or sound of wheel or hoof. The
wide stretches of grass and plough and the long length of road seemed
almost as unsuggestive of human influence as the sands themselves. Swifter
and swifter faded the passionate confidence which had sent her out, leaving
the risks of the matter uppermost in her mind. She remembered that it was
possible to be patient all one's life, and yet to wreck the fruits of it in an
unguarded hour. This sudden mental and physical rashness might be
symbolical of a greater rashness of the soul. Perhaps after to-night all her
footholds and anchorages might go, leaving the world that she had managed
so bravely only a nightmare blurred by tears.
The dusk thickened about her as the night tried to impress itself on the
earth as a separate entity from the mist. The most that it could do, however,
was to produce the effect of a hovering shadow from some huge arrested
wing. The real warning of night was in the deepened sense of loneliness and
dread of personal diminution in a growing space, in the further recession of
things unseen as well as seen. It lay, too, in the stirring consciousness of the
impending advent of the tide. She began to look anxiously towards her
father's window for the lamp, and though she was comforted when she saw
no sign, it stamped the illusion of desolation on her mind. Then she heard
the cattle stir in the shippon as she walked along the wall, and was cheered
and companioned by them for a little while. She would have gone down to
them, or to the dog, who was always a firm friend, but she was afraid of

losing her consciousness of time. She could not tear herself, either, from her
breathless waiting for the silence to fill with life. She was cold whether she
stood or walked, and more and more oppressed by a sense of folly and
grave doubt. She even laughed at the middle-aged woman who had thrilled
like a girl, but she laughed between her tears. Once or twice she ran down
the bank and on to the sand, but always something drew her back, and at
last, when she had listened so long that she had ceased to hear, there came
the crunching sound of the Thornthwaite wheels. It was there suddenly
where there had been no sign, as if it had only begun at the moment it
reached her ear. At once her courage sprang up again, and her spirits rose.
The whole affair was sweet and brave once more. It was as if she had heard
her lover himself coming surely towards her over the lonely marsh....

III

Simon uttered an exclamation when he saw the figure on the wall. His heart
leaped first with a supernatural fear, and then with a sudden foreboding of
some normal ill. His nerves were still unstrung from his experience with the
car, and ready enough to shape familiar objects into ghosts. Even when he
had recognised May and spoken her name, he could not rid himself of his
feeling of alarm.
So he was not pleased to see her when she came running down, and
Sarah, who had spent so kindly a morning with her, was not pleased either.
In the last few miles she had seemed to travel out of human touch, and there
was a jar in the sudden intrusion of even this one thing left to her to love.
Her brow contracted both with the effort of thought and the effort of sight,

but indeed she knew well enough why May was there. Her intuition had
worked uncertainly all the day, but it warned her now. She knew what
impulse had brought May out to await their coming home.
Simon, however, had no clue to this sudden appearance at his journey's
end. He sat still in the trap as she came swiftly through the yard, and then
leaned out to address her with an anxious frown.
"Nay, now whatever's brought you trapesin' here so late? Nowt wrong,
is there? Father badly again? Is he axin' for me, by any chance?"
She reassured him with a shake of the head and a smile, and, as in the
case of Mr. Dent, he felt a sudden resentment towards smiles. In all his life
Simon had never encountered so many smiling faces as had looked at him
that day.
"All's right, thank you.... Father's much about the same. I wanted a
word with Mrs. Thornthet, that was all.
"You've been a terble while on the road, though!" she added gaily,
before he could speak. "I'd about made up my mind as I'd have to be getting
back."
"We were kept at Blindbeck, that's how it was," Simon said,
remembering suddenly and with gloom the precise circumstances under
which they had been kept. "But if you nobbut wanted a word wi' the missis,
you could surely ha' waited while morn. It's a daft-like trick to be lakin' on
t'sands when it's getting dark."
His words made her turn again to throw a glance at the inn, but still
there was no summoning gleam from the room upstairs. "Ay, but tide isn't
till six," she answered him coaxingly, turning back, "and I shan't be long.
Father'll show a light for me when it's time I was setting off."
Sarah, ignoring the pair of them, had already clambered out, and
Simon remembered that he had the horse to stable and the cows to milk and

feed. "Danged foolishness, that's what it is!" he growled, as he scrambled
down, giving May a very unaccustomed scowl. "If I did as I ought, I'd be
skifting you pretty sharp. Say what you've gitten to say, and then clear out!"
Sarah had been moving away from them towards the house, but, as
May followed her, she swung about. There was no invitation, however, in
her rigid face.
"You've nowt to say as I know on," she said in a curt tone, "and I'm
rarely tired. Anyway, there's no sense in lossing yourself for a bit of a chat."
"I'll not lose myself, not I!" May laughed, advancing towards her, full
of kindly warmth. She had been prepared for some such reception as this,
and was not depressed. "What, I've been across that often, it's the same to
me as the road! I've been over when it was snowing,--ay, and by moonlight,
too. As for Geordie," she added, with a tender laugh, "he's crossed in the
pitch dark, with only his nose to tell him where he was at!
"I was bound to ask you again before I slept," she urged, casting a
glance at Simon, busy with the horse. "Can't I come in a minute?--I won't
be long. It's late to be telling my business in the yard."
"You've no business wi' me," Sarah said stolidly, "so you can stop off
yon weam voice. You're not coming into Sandholes to-night, May Fleming,
so that's flat!"
May laughed again, but there was less confidence in the laugh. She
waited to speak again until Simon had moved away, the dog leaping and
barking under the horse's nose.
"It's a shame," she said cheerfully, "to bother you so late, but I just
couldn't bring myself to wait. It was you as brought it all back, Mrs.
Thornthet, come to that, with yon talk at the doctor's of Geordie coming
home!"

"There's no talk of him coming," Sarah said coldly, "and never was."
With one magnificent sweep she disposed of the fallacy of the afternoon.
"You ought to ha' more sense than to go fancying things like that!"
"But you'd a letter, you said, begging his fare?" May was slightly
bewildered, but went pressing on. "You said he was keen to come, if he had
the brass."
"Ay, and there wasn't no brass; so yon's finished and by wi'," Sarah
said.
"Ay, but there is," May pleaded. "Plenty o' brass!" She faltered a little
before the other's lack of response. "Nay, Mrs. Thornthet, don't you look
like that! What does it matter where it comes from if it makes folks glad?"
"I'll buy no gladness o' mine from you, my lass, as I said before."
"I can spare the brass right enough,--if it's only that."
"Ay, but I can't spare the pride to take it," Sarah said.
"Ay, well, then, think as you're buying my happiness!" May begged.
"I'd be real proud to think as I'd brought him back, even if he never looked
aside at me again."
"You'd have lile or nowt to be proud on, I'll be bound!" There was a
touch of weary impatience in Sarah's voice. "And what-like happiness
would it be for you in the end? Nay, May, my girl, we've thrashed the
matter out, and I'm over-tired to be fret wi' it to-night."
May sighed, and stood looking at her with troubled eyes, but she was
unable to let the whole of her hope go.
"I'm right sorry to have put you about," she said sadly. "It's a real
shame! Can't you promise to think it over a bit? I'll come over to-morrow
for another talk."
"I want neither talking nor thinking, so that's flat!" Sarah snapped. "I'll
promise to turn key in the door when I see you coming, and that's all!"

