A MERE ACCIDENT. 

BY

GEORGE MOORE

AUTHOR OF "A MUMMER'S WIFE, " "A MODERN LOVER, ""A DRAMA IN MUSLIN, " "SPRING DAYS, " ETC. 

Fifth Edition

TO

My Friends at Buckingham. 

Nearly twenty years have gone since first we met, dear friends; time hasbut strengthened our early affections, so for love token, for sign ofthe years, I bring you this book--these views of your beautiful houseand hills where I have spent so many happy days, these last perhaps thehappiest of all. 

G. M. 

CHAPTER I. 

Three hundred yards of smooth, broad, white road leading from Henfield, a small town in Sussex. The grasses are lush, and the hedges are talland luxuriant. Restless boys scramble to and fro, quiet nursemaidsloiter, and a vagrant has sat down to rest though the bank is drippingwith autumn rain. How fair a prospect of southern England! Land ofexquisite homeliness and order; land of town that is country, of countrythat is town; land of a hundred classes all deftly interwoven and allwaxing to one class--England. Land encrowned with the gifts of peacefuldays--days that live in thy face and the faces of thy children. 

See it. The outlying villas with their porches and laurels, the redtiled farm houses, and the brown barns, clustering beneath the wings ofbeautiful trees--elm trees; see the flat plots of ground of the marketgardens, with figures bending over baskets of roots; see the factorychimney; there are trees and gables everywhere; see the end of theterrace, the gleam of glass, the flower vase, the flitting white of thetennis players; see the long fields with the long team ploughing, seethe parish church, see the embowering woods, see the squire's house, seeeverything and love it, for everything here is England. 

 * * * * *

Three hundred yards of smooth, broad, white road, leading from Henfield, a small town in Sussex. It disappears in the woods which lean across thefields towards the downs. The great bluff heights can be seen, and atthe point where the roads cross, where the tall trunks are listed withgolden light, stands a large wooden gate and a small box-like lodge. Alonely place in a densely-populated county. The gatekeeper is blind, andhis flute sounds doleful and strange, and the leaves are falling. 

The private road is short and stony. Apparently space was found for itwith difficulty, and it got wedged between an enormous holly hedge and astiff wooden paling. But overhead the great branches fight upwardsthrough a tortuous growth to the sky, and, as you advance, Thornby Placecontinues to puzzle you with its medley of curious and contradictoryaspects. For as the second gate, which is in iron, is approached, yourthoughts of rural things are rudely scattered by sight of what seems aLondon mews. Reason with yourself. This very urban feature is occasionedby the high brick wall which runs parallel with the stables, and this, as you pass round to the front of the house, is hidden in the clothingfoliage of a line of evergreen oaks; continuing along the lawn, thetrees bend about the house--a wash of Naples-yellow, a few sharp Italianlines and angles. To complete the sketch, indicate the wings of theblown rooks on the sullen sky. 

But our purpose lies deeper than that which inspires a water-coloursketch. We must learn when and why that house was built; we must see howthe facts reconcile its somewhat tawdry, its somewhat suburban aspect, with the richer and more romantic aspects of the park. The park is evennow, though it be the middle of autumn, full of blowing green, and thebrown circling woods, full of England and English home life. That singletree in the foreground is a lime; what a splendour of leafage it will bein the summer! Those four on the right are chestnuts, and those faraway, lying between us and the imperial downs, are elms; through thatvista you can see the grand line, the abrupt hollows, and the bit ofchalk road cut zig-zag out of the steep side. Then why the anomaly ofItalian urns and pilasters; why not red Elizabethan gables and diamondcasements?

Why not? Because at the beginning of the century, when Brighton wasbeing built, fragments of architectural gossip were flying about Sussex, and one of these had found its way to, and had rested in, the heart ofthe grandfather of the present owner: in a simple and bucolic way he hadbeen seized by a desire for taste and style, and the present buildingwas the result. Therefore it will be well to examine in detail the housewhich young John Norton of '86 was so fond of declaring he could neversee without becoming instantly conscious of a sense of dislike, a hatredthat he was fond of describing as a sort of constitutional complaintwhich he was never quite free from, and which any view of the Rockery, or the pilasters of the French bow-window, or indeed of anythingpertaining to Thornby Place, called at once into an active existence. 

Thornby Place is but two stories high, and its spruce walls of Portlandstone and ashlar work rise sheer out of the green sward; in front, Doriccolumns support a heavy entablature, and there are urns at the cornersof the building. The six windows on the ground floor are topped withround arches, and coming up the drive the house seems a perfect square. But this regularity of structure has on the east side been somewhatinterfered with by a projection of some thirty or forty feet--a billiardroom, in fine, which during John's minority Mrs Norton had thoughtproper to add. But she had lived to rue her experiment, for to thisyoung man, with his fretful craving for beauty and exactness ofproportion, it is an ever present source of complaint; and he had oncein a half humorous, half serious way, gone so far as to avail himself ofthe "eyesore, " as he called it, to excuse his constant absence fromhome, and as a pretence for shutting himself up in his dear college, with his cherished Latin authors. It was partly for the sake of avenginghimself on his mother, whose decisive practicality jarred the delicatemusic of a nature extravagantly ideal, that he so severely criticisedall that she held sacred; and his strictures fell heaviest on the bowwindow, looking somewhat like a temple with its small pilasterssupporting the rich cornice from which the dwarf vaulting springs. Theloggia, he admitted, although painfully out of keeping with thesurrounding country, was not wholly wanting in design, and he admiredits columns of a Doric order, and likewise the cornice that like a crownencompasses the house. The entrance is under the loggia; there are roundarched windows on either side, a square window under the roof, and thehall door is in solid oak studded with ornamental nails. 

On entering you find yourself in a common white-painted passage, and oneither side of the drawing-room and dining-room are four allegoricalfemale heads: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Further on is thehall, with its short polished oak stairway sloping gently to a balcony;and there are white painted pillars that support the low roof, and thesepillars make a kind of entrance to the passage which traverses thehouse from end to end. England--England clear and spotless! Nowhere doyou find a trace of dust or disorder. The arrangement of things issomewhat mechanical. The curtains and wall-paper in the bedrooms aresuggestive of trades people and housemaids; no hastily laid aside bookor shawl breaks the excessive orderliness. Every piece of furniture isin its appointed place, and nothing testifies to the voluntariness ofthe occupant, or the impulse prompted by the need of the moment. On thepresses at the ends of the passages, where is stored the house linen, cards are hung bearing this inscription: "When washing the woodwork theservants are requested to use no soda without first obtaining permissionfrom Mrs Norton. " This detail was especially distasteful to John; heoften thought of it when away, and it was one of the many irritatingimpressions which went to make up the sum of his dislike of ThornbyPlace. 

Mrs Norton is now crying her last orders to the servants; and althoughdressed elaborately as if to receive visitors, she has not yet laidaside her basket of keys. She is in her forty-fifth year. Her figure issquare and strong, and not devoid of matronly charm. It approves ahealthy mode of life, and her quick movements are indicative of hersharp determined mind. Her face is somewhat small for her shoulders, thetemples are narrow and high, the nose is long and thin, the cheek bonesare prominent, the chin is small, but unsuggestive of weakness, the lipsare pinched, the complexion is flushed, and the eyes set close above thelong thin nose are an icy grey. Mrs Norton is a handsome woman. Herfashionably-cut silk fits her perfectly; the skirt is draped with graceand precision, and the glossy shawl with the long soft fringe is elegantand delightfully mundane. She raises her double gold eyeglasses, and, contracting her forehead, stares pryingly about her; and so fashionableis she, and her modernity is so picturesque, that for a moment you thinkof the entrance of a duchess in the first act of a piece by Augierplayed on the stage of the Français. 

Still holding her gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, she descended thebroad stairs to the hall, and from thence she went into the library. There are two small bookcases filled with sombre volumes, and the bustsof Molière and Shakespeare attempt to justify the appellation. But thereis in the character, I was almost going to say in the atmosphere of theroom, that same undefinable, easily recognizable something whichproclaims the presence of non-readers. The traces of three or four days, at the most a week, which John occasionally spent at Thornby Place, werenecessarily ephemeral, and the weakness of Mrs Norton's sight renderedcontinuous reading impossible. Sometimes Kitty Hare brought a novel fromthe circulating library to read aloud, and sometimes John forgot one ofhis books, and a volume of Browning still lay on the table. The room wasfilled with shadow and mournfulness, and in a dusty grate the firesmouldered. 

Between this room and the drawing-room, in a recess formed by the bowwindow, Mrs Norton kept her birds, and still peering through hergold-rimmed glasses, she examined their seed-troughs and water-glasses, and, having satisfied herself as to their state, she entered thedrawing-room. There is little in this room; no pictures relieve thewidths of grey colourless wall paper, and the sombre oak floor is spacedwith a few pieces of furniture--heavy furniture enshrouded in grey linencloths. Three French cabinets, gaudy with vile veneer and bright brass, are nailed against the walls, and the empty room is reflected dismallyin the great gold mirror which faces the vivid green of the sward andthe duller green of the encircling elms of the park. 

Mrs Norton let her eyes wander, and sighing she went into thedining-room. The dining-room is always the most human of rooms, and thedining-room in Thornby Place, although allied to the other rooms in anabsence of fancy in its arrangement, shows prettily in contrast to themwith its white cloth cheerful with flowers and ferns. The floor iscovered with a tightly stretched red cloth, the chairs are set insymmetrical rows; with the exception of a black clock there is noornament on the chimney-piece, and a red cloth screen conceals the doorused by the servants. 

Mrs Norton walked with her quiet decisive step to the window, andholding the gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, she looked into thelandscape as if she were expecting someone to appear. The day was grimywith clouds; mist had risen, and it hung out of the branches of the elmslike a veil of white gauze. Withdrawing her eye from the vague prospectbefore her, Mrs Norton played listlessly with the tassel of one of theblinds. "Surely, " she thought, "he cannot have been foolish enough tohave walked over the downs such a day as this;" then, raising herglasses again she looked out at the smallest angle with the wall of thehouse, so that she should get sight of a vista through which any onecoming from Shoreham would have to pass. Presently a silhouetteappeared on the sullen sky. Mrs Norton moved precipitately from thewindow, and she rang the bell sharply. 

"John, " she said, "Mr Hare has been going in for one of his long walks. I see him now coming across the park. I am sure he has walked over thedowns; if so he must be wet through. Have a fire lighted in Mr Norton'sroom, put up a pair of slippers for him: here is the key of Mr Norton'swardrobe; let Mr Hare have what he wants. "

And having detached one from the many bunches which filled her basket, she went herself to open the door to her visitor. He was however stillsome distance away, and standing in the shelter of the loggia she waitedfor him, watched the vague silhouette resolving itself into colour andline. But it was not until he climbed the iron fence which separatedthe park from the garden grounds that the figure grew into itsindividuality. Then you saw a man of about forty, about the mediumheight and inclined to stoutness. His face was round and florid, and itwas set with sandy whiskers. His white necktie proclaimed him a parson, and the grey mud with which his boots were bespattered told of his longwalk. As is generally the case with those of his profession, he spokefluently, his voice was melodious, and his rapid answers and his brighteyes saved him from appearing commonplace. In addressing Mrs Norton heused her Christian name. 

"You are quite right, Lizzie, you are quite right; I shouldn't have doneit: had I known what a state the roads were in, I wouldn't haveattempted it. "

"What is the use of talking like that, as if you didn't know what theseroads were like! For twenty years you have been making use of them, andif you don't know what they are like in winter by this time, all I cansay is that you never will. "

"I never saw them in the state they are now; such a slush of chalk andclay was never seen. "

"What can you expect after a month of heavy rain? You are wringing wet. "

"Yes, I was caught in a heavy shower as I was crossing over byFresh-Combe-bottom. I am certainly not in a fit state to come into yourdining-room. "

"I should think not indeed! I really believe if I were to allow it, you would sit the whole afternoon in your wet clothes. You'll findeverything ready for you in John's room. I'll give you ten minutes. I'lltell them to bring up lunch in ten minutes. Stay, will you have a glassof wine before going upstairs?"

"I am afraid of spoiling your carpet. "

"Yes, indeed! not one step further! I'll fetch it for you. "

When the parson had drunk the wine, and was following the butlerupstairs, Mrs Norton returned to the dining-room with the empty glass inher hand. She placed it on the chimney piece; she stirred the fire, andher thoughts flowed pleasantly as she dwelt on the kindness of her oldfriend. "He only got my note this morning, " she mused. "I wonder if hewill be able to persuade John to return home. " Mrs Norton, in her ownhard, cold way, loved her son, but in truth she thought more of thepower of which he was the representative than of the man himself: thepower to take to himself a wife--a wife who would give an heir toThornby Place. This was to be the achievement of Mrs Norton's life, andthe difficulties that intervened were too absorbing for her to thinkmuch whether her son would find happiness in marriage; nor was itnatural to her to set much store on the refining charm and the unitinginfluences of mental sympathies. Had she not passed the age when thesentimental emotions are liveliest? And the fibre was wanting in her totake into much account the whispering or the silence of passion. 

Mrs Norton saw in marriage nothing but the child, and in the childnothing but an heir--that is to say, a male who would continue the nameand traditions of Thornby Place. This would seem to indicate a materialnature, but such a misapprehension arises from the common habit ofconfusing pure thought--thought which proceeds direct from the brainand lives uncoloured by the material wants of life--with instincts whosecomplexity often causes them to appear as mental potentialities, whereasthey are but instincts, inherited promptings, and aversions more or lessmodified by physical constitution and the material forces of the life inwhich the constitution has grown up; and yet, though pure thought, thatis to say the power of detaching oneself from the webs of life andviewing men and things from a height, is the rarest of gifts, many arepossessed of sufficient intellectuality to enjoy with the brain apartfrom the senses. Mrs Norton was such an one. After five o'clock tea shewould ask Kitty to read to her, and drawing her shawl about hershoulders, would readily abandon the intellectual side of her nature tothe seductive charm of the romantic story of James of Scotland; andwhile to the girl the heroism and chivalry were a little clouded by thequaint turns of Rossetti's verse, to the woman these were addeddelights, which her quiet penetrating understanding followed and tookinstant note of. 

"Were mother and son ever so different?" was the common remark. Theartistic was the side of Mrs Norton's character that was unaffectedlykept out of sight, just as young John Norton was careful to hide frompublic knowledge his strict business habits, and to expose, perhaps alittle ostentatiously, the spiritual impulses in which he was so deeplyconcerned: the subtle refinement of sacred places, from the mystery ofthe great window with its mitres and croziers to the sunlit path betweenthe tombs where the children play, the curious and yet natural charmthat attendance in the sacristy had for him, the arrangement of thelarge oak presses, wherein are stored the fine altar linen and thechalices, the distributing of the wine and water that were not forbodily need, and the wearing of the flowing surplices, the murmuring ofthe Latin responses that helped so wonderfully to enforce the impressionof beautiful and refined life which was his, and which he lived beyondthe gross influences of the wholly temporal life which he knew wasraging almost but not quite out of hearing. But, however marked may bethe accidental variations of character, hereditary instincts areirresistible, and in obedience to them John neglected nothing thatconcerned his pecuniary instincts. He was in daily communication withhis agent, and the financial position of every farmer, and the state ofevery farm on his property, were not only known to him but wereconstantly borne in mind, and influenced him in that progressiveordering of things which marked the administration of his property. Hewas furnished quarterly with an account of all monies paid, to whichwere joined descriptive notes of each farm, showing what alterations thepast three months had brought, and setting forth the agriculturalintentions and abilities of the occupier. 

John Norton waited the arrival of these accounts with a keen interest:they were a relish to his life; and without experiencing any revulsionof feeling, he would lay down a portfolio filled with photographs ofdrawings by Leonardo da Vinci--studies of drapery, studies of hands andfeet, realistic studies of thin-lipped women and ecstatic angels withthe light upon their high foreheads--and cheerfully, and even with asense of satisfaction, he would untie the bald, prosaic roll of paper, and seating himself at his window overlooking the long terrace, he wouldadd up the figures submitted to him, detecting the smallest arithmeticalerror, making note of the least delay in payment of any money due, andquestioning the slightest overpayment for work done. The morning hoursfled as he pursued his congenial task; and from time to time he wouldlet his thoughts wander from the teasing computation of the money thatwould be required to make the repairs that a certain farmer haddemanded, to the unworldly quiet of the sacristy; he would think, andhis thoughts contained an evanescent sense of the paradox, of the altarlinen he would have to fold and put away, and of the altar breads hewould presently have to write to London for; and meanwhile his eyeswould follow in delight the black figures of the Jesuits, who, withcassocks blowing and berrettas set firmly on their heads, walked up anddown the long gravel walks reading their breviaries. 

And living thus, half in the persuasive charm of ceremonial, half inthe hard procession of account books, the last three years of John'slife had passed. On coming of age he had spent a few weeks at ThornbyPlace, but the place, and especially the country, had appeared tohim so grossly protestant--so entirely occupied with the materialwell-to-doness of life--that he declared he longed to breathe again thebreath of his beloved sacristy, that he must away from that close andoppressive atmosphere of the flesh. Since then, with the exception of afew visits of a few days he had lived at Stanton College, writing to hismother not of the business which concerned his property, but of mentalproblems and artistic impulses. On business matters he never consultedher; but he thought it fortunate that she should choose to spend herjointure on Thornby Place, and so save him a great deal of expense inkeeping up the house, which, although he disliked it with a dislike thathad grown inveterate, he was still unwilling to allow to fall to ruins. 

Mrs Norton, as has been said, was capable of understanding much in theabstract; so long as things, and ideas of things, did not come withinthe circle of her practical life, they were judged from a liberalstandpoint, but so soon as they touched any personal consideration, they were judged by a moral code that in no way corresponded to herintellectual comprehension of the matter she so unhesitatinglycondemned. But by this it must by no means be understood that Mrs Nortonwore her conscience easily--that it was a garment that could beshortened or lengthened to suit all weathers. Our diagnosis of MrsNorton's character involves no accusation of laxity of principle. MrsNorton was a woman with an intelligence, who had inherited in all itsprimary force a code of morals that had grown up in the narrower mindsof less gifted generations. In talking to her you were conscious of twoactive and opposing principles: reason and hereditary morality. I use"opposing" as being descriptive of the state of soul that wouldgenerally follow from such mental contradiction, but in Mrs Norton noshocking conflict of thought was possible, her mind being alwaysstrictly subservient to her instinctive standard of right and wrong. 

And John had inherited the moral temperament of his mother's family, andwith it his mother's intelligence, nor had the equipoise been disturbedin the transmitting; his father's delicate constitution in inflictinggerms of disease had merely determined the variation represented by themarked artistic impulses which John presented to the normal type ofeither his father's or his mother's family. It would therefore seem thatany too sudden corrective of defect will result in anomaly, and, inthe case under notice, direct mingling of perfect health with spinalweakness had germinated into a marked yearning for the heroic ages, forthe supernatural as contrasted with the meanness of the routine ofexistence. And now before closing this psychical investigation, andpicking up the thread of the story, which will of course be no more thanan experimental demonstration of the working of the brain into which weare looking, we must take note of two curious mental traits both livingside by side, and both apparently negative of the other's existence: anintense and ever pulsatory horror of death, a sullen contempt and oftena ferocious hatred of life. The stress of mind engendered by thealternating of these themes of suffering would have rendered life anunbearable burden to John, had he not found anchorage in an invinciblebelief in God, a belief which set in stormily for the pomp and opulenceof Catholic ceremonial, for the solemn Gothic arch and the jewelled joyof painted panes, for the grace and the elegance and the order ofhieratic life. 

In a being whose soul is but the shadow of yours, a second soul lookingtowards the same end as your soul, or in a being whose soul differsradically, and is concerned with other satisfactions and other ideals, you will most probably find some part of the happiness of your dreams, but in intercourse with one who is grossly like you, but who isabsolutely different when the upper ways of character are taken intoaccount, there will be--no matter how inexorable are the ties thatbind--much fret and irritation and noisy clashing. It was so with JohnNorton and his mother; even in the exercise of faculties that had beendirectly transmitted from one to the other there had been angrycollision. For example:--their talents for business were identical; butwhile she thought the admirable conduct of her affairs was a thing to beproud of, he would affect an air of negligence, and would willinglyhave it believed that he lived independent of such gross necessities. Then his malady--for intense depression of the spirits was a malady withhim--offered an ever-recurring cause of misunderstanding. How irritatingit was when he lay shut up in his room, his soul looking down withmurderous eyes on the poor worm that writhed out its life in view of thepitiless stars, and longing with a fierce wild longing to shake off theburning garment of consciousness, and plunge into the black happiness ofthe grave, to hear Mrs Norton on the threshold uttering from time totime admonitory remarks. 

"You should not give way to such feelings, sir; you should not allowyourself to be unhappy. Look at me, am I unhappy? and I have more tobear with than you, but I am not always thinking of myself.... I am infairly good health, and I am always cheerful! Why are you not the same?You bring it all upon yourself; I have no pity for you.... You shouldcease to think of yourself, and try to do your duty. "

John groaned when he heard this last word. He knew very well what hismother meant. He should buy three hunters, he should marry. These werethe anodynes that were offered to him in and out of season. "Bad enoughthat I should exist! Why precipitate another into the gulf of being?""Consort with men whose ideal hovers between a stable boy and aveterinary surgeon;" and then, amused by the paradox, John, to whom thechase was evocative of forests, pageantry, spears, would quote somestirring verses of an old ballad, and allude to certain pictures byRubens, Wouvermans, and Snyders. "Why do you talk in that way?" "Why doyou seek to make yourself ridiculous?" Mrs Norton would retort. 

Smiling just a little sorrowfully, John would withdraw, and on thefollowing day he would leave for Stanton College. And it was thus thatMrs Norton's temper scarred with deep wounds a nature so pale anddelicate, so exposed that it seemed as if wanting an outer skin; and asThornby Place appeared to him little more than a comprehensive symbolof what he held mean, even obscene in life, his visits had grown shorterand fewer, until now his absence extended to the verge of the secondyear, and besieged by the belief that he was contemplating priesthood, Mrs Norton had written to her old friend, saying that she wanted tospeak to him on matters of great importance. Now maturing her plans forgetting her boy back, she stood by the bare black mantel-piece, her headleaning on her hand. She uttered an exclamation when Mr Hare entered. 

"What, " she said, "you haven't changed your things, and I told you youwould find a suit of John's clothes. I must insist--"

"My dear Lizzie, no amount of insistance would get me into a pair ofJohn's trousers. I am thirteen stone and a half, and he is not much overten. "

"Ah! I had forgotten, but what are you to do? Something must be done, you will catch your death of cold if you remain in your wet clothes.... You are wringing wet. "

"No, I assure you I am not. My feet were a little wet, but I havechanged my stockings and shoes. And now, tell me, Lizzie, what there isfor lunch, " he said, speaking rapidly to silence Mrs Norton, whom he sawwas going to protest again. 

"Well, you know it is difficult to get much at this season of the year. There are some chickens and some curried rabbit, but I am afraid youwill suffer for it if you remain the whole of the afternoon in those wetclothes; I really cannot, I will not allow it. "

"My dear Lizzie, my dear Lizzie, " cried the parson, laughing all overhis rosy skinned and sandy whiskered face, "I must beg of you notto excite yourself. I have no intention of committing any of theimprudences you anticipate. I will trouble you for a wing of thatchicken. James, I'll take a glass of sherry, ... And while I am eating ityou shall explain as succinctly as possible the matter you are mindedto consult me on, and when I have mastered the subject in all itsvarious details, I will advise you to the best of my power, and havingdone so I will start on my walk across the hills. "

"What! you mean to say you are going to walk home?... We shall haveanother downpour presently. "

"Even so. I cannot come to much harm so long as I am walking, whereas ifI drove home in your carriage I might catch a chill.... It is at leastten miles to Shoreham by the road, while across the hills it is not morethan six. "

"Six! it is eight if it is a yard!"

"Well, perhaps it is; but tell me, I am curious to hear what you want totalk to me about.... Something about John, is it not?"

"Of course it is, what else have I to think about; what else concernsmiddle-aged people like you and me but our children? Of course I want totalk to you about John. Something must be done, things cannot go on asthey are. Why, it is nearly two years since he has been home. Oh, thatboy is breaking my heart, and none suspects it. If you knew how itannoys me when the Gardiners and the Prestons congratulate me on havinga son so well behaved. They know he looks after his property sharpenough, no drinking, no bad company, no debts. Ah! they little know.... I would much sooner he were wild and foolish: young men get over thosekind of faults, but he will never get over his. "

Mr Hare felt these views to be of a doubtful orthodoxy, but he did notpress his opinion, and contented himself with murmuring gently that forthe moment he did not see that John's faults were of a particularlyaggravated character. 

"You do not see that his faults should cause me any uneasiness! Perhapsit is very lucky he is not here, or you might encourage him in them. Isuppose you think he is doing quite right in spending his life atStanton College, aping a priest and talking about Gothic arches. Is it aproper thing to transact all his business through a solicitor, andnever to see his tenants? Why does he not come and live at his ownbeautiful place? Why does he not take up his position in the county? Heis not a magistrate. Why does he not get married?... He is the last;there is no one to follow him. But he never thinks of that--he is afraidthat a woman might prove a disturbing influence in his life ... He feelsthat he must live in an atmosphere of higher emotions. That's the way hetalks, and he is meditating, I assure you, a book on the literature ofthe Middle Ages, on the works of bishops and monks who wrote Latin inthe early centuries. His mind, he says, is full of the cadences of thatlanguage. That's the way he writes. He never asks me about his property, never consults me in anything. Here is a letter I received yesterday. Listen:

"'The poverty of spiritual life amid the western pagans could not fail toencourage the growth of new religious tendencies. An epoch of greatspiritual activity had been succeeded by one of complete stagnation. Aglance at the literary progress of Rome since Tiberius will show thisemancipation from national and political considerations, the influenceof cosmopolitanism gave to the best specimens of Latin prose of thesilver age such riches and variety of substance and such individualityof expression, that Seneca and Tacitus and the letters of Pliny aremarked with many modern characteristics. Form and language appear inthese writers only as the instrument and the matter wherewith men ofgenius would express their intimate personality. Here antique culturerises above itself, but, mark you, at the expense of all that is properto the Roman nation. Cosmopolitan Hellenism forces and breaks down thebars of classical traditions, and, weary of restrictions these writersfirst sought personal satisfaction, and then addressed themselves toscholars rather than the people. 

