PART I THE VALLEY (continued 3)

§ 1

Belle spent at Three Cups Corner some quiet, sullen days. Then she said that she could not stay there any longer. She must go home and face her fortune. She felt restored by that quiet week—the change of surroundings, her sense of isolation in her aunt’s family, whose attitude was casual and whose curiosity easily satisfied, the freedom from manual work—all these things helped build up her mind into a form of courage. She had better go home while she felt like this.

So one afternoon she travelled Down-wards, leaving the wealden slope, with its woods and its show of houses, for the lonely reedy places of the Cuckmere winding at the roots of Firle. The family was at tea when she arrived, and during the meal nothing passed but the commonplaces of return, news of the Dengates and news of the farm; but at the end of it, Ted Shackford hurried the younger members out rather peremptorily.

“It’s time you were off to Gadgett’s, Nell, with those eggs. Tim will go with you.”

“There’s no need to start now,” grumbled Nell; “it’s the first time I’ve sat down this afternoon.”

“You be off,” said her father, with such unaccustomed decision that she actually rose to go.

“Don’t be a fool,” Belle heard Tim whisper to her as they went through the door—“they’re going to ask Belle about the baby.”

So she was not going to be kept long in suspense. The racket was going to start right off this minute. She wished she could have entered into it without the disconcertment of Tim’s words, without the blush and the prick of tears that they had brought. Still, it was just as well for her to realize what she was in for with her family. Lucy remained seated at the table, blushing as red as Belle; Ted Shackford had risen and slouched about the room.

“When are you going to get married?” he asked suddenly.

“Never, as far as I know.”

“How d’you mean?”

“I’ve broken off my engagement with Daniel Sheather.”

“Broken it off! When?”

“Before I went to Heathfield.”

“You broke it off—yourself?—in heaven’s name....”

“Don’t be a fool, Belle,” said Lucy—“you can speak the truth to us. If that man’s let you down, dad ull jolly well make him——”

“He hasn’t let me down. He’d marry me at once if I’d have him, but I won’t.”

“Are you quite mad?”

“Maybe”—Belle laughed.

“But, look here,” continued Lucy—“we’ve a right to know why you’ve done this. Why do you send him away directly you know that if you don’t marry....”

“That’s just it. I’m not going to marry Daniel Sheather just because I’m going to have another man’s child. I don’t love him, and I couldn’t bear it.”

“But if you don’t love him why the hell did you get engaged to him in the first place?” cried Shackford.

“Because I thought I could love him some day, and I—I didn’t know this.”

“But are you so thick that you can’t see that it’s this what makes it all the more necessary that you should get married at once?”

“Not to Daniel Sheather.”

“Oh—I see—you’re still thinking of Munk.”

Belle winced.

“I’m not.”

“But you must marry one or other of ’em.”

“I shan’t marry either.”

“I don’t believe she’s broken it off,” said Lucy—“I believe it’s Sheather’s cried off now he knows.”

“Well, I’ll soon find out if it’s that,” said her father. “I’m going over to see him to-morrow.”

“No, dad, no! For heaven’s sake leave Daniel alone. I tell you it’s my doing, not his—I won’t have him.”

“Will you have Munk, then?”

“No—I won’t. And, besides, he’s engaged to somebody else.”

“Oh, is he? He thinks he can do that sort of thing when he’s landed you in this mess. I’ll soon show him different.”

“Oh, father, I’d rather die——”

“I think you’re very selfish, Belle,” said Lucy. “Don’t you see that it’s not only you who has to go through this; it’s all of us. If you have a baby without being married your family will get some of the disgrace; and me hoping soon to be married myself——” Lucy held up her handkerchief to her eyes.

“I can’t help that,” said Belle sullenly—“if you like, I’ll go right away.”

“That won’t help us much,” wailed Lucy, “people ull get to know of it just the same. Really, Belle, I do think you might consider your family a little. For years now we’ve put up with your goings on. I don’t want to preach, but really I think you deserve what you’ve got—first it’s been one man and then it’s been another, and you’ve been lucky that this hasn’t happened long ago. Now at last you’ve got the chance of marrying and settling down, and you won’t take it.”

“I tell you I don’t love him.”

“And I tell you that you ought to sacrifice yourself a little and not insist on that. Besides, you don’t know whether you love him or whether you don’t. You loved him two months ago.”

“I didn’t really.”

“Then you were a fool, and you’ve no right to ask us to take the consequences of the silly things you done.”

“Would you marry Munk?” asked her father.

“No—no—not for worlds.”

“Well, you’ve got to marry one of ’em—either the one who’s willing or the one who ain’t. I tell you I’m going over to see ’em both to-morrow, so you can choose which you’ll have.”

“Dad, you’d never!”

“By God, I will! I’ve stood enough from you, miss. Reckon I’m an easy-going chap or I’d have learned you better ways. But now you’ve gone too far—dragged us all into the mud and then turned obstinate. This isn’t the time for you to chuck a good offer of marriage. You aren’t ever likely to get another—and if your sort don’t marry it goes to the bad. It’ll be a fine thing for us when we’ve got a daughter on the town—prouder than ever we’ll be of our Belle. You behave yourself and try and undo a little of the bad you’ve done. If you won’t marry Daniel Sheather you can marry Ernley Munk, and I give you till to-morrow to decide which.”

Belle burst into tears.

“I can’t be sorry for you,” said Lucy—“you’ve thought of nobody but yourself all through. You don’t know how it stands against a girl to have a bad lot for her sister. If you’ve got no shame on your own account, you might have a little on ours. Besides, this time next year you’ll be jolly glad we made you patch it up.”

“I won’t! I won’t! I’ll die sooner than marry either of them. There’s no good your going over to Bullockdean, dad—I won’t have either Dan or Ernley—and they won’t have me, neither—you’ll only have disgraced me for nothing.”

“Disgrace! You talk as if that was something new for you. Disgrace! You’re a walking disgrace, and if I was a man like my father I’d have given you the rope’s end long ago and learned you morals. I tell you what’s going to happen now. If by to-morrow morning you’ve given me your solemn promise you’ll marry Sheather, I’ll go over and settle up with him, and there won’t be any more trouble. But if you won’t have Sheather, you shall have Munk. I’ll see him to-morrow, and if he’s engaged to that Eastbourne girl he’ll have to chuck her and marry you.”

“He can’t—he won’t—and I won’t have him, if he does.”

“Well, I’ll have a try, anyhow. At least he shall know what’s happened and what’s expected.”

“Don’t!” cried Belle.

But Shackford, furious as only an easy-going man can be, had gone out, slamming the door.

Belle turned wildly on Lucy.

“You swine!—you might have stood by me! At least we’re both women.”

She clutched Lucy’s fair crimped hair in her hands as she sat at the table, and pulled it about her ears. Lucy screamed, and Belle, suddenly more terrified of herself than of anything, ran out of the room.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

§ 1

The next morning Daniel Sheather was serving in his father’s bar when Ernley Munk walked in. He had not seen nor spoken to Ernley since James Munk’s death, and he felt horribly embarrassed at the sight of him, in a smart new suit of clerical grey with a black tie.

