SIR HARRY (continued 2)

"Oh, no! Oh, no! You mustn't think that. You're part of it all to him. I said that and I meant it."

She settled herself back more easily in her chair. "Well, I believe I am," she said. "I've tried to make myself. I love him dearly, and I'd do anything for his sake. It's been right to bring him up quietly here. She's been right there. I'll say that for her, though I hate her."

"You don't really hate her," said Mrs. Grant; "and I don't think you've any reason to. What she has done has been for Harry's sake too."

"It has been for the sake of the Brent family. Her son married beneath him—so she says—though I'd have made him a good wife, and though I loved him I knew he wasn't all he might have been. She's going to see that Harry doesn't run any risk of doing the same. Well, I'm with her there. I don't want Harry to be mixed up with what I come from. But there's nothing nasty about it. It's only that we weren't up in the world. Do you know I haven't so much as set eyes on my own people since Harry was born? Why shouldn't I? I'm flesh and blood. My father died since I came here, and mother's getting on. She was nearly fifty when I was married."

"Do you mean that Lady Brent——?"

"Oh, it was me too. I said that I'd give them up when I came here. The fact is that I wasn't best pleased with them at that time. I'd promised Harry—my husband, I mean; they're all called Harry—not to say I was married till he came home. Poor boy, he never did come home, but before that—well, they said things—at least, mother did—that made me furious. I kept my promise to him till I heard he'd been killed, poor boy. Then I let them have it. Perhaps I hadn't learnt quite so many manners then as I have since, though I was always considered refined by the other girls in the company. Anyhow, it ended in my saying I never wanted to see them again, and we never even wrote till poor father died. Still, I've forgiven them now, it's so long ago, and I cried when father died, and wrote to mother. I was very fond of father. He used to take me on his knee when I was little and read stories out of the Bible to me. He was a religious man, and didn't like my going on the stage. Sometimes I wish I'd never gone. Emily, my next oldest sister, went into millinery and did well. She married long ago and has a boy nearly as old as Harry, though of course he'd be very different. Mother said she had a nice house out Hendon way, when she wrote, and three little girls, as well as a boy. I dare say I should have been much happier like that, though I shouldn't have had Harry. But it couldn't do Harry any harm now if I just went up and saw them sometimes. I needn't even say I was going to see them or anything about them. Why shouldn't I go to London for a week, as other ladies do, to see their dressmaker or something? I think it's more London I want than mother, if you ask me. Oh, just to see the lights and the pavements, and the people jostling one another! I'm like famished for it."

She threw out her hands with a curious stagy gesture that was yet a natural one, and her nostrils seemed to dilate, as if she were actually sniffing the atmosphere she so much desired. "I'm going," she said. "I don't care what she says."

"I don't see why you shouldn't go," said Mrs. Grant. "But why should Lady Brent object? What can she say?"

Mrs. Brent leant forward. "Couldn't you ask her for me?" she said coaxingly. "Tell her you think I ought to have a change. I'm young, you know. At least I'm not old yet. It can't be right for me to be buried down here year after year. I shan't get into mischief. Just a week!"

Mrs. Grant felt intensely uncomfortable. Get into mischief! What did it all mean? Lady Brent must have some reason for keeping the frivolous pathetic little thing shut up like this? And yet she had seemed to disclose everything; she had dropped every trace of pretence, and had made her appeal for sympathy on the grounds of her very unsuitability to be where she was. If she no longer cared, before this friend, to keep up the fiction of having sprung from a superior station in life, which from such as she was a great concession to candour, how could she wish to keep anything back?

"You know I'm your friend," Mrs. Grant said. "I'd do anything I could to help you, but you see how it is with us here. We shall never be close friends with Lady Brent; I don't think she wants it. But she's kind and well-disposed towards us. I couldn't run the risk of setting her against us, unless I were quite certain that—I mean quite certain of my ground. It wouldn't be fair to my husband. It would make all the difference to us here if we were not on good terms with her. Have you told me everything? Why should she think you might get into mischief?"

She put this aside lightly. "Oh, there's nothing in that. It's only what she'd say. She'd say anything. But I see I ought not to ask you. No, it wouldn't be fair to bring you into it. She'd have it up against you; you're quite right. I tell you this, Mrs. Grant; when Harry comes of age—or before that, when he goes to Sandhurst—I'm off. No more of this for me. I shall snap my fingers at her. But of course you've got to stay here. No, I'll tackle her myself, and see if I can't get my own way for once."

She sprang up. "I'll go and do it now," she said. "No time like the present."

She laughed, and kissed Mrs. Grant. "Good-bye, dear," she said. "It does me good to talk to you; you're so understanding. And it does me good to have you here—you and your nice kind clever husband and your sweet children. Ah, if I'd had a bit of real family life with my poor boy!—it might have been here or anywhere; I shouldn't have cared where it was—it would all have been very different. Now I'll go and tackle the old dragon while I'm fresh for it. Good-bye, dear; I'll go out through the garden."

She went out by the window, and stopped to look at the sleeping baby as she crossed the lawn, smiling and making a little motion of the hand towards Mrs. Grant as she did so. Then she disappeared behind the shrubbery.

Mrs. Grant laid down her work and went to refresh herself with a look at the baby. As she turned back, her husband came out of his room, which was next to the drawing-room and also opened on to the garden.

His face was serious. "I didn't know you had Mrs. Brent with you," he said. "I've had Wilbraham. They're all at loggerheads up at the Castle, Ethel. I don't quite know what to do about it. I don't want to get up against Lady Brent; but——"

She told him of Mrs. Brent's prospective revolt. "She asked me to talk to her," she said. "But I said the same as you do. We don't want to get up against her. What is the trouble with Mr. Wilbraham?"

"Much the same as with Mrs. Brent apparently. He's fed up with it too. He wants to get away."

"What, for always?"

"Oh, no. He's too fond of Harry for that. Besides, he's very comfortable here—has everything he wants. I told him that, and he didn't deny it. But he seems to have developed a furious hatred of Lady Brent. I really can't tell you why. He couldn't tell me, when I pressed him. He's morose and gloomy. He says he must get away from her for a time, or he'll go off his head."

"But surely he can take a holiday sometimes if he wants to!"

"It almost looks as if she wouldn't let him go off by himself. He asked me to go with him, for a month. He offered to pay all expenses and go where I liked. In the old days I might have been tempted—if you'd thought it would be a good thing to do. But I don't want to go away from here just now—at this lovely time of year, with the work and everything going so well. Of course I could write, but—— Anyhow I don't know who I should get to do my duty. If I thought it would really put things right! What do you think? Ought I to do it?"

"I don't know, dear. I don't understand what's going on. It looks to me as if there must be something behind it all that we don't know of."

He laughed at her and pinched her chin. "You take the novelist's point of view," he said. "I don't, which is perhaps rather odd. They're all on each other's nerves. Why don't he and Mrs. Brent go off together?" He laughed again. "He didn't really press it," he said. "He wanted me to go this week. I couldn't do that, anyhow, and when I said so he seemed to drop the idea. He had wanted me to suggest it to Lady Brent just as Mrs. Brent wanted you. They're a queer couple."

"I suppose it's only to be expected that it should be like that sometimes," she said thoughtfully. "I think I could talk to Lady Brent, if she'd only give me the chance."

"I don't think she will, and it wouldn't do to begin it."

"Oh no, I shouldn't do that. But there's Harry. It all comes back to him, you see. If she's mistaken in what she's doing, it's for his sake she's doing it. She might give me an opening there."

"I don't think so. It all passes over Harry's head. It's rather remarkable how normal he is. One might not have expected it under such circumstances. Well, I must get back, dear. Wilbraham has taken a big slice out of my morning. I'm sorry for him and wish I could help him. But I don't see how I can, except by continuing my friendship. I was rather flattered that he should have come and talked to me. He professes to think very little of my knowledge of human nature, you know. But most of that's a pose, and I like him. He went off to tackle Lady Brent himself. Mrs. Brent too, you say. She'll have a happy day of it, I should think."

At this moment the peaceful seclusion of the scene was destroyed by the incursion of Jane and Pobbles, who, released from their studies, came tumultuously round the corner of the house, Jane leading. They woke up the baby, or, as her time for waking up was past, perhaps they only completed the process, and they escaped rebuke for it. Their cry was for Harry. Where was Harry? He had promised to come not a moment later than twelve o'clock, and it was already two minutes past.