The tears came into May's eyes.
"You've no call to go telling me off like that," she said, with a little
break in her voice. "I haven't done anything that's wrong, I'm sure."
"You've shoved your nose into other folks' business," Sarah said
roughly,--"that's what you've done! I'll thank you to leave us to do for our
lad as'll suit us best!"
"He was mine, too!" May flung at her suddenly, roused at last. "Long
ago, maybe,--years on years,--but he was mine as well!"
Sarah gave a sneering laugh.
"There'll be more than one lass, I reckon, setting up to think that!"
May uttered a little cry, wounded to the heart.
"Eh, but you're a cruel woman, Mrs. Thornthet!" she exclaimed, in a
voice quivering with pain. "It's true I'd be glad to see Geordie again, but it
don't make that much difference now. It's for your sake and poor Mr.
Thornthet's that I want to see him back....
"You're fond o' me, nowadays," she went on bravely, controlling
herself again. "You like me well enough now, whatever you felt once. Can't
you take the money for the sake of bygone times?"
But already Sarah had turned away from her and was moving towards
the door. She fitted the key in the lock with the ease of use, and gave the
rickety door an opening push. And again May followed and stood, strong in
the courage of those who plead for the thing that they have at heart.
"Don't go away feeling mad with me, Mrs. Thornthet!" she begged.
"I'm sorry I spoke as I did. Think on how happy we were together, this
morning, you and me. Think how it would be if he was to come marching
into the yard...."
Sarah was now over the threshold, with her hand against the door, but
May's hand was also against it, refusing to let it close. Her face was white

as a flower upon the dusky air, pleading and sweet with frank lips and
tearful eyes. Sarah herself was engulfed by the dark house, a shadow that
was yet more surely a block than the actual door. It seemed to May that she
had all the passionless resistance of some ancient, immovable stone. A
lantern across showed the black squares of the shippon stalls, the white
coats of the beasts and Simon moving from dark to light. May did not know
that the old woman's purpose was giving in the pause, that that last sentence
of hers had broken the stubborn will. She waited despairingly, seeking for
more to say, and finding nothing, since the right word had been said. And
because she despaired she broke the pause too soon, in an access of
hopelessness flinging away her chance. Taking her hand from the door, she
pointed to Simon at his job.
"I'll ask Mr. Thornthet, then!" she cried sharply, beginning to move
away. "Happen he'll see to it for me instead of you. Happen he'll see the
offer's kindly meant, and not let pride and suchlike stand between!"
But Sarah, too, cried out before she had gone a yard, her voice harsh
with wrath and a sort of fear.
"You leave Simon be," she cried fiercely,--"let him be! I've had enough
o' your worry, without plaguin' him an' all. You get back to your dad, and
don't come interfering again. You came between me and my lad, but you
shan't meddle wi' my man! You mean well enough, I don't doubt, but you're
nobbut a meddler, all the same. It never does to go shoving kindnesses at
folk who keep on saying nay. If you force 'em, you do 'em more harm than
good in the long run, by a deal. D'you think I want Geordie coming back in
rags, as like a tramp on t'roads as a couple o' peas? D'you think I want a
drunken do-nowt loafing about t'spot,--a thief, maybe, or happen summat
worse? What sort o' food and drink would yon be to Blindbeck, d'you
think? Eliza's gitten enough on her tongue, without the likes o' that! Nay,

the lad as went was a limb, but he was bonny and smart, and Eliza'll always
think of him like yon. She'll always think in her heart as he was the better o'
Jim, for all she talks so loud. But if he come back to shame us, it'd rob me
even o' that. I couldn't abide it!" she finished vehemently. "It'd be worse
than death. I'd rather the sea took him afore ever he reached home!"
She stopped with an indrawn breath, and the door, creaking abruptly,
showed that her weight was heavy on the latch. May stood still in the yard,
as still as the shadow that had once again turned to ancient stone. The
silence that had fallen between them seemed to push her away, to drive
them so far apart that never again would they be able to speak. At last, in
that terrible outpouring, May had discovered the real barrier to her desire.
There were pride and generosity in the way, but there was also something
which she could not fight. The monstrous, lifelong obsession of Eliza had
slopped even the natural road to a mother's heart.
Fear came over her, a more terrible fear than had taken her on the
sands. In the quiet spot that should have been homely because of the
moving light and the dumb beasts, she had a hint of something not quite
sane. Things that had no place in the life of the soil seemed suddenly to
have forced a passage in. She peered into the darkness of Sarah's mind, as
her bodily eyes sought for her hidden face.
She was startled into action again by the old dog's nose thrust kindly
into her hand. He had listened to the urgent voices with constantly pricked
ears, knowing by instinct that somebody suffered and was afraid. Now he
came to May, begging her to take charge of her soul, lest he, too, whose
only trust was in Man, should suffer fear. She laid her hand for a moment
on the warmth of his head, dropping her gaze to meet his upturned eyes.
Instantly, however, as if he had brought her a further message, she looked
towards the bay, and saw the lamp in her father's window spring to life.

She was loth to go with this wreck of things at her feet, but in her
destitution of heart she was afraid to stay. Armed with the promise, she
would have cared nothing for dark or tide, but with this weight at her heart
it seemed as if it would take her all the night to cross the sand. She tried to
believe that she would return to wrestle with Sarah in the day, but she knew
well enough that she would never return. Eliza, and all that Eliza had meant
in their spoiled lives, lay like a poisonous snake across her path.
She wondered drearily what had become of the passionate certainty
with which she had set out. The sea still sundered her lover and herself, the
bar of the sea so much greater than any possible stretch of land. There were
people to whom the sea was a sort of curse, and perhaps, without knowing
it, she was one of those. She loved it, indeed, but she never forgot that it had
taken her first hope. Perhaps it mocked at her love as Sarah had mocked her
love. Perhaps it was only waiting out in the dark to do her harm....
She made one last entreating movement towards the shadow that was
stone, but nobody moved in the darkness and nobody spoke. She could not
be sure at that moment whether Sarah was there, or whether all that she
begged of was merely blackened space. Then she began by degrees to move
away, wrenching her feet, as it were, from the ground of the yard. Sadly,
without looking back, she mounted the sea-wall, bowed by her burden of
failure and sorrow and self-contempt. But the fear took her again as soon as
she faced the sands, and she hurried down the further side. The good angel
of the Thornthwaites fled away into the night as if driven by flails.

PART IV

GEORDIE-AN'-JIM

I

The blackness stirred in the doorway and became human again, setting the
door to the jamb with a firm, decisive push. Sarah followed the dark stone
passage to the kitchen, moving with freedom on the ground she knew. In the
bare, silent room, that seemed at the same time barer and yet more peopled
because of the dusk, she took off her old mantle, her shabby bonnet and her
black thread gloves. She set a lighted candle on the table in the middle of
the room, and from the cupboard by the hearth she took paper and wood,
and kindled a pale, unhomely glow in the dusty, ash-filled grate. In the
outer darkness that was the scullery she filled the kettle, and brought it to
wait the reluctant patronage of the fire. It was not yet night over the sands,
but the candle was more than sufficient to quench the fainting effort of the
day. The only outside light was the steady glow of the lamp, set in the face
of the inn to call its daughter home.
Still, however, the house seemed unaroused, and would remain so until
the master came in, because those who live much by themselves do not hear
the sound of their own feet. They seem to themselves to move like ghosts
through the rooms; it is only their thoughts that they hear about the place.
And there are no houses so quiet as those which spend half their days
hearkening to that eternal talker, the sea. The other half of their lives is still
as the sands are still, sharing that same impression of quittance for all time.
The kitchen, once perfectly kept, was already beginning to show signs
of Sarah's failing sight. There were holes in the cloth rug which she
unrolled before the fire, and slits in the patch-work cushions on the rush-

bottomed chairs. The pots in the half-empty pot-rail were all askew, and the
battered pewter and brass had ceased to put in its claim to be silver and
gold. There was an out-of-date almanack under the old clock, and an
ancient tide-table over the mantelshelf. But the real tragedy of the place was
not in its poverty but in its soul. Behind the lack of material comfort there
was a deeper penury still,--the lack of hope and a forward outlook and a
reason for going on. The place was cold because the hearts of its tenants
were growing cold.
The candle, as always, drove the impression of utter desolation home.
No other light produces that same effect of a helpless battle against the
dark. No other is so surely a symbol of the defiant human soul, thinking it
shines on the vast mysteries of space. No other shows so clearly the fear of
the soul that yet calls its fear by the name of courage and stands straight,
and in the midst of the sea of the dark cries to all men to behold that
courage and take heart.
All about that little challenge of light were the brooding obscurities of
sand and marsh, and, nearer yet, the looming enigma of the empty house. At
the back of the mind there was always the consciousness of unlit rooms, of
echoing passages, and climbing, creaking stairs. Always at night there is
that mystery of terror in a half-used house, pressing on those who crouch in
some charmed corner of its walls.
Sarah was different, somehow, now that she was at home, and free of
the outdoor-clothes which she had worn all day. It was as if bonnet and
mantle were the armour of her class, in which she was ready to face the
offensive of the world. Without it she was more primitive and more human,
relaxed in muscles and nerves. Now one could guess at the motherliness in
her to which Jim had clung, unswervingly trusting in spite of her dislike.