“Well, Daniel, you’re a nice one.”

Daniel could not find a suitable reply. He felt acutely that he was indeed “a nice one.” His rupture with Belle was now public property, and Ernley must have heard of it days ago and be waiting for the confidences due to the event—though that same event may also have explained his callous ignoring of his friend’s recent trouble.

“I made sure you’d be coming over to see me,” continued Ernley—“every night I’ve been expecting you, since the funeral—and before it, too.”

Dan still said nothing. Since the day which was to Ernley the day of the funeral and to him the day when he had last seen Belle, he had scarcely left the George. The condolences of his own family, mixed as they were with covert relief, had been hard enough to bear without the thought of enlarging their circle in Bullockdean. Mr. Marchbanks, Jess and Maudie Harman and Ernley himself would all be glad to know that Daniel Sheather was not going to marry Belle Shackford after all—“Never would have done—not a bit his sort—I told him so,” he could hear everybody saying—“Thank heaven he’s escaped before it was too late. I wonder why it was broken off.” ... Relief and curiosity—covered by varying thicknesses of compassion—were all he had to expect from his friends, so he had kept away from them, preferring the company of the strangers who came to the George from Lewes and Newhaven. In their society he had drunk a great many whiskies, and had even taken part in those mysterious shufflings with the names of horses and slips of paper which it had always been his business to detect and stop.... Now he felt ashamed. He saw that he had behaved badly and had treated his friends badly.

“I’m sorry, Ernley,” he mumbled.

“So am I, old chap. Damnably sorry. You’ve been let in for a wretched business. Look here—can’t your brother take over this bottle-washing for a bit, and you come and have a drink with me across the road? We may be interrupted any moment here.”

Dan doubted very much whether Chris would be so obliging, but solved the problem by calling his father. Tom was only too glad for his son to get out of the place for a bit. He did not care for this solemn, home-hugging, whisky-drinking Daniel, and was relieved to see him cross the road once more in Ernley’s neglected company.

The Crown was wrapped in its usual noontide peace. The bar was red with sunshine that streamed through its bright curtains on to the clean sawdust of the floor and the polished table at which the farmer of Burnt Green and the farmer of Highbarn sat talking and drinking ale. From behind the counter Maudie Harman smiled a speechless welcome.

“We’re getting ready for Easter,” said Ernley, as they went upstairs. “Two sets of people coming—one on the second, and one on the fourth.”

“Shall you keep things going as they used to be?”

“More or less. I’ve got the same ideas as dad—I want to make a decent little country hotel out of this place. We’re getting on that way ... next year I may run up an extra wing. People seem to care less and less for going into ‘Apartments’ in the country—they got scared off that during the war. What they want now is a cosy little pub—that sort like it called a pub—which ull take ’em in at about three guineas a week. They find that over a month’s stay it doesn’t work out at much more than, say, three or four rooms at a quid each, and all the bother of doing their own catering. I shall give luncheons and teas as well—I’ll put up a sign on the high road this summer—but to private parties only, no beanfeasts or charabanc crowds. Now, you could do that if you liked—it would mix well with your sort of business, and wouldn’t interfere with ours. The only way for two pubs to exist in a village this size is for them to follow different lines and cater for different sorts of customers—and that’s what the George and the Crown have done up till now.”

While he rattled on in this way he was busy fetching drinks. He evidently did not want to talk of intimate matters till they had a bottle between them.

Daniel took the hint.

“You needn’t worry about us trying to poach on your lay,” he said bitterly; “we couldn’t manage the charabanc parties even. I reckon you’re right in saying we ought to keep to different lines, but you needn’t talk as if ours paid as well as yours. You can’t make much money out of drinks these days, especially when you sell drink like ours.”

“Well, try some of this. It’ll put a heart into you. It’s a special malting of Truby’s I was lucky enough to get a cask of, and am bottling myself. It’s like wine—got a bouquet instead of froth,” and Ernley passed his nose over his glass before sipping it.

Dan drank his in a less experienced manner, but if it did not actually put a heart into him, it put a tongue.

“I suppose that as a start off to this scheme of yours, you’ll get married?” he remarked.

“Married!—whom to?”

“Why, Miss Jenner, of course.”

“Miss Jenner would not be flattered to hear you say so. She has set her hopes on something far higher than a country publican. Besides, she isn’t at all the sort of girl I’d want for keeps.”

Daniel stared.

“Then why did you trot her out like that in front of us all?—said you wouldn’t come along to supper unless you brought her. I made sure you were engaged.”

“I trotted her out, as you call it, because I didn’t want Belle to think she was the only one who had got over our little affair and fallen in love with somebody else.”

Daniel gaped as well as stared. Ernley’s words seemed to him rather too glaring an example of the truth to be found in strong ale.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” continued Ernley.

“About Miss Jenner?”

“No—you fool. About Belle.”

Daniel flushed miserably. Even Messrs. Truby’s first malting was unable to make him face that topic in a gallant spirit.

“I thought you’d have come over and told me about it,” reproached Ernley.

“I couldn’t—I felt too bad.”

“You were afraid, I suppose, that I’d say ‘I told you so,’ or ‘it’s a good thing you found out in time.’”

“Found out what?” cried Dan, with a start.

“That you weren’t suited to each other. You were afraid I’d say that, so you kept away. I’m sorry you didn’t come, for it ud have done you good. Your sort of chap is always the better for talking. I’m going to make you talk about it now, and you’ve no idea how much better you’ll feel.”

Daniel for some reason felt affronted. Ernley seemed to be patronizing him from the vantage of his free heart.

“I don’t want to talk about her.”

“But I do. I want to talk about her most particularly. I want you to tell me if the reason of her giving you up was that she’s still keen on me.”

Daniel was utterly taken aback, and could not answer.

“Is Belle Shackford still keen on me?” asked Ernley, his eyes glittering.

Dan had by this time collected himself enough to remember that his vow of secrecy did not necessarily cover more than Belle’s condition. He had not promised never to divulge her feelings.

“Well, reckon she is keen on you. But what difference does it make?”

“A lot.”

“You don’t mean ... you’re not telling me that you’re still sweet on her.”

“I am. Keen and sweet.”

Daniel spluttered.

“Then why the hell ... why the hell did you let me.... I tell you I’d never have courted her if I’d known ... you told me you were shut of her—it was all finished.”

Ernley rose to his feet, and came and stood beside Daniel’s chair, his hand on his shoulder.

“Look here, old Daniel. The thing’s like this. It isn’t your fault—I blame myself entirely. I told you I wasn’t keen on Belle because I was too proud to let on that I was, after all that had happened. I made sure that she’d finished with me, too, and I was afraid that if you guessed I was still fond of her, you’d tell her somehow. Another thing I made sure of was that she’d never have you. When I found she would, I was knocked over. Then I simply had to get hold of Pearl and trot her out. I wasn’t going to let Belle think I still wanted her, and I wanted her so much that I felt everyone must know it. Then dad died, and I knew I was a free man and could have married Belle if we’d still been lovers. That made me pretty mad, you bet. Then I heard she’d broken with you——”

The rapid flow of words was checked, and he stared at Daniel.