"'But Hellenism found its medium in the Greek language, rich tosatiety, and possessing a syntax of such extraordinary flexibility, thatit could follow all evolutions without being shaken in its organism. Itwas in vain that the Latin literature sought to maintain its position byharking back to the writers anterior to Cicero, those that Hellenism hadnot touched, and presenting them as models of style; and thus a newschool very fain of antiquity had sprung up, with Fronto for itsacknowledged chief--a school pre-occupied above all things by the form;obsolete words set in a new setting, modern words introduced into oldcadences to freshen them with a bright and delightful varnish, in aword, a language under visible sign of decay ... Yet how full of dim ideaand evanescent music--a sort of Indian summer, a season of dependencythat looked back on the splendours of Augustan yesterdays--an autumnforest. '

"Did you ever hear such rubbish, or affectation, whichever you like tocall it? I should like to know what all that's to do with mediaevalLatin. And then he goes on to complain of the architecture of StantonCollege.... It is, he says, base Tudor of the vilest kind. 'Practicalcookery' he calls it, 'antique sauce, sold by all chemists and grocers. 'Do you know what he means? I don't. And worst news of all, he is, wouldyou believe it? putting a magnificent thirteen century window into thechapel, and he wants me to go up to London to make enquiries aboutorgans. He is prepared to go as far as a thousand pounds. Did you everhear of such a thing? Those Jesuits are encouraging him. Of course itwould just suit them if he became a priest; nothing would suit thembetter; the whole property would fall into their hands. Now, what I wantyou to do, my dear friend, is to go to Stanton College to-morrow, ornext day, as soon as you possibly can, and to talk to John. You musttell him how unwise it is to spend fifteen hundred pounds in one year, building organs and putting up windows. His intentions are excellent, but his estate won't bear such extravagances: and everybody here thinkshe is such a miser. I want you to tell him that he should marry. Justfancy what a terrible thing it would be if the estate passed away todistant relatives--to those terrible cousins of ours. "

"Very well, Lizzie, I will do what I can. I will go to-morrow. I havenot seen him for five years. The last time he was here I was away. Idon't think it would be a bad notion to suggest that the Jesuits areafter his money, that they are endeavouring to inveigle him into thepriesthood in order that they may get hold of his property. "

"No, no; you must not say such a thing. I will not have you say anythingagainst his religion. I was very wrong to suggest such a thing. I amsure no such idea ever entered the Jesuits' heads. Perhaps I am wrong tosend you to them.... Now I depend on you not to speak to him onreligious subjects. "

CHAPTER II. 

Mrs Norton had known William Hare all her life. She was the youngestdaughter, he the youngest son of equal Yorkshire families. Separated byabout a mile of pasture and woodland, these families had for generationslived unanimous lives. In England the hunting field, the grouse moor, the croquet and tennis lawn, with its charming adjunct the five-o'clocktea-table, have made life in certain classes almost communal; and MrsNorton and William Hare had stood in white frocks under Christmas treesand shared sweetmeats. He often thought of the first time he saw her, wearing a skirt that fell below her ankles, with her hair done up. Andshe remembered his first appearance in evening clothes, and howsurprised and delighted she was to hear him ask her if he might have thepleasure of a waltz. 

He went to Oxford to take his degree; she was taken to London for theseason, and towards the end of the third year she married Mr Norton, andwent to live at Thornby Place. Through the excitement of the marriagearrangements, and the rapid impressions of her honeymoon, the thought ofhaving for neighbour the playmate of her youth had flitted across, buthad not rested in, her mind, and she did not realize the charm that itwas for her until one afternoon, now more than twenty years ago, a youngcurate, bespattered with the grey mud of the downs, had startled her andher husband by addressing her as Lizzie. Lizzie she had remained to him, he was William to her, and henceforth their lives had been indissolublylinked. Not a week had passed without their seeing each other. Therewere visits to pay, there was hunting, and then habit intervened; andfor many years, in suffering, in joy, in hope, their thoughts hadinstinctively looked to each other for reflective sympathy, and everyremembrable event was full of mutual associations. He had sat by herwhen, after the birth of her first and only child, she lay pale, beautiful, and weak on a sofa by a window blown by the tide of summerscent; and the autumn of that same year he had walked with her in thegarden, where the leaves fell like the last illusion of youth under thetears of an incurable grief; and staying in their walk they looked onthe house which was to be for evermore one of widowhood. 

Had she ever loved him? Had he ever loved her? In moments of passionateloneliness she had yearned for his protection; in moments of deepdejection he had dreamed of the happiness he might have found with her;but in the broad day of their lives they had ever thought of each otheras friends. He had advised her on the management of her estate, on theeducation of her son; and in his afflictions--in his widowerhood--whenhis children quickly followed their mother to the grave, Mrs Norton'sform, face, and words had steadied him, and had helped him to bear witha life of crumbling ruin. Kitty was now the only one that remained tohim. 

Mrs Norton had had projects of wealth and title for her son, but hiscontinued disdain of women and the love of women had long since forcedher to abandon her hopes, and now any one he might select she wouldgladly welcome; but she whom Mrs Norton would have preferred to allothers was the daughter of her old friend. Her son had deserted her, andnow all her affections were centred in Kitty. Kitty was as much atThornby Place as at the Rectory, and in the gaiety of her bright eyes, and in the shine of her gold-brown hair--for ever slipping from the goldhair-pins in frizzed masses--Mrs Norton continued her dreams of herson's marriage. 

Mr Hare thought it harsh that his daughter should be so constantly takenfrom him, but the parsonage was so lonely for Kitty, and there wereluncheon and tennis parties at Thornby Place, and Mrs Norton took thegirl out for drives, and together they visited all the county families. A suspicion of matchmaking sometimes crossed Mr Hare's mind, but itfaded in the knowledge that John was always at Stanton College; and tosend this fair flower to his great--to his only--friend, was a joy, andthe bitterness of temporary loss was forgotten in the sweetness of thesharing. He had suffered much; but these last years had been quiet, freefrom despair at least, and he wished to drift a little longer with thetide of this time. Why strive to hasten events? If this thing was to be, it would be. So he had thought of his daughter's marriage. Fancies hadlong hung about the confines of his mind, but nothing had struck himwith the full force of a thought until suddenly he understood the exactpurport of his mission to Stanton College. He leaned forward as if hewere going to tell the driver to return, but before he could do so thelodge-keeper opened the great gate, and the hansom cab rattled under thearchway. 

Then he viewed the scheme in general outline and in remote detail. Itwas very simple. Lizzie had been to Shoreham, and had taken Kitty awaywith her; he had been sent to Stanton College to beg John Norton toreturn to Thornby Place, and to say what he could in favour of marriagegenerally. This was very compromising. He had been deceived; Lizzie haddeceived him. She had no right to do such a thing; and, striving todetermine on a line of conduct, Mr Hare examined abstractedly the placehe was passing through. 

In large and serpentine curves the road wound through a wood of smallbeech trees--so small that in the November dishevelment the plantationswere like so much brushwood; and, lying behind the wind-swept opening, gravel walks appeared in grey fragments, and the green spaces of thecricket field with a solitary divine reading his breviary. The driveturned and turned again in great sloping curves; more divines werepassed, and then there came a long terrace with a balustrade and a viewof the open country, now full of mist. And to see the sharp spire ofthe distant church you had to look closely, and slanting slowly upwardsthe great plain drew a long and melancholy line across the sky. Thelower terrace was approached by an imposing flight of steps, there weremyriads of leaves in the air, and the college bell rang in its high redtower. 

The high red walls of the college faced the dismal terraces, and thetriple line of diamond-paned and iron-barred windows stared upon theugly Staffordshire landscape. A square tower squatted in the middle ofthe building, and out of it rose the octagon of the bell tower, and inthe tower wall was the great oak door studded with great nails. 

"How Birmingham the whole place does look, " thought Mr Hare, as he laidhis hand on an imitation mediaeval bell-pull. 

"Is Mr John Norton at home?" he asked when the servant came. "Will yougive him my card, and say that I should like to see him. "

On entering, Mr Hare found himself in a tiled hall, around which wasbuilt a staircase in varnished oak. There was a quadrangle, and fromthree sides the interminable latticed windows looked down on the greensward; on the fourth there was an open corridor, with arches to imitatea cloister. All was strong and barren, and only about the varnishedstaircase was there any sign of comfort. There a virgin in bright bluestood on a crescent moon; above her the ceiling was panelled in oak, andthe banisters, the cocoa nut matting, the bit of stained glass, and thereligious prints, suggested a mock air of hieratic dignity. And the roomMr Hare was shown into continued this impression. Cabinets in carved oakharmonised with high-backed chairs glowing with red Utrecht velvet, anda massive table, on which lay a folio edition of St Augustine's "City ofGod" and the "Epistolae Consolitoriae" of St Jerome. 

The bell continued to clang, and through the latticed windows Mr Harewatched the divines hurrying along the windy terrace, and the tramp ofthe boys going to their class-rooms could be heard in passages below. 

Then a young man entered. He was thin, and he was dressed in black. Hisface was very Roman, the profile especially was what you might expect tofind on a Roman coin--a high nose, a high cheek-bone, a strong chin, anda large ear. The eyes were prominent and luminous, and the lower part ofthe face was expressive of resolution and intelligence, but above theeyes there were many indications of cerebral distortions. The foreheadwas broad, but the temples retreated rapidly to the brown hair whichgrew luxuriantly on the top of the head, leaving what the phrenologistscall the bumps of ideality curiously exposed, and this, taken inconjunction with the yearning of the large prominent eyes, suggested atonce a clear, delightful intelligence, --a mind timid, fearing, anddoubting, such a one as would seek support in mysticism and dogma, thatwould rise instantly to a certain point, but to drop as suddenly as ifsickened by the too intense light of the cold, pure heaven of reason tothe gloom of the sanctuary and the consolations of Faith. Let us turn tothe mouth for a further indication of character. It was large, the lipswere thick, but without a trace of sensuality. They were dim in colour, they were undefined in shape, they were a little meaningless--no, notmeaningless, for they confirmed the psychological revelations of thereceding temples. The hands were large, powerful, and grasping; theywere earthly hands; they were hands that could take and could hold, andtheir materialism was curiously opposed to the ideality of the eyes--anideality that touched the confines of frenzy. The shoulders were squareand carried well back, the head was round, with close-cut hair, thestraight-falling coat was buttoned high, and the fashionable collar, with a black satin cravat, beautifully tied and relieved with a richpearl pin, set another unexpected but singularly charmful detail to anaggregate of apparently irreconcilable characteristics. 

"And how do you do, my dear Mr Hare? and who would have expected to seeyou here? I am so glad to see you. "

These words were spoken frankly and cordially, and there was a note ofmundane cheerfulness in the voice which did not quite correspond withthe sacerdotal elegance of this young man. Then he added quickly, as ifto save himself from asking the reason of this very unexpected visit--

"But you have never been here before; this is the first time you haveseen our college. And seeing it as it now is, you would not believe allthe delightful detail that a ray of sunlight awakens in that hideousbrown monotony, soaked with rain and bedimmed with mist. "

"Yes, I can quite understand that the college is not looking its best ona day like this. We have had very wet weather lately. "

"No doubt, and I am afraid these late rains have interfered with theharvest. The accounts from the North are very alarming, but in Sussex, Isuppose, everything was over at least two months ago. Still even therethe farmers have been losing money for some time back. I have had tomake some very heavy reductions. Pearson declared he could not possiblycontinue at the present rent with corn as low as eight pounds a load. This is very serious, but it is very difficult to arrive at the truth. Iwant to talk to you; but we shall have plenty of time presently; you'llstay and dine? And I'll show you over the college: you have never beenhere before, and now I come to reckon it up, I find I have not seen youfor nearly five years. "

"It must be very nearly that; I missed you the last time you were atThornby Place, and that was three years ago. "

"Three years! It sounds very shocking, doesn't it? to have a beautifulplace in Sussex and not to live there: to prefer an ugly red-brickcollege--Birmingham Tudor; my mother invented the expression. When sheis in a passion she hits on the very happiest concurrence of words; andI must say she is right, --the architecture here is appallingly ugly;and I don't think anything could be done to improve it, do you?"

"I can't say that I can suggest anything for the moment, but I thoughtit was for the sake of the architecture, which I frankly confess I don'tin the least admire, that you lived here. "

"You thought it was for the sake of the architecture.... "

"Then why do you not come home and spend Christmas with your mother!"

"Christmas! Well, I suppose I ought to. But it will be hard to bear withthe plain Protestantism, the smug materialism of Sussex at such aseason; and when one thinks what the day is commemorative of--"

"You surely do not mean that you would prefer to see the peoplestarving? If your dislike of Protestantism rests only on roast beef andplum pudding.... "

"No, you don't understand. But I beg your pardon--I had reallyforgotten.... "

"Never mind, " said Mr Hare smiling; "continue: we were talking of roastbeef and plum pudding--"

"Well, roast beef and plum pudding, say what you like, is a verycomplete figuration of the Protestant ideal. Now let us think ofSussex.... The villas with their gables, and railings, and laurels, thesnug farm-houses, the market-gardening, but especially the villas, sorepresentative of a sleepy smug materialism.... Oh, it is horrible; Icannot think of Sussex without a revulsion of feeling. Sussex is utterlyopposed to the monastic spirit. Why, even the downs are easy, yes, easyas one of the upholsterer's armchairs of the villa residences. And theaspect of the county tallies exactly with the state of soul of itspeople. In that southern county all is soft and lascivious; there is nowildness, none of that scenical grandeur which we find in Scotland andIreland, and which is emblematic of the yearning of man's soul forsomething higher than this mean and temporal life. "

There was rapture in John's eyes. With a quick movement of his hands heseemed to spurn the entire materialism of Sussex. After a pause, hecontinued:

"There is no asceticism in Sussex, there is no yearning for anythinghigher or better. You--yes, you and the whole place are, in every senseof the word, Conservative--that is to say, brutally satisfied with thepresent ordering of things. "

"Now, now, my dear John, by your own account Pearson is not by any meansso satisfied with the present condition of things as you yourself wouldwish him to be. "

John laughed loudly, and it was clear that the paradox in no waydispleased him. 

"But we were speaking, " he continued, "not of temporal, but of spiritualpains and penalties. Now, anyone who did not know me--and none will everknow me--would think that I had not a care in the world. Well, I havesuffered as horribly, I have been tortured as cruelly, as ever poormortal was.... I have lain on the floor of my room, my heart deadwithin me, and moaned and shrieked with horror. "

"Horror of what?"

"Horror of death and a worse horror of life. Few amongst men everrealise the truth of things, but there are rare occasions, moments ofsupernatural understanding or suffering (which are two words for one andthe same thing), when we see life in all its worm-like meanness, anddeath in its plain, stupid loathsomeness. Two days out of this year livelike fire in my mind. I went to my uncle Richard's funeral. There wascold meat and sherry on the table; a dreadful servant asked me if Iwould go up to the corpse-room. (Mark the expression. ) I went. It layswollen and featureless, and two busy hags lifted it up and packed ittight with wisps of hay, and mechanically uttered shrieks and moans. 

"But, though the funeral was painfully obscene, it was not so obscene asthe view of life I was treated to last week.... 

"Last week I was in London; I went to a place they call the 'Colonies. 'Till then I had never realised the foulness of the human animal, butthere even his foulness was overshadowed by his stupidity. The masses, yes, I saw the masses, and I fed with them in their huge intellectualstye. The air was filled with lines of the most inconceivable flags, lines upon lines of pale yellow, and there were glass cases filled withpickle bottles, and there were piles of ropes and a machine in motion, and in nooks there were some dreadful lay figures, and writtenunderneath them, 'Indian corn-seller, ' 'Indian fish-seller. ' And therewas the Prince of Wales on horseback, three times larger than life; andthere were stuffed deer upon a rock, and a Polar bear, and the Marquisof Lome underneath. In another room there were Indian houses, things incarved wood, and over each large placards announcing the popular dinner, the _buffet_, the _table d'hôte_, at half-a-crown; and there were oceansof tea, and thousands of rolls of butter, and in the gardens the bandplayed 'Thine alone' and 'Mine again. '

"It seemed as if all the back-kitchens and staircases in England hadthat day been emptied out--life-tattered housewives, girls grown stouton porter, pretty-faced babies, heavy-handed fathers, whistling boys intheir sloppy clothes, and attitudes curiously evidencing an odiousdomesticity.... 

"In the Greek and Roman life there was an ideal, and there was a greatideal in the monastic life of the Middle Ages; but an ideal is whollywanting in nineteenth century life. I am not of these later days. I amstriving to come to terms with life. "

"And you think you can do that best by folding vestments and revilinghumanity. I do not see how you reconcile these opinions with theteaching of Christ--with the life of Christ. "

"Oh, of course, if you are going to use those arguments against me, Ihave done; I can say no more. "

Mr Hare did not answer, and at the end of a long silence John said:

"But, what do you say, supposing I show you over the college now, andwhen that's done you will come up to my room and we'll have a smokebefore dinner?"

Mr Hare raised no objection, and the two men descended the staircaseinto the long stony corridor. The quadrangle filled the diamond panesof the latticed windows with green, and the divine walking to and frowas a spot of black. There were pictures along the walls of thecorridor--pictures of upturned faces and clasped hands--and these drewwords of commiseration for the artistic ignorance of the Collegeauthorities from John's lips. 

"And they actually believe that that dreadful monk with the skull is areal Ribera.... The chapel is on the right, the refectory on the left. Come, let us see the chapel; I am anxious to hear what you think of mywindow. "

"It ought to be very handsome; it cost five hundred, did it not?"

"No, not quite so much as that, " John answered abruptly; and then, passing through the communion rails, they stood under the multi-colouredglory of three bishops. Mr Hare felt that a good deal of rapture wasexpected of him; but in his efforts to praise, he felt he was exposinghis ignorance. John called attention to the transparency of thegreen-watered skies; and turning their backs on the bishops, the blueceiling with the gold stars was declared, all things considered, to bein excellent taste. The benches in the body of the church were for boys;the carved chairs set along both walls between the communion rails andthe first steps of the altar were for the divines. The president andvice-president knelt facing each other. The priests, deacons, andsub-deacons followed according to their rank. There were slendererbenches, and these were for the choir; and from a music-book placed onwings of the great golden eagle, the leader conducted the singing. 

The side altar, with the rich Turkey carpet spread over the steps, wasSt George's, and further on, in an addition made lately, there were twomore altars, dedicated respectively to the Virgin and St Joseph. 

"The maid-servants kneel in that corner. I have often suggestedthat they should be moved out of sight. You do not understand me. Protestantism has always been more reconciled to the presence of womenin sacred places than we. We would wish them beyond the precincts. Andit is easy to imagine how the unspeakable feminality of thosemaid-servants jars a beautiful impression--the altar towering white withwax candles, the benedictive odour of incense, the richness of thevestments, treble voices of boys floating, and the sweetness of a longday spent about the sanctuary with flowers and chalices in my hands, fade in a sense of sullen disgust, in a revulsion of feeling which Iwill not attempt to justify. "

Then his thoughts, straying back to sudden recollections of monasticusages and habits, he said:

"I should like to scourge them out of this place. " And then, halfplayfully, half seriously, and wholly conscious of the grotesqueness, he added:

"Yes, I am not at all sure that a good whipping would not do them good. They should be well whipped. I believe that there is much to be said infavour of whipping. "

Mr Hare did not answer. He listened like one in a dark and unknownplace. But, as if unconscious of the embarrassment he was creating, Johntold of the number of masses that were said daily, and of the eagernessshown by the boys to obtain an altar. Altar service was rewarded by alarge piece of toast for breakfast. Handsome lads of sixteen were chosenfor acolytes, the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by John Norton, and he was also thechief sacristan, and had charge of the altar plate and linen and thevestments. He spoke of the organ, and he depreciated the presentinstrument, and enlarged upon some technical details anent the latestmodern improvements in keys and stops. 

They went up to the organ loft. John would play his setting of StAmbrose's hymn, "Veni redemptor gentium, " if Mr Hare would go to thebellows, and feeling as if he were being turned into ridicule, Mr Haretook his place at the handle; and he found it even more embarrassingto give an opinion on the religiosity of the music, than on thearchaeological colouration of the bishops in the window. But John didnot court any very detailed criticism on his hymn, and alluding to thefact that even in the fourth century accent was beginning to replacequantity, he led the way to the sacristy. 

And it was impossible to avoid noticing that the opening of the carvedoaken presses, smelling sweet and benignly of orris root and lavender, acted on John almost as a physical pleasure, and also that his handsseemed nervous with delight as he unfolded the jewelled embroideries, and smoothed out the fine linen of the under vestments; and his voice, too, seemed to gain a sharp tenderness and emotive force, as he told howthese were the gold vestments worn by the bishop, and only on certaingreat feast-days, and that these were the white vestments worn on daysespecially commemorative of the Virgin. The consideration of thecensers, candlesticks, chalices, and albs took some time, and John was alittle aggressive in his explanation of Catholic ceremonial, and itsgrace and comeliness compared with the stiffness and materialism of theProtestant service. 

From the sacristy they went to the boys' library. John pointed out theexcellent supply of light literature that the bookcases contained. 

"We take travels, history, fairy-tales--romances of all kinds, so longas sensual passion is not touched upon at any length. Of course wedon't object to a book in which just towards the end the young man fallsin love and proposes; but there must not be much of that sort of thing. Here are Robert Louis Stevenson's works, 'Treasure Island, ' 'Kidnapped, '&c. , charming writer--a neat pretty style, with a pleasant souvenir ofEdgar Poe running through it all. You have no idea how the boys enjoyhis books. "

"And don't you?"

"Oh no; I have just glanced at him: for my own reading, I can admit nonewho does not write in the first instance for scholars, and then to thescholarly instincts in readers generally. Here is Walter Pater. We havehis Renaissance; studies in art and poetry--I gave it myself to thelibrary. We were so sorry we could not include that most beautiful book, 'Marius the Epicurean. ' We have some young men here of twenty and threeand twenty, and it would be delightful to see them reading it, soexquisite is its hopeful idealism; but we were obliged to bar it onaccount of the story of Psyche, sweetly though it be told, and sweetlythough it be removed from any taint of realistic suggestion. Do you knowthe book?"

"I can't say I do. "

"Then read it at once. It is a breath of delicious fragrance blown backto us from the antique world; nothing is lost or faded, the bloom ofthat glad bright world is upon every page; the wide temples, the lustralwater--the youths apportioned out for divine service, and already happywith a sense of dedication, the altars gay with garlands of wool and themore sumptuous sort of flowers, the colour of the open air, with thescent of the beanfields, mingling with the cloud of incense. "

"But I thought you denied any value to the external world, that thespirit alone was worth considering. "

"The antique world knew how to idealise, and if they delighted in theoutward form, they did not leave it gross and vile as we do when wetouch it; they raised it, they invested it with a sense of aloofnessthat we know not of. Flesh or spirit, idealise one or both, and I willaccept them. But you do not know the book. You must read it. Never did Iread with such rapture of being, of growing to spiritual birth. Itseemed to me that for the first time I was made known to myself; for thefirst time the false veil of my grosser nature was withdrawn, and Ilooked into the true ethereal eyes, pale as wan water and sunset skies, of my higher self. Marius was to me an awakening; the rapture ofknowledge came upon me that even our temporal life might be beautiful;that, in a word, it was possible to somehow come to terms with life.... You must read it. For instance, can anyone conceive anything moreperfectly beautiful than the death of Flavian, and all that youthfulcompanionship, and Marius' admiration for his friend's poetry?... Thatdelightful language of the third century--a new Latin, a season ofdependency, an Indian summer full of strange and varied cadences, sodifferent from the monotonous sing-song of the Augustan age; the schoolof which Fronto was the head. Indeed, it was Pater's book that firstsuggested to me the idea of the book I am writing. But perhaps you donot know I am writing a book.... Did my mother tell you anything aboutit?"

"Yes; she told me you were writing the history of Christian Latin. "

"Yes; that is to say, of the language that was the literary, thescientific, and the theological language of Europe for more than athousand years. "

And talking of his book rapidly, and with much boyish enthusiasm, Johnopened the doors of the refectory. The long, oaken tables, the greatfireplace, and the stained glass seemed to delight him, and he alludedto the art classes of monastic life. The class-rooms were peeped into, the playground was viewed through the lattice windows, and they went toJohn's room, up a staircase curiously carpeted with lead. 

John's rooms! a wide, bright space of green painted wood and strawmatting. The walls were panelled from floor to ceiling. In the centre ofthe floor there was an oak table--a table made of sharp slabs of oaklaid upon a frame that was evidently of ancient design, probably earlyGerman, a great, gold screen sheltered a high canonical chair withelaborate carvings, and on a reading-stand close by lay the manuscriptof a Latin poem. 

"And what is this?" said Mr Hare. 

"Oh! that is a poem by Milo, his 'De Sobricate. ' I heard that themanuscript was still preserved in the convent of Saint Amand, nearTournai, and I sent and had a copy made for me. That was the simplestway. You have no idea how difficult it is to buy the works of any Latinauthors except those of the Augustan age. Milo was a monk, and he livedin the eighth century. He was a man of very considerable attainments, if he were not a very great poet. He was a contemporary of Floras, who, by the way, was a real poet. Some of his verses are delightful, full ofdelicate cadence and colour. The MS. Under your hand is a poem by him--

 "'Montes et colles, silvaeque et flumina, fontes, Praeruptaeque rupes, pariter vallesque profondae Francorum lugete genus: quod munere christi, Imperio celsum jacet ecce in pulvere mersum. '

"That was written in the eighth century when the language was becomingterribly corrupt; when it was hideous with popular idiom barbarously andrecklessly employed. But even in that time of autumnal decay and pallidbloom, a real poet such as Walahfrid Strabat could weave a garland ofgrace and beauty; one, indeed, that lived through the chance ofcenturies in the minds of men. It found numberless imitators and favoureven with the Humanists, and it was reprinted eight times in theseventeenth century. This poem is of especial interest to me on accountof the illustration it affords of a theory of my own concerning theunconsciousness of the true artist. For breaking away from the literaryhabitudes of his time, which were to do the gospels or the life ofa favourite saint into hexameters, he wrote a poem, 'Hortulus, 'descriptive of the garden of the monastery. The garden was all the worldto the monks; it furnished them at once with the pleasures and thenecessaries of their lives. Walahfrid felt this; he described hisfeelings, and he produced a chef d'oeuvre. " Going over to the bookcase, John took down a volume. He read:--

 "'Hoc nemus umbriferum pingit viridissima Rutae Silvula coeruleae, foliis quae praedita parvis, Umbellas jaculata brevis, spiramina venti Et radios Phoebi caules transmittit ad imos, Attactuque graves leni dispergit odores, Haec cum multiplici vigeat virtute medelae, Dicitur occultis apprime obstare venenis, Toxicaque invasis incommoda pellere fibris. '

"Now, can anything be more charming? True it is that pingit in the firstline does not seem to construe satisfactorily, and I am not certain thatthe poet may not have written _fingit_. Fingit would not be pure Latin, but that is beside the question. "

"Indeed it is. I must say I prefer the Georgics. I have known manystrange tastes, but your fancy for bad Latin is the strangest of all. "

"Classical Latin, with the exception of Tacitus, is cold-blooded andself-satisfied. There is no agitation, no fever; to me it is utterlywithout interest. "

To the books and manuscripts the pictures on the walls afforded anabrupt contrast. No. 1. "A Japanese Girl, " by Monet. A poppy in the palegreen walls; a wonderful macaw! Why does it not speak in strangedialect? It trails lengths of red silk. Such red! The pigment is twirledand heaped with quaint device, until it seems to be beautiful embroideryrather than painting; and the straw-coloured hair, and the blond lighton the face, and the unimaginable coquetting of that fan.... 