Jane was a straight, somewhat leggy child, with the promise of beauty when the time should come for her to accept her dower of femininity. At present she was more like a boy than a girl, except for her long thick plait of fair hair, which she would have given almost anything to be allowed to sacrifice in the interests of freedom. She was aboundingly full of life and the most amazing physical energy. She affected an extreme virility of speech, and exercised a severe discipline over Pobbles, who occasionally raged against it as an offence to his manhood, but as a rule accepted the yoke and prospered under it. He was a handsome child, strong and vigorous too, but without his sister's determined initiative. They were a pair to be proud of, and their parents were proud of them, but found them a handful. Miss Minster could manage them by the exercise of a good-humoured authority which never allowed itself to be rattled. But it was only Harry whose lightest word they obeyed without question. He was their hero and their most adored playmate. Perhaps Jane showed more femininity in submitting to his direction than was apparent in her attitude towards him, in which there was none to be seen.

Harry came into the garden as they were clamouring their questions, with his retriever wagging its tail at his heels. He was seventeen now, grown almost to his full height, but his face was still that of a boy. There was a radiant look of health and happiness in it. He was extraordinarily good to look at, not only because of his beauty, of form and feature and colouring, which was undeniable, but because of this sort of inward light, which suffused it with a sense of perfection that went right through him. Mrs. Grant caught her breath as she looked at him. She saw him as some wonderful work of God, without flaw, untroubled in his happiness. Whatever disturbances there might be among the figures of coarser clay by whom he was surrounded, there must be some breath of finer spirit in each and all of them, since he stood on the threshold of manhood as he was, here before her eyes.

The matter in hand was the building of a log cabin in a bit of forest that reached down from the wooded hill behind the Vicarage garden. Harry and the children had been working at it for a month or more, and it was to be a very perfect specimen of a log cabin.

"Why haven't you brought the saw?" said Jane, turning upon Pobbles. "Go and fetch it."

"It's your turn," said Pobbles. "Can't always be fetching things for you."

"Be quick," said Jane. "We're wasting time. Come on, Harry, we'll start. He can run after us."

"Don't know where to find the saw," said Pobbles, untruthfully.

"Jane will go and help you," said Harry. "Hurry up, both of you."

Jane put her long legs in rapid motion without a word, Pobbles pounding along after her on his shorter ones. Harry laughed. "That's the way to talk to them," he said.

Jane returned bearing the saw, Pobbles following. They set off immediately for the wood, and the voices of all three of them were heard for a long time in animated conversation through the hot drowsy air.

CHAPTER VI

REVOLT

Lady Brent sat in her business room, engaged in affairs, or apparently so. Business room it was called, but it was little like one except for the large writing-table in the window at which she sat, and as a matter of fact she transacted most of the actual business of house and estate which fell to her share in a room downstairs called the Steward's room, which was far more severely furnished. This large upstairs room, with its deep embrasured window looking on to the park, was her fastness, and she did not often withdraw herself into its seclusion. It was next to her bedroom, and might have been better called her boudoir, but that the ancient and severe splendour of its furnishing would have seemed to rebuke such a name. It was richly carved and panelled, the furniture was heavy and sombre, and lightened by none of the modern touches which made the long drawing-room downstairs, which was mostly used, bright and even gay. This room was as characteristic of the old romantic Castle as any in it. It spoke of a time long gone by, and of a life more austere than modern life is apt to be. There were few comforts in it but a great deal of rich massive dignity. When Lady Brent ensconced herself in it she was the chatelaine of the Castle, seated in state, and as formidable as it was in her power to make herself.

Mrs. Brent, coming in from the Vicarage, wrought up to her purpose, looked for her in the long drawing-room, and not finding her there had the intuition that she was in her business room. She hesitated a little before going upstairs to verify it, making a further draught upon her determination. Of course! She had known that it was coming to a row. She was as sharp as a cartload of monkeys, and had seen that the row was likely to occur just at this very time. That was why she had taken to her business room, when by all usual habits she would have been sitting downstairs or in the garden, during the hour before luncheon.

So thought Mrs. Brent, mounting the oak staircase, and summoning all her resolution. She wouldn't be awed by the stately lady in the stately room. After all, it was only a piece of play-acting. She knew something about play-acting herself. She would be cold and stately too, announce her determination and then go away. She'd show that she wasn't to be put upon. Perhaps it would be easier like that. There would be no leading up to the subject and no discussion after it, as there must have been if she had joined her mother-in-law downstairs, and felt compelled to sit on with her.

But she knew, as she opened the door, that it would not be easier.

"Oh, I wondered where you were. I just wanted to say something to you, if you're not too busy."

The tone did not seem right, somehow, even to herself. Lady Brent turned round from the table at which she was sitting, and took off the tortoise-shell rimmed glasses which she wore for reading and writing. She did not look in the least degree formidable—a well-preserved, well-dressed, middle-aged lady, not really obliged to wear glasses, even for reading and writing, and not wanting them at all for anything else. "Yes, certainly, Charlotte," she said, "I have nearly finished what I came here to do, and you are not interrupting me at all."

Mrs. Brent had an impulse to make up some trivial message and go away, but conquered it. Her voice shook a little as she said, still standing: "I wish to go up to London, for a few days—say a week—as soon as possible."

Again she had not satisfied herself. She had used the prim reserved tone of a maid giving notice—"I wish to leave at the end of my month." It seemed to her that she had only just prevented herself adding, "my lady."

Lady Brent received it much as she might have received notice from a servant, whose temporary dissatisfaction with her place must not be taken too seriously. "Why do you want to do that?" she asked, in a level, even a kindly voice.

It touched some chord in Mrs. Brent. She had, perhaps, prepared herself for a peremptory refusal, and if it had come she would have been ready to combat it, and obstinate to push her determination through. But supposing her request should, after all, be granted! That would put everything right and save a lot of trouble.

All the irritation she had been piling up against Lady Brent would be dissolved. She did not want to quarrel with her, if it could be avoided. She would have to go on living with her, whether she had a short respite now or not. And it had not always been so very disagreeable to live with her.

"Oh, I must, I really must," she said. "I can't stand it any longer. Just a week! I'll go and see my mother, and be as quiet as possible. Harry needn't know I'm going to her, if you don't want him to, though I don't see what difference it would make."

"I think I do," said Lady Brent quietly. "But perhaps you'd better sit down, and talk it over. What is it you can't stand any longer? If there's anything wrong here we ought to be able to put it right. Only I must first know what it is."

Mrs. Brent sat down. She saw that her appeal had been a mistake. She could not now coldly state her intention and support it against opposition, behaving as one stately lady towards another, as she had pictured it to herself, coming up the staircase. And of course Lady Brent did not mean to let her go, if she could help it.

She sat down in a high-backed Carolean chair. "I don't want to go into all that," she said stiffly. "I shall be able to stand it all right when I come back. A little holiday is what I really want, and what I mean to have. It's not much to ask, after nearly eighteen years. Well, I say ask—but I'm not asking. I'm just telling you that I'm going away on Thursday, or perhaps Friday, and I shall come back in a week—or ten days."

It was not quite the address of one stately lady to another, but it seemed to have served its turn. Lady Brent turned back to her writing-table and took up her rimmed spectacles.

"Very well," she said.

Mrs. Brent sat in her high-backed chair, looking at her. She placed her spectacles upon her well-shaped nose, and took up her pen. Then she said, as calmly as before: "If you tell me you are going there is no more to be said. I'll finish what I'm doing now, before luncheon."

"Then you're ready for me to go; you don't mind," said Mrs. Brent.

"It doesn't much matter whether I mind or not, does it? You tell me you are going. You refuse to discuss it with me?"

"Well, I don't want to make trouble. It's no good talking over things. There's nothing much wrong, really. If I go away now for a bit I shall be all right when I come back. I expect, really, I shall be rather glad to get back."

Lady Brent put down her pen and took off her spectacles. "Oh, but if you go away you won't come back," she said, turning towards her again. "Surely you understand that!"

Mrs. Brent felt that she had been entrapped into an opening unfavourable to herself. Now was the time, if she had it in her, to exercise the restraint and reserve shown by Lady Brent. But it was not in her; she became angry at once, and showed her anger.