Her grey hair had been slightly ruffled both by the bonnet and the drive, and
on her old neck it even curled a little, showing itself still soft and fine.
She was tired with that terrible tiredness which sees the day behind
like a series of folding cardboard views. She seemed to have lived many
days in that single day, with never a moment between them to fit her for the
next. More than once, indeed, she had been ready to collapse, but always
the stimulus of some fresh event had set her going again. Now she had
reached the point when she was too tired to allow herself to be tired, when
body and mind, usually careful to save the next day's strength, recklessly
lay both hands upon their all.
Even at the last moment had come the sudden struggle with May, and
the zest of that strife still tingled in her veins. After that long day of
damaged pride it was pleasant to have asserted it in the end, to have claimed
the right to suffer rather than be forcibly blessed. All day she had tasted in
prospect the salt savour of another's bread, but here was something that she
could refuse. She was still too stiff with fight to care that she had wounded
a generous nature in the act. It was true that she could not have borne the
sight of a Geordie who would have brought her fresh disgrace. The love that
cares for the broken more than the sound could not thrive while she feared
the sneer of the idol to whom she would not bow.
Beyond, in the dairy, there came the sound of metalled boots, and the
pails spoke musically on the flags as Simon set them down. She heard him
shuffling across to open the inner door, and then--"Milk's in, missis!" he
called to her, as his head came through.
There was a nervous sound in his voice, at which Sarah almost smiled,
knowing that his conscience must be ill at ease. She answered "Oh, ay,"
without turning, for she was busy with the fire, which, as if hating the

atmosphere into which it was born, was doing its best to escape from it
again.
"I'll see to the fire for you, missis," he said, crossing to her side. "Set
you down and be easy a bit. You're likely tired."
"Nay, I'll manage all right," she protested stolidly, and then suddenly
yielded to him, and moved away. She did not sit down, however, but
remained standing on the hearth, while he went on his knees to set the
bellows between the bars.
"May give me a fair start," he observed presently, when the flame had
consented to grow. "What was she after, coming off like that?"
"Nay, it was nowt much," Sarah said easily, in an indifferent tone. "It
was nobbut some daftness she'd got in her head, that's all."
"She mun ha' been rarely keen to come across so late. Was it summat
or other she wanted you to do?"
"Ay," Sarah said firmly, "but I couldn't see my way. I tellt her so this
morning when I see her in town."
"Summat about your eyes, likely?" he enquired nervously, blowing
hard.
"Losh save us, no! It was nowt to do wi' that."
"Will was rarely put out when I tellt him what doctor had said," Simon
went on. "He was right sorry, he was, and real anxious to do what he
could."
"Ay, he's kind, is Will. He's a right good friend. But I won't take owt I
can help from him, all the same."
"Because o' yon woman of his?" Simon asked angrily, stumbling to his
feet. He threw a last glance at the fire, and saw that it seemed resigned to its
now evident fate. He was sorry for Sarah, and guiltily conscious of his own
relief, but the thought of Eliza whipped his mind to rage. This was nothing

new, though, either to man or wife, after the usual meeting at the end of the
week. However long they had held their tongues from her name, it was
suddenly out, and the air was vibrating at once with the rising tremolo of
their hate.
"Nay, then, what's yon besom to do wi' it, any way round? Will's
money's his own, I reckon, and he can do as he likes. Happen you'll choose
to see sense about it come Judgment Day, but not afore!"
"A farmer's wife addles half his brass,--we all know that. You can't
touch a man wi'out laying a finger on his folks."
"A deal Eliza's done for him," Simon scoffed, "barrin' giving him best
of her tongue! I'll be bound you'd never think twice about t'brass if you and
Eliza was friends. It's this spite as there is atween you as sets you taking
things amiss. Eliza would likely ha' been no worse than most, if you hadn't
made sure she was always wanting a slap!"
Sarah received these remarks with an ironic smile.
"Bosom friends we'd ha' been, d'ye think," she asked, "if I'd nobbut
seen my way to a bit more care?"
"Nay, well, I wouldn't be sure about that," he returned grandly, hedging
with ease. "But we'd all ha' done better, I'll take my oath, if you hadn't been
that smart to take offence."
"Happen I'd ha' done best to hold my tongue, when she was telling all
Witham we'd gitten notice to quit?"
"Nay, I don't know about that!" ... He was stamping about the floor. "A
bit o' tact wi' her, happen? ... nay, dang her, I don't know! ... Leastways, you
needn't ha' tellt her yon rubbish this afternoon," he concluded, brought to a
stand.
"You'd have had me set by and say nowt while she sneered at our lad?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't,--dang her! ... I wouldn't, that's flat!"

"You'd have had me say nowt, neither, yon day we was wed,--give her
a kiss, happen, and praise her gown----?"
"Nay, then, I wouldn't, I tell you! Blast you! Nowt o' the sort!" Simon
was fairly shouting now. He thumped at the table in his rage. "I wish to Gox
I could ha' gitten my hands round her throat wi'out having to swing!"
Sarah looked at his prancing shape with the same ironic smile.
"Nay, my lad, there's better ways than that wi' Eliza, by a deal. D'ye
think I haven't gitten a bit o' my own back, now and then? I've had my knife
in her deep,--ay, deep!--time and again. There's better ways wi' Eliza than
just twisting her neck. What, this very day I've made her weep tears as she's
never wept afore,--tears as near tears o' blood as Eliza'll ever weep...." She
stopped, recalling the scene in which Nature had shone like a star in Eliza
just for once.... "Nay, Simon," she went on quietly, "there's no sense in our
getting mad. It's over late to go preaching love atween Eliza and me. Men
don't know what hate can be between women when it's gitten hold. It's a
thing best let alone,--never mentioned,--let alone. It's a big thing, caged-
like, as was small once, and then comes full-grown. It's over late to go
trying to stroke it through the bars."
"I nobbut wanted to make the best o' things," Simon muttered,
ashamed. "The Lord knows I'd give my hand to put you top-dog of Eliza
just for once. But I'm not denying I'm terble thankful to ha' fixed things up.
I reckon I'll sleep to-night as I haven't for weeks. I'm right sorry, though, if
you're taking it hard."
"I'll take it right enough when it's here," Sarah said gently, turning
away. "I won't make no bother about it, don't you fret."
She picked up the kettle and set it on the fire, as if she meant to put an
end to the talk. Simon lingered, however, casting uneasy glances at her face.