No. 2. "The Drop Curtain, " by Degas. The drop curtain is fastdescending; only a yard of space remains. What a yardful of curiouscomment, what satirical note on the preposterousness of humanexistence! what life there is in every line; and the painter has mademeaning with every blot of colour! Look at the two principal dancers!They are down on their knees, arms raised, bosoms advanced, skirtsextended, a hundred coryphées are clustered about them. Leaning hands, uplifted necks, painted eyes, scarlet mouths, a piece of thigh, archedinsteps, and all is blurred; vanity, animalism, indecency, absurdity, and all to be whelmed into oblivion in a moment. Wonderful life;wonderful Degas!

No. 3. "A Suburb, " by Monet. Snow! the world is white. The furry fluffhas ceased to fall, and the sky is darkling and the night advances, dragging the horizon up with it like a heavy, deadly curtain. But theroof of the villa is white, and the green of the laurels shaken free ofthe snow shines through the railings, and the shadows that lie acrossthe road leading to town are blue--yes, as blue as the slates under theimmaculate snow. 

No. 4. "The Cliff's Edge, " by Monet. Blue? purple the sea is; no, it isviolet; 'tis striped with violet and flooded with purple; there areliving greens, it is full of fading blues. The dazzling sky deepens asit rises to breathless azure, and the soul pines for and is fain of God. White sails show aloft; a line of dissolving horizon; a fragment ofoverhanging cliff wild with coarse grass and bright with poppies, andmusical with the lapsing of the summer waves. 

There were in all six pictures--a tall glass filled with pale roses, byRenoir; a girl tying up her garter, by Monet. 

Through the bedroom door Mr Hare saw a narrow iron bed, an ironwashhand-stand, and a prie-dieu. A curious three-cornered wardrobe stoodin one corner, and facing it, in front of the prie-dieu, a life-sizeChrist hung with outstretched arms. The parson looked round for a seat, but the chairs were like cottage stools on high legs, and the angularbacks looked terribly knife-like. 

"Sit in the arm-chair. Shall I get you a pillow from the next room?Personally I cannot bear upholstery; I cannot conceive anything morehideous than a padded arm-chair. All design is lost in that infamousstuffing. Stuffing is a vicious excuse for the absence of design. Ifupholstery was forbidden by law to-morrow, in ten years we should havea school of design. Then the necessity of composition would beimperative. "

"I daresay there is a good deal in what you say; but tell me, don't youfind these chairs very uncomfortable. Don't you think that you wouldfind a good comfortable arm-chair very useful for reading purposes?"

"No, I should feel far more uncomfortable on a cushion than I do on thisbit of hard oak. Our ancestors had an innate sense of form that we havenot. Look at these chairs, nothing can be plainer; a cottage stool ishardly more simple, and yet they are not offensive to the eye. I hadthem made from a picture by Albert Durer. But tell me, what will youtake to drink? Will you have a glass of champagne, or a brandy andsoda, or what do you say to an absinthe?"

"'Pon my word, you seem to look after yourself. You don't forget theinner man. "

"I always keep a good supply of liquor; have a cigar?" And John passedto him a box of fragrant and richly coloured Havanas.... Mr Hare took acigar, and glanced at the table on which John was mixing the drinks. Itwas a slip of marble, rested, café fashion, on iron supports. 

"But that table is modern, surely?--quite modern!"

"Quite; it is a café table, but it does not offend my eye. You surelywould not have me collect a lot of old-fashioned furniture and pile itup in my rooms, Turkey carpets and Japaneseries of all sorts; a roomsuch as Sir Fred. Leighton would declare was intended to be merelybeautiful. "

Striving vainly to understand, Mr Hare drank his brandy and soda insilence. Presently he walked over to the bookcases. There were two: onewas filled with learned-looking volumes bearing the names of Latinauthors; and the parson, who prided himself on his Latinity, wassurprised, and a little nettled, to find so much ignorance proved uponhim. With Tertullian, St Jerome, and St Augustine he was of courseacquainted, but of Lactantius, Prudentius, Sedulius, St Fortunatus, DunsScotus, Hibernicus exul, Angilbert, Milo, &c. , he was obliged to admithe knew nothing--even the names were unknown to him. 

In the bookcase on the opposite side of the room there were completeeditions of Landor and Swift, then came two large volumes on Leonardo daVinci. Raising his eyes, the parson read through the titles of MrBrowning's work. Tennyson was in a cheap seven-and-six edition; thencame Swinburne, Pater, Rossetti, Morris, two novels by Rhoda Broughton, Dickens, Thackeray, Fielding, and Smollett; the complete works ofBalzac, Gautier's Emaux et Camées, Salammbo, L'Assommoir; add to thisCarlyle, Byron, Shelley, Keats, &c. 

At the end of a long silence, Mr Hare said, glancing once again at theLatin authors, and walking towards the fire:

"Tell me, John, are those the books you are writing about? Supposing youexplain to me in a few words the line you are taking. Your mother tellsme that you intend to call your book the History of Christian Latin. "

"Yes, I had thought of using that title, but I am afraid it is a littletoo ambitious. To write the history of a literature extending over atleast eight centuries would entail an appalling amount of reading; andbesides only a few, say a couple of dozen writers out of some hundreds, are of the slightest literary interest, and very few indeed of any realaesthetic value. I have been hard at work lately, and I think I knowenough of the literature of the Middle Ages to enable me to make aselection that will comprise everything of interest to ordinaryscholarship, and enough to form a sound basis to rest my own literarytheories upon. I begin by stating that there existed in the Middle Agesa universal language such as Goethe predicted the future would againbring to us.... 

"Before the formation of the limbs, that is to say before the German andRoman languages were developed up to the point of literary usage, theLatin language was the language of all nations of the western world. But the day came, in some countries a little earlier, in some a littlelater, when it was replaced by the national idioms. The differentliteratures of the West had therefore been preceded by a Latinliterature that had for a long time held out a supporting hand to each. The language of this literature was not a dead language, It was thelanguage of government, of science, of religion; and a littledislocated, a little barbarised, it had penetrated to the minds of thepeople, and found expression in drinking songs and street ditties. 

"Such is the theme of my book; and it seems to me that a language thathas played so important a part in the world's history is well worthy ofserious study. 

"I show how Christianity, coming as it did with a new philosophy, and anew motive for life, invigorated and saved the Latin language in a timeof decline and decrepitude. For centuries it had given expression, evento satiety, to a naive joy in the present; on this theme, all thatcould be said had been said, all that could be sung had been sung, and the Rhetoricians were at work with alliteration and refrain whenChristianity came, and impetuously forced the language to speak thedesire of the soul. In a word, I want to trace the effect that such aradical alteration in the music, if I may so speak, had upon theinstrument--the Latin language. "

"And with whom do you begin?"

"With Tertullian, of course. "

"And what do you think of him?"

"Tertullian, one of the most fascinating characters of ancient or moderntimes. In my study of his writings I have worked out a psychologicalstudy of the man himself as revealed through them. His realism, I mightsay materialism, is entirely foreign to my own nature, but I cannothelp being attracted by that wild African spirit, so full of savagecontradictions, so full of energy that it never knew repose: in him youfind all the imperialism of ancient times. When you consider that helived in a time when the church was struggling for utterance amid thehorrors of persecution, his mad Christianity becomes singularlyattractive; a passionate fear of beauty for reason of its temptations, afear that turned to hatred, and forced him at last into the belief thatChrist was an ugly man. "

"I know nothing of the monks of the eighth century and their poetry, but I do know something of Tertullian, and you mean to tell me thatyou admire his style--those harsh chopped-up phrases and strainedantitheses. "

"I should think I did. Phrases set boldly one against the other; quaint, curious, and full of colour, the reader supplies with delight theconnecting link, though the passion and the force of the descriptionlives and reels along. Listen:

"'Quae tunc spectaculi latitudo! quid admirer? quid rideam? ubi gaudeam?ubi exultem, spectans tot ac tantos reges, qui in coelum receptinuntiabantur, cum ipso Jove et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebriscongemiscentes!--Tunc magis tragoedi audiendi, magis scilicet vocales insua propria calamitate; tunc histriones cognoscendi, solutiores multoper ignem; tunc spectandus auriga, in flammea rota totus rubens, &c. '

"Show me a passage in Livy equal to that for sheer force and glitteringcolour. The phrases are not all dove-tailed one into the other andsmoothed away; they stand out. "

"Indeed they do. And whom do you speak of next?"

"I pass on to St Cyprian and Lactantius; to the latter I attribute thebeautiful poem of the Phoenix. "

"What! Claudian's poem?"

"No, but one infinitely superior. After Lactantius comes St Ambrose, StJerome, and St Augustine. The second does not interest me, and my noticeof him is brief; but I make special studies of the first and last. Itwas St Ambrose who introduced singing into the Catholic service. He tookthe idea from the Arians. He saw the effect it had upon the vulgar mind, and he resolved to combat the heresy with its own weapons. He composed avast number of hymns. Only four have come down to us, and they are asperfect in form as in matter. You will scarcely find anywhere a falsequantity or a hiatus. The Ambrosian hymns remained the type of all thehymnic poetry of succeeding centuries. Even Prudentius, great poet as hewas, was manifestly influenced in the choice of metre and thecomposition of the strophe by the Deus Creator omnium.... 

"St Ambrose did more than any other writer of his time to establishcertain latent tendencies as characteristics of the Catholic spirit. His pleading in favour of ascetic life and of virginity, that entirelyChristian virtue, was very influential. He lauds the virgin above thewife, and, indeed, he goes so far as to tell parents that they canobtain pardon of their sins by offering their daughters to God. Histeaching in this respect was productive of very serious rebellionagainst what some are pleased to term the laws of Nature. But St Ambrosedid not hesitate to uphold the repugnance of girls to marriage as notonly lawful but praiseworthy. "

"I am afraid you let your thoughts dwell very much on such subjects. "

"Really, do you think I do?" John's eyes brightened for a moment, and helapsed into what seemed an examination of conscience. Then he said, somewhat abruptly, "St Jerome I speak of, or rather I allude to him, andpass on at once to the study of St Augustine--the great prose writer, asPrudentius was the great poet, of the Middle Ages. 

"Now, talking of style, I will admit that the eternal apostrophising ofGod and the incessant quoting from the New Testament is tiresome to thelast degree, and seriously prejudices the value of the 'Confessions' asconsidered from the artistic standpoint. But when he bemoans the loss ofthe friend of his youth, when he tells of his resolution to embrace anascetic life, he is nervously animated, and is as psychologicallydramatic as Balzac. "

"I have taken great pains with my study of St Augustine, because in himthe special genius of Christianity for the first time found a voice. Allthat had gone before was a scanty flowerage--he was the perfect fruit. Iam speaking from a purely artistic standpoint: all that could be donefor the life of the senses had been done, but heretofore the life of thesoul had been lived in silence--none had come to speak of its suffering, its uses, its tribulation. In the time of Horace it was enough to sit inLalage's bower and weave roses; of the communion of souls none had everthought. Let us speak of the soul! This is the great dividing linebetween the pagan and Christian world, and St Augustine is the greatlandmark. In literature he discovered that man had a soul, and that manhad grown interested in its story, had grown tired of the exquisiteexternality of the nymph-haunted forest and the waves where the Tritonblows his plaintive blast. 

"The whole theory and practice of modern literature is found in the'Confessions of St Augustine;' and from hence flows the great current ofpsychological analysis which, with the development of the modern novel, grows daily greater in volume and more penetrating in essence.... Is notthe fretful desire of the Balzac novel to tell of the soul's anguish anobvious development of the 'Confessions'?"

"In like manner I trace the origin of the ballad, most particularly theEnglish ballad, to Prudentius, a contemporary of Claudian. "

"You don't mean to say that you trace back our north-country balladsto, what do you call him?"

"Prudentius. I show that there is much in his hymns that recalls theEnglish ballads. "

"In his hymns?"

"Yes; in the poems that come under such denomination. I confess it isnot a little puzzling to find a narrative poem of some five hundredlines or more included under the heading of hymns; it would seem thatnearly all lyric poetry of an essentially Christian character was sodesignated, to separate it from secular or pagan poetry. In Prudentius'first published work, 'Liber Cathemerinon, ' we find hymns composedabsolutely after the manner of St Ambrose, in the same or in similarmetres, but with this difference, the hymns of Prudentius are three, four, and sometimes seven times longer than those of St Ambrose. TheSpanish poet did not consider, or he lost sight of, the practical usagesof poetry. He sang more from an artistic than a religious impulse. Thathe delighted in the song for the song's own sake is manifest; and thisis shown in the variety of his treatment, and the delicate sense ofmusic which determined his choice of metre. His descriptive writing isfull of picturesque expression. The fifth hymn, 'Ad Incensum Lucernae, 'is glorious with passionate colour and felicitous cadence, be hedescribing with precious solicitude for Christian archaeology thedifferent means of artistic lighting, flambeaux, candles, lamps, ordreaming with all the rapture of a southern dream of the balmy gardenof Paradise. 

"But his best book to my thinking is by far, 'Peristephanon, ' that isto say, the hymns celebrating the glory of the martyrs. 

"I was saying just now that the hymns of Prudentius, by the dramaticrapidity of the narrative, by the composition of the strophe, and bytheir wit, remind me very forcibly of our English ballads. Let us takethe story of St Laurence, written in iambics, in verses of four lineseach. In the time of the persecutions of Valerian, the Roman prefect, devoured by greed, summoned St Laurence, the treasurer of the church, before him, and on the plea that parents were making away with theirfortunes to the detriment of their children, demanded that the sacredvessels should be given up to him. 'Upon all coins is found the head ofthe Emperor and not that of Christ, therefore obey the order of thelatter, and give to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor. '

"To this speech, peppered with irony and sarcasm, St Laurence repliesthat the church is very rich, even richer than the Emperor, and that hewill have much pleasure in offering its wealth to the prefect, and heasks for three days to classify the treasures. Transported with joy, theprefect grants the required delay. Laurence collects the infirm who havebeen receiving charity from the church; and in picturesque grouping thepoet shows us the blind, the paralytic, the lame, the lepers, advancingwith trembling and hesitating steps. Those are the treasures, thegolden vases and so forth, that the saint has catalogued and is going toexhibit to the prefect, who is waiting in the sanctuary. The prefect isdumb with rage; the saint observes that gold is found in dross; that thedisease of the body is to be less feared than that of the soul; and hedevelopes this idea with a good deal of wit. The boasters suffer fromdropsy, the miser from cramp in the wrist, the ambitious from febrileheat, the gossipers, who delight in tale-bearing, from the itch; butyou, he says, addressing the prefect, you who govern Rome, [1] sufferfrom the _morbus regius_ (you see the pun). In revenge for thusslighting his dignity, the prefect condemns St Laurence to be roasted ona slow fire, adding, 'and deny there, if you will, the existence of myVulcan. ' Even on the gridiron Laurence does not lose his good humour, and he gets himself turned as a cook would a chop. 

"Now, do you not understand what I mean when I say that the hymns ofPrudentius are an anticipation of the form of the English ballad?... Andin the fifth hymn the story of St Vincent is given with that peculiardramatic terseness that you find nowhere except in the English ballad. But the most beautiful poem of all is certainly the fourteenth and lasthymn. In a hundred and thirty-three hendecasyllabic verses the story ofa young virgin condemned to a house of ill-fame is sung with exquisitesense of grace and melody. She is exposed naked at the corner of astreet. The crowd piously turns away; only one young man looks upon herwith lust in his heart. He is instantly struck blind by lightning, butat the request of the virgin his sight is restored to him. Then followsthe account of how she suffered martyrdom by the sword--a martyrdomwhich the girl salutes with a transport of joy. The poet describes herascending to Heaven, and casting one last look upon this miserableearth, whose miseries seem without end, and whose joys are of such shortduration. 

"Then his great poem 'Psychomachia' is the first example in mediaevalliterature of allegorical poetry, the most Christian of all forms ofart. 

"Faith, her shoulders bare, her hair free, advances, eager for thefight. The 'cult of the ancient gods, ' with forehead chapleted after thefashion of the pagan priests, dares to attack her, and is overthrown. The legion of martyrs that Faith has called together cry in triumphantunison.... Modesty (Pudicitia), a young virgin with brilliant arms, isattacked by 'the most horrible of the Furies' (Sodomita Libido), who, with a torch burning with pitch and sulphur, seeks to strike her eyes, but Modesty disarms him and pierces him with her sword. 'Since theVirgin without stain gave birth to the Man-God, Lust is without rightsin the world. ' Patience watches the fight; she is presently attackedby Anger, first with violent words, and then with darts, which fallharmlessly from her armour. Accompanied by Job, Patience retirestriumphant. But at that moment, mounted on a wild and unbridled steed, and covered with a lionskin, Pride (Superbia), her hair built up like atower, menaces Humility (Mens humilis). Under the banner of Humility areranged Justice, Frugality, Modesty, pale of face, and likewiseSimplicity. Pride mocks at this miserable army, and would crush it underthe feet of her steed. But she falls in a ditch dug by Fraud. Humilityhesitates to take advantage of her victory; but Hope draws her sword, cuts off the head of the enemy, and flies away on golden wings toHeaven. 

"Then Lust (Luxuria), the new enemy, appears. She comes from the extremeEast, this wild dancer, with odorous hair, provocative glance andeffeminate voice; she stands in a magnificent chariot drawn by fourhorses; she scatters violet and rose leaves; they are her weapons; theirinsidious perfumes destroy courage and will, and the army, headed by thevirtues, speaks of surrender. But suddenly Sobriety (Sobrietas) liftsthe standard of the Cross towards the sky. Lust falls from her chariot, and Sobriety fells her with a stone. Then all her saturnalian army isscattered. Love casts away his quiver. Pomp strips herself of hergarments, and Voluptuousness (Voluptas) fears not to tread upon thorns, &c. But Avarice disguises herself in the mask of Economy, and succeedsin deceiving all hearts until she is overthrown finally by Mercy(Operatica). All sorts of things happen, but eventually the poem windsup with a prayer to Christ, in which we learn that the soul shall fallagain and again in the battle, and that this shall continue until thecoming of Christ. "

"'Tis very curious, very curious indeed. I know nothing of thisliterature. "

"Very few do. "

"And you have, I suppose, translated some of these poems?"

"I give a complete translation of the second hymn, the story of StLaurence, and I give long extracts from the poem we have been speakingabout, and likewise from 'Hamartigenia, ' which, by the way, someconsider as his greatest work. And I show more completely, I think, thanany other commentator, the analogy between it and the 'Divine Comedy, 'and how much Dante owed to it.... Then the 'terza rima' was undoubtedlyborrowed from the fourth hymn of the 'Cathemerinon. '"... 

"You said, I think, that Prudentius was a contemporary of Claudian. Which do you think the greater poet?"

"Prudentius by far. Claudian's Latin was no doubt purer and his versewas better, that is to say, from the classical standpoint it was morecorrect. "

"Is there any other standpoint?"

"Of course. There is pagan Latin and Christian Latin: Burns' poems arebeautiful, and they are not written in Southern English; Chaucer'sverse is exquisitely melodious, although it will not scan to modernpronunciation. In the earliest Christian poetry there is a tendency towrite by accent rather than by quantity, but that does not say thatthe hymns have not a quaint Gothic music of their own. This is verynoticeable in Sedulius, a poet of the fifth century. His hymn to Christis not only full of assonance, but of all kinds of rhyme and evendouble rhymes. We find the same thing in Sedonius, and likewise inFortunatus--a gay prelate, the morality of whose life is, I am afraid, open to doubt... 

"He had all the qualities of a great poet, but he wasted his geniuswriting love verses to Radegonde. The story is a curious one. Radegondewas the daughter of the King of Thuringia; she was made prisoner byClotaire I. , son of Clovis, who forced her to become his wife. On themurder of her father by her husband, she fled and founded a convent atPoictiers. There she met Fortunatus, who, it appears, loved her. It isof course humanly possible that their love was not a guilty one, but itis certain that the poet wasted the greater part of his life writingverses to her and her adopted daughter Agnes. In a beautiful poem inpraise of virginity, composed in honour of Agnes, he speaks in a verydisgusting way of the love with which nuns regard our Redeemer, and therecompence that awaits them in Heaven for their chastity. If it had notbeen for the great interest attaching to his verse as an example of theradical alteration that had been effected in the language, I do notthink I should have spoken of this poet. Up to his time rhyme hadslipped only occasionally into the verse, it had been noticed and hadbeen allowed to remain by poets too idle to remove it, a strangesomething not quite understood, and yet not a wholly unwelcome intruder;but in St Fortunatus we find for the first time rhyme cognate with themetre, and used with certainty and brilliancy. In the opening lines ofthe hymn, 'Vexilla Regis, ' rhyme is used with superb effect.... 

"But for signs of the approaching dissolution of the language, of itsabsorption by the national idiom, we must turn to St Gregory of Tours. He was a man of defective education, and the _lingua rustica_ of Franceas it was spoken by the people makes itself felt throughout hiswritings. His use of _iscere_ for _escere_, of the accusative for theablative, one of St Gregory's favourite forms of speech, _pro or quod_for _quoniam_, conformable to old French _porceque_, so common for_parceque_. And while national idiom was oozing through grammaticalconstruction, national forms of verse were replacing the classicalmetres which, so far as syllables were concerned, had hitherto beenadhered to. As we advance into the sixth and seventh centuries, we findEnglish monks attempting to reproduce the characteristics of Anglo-Saxonalliterative verse in Latin; and at the Court of Charlemagne we find anIrish monk writing Latin verse in a long trochaic line, which is nativein Irish poetry. 

"Poets were plentiful at the court of Charlemagne. Now, Angilbert was apoet of exquisite grace, and surprisingly modern is his music, which isindeed a wonderful anticipation of the lilt of Edgar Poe. I compare itto Poe. Just listen:--

 "'Surge meo Domno dulces fac, fistula versus: David amat versus, surge et fac fistula versus. David amat vates, vatorum est gloria David Qua propter vates cuncti concurrite in unum Atque meo David dulces cantate camoenas. David amat vates, vatorum est gloria David. Dulcis amor David inspirat corda canentum, Cordibus in nostris faciat amor ipsius odas: Vates Homerus amat David, fac, fistula, versus. David amat vates, vatorum est gloria David. '"

"I should have flogged that monk--'ipsius, ' oh, oh!--'vatorum. '... Itreally is too terrible. "

John laughed, and was about to reply, when the clanging of the collegebell was heard. 

"I am afraid that is dinner-time. "

"Afraid, I am delighted; you don't suppose that every one can live, chameleon-like, on air, or worse still, on false quantities. Ha, ha, ha!And those pictures too. That snow is more violet than white. "

When dinner was over, John and Mr Hare walked out on the terrace. Thecarriage waited in the wet in front of the great oak portal; the grey, stormy evening descended on the high roofs, smearing the red out of thewalls and buttresses, and melancholy and tall the red college seemedamid its dwarf plantation, now filled with night wind and driftingleaves. Shadow and mist had floated out of the shallows above the crestsof the valley, and the lamps of the farm-houses gleamed into a paleexistence. 

"And now tell me what I am to say to your mother. Will you come home forChristmas?"

"I suppose I must. I suppose it would seem so unkind if I didn't. Icannot account even to myself for my dislike to the place. I cannotthink of it without a revulsion of feeling that is strangely personal. "

"I won't argue that point with you, but I think you ought to come home. "

"Why? Why ought I to come to Sussex, and marry my neighbour's daughter?"

"There is no reason that you should marry your neighbour's daughter, but I take it that you do not propose to pass your life here. "

"For the present I am concerned mainly with the problem of how I maymake advances, how I may meet life, as it were, half-way; for ifpossible I would not quite lose touch of the world. I would love to livein its shadow, a spectator whose duty it is to watch and encourage, andpity the hurrying throng on the stage. The church would approve thisattitude, whereas hate and loathing of humanity are not to be justified. But I can do nothing to hurry the state of feeling I desire, except ofcourse to pray. I have passed through some terrible moments of despairand gloom, but these are now wearing themselves away, and I am feelingmore at rest. "

Then, as if from a sudden fear of ridicule, John said, laughing:"Besides, looking at the question from a purely practical side, it mustbe hardly wise for me to return to society for the present. I likeneither fox-hunting, marriage, Robert Louis Stevenson's stories, nor SirFrederick Leighton's pictures; I prefer monkish Latin to Virgil, and Iadore Degas, Monet, Manet, and Renoir, and since this is so, and alas, Iam afraid irrevocably so, do you not think that I should do well to keepoutside a world in which I should be the only wrong and vicious being?Why spoil that charming thing called society by my unlovely presence?

"Selfishness! I know what you are going to say--here is my answer. Iassure you I administer to the best of my ability the fortune God gaveme--I spare myself no trouble. I know the financial position of everyfarmer on my estate, the property does not owe fifty pounds;--I keep thetenants up to the mark; I do not approve of waste and idleness, but whena little help is wanted I am ready to give it. And then, well, I don'tmind telling you, but it must not go any further. I have made a willleaving something to all my tenants; I give away a fixed amount incharity yearly. "

"I know, my dear John, I know your life is not a dissolute one; but yourmother is very anxious, remember you are the last. Is there no chanceof your ever marrying?"

"I don't think I could live with a woman; there is something verydegrading, something very gross in such relations. There is a better anda purer life to lead ... An inner life, coloured and permeated withfeelings and tones that are, oh, how intensely our own, and he who mayhave this life, shrinks from any adventitious presence that might jar ordestroy it. To keep oneself unspotted, to feel conscious of no sense ofstain, to know, yes, to hear the heart repeat that this self--hands, face, mouth and skin--is free from all befouling touch, is all one'sown. I have always been strongly attracted to the colour white, and Ican so well and so acutely understand the legend that tells that theermine dies of gentle loathing of its own self, should a stain come uponits immaculate fur.... I should not say a legend, for that implies thatthe story is untrue, and it is not untrue--so beautiful a thought couldnot be untrue. "

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Qui Romam regis. ]

CHAPTER III. 

"Urns on corner walls, pilasters, circular windows, flowerage andloggia. What horrible taste, and quite out of keeping with thelandscape!" He rang the bell. 

"How do you do, Master John!" cried the tottering old butler who hadknown him since babyhood. "Very glad, indeed, we all are to see you homeagain, sir!"

Neither the appellation of Master John, nor the sight of the fourpaintings, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which decorated the wallsof the passage, found favour with John, and the effusiveness of MrsNorton, who rushed out of the drawing-room, followed by Kitty, andembraced her son, at once set on edge all his curious antipathies. Whythis kissing, this approachment of flesh? Of course she was hismother.... Then this smiling girl in the background! He would have toamuse her and talk to her; what infinite boredom it would be! He trustedfervently that her visit would not be a long one. 