"Of course I might have known that you were leading me on," she said bitterly. "I dare say it seems very clever to you, and it's what you're always doing. But I'm not going to give in to it any more. I'm going away—only just for a little holiday—and I'm coming back. You can't prevent me. This is my home. I've lived here getting on for eighteen years—me and my child. I dare say you'd like to keep him and get rid of me. But you can't do it."

"If I wanted to do that I could do it," returned Lady Brent; and, as the statement brought no immediate response, she repeated it, in the same level tone but with slightly increased emphasis. "If I wanted to do that I could do it."

"Perhaps you could do it, by law," said Mrs. Brent. "I don't know anything about the law, except what you've told me. Perhaps you could and perhaps you couldn't. But there's one thing you can't do, and that's take away my child's love for me, though I dare say you'd like to do that too. You don't suppose that if I went away and came back here and you had me turned away from the door, you wouldn't hear something about it from him. You don't suppose that, do you? He's pretty near a man now. You're his guardian till he comes of age; I know that you had yourself made so by the law, and I didn't make any objection; you told me it was best for him, and I believed you. But you'd find it wasn't all a question of law if you tried any game of that sort. I don't know what Harry would do, but I do know that whatever he did it wouldn't suit your book."

Lady Brent had listened to this speech without showing the smallest sign of discomposure, but her light blue eyes were hard and cold as she said: "There is a good deal of truth in what you say. Your going away would completely upset everything that has been done during the last eighteen years for Harry's benefit. Both you and I have made sacrifices on his behalf. We agreed to do so when you came here before he was born. I have kept strictly to the bargain. I should not, for my own pleasure, live the retired life that I do here, all the year round, with you as my constant companion. For my own sake I should be immensely relieved to say good-bye to you for a time, if it were possible."

"Yes, that's the sort of nasty thing you say."

"Isn't it exactly what you say to me? Why should you suppose your society is any more gratification to me than mine is to you?"

"I wish to goodness you would say good-bye to me, then, for a time. Why isn't it possible? It is possible. I tell you I'm going, and I'm coming back."

"Do you remember anything at all about the bargain we struck when you first came here, or have you forgotten it entirely, after nearly eighteen years, as you say?"

"Of course I remember it. You didn't mince your words then any more than you do now. You made me feel that I was dirt beneath your feet, but you'd put up with me for the sake of preventing my boy—if it was to be a boy—doing what his father had done, and marrying somebody he loved, if you didn't think she was good enough for him."

"You can put it like that if it pleases you. You consented to everything. You yourself wanted the child brought up with nothing to remind him that on one side his birth wasn't suited to his long ancestry on the other. I warned you what the sacrifice would be. It meant giving up your own people, for one thing, and you gladly consented to do that. It meant your doing your utmost to fill the position that I freely offered you here."

"So I have done my utmost."

"And now, when what we agreed to do together has turned out better than either of us could have hoped for, when we are very nearly at the end of it, and can send Harry out into the world what we have made of him here, you want to break the bargain. And why? Not for any good it can possibly do him, but just because you want to go back to what you were before you came here—for your own petty selfish pleasure."

"It isn't that," she said vehemently. "I say it isn't natural that anybody should cut themselves off from their own flesh and blood. I loved my father and he died without me setting eyes on him. You let me write to mother then. I didn't do it without asking you, and——"

"Didn't we strike the bargain afresh then? Didn't I say I was sorry that it should have been required of you to cut yourself off from your family, but that it had already then proved to be the right course? And didn't you agree with me, though it was harder for you to bear then than at any time?"

The tears came. "Of course it was hard, then," she said. "But you were kind to me. So you were when I first came. If I was giving up something, I was going to get something too. All that I'd been was to be forgotten, though it isn't true that I'd been anything that I ought not to have been. Harry was to grow up knowing me as belonging here. You were to be his legal guardian, but he was to be my child."

"Yes, and I might have struck a much harder bargain with you than that. You would have consented. I might have taken the child and paid you off. That's often done, you know, in cases like yours."

She was sobbing now. "You're cruel," she said. "Yes, you are cruel, even when you're pretending to be nice. You like hurting me. Pay me off! Anybody'd think, to hear you talk, I'd been a loose woman."

"I've never said that, or implied it."

"No, you've never said it. You wouldn't dare. But you've made me feel that's how you look at me. Why didn't you pay me off, then, and get rid of me?"

"Exactly. Why didn't I?"

"Well? I'm asking you."

"I was willing to give you your chance. Whatever I may have thought of you, I didn't want to deprive you of your child, or him of his mother, so long as you were ready to make yourself the kind of mother he ought to have had. You said you'd do it. You were grateful to me. You consented to every stipulation I laid down. The chief of them all was that you should break absolutely with your past until he came of age. Then you could do what you liked; it would be between you and him. Now you want to break that stipulation. I say that if you break it on one side you break it on the other; I also say that it would be a very wicked thing to break it, now at this time."

"It wouldn't be if you'd just let me go away for a bit and come back."

"That I won't do. Why do you want to go away? It isn't just to see your mother. I know that well enough. You want the life of London, the life you led there before Harry was born—theatres, and suppers and gaiety, with the sort of people that you ought to be ashamed of mixing yourself up with, when you think about Harry, and what he is. You've done without it for nearly eighteen years. For goodness' sake do without it for a little time longer. Don't knock down what we've been building up for all these years, just for a selfish whim. Think of Harry, not of yourself."

"I do think of him. I love him better than anything in the world. I'd go barefoot if it was to do something for him."

"You're not asked to go barefoot. All you're asked to do is to go on living the quiet but very comfortable life that you've lived here for years past, and make the best of it. It's what I'm doing myself."

She dried her eyes and rose from her chair. "I see I'm not going to get any kindness from you," she said. "But I'll think about it. Perhaps I shan't go. I've stood it so long that perhaps I can stand it a bit longer. If I was sure it was for Harry's good I'd never move out of the place till I was carried out. I'll think about it and let you know."

"You needn't let me know anything," said Lady Brent. "If you go you go, and if you stay you stay."

With that Mrs. Brent left her. She did not immediately return to whatever she had been doing, but sat looking out through the open casement across the open spaces of the park to the woods beyond. Her face was still hard and still watchful. By and by she looked at her watch, and almost immediately a knock came at the door. She answered as if she had been expecting it, and Wilbraham came into the room.

There was a sullen discontented expression on his face, which was unusual with him. He had kind lazy eyes and a whimsical twist on his mobile lips; but all that was obliterated.

He took his seat without invitation in the chair recently vacated by Mrs. Brent. "I want to go away for two or three weeks' holiday," he said, scowling slightly, and handling his bunched fingers. "Now you're going to have that man over from Burport for Harry's mathematics he can do without me—say for a month. He's well up in my subjects. The more he works at his mathematics the better it will be for him."

"Why do you want to go away just now?" she asked, as she had asked of Mrs. Brent.

"Why does anybody ever want to go away?" he said. "I want a holiday, and if I'm to go on here I must have one."

"If you want a holiday from work, there ought to be no difficulty about that. You know what's best for Harry. If you think that Mr. Fletcher will be of more use to him now, by all means arrange it like that and leave yourself altogether free for a time."

"Thanks very much. Of course I shouldn't want to do anything that would keep Harry back. You know that."

"Oh yes, I know that. He was to come first in everything. That was agreed upon between us when you first came here. I saw very soon that I could leave questions of education entirely to you, and I have always done so."

"Well, now I want to go away for a month or so. I'm getting stale. I'm not doing him justice."

"Perhaps not. I've been feeling that for some little time. But I don't think it would help you to do him justice if you went away so that you could drink, and undo everything that——"

"Lady Brent!" He was startled and outraged, and glared at her terrifically.

She was not moved. "That's what's the matter with you," she said, in the same even voice, "though you may not acknowledge it to yourself. I'm very sorry that this has happened. I had thought that after all these years the craving had left you. I don't think it can be as strong as it was. I ran the risk when I asked you to come here, and helped you over the difficult time. It is years since you told me last that the desire was strong in you, but it was easier to overcome it. What a pity to give way now!"

His deep frown had not altered while she was speaking. "Give way!" he echoed. "I've no intention of giving way. You've no right to speak of that at all. It was all over long ago."