“I reckon,” said young Sheather—“that you think I’m unaccountable good-natured.”

“Because I believe I can talk frankly to you about what I feel for Belle?”

“Because you can talk so calm about all you’ve made Belle and me suffer through not knowing your own mind and being too proud to speak it when you did. We’ve been in hell both of us—through you. And now there’s no good you talking of her caring about you still, for she won’t have you, whether she cares or not. It’s too late.”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, reckon she’ll never take you on again now, for all that she won’t have me. She told me she wouldn’t. She told me she’d rather die....”

He rose to his feet as he spoke, and for a moment the two men stared at each other in silence. Then they were startled by a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?” cried Ernley.

“A gentleman to see you, sir, downstairs. A Mr. Shackford....”

§ 2

There was a brief pause. Then Ernley said:

“Show him up.”

“I don’t want to see him,” cried Daniel.

“Don’t be a fool! You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with—it isn’t you he’s come after. I wonder what he wants out of me.”

Daniel turned away and stood by the window. For that moment he hated Ernley—who in the midst of all this tragedy and humiliation was happy and confident because he knew Belle still cared for him. He did not worry about her outraged heart or the barriers it had set up—he did not really care about Daniel’s sorrow—he was telling himself what he had said he would never have told Daniel—that he and Belle weren’t suited to each other, and therefore it was all for the best that they had found out in time ... “in time”—that was good—“in time” for Ernley still to have her ... the Sheather worm was turning.

Shackford walked in.

“Hullo! Both of you here. That’s what I want. I went to the George first, and they told me Sheather was at the Crown. I want a word with both of you. Where’s my daughter?”

The question was equally startling to both. Dan turned from the window and came forward into the room.

“Isn’t she at home?” he asked, bewildered.

“If she was, I’d scarcely have come all this way to ask you where she’d got to.”

Shackford evidently meant to be unpleasant.

“We neither of us have the faintest idea where she is,” said Ernley, “though we were talking about her when you came in. When did she disappear?”

“Yesterday evening—after a row with her sister.”

“Then why should you imagine that either Sheather or I know where she is?”

“Well, reckon both you men knew more about my girl than I do.”

Dan’s memory was whirling with fears. It seemed extraordinary to him that Ernley could still retain his calm assurance, now with an added touch of impudence. Was the fact of Belle’s love so sustaining and fulfilling that it would suffice even when Belle herself might be lost in danger or even in death?

“I believe she’s killed herself.”

The words burst from him as he remembered her own. He saw her standing before him pale and rigid—he heard her say “if you do, I’ll kill myself.... I’d rather die than——”

“Killed herself! Why should she have killed herself?” asked Ernley—“after a row with her sister.”

“I guess what the row was about. Reckon everybody was on to her, same as I was, wanting her to tell you or else marry me.”

“I said she must marry one or the other of you, and I’d come over here this morning and settle with whoever she chose. I told her there was to be no getting out of it, not by her or by either of you fine gentlemen. Then I went off—and she fell upon her poor sister Lucy and hit her about—and then ran away goodness knows where.”

“She’s killed herself,” cried Daniel desperately—“she said she would if Ernley knew, and you said you were going to tell him——”

“Tell him! I reckon he don’t want much telling.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ernley. “What’s all this about telling?”

“I reckon you know that the reason this man here has broken off with my daughter is that he’d no liking for all you’d let him in for.”

“It ain’t true!” cried Daniel. “I never broke off. I’d have married her any day, and done my best for the kid. It was she who said she couldn’t have me....”

His voice tailed off as he looked at Ernley. All his calm assurance was gone now, suddenly broken, like a bubble. His face was colourless, and he clutched the back of a chair.

“Do you mean to tell me that Belle is going to have a child?”

“I do, sir.”

“Then why in God’s name....”

“She wouldn’t have you told,” cried Daniel—“she said she’d kill herself if I told you, and now I reckon she’s done it.”

“How long have you known this?”

“Maybe a week or ten days. When Belle knew for certain she said she couldn’t marry me, or anybody but you. So you needn’t talk of my breaking off——” turning angrily on Shackford.

“And you knew that and never told me.”

“She made me promise I wouldn’t. She said she’d kill herself if I did. She said she’d rather die than marry you.”

“You fool! You blasted, bone-headed fool! You believe everything a girl says when she’s beside herself, and freeze on to a secret that may ruin two lives. I’ll marry Belle the minute I find her, and you bet she won’t make any fuss.”

“You speak like a gentleman,” cried Shackford. “I knew you’d do the proper thing if you was given a chance. I said the same to her. It’s a lucky thing I came over. It’s a lucky thing I wasn’t like some people, listening to every silly thing a silly girl says.”

Daniel felt these censures undeserved.

“If she didn’t mean what she said, why did she run away like that?”

“She’d had a row with her sister, I tell you—pulled down her hair and scratched her face—not that she hadn’t good reason”—remembering that Ernley was now a man of intentions—“Lucy’s got a tongue like a wasp’s sting, and reckon Belle was getting terrible worked up at everything. She’s the best-tempered girl in the world as a rule. That’s why she’s run away—she’s ashamed of herself. But I bet she hasn’t gone far—back to her cousins at Heathfield, most like, where she’d just come from.”

“Well, you’d better go and look for her there,” said Daniel, almost crying—“and then come back and drag the pond.”

“I’ll go over at once on my ’bus,’” said Ernley. “How did you come here?” he asked Shackford.

“I came on horseback, and if you’re going to Three Cups, I’ll just ride quietly home again. You’ll do your job better without me.”

“You’re just pretending you think she’s at Three Cups,” broke in Daniel—“you know she ain’t there really. You know she’s drowned herself.”

But Ernley had recovered his old assurance.

“Don’t be a fool, Daniel,” he said—quite good-humouredly—as he went out of the room.

§ 3

But when the afternoon came, Daniel, too, had his legitimate reproaches, which he was too human not to make. Ernley had returned from the weald—so much faster the miles flew under the tyres of his motor-bicycle than under the wheels of the George trap—and his quest had been in vain. Through his cocksureness he had lost valuable hours that might have been spent in search. He and Shackford had yielded to the fatal optimism of men who know themselves to be in the wrong and try to recover their self-respect through hope.

He was chastened by his failure. He no longer swaggered before Daniel, he no longer abused him. Indeed, he listened to his advice, and together they set off, in saddle and side-car, to make inquiries and notify the police. The evening passed fruitlessly. The police had no light to shed on the affair, and Belle’s friends, either in Lewes or Newhaven, had heard nothing of her. Perhaps she had gone off somewhere by rail, but once again inquiries, whether at Lewes Junction or the wayside stations, brought no result. Daniel no longer said, “She’s killed herself”—he sat dumb beside Ernley in the side-car, or followed dumb behind him up and down stairs and along passages. It was Ernley at last who said:

“We’d better get over to Batchelors’ and drag the pond.”