"I've a job in t'far shuppon to see to," he said at last, and lighted the old
lantern that swung against the wall.... "Yon's tide, surely?" he added
suddenly, as he took it down.... "Nay, it's over soon."
He lifted the lantern to look at the table above the shelf, but Sarah
shook her head.
"Yon's an old table, think on. It's no use looking there. Tide's six
o'clock, it you want to know."
He said, "Oh, ay. I'd clean forgot," and still stood on the hearth, as if
reluctant to go. Presently he spoke humbly, twisting the lantern in his hand.
"It's real hard on you, Sarah, to come down like this. I don't know as I
like it myself, but it's worse for you. But we've been right kind wi' each
other all these years. You'll not think shame on me when I'm a hired man?"
She turned back to him, then, trying to see his face, and it seemed to
him that she really saw him for the first time in many months. But, in point
of fact, it was the eyes of the mind that were looking at the eyes of the
mind.... And then, unexpectedly, he saw her smile.
"Nay, my lad," she said strongly, "you mun be wrong in t'garrets to
think that! If there's owt to think shame on it'll be stuff like yon. You're the
same lad to me as when we was wed, just as Eliza's the same cruel, jibing
lass. I reckon that's where the trouble lies, if it come to that. Love and hate
don't change, neither on 'em, all our lives. D'you think I'd ha' kept my hate
so warm if I hadn't ha' kept love?"
He nodded doubtfully in reply, and began slowly to edge away. But
before he had reached the threshold he paused again.
"Anyway, we've had the best on't!" he cried triumphantly, as if
inspired. "Eliza's had what looks most, but we've had the real things, you
and me!" And then, as she did not speak, the spirit died in him, and his head

drooped. "Ay, well, we mun do what we can," he finished lamely. "We mun
do what we can. 'Tisn't as if it'll be so long for either on us, after all."
"Shall I see to t'milk for you?" he added diffidently, but was refused.
"Nay," Sarah said. "I can manage right well. I know they milk-pans
better than my face. I'd like to stick to my job as long as I can."
Simon said--"Ay, well, then, I'll be off!" and looked at the door; and
stared at the door, and said--"Ay, well, I'll be off!" again. He had an uneasy
feeling that he ought to stay, but there was that job in the far shippon he
wanted to do. He wandered uncertainly towards the outer door, and then,
almost as if the door had pushed him, stumbled into the yard.

II

Sarah stood thinking after Simon had gone, following with ease the
troubled workings of his mind. The smile came back to her lips as she
recalled his obvious sense of guilt. Behind all his anger and chafing
humiliation it was easy to see his growing pleasure and relief. It was more
than likely, indeed, that he would be priding himself on his new position
before so long. Perhaps age, which has a merciful as well as a cruel
blindness of its own, might prevent him from ever realising where he stood.
She could picture him lording it over the gentler-natured Will, and even
coming in time to dominate the farm. It was only for her that there would be
no lording it,--and open sight. It was only on her account that he was still
ashamed.
It was cruel to grudge him the little solace he had left, but the thing
which eased the position for him would form a double cross for her.

Hitherto, they had stood together in their hatred of Blindbeck and its female
head, and in the very depth of their darkness still had each other to soothe
their shame. But now Simon's attitude was bound to alter at least towards
the farm. There would come a day when he would turn upon her for some
chance remark, and from that hour he would be openly on Blindbeck's side.
The new tie would make him forget those bitter upheavals of jealous rage.
Slowly the place would come between them until she was left to hate alone.
For her, the change would simply deliver her, blind and bound, into
Eliza's hand. She could have laughed as she saw how the thing she had
fought against all her life had captured her at last. Even with Eliza dead or
gone, Blindbeck would still have stifled her as with unbreathable air. Her
spirit and Eliza's would have lived their battles again, and even over a grave
she would have suffered and struggled afresh. But Eliza was neither dead
nor mercifully removed, but was already snuffing the battle-smoke from
afar. The whole account of their lives would come up in full, and be settled
against the under-dog for good. It was as whipping-boy to Eliza that she
would go to the house by Blindbeck gates.
At the present moment, however, she neither suffered nor rebelled.
Physically, she had reached the point at which the mind detaches itself
resolutely from further emotional strain. The flame of hate burnt steadily
but without effort, and with almost as pure a light as the flame of love itself.
Like all great passions, it lifted her out of herself, lending her for the time
being a still, majestic strength. There is little to choose at the farthest point
of all between the exaltation of holiness and the pure ecstasy of hate. To the
outside eye they show the same shining serenity, almost the same air of
smiling peace. It is the strangest quality in the strange character of this
peculiarly self-destroying sin. Because of it she was able to go about her
evening tasks with ease, to speak gently to Simon in the little scene which

had just passed, and even to dwell on his methods with a humorous smile
upon her lips.
In the clarified state of her mind pictures rose sharply before her,
covering all the years, yet remaining aloof as pictures, and never stirring her
pulse. So clear they were that they might have been splashed on the canvas
that instant with a new-filled brush. They sprang into being as a group
springs under the white circle of a lamp, as the scenes the alive and lit brain
makes for itself on the dark curtain of the night. The few journeys she had
taken in life she travelled over again,--rare visits to Lancashire and
Yorkshire ... Grasmere ... Brough Hill Fair. They had stayed in her mind
because of the slow means by which they were achieved, but they counted
for very little in the tale of things. It is not of these casual experiences that
the countryman thinks when the time comes for a steady reviewing of his
life, that intent, fascinated returning upon tracks which is the soul's
preparation for the next great change. They flit to and fro, indeed, like
exotic birds against a landscape with which they have nothing to do, but it
is the landscape itself which holds the eye, and from which comes the great,
silent magic that is called memory, and mostly means youth. It is the little
events of everyday life that obsess a man at the last, the commonplace,
circular come-and-go that runs between the cradle and the grave. Not public
health problems, or new inventions, or even the upheavals of great wars, but
marriage, birth and death, the coming of strangers destined to be friends, the
changing of tenants in houses which mean so much more than they ever
mean themselves. Binding all is the rich thread of the seasons, with its
many-coloured strands; and, backing all, the increasing knowledge of
Nature and her ways, that revolving wheel of beauty growing ever more
complex and yet more clear, more splendid and yet more simple as the
pulses slow to a close.

She loved the plain, beautiful farming life that a man may take up in
his hand because it is all of a piece, and see the links of the chain run even
from end to end. Even now she could see the fair-haired child she had been
still running about her home, the child that we all of us leave behind in our
sacred place. She could hear the clatter of clogs in her father's yard, and all
about her the sound of voices which the daisied earth had stopped. It was
strange, when she came to think of it, that she never heard her own. In all
her memories of the child it seemed to her lip-locked, listening and dumb.
Perhaps it was because she was shut in the child's brain that she could not
hear it speak. She could hear her mother's voice, light and a little sharp, and
her father's a deep rumble in a beard. Even in the swift pictures flashing by
her he looked slow, drifting with steady purpose from house to farm.
Because of his slowness he seemed to her more alive than his wife; there
was more time, somehow, to look at him as he passed. Her bustling,
energetic mother had become little more than a voice, while the seldom-
speaking man was a vital impression that remained.
Rising up between the shadows that blotted them out was a certain old
woolly sheep-dog and the red torch of the flowering currant beside the door.
There was also a nook in the curve of the garden wall, where, under a
young moon, she had seen the cattle coming across the fields, sunk to their
horns in a fairy-silver mist....
It was an open-air life that took her long miles to school, clogging on
frozen roads, through slanting rain or fighting against the wind. School
itself seemed patched in a rather meaningless fashion on that life, much as
the books in the parlour on the busy, unthinking house. A life of constant
and steadily increasing work, from errands of all sorts, feeding the hens and
fetching home the cows, to the heavier labour of washing and baking,
milking, helping with the stock. Presently there had been the excitement of