"I helped you to get over it, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did. I'm not denying it. You can be a good friend to a man when it suits you; to a woman too, I dare say. But you're difficult to live with. I want to get away for a time. There's nothing to fear, of that old weakness. Perhaps I ought not to resent your bringing it up against me, but——"

"You wouldn't resent it if what I say wasn't true. You may not know it yourself, but you're playing with the idea of giving way. If you did give way you'd be very sorry for it afterwards, no doubt, but the mischief would have been done. You'd no longer be a fit companion for Harry. It's him I'm thinking about. You can do what you like, but if you go away you don't come back. It's what I've just said to Charlotte, who wants the same as you do. I'm not going to have everything spoilt when our task is coming near its end. If she's a foolish woman, you're an intelligent man. You can see it all as well as I can if you clear your mind of its vapours. You know it wouldn't do. You must stay here until you have finished with Harry. Then you can do what you like—stay here or go away."

"It won't matter what becomes of me then, I suppose."

"I said that you could stay here if you liked. This has been your home for ten years. It can go on being your home as long as you value it; or at least as long as I have anything to do with it."

He sat looking down, still frowning; but his frown had more of thought, and less of anger in it now.

He threw a glance at her sitting there self-possessed and at ease, and a wry smile came to his lips. "Why can't you always behave like that?" he asked. "I suppose the fact is you've worked off all your temper on that poor little creature who's been telling you just the same as I have. I met her crying on the stairs just now, and she wouldn't tell me what it was about. But I could guess."

She showed some surprise, but no resentment. "My temper!" she exclaimed. "Well, I suppose I must pass that over in the state to which you've reduced yourself."

His face became moody again. "I won't ask you what you mean by that," he said. "But you're quite wrong in what you said just now. Would you consent to my going away with Grant, if I could get him to come with me? He's rather a fool, but I'd rather have his company than—than——"

"Than mine, I suppose. No, I wouldn't consent to that. You came here on certain conditions, and you must keep to them. It won't be for very much longer now. I'm not altogether without sympathy with you. I've felt the strain myself."

He broke into a loud laugh, and went on laughing, while she waited patiently for him to finish, as if no vagary on his part could surprise or upset her.

"Oh, that's too rich," he said, "in that tone! Yes, you've been feeling the strain, and you've made us feel it. That's all the trouble. Well now, look here, Lady Brent, I accept what you say about its being too late to alter things now—or too early—whichever you please. We're all three of us in the bargain, I take it. It was your idea to keep the boy shut up here, and it has paid. I don't believe it would have paid nine times out of ten, and we've yet to see how it will turn out when the test comes. But Harry being what he is, it has been a brilliant success—so far. You've been justified in keeping me and his mother shut up here too."

"And myself, you must remember. I've shut myself up too, so as to make it seem all the most natural thing in the world to him."

"Quite so. And you've suffered for it, just as we have. Suffered in your temper. If we stick to it, as we must, you ought to make it as easy for us as possible. You haven't lately."

"So Charlotte seemed to imply. But I should like to know how."

"Oh, you know how, well enough. You said I was a man of intelligence just now. Well, you're a woman of intelligence. Just think it over."

He nodded his head, knowingly. He looked rather ridiculous, and Lady Brent laughed.

"I wish you'd go away," she said. "I want to finish what I'm doing before luncheon. You may tell Charlotte, if you like, that I'm sorry if I spoke harshly to her just now. She annoyed me and I did not pick my words. When three people live together year in and year out they are apt to get annoyed with one another occasionally, for no particular reason."

CHAPTER VII

THE LOG CABIN

The log cabin had reached the interesting stage at which its framework was complete, and the immediate task was to nail thin bark-covered boards upon it. After that it was to be thatched. Then it was to be lined with match-boarding.

Harry had built every bit of the framework himself, with such help as Jane and Pobbles could give him in lifting and holding the timbers in place, not without some risk to limb if not to life. He had drawn out his constructional plan, from careful study of a book. Then he had had the timbers prepared at the sawmills four miles away, and he and the children had fetched them in a farm cart. It had taken them weeks to get the framework finished, but they had made a very good job of it between them. As they hurried up through the wood to the clearing upon the edge of which the cabin stood, Jane and Pobbles were full of excitement at the thought of work to come which they could really do themselves. So far, it had been helping Harry, which was pleasurable enough, but not to be compared with the pleasure that was to come.

Harry let them chatter without much response, but made the pace towards the clearing so fast that they had to run to keep up with him. He was excited too. He was doing something real, from the beginning. He had invented something and had already carried out the most difficult part of it, meeting the difficulties as they came, and surmounting them. All the rest would be easy enough until it came to the thatching. He proposed to do that himself too. Watching a thatcher at work on a barn had first put the idea of building a log cabin into his head. He thought he knew how it was done, and he could always ask the old thatcher questions; but he was not going to let him lay a finger on the roof of the cabin, nor even stand by and direct. Jane and Pobbles might do whatever lay within their power; it would have been he who had taught them and directed them in everything.

They came to the clearing—a space of bright green turf nibbled short by rabbits, surrounded mostly by oaks interspersed with glistening hollies and here and there a graceful deliciously green beech. The cabin stood back among the trees, its squared timbers showing white and new against the background of green and russet. Harry paused and put his head on one side to contemplate it, and a grin of pure pleasure lit up his face. "A very workmanlike job so far," he said. "Come on, we'll get the whole of the front covered in this morning."

They worked at a rate unknown to members of Trades Unions, measuring and sawing up the boards, and nailing them fast to the posts. Harry did all the sawing, Jane and Pobbles took it in turns to nail one end of a board while he nailed the other. They quarrelled a little over this until Harry stopped them. Jane was of the opinion that Pobbles did not drive in a nail as well as she did. Pobbles was of the contrary opinion. There were only two hammers between the three of them, but Harry was to provide a third for the afternoon. They were to have a picnic tea at the cabin, after lessons, and hoped to see the walls roughly finished before dusk fell.

The brooding summer noon did not daunt these eager labourers. It was more like real work to sweat under the hot sun. Harry took off his coat at the start and turned up his shirt sleeves. Pobbles did the same in imitation of him. Jane, having nothing that she could reasonably take off, contented herself with rolling up her sleeves and warning Pobbles that he would catch cold, which gave him an opening that he was not slow to take advantage of. "Men don't catch cold when they're working," he said, and took off his waistcoat. Jane had to admit inferiority, for once.

They worked till the last possible minute, and met again at the first possible minute in the afternoon. The game which they made of their work was more entrancing now than it had been in the morning. The tasks of the day were done, and the long summer evening stretched infinitely before them. Moreover, the cabin, with its front all boarded in, was now beginning to look like a cabin and not the skeleton of one; and a picnic is always a picnic to happy youth, however inadequate the viands. They were not inadequate on this occasion. All three labourers had brought baskets. A fire was to be lit and tea made—billy tea, of which Harry had learnt the recipe from a book. The meal was to be an adequate substitute for what they would have eaten indoors. Harry was to be excused dinner for it. The children had their freedom until half-past eight.

Jane had changed her clothes, and wore, instead of the cotton frock of the morning, an outgrown coat and skirt, already laid aside "to be given away." The reason for this apparent feminine vagary became manifest when, arrived on the scene of action, she took off the coat, which was uncomfortably tight, and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt she wore beneath it. She was now at least as much like a pioneer as Pobbles.

In their imaginative adaptable brains they were pioneers in very truth. Harry was as serious about it as the children, though he was too old for any childish game of make-believe. "Now we'll knock off for an hour," he said, when one of the end walls had been boarded in, and the desire for bodily sustenance became urgent. "We must get the roof on before the rains begin, but we're well ahead, and it's better to keep at it steadily than to work ourselves out."

He was in some imagined country of the new world, where the first duty was to provide shelter before attacking the primeval woods and bringing the soil into cultivation. The soft English glade, upon which the shadows of English oaks and beeches were beginning to lengthen under the westering sun, was transformed in his imagination to a clearing in some tropical forest, or in the backwoods of Australia or Canada. The Castle, the Vicarage, the village, were wiped out. They were very far away from all such signs of ancient civilization, very far too from all possibility of replenishing their stores, if these should be wastefully used. He asked Jane to count the eggs carefully. "If there's one over, Tom had better have it," he said.