The spring night had fallen as they bowled up towards Lewes from the coast. A faint greenish light hung over the downs, and the summit of the sky was full of stars. A keen wind blew in their faces, bringing dampness and chill. Dan shuddered and still was dumb.

Ernley’s headlight rushed before them over the surface of the road, with a flying gleam on the hedges. It lit up the wheels and sides of passing wagons, leaving their loads in darkness—it lit up the doors and steps of houses as they ran through Beddingham and Firle—and always it showed them half a dozen orange yards of road ahead. As they rushed on Daniel had the absurd dream that if only they could reach the end of that glowing road before them they would find Belle. But the orange road was like the moon’s path on the sea, it had no ending.

Neither of them spoke as the motor-cycle ate up the road and the darkness. At last it bumped into the drive of Batchelors’ Hall, lurching and creaking in the ruts, the engine labouring with the drag of mud on the wheels. The orange light flashed over the puddles and the long canals in the ruts—it ran ahead of them into the yard and lay on the stones as Ernley brought the machine to a standstill.

Shackford stood on the doorstep. He, too, had lost his compensating hope, and looked like Ernley, hangdog and desperate.

“Any good?” he asked.

Munk shook his head.

“I’ll get the men,” said Belle’s father, “and drag the pond—and if that’s no good we’ll try the Cuckmere.”

That night, it seemed to Daniel, was full of water—the sight of it, ruddy with the lanterns held over it, the sound of it, lapping against the shore, and against the sides of the boat in which Bream the cowman put out with a long pole, the feel of it oozing through the mud over the tops of his shoes.... The pond yielded a load of weeds, a stock of old iron-ware, and three little drowned kittens in a bag with a stone.

Between dragging the pond and dragging the river they had drinks in the house. Dan and the farm men had cocoa, but Ernley and Shackford had whiskies without much water. Lucy served them, fully dressed though it was one o’clock in the morning, and with the pretty hair that Belle had torn down piled high and curled anew. The tears ran down her cheeks, and she spoke forgivingly of Belle.

“Of course I forgive her,” she said. “She didn’t know what she was doing.”

Nobody else spoke much—even the whiskies did not seem to help Shackford and Ernley—and soon they all went out again. They dragged the place where the Cuckmere in its windings makes a bay, eating into the meadows by Hayreed. But here again there was no finding. After all, they did not really expect to find. As Shackford said, Belle might have chucked herself in anywhere between Monkyn Pin and the Dicker. They had no special reason to think she would inevitably have drowned herself near home.

Daniel thought of White Lion Pond and Red Lion Pond and Jerry’s Pond, all the dew ponds between the valley of the Cuckmere and the valley of the Ouse.

“She may have gone up on the down,” he said.

Both Shackford and Ernley thought it probable that she had. They had searched the Ouse and Cuckmere valleys, the two big towns and the railway line. Also, during the afternoon, when Ernley and Dan were rushing about on the motor-cycle, Shackford had made inquiries at the two Dickers and the two Horsebridges, also at Hailsham, where he had interviewed a couple of conductors on the Eastbourne bus route. The down seemed the only hiding-place left unchallenged. It was decided to make up a search-party.

§ 4

“Let me walk with you, Daniel,” said Ernley, when everyone scattered.

The dawn was white, and only a few stars still hung in the north, above the Gate of Lewes. It was bitterly cold, and the men shivered. They all carried lanterns, for it had been dark when they left Batchelors’ Hall, and the moving spots of light were like stars, making the down look like a fallen sky.

If Belle were hiding—if she had sought only a temporary and not a final refuge from her oppressors—she might see those stars and go out towards them. She surely would be tired of hiding now—now that the down’s back was hoar with half-frozen dew and the dawn-wind searched the hollows. Ernley’s face was pinched and his teeth chattered. He was almost failing physically. A day spent in the saddle of his machine, a night spent in dragging a pond and a river, all under the strain of sickening remorse and anxiety—and to finish all, too many whiskies ... no wonder he was done for. Daniel, whose physical labours had been less, whose physical strength was greater, and who was not suffering from a reaction after too much alcohol, was still comparatively able-bodied, though—dreadful and humiliating to realize—most unconscionably sleepy. He waited for Ernley while he puffed on the steep slope, he slackened his pace to match Ernley’s tottering progress.

“Don’t you think you’d better get home?” he suggested at last.

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t rest till she’s found—alive or dead.”

They walked on a couple of furlongs. Then Ernley said:

“Do you think there’s any chance of her being alive, Dan?”

“Maybe there’s a chance—maybe we’d think there was more than a chance if we weren’t so terrible scared. She’s been gone only a day and two nights. Reckon she could have hid herself for that.”

“If I find her,” said Ernley—and in the grey light Dan could see that he was crying—“if I find her, there’s going to be nothing good enough for her. Oh, Dan, how am I ever to pay her back for what I’ve made her suffer?” His voice, though hoarse, was quite calm, in spite of the tears that ran down his cheeks. It was only physical weakness that made him cry. The grief of his heart was beyond tears.

“Don’t think I fail to realize what you suffer, Daniel. But it’s nothing to what I do. It can’t be. You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with. You’ve been kind and manly and decent all through. I haven’t. I’ve been a swine—a proud swine and a cruel swine. All the quarrels we ever had were my doing, and I blamed her for them all. I was angry with her because I couldn’t give her what she wanted. I could have given it to her if I’d wanted it as much as she did—but I didn’t—so I was angry with her for wanting it. I took advantage of her, Dan—because she wasn’t wise, like most women. If she’d said, ‘You must wait till we’re married,’ I’d have married her rather than wait. But she didn’t, and I took advantage of her and made her wait till I thought things ud be more convenient. If we’d been married we shouldn’t have had any of those rows, for they all came of her not really belonging to me. If we’d belonged to each other we shouldn’t have mistrusted each other so, and been jealous, and imagined all sorts of things about each other. Then this last time we quarrelled, I was furious with her because of the way I’d hurt her, and I swore I’d never make it up again. I couldn’t stand being made ashamed of myself time after time like that, so I swore I’d stop it, and started off with Pearl Jenner at once just to show Belle it was good-bye for ever this time.... I said to myself she was getting to count on my coming round.... Oh, and she’d humbled me too—she didn’t let me off easy.... I paid for every quarrel we had by the way I was obliged to make it up.... But I couldn’t live without her, so I always came back, and I said, ‘She knows it. She expects it this time, so I’ll teach her she don’t always get what she expects.’ That’s why I took up with Pearl—though she was only trash—only draper’s stuff. I must say it was a blow to me when Belle got engaged to you. It made me swank more than ever—Belle wasn’t to know I cared. She wasn’t going to marry you knowing that I still loved her, and get the last laugh. I never thought.... It’s my blasted pride that’s driven her to this. She couldn’t even turn to me when she wanted to—I’ve cut her off. Think—all that time I was so mad against her, she was carrying my child. Oh, there’s fate in that—the fate of my own bad will. I’ve done her in—poor Belle!”