the first shy dance, and then the gradual drawing towards marriage as the
tide draws to the moon.
And all the time there had been Eliza making part of her life, from the
plump little girl whom people stopped to admire to the bold intruder at the
altar-rail. Looking back, she could see herself as a stiff and grave-eyed
child, grimly regarding the round-faced giggler from the start. Even then
she had always been the dumb man in the stocks, of whom the street-urchin
that was Eliza made mock as she danced and played. Only once had she
ever definitely got the better of her, and it had had to last her all her life.
Eliza had had many lovers, drawn by the counterfeit kindliness which hid
her callous soul, but when she had chosen at last, it was Simon who was her
choice. Perhaps the one gleam of romance in Eliza's life had been when she
looked at Simon ... and Simon had looked away. Quite early he had fixed
his affections on Sarah, and during their long courtship he had never
swerved. Plain, business-like Sarah had drawn him after her as the moon
draws the willing tide....
She began to put away the things she had bought in Witham, stowing
them in a cupboard between the pot-rail and the door. During the morning
she had felt royally that she was buying half the town, but now she saw how
small her share of the marketing had been. There was a troubled feeling at
the back of her mind that something had been missed, and even though she
was sure of her purchases, she counted them again. Afterwards, she stood
muttering worriedly through the list ... tea, candles, a reel of cotton ... and
the rest. And then, suddenly, without any help from the candles and cotton,
she remembered what it was, and smiled at the childish memory that would
not stay asleep.
More than twenty years, she reminded herself,--and yet she still looked
for the fairing that Geordie had brought her on Martinmas Day! There had

scarcely been any special season,--Christmas, Whitsun, Easter or Mid-
Lent,--but he had remembered to mark it by some frolicsome gift. He had
always withheld it from her until the last, and then had stood by her
laughing while she unwrapped some foolish monkey on dancing wires. All
the time he was saying how splendid the fairing was going to be,--"It's gold,
mother, real gold,--as bright as the King's crown!" And when she had
opened it, she would pretend to be cast down, and then put it snugly away
and say it was "real grand!"
Jim had had his fairings for her, too, but she was trying her very
hardest not to remember those. Jim's had been prettier and more
thoughtful,--often of real use, but she had long since forgotten what the
things were like. A mug with her name on it, a handkerchief, a brooch,--
long ago broken or lost, or even given away. But every ridiculous object of
Geordie's was under lock and key, with even a bit of camphor to keep the
monkey from the moth....
She stood there smiling, softly folding her hands, as if she laid them
lightly over some sudden gift. On either side of her was a laughing face,
and even she found it hard to tell which was which. She was very still as
she made that perfect transition into the past, and the only sound in her ears
was through the lips that laughed. And then, into that full stillness, in which
no step moved or voice called or bird flew, there came the cry of a heron
outside the door.

III

It did not reach her at first. She heard it, indeed, coming back to the present
with the sound, but that Was all. The thing behind it had to travel after her
over twenty years. The cry of the heron was natural enough, with a famous
heronry so near, and it was only because of the exceptional stillness of the
night that it drew her attention now. Her mind went mechanically to the
high wood behind the Hall, to the long-necked, slender-legged birds going
home to the tall trees that on this unstirred evening would be stiff as a
witch's broom. She even had time to remember the old legend of their battle
with the rooks, before the thing that had been running for twenty years
entered her consciousness with a rush.
She stiffened then. From being softly still she became a rigid thing,
stiller than sleep, stiller than death, because it was passionate will-power
that held her still. It was already a moment or two since the sound had
passed, but it still rang in the ear which had seemed to refuse to take it in. It
had flashed through her brain like a bright sword flung in a high arc through
a night without a star, but the truth that was behind it she held rigidly from
her even as it tried to step within. She knew that it was too low for a bird's
call, too sharp and clear in that muffle of mist, but she shut the knowledge
out. She would not let herself either breathe or think until she had heard the
sound again.
The shock was as great the second time, but it had a different effect.
She began to tremble from head to foot; even her lips parted and shook; her
hands relaxed and began to pluck at her gown. Her breath came in quick
gasps that were almost sobs as her eyes strained towards the darkness that
held the door. Her brain kept telegraphing her body that it must be still, but
it was too strong for it, and paid no heed. Her heart alone, beating in hard,
ponderous strokes, seemed as if by itself it must shut out any further sound;
and when the call came the third time, breaking the silence so that it could

not close again, her own power of restraint went by the board as well. Her
hands lifted themselves and gripped each other across her breast, and her
voice, shaken and full of tears, forced itself into her throat. "Jim!" she heard
herself saying, "Jim!"--with no knowledge that she had meant to speak, and
in that one word admitted the final defeat of all her life.
Then the knocking began, the terrible brazen knocking which soulless
iron makes on the unresponsive door of an empty house. It was as if
whoever knocked frightened himself by the knocking, and tried to beat
away his fear with still louder blows. But to the woman who tried to pretend
that the house was really empty it was more terrible still. It seemed to take
on the sound of a summons to the soul itself to issue forth. The noise of it
flooded the place, echoed its way upstairs and into far rooms, so that
strange voices answered it sharply from wood and stone. The heavy, storm-
tried walls were suddenly no more than paper, so that the knocking became
folly when a push would have forced them in. It seemed to Sarah that they
must hear it from end to end of the marsh, across at the 'Ship,' and out to the
hidden edge of sea. She wondered why Simon did not come running, and
the dog break into hoarse barks, for even in the far shippon they must surely
hear. But there was only that great knocking in all the world, cheerful,
impatient, or resigned by turn. It paused at moments, but only as the
passing-bell pauses, Sarah thought, waiting to speak its single word afresh.
The noise had swept away in a moment both the false serenity of hate
and the almost falser calm of that dwelling memory of love. From the
respite, indeed, the live passion seemed to have sunk, as it were, on its
haunches for a fiercer leap. She could not think clearly or control her limbs
under the sudden impact of its spring. It seemed to fling itself on her as she
had seen the tides in the winter crash against the wall. She, too, went under

as if the water had beaten her down, and the noise at the door became the
blows of the waves and the roar of the dragged beach.
She had that impulse to laughter which comes with long-expected woe,
as if the gods were guilty of bathos when they stooped at last to strike.
Scorn is the first sensation of those who seem to have watched the springs
of action long before the hour. Sudden sorrows, quick blows have a majesty
of their own, as if the gifts of the gods made for honour in good or ill. But
long-deferred trouble, like suspended joy, has a meaner quality in
fulfilment, and a subtle humiliation in its ache. That when the gods come
they come quickly is true for both libations from the emptied cup. Royal
sorrows, like royal joys, fall swift as thunderbolts from heaven.
She had always known in her heart that there was no fighting
Blindbeck luck, that even the dregs of it were more potent than the best of
the Sandholes brand. It could hardly fail to reach even across the sea, so
that one of the failures would be less of a failure than the other in the end.
The trouble of being the under-dog too long is that even the dog himself
begins at last to think it his rightful place. For all her dreaming and lying on
Geordie's behalf, she would have found it hard to believe in his ultimate
success. Not for nothing had Eliza carefully tended her Method all this
while, and watered it weekly with the Simons' tears.
At first she told herself that she would put out the light, and let the
knocker knock until he was tired. Perhaps he would open the door and step
inside, but the darkness would surely thrust him out again. He might even
go to the foot of the stairs and call, until the silence itself put a hand upon
his throat. But already the strain was more than she could bear, and each
blow as it came was a blow on her own heart. She tried to move, but was
afraid of the sound of her own feet, and it was only under the cover of fresh
knocking that she made the effort at last. Now she was facing the door