Tom was Pobbles, so called only on such occasions as this. Jane understood perfectly. She was the woman of the party, and it lay with her to adjust and husband the stores, also to support the head of it in his designs. On such terms she was willing to shoulder her burden of womanhood, and rather regretted having approximated her attire to that of the men. "You'd better put your jacket on now you've left off working," said Harry, throwing a glance not altogether of approval at her shirt, which she wore open at the neck, as he and the virile Tom wore theirs. She obeyed meekly, and went into the cabin to put on her tie as well, also the hat which she had discarded. "We ought to nail up a bit of looking-glass inside," she said, as she came out, and before she joined in picking up sticks for the fire she went into the wood where some late hyacinths were still to be found, and fastened a bunch of them on her breast.

Thus far they might make believe, acting as if they were a backwoods party, but not bringing the pretence to the point of utterance. They both laughed at Pobbles when he said: "We'd better stick together when we're picking up sticks, or one of us may get scalped in the wood," and Jane said: "We're helping Harry; he's not playing a silly game with us." Pobbles thought it would have been more amusing if they had boldly played the game which seemed to be in their thoughts no less than in his, but accepted the correction, and half understood it. Harry, who was so wonderful at making things, would belittle himself by playing children's games about them.

But there was no diminution in his dignity when he showed that his mind was full of the reality of what they were playing at. They sat on the chips and sawdust outside the cabin, when they had devoured everything in their baskets, and talked. Harry leant against the new built wall of the cabin with his legs stretched out in front of him, his dog at his feet, and Pobbles leant against the wall beside him, in as near an imitation of his attitude as he could contrive without making himself too uncomfortable. Jane reclined gracefully on her elbow, and occasionally pulled her too-short skirt over her knees. The shadows of the trees had perceptibly lengthened. There were two hours of daylight yet, but the heat had declined, and the evening freshness was mingled with the evening peace. The cuckoo was calling, now here now there, and its grey form could be seen sometimes flitting from tree to tree across the glade. The rabbits were out at the far end of it, and the wood pigeons were swinging home to the high woods behind them. But of human occupation, besides their own, the world seemed empty. They were secure in their retreat.

"It must be a grand thing, you know," Harry said, "to find a new place in the world which you can make what you like of. Supposing this were really right away from everywhere, in a new country, we should begin just like this, with a cabin a bit bigger but much the same in plan. Then we should make our garden round about it. After that we should prepare our fields. We should cut down trees, for more building when we wanted it, and for logs for burning in the winter. We should have our animals; we should have everything that we wanted round us, and what we hadn't got we should have to do without until we could go and bring it from the nearest town, which might be hundreds of miles away. There'd be a tremendous lot to do every day, but you'd like doing it, and you'd see the whole thing grow and grow till you had a splendid place which you had made out of nothing, and hundreds of people working on it."

"Shall you do that, when you're quite grown up, Harry?" asked Pobbles. "I think I shall. I know a good deal about it already, and I can easily learn some more."

Jane forbore to rebuke his assumption of knowledge, having one to make on her own account. "I used to think I should hate having to sew and learn to cook," she said. "But I shouldn't mind it if I was living in a log cabin. I can cook some things already. I suppose it would be more fun to be a man, but a woman would have to ride and all that, if she lived in a new country; and she could ride astride."

"It's only when things begin to get a little settled that women go at all," said Harry, dashing these dreams. "The real pioneers go alone, and carry everything they want with them on horseback. It must be glorious to ride for day after day in a country where no white man has ever been before, and at last to come to some lovely place where he can make a settlement."

"There's no reason why a woman shouldn't do that too," said Jane. "She could go alone herself, if the man didn't want her. She could dress like a man."

Pobbles exploded with mirth, at some cryptic joke of his own. "A pretty fool she'd look if the Redskins caught her!" he said.

"Shut up," said Jane sharply, relinquishing her dreams of a woman's empire, "or I'll punch your head."

"Shut up both of you," said Harry, "and don't spoil things by quarrelling. You'd never do for that sort of life if you couldn't spend five minutes without flying at one another. You'd have to spend weeks and months together without seeing another living soul."

"But you'd be there," said Pobbles. "You'd keep her in order."

"Shall you ever do it, Harry, do you think?" asked Jane. "I should like to come too, if you do. I could wait behind till you'd found the right place, and then Tom and I could come on together."

"Perhaps I shall some day," said Harry, for whom time and youth seemed to stretch ahead illimitably. "But not until after I've been in the army for some years. And I couldn't be away long from Royd. I might just go pioneering, and leave somebody else to work up the place I've found."

"Oh, you could leave Jane and me," said Pobbles. "And you could come there and see us sometimes. You would find we had worked it up better each time you came."

"I shouldn't care about it unless Harry was there all the time," said Jane. "Besides, I am going into the army too. I read about a girl in Russia who fought all through the wars, and nobody found her out. I shall be in Harry's regiment, but he won't tell anybody. You can too, Pobbles, when you're old enough."

Harry looked at her, and laughed with great enjoyment. He had just seen the woman coming out in her, and been mildly entertained by it through his seriousness. Now she was a sexless child again. "You're one in a thousand, Jane," he said. "Of course you shall join my regiment, and Pobbles too. We'll have some jolly times, and when it comes to fighting we three will stick together."

Jane did not mind being laughed at by Harry, and was pleased at the prospect held out to her. She took off her jacket, when they set to work again at the cabin, and threw away the bluebells, wondering why she had picked them.

Dusk was falling as Harry made his way up through the wood and across the park homewards. The air was very still, and the sweet scents of the earth, dissolved in dew, rose like incense. Usually his impressionable untroubled mind would have leapt to the message of his senses, and he would have exulted in the beauty that lay all around him, sublimated by the spell of oncoming night. But as his feet brushed the moisture from the grass, and stirred the cool scents to greet his nostrils, he looked down and not up as his way was. A vague discontent was upon his spirit, which was not quite unhappiness though near akin to it.

The vision of a free life in a free untouched land had come to him. For the first time in his happy boyhood he felt himself bound by his lot. The great world, with its endless varieties of adventure and invitation to be doing and living, lay beyond his horizons and he had never crossed them.

Melancholy touched him so seldom that it was a discomfort to be resisted. He wondered what made him sad at the thought of being tied to Royd, which had hitherto been a paradise of enjoyment to him. He stood still as he came out from among the trees and looked across the park to the dark mass of the Castle, in which lights were glimmering here and there, making it more romantic and beautiful even than when seen in the day-time. And as he looked, the momentary sadness fell from him, and he smiled with pleasure at the scene so familiar yet always showing itself in some new emanation of beauty. He was coming to the age at which he could no longer be satisfied with it as holding everything in life. The shadow of unrest had just fallen upon him, but it would not be yet that he would walk in it.

As he neared the Castle a white figure, dimly seen in the dusk, detached itself from the gloom that lay about the massive walls and came towards him along the trodden path by which he was hastening. He recognized it as that of his mother, who not infrequently came out to meet him like this when he had begged off dinner and came back after it. It usually gave him pleasure to find her waiting for him in this way. There was not, perhaps, very much in common between them, but he knew how much he was to her, and his chivalry went out towards her, in love and a sense of protection.

To-night he was conscious of the least little sense of discomfort in meeting her. His time was so fully taken up, with his work indoors and his innumerable pursuits out of doors, that neither his mother nor his grandmother saw very much of him except at meal-times, and less than ever in the summer-time. It was part of the wisdom of Lady Brent that he was left as free as he was. But he was sensitive to the atmosphere around him, and of late when the inmates of the Castle had been together it had been uncomfortable. Wilbraham, while they had done their work together, had been much as usual, but at table he had been morose and snappy. The two women had obviously put constraint upon themselves to be easy and natural before him, but the coldness and irritation between them had peeped through. There had been nothing to cause him to reflect upon something wrong, and the cause of it; he had been full of his own devices and forgotten all about the discomfort at home the moment he was away from it. But the discomfort was there. Perhaps it had had to do with the vague discontent that had just come upon him and passed away. But the sight of his mother coming to meet him brought it back ever so little. Whatever his dreams for the future, whether at home or abroad, the whims and vagaries of his elders if indulged in must shut them off. Going away from Royd meant going away from them; Royd itself must lose some of its glamour if life there was to be troubled by their jars.