Dan tried not to listen while Ernley spoke. He blushed to hear his friend’s confession, he was horrified at this stripping of his mind. If this was love—the genuine passion as apart from the jog-trot emotion he was supposed to feel—he was glad he had never experienced it.

“Reckon you’re tired out,” was all he could say; “you’ll be ill if we go any farther—you’d better get home.”

The day was quite clear now, though the sun had not yet risen. Their lanterns were no longer stars, merely opaque orange splashes on the whiteness of the morning.

“I can’t go as far as Bullockdean,” said Ernley.

“Then we’d better turn back for Batchelors’. Besides, your bike’s there, and Lucy can give you some breakfast before you start.”

He was relieved to find that Munk had given way, for he was obviously unfit to go searching much farther. By daylight his face looked far more ravaged than it had looked in the glow of the lanterns. His body, gassed and wounded, bore the stigmata of war, and was always liable to sudden collapses. Dan gave him an arm as they turned backwards, and his friend seemed glad of it. Sheather was glad too. He loved to expend physical care and protection, though he shrank from the sick-nursing of souls. With Ernley’s body he was tender.

“There—hang on to me. I’m strong as a horse—you can put all your weight.”

They went on half a mile, Munk occasionally stumbling but always held up by Dan’s sturdiness. When they came to the dip of the down, where the slope ran swiftly towards Alciston, he stopped and shuddered.

“I can’t go down there. I feel giddy.”

With memories of the same symptoms in earlier “attacks,” Dan was practical.

“There, there—don’t worry—don’t try. Sit down.”

Ernley collapsed in a huddled heap upon the hoar dew. Dan sat down beside him with supporting arm, and was immediately conscious, as the other in his nervous straits was not, of the wet striking up into his limbs.

“Reckon you shouldn’t ought to sit here. You’ll get rheumatics.”

“I can’t help it—I’m done.”

Dan looked round him for an unlikely stone. Nothing broke the whiteness of the half-frozen dew, but he suddenly realized the turning to old Gadgett’s cottage at the top of Bostal Way.

“Look here, if you can walk just a hundred yards, there’s Gadgett’s cottage we could go to. Then you could sit by the fire and I’d get you a cup of tea.”

Ernley groaned. His devil was upon him—the devil that had risen in a hideous cloud behind the headless trees of Waertsel Wood, and crawling and stinking over the shell-holes had found him where he lay helpless, and taken possession. Nevertheless the picture that Dan painted was a fair one.

“Couldn’t you bring the tea to me here?” he asked idiotically.

“Of course I couldn’t—it ud be stone cold. And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t do you any good sitting here on the wet grass. You’ll get rheumatics and lumbago and sciatica and belly-ache and chills and pneumonia and I dunno wot else if you don’t stand up quick.”

He stood up himself, and seized Ernley under the arm-pits.

“Now then—up you get.”

Ernley groaned, and Dan brought his knee in ungentle contact with his spine.

“Get up, Ernley.”

This wasn’t his first encounter with his friend’s devil, and he knew that Ernley possessed must be treated in direct contrast to Ernley unpossessed. He must be bullied and ordered about, just as on ordinary occasions he must be looked up to and treated respectfully. It was characteristic of Dan that he slipped quite naturally into the latter mood when the need for the former had passed.

He soon had Munk on his feet, and part threatening, part coaxing, part hauling, guided him over the down to the head of the Bostal Way—then along the little chalk path that winds among the blackberry bushes, till at last they were on the step of Gadgett’s cottage.

CHAPTER TWELVE

§ 1

The morning was still colourless, for though the sun had risen, there was no pomp in the east, which was iron-grey with clouds. The down’s back, under its coat of rime, was grey too, like the hull of a man-o’-war—even the cottage had assumed the prevailing tones of grey and white, with pits and streaks of blackness where the shadows fell. White Lion cottage and a couple of disused barns stood about a hundred yards from the pond at the top of the Bostal Way. On either side of the doorstep daffodils were a-bloom, but as dredged of colour as the lanterns which Daniel and Ernley still foolishly carried were dredged of light.

“The place ull be shut up,” said Munk.

“No it won’t. Reckon he’s got to leave the door open for the nurse. Anyways, I don’t suppose he’d lock up—that’s a high-class custom.”

He proved to be right. The door was on the latch, so he pushed Ernley in, and through into the kitchen. The fire was laid, and Daniel soon had a light in it, with the kettle on to boil. He propped up Ernley in the wicker arm-chair, with his feet on the grate, and the hearthrug over his knees.

“And now while the kettle’s boiling I’ll go upstairs and have a look at the old man. Maybe he’s heard us come in, and is wondering what it’s all about.”

He ran up the ladder-like little flight, and listened for a moment outside the bedroom door. Not a sound was to be heard. He pushed the door open and looked in. The curtains were only half-drawn, so the daylight was in the room, smiting the light of a small fire burning smokily in the grate, and the flame of a single candle on the dresser beside the bed. In the mixture of daylight, firelight and candlelight he could see the old man lying asleep in the bed; and in a chair beside him, an open Bible on her knee, her head fallen sideways on her shoulder, her legs stretched out forlornly in tattered stockings, slept Belle Shackford.

Daniel stood and gaped—shut his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, then opened them and gaped again. It would be hard to say when he would have recovered the use of his faculties if Belle had not woken up.

“Hullo,” she said dreamily.

“Belle!” gasped Daniel.

She woke up fully, and sprang to her feet.

“How did you get here?”

“How did you get here?”

They faced each other, almost terrified. He did not dare tell her Ernley was in the house.

“Oh, Belle! I’ve been nearly dead because of you. What in the Lord’s name are you doing here? Reckon your dad’s out searching the whole down after you.”

There was a slight stir of the forgotten figure in the bed.

“My dear——”

“It’s all right, father—I’m here.”

She went to the old man’s side and stooped over him.

“I’ll get you your tea in a minute.”

“That’s right, dearie—that’s right. ’Tis only I had a dream about your mother and your Aunt Hetty.”

“I’ll put on the kettle straight away.”

She moved across to the fireplace.

“I’ve a kettle on downstairs,” said Daniel.

“What made you come? How on earth did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t know—leastways—anyways, I’ve put the kettle on.”

“Who’s the young chap?” came from the bed.

“He’s Daniel Sheather, father.”

Daniel was growing more and more confused.

“Has he coming a-courting you?”

“No, dear, not he!”

“Well, I’m glad of it, for I’d be sorry to lose you yet awhile. I’ve had a bit of a cold, Ma’as Sheather—a bit of a cold, and just a touch of rheumatics in my boans, so as I can’t get out on the hill just now. Howsumdever, my young darter has been looking after me fine, and I reckon to be out in a day or two.”

Dan did not know what to say. The situation was beyond him. However, he was spared the burden of carrying on the conversation, for at that moment a loud fretful voice shouted from downstairs.