Then through what seemed to him the pollution of triumph, he was ledinto the library; and he noticed, notwithstanding the presiding busts ofShakespeare and Milton, that there was but one wretched stand full ofbooks in the room, and that in the gloom of a far corner. His mother satdown, and there was a resoluteness in her look and attitude that seemedto proclaim, "Now I hold you captive;" but she said:

"I was very much alarmed, my dear John, about your not sleeping. Mr Haretold me you said that you went two and three nights without closing youreyes, and that you had to have recourse to sleeping draughts. "

"Not at all, mother, I never took a sleeping draught but twice in mylife. "

"Well, you don't sleep well, and I am sure it is those college beds. But you will be far more comfortable here. You are in the best bedroomin the house, the one in front of the staircase, the bridal chamber; andI have selected the largest and softest feather-bed in the house. "

"My dear mother, if there is one thing more than another I dislike, itis a feather-bed. I should not be able to close my eyes; I beg of you tohave it taken away. "

Mrs Norton's face flushed. "I cannot understand, John; it is absurd tosay that you cannot sleep on a feather-bed. Mr Hare told me youcomplained of insomnia, and there is no surer way of losing your health. It is owing to the hardness of those college mattresses, whereas in afeather-bed--"

"There is no use in our arguing that point, mother, I say I cannot sleepon a feather-bed.... "

"But you have not tried one; I don't believe you ever slept on afeather-bed in your life. "

"Well, I am not going to begin now. "

"We haven't another bed aired in the house, and it is really too lateto ask the servants to change your room. "

"Well, then, I shall be obliged to sleep at the hotel in Henfield. "

"You should not speak to your mother in that way; I will not have it. "

"There! you see we are quarrelling already; I did wrong to come home. "

"I am speaking to you for your own good, my dear John, and I think it isvery stubborn of you to refuse to sleep on a feather-bed; if you don'tlike it, you can change it to-morrow. "

The conversation fell, and in silence the speakers strove to mastertheir irritation. Then John, for politeness' sake, spoke of when he hadlast seen Kitty. It was about five years ago. She had ridden her ponyover to see them. 

Mrs Norton talked of some people who had left the county, of a marriage, of an engagement, of a mooted engagement; and she jerked in asuggestion that if John were to apply at once, he would be placedon the list of deputy-lieutenants. Enumeration of the familyinfluence--Lord So-and-so, the cousin, was the Lord Lieutenant's mostintimate friend. 

"You are not even a J. P. , but there will be no difficulty about that;and you have not seen any of the county people for years. We will havethe carriage out some day this week, and we'll pay a round of visits. "

"We'll do nothing of the kind. I have no time for visiting; I must geton with my book. I hope to finish my study of St Augustine before Ileave here. I have my books to unpack, and a great deal of reading toget through. I have done no more than glance at the Anglo-Latin. Literature died in France with Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixthcentury; with St Gregory the Great, in Italy, at the commencement of theseventh century; in Spain about the same time. And then the Anglo-Saxonsbecame the representatives of the universal literature. All this ismost important. I must re-read St Aldhelm and the Venerable Bede.... Now, I ask, do you expect me--me, with my head full of Aldhelm'salliterative verses--

 "'Turbo terram teretibus Quae catervatim coelitus Neque coelorum culmina ...... ...... Grassabatur turbinibus Crebrantur nigris nubibus Carent nocturna nebula--'

"a letter descriptive of a great storm which he was caught in as he wasreturning home one night.... "

"Now, sir, we have had quite enough of that, and I would advise you notto go on with any of that nonsense here; you will be turned intodreadful ridicule. "

"That's just why I wish to avoid them ... But you have no pity for me. Just fancy my having to listen to them! How I have suffered.... What isthe use of growing wheat when we are only getting eight pounds ten aload?... But we must grow something, and there is nothing else butwheat. We must procure a certain amount of straw, or we'd have nomanure, and you can't work a farm without manure. I don't believe in thefish manure. But there is market gardening, and if we kept shops inBrighton, we could grow our own stuff and sell it at retail price.... And then there is a great deal to be done with flowers. "

"Now, sir, that will do, that will do.... How dare you speak to me so! Iwill not allow it. " And then relapsing into an angry silence, Mrs Nortondrew her shawl about her shoulders. 

One of a thousand quarrels. The basis of each nature was commonsense--shrewd common sense--but such similarity of structure is initself apt to lead to much violent shocking of opinion; and to this endan adjuvant was found in the dose of fantasy, mysticism, idealism whichwas inherent in John's character. "Why is he not like other people? Whywill he waste his time with a lot of rubbishy Latin authors? Why will henot take up his position in the county?" Mrs Norton asked herself thesequestions as she fumed on the sofa. 

"I wonder why she will continue to try to impose her will upon mine. Iwonder why she has not found out by this time the uselessness of hereffort. But no; she still keeps on hoping at last to wear me down. Shewants me to live the life she has marked out for me to live--to take upmy position in the county, and, above all, to marry and give an heir tothe property. I see it all; that is why she wanted me to spend Christmaswith her; that is why she has Kitty Hare here to meet me. How cunning, how mean women are: a man would not do that. Had I known it.... I have amind to leave to-morrow. I wonder if the girl is in the littleconspiracy. " And turning his head he looked at her. 

Tall and slight, a grey dress, pale as the wet sky, fell from her waistoutward in the manner of a child's frock, and there was a lightness, there was brightness in the clear eyes. The intense youth of her heartwas evanescent; it seemed constantly rising upwards like the breath ofa spring morning--a morning when the birds are trilling. The facesharpened to a tiny chin, and the face was pale, although there wasbloom on the cheeks. The forehead was shadowed by a sparkling cloud ofbrown hair, the nose was straight, and each little nostril was pinktinted. The ears were like shells. There was a rigidity in her attitude. She laughed abruptly, perhaps a little nervously, and the abrupt laughrevealed the line of tiny white teeth. Thin arms fell straight to thetranslucent hands, and there was a recollection of puritan England inlook and in gesture. 

Her picturesqueness calmed John's ebullient discontent; he decided thatshe knew nothing of, and was not an accomplice in, his mother's scheme:For the sake of his guest he strove to make himself agreeable duringdinner, but it was clear that he missed the hierarchy of the collegetable. The conversation fell repeatedly. Mrs Norton and Kitty spoke ofmaking syrup for the bees; and their discussion of the illness of poorDr ----, who would no longer be able to get through the work of theparish single-handed, and would require a curate, was continued till theladies rose from table. Nor did matters mend in the library. John'sthoughts went back to his book; the room seemed to him intolerablyuncomfortable and ugly. He went to the billiard-room to smoke a cigar. It was not clear to him if he would be able to spend two months in thisodious place. He might offer them to God as penance for his sins; ifevery evening passed like the present, it were a modern martyrdom. But had they removed that horrid feather-bed? He went upstairs. Thefeather-bed had been removed. 

The room was large and ample, and it was draped with many curtains--palecurtains covered with walking birds and falling petals, a sort of Indianpattern. There was a sofa at the foot of the bed, and the toilette-tablehung out its skirts in the wavering light of the fire. John tossed toand fro staring at the birds and petals. He thought of his asceticcollege bed, of the great Christ upon the wall, of the prie-dieu withthe great rosary hanging, but in vain; he could not rid his mind of thedistasteful feminine influences which had filled the day, and which nowhaunted the night. 

After breakfast next morning Mrs Norton stopped John as he was goingupstairs to unpack his books. "Now, " she said, "you must go out for awalk with Kitty Hare, and I hope you will make yourself agreeable. Iwant you to see the new greenhouse I have put up; she'll show it to you. And I told the bailiff to meet you in the yard. I thought you might liketo see him. "

"I wish, mother, you would not interfere in my business; had I wanted tosee Burnes I should have sent for him. "

"If you don't want to see him, he wants to see you. There are somecottages on the farm that must be put into repair at once. As forinterfering in your business, I don't know how you can talk like that;were it not for me the whole place would be falling to pieces. "

"Quite true; I know you save me a great deal of expense; but really ... "

"Really what? You won't go out to walk with Kitty Hare?"

"I did not say I wouldn't, but I must say that I am very busy just now. I had thought of doing a little reading, for I have an appointment withmy solicitor in the afternoon. "

"That man charges you £200 a-year for collecting the rents; now, if youwere to do it yourself, you would save the money, and it would give yousomething to do. "

"Something to do! I have too much to do as it is.... But if I am goingout with Kitty.... Where is she?"

"I saw her go into the library a moment ago. "

And as it was preferable to go for a walk with Kitty than to continuethe interview with his mother, John seized his hat and called Kitty, Kitty, Kitty! Presently she appeared, and they walked towards thegarden, talking. She told him she had been at Thornby Place the wholetime the greenhouse was being built, and when they opened the door theywere greeted by Sammy. He sprang instantly on her shoulder. 

"This is my cat, " she said. "I've fed him since he was a little kitten;isn't he sweet?"

The girl was beautiful on the brilliant flower background; she strokedthe great caressing creature, and when she put him down he mewedreproachfully. Further on her two tame rooks cawed joyously, andalighted on her shoulder. 

"I wonder they don't fly away, and join the others in the trees. "

"One did go away, and he came back nearly dead with hunger. But he isall right now, aren't you, dear?" And the bird cawed, and rubbed itsblack head against its mistress' cheek. "Poor little things, they fellout of the nest before they could fly, and I brought them up. But youdon't care for pets, do you, John?"

"I don't like birds!"

"Don't like birds! Why, that seems as strange as if you said that youdidn't like flowers. "

"Mrs Norton told me, sir, that you would like to speak to me about themcottages on the Erringham Farm, " said the bailiff. 

"Yes, yes, I must go over and see them to-morrow morning at ten o'clock. I intend to go thoroughly into everything. How are they getting on withthe cottages that were burnt down?"

"Rather slow, sir, the weather is so bad. "

"But talking of fire, Burnes, I find that I can insure at a much cheaperrate at Lloyds' than at most of the offices. I find that I shall make asaving of £20 a-year. "

"That's worth thinking about, sir. "

While the young squire talked to his bailiff Kitty fed her rooks. Theycawed, and flew to her hand for the scraps of meat. The coachman cameto speak about oats and straw. They went to the stables. Kitty adoredhorses, it amused John to see her pat them, and her vivacity andlight-heartedness rather pleased him than otherwise. 

Nevertheless, during the whole of the following week the ladies heldlittle communication with John. He lived apart from them. In themornings he went out with his bailiffs to inspect farms and consultabout possible improvement and necessary repairs. He had appointmentswith his solicitor. There were accounts to be gone through. He neverpaid a bill without verifying every item. It was difficult to say whatshould be done with a farm for which a tenant could not be found evenat a reduced rent. At four o'clock he came into tea, his head full ofcalculations of such a complex character that even his mother could notfollow the different statements to his satisfaction. When she disagreedwith him, he took up the "Epistles of St Columban of Bangor, " the"Epistola ad Sethum, " or the celebrated poem, "Epistola ad Fedolium, "written when the saint was seventy-two, and continued his reading, making copious notes in a pocket-book. To do so he drew his chair closeto the library fire, and when Kitty came quickly into the room with aflutter of skirts and a sound of laughter, he awoke from contemplation, and her singing as she ascended the stairs jarred the dreams of cloisterand choir which mounted from the pages to his brain in clear andintoxicating rhapsody. 

On the third of November Mrs Norton announced that the meet of thehounds had been fixed for the fifteenth, and that there would be a huntbreakfast. 

"Oh, my dear mother! you don't mean that they are coming here to lunch!"

"For the last twenty years all our side of the county has been in thehabit of coming here to lunch, but of course you can shut your doors toall your friends and acquaintances. No doubt they will think you havecome down here on purpose to insult them. "

"Insult them! why should I insult them? I haven't seen them since I wasa boy. I remember that the hunt breakfast used to go on all day long. Every woman in the county used to come, and they used to stay to tea, and you used to insist on a great number remaining to supper. "

"Well, you can put a stop to all that now that you have consented tocome to Thornby Place, only I hope you don't expect me to remain here tosee my friends insulted. "

"But just think of the expense! and in these bad times. You know Icannot find a tenant for the Woreington farm. I am afraid I shall haveto provide the capital and farm it myself. Now, in the face of suchlosses, don't you think that we should retrench?"

"Retrench! A few fowls and rounds of beef! You don't think of retrenchingwhen you present Stanton College with a stained glass window that costsfive hundred pounds. "

"Of course, if you like it, mother... "

"I like nothing but what you like, but I really think that for you toput down the hunt breakfast the first time you honour us with a visit, would look very much as if you intended to insult the whole county. "

"It will be a day of misery for me!" replied John, laughing; "but Idaresay I shall live through it. "

"I think you will like it very much, " said Kitty. "There will be a lotof pretty girls here: the Misses Green are coming from Worthing; theeldest is such a pretty girl, you are sure to admire her. And the houndsand horses look so beautiful. "

Mrs Norton and Kitty spoke daily of invitations, and later on of cookingand the various things that were wanted. John continued to go throughhis accounts in the morning, and to read monkish Latin in the evening;but he was secretly nervous, and he dreaded the approaching day. 

He was called an hour earlier--eight o'clock; he drank a cup of cold teaand ate a piece of dry toast in a back room. The dining-room was fullof servants, who laid out a long table rich with comestibles andglittering with glass. Mrs Norton and Kitty were upstairs dressing. 

He wandered into the drawing-room and viewed the dead, cumbrousfurniture; the two cabinets bright with brass and veneer. He stood atthe window staring. It was raining. The yellow of the falling leaves washidden in the grey mist. It ceased to rain. "This weather will keep manyaway; so much the better; there will be too many as it is. I wonder whothis can be. " A melancholy brougham passed up the drive. There werethree old maids, all looking sweetly alike; one was a cripple who walkedwith crutches, and her smile was the best and the gayest imaginablesmile. 

"How little material welfare has to do with our happiness, " thoughtJohn. "There is one whose path is the narrowest, and she is happier andbetter than I. " And then the three sweet old maids talked with theircousin of the weather; and they all wondered--a sweet femininewonderment--if he would see a girl that day whom he would marry. 

Presently the house was full of people. The passage was full of girls; afew men sat at breakfast at the end of the long table. Some red coatspassed across the green glare of the park, and the hounds trotted abouta single horseman. Voices. "Oh! how sweet they look! oh, the dear dogs!"The huntsman stopped in front of the house, the hounds sniffed hereand there, the whips trotted their horses and drove them back. "Gettogether, get together; get back there; Woodland, Beauty, come up here. "The hounds rolled on the grass, and leaned their fore-paws on therailings, willing to be caressed. 

"How sweet they are, look at their soft eyes, " cried an old lady whosedeity was a pug, and whose back garden reeked of the tropics. "Look howgood and kind they are; they would not hurt anything; it is only wickedmen who teach them to be ... " The old lady hesitated before the word"bad, " and murmured something about killing. 

There was a lady with melting eyes, many children, and a long sealskin, and she availed herself of the excuse of seeing the hounds to rejoin ayoung man in whom she was interested. There was an old sportsman ofseventy winters, as hale and as hearty as an oak, standing on thedoor-step, and he made John promise to come over and see him. The girlsstrolled about in groups. As usual young men were lacking. Looking athis watch, the huntsman pressed the sides of his horse, and rode to drawthe covers at the end of the park. The ladies followed to see the start, although the mud was inches deep under foot. "Hu in, hu in, " cried thehuntsman. The whips trotted round cracking their long whips. Not a soundwas heard. Suddenly there was a whimper, "Hark to Woodland, " cried thehuntsman. The hounds rallied to the point, but nothing came of it. Apparently the old bitch was at fault. The huntsman muttered somethinginaudible. But some few hundred yards further on, in an outlying clumpwhere no one would expect to find, a fox broke clean away. 

The country is as flat as a smooth sea. Chanctonbury Ring stands up likea mighty cliff on a northern shore; its crown of trees is grim. Theabrupt ascents of Toddington Mount bear away to the left, and tide-likethe fields flow up into the great gulf between. 

"He's making for the furze, but he'll never reach them; he got no start, and the ground is heavy. "

Then the watchers saw the horsemen making their way up the chalky roadscut in the precipitous side of the downs. Rain began to fall, umbrellaswere put up, and all hurried home to lunch. 

"Now John, try and make yourself agreeable, go over and talk to some ofthe young ladies. Why do you dress yourself in that way? Have you noother coat? You look like a young priest. Look at that young man overthere! how nicely dressed he is! I wish you would let your moustachegrow; it would improve you immensely. " With these and similar remarkswhispered to him, Mrs Norton continued to exasperate her son until theservants announced that lunch was ready. "Take in Mrs So-and-so, " shesaid to John, who would fain have escaped from the melting glances ofthe lady in the long sealskin. He offered her his arm with an air ofresignation, and set to work valiantly to carve a huge turkey. 

As soon as the servants had cleared away after one set another came, andalthough the meet was a small one, John took six ladies in to lunch. About half-past three the men adjourned to the billiard-room to smoke. The girls, mighty in numbers, followed, and, with their arms round eachother's waists, and interlacing fingers, they grouped themselves aboutthe room. Two huntsmen returned dripping wet, and much to his annoyance, John had to furnish them with a change of clothes. There was tea in thedrawing-room about five o'clock, and soon after the visitors began totake their leave. 

The wind blew very coldly, the roosting rooks rose out of the branches, and the carriages rolled into the night; but still a remnant of visitorsstood on the steps talking to John. His cold was worse; he felt veryill, and now a long sharp pain had grown through his left side, andmomentarily it became more and more difficult to exchange polite wordsand smiles. The footmen stood waiting by the open door, the horseschamped their bits, the green of the park was dark, and a group ofkissing girls moved about the loggia, wheels grated on the gravel ... All were gone! The butler shut the door, and John went to the libraryfire. 

There his mother found him. She saw that something was seriously thematter. He was helped up to bed, and the doctor was sent for. A badattack of pleurisy. John was rolled up in an enormous mustardplaster--mustard and cayenne pepper; it bit into the flesh. He roaredwith pain; he was slightly delirious; he cursed those around him, usingblasphemous language. 

For more than a week he suffered. He lay bent over, unable tostraighten himself, as if a nerve had been wound up too tightly in theleft side. He was fed on gruel and beef-tea, the room was kept verywarm; it was not until the twelfth day that he was taken out of bed. 

"You have had a narrow escape, " the doctor said to John, who, wellwrapped up, lay back, looking very weak and pale, before a blazing fire. "It was very lucky I was sent for. Twenty-four hours later I would nothave answered for your life. "

"I was delirious, was I not?"

"Yes, slightly; you cursed and swore fearfully at us when we rolled youup in the mustard plaster.... Well, it was very hot, and must have burntyou. "

"Yes, it was; it has scarcely left a bit of skin on me. But did I usevery bad language? I suppose I could not help it.... I was delirious, was I not?"

"Yes, slightly. "

"Yes; but I remember, and if I remember right, I used very badlanguage; and people when they are really delirious do not know whatthey say. Is not that so, doctor?"

"If they are really delirious they do not remember, but you were onlyslightly delirious ... You were maddened by the pain occasioned by thepungency of the plaster. "

"Yes; but do you think I knew what I was saying?"

"You must have known what you were saying, because you remember what yousaid. "

"But could I be held accountable for what I said?"

"Accountable.... Well, I hardly know what you mean. You were certainlynot in the full possession of your senses. Your mother (Mrs Norton) wasvery much shocked, but I told her that you were not accountable for whatyou said. "

"Then I could not be held accountable, I did not know what I wassaying. "

"I don't think you did exactly; people in a passion don't know whatthey say!"

"Ah! yes, but we are answerable for sins committed in the heat ofpassion: we should restrain our passion; we were wrong in the firstinstance in giving way to passion.... But I was ill, it was not exactlypassion. And I was very near death; I had a narrow escape, doctor?"

"Yes, I think I can call it a narrow escape. "

The voices ceased, --five o'clock, --the curtains were rosy with lamplight, and conscience awoke in the langours of convalescent hours. "Istood on the verge of death!" The whisper died away. John was still veryweak, and he had not strength to think with much insistance, but now andthen remembrance surprised him suddenly like pain; it came unexpectedly, he knew not whence nor how, but he could not choose but listen. Eachinterval of thought grew longer; the scabs of forgetfulness were pickedaway, the red sore was exposed bleeding and bare. Was he responsiblefor those words? He could remember them all now; each like a burningarrow lacerated his bosom, and he pulled them to and fro. Remembrancein the watches of the night, dawn fills the dark spaces of a window, meditations grow more and more lucid. He could now distinguish theinstantaneous sensation of wrong that had flashed on his excited mind inthe moment of his sinning.... Then he could think no more, and in thetwilight of contrition he dreamed vaguely of God's great goodness, ofpenance, of ideal atonements. Christ hung on the cross, and far away thedarkness was seared with flames and demons. 

And as strength returned, remembrance of his blasphemies grew strongerand fiercer, and often as he lay on his pillow, his thoughts passing inlong procession, his soul would leap into intense suffering. "I stood onthe verge of death with blasphemies on my tongue. I might have beencalled to confront my Maker with horrible blasphemies in my heart and onmy tongue; but He in His Divine goodness spared me: He gave me time torepent. Am I answerable, O my God, for those dreadful words that Iuttered against Thee, because I suffered a little pain, against Thee Whoonce died on the cross to save me! O God, Lord, in Thine infinite mercylook down on me, on me! Vouchsafe me Thy mercy, O my God, for I wasweak! My sin is loathsome; I prostrate myself before Thee, I cry aloudfor mercy!"

Then seeing Christ amid His white million of youths, beautiful singingsaints, gold curls and gold aureoles, lifted throats, and form of harpand dulcimer, he fell prone in great bitterness on the misery of earthlylife. His happinesses and ambitions appeared to him less than thescattering of a little sand on the sea-shore. Joy is passion, passionis suffering; we cannot desire what we possess, therefore desire isrebellion prolonged indefinitely against the realities of existence;when we attain the object of our desire, we must perforce neglect it infavour of something still unknown, and so we progress from illusion toillusion. The winds of folly and desolation howl about us; the sorrowsof happiness are the worst to bear, and the wise soon learn that thereis nothing to dream of but the end of desire.... God is the one ideal, the Church the one shelter from the misery and meanness of life. Peaceis inherent in lofty arches, rapture in painted panes.... See the mitresand crosiers, the blood-stained heavenly breasts, the loin-linen hangingover orbs of light.... Listen! ah! the voices of chanting boys, and outof the cloud of incense come Latin terminations, and the organ still isswelling. 

In such religious aestheticisms the soul of John Norton had longslumbered, but now it awoke in remorse and pain, and, repulsing itshabitual exaltations even as if they were sins, he turned to the primalidea of the vileness of this life, and its sole utility in enabling manto gain heaven. Beauty, what was it but temptation? He winced before aconclusion so repugnant to him, but the terrors of the verge on whichhe had so lately stood were still upon him in all their force, and hecrushed his natural feelings.... 

The manifestation of modern pessimism in John Norton has been described, and how its influence was checked by constitutional mysticity hasalso been shown. Schopenhauer, when he overstepped the line ruled bythe Church, was instantly rejected. From him John Norton's faithhad suffered nothing; the severest and most violent shocks had comefrom another side--a side which none would guess, so complex andcontradictory are the involutions of the human brain. Hellenism, Greekculture and ideal; academic groves; young disciples, Plato and Socrates, the august nakedness of the Gods were equal, or almost equal, in hismind with the lacerated bodies of meagre saints; and his heart waveredbetween the temple of simple lines and the cathedral of a thousandarches. Once there had been a sharp struggle, but Christ, not Apollo, had been the victor, and the great cross in the bedroom of StantonCollege overshadowed the beautiful slim body in which Divinity seemed tocirculate like blood; and this photograph was all that now remained ofmuch youthful anguish and much temptation. 

A fact to note is that his sense of reality had always remained in arudimentary state; it was, as it were, diffused over the world andmankind. For instance, his belief in the misery and degradation ofearthly life, and the natural bestiality of man, was incurable; but ofthis or that individual he had no opinion; he was to John Norton a blanksheet of paper, to which he could not affix even a title. His childhoodhad been one of bitter tumult and passionate sorrow; the different anddissident ideals growing up in his heart and striving for the mastery, had torn and tortured him, and he had long lain as upon a mental rack. Ignorance of the material laws of existence had extended even into hissixteenth year, and when, bit by bit, the veil fell, and he understood, he was filled with loathing of life and mad desire to wash himselffree of its stain; and it was this very hatred of natural flesh thatprecipitated a perilous worship of the deified flesh of the God. Butmysticity saved him from plain paganism, and the art of the Gothiccathedral grew dear to him. It was nearer akin to him, and he assuagedhis wounded soul in the ecstacies of incense and the great charms ofGregorian chant. 

But fear now for the first time took possession of him, and herealised--if not in all its truth, at least in part--that his love ofGod had only taken the form of a gratification of the senses, asensuality higher but as intense as those which he so much reproved. Fear smouldered in his very entrails, and doubt fumed and went out likesteam--long lines and falling shadows and slowly dispersing clouds. Hislife had been but a sin, an abomination, and the fairest places darkenedas the examination of conscience proceeded. His thought whirled indreadful night, soul-torturing contradictions came suddenly under hiseyes, like images in a night-mare; and in horror and despair, as a womanrising from a bed of small-pox drops the mirror after the first glance, and shrinks from destroying the fair remembrance of her face by pursuingthe traces of the disease through every feature, he hid his face in hishands and called for forgiveness--for escape from the endless record ofhis conscience. With staring eyes and contracted brows he saw the flameswhich await him who blasphemes. To the verge of those flames he haddrifted. If God in His infinite mercy had not withheld him?... Hepictured himself lost in fires and furies. Then looking up he saw theface of Christ, grown pitiless in final time--Christ standing immutableamid His white million of youths.... 

And the worthlessness and the abjectness of earthly life struck him withawful and all-convincing power, and this vision of the worthlessness ofexistence was clearer than any previous vision. He paused. There was butone conclusion ... It looked down upon him like a star--he would become apriest. All darkness, all madness, all fear faded, and with sure andcertain breath he breathed happiness; the sense of consecration nestledin its heart, and its light shone upon his face. 

There was nothing in the past, but there is the sweetness of meditationin the present, and in the future there is God. Like a fountain flowingamid a summer of leaves and song, the sweet hours came with quiet andmelodious murmur. In the great arm-chair of his ancestors he sits thinand tall. Thin and tall. The great flames decorate the darkness, and thetwilight sheds upon the rose curtains, walking birds and falling petals. But his thoughts are dreaming through long aisle and solemn arch, cloudsof incense and painted panes.... The palms rise in great curls like thesky; and amid the opulence of gold vestments, the whiteness of thechoir, the Latin terminations and the long abstinences, the holy oilcomes like a kiss that never dies ... And in full glory of symbol andchant, the very savour of God descends upon him ... And then he awakes, surprised to find such dreams out of sleep. 

His resolve did not alter; he longed for health because it would bringthe realisation of his desire, and time appeared to him cruelly long. Nor could he think of the pain he inflicted on his mother, so centredwas he in this thought; he was blind to her sorrowing face, he was deafto her entreaty; he could neither feel nor see beyond the immediateobject he had in mind, and he spoke to her in despair of the length ofmonths that separated him from consecration; he speculated on thepossibility of expediting that happy day by a dispensation from thePope. The moment he could obtain permission from the doctor he orderedhis trunks to be packed, and when he bid Mrs Norton and Kitty Haregood-bye, he exacted a promise from the former to be present at StantonCollege on Palm Sunday. He wished her to be present when he embracedHoly Orders. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Every morning Mrs Norton flung her black shawl over her shoulders, rattled her keys, and scolded the servants at the end of the longpassage. Kitty, as she watered the flowers in the greenhouse, oftenwondered why John had chosen to become a priest and grieve his mother. Three times out of five when the women met at lunch, Mrs Norton said:

"Kitty, would you like to come out for a drive?"