which she could not see, though she knew its panels like the palm of her
hand. Behind it, she felt the knocking ring on her brain, but now she had
come within range of a more persistent power than that. Plainly, through the
wooden barrier that was raised between them, she felt the presence of the
man who stood without.
There is always an effort, a faint dread, about the opening of a door, as
if the one who entered were admitted to more than a room. From each
personality that enters even for a moment into one's life something is
always involuntarily received. The opening is only a symbol of the more
subtle admission of the two, which leaves an intruder behind when the
actual bodily presence has passed away. And of all openings there is none
that includes such realisation and such risk as that which lets in the night
and a stranger's face.
And then suddenly the knocking ceased, as if the knocker was now as
aware of her presence as she of his. They were like enemies, crouched on
either side of a barricade; or like lovers, so near and yet so far, in the last,
long second before the bars are down. Each waited for a breath, a touch, a
turn of the hand that would bring the flash of the final blow or the thrill of
the first kiss.
Their consciousness of each other was so strong that she knew at once
when he lifted his arm again, just as he knew when she stirred in fear of the
fresh attack. The latch gave its loose, metallic clink as she raised it and let it
drop, and then the door began to open with the almost human grudging of
old doors. The stranger put out a hand to help it on its way, and with a harsh
shriek that sounded like protest it dragged across the flags.
At once the bulk of his big form was in the open square, substantial
even in the dissolving light. There was a last pause as the shock of the

actual meeting smote upon their minds, and then his voice, cheerful and
loud as the knocking, flooded the house.
"Everybody dead here?" he demanded gaily, bending forward to peer
at the figure set like a statue just inside. The tone of his voice, deep and
kindly, had yet a touch of nervousness at its back. The strain of the waiting
had told upon him as well as on her. "Say, you are real, ain't you?" he
enquired sharply, and then laughed. "Mercy! I sure thought everybody must
be dead!"
Sarah had another shock at the sound of his voice, topped by the
accent from over the pond as the deep note of flood is topped by the thinner
note of the surf. She had listened instinctively for the Jim-an'-Geordie
voice, but this was the voice of neither Geordie nor Jim. It was as strange to
her who knew nothing of other peoples' speech as if it had been a voice
from another star. She shrank away from him, saying--"I thought it was
Jim." And then, almost violently, "You're never Jim!"
The man laughed a second time, but more naturally, as if reassured the
moment he heard her speak. "I sure am!" he answered her joyfully. "Why
shouldn't I be? Leastways, I'm all of Jim Thornthet that's managed to swim
across!" The smile stayed on his lips as he stared, but died when she did not
respond. "May I come in a spell?" he enquired anxiously. "I've only struck
England to-day, and I've a bag of news."
But again she blocked the entrance as she had blocked it for May. It
was the way into herself as well as into the house that these people sought,
and she yielded to neither of them by an inch. "You can get out, if you're
Jim," she said caustically, "and as smart as you like! Blindbeck's your spot.
We want nowt wi' you here."
The sharp words did not depress him, however. They were too
reminiscent of old time.

"That's a real mean Howdy!" he answered her humorously, advancing
a foot. "'Tisn't like Westmorland folk to keep folk tugging at the latch....
Shucks for Blindbeck!" he added laughingly, as she began the word again.
"Sandholes is my little old home,--always was, and always will be." He
advanced further, a merry, teasing note in his big voice. "You can't keep me
out, old woman! You never could. I'm coming right in, old woman! ... I'm
sure coming.... I'm right in!"
It was true, too. He was in the passage now, making his way by a force
of desire stronger than May's entreating love. Something else helped him as
well, perhaps,--some old extorted freedom of house and board. He put out
his hand to Sarah as he turned to the light, but she shrank away from him
against the wall.
"I won't have you in t'house!" she cried angrily to his dim form. "Be
off with you now, and look sharp about it!"
But again he seemed to be pleasantly cheered by her wrath, as if with a
happy echo from the past.
"I'll shin off right quick when I've had a word," he coaxed. "Come on
in, old woman, and look at me where there's a bit more sun!" The flickering
light seemed to beckon him on, for he began to move towards its dim
dwelling. "I've news of Geordie for you," he called back to her, as she did
not stir. "You'll sure be wanting to hear that!"
She heard him pass into the kitchen, his firm, confident tread raising a
ring from every flag, and wondered, as with the knocking, why it did not
carry all over the marsh. But still she stayed behind, fighting with herself
and with the longing to hear his news. It could be of nothing but failure, she
reminded herself, and her heart answered that that would be better than
nothing at all. She heard him walking about the kitchen, as if he walked
from this memory to that, peering into old cupboards and laying a hand

upon old chairs. Presently, however, there came a silence as if he had seen
enough, and, in a sudden panic lest he should be gone, she hurried after him
into the room.
At once, as she went in, she traced the shape of him on the hearth,
though she could not see his huge shadow that climbed the ceiling and
swamped the wall. Clearly, too, she could feel his dominant personality all
about, too heady a wine for the frail, cob webbed bottle of the place. Paused
on the hearth, he was still looking around him with a wistful, humorous
smile. He was thinking, as all think who return, how strong and yet how
slender was the chain, how futile and yet how tenacious were the humble
things which had held him through the years! He was thinking, too, how
amazingly tiny everything had grown,--the house, the kitchen, and the old
woman within the door. Even the stretch of sand, which he could vaguely
see, seemed narrow to him who had known much greater wastes.
He turned his smiling eyes suddenly to Sarah's face.
"How's the old man, by the way? Still keeping uppermost of the
weeds?"
"He's nobbut middlin', that's all," she forced herself to reply.
"Is he anywhere about?"
"Like enough ... but you needn't wait."
"I'd like a chin with him, all the same!" He hugged himself as he stood
on the hearth, and his huge shadow hugged itself on the wall. The same
mischievous sound crept back into his voice. "I'm mighty glad to see you
again, old woman, I am that! Perhaps you'll feel like slinging me a smile or
two after a bit."
"Eliza'll smile, I'll warrant, if you've nobbut a pound or two in your
poke."

"I have that--sure!" He slapped his coat as he spoke, laughing a great
laugh which shook her as cruelly as his knock. "It's up to me to keep my
pockets stitched, nowadays," he finished, in a contented tone.
"I'm main glad to hear it," she said sardonically, and he nodded gaily.
"That's real nice of you, old woman! You can keep right on. You'd a
terrible down on me in the old days, hadn't you now?"
"I've no use for you, Jim Thornthwaite, and never had. You know that
as well as me."
"That's so!" He laughed again. "But I was always mighty fond of you."
He made a movement as if to cross to her side, but she backed instantly, as
if she guessed. "Of course, you'd a deal rather it had been Geordie," he said.
"I know that. But he was never much of a sparkle in the family tarara, and
that's honest. I left him serving in a store,--poor lad Geordie,--and
hankering like honey after the old spot!"
"And you left him behind," Sarah flung at him,--"you wi' brass?"
"He wouldn't take a red cent. I looked him up as soon as I struck it
rich, but he was always set on hoeing his own row. He'd have taken it from
his own folks, but he wouldn't from me. Guess it was Blindbeck hate in him
coming out at last! But if ever he'd had the dollars, he'd have been home
before you could hear him shout."
"He's best where he is," Sarah said coldly, repenting her charge. Eliza's
son should not see that she grudged or cared. "Them as makes beds can
likely lie on the straw."
"Well, Blindbeck luck still holds, anyway!" Jim smiled. "See here!" He
put his hand in the great-coat that seemed to hide from her that he was a
creature of flesh and blood, and instantly she heard the rustle of notes. He
opened the big pocket-book under the light, running his hand over the clean
slips with joyous pride. "Don't that talk?" he said cheerfully. "Doesn't it sure