“Where the hell have you got to, Daniel? The kettle’s boiling over.”

Belle jerked herself upright on her knees beside the fire.

“Who’s that?”

Daniel stuttered.

“It’s Ernley,” cried Belle.

She looked towards the door, then out of the window. She was like a hare when the pack has cornered her.

“Let me go!” she cried frantically—“let me go!” Then: “Daniel, don’t let him find me.”

But her panic had betrayed her, and her voice had reached Ernley in the kitchen below.

“Daniel—who’s that upstairs?”

For a moment Daniel thought Belle would climb out of the window. She made a movement towards it, then suddenly seemed to turn to wood. A footstep mounted on the stairs, and she stood like a wooden woman in the middle of the floor, staring over Daniel’s shoulder through the open door behind him. Then, also quite silent, Ernley came into the room, and took her in his arms, still made of wood.

§ 2

Daniel did not see her return to flesh and blood. After he had held her stiffly and silently in his arms for a few moments, Ernley led her away, and the next thing Sheather became conscious of was the kitchen door shutting behind them.

“Who’s the young chap?” asked Gadgett.

“Ernley Munk—from the Crown at Bullockdean.”

“Munk ... Munk.... It’s Pepper at the Crown. I hope Pepper ain’t courting my young Ellen. He ain’t a straight chap. He chalked me up a quart pot when I’d only had a pint. I won’t have my Ellen courted by a chap who can’t measure his ale.... Say, young feller, she’s gone out wudout making my tea. Reckon I’m parched fur a cup o’ tea.”

It was Dan’s lot, somehow, to be making tea while the skies were falling. Evidently fate refused to take him seriously in a tragic part. While Ernley and Belle fought for the life of their wounded love downstairs, he pottered about the bedroom with the kettle and tea-cups—shook up old Gadgett’s pillows and made him comfortable—gave him his medicine and answered obligingly to the name of Jack.

Once he crept down and listened at the kitchen door. A curious silence brooded within—then he heard a faint movement and a still fainter voice ... evidently love was not being healed with words. As he went upstairs again there was a stir in the house behind him, and he saw that the nurse had come in.

“Hullo, Mr. Sheather!” she called—“I never expected to find anyone here so early.”

“Don’t go into the kitchen,” pleaded Daniel.

“And why not?”

“Because Miss Belle Shackford’s in there.”

“Miss Belle Shackford! You don’t mean to say she’s found?”

“It’s odd as she ain’t been found before seeing as she’s seemingly been here all the time.”

“She can’t have been. I was here at six o’clock last night.”

“Reckon she went and hid when she saw you coming. I brought Ernley Munk in here to make him a cup of tea as he was feeling a bit ordinary—and there was Belle sitting beside the old man, and him thinking she was his daughter who’s been dead ten years.”

“He takes every female he sees for his daughter. Many’s the time he’s called me Ellen and told me not to start walking out with their shepherd at Place. We must see about getting him into the infirmary some day soon. I’ve let him stop on here, as he seemed so set on it, but most days he doesn’t know or care where he is.”

She had come into the room and went bustling over to the bedside.

“Well—what’s this I hear about you? You’ve been sheltering a lady.”

But old Gadgett was unequal to raillery, and confused by these flitting females. Dan thought it best to rescue him from the nurse’s ministrations.

“I’ve given him his medicine—and his tea along of it. Reckon he won’t want much doing for him. If you’re going back to Alciston it ud be Christian charity for you to call over to Batchelors’ and tell ’em there she’s found.”

“It ud be better still if I took her back with me. What’s she doing down in the kitchen all by herself?”

“She ain’t by herself.”

“Oh!”

The nurse looked wise, and at the same time as if she expected further enlightenment. But Dan said nothing. He stood with his back to her, drumming at the window.

“Is Mr. Ernley Munk with her?”

The rumour of Belle’s troubles was now up and down the two valleys of the Ouse and the Cuckmere.

“No, he ain’t,” snapped Daniel. Which was a pity, as the nurse ran into him and Belle at the bottom of the stairs, and thenceforward had no high opinion of young Sheather’s truthfulness.

§ 3

They came into the bedroom together, and found Daniel sitting on the low chair beside the bed, where the old man was dozing off again.

Seeing them standing together, he knew instinctively that they were reconciled. But there was nothing triumphant, nothing passionate about their reconciliation. They stood stiffly side by side, without word or caress. Evidently they had come by stormy paths to peace.

“Hullo,” he said awkwardly.

“It’s all right, Dan,” said Ernley, in a quiet, rather flat voice. “Belle and I are friends again, and we’re going to be married as soon as ever it’s possible.”

There was no display of rapture to make him jealous—scarcely, indeed, the appearance of ordinary happiness. None the less, Daniel felt sore right through. He had not realized till then that up to that very moment, in the face of the impossible, he had been hoping that Belle might change, and turn to him again.

“It really is for ever this time,” Munk continued, with a faint smile. “We’re not going to quarrel any more. It hurts too much, doesn’t it, Belle?”

“Yes, it hurts,” she nodded.

“And we’re both ever so grateful to you, Dan, for being such a good friend to us both.”

Dan coloured. He did not feel specially a friend of either at the present moment. If they had been richly and aggressively happy he would have felt less alienated than he was now by their queer exhaustion. He saw mysteries, depths in their being which had always hitherto been veiled from him, the outsider, but which were not strange to either of those two.

“How are you, Ernley?” he asked, deliberately breaking the situation.

“I’m well enough. Don’t you bother about me. I’m going to take Belle home now.”

“The nurse has gone there.”

“Yes, we saw her, and told her we’d follow.”

Belle looked regretfully over to the bed.

“He’ll be sorry when I’m gone.”

“How long have you been here?” asked Daniel.

“Since the day before yesterday. I came up straight from Batchelors’.”

“No—not straight,” broke in Ernley. “Dan, she went up to the pond, and she walked in—my Belle—and then when the water was all up round her, she couldn’t ... so she came out, all dripping wet, and crawled in here, thinking she might dry herself at the fire.... And the old chap thought she was his daughter, and she felt so glad of a little kindness that she stayed, and tried to make herself think it was true. You did, didn’t you, Belle?”

“I was silly,” she murmured.

“No, not silly—it was I who was ... who’d driven you to this—so hard that you wished you were Ellen Gadgett, nursing your old sick father.”

“When the nurse came I went and hid in the lean-to. She came twice a day.”

“And how long ud you have stayed,” asked Daniel, “if we hadn’t found you?”

“I dunno—I didn’t think. Reckon I was cruel, but I thought nobody cared about me.”

“You knew I cared.”

For the first time he had called their attention to his tragedy. Her eyes suffused.

“I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“We’ve treated you badly,” said Ernley. “But, Dan, if you’ll let us—we’ll try and make it up to you.”

“We can’t,” said Belle, more wisely.

Daniel said nothing. He turned away from them and hid his face in the coverlet of the old shepherd’s bed. When he looked up they had gone out together.