But he remembered now, as he called to his mother and hurried his steps to meet her, that the cloud had seemed to have lifted itself somewhat at luncheon that day. Wilbraham, at any rate, had recovered his equanimity entirely, and had been good-humoured and talkative; and Lady Brent had been suave, when for some days she had seemed covered with prickles. Only his mother had been subdued, with traces of past tears about her eyes.

He reproached himself that he had not taken much notice of these signs of disturbance in her. He had been too busy with his schemes for the afternoon, about which he had talked freely, as he was encouraged to talk about everything that interested him. He had felt instinctively that any sort of chatter from him would be welcomed. But he had escaped as soon as possible after luncheon and forgotten all about the tension until now.

"Well, little mother!" he said as he came up to her. "Ought you to be out at this time of night without a wrap or anything?"

He had a clear, rather high-pitched voice that was music in her ears. She loved him anew for the kindness in it, and for the question which showed that he was careful of her. He put his arm round her shoulder and kissed her, and his hand went down to her waist and remained there as she turned to walk with him. All this thrilled her with pleasure, and her voice shook a little as she answered him, though she tried to keep it level.

"Oh, I'm all right, dear," she said. "It's very warm. Shall we go into the garden for a little? It's lovely there now."

"Yes; let's," he said at once, though he had intended to go in and forage for food, for he was hungry again.

They went into the garden through a tall iron gate in the wall, and walked up and down the long bowling green, which was hidden from the house by a high yew hedge. A fountain plashed in a pool at the far end of it; there were no flowers to be seen just here, but the air was full of their scent. The light had not yet faded out of the sky, but stars were beginning to twinkle in it. The grass was close cut, but wet with dew. He bent down to see whether she was fitly shod, and found she had put on goloshes. She laughed at him. "Nobody can see them," she said, "but you like taking care of your old mother, don't you, darling?"

"You're not old," said Harry; "and of course you must be taken care of. Isn't it lovely out here? I don't think there can be any place so lovely as Royd in the whole world, though I haven't seen much of the world, so far."

"I think it's lovely too," she said. "But I shouldn't want to stay here always if you weren't here. You've never wanted to go away, have you, Harry?"

He laughed at his remembrances. "Just for a little this afternoon, I thought I should like to go somewhere else," he said. "The children and I have been building our log cabin, and I rather wished it was a real one, quite away from everything, in some far-off country. But I suppose I shouldn't like to be away from Royd for very long."

"It won't be very long before you do go away now," she said. "Oh, I do hope it won't change you, Harry dear. It's so different, out in the world. Sometimes I long for it, but I believe this is best, after all. If you told me I could go to-morrow I don't think I would now. I wouldn't go as long as you were here, and I knew you were happy being here."

"I haven't looked forward very much to going to Sandhurst," he said, thoughtfully. "I shan't be nearly so free there as I am here, and I'm not sure I shall get on very well with the others. I've never had much to do with other people of my own age."

"No, you're different," she said. "But you're much nicer. I don't think you'd have been so nice if you had been brought up like other boys; or so happy, either. But you'll have to be careful when you go away. There are lots of temptations which other boys of your age know about, and you don't."

He turned a smiling face on her. "Then hadn't you better tell me about them?" he said. "Do you mean drinking and gambling? I was reading a book the other day about all that. It didn't seem to me much of a temptation. I suppose I shall have as much money as I want without gambling for it, shan't I? And why should I want to drink if I'm not thirsty?"

She had not paid much attention to this. She was wondering whether she dared talk to him of the life, as it appeared to her, from which he had been kept secluded. It had been tacitly accepted, all through his boyhood, that no mystery was to be made of it, and any questions he might ask should be answered, but that his being kept at Royd was to be taken as a natural thing. After her late revolt she had swung round to a complete acceptance of the understanding by which those who were responsible for Harry should share in the seclusion which had been laid down as the best thing for him during his boyhood. Only so could it be accepted without question by him. Lady Brent had triumphed, and had shown, this evening, that she bore no malice on account of what had lately happened. Mrs. Brent was at peace with her, and once more a loyal supporter of her views. But there was a little jealousy and a little egotism left. She was Harry's mother. If any enlightenment was to be brought to him as to what lay before him, surely she might be considered the right person to give it! It was only because she knew that Lady Brent would not think so that she hesitated.

"Oh, drinking and gambling," she said, catching him up. "No, I don't think those would be temptations to you, brought up as you have been, though one never knows, with young men. It's women I should be afraid of. They'll try to get hold of you. You see you'll be a great catch, Harry. And of course you're very handsome. You'll have to be careful about designing women."

No, decidedly, Lady Brent would not have approved of this kind of warning.

It seemed to be distasteful to Harry too. "All right, mother, I'll take care," he said, shortly.

"It would never do for you to marry beneath you," she went on, rather surprisingly, and would have gone on to amplify her statement, but that Harry suddenly cut her short.

"I'm most frightfully hungry, mother," he said. "Let's go in and see if we can get hold of anything. Then I think it will be about time for me to go to bed."

CHAPTER VIII

AUGUST

Harry stood at a window of his room in the tower, looking out on to the trees, which tossed and struggled against the gale. Heavy clouds were racing across the sky and at no long intervals gusts of rain rattled against the westward window.

Harry had asked for this room as his own a year or two before. It filled the whole space of the tower on its top story, except for the corner in which was the spiral stone stairway, and had windows on all four sides. In front was the park, and from this height could be caught a glimpse of the sea across the tops of the trees beyond it, but this afternoon it was blotted out by the grey mist which seemed to take the colour from everything, though the month was August and the deep rich tones of the woods would ordinarily have stood out boldly. Below the three other windows lay the long irregular roofs of the ancient house, with the courtyards enclosed, and the outbuildings, the gardens, the orchard,—a fascinating bird's-eye view containing all sorts of curious surprises. Harry had never been tired of it as a child, and found it interesting now, though it had ceased to hold any new discovery. The room had not been used until he had taken to it, though it had contained some old pieces of furniture. He had added to them whatever had taken his fancy from the many unoccupied rooms of the house, and brought whatever he wanted for his own pursuits here. He was never disturbed in this room, and never entered it except when he wanted to be alone. He did his work downstairs in the room that was still called the schoolroom; he read in the library, where Wilbraham usually kept him company; he sat and talked with his mother and grandmother in the rooms they occupied. It was of the essence of this room that he could be alone in it when he wanted to be alone, which was not very often, for he was no recluse. If the elders had made themselves free of entrance to it, its charms for him would have gone; but Lady Brent had said that it was to be his only, without his having asked more than that he should be allowed to have what he wanted in it. "It's right that he should be able to get away from us sometimes, indoors as well as out," she had said to Mrs. Brent. "He's not to feel himself chained to our society."

Harry stood at the window, looking out not upon the courts and gardens, laid out beneath him, but across the trees to where the sea was, if he could have seen it for the mist. It was holiday time with him. He had come up here after luncheon thinking to make out the treasure island map that he had promised to Jane and Pobbles before they had gone away to the seaside. This was part of a game they had invented, sitting in their log cabin one wet afternoon. Harry was by no means above games that were no more than games, though he was too old to turn reality into a game, and this was a fascinating one that they had hit upon together—the designing of the ideal island upon which the vicissitudes of life might one day cause them all to be wrecked. They had contributed its features, one by one—sandy beaches, and coral pools to bathe in; bread-fruit and grapes and oranges; a great hollow tree halfway up a mountain that they could make into a house, as was done by that didactic but resourceful Swiss of the name of Robinson; a hidden hoard of treasure which would include gold cups and plates and dishes for domestic use; a spring of miraculously clear water, discovered just when they were dying of thirst, and slightly flavoured with pineapple (this was Pobbles's idea); a hut in which a marooned sailor had left behind him every sort of tool that could come in handy, he himself having been taken off the island, on Jane's suggestion, so as to avoid the nuisance of a skeleton: these were a few of the amenities that were to be found on this accommodating island, and they were increased every time the subject came up for discussion. Harry had promised to draw a map for them, including the already settled geographical features, and adding any others that might occur to him in the meantime. He had drawn the outline of the island on a handsome scale, and inked it in carefully. Then he had got tired of it. The eager pleasure of the children was wanted to give salt to this game. He could not employ himself for a whole afternoon over it.