talk?" and in spite of her resolve she shrank from the crisp, unaccustomed
sound.
"Good enough, eh?" he demanded warmly,--"and there's plenty more
behind! That's only to pass the time o' day with, so to speak. Guess it'll do
for a fairing for my old mother, that's about all." He snapped the elastic
again and flung the book on the table, so that it slid across within Sarah's
reach. Lifting his eyes he met her gaze fixed blindly upon his face, and his
brow contracted as he puzzled over that hard, unrecognising stare.
"Can't we sit down for a spell?" he asked her coaxingly, turning back
to the hearth. "I feel real unwanted, standing on my hind legs."
"Eliza'll be waiting on you," Sarah said, through a stiff throat.
"She's waited twenty years." He laid a hand on a chair, and pulled it
nearer to the warmth. It protested violently when it felt his weight, but he
settled himself snugly, and did not care. The fire, as if heartened at sight of
him on the hearth, changed its cold yellow for a crimson glow.
"It's good to be home," he said happily,--"good as a Sunday-school,
treat,--sure!" He pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to fill it
meditatively, with quiet hands.... "Now, if it had been Geordie that had
struck it rich, it would have been a real hum for you, wouldn't it, old
woman? Guess I feel real mean, for your sake, that it's only me. Guess I
could almost wish it was Geordie out and out!"
He leaned forward with the firelight on his face, looking at her with
the same smile that was like a hand that he reached out.
"He was always making a song," he said, "about what he'd do when he
struck it rich. 'I'll be off home that slick you'll hear the bump,' he used to
say, 'and I'll be planning all the way how I'll burn the cash!' I'd like to buy
the farm for the old dad;--guess Squire'd part all right if I could pass him
enough. As for the old woman, there's just no end to what I'd do,--glad rags

and brooches, and help all round the house. It'd be just Heaven and Witham
Gala, playing Providence to the old woman! ... That's what I want my brass
for, when I strike it rich!'"
"A fool's dream!" Sarah said.
"A fine fool's dream."
"Them as dreams over much likely never does nowt else."
He leaned forward still further, the smile more urgent on his lips.
"There was only one thing used to fret him," he went on, "and he spent a
powerful lot of time thinking about it, and wearing himself thin. 'S'pose she
don't know me when I sail in?' he used to say. 'S'pose I'm that changed I
might as well be any other mother's son as well as hers? There's a mighty
pile o' years between us,--big, terrible years! I'd sure break my heart if she
didn't know me right off, even if I'd grown a face like a pump-handle and a
voice like a prize macaw! But I guess I needn't trouble,' he used to say,
'because mothers always know. I've got that slick by heart,--they always
know.'" He waited a moment, and then pressed on, with a note that was like
alarm. "Say, he was right, wa'n't he?"--he asked anxiously,--"dead right? It's
a sure cinch that mothers always know?"
The force of his demand seemed almost to shake the obstinate figure
so cynically aloof. It was as if he were prompting her to something that she
knew as well as he, but would not admit for some reason of her own. Even
after he had stopped speaking the demand seemed to persist, and she
answered at last with a cold smile on her hard face.
"Nay, my lad," she said sneeringly, "you needn't put yourself about!
Eliza'll be fain to see you, wherever you got your brass. She'll know you
well enough, never fret, wi' yon pack o' cards in your hand!"
His smile died as if she had struck him,--the whole laughing pleasure
of him died. "I worked for it honest," he said in reply, but his voice sounded

dull and tired. Even in the dusk she might have seen the spirit go out of
him, the lines in his face deepen, his head sink, his shoulders droop. The
merry boy that had come into the house was gone, leaving the stern man of
middle age. Sarah could not see what she had done to him, but she could
feel the change. Scenes with Jim in the old days had always ended much as
this. Many a time he had come to her full of affection and fun, and in a few
moments she had slain them both. He had looked up at her with hurt eyes
that still laughed because they couldn't do anything else, and had held to his
old cry--"I'm your lad really, Aunt Sarah,--same as Geordie is!"
He sat for a few minutes staring at the floor, his pipe with its filled
bowl hanging idly from his hand. He seemed to be adjusting himself to new
ideas, painfully making room for them by throwing overboard the old. Then
he rose to his feet with a half-sigh, half-yawn,--and laughed. Sarah heard
him, and started,--it was so like the old-time Jim! But though she might
have winced in the old days, it did not trouble her now. If she had had no
tenderness for the scapegrace lad she was not likely to pity the grown,
successful man.... Without looking at her again he went across to the
window and stared out. The pane swung open wide on its bent rod, and not
a breath of wind troubled its buckled frame. Across the vanished sands the
light still glowed from the 'Ship,' red on the dark that seemed like a mere
dissolution of everything into mist.
"Old Fleming still at the 'Ship'?" he enquired, keeping his back turned.
"And May?" His voice warmed again on the little name. "May's married
this many a year, I guess!"
"Nay, not she!" Sarah said. "She's not wed, nor like to be."
Unconsciously she relaxed a little. "She was always terble sweet on
Geordie, was May."

The man looking out smiled at the light as if it had been a face. He
spoke low, as if speaking to himself.
"I'd sure forgot!"
"I reckon she's waiting for him yet, but I doubt she'll wait till the
Judgment, and after that!"
"She was always a sticker, was May...." He swung round, cheerful
again, though lacking the ecstasy with which he had come in. "Sweet on
Geordie, was she? Well, I guess a live dog's better than a dead lion! I'll hop
across for a chin."
"You'll loss yourself, crossing t'sand."
"I've crossed it every night in my dreams!" He came back to her, with
his face tender again, the thin flame of the candle showing his pleasant eyes
and kindly lips. "Say, though!" he added anxiously. "I can come back?"
"Best bide at t' 'Ship.'"
"But I'd a deal rather sleep here!"
"Well, you wain't, and that's flat!"
"There's Geordie's bed, ain't there?" he urged her, in pleading tones.
"I'll lay you've kept it fixed for him all along!"
"Ay,--for Geordie!" said Geordie's mother, setting her mouth.
"Couldn't you kinder think I was Geordie once in a while?"
"Nay."
"Not for a mite of a minute?" His voice shook.
"Nay, not I!"
He lifted his shoulders, and let them droop again. "I'm sure coming
back, though!" he finished, in his persistent way.... "Stop a shake, though!
What about the tide?"
His eyes turned from old custom to the table over the hearth, and,
crossing over to it, he struck a light. The silver box in his hand flashed a

tiny scintilla on the dusky air. He looked up at the table, but he did not see
it, the match dwindling above his brooding face.
"You might ha' been just a mite glad to see me!" he exclaimed
wistfully, stamping it out upon the flags. "Why, you'd never ha' known me
from Adam if I hadn't given you the call! It'll give me the knock right out if
May don't know me neither when I sail in. They say sweethearts don't
forget, no more than mothers, but perhaps it's all a doggoned lie!"
"She was Geordie's lass,--not yours!" Sarah told him, with jealous
haste.
"Sure!" he said with a smile, and struck a second match.
Now he looked at the table in earnest, but only for a space. "Saturday,"
she heard him murmuring, in an absent voice. "Martinmas, ain't it? ... Tide
at ten...."
She made a movement forward and put out her hands.
"Nay, but yon's never----" she began; and stopped.
"Eh, old woman?"
"Nay, it's nowt."
"It's Saturday, ain't it?"
"I reckon it is."
"Saturday's my day for luck," she heard him saying, as the match died
down. "I've got a cinch on Saturdays, that's sure!" The gaiety in his tone
was only a mockery of what it had been before. "Tide at ten, eh?--and it's
six, now." He drew his watch from his pocket and gave it a glance. "Well,
so long! I'll be right back!"
To both the moments seemed endless in which he moved across the
floor. His look dwelt upon her in a last effort to reach her heart, and then
lingered about the room on the dim fellowships of his youth. But even

Geordie himself could hardly have touched her in that hour. The strongest
motive that had ruled her life had her finally by the throat.
Yet she called to him even as he went, afraid, woman-like, of the
sound of the shut door. "Jim!" she flung after him. "Jim, lad! ... Jim!"
"Say! Did you call?" He was back again on wings.
"Nay ... it was nowt." She indicated the pocket-book within reach of
her hand. "You'd best take yon truck along wi' you an' all."
Even in his disappointment he was still able to smile. "It don't need a
safe between it and a Thornthet, I guess!" was all he said. In that moment,
indeed, the money was nothing and less than nothing to them both. Sarah
was honest to the core, and never remembered once that dead men tell no
tales and that the sea does not betray.... The thing that had conquered her
soul was at least also above that.
"Ten, wa'n't it?" he asked, drifting reluctantly out again. His voice
came from further away, like the gull's voice from the sky. "So long!
Cheero! I'll be back again with the tide...."