§ 4

He spent the rest of the day with Gadgett. He had not the courage to go home and tell his family that he had found Belle and lost her for ever. He would wait and let the story reach them first, as it would by inevitable conduits before night. Also he was sorry for the poor old man waking to find himself deprived of his daughter. But in this respect he need not have troubled, for Gadgett woke up forty years later than he had fallen asleep.

“That you, Ma’as Sheather?”

“It’s me, Mr. Gadgett.”

“Well, I call it more’n uncommon kind for you to have called around to see me, and if you’ll go over there to the fireplace and turn your back on me for a minnut I’ll show you what only a few has seen.”

Dan, in obliging apathy, turned his back. A few moments later an inarticulate sound came from the bed.

“Are you ready, Mr. Gadgett?”

There was no reply, but a kind of summoning croak—and when Daniel turned round he knew the reason. Mr. Gadgett was wearing his teeth.

For a moment Dan, too, was speechless. He had forgotten all about the teeth, and even if he had remembered them and the shepherd’s promise to show them to a good boy, he would have been surprised. The sight before him was truly an astounding one. Mr. Gadgett had set out not only to supply nature’s deficiency, but to improve on her perfect work. Instead of thirty-two teeth he had fifty, twenty-five in each row. The result was a grin of terrible magnitude.... Daniel gaped—it was lucky that he was feeling so miserable, or he might have laughed. When he considered that the wonder had been given its proper due of amazement the old man’s jaws worked convulsively as he freed them to express his satisfaction.

“Wunnerful, ain’t it?”

“Surelye, Mr. Gadgett.”

“You never thought to see such a set of teeth. A dentist couldn’t do it more fine.”

“That he couldn’t.”

“It’s took me nigh on ten year, getting ’em all together and fixing ’em proper. And now I mun be thinking of having my likeness took; but I’m that stiff in my boans maybe it’ll be some days before I’m upon the hill—let alone I get into the town.”

“How are you feeling to-day?”

“I feel valiant, save as there’s aches in all my boans, and the power is agone from my legs. I ask the Lord how I am to follow the sheep on the hill if He takes the power out of my legs like this?”

“Reckon you’ll be all the better for a good long rest.”

“I’m not so set on that. I’d sooner be out wud the sheep on the hill. But it ain’t reasonable to expect it of me, and I’ve always understood as the Lord is praaperly reasonable.”

Dan said nothing, feeling uncertain of the matter.

“There’s that nurse is an unreasonable woman,” continued the old man—“to think of me come down to having a nurse, and I done for myself this last twenty year. She’s all for putting things where they don’t belong, and the trouble I’ve had wud her notions you’d never believe: ‘I’m biling kettle for your hot water, Mr. Gadgett, to give you a bit of a wash.’ A bit of a wash! And she washes my chest and my back, which no mortal Christian ud wash between October and May—and she calls that a bit of a wash.... I’m like to take my death of cold wud her bits and tricks.... She’s an unreasonable woman, wot shall never see my teeth.”

Daniel was beginning to feel drowsy in the little room, full of thick green sunshine and crowded furniture. A fly was buzzing against the window pane, and seemed to be the voice of the stuffy afternoon.

“If I cud only get out to my sheep.... Mus’ Shackford ull be unaccountable put about wud me laid up here. There’s that fool Botolph’s got ’em now.... Reckon he’ll have ’em all straggled—and the lambing just upon us.... I mun be up for the lambing.”

“You’ll be up, sure enough, Mr. Gadgett.”

“I mun be up, surelye; or ... this is a tarble thing to have happened to a poor old man past seventy year. I’m fretted after my sheep.... Have you seen my gal, Ellen? She was here just now ... the one who’s in service at Place ... but maybe it wasn’t her—I disremember. Not an illness had I as boy or man, and now in my old age it comes upon me. Howsumdever, I’ll always say as the Lord ain’t unreasonable, and I’d have naught against Him if I cud get out to my sheep ... before that fool Botolph spiles their fleeces.... He’ll get ’em all straggled.... I wish you had ’em.”

“I’ve never had anything to do with sheep. I’d be worse than Botolph.”

“Wot? Ain’t you their shepherd-boy at Place?... No, now I see as you ain’t. But I know who you are, and I know you’re good wud all beastses ... beastses and children ... I seen you.”

Dan’s heart suddenly tightened—he thought of Leslie and Ivy at Brakey Bottom, and he could not bear the thought. He would never be anybody’s father now.... He leaned his head against the bedpost, not troubling any longer to hide his misery. After all, Mr. Gadgett was scarcely there—he had gone back to live in yesterday.

But the old man seemed to have noticed that something was wrong.

“What ails you, lad? Do your boans ache?”

“It’s my heart that aches, Mr. Gadgett. I’ve had trouble.”

“Trouble ... trouble ... so have we all.”

“Have you had trouble, Mr. Gadgett?”

“Surelye—trouble on trouble.... Howsumever, I’ll always say as the Lord is reasonable.”

§ 5

When the time came Dan was both sorry and afraid to go. He had enjoyed a certain amount of peace, pottering about the house and looking after the old man. At the George there would be nobody to look after—on the contrary, everyone would be looking at him ... who had helped find Belle for Ernley.

He dragged out the walk over the down as late as possible. The day was out, and the sky was a-swim with stars. From the back of Firle he looked down on two valleys full of mist. Already some of the richness of spring was in the night, and he felt some of it mocking him in his blood. He knew how all these scents of earth and grass and growth, this softness in the air, might have flowed like sap through his love for Belle, quickening it towards flower and fruit. And now instead it was in him as a thirst, stirring up desire towards a void.... As he walked through the mocking, urging, sweet spring night, Dan understood a little more about his fellow men, about those stumblings, those sinkings, those reactions which before had perplexed and sometimes disgusted him.

When he came to the George, there was only one old man in the bar besides his father and Chris. He had rather hoped for a crowd in which he could be lost.

Tom Sheather beckoned him, and held him out a glass. Dan gulped it. It was seventy-five per cent. whisky. His father must know.

“Still, it’s better than if she’d drowned herself, poor creature!” he whispered to his son.

“Of course it’s better. I’d lost her anyway, so I’m glad she’s found someone.... Have you seen Ernley?”

“No—but Chris saw Maudie Harman. She told him she reckoned they’d be married in a week.”

Chris walked out of the bar, whistling “Whose baby are you?”

“I’m glad,” muttered Daniel into his glass, “I’m glad.”

But the deadly thing which had been growing in his heart during the walk home was life-size now. He felt more mad than glad—mad, desperate, as if he must die rather than endure any more of this pain. The future was like a furious face pressed against the window. He saw himself living for the rest of his life with Belle only across the way, unable to find rest for his pain, continually devoured by the spring in his heart.... Oh, God, help me! I’m done!

His eye fell on the open page of a novelette, lying on the counter, left there by a customer and forgotten.

“The two fellows went single-file through the darkness towards the house.