He missed those little friends of his, especially Jane, with her quick ways and eager loyalty, which made her so companionable, though never tiresomely clinging, as is the way with admiring children. He had not known how much they had come to mean to him during this last year in which they had been his constant companions, until they had gone away and he had been left to the society of his elders. Between him and Wilbraham, especially, there was some community of taste. He owed a good deal of his love of fine literature to Wilbraham, and there was much that he could share with him that was beyond the understanding of the children. They were only children, and he had told them none of his secret thoughts. Jane was very quick of understanding, and had developed considerably during the year he had known her; perhaps he might have come to confide some of them to her if they had ever been alone together. But Pobbles was her inseparable shadow, and he had never wanted it otherwise. With all their immaturity, they appealed to the spirit of youth in him, and their companionship gave him something that he could not get from his elders. That was why he missed them so much on this wild wet afternoon, when he was debarred from his usual pursuits out of doors, and there seemed to be nothing worth doing indoors. And yet it was not them so much that he missed—though he did not know it—as the companionship and inspiration of answering youth. Perhaps they had had something to do with arousing the need of it in him, but they were too young to satisfy it. He had been supremely happy in his childhood and youth—far more consistently happy than most boys of his age, and happier than he consciously knew. But the time for that life was coming to an end; unless some change came to him he would gain less and less contentment from it as he grew older.

He had not yet grasped the magnitude of the change that was even then all around him, and would soon draw him, as an atom in the whole sensitive world, into its vortex.

For the great war had begun. As Harry stood at the window, the German hordes were over-running Belgium and France, England was hurrying feverishly into the breach, throughout the length and breadth of the country nothing else was talked of but the war; only here and there in some remote place the menace of the great conflagration was unheeded as yet; but very soon there would be no place where its weight did not fall.

It was talked of at the Castle. Wilbraham already had his maps up in the library, and his little flags to stick into them. He and Lady Brent disputed about it over the table. Wilbraham thought it would all be over, and the Germans taught their sharp lesson, in a few weeks. Lady Brent, remembering similar prophecies about an immeasurably less formidable enemy fifteen years before, thought it would be longer. It might take a whole year to bring it to an end. Longer it could not take, because all Europe would be bankrupt if it did. They argued quite impersonally. They would not be touched by it themselves.

Harry had not caught fire over it yet. His life had been quite divorced from anything that went on in the world outside Royd, except in what he had learnt from books. Neither home nor foreign politics meant anything to him, and he never looked at a newspaper, except in idle moments. His one regret was that the war would be over before he should gain his commission, in two or three years' time. That seemed to be agreed upon. At present there were no individual deeds to excite his imagination. He took but a languid interest in it as yet, though every day there seemed to be some increase in its importance. This afternoon it weighed a little on him, with all the rest, but a break in the clouds would have set his mind free of it, and for the moment of every other vaguely felt dissatisfaction.

There was no sign of any break in the heavy clouds, but some weather sense which he had acquired in his open-air life gave him the feeling that the storm was nearing its end. At any rate, he must go out, whether it cleared or not. He was getting mopy, shut up in the house. He knew by experience that that rare feeling never persisted when he was once out of doors.

A furious gust drove the rain against the windows and blotted out all the landscape as he turned to leave the room; but he felt better already for his decision. He would go for a gallop towards the sea. It would be invigorating to have the rain and the wind in his face, and perhaps the storm would be over by the time he reached the shore. It would be grand to see the sun break over the waves, and watch them dashing themselves against the rocks.

He put on his oldest breeches and gaiters and a riding raincoat and went out to the stables. He told no one that he was going out, wanting to escape dissuasion from his mother and grandmother in the drawing-room, and Wilbraham in the library. They let him take his way in these matters, but it was not to be expected from middle-aged human nature that he would be allowed to go out in this weather without some remonstrance.

He had two horses of his own, Clive, a bay, and Circe, a black blood mare, and his own groom, Fred Armour, the head coachman's son, who was only a year older than himself, and a friend of his lifetime. Ben, his big black retriever, who followed him everywhere, had already expressed his delighted agreement with the sensible course he had shown himself about to take. He knew he was admitted to the house on condition that he did not raise his voice in it, and beyond a few subdued yaps of appreciation he had followed Harry downstairs with no more than ecstatic wrigglings and sweeps of his feathered tail. But, once outside, his enthusiasm broke loose and brought on the scene other members of his race at a loose end for something to do. There was a terrific canine commotion as Harry called for Fred, and the first thing to be done was to bring disappointment to all but Siren, a deer hound, and Rollo, a Great Dane, by shutting them up again. The three bigger dogs could keep up with Circe, galloping freely; the others must reserve themselves for expeditions when the blood was less insistent on rapid motion.

Fred Armour, a cheerful brown-faced red-headed young man, neat and active in his stable kit, seemed also to have been affected by the dismal weather, for he did what was required of him without his usual grin or ready flow of words. It was not until he had saddled and bridled Circe and brought her out that he said: "I'm off to-morrow, Sir Harry. Father's said yes, and her ladyship has given her consent, though she don't like it."

Harry stared at him, holding the mare, who was dancing with impatience. He understood nothing until Fred told him that he was joining up with the County Yeomanry—the first man on the Royd estate to go, or, as it seemed afterwards, to think of going. The time had not yet come when the call for recruits penetrated the out-of-the-way corners of England. Harry was surprised, as his grandmother had apparently been, that Fred should have thought of going. But his impulse was one of envy when he was told about it, not of dissuasion. "I'm nearly as old as you," he said, "but it will take me a couple of years to get my commission. It will all be over by then."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Fred. "But there's a lot to be trained, in case they want them. I shall come back when they've done with me. Her ladyship says I can, though she's upset like at my wanting to go."

Harry had something to think about as he rode out into the park, and after a sharp canter over the drenched grass, with the rain and the wind fretting the mare so that it was all he could do to hold her, slowed to a trot as he entered a ride through the woods. It was not so much of the war. Fred would have a few months of training as a trooper, and then he would probably come back; he was not, after all, greatly to be envied there, and Harry had no particular wish to hurry on his own longer training, since the time was so far distant when he could expect to get his commission. But Fred had told him of others who were likely to follow his example now that the ice had once been broken—another lad from the stables, two from the gardens, some from the village. A cousin of his, from some distance off, who had already served in the Yeomanry, had joined a regular cavalry regiment, and was already in France, fighting. It was from him that the impulsion had first come.

It was a fine thing to respond like that to your country's call, almost before it was sounded. It was what Harry's own forefathers would have done, and had done in many an instance that he had read about in old books in which he had pored to find out what he could about the knightly stock from which he had sprung. They would have collected their servants and tenants around them and ridden off at their head to offer themselves—a small band, perhaps, but a sturdy one, well horsed and equipped and well versed in the man's business of giving and receiving blows. It could not be quite like that in this war, when boys of his age, even if capable of raising their followers, would have to go through the mill of learning and training before they could be of any use. But the readiness with which Fred's cousin had been accepted and sent out to fight disturbed him somewhat, both on his own account and on that of the men and youths who owed him allegiance. There was nobody in the village of Royd or on all the wide Castle lands, so far as he knew, who had done any of the soldiering that is open to young men in times of peace. Supposing he himself had been of full age to fight, he would still have had to wait until he had learnt his business, and he could have given a lead to nobody. Why hadn't it been suggested to him that he should join the County Yeomanry, or why had he not thought of it himself? The Sir Harry of the time of the Napoleonic wars had been in command of it; almost every man of his tenantry had belonged to it. Now it drew its recruits from other parts of the county; no one from Royd had served in it for a generation or more. It had never occurred to him that it would be a good thing for him in his position to do so.

Royd was ruled by a woman. That was the explanation of this lapse in its ancient duties and responsibilities, now for the first time apparent. And he was ruled by a woman, though the yoke had hitherto been but lightly felt. Fred Armour could go off, though not without having some opposition to encounter; others could talk of doing so. He must stay where he was until the appointed time.