Kitty answered, "I don't mind; just as you like, Mrs Norton. "

After tea at five Kitty read for an hour, and in the evening she playedthe piano; and she sometimes endeavoured to console her hostess bysuggesting that people did change their minds, and that John might notbecome a priest after all. Mrs Norton looked at the girl, and it wasoften on her lips to say, "If you had only flirted, if you had only paidhim some attentions, all might have been different. " But heart-brokenthough she was, Mrs Norton could not speak the words. The girl looked socandid, so flowerlike in her guilelessness, that the thought seemed apollution. And in a few days Mr Hare sent for Kitty; and with herdeparted the last ray of sunlight, and Thornby Place grew too sad andsolitary for Mrs Norton. 

She went to visit some friends; she spent Christmas at the Rectory; andin the long evenings when Kitty had gone to bed, she opened her heartto her old friend. The last hope was gone; there was nothing for her tolook for now. John did not even write to her; she had not heard from himsince he left. It was very wrong of the Jesuits to encourage him in suchconduct, and she thought of laying the whole matter before the Pope. Theorder had once been suppressed; she did not remember by what Pope; buta Pope had grown tired of their intrigues, and had suppressed the order. She made these accusations in moments of passion, and immediately aftercame deep regret.... How wrong of her to speak ill of her religion, andto a Protestant! If John did become a priest it would be a punishmentfor her sins. But what was she saying? If John became a priest, sheshould thank God for His great goodness. What greater honour could hebestow upon her? Next day she took the train to Brighton, and went toconfession; and that very same evening she pleadingly suggested to MrHare that he should go to Stanton College, and endeavour to persuadeJohn to return home. The parson was of course obliged to decline. Headvised her to leave the matter in the hands of God, and Mrs Norton wentto bed a prey to scruples of conscience of all kinds. 

She even began to think it wrong to remain any longer in an essentiallyProtestant atmosphere. But to return to Thornby Place alone wasimpossible, and she begged for Kitty. The parson was loth to part withhis daughter, but he felt there was much suffering beneath the calmexterior that Mrs Norton preserved. He could refuse her nothing, and helet Kitty go. 

"There is no reason why you should not come and dine with us every day;but I shall not let you have her back for the next two months. "

"What day will you come and see us, father dear?" said Kitty, leaningout of the carriage window. 

"On Thursday, " cried the parson. 

"Very well, we shall expect you, " replied Mrs Norton; and with a sighshe sank back on the cushions, and fell to thinking of her son. 

At Thornby Place everything was soon discovered to be in a sad state ofneglect. There was much work to be done in the greenhouse, the azaleaswere being devoured by insects, and the leaves required a thoroughwashing. It was easy to see that the cats had not been regularly fed, and one of the tame rooks had flown away. Remedying these disasters, Mrs Norton and Kitty hurried to and fro. There was a ball at Steyning, and Mrs Norton consented to do the chaperon for once; and the girl'sdress was a subject of gossip for a month--for a fortnight an absorbingoccupation. Most of the people who had been at the hunt breakfast wereat the ball, and Kitty had plenty of partners. These suggested husbandsto Mrs Norton, and she questioned Kitty; but she did not seem to havethought of the ball except in the light of a toy which she had beenallowed to play with one evening. The young men she had met there hadapparently interested her no more than if they had been girls, and sheregretted John only because of Mrs Norton. Every morning she ran to seeif there was a letter, so that it might be she who brought the goodnews. But no letter came. Since Christmas John had written two shortnotes, and now they were well on in April. But one morning as she stoodwatching the springtide, Kitty saw him walking up the drive; the skywas growing bright with blue, and the beds were catching flower beneaththe evergreen oaks. She ran to Mrs Norton, who was attending to thecanaries in the bow-window. 

"Look, look, Mrs Norton, John is coming up the drive; it is he; look!"

"John!" said Mrs Norton, seeking for her glasses nervously; "yes, so itis; let's run and meet him. But no; let's take him rather coolly. Ibelieve half his eccentricity is only put on because he wishes toastonish us. We won't ask him any questions; we'll just wait and let himtell his own story.... "

"How do you do, mother?" said the young man, kissing Mrs Norton withless reluctance than usual. "You must forgive me for not having answeredyour letters. It really was not my fault; I have been passing through avery terrible state of mind lately.... And how do you do, Kitty? Haveyou been keeping my mother company ever since? It is very good in you;I am afraid you must think me a very undutiful son. But what is thenews?"

"One of the rooks is gone. "

"Is that all?... What about the ball at Steyning? I hear it was a greatsuccess. "

"Oh, it was delightful. "

"You must tell me about it after dinner. Now I must go round to thestables and tell Walls to take the trap round to the station to fetch mythings. "

"Are you going to be here some time?" said Mrs Norton, assuming anindifferent air. 

"Yes, I think so; that is to say, for a couple of months--six weeks. Ihave some arrangements to make, but I will speak to you about all thatafter dinner. "

With these words John left the room, and he left his mother agitated andfrightened. 

"What can he mean by having arrangements to make?" she asked. Kittycould of course suggest no explanation, and the women waited thepleasure of the young man to speak his mind. He seemed, however, inno hurry to do so; and the manner in which he avoided the subjectaggravated his mother's uneasiness. At last she said, unable to bear thesuspense any longer:

"Are you going to be a priest, John, dear?"

"Of course, but not a Jesuit.... "

"And why? have you had a quarrel with the Jesuits?"

"Oh, no; never mind; I don't like to talk about it; not exactly aquarrel, but I have seen a great deal of them lately, and I have foundthem out. I don't mean in anything wrong, but the order is so entirelyopposed to the monastic spirit. It is difficult to explain; I reallycan't.... What I mean is ... Well, that their worldliness is repugnant tome--fashionable friends, confidences, meddling in family affairs, diningout, letters from ladies who need consolation.... I don't mean anythingwrong; pray don't misunderstand me. I merely mean to say that I hatetheir meddling in family affairs. Their confessional is a kind ofmarriage bureau; they have always got some plan on for marrying thisperson to that, and I must say I hate all that sort of thing.... If Iwere a priest I would disdain to ... But perhaps I am wrong to speak likethat. Yes, it is very wrong of me, and before ... Kitty, you must notthink I am speaking against the principles of my religion, I am onlyspeaking of matters of--"

"And have you given up your rooms in Stanton College?"

"Not yet; that is to say, nothing is settled definitely, but I do notthink I shall go back there; at least not to live. "

"And you still are determined on becoming a priest?"

"Certainly, but not a Jesuit. "

"What then?"

"A Carmelite. I have seen a great deal of these monks lately, and it isonly they who preserve some of the old spirit of the old ideal. To enterthe Carmelite Chapel in Kensington is to step out of the meanatmosphere of to-day into the lofty charm of the Middle Ages. The longstraight folds of habits falling over sandalled feet, the great rosarieshanging down from the girdles, the smell of burning wax, the largetonsures, the music of the choir; I know nothing like it. Last Sunday Iheard them sing St Fortunatus' hymn, ... The _Vexilla regis_ heard in thecloud of incense, and the wrath of the organ!... Splendid are the rhymes!the first stanza in U and O, the second in A, and the third in E;passing over the closed vowels, the hymn ascends the scale of sound--"

"Now, John, none of that nonsense; how dare you, sir? Don't attempt tolaugh at your mother. "

"My dear mother, you must not think I am sneering because I speak ofwhat is uppermost in my mind. I have determined to become a Carmelitemonk, and that is why I came down here. "

Mrs Norton was very angry; her temper fumed, and she would have burstinto violent words had not the last words, "and that is why I came downhere, " frightened her into calmness. 

"What do you mean?" she said, turning round in her chair. "You came downhere to become a Carmelite monk; what do you mean?"

John hesitated. He was clearly a little frightened, but having gone sofar he felt he must proceed. Besides, to-day, or to-morrow, sooner orlater the truth would have to be told. He said:

"I intend altering the house a little here and there; you know howrepugnant this mock Italian architecture is to my feelings.... I amcoming to live here with some monks--"

"You must be mad, sir; you mean to say that you intend to pull down thehouse of your ancestors and turn it into a monastery?"

John drew a breath of relief, the worst was over now; she had spoken thefulness of his thought. Yes, he was going to turn Thornby Place into amonastery. 

"Yes, " he said, "if you like to put it in that way. Yes, I am going toturn Thornby Place into a monastery. Why shouldn't I? I am resolvednever to marry; and I have no one except those dreadful cousins to leavethe place to. Why shouldn't I turn it into a monastery and become amonk? I wish to save my soul. "

Mrs Norton groaned. 

"But you make me say more than I mean. To turn the place into a Gothicmonastery, such a monastery as I dreamed would not be possible, unlessindeed I pulled the whole place down, and I have not sufficient money todo that, and I do not wish to mortgage the property. For the present Iam determined only on a few alterations. I have them all in my head. Thebilliard room, that addition of yours, can be turned into a chapel. Andthe casements of the dreadful bow-window might be removed, and mullionsand tracery fixed on, and, instead of the present flat roof, a slopingtiled roof might be carried up against the wall of the house. Thecloisters would come at the back of the chapel. "

John stopped aghast at the sorrow he was causing, and he looked at hismother. She did not speak. Her ears were full of merciless ruins; hopevanished in the white dust; and the house with its memories sacred andsweet fell pitilessly: beams lying this way and that, the piece ofexposed wall with the well-known wall paper, the crashing of slates. Howthey fall! John's heart was rent with grief, but he could not stay hisdetermination any more than his breath. Youth is a season of suffering, we cannot surrender our desire, and it lies heavy and burning on ourhearts. It is so easy for age, so hard for youth to make sacrifices. Youth is and must be wholly, madly selfish; it is not until we havelearnt the folly of our aims that we may forget them, that we may pitythe sufferings of others, that we may rejoice in the triumphs of ourfriends. To the superficial therefore, John Norton will appear but theincarnation of egotism and priggishness, but those who see deeper willhave recognised that he is one who has suffered bitterly, as bitterlyas the outcast who lies dead in his rags beneath the light of thepoliceman's lantern. Mental and physical wants!--he who may know one maynot know the other: is not the absence of one the reason of the other?Mental and physical wants! the two planes of suffering whence the greatdivisions of mankind view and envy the other's destinies, as we view apassing pageant, as those who stand on the decks of crossing ships gazeregretfully back. 

Those who have suffered much physical want will never understand JohnNorton; he will find commiseration only from those who have realised _àpriori_ the worthlessness of existence, the vileness of life; above all, from those who, conscious of a sense of life's degradation, impetuouslydesire their ideal--the immeasurable ideal which lies before them, clear, heavenly, and crystalline; the sea into which they would plungetheir souls, but in whose benedictive waters they may only dip theirfingertips, and crossing themselves, pass up the aisle of humantribulation. We suffer in proportion to our passions. But John Nortonhad no passion, say they who see passion only in carnal dissipation. Yetthe passions of the spirit are more terrible than those of the flesh;the passion for God, the passion of revolt against the humbleness oflife; and there is no peace until passion of whatever kind has waileditself out. 

Foolish are they who describe youth as a time of happiness; it is one offever and anguish. 

Beneath its apparent calm, there was never a stormier youth than John's. The boy's heart that grieves to death for a chorus-girl, the littleclerk who mourns to madness for the bright life that flashes from thepoint of sight of his high office stool, never felt more keenly thenervous pain of desire and the lassitudes of resistance. You think JohnNorton did not suffer in his imperious desire to pull down the home ofhis fathers and build a monastery! Mrs Norton's grief was his grief, butto stem the impulse that bore him along was too keen a pain to beendured. His desire whelmed him like a wave; it filled his soul like aperfume, and against his will it rose to his lips in words. Even whenthe servants were present he could not help discussing the architecturalchanges he had determined upon, and as the vision of the cloister, withits reading and chanting monks, rose to his head, he talked, blinded bystrange enthusiasm, of latticed windows, and sandals. 

His mother bit her thin lips, and her face tightened in an expression ofsettled grief. Kitty was sorry for Mrs Norton, but Kitty was too youngto understand, and her sorrow evaporated in laughter. She listened toJohn's explanations of the future as to a fairy tale suddenly touchedwith the magic of realism. That the old could not exist in conjunctionwith the new order of things never grew into the painful precision ofthought in her mind. She saw but the show side; she listened as to anaccount of private theatricals, and in spite of Mrs Norton's visiblegrief, she was amused when John described himself walking at the headof his monks with tonsured head and a great rosary hanging from aleather girdle. Her innocent gaiety attracted her to him. As they walkedabout the grounds after breakfast, he spoke to her about pictures andstatues, of a trip he intended to take to Italy and Spain, and he didnot seem to care to be reminded that this jarred with his project forimmediate realisation of Thornby Priory. 

Leaning their backs against the iron railing which divided the greensward from the park, John and Kitty looked at the house. 

"From this view it really is not so bad, though the urns and the loggiaare so intolerably out of keeping with the landscape. But when I havemade my alterations it will harmonise with the downs and theflat-flowing country, so English with its barns and cottages and richagriculture, and there will be then a charming recollection of oldEngland, the England of the monastic ages, before the--but I forgot, Imust not speak to you on that subject. "

"Do you think the house will look prettier than it does now? Mrs Nortonsays that it will be impossible to alter Italian architecture intoGothic.... Of course I don't understand. "

"Mother does not know what she is talking about. I have it all down inmy pocket-book. I have various plans.... I admit it is not easy, butlast night I fancy I hit on an idea. I shall of course consult anarchitect, although really I don't see there is any necessity for sodoing, but just to be on the safe side; for in architecture there aremany practical difficulties, and to be on the safe side I will consultan experienced man regarding the practical working out of my design. Imade this drawing last night. " John produced a large pocket-book. 

"But, oh, how pretty; will it be really like that?"

"Yes, " exclaimed John, delighted; "it will be exactly like that; but Iwill read you my notes, and then you will understand it better. 

"_Alter and add to the front to represent the façade of a smallcathedral. This can be done by building out a projection the entirewidth of the building, and one storey in height. This will be dividedinto three arched divisions, topped with small gables_. "

"What are gables, John?"

"Those are the gables. _The centre one (forming entrance) being ratherhigher than the other gables. The entrance would be formed withclustered columns and richly moulded pointed arches, the door beingsolid, heavy oak, with large scroll and hammered iron hinges_. 

"_The centre front and back would be carried up to form steep gables, the roof being heightened to match. The large gable in front to have alarge cross at apex_. "

"What is an apex? What words you do use. "

John explained, Kitty laughed. 

"The top I have indicated in the drawing. _And to have a rose window_. You see the rose window in the drawing, " said John, anticipating thequestion which was on Kitty's lips. 

"Yes, " said she, "but why don't you say a round window?"

Without answering John continued:

"_The first floor fronts would be arcaded round with small columns withcarved capitals and pointed arches. 

"At either corner of front, in lieu of present Ionic columns, carry upoctagonal turrets with pinnacles at top_. 

"You see them in the drawing. These are the octagonal turrets. "

"And which are the pinnacles?"

"The ornaments at the top. 

"_From the centre of the roof carry up a square tower with battlementedparapets and pinnacles at all corners, and flying buttresses from theturrets of the main buildings_. 

"_The bow window at side will have the old casements removed, and havemullions and tracery fixed and filled with cathedral glazings, and, instead of the present flat, a sloping roof will be carried up andfinished against the outer wall of the house. At either side of baywindow buttresses with moulded water-tables, plinths, &c. _

"_From these roofs and the front projections at intersection of smallgables, carved gargoyles to carry off water_. 

"_The billiard-room to be converted into a chapel, by building a newhigh-pitched roof_. "

"Oh, John, why should you do away with the billiard-room; why shouldn'tthe monks play billiards? You played billiards on the day of the meet. "

"Yes, but I am not a monk yet. No one ever heard of monks playingbilliards; besides, that dreadful addition of my mother's could notremain in its present form, it would be ludicrous to a degree, whereasit can be converted very easily into a chapel. We must have achapel--_building a high-pitched timber roof, throwing out an apse atthe end, and putting in mullioned and traceried windows filled withstained glass_. "

"And the cloister you are always speaking about, where will that be?"

"The cloister will come at the back of the chapel, and an arched andvaulted ambulatory will be laid round the house. Later on I shall add arefectory, and put a lavatory at one end of the ambulatory. "

"But don't you think, John, you may get tired of being a monk, and thenthe house will have to be built back again. "

"Never, the house will be from every point of view, a better house whenmy alterations are carried into effect. Beside, why should I be tired ofbeing a monk? Your father does not get tired of being a parson. "

This reply, although singularly unconvincing, was difficult to answer, and the conversation fell. And day by day, John's schemes strengthenedand took shape, and he seemed to look upon himself already as aCarmelite. He had even gone so far as to order a habit, it had arriveda few days ago; and an architect, too, had come down from London. Hewas the ray of hope in Mrs Norton's life. For although he had loudlycommended the artistic taste exhibited in the drawing, and expressedgreat wonderment at John's architectural skill, he had, nevertheless, when questioned as to their practicability, declared the scheme to bewholly impossible. And the reasons he advanced in support of hisopinions were so conclusive that John was fain to beg of him to draw upa more possible plan for the conversion of an Italian house into aGothic monastery. 

Mr ---- seemed to think the idea a wild one, but he promised to see whatcould be done to overcome the difficulties he foresaw, and in a weekhe forwarded John several drawings for his consideration. Judged bycomparison with John's dreams, the practical architecture of theexperienced man seemed altogether lacking in expression and in poetryof proportion; and comparing them with his own cherished project, Johnhung over the billiard-table, where the drawings were laid out, hourafter hour, only to rise more bitterly fretful, more utterly unable thanusual to reconcile himself to natural limitation, more hopelesslylonging for the unattainable. 

He could think of nothing but his monastery; his Latin authors wereforgotten; he drew façades and turrets on the cloth during dinner, andhe went up to his room, not to bed, but to reconsider the difficultiesthat rendered the construction of a central tower an impossibility. 

Midnight: the house seems alive in the silence: night is on the world. The twilight sheds on the walking birds, on the falling petals, and inthe rich shadow the candle burns brightly. The great bridal bed yawns, the lace pillows lie wide, the curtains hang dreamily in the hallowedlight. John leans over his drawings. Once again he takes up thearchitect's notes. 

"_The interior would be so constructed as to make it impossible tocarry up the central tower. The outer walls would not be strong enoughto take the large gables and roof. Although the chapel could be doneeasily, the ambulatory would be of no use, as it would lead probablyfrom the kitchen offices. _

"_Would have to reduce work on front façade to putting in new archedentrance. Buttresses would take the place of columns_. 

"_The bow-window could remain_. 

"_The roof to be heightened somewhat. The front projection would throwthe front rooms into almost total darkness_. "

"But why not a light timber lantern tower?" thought John. "Yes, thatwould get over the difficulty. Now if we could only manage to keep myfront ... If my design for the front cannot be preserved, I might as wellabandon the whole thing! And then?"

And then life seemed to him void of meaning and light. He might as wellsettle down and marry.... 

His face contracted in an expression of anger. He rose from the table, and he looked round the room. Its appearance was singularly jarring, shattering as it did his dream of the cloister, and up-building in fancythe horrid fabric of marriage and domesticity. The room seemed to him asymbol--with the great bed, voluptuous, the corpulent arm-chair, thetoilet-table shapeless with muslin--of the hideous laws of the worldand the flesh, ever at variance and at war, and ever defeating theindomitable aspirations of the soul. John ordered his room to bechanged; and, in the face of much opposition from his mother, whodeclared that he would never be able to sleep there, and would lose hishealth, he selected a narrow room at the end of the passage. He wouldhave no carpet. He placed a small iron bed against the wall; two plainchairs, a screen to keep off the draught from the door, a basin-standsuch as you might find in a ship's cabin, and a prie-dieu, were all thefurniture he permitted himself. 

"Oh, what a relief!" he murmured. "Now there is line, there is definiteshape. That formless upholstery frets my eye as false notes grate on myear;" and, becoming suddenly conscious of the presence of God, he fellon his knees and prayed. He prayed that he might be guided aright in hisundertaking, and that, if it were conducive to the greater honour andglory of God, he might be permitted to found a monastery, and that hemight be given strength to surmount all difficulties. 

Next morning, calm in mind, and happier, he went downstairs to thedrawing-room, a small book in his hand, an historical work of greatimportance by the Venerable Bede, intitled _Vita beatorum abbatumWiremuthensium, et Girvensiuem, Benedicti Ceolfridi, Easteriwini, Sigfridi atque Hoetberti_. But he could not keep his attention fixed onthe book, it appeared to him dreary and stupid. His thoughts wandered. He thought of Kitty--of how beautiful she looked on the background ofred geraniums, with the soft yellow cat on her shoulder, and he wonderedwhich of the four great painters, Manet, Degas, Monet, or Renoir wouldhave best rendered the brightness and lightness, the intense colourvitality of that motive for a picture. He thought of her young eyes, ofthe pale hands, of the sudden, sharp laugh; and finally he took up oneof her novels, "Red as a Rose is She. " He read it, and found it veryentertaining. 

But the evening post brought him a letter from the architect's headclerk, saying that Mr ---- was ill, had not been to the office for thelast three or four days, and would not be able to go down to Sussexagain before the end of the month. Very much annoyed, John spent theevening thinking whom he could consult on the practicability of his lastdesign for the front, and next, morning he was surprised at not seeingKitty at breakfast. 

"Where is Kitty?" he asked abruptly. 

"She is not feeling well; she has a headache, and will not be downto-day. "

At the end of a long silence, John said:

"I think I will go into Brighton.... I must really see an architect. "

"Oh, John, dear, you are not really determined to pull the house down?"

"There is no use, mother dear, in our discussing that subject; each andall of us must do the best we can with life. And the best we can do isto try and gain heaven. "

"Breaking your mother's heart, and making yourself ridiculous before thewhole county, is not the way to gain heaven. "

"Oh, if you are going to talk like that.... "

John went into the drawing-room to continue his reading, but the Latinbored him even more than it had done yesterday. He took up the novel, but its enchantment was gone, and it appeared to him in its tawdry, original vulgarity. He got on a horse and rode towards the downs, andwent up the steep ascents at a gallop. He stood amid the gorse at thetop and viewed the great girdle of blue encircling sea, and the longstring of coast towns lying below him, and far away. Lunch was on thetable when he returned. After lunch, harassed by an obsession ofarchitectural plans, he went out to sketch. But it rained, and resistinghis mother's invitation to change his clothes, he sat down before thefire, damp without, and feverishly irritable within. He vacillated anhour between his translation of St Fortunatus' hymn, _Quem terra, pontusaethera_, and "Red as a Rose is She, " which, although he thought it asreprehensible for moral as for literary reasons, he was fain to followout to the vulgar end. But he could interest himself in neither hymn nornovel. For the authenticity of the former he now cared not a jot, and hethrew the book aside vowing that its hoydenish heroine was unbearableand he would read no more. 

"I never knew a more horrible place to live in than Sussex. Either oftwo things: I must alter the architecture of this house, or I mustreturn to Stanton College. "

"Don't talk nonsense, do you think I don't know you? you are boringyourself because Kitty is upstairs in bed, and cannot walk about withyou. "

"I do not know how you contrive, mother, always to say the mostdisagreeable possible things; the marvellous way in which you pick outwhat will, at the moment, wound me most is truly wonderful. I complimentyou on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why youshould, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve continuouslyas a target for the arrows of your scorn. "

John walked out of the room. During dinner mother and son spoke verylittle, and he retired early, about ten o'clock, to his room. He was inhigh dudgeon, but the white walls, the prie-dieu, the straight, narrowbed were pleasant to see. His room was the first agreeable impressionof the day. He picked up a drawing from the table, it seemed to himawkward and slovenly. He sharpened his pencil, cleared his crow-quillpens, got out his tracing-paper, and sat down to execute a better. Buthe had not finished his outline sketch before he leaned back in hischair, and as if overcome by the insidious warmth of the fire, lapsedinto fire-light attitudes and meditations. 

He looked a little backwards into the blaze; he nibbled his pencilpoint. Wavering light and wavering shade followed fast over the Romanprofile, followed and flowed fitfully--fitfully as his thoughts. Now histhought followed out architectural dreams, and now he thought ofhimself, of his unhappy youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of hissolitary life; a bitter, unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wantingin an ideal--a glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had alwaysmet with failure, with disapproval, above all failure ... And yet, andyet he felt, he almost knew there was something great and noble in him. His eyes brightened; he slipped into thinking of schemes for a monasticlife; and then he thought of his mother's hard disposition and how shemisunderstood him, --everyone misunderstood him. What would the end be?Would he succeed in creating the monastery he dreamed of so fondly? Toreconstruct the ascetic life of the Middle Ages, that would be somethingworth doing, that would be a great ideal--that would make meaning in hislife. If he failed ... What should he do then? His life as it was, wasunbearable ... He must come to terms with life.... 

That central tower! how could he manage it! and that built-out front. Was it true, as the architect said, that it would throw all the frontrooms into darkness? Without this front his design would be worthless. What a difference it made!

Kitty liked it. She had thought it charming. How young she was, howglad and how innocent, and how clever, her age being taken intoconsideration. She understood all you said. It would not surprise him ifshe developed into something: but she would marry.... 

But why was he thinking of her? What concern had she in his life? Alittle slip of a girl--a girl--a girl more or less pretty, that was all. And yet it was pleasant to hear her laugh. That low, sudden laugh--shewas pleasanter company than his mother, she was pleasant to have in thehouse, she interrupted many an unpleasant scene. Then he remembered whathis mother had said. She had said that he was disappointed that she wasill, that he had missed her, that ... That it was because she was notthere that he had found the day so intolerably wearisome. 

Struck as with a dagger, the pain of the wound flowed through himpiercingly; and as a horse stops and stands trembling, for there issomething in the darkness beyond, John shrank back, his nervesvibrating like highly-strung chords; and ideas--notes of regret andlamentation died in great vague spaces. Ideas fell.... Was this all; wasthis all he had struggled for; was he in love? A girl, a girl ... Was agirl to soil the ideal he had in view? No; he smiled painfully. The seaof his thoughts grew calmer, the air grew dim and wan, a tall founderedwreck rose pale and spectral, memories drifted. The long walks, thetalks of the monastery, the neighbours, the pet rooks, and Sammy thegreat yellow cat, and the green-houses ... He remembered the pleasure hehad taken in those conversations!

What must all this lead to? To a coarse affection, to marriage, tochildren, to general domesticity. 

And contrasted with this.... 

The dignified and grave life of the cloister, the constant sensation oflofty and elevating thought, a high ideal, the communion of learned men, the charm of headship. 

Could he abandon this? No, a thousand times no; but there was a meltingsweetness in the other cup. The anticipation filled his veins withfever. 

And trembling and pale with passion, John fell on his knees and prayedfor grace. But prayer was sour and thin upon his lips, and he could onlybeg that the temptation might pass from him.... 

"In the morning, " he said, "I shall be strong. "

CHAPTER V. 

But if in the morning he were strong, Kitty was more beautiful thanever, and they walked out in the sunlight. They walked out on the greensward, under the evergreen oaks where the young rooks are swinging; outon the mundane swards into the pleasure ground; a rosery and a rockery;the pleasure ground divided from the park by iron railings, the parkencircled by the rich elms, the elms shutting out the view of the loftydowns. 

The meadows are yellow with buttercups, and the birds fly out of thegold. And the golden note is prolonged through the pleasure grounds bythe pale yellow of the laburnums, by the great yellow of the berberis, by the cadmium yellow of the gorse, by the golden wallflowers growingamid rhododendrons and laurels. 

And the transparent greenery of the limes shivers, and the young rooksswinging on the branches caw feebly. 

And about the rockery there are purple bunches of lilac, and the stripedawning of the tennis seat touches with red the paleness of the Englishspring. 

Pansies, pale yellow pansies!

The sun glinting on the foliage of the elms spreads a napery of vividgreen, and the trunks come out black upon the cloth of gold, and thelarks fly out of the gold, and the sky is a single sapphire, and twowhite clouds are floating. It is May time. 

They walked toward the tennis seat with its red striped awning. Theylistened to the feeble cawing of young rooks swinging on the branches. They watched the larks nestle in, and fly out of the gold. It was Maytime, and the air was bright with buds and summer bees. She was dressedin white, and the shadow of the straw hat fell across her eyes when sheraised her face. He was dressed in black, and the clerical frock coatbuttoned by one button at the throat fell straight. 

They sat under the red striped awning of the tennis seat. The largegrasping hands holding the polished cane contrasted with the reedytranslucent hands laid upon the white folds. The low sweet breath of theMay time breathed within them, and their hearts were light; hers wasconscious only of the May time, but his was awake with unconscious love, and he yielded to her, to the perfume of the garden, to the absorbingsweetness of the moment. He was no longer John Norton. His being waspart of the May time; it had gone forth and had mingled with the colourof the fields and sky; with the life of the flowers, with all vaguescents and sounds; with the joy of the birds that flew out of andnestled with amorous wings in the gold. Enraptured and in completeforgetfulness of his vows, he looked at her, he felt his beingquickening, and the dark dawn of a late nubility radiated into manhood. 

"How beautiful the day is, " he said, speaking slowly. "Is it not alllight and colour, and you in your white dress with the sunlight on yourhair seem more blossom-like than any flower. I wonder what flower Ishould compare you to.... Shall I say a rose? No, not a rose, nor alily, nor a violet; you remind me rather of a tall delicate palecarnation.... "

"Why, John, I never heard you speak like that before; I thought younever paid compliments. "

The transparent green of the limes shivers, the young rooks caw feebly, and the birds nestle with amorous wings in the blossoming gold. Kittyhas taken off her straw hat, the sunlight caresses the delicateplenitudes of the bent neck, the delicate plenitudes bound with whitecambric, cambric swelling gently over the bosom into the narrow circleof the waist, cambric fluted to the little wrist, reedy translucidhands; cambric falling outwards and flowing like a great white flowerover the green sward, over the mauve stocking, and the little shoe setfirmly. The ear is as a rose leaf, a fluff of light hair trembles on thecurving nape, and the head is crowned with thick brown gold. "O to bathemy face in those perfumed waves! O to kiss with a deep kiss the hollowof that cool neck!... " The thought came he know not whence nor how, aslightning falls from a clear sky, as desert horsemen come with a glitterof spears out of the cloud; there is a shock, a passing anguish, andthey are gone. 

He left her. So frightened was he at this sudden and singular obsessionof his spiritual nature by a lower and grosser nature, whose existencein himself was till now unsuspected, and of whose life and wants inothers he had felt, and still felt, so much scorn, that in the tumult ofhis loathing he could not gain the calm of mind necessary for anexamination of conscience. He could not look into his mind with anypresent hope of obtaining a truthful reply to the very eminent and vitalquestion, how far his will had participated in that burning but whollyinexcusable desire by which he had been so shockingly assailed. 

That inner life, so strangely personal and pure, and of which he was soproud, seemed to him now to be befouled, and all its mystery and innergrace, and the perfect possession which was his sanctuary, lost to himfor ever. For he could never quite forget the defiling thought; it wouldalways remain with him, and the consciousness of the stain wouldpreclude all possibility of that refining happiness, that attribute ofcleanliness, which he now knew had long been his. In his anger andself-loathing his rage turned against Kitty. It was always the samestory--the charm and ideality of man's life always soiled by woman'sinfluence; so it was in the beginning, so it shall be.... 

He stopped before the injustice of the accusation; he remembered hercandour and her gracious innocence, and he was sorry; and he rememberedher youth and her beauty, and he let his thoughts dwell upon her. Turning over his papers he came across the old monk's song to David:

 "Surge meo domno dulces fac, fistula versus: David amat versus, surge fac fistula versus, David amat vates vatorum est gloria David.... "

The verses seemed meaningless and tame, but they awoke vague impulses inhim, and, his mind filled by a dim dream of King David and Bathsheba, heopened his Bible and turned over the pages, reading a phrase here andthere until he had passed from story and psalm to the Song of songs, andwas finally stopped by--"I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if yefind my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love. "

He laid the book down and leaned back in his chair, and holding histemple with one hand (this was his favourite attitude) he looked in thefire fixedly. He was ravaged by emotion. The magical fervour of thewords he had just read had revealed to him the depth of his passion. 

But he would tear the temptation out of his heart. The conduct of hislife had been long ago determined upon. He had known the truth as if byinstinct from the first; no life was possible except an ascetic life, atleast for him. And in this hour of weakness he summoned to his aid allhis ancient ideals: the solemnity and twilight of the arches, themassive Gregorian chant which seems to be at once their voice and theirsoul, the cloud of incense melting upon the mitres and sunsets, and theboys' treble hovering over an ocean of harmony. But although the pictureof his future life rose at his invocation it did not move him asheretofore, nor did the scenes he evoked of conjugal grossness andplatitude shock him to the extent he had expected. The moral rebellionhe succeeded in exciting was tepid, heartless, and ineffective, and hewas not moved by hate or fear until he remembered that God in Hisinfinite goodness had placed him for ever out of the temptation which heso earnestly sought to escape from. Kitty was a Protestant. In a pangof despair, windows and organ collapsed like cardboard; incense andarches vanished, and then rose again with the light of a more graciousvision upon them. For if the dignity and desire of mere self-salvationhad departed, all the lighter colours and livelier joys of theconversion of others filled the sky of faith with morning tones andharmonies. And then?... Salvation before all things, he answered in hisenthusiasm;--something of the missionary spirit of old time was uponhim, and forgetful of his aisles, his arches, his Latin authors, he wentdown stairs and asked Kitty to play a game of billiards. 

"We play billiards here on Sunday, but you would think it wrong to doso. "

"But to-day is not Sunday. "

"No, I was only speaking in a general way. Yet I often wonder how youcan feel satisfied with the protection your Church affords you againstthe miseries and trials of the world. A Protestant, you know, maybelieve pretty nearly as little or as much as he likes, whereas in ourchurch everything is defined; we know what we must believe to be saved. There is a sense of security in the Catholic Church which the Protestanthas not. "

"Do you think so? That is because you do not know our Church, " repliedKitty, who was a little astonished at this sudden outburst. "I feelquite happy and safe. I know that our Lord Jesus Christ died on theCross to save us, and we have the Bible to guide us. "

"Yes, but the Bible without the interpretation of the Church is ... Maylead to error. For instance... "

John stopped abruptly. Seized with a sudden scruple of conscience heasked himself if he, in his own house, had a right to strive toundermine the faith of the daughter of his own friend. 

"Go on, " cried Kitty, laughing, "I know the Bible better than you, and if I break down I will ask father. " And as if to emphasise herintention, she hit her ball which was close under the cushion as hard asshe could. 

John hailed the rent in the cloth as a deliverance, for in thediscussion as to how it could be repaired, the religious question wasforgotten. 

But if he were her lover, if she were going to be his wife, he wouldhave the right to offer her every facility and encouragement to enterthe Catholic Church--the true faith. Darkness passes, and the birds arecarolling the sun, flowers and trees are pranked with aerial jewellery, the fragrance of the warm earth flows in your veins, your eyes are fainof the light above and your heart of the light within. He would not jarhis happiness by the presence of Mrs Norton, even Kitty's presence wastoo actual a joy to be home. She drew him out of himself too completely, interrupted the exquisite sense of personal enchantment which seemed topermeate and flow through him with the sweetness of health returning toa convalescent on a spring day. He closed his eyes, and his thoughtscame and went like soft light and shade in a garden close; his happinesswas a part of himself, as fragrance is inherent in the summer time. The evil of the last days had fallen from him, and the reaction wasequivalently violent. Nor was he conscious of the formal resignation hewas now making of his dream, nor did he think of the distasteful load ofmarital duties with which he was going to burden himself; all was lostin the vision of beautiful companionship, a sort of heavenly journeying, a bright earthly way with flowers and starlight--he a little in advancepointing, she following, with her eyes lifted to the celestial gatesshining in the distance. Sometimes his arms would be thrown about her. Sometimes he would press a kiss upon her face. She was his, his, and hewas her saviour. The evening died, the room darkened, and John's dreamcontinued in the twilight, and the ringing of the dinner bell and thedisturbance of dressing did not destroy his thoughts. Like fumes ofwine they hung about him during the evening, and from time to time helooked at Kitty. 

But although he had so far surrendered himself, he did not escapewithout another revulsion of feeling. A sudden realisation of what hislife would be under the new conditions did not fail to frighten him, andhe looked back with passionate regret on his abandoned dreams. But hisnature was changed, abstention he knew was beyond his strength, andafter many struggles, each of which was feebler than the last, hedetermined to propose to Kitty on the first suitable occasion. 

Then came the fear of refusal. Often he was paralysed with pain, sometimes he would morbidly allow his thoughts to dwell on the momentwhen he would hear her say, it was impossible, that she did not andcould not love him. The young grey light of the eyes would be fixed uponhim; she would speak her sorrow, and her thin hands would hang by herside in the simple attitude that was so peculiar to her. And he musedwillingly on the long meek life of grief that would then await him. Hewould belong to God; his friar's frock would hide all; it would be thehabitation, and the Gothic walls he would raise, the sepulchre of hislove.... 

"But no, no, she shall be mine, " he cried out, moved in his veryentrails. Why should she refuse him? What reason had he to believe thatshe would not have him? He thought of how she had answered his questionson this and that occasion, how she had looked at him; he recalled everygesture and every movement with wonderful precision, and then he lapsedinto a passionate consideration of the general attitude of mind sheevinced towards him. He arrived at no conclusion, but these meditationswere full of penetrating delight. Sometimes he was afflicted with anintense shyness, and he avoided her; and when Mrs Norton, divining histrouble, sent them to walk in the garden, his heart warmed to hismother, and he regretted his past harshness. 

And this idyll was lived about the beautiful Italian house, with itsurns and pilasters; through the beautiful English park, with its elmsnow with the splendour of summer upon them; in the pleasure grounds withtheir rosary, and the fountain where the rose leaves float, and thewood-pigeons come at eventide to drink; in the greenhouse with its liveglare of geraniums, where the great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and purring, insists oncaresses; in the large clean stables where the horses munch the cornlazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croakand flutter, and strut about Kitty's feet. It was Kitty; yes, it wasKitty everywhere; even the blackbird darting through the laurels seemedto cry Kitty. 

To propose! Time, place, and the words he should use had been carefullyconsidered. After each deliberation, a new decision had been taken:but when he came to the point, John found himself unable to speakany one of the different versions he had prepared. Still he was veryhappy. The days were full of sunshine and Kitty, and he mistook herlight-heartedness for affection. He had begun to look upon her as hiscertain wife, although no words had been spoken that would suggest sucha possibility. Outside of his imagination nothing was changed; he stoodin exactly the same relation to her as he had done when he returned fromStanton College, determined to build a Gothic monastery upon the ruinsof Thornby Place, and yet somehow he found it difficult to realise thatthis was so. 

One morning he said, as they went into the garden, "You must sometimesfeel a little lonely here ... When I am away ... All alone here withmother. "

"Oh dear no! we have lots to do. I look after the pets in the morning. I feed the cats and the rooks, and I see that the canaries have freshwater and seed. And then the bees take up a lot of our time. We havetwenty-two hives. Mrs Norton says she ought to make five pounds a yearon each. Sometimes we lose a swarm or two, and then Mrs Norton is socross. We were out for hours with the gardener the other day, but wecould do no good; we could not get them out of that elm tree. You seethat long branch leaning right over the wall; well it was on that branchthat they settled, and no ladder was tall enough to reach them; and whenBill climbed the tree and shook them out they flew right away. "

"Shall I, shall I propose to her now?" thought John. But Kitty continuedtalking, and it was difficult to interrupt her. The gravel grated undertheir feet; the rooks were flying about the elms. At the end of thegarden there was a circle of fig trees. A silent place, and John vowedhe would say the word there. But as they approached his courage diedwithin him, and he was obliged to defer his vows until they reached thegreen-house. 

"So your time is fully occupied here. "

"And in the afternoon we go out for drives; we pay visits. You neverpay visits; you never go and call on your neighbours. "

"Oh, yes I do; I went the other day to see your father. "

"Ah yes, but that is only because he talks to you about Latin authors. "

"No, I assure you it isn't. Once I have finished my book I shall neverlook at them again. "

"Well, what will you do?"

"Next winter I intend to go in for hunting. I have told a dealer to lookout for a couple of nice horses for me. "

Kitty looked up, her grey eyes wide open. If John had told her that hehad given the order for a couple of crocodiles she could not have beenmore surprised. 

"But hunting is over now; it won't begin again till next November. Youwill have to play lawn tennis this summer. "

"I have sent to London for a racquet and shoes, and a suit of flannels. "

"Goodness me.... Well, that is a surprise! But you won't want theflannels; you might play in the Carmelite's habit which came down theother day. How you do change your mind about things!"

"Do you never change your mind, Kitty?"

"Well, I don't know, but not so suddenly as you. Then you are not goingto become a monk?"

"I don't know, it depends on circumstances. "

"What circumstances?" said Kitty, innocently. 

The words "_whether you will or will not have me_" rose to John's lips, but all power to speak them seemed to desert him; he had grown suddenlyas weak as melting snow, and in an instant the occasion had passed. Hehated himself for his weakness. The weary burden of his love lay stillupon him, and the torture of utterance still menaced him from afar. Theconversation had fallen. They were approaching the greenhouse, and thecats ran to meet their patron. Sammy sprang on Kitty's shoulder. 

"Oh, isn't he a beauty? stroke him, do. "

John passed his hand along the beautiful yellow fur. Sammy rubbed hishead against his mistress' face, her raised eyes were as full of lightas the pale sky, and the rich brown head and the thin hands made apicture in the exquisite clarity of the English morning, --in thehomeliness of the English garden, with tall hollyhocks, espalier appletrees, and one labourer digging amid the cabbages. Joy crystal as themorning itself illumined John's mind for a moment, and then faded, andhe was left lonely with the remembrance that his fate had still to bedecided, that it still hung in the scale. 

One evening as they were walking in the park, shadowy in the twilight ofan approaching storm, Kitty said:

"I never would have believed, John, that you could care to go out for awalk with me. "

"And why, Kitty?"

Kitty laughed--her short sudden laugh was strange and sweet. John'sheart was beating. "Well, " she said, without the faintest hesitation orshyness, "we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you, when you came home for the first time; when you used to think of nothingbut the Latin authors. "

"What do you mean?"

Kitty laughed again. 

"You promise not to tell?"

"I promise. "

This was their first confidence. 

"You told your mother when I came, when you were sitting by the firereading, that the flutter of my skirts disturbed you. "

"No, Kitty, I'm sure you never disturbed me, or at least not for a longtime. I wish my mother would not repeat conversations, it is mostunfair. "

"Mind you, you promised not to repeat what I have told you. If you do, you will get me into an awful scrape. "

"I promise. "

The conversation came to a pause. Presently Kitty said, "But you seem tohave got over your dislike to girls. I saw you talking a long while withMiss Orme the other day; and at the Meet you seemed to admire her. Shewas the prettiest girl we had here. "

"No, indeed she wasn't!"

"Who was, then?"

"You were. "

Kitty looked up; and there was so much astonishment in her face thatJohn in a sudden access of fear said, "We had better make haste, thestorm is coming on; we shall get wet through. "

They ran towards the house. John reproached himself bitterly, buthe made no further attempt to screw his courage up to the pointof proposing. His disappointment was followed by doubts. Was hispowerlessness a sign from God that he was abandoning his true vocationfor a false one? and a little shaken, he attempted to interest himselfin the re-building of his house; but the project had grown impossible tohim, and he felt he could not embrace it again, with any of the oldenthusiasm at least, until he had been refused by Kitty. There weremoments when he almost yearned to hear her say that she could never lovehim. But in his love and religious suffering the thought of bringing asoul home to the true fold remained a fixed light; he often looked to itwith happy eyes, and then if he were alone he fell on his knees andprayed. Prayer like an opiate calmed his querulous spirit, and havingtold his beads--the great beads which hung on his prie-dieu--he would godown stairs with peace in his heart, and finding Kitty, he would ask herto walk with him in the garden, or they would stroll out on the tennislawn, racquet in hand. 

One afternoon it was decided that they should go for a long walk. Johnsuggested that they should climb to the top of Toddington Mount, andview the immense plain which stretches away in dim blue vapour and athousand fields. 

You see John and Kitty as they cross the wide park towards the vista inthe circling elms, --she swinging her parasol, he carrying stiffly hisgrave canonical cane. He still wears the long black coat buttoned at thethroat, but the air of hieratic dignity is now replaced by, or rather itis glossed with, the ordinary passion of life. Both are like children, infinitely amused by the colour of the grass and sky, by the hurry ofthe startled rabbit, by the prospect of the long walk; and they tastealready the wild charm of the downs, seeing and hearing in imaginationits many sights and sounds, the wild heather, the yellow savage gorse, the solitary winding flock, the tinkling of the bell-wether, thecliff-like sides, the crowns of trees, the mighty distance spread outlike a sea below them with its faint and constantly dissolving horizonof the Epsom Hills. 

"I never can cross this plain, Kitty, without thinking of the Dovercliffs as seen in mid Channel; this is a mere inland imitation of them. "

"I have never seen the Dover cliffs; I have never been out of England, but the Brighton cliffs give me an idea of what you mean. "

"On your side--the Shoreham side--the downs rise in a gently slopingascent from the sea. "

"Yes, we often walk up there. You can see Brighton and Southwick andWorthing. Oh! it is beautiful! I often go for a walk there with myfriends, the Austen girls--you saw them here at the Meet. "

"Yes, Mr Austen has a very nice property; it extends right into the townof Shoreham, does it not?"

"Yes, and right up to Toddington Mount, where we are going. But aren'tyou a little tired, John? These roads are very steep. "

"Out of breath, Kitty; let's stop for a minute or two. " The country laybelow them. They had walked three miles, and Thornby Place and its elmswere now vague in the blue evening. "We must see one of these days if wecannot do the whole distance. "

"What? right across the downs from Shoreham to Henfield?"

"Well, it is not more than eight miles; you don't think you could manageit?"

"I don't know, it is more than eight miles, and walking on the downs isnot like walking on the highroad. Father thinks nothing of it. "

"We must really try it. "

"What would you do if I were to get so tired that I could not go back orforward?"

"I would carry you. "

They continued their climb. Speaking of the Devil's Dyke, Kitty said--

"What! you mean to say you never heard the legend? You, a Sussex man!"

"I have lived very little in Sussex, and I used to hate the place; I amonly just beginning to like it. "

"And you don't like the Jesuits any more, because they go in formatchmaking. "

"They are too sly for me, I confess; I don't approve of priests meddlingin family affairs. But tell me the legend. "

"Oh, how steep these roads are. At last, at last. Now let's try and finda place where we can sit down. The grass is full of that horrid pricklygorse. "

"Here's a nice soft place; there is no gorse here. Now tell me thelegend. "

"Well, I never!" said Kitty, sitting herself on the spot that had beenchosen for her, "you do astonish me. You never heard of the legend of StCuthman. "

"No, do tell it to me. "

"Well, I scarcely know how to tell it in ordinary words, for I learnt itin poetry. "

"In poetry! In whose poetry?"

"Evy Austen put it into poetry, the eldest of the girls, and they mademe recite it at the harvest supper. "

"Oh, that's awfully jolly--I never should have thought she was soclever. Evy is the dark-haired one. "

"Yes, Evy is awfully clever; but she doesn't talk much about it. "

"Do recite it. "

"I don't know that I can remember it all. You won't laugh if I breakdown. "

"I promise. "

 THE LEGEND OF ST CUTHMAN. 

 "St Cuthman stood on a point which crowns The entire range of the grand South Downs; Beneath his feet, like a giant field, Was stretched the expanse of the Sussex Weald. 'Suppose, ' said the Saint, ''twas the will of Heaven To cause this range of hills to be riven, And what were the use of prayers and whinings, Were the sea to flood the village of Poynings: 'Twould be fine, no doubt, these Downs to level, But to do such a thing I defy the Devil!' St Cuthman, tho' saint, was a human creature, And his eye, a bland and benevolent feature, Remarked the approach of the close of day, And he thought of his supper, and turned away. Walking fast, he Had scarcely passed the First steps of his way, when he saw something nasty; 'Twas tall and big, And he saw from its rig 'Twas the Devil in full diabolical fig. There were wanting no proofs, For the horns and the hoofs And the tail were a fully convincing sight; But the heart of the Saint Ne'er once turned faint, And his halo shone with redoubled light. 'Hallo, I fear You're trespassing here!' Said St Cuthman, 'To me it is perfectly clear, If you talk of the devil, he's sure to appear!' 'With my spade and my pick I am come, ' said old Nick, 'To prove you've no power o'er a demon like me. I'll show you my power-- Ere the first morning hour Thro' the Downs, over Poynings, shall roll in the sea. ' 'I'll give you long odds, ' Cried the Saint, 'by the gods! I'll stake what you please, only say what your wish is. ' Said the devil, 'By Jove! You're a sporting old cove! My pick to your soul, I'll make such a hole, That where Poynings now stands, shall be swimming the fishes. ' 'Done!' cried the Saint, 'but I must away I have a penitent to confess; In an hour I'll come to see fair play-- In truth I cannot return in less. My bet will be won ere the first bright ray Heralds the ascension of the day. If I lose!--there will be _the devil to pay!_' He descended the hill with a firm quick stride, Till he reached a cell which stood on the side; He knocked at the door, and it opened wide, -- He murmured a blessing and walked inside. Before him he saw a tear-stained face Of an elderly maiden of elderly grace; Who, when she beheld him, turned deadly pale, And drew o'er her features a nun's black veil. 'Holy father!' she said, 'I have one sin more, Which I should have confessed sixty years before! I have broken my vows--'tis a terrible crime! I have loved _you_, oh father, for all that time! My passion I cannot subdue, tho' I try! Shrive me, oh father! and let me die!' 'Alas, my daughter, ' replied the Saint, 'One's desire is ever to do what one mayn't, There was once a time when I loved you, too, I have conquered my passion, and why shouldn't you? For penance I say, You must kneel and pray For hours which will number seven; Fifty times say the rosary, (Fifty, 'twill be a poser, eh?) But by it you'll enter heaven; As each hour doth pass, Turn the hour glass, Till the time of midnight's near; On the stroke of midnight This taper light, Your conscience will then be clear. ' He left the cell, and he walked until He joined Old Nick on the top of the hill. It was five o'clock, and the setting sun Showed the work of the Devil already begun. St Cuthman was rather fatigued by his walk, And caring but little for brimstone talk, He watched the pick crash through layers of chalk. And huge blocks went over and splitting asunder Broke o'er the Weald like the crashing of thunder. St Cuthman wished the first hour would pass, When St Ursula, praying, reversed the glass. 'Ye legions of hell!' the Old Gentleman cried, 'I have such a terrible stitch in the side!' 'Don't work so hard, ' said the Saint, 'only see, The sides of your dyke a heap smoother might be. ' 'Just so, ' said the Devil, 'I've had a sharp fit, So, resting, I'll trim up my crevice a bit. ' St Cuthman was looking prodigiously sly, He knew that the hours were slipping by. 'Another attack! I've cramp at my back! I've needles and pins From my hair to my shins! I tremble and quail From my horns to my tail! I will not be vanquished, I'll work, I say, This dyke shall be finished ere break of day!' 'If you win your bet, 'twill be fairly earned, ' Said the Saint, and again was the hour-glass turned. And then with a most unearthly din The farther end of the dyke fell in; But in spite of an awful rheumatic pain The Devil began his work again. 'I'll not be vanquished!' exclaimed the old bloke. 'By breathing torrents of flame and smoke, Your dyke, ' said the Saint, 'is hindered each minute, What can one expect when the Devil is in it?' Then an accident happened, which caused Nick at last To rage, fume, and swear; when the fourth hour had passed, On his hoof there came rolling a huge mass of quartz. Then quite out of sorts The bad tempered old cove Sent the huge mass of stone whizzing over to Hove. He worked on again, till a howl and a cry Told the Saint one more hour--the fifth--had gone by. 'What's the row?' asked the Saint, 'A cramp in the wrist, I think for a while I had better desist. ' Having rested a bit he worked at his chasm, Till, the hour having passed, he was seized with a spasm. He raged and he cursed, 'I bore this at first, The rheumatics were awful, but this is the worst. ' With awful rage heated, The demon defeated, In his passion used words that can't be repeated. Feeling shaken and queer, In spite of his fear, At the dyke he worked on until midnight drew near. But when the glass turned for the last time, he found That the head of his pick was stuck fast in the ground. 'Cease now!' cried St Cuthman, 'vain is your toil! Come forth from the dyke! Leave your pick in the soil! You agreed to work 'tween sunset and morn, And lo! the glimmer of day is born! In vain was your fag, And your senseless brag. ' Dizzy and dazed with sulphureous vapour, Old Nick was deceived by St Ursula's taper. 'The dawn!' yelled the Devil, 'in vain was my boast, That I'd have your soul, for I've lost it, I've lost!' 'Away!' cried St Cuthman, 'Foul fiend! away! See yonder approaches the dawn of day! Return to the flames where you were before, And molest these peaceful South Downs no more!' The old gentleman scowled but dared not stay, And the prints of his hoofs remain to this day, Where he spread his dark pinions and soared away. At St Ursula's cell Was tolling the bell, And St Cuthman in sorrow, stood there by her side. 'Twas over at last, Her sorrows were past, In the moment of triumph St Ursula died. Tho' this was the ground, There never were found The tools of the Devil, his spade and his pick; But if you want proof Of the Legend, the hoof- Marks are still in the hillock last trod by Old Nick. "

"Oh! that is jolly. Well, I never thought the girl was clever enough towrite that. And there are some excellent rhymes in it, 'passed he'rhyming with 'nasty, ' and 'rosary' with 'poser, eh;' and how well yourecite it. "

"Oh, I recited it better at the harvest supper; and you have no idea howthe farmers enjoyed it. They know the place so well, and it interestedthem on that account. They understood it all. "

John sat as if enchanted, --by Kitty's almost childish grace, herenthusiasm for her friend's poem, and her genuine enjoyment of it; bythe abrupt hills, mysterious now in sunset and legend; by the vastplains so blue and so boundless: out of the thought of the littlenessof life, of which they were a symbol, there came the thought of thegreatness of love. 

"Won't you cross the poor gipsy's palm with a bit of silver, my prettygentleman, and she will tell you your fortune and that of your prettylady?"

Kitty uttered a startled cry, and turning they found themselves facing astrong, black-eyed girl. She repeated her question. 

"What do you think, Kitty, would you like to have your fortune told?"

Kitty laughed. "It would be rather fun, " she said. 

She did not know what was coming, and she listened to the usual story, full by the way of references to John--of a handsome young man who wouldwoo her, win her, and give her happiness, children, and wealth. 

John threw the girl a shilling. She withdrew. They watched her passingthrough the furze. The silence about them was immense. Then John spoke:

"What the gipsy said is quite true; I did not dare to tell you sobefore. "

"What do you mean, John?"

"I mean that I am in love with you, will you love me?"

"You in love with me, John; it is quite absurd--I thought you hatedgirls. "

"Never mind that, Kitty, say you will have me; make the gipsy's wordscome true. "

"Gipsies' words always come true. "

"Then you will marry me?"

"I never thought about marriage. When do you want me to marry you? I amonly seventeen?"

"Oh! when you like, later on, only say you will be mine, that you willbe mistress of Thornby Place one day, that is all I want. "

"Then you don't want to pull the house down any more. "

"No, no; a thousand times no! Say you will be my wife one of thesedays. "

"Very well then, one of these days.... " "And I may tell my mother ofyour promise to-night?... It will make her so happy. "

"Of course you may tell her, John, but I don't think she will believeit. "

"Why should she not believe it?"

"I don't know, " said Kitty, laughing, "but how funny, was it not, thatthe gipsy girl should guess right?"

"Yes, it was indeed. I wanted to tell you before, but I hadn't thecourage; and I might never have found the courage if it had not been forthat gipsy. "

In his abundant happiness John did not notice that Kitty was scarcelysensible of the importance of the promise she had given. And in silencehe gazed on the landscape, letting it sink into and fix itself for everin his mind. Below them lay the great green plain, wonderfully level, and so distinct were its hedges that it looked like a chessboard. Thornby Place was hidden in vapour, and further away all was lost indarkness that was almost night. 

"I am sorry we cannot see the house--your house, " said John as theydescended the chalk road. 

"It seems so funny to hear you say that, John. "

"Why? It will be your house some day. "

"But supposing your Church will not let you marry me, what then.... "

"There is no danger of that; a dispensation can always be obtained. Butwho knows.... You have never considered the question.... You knownothing of our Church; if you did, you might become a convert. I wishyou would consider the question. It is so simple; we surrender our ownwretched understanding, and are content to accept the Church as wiserthan we. Once man throws off restraint there is no happiness, there isonly misery. One step leads to another; if he would be logical he mustgo on, and before long, for the descent is very rapid indeed, he findshimself in an abyss of darkness and doubt, a terrible abyss indeed, where nothing exists, and life has lost all meaning. The Reformation wasthe thin end of the wedge, it was the first denial of authority, and yousee what it has led to--modern scepticism and modern pessimism. "

"I don't know what it means, but I heard Mrs Norton say you were apessimist. "

"I was; but I saw in time where it was leading me, and I crushed it out. I used to be a Republican too, but I saw what liberty meant, and whatwere its results, and I gave it up. "

"So you gave up all your ideas for Catholicism.... "

John hesitated, he seemed a little startled, but he answered, "I wouldgive up anything for my Church... "

"What! Me?"

"That is not required. "

"And did it cost you much to give up your ideas?"

John raised his eyes--it was a look that Balzac would have understoodand would have known how to interpret in some admirable pages of humansuffering. "None will ever know how I have suffered, " he said sadly. "But now I am happy, oh! so happy, and my happiness would be completeif.... Oh! if God would grant you grace to believe.... "

"But I do believe. I believe in our Lord Christ who died to save us. Isnot that enough?"

CHAPTER VI. 

Like Juggernaut's car, Catholicism had passed over John's mind, crushingall individualism, and leaving it but a wreck of quaking mysticism. Twenty times a day the spectre of his conscience rose and with menacingfinger threatened him with flames and demons. And his love was a sourceof continual suffering. How often did he ask himself if he weresurrendering his true vocation? How often did he beg of God to guide himaright? But these mental agitations were visible to no one. He preservedhis calm exterior and the keenest eye detected in him only an ordinaryyoung man with more than usually strict business habits. He hadappointments with his solicitor. He consulted with him, he went intocomplex calculations concerning necessary repairs, and he laid plans forthe more advantageous letting of the farms. 

His mother encouraged him to attend to his business. Her head was fullof other matters. A dispensation had to be obtained; it was said thatthe Pope was more than ever opposed to mixed marriages. But no objectionwould be made to this one. It would be madness to object.... A richCatholic family at Henfield--nearly four thousand a-year--must not beallowed to become extinct. Thornby Place was the link between the Dukeof Norfolk and the So and So's. If those dreadful cousins came in forthe property, Protestantism would again be established at Thornby Place. And what a pity that would be; and just at a time when Catholicism wasbeginning to make headway in Sussex. And if John did not marry now hewould never marry; of that she was quite sure. 

As may be imagined, these were not the arguments with which Mrs Nortonsought to convince the Rev. William Hare; they were those with which shebesieged the Brompton Oratory, Farm Street, and the Pro-Cathedral. Sheplayed one off against the other. The Jesuits were nettled at havinglost him, but it was agreeable to learn that the Carmelites had been noless unfortunate than they. The Oratorians on the whole thought he wasnot in their "line"; and as their chance of securing him was remote, they agreed that John would prove more useful to the Church as a marriedman than as a priest. A few weeks later the Papal sanction was obtained. 

The clause concerning the children affected Mr Hare deeply, but he wastold that he must not stand in the way of the happiness of two youngpeople. He considered the question from many points of view, but in themeantime Mrs Norton continued to deluge Kitty with presents, and to talkto everybody of her son's marriage. The parson's difficulties werethereby increased, and eventually he found he could not withhold hisconsent. 

And as time went on, John seemed to take a more personal delight inlife than he had done before. He forgot his ancient prejudices if nothis ancient ideals, and, as was characteristic of him, he avoidedthinking with any definiteness on the nature of the new life into whichhe was to enter soon. His neighbours declared he was very much improved;and there were dinner parties at Thornby Place. One of his greatpleasures was to start early in the morning, and having spent a longday with Kitty, to return home across the downs. The lofty, lonelylandscape, with its lengthy hills defined upon the flushes of July, camein happy contrast with the noisy hours of tennis and girls; and standingon the gently ascending slopes, rising almost from the wicket gate ofthe rectory, he would wave farewells to Kitty and the Austins. And inthe glittering morning, grey and dewy, when he descended these slopes tothe strip of land that lies between them and the sea, he would pause onthe last verge where the barn stands. Squire Austin's woods are infront, and they stretch by the town to the sleepy river with itsspiderlike bridge crossing the sandy marshes. The church spire and roofsshow through each break in the elm trees, and higher still the horizonof the sea is shimmering. 

The rectory is rich brown brick and tiles. About it there is an amplefarmyard. Mr Hare has but the house and an adjoining field, the threegreat ricks are Mr Austin's; the sunlight is upon them, and through thelong shadows the cart horses are moving with the drays; and now ahundred pigeons rise and are seen against the green velvet of the elms, and one bird's wings are white upon the white sea. 

Mr Hare is sitting in the verandah smoking, Kitty is attending to herbirds. 

"Good morning, John, " she cried, "but I can't shake hands with you, myhands are dirty. Do you talk to father, I haven't a moment. There issuch a lot to do. You know the Miss Austins are coming here to earlydinner, and we have two young men coming from Worthing to play tennis. The court isn't marked yet. "

"I will help you to mark it. "

"Very well, but I am not ready yet. "

John lit a cigar, and he spoke of books to Mr Hare, whom he considered agross Philistine, although a worthy man. The shadows of the Virginiacreeper fell on the red pavement, and Kitty's light voice was heard onthe staircase. Presently she appeared, and lifting the trailing foliage, she spoke to him. She took him away, and the parson watched the whitelines being marked on the sward. He watched them walk by the ironrailing that separated Little Leywood from Leywood, the Squire's house. They passed through a small wooden gate into a bit of thick wood, and sogained the drive. Mr Austin took John to see the horses, Kitty ran tosee the girls who were in their room dressing. How they chattered asthey came down stairs, and with what lightness and laughter they went toLittle Leywood. Their interests were centred in John, and Kitty tookthe foremost place as an engaged girl. After dinner young men arrived, and tennis was played unceasingly. At six o'clock, tired and hot withair and exercise, all went in to tea--a high tea. At seven John said hemust be thinking of getting home; and happy and glad with all thepleasant influences of the day upon them, Kitty and the Miss Austinsaccompanied him as far as the farm gate. 

"What a beautiful walk you will have, Mr Norton; but aren't you tired?Seven miles in the morning and seven in the evening!"

"But I have had the whole day to rest in. "

"What a lovely evening! Let's all walk a little way with him, " saidKitty. 

"I should like to, " said the elder Miss Austin, "but we promised fatherto be home for dinner. The one sure way of getting into his black booksis to keep his dinner waiting, and he wouldn't dine without us. "

"Well, good-bye, dear, " said Kitty, "I shall walk as far as the burgh. "

The Miss Austins turned into the rich trees that encircle Leywood, Kittyand John faced the hill. They were soon silhouettes, and ascending, theystood, tiny specks upon the pink evening hours. The table-land sweptabout them in multitudinous waves; it was silent and solitary as thesea. Lancing College, some miles distant, stood lonely as a lighthouse, and beneath it the Ada flowed white and sluggish through the marshes, the long spine of the skeleton bridge was black, and there, by that lowshore, the sea was full of mist, and sea and shore and sky were lost inopal and grey. Old Shoreham, with its air of commerce, of stagnantcommerce, stood by the sea. The tide was out, the sea gates were dry, only a few pools flashed silver amid the ooze; and the masts of the tallvessels, --tall vessels aground in that strange canal or rather dykewhich runs parallel with and within a few yards of the sea for so manymiles, --tapered and leaned out over the sea banks, and the points of thetop masts could be counted. Then on the left hand towards Brighton, thesea streamed with purple, it was striped with green, and it hung like ablue veil behind the rich trees of Leywood and Little Leywood, and thetrees and the fields were full of golden rays. 

The lovers stood on a grassy plain; sheep were travelling over the greatexpanses of the valleys; rooks were flying about. Looking over the plainyou saw Southwick, --a gleam of gables, a gleam of walls, --skirting aplantation; and further away still, Brighton lay like a pile of rocksheaped about a low shore. 

To the lovers life was now as an assortment of simple but beautifulflowers; and they passed the blossoms to and fro and bound them intoa bouquet. They talked of the Miss Austins, of their flirtations, ofthe Rectory, of Thornby Place, of Italy, for there they were goingnext month on their honeymoon. The turnip and corn lands were asinconceivable widths of green and yellow satin rolling through the richlight of the crests into the richer shadow of the valleys. And therethere was a farm-house surrounded by buildings, surrounded by trees, --itlooked like a nest in its snug hollow; the smoke ascended blue andpeacefully. It was the last habitation. Beyond it the downs extend, inalmost illimitable ranges ascending to the wild golden gorse, to thepurple heather. 

We are on the burgh. The hills tumble this way and that; below is thegreat weald of Sussex, blue with vapour, spotted with gold fields, levelas a landscape by Hobbema; Chanctonbury Ring stands up like a gauntwatcher; its crown of trees is pressed upon its brow, a dark andimperial crown. 

Overhead the sky is full of dark grey clouds; through them the sunbreaks and sheds silver dust over the landscape; in the passing gleamsthe green of the furze grows vivid. If you listen you hear the tinklingof the bell-wether; if you look you see a solitary rabbit. A stuntedhawthorn stands by the circle of stone, and by it the lovers weresitting. He was talking to her of Italy, of cathedrals and statues, for although he now loves her as a man should love, he still saw hishoneymoon in a haze of Botticellis, cardinals, and chants. They stoodup and bid each other good-bye, and waving hands they parted. 

Night was coming on apace, a long way lay still before him, and hewalked hastily; she being nearer home, sauntered leisurely, swinging herparasol. The sweetness of the evening was in her blood and brain, andthe architectural beauty of the landscape--the elliptical arches of thehills--swam before her. But she had not walked many minutes before atramp, like a rabbit out of a bush, sprang out of the furze where he hadbeen sleeping. He was a gaunt hulking fellow, six feet high. 

"Now 'aven't you a copper or two for a poor fellow, Missie?"

Kitty started from him frightened. "No, I haven't, I have nothing ... Goaway. "

He laughed hoarsely, she ran from him. "Now, don't run so fast, Missie, won't you give a poor fellow something?"

"I have nothing. "

"Oh, yes you 'ave; what about those pretty lips?"

A few strides brought him again to her side. He laid his hand upon herarm. She broke her parasol across his face, he laughed hoarsely. She sawhis savage beast-like eyes fixed hungrily upon her. She fainted for fearof his look of dull tigerish cruelty. She fell.... 

When shaken and stunned and terrified she rose from the ground, she sawthe tall gaunt figure passing away like a shadow. The wild solitarylandscape was pale and dim. In the fading light it was a drawing made onblue paper with a hard pencil. The long undulating lines were definedon the dead sky, the girdle of blue encircling sea was an image ofeternity. All now was the past, there did not seem to be a present. Hermind was rocked to and fro, and on its surface words and phrases floatedlike sea weed.... To throw her down and ill-treat her. Her frock isspoilt; they will ask her where she has been to, and how she got herselfinto such a state. Mechanically she brushed herself, and mechanically, very mechanically she picked bits of furze from her dress. She held eachaway from her and let it drop in a silly vacant way, all the whilerunning the phrases over in her mind: "What a horrible man ... He threw medown and ill-treated me; my frock is ruined, utterly ruined, what astate it is in! I had a narrow escape of being murdered. I will tellthem that ... That will explain ... I had a narrow escape of beingmurdered. " But presently she grew conscious that these thoughts werefictitious thoughts, and that there was a thought, a real thought, lying in the background of her mind, which she dared not face, which shecould not think of, for she did not think as she desired to; herthoughts came and went at their own wild will, they flitted lightly, touching with their wings but ever avoiding this deep and formlessthought which lay in darkness, almost undiscoverable, like a monster ina nightmare. 

She rose to her feet, she staggered, her sight seemed to fail her. Therewas a darkness in the summer evening which she could not account for;the ground seemed to slide beneath her feet, the landscape seemed to bein motion and to be rolling in great waves towards the sea. Would itprecipitate itself into the sea, and would she be engulphed in theuniversal ruin? O! the sea, how implacably serene, how remorselesslybeautiful; green along the shore, purple along the horizon! But the landwas rolling to it. By Lancing College it broke seaward in a soft lapsingtide, in front of her it rose in angry billows; and Leywood hill, green, and grand, and voluted, stood up a great green wave against thewaveless sea. 

"What a horrible man ... He attacked me, ill-treated me ... What for?" Herthoughts turned aside. "He should be put in prison.... If father knewit, or John knew it, he would be put in prison, and for a very longtime.... Why did he attack me?... Perhaps to rob me; yes, to rob me, ofcourse to rob me. " The evening seemed to brighten, the tumultuouslandscape to grow still, To rob her, and of what?... Of her watch; wherewas it? It was gone. The happiness of a dying saint when he opens armsto heaven descended upon her. The watch was gone ... But, had she lost it?Should she go back and see if she could find it? Oh! impossible; see theplace again--impossible! search among the gorse--impossible! Horror! Shewould die. O to die on the lonely hills, to lie stark and cold beneaththe stars! But no, she would not be found upon these hills. She woulddie and be seen no more. O to die, to sink in that beautiful sea, sostill, so calm, so calm--why would it not take her to its bosom and hideher away? She would go to it, but she could not get to it; there werethousands of men between her and it.... An icy shiver passed throughher. 

Then as her thoughts broke away, she thought of how she had escapedbeing murdered. How thankful she ought to be--but somehow she is notthankful. And she was above all things conscious of a horror ofreturning, of returning to where she would see men and women's faces ... Men's faces. And now with her eyes fixed on the world that awaited her, she stood on the hillside. There was Brighton far away, sparkling in thedying light; nearer, Southwick showed amid woods, winding about the footof the hills; in front Shoreham rose out of the massy trees of Leywood, the trees slanted down to the lawn and foliage and walls, made spots ofwhite and dark green upon a background of blue sea; further to theright there was a sluggish silver river, the spine of the skeletonbridge, a spur of Lancing hill, and then mist, pale mist, pale greymist. 

"I cannot go home", thought the girl, and acting in direct contradictionto her thoughts, she walked forward. Her parasol--where was it? It wasbroken. The sheep, how sweet and quiet they looked, and the clover, howdeliciously it smelt.... This is Mr Austin's farm, and how well kept itis. There is the barn. And Evy and Mary, when would they be married? Notso soon as she, she was going to be married in a month. In a month. Sherepeated the words over to herself; she strove to collect her thoughts, and failing to do so, she walked on hurriedly, she almost ran as if inthe motion to force out of sight the thoughts that for a momentthreatened to define themselves in her mind. Suddenly she stopped; therewere some children playing by the farm gate. They did not know that shewas by, and she listened to their childish prattle unsuspected. Tolisten was an infinite assuagement, one that was overpoweringly sweet, and for some moments she almost forgot. But she woke from her ecstacy indeadly fear and great pain, for coming along the hedgerow the voice of aman was heard, and the children ran away. And she ran too, like aterrified fawn, trembling in every limb, and sick with fear she spedacross the meadows. The front door was open; she heard her fathercalling. To see him she felt would be more than she could bear; she musthide from his sight for ever, and dashing upstairs she double locked herdoor. 

CHAPTER VII. 

The sky was still flushed, there was light upon the sea, but the roomwas dim and quiet. The room! Kitty had seen it under all aspects, shehad lived in it many years: then why does she look with strained eyes?Why does she shrink? Nothing has been changed. There is her littlenarrow bed, and her little bookcase full of novels and prayer-books;there is her work-basket by the fireplace, by the fireplace closed inwith curtains that she herself embroidered; above her pillow there is acrucifix; there are photographs of the Miss Austins, and pictures ofpretty children cut from the Christmas Numbers on the walls. She startsat the sight of these familiar objects! She trembles in the room whichshe thought of as a haven of refuge. Why does she grasp the rail of thebed--why? She scarcely knows: something that is at once remembrance andsuspicion fills her mind. Is this her room?

The thought ended. She walked hurriedly to and fro, and as she passedthe fuchsia in the window a blossom fell. 

She sat down and stared into dark space. She walked languidly andpurposelessly to the wardrobe. She stopped to pick a petal from thecarpet. The sound of the last door was over, the retiring footfall haddied away in the distance, the last voice was hushed; the moon wasshining on the sea. A lovely scene, silver and blue; but how the girl'sheart was beating! She sighed. 

She sighed as if she had forgotten, and approaching her bedside sheraised her hands to her neck. It was the instinctive movement ofundressing. Her hands dropped, she did not even unbutton her collar. Shecould not. She resumed her walk, she picked up a blossom that hadfallen, she looked out on the pale white sea. There was moonlight now inthe room, a ghastly white spot was on the pillow. She was tired. Themoonlight called her. She lay down with her profile in the light. 

But there were smell and features in the glare--the odour was that ofthe tramp's skin, the features--a long thin nose, pressed lips, smalleyes, a look of dull liquorish cruelty. And this presence was besideher; she could not rid herself of it, she repulsed it with cries, but itcame again, and mocking, lay on the pillow. 

Horrible, too horrible! She sprang from the bed. Was there anyone in herroom? How still it was! The mysterious moonlight, the sea white as ashroud, the sward so chill and death-like. What! Did it move? Was it he?That fearsome shadow! Was she safe? Had they forgotten to bar up thehouse? Her father's house! Horrible, too horrible, she must shut outthis treacherous light--darkness were better.... 

 * * * * *

The curtains are closed, but a ray glinting between the wall and curtainshows her face convulsed. Something follows her: she knows not what, herthoughts are monstrous and obtuse. She dares not look round, she wouldturn to see if her pursuer is gaining upon her, but some invinciblepower restrains her.... Agony! Her feet catch in, and she falls overgreat leaves. She falls into the clefts of ruined tombs, and her handsas she attempts to rise are laid on sleeping snakes--rattlesnakes: theyturn to attack her, and they glide away and disappear in moss andinscriptions. O, the calm horror of this region! Before her the treesextend in complex colonnades, silent ruins are grown through with giantroots, and about the mysterious entrances of the crypts there lingersyet the odour of ancient sacrifices. The stem of a rare column risesamid the branches, the fragment of an arch hangs over and is supportedby a dismantled tree trunk. Ages ago the leaves fell, and withered; agesago; and now the skeleton arms, lifted in fantastic frenzy against thedesert skies, are as weird and symbolic as the hieroglyphics on thetombs below. 

And through the torrid twilight of the approaching storm the cry of thehyena is heard. 

Flowers hang on every side, --flowers as strange and as gorgeous asByzantine chalices; flowers narrow and fluted and transparent as longVenetian glasses; opaque flowers bulging and coloured with gold deviceslike Chinese vases, flowers striped with cinnamon and veined with azure;a million flower-cups and flower chalices, and in these as in censersstrange and deadly perfumes are melting, and the heavy fumes descendupon the girl, and they mix with the polluting odour of the ancientsacrifices. She sinks, her arms are raised like those of a victim; shesinks overcome, done to death or worse in some horrible asphyxiation. 

And through the torrid twilight of the approaching storm the cry of thehyena is heard. His claws are upon the crumbling tombs. 

The suffocating girl utters a thin wail. The vulture pauses, and isstationary on the white and desert skies. She strives with her laststrength to free herself from the thrall of the great lianas, and shefalls into fresh meshes.... The claws are heard amid the ruins, there isa hirsute smell; she turns with terrified eyes to plead, but she meetsonly the dull liquorish eyes, and the breath of the obscene animal is onher face. 

Then she finds herself in the pleasure grounds of Thornby Place. Thereare the evergreen oaks, there is the rosary flaring all its wealth ofred, purple, and white flowers, there is the park encircled by elms, there is the vista filled in with the line of the lofty downs. For amoment she is surprised, and fails to understand. Then she forgets thechange of place in new sensations of terror. For across the parksomething is coming, she knows not what; it will pass her by. Shewatches a brown and yellow serpent, cubits high. Cubits high. It rearsaloft its tawny hide, scenting its prey. The great coiling body, thesmall head, small as a man's hand, the black beadlike eyes shine outupon the intoxicating blue of the sky. The narrow long head, the fixedblack eyes are dull, inexorable desire, conscious of nothing beyond, andonly dimly conscious of itself. Will the snake pass by the hiding girl?She rushes to meet it. What folly! She turns and flies. 

She takes refuge in the rosary. It follows her, gathering its immensebody into horrible and hideous heights. How will she save herself? Shewill pluck roses, and build a wall between her and it. She collects hugebouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths. Theflower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast withpurity, she goes to where beautiful and snowy blossoms grow inclustering millions. She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands arestreaming with blood, but she pays no heed, and as the snake surmountsone barricade, she builds another. But in vain. The reptile leans overthem all, and the sour dirty smell of the scaly hide befouls the odorousbreath of the roses. The long thin neck is upon her; she feels thehorrid strength of the coils as they curl and slip about her, drawingher whole life into one knotted and loathsome embrace. And all the whilethe roses fall in a red and white rain about her. And through the ruinof the roses she escapes from the stench and the coils, and all thewhile the snake pursues her even into the fountain. The waves and thesnake close about her. 

Then without any transition in place or time, she finds herselflistening to the sound of rippling water. There is an iron drinking cupclose to her hand. She seems to recognise the spot. It is Shoreham. There are the streets she knows so well, the masts of the vessels, thedowns. But suddenly something darkens the sunlight, the tawny body ofthe snake oscillates, the people cry to her to escape. She flies alongthe streets, like the wind she seems to pass. She calls for help. Sometimes the crowds are stationary as if frozen into stone, sometimesthey follow the snake and attack it with sticks and knives. One man withcolossal shoulders wields a great sabre; it flashes about him likelightning. Will he kill it? He turns and chases a dog, and disappears. The people too have disappeared. She is flying now along a wild plaincovered with coarse grass and wild poppies. When she glances behind hershe sees the outline of the little coast town, the snake is near her, and there is no one to whom she can call for help. But the sea is infront of her, bound like a blue sash about the cliff's edge. She willescape down the rocks--there is still a chance! The descent is sheer, but somehow she retains foothold. Then the snake drops, she feels hisweight upon her, and both fall, fall, fall, and the sea is belowthem.... 

 * * * * *

With a shriek she sprang from the bed, and still under the influence ofthe dream, rushed to the window. The moon hung over the sea, the seaflowed with silver, the world was as chill as an icicle. 

"The roses, the snake, the cliff's edge, was it then only a dream?" thegirl thought. "It was only a dream, a terrible dream, but after all onlya dream!" In her hope breathes again, and she smiles like one who thinkshe is going to hear that he will not die, but as the old pain returnswhen the last portion of the deceptive sentence is spoken, so despaircame back to her when remembrance pierced the cloud of hallucination, and told her that all was not a dream--there was something that wasworse than a dream. 

She uttered a low cry, and she moaned. Centuries seemed to have passed, and yet the evil deed remained. It was still night, but what would theday bring to her? There was no hope. Abstract hope from life, and whatblank agony you create!

She drew herself up on her bed, and lay with her face buried in thepillow. For the face was beside her: the foul smell was in her nostrils, and the dull, liquorish look of the eyes shone through the darkness. Then sleep came again, and she lay stark and straight as if she weredead, with the light of the moon upon her face. And she sees herselfdead. And all her friends are about her crowning her with flowers, beautiful garlands of white roses, and dressing her in a long whiterobe, white as the snowiest cloud in heaven, and it lies in longstraight plaits about her limbs like the robes of those who lie inmarble in cathedral aisles. And it falls over her feet, and her handsare crossed over her breast, and all praise in low but ardent words theexcessive whiteness of the garment. For none sees but she that there isa black spot upon the robe which they believe to be immaculate. And shewould warn them of their error, but she cannot; and when they averttheir faces to wipe away their tears, the stain might be easily seen, but when they turn to continue the last offices, folds or flowers havemysteriously fallen over the stain, and hide it from view. 

And it is great pain to her to feel herself thus unable to tell them oftheir error, for she well knows that when she is placed in the tomb, andthe angels come, that they will not fail to perceive the stain, andseeing it they will not fail to be shocked and sorrowful, --and seeing itthey will turn away weeping, saying, "She is not for us, alas, she isnot for us!"

And Kitty, who is conscious of this fatal oversight, the results ofwhich she so clearly foresees, is grievously afflicted, and she makesevery effort to warn her friends of their error: but in vain, for thereappears to be one amid the mourners who knows that she is endeavouringto announce to them the black stain, and this one whose face she cannotreadily distinguish, maliciously and with diabolical ingenuity withdrawsattention at the moment when it should fall upon it. 

And so it comes that she is buried in the stained robe, and she iscarried amid flowers and white cloths to a white marble tomb, whereincense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths andthings commemorative of virginal life and its many lovelinesses. But, strange to say, upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike thereis some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, theone whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast inher coffin, she sees these stains vividly, and the one whose face shecannot recognise sees them too. And this is certain, for the shadow ofthe face is sometimes stirred by a horrible laugh. 

The mourners go, the evening falls, and the wild sunset floats for awhile through the western Heavens; and the cemetery becomes a deepgreen, and in the wind that blows out of Heaven, the cypresses rock likethings sad and mute. 

And the blue night comes with stars in her tresses, and out of thosestars a legion of angels float softly; their white feet hang out of theblown folds, their wings are pointed to the stars. And from out of theearth, out of the mist, but whence and how it is impossible to say, there come other angels dark of hue and foul smelling. But the whiteangels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene isreflected in them as in a mirror; and the dark angels cower in a cornerof the cemetery, but they do not utterly retire. 

And then the tomb is opened, and the white angels enter the tomb. Andthe coffin is opened, and the girl trembles lest the angels shoulddiscover the stain she knew of. But lo! to her great joy they do not seeit, and they bear her away through the blue night, past the sacredstars, even within the glory of Paradise. And it is not until one whoseface she cannot recognize, and whose presence among the angels ofHeaven she cannot comprehend, steals away one of the garlands of whitewith which she was entwined, that the fatal stain becomes visible. Theangels are overcome with a mighty sorrow, and relinquishing theirburden, they break into song, and the song they sing is one of grief;and above an accompaniment of spheral music it travels through thespaces of Heaven; and she listens to its wailing echoes as she falls, falls, --falls past the sacred stars to the darkness of terrestrialskies, --falls towards the sea where the dark angels are waiting for her;and as she falls she leans with reverted neck and strives to see theirfaces, and as she nears them she distinguishes one into whose arms sheis going; it is, it is--the... 

 * * * * *

"Save me, save me!" she cried; and bewildered and dazed with the dream, she stared on the room, now chill with summer dawn; the pale light brokeover the Shoreham sea, over the lordly downs and rich plantations ofLeywood. Again she murmured, it was only a dream, it was only a dream;again a sort of presentiment of happiness spread like light through hermind, and again remembrance came with its cruel truths--there wassomething that was not a dream, but that was worse than the dream. Andthen with despair in her heart she sat watching the cold sky turn toblue, the delicate bright blue of morning, and the garden grow intoyellow and purple and red. There lay the sea, joyous and sparkling inthe light of the mounting sun, and the masts of the vessels at anchor inthe long water way. The tapering masts were faint on the shiny sky, andnow between them and about them a face seemed to be. Sometimes it wasfixed on one, sometimes it flashed like a will o' the wisp, and appeareda little to the right or left of where she had last seen it. It was theface that was now buried in her very soul, and sometimes it passed outof the sky into the morning mist, which still heaved about the edges ofthe woods; and there she saw something grovelling, crouching, crawling, --a wild beast, or was it a man?

She did not weep, nor did she moan. She sat thinking. She dwelt on theremembrance of the hills and the tramp with strange persistency, and yetno more now than before did she attempt to come to conclusions with herthought; it was vague, she would not define it; she brooded over itsullenly and obtusely. Sometimes her thoughts slipped away from it, butwith each returning, a fresh stage was marked in the progress of hernervous despair. 

So the hours went by. At eight o'clock the maid knocked at the door. Kitty opened it mechanically, and she fell into the woman's arms, weeping and sobbing passionately. The sight of the female face broughtinfinite relief; it interrupted the jarred and strained sense of thehorrible; the secret affinities of sex quickened within her. The woman'spresence filled Kitty with the feelings that the harmlessness of a lambor a soft bird inspires. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

"But what is it, Miss, what is it? Are you ill? Why, Miss, you haven'ttaken your things off; you haven't been to bed. "

"No, I lay down.... I have had frightful dreams--that is all. "

"But you must be ill, Miss; you look dreadful, Miss. Shall I tell MrHare? Perhaps the doctor had better be sent for. "

"No, no; pray say nothing about me. Tell my father that I did not sleep, that I am going to lie down for a little while, that he is not to expectme down for breakfast. "

"I really think, Miss, that it would be as well for you to see thedoctor. "

"No, no, no. I am going to lie down, and I am not to be disturbed. "

"Shall I fill the bath, Miss? Shall I leave hot water here, Miss?"

"Bath.... Hot water.... " Kitty repeated the words over as if she werestriving to grasp a meaning which was suggested, but which eluded her. Then her face relaxed, the expression was one of pitiful despair, andthat expression gave way to a sense of nausea, expressed by a quickcontraction of the eyes. 

She listened to the splashing of the water, and its echoes were repeatedindefinably through her soul. 

The maid left the room. Kitty's attention was attracted to her dress. Itwas torn, it was muddy, there were bits of furze sticking to it. Shepicked these off, and slowly she commenced settling it: but as she didso, remembrance, accurate and simple recollection of facts, returned toher, and the succession was so complete that the effect was equivalentto a re-enduring of the crime, and with a foreknowledge of it, as if tosharpen its horror and increase the sense of the pollution. The lovelyhills, the engirdling sea, the sweet glow of evening--she saw it allagain. And as if afraid that her brain, now strained like a body on therack, would suddenly snap, she threw up her arms, and began to take offher dress, as violently as if she would hush thought in abruptmovements. In a moment she was in stays and petticoat. The delicate andalmost girlish arms were disfigured by great bruises. Great black andblue stains were spreading through the skin. 

Kitty lifted up her arm: she looked at it in surprise; then in horrorshe rushed to the door where her dressing gown was hanging, and wrappedherself in it tightly, hid herself in it so that no bit of her fleshcould be seen. 

She threw herself madly on the bed. She moved, pressing herself againstthe mattress as if she would rub away, free herself from her loathedself. The sight of her hand was horrible to her, and she covered it overhurriedly. 

The maid came up with a tray. The trivial jingle of the cups and plateswas another suffering added to the ever increasing stress of mind, andnow each memory was accompanied by sensations of physical sickness, ofnausea. 

She slipped from the bed and locked the door. Again she was alone. Anhour passed. 

Her father came up. His footsteps on the stairs caused her intolerableanguish. On entering the house she had hated to hear his voice, and nowthat hatred was intensified a thousandfold. His voice sounded in herears false, ominous, abominable. She could not have opened the door tohim, and the effort required to speak a few words, to say she was tiredand wished to be left alone, was so great that it almost cost her herreason. It was a great relief to hear him go. She asked herself why shehated to hear his voice, but before she could answer a suddenrecollection of the tramp sprang upon her. Her nostrils recalled thesmell, and her eyes saw the long, thin nose and the dull liquorish eyesbeside her on the pillow. 

She got up and walked about the room, and its appearance contrastedwith and aggravated the fierceness of the fever of passion and horrorthat raged within her. The homeliness of the teacups and the plates, thetin bath, painted yellow and white, so grotesque and so trim. 

But not its water nor even the waves of the great sea would wash awayremembrance. She pressed her face against the pane. The wide sea, sopeaceful, so serene! Oblivion, oblivion, O for the waters of oblivion!

Then for an hour she almost forgot; sometimes she listened, and theshrill singing of the canary was mixed with thoughts of her deadbrothers and sisters, of her mother. She was waked from her reveries bythe farm bell ringing the labourers' dinner hour. 

Night had been fearsome with darkness and dreams, but the genialsunlight and the continuous externality of the daytime acted on hermind, and turned vague thoughts, as it were, into sentences, printed inclear type. She often thought she was dead, and she favoured this idea, but she was never wholly dead. She was a lost soul wandering on thosedesolate hills, the gloom descending, and Brighton and Southwick andShoreham and Worthing gleaming along the sea banks of a purple sea. There were phantoms--there were two phantoms. One turned to reality, andshe walked by her lover's side, talking of Italy. Then he disappeared, and she shrank from the horrible tramp; then both men grew confused inher mind, and in despair she threw herself on her bed. Raising her eyesshe caught sight of her prayer-book, but she turned from it moaning, forher misery was too deep for prayer. 

The lunch bell rang. She listened to the footsteps on the staircase; shebegged to be excused, and she refused to open the door. 

The day grew into afternoon. She awoke from a dreamless sleep of aboutan hour, and still under its soothing influence, she pinned up herhair, settled the ribbons of her dressing gown, and went downstairs. Shefound her father and John in the drawing-room. 

"Oh, here is Kitty!" they exclaimed. 

"But what is the matter, dear? Why are you not dressed?" said Mr Hare. "But what is the matter.... Are you ill?" said John, and he extended hishand. 

"No, no, 'tis nothing, " she replied, and avoiding the outstretched handwith a shudder, she took the seat furthest away from her father andlover. 

They looked at her in amazement, and she at them in fear and trembling. She was conscious of two very distinct sensations--one the result ofreason, the other of madness. She was not ignorant of the causes ofeach, although she was powerless to repress one in favour of the other. Both struggled for mastery and for the moment without disturbing theequipoise. On the side of reason she knew very well she was looking atand talking to her dear, kind father, and that the young man sittingnext him was John Norton, the son of her dear friend, Mrs Norton; sheknew he was the young man who loved her, and whom she was going tomarry, marry, marry. On the other side she saw that her father's kindbenign countenance was not a real face, but a mask which he wore overanother face, and which, should the mask slip--and she prayed that itmight not--would prove as horrible and revolting as--

But the mask John wore was as nothing, it was the veriest make believe. And she could not but doubt now but that the face she had known him solong by was a fictitious face, and as the hallucination strengthened, she saw his large mild eyes grow small, and that vague dreamy lookturn to the dull liquorish look, the chin came forward, the browscontracted ... The large sinewy hands were, oh, so like! Then reasonasserted itself; the vision vanished, and she saw John Norton as shehad always seen him. 

But was she sure that she did? Yes, yes--she must not give way. But herhead seemed to be growing lighter, and she did not appear to be able tojudge things exactly as she should; a sort of new world seemed to beslipping like a painted veil between her and the old. She must resist. 

John and Mr Hare looked at her. 

John at length rose, and advancing to her, said, "My dear Kitty, I amafraid you are not well.... "

She strove to allow him to take her hand, but she could not overcome theinstinctive feeling which, against her will, caused her to shrink fromhim. 

"Oh, don't come near me, I cannot bear it!" she cried, "don't come nearme, I beg of you. "

More than this she could not do, and giving way utterly, she shriekedand rushed from the room. She rushed upstairs. She stood in the middleof the floor listening to the silence, her thoughts falling about herlike shaken leaves. It was as if a thunderbolt had destroyed the world, and left her alone in a desert. The furniture of the room, the bed, thechairs, the books she loved, seemed to have become as grains of sand, and she forgot all connection between them and herself. She pressed herhands to her forehead, and strove to separate the horror that crowdedupon her. But all was now one horror--the lonely hills were in the room, the grey sky, the green furze, the tramp; she was again fightingfuriously with him; and her lover and her father and all sense of theworld's life grew dark in the storm of madness. Suddenly she feltsomething on her neck. She put her hand up ... 

And now with madness on her face she caught up a pair of scissors andcut off her hair: one after the other the great tresses of gold andbrown fell, until the floor was strewn with them. 

A step was heard on the stairs; her quick ears caught the sound, and sherushed to the door to lock it. But she was too late. John held it fast. 

"Kitty, Kitty, " he cried, "for God's sake, tell me what is the matter!"

"Save me! save me!" she cried, and she forced the door against him withher whole strength. He was, however, determined on questioning her, onseeing her, and he passed his head and shoulders into the room. Hisheart quailed at the face he saw. 

For now had gone that imperceptible something which divides the life ofthe sane from that of the insane, and he who had so long feared lest awoman might soil the elegant sanctity of his life, disappeared foreverfrom the mind of her whom he had learned to love, and existed to heronly as the foul dull brute who had outraged her on the hills. 

"Save me, save me! help, help!" she cried, retreating from him. 

"Kitty, Kitty, what do you mean? Say, say--"

"Save me; oh mercy, mercy! Let me go, and I will never say I saw you, Iwill not tell anything. Let me go!" she cried, retreating towards thewindow. 

"For Heaven's sake, Kitty, take care--the window, the window!"

But Kitty heard nothing, knew nothing, was conscious of nothing but amad desire to escape. The window was lifted high--high above her head, and her face distorted with fear, she stood amid the soft greenery ofthe Virginia creeper. 

"Save me, " she cried, "mercy, mercy!"

"Kitty, Kitty darling!"

 * * * * *

The white dress passed through the green leaves. John heard a dull thud. 

CHAPTER IX. 

And the pity of it! The poor white thing lying like a shot dove, bleeding, and the dreadful blood flowing over the red tiles.... 

Mr Hare was kneeling by his daughter when John, rushing forth, stoppedand stood aghast. 

"What is this? Say--speak, speak man, speak; how did this happen?"

"I cannot say, I do not know; she did not seem to know me; she ran away. Oh my God, I do not understand; she seemed as if afraid of me, and shethrew herself out of the window. But she is not dead ... "

The word rang out in the silence, ruthlessly brutal in its significance. Mr Hare looked up, his face a symbol of agony. "Oh, dead, how can youspeak so ... "

John felt his being sink and fade like a breath, and then, conscious ofnothing, he helped to lift Kitty from the tiles. But it was her fatherwho carried her upstairs. The blood flowed from the terrible wound inthe head. Dripped. The walls were stained. When she was laid upon thebed, the pillow was crimson; and the maid-servant coming in, strove tostaunch the wound with towels. Kitty did not move. 

Both men knew there was no hope. The maid-servant retired, and she didnot close the door, nor did she ask if the doctor should be sent for. One man held the bed rail, looking at his dead daughter; the other satby the window. That one was John Norton. His brain was empty, everythingwas far away. He saw things moving, moving, but they were all so faraway. He could not re-knit himself with the weft of life; the threadthat had made him part of it had been snapped, and he was leftstruggling in space. He knew that Kitty had thrown herself out of thewindow and was dead. The word shocked him a little, but there was nosense of realisation to meet it. She had walked with him on the hills, she had accompanied him as far as the burgh; she had waved her hand tohim before they walked quite out of each other's sight. They had beenspeaking of Italy ... Of Italy where they would have spent theirhoneymoon. Now she was dead! There would be no honeymoon, no wife. Howunreal, how impossible it all did seem, and yet it was real, yes, realenough. There she lay dead; here is her room, and there is herbook-case; there are the photographs of the Miss Austins, here is thefuchsia with the pendent blossoms falling, and her canary is singing. John glanced at the cage, and the song went to his brain, and he washorrified, for there was no grief in his heart. 

Had he not loved her? Yes, he was sure of that; then why was there noburning grief nor any tears? He envied the hard-sobbing father's grief, the father who, prostrate by the bedside, held his dead daughter's hand, and showed a face wild with fear--a face on which was printed so deeplythe terror of the soul's emotion, that John felt a supernatural awecreep upon him; felt that his presence was a sort of sacrilege. He creptdownstairs. He went into the drawing-room, and looked about for theplace he had last seen her in. There it was.... There. But his eyeswandered from the place, for it was there he had seen the startled face, the half mad face which he had seen afterwards at the window, quite mad. 

On that sofa she usually sat; how often had he seen her sitting there!And now he would not see her any more. And only three days ago she hadbeen sitting in the basket chair. How well he remembered her words, herlaughter, and now ... Now; was it possible he never would hear her laughagain? How frail a thing is human life, how shadow-like; one moment itis here, the next it is gone. Here is her work-basket; and here the veryball of wool which he had held for her to wind; and here is a novelwhich she had lent to him, and which he had forgotten to take away. Hewould never read it now; or perhaps he should read it in memory of her, of her whom yesterday he parted with on the hills, --her little puritanlook, her external girlishness, her golden brown hair and the suddenlaugh so characteristic of her.... She had lent him this book--she whowas now but clay; she who was to have been his wife. His wife! Thethought struck him. Now he would never have a wife. What was there forhim to do? To turn his house into a Gothic monastery, and himself into amonk. Very horrible and very bitter in its sheer grotesqueness was thethought. It was as if in one moment he saw the whole of his lifesummarised in a single symbol, and understood its vanity and its folly. Ah, there was nothing for him, no wife, no life.... The tears welled upin his eyes; the shock which in its suddenness had frozen his heart, began to thaw, and grief fell like a penetrating rain. 

We learn to suffer as we learn to love, and it is not to-day, nor yetto-morrow, but in weeks and months to come, and by slow degrees, thatJohn Norton will understand the irreparableness of his loss. There is aman upstairs who crouches like stone by his dead daughter's side; he ismotionless and pale as the dead, he is as great in his grief as anexpression of grief by Michael Angelo. The hours pass, he is unconsciousof them; he sees not the light dying on the sea, he hears not thetrilling of the canary. He knows of nothing but his dead child, andthat the world would be nothing to give to have her speak to him onceagain. His is the humblest and the worthiest sorrow, but such sorrowcannot affect John Norton. He has dreamed too much and reflected toomuch on the meaning of life; his suffering is too original in himself, too self-centred, and at the same time too much, based on the inherentmisery of existence, to allow him to project himself into and sufferwith any individual grief, no matter how nearly it might be alliedto him and to his personal interest. He knew his weakness in thisdirection, and now he gladly welcomed the coming of grief, for indeedhe had felt not a little shocked at the aridness of his heart, andfrightened lest his eyes should remain dry even to the end. 

Suddenly he remembered that the Miss Austins had said that they wouldcall to-morrow early for Kitty, to take her to Leywood to lunch.... Theywere going to have some tennis in the afternoon. He too was expectedthere. They must be told what had occurred. It would be terrible if theycame calling for Kitty under her window, and she lying dead! This slightincident in the tragedy wrung his heart, and the effort of putting thefacts upon paper brought the truth home to him, and lured and led him tosee down the lifelong range of consequences. The doctor too, he thought, must be warned of what had happened. And with the letter telling the sadstory in his hand, and illimitable sorrow in his soul, he went out inthe evening air. It was just such an evening as yester evening--a littlesofter, a little lovelier, perhaps; earth, sea, and sky appeared like anexquisite vision upon whose lips there is fragrance, yet in whose eyes aglow of passion still survives. 

The beauty of the last hour of light is upon that crescent of sea, andthe ships loll upon the long strand, the tapering masts and slackingropes vanish upon the pallid sky. There is the old town, dusty, anddreamy, and brown, with neglected wharfs and quays; there is the newtown, vulgar and fresh with green paint and trees, and looking hungrilyon the broad lands of the Squire, the broad lands and the rich woodswhich rise up the hill side to the barn on the limit of the downs. Howbeautiful the great green woods look as they sweep up a small expanse ofthe downs, like a wave over a slope of sand. And there is a house withred gables where the girls are still on the tennis lawn. John walkedthrough the town; he told the doctor he must go at once to the rectory. He walked to Leywood and left his letter with the lodge-keeper; andthen, as if led by a strange fascination, he passed through the farmgate and set out to return home across the hills. 

"She was here with me yesterday; how beautiful she looked, and howgraceful were her laughter and speech, " he said, turning suddenly andlooking down on the landscape; on the massy trees contrasting with thewalls of the town, the spine-like bridge crossing the marshy shore, thesails of the mill turning over the crest of the hill. The night wasfalling fast, as a blue veil it hung down over the sea, but the deeppure sky seemed in one spot to grow clear, and suddenly the pale moonshone and shimmered upon the sea. The landscape gained in loveliness, the sheep seemed like phantoms, the solitary barns like monsters of thenight. And the hills were like giants sleeping, and the long outlineswere prolonged far away into the depths and mistiness of space. Turningagain and looking through a vista in the hills, John could see Brighton, a pale cloud of fire, set by the moon-illumined sea, and nearer wasSouthwick, grown into separate lines of light, that wandered into andlost themselves among the outlying hollows of the hills; and below himand in front of him Shoreham lay, a blaze of living fire, a thousandlights; lights everywhere save in one gloomy spot, and there John knewthat his beloved was lying dead. And further away, past the shadowymarshy shores, was Worthing, the palest of nebulae in these earthlyconstellations; and overhead the stars of heaven shone as if in pitilessdisdain. The blown hawthorn bush that stands by the burgh leaned out, aship sailed slowly across the rays of the moon. Yesterday they partedhere in the glad golden sunlight, parted for ever, for ever. 

"Yesterday I had all things--a sweet wife and happy youthful days tolook forward to. To-day I have nothing; all my hopes are shattered, allmy illusions have fallen. So is it always with him who places his trustin life. Ah, life, life, what hast thou for giving save cruel deceptionsand miserable wrongs? Ah, why did I leave my life of contemplation andprayer to enter into that of desire.... Ah, I knew, well I knew therewas no happiness save in calm and contemplation. Ah, well I knew; andshe is gone, gone, gone!"

We suffer differently indeed, but we suffer equally. The death of hissweetheart forces one man to reflect anew on the slightness of life'spleasures and the depth of life's griefs. In the peaceful valley ofnatural instincts and affections he had slept for a while, now he awokeon one of the high peaks lit with the rays of intense consciousness, and he cried aloud, and withdrew in terror at a too vivid realisation ofself. The other man wept for the daughter that had gone out of his life, wept for her pretty face and cheerful laughter, wept for her love, weptfor the years he would live without her. We know which sorrow is themanliest, which appeals to our sympathy, but who can measure the depthof John Norton's suffering? It was as vast as the night, cold as thestream of moonlit sea. 

He did not arrive home till late, and having told his mother what hadhappened, he instantly retired to his room. Dreams followed him. Thehills were in his dreams. There were enemies there; he was often pursuedby savages, and he often saw Kitty captured; nor could he ever evadetheir wandering vigilance and release her. Again and again he awoke, andremembered that she was dead. 

Next morning John and Mrs Norton drove to the rectory, and withoutasking for Mr Hare, they went up to _her_ room. The windows were open, and Annie and Mary Austin sat by the bedside watching. The blood hadbeen washed out of the beautiful hair, and she lay very white and fairamid the roses her friends had brought her. She lay as she had lain inone of her terrible dreams--quite still, the slender body covered by asheet, moulding it with sculptured delight and love. From the feet thelinen curved and marked the inflections of the knees; there were longflowing folds, low-lying like the wash of retiring water; the roundedshoulders, the neck, the calm and bloodless face, the little nose, andthe beautiful drawing of the nostrils, the extraordinary waxen pallor, the eyelids laid like rose leaves upon the eyes that death has closedfor ever. Within the arm, in the pale hand extended, a great Eucharislily had been laid, its carved blossoms bloomed in unchanging stillness, and the whole scene was like a sad dream in the whitest marble. 

Candles were burning, and the soft smell of wax mixed with the perfumeof the roses. For there were roses everywhere--great snowy bouquets, andlong lines of scattered blossoms, and single roses there and here, andpetals fallen and falling were as tears shed for the beautiful dead, andthe white flowerage vied with the pallor and the immaculate stillness ofthe dead. 

The calm chastity, the lonely loveliness, so sweetly removed from taintof passion, struck John with all the emotion of art. He reproachedhimself for having dreamed of her rather as a wife than as a sister, andthen all art and all conscience went down as a broken wreck in the wildwashing sea of deep human love: he knelt by her bedside, and sobbedpiteously, a man whose life is broken. 

When they next saw her she was in her coffin. It was almost full ofwhite blossoms--jasmine, Eucharis lilies, white roses, and in the midstof the flowers you saw the hands folded, and the face was veiled withsome delicate filmy handkerchief. 

For the funeral there were crosses and wreaths of white flowers, rosesand stephanotis. And the Austin girls and their cousins who had comefrom Brighton and Worthing carried loose flowers. How black and sad, howhomely and humble they seemed. Down the short drive, through the irongate, through the farm gate, the bearers staggering a little under theweight of lead, the little cortège passed two by two. A broken-heartedlover, a grief-stricken father, and a dozen sweet girls, their eyes andcheeks streaming with tears. Kitty, their girl-friend was dead, dead, dead! The words rang in their hearts in answer to the mournful tollingof the bell. The little by-way along which they went, the little greenpath leading over the hill, under trees shot through and through withthe whiteness of summer seas, was strewn with blossoms fallen from thebier and the dolent fingers of the weeping girls. 

The old church was all in white; great lilies in vases, wreaths ofstephanotis; and, above all, roses--great garlands of white roses hadbeen woven, and they hung along and across. A blossom fell, a sobsounded in the stillness; and how trivial it all seemed, and howimpotent to assuage the bitter burning of human sorrow: how paltry andcircumscribed the old grey church, with its little graveyard full offorgotten griefs and aspirations! This hour of beautiful sorrow androses, how long will it be remembered? The coffin sinks out of sight, out of sight for ever, a snow-drift of delicate bloom descending intothe earth. 

CHAPTER X. 

From the Austin girls, whose eyes followed him, from Mr Hare, from MrsNorton, John wandered sorrowfully away, --he wandered through the greenwoods and fields into the town. He stood by the railway gates. He sawthe people coming and going in and out of the public houses; and hewatched the trains that whizzed past, and he understood nothing, noteven why the great bar of the white gate did not yield beneath thepressure of his hands; and in the great vault of the blue sky, whiteclouds melted and faded to sheeny visions of paradise, to a white formwith folded wings, and eyes whose calm was immortality.... 

A train stopped. He took a ticket and went to Brighton. As theysteamed along a high embankment, he found himself looking into alittle suburban cemetery. The graves, the yews, the sharp church spiretouching the range of the hills. _Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dustto dust_, and the dread responsive rattle given back by the coffin lid. He watched the group in the distant corner, and its very remoteness andremoval from his personal knowledge and concern, moved him to passionategrief and tears.... 

He walked through the southern sunlight of the town to the long expanseof sea. The mundane pier is taut and trim, and gay with the clangourof the band, the brown sails of the fishing boats wave in the translucidgreens of water; and the white field of the sheer cliff, and all theroofs, gables, spires, balconies, and the green of the verandahs areexquisitely indicated and elusive in the bright air; and the beachis strange with acrobats and comic songs, nursemaids lying on thepebbles reading novels, children with their clothes tied tightly aboutthem building sand castles zealously; see the lengthy crowd ofpromenaders--out of its ranks two little spots of mauve come runningto meet the advancing wave, and now they fly back again, and now theycome again frolicking like butterflies, as gay and as bright. 

Under the impulse of his ravening grief, John watched the spectacleof the world's forgetfulness, and the seeming obscenity horrified himeven to the limits of madness. He cried that it might pass from him. Solitude--the solemn peace of the hills, the appealing silence of apine wood at even; how holy is the idea of solitude, find it where youwill. The Gothic pile, the apostles and saints of the windows, the deeppurples and crimsons, and the sunlight streaming through, and thepathetic responses and the majesty of the organ do not take away, butenhance and affirm the sensation of idea and God. The quiet roomsaustere with Latin and crucifix; John could see them. Fondly he allowedthese fancies to linger, but through the dream a sense of reality beganto grow, and he remembered the narrowness of the life, when viewed fromthe material side, and its necessary promiscuousness, and he thoughtwith horror of the impossibility of the preservation of that personallife, with all its sanctuary-like intensity, which was so dear to him. He waved away all thought of priesthood, and walking quickly down thepier, looking on the gay panorama of town and beach, he said, "Theworld shall be my monastery. "