“‘Keep quiet,’ hissed Lorimer, as Jack’s foot struck an object on the gravel.

“Young O’Connor stooped and picked up whatever it was. It felt warm and sticky. He still grasped it as they came to the house and crouched under the window. A faint ray of light came from under the blind, and he saw that he was holding a severed human finger.

“Lorimer was taking off his shoes....”

It seemed hours later that his father’s voice reached him.

“What’s that you’ve got, Daniel? You ain’t listening to me.”

“A book.”

“Well, you never was the one for books. What’s this one called?”

Dan reluctantly tore his eyes off the page to inspect the title—“‘Crook O’Connor, the Public School Boy.’ May I take it up to bed with me, dad?”

“Reckon you may. I don’t know who it belongs to. And you’d better be turning in, son. You look finished, somehow.”

Dan walked out of the room, still reading. Upstairs in his bedroom he shuffled off his clothes and left them in a heap on the floor; then lit his candle and crept between the blankets, the precious volume in his hand. With licked forefinger he “found the place,” and once more the returning horror was beaten from his mind. He forgot Belle, her loss and his loss, he forgot the anxieties of the last two days, his final disillusion, the face of the future pressed against the window. He was in the glorious world of Unreality—peopled by ink-black villains and Gentlemen Crooks, noisy with revolvers and crimson with blood—a world remote from the humdrum sorrows of work and loss, of love for human woman as distinct from the sweet wraiths of print....

Dan was making his first acquaintance with literature. Hitherto he had never read much—the daily paper and occasionally the Bible had been the only exercise-ground of the talent so laboriously acquired at school. But now he was really reading, for his own profit and pleasure. He was not reading as the cultured read—to enlarge his holding in life and art; he was reading as the humble read—to escape and forget. The author of “Crook O’Connor” did not know the rules about split infinitives and mixed relatives, he had no regard for the probabilities or even for the consistencies, the veins of his characters ran sawdust, the life he portrayed had no connexion with any actualities on this planet ... but he had provided an anodyne for the pain of at least one human creature, and when the last page was turned and the candle had guttered out, the ultimate blessing of sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Daniel did not wake up till late the next morning. He felt heavy and stupid, as if he had a cold. He rose and dressed himself, and went downstairs, but though the remains of breakfast still lay on the kitchen table, he could not eat, though he poured himself out a cup of lukewarm, bitter tea. He went over and sat by the fire, shivering. His body was definitely afflicted by the stress of his mind, seeking the easy way out through sickness ... bed, sleep, forgetting ... but Daniel was still alert enough to know that would not do—that however high he pulled the bedclothes over his head, the Crown would still stand across the road.

His mother came in to clear away the breakfast. He heard her bustling about, rattling plates and opening and shutting drawers.

“Well, you’re a nice lazy boy,” she said to him—“not down till ten o’clock, and then sitting over the fire and never offering to help your mother—no!”

He did not answer her.

“Sulky!” she cried to him over her shoulder. She had accused him of sulking more than once during the past fortnight.

But she could not goad him into action; he could not even trouble to hide his grief from her, nor the travail of his soul over its new problem—how he was to get away. Belle was lost to him for ever—he had never known till then how much of hope had filled the last two weeks. She was lost, and yet in a very short time he would have to endure her daily presence—if he did not get away ... somewhere ... far—farther than he could ever go ... away from himself as well as her.

“What’s the matter with the boy?”

She had come to the fireside, to lift the lid off a saucepan, and she saw him huddled and smitten.

“What’s the matter with the great boy?”

His whole being turned towards her, longed for her, cried to her....

“Mum!” ...

She looked startled—his thick voice and working face made her lose her usual critical manner. He saw her change and soften, and the last of his control was gone—he threw his arms round her as she knelt by the fire, and hid his face on her shoulder.

“Danny—what is it?—what’s the matter?”

She held him to her, rocking him gently—it was years since she had held him so. “What is it—tell mother, Dan.”

“Oh, mum ... you know.”

“It’s that Belle Shackford.”

“You’ve heard?”

“That she will marry Ernley Munk—yes. But it does not matter.”

“Oh, mother—my heart’s broken.”

“Nonsense—a fine boy like you—you’ll soon get another girl.”

She had him close in her arms, and she could feel how strong and plump he was—well made, his bones well covered, a fine man for any girl.

“But I don’t want anybody but my Belle.”

“You’ll forget her, child.”

“Oh, never. Oh, mother—I loved her ... and I thought she loved me.”

“Well, you’re well rid—she is vagabond. It never please me you not marry a good girl.”

“Mother, you mustn’t say that—don’t you miscall her.”

“Now don’t you speak rough to me.”

She was angry—she pushed him off her shoulder. They both stood up.

But he could not bear that she should lose her gentleness—he would humble himself to keep her tender. He came towards her and offered her a kiss.

“I wasn’t speaking rough—leastways, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, mother.”

She let him kiss her, and patted his hand, softening again. They sat down together on the horsehair sofa.

“Mother, I want to go away.”

“Away, boy—where? Why?”

“I can’t live here ... with Belle so close ... and with Ernley....”

“But where would you go?—and what shall I do without your week’s money?”

“You won’t have me to keep, and I’ll have to work wherever I go—so I can send you money.”

“You’re a great silly boy. Why should you go away?”

“I can’t bear to go on living here and seeing Belle married to Ernley.”

“You need not see her.”

“How can I help it, with her only across the road? ... Oh, mother, I must go away till I’ve got over this—I can’t stay—I must go ... I must, I must.”

He was getting almost hysterical, and, growing angry again, she forgot he was her grown-up son, and took him by the shoulders, shaking him till his sleek lick of hair fell into his eyes.

“You be quiet—you’re like a little boy—you deserve me to whip you.”

“I want to go away—I can’t bear Chris....”

“Chris—you shall not speak rough of Chris!—well, I tell you—you shall go away—for a bit of time. I will write to my brother Philip and ask him to have my silly boy to live with him a while.”

“In Sark?”

“That will be far enough—no?”

Sark—and he had thought of Brakey Bottom. For a moment dim memories stirred ... he saw himself playing with a lobster’s claw ... then came a swell of solemn seas....

“You were four years old when you came from Sark. Do you remember?”

“Not much.”

“It is my country—your country. It do you good to go back there for a bit. I write to my brother Philip. I have not written for ten year.”

“Perhaps he won’t have me.”

“Then you can’t go. But I will write—and he will have you. It is a good plan—perhaps if you go, you marry a Sark girl and no more be English. I am not English and wish my children were not.”

“I’ll never marry anybody but Belle.”

“Then you’ll marry nobody, since she’s to marry Ernley. There, there ... you shall go away across the sea and forget your trouble.”

He sat beside her on the sofa, stupid and bewildered. The saucepan on the fire boiled over and she sprang up to save it. He watched her little darting figure—yes, she was foreign, his little mother ... and so in a way was he, though he loved the valleys of the Ouse and the Cuckmere ... there was a queer, faint stirring in his heart for the land where he was born.