Well, the time was not far distant now. In January he would go up for his examination, and after that the new life would begin for him—the man's life, in which, though still under tutelage, he would be free at times to go where he would. He had rather dreaded exchanging his life at Royd for it, for that had been a life full of the satisfaction of all the desires he had felt, and it had never seemed to him either narrow or confined. But this sense of a woman's domination was beginning to prick him. He thought that at least he would put it to his grandmother that Royd ought to have been represented in the Yeomanry. It might have been a small matter, in times of peace, but it was one that would not have escaped a male head of Royd. And he must see to it himself that any man who wanted to join up with the troops in training should have no difficulty put in his way. As for himself, there seemed to be nothing to be done but to wait until his time came. Fred might, perhaps, see some fighting, if Lady Brent were right and Wilbraham were wrong about the war lasting on into the next year; that was the advantage of belonging to the ranks. For officers, the training must be much longer, and his would not be finished if the war lasted for two years, which it seemed to be agreed was an impossibility.

He shook his thoughts from him as he came out of the wood and galloped again on the crisp turf of the hilltop, between the gorse and the heather and the outcropping rocks.

He was on high ground here. The rain had ceased, though the wind was buffeting him so furiously that he had to keep his head down as he rode, and even the mare was soon submissive to being pulled down to a trot and then to a walk. The light was stronger now and the clouds driven along by the wind seemed to be higher; there was no sign of a break in them, but there was the feeling that at any time they might be rent asunder and let through a shaft of sunlight. The mist had all gone, and the sea lay, a grey, turbulent expanse, apparently near at hand, though at its nearest point it was still some two miles distant.

The sight of the sea always had a calming effect upon Harry, whether it lay blue and calm or was lashed to angry motion. It was his outlook into the world beyond the bounds of his home. When he had least felt himself circumscribed something had yet urged him now and then to ride to the shore and to let his spirit go out across the boundless waters. And now, as he saw the great spaces of sea and sky in front of him his thoughts lightened. As his physical world had this wide outlet into the greater world beyond it, so his life, bound hitherto within limits that he was outgrowing, would soon open into something wider and freer. And just as he would return to the sheltered haunts of his home, loving it all the more for his glimpse of the unsheltered sea, so with the life which had been so happy there. It was coming to an end for him, but was all the more to be treasured on that account as long as it lasted.

He came to a break in the rocky cliff which led down to a little sandy bay, on the edge of which was what had once been a fisherman's cottage. The cliff had broken away in front of it and it had been abandoned as dangerous some years before. Only its walls were standing, but there was a place among the ruins in which he could tie up his horse if he wanted to walk by the sea. He did so now, and went down to the sands, followed by the dogs. The sun came out as he did so, and great masses of clouds were torn asunder and piled up to be rolled away before the wind, instead of forming a thick curtain between him and the sky.

He shouted for joy at the lifting of the grey oppression, and became a boy again as by a sudden impulse he stripped to bathe and ran over the sands to meet the shock of the great waves that were rolling up them.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE MOOR

As he rode towards home an hour or two later, Harry felt as if all the stains upon life had been washed away, just as the wind and rain had scoured the heavens of their dark load of cloud. The sun, now declining towards the west, shone in a sky of clean blue; the wind was dropping every minute, but was still fresh as he cantered across the moor. He rode with his head up, singing blithely, and drinking in through all his senses the sparkling glory of a world set free from the tyranny of storm and gloom.

He had thought out nothing to a definite conclusion, and yet the perplexities which had surrounded him as he started out on his ride seemed to have disappeared. The war, which had affected him so little, now lay in the background of his mind as a real and a very big thing, and it seemed to him fixed and certain that somehow and at some time it would profoundly affect his life; but at present he had nothing to do but to await what should be coming to him. His place at Royd must also undergo a change, and that, too, would come, in its time, as it would come. Whatever should happen, he was ready for it, and his mind was free and happy, but also strangely expectant. He was in the current of some power outside himself, but in complete harmony with it, and at the same time in free possession of himself, just as he had lately exulted in his youth and strength as his body had been borne on the motion of the mighty waters. Ever since that night of still and unearthly beauty, when the vision had come to him of a living power in nature for a sign of which he had yearned, he had thought of himself as controlled by strong yet gentle and beneficent forces, which, if he yielded himself to them, would lead him along paths that he would best fulfil himself in treading. The feeling was stronger at some times than others. It had never been so obscured as it had been a few hours earlier, but now, in the sun and the wind, it was very strong. He felt himself calmed and uplifted in spirit, as if by a tangible communion with the guiding influences. They seemed to be telling him, or to have told him, that his shadowed mood need never have been; that they had something in store for him, some experience, some happening, which would give him renewed faith in their guidance. There was a sense almost of being indulged, by an assurance out of the common run.

But his mood was as far as possible from being analytical, as he rode on singing and calling to his dogs, which sprang round him rejoicing as he did in the exhilaration of quick motion and the strength and poise of muscle and sinew. His mind had cleared, and he was free to give himself up to the joy of living, all the more keenly for the whisper that had come to him of something new and exciting in preparation for him.

The boy, the horse and the dogs—they had had the fine, fresh world to themselves throughout the afternoon, except for the strong birds of the sea and the little birds of the gorsy common. No buildings lay upon the path that Harry had taken to the shore, nor very near it, for he had ridden through the wood by a narrow ride, little used, and across the open ground had kept out of the way of trodden paths. There were sheep on this wide stretch of upland, and a shepherd might occasionally have been seen there. Otherwise it was little frequented; a human figure on it would arouse curiosity.

A human figure came into view as Harry had traversed the greater part of the open space, and the woods of Royd were a mile or so in front of him. It was the figure of a woman, and was immediately between him and the point towards which he was riding. He knew all the people who lived in the scattered cottages and farms between Royd and the sea; there were not many of them, and none just here. He wondered who it could be going in that direction, and what she was doing so far away from human habitation.

As he rode on, he saw that it was a girl, and a stranger, which was somewhat surprising, as the nearest place to which strangers came was miles away. He had left off singing, but one of the dogs barked, and the girl turned round, evidently startled and perhaps a little alarmed. He was near enough now to see her face. She was very young, hardly more than a child, for her hair was not knotted up under her hat, but tied behind with a big bow. She was tall and slim. The wind took her skirts as she stood there, and revealed the supple grace of her young figure, firmly but lightly poised against it. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of brown tweed, with a hat of soft straw firmly pinned on to her graceful head. So much Harry took in before he came near enough to see her face.

Her features were fine and true, and she had a delicate skin, its colour freshened by the wind. Her eyes were dark, with a starry radiance in them; her lips were slightly parted as she looked at him approaching. She was beautiful, with the beauty half of a child, half of a woman.

Harry reined in his horse as he came up to her, and for an appreciable instant they looked into one another's eyes without speaking. Then the girl said: "I have lost my way. I don't know where I'm going to," and laughed and blushed at the same time.

Harry laughed, too, and slipped down off his horse. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "I'll show you the way, if you tell me."

She was staying with her father, she said, at a cottage on the edge of the woods; she had come out when the rain had ceased to walk towards the sea, but it was farther than she had thought, and when she had turned back to see the unbroken line of the woods before her there was nothing to tell her which point to make for.

The woman with whom she was lodging was the widow of a man who had worked in the Royd woods; he had died the year before and she had been given a pension and allowed to remain on in her cottage. It was in a group of three or four, about a mile from the Castle and a mile and a half from the village, which formed the nearest approach to an outlying hamlet that was to be found on the Royd lands. It was rather surprising that anybody should take lodgings there, though with the deep woods behind it and the moor in front, and the sea within view, many people might have chosen it to make holiday in, if it had come within their knowledge.

"Oh, Mrs. Ivimey," said Harry, pointing. "That's a mile and more away over there. I'm afraid you can't have much sense of direction."

They both laughed at that. It seemed the most natural thing for them to talk and laugh together. The secluded life that Harry had lived had brought some shyness into the way he addressed himself to strangers, though his natural manner was free and open. But this girl, walking freely over the windy moor, seemed to be in some way allied to those living influences of nature with which his contact was so real. And the spirit of youth informed all her looks and her ways and met the answering youth in him. There was no room for shyness in speaking to her, and as he neither felt nor showed it, her response was frank, too. "I'm a Londoner," she said. "You couldn't expect me to find my way about here, where the paths wind about anyhow, and everything is the same."

He was walking beside her now in the direction he had pointed out. He had made no offer to accompany her and she made no comment upon his doing so. It seemed that they must have a great deal to say to one another and that the best way was to walk together until some of it at least should have been said.