IV

She heard rather than felt the silence re-enfold the house, like the swish of a
curtain softly tumbled down. She was vividly on the alert for every change
in the brooding quiet, but she was not afraid of the inevitable sound that
must shortly break it again. To herself she seemed to be shut into the very
heart of things, where everyone knows his secret hiding-place to be.
Nothing could hurt her there, because it was shut away from pain. Neither
remorse nor fear could touch her in that calm.

Yet all the time her mind had followed the man who had gone out,
hearing the thud of his feet on the sandy ground, and seeing the bulk of him
huge on the sea-wall. The sound of his feet would be sharper on the beach,
but when he got to the sand it would be muffled as if with cloths. When he
came to the channel he would stand and hail, and the light from the 'Ship'
would lie on the water like a road....
But never to-night or in all time would he get as far as the bank.
Suddenly, as he walked, he would hear a whisper out of the west. It would
mean nothing to him at first, nor the wind feeling along his cheek. He
would only say to himself that the trees were astir on the far point. Then he
would hear a noise like a coming shower, and lift up his face to meet the
first of the rain. But the sound that came after would come running along
the sand, until every rib was vibrating its message to his feet. When he
knew what it was, he would stand perfectly still, and then he would spring
in the air and start to run. But, run as he might, he would never reach the
shore, or stand on the gold road that would take him over to May. The white
tide-horses were swifter far than he; their unshod hoofs would outrun his
heavy boots. The sweeping advance-water would suddenly hem him in,
swirling before his feet and shooting behind his back. He would run this
way and that in the dark, but it would be no use. He would run and run, but
it would never be any use....
From complete detachment she passed gradually to a comforting sense
of quittance and ease. It was as if a burden that she had carried all her life
had been cut away, so that she could lift up her head and look in front of her
and breathe free. The sickening jealousy was gone, the gnawing pain at her
heart, the fierce up-swelling of decimating rage, the long, narrowed-down
brooding of helpless hate. Never again would she be able to see herself as

the poor relation fawning at Eliza's skirts. The thing had been done at last
which paid Eliza in full.
She had, as she came back within range of feeling again, one last, great
moment of exultant pride. She seemed to herself actually to grow in size, to
tower in the low room as the shadow of the home-comer had towered over
ceiling and wall. Into the hands of this oppressed and poverty-stricken
woman there had suddenly been given the heady power of life and death,
and the stimulant of it was like wine in her thin blood, making her heart
steady as a firm-blown forge. She felt strong enough in that moment to send
every child of Eliza's out to its death in the maw of the Night Wave. She felt
an epic figure poised on the edge of the world, heroic, tremendous, above
all laws. Indeed, she seemed, as it were, to be the very Finger of God
itself....
And then faintly the exultation sank; dimmed, rather, as on a summer
day the sharpness goes out of the high lights on lawn and wall. The sun is
not gone, but the farthest and finest quality of it is suddenly withdrawn. In
some such way a blurring of vivid certainties came upon her brain. A breath
of wind was blown sharply through the open window, and with a touch of
surprise she found that she was cold. The fire, so lately encouraged by the
visitor's presence, had died sulkily into grey clinkers tinged with red that
had no more warmth to it than a splash of paint. The candle, on the other
hand, had sprung into a tall flame from a high wick. It was as if it was
making a last effort to illumine the world for the woman over whose mind
was creeping that vague and blurring mist.
With the slackening of the mental tension her physical self slackened,
too. She began to rock to and fro, muttering softly as she swayed.
"Blind thoughts in a blind body's brain!" she was saying to herself....
"Ay, it's about time. A blind night and a blind tide.... Ay, it's about time...."

And yet through the blind night and with her blind sight she still saw
the figure swinging over the sands, broad, confident, strong, as were all at
Blindbeck,--successful and rich. Always her mind kept close at its back,
seeing the solid print of it on the air, feeling the muscular firmness of its
tread, and hearing the little whistled tune that kept escaping between its
teeth....
Suddenly she raised her voice, as if addressing somebody a long way
off.
"What d'you want wi' a bed as'll never sleep in bed again? Nay, my
lad, you'll have nowt but churchyard mould! ... Yon's if they find him, when
the tide comes in. There'll be a bonny fairing for Eliza when the tide comes
in!"
She stopped abruptly as Simon clattered into the room, holding herself
motionless by a final effort of will. He glanced uneasily at the still figure,
the unspread table and the dead fire, but he did not speak. He was still
conscious of guilt and ready to make amends, even to the extent of going
supperless to bed. Outside the door, he had felt curiously certain that Sarah
was not alone, and even now he looked into corners for figures that were
not there. Coming in from the dark on the marsh, his instinct had told him
instantly that the atmosphere had changed, but the knowledge faded once he
was well inside. He wondered whether anything had been done with the
milk, but did not like to ask, and, setting the still-lighted lantern on the
floor, stooped to unloose his boots.
"All yon talk about Geordie's fair give me the jumps!" he remarked
suddenly, with an embarrassed laugh. "I could ha' sworn I heard his voice as
I was snecking shuppon door!"
She did not answer, and with an inward curse at his own foolishness he
bent lower over his boots. "Another o' yon big tides," he went on hurriedly,

when the thongs were loosed. "It's sharp on t'road now. I could hear it as I
come in."
Even as he spoke the room was suddenly filled with the sound of the
sea. Before the majesty of the coming presence the whole house seemed to
cringe and cower. Sarah felt the room swing round with her, and caught at
the table, gripping the edge of it until her very fingers seemed of wood.
"There it be!" Simon said, raising himself. "It's big, as I said." He
clanked across to the window as he spoke, the laces slapping and trailing on
the flags, and again, as he put his face to the square, the wind that blows
before the tide stirred mightily through the room. Far-off, but coming fast,
they could hear the messenger from the deep, sweeping its garment over the
head of the crouched waste, as it sped to deliver its challenge at the locked
gate of the sea-wall.
Sarah had still control over her actual body, but no more. With Simon's
entrance she had realised herself again, and knew that she was weak and
old, with a mind that had got beyond her, and cried and ran to and fro as
Jim would run when he heard the Wave. Always she seemed to herself to be
close at his back, but now she ran to warn him and stumbled as she ran. She
flung out her arms towards him in an aching passion to hold him close, and
in that moment felt the truth drop, stilly, into her whirling brain. He turned
his face towards her swiftly as they went, and for all its likeness it was not
Jim's face. She saw him swept and helpless in the swirl of the tide, and in
the dark and the tumult knew that the precious body was not Jim's. She saw
him borne in the stillness of morning to the haunted Tithe-Barn where all
the drowned were laid, and by the light of the truth that there is between
living and dead knew she had always known it was not Jim....
"I hope May's gitten back," Simon was saying anxiously, as he peered
out. "I hope she's landed back...." Presently he leaned further, and gave a

sigh of relief. "Ay,--there goes Fleming's lamp!"
Instantly, as the light went out, there came from the sands a whistle
and then a cry. Simon spun round, saying, "What's yon?" with a frightened
look, and when the call came again he snatched the lantern from the floor.
The third call came suddenly faint, as if its author were running towards the
tide, and with a harsh cry a gull swept white and huge beyond the pane.
Simon fell back at the sight of it, crying aloud, and throwing his arm before
his eyes.
But at the same moment Sarah burst her bonds. "Geordie, Geordie!"
she screamed, and ran frenziedly to the door. "Nay, it's over now," she
finished, falling back against the wall. "Gang out and seek our fairing,
master,--mine and thine!